The Big Book of Science Fiction

by The Big Book of Science Fiction (retail) (epub)

  He stood up. He backed off: a robot casing yielded like flesh. The mechanic yelped and sprang away. His hand, with the rod-flesh spanner growing out of it, hit the keypad: and all the tools began to leap into action. He stood in his own surging, hurrying, pulsating gut—for an instant saved by the notional space of an anatomical drawing—and then the walls closed in. There was no light, only a reddened darkness. The mechanic wailed. He fought a horrible need to vomit, he scrabbled desperately at the keys.

  When everything was quiet again he sat for a while. It might have been minutes; it felt like a long time. Eventually he stopped wanting to be sick and managed to put down the spanner. He sat with his head hunched in his arms; became aware of this abject fetal crouch and came out of it slowly. He took a deep breath.

  The garage was the same as it had always been: dead, and safe. He realized that he had been highly privileged. Somehow, just briefly, he had succeeded in entering the alien mind, seen the world through alien eyes. How could you expect such an experience to be pleasant? Now that it was over he could accept that: and he was truly grateful.

  At last he heaved a sigh, and set about putting the bay to work again. He couldn’t bring himself to touch the red car with hand tools now. Besides, he was too shaky. But he would deliver the alien’s vehicle in the morning as promised, as near to perfectly reborn as was humanly possible. He owed it that much.

  He had tried to take something from the alien by a kind of force. And he’d got what he wanted. It wasn’t the alien’s fault that he’d bitten off more than he could chew, and gagged on the mouthful. Gritting his teeth against the ghostly feel of flesh in the machines, he set up the necessary routines.

  In a short time, it was all done. But it was very late. His wife would have to ask questions now, and he’d have to tell her something of what had happened. He stood looking at the plastic shell and the clever, deviously economical innards under the open bonnet. The machines, they said, couldn’t live with the ecosphere. In the end the human race would have to abandon one or the other: motorcars or “the environment.” But “in the end” was still being held at bay. In the meantime this was a good, well-made little compromise with damnation.

  He felt lonely and sad. He had seen another world walk into his life, reached out to grasp the wonder, and found something worse than empty air. He’d wanted the alien to give him dreamland, somewhere over the rainbow. He had found, instead, an inimical Eden: a treasure that he could no more enjoy than he could crawl back into the womb.

  The mechanic sighed again and gently closed the bonnet.

  The red car settled itself a little.

  “Thank you,” it said.

  —

  In the morning at nine o’clock the alien was there. The car was ready, gleaming on the forecourt. The alien put down its bag, which it carried not on its back or at arm’s length but tucked under one armpit in that very peculiar, lopsided way of theirs. He thought it looked tired, and anxious. It barely glanced at the car. Perhaps, like a human, it didn’t even want to know how badly it had been cheated.

  “What’s the damage?” it asked.

  The mechanic was hurt. He’d have liked to go over the whole worksheet with it: to extract the sweet honey of its approval, or at least to extend this dwindling transaction just a little further. He had to remind himself that the alien owed him nothing. To itself, its feelings were not romantic or bizarre in the least. The world it lived in was commonplace. The mechanic’s experience was his own concern, had been an internal matter from the start. The alien was not responsible for kinks of human psychology, nor for imaginary paranormal incidents.

  “Look,” he said. “I’ve got a proposition for you. My eldest, my son, he’s just passed his driving test. He won’t be allowed out on his own for a while, of course. But I’ve been thinking about getting him a little runabout. I don’t keep a car myself, you see, I’ve never felt the need. But kids, they like the freedom….I’d like to buy your car.”

  In the cold light of day, he couldn’t bear to tell it the truth. He knew the car would never speak to him again. But he had been touched by the world of the other, and he simply had to bring away something: some kind of proof.

  The alien looked even more depressed.

  The mechanic realized suddenly that he didn’t have to worry about the money. He would tell the firm everything. They were human at the head office, and as fascinated as he. The car would stay on the forecourt. He would call in and get it featured on the local news, maybe even national news. It would be extremely good for business.

  For the alien’s benefit, however, he would stick to the story about his son. They really shouldn’t be encouraged to believe that human beings thought they were magic.

  “List price,” he added, hurriedly. “And a little more. Because anyone would pay a little more, a car that’s been driven by one of our famous visitors. What do you say?”

  So the alien walked away with its credit card handsomely e-charged. It turned at the corner of the street, by the yard where the banana fronds hung over the gate, and bared its pointed teeth in that seeming smile. The farewell could have been for the red car on the forecourt as much as for the human beside it, but it made the man feel better anyway.

  The Remoras

  ROBERT REED

  Robert Reed (1956– ) is an award-winning and exceedingly prolific US writer of science fiction who has written hundreds of short stories and several novels. Highly versatile, Reed in his fiction ranges from intimate vignettes to intricate variations on space opera. As with James Tiptree Jr., intimations of death (and entropy) frequently appear as subtext in his work. His novella “A Billion Eves” won the 2007 Hugo Award, but in general his prolific nature, although matched by quality, has left Reed in the position of being critically underappreciated.

  Two sets of connected works have shaped Reed’s later career. In the Veil of Stars sequence—Beyond the Veil of Stars (1994) and Beneath the Gated Sky (1997)—the sense of claustrophobia characteristic of Reed’s work derives from an image of our solar system as impacted upon—from beyond a fabricated and deceitful veil of stars—by innumerable similar inhabited systems. We live in a megalopolis of planets, and we communicate with one another by passing through dimensional barriers, which change our bodies so that we resemble natives of the overcrowded visited world.

  The Great Ship sequence—comprising Marrow (2000), Mere (2004), The Well of Stars (2004), the title story of Eater-of-Bone and Other Novellas (2012), The Greatship (2013), and The Memory of Sky (2014)—is set on a world ship discovered by humans, seemingly adrift, passengerless and crewless, outside the home galaxy, who take it over, dubbing it Great Ship. The reason for its original construction (many eons earlier), and for its seemingly aimless course through the universe, remains mysterious and undetermined; so large and largely unknown is the ship, even to its new “owners,” that the discovery in the first volume that it is in fact built around an entire planet is shocking.

  In an essay about the series, Reed wrote that the initial idea came from thinking about a man living inside “the most perfect spacesuit…built from some marvelous material [and that] functions as a very small, highly competent spaceship.” A second insight years later led to writing the first stories: “A simple realization that the spacesuit was much like a world, self-contained and eternal. I began thinking about more durable types of human beings, people who wore these elaborate ‘lifesuits’ throughout their lives. I saw them as a society. [But] a little spaceship wouldn’t do the trick. I needed something with size, an expansive place where a great culture could be born.”

  “The Remoras,” first published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1994 (and reprinted in Hartwell and Cramer’s The Space Opera Renaissance, 2006), is a stellar example from the Great Ship/Marrow sequence. It works as an excellent general science fiction story but also as riveting space opera, in a tradition going back to Edmond Hamilton in the 1920s and comparable to the best of Iain M. Banks.
r />   THE REMORAS

  Robert Reed

  Quee Lee’s apartment covered several hectares within one of the human districts, some thousand kilometers beneath the ship’s hull. It wasn’t a luxury unit by any measure. Truly wealthy people owned as much as a cubic kilometer for themselves and their entourages. But it had been her home since she had come on board, for more centuries than she could count, its hallways and large rooms as comfortable to her as her own body.

  The garden room was a favorite. She was enjoying its charms one afternoon, lying nude beneath a false sky and sun, eyes closed and nothing to hear but the splash of fountains and the prattle of little birds. Suddenly her apartment interrupted the peace, announcing a visitor. “He has come for Perri, miss. He claims it’s most urgent.”

  “Perri isn’t here,” she replied, soft gray eyes opening. “Unless he’s hiding from both of us, I suppose.”

  “No, miss. He is not.” A brief pause, then the voice said, “I have explained this to the man, but he refuses to leave. His name is Orleans. He claims that Perri owes him a considerable sum of money.”

  What had her husband done now? Quee Lee could guess, halfway smiling as she sat upright. Oh, Perri…won’t you learn…? She would have to dismiss this Orleans fellow herself, spooking him with a good hard stare. She rose and dressed in an emerald sarong, then walked the length of her apartment, never hurrying, commanding the front door to open at the last moment but leaving the security screen intact. And she was ready for someone odd. Even someone sordid, knowing Perri. Yet she didn’t expect to see a shiny lifesuit more than two meters tall and nearly half as wide, and she had never imagined such a face gazing down at her with mismatched eyes. It took her a long moment to realize this was a Remora. An authentic Remora was standing in the public walkway, his vivid round face watching her. The flesh was orange with diffuse black blotches that might or might not be cancers, and a lipless, toothless mouth seemed to flow into a grin. What would bring a Remora here? They never, never came down here…!

  “I’m Orleans.” The voice was sudden and deep, slightly muted by the security screen. It came from a speaker hidden somewhere on the thick neck, telling her, “I need help, miss. I’m sorry to disturb you…but you see, I’m desperate. I don’t know where else to turn.”

  Quee Lee knew about Remoras. She had seen them and even spoken to a few, although those conversations were eons ago and she couldn’t remember their substance. Such strange creatures. Stranger than most aliens, even if they possessed human souls….

  “Miss?”

  Quee Lee thought of herself as being a good person. Yet she couldn’t help but feel repelled, the floor rolling beneath her and her breath stopping short. Orleans was a human being, one of her own species. True, his genetics had been transformed by hard radiations. And yes, he normally lived apart from ordinary people like her. But inside him was a human mind, tough and potentially immortal. Quee Lee blinked and remembered that she had compassion as well as charity for everyone, even aliens…and she managed to sputter, “Come in.” She said, “If you wish, please do,” and with that invitation, her apartment deactivated the invisible screen.

  “Thank you, miss.” The Remora walked slowly, almost clumsily, his lifesuit making a harsh grinding noise in the knees and hips. That wasn’t normal, she realized. Orleans should have been graceful, his suit powerful, serving him as an elaborate exoskeleton.

  “Would you like anything?” she asked foolishly. Out of habit.

  “No, thank you,” he replied, his voice nothing but pleasant.

  Of course. Remoras ate and drank only self-made concoctions. They were permanently sealed inside their lifesuits, functioning as perfectly self-contained organisms. Food was synthesized, water recycled, and they possessed a religious sense of purity and independence.

  “I don’t wish to bother you, miss. I’ll be brief.”

  His politeness was a minor surprise. Remoras typically were distant, even arrogant. But Orleans continued to smile, watching her. One eye was a muscular pit filled with thick black hairs, and she assumed those hairs were light sensitive. Like an insect’s compound eye, each one might build part of an image. By contrast, its mate was ordinary, white and fishy with a foggy black center. Mutations could do astonishing things. An accelerated, partly controlled evolution was occurring inside that suit, even while Orleans stood before her, boots stomping on the stone floor, a single spark arcing toward her. Orleans said, “I know this is embarrassing for you—”

  “No, no,” she offered.

  “—and it makes me uncomfortable too. I wouldn’t have come down here if it wasn’t necessary.”

  “Perri’s gone,” she repeated, “and I don’t know when he’ll be back. I’m sorry.”

  “Actually,” said Orleans, “I was hoping he would be gone.”

  “Did you?”

  “Though I’d have come either way.”

  Quee Lee’s apartment, loyal and watchful, wouldn’t allow anything nasty to happen to her. She took a step forward, closing some of the distance. “This is about money being owed? Is that right?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “For what, if I might ask?”

  Orleans didn’t explain in clear terms. “Think of it as an old gambling debt.” More was involved, he implied. “A very old debt, I’m afraid, and Perri’s refused me a thousand times.”

  She could imagine it. Her husband had his share of failings, incompetence and a self-serving attitude among them. She loved Perri in a controlled way, but his flaws were obvious. “I’m sorry,” she replied, “but I’m not responsible for his debts.” She made herself sound hard, knowing it was best. “I hope you didn’t come all this way because you heard he was married.” Married to a woman of some means, she thought to herself. In secret.

  “No, no, no!” The grotesque face seemed injured. Both eyes became larger, and a thin tongue, white as ice, licked at the lipless edge of the mouth. “Honestly, we don’t follow the news about passengers. I just assumed Perri was living with someone. I know him, you see…my hope was to come and make my case to whomever I found, winning a comrade. An ally. Someone who might become my advocate.” A hopeful pause, then he said, “When Perri does come here, will you explain to him what’s right and what is not? Can you, please?” Another pause, then he added, “Even a lowly Remora knows the difference between right and wrong, miss.”

  That wasn’t fair, calling himself lowly. And he seemed to be painting her as some flavor of bigot, which she wasn’t. She didn’t look at him as lowly, and morality wasn’t her private possession. Both of them were human, after all. Their souls were linked by a charming and handsome, manipulative user…by her darling husband…and Quee Lee felt a sudden anger directed at Perri, almost shuddering in front of this stranger.

  “Miss?”

  “How much?” she asked. “How much does he owe you, and how soon will you need it?”

  Orleans answered the second question first, lifting an arm with a sickly whine coming from his shoulder. “Can you hear it?” he asked. As if she were deaf. “My seals need to be replaced, or at least refurbished. Yesterday, if possible.” The arm bent, and the elbow whined. “I already spent my savings rebuilding my reactor.”

  Quee Lee knew enough about lifesuits to appreciate his circumstances. Remoras worked on the ship’s hull, standing in the open for hours and days at a time. A broken seal was a disaster. Any tiny opening would kill most of his body, and his suffering mind would fall into a protective coma. Left exposed and vulnerable, Orleans would be at the mercy of radiation storms and comet showers. Yes, she understood. A balky suit was an unacceptable hazard on top of lesser hazards, and what could she say?

  She felt a deep empathy for the man.

  Orleans seemed to take a breath, then he said, “Perri owes me fifty-two thousand credits, miss.”

  “I see.” She swallowed and said, “My name is Quee Lee.”

  “Quee Lee,” he repeated. “Yes, miss.”

  “As soon as
Perri comes home, I’ll discuss this with him. I promise you.”

  “I would be grateful if you did.”

  “I will.”

  The ugly mouth opened, and she saw blotches of green and gray-blue against a milky throat. Those were cancers or perhaps strange new organs. She couldn’t believe she was in the company of a Remora—the strangest sort of human—yet despite every myth, despite tales of courage and even recklessness, Orleans appeared almost fragile. He even looked scared, she realized. That wet orange face shook as if in despair, then came the awful grinding noise as he turned away, telling her, “Thank you, Quee Lee. For your time and patience, and for everything.”

  Fifty-two thousand credits!

  She could have screamed. She would scream when she was alone, she promised herself. Perri had done this man a great disservice, and he’d hear about it when he graced her with his company again. A patient person, yes, and she could tolerate most of his flaws. But not now. Fifty thousand credits was no fortune, and it would allow Orleans to refurbish his lifesuit, making him whole and healthy again. Perhaps she could get in touch with Perri first, speeding up the process…?

  Orleans was through her front door, turning to say good-bye. False sunshine made his suit shine, and his faceplate darkened to where she couldn’t see his features anymore. He might have had any face, and what did a face mean? Waving back at him, sick to her stomach, she calculated what fifty-two thousand credits meant in concrete terms, to her…

  …wondering if she should…?

  But no, she decided. She just lacked the required compassion. She was a particle short, if that, ordering the security screen to engage again, helping to mute that horrid grinding of joints as the Remora shuffled off for home.