Cracking the Sky

by Brenda Cooper

  The barkeep was an old female, not human—but close enough to talk to, even with my dated translator. She had long sienna hair that came out of her head and neck and shoulders, mixing with shorter fur that lined her back, teats like a sow, facial features in the human order, eyes wider-set than mine, a long flat mouth that didn’t show much expression, and a nose that looked like a human nose that had been smashed against a window. She smelled like peanuts.

  When I asked about the picture, she said it came from a poet, and I put my hand over my mouth.

  The barkeep looked at me. “You look for Merry Lee?” she asked.

  “I was her friend once, on another planet.”

  She stood, rubbing the same spot of bar near me in neat circles with a red rag. “You love her?”

  I swallowed, my palms sweaty. “Very much.”

  She came around from behind the bar, crooked a three-jointed finger at me. “Follow.”

  We went through a little door, small enough Merry would have had to duck, but just right for the barkeep. In back of the little green bar building, there was a fence made of the green stuff, short enough to step over.

  I blinked before I understood what I was looking at. The realization came in slowly, like the wind rising on a still morning. Sand, raked flat, surrounding stones. The stones were flattened ovals, with writing, or symbols and pictures on each one; set in neat rows, filling half the space inside the low fence.

  I followed the barkeep, and when she pointed, and I saw Merry’s name engraved on one of the newest stones, her picture right above it, I fell to my knees and touched her face on the stone. There were more lines around her eyes than I remembered. A tiny new scar had bloomed just off center from her chin. The picture was directly face-on, and Merry’s eyes bored directly into mine.

  Hot tears flashed down my face. I remembered her laugh, the way she talked low and throaty, the mass of her voice even though she looked like a wisp sideways, how her muscles bunched under her skin like a cat’s, her long clipped fingernails across my back, scratching, the . . .

  The barkeep sat down next to me, and I wanted very much for her to go away. “Are you happy to see her name?” she asked.

  My voice stuck in my throat. “Did you know her very well?”

  The barkeep nodded. “I know you, too. She shared pictures and you are Lisa. Merry told me stories about you, how you were together, how she loved your stubbornness.”

  If I wasn’t so stubborn, Merry and I would still be together. “How did she die?”

  The female’s wide-set eyes appeared amazed, but who knew how to read alien facial structure? “Where did she die?”

  “Here, I suppose.”

  “Last thing she said to me, she was going to Lanai to find you.”

  I blinked again, full of the knowledge of Merry’s death, confused. I didn’t understand. I put my hand on the stone, next to her face, not on it. “What does this mean?” I asked.

  “This is my remembrance. When a person with a story passes through here, I carve a stone and put it in my garden. I will do one of you, now, and put it next to this one. Merry will laugh. I like to see Merry laugh.”

  Stones would last on a desert planet. We would be together forever, at least in one place. “Thank you. When did she leave for Lanai?”

  “Twenty days.”

  Perhaps I could make the vastness of space let me greet Merry when she landed.

  A HAND and HONOR

  John Justice stretched up, fingers scraping at cool morning air, then bent down, cupping his calves, the nanskin registering his fingertips as data points: pressure, heat, sweat, angle.

  The hum of the crowd, the band’s drums and wind instruments, and even the race announcer seemed far, far away. He already knew what medals felt like. Before his turn in the never-ending-war, his men’s relay team won gold in London.

  Last month, he’d killed the world record for the ten thousand meter run, coming in just over twenty-four minutes. No medal for that. Twenty or so news stories, a political cartoon or two, and a combination of joy and bitterness sticking so deep in his gut he threw up all over the course when he was done.

  Today, his race would be one-on-one against the man whose record still stood even after John beat it. Hsui Smith, an improbably tall Chinese-American who held the world record in the ten thousand meter. Who’d still hold the official record, even after today.

  Discrimination was a bitch. Change was tested for like steroids.

  He nearly jumped as his coach,Nicolai placed his metal hand on the small of his back. “Don’t think about it. Just run. Run for all of us.”

  It was nearly time. “I’ll win.” He nodded at Nicolai, forcing a smile, staring into the shorter, blockier man’s deep brown eyes. Nic’s naked hope made him clap the man on the back. “I know it matters.”

  Nicolai headed for the finish line. As the noise and movement swallowed Nic, John muttered, “Damned exhibition.” He had always yearned to be the fastest man in the world. The best war-wounded-John could become for child-John was the fastest un-man.

  Kim Moon waited for him on the way to the starting blocks, looking more like a debutante than an engineer-medic, her figure slim and curvy in a one-piece shorts outfit. She reached up and hugged him. “Good luck.”

  He didn’t have to fake a smile for her. “It’s all your fault.”

  “They’re your legs,” she retorted. “The best I’ve ever made.”

  One of her customers had new hands and feet with built in temperature controls, and had climbed Everest and K2. After an artificial hand replaced one eaten by frostbite, the climber had made news by chopping off the functioning hand for another of Kim’s sculptures.

  Without Kim, he would have walked, and run, but never raced. She was all the magic of math and engineering held together with heart. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, savoring her honeysuckle scent.

  As John approached the starting blocks, Hsui stood up from a hamstring stretch and extended a hand. John took it. Where he’d expected to see challenge in the notoriously cocky runner’s eyes, he swore he saw fear. His nerves screamed at it. “Why did you agree to this?”

  Hsui shook John’s hand, replying softly, “My brother lost a hand in the war.” He let go and turned to his starting blocks.

  “Thank you,” John said to his back.

  John swept Hsui’s fears, and his own, into a deep breath and puffed them out, relaxing his cheeks. He rocked a bit, setting his calves, running a quick mental skip across the sensors in his skin, checking the breeze, temperature, and humidity. He struggled to close his ears as the announcer droned on. Kim’s legs—his—wouldn’t win by themselves. He mentally shrank the world to a bubble around him, and the long slender corridor of space on the track in front of him.

  The starting gun swept him forward, following Hsui.

  He fell in right behind, body straight, arms pumping.

  No need to pass.

  Yet.

  He let the first round of the track go, calibrating, biding time. His legs were all he had. He’d refused changes to his lungs and circulatory system, wanting some purity.

  Important not to overrun his breath.

  He was about to pass the fastest human ever. The fastest pure human. He threw the thought away. A break in stride or a stumble could steal the race. Counting and breathing and moving. Just the track under him and the narrow corridor, the wind on his teeth.

  Breath and wind and stride and arms.

  His head turned a little, as if the force of Hsui’s run called it. Hsui didn’t return John’s darting glance, just kept going, head up. Surging. To match him, John told his legs to give more, asked his heart to keep up.

  Breath and wind and spine and floor. Data instead of Hsui’s desperate face.

  Another turn around the track, a matched pair.

  The image of two feet crossing at the same time raced through John’s head. An honorable outcome. Except he was a racer.

  The sound of Hsui’
s breath fell to behind John’s shoulder. The finish line blurred under him.

  Nic’s arms encircled him. Kim leapt up on Nic’s back. Nic grabbed her under the knees, boosting her like a child. She looked down, her joy at the win overtaken by a crease in her brow. “Why so slow?”

  He shook his head, unsure how to explain it. “I’ll be right back.” Hsui jogged well past him now, sweat dripping down his back.

  John caught him. “I hope your brother is proud of you.”

  Hsui winced. “He went back to the war. They put him in special ops ’cause his hand/eye coordination was so much better than anyone else’s.” He looked away. “After his enhancements his hand was steadier than anybody else’s.”

  Hsui had lost face to honor a brother with no more change than a hand? A man who had done well for himself?

  Hsui continued. “He’s dead. They gave him a purple heart.” He turned, and without so much as a smile, the fastest man in the world walked away from the fastest un-man in the world.

  MIND EXPEDITIONS

  The bright light shining on the podium made it impossible to see the myriad student faces out there, but I knew what they would look like. Earnest. Curious. Un-blooded. They’d wear designer jeans and glasses that let them go far away if I bored them.

  A woman with wisps of flyaway hair and a linen suit coat over linen shorts over black boots introduced me. “Please welcome private first class Eleanor Practice to career day. She’ll tell you about her first job in Continental Security.”

  That was my opening. “People used to join the forces to see the world.”

  Soft laughs floated up from behind the screening, blinding light.

  “But I’ve never been out of San Diego. Thank you for inviting me. After my talk, some of you may want to join us, some may decide you don’t like the idea after all.

  “The—event—happened on our first virtual mission. I thought it would feel like a video game. The team was me and Alvar from Mexicali and Louisa from Toronto. We came from three countries and never met in person.”

  I knew what they looked like well enough that I’d recognize them on the street. But I did not know how they felt or smelled or walked. They might not recognize me.

  “We were in the Yucatán, trying to stop a drug ring, help Mexico rebuild. Our weapons were databases and wireless mesh, data blockers, and listeners.

  “An agent on the ground had thrown a hidden mesh net over a small valley. We used it to watch a poor family’s house. Palm roof, pressboard walls.” I swallowed, seeing it again. So poor. “The father and the two boys carried drugs for the valley kingpin, the mother cooked tortillas and fish soup. There was a little girl in a wheelchair. Maribel. She was the reason for the drug running. Money for Maribel’s treatment.”

  I had hated the assignment then.

  “Louisa and Alvar and I talked while we watched, tried to say tough things so we wouldn’t get sentimental. We wanted to stop the bosses.

  “We were gathering evidence. It wasn’t for us to act. We had no bodies there. International law kept us from listening inside, of course, but Mexico is a hot place and many conversations happen outside.”

  The audience was very quiet. I hoped they were listening. In the wings, soft light fell on the blonde’s face. She watched.

  “We expected Americans and arrests. The men that came were Mexican. We recognized at least one of them as a drug runner. They hung in the shadows, moved like black shadows, like the devil.” I shouldn’t say such things. “Like special operations. Trained. They slid against the house, planted charges near the doors and windows and then stood on a hill under a tree, watching and smoking and laughing.

  “It began to rain. I hoped the explosives would grow too wet. It was my job to put the father in jail; not to see him murdered. He loved his daughter.

  “When he opened the door, the house bloomed with fire.

  “He fell right there, his face black and his clothes charred and smoking.

  “The older boy ran out. The mother followed, carrying a small figure, and screaming as she set the dead body of her youngest son onto the fecund forest floor. She ran back toward the house, tugging on her husband’s body.

  “A man on the hill emptied a rifle into all three of them. Even virtual shots heard through wireless in a recliner sound like death.” I swallowed and looked out at the crowd. “Not like a game.”

  “They left them, the house less than half burned, rain falling onto the husk of it and making a column of white steam.

  “We heard a scream from inside. ‘Maribel,’ Louisa said. And then ‘Eleanor.’

  “Alvar agreed. ‘You are the fastest.’

  “He couldn’t know why this would be hard for me. It didn’t matter. I went. We blessed the wireless. Burnt wires would have blinded us. One of the phones had melted, but the other sat in its charger. Its camera didn’t see her. Their own wireless access point—provided by the criminals they worked for—pinpointed her chair. The chair had her vitals. She breathed, but she had stopped screaming. I imagined her burned and bleeding as well as paraplegic, wanted to leave her there and let it be over for her.”

  There was a tear on my cheek. I hoped the auditorium lights weren’t picking it up.

  “But Louisa whispered in my ear and Alvar said, ‘I’ve called help.’

  “I had a team. Maybe someday Maribel would have a team. The doorway smoldered and we had to pass her parent’s bodies. Her mother had cleared the space for her before she died. We’d have to be fast and precise. I sent signals to her chair. Forward and back. Testing. When I knew I could do it, I lied to the chair and told it to expect a hill and go fast and hard.

  “The chair burst through, raced too fast down the ramp, teetered, didn’t fall. The signal was better now, so I guided it a few more yards and left her in shade to wait for help.”

  I paused and waited, then spoke softly. “Maribel is alive and in school. Her parents’ employers are in jail.”

  I waited for the audience to react. A clap, then another, then another.

  I rolled my chair to the front of the room to take their questions.

  PART FIVE

  Military Science Fiction

  FOR the LOVE of

  METAL DOGS

  The sky threatened rain. I pulled my coat tight against a cool wind as I watched the dog handler head toward me up the small hill. He was a pretty-boy, body-builder style, maybe ten years younger than me. His golden blond hair contrasted with slightly oriental eyes. The dog trotting just behind him was a Belgian Malinois, a dark fawn color with a darker snout and ears, and a small white star pattern on his chest. “Welcome to base camp,” I called out when they got close.

  The specialist stopped about five yards from me. The dog sat right at his feet, watching me with no more than mild suspicion. It still made me nervous. We had never been a dog family, and I found them unpredictable and a tiny bit frightening. Dogs always knew that, too. I think the soldier noticed me stiffen, since his face grew a slightly mocking grin. “I heard you were camp mom.”

  “Try again.” He was gorgeous to look at, but in my experience good looks and brains were often available in inverse proportions to each other. I watched him struggle through possible responses to my challenge.

  “Specialist Lawson.”

  At least he could read a name tag. “Emilie. And you are?”

  “I’m Pebble.” He pointed at the dog. “And this is Sacha.”

  I would have believed the names more if they were reversed. “Why Pebble? That’s a name for small things.” Which he wasn’t.

  “I knocked out an enemy dog with a rock.”

  “And they didn’t call you David?”

  “That’s my real name. Didn’t make a very good nickname.” He stood in front of me, silent, looking ill at ease. When I didn’t pick up the conversation, he pointed to Buster. “Tell me about him. We’ve never worked with robodogs.”

  He didn’t sound like he wanted to, either. Not that I particularly
wanted to work with this pair. In fact, I’d heard the flesh handlers like Pebble looked down on our partners and us. They didn’t like being upstaged, and lately, outnumbered.

  But Buster was the closest thing I had seen to brains with no beating heart. I’d take him at my side over any human I’d worked with yet. “Buster can do almost everything Sacha or you or I can do.”

  Pebble looked dubious.

  “I’ll show you. Willing to put Sacha to a test?”

  “After I introduce him to you.” He signaled the dog, who came up close to me and sat. “Lean down and greet him. Pat his flank, not his head.”

  All military dogs are soldiers, and I wasn’t about to show him disrespect even though I didn’t like flesh as much as metal. The way he held himself told me he wasn’t much happier than I was, but he held still while I patted his shoulder and upper back, his coarse fur tickling my arm. Pebble said “Friend” to the dog, who twitched his nose quite casually.

  “Ready?”

  “A race?”

  I shrugged. “We can start there.”

  “Where?”

  “How about to the building with the showers and back?”

  Pebble grabbed the dog’s leather harness, pulled out a small pen-like instrument, and shone a red dot on the back of the shower building. “Touch. Return,” he told the dog.

  I simply told Buster, “Go to the showers and come back as fast as you can. Don’t hurt the dog.”

  “Okay,” Buster said.

  I nodded. “Go!” I said.

  Both animals sped away from us, Buster a streak of black and Sacha a streak of brown.