Analog SFF, December 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Martin zoomed farther up into the sky—arms spread outward to embrace a sun only slightly smaller and dimmer than it shone on Earth. But he stopped before rising too high—content to be Daedalus instead of Icarus. There he relaxed and enjoyed his bird's-eye view of the scenery far below.

  He soared over a garden ninety meters by sixty meters that Katerina and he had planted a kilometer from the habitation module. The green bean bushes, cornstalks, and wheat growing there seemed to look up in awe at the Missouri farm boy-turned-astronaut sailing high above them. He imagined the denizens of that garden cheering him as their protector—a super scarecrow.

  Martin smiled—pretending he was one of the four-color superheroes whose classic adventures he'd enjoyed reading as a boy. He pictured the maroon pullover shirt, white shorts, and ebony boots he wore, and the scarlet St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap covering his close-cropped black hair, replaced by more colorful garb. In his mind a red cape with stylized yellow “S” fluttered behind him in the Martian breeze.

  Next he imagined himself donning instead a darker uniform of green, white, and black, then slipping a power ring onto the middle finger of his gloved right hand. The aliens had given him a gift that made him the most powerful man alive. All he had to do to save the world was to be honest and without fear—

  His alien-enhanced vision spotted movement on the ground beneath him. Martin stopped in mid flight—scowling as the blue-clad figure walked to the edge of their garden and stood looking up at him. He glided feet-first to a soft landing five meters from where Katerina gazed at him with an undecipherable expression. His subtle attempt to pry into her mind and read her thoughts was instantly blocked by her own alien-augmented will-power.

  Locked in a silent stare with her inscrutable hazel eyes, Martin didn't feel fearless anymore.

  * * * *

  Katerina masked her thoughts and feelings from the stranger frowning at her. The stone face she showed this parody of the man she loved hid her fear that the Martin she knew was lost forever.

  The alien body that looked like Martin sneered, “You don't have to just walk anymore."

  "You said the only miracle you really wanted to do was to ‘resurrect’ me."

  "Yes."

  "But that's not all you want to do now."

  "No."

  Martin shook his head. “Don't you see, Katerina? We've been given an opportunity no one's ever had before. The aliens gave us the power to manipulate matter, energy, gravity, and time. I'm still experimenting to see what exactly that power lets us do—especially how we can manipulate time—but I know how their gift should be used. There's so much suffering, violence, disease, and death on Earth. We can use our powers to end all that misery and turn the world into a paradise!"

  "Is that why you think the aliens forced us to accept their gift, Martin?"

  "Heck, they're aliens! Who knows what they think or why they did it! Maybe they're trying to save humanity but have some variation of the Prime Directive that forbids them to do it directly. Maybe they believe it's okay to delegate their powers to natives like us to do the job for them. After all, we're the ‘insiders.’ We're in a better position than the aliens to know what's best for the human race and have the strongest motivation to help it!"

  "Maybe the aliens are using us as their instruments—but not to help us. Perhaps their ‘code’ prohibits them from destroying us themselves. Instead, by giving us enough power they expect we'll destroy Earth or conquer it for them!"

  Martin waved his hands dismissively. Then he concentrated on a patch of ochre Martian soil several meters from where they stood. The dirt swirled up in a miniature dust storm that sculpted itself and congealed into the form of a straight back chair. Martin sat down in it, still facing his fiancée.

  "That's one of the oldest SF clichés around, Katerina. The first thing every mutant, member of Homo superior, or anyone struck by an Evolvo-Ray does is to try to conquer or crush ‘normal’ humans. That plot makes for exciting stories—but I would never do that!"

  "Then why are you sitting on a throne?"

  Martin stood up. He glanced back at his creation and made it crumble back into dust. “Sorry. It was supposed to be a club chair, like the one in my parents’ living room."

  His eyes darkened. “I hope you're not thinking about pulling an Elizabeth Dehner on me."

  "You're referring to the second Star Trek pilot, ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before.’ No, I don't want to fight you, Martin."

  "I'm surprised you've seen that episode. I didn't think you knew or cared much about science fiction. I usually have to sweet-talk you into watching my collection of old SF movies and TV shows with me."

  "I haven't seen it—but you have. I saw your memories of it in your mind."

  "So you're against me using my powers and won't let me read your thoughts—but you're perfectly willing to do it yourself! Well, do whatever you want inside my mind! Keep watching and listening to what I'm thinking! Maybe that'll convince you I won't let this power corrupt me!"

  "I know you'd never intentionally hurt anyone, Martin. But although we've been given superhuman powers, our minds are still human—all too human. Even with the best intentions we could cause terrible pain and suffering because we don't know the best way to use these powers."

  "But if we don't use the aliens’ gift to help humanity because we're afraid we'll do the wrong thing, we'll be shirking our responsibility to help others. Better to try and fail than to not try at all!"

  "The stakes are too high, Martin. Instead of saving the world we could unwittingly doom it. The powers we've been given are so great we might not be able to undo our mistakes. ‘The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor—’”

  Martin cut her off. “I know some quotations too—like ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ It's too late, Katerina. The genie's out of the bottle. I'm ready now to let Mission Control know what's happened—unless you've already done it."

  "I've only told them we're alive. Nothing more."

  "I presume you used our communications console. No need for that anymore."

  Martin stared up at the sky. His mind probed out from the Martian wilderness into the void—searching through space until familiar images in Houston entered his consciousness. “You should try this, Katerina. It's like watching 3-D TV. Don't ask me how, but I can even hear what they're saying—and thinking."

  He smiled. “Nope. They don't have a clue at Mission Control. Hey, Dr. Stone's there too. I bet he's wondering how I cured you. Let's see what he's thinking."

  Seconds later Martin's grin collapsed in embarrassment. “Who would have thought ... so much guilt over what he did..."

  "So now you're using your powers to invade other peoples’ private thoughts. How long will it be before you're telling them what to think?"

  "Okay, I made a mistake. Now I know better. There are other ways to test my powers that I'm sure will help people."

  Martin stroked his chin. “Maybe I should start close to home. Look in my mind and see what I do..."

  * * * *

  The isolated farmhouse shuddered as rain and golf ball-sized hail pelted its walls in front of an approaching tornado. From the gray night sky the thunderstorm ripped peeling paint from the dwelling's weathered wooden siding and tore shingles from its roof. Howling winds whipped the heavy limbs of the ancient oak tree in the front yard—splitting off a large branch that crashed through the home's picture window.

  Amy Gale screamed as glass shattered and sprayed across the family room above her head. She sat hunched on the basement's cold concrete floor, surrounded by a thick darkness broken only by the fading flashlight beside her. Three-year-old Dottie scrunched closer and clutched her mother's blouse. The child whimpered as lightning flashed again outside the tiny basement window nearby—followed almost immediately by a thunderclap that shook the house like a miniature earthquake.

  After the electricity went off thirty minutes ago, their only link to the outsid
e world was the ancient battery-powered weather radio nearby. Its computer-synthesized male voice blandly informed them that a severe thunderstorm watch was in effect for Webster County, Missouri, until 9:30 p.m., and suggested they take shelter immediately. The voice added that conditions were right for the creation of a tornado.

  Amy hugged her daughter and whispered that everything would be all right. But as the storm's fury grew she couldn't calm her own fears. She was only twenty-five—too young for the Lord to call her home. Little dark-haired, blue-eyed Dottie hadn't even begun to live. And there was no way to know whether her husband was safe. After their latest argument several hours ago, Nick had stormed out of the house and driven off in his pickup truck. Instead of being with his family he could be anywhere on the road between here and Marshfield—perhaps lying dead in a ditch....

  Close to her ear Amy heard her daughter murmur through the thunder, “Please, God, make the storm go away. Keep Mommy, Daddy, and me safe."

  Neither knew that in spite of Dottie's prayer the tornado would reach them in four minutes. Winds swirling at over three hundred kilometers per hour would blast away the roof, then crumple and splinter their house into a massive pile of debris. Seconds later the floor over their heads would be ripped away and expose the pair's sheltered hiding place in the basement. Mercifully they would feel only an instant of terror before their bodies were crushed and impaled by an avalanche of wood and metal collapsing on top of them—

  Suddenly a miraculous stillness settled over their home. No more flashes of lightning illumined the basement's window. Amy listened in vain for thunder or shrieking winds. Then she heard a tiny voice snuggled near her smile three words.

  "Thank you, God."

  * * * *

  The man who'd once been merely Martin Slayton chuckled. “See how easy it is to manipulate matter and energy, Katerina? A little change in temperature and barometric pressure, and the rain and lightning go away. Bleed off some energy from overexcited molecules in air, and no more tornado. Hurricanes, tropical storms, earthquakes, tsunamis—we could stop them all with our powers. Think of all the people we could save—the destruction we could prevent!"

  "'He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water; and they ceased, and there came a calm.’ I heard people praying to you, Martin. Do you enjoy being worshiped?"

  "Nobody knows I saved them! It was an anonymous good deed! I'm not interested in getting thanks or glory. I don't care if they think it was a miracle!"

  "Even if you don't call yourself a god or want to be one, you're still acting like a god. What are you going to do now, Martin? Are you going to continuously monitor weather throughout the world or check for every tectonic plate shift that could produce an earthquake for the rest of your life? And when do you decide to make a change? The same mild shower that gives farmers the rain they need for crops could also produce a rain-slicked highway that causes a fatal car accident!"

  Katerina frowned at him. “I heard what you just thought about the ‘butterfly effect.’ You were remembering an old-time science fiction story and a later analogy based on chaos theory—that the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Brazil could produce tiny changes in atmospheric conditions in a ripple effect that eventually causes a tornado in Texas. You saved lives now by stopping that particular tornado, Martin. But how do you know you haven't inadvertently doomed many more people in the future?"

  "Next you'll be telling me that one little girl I saved will grow up to be a ruthless dictator—and that by keeping her from dying today more people will die years from now. No, Katerina, the aliens didn't give us the ability to predict the future. But by that same logic no one would be able to do anything for fear it might have unintended bad consequences.

  "According to you, no doctor should cure a dying child because she doesn't know what kind of adult that child will become. Nobody should have children at all because none of us knows how they'll turn out! Police, firefighters, and paramedics shouldn't save anybody who's in danger because they don't know what kind of life the victim they help will lead afterwards! At least I'm trying to help people. You want to be the Angel of Death!"

  "When you make changes this great, Martin—far beyond what the person you used to be could do—the consequences of your actions are equally great for good or bad. The aliens’ ‘gift’ has brought you closer to being omnipotent than any human being has ever been. You may rival God now in that one attribute—but not others. You're not all-wise, you're not all-knowing, you're not eternal, you're not—"

  Marvin interrupted her contemptuously. “You want us to be like cattle and sheep—passive playthings in the hands of God, Fate, or whatever—afraid to do anything because we might make a mistake! I believe we should do what seems right today and deal with the future when it comes. I wonder how many people have died while we've been arguing about this—people we could've saved! If you won't help me, I'll do it myself—"

  * * * *

  The hospital room where Manuel Cruz lay dying had smiling teddy bears and rainbow-striped dinosaurs painted on its walls. Dolores Cruz sat beside her nine-year-old son's bed, holding his feverish hand. The boy seemed to be sleeping, his breaths coming in gasps through the clear plastic oxygen mask covering his lower face. The beeping from the heart monitor above his head and hiss of the blood pressure cuff periodically inflating and deflating around his wasted arm were the only other sounds she heard.

  The nurses who wafted in and out of the room glanced at her sympathetically. Like her, each one was swathed in a yellow paper gown—hands encased in latex gloves, hair hidden beneath an azure surgical cap, mouth and nose covered by a mask. Dolores knew these “reverse isolation” measures wouldn't help her son anymore. But they made it easier for the professionals caring for Manuel in his final illness to fuss over his IV fluids and do their other work without lingering with her any longer than necessary. They didn't want to give her false hope or admit the truth any more than she wanted to hear it.

  Dolores's glove wiped away tears. She and Carlos knew this day might come when they adopted Manuel at six months old. Both were in their late thirties and successful lawyers when they'd married. The fertility clinic they'd visited after failing to start a family had done everything medically possible to help. But after yet another miscarriage, she and her husband had decided on another option.

  They could've adopted a “perfect” baby—not one innocently suffering from the sins of his drug-addicted, HIV-positive biological mother. But here was a baby that needed even more love than usual—and she and her husband had more than the usual to give. The doctors said the latest medications could suppress development of AIDS for years—and despite all those decades of setbacks there was hope that a cure might be discovered soon.

  But time had run out for Manuel. His immune system had collapsed with that elusive cure no closer than when he'd been born. For the last two years he'd spent more days inside than out of the hospital—suffering from vomiting, diarrhea, and infections. Nutritional supplements, then a thin feeding tube passed through his nose and down into his stomach, and finally “central hyperalimentation” IV fluids hadn't prevented her son from wasting away to a skeleton covered by a layer of dry skin.

  Manuel had been too sick in the hospital to even go to the funeral when his father died of a heart attack two months ago. Still reeling from that loss, Dolores knew that soon she would lose the other person she loved most. Her son no longer responded to the best treatments the doctors had for this latest recurrence of Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia. Their medicines kept him from suffering too much. But there was nothing they could do to ease the ache in her heart.

  Her vision blurred—imagining what her son would look like if he were well. She saw his sunken cheeks plump with health—his arms strong enough to give her a loving hug. Exhausted from grief and worry as evening turned into night, her head nodded for a few moments of soothing sleep....

  Dolores jerked awake when a gentle hand touched her cheek. A startled
cry escaped her throat as she saw a stranger sitting in her son's sickbed. She blinked and tried telling herself she was dreaming—but she wasn't.

  The boy's hospital gown was too small for his filled-out healthy frame. He removed the oxygen mask with muscular fingers, a puzzled expression on his robust face. Then he spoke in a voice she couldn't mistake for anyone else's.

  "Mom, why are you crying?"

  * * * *

  Stone sat in Mission Control and watched a small television screen near his elbow. CNN showed Kelley giving a press conference updating what they knew—or rather, didn't know—was happening on Mars.

  He glanced at his wristwatch: 11:38 p.m. That meant he'd been here for eighteen hours—a typical work shift for a cardiologist. More importantly, it meant relatively few people—at least in the U.S.—were awake and watching Kelley evade questions about what the media dubbed the “Great Martian Mystery."

  As reporters grilled the flight director for answers neither she nor anyone else on Earth had, Stone focused on the news items scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen. Some of them read like headlines on a checkout line tabloid. Eyewitness accounts of tornadoes and hurricanes being snuffed out could be attributed to overwrought imaginations or freak meteorological conditions.

  But those reports coming from a growing list of reputable hospitals and clinics worldwide couldn't be dismissed. According to the TV, people on the brink of death were being inexplicably cured. Those with end-stage AIDS, cancer, heart disease, and other serious diseases were now completely healthy. Nursing home residents with Alzheimer's or old strokes were suddenly as mentally sharp and neurologically sound as they'd ever been. Amputees grew back new limbs and paraplegics walked. The blind now saw and the deaf could hear.

  The physician grunted. If those stories were true, he might have to retrain in another profession—hopefully one with better hours....

  Suddenly he realized there might be a connection between what Kelley was saying and these other events. If the aliens had healed Katerina they must also be responsible for those other cures. He wondered when someone else would think of that too.