Mind Over Ship

by David Marusek

  During his lonely trans-Pacific flight home, Meewee thought about how for a dozen years he had believed Eleanor could do anything. For a dozen years their successes seemed effortless. Of course, it was all her success. He had little to contribute aside from his ability to work with ordinary people. That was what she saw in him, what led her to place him in charge of colonist recruitment. He was a salesman, a trusted spokesperson, not a leader. As a leader he was a big fat failure.

  As Meewee stared at the dark sea passing beneath his airplane, he was struck with a sudden idea. When he and Wee Hunk were trying to discover where Ellen’s head had been hidden, Wee Hunk suggested that he ask Arrow to tell him how to tell it, Arrow, to find the head. It was a circular bit of reasoning, but it had spurred the wonky mentar to actually find Ellen. Of course Arrow had flooded the Earth’s atmosphere with nust in the process, setting off the sixth largest hazmat spill in history, breaking innumerable environmental and antiterror laws and treaties, and condemning Meewee to life behind bars if his involvement was ever discovered. But it had worked. Arrow found Ellen in time for them to save her.

  “Arrow,” he said, weighing his words carefully, “if Eleanor was still alive, how would she deal with the current GEP crisis?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  “If Eleanor was here, how would she preserve the original GEP mission?”

  “I do not know.”

  Fair enough. How could any artificial mind know the mind of that extraordinary woman?

  Meewee’s scramjet was flying much too high for him to distinguish the lights of ships or to gain a sense of movement, so he asked Arrow to drop an overlay over the dark ocean. The meridians of latitude and longitude appeared below like chalk lines on a sports field. A compass rose floated in the corner, and faint outlines traced the topography of the ocean floor. Meewee watched the South Pacific go by and fell into a reverie. After a while, an odd feature came into view and stirred his attention, an outline in roughly the shape and size of the state of Tennessee. “What is that?” he asked.

  NATPAC 6, Arrow replied.

  Meewee pressed his forehead against his window for a better view. The natpacs were free-floating pens that contained tens of millions of fish and were allowed to drift on the ocean currents. They were fish farming writ large, with no need for artificial feed. One natpac could sustain a small hungry nation.

  Slowly, the natpac fell behind, and Meewee closed his eyes and drowsed. The burr of the scramjet engine lulled him deeper, and after a while, Arrow announced

  “Huh?” Meewee said, rousing himself. “Say again?”

 

  “Ellen?” Meewee said, thinking she was finally replying to his repeated requests for a meeting. He had tried to contact her numerous times since the disastrous GEP decision.

 

  Meewee shook the sleep from his head. Eleanor? Suddenly it hit him; she was speaking from beyond the grave. She had left him detailed instructions in case she was murdered — she had always planned for all eventualities — and by asking Arrow how she would handle the current crisis, he had somehow tapped into them.

  he asked, switching to Starkese.

 

  This was most puzzling.

 

  Leave me alone? Meewee could not parse any sense out of it, the message or the sender.

 

  With a chill creeping up his spine, Meewee recalled the daughter’s insistence that the mother was still alive.

 

  It made no sense.

 

 

 

  PART 2

  New to the Academy

  The elevator halted at the 123rd floor and opened its door to the E-Pluribus lobby. And what a lobby! The regulars called it the Temple, and it was the same basic arrangement E-Pluribus used wherever it rented space. The effect was one of vastness, and the elevator passengers, mostly Applied People iterants, were duly awed as they emerged from the car. The limpid blue lobby floor seemed to extend for kilometers in all directions. Far on the horizon stood giant stone columns, some broken and crumbled, some still joined by stone lintels. Beyond these lay a restive green sea. Lightning flashed in the yellow sky, and thunder rolled underfoot. Subliminal music swelled. At the sound of a trumpet blast, the visitors turned around to behold, not their elevator car, but a mountainous, stone ziggurat rising high into the sky. At its truncated peak, nearly as high as the pink clouds, towered the corporate logo, the quicksilver E-Pluribus Everyperson.

  Arrayed on steps beneath the Everyperson was a pantheon of vid idols: thousands of the most celebrated hollyholo simstars of all time. This was the famous E-Pluribus Academy, the largest, most extensive stable of limited editions in existence. The visitors gushed with delight. At the bottommost tier, Annette Beijing stood alone and waited for their attention. She wore the loose-fitting house togs she had popularized in the long-running novela Common Claiborne and held aloft her graceful arms.

  “Welcome!” she said at last. “Welcome all to the House of E-Pluribus!” She dropped her arms and bowed. Her audience applauded with fervor. “Dear guests,” she continued, “you have been chosen to join us today in the very important and quite exhilarating task of preference polling. As you know, society can serve its citizens only to the extent that it knows them. Thus, society turns to you for guidance. Each of you possesses a voice that must be heard and a heart that must be plumbed.

  “You, all of you, are the true E-Pluribus Everyperson.” She raised her hands to the ever-morphing statue high above them. “When Everyperson speaks in the halls of Congress or Parliament, in corporate boardrooms, jury rooms, and voting booths, it speaks with your voice.”

  She paused a beat and added, “Now I’m aware that some of you may find our methods a little overwhelming, especially if this is your first visit with us. Therefore, we have arranged for a few of my friends to stop by.”

  The legion of simstars on the ziggurat tiers above her chorused a resounding “HELLO!” and the newcomers cheered again.

  “We invite each of you,” Beijing continued, “to select your most favorite celebrity in the whole world to be your personal guide throughout the day. Feel free to choose your biggest heartthrob. She or he is bound to be here. And please, we’re all friends at E-Pluribus, so don’t be bashful. Choose whoever you want. Even me!

  “Now then, we have a full day of taste-testing, opinion-polling, and yes — soul-searching — planned for you, but before we can begin, please review the terms and conditions of hire, and if you approve, authorize them. Then call out the name of your heart’s desire, and he or she will come down to be at your side.”

  On the tier above Annette Beijing stood the Academy’s newest inductees — two Leenas from Burning Daylight Productions. They had quickly become the iterant visitors’ favorite celebrity, and jerrys, jeromes, and johns all shouted to call the Leenas down.

  A jerry named Buddy got one of them, and together he and the Leena strolled across the marble plain to a distant stone structure in which the prep booths were housed. Buddy was proud to have the Leena at his side. She looked eerily like an evangeline, only hotter. A superb ass and large breasts went a long way to sex up the rather plain evangeline germline.

  In a prep booth, Buddy was fitted with a visceral response probe. After the discomfort passed, the Leena led him to his first scenario room. It was a long, narrow, empty room that suddenly became a tennis court. A man in a white shirt and shorts and carrying a racquet approached them. He looked vaguely familiar, and though Buddy couldn’t place him, he took him to be an aff, and without even thinking, Buddy
assumed the habitual deference of a service clone. But to his surprise, the aff addressed him with easy familiarity. “Buddy, Leena, welcome,” he said. “Care to join us in a game of doubles?” There was a woman, also vaguely familiar, waiting across the net.

  Buddy was at a loss for words. He worked for people like this, and never once had they asked him to join in a tennis game.

  “Hey, forget about that,” the man said. “We’re all equals at E-Pluribus. And besides, I’ve heard so much about the famous jerry prowess on a tennis court, I would be delighted to see it for myself.”

  The game was fast and challenging. The aff and his partner were strong players, as was Buddy’s partner, the Leena. Though, truth be told, he was more impressed by the bounce of her breasts than the power of her backhand. And every time he glanced at the aff, the man seemed a little bit more familiar until, with a slap to his forehead, Buddy realized he was a recent client of his, a Myr Hasipi. Buddy had served as his bodyguard for six weeks. And his partner was not his wife but his lover, whom Buddy had fetched for the boss whenever the coast was clear. Across the net, she winked at him.

  After several strenuous sets, the tennis party took refreshments in the clubhouse lounge, a place Buddy had only ever entered as a bodyguard. It was a special thrill to have steves and johns wait on him. And the Leena, with beads of sweat trickling down her cleavage, adored him with her big brown eyes.

  “So, Buddy,” Hasipi said, “you remember that spot of trouble I was having a while back?”

  Which one? Buddy wanted to say. Myr Hasipi had been up to his eyeballs in shady deals.

  “Don’t say it out loud, Buddy, but you know the case.”

  It must be the bribes and kickbacks, Buddy thought. He had been tasked to deliver a few of them himself. Or what about that so-called accident in Istanbul? Buddy grinned and said, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  Hasipi guffawed. “Good man.”

  Summoning Death from the Air

  The sun topped a sand dune and jabbed Fred in the eye. He turned on his side, but the desert caught fire and there was no returning to sleep. The morning list marched through his mind: kiss Mary, roll out of bed, cycle out of room, toilet and shower, news and mail, coffee, dress, kiss Mary good-bye, leave the apartment. But when he leaned over to accomplish item number one, he discovered that Mary was gone. Her spot on the mattress was already cool to the touch. Barely 6:00 A.M. and his routine was already gummed up.

  But Fred had a flexible personality — he was a russ — so he propped himself up on one elbow and squinted into the harsh light. They had fallen asleep gazing at the Milky Way in the desert. “Room, default walls,” he said, and the plain, too-small room returned around him. There was barely enough space between the bed and wall for him to maneuver. Unlike the null suite at the Cass, the null room in their apartment had no sitting room, kitchen nook, or closets, let alone full bath and toilet. Instead, it had built-in counters, shelves, drawers, and a narrow comfort station with a curtain. Fred had to stand in the comfort station when he reset the bedroom into a day room. The bed contorted into an armchair. Out came the end table and lamp, the shelves and another armchair. Default windows and posters appeared on the walls. Fred and Mary didn’t spend any daytime hours in here and hadn’t gotten around to decorating.

  Fred gathered up the empty flasks of Flush, spent chem-pacs, and other trash and cycled out. The null lock was not a sauna but a plain, closet-sized, gas-exchange two-seater. Out in the hallway, he heard voices from the living room — Mary and two more evangelines, it sounded like. He turned the other way and continued to the bedroom. Since moving in, they hadn’t actually slept in the bedroom, instead spending every night in the null room. Fred ordered fresh clothes and a skullcap from the closet and went to the bathroom. He could feel the tingly sensation of the nits already recolonizing him, and the skin of his wrists and ankles were reddened by the daily assault of visola and nits. But it was nothing a little lotion couldn’t handle, and well worth it. His limp cock was crinkly with dried cum. He squeezed himself and brought his hand to his nose to inhale Mary’s oceanic fragrance. Well worth it.

  WHILE IN THE shower, Fred caught up on news and mail. He was shaved, trimmed, and spritzed with cologne. He donned his old robe and moccasin slippers and set forth in search of coffee, item six on his morning list. In the living room there were, as he had guessed, three evangelines: Mary on the sofa in her robe, her bare feet tucked beneath her; her best friend Shelley, who was strapped into a Slipstream tube car and was visiting by holo; and Cyndee, one of his escorts at the prison, who was present in realbody. They cut short their conversation when he appeared in the hallway.

  “Good morning, Cyndee,” Fred said into the silence. She offered her hand, and he gave it a gentle squeeze. Her hand was small and delicate. Evangelines were such dainty women, which was one reason why he loved them so. He turned to Shelley and made a holo salute. “Hello, Shell.”

  “Hello, Fred.”

  “You’re looking well.”

  After she made no reply for several long moments, Fred continued around the coffee table to sit on the sofa next to Mary. “Good morning, dear heart.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek, finally satisfying item one on his list. Mary was scratching her ankle. He took her hand and kissed it too and held it out of harm’s way. Other than itchy ankles, Mary seemed at ease. Cyndee, too, appeared relaxed, which probably meant that their client’s condition was improving. Not that he gave a crap about Ellen Starke’s condition except in how it rubbed off on Mary.

  He had lied about Shelley looking well. She looked a mess. She drooped in her seat. She had puffy eyes. Her hair was flat and dull. She peered at him with cool resentment.

  “What are we watching?” he said in a hopeful voice. On the coffee table were a half-dozen stacked holocubes. In one he recognized Shelley’s employer, Judith Hsu, the renowned death artist, who was reading from a paper book. A second holocube showed a ride through a pinkish sewer on a stream of lumpy, greenish slurry. A third depicted a funeral tableau of a black enameled coffin and bowers of snow-white carnations.

  Mary said, “We were comparing Hsu’s earlier deaths to her current one.”

  Fred turned to Shelley. “She’s already on the next one? I guess I missed the last one.”

  Shelley stared blankly, and Mary said, “It just premiered last week, Fred. Though it hasn’t really found its legs yet.”

  The arbeitor arrived with Fred’s coffee and Danish, and he released Mary’s hand. Mary was disappointed, for her ankle still itched. Fred seemed to be adjusting to life outside prison, all things considered. He sure was making good use of the apartment’s null room. His sexual appetite was Olympic. He was working too. With his acquittal, Applied People had been forced to reinstate him, though not willingly. Mary’s hand crept back to her ankle.

  In the sewer holocube, the cam entered a section where the walls turned from pinkish to bluish, and the passage was blocked by a huge, pulsing mass that was spiderwebbed with red veins.

  Fred pointed and said, “So, what is it this time — colon cancer?”

  Mary said, “No, Fred. That was three deaths ago. Don’t you remember? ‘Treasonous Plumbing’?”

  “Oh, yes, how could I forget ‘Treasonous Plumbing’?” He smiled at Shelley, but she didn’t respond, so he turned to Cyndee. “Are you a Hsu fan?”

  “Yes, I am,” Cyndee said. “ ‘TP’ broke a lot of new ground in documemoirs and established Judy Hsu as one of our leading contemporary artists. The first time she died, and the jennys just let her lie there — dead — minute after minute, not jumping in to intervene, not stabilizing her, just letting her go, like in the bad old days, it was the most terrifying thing I ever saw. People used to just get sick and die!”

  Mary said to Fred, “They had supersaturated her tissues and brain with oxygen, so she could go a half hour without oxygen. But we didn’t know that at the time.”

  “That’s what made it so dist
urbing,” Cyndee said. “It made me glad to be born in this century.”

  Through all of this, Shelley fiddled with her seat harness and seemed not to be paying attention. Fred asked Cyndee, “What about that one?” He pointed at a holocube, and its volume came up. Hsu was reading from a book:

  “. . . lingering, raw-nerve, helpless, hopeless, an assault on basic human dignity. So overwhelming that self-awareness begs for extinction.”

  Cyndee said, “Oh, that’s death lit. Hsu loves it. She reads it continuously until she gets too sick, and then she has Shelley and her other companions read it to her.”

  Mary said, “He knows that, Cyn. He watched this with Reilly. He’s just playing dumb to be a good conversationalist.”

  “Oh, of course,” Cyndee said.

  Someone changed the cube. Now it was Shelley reading a death poem:

  I’s hungry. What’d you do? Is it dead? Look at it bleed!

  Can I pluck it? Do chicken’s insides have names?

  Do we have insides like chickens?

  Can you take my insides out so I can see?

  I like breast the best. Can we cook it up?

  I’s hungry. Let’s start the fire. Chicken’s good.

  “Bravo, Shell,” Fred said. “All it needs is a soundtrack.”

  “It has one,” Cyndee said. She twirled her finger and brought up the strains of a solo cello fantasia.

  Fred set down his coffee mug and clapped. “Perfect!” He squeezed Mary’s foot and rose from the couch. “If you’ll excuse me, dearest, I need to get dressed for duty.”

  When Fred left the living room, Mary said, “Because having the living flesh rot off your bones is so appealing.”