Asimov's Science Fiction: April/May 2014

by Penny Publications

  "From you."

  "Theo and I have techniques, tricks. And they've worked for more than two years now."

  Quentin was growing more uneasy than he was interested.

  "I don't talk about my son at home."

  "People are listening."

  "I assume lurking ears, yes." She glanced at him, measuring his mood. "It's the same with phone calls, of course."

  Quentin shifted in the old car seat. "What about this car?"

  Sandra took her foot off the gas, letting the Trailbreaker roll up to the next unmarked intersection before turning right again. "There's a microphone in the dashboard and it's tied into the antenna, and no, I'm not worried. The bug was planted last year. I know when it happened and where, and I've rewired it. When my car runs, the radio plays directly into the transmitter. Eavesdroppers have to endure songs that an old lady would love."

  Quentin stared at the menacing dashboard.

  "Do you know how many men evade the draft?" she asked.

  "Not really."

  "Nobody does. Different agencies, different calculations. Federal Intelligence has theirs, the public Freedom-Servers another. Strong Shores is supposed to have the most resources and make the best estimates, but their numbers are always inflated. It helps to scare the public, filling the hills with wild horny men who live off deer meat and their hatred of the government. Which feeds their budget, of course."

  "What's your number?"

  "One third of one percent," Sandra answered. "Those are the eligible draftees trying to evade service."

  The long spring dusk was finished. They finally turned left, heading back into the city. But night had closed in behind them, and remembering his solemn duties, Quentin looked out the back window, nothing to see but smothering, impenetrable shadows.

  "One third of one percent means too many bodies to chase," she allowed. "Plus there's a cost involved in finding every young man who refuses. Police time and court time. Cowardice isn't one of the movements that terrifies the government, so they let it continue without too much of a fight."

  Piecing together the logic, he asked, "Is Theo a coward?"

  Sandra shifted her body, and a tight voice said, "Dissent is a different crime."

  Quentin regretted his words.

  Quietly, with deep feeling, she said his name. Then she turned to look at him, waiting for his eyes to find her.

  They were still moving, but nobody was looking forward.

  "What?" he asked.

  Sandra reached in the darkness, her arm too short to touch his leg.

  "Dissent is the opposite of cowardice. Dissenters don't want big armies, and they're willing to risk everything to keep the world from being torched by tritium bombs."

  Quentin could think of nothing worth saying.

  And Sandra finally looked ahead, touching the brakes. A big lot filled with used cars and trucks was passing on the right, and she glanced down one row, tapping the brakes, and studied the parked cars. Then they began to accelerate, eyes forward, her rump squirming painfully.

  "What?" Quentin asked.

  She said nothing.

  He started to look back.

  "Don't," she warned.

  They drove to the next light, waiting for the purple to change to gold, and she didn't say anything, pulling the white sack onto her lap, holding it and the secret gifts with one hand while her face looked sorrowful, unblinking eyes making tears.

  The light changed.

  She drove.

  "What's wrong?"

  "The flag's gone."

  He stared at the dash.

  "Theo saw something. He got worried." She tried to shrug, looking at Quentin, one hand high on the wheel while the voice struggled to remain strong. "He's careful and knows not to take chances. And this happens, sometimes."

  Quentin said, "Good. That's he's careful."

  She looked forward, at last. "Can I drop you at your house?"

  He didn't answer.

  She said his name again.

  He whispered, "I've missed you."

  Sandra heard him or she didn't. Either way, they continued south while she gasped softly, wiping her eyes with the sack, letting herself settle into a familiar gray pain.

  They were watching the world, waiting to see if anyone out-of-place parked on her street.

  "That happens?" Quentin asked.

  "But they could be suspicious of my neighbors. How would I know?"

  Sandra grabbed the mail from its blue box and unlocked the front door, and then they were inside, surrounded by electronic ears, by paranoia. A person had to be fiercely brave to push through this kind of life without collapsing. The house lights were left off. Heavy machinery rumbled outside, which seemed ominous, but it was just a moving van passing, oxen and a wagon logo painted on its long side. Sandra pulled open the curtains and stood at the window, and Quentin stood with her. She wasn't calm. It took work to keep her hands still. But no strangers were lurking, and then just as she began to step back, a single sedan roared into view, highway headlights blazing.

  Quentin had never seen any car drive so fast on a residential street. Someone was terrified or crazy or drunk, but before the shock struck either of them, the car was gone.

  Assuming someone was chasing the driver, they waited a little longer. But no second vehicle appeared, and this was another one of those minor mysteries that life collected day by day until its end.

  "I need to wash up," Sandra said.

  They leaned toward each other.

  "And I'm hungry," she said.

  Quentin realized he was famished.

  Sandra went into the kitchen. Accustomed to a boy's appetite, she made three breadwraps with ghee and cold quail and peppers, the smallest of the wraps reserved for her. Then they sat on the sofa, eating while watching the empty street.

  "Oh, I forgot," she said. "Venus. You were going to tell me—"

  "It may have life," Quentin said. "Last year, the Europan Space Administration dropped in their probe, but they announced the results this week. On its way through the upper atmosphere, where the pressure and temperatures resemble those on earth, the sensors found an abundance of bacteria-sized particles."

  "Interesting," she said.

  Then he said, "But there isn't any water in those clouds, just sulfuric acid, and the air is drenched with UV light...."

  "And the Mongols are landing on Mars," she pointed out.

  He didn't understand.

  "This a wonderful time to find life somewhere else," she said.

  The West was stealing the East's lightning.

  Sandra put her plate aside and stood. Then with a practical tone, she said, "Let's share the bath."

  "All right."

  The bathroom was smaller than he remembered, and stale, and the running water made the air dense. They lit candles, one fat vanilla-scented candle on the tank beside the toilet. The water wasn't as warm as Sandra wanted, and shaking her wet hand, she choked the cold tap back and then began to undress.

  Side by side and with barely a glance at the other, they pulled off clothes, forming a common pile. Then she climbed into the warmish water, looking at his face and penis and his face again. She smiled fondly, if not happily. He climbed in behind her. Inside the porcelain tub, she wasn't tiny, and Quentin became a long strapping man with too much leg and arm. She left the water running slowly, making noise. The soap was a hard small bar with the dark ripples that come when soap is old and well used. She handed him a washrag. He rolled the soap and rag between his hands until he had suds and washed her stomach and breasts and her back and the back of her neck, and then he washed his stomach and face and crotch and the calves of each leg. She worked on her own face and released the excess water, and he clumsily reached around his back, cleaning what he could, unable to reach where his rump pressed against the cool white porcelain.

  "Do you mind?" she asked.

  "Mind what?"

  "If I go potty now. I really have to."

&nbs
p; "Go on," he said, thinking that seemed polite.

  She lifted the lid and sat and the bowl sang as the urine danced, and she watched him by candlelight, embarrassment emerging briefly and then vanishing. The sudden bright fart surprised both of them. She laughed and said, "Sorry," and Quentin laughed louder than she did, trying and trying to remember any moment in his life where he had been this happy.

  Marcus Julius Constantius was the only child of a noblewoman named Sophia and a Roman general named Aurelius. A bright boy but physically weak and unimpressive, his lack of visible attributes helped him garner power. No one in the Emperor's court looked on him as a threat, and it wasn't until the civil war of 290 to 293 that his skills as a politician and tactician became known. In 295, the young general led his legions to put down the rebellion in Jerusalem, and that was the moment and the place when Constantine first came into intimate contact with the Christian church.

  No conversion is simple. The man supposedly dreamt of a fiery cross descending from Heaven, but Romans were passionate believers in signs of every sort, and Constantine surely had other dreams that meant as much when he woke. But Christians weren't dreams, and they became helpful allies in his fight against Jewish rebels. Intellectual and philosophical reasons helped the transformation, and after more than two centuries of quiet growth, the Woman's Faith had spread throughout the Empire's educated women, growing familiar and relatively benign.

  Sophia was as politically astute as her son, believing in power and poise, and in opportunities taken when the moment was ripe. Officially, she didn't convert until 299. By then her son had crushed Maximus and his band of thugs, gaining a stranglehold on the emperor's seat. That mother and son union lasted another twenty years, and after her death Constantine reigned alone for another two decades.

  The dutiful son had promised to found a new capital in his mother's name. But every man is more than any woman's dutiful son. Sophia died, and that pledge was broken, replaced by a great cathedral erected in the center of Constantine's city.

  One evening, the middle-aged emperor climbed to the highest portion of the church, accompanied by members of his court. Gazing across the metropolis, Constantine mentioned that he envied nothing but eagles, but against expectations, he didn't want their strong wings or their magnificent, soul-stirring beauty. What he wished for was their perfect vision, and turning to the Theotokos, he wondered aloud if some magic or perhaps a Christian prayer would bestow such eyes on a human skull.

  Endless moments mark the change of the world, and this was one of the most important of all.

  Rachel I was the Theotokos. A stubborn woman long before winning her office, she shook her head at the emperor's selfish request, and with a dismissive voice said, "But you would not want such a gift, sire."

  "And why not?" Constantine demanded.

  "Because perfect eyes would flood your soul with too much." The most powerful woman in the world was laughing at the most powerful man, warning him, "You would be bewildered by all that you saw. The vision of God would bring the worst kind of blindness."

  Quentin wasn't sleeping.

  Location and circumstances didn't exist. He was sitting up in bed, and it seemed to be his bed inside his own unlit apartment, but numb from sleep, he possessed no history that would explain any of this.

  The smallest unit of existence, devoid of time.

  Freedom.

  And then the telephone screamed its melody for a second time, or a third or thirteenth time. This was his apartment, and he had been sleeping. And then he wasn't. Bare feet put themselves on the carpeted floor, and standing was reflexive, graceful and sudden just like the three steps that took him to the box singing on the wall.

  "Hello."

  He said the word, and before anyone could answer, he said it again.

  "Hello?"

  By then his heart rate had soared and the next breath made him ready to dive deep underwater. Scratching for explanations, he decided that his grandmother had died. This was an emergency call in the middle of the night, and so certain was he that he heard his mother's voice in the background, not quiet but softened by distance.

  The woman screamed, "No. No."

  Then there was a click, and silence.

  Quentin's legs sagged and recovered, and he stood in the dark air of that silent house, listening to the air rushing from his suddenly aching chest.

  The watery sounds of the dial tone returned.

  He hung the receiver back on its plastic box.

  Sitting on the edge of his bed, he tried to place the voice and couldn't. But he was certain that it wasn't his mother's voice, or his grandmother's, and he was nearly as sure that he didn't know the woman at all.

  A drunken wrong number; that was the best story.

  Quentin looked at the hands of his clock. Monday had arrived, and he needed to sleep. Head on his pillow, his eyes closed and his body quit moving, but nothing else about him was sleepy.

  Quentin held that pose for an immeasurably long while, eyes sealed while he watched his thoughts flow.

  The family looked splendid in their own home. Mother was some kind of beauty with milk-heavy breasts and the baby boy on her hip, while Father was a portrait of dignity, confident and steady with more than a touch of nobility. Of course he wore nothing but a penis. What else did any good man need to wear? He was photographed strolling along a jungle trail on The Island of Flowers, and turning the page, Quentin found the photographer's hand laid against the same trail, her fingers and thumb giving proportions to those tiny footprints.

  Monday night.

  Girls at the next table were pretending to study. One girl said that her government class was canceled. What luck.

  Quentin heard the words but didn't notice them. Glancing at his watch, he closed the magazine and put it under his shirt. He was never this impulsive. But borrowing wasn't stealing, he thought, walking slowly out of the library and then picking up the pace as he crossed campus. Leaving his apartment door unlocked, he undressed and sat on his bed, legs crossed and the borrowed magazine opened in his naked lap. He intended to finish the article about the Ebu gogo before Sandra arrived. The wildest islands in the Spice Archipelago were inhabited by this little species of humanity.

  The Ebu gogo had a simple language and perfect little stone tools as well as a lean culture that could be carried everywhere. Quentin went as far as trying a few of those sharp words in his own mouth. And then he realized that Sandra was late.

  She was never late.

  He counted each of the next twenty minutes before calling her at home. When the phone was in his hand, he expected her to answer. Once he hung up, he assured himself that he never expected to hear her voice, because she was on her way.

  He dressed again, sitting close to the window.

  Night came from its hiding places.

  No Trailbreaker appeared.

  Twice more, he called her home. Then he drove past her house, parking on the street and walking back. The neighborhood was calm. Her car was hiding inside the garage, or it was gone. But the living room lamp was burning. Some little moth, dense and busy, was trying to fly out of Quentin's mouth. He felt uneasy, except he also felt happy and hopeful too, giving the doorbell a long push, convinced that someone was coming.

  Hope rose higher, and he rang the bell again, a gambler's confidence taking hold. But the knob didn't move. Nobody was home. And that's when he thought to look inside the mailbox, discovering bills and the same colorful ads that he'd received today.

  Every parked car needed to be studied, shadows and street lights filling them with lurking figures.

  The urge to run was defeated by the fear of being noticed. Quentin walked back to his car, starting it and breathing, then driving past the empty teacher's lot, and past the grocery and the laundry, never finding the Trailbreaker. Then he pulled up in front of his house, parked and sat with the other shadows, the steering wheel in both hands as he watched his empty bedroom window, trying to piece together any c
omforting story.

  By Thursday, the laundry had to be done. Inside the shoes, bare feet. Under the trousers, an old swimsuit meant for a smaller waist. Four washers were churning, which was a personal record, and Quentin sat on one plastic chair until he remembered its significance, moving to a chair that he had never used, pretending to read a Johnsgal novel when he wasn't looking at every new customer who came through the door.

  A soldier entered, a Marine gunner with a small white duffel on his shoulder. The uniform was crisp, the beard trimmed military close, and when the man looked his way, Quentin dropped his eyes.

  Even when he stared at the floor, Quentin saw the soldier. Somehow he knew that face. Age and whiskers had resculpted the features, and chemicals had lightened and reddened his formerly black hair. But the eyes were his mother's eyes, and he rocked like Sandra rocked side to side, pushing civilian clothes into an unclaimed washer.

  Quentin stood, lifting one of his washing-machine lids.

  Quietly, in a near-whisper, Theo asked, "Where is she?"

  "I don't know." The lid fell from his hands with a crash.

  The two young men sat together. The one who wasn't being chased was nervous, every new noise making him jump. The other man, the fugitive, seemed focused but comfortable. Maybe the uniform gave him courage.

  Theo studied Quentin before asking, "When did you see her last?"

  "Saturday night."

  Theo nodded.

  "Sunday morning," Quentin added.

  "And since?"

  He described Monday, minus the nudity. And he admitted to visiting his mother's house every night but tonight, although last night he didn't park and step up on the porch. His account had more details than necessary, but after a childhood spent listening to a natural lecturer, Theodore let his companion chatter.

  Suspicion crept into his mother's eyes.

  "You think I had something to do with this," Quentin guessed.

  "Did you?"

  "No."

  Theo waited a moment. "Well, good," he said.

  But the verdict had its effect. Quentin felt like a liar, an undiluted idiot. Something that he had said or done led to this mess. Unless it was some matter that he neglected. Heart thudding, hands shoved into his armpits, he wanted to say, "No," again, just to test this self-accusing intuition. He wanted to hear if his liar's voice would break. But his companion had made his own decision about guilt, and with a shy little smile, Theo said, "I know you didn't. How could you?"