Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  “She’s a person!”

  He continues. “Your mother always worried that it was a lot to lay on a bird, or any other creature. Meitner often seemed . . . disturbed, and hateful. Like a human child can seem, sometimes, but . . .”

  “No, no, no.” I’m crying.

  “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have told you. But . . . I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone but me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s Meitner’s story, Leilani. I have a feeling that she is getting ready to tell it. It’s what made her what she is. I never told you, but she was at the University of Hawaii for a while, and at Cal Tech . . .”

  “You knew she was alive? And you didn’t tell me?”

  “Some friends told me. I knew that she wanted to keep a low profile. That was fine with me.”

  “But—you thought she’d done this horrible thing! How could you just—”

  “Out of respect for your mother, Leilani. Meitner has been doing interesting things, some interesting mathematical work.”

  “What work?”

  “On quantum nonlocality.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Einstein called it ‘spooky action at a distance.’ Meitner’s work on it is potentially game-changing, and—”

  I cut him off. “But why didn’t you say anything? Weren’t you afraid she might kill somebody else?”

  Dad sighs. “Of course. At first. But I didn’t know that she was out and about until five years ago. She could have been dead for all I knew, and I wasn’t aware of any similar cases, which would probably have made the news. Those that know her now seem to think—” He stops talking again for a moment but before I can ask Who knew her? he says in a rush, “I just heard that she was innovative and original, and that seemed to be what your mother wanted, what she tried to do. She wanted to give Meitner the power to do whatever she was capable of doing. What matters is that this is your mother’s dream. All the work she did—I wish she were alive to see this!” He pauses, probably thinking of the same irony I’m thinking of. “But . . . I’m calling for another reason, too. You need to help her with her legal demands. And you have to help her get her story told. They’ve interrupted Meitner’s broadcast for a reason. They consider her a threat of some kind.”

  I’m really puzzled. “What can I do?”

  “You’re a lawyer. An animal rights lawyer. You can get her a hearing in court.”

  Bless his heart. He seems to be overestimating my influence, my expertise. “What court?”

  “What do you mean, what court? You defend dogs on death row. You defend monkeys used in experiments. What court do you go to then?”

  “Dad, calm down. Calm down. Whatever court has jurisdiction. That’s where we take the case. But she’s in space. There’s no court in space.”

  “There’s a World Court. In The Hague.”

  “Dad, I . . .” I falter. I was brought up never to say I can’t. I think hard and fast. “Individuals can’t bring cases. But they sometimes hear cases from groups.”

  “This is a group.”

  “This is Meitner. This is a parrot. Everyone can see she’s a parrot.”

  “She has human DNA. People can hear that she’s person, damn it! Didn’t you say the same thing just ten minutes ago? But she’s also a bird. Don’t you belong to some kind of international group that defends the rights of animals?

  “Animal Defense International, yes.”

  “Well? Do something! I’m afraid this Psittacus Company might kill her.”

  “I thought you said they stood to make a lot of money.”

  “They might if whatever they’re planning goes off without a hitch. I think she used them to gain this platform, and they used her to sell their enhancement. It’s politics. It’s sausage-making. But I’m worried. They might be afraid now that she’s making demands. Bad publicity. Can you imagine the sheer cost of litigating what she’s talking about? The pressure from all kinds of quarters to get Psittacus to shut her up? There could easily be an accident.”

  My mind does a dizzy emotional flip back to the painting, the one Meitner was looking at when I last saw her. “Yes,” I say. I remember, too, her love of Where Are We Going?

  I wonder where she is going. Where she wants us to go.

  He says, “We have to make sure that Meitner lives.” He picks up steam. “That she gets her dance done! For your mother! For her! Hell, maybe even for all of us!”

  I don’t think I’ve ever heard him so worked up. “Okay. My brain is functioning now. Let me make some calls.”

  “I’ll make some calls too, through my Stinger network. Maybe I can get her back on the air. So to speak.”

  I kind of move in slow motion, although I make things happen very quickly. All of my years of animal advocacy scholarship kicks in, all the people I’ve met. Cases come to mind. I call three people while I email six more. Within minutes, I realize that everyone I know is on Meitner’s side. It’s the case they’ve been waiting for. It sets off a chain reaction. Small guns call big guns and big guns call Psittacus. I forward information as it is requested and as I find it—proof, for instance, that Meitner has human DNA. The argument is removed from me as those with far more expertise and power take over. For two hours I monitor email, read rapid-fire injunctions, and bite my nails.

  Then I get a call from an unknown number. A man says “Is this Leilani Kalani?”

  “Who is this?” I ask, impatient to get back to my anxiety.

  “Meitner would like to speak to you. She wants to know if you will accept the call.”

  If I would accept! I think with a rush of eagerness, but then I muffle the speaker as I burst into great, hoarse sobs that startle me.

  “Hello?” the man says, his voice distant, coming from arm’s length. “Hello?”

  I realize, with a great jolt, that I do not want to talk to her.

  “Just a minute,” I manage, and go away from the phone, back onto the patio, and bow my head in the cold, cold rain.

  I am surprised to find myself thinking in large, colored blocks of feeling, which I must maneuver with all my strength. Pull! on the yellow cube of anger. Push! on the slippery purple sphere of sorrow, which grows to huge size and howls at me, as I howled at my father earlier, No! No! No!

  This is how I thought when I was a child, I remember, and that knowledge is like an electric current, connecting me to a world of overpowering feelings that I’d forgotten that I ever had.

  And it’s Meitner waiting for me: all that I’d lost forever when my mother died; a world waiting to be restored. Or to submerge me.

  I grip the railing, gulp frigid air. I work on my shaky breathing until it is deep and calm, the colored shapes shrink, and I am a grown-up again, but newly, sharply aware of the power of my childhood.

  I slide open the door and slip back inside, rub my wet hands on the back of the couch, and pick up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Leilani?” says Meitner, says my mother’s voice, says the being who may have killed my mother, the only living soul with whom I share so much, and who vanished so completely. I bite my tongue; I clench my fist, I say with a sob despite all that, “Meitie.”

  I remember to breathe deeply as I listen for her voice, but slow tears slide down my face. The lovely voice; the cadences of speech that say Mother, Mother, Mother.

  She speaks again, finally. “Leilani, I am sorry.”

  What I have to say comes out in a shout, demanding and raw. “Why did you leave me?”

  She speaks slowly, but without hesitation. “I was sad. I was afraid. Afraid of what I might bring to you. I am a bird. I can fly. I did so. It was the easiest thing to do. I was trying to leave behind all human feelings. They were too strong.”

  “I . . . understand that. Human feelings are sometimes too strong for me too.” I swallow hard. “But what happened? Tell me why you were afraid. I need to know.”

  “I will talk about all that, I promise you, when I’m back on the air. If the
y allow me to speak. They handled me rather roughly.” I hear the nervousness in her voice. “I’m not sure that I can say it twice.”

  “Did you kill Mother?” I use my strong, interrogatory lawyer’s voice, glad that I have that tool. Without it, I would be incoherent.

  In the long silence that follows, the unthinkable scenarios generated by my father’s brief speech fill my vision. If I could, I would reach across space and strangle Meitner, grab her gray neck and twist it. Let them kill her, I think. Let them! Ranked against that impulse is my father’s reserve, his eagerness to let something that he wouldn’t tell me about, some promise, some link with Mom, unfold.

  “No,” Meitner says quietly, but with force. “I did not. I am very sorry if John thinks so, and sorry that you even need to ask, but I understand why. It’s actually very complicated. It goes to the heart of what I want to say.”

  As I struggle to respond, her voice, almost a whisper, with an edge of happiness that is her, not my mother, comes through my phone, piercing the dark space of my listening, of my thinking, of my deep sorrow.

  She says, “You are my sister, as truly as any sister could be. You are the only sister I will ever have. You shared your childhood with me. I am so grateful to Jean for giving me that. Your mother gave me my life, just as she gave you your life. When I was a child with you, the horror of the lab was fresh. You were my salvation. Leilani, I was not much older than you, confused, a child, but I stayed away from you out of what I can only call love. And that love propelled me through the horrible years that followed.”

  My world whirls back around. I know Meitner. I know her through ten shared years of the deepest life I will ever know, through quarrels, pranks, laughter, and play, and I believe that what she says is true.

  I feel a rush of regret for lost years, pain at our human creations. And strange joy because the word sister completes me, like hearing music I never knew existed. Sister. Yes. My only sister.

  “Meitie, I—”

  “Ms. Kalani? Meitner?” The man’s voice is crisp; official.

  “Yes,” we both say, Meitner, I can tell, as irritated as I am.

  “Psittacus and Company has agreed to allow Meitner to resume talking.”

  Suddenly, that means nothing to me. I want to hold onto this moment. Perhaps what she has to say will destroy this fragile restoration of a part of my life that has long been dead, dead without me even realizing what was gone.

  “It can wait a minute,” says Meitner.

  “This is valuable time,” the man warns.

  “Go away,” she says, and the man is silent.

  “Leilani,” she says, “What I am going to say is troubling and painful. It will be difficult for me to say, and difficult for you to hear. But it touches on issues that all of us are going to have to think about, to confront. I hope to make that task easier by facilitating more communication—a special kind of communication—among us all. I am so happy—so deeply glad—that I have finally been able to talk to you. I am happier than you will ever know. I believe that your legal expertise will be invaluable in the effort I will outline.”

  “I hope so,” I say.

  “Meitner?” the man’s voice breaks in.

  “I love you, sister,” I say.

  “I love you,” she replies.

  Video is restored. I watch Meitner’s big yellow eye, her hooked beak, and think,What Are We? Evolution fast-forwards right before my eyes and rings in my ears and in my brain as she tells the story of her life.

  And mine.

  Meitner

  “This is my story. I appreciate the opportunity to tell it. I think that it will be instructive.

  “I mourn my companion, Dr. Jean Woodward. When she died, I went mad with grief. I left the human world; I returned to the wild in Kauai.

  “As some of you might know, the vehicle through which human DNA was inserted into me was a virus. Because of the viral vehicle, human DNA was transmitted to the parrots in Kauai with whom I flocked.

  “Some of those parrots attacked Jean as she was driving to town. Her Jeep went off the road and she died. I have always blamed myself. I had told them how humans behaved, and had lately told them that humans sometimes committed murder. Perhaps they were angry at her for changing them, even though it was not really her who did so.

  “I left my flock. They were not like me; they did not have my intense human socialization. I hated them. I realized that I was alone—not like anyone or anything else in the world. New. It was a frightening realization. I didn’t know where I was going.

  “It’s easy to fly into the baggage compartment of a plane. I went to other islands. I spent years studying humans. I watched them through their windows; perched on trees overlooking their lanais. I listened. I never spoke. There are plenty of tropical birds in Hawaii, so I did not stand out. I therefore had the opportunity of eavesdropping on hundreds of families. I studied five or six families at a time, moving between their homes. I particularly sought out card players, for I could see all of their hands and understand their distinct strategies, and observe how they expressed themselves by showing and by not showing. I watched their televisions. I heard their arguments. I watched them make love. I saw them express love and generosity to one another. I heard them lie. Many living creatures lie, but I saw intricate, painful lies, with hurtful consequences that might ring through generations.

  “I never spoke. If I had never spoken, Jean would not have died. Something about knowing that kept me from being able to speak, even when I wanted to.

  “During that time I was learning about myself, about what this human part of me was. My parrot companions acted in a monstrous way, a way that was human, with hatred and revenge, but they had no moral imperative not to do so. They had a parrot culture, not a human culture developed and modified through eons. They were angry. They had emotions they did not know how to control. I realized that the entire time I lived with my human family I had been extremely isolated. I had known few other people, and learned that my family was unusual—deeply respectful, kind, adventurous, and loving. But not like most human families.

  “Finally, I was able to make peace with myself. I understood that who and what I was, although unique, and a mystery, was not my fault. I was created without a context. I returned to my flock on Kauai again and again over the years—the plane ride from Honolulu takes about an hour, and I stayed for months at a time or more—and tried to help them with their humanity, as they tried to help me in being a parrot. Over those twenty years or so we became settled; we grew; we learned to appreciate our human side, as diverse and wild as any other animal’s deep being.

  “The other side of my life took place in a different context, but each side of me promoted growth of the other in a seesaw pattern. The day I finally spoke again it was a surprise to me and to the mathematician at the University of Hawaii I had chosen to live with. I did so after watching many of her lectures, which sang to me. She thought about many of the things I thought about, and it was with relief that I learned the language of mathematics. I felt that I was truly home at last. She promised to keep our relationship a secret. I did not desire to become famous. I did not want to be studied ever again. Eventually, I became a ghost faculty member—a name that only a few humans could connect with a visage. Together, and separately, she and I wrote papers about emergence. My name is on those papers; I am L. Meitner. My work became more influential, and because I was never seen, there was a mystique about me. Some thought I might be an AI, or impaired in some unsightly way, or physically challenged. They wondered about my gender. Now that mystery is laid to rest—I am a female parrot with human DNA.

  “I have always wanted to do Jean justice. She had a vision, and without her, I would have none. I saw the indignities visited upon the beings on the planet without human speech. I saw the casual violence, the lack of respect for our homes, for our food sources, for our offspring. I began to experience a sense of mission. Most non-humans have specific missions having to do wi
th survival but I realized that, having the gift of speech, I had a wider responsibility. I understand other species, probably, as little as you do, but I do know that they have interior lives and that they deserve rights as living beings.

  “My document and demands have been transmitted to those who can bring this case forward. I have already heard of massive international support, and I know that there are those who are, inevitably, against it. I thank those of you who are helping.

  “To illustrate Dr. Woodward’s vision, we plan to offer you a flocking ballet. It is a work of art that has mathematical underpinnings. It will be a spontaneous event performed by prepared minds on the Winter Solstice, beginning on Kauai, Jean’s home. All of you on Earth can participate.

  “This is her life’s work.

  “And mine. Soon, perhaps, it will be yours, the work of all of you, for in a flock, there is no set leader.

  “We take turns.”

  Leilani Kalani

  There was enough time for all of us to get to Kauai for the Winter Solstice; the dance.

  I’ve taken the update; my husband has not.

  Kara, our daughter, was here only a few months ago, but that is a long time for a toddler. Everything is new, and she is delighted with the surf, from which I grab her, the mountain, where she wisely shies from heights, with the ancient banyan tree by the hale, where she plays hide-and-seek among its many trunks, as I did with my mother. The deep sadness I carried within me for so long has lifted. The world seems as new for me as it is for Kala, charged with hope.

  In the end, it was the power of social media that helped sway Psittacus, though the legal system can take some credit in setting the terms and conditions of Meitner’s freedom to speak. The world wanted to hear Meitner. Psittacus stock seesawed wildly during those hours, a fluctuation directly based on online supposition and conjecture. Now, it’s going great guns.

  The whole ohana is here, some ready for the dance, with their updates, their bracelets. Lots of Dad’s friends flew to Lihue and were helicoptered in. They are a strange collection of academics, carpenters, plumbers, programmers, businesspeople, and old neighbors from his days in California and on the Big Island. Most everyone he knows.