Mother got sick when we were twenty, a year after we were consecrated to Moya. We’d been so busy that season that we missed all the signs. Tourists swarmed the ruins, so that we had no time to bake the extravagant cookies that Father favored. To keep up with demand, our family churned out stacks of Sugardrops, plain but as big as saucers, with just a scatter of raisins or sweetbark to provide interest. These were not our best work, but Zana and I found uses for the extra money they brought us. I was saving for a powerbike and she wanted to learn Anglic.
Our stall was on the Roundabout, third down from Shellgate, hard against the western wall of the ruins left by the Exotics. Tourists would pause to admire her on their way in, while I sold them our goods. Even though they were all reps who had strayed from the human way, they still had stomachs like the rest of us. An appetite for sweets and an eye for beauty remain locked in our shared genome.
The day everything changed, a persistent tourist lingered after he’d made his purchase. His companion, a woman from the Institute who was perhaps his minder, was eager to enter the ruins. I’d have been just as happy if she’d led him away, but Zana encouraged conversation. He was handsome enough, in that ageless replicated way, but nobody I’d have wasted breath on.
He picked up my prayer puzzle while Zana wrapped the cookies. “Ingenious.” He manipulated the magnetic triangles of the pentagram to create Moya’s central upright pentangle. “And you use this how? As a meditation prompt?”
“It predicts how much our customers will buy.”
“Pay no attention to her.” Zana was embarrassed when I tweaked the tourists. “It’s Moya’s sacred geometry. We use it to pray the numbers.”
The minder sputtered something in Anglic.
“Please—we’re guests on their world.” The tourist scowled at her. “Let’s speak their language.”
“Sanctuary was settled by a sect called the Moyans,” repeated the minder. “For years they kept the Exotic ruins secret. They believe close contact with us leads to sin.”
“Sin, right,” he said. “I did look through the guide you sent.” He turned to Zana. “And the purpose of these…” He removed triangles to create the upside-down pentagon.
“They remind us of the presence of the Divine,” said Zana. I was surprised when she came around the counter with his purchase. “That Moya is everywhere.”
“The local religion.” The minder harrumphed, “A strain of humanism.”
The tourist dismissed her with a wave. “Please, go on.” He clicked puzzle pieces absently into place—another upworlder enchanted by my sister’s beauty.
“The Divine’s ratio is the fingerprint of Moya. It teaches us to obey her laws and be true to our mortality.” They exchanged the puzzle for his cookies. For an instant, their hands touched. “We see it everywhere in her creation. In the spiral of galaxies and in the ancient buildings within those walls.” She nodded toward the Shells, but kept her eyes on his. “The petals of a flower. Your ear.” She brushed the back of her hand against his ear. “Even your DNA.” Her voice had dropped to a purr. “Everywhere the universe is imprinted with her holy numbers.”
I couldn’t believe that she was flirting with an upsider. “Did you know,” I said, “that a DNA molecule measures thirty-four angstroms long by twenty-one angstroms wide for each full cycle of its double helix spiral?”
“Really?” he said, although my words meant no more to him than the chitter of streetbots, or the sigh of our awning in the breeze.
“Eight plus thirteen is twenty-one.” I thought praying the holy numbers might distract Zana. “Thirteen plus twenty-one is thirty-four. Twenty-one plus thirty-four…”
The guide leaned closer to the rep. “They worship the Fibonacci sequence.”
“We worship the Divine.” Zana’s expression was dreamy. “The numbers point us toward her handiwork and her expectations of us.”
“I’m Quin,” said the tourist. “What did you say your name was?”
“Girls!”
I’d been so astonished by Zana’s game of seduction that I missed Father hurrying down the Roundabout.
“Time!” He was out of breath. “It’s time … to close … up.” What was so important to bring him from his kitchen at this time of day? And what he’d said made no sense. Close? The afternoon was before us. We had stacks of cookies to sell.
“So early?” I said. A bus from the spaceport grunted to a stop. “Take Zana if you need help. She’s not doing anything here.” Tourists fresh from the hotels poured from its open slider.
“I want you both. Home.” His voice cracked. “Now.”
Zana hurried back behind the stall to stack unsold cookies into an empty basket.
“Zana, is it?” The tourist leaned over the counter. “Zana, before you go, I’d like to ask—”
“Leave those!” Father swiped at the basket, knocking cookies to the pavement. “Leave everything. We need to go!”
“What’s happened?” I said. “Father?”
“Your mother.” He dragged us by the hands past the busy stalls. “You mother has lost her mind.” Zana stumbled when she glanced back at her dumbstruck tourist, but Father caught her.
* * *
Mother sat at the kitchen table, hair loose, face drawn, hands clasped around a cup of spice tea. She liked it thick and sweet; I still smell its terrible perfume when I remember that day. She stared as if surprised to see us, as if she’d forgotten that she had daughters. Then she said “I’ve just come from the clinic. I have Hrutchma’s.”
She never cried, not once during that long afternoon. Neither did I. At first Zana threw herself at Mother’s neck, then wept into open hands and eventually rested her head on the kitchen table, shoulders heaving. Father’s tears were hot; only later did we realize what was behind them.
Hrutchma’s was a disease we knew well. It caused something called lymphoid hyperplasia, a crazy increase of cells in the lymph nodes. Hrutchma’s began with enlarged nodes in the chest, squeezing the lungs and stealing the breath. I’d noticed her getting winded, although she’d joked it was because Father’s cookies were making her fat. As the disease progressed, it would wreck her immune system, leading to nerve damage, infections, withering fevers. That’s how Grandmother Deel, Father’s mother, had died—raving while she burned like a fast oven. According to the medical encyclopedia on the tell, Hrutchma’s is unique to Sanctuary. Some wallrats whispered that it came from a curse the Exotics placed on the old stones, but we couldn’t let that rumor spread. Tourists put the soup in our bowls.
I remember sinking into a chair across from Mother, trying to imagine how I would fit into a world without her. I couldn’t, in part because I was too numb, in part because I was distracted by Zana. She settled beside me, sobbing and I felt guilty that I couldn’t summon tears. And then I was puzzled by the way Father hung back. I expected that he’d be grieving too. But no—he seemed angry.
Zana saw it too. “Father, what’s wrong?”
“Her.” He choked on a laugh. “She is.”
“She’s sick!” Zana swiped at her wet face. “What—you blame her?” I wonder now if she had guessed what was coming. She knew Mother better than I.
“Hrutchma’s I can accept.” He shook his head in disgust. “The other, no.”
“You can accept that I’ll die?” Mother’s voice was sharp as a slap. “I’m forty-one years old.”
“I accept the will of the Divine,” he said. “You should do the same. Our daughters are consecrated to Moya.”
She turned from him to face us. “Your father doesn’t understand.” She met our gaze without hesitation or regret. “I’m going to Skytown.”
“To live.” Father said it like an accusation, but she ignored him. “Go ahead, lie down with their machines. Betray everything we believe. Just remember—never come back to us.”
“You’re going to upload,” said Zana. “Become a rep.”
Mother shivered as if Zana had said something that she hadn’t ye
t realized. Then she nodded. “I’m not ready to die.”
* * *
She left the next day.
Father never spoke of her again. If anyone dared mention her, he’d withdraw, sometimes for days. He was a fool to think that his silence could erase her from our lives. All of our communion knew the shame she’d brought on our family and our church. Whenever Speaker Elb preached about straying from Moya’s way, of losing our humanity, everyone thought of her. I know I did. For months afterward, I was obsessed with her. I had nightmares about her ravaged and discarded body—where was it now? And what to make of the stranger who knew everything about our home, our family—about me? We’d been taught there was no real continuity of life between a human and the rep body created by the technology of the Thousand Worlds. The Divine taught that my mother was truly dead. But then who was the creature who lived in Skytown, the upsiders’ enclave on Sanctuary? Who still claimed to love me?
I knew this because she tried to stay in contact with us, or at least with Zana and me. Zana showed me her first message, but I couldn’t finish reading it. However, Zana wrote back, despite Speaker Elb’s warning that our false mother would tempt her to sin. I had no idea how often they talked because I didn’t want to know. However, my sister insisted on telling me how she was doing.
After her replication, Mother had found work as a janitor at the Institute of Exotic Archeology. She shared an apartment with three other roommates including her old friend Xeni Bluereed, who had left our communion three years ago to be replicated. Zana claimed there was a growing community of people like Mother and Xeni beginning new lives among the upsiders. Later, she got a job in a Skytown restaurant as a cook, which was ironic because the kitchen had always been Father’s domain. Mother’s new position paid well and I suspect that she sent Zana some of her wages, although I never saw any. But apparently Mother had money enough to visit the orbital and to buy a bot. She thought about us all the time, according to Zana, and yet supposedly she was happy. Although I envied her the luxuries of Skytown, I couldn’t imagine how that could be.
Moya does not demand that we reject all upsider technologies, only those which make us less human. Yes, I’d own a bot and a printer and a car if I could afford them. I’d sample the drugs that make you stronger or smarter or happier. But Sanctuary is an exhausted world. That’s why our ancestors were able to claim it for the Divine. The Exotics had used Sanctuary up long ago, and their leavings are the last valuable things on it. We scratch a living from their dust. And while we’re proud of our ruins, there are other examples of the Exotics’ architecture scattered throughout the galaxy.
As the months passed, our broken family adjusted to our new life. The press of tourists varied with the seasons, but we did well enough, especially now that there were only three of us. I bought my powerbike and a trailer to go with it. Not only did Zana get her Anglic lessons, she then paid for access to the Institute’s databanks, so that she could learn more about the Thousand Worlds. Her new language skills paid off in an unexpected way. Word spread through the hotels of the beautiful girl selling baked goods who could speak the common tongue. Tourists flocked to witness this marvel. They helped Zana with her accent until they claimed she could announce the news on Ravi’s Prize itself—not that either of us believed that. Of course, I understood not a word of their chatter, and when they dissolved into laughter I suspected that the joke was on me.
Then Quin came back. Except, as it turned out, he’d never left.
* * *
I was alone at the stall, which meant that, for a change, my view of the street wasn’t blocked by Zana’s admirers when I spotted Quin wandering along the Roundabout. It had been almost half a year, but I knew him as soon as I saw him. He paused at Twial’s stall, picked up a reproduction of Half Boat to check the price and then replaced it with a frown. He browsed Glif’s gaudy umbrellas and the new scent store, then walked faster as he got closer. He passed our stall with eyes down, as if scanning for cracks on the pavement. It was obvious that he was ignoring me. But then he stopped abruptly in the middle of the street, glanced past me to the blackened hulk of the Jagged Spike, and strode up to the counter.
“You’re Jix.” He tried on a smile that didn’t quite fit.
I agreed that I was.
He reached for our most expensive cookie. “And this is a Brownbutter Velvet Block.”
“With a ginger smear.”
“Cut into a precise rectangle.” He held it to the light to examine it. “I’ve been studying your religion. Would I be right to say that the ratio of the length to the width is 1.618?” He seemed proud of himself for this guess.
“I recommend that you buy at least two.”
This wasn’t the reply he’d been expecting. He nodded, frowning.
“Will there be something else?” I asked.
“I know your mother. She used to work at the Institute.”
“Really?” I wrapped two Velvet Blocks in takeout paper. “Did she send you?”
“No.” He was surprised at the question. “I’m an archeologist, doing research on your Shells.”
“They’re not mine.” I supposed he wanted me to ask about Mother. I handed him his purchase. “Three-fifty.”
Instead of completing the transaction using our tell like every other tourist, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of Moyan chits.
“I like your money.” He fumbled for the exact change. “There’s so much of it.”
“I like it too.” I rarely handled chits at the stall; only Moyans carry them and Moyans bake their own cookies. He watched me slip them into my pocket. Then I gave him his purchase and waited. He made no move to leave. I remembered then how he had lingered that awful day. “Maybe you were expecting to find someone else here?”
“Zana, yes.” He blinked. “But I had no expectations.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Expectations are what get me through the day.” I spotted Zana headed up the street carrying a basket of cookies from home. “I like to guess what will happen next.”
“You had a prayer puzzle,” he said. “May I see it?”
Surprised that he remembered, I opened my bag and offered it to him.
Yes.” He pushed the magnetized shapes into new configurations with practiced motions. “It’s very definite, your religion. Did you know that the star polygon is one of the oldest symbols we have. From Earth, you know, the home world. It represented the sacred feminine as long ago as 4000 BCE.”
“Really?” Of course he would condescend to a nobody; he was a tourist. Was common courtesy a trait that the upsiders’ technology couldn’t replicate?
“So the so-called Golden Ratio.…” He was oblivious. “A fascinating mix of tradition and math. Take this pentagon and connect the vertices and you get a pentagram, a five-sided star.” He pushed puzzle pieces. “Five is in the Fibonacci sequence. And the ratio of any diagonal of the star to any side of the pentagon is 1.618. Phi, the Golden Ratio. And you see it again here.…” He fitted pieces into new configurations. “And here.” He drew a line with his forefinger; his nails clicked against the metal. “And you were saying how often the Golden Ratio occurs in the natural world. There’s actually support for that in the literature.”
“We call it the Divine’s Ratio,” I said. “And it was actually my sister who was explaining that. Isn’t that right, Zana?”
Quin started as she set her basket on the counter.
“You remember Quin,” I said to her. “Turns out he’s from the Institute. An archeologist. And he knows Mother.”
The looks they exchanged were not those of strangers.
“So this isn’t news to you?” I reached for the basket to sort the new cookies she’d brought. “Are we keeping secrets now, sister?”
“Oh, no secret,” said Quin. “We started exchanging messages what…? Three months ago. I’d like to think we’ve become friends.”
“Just over two months.” Zana was embarrassed. “And we’ve only m
et in person a couple of times.”
“Which is why I thought to surprise you.” Quin seemed pleased with himself.
“And did he tell you that he’s been studying our religion?” I replenished our supply of Shortbread Swaddled Truffles. “Perhaps you’re thinking of converting, Quin?” I wanted to see her squirm for keeping this from me.
“No.” He set my prayer puzzle down as if it might burn him. “Not at all.”
“It would be awkward, seeing as how you’re no longer in your first body. How many times have you been replicated, if you don’t mind my asking?
“He does mind.” Zana’s cheeks colored. “That’s rude, Jix.”
“Oh, sorry.” I bowed twice for good measure. “Sorry, Quin. It’s just that we get so few of your people taking an interest in us.”
Quin blinked at us, as if he was having trouble following our conversation. “In any event,” he said to Zana, “I was just wondering when … if maybe … would you like to take that tour sometime? The one we were talking about.”
“Tour?” I said.
He glanced at me then nodded toward Shellgate. “I know you’ve lived here all your lives, but I have access to the monuments, even those that are closed. I could show you things that very few people have seen.”
Zana shot me a stare that said I wasn’t invited. I let it bounce off me.
“Zana and I are working girls,” I said. “We have tourists to feed, cookies to sell.”
He nodded. “Shellgate closes at five. Don’t all the tourists leave for the hotels then? We could go after hours; I have unlimited access, you know. It stays light until almost eight.”
The Year's Best Science Fiction--Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection Page 78