by Allen Steele
HOW COULD YOU BE SO SELFISH?
The words are an onyx wall. It totters, falls forward, comes crashing down on me. Letters shatter upon impact, throwing debris in all directions.
Erin stands alone within the rubble.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that…but it’s true, and when I recovered my memory, this was something I could neither forgive nor forget.”
She sighs. “You always were selfish, and you always were arrogant…these were things that I didn’t realize about you until I saw you again. And the more I came to know you, the more I saw you hadn’t changed.”
Erin dissolves into the woman I met in the White Room. “So I kept my identity from you,” Anna says. “Even after I met Chris and…well, you know how that happened. I fell out of love with you and fell in love with him. Then…”
Anna stops herself. “Well, I’ll let Chris handle that part. He should speak for himself. But…well, I’m sorry I deceived you. You found my daughter, even though you didn’t know what you were doing, and for that I’m grateful. And despite everything else, I still love you. Maybe not the same way I once did, but…”
She shrugs, and once more she briefly becomes Erin: my one true love, lost and rediscovered, now lost again.
“So that’s it. Maybe I’ll see you later. Bye…”
Then she walks out of the spotlight.
If I had a voice, I would be screaming.
“Hey, dude. Remember me?”
Shemp follows his voice into the spotlight. Like Erin before him, he once again resembles his former self: overweight, bespectacled, wearing knee-length shorts and a tie-dyed shirt with big sweat stains under the armpits. The chair reappears; he flops down in it.
“Thought you might be happier if you saw me like this again,” he says. “Not that I particularly liked myself, but, y’know, I always sorta had a problem with self-respect. This didn’t help much either…”
He raises a hand; a joint appears in it. “I mean, if I couldn’t get laid, at least I could get high. Remember when you first turned me on? I’ll let you in on a secret…Bill Clinton wasn’t the only guy who didn’t inhale. I really didn’t want to get high, but, hell, I wanted to be one of the cool guys, so this was my way in. After awhile I really did inhale, and when inhaling wasn’t enough, I started in on acid.”
Shemp shakes his head; the joint vanishes. “I think I did about three hits of blotter the day we went to Lollapalooza. That was the next-stupidest thing I ever did. The stupidest was letting you talk me into driving us home. But that’s the way you always were…calling me your best friend, then making me do things you didn’t want to do yourself. I mean, there was a hotel only a couple of hundred feet away. We could have gotten a couple of rooms, hung around the bar for an hour or two, then crashed upstairs. But, no, you wanted to go back to your place so you could do Erin while I sat out in the living room and watched TV again, trying not to hear you guys going at it, feeling sorry for myself because…”
He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “No, no…I’m not going to do this. It’s my fault, too. I know that. But there’re a couple of things you oughtta know…
“Alec, buddy, the fact of the matter is that you used me. You gave me a nickname I hated, then you played at being my friend while, in reality, I was little more than your sidekick. Good ol’ Shemp. You did it in your first life, and then you tried doing it again in your second life. But the second time around, I was a little smarter.”
In the wink of an eye, Shemp disappears; he’s replaced by Christopher, a tall man of average weight, without glasses, wearing a hooded white robe.
“Here’s something else. Back on the asteroid, I recognized you long before you recognized me. At first I didn’t know exactly who you were, but when I finally did remember, I tried to keep my distance. I didn’t want to go through all that with you again. But when you fell down those stairs that day, I forgot all the abuse and ran to help you…and that was it. It all started up again. Maybe you don’t know it, maybe you couldn’t help it, but you always patronized me. And it hurt, man, it really hurt, because even though you gave me shit, I still liked…”
He stares down at the floor. “I loved you. You were my best friend.”
He’s silent for a few moments, then he looks up again. “But by then I had met Anna, and even before she told me who she really was, I was falling for her. I didn’t like Erin very much back then…y’know, the apartment thing and all that…but then we discovered that we had something in common. Both of us loved and hated you. So we kept Anna’s identity secret from you, and pretty soon we were sleeping together, and…”
He laughs out loud. “Man, I gotta admit…that was the funny part! I was making love to your girl, and you didn’t have a clue! Even when you walked in on us, you had no idea what was going on! Do you have any idea how much that meant to me? I was finally getting back at you, you son of a bitch!”
He chuckles over this for a moment, then sobers up. “Anyway…as you’ve probably guessed by now, none of this was accidental. Not entirely, at any rate. Mister Chicago knew who Anna really was even before he revived us. That’s why he changed Erin’s appearance so that you wouldn’t recognize her. After we regained our memories and started interacting with one another, he realized that there was a three-way relationship—a romantic triangle, if you want to call it that, although it was more like a Punch and Judy show, if you ask me—that he could exploit for his purposes. He had plans for you, see, and the fact that all this happened just made it a little easier.”
Chris shifts a little in his seat, propping one leg up on his knee. “When he asked me to take over as his new majordomo, it wasn’t just because he took John out of the picture…oh, and by the way, he didn’t really die. The whole thing was faked. John’s still alive. So’s Sam, for that matter…anyway, when he asked me to take over for John, he revealed to me what this was all about, and I agreed to go along with him. First, because this was all part of a scheme that had been in the making even before we woke up. When he told this to me, I realized that I wanted to go along with it. For the first time in my life, I was part of something that really mattered.”
Then he smiles. “And second, I had permission to push you around. Yeah, maybe I overdid it a little. I know you really despised me for it, too. But I can’t honestly say that I didn’t enjoy myself. Revenge is sweet, dude, and you had it coming.”
A window opens to the left of him. From some distance behind, I see myself slowly walking down the Level D corridor, the hood of my robe raised over my head. I stop suddenly, turn halfway around; my eyes are blindfolded with a strip of black fabric. “That’s what it looked like from my eyes,” Shemp says, watching the scene with some amusement. “I’ve gotta give you credit, though,” he says, “that took a lot of balls. I knew you were going to escape during the party, but I didn’t know how. Pasquale let me follow you…that was me you thought you heard behind you.”
Another window opens to his right. This time, the camera angle is from the ceiling of the hub corridor where the EVA pods were docked. From above, I watch myself opening a pod hatch. I look both ways, then pull off my robe and toss it on the floor before swinging feetfirst through the hatch. A few moments later it closes behind me. “That was pretty good, too, I gotta admit,” he says, “but do you really think you could have stolen that thing without anyone knowing? I mean, c’mon…”
He sighs. “You didn’t make it easier on yourself, either. When Anna, Vlad, and I approached you back in Clarke County, we didn’t have any intention of killing you. In fact, if you had just waited a minute longer, I would have explained the whole thing to you…well, almost everything. We figured that you’d probably learned where the dewars were located, and I wanted to give you a chance to voluntarily help us recover them. But you had to pull that stunt with throwing over the table, which accomplished nothing but piss off Vlad. He might have murdered you just out of spite, but you managed to fight him off and make your e
scape.”
He shrugs offhandedly. “Just as well, though. We were tracking you the entire time through your MINN, so we knew exactly where you were going. So all you did was put yourself through some more unnecessary grief. But, like Anna says, you’ve always had a hard time listening to anyone.”
Both windows vanish. When Shemp turns to face me again, he’s decked out in the same outfit he wore in Clarke County. “Okay, bottom line. You were had. You were manipulated from the word go. Both Anna and I were part of it, although Anna didn’t know the whole story until after you left, so don’t blame her. But we did it for all the best reasons and…”
He stops. “Well, look…like I said, I can’t honestly say that I didn’t enjoy myself. You were shitty to the people who loved you the most, and this was our way of getting back at you. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.”
Shemp stands up from the chair. It vanishes, leaving him alone in the spotlight. “Now we’re even. If…I mean, when I see you again…I hope you won’t hold this against me. You probably will, but maybe that’s just the way you are. But, y’know…”
He glances at his feet, then back up at me again. “Well, I think you’ve changed, and I think it’s for the better. I hope I’m right. Because you really were an asshole.”
Then he turns and walks out of the spotlight. “Catch you later, man,” he says as he vanishes. “Someone else wants to talk to you now.”
“Hello, young Alec. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a chat, hasn’t it?”
Mister Chicago walks into the light.
He’s dressed the same way as I last saw him, the night of the party. He doesn’t bother with a chair; when he reaches the center of the stage, he lifts one leg, then the other, and crosses them together while floating a couple of feet off the floor.
“I imagine you’re probably wondering why I went to all that trouble…changing Anna’s face, faking John’s death, having Vladimir Algol-Raphael and your friend Chris harass you, allowing you to escape. The reasons should be obvious by now, but in case you’re still confused, I’ll briefly summarize.
“I wished to discover the whereabouts of the remaining dewars. My resources within the Pax Astra are limited, and it was too risky to send anyone from the Zodiac, since most of our people have been marked by Royal Intelligence. Therefore, I decided that the only way to accomplish this was to create a deep-cover operative…a secret agent, if you will, but one whose mission was unknown even to himself. That way, if he was caught and interrogated, he couldn’t tell anything. However, if and when he located the dewars, he would have been programmed to shut down the site’s defenses and signal my ships to come in and make the snatch.”
He idly raises a hand; a wine goblet appears within it, and he takes a contemplative sip. “Lovely vintage. Ares Olympus ’56. Remind me to give you a taste sometime.” He opens his hand and the goblet disappears.
“To continue…you were selected for this job when I discovered that you had two friends among the deadheads whom I had already purchased from the Pax, but one of whom had changed her name so that she wouldn’t be found by you. The possibilities this presented were intriguing, but even more so was this recording, cached within your files from the Immortality Partnership. Do you recall, during our first meeting, that I asked you about your father? This is why I was so interested in him…”
A window opens next to him, expanding to fill the stage.
Suddenly, Dad appears.
He’s sitting in a chair, in what I recognize as his office; the image is a little grainy, the colors washed out and old. He looks almost the same way as he did when I last saw him, yet somehow it seems as if he’s put on a few years. His face is haggard, his eyes deep-set and haunted. He’s frozen for a moment, then suddenly he’s animated.
“Alec, my son…if you’re seeing this, then something miraculous has happened. You’re alive again, many years after your untimely death. I’ve long since passed away by now, of course. You’ll never see me again. I didn’t sign a contract with the Immortality Partnership because I don’t want to see the future. Instead, I’ve given this option to you…a final gift, as it turns out, from a father who neglected you far too often when you were alive.”
Dad takes a deep breath. He looks away for a moment, rubs his nose, then turns back to the camera.
“Son, I know you despised me, nor can I blame you for that. I was a lousy excuse for a father. I believed that business was more important than family, so instead of trying to raise you properly, I threw money at you and hoped that you would go away. There were times that I was disappointed in you, but I never stopped loving you, and…and now that you’re gone, I can only hope and pray that you’ll make the best of whatever tomorrow you wake up in. I just hope…I just hope that…”
There’s a skip in the recording: Dad changes slightly from one instant to the next. Now his eyes are red, his tie a little askew. He’s been crying.
“Alec, son…I don’t like saying this, particularly now, but…but the fact of the matter is that you wasted your life. You lived high with no ambitions except your own self-satisfaction, and it’s my great shame that I spoiled you. I love you, but you were self-indulgent and mean, and your only real friends were Chris and Erin. Chris is a fine boy, and I’m sincerely grateful that the Meyers have also signed him into this program before he…before you and he…”
He blinks away tears. “Well, perhaps you’ll find him again in the next life. Erin’s a lovely girl, and I know she loved you as much as you loved her. The fact you’ll never see her again is something I regret. I’m just happy that she survived the car crash that took you and Chris. But I hope…”
He pauses to daub his eyes with a wadded paper tissue.
“I just hope that you make the best of your second life…your second chance…and that you won’t waste the opportunity. For this reason, I’m leaving you no money other than the trust fund necessary to maintain your neurosuspension.”
He takes a deep breath.
“In the next life, you’re on your own. You’ll probably hate me for this, even curse my name…but I think it’s time that you learn to stand on your own two legs, and stop depending on your father to bail you out.”
A weak, faltering smile.
“Son…Alec, my son…I love you. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to love me, too. Good-bye and good luck…”
Then he’s gone.
The window shrinks and vanishes, leaving Mister Chicago in its place. No wineglass, no smirk.
“Human potential has always been of great interest to me, William Alec Tucker III,” he says, “and what I saw here was a testament to a father’s faith in his son to rise above himself and achieve great things, even after death. By all accounts, you were a spoiled brat, a wealthy scion with no greater aspirations than pampering yourself with toys and games…and yet, your father thought enough of you to give you another chance to become a man. So I gave you this opportunity.
“I created hardship and humiliation. I gave you enemies and concocted threats to your very existence. I deliberately drove you out of my home and sent you flailing into the cold depths of space. The only aid I gave you was an associate which was little more than a reflection of your own id. Yes, I used you for my own purposes, so much that you even attempted to kill me when you finally received the chance. There were many times, observing from afar, when I was convinced that my gambit would fail, that I had staked far too much on such a miserable excuse for a human being.”
Mister Chicago unfolds his legs so that his feet touch the floor again. “Yet, despite all odds, you succeeded. At age one hundred and thirty-one, you’ve finally grown up. Your friend Christopher was correct. You’ve changed. You’re a man now. For this, I salute you.”
He takes a deep bow from the waist, straightens up again. “Now, you may be asking, why have I gone to so much effort to acquire those dewars?”
He smiles. “Young Alec, you accused me once of wanting a slave colony. I laughed when y
ou said this, knowing that you hadn’t divined my purposes. Well, now…here is the reason.”
Once again, a window opens behind him, yet this time Mister Chicago remains inside the image. Garcia, with its colony tethered above its north pole, expands to fill the screen.
Yet the asteroid is different now; much has changed since the last time I saw it. Vast vents, each miles in diameter, have been carved into the northern hemisphere below the hub, behind the habitats. The focal point shifts, and now I can see the enormous maw of an engine within the southern pole. On either side of this artificial crater are two smaller engines, each large enough to swallow the tiny spacecraft hovering nearby.
Mister Chicago points to the engine ports. “A Bussard fusion ramjet, Alec. With its fusion boosters it’s sufficiently powerful to thrust Garcia not only out of its orbit, but beyond the solar system, to another star. Humankind’s first starship.”
Another window opens: this one shows rows of dewars stowed within what looks like a spaceship’s cargo bay. “The journey will be long. Even after it achieves fifty percent of light-speed, it will take more than seventy years to reach its destination. These are the passengers…men and women from your own time, who will be revived within cloned bodies to colonize a new world far beyond the reach of the Pax Astra. Passengers you helped us find, Alec.”
4442 Garcia diminishes until it becomes a tiny object, lost within the ringed orbits of the solar system—an image nearly identical to the mosaic floor of the Great Hall of Mister Chicago’s castle. “It’s a new century, Alec. The solar system is fast becoming too small to contain humankind. The Pax Astra is a corrupt monarchy, destroying itself with petty wars waged only for the sake of sustaining mindless power. What once seemed to be a limitless frontier now has a visible horizon, yet the Pax is disinterested in anything save assuring its own survival. But the Zodiac has recognized these facts, as have the Superiors. Whether for religious reasons or for sheer pragmatism, the time has come for humankind to move on.