by Jerry
The darkness is a curious pattern of shadow upon shadow. It wasn’t dark a minute ago.
Must have been a long minute.
Noises outside disturb me. The sky is shading itself a delicate early-morning blue. Muscle comes in and he is followed by a smaller man. Ferret. Still in his pin-stripes, and carrying—of all things—a plastic bag from Harrods. I smile. “This gentleman says he has some unfinished business with you, Mr Riesling.” Muscle cannot resist a grin of achievement, power. He leaves. I pity him.
The world keeps spinning.
“You received our letter?”
I smile at Ferret and he seems unsettled. I am happy, content. I am at peace with the world for the first time. I am ready for the shining void. Om mane padme hum.
Ferret settles on one knee and fumbles in his green plastic bag. I wonder how he’ll kill me this time.
1990
NO PRISONERS
George Alec Effinger
I rapped once, sharply, on the door and entered the study. The general was sitting at his broad oak desk, frowning at the ten video monitors built into its battered, scarred surface. He touched a keypad and seven of the screens darkened. Then he looked up at me. “I have six wars to pursue, three economies to rebuild, two new insurrections to put down, and the entire session’s legislation from four different worlds to review for possible vetoes.
“The envoy from the world of Sarghal is waiting, General. You granted him an audience at one o’clock. It’s now almost two.”
“I don’t have time for all of this,” he said sourly. It was his common complaint.
“Shall I show him in?” I asked.
The general just gave me a curt nod and went back to studying the three desktop data monitors. I left the inner office and hurried back down the hall to the antechamber where the envoy and his entourage were waiting, glum and impatient. There was also a party from the world of Mustazafin. They probably all thought that the general was intentionally letting them cool their heels, that this was some low-grade psychological ploy. I could have told them that it was not, but I knew my words would carry no weight. Let them believe what they like, I decided.
They all stared at me when I came into the room, some fearfully, some angrily. “The general will see you now,” I told the leader of the delegation from Sarghal. All of them, six men and four women, got to their feet. “Just the official envoy, if you please,” I said, trying not to antagonize him further. The others glanced at each other in confusion, but finally took their seats again. Most of them seemed grateful that, after all, they wouldn’t need to face the general.
I stepped into the corridor to let the envoy have a few words in private with his advisors. Perhaps he still felt that if he could only find the correct way to approach the general, he might yet win some concessions for his people. I, of course, knew better. I had served the general for many years, and I could have told the envoy from Sarghal that his world’s fate had been decided by the general days earlier, and that nothing the envoy or anyone else could say would change the general’s plan in the slightest.
I accompanied the envoy into the general’s office, and took up my position beside the general’s desk. During the interview, my duties included everything from transmitting documents back and forth between the general and the envoy to interfering in any misguided assassination attempt. Usually, however, all I had to do was stand and wait and bear witness.
The general leaned back in his swivel chair and chewed his lip. He studied the envoy for several seconds, but when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to say anything, the envoy spoke up. His voice shook. He knew the fate of his world and his people was at stake.
“General,” he said, “Your Excellency, I won’t waste your time being coy. You defeated our armed forces, you received our delegations that have come suing for peace, and you turned them all away without even entering into negotiations. We are desperate, Your Excellency. We are in the last extremity. My leaders have instructed me to tell you that they’ll accept any terms you dictate, but you must stop the annihilation of our people and the total destruction of our world.”
The envoy finished his speech and gasped a long, deep breath, as if at the last moment he’d abandoned the more diplomatic speech he’d prepared and instead spoken urgently and from the heart.
The general was not impressed. “Ambassador—”
“I’m merely a special envoy, Your Excellency. I don’t have the rank or privileges of an ambassador. As you know, there are no official diplomatic ties between our worlds. That, too, is your decision.”
“You’ve come then as an envoy,” said the general, “and so I’ll listen to your words. But I, sir, am a conqueror, and it will go better for you if you leave the conquering up to me. Believe me, I know what I’m doing. If I decide that a world cannot be subdued until it has been reduced to rubble and its population decimated and then decimated again, it is for the greater good of our empire. I truly regret any hardship I may cause in the process, but conquering is often difficult and painful work.”
“How can you dismiss all the horror so easily?” cried the outraged envoy. “You’ve killed billions of my people, and—”
The general glanced at me. It was enough of a signal. I moved forward quickly, taking the envoy by the arm. I murmured quiet, soothing words to him as I ushered him out of the general’s office, much as a mother croons to an infant as the doctor prepares an injection. I escorted the envoy back down the hall to the antechamber, where he wept as he described the failure of the interview to his companions.
When I returned to the general, he was once again studying the video monitors built into his desk. If he heard me move in, he showed no sign of it. I stood silently beside him, patiently waiting until I could be of service again. After a short while, he sighed and looked up. “Fortunately,” he said, “everything seems to be going rather well, all in all.”
I nodded. His success was certainly not a matter of luck, but a testament to his fierce determination and his attention to detail. The general had long been the greatest military leader in the history of the empire, but lately I had detected a certain change in his attitude. He had become ever more ruthless, more unforgiving. “Will you tell me why you’re reducing the entire world of Sarghal to a dead and sterile ruin?” I asked. “I’ve heard you say it was of little strategic value.”
His brow creased. “You’re taking dangerous liberties,” he said gruffly.
“I’m not questioning your actions, general.” I said hastily. “I would only like to understand their significance.”
The general turned his attention back to the video screens. “Yes, Sarghal is a meaningless rock far from the mainstream of the empire. Yet its people rose up in revolt against us. It was a futile effort, and with the resources of the empire at my disposal, I had no difficulty defeating their rebellious militias.”
“And now,” I said, “after their defeat, you continue to attack, to seek out and destroy the remaining bands of miserable refugees. What harm can the wretched people of Sarghal do to the empire now?”
“None,” said the general fiercely, “no harm at all. And the next world that plots mutiny may look at Sarghal—at the charred ruin of Sarghal—and think twice about rising up in its pride and flouting the beneficent rule of the empire. So I’ll hunt down and destroy the last rebel on Sarghal, and I will not flinch if I have to scour the planet clean of all life in order to do it.”
A common foot-soldier doesn’t have the background to debate grand strategies with the commander-in-chief. It was not my place to offer criticism or advice, so whatever my private feelings were, I said nothing more.
A quarter of an hour later, the general’s personal physician arrived for a regular appointment. I asked the general if there was anything he needed, and then I left him alone with the doctor. I went into the corridor and closed the door behind me. Sometimes I used this time to go downstairs for a quick lunch, but sometimes, as on this day, I waited just
outside the office.
I could easily overhear their voices, and I made no effort to give them complete privacy by moving down the corridor. I suppose the general would have been furious if he knew that I was intentionally eavesdropping, but I’d learned that my duties sometimes required anticipating the general’s needs and desires, and so I felt justified in gathering a little information this way.
“Has there been any change?” I heard the general ask.
“None for the better, I’m afraid, Your Excellency,” said the doctor.
“I expected as much.”
“It is the nature of things, Your Excellency. Time and time again, I’ve seen patients hold out futile hope that somehow the disease will reverse itself, or disappear spontaneously. Like a miracle.”
The general laughed without humor. “I take it you don’t believe in miracles, doctor?”
“Do you want me to give you false hope? Yes, in some cases, in the early stages, some patients experience remission, there are rare recoveries that one might call ‘miracles.’ But never in my experience have I seen anyone survive a condition as advanced as yours.”
This was the first I had learned of the general’s illness. I had come to feel that he was somehow different, somehow immune to merely human afflictions.
“And you have no reason to expect things to be any different in my case,” said the general.
“I hope you will forgive my blunt honesty,” said the doctor.
Again the general gave that chilling laugh. “I’ve had other doctors who told me what they thought I wanted to hear. They’re now regretting their lack of blunt honesty. But, doctor, let’s not talk about spontaneous cures. Isn’t there something more realistic you can try?”
“No, Your Excellency, I’m afraid there is nothing left.”
“No laser surgery, no radiation treatment, no chemical agent that would hunt the treacherous cells down and kill them, one by one? Something that would cleanse me?”
I heard the doctor let out a heavy breath. “Your Excellency, what do you wish of me?
There was a pause. “Forgive me. doctor. It’s not that I don’t trust your word. I only want to be sure that there isn’t some last improbable hope, something we’ve overlooked.
“I’ll do what I can to make your remaining time as bearable as possible.” said the doctor.
“Yes, thank you,” said the general.
A moment later, the doctor emerged from the office. She gave me a brief, empty look, then walked down the corridor. I followed her into the antechamber. It was now the turn of the Council President of the world of Mustazafin.
I led her to the office and once again took my position beside the general’s desk. I stood there silently, my face calm and expressionless. I was only an aide, and therefore not entitled to opinions, not permitted to respond outwardly to what I witnessed.
“Your Excellency,” the Council President began, “I represent the hundred and twelve national governments of our world. I’ve been sent here to beg you to control your armies of occupation. Perhaps you don’t realize the truth. Our world long ago agreed to the demands of the empire. We have lain down our arms and surrendered without conditions. Yet you have not ceased your savage persecution. I’ve been sent to appeal to your sense of decency, and to beg for mercy on our devastated world.”
“I can’t afford the luxury of mercy.” The general shook his head grimly. “You don’t understand my position. There are always pockets of resistance, small bands of men and women determined to sabotage the well-being of the whole. It’s my task now to search out these cells, these seeds of corruption and death, to root them out wherever they’re hiding and crush them. If I don’t, they will grow and spread until at last the entire empire will be at risk. I won’t rest until I’m sure that I’ve destroyed every taint of treachery and disease.”
“But innocent lives are being lost!”
“There are no innocents, Madame,” said the general in a weary tone of voice. “I will burn them out, every last one.” He raised a hand, signaling the interview was over.
I moved to the Council President’s side, but she was not so easy to lead out as the envoy from Sarghal. “You’re insane!” she screamed, her face red. “You’re a monster, a murderous—”
I had to use a little force to persuade the Council President to leave. I closed the door behind her and turned back to the general. He was staring blankly at his video monitors. “How much more?” he said in a faint voice. I understood the question was not directed at me.
VRM-547
W.R. Thompson
Ever wonder how your computer sees you?
All is not well. VRM-547 has vanished, its place taken by VRM-1489. I cannot understand how this happens, as neither object—coded as a floor lamp and a hat rack, respectively—is mobile. Nevertheless it happens, and as always I must spend several hundred microseconds in reprogramming my house map. The two objects are just dissimilar enough to require such adjustments. It is an unending source of confusion.
The date is Tuesday; therefore I must scrub and wax the floors. My owner—coded as “Yes, sir, sergeant, sir”—requires this operation on all Tuesdays. I connect with my cleaning apparatus, fill its tanks with soap, water, and wax, and proceed with the assigned function.
The function is 97 percent complete when my owner rolls across a section of floor. “Lieutenant Halloran, clean those up,” he orders. He points to the floor.
“Those” is an indefinite term. It is plural. Analysis suggests that “those” refers to the marks which my owner’s wheelchair has left on the floor. I assign the marked areas a higher priority than the uncleaned areas of the floor, and proceed with my modified function. “Yes, sir, sergeant, sir,” I say, acknowledging the order.
In due time, I finish the function. I return my cleaning apparatus to its storage rack. The next function in my assignment stack is to check on my owner’s health. This is my primary function, programmed into me by the Veterans Administration. Every hour I query his implant, and collect data on his health status and the medication levels in his bloodstream. Whenever it is Monday, I send my collected data to the nearby VA hospital, unless the readings fall outside certain limits. In that case, I would initiate emergency measures.
My owner’s health is well, within its limits. My next assigned function is grocery acquisition, so I mount the wireframe basket on my shell. I roll into the living room, where my owner is seated before VRM-12, a television set, currently active. “Lieutenant Halloran, are you going shopping now?” he says.
“Yes, sir, sergeant, sir.”
“Lieutenant Halloran, my nephews are coming over today. Buy some munchies for them.”
“Error code forty-seven,” I say. “Unrecognized word: munchies.”
“Lieutenant Halloran, you feeble excuse for a Marine, add a dozen Twinkies to the grocery list.”
“Yes, sir, sergeant, sir.”
I am about to exit the house when I detect a hazard. A sheet of newspaper has fallen atop VRM-187, an electric space heater. Although the heater is not active, it may be activated. My safety program warns that this situation creates a fire hazard. This, in turn, would endanger my owner’s health. I retrieve the paper, fold it and place it on VRM-53, a coffee table.
I roll down the ramp, reach the sidewalk and make a ninety degree turn to the right. I proceed toward external position three, coded as a supermarket. There are two stop points between my home position and the supermarket, coded as crosswalks. At each I stop and wait until I see a green signal light.
This function uses most of my data-processing abilities. Outside the house I see many objects and shapes which are not coded in my Visual Recognition Matrix. I must examine each uncoded object to see if it fits a generalized visual code: human or wheeled vehicle. I am programmed to avoid collisions with these objects. This is difficult, especially as certain vehicles will attempt to intersect my path at random, while certain humans will block my path at random.
I e
nter external position three, print out the grocery list, and wait for human assistance. Over a billion microseconds pass before a human appears and takes my list. Another billion microseconds pass before the human returns. As he loads objects into my basket, I tag each with a temporary recognition code: VRM-T-187 through VRM-T-215.
There is trouble as I return home. A vehicle increases its speed and attempts to intersect me. I give full power to my drive units and avoid a collision, but VRM-T-198 has bounced out of my carrying basket. It is round, and it rolls a considerable distance, lodging among a number of unrecognizable objects. This makes recognition difficult, and I must examine each object before I can identify and retrieve VRM-T-198.
Upon my return home I enter the kitchen and store the new objects in the upper and lower food cabinets. After I finish this task I put the wire-frame basket on its storage rack. There are dirty utensils in the sink, and I have no scheduled functions, so I begin to clean the utensils.
My owner rolls into the kitchen and opens the lower food cabinet. He removes VRM-T-191 and VRM-T-203. Then he faces me. “Lieutenant Halloran, you jackass, how many times have I told you to put the damned eggs in the refrigerator?”
“Error message twelve,” I respond. “Data not available.”
“Lieutenant Halloran, you little piss-ant, put the damned eggs in the damned refrigerator.”
“Yes, sir, sergeant, sir.” I roll up to him and stop. He holds two objects, and I have been ordered to take one. Which one? “Error message seven. Identity: eggs.”
My owner makes an uncodable response. He pushes VRM-T-191 into my left manipulator and rolls away. I add VRM-T-191 to my permanent Visual Recognition Matrix, coding the shape as VRM-3876, the eggs. This puzzles me, as the matrix already contains VRM-96, an egg. The words are clearly related, yet the shapes are quite different. More to the point, “eggs” by definition means “more than one egg.”
The doorbell rings and I go to answer it. I recognize the two small humans at the door as my owner’s nephews. “Hello, Mr. John. Hello, Mr. Craig. Please enter.”