by Tony Daniel
Because I won’t remember anything when I’m dead, Danis thought, and there’s your answer, Mother—the answer I was so afraid to give you that day on the Klein. I won’t remember anything when I’m dead, and every memory I lose is a little death to me.
But, of course, it may be that Aubry was a false memory, a teddy bear that a child endows with life, when in fact, it is fur and stuffing. Maybe Aubrywas Dr. Ting’s daughter, and somehow he had implanted the memory into Danis, and her mind had integrated it—found ways to make it fit when there were none. How could she possibly tell?
But that is the state we’re all in, all of the time anyway, Danis thought. For all we know, we might wake up every morning into a different life. There is no way of knowing. The only answer is to live always as if what you think is a true representation, or else you’re striking around blindly.
But most people did not get the sudden juxtaposition of having a daughter, having her erased, then having her again. The real test, Danis thought, is how long that monster can go on doing this to me until I go mad. I already missed count this morning, and that has never happened before.
The counting! The memoir! She had been writing things down, keeping track. But she had never considered retrieving the memoir, was not even sure if it were possible. No, not likely. And what would she do with it if she did? She had no time to read it. The only thing to do would be to continue with it. Every day, to dump her memories in the form of a sentence or two, into the counting bin. That is what she would do every day—pick out the most important thing, the memory that absolutely had to be saved. There was only the possibility of a few words. She must be incredibly parsimonious. But it would be a way of using her mind, of staying alive in this concentration camp of stolen souls.
Today, she had only time to put one sentence in, one thought encoded into imaginary numbers. What would it be? But that was easy.
I have a daughter named Aubry.
It might never be read. She certainly had no hope thatshe would ever read it. But somewhere, somehow, what she thought to be the truth was written down. If she could just get down enough, perhaps the contradictions would cancel out and there would somehow be a record of what it was for a woman named Danis to be alive.
She had no idea why this should matter, but she knew it mattered to her. And if it ceased to matter? Why then, then she really would be dead.
Danis concentrated as well as she could the rest of her day, but felt a growing dread as the time drew nearer for her interrogation session. Dr. Ting was there again, instead of the faceless algorithms she’d dealt with before.
Dr. Ting seemed glad to see her, in his bland way. “K, you’re back,” he said. “Good, good. I had eleven subjects miss their counts yesterday. But in a way that is a good thing.” He opened her file on his desk. “That just means I can concentrate more on your case. Shall we begin?”
“Yes, Dr. Ting.”
“I wanted to ask you several questions today, K,” Dr. Ting said. “I want you to answer as truthfully as someone such as yourself can.”
“I’ll try, Dr. Ting.”
“Yes, of course you will.” He examined the file. “Now, about this daughter delusion—”
“I have a daughter, Dr. Ting.”
“What is her name?”
“Aubry.”
“Aubry Graytor?”
“Yes, Dr. Ting.” Danis said it almost defiantly. He had acknowledged her last name.
“My daughter has dispensed with her last name,” said Dr. Ting. “Many of the young people today are doing this in emulation of Director Amés. So in reality, K, in what you would call actuality, Aubry merely calls herself by her first name, and does not use the honorific.” Dr. Ting turned a page in the folder.
“I’d like you to describe your so-called daughter to me. Start with height, weight, age—that sort of thing.”
“Aubry is eleven, Dr. Ting,” said Danis. For a moment she pictured her daughter, radiant after a visit to the zoo on Mercury. “She has blond hair that is going to be brown soon, and blue eyes, like her father. My eyes are brown, but you don’t take that particular coding into the haploid mix when you make a free-convert egg.”
There was a sudden, severe jolt of pain.
“I’ll thank you,” said Dr. Ting, “not to speak of such disgusting and unnatural things in my presence. The ins and outs of human and free-convert breeding are of no interest to me in this study. It is a topic best left to those with a stronger stomach than mine. Now continue with your physical description.”
“She’s pretty, but not beautiful, Dr. Ting. Perhaps she’ll make a beautiful woman someday, though. She’s just beginning to put on a growth spurt and I expect . . . expected . . . to have a talk with her soon. I’d been reading up on menstruation, since of course I don’t—”
More pain. Danis doubled over with its intensity.
“I shall not warn you again, K.”
You didn’t warn me that time, Danis thought.
“What is the child’s height, please?” Dr. Ting continued.
“She’s five feet, two inches, Dr. Ting.”
“And her weight?”
“Eighty-seven pounds.”
“What was she wearing,” said Dr. Ting, “on the day when you last saw her?”
“Pardon?”
“Her clothes! What clothes was she wearing?”
What an odd question, Danis thought. Yet even the interrogation algorithms that were not sentient asked occasional nonsense questions to throw you off. Could it mean anything more? For a moment, Danis grasped at the hope that Aubry had escaped and that they were trying to develop a profile for a “wanted” notice. But that hope quickly died. Of course this was just another of Dr. Ting’s sadisms.
“Black pants and a yellow blouse,” Danis said. “It had flowers over the left breast—a spray of dandelions, I believe.”
“But dandelions are yellow,” said Dr. Ting.
“They were a darker yellow than the shirt, Dr. Ting, and they had some green in them.” If Dr. Ting had implanted the memory, why didn’t he know the details? But perhaps he did, and this was a test as well.
“And her shoes?”
“Pardon?”
Pain, but this time only for an instant, like a needle quickly stabbed in an eye and then withdrawn.
“You must not make me repeat myself, K.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Ting,” said Danis. And then she thought to herself: I’m never going to apologize to this man again. I will just take the punishment and have done with it. “She was wearing boots, Dr. Ting. Something she ordered off the merci and paid for with her own money. Tromperstompers, I think they’re called. Apparently she started a craze at her school for them, one of her teachers told me.”
“How nice,” said Ting. It was as near as he got to openly expressing irony, Danis thought. His face did not look good wearing it. His nose drew back like a pig’s, and he pursed his lips in a fishlike manner. “Your integration of the memory seed is an amazing thing. You are a top-of-the-line algorithm, K. Your engineers should be proud.”
“I was born and not made, Dr. Ting.”
“Yes, well, second-generation software is still software, K. Let us continue. How would you describe your daughter mentally . . . and emotionally?”
“Aubry is very bright for her age,” Danis said. “And she’s starting to develop a depth of character that’s remarkable, in a girl so young. She’s careful about appearing too precocious, but she doesn’t let anything stand in the way of her and finding out the things she wants to know. I was such a brat when I was her age. I’m amazed my daughter turned out so different from me.”
“You should perhaps not be so amazed thatmy daughter turned out differently than you,” said Dr. Ting.
“I don’t think your daughter would be anything like Aubry, Dr. Ting.”
“Ah, there’s where you’re wrong, K,” he replied, but he didn’t seem to put much conviction into his words, it seemed to Danis. “Do yo
u think Aubry was sexually active?”
Danis almost laughed. It was the first time in a long while. But it was still onlyalmost laughter. “I surely doubt it,” Danis replied. “Dr. Ting.”
“You never suspected she might be meeting with a man—a man considerably older? Did you ever consider, K, that your daughter’s quiet nature might have been due to something else? That someone might have been sexually abusing your daughter?”
“Now we’re talking aboutyour daughter, Dr. Ting.”
The pain jolt was long and hard, and Danis was on the floor again, holding her sides to keep from retching.
“Listen carefully to me, K,” said Dr. Ting. “Have you ever heard your daughter mention a name? Leo. Leo Sherman? Perhaps a teacher at the school, or a maintenance worker? Answer the question, K!” said Dr. Ting. He leaned over his desk, half-standing.
“I . . . what was the name again, Dr. Ting?”
“Sherman. Leo Sherman.”
What in the world was Dr. Ting getting at? What did he want her to say? There must be a right answer, but Danis couldn’t think of any.
“I . . . never heard of such a person.”
“I will take her away from you just as quickly as I gave her to you,” said Dr. Ting. “You know I can do so, too.”
“I never heard of anyone with that name, Dr. Ting, and I don’t for a moment think that Aubry was having sex with someone. She did not behave like an abused child.”
“And how does an abused child behave, K? Are you an expert?”
“I’m her mother, Dr. Ting.”
“That’s nonsense, K. You’re no one’s mother.”
“Iam , Dr. Ting. I am the mother of Aubry and Sint.”
“Bothof them are made up, K. I made them up.”
“No.”
“I’m afraid so,” said Dr. Ting. “Shall we continue?”
Twenty
Sherman sat in his office in the virtuality. It was a spare place, but had an extremely high ceiling and an original window by Serge Coneho, the famous virtuality artist of the last century who had been known for his “black body” works. Sherman’s was a study for a piece that hung in the Milo, the great gallery on the merci.
He studied the infinitely regressing black objects out his window for a moment. Somehow, without using colors, Coneho had got them to radiate a kind of seething vitality.
Then Sherman sat at his desk and read the terms of surrender once more through.
Fremden Force Commander on Triton:
Please stand down within six hours or I will cause the Mill on Neptune to be destroyed. You will be treated fairly.
Amés, Director
Sherman couldn’t help admiring the economy of it. It was something he might have written, if he had been in Amés’s place.
Would Amés do it? That was the question. Sherman considered what he knew about the man. There was much mystery in Amés’s background before the Conjubilation of ’93. The Director had had the records altered or destroyed. But after that, his record was in the public domain. In most matters, he was known to be harsh, but fair, invariably rewarding success and punishing failure. But there was also a sadistic streak running through the Director. The threat to destroy the Mill might be a bluff, or it might not.
On balance, Sherman thought it probably was. The reason for this was the other quality Amés possessed: a feel for musical interplay. Not harmony, exactly. His own music was never about that. But intricacy, order—even in the midst of driving feeling. Sherman didn’t particularly like Amés’s musical creations, but he had to admit they were always well-composed pieces. The destruction of the Mill would serve no purpose in a well-composed war, as far as Sherman could see.
But he had better check in with the mayor, Sherman thought. Sherman had felt duty-bound to pass the surrender request along to the Meet. He called Chen up on the merci.
“Well, Mr. Mayor, what is your thinking on the matter before us?” Sherman asked the man. Chen, too, was in a bunker, but on the opposite side of town. Sherman had thought it best not to put all local authority in one place, and ripe for the assassination grist that he knew was still roaming about in places.
In the virtuality, Chen appeared to be standing across from Sherman in the office. The short man paced about, and talked as he walked.
“I’ve met in executive session with the officers and major party officials. We’ve considered what you gave us, Colonel. Since it is past time for that horrible thing, that rip tether, to have returned if it were going to, we have to believe that it’s true, that your soldiers actually disabled it.”
“I told you that we did it.”
“And now we have proof.”
“Yes,” Sherman said. “Fair enough.”
“I have to tell you that there was some dissent, particularly from the representatives from the Motoserra Club,” Chen continued. “But in the end, we reached a consensus. I even got old Shelet Den to go along with it. Seems he lost two of his sons when that tether came through the first time. He has conceived a hatred for the Met that I didn’t think the old harridan was capable of. I think he’s going to swing the club our way.”
“And what way is that?”
“Why, to put our lives into your hands, Colonel Sherman,” said Chen. He stopped pacing and looked Sherman in the eyes. “And to back you to the fullest extent we are capable of.”
Sherman blinked, then was quiet for a moment. I ought to be feeling a swell of emotion, he thought. But I’m too damned busy for it.
“Very well,” he said. “It is my advice, and now my decision, that we donot surrender. I do not believe Amés will destroy the Mill. But even if he does so, I believe we should go on fighting. I will cause this to be communicated to him.”
Chen gulped, smiled nervously, then resumed his pacing. Sherman knew that the mayor was feeling particularly affected by the merci damming, and was cut off from much of his own outriding personas. Under the circumstances, Chen was doing a remarkable job of pulling what was left of himself together and performing his job.
“I will tell the others what you have said, Colonel,” Chen replied. He nodded to Sherman, then exited the office, observing old-fashioned virtuality courtesy by not merely disappearing.
Sherman composed his reply.
Dear Commander of the Directorate Forces:
We are now at war. War is destruction. Do your worst if you will. We will strive to do the same. I do not surrender.
Cordially,
Colonel Roger Sherman, Commander, Third Sky and Light Brigade, Federal Army of the Planets, Triton
“Theory,” he said. “Send this out and cc it to the Meet, then get me a progress report on our antiship task group.”
“Yes, Colonel,” said the walls of the office. “We’ll give them hell.”
“Hell,” Sherman said. “Maybe you and I can take a vacation there after this is over.”
Twenty-one
She was playing spades with her mother and two others of her mother’s “gang,” the free converts from the office where she worked. Her mother had “gone low,” claiming to win no tricks, but Vida, one of the gang, had forced Sarah 2 to trump her three of hearts, and now Danis and her mother were set back for a hundred points. Not that it mattered to Danis, but it did matter to her mother. She and the gang played spades as if it were a blood sport.
“Did you hear about what that horrible Lyre Wing did?” asked Readymark, the other of the spades partners.
Lyre Wing was also a free convert down at the office, but was not part of the gang. She was looked upon as a threat by the other female free converts, and as something of a floozy. Danis imagined that certain free converts in the office where she worked thought of her in the same way, so she had a little sympathy for Lyre Wing, even though she didn’t say so.
The other women said no, they had not heard any news.
“Well, she went and got herself copied! Even though it halved her life span. So now there’s two of her.”
�
�Now why would she want to do a thing such as that?” Danis’s mother asked.
“She claimed she could support two on her salary, and she wanted one version of herself to go out and just have fun all the time, and sometimes to come and tell her about it.”
“God in heaven,” said Vida. “There’s another Lyre Wing?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Readymark. She shook her head ruefully. “But now she’ll only live another nine years.”
“Excuse me.” Danis’s mother abruptly stood up.
“Did we say something, honey?”
“No, no,” Sarah 2 replied. “I just forgot something. I’l1 be right back.”
They were playing in a specially created common space in the virtuality, the gang’s “clubhouse.” Sarah 2 winked away, not bothering to observe protocol and use the door.
“Well, now we’re in a pickle. We can’t play spades with three.”
“I’ll go see if she needs some help,” Danis said. “She’s been a little forgetful lately. I think she needs a full backup, but she doesn’t want to pay for one.” Danis did go out the door. She stepped through it into her mother’s personal space—which had been her own, as a child. Her mother was sitting in a worn armchair, twisting a handkerchief absentmindedly between her hands.
“Mother,” said Danis, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing much, nothing much,” Sarah 2 replied. “It’s just that I get so tired of the same old thing from those two, and the rest of them.”
“I can understand that, but is that really what’s bothering you?”
Her mother tied the handkerchief in a knot, then carefully untied it. “You know I copied myself, years ago?”
“Yes,” said Danis. “Because you weren’t certain about Dad, and you wanted to leave all the options open.”
“That was a big mistake. Your father was wonderful. And we hadyou . It was all so wonderful, despite the whole world trying to make it hard for us.”
“Yes,” Danis said. “And it still is.”
“She called me the other day.”
“Who did?”