by Aeon Authors
I know my employer thinks I’m slow, but a white dove?
The idiot bird keeps flapping two feet from my head and now I see it—a twig of something in its beak. I don’t want to know.
The bird flies off, stops, hovers, and waits. I’m supposed to follow, so I do.
The door it’s stopped at is the third one down from mine, of course. No face of Our Lady on it, but when I step up to it, it of course clicks and swings open.
We go through the next doorway, and the next, and the next, seven doorways in all—from a library to a little museum, then another library, then an office, then an archive with messy files, then a bigger museum. Some of the rooms are empty—of people, I mean—and some aren’t, and when they’re not, the people, some in suits and dresses and some in clerical outfits—give me a look like, “Well, he certainly seems to know where he’s going with his musical instrument. Perhaps they’re having chamber music with espresso for gli ufficiali. And of course that can’t really be a pure white dove with an olive twig in its beak flapping in front of him, so everything’s just fine. Buon giorno, Signore.”
When the bird stops for good, hovering madly, it’s a really big door and it doesn’t open right off. But I know this is it—that my guy is on the other side. Whatever he’s doing, he’s there and I’d better get ready. He’s a vampire. Maybe he’s confused—maybe he doesn’t want to be one any longer—but he’s still got, according to the angel, superhuman strength and super-senses and the rest.
When the door opens—without the slightest sound, I note—I’m looking down this spiral staircase into a gorgeous little chapel. Sunlight is coming through the stained glass windows, so there’s got to be a courtyard or something just outside, and the frescoes on the ceiling look like real Michelangelos. Big muscles. Those steroid bodies.
The bird has flown to the ceiling and is perched on a balustrade, waiting for the big event, but that’s not how I know the guy I’m looking down at is Frank. It isn’t even that he’s got that distinguished-gentleman look that old vampires have in the movies. It’s what he’s doing that tells me.
He’s kneeling in front of the altar, in front of this big golden crucifix with an especially bloody Jesus, and he’s very uncomfortable doing it. Even at this distance I can tell he’s shaking. He’s got his hands out in prayer and can barely keep them together. He’s jerking like he’s being electrocuted. He’s got his eyes on the crucifix, and when he speaks, it’s loud and his voice jerks too. It sounds confessional—the tone is right—but it’s not English and it’s not Italian. It may not even be Latin, and why should it be? He’s been around a long time and probably knows the original.
I’m thinking the stained-glass light is playing tricks on me, but it’s not. There really is a blue light moving around his hands, his face, his pants legs—blue fire—and this, I see now, it’s what’s making him jerk.
He’s got to be in pain. I mean, here in a chapel—in front of an altar—sunlight coming through the windows—making about the biggest confession any guy has ever made. Painful as hell, but he’s doing it, and suddenly I know why she loves him. Hell, anyone would.
Without knowing it I’ve unpacked my crossbow and have it up and ready. This is what God wants, so I probably get some help doing it. I’m shaking too, but go ahead and aim the thing. I need forgiveness, too, you know, I want to tell him. You can’t bank your immortal soul, no, but you do get to spend it a lot longer.
I put my finger on the trigger, but don’t pull it yet. I want to keep thinking.
No, I don’t. I don’t want to keep thinking at all.
I lower the crossbow and the moment I do I hear a sound from the back of the chapel where the main door’s got to be, and I crane my neck to see.
It’s the main door all right. Heads are peeking in. They’re wearing black and I think to myself: Curious priests. That’s all. But the door opens up more and three of them—that holy number—step in real quiet. They’re wearing funny Jesuit collars—the ones the angel mentioned—and they don’t look curious. They look like they know exactly what they’re doing, and they look very unhappy.
Vampires have this sixth sense, I know. One of them looks up at me suddenly, smiles this funny smile, and I see sharp little teeth.
He says something to the other two and heads toward me. When he’s halfway up the staircase I shoot him. I must have my heart in it because the arrow nearly goes through him, but that’s not what really bothers him. It’s the wood. There’s an explosion of sparks, the same blue fire, and a hole opens up in his chest, grows, and in no time at all he’s just not there anymore.
Frank has turned around to look, but he’s dazed, all that confessing, hands in prayer position and shaking wildly, and he obviously doesn’t get what’s happening. The other two Jesuits are heading up the stairs now, and I nail them with my last two arrows.
The dove has dropped like a stone from its perch and is flapping hysterically in front of me, like Wrong vampires! Wrong vampires! I’m tired of its flapping, so I brush it away, turn and leave, and if it takes me (which it will) a whole day to get out of the Vatican without that dove to lead me and make doors open magically, okay. When you’re really depressed, it’s hard to give a shit about anything.
Two days later I’m back at Parlami’s. I haven’t showered. I look like hell. I’ve still got the case with me. God knows why.
I’ve had two martinis and when I look up, there he is. I’m not surprised, but I sigh anyway. I’m not looking forward to this.
“So you didn’t do it,” he says.
“You know I didn’t, asshole.”
“Yes, I do. Word does get out when the spiritual configuration of the universe doesn’t shift the way He’d like it to.”
I want to hit his baby-smooth face, his perfect nose and collagen lips, but I don’t have the energy.
“So what happens now?” I ask.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
He shakes his head. Same look of contempt.
“I guess you wouldn’t.”
He takes a deep breath.
“Well, the Jesuits did it for you. They killed him last night.”
“What?”
“They’ve got crossbows too. Where do you think we got the idea?”
“Same wood?”
“Of course. They handle it with special gloves.”
“Why?”
“Why kill him? Same line of thought. If he flips, things get thrown off balance. Order is important for them, too, you know. Mortals are the same way, you may have noticed. You all need order. Throw things off and you go crazy. That’s why you’ll put up with despots—even choose them over more benign and loving leaders—just so you don’t have to worry. Disorder makes for a lot of worry, Anthony.”
“You already knew it?”
“Knew what?”
“That I wouldn’t do it and the Jesuits would instead.”
“Yes.”
“Then why send me?”
Again the look, the sigh. “Ah. Think hard.”
I do, and, miracle of miracles, I see it.
“Giovanna is free now,” I say.
“Yes. Frank, bless his immortal soul—which God has indeed agreed to do—is gone in flesh.”
“So He wants me to hook up with her?”
The angel nods. “Of course.”
“Why?”
“Because she’ll love you—really love you, innocent that you are—just the way she loved him.”
“That’s it?”
“Not exactly…. Because she’ll love you, you’ll have to stop. You’ll have to stop killing people, Anthony. It’s just not right.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Yes, you will.”
“Don’t think so.”
“But you will—because, whether you know it yet or not, you love her, too.”
What do you say to that?
The angel’s gotten up, straightened his red Zegna, picked up the case, and
is ready to leave.
“By the way,” he adds, “He says He forgives you anyway.”
I nod, tired as hell. “I figured that.”
“You’re catching on.”
“About time,” I say.
“He said that too.”
“And the whole ‘balance’ thing—”
“What do you think?”
Pure bullshit is what I’m thinking.
“You got it,” he says, reading my mind because angels can do that.
Twenty-four hours later I’m back in Siena, shaved and showered, and she doesn’t seem surprised to see me. She’s been grieving—that’s obvious. Red eyes. Perfect hair tussled, a mess. She’s been debriefed by the angel—that I can tell—and I don’t know whether she’s got a problem with The Plan or not, or even whether there is a Plan. The angel may have been lying about that too. But when she says quietly, “Hello, Anthony,” and gives me a shy smile, I know—and my heart starts flapping like that idiot bird.
Condominium and Collective
or
More—or Less—Than Human (with apologies to Theodore Sturgeon)
Until the early sixties collectives or “superorganisms”—vast and dispersed entities working so tightly in concert so as to appear as one—were imagined by the world of behavioral sciences as vast, interacting collections of dependent individuals under a central control system. All members were subject to selection at the level of the superorganism; individual interests were subsumed by the good of the many.
Superorganisms in this sense are something with which you have a high familiarity, such an everyday awareness that you would sweep bits of these amazing entities from your picnic blanket without a thought. Ants, bees, wasps, termites: all the coordinated insect armies of specialized individuals exhibiting specialized functions and problem solving abilities. (Again, all without a central nervous system, by the way. But that is for another day.) But as fascinating as they might be, sometimes they&rsdquo;re just competing for your egg salad and need to be dealt with.
The hierarchy of control for the units in the larger entities like these is well understood, and still plays a role in how we view certain behaviors today. But while the concept of superorganisms was used to explain the behavior of social insects, it is useful still when discussing, or at least analogizing, how complex organisms function. Think about how your body works: your immediate orders are sent by your brain along lines of electrical potential. A central nervous system allows rapid responses to environmental stimuli, in turn allowing you to maximize as best you can the resources around you.
Other parts of your body, under different types of control, also communicate with each other although over relatively longer times. Hormones alter the environment inside your body and prepare you for seasonal changes, sex, combat, sex, stress, and sex, among other things.
Communication can leap between individuals. Humans can chat, of course, but some say we also exude pheromones, which signal others of our internal state. Pheromones can also affect the internal state of others. If you find someone sexy, and you squeeze out enough pheromones, they will know it before you say a word. And might even squeeze a few back at you.
Superorganisms were constructed through these instruments of communication and individual control mechanisms. Ants, bees and termites live in potentially huge colonies where the vast majority sacrifices their individual potential for the good of the colony and the reproductive success of a queen or small number of breeders. This was an attractive idea for researchers studying these animals a generation ago. Modern evolutionary biologists have set the record straight, however. Individuals are still the unit of selection for evolutionary processes, and Occam&rsdquo;s razor has sliced away the trappings of collective organisms, leaving us with the equally amazing eusocial insects.
Eusocial-insects-as-superorganisms was a very cool idea and brought some evolutionary thinking outside the box. And I hastily state here that Darwin&rsdquo;s box proved robust and correct, the superorganism in the sense herein became a science fiction trope. But if we can step outside a lexiconographical box and resurrect the term superorganism, we can apply it to a more profound understanding of obligate symbiosis and co-evolutionary tracts that in some cases have grown so tightly entangled they have become indistinguishable as separate entities to casual observation.
But even if we turn our attention to the individual as the unit of natural selection, we find something interesting and previously unexpected. Co-evolution has built symbiotic organisms often with profound depths of interdependence. Leaf cutter ants and their fungal crop, the Portuguese man-o-war, and lichens all live interdependent lives with obligate symbionts. These organisms are so deeply intertwined they cannot live one without the other.
Built into all of us eukaryotes (everyone that&rsdquo;s not bacteria) there live symbiotic creatures that carry their own DNA with them and segue to new hosts during reproduction. Lost in time, a process of integration began eons ago and can be seen in the very structure of our cells. The leap from prokaryotes (simple bacteria) to us, the eukaryotic branch of the Tree, began a profound partnership where we harbor aliens enveloped within the protection of our cellular membranes. We treasure them so much that we maintain their lineage through our reproductive cell lines. Mitochondria that power our cellular machinery have their own genetic identity, a legacy to their own once independent lifestyle with origins lost to deep time. Mitochondria pass from one generation to the next hitch-hiking along matriarchal lines through fertilized eggs, maintaining their own genetic continuity. Now we are inseparable in every way.
But more than that, our bodies maintain an environment suitable for many more symbiotic critters to live along with us. Mites live in eyelash roots—up to 25 at the base of each human eyelash. These creatures live nowhere else and are found ubiquitously. They survive by consuming dead skin cells and oily secretions in the follicles and usually do no harm.
Over 500 species of bacteria live within our bodies, an enormous store of genetic information, not to mention biomass. About 100 trillion of the cells that we carry about every day, feed and clothe are not human. Our bodies are made up of several trillion cells of human origin, which means that we are far outnumbered even inside ourselves. We are, in effect, condominiums comprised of different species: human, bacterial and fungal, with viral bodies thrown in as well. There are more alien cells within the boundaries of our shell than human ones by an order of magnitude—a factor of 10. That which makes us, which makes possible the emergent property of self-awareness, is more than human.
Nothing is wasted. Every empty niche is filled with some creature or other. Our bodies are hosts to legions of things. These bacteria that live within us are generally harmless and even strive to protect us. For example, our immune systems work in conjunction with bacteria to protect against infection from alien microbes and rogue infusorians. Even our gut pH levels are maintained by their numbers. It&rsdquo;s obviously in their interest to keep us healthy to keep themselves alive for as long as possible; if indeed you can really say “us” and “them” and be sure to have made any real distinction.
People often say that there is more to us than we can know. Well, there are more of us than we can know as well, in the form of intracellular symbiotic organisms, communities of alien bacteria and eyelash beasts. But don&rsdquo;t worry. They like you as much as they like themselves. And really, since they outnumber us and out-mass us, you might say we’re just along for the ride.
Holiday
Marcie Lynn Tentchoff
I think I'll go to Paris:
the romance of “La tour Eiffel,”
the Arc de Triomphe standing tall
as monument to human ways,
near make me weep
when set against this backdrop of
bright alien stone.
How sweet to buy Parisian gowns
to shop for perfume, shoes and jewels
in Champs-Élysées's upscale stores,
where tourists from the Outer Web
do not yet flock,
and Dreamers from the Otherlands
have yet to go.
I'd linger long near Notre Dame,
undress the gargoyles with my eyes,
to see reflections at their hearts,
and then I'd pray to glimpse at last
one hunchbacked form,
more fair than any off world man,
to win my heart.
Little Moon, Too, Goes Round
David Dumitru
“While I’m not always sure where the characters who inhabit my stories originate, when KC Moss came to visit me, I liked her immediately and asked her to stay for a while. KC, I think, is a kind of distillation of the traits I find most endearing, and unfortunately most rare, in Homo sapiens sapiens: reflective to the point of distraction, carried along, not unwillingly, by eddying currents of random curiosity, and self-aware in a way in which the self operates as a small part of a great, thrumming tide of consciousness”
KC MOSS PROPPED HER SHOVEL against the gate and scanned the horizon beyond the fence. A dust devil skipped for a moment across the prairie and then vanished, gone to nothing almost before she could pin a word on it. She bent and reached into the hole she’d been digging. Having lived most of her sixteen years on a farm a good deal past the end of the road where nowhere stops and turns around again, KC knew a thing or two about digging holes. Things died and the dead things got themselves eaten and whatever was left over started smelling pretty bad pretty quick, so it was important to get the leftovers in the ground lickety-split. On the other hand, all that digging wasn’t so bad once you got used to it. You never knew what you might find. KC lifted a skull out of the hole and turned it in her hand.
She brought it to her nose and sniffed. It had a wet smell, like a potato just out of the ground—which it was, she reminded herself, just out of the ground. She sniffed again. There was another smell, too. She thought it was the smell of things someone might be looking for. She looked deep into the eye sockets. She was reminded a little of Eddie Johnson, not because it looked like him, which, now that she thought about it, it kind of did, but because Eddie Johnson had played Hamlet in the inter-district drama club last year. He was seventeen and thin as a whistle and he thought he was a hottie. He wanted everyone to call him Edward, but KC still called him Eddie, even to his face. People said he was going with a girl in the next district, but that was just a rumor.