Bethlehem and Others: Collected Stories

by Peter Watts

  He thinks she looks familiar in the split second before they both go over. Doug catches a glimpse of someone else as a dozen vectors of force and inertia converge incompatibly on his ankle.

  There’s a moment of brief, bright pain— “Owwwww!!!!!”

  —before he hits the floor. The good news is, he lands on a carpet with a very deep pile. The bad news is, rug burn tears most of the remaining skin off his palms.

  He lies there, taking collect calls from every sensory nerve in his body. Two people are looking down at him. He forgets all about the pain when he recognizes who they are. Saint Anna. And the Devil Himself.

  • • •

  DIPNET HAS ARRIVED.

  The perimeter is all around them: a float-line demarcated by warning buoys, a limited-entry circle a kilometer across. Scientists are only sometimes permitted here. Tourists are forbidden. But the gate swings open for Dipnet.

  Now she chugs towards the center of the Communion Zone. The fog has partially lifted—the perimeter gate fades astern, while a tiny white dot resolves in the distance ahead. Dipnet’s escort remains close on either side. They’ve said nothing since that one brief message in the Strait, although the telepaths say the orcas are brimming with goodwill and harmony.

  The floating dock is close enough to see clearly now, anchored in the center of the Zone, a white disk about twenty meters across. It seems featureless, beyond a few cleats for tying up. This is the way the orcas like things. This is their place, and they don’t want it cluttered with nonessentials. A place to land, a space to stand, and Race Rocks looming out of the fog in the middle distance. Beyond that, only orcas and ocean.

  “Is there a bathroom?” someone asks. The captain of the Dipnet shakes his head, more in resignation than answer. He pulls back on the throttle while the mate, waiting on the foredeck with a coil of nylon rope, jumps onto the platform and reels Dipnet in to dock.

  “This is it, folks,” the captain announces. “Everybody off.”

  The engine is still idling. “Aren’t you going to tie up?” Periwinkle asks.

  The captain shakes his head. “You’re the ambassadors. We’re just the taxi. They don’t want us in the zone while you commune.”

  Periwinkle smiles patiently. She hears the resentment in the captain’s voice, but she understands. It must be hard, seeing the Chosen Few going to make history while he just drives the boat. She feels sorry for him. She resolves to chant with him when he comes back to pick them up.

  The captain grunts and waves her away. He sniffs and wonders, not for the first time, if this woman remembered to clean the snails out of those shells before incorporating them into her own personal fashion statement. Or maybe it’s one of those natural fragrances they’re advertising these days.

  The passengers file onto the platform. The first mate, still holding Dipnet’s leash, leaps back onto the foredeck. The boat growls backwards, changes gear, and wallows off into the haze. The sound of her engine fades with distance.

  Eventually all is quiet again. The Chosen look about eagerly, not wanting to speak in this holy place. The orcas that guided them here have disappeared. Swells lap against the floats. The Race Rocks Lighthouse complains about the fog.

  “Hey, you guys.” It’s the heretic again. He’s watching the boat recede “When exactly are they supposed to be coming back for us?”

  The others don’t answer. This is a quiet moment, a sacred moment. It’s no time to chatter about logistics. This guy doesn’t know the first thing about reverence. Really, sometimes they wonder how he ever made the cut.

  • • •

  ONE WHOLE PLEXIGLAS WALL LOOKS into the turquoise arena of the killer whale tank; a pair of tail flukes disappear up through the surface in ratcheting increments. The opposite wall serves as little more than a frame for the biggest flatscreen monitor Doug has ever seen. Murky green water swirls across that display. Wriggling wavelight reflects off a glass coffee table in the middle of the room. An antique oak desk looms behind it like a small wooden mesa.

  In the middle of it all, Doug looks up from the floor at Anna Marie Hamilton and Bob Finch, executive director of the Aquarium. Anna Marie Hamilton and Bob Finch look back. This goes on for a moment or two.

  “Can I help you, sir?” Finch asks at last.

  “I—I think I got lost,” Doug says, experimentally putting his foot down on the floor. It hurts, but it feels limpable, not broken.

  “The viewing gallery is that way,” Anna Marie announces, pointing to a different door than the one through which Doug arrived. “And I’m in the middle of some very tough negotiating, fighting for the freedom of our spiritual sib—”

  “Actually, Ann—Ms. Hamilton, I suspect that Mr.—Mr. …”

  “Largha,” Doug says weakly.

  “I suspect that Mr. Largha isn’t all that interested in the boring details of our, er, negotiations.” Finch extends a hand, helps Doug up off the carpet. Doug stands unsteadily.

  “I was looking for—the gift shop!” His mission! Precious seconds, precious minutes irretrievably lost while all those other dorks and bozos line up to lay claim for his meat! If he doesn’t come home with the steaks, he’ll be sleeping on the sofa for a week. Doug turns and lunges towards the door he came through. He forgets all about his ankle for the half-second it takes for him to try and run on it. By the end of that same second he’s on the floor again. “My steaks—” he whimpers. “I was going to be at the head of the line… I had it planned to the second…”

  “Well, I must say,” Finch extends a helping hand again, “it’s heartening to see someone so enthusiastic about the Aquarium’s new programs. Not everyone is, you know. Let me see what I can do.”

  Anna Marie Hamilton stands with her arms folded, sighing impatiently. “Mister Finch,” she says, “if you think I’m going to let this distract me from the liberation of—”

  “Not now, Ms. Hamilton. This will only take a moment. And then I promise, we can get right back to your tough and uncompromising negotiations.” Finch takes a step towards the door, turns back to Doug. “Say, Mr. Largha, would you like to talk to a killer whale while you’re waiting? A Matriarch? We have a live link to Juan de Fuca.” He raises an arm to the flatscreen on one wall.

  “Uh, live?” Emotions squabble in Doug’s cortex. The pain of failure. The hope of salvation. And now, a vague discomfort. “I don’t know. I mean, they are okay with this, aren’t they? The whole whale show thing?”

  “Mr. Largha, not only are they okay with it—it was their idea.

  So how about it? A conversation with a real, alien intelligence?”

  “I don’t know,” Doug stammers. “I don’t know what I’d say—” Anna Marie snorts.

  Finch draws a remote control from his blazer. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.” He points the remote at the flatscreen, thumbs a control.

  Nothing obvious happens.

  “Back in a moment,” Finch promises, and closes the door behind him.

  Anna Marie turns her back. Doug wonders if maybe she’s offended by someone who would be in such a rush to line up for orca steaks.

  Or maybe she just doesn’t like people very much.

  A long, mournful whistle. “Sister Predator,” intones an artificial voice.

  Doug turns to the flatscreen. A black-and-white shape looms up in the murky green wash of Juan de Fuca Strait. Lipless jaws open a crack; a zigzag crescent of conical teeth reflects gray in the dim light.

  That whistle again. In one corner of the flatscreen, a flashing green tag: Receiving. “Fellow Sister Predator. Welcome.” Doug gawks.

  Clicks. Two rapid-fire squeals. A moan. More clicks.

  Receiving.

  “I am Second Grandmother. I trust you enjoy Aquarium and its many award-winning educational displays—”

  Bzzt. In the upper left-hand corner of the screen: Line Interrupt. Silence.

  At a panel on Finch’s desk, Anna Marie Hamilton takes her finger off a red button.

 
“Wow,” Doug says. “It was really talking.”

  Anna Marie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, it’s not like they’re going to beat us on the SAT’s or anything.”

  • • •

  A REPORTER WAYLAYS Bob Finch in a public corridor on his way to the gift shop. She seeks a reaction in the wake of Hamilton’s demonstration. Finch considers. “We agree with the activists on one score. Orcas have their own values and their own society, and we’re morally bound to respect their choices.”

  He smiles faintly. “Where Ms. Hamilton and I part ways, of course, is that she never bothered to find out what those values were before leaping to defend them.”

  • • •

  THE DOOR OPENS. Finch the Savior stands in the doorway with a wooden box in one hand, a plastic bag in the other.

  Doug, rising with his hopes off the couch, forgets all about the Matriarch and his ankle. “Are those my steaks?”

  Finch smiles. “Mr. Largha, it takes several days to prepare the merchandise. Each sample has to be measured, weighed, and studied in accordance to our mandate of conservation through research.”

  “Oh, right.” Doug nods. “I knew that.”

  “The gift shop is only taking a list of names.”

  “Right. “

  “And unfortunately, all of today’s specimen has already been spoken for. The line-up stretches all the way back into the Amazon gallery, in fact, so I brought a couple of items which I thought might do instead,” Finch says. He holds up the bag. “There was quite a run on these, I was lucky to get one.”

  Doug squints at the label. “L’il Ahab Miniature Harpoon Kit.

  Rubber Tipped. Ages six and up.”

  “Everyone wants to prove that they’re better shots than our guests.” Finch chuckles. “I suspect a lot of family dogs may be discomfited tonight. I thought your children might enjoy—”

  “I don’t have kids,” Doug says. “But I have a dog.” He takes the package. “What else?”

  Finch holds out the wooden box. “I was able to locate some nice harbor seal—”

  Finch the False Prophet. Finch the Betrayer.

  “Harbor seal? Harbor seal! Your gift shop is lousy with harbor seal! It was marked down! My in-laws are coming over this weekend and you want me to feed them harbor seal? Why don’t I just give them baloney sandwiches! My dog won’t eat harbor seal!”

  Finch shakes his head. He seems more saddened than offended. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Largha. I’m afraid there’s nothing else we can do for you.”

  Doug wobbles dangerously on his good leg. “I was injured! In your aquarium! I’ll sue!”

  “If you were injured, Mr. Largha, you were injured en route from somewhere that you weren’t legally supposed to be in the first place. Now, please…” Finch opens the door a bit wider, just in case Doug hasn’t got the point.

  “Not supposed to be in! That was a fire exit route! Which, by the way,” Doug’s voice is becalmed by a sudden sense of impending victory, “was improperly signed.”

  Finch blinks. “Improperly—”

  “You can barely see that exit sign,” Doug says. “It’s buried way down in one of those stupid orca family trees. If there was ever a fire, nobody would even find it. I mean, who stops to read awardwinning educational displays when their pants are on fire?”

  “Mr. Largha, the viewing gallery is solid cement on one side and a million gallons of seawater on the other. The odds of a fire are so minuscule—”

  “We’ll see whether the fire marshal’s office thinks so. We’ll see whether the News at Six Consumer Advocate thinks so!” Doug triumphantly folds his arms.

  There is a moment of silence. Finally, Finch sighs and closes the door. “I’m really going to have to put my foot down with the art department about that. I mean, aesthetics or no aesthetics…”

  “I want my orca steaks,” Doug says.

  Finch walks to the wall behind his desk. A touch on a hidden control and a section of paneling slides away. Behind it, cigar boxes sit neatly arranged on grillwork shelves, lit by the unmistakable glow of a refrigerator lightbulb.

  Finch turns around, one of the boxes open in his hands. Doug falls silent, disbelieving. It’s not cigars in those boxes.

  “As I said, there are no orca steaks available,” Finch begins. “But I can offer you some beluga sushi from my private stock.”

  Doug takes a hop forward. Another. It’s almost impossible to get beluga. And this isn’t the black-market, Saint-Lawrence beluga, the stuff that gives you mercury poisoning if you eat it more than twice a year. This is absolute primo Hudson Bay beluga. The only people harpooning them are a few captive Inuit on a natural habitat reserve out of Churchill, and even they only get away with it because they keep pushing the aboriginal rights angle. Nobody’s figured out Belugan yet—from what Doug’s heard, belugas are probably too stupid to even have a language—so nobody needs to cut a deal with them.

  The box in Finch’s hands costs about what Doug would make in a week.

  “Will this be acceptable?” Bob Finch asks politely.

  Doug tries to be cool. “Well, I suppose so.”

  He’s almost sure they don’t hear the squeak in his voice.

  • • •

  TO THE UNTRAINED EYE, it looks like rambunctious play. In fact, the cavorting and splashing and bellyflopping is a synchronized and complex behavior. Co-operative hunting, it’s called. First reported from the Antarctic, when a pod of killer whales was seen creating a mini-tidal wave to wash a crabeater seal off an ice floe. Definite sign of intelligence, that, the first mate’s been told. He squints through his binoculars and the intermittent fog until the whales finish.

  The first mate pulls open the wheelhouse hatch and climbs inside. The captain throws Dipnet into gear, singing:

  And they’ll know we are sisters by our love, by our—

  The mate picks up the tune and rummages in a locker, surfaces with a bottle of Crown Royal. “Good show today.” He raises the bottle in salute.

  • • •

  DOUG LARGHA SAFELY DEPARTED, Bob Finch extracts a pair of wineglasses from the shelves beneath the coffee table. He fills them from a convenient bottle of Chardonnay while Anna Marie taps a panel beside the flatscreen. The distant gurgling of Juan de Fuca fills the room once more.

  Finch presents the activist with her glass. “Any problems on your end?”

  Hamilton snorts, still fiddling one-handed with the controls. “You kidding? Turnover in the movement has always been high. And nobody turns down a chance to commune with the whales. It’s a real adventure for them.” The wall monitor flickers into splitscreen mode. One side still contains Juan de Fuca, newly restricted; the other shows one of the Aquarium’s backstage holding tanks. A young male orca noses along its perimeter.

  Finch raises his glass: first to the matriarch on the screen—”To your delicacies.” Then to the matriarch in his office: “And to ours.” Finally, he turns to the image of the holding tank. The whale there looks back at him with eyes like big black marbles.

  “Welcome to the Aquarium,” Finch says.

  A signature whistle carries through the sound system. “Name is —” says the speaker. No English Equivalent, flashes the readout after a moment.

  “That’s a fine name,” Finch remarks. “But why don’t we give you a special new name? I think we’ll call you—Shamu.”

  “Adventure,” Shamu says. “Grandmother says this place adventure. Too small. I stay here long?”

  Bob Finch glances at Anna Marie Hamilton. Anna Marie Hamilton glances at Bob Finch.

  “Not long, Grandson,” says an alien voice from the cool distant waters of Juan de Fuca. “Not long at all.” ■

  The Eyes of God

  I AM NOT A CRIMINAL. I have done nothing wrong.

  They’ve just caught a woman at the front of the line, mocha-skinned, mid-thirties, eyes wide and innocent beneath the brim of her La Senza beret. She dosed herself with oxytocin from the sound of it, t
ried to subvert the meat in the system - a smile, a wink, that extra chemical nudge that bypasses logic and whispers right to the brainstem: This one’s a friend, no need to put her through the machines…

  But I guess she forgot: we’re all machines here, tweaked and tuned and retrofitted down to the molecules. The guards have been immunized against argument and aerosols. They lead her away, indifferent to her protests. I try to follow their example, harden myself against whatever awaits her on the other side of the white door. What was she thinking, to try a stunt like that? Whatever hides in her head must be more than mere inclination. They don’t yank paying passengers for evil fantasies, not yet anyway, not yet. She must have done something. She must have acted.

  Half an hour before the plane boards. There are at least fifty law-abiding citizens ahead of me and they haven’t started processing us yet. The buzz box looms dormant at the front of the line like a great armored crab, newly installed, mouth agape. One of the guards in its shadow starts working her way up the line, spot-checking some passengers, bypassing others, feeling lucky after the first catch of the day. In a just universe I would have nothing to fear from her. I’m not a criminal, I have done nothing wrong. The words cycle in my head like a defensive affirmation.

  I am not a criminal. I have done nothing wrong.

  But I know that fucking machine is going to tag me anyway.

  • • •

  AT THE HEAD OF THE QUEUE, the Chamber of Secrets lights up. A canned female voice announces the dawning of preboard security, echoing through the harsh acoustics of the terminal. The guards slouch to attention. We gave up everything to join this line: smart tags, jewelery, my pocket office, all confiscated until the far side of redemption. The buzz box needs a clear view into our heads; even an earring can throw it off. People with medical implants and antique mercury fillings aren’t welcome here. There’s a side queue for those types, a special room where old-fashioned interrogations and cavity searches are still the order of the day.

  The omnipresent voice orders all Westjet passenger with epilepsy, cochlear dysfunction, or Gray’s Syndrome to identify themselves to Security prior to entering the scanner. Other passengers who do not wish to be scanned may opt to forfeit their passage. Westjet regrets that it cannot offer refunds in such cases. Westjet is not responsible for neurological side effects, temporary or otherwise, that may result from use of the scanner. Use of the scanner constitutes acceptance of these conditions.