Complete short fiction, p.69
Complete Short Fiction, page 69
“You reap what you sow,” Wyatt says, vaguely grasping the gist of this.
John doesn’t appear familiar with that saying, but he nods. “A chronic liar’s associates know him for what he is. My job is to help, in a small way, make associates of us all.”
It’s hard for Wyatt to imagine how such a thing can exist, much less be a paying occupation, but he’s certainly heard stranger things. And other than that, John spends very little time talking about himself, preferring instead to talk about the city of Paris—its history and its landmarks, and the ways in which its citizens do and don’t conform to the expectations of visitors such as Wyatt.
“The Parisians are a very warm people if you make an effort to know them,” he says earnestly, “and a very cold people if you treat their city like a . . . .”
“Museum?”
“No, no, it is a museum, the world’s most beautiful. No, what angers the Parisians is presumption, the idea that we are here as, I suppose, servants. We eagerly host those who behave as guests, because we want to. Because that is one of our great passions, you see? To cook and to pour and to display beautiful things, to speak the world’s most beautiful language.”
“Hmm,” Wyatt says, thinking about that. It makes sense, but it’s about as far from Mars—or the frontiers of America—as he can imagine. “But you must have your own lives, too.”
“Of course! Our own lives first, or we’d make dull hosts in a pointless little city. I’ve never been to Mars; I don’t know how it is there, but Paris has much business to conduct. We could block all the visitors and never lack for important things to do. But then, who would see the Arc de Triomphe?” John laughs and drinks his wine. “We’re like a man showing holograms of his child. Never too busy for that.”
Wyatt doesn’t know what to say to that. He really doesn’t know what to say about any of this. He always imagined that if he came to Paris, it would be with Sadie, and she would know what to do. But Sadie is a distant memory, belonging to someone else, and Wyatt is barely two months old.
“I’ll show you beautiful things tomorrow,” John says, sensing the shift in mood. “You seem a bit sad. But not alone, ah? That delicate flower of . . . of melancholy we all carry inside, we know it very well, here. Very well. Do you like paintings? Holosculptures? Programmable matter? They do things here with programmable matter that defy the imagination. Because it’s beautiful, that’s all. Do people come here because they’re starved for beauty? Is that why you’re here from Mars, Monsieur Wyatt? I imagine your planet’s an exciting place, but ugly.”
“Yes. It is. Both of those things.” Wyatt’s never particularly thought about it before. “I don’t know why I’m here. I suppose you’re right. It’s not what I imagined, but I’m guessing there aren’t many fistfights here. Or dust storms. I just stepped in a fax machine, and here I am.”
“And here you are,” John echoes.
Neither of them says anything for a few moments. And then John reaches across the table and puts his hand on Wyatt’s own, the way a woman might, and says, “It’s getting late.”
And here, Wyatt’s baseline faxborn identity comes into conflict with the man he thinks he is; he knows this is perfectly normal, and while most people don’t do it, and a lot of people do it, and he should feel flattered, and if he’s not interested the polite thing to do is to thank John and decline gracefully, and blah blah blah.
Fact is, Wyatt draws his hand back like it’s touched hot coals, and it’s all he can do to keep from overturning the table and beating the crap out of this sneaky Frenchman. Talk about presumption!
“I’m sorry,” John says, looking shocked and hurt, but Wyatt is already in motion, leaving this place, probably sticking John with the bill as he bolts for the fax gate. For the relative familiarity of his own native planet.
Back in the assayer’s office, Wyatt finally does fax up some breakfast. As he eats, he can’t help wondering whether he has a reputation score, and if so, where it is and how people can look at it, and whether he’s just damaged it by behaving . . . by behaving in a manner consistent with his character, but contrary to the standards of time and place. He has a lot to learn and a lot to practice; he was created specifically for Dawes Crater, and like a child wrapped up in his mother’s bosom, he might not be ready to leave it yet. Maybe not for a while. And yet, how can a person know when they’re ready for anything, except by trying? It’s confusing, and this confusion annoys Wyatt, who prefers his life to be simple. Not boring, but simple. But has it ever been? He searches his memories—his bullshit made-up memories—for times when that might have been true, but he just isn’t sure. And that annoys him even more.
And who is he annoyed at, really? Himself? Hardly. How can he be blamed for any of this? No, he’s mad at Tomasa Clady, who created him (not raised him from the dead but created him, from rumors) without permission, and without really thinking it through. Maybe Clady is inexperienced at ordering historical resurrectants, but would it have killed him to research the topic a little? If there are experts at identifying minor social fibbers, then surely there must be experts at resurrection! There are so many rough edges inside of Wyatt Earp 2.0, so many poorly stitched seams that he’s just now starting to notice. Or is that true for the non-faxborn as well? Has it always been? He doesn’t know. He has no way to know. And so his frustrations are ultimately futile, which does nothing at all to soothe them.
He tries to pray, but finds it so alien—so far removed from the baseline template—that he’s left staring at the flat expanse of the ceiling, emptily, sensing no divinity in the Universe at all. And this—this!—seems the grossest violation. Why should he remember prayer if he isn’t capable of it? Or has this always been true as well? Did Wyatt 1.0 even believe in God? He can’t remember. It’s not that he doesn’t remember; he simply can’t, because he wasn’t there.
And he wishes, for a moment, that men could cry.
Wyatt is getting ready to leave when he hears male voices in the outer room. Sighing, he goes out to investigate.
“You look like crap,” says Tomasa Clady. Andrew Smith-Pfennig is there with him; both are in uniform, and looking at least two kilograms more muscular than they had when Wyatt first met them.
“Trapped overnight by the storm,” Wyatt mutters.
Clady’s eyebrows shoot up in mock surprise. “By that little storm? Ha. The way I heard it, you spent the night with two women—one of them a Provincial Captain.”
Several responses flit across Wyatt’s mind, but he can’t quite get his head together, so finally he just says, “What do you need, Tom?”
“I’m here as a humble messenger.”
“Very humble,” Smith-Pfennig adds.
“The Site Manager would like to see you.”
Site Manager? Wyatt thinks that over. He’s been planning to meet with the bosses, but in his own time and on his own terms, and preferably when things in Dawes Crater are a lot farther along. Being summoned doesn’t suit him. On the other hand, his curiosity is piqued, because what does a Site Manager need with a lowly security consultant anyway? If his interest were historical, he’d’ve met with Wyatt much earlier, and if it were contractual, he’d’ve met much later, when there were more results (or visible lack) to paw through.
“All right,” Wyatt says. “But can I talk to you first? Alone?”
“All right. Can we walk and talk? The Site Manager seemed rather urgent.”
“I suppose so.”
“Well then,” Smith-Pfennig offers, “I’ll start my patrol early, shall I?”
“Yeah,” say Wyatt and Tomasa at the same time.
They all step out of the building, the door curls shut behind them and latches with a heavy click, and then Smith-Pfennig goes one way while Wyatt and Tomasa go the other.
The streets of Dawes Crater City are technically paved, but usually coated with a layer of dust that has to be cleared off several times a week by sweeping machines. So they look like dirt roads, and they act like dirt roads as far as the traction of tires, to the point where Wyatt is surprised no pedestrian has been killed by a skidding truck. Which is why the security team has begun enforcing a strict—and actually quite popular—speed limit.
This morning, the dust is piled in ankle-high drifts like snow after a blizzard. Some of the buildings are coated with it as well, although they seem capable of clearing themselves; as they walk past, Wyatt hears one of them crackle, smells a thunderstorm reek coming off it, and sees the dust slide off like magic. Well.
“What’s on your mind, son?” Tom says, only half sarcastically.
“I just want you to know, you did a rush job on me. I’m finding a lot of workmanship errors.”
“Hmm. Ok. Anything serious?”
“Well, I nearly punched a Frenchman for touching my hand. There are . . . seams between the memories and the template. I’m not the man I remember being.”
Tom laughs nervously at that. “I don’t think any of us are, Wyatt. Really.”
“Yeah, I figured you’d say that. You can take my word, I’m talking about something more.”
“All right. Consider it taken. Do you want to see a personality surgeon? I mean, is it the memories or the template that’s bothering you?”
That’s not a question Wyatt’s prepared for. His plan was simply to chew his father out, like every ungrateful son ever. It hadn’t occurred to him that any of this was fixable. But he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised; if they can fashion a man from photographs and newspaper clippings, why not from a man who’s already nearly complete?
“I’m not sure,” he says.
A truck rolls past, a big gray box of iron, kicking up dust with tires as tall as a horse. The trucks are weirdly silent when they obey the speed limit, with only a faint squeaking and creaking to mark their passage.
“Is the problem urgent?” Tomasa asks.
“Not sure about that either. Does this stuff ever get better by itself?”
“All the time, I think. People sometimes edit out memories they think they don’t want anymore, and it’s usually an exercise in butchery. But I think a lot of it grows back. I’m really not the person to ask; a surgeon can explain this to you better than I can. Do you want an appointment?”
“Huh. I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well, I’m sorry for your trouble. You’re right; I was in a hurry to solve my own problem. I wasn’t thinking about you, about how it would be for you. I’ll do what I can, all right? And I’ll keep it private, just between us.”
And here Wyatt really doesn’t know what to say, because it’s hard to ask more than that from any man. And yet, all this really does is take away the outlet for his frustrations. He lived eighty-one years in his original life, and came to Mars at the apparent age of thirty-five or so, as he’d been at the height of his Earthly fame. But he feels seventeen when he kicks at one of the red-brown dunes they’re trodding through.
“Stupid sand. If not for the street sweepers, this town would disappear.”
“True,” Tom allows. Then: “It’s the shape of the valley. Same reason the minerals are exposed; the wind carves straight through, bringing the land along with it.”
Wyatt is expecting to arrive at the Admin building, but instead they stop in front of a little vehicle, like a smaller, sleeker version of the big ore-carrying trucks. Stubby wings project from the back of it.
“What’s this?”
“Transportation. Site manager’s waiting for us on the crater rim, about twenty kilometers from here.”
“Huh. Do you know why he’s there?”
“Nope.” Tomasa opens the driver-side door. “Have you ever ridden in a truck before?”
Wyatt laughs then, suddenly in command of himself again. “Just how old do you think I am, Tom? Yes, I’ve ridden in a truck. I was afraid it was some kind of aeroplane.”
It turns out the truck knows how to drive itself, so even though Tom has access to a set of controls, he folds them away and puts his feet up. Wyatt is content to ride shotgun, with the window open and a light, cold breeze in his face. The road up the crater wall is not paved, but it’s lined with big stones on either side to mark the way, and the space in between these margins—wide enough to pass four trucks—appears well maintained. Martian soil—at least in the places Wyatt has seen—readily turns to concrete if wetted and compacted, and something like that seems to have been done here. The storm debris has already been cleared in one direction, their direction, so the ride is smooth as they follow the winding path up and up the side of the crater. Every few minutes a vehicle passes them in the other direction, but for the most part the road feels deserted.
The view is nice: the town shrinking below them, the rocky, sparsely vegetated valley expanding. It looks like a flattened version of the badlands of South Dakota, painted only in red except for the occasional stripe of black boulders.
“Those are bits of basaltic tuff,” Tom tells him, “basically the bedrock of the valley, shattered and kicked up when the crater was formed. The layers above that are called rhyolytic tuff.”
“Where the minerals are?”
“Mostly, but there’s a vein of rare earth concentrates running through the whole region, that the crater exposed.”
“You know a lot for a security guard.”
“I’ve been here five years,” Tom says, and leaves it at that.
Wyatt’s knowledge of mining is limited to gold, silver, copper and lead. Back in his old life he knew people who went after things like molybdenum and tin, but he never saw the point; it took a whole mountain of the stuff to deliver a fortune. But there’s a whole mountain here, of all that and more, and as part owner he probably ought to learn more about it.
Down below and to the north, he can see the machines clawing their way through the crater wall. They’re not too mysterious; there’s a business end for digging, and a process end for pooping out the tailings. Even the inside is something he can vaguely picture: a fax machine to disassemble the abraded rock, an element buffer to store anything of value, a screw conveyor for moving the rest of the material back and out, and a tamper to pack it all back down. Simple enough. It’s the same operation as any gold panning prospector, writ large and mechanical. The hard part of mining is knowing where to dig, and how to get the findings to a place that will pay fair price. Wyatt had tied his hand once or twice, and it was on those two points that he had fallen flat. Well, that and the fact that Alaska was a pile of shit to begin with. What a lousy, shitty venture that had been.
In theory, with The Dawes Crater Mining Company to handle all the details, Wyatt is free this time to simply rake in the profits, but he knows better than that. An ignorant man is easily fleeced, all the more so if he comes from six hundred years in the past.
The sky hazes over with white cirrus clouds, and then clears again. The clouds move fast here, like restless travelers hurrying onward and onward. Like Wyatt himself. It seems like that thought should trouble him, but the rocking motions of the truck are soothing, and without realizing it he manages to slip off into a light slumber. He’s already had a long day.
He snaps awake when the vehicle pulls to a stop, with squeaking brakes and the crunching of gravel under the wheels.
He looks around. There’s no sign of the crater here; the ground is flat, and rises sharply into jagged hills on one side. With the sun at noon, he can’t even tell what direction they are. And this area is the site of some trouble; a dozen trucks litter the area, along with a good thirty men in various states of distress.
“What happened here?” he asks Clady.
“I don’t know. They wouldn’t say over the wireless.”
He opens his door and gets out, and Wyatt follows suit. At first no one is paying attention to them, but then a knot of people detach from the crowd, led by a large-ish man with brown skin and thin, sandy-brown hair, wearing a set of mining coveralls fresh from the fax, far too clean to have ever been used.
“You can just go ahead and park there,” the man says to Clady. His accent is British, or something like it. Then, eyeing Wyatt, “Is this him?”
Wyatt sticks a hand out, then thinks better of it and pulls it back. “Wyatt Faxborn,” he says, having recently found a shortened version of his name that his reconstructed brain will actually let him say. “Pleased to meet you.”
The man looks him up and down in a gesture of appraisal that earns immediate respect from Wyatt. “Jonathan Adisa, Site Manager. What you’re about to see is strictly confidential, so I need you to go ahead and keep your mouth shut. Can you do that?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, come with me. Both of you. We ship the elements out of here by truck transport, right? Well, last week we had a truck raided by vandals. No one on board, and the sensor logs were scrubbed with a matter virus, so we don’t really know what happened.”
Tom Clady asks, “How much did they take?”
“Not much. I mean, it’s a rolling buffer with a hundred tons of refined matter on board. How much can they take? But they got all the sammy and gaydol, and I mean all of it. They knew what they were after. Probably twenty percent of the value in that truck, which means twenty percent of the crater’s economic output for the week.”
“Why didn’t I hear about this?” Tom asks.
“Because we wanted to keep it quiet, that’s why. Next truck out, I drove personally. Right into last night’s dust storm, as it turned out.”
“And?”
“And, they raided it again while I was parked. Shot me, got away clean before the storm had even fully dissipated.”
Wyatt wonders what they shot him with; he looks all right. But a tazzer wouldn’t keep him down for long, and wouldn’t prevent him from seeing who they were and what they were up to.
The three of them walk up to what is clearly the raided vehicle; its tires are melted into the ground, and the access hatches have been pried off with what looks like considerable force. There is a burn mark along the side of the cargo hold, and the cockpit is riddled with tiny holes.
