Acts of Conscience

by William Barton

Arousian consternation? Merely my interpretation of the pose it makes.

  Greekee?

  Sledgehammer pounding on galvanized tin.

  Rustmold-on-Pale-Snow plucked the thing from its clip, holding it above its head by two spindly hands, shaking it, punching buttons, screaming, Greekeegreekeegreekeegreekee!

  The box whispered, Whappawhappawhackwhack...

  The Arousian threw it on the ground, started trampling the thing with all of its several little feet, until its case burst open and the insides popped out. The other Arousians started making a series of bird-like twittering noises while this was going on.

  “What are they saying?”

  The Kapellmeister said, “They are laughing, Gaetan.”

  I stepped forward, one hand on what I supposed was Rustmold’s shoulder, putting a stop to its little dance, Arousian’s flesh like dry, dead reeds to my touch. It recoiled, startled, and the others stopped laughing.

  “Take it easy, pal.”

  I knelt then, gathering up the bits of its translation machine, taking a good look. Stuff like wet, crumpled toilet paper, pieces of dead grass, little blue leaves and strips of tinsel. For Christ’s sake. Autoprogramming mechanical nanocircuitry? “This piece of shit must be three hundred years old.”

  The Kapellmeister said, “The Arousians are permitted to take what they wish from MEI’s recycling bins.”

  “So their lords and masters supply them with whatever junk they want, but...” I gestured around the camp, “are willing to have them come here and...”

  The Kapellmeister said, “The remarkable thing is not what a talking dog says, Gaetan, but that he speaks at all.”

  A slight jolt at what that implied.

  The Kapellmeister said, “Can you fix it, Gaetan?”

  I looked at the worthless crap in my hands, and said, “Oh, I suppose so. But it won’t work any better than it did before. Why bother?” I dropped it on the ground.

  The Arousian stepped closer, seeming to peer into my eyes, though what good that would do it, I couldn’t imagine. Its compound eyes looked like bits of fabric to me.

  It said, “I wish I could talk to you.”

  I blinked stupidly, and said, “What?”

  Then both of us recoiled, turning to face the Kapellmeister simultaneously.

  The library AI whispered, The pod software has established a direct link with our internal communication subsystem, Gaetan. It has begun spooling out a copy of its linguistic algorithms, which are so surpassingly... so wonderfully...

  Imagine an artificial intelligence at a loss for words.

  The Kapellmeister said, “The salient thing about friendship appears to be the issue of trust.”

  o0o

  In due course, Tau Ceti went down, staining the undersides of the clouds with orange and gold just as it slid below the horizon, sky turning black overhead, nameless stars popping through the fabric of heaven like little white lights. The fires were lit, red and yellow flames leaping up, casting long, unstable shadows, while we went about the separate business of making our meals, I with my bits from the starship’s galley, Arousians roasting a shishkebab of things like pieces of rubber tire, the Kapellmeister returning from a short wilderness foray with some small, helpless staring creature, quietly accepting its fate because it had no choice.

  Trying so hard to ignore all the whispers the newly-upgraded translation AI made in my head. Ignore them for now, at any rate. Three womfrogs, hulking shadows by the river...

  We came here to treat with the sky people, who profess to be our friends.

  Humans are sky people too.

  No. They are only humans. Let’s kill this one and be on our way.

  What good would that do? Only enrage its kind, to the detriment of our children.

  Even one less human being in the world is a good thing.

  Still I persist in wondering if all this is merely an artifact of some algorithm gone mad. The story I tell myself is merely part of another childhood dream, If I could talk to the animals...

  Not animals, Gaetan, whispered the library.

  No. Not animals. But in the world of talking animals we create for our children, where is the butcher? You remember the satisfaction of Herr Dunderbeck’s destruction, but only because it dealt with our sacred pets, our cats and dogs, whom we’ve made into something oh-so-much like furry little boys and girls...

  One more dream peered from the depths, where I’d buried it long ago, the deep, dark eyes of the woman who loved me forever, the children we made together, all the things that make a man’s life seem less... self-contained.

  When did I lose that dream?

  Maybe I never had it.

  Arousians gathered before me now, having finished their meal, watching me finish mine. Watching me lick the shiny grease of a ham sandwich from my fingers. What do they make of that? I looked at my wet fingers, then at them, realizing I had no idea whether or not the odd-smelling things they ate were animal, vegetable, mineral...

  I wonder. In a world where people ate only rocks, would there be anguished souls who suffered over the ignoble fate of stones?

  Across the way, watching us eat, the wolfen lay curled in the grass, dollies beyond them, watching as well. More whispers I wanted to ignore...

  Look. Look. They’re eating together. What if they invite the wolfen to join them?

  The womfrogs were no more than vast background shadows, tearing up fistfuls of grass, stuffing them into huge mouths, with a soft, crush, crush, crush, scent of mashed vegetation further sweetening the night air. Rustmold-on-Pale-Snow said, “Will you help us, then, Gaetan du Cheyne?”

  Help you? Fly you from world to world in my little starship, fly you faster than light, help you set up a legal team, publicize your cause on human worlds that matter, in this window of opportunity, before MEI can realize what’s happening, before it can buy FTL starships of its own, bring its enormous resources to bear?

  The Arousian said, “They’re our resources, Gaetan du Cheyne. The resources of the Sigma Draconis worlds. Stolen from us.”

  Ah, yes. The issue, as always, is just what belongs to whom.

  “My resources are somewhat limited, you know.”

  The Arousian said, “We’ll pay you back... someday.”

  How does it feel to be bargaining with the devil?

  For that matter, how does it feel to be the devil with whom the downtrodden must bargain?

  Now I know.

  Huge dark mass suddenly looming out of the night, enormous face hanging in the firelight, making me remember another night when I’d crept through the underbrush beside Gretel Blondinkruis, had looked down into the ravine, into the faces of the doomed. Hell, all I ever wanted was Gretel’s sweet ass, and I never did shoot any womfrogs.

  It’s voice was a dull throb in my head: “What about us, Gaetan du Cheyne? Don’t we deserve your help?”

  Do you?

  The womfrog said, “We didn’t ask humans to come kill us. Kill us all just for fun, kill us and eat our dead bodies, kill us and take our skin for carpeting and coats.”

  No, I suppose not. But we came anyway. Why didn’t you do anything to stop us?

  “You think this is our fault? What could we have done?”

  One of the wolfen, a large fertile female, stood, came slinking over, sat on her haunches, facing me, “This was our world. The gods gave it to us.”

  Which gods were those, dear wolfen?

  She said, “When you help the Arousians, you can help is, Gaetan du Cheyne. We know you’ve taken this world away, that you’ll never give it back. But there are so many worlds... surely there’s one little world somewhere, around some forgotten star, a world no one else wants, where the wolfen and womfrogs and the boomers in the sea...”

  How poetic.

  Pathetic poetry.

  And yet...

  We could find that forgotten star, Random Walk and I, then...

  Every womfrog and wolfen and dollie on Green Heaven would fit in
the cargo hold of a single old STL freighter. Put them in cold storage and it wouldn’t matter how long it took to reach that forgotten star. Boomers? Sure. Fill a second ship with water, pack them in like sardines, freeze the whole mass solid and... on your way.

  You know what’s going to happen, Gaetan du Cheyne. Once the FTL technology really gets going, the old interstellar economy is going to collapse. Things are going to be very different in just a few years. In just a few years they’ll be selling STL freighters for two dismes on the livre. Christ. Probably get two such cargo carriers for a couple of hundred thousand livres.

  And you’ve got a couple of hundred thousand livres, don’t you, Gaetan du Cheyne?

  I felt a little twist of anger then, corkscrewing through my intestines. Why me? Why do I have to be the one to do it?

  I got up and walked away from the fire, turning my back on Kapellmeisters, Arousians, womfrogs and wolfen. Listened to the dollies whisper, whisper in growing consternation as they realized I was walking toward them.

  Looking down, seeing them huddled there in my shadow, I could feel the sharp skewer of desire rising within me. Nothing. Not me. Not my fault. Just subtle pheromones playing on my nervous system. Not me at all.

  Ah, yes. Since when did the things of your body cease to be you, Gaetan du Cheyne?

  Excuses don’t matter.

  I turned back to see the others all watching me. Waiting. Imagining I might have something significant to say. Waiting for some magic word that will change their world, unseal their fate.

  I gestured at the dollies, and said, “What about them?”

  Dollie whispers... what is he saying?

  Oh, Goddess. Goddess, listen!

  Finally, the wolfen said, “What do you mean? Those are our dollies, of course.”

  Right. I said, “So you’ll take the dollies with you to the promised land, and fuck them and eat them and nothing will ever change?”

  You could hear astonishment in the wolfen’s translated voice: “What else would we do?”

  One of the dollies got up, stumbled over to me, and fell on its knees, grabbing the front of my pantlegs, looking up at me, dark eyes wide with desperation. “Please. Please, Lord,” it whispered. “Tell them we want to live!”

  It’s nice to be begged, isn’t it?

  Especially by something that might suck your dick later on, hmh?

  Breathing in its hormonal vapors, hair crawling on the back of my neck, I visualized how much pleasure I could have, raping this helpless little thing.

  The dollie kneeling before me whispered, “You’re all we have, Gaetan du Cheyne. Save us.”

  I turned away from them all, looking up into the star-filled sky. remembering suddenly just how much I’d always loved the stars. And I said, “Yes, I suppose I will.”

  Then the dollies gathered round, vying for position, apparently trying to kiss my feet.

  o0o

  Later on, midnight, with the moons gone down, only the stars for light, I sat in the darkness, looking up at the sky. The Arousians had retired, puttering around the camp, cleaning up, banking the fires or putting them out entirely before going into their tents, soft greekeegreekee, then nothing more.

  Over there, beside the gurgling waters of the river, the three womfrogs were massive sleeping hulks, whispering softly in their sleep, between small, contented snores. Right now, an unknown future waits. Much better than the certain death they’d had before.

  What’s the worst that can happen? He fails, then the hunters come and kill us? That’s what was going to happen. Better to have hope, however small and frail.

  Wolfen curled up, not far away, stirring and muttering in their dreams. The big female lay on her side, stretched out, teeth visible, legs twitching softly, the beginnings of little running movements.

  Do all thinking beings dream?

  Beyond them, I could see the dollies huddled together in the stygian shadow of their baarbij bush. Somewhere under the ground, clutched in the embrace of its twining roots, the bones of long dead dollies lie, mixed with a soil made from wolfen shit.

  Maybe there’s a dollie heaven somewhere. Maybe, somehow, they know.

  Stupid. What I’m thinking about now is going over there, waking one of the dollies, leading it away into the darkness. That’s it, find a nice, private place, make a comfortable bed from soft Koperveldt grass, lay the dollie on its back in your bed and...

  The Kapellmeister, my Kapellmeister, came ambling out of the darkness, stood before me in the night with its eyes floating high. Do you know what I’m thinking, Mr. Kapellmeister? Perhaps you do. How does it feel to be in the company of such a miserable creature as me?

  The Kapellmeister said, “You’re a hero to them now, Gaetan du Cheyne.”

  A small, definite sinking feeling, right here in my gut. I said, “I don’t feel like a hero.”

  “Real heroes never do.”

  “No?”

  Silence. Then it said, “The salient thing about brotherhood is obligation.”

  Right. Galling bitterness in my throat. “Whose brother am I?” For that matter, whose brother are you?

  The Kapellmeister made a short, running jump and landed right in my lap, seven eyes looking at me from seven directions. “Do you wonder why, Gaetan my brother?”

  Yes.

  It said, “This is why.”

  Then its hand, warm black hand made of so many tentacles, reached out and engulfed me and...

  Click.

  Four hundred million years ago, I sat alone on a warm rock in the middle of the night, looking up at the star-filled sky.

  Sat there and waited, while the warm winds of Salieri blew across my skin. Such a lovely night, a night for...

  Flash.

  Sudden, brilliant light from a dying sun.

  There, then gone again in the twinkling of an eye.

  I’d been waiting for it, waiting for years.

  Strange to think of them as silent stars.

  But we did nothing, said the Kapellmeister.

  We let it happen. A few more years of waiting, then flash, another one fades away.

  Silent stars.

  Out there, just a few years ago, you see, the weapons were readied, readied and fired and fired again. Do you call it a war, when it’s only five seconds long? Maybe you just call it the end.

  Flash. Then flash again. Then again.

  I sat on my rock and waited, wondering just what we should have done, rather than merely let it happen, while the stars twinkled and flashed and died away. After a few hundred years, you could see dozens of worlds die on any given night. After a few thousand years, the whole sky seemed to glitter and sparkle and glow as infalling light from the death of all the worlds came our way.

  In those days, most of us chose to live in burrows under the ground.

  That way we couldn’t see it happen.

  No way to forget, but you can hide, close your eyes, pretend...

  In time, the light came from stars so far away you needed amplification to see the explosions, of course. In time, I could sit on my rock and look up at the silent stars, drink in their cold, empty beauty as if nothing had ever happened.

  But in the telescopes...

  In the telescopes.

  Maybe I sat on my warm rock, all alone, and watched the beautiful heavens flicker and die for seventeen million years. Maybe longer.

  Whose fault was that?

  No one?

  o0o

  At last, I sat in the pilot’s chair on the flight deck of Random Walk, looking out through the viewscreens at those same silent stars. Silent no longer, remember that. They’re all out there. Waiting. Waiting for us to come. In a few thousand years, at most, the sky will be full of voices oncemore. Full of voices, full of ships, full of people.

  Nice to be up here alone.

  Alone with my thoughts.

  Forty one hours from Green Heaven to the jump point, then bound in an instant across the trackless wasteland, a mere 12.68 light
years from Tau Ceti to 82 Eridani, though the Kapellmeister’s star lay more than twenty from Earth...

  I thought about the womfrog stuffed in down below, hardly able to move, insisting it’d be all right for a few days lying on its side, gasping for breath in the space we’d carved out by cutting through the bulkhead between two staterooms.

  A volunteer. This is important, whispering to its two friends, telling them to spread the word, the word of salvation, as quickly as possible, to all the womfrogs of Green Heaven.

  Salvation. Christ. Who the hell am I to be a savior?

  No one at all, and yet...

  Wolfen down below as well, sleeping in the cabins where I’d put them. Funny as hell to see that big female try to crawl up into a bunk. This interesting soft stuff, my, my... I’d left them lying on the floor, on pulled apart bedding, marveling at how nice it was, stretched out on all those mattresses.

  And, of course, the dollies, taking my word, trusting that I wouldn’t let the wolfen eat them, ever again.

  Hard to remember their whispered arguments, even now. Hard to live with their words. But if the wolfen don’t eat us, how will we get to heaven?

  Clinging tight to that one fierce whisper: I don’t know. I want to live.

  All right. So we go to the Kapellmeister’s world, talk to its friends, present our case to its enemies, tell them we want to live too. Its our universe, you see. Our lives and...

  As always, a matter of what belongs to whom.

  Will they listen?

  No way to know.

  Maybe it doesn’t matter.

  Soft movement behind me. The head of a dollie poking above the rim of the open hatchway, looking around curiously, eyes big and dark. I’ve given them the run of the ship, you see.

  Because the salient thing about friendship is trust?

  Perhaps.

  Or that other matter, the business of brotherhood and obligation.

  It got up on the deck and came padding over, putting its hands on the safely locked controls, leaning close, looking out through the viewscreens at an infinitely deep landscape of stars.

  What do you make of that, little dollie? Anything at all?

  It turned and looked at me, though I hadn’t said a word, then came over, soft and silent, stared at me, empty-eyed for just a moment, then crawled up in my lap, settling down, nuzzling its head under my chin.