Asimov's SF, January 2012 (6 page)

"No. The story was already inside her. The soul stone found it and made use of it."

"Right. You just like to watch."

"Something like that,” the alien, Unlikely Worlds, said.

"She thought she was Charlie Starkweather. Well, I know she wasn't, but it didn't matter what story she was following as long as that stone got back to where it was supposed to be."

"I imagine it matters to you."

"I thought we'd have a bunch of adventures until the law caught up with us. I thought we'd be together right until the end . . ."

For a while, the man was somewhere else. The !Cha waited. He had deep reserves of patience, and had paid the prison governor for all the time he needed. When he saw the man's attention come back, he said, “Your story did not end when she left you in the tomb."

"Now we're getting down to it, aren't we? Well, I'll tell you how it ended if you tell me something."

"That was always our deal."

"The truth. No evasions."

The man was fingering the stubble behind his left ear, where a faint white scar showed.

The !Cha said, “She hit you on the head. You lost consciousness. You woke . . ."

"I could hear the helicopter. I guess it woke me. That hard fluttering roar. I'd lost a lot of blood, and I was still half out of it, but I found my way through the labyrinth. Saw that Rachel had taken the pickup, no surprise there. I followed its tracks up that ridge in the near dark, saw the helicopter chasing the pickup's headlights out across the playa. She was driving fast, bouncing along in a shroud of dust. The helicopter was right on her tail. Flying low, shining a spotlight on her. I guess she was watching her rearview, because she didn't seem to see the headlights cutting in on her right. Or maybe she did, and she didn't care. . . .” The man was somewhere else again for a moment. He said, “She called the town's sheriff sometime when we were driving to the tomb. One time she went off to pee, I'm sure that's when she did it. The sheriff came looking for her on account of the murder of the storeowner, called in the chopper to help. And she called him again after she cold-cocked me, because he knew where to find me."

"And he shot her."

"I suppose you want to know how I feel about that. I don't blame him. She shot at him, what was he going to do? He T-boned her, smashed the pickup good, and she started firing through the broken windshield. I saw the flashes. Like stars going off inside the chopper's searchlight. She fired off an entire magazine inside half a minute. He fired back, that was it. I knew it was because the chopper landed beside the two vehicles, took off again, and came on toward the tomb. And I ran back inside,” the man said. “I don't know why. I wasn't thinking straight. I had this idea there might be treasure inside after all, even though I knew there wasn't. But maybe something else was doing my thinking for me, you know?"

"Is that what you believe?"

"Wish I knew,” the man said. “I got inside, started threatening the eidolons. I shot at them a couple of times, but they took no notice of course, being ghosts. So that was when I went outside and grabbed that old shovel, and started hitting the soul stone. Hit it and hit it until it split in two. Those eidolons went crazy. Whirling around like they were caught in a hurricane wind. By now, the helicopter was overhead, and its noise and its glare filled the entrance. I could see the stone was in pieces on the floor, and I picked up a sliver and I swallowed it. And no, I don't know why."

"And then?"

"The eidolons dropped down and scattered back into the shadows,” the man said. “They were watching me. But as far as I was concerned, nothing happened. No revelation. No visions. Someone used the helicopter's loudspeaker, told me to toss any weapon I had and come out with my hands up. I thought for maybe a second about shooting at them. But it was there and gone. The thing inside me, the thing that had risen up and taken me, it was gone. So I climbed up that ramp into the glare with my hands up above my head, and that was that."

"Not quite,” the alien said.

"You mean my little friend,” the man said, and snapped his fingers.

The shadow sidled out from under the bunk bed like a shy or sulky child, a smoky biped shape that bent and bowed, half-transparent in the harsh light, the glittering band of its eyes all the time fixed on the !Cha.

"There it is,” the man said. “Bound to me, poor thing. And here I am, ready to follow Rachel. So, that's my story, for what it's worth."

"It is a good one. My rival will be displeased."

"Yeah? So why isn't he here?"

"He did not realize that your story is more important than that of the woman. That it is not from some fragment or template woken by the soul stone. It is all yours."

"And now it's yours."

"Now we share it."

The man said, “The scientists say something in that sliver bonded with my nervous system. That's why my little friend followed me out of the tomb. Because when I bonded with the stone, he bonded with me. You think that's true?"

"Is that your question?"

"Depends whether you can answer it."

"I know as much about the eidolons as you. Perhaps less,” the !Cha said.

The shadowy manikin, squatting by the man's bare feet watched them talk.

"Some claim that inside that tank you're a school of little fish. Others that you're no more than a gallon of smart water. I was wondering which is nearest the truth. And no, that isn't my question either. Just simple curiosity."

"You are playing with me."

"We're playing each other."

"You started out as something like a fish, in your mother's womb,” the alien said. “And most of your body is water. The truth is we are not so very different, you and I."

"We both like stories. Or think they're important."

"I value yours immensely, and am honored that you have shared it with me. Please. Ask me a question. I will answer it as truthfully as I can."

"Maybe another time,” the man said.

"You have little time left."

"Even so. Maybe I want to go out with you owing me something. It would mean I'm not going out empty-handed, you know?"

"I will think about that, and try to understand.” The alien pushed up on its three legs, knocked on the door to summon the guard, and said, “You don't always understand your own stories. That's what Mr. Springsteen's songs are so often about. People who don't understand the stories they are caught in. The Jackaroo think it will be your downfall. We think it is part of your glory. You don't understand your stories, and you search for their meaning, and sometimes that frees you to do something different. Something new. Something wonderful. As you did, when you smashed the stone and swallowed part of it."

"Didn't help me, did it?” the man said. “Know what they call out, when I'm taken outside my cell? ‘Dead man walking.’ “

"You could have chosen to die in the desert. And your story would have died with you. Yet it lives now, and will live on. Perhaps the part of you bonded to the eidolon will survive to see who is right. Us, or the Jackaroo."

"Wouldn't that be nice,” the dead man said, with the trace of a smile.

Copyright © 2011 Paul McAuley

[Back to Table of Contents]

Katherine Marzinsky is a student at Raritan Valley Community College, where she is majoring in English. She lives in Frenchtown, New Jersey, with her Shih-Tzu, Misty. In her first published story, a robot makes some heart-stopping decisions about what constitutes . . .

Howling with panic, an ambulance rounded the corner.

Ross's head swiveled to comprehend the intimate velocity. The ambulance swung so close it was easy to read the small words on its side. Willow Ridge Medical Center. Tires bumping over concrete. Changing air pressure. Expect the unexpected.

Though he made his best efforts to hold onto the white plastic garbage bag, Ross's fingers were never good at grasping weightless things. Ross watched his bag flail upward. Its opaque skin mirrored red light for a moment before getting lost in the darkness. A plastic wraith in a cluttered sky.

Ross put his hand to his forehead out of pre-programmed habit, as if affixing a hat, but he was in no danger of being blown away. Ross's body was heavy. He had once shattered a tile floor with his steps. Abandoned newspapers fluttered around the robot, but he remained solid.

Ross lowered his hand once the newspapers had settled. He could still hear the emergency vehicle, a half-mile down the road, its anxiety mingled with street noise. Loud and sleepless city.

Ross heaved a motorized sigh and dispensed another bag from his chest. He tore the perforated edge with undextrous metal fingers. Determined not to lose another piece of his utility, Ross stepped backward three paces; he looked down the road before fluffing the second bag.

Ross always learned from the unexpected. And that is why he was good. He was good at what he did. He was good at who he was.

Robotic Sanitation Services.

The ones who kept the city beautiful. The ones who cleaned up at night so the day could feel confident. Ross was necessary. And he was good. He was good because he learned from the unexpected. He was good because he was necessary.

Electricity and servos. Purpose and identity. Car horns and stray dogs. Ross began his journey down the sidewalk, garbage bag in hand. He scooped up a basket of discarded french fries oozing with a fluorescent substance that had once been cheese. Trash. He gathered the unconscious newspapers. Recyclable. Into the canister on his back.

The sporadic packs of humanity dominating stoops and storefronts paid Ross no mind as he passed. Robotic Sanitation Services was a well-known institution, a respected company whose good and necessary workers had melded seamlessly with urban life. The robot lumbered by, squealing and belching exhaust, but no one heard him.

With one hand, Ross clamped a dead bicycle lying in an alleyway. Tangled metal. Multicolor streamers. He eviscerated the streamers, snap, snap, snap, and stuffed them into the bag. Trash. A bright orange sticker, tacky with industrial adhesive, printed from Ross's wrist. He stripped the rubber from the tires. Trash. He affixed the sticker to what remained. Notification for the others: recyclable material. The bicycle skeleton was too large for Ross. The canister on his back was not equipped for bicycles. Ross was good because he knew his limitations. Ross was good because he was efficient.

Slow progression down the sidewalk. Careful eyes. Meticulous attention to unnecessary rubbish. Ross neared a set of dumpsters. He passed them, knowing that objects contained in such metal coffins were not of his jurisdiction. Instead, he harvested the putrefying office equipment lying at their sides, in the open air. Copy toner and shame. Trash. He sorted a collection of crushed soda bottles. Redemption and polyethylene. Recyclable. All the while, Ross bent his wrist at an incredible angle. He swung his simian arm in a precise manner.

Ross moved on to the next alleyway. Objects too large for him. Orange stickers on cube refrigerators weeping freon.

And the next one. Apples, oxidized and brown, writhing with maggots, strewn across a cement stairway. Trash. A porkchop coated in breadcrumbs, also writhing with maggots, stuffed into a soggy grocery bag. Trash. A human infant wailing like the departed ambulance. The unexpected.

Ross narrowed his eyes; he twisted the high resolution cameras into focus. Reaching into the same paper bag with one hand, Ross brushed away clumps of bloody afterbirth, fresher than the porkchop, steaming in the winter air. He flipped the human garbage onto its side, toppling the paper bag. Something thick, like rotting cheese, clung to the infant. It howled. Its limbs flicked spasmodically.

Ross stepped backward and tightened his grip on his own trash bag. He began to print an orange sticker from his opposite wrist. The unexpected. Always new problems to solve. Ross was good because he learned from the unexpected. Ross was good because he could adapt. He could measure his gait to climb all kinds of stairways. He was efficient.

Wrapping cold, clumsy digits around the infant's chest, under its arms, between its kicking legs, Ross lifted it from the ground. It was light, difficult to grasp. The infant tried to reach for Ross's fingers, but its muscles were too new, too weak. More flailing. The legs began to slip.

The infant seemed to work. It could still move; it could still produce sounds from that speaker somewhere in its neck. Ross squeezed harder to prevent the object from falling. He gripped the soft newborn as he had gripped countless soda bottles. It was not trash. Ross completed printing the orange sticker. Recyclable material. Parts of the infant still worked. It was recyclable. Ross's legs had been built from the innards of old economy cars. He reasoned that the humans could use the infant in the same way. He affixed the orange sticker to the left side of the infant's face, covering its eye and one nostril.

Before setting the object down and continuing onto the next street, Ross froze. His mind clicked and whirred under the strain of its newest puzzle. The infant was small enough to carry. It would be inefficient to leave it for the others. Ross was good because he was efficient.

Ross whipped his arm backward. He dropped the newborn into the canister behind his shoulders. Thump. He picked up the fluid-soaked grocery bag as well; he threw it into his white plastic garbage bag. Saturated as it was, the paper was useless.

Three more streets. Moldy shoes. Trash. Coffee filters. Trash. Newspapers. Into the recycle canister. Hubcaps. Orange sticker.

Upon completion of his task, Ross dragged a bulbous trash bag with both hands and started toward his company's district receptacle. On the way, he detoured by one block to stop at the hospital.

The hospital was clearly the place of human maintenance, the refinery of raw flesh. Broken humans went in, transported by the ambulances; good humans went out, walking with efficient legs and lungs. The hospital was the processing plant the infant would require. No doubt.

When he entered through the easily accessible doors of the emergency room Ross was met with disgusted stares. An elderly man choked on the smell of coffee grounds and exhaust. A woman with red hair fell forward and vomited onto a pile of gardening magazines.