Asimov's SF, March 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Jason's heel located the bottom of the staircase. He sank onto the second step and gestured with the sword.

  “I've still got this thing, Kelly. You can stand there and wait for me to keel over if you want to. But it's not going to happen."

  “It now looks like we're going to be entering on the first floor,” Byron was saying. “Into the second storage room from the land side, on the east side. You may hear a small explosion."

  “You're going to sit there and let yourself bleed to death?” Kelly said. “Your masters will be touched."

  “I only have to hold out about ten more minutes. As you are well aware."

  “And what about afterward? Have you thought about that? Even if you last the full ten minutes—isn't there some possibility you may suffer irreversible brain damage before your rescue party can whisk you to a trauma center? Have I underestimated the powers of tucfra medical technology? Or will they simply replace the damaged brain cells with components they consider more suitable?"

  Jason could hear the fatigue in his own voice. Would he slip into unconsciousness without any preliminaries, the way he had fallen into sleep during the years when he had fought off despair by immersing himself in videos and music until he dropped into a few hours of oblivion?

  Kelly had taken a step forward while he talked. He was still smiling but the eyes above the smile were watching Jason's every move.

  “Don't assume you can work your way into rushing range,” Jason said. “I'll press the button when I know you're so close I can't miss."

  “And when will that be?"

  “I'll leave that question open."

  “A wise policy. Has it occurred to you I have full access to the security system? Voice recognition. Password. Implant ID. Think about it. I go upstairs, the security system shuts down the moment I say the magic words, and your friends rush in and hurry you and Mrs. Gratzhausen to the nearest emergency unit."

  “And leave you in possession of Michael."

  “We'll be right back where we started—minus Dr. Levar's somewhat capricious contributions, of course. A tactical victory for your side, I would think."

  “You don't understand the tucfra, Kelly. They'd put us in the same class as Eileen if we did something like that to save ourselves."

  “But you wouldn't be saving yourself. You'd be saving her. You're not the only paragon whose intellectual powers could be permanently damaged."

  Jason's eyes blurred. The muscles in his neck slackened.

  “We can even reconsider the suggestion I made earlier,” Kelly said. “I wasn't just talking to lure you to your doom, body double. I admit I had decided my faction would be better off with you dead and Michael still alive, but my little proposal seemed like a reasonable alternative if you seemed receptive. It still has its attractions. I go upstairs, Michael succumbs to a twist of the valve, the rescue party rushes in, and you convince our interstellar lords you did your best and they should keep you here."

  “And arrange a discreet payoff sometime in the future."

  “In the not-too-distant future."

  “You could even remain on good terms with your employer."

  “To our Director of Security I would just be a loyal retainer who had carried out his most extreme orders."

  “I'll offer you a deal,” Jason said. “If you stay here, you'll be outnumbered as soon as my reinforcements arrive. There's two speedboats sitting out there. Go now and I'll tell our patrol boat not to fire on you. The speedboat will be yours."

  “A generous offer...."

  The speedboat was, in fact, worth enough to keep people like them happy for several years—as Kelly undoubtedly knew. Kelly could sell it. Keep it as a toy. Start an exciting new career as a coastal pirate.

  “It's a sure thing for both of us,” Jason said. “Versus the gamble I won't last until our rescue party breaks in."

  “And all because you're afraid of your paymasters."

  “Not quite."

  “There's something else?"

  “You may not believe it, but Francesca and I—-we both believe they're doing the right thing. Whatever their motivations. They're pushing us in the right direction. People like Michael—they really are the kind of leaders we need. They'd be shoved aside by people like the conniver you're working for if the tucfra weren't intervening."

  Kelly stared at him. “I believe that's the first time I've heard you voice that opinion...."

  “We aren't mercenaries. We didn't just sign up for the medical benefits."

  Kelly frowned. “Medical benefits, body double? Your conversation takes odd turns."

  Jason raised his head. It took a major effort but he knew he had to convince Kelly he could stay conscious until Byron charged to the rescue.

  “Take my offer, Captain. Leave here with a boat now—or stay and leave empty handed. If they let you leave."

  “You haven't told me about the tucfra medical benefits. I might be looking for a new employer, you know."

  Jason's head dropped. He saw Kelly's foot slide forward and raised his hand.

  “Stay back ... don't be a fool."

  “Is that what they offered you? A handsome, superhuman body? Beautiful women dazzled by your physical endowments? Heroic feats of masculine prowess?"

  Jason forced his head up. “Do you remember the slackbody virus?"

  Kelly stiffened. “You had that?"

  “From the time I was six. For twenty-six years."

  The tucfra pain control system couldn't repress everything. Most of the area around Jason's stomach felt numb. He wasn't feeling any pain but his brain knew it should feel uneasy.

  “That would inspire some gratitude....” Kelly said.

  Kelly's face had changed. He had been smiling right up to the moment Jason had mentioned the slackbody virus. They had been fighting for their lives and Kelly had been bantering as if they had just finished an unusually vigorous practice session. The goggles still hid his eyes but the smile had disappeared. Jason could even detect a shift in his facial muscles that could be interpreted to mean there was some danger Kelly might actually be teetering on the edge of sympathy.

  What was it like to be a naturally athletic daredevil all your life? Kelly had probably been charming himself into female bedrooms since he had been a teenager. Had there ever been a moment in his life when he had felt physically insecure? Was he visualizing the kind of life Jason had led?

  “It isn't just gratitude,” Jason said. “I had nothing. Name anything you like—your speedboats, games, women. Think about year after year without a single item on your list."

  “And then someone comes along and offers you a life."

  “What would you do if you were in my position now, Captain? Wouldn't you sit here until the moment you keeled over dead before you'd go back to that? Wouldn't you think nothing mattered—nothing at all—not even Francesca—compared to that?"

  That wasn't actually true. Jason had made a life for himself, in spite of his illness. He had lived alone, in complete independence, in a computerized apartment that gave him all the care a pair of round the clock human attendants would have given him. He had handled an interesting administrative job and hobnobbed electronically with dozens of friends and colleagues. He had even been visited, now and then, by women who felt sorry for him. But Kelly wouldn't know that. There was no way somebody like Kelly could understand that.

  “Take my offer. Take the boat. Don't gamble you can beat somebody with that kind of motivation."

  Jason's head slumped. He tried to pull it back up and discovered he couldn't. Energy was flowing out of his body as if the hole in his side was as big as a plate.

  “There are legal formalities regarding the ownership of the boat,” Kelly said.

  “I'll transmit an order as soon as you clear the main door. As Michael. No one will trouble you. You have my word ... as an officer of the Tucfra Hegemony."

  Kelly's boots moved backward. Jason raised his head a few degrees and watched him under his eyebro
ws.

  “It's been an interesting evening,” Kelly said. “You're a very impressive fellow, whoever you are. I hope your masters appreciate your efforts."

  Jason held himself awake until he heard the roar of the speedboat hammering on the walls of the docking pool. The order to transfer the property went out, as promised, just before he let himself drop into the darkness.

  * * * *

  The tucfra officer looked like all the other tucfra officers Jason had ever talked to—a fit, trim man somewhere between thirty and fifty, but obviously closer to twenty-five from the neck down, whatever his face indicated. This one was clean shaven—unlike most of his compatriots, who tended to sport fancy mustaches and beards.

  “Your attempt to help your superior was a serious error, Jason. Her statements make that clear. You could have hotfooted it straight to Michael's bedside once Captain McMay had backed away from the door. Instead, you reacted to his threat to Francesca and chose to engage him in more combat. Out of fear he would harm her."

  The officer's face took up half the screen. In the other half, Francesca was lying in a bed that looked as if it was the same kind of generic hospital rig that Jason occupied. She still had a tube in her nose but he couldn't detect any indication she was drugged. She looked tired, not sedated. She hadn't changed her expression when the tucfra had plugged him into the circuit, but that blank, emotionless face was the look she normally adapted when she faced a tucfra....

  “Francesca has issued a formal reprimand. Properly, in our opinion. You were given your priorities, Lieutenant. Your emotional entanglement with your superior officer is a trivial matter compared to the life we entrusted to your judgment. Francesca understood that. She told you to disregard her situation and proceed. If Captain McMay had killed you, or inflicted certain kinds of injuries, Michael would still be a hostage. And we would be scrambling to replace you with another duplicate."

  Had Francesca's face hardened slightly when the tucfra mentioned the reprimand? Had he seen a flicker in her eyes? It had been two weeks since Jason had last seen her. He knew Michael had returned to his proper role in life. He knew the public had been told Francesca was recovering from a boating accident. He had even received a visit from Byron Traine. But he had no idea how Francesca felt. There had been no messages. He had hoped Byron was bringing a message, but they had spent most of the visit discussing Byron's regret that he hadn't played a bigger role in such a dashing clash of arms.

  “Francesca was herself in the wrong, of course, when she let you become emotionally entangled. Her decision to assault Dr. Levar may have been influenced by her feelings, too. There was some probability, after all, perhaps a very high probability, that Dr. Levar would order Michael killed and Captain McMay would carry out the order."

  The tucfra shook his head. “I'm afraid we seriously underestimated your human capacity for developing mate loyalty. It can be a notoriously erratic emotion in your cultural tradition."

  The tucfras’ sex life had been surrounded by rumor and speculation ever since they had started interacting with humans. For all anyone knew, they might not even have sexes. They always adopted male bodies when they assumed human form, and thousands of human women had visited the Sahara, but their feelings about their sexual partners were a mystery.

  What would they do if they expelled him? Would they return him to his old body? Could they be that hardhearted?

  He was looking at a personal disaster. And he had to lie here and confront it like a stoic model soldier while he floated in all the turmoil and emotional conflict that seemed to be an inevitable component of a true love affair. Had Francesca reprimanded him because she felt she had to protect herself ? She hadn't given him a glance or a quick smile or any other indication of her feelings when she had appeared on the screen.

  “I think you can understand the situation we're faced with, Jason. Is this just a temporary aberration? An understandable lapse after all the years you were denied the male-female emotional relationships that dominate the lives of human males in areas influenced by your culture? Or is it something we will have to be concerned about when you receive future assignments? Do you have any thoughts on that?"

  Jason hesitated. What would someone who had more experience with the tucfra answer?

  “Just tell me what you really think,” the tucfra said. “Don't try to guess what we're looking for."

  Jason smiled. “That's a bit difficult under the circumstances."

  “It's your best course, Lieutenant."

  He shrugged. “All right. You placed me in the same bed as an extraordinarily attractive woman. A woman who is exceptionally warm and sympathetic in addition. I fell in love with her. How could I have helped it? I would have fallen in love with her even if I'd lived a normal life up to now—even if I'd already had all the emotional involvements most people my age seem to have had."

  He turned toward Francesca. “If you're afraid I may scramble another mission for the same reason—it's going to be harder for me to fall in love with anyone. I love you, Francesca. I'll always love you. Everybody I meet from now on will seem pale beside you."

  Did he see the hint of a flash in Francesca's eyes? She loved him. She had said she loved him. They were two of a kind—two people lost in unsatisfactory lives who had seized what the tucfra had to offer. Couldn't the alien consciousness hiding behind the tucfra officer's human face understand that? Was this creature so far removed from human feelings he thought an oath could always take priority over the hungers and needs that drew men and women together?

  The tucfra nodded. “Well said, Jason. Well said. Do you love Jason, Francesca?"

  “Yes."

  “Would you like to marry him? Leave your post? Go off somewhere and spend the rest of your life with him?"

  “Yes. But I won't."

  “And why is that?"

  “You've given me a mission. You can send a substitute—but nobody can understand Michael as well as I do. Nobody else has all the years I've spent with him. All the knowledge I've accumulated. I'm the best person you can station here."

  “And you love your children, too, right? You want to make sure they take the place we've been preparing for them."

  “Yes."

  “Would you like to say goodbye to Jason now?"

  “Is he going to be all right?"

  “I can't discuss that."

  Her face softened. “Goodbye, Jason. I do love you. Please believe I love you."

  Francesca vanished. The tucfra officer took over the whole screen.

  “I think we can make a decision, Jason. I could pretend we were mulling things over and checking your records and so forth. But that would be pointless. And cruel, too."

  * * * *

  They gave him two months leave, in Michael's body, with minor cosmetic modifications, in a resort on the coast of Chile. He spent most of his evenings and afternoons with the women he attracted. In the mornings—and some of the evenings—he played a cello he had purchased.

  They had told him he could probably keep his musical skill as he moved from body to body in the future. It was a useful recreation and it might even be something they could take advantage of on certain kinds of assignments. He played the same three sonatas over and over, with a program that played the fortepiano accompaniment and adjusted to his personal style in the same way a human accompanist would have responded to it. It was a good program—so good there were times when he felt he could see the person he was playing with.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Tom Purdom

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  * * *

  Poetry: CLASSICS OF SCIENCE FICTION: “THE COLD EQUATIONS"

  by Jack O'Brien

  She went out voluntarily,

  She gave all that she could give,

  Chin high, and out the airlock,

  So that thousands more might live.

  She should've been a hero,

  But she was just a girl,

  And sex trumps logic everywhere—r />
  At least in this cold world.

  —

  She hid out in the closet,

  She did it as a fling,

  But girls don't have that option.

  Only boys can do that thing.

  'Cause boys have spunk and daring,

  While girls have warmth and soul.

  She'll never find a husband now,

  For she stepped outside her role.

  —

  It's an old and twice-told story,

  But that don't mean it ain't true:

  When the gas is low, something must go,

  And logic says it's you.

  Men may claim to pull their weight—

  “Authority is hell"—

  But women always pay the freight,

  And take the blame as well.

  —

  —Jack O'Brien

  Copyright (c) 2008 Jack O'Brien

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  * * *

  Short Story: SPIDERS

  by Sue Burke

  Sue Burke spent a few decades working as a journalist before turning to her childhood love, science fiction, which she got from Mom. Her publications include short stories in Escape Pod and Interzone. Sue's first sale to Asimov's was the poem “The Sonnet from Hell” (April/ May 2006). “Spiders,” her first short story for our magazine, is set in the world of Transplants—the author's novel in progress. More information about Sue's writing can be found at www.sue.burke.name.

  SPIDERS

  Just before we went into the forest, I found the sort of thing I wanted to show my son.

  “Roland, look, there's a leaf lizard nest that just hatched. They look just like little leaves of grass, don't they?"

  Springtime. Everything was coming to life again. And just beyond arm's reach, I saw what looked like a dried-up fern but probably wasn't. I kept an eye on it as my boy and I squatted and studied the ground. The lizards were hard to spot at first, but finally he giggled and pointed.

  “They're very little, Daddy."

  “They'll grow. But now they're so little that they can't hurt you. You can let one walk on your hand."