The Year of the Fruit Cake Read online

  I cannot trawl through that uplift report the way I do the others. It’s naked and agonised.

  Our maths tells us that the two emotions (loss and love, love and impending loss) cancel each other out and that this is not a critical episode. When I discovered this, I also found out that humans have taught me something: some non-critical episodes matter in ways our maths can’t catch.

  Today I suspect that the reason for fruitcake will be like this. Something that comes from the heart. Something irrepressible and uncontrollable and beautiful.

  The Observer’s Notes

  I’m watching television again. It’s wonderfully soothing. The actors are not quite human. It feels entirely like old-folks week. This boils down to me thinking I’m spending quiet time with people like me.

  Some of the actors make their inner selves reflect their outer. Or is it the other way around?

  I envy their success at linking inner and outer. I envy the facial muscle that twitches in precisely the right way when the tough guy hears about the death of his best friend. I envy the shell-shocked blankness around the eye. It’s not real, but it feels real to the observer. It feels almost real to me. I need to remember that human emotions are not made of the stuff of acting, but that humans feel. That the stuff of acting is a mimic, and that it’s not the other way round.

  Nevertheless, these actors, these good actors, are my training. They always have been, but I didn’t know it properly until now.

  I am addicted to all kinds of shows. I always have been. I tell everyone so. What I don’t tell them is that the moment I became self-aware, I started a deeper kind of learning. Consciously. With intent. I used to practise faking humanity, and I learned how to do this successfully from TV far more effectively than I could from my formal training back with the scientists.

  Another thing I’ve done is thought through one of the smaller aspects of my exceptionally odd position. No, I’m not going to report to those people that I’m self-aware. Nothing that dramatic. What I’ve decided is to stop calling them techs. This is what they call themselves, not what they are.

  They’re exploring, not sticking to the tried and true. Experimenting. This is an obvious reason why they do all kinds of things wrong. They’re betraying their own background. They’re scientists, and completely unprofessional. Bad, bad scientists, without any ethics.

  They’re not techs. Techs are careful, and follow instructions carefully and meticulously. They don’t play with ways of doing things and stretch concepts and people to breaking point. I wonder how many anthropologists have been destroyed here on Earth, due to these scientists?

  Although, to be honest, they’re neither scientists nor technicians. English has no word that expresses what they do. I could call them anything and it would be equally inaccurate. I asked Janet what I should call someone with a job I couldn’t describe, and she asked me how much I liked them.

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “Call them lizards, then. The only things I know for certain about lizards are that they sleep in the sun and that their tails come off.”

  “One of those is exactly right,” said I, and let her think that I meant the sleeping in the sun. There are certain differences between the lizards and my people, and detachable tails is one of them. We’re related, but the tail thing is definitely theirs and theirs alone. I wonder if this plays a role in everything being so very wrong. There are disconnects that go very deep between decisions and action. The tail disconnect is the least of it. It is, however, one of the reasons the lizards don’t do interstellar travel the way we do, why the work is divided the way it is. The other reasons are, I fear, all political.

  Moving beyond them to the work they do, the scientists/techs/lizards have amazing amounts of data. People like me have fed it into systems for long enough. We know so much. But being human isn’t about data and gestures. It’s a bit about those odd little feelings that creep into your brain when you get the seat right at the front of the bus. But humanity is so very different to us in some ways. So very different. If I were finding a way to describe a human, I’d not do it using a number. Or even an equation.

  I look at my TV and think that humans tell stories. Always. Everywhere. Their lives are narratives. And most of these narratives are adapted or stolen from other narratives. If I watch enough TV, then I can act out the stories I am expected to perform. I can get the cheek muscle to twitch in the precise, perfect way.

  I can meet expectations. The easy expectations, anyhow. I refuse to contemplate the difficult ones. They still scare me.

  Notes towards an

  Understanding of the Problem

  Diana wasn’t paying attention. She’d needed that hot chocolate far more than the table did. Everyone said this.

  Since the meltdown day, the group took special care of Diana, for she was the vulnerable one of the five. If there was a spare daisy, she was the one who got to take it home. She was in hospital most often (and only two of the others ever went to hospital at all, except to visit friends and family), and looked more frail than when they’d first met. No-one talked about the larger illnesses.

  Leanne added a gentle comment about the trials of PMT to the comment about Diana needing chocolate, supplementing this kindness with a moment of personal puffery at being past it herself. Trina, having barely entered that period of joy and still very aware of every moment, was the one who carefully disengaged Diana’s clawed fingers from the cup. A staff member appeared very quickly, checked she was all right, wiped the table down and mopped the floor.

  Antoinette was the one who always saw the most pressing, forth­coming need. She had already ordered more hot chocolate. Antoin­ette also ordered a tray of various chocolate foodstuffs for the group to share. “My treat—we all need it. Diana is merely expressing internal disconnectedness on our behalf.”

  “It’s not PMT,” Janet explained, quietly. She had sat out the furore.

  “It is,” said Diana, “But everything’s worse because…” She trailed off, unable to finish the thought. Her hand was clutched in her lap. She didn’t trust her fingers to operate correctly yet.

  She knew hot flushes and faint trembles, but this was a visceral reaction. She could feel her hormones pumping warmth and inflammation through her and making everything worse. How do I know this? She wrote it down in one of those interminable notes of hers. They’re what I used to establish her voice, and why I use that voice of hers in English most of the time. She had downloaded everything that morning for techs, and was already operating on the edge of sanity.

  She also thought—for she said this, too—that her body was trying to push through the hot flushes and the swollen self and become its next self. Gendershift was trying to win through.

  I have no reason to doubt this. Her hand trying to evolve into its native claw was a giveaway. Her body was also unwell, but that’s something I will investigate separately. Her friends kept it out of the conversation and I shall, too.

  This is the only time that the hand tried to turn into a claw, as far as I know. It was internal and was only visible to outsiders as a clutching.

  This is the reason I’m investigating this particular incident: it’s not one of the critical ones, but it’s the only time we have on record that her disconnect between self and human body caused noticeable side effects. This is rather important. After it was all over, the techs claimed that the breakdown was due to her body trying to match itself to her self. This episode has been cited so very often as justification, to explain they did not fail in any way. And yet, when one views all the records, it stands alone. Even taking into account her human medical records, it stands alone. She presented as human throughout. The techs are making false claims.

  I have to discount lack of control as a major cause, due to this incident being so isolated. It took a great deal for Diana’s body to try to become its original, multigendered,
not-at-all-human self. I would have bet on the eyes giving way, to be honest, in an attempt to work as if they were facetted. Seeing glow is so very important to her clan. Not seeing the qualities of objects would both haunt and hurt.

  That’s enough analysis. The incident has more to it than that. Let me finish the story.

  Janet explained.

  “We met after Diana’s medical appointment. We shopped success­fully.”

  She said this as if there was a prize they were competing for.

  Meeting: 4 points

  Shopping: 3 points

  Shopping successfully: outright win

  Shopping must be an extraordinarily difficult feat. The other possibility is that Janet was being sarcastic. As I am now.

  “And this guy, he tried…” It was her turn to taper off.

  “He called us some very interesting names. He and his friends threatened us and tried to take our belongings.”

  “And you’re OK?”

  “We’re getting there. They only got one bag—games for my nephews. When we reported it to the police, though, they took notes and were…”

  “Unsympathetic,” said Diana. “It wasn’t a real crime, just a small incident. It wouldn’t have hurt him to be a little sympathetic. He beat it up and made us feel helpless and useless and a waste of his time and space.”

  “The guy was young and new and wanted excitement. “

  “He was unintentionally cruel,” dissected Diana, quite precisely. “And I feel small and inconsequential and will never forgive him or those young louts. At this precise moment in time, you four are the only thing standing between humankind and extinction.”

  This ought to be a critical incident.

  She declared her position publicly. The Judge offered the people of Earth knowledge of a nearly-definitive future.

  It was too early, however. Because it was not a critical incident, those four were not the only thing standing between humankind and extinction. For a short time, Earth was spared. Diana knew this. It was perhaps why her body tried to become what it thought it ought to be. No-one else knew of her declaration. This did not make uplift or Download.

  The people of Earth didn’t even know they were being Judged. It wouldn’t have changed things if they did, for Antoinette and Trina took Diana out for dinner, and Leanne made sure Janet found replacement presents and got home safely. Diana’s body stabilised and all was well. For now.

  Diana noted that there were films that had aliens forcing the planet to stand still in order to get their attention, in order to reform. Honestly, the universe isn’t that obvious. Also, our particular part of the universe (the ones doing the judging) is neither unsubtle nor generous.

  Diana saying, “You four are the only thing standing between humankind and extinction” is the closest we ever came to acting like Klaatu. Ever. No declarations, no opportunities to reform. Not for Earthlings. Not for anyone. This is the closest we would ever come to what humans would consider real drama.

  The main difference between this and equivalent episodes elsewhere is that humanity has chocolate. Or maybe we just do the things—we don’t declare or make a fuss or anything like this.

  We used to consider this virtuous. I used to consider this virtuous. Now I wonder that we are not more ashamed of ourselves for so quietly committing genocide. Not one genocide. So very much genocide. Other races colonise; we murder.

  Damn humans for making it so obvious.

  It’s not as if they were not guilty of all kinds of things, either. They hadn’t moved beyond their planet, so the only murdering they did was among themselves. But they make me feel guilty, nonetheless.

  The Observer’s Notes

  I’m full of tears today. I think I’ve worked it out this time. For certain.

  I’m not crying for no reason. I’m crying because my body is in sympathy with the day. Just like when I’m bitchy, I’m not bitchy for no reason—it’s the world outside.

  Maybe there’s a sharp wind, or an evil cloud looming. I am in tune with the elements, with no burrow to protect me, and my mood reflects this. My body isn’t so removed from my previous self as I thought. The real me is still here, underneath, and this resonance with the world demonstrates it. It’s a very real truth. And it’s the reason we have burrows and not houses. Burrows protect against the elements so that one can choose to feel. Or one can choose to avoid the tears on a sharp day.

  I can’t have it any other way. I can’t go forward and I can’t go back. I will not have lost myself so very thoroughly that I’m nothing but a whining bitch who hates everyone and cries at the drop of a hat. I cannot be homesick. I cannot be bodysick.

  I am not the right gender. I’m not even in my own body.

  Some days I’m closer than others. Some days I’m so far that I am not myself. Will never be myself. Everything hurts and all that is left is tears.

  I want my body to be true to who I am. It’s not a lot to ask for. Also, I want it to stop hurting.

  Notes towards an

  Understanding of the Problem

  At this point in my study, I understand the women’s addiction to chocolate. I need something equivalent. An emotional refuge.

  Why do I need it?

  I’ve just turned up some information that I would rather I hadn’t discovered. Certain other people would quite possibly rather I hadn’t discovered it also. In the interest of my own safety, I have put in a complaint, made a ruling on the future lives of those who instigated this policy (for it was a policy and now their careers are bung: cause and effect), and am now noting the situation here.

  All this time I’ve been wondering why Diana herself didn’t use the failsafe, given the situation and that she was aware of it. I assumed it was because of the unreliability of her memory. Certainly that was to blame, up to a point. How can one use a failsafe if one doesn’t know it exists? Until quite late in the piece, the failsafe didn’t even appear in her notes due to her memory, so this appeared to be a safe assumption.

  I find myself wanting to explain, every other minute, that we’re not nearly as stupid as we look right now. That Diana calling us “lizards” and that the twenty other pejoratives assigned to us by anthropologists in recent years are inaccurate. We do good work. Often. Usually.

  Why do I write this as if it needs writing?

  Because it does. Because there is a litany of failure as regards Earth. Three other planets, likewise, have demonstrated certain…problems…in the way we do things.

  Officially, there are two options for Earth. For any planet. Live or die. Simple.

  Except that there is a failsafe. If the Judgement is jeopardised for whatever reason (say if Diana had been killed in a car accident), the failsafe is supposed to happen automatically. If she had failed to appear for Download for seventy-five days…failsafe (although the Judge is never told this one).

  The Judge themself also has the right to call the failsafe into play, and can do so without creating a fuss. This is why they are always given access to the programming room without observation. Anthropologists sit in a quite different room to regain their memory. The Judge’s memory is specifically set up to come back faster, and there is a minimum time of two hours where the Judge can do whatever they like in that room, before they walk through the arc. The first arc, in other words, is ornamental, making them feel something is happening when, in fact, it’s already happened. The arc they pass through at the end of the debriefing is a different story.

  However much interference was done, we could not possibly have changed the sequence of the rooms and their visits, for those sequences are sent automatically back here and analysed. If the sequence is wrong at any point, the system comes to a rapid halt, and an investigatory team is sent out. The sequence, then, was never wrong on Earth. Not once.

  I checked this early on. No emergency calls, therefor
e the Judge went through all the measures she had to. There were other issues, but they didn’t trigger alerts and therefore could not be acted on. Simple. It all looked so simple.

  Because no alerts were triggered, I assumed that there was no need for any. I assumed that the failsafe was fully functional and was not necessary. This meant that the fruitcake was made from the usual ingredients and it was cooked on a tripod consisting of a choice between the three standard elements: planetary inhabitants all killed, planetary inhabitants all live, mission pulled due to triggering of failsafe.

  To ensure the failsafe, once every six months it is tested, just to make sure it’s fully functional. It’s a simple test. A button is pressed and the report of it being pressed reaches home planet and a note is made that this is a regular test and not to be acted upon.

  For the sake of completeness, last week I called for the regular tests of that failsafe and for the chronicle of Diana’s uploading visits. It was quite possible that one of her regular visits had coincided with a regular test and that the whole scheme should have been aborted, but that those of us back home hadn’t realised that the button was pressed by the Judge and so it was reported as a test and not as a cause to pull out.

  All the earlier investigations assumed either that she had not pressed the button or that she had pressed it during a test period. I felt that I was maybe being over-picky in demanding the data on the tests of the failsafe, but there were too many mysteries and I wanted to be certain.

  I was the first to call for the full records. The first in six decades. Every other investigation simply looked at the data from our end, where the report of the button-pressing was noted as having occurred, but not requiring action.