Tales of Old Earth

by Michael Swanwick

  I feel myself strangely drawn to you.

  I can’t imagine why.

  A woman—well, a female, at least—has certain needs. Desires. No, needs.

  I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  You have noticed that I’m female, haven’t you? And beautiful. God’s own lioness, a poet called me once. Isn’t that lovely? It’s a pity what happened to him.

  I think I’d better leave.

  I think you’d better not. I think you’d be well advised to stay. In fact, I don’t believe you’d be able to leave if you wanted to. If you get my meaning.

  I—I’m afraid I do.

  Good. You should take off your suit.

  Yes. Perhaps I should.

  I’ll lock the door. So we’re not disturbed.

  Who—what—would dare disturb you?

  You’d be surprised. Slowly, little mouthful, slowly! Don’t just throw off those clothes. We’ve got all the time we need; night lasts forever here, remember. Oh, now that’s quite nice. You must work out every day. Now the trousers. My! You’re a big one. I hope that’s not painful to you. I promise to take good care of it. Afterwards I’ll ask you a riddle.

  Why?

  It’s just my nature, I’m afraid. I’d spare you if I could. But let’s not think about that now. What would you like to do first?

  I’m not sure I should.

  I beg your pardon.

  It’s just that it … well, it would be bestiality. Wouldn’t it?

  It’s only bestiality if I am a beast. Do you think me a beast?

  I … I don’t know.

  Good. That’s the way it should be. It would be impertinent for you to presume one way or the other. Now let’s see, how shall I begin? I think I’ll just—mmmm. And then—ahhhh. You like that, don’t you?

  Well …

  There’s no need to be coy. Nobody’s taking notes; this is completely off the record. Bring your mouth here. Kiss me. Yes. Now lower. Lower. There. Yes. The other one too. Oh, that’s quite nice—what you do with your hands. Yes, I like that. Lower.

  My God, you’re so …

  Yes, I’m a hairy bitch all right. Keep doing that. I’ll just stretch around like this and …

  Watch it with those claws!

  Sorry. I’m passionate by nature—Mediterranean, you understand. Here, I’ll lick away the blood. Now isn’t that better?

  Yes.

  Oh, my! I feel quite carried away. I think I’d like to—

  None of that, now!

  Tsk. What’s life without a little risk? Here. I’ll just run my tongue up the side, and then … You liked that, eh? The way I closed my lips about the tip?

  My God, yes.

  Let’s see how much of that monster I can take in my mouth at once.

  That’s … oh yes, that’s fine, that’s … Whoah!

  Did I hurt you?

  No, I, I’m just startled is all. I wasn’t expecting—

  What use are such fine sharp teeth as mine if they’re never used? I didn’t actually break the skin anywhere, did I? No, I didn’t think I had. It’s not the sort of thing I’d do by accident. Come up here, you. Yes, bring your face to mine. Now we kiss. So you can taste yourself in my mouth and I can taste myself in yours. Let the flavors mingle. That’s what’s called the alchemical marriage. It can be harnessed to work magics.

  Like what?

  Well, I’ll admit I’ve never actually done it myself. There was never anything I wanted at that particular moment more than what I could easily arrange for myself with materials on hand.

  I could think of a few things.

  Really? Then tell me, what would you like to have right now? Be honest. What is it you really want most? Diamonds? A gold Rolex? A mission-style hacienda with central air, in-ground heated pool, and a tennis court?

  I’d … like your mouth again. You know. What you were doing before.

  Oh, wise little monkey! And here’s your reward for choosing so well.

  Ahhh. This is wonderful. This is so good. I could do this all night.

  Be careful what you wish for. Remember where we are.

  What do you mean?

  Time is malleable in the night lands. Here, desire is a primal force—it’s entirely possible to be so caught up in some action that it lasts all night. And remember, night here lasts forever. Literally.

  Oh.

  I like how hairless you are. It’s so perverse. I’m going to crouch over you. Like this. With my front paws on your shoulders. It’s exactly the posture a lion takes before tearing open its prey. Do I frighten you?

  A little.

  Good. You should be frightened. I’m not at all human, you know. Do you enjoy what I’m doing with my tail?

  Very much.

  How gallant. Now I’ll just drag the tips of my breasts across your … Sir! What an impetuous creature you are. Not that I dislike it, mind you, I—yes, that’s good. That’s nice. But just lean back down for a moment and let me place you inside me. There! Ahh. Yes. You can continue what you were doing now.

  What I was doing? Do you mean you want my mouth here? Or maybe you’d like my hands to squeeze you here? Or would you like me to place my fingers … here and do … this?

  Oh my. So many decisions to make. Demonstrate those choices for me again, would you? Ahhh. Mmm. Oh! Well, I must say they’re all … diverting. I believe I’ll take the lot.

  You’ll have to choose. I can’t possibly do them all at the same time.

  You can’t? How tiresome. In that case, I’ll just … throw you down! And ravish you! Yes! You’re helpless now. I can do anything I want with you.

  I’m not as helpless as all that, you know. I’m not helpless at all. Let me show you a hold I learned in varsity wrestling. I just place one hand here and the other there, and—voila!

  Yes, yes, tumble me around! Tumble me around! Take me from behind now. Here, I’ll crouch down low and raise my haunches high. Do you like this? Do you think it’s sexy?

  More than words can express. Sexier than anything I’ve ever imagined. What are those lights?

  Fata morganas. Ignore them. Just keep—ahhh, yes. Like that. They’re just excess magic grounding itself. Our passion creates little eddies in the time-flow. Ooh. Harder. You don’t need to be delicate with me. I admit they’re pretty to look at, though. The lights, I mean.

  Lights? What lights?

  I forget. I—ah! Oh, but you’re—ah!

  You like this, eh? You do? You want me to keep going?

  I’ll kill you if you stop. Ah! Oh, but that’s—ah!—nice.

  Then I’ll continue. It wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me to refuse a lady what she wants.

  Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Slam it home! Slam it home! Ahhhhhh, ahhhhhh. Oh, what a sweet little monkey you are.

  Hey—the cushions!

  Hmmmm? Did I do that? Well, no matter, we’ll just flip them over. And you. Poor thing, you’re not finished yet.

  Well …

  Here. Let me just roll you over, and—comfy? Good. Now I’ll run my tongue down your abdomen, and … Oh, are my breasts in your way? No, I can see that they’re not. That’s very nice, by the way. I’ll put one paw here, and the other here, and then I’ll bring my mouth up to …

  Ahhh. That’s so …

  Hush. Let me just … mmmmm. And … mmmmm. You’re a lot closer to coming than I thought you were. Here—I’m going to shift myself around, and guide you inside me. Ahh. Isn’t that better? Don’t try to answer me. I’d be terribly insulted if you could.

  I, I …

  That’s more like it. Incoherent with passion. Now. Long, even strokes. I want you deep inside me when you—oh, my.

  Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god.

  There. There, it’s done. Are you happy, sweetmeats? Was it good for you?

  My god, yes.

  Good. Because now I have to ask my riddle.

  Why are you putting your paws there? Don’t you think you should retract your claws?

 
It’s only a technicality. First I ask the riddle. Then you answer it. Correctly, I hope. Because if you answer it wrong, I’ll rip the family jewels right off that precious little bod of yours.

  But that’s terrible! I’d be a … I’d bleed to death!

  Well, yes, but I’d like to think I’m worth it. Are you ready?

  No!

  I’m going to ask you a second time, and it won’t matter what you say. But the third time, if you say no … well, remember what I said about some things lasting forever. Not all primal experiences are pleasant, after all. Are you ready?

  Can’t we just—?

  No. Third time’s the charm, now. Ready?

  I suppose so. As ready as I’ll ever be.

  Here’s the riddle: What walks on two legs and enters four-legs with his third leg to make a beast with six legs and—sometimes—two backs?

  Oh, but that … it’s … you’re talking about the two of us. What we just did.

  There. You see? That wasn’t so difficult after all, was it? Of course, I get to choose which riddle to ask, and I’m feeling particularly fond of you at the moment. So I’ll just retract my claws and … Why, you bad thing! You’re hard again. So you like a taste of danger, do you?

  Well, that and … how shall I put it?

  Delicately, I trust.

  A certain … a touch of … perfume in the air.

  Oh, that! Well, I am feline in nature, after all. When I’m in heat, I stink of it. But right now, I’d better see to your needs. That looks so terribly, terribly swollen. Would you like me to take care of it?

  Oh, yes.

  Then I will. And afterwards, I’ll ask you another riddle. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

  Mmmmm.

  This could take all night.

  18

  The Wisdom of Old Earth

  Judith Seize-the-Day was, quite simply, the best of her kind. Many another had aspired to the clarity of posthuman thought, and several might claim some rude mastery of its essentials, but she alone came to understand it as completely as any offworlder.

  Such understanding did not come easily. The human mind is slow to generalize and even slower to integrate. It lacks the quicksilver apprehension of the posthuman. The simplest truth must be repeated often to imprint even the most primitive understanding of what comes naturally and without effort to the space-faring children of humanity. She had grown up in Pole Star City, where the shuttles slant down through the zone of permanent depletion in order to avoid further damage to the fragile ozone layer, and thus from childhood had associated extensively with the highly evolved. It was only natural that as a woman she would elect to turn her back on her own brutish kind and strive to bootstrap herself into a higher order.

  Yet even then she was like an ape trying to pass as a philosopher. For all her laborious ponderings, she did not yet comprehend the core wisdom of posthumanity, which was that thought and action must be as one. Being a human, however, when she did comprehend, she understood it more deeply and thoroughly than the posthumans themselves. As a Canadian, she could tap into the ancient and chthonic wisdoms of her race. Where her thought went, the civilized mind could not follow.

  It would be expecting too much of such a woman that she would entirely hide her contempt for her own kind. She cursed the two trollish Ninglanders who were sweating and chopping a way through the lush tangles of kudzu, and drove them onward with the lash of her tongue.

  “Unevolved bastard pigs!” she spat. “Inbred degenerates! If you ever want to get home to molest your dogs and baby sisters again, you’ll put your backs into it!”

  The larger of the creatures looked back at her with an angry gleam in his eye, and his knuckles whitened on the hilt of his machete. She only grinned humorlessly, and patted the holster of her ankh. Such weapons were rarely allowed humans. Her possession of it was a mark of the great respect in which she was held.

  The brute returned to his labor.

  It was deepest winter and the jungle tracts of what had once been the mid-Atlantic coastlands were traversable. Traversable, that is, if one had a good guide. Judith was among the best. She had brought her party alive to the Flying Hills of southern Pennsylvania, and not many could have done that. Her client had come in search of the fabled bell of liberty, which many another party had sought in vain. She did not believe he would find it either. But that did not concern her.

  All that concerned her was their survival.

  So she cursed and drove the savage Ninglanders before her until all at once they broke through the vines and brush out of shadow and into a clearing.

  All three stood unmoving for an instant, staring out over the clumps and hillocks of grass that covered the foundations of what had once been factories, perhaps, or workers’ housing, gasoline distribution stations, grist mills, shopping malls … Even the skyline was uneven. Mystery beckoned from every ambiguous lump.

  It was almost noon. They had been walking since sundown.

  Judith slipped on her goggles and scanned the grey skies for navigation satellites. She found three radar beacons within range. A utility accepted their input and calculated her position: less than a hundred miles from Philadelphia. They’d made more distance than she’d expected. The empathic function mapped for her the locations of her party: three including herself, then one, then two, then one, strung over a mile and a half of trail. That was wrong.

  Very wrong indeed.

  “Pop the tents,” she ordered, letting the goggles fall around her neck. “Stay out of the food.”

  The Ninglanders dropped their packs. One lifted a refrigeration stick over his head like a spear and slammed it into the ground. A wash of cool air swept over them all. His lips curled with pleasure, revealing broken yellow teeth.

  She knew that if she lingered, she would not be able to face the oppressive jungle heat again. So, turning, Judith strode back the way she’d come. Rats scattered at her approach, disappearing into hot green shadow.

  The first of her party she encountered was Harry Work-to-Death. His face was pale and he shivered uncontrollably. But he kept walking, because to stop was to die. They passed each other without a word. Judith doubted he would live out the trip. He had picked up something after their disastrous spill in the Hudson. There were opiates enough in what survived of the medical kit to put him out of his misery, but she did not make him the offer.

  She could not bring herself to.

  Half a mile later came Leeza Child-of-Scorn and Maria Triumph-of-the-Will, chattering and laughing together. They stopped when they saw her. Judith raised her ankh in the air, and shook it so that they could feel its aura scrape ever so lightly against their nervous systems.

  “Where is the offworlder?” The women shrank from her anger. “You abandoned him. You dared. Did you think you could get away with it? You were fools if you did.”

  Wheedlingly, Leeza said, “The sky man knew he was endangering the rest of us, so he asked to be left behind.” She and Maria were full-blooded Canadians, like Judith, free of the taint of Southern genes. They had been hired for their intelligence, and intelligence they had—a low sort of animal cunning that made them dangerously unreliable when the going got hard. “He insisted.”

  “It was very noble of him,” Maria said piously.

  “I’ll give you something to be noble about if you don’t turn around and lead me back to where you left him.” She holstered her ankh, but did not lock it down. “Now!” With blows of her fists, she forced them down the trail. Judith was short, stocky, all muscle. She drove them before her like the curs that they were.

  The offworlder lay in the weeds where he had been dropped, one leg twisted at an odd angle. The litter that Judith had lashed together for him had been flung into the bushes.

  His clothes were bedraggled, and the netting had pulled away from his collar. But weak as he was, he smiled to see her. “I knew you would return for me.” His hands fluttered up in a gesture indicating absolute confidence. “So I was careful to av
oid moving. The fracture will have to be reset. But that’s well within your capabilities, I’m sure.”

  “I haven’t lost a client yet.” Judith unlaced his splint and carefully straightened the leg. Posthumans, spending so much of their time in microgravity environments, were significantly less robust than their ancestral stock. Their bones broke easily. Yet when she reset the femur and tied up the splint again with lengths of nylon cord, he didn’t make a sound. His kind had conscious control over their endorphin production. Judith checked his neck for ticks and chiggers, then tucked in his netting. “Be more careful with this. There are a lot of ugly diseases loose out here.”

  “My immune system is stronger than you’d suspect. If the rest of me were as strong, I wouldn’t be holding you back like this.”

  As a rule, she liked the posthuman women better than their men. The men were hothouse flowers—flighty, elliptical, full of fancies and elaboration. Their beauty was the beauty of a statue; all sculptured features and chill affect. The offworlder, however, was not like that. His look was direct. He was as solid and straightforward as a woman.

  “While I was lying here, I almost prayed for a rescue party.”

  To God, she thought he meant. Then saw how his eyes lifted briefly, involuntarily, to the clouds and the satellites beyond. Much that for humans required machines a posthuman could accomplish with precisely tailored neural implants.

  “They would’ve turned you down.” This Judith knew for a fact. Her mother, Ellen To-the-Manner-Born, had died in the jungles of Wisconsin, eaten away with gangrene and cursing the wardens over an open circuit.

  “Yes, of course, one life is nothing compared to the health of the planet.” His mouth twisted wryly. “Yet still, I confess I was tempted.”

  “Put him back in the litter,” she told the women. “Carry him gently.” In the Quebeçois dialect, which she was certain her client did not know, she added, “Do this again, and I’ll kill you.”

  She lagged behind, letting the others advance out of sight, so she could think. In theory she could simply keep the party together. In practice, the women could not both carry the offworlder and keep up with the men. And if she did not stay with the Ninglanders, they would not work. There were only so many days of winter left. Speed was essential.