Analog SFF, October 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “The board meets in a week.”

  * * * *

  “One hundred years!” The director bolted to his feet. “That's insane. You'd be ... you'd be essentially part of our permanent collection.”

  “A valuable acquisition, I assure you.” Gale had gotten the board's approval, and now she'd have to struggle to keep it. “Look, it's a good deal for the Met. I'll be the owner of the sculpture of course, but I'll be on long-term lease to the museum. You could exhibit me any way you want, within good taste, of course. If you want, you could even lend me out to other institutions.”

  “But a hundred years,” the director sputtered. “That's ... that's a century!" He sat, heavily.

  Gale decided to tell all. And as she did, she detected sympathy on the part of the director. Inwardly, she smiled. He was clearly a romantic. And now to close the deal—I hope.

  “It's very likely,” she concluded, “that the Met will be repaid the stasis fees.”

  The director raised his eyebrows.

  “The contract should contain the provision that Malcolm will have the right to buy out my contract by paying what the Met has paid in stasis fees. I can't guarantee it, of course, but I imagine that at the current rate of medical progress, Malcolm's cure should come within five years or so.”

  “And then,” said the director, “your prince Malcolm will revive you with a kiss and the two of you will live happily ever after.”

  “More or less, yes.”

  The director steepled his hands on his desk. After a few moments of silence, he nodded. “Fine,” he said with a shrug. “Why not? I'll have our lawyer write up the contract.”

  “Perfect!” Gale loved the idea of a round hundred years. Either Malcolm would rescue her or everyone tiresome that she knew would be gone, and she'd see the future she'd dreamed of. “Oh, one more thing,” she said in a sudden burst of inspiration. “In my stasis booth, I'd like to hang my painting, Warm Earth."

  “Oh, so that's it.” The director laughed. “You want temporary immortality for your work.” He pursed his lips and shook his head. "You are the exhibit, not your painting.”

  She put on a wounded look. “Please.”

  The director sighed. “No ... But as a compromise I'll allow you to hang a, say, eight-by-ten-inch print of your painting in the booth with you—inconspicuously.”

  “How about a twelve by fourteen?

  “Nine by eleven,” said the director. “Final offer.”

  Concerned that if she pushed the issue, the whole arrangement might fall through, Gale extended her hand. “Wonderful! Bring on that contract.”

  * * * *

  Gale had two weeks to tidy up her affairs. She'd have preferred less, tormented as she was by the notion that Malcolm was hurtling into the future without her. In a frenzy of activity, Gale found a stolid brokerage house, the one Malcolm used, as it turned out, and put all her money in long-term investments. She had a high-quality print made from Warm Earth, and as the time grew near, gave away all her possessions to friends—all possessions except her paintings. Those, she would somehow take with her into the future. But how?

  She got the idea of a “time capsule” and found a company that specialized in them. She bought one: a seven-inch-diameter tube some two feet long, with a cover that provided a hermetic seal. She thought about having the company hold the capsule for her, but didn't trust them; she didn't trust anyone with her paintings.

  She removed her canvases from their frames, rolled them up and slid them into the tube. The question was where to bury the capsule. It had to be a place safe from development for a full century. She chose a location in Central Park close to the Met's Temple of Dendur. For the actual entombment of the capsule she cajoled some friends to do the digging, those who didn't think her paintings had any worth—just about all of her friends, as it turned out. They'll see! A twinge of sadness came over her. No, maybe they won't. If Malcolm's cure doesn't happen relatively soon, they'll all be dead.

  Finally, her day for stasis arrived. Carrying only a small valise to hold her clothing while she “slept,” she approached the imposing stone staircase leading into the museum. She felt anticipation and a sense of lightness. She was about to enter a new world and leave all her obligations behind.

  The Grand Exhibit Hall had been closed to the public in preparation for “an exciting new exhibition.” In the center of the hall, she saw the stasis booth, its transparent front obscured by a red curtain with a gold pull-cord. A few men in white lab coats chatted with a virtual horde of reporters while the flashes from still cameras gave the impression of an indoor lightning storm.

  As Gale walked in, those reporters and cameramen rushed to her. This time, everyone recognized her. It was very gratifying.

  After a paroxysm of interviews, the director and one of the men in white led her behind the screen. The director, holding a swatch of fine red silk, opened the transparent door to the booth for her.

  Gale felt both joy and dread; she'd left the outside world behind her and her future, her immediate future, held a one-in-a-thousand chance of death. Practicing the enigmatic smile she'd chosen for her pose, she opened the valise. It was empty save for her Warm Earth print and some double-sided sticky tape to mount it—a flimsy mount, but then it wouldn't have to hold long, not by her measure of time.

  The director handed her the silk cloth and, while the two men discreetly averted their eyes, Gale stepped into the booth. She hung her print—high, making sure it would be fully visible over her shoulder. Then she disrobed and struck a pose—Rubenesque but with a very un-Rubenesque figure striking it. Unlike the situation with magazines or billboards where her image was the body of the moment, now it had to be the body of the century. How wonderful it felt to be great art—and a great artist as well; for wasn't she responsible for her figure and her pose?

  She draped the cloth casually yet carefully over her thigh, then announced she was ready.

  “Very nice,” said the director, examining her critically. “But relax your spine a little, and drop your hand to the cloth, as if the silk were an afterthought.”

  Gale complied.

  “Excellent,” said the director. “Beautiful.”

  The man in white closed the door while the director took up Gale's valise and placed it behind the booth. He'd promised to store it in a safe place.

  The director stepped around the curtains and a few seconds later, Gale saw the curtains part. Those gathered in front applauded and Gale heard a few calls of bravo. Then the director nodded and the man in white threw the switch.

  Over the next couple of seconds, Gale saw the world speed up. She experienced an increasingly rapid alternation between light and dark until her eyes registered only an unvarying gray. But just as it happened, it unhappened. In seconds, the world reappeared with the rigid clarity of a photograph, a different view than just moments ago. The room's lighting was subdued and there was no throng of reporters. The stasis booth door stood open and Gale saw a man in a lab coat walking away. Gale, feeling a sudden vertigo, let fall her silk cloth.

  Then, coming into her field of view from the side, a man looked in. Malcolm! He looked tired. No, maybe not tired—older, perhaps. And his expression held none of the studied indifference he'd formerly exhibited. “My Galatea,” he said, his voice richer and more resonant than she'd remembered.

  “Malcolm,” she said, looking into his warm eyes. “Dear Malcolm.” She looked past him into the exhibit hall, a different hall. “Just a few seconds ago,” she said, still disoriented, “there were reporters. I'd have expected reporters.”

  Malcolm gave a soft smile. “Things are a little different now.”

  Gale, her initial shock subsiding, returned the smile. “When is now?”

  Malcolm handed her the bathrobe he carried. “It's thirty-eight years later than when you left.” He paused, then added tentatively, “And seven years after my cure.”

  Gale gasped. “Didn't you get my note?” She clasped the robe in f
ront of her.

  “It gave me such joy.” Malcolm laughed bitterly. “And such agony. Seeing you there, frozen in time while I grew steadily older. I felt myself drifting away from you.” He clenched his fists. “I argued and pleaded with the Met to release you, but they wouldn't—until now, that is. I hadn't the money to buy back your contract.”

  “Didn't have the money?” Gale wondered if she'd heard him correctly.

  “There'd been some big upheavals in the economy while I was in stasis: hyperinflation, bank failures, brokerage house bankruptcies—including my broker.”

  Gale winced; her money had also been entrusted to Malcolm's broker.

  “There was very little money waiting for me when I arrived,” said Malcolm with a sigh. “Nowhere near what I needed to free you.”

  “And yet you still waited for me.” Gale held the robe in an embrace. “That's so, well, romantic.”

  “Oh, I wouldn't be so quick to nominate me for sainthood.” He gave a self-effacing chuckle. “Times have changed. Rubens would feel quite at home with his subjects here.”

  Gale looked at him quizzically.

  “Chubby women are the norm now. And, frankly, I find them unattractive. And those few I met who were pleasingly thin had such a bad self-image that I found it hard to build a relationship.” He chuckled again. “So yes, I've been loyal—but not nobly so.” He cast his eyes down. “But still, our age difference has grown by seven years. I wouldn't blame you at all if you didn't want to marry me anymore.”

  “Oh, but I do.” Gale felt herself blush. “That is, if you still want to.”

  “Of course I do.” He reached out and, ignoring the bulk of the robe she held in front, embraced her. “Perhaps for propriety,” he said as they separated, “you should wear rather than just hold the bathrobe. Animated as you are now, I don't think you can be considered an artwork anymore, at least not by the Met.”

  As she slipped on her bathrobe, she said, “How did you manage to free me, then?”

  “Well, you see...” Malcolm gritted his teeth. “Tastes have changed over the years, and ... and your ... your body type is no longer the epitome of, well, of beauty. And...”

  “And?” Gale demanded.

  “And you, I mean your statue is no longer a popular item.” He spoke rapidly now, as if trying to breeze through something unpleasant. “In fact, as of a few months ago, the museum no longer considered you art. So they were happy to—” He corrected himself. “—that is, they were willing to release you—for free.”

  Gale yanked tight the robe's belt around her waist. She'd expended a lot of effort in being svelte. She was proud of her figure—and that wasn't about to change. Angrily, she glanced around the exhibit hall. She didn't recognize it. And the exhibits were dreadful. “What hall is this?”

  “The Hall of Recent American Popular Culture.”

  “Kitsch?” she said, almost at a shout. “They put me in with kitsch?”

  Malcolm laughed. “Well, I wouldn't exactly—”

  “Let's get out of here.” Gale shuddered at the sight of the other exhibits, then turned to Malcolm. “Do you know where my valise is?”

  "Mox venit. Coming right up.” Malcolm disappeared momentarily, scurrying behind the stasis booth and returning with the little suitcase. “But,” he said, hesitantly, “I think it best if I rushed you off to a mall to buy you some new clothes.”

  Gazing at her valise, now old and faded where just minutes before it had been shiny new, the reality of her ‘time travel’ all but overwhelmed her. “So, there are still malls,” she said in a distracted voice.

  “Oh yes.”

  “But larger, I imagine.” Gale tried to narrow her focus to something she knew—malls.

  “No, not much.” Malcolm spoke in a casual, soothing voice. “Seems there's a size above which malls become unwieldy—except for resort malls, of course. And residential malls.”

  Gale finished dressing and felt back in control. She gave a pleasant, inclusive chuckle. “Well, then, let's go to the mall.”

  Malcolm led the way to the museum parking lot, and to a very modern-looking car, but obviously not as new as the other cars in the lot.

  “Much nicer than your Lamborghini,” she said.

  “It's appropriate for an associate professor of classics at an omniversity.”

  “Omniversity. Impressive!”

  “Oh, not really,” said Malcolm. “It's a marketing term for a junior college.” He opened the passenger door for her. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” he added, lightly. “Me, I mean. Not you.”

  * * * *

  In the mall, Gale saw the truth in Malcolm's assertion; most everyone, the women at least, ranged from Rubenesque to obese. I'll have to go to the kids’ departments to buy clothes. She noticed people looking obliquely at her. It had been the same before, but then it was because of her uncommon beauty. Now, it was clearly a look of condescension—a distaste at how a person could allow her body to become so undernourished. Gale could even see pity on some faces.

  Abruptly, Gale stopped thinking of herself as svelte. In this world she was clearly emaciated, so much so that it would be natural for people to regard her as an impoverished waif. She sighed. Her modeling days were definitely over.

  As she and Malcolm walked toward an anchor store, Gale noticed a teenager ahead and stopped cold. “Oh my god!” she said at a whisper. “His t-shirt.”

  Malcolm looked at her quizzically.

  “That kid,” said Gale, still in a hushed voice. “The reproduction on his shirt.”

  “It's good, isn't it?” Malcolm nodded appreciatively. “It's a famous painting. Oh, but you know that; you had a print of it hung on the wall of your stasis chamber.”

  "Warm Earth," said Gale watching as her painting walked away.

  “That's it,” said Malcolm. “You wouldn't know who painted it, would you?”

  “I did.”

  Malcolm chuckled. “You wish.”

  “Really, I did paint it.”

  “Come on!”

  “Why else would I have had a print of it in stasis with me?”

  Malcolm gave her a long look. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes!”

  “It's considered a great work of art.”

  “Oh?” Gale thought Malcolm was teasing her. “I'm no longer art, but my painting is?” She laughed. “Ars Longa. Vita Brevis. So, you're saying my ars has lasted longa as ars than my body did as ars.”

  “Oh, I'd say you have a very comely ars.”

  “Be quiet,” said Gale in mock annoyance. Yes, this was still the Malcolm she had grown to love.

  “But as far as the painting...” Malcolm continued. “It is a famous work of art.”

  “Famous?”

  “Certainly,” said Malcolm. “I know for a fact that the Met has an open offer for the original—a very lucrative offer.”

  “Wait!” Gale suddenly remembered her time capsule. “The Temple of Dendur.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Temple of Dendur. Is it still there?”

  “What?”

  “The Egyptian temple at the back of the Met. Is it still there and has there been any construction behind it?”

  “Why are you asking about—”

  “Please, Malcolm, tell me!”

  “Yes, it's still there, and it still has an unobstructed view of the park. Why?”

  Gale glanced at the reproduction of her artwork—now at a table in the food court. Captivated by the view of her painting and also by the smell of rich deserts, she led Malcolm in that direction. In this Rubenesque time, there was no reason she shouldn't have a treat—something dripping with chocolate.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Carl Frederick

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Serial: TRACKING: PART III OF III

  by David R. Palmer

  Illustration by William Warren

  * * * *

  Big problems may require extreme measures—an
d truly final solutions are hard to come by.

  * * * *

  Warning: This story has scenes that some readers may find disturbing.

  * * * *

  SYNOPSIS

  Archivist's Note(II)

  Quoting some of her own favorite self-deprecating, self-descriptives, Candy Smith-Foster is a “Plucky Girl Adventurer,” a “Spunky Girl Aviatrix,” an “Intrepid Special-Ops Girl,” an “Apprentice Girl Assassin,” and, last but certainly not least (and, factually, the absolute, literal truth), the “Plucky Girl Savior of Our People.” (Not to mention, as she is too, too fond of saying: “etc.")

  An eleven-year-old Homo post hominem child, like the rest of us she is (we suspect) the product of evolution's genetic engineering, courtesy of the great influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, which killed at least fifty million people worldwide, and possibly as many as a hundred million, during its approximately two-year rampage.

  We speculate that what happened is that, at the moment of conception, the flu virus invaded either or both of the participating gametes before or during formation of a very few female zygotes. Something in the virus mutated the DNA content of the target cells, which thereafter gestated, were born, and grew up to contribute, as mothers, half of the new matrix which fitted together two generations later to produce Homo post hominem: Man who follows Man.

  Immune to all “human” disease; smarter, stronger, faster; with visual perception extending farther into the ultraviolet and infrared spectrum; possessed of more sensitive hearing and olfactory senses; even “breeding true” when crossed with Homo sapiens; emerging finally from concealment within the population which produced it to inherit Earth after our predecessors eliminated themselves in a brief, efficient, radiation-triggered biological war, Homo post hominem is apparently destined to replace Homo sapiens.

  Soo Kim McDivott, himself, as it turned out, a “typical” overachieving hominem, with doctorates in pediatrics, psychiatry, and anthropology, and a Tenth Degree Black Belt in karate, known as “Teacher” to hominems worldwide, had discovered the new species while exploring the question of “nurture versus nature": whether the actions of “normal” (i.e., mediocre or worse) parents might tend to keep intrinsically genius-level children from achieving their potentials, inadvertently, or possibly even due to resentment.