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by McClelland, Mark

  "Could you show me the ones he liked best?"

  "Certainly."

  Venetia led him back through several rooms and hallways, to one of the courtyards they had come through previously. It was dense with trees, short and small, from which hung all sorts of fruit. Some looked like fruits from the prime world—bananas, papayas, figs, limes, and oranges. Some were fruits that had long existed on Nurania. But he saw several that were unfamiliar—long plump violet fingers, small skinless green balls that glistened in the sun, and black-skinned things shaped like starfish.

  "My Apollo likes these best," said Venetia, pulling down a bunch of the skinless green balls. "He named them yolo fruits." She turned the bunch upside down in her left hand and expertly pinched off one of the larger fruits, careful not to squish its fragile round body. She moved to feed Raymond; he pulled away slightly, but yielded and opened his mouth, accepting this as the best way to convey the fragile fruit.

  The ball melted softly into a huge, sweet flavor, like honeyed skinless grape, but with a peach-like juicy richness.

  "Mmm."

  "My Apollo told me that Anya would be impressed, and this seemed to make him both happy and sad." She held out another yolo fruit, which he accepted without hesitation.

  "Wow, that's delicious. Anya would be impressed."

  "Does her name make you happy and sad, too?"

  He paused. Again he was struck by how much Venetia seemed to comprehend. "Yes, I guess it does."

  "You said you will let me know if you need anything."

  "Right."

  "I am just reminding you. My Apollo would sometimes forget things."

  "You seem to have learned a great deal about your Apollo, for having only known him two weeks."

  "Thank you, Raymond. My Apollo told me that it is one of my attributes."

  "Wait a minute, if I'm in Molly's NBC, then her cage would be empty."

  "I do not understand," said Venetia, with her now-familiar look of confusion and curiosity.

  "That's okay. Do you want to leave the palace?"

  "My Apollo told me that I am not to leave the palace."

  "Did you hear that?" asked Raymond of the sky. "How about coming down here and telling her she can leave the bleeding palace?" He turned to Venetia. "If I took you away from the palace, would you fight me?"

  "Of course not. I do not fight."

  "Not even in bed?" asked Raymond suspiciously, knowing himself to like an occasional struggle in the sack.

  "That is not fighting. That is playing."

  "Oh, okay." He stood, and Venetia did so as well. "Well, tie your bathrobe around you good and tight, and lead me to the alcove, where I first met you. I'm going on a trip, and I need you to come with me."

  "I cannot come with you. My creator told me that I cannot."

  Raymond placed his hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye.

  "Venetia, I am your creator."

  "But you said that you are a copy of my Apollo."

  "Well, now I'm telling you that I am your Apollo. This has all been a test, to... to make sure that you really want to please me."

  "Okay." She smiled brightly at him. "Did I pass the test?"

  "You certainly did. You did a very, very good job. Now, do you understand that I need you to come with me on my trip? It would give me great pleasure." Saying those words, Raymond realized that it would give him great pleasure. He didn't recall ever having such an uncomplicated desire for someone's company.

  o-------------------------------o

  The flight to Molly's cage took over an hour. The airboard that Raymond had found was not designed to hold more than one person. But it was still far faster than walking. Venetia rode behind him, her arms around his ribcage and her cheek leaned against his back. He couldn't help but feel that it was an expression of tenderness on her part, even knowing she was a simulated personality.

  As he neared the spot where he remembered placing Molly's cage, his recollection was confirmed: he saw a perfectly square mesa poking out above the jungle canopy. He dropped down through the trees that surrounded it and brought the board in line with the bamboo fence. He started around the one acre square, looking for a spot where the fence had been opened.

  Sure enough, a quarter of the way around, he came across a bamboo gate, wide open. He pulled to a stop near this gate and lowered the board to the ground.

  "Am I to get off?" asked Venetia.

  "Sure," said Raymond absent-mindedly. He slid forward off the board and walked through the gate.

  "What is this place?" asked Venetia, trailing behind.

  "This is the home I made for Molly, when I first uploaded her."

  "You never mentioned Molly."

  "No? I'm surprised." Raymond wandered about. There were signs that Molly had lived in the cage for a long time—piles of discarded palm nut shells, dried feces, and defoliated areas where she had probably sought food.

  "Was Molly a woman?" asked Venetia.

  "No." He chuckled at the prospect of keeping a woman in such a place, and was reminded of how much Venetia didn't know.

  He called out for Hank the Handler, hoping he would have some answers, but there was no response. He finally came back to the airboard and directed Venetia to get on.

  "Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked.

  "No. This doesn't really help at all. If I had found Molly here, it would have told me that the first Raymond managed to get his hands on another NBC. Or that I'm in the original NBC, and the first Raymond is gone."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Um... you don't need to know." Raymond boarded the airboard, helped Venetia climb on behind him, and lifted off the ground. He was above the trees before he realized he had no idea where to go next. The sun was setting, and he was hungry again. He thought of simply returning to the palace, but he wanted to see more of Nurania, in hopes of finding some further clue as to its state, and his own. On a whim, he decided to ask Venetia if there were anywhere she would like to go.

  "Over the mountains, to see your village," she responded excitedly. "You said that if you ever built the village, you would want me to see it someday. Or back to the palace, where I could please you."

  "Village?" asked Raymond.

  "The day that you left, you said that maybe you would build a village."

  "Really," said Raymond significantly.

  A village?

  He had always conceived of Nurania as an escape from people. It made sense to him that he would create Venetia, to be his confidant and plaything. But a village?

  "You said it was over the mountains," said Raymond. "Did I say which mountains?"

  "No."

  "Well, I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to guess." He envisioned lava flowing into the village, destroying it and all of its inhabitants.

  The Faralons were far to the northwest of the palace, and they had flown more or less south to get here. They would have to cover a lot of the same ground again, and then continue on to the mountains. Raymond feared it would be dark before they could reach the village, if there was one. He would need daylight to find it, and to find his way back to the palace if he needed to. He didn't want to run the risk of sleeping in the wilds and being eaten by one of his own creations. He decided to return to the palace for the night and search for the village in the morning.

  By the time they reached the palace, dusk was already turning to darkness. Raymond flew up over the vast blue rock wall and descended directly into one of the many courtyards.

  He feasted on fruits, Venetia pointing out which ones he would like best—and she was right. He almost wanted her to be wrong, for the sake of his own individuality. She also mentioned that the black starfish fruits were designed to provide a balanced diet, and Raymond was pleased with his god copy for simplifying the often tedious task of nourishing oneself. He tried one. The skin was salty and fibrous, and the gooey inside tasted of lime-tinged black beans, with a fine vein of honey running through the cente
r of each leg.

  "How many of these do you have to eat per day?" he asked.

  "Thirty, for your body weight."

  "Oh god, I wish I'd spent more time on that." He tore off another mouthful and chewed away. "Do you eat, Venetia?"

  "I can. Would you like for me to eat?"

  "No, that's fine. Do you like eating?"

  "I like learning the flavors that you enjoy."

  "Naturally."

  When he had eaten as much fruit as he could manage, Raymond asked Venetia to lead him back to the bathing room. He asked her to give him a bath. She told him that she would make it just the right temperature for him, then knelt at the water's edge and dipped her right index finger into the water.

  "Okay," she said with a smile. "Your bath is ready."

  Raymond smiled back at her. It was very nice to discover the features that his god copy had designed into her, rather than to expect them and seek areas for improvement. He took off his robe and stepped into the hot water, and enjoyed a combination bath-and-massage that left him relaxed and lightheaded. As she rubbed him all over with a towel, he announced that he felt ready to sleep. She finished drying him off, then went to the bed and turned down the covers for him. He slid his warm clean body between the delicious linens, and she tucked him in.

  "Am I to sleep with you?" asked Venetia.

  Raymond looked at her for a moment, realizing that sleeping with her felt like it would be cheating on Anya. His eyes fell to the floor—there was no more Anya. But there was the memory of her, which for him was still strong, regardless of the years that might have passed since his scan.

  "It would please me to sleep alone," he said. "Is there somewhere nearby where you could sleep?"

  "I could sleep on the floor."

  "That's not what I had in mind. Do you have to sleep?"

  "No."

  "Do I?" asked Raymond.

  "While you built the palace you did not sleep. When you were done, you said that you missed sleep."

  Raymond felt sleepy now. His god copy must have experimented with the need for sleep, as he had planned to do.

  "If you don't sleep," he asked, "what will you do?"

  "I will wait for you to awaken."

  He rolled onto his back. At first, this notion seemed silly, but an idea occurred to him. "Okay," he said. "I want you to stand guard outside the bedroom. If anyone comes into the palace, I want you to awaken me. Oh—and if he looks like me, ignore him and come straight here. Don't listen to a word he says." She nodded and left the room. It seemed unlikely that his god copy would choose to wander about, if his god copy were even alive anymore, but it was an easy precaution to take.

  As he drifted off to sleep, he pictured the neuristors in his NBC sorting themselves out, as he roughly pictured the organic brain sorting itself out during sleep. He had never studied the topic, but he had overheard Anya and other scientists on the team postulating that this process would be necessary, to a lesser degree, in a computer brain. He wished he had at least enough access to his network to monitor the state of his NBC.

  o-------------------------------o

  Sleep, his first night in Nurania, was restless. He dreamt of himself as a puppet being operated by an evil version of himself. This dream transitioned abruptly into another, in which he was in the gallery of a courtroom, amid dozens of copies of himself. All of the copies were on trial for the negligent homicide of Mr. Tate, but only one was allowed to speak. Detective Brody was cross-examining that one copy, and he kept giving wrong answers. Raymond turned from side to side, looking to his comrades for the courage to speak out, but they looked at him with helpless eyes, their mouths sealed shut by an extra layer of skin. He tried to scream out that this was not fair, that someone must have brainwashed the copy that was representing them all, but he found that he couldn't open his mouth, either. He brought his hand up and ran it over the fresh new skin that stretched from his upper lip to his chin. He tore at the skin, trying at the same time to force his jaws open, but the skin was too tough. Then he saw that Anya was the judge. The copy of him that was allowed to speak was describing what it was like to drain the blood from the old man's body and cut it to pieces, feeding the meat and organs to caged rats and grinding the bone chunks into powder. Anya's face was white, distorted with sadness and disgust. She looked to the gallery, to him, shaking her head and mouthing the word "why". He bent forward, his head in his heads, and started to sob uncontrollably. And he awoke this way, lying on his side, curled tightly, shaking with heavy sobs.

  "I didn't even kill him," he mumbled, slowly coming out of it. But he knew that what he had done was inhuman, and that he had never come to terms with it, never admitted to himself that it was wrong. "It was a symptom of some... deeper sickness." His concept of the sickness was vague, but he knew that it had to do with lies and concealment. "As if I could have concealed it from myself." At these words he started to cry again, tears of bitter self-awareness.

  He lay awake for hours, uneasy with despair. He kept thinking of his relationship with Anya, and his failure to break through with her. He dwelled on his past until he could do so no more, and a desire to change arose within him. He threw the covers aside, got out of bed, and walked outside the bedroom. Venetia sat on a bench in the courtyard, doing nothing. At his approach, she stood up; he fell to his knees, embraced her hips, and leaned the right side of his face against her robed tummy.

  "I am a worthless man," he said.

  "No," protested Venetia.

  "Yes. Please don't try to convince me otherwise, Venetia. I just want to tell you that I'm worthless. It feels good to say it out loud, to tell it to someone." He took deep breaths, enjoying how close he was to her reproductive organs. They were a symbol of strength for him, of humility and sacrifice. It occurred to him that they were probably non-existent in this particular woman, but he was willing to embrace this small delusion for the sake of his own peace of mind.

  A heady floral aroma filled his nostrils. For a moment, he thought the scent to be coming from Venetia, but then he realized what it must be. He had always had a fascination with night-blooming flowers. He must have included some in this courtyard, just outside his bedroom, to be enjoyed on nights when he preferred not to sleep.

  "You are worth something, Venetia, and I am worth nothing. You do only good. I've done so little good." She stood perfectly still, saying nothing, just as he had instructed. It made his speech seem to ring a bit empty, but it felt good to hear the words come from his mouth.

  "I've done work," he continued, "but always with my own satisfaction in mind. You act to please others, and therein lies your pleasure. When have I ever done anything to please others? I have done work to please animals, I suppose. But that's different. When I work to please animals, I don't feel like I'm giving up anything of myself. Where people are concerned, it's like... my dignity is at stake. Why is that?"

  "I don't know," answered Venetia.

  Raymond loved that she wanted to answer his question. He opened her robe and sweetly kissed the skin that curved across her pelvis. "That's okay, Venetia. I don't expect you to know. I asked the question without expecting any answer."

  Birds started to tweet in the trees around them. The first light of dawn had edged its way into the night. Raymond looked to the sky.

  "You can already see fewer stars," he said. As these words came out of his mouth, a streaking ball of fire cut across the sky. It didn't fizzle out in the upper atmosphere—it kept going, clear across the sky, until it dropped out of view beyond the courtyard wall, followed a second or two later by an explosive impact that shook the ground.

  "Oh no," said Raymond. He scanned the sky. About thirty seconds later, another meteorite tore across the night sky, this one closer. Its impact was closer, too, shaking the courtyard floor noticeably. "The beginning of the end. But... why would I have put a copy of myself into a world nearing its end?"

  I'm not supposed to be here.

  He looked to Venetia. "
Stay here." He sprinted through the bedroom, grabbed his bathrobe, and returned. "Lead me back to the courtyard where we landed."

  "Okay."

  She started walking out of the courtyard. He commanded her to run, and he found that he could barely keep up with her. When they reached the courtyard, he laid eyes on the airboard and remembered how slow their last flight had been.

  "I need a faster airboard," he said.

  "I am unable to make one," responded Venetia.

  A reddish golden light filled the sky. Light from a nearby forest fire, no doubt, started by the last meteorite.

  "I wish you could. Venetia, this is the beginning of the end. Of Nurania. You're probably going to die."

  "Okay."

  "Oh Venetia. No, not okay. I want you to survive. It will give me pleasure if you survive. Do you understand that?"

  "Yes, Raymond."

  "Do you know how to get into the tunnel that runs beneath the palace? The tunnel with the stream that runs through it?"

  "Yes. There is a passage into the start of the tunnel. You built it so that you could ride through the tunnel, and then climb back into the palace. The last time I saw you, before you came back, you went into the tunnel, and I waited for you to come in at the other end."

  "For seven-and-a-half months," said Raymond, shaking his head. "You poor, non-autonomous program. Well, I want you to go into that tunnel and stay there. Do you know how to fly an airboard?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. If I get a chance, I'll send one to you, and I'll... I'll program it to come find me. Or something. Or I'll come back to get you. I don't know. But the most important thing is for you to be safe. That takes precedence over everything else, okay?"

  "Okay."

  "Oh, you beautiful thing. Why, why, why?"

  Raymond rose up on the airboard a few feet. "It'll probably only be a few days before the comet hits. It's like the comet that hit Earth—the one that killed the dinosaurs. Only bigger. I remember once, a long time ago, I decided if I ever had to destroy Nurania, I'd do it with a comet. And this meteor shower is the lead-up."