Clarkesworld: Year Seven

by Neil Clarke

  I love them, their ceremonies and litanies, the solace of their words, but I would never join them. I have found what they are looking for: Everywhere is already home. The little starfish is, I am, all Oberon is home already. They’re refugees from everywhere who think they’re colonists of everywhere. They own the galaxy, it doesn’t own them. I couldn’t live that way.

  But this for them is only true in practice. In theory, they worship the God of those who choose no God. His are the ones are who cannot hide, cannot deny, cannot decide: This part, I like. He watches over those that don’t care to be watched. He watches anyway. Their worship, then, is nothing at all. Nothing but the most beautiful music.

  “Those who wander are the lost,” they sing. “Those who wander are not lost.”

  And then a rising crescendo, in four- and five- and sometimes eight-part harmony:

  “All who wander are not lost. All of His are never lost . . . ”

  I am a moon, hollowed out and filled with gold. It is too much.

  A tiny starfish arm reaches up to my tears; he whispers softly, “Little sister. Oh, little mother.”

  “ . . . All those who live were never lost.”

  Our second date, he calls it this, is redoubled: Four hours, starfish safely in the care of knives. No refugee talk, not yet: This is for his betterment. There will be a time for overnights, knives in the dark, secrets of men. I have no wish to impede him. For now, four hours and we meet back up. And if we do not, the experiment is over.

  My sister’s gift brings flowers, a smile. I am wearing that dress again, pulling at the hem. I couldn’t bring flowers back to the berth; he’d laugh and laugh at me. Like bringing home a cup of water to keep as a pet, he’d say. I have taught him to have nothing, that the world is his. I think he believes it.

  “But where does it go from there?” This man wants to know. “If this society is self-sustaining, and I honestly think it might be, with a population limited to this size, will there always be runners? Always Nameless?”

  I have no idea. I have no good rationale for any one of the others. What would make a man, a woman, jump. We don’t have one goal or want, neither needs nor angers. We wouldn’t be who we are.

  “You’ve said it, I think. A population limited not only to this size, but to familiar shapes of living. To the bubble, leaving things how they’ve always been. Bringing your world here, to our moon, pretending it’s the same. Some can do that, some go native. I think that’s us. Me.”

  He looks at me, confused. Not horror, but a relative.

  “Every human structure, though, has these things. Cities, stations, colonies, worlds. They’ve all got a sewer system, environmental . . . All the ‘unused’ spaces, as you call them. What makes Oberon special?”

  Nothing, man. Nothing at all.

  “The first human who stepped onto her ice changed her forever. A refuge, not a colony. That first foot stopped being Earthling or Martian or Loony, became Auberan. It was home. Not a going-to, but a coming-now-from. A born-forever-as. I don’t know how these other human structures made their decisions, or how you decide what is for living, and who deserves to be there. What’s a life and what’s a vacation . . . ”

  I run my hand along a slick scalp, forcing him to look. The shine, the alien beauty. Auberan. Look here, I say without saying. Not the girl I would be, with hair, a Name. This thing you want to look at, now.

  “ . . . But I don’t live in a fucking sewer.”

  “You seem really angry. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not angry, I’m tired. I look to see you questioning, doubting, judging and all I see is you trying. To look over your fence and into my . . . My lawn, my grass?”

  “Yard. We had a big one, growing up.”

  “My yard. I know you’re trying. But it’s writing a letter in a language we don’t both speak . . . ”

  “—I have a visa. I’m here for a standard year, unless I find a situation.”

  “It’s our second date, man.”

  “I know. I just . . . I don’t want you to think that I am some kind of colonist.”

  “I don’t. Not anymore. I think you are a good man. I think you’ll do well, on the bubble. But I can’t join you there. Not for a date, not for a life. Not to secure your visa, for sure . . . I have a son, did she tell you that?”

  His eyes darken. He forms several beginnings, with his mouth. Breathes not a one.

  “She . . . did. Your family seems very interested.”

  “In what?”

  “In him. You.”

  “Well. I jumped. To love is to respect, inclusive. He doesn’t miss me, if that’s what. Especially with all this . . . politics. Imagine that. Hello Dad, hello, it’s me! It’s Deals The Knife!”

  I laugh, a barking. It startles him; the bubble shivers, I feel them looking. I am embarrassed. Not for me, they can screw, but for him. This isn’t what he wanted. It’s what he asked for, but he didn’t know. And anyway I’m not a crazy knife girl, I’m a hermit. A mother. A sister.

  I’m a choice he can’t hear explaining itself, no matter how he wants to. How hard he listens.

  “I should go, I’m . . . disappointing. Myself, and also you. A nice man.”

  “Deals, don’t! I can’t just . . . ”

  “We look across this glass between us and see . . . If the lights shifted, suddenly just your reflection, looking back. I’m your dream, and you’re a . . . perfectly fine fantasy. If you’re the last colonist I ever meet, you’ll have been the best possible one. But these are dreams. You will never be Auberan. You’ll always be a refugee. And I’ll be the best you could do . . . ”

  “You mustn’t devalue your . . . ”

  “No. Man, no. I am doing the best I can do. I am the best I can do. You want to give a woman a home, as if I do not have one.”

  He looks away, and nods. Giving me the gift of his real thinking. Nods again sharply.

  “I do. That is what I want. I want to make a tiny earth, here upon your moon. On your home. With a son, and a beautiful woman. Like you.”

  “Then you must find her!”

  “But I want you.”

  I stand.

  “You have what everybody wants already. And you just keep wanting more. You crowd it out. The world, you crowd it out with wanting, with thinking that you’re lost. You don’t know what you want. Go to the Wanderers, they’ll tell you: That’s a gift.”

  Hour to rendezvous. I rack up in a twisty-hole, curled around in a pipe as wide as I sitting am tall, back rounded to the curve, head upon my knees, to meditate on this.

  “It doesn’t make him evil,” Regine would say. “It doesn’t make him Father. It doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know.”

  And I would say, “I’m not sorry. I lost no innocence. But he was sadder for having known me. When he remembers to be sad again, he’ll think of me. I will be a pain.”

  And I would think, but never say, “This is why. This is why we jump.”

  I think of sleeping. Cry a little bit instead. If I just wanted more.

  Twenty minutes behind schedule when I get it together. Head under an overflow, which he’s not allowed to do. The water carries particulates from cooling the grav lines, it’s maybe toxic, but it’s wet. I’m hurried, eyes puffy like I’m new. He’ll ask questions, and my knife will get that look, of a man who sees a woman crying and must, must try to fix it. And I’ll . . . I cannot see that today.

  I am resolute, chanting. I am jumping; every day is a jump into fresh cracks. We write a new name and erase it. Of all who wander, none are lost. The silt from the off-drip gritting in my eyes, rushing to him. Cut across a civil square, still in my stupid funny dress. I could almost pass for a human.

  Across the well I see him, slap-jacks with the youngest knife boys. He loves it, laughing harder at the quick pain than he does the test of speed itself. Oh, what he’ll do with that blunt knife. The million troubles of boys. When I was his age I thought I was one, but I had sense at least.
>
  His face turns to me like the sunflowers on 65, like the black-eyed Susans in my hand, forgotten, hydroponic, and grins. He is not sad to see me return, yet.

  A sudden hiss this close to a main vent means a breach. I drop into a forward roll; get knocked forty yards up the well, snatching at levels, as below us the well is engulfed in brief fire.

  I can barely see him, down below, but I know it’s him. I’d know him, always.

  Just as I know the policemen swarming in, from seemingly every direction, to take him up in arms, to spirit him—just him, surgically leaving the knives to recover—away, into the world. Away from core. Toward the embassies. The district offices.

  “Solitude Unto Equinox,” the banners say outside. They let the Hamlet Crater guys hold meetings outside the embassies, where surveillance is heaviest. The rallies are always the same: We must halt immigration for at least forty-two years, if Auberan society and culture have any chance of becoming something real, unique. We can mutate all we want, they say, but it always comes back to humanity. The control group of what’s normal, who get to say what that is.

  They’re not violent. They’re probably right, even. Imagine a moment with nobody looking. No pieces shoved or tinkered in, no half-measures. Organic. They’re probably very right. But shit can they talk.

  I accept a flyer on my way in, asking for my father at the first desk I reach. I can’t even remember the layout. They wave me through, as if I’m expected; people rush around, looking from the side of their eyes only, as if I am a lie they tell.

  “Cordie. Sit, lovely. I was going to offer a meal or something but you look just healthy as can be. Still shaving that head, I see. Do you want a change of clothes, or a shower . . . ?”

  On one hand I am loath to accept his charity. Then too, I have recently been blown up.

  “Caught in a vent near the well, so I just popped out into the fields. It was horrible, but I’m uninjured. Regine would probably have enjoyed it.”

  “I saw on the news. It was actually a surface vent a few districts away, distributed the force of the blowout to the well itself. You were one of the unlucky few who happened to be in the vent path. It’s a redundant system; I don’t think I’ve ever seen it actually put into . . . ”

  I shuck my dress, drop it in the garbage; snatch up a too-large jumpsuit, pop it over my head. I don’t want to chat. Father looks so old, and so beautiful. He’s aged not ten but fifty years, somehow, since I jumped. I know every crack and grin that face could bloom. I remember him better, looking in his eyes, than anything in life. As if I’d been looking at him all this time.

  “Father. I hate to ask, but I’ve misplaced something. In the blast. And I’m pretty sure your men . . . ”

  “The police are a community-resourced and community-supported group of paid volunteers . . . ”

  “Fine. Our men. They may have absconded with something, um. Unlabeled as mine.”

  “He’s beautiful, Cordie. And so smart.”

  I go quiet, still. Footsteps passing a grill, when we were small. That chill, the thrill of a footfall.

  “You’ve had us taped, then?”

  “Since you found him. I always kept tabs, of course—I love you more than life—but once the boy was out there, and you got ahold of him, it was prudent . . . ”

  “You. The cops swarmed in the very second it reached the well? Like they already knew?”

  “A fire broke out a few levels down, I couldn’t risk him. Too important. And you were fine, of course. And I knew you’d come to me. Hoped, anyway.”

  “You took advantage of a disaster to kidnap my son, so we could . . . have a little chat?”

  “Your . . . Oh, Cordie. Son? Really? Isn’t that against your bohemian ideals? ‘Unlabeled as mine.’ Oh, you little darling. Little hypocrite. Pantomiming with that cult, hoping Hamlet will take you, or blow me up, or . . . You want to control your child, but hate me for protecting you, in turn?”

  “You sound angry, Father.”

  “I could never. I love you, child. I love you, you’re my little girl. I love you for your rebellion. You bring me the most surprises. I love surprises.”

  “Wrong. You do not love surprises. You control everything.”

  “I . . . Well, yes. I love our world, our little moon. Our colony here. I realize that looks like control, Cordie. But I’ve got a surprise for you. You’ve been saving the world, all along . . . ”

  “—Great. Are you going to give me back my . . . Are you going to put the child back in my care?”

  “Oh my, yes. That’s the whole point of the exercise. But let me tell you why.”

  On third days we watch the spa workers, shuffling off to breaks. Twenty minutes, in and out.

  He’s caught me staring, oh he has. The crinkle and the smile in his eyes, so familiar from the moment I found him, in a basket of rushes, like a fairy tale. That regal gait he took on, learning to walk as we Auberans do, along the soft edges of the well—I knew that too. I thought it confirmed he was meant for me, that everything about him began and grew ever more familiar.

  My knife, the boy I left behind, used to say: It wouldn’t be a promise if we made a clone of both of us. Half yours, half mine. Our child. No name. Maybe he was remembering this, when I brought him the boy. The ways of men. It wouldn’t be a promise, he’d said. Sweet boy, stupid boy. It wouldn’t be a promise if it were just mine, or even just his. That, I could deal with.

  “Mother . . . ”

  “Call me Sister. Call me Deals, if you want. Not that.”

  “Do you not love me? Ever since that day at the well, you . . . ”

  “Oh! I do, I love you more than Oberon. More than life. But I’m not your mother. We can love each other just the same, you needn’t name every single thing. Now, you had a question?”

  “I have hair on my head, and nowhere else. You have hair places everywhere, but not up top.”

  I want to cover my body, suddenly. I am terrified, ashamed. I hold very still, betraying nothing. He mustn’t be afraid. This mustn’t be a bad moment.

  When he looks at me, who knows what he sees? Perhaps Mother would be better. Or worse.

  “Men and women are different, little brother. You know I shave my head. But there are lots of other, smaller differences.”

  “When I am a man, I will not fit into our berth.”

  “When you’re a man. Little starfish, you’ll be king of this world. Just like Father wants.”

  “My father?”

  “Mine too. Do you remember him?”

  The boy shivers. My son, my brother. My soft little father, getting bigger every day.

  “He wanted to eat me right up! He held my hand so tight. His arm across my shoulder, when they were taking pictures, it shook like a breach. I couldn’t understand what he was saying really, I just said what he wanted when they asked me. I liked him, but he was shaky. Shaky hungry.”

  “He’s getting old. He’s going to need a replacement.”

  “Like a S-T-A-R-F-I-S-H. Or a clone, like they said at the press junket. Or like you say, about Oberon. Always growing more into what it always was. Even when the parts get replaced.”

  I nod.

  “Just like that. Exactly . . . Just like that. From now on, we’re going to take our showers . . . ”

  “—Every third day!”

  “Every third day, yes. But we’re going to do it back-to-back. I’ll still be here, and you’ll be safe, but we’ll wash this way from now on. We’ll keep a lookout, like scouts. Do you think that’s strange?”

  He doesn’t seem to mind; he turns his back obediently, singing little songs I’ve never heard. Songs of men, probably. Songs of future kings. Songs of a lookout scout, growing fiercer every day. Songs of a starfish, beloved by a mother with no name.

  He turns his back, and I think I cannot look away from him. But of course I can. Eventually, I must. Solitude Unto Equinox.

  But then too I can sing. We can still sing together: We are never lost; we’
re already home.

  We will grow into exactly what we are.

  Free-Fall

  Graham Templeton

  Our elevator has stalled some thirty kilometers above the surface of the Earth, and my first thought is not heroic: I need to start fasting, lean up these haunches in preparation for the Donner decision trees that most likely lie ahead. There’s food for a month below the floorboards, but thirty kilometers? Looking at my three fellow passengers, hot-shot scientists all, it is distressingly easy to imagine our mini-society devolving into tribalism; it’s obvious that in this group, I am most definitely the Piggy. They seem calm, however, which calms me. For now, at least, things are stable.

  Our elevator pod is just a hollow disc, twenty meters across and four tall, one of six identical space palettes stacked unceremoniously on either side of the climber. We four have been slotted in at the bottom, as is our right as “live cargo,” so we can use our pod’s special bail-out hatch if necessary. This is not how real astronauts ascend—I’ve checked.

  Pod 5A provides little room in which to hide, and though my writerly instinct is to mole up in my sleeping tube and avoid all social contact, our predicament does provide a unique chance for a profile under stress. This is what I have come for: a view of this emerging class of bored intelligentsia, the over-credentialed yet under-employed. Through them, perhaps I can glimpse some insight into our modern iteration of the human condition. And perhaps I’ll learn the true location of Atlantis. My first impressions have been strong, but utterly unhelpful.

  There’s James Dennett, a twenty-nine-year-old physicist who is tall and strapping and blonde and southern. His Texas drawl could fill an auditorium (let alone a tiny elevator pod), and his chin is so cleft that can’t shave all the way inside it so that a little tuft of beard hair pokes out no matter what he tries. Though thorough research has turned up no evidence of a history in sport, my quivering ego projects onto Dennett an undeserved air of linebacker stupidity (along with an imagined history of questionably consensual encounters with innocent college girls). He is, I am ethically obliged to point out, impeccably polite and friendly, which is honestly part of the problem; Dennett looks like he could run for president, and lose votes for not seeming real enough. He has a PhD from Cornell, significant work experience, and almost two million dollars in debt.