by Neil Clarke
She lied, of course. She couldn’t do it. But she didn’t want to say any more, not when Maise had orchestrated this.
“I can move someone to your afternoon cases,” Maise said. “You can take the rest of the day off.”
Kerrie shook her head. “You said I could leave if I wanted to.”
“You can,” Maise said. “But as I said, if you stay one week—”
“I will,” Kerrie said. “I’ll stay that week.”
Because it was easier to stay and think than it was to flee just like Donnatella did.
Besides, Kerrie hadn’t given life after this job much thought. She hadn’t had time, for one thing, and for another, she had no idea who would recruit her, and if they didn’t, what she wanted to do. Apparently, she was going to get recruited now. And that alone made her a little shaky.
“I’ll take my cases for the day,” Kerrie said. “But ease me out of the rest of the week.”
“Done,” Maise said.
Kerrie nodded, stood, and stopped. “Thanks,” she said.
“Don’t thank me,” Maise said, and somehow that didn’t sound like a perfunctory statement. Maise really didn’t want credit. Probably because of her bigotry against the Peyti. Or maybe because she hadn’t known exactly how to approach the case herself.
Kerrie let herself out of the room. She’d buy herself a coffee somewhere else. She had time for once.
She murmured thanks to her colleagues as they congratulated her, a number of them touching her arm as if her good luck could rub off on them.
As she stepped outside of the office, a movement beside the door caught her eye.
The Peyti, Uzvik, straightened. He had been sitting there, and apparently he had been waiting for her.
“I already put Donnatella on the shuttle,” Kerrie said. “She’s probably in Helena now. I’m sure you can find her there.”
“I did not come to see her,” he said in his soft voice. It sounded hollow because of the breathing mask. “I came to see you.”
Kerrie frowned. “Me?”
Uzvik nodded. “I have come to offer you work.”
She stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Work?”
“The Black Fleet needs lawyers,” Uzvik said.
“I’m sure they do,” Kerrie said. “But I know nothing of Black Fleet law. I’m not even sure there is any.”
“For their interactions with the Earth Alliance,” Uzvik said.
She tilted her head, uncertain what he was saying. “You’re recruiting me to work for the Black Fleet?”
“We pay our lawyers more than any other group. You cannot even make this much in private practice. You wouldn’t even work that hard.”
“I don’t understand,” Kerrie said. “What do you want with me?”
“You have proven yourself to be creative and flexible, two things the Black Fleet needs in its attorneys. Most lawyers cannot find the loophole that you discovered in this case. You are gifted, Counselor.”
Gifted. Most lawyers. It took her a moment to process what he was saying.
“You were never here for Donnatella, were you?” Kerrie asked. “This was some kind of test, wasn’t it?” “Yes,” Uzvik said.
“And if I failed, what then?” Kerrie asked. “Would Donnatella have gone to the Ziyit?” “Yes,” Uzvik said.
“You were willing to sacrifice her for a test?” Kerrie asked, her voice rising. “Did she know that?”
“Her case was legitimate,” Uzvik said.
“So she didn’t know,” Kerrie said. “Would you have told me if I had let you second chair?”
“That would have defeated the test,” Uzvik said.
“She could have died,” Kerrie said.
“But she did not.”
“Did you get her kicked out of the Black Fleet, then?” Kerrie asked. “Did you turn her in to the Earth Alliance?”
“No,” Uzvik said. “The circumstances were of her own making.”
“They were simply there for you to exploit,” Kerrie said.
“Just so.” Uzvik folded his long thin fingers.
“And you think that I would work for you after this?”
“It is easy work,” he said. “You would make money and you would have maybe two cases per year.”
“All I would have to do is sell my soul,” Kerrie said.
“The matter of the human ‘soul’ has never been proven,” Uzvik said.
Kerrie stared at him. He was Peyti, literal, difficult, brilliant.
“The Peyti are known for their ethics,” she said.
“We are known for rigorously defending our clients to the fullest extent of Earth Alliance law,” he said.
He was right; she had simply taken that as ethics.
“Get away from me,” she said.
“I am authorized to make a generous offer—”
“No,” she snapped. “Get the hell away from me.”
“You would be perfect—”
“No.” She walked toward the coffee nook, so fast she was nearly running. Just when she thought she had seen everything, every kind of permutation of Earth Alliance law, every type of victim, someone came up with something even more venal.
A test, one that would have sacrificed Donnatella for no reason at all.
“The result would have been the same.” The Peyti had kept up with her. She could hear his labored breathing as he struggled to remain beside her. “She would have gone to Ziyit without my interference.”
“But you could have prevented it.” Kerrie said. Then she stopped again. The Peyti nearly walked into her. “Did Maise know about this?”
“We asked that the best be assigned this case,” Uzvik said.
She did. She knew. And she had manipulated Kerrie into taking the case.
Kerrie’s stomach turned. “I told you to get away from me,” she said. “And I mean it. I’ll call base security if I have to.”
She turned around and headed back to the public defender’s office. Uzvik remained where he was, looking small.
She went through the doors. Maise was talking to one of the associates. Kerrie was so angry, she almost couldn’t speak.
She wondered if Maise’s prejudice against Peyti was a ruse, one she used whenever she was working with the Black Fleet.
“Do you get a cut?” Kerrie asked.
Maise looked up.
“A recruitment cut?” Kerrie asked. “From the Black Fleet? Do they pay you to bring them the best and brightest?” “Let’s go to the conference room,” Maise said.
“Let’s not,” Kerrie said. “Everyone can hear this. I quit. I’m done. And you guys, if Maise offers you a case, watch out. It might be poisoned.”
“You should stay,” Maise said. “The recruiters—”
“I know,” Kerrie said. “I don’t really care. I’m going to find a job. And it won’t be one that requires a high-end recruiter. Because I’m done here. Right now.”
Then she slammed her way out of the office. Messages ran along her links from the various lawyers in the PD’s office. Some messages were automated, telling her how to wrap up her career with the InterSpecies Court. Others were filled with questions, questions she wasn’t going to answer.
She went back to her apartment. Except for the night court lawyer who was asleep, the apartment was empty.
She went to her room and gathered her belongings. She would head to Helena. And there, she would figure out what to do.
At the moment, she saw only two options: She could contact independent Disappearance Services. They needed lawyers too. Of course, she would be crossing all kinds of lines, legal and ethical.
Although she would be doing it for a good cause.
Or she could ally herself with some of the legal groups that took big cases, cases that got appealed to the Multicultural Tribunals, cases that might lead to overturning treaties, and modifying laws.
All she knew was that she couldn’t stay here. And she knew she couldn’t work for an organization like the Black Fleet. An
organization willing to sacrifice its own people as a test.
The Earth Alliance sacrificed its people to satisfy treaties, to facilitate trade.
She had been a blind participant to it all.
But she was blind no longer.
And she knew how she felt.
She hated all of it.
And she would never be part of it again.
Since the publication of his first novel in 1986, Robert Charles Wilson has produced almost twenty novels and a volume of short stories. His Hugo Award-winning novel Spin was published in more than six languages and received the French Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, the German Kurd Lasswitz Prize, and the Japanese Seiun Award. His most recent work includes The Affinities and Last Year. Born in California, Robert Charles Wilson lives near Toronto with his wife, professional proofreader and music journalist Sharry Wilson.
UTRIUSQUE COSMI
Robert Charles Wilson
Diving back into the universe (now that the universe is a finished object, boxed and ribboned from bang to bounce), Carlotta calculates ever-finer loci on the frozen ordinates of spacetime until at last she reaches a trailer park outside the town of Commanche Drop, Arizona. Bodiless, no more than a breath of imprecision in the Feynman geography of certain virtual particles, thus powerless to affect the material world, she passes unimpeded through a sheet-aluminum wall and hovers over a mattress on which a young woman sleeps uneasily.
The young woman is her own ancient self, the primordial Carlotta Boudaine, dewed with sweat in the hot night air, her legs caught up in a spindled cotton sheet. The bedroom’s small window is cranked open, and in the breezeless distance a coyote wails.
Well, look at me, Carlotta marvels: skinny girl in panties and a halter, sixteen years old—no older than a gnat’s breath—taking shallow little sleep-breaths in the moonlit dark. Poor child can’t even see her own ghost. Ah, but she will, Carlotta thinks—she must.
The familiar words echo in her mind as she inspects her dreaming body, buried in its tomb of years, eons, kalpas. When it’s time to leave, leave. Don’t be afraid. Don’t wait. Don’t get caught. Just go. Go fast.
Her ancient beloved poem. Her perennial mantra. The words, in fact, that saved her life.
She needs to share those words with herself, to make the circle complete. Everything she knows about the nature of the physical universe suggests that the task is impossible. Maybe so . . . but it won’t be for lack of trying.
Patiently, slowly, soundlessly, Carlotta begins to speak.
Here’s the story of the Fleet, girl, and how I got raptured up into it. It’s all about the future—a bigger one than you believe in—so brace yourself.
It has a thousand names and more, but we’ll just call it the Fleet. When I first encountered it, the Fleet was scattered from the core of the galaxy all through its spiraled tentacles of suns, and it had been there for millions of years, going about its business, though nobody on this planet knew anything about it. I guess every now and then a Fleet ship must have fallen to Earth, but it would have been indistinguishable from any common meteorite by the time it passed through the atmosphere: a chunk of carbonaceous chondrite smaller than a human fist, from which all evidence of ordered matter had been erased by fire—and such losses, which happened everywhere and often, made no discernible difference to the Fleet as a whole. All Fleet data (that is to say, all mind) was shared, distributed, fractal. Vessels were born and vessels were destroyed; but the Fleet persisted down countless eons, confident of its own immortality.
Oh, I know you don’t understand the big words, child! It’s not important for you to hear them—not these words—it’s only important for me to say them. Why? Because a few billion years ago tomorrow, I carried your ignorance out of this very trailer, carried it down to the Interstate and hitched west with nothing in my backpack but a bottle of water, a half-dozen Tootsie Rolls, and a wad of twenty-dollar bills stolen out of Dan-O’s old ditty bag. That night (tomorrow night: mark it) I slept under an overpass all by myself, woke up cold and hungry long before dawn, and looked up past a concrete arch crusted with bird shit into a sky so thick with falling stars it made me think of a dark skin bee-stung with fire. Some of the Fleet vectored too close to the atmosphere that night, no doubt, but I didn’t understand that (any more than you do, girl)—I just thought it was a big flock of shooting stars, pretty but meaningless. And, after a while, I slept some more. And come sunrise, I waited for the morning traffic so I could catch another ride . . . but the only cars that came by were all weaving or speeding, as if the whole world was driving home from a drunken party.
“They won’t stop,” a voice behind me said. “Those folks already made their decisions, Carlotta. Whether they want to live or die, I mean. Same decision you have to make.”
I whirled around, sick-startled, and that was when I first laid eyes on dear Erasmus.
Let me tell you right off that Erasmus wasn’t a human being. Erasmus just then was a knot of shiny metal angles about the size of a microwave oven, hovering in mid-air, with a pair of eyes like the polished tourmaline they sell at those roadside souvenir shops. He didn’t have to look that way—it was some old avatar he used because he figured that it would impress me. But I didn’t know that then. I was only surprised, if that’s not too mild a word, and too shocked to be truly frightened.
“The world won’t last much longer,” Erasmus said in a low and mournful voice. “You can stay here, or you can come with me. But choose quick, Carlotta, because the mantle’s come unstable and the continents are starting to slip.”
I half believed that I was still asleep and dreaming. I didn’t know what that meant, about the mantle, though I guessed he was talking about the end of the world. Some quality of his voice (which reminded me of that actor Morgan Freeman) made me trust him despite how weird and impossible the whole conversation was. Plus, I had a confirming sense that something was going bad somewhere, partly because of the scant traffic (a Toyota zoomed past, clocking speeds it had never been built for, the driver a hunched blur behind the wheel), partly because of the ugly green cloud that just then billowed up over a row of rat-toothed mountains on the horizon. Also the sudden hot breeze. And the smell of distant burning. And the sound of what might have been thunder, or something worse.
“Go with you where?”
“To the stars, Carlotta! But you’ll have to leave your body behind.”
I didn’t like the part about leaving my body behind. But what choice did I have, except the one he’d offered me? Stay or go. Simple as that.
It was a ride—just not the kind I’d been expecting.
There was a tremor in the earth, like the devil knocking at the soles of my shoes. “Okay,” I said, “whatever,” as white dust bloomed up from the desert and was taken by the frantic wind.
Don’t be afraid. Don’t wait. Don’t get caught. Just go. Go fast.
Without those words in my head, I swear, girl, I would have died that day. Billions did.
·
She slows down the passage of time so she can fit this odd but somehow necessary monologue into the space between one or two of the younger Carlotta’s breaths. Of course, she has no real voice in which to speak. The past is static, imperturbable in its endless sleep; molecules of air on their fixed trajectories can’t be manipulated from the shadowy place where she now exists. Wake up with the dawn, girl, she says, steal the money you’ll never spend—it doesn’t matter; the important thing is to leave. It’s time.
When it’s time to leave, leave. Of all the memories she carried out of her earthly life, this is the most vivid: waking to discover a ghostly presence in her darkened room, a white-robed woman giving her the advice she needs at the moment she needs it. Suddenly Carlotta wants to scream the words: When it’s time to leave—
But she can’t vibrate even a single mote of the ancient air, and the younger Carlotta sleeps on.
Next to the bed is a thrift-shop night table scarred with cigarette burns. On the tabl
e is a child’s night-light, faded cut-outs of Sponge-Bob Square-Pants pasted on the paper shade. Next to that, hidden under a splayed copy of People magazine, is the bottle of barbiturates Carlotta stole from Dan-O’s ditty-bag this afternoon, the same khaki bag in which (she couldn’t help but notice) Dan-O keeps his cash, a change of clothes, a fake driver’s license, and a blue steel automatic pistol.
Young Carlotta detects no ghostly presence . . . nor is her sleep disturbed by the sound of Dan-O’s angry voice and her mother’s sudden gasp, two rooms away. Apparently, Dan-O is awake and sober. Apparently, Dan-O has discovered the theft. That’s a complication.
But Carlotta won’t allow herself to be hurried.
The hardest thing about joining the Fleet was giving up the idea that I had a body, that my body had a real place to be.
But that’s what everybody believed at first, that we were still whole and normal—everybody rescued from Earth, I mean. Everybody who said “Yes” to Erasmus—and Erasmus, in one form or another, had appeared to every human being on the planet in the moments before the end of the world. Two and a half billion of us accepted the offer of rescue. The rest chose to stay put and died when the Earth’s continents dissolved into molten magma.
Of course, that created problems for the survivors. Children without parents, parents without children, lovers separated for eternity. It was as sad and tragic as any other incomplete rescue, except on a planetary scale. When we left the Earth, we all just sort of re-appeared on a grassy plain as flat as Kansas and wider than the horizon, under a blue faux sky, each of us with an Erasmus at his shoulder and all of us wailing or sobbing or demanding explanations.
The plain wasn’t “real,” of course, not the way I was accustomed to things being real. It was a virtual place, and all of us were wearing virtual bodies, though we didn’t understand that fact immediately. We kept on being what we expected ourselves to be—we even wore the clothes we’d worn when we were raptured up. I remember looking down at the pair of greasy second-hand Reeboks I’d found at the Commanche Drop Goodwill store, thinking: in Heaven? Really?
“Is there any place you’d rather be?” Erasmus asked with a maddening and clearly inhuman patience. “Anyone you need to find?”
