by A. C. Ellis
He returned to the cabin, weak and shaking. Sitting before the computer console, he watched the lights and dials, the steadily changing numerals—hating them and the reality they represented. He knew it would happen again. During the most beautiful moments in paradise, he would be called back to this. For what? To insure delivery of a cargo of flash-frozen protoplasm to a distant ball of dust.
There was a way to stop the ship from calling him. His training, so many years ago, had included the fluidic circuitry in case repair became necessary. He could easily disconnect the alarm. But Gwen would never forgive him.
But if she did not know—if he could somehow keep it from her.... She could read his mind, but if he could keep it out of his conscious thoughts....
Don't think it, he told himself. Drive it from your mind. Do it but don't think.... Think of Gwen, think of Jason. Make them so real, so vivid, that nothing else can exist in your mind.
Bronson bent to the tool cabinet below the console. He slid the door back, reached in and withdrew a screwdriver. Gwen, naked in the grass... Gwen, soft curves, warm lips.... He stood, began unfastening screws on the front panel of the console.
Gwen, beautifully gross with child... New life kicking inside her body—struggling desperately to be born, without knowing why.... He lifted the cover, set it aside, scanned the interior. Schematics, fluidics, circuits, relays.... No! Don't think it. Do it.
Jason, wet and sticky with bloody after-birth... Jason, hairless yet beautiful.... He reached into the tangle of fluidic connectors, pulled out a small plastic chip: the circuit that controlled the flow to the alarm. Jason at Gwen's breast, sucking hungrily... His hand rolled into a tight little fist, resting on her other breast....
He threw the chip to the floor, ground it beneath his heel. A slight crunching sound.
Finished, he thought. I'm finally free of.... No! I can't think it. Gwen and Jason, mother and child... Life nourishing life... Both becoming a mystic one, and merging with the earth....
He sat in his chair, strapped himself in without thought, inserted the feeder tube. He closed his eyes. Gwen and Jason...
* * *
In paradise....
Tears and gashes filled the sky from horizon to horizon, large rents filled with a blackness that sucked at Bronson's mind. White knifes of lightning sliced through the air around him, accompanied by earth shaking claps of thunder. The wind blew from the forest in hard, cold gusts that threatened to knock him from his feet. It carried the strong, sweet odor of decay. The grass beneath his feet was brown and dry—dead.
He stood beside a bend in the stream. Its flow was almost still. Foamy patches of scum floated on the surface, the water beneath was brackish. Trout lay on the banks, their bodies bloated in death, their eyes bulging milky-white.
"Gwen!" he called, running to the oak. "Gwen, where are you?" There was no answer. Only the harsh cry of the wind.
The oak was dead, leafless, eaten through as if by insects. His bow, arrows and fishing pole lay in the dirt, shattered. He walked around the tree, calling for Gwen and Jason. On the far side of the oak he found them.
Gwen sat with her back against the rotting bole, her skin a sick gray-white pulled tight over protruding facial bones. Her hair stood out in matted patches among wet, infected sores. And her eyes! They were like dull, pitted globes of steel—no whites, no iris, no pupil. Bronson felt their cold metallic stare.
She nursed a misshapen Jason.
Gwen smiled a death's-head grin, then coughed violently. A thick mixture of blood and mucus flowed from her mouth and nose, ran down her chin, splashed over the grotesque child at her breast. The child paid no attention. He continued to feed—savagely, uncaring. He tore with long nails, bit, until blood covered both mother and child.
"Please, Ed," Gwen whispered, her voice a hoarse parody of its former softness. "Remember us as we were."
He tried to push the nightmare image from his mind, to reprogram the computer with his will and bring Gwen and Jason back as they had been before. But there was only one world possible now—a hell that filled him with hate and fear.
With shaking hands he wiped tears from his eyes. He shook his head. The circuit in his brain snapped him back to reality with merciful and brutal finality.
Happy Three Hundredth
— Hot Sands of Passion —
Thrill to a Moon-lit Night on a deserted beach with the Most Beautiful Woman in the World! Feel her Warm Flesh and Soft Caresses! Experience her Animal Savageness and enjoy the overwhelming Titillation as you live a night of Pure Sexual Ecstasy under the stars!
The sign flashed in Patrick's mind in screaming red letters as he approached the cerebral stimulation device's brightly painted cabinet. Within seconds the garish advertisement was replaced by the more subdued thought/words of a legal notice:
— ATTENTION —
This cybernetic device rated X.
No person under thirteen will be permitted to operate this device without written permission of parent or guardian, validated by retinal print. (Violators will be prosecuted.)
—the management
* * *
That notice certainly doesn't apply to me, he thought. He was older than thirteen. In fact, today he was exactly two hundred eighty-seven years older than thirteen. Legally, he had absolutely nothing to fear.
He fumbled in his pockets for his ident card, and another notice entered his thoughts: PLEASE KEEP DESIRED FETISH FIXED FIRMLY IN MIND. Stepping to the machine's pellicle door, he reached up, attempting to place his card in the appropriate slot beside the softly glowing membrane. But his three-foot-six-inch stature made that an impossible feat.
His breath caught in his lungs, and he gasped for air. The device had sat on the corner of Fifteenth and Emerson for almost a year. Today was the first time he had worked up the nerve to visit it.
Unbidden, a series of memories invaded his thoughts. He remembered Margaret—the joy they had shared when they were both young, and the pain he had experienced when she died. He remembered how her copper hair had shined in the sun, how her green eyes sparkled when she laughed.
Tears welled up in his eyes as he remembered a moon-lit night on the beach....
"Hey, kid," came a voice from behind. "What you think you're doin'?" The voice contained a heavy electronic twang.
"What the hell does it look like I'm doing?" Patrick said, sniffing back the tears. Again he stretched for the slot, still not quite reaching it.
"Don't get smart. You make a habit of ignorin' legal notices?" Something in the other's voice told Patrick he had better turn around.
Before him stood a cybernetic cop, its black seven-foot-tall metal body shining in the sunlight.
"No, officer," he said, "I didn't ignore the notice. I am old enough to use the device. I'm a rejuve."
"A rejuve, huh? Let's see that card."
Without protest, Patrick placed his ident card in the cop's outstretched mechanical hand. The cyborg inserted it in a slot in its chest and waited unmoving while it communed silently with the city's coordinating computer far beneath their feet. After several seconds, animation returned to its machine body.
"Mr. O'Brien!" the cop said, surprise somehow evident in its electronic voice. "I didn't recognize you."
"Obviously I should know you, officer," Patrick said, "but..."
"It's me, Mike Shannon."
"Mike? Is that really you?"
"In the flesh, so to speak." Patrick was not sure, but he thought he detected a chuckle in the cyborg's voice.
"How long has it been? Ten years?"
"About that." The cybernetic process was involved; it took that long to do a good job. A cyborg’s entire past must be reconstructed, giving it back its memories. Still, a cyborg lost much. The cop shook its bullet-shaped head.
Of course, Patrick knew it wasn't really Mike Shannon. Shannon was dead. Still, he asked, "How have you been?"
"All things considered, I guess I'm doin' fine. But I really didn't re
cognize you. You really got set back this time, Mr. O'Brien!"
"Yes, I guess I did. It was my birthday present to myself. I was way over due."
Should I ask? Patrick wondered. Was it proper to ask? Unlike rejuviantion, the cybernetic process was relatively new; proper protocol had not yet been established.
"How did it happen?" he finally asked.
"Two thugs tried to knock over the bank on twelfth street," the cop said without emotion. "They were carrying automatic weapons. When I went in to stop it I caught forty-seven slugs."
Patrick grunted in response. He suddenly remembered seeing the story ten years ago on the televid.
"At least the computer let me keep my old beat," the cop said. After death, the computer determined how the dead might best serve society in their afterlife. It measured aptitudes and assessed abilities, then made impartial assignments. Obviously, Mike Shannon was best suited to be a cop. He was one of the luckiest Patrick had ever heard about.
"And as a cyborg," the cop continued, "I'm as immortal as you." It thumped its metal chest with an equally metal hand, and it rang like a gong.
Patrick nodded. The cyborg was immortal, but was it actually alive? It had been dead once, and now it was again animated. But did that animation, coupled with the reconstitution of memories and beliefs, mean real human life?
"How's your wife?" he asked the cop. "Glor, wasn't it? You two still under contract?"
"Yeah," the cop said, "she's doin' fine. You should see her latest rejuve. Not as far back as yours, but still pretty young. Our contract's up for renewal this year, and I'm not sure she wants another ten years. Not with me, anyway. Can't say I blame her."
After a couple seconds of silence, the cop said, "Say, why don't you and the wife drop over for dinner some night. I may not be able to put away the food any more, but that hasn't dulled my table wit."
Patrick shuffled his feet nervously. "Fine," he said. He couldn't bring himself to tell the cop.
There followed several seconds of awkward silence. Finally, the cyborg broke it:
"I've really gotta run, Mr. O'Brien. Take care." It placed Patrick's ident card in the slot beside the pellicle door. "Give my best to your wife. And congratulations on your birthday." It turned and hurried off down the sidewalk.
Patrick stepped through the device's pellicle door, and the membrane gave, parted, then resealed behind him. Again the notice flashed in his thoughts: PLEASE KEEP DESIRED FETISH FIXED FIRMLY IN MIND.
He climbed into the over-sized padded chair, brought the headpiece down from above and adjusted it over his temples. It was not a very good fit—the headpiece was designed to accommodate a head the size and shape of an adult's—but he was sure the device would function. In only a few seconds his senses were awakened to the decive's too-real dream.
He lay on his back beneath a profusion of stars. Cool salt air blew off the surf, seeming to enter through his body's every pore, filling his mind with memories of youth. The grit of sand scratched at his back, and he gazed into the sparkling green eyes of the girl above him as she straddled his naked body just below the waist, sitting back on him and bucking madly, laughing. Her copper hair shined in the moonlight and her laughter was like music—light and lilting, mixing pleasantly with the soft shush of the waves as they lapped at the nearby beach.
He called her name, "Margarett," then cringed inside, waiting for the answer he dreaded. She had been with so many men in the past year. So many men.
But the girl did not respond. She continued to buck against his loins, continued to laugh, and Patrick breathed a sigh of relief.
Thank God! he thought. She was not alive. She was....
Suddenly, Margarett's soft thought seeped through the flood of erotic imagery: Happy three hundredth, Patrick, dear.
Termination Orbit
Subspace—000:00:000
Grayness. But not grayness. Non-color—not white, not black. A total dun negation of shadow and light.
No shape. An infinite, tedious expanse of featureless nothing. Absolutely no sensory stimuli.
No time. No thought.
Breakthrough—000:00:001
A fire-burst of stars.
Awakening—000:01:231
Slowly, memories crept around the edges of his mind. He felt them building just outside his perception, waiting to enter his consciousness, to initiate thought. They came in flashes and, sometimes, staccato bursts. Some floated in like soft, billowing clouds. Others entered with the cutting edge of surgical knives.
NAME: RAYNE, JOSEPH C.
RANK: COMMANDER, DEEP SPACE SURVEY UNIT
SERVICE DESIGNATION: XDSP 26
The memory was painful. It contained some soft elements, yet the basic tone was hard and cold, and the computer information overshadowed the more human quality of his identity. The memory forced its way in and filed itself; Rayne had absolutely nothing to do with the process.
Joseph Rayne was designated XDSP 26. Equipped with space/subspace interface circuits and highly sophisticated survey and analysis lobes, he was the twenty-sixth number in the latest series of experimental deep space probes. And he was entirely a creature of deep space.
Rayne’s was a sleek cylinder of ultra-strong alloy, perfectly shaped to gather, process and transmit back to Earth data on the physics of space. His heart was a small nuclear reactor. His senses were high-resolution television cameras, infrared scanners, x-ray and neutrino counters, multi-band radio receivers and a myriad of other electro-chemical detectors. The sensory stimuli by which he perceived the universe were the ejected refuse of a billion billion stars—some ancient beyond time, others in the womb-throes of fiery birth.
But these were not the elements for which he longed. He wished to be on a planet almost ten kiloparsecs distant, a world from which he was eternally banned. Never again would he feel Earth's cool breeze on his face, taste her salty sea spray. Forever gone were the silent nights on the beach, the orange and yellow sunrises.
Another memory slashed into his mind:
OPERATIONAL ORDERS: XDSP 26 CONFIDENTIAL TELE COMM BROADCAST
SECURITY: TIGHT BEAM ALPHA PRIORITY
TRANSMISSION TIME: 060301Z FEB 2123
FROM: COMMDR IN CHIEF, DEEP SPACE SURVEY FLEET
TO: XDSP 26
1. DEPART LUNAR ORBIT B-43 080015Z FEB 2123. CHECK OUT ALL SURVEY AND ANALYSIS SYSTEMS AND PROCEED VIA VECTOR 594 TO ARRIVE INTERFACE STAGING AREA 3 APPROX 100015Z FEB. 2123
2. UPON ARRIVAL STAGING AREA 3, CONDUCT SPACE/SUBSPACE INTERFACE TRANSIT. TIGHT BEAM ALPHA TELE©COMM BROADCAST TO SUBSPACE NAVIGATIONAL COMPUTER WILL FOLLOW THIS TRANSMISSION.
3. UPON SUBSPACE/SPACE INTERFACE TRANSIT, CONDUCT SURVEY OF X-RAY SOURCE CYGNUS X-3. INITIATE PSI-COMM LINK NO LATER THAN 5 SECONDS EARTH STANDARD AFTER INTERFACE TRANSIT. REMAIN IN OPERATIONAL VICINITY CYGNUS X-3 APPROX 5 HOURS EARTH STANDARD.
4. UPON ELAPSE OF OPERATIONAL TIME, ACTIVATE SUBSPACE NAVIGATIONAL COMPUTER AND CONDUCT SPACE/SUBSPACE INTERFACE TRANSIT.
5. UPON SUBSPACE/SPACE INTERFACE TRANSIT, DEPART INTERFACE STAGING AREA 3 VIA VECTOR 873 TO ARRIVE LUNAR ORBIT B-43.
6. AWAIT DOWN-SYSTEMS DEBRIEFING.
Observation—000:03:715
X-ray source Cygnus X-3. The Raster scan of Rayne's television eye raced across the synthetic synapse, projecting the image directly into his visual cortex. The binary star system loomed monstrous in his mind. The visible component of the pair was a blue supergiant, spectral class B0-Ib. Its mass was thirty times that of Earth's sun.
But it was the invisible companion, the dark sister, that interested the Survey Fleet and had brought Rayne so far from Earth. It could be detected only by its efforts on the gaseous star. A black hole, the object was the dominant component of the system, sucking the material of the visible star into a rotating disk of ionized plasma. The violence of transfer and the shredding action heated up the atoms being drawn out of the visible star until they emitted x-rays near the black hole. Thus had the black hole in Cygnus X-3 indirectly rev
ealed its presence to Earth.
Rayne gave a short burst on his compressed CO2 jets, placing himself in orbit around the system. The orbit contained as small a decay factor as possible, but it was still high risk; the black hole's gravity well forced a gradual spiral inward. He would have to watch the rate of decay closely, correcting the orbit when necessary.
Information flooded into his mind from his sensors. Radio level: 0.131 flux units. X-ray count: 85,000 counts per second. System periodicity: 4.8 hours. Black hole mass: ten times solar. Black hole density: 1016 grams per cubic centimeter. Black hole diameter: 14.7 kilometers. The figures and parameters flowed endlessly.
Transmission—000:04:950
Rayne initiated psi-comm link. "Katherine," he thought.
"I am here, Joseph." The thought was like a whisper in his mind, like the rustle of dry leaves in the wind. "Ready to receive."
He began transmitting the information as fast as it entered his mind. This process, too, was automatic. It required no conscious thought.
memory
Nude, he climbed a low dune, turned and looked back the way he had come. To his left the ocean, its waves lapping gently at the beach, taking the white sand slowly back into itself. To his right nothing but sand, low dunes like the one on which he stood.
He slid down the dune to the water's edge and looked out to sea. A cloudless sky met the water out there, somewhere. He could not tell where the horizon line was; sea and sky blended perfectly. There was no sound but the whisper of the clean salt breeze blowing off the ocean and the gentle hiss of the waves.
Again he looked the way he had come. In the distance, following his meandering footprints, someone approached. There was something familiar about the other's slow, almost aimless walk.
As the figure drew near its shape rounded, softened. It was a woman—she too was nude. A small figure, lithe, almost boyish. Short brown hair cut in a shag, piercing green eyes. She carried a large basket
"Katherine," he said, almost a whisper.