The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 24

by Gardner Dozois

  Onward to the island of Chios with its Byzantine monastery and fine mosaics, and the autumn waves were growing choppier as Frank Onions ingratiated himself with what he supposed you might call the Hastings crowd. Sitting amid the spittle rain of their conversations as Warren gazed devotedly in Dottie’s direction with his insect sunglasses perched on his ruined Michael Jackson nose, Frank could only wonder again at the continuing surprise of her beauty, and then about why on earth she’d consented to become what she was now. Most minders, in Frank’s experience, were almost as dead as the zombies they were paid to look after. They’d put their lives on hold for the duration. Apart from the money, they hated everything they were required to do. Even in the heights of passion, you always felt as if their bodies belong to someone else.

  But Dottie didn’t seem to hate her life, Frank decided once again as he watched her wipe the drool from her husband’s chin with all her usual tenderness and Warren mooed equally tenderly back. The thought that they made the perfect couple even trickled across his mind. But he still didn’t buy it. There was something else about Dottie as she turned to gaze through the panoramic glass at the wide blue Mediterranean in proud and lovely profile. It was like some kind of despair. If her golden eyes hadn’t been fixed so steadily on the horizon, he might almost have thought she was crying.

  He finally got his chance with her after a day excursion on the tiny island of Delos. The Hastings had opted to join this particular tour party, although they hung back as Frank delivered his usual spiel about the Ionians and their phallic monuments as if Dottie was trying to avoid him. Then there was a kafuffle involving her and Warren just as the launch arrived for the return to the Glorious Nomad. A lover’s tiff, Frank hoped, but it turned out there had been some kind of malfunction which required immediate action as soon as they got back on board ship.

  Dottie still had on the same white top she’d worn all day when she finally emerged on her own at the Waikiki Bar later that evening, but it now bore what looked to be – but probably wasn’t – a small food stain on the left breast. Her hair was no longer its usual marvel of spun gold, either, and the left corner of her mouth bore a small downward crease. She looked tired and worried. Everyone else, though – all these dead real estate agents and software consultants – barely noticed as she sat down. They didn’t even bother to ask if Warren was okay. The dead regarded organ failure in much the same way that flat tyres were thought of by the petrol motorists of old; a bit of a nuisance, but nothing to get too excited about just as long as you made sure you’d packed a spare. The spluttering talk about annuity rates continued uninterrupted, and the tension lines deepened around Dottie’s eyes as her fingers wove and unwove in her lap. Even when she stood up and pushed her way out through the corral of matchstick limbs toward the deck, Frank was the only person to notice.

  He followed her out. It was a dark, fine night and the stars seemed to float around her like fireflies. A flick of hair brushed Frank’s face as he leaned close by her on ship’s rail.

  “Is Warren alright?”

  “I’m looking after him. Of course he’s alright.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me? I’m fine. It wasn’t me who — ”

  “I didn’t mean that, Dottie. I meant — ”

  “I know what you meant.” She shrugged and sighed. “People, when they see us both, they can see Frank’s devoted to me . . .”

  “But they wonder about you?”

  “I suppose so.” She shrugged again. “I was just this girl who wanted a better life. I was good at sports – a good swimmer – and I had these dreams that I’d go to the Olympics and win a medal. But by the time I’d grown up, Olympic competitors no longer used their own limbs or had anything resembling normal human blood flowing in their veins. So I eventually found out that the best way to get steady work was on ships like this. I did high dives. I watched pools in a lifevest. I taught the dead and the living how to swim – how to paddle about without drowning, anyway. You know what it’s like, Frank. It’s not such a terrible life just as long as you can put up with the tiny sleeping tubes, and all those drinks served with paper umbrellas.”

  “What ships were you on?”

  “Oh . . .” She gazed down into the racing water. “I was working on the Able May for most of this time.”

  “Wasn’t that the one where half the crew got killed in the reactor fire?”

  “That was her sister ship. And then one day, Warren comes along. He looked much better then. They always say the technologies are going to improve, but death hasn’t been particularly kind to him.”

  “You mean, you really did find him attractive?”

  “Not exactly, no. I was more — ” She stopped. A small device on her wrist had started beeping. “I have to go to him. Have you seen to a suite like ours Frank? Do you want to come down with me?”

  “Wow! This is nice . . .”

  Gold. Glass. Velvet. Everything either glittery hard or falling-through soft. Frank had seen it all before, but this wasn’t the time to say. The only jarring note was a large white structure squatting and humming beside the cushion-festooned bed.

  “. . . I just need to check . . .”

  It looked as if Dottie was inspecting the contents of some giant, walk-in fridge as she opened one of its chrome and enamel doors and leaned inside. The waft of air had that same tang; a chill sense of spoiling meat. There was even that same bland aquarium light, along with glimpses of what might have been trays of beef and cartons of coloured juice, although by far the biggest item on the racks was Warren himself. He lay prone and naked in such a way that Frank had fine view of his scrawny grey feet, his hairless blue-mottled legs, his scarred and pitted belly, the winter-withered fruit of his balls and prick. He looked not so much dead as sucked dry. Far more alarming, though, was the empty space on the rack beside him, which was plainly designed to accommodate another body.

  “He’s fine,” Dottie murmured with that weird tenderness is in her voice again. She touched one or two things, drips and feeds by the look of them. There were flashes and bleeps. Then came a sort of glooping sound which, even though he couldn’t see exactly what was causing it, forced Frank to look away. He heard the door smack shut.

  “He’ll be right as rain by morning.”

  “You don’t get in there with him, do you?”

  “I’m his wife.”

  “But . . . Jesus, Dottie. You’re lovely.” Now or never time; he moved toward her. “You can’t waste you life like this . . . Not when you can . . .” It seemed for a moment that this oh-so direct ploy was actually working. She didn’t step back from him, and the look in her golden eyes was far from unwelcoming. Then, as he reached out to her cheek, she gave a small shriek and cowered across the deep-pile, rubbing at where his fingers hadn’t even touched. It was if she’s been stung by a bee.

  “I’m sorry, Dottie. I didn’t mean — ”

  “No, no. It isn’t you Frank. It’s me. I like you. I want you. I more than like you. But . . . Have you heard of imprinting?”

  “We’re all — ”

  “I mean the word literally. Imprinting is what happens to the brain of a chick when it first sees its mother after it hatches. It’s an instinct – it’s built in – and it’s been known about for centuries. It’s the same to some or other degree even with the more advanced species. That’s how you can get a duckling to follow around the first thing it sees, even if it happens to be a pair of galoshes.”

  Frank nodded. He thought he understood what she meant, although he hadn’t the faintest idea where this was leading.

  “We humans have the same instinct, although it’s not quite as strong or simple. At least, not unless something’s done to enhance it.”

  “What are you saying? Humans can be imprinted and attached to other humans? That can’t be legal.”

  “When does whether something’s legal matter these days? There’s always somewhere in the world where you can do whatever you want, and Warr
en already knew he was dying when I met him. And he was charming. And he was impossibly rich. He said he could offer me the kind of life I’d never achieve otherwise no matter how long I lived or how hard I worked. And he was right. All of this . . .” She gestured at the suite. “Is nothing, Frank. It’s ordinary. This ship’s a prison with themed restaurants and a virtual golf range. With Warren, I realised I had my chance to escape places like this. It didn’t seem so difficult back then, the deal I made . . .”

  “You mean, you agreed to be imprinted by him?”

  She nodded. There really did look to be tears in her eyes. “It was a small device he had made. You could say it was a kind of wedding gift. It looked like a silver insect. It was actually rather beautiful. He laid it here on my neck, and it crawled . . .” She touched her ear. “In here. It hurt a little, but not so very much. And he made me stare at him as it bored in to find the right sector of my brain.” She shrugged. “It was that simple.”

  “My God! Dottie . . .” Again, but this time more impulsively, he moved toward her. Once more, she stumbled back.

  “No. I can’t!” She wailed. “Don’t you see? This is what imprinting means.” The stain on her left breast was rising and falling. “I’d love to escape this thing and be with you, Frank. But I’m trapped. At the time, it seemed like a small enough price to pay. And it’s true that I’ve been to incredible places, experienced the most amazing things. Living on a cruise ship like this, looking at the ruins of the ancient world because we can’t bear to look at the mess we’ve made of this one . . . It’s meaningless. There’s a different kind of life out there, Frank, in the high mountains, or up in the skies, or deep beneath the oceans. For those few who can afford it, anyway. And Warren could. We could. It’s like some curse in a fairy tale. I’m like that king, the one who wanted a world made of gold, and then found out that he was killing everything that was important to him in the process. I wish I could be with you, Frank, but Warren will carry on and on as he is and I can’t give myself to anyone else, or even bear to have them touch me. I just wish there was some escape. I wish I could unwrite what happened, but I’m forever tied.” Her hand reached towards him. Even in tears, she looked impossibly lovely. Then her whole body seemed to freeze. It was as if a glass wall lay between them. “I sometimes wish we were dead.”

  “You can’t say that, Dottie. What you and I have – what we might have. We’ve only just — ”

  “No. I don’t mean I wish you were dead, Frank. Or even myself. I mean things as they are . . .” She raised her golden eyes and blinked more slowly. “. . . and Warren.”

  The tides were turning as the Glorious Nomad beat against the deepening autumnal waves. Frank found himself giving talks about the Grecian concept of the transmigration of souls, and how the dead were assigned to one of three realms. Elysium, for the blessed. Tartarus for the damned. Asphodel – a land of boredom and neutrality – for the rest. To reach these realms you first had to cross the River Styx and pay Charon the ferryman a small golden coin or obolus, which grieving relatives placed on the tongues of the dead. To attain your desires, he concluded, gazing at the papier mache masks of ruined, once-human faces arrayed before him in the Starbucks’ Lecture Suite, you must be prepared to pay.

  Poison? The idea had its appeal, and there were plenty of noxious substances on board which Frank might be able to wrangle access to, but neither he nor Dottie were experts in biochemistry, and there was no guarantee that Warren couldn’t still be re-resurrected. Some kind of catastrophic accident, then – especially in these storms? Something as simple as disabling the magneto on one of those big bulkhead doors as he went tottering through . . . ? But getting the timing exactly right would be difficult, and there was still a faint but frustrating chance Warren would make some kind of recovery, and then where would they be?

  The options that Frank and Dottie explored as they met on the spray-wet deck over the next few days seemed endless, and confusing. Even if one of them worked flawlessly, other problems remained. There was an opportunity coming for them both to leave ship together when the Glorious Nomad dropped anchor by the shores of old Holy Land for an optional tour in radiation suits, but Dottie would be expected to act the role of the grieving widow, and suspicions would be aroused if Frank were to resign his post and then be spotted with her. No matter how many jurisdictions they skipped though, they’d still be vulnerable to prosecution, and also blackmail. But one of the things which Frank was coming to admire as well as love about Dottie was her quickness of mind.

  “What if you were to appear to die, Frank?” she shout-whispered to him as they clung to the ship’s rail. “You could . . . I don’t know . . . You could pretend to kill yourself – stage your suicide. Then . . .” She gazed off into the tumbling light with those wise, golden eyes. “. . . we could get rid of Warren instead.”

  It was as perfect and beautiful as she was, and Frank longed to kiss and hold her and do all the other things they’d been promising each other right here and now on this slippery deck. Disguising himself as Warren for a few months, hiding under that toupee and behind those sunglasses and all that makeup, wouldn’t be so difficult. Give it a little time and he could start to look better of his own accord. After all, the technology was continually improving. They could simply say that he’d died again, and been even more comprehensively re-resurrected. All it would take was a little patience – which was surely a small enough price to pay when you considered the rewards which awaited them: Dottie freed of her curse, and she and Frank rich forever.

  Drowning had always been the most obvious option. They’d toyed with it several times already, but now it made absolute sense. Toss Warren overboard, he’d sink like a stone with all the prosthetic metal he had in him. And if they did it close to the stern – threw him down into the wildly boiling phosphorescent wake of the Glorious Nomad’s eighteen azimuth propellers – he’d be torn into sharkmeat; there’d be no body left worth finding. Sure, alarms would go off and one of the hull’s cameras might catch him falling, but even the most sophisticated technology would struggle to make sense of whatever was going on through the forecast force eight gale. Especially if they waited until dark, and Warren’s body had on one of the transmitting dogtags all crew were required to carry, and was wearing a lilac-stripe blazer.

  By next day, the kind of storm which had shipwrecked Odysseus was brewing, and the Glorious Nomad’s public places soon fell empty as her passengers retreated to their suites. The barber’s shop closed early. The several swimming pools were covered over. The ornamental lake in the Pleasure Park franchise was drained. The air filled with the sounds of heaving and creaking, curious distant booms and bangings, and a pervasive aroma of vomit.

  Heading along the swaying passageways to their pre-arranged meeting point, Frank already felt curiously convinced by the details of his own suicide. His last talk on board the Glorious Nomad was of how Orpheus tried to rescue his dead wife Euridice from the Underworld, and it had taken no effort at all, staring at those white-faced zombies, to put aside his usual catch-all smile and appear surly and depressed. Ditto his few last exchanges with colleagues. Fact is, he realised, he’d been this way with them for years. Everything, even the ferocity of this storm, had that same sense of inevitability. Back down in his sleeping tube, he even found that it was far easier than he’d expected to compose a final message. He’d been able to speak with surprising passion about the emptiness of his life: the sheer monotony of the talks and the tours and the berthings and the embarkations – the long sessions in the gym, too, and the ritual seductions with their overcoming of fake resistance, and the inevitable fuckings and even more inevitable break-ups which followed, with their equally fake expressions of regret. Just what the hell, he’d found himself wondering, had he been living for before he met Dottie? Looked at dispassionately, the prospect of his own imminent death made every kind of sense.

  He arrived at the junction of corridors between Challengers Bowling Arcade and the smallest o
f the five burger franchises just two minutes early, and was relieved to find the whole area empty and unobserved. Dottie was as punctual as he’d have expected, and somehow still looked beautiful even dressed in a grey sou’wester and half-hauling her dead husband up the sideways-tilting floor. Warren was in his usual brushed velour top, crumpled nylon slacks and velcro trainers, although his sunglasses and toupee were all over the place.

  “Hi there Frank,” Dottie said, grabbing a handhold and supporting Warren by a bunched ruff behind his neck. “I know it’s a terrible night, but I persuaded Warren that we might feel fresher if we took a walk.” Frank nodded. His mouth was dry. “Maybe you could help me with him?” she added, shoving Warren into Frank’s half-surprised embrace.

  “There you go, fella,” Frank heard himself mutter as he propped the withered creature against the bulkhead. “Why don’t we take this off . . . ?” Quickly, he removed Warren’s black top, which slipped worn and warm and slightly greasy between his fingers, although it was the feel and sight of Warren beneath that really set his teeth on edge. The dead man muttered something and looked back toward Dottie with his usual puppy-dog longing, but made no discernable attempt to resist.

  “Maybe this as well . . .”

  The toupee felt ever warmer and greasier.

  “And this . . .”

  Here came the sunglasses, hooked off from what passed for ears and a nose. Frank had to judge every movement against the rising, falling waves. But, Jesus, the man was a mess.

  “Looking a bit cold now, Mister Hastings . . .”

  Frank shucked off his own blazer.

  “So why don’t we put on this?”

  A few more manoeuvres and Warren was wearing Frank’s crew blazer. Frank almost forgot the crew dogtag until Dottie reminded him in a quick whisper. Even then, Warren in this new attire looked like nothing more than a particularly bald and anaemic scarecrow, and Frank was wondering how this switch will ever convince anyone until he swung the weighed hatch open and was confronted by the sheer size and scale of the storm.