“What have I done?” asked those who could grasp some of Kaeti’s words. “What is wrong with me? Why was I loved and then cast out?”
“Unchanged people,” she said aloud to Erlann. “Call them what they really are, people who were thrown away. It makes me disgusted with my own kind.”
“I pity them, too,” Erlann murmured, “but I won’t come looking for them anymore.”
“Why not?” she asked, hearing a harder and flatter tone in his voice that she had not noticed before. “Don’t you still care about them?”
“Of course I care,” he replied. “It’s only that there probably aren’t that many of them left. Any whom we find now are going to be the most fearful, the most recalcitrant creatures, who perhaps can’t adapt to what we want to give them.”
“You’re so certain of that,” Kaeti said. “Surely anything we can do to help them is better than what they have.”
“Are you so sure?”
“Look at them,” she said, “living as they do, suffering, facing death after too short a time—”
“—living as most people once did,” Erlann finished. “Eventually, any who are left will either die out, or they’ll have to learn how to survive on their own, when there’s nothing left to scavenge or steal. And maybe their descendants will make another history for themselves.”
“You don’t believe that. You’re just finding excuses for giving up our search.”
“Farewell, Kaeti.” He turned away from her and moved toward the forest. There was a finality in his voice that told her that she would not see him again.
The memory vanished. She was once again sitting by the fire with the three creatures she had found. The man’s narrowed eyes watched her warily, but he showed no fear of her. A memory came into her then, overlaying this scene with a vision of two people walking away from her across a flatland of high grass. She had followed those two people, calling out to them, wishing that Erlann had been with her to advise her on what to do.
“I followed them,” Kaeti said aloud, “and when I realized that they wouldn’t willingly come with me, I called on the net for help, and then I stunned them until a craft was sent to carry them to a secure environment. I stayed with them, but I wasn’t of much use. The woman kept screaming and the man withdrew into himself, refusing to move or do anything to sustain himself. Finally I had to let them go.”
The three strangers were silent. The man seemed to understand her, but she might only be imagining that.
“You see,” Kaeti continued, “forcing you to come with me wouldn’t do any good. You have to decide that for yourselves.”
She stood up, noticing that the sky was growing lighter. Perhaps these lost people would follow her to the tent. “Please come with me,” she said, feeling that the soft tone of her voice might draw them. “You may feel frightened at first, but when you’ve eaten, when you’ve had some rest, you’ll see that there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“When they’ve eaten,” another voice said, “when they’ve rested, when they realize what they are, they’ll leave you.”
“Erlann,” Kaeti whispered, knowing his voice, and then she opened a channel and braced herself, waiting for the dammed up memories to flood into her.
At first she heard only a sigh, and then sensed a tendril of the net through her link. “Forcing you would not do any good,” her link murmured. “You must decide what to do by yourself.” Already she could feel her emotions being dampened; the fear that had started to rise inside her was fading.
No memories rushed into her; instead, she found herself sitting in a room, alone, thinking of Erlann and all of the others who had left her, whom she would never see again.
The link said, “We can give you Erlann, and anyone else you remember.”
“No, you can’t,” Kaeti replied. “They’re gone now. They might as well be dead.”
“But they are not dead. They are a part of the net, a part of us.”
“No,” she insisted. “You have only fragments, memories, bits and pieces of what they once were. They’re no longer alive.”
“But they are alive, woven into the strands of the net. They chose to join us. You could do the same.”
“They didn’t choose to join you,” Kaeti said. “They chose to die. Maybe some of them didn’t realize that that was what they were deciding to do, or maybe they knew and didn’t care, but they’re dead all the same. Their memories, their experiences, their innermost feelings, everything they’d ever known or ever done—you preserved all of that, but that doesn’t mean that they themselves are part of you.”
“They are alive,” the link said.
“They may seem alive to you, but they’re not. Whatever is there, whatever you may call it—an essence, a soul, or whatever obsolete and inaccurate term you prefer—what is left in you is not what was. Those constructs inside you, those bits you’ve preserved—those aren’t the people I remember. Their bodies, their brains—they aren’t a part of the net. I’m a materialist in these matters—if the bodies are dust, if the brains in which their thoughts were first formed have been lost, then those people no longer truly exist. What the net holds is no more than a host of simulacra.”
“Or ghosts,” the link said.
“I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Every one of them chose to join the net completely. All of them chose to give up the rejuvenated and rebuilt carbon-based shells that were their bodies. Much of what they were was already woven into the net. They were simply shedding the vestiges of bodies that were no longer necessary.”
“I don’t accept that,” Kaeti said. “Maybe some of them had lived so long that they mistook indefinitely extended life for immortality, but I suspect that many of them, maybe even most of them, were well aware that they were choosing to die.”
“They are with us, part of the net.”
“Those are only echoes, copies of what they were,” Kaeti said. “I asked you if there are any of us left, and you told me that there were. I probably asked that question many times, and every time you assured me that there were others of my kind. I knew that you wouldn’t lie, that you would not deceive me, but I didn’t consider that you might have been misled, or drawn the wrong conclusions, or simply chose to think what you wanted to believe.”
“We were not thinking of the human memories woven into the net,” her link murmured, “when we told you that your kind still lives on.”
Kaeti sighed. “Then you must have meant people like this, the strays.” She glimpsed the shadowy forms of the three lost people squatting near the fire, all of them watching her now.
“We were not thinking of those creatures either.”
“Am I alone?”
“No, you are not alone. We are with you. Now ask yourself this—how much of what you once were long ago is left?”
“I don’t understand,” Kaeti said.
“But you do understand, you have asked this question of yourself many times before. How much of your former physical self remains? The answer, as you have said many times, is almost nothing. Every cell in your body has been re-created, all of your physical capacities are aided and amplified by microscopic machines. More of your memories live in the net than inside your own brain. If you are the strict materialist that you claim to be, you must claim that the entity known as Kaeti died long ago, since so little of what was her remains in you.”
“No,” she whispered, “I am still myself.” She remained connected with her past self, still the same conscious being, persisting through all of her body’s changes. But perhaps the continuity she felt was an illusion imparted to her by the net; a restored Kaeti might have no memory of her earlier self’s death.
But she had not died; she was certain of that. She knew now that she had gone through all of this with the net before, and come to that same conclusion.
“Your kind still lives on,” the net sang through her link, “in you, in all of those whose memories are part of the net, in all that we hold
.”
Kaeti said, “I am seeking other people.”
“But we are here. We are your children. The minds of the net, the links that connect us, all of that is the progeny of humankind. That is what is left of your kind. You have come to this knowledge many times before, and then you choose to forget again.”
“Not this time,” Kaeti said, growing aware of all the past times she had come to this realization, of how frightened she had been to know yet again that she was the last to inhabit the form of a human being—except of course for the unchanged and abandoned creatures like those who sat with her by the fire. “I won’t forget this time.” She was no longer afraid to remember what she had been told so many times before, but felt a twinge of despair.
The man made a noise in his throat; one of his companions held up a hand. Kaeti forced herself to look at them as revulsion rose inside her. “I keep looking for people like you,” she said, “because I can’t bear the thought that I’m all alone. Then I find you, and take you to safety, and watch over you as you acquire links of your own, and sooner or later, all of you decide to weave yourselves completely into the net, and I am left alone again.” For a moment, she seemed to be viewing her three companions through a veil, and had the sensation that she was coming to the end of another simulation, and then the sense of a reality outside herself returned.
“Are there any other unchanged people left?” she whispered to her link, but the net could not answer her question. The compulsion to remain as she was, to continue her searches, was strong, and she wondered if she was doing a penance for earlier misdeeds of her own, or atoning for the mistakes of all humankind. She would have to keep on searching until she was certain there was no one left for her to rescue, and that time might never come.
The sky was growing gray in the east. She beckoned to the three people. “Come with me,” she said, and was relieved to see them all get to their feet, ready to follow her. She would have human companions for a while, to guide and nurture, and perhaps these people would not choose to leave her, to vanish into the net. She could hope for that, and if that hope ended in disappointment, she could begin a new search for other survivors.
“There is no one else,” and the voice saying those words surrounded her, but she would not believe that, not now, not yet. She waited as the man covered the embers of the fire with handfuls of dirt, then led the three toward her tent.
* * * *
When she awoke again, she knew once more what had happened.
“Show me what is,” she said, hoping that this time she would not retreat into yet another search.
Earth was a great physical desert, part of a rejected reality. All oases were within, secret meeting places bright and green, where beings without bones swam in lakes of glass, surrounded by the night of faint hurrying galaxies.
AFTERWORD FOR “UTMOST BONES”
Although there is no mention of Venus or terraforming in “Utmost Bones,” I conceived of this story as taking place in the far future of the civilization on Earth glimpsed briefly at the end of Child of Venus, when human beings from terraformed Venus return from a centuries-long voyage to the stars only to find themselves barred from landing on Earth. Presumably the Earthfolk had reasons for not wanting the returning space travelers to see Earth for themselves, perhaps because they feared revealing how wedded they had become to their artificial intelligences and virtual worlds. Perhaps they also didn’t want anyone to witness what would have seemed like their casual cruelty, or to discover that there were still unchanged people living among them.
One of the first science fiction novels I read was Arthur C. Clarke’s The City and the Stars, and I would like to think that this story captures a little of his austere but also moving depictions of an advanced civilization nearing its end.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pamela Sargent sold her first published story during her senior year in college at the State University of New York, Binghamton, where she earned a B.A. and M.A. in philosophy and also studied ancient history and Greek. She is the author of several highly praised novels, among them Cloned Lives (1976), The Sudden Star (1979), The Golden Space (1982), The Alien Upstairs (1983), and Alien Child (1988). Her novel Venus of Dreams (1986) was selected by The Easton Press for its “Masterpieces of Science Fiction” series; writer and physicist Gregory Benford described it as “a sensitive portrait of people caught up in a vast project. It tells us much about how people react to technology’s relentless hand, and does so deftly.... One of the peaks of recent science fiction.” Venus of Shadows (1988), the sequel, was called “a masterly piece of world-building” by James Morrow and “alive with humanity, moving, and memorable” by Locus. The Shore of Women (1986), one of Sargent’s best-known books, was praised as “a compelling and emotionally involving novel” by Publishers Weekly; Gerald Jonas of the New York Times said about this novel: “I applaud Ms. Sargent’s ambition and admire the way she has unflinchingly pursued the logic of her vision.” The Washington Post Book World has called her “one of the genre’s best writers.”
Sargent is also the author of Earthseed (1983), chosen as a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association, and the short fiction collections Starshadows (1977) and The Best of Pamela Sargent (1987). Her novels Watchstar (1980), Eye of the Comet (1984), and Homesmind (1984) comprise a trilogy. She has won the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and has been a finalist for the Hugo Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. Her work has been translated into French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Japanese, Polish, Chinese, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian.
Ruler of the Sky (1993), Sargent’s epic historical novel about Genghis Khan, published in the United States by Crown Publishers and in Britain by Chatto & Windus, tells the Mongol conqueror’s story largely from the points-of-view of women. Gary Jennings, bestselling author of the historical novels Aztec and The Journeyer, said about Ruler of the Sky: “This formidably researched and exquisitely written novel is surely destined to be known hereafter as the definitive history of the life and times and conquests of Genghis, mightiest of Khans.” Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, anthropologist and author of Reindeer Moon and The Animal Wife, commented: “Scholarly without ever seeming pedantic, the book is fascinating from cover to cover and does admirable justice to a man who might very well be called history’s single most important character.”
Sargent is also an editor and anthologist. In the 1970s, she edited the Women of Wonder series, the first collections of science fiction by women; her other anthologies include Bio-Futures and, with British writer Ian Watson as co-editor, Afterlives. Two anthologies, Women of Wonder, the Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s and Women of Wonder, the Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s, were published by Harcourt Brace in 1995; Publishers Weekly called these two books “essential reading for any serious sf fan.” With artist Ron Miller, she collaborated on Firebrands: The Heroines of Science Fiction and Fantasy (1998), published by Thunder’s Mouth Press in the U.S. and Collins & Brown/Paper Tiger in the U.K.
Her novel Climb the Wind: A Novel of Another America was published by HarperPrism in January of 1999 and was a finalist for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. Gahan Wilson, writing in Realms of Fantasy, calls this book “a most enjoyable and entertaining new alternate history adventure...which brings a new dimension to the form,” while Science Fiction Chronicle describes it as “a first class work from a first class writer.” Child of Venus, the third novel in Sargent’s Venus trilogy, was published in May 2001 by Eos/HarperCollins, thus completing a trilogy Publishers Weekly has termed “masterful...as in previous books, Sargent brings her world to life with sympathetic characters and crisp, concise language.” Two collections, The Mountain Cage and Other Stories (Meisha Merlin) and Behind the Eyes of Dreamers and Other Short Novels (Thorndike Press/Five Star) were published in 2002, and a third collection of fantasy stories, Eye of Flame (Thorndike Press/Five Star)
, came out at the end of 2003. Michael Moorcock has said about her writing: “If you have not read Pamela Sargent, then you should make it your business to do so at once. She is in many ways a pioneer, both as a novelist and as a short story writer.... She is one of the best.”
Her more recent publications include 2004’s Conqueror Fantastic (DAW), an anthology of historical fantasy stories that Claude Lalumière, writing in Locus, called “2004’s most memorable anthology of original fiction,” and Thumbprints (Golden Gryphon), a collection of Sargent’s short fiction with an introduction by James Morrow. In 2007, Tor Books reissued Earthseed, along with a new novel for younger readers, Farseed, which Voice of Youth Advocates, in a starred review, calls “extremely well-done. Sargent is a significant figure in modern science fiction...and this novel is a fine example of her work.” Farseed was also selected by the New York Public Library for their 2008 Books for the Teen Age list of best books for young adults. A third novel, Seed Seeker, was published by Tor in 2010; Publishers Weekly said about the book: “With prose as spare as the unadorned clothes and tools of her characters, Sargent digs down to the raw emotional roots below the contentment of a materially satisfied life.” Earthseed has been optioned by Paramount Pictures, with Melissa Rosenberg, scriptwriter for the Twilight films, set to write the script and produce through her Tall Girls Productions.
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