Becoming human, p.1
Becoming Human, page 1
Valerie J. Freireich - Becoming Human
“HAVE YOU EVER ATTENDED A TORTURE PARTY?” AUGUST ASKED.
Kolet faced August. “Many. ‘Cutters’ we call them, because knives are the usual method—although some people prefer fire, burns.” He reached into the medic bag and removed a small steel knife. It gleamed in the light.
Kolet held his left hand up, palm facing August. A patternless network of thin scars from long- healed wounds crisscrossed his hand. Carefully, like an experienced surgeon, he pressed. The blade cut into skin, leaving a trail of blood and open flesh.
BECOMING HUMAN
VALERIE J. FREIREICH
A ROC BOOK
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,
London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,
Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First published by ROC, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.
First Printing, January, 1995 10 987654321
Copyright © Valerie J. Freireich, 1995 Cover art by John Jude Palencar All rights reserved
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” Dylan Thomas: Poems of Dylan Thomas. Copyright 1952 by Dylan Thomas. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.; and Dylan Thomas: The Poems. Copyright 1978 by Dylan Thomas. Reprinted by permission of David Highara Associates.
The first three chapters of this book, in altered form, appeared in Tomorrow Speculative Fiction, Volume I, Number 2, March 1993, as “The Toolman.”
REGISTERED TRADEMARK MARCA REGISTRADA
Printed in the United States of America
an ebookman scan
To my husband, Jordan
Contents
Valerie J. Freireich - Becoming Human
Contents
PART ONE—CENTER: A Dying Toolman
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
PART TWO—SUCRE: The Evil Twin Story
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
PART THREE—NEULAND: A Sufficient Quantity of Secrets
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
PART ONE—CENTER: A Dying Toolman
Chapter 1
Alexander Greeneyes was hungry, but he wanted to live.
Those conflicting desires made him hesitate outside the toolman entrance to Sanda Brauna’s apartment. Her security routines would be watching, together with Center’s automatic monitoring system, routinely evaluating even this slight hesitation. Eventually he would no longer be able to hide his hunger, but he kept his head high, smiled, and touched the panel, opening the door; the time when he would be put down for flare approached, but it hadn’t yet arrived.
Ting Wheeling, Sanda’s latest acquisition from the toolman farm, stepped smartly down from the guardian station as Alexander entered the apartment. “I’ll escort you,” he said, his high-pitched voice rendering him deceptively nonthreatening despite the obvious power of the bulky physique inside the slick black guardian uniform. “Elector Brauna is in the sunroom.” He spoke Sanda’s name as if it, and she, were holy.
Alexander bowed in mock solemnity and followed, without protesting the officious escort through the entirely familiar apartment. Their footsteps were the only sound, except for the low, eternal, background hum of Center. “How is she today?” Alexander asked, to break the silence.
Ting turned around. His plain face was made graceful by its strength in the careful aesthetic of toolmen/guardians; wide-set eyes gave him an air of innocence. He observed Alexander warily, as though the comment might precede a wild attack. “Elector Brauna is anxious to see you, probe.”
“Wonderful.” Perhaps Sanda was watching, so Alexander said nothing more as they resumed their course. Lately, she watched him compulsively. He restrained a frown, knowing only one reason for such a change.
Ting led the way through the apartment, his gait as precise as on a parade ground, each heavy footfall brushing fanciful flowers sculpted into the carpet’s thick weave. His right hand rested on his gun as he passed each internal door— generally closed; presumably the empty rooms of Sanda’s apartment needed privacy—as if hoping for an enemy ambush. Guardians were not usually so anxious. Offhandedly recognizing the likely cause, Alexander said, “I don’t encroach on your duties. Why do you dislike me? “
Ting stiffened further, but didn’t respond. Dull, like all guardians, Alexander thought: a sub with muscles. They reached the oversize bronze doors to the sunroom without exchanging another word.
Ting signaled the doors open and moved aside for Alexander, but stayed inside the sunroom. The steamy heat oppressed Alexander as he walked the earthen path to Sanda, who was reclining on a lounger in the central clearing. After the temperate atmosphere maintained throughout the rest of Center, it was like visiting the tropics.
The immense sunroom was a hothouse—glass-walled except for the single wall shared with the rest of Center. Sanda’s apartment was on a high outer rim of the Center complex, so no part of the great, enclosed, floating city was visible through the windows. The sunroom was an isolated garden hanging far above Sucre—high enough that the dull gray, surface town of Sucre-semp, grown up to support Center with power stations, transit points, cheap human labor, and illicit entertainments, appeared distantly charming. The rich odor of the damp soil floor and the fragrance of the profuse vegetation were a stimulating change from the olfactory sameness of Center, particularly because the room had just been watered. Sanda kept two toolmen/subs whose sole duty was to maintain the foliage, under her supervision—her route to the Electors’ red robes had been through botany. Occasionally she still dirtied her hands planting an interesting specimen.
She was viewing a replay of his meeting with the Neulanders, an obvious clue to their coming discussion. As always, it was a shock to see himself—hanging in midair and much reduced in size—on a replay display. He seemed a shell, not a real man. Sanda ordered the replay off. “Come here,” she said imperiously.
In addition to her lounger, the clearing contained a table with four chairs and a multipurpose desk set belonging to her assistant; nevertheless, Sanda indicated the ground beside her. The bare dirt floor was hard-packed along the path and in the clearing, where nothing was planted, but it was still wet from being watered, and always uneven underfoot. Alexander sat awkwardly on the moist soil with his raised knees between him and the lounger. It was necessary to look up at Sanda.
Her white hair shone like a halo in the dappled sunlight coming through the walls. Its color did not suggest age; her rich dark skin was entirely unlined; her brown eyes were clear. Sanda looked just past adolescence, although no one could have risen to her exalted position and been truly young. As a result of the Electors’ special medical attention, she appeared younger than Alexander, but she’d entered the long middle age of standard humans before his birth. The thought was bitter.
“Do you like what you’re seeing?” she asked sharply.
“As always.” He didn’t avert his eyes, though she disliked being surveyed. Unusual, for a beautiful woman.
“Smile when you compliment me. Haven’t I taught you anything at all? “
“I’m too distraught,” he said, smiling brightly. “Are you going to have me put down for talking to the Neulanders? Am I being returned to general services? Will Ting Wheeling shoot me in the back? Have mercy, Elector. I seek some guidance here.”
She laughed, but the sound was sour. “Sometimes, Alex, I suspect that I keep your service more for your clever talk than your skill as a probe.” She sighed and leaned back in the lounger. “Report.”
Alexander moved his gaze sideways to where Ting Wheeling guarded the door, then back. Sanda’s lips tightened, but she did not order Ting outside, so Alexander began. “Delegate Huana was in conversation with the two aspirants from Neuland. He noticed me and asked me to join them. “
Elector Brauna raised her hand. Alexander immediately stopped speaking, bowing his head in the conventional probe-waiting posture. “I won’t bother to ask why you approached Huana’s group to begin with, knowing how likely he is to include you in a discussion,” she said sternly, “but after you were there, you used your genetically enhanced abilities as a probe to predict that the Republic of Neuland won’t be admitted to the Harmony.” She leaned forward. “Alex, was this a facilitation?”
“No.” He drained tension from his voice before continuing. “I would never perform facilitation without orders, Elector Brauna. While a transcript recital might give that appearance, in context, considering the audience with whom I was interacting, this was not facilitation. Neuland’s admission to the Polite Harmony of Worlds was neither promoted nor otherwise affected. Truly.” He looked into her eyes and nodded slightly, encou raging belief.
She studied him. He smiled and cursed the hunger that had driven him to stretch toolman/probe proprieties in order to distract himself from his appetite. He should have stood inconspicuously against a wall, a living statue eavesdropping on the Delegates’ conversations, not joined them.
She decided, then leaned back, stretching her fine body, catlike, to ease its tension.
She believed him. He glanced away, immensely relieved. Sucre’s cloudless sky spread far beyond the clear sunroom walls, but its light reached even to the sunroom’s mucky soil. Shadows of the taller sunroom vegetation fell like irregular bars across Sanda’s body. The shadow-pattern wouldn’t shift for hours. Center kept a counterfeit twenty-four-hour clock-day schedule, but Sucre, the world above which Center was suspended, had a daylight cycle 136 hours long. Sucre’s sun hung in the sky like something broken, and Sanda’s sunroom was one of the rare places in Center where that reality was apparent. In making an artificial city on an Extreme world the capital of the Polite Harmony of Worlds, the planners had removed nature. Center had sun-stones, not sunlight, corridors but not streets, flowers and no weeds; it wasn’t true. Alexander disliked the sunroom for its ersatz return to nature; it was Sanda’s favorite place.
“What do you think of the Neulanders?” she asked.
“They’re odd.” He shrugged. “Arrogant and crude. Perhaps because they’re Altered humans, and pain-free.” The compacted soil made an uncomfortable seat, and his long legs were in the way, but Sanda hadn’t offered him a chair. “Talia Kaviscu is in charge, not the man, Pavel Havic. She’s the more intelligent of the pair; she was made anxious by my presence. It’s an open secret that probes survey the Grand Assembly’s deliberations for the Electors.” Alexander reviewed the conversation with his eidetic memory, like mental replay tape, trying to find the best justification for his faux pas. “The Neulanders are hiding something, Elector. That’s unexceptional in Center, however I suspect their secret is larger than usual. It might have something to do with outsiders—they mentioned the Bril several times. Both Kaviscu and Havic were sincere; the Republic of Neuland wants to join the Harmony. Unfortunately that desire doesn’t carry over into recognition of the role of Electors in determining the proper philosophical and scientific course of society. Neuland will remain adamant in its refusal to allow the establishment of Jonist Academies, claiming their local style of Jonism is ideal.” He paused, to add emphasis, then continued. “What surprised me is their depth of belief in Neuland’s ultimate success being admitted to the Harmony. My forecast of a defeat in the Grand Assembly voting had no effect on them.” He showed his empty palms. “I have no explanation.”
She smiled. “But you’d like one. I respect your intuition, Alex, and I’m interested in the Neuland situation. Focus on those Neulanders. I’ll have Ahman Grass assign you as their protocol aide. Watch tape from the mechanical snoops for the periods when you can’t be present—make them a special project. Discover what they’re hiding.”
“It would help me considerably if I knew the Electors’ position.” Alexander was curious. “Do the six of you favor admitting Neuland?”
She waved a hand in the air. “You don’t need that information. Besides, you talk much too freely with your Andian friend, Huana. Look what you did today.”
“Understood, Elector.” He moved slightly, signaling an uncompleted readiness to rise to his feet.
“No.” She placed her hand on his knee and looked to where Ting Wheeling was visible through the greenery. “You can leave,” she told the guardian. “Return to your post. Alexander will stay with me.”
Ting acquiesced, but let his heavy steps echo resentfully as he left the sunroom.
“He’s jealous of me.”
Sanda’s smile widened. “I know. I rather enjoy it. Too bad I haven’t been able to make you jealous of him.”
“I am jealous of him.”
“But for the wrong reasons. You wish you were twenty-two again, or were a guardian instead of a probe, but not that you spent all your time here, protecting my body.” He performed an appropriate grin, which she missed as she brought her legs around so her feet were flat on the ground beside him. She ruffled his close-cut hair, then rested her hand on his shoulder. “Alex, are you... well?”
He worried instantly that she knew his secret, but she couldn’t—she had just given him an ongoing assignment. Sanda wasn’t so cruel as to tease a dying toolman. He forced a chuckle. “Only tired, Elector. There has been a great deal of activity since the Neulander aspirants arrived. I’ve watched more replay than usual.”
Sanda touched his chin. On cue, he looked up into her eyes. “You’ve lost four pounds in the last two weeks, Alex, according to my sensors, although you’re eating more, too. Your attitude has become noticeably more reckless—witness this business today. You were thirty-three on your last nameday. I think you’re in flare, and trying to hide it from me.
He didn’t say anything.
“Well?”
“Was there a question, Elector Brauna?”
She slapped him.
He touched his stinging cheek. She’d never struck him before. It felt peculiarly pleasant, a measure of her emotion.
“I’ve never liked that mask toolmen are trained to wear around humans, and it’s much too late for you to begin using one with me,” she said. She scrutinized a mass of inconsequential red flowers bordering the clearing, then turned directly to him, her face flushed with strain. “Just tell me—are you in flare?”
“Yes,” he whispered, bewildered by his inability to speak at normal volume. He had expected a measure of relief to accompany the admission, but he felt none. It only brought his nightmares into the light. Alexander imagined his traitor body collapsing as his metabolism became increasingly erratic, until he could no longer consume enough calories to sustain himself, even eating constantly. Rumors in probe quarters said there would be a slow shriveling of his flesh as his body ate its muscles, accompanied by fever, an alternating restlessness and lethargy, then continual and increasing pain.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Alex, I am sorry.” She slid onto her knees and embraced him as a mother does an injured child.
He wanted her comfort and for once didn’t inspect it for flaws or insincerity. He leaned against her, breathing in her violet-scented flesh, feeling the fabric of her embroidered gown against his cheek, gathering new courage to face his fear from this simplest of human contacts. The shadows from the foliage over her shoulder were motionless; there were no breezes here without her order. The sunroom was a universe that obeyed her will. “Are you going to have me put down to the farm now that you know?” he asked, steeling himself to accept an affirmative, without futile protests.
She shook her head, and moved back to observe him. “I should. That’s proper. But if you wish, you can stay in the apartment with me. Flare can extend for six or eight months. Here, you can eat as much as you like, and keep working as long as you’re able.” She pretended to scan the sunroom, never quite meeting his eyes. “I’ll miss your work, Alexander Greeneyes. You’re the best analyst I’ve ever had.” She sighed. “Fifteen years is a considerable time, even for me. I wish they designed you probes for longer service, like guardians and subs.”
Balanced between a humiliating gratitude and despairing fury, he said nothing. He stood, wiping off the pants of his black matte probe uniform as she watched.
“The rules say no medical treatment for flare,” she added apologetically.
The anger burst from him, making his low voice ragged. “You’re an Elector. You and the other five make the rules; you decide the proper interpretation of Jon Hsu’s General Principles. You decide which research advances order, who is human and who is not, when a toolman can be made, and at what age he has to die. So don’t say ‘rules’ to me. I know better. And don’t say you’re sorry—you’re the ones who ordered my death. “
Her face had become the public mask of Elector Sanda Brauna. “I’ll ignore that. Once.” Her tone had no softness. She stood, frowning as if at an untidy mess. “Are you staying with me or not?”
