Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition

by Rich Horton

  Our cadre must have this weird affinity for orange, I don't know.

  We went to Pallas, Juno, and Vesta. Though if you ask me, one asteroid settlement is pretty much like the next.

  We went to Third Heaven, which is a habitat the God's Menu people built at L2. And they can keep a lot of the items on the menu, if you ask me.

  We visited Luna (which you would call the Moon, Doctor Sam. As if there was only one). And we got to view Everlasting Dynasty, the starship being constructed in lunar orbit for the expedition to Tau Ceti, the settlement that Anna-Lee was trying her best to get Janis aboard.

  We also got to visit Mars three times. So among other entertainments I looked down at the planet from the top of Olympus Mons, the largest mountain in the solar system, and I looked down from the edge of the solar system's largest canyon, and then I looked up from the bottom of the same canyon.

  We all tried to wear blue if we could, in memory of the one of us who couldn't be present.

  Aside from the sights, the Incarnation Day parties were great because all our incarnated cadre members turned up, in bodies they'd borrowed for the occasion. We were all still close, of course, and kept continually in touch, but our communication was limited by the speed of light and it wasn't anything like having Fahd and Chandra and Solange there in person, to pummel and to hug.

  We didn't go to Earth. I was the only one of our cadre who had applied there, and I hadn't got an answer yet. I couldn't help fantasizing about what my Incarnation Day party would be like if I held it on Earth—where would I go? What would we look at? Rome? Mount Everest? The ocean habitats? The plans of Africa, where the human race began?

  It was painful to think that the odds were high that I'd never see any of these places.

  Janis never tried to organize any of her little rebellions on these trips. For one thing word had got out, and we were all pretty closely supervised. Her behavior was never less than what Anna-Lee would desire. But under it all I could tell she was planning something drastic.

  I tried to talk to her about it. I talked about my thesis, and hoped it would lead to a discussion of her thesis. But no luck. She evaded the topic completely.

  She was pretty busy with her project, though, whatever it was. Because she was always buzzing around the cadre asking people where to look for odd bits of knowledge.

  I couldn't make sense of her questions, though. They seemed to cover too many fields. Sociology, statistics, minerology, criminology, economics, astronomy, spaceship design ... The project seemed too huge.

  The only thing I knew about Janis’ thesis was that it was supposed to be about resource management. It was the field that Anna-Lee forced her into, because it was full of skills that would be useful on the Tau Ceti expedition. And if that didn't work, Anna-Lee made sure Janis minored in spaceship and shuttle piloting and navigation.

  I finally finished my thesis, and then I sat back and waited for the job offers to roll in. The only offer I got came from someone who wanted me to run the garbage cyclers on Iapetus, which the guy should have known I wouldn't accept if he had bothered to read my application.

  Maybe he was just neck-deep in garbage and desperate, I don't know.

  And then the most astounding thing happened. Instead of a job in the computer field, I got an offer to study at the Pisan Academy.

  Which is an art school. Which is in Italy, which is where the paintings come from mostly.

  The acceptance committee said that my work showed a “naive but highly original fusion of social criticism with the formalities of the geometric order.” I don't even pretend to know what they meant by that, but I suspect they just weren't used to the perspective of a student who had spent practically her entire live in a computer on Ceres.

  I broadcast my shrieks of joy to everyone in the cadre, even those who had left Ceres and were probably wincing at their work stations when my screams reached them.

  I bounced around the common room and everyone came out to congratulate me. Even Janis, who had taken to wearing an avatar that wasn't even remotely human, just a graphic of a big sledgehammer smashing a rock, over and over.

  Subtlety had never been her strong point.

  "Congratulations,” she said. “You got what you wanted."

  And then she broadcast something on a private channel. You're going to be famous, she said. But I'm going to be a legend.

  I looked at her. And then I sent back, Can we talk about this?

  In a few days. When I deliver my thesis.

  Don't, I pleaded.

  Too late.

  The hammer hit its rock, and the shards flew out into the room and vanished.

  I spent the next few days planning my Incarnation Day party, but my heart wasn't in it. I kept wondering if Janis was going to be alive to enjoy it.

  I finally decided to have my party in Thailand because there were so many interesting environments in one place, as well as the Great Buddha. And I found a caterer that was supposed to be really good.

  I decided what sort of body I wanted, and the incarnation specialists on Earth started cooking it up in one of their vats. Not the body of an Earth-born fourteen-year old, but older, more like eighteen. Brown eyes, brown hair, and those big eyes that had always been so useful.

  And two legs, of course. Which is what they all have down there.

  I set the date. The cadre were alerted. We all practiced in the simulations and tried to get used to making do with only two arms. Everyone was prepared.

  And then Janis finished her thesis. I downloaded a copy the second it was submitted to her committee and read it in one long sitting, and my sense of horror grew with every line.

  What Janis had done was publish a comprehensive critique of our entire society! It was a piece of brilliance, and at the same time it was utter poison.

  Posthuman society wrecks its children, Janis said, and this can be demonstrated by the percentage of neurotic and dysfunctional adults. The problems encountered by the first generation of children who spent their formative years as programs—the autism, the obsessions and compulsions, the addictions to electronic environments—hadn't gone away, they'd just been reduced to the point where they'd become a part of the background clutter, a part of our civilization so everyday that we never quite noticed it.

  Janis had the data, too. The number of people who were under treatment for one thing or another. The percentage who had difficulty adjusting to their incarnations, or who didn't want to communicate with anyone outside their cadre, or who couldn't sleep unless they were immersed in a simulation. Or who committed suicide. Or who died in accidents—Janis questioned whether all those accidents were really the results of our harsh environments. Our machines and our settlements were much safer than they had been in the early days, but the rates of accidental death were still high. How many accidents were caused by distracted or unhappy operators, or for that matter were deliberate “suicide by machine"?

  Janis went on to describe one of the victims of this ruthless type of upbringing. “Flat of emotional affect, offended by disorder and incapable of coping with obstruction, unable to function without adherence to a belief system as rigid as the artificial and constricted environments in which she was raised."

  When I realized Janis was describing Anna-Lee I almost de-rezzed.

  Janis offered a scheme to cure the problem, which was to get rid of the virtual environments and start out with real incarnated babies. She pulled out vast numbers of statistics demonstrating that places that did this—chiefly Earth—seemed to raise more successful adults. She also pointed out that the initial shortage of resources that had prompted the creation of virtual children in the first place had long since passed—plenty of water-ice coming in from the Kuyper Belt these days, and we were sitting on all the minerals we could want. The only reason the system continued was for the convenience of the adults. But genuine babies, as opposed to abstract computer programs, would help the adults, too. They would no longer be tempted to become little di
ctators with absolute power over their offspring. Janis said the chance would turn the grownups into better human beings.

  All this was buttressed by colossal numbers of statistics, graphs, and other data. I realized when I'd finished it that the Cadre of Glorious Destiny had produced one true genius, and that this genius was Janis.

  The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.

  Anna-Lee determined her, all right, and the problem was that Janis probably didn't have that long to live. Aside from the fact that Janis had ruthlessly caricatured her, Anna-Lee couldn't help but notice that the whole work went smack up against the Five Principles Movement. According to the Movement people, all available resources had to be devoted to the expansion of the human race out of the solar system and into new environments. It didn't matter how many more resources were available now than in the past, it was clear against their principles to devote a greater share to the raising of children when it could be used to blast off into the universe.

  And though the Five Principles people acknowledged our rather high death rate, they put it down to our settlements’ hazardous environments. All we had to do was genetically modify people to better suit the environments and the problem would be solved.

  I skipped the appendices and zoomed from my room across the common room to Janis’ door, and hit the button to alert her to a visitor. The door vanished, and there was Janis—for the first time since her fight with Anna-Lee, she was using her quadbod avatar. She gave me a wicked grin.

  "Great, isn't it?"

  "It's brilliant! But you can't let Anna-Lee see it."

  "Don't be silly. I sent mom the file myself."

  I was horrified. She had to have seen the way my Picasso-face gaped, and it made her laugh.

  "She'll have you erased!” I said.

  "If she does,” Janis said. “She'll only prove my point.” She put a consoling hand on my shoulder. “Sorry if it means missing your incarnation."

  When Anna-Lee came storming in—which wasn't long after—Janis broadcast the whole confrontation on a one-way link to the whole cadre. We got to watch, but not to participate. She didn't want our advice any more than she wanted her mother's.

  "You are unnatural!” Anna-Lee stormed. “You spread slanders! You have betrayed the highest truth!"

  "I told the truth!” Janis said. “And you know it's the truth, otherwise you wouldn't be so insane right now."

  Anna-Lee stiffened. “I am a Five Principles Constant Soldier. I know the truth, and I know my duty."

  "Every time you say that, you prove my point."

  "You will retract this thesis, and apologize to your committee for giving them such a vicious document."

  Anna-Lee hadn't realized that the document was irretrievable, that Janis had given it to everyone she knew.

  Janis laughed. “No way, mom,” she said.

  Anna-Lee lost it. She waved her fists and screamed. “I know my duty! I will not allow such a slander to be seen by anyone!” She pointed at Janis. “You have three days to retract!"

  Janis gave a snort of contempt.

  "Or what?"

  "Or I will decide that you're incorrigible and terminate your program."

  Janis laughed. “Go right ahead, mom. Do it now. Nothing spreads a new idea better than martyrdom.” She spread her four arms. “Do it, mom. I hate life in this hell. I'm ready."

  I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

  Yes, Doctor Sam. That's it exactly.

  "You have three days,” Anna-Lee said, her voice all flat and menacing, and then her virtual image de-rezzed.

  Janis looked at the space where her mom had been, and then a goofy grin spread across her face. She switched to the red-headed, stick-figure avatar, and began to do a little dance as she hovered in the air, moving like a badly animated cartoon.

  "Hey!” she sang. “I get to go to Alison's party after all!"

  I had been so caught up in the drama that I had forgot my incarnation was going to happen in two days.

  But it wasn't going to be a party now. It was going to be a wake.

  "Doctor Sam,” I said, “I've got to save Janis."

  The triumph of hope over experience.

  "Hope is what I've got,” I said, and then I thought about it. “And maybe a little experience, too."

  * * * *

  My Incarnation Day went well. We came down by glider, as we had that first time on Titan, except that this time I told Ground Control to let my friends land wherever the hell they wanted. That gave us time to inspect the Great Buddha, a slim man with a knowing smile sitting crosslegged with knobs on his head. He's two and a half kilometers tall and packed with massively parallel quantum processors, all crunching vast amounts of data, thinking whatever profound thoughts are appropriate to an artificial intelligence built on such a scale, and repeating millions of sutras, which are scriptures for Buddhists, all at the speed of light.

  It creeps along at two or three centimeters per day, and will enter the strait at the end of the Kra Peninsula many thousands of years from now.

  After viewing the Buddha's serene expression from as many angles as suited us, we soared and swooped over many kilometers of brilliant green jungle and landed on the beach. And we all did land on the beach, which sort of surprised me. And then we all did our best to learn how to surf—and let me tell you from the start, the surfing simulators are totally inadequate. The longest I managed to stand my board was maybe twenty seconds.

  I was amazed at all the sensations that crowded all around me. The breeze on my skin, the scents of the sea and the vegetation and the coal on which our banquet was being cooked. The hot sand under my bare feet. The salt taste of the ocean on my lips. The sting of the little jellyfish on my legs and arms, and the iodine smell of the thick strand of seaweed that got wrapped in my hair.

  I mean, I had no idea. The simulators were totally inadequate to the Earth experience.

  And this was just a part of the Earth, a small fraction of the environments available. I think I convinced a lot of the cadre that maybe they'd want to move to Earth as soon as they could raise the money and find a job.

  After swimming and beach games we had my Incarnation Day dinner. The sensations provided by the food were really too intense—I couldn't eat much of it. If I was going to eat Earth food, I was going to have to start with something a lot more bland.

  And there was my brown-eyed body at the head of the table, looking down at the members of the Cadre of Glorious Destiny who were toasting me with tropical drinks, the kind that have parasols in them.

  Tears came to my eyes, and they were a lot wetter and hotter than tears in the sims. For some reason that fact made me cry even more.

  My parents came to the dinner, because this was the first time they could actually hug me—hug me for real, that is, and not in a sim. They had downloaded into bodies that didn't look much like the four-armed quadbods they used back on Ceres, but that didn't matter. When my arms went around them, I began to cry again.

  After the tears were wiped away we put on underwater gear and went for a swim on the reef, which is just amazing. More colors and shapes and textures than I could ever imagine—or imagine putting in a work of art.

  A work of art that embodies all but selects none is not art, but mere cant and recitation.

  Oh, wow. You're right. Thank you, Doctor Sam.

  After the reef trip we paid a visit to one of the underwater settlements, one inhabited by people adapted to breathe water. The problems were was that we had to keep our underwater gear on, and that none of us were any good at the fluid sign language they all used as their preferred means of communication.

  Then we rose from the ocean, dried out, and had a last round of hugs before being uploaded to our normal habitations. I gave Janis a particularly strong hug, and I whispered in her ear.

  "Take care of yourself."

  "Who?” she grinned. “Me?"

  And then t
he little brown-haired body was left behind, looking very lonely, as everyone else put on the electrodes and uploaded back to their normal and very distant worlds.

  As soon as I arrived on Ceres, I zapped an avatar of myself into my parents’ quarters. They looked at me as if I were a ghost.

  "What are you doing here?” my mother managed.

  "I hate to tell you this,” I said, “but I think you're going to have to hire a lawyer."

  * * * *

  It was surprisingly easy to do, really. Remember that I was assisting Dane, who was a communications tech, and in charge of uploading all of our little artificial brains to Earth. And also remember that I am a specialist in systems interopability, which implies that I am also a specialist in systems unoperability.

  It was very easy to set a couple of artificial intelligences running amok in Dane's system just as he was working on our upload. And that so distracted him that he said yes when I said that I'd do the job for him.

  And once I had access, it was the work of a moment to swap a couple of serial numbers.

  The end result of which was that it was Janis who uploaded into my brown-haired body, and received all the toasts, and who hugged my parents with my arms. And who is now on Earth, incarnated, with a full set of human rights and safe from Anna-Lee.

  I wish I could say the same for myself.

  Anna-Lee couldn't have me killed, of course, since I don't belong to her. But she could sue my parents, who from her point of view permitted a piece of software belonging to them to prevent her from wreaking vengeance on some software that belonged to her.

  And of course Anna-Lee went berserk the second she found out—which was more or less immediately, since Janis sent her a little radio taunt as soon as she downed her fourth or fifth celebratory umbrella drink.

  Janis sent me a message, too.

  "The least you could have done was make my hair red."

  My hair. Sometimes I wonder why I bothered.