We locked the cart to a metal stanchion. There I said goodbye to Louca.
"Goodbye, Louca."
"Wait, Ari. What are you going to do tonight?"
"I do not know. Maybe I will get a drink."
She did not laugh or crack a smile at my joke. “Oh. Okay, Ari. I'm going to eat a rabbit. Bye!” She lifted her arms, let out a piercing cry, and bolted down an alley between stalls.
I traveled the triple tori, a trip of six hours—approximately thirty kilometers. Each contained a different atmosphere, but this presented little challenge to me; I can pretend to swim as easily as pretend to walk. The satellite's population was by turns elegantly menacing, sleekly torsional, gelatinously disgusting. Four of the species I recognized from sales earlier in the day. Free of containment suits, they were no prettier.
It happened while I was watching diners from under a restaurant awning in the main torus. The establishment catered to what I thought of as Sfari's native species, the one most represented in the satellite: a crow-billed, green bipedal people. I recognized one from a delivery earlier. He/She/It and several others stood on long, thin legs around a high circular table.
On its top a projected woman danced.
A human soul, the first I had ever seen.
I stared at her naked body, unable to look away. She was beautiful, muscular thighs and arms bangled in silver and gold. She made me ache in a way unrelated to physiology. I have no organs, no bones, yet I swear I felt the sparse molecules of my being shudder collectively.
I had seen real women, ages ago, another lifetime ago. I have made love to many more in virtual life, but this was something else—the essence of a woman, the essence of her dancing, not hips gyrating but the idea of hips, and breasts, the idea and memory of real sex . . .
Suddenly, she looked up, stared at me as though she had felt my eyes on her.
My reaction was swift—almost as if I had been planning to run, had known it was going to happen—as if my ghost muscles held the memory of flight. I condensed myself into a tight ball and rocketed away, but not before I saw the fear in her eyes. More than likely, she would be taken somewhere to be displayed, never to see another of her kind.
Somehow, she knew.
* * * *
We left, and I immersed myself in the best sort of lives, full of danger and sex, but they went sour. I flitted from one to the next, unable to find comfort.
I was followed.
On Crete in the fourth century bc, a young girl with golden eyes stood always on the periphery of public markets, watching me. When I walked toward her, she turned and fled, disappearing into the crowd.
On Barsoom, the ghost of a garroted princess floated under the surface of my villa lake, only seen from the corners of my eyes. The long strands of her purple hair became weeds that drifted under the hull, just out of reach.
In my dressing room at the Ole Opry in 1937, I kept finding items I had not left: a hairbrush, a compact, a crushed package of women's cigarettes. When I went on stage, my knees shook and sweat stained my underarms. Every woman I brought to my dressing room said the same thing: “Not tonight. I don't feel right tonight."
As Odysseus, I was haunted by visions of Penelope being ravaged by a crow-headed god. I woke in the night clutching my furs, hands and forearms cramped. My grip became weaker and weaker until I could no longer hold a weapon.
I could not forget the image of the woman, dancing—her eyes meeting mine.
I spent more and more time out of simulation, watching old movies and reading novels I have read many times. From time to time I watched Louca in the view screen, her twin lava-red exhausts lashing like tails from side to side, warping space in ways incomprehensible to me. I meditated. Oddly, the discontent focused me. I felt a control over my form I had never known. I changed form faster. My edge became sharper, my point harder.
I became a better knife.
* * * *
"You're different this time, Ari,” Louca told me after we finished the deliveries. “I'm going to stay with you tonight."
Ten years we had traveled to reach Jejuno, a hazy, city-covered planet. Due to its triple suns, the world never became dark, just a greater shade of grey. We delivered seventy-three souls without incident the first day. The people of Jejuno, bipedal oxygen-breathers—to my eyes the unfortunate mating of toads and civets—stared at Louca and me in open curiosity, but never opened their mouths to speak.
She wore the body of a redheaded boy. It was a coincidence that he resembled the woman I had seen above Sfari. Surely it was. Nonetheless, her appearance unnerved me.
"I am no different, Louca. Enjoy your evening."
But she insisted on coming with me. She talked nonstop as we walked at the bottom of a canyon of skyscrapers, along maze-like alleys winding through tent cities at the buildings’ feet. Nowhere was there a road wide enough for a vehicle. Above us, however, powerful aircraft boomed, snapping the canvas tent walls and blowing trash at our feet.
She sneered. “It smells, Ari. Smells bad.” She draped a piece of purple cloth over her forearm. “Do you like this color on me, Ari?” She made me stop to watch a puppet show at the intersection of two alleys. We were watched as much as the show. “These people, Ari. They're weird.” She stepped in a pile of dung or rotted trash. “Shit, Ari! What is this, shit?"
At the largest intersection we had yet seen, she licked her index finger and held it in the air. “Right, Ari—definitely right."
The avenue opened up. In a few kilometers it had become a major thoroughfare of six lanes, along which segmented commuter buses puffed grey smoke from multiple rooftop exhausts. Motorcycles, two and three wheeled, weaved around the larger vehicles, wasp-engines piercingly loud.
A median separated the two lanes, widened into a park of high deciduous trees. We crossed a bridge over the road and onto a path leading inward. Instead of becoming darker, the sky grew lighter. The shadows of the trees stretched behind us, fanning out to each side and, shortly, we entered a clearing where an artificial sun shone above the tree line. Children, the first we had seen, climbed on a series of large, colorful cages.
"We should sit, Ari. Talk.” Louca sat cross-legged and patted the matted green vegetation.
I sat. I did not look into her eyes. I remembered the near-sexual reaction I had had to the dancing woman's soul. Discussing it with Louca—especially as she was, in a body that resembled the woman—was impossible.
"Louca, there is nothing to talk about. Everything is fine."
"I know you're lying.” She closed her eyes, stretched her arms as if they were wings. “How do I know? A hawk knows these things. We can see deep into the hearts of everyone, see fear and pain and desire. All of it. And you, Ari.” Her right eye popped open, fixed on me. “You're radiating guilt. A lot of guilt."
"What do I have to feel guilty about, Louca?"
She closed her eye again. She reached her hands out as if they were claws, grasping, and plucked an invisible thing from the air. “Ha! I've got it!” She cupped whatever it was in her hands, held it up to her ear, and shook it. Grinned. “It's something to do with a woman, Ari.” Both eyes popped open and met mine. The grin disappeared. “You hurt someone. Oh, Ari, you hurt a woman."
For a moment it felt as if I had a heart—as if something inside me had misfired. But Louca could not have known about the woman, and I calmed as I thought it through. Maybe I had hurt her. There are a thousand small and unpredictable ways to offend an unbalanced mind.
"I am sorry if I hurt your feelings, Louca. Whatever I have done, I apologize."
She laughed and closed her eyes again. “Ari, Ari, Ari. You're an idiot, but I still love you."
I waited, but she would not speak again. Clearly, I was correct: I had done something to offend her. After several minutes of waiting, it also became clear that she wanted to be alone, and so I stood up to go. Louca could find her way to the shuttle; she always did.
When I looked back from the treeline, she sat
in the same position, listening to the secret in her hands.
* * * *
My employer's name was Slaf'Salakem. I thought of it as a he, but I am not sure this is correct. In appearance, he was a two and one half-meter high blue-green reptile, proportions roughly those of a man. His smooth-scaled body shone iridescently. When he smiled, blood red gums retracted from long black dagger teeth, and all four sinewy limbs ended in sickle-shaped claws.
His replacement, whom I also think of as male, is only broadly similar—reptilian surely, but large muscled and slow, peg-toothed. Still, I think they are the same species. I would rather picture one annihilating race than several.
I write this and it sounds ridiculous, as if I still have hope.
And if my description of them seems comical, somewhat cartoonish, then I have failed to describe them properly. Beyond their general appearance, I know almost nothing about the race that destroyed Earth. Overall, I found that I was not curious—that I did not want to know. How could a man cope with the loss of an entire planet, everything he has ever known?
Knowing our destroyers will not make the tragedy easier to handle.
After freeing me from the prison of my projection cube, Slaf'Salakem had told me what his people had done, what I was, and what I was to do.
In perfect English, he told me, “Your chief value is predictability, Arihant. You will do as you are told. Never forget that you are my pet."
He introduced me to Louca—in suspended animation, wearing the body I assume she had lived in on Earth—and seemed to speak with a touch of affection. “She is crazy. She tried to bite me, can you believe? Of course, I will remove that memory. But the craziness—I will not remove the craziness. I would have her no other way.” He ran a clawed hand over her face. “She needs to be quick and strong. We have cargo others envy."
He glanced at me. “Report anything unusual—anything—to me. Initially, you will travel known, generally safe routes. You will become used to routine, and what constitutes a problem. I want to know if she becomes unstable. Tell me you understand."
"I understand,” I said.
There were so many questions I did not ask. Once, I had a family. I might have attempted to free them. I did not even try. Then, I was simply grateful to be free.
My only questions were, “Why have us do this? Why not one of your own people?"
My new employer had shown me the first of his rare smiles. “My people are too self-centered; good conquerors and bad nurturers. Other species we have tried on occasion, but the situation is much the same. No one wants to lose decades traveling the void. Though we paid well, we could not guarantee delivery. Too many factors in deep space. Sometimes violence is called for. Through eons of trial and error, we have found that no one protects the souls of the dead better than their own people."
* * * *
We delivered seven souls the next day. Louca was quiet and spoke nothing of our interaction the previous evening. I was happy to let it rest. I had thought about my conduct and was unable to fathom what I had done to offend her. It embarrasses me to admit, but I also considered briefly the possibility that Louca had in fact read my mind and seen the dancing woman.
Before we stepped into the shuttle—nearly home without incident—she reached out to grab my arm.
"Ari,” she said, and frowned as her hand passed through my shoulder. It had been a while since she had tried to touch me. “Ari,” she repeated, eyes wide, moving her hand back and forth in my chest. “Why, you're a ghost!"
She was forgetful. I looked down at her arm, cut off at the wrist. “You are right, Louca.” I turned to enter the shuttle, but she closed her fist inside me—and I felt yet another new sensation, almost like being unable to breathe. I found that I could not move forward, so I turned back to her.
"No, Ari,” she said. “You're a ghost right now, but you don't always have to be a ghost. Nobody has to be a ghost. A ghost is a person with no reason to live. A hawk with clipped wings. Oh! You know what I think? I think you need to fill in your body, grow some flight feathers."
Her eyes widened. She grinned. “No. Even better, Ari. You need to find the man who clipped your wings. Clip his wings right back."
* * * *
Eight years of dissatisfying lives—focused only through the lens of my knife meditation and the reoccurring vision of the dancing woman—passed before we touched down again.
Eight years, so easily glossed over, yet to do so is a denial of the truth, which is that the enjoyment I once took in simulated living had soured completely. Outside the simulation, I became increasingly aware of my own body. I itched—or remembered itching so vividly it seemed that I itched—and I felt hunger.
Eight years, so easily glossed over.
The planet Gratte was covered by a shallow aquamarine ocean spotted with innumerable brown islands. Louca met me in the shuttle bay, wearing the body of an Egyptian goddess, statuesque and sun-browned, hawk-headed, seven and a half feet tall.
She waved fingertips in my chest and said, “You're still you, Ari. A ghost.” Her hooked beak did not move when she spoke. I wondered if her breath smelled of meat, of rotted fish.
"And you are still you, Louca,” I answered. “A raptor."
One great amber eye winked.
We descended in a jacket of flame, in silence. Hammo, a walled city of dried brown clay bricks, was uninteresting, as were its people, walking on eight legs, clacking their claws and mouthparts unceasingly. The sound was maddening. After twelve deliveries—three of which oddly were pairs—the particles of my body felt jumbled. I doubted my control over them, as if my form were wavering in the hot sun.
Louca disappeared silently just after the final delivery, off to her pleasures. I climbed the wall of the city and dropped to the beach below. The clacking of claws and mouthparts died away, and I began to relax.
Lines of electric white writhed on smooth rocks below crystalline water. The sea extended to the horizon before me, broken only by humped bodies of islands too numerous to count. Close to shore, small fish and invertebrates flitted from rock to rock. A school of paddle-finned insects the size of sea turtles swam slowly just below the surface several meters out, feeding on something I could not see.
As I watched, a dark shape detached itself from a distant rock and arrowed through the water toward me. The school of insects parted, but not quickly enough. Without slowing, the dark shape's arms darted, impaling one, two, three. Yellow gore trailed in its wake.
I waited.
He rose from the water. His body glistened. Small black eyes, set deep in an angular skull, regarded me for a moment and looked away, uninterested. He held one fist closed, slender tendrils of yellow ichor dripping from it.
"Hello, Slaf'Salakem,” I said.
I was not surprised to see him; I half suspected he would be there. I had become used to meeting him on water planets. Slaf'Salakem enjoyed one thing above all else: Hunting. It was the only personal information he shared with me. During our meetings, he made displays of skill and talked of killing. I had once confessed to him my own love for hunting, though his proclivities were vastly different from mine. He never bagged his kill. Many times I witnessed him moving on without pausing to examine what he had killed.
The first time I witnessed this behavior was also the first time I remember wanting to kill Slaf'Salakem. I began trying to become a knife soon after.
"Three pairs today, Arihant,” Slaf'Salakem said. “That should please you."
It took me a moment to understand that he was referring to the deliveries. “Why would that please me?” I asked.
He shrugged. “They are your people.” He flicked a piece of viscera from his arm. “It is better for them not to be alone, no? Your people are very communal, if I remember correctly. Very poor survival strategy in the long run."
This was the other type of conversation I had with Slaf'Salakem. I believe he wanted to incite a reaction from me. This had always seemed the underlying purpose of ou
r meetings—to anger me, belittle my people. Of course, now I know the truth: He was trying to keep my spirit under his heel, so that I would never consider betrayal.
"It is?” I asked.
"It is. And complicating for business. I find myself wondering if selling a pair of human souls is better for our long-term plans than selling just one. Pain is often more compelling than joy, in my experience—and usually more salable."
His eyes met mine and flicked away again. “Then again, it is possible that this is the wrong tack, as well. Perhaps I should simply raise the price of pairs, market them like one does a breeding pair. What do you think, Arihant?"
I looked away. “How was your hunt?"
He sighed. “Too easy.” He raised the closed fist to his face and opened it. A translucent blue globe sat within. It went into his mouth whole—a flash of blood red gums and ebony teeth. “Mm. Easy, but quite delicious. There is no way to tell the difference between male and female separr, and there are far fewer females than males. One must kill a dozen or so animals before finding an ovary."
* * * *
I did not kill Slaf'Salakem that day, though I wanted to, but the anger had not focused me into a weapon. While he talked of killing, a wave of nausea I could not explain passed through me. With no stomach, no organs to speak of, nausea is surely impossible. Yet I felt it, the urge to vomit. I feared that if I did my body would fly apart and I would be unable to piece myself together again.
To keep from doing so, I fantasized about smothering Slaf'Salakem in a cloud, asphyxiating him. Thankfully, before I lost control completely, he grew bored with our interaction and dived back into the water, taking my nausea with him. Powerful strokes soon took him out of sight.
I thought then that my plan was foolishness. I could not kill Slaf'Salakem. I had been a fool to think I could, had overestimated my courage and control.
I turned my back on the sea. On the wall of the city above me stood Louca.
I held up a hand in greeting, but she did not respond. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon. Curious, I waited for a reaction, some hint at her purpose.
Asimov's SF, August 2011 Page 14