Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 84 Read online

  Kelly hesitated. “Where are we going?”

  I pushed the boat hard until it began to slide down the launch ramp.

  With no power and no tide, the boat rocked dangerously in the water as the algeron propelled it along, leaving a strange luminescent wake.

  Kelly had kept hold of the wheel all this time and pointed ahead, shouting at the top of her lungs. I couldn’t hear because the algeron had resumed its roar so I looked instead to where Kelly was pointing and saw stray sunlight filtering across the bloom. The algeron was indeed changing, and now there were strange rainbow refractions across its surface.

  The boat slowed and came to rest, bobbing gently on preternatural currents. A familiar hand reached out from the bloom. There was more detail this time, skin tones filtering through the black. I sensed the enormous effort required as the algeron strived to bring more texture and shape to Elizabeth Hendrie, mother of Erin, grandmother of Kelly.

  I reached out and grabbed Mum’s hand as the face and body rose up, more lifelike than ever, blue eyes emerging, the reds of her favorite skirt that I used to hide behind.

  An electrical current jolted through me as the algeron flowed into my veins. I had thought about this moment so much, expecting nothing but terror as I gave up all resistance and let it consume my living cells. But perhaps I had mistaken Mum’s pain for awe as the algeron now flowed up my shoulders and neck and something impossibly wide flowered into my mind. It was like standing in a subterranean cavern that had never been touched by light or sound. At first it felt dreamlike, but as the hollow spaces filled with texture, blossoming networks and connections blossomed like the overlapping opal flecks I had seen earlier, but magnified beyond perception across a canvas that seemed to stretch out forever. It was the collective of humanity, and much of the world’s flora and fauna, copied into the nanotech host.

  Mum opened her mouth, but I reached out and touched a finger to her lips.

  “It’s okay.” I whispered. “You are sorry. I understand.”

  Mum nodded and held my hand against her soft cheek.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as the collective mind reached out. It was in its nature to scan and replicate, but there was something different going on now, an urgent need to connect and unify. There were new forces at play—the remnants of humanity emblazoned into a crude collective consciousness.

  Now I knew what Magellan and all the explorers felt like when faced with overwhelming frontiers. The nascent ocean mind opened up fully in all directions, west and east, nadir and zenith. I reached out with my own mind and touched the myriad souls out there in all their tones and subtleties—they were still capable of human desire and still full of human frailty. Blended with the algeron, they were beginning to connect and evolve into something wondrous.

  I opened my eyes and saw Kelly watching me intently.

  “Can we fix the Earth?”

  “I’m not sure, honey.”

  “Maybe we don’t need the sky and the water anymore.” Her shoulders lifted a little. “Maybe we can make our own now.”

  “Maybe.”

  I pictured the world as it once was, a lacing together of saline ocean and loamy ground and oxygen sky. Perhaps we didn’t need those things anymore. Maybe Kelly was right and the algeron would evolve new layers over the Earth, connecting generations of living things and human souls in the ocean memory—something that could learn from the past and rise above blind evolution, something that was more self-guided as the world aged.

  Kelly slipped her hand into mine, reassuring as ever, and then she reached out and took hold of her Grandma’s hand. The three of us swayed in tune to the motion of the bloom beneath the boat as the algeron flowed between us. My last breath exhaled from tired lungs as the algeron worked through my body.

  There was a single stab of pain as I was reborn into light and sound and color. Kelly was there on the other side, laughing; Mum, crying; a new world, waiting. For the first time in a long time I smiled. I wondered if the collective dreams could ever really come to fruition, but I knew it wouldn’t be through lack of trying, and that fact alone filled me with peace.

  About the Author

  Greg Mellor is an Australian author with 50 published short stories. “Mar Pacifico” is his second story to appear in Clarkesworld Magazine. He is also a regular contributor to Cosmos Magazine and Aurealis as well as independent press anthologies in Australia and the United States. Wild Chrome, his debut collection introduced by Damien Broderick, was published in October 2012,

  Greg holds degrees in astrophysics and technology management. He is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

  The Promise of Space

  James Patrick Kelly

  Capture 06/15/2051, Kerwin Hospital ICU, 09:12:32

  . . . and my writer pals used to tease that I married Captain Kirk.

  A clarification, please? Are you referring to William Shatner, who died in 2023? Or is this Chris Pine, who was cast in the early remakes? It appears he has retired. Perhaps you mean the new one? Jools Bear?

  No, you. Kirk Anderson. People used to call you that, remember? First man to set foot on Phobos? Pilot on the Mars landing team? Captain Kirk.

  I do not understand. Clearly I participated in those missions since they are on the record. But I was never captain of anything.

  A joke, Andy. They were teasing you. It’s why you hated your first name.

  Noted. Go on.

  No, this is impossible. I feel like I’m talking to an intelligent fucking database, not my husband. I don’t know where to begin with you.

  Please, Zoe. I cannot do this without you. Go on.

  Okay, okay, but do me a favor? Use some contractions, will you? Contractions are your friends.

  Noted.

  Do you know when we met?

  I haven’t yet had the chance to review that capture. We were married in 2043. Presumably we met before that?

  Not much before. Where were you on Saturday, May 17, 2042? Check your captures.

  The capture shows that I flew from Spaceways headquarters at Spaceport America to the LaGuardia Hub in New York and spent the day in Manhattan at the Metropolitan Museum. That night I gave the keynote address at the Nebula Awards banquet in the Crown Plaza Hotel but my caps were disengaged. The Nebula is awarded each year by the World Science Fiction Writers . . . .

  I was nominated that year for best livebook, Shadows on the Sun. You came up to me at the reception, said you were a fan. That you had all five of my Sidewise series in your earstone when you launched for Mars that first time. You joked you had a thing for Nacky Martinez. I was thrilled and flattered. After all, you were top of the main menu, one of the six hero marsnauts. Things I’d only imagined, you’d actually done. And you’d read my work and you were flirting with me and, holy shit, you were Captain Kirk. When people—friends, famous writers—tried to break into our conversation, they just bounced off us. Nobody remembers who won what award that night, but lots of people still talk about how we locked in.

  I just looked it up. You lost that Nebula.

  Yeah. Thanks for reminding me.

  You had on a hat.

  A hat? Okay. But I always wore hats back then. It was a way to stand out, part of my brand—for all the good it did me. My hair was a three act tragedy anyway, so I wore a lot of hats.

  This one was a bowler hat. It was blue—midnight blue. With a powder blue band. Thin, I remember the hatband was very thin.

  Maybe. I don’t remember that one. Nice try, though.

  Tell me more. What happened next?

  Jesus, this is so wrong . . . No, I’m sorry, Andy. Give me your hand. You always had such delicate hands. Such clever fingers.

  I can still remember that my mom had an old Baldwin upright piano that she wanted me to learn to play, but my hands were too small. You’re crying. Are you crying?

  I am not. Just shut up and listen. This isn’t easy and I’m only saying it because maybe the
best part of you is still trapped in there like they claim and just maybe this augment really can set it free. So, we were sitting at different tables at the banquet but after it was over, you found me again and asked if I wanted to go out for drinks. We escaped the hotel, looking for a place to be alone, and found a night-shifted Indonesian restaurant with a bar a couple of blocks away. It was called Fatty Prawn or Fatty Crab—Fatty Something. We sat at the bar and switched from alcohol to inhalers and talked. A lot. Pretty much the rest of the night, in fact. Considering that you were a man and famous and ex-Air Force, you were a good listener. You wanted to know how hard it was to get published and where I got my plots and who I like to read. I was impressed that you had read a lot of the classic science fiction old-timers like Kress and LeGuin and Bacigalupi. You told me what I got wrong about living in space, and then raved about stuff in my books that you thought nobody but spacers knew. Around four in the morning we got hungry and since you’d never had Indonesian before, we split a gado-gado salad with egg and tofu. I spent too much time deconstructing my divorce and you were polite about yours. You said your ex griped about how you spent too much time in space, and I made a joke about how Kass would have said the same thing about me. I asked if you were ever scared out there and you said sure, and that landings were worse than the launches because you had so much time leading up to them. You used to wake up on the outbound trips in a sweat. To change the subject, I told you about waking up with entire scenes or story outlines in my head and how I had to get up in the middle of the night and write them down or I would lose them. You made a crack about wanting to see that in person. The restaurant was about to close for the morning and, by that time, dessert sex was definitely on the menu, so I asked if you ever got horny on a mission. That’s how I found out that one of the side effects of the anti-radiation drugs was low testosterone levels. We established that you were no longer taking them. I would have invited you back to my room right then only you told me that you had to catch a seven-twenty flight back to El Paso. There still might have been enough time, except that I was rooming with Rachel van der Haak, and, when we had gotten high before the banquet, we had promised each other we’d steer clear of men while our shields were down. And of course, when I thought about it, there was the awkward fact that you were twenty years older than I was. A girl has got to wonder what’s up with her when she wants to take daddy to bed.

  I am nineteen years and three months older than you.

  And then there was your urgency. I mean, you had me at Mars, Mr. Space Hero, but I had the sense that you wanted way more from me than I had to give. All I had in mind was a test drive, but it seemed as if you were already thinking about making a down payment. When you said you could cancel an appearance on Newsmelt so you could be back in New York in three days, it was a serious turn-on, but I was also worried. Blowing off one of the top news sites? For me? Why? I guessed maybe you were running out of time before your next mission. I didn’t realize that you were . . . .

  Go on.

  No, I can’t. I just can’t—how do I do this? Turn the augment off.

  Zoe, please.

  You hear me? That was the deal. They promised whenever I wanted.

  Capture 06/15/2051, Kerwin Hospital ICU, 09:37:18, Augment disengaged by request

  Andy? Look at me, Andy. Over here. Good. Who am I, Andy?

  You are . . . it’s something about science fiction. And a blue hat.

  What’s my name?

  Come close. Let me look at you . . . oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Nacky Martinez? First officer of the Starship Sidewise?

  She’s a character, Andy. Made up. Someone I wrote about.

  You’re a writer?

  Capture 06/17/2051, Kerwin Hospital Assisted Care Facilty, 14:47:03

  . . . because I was too infatuated to be suspicious about your secret back then. I know you don’t remember this, Andy, but I was stupid in love with you when we were first married. Maybe the augment can’t see that, but anyone who looks at your captures can. On the record, as you would say. So, yeah, the fact that you always wore caps and recorded almost everything that happened to you didn’t bother me back then. I guess I told myself that it was some reputation management scheme that Spaceways had ordered up. And of course, you were writing the sequel to your memoir. What do Mr. and Ms. Space Hero do on their days off? Why look, they sit together on the couch when they write! And she still uses her fingers to type—isn’t that quaint, a science fiction writer still pounding a keyboard in the era of thought recognition!

  You never published that book.

  No.

  Or any other. Why?

  You know, people message me about that all the time, like it was some kind of tragedy. I had something to say when I was young and naive. I said it. And pretty damn well: eight livebooks worth. Fifty novas. It’s just that after I met you, I needed to make the most of our time together. And since you launched into the Vincente Event, I’ve been busy being the good wife.

  I was the best qualified pilot, Zoe. And I was already compromised, so I had the least to lose. In a crisis like that, there were no easy answers. I consulted with Spaceways and we weighed the tradeoffs and we reached a decision. I had friends on that orbital. Drew Bantry . . .

  Drew was already dead. He just hadn’t fallen down yet. And you were not a tradeoff, Andy. You were my fucking husband.

  I can see now how hard it must have been for you.

  Oh, you saw it then, too. Which is why you never asked my permission, because you knew . . .

  Go on.

  What the hell were we talking about? How I had no suspicions about what the captures meant. That you were sick. I remember thinking how boring ten thousand hours of unedited recordings were going to be. Even to us, even when we were old. Old and forgetful . . . .

  Zoe?

  I’m fine. I’m just not feeling very brave today. Anyway, I did have a problem with all the captures of us making love. I mean, the first couple of times, I’ll grant you it was a turn-on. We’d lose ourselves in bed, and then afterwards watch ourselves doing it and sometimes we were so beautifully in sync that we’d get hot and go back for seconds. But what bothered me was that you were capturing us watching the captures. I didn’t get why you would do that. When I realized that recording wasn’t just a once-in-a-while kink, that you wanted to capture us every time we had sex, it wasn’t erotic anymore. It was kind of creepy.

  I can’t locate any sex captures after 2045. Did we stop having sex?

  No. I just made you check the caps at the bedroom door. So stop looking. You want to know what we were like back then, try scanning some of our private book clubs. We’d both read the same book and then we’d go out to dinner at a nice restaurant and talk about it. I remember being surprised at some of your choices. The Marvelous Land of Oz. Lolita. Wolf Hall. A Visit From the Goon Squad. They didn’t seem like the kinds of reading an Air Force jock would choose. You were a Hemingway and Heinlein kind of guy.

  Was I trying to impress you?

  I don’t know why. I was already plenty impressed. Maybe you were trying to send me a message with all of those plots about secret pasts and transformations.

  Go on. This was where? When?

  At first in Brooklyn, where I was living when we met. There’s another reason I should have been suspicious your urgency. You claimed you didn’t care where we lived as long as we spent as much time as possible together. Wasn’t true—you hated cities. But most of my friends were in New York and most of yours had moved to space or Mars. Your folks were dead and your sister had disappeared into some Digitalist coop, waiting for the Singularity. So when my mother died and left me the house in Bedford, we moved up there in the spring of 2045. You had the second installment of your book deal to write and when I switched to your agent, I started seeing celebrity level advances too, so there was plenty of money. By then you were showing early symptoms. You claimed you’d left Spaceways, although you still flew out here to Kerwin five or six tim
es a year for therapy. It seemed to be working, you said we would still have years together. My mom had been into flowers but she had an asparagus patch and some raspberries and you started your first vegetable garden that summer. You were good at it, said you liked it better than space hydroponics. Spinach and lettuce and asparagus in the spring, then beans and corn and summer squash and tomatoes and melons. You were happy, I think. I know I was.

  Capture 06/25/2051, Kerwin Hospital Assisted Care Facilty, 16:17:53

  . . . you were so skeptical about the Singularity is why.

  The Kurzweil augmentation has nothing to do with the Singularity.

  Yeah, sure. It’s just a cognitive prosthesis, la-la. A life experience database, la-la-la. An AI mediated memory enchancement that may help restore your loved one’s mental competence la-la-la-dee-da. I’ve browsed all the sites, Andy. Besides, I was writing about this shit before Ray Kurzweil actually uploaded.

  Ray Kurzweil is dead. I’m still alive.

  Are you, Andy? Are you sure about that?

  I don’t know why you are being so cruel, Zoe.

  Because you made so many decisions about us without telling me. Maybe you didn’t know just how sick you were when we met, but you could easily have found out. I had a right to know. And maybe you were hoping that you’d never get that call from Spaceways, but you knew exactly what you would do if it did come.

  I was an astronaut, Zoe. That was never a secret.

  No, what was a secret was all that fucked-up cosmic ray research. Because nobody but crazy people with a death wish would ever have volunteered to go to space if they knew that there was no real protection against getting your telomeres burned off by the radiation. Sure, you can duck and cover from a solar flare, but what about the gajillions of ultra-high energy ions? Theoretically you can generate a magnetic shield. Or maybe you can stuff your astronauts with anti-radiation wonder drugs? But just in case it doesn’t work, better make sure that everyone on the Mars crew is over forty. That way if Captain Kirk falls apart in twenty or thirty years, Spaceways won’t look so bad.