The Einstein at the podium waited, looking out over the heads of his assembled brethren. The sea of old guy faces looked back. Slowly, slowly, he removed his finely tailored dark blue jacket, stepped back and draped it over the back of a chair. The others watched in silence. The way they all held themselves was almost reverent. I frowned, and watched, not really understanding what was about to happen. Just as slowly, he returned to the podium, then unbuttoned and rolled up his right sleeve. He held the arm aloft, his hand closed into a fist, turned out toward the audience.
“We cannot forget,” he said. “We cannot let this happen again.”
I glanced up at the big screen, then down at the small screen from where the video was being fed and leaned closer. There was something on the outside of the Einstein’s forearm, faded blue and etched deep into the pale and aging flesh. Whatever it was had blurred with time, but it looked sort of like a row of numbers running at a slight angle. A couple of the Einsteins sitting in the front row gently gripped their own forearms, lightly squeezing. There was a ripple of motion through the entire auditorium.
“We mustn’t forget,” said the Einstein at the podium again. “We will be the last.”
One or two of the shaggy heads nodded. Others closed their eyes. As I thought about it, I realized I’d never seen any of the Einsteins in anything other than long sleeves.
I looked back from the auditorium down at the small screen. The Einstein at the podium slowly lowered his arm and rebuttoned his sleeve. He scanned the assembled faces. Slowly, slowly, there came a spark of understanding. I started to comprehend what was going on here. A deep chill rose inside me. If that mark really meant what I thought it did . . .
I swallowed and looked back up at the podium.
“I think we all know what we need to do. Each one of us will communicate with our appropriate counterparts to put the plans in motion over the next few weeks. The minutes from the breakout sessions will help guide us as a first step. They will be transmitted through our secure network as always.”
He gripped the sides of the pedestal with the CompuSoft logo etched clearly on the front and then nodded once more.
“Thank you all for coming.”
Slowly, then gently swelling around the auditorium, applause broke out, then died away. One by one, the Einsteins got to their feet, in their shirts and their suits and their sports jackets. One by one, they filed out of the auditorium in their trousers, their jeans, their chinos, their loafers, or smart business shoes in groups and singly, a sea of old shaggy heads and mustaches, washing out of the room, carrying their collective wisdom and perception and their vast imagination with them.
The Einstein at the podium waited for the others to leave, then stepped down from the stage and walked over to the table with my equipment and the wires and leads. This was our Einstein, CompuSoft’s Einstein. He stood in front of the table for a few moments watching me as I shut down the equipment and busied myself with unplugging leads and putting things away.
“The session went well, I thought,” he said.
“Yes, it seemed to,” I responded without meeting his eyes. The hollow chill was still nestled inside me and my mouth was dry. I swallowed. It was hard to meet the enormity of my realization face-to-face.
“Ray—it is Ray, isn’t it?” he asked.
“Yes, Mr. Einstein,” I said, stopping what I was doing and looking up into his speculative gaze.
What had they been through? What had they seen? They’d just been kids.
He waited for a few seconds, watching my face with those deep, puppy-dog eyes. “Ray, I want to thank you for your help today.”
“No,” I said. “Thank you, Mr. Einstein.”
“We value our employees at CompuSoft. We value all of our people. It’s a good company. We’re doing good things. You do understand that, don’t you, Ray? We’re doing good things.”
I waited.
The Einstein cleared his throat. “You know we’ve put together resources. You know we have our means. It’s something I try and spell out in the company vision. They’re important things, vision and trust, particularly trust. I hope I can trust you to . . .”
“You’ve no need to say anything, Mr. Einstein,” I said.
He nodded once more. “Thanks again, Ray,” he said. He cleared his throat one more time, then turned and walked from the auditorium, disappearing out the side door. I stood there for some time, watching the door, then let out a long slow breath, turning back to pack away the last of the gear. Maybe he thought that those few words were enough. I was just one of the little guys, after all. It didn’t matter. But I kept remembering what I’d seen.
Once I was done, I headed out to find a trolley to load the equipment, thinking all the while. As I left the vast room, I looked at all those empty seats, my hand hovering above the red light switches on their stainless steel panel. A sea of Einsteins. I shook my head, killed the lights, and shut the door behind me.
There were questions, of course, from the other guys. I sidestepped most of them. Oh, you know, standard corporate stuff, rah, rah, all pretty boring really.
So do they meet like that often?
I simply shrugged and said I guessed so. Wouldn’t you? They’re sort of family, aren’t they?
It seemed to satisfy them. There was a bit more discussion during the rest of the afternoon, but I tried to stay out of it as much as I could. I was still thinking of the pictures that lingered in my head, what they really meant. I thought about what our Einstein had started to say. I packed up as soon as I could and left, making my way through our clean, well-maintained, suburban streets to home.
Mary was waiting for me eagerly when I got home, barely able to restrain the questions.
“So . . . ?”
“Let me get in at least, hon,” I said to her. I wasn’t really sure how much I was going to end up telling her.
She hovered about while I dumped my things and got rid of the jacket.
I stood where I was, my hands resting on the back of a chair, composing my thoughts.
“So, come on.”
“Okay, okay. I’m thinking.”
I didn’t know how much I should tell her. Our very own Einstein’s unspoken request was still hanging with me. But Mary was my wife, my partner, she had a right to know as much as I knew. I figured it couldn’t do any harm.
“You’d better sit down,” I told her.
She pulled out a chair and sat, a frown on her face. “What is it, Ray? This sounds serious.”
“Okay, well they had a meeting. All of them. All the Einsteins. They were all there. It was really weird.”
“Wow,” she said. “All of them?”
“Yeah.” I shook my head, still only half believing it myself. “It was the strangest thing to look at. You get used to seeing them all the time, but all at once, all together . . .”
“How many?”
“I think he said there were two hundred and twelve left, or something like that.”
“Wow.” The word was long and drawn out. “So, what did they talk about? You said you thought they were up to something. Were they?”
I looked at her long and hard. “Yeah, in a way. They reckon they’re going to make more of them. More Einsteins.”
She looked at me blankly. “How can they do that?”
I shrugged. “They’re Einsteins. They’ll find a way.”
“But that can’t be right. How can they? Isn’t it illegal? I seem to remember something about them banning it. I’m right, aren’t I? They already have too much power. You’ve got to tell someone, Ray.”
I reached across the table and took her hand. I placed my other hand gently over the top of it. “I don’t think so, hon,” I told her. “I think they know what they’re doing. Remember, they’re Einsteins. They’re a lot smarter than us.”
She didn’t look convinced.
I patted her hand gently. “Trust me, Mary. It’ll be all right. I spoke to our Einstein today. I actually spoke to M
r. Einstein himself. They do know what they’re doing. They really do. Come on. Let’s go and watch TV for a while, then we can think about dinner. It’s been a pretty full day. I just want to relax for a while and not really have to think about anything else, okay?”
She nodded, slowly.
After all, I knew, there was someone else to do the thinking about the really big stuff. There really was.
Mary seemed satisfied for the time being and if it came up again I knew I’d be able to reassure her. I was confident about that much, at least.
We headed into the living room and took our place on the couch. As the Einstein-Warner logo came up on the screen, I caught myself in the middle of a half-formed smile.
Revision Point
Hans Spemann, a German embryologist, is one of the original pioneers of modern embryology, and one of only two embryologists to ever be awarded the Nobel Prize. His studies focused upon the differentiation of embryo cells during an organism’s development.
In the late 1920s Spemann performed work with salamanders. He transferred the nucleus of a sixteen-cell embryo to a single salamander embryo cell with no nucleus. The cell took up the nucleus and developed into a normal salamander.
With this process, Spemann completed one of the first cloning experiments using the nuclear transfer method. In the 1938 publication of his results, entitled “Embryonic Development and Induction,” Spemann proposed the “fantastical experiment” of cloning an organism from differentiated or even adult cells using the nuclear transfer method.
Between 1921 and 1923 Albert Einstein traveled, among others, to the US, Britain, France, Japan, and Palestine. From that time he began commenting on political issues more and more frequently, based on a pacifist point of view. In 1922, Einstein became a member of the League of Nations’ International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. Opposed to any kind of violence, Einstein supported pacifist movements whenever he had the chance. He spoke up for the Hebrew University to be founded in Jerusalem to which he later also bequeathed his entire written legacy. In November 1952, Einstein even received the offer to become President of Israel, which, however, he turned down.
When Einstein and his wife left Caputh in December 1932 to hold a series of lectures in the US, the political situation in Germany had drastically changed. In the 1932 elections the Nazis had become the strongest political party and, in January 1933, Hitler seized power. Einstein never again set foot on German soil. In March 1933, he resigned from the Prussian Academy of Sciences and cut off all contacts with any German institution with which he ever had dealt.
J.C.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Geoffrey A. Landis is a scientist and a science fiction writer. As a scientist, he is a physicist who works for the NASA John Glenn Research Center. He was a member of the rover team on the Mars Pathfinder mission, and is currently a member of the science team for the exciting Mars Exploration rovers mission. He holds four patents, and is the author of approximately 250 scientific papers on subjects. As a writer, he has won two Hugo Awards, the most recent in 2003 for his story “Falling Onto Mars.” He won the Nebula Award in 1990 for “Ripples in the Dirac Sea.” His novel Mars Crossing won the Locus award for best first novel in 2001. His most recent book, the short story collection Impact Parameter (and Other Quantum Realities) was published in November 2001. It was named as a notable book of 2001 by Publishers Weekly. His many science fiction stories have been translated into nineteen languages, ranging from Chinese through Turkish. He lives in Berea, Ohio, with his wife, writer Mary A. Turzillo, and two cats.
Julie E. Czerneda, a former biologist, has been writing and editing science texts for almost two decades. A regular presenter on issues in science and science in society, she’s also an internationally best-selling and award-winning science fiction author and editor, with eight novels published by DAW Books (including two series: the Trade Pact Universe and the Webshifters) and her latest, the hard SF trilogy, Species Imperative. Her editorial debut for DAW was Space Inc. Her short fiction and novels have been nominated for several awards, including being a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction, and winning two Prix Aurora Awards, as well as being on the preliminary Nebula Ballot. A proponent of the use of science fiction in classrooms, Julie is series editor for Tales from the Wonder Zone (winner of the 2002 Golden Duck Special Award for Excellence in Science and Technology), Realms of Wonder, and author of such acclaimed teacher resources as No Limits: Developing Scientific Literacy Using Science Fiction. She currently serves as science fiction consultant to Science News.
Laura Anne Gilman made her first sale in 1997, to Amazing Stories. Since then, she has published over twenty-four short stories, written three nonfiction books for teenagers, and edited two anthologies (OtherWere and Treachery and Treason). In August 2004 her first original novel, Staying Dead, was released. She is also a professional editor and copywriter. She can be found on-line at http://www.sff.net/people/lauraanne.gilman
Kage Baker is best known for her stories and novels of Dr. Zeus Incorporated (AKA The Company) whose immortal servants plunder the past for future profit. Her first novel, In the Garden of Iden, has been translated into German, French, Italian, Spanish and Hebrew. Her most recent work, The Anvil of the World, is a fantasy in the style of Fritz Leiber and Jack Vance. The Life of the World to Come, the next Company novel, is a 2004 release. Ms. Baker lives in Pismo Beach, California.
After obtaining a degree in wildlife illustration and environmental education, Doranna Durgin spent a number of years deep in the Appalachian mountains, riding the trails and writing SF and fantasy books. She’s moved on to the Northern Arizona mountains, where she still writes—more eclectically than ever—and rides, focusing on classical dressage. There’s a Lipizzan in her backyard, a mountain looming outside her office window, a pack of dogs romping in the house, and a laptop sitting on her desk—and that’s just the way she likes it. You can find a complete list of books (Dun Lady’s Jess, Wolverine’s Daughter, A Feral Darkness . . .) and tie-ins (Angel, Mage Knight) at http://www.doranna.net/, along with scoops about new projects, silly photos, and a link to her newsgroup. She’s never been to Zion National Park—the setting for “A Call from the Wild”—but writing this story will probably change that.
James Alan Gardner was born in Bradford, Ontario, and currently resides in Waterloo. His work has appeared in Amazing Stories, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine , On Spec, and the Tesseracts anthologies. His short story “The Children Of Crèche,” won the Grand Prize in the Writers of the Future contest in 1989. His short story “Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large” won an Aurora Award in 1991 and his short story “Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream” was an Aurora Award winner and a Hugo and Nebula Award finalist. He has seven published novels. His novel, Commitment Hour, made the preliminary Nebula Award list in 1998 and Vigilant was on the 1999 preliminary ballot. Hunted and Vigilant are sequels to his first novel Expendable. Look for James’ newest in the series, Radiant.
Robin Wayne Bailey is the author of numerous novels, including Talisman, Dragonkin, Night’s Angel, and Shadowdance. His short fiction has appeared most recently in 2001: The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Future Wars, Thieves’ World: Turning Points, and ReVisions . He’s also edited Architects of Dreams: The SFWA Author Emeritus Anthology and Through My Glasses Darkly: Five Stories By Frank M. Robinson. He’s the current chairman of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, an avid book collector, and student of Ryobu-kai Karate. He lives in North Kansas City, Missouri.
John G. McDaid is a media ecologist from Brooklyn, NY. Born the year NASA was created, he grew up reading science fiction: Robert Heinlein and Andre Norton were his other parents (as he grew up, they morphed into James Tiptree, Jr. and Thomas Pynchon.) He attended Syracuse University, did graduate work at the New School University, and i
s a doctoral candidate in Media Ecology at NYU. He attended the Clarion workshop in 1993, and sold his first short story, the Sturgeon Award-winning “Jigoku no mokushiroku” to Asimov’s in 1995. A novelette, “Key-board Practice,” is scheduled to appear in F&SF in late 2004. He wrote one of the first hypertext novels, Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse, a New Media Invision Award finalist, in 1993, and has spoken on digital narrative at dozens of colleges and conferences. He lives in Rhode Island, where he is webmaster for a management consulting firm.
Peter Watts (http://www.rifters.com) is a reformed marine biologist whose first novel, Starfish, netted a “No-table Book of the Year” nod from The New York Times, an honorable mention for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and rejections from both German and Russian publishers because it was “too dark.” (Too dark for the Russians—think upon that and tremble.) The sequel, Maelstrom, was starred by Booklist and may mark the first time that The New York Times used the terms “exhilarating” and “deeply paranoid” to describe the same novel. Behemoth, the concluding volume of what (inevitably) turned out to be a trilogy, is a 2004 release. Dr. Watts’ short fiction has been collected in Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes: earlier works appearing in the Journal of Theoretical Biology , the Canadian Journal of Zoology, and Marine Mammal Science are, when you get right down to it, no less fictitious.
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