“And thanks, Papa. Thanks for everything.”
“Yes.”
I’m hugged first by one, then the other. After the tears before breakfast. I now feel astonishingly dry-eyed.
“Well.…”
“Yes.…”
I gaze at Saul and Agatha, my beautiful grandchildren. Still trying to take them in. The future stretches before us and between us.
They open the door. They head off hand-in-hand down the cypressed road. “Bye, Papa. We love you.”
I stand there, feeling the sunlight on my face. Watching them go. My front door starts to bleep. I ignore it. In the shadow of my house, beside my old Ford, I see there’s a limp-winged flyer; Saul and Agatha must have used it last night to get me home. I don’t know how to work these things. I have no idea how I’ll get rid of it.
Saul and Agatha turn again and wave before they vanish around the curve in the road. I wave back.
Then I’m inside. The door is closed. The house is silent.
I head for Saul and Agatha’s room.
They’ve stripped the beds and made a reasonable attempt at clearing up, but still I can almost feel my vacuum cleaner itching to get in and finish the job. Agatha’s left the dressing gown she borrowed on the bed. I lift it up to my face. Soap and sea salt—a deeper undertow like forest thyme. Her scent will last a few hours, and after that I suppose I’ll still have the memory of her every time I put it on. The vase that Hannah bought all those years ago still sits on top of the dressing table: they never did get around to telling me that they broke the thing. I lift it up, turning the glazed weight in my hands to inspect the damage. But the cracks, the shards, have vanished. The vase is whole and perfect again—as perfect, at least, as it ever was. In a panic, almost dropping the thing, I gaze around the room, wondering what else I’ve forgotten or imagined. But it’s still there, the fading sense of my grandchildren’s presence. A forgotten sock, torn pages of the shuttle magazine. I put the vase gently down again. When so many other things are possible, I suppose there’s bound to be a cheaply available gadget that heals china.
Feeling oddly expectant, I look under the beds. There’s dust that the vacuum cleaner will soon clear away. The greased blue inner wrapper of something I don’t understand. A few crumpled tissues. And, of course, Saul’s taken the metacam with him. He would; it’s his favorite toy. The wonderful promise of those controls, and the green menus that floated like pond lilies on the screen. REVISE. CREATE. EDIT. CHANGE. And Agatha turning. CHANGE. Agatha standing still. REVISE. Ghost-petals drifting up from her hands, and a white yacht floating with the stars on the horizon. If you could change the past, if you could alter, if you could amend…?
But I’d always known in my heart that the dream is just a dream, and that a toy is still just a toy. Perhaps one day, it’ll be possible to revisit the pharaohs, or return to the hot sweet sheets of first love. But that lies far ahead, much further even than the nearest stars that the first big ships will soon be reaching. Far beyond my own lifetime.
The broken VR machine sticks out from the top of the wastebin by the window. I take it out, wrapping the wires around the case, still wondering if there is any way to fix it. Once upon a time, VR was seen as a way out from the troubles of the world. But nobody bothers much with it any longer. It was my generation that couldn’t do anything without recording it on whatever new medium the Japanese had come up with. Saul and Agatha aren’t like that. They’re not afraid of losing the past. They’re not afraid of living in the present. They’re not afraid of finding the future.
I stand for a moment, clawing at the sensation of their fading presence, dragging in breath after breath. Then the console starts to bleep along the corridor in my bedroom, and the front doorbell sounds. I stumble toward it, light-headed with joy. They’re back! They’ve changed their minds! There isn’t a ferry until tomorrow! I can’t believe …
The door flashes USER NOT RECOGNIZED at me. Eventually, I manage to get it open.
“You are in. I thought…”
I stand there, momentarily dumbstruck. The pretty, grey-haired woman from yesterday evening at the café gazes at me.
“They’re gone,” I say.
“Who? Oh, your grandchildren. They’re taking a ferry this morning, aren’t they? Off to Brazil or someplace.” She smiles and shakes her head. The wildnesses of youth. “Anyway,” she points, “that’s my flyer. Rather than try to call it in, I thought I’d walk over here and collect it.” She glances back at the blue sea, the blue sky, this gorgeous island. She breathes it all in deeply. “Such a lovely day.”
“Would you like to come in?”
“Well, just for a moment.”
“I’m afraid I was a little drunk last night.…”
“Don’t worry about it. I had a fine time.”
I glance over, looking for sarcasm. But of course she means it. People always do.
I burrow into my hugely overstocked fridge. When I emerge with a tray, she’s sitting gazing at the blank screen of my old TV.
“You know,” she says, “I haven’t seen one of those in years. We didn’t have one at home, of course. But my grandparents did.”
I put down the tray and rummage in my pocket. “This,” I say, waving the broken VR machine in my gnarled hand. “Is it possible to get it fixed?”
“Let me see.” She takes it from me, lifts the cracked lid. “Oh, I should think so, unless the coil’s been broken. Of course, it would be cheaper to go out and buy a new one, but I take it that you’ve memories in here that you’d like to keep?”
I pocket the VR machine like some dirty secret, and pour out the coffee. I sit down. We look at each other, this woman and I. How old is she, anyway? These days, it’s often hard to tell. Somewhere between Bill and the Euthons, I suppose, which makes her thirty or even forty years younger than me. And, even if she were more like Hannah, she isn’t the way Hannah would be if she were alive. Hannah would be like me, staggering on ancient limbs, confused, trying to communicate through senses that are no longer her own, dragged ever-forward into the unheeding future, scrabbling desperately to get back to the past, clawing at those bright rare days when the grandchildren come to visit, feeling the golden grit of precious moments slipping though her fingers even before they are gone.
And time doesn’t matter to this woman; or to anyone under a hundred. That’s one of the reasons it’s so hard for me to keep track. The seasons on this island change, but people just gaze and admire. They pick the fruit as it falls. They breathe the salt wind from off the grey winter ocean and shiver happily, knowing they’ll sit eating toast by the fire as soon as they get home.
“I don’t live that far from here,” the woman says eventually. “I mean, if there’s anything that you’d like help with. If there’s anything that needs doing.”
I gaze back at her, trying not to feel offended. I know, after all, that I probably do need help of some kind or other. I just can’t think of what it is.
“Or we could just talk,” she adds hopefully.
“Do you remember fast food? McDonalds?”
She shakes her head.
“ET? Pee-Wee Herman? Global warming? Ethnic cleansing? Dan Quayle?”
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry.…”
She lifts her coffee from the table, drinking it quickly.
The silence falls between us like snow.
* * *
I stand in my doorway, watching as her flyer rises and turns, its tiny wings flashing in sunlight. A final wave, and I close the door, knowing that Saul and Agatha will probably be on a ferry now. Off this island.
I head toward my bedroom. Assuming it’s time for my morning rest, my bedhelper clicks out its arms expectantly. I glare at it, but of course it doesn’t understand, and I’ve already forgotten the trick Saul showed me that you could do to disable it. The house is already back to its old ways, taking charge, cleaning up Saul and Agatha’s room, getting rid of every sign of life.
But I did at l
east make an effort with the console, and I do know now how to make sure the engaged flag isn’t showing. Child’s play, really—and I always knew how to call my son Bill’s number. Which is what I do now.
Of all places, Bill’s in London. The precise location shows up on the console before he appears; it was just a question of making the right demand, of touching the right key. Then there’s a pause.
I have to wait.
It’s almost as if the console is testing my resolve, although I know that Bill’s probably having to put someone else on hold so he can speak to me. And that he’ll imagine there’s a minor crisis brewing—otherwise, why would Papa bother to ring?
But I wait anyway, and, as I do, I rehearse the words I’ll have to say, although I know that they’ll come out differently. But while there’s still time, I’ll do my best to bridge the years.
At least, I’ll start to try.
SACRED COW
Bruce Sterling
One of the most powerful and innovative talents to enter SF in recent years, Bruce Sterling published his first story in 1976, and has since sold stories to Universe, Omni, Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lone Star Universe, and elsewhere. He first attracted serious attention in the eighties with a series of stories set in his exotic “Shaper/Mechanist” future (a complex and disturbing future where warring political factions struggle to control the shape of human destiny), and by the end of the decade had established himself, with novels such as the complex and Stapeldonian Schismatrix and the well-received Islands in the Net (as well as with his editing of the influential anthology Mirrorshades: the Cyberpunk Anthology and the infamous critical magazine Cheap Truth) as perhaps the prime driving force behind the revolutionary cyberpunk movement in science fiction (rivaled for that title only by his friend and collaborator, William Gibson), and also as one of the best new hard science writers to enter the field in some time. His stories have appeared in our First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Collections. His other books include the novels The Artificial Kid, Involution Ocean, and a novel in collaboration with William Gibson, The Difference Engine, and the landmark collection Crystal Express. His most recent books are a new collection, Globalhead, and a critically acclaimed nonfiction study of First Amendment issues in the world of computer networking, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier, and he has just completed a new novel. He lives with his family in Austin, Texas.
In the unsettling story that follows, he takes us to a not-too-distant future in which the sun most definitely has set, undeniably and unequivocally, on the British Empire.…
* * *
He woke in darkness to the steady racket of the rails. Vast unknowable landscapes, huge as the dreams of childhood, rumbled behind his shocked reflection in the carriage pane.
Jackie smoothed his rumpled hair, stretched stiffly, wiped at his moustache, tucked the railway blanket around his silk-pajama’d legs. Across the aisle, two of his crew slept uneasily, sprawled across their seats: Kumar the soundman, Jimmie Suraj his cinematographer. Suraj had an unlit cigarette tucked behind one ear, the thin gold chains at his neck bunched in an awkward tangle.
The crew’s leading lady, Lakshmi “Bubbles” Malini, came pale and swaying down the aisle, wrapped sari-like in a souvenir Scottish blanket. “Awake, Jackie?”
“Yaar, girl,” he said, “I suppose so.”
“So that woke you, okay?” she announced, gripping the seat. “That big bump just now. That bloody lurch, for Pete’s sake. It almost threw us from the track.”
“Sit down, Bubbles,” he apologized.
“‘Dozens die,’ okay?” she said, sitting. “‘Stars, director, crew perish in bloody English tragic rail accident.’ I can see it all in print in bloody Stardust already.”
Jackie patted her plump hand, found his kit bag, extracted a cigarette case, lit one. Bubbles stole a puff, handed it back. Bubbles was not a smoker. Bad for the voice, bad for a dancer’s wind. But after two months in Britain she was kipping smokes from everybody.
“We’re not dying in any bloody train,” Jackie told her, smiling. “We’re filmwallas, darling. We were born to be killed by taxmen.”
Jackie watched a battered railway terminal rattle past in a spectral glare of fog. A pair of tall English, wrapped to the eyes, sat on their luggage with looks of sphinxlike inscrutability. Jackie liked the look of them. Native extras. Good atmosphere.
Bubbles was restless. “Was this all a good idea, Jackie, you think?”
He shrugged. “Horrid old rail lines here, darling, but they take life damn slow now, the English.”
She shook her head. “This country, Jackie!”
“Well,” he said, smoothing his hair. “It’s bloody cheap here. Four films in the can for the price of one feature in Bombay.”
“I liked London,” Bubbles offered bravely. “Glasgow too. Bloody cold but not so bad … But Bolton? Nobody films in bloody Bolton.”
“Business, darling,” he said. “Need to lower those production costs. The ratio of rupees to meter of filmstock exposed…”
“Jackie?”
He grunted.
“You’re bullshitting me, darling.”
He shook his head. “Yaar, girl, Jackie Amar never bounce a crew cheque yet. Get some sleep, darling. Got to look beautiful.”
* * *
Jackie did not title his own movies. He had given that up after his first fifty films. The studio in Bombay kept a whole office of hack writers to do titles, with Hindi rhyming dictionaries at their elbows. Now Jackie kept track of his cinematic oeuvre by number and plot summary in a gold-edged fake-leather notebook with detachable pages.
Jackie Amar Production #127 had been his first in merrie old England. They’d shot #127 in a warehouse in Tooting Bec, with a few rented hours at the Tower of London. No. 127 was an adventure/crime/comedy about a pair of hapless expatriate twins (Raj Khanna, Ram Khanna) who cook up a scheme to steal back the Koh-i-noor Diamond from the Crown Jewels of England. The Khanna brothers had been drunk much of the time. Bubbles had done two dance numbers and complained bitterly about the brothers’ Scotch-tainted breath in the clinch scenes. Jackie had sent the twins packing back to Bombay.
No. 128 had been the first to star Jackie’s English ingenue discovery, Betty Chalmers. Betty had answered a classified ad asking for English girls 18–20, of mixed Indian descent, boasting certain specific bodily measurements. Betty played the exotic Brit-Asian mistress of a gallant Indian military-intelligence attaché (Bobby Denzongpa) who foils a plot by Japanese yakuza gangsters to blow up the Tower of London. (There had been a fair amount of leftover Tower footage from film #127.) Local actors, their English subtitled in Hindi, played the bumbling comics from Scotland Yard. Betty died beautifully in the last reel, struck by a poisoned ninja blowdart, just after the final dance number. Betty’s lines in halting phonetic Hindi had been overdubbed in the Bombay studio.
Events then necessitated leaving London, events taking the shape of a dapper and humorless Indian embassy official who had alarmingly specific questions for a certain Javed “Jackie” Amar concerning income-tax arrears for Rupees 6,435,000.
A change of venue to Scotland had considerably complicated the legal case against Jackie, but #129 had been born in the midst of chaos. Veteran soundman Wasant “Winnie” Kumar had been misplaced as the crew scrambled from London, and the musical score of #129 had been done, at hours’ notice, by a friend of Betty’s from Manchester, a shabby, scarecrow-tall youngster named Smith. Smith, who owned a jerry-rigged portable mixing station clamped together with duct tape, had produced a deathly pounding racket of synthesized tablas and digitally warped sitars.
Jackie, despairing, had left the score as Smith had recorded it, for the weird noise seemed to fit the story, and young Smith had worked on percentage—which would likely come to no real pay at all. Western historicals were hot in Bombay this year—or at least, they had been, back in ’48—
and Jackie had scripted one in an all-night frenzy of coffee and pills. A penniless Irish actor had starred as John Fitzgerald Kennedy, with Betty Chalmers as a White House chambermaid who falls for the virile young president and becomes the first woman to orbit the Moon. An old film contact in Kazakhstan had provided some stock Soviet space footage with enthusiastic twentieth-century crowd scenes. Bubbles had done a spacesuit dance.
Somewhat ashamed of this excess—he had shot the entire film with only five hours sleep in four days—Jackie gave his best to #130, a foreign dramatic romance. Bobby Denzongpa starred as an Indian engineer, disappointed in love, who flees overseas to escape his past and becomes the owner of a seedy Glasgow hotel. No. 130 had been shot, by necessity, in the crew’s own hotel in Glasgow with the puzzled but enthusiastic Scottish staff as extras. Bubbles starred as an expatriate cabaret dancer and Bobby’s love interest. Bubbles died in the last reel, having successfully thawed Bobby’s cynical heart and sent him back to India. No. 130 was a classic weepie and, Jackie thought, the only one of the four to have any chance in hell of making money.
Jackie was still not sure about the plot of No. 131, his fifth British film. When the tax troubles had caught up to him in Scotland, he had picked the name of Bolton at random from a railway schedule.
* * *
Bolton turned out to be a chilly and silent hamlet of perhaps sixty thousand English, all of them busy dismantling the abandoned suburban sprawl around the city and putting fresh paint and flowers on Bolton’s nineteenth-century core. Such was the tourist economy in modern England. All the real modern-day businesses in Bolton were in the hands of Japanese, Arabs, and Sikhs.
A word with the station master got their rail cars safely parked on an obscure siding and their equipment loaded into a small fleet of English pedalcabs. A generous offer to pay in rupees found them a fairly reasonable hotel. It began to rain.
Jackie sat stolidly in the lobby that afternoon, leafing through tourist brochures in search of possible shooting sites. The crew drank cheap English beer and bitched. Jimmie Suraj the cameraman complained of the few miserable hours of pale, wintry European light. The lighting boys feared suffocation under the mountainous wool blankets in their rooms. Kumar the soundman speculated loudly and uneasily over the contents of the hotel’s “shepherd’s pie” and, worse yet, “toad-in-the-hole.” Bobby Denzongpa and Betty Chalmers vanished without permission in search of a disco.
The Year's Best SF 11 # 1993 Page 11