Metallic Love

by Tanith Lee

  He smiled at me, then. A confident but not pushy or attention-seeking smile. He came right over to us, the cat stalking before him the length of the lead.

  The cat spoke first. It had the weirdest voice, like a doll with a cranky mechanism.

  The little boy said, “Buòna sera, signorina, signore.”

  I can speak several languages now. What I am inside helps with that. Back then, I had Italian enough, and Verlis, of course, had everything. But before either of us could respond, the child switched abruptly, fluently, to a fluid, accented English.

  “It's a hot day. May I fetch you something?”

  I started to say, “Thank you, no, that's all right—”

  Verlis spoke over me in his cracked, unRejuvinexed seventy-year-old voice.

  “Who are you?”

  “I, signore? My name is Julio, with a J, as in the Spanish. And this is my cat, Imperiale.”

  Verlis—even as he was—looked white and strained. I touched his hand. He gripped my hand in his and said, “I don't mean that.”

  “No, signore?” The child looked right at me. He had a glorious smile. His face was attractive; one day he'd be sensational. He had the eyes of a tiger.

  I knew. Thought I knew. Knew Verlis knew, as I did.

  The cat meowed again in his strong startling way. And then a burly bodyguard was there, standing behind the child, looking us over.

  “Julio,” said the bodyguard in Italian, “your mother says you shouldn't bother these people.”

  The child glanced up at the bodyguard, and you saw the guy loved the child, was a slave to him, would die for him. The child said, now also in Italian, “Do you remember, Gino, about my dream?”

  Gino chuckled. “But this is an old, elderly gentleman. He won't be interested.” He nodded to Verlis and to me. “Julio dreams of robots, signore. He tells his mother he was a robot once.”

  I sat like a stone.

  Verlis said softly, “He has wonderful English.”

  “Yes, it's curious, signore. He picked that up in his second year. Like he almost was born with it. His mother has no idea how he learned it. Apart from tourists, maybe, except he sees so few. I think this is why he came to talk with you, signore. Though your Italian, may I say, is perfect. Oh, but you should hear this boy play piano. Never taught—just has the gift. Already he is a virtuoso.”

  The child said, gazing at Verlis, “Do you like silver things, signore? Would you like this?” And he sprung the wristlet from his wrist, and held it out before Verlis.

  The bodyguard exclaimed, “No, Julio!” He was shocked.

  But none of us—the child, Verlis, and I—took any notice. And anyway, adoringly used to the boy's eccentricities, no doubt, the bodyguard didn't protest again.

  Verlis reached out and took the wristlet.

  “Why?” he said.

  “You and I. We can share the same thing,” said the child.

  My heart snagged.

  Through its ragged uproar, I heard Verlis say, “Then—”

  But the child named Julio had darted round. He and the cat raced off over the broken tiling of the airport lounge. Still amused, the bodyguard ran after, “So long, signore, signorina—Julio! Julio!”

  Verlis and I sat on the bench. We said nothing. His mind was shut off, like a bellowing room behind a door.

  Sometimes Verlis communicates with the team, the gods, on the dark side of the moon.

  He reveals nothing of this, apart from saying everything's okay, no threat or horror is imminent, for them, or for us. Would I know, even now, if he lied? Would my own abilities inform me?

  He's making (he says “making” not composing) an opera. They can see another spectrum of color, his kind, as well as the spectrum humans have. I, despite what I am and all the “practice” I put in, won't ever see those other colors Verlis sees. Even if his mind tries to show my mind, even my inner eye can't see them. He says that music is humanity's highest expressive form. Including the human voice, or what will pass as a (superlative) human voice, raises music further, to some transcendant apex. But language, unless everyone can speak the same one, then becomes the obstacle. And so every aria or episode of his opera is to be only a color of the human spectrum. A color made in music, and in light, and in the words the singer will sing. We can always get cash, so providing him with instruments would never be difficult. But now he uses only his brain as the instrument. Sometimes he'll play me the symphonic strains that are flowing in his head, and I hear them in my own, and the voices singing—Glaya's voice, her two voices, that's what I hear then, and his. It isn't emotionless, this color opera, it's pure emotion—passion, pain, longing, joy . . .

  Last night, as we were curled together in that special kind of “sleep” he always had, and that now I have, too, when he and I wander together in the forms we originally wore—a tawny girl, a silver man with long and fire-red hair—last night, in that double dream-which-isn't, Verlis said to me, “Do you remember?” And he put the silver wristlet the child passed to him into my hand. All the silver rings and other jewels he gives me from himself always vanish in a few hours. But the wristlet is real, out in the world. He wears it there inside his shirt, hanging on a cord. “Yesterday,” Verlis said. “Tomorrow. But there's no Now. You keep us safe, Loren,” Verlis said.

  And so I've added this last section to my Book. If the boy was Silver, reincarnated as a human, who knows? Or if any of us, metal or mortal, has a soul . . . Verlis and Loren—he and I—that's all I care about. All I want. He and I.

  He and I.

  About the Author

  Tanith Lee was born in 1947 in London, England. She received her secondary education at Prendergast Grammar School, Catford. She began to write at the age of nine.

  After school she worked variously as a library assistant, a shop assistant, a filing clerk, and a waitress. At age twenty-five she spent one year at art college.

  From 1970 to 1971 three of Lee's children's books were published. In 1975 DAW Books USA published Lee's The Birthgrave, and thereafter twenty-six of her books, enabling her to become a full-time writer.

  To date she has written sixty-four novels and ten collections of novellas and short stories. Four of her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC and she has written two episodes of the BBC cult series Blake's Seven. Her work has been translated into over fifteen languages.

  Lee has twice won the World Fantasy award for short fiction, and was awarded the August Derleth Award in 1980 for her novel Death's Master.

  In 1992 Lee married the writer/artist John Kaiine, her partner since 1987. They live in southeast England with two black-and-white cats.

  Bantam Books by Tanith Lee

  The Silver Metal Lover

  Be sure not to miss the timeless tale that started it all, also available from Bantam Spectra.

  THE SILVER

  METAL LOVER

  by

  Tanith Lee

  Here is Jane's story—the story that changed Loren's life. Now, let it change yours.

  Mother, I am in love with a robot.

  No. She isn't going to like that.

  Mother, I am in love.

  Are you, darling?

  Oh, yes, mother, yes I am. His hair is auburn, and his eyes are very large. Like amber. And his skin is silver.

  Silence.

  Mother. I'm in love.

  With whom, dear?

  His name is Silver.

  How metallic.

  Yes. It stands for Silver Ionized Locomotive Verisimulated Electronic Robot.

  Silence. Silence. Silence.

  Mother . . .

  I grew up with my mother in Chez Stratos, my mother's house in the clouds. It's a beautiful house, but I never knew it was beautiful until people told me so. “How beautiful!” They cried. So I learned it was. To me, it was just home. It's terrible being rich. One has awful false values, which one can generally only replace with other, falser, values. For example, the name of the house, which is, apparently, ver
y vulgar, is a deliberate show of indifference to vulgarity on my mother's part. This tells you something about my mother. So perhaps I should tell you some more.

  My mother is five feet seven inches tall. She has very blond hair, and very green eyes. She is sixty-three, but looks about thirty-seven, because she takes regular courses of Rejuvinex. She decided to have a child rather late, but the Rejuvinex made that perfectly all right. She selected me, and had herself artificially inseminated with me, and bore me five months later by means of the Precipta method, which only takes three or four hours. I was breast-fed, because it would be good for me, and after that, my mother took me everywhere with her, sometimes all round the world, through swamps and ruins and over broad surging seas, but I don't remember very much of this, because when I was about six she got tired of it, and we went to Chez Stratos, and more or less stayed here ever since. The city is only twenty miles away, and on clear days you can see it quite easily from the balcony-balloons of the house. I've always liked the city, particularly the look of it at night with all the distant lights glittering like strings and heaps of jewels. My mother, hearing this description once, said it was an uninspired analogy. But that's just what the city at night looks like to me, so I don't know what else to say. It's going to be very difficult, actually, putting all this down, if my analogies turn out badly every time. Maybe I just won't use analogies.

  Which brings me to me.

  I am sixteen years old and five feet four inches tall, but mother says I may grow a little more. When I was seven, my mother had a Phy-Excellence chart done for me, to see what was the ideal weight and muscle tone aesthetically for my frame, and I take six-monthly capsules so I stay at this weight and tone, which means I'm a little plump, as apparently my frame is Venus Media, which is essentially voluptuous. My mother also had a coloressence chart made up to see what hair color would be best for my skin and eyes. So I have a sort of pale bronze color done by molecular restructuring once a month. I can't remember what my hair was originally, but I think it was a kind of brown. My eyes are green, but not as green as my mother's.

  My mother's name, by the way, is Demeta. Mine's Jane. But normally I call her “Mother” and she calls me “Dear” or “Darling.” My mother says the art of verbal affection is dying out. She has a lot of opinions, which is restful, as that way I don't have to have many of my own.

  However, this makes everything much more difficult, now.

  I've written bits of things down before. Or embarrassing poetry. But how to do this. Perhaps it's idiotic to try. No, I have to, I think. I suppose I should begin at the beginning. Or just before the beginning. I have always fallen in love very easily, but usually with characters in visuals, or books, or with actors in drama. I have six friends, of roughly my own age—six is a balanced number, according to the statistics—and three of these have fathers as well as mothers. Clovis, who has a father, said I fell in love easily—but only with unreal men—because I didn't have a father. I pointed out that the actors I fell in love with were real. “That's a matter for debate,” said Clovis. “But let me explain. What you fall for is the invention they're playing. If you met them, you'd detest them.” One morning, to prove his theory, Clovis introduced me to an actor I'd seen in a drama and fallen in love with the previous night, but I was so shy I couldn't look at the actor. And then I found out he and Clovis were lovers, and I was brokenhearted, and stopped being shy and scowled, and Clovis said: “I told you so.” Which was hardly fair. Secretly, I used to wish I were Clovis and not me. Clovis is tall and slim, with dark curly hair, and being M-B, doesn't have to take contraception shots, so tells everyone else who does they're dangerous.

  I don't really like my other five friends. Davideed is at the equator right now, studying silting—which may indicate the sort of thing about him that I have no rapport with. Egyptia is very demanding, and takes over everything, though she's lovely to look at. She's highly emotional, and sometimes she embarrasses me. Chloe is nice, but not very exciting. Jason and Medea, who are brother and sister, and have a father too, are untrustworthy. Once they were in the house and they stole something, a little blue rock that came from the Asteroid. They pretended they hadn't, but I knew they had. When my mother asked where the blue rock was, I felt I had to tell her what I thought, but she said I should have pretended I had broken the rock so as not to implicate Jason and Medea, who were my friends. Loyalty. I see it was rather unsubtle of me to betray them, but I didn't know any better. Being unsubtle is one of my worst faults. I have a lot.

  Anyway, I'll start when Egyptia called me on the video, and she cried and cried. Egyptia is unhappy because she knows she has greatness in her, and so far she can't find out what to do with it. She's just over eighteen, and she gets terribly afraid that life is moving too fast for her. Though most people live to be a hundred and fifty, or more, Egyptia is frightened a comet will crash on the earth at any moment and destroy us all, and her, before she can do something really wonderful. Egyptia has horrible dreams about this a lot. One can't comfort her, one merely has to sit and watch and listen.

  Egyptia never had a coloressence chart or a Phy-Excellence chart done. Recently, her dark hair was tinted dark blue, and she's very thin because she's been dieting—another of her fears is that the world would run out of food because of earthquake activity, so she practices starvation for days on end. At last she stopped crying and told me she was crying because she had a dramatic interview that afternoon. Then she began to cry again. She knew, when she sent the voice and phy-tape to the drama people that she had to do it, as her greatness might occur in the form of acting. But now she knew she'd judged wrong and it wouldn't. The place where the interview was being held was the Theatra Concordacis, which had been advertising for trainees for weeks. It was a very little drama, with a very little paying membership. The actors had to pay to be in it, too, but Egyptia's mother, who was at the bottom of an ocean exploring a pre-Columbian trench, had left a lot of money to look after Egyptia instead.

  “Oh, Jane,” said Egyptia, blue-tinted tears running through her blue mascara. “Oh Jane! My heart's beating in huge thuds. I think I'm dying. I shall die before I can do the interview.”

  My eyes were already wet. Now my heart started instantly to bang in huge painful thuds, too. I am very hyperchondriacal, and tend to catch the symptoms of whatever disease is being described to me. My mother says this is a sign of imagination.

  “Oh, Egyptia,” I said.

  “Oh, Jane,” said Egyptia.

  We each clung to our end of the video, gasping.

  “What shall I do?” gasped Egyptia.

  “I don't know.”

  “I must do the interview.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “I'm so afraid. There may be an earth tremor. Do you remember the tremors when we trapped the Asteroid?”

  “No—”

  Neither of us had been born then, but Egyptia had dreamed about it frequently, and got confused. I wondered if I felt Chez Stratos rocking in an incipient quake, but it's supposed to be invulnerably stabilized, and anyway does sometimes rock, very gently, when there's a strong wind.

  “Jane,” said Egyptia, “you have to come with me. You have to be with me. You have to see me do the interview.”

  “What are you dramatizing?”

  “Death,” said Egyptia. She rolled her gorgeous eyes.

  My mother likes me to spend time with Egyptia, who she thinks is insane. This will be stimulating for me, and will teach me responsibility toward others. Egyptia is, of course, afraid of my mother.

  The Baxter Empire was out with Mother, it's too extravagant anyway, and besides, I can't drive or fly. So I walked over the Canyon and waited for the public flyer.

  The air lines glistened beautifully overhead in the sunshine, and the dust rose from the Canyon like soft steam. As I waited for the flyer to come, I looked up at Chez Stratos, or up where I knew it was, a vague blue ghost. All you can really see from the ground are the steel supports.
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  Just before a flyer comes the air lines whistle. Not everyone knows this, since in the city it's mostly too noisy to hear. I pressed the signal in the platform. The flyer came up and stopped like a big glass pumpkin.

  Inside it was empty, but some of the seats had been slashed, presumably that morning, otherwise the overnight repair systems would have seen to it.

  We sailed over the Canyon's lip, into space as it were, and toward the city I could no longer see now that I was lower down than the house. I had to wait for the city now to put up its big gray-blue cones and stacked flashing window-glass and pillars on the skyline.

  But something else had absorbed me. There was something odd about the robot machine which was driving the flyer. Normally, of course, it was just the box with driving digits and a slot for coins. Today, the flyer box had a head on. It was the head of a man about forty years of age, who hadn't taken Rejuvinex (or a man of about seventy, who had), so there were some character lines. The eyes and the hair were colorless, and the face of the head was a sort of coppery color. When I put my coin in the slot, the head disoriented me by saying to me: “Welcome aboard.”

  I sat down on a seat which hadn't been slashed, and looked at the head. I had, of course, seen lots of robots, as we all do, since almost everything mechanical is run by robots in the city. And even Mother has three robots who are domestic in Chez Stratos, but they're of shiny blue metal with polarized screens instead of faces. They look like spacemen to me, or like the suits men wear on the moon, or the Asteroid, and I always called our robots, therefore, the “spacemen.” In the city, they're even more featureless, as you know, boxes on runners or panels set into walls.

  Eventually I said to the flyer driver: “Why have you got a head today?”

  I didn't think it could answer, but it might. It did.

  “I am an experimental format. I am put here to make you feel at home with me.”