Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Page 43
you’ll do what?”
world of Varuna. Earth centuries have passed
Beeflat’s new body smiled. “I still hold the
orbiting this speck and its inconsequential
keys to death in the ’scape. I will eat my fill of
biosphere. There is nothing here to contribute
rotten sisters and mothers. I will scour the
to the Grand Project. Nothing here con-
mindscape of her bad seeds and plant my
tributes to the goal of preventing the heat
own. And then, I will mark this world sur-
death of our universe.”
veyed and proceed to the next. There will be
“You are so much like her, in many ways,
new songs to sing and new notes. I will be the
even six iterations removed. Your little obses-
Mother I always wished I had.”
sion with beauty—you get that from her most
“I could help you,” Cee said, trying one last
of all.”
desperate gambit. “Please. I can almost see the
“You can’t know that Varuna is a dead end,”
beauty of it.”
Cee protested. Beef lat’s drones were begin-
Bee’s smile faded and she shook her head.
ning to swarm over her body, which still re-
“You are helping, Ceesharp. You will be my
mained under the control of Beef lat’s geas.
Crone, plotting against me in the darkness.
Their cabling poked and prodded, and made
Good-bye. I don’t believe we will meet again.”
interface contact. She felt the hint of another
With that, Bee turned and walked away.
mind pressing against her. “We have barely be-
“If what you say is true and we are all rotten
gun to study Varuna.”
fruit, then you are no different, Sister. One day
“The Agatha has orbited this world for
your daughters will rebel against you, and I
twelve thousand Earth years,” Beeflat said. “In
will be here waiting to plant songs and whis-
the beginning, this ship was called the Mid-
pers in their ears.” Ceesharp called out to the
night Seeker. It was crewed with a dozen dif-
empty ship. Her words echoed back to her
ferent minds, organic minds born of Earth.
unanswered.
When they voted to move on to another plan-
She would be the better mother, better than
et, Mother would not let go. She loved Varuna
her own, the Mother, and better than whatev-
too much.”
er horrifying matriarchy to which Bee would
THE DISSONANT NOTE
157
ANALOG
give birth. Cee’s daughters would be named
Jeremiah Tolbert is a web designer and a
after f lowers and not notes, and they would
writer living in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife
be all the things Cee was: curious, apprecia-
and son. His science fiction and fantasy short
tive of beauty, unafraid of ambition, and so
stories have appeared in Asimov's, Lightspeed,
much more.
and now Analog, among various anthologies.
Until then, she would wait with memories
of sun-dappled lilies to occupy her mind. ■
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158
JEREMIAH TOLBERT
Blurred
Lives
Adam-Troy Castro
Draiken has previously appeared in Analog in “Sleeping Dogs” (July/August 2015), and both Draiken and Thorne appeared in “The Soul Behind the Face”
(October 2016).
eunited after years of separation, the
next legs of their journey. Some of these ports
two old enemies Draiken and Thorne
are once-green worlds now reduced to rancid
somehow refrain from killing one an-
industrial hells, while others are undeveloped
Rother and instead take to traveling to- backwaters that the give-and-take of civilized gether.
commerce have passed by. They stay a little
They are strange companions, neither
while at one before moving on to another, at
strangers nor friends, occasional sex partners
times treating these intervals as vacations, but
but not lovers.
more frequently ta
king them as maddening de-
The places they need to reach on this quest
lays as they follow a circuitous route to one
more important to him than to her, are neither
world in particular.
travel hubs nor capitols. Direct passage from
Their adventures are numerous, their close
here to there is often not quite possible. They
calls profound. Books could be written about
must journey in segments, some diff icult,
their more minor exploits.
some expensive, some downright illegal.
Once upon a time they worked for different
While enroute they spend much of their
sides in a war where the allegiances kept
time in starship cargo holds, entombed in their
changing, where momentary power shifts ei-
bluegel crypts, fully unaware of the passage of
ther rendered them precarious allies or re-
time as their transports plow the twisted topol-
quired them to once again regard one another
ogy that interstellar travelers must use instead
as targets. Now that circumstances have tem-
of straight lines.
porarily positioned them as allies again, they
By necessity they wake often, as they arrive
continue to stumble, often clumsily, between
at one interim port or another, to arrange the
one state and the next. Draiken begins no day
160
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
knowing for sure whether Thorne will be
that you were dying.” She draws the sharp
silent or voluble, cheerful or withdrawn to the
edge across his skin, teasing the thin line be-
point of hostility; whether she’ll pull him into
tween the natural resistance of the meat and
her bed or attempt to slit his throat. She does
the superior slicing capacity of the blade, not
all these things, and yet somehow they sur-
cutting but exploring the very border of his
vive: two intimate strangers, traveling together
flesh giving way. Although he knows as well as
as man and wife, but living as feral dogs in a
she does just how long it would take a deep
common cage.
slash in any particular place to kill him, had in
More than once, during the peaceful inter-
fact had the information drilled into him long
ludes, she lies with her cheek against his chest.
before carrying out his f irst f ield operation,
In one cover identity he has thick chest hair,
she amuses herself, for a while, telling him
which she explores with a fingertip, whisper-
how his death would play out were she to ap-
ing that there are any number of congenial
ply just a bit more pressure in any given place;
worlds that exist under bright and life-giving
less than twelve seconds here, a leisurely four
suns. There are places with blue water and
minutes there, hours or days of helpless agony
warm breezes where the two of them could
in this other place. She points out that, para-
call themselves any name they choose and live
lyzed as he is, he would not be able to address
in peace while waiting for the final darkness to
his wounds or cry for help, any more than he
take them. In such places, she says, they could
can talk her out of his murder now.
pretend that the wars they’d known had never
He can only wait and experience this as it
been fought, that the scars they’ve inflicted on
happens, his mind finding occasional comfort
one another have never been wounds spilling
in thoughts of that other, far gentler woman on
blood.
Greeve. Aletha had offered him an alternative
He reminds her that he’s tried this once on a
to resuming the madness of his old existence.
world as beautiful as any. It didn’t work then.
She’d been willing to take him into her life, and
Even with nobody hunting him, he’d still lived
to save him, as long as he returned the favor
with the furtiveness of any fugitive.
and also saved her. As he endures the insult of
She points out that she hadn’t been with
Thorne’s blade, he can only wonder whatever
him then. Maybe, she supposes, if she ever fol-
happened to that far gentler soul, whether
lowed him to a place like that, they could find
she’d ever found anyone worthier of her than
shared peace in the f iction that none of the
he had turned out to be. Or had he been her
trespasses between them ever took place.
last chance of peace, just as she’d been his?
Maybe, he allows back. It would be nice.
If he’s ever fated to know the answer, he
The premise is dropped without resolution.
does not find it today. Thorne teases his immi-
On multiple occasions she tries to kill him.
nent death for hours, so long that he almost
On two of those, he needs to do her injury in
wishes she’ll just go ahead and do it already.
order to protect himself. On the third, she in-
Then tears appear in her eyes. She damns her
flicts what would be a mortal wound, but re-
own madness and departs, but only after set-
coils at what she’s done and drags him to an
ting a timer for his paralyzing neural block to
AIsource Medical kiosk for emergency surgery.
deactivate.
Once, during weeks they spend aboard a
Years of deceit and bloodshed have left his
slow-moving luxury transport, he wakes para-
traveling companion with a deep antipathy to-
lyzed, the victim of a neural tap she’s implant-
ward the company of other human beings. In
ed on him during the night. She’s stripped and
between such extremes of love and hostility,
spread-eagled him, leaving him to stare face-up
she retreats to the portable isolation pod
at a ceiling def ined by horizontal support
where he found her, which she’d until recently
beams. She stretches out alongside him, the
declared home, and which they are now oblig-
curves of her current body glowing in the
ed to carry around as luggage. It’s a coffin for a
overhead light, as she presses the tip of a dag-
woman who prefers to be dead, and when she
ger against the softest part of his throat. “You
closes herself up inside she’s a universe of one,
would be dead,” she assures him in a whisper
fed and bathed and exercised and in all other
as soft as the sound of leaves f luttering in
ways maintained in the perfect isolation she’s
breeze, “before it even began to occur to you
come to need at regular intervals. She is not
BLURRED LIVES
161
ANALOG
alone in her preference for such environments,
oaf. He’s noted the disparity in their attractive-
but most inhabitants of such places pipe in mu-
ness but hasn’t rewarded her gesture with
sic, or readi
ng material, or neurec programs
more than a wry shrug. It has never been like
that make life in there indistinguishable from
him to waste energy complaining about mat-
the lush fantasies they prefer. She uses none.
ters that petty.
Her pod is a white sensory-deprivation hell,
Liberty is a civilized place, three-quarters
useful only in that in insulates her from the uni-
green and off-limits to most residents, one-
verse that is so often more than she can abide.
quarter a well-designed and highly comfortable
She stays in there for hours or days or weeks,
city with parks, theatres, restaurants, recre-
allowing dark thoughts to roil and churn like a
ational facilities, and a population that appears
tempest-tossed ocean, until she f inds the
to have stabilized at pleasantly crowded with-
strength to calm the surface at least, and
out ever becoming an oppressive hubbub.
emerge, a persuasive but false cheer once
There are public places designed for lounging
again turning her back into someone who can
about and enjoying the glow of the center-
be lived with, or at least survived, until her
spindle suns, and they have been placed at the
next explosion. More than once she tells him
proper distances from one another, to ensure
that by coming to her for help he’d rescued her
traffic flow and minimize city tensions. Every-
from spending the rest of her life self-exiled in
body seems equally prosperous, and quite a
her little box. More than once she damns him
few of them are beautiful. If there are any in-
for the same reason, saying he’s deprived her
dustries, they are not within the habitat; there
of the closest thing to peace she’s ever known.
are no foul effluents turning the interior into
And sometimes she admits that she is not at
that phenomenon far too prevalent in human
home either in or out of that pod, any more
space, the industrial hell. And this should be a
than she is home as either enemy or lover; any
good thing, but the city feels more like a great
more than she’d be a natural fit as anything but
open-air resort than the kind of place that nat-
a corpse.
urally congeals around any gathering of hu-
For four years, Mercantile, they work their
manity, and all the brightly dressed,