Asimov's SF, January 2010 Read online

  The long elliptical orbit they were in would bring them back around to Earth. If he separated at apogee, the pod had enough delta-V for him to maneuver into the cloud of habitats and orbital factories. Somewhere in the cloud, he would be able to find friends, people who had friends or relatives among the pirate crews of Anteros, or were sympathetic to the Anteros cause. He had no reason to linger.

  He waited until May was occupied, discussing their orbital parameters with traffic control to prepare for the rendezvous, and silently headed for the hatch. They were both already suited up, and there was no need to depressurize.

  But by the time he had opened the hatch, May was there. She had both of his guns; the empty railgun attached to a clip at her belt, the glue harpoon in her right hand.

  He turned to look at her, but didn't say anything.

  After a moment, she said, “You're leaving without saying goodbye?”

  “I'm not much of one for goodbyes,” he said.

  “Wait,” she said. “There's something I want to show you.” She reached around behind her, and retrieved a small railgun. It was identical to the one he'd just given her. She aimed it just over his left shoulder, but didn't pull the trigger. “This one is charged,” she said.

  “You had that all along?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought I searched.”

  “It was hidden in my hair.”

  “Oh.”

  “I just wanted you to know.” She clipped her gun onto her belt. “I'm not helpless.” She paused for a second, and then said, “You should be more careful.” She handed him his two guns, first the railgun, and then the glue harpoon. “You left these.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You might need them sometime.”

  He nodded. “Maybe.”

  “I need to confess something. I lied to you, way back. I told you my name is May. My name is Marya. I'm Marya Hayes.”

  He thought for a moment. “I see,” he said. “Hayes Mining. Your company?”

  “Me.”

  “I see.”

  “Suppose—” she said, “Suppose maybe some day I might want to get in contact with a pirate. Could happen.”

  He nodded.

  “How would I get in touch with you?”

  He thought for a moment, then named a frequency. “Leave a message, voice only, no data. Use the word ‘incandescent.’ We have people, run data-mining. Somebody will get back to you.”

  “Okay,” she said. She floated forward, and reached her arms around him. Inside the hardshell suit, the embrace felt like two steel cans clinking together.

  “Goodbye,” he said.

  “See you later,” she said.

  Copyright © Geoffrey A. Landis

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Short Story: CONDITIONAL LOVE

  by Felicity Shoulders

  Since her first published story appeared in Asimov's ("Burgerdroid,” June 2008), Felicity Shoulders has finished graduate school with an MFA in Writing, moved back to her hometown of Portland, Oregon, started a novel, and baked more than twelve pies. Her second story for us reveals the harsh reality of...

  The new patient was five or six years old, male, Caucasian, John Doe as usual. Grace checked the vitals his bed sensors were feeding her board and concluded he was asleep. She eased the door of 408 open and stepped in.

  The boy's head was tilted on his pillow, brown curls cluttering his forehead. Sleep had flushed his cheeks so he looked younger than the estimate. He seemed healthy, with no visible deformities, and if he had been opted for looks, it had worked—Grace would have described him as “cherubic.” He wouldn't have been dumped if nothing was wrong, so Grace found herself stepping softly, unwilling to disturb him and discover psychological conditions.

  “Don't worry about waking him, he sleeps pretty deep.”

  Grace started and turned to the other bed. “Hi, Minnie.”

  The girl grimaced. “I go by my full name now, Dr. Steller.” Grace brought up her board to refresh her memory, but the girl said, “Minerva. Had you forgotten they're doubling up rooms?”

  “Yep, you caught me.”

  “Is the rise in numbers caused by a rise in opting? Or is it a rise in surrenders, or arrests of parents?”

  “Lord, Minn—Minerva, I don't know. Planning to be a reporter when you grow up?”

  “No, a scientist,” Minerva said and smiled, pleased to be asked.

  “Why the scalpel-edged questions then?”

  “Just curious if my campaign had had any effect,” Minerva said, nodding toward the window. The billboard across from the Gene-Engineered Pediatric In-patient Center flashed a smog warning, then a PSA about eye strain from computer visors, but Grace remembered when it had borne a static image: Minnie, one year old, a pink sundress exposing the stubs of her arms and legs. Babies should be born, not made. The ad had stayed up until Minnie was eight, three years after her parents turned her over to GEPIC, and apparently she had seen it. She was twelve now, with serious eyes and a loose ponytail, dark blonde.

  “You're on incoming examinations now?” Minerva asked.

  “Yes,” Grace said, eyes on the John Doe's file.

  “It's a step down, isn't it? Do you mind?”

  “I'm fine,” Grace said. “I see the grow-baths are working.”

  The girl allowed herself to be deflected. She held up her right arm, complete but ridged with scars. “One down, three to go.”

  “Better than we ever thought we could do back when I was on your treatment team.”

  Minerva shrugged. “They're pretty excited. They say I'm a regulatory gene enigma. How my arm starts growing, then stops. How sometimes things grow that shouldn't.” She lifted the left sleeve of her T-shirt, a dinosaur one from the Natural History Museum, a few sizes too big. That arm was submerged in murky gel up to the wrist, and from the crook of the elbow a thumb extended.

  “I'm sure it will be over soon,” said Grace, and stroked the back of the girl's right hand, baby-smooth skin between bulges of scar tissue.

  Minerva lifted her face with a smile, then looked across the room and pursed her lips. “New boy waking up. You'll love this.”

  Grace turned and saw that the boy was indeed stirring, half-blocking the window's light with a drowsy fist. His eyes flickered open, slashes of blue, then widened to cartoonish proportions. “Who are you?” he said, as if Grace was the Blue Fairy instead of a doctor who hadn't had her coffee yet.

  Grace gave the boy a warm, flattered smile, aware of Minerva watching. “I'm Dr. Steller, but most of the kids call me Dr. Grace,” she managed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Good!”

  “I'm here to check and make sure you stay that way, okay?”

  He nodded and Grace went through the motions of taking his pulse, listening to his breath. Much of this ritual was obviated by the sensors in his hospital bed, yet it persisted. A way to comfort the patient, Grace thought, or the doctor. New admissions to GEPIC were often sullen, frightened, or locked into the neuroses created by their genes or families; many were sedated before she arrived to document their troubles. But this boy was something new. She couldn't remember any other patient giggling at the touch of the stethoscope.

  Grace gave the boy the standard exam and found nothing standard: none of the deformities, bruises, and cuts she was used to finding on Does brought in from the streets. He had been admitted low on nutrients and fluids, but the IV had taken care of that. Nothing to photograph for a police file, nothing unusual even, except being friendly and above the mean for cuteness.

  “You don't know your name, huh?” Grace asked, ruffling his dark hair.

  He shrugged, shoulders contracting inside the oversized pajama-top. “I'm sorry.”

  “It's okay, honey.” This wasn't her department, but she went on. “What do you remember?”

  “I remember waking up. You were here.”

  Grace shook her head and took out a blood vial for the gene lab.
“This will hurt a little,” she warned.

  “Okay,” he said, and his smile ebbed as the needle went in.

  “There you go, all done.” She wrapped a purple bandage around his finger, at which he stared, enchanted.

  “Dr. Steller?” the nurses’ station called through the intercom. “If you're done with the 2147 exam, there's a visitor for you.”

  Grace checked her board to make sure this Doe was number 2147, and noticed there was a rush on the file. “Send ‘em up.” She turned to go, but her patient had her by the coat.

  “Can I come?”

  Grace unballed the soft hand and knelt, smiling. “Not right now, but I'll be back soon.”

  He nodded.

  “Goodbye,” the boy said as she opened the door.

  “I'll come back.”

  “Goodbye, Dr. Grace,” Minerva echoed.

  Grace made her way down to the bank of elevators and started writing her John Doe 2147 report on her board, towing photos and stat-blocks into the text with her fingertip. The elevator pinged. She looked up to see a tall man with a familiar slump, dressed like an elongated GQ model. “Kafouri.”

  “Hi, Grace. Where the hell am I? Never been up beyond the second floor.”

  “We're over capacity—squeezing new admits in up here with the chronics and long-term treatments.”

  “Shit! Nothing like a roomie with his skin falling off to put a fresh guppy at his ease.”

  “Bob, please don't.”

  “Right, no ‘guppies.’ Swearing's fine, though, right?” He chucked her between the shoulder blades. “Anyway, it's good to see you. Been a year or two, hasn't it?”

  Grace glanced at him. He must remember their last encounter, over the Macauley case, but he seemed determined to be jovial. Silver hairs stood out among the black now, matching the smile- or squint-lines she'd always noticed by his eyes. She had a few grays herself. “Something like that. I thought you finally got depressed and transferred to homicide for your morale.”

  “No way, doc. One of these days I'm going to try for a lieutenant's pension, but not ‘til I can have ‘hero cop’ on my retirement headline.”

  “Isn't that usually on obits?”

  “Ha ha. I know what I'm doing. Let me see my boy.”

  “I take it the rush order is yours,” she said, starting back down the hallway.

  Kafouri fell in step next to her. “Has psych been yet? What do they make of him?”

  “No. Why? What do you expect from them?”

  Kafouri stared. “You haven't noticed?”

  “Don't be cryptic, Bob.”

  “Which room is it?”

  “408. What's wrong with him?”

  “I'll show you. Go ahead.”

  Grace scowled and pushed open the door.

  The boy's chin dropped, displaying a mangled slice of peach. “Who are you?”

  He was charmed, awed, and beaming just as before, but Grace couldn't help feeling a stab at being forgotten. She turned away quickly as Kafouri entered, and Minerva met her eyes over a heavy tray of food.

  The patient gaped at the detective. “What's your name?”

  “You don't remember your friend Bob, Danny boy? Why am I not surprised?” He looked at the other bed long enough to raise an eyebrow at the mound of bacon and eggs on Minerva's tray, ringed with bowls of fruit salad.

  “I think I'd remember meeting you,” said the boy.

  “Sure you would, Tiger. Hey, you know Dr. Steller?”

  Grace brought a composed smile around to face them, and the blue eyes gazed at her. “No. Hello,” he said with polite disinterest.

  “Here, kiddo, got you something.” Kafouri brought a small teddy bear out of his coat and snapped the price tag off its ear.

  The boy grabbed the toy and crushed it close. “Thank you!”

  “See you later, Danny.” Kafouri held the door for Grace, who walked through without saying goodbye to the children. “Coffee?” he asked after the door clicked shut, and Grace nodded.

  The boy's ready defection stung unexpectedly, but Grace smiled and lifted an eyebrow as they headed down the hall. “Teddy bears, Bob?”

  “You saw the little guy. You wish you'd thought of it first.”

  “Why'd you call him Danny?”

  “We tagged him Daniel back at the precinct. Seemed to suit him, but the hag in Admitting said a J.D. was a J.D. and we couldn't choose a name for him like he was a puppy.”

  “Instead we have a hospital full of Janes and Johns, like a doll factory with two models,” Grace said as she opened the door to the fourth floor staff lounge with its fragrant atmosphere of coffee. Kafouri threw his coat onto a ratty armchair and flopped down.

  Grace eyed the detective as she poured two mugs. “I sincerely hope that you didn't put a rush on Daniel's exam because you think he's cute.”

  “What do you mean I think he's cute? I could hear your clock ticking from down the hall.”

  Grace rolled her eyes and settled into the couch. “What's up, and how does it advance your ‘hero cop’ daydreams?”

  “All roads lead to Bob Kafouri, Hero Cop. You know I've been working the guppy-dump forever. Interviewing crazy or contorted toddlers, filing photos of cigarette burns, hoping somebody's daddy does his first misdemeanor and gets his DNA in the computers ... sometimes you catch some miserable parents. It's a grind.”

  “And it doesn't get your name in the papers.”

  “Right. Busting the labs will.”

  “You've busted opt-docs before.”

  “Sure, crappy opt-docs. The smart ones don't give parents enough rope to tie the noose. And I want the smart ones, the guys designing the opts. I want Betty Crocker, not the guy baking the cake. I'm going for the industry.”

  “You think it's that organized, Bob? I thought it was every opt-doc for himself.”

  “I'm pretty sure. Too much money for it to stay a cottage industry forever. Anyway, I'm afraid they might be branching into new markets.”

  “You mean ... what do you mean? New kinds of opts?”

  “I mean not just selling to parents. That's why I wanted you to examine Daniel right away. Did you find any signs of abuse?”

  Grace blanched. “God—no, he's fine as far as I can tell. Do you really think he was engineered for...”

  “It's just my guess, but if that weird memory thing of his was built in on purpose? It resets every time he sees somebody new. He can't live a normal life like that, not even close.”

  “But he wouldn't remember enough to be frightened of the abuser. Christ.” Grace leaned forward, cupping her mug. “Bob, there's no way to know. It could be a mistake—there are five floors of patients here to testify that genetic optimization is a gamble. He could be a pretty-opt with an unfortunate side effect, or a botched mental-opt of some sort.”

  “Could be. But it'll happen sooner or later. It's an ugly world.”

  Grace put down her coffee. She was still trying to think of something to say when Dr. Langford put her head in at the door. She had only been at GEPIC for two years, a small woman with golden-brown skin and a stubborn set to her mouth.

  “There you are, Steller—I just saw one of your admits, John Doe number...” the neuropsychiatrist started to unlock her board, but Grace interrupted.

  “Call him Daniel, it's easier. You're done with your evaluation already?”

  Langford raised her elegant eyebrows. “Preliminary. There was a rush on the case.”

  Kafouri gave her a charming smile. “That was me. We cops are an impatient bunch. Bob Kafouri.”

  “Thea Langford.” She leaned against the counter next to the coffeemaker. “So, as far as I can tell, he's imprinting.”

  “Imprinting,” repeated Kafouri.

  “The primal connection an animal makes when it first sees its mother.”

  “Sure, ducklings. But this kid isn't a duckling. Or a puppy, so I've been told.”

  “It happens in other species. Monkeys, for one. But the point is it should
n't be happening. He's not a duckling oran infant, but he seems to imprint every time he sees an adult, and each time it happens he loses his memory.”

  “He remembers something.” Kafouri said. “Doesn't seem blank.”

  “He loses what we call ‘episodic memory.’ Semantic knowledge he retains: he knows what a window is, can be taught vocabulary. I can't say much about procedural skills until I come back with props, but that's another part of the brain so I'm guessing he'll test out fine.”

  “Could the memory problem be a misopt?” Grace asked.

  “I don't know development or gene-build, so I couldn't say. Other than the fugue state, he seems normal, even above average in intelligence until he reimprints.”

  “Completely normal?” asked Kafouri.

  “Well, no. It's not normal for a five-year-old, a more or less rational being, to imprint. You can take away his toys or his half-eaten food, and he doesn't get mad. I would guess he'd even stay affectionate if you hit him.”

  Kafouri gave Steller a look, and she replied, “It doesn't prove anything. Maybe the imprinting was the ment-opt, but the memory problems were unintentional. You can't tell me some of these lousy opting parents wouldn't order up a kid who loves them unconditionally. Besides, if you're right, why the hell would your slave traders dump him? The fugue and reimprinting would be too much for parents, but perfect for them.”

  Kafouri shrugged, and turned back to the waiting neuropsych. “Kid was a mess when we brought him in—found him crying his eyes out downtown. So you're saying he was doing the duckling thing on every man and woman that walked by?”

  “It seems likely. The crowds would be confusing for him.”

  Grace cleared her throat. “What's going to happen to him? You said yourself, he's gifted.”