A King of Infinite Space

by Allen Steele

  “You can reteach someone how to take care of themselves and how to read again,” Anna says, “but you can’t teach them how to love a particular person.”

  “Love isn’t something you’re taught!” I snap. “It just…y’know, it just happens. And she’d remember me!”

  “Wrong.” Anna’s voice is soft; she almost seems to pity me. “I’m sorry, Alec, but if you think love’s something that just happens spontaneously, then you don’t know very much about it. We teach ourselves how to love. Once it gets past physical attraction, valentine roses, and fooling around in the dark, it always comes down to that…do you love this person? Can you love this person? That you have to learn on your own. Nobody can tell you how to do it.”

  “But you don’t…!”

  “Shh. I’m not through. Do you know when Erin died?”

  That stops me. “No, I don’t,” I admit. “I asked Chip, but he couldn’t access that information. At least he says he can’t. What are you getting at?”

  “What I’m trying to say is that, because you don’t know how old Erin was when she died, you also don’t know how she felt about you in the end. I’m sure she probably loved you when you were both young…but she might have died many years later, long after you’d become a faint memory, and a rather tragic one at that. She might not want you anymore.”

  My face is beginning to burn. “How do you know?”

  Anna’s eyes become wistful. She lays her head in the crook of her arm. “When I was a girl, I once loved a boy as much as you loved Erin.” She hesitates. “But then he…well, he went away, and I never saw him again. In time I found another man who eventually became my husband and the father of my child, and after many years it became difficult to even remember the face of the boy who once loved me. If he had…if he had returned after all that, I would have welcomed him as an old friend, but…”

  She lets out her breath. “Well, I couldn’t have loved him again. That was lost for good. Excuse me…”

  She rolls over, turning her back to both Shemp and me as she clutches the pillow to her face. Shemp curls an arm around her bare shoulder, clumsily trying to console her as she quietly weeps.

  Embarrassed, I look away. None of us say anything for a couple of minutes. This is the most I’ve ever heard Anna reveal about herself; I doubt Shemp has heard this either. Like Russell, Kate, and Sam, she must have lived a longer life than Shemp or I had before her death; her memories are longer than ours, and far more bittersweet.

  Shemp breaks the uncomfortable silence. “Besides,” he says, “you know how far away Earth is from us—three hundred and thirty-five million miles, and that’s when we’re in perihelion.”

  “Perihelion?”

  “On the same side of the Sun. When we’re at aphelion, it’s a longer distance—six or seven AUs, at least. Right now, at perihelion…about three and a half AUs.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like Russell.”

  He glares at me. “Just ’cause you still call me Shemp doesn’t mean I’m a stooge.”

  “That really bugs you, doesn’t it, Shemp…?”

  “Take a hint, dude. I’m not Shemp anymore. That guy’s gone, and he ain’t coming back.”

  I snicker. “Not unless you can find some cheese blintzes.”

  His face darkens. “Don’t push it, Alec.”

  “Okay, okay.” I hold up my hands. “Just a joke.”

  His expression tells me that he doesn’t consider it funny. I don’t want to get into another fight with him, so I lay off. “Sorry. Never mind. Look, it doesn’t matter if she’s in the Pax and we’re way out here. Mister Chicago bought ninety heads from the Pax…what’s one more to him? He’s rich. He can afford it.”

  “If he can afford it, then why didn’t he buy more in the first place?” Before I can attempt to answer that question—which I can’t, really—Shemp tosses another one at me. “Besides, we’ve never figured out why he’s gone to all this trouble in the first place…buying heads, cloning bodies, reviving us and all that.”

  I shrug. “Pretty obvious by now, isn’t it? We’re servants…”

  “Slaves, more like it.”

  “Either way, we’re alive.”

  “Yes, but slaves nonetheless.” Anna has dried her eyes; she rolls over to face me again. Shemp tucks his arm around her as she cuddles against him. “Even if you could get Erin here and have her revived, why would you want to inflict this on her? This isn’t the second chance I imagined when I signed up for neurosuspension.”

  Shemp and I trade a look. This is something that makes us different from most of the other deadheads. With the sole exception of Sam, who was bequeathed his medallion on his deathbed by an unknown benefactor, the others willfully and knowingly entered the neurosuspension program. They’re passengers who purchased tickets for a voyage into the future; Shemp and I were shanghaied, neither of us fully aware of what our parents had done.

  “So what were you expecting?” I ask.

  “I don’t know.” She ponders this for a moment. “To come back the way I was when I died, sixty-two years old…”

  The look on Shemp’s face is classic. Anna looks twenty-five now, but she’s old enough to be his grandmother.

  “…and on Earth, not some asteroid I’d never heard of.” She smiles. “All the rest of the things I thought the future would be like. Mile-high skyscrapers. Flying cars. Robot dogs…”

  “Robot dogs?” I try not to laugh.

  “Robot dogs. Sure.” She grins despite herself. “That’s what I thought I’d see…robot dogs. I don’t know why, but I really wanted one…”

  Shemp puts a hand over his mouth, but we can hear him chuckling. “Sit, Rover, sit! Good boy…now roll over! Fetch! Plug yourself in!”

  “Reboot, Rover!”

  “Here, Rover! Time for your lube job!”

  “Bad dog! Put down the mailman!”

  We keep on with the robot dog jokes—and continue with robot cats, robot hamsters, robot goldfish—until I’m curled cracking up on the floor and they’re nearly falling out of bed. Robot dogs. Meet George Jetson…

  When we finally catch our breaths, Anna turns serious again. “Okay, maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s better to be a live slave than a decapitated head floating in a tank. But…”

  She tries to find the right words. “If you really loved Erin, maybe it’s best to let nature take its course. If she loved you as much as you loved her, then she’ll remember you if and when she’s revived, and she’ll try to find you if she can. If she’s in the Pax, then she’ll probably have a better chance of finding you than you will of finding her.”

  That seems to make sense. I nod…then I quickly shake my head. “That’s one too many ifs, and I don’t think I can wait that long.”

  The two of them stare at me. “So what are you going to do?” Shemp asks.

  I pick myself up off the floor and brush off my robe. That’s the question I’ve contemplated all afternoon in the infirmary. “Only thing I can, I guess. Ask Mister Chicago to bring Erin here and revive her.”

  Neither of them speaks for a moment. “Think he’d go along with that?” Shemp asks.

  “I dunno. Guess I won’t know till I ask.” I turn to the door and open it. “Anyway, thanks for listening. Sorry to bother you.”

  “Alec…” Anna begins.

  I look back at her. She’s sitting up in bed, self-consciously holding the blanket against her chest. There’s a worried look on her face. Behind her, Shemp studies me: relief in his eyes, as if he’s glad to see me finally leaving him alone with his new girlfriend, but also…

  I dunno. Contempt? Self-satisfaction?

  Anna starts to say something, but Shemp reaches up and gently strokes her neck, reminding her that he’s here. Whatever she’s about say, it perishes on her lips.

  “Good luck,” she murmurs. “I hope you find her.”

  “Thanks.” Then I leave, gently shutting the door behind.

  Back in my room, I sit on the edg
e of my bed for nearly an hour, trying to collect my thoughts.

  Outside the door, people are moving around: friends visiting friends, fresh robes being dropped off by whoever’s handling laundry detail today, other deadheads making secret rendezvous with newfound lovers. The corridor starts going quiet with the approach of lights-out. Tomorrow’s another day. For the first time, there’s guests in the castle, and they’ll soon be demanding our attention.

  When everything is quiet, I prod my lower jaw. “May I speak to Mister Chicago, please?”

  Chip’s voice in my ear: “Mister Chicago is not available, Alec.”

  “I want to talk to him. It’s important.”

  “Mister Chicago is not available, Alec. Would you like to speak to John instead?”

  “No, I don’t want to talk to John. I want Mister Chicago.”

  “Mister Chicago is not…”

  “Yeah, okay. I heard you. Can you relay a message to him?”

  A pause. “Yes, that is possible.”

  “Tell him…” I hesitate. “Please tell him that Alec wishes to have a meeting with him, concerning a neuropatient in Clarke County who…I mean, it’s an old friend of mine I want to see again.”

  “Yes, Alec.”

  “It’s important that I meet with him. Understand?”

  “Yes, Alec. Is that all?”

  “Yeah…will you pass this to him?”

  “I already have.”

  Sure. It’s been recorded on whatever now passes for an answering machine. I’m sorry, but Mister Chicago is not in his castle right now. At the tone, please leave your name, number, the time you called, and your brain. “Make sure that he gets it, okay?”

  “I already have, Alec, and Mister Chicago has sent a response.”

  The hair on the back of my neck rises. “He has? What…I mean, what did he…?”

  Then I hear Mister Chicago’s voice, as cold as his eyes:

  “Alec, I’ll speak with you when I wish to do so, and not before. Never disturb me this way again. Good night.”

  Then the lights go out. I’m left alone in a dark little room.

  It’s a long time before I go to sleep.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  * * *

  A MURDER OF ONE

  Never laugh when a hearse goes by,

  Or you will be the next to die.

  —Children’s rhyme

  With the arrival of Mister Chicago’s entourage, we settled into a new pattern: the same chores as before, except we had to take care of the people as well. It was now apparent why we had been cleaning the entire castle every day; it was preparation for when we had guests who would think of us as little more than warm-blooded robots.

  Those assigned to duties outside the castle were brought back inside, where we assisted the other deadheads with the dozens of menial tasks that faced us as soon as we left the servants’ quarters. When we took the elevators upstairs, though, it wasn’t to vacant rooms in a deserted castle, but to a constant flurry of activity, with little chance for rest.

  Almost as soon as we finished breakfast, we were serving another one to Mister Chicago’s guests in the luxurious dining room just off the Great Hall. The cooks who prepared breakfast for the servants were now in the upstairs kitchen, trying to cook for thirty people at once while a dozen deadheads scurried around them, our movements orchestrated by John in his new role as maître d’. There was no set menu; the guests could ask for anything their fickle hearts desired: a grapefruit and a cup of coffee, a three-egg omelet with swiss, pastrami, onion, and mushrooms—slightly runny in the middle, mushrooms sautéed, yellow onions and not white—or one of the elaborate vegetarian dishes favored by the Superiors. Our mandated level of service would have put a five-star restaurant to shame. If someone dropped a knife or fork, it could barely hit the floor before we had to have its replacement in the hand of its user. No glass or cup could be more than half-empty before it was refilled. If something placed in front of a guest was deemed inedible, then it had to disappear back into the kitchen and come back in a more acceptable form within minutes. Finished plates had to vanish as if by magic.

  And always, seated at the end of the table was Mister Chicago, who seemed to derive great amusement from watching his servants scramble to keep up with the demands of his friends. He ate little himself, and had the same thing every morning—a sliced tangerine, a bowl of granola in goat’s milk (one-quarter liter, no more or less), two slices of toast with orange marmalade—but there was never a time when I didn’t glance his way and didn’t find his cool eyes upon me. He never mentioned my request for a meeting, though, and after a few days I gave up hope that he would ever do so.

  When breakfast was over, it was time to make up the guest rooms. With some, it was a simple matter of changing the linen, scrubbing the bathrooms, and taking discarded clothes to the laundry room. Others required special attention. One woman always slept until early afternoon; we had to avoid her room until she finally roused herself and stumbled downstairs to the kitchen, where she would demand a late breakfast from the cooks who had just finished cleaning up from the morning chaos. Another guest discovered new ways of wrecking his quarters every night; I don’t know how or why he did it, but each morning we had to repair, or at least mask, the damage he had caused to furniture, sheets, and rugs, and spirit away the empty liquor bottles he had left in his wake. The tubby little man who had propositioned John after he disembarked from the Anakuklesis apparently had the sex drive of a rabbit: every morning we found evidence that he had enjoyed the company of one or more male and/or female friends the night before, as evidenced by crusty bedsheets, empty wineglasses, ripped underwear for both genders, and various sex toys that had to be cleaned and returned to their proper places in the bedside table. Once, over dinner, he casually asked Mister Chicago if Kate was available for his amusement later that evening. Kate was standing over him at that moment, and she nearly dropped the water pitcher in his lap; fortunately for her, Mister Chicago turned down this request, with the mild explanation that Kate needed to be well-rested and undamaged—those words exactly—for her duties the next day. After that, we made sure that I was the one who waited on the little maniac; he groped my ass once, but rather distractedly, and after that left me alone.

  And then there were the Superiors. If one of them was in his or her room when we arrived, we had to wait until he or she left, and if they returned while we were still cleaning, then we had to leave immediately and not return until they were gone. Their privacy was sacrosanct. They seldom used their showers, which made for easy cleaning, but which also meant that their rooms reeked like old gym socks. Chip informed us that, because Superior ships and colonies had limited water supplies, they habitually bathed as little as possible; because they perspired less than Primaries, their ships had been designed for lower temperature and humidity; and since 4442 Garcia existed in a state of perpetual summertime, Superiors tended to sweat more here than they usually would. This was why their linen and laundry were so awful; fumigating their rooms each day was a task for only those with strong stomachs.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. The Superiors treated the servants worse than any of the baseline humans. Their bioengineered bodies were equipped with MINNs and eyes-up displays, so they had no difficulty in summoning a deadhead to their rooms for the most trivial of reasons. If one was resting in bed and desired a glass of water, there was no need to get up and go to the bathroom where a sanitized glass lay only twenty feet away; just blink three times, tell Main Brain to dispatch a servant to bring him some water, then wait impatiently. If one of us took more than a couple of minutes to drop whatever we had been doing elsewhere in the castle and rush to his or her side, then we could expect a tongue-lashing. If their robes didn’t return from the laundry folded just so, we could expect to be screamed at in a dialect that our associates would have to translate for us. If you forgot the correct pronunciation and arrangement of their names—that’s Draco-Kayanami, not
Kayanami-Draco!—then a long-fingered hand would fall on the hilt of a rapier, and you’d better hope the Main Brain reminded its owner that Mister Chicago considered wounding a servant to be impolite.

  Worst of all, I had made an enemy of Vladimir Algol-Raphael. He neither forgot nor forgave our encounter in the cable car, and although he was prohibited from demanding a rematch, this didn’t stop him from harassing me whenever possible. Once he kicked me in the butt when I bent over to pick up a wastecan; another time he attempted to trip me in the dining room when my arms were loaded with trays of food. These were only a couple of the indignities he laid upon me when the opportunity presented itself, and all I could do was hold my tongue and try to avoid him. When I complained to Chip, he informed me that Vlad was the patriarch of the Algol clan, one of the most powerful in the Belt; as such, he was an especially honored guest, so asking Mister Chicago to intercede on my behalf was out of the question. Sam and Russell agreed to take over cleaning his room; I tried to stay out of his way, and consoled myself with private fantasies of grabbing his pencil neck and giving it a good, hard twist.

  Room service was followed by tedious hours of mopping, scrubbing, and polishing every inch of the castle. If our tasks had been monotonous before the arrival of the Anakuklesis, then they became backbreaking now that we had visitors. Dust was not permitted anywhere; dirt was an atrocity. Stairs had to be so clean that you could eat off them; every tile of the Great Hall’s mosaic floor had to sparkle; tapestries and statuary were to look as if they were new. Everywhere you turned, there were servants on hands and knees with brushes, scrubbing floors that were already spotless.

  For a while in the afternoon, most of the guests would disappear from the castle. They would wander out to the vineyards and gardens, where various entertainments awaited them, while others—Superiors, usually—often entered elevators that would take them down to the habitat’s underground levels. We seldom saw what they were doing, save when one of us would deliver a picnic lunch to a grove a mile or more from the castle, nor were we very curious, for their absence gave us a chance to catch up on unfinished chores without interference. It wasn’t until late afternoon when they would be seen again, usually to retire to their rooms for a short nap before dinner.