Not One of Us

by Neil Clarke

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Okay, Captain Courageous,” Evelyn said scornfully. “If this is what it takes.” She stuck both her hands into her mouth and pulled outward. The skin to either side of her mouth stretched like rubber, then tore. Her face ripped in half.

  Loop after loop of slick brown flesh flopped down to spill across Hank’s lap, slide over the back of the seat and fill up the rear of the car. The horridly familiar stench of Worm, part night soil and part chemical plant, took possession of him and would not let go. He found himself gagging, half from the smell and half from what it meant.

  A weary sense of futility grasped his shoulders and pushed down hard. “This is only a memory, isn’t it?”

  One end of the Worm rose up and turned toward him. Its beak split open in three parts and from the moist interior came Evelyn’s voice: “The answer to the question you haven’t got the balls to ask is: Yes, you’re dead. A Worm ate you and now you’re passing slowly through an alien gut, being tasted and experienced and understood. You’re nothing more than an emulation being run inside one of those hundred-pound brains.”

  Hank stopped the car and got out. There was an arroyo between him and the alien ship that the car would never be able to get across. So he started walking.

  “It all feels so real,” he said. The sun burned hot on his head, and the stones underfoot were hard. He could see other people walking determinedly through the shimmering heat. They were all converging on the ship.

  “Well, it would, wouldn’t it?” Evelyn walked beside him in human form again. But when he looked back the way they had come, there was only one set of footprints.

  Hank had been walking in a haze of horror and resignation. Now it was penetrated by a sudden stab of fear. “This will end, won’t it? Tell me it will. Tell me that you and I aren’t going to keep cycling through the same memories over and over, chewing on our regrets forever?”

  “You’re as sharp as ever, Hank,” Evelyn said. “That’s exactly what we’ve been doing. It passes the time between planets.”

  “For how long?”

  “For more years than you’d think possible. Space is awfully big, you know. It takes thousands and thousands of years to travel from one star to another.”

  “Then . . . this really is Hell, after all. I mean, I can’t imagine anything worse.” She said nothing.

  They topped a rise and looked down at the ship. It was a tapering cylinder, smooth and featureless save for a ring of openings at the bottom from which emerged the front ends of many Worms. Converging upon it were people who had started earlier or closer than Hank and thus gotten here before he did. They walked straight and unhesitatingly to the nearest Worm and were snatched up and gulped down by those sharp, tripartite beaks. Snap and then swallow. After which, the Worm slid back into the ship and was replaced by another. Not one of the victims showed the least emotion. It was all as dispassionate as an abattoir for robots.

  These creatures below were monstrously large, taller than Hank was. The one he had dissected must have been a hatchling. A grub. It made sense. You wouldn’t want to sacrifice any larger a percentage of your total memories than you had to.

  “Please.” He started down the slope, waving his arms to keep his balance when the sand slipped underfoot. He was crying again, apparently; he could feel the tears running down his cheeks. “Evelyn. Help me.”

  Scornful laughter. “Can you even imagine me helping you?”

  “No, of course—” Hank cut that thought short. Evelyn, the real Evelyn, would not have treated him like this. Yes, she had hurt him badly, and by that time she left, she had been glad to do so. But she wasn’t petty or cruel or vindictive before he made her that way.

  “Accepting responsibility for the mess you made of your life, Hank? You?” “Tell me what to do,” Hank said, pushing aside his anger and resentment, trying to remember Evelyn as she had once been. “Give me a hint.”

  For a maddeningly long moment Evelyn was silent. Then she said, “If the Worm that ate you so long ago could only communicate directly with you . . . what one question do you think it would ask?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think it would be, ‘Why are all your memories so ugly?’”

  Unexpectedly, she gave him a peck on the cheek.

  Hank had arrived. His Worm’s beak opened. Its breath smelled like Evelyn on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Hank stared at the glistening blackness within. So enticing. He wanted to fling himself down it.

  Once more into the gullet, he thought, and took a step closer to the Worm and the soothing darkness it encompassed.

  Its mouth gaped wide, waiting to ingest and transform him.

  Unbidden, then, a memory rose up within Hank of a night when their marriage was young and, traveling through Louisiana, he and Evelyn stopped on an impulse at a roadhouse where there was a zydeco band and beer in bottles and they were happy and in love and danced and danced and danced into an evening without end. It had seemed then that all good things would last forever.

  It was a fragile straw to cling to, but Hank clung to it with all his might.

  Worm and man together, they then thought: No one knows the size of the universe or what wonders and terrors it contains. Yet we drive on, blindly burrowing forward through the darkness, learning what we can and suffering what we must. Hoping for stars.

  Ken Liu (kenliu.name) is an author and translator of speculative fiction, as well as a lawyer and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among other places.

  Ken’s debut novel, The Grace of Kings (2015), is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty. It won the Locus Best First Novel Award and was a Nebula finalist. He subsequently published the second volume in the series, The Wall of Storms (2016), as well as a collection of short stories, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (2016).

  In addition to his original fiction, Ken is also the translator of numerous literary and genre works from Chinese to English. His translation of The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015, the first translated novel ever to receive that honor. He also translated the third volume in Cixin Liu’s series, Death’s End (2016), and edited the first English-language anthology of contemporary Chinese science fiction, Invisible Planets (2016).

  He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

  Reborn

  KEN LIU

  Each of us feels that there is a single “I” in control. But that is an illusion that the brain works hard to produce . . .

  —Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate

  I remember being Reborn. It felt the way I imagine a fish feels as it’s being thrown back into the sea.

  The Judgment Ship slowly drifts in over Fan Pier from Boston Harbor, its metallic disc-shaped hull blending into the dark, roiling sky, its curved upper surface like a pregnant belly.

  It is as large as the old Federal Courthouse on the ground below. A few escort ships hover around the rim, the shifting lights on their surfaces sometimes settling into patterns resembling faces.

  The spectators around me grow silent. The Judgment, scheduled four times a year, still draws a big crowd. I scan the upturned faces. Most are expressionless, some seem awed. A few men whisper to each other and chuckle. I pay some attention to them, but not too much. There hasn’t been a public attack in years.

  “A flying saucer,” one of the men says, a little too loud. Some of the others shuffle away, trying to distance themselves. “A goddamned flying saucer.”

  The crowd has left the space directly below the Judgment Ship empty. A group of Tawnin observers stand in the middle, ready to welcome the Reborn. But Kai, my mate, is absent. Thie told me that thie has witnessed too many Rebirths lately.

  Kai once explained to me that the design of the Judgment Ship
was meant as a sign of respect for local traditions, evoking our historical imagination of little green men and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

  It’s just like how your old courthouse was built with that rotunda on top to resemble a lighthouse, a beacon of justice that pays respect to Boston’s maritime history.

  The Tawnin are not usually interested in history, but Kai has always advocated more effort at accommodating us locals.

  I make my way slowly through the crowd, to get closer to the whispering group. They all have on long, thick coats, perfect for concealing weapons.

  The top of the pregnant Judgment Ship opens and a bright beam of golden light shoots straight up into the sky, where it is reflected by the dark clouds back onto the ground as a gentle, shadowless glow.

  Circular doors open all around the rim of the Judgment Ship, and long, springy lines unwind and fall from the doors. They dangle, flex, and extend like tentacles. The Judgment Ship is now a jellyfish drifting through the air.

  At the end of each line is a human, securely attached like hooked fish by the Tawnin ports located over their spines and between their shoulder blades. As the lines slowly extend and drift closer to the ground, the figures at the ends languidly move their arms and legs, tracing out graceful patterns.

  I’ve almost reached the small group of whispering men. One of them, the one who had spoken too loud earlier, has his hands inside the flap of his thick coat. I move faster, pushing people aside.

  “Poor bastards,” he murmurs, watching the Reborn coming closer to the empty space in the middle of the crowd, coming home. I see his face take on the determination of the fanatic, of a Xenophobe about to kill.

  The Reborn have almost reached the ground. My target is waiting for the moment when the lines from the Judgment Ship are detached so that the Reborn can no longer be snatched back into the air, the moment when the Reborn are still unsteady on their feet, uncertain who they are.

  Still innocent.

  I remember that moment well.

  The right shoulder of my target shifts as he tries to pull something out of his coat. I shove away the two women before me and leap into the air, shouting “Freeze!”

  And then the world slows down as the ground beneath the Reborn erupts like a volcano, and they, along with the Tawnin observers, are tossed into the air, their limbs flopping like marionettes with their strings cut. As I crash into the man before me, a wave of heat and light blanks everything out.

  It takes a few hours to process my suspect and to bandage my wounds. By the time I’m allowed to go home it’s after midnight.

  The streets of Cambridge are quiet and empty because of the new curfew. A fleet of police cars is parked in Harvard Square, a dozen strobing beacons out of sync as I stop, roll down my window, and show my badge.

  The fresh-faced young officer sucks in his breath. The name “Joshua Rennon” may not mean anything to him, but he has seen the black dot on the top right corner of my badge, the dot that allows me inside the high-security domicile compound of the Tawnin.

  “Bad day, sir,” he says. “But don’t worry, we’ve got all the roads leading to your building secured.”

  He tries to make “your building” sound casual, but I can hear the thrill in his voice. He’s one of those. He lives with them.

  He doesn’t step away from the car. “How’s the investigation going, if you don’t mind me asking?” His eyes roam all over me, the hunger of his curiosity so strong that it’s almost palpable.

  I know that the question he really wants to ask is: What’s it like?

  I turn my face straight ahead. I roll up the window.

  After a moment, he steps back, and I step on the gas hard so that the tires give a satisfying squeal as I shoot away.

  The walled compound used to be Radcliffe Yard.

  I open the door to our apartment and the soft golden light that Kai prefers, a reminder of the afternoon, makes me shudder.

  Kai is in the living room, sitting on the couch.

  “Sorry I didn’t call.”

  Kai stands up to thir full eight-foot height and opens thir arms, thir dark eyes gazing at me like the eyes of those giant fish that swim through the large tank at the New England Aquarium. I step into thir embrace and inhale thir familiar fragrance, a mixture of floral and spicy scents, the smell of an alien world and of home.

  “You’ve heard?”

  Instead of answering, thie undresses me gently, careful around my bandages. I close my eyes and do not resist, feeling the layers fall away from me piece by piece.

  When I’m naked, I tilt my head up and thie kisses me, thir tubular tongue warm and salty in my mouth. I place my arms around thim, feeling on the back of thir head the long scar whose history I do not know and do not seek.

  Then thie wraps thir primary arms around my head, pulling my face against thir soft, fuzzy chest. Thir tertiary arms, strong and supple, wrap around my waist. The nimble and sensitive tips of thir secondary arms lightly caress my shoulders for a moment before they find my Tawnin port and gently pry the skin apart and push in.

  I gasp the moment the connection is made and I feel my limbs grow rigid and then loose as I let go, allowing Kai’s strong arms to support my weight. I close my eyes so I can enjoy the way my body appears through Kai’s senses: the way warm blood coursing through my vessels creates a glowing map of pulsing red and gold currents against the cooler, bluish skin on my back and buttocks, the way my short hair pricks the sensitive skin of thir primary hands, the way my chaotic thoughts are gradually soothed and rendered intelligible by thir gentle, guiding nudges. We’re now connected in the most intimate way that two minds, two bodies can be.

  That’s what it’s like, I think.

  Don’t be annoyed by their ignorance, thie thinks.

  I replay the afternoon: the arrogant and careless manner in which I carried out my duty, the surprise of the explosion, the guilt and regret as I watched the Reborn and the Tawnin die. The helpless rage.

  You’ll find them, thie thinks.

  I will.

  Then I feel thir body moving against me, all of thir six arms and two legs probing, caressing, grasping, squeezing, penetrating. And I echo thir movements, my hands, lips, feet roaming against thir cool, soft skin the way I have come to learn thie likes, thir pleasure as clear and present as my own.

  Thought seems as unnecessary as speech.

  The interrogation room in the basement of the Federal Courthouse is tiny and claustrophobic, a cage.

  I close the door behind me and hang up my jacket. I’m not afraid to turn my back to the suspect. Adam Woods sits with his face buried between his hands, elbows on the stainless steel table. There’s no fight left in him.

  “I’m Special Agent Joshua Rennon, Tawnin Protection Bureau.” I wave my badge at him out of habit.

  He looks up at me, his eyes bloodshot and dull.

  “Your old life is over, as I’m sure you already know.” I don’t read him his rights or tell him that he can have a lawyer, the rituals of a less civilized age. There’s no more need for lawyers—no more trials, no more police tricks.

  He stares at me, his eyes full of hatred.

  “What’s it like?” he asks, his voice a low whisper. “Being fucked by one of them every night?”

  I pause. I can’t imagine he noticed the black dot on my badge in such a quick look. Then I realize that it was because I had turned my back to him. He could see the outline of the Tawnin port through my shirt. He knew I had been Reborn, and it was a lucky—but reasonable—guess that someone whose port was kept open was bonded to a Tawnin.

  I don’t take the bait. I’m used to the kind of xenophobia that drives men like him to kill.

  “You’ll be probed after the surgery. But if you confess now and give useful information about your co-conspirators, after your Rebirth you’ll be given a good job and a good life, and you’ll get to keep the memories of most of your friends and family. But if you lie or say nothing, we’ll learn everything we need
anyway and you’ll be sent to California for fallout clean-up duty with a blank slate of a mind. And anyone who cared about you will forget you, completely. Your choice.”

  “How do you know I have any co-conspirators?”

  “I saw you when the explosion happened. You were expecting it. I believe your role was to try to kill more Tawnin in the chaos after the explosion.”

  He continues to stare at me, his hatred unrelenting. Then, abruptly, he seems to think of something. “You’ve been Reborn more than once, haven’t you?”

  I stiffen. “How did you know?”

  He smiles. “Just a hunch. You stand and sit too straight. What did you do the last time?”

  I should be prepared for the question, but I’m not. Two months after my Rebirth, I’m still raw, off my game. “You know I can’t answer that.”

  “You remember nothing?”

  “That was a rotten part of me that was cut out,” I tell him. “Just like it will be cut out of you. The Josh Rennon who committed whatever crime he did no longer exists, and it is only right that the crime be forgotten. The Tawnin are a compassionate and merciful people. They only remove those parts of me and you that are truly responsible for the crime—the mens rea, the evil will.”

  “A compassionate and merciful people,” he repeats. And I see something new in his eyes: pity.

  A sudden rage seizes me. He is the one to be pitied, not me. Before he has a chance to put up his hands I lunge at him and punch him in the face, once, twice, three times, hard.

  Blood flows from his nose as his hands waver before him. He doesn’t make any noise, but continues to look at me with his calm, pity-filled eyes.

  “They killed my father in front of me,” he says. He wipes the blood from his lips and shakes his hand to get rid of it. Droplets of blood hit my shirt, the scarlet beads bright against its white fabric. “I was thirteen, and hiding in the backyard shed. Through a slit in the doors I saw him take a swing at one of them with a baseball bat. The thing blocked it with one arm and seized his head with another pair of arms and just ripped it off. Then they burned my mother. I’ll never forget the smell of cooked flesh.”