Lazarus’ heavy eyelids closed for a moment; she breathed out, and Aleph felt the air stir on her cheek. Lazarus put a hand to her pocket and drew out a small box bound in red leather. Her finger pressed a catch and it sprang open. Inside was a hypodermic.
“I can give you my blood,” she said.
Did it matter? Aleph wondered. She was already addicted.
Lazarus laid light fingers on the back of her neck. “Do you want it?”
“Yes.” Aleph rolled up her sleeve.
“Let me have yours as well. Then we will be blood sisters.” Lazarus expertly tied a rubber constrictor around Aleph’s arm, then pierced her vein and drew off blood as dark and pulsing as any human’s. She then tied the band around her own arm, injected the blood, and drew off a second vial of her own. Without pausing, she grasped Aleph’s elbow and plunged the needle in.
There was no sensation, no change. Lazarus was watching her intently. “Now we are neither of us angels,” she said softly. “Now I can ask you to make love to me.”
Aleph’s heart began beating fast, laboring over the alien blood. “Here?” she asked, looking up to the dark balcony above them, the shadows on the ceiling shifting as the earthlight passed.
“Why not? No one is watching. Even if they were…” Lazarus’ head jerked up abruptly, the cords in her neck taut. “Do you hear that, Johanson?” she shouted. “We are going to act human here, in front of all these stars! And you can’t stop us.”
The aftershocks of the sudden shout echoed in the empty room. Lazarus turned back to Aleph, her face blazing with a wild smile. “My God, you look like me,” she said, and then her mouth was on Aleph’s, lips nursing identical lips. Aleph slipped a hand inside Lazarus’ uniform, feeling the wonder of smooth skin, the muscular buttocks, the teasing prickle of hair, and knew it was her own body her fingers explored. Lazarus’ strong lips were on her shoulders, her breast, and she knew that her arousal was Lazarus’ as well. Without a word they stood ritually to undress each other, knowing instinctively every touch and timing. They clasped naked, body to body, upon the glass floor, as the moon rose beneath them.
*
Aleph woke with a headache gnawing at the backs of her eyes. She rolled over and became aware that every inch of her body ached. Her throat was parched. She rose and stumbled into the sanitary alcove. As she drank, her eye fell on the Persian carpet, and she realized she was not in her own room.
The reaction had come over her as she had been lying in Lazarus’ arms, watching the earth speed by beneath them. Nausea and shooting pains had racked her as her body fought back against the invading infection of humanity. She couldn’t have gotten back on her own. Lazarus had helped her through the halls to her room. No, to Lazarus’ room.
“Well, well, well,” said Johanson’s voice. “That was a nice try.”
Disoriented, Aleph looked around. At last she realized the voice came from the terminal. She went into the bedroom and saw Johanson’s face on the screen.
“Go away. It has nothing to do with you,” she said, and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Aren’t you going to ask where your lover is?” Johanson said mockingly.
“Where is she?” Aleph asked dully.
“She’s free,” Johanson said. “She went back to Earth on the shuttle this morning. As you will never do, Lazarus.”
The words froze in Aleph’s throat. “What are you talking about?” she said at last. “I’m not Lazarus.”
“Oh, spare me the charade,” Johanson groaned. “I saw through your little plot before you even thought of it. Magic tricks, eh? Trying to switch bodies on me? Pathetic, Lazarus. You forgot there was still a way to distinguish the two of you, no matter how close you got. You have the longevity virus in your blood. She didn’t. A blood test, that’s all it took. Maybe you thought I didn’t know you’d tried the virus on yourself. Well, surprise.”
Aleph’s mind was racing. She thought of the vial of blood Lazarus had drawn from her arm before it was tainted. Lazarus had needed that blood to smuggle herself through Johanson’s net. Magic tricks, indeed. Aleph had seen Lazarus inject it into her own arm; but had there been only one hypodermic?
“Listen, I can tell you how she did it,” Aleph said urgently. “She switched blood vials on you. She has allies to help her, you know. You’ve got to believe me, I’m not Lazarus. I’ll tell you things she couldn’t know. I’ll—”
“Tell the walls,” Johanson said. “You’ll have plenty of time. I’ve given the order to have you transferred upstairs. There’s a box with your name on it, Lazarus, and in a few minutes you’re going to be in it.”
“Stop!” Aleph screamed; but the monitor had gone blank. Terror blinded her. She stood clenching her fists, trying to fight it down. This is Lazarus’ fear, not mine, she told herself. But a mocking voice replied, you are Lazarus now. Forever. You are bound by the chains of her blood; you will never be free of her fears.
She caught a glimpse of Lazarus in the mirror and turned to face her. “You dirt!” she shouted. “How could leave me here like this? I trusted you!”
Her head swam; the lights seemed to be dimming. She blinked to get her sight back. But no—the lights actually had dimmed. Suddenly the whole wall lit up with an image of Johanson’s face, yellowed teeth grinning at her. She backed away till she hit the edge of the bed and her legs collapsed under her.
“Is that any way to talk to your lover, Lazarus? After what you tried to do to her? You’re the filth, you sodomite. I only wish you had a hundred lives for me to keep you boxed.”
Aleph put her hands over her ears. All she could hear was the thump, thump of the guards coming to take her off to her coffin. Suddenly her eyes fell on the panel in the corner. Lazarus’ suicide trove. She lunged across the room and pried at the panel with her fingernails till it came loose. She seized the pistol, wheeled around, and fired at the opposite wall. The bullet lodged itself in the image of Johanson’s left eye. The projection disappeared.
The room seemed unnaturally quiet. Aleph stood, her ears ringing from the explosion, then slowly turned the gun around to point at her own face. This was what the weapon was for; it was why Lazarus had shown it to her. A last gift of kindness, perhaps. She raised it till the barrel pressed against her forehead.
And then lowered it. She realized, with a little surprise, that Lazarus was incapable of suicide. She was incapable of not hoping, not planning. Not seeking revenge. She faced the mirror.
“I’ll get out of here,” she said to Lazarus. “I swear I’ll be free some day. Not even you can stop me. And when I come looking for you, by God you’ll regret it.”
There were footsteps at her door, then voices. “Watch out, she’s got a gun,” one warned.
Smiling secretively, Aleph laid the gun down on the dresser. As she did, she noticed a book of poetry lying open there, practically under her fingers. Four lines were underscored:
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free;
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.
When the door burst open and filled with uniformed muscle, Aleph was waiting calmly. “Well, let’s go,” she said.
*
CIG: I have never deliberately set out to write about the problem of balancing freedom and love, but it keeps coming up in my stories. There is no pat answer: sometimes my characters achieve both, sometimes they have to sacrifice one or the other. Sometimes, when the characters are as passionate for freedom as for each other, they sacrifice both. I wish I could say I have figured out this question, but it perplexes me as much today as ever.
Devulban Dreams
By Jean Stewart
It was Hoyt’s last day on-planet, and though she was bone-weary from yesterday’s ten-hour shift, she still felt jittery with nerves. High above her the insulating HDPE armored dome surrounded the colony, its underside holographically suggesting a blue sky dotted with small white clouds. The air held a slight chill, signal
ing that the pre-set climate was sequencing into autumn mode. Somewhere deep below her, Hoyt knew creation computers were busy modulating the requisite battery of artificials in order to make the planetary colony Earthlike, but the details involved too much science for Hoyt to think on long. She had lived in Devulba Dome for twelve years now, and during that entire time she had never been able to forget that she was not on Earth.
Moving her tall, solid frame through the crowds in the free market, she kept a tight grip on the battered backpack draped over her shoulder. She knew that even through her jacket and pants her corded strength was discernible, both in her large hands and her lean face. She really didn’t expect any pickpockets to target her from among the smaller, frailer office-types pushing by her in the Saturday market frenzy. Why try a dip in a miner’s bag when there were keyboard and headset jockeys available for easy pickings? Still, for the unemployed and desperate, even a miner was a potential mark. She kept her eyes moving, considering the people around her, watching them in case they tried something. A stunner in the hands of a renegade was something even a miner couldn’t withstand.
At last she came to the massive statue of Gates. She jumped and caught the edge of the hard composite plastic, then climbed up and claimed a seat at the feet of the great man. A few feet away a coppery-skinned Mongolian was eating what looked like cinnamon dusted yams wrapped in a savory pastry crust. He glanced over, then turned his shoulder to her, as if she meant to rob him of his treat. Rolling her eyes, Hoyt swung her head the opposite way. On the other side of her was a slender blonde wearing clothes too big for her and a red wagoneer’s cap.
Hoyt recognized her at once; Anne Hutchinson had driven the wagon that picked up ore from Hoyt’s work crew several years back, before Hoyt’s forced promotion to carving crystal. Hoyt had often waved to the girl from the cabin of her tunneling bot.
“What a nice surprise. Hello, Miss Hutchinson,” Hoyt said.
Anne Hutchinson’s astonished blue eyes stared back at her.
Hoyt couldn’t help noticing the Kuan Yin Spaceport map sticking out of the young woman’s jacket pocket, and the overstuffed bag that was slung across her chest and resting by her hip. “Taking a flight out today?” Hoyt asked politely, remembering to smile a little.
The girl blushed a delightful rose-color, opened her mouth as if to reply, then appeared to think better of it. She dropped her gaze, and the fingers of one hand played with the strap of her cloth bag. Hoyt wondered if Anne Hutchinson had been warned not to talk to miners. Hoyt sat for a moment, trying to work up the nerve to say something more to her, when the girl suddenly blurted, “Excuse me.”
With that, Anne Hutchinson quickly slipped from the statue’s base, dropping down into the surging wave of people jostling by below. She landed beside two laundry peddlers who were muscling a little two-wheel cart ahead of them, and followed in the wake of the block they created. About twenty meters later, she glanced back over a shoulder, saw Hoyt watching her, and then separated from the peddlers. Hoyt watched the girl thread effortlessly through the shifting tides of humanity, until the red cap disappeared behind a booth with a sign that read Mutant Electronics.
“Well it ain’t like I was gonna bite you,” Hoyt commented to herself, remembering that, though she had tried to be friendly, she had never gotten the girl to speak to her when Anne used to pick up product from Hoyt’s work crew. Feeling disappointed, Hoyt scratched her jaw.
She gave the other statue sitters a practiced, cursory evaluation, and then sighed, relaxing a bit. From her perch on the statue base, above the market crowds, she settled into watching the glowing newsboard that made up the third-to-sixth stories of the building on the other side of the vast square.
Above the market, accompanied by lively pop tunes and one smooth announcer voice after another, the newsboard was alive with light, color and movement. Continuous streams of information ran across the bottom of the rectangular surface, posting news items in the three major languages—Chinese, English, and Geek-Speak. Above the banner strips, scantily clad images cavorted in decidedly erotic dances.
Soft porn. What a waste of crystals, Hoyt thought mirthlessly.
With effort, she kept her eyes on the feed-streams, finding the latest updates on flight arrivals and departures at Kuan Yin Spaceport. After she was sure that all the day’s flights were running on schedule, she continued to read the latest stock quotes and the top news stories from Earth, the Moon, Devulba and the twenty-six space stations.
Above the flow of hard data, lithe men and women embraced surreally, rolling sinuously against one another. Hoyt frowned, knowing no one could ever look that good and be real. Those bodies were obviously computer-generated. It galled her that, even as she told herself she hated porn-ads, her body stirred with arousal.
It had been a long time since she had made love the way she liked—with a woman. After the first few years in Devulba, Hoyt had come to understand that she wanted more than just a casual fuck-buddy; she wanted to build a relationship with another lesbian. The problem was that there were few lesbians in Devulba, and among those few there was no one she wanted to spend her life with. Visits to the recreation center and renting a computer-mod cubicle for an afternoon with some interactive erotica programs might take the edge off for awhile, but for the most part they left her feeling sadly diminished. Men, though they made up seventy percent of the bodies available on this planet, were simply not satisfying, even with the help of a THC-patch or a bottle of good scotch. Feeling like a hibernating bear, she had ended up increasingly going without.
Ignoring the cinematic pornography on display above the free market, Hoyt continued to concentrate on the feed-streams. As a member of a mixed-group work crew she had learned to read all three languages within a year of planet-fall. She found herself following her home language, Chinese, and entering an almost wistful nostalgic haze. Pay attention, she warned herself.
She had good reason for being vigilant. Hoyt’s last flight had been cancelled a half hour before boarding, the announcement made in a seven or eight word blurb sent across the feed-stream while she was shopping for last minute souvenirs. Grimly, Hoyt remembered how shocked she had been to discover that she was suddenly stuck on-planet without a job or a place to stay. She had ended up hastily negotiating a new contract with the Devulba Corporation because they had filled her job driving a mammoth tunneling-bot roughly four hours after she’d resigned. Her new contract had her working at non-union scale these past two years as a slab-carver. The compulsory overtime that came with the job had the added benefit of honing her skill; as a result she’d made more in finder’s fees in the deep-depth quarries than she had ever made during all those years of running a t-bot. True, slab-carving was life-threatening work, but she seemed to have an instinct for avoiding slicing into gas pits or freeze caves, and she had somehow avoided the other all too common fate of triggering a cave-in and being crushed beneath a ton of gleaming energy-jewels. Instead she had found enough new crystal seams to earn a nickname: Lucky Hoyt.
Lucky, Hoyt thought, then shook her head, irritated. She had made a fortune, but in exchange she had given away another two years of her life to Devulba. It had taken precisely that long to get another berth on an Earth-bound freighter.
Since the Repatriation Acts had been passed in China, once you had left Earth on a work visa returning home was difficult. “We want to discourage immigration where possible,” a series of government stooges parroted on the news spots, as if repeating that phrase over and over would make everyone forget that according to ancient space law a born Earth citizen was free to return home after working off-world.
Coming home is hardly the same thing as being an immigrant. Besides, who are they kidding? Hoyt asked herself. Everyone knows they’ll say anything they can to avoid admitting there are just too many people on Earth now.
Religious convictions and traditionalist dogma had prevented scientists and human rights advocates from delivering the reality check centuries
ago, when the crisis could have been averted. Now overpopulation was an out-of-control monster, gorging itself on ignorance and selfishness.
For decades now, politicians in every country had been completely consumed with maintaining the status quo. They had decided that if someone gave up their place by going off-world on a job, it was better for all concerned if that person did not come back, especially if the worker had become wealthy. Most corporate-countries had had enough of Capitalist workaholics retiring in their Thirties, and then ensconcing themselves in their census origin villages like Rajas of olden times. The Marxist worker bees that had stayed safely home, employed in low paying government jobs, now found themselves facing decades of grueling labor and couldn’t help the grim insight into how things had turned out for them. Most Earth citizens wanted to take no risks, and gain the reward of those who did. Leaders wanted everyone to be the same, so that no one noticed they were little more than serfs.
Politics. Hoyt grimaced. She muttered aloud, “Like my father always said, once the middle class was gone, the haves crushed the have-nots, and there’s been no hope for us ever since.”
The Mongolian next to her pulled another yam pie from his cloth bag. Obviously overhearing her, he glanced up at the newsboard and nodded. “Damn corporations. Fuck old man Devulba and the lot of ’em.”
Hoyt eyed him for a moment, wondering if he was a renegade. Then she saw the Devulban tattoo on his right hand and realized he was an indentured servant. The lowest of the low. No wonder he dares to curse them in an open crowd. He has nothing left to lose.
Looking around, sighing, Hoyt felt her twelve years on Devulba pressing down of her. When she had left home at age fourteen, Devulba was brand new, an off-world experiment. It had been a great, patriotic adventure, flying through space to mine energy ore on a small world four light-years away. The planet had a small populace, less than ten thousand, when she’d first arrived. Now there had to be over three hundred thousand people here. The dome was a sprawling structure that was being added onto each year, like a house that would never be finished. In the square before her, several thousand coworkers were bartering busily for their next week of meals, their next drugs of choice, their next piece of bot-ware to make their ten-by-ten meter allotted house space more endurable. Most of these people were primarily interested in relieving the oppressive boredom of life beneath a dome, of life in the hamster-like plastic hutches that rose up in tier’s along the edges of the dome like Pueblo Indian structures on a New Mexico ridge. The fact that Devulba was so much more crowded now than it had been when she had arrived signaled that life on Earth was even worse. For people to be willing to come all this way to escape, it had to be. Still, she found that didn’t deter her dreams of returning home.
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