She broke off. The soldier in front of her had seen Prenderleith. He lifted his Kalashnikov and took aim.
"Prenderleith!" Gaby yelled. He ran on. He seemed more intent on doing something with his shirt buttons. He was across the edge now, spores flying up from his feet as he crushed the hexagon moss.
"No!" Gaby shouted, but the soldier was under orders, and both he and the men who gave the orders feared the Chaga above all else. She saw the muscles tighten in his neck, the muzzle of the gun weave a little this way, a little that way. She looked for something to stop him. Prenderleith's rifle. No. That would get her shot too.
The little black disc recorder hit the soldier, hard, on the shoulder. She had thrown it, hard. The shot skyed. Birds went screeching up from their roosts. Otherwise, utter silence from soldiers and staff and celebrities. The soldier whirled on her, weapon raised. Gaby danced back, hands held high. The soldier snapped his teeth at her and brought the butt of the gun down on the disc recorder. While he smashed it to shards of plastic and circuitry, Gaby saw the figure of Prenderleith disappear into the pseudocoral fungus of the alien landscape. He had lost his shirt.
The last vestiges of the tourist hotel—half a room balanced atop a pillar; the iron staircase, flowering sulphur-yellow buds, leading nowhere, a tangle of plumbing, washbasins and toilets held out like begging bowls—tumbled and fell. Gaby watched mutely. She had nothing to say, and nothing to say it to. The Chaga advanced onward, twenty-five centimeters every minute. The people dispersed. There was nothing more to see than the millimetric creep of another world.
The soldiers checked Gaby's press accreditations with five different sources before they would let her take the SkyNet car. They were pissed at her but they could not touch her. They smiled a lot, though, because they had smashed her story and she would be in trouble with her editor.
You're wrong, she thought as she drove away down the safe road in the long convoy of news-company vehicles and tour buses. Story is in the heart. Story is never broken. Story is never lost.
That night, as she dreamed among the doomed towers of Nairobi, the elephant came to her again. It stood on the border between worlds and raised its trunk and its alien hands and spoke to her. It told her that only fools feared the change that would make things what they could be, and should be; that change was the special gift of whatever had made the Chaga. She knew in her dream that the elephant was speaking with the voice of Prenderleith, but she could not see him, except as a silent shadow moving in the greater dark beyond humanity's floodlights: Adam again, hunting in the Africa of his heart.
SUNFLOWERS
Kathleen Ann Goonan
One of the fastest rising new stars of the nineties, Kathleen Ann Goonan is a graduate of Clarion West who has become a frequent contributor to Asimov's Science Fiction, Interzone, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Amazing, and elsewhere. With the publication of her acclaimed first novel, Queen City Jazz, which was a New York Times Notable Book in 1994, one of the most interesting of the crop of nanotech novels, she has become known as a writer fascinated with the implications of nanotechnology, a subject that she also examines in stories such as "The Day the Dam Broke," "Solitaire," and one to which she will return in her upcoming novel, Mississippi Blues. She is also the author of the novel The Bones of Time. She lives in Lakeland, Florida.
Here she offers us an intricate and melancholy pavane of art, identity, and loss, all driven by the ruthless power of a new technology . . .
"Sunflower, sunflower, yellow and green
You are the loveliest flower I've seen
Tall, straight, full of grace
I love the smile on your bright yellow face."
—Children's song
The terrorist was successful, but she did not live to know it. She was executed quickly, under international law, by the method of her choice. At least, that was what Stannis read on the standard newsnets.
Three years and two months after the terrorist's attack Stannis took a freighter from a dark, cold Northern European industrial town, having circled his target fitfully in the few months since his wife and daughter had died of an overdose of time perception.
As he waited to board, sheets of rain hammered the side of the boat after sweeping across the gray harbor, drenching him and the only other apparent passengers, a young couple entwined and adoring, out for a romantic interlude or perhaps too poor to afford more elegant transport. Monstrous gray factories rimmed the waterside, clanking and belching smoke. Despite what had happened to him, Stannis still thought it obscene, or perhaps merely absurd, that nations chose this path when others were readily available.
He shivered as rain filtered through his thin coat, feeling ill-prepared and afraid of what he planned to do. He had forced himself through the great museums of London, Paris, and Vienna searching for surcease which never came. Perhaps taking the museum trip they planned before Annais died had not been wise.
But of course, his real intent had been different all along.
He realized only fifteen minutes earlier that he was fooling himself about the real purpose of his quest. He knew this the instant he overheard a man in a booth behind him mention to someone that the GULDEN was heading to Amsterdam.
Amsterdam. The city he had been avoiding. The city where he could find that which he realized, with dread, that he desired more than life: understanding.
Still he dithered, gulping strong black coffee, sitting in the window of a cafe across the square from the vast boat. He watched them load massive oily machined metal and rainstreaked wooden crates with cranes. The varnish of the counter was dark, and "Dag" was scratched in the dirt-grimed surface next to his right hand. As the crane operator set the brake and jumped from his high perch, Stannis grabbed his coat and ran across the square to the gangplank.
The journey to Amsterdam would cost $97 euros, the young woman wearying a stiff uniform beneath a slick watercoat told him after he pounded up to the ship and the young couple laughed and stepped onto the deck.
Beneath her dark, roachlike hat a short fringe of straight red hair shone in the pale gray light. Stannis unbuttoned his shirt pocket and pulled out his wallet. The "P" pad was clearly lit as prescribed by law, but he watched without protest as she hit the wrong one and an image of a little girl and a woman came up. Her face went still, then she blinked, gave him a long look, and dashed from her face some rain which had dripped from her hat. Her cheeks red, she said "Sorry" and got on to his passport, then transferred the money from his account to that of the GULDEN and handed it to him to verify, which he did with his thumbprint.
"Cabin 9," she said, her English only a bit twisted. She handed him a keycard and gestured with a sideways jerk of her head. His breath came short again with fear, but he reminded himself that he could always change his mind. As a practice in dignity he did not run down the echoing metal walkway. He placed his heavy boots deliberately. Once the metal nubs had been painted red. The rail was cold and wet beneath his right hand. He glanced for the last time at the tiny manufacturing town, productive once more with its old-style foundries now that nan was outlawed in Europe. Thick black smoke poured from tall stacks, a few shades darker than the dreary sky. He had subsisted here on bottled water and other distilled liquids, and an occasional meal of grilled fish.
The cold air filled his lungs with the tang of carbon. Despite the ridiculous, childish pollution, all was straightforward here, the pain in his heart echoed by this local failure of a technology he once fervently believed in. As an engineer, he still appreciated its possibilities, but the difference was that now he understood that every change involved a spectrum of possibilities, not just the one—the positive, the bright.
Dignity was frail. Eyes brimming with tears, he turned left abruptly, fumbled with his card, and let himself into the close cabin. The black radiance of memory blossomed, its imperceptibly small strings snaking through his mind like a tumor which he could not kill without killing himself. And why not? Why not ki
ll himself?
But then too, why?
Stannis still remembered the terrorist vividly: tall, she wore a tight blue silk dress, very simple. Her short hair was black.
On that day three years ago the restaurant was packed, and Sunday brunch progressing as smoothly as possible with a three-year-old at the table. The pleasant cacophony of clanking silverware and a hundred conversations drifted upward toward the high, white dome of the ceiling.
Sun was just beginning to peek through the Washington D.C. skies, silver with spring rain. He lifted Claire back into her booster seat for the tenth time and was just beginning to think that Annais should take a turn at it. But she was chatting with her old school friend Julie. Funny what different paths they took after they each earned an undergraduate degree in intro genetic engineering. Ten years later, Annais was a string physicist, and Julie was archiving the world's art in VR, head of a Smithsonian team.
Annais' hair was blonde and long and contrasted nicely with her shimmering, loose black shirt. "It's so wonderful," Julie was saying. "The world will have much better access to art now. Imagine, you can wrap your arms around a sculpture, touch every hollow, understand it much more spatially. You could never do that in a real-world museum."
"I heard that they're working on something even better," said Annais. "Aren't they going to have nan reproductions?" Stannis smiled at his fleeting picture, of what that might mean to Annais, saw her walk up to a rack of white envelopes like seed packets in an old-fashioned hardware store except these were in a museum shop rack and filled with the nanotech seeds for replication-ready works of art. She would pluck up the lot of them, take them home, and perhaps cook them up in the bathtub filled with the fluid on which the replicators fed.
Julie shuddered and said, "Maybe in a few years. I've heard the target date is 2030, but I hope not. You know how I feel about nan." And genetic engineering, oddly enough. Her brush with the possibilities of genetics had outright frightened her. She refused to speak with Annais and Stannis for months after they chose to enhance Claire genetically in utero with what were called "gifted fragments." "My parents did it for me," Annais told Julie, surprised by her reaction. "It was done for Stannis too. Julie, why not? It doesn't hurt—and most of the time the difference between—us—and others isn't enormously discernible." Annais laughed. "Stannis and I can vouch for that. We're both quite normal actually, don't you think?" "Obviously not," Julie replied coldly. But the bonds were close between Julie and Annais, and they reunited eventually. Annais' hobby was art history so they had plenty to talk about.
Claire started reading the menu in a loud voice. "Ca-vee-ar. What's that? Pancakes. That's what I ordered. When are they bringing mine?"
Annais glanced at Stannis and he said to Claire, "That's enough." Claire threw her spoon across the table and laughed as it clattered against her mother's half-full champagne glass. Annais caught the glass as it tilted and said, "No more spoons for you today, Claire," and Claire glared at her and turned to slide from her seat. Stannis lifted her onto his lap and hummed along with the piano, which was playing "Nice Work If You Can Get It." Claire squirmed. "I have to go to the bathroom," she said.
"Me too," said Annais. She pushed back her chair as Claire ran around the table and they clasped hands.
Just three tables away in the bright dining room arched glass doors which opened onto a broad balcony with wet, empty tables. Stannis was staring out into the light, delighting in the tang of water in the cool spring air, when the woman in the blue dress stepped into the doorway right next to Annais and Claire, who were threading their way across the room. Stannis' first thought was that the woman looked quite fetching. She raised her arm and shouted, "This is in the name of the Republic of New Hong Kong! We are tired of being your experimental dumping ground! See how you like it!"
The piano music trailed off. Conversation halted. One man had the presence of mind and enough courage to rush her but before he tackled her she launched the packet into the air and it opened, releasing a cloud of sweet scent. Yes, he had breathed it. So why . . . ? Why? Stannis thought, lying in his bunk as the ship rumbled. Why them, why not me too?
Stannis had leaped up, pushed aside the tables and chairs between himself and his family. He grabbed Claire and clamped his hand over her mouth and nose. Without breathing, he rushed for the door, aware that Annais and Julie were next to him, on the crest of a stampede. As they ran down the stairs Claire struggled and bit his hand. He did not let her breathe till they had crossed the street and she gasped and coughed and screamed. Tears wet Annais' face. Julie was pale. They walked silently toward their apartment on M Street, and Julie came with them. They were all stunned except Claire, who ran ahead, happy to be let out of her chair. New leaves misted the trees and rustled as the breeze moved through them. There were flowers, Stannis would always remember, pink spring poppies around the base of every tree. Sunlight washed through the papery, translucent petals, and burnished Claire's light brown hair.
No one bothered Stannis during the journey, and he did not venture out. After twenty-four hours, the heaving of the North Sea calmed. He answered a knock at his door and the red-haired woman was there and stared at him curiously for a moment, then said "Amsterdam," and hurried away.
His heart lifted in spite of himself as the sun poured in through the open door when she left. Feeling hollow and lightheaded, he rubbed the stubble on his face and stared out at the teeming city. He could see tiny figures standing on the huge pier, black against the sun. Bicycle spokes glittered as packs of bikers swirled among clots of pedestrians and past umbrellaed tables where people sat drinking. The gap of water inexorably narrowed, a deep cold green. As the boat drew close his ears were filled with the roar of the engines, and a heavy vibration ran through the deck.
Stannis saw, with a slight shock, that the wharf was packed with a swarm of holies, playing off one another's beams, leaping and dancing with obvious untrammeled joy. Black market nan modifications to their genes enhanced their brainwaves, at the inevitable expense of many normal functions. After intense biofeedback, they had a new skill. In the US it was available legally, licensed for therapeutical use, and was lighter, time-limited—or so he had been told.
He had tried it. He thought it bullshit. His therapy temporary hadn't helped him. But like most of nan, the final verdict would never be in; it had invaded humanity as thoroughly as had the printed word centuries before, transforming them forever. So he believed. No going back. As irrevocable as death.
The crew secured the boat. As Stannis watched the holies cavort, he felt, suddenly, quite empty. Frighteningly so. Chimerical creatures flickered briefly in the air and vanished, like doors to other universes—a shotgun was aimed at him, a waterfall foamed briefly over wet rocks, a woman sat next to a child in bed, reading a book.
As far as he knew, this was feared and banned by Europe like all nan, but he supposed it too was accepted in this accepting city. What had his own visions been, in that small white therapy cubicle? He projected art, mostly, from exhibits he and Annais had seen at the National Gallery. His therapist despaired. "These are a smokescreen. You are concealing your real feelings even from yourself." Who wouldn't? he wondered. Is that bad? If so, aren't you supposed to do something about it? No, he was told, it was up to him. Thanks a lot.
Stannis scanned a ten-language sign which briefly stated that a local museum consortium infused the wharf air with polarizing beams which made the projections more intense than normal. He hesitated, then shrugged. It was disturbing, this reminder of another of his failures, but at least his own ability to project had expired. He had to cross the wharf. He steeled himself, walked down the clanging ramp, and stepped into the gauntlet.
He ignored the holies and their smiling idiot faces, striding across the square through a multitude of visions until suddenly he was confronted with a sunflower.
Its weedy green stem was tall and covered with what looked like a million tiny hairs. Brilliant yellow petals fanned o
ut gloriously from the center, as high as Stannis' own head, packed with a thousand seeds. He looked around, but no one was near.
It must be his.
He felt wildly disoriented. Everything else around him seemed brilliant, splashes of wavering color with no clear boundaries. The song his daughter had sung around the house just before she died came unbidden to his mind. Sunflowers have no face, he had teased her, but suddenly this one did. Instead of the huge, staring seed-eye there was Claire, snub-nosed and blue-eyed.
Stannis fled through the projections into the narrow, ancient streets. The buildings seemed to lean over him, as if wider at the top than at the bottom. Small electric cars crawled past, barely able to squeeze past one another. Sweating, Stannis turned into a doorway under a sign which said "Rooms."
The tiny lobby had a musty dark green carpet. The man behind the desk looked very old. He spoke perfect English and gave Stannis a heavy old-fashioned key. Stannis climbed crooked stairs.
His room looked out over the street, which was about ten feet across. He flung open the window and dank air rushed in. The sky had clouded up—bad weather was following him. He slumped into the single worn chair and stared at the bricks of the building across the street.
Claire was dead. Annais was dead. The months and years would blend together and time would wash him further and further away from that bright, glowing, impossible time.
They were both dead when he came home one afternoon. Lying peaceful and pale and smiling on the large bed he and Annais had shared for ten years. Annais' scrawled note said, "Sorry—beautiful—can't stop." Cause of death: "Infovirus synergistically combined with genetic enhancement patterns. Synaptic overload." Knowing too much and thinking too fast. Seeing the possibilities flower around them, washing them with pain and light. Stannis watched it happen. He had not known exactly what was going on—how could he? He had not known how it would end.
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