Brightsuit MacBear

by L. Neil Smith

  And with this enigmatic parting advice, Mrs. Kropotkin popped back into her apartment.

  An embarrassed, wordless moment passed before Berdan’s grandfather lifted a thumb. Berdan nodded, issuing mental instructions to his implant which relayed them to the building, and knew his grandfather was doing the same. Under their feet, the section of carpet they were standing on began growing, lifting them both at a gentle pace toward the ceiling. Before their heads could brush it, it retreated around them. They passed through it onto the next floor.

  The hall was empty.

  As the carpet sealed itself beneath them, they strode to their own apartment, through its membrane—also implant-controlled—and into its small living room. As they entered, a small flurry of motion near one wall at floor level caught Berdan’s eye. It was the housemice, out to play when the people were away. In a well-kept modern building, they wouldn’t have been seen at all.

  Perhaps the humidity slowed them down. This room, the kitchen portion of it, his grandfather’s bedroom, and the bathroom were filled with potted plants, hundreds of them, which the old man tended, watered, fertilized, and misted every day. Their apartment looked like a jungle, felt and smelled like one, as well.

  Berdan had never understood his grandfather’s obsession. He didn’t dare so much as touch the old man’s plants, as green things seemed to die a horrible death in the presence of what Geanar called his “black thumb.” In the boy’s opinion, which had never been consulted in this or any other matter, plants belonged outdoors. He preferred animals, although he’d never been allowed to have one, warm things which could move around, with a personality and eyes to look back at you, things which were maybe just a bit unpredictable.

  As usual, what could be seen of the apartment’s windows through all the greenery had been left adjusted to display the brightest, busiest, most crowded intersection aboard the Tom Edison Maru. To anyone unfortunate enough to be without an implant, they’d have appeared to be nothing more than blank sections of the walls. Although Berdan had heard it was considered smart, in certain better-off neighborhoods, to have real windows with real glass looking out onto real streets, he liked these windows better: they could look anywhere.

  His grandfather needed the feeling of other people around him, even though he never seemed to like people much. Berdan liked them well enough, he supposed, but preferred to let the windows of his own, one hundred percent plant-free, bedroom give him a computer-enhanced view of the star-brilliant blackness through which Tom Edison Maru quartered in her endless journeying. This was another transgression for which the boy caught it on regular occasions. For some reason, looking into the depths of space disturbed the old man.

  “What am I to do with you?” Geanar’s voice, which had thundered at Berdan downstairs, was now a pitiable whine.

  “You’re just like your father—and his mother before him! It’s bad blood, I tell you! Bad blood! What in the sad, sorry world did I ever do to deserve it?”

  Berdan, who knew the signs, began to relax. Grandfather wasn’t going to hit him, as he’d feared, but just launch into the millionth repetition of the “bad blood” lecture, though it was pretty serious when his grandmother got dragged in, too. In an odd way, all of Berdan’s troubles seemed to revolve about Grandma Lucille, although her tragedy had taken place long before he’d even been born.

  Grandfather, it seemed, wasn’t the only one in the fleet who believed in bad blood.

  “Are you listening to me, young man?”

  No, Berdan thought, I’m not listening to you, Grandfather. Neither of them had so much as sat down, but stood not far apart in the center of the overgrown living room. But he gave Geanar a dutiful nod and continued thinking his own thoughts.

  Unknown to his grandfather, Berdan had been aware for years—thanks to thoughtful individuals like Geeky Kehlson, Crazy Zovich, and Stoney Edders—that, in common opinion, Dalmeon Geanar carried his own share of the family curse.

  In earlier days—contrasted with the housebound existence the old man had pursued all of Berdan’s life—Geanar and his wife, Lucille, had been part of a planetary survey, he as a Broach technician, a sort of matter-transmitter installation and repair man, she as the praxeologist whose studies of intelligent life constituted the reason for planetary surveys in the first place.

  According to the stories thrust upon Berdan, it had either been bad judgment on Geanar’s part or cowardice (hence the name “chickensquat,” an affliction, in popular theory, which could be passed on to succeeding generations) which had been responsible for the slow death she’d suffered at the hands (or claws or tentacles) of primitive aliens during the exploration of a new world. This was all the detail the boy had ever been given. His grandfather wouldn’t talk about it. Berdan didn’t even know what planet had been involved.

  “Pay attention!” A huge, rough hand landed on Berdan’s shoulder and rattled his teeth again. “If you’d stop stargazing and listen for once, you might make something decent of yourself!”

  “Yes, Grandfather.”

  But all the time, the boy was thinking to himself, Just like you, Grandfather?

  Attempting to escape the public outrage that had followed these events, Dalmeon Geanar had fled his post aboard another great ship of the fleet. Taking his son, Berdan’s father, MacDougall, with him, he’d arrived at the Tom Edison Maru. The story had traveled with them, however. The son, who according to the stories had gotten along no better with his father than Berdan did now, had published notice of legal separation from his surviving parent.

  With all his heart, Berdan wished for some part of MacDougall Bear’s courage. He even wondered if some truth mightn’t be discovered, lurking in this theory of hereditary cowardice. That his father, according to all accounts, hadn’t suffered any such affliction was something he failed to consider, along with a possibility that his grandfather, having learned from a son independent enough to run away, had brought the grandson up fearful and helpless.

  In any case, when he hadn’t been much older than Berdan, MacDougall had left home, struck out on his own, found work, and began to educate himself. He’d even rejected his father’s name, adopting the one his mother had been born with: Bear.

  But tragedy is a relentless hunter. Little more than a decade later, MacDougall and his beautiful wife Erissa had come to their own untimely end, repeating family history. Both accomplished scientists, they’d shared busy, productive lives, full of physical and intellectual adventure, leaving less time, perhaps, than they should have allotted their only child.

  Berdan had always believed that the facts of his life weren’t tragic or even unusual in particular. Those who disagreed with his grandfather about rejuvenation (which was most people) tended to die abrupt deaths, by accident or otherwise. The ancient enemies, old age and disease, had been done away with. Violence was the single real danger remaining, something medical science could do nothing about. The rugged individualists of the Confederacy (which also meant most people), jealous of their privacy and freedom, didn’t want it to try.

  During their final, fatal experiment, MacDougall and Erissa Bear had entrusted Berdan to the care of an individual whose shortcomings, in their generosity, they’d learned to overlook: MacDougall’s father, Dalmeon Geanar.

  “Berdan Geanar!”

  Still standing, his mind murky with remembrance, the boy blinked up at his grandfather.

  “Yes, I’m talking to you! Do you think I called you home for the sake of my health?”

  Having come to the end of his string of well-worn thoughts about his father and his mother, as he had so many times before, Berdan took a deep breath. “No, Grandfather. Why did you call me?”

  Before Geanar could reply, a sudden ping! sounded inside both their heads.

  Geanar nodded.

  The door dilated around the husky forms of a pair of beings, one human, one gorilla, wearing smartsuits whose surfaces had been adjusted to look like workman’s overalls.

  “In th
ere.” Geanar inclined his head, indicating his own bedroom door. The workers entered without the old man and, seconds later, emerged into the jungle of the living room, straining beneath a large, upright crate Berdan had never seen before. Three separate implant-activated padlocks connected a series of stout cables wound around it. Squeezing out through the front door, it bumped against the sill.

  “Be careful with that thing!” Dalmeon Geanar ordered. “Can’t you see it’s fragile? And watch out for my pseudophilodendron! Hurry up, or it’ll be late!”

  “Take it easy, doc,” the gorilla answered. “There’s a shuttle leavin’ every hour on the—”

  Geanar purpled, and only in part, Berdan knew, at mention of the small ships which the old man, as a former Broach technician, trusted less than the instantaneous transport they were built to establish between the planet and Tom Edison Maru. Whatever Grandfather was up to, it must be urgent for him to consider using a shuttle.

  “Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m not paying for your lip! I’m paying you to do as I tell you!”

  “You ain’t payin’ us enough, doc. Cool down or you can do the muscle work yourself.”

  As they vanished through the membrane, the human partner shook his head and muttered “Sheesh!”

  When they’d gone, Geanar strode through the open membrane of his room, expecting Berdan to follow. When he did, what he saw on the bed astounded him further. The old man, who never went anywhere, had his suitcase—for as long as Berdan could remember it had lain on a shelf in the closet between two bags of plant food, gathering dust—half filled with clothing and other personal items.

  “I’m going on a business trip.” Geanar made it an announcement without looking around at his grandson. At the same time, he folded a brand-new smartsuit, an item of apparel Berdan hadn’t even known his grandfather possessed, and laid it atop the other items in the suitcase.

  “While I’m gone—no, you won’t be going with me—you’ll have to take care of yourself. When I get back, things will be different. At long last I’ll be somebody. Somebody important! We can move out of this dump and get a decent place to live in a decent sector of the ship—maybe even go back to Earth! I’ll hire you a tutor and you can quit watching commercial education channels!”

  Five minutes later, without so much as advising the boy about watering the plants, feeding them, or leaving them alone, he, too, had vanished through the front door membrane.

  Berdan had been left behind.

  Chapter IV: Happy Birthday, Berdan

  The silence was deafening.

  It took Berdan a long while to regain his composure. From experience, he knew it would be even longer before he’d assimilated everything that had happened today.

  So far today, he corrected.

  It seemed to him he’d never been able to experience the right emotion at the right time, only realizing afterward, sometimes as much as several days, he’d been happy, satisfied, or proud of something he’d accomplished. Now, everything on which he’d ever based any sense of normality had been reversed within the space of minutes (a half-conscious reference to his implant told him it was just coming up on noon) and he wondered, and in the same instant regretted having thought to ask, what else could happen to him before this day was over.

  He didn’t want to know.

  Shaking his head, he took the three short steps necessary to take him through the artificial jungle of the apartment into its cooking area—contiguous with the living room and too small to be described with any accuracy as a kitchen—and peered into the refrigerator. Removing a bright-colored plastic package, the contents of which would have upset Mr. Meep, he popped it into the microwave. With a glance back toward the greenery-filled living room area and an appropriate command from his implant, a small section of the carpet began rising, changing color and texture, until a comfortable armchair and coffee table stood where seconds before only empty floor had been visible.

  The microwave signalled.

  Berdan removed his lunch, a mammothburger with cheese and yamfries, now sizzling hot, summoned up an Osceola Cola from the sink dispenser, went to the armchair, and sat down in a position—more or less on the back of his neck—which would have drawn a sharp remark from his grandfather about posture. He was hungry, but long minutes went by without his eating. The cheeseburger grew cold, the yamfries even greasier than they’d started out, the carbonated soft drink flat, and the ice within it turned to meltwater. Meanwhile, he concentrated his thoughts.

  What was going on?

  Grandfather, after years of going nowhere and doing nothing—at least this was the impression Berdan had, although by now he wasn’t sure of anything—had, without warning, turned into a dynamo. Having refused for what seemed to be forever, not only had the old man permitted his grandson to get a job (Berdan made a mental note—a literal possibility with an implant—to call Mr. Meep to make sure the job was still his), but he seemed to have gotten one himself.

  Something which involved sudden business planetside and a massive, coffin-sized shipping crate.

  Not altogether conscious of it, Berdan rose to his feet, at the same time struggling with his conscience. He’d like to know more—what was in that crate?—but, being a child of his culture, he was reluctant to invade his grandfather’s privacy. Although it was fair to say the old man had never shown much respect for his—Berdan’s—privacy, the boy recognized this to be the rationalization it was. He also understood two wrongs don’t make a right.

  Humanity, however, would never have made any progress if curiosity weren’t a stronger force, in particular in fifteen-year-old boys, than culture. His congealing lunch ignored now on the temporary coffee table which wouldn’t go away again unless its load were removed, Berdan swallowed his conscience and stepped through the still-dilated door membrane into Dalmeon Geanar’s bedroom.

  The die, as someone had once observed in somewhat similar circumstances, was cast.

  At first Berdan stood motionless in the precise center of the small room, both hands thrust into his smartsuit pockets in a final, futile gesture to his ruptured scruples. The place was just as filled with hanging and potted plants as the area outside, and it was difficult to take it in with a single glance.

  The bed had made itself, of course. The closet had retrieved and hung up whatever clothes his grandfather hadn’t taken with him and seemed to be busy cleaning them—Berdan could hear a faint ionic hum from that direction. The windows on all four walls and the ceiling were blank, unprogrammed, the place devoid of any clues he might have hoped to find. Curious or not, the boy couldn’t bring himself to open any of the dresser drawers—it didn’t occur to him this was a strange place to draw the line, having once violated someone else’s privacy—but he wondered where the big crate had stood. In the daytime, his grandfather almost never closed his bedroom door, but Berdan hadn’t noticed it before this.

  Maybe it had just arrived today.

  Casting aside everything he regarded as decent behavior, Berdan opened the closet. On first inspection, as the cleaning hum died, no trace remained of the crate, although room enough was left for it. Everything was as it should be, neat, spotless. Overhead, coiled tight against the ceiling, the closet’s retrieval tentacle gleamed in the dim light. Whatever their other failings, the housemice, golfball-sized cyberdevices similar to the tentacle, had done a commendable job wiping out their natural prey, the dustbunny, along with every other trace of dirt the carpet peristalsis didn’t take care of. An empty space remained at the right, toward the back, where the crate might have stood on its end.

  With his head deep in his grandfather’s closet, Berdan frowned. What was that in the corner? In the dark recess he couldn’t make it out. A mental nudge from his implant caused the walls to emit a soft, illuminating glow. Toward the floor, caught in an upper edge of the base molding—cheap to begin with and starting now to separate from the wall it had been glued to—he saw a scrap of plastic. Berdan squatted down, reached around,
and retrieved it.

  About the size of a business card, it seemed to be a label—half of a label, anyway; Berdan could see two brittle strips of amber glue along the back—which had somehow been torn from the crate:

  Spoonbender’s Museum of Scientific Curiosit

  —And Friendly Finance Compa

  A. Hamilton Spoonbe

  22-24 Ponsie Stree

  N.

  The boy wasn’t stupid; his memory, even without the help of an implant, was good; and in most instances he was unafraid to follow wherever the facts led him. Without getting up, he keyed his implant to the first infochannel it locked onto, the electronic equivalent of the newspaper Captain Forsyth had been reading in the park. As usual, he selected a written format, rather than talking-heads-with-pictures. It was easier to get the unvarnished truth that way without the interpretive “assistance” of waggled eyebrows or suggestive tones of voice.

  In moments, the words began crawling past his eyes, hanging in the air a few inches before his face.

  A spokesbeing for Griswold’s Security told Infopeek this morning he was unable to explain why a thief, employing molecular interpenetration programs normally used by the ship’s transport system, broke into a seventh level museum last night, apparently for no other reason than stealing a worthless, possibly dangerous memento of a decade-old scientific experiment which culminated in two deaths.

  “Some folks just have ghoulish interests, I guess,” Captain Burris Griswold asserted, claiming the break-in at Spoonbender’s Museum of Scientific Curiosities, 22-24 Ponsie Street, Sector 270, was the first crime of its kind in the eighteen years he has been a security subcontractor aboard Tom Edison Maru. Expressing doubt the thief would ever be caught, he said there is “only so much sapient beings can do” and, in his words, “Griswold’s is a property-protecting company, not in the business of collecting people, not even crooks.”

  Contacted at home, museum owner A. Hamilton Spoonbender would not respond to questions. Infopeek has learned that the stolen object was an experimental smartsuit, centerpiece of the museum’s collection, originally developed by Laporte Paratronics, Ltd. and considered a failure after two researchers were killed during its testing.