by Far Freedom
“Jessie, I know Aylis has asked you many times, but do you have any new thoughts on why you were able to metamorphose?”
“You’re feeding her a straight line.” I remembered something Jessie told me after Aylis visited us the last time.
“I’ve made a great mental effort to find the reason,” Jessie said seriously. “I think it’s the pressure. There was a lot of pressure on me.”
“What kind of pressure?”
“Two million years is a long time.” Jessie paused. “To wait for sex.”
Zakiya almost laughed out loud. Phuti slid out of his chair onto the floor. Then Zakiya did laugh. I didn’t think it was that funny but it was contagious.
Zakiya wiped tears from her eyes.
“Yes, very good timing,” I replied to Jessie’s face-feather query.
When Jessie and I were alone later, she asked me if she should not have made Zakiya laugh. “I think she wants to be sad all the time, because of Sammy.”
I was at loose ends one afternoon, my brain too full of futile thoughts about subjects that were impossible to believe. With that big gap in my memory, it was even a leap of faith that Jessie and the baby were real. The question of reality made me think about Milly. I could remember that Milly talked about never being sure life was real. The implication was that I somehow shook her faith in reality. I fought down the urge to brood over Milly’s fate, but it still made me feel that things were going too well to stay that way.
Jessie was away with Nameless, visiting and gossiping and reveling in her role as the crazy alien housewife. I shuddered just thinking about that. I took a walk to what I called the hangar deck. Many of the slide-rule guys I liked to talk to hung out there, working on the barbarian jumpship.
Direk walked up to me as I approached and offered his hand. I took it, shook it, and tried to remember he was a lot older than he looked. It appeared that Jamie had almost got his straw-colored hair down to Navy-regulation length. Jessie had her sources for all the personal histories on the ship, and was ever eager to fill me in. Direk was as interesting as any of them. He was biomechanically cloned in a process that required the soul of some ancient being to enliven the copy. Although their experiences were fascinating, I found the personalities of my friends were all rather similar. I suppose when you’ve lived so long and were sorted out by such agencies as the Union Navy, all your interesting traits are subdued, all your sharp edges are worn down. I had to gear my perceptions to subtleties. I studied Direk’s ice-blue Essiin eyes for a moment, trying to decide if what I saw could be similar to human - Earthian - feelings.
“Greetings, stranger.” Direk released my hand. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know. Is there?”
“The jumpship is now space worthy.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It has a mission.” Direk turned to face the dark sphere which now rested on a three-point pedestal.
“What mission is that?” I asked it lightly, not knowing how else to react to the possible seriousness of his voice. I was also distracted by recalling this wonderful mental image Zakiya gave me of a black Direk playing the string bass in a nightclub, so totally at odds with his science-guru reputation. I came perilously close to volunteering to play piano, because I think he wanted to get in some hot licks and nobody else was cooperating. Jazz will never die. Why did I think I could play piano? We walked to the ramp that angled up to the portal.
“Shall we go inside?” Direk asked, motioning for me to precede him up the ramp. He was always so formal with me, as if my age had something to do with it.
How could I resist another peek inside a real barbarian jumpship, a pirate ship? That’s why I came! I led the way inside. I was pleasantly surprised at how many details of the hardware I now understood. The jumpship even had a feeling of outmoded technology compared to what I saw aboard the Freedom. I liked it. It was a little vintage sports car: crude, rough, and fast.
“I hear you play bass. You and I could start a jazz ensemble. Does Zakiya sing jazz?” I knew she did.
Direk smiled. I loved to make him smile. It was harder to get his father to smile. Put the two together and forget it. “She sings jazz. What do you play, Sam?”
“Piano, like your brother, but not as well.”
“Unfortunately, Setek-Ren demands that I lead the effort to document the theory of this new advance in physics. I have the daunting task of studying the material Jessie provided us.”
“I trust there was progress in developing headache remedies since I last saw Earth. What mission does this little boat have?”
“The mission,” Direk said, manipulating a few controls at the station where he sat, as though he forgot to do a test of something, “is to learn the fate of Alex’s first wife and daughter. And to see if Petros is still alive.”
“Who is Petros?”
“Zakiya’s son.”
“A Greek name.” I wondered why I didn’t know about him. Jessie would have told me if she knew of him. She knew everybody’s personal story. Why would Petros be close to death? This was too important to let pass, even though I knew it must be restricted information. I looked at Direk and waited for him to decide to tell me more about Petros. I would never be able to wait long enough for Direk to speak of Petros. “Alex is his father? Should I not ask more about him?”
“I would prefer that someone else inform you of Petros.”
“Okay. So, what else don’t you like about this boat’s mission?”
“Zakiya wants to find the source of the Lady in the Mirror.”
“My wife.”
“Your wife?”
The theory was that Milly was the captive of the Lady in the Mirror. Perhaps she was, in a sense. My imagination had not declined with my memory functions and I could imagine a more complex and sinister theory. “I saw the image Zakiya recorded with her ocular camera. The resolution is poor and the facial image is like a cartoon, but there was a faint scar on the forehead of The Lady. I remember Milly had a scar there. She got the scar when she wrecked her car on the D.C. beltway.”
“When? And what is the D.C. beltway?”
I didn’t expect “D.C. beltway” to pop out of my memory. “It was the late nineteen-seventies.” I explained the traffic nightmare that circled Washington, D.C.
“22 January 1979,” Direk said a few moments later. “‘Millicent DuPont, a doctoral candidate at Princeton University, was critically injured when the car she was driving failed to negotiate the exit from…’ We already found that item and several others, Sam. We were waiting for you to relate to one of them.”
“That’s important?”
“Psychologically, perhaps. After the visit inside the Protector we all seem to be grasping for anything we can believe is real and provable. History is slippery enough without losing confidence in the very nature of time and space.”
“Who will be going on this mission?”
“I don’t know, Sam. I would guess that Alex will go.”
I looked closely at Direk’s not-quite-Earthian face. The feeling was there, I saw, just overlooked by someone like me who was too self-absorbed. His face said it was a tragedy to send Alex back to the wolves. He had only just recovered some of what he lost. I, on the other hand, was undeniably and deservedly expendable.
“I want to go.” I said it before I could check my sanity. “I know you don’t think there’s anything I could contribute to the mission, but if Milly is the Lady in the Mirror, I do have a big personal stake in this.” I knew I could be speaking to a larger audience listening on the shiplink. “Who do I talk to about getting a place on the crew of this little pirate ship?”
“That would be Zakiya. I thought you might be interested in going, and I hate that you are.”
“You’re talking as if I might have a chance to go.”
We heard footsteps. Zakiya poked her head into the navigation chamber, then maneuvered into the third seat. The expression on her face was sadder than normal.
“I have to go with you,” I said.
“Go with me?” Zakiya sounded sad rather than surprised. “Where am I going, Sam?”
” You’re going to follow the yellow brick road.” I stared at her warm brown eyes, daring her to lie to me. “You’re going to Oz to find Rafael, Daidaunkh, and Petros. And Shorty. Alex is going to find out what happened to Fidelity and Susan. Then back to Kansas to find Milly.” I didn’t have to look for any subtle signs. I had disturbed Zakiya. She took my hand - a habit she seemed to share with Aylis - even though she was looking at Direk.
“I thought to put myself on the mission. I’ve been to Oz. I haven’t spoken to Alex again about it. Sam, your offer is painful to me. I confess to hoping for it. It will break my heart to separate you from Jessie and the baby.”
Zakiya was going to take me on the jumpship mission. She didn’t confirm it but I could feel it. It was destiny. I had to know what happened to Milly. Was that more important to me than staying with Jessie and the baby? Was Jessie my real wife now? Should I marry her, now that there was some authority to perform the ceremony?
The vital part of the jumpship mission was stopping the Lady in the Mirror. I thought I could be part of the strategy, that when we found Milly, I could somehow turn off the mirror menace. Perhaps if she recognized me. I had to go. It was a duty that was more important than personal happiness or family responsibility. How many young men went off to war in human history, leaving behind wives, parents, children? I was no young man. I had lived a long life, perhaps not a complete life, but one filled with experiences no one else could imagine. I was blessed at this late chapter of my life with a child and more love than I deserved.
Jessie would live forever. I thought I would be remembered far longer than most mortals. My child would live forever. If I didn’t go on this mission, perhaps they both would come to harm, or even death. Zakiya said the barbarian threat was serious and I believed her.
I wandered the ship for the rest of the day, trying to develop a strategy for breaking the news to Jessie, and thinking about all the consequences. I couldn’t imagine being without Jessie for any length of time. All of those unremembered centuries yet existed in the bond between us.
I found myself deep in the ship, down where empty corridors connected empty rooms: places where the industry of the ship wasn’t yet spread.
“Are you going there?”
I jumped aside and staggered to lean against the wall. My mind was a million galaxies away. “Freddy. You found me. Is Jessie looking for me?”
“I’m sorry,” the android said. “I startled you. No, I don’t know that anyone is looking for you. How would they not know where you are?”
“Exactly so. Going where?”
“Going to the room where Samson died.”
“I didn’t know that was near here, Freddy.”
“I go there to think about the mystery of life and to remember my little brother. Would you care to accompany me?” I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t refuse. I wasn’t in the mood to descend any deeper into the indigo. Freddy impressed me greatly, I guess because he was so damned nice not to be organic. That made no sense! All the villains in the universe were probably organic not machine. I was honored to accompany Freddy to the room where Samson died, even as it deeply depressed me.
I fully appreciated what a miracle of sentience Freddy was. I was moved by the story of his dying of grief for Sammy. I had spoken to him at length about Sammy, learning how Zakiya used the juvenile fragment of the Gatekeeper to bring Freddy back to life. Despite Aylis’s optimism, I wondered if there was enough of Sammy recorded in that AMI to restore my son to life. Until we found Shorty it would remain impossible.
We arrived at the infamous room and passed through the mangled doorway. The ship had cleaned itself of the human body fluids and fragments. However, from the pattern of religious offerings and tokens of remembrance, the flowers, the candles, the incense, the bowls of food, the paper notes covered with symbols and poems, from all of the items of a cross-cultural shrine you could see exactly where the two young boys fell dead. This was too unexpected. I had that picture of Samson flash into my mind, gloriously alive and happy in Zakiya’s presence as she sang Un Bel Di. I had watched the ocular camera reconstruction of the fatal attack in this room, despite my better judgment, which I would never watch again. I also watched the recording of Zakiya carrying Samson’s body, and the look on her face which I would never forget. I relived those experiences. I broke down and wept. Samson was my son.
Freddy held me gently and helped me walk away from that place. I listened to the soft sounds of his inner mechanisms and soon found what I thought was a heartbeat.
I was late for dinner. There was a place set for me at the table but Jessie had eaten and was breast-feeding Nameless. She turned to look at me with big solemn eyes. It was wrong that I didn’t tell her I would be late. All I could say was: “Sorry.” My eyes were red and my mood was still blue, so I avoided her inspection. I sat down and stared at my empty plate for a long time. I had experienced a lot of strong emotions lately. As old as I was, it was peculiar that I could still feel so.
Presently Jessie finished nursing. She put the baby on her shoulder to burp it and got up from her chair. She walked over and stood behind me. Nameless belched. “What’s wrong, Samuel Lee?”
“Boy or girl?”
“Yes.” Jessie didn’t sound as playful as the response suggested.
“Which?” I realized I needed to know, as if time was running out. I also realized I sounded moody, despite trying to speak normally.
” You want a boy, I think.”
“Not all Asian men want sons.”
“You lost a son.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sunny. He smiles so much, he’s like sunshine.”
The name felt right to me. I took a breath, trying to ease a small pain in my chest. I was about to abandon another mother who was my wife, another son I might never know. I felt sick. I wiped my eyes which wanted to become damp. She caught my hand and pulled it to her lips. I nodded in agreement. “Sunny is a good name. It sounds a lot like Sammy. Let me hold Sunny.”
“He needs changing.”
“I can do that.”
“What’s wrong?” She was studying me.
I got up from the table with Sunny Lee and took him to the oriental carpet and put him down. I fetched the diaper and wipes and a mat to protect the carpet. I began the operation by flipping Sunny over. He laughed as I tickled his neck. Sometimes I could see some Korean shape to his eyes. Sometimes I could ignore the downy golden hair and see him as very human. He had no face feathers yet and his cheeks were light enough to flush but dark enough to show the pigmentation pattern most Servants exhibited under their feathers. His limbs had only single elbows and knees.
Jessie knelt beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. She was still waiting for my answer.
“I took a long walk and came across Freddy. He was on his way to the place where Samson and the Malay boy were killed. He invited me to accompany him. It was a shrine. It upset me greatly.”
She put her arms around my neck. It wasn’t the whole truth but it wasn’t a lie. I put off the bad part. Of course, I didn’t know for sure there would be a bad part. Maybe Zakiya was being polite to me by not immediately turning down my offer to accompany her to Oz.
Jessie waited until I finished with Sunny. I knew it was coming. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“What would that be?”
“No questions. Answers.”
That was the trouble with having lived so long together. We knew each other too well. Even though the biology was changed to make the relationship more emotionally charged, we still had a direct connection to each other’s every nuance of thought and mood. I had to tell her. I told her.
She was uncharacteristically emotional, even though I stressed the low probability of my inclusion on the jumpship crew. I wasn’t used to so much emotio
n from Jessie. I wasn’t used to so much emotion from me. I just held her for a long time.
Zakiya and Alex entered our home. They saw us. Zakiya turned into Alex’s chest, obviously very upset.
“You’re the admiral,” Alex said, patting her on the back.
She turned around.
“No!” Jessie cried.
Section 008 Volunteers
“No!” Aylis cried.
It was morning. I hadn’t slept all night. Jessie hadn’t slept all night. She seemed ill to me. She was never ill. I told Aylis about the jumpship mission. I was going on the mission. Aylis reacted badly, even to the point of appearing ill herself. I felt terrible. Even Sunny seemed wrong.
Aylis calmed herself and then detected that all of us were in physical distress
never mind the emotional part. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
I started to protest but stopped. No one wins against the Empress of Immortality. I agreed with her decision, especially if Jessie felt as badly as I did. We began to walk to the hospital.
A few steps out the door we encountered Jamie. “What’s wrong?”
“Ask your mother!” Aylis shouted angrily.
“Mind if I accompany you?” Jamie asked meekly.
I carried Sunny. Jessie held my free arm and she felt to me as though she needed it for support. She was breathing with too much effort. She was walking again, having healed almost completely from the oxygen deprivation during childbirth. Jessie stumbled, lost her grip on my arm, and Jamie caught her before she could hit the ground. Jamie picked her up as though she weighed nothing.
For the millionth time in the last few hours my thoughts and feelings orbited the three most important people in my life - and Milly was one of them. I imagined the worst possible fate for Milly, even without any notion of what her physical circumstance might be. She had somehow survived as long as I did, and now she was at the center of an evil organization. I knew this was not the kind of person she could ever become, not without some unspeakable horror being done to her. I was desperate to rescue her, even if it meant… No! Jessie and Sunny were the most precious people who were ever entrusted to my love and care. Even if I didn’t deserve them, I still wanted to be with them. No, I didn’t deserve them, and they could survive my departure. No! Where did the greater love lie, the greater guilt? Milly. Jessie. Sunny. Poor dead Samson. My heart hurt. My feet felt numb. My vision blurred.