Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future

by Gardner Dozois

  Ord was deposited at the entranceway. The girl was gone, the massive crystal door was ajar, and momentum, not courage, carried him through the chill gap between the slab and jamb.

  The room beyond was enormous, hectares of floor beneath a high ceiling, every surface ripped and blackened, sagging portions of the ceiling held up with braces, and old robots who must have been told to stand there and lift, and wait. Ord turned in a circle, with a dancer's grace, remembering how Nuyens and other officials had once come here, seeking Alice. And she wasn't here. But they had demolished the place to make sure, and nobody had taken time to make repairs. A notorious place, and unclean. The perfect place to hide a secret sister, he told himself. Though he didn't believe that story anymore, no matter how elaborate he made it. No matter how sweet it seemed.

  "Quit thinking, Ord. Come here."

  The red-haired girl stood in the distance, her back to him, and the golden sunlight pouring through a tall window before her. Ord picked his way across the battered floor, barely breathing. She seemed to be looking below, drinking in the great estate— a roar of autumn colors at their height, brilliant shades and tones joining into a vast, fully orchestrated work too large for a boy's eyes, too intricate for even his augmented mind.

  Ord would always remember the sight of her, her coppery-red hair, like his, unremarkable against those grand colors. And how the sunlight pierced her dress and revealed her pale new flesh, the body rigorously simple, even plain, sexless and unaugmented, and pure. Why, with everything possible, did she choose that appearance? For the innocence implied? But who knew why Alice did as she did? Not for the first time, Ord doubted that his sister knew all of her reasons. She was too large to understand herself, and had always been… and what an astonishing, horrifying curse…!

  Alice turned, in a motion faster than Ord could follow, pushing something small and soft into his hands; and with a desperate near-gasp, she told him:

  "You've got to save it! They'll destroy it—!"

  What? Destroy what?

  "I'm pledged to protect… fragile… it is…"

  "Protect what?" he blurted.

  "Brother Perfect knows. Go find him." The quickest possible smile, then she closed his fingers around her gift. "It will help you—"

  "Brother who?"

  "I trust you," Alice promised, her voice bleak and untrusting. "And Perfect, too. But nobody else, not anymore." Then she was gone again, never quite seen and already lost; and for a long, confusing while, Ord stared out at the vista— at the brilliant pained colors of dying foliage— almost forgetting how he had come here, barely aware of the heavy little mystery lying invisible in his new hands.

  4

  Discreet observations of the Chamberlain home have identified five distinct and powerful anomalous events. Two occurred during Alice's escape, probably marking her arrival and subsequent departure. Two others have been linked to an unofficial visit by Chamberlain 63, presumably here on a mission of strategy and espionage. But most peculiar is the oldest anomaly. It was witnessed several years after our observations began— several years after Alice's surrender— and perhaps it signaled the departure of an ancient Chamberlain whose presence was never suspected. Or it could have been an arrival, which leads to certain obvious questions: Who arrived? And on what mission? And what is this secret Chamberlain doing now?

  —Nuyen memo, classified

  Alice remained imprisoned; Ord could see her, nothing changed about her cell or clothes or even the stiff way she sat on the edge of her simple cot. But it had been Alice in the penthouse, or at least some magical, unknown portion of her. Sitting on his own bed, unconsciously mimicking her pose, Ord felt confusion bleeding into fascination, and when three jailers arrived without warning, excitement. The jailers were from three high-grav races, all stout and made more impressive by their black uniforms. One of them gazed up at the camera with an expression struggling to appear in control, at ease. A stiff, formal voice told every viewer, "The prisoner needs to meet with her attorneys, in private. For the next few hours, this line will be terminated. Thank you."

  The screen went black, and Ord gave a little gasp.

  He wasn't the only Chamberlain watching. An electric murmur passed through the air, pulses marking siblings on the move. From doorless rooms deep inside the mansion came a piercing series of whistles, then an older sister appeared beside Ord's bed, conjuring up a body from light and woven dust, staring at her little brother for what felt like an eternity.

  "What's wrong?" Ord asked, surprised to sound so convincingly innocent.

  Yet the sister should have seen through him, duplicity bright in his panicky glands and frazzled neurons. And she certainly should have noticed the heavy object on Ord's lap, both thighs depressed by its bulk, its plain oddness sure to set off alarms.

  Yet nothing registered in her icebound blue eyes. A pause, a prolonged blink. Then again her brother asked:

  "What's wrong?"

  "Many things," she assured him. Then, "Have you seen Alice?"

  "On the wall."

  She glanced at the blackness, appearing puzzled. A little lost.

  Ord asked, "Why are the attorneys visiting her?"

  The sister straightened her back, then whispered, "They aren't. And there lies the trouble."

  He waited.

  "We have a report— unconfirmed— that Alice managed to leave her cell for a moment, or two—"

  "But she can't," Ord sputtered. "She doesn't have that kind of power anymore, does she?"

  The sister was eager to agree, and couldn't. "An error. Someone's bad joke, perhaps." Pause. "I wouldn't worry." Pause. "And you say you haven't seen her?"

  "No."

  "Well, then good day, little one. I am sorry to intrude." And without waiting for his goodbyes, she vanished with a sparkle of milky light.

  Ord felt alone, and watched. Of course they suspected that Alice might come see him. Yet he wasn't asked about his visit to the penthouse, and the mystery in his lap might as well not exist… unless they were thoroughly aware, watching him out of curiosity or caution. But that didn't feel right, did it? For no good reason, Ord sensed that he was as safe as possible, under the circumstances.

  What now? he asked himself.

  A thousand times, perhaps. And only then did he take hold of the wondrous nothing, examining it in earnest.

  Some kind of odd, dark matter, he decided. Its surfaces were imprecise and a little cool, then warm. Its density was rather like gold or lead, and with each touch it seemed to merge with his flesh, for an instant, the sensation like something in a sloppy dream. But when he placed it on his room's ornamental pond, on the slickest, smoothest portion, there wasn't so much as a dimple made, and he could push it back and forth like a balloon, nothing but his own hands aware of its weighty presence.

  Natural dark matter didn't exist in this form. Coagulated; tangible. But with sufficient energies and the proper cleverness, it was possible to make the wild particles behave, make them cling to one another and act like normal trusted baryonic matter. These were great technologies, Ord knew. They were the basis for much of his siblings' magic, and nobody understood their limits. Since dark matter was ninety-nine-percent of everything— existing in a multitude of useful flavors— there was hope that someday, when necessary, it would prove even more useful than the prosaic stuff that made stars and simple people.

  With care, Ord caressed the gift, fingers discerning tiny crenelations, his mind's eye building an improving picture. But what it resembled… well, it seemed unlikely at best. A tightly folded cerebral cortex, the underside cerebellum, and the ancient medulla; it was a brain of the oldest kind, human in proportions but nothing like the modern form. Even the lizard-folk, poor as possible, had fancier and tougher versions of the ancestral brains. Fatty flesh and acetylcholine vanished with hundred-year life spans and mental imbalances. Why would Alice give him such a relic? But of course it wasn't a relic, he realized. It was as modern in substance as possible, a
nd what did that imply?

  An affinity for Ord's flesh, and its shape could be a clue, he thought. Several times. But when he acted on that idea, he was shocked to find it valid. The mysterious nothing liked his scalp and began to burrow, exotic particles swirling around the bland ones, passing through flesh and the hyperfiber skull, moving just the right amount, then pausing and aligning themselves, linking in a multitude of ways with Ord's own astonished mind.

  *

  An image appeared before him.

  Fuzzy, but immediately identifiable.

  "Am I supposed to go there?" he asked. No answer was offered. Ord put on hiking boots, then noticed a second pair of boots where he had found the first pair. Using the stairwell, he passed between a dozen siblings— modestranked Chamberlains wearing frightened, flushed expressions— and he was even less noticed than usual. Which was a good thing, since he was forbidden from leaving the mansion, in punishment for the bomb nonsense. The old bear-dogs at the door might have noticed something when he touched them, scratching their broad heads until sleeping tails began to thump-thump against the footworn stone floor. Then, sensing something too substantial to be a premonition, Ord touched the PRIDE AND SACRIFICE sign, not once but twice, never certain if what he felt was real or an illusion.

  He ran when he was outdoors, eschewing tube cars out of caution. It was a good hour's journey, most of it downhill. Wild birds didn't startle into flight when he passed them. Water splashed and the earth dimpled under him, but each backward glance showed him a smooth brook and muddy banks without a single bootprint. Ord was a ghost, it seemed. He was exactly like his elderly siblings, composed of nothing but thought, and it frightened him, and it seemed fun… yet he couldn't make himself hesitate for a moment, much less ask himself if this was what was right… whatever it was that he was doing.…

  A child's clubhouse stood on the border of the Sanchex and Chamberlain estates, in a dead-end valley. Built with lumber by boys and girls barely old enough to swing hammers, it had stood empty for almost a century, the Golds disbanded not long after Alice's arrival. That was natural, the children too old for the club's games. Yet a new generation should have come and burned this structure with an appropriate solemnity, then built their own. It hadn't happened because every Family, in view of the times, had delayed their next generations; and the old place had fallen into a dishonorable entropy, its roof collapsing, its wooden floor buckling, and the childlike signatures on the far wall becoming soft and imprecise with many species of rot.

  Ord barely saw his own name, second in rank.

  Below Ravleen's, of course. Sanchexes always led the Golds.

  He was looking for Xo's signature when a badger emerged from a hole in the floor, its thick, low body reminding him of a jailer's, a sudden hiss aimed straight for him. It could see him, obviously. And he growled in turn, causing it to slip out the back door, toward what should have been a high raw wall of slick granite. But the wall had vanished, replaced with a long valley and a meandering brook, plus trees not as tall as seemed right, or as broad, or generally as healthy, their leaves in autumnal colors too, but all too drab and haphazard to belong in a Chamberlain wood.

  "Hello?" Ord called.

  Birds flew in terror. Save for some kind of jaybird that perched on a high branch, cursing Ord for trying to steal its acorns.

  "Hello?"

  No human answered.

  A narrow dung-marked game trail led across the brook, and here he made deep bootprints that filled with swirling brown water. Now and again he shouted, "Hello!" A noisy indifference filled the woods. Finally Ord thought to say, "I'm looking for someone," and then, "Brother Perfect," and his answer came in the form of a skin-clad figure stepping from the shadows, almost from underfoot.

  "And who is doing this looking?" the figure asked.

  He was a Chamberlain, Ord saw. No telling which brother, but he felt disappointment and a jumble of doubts.

  "And if you don't know who you are," the brother continued, "maybe you can remember who sent you here. How about it, my boy?"

  He was Ord, and nobody sent him, he claimed. The brother appeared shorter than him, but stocky in a strong, comfortably fattened way, his red hair matted and tied into a ponytail, a thin red-and-snow beard obscuring the famous Chamberlain jaw. It wasn't an impressive body, conjured or not. But the trousers and heavy vest were remarkable, made from sewn skins and mended with dirty lengths of gut and hemp. A leather belt held several elegant stone tools. One pale hand held a spear by its blond shaft, its long Folsom point drawing pointed stars in the air between them.

  "And who are you?" asked Ord.

  "You wanted someone named Perfect. Maybe that's me."

  But no Chamberlain had that name. It would be cruel to saddle their own with such an outrageous boast—

  "You know every name, do you?"

  "In order of birth, yes. And I know a little of everyone's biography."

  "What a gruesome waste!" The Stone Age figure broke into a laugh, shaking his head in a blurring motion. "Which anal-retentive child of Ian dreamed up that waste of neural capacities?"

  Ord couldn't guess who.

  The brother cursed, laughed, and said, "So you're the Baby."

  "Pardon?"

  "The Baby. That's your nickname." A pause. "Are you familiar with the concept of nicknames—?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I've given you enough of a clue. Come. Hurry on now, Baby."

  Ord tried to ask where he was, where they were going, and why the woods looked wrong. But the brother, whoever he was, had walked away, bulling his way through the tangled landscape. Ord had to run in pursuit, catching him as they splashed across the brook. "Is Perfect a nickname?"

  "Oftentimes." The left hand gestured, its two smallest fingers missing, the wagging stumps showing no sign of regrowth. "Have you ever known someone you'd like to call Perfect?"

  Maybe.

  "To make them angry, of course. Am I right?"

  Ord ignored the question. "I deserve to know where we are—"

  "In the estate, of course. Embedded inside the granite." He kicked and stomped his way through a wall of vegetation, thorns leaving bloody sketches on his exposed arms. "A clever little house of mine, don't you think?"

  "Why am I here?"

  "No, Baby. It's my turn to ask the question."

  He hated that name.

  "Humans," said the brother, "have lived for twenty million years. As apes, then as simple souls. And finally, less simple. But now, if you were pressed to decide, when would you claim that we had reached our peak? Our grand climax? Today, perhaps? Last week? When?"

  "Who are you?"

  A sideways glance and grin, then the brother stepped through a wall of golden leaves, branches rushing back into place, conspiring to make him vanish.

  Ord hesitated, wondering if he should flee.

  From behind the leaves, a deep, rough Chamberlain voice said, "Humans. Peak. Give a shot, Baby!"

  Stepping through the wall, Ord saw an abrupt hillside and a simple cave worn into its face. The rocks weren't false granite; they were limestone. The limestone was encrusted with fossilized crinoids, thousands of the flowery animals laid into the fine, dead sediments. This was a caveman's camp, the air stink of old fires and tainted game, and the brother seemed at home, setting his spear against the cave's broad mouth, then turning to say:

  "My given name? It is Thomas. Thomas Chamberlain."

  No. Impossible…!

  "And since you won't guess, I'll tell you my choice for our species' crowning moment." Thomas laughed easily, then said, "They were the final years of the final Ice Age, when we were expanding across new continents and wild, unmapped seas." Another laugh. "You look doubtful, Baby. But consider this: There weren't many of us, and each of us was important. A few million modified apes, each of us armed with stone and wood, and our cunning, and our mobile little cultures… and we came to rule the entire green world…!"

  Trembling, Ord stared at h
is ancient brother.

  "And you know what the world was then, don't you?" A quick, disarming smile. "It was the universe. It was everything. A vast globe encompassing every imaginable beauty, and it was set inside a sea of ink and tiny, unimaginable stars. And it was ours." A wave of the maimed hand. Then, "Do you know my opinion? All the history since, every human venture… everything has been one long and frustrating and absurd attempt to regain those glory days!"

  And with that pronouncement, Thomas broke into a thunderous laugh, a sudden rain of golden leaves falling on them, then swirling, vainly fighting the urge to settle, to die.

  5

  Alice gave me that lance of a nickname.

  I was a new adult, proud of my augmentation and promise, and she was a very young, relentlessly mouthy child. I would talk at length about all the good I would be doing— for the Family; for all people; for all time— and she'd growl at me. She would say, "Oh, you think you're the perfect Chamberlain. The very best. But you're the same as us, brother. Brother Perfect. Oh, yes, you are. You are, you are…!"

  —Perfect, in conversation

  Alice— the great and infamous and bankrupt sister— was the twelfth Chamberlain. Ord, in contrast, was the twenty-four thousand, four hundred and eleventh pearl on the string. And he knew that Thomas was Ian's eighth clone, meaning his designation was Nine, which in turn meant that he was almost exactly as old as Alice and Ord combined. If this was indeed Thomas, of course. Which seemed a preposterous idea, a thousand history lessons recalled in an instant, and this skin-clad figure nothing like any of them.

  Chamberlains were terraformers, by and large. But Thomas was an oddity who built little but loved to explore— a godlike wanderer whose passion and genius were to find and befriend new alien species.

  Uninterested in alliances of trading links, Thomas left those blessings for others. The bloodless Nuyens, for instance. By the time Nuyens would flock to some newly charted system, eager for technologies and clear profits, Thomas would have struck out into the wilderness again, chasing radio squawks and free oxygen signatures until he found another wondrous species. Or found nothing. Because as any halfway educated person knew, intelligence arose infrequently in the universe, and imperfectly, and judging by the assorted war-killed worlds, it was a fundamentally perishable form of life, too.