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Authors: Steven Savile

BOOK: Elemental
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By the time the LST's full complement of marines and sailors left the ship carrying a large case of what Second Lieutenant Pasco promised were “liquid refreshments” and made their way toward the all-purpose lift, Halby had begun to feel pretty good about the way things were going. Chief Yanty's body had been disposed of by then and, given the
petty officer's past problems with alcohol, Womack felt confident that Ensign Tevo would accept the story that the tipsy noncom had wandered out onto Hardscrabble's stormy surface and died of exposure.
So when Pasco, Tevo, and most of the men and women under the command entered the combination chow hall and rec room, neither Halby nor the members of her strike team were ready for what happened next. Just as the syndicate officer had begun to wonder why Womack wasn't present, Mendoza opened what was supposed to be a cooler full of beer and removed a 12-gauge shotgun, which he tossed to Pasco. Then, seizing a submachine gun for himself, the noncom turned to cover the room.
Tevo had been hopeful that the element of surprise, combined with overwhelming firepower, would cause the imposters to surrender without a fight, but, thanks to her role in the great mutiny, Halby had been sentenced to death in absentia. If captured, the people in her assault team were unlikely to fare much better. They knew that, and immediately went for their weapons as Pasco ordered them to “Freeze!”
What followed consumed less than sixty seconds, but it seemed to last for an eternity. The 12-gauge made a loud
boom
as a pirate drew his handgun, only to be snatched off his feet and slammed into the wall behind him.
Mendoza had the automatic weapon in position by then, and was just about to squeeze the trigger when Halby tossed a cup of hot coffee into the noncom's face. The marine swore and dropped the submachine gun to claw at his scalded skin. Halby's sidearm cleared the regulation shoulder holster a moment later and Tevo, who was still in the process of wrestling her weapon out into the open, saw that the woman she knew as Gunnery Sergeant Raster was going to shoot Pasco in the back. The shotgun went off again, Tevo's pistol finally cleared her clothes, and Halby fired. The slug hit Pasco high on his left shoulder and spun the marine around even as the rest of the LST's crew and security team entered the fray.
Tevo ignored everything else to focus on the woman who was about
to shoot Pasco again. Having traveled for what seemed like forever, her handgun finally came into alignment; the naval officer pulled the trigger, and kept pulling the trigger, until all fifteen rounds had been fired. Halby jerked like a marionette on a string, and was already dead by the time the last nine bullets smashed into her broken body.
Tevo was still standing there, dry firing into the bloody corpse when Pasco closed a hand over her empty weapon. “That's what I like about you,” the marine observed. “When you do something—you go all out.”
Tevo came back to her senses, turned to see how the rest of battle had progressed, and was pleased to find that it was over. Roughly half of the imposters were dead or wounded. The rest stood with hands behind their heads as the marines patted them down. Satisfied that everything was under control, Tevo turned back to Pasco and yelled at Omada. “The Lieutenant's been hit! We need a first aid kit over here … .”
The next two hours were spent tracking the rest of the pirates to their various hidey-holes, where most were killed, although a few surrendered. Then, having been thoroughly searched, the surviving members of Halby's team were locked into an empty storage room. Rather than trust Womack to pilot the LST, Tevo instructed Omada to program one of the message torps that orbited the planet and send for help.
Tevo would have been happy to rest on her laurels at that point, but it wasn't to be. A scant twenty hours had passed before three syndicate tankers dropped into orbit and one of the commanding officers demanded to speak with Halby.
But it was Tevo who appeared on the com screen, demanded that the tankers surrender, and ordered Omada to launch surface to orbit missiles as all of the pirate vessels attempted to flee. One of the tankers escaped in time, but two were transformed into thousands of pieces of debris, which were still in orbit around Hardscrabble when the Confed relief force arrived a week later. Tevo was relieved of her temporary command at that point; Pasco and the rest of the crew were taken aboard a cruiser along with the surviving prisoners.
Two weeks later, Tevo found herself aboard the
Epsilon Indi
, in Commander Owani's office, standing at rigid attention. “So,” the XO said as he eyed the ensign through steepled fingers. “You countered an attempt to hijack one of our SFRs and destroyed
two
syndicate ships, all on your first run. Not bad … So, now that you know what it's like to be a real honest-to-god supply officer, do you still want that transfer to Intel?”
Tevo felt her heart race but kept her eyes focused on a spot over Owani's head. “Sir!
Yes
, sir!”
Owani shook his head in mock disappointment. “Request denied. But, if it's any consolation, I put you in for a medal … Of course there's a war on, and the bureaucracy grinds slowly, so as much as a year may pass before you have an opportunity to wear it. In the meantime I want you to have
this
.”
Light glinted off polished brass as the .50 caliber shell cart wheeled through the air and Tevo reached out to grab it. The metal was cool to the touch—but the officer felt an inner warmth as her fingers closed around it. “Thank you, sir.”
“You're welcome,” Owani replied sincerely. “Now get the hell out of my office … I have work to do.”
Tevo did a neat about-face, marched out into the corridor, and paused to examine the projectile that gleamed in the palm of her hand. Now, having been to Hardscrabble Station, she knew what the object was worth.
BY SYNE MITCHELL
 
Syne Mitchell is an award-winning author who lives in the rain-drenched mountains east of Seattle with her husband, Eric Nylund. She is the author of the books
Murphy's Gambit
(2000),
Technogenesis
(2002),
The Changeling Plague
(2003), and
End in Fire
(2005). Her short fiction has appeared in such publications as
Writers of the Future, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine
, and
Talebones
. “The Last Mortal Man” is set in the world of a soon-to-be-published novel of the same title. Whereas the novel paints a broad picture of a world where immortality is commonplace, the short story provides an intimate view of the personal consequences.
“The Last Mortal Man” was inspired by Mitchell's dissatisfaction with mortality. “I resent the fact that death is a ‘when,' not an ‘if,'” she said. “Being a writer, I get to invent my own worlds, so I created one which offered the possibility of immortality. Then, of course, being a writer, I set about figuring out why and how that would be a bad thing.”
Visit her Web site at
www.sff.net/people/syne
.
 
 
HB: This is Hugh Billingsworth
of KUKWY news, here at Cedars-Sinai standing beside what might possibly be the last deathbed in human history. Those of you who've followed Lysander Sterling's epic life know of his eccentricity regarding nanology, and his refusal—despite pleas from family, friends, and fans—to accept conversion to Deathless. Without treatment, doctors say Lysander has less than an hour to live. The question on everyone's mind is: in this, his potentially final minutes, will he break with his public stance of refusing conversion and accept eternal life?
HB: As we wait to see how this latest health crisis resolves, we'll interview those closest to Lysander, review his brilliant and innovative career as a digital artist and animator, interspersed with brain captures of Lysander's own memories—never before has the artist been this open with his public. Only KUKWY brings you this exclusive, live coverage of this emerging drama.
HB: To understand Lysander, the man, and his remarkable life, we have to go back to its beginning. Earlier today, Lysander allowed KUKWY technicians to record memories from critical points in his life. Those of you with full immersion units, get ready to experience how it all began:
 
She's there, trembling and pale in your arms, smelling of dandelions and cut grass. The wind riffles through her hair and trails golden strands across your cheek. The hammock cradling you both sways. Sunlight pierces the shifting leaves of aspen overhead.
You hold her gently, shocked at how thin she's become, how delicate the skin stretched over her bones.
“Please, Maria.” You fight to keep your voice strong; tears would distract from your plea. “Let me help you. It's a simple procedure—everyone does it, eventually. I'll pay—”
She covers your lips with a thin, feverish finger. “No,” she whispers, and replaces her finger with a kiss.
You grab her shoulders and push her up. She sits astride you now, legs dangling over the sides of the hammock.
“But why?” It's all you can do to keep from howling the words, from shaking her until she agrees. “You don't have to go through this pain, the vomiting, the fevers. You don't have to …” the last word—despite your resolution—is a choked whisper, “ … die. Don't leave me.”
Maria smiles very sadly. “I want to live.” She strokes your cheek with hot, dry fingers. “I want to spend as much time with you as possible—that's why I can't convert.”
You slide your hands down her back, pained to feel the ridges of her ribs, the knobs of her spine—so fragile. “Nanology can
cure
you, replace your cells with perfect replication and error checking. You won't die, you won't age. We can be together—forever.”
Maria dips her hand below the hammock to capture a dandelion. She holds it like a wineglass. “If I pull a petal from this flower,” she plucks one yellow tab away, “and replace it with a petal from another flower, is it still the original dandelion?”
You frown. You know where this argument is going. You've fought it a hundred different ways. “Of course it is.”
“And if I replace them all.” She continues plucking until the green center lies exposed.
“Biology,” you tell her in a warning tone.
She continues as if you hadn't spoken, “And if I replace the center.” She picks it and tosses it aside. “And if I replace the stem.” She holds up empty, juice-stained hands. “Is it the same flower then?”
You catch her hands between yours and hold them tight, so she has to listen. “Every cell you were born with has died and been replaced thousands of times over. We're all constantly born anew. This is no different.”
Maria shakes her head, a few more strands of golden hair float away on the breeze. Treasure for the robins in the morning. “I'm sorry. I just don't see it that way. Aging replaces me with me; nanology replaces me with nanoscale machines, pretending to be me.”
You argue on, knowing it's hopeless. Maria's self-reliance and courage first drew you to her. Now those same traits may kill her. But you have to try. If by some logical legerdemain you could change her mind—just long enough for the procedure—
“Nature
is
nanoscale machines: proteins, ribosomes, viruses. Slightly different chemistry; a few less nucleotides, but it's all the same thing.”
“No.” Her lower lip trembles. “It's not. People change.”
She's talking about Louis again. You want to search him out and beat him to death—now an impossible exercise—with your fists. Stupid, idiotic, thoughtless man. Maria's first love, converted the year before you met her. He'd had her for ten, illness-free years, and squandered every second.
Maria squirms her hands free—she has to talk with her hands—has to—holding them still is almost as effective as gagging her. “If it were just my heart, or my lungs, that would be one thing.” She encircles the top of her head with her fingers. “But this is
me
. The seat of all I am. If this changes—I change.” A tear breaks free from her lower eyelashes and rolls down her cheek. “I don't want to stop loving you.”
You rise up from the hammock and cradle her against your chest, as hard as you dare. “You won't, love. You won't.”
“Promise me,” she snuffles against your chest. “Promise me you'll never be converted. I don't want you to stop loving me.”
Her tearful voice is a lance through your soul. Right then, you'd promise her anything, even your life. “Never,” you agree, raining kisses to blot out her tears. “I'll never convert.”
 
HB: What a touching scene. There you have it. The moment that put Lysander on his life's path to become the last mortal man. It made him unique, it made him a living legend, and tonight it just might kill him. This is Hugh Billingsworth of KUKWY news, at Cedars-Sinai, standing deathwatch for Lysander Sterling. All night long, we'll intersperse never-before-recorded memories from Lysander himself with interviews from family, friends, and nanology specialists. With us now is Lucius Sterling, Lysander's great-great-grandfather and the pioneering venture capitalist whose company, Sterling Nanology, brought immortality to the world. He joins us via Gaia-Net, from his family compound in Maui.
HB: Mr. Sterling, as one of the founders of modern nanology, it's ironic that one of your descendents should become an icon because he refuses conversion. What do you think about Lysander's anti-nanology stance?
LS: The boy's an idiot. Nanology is, was, and always will be safe. Maria Ables died forty years ago. Ly should be converted, and get on with life.
HB: Lysander's fans would certainly agree with you, but there are those who say his amazing productivity, the depth of emotion in his work—that those are products of Lysander's knowing his life was finite. Without which, his life's work would have lacked focus.
LS: Fine. So his morbid fascination gave him focus in the past. That's no reason to prevent him from converting now. He's not going to be very productive dead, is he?
HB: It must be frustrating for a man of your position—used to being
able to make things happen—to be so utterly helpless now. What was your reaction to the court's injunction against your having Lysander forcibly converted?
LS: The judge made a bad call. The Body-modification-freedom Act was intended to stop prejudice against nonhumanoid mods. It was never intended to make medical decisions. I've got a team in Washington. We'll get the law clarified on appeal, but …
HB: Too late to help Lysander.
LS: Yeah.
 
Maria's breath is so slight, the sheet covering her barely moves. You hold your breath each time—until her chest rises. Her hand lies limp in yours. It won't be long now.
Please convert, you want to whisper. Even now, it might save her. But that would be a betrayal of the last few weeks. She's been so happy since you promised to refuse the change.
“I can go to heaven now,” she'd whispered minutes ago, before her eyes fluttered closed in what would probably be her final sleep, “knowing that the man I love will go on. We'll meet again. Up there.”
It finally clicks for you, sitting by her hospital bed, watching her chest rise and fall. She is Catholic. If she truly believes that conversion kills the original person—then choosing to become Deathless would be suicide, a mortal sin.
“Maria,” you whisper and lift her hand to your lips. The skin on the back of her hand is so dry, so hot. She's burning up from the inside out, like a votive candle.
Could her unreasoning faith in an antique religion be classified as mental illness? The thought fills you with a short-lived hope … then shame. You won't betray her—not even to save her life.
To die naturally is Maria's decision.
It guts you. You will lose her.
Her chest falls. And for all your willing it, does not rise again.
The machines monitoring Maria flat-line and play a plaintive tone.
You sob and pull Maria's palm to your forehead. You rock with grief, knowing your life is over.
You will keep your promise, because you can't imagine eternity without her.
 
HB: Hugh Billingsworth of KUKWY news, with exclusive coverage of the ongoing Lysander Sterling drama. With us here at Cedars-Sinai is the genius who invented the nanology that keeps us all going: Dr. Leonardo Fontesca. He's standing by to perform the process personally, should Lysander change his mind.
HB: Dr. Fontesca, what's your take on all this? Should Lysander accept conversion?
LF: The point of nanology is to make the impossible possible. Not to impose an ideology. If Mr. Sterling wants the change, he should have it. But it should not be imposed on him against his will.
HB: So you disagree with Lucius Sterling?
LF: Lucius and I start from different places on this issue; it is to be expected we would reach different conclusions.
HB: But you, yourself, are converted. Surely you must feel it's safe. That Lysander's claim it represents a death of the original person is unfounded.
LF: The truth is, we don't know. Science does not concern itself with metaphysics. We know that we can take a person and, cell-by-cell, re-create them into a nearly indestructible form, with the same memories. Is that the same person? Or only a clever copy?
HB: That's a very scary thought, Dr. Fontesca. Are you saying each of us that's been converted might not be the same person we were?
LF: The same thing happens in biology, at a slower pace. Cells die and are replaced. A continual process of mitosis and apotheosis. Whether we are converted or remain natural humans, none of us are who we were born.
 
You work at your computer until your eyes dry and your hands cramp around the digital paintbrush.
The video walls of your studio flicker with previous work. The left wall displays your early images. Maria before her illness: porcelain skin, sparkling eyes, a full, teasing mouth. The right wall shows Maria as she might have been: glowing in her second trimester, smiling with crow's feet bracketing her mouth and eyes, a cascade of silver hair flowing over age-spotted shoulders.
These days, your work is more symbolic. You put the paintbrush in its cradle and flex your hands. The screen in front of you displays two dandelions: one yellow and bursting with captured sunshine, the other gone to seed—seconds away from dissolution, but all the more beautiful for its frailty.

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