Beyond Singularity, page 14
The memory amused him, but he did not repeat the experiment.
After dining on lentils, squab, and medallions of mastodon, with an extremely cunning claret, Osmund entered the forward car of his train and sprawled in the observation bay to watch the hills crawl by. He was enjoying travel, and congratulating himself on getting out of the Club for a few days.
For some reason, perhaps his recent reading, perhaps in reaction to the futurism of the newest sensoria, he found himself dwelling on the past. Much of the countryside was wild, with full-grown trees that formed an impenetrable green wall on each side of the right-of-way for several miles at a stretch. There were many farms, but they were not nearly so densely situated as they once had been, when this whole land had been lumbered clear and fenced and closely cultivated or grazed. He saw barns and crofts here and there, even the occasional house or small village, but knew that such things were kept up for aesthetic reasons now. Storage and stalls would all be underground, along with whatever closets and repair bays the servitors needed.
Not much of what these farms produced could be safely used, in any case. That would change, of course. Over time.
He had begun to nod off when the train turned into a fairly tight bend, overlooking a dell filled with ornamental gardens and graciously bordered ponds. As they drew further into the bend Osmund realized that there was a second set of three private cars toward the rear of the train, behind a series of fiat-cars stacked with great slabs of limestone. Someone else must be taking a trip into the hills.
For a moment he thought he saw a flash, a merest glimpse, of auburn hair in one of the observation bays, and he quickly motioned for the curtains to block the view. One must not be rude.
The diylay uses along the credenzas of the smoking lounge were filled with a marvellous collection of dress swords, presentation dirks and several incredibly beautiful boxes of duelling pistols—representing every era of weaponry from matchlock to fusion torch. Near the ceiling were ornately decorated hunting muskets, with Persian and Mughal stocks. These were nothing, however, compared to the various cuffs and locking sleeves that had been used for passive resistance and so beautifully decorated that trying to cut or break them would be reprehensible, regardless of the cause being promoted by the protesters.
"Excuse me, your Grace."
"Yes?" Osmund turned from his examination of the display to find the valet proffering a tray bearing a gift-wrapped cube. There was, unaccountably, a scent of sandalwood in the room.
"A gift, a souvenir of a chance encounter." The valet remained in its proffering posture, but slid the tray onto the nearest table. "Another citizen, whose cars were attached to this train, sent it to you with her compliments."
Osmund stared at the present, quite astounded. He had not had a gift in so long he barely knew what to do. " `Were attached,'- I understood you to say?"
"Indeed. The citizen's cars diverted at the last switch." "Well. Be sure and see that something appropriate is sent along to her with my compliments."
"Certainly."
The /l, when he finally brought himself to destroy the wrapping, proved to be a solid topaz statue of a hippogryph. The talons were beryl, the hooves ruby, the feathers mother-of-pearl, the mustachios emerald and the eyes inset with obsidian. He knew that he would treasure it for the rest of his life, a memorial to the link that binds humankind.
"Good thing we didn't procreate," he muttered.
"Your Grace?" the centrepiece replied.
"Nothing. A joke."
He did not go to his sleeping compartment that evening, but spent the night smoking and wondering about the woman in the other cars. What her life had been like. What other travels she might have taken.
Hours later, in the small hours of the morning, he realized that he had decided that the servitors were wrong about duty. He could not phrase it precisely, even to himself; and to speak it aloud would be to invite argument and correction from the staff. But he did have some kind of duty, an important one, if somewhat vague. He owed a duty to the time when the world would be less threatening, and its wounds had healed. A duty to a time—he felt certain it would be a time more than a place—when humans might again be trusted to meet face to face; when humans would begin to take another step in their history.
He had not the vaguest idea what that step might be. He did feel, however, that even a perfected human might act wrongly, or somehow, thoughtlessly, delay the healing. It would be his duty to consider the situation. His duty to act for the best.
"In the morning," he said to the ashtray. "I would like to return to my Club."
Coelacanths
Robert Reed
Here's as strange and distant a far future as you're ever likely to see, even in today's science fiction, a world far beyond Singularity that has become so alien to the few remaining humans who scuttle like cockroaches through its interstices that they have given up all hope of understanding it and concentrate all their energies and ingenuity just on the daily battle to survive.
Robert Reed sold his first story in 1986 and quickly established himself as a frequent contributor to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, as well as selling many stories to Science Fiction Age, Universe, New Destinies, Tomorrow, Synergy. Starlight, and elsewhere. Reed may be one of the most prolific of today's young writers, particularly at short fiction lengths, seriously rivaled for that position only by authors such as Stephen Baxter and Brian Stableford. And—also like Baxter and Stableford—he manages to keep up a very high standard of quality while being prolific, something that is not at all easy to do. Reed's stories such as "Sister Alice," "Brother Perfect," "Decency," "Savior," "The Remoras," "Chrysalis," "Whiptail," "The Utility Man," "Marrow," "Birth Day," "Blind," "The Toad of Heaven," "Stride," "The Shape of Everything," "Guest of Honor," "Waging Good," "Killing the Morrow," and at least a half dozen others equally as strong, count as among some of the best short work produced by anyone in the '80s and '90s; many of his best stories were assembled in his first collection, The Dragons of Springplace. Nor is he non-prolific as a novelist, having turned out eight novels since the end of the '80s, including The Lee Shore, The Hormone Jungle, Black Milk, The Remarkables, Down the Bright Way, Beyond the Veil of Stars, An Exaltation of Larks, Beneath the Gated Sky, Marrow, and Sister Alice. His most recent book is a novella chapbook, Mere. Coming up is a new novel, The Well of Stars. Reed lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.
THE SPEAKER
He Stalks the wide stage, a brilliant beam of hot blue light fixed squarely upon him. "We are great! We are glorious!" the man calls out. His voice is pleasantly, effortlessly loud. With a face handsome to the brink of lovely and a collage of smooth, passionate mannerisms, he performs for an audience that sits in the surrounding darkness. Flinging long arms overhead, hands reaching for the distant light, his booming voice proclaims, "We have never been as numerous as we are today. We have never been this happy. And we have never known the prosperity that is ours at this golden moment. This golden now!" Athletic legs carry him across the stage, bare feet slapping against planks of waxed maple. "Our species is thriving," he can declare with a seamless ease. "By every conceivable measure, we are a magnificent, irresistible tide sweeping across the universe!"
Transfixed by the blue beam, his naked body is shamelessly young, rippling with hard muscles over hard bone. A long fat penis dangles and dances, accenting every sweeping gesture, every bold word. The living image of a small but potent god, he surely is a creature worthy of admiration, a soul deserving every esteem and emulation. With a laugh, he promises the darkness, "We have never been so powerful, we humans." Yet in the next breath, with a faintly apologetic smile, he must add, "Yet still, as surely as tomorrow comes, our glories today will seem small and quaint in the future, and what looks golden now will turn to the yellow dust upon which our magnificent children will tread!"
PROCYON
Study your history. It tells you that travel always brings its share of hazards; that's a basic, impatient law of the universe. Leaving the security and familiarity of home is never easy. But every person needs to make the occasional journey, embracing the risks to improve his station, his worth and self-esteem. Procyon explains why this day is a good day to wander. She refers to intelligence reports as well as the astrological tables. Then by a dozen means, she maps out their intricate course, describing what she hopes to find and everything that she wants to avoid.
She has twin sons. They were born four months ago, and they are mostly grown now. "Keep alert," she tells the man-children, leading them out through a series of reinforced and powerfully camouflaged doorways. "No naps, no distractions," she warns them. Then with a backward glance, she asks again, "What do we want?"
"Whatever we can use," the boys reply in a sloppy chorus.
"Quiet," she warns. Then she nods and shows a caring smile, reminding them, "A lot of things can be used. But their trash is sweetest."
Mother and sons look alike: They are short, strong people with closely cropped hair and white-gray eyes. They wear simple clothes and three fashions of camouflage, plus a stew of mental add-ons and microchine helpers as well as an array of sensors that never blink, watching what human eyes cannot see. Standing motionless, they vanish into the convoluted, ever-shifting background. But walking makes them into three transient blurs—dancing wisps that are noticeably simpler than the enormous world around them. They can creep ahead only so far before their camouflage falls apart, and then they have to stop, waiting patiently or otherwise, allowing the machinery to find new ways to help make them invisible.
"I'm confused," one son admits. "That thing up ahead—" "Did you update your perception menu?"
"I thought I did."
Procyon makes no sound. Her diamond-bright glare is enough. She remains rigidly, effortlessly still, allowing her lazy son to finish his preparations. Dense, heavily encoded signals have to be whispered, the local net downloading the most recent topological cues, teaching a three-dimensional creature how to navigate through this shifting, highly intricate environment.
The universe is fat with dimensions.
Procyon knows as much theory as anyone. Yet despite a long life rich with experience, she has to fight to decipher what her eyes and sensors tell her. She doesn't even bother learning the tricks that coax these extra dimensions out of hiding. Let her add-ons guide her. That's all a person can do, slipping in close to one of them. In this place, up is three things and sideways is five others. Why bother counting? What matters is that when they walk again, the three of them move through the best combination of dimensions, passing into a little bubble of old-fashioned up and down. She knows this place. Rising up beside them is a trusted landmark—a red granite bowl that cradles what looks like a forest of tall sticks, the sticks leaking a warm light that Procyon ignores, stepping again, moving along on her tiptoes.
One son leads the way. He lacks the experience to be first, but in another few weeks, his flesh and sprint-grown brain will force him into the world alone. He needs his practice, and more important, he needs confidence, learning to trust his add-ons and his careful preparations, and his breeding, and his own good luck.
Procyon's other son lingers near the granite bowl. He's the son who didn't update his menu. This is her dreamy child, whom she loves dearly. Of course she adores him. But there's no escaping the fact that he is easily distracted, and that his adult life will be, at its very best, difficult. Study your biology. Since life began, mothers have made hard decisions about their children, and they have made the deadliest decisions with the tiniest of gestures.
Procyon lets her lazy son fall behind.
Her other son takes two careful steps and stops abruptly, standing before what looks like a great black cylinder set on its side. The shape is a fiction; The cylinder is round in one fashion but incomprehensible in many others. Her add-ons and sensors have built this very simple geometry to represent something far more elaborate. This is a standard disposal unit. Various openings appear as a single slot near the rim of the cylinder, just enough room showing for a hand and forearm to reach through, touching whatever garbage waits inside.
Her son's thick body has more grace than any dancer of old, more strength than a platoon of ancient athletes. His IQ is enormous. His reaction times have been enhanced by every available means. His father was a great old soul who ,survived into his tenth year, which is almost forever. But when the boy drifts sideways, he betrays his inexperience. His sensors attack the cylinder by every means, telling him that it's a low-grade trash receptacle secured by what looks like a standard locking device, AI-managed and obsolete for days, if not weeks. And inside the receptacle is a mangled piece of hardware worth a near-fortune on the open market.
The boy drifts sideways, and he glimmers.
Procyon says, "No," too loudly.
But he feels excited, invulnerable. Grinning over his shoulder now, he winks and lifts one hand with a smooth, blurring motion—
Instincts old as blood come bubbling up. Procyon leaps, shoving her son off his feet and saving him. And in the next horrible instant, she feels herself engulfed, a dry cold hand grabbing her, then stuffing her inside a hole that by any geometry feels nothing but bottomless.
ABLE
Near the lip of the City, inside the emerald green ring of Park, waits a secret place where the moss and horsetail and tree fern forest plunges into a deep crystalline pool of warm spring water. No public map tells of the pool, and no trail leads the casual walker near it. But the pool is exactly the sort of place that young boys always discover, and it is exactly the kind of treasure that remains unmentioned to parents or any other adult with suspicious or troublesome natures.
Able Quotient likes to believe that he was first to stumble across this tiny corner of Creation. And if he isn't first, at least no one before him has ever truly seen the water's beauty, and nobody after him will appreciate the charms of this elegant, timeless place.
Sometimes Able brings others to the pooi, but only his best friends and a few boys whom he wants to impress. Not for a long time does he even consider bringing a girl, and then it takes forever to find a worthy candidate, then muster the courage to ask her to join him. Her name is Mish. She's younger than Able by a little ways, but like all girls, she acts older and much wiser than he will ever be. They have been classmates from the beginning. They live three floors apart in The Tower Of Gracious Good, which makes them close neighbors. Mish is pretty, and her beauty is the sort that will only grow as she becomes a woman. Her face is narrow and serious. Her eyes watch everything. She wears flowing dresses and jeweled sandals, and she goes everywhere with a clouded leopard named Mr. Stuffand-Nonsense. "If my cat can come along," she says after hearing Able's generous offer. "Are there any birds at this pond of yours?"
Able should be horrified by the question. The life around the pool knows him and has grown to trust him. But he is so enamored by Mish that he blurts out, "Yes, hundreds of birds. Fat, slow birds. Mr. Stuff can eat himself sick."
"But that wouldn't be right," Mish replies with a disapproving smirk. "I'll lock down his appetite. And if we see any wounded birds ... any animal that's suffering ... we can unlock him right away ... !"
"Oh, sure," Able replies, almost sick with nerves. "I guess that's fine, too."
People rarely travel any distance. City is thoroughly modem, every apartment supplied by conduits and meshed with every web and channel, shareline and gossip run. But even with most of its citizens happily sitting at home, the streets are jammed with millions of walking bodies. Every seat on the train is filled all the way to the last stop. Able momentarily loses track of Mish when the cabin walls evaporate. But thankfully, he finds her waiting at Park's edge. She and her little leopard are standing in the narrow shade of a horsetail. She teases him, observing, "You look lost." Then she laughs, perhaps at him, before abruptly changing the subject. With a nod and sweeping gesture, she asks, "Have you noticed? Our towers look like these trees."
To a point, yes. The towers are tall and thin and rounded like the horsetails, and the hanging porches make them appear rough-skinned. But there are obvious and important differences between trees and towers, and if she were a boy, Able would make fun of her now. Fighting his nature, Able forces himself to smile. "Oh, my," he says as he turns, looking back over a shoulder. "They do look like horsetails, don't they?"
Now the three adventurers set off into the forest. Able takes the lead. Walking with boys is a quick business that often turns into a race. But girls are different, particularly when their fat, unhungry cats are dragging along behind them. It takes forever to reach the rim of the world. Then it takes another two forevers to follow the rim to where they can almost see the secret pool. But that's where Mish announces, "I'm tired!" To the world, she says, "I want to stop and eat. I want to rest here."
Abie nearly tells her, "No."
Instead he decides to coax her, promising, "It's just a little farther."
But she doesn't seem to hear him, leaping up on the pink polished rim, sitting where the granite is smooth and flat, legs dangling and her bony knees exposed. She opens the little pack that has floated on her back from the beginning, pulling out a hot lunch that she keeps and a cold lunch that she hands to Able. "This is all I could take," she explains, "without my parents asking questions." She is reminding Able that she never quite got permission to make this little journey. "If you don't like the cold lunch," she promises, "then we can trade. I mean, if you really don't."
He says, "I like it fine," without opening the insulated box. Then he looks inside, discovering a single wedge of spiced sap, and it takes all of his poise not to say, "Ugh!"
