Nebula Awards Showcase 2003

by Nancy Kress

  “Yes. It was very nice.”

  Mada’s reply seemed to dismay Edris even more. When she came out to clear the next course, she blanched at the corner of breakfast torte that Mada had left uneaten.

  “I knew this.” She snatched the plate away. “The pastry wasn’t fluffy enough.” She rolled the offending scrap between thumb and forefinger.

  Mada raised her hands in protest. “No, no, it was delicious.” She could see Owen shrinking into the far corner of the room.

  “Maybe too much Colby, not enough Gruyère?” Edris snarled. “But you have no comment?”

  “I wouldn’t change a thing. It was perfect.”

  “Madame is kind,” she said, her lips barely moving, and retreated.

  A moment later Owen set the steaming plate of French toast before Mada.

  “Excuse me.” She tugged at his sleeve.

  “Something’s wrong?” He edged away from her. “You must speak to Edris.”

  “Everything is fine. I was just wondering if you could tell me how to get to the local library.”

  Edris burst out of the kitchen. “What are you doing, bean-headed boy? You are distracting my patron with absurd chitterchat. Get out, get out of my restaurant now.”

  “No, really, he . . .”

  But Owen was already out the door and up the street, taking Mada’s appetite with him.

  ~You’re doing something wrong,~ the ship subbed.

  Mada lowered her head. ~I know that!~

  Mada pushed the sliver of French toast around the pool of maple syrup for several minutes but could not eat it. “Excuse me,” she called, standing up abruptly. “Edris?”

  Edris shouldered through the kitchen door, carrying a tray with a silver egg cup. She froze when she saw how it was with the French toast and her only patron.

  “This was one of the most delicious meals I have ever eaten.” Mada backed toward the door. She wanted nothing to do with eggs, coddled or otherwise.

  Edris set the tray in front of Mada’s empty chair. “Madame, the art of the kitchen requires the tongue of the patron,” she said icily.

  She fumbled for the latch. “Everything was very, very wonderful.”

  no comment

  Mada slunk down Lyric Alley, which ran behind the stadium, trying to understand how exactly she had offended. In this attention-based economy, paying attention was obviously not enough. There had to be some other cultural protocol she and the ship were missing. What she probably ought to do was go back and explore the clothes shops, maybe pick up a pot or some candles and see what additional information she could blunder into. But making a fool of herself had never much appealed to Mada as a learning strategy. She wanted the map, a native guide—some edge, preferably secret.

  ~Scanning,~ subbed the ship. ~Somebody is following you. He just ducked behind the privet hedge twelve-point-three meters to the right. It’s the waiter, Owen.~

  “Owen,” called Mada, “is that you? I’m sorry I got you in trouble. You’re an excellent waiter.”

  “I’m not really a waiter.” Owen peeked over the top of the hedge. “I’m a poet.”

  She gave him her best smile. “You said you’d take me to the library.” For some reason, the smile stayed on her face. “Can we do that now?”

  “First listen to some of my poetry.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “Owen, I don’t think you’ve been paying attention. I said I would like to go to the library.”

  “All right then, but I’m not going to have sex with you.”

  Mada was taken aback. “Really? Why is that?”

  “I’m not attracted to women with small breasts.”

  For the first time in her life, Mada felt the stab of outraged hormones. “Come out here and talk to me.”

  There was no immediate break in the hedge, so Owen had to squiggle through. “There’s something about me that you don’t like,” he said as he struggled with the branches.

  “Is there?” She considered. “I like your cape.”

  “That you don’t like.” He escaped the hedge’s grasp and brushed leaves from his shorts.

  “I guess I don’t like your narrow-mindedness. It’s not an attractive quality in a poet.”

  There was a gleam in Owen’s eye as he went up on his tiptoes and began to declaim:

  “That spring you left I thought I might expire

  And lose the love you left for me to keep.

  To hold you once again is my desire

  Before I give myself to death’s long sleep.”

  He illustrated his poetry with large, flailing gestures. At “death’s long sleep” he brought his hands together as if to pray, laid the side of his head against them and closed his eyes. He held that pose in silence for an agonizingly long time.

  “It’s nice,” Mada said at last. “I like the way it rhymes.”

  He sighed and went flat-footed. His arms drooped and he fixed her with an accusing stare. “You’re not from here.”

  “No,” she said. ~Where am I from?~ she subbed. ~Someplace he’ll have to look up.~

  ~Marble Bar. It’s in Australia.~

  “I’m from Marble Bar.”

  “No, I mean you’re not one of us. You don’t comment.”

  At that moment, Mada understood. ~I want to skip downwhen four minutes. I need to undo this.~

  ~.this undo to need I .minutes four downwhen skip to want I~ .understood Mada, moment that At “.comment don’t You .us of one not you’re mean I, No” “.Bar Marble from I’m” ~.Australia in It’s .Bar Marble~ ~.up look to have he’ll Someplace~ .subbed she ~?from I am Where~ .said she “,No” “.here from not You’re” .stare accusing an with her fixed he and drooped arms His .flatfooted went and sighed He “.rhymes it way the like I” .last at said Mada “,nice It’s” .time long agonizingly an for silence in pose that held He .eyes his closed and them against head his of side the laid ,pray to if as together hands his brought he “sleep long death’s” At .gestures flailing ,large with poetry his illustrated He “.sleep long death’s to myself give I Before desire my is again once you hold To .keep to me for left you love the lose And expire might I thought I left you spring That” :declaim to began and tiptoes his on up went he as eye Owen’s in gleam a was There “.poet a in quality attractive an not It’s .narrow-mindedness your like don’t I guess I” .shorts his from leaves brushed and grasp hedge’s the escaped He “.like don’t you That” “.cape your like I” .considered She “?there Is” .branches the with struggled he as said he “,like don’t you that me about something There’s” .through squiggle to had Owen so ,hedge the in break immediate no was There “.me to talk and here out Come” .hormones outraged of stab the felt Mada ,life her in time first the For “.breasts small with women to attracted not I’m” “?that is Why ?Really” .aback taken was Mada “.you with sex have to going not I’m but ,then right All” “.library the to go to like would I said I .attention paying been you’ve think don’t I ,Owen” .firmly said she “,No” “.poetry my of some to listen First”

  As the ship surged through the empty dimensions, three space became as liquid as a dream. Leaves smeared and buildings ran together. Owen’s face swirled.

  “They want criticism,” said Mada. “They like to think of themselves as artists but they’re insecure about what they’ve accomplished. They want their audience to engage with what they’re doing, help them make it better—the comments they both seem to expect.”

  “I see it now,” said the ship. “But is one person in a backwater worth an undo? Let’s just start over somewhere else.”

  “No, I have an idea.” She began flowing more fat cells to her breasts. For the first time since she had skipped upwhen, Mada had a glimpse of what her duty might now be. “I’m going to need a big special effect on short notice. Be ready to reclaim mass so you can resubstantiate the hull at my command.”

  “First listen to some of my poetry.”

  “Go ahead.” Mada folded her arms across her chest. “Say it then.
”

  Owen stood on tiptoes to declaim:

  “That spring you left I thought I might expire

  And lose the love you left for me to keep.

  To hold you once again is my desire

  Before I give myself to death’s long sleep.”

  He illustrated his poetry with large, flailing gestures. At “death’s long sleep” he brought his hands together as if to pray, moved them to the side of his head, rested against them and closed his eyes. He had held the pose for just a beat before Mada interrupted him.

  “Owen,” she said. “You look ridiculous.”

  He jerked as if he had been hit in the head by a shovel.

  She pointed at the ground before her. “You’ll want to take these comments sitting down.”

  He hesitated, then settled at her feet.

  “You hold your meter well, but that’s purely a mechanical skill.” She circled behind him. “A smart oven could do as much. Stop fidgeting!”

  She hadn’t noticed the anthills near the spot she had chosen for Owen. The first scouts were beginning to explore him. That suited her plan exactly.

  “Your real problem,” she continued, “is that you know nothing about death and probably very little about desire.”

  “I know about death.” Owen drew his feet close to his body and grasped his knees. “Everyone does. Flowers die, squirrels die.”

  “Has anyone you’ve ever known died?”

  He frowned. “I didn’t know her personally, but there was the woman who fell off that cliff in Merrymeeting.”

  “Owen, did you have a mother?”

  “Don’t make fun of me. Everyone has a mother.”

  Mada didn’t think it was time to tell him that she didn’t; that she and her sibling batch of a thousand revolutionaries had been autoflowed. “Hold out your hand.” Mada scooped up an ant. “That’s your mother.” She crunched it and dropped it onto Owen’s palm.

  Owen looked down at the dead ant and up again at Mada. His eyes filled.

  “I think I love you,” he said. “What’s your name?”

  “Mada.” She leaned over to straighten his cape. “But loving me would be a very bad idea.”

  all that’s left

  Mada was surprised to find a few actual books in the library, printed on real plastic. A primitive DI had catalogued the rest of the collection, billions of gigabytes of print, graphics, audio, video, and VR files. None of it told Mada what she wanted to know. The library had sims of Egypt’s New Kingdom, Islam’s Abbasid dynasty, and the International Moonbase—but then came an astonishing void. Mada’s searches on Trueborn, the Utopians, Tau Ceti, intelligence engineering and dimensional extensibility theory turned up no results. It was only in the very recent past that history resumed. The DI could reproduce the plans that the workbots had left when they built the library twenty-two years ago, and the menu The Devil’s Apple had offered the previous summer, and the complete won-lost record of the Black Minks, the local scatterball club, which had gone 533–905 over the last century. It knew that the name of the woman who died in Merrymeeting was Agnes and that two years after her death, a replacement baby had been born to Chandra and Yuri. They named him Herrick.

  Mada waved the screen blank and stretched. She could see Owen draped artfully over a nearby divan, as if posing for a portrait. He was engrossed by his handheld. She noticed that his lips moved as he read. She crossed the reading room and squeezed onto it next to him, nestling into the crook in his legs. “What’s that?” she asked.

  He turned the handheld toward her. “Nadeem Jerad’s Burning the Snow. Would you like to hear one of his poems?”

  “Maybe later.” She leaned into him. “I was just reading about Moonbase.”

  “Yes, ancient history. It’s sort of interesting, don’t you think? The Greeks and the Renaissance and all that.”

  “But then I can’t find any record of what came after.”

  “Because of the nightmares.” He nodded. “Terrible things happened, so we forgot them.”

  “What terrible things?”

  He tapped the side of his head and grinned.

  “Of course,” she said, “nothing terrible happens anymore.”

  “No. Everyone’s happy now.” Owen reached out and pushed a strand of her hair off her forehead. “You have beautiful hair.”

  Mada couldn’t even remember what color it was. “But if something terrible did happen, then you’d want to forget it.”

  “Obviously.”

  “The woman who died, Agnes. No doubt her friends were very sad.”

  “No doubt.” Now he was playing with her hair.

  ~Good question,~ subbed the ship. ~They must have some mechanism to wipe their memories.~

  “Is something wrong?” Owen’s face was the size of the moon; Mada was afraid of what he might tell her next.

  “Agnes probably had a mother,” she said.

  “A mom and a dad.”

  “It must have been terrible for them.”

  He shrugged. “Yes, I’m sure they forgot her.”

  Mada wanted to slap his hand away from her head. “But how could they?”

  He gave her a puzzled look. “Where are you from, anyway?”

  “Trueborn,” she said without hesitation. “It’s a long, long way from here.”

  “Don’t you have libraries there?” He gestured at the screens that surrounded them. “This is where we keep what we don’t want to remember.”

  ~Skip!~ Mada could barely sub; if what she suspected were true . . . ~Skip downwhen two minutes.~

  ~.minutes two downwhen Skip~ . . . true were suspected she what if ;sub barely could Mada ~!Skip~ “.remember to want don’t we what keep we where is This” .them surrounded that screen the at gestured He “?there libraries have you Don’t” “.here from way long, long a It’s” .hesitation without said she “, Trueborn” “ ?anyway, from you are Where” .look puzzled a her gave He “?they could how But” .head her from away hand his slap to wanted Mada “.her forgot they sure I’m, Yes” .shrugged He “. them for terrible been have must It” “.dad a and mom A”.said she “,mother a had probably Agnes” .next her tell might he what of afraid was Mada; moon the of size of the was face Owen’s “?wrong something Is” ~.memories their wipe to mechanism some have must They” .ship the subbed ~,question Good~ .hair her with playing was he Now “.doubt No” “.sad very were friends her doubt No .Agnes ,died who woman The” “.Obviously” “.it forget to want you’d then ,happen did terrible something if But” . was it color what remember even couldn’t even Mada

  She wrapped her arms around herself to keep the empty dimensions from reaching for the emptiness inside her. Was something wrong?

  Of course there was, but she didn’t expect to say it out loud. “I’ve lost everything and all that’s left is this.”

  Owen shimmered next to her like the surface of Rabbit Lake.

  “Mada, what?” said the ship.

  “Forget it,” she said. She thought she could hear something cracking when she laughed.

  Mada couldn’t even remember what color her hair was. “But if something terrible did happen, then you’d want to forget it.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Something terrible happened to me.”

  “I’m sorry.” Owen squeezed her shoulder. “Do you want me to show you how to use the headbands?” He pointed at a rack of metal-mesh strips.

  ~Scanning,~ subbed the ship. ~Microcurrent taps capable of modulating post-synaptic outputs. I thought they were some kind of virtual reality I/O.~

  “No.” Mada twisted away from him and shot off the divan. She was outraged that these people would deliberately burn memories. How many stubbed toes and unhappy love affairs had Owen forgotten? If she could have, she would have skipped the entire village of Harmonious Struggle downwhen into the identity mine. When he rose up after her, she grabbed his hand. “I have to get out of here right now.”

  She dragged him out of the library into the innoce
nt light of the sun.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. She continued to tow him up Ode Street and out of town. “Wait!” He planted his feet, tugged at her and she spun back to him. “Why are you so upset?”

  “I’m not upset.” Mada’s blood was hammering in her temples and she could feel the prickle of sweat under her arms. ~Now I need you,~ she subbed. “All right then. It’s time you knew.” She took a deep breath. “We were just talking about ancient history, Owen. Do you remember back then that the gods used to intervene in the affairs of humanity?”

  Owen goggled at her as if she were growing beans out of her ears.

  “I am a goddess, Owen, and I have come for you. I am calling you to your destiny. I intend to inspire you to great poetry.”

  His mouth opened and then closed again.

  “My worshippers call me by many names.” She raised a hand to the sky. ~Help?~

  ~Try Athene? Here’s a databurst.~

  “To the Greeks, I was Athene,” Mada continued, “the goddess of cities, of technology and the arts, of wisdom and of war.” She stretched a hand toward Owens’s astonished face, forefinger aimed between his eyes. “Unlike you, I had no mother. I sprang full-grown from the forehead of my maker. I am Athene, the virgin goddess.”

  “How stupid do you think I am?” He shivered and glanced away from her fierce gaze. “I used to live in Maple City, Mada. I’m not some simple-minded country lump. You don’t seriously expect me to believe this goddess nonsense?”

  She slumped, confused. Of course she had expected him to believe her. “I meant no disrespect, Owen. It’s just that the truth is . . .” This wasn’t as easy as she had thought. “What I expect is that you believe in your own potential, Owen. What I expect is that you are brave enough to leave this place and come with me. To the stars, Owen, to the stars to start a new world.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, grasped the hem of her moss-colored top, pulled it over her head and tossed it behind her. Before it hit the ground the ship augmented it with enough reclaimed mass from the empty dimensions to resubstantiate the command and living mods.