“But I thought the psypyx wasn't invented until long after the Great Assimilation,” Paxa said.
“Oh, it's a great story. At the time of the Great Assimilation these Baluchis were all boys, none over the age of twelve. They were supposed to be scattered for re-education, but bureaucrats messed up, as bureaucrats will, for good or ill, and they were all sent to the same boarding school in Methane City, on Titan. They were clever enough to hide their connection. They stayed in touch, grew up, and covertly tracked down Baluchi women to marry. They contrived to stay near each other for almost eighty stanyears, and no one knew. They were all still alive to volunteer as test subjects for the first psypyx project, probably hoping to get new bodies to continue to hide in.
“That's what seven very clever aintellects and I have unraveled. And sure enough, all the psypyxes are still there in storage, four hundred sixty stanyears later! Now all we have to do is find the right volunteer hosts, and we can talk to someone from a pre-Assimilation culture—nine someones from the same pre-Assimilation culture—can you imagine? We even have their DNA! We can download them onto new bodies and send them off to start New Baluchistan. It's the biggest discovery since they found those three Mixtec children still alive in suspended animation in Luna City, almost a hundred stanyears ago. Gratz'deu I'm healthy and I'll get to see the project begin.” She rose. “This city gets damp and chill at night, at least for bones this old. Shall we have a little fire before you go?"
For me, Mother's fireplace always merged that tiny, crowded apartment into campfires long ago. My family had camped and packed often, and I had always been encouraged to bring friends. Almost, I could feel Bieris and Aimeric beside me round the fire, sitting as quietly as Mother and Dad and I. Almost, I felt the urge to throttle Marcabru, who was never good at being quiet and just sitting and enjoying. I was feeling so nostalgic I almost wished Marcabru were there to not throttle (or maybe to throttle just this once).
“Fifty stanyears,” Mother said. “More than four of our Wilson-years. I'm glad I've known you that long."
We sat by the fire silently for a long time, just enjoying being together. As the fire burned low and we poured the last of the wine, Mother said, “In a way, being UT fits with my sense of irony. All my life has been dedicated to interpreting difficult, ancient records, and whenever I finally die, I'm going to be a difficult, ancient record myself. I have faith that someone will find it interesting enough to retrieve me. If not, I leave my chemicals to the environment, my ideas to the noosphere, and my genes to the species."
“Your ideas are going to live a very long time,” Paxa said. “I heard the name Leones at university, a decade before I associated it with a balding satyr's beautiful voice.” She patted my leg and leaned on my shoulder. “You did all right with where you put your genes, too."
“Ooh,” Mother said, laughing, “I've just gotten the biggest opportunity in history to ask my son when I'm going to have grandchildren, and didn't. I hope there's room on some wall for a Perfect Mother Award."
Walking home, Paxa and I held hands and said nothing for a long while. “She didn't mention Dad at all,” I said. “I had a letter from her just the day before the concert and she was still obsessed with Dad then. But it wasn't like she was avoiding the topic, either. So something is up, and Mother isn't telling me what.” Another thought came to mind, and I held Paxa's hand just a little more firmly, and spoke very softly. “Paxa, either of us might be killed any time. How do you feel about getting a new body?"
“Morbid, my darling."
“You feel—"
“Your question was morbid."
“I'm sorry, midons.” I said. “I was noticing how graceful you are with your present body, and thinking how unhappy you'll be inside some grotesque obese creature like poor Dji is—"
Dji had been killed by a secret terrorist organization from his home culture of Pure, just last year, and while the medics grew a new body for him and brought it up to four years old, he was busy building the Chandreseki synthetic bonds he would need to run it. The trouble was, he was building them “in the head of a forty-year-old virgin who never went past her front door since she left school at ten, and whose hobbies include eating, masturbating, and masturbating while eating, all while plugged into VR,” as the very unhappy Dji had put it, writing to us while his host was asleep.
Dji had been a section chief for the OSP since about the time Shan had been. Nowadays he lived for the moments when his host fell asleep, so that he could write to his friends, or jog her body up and down the stairs (which she allowed provided that he took a shower when he was done, and had her clean and dry before it was time for her to be awake and eating again).
“Midons,” I said, “The idea of ending up like Dji makes me so nervous that I am hardly willing to be killed at all."
She swung my hand playfully, letting her steps turn almost into skips. “Oh, but Giraut, just imagine hitting puberty again!"
“Can we wait to discuss such terrifying ideas till we're in bright light?"
“Everyone says that, and I'm sure it's no fun to have your body going chemically berserk and your mind being dragged along on waves of hormones,” she said, “but you know, going through puberty a second time, with an adult mind in the body, knowing that this isn't going to go on forever, with your trust fund intact, adult patience, an adult grasp of consequences—I plan to go from eleven to nineteen, all my growth years, working out like crazy, getting my muscles, CV system, fine motor control and all into the sweetest perfect tune—and not fretting about how late my breasts grow in, or the pimples on my forehead. Because I'll know I'm going to come out of the process extremely good-looking.” She did a little lindy-turn under my arm and struck a pose beneath a streetlight. “That was ironic posturing, you know, pretending to be extremely conceited."
“I know.” I took her other hand, and we stood face to face. “And you are. Extremely."
“Good-looking or conceited?"
“Yes."
She tickled me, so I had to try to tickle back, but she broke and ran. When I finally caught her belt after two blocks of mad pursuit, she said “Truce!"
“Typical diplomat. Now she wants a truce."
“Did you skip that part in training, Giraut, or were you just a little slow?"
I kissed her, long and slowly and tenderly. “All right,” I said, “I'm sorry I got so serious."
She pressed her face to my chest. “No, don't be. Can we be serious for just a second? Did you ever worry about the fact that some forms of UT are hereditary?"
I shrugged. “I didn't know Mother was UT till after I was typed so I could wear Raimbaut's psypyx, the second time. So I already knew I was G-8."
She sighed. “Tomorrow while you're recording, I'll be recorded. My first new psypyx since they developed typing. And I'm going to pay extra and get typed, too. I know it's expensive, I know they can do it just as well after I'm dead, I know it doesn't make any difference while I'm alive, but I want to settle the question."
“As you wish, midons."
“I love the way you say midons. I love being called that."
She took my hand again. We stood just where the street began a steep dive to the front door of our rented house by the waterfront. No words, just her hand in mine. A few diamond stars shone in their ruby settings, out over Totzmare, and the waves out beyond the black rooftops glinted like dark blood.
At the steps to the house, I said, “You know, he doesn't say anything about it, but I think Dad is just as sad as Mother is about her being UT. They had agreed decades before he died that the survivor would record-and-restart so they'd stay the same age."
“That's a lot of love, to decide to try to share another lifetime."
“It probably warped me permanently that my parents were the two most in-love people I have ever known."
“I'm getting tested tomorrow,” she said. “Not just recorded. Tested too. For sure."
“All right."
Her grip o
n my hand tightened. “Giraut?"
“Midons?"
“One of my sisters, and my mother, are UT. I'm really scared."
In my earlier days I had not been a morning person. Something about the artistic temperament, whether it is a preference for the sort of drama that looks best in chiaroscuro, a fear of excess sanity and stability from too much sleep, or a passion to be unemployable in any regular job, drives the developing artist away from the morning and into the night. But later in life, like many artists, I came to love mornings when the poseurs and mere bohemians are still passed out, the light is clearer, the brain is empty of slights and errands, hormones are as in balance as they will ever be, and everybody—most of all one's own nervous system—shuts up.
This morning was one of the best. I had a solid group of long-time studio musicians, and though some of them could certainly drink and talk and stay up late, they all cared more about the music in themselves than about their being in music.
I had really only intended this first day to be one of introducing the new stuff, but people got it quickly, and it turned into a long, happy jam session. We worked till late afternoon; I chose to walk the two kilometers home, to clear my mind and get mentally away from work.
I had concentrated so much all day on my memories of Yaxkintulum, with its welding-arc point of a sun, angular scribble of inscription-covered walls around broad echoing plazas, ferocious gravity and heat, and deep indigo sky, that I drank in every moist molecule of the gentle classic curves of Noupeitau, under low glowing pink nimbus, with a gentle drizzle falling.
Soggy from that walk, I stripped off my clothes into the chamberlain's hamper, told it to clean and press them, put on a robe, and went upstairs.
The sight of Paxa curled on the bed, hugging her knees to her chest, could not have hurt more if she had been dead.
I sat down next to her, my back just touching hers, and brushed her cheek with my fingers. “You're UT?"
She stayed rigid. “Yes."
I rested one hand lightly on her neck, palm pressing just enough to let her know I was there, fingers stroking her jaw through her soft gold-blonde hair. The last daylight stole away from the high windows far above the bed. The noise of the street segued from people going home, into a late-tea and visiting-with-family lull, and then into the noisy chaos of people going out for cabaret and late supper.
I sat beside Paxa, or held her, or just kept a hand on her shoulder or back, shifting position now and then. Sometimes she would squeeze my hand, or pull it around to rub her face on it. Darkness wrapped us.
She was holding my left hand tightly in both of hers. It had been playing all day and was tired and sore, but I didn't protest.
I felt her soft moist exhalation against my palm and fingertips. “I've already sent Margaret my resignation from the OSP, with a note explaining why. No more avoidable danger for me, and I was never a ‘brain’ agent—all I'm good at is kicking down doors, blowing things up, and jumping off roofs.” She squeezed my hand. “I'm going to miss you so."
“We don't have to—"
“Are you going to leave the OSP, Giraut? I can't imagine that. And I can't stay in it. My things are already packed, and I'll be springing back to Hedonia in just a few hours.
“When I get there, I'll be going into accelerated grieving; I'm not going to spend four stanyears being depressed, the way I did after Piranesi died. I don't have the time to spend. But I will keep my new psypyx; whenever they can revive me, even if it's not till the end of next century, I want to remember my time with you.” She looked up at me; in the dark I could not make out her expression. “Now, we are both naked, and I think we should make love, and cuddle and reminisce, before I go. After that I think it will only be harder if we com each other or write. Promise me something?"
“Anything, midons."
“Promise me you'll praise the household robots and aintellects often, and not punish them harshly, especially not for honest mistakes. They're all so afraid to be left alone with you."
I opened my mouth to object and she grabbed my head and kissed me. I decided that I had promised.
Three hours later, Paxa's soft cheek brushed against mine, her scented hair gliding over my bare shoulder. She kissed me, firmly, and walked into the gray glow.
The springer field turned off; I stood facing a black metal plate on the wall.
On my way back to bed, I asked my personal-manager aintellect to notify the musicians that tomorrow's sessions were cancelled, and made sure I thanked it.
The bed still smelled of Paxa. I told the robots to change the bed and clean everything. I thanked them, too. Perhaps this could just become a meaningless habit.
I ordered coffee in the bathroom, showered, shaved, and dressed. I would take a brisk walk through the sleeping city, to the studio, and throw myself into the absorbing job of mixing and arranging.
The com chimed and announced that Margaret wanted to talk with me. “I'll take it in the main room,” I said, trotting down the stairs. “Uh, thank you."
My ex-wife's face, several times life size, waited for me on one wall.
“Margaret."
“Giraut, I had to know if you were all right."
“As all right as I can—” For some reason, I suddenly couldn't breathe. I was drenching my face with tears. Really, I hadn't thought ... I just needed to ask Margaret for a moment to compose myself, that was it. I rubbed my face hard with the heels of my hands and looked up at the screen.
Margaret had hung up.
The bedroom springer whistled—override emergency entry; someone outside the house had taken command of it. I had lunged halfway across the room toward my nearest weapons cache before I heard Margaret heaving and gagging. Noble intentions had not excused her from springer sickness.
I grabbed two towels from the rack in the bathroom and went up. She accepted a towel and scoured at her face as I mopped mine.
After another deep breath, she hugged me. “Rank hath its privilege,” she said. “I was worried about you and I decided that it was worth the taxpayers paying very-short-notice prices, for enough energy to melt a small mountain, so I could spring here."
“There's not much you can do,” I said. “She's gone. And I have to admit her reasons make sense."
“There's not much I can do, but there's something I owe you, and if I don't give it to you now, I'll never have the nerve. I remember how betrayed you felt when you learned about the secrets Shan and I kept from you. I have kept one small secret, and now I can tell you, and I feel you have the right to say I was wrong."
My blood froze. When we had been married, Shan had used Margaret's affair with a politically unreliable co-worker to spy on opposition groups on Briand, and of course neither of them had told me. Margaret knew me well enough to know that the mere mention of secrets, kept by her—or by my boss, which she was—would be terrifying. “Tell me,” I said.
“I knew this day was coming,” Margaret said quietly, “for ten stanyears. Agents don't know their mind-body type unless they ask for it and pay for it. But we always do; we have access and whenever an agent records, we type them. And we save a backup, concealed from the agent, of every psypyx recording. We started doing that when we lost Piranesi and Shan, both, permanently. So I knew she was UT, Giraut."
I stared at her. “And you didn't tell her?"
“Would it have made a difference?"
“Well, of course,” I said, losing my temper. “She would never have spent the last fifteen stanyears with me, doing all this wild, dangerous OSP stuff."
“And that would have been good? Would you really rather she hadn't? Would she? You know she decided to keep the memory."
“She has a name."
“Yes, Paxa does. I'm sorry if I don't say it often enough for you. Don't avoid my question. Would you have been better off without her love and company? Would she have been better off sitting on the beach in Hedonia, playing very safe sports? Would you like to have missed each other, or do you w
ish that right now you were sitting down to a game of gin rummy with her? Tell me you'd rather have any of that happen, and go ahead and hate me if you want. But I couldn't ask your permission, and I knew and had worked with both of you, so I picked the pathway I thought would give you both a chance for some happiness, which god knows you were both entitled to. So I kept my mouth shut about Paxa's condition. That's the secret I kept from you, hate me for it or not, and that's why."
I stared at Margaret. There are times when it's impossible to argue with my ex-wife. “I—all right, it worked out. But you couldn't know—no one could—that it would work out."
Margaret shrugged but her eyes stayed locked with mine. “You have just defined what I hate about my job, but that is my job. I know you always thought I was jealous of her.” She got the kind of odd little smile people get at a funeral when they think of a funny story about the dead person. “All right. I was. Even though I knew how foolish that was. But I also knew you two were good for each other, and that was more important, so as long as Paxa wasn't looking at her psypyx recordings, I figured that was a vote for not knowing—and I didn't tell her, or anyone."
“And you are telling me now because—"
She wavered, just a little. “Because now it cannot cost you the best thing in your life anymore. Because now that the secret is out, you're entitled to know everything. Because you have a right to know, and to confront me and be angry about it, if you want. Here I am, scream at me and spit in my face if that's what you feel like. But—all those stanyears ago, I thought you had a right to some happiness with Paxa. So, then. You did have those fifteen stanyears. One, I'm glad you had them. Two, I'm so glad you didn't find out because Paxa got killed, because this way was bad enough. And three, whether or not you ever thank me, you're welcome to those years with Paxa."
She turned to shove her crash card into the springer, to return to her office on Earth. Before she could, I said, “Thank you. You're right."
I had had fifteen stanyears of mostly joys, ending in one bitter grief; the grief could have come at any time, or could have waited longer, and would not have been easier, or harder, to bear if I had known it was coming.
Analog SFF, November 2005 Page 14