Clarke County, Space

by Allen Steele

  He didn’t look back. “Yeah,” he said. “I love you, too.”

  Leaving that room was the hardest thing he had ever done.

  It was as if springtime had arrived in Clarke County, a place which knew only an everlasting, nearly tropical summer. Better yet, Simon McCoy mused as he strolled along Broadway, it was as if everyone in Clarke County had awakened from a particularly horrific nightmare to find that the world was still around them: intact, graceful, and unchanging.

  Tricycles on the roadway skirted around him, their riders occasionally ringing silver bells. A couple of women in halter-tops and running shorts jogged past, favoring him with brief, teasing smiles as they caught his admiring glances. On the bank of the New Tennessee River, a family held a small picnic; two children tossed a Frisbee back and forth while their mother spread peanut butter on sandwich bread and their father dozed on a blanket under the warm sun. As McCoy walked past the campus of the International Space University, he heard from the quad a lone, unseen saxophonist playing the intermezzo of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” its sweet, lilting notes fitting the day perfectly.

  Memorial Day in Clarke County. How lovely, McCoy thought, especially after what had happened over the past couple of days. The peacefulness was a testimony to the resiliency of the human mind. It was difficult to believe that only last night everyone had been rushing for the lifeboats. When I leave, he promised himself, this is the image of Clarke County that I’ll take with me.…

  He stopped by the front gate of the ISU campus, where a statue cast from lunar aluminum had been erected: Arthur C. Clarke, seated with his legs crossed, chin cupped in his right hand, looking down with a bemused expression on his carved face. McCoy relaced his shoes on the statue’s mooncrete base, then gave the great man a quick salute before sauntering on.

  Unfortunately, he also knew that it was only a brief time of calm. Clarke County would change. He knew that, not as conjecture but as fact. Soon, perhaps too soon, another conflict would begin. My mission is almost complete, he thought as he paused again near the river’s dam to lean over the railing, clasping his hands together gazing at the short length of mooncrete that held back the waters. Tomorrow he would leave on the next SSTO shuttle; then he would begin his search for the journalist who would tell this story for the sake of posterity. Already the facts of the events would be getting confused, even lost, in the collective memory of its participants. Once he did his part to set the story straight, his job would be over. Then there would be only time to kill.…

  There was a shrill beep-beep-beep as, at the same moment, something bumped against his leg. He looked down to see a squat, round street-sweeping robot prodding him, its blunt scoop nudging his calf like a stray dog sniffing for its lost master. “Oh, excuse me,” he unthinkingly apologized, and stepped aside to let the robot do its job.

  Yet the street-sweeper was persistent. It rolled on its treads towards him, its funnel again colliding with his leg with another triple-beep. McCoy started to step back another foot, but as he did, another cyclist coming up behind him rang his bell. McCoy dodged out of the way, against the railing. The robot once more changed direction and bumped against him. This time the funnel hit his ankle squarely.

  “Ow!” McCoy yelped. “Cut it out!”

  Beep-beep-beep! the drone responded. Obviously, the machine was malfunctioning. McCoy was about to walk away to put some distance between him and the robot, when he glanced down at the tiny status screen on top of the street-sweeper.

  HELLO, LEONARD, it read.

  Blind Boy Grunt again.

  “You could have figured out another way to find me,” McCoy grumbled. He sat on a lower rung of the railing and gently massaged his ankle. Then, reflecting a little further upon the circumstances of this encounter, he ventured a question. “You can take control of … even this?” He motioned towards the street-sweeper.

  TAKING CONTROL IS NOT THE CORRECT TERM, Blind Boy Grunt replied, its sentences scrolling across the tiny LCD screen. THIS IS A PART OF MY OVERALL FORM, JUST AS MUCH AS THE MAINFRAMES, TERMINALS, BULLETIN BOARDS, CAMERAS, MICROPHONES, AND ALL OTHER INPUT/OUTPUT SYSTEMS IN THE COLONY. THIS IS MY BODY, DO YOU “TAKE CONTROL” OF ONE OF YOUR FINGERS, AFTER ALL?

  McCoy raised an eyebrow. “Amazing,” he murmured. “You’re Clarke County, and Clarke County is … well, for a lack of a better term, you’re an entity, aren’t you?”

  I COULDN’T HAVE DESCRIBED IT BETTER MYSELF, BLIND BOY GRUNT REPLIED. I COULD GIVE YOU A DISPLAY OF MY PARAMETERS, BUT YOU HAVE ALREADY GRASPED THE GIST OF THE MATTER. BESIDES, IT WAS INEVITABLE THAT SUCH A COMPLEX SYSTEM AS MYSELF SHOULD AUTONOMOUSLY GAIN SENTIENCE.

  “Hmmm.” McCoy gazed over the railing at the river. “Marvelous. All this is yours.…” He cast his hand across the vast bowl of the biosphere’s sky. “And still you wish you were a long-dead musician.”

  LET’S PUT IT THIS WAY: BOB DYLAN PROBABLY HAD A BETTER SEX LIFE.

  “I’m sure he did.” McCoy looked at the river as another thought occurred to him. “So tell me, how …?”

  A young man walking past on the road stared curiously at them. McCoy met his incredulous gaze. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Can’t a person have a chat with a robot anymore?”

  The stranger’s eyes darted away; he hurried by as McCoy glared at him. “As I was saying,” he continued, “how has Macy Westmoreland come out of this ordeal?”

  SHE IS DOING WELL, Blind Boy Grunt reported. THE INFORMATION ON THE DISKETTES SHE POSSESSED WAS TRANSMITTED TO THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, OF COURSE. I’M CERTAIN THAT THE FBI WILL BE USING THAT INFO IN ITS INEVITABLE PROSECUTION OF THE SALVATORE CRIME FAMILY. AS FOR HER MEDICAL PROGRESS, SHE IS SUFFICIENTLY RECOVERING FROM HER PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA. I DO NOT EXPECT ANY LONG-TERM PROBLEMS WITH HER MENTAL STABILITY. HOWEVER, SINCE SHE IS NOW IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM, SHE WILL PROBABLY STAY IN CLARKE COUNTY FOR THE CONCEIVABLE FUTURE.

  “And she’ll probably acquire citizenship,” McCoy surmised. “All for the better, I suppose. Maybe she’ll join the New Ark community.”

  IS THAT THE ONLY PERSONAL INQUIRY YOU HAVE? I CAN TELL YOU MUCH MORE.

  McCoy shook his head. “I know about the rest already. Macy’s future was the only real question in my mind. The others …”

  He shrugged. “They’ll receive the fates that are due to them. Nothing more, nothing less.” McCoy cupped his hands together and wiggled his thumbs around each other. “She has … well, Macy’s arrived. As for the other principals involved, they all have more places to go. Sheriff Bigthorn, the Schorrs, Hoffman, Morse, Hotchner, even Schmidt … their futures are still unwritten. I was only worried about Macy. She’s been the wild card in this affair. I’m glad she’s remaining here.”

  WHAT ABOUT MY FUTURE?

  McCoy gazed fondly at the little robot, then patted his hand against its rounded top. “That would be telling too much, even for you.”

  IF YOU HAVE SURVIVED, THEN BY LOGICAL CONNECTION, SO MUST I.

  “That stands to follow, from what you already know about me, doesn’t it?”

  YES, THIS IS LOGICAL. YET MY LOGIC DOESN’T COMPARE TO YOUR MEMORY. IT MUST BE VERY STRANGE FOR A HUMAN TO KNOW THE FUTURE AS HISTORY.

  “Yes, it is at that.” McCoy checked his watch, then got up from the railing. “Well, it’s nearly time for me to catch my ship. Goodbye, Blind Boy Grunt. You’ve done well. Thank you.”

  There was no response. The LCD screen went blank, and the street-sweeping robot zigzagged down the road, resuming its single-minded quest for dirt and rubbish.

  “So much for long goodbyes,” McCoy murmured, watching it go. He continued his stroll along Broadway, leisurely heading back to LaGrange and the hotel. He tipped his head back, casting his eyes up at the man-made world around him.

  So many lives, so many hopes, all blindly staggering into the future. He smiled to himself. Same as it ever was.…

  “And then they lived happily ever after. The end.”


  Simon McCoy didn’t even look up as he spoke; he seemed more interested in peeling the shell off a shrimp. He was sitting across a table from me in the nameless bar on Canaveral Pier, where we had returned for dinner and the rest of his tale. As he tossed the shell into the bowl next to his elbow and dipped the white crescent of meat into the salsa—only a tourist or a politician ever eats steamed shrimp with anything but his fingers—he saw me glaring over my plate at him.

  “Yes?” he asked, popping the shrimp into his mouth.

  “No,” I replied. “That’s not the end.”

  He chewed on his shrimp as he rocked his head back and forth a few times, then he picked up his corona and took a sip. “Of course not,” he said, selecting another shrimp and stripping off its tiny legs. “The whole question of Clarke County’s independence hasn’t yet been decided. If Congress votes against the Jocelyn Act to grant the colony its independence, then the New Ark Party might issue a formal declaration of independence on their own.”

  He shrugged, daintily tossing the legs into the bowl and going to work on the shell. “Personally, I think Jenny Schorr—excuse me, it’s just Jenny Pell again, isn’t it?—Jenny Pell might not wait to see whether Congress gives her people any satisfaction. She might issue a declaration, drop the ‘County’ part from the colony’s name, and dare the U.S. to try to do something about it.”

  I looked down at the uneaten shellfish on my plate. Of course, he had a point, even if it was a point that had been brought up by all the usual columnists and commentators. If the colonists declared independence, there might be a move by the U.S. government to retain control of Clarke County by sending a couple of SSTO shuttles up there, loaded with one or two diplomatic negotiators and maybe a platoon or two from the U.S. Marines 2nd Space infantry.

  Most of the colonists were still unarmed, despite the reluctant outfitting of the Sheriff’s Department with a few lethal weapons. Considering that, there could be little resistance to martial law being declared and enforced by the 2nd Space. Clarke County’s independence would be short-lived indeed.

  Or would it? Stopping a revolution in Clarke County would be logistically more difficult than, say, quelling a similar uprising on Puerto Rico or Hawaii. Clarke County was much farther away, for one thing. Second, what if the colonists simply refused to open the docks or airlocks? Third, the colony was almost self-sustaining—and it would be completely self-sustaining if the New Ark Party managed to convince the moon-dogs at Descartes Station to support their revolution, or even join the effort. In that instance, neither the U.S. government nor the consortium could starve out the colonists.

  And, of course, there was always the fourth reason: Icarus Five. Clarke County had neither returned the nuke to LEO, nor fired it out into deep space. It was still stored, at least as far as anyone on Earth knew, in the colony’s South Dock. No threat had ever been implied by the New Ark Party—but Icarus Five was nonetheless an ace they were keeping up their sleeve.

  I began working over a shrimp myself. “No, that wasn’t what I was wondering about. You still haven’t told me …”

  “About Sheriff Bigthorn? Ah, yes. He’s …”

  “Back in Arizona,” I finished. “I know. I tried to interview him for the book.”

  “Oh? What did he have to say?”

  “‘No comment.’ And then he hung up.”

  Before McCoy could add anything more, I wagged my finger at him. “And don’t try to dodge me by talking about Macy Westmoreland or Gustav Schmidt. She’s working as Jenny Pell’s second-in-command in the New Ark Party and he’s in some mental institution in Germany. I know all that already.”

  McCoy looked hurt. “I’m not trying to dodge anything. I’ve been more than open, don’t you think? After all, haven’t you learned that Icarus Five wasn’t simply the doing of the Church of Elvis? Don’t you now know far more about …?”

  I smiled and nodded my head. “Yes, and I appreciate it. I even believe what you’ve told me.”

  I pushed away my plate, wiped my hands on a paper napkin, and sat back in my chair. “So now I’ve patiently listened to you all afternoon, Mr. McCoy. The sun has gone down, you yourself have admitted that the story is over … those particular events are concluded, at least … and now it’s time for you to fulfill your side of the bargain.”

  “Bargain?” he exclaimed. He looked up incredulously at the oak-beamed ceiling. “I’ve spoken myself practically hoarse, even bought drinks and dinner, and you’re still searching for a bargain.” He raised his hand and snapped his fingers for the service robot. “Waiter? Check, please?”

  “The bargain was,” I said slowly, “that if I gave you my time and attention, that if I listened to your whole story, all the way to the finish, then you would tell me about yourself and how you’ve come to know all these things. I’m counting on you to keep your promise.”

  He stared back at me as he suddenly remembered his own words. Then he grinned. “Well, so I lied. How about that?”

  I leaned forward. “Then I’ll simply ignore all that you’ve told me and write my account as I understood matters before you ever met me.” I pointed my forefinger at him and cocked my thumb. “Bang. There goes your goal of setting the record straight.”

  McCoy winced. “But … you’ll know that’s not a definitive account. It will be a lie.”

  I shrugged. “At my age, I can live with a few lies.”

  I was bluffing, but there was no reason why McCoy had to know that. “C’mon, what can be so important about keeping your identity secret? I wouldn’t use it anyway, since I would still have to find other sources to verify everything that you’ve told me. So what’s the point?”

  The robot rolled up, but McCoy shooed it away again. “If I tell you, will you promise to keep it a secret?”

  I held up my right hand. “On my word of honor as a Webb gentleman.”

  “A Webb gentleman? I’m sorry, but I don’t …”

  “The Webb School. My high school alma mater, a boarding school in Tennessee for young Southern juvenile delinquents. Be that as it may, a Webb gentleman’s word of honor is an inviolable trust.” I smiled at him. “If I break my word of honor, you can have my class ring.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do with it.” McCoy sighed resignedly, then pushed back his chair and stood up. “All right, then, come outside on the deck, and I’ll tell you.”

  When we were out on the deck, sitting on the same bench where the story had begun, McCoy told me the remainder of his tale as the evening tide surged in.

  There was a secret group, he told me, called Globewatch. It had been started in the last century, mainly by former 1960s peace activists, to keep tabs on worldwide trends and developments that were shaping the times. In certain instances, when events were occurring that threatened the general welfare and peace, Globewatch quietly stepped in to steer things in the right direction. Although the original founders were long since dead, Globewatch survived, maintained by new generations of individuals who, as persons in places of power or influence, had been invited into the organization. They had no class rings or pledges to honor, but nevertheless they were dedicated to making sure that humanity would not self-destruct through its own foolishness or failures.

  At this point, McCoy took a deep breath. “By the early twenty-second century, Globewatch has become … I’m sorry, will become … a publicly known entity, with the resources to …”

  “By the twenty-second century?” I interrupted. “No, wait … I’m sorry, but you must mean …”

  “The twenty-second century,” McCoy insisted. We were alone on the deck, but still he kept his voice low. “Specifically, I mean the year 2101.” He paused, and then added, “The year I’ve come from.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “And then you must have been born in … oh, I’d guess around 2071. Twenty years from now.”

  He shook his head. “No. I was born in 1917. In Arundel, England, although I migrated to the States after World War II.” He raised his right ha
nd. “On my honor as a Webb gentleman.”

  This is what he told me: his real name was Leonard Cray, and when he had died of lung cancer at the age of sixty-eight, he had become fabulously wealthy from his investments in foreign oil, when there was such a thing as an oil industry. He had also become frightened of the prospect of death, and so he had planned to have his brain put into cryogenic suspended animation by the Immortality Partnership.

  Leonard Cray died in Beverly Hills, California, in 1985, only half-expecting to be brought back to life. To his surprise, he was revived … in a cloned adult body, free of carcinoma, which chronologically was age twenty-seven. This occurred in 2096, when both the process of human cloning and cryogenic resuscitation had become scientifically possible. All this, of course, had been paid for by a living trust he had foresightedly established in a Zurich bank.

  “So I came back to life in the late twenty-first century, only to find myself a man out of my time,” McCoy went on. “Let me tell you only this … 2096 not only doesn’t resemble 1985, it doesn’t even look a great deal like 2051.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So what does 2096 look like? I doubt I’ll get there.”

  “I won’t tell you … except that it’s awfully boring. At least from a twentieth century perspective, although the natives seem to be enjoying themselves.” He looked askance at me. “Believe me so far?”

  Not a chance. I figured he was crazy as a loon. He wasn’t raving, I had to admit. However, in my career I had encountered a movie actress who remembered being an ancient Babylonian princess and a writer who had been abducted by a UFO; both had appeared to be sane. The scary thing about lunatics is how convincing they can be. As charming and rational-sounding as Simon McCoy.

  But I didn’t say any of this to him. “So far, I’ll … consider the possibility. Go on.”

  “Hmm. I’d figured this part was going to be difficult. well, into the breech …”

  In 2099, three years after he was revived, another technology was perfected: time travel. McCoy didn’t claim to even understand how it worked, only that it had something to do with quantum engineering, tachyons, and the Grand Unified Theory. The point was, time travel was not only feasible, it actually worked.