Beyond singularity, p.23
Beyond Singularity, page 23
"Do you know why Donai made me?" she asked at last, her voice dreamy.
Tracker, squatting by his pack, feeding meat to Jesse, didn't answer.
"He made me to love him. He made me to kill him one day."
She was speaking truth. Tracker looked up, his eyes narrowing. City people could die. It didn't happen often,
but they could. No disease could touch them, they did not age. They could heal nearly any injury.
But ... they could die.
If they chose to.
"I don't want to go back." Sorrow shivered in her words like the silver light, cold and beautiful. "But I have to." She rose to her feet suddenly, the twin moons above her head like a crown of light as she came to stand over him. Jesse whined, and lowered her head to her paws, tail thumping uncertainly as she banished Yolanda's face. "Do you know why I'm leaving, Tracker?"
"No." He didn't need Jesse's eyes. She filled his senses, as if the moon hovered before him, blazing with silver light and animal heat.
"I'm killing them. The children." Her voice was low and full of pain. "He must have done it when he came to get me and I wouldn't go. He changed me so that I poisoned them." Her resignation held a bitter note. "He always gets what he wants." She reached down, taking his hands and pulling him to his feet. His toe caught the kite fabric quilt. "Come sit with me," she said, a mix of command and plea.
He sat on the soft slickness of the quilt that smelled of her. And of Karin. She knelt beside him to unlace his boots, burning like the spring sun, warming him, filling his senses with images of sun on bright fabric and clouds and blue sky. He felt her gaze on his face, and, suddenly, he understood. It was there, written like a silvery thread in the scent of her. Karda. Karin's daughter, but not Sairee's.
Yolanda's.
She stood suddenly and kite fabric rustled. Her shift pooled on the quilt beside him and he felt her spring-sun heat as she slid her leg across his waist to straddle him. He wanted to protest, but her heat drowned him, and as she pushed him back, he groped for memory of another moment like this, found shadows like slippery fish in the depths of his memory. Her mouth found his and her taut
muscular body moved against his, and the shadow fish of memory fled.
He woke to the faint chill whisper of breeze that presaged the sun's warmth. The scent of dew on dry leaves and stone filled his nostrils, and the night-scurry of tiny lives all around. For a moment, he had no idea of where he was or when, simply floated in a limbo of cool air and scent. Jesse was a furry warmth against his leg and head on his chest, Yolanda slept deeply. He felt the polished curve of her hip spur against his side. A small pain drew his fingers and he felt a crust of dried blood scabbing a shallow gash in his thigh. He had no memory of her spur tearing his skin.
A small uneasiness crept through him, something .. . wrong. He sharpened his senses, gathering them, shutting out the scurrying insect lives that filled the space around him and opening himself to the rush of blood through her veins, the spiral dance of her cells. Yes. His skin tightened, although not from the morning chill. As Yolanda stirred, he sat up, newly aware, feeling Jesse's flicker of wakening, her tail-thump of inquiry. He looked through her eyes to watch Yolanda toss the tangled gold of her hair back from her face, her eyes full of sleep and the memories of pleasure. Tracker swallowed against a sudden sharp ache in his chest.
"What's wrong?" She touched his face. "Your skin is the color of desert flower honey when the sun hits it, you know."
The invitation in her touch made him shiver again, and Jesse whined. Yolanda withdrew her hand. "Something is wrong."
"You're City" The words came out in a hushed tone, almost a whisper. He couldn't speak them aloud out here.
"I was born there." Yolanda considered, thoughtful. "The woman I called Mother lived with me in a garden. There were huge flowers and some of them moved their petals, like butterflies bound to a vine. That was his hobby then. Plants. But that's not what you mean."
"No." His throat was too dry, he had to swallow again to get the words out. "You are City. Like him. City Man. Donai. I can ... I know it." It was there, that bright absence of Death.
She was shaking her head, sadness deepening.
"Not possible, Tracker. I ... have a daughter, remember? City people can't breed with the beings they create. That has always been true."
And it was, and it was true, he had sensed her relationship to Karda, had forgotten in the shock of his discovery. He groped for her hand, lifted the palm to his face, tasting that absence on her skin. She had to be City. Yolanda made no effort to pull her hand away.
"You scared me when I first saw you, blind Tracker. It's as if I live on the surface of the world that you inhabit. You see things, sense things, that I can't perceive and that scares me."
Jesse was looking at his own face now, carved with strain, but he could feel the emerald pressure of her eyes on him.
"And you scared me," she went on softly, "because I thought you were City, here to claim me, not someone sent by Donai." She paused, her stare warm against his skin. "At night, years ago, Karin would come to my bed. And in the morning, after he had gone back to sleep with Sairee, I would smell him on my hair and skin, as if his spirit was still lying in my arms. What are you sensing, Tracker? I am dying a little with every passing day, ticking off a finite life. What about you? Tell me about the woman who carried you, Tracker. I remember mine. I called her Mother, and she sang to me in the sun of the garden."
"No." It was sigh more than whisper. He wanted to tell her that he remembered, describe this woman for her.
He could not.
Grope as he might, all he found was a chain of days that disappeared into a far distance, endlessly. Before Jesse, another creature, lithe and furry, and before that one, before that one?
"City people don't just breed." Yolanda went on relentlessly. "They select genotypes, they match carefully. There are only so many who can live in City, only so many who can be admitted to share the universe. Donai told me about this, about the rules. That is the only rule they may not break, Tracker. To breed without consensus, without permission. I remember when he told me, Tracker. It was not long after I had left the garden, when I was his lover. And his words were bitter, but his tone was not, and I wondered about that."
He felt her smile, sharp and cold as a blade edge against his skin. "I think you are City, Tracker. Didn't you ever notice? Were you too close to see it? I think you are Donai's own son."
She was right, oh yes, the memory was there, opening now, unrolling like an endless carpet, drawing his mind's eye back though a storm of days and nights and days, faces, voices, hands touching, animal fur and cold noses, summers and winters.... Drowning. All the time, City Man's face, everywhere, in all the seasons. City Man. Donai. Drowning. Tracker sank silently beneath the endless, bottomless sea of yesterdays, weighed down by his sudden understanding of ... what he was.
He woke to nighttime cold, to the rough-wet caress of Jesse's tongue punctuated by the cold thrust of her nose. He was lying on the fabric quilt and the crackle of flame and scent of smoke suggested a fire nearby. Jesse nudged him again. He reached out, patted her, dizzy briefly as the deep sea of past threatened to suck him down once more. For an instant, a, hundred Jesses with different fur and form and faces nudged him. Treading water in those depths, he focused until he was aware of only this one, and sat up.
"I was getting worried." Yolanda sat on the corner of the quilt, Jesse showing him her knees drawn up, her shift pulled down over her legs for warmth. "We're nearly out of water. I didn't find any communication device in your
pack, so I assume you need to call Donai yourself. And the Caravan is heading east, not west. So we're on our own." But no trace of worry colored her words. "You've been unconscious for two days. I gave the dog the rest of the food."
He might not ever have waked up. For a long time, he had been lost in the depths of that huge chaotic sea. He might never have found his way back to this moment, this time. Slowly, Tracker reached out to touch her arm. She accepted his touch, even put her hand on his with a gentle sympathy.
That acceptance was the same acceptance that Jesse offered him.
Tracker summoned City Man through his link. Then they waited for the flyer, which arrived as the day's heat grew. City Man was not on board, and Tracker felt a moment of piercing gratitude for that. They climbed the ramp, Yolanda first, her cool composure tinged with sorrow, then Tracker, and last Jesse, panting in the noonday heat. The cushioned interior was cool, and Tracker got Jesse a bowl of water from the refreshment wall. A tiled shower cabinet drew Yolanda to strip and step inside, turning so that the jets of warm water scoured every square centimeter of her lithe body. He looked through Jesse's eyes at the sleek curves of her flesh, momentarily swept away by the memory of the night spent with her on the kite fabric blanket beneath the ancient and weary sky.
He grieved for it.
She emerged, dry, naked, and glowing. She didn't invite him to make love to her. She would surely accept if he asked, would no more refuse than Jesse would refuse his summons. That had been built into her, lay there as real as the shadow of Death.
He didn't ask.
He could feel the swift approach of City. Beyond it, the sand people would be working on the sculptures that the waves would erase. The flyer skimmed above City's silent clamor, settled into the quiet lawn behind City Man's resi-
dence. Grass like living velvet gave beneath Tracker's feet as he stepped out. Yolanda leaped lightly down beside him, but her sorrow clouded the air around them. Jesse kept her eyes low, tail down, afraid. He closed his fingers in her fur, tugging gently, and he felt her tail move briefly.
City Man was in the garden. Jesse showed him blue-flowered twining plants. The snaky shoots wove about his legs, not touching him, their blue flowers like eyes. As he and Yolanda and Jesse approached, the vines lifted and pointed in their direction. Jesse shouldered into Yolanda and planted her feet, refusing to move farther. Yolanda stood still, her knees against the furry barricade that was Jesse. Tracker felt her gaze fixed on City Man.
Tracker walked up to him, not needing Jesse's eyes. The vine things twined briefly around his calves and then released him, retreating as if he poisoned them. They knew City when they felt it. Like Yolanda. "Donai," Tracker said.
City Man's attention focused sharply on Tracker. The plants cowered away from both of them, and City Man finally shifted his attention to them. "Waste of time," he said. "I'll have to start over. I never doubted you'd find her."
"She's not yours anymore," Tracker said gently. "Donai."
City Man's attention was on him fully, now. "I can go to the City Council." Tracker enunciated each syllable precisely. "I can tell them what you did. What I am."
Stillness. A spike of caution, quickly extinguished. "What I did?" City Man put on a good-humored tolerance that was as translucent as gauze. "And what are you, besides a very well-created tracking dog?"
"I'll go to the Council and tell them that I am ... your son. Father." The word made him sway, and the dark, bottomless sea beneath his feet nearly rose to swallow him again. But the effect on City Man was visible. He went still, and Tracker tasted his ... vulnerability
This was new. Never before.
"Yolanda couldn't know," City Man whispered.
"Oh no." Tracker shook his head, demons shrieking inside his skull. "She doesn't know. I simply ... remembered."
"You can't," City Man said calmly. "You don't have the ability. I made sure of that."
It was an admission, and they both realized it at the same instant. City Man swallowed, an audible, dry sound. "They'll destroy you, if you tell them."
Tracker bent his head, wishing he could cry, but that ability had slipped away from him as he drowned in that vast sea. "They'll destroy us both, Father." Again. The name burned them both equally.
"They denied my petition for offspring." City Man breathed the words. "My DNA contains too many flaws. But it also contains vast talent. I can twist that ladder to create people and tribes, plants and animals, that no one has ever been able to rival. I can do things that nobody else can do, no matter how much they copy me. So what if you can sculpt glaciers, mountains, the face of the moon? I can sculpt races!" He turned to face Tracker, filled with a depthless calm. "They'll destroy you. Think about that. You have forever."
It was a weapon, those three sentences. Oh, he felt it, that tug of cells. Live forever. It weakened his knees, called to him with a Siren's voice to go back to his garden, pet Jesse, and make love to Yolanda. He could do that. City Man would reward him for doing that. He would help him to pretend, and, after awhile, Tracker would ... forget. The promise was there. And real. "Let's walk," he said, and it was the fast command he had ever uttered.
City Man complied, and that was another admission. They strolled away from the cowering vines, through a garden of growing green things, sweet with the scents of plant sex. Behind them, Jesse and Yolanda waited, and Tracker felt a clench of sorrow for the similarity of their waiting. Tracker finally stopped, feeling the silence between them like a pair of crossed swords, a silent struggle.
Tracker shrugged suddenly, fingers groping to find a fleshy blossom humming with a summer's joy. He fingered the petals gently, did not pick it. "Who was my mother?" he asked.
"You don't remember." A silver thread of triumph wove City Man's words together.
Tracker shook his head. "I just can't find her." She was there somewhere, lost in that sea. "I would like to know." And he wasn't challenging, wasn't threatening, was merely ... asking.
City Man walked on and Tracker followed, waiting.
"There was no other." The words came slowly. "I used my DNA, recombined it to grow, and implanted it in a .. . creation." He was silent for a long time. "I ... sculpted you." He spoke slowly, thoughtfully. "If I wasn't good enough for them, then I could make you into whatever I wanted. I gave you a gift."
Tracker felt his stare as City Man pivoted to face him, like desert sunlight on his skin.
"You can't remember. Not for more than a few decades. Tell me about your last lover? Your last dog?" Sly triumph shaded his words. "I made you immortal, but I gave you a mortal memory"
And by that, he could own Tracker forever. Tracker lifted his head, feeling the early starlight on his face, remembering the wide, bright eyes of the kiter girl. "You failed," he said gently. He reached out to touch his father's face, felt the hard edge of his disbelief. "I could wish you had succeeded."
"You belong to me. If you tell, we both die," Donai whispered. "Life forever. It's not so easy to give up."
"No," Tracker said. "It's not." Then he turned and walked away, not needing eyes, back to where Jesse and Yolanda waited beneath the silver moon.
The sun was barely peeking up over the horizon as Tracker crested the desert rise and spied through Jesse’s eyes the circle of kite-roofed wagons below. He halted, and Yolanda came up to stand beside him, still and silent, her awareness of his City flesh a thin and impenetrable wall between them, one that would always be there.
Her scent tickled him, overlaid with dust and the bright, spiraling joy of the kiters' morning flight as their kites twined the dry sky. It had changed, her scent, richer now, tinged with tentative new life. He groped, touched the polished curve of her hip spur, felt the texture of her joy. It matched the kiters's.
With a sigh, he stepped forward, making his way with Jesse's guidance down the gentle slope of the sage-covered hill that had once been a roving dune, but was now netted to the earth with roots. Before they reached the bottom, a figure emerged from one of the wagons and ran to meet them.
"I knew you were coming." Karda halted breathless in front of them. "I knew you were coming back!"
Yolanda stepped forward, arms outstretched, enfolding the child to her. The girl winced slightly as one hip spur scratched her arm lightly, but barely noticed the tiny trickle of blood.
And so she was inoculated with the antidote to City Man's lethal virus. And Yolanda would free the rest of the kiters from City Man's vengeance. That had been part of Tracker's bargain with City Man. He looked through Jesse's eyes and found Karda standing in front of him, looking up at him. "Are you going to stay here, too? Forever?"
"Yes," he said.
She frowned, because she could sense truth, and this was not truth, but it was not a lie, either. "For as long as you live," he said, and that truth she heard.
"I'm a lot younger than you," she said, with a child's forthrightness.
"You are." He smiled, because for the kiters, he was like them. Not City. Yolanda might know, but she would not say, and here he would be ... not alone. And that
tentative silver note of life in Yolanda would grow and strengthen, and, in a space of time, would be born as a child. His child, and Yolanda's. You made me too much like them, Tracker thought. Enough to do this. Enough not to fear Death. He groped for Karda's hand and she closed her small, slender fingers around his. For awhile, this would be an island, where he would learn to swim in the dark sea that lurked in his head. And when the child was old enough, they would leave. Because there were others like them. He felt them. Behind him, he felt the distant forever murmur of City rising beside the patient sea. Beginning and end, he thought. My gift to you. Father.
With Karda guiding his feet, they walked through the sage as the first kite spiraled upward to meet the rising sun, and, for the first time, Tracker felt a sense of peace.
Steps Along the Way
Eric Brown
New British writer Eric Brown, with more than fifty short story sales to his credit, is one of the most prolific authors at shorter lengths currently working in the field. He's become one of Interzone's most frequent contributors and also appears in markets such as Spectrum SF, Science Fiction Age, Aboriginal SF, Moon Shots, and many others. His first book was the collection The Time-Lapsed Man and Other Stories, which appeared in 1990; his first novel, Meridian Days, appeared in 1992, soon followed by Penumbra and New York Nights. His most recent book is the novel Bengal Station. He lives in Haworth, England.
