Year's Best Science Fiction 01 # 1984

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  “You acted as if you knew.”

  “I must be a better actor than I imagine, then.” He laughed; he moved away. “Connie, I just didn’t want to admit that I’d been erased. You must have felt the same way when she started talking to you. She’s a gossip. She acted as it we were old friends, so I pretended to remember all the stuff she was talking about. I was embarrassed.”

  She watched him as he sat down on the edge of the bed and played with his wedding ring, turning it around and around his finger. “Why are you so suspicious?” Harry asked.

  He had not been erased. Connie watched him sitting there and knew it was true. She shuddered with the enormity of it. She felt drugged, unable to grasp so huge a betrayal. She stared at him: how could he conceive of such an evil? She wanted to kill him. She rushed into the bathroom and closed the door. She sat on the edge of the tub and put her head in her hands, attempting to slow her breathing. Harry didn’t come to the door, he didn’t ask her what was wrong, he didn’t plead. Stand and fight, her mind screamed, but as the minutes passed with still no response from him she began to have second thoughts. She couldn’t know what he thought; she only had herself. The truth was that she was suspicious. The whole point of erasure was to give yourself a second chance. Maybe she had no reason to jump to such a drastic conclusion from such slim evidence.

  The pastel tile of the floor gave no reassurance. The shock faded. Harry could not be such a monster. He could not have coldly tricked her into giving herself away so unawares; he was not so clever or heartless or selfish as to steal a second chance for himself without paying in equal coin. The card in her purse was—had to be—a voucher of his love for her, not a warning of his unreliability.

  She opened the door. Still sitting on the bed, he looked up expectantly. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She felt as if she were a ventriloquist speaking through a dummy.

  “You have to believe me. I didn’t know you’d take it this way. I lied to her; I didn’t lie to you.”

  She sat beside him.

  “Sometimes I wonder what made us get erased, too,” he said.

  She held him tightly and rested her head, eyes closed, on his shoulder.

  “Go ahead,” Harry said. “Sleep with Alice. I don’t care.”

  A laugh forced itself to her lips. Tears were in her eyes. “Let’s forget it,” she said.

  Constance told Harry she was concerned about being away from the markets for so long. He suggested she arrange a private comlink through the resort by which she could transact her business as well as she might at home. She told him she would not feel comfortable because such a link could easily be tapped, and moreover that her clients would have trouble reaching her.

  At home they settled into a routine that left them less time with each other. Connie took on several new accounts that kept her busy in the office after the trading session ended each day, and she began working on a new economic model she wanted to merge into Fox. Harry had risen among the ranks of troubleshooters and was being sent out of town frequently to train people in other cities. When home, he spent more time in the playroom. On the surface everything was all right.

  The one area of their lives that improved was sex. Harry seemed to want her more as the weeks went by, and for her part, Connie found herself trembling at his touch. She told herself she did not like being attacked with such energy; it was almost as if she were an object to him in those moments of frenzy, but his attention would be focused on her. He asked her continually what she wanted, he would be by turns rough and extraordinarily tender, as if she were as evanescent as snow in late spring, fallen way past its time, beautiful, transitory. She could ask him to do anything, and he would do it. His warm breath on her lips, her shoulder, was like the light, mysterious breath of a cat. She could no more read his thoughts than she could a cat’s, yet she suspected something of the same feral blankness behind the eyes that gleamed in the darkness of their bedroom.

  She responded with the same passion, surrendering thought in the night as she could less and less give it up during the day. The farther she drifted from him, the more pleasure she took in their lovemaking. I’ll never lie to you again. She had thrown away the card the day they had returned to Earth, but it would not go away, and eventually she took an afternoon off and went to the office of New Life Choices.

  Holland was busy and would be all afternoon, they told her, but she insisted on waiting. Ten minutes later he came out to the lobby and escorted her to his office.

  “How can I help you, Constance?”

  “I want to see your copies of the contracts.”

  He got them. She examined Harry’s. Everything was in order. She compared the signature with one she had from their marriage license; it was the same. The terms of Harry’s contract were identical to hers. Holland watched her silently.

  “Something bothering you?” he asked when she put the papers down.

  “Did you know Harry before we came here to be erased?”

  “Not well. We met at a party a couple of months earlier. He had a few drinks. He was pretty broken up about your separation.”

  “You didn’t talk business then?”

  Holland seemed calm. “I suggested he get erased. It’s my business, and he seemed a good prospect. It was a surprise to me later when he told me he was asking you to do it too.”

  Harry had asked her to get erased. For the first time Connie understood that it had not been her idea.

  “That’s all there was to it? And you erased him when you did me?”

  Holland leaned back and frowned. “I know you don’t like me,” he said. “That’s too bad. But you’re not the first person to come in here accusing us of some fraud or other. They come in and tell me we didn’t really erase them, that they can remember everything they paid to have wiped out. Or that we erased too much. Or that their personality’s changed. Or that they can’t do their jobs. You name it.

  “You think I erased you and not Harry. How long do you think we could stay in business if that’s true? There are laws. There are ethics of the business.”

  Connie almost laughed. “Ethics.”

  Holland did not get indignant. “Believe it or not. We did the job we were paid to do.”

  “That’s an equivocal statement.”

  “We erased Harry Gray. You’re married to him. Why don’t you ask him?”

  “Suppose he changed his mind on the couch, at the last minute?”

  “I’m not lying to you.”

  “That’s what Harry says.”

  “So you did ask him?”

  Connie didn’t say anything. Holland was not the lightweight she had taken him for, or maybe he had practiced this conversation. Some palm readers, they said, even believed the predictions they made.

  “Look,” Holland said. “You’re smart. I’ll tell you something I’ve found out that I don’t like to admit. We can erase the memories—‘Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow.’ That’s no problem. I used to think that we could ‘minister to a mind diseased.’ I’m not so sure anymore. The thing that makes a troubled memory is whatever happens to you. But people aren’t as innocent as I used to think; they aren’t just victims. Lots of the things that just ‘happened to them’ they worked long and hard to get themselves into.”

  Connie stood. “Don’t preach to me.”

  “We can’t change the person. If you don’t trust Harry, it’s likely you didn’t trust him before you were erased. Erasure doesn’t change who you are. No matter what we advertise.”

  “It didn’t change Harry.”

  “‘Therein the patient must minister to himself.’ I’d like to take you out for a drink, Constance, but if you’re going to keep this up you might as well just talk to our lawyers.”

  “I’ll bet they’re good ones. Do they read Shakespeare?”

  Holland gestured at the door. “Too bad,” he said. “We might have had a nice time.”

  Harry had persuaded her to get erased.
Connie could not put that thought away. It had been like a suicide pact. They had agreed to kill their memories together. But if Harry had not gone through with it, while Connie did—he had murdered her.

  She had lunch with her lawyer, Barbara Curran. The weather had turned cold that morning and the first real autumn storm threatened, so they met at the seafood bar below Center City. Connie told Barbara about her suspicions and the visit to New Life. Barbara told her that no erasure company had ever been proved to have defaulted on a contract, a record of which the industry was so protective that the American Erasure Association had established a huge legal defense fund. Several suits were nonetheless pending. Then Barbara suggested that Connie perhaps ought to have gone through with the divorce she had planned, instead of deciding to get erased. Divorce. Connie felt as if someone had slapped her. Seeing how upset she was, after a little hesitation Barbara gave her a brief history of the marriage as Connie had told it to her a year earlier.

  Harry was waiting in her office when Connie returned to the brokerage that afternoon. The other dealers were trying not to look curious.

  “Harry. What brings you here?” She hung up her coat, trying to avoid his stare.

  “I ran into John Holland today.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why are you going around behind my back like this, Connie? If you’ve got some problem with the way things are going, why don’t you tell me?”

  She sat down behind her desk. “I don’t have any problems.”

  He blew up. “Don’t jerk me around, Connie! You think I’m stupid? What do you think Holland told me? You think I didn’t go through with erasure, don’t you? What kind of bastard do you take me for?”

  Through the window that faced the trading room she could see the agents’ faces turn toward the office.

  “Don’t shout. Draw the curtains.”

  “Screw the curtains! I want to know what’s going on in that head of yours.”

  “That’s a first. You never seemed to care much before. You wanted me to wipe out what’s in my head. You want it now.”

  He paced back and forth before the window, hands knotted behind his back. “That’s not fair,” he said more quietly.

  She felt vulnerable. “Maybe it’s not. This has been a rough time for me. I can’t help wondering about what things were like before I was erased.”

  “How would I know? Hasn’t it been good since? Why rake up the past?”

  “I can’t change the past, Harry. It happened.”

  “What do you mean? Why would we get erased if not to change it?”

  “So you did get erased?”

  He stopped pacing and looked at her. The silence became uncomfortable. She wouldn’t wilt under that stare anymore. He closed his eyes, opened them again.

  “That question doesn’t deserve an answer,” he said. “I’m your husband.”

  Now she was mad. “I’m your wife. I deserve the truth.”

  He sat down in the chair meant for her clients. “You really hate me, don’t you?”

  “You lied to me before. I have to know that you’re not lying again.”

  Harry seemed to relax. It was a comfortable chair—she always treated her clients well.

  “I love you,” he said. “I’ve always loved you.”

  “That’s not enough. I have to know the truth.”

  Instead of rushing to reassure her, he sat in the chair as if he had come there to talk about investing in commodity options. His sudden withdrawal from her left Connie off balance, as if a door she had been pushing against had been suddenly opened.

  “Say something, Harry. For God’s sake.”

  “Would you believe me if I said yes, I was erased?”

  She hesitated. “I think so.”

  “Yes, I was erased. I don’t remember any lies. Now what happens the next time I don’t do what you want? The next time I let you down?”

  Connie felt dizzy. “I don’t know. We’ll have to see. It’s not that simple …”

  “You can explain it to me sometime.” Harry shuddered visibly. He stood. “I’ve got to go. I’m tired. I feel like I’m losing everything.”

  You squandered it, she thought. “Harry …”

  “I’m going to move out for awhile. I’ll be gone by the time you get home.”

  Connie tried to say something, but he was gone. She could not say she wanted to see him there that evening or any other evening. She felt ill; she replayed the scene in her mind, shuddering herself as she thought of Harry sitting impassively in the chair like a stunned animal. The dealers were already back at their terminals; their curiosity evaporated when Harry left, or perhaps the gossip was put on hold until after hours.

  Ten minutes later she went to her own terminal, read in the current market, hooked into Fox and the newsline. There were only forty minutes left in the trading session; the dollar was up against the major Eurocurrencies and off twenty against the yen. Activity was quiet: ninety-two traders in the pit curcuit and everyone waiting for the 1500 CST release of the latest U.S. Gross National Product report. Connie evened up several accounts and went long dollars for her own account in anticipation that the report would be positive, contrary to expectations. The GNP was up and she made $30,000 before the close of trading.

  After work she went to one of the best restaurants in town, ate alone, had three drinks. She had no desire to get home early. The threatened storm was a reality when she left the restaurant; the lower level of the streetcar was crowded and it was after eleven when she reached home. She got soaked in the half-block from the stop to her door. Harry was not there. She undressed, towelled her hair and got into a robe. His closet was empty, the drawers of his dresser pulled open and bare, only his spare razor in the bathroom. By this time the wind had picked up and the rain rattled the windowpanes. She ran through the house, turning on lights, closing windows, shutting off the lights again.

  The playroom was last. Harry must have been able to get a van on short notice; his computer was gone. The rest of his junk was still there. Maybe he still hoped to come back. The window beside his worktable was open two inches and the rain was blowing in. The light above the bench was dim. She ought to just leave it open, let Harry worry about his own machines, if he worried. She realized suddenly that despite all his concern for them, despite all the time he had for them, he might not care about the machines at all. Well, she couldn’t leave them at that.

  Connie struggled to close the window all the way but someone had jammed it downward crookedly so that it was caught at an angle in the frame and was fighting against itself. It could not be forced closed. She grabbed the handles at the bottom of the frame, bent her knees and pulled. Nothing. She jerked it to break it loose, and though she could feel the strain in her wrists and shoulders, it would not budge. When she let off, the muscles of her arms quivered with weakness. Already her slippers and the bottom of her robe were wet. The tree limbs outside the window raged back and forth in the wind; the rain was a constant drumming on the roof.

  She found a large crescent wrench. Using a short length of pipe as a fulcrum, she levered the wrench under the lower side of the window and leaned all her weight on it. The rain made her hands slick, and her tight grip flushed the blood out of them. She put her shoulders into it and shoved the wrench downward. The window shot up an inch, the wrench slipped, the pipe fell off the sill and hit her foot, and she slipped and fell. A gash in the palm of her hand bled profusely. She got up and pulled the window open, jiggling it when it stuck. The storm was at its height, and the wind and water flew into her face as she crouched to draw the window down again. She gritted her teeth; it was almost a smile. The counterweights squeaked and thumped in the wall until the window was completely closed.

  The rustle of the tree diminished, the drumming of rain on the roof increased. She sat on the floor in her wet robe and sucked the blood from her cut. It was not as bad as she thought.

  DAN SIMMONS

  Carrion Comfort

  Few S
F stories are actually scary, but here’s one that is, an exceptionally taut and suspenseful tale by new writer Dan Simmons, about an elite circle of very old friends and the strange and deadly game they play with living pawns …

  Born in Peoria, Illinois, Dan Simmons now lives in Longmont, Colorado, where he teaches sixth grade in the public school system. He has sold stories to Omni, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, The Twilight Zone Magazine, and The Last Dangerous Visions, and is currently at work on a novel.

  Nina was going to take credit for the death of that Beatle, John. I thought that was in very bad taste. She had her scrapbook laid out on my mahogany coffee table, newspaper clippings neatly arranged in chronological order, the bald statements of death recording all of her Feedings. Nina Drayton’s smile was radiant, but her pale-blue eyes showed no hint of warmth.

  “We should wait for Willi,” I said.

  “Of course, Melanie. You’re right, as always. How silly of me. I know the rules.” Nina stood and began walking around the room, idly touching the furnishings or exclaiming softly over a ceramic statuette or piece of needlepoint. This part of the house had once been a conservatory, but now I used it as my sewing room. Green plants still caught the morning light. The light made it a warm, cozy place in the daytime, but now that winter had come the room was too chilly to use at night. Nor did I like the sense of darkness closing in against all those panes of glass.

  “I love this house,” said Nina.

  She turned and smiled at me. “I can’t tell you how much I look forward to coming back to Charleston. We should hold all of our reunions here.”

  I knew how much Nina loathed this city and this house.

  “Willi would be hurt,” I said. “You know how he likes to show off his place in Beverly Hills—and his new girl friends.”

  “And boyfriends,” Nina said, laughing. Of all the changes and darkenings in Nina, her laugh has been least affected. It was still the husky but childish laugh that I had first heard so long ago. It had drawn me to her then—one lonely, adolescent girl responding to the warmth of another as a moth to a flame. Now it served only to chill me and put me even more on guard. Enough moths had been drawn to Nina’s flame over the many decades.