Lost in Transmission

by Wil McCarthy

  Anyway, the point was that most people in Bubble Hood did not have ready access to a fax machine, not without waiting in line, and the same would eventually be true on the surface of P2. In fact, things would be much worse on the surface, because the number of fax machines coming out of storage would double or triple at best, whereas the population, finally unpacked from Newhope's memory cores, would increase tenfold. One of Brenda Bohobe's top priorities was therefore to establish a print plate factory, with all the elaborate machinery and supply chains that entailed. But that would be an enterprise of years, and could not even begin until a lot of other stuff had been unpacked.

  Bascal chuckled a kingly chuckle. “Point taken. Also, point irrelevant. Who's digressing now? I can have the masks designed for you in a couple of hours. Probably sooner, actually.”

  “And how do we know that's sufficient? How will we know they work? That they don't pinch, or leak, or whatever?”

  “Oh ye of little faith! We'll have to test them, obviously, and while we could rig a special chamber here on Bubble Hood, we do eventually have to visit the surface. Go make a backup copy of yourself, boyo. I'm issuing my first royal proclamation: that you and I, Ho Ng and Steve Grush, will visit the planet next shift. Have your people prep a reentry vehicle. In fact, have them prep two, and print an extra copy of yourself to bring along. There may be unforeseen hazards, and a bit of redundancy never hurts.”

  Conrad processed these words with mingled disappointment and relief. Suddenly, he was not in charge anymore. Bascal was resuming the mantle of leadership, establishing the early facets of civilian government, under which the military chain of command would fit. Fortunately, while Conrad had gotten used to his leadership role, he hadn't sought it, nor ever particularly relished it. His rebellious youth was still pretty fresh; if he stopped to calculate, he was probably thirty chronological years old, maybe even younger than that. Running a planet, or at least an orbiting colony above one, was an interesting experience, and educational, and most of his duties related to that would presumably continue for the foreseeable future. He would simply be answering to his king rather than himself or, via long-distance transmission, to Xmary. And that was a good thing, right?

  He forced a smile, and then felt a genuine smile creep up underneath it, propping it up. “As you wish, Your Highness. Visiting the planet, wow. This is one of those historic events, isn't it?”

  “Conrad, I wouldn't dream of doing it without you.”

  Conrad's Bubble Hood quarters were considerably roomier, and more nicely appointed, than his quarters onboard Newhope. Here he had a bilevel apartment, with not only an exterior view through the hull, looking down on the beiges and browns and disconcerting blues of the planet, but also one looking out over the interior of the bubble itself. Keeping an eye on things, yeah, but more importantly he simply enjoyed the view. When he was finally permitted to quit his position as Newhope's first mate in absentia, and as a commander in what would become Barnard's navy, he would probably miss these privileges of rank. But he would hang onto this apartment!

  His long-term plans, ever clearer in his mind, were painfully straightforward: he would be the Chief Architect of the Kingdom of Barnard. He probably didn't even need to make that a request, and if he did, it was difficult to imagine that Bascal would refuse him. And maybe that, in the long run, was a better rank, with a whole kingdom of privileges to choose from. It was certainly a pleasant, daydreamy sort of thought.

  But when he entered his apartment, stepping through as the door recognized him and curled open, he found the ceiling flashing red—the signal he'd told the apartment to use when messages were waiting which required immediate attention, but which were not actual life-or-death matters worth interrupting him at work or tracking him down in a corridor somewhere. This drove all other thoughts from his mind.

  “Play message,” he said.

  He was expecting something from Bascal, some addendum or correction, but instead a hologram of Xmary appeared, hanging down from the ceiling in a column of not-quite-invisible light. He stepped toward it, and it retreated an equal distance, for if it didn't, its illusion of three-dimensionality would break down in a confusion of distortions. Still, it looked uncomfortably like Xmary was backing away from him in fear. And he didn't like that, so he stood his ground, and Xmary stood hers.

  “Yes?” he asked the recording.

  “Hello, Conrad,” the recording said. “You look well.”

  “I feel well,” he answered. “We're about to visit the planet, Bascal and I. Visit the surface, I mean. It's very exciting. It's the culmination of a lot of waiting and effort, obviously, and I feel sorry for the four thousand people who don't get to go. But it'll be just like old times. Me and Bascal, Ho and Steve. Raising a little hell.”

  The recording's smile had a strained quality. “That sounds nice. Conrad, I know I should tell you this in person. I know it's awful to send a recording, and I apologize for that. But there just isn't opportunity. It'll be months before I see you again, and this conversation can't wait.”

  Conrad felt a sinking sensation in his gut. “You're breaking off with me.”

  The recording looked at the floor.

  “This,” Conrad said, “is where you say, ‘No, no, nothing like that.' This is where you reassure me.”

  “I wish I could,” the recording answered, with simulated gloom. “I wish things were different, but they aren't. I can't live like this, and if you search your heart, I doubt you're really enjoying it either. We have to be fair to ourselves.”

  “Especially to you,” Conrad said, with sudden, sullen bitterness. Had he been anything less than supportive and loving? He hated to use the word perfect, but hadn't he been exactly that? What could he possibly have done to deserve this? Nothing!

  “I'm so sorry.”

  “I told you you should leave a copy with me, Xmary, or I should leave one with you. These things are workable. Or is that not it? Is there someone else involved? Some new interest catching your eye?”

  The recording shrugged. “I don't have that information, Conrad. I'm just a recording. Does it matter?”

  “You're damn right it matters! Shit, the mating pool is pretty limited up there. Is it Money Izolo? Is it Peter? Or one of the kids, fresh from storage? Is he better for you than I am? Oh, my gods, you're breaking off with me to bunk with some career spaceman. How humiliating.”

  “He's not a career spaceman.”

  Conrad felt his eyebrows rise. “No? He's on the ship. He's not leaving, or you'd see the same problem with him that you claim to see with me. Anyway, I thought you didn't have that information.”

  The recording shrugged. “I suppose I do. I'm not self-aware in the way that you are, Conrad. I'm not here to be interrogated.”

  “Ah. I see. You're some measly petabyte avatar, here to insert your barbs and evaporate into the ether.”

  Unhappily: “Something like that. I'm truly sorry, Conrad.”

  “You're sorry? I thought you weren't self-aware. Listen, Ms. Recording, this is a very small community we live in. I'm going to hear this person's name sooner or later, and I'd rather hear it from you.”

  “Would you? Are you so certain of that?”

  His lip curled. “Don't get smart with me. If you're not Xmary, you have . . . no right to talk to me like that. I want a name.”

  The recording sighed. “It's Feck.”

  “Feck?” Conrad gaped. “Yinebeb Fecre? Feck the Fairy? Again?”

  Now the recording managed to look annoyed. “That's not what they call him, Conrad, and you know it.”

  And that was true. He was “Feck the Facilitator,” hero of the August Riots and proud explorer of Xmary's pants. And he was . . . not a bad fellow. Damn it.

  “How can Xmary do this to me? How, exactly, can she feel this is justified?”

  “I'm sorry, Conrad.”

  “Who does she think she is? Does she think she has the right to treat someone like this? She said she loved me. W
as that just a lie? We've been together for, what? Fifteen subjective years? Even longer for you. For her. This is what I get? What I somehow deserve?”

  “I'm sorry, Conrad.”

  “Shit. Shit. Are you going to say anything else?”

  “Is there anything else to say? I'm sorry, but I'm really not equipped to have a discussion with you about this.”

  “Well, piss off, then. Tell Xmary . . . Tell her . . . shit. Just tell her good-bye.”

  After the recording had mailed itself back, Conrad said some other things which are best not repeated.

  “You're late,” said one of the Bascals, in the ferry hangar. “And you've been crying. Both of you. What's wrong?”

  This question was at once leaderly, medical, and deeply personal, for tears occurred very rarely in the Queendom of Sol, and were regarded with utmost seriousness.

  “Xmary,” said the two Conrads together. They were freshly printed, and hadn't had much of a chance to diverge yet. Their potential responses were limitless, but bounded by identical experience. They wouldn't always say or do exactly the same thing, but until their thoughts got off on different tracks, the responses would be pretty close.

  Bascal's features—not at all boyish despite their youthful construction—melted in sympathy. He held up two sets of arms, and embraced both Conrads warmly. “Ah, my friend, the vagaries of love and loss are the curse of the immorbid. Even in the Queendom, two hundred years ago and more, they were saying these first marriages, first relationships of any kind don't last. Ask a woman what animal she feels like and she will say ‘cat,' a creature as playful and graceful and cruel as God himself! Ask a man and he'll say ‘pig,' with no apology, and how long can a cat dance with a pig before somebody's paw gets hoofed?

  “My parents are perhaps a reminder that true love can be found and kept, but they had—both of them!—been around the world a few times before falling in together. And they did break off for thirty years, you'll recall. Perhaps there are additional fallings-out in their future, or it may be that they're locked together by their positions as king and queen. Each was duly elected in isolation from the other, and their divorce would not—could not—change their joint monarchial status. They are as trapped by circumstances as we ourselves.

  “Ah, but these are words of gloom, when you need cheer! Of empty misogyny when you need companionship! Take a cue from Plato, my boy. He said, ‘Being is real. Becoming is an illusion.' This moment is nothing but a snapshot, a sort of hologram laid out beside the happier moments before and after. Let's end it and move on. Come to the planet with me, hmm? It's the start of a new relationship, a new love affair. And if she treats us as well and as badly as our women have, then we shall have an interesting time of it indeed, and revel in our successes while they last.”

  It was a nice thing to say, or mostly so, and Conrad should have been nice in return, but instead he scowled and said, “I'm not in the mood for pomposity, you fuffer. My parents are still together as well, but what difference does that make? What bearing does it have on me, on this day, right here? Just leave me alone, all right?”

  At that moment, two copies of Bertram Wang sidled up. “I think we're ready to fly,” one of them said.

  At Conrad's look, Bascal explained, “Bertram here is the only person in the entire colony, in or out of the memory core, with any experience piloting actual reentry vehicles. It's such a rustic way to fly—not a skill that most of us maintain, although in retrospect the jailers probably should have taken it out of the simulator and made it a part of our physical training. The ferries should fly themselves, more or less, but it never hurts to have an experienced hand aboard.”

  “Of course,” Conrad said. “Nice to see you, Bert.”

  “Hi,” Bert acknowledged.

  There were six ferries in the bay—half a year's output from the Martin Kurster Memorial Shipyard, consuming a costly stream of crushed asteroidal rock. Each ferry could comfortably carry twenty humans, or up to a hundred if you stacked them in bunks, which was exactly what they would do when it came time to really populate the planet. And yes, it was inconvenient. Even when there were fax machines installed on the surface, there was no easy way to land the memory core itself. For that you'd need some sort of railroad, reaching vertically through the planet's atmosphere.

  Or teleportation, yeah, but it wouldn't be possible to fax live humans to the surface from Bubble Hood until there was at least one telecom collapsiter in orbit around the planet. And that would require a collapsium manufactory—rather beyond their means right now—and something like fifty or a hundred gigatons of raw material. Dozens of neubles; little spheres of di-clad neutronium, pressed from a fleet of neutronium barges. Or from one really busy barge, perhaps, over a long period of time. And the Kurster Memorial Shipyard just wasn't big enough to produce a craft that large. Like so many other things in their nascent economy, neutronium barges would have to wait.

  The Conrads and Bertrams and Bascals split up, each team going to one of the prepped ferries. Ho and Steve were already aboard, laughing about something and punching the seats. In this context they were not Security per se, but simply muscle. A pair of strong backs and reasonably obedient minds, in case there was real work to be done. There were probably better choices for that particular assignment, but Conrad understood the king's impulse; Ho and Steve had been with them from the very beginning, from that first exploratory riot at Camp Friendly. And although they were jerks, they were his jerks, as close to him in their own way as Conrad was. And yes, close to Conrad as well, in that way that old adventures had of binding people together.

  Like Conrad and Xmary, for example.

  “Settle down, men,” he told them crossly. “Steve, you're out of uniform.”

  In fact, Steve was wearing a fishnet shirt and a pair of improbably shiny black trousers, with matching boots and cap. Hardly the best ensemble for exploring the surface of a hostile planet.

  “Yes, sir,” Steve said with a smirk. He reached for a jacket draped over one of the seats, and it slithered up his arm and onto his body. It was a Newhope uniform—a Navy of Barnard uniform—done up in that same shiny material. Conrad looked it over with a stab of irritation, but decided he'd had enough friction for one day.

  “All right, then. Let's buckle in, shall we?”

  Bertram of course took the pilot's seat, and Conrad was ready to cede the copilot's to Bascal, but the king demurred, saying, “You're in charge of this flight, Mr. Mursk. I merely own the planet.”

  And for some reason, that ground on Conrad's nerves as well. He nearly said something nasty, just because he could, and bit it back only with considerable effort. He tried to force himself to be cheerful. This was a day he'd remember all his life, even if he lived to be a million, and why remember being a shit when he could simply remember being unhappy?

  He thumbed a warning toggle on the wellstone control panel, and moments later red lights were flashing all over the hangar bay, and nameless workers—mostly people Conrad had never met—were scurrying for the airlocks and the safety of the two control booths.

  “Bay Boss,” Bertram said into the panel, “we are go for departure. Diagnostics nominal. You may open the doors when ready.”

  “Bay Boss here,” said an unfamiliar female voice. “Go for departure, acknowledged. Depressurizing in five, four, three, two, one . . . now.” Outside the winged ferry, there was a sound like a sigh, trailing to whispers, and then total silence. The pumps were some serious quantum-scale hardware which paid the entropy cost and yanked out every molecule which touched them. In about a second and a half, the bay's interior pressure dropped to hard zero: five balls after the decimal.

  When the pressure was off them, the ferry bay doors did not so much open as curl aside, like theater curtains, and Bertram had to negotiate with his other self to determine who would go first, so they didn't both crowd each other on the way out. The ferries themselves were smart enough to avoid any true accident, but it would be bad form to r
ely on them for it, and the Bertram in this particular shuttle won the bit toss anyway, and so they went, lighting their engines and shooting out into starry blackness.

  The brownish light of P2 flooded in through the windows, both virtual and real, and then the world itself hove into view, a swirling sphere of yellow-white clouds, of isolated blue-green oceans and vast, amber-colored continents.

  P2's plant life, such as it was, relied on something darker than chlorophyll, something chestnut-brown which drew its energy mainly from infrared light. Conrad would miss Earth's greenery in the open spaces, but the multicelled algoids were not without their own special charm. All across the planet, in dense patches between the deserts, the probes had shown chest-high forests of the stuff, waving in the breeze like translucent blades of wheat.

  And Conrad, realizing he was about to see this sight with his own two eyes, felt his heart leap. To hell with Xmary. If she thought she could do better than him . . . Well, she wasn't stupid. Maybe she could. But he was here, and she was not, and this really was an important moment in both their lives.

  “Living large is the best revenge,” Bascal murmured behind him, as if eavesdropping on his thoughts.

  Conrad looked over his shoulder and said, “Sire, that is possibly the most intelligent thing you've said all day.”

  The way that Conrad got horribly killed was sort of funny in retrospect.