by Neil Clarke
Oh, good, I’m dreaming, he thought. He took control, shaking off the silly metaphorical cord and parting the water, creating a slanted cylinder of air that reached from the surface to his house on the seafloor. He slid down the inside of the cylinder, passing through the library’s skylight as smoothly as the camera in Citizen Kane.
Inside it was warm and the lamps blazed brightly. He shook the water off his skin like a dog and walked barefoot over the carpet to the shelf where the new periodicals were kept.
The clock on the wall read three a.m. A new pamphlet of Guinard’s memoirs had arrived; Linus settled into a plush armchair and read through the latest installment.
It opened with Guinard’s recollections of, and reflections on, Waking Linus’s encounter with his brothers at the motel. Linus read and reread the passage carefully, but he could detect no trace of suspicion, no subtext of mistrust. Both Guinard’s spies, and everything he’d now seen and felt through Waking Linus’s eyes, told a story in which the three of them had fought desperately to save their wayward brother. Never mind if the protégé himself had not entirely faced up to the prospect of his own demise, and took solace in a vague conviction that he might endure as a significant component in an amalgamated Linus-Marcel; the three people who knew him best clearly believed otherwise. They understood how weak he was, and how easily he’d be subjugated, then snuffed out entirely.
Linus skimmed the rest, which consisted of Guinard’s tedious daily routine and even more dreary meditations and recollections, but it was up to Waking Linus to take this guff seriously as notes for his character’s role. He put the pamphlet aside and walked over to the shelf that held the volumes recounting the lives of his brothers.
As he touched the spines of the bound copies of these temporarily suspended serials, he felt a pang of guilt; rereading old issues would help him pass the time while he lay dreaming—in between revisiting Zola and Proust—but how badly would the three of them be suffering while he bunkered down and waited for Guinard to die?
He wanted to believe that they would reason their way out of despair into an understanding of the secret he couldn’t reveal to them—and that they themselves, if they came to know it, could never speak out loud. Guinard would be watching them, gauging their progression from grief to resignation, and the long con they hadn’t known they were to be a part of would rely on them appearing to continue to mourn.
About the Author
Greg Egan has published more than sixty short stories and thirteen novels. His work has won the Hugo Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and seven Japanese Seiun awards. His latest publication is the novella Dispersion from Subterranean Press.
Last Wishes
D.A. Xiaolin Spires
The urn looked like it weighed a million pounds, but when I picked it up from the bottom, it was as light as a feather. These artisans were full of trickery and skill like that. I’m guessing that’s why my mom chose it.
“Be careful, Jinying,” Dr. Lee-way, the head artisan, said. The hologram designer next to him nodded at the handles, a silent request that I pick it up from there.
“I will,” I said. I moved my hands to the handle and raised it higher. On the bottom were their signatures and the encryption code that certified the authenticity of the piece that surrounded the tiny hole for tuning.
Dr. Lee-way pushed a paper toward me. “Sign here,” he said. “That will confirm the credit transfer.”
I scribbled with a flourish in multiple languages as the form required: mother language of your name and phonetic translation. 津瑩. Jinying.
Dr. Lee-way glanced at my signature and up at me and said, “Seems fitting. Jin. Ying.” He stretched out the syllables, thinking. “My Chinese isn’t great, but isn’t that . . . ferrying . . . conveying . . . and the luster of gems.” He reached out, stroked the urn, and laughed. “You’ll be quite the carrier, no, quite the chauffeur, for this treasure.”
“That’s an interesting interpretation,” I said. “My name’s more about migration, for the jin and the ying reflects my mom’s love for appearance and cosmetics: luster.” I touched my face, thinking about her flawless skin.
He nodded at me, then touched the urn, urging me to pick it up.
I shook the urn, seeing the puzzle-like cracks in the cloisonné design-ware. I felt across the surface. There it was, a few of the flame tree flower pieces made from dray-copper wire I pinched and handed to the artisans years before my mother passed. Across the urn were flowers of all kinds, and also images of that little blue marble in space of our homeland and the Driftnet colonies we’ve transplanted to as our new home in generations after. I had sketched this out according to my mom’s wishes and sent it to the experts. My mom was adamant that I have a hand in her design. She said she wanted the fruits of my labor always near her, so it would feel like she would be cared for.
Of course I would care for her. Even more than doing some sketches and adding a few pinches of dray-copper wire on an elaborate never-yet-seen custom-made puzzle vase.
I pressed my nail into a signature crimson mark in one of the designs of the flame tree flowers, near the inlay draymetal that I had bent. A holo projected from that side of the urn. Dr. Lee-way moved aside and I stepped back to see a brilliant rotating flame tree, its plumage of red-hot lanterns reaching outward like arms trying to pull in the heavens. I thought it might project with her voice, but this one was accompanied by the erhu, the radiant tree dazzling against the mellow sound of drawn-out notes. It was well rendered, without even a hint of voxelation, the contours of the erhu as crisp as the notes. In a few moments, the tree fizzled away and the music faded.
The holo designer raised his brow and said, “So?”
“Looks like top-of-the-line work,” I said. He looked pleased, his eyes crinkling.
“I imagine I’d be able to crack the puzzle in a few weeks,” I said.
Dr. Lee-way laughed. “Ah, the puzzle. That’s not my line of work, so I can’t speak to that. I know Mr. Xin collaborated with your mom for a long while on this. If I know Mr. Xin—I mean look at how his trademark attention to detail is all over this—you’ll be spending years trying to crack it. Maybe your whole life.”
I raised my brows. “I can’t spend my whole life. The clock’s ticking. Custom says I have seven days for my offerings—adjusted to seventy for space travel. That’s the length of time for a funeral; then comes the mourning.”
I shot him a glance.
He turned around, took a look at my bothered expression, and looked flustered. “Hopefully you’ll get it solved soon,” he said. “For custom’s sake.”
It’s not just custom. Customs shift through years and generations, so they’re not static and definitive. I wouldn’t mind that much breaking custom. It’s more that these are the last wishes of my mom and if I didn’t fulfill them, I wouldn’t be fulfilling the requirements of filial piety. I’d have failed. But, I didn’t bother telling Lee-way all that.
I pressed down on another mark and a rocking chair illuminated from the urn. It rocked back and forth by itself, and Teresa Teng’s clear voice broke through, singing about lost love. The image shimmered and in a few moments also dissolved into the air, like it never was.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Yongli would have liked that.” I nodded, as my heart wrenched at the mention of my mom’s name. Lee-way lacked tact, but he meant well.
He handed me a tuning screw. “Be sure to keep the holos aligned with the sound. Just a few turns a day. These old techniques need a lot of upkeep, not so popular anymore, but the visuals are stunning.”
I placed the urn in its fresh-keep case and sealed it. These top-of-the-line artisan-crafted, technologist-tinkered custom urns cost a pretty penny, not to mention all the accoutrements that go with it. They’re not like the run-of-the-mill popular ones. This one was experimental, incorporating prototype tech—even more pricey. The tuning screw, the fresh-keep packaging for transport, the checkup consultation
holos and enhancement wipes. I felt like I was now in charge of a small, high-maintenance, extravagant pet. It cost me more than half my savings.
But, it was quite a work of art. That was for sure.
And, according to my mom’s wishes, her ashes weren’t in there. There was something else going on with the urn. She told me before she passed, that she would leave her legacy to me in the form of an enigma. A grand puzzle I’d have to crack open.
Maybe it was a kind of megalomaniacal flex of power to keep me running in circles. But, I really just think that she wanted to play. Even after her death, she wanted to stay in touch with me, to play, to be involved in my life and share a game with me. Like when we were kids.
She was always like that. Intrigued by challenges and social in her own way, doling out intimacy in the form of brainteasers.
My mom loved riddles and puzzles. When I was a little girl, she sent me on scavenger hunts. She said that she felt bad I was so disconnected with my heritage and dropped pieces of culture for me to pick up. I said culture wasn’t embedded in things, but in people and language. She shook her head and laughed.
“Oh, honey, of course culture is embedded in things. It’s a lasting mainstay of our civilization. People disappear, but things stay. Look at archeological digs. Back on Earth, the home of your ancestors. Pompeii’s ruins. The Terracotta Warriors. The Temple of Hatshepsut.”
Her eyes shone, and she paused. I guessed she was probably thinking of the magnificent reign of Egypt’s first female pharaoh, stories she told me when I was a kid. She used to embellish on the tales, speak gloriously of the great monument the Queen-as-King Hatshepsut built for herself for her afterlife.
“Things give us memory,” she said, gesturing to the house, as if that was a grand story in and of itself, to rival any temple.
“Memory is held in the minds of men,” I said.
“Women, too.”
“You know what I mean,” I muttered.
“But, even if it’s held in the minds, you need that spark to revive it. And things provide that spark.”
She looked wistful for a moment. I scoured the yard, looking for this thing. Always something that she wanted me to find. Her clues were enigmatic, as if only someone who was her could know.
“Made from fire and reaches for the sky,” I said again, crunching on a fortune cookie with the tang of citrus, pushing the sliver of paper in my pocket. Mom was leaning against a rocking chair, also snacking on fortune cookies. Hers were empty, without the iconic fortune paper slips. She had hand pressed them earlier that day, slipping in clues only for me. Shell-shaped and with a dash of her signature pomelo extract, they were tasty.
“Made from fire and reaches for the sky,” I said, tapping fingers on my palm. I traced the yard with my feet. My sandals left impressions in the wet dirt. We had no chimneys in our neighborhood, so it couldn’t be that. What is made from fire? Ash?
Finally, as I neared the trunk of the ol’ tree at the corner of the yard, I saw a flash of a smile appear on my mom’s face. Ah, I said, shimmying up the trunk and grabbing a handful of the bright yellow flowers. “The flame tree. Made from fire.”
“Yes, Koelreuteria bipinnata. Native to Southern China.”
“Yeah? Is it really native to China? Traveled quite far.”
“Yes, like us. The Chinese flame tree. Also called the ‘complex feather leaf tree’ in Chinese. Doesn’t quite capture the poeticism of the flames though.”
“Not really flaming now, is it?”
“No. Too bad. Have to wait for later in the colony year,” she said. Its bright red lantern-shaped seed capsules only flourished in the autumn. These yellow flowers were more like embers in comparison.
I unleashed the crinkled flowers from my hand, letting them rain down onto the yard. I could hear mom crunching on her cookies. “It’s pretty in the autumn. But, the flowers are useful, too. Remember, in Chinese medicine, the flowers clean the liver, detoxify, and promote clear eyes.”
“So you sent me to the flame tree to collect flowers? To, what, detoxify my liver?”
“No, it’s to remind you that culture is in things. Medicinal practices in plants. But, also, you have another clue.” She pointed.
I poked around and resting in the fork of the branches found the next clue, as she promised, another fortune cookie. This time when I cracked it open, all it said was “Aha! You’ve found me.”
“Anticlimactic,” I said. I threw the cookie in my mouth. Within was a sudden burst of flavor, red bean and pomelo. She must have lined the cookie shell with extracts.
Well, that was unexpected.
“Sometimes you just got to enjoy the cookie,” my mom said. “Another message from the sages.” She laughed.
She came over, patted me over the head, and shoved a bunch of empty cookies into my hands. “Eat.”
I snacked on the rest of the fortune cookies in my pocket. My mom handmade enough of them to last me for years, but I could only take a small bag of them for my trip to complete my filial duty.
I was using the porto-vac, sucking up the crumbs from my new comfort suit, while on line for the security check. Once we got to the port, us passengers would be divvied up into autoships.
There were huge cruise shuttles heading back to Earth in the other direction, but mine would be one of the smaller ships, holding only a small crew and a spattering of passengers to go out farther into the Driftnet colonies.
The ticket was terribly pricey, and thank goodness for the research being funded last minute through the Zhongqing Marketing Corp. They’re trying to push through new lines of landscape gardening for sale. They rejected my request to do cultural acquisition on language and religious rites, but held on to my application. Instead, they wrote a comment that they wanted me to collect interviews on gardening practices and ecological data and would fund me for that, since I was one of the few who had a good grasp of far-colony dialects. Beholden to my funders, how can I refuse? I mean, it’s all for my mom, in the end. They granted me a research ticket that allowed me to bring one personal item greater than 10”x10”. That allowance was a luxury.
The security guard grabbed the urn case and pulled it open. I stepped up to say something, but as I opened my mouth I glanced at her partner guard with piercing black eyes like gulfs. He glowered at me. I backed down, but when she took the urn out of the suction mold, holding it tight, she nearly scratched the luminescent enamel embossments with her comm watch.
Blood rose up my back. “Be careful. Can you please pick it up by the handles?” I sounded like Dr. Lee-way.
She shot me a direct look into the pupils and nodded at her partner who held out his hand. “Okay, hand over your other bags.”
Security. At least they’re not asking for a pat down. I showed them my badge.
The bearded partner read aloud, “Jinying Chang. Anthropologist, Research Systems, Funded by Zhongqing Marketing Corps.” He scanned it.
“Ah, Jinying. Yeah, you’re on our list,” he said. The security guard holding my priceless beauty suddenly became a lot less rough with my mom’s urn. She swabbed a sensifabric over, which illuminated it in a bright blue haze. She rotated it, holding it by one of the handles this time, going over the surface of the cloisonné design work with the sensor light.
“What is this?” she asked. “I’m getting some strange readings.”
“It’s a special vase for rituals,” I said, in rehearsed nonchalance.
“Looks like an urn,” said the bearded one.
“Urn? You can’t bring human remains on board.”
“No, no human remains, of course. It’s not an urn. It’s a special vessel used in ancient spell rituals.” I clenched my teeth and flashed my badge again. Hello, anthropologist, don’t you see the words? I wanted to shake them.
But, they were right, of course. It was an urn.
“We’re going to have to run it through the Insta-tell. We’ll have it out soon.”
I felt like I got punched in the gu
t. I couldn’t let them just take it. What if they throw it in the incineration and reclamation pile for prohibited goods? Even if it wasn’t prohibited because technically the ashes were on me, not in the urn.
I could feel my mom’s last wishes recede from fulfillment. I couldn’t let that happen.
“I’d rather have it in my sight. It’s a one-of-a-kind rare artifact.”
She looked at my badge again and up at my face, as if that would somehow help convince her.
“Fine, but that means we’re doing a pat check, too.”
Inside I groaned, but I nodded and followed them without a word.
I hated pat checks—violating crevices, poking in with their lighted wands. They couldn’t just use the sensifabric like any other humane service agent, no, they had to take out the wand and jab and prod, abusing their authority. I usually would submit a few direct complaints that would get the pat check override, but I had too much at stake to risk the delay waiting for Zhongqing’s administration to get the clearance through.
I also couldn’t let the guards find the ashes flattened out and stored under fauxskin over my thighs.
I sneezed a few times as they took me to the sensor room.
I squirmed as they started the prodding. I told them to be careful with my knees, that I had surgery in the past. I tried quelling the shaking that would give me away. They couldn’t see me nervous.
As she got to the secret compartment, a bead of sweat ran down my neck.
I sneezed loudly, complaining of allergies. It made the prodder she held jump just a few inches away from my legs.
I kept waiting for the loud beep that would do me in. At one point she stopped near my hip. “The prodder might be low on charge. I might have to get a new one and do it all over.”
I wasn’t sure if she was serious or messing with me just because I gave her lip in the beginning.