Speculative sullivan the.., p.81
Speculative Sullivan: The Collected Short Fiction, page 81
“In what capacity?”
Genzler cleared his throat. “I was her supervisor at a brokerage.”
“What became of her?”
“She was convicted of a crime.”
“What crime?”
“I don’t see where this is leading.”
“Embezzlement, wasn’t it?”
“I believe she was convicted of embezzling funds, now that you mention it.”
“Shortly after the Tachtrans Authority went into operation.”
“Yes, I guess it was right about then.”
“No guessing required,” Naraya said. “It was.”
“Did you meet her on Cet Four, Naraya?” A fine sheen of sweat covered Genzler’s brow. “Is that what this is all about?”
“Yes.”
“And . . .?”
“I met her after she got herself assigned to the TA lab as a trustee.”
“I’m not surprised to hear she managed that.”
“Why not?”
“She is very intelligent.”
“Was very intelligent.”
“She’s dead?”
“Killed in an escape attempt.”
“Oh.” Genzler’s relief was evident, but he hadn’t heard all of it yet.
“Another prisoner got away.”
“And who was that?”
“Jann Zoiran. A thief and murderer. He was her lover.”
“What of it?”
“He’s here on Earth,” Naraya said.
“Well, I imagine the authorities will pick him up.”
“Maybe he’ll worm his way in here to see you before they catch up with him.”
Naraya heard Genzler’s breath quicken. “Don’t you dare threaten me.”
“Threaten you?”
“One nod from me and you’ll be dead.”
“Why would you want me dead?”
“Because you’re the escapee. This Zoiran.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Who are you, then?”
“I’m exactly who I said I am—Adam Naraya.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Be reasonable. If you have me killed, there’s no chance you’ll get the Nambu egg. Not only that, but there’ll be a scandal that could ruin you. A visiting civil servant comes to see you about a business proposition and ends up dead for no good reason. That could be second-degree murder, or worse.”
“You’re not Zoiran?”
“No, I’m the guy who’s selling a Nambu egg, remember?”
“And writing a case history.”
“Yes, about Sylva Robaina.”
“Just what is your connection to her, Naraya?”
“I killed her.”
Genzler couldn’t conceal his shock. “What?”
“Zoiran made it, but she didn’t. He was re-assimulated at the Hong Kong receiving station and hasn’t been seen since. The warning came too late to arrest him there.”
“I see.”
“It was bad.”
“Yes, it must have been, letting a murderer escape.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh? What did you mean?”
“I meant that killing Sylva was the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
“Why? She was a criminal and she tried to escape. I’m sure you had no choice.”
“I didn’t intend to kill her,” Naraya said, remembering. “Just stop her.”
“And you succeeded.”
“That’s success I can do without.”
“Why?”
“Sylva and I got to know each other while she was working in the lab.”
“That’s how you knew Zoiran was her lover?”
It was gratifying to know Genzler was still thinking about Jann Zoiran. “Yes, and she told me some other things, too.”
“Such as?”
“Such as what really happened to those embezzled funds.”
“What really happened?” Genzler sneered. “She still claimed to be innocent?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Absurd. I personally got her legal representation,” Genzler protested. “The best.”
“Friends of yours?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Is it?”
“What a ridiculous question.”
“You wouldn’t be the first one to play the legal system.”
“She was given a fair trial.”
“But she never revealed where the funds had gone.”
“That’s not my concern.”
“And after that, you steadily rose until you reached the position you hold today, the head of an interplanetary financial empire.”
“Interstellar.” His arrogance hadn’t abandoned him yet.
“Pardon me . . . interstellar.”
“Where is the egg?” Genzler said, his voice high and querulous.
“We’re coming to that, but not before we discuss a man who committed a crime and found a naïve scapegoat to take the blame. He used stolen money to start up his ambitious enterprise.”
“That’s what she told you?” Genzler snorted.
“At first I didn’t believe her, but as I got to know Sylva, I wasn’t so sure.”
Genzler’s eyes were bloodshot and sweat stained his collar.
“And then she and Zoiran tried to escape.” Naraya paused, remembering the blood pouring out of Sylva onto the lab floor, like an enormous red rose opening under her head as the color drained from her still face. “After my psychological evaluation, I went into a deep depression. I couldn’t sleep. I became obsessed with learning the truth. That’s why I began my research. I was tireless, and it paid off.”
“In what way?”
“An account turned up among her personal effects, an account that I found convincing.”
“Old news.”
“Her account has been turned over to the TA’s law-enforcement wing. The case has been reopened.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will if your body is broken down and reconstructed on Cet Four.”
“What are you talking about?” Genzler shouted. The cords in his neck stood out.
“You just might go there yet, Mr. Genzler,” Naraya said with grim deliberation. “And not as a colonist. As a prisoner.”
“Nonsense.”
“Oh, I know you’ve got tons of legal and financial resources to protect you, but it might not be enough.”
“Try me.”
“If you’re tried, it won’t be me making the judgment.”
“I believe you already have.”
“Uh-uh. I just want to make a deal.”
“How much for the egg?” Genzler was angry now.
“Everything you own.”
“Everything?” Genzler tried to laugh, but he couldn’t manage it.
“There’s one other thing I’d settle for,” Naraya said.
“What?”
“A confession.”
“This is preposterous,” Genzler said. “I’ve done nothing wrong, and if you make public accusations, you could find yourself in serious trouble.”
“All right, then I’ll give the egg to you.”
Genzler’s blue eyes were startled, disbelieving.
“You’ll . . . give it to me?”
“You heard me.”
“You really have it?” Genzler said after a long pause.
“Oh, yes. Yes, I do.”
“Where is it, then?”
“Right in here.” Naraya tapped his forehead.
“Inside your brain?”
“Located at the terminus of four cranial nerves, behind the pons.”
“You can control it?”
“I can get the scalar curvature flowing just like that.” He snapped his fingers, mimicking Genzler’s boasting a few minutes before.
“But how . . .?”
“The radial boson field is held in place by the electric current of my brain. I can make it expand. You’ll be immersed in the field, and your nervous system will absorb it. Then you’ll have it and I won’t.”
“Impossible.”
“It’s a little trick Dr. Sankao picked up from the Cetians.”
“How would those things know about a Nambu egg?”
“They didn’t, until we showed them one,” Naraya said. “They looked at it differently than we did, intuitively. Our physicists had made this whirligig with tremendous potential, but nobody knew what to do with it. A native lab assistant figured out something we hadn’t thought of, something nobody expected.”
“But it’s based on complex mathematics.”
“Some Cetians are very good at math”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t either, not until Dr. Sankao told me. She was head of the project. Symmetry breaking scalar curvature in a controlled local field, she said, derived from a physicist’s work way back when.”
“How could you control something like that?”
“Once you’ve absorbed it, the bosons flow into one another, vibrations in a field you can expand and contract at will.”
“This is insane.”
“Do I seem insane?” Naraya asked.
After a long pause, Genzler asked, “You can really do it that easily?”
“Yes.”
“Why haven’t I heard about this breakthrough?”
“They didn’t want it to be common knowledge until the research was further along.”
“How did you acquire it?”
“I was in charge of lab security,” Naraya said. “Dr. Sankao and I came up with a plan. A good woman, Dr. Sankao.”
“But why would you travel all this way just to . . .?”
“Because it’s an unbearable thought,” Naraya said, “killing a woman who was innocent, someone who was trying to free herself from unjust exile.”
Genzler stared at him. “I don’t see the connection.”
“No, I’m sure you don’t.”
Genzler’s confused frown might have been a response to what Naraya was saying, or it might have been caused by something else, such as a failure of the security system hooked up to his brain.
“Something wrong?” Naraya asked.
“No, nothing,” Genzler said, but it was clear that he was worried. “Now, either produce the egg or get out.”
“I’m going to let you have the egg,” Naraya said. “You can keep all your wealth, all your possessions, everything you own.”
“You are? But why?”
“Consider it my gift to you.”
“Your gift?”
“You realize you don’t have much longer before they come to arrest you, don’t you?”
“What?”
“Maybe you’ll win, but you’re going on a long and expensive litigious trip before you find out, and you could end up as a prisoner on Cet Four.”
“That will never happen.”
“The police know you made fools of the law.”
“The police?”
“They’re on their way, and your security is useless against them.”
Genzler’s startled expression revealed that he knew his neuro-security system was already down.
“You’re lucky they’re going to arrive before Zoiran—if they do. He could be coming up here right now.”
“Give me the egg!”
“Okay, if you really want it.”
Genzler glanced at the door and then back at Naraya. “Yes, I want it.”
“Here it is.”
Naraya awakened the sleeping Nambu egg. Trillions of vibrations shook the fabric of local reality, as compactified particles rotated into one another. The vibrating ovoid field expanded and engulfed everything around it, until it was attracted to the nearest electrical field it could bond with. And then it contracted, flowing into Genzler’s brain.
“I forgot to mention that Dr. Sankao taught me how to compartmentalize the flow, so that it didn’t mess with my reasoning. It can be a real problem if you don’t know how to do that.”
Genzler’s eyes were surprised for an instant before they went vacant. His head lolled, his breathing was uneven and gasping, and he drooled on himself. He had gone somewhere much farther away than Cet Four.
And he would never return.
“Will you need any more help?” the voice in Naraya’s head inquired.
“Thanks, but I think I can find my way back home now.” Naraya, relieved of his burden at last, rose and walked out of the room.
Through Mud One Picks a Way
Tim Sullivan was born in Bangor, Maine in 1948, but does not know Stephen and Tabitha King personally (although he wishes he did). He lives with writer and editor Fiona Kelleghan in Miami and eats too many sweets. Sullivan has worked on a number of films you’ve probably never heard of as a writer, actor, and even a director on two micro-budgeted occasions. Perhaps more germane to F&SF readers are his short stories, novelettes, and novels, which number in the dozens and have been reprinted in several languages, including Russian, Polish, Japanese, French, German, and Mandarin. He has edited two anthologies and was once a Nebula Award finalist for best short story.
He kicks off this issue with a story about dealing with aliens and about dealing with humans.
“On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it.”
—Jules Renard
“BETTER STAY ON THE LIFT,” Hob Dancer shouted down to Uxanna Venz.
Uxanna clutched the handrail for a moment before dropping and spattering some of the pit’s knee-deep muck. She straightened up, waded toward the nearest of the three Cetians, and squatted to touch its milky belly, ignoring the methane stench as her fingertips came into contact with its wet hide. The Cetian began to rearrange its mass in response. Part of it swelled and extended toward her, gaining length and definition as it popped and slurped itself into a new shape. The new limb split at the tip into five trembling digits.
“Success,” Hob said.
“Don’t get too excited.” Uxanna took the limb as if shaking hands with it. The digits were cool and wet, throbbing in an irregular pattern. “We’re just getting started.”
“Are they okay?” Hob asked in his papery voice.
“The closer I get, the worse they look.”
“I don’t see why,” Hob said, as if the imprisoned creatures disappointed him. “I’ve paid a fortune to take care of them.”
“Something’s making them despondent.”
“What do you think it is?”
“Homesickness.”
“For that swamp they came from?”
“Be it ever so humble.”
“Don’t they like their home away from home down there?”
“You’ve done a good job of approximating their environment, but it’s not the same.”
“I hope you can make them feel more comfortable.”
“I’ll try.” Uxanna massaged the Cetian’s digits. The other two stirred in the mud. “You have to sort of come at this sideways.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nobody does.”
“Then how do you talk to them?”
“It’s a matter of making adjustments,” Uxanna said. “They’re usually willing to meet us halfway.”
One of the other Cetians was growing a limb now, reaching toward Uxanna, its bulk contracting as part of it swelled outward. She grasped the second creature’s separating digits and waited for the third to touch her. After a moment, she felt its clammy caress on the back of her neck.
“They need to be in contact with your skin to get some idea of what you’re thinking,” Uxanna explained.
“Telepathy?”
“Not exactly, but they feel subtle differences in the current that passes through a human.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You’re not going to get anything if you don’t let me concentrate on what I’m doing,” Uxanna said.
“So I should shut up?” Hob asked.
“I’d put it more politely than that.”
“Then I’ll shut up.”
Hob might have been offended, but at least he was quiet now. If he wanted to get his money’s worth, there would be no further interruptions.
The squid-like grip on Uxanna’s hands and the probing digits on her upper spine almost made her feel as if she were part of the trio. She had dealt with hundreds of Cetians and seen thousands more squirming in the mud back on Cet Four, and she had been pretty good at persuading them to move out of the way for construction crews. Their boggy habitat was the most livable part of the planet. There was a lot of swampland, so they didn’t mind sharing with humans. Not at first.
Unfortunately, landfill deprived them of more and more of their home. That led to trouble, and huge numbers of Cetians were relocated by force, much to Uxanna’s disapproval. She was glad to leave Cet Four while such a heartless policy was in effect.
The Cetians never fought back, but that didn’t stop colonists from maligning them. Every time someone was lost in the swamps, there were rumors that she or he had been killed for revenge. Uxanna never believed it, though. It was easy enough to lose your way among the huge spiral trees and their adventitious roots without foul play.
Violence was certainly not on the minds of the three shy creatures in this basement pit. Uncertainty and fear were.
“You’re safe here,” she said.
She felt the throbbing speed up a little and then die back down, and she knew what that meant. They did not believe her.
“I know this place is very strange, but no one is going to harm you.”
Again, the Cetians doubted her.
“You’ve been given everything you need here, haven’t you?”
The throbbing stabilized. The Cetians were willing to admit that much was true.
“Then please let me know what is troubling you.”
Digits unwrapped themselves from her right hand and the limb receded into the Cetian’s white belly once again.
“Please. . . .” Uxanna said, but the second Cetian was withdrawing and she no longer felt the third one touching her. Their limbs vanished, their bodies elongated, and they slithered away, burying themselves in the thick, greenish-brown slime like enormous night crawlers.
Disappointed, Uxanna climbed back onto the lift, almost slipping because of the mud on her soles. She was raised to the ledge overlooking the pit, where she climbed off to face Hob.
“What happened?” Hob asked, pursing his thick lips. “You seemed to be doing all right there for a minute, and then they just backed off.”
