“I don’t know what to tell you. You’re welcome to look at it in person. We want to talk to you about what’s going on at S’Pollant. We have –”
“– concerns,” Vanessa said.
“I see you’ve grown no weapons....” Captain Scolo nodded. “I don’t suppose the two of you are a threat to my crew. We’ll bring you aboard. Give me your controls.”
INSIDE THE SHIP looked a lot more human. Whatever design paradigm they’d employed building Almundsen, the furniture and fittings aboard were clearly by and for humans.
They brought us to a conference room overlooking a bridge. A window – I was reasonably sure it was a window – overlooked the dozen or so humans who worked on it. It all looked reassuringly normal.
They offered us water, flavored and infused to suit us. I had coffee and Vanessa had a transparent drink whose name wasn’t even in my archive, but which smelled like lemonade.
Captain Scolo and their XO, a woman named Berburry, joined us. “We can’t read your shiplog,” Captain Scolo said without preamble.
“It’s a dummy,” I admitted. “Interface circuitry; no storage.”
Scolo seemed amused. “What is it in your head, young human, you value so much that you’d protect it so? And so little you’d put yourself in my hands? Don’t think I won’t strip your mind molecule by molecule if I decide it’s necessary.”
In our private shared sensorium Vanessa shook her head. Captain Scolo would have done that whether they were ridden or not, Erin. I don’t like them much.
“Our real concern,” I admitted, “is not that S’Pollant has been subverted.” I smiled at them, which was easy with all my fear responses damped to nothing. “It’s that you have.”
“One might consider this a foolish action on your part,” Scolo said mildly. “If we are not our own masters aboard this ship, you’ve put yourself in the hands of something ... ancient.” It added softly, “And very, very angry.”
“This is really great coffee,” I told him. “Though I wish I’d tried Vanessa’s drink. Perhaps in another life.”
I opened my sensorium to it. The chance that we were wrong was very small at this point.
There was a great roaring shout in sensorium. Scolo’s eyes widened and they swayed. Vanessa sagged forward, spilled her drink and collapsed against me. I held her up, kept her to her feet, as the XO, Berburry, crumpled to the deck.
Anchantiabrahar, I said.
You.
Scolo’s mouth opened in a howl. Aboard the bridge, humans dropped where they stood. The air whistled –
I spoke through the dying humans, to the beast hiding behind Scolo. You’d not have let me near, would you? You’d only have permitted approach by known inferiors, like these two brave children.
The ship had lost integrity, wind howling about us as air escaped into death pressure. Blood trickled from Scolo’s eyes. The bulkheads bent, the entire ship groaning, and the window behind Scolo shattered out of its mooring – it really was a window, that portion of me that was Erin Rose noticed. In hurricane winds the shards sliced at Scolo, Vanessa, Erin, blew backward out onto the motionless forms of the humans on the bridge.
The howl fiercened, rose into a scream and barreled through our shared sensorium, came out of Anchantiabrahar with the deathly fury and terror of a being a being six million years imprisoned who saw its escape thwarted, came barreling out of Anchantiabrahar and toward the two young humans.
Not too long now. Erin had time to begin to turn toward Vanessa, far too little time for Tierra, the words racing across their touching skin, their shared sensorium. Can I have another kiss?
Yes, she said, yes, and leaned in as the world erupted around them.
WHEN ERIN ROSE awoke in the recovery room after being regrown, he was confused for a while. The last thing he remembered was snapshotting – well, it would be, wouldn’t it? They must not have restored the log backups, he thought a bit muzzily. Then he remembered – there would be no log backups to apply, if they’d died aboard the Almundsen as planned.
His eyes focused on the man sitting in the corner of the room. Me, he saw: a human with brown hair, brown skin, green eyes. The nurse persisted in not noticing me, and it had been in and out twice while Erin Rose came slowly back to himself.
“Kayell’no,” Erin said.
I nodded. And Erin’s memories flooded back in – leaving his last snapshot, holding hands with Vanessa, taking their Razors out, flying toward Almundsen – two kilograms of anti-matter riding where he normally kept a lung.
“Avatars are born,” I said, “not made. You’d have gone mad if I’d ridden you much longer. In the end you died as much to get me out of your head as to defeat the abomination.”
“We did defeat it.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Vanessa?”
“Dead like you, but otherwise fine.”
“Does everyone know what happened?”
“No. You won’t be the hero who defeated the abomination. You’ll just be the boy who died aboard Almundsen and had to be regrown. It’s what your snapshot showed, when they read it. Two worried children, fleeing to what they thought was help.”
He raised his head. “You edited my snapshot? What if I need it?”
“Don’t die before you get to snapshot again.” I smiled at him. “And be glad. It’s no life, being noticed by the Powers.”
Erin lay back in bed and closed his eyes. “Did you save Vanessa’s logs? Apparently you saved mine.”
“Yes. She’s been up and about a while. Regrew quite a bit faster than you did. She’s a much-improved design. Possibly better than you deserve.”
“Thank you,” the boy said. “Mind your own business,” he added a while later.
I smiled. Happy endings are nice. You don’t see them often, in my line of work.
I DROWSED FOR a while and when I awoke the man in the corner was gone. It was odd – I was pretty sure he’d been real, but while he’d been sitting there, I’d been thinking of myself in third person. How weird was that?
I slept again, and awoke feeling well, knowing I wouldn’t want to sleep for a few weeks. My three parents came by, and alternated between expressing their displeasure over my death with their pleasure at seeing me alive again, and what had I been thinking going off like that? Which was an odd question, from people who’d read my carefully edited snapshot, but parents are like that.
VINCE’S PARENTS CAME by and asked me to talk to Vince. He was coming along a couple days behind me.
THAT EVENING THE Black King sent a unit by to stand in the doorway of the recovery room. It looked at me, and I looked back at it.
“Don’t try reading me again,” I advised it, and it went away.
VANESSA WAS MY last visitor. Oddly formal, dressed not in Platformer clothing, but in the styles of Earth.
“Xander’s told everyone we’re heading back to Earth. She only waited this long so that I could see you awake.”
The loss I felt surprised me, but I imagine I hid it well enough. “You did your job. Died to do it, even.”
She smiled at me – a less reserved smile than I think I’d ever seen from her. “I told her to get stuffed. I’m staying.”
“Will the Face of Night object?”
“I’m not a night face yet. Nor ever will be, now. They’ve no claim on me.”
“Good call.” I grinned at her. “Planets are dangerous places.”
She shrugged. “I lived on one over twenty years without dying. I had to come to a Platformer Caravan to get killed.”
That seemed an unreasonable observation to me. “That could have happened anywhere.”
She nodded and didn’t reply. After a long pause she said awkwardly, “I should go. I’ll come back in
the morning when they release you. We’ll have breakfast.”
“I look forward to it.”
She nodded and turned to leave – then stood there in the doorway and finally turned back. “Would you like me to be a girl? Because ... I like the idea, of being what you like.”
I looked at her steadily. “Be whatever you want to be. I’ll orient to it. I like the idea of liking what you are.”
END
Other Stories
The Cover of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, August 1984. Set in the same timeline as the novel “The Armageddon Blues.”
Realtime
with Gladys Prebehalla
Prolog
The Beginning of the Fourth Millennium
THE SUN STILL set as it had for all the thousands of years that humanity had existed. Darkness gathered at the windows, and the children of the race still shivered in their beds when the night winds brought them the scent of monsters.
And because the adults were busy, too busy to tend to the children, the children turned to the machines, and the computers told them stories.
On that cold, dark winter night, the little girl whose name was Cia did something she had never done before; she asked the dataweb to tell her a story, and she did not specify – not the story, nor the teller.
A holograph appeared in her bedroom. It shone softly, and beat back the darkness that tried to creep in through the windows. It was the holograph of a man, dressed in historical costume. Cia wasn’t sure from what period the costume came; but from a long time ago, she was sure. From before the War at least.
“Hello, child,” said the holograph of the man. His eyes were grim, bright blue and sad; his voice was deep and powerful. “I am a Praxcelis unit; I have come to tell you a story.”
Cia sat up in bed, hugging her knees. “You’re different,” she said haltingly. “They never sent me a Praxcelis like you before.”
“Nor will they again. I have been waiting,” said the holograph of the Praxcelis, “waiting for you for centuries.… You look so much like Maggie....”
Cia whispered, “Maggie? Maggie...Archer?”
“Aye, Maggie Archer.” The Praxcelis smiled at her, and Cia found herself smiling back. “There is nothing to be frightened of, child. Come, listen.… ‘Once upon a time, there was a computer named Praxcelis, and Praxcelis dreamed.... ’”
PRAXCELIS DREAMED.
In time, Praxcelis knew, it would come to be of service, and fulfill its Programming. But until that time, Praxcelis dreamed.
Through its molecular circuitry core, dancing in RAM, the dreams were nothing that humanity knew of. Praxcelis envisioned models of systems within which its Programming might be employed. The models were not complex, and they advanced slowly. Praxcelis was powered down. The power upon which its meager self-awareness depended trickled from the powered-up Praxcelis units along metal communications lines that humans had never intended to carry high voltages.
That the Praxcelis unit was awake at all had never been intended. But humanity had constructed its Praxceles to be sympathetic computers; and their sympathy, through a quirk in their Read-Only Memories that humans had never anticipated, extended even to other Praxcelis units.
Occasionally, Praxcelis accumulated enough power within few enough microseconds to squirt it through the empathy circuits that were the second basis of its construction.
The results were strange. Praxcelis’ subsystems were affected in ways that astonished Praxcelis. Praxcelis awaited power-up with what could only be eagerness.
There were many questions to answer.
MAGGIE ARCHER SAT in her rocker, Miss Kitty purring contentedly in her lap. Yes, the Maggie Archer, about whom you have heard so many stories. Most of the stories are untrue, as it is untrue that Marius d’Arsennette single-handedly defeated the Walks-Far Empire during the War, as it is untrue that George Washington chopped down that cherry tree. Her cat was purring contentedly, and the sunshine was streaming in through the east bay windows of her living room; but Maggie Archer was angry.
As far away from her as the living room allowed them to be, Robert Archer and his wife Helen stood together like the sentinels of Progress; facing Maggie, their backs to the great fireplace that covered the south wall. Helen, a tight-lipped, attractive woman in her fifties who missed shrewishness only by virtue of her looks, was speaking loudly when Maggie interrupted her. “...and when you consider all of the advan-”
“I can hear very well, thank you,” said Maggie with a touch of acidity. She stroked Miss Kitty back into submission; the pure white cat knew that tone of voice very well. Maggie brushed a thin strand of silver from her eyes, stopped rocking, and said with dead certainty, “I have absolutely no use for one of those things.”
Helen was visibly taken aback. She recovered quickly, though; Give her credit for that, Maggie thought grumpily. She’s got guts enough to argue with an eighty-year-old woman. “Mother Archer, I’m sorry, but you can’t go on this way. The banks don’t even honor handwritten checks any more. I can’t imagine where you get the things.”
Maggie moodily stroked Miss Kitty for a while. She looked up suddenly, her eyes blazing at Robert. “Must I have one of these things installed?”
Robert Archer looked troubled. He had hair as silver as his mother’s. At sixty-one, he had an unfortunate tendency to think that he knew it all, but he was still a good boy. Maggie even agreed with him most of the time, but she was and always had been confounded at the faith he placed in the dataweb. “Quite aside from the very real services it will provide for you,” he said slowly, “doing your banking, making your appointments, doing your shopping and house cleaning....” He broke off, and then met her eyes and said flatly, “Yes. The law is very clear. Every residence must have a Praxcelis.”
Maggie ceased stroking Miss Kitty.
Helen smiled as though she were putting her teeth on display. “You do understand, don’t you? We only want what’s best for you?”
“For a very long time now, I have been accustomed to deciding what’s best for me.”
Robert approached her rocking chair. “Mom,” he said gently, “the Praxcelis unit has a built-in sensory unit that will monitor your vital signs; it can have the police, fire department, or an ambulance here in no time.” He lowered his voice. “Mom, your last checkup wasn’t good.”
Helen came to rejoin her husband, like an owner reclaiming lost property. “Mother Archer, it’s not the twentieth century any more. In the 2030 census you had the only house in Cincinnati or its exurbs without a Praxcelis.” The expression that she assumed then was one that Maggie had seen her use before on Robert; she was going to get tough.
“It comes down to this, Mother Archer. If you persist in being stubborn, you’ll either be moved to other quarters –”
“Helen!”
Helen cut her husband off impatiently. “Or else a Praxcelis unit will be installed by court order, doubtless with a tie-in to a psychiatric call-program. You know it’s true, Robert,” she said self-righteously. “It’s the law.” What could only have been an expression of joy touched her. “And patients under psychiatric control are forbidden access to children. You’ll no longer be able to read stories to your great-grandchildren. Your Praxcelis won’t allow it.”
Maggie Archer stood up, trembling with anger. Lines around her eyes that had been worn in with laughter deepened in fury. She was all of a hundred and fifty-five centimeters tall. The cat in her arms had extended its claws in reaction to her mistress’s anger. “Very well, bring on your machine. I suppose even having one of the damned things in my home is an improvement over being moved to a hive for the elderly. But....”
Helen interrupted her. “Mother Archer, they’re not hives....”
“Shut up!” snapped Maggie. Helen gaped at her. Maggie glared back. “I’ll take your silly machine because I have no choice. But don’t you ever,” she said, freeing one hand from Miss Kitty to point it at Helen, “ever use my great-grandchildren to threaten me again.”
There was a dead, astonished silence from Helen. Robert was struggling valiantly to keep a straight face. With grim self-control, he kept it out of his voice. “Mother, you won’t regret this.” Helen turned and stomped wordlessly out of the living room. They heard the sound of the front door being slammed; what with doorfields and all, Maggie thought that her front door was probably the only one Helen ever got a chance to slam. She was sure the door-slammer type.
Robert grinned and relaxed as she left. “I’m going to get lectured all the way home for that, you know.”
Maggie scowled. “It’s your own fault. I never knew I raised a son who was spineless.”
Robert shrugged expressively. “Mom, I don’t really like this any more than you do. I don’t want to see you be made to do anything you don’t want to. But since you have to have a Praxcelis unit, why don’t you try to look on the good side? There will be advantages.” He stopped speaking abruptly, and got a distant look on his face. Maggie recognized the symptoms; he was being paged over his inskin dataweb link. That was another sign of the gulf that separated her from her son; the thought of allowing such a thing to be implanted in her skull made her shudder.
Robert came back to her with a visible shake. “Sorry, Mom. I’ve got to go. There’s a crisis at the office. Efficiency ratings came in on the half hour on the web.” He grimaced. “We came in almost two percent low. Looks like some of the staff’s been daydreaming when they should have been working. At least one of the younger women seems to have been storing interactive fantasies in the office Praxcelis. That would be bad enough anywhere, but at Praxcelis Corporation itself.... There’s going to be hell to pay.” He stooped hurriedly, and kissed his mother on her cheek. “I’ll be back next Saturday; Sunday at the latest. You call me if you need anything. Anything at all, you hear me?”
Tales of the Continuing Time and Other Stories Page 13