“You can come out now, baby,” crowed Sarkozy, and she emerged from the men’s room. She was wearing a cute little gangster-moll hat, and a tailored camouflage jacket. She lugged a big black guitar case. She also had a primitive radio-telephone bigger than a brick.
How he’d enticed that woman to lurk for half an hour in the reeking cafe toilet, that I’ll never know. But it was her. It was definitely her, and she couldn’t have been any more demure and serene if she were meeting the Queen of England.
They all left together in one heavily armed body.
The thunderclap inside the Elena had left a mess. I rescued Massimo’s leather valise from the encroaching pool of blood.
My fellow patrons were bemused. They were deeply bemused, even confounded. Their options for action seemed to lack constructive possibilities.
So, one by one, they rose and left the bar. They left that fine old place, silently and without haste, and without meeting each other’s eyes. They stepped out the jangling door and into Europe’s biggest plaza.
Then they vanished, each hastening toward his own private world.
I strolled into the piazza, under a pleasant spring sky. It was cold, that spring night, but that infinite dark blue sky was so lucid and clear.
The laptop’s screen flickered brightly as I touched the F1 key. Then I pressed 2, and then 3.
Exegesis
NANCY KRESS
Nancy Kress (www.sff.net/people/nankress/) lives in Seattle, Washington. She recently moved to the west coast. Her novel Steal Across the Sky, a near-future SF novel about alien crime, punishment, and the strange paths that atonement can take, was published in 2009. Her short fiction, for which she won her second Hugo Award in 2009, is collected in Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Other Stories (2008). She is one of today’s leading SF writers, a popular guest at SF conventions, and an eminent teacher of writing. She published several distinguished SF stories in 2009. This is one of the shortest and most amusing, a new twist on an old idea.
“Exegesis” was published in Asimov’s, still a leader in SF (the source of five stories in this volume), and the place where Kress published a majority of her best work in 2009. This is linguistic SF, on the evolution of language and erosion of meaning, in the tradition of such classics as Robert Nathan’s “Digging the Weans.”
1950
from Branson’s Quotations for Book Lovers ed. Roger Branson, Random House
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” One of the world’s most famous quotations, this is the film version of Rhett Butler’s (Clark Gable) immortal farewell to Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) in Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone With the Wind, a crowning achievement of American literature. It occurs at the end of the film when Scarlett asks Rhett, “Where shall I go? What shall I do?” if he leaves her. The print version does not include the word “frankly,” which was added by director David O. Selznik. The line was bitterly objected to by the Hays Office, but remained in the 1939 film, due to a last-minute amendment to the Production Code.
2050
from Critical Interpretations of Twentieth Century Literature, Random House, eds. Jared Morvais and Hannah Brown
TEXT: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”1
2150
Dictionary of Modern Sayings for the Faithful Church of Renewed Enlightenment
ENTRY: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Line from a twentieth-century novel written by Margaret Mitchell in Southern Ezra (a section of the former United States of America), in which a man, Rhett Butler, abandons his legal wife, an adulteress (“scarlet woman”). The passage is a stark illustration of the sinfulness and irresponsibility of pre-Ezran so-called “Christianity.” Praise!
2250
from Studees in Lawst Litrucher, Reformd Langwij Co-ullishun, Han Goldman
SUBJECT: “Franklee, my der, I dont giv a dam.”
Line frum Pre-Kolapse novul—awther unown—that twoday iz mostlee fowk sayeen in Suthern Ezra. The prahverb means—ruffly—that the speeker wil not giv even wun “dam”—wich may hav bin a tipe of lokul munee—to by a “der,” an xtinkt meet animul. Implika-shun is that watever iz beein diskused is over prised. This interpretashun is reinforced by the tradishunul usoceea-shun of the line with peepul hoo served meels, known as “butlers.”
2350
Harox College Download 6753-J-ENLIT
TEXT: “Frankly1, my dear2, I don’t give a damn3.”
New research sheds interesting light on this folk saying from Mubela (formerly Southern Ezra.) The Pre-Collapse Antiquarian Grove humbly makes this offering to the Forest of Enlightened Endolas:
2450
Fragment of a Download Recovered After the EMP Catastrophe of 2396, with Exegesis
“Frank Lee, my dear, I don’t give a dam.” “Frank Lee”1 means that the speaker is talking without subterfuge or lies. Since only liars emphasize their truthfulness—enlightened endolas2, of course, represent truth with their very beings—the speaker is openly announcing that he is lying, signaling to the hearer that everything which follows is therefore untrue. In fact, the speaker does give a damn.3 This sort of convoluted speech was often necessary in pre-Collapse4 societies, in which “governments”5 were so politically oppressive that truth could not be openly spoken.6
2850, i
Unified Link Information, Quantum-Entangled Energy Center
DB 549867207 (Historical)
DATUM: “Franklee, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
VARIATIONS: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a dam.”
“Franklee, my der, I dont giv a dam.”
CLASSIFICATION: Proverb, class 32
DATE: Pre-QUENTIAM, probably pre-twenty-second century, specifics unknown ORIGIN: Human, Sol 3, specifics unknown
LANGUAGES: Many (recite list?). Original probably Late English
EXPLICATION: “Franklee” (or “Frankly”) indicates origin in era pre-telepathic-implants, with choice of offering true or untrue information. “My dear” is an archaic term of endearment for members of a “family” indicates pre-gene-donate society. “Don’t give a damn” is antique idiom meaning the speaker/projector is not involved in a current project. Equivalents: “apathy,” “independence,” “non-functioning implant.”
LAST REQUEST FOR THIS INFORMATION: No requests to date
2850, ii
*Ser, don’t screen your implant from me!*
*I go now.*
*Why? Why leave me? Why leave the pod? We desire you!*
*I go now.*
*But why?*
*I tell you, pod mate, I no longer care.*
Erosion
IAN CREASEY
Ian Creasey (www.iancreasey.com) lives in Leeds in the UK. Since 1999, he has published over forty short stories. He began writing “when rock & roll stardom failed to return his calls.” His spare-time interests include hiking, gardening, and environmental conservation work—anything to get him outdoors and away from the computer screen. He occasionally attends the Milford UK workshop held annually in Wales. “I’m a big believer in the workshopping process: I personally find it very helpful to both critique and be critiqued. I’ve written hundreds of critiques over the years, and I think that’s the main source of my development as a writer.” We think Creasey is a major talent to emerge in SF in the last four years, and this story is proof of it.
“Erosion” was published in Asimov’s. A man who has had himself physically altered so he can survive on other planets tells the story of his last week on Earth, when he had an accident. What this story does best is manage point of view in the service of plot, and this it does impressively and to powerful effect. The use of setting details to clarify a moment in the future is no less impressive.
Let me tell you about my last week on Earth….
Before those final days, I’d already said my farewells. My family gave me their blessing: my grandfather, who cam
e to England from Jamaica as a young man, understood why I signed up for the colony program. He warned me that a new world, however enticing, would have its own frustrations. We both knew I didn’t need the warning, but he wanted to pass on what he’d learned in life, and I wanted to hear it. I still remember the clasp of his fingers on my new skin; I can replay the exo-skin’s sensory log whenever I wish.
My girlfriend was less forgiving. She accused me of cowardice, of running away. I replied that when your house is on fire, running away is the sensible thing to do. The Earth is burning up, and so we set forth to find a new home elsewhere. She said—she shouted—that when our house is on fire, we should stay and fight the flames. She wanted to help the firefighters. I respected her for that, and I didn’t try to persuade her to come with me. That only made her all the more angry.
The sea will douse the land, in time, but it rises slowly. Most of the coastline still resembled the old maps. I’d decided that I would spend my last few days walking along the coast, partly to say goodbye to Earth, and partly to settle into my fresh skin and hone my augments. I’d tested it all in the post-op suite, of course, and in the colony simulator, but I wanted to practice in a natural setting. Reality throws up challenges that a simulator would never devise.
And so I traveled north. People stared at me on the train. I’m accustomed to that—when they see a freakishly tall black man, even the British overcome their famed (and largely mythical) reserve, and stare like scientists at a new specimen. The stares had become more hostile in recent years, as waves of African refugees fled their burning lands. I was born in Newcastle, like my parents, but that isn’t written on my face. When I spoke, people smiled to hear a black guy with a Geordie accent, and their hostility melted.
Now I was no longer black, but people still stared. My grey exo-skin, formed of myriad tiny nodules, was iridescent as a butterfly’s wings. I’d been told I could create patterns on it, like a cuttlefish, but I hadn’t yet learned the fine control required. There’d be plenty of shipboard time after departure for such sedentary trifles. I wanted to be active, to run and jump and swim, and test all the augments in the wild outdoors, under the winter sky.
Scarborough is, or was, a town on two levels. The old North Bay and South Bay beaches had long since drowned, but up on the cliffs the shops and quaint houses and the ruined castle stood firm. I hurried out of town and soon reached the coastal path—or rather, the latest incarnation of the coastal path, each a little further inland than the last. The Yorkshire coast had always been nibbled by erosion, even in more tranquil times. Now the process was accelerating. The rising sea level gouged its own scars from higher tides, and the warmer globe stirred up fiercer storms that lashed the cliffs and tore them down. Unstable slopes of clay alternated with fresh rock, exposed for the first time in millennia. Piles of jagged rubble shifted restlessly, the new stones not yet worn down into rounded pebbles.
After leaving the last house behind, I stopped to take off my shirt, jeans and shoes. I’d only worn them until now as a concession to blending in with the naturals (as we called the unaugmented). I hid the clothes under some gorse, for collection on my return. When naked, I stretched my arms wide, embracing the world and its weather and everything the future could throw at me.
The air was calm yet oppressive, in a brooding sulk between stormy tantrums. Grey clouds lay heavy on the sky, like celestial loft insulation. My augmented eyes detected polarized light from the sun behind the clouds, beyond the castle standing starkly on its promontory. I tried to remember why I could see polarized light, and failed. Perhaps there was no reason, and the designers had simply installed the ability because they could. Like software, I suffered feature bloat. But when we arrived at our new planet, who could guess what hazards lay in store? One day, seeing polarized light might save my life.
I smelled the mud of the path, the salt of the waves, and a slight whiff of raw sewage. Experimentally, I filtered out the sewage, leaving a smell more like my memories from childhood walks. Then I returned to defaults. I didn’t want to make a habit of ignoring reality and receiving only the sense impressions I found aesthetic.
Picking up speed, I marched beside the barbed wire fences that enclosed the farmers’ shrinking fields. At this season the fields contained only stubble and weeds, the wheat long since harvested. Crows pecked desultorily at the sodden ground. I barged through patches of gorse; the sharp spines tickled my exo-skin, but did not harm it. With my botanist’s eye, I noted all the inhabitants of the little cliff-edge habitat. Bracken and clover and thistles and horsetail—the names rattled through my head, an incantation of farewell. The starship’s seedbanks included many species, on the precautionary principle. But initially we’d concentrate on growing food crops, aiming to breed strains that would flourish on the colony world. The other plants…this might be the last time I’d ever see them.
It was once said that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrated a man’s mind wonderfully. Leaving Earth might be almost as drastic, and it had the same effect of making me feel euphorically alive. I registered every detail of the environment: the glistening spiders’ webs in the dead bracken, the harsh calls of squabbling crows, the distant roar of the ever-present sea below. When I reached a gully with a storm-fed river at the bottom, I didn’t bother following the path inland to a bridge; I charged down the slope, sliding on mud but keeping my balance, then splashed through the water and up the other side.
I found myself on a headland, crunching along a graveled path. An ancient notice-board asked me to clean up after my dog. Ahead lay a row of benches, on the seaward side of the path, much closer to the cliff edge than perhaps they once had been. They all bore commemorative plaques, with lettering mostly faded or rubbed away. I came upon a legible one that read:
In memory of Katriona Grady
2021–2098
She Loved This Coast
Grass had grown up through the slats of the bench, and the wood had weathered to a mottled beige. I brushed aside the detritus of twigs and hawthorn berries, then smiled at myself for the outdated gesture. I wore no clothes to be dirtied, and my exo-skin could hardly be harmed by a few spiky twigs. In time I would abandon the foibles of a fragile human body, and stride confidently into any environment.
I sat, and looked out to sea. The wind whipped the waves into white froth, urging them to the coast. Gulls scudded on the breeze, their cries as jagged as the rocks they nested on. A childhood memory shot through me—eating chips on the seafront, a gull swooping to snatch a morsel. Within me swelled an emotion I couldn’t name.
After a moment I became aware of someone sitting next to me. Yet the bench hadn’t creaked under any additional weight. A hologram, then. When I turned to look, I saw the characteristic bright edges of a cheap hologram from the previous century.
“Hello, I’m Katriona. Would you like to talk?” The question had a rote quality, and I guessed that all visitors were greeted the same way; a negative answer would dismiss the hologram so that people could sit in peace. But I had several days of solitude ahead of me, and I didn’t mind pausing for a while. It seemed appropriate that my last conversation on a dying world would be with a dead person.
“Pleased to meet you,” I said. “I’m Winston.”
The hologram showed a middle-aged white woman, her hair as grey as riverbed stones, her clothes a tasteful expanse of soft-toned lavender skirt and low-heeled expensive shoes. I wondered if she’d chosen this conventional self-effacing look, or if some memorial designer had imposed a template projecting the dead as aged and faded, not upstaging the living. Perhaps she’d have preferred to be depicted as young and wild and beautiful, as she’d no doubt once been—or would like to have been.
“It’s a cold day to be wandering around starkers,” she said, smiling.
I had forgotten I wore no clothes. I gave her a brief account of my augmentations. “I’m going to the stars!” I said, the excitement of it suddenly bursting out.
“What, all of them? Do they make copies of you, and send you all across the sky?”
“No, it’s not like that.” However, the suggestion caused me a moment of disorientation. I had walked into the hospital on my old human feet, been anaesthetized, then—quite some time later—had walked out in shiny new augmented form. Did only one of me leave, or had others emerged elsewhere, discarded for defects or optimized for different missions? Don’t be silly, I told myself. It’s only an exo-skin. The same heart still beats underneath. That heart, along with the rest of me, had yesterday passed the final pre-departure medical checks.
“We go to one planet first,” I said, “which will be challenge enough. But later—who knows?” No one had any idea what the lifespan of an augmented human might prove to be; since all the mechanical components could be upgraded, the limit would be reached by any biological parts that couldn’t be replaced. “It does depend on discovering other planets worth visiting. There are many worlds out there, but only a few even barely habitable.”
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