Tesseracts Seventeen

by Colleen Anderson

  “I’m sure you will.”

  Mueller squinted. “Are you sure you’ve never been off Kateli? You’re sure I don’t know you?”

  The priestess laughed. “Your memory is playing tricks with you, Mr. Mueller.”

  Mueller decided to walk again after he left the monastery. He could simply go visit Odashi, squash any suspicion and calm the locals before he initiated the star severer. Instead, he turned down a nondescript alley, back doors and windows shuttered tightly against intruders or prying eyes. Everywhere he went, he realized that there was nowhere to go where he would see anything he hadn’t seen before; and even if he did, it might simply be something that had been scraped from his consciousness, or that would be scraped from consciousness sometime soon. He’d lived too long, he thought; he’d relied too much on technology. He envied these people their certain deaths. Maybe Kateli would be a nice place to retire, if only it weren’t about to be obliterated.

  He turned his mind away from that fact. All he could do was enjoy it while it lasted.

  A cluster of brick dust sizzled and fell onto Mueller’s shoulder. He blinked and looked up. The corner of the nearest building had a melon-sized hole taken out of the bricks.

  Mueller dove to the side. A door across from him shattered, sending a roiling cloud of wooden flakes into the air around him. He snapped up in a crouch and looked back. Down the alley, a shadow ducked behind a corner.

  Mueller ran. More concussions blew apart the alley’s architecture. He found the end of the alley and leapt into the street, dodged Katelian pedestrians and jumped into another alley. A short flight of steps took him up around a corner. He was breathing hard, his body designed to become stronger with exertion. He looked at the steel sky above him and slipped off his shoes. He ran again, his feet silent on the paving stones. He pulled short in a culvert and snuck one eye around the corner, watching.

  A moment later, a woman in a loose, baggy dress came up the stairs, seeming to flow up the incline. Her head swivelled with a swift, perfect mechanism, looking for clues. Mueller ducked back. The woman made no noise as she passed, and then tensed suddenly.

  Mueller struck her in the head with his fist. Nanites bunched into his fingers to give them the necessary strength. A heavy crunch marked the atmosphere of the alley and the woman collapsed in a heap.

  Mueller sighed and wiped sweat from his forehead. He bent down to examine the woman, but just then her forehead deflated with a pop, and thick brown ichor leaked out. Other small detonations rang out across her body — arms, legs, stomach — as essential systems self-destructed.

  Mueller swore and looked around. No one else was in the alley. He put his shoes back on and hurried for the spaceport.

  Someone is trying to kill me, he wrote.

  Terretics, came the reply. Save yourself and prepare the star severer.

  Mueller downloaded himself into a hard-state, but didn’t transfer the data to the quantum encoder. He wasn’t sure where he wanted to retire just yet.

  The nanites had left the skin of his hand abraded and raw.

  Mueller found Adil in the same café, though he didn’t recognize him at first. He wore a tight-fitting dress and a wig, or maybe he’d grown hair. He had breasts and wider hips. Only his smile — eyes and mouth, linked — gave him away.

  “Aren’t you going to tell me I look beautiful?” Adil asked.

  “Of course you do,” said Mueller. “I didn’t know you were a shifter.”

  Adil rolled her eyes. “Don’t be too excited.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s fine. You do look beautiful. I’ve never been one for it myself, though. I try to keep the same body. Or, more or less the same one.”

  “You’re too attached.”

  “I can’t change myself.”

  Adil reached forward with one finger and touched Mueller’s nose. “Exactly.”

  Mueller stared at Adil for a moment. “You’re the priestess.”

  “We revel in God’s many forms,” said Adil.

  Mueller shook his head. “I don’t know how I…” He looked up. “Shifting is dangerous, you know. They consider it Terresy.”

  Adil sighed and rested her face on her hand. “We’re very far from Earth, here. Do you want to share some olargus again?”

  “Would you want to go somewhere with me?” Mueller asked.

  “So forward tonight! I see we’ve switched roles. Are you as able with women as you are with men?”

  “Not like that. Somewhere far. I don’t care where. Just far.”

  “There’s no other city on Kateli Prime, John.”

  Mueller was momentarily pleased to hear that name, then unhappy: had he told it to Adil, or the priestess? Or someone else who was both? He wiped his face and looked at Adil. Adil’s smile faded. “What? Another planet?” she asked.

  Mueller nodded.

  Adil shook her head. “I just met you. Besides, I can’t leave Kateli. This is my home.”

  “There’s so much more out there.”

  “Everyone out there is fighting,” said Adil. “Like you said, Terresy is a crime. Which means it will never end so long as there are planets other than Earth. And I like it here, John.”

  Mueller could think of nothing to say. Instead, he fought with himself, remembering, trying to remember, choosing what to forget, trying to remember what he’d forgotten. They sat in silence a little longer and then Adil got up and left. Mueller followed her, but the street outside was empty.

  Mueller worked to dismantle the star severer in silence. Even his mind was quiet. He could only die, after this. There would be no escape. But he could not be the trigger-man, and there was no one to replace him. His download would remain in a hard-state, and would be retired only to the dust of space.

  He received a ping from the warp-pod’s sensors. A vessel was approaching: a spiky shape in space, loaded with weapons.

  “Commander,” Mueller said when he admitted Odashi’s avatar aboard. He still had a channel open to the sensor array and only gave Odashi half his attention. The ship was still approaching.

  “You never came to the palace,” said Odashi. He made a mock frown. “On Kateli Prime, refusing an invitation is considered bad manners. I’m not sure if that counts as Terresy or not.”

  “I apologize,” said Mueller. “I’ve been confined to my work.”

  “I see that,” said Odashi. “I thought I told you I was loyal to Earth, Mr. Mueller. That you could tell me anything.”

  Mueller drifted uncomfortably in zero gravity. “You misunderstand…”

  “No, Mr. Mueller. You misunderstand. My men are going to board your pod in three Standard Earth Minutes. You will not resist them. I will execute the programming of the star severer myself.”

  Mueller grabbed hold of a nearby strut to steady himself. So many years in space, a whole life in zero gravity, and he still felt like he needed something under him, something holding him, something keeping him in place. “Who do you work for?”

  “Who do you think you work for?” said Odashi. “You have very little regard for Terran supremacy, Mr. Mueller. Two minutes, by the way. Still enough time to finish off Kateli on your own, and maybe earn yourself clemency.”

  Mueller banned the avatar from the cockpit and Odashi disappeared. He’d been a mole the whole time. Who was he, who was Mueller, if there was a local ready to trigger the system?

  Mueller swung himself to the other side of the cabin. Odashi wasn’t the only local. If Kateli wasn’t destroyed now, maybe it would only be destroyed later. But Mueller couldn’t face it; he couldn’t be there to see it. Even dead, he might never forget that. So he had to try, to try to make some other memory for the future. For Adil, maybe, or maybe for no one’s sake but his own.

  He reached his hands into the guts of a control panel and bega
n switching connections.

  A gentle rumble issued through the warp-pod as Odashi’s warship made contact. There was a sound like deep water species dying as a laser saw cut through the hull of Mueller’s vessel, then his ears popped as three feet of rolled tungsten plating was kicked in and the pressure rapidly equalized. Four men wielding pistols fired themselves into the cabin on handheld jets.

  “Mr. Mueller.”

  Odashi was beautiful: tall, strong, firm, full of the certain zeal that life has put him in the right place with the right state of mind. His avatar was more homely, expressed humility.

  Odashi didn’t carry a weapon, and robes and scarves fluttered in every direction from his body in the low gravity, but he possessed himself like a deadly thing. His soldiers quickly grabbed Mueller and subdued him, though he didn’t put up a fight. Odashi drifted toward Mueller with a sombre expression on his face.

  “I’m sorry you weren’t able to see the error of your ways.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Mueller said. “You’ll die if you do this.”

  Odashi nodded. “I have already downloaded myself. I’ll be in Undon this time tomorrow. Why, relatively speaking, I might be there already.” The commander jettisoned himself to Mueller’s terminal. “Is this where you keep your back-up? You haven’t uploaded it for safekeeping, have you? A silly mistake.” Odashi pressed a button and the screen went blank. “I am sorry, Mr. Mueller. But the only one who will die today — who will really die — is you. And, of course, millions of Terretics.”

  “They’ve never even seen Earth,” said Mueller.

  “They don’t have to,” said Odashi. He kicked off the wall, not bothering to use his jets, and came to the weapons panel. Everything in the star severer had hard back-ups, real hardware, in case the softer versions of its programming — its human aspects — failed. “They only have to believe it is there.”

  “Don’t do this, Commander,” said Mueller.

  Odashi shook his head. “Goodbye, Mr. Mueller.”

  He took hold of a long steel switch and pushed it down.

  The star severer made no sound as it revved up; it only created a feeling. But it was the wrong one, like a false memory. It should have created a feeling of the most intense weightlessness, something far beyond the sensation of dubious gravity that existed in the space around the star Kateli. It should have repulsed them, ripped them to shreds as it punched them against the walls of the pod and a white hole was torn into the local space and everything was forced away from it, the mass of another universe driven against them and driven forward into Kateli.

  Instead, it sucked at them. They were dragged to the floor, attracted to the ring of metal and the conductors suspended beneath the pod. Intense gravity formed with enormous rapidity.

  “What’s happening?” Odashi gasped, trying to drag himself up to look. His soldiers had collapsed around Mueller, and they were all being pressed brutally against the floor now. Odashi’s eyes bulged as he looked at Mueller. “You reversed the polarity?”

  “Sorry, Commander,” Mueller gasped. His chest felt tight; he was unable to breathe.

  No other words could be uttered in that space. A black hole was forming beneath them, and soon they would disappear into it; and as they were sucked further in, the hole would shrink, supported only as it was by the very structure, the star severer, that it was destroying.

  Would they come out on the other side, a white hole in some other universe, and hurtle towards a star? Was every possible existence at war, as they were in this one? Mueller gritted his teeth as his limbs began to liquefy across the floor. He gave thanks for one thing: that this time, he would surely not remember what came next.

  Ben Godby writes mysteriously thrilling pseudo-scientific weird western adventure fantasy tales. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario with a girl, two dogs and a cat.

  Ben is part of the Codex Writers’ Group and his book reviews have been published in Strange Horizons. He is a business communications specialist, a videogame addict, and a heavy metal enthusiast. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from McGill University and is a part-time student in the University of Ottawa’s French MBA program.

  The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife

  Dave Beynon

  A copy of The Owen Sound Pioneer landed on the table.

  “There you go,” William’s father said. “They’re looking for miners up near Elliot Lake. Go make your way in the world.”

  William Jones ignored the mining company’s advertisement, drawn instead to the one in the next column.

  Lighthouse Keeper wanted. Apply in person.

  Government Offices, Owen Sound.

  Lighthouse keeping was a coveted job. William figured he’d have little chance winning the appointment. To his surprise he was immediately accepted.

  “I warn you, Mr. Jones,” the clerk said, presenting him with forms to sign, “it’s a remote post with nary a soul about. A young man like you is apt to get lonely out there.”

  “I’ll manage,” William said as he dipped the pen in the inkwell. “I’m not what you’d call a social man.”

  After two years keeping the light burning at Misery Bay, William knew the clerk had been right. It was remote and he was lonely. William answered an ad in the Owen Sound Sun, sending a goodly sum of money to a solicitor in Toronto who promised to “deliver a healthy wife (aged 17 to 25 years).”

  On Wednesday, May 30th, 1906 William stood in his best threadbare finery waiting for the steamer to arrive. He had arranged with the local Methodist pastor to perform the ceremony after lunch so that he could have his new bride home before sunset.

  When the Tempest, a steam paddler out of Collingwood, docked, a lithe, dark-haired woman carrying a battered suitcase stepped off the gangway. Halting, uncertain steps carried her onto the dock.

  William rushed forward with a bouquet of wildflowers. Drawing closer, his steps faltered. The young woman’s dark, oval eyes met his as she managed an awkward smile.

  William bit his lip and looked away. This wasn’t what he’d asked for at all.

  He passed her the flowers a little more roughly than he figured was probably appropriate.

  “I’m William Jones,” he said, noticing a note pinned to the woman’s coat:

  I am Meirong (May) Han travelling to South Baymouth, Manitoulin Island.

  I am marrying William Jones— Keeper, Misery Bay Lighthouse

  I speak no English.

  “You’re… Meirong?”

  She looked up at William and attempted another smile.

  “You don’t speak any English? Just Chinese, huh?”

  Meirong licked her lips. Her eyes never left William’s.

  “I speak lots Chinese. Not so much English, but I learn quick.”

  William shifted his weight from foot to foot. He’d prepared himself for an ugly girl or a fat girl or a stupid girl and had felt ready for any sort of woman he thought might step off the ship. What he hadn’t prepared for — and had no idea how to deal with — was a Chinese woman… and a stunningly beautiful one at that.

  “You… you understand why you’re here, right?” He held his hand out to take her suitcase. “Here, I’ll carry that.”

  She passed it to him and dipped her eyes for a moment.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I am wife, yes?”

  William glanced away. “Yeah,” he said, “I suppose you are. Or will be, I guess. We need to see the minister and make it all legal, you know?”

  The pastor conducted the wedding quickly and hurried them from his church.

  “Married now?” she asked.

  “Married. You okay? You good?”

  She smiled.

  “Okay,” she said. “You good?”

  William squeezed her hand and smiled.

  “Yeah,” he said. �
�We’re good.”

  Over the weeks that followed, William and Meirong grew to know one another. He discovered, to his delight, that she was an excellent cook. He taught her the lighthouse routine, showing her how to light the lamp and oil the pulley and weighted chain system that turned the lamp. Her English improved daily. William learned a little Chinese. His pronunciation never failed to send Meirong into a fit of good-hearted giggles.

  Although William had often fantasized about the marriage bed, when reality presented itself he discovered that he was too shy to hurry into things. Initially, while getting to know Meirong, he slept on the floor by the kitchen stove. One night during the third week after their wedding, William was awakened by the sound of the bedroom door creaking open. Outlined in the doorway was Meirong’s naked form.

  “Man and wife share bed,” Meirong said, edging from darkness into the patch of moonlight that spread across the kitchen floor. “Yes?”

  William pulled his blanket closer as he sat up.

  “Yes,” he said, “though generally folks have had a spell to get to know each other before they get married, right?”

  “Yes…” she said, taking a step closer. “We know now, right?” She turned, moonlight dancing along her naked skin. “You do like?”

  William struggled to find his breath.

  “You have no idea.”

  Meirong slid beneath the blanket. Together they discovered that sometimes man and wife share the floor too.

  For eighteen months, William and Meirong settled into married life. Meirong’s command of English flourished and William learned as much Chinese as he could. When they visited South Baymouth to stock up on supplies, Meirong made a point of practicing her English with the locals. She became a favorite of the ladies of South Baymouth who found her polite, respectful and charming. The women loved her sly sense of humour, which was always sharp, only slightly risqué and never mean-spirited. Because their wives liked her, the men of South Baymouth took a fatherly shine to the Chinese beauty married to the quiet lighthouse keeper of Misery Bay.