He took her home, and, for the first time in months, didn’t have the urge to kiss and paw her. In fact, suddenly the thought of touching her made his skin crawl.

Which was probably just as well. After he reported her to Chairman Nader and the others, there was no question that she would lose her job, and at least now he wouldn’t feel guilty about it. His decision made, he made his way to his apartment to watch the late-night opera and ballet, resisting the urge to look up and see if his halo was visible.

DARK WINGS

Lisanne Norman

‘Slow down, Weis,” Jensen said quietly from his seat next to the burly pilot. “There’s no rush. The weather’s worsening. We can finish the survey tomorrow.”

“I wanted to finish scanning this sector before heading back to the settlement,” muttered the other, banking sharply to the left to compensate as a gust of wind caught their scouter side-on. Moments later, like a cork from a bottle, they shot out of the small valley into the plains, only to be caught again by the swirling blizzard.

This time, Jensen was flung back against his seat as Weis fought the controls, trying to force their craft back on course.

“What’s ahead?” Weis demanded. “How close are the Splitback Mountains?”

“Too damn close,” said Jensen, forcing himself up against the gees so he could reach his console and check their erratic course against what they had charted of the landscape below and around them. No point looking out the windscreen; all they could see was the swirling white-out of the storm. “We need to get above this weather and head back now, Weis.”

Weis snorted. “Yeah, right. Like I’m not trying! I wanna get off this dirt ball and back into space even if you don’t!”

“Pull up! Now! Starboard!” Jensen said urgently as the mountains suddenly loomed closer on his nav screen.

Again Weis yanked on the controls, banking sharply to the right as he pulled the small craft’s nose up. Engines whining as the hull creaked and groaned in protest, Jensen clutched the armrests and, against all reason, willed the small scouter upwards while mentally trying to hold the hull together. He didn’t need to hear Weis’s low, repetitive swearing or the sudden blaring of the proximity alert to know they were in real trouble.

Then, with a shriek of tortured metal, Jensen felt the scouter grasped as if by a giant hand and flung against the mountainside.

Consciousness returned by degrees, but he had no inclination to move. Some sixth sense told him if he did, he’d discover that every part of his body hurt. Besides, he was comfortable right now, and his insulated flight suit was keeping him warm. Then something tickled his nose. He wriggled it, trying to dislodge whatever it was, but the tickling persisted. Reluctantly, he raised his arm to brush it away, but his hand only flopped unresponsively against his face.

Shock surged through him then as he remembered the crash. He struggled to sit up, panicking when he found he couldn’t. It was only as he opened his eyes and realized that the scouter was lying canted to one side that, with an effort of will, he sat still.

Now fully conscious, he began to take stock of his surroundings. His seat had semi-reclined into the crash position and the harness was all that was holding him there, and yes, every muscle in his body ached as if he’d been pummeled, but there was no sign of blood on his white winter fatigues. So far, so good. Now for his hands.

Lifting them up, he peered at them through half-closed eyes, expecting the worst, relieved when he saw they were unhurt, just numbed by the cold.

He turned his head, looking for Weis. The pilot lay inert in his seat, either out cold or dead, he’d no idea which. Almost subconsciously he noticed there was no blood visible on him either.

“Weis?” His voice cracked as he tried to call out. Licking his lips, he tried again, only to have his words swept away by the wind.

Wind? Inside the scouter? He frowned, confused, trying to make sense of what was happening. Then, beyond Weis, where the port hull had been, he saw the open gash. Through it, the blizzard was howling, coating everything in a layer of snow.

He wrapped the harness round one arm, and with his other hand he began hitting the harness’s release stud. It took several attempts, his numb hand being as much of a hindrance as an advantage because he felt no pain . . . yet. Finally it gave, and as he began to slide out of his seat toward the main console, he was able to check himself.

Turning round and grabbing hold of his chair arm as well, he hauled himself up until he got a foothold on the side of the console between the two seats. Then he reached for his pilot. Beneath a frosting of snow, Weis’s face had a bluish-white tinge that was far from healthy. Reaching out to grasp him by the front of his padded flight suit, he noticed his own hand was the same bloodless color.

“Weis! Wake up! We crashed.”

The other began to move sluggishly, his hand going up automatically to brush the snow off his face before his eyes even opened. Jensen let him go, squatting back on his heels.

“What . . .” Weis groaned and began to move.

“We crashed,” said Jensen, slithering off his perch and down to the main console. Hitting the emergency beacon, he prayed that the backup power unit hadn’t taken any damage. Weis sniffed audibly, then, hitting his release buckle, catapulted himself out of his seat into Jensen, sending them both flying against the starboard bulkhead.

“Fuel,” he said succinctly, scrambling to his feet and reaching down to haul Jensen up by the collar.

“Tank’s gone. We gotta get outta here.”

“Damnit, Weis . . .” Jensen staggered as Weis released him, biting back a groan of pain as he rubbed the back of his head.

“She could go up like a torch any minute. Can’t you smell the goddamn fumes?” Weiss demanded, grasping the dangling harness and pulling himself up onto Jensen’s seat, then onto his own. Jensen followed, trying to ignore the pounding headache and the pain in his hands now that the circulation was finally returning to them. Snow made the surfaces slick and he slipped more than once, but finally he made it to the gash in the hull through which Weis had disappeared. Grasping hold of the rough edges, he yelped in pain as the bitterly cold metal burned into his hand. Pulling free hurt even more. Dazed from this fresh pain, he stood watching as the blood welled up from the torn flesh into the hollow of his palm.

“You retard! Why didn’t you put your gloves on first like I did?” Weis demanded, hauling him bodily from the crashed scouter out into the darkening night and the full force of the blizzard.

“The ship’s not going to blow!” Jensen yelled, staggering through the deep snow in Weis’s wake as he was hauled along. “We must have been unconscious for over an hour!”

Weis said nothing, only increased his pace until they rounded a snow-covered rocky outcrop that offered some protection from the worst of the blizzard; then he stopped.

Jensen jerked himself free, and, unfastening one of his thigh pockets, reached inside for a field dressing. The wind had dropped and he could actually hear himself think.

“Give it here,” Weis snarled, looming over him and snatching the pack. Moments later, the dressing had been slapped over his palm and hastily tied in place. “Now put your headgear and gloves on! Didn’t the Company teach you tekkies nuthin’ about survival out here?”

The analgesic in the dressing hit his system almost instantly, bringing relief from the pain and sealing the wound. From his other pocket, he drew out his gloves and face mask. He was angry, bloody angry if truth were told, at the way Weis had been treating him right from the moment they’d taken off from the valley settlement.

“Yeah, they taught me,” he said, fitting on the earpiece and mic set, then the face mask. Activating the mic, he reached behind his head for the hood, pulled it up, and secured it, then turned his attention to easing his hands painfully into the mitts.

“But they didn’t teach me how to survive a kamikaze pilot and being thrown against a bulkhead and landed on by him!” he added when he heard the click of Weis’s mic going live. Weis’s laughter nearly deafened him, and the slap on his back sent him sprawling into the outcrop.

“You’re OK, Jensen.” he said, throwing him the end of a piece of fine rope. “Here, tie that ’round you and let’s get moving before the shuttle blows. I wanna reach those caves we scanned in the valley just before we crashed. We can hunker down there till the storm passes, then signal the Deigon for a pickup.”

Jensen stopped dead in the middle of tying the rope and looked up. Toggling his goggles to infravision, he shoved his hood back.

“What the hell you doin’, man?” Weiss demanded.

“Shut up. I heard something.”

“You heard something? You heard the . . .”

“I said shut the hell up!” Jensen snarled, moving a few feet away from him, back around the outcrop. He had heard something, and now he was scanning the white-speckled swirling darkness for a clue to what it was.

His hearing was legendary on the Deigon —he could hear a dog whistle as easily as any dog.

“There it is again,” he muttered, swinging around to face the direction they’d come from. It was high-pitched—had to be to carry over the banshee howling of the wind—and like nothing he’d ever heard before as it rose and fell in pitch before stopping abruptly. It came again, this time only a short burst, and from the opposite direction.

A flicker of red at the edge of his sight drew his attention back to the direction in which the shuttle lay. He grabbed hold of Weis’s arm, shaking him.

“Look! Over where the shuttle is!” he said. “Movement!”

“Can’t see a damned thing in this blizzard,” said the other. “Let’s get moving now before the shuttle . . .”

The ground beneath their feet began to tremble, gently at first, then more violently as a plume of flame even Weis could see erupted high in the night sky. Just as suddenly, it was gone, and as the mountain under them heaved and bucked, they were tossed to the ground like unwanted children’s toys. Jensen lay there, arms cradled over his head, even though he knew it would be no protection.

“This region isn’t volcanic,” he muttered, more to himself than Weis.

“Tell the goddamn mountain that!”

The ground beneath them gave one last heave, then was still. Slowly he moved his arms and pushed himself into a kneeling position.

“Tell me there was enough fuel on the scouter to cause that,” he said, turning to watch as Weiss scrambled up.

“I can’t, and you know it.”

He got to his feet, dusting the snow off his flight suit and pulling his hood back up. “I’m going back to look at the scouter.”

“You’re mad,” said Weis. “You’ll not catch me goin’ back there after that!”

“Then wait here,” he snapped, losing patience with the burly pilot.

“Jensen, don’t go,” said Weis grabbing him by the arm. “Some things it’s better to ignore.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded.

The large man hesitated. “The locals were saying the mountain’s haunted.”

He snorted derisively. “And you believed them?”

“You said you heard somethin’, saw movements before she blew!”

“I didn’t see ghosts!” Then it came to him, what his subconscious had been trying to tell him for the last five minutes. “Whales! It sounded like whales.”

“Now who’s talking rubbish? Weis demanded. “There’s no whales five thousand feet up a mountain!”

Ignoring him, Jensen set off back the way they’d come. There was a mystery here and he aimed to solve it. As soon as he stepped out from the shelter of the outcrop, the wind howled around him, grabbing at him, trying to thrust him back. Doggedly he pushed on, keeping his head down, putting one foot in front of the other, following the tracks they’d left.

“Jensen, damnit! Come back! You can’t go off on your own in this weather! You didn’t even tie the rope round you!”

Jensen had reached the crash site before Weis caught up with him.

“Jesus Christ,” said Weis reverently as he came to an abrupt stop beside him. “The mountain ate it!”

Where the scouter had been was a ridge of bare rock some fifty feet long and as tall as a man. Of their craft, nothing remained.

Not a superstitious man by nature, even he was shaken by the sight before them. “I see it,” whispered Jensen, taking a tentative step forward. Something lying in the newly fallen snow, glowing faintly, caught his eye and he stopped to pick it up.

As he did, he heard the call again, this time a longer and more plaintive cry that got rapidly louder. Grabbing the object, he stood up in time to see something rushing toward him out of the night. Weis yelled out a warning and dove for him as he stood rooted to the spot, staring in disbelief at the almost invisible shape hurtling toward him. At the last moment, it veered to one side. His cheek was brushed by something soft yet bitterly cold moments before Weis catapulted into him, knocking him back against the mountainside.

The call sounded again, urgent this time, and from the opposite direction. He’d no sooner swung his head to the right than he heard it answered from the one on his left—both sounded very close by. Looking wildly from side to side, Jensen tried to pinpoint their locations. From the one that had come at him, he’d gotten the impression they were human-sized, but what he saw was insubstantial—they had no visible heat source.

He flicked his goggles back to normal sight. Now he could see something—a pale fluttering shape within the swirling snow. . . . No, two, they were together! They were silent now, but he could sense an urgency in their movements as they seemed to edge closer to them.

“What the hell’s going on?” demanded Weis, breaking his concentration. “What came at you?”

He pushed himself away from the rock face. “We have to leave!” he said.

“I’m not moving till I know what’s out there, and neither are you!” said Weis, pulling him back with one hand while waving his pistol menacingly in an arc in front of them.

“Put the goddamn gun away,” snarled Jensen, hitting Weis’s arm down. “Whatever it is, it isn’t dangerous to us! If it was, we’d be dead already.”

They called out again, sharp, plaintive bursts of sound as they fluttered closer then backed off again as if afraid to get too close.

“They know what a gun is,” Jensen murmured.

“I can’t see a thing in this blizzard,” snarled Weis.

“We have to leave, Weis,” he said again as behind him, the rock began to tremble slightly. In the distance, he heard a sharp crack followed by a dull rumbling that rapidly began to get louder.

“Avalanche!” he yelled, looking up as he tried to pull away from Weis. With a shout of terror, Jensen sat bolt upright, gasping for breath. It was pitch black, and he could hear his heart beating loudly. Sweat began to run down between his shoulder blades, coating his body in a slick film, making his T-shirt stick uncomfortably to his back.

Reason told him if he could sit up, he wasn’t still buried under the avalanche, but reason had little to do with the nightmare of being buried alive that he relived each night. The light flicked on, making him blink owlishly.

“Another nightmare?” asked a sympathetic feminine voice. “That’s the third this week. Want me to get you something to help you sleep?”

“No,” he said, rubbing shaking hands over his face and through his sweat-soaked hair, pushing it back from his eyes and forehead. Tonight’s dream was proving more difficult to shake off. “I’m fine. Just leave the main light on.”

“You know I can’t do that,” she said regretfully, stepping into the room. “Power is still rationed in Landing, but I have brought you a spare bedside lamp. It runs off a small atomic cell.”

He glanced up at her as she walked across to his bedside and placed the lamp on his night table.

“Touch the base to turn it off or on,” she said, demonstrating before turning to check that his left leg was still held firmly in the traction unit.

He lay back among his pillows, watching her. Something was different tonight.

“Tell me again how you found us,” he said abruptly.

Keeping her back to him, she gave a small laugh as she busied herself tucking the blankets around his uninjured right leg.

“I tell you this every night. We picked up the signal from your scouter before it exploded, and a party of the men went out to rescue you. You were extremely lucky, you know. There was a ledge just above you that took the brunt of the avalanche. You were only buried under a few feet of soft snow, and somehow you’d managed to push an air hole up to the surface.”

Her laugh sounded forced, unnatural.

“How’s Weis? When can I see him?”

She said nothing at first, just finished straightening the bed. “You need to sleep, Jensen, otherwise your leg will take longer to heal.”

Straightening up, she turned to face him, a bright smile on her lips. “We’ll talk about that tomorrow, shall we? Once you’re rested.”

“What’s happened to him? I want to know now!”

She hesitated, the smile fading. “It seems the blow to Weis’s head was more severe than we thought at first. I’m afraid he died a few hours ago.”

“What?” He sat up again, staring at her, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. “But you said he was fine . . .”

“It was very sudden,” she said, turning to leave. “Dr Kingston will be in to see you again tomorrow. He can answer all your questions.”

“I want to know now!”

“In the morning,” she said firmly, turning out the light and closing the door behind her.

“Damnit!” he snarled, reaching for the lamp and hitting the base to turn it on. It wasn’t bright, but it did push back the darkness immediately around his bed.

Why had the Company left them on Kogarashi instead of taking them back to the Deigon to be treated?

None of the colonists had wanted them there; in fact, once they knew the Company had sent them to scan the mountain range at the back of Landing, they’d been as near hostile to them as they could be. His instincts were telling him there was something wrong about the whole setup, that even the nurse was hiding something from him. It was a hell of a time to be stuck flat on his back with a broken thigh!

He froze, hearing a small sound from behind the drapes off to his right. Slowly, he turned his head.

“You better have a good reason for . . .” he began quietly.

“There’s nothing wrong with your leg now,” she said, pushing the curtains aside and moving closer to the light so he could see her. “They’re lying to you. And your friend isn’t dead. He escaped.”

He scanned her face, taking a moment or two to recognize her. She’d been at the town meeting when they’d been asked to explain why they were there. What was her name? Avana! That was it. Small, her long, fair hair now drawn back in a single plait, she was clad in the ubiquitous jeans and sweater of the colony. He knew he was focusing on irrelevancies, but what she was saying, after the events of the last few days . . .

She moved closer, walking around the bottom of his bed to his injured side, then stopped. Seeing a flash of metal in her hands, he uttered a wordless cry, lurching forward to stop her. The knife flashed, slicing through the cables holding his leg up. Released, it fell to the bed. He braced himself for pain that never came.

“I told you,” she said, leaning down to sever the bindings on the cast that encased his leg from groin to foot.

“Hey!” He grabbed her hand, holding it firm against her attempts to pull free. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She stopped struggling, eying him up and down. “They certainly don’t choose you Company men for brains, do they? Mind you, you are quite cute, though. Nice green eyes. I’m taking off the cast; what do you think I’m doing?”

The compliment threw him for a moment, until he realized it was what she’d intended. “My leg’s broken .

. .”

“What makes you think that? Does it hurt?” she demanded.

He stared at her, taken aback by her vehemence.

She took advantage of his loss of attention and pulled free, her knife quickly slipping under the remaining fastenings and severing them.

“Stop!” he hissed, instinctively jerking his leg away, then wincing as the blade grazed his flesh. “Damnit, woman! You don’t have to slice me up to prove your point!”

Slipping the knife back into its sheath, she stood, hands on hips, and regarded him dispassionately.

“If you don’t believe me, look at the palm of your left hand.”

“Why?”

“You hurt it, probably on the side of your scouter. There was a dressing on it when you arrived here.”

He closed his hand into a fist, determined not to do what she wanted. “What does that prove?”

“So don’t look then. You can fly a shuttle, can’t you?”

He frowned, thrown again by her sudden change of topic. “I can, but what has that to do with anything?”

“The Deigon ’s left. The Company believes you both died in the avalanche.”

“What?” Stunned, he sank back against the pile of pillows.

“They won’t be back for another ten years, ’cause winter’s just started here.”

“They can’t have left. . . . Why would they think we’re dead?”

“Because the town told them you were.”

He felt a tug on the cast and immediately turned his attention back to her. “Dammit! Leave my leg alone!”

“Only if you look at your hand,” she said, continuing to work her way up the form-fitting cast, pulling the sides apart.

“All right! Just stop!” he snarled, unclenching his hand and turning it over to examine. There wasn’t a mark on it.

Nothing made sense right now, but somehow, what Avana was telling him seemed more credible than anything he’d been told since he and Weis had crashed on the mountain.

“How?” he asked, leaning forward to take hold of the top of his cast, where it was against his groin, and pull the sides apart. If his hand could have healed that quickly . . . He had to know if his leg had been broken.

“I’ll tell you if you help me,” she said, reaching out to help him. He batted her hands away and pulled the cast apart. “I can manage.”

She pouted briefly. “You’re spoiling my fun.”

Ignoring her comment, he stared at the pink jagged line on the top of his thigh, the one that hadn’t been there a few days ago.

Her hand reached down, one brown finger lightly tracing its length. “That’s where the broken bone came through. Not bad for only three days. You might find your leg a little painful for another day, so be careful,” she said, her tone very matter-of-fact.

“I want to know what the hell is going on here, and I want to know now!”

“I’ll tell you when we’re in the air,” she said. “The nurse will come to check on you again shortly. You do want to be gone by then, don’t you?”

“Help me get this off,” he said, suddenly making up his mind and releasing her. He began pulling at the cast again.

“That’s not the way,” she said, stopping him. “Roll over on your side, with your back to me. I’ll cut it down the center, then it’ll just fall off.”

He looked at her suspiciously for a moment, watching as her face lit up in an elfin grin.

“What, don’t you trust me? I’d never take advantage of a man in his sickbed . . . unless invited.”

“You’re mad,” he said with feeling, rolling over, but turning his head so he could watch her.

“Not mad,” she said, pulling out her knife, all trace of the grin now gone. “Just different.”

“I’ll need my clothes. Do you know where they are?”

“In the closet over there,” she said, nodding her head toward a corner of the room.

The repaired tears and the rubbed patches of cloth on his insulated fatigues were impossible to miss. Thoughtfully, he ran his fingers over them. No one could fake that kind of damage. What she’d told him must be true.

“Nothing gets thrown away in Landing,” she said, uncannily following his thoughts. “Everything’s reused. Hurry up. Much as I hate to lose the rather pleasant view of you in your shorts, we must leave now.”

He glanced at her again, trying to work out how old she was as he balanced himself on his good leg and started pulling the one-piece on.

She moved closer, ready for him to lean on as he put his full weight on his injured leg. There was an ageless quality about her, but this close, he could see the tiny signs that she had left the first flush of youth behind—laughter lines at the edges of her eyes and frown ones between her eyebrows.

“I’ll answer all your questions later, when we’re in the air,” she said, holding up the top of his fatigues for him, taking the weight so he could push his arms into the sleeves.

“Lady, I’m going nowhere with you till I get some answers,” he said, pulling up the zipper and sealing the protective flap over it.

Shrugging, she turned away. “Then you can stay here and I’ll try to fly the shuttle myself.”

“That’s insane, especially in this weather!”

“You keep saying those words,” she said, frowning. “I assure you if you come with me, you’ll find out that I’m perfectly sane. Now, are you coming or not?”

Knowing she had no intention of telling him anything until she got her own way, he followed her to the window with an exclamation of annoyance.

Outside, though there was no sign of snow on the ground, it was bitterly cold. The night sky overhead was only partially clouded; every now and then the crescent moon swam into view, illuminating the village that was Landing.

Almost immediately, they’d stopped behind the generator shed belonging to the medical facility, where she’d hidden her own winter gear—brown fur jacket and hood and plain fur-lined trousers that tucked into the matching boots she wore.

“They’ll be cold,” he said, picking up her jacket as she began hauling the pants over her jeans.

“You don’t know much about Danu, do you? Furs like these are better stored outside. Helps them keep their thermal properties.”

He held the jacket for her as she shrugged herself into it.

“Follow me, and keep to the shadows.”

She led him round the outside of the village, darting into the shadows of the buildings whenever the moon lit up the sky.

“The place is deserted. I thought you said Weis had escaped. Doesn’t look to me like they’re looking for him or guarding anything.”

“They aren’t. They expect the mountain to kill him,” she said shortly, as they waited in the lee of one of the communal buildings for the moon to disappear behind the clouds again.

“The mountain? Why the hell would that kill him?” Even as he said it, he felt a shiver of uncertainty run through him.

“How much do you remember about the crash, Jensen?”

“Everything, of course! The wind slammed us into the mountain and the actual crash knocked us out.”

“Then what?” she asked, turning round to look at him.

“We got out and . . . walked away from the scouter before it blew up.” Even as he said it, he knew that wasn’t right.

“You saw or heard something else, though, didn’t you? You must have.”

Her brown eyes regarded him seriously as he tried to remember that night. There had been something more, he was sure of it, but the harder he tried, the more it seemed to slip away from him.

“I can’t remember,” he said, angry and frustrated with himself. “You know what it was, so tell me!”

“I can’t,” she said, turning away again. “You have to remember it for yourself.”

The moon disappeared behind a large cloudbank, plunging them into darkness.

“Let’s go!” she whispered, starting to run out across the last open space to the building where the shuttle was stored.

Safely inside, she switched on the lights, almost blinding them both after the darkness outside.

“Won’t they see the lights?” he asked, blinking and rubbing his eyes.

“No,” she said, pushing her hood back and taking off her mitts. “It’s the middle of the night, and the building has no windows.”

Satisfied, he did the same as he walked over to where two squat grey vehicles took up most of the hangar space.

“You’ve got two shuttles?”

“We had three but we lost one in the first year.”

Jumping up on the running board at the nose of the nearer one, he thumbed the opening mechanism. The door slid back, allowing him a good view of the cramped bridge.

“These are ancient,” he said. “They should have been scrapped fifty years ago.”

“The Company isn’t exactly known for its altruism toward its settlers,” she said drily. “We’re grateful to have even these. This one is fueled and ready to go. Can you fly it?”

“In my sleep, darling,” he said, turning back to grin at her. “In my sleep.” For the first time since the crash, he felt confident of his ability to handle the situation.

Time seemed to slow as he watched her mouth drop open and her eyes widen in fear. Then something cold and hard was pressed against the back of his neck.

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere, Jensen. I’m taking this shuttle. You just step back down onto the ground and back away.”

“Weis! They said you were dead.”

“Well, they were wrong. Move it!” Weis snarled. A hefty shove in the middle of his back sent Jensen stumbling off the running board, down to the concrete floor.

“Weis, what the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“Same as you, but for different reasons. There’s aliens out there on the mountain, that’s what you saw and heard, and they’re controlling the settlers, twisting their memories till they believe what they want! I got me some of Landing’s explosives, and I aim to stop it, not warn them we’ve found out the truth!”

“Will you listen to yourself, Weis? Aliens? Mind control? That’s wild talk. We’ve thirteen colonies now, and not one world has had any life more intelligent than a mouse on it!”

“They made you forget, Jensen, but they couldn’t wipe my memories.” Weis gave a short, bitter laugh and reached up to touch the scar that ran from one temple, across his forehead and out of sight into his cropped hair. “See, I got lucky. A rock hit me on the head, made it impossible for them to mess with my mind. As for that woman, I wouldn’t get too cozy with her; the rest of the village is afraid of her, she’s important to them.”

“Don’t be a fool, Weis. Even if what you say is true, you can’t possibly kill all of them! At worst you’ll start a war . . .”

Avana pushed past him. “Weis, you’re wrong,” she said, taking a few slow steps toward the shuttle. “It’s not what you think. There’s no mind control, no danger to us.”

“Come any closer and I’ll shoot you,” said Weis, pointing the gun at her.

“You don’t know the whole truth,” she began, taking another step.

“Avana, no!” said Jensen, lurching forward for her as Weis let off a warning shot. It hit the concrete just in front of her as he grasped her around the waist and swung her out of the line of fire. He felt her stiffen in shock, then relax back against him.

“Enough talk! I’m outta here!” snarled Weis, stepping back and closing the shuttle door.

“You OK?” Jensen demanded as he put her down, then dragged her with him to the back of the hanger, well clear of the shuttle’s exhausts.

“Yes.”

“He’s lost it,” he muttered, pushing her down behind some packing crates. “That blow to the head did some serious damage.”

The shuttle’s engines roared into life, drowning out anything else he was going to say. He leaned over her, putting his mouth to her ear. “Now what? This is going to wake the whole damned village.”

The shuttle rose into the air, the whine of the engines getting louder and louder until suddenly it shot forward.

Jensen flung himself of top of Avana as they heard it crashing its way through the closed doors. Splinters of wood rained down around them.

“Can you get off me now?”

Hearing the pain in her voice, hurriedly he rolled off her. “You sure you’re all right?” he asked, helping her up.

“I’m fine, just landed awkwardly,” she said, but there was a drawn look about her face he didn’t like.

“We need to stop him,” she said. “The villagers will help us now; they wouldn’t have before.”

“You don’t seriously believe there are aliens out there, do you?”

She motioned him to silence, stepping out from behind the crates as the first of the villagers rushed in, half-dressed and brandishing a shotgun. Jensen joined her, determined that whatever happened, she’d not face it alone. He recognized Nolan, the leader of the small colony, instantly.

“Is this your doing, Avana?” Nolan demanded, coming to an abrupt stop when he saw them. “What’s he doing here?”

“It was Weis, Nolan. He was hiding in the shuttle. He’s taken explosives . . . gone looking for . . . them.”

Her voice trailed off as the hangar began to fill with more of the angry colonists.

“You had to tell him, didn’t you?” demanded the woman next to Nolan. “Just had to meddle again!”

“I told him nothing except his leg was healed.”

“Be quiet, Kate,” said Nolan, lowering his gun. “You’re missing what’s important here. Weis has gone hunting them with explosives.”

“We have to warn them. Jensen is taking me,” Avana said.

“You were going there anyway,” accused Kate. “That’s why you let him out!”

“She’s been Called again, hasn’t she?” said another woman from the rear of the small group. “I told you not to stop her going last time, Nolan, but you had to listen to Kate!”

“No one wanted to take her, Mary, you know that,” muttered one of the men.

“I’m not going near them again, and you can’t blame me seeing as no one else volunteered,” said his neighbor.

Jensen was growing angrier by the minute as he listened to them degenerate into squabbles.

“It wasn’t my decision,” said Nolan, stung by the accusation. “You all voted for it at the town meeting!”

“I warned you there’d be trouble,” said Mary, pulling her fur jacket tighter around her and pushing to the front. “Not only did you break the agreement, but you stopped Avana from going to them. You, Llew, have no backbone!” she said, turning on the youth. “They’ve never done us harm, only helped us. Now this Weis is going to try and destroy them. Just what do you think they’ll do about that?”

“I have to go now,” said Avana, trying to pitch her voice to carry over those of the villagers. “I need to warn them.”

“Just a goddam minute!” said Jensen, raising his voice so it did drown them all out. “I want to know what the hell’s going on here! Who’s this them you keep talking about, for starters?”

Silence fell abruptly as they turned to face him, suddenly remembering his presence.

“Well?” he demanded again when no one answered.

“The yukitenshi,” said someone quietly from the rear of the group.

“That’s Company talk,” another said derisively.

“Snow Angels, the Sidhe, Children of Danu, call them what you will,” said Mary. “They live up in the mountains and mostly keep to themselves, thanks to Avana. They don’t scare me! I’m not forgetting to keep the old ways!” She glowered around at the dozen people gathered in the hangar.

“Snow angels? The Sidhe?” said Jensen, more confused than before.

“Llew, Conner, get the shuttle fueled up and ready to go,” said Nolan abruptly. “You’re right, Mary, we should never have stopped Avana from going the last time they Called her. Fetch food for them, three days’ worth.”

“Mark my words, Nolan, you’ll live to regret this!” said Kate. “Because it was right for you thirty years ago doesn’t mean it is for us younger ones! Let him kill them . . .”

“Come with me, Kate,” said Mary firmly, grasping the younger woman by the arm and forcefully escorting her from the hangar.

Nelson turned back to Jensen and Avana. “Is there anything else you need? There’s comm units and face masks as well as ropes and other rescue gear on board.”

“A med kit, please,” Avana said. “And sensible winter gear for Jensen. I had some for him in the other shuttle.”

Jensen watched the sudden activity, aware of a dull ache beginning behind his eyes. Doggedly he kept focused on the one fact that currently posed the most danger.

“You’re serious, aren’t you? There really are indigenous natives on Kogarashi.”

Nolan looked questioningly at Avana.

“He’s forgotten, like the others did,” she confirmed. “We call it Danu, Jensen.”

“We don’t rightly know what they are, Jensen, but they do belong here,” said Nolan.

“Why didn’t you tell the Company? These are the first aliens we’ve ever come across! We made laws against colonizing a world that’s already inhabited by intelligent life!”

“We didn’t know at first, and by the time we did, it was too late. The Company had sunk too much into setting up our colony. Besides, what do we tell them? I told you, we don’t know what manner of beings they are.” Nolan glanced obliquely at Avana. “You’ll understand when you see them.”

“How do you know these are the first aliens mankind has met?” said Avana. “None of us trusted the Company enough to tell them.”

“Colonization is a ruthless business, Jensen, you should know that.”

He did, but to think that any company would commit genocide just to remain on a colony world . . .

“I’ll need weapons,” he said tiredly, rubbing his aching temples. “For Avana too. Weis isn’t going to be easily stopped.”

“We aren’t aiming to stop him directly,” Avana said. “We need to warn them first. Our advantage is he doesn’t know where they live, and I do. Nolan, I’m going to wait inside the shuttle. Don’t let him do any lifting. That leg of his may be healed but it’s still weak.”

The half-hour it took to get them fueled and provisioned was revealing for Jensen—what the colonists refused to say about Avana and the aliens told him as much as what they did. He taxied out into the moonlight, then began to accelerate away from the village.

“What’s that?” he asked as they flew over a ring of small boulders just to the west of the village. “A Zen garden?”

“You could say that. It’s the ring.”

“Any painkillers in your medicine kit? I’ve got the mother and father of all headaches,” he asked as a stab of pain made him wince.

Avana stirred. “There should be. I’ll go look.”

“See if you can find something I can eat now,” he added, checking his bearings on the small nav screen and heading out toward the mountains. “I don’t think they fed me much over the last three days. You should have something too—you’re looking pale.”

Cramped though the bridge section was, there was a reasonable-sized cargo area behind them. As he listened to Avana rifling through the various bags that had been stowed there, he began to relax a little for the first time that night. On the Doppler screen, it showed exactly what Nolan had predicted—clear weather across the plains and into the lower foothills; then they’d hit a storm worse than the one that had caused him and Weis to crash. He planned to land and weather it out, just as Weis would be forced to do.

She came back, sitting down in her seat and stowing the drinks in the armrest console before handing him a couple of pills. When he’d taken them, she held out a regulation non-spill mug. He was surprised to find it was hot coffee.

“We have a small coffee plantation on the foothills,” she said, handing him a sandwich, then buckling herself in.

“I think it’s time you told me our exact destination,” he said before taking a bite.

“It’s close to where you were before—the small valley just off the plateau. There are some caves there. You must have seen them on your scans.”

“Yeah, Weis wanted a good look at them. Is that where your aliens live?”

“It’s the entrance, yes. I know about the blizzard, but get us as close as you can before stopping.”

“What are they like?” he asked, glancing over at her as she nibbled on a granola bar.

“You know what they’re like. You saw them.”

“If I did, I don’t remember, so humor me and tell me.”

“Do you know what the Sidhe are?”

“Stop answering me with a question every time I ask you something! You promised me answers, Avana.”

“I am answering you,” she said, taking a mouthful of her drink. “Do you know what the Sidhe are?”

“Mary told me something of them.”

“They’re supposed to be one of the original inhabitants of Eire, or Ireland. It was said they were angels, fallen ones, too good to go to hell and too mischievous to go to heaven. A few besides me have seen

them, but all they see is a ghost of what they truly are—a flicker that is hardly there.”

“And you can communicate with them?”

She gave him a long look. “They communicate with me, but I am learning.”

“Doesn’t sound very friendly.”

She smiled. “You’ll see.”

“Is it because of them that you all refused to map the Splitback and scan it for minerals?”

“Who said we refused? We lost the scanning equipment when we lost the shuttle.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes. I’m tired, Jensen. Let me rest a while,” she said, folding her arms across her lap and shutting her eyes.

“You were on that shuttle, weren’t you?”

“What makes you think that? Do you really think I am that old?”

“It’s the only way you could have met these Snow Angels.”

She said nothing for a minute or two then murmured, “Jensen, don’t ask me a question unless you really want to know the answer.”

He glanced over at her again, seeing the high cheek-bones, the slightly upturned nose, and the pale braid lying against the dark fur of the jacket, comparing her to Mary. There was no comparison—how could he have thought they were the same age?

“Who rescued us, Avana? Was it them or your people?” he asked suddenly.

“Later, when we land, I’ll tell you,” she said.

“It was them, wasn’t it?” he demanded, feeling his blood run cold, but Avana said nothing, just lay there, her breathing slowing as she slept.

Her sleep was not restful. Jensen watched as she moved fretfully, muttering words that even his good hearing couldn’t identify. They were deep in the storm now, almost at the caves when she suddenly sat bolt upright.

“Hoshi! The mountain! Watch out!”

“What the hell?” he muttered, adrenaline rushing through his system as he pulled the scouter back on course. He glanced at her, seeing her staring out the windshield, eyes wide open in terror.

“Avana.” Attention still on the nav screen and looking ahead of them, he reached across for her shoulder, shaking her gently. “Wake up, Avana.”

She shuddered, blinked, then looked around her, hand reaching up to grasp his as her gaze came to rest on him. “I’m sorry, I had a bad dream.”

“You sure did. It aged me ten years at least,” he said, trying to make light of it as he squeezed her hand comfortingly before returning his to the controls.

He risked a glance at her, seeing how gray her complexion had become as she began to shiver uncontrollably. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he realized she was in shock.

“Dammit, Avana! Weis shot you, didn’t he? Don’t try to deny it!” he said as she opened her mouth to speak. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“You wouldn’t have brought me and I had to come.”

“Your life is more important than this!”

“The whole colony depends on me. I have to go—they Called me,” she said, wiping her sleeve across her sweating forehead. “It’s only a flesh wound.”

He swore, volubly and descriptively, cursing himself most of all for missing the signs she’d been hit.

“Don’t lie to me, girl! I know the symptoms. Where did he hit you and how bad is it?” he demanded, his attention now torn between her and piloting the craft through the rapidly worsening snow storm.

“My arm, and I don’t know how bad,” she said, her voice quavering a little. “I put a pressure bandage on it when I came into the shuttle.”

On the scanner, he saw a flat area ahead and changed course for it. “I’m taking the shuttle down. You need treatment now, Avana.”

She sat forward, looking at his nav screen. “Just a bit further, please,” she said. “We’re almost there. They’ll heal me. I only need to . . .”

“No!” he snarled, starting to descend. “I’m not risking your life!”

“Jensen, please,” she whispered, sitting back and hunching herself around her injured arm. “I’ve had worse, trust me.”

“No, dammit! You’re the only sane thing on this godforsaken planet!”

The landing was not one of the smoothest; he had to break hard on the maneuver jets as the shuttle began to skid on the glassy surface, but they were down and safe.

“It’s too dangerous here, Jensen! My blood will bring them to us! Weis could be nearby . . .”

“Blood? Great, they’re vampires as well,” he muttered, releasing his harness and instantly going to her side.

She laughed faintly as he undid her harness and scooped her into his arms. “Not vampires. It’s the life-energy in blood—makes it easier for them to find me in a blizzard.”

He carried her to the cargo area, sitting her down on one of the crates secured there, resting her back against the hull. “Where’s the med kit?” he demanded, shaking her as her eyes began to close. “Don’t you dare fall asleep on me, Avana!” he said harshly.

Her eyes flicked open and she looked around. “In the bag there,” she said, pointing to one secured against the opposite bulkhead.

He fetched it, then began to strip her out of her jacket. Now he could see the burned hole on the inner side of her sleeve. Flinging her jacket around her shoulders, he let her lean back again. Squatting beside her, he lifted her injured arm.

She’d pushed her sweater sleeve up before placing the pressure pad over the wound. Thankfully it had acted as a basic tourniquet, but she’d still lost a lot of blood. Reaching for a fresh pressure pad, he ripped the wrapping off, laying it aside before carefully removing the old one. The energy blast had clipped her on the inside of her upper arm, vaporizing an area about four inches wide and over an inch deep. Much of it had been cauterized, but there was still a slow seeping of blood and fluids. He thought he saw the glint of bone. Swallowing hard a couple of times, he hastily covered the wound with the new dressing. This was beyond his ability to treat except with the most basic first aid.

“Bad, eh?” she said, watching his face.

“Not good. The beam was wider since it was deflected up at you. Avana, we need to get you back to the settlement,” he said, carefully binding the dressing in place. That done, he took the scissors and began cutting through the rolled-up sweater. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“Just take me to the caves, Jensen. They’ll heal me. I’ve had worse, believe me.”

“You’re too weak . . .”

“Jensen, listen to me! We have to go on. If Weis succeeds, they’ll come for the colony, especially after they prevented me from going last time I was Called. There’s energy drinks in the pack where the med kit was. Help me back to my seat and give me one of them,” she said, getting unsteadily to her feet. “It’ll keep me going till we reach them. Trust me—trust them.”

He got to his feet, reaching out to catch her jacket as it slipped from her shoulders.

“This will be the death of you, Avana, and I don’t want that,” he said, helping her put the jacket back on.

“Why should I trust them?”

“Because they’ve saved you from death already, Jensen, as once they did for me. And they’ve Called you—the first time they’ve ever asked to meet anyone but me,” she said, her hand touching his cheek. Memories began to return then, of a fleeting, feather-light, bitterly cold touch on his cheek, of humanoid shapes fluttering in the blizzard, crying out in voices as haunting as those of the whales; of being drawn from the avalanche and clasped firmly in strong arms, while lips as cold as ice touched his, breathing life and health back into a body wracked by pain.

He pulled her close, almost crushing her to him in his need to know what was real. She was his touch-stone, his only anchor on this alien world.

“You’ve remembered,” she whispered, her lips brushing his. “They saved you, healed you, then brought you to the ring at Landing for us to find. Take me to them, Jensen. We’re closer to them than Landing.”

“I’ll take you, but don’t you die on me, Avana!” he said, covering her face in kisses, driving back the memories of the coldness with her warmth. “Promise not to leave me,” he said, reluctantly letting go of her to carry her back to her seat.

She chuckled. “I’ll do my best.” She stiffened suddenly, grasping hold of his arm. “They’re here! Take me to the door and open it!”

He hesitated, scared to the depths of his soul, yet thankful at the same time. Through the windshield, he saw movement, white shapes within the swirling snow, and heard again their plaintive song. Turning, he walked to the door, letting her reach out to open it.

Heart racing, he watched it slide back, fearful of what it would reveal. Nothing waited for them, only the darkness and the snow. It took all his courage to step out of the shuttle and down onto the icy ground. A sudden downdraft of air and snow swirled into his face, temporarily blinding him. He heard the sound of large wings beating the air, and felt the weight of Avana in his arms lessening.

“No!” he cried out, trying to grasp her tighter, blinking furiously to clear his vision. “She’s mine, not yours! You can’t have her!”

Then she, and the sound of the wings, were gone.

Frantically, he searched the darkness for her. “Avana!”

Suddenly one of them stood not ten feet from him. She was everything Avana had said they were—tall and slim, her long hair and skin as pale as the snow around them, and beautiful in a way that was truly unearthly. The more he stared at her, the more she seemed to elude his senses. Her whole body shimmered and flickered as if she was not quite there. She stepped toward him, cocking her head on one side, gesturing to him. He couldn’t pretend not to understand; the gesture for Come was universal.

“Oh my God, you’re real,” he muttered, backing off until he felt the hull of the shuttle behind him. Come. This time he heard it inside his head. The mental voice was as unearthly as the song had been. She came closer, her steps slow and measured, her body swaying elegantly. With another shock, he realized she was naked save for a simple short kilt.

He closed his eyes, only opening them when he felt her hands encircle his waist. Vertical slitted eyes of pale gray gazed back at him as she drew him close against her cool body. She might look insubstantial, but she was real.

A shadow fell over them and the sound of the slow beat of wings filled his ears. He felt his feet leaving contact with the ground and clutched her desperately around the waist. He’d barely time to register that she was covered in a soft fur before the cold winter wind was whistling past his face, making his eyes sting. Instinctively he turned his head, finding his face buried, not in fur, but soft, downy feathers. The wind dropped and all he could hear was the beat of her wings. Risking a glance, by the faint luminesence that seemed to surround her, he saw they were traversing a wide tunnel. A shot rang out; she faltered, her wing-beats becoming irregular.

“Weis, no!” he yelled, clutching her more tightly as her flight became erratic. “Godamnit! They’re friendly!”

Suddenly the cavern was filled with the sound of many wings and harsh singsong calls. Strong male hands grasped him, ripping him from her embrace, talons jabbing uncomfortably through the hide of his jacket into him. He was flown to the other side, then dropped unceremoniously to the ground. Scrambling to his feet, he looked up. Overhead, the cavern was a shifting mass of glowing, flickering white shapes, weaving between each other and calling out with harsh, singsong cries of anger.

“He has explosives!’ he yelled. “Avana and I, we came to warn you!”

The calls died down to a sound like the faint buzzing of angry bees. He took the life of one of us. The voice, its tone harsh even inside his mind, came from behind him. Injured our Envoy, Avana. He must suffer for this. Be grateful you were Called to be her mate. He spun around, finding himself facing a group of four aliens, one of whom held Avana. He tried to move, to call out to her, but something, or someone, held him motionless. Once again he felt the downdraft of wings beating on his face as the fallen one was gently laid at the feet of the tallest.

Jensen stared at the body. Now that she was dead, the glowing aura that had suffused her in life was gone, as was the flickering quality. Now he could see her clearly. There were no wings, and the opalescent feathers that covered her whole body were now a dull, lifeless gray. Anger welled up in him for the loss of her life, and Weis’s senseless violence.

She will rest where she fell, as is our way, said the tall one, stepping forward and stretching out his hand over her lifeless form.

The ground began to tremble, gently at first, then more harshly until a fissure formed under her body and slowly she sank into it. With one last rumble, the gap closed over her. As he watched, Jensen knew how their scouter had vanished.

Held between two males, Weis was brought forward.

Once more the cries rose in pitch, but from Weis, there was no sound. Released, the burly pilot stood there, as unable to move as Jensen.

You took the gift of life from us and used it to harm our Envoy and kill one of us, said the tall one. Our rule is a life for a life. Yours is now forfeit. He gestured to one of those beside him. Tyril. Beyond shock and fear, Jensen watched as Tyril stepped forward and stood in front of Weis. Wings that were not wings unfurled and gradually, the pearly white glow that surrounded Tyril faded, grew darker until his wings were shot with an angry dark red. Then, reaching out, Tyril touched Weis. The man seemed to crumple, to fold up on himself and shrink until finally he fell to the ground. Jensen felt a shiver of fear course through him: he had no doubt at all that Weis was dead. What of the village? Tyril demanded, turning back to his leader, wings furling and unfurling in anger. They broke our agreement, Nephil, kept the Envoy from us!

Yet here she is, and the Man we Called, sent by them with a warning, Nephil replied. Then let me visit them, remind them not to neglect the agreement!

I will consider it.

No! Leave the village! They did you no harm! he yelled mentally, praying they could hear him. Nephil swung his head toward him briefly before turning back to look at the one holding Avana. Heal our Envoy.

Jensen watched, helpless, as the one holding Avana bent over her, touching his lips to hers, infusing her with his life force. Gradually, the glow that surrounded him faded, making him appear more solid, until Avana began to stir. Lifting his head, he set Avana down on her feet. She inclined her head to him. “Thank you, Caer,” he heard her say. Be more careful, little sister. You have great value to me.

“I’ll try, Caer.”

Turning to the leader, she once again bowed her head. “Thank you, Lord Nephil, for coming to our aid.”

Nephil gestured to his left and as she moved there, Jensen found himself staggering forward as whatever compulsion had held him motionless was suddenly lifted. He ran to her side, anxious to know for himself that she was well again.

“I’m fine,” she said, taking his hand.

Caer, take them within. I will decide the fate of the Landers now.

“Don’t harm them,” she said as Caer joined them. “They only prevented me leaving out of fear for my safety.”

Tyril frowned, his aura darkening slightly in anger. This is not your concern. Go with Caer. They must be taught to value what you sacrifice for their benefit.

“They sent us to warn you . . .” Jensen began.

Go!

Avana pulled him close and whispered, “It’s not wise to argue with him in front of his people.”

“But the colonists . . .”

“Will survive,” she said as they followed Caer out of the cavern and down the adjacent tunnel. “Danu’s Children are not fools. They each depend on the other. It just takes one visit each generation for Landing to realize it’s better to keep the agreement.”

“What’s this agreement you all keep taking about?” In the distance ahead he could see a faint glow and already the air was beginning to feel warmer.

“The first year we were here, they stole some of our cattle and developed a liking for beef. Now, in return for leaving them alone, we leave some milk and cheese out for them, and give them the occasional side of beef. They also keep an eye on our herd beasts grazing on the lower slopes. They’re omnivores like us and eat mainly the mountain deer and goat-like creatures native to Danu. I also teach them about our art and literature in exchange for learning about them. Primarily, they’re teaching me how to heal. The headache pills I gave you earlier were one of their recipes.”

“Why am I here?”

You were Called, as she was. You can learn our ways and be a mate for her, said Caer. Avana’s face flushed and she looked away from him. “You were one of the original settlers, weren’t you?” he asked, choosing for both their sakes to ignore what Caer had said.

“Why do you need to know?”

“A question isn’t an answer.”

“Yes, I was. I was the only survivor of the first shuttle crash. They hadn’t had chance to meet any of us till then, so I was brought here to be healed. They soon realized I could understand them and began to exchange learning with me. Time isn’t the same inside the mountain, Jensen. I think it’s because they don’t quite live in the same dimension as us. What was weeks for me, when I went back to Landing, had been years there.”

He digested this for a few minutes. “Then the reason my leg was healed was because I was here.”

“You were missing for three months. That’s why Nolan told the Deigon you were dead. We thought you were.”

“And being Called?”

“Means staying with them for some time as students, and helping me find a way to stop the Company from finding out about them.”

He glanced at Caer pacing elegantly beside them, imagining how the Company would want to either exploit these people, or anger them to the point that war ensued. Beings with mental powers, access to a new dimension where time ran at a different rate from the world outside; he could imagine how salable a commodity this would be for any company, let alone theirs.

“Do they know what’s at stake?” he asked, looping his arm around her waist and drawing her in against his side.

“Oh yes. That’s why they call me their Envoy, Jensen. They’re preparing me—us,” she amended, “to speak for them and defend their rights.”

“Sounds to me like a good way to spend the next ten years.”

MY FATHER, THE POPSICLE

Annie Reed

Jodi thought she was an orphan until one sweltering Thursday night in late June when she received The Letter from Billingsly, Wendham & Owens, attorneys at law. That’s how she always thought of it after that. The Letter . Wasn’t that how you were supposed to think about things that changed your life? All capitalized and important?

At first she thought it was a joke. She’d just worked a double shift at Hot Dog on a Stick in the new mall south of town. She was dead tired, and sick of the smell of lemons, corn dog batter, and hot grease. Her head hurt from where she had to pull her hair up under that stupid striped hat, her shoulders ached from all the fresh lemonade she had to mix, and to top it all off, the air conditioning had been out on the bus ride home. To say the bus had been fragrant was the understatement of the century. She was in no mood for jokes. Her roommate Harry had a pretty twisted sense of humor. A fake letter from an attorney was just his style, but tonight it wasn’t funny.

“I ought to rip him a new one,” Jodi muttered as she opened her front door. “Hear that, Harry?” she said to her empty apartment. “I ought to rip you a new one.”

Not that Harry was home yet. Harry worked as a bartender at the only gay club in town, and tonight he was on swing shift. Whether he could hear her or not, after a day spent swallowing the snappy come-backs she wanted to make to clueless customers whose IQ wasn’t much higher than the hot dogs they ate, muttering about Harry’s lack of humor sure as hell made her feel better. Still, the envelope did look kind of authentic. Hmmm. . . .

Jodi dropped her keys and the rest of the mail on the coffee table. It was all junk mail flyers and offers for credit cards neither one of them could afford, so it didn’t much matter where she left it. She plopped down on the couch she’d rescued from a secondhand store, slipped off her sensible, style-free shoes so she could stretch her toes into the carpet, and ripped open the envelope. She skimmed through the introductory stuff. Dear Ms. blah-blah-blah I represent more blah-blah-blah bankrupt estate . The word assets caught Jodi’s eye, but the word that brought her up short was father

.

What?

If this was Harry’s idea of a joke, it definitely wasn’t funny. He knew she had no sense of humor when it came to her family, or lack thereof.

She ended up reading The Letter three times in a row, each time with an ever-increasing shakiness in the pit of her stomach, not to mention a growing sense of unreality.

The Letter wasn’t the easiest thing to understand. Jodi had managed to finish high school—barely—but there had been no money left after her mother died for college. She made enough to pay rent and keep herself fed, but higher education was out of the question. The letter writer sounded like he had degrees up the wazoo and wrote to impress. Way out of Harry’s league. But Jodi did understand enough of the letter to realize that she’d been wrong. She wasn’t an orphan after all. She did have a father. He was just frozen solid.

Billingsly, Wendham & Owens, attorneys at law, occupied the twelfth floor of a fourteen-story office building of gleaming chrome and glass. It took Jodi three buses and nearly an hour to get there, and if it hadn’t been for the letter in her purse, she would have turned around and gone home without even stepping inside.

Jodi didn’t know which was more intimidating—the building or the idea of meeting with an attorney. Even when her mother had died, there’d been no attorneys involved. Jodi’s mother hadn’t owned much of anything. Jodi just kept paying the rent on their small apartment until the memories became too much and she realized she could move somewhere else if she wanted to. She had no one left to tell her she couldn’t.

She rode the elevator to the twelfth floor with three other women, all dressed far better than Jodi could afford. She’d worn her best pair of jeans and the only semi-dressy blouse she owned. She clutched her small purse as if it might fly away and leave her any minute.

The elevator ride was swift and quiet. No one in the elevator looked at anyone else, not even covertly in the mirrored walls. The doors opened directly into a reception area with a black marbled floor and indirect lighting. Jodi had to concentrate to keep her voice from shaking as she gave the receptionist, a girl probably no older than Jodi, the name of the letter writer—Artemus Owens, Junior, Esq., whatever that meant.

The receptionist took Jodi into a conference room with dark walls, thick burgundy pile carpet, and the same indirect lighting. A huge, dark wood table with a top so polished it looked mirrored dominated the room. High-back, black leather chairs surrounded the table. Jodi felt like she was sinking in black tar when she sat down.

The room was probably meant to soothe clients with an impression of old money, like in some of the movies Jodi had seen, but all it did was remind her of the little chapel in the hospital where her mother had died. Only here the room smelled like stale coffee instead of burning candles. Mr. Owens didn’t keep her waiting long. Jodi had been expecting someone old. Weren’t old guys the only ones who got their names on the letterhead and sat around in offices like this? Artemus Owens, Jr., looked like he was thirty—maybe—and he wasn’t even wearing a tie. He had dark hair and kind eyes and looked like he could have been a manager at one of the stores in the mall, only nicer. He even shook her hand like she was a grownup.

“I understand you’re here about the Cryonomics bankruptcy,” he said as he sat down. “What can I do for you?”

“About this letter.” Jodi pushed the letter toward him across the glassy surface of the conference table. “I don’t get it. Does this mean my father’s alive?”

Mr. Owens glanced at the letter, looked up at her. “Well, not exactly ‘alive’ in the accepted definition of the word. He’s been stored at the Cryonomics facility for the last ten years.”

Stored? That made her father—her father ; god, how odd it was to even think that she actually had a father—sound like some unwanted piece of furniture locked away in a storage shed.

“I still don’t get it. What does ‘stored’ mean?”

Mr. Owens tented his fingers on the table in front of him. “You don’t know about any of this, do you?”

Jodi shook her head. At least his voice was kind. He didn’t make her feel like one of her high school teachers when she’d given a wrong answer in class. “I didn’t even know I had a father,” she said. Jodi’s mom had never mentioned him, not that she wanted to share that gem with a relative stranger. Mr. Owens pushed a button on the phone and asked someone named Shirley to bring in two bottles of water. “And one of those Cryonomics brochures we have in the file.

“OK, it goes like this,” Mr. Owens said to Jodi. “Cryonics is the process of preserving people who are dying so that at some unknown time in the future they can be defrosted when technology exists to cure whatever’s wrong with them. Some call it science, others call it desperation. Cryonomics made a business out of it, although not very successfully, as it turned out. The specifics about the process and the company are in the brochure Shirley’s bringing in.”

Jodi actually knew a little bit about cryonics. She and Harry had Googled Cryonomics, and in turn cryonics, after he’d come home from work.

After she’d whacked him on the arm when he wouldn’t stop laughing. After he’d realized the letter was serious.

“That’s . . .” Jodi shook her head. “That’s just science fiction. I mean, it was in one of those old television shows my mom used to watch. Nobody really believes that stuff, do they?”

“At the time Cryonomics filed for bankruptcy, they listed twenty-three individuals who’d submitted to the procedure. Your father was one of them.”

Twenty-three frozen corpsicles. And here Jodi thought religious cultists were gullible. Her father had done this? Why hadn’t her mother ever told her? Had she even known?

“I didn’t know,” Jodi said in a small voice.

The conference room door opened, and one of the women from the elevator brought in the water and a thick booklet. Mr. Owens pushed one of the bottles and the booklet across the table to Jodi along with his letter. She started to thank the secretary, but the woman had left the conference room as silently as she came.

“Do you have an attorney?” Mr. Owens asked her. His voice was still kind. Jodi shook her head. “Do I need one?”

Not that she could afford to hire an attorney. Not on what she made frying corn dogs.

“You might want to look into it. I represent Cryonomics, so I can’t represent you. The reason I sent you this letter is to advise you that your father’s body, for lack of a better word, the trust fund he set up for its continuing care, and the machinery he’s stored in are considered assets. The bankruptcy court views Cryonomics as a high-tech mortuary, essentially. The bankruptcy trustee is going to require Cryonomics to liquidate its assets. Do you understand what that means?”

Jodi understood maybe one word in three. All of a sudden she felt like the dumbest kid in the class.

“Just tell me what I’m supposed to do,” she said.

Whether she’d do it or not . . . well, there was something to be said for not having a parent around—a living parent, anyway—to tell her what to do.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” he said. “That’s what you need an attorney for, to help you figure it out. But I will tell you this. Cryonomics is going out of business. Cryonomics has been storing your father’s body, but they’re not going to be able to do that anymore.”

He took a long drink out of his water bottle. Jodi wondered if he did that on purpose, to give her a chance to figure out what he meant. He didn’t have to. She got it. This time she knew what he was going to say before he said it.

“You’re going to have to figure it out on your own. What to do with your father. Before the court decides for you.”

“You mean they’d let him thaw?” Harry said. He shivered, only partly for effect. “That’s just disgusting.”

Jodi and Harry sat on the couch devouring a half-and-half pizza, Jodi’s side black olive and mushrooms, Harry’s side sausage and onions. They usually only had pizza once a month, but tonight made twice in one week. Jodi felt the emotional upset of finding out your father was a popsicle in a pressure-controlled tank was a sufficient reason for splurging.

The Cryonomics brochure lay open on the coffee table next to the pizza box. She’d studied it until she thought her brain might explode.

“I don’t know what to do,” Jodi said. “I mean, it’s my father, right? I can’t just let him die.”

“Technically, you know, he’s already dead.”

“He didn’t think so.”

“How can you know that?”

She pointed at the brochure. “Kind of obvious, Captain Oblivious. He must have bought into this whole idea.”

It still sounded like a scam to her. Paying someone to store your body in deep freeze after you died just on the off chance that you might be cured someday. Not that California wasn’t chock full of odd cults and scam artists ready to prey on the gullible, but this had to top everything Jodi had ever heard about. Then there was that whole paying thing. As far as Jodi knew, her father had never paid one cent to help support her . Help pay her way through college. Help her get the hell out of Hot Dog on a Stick. And another nasty thought—did he even know she existed?

How could she decide what to do with a complete stranger, even if they were related by blood? Not every father was a father . Hers certainly wasn’t. Did she really owe him any of this angsting over his future? If he even had a future?

“You could just walk away,” Harry said, like he’d read her thoughts. Harry was weird like that sometimes, like he was the sorta-kinda brother she’d never had. Maybe when you didn’t have a family, you created one.

“But then there’s all that money,” Harry said, voicing the other nasty thought Jodi had been trying to ignore.

Trust fund, Mr. Owens had said.

Jodi might not know legal stuff, but she knew that trust fund meant money. Her father had set up a trust fund to keep himself frozen for as long as it took. That must mean a lot of money.

“I don’t think I could walk away from all that money if it was me,” Harry said. Harry didn’t walk away from much, actually, but Jodi loved him anyway.

“It might not be anything,” Jodi said. “The company is going bankrupt. That means they’re not making any money. Maybe he didn’t leave enough.”

Harry ate another bite of pizza. “Only one way to find out,” he said around a mouthful of sausage. Jodi put her piece of pizza back down in the box. “I’m not going back to that lawyer.” Mr. Owens might have been an okay guy, but she still felt like he’d talked down to her at the end, and she wasn’t about to go back.

“So don’t,” Harry said. “Listen. He told you the company listed the trust as an asset, right? Well, if it’s listed, that means it’s got to be part of the court’s records. All that stuff’s public record.”

Harry had dated a reporter for the local newspaper a few months ago. The guy had tried to impress Harry with how important his job was, but it turned out all he did was report births, deaths, court filings, and an occasional human interest story so dull it usually put Harry to sleep. But Harry had learned more about how the court system worked than Jodi ever would. What would it hurt to look? At least then she’d have some idea what, besides her father the popsicle, was at stake.

“You feel like driving me up there?” she asked.

Harry patted her on the arm. “That’s my good girl,” he said, and finished off the last of his slice of pizza. Jodi just looked at hers.

My good girl.

Wasn’t that what a father was supposed to say?

The bankruptcy court was in one of the crumbling old buildings downtown, one complete with marble columns covered in decades of pigeon droppings, not that far from the law offices of Billingsly, Wendham

& Owens. Jodi felt a little more self-assured this time venturing into the world populated by lawyers. Maybe because she had Harry with her, and he’d actually worn what he called his straight clothes—khaki slacks, a navy silk polo shirt, and freshly polished loafers. Nothing like blending in with the natives.

Jodi let Harry guide her through the maze of room after room of files and paperwork. Harry explained that most of the documents were on computer, but there was a per-page charge for even looking at the files online. This was supposed to save the court staff from wasting time dealing with paper files and the public. But Harry just had to flirt with one of the clerks, a pretty girl he had no interest in, to get her to bring the appropriate file for his “sister” to look at.

“Just one of my many useful bartending skills,” Harry whispered to Jodi after the clerk left with a little giggle.

It took a while for them to find the right document in the huge Cryonomics bankruptcy file. If Mr. Owens was getting paid by the word, he was making a mint on this case.

After forty-five minutes of diligent reading, Jodi finally saw the name that had been in Mr. Owens’s letter—Andrew Sommersby. Her father’s name. Jodi hadn’t even known his name until she read it in The Letter . Now here it was again in an official court document. Jodi’s last name was Carnahan. Her mother’s name.

“Wow,” Jodi said. “He’s really there.”

She realized that up until this moment, she’d still thought that this was some kind of big joke. But here it was, in the court’s own file. She didn’t think anyone played jokes with a court. Her father’s name was on a chart with twenty-two other names. Each name listed a date of interment and next of kin. Jodi’s name wasn’t listed next to her father’s, but her mother’s was. Someone—maybe the clerk—had handwritten “deceased” next to her mother’s name.

“Have you found anything on the trust?” Harry asked.

Jodi shook her head. It had to be here somewhere, right?

Three pages later, Jodi found another chart, this one listing all the trusts. Twenty-three trusts, twenty-three frozen people. None of the trusts was named Sommersby. None of the trusts identified the person it supported. How was she supposed to tell what her father would have named his trust when she didn’t know anything at all about Andrew Sommersby?

Jodi scanned the list again, frustrated.

Next to her, Harry let out a low whistle. “My good God, will you look at that? he whispered. She looked at the column Harry was pointing at, the one she’d been ignoring in her search for the right name. What she saw were rows of numbers. Lots and lots of numbers. Numbers with more zeros than Jodi had ever seen in her life.

She felt the blood drain out of her face.

Her father’s trust could be any one of the ones on this page. And any one of these trusts could fund not only four years of college, but probably graduate and post-graduate school too, not to mention a nice house and a car of her own.

Holy shit.

Did this mean she was rich?

Jodi dialed Artemus Owens’s phone number from a pay phone in the courthouse lobby. She tried to ignore the way her fingers trembled and her stomach clenched around the soda she’d had in Harry’s car. Harry stood next to her, leaning in to listen.

“About this trust fund,” she said once Mr. Owens answered the phone. “Does it belong to Cryonomics?”

She heard Mr. Owens let out a deep breath. “That would depend on the terms of the trust document. You realize I can’t advise you.”

Jodi rubbed her forehead. She wished her hands would stop trembling. “I know that,” she said. “I just need to know whether the whole thing belongs to that company, or whether, you know—” She took her own deep breath. “—it might actually belong to me because he’s my father.”

There. She said it.

Harry gave her a little hug.

“Figured out how much is at stake, did you?” Mr. Owens asked. He didn’t sound upset. In fact, Jodi thought she could almost hear the smile in his voice.

“Yeah,” Jodi said. “So, does it?”

She heard a rustle of papers on the other end of the line, then the tapping of computer keys.

“Well, I can tell you this,” Mr. Owens said. “It’s public record, and you could probably have found out for yourself if you’d kept reading what you’ve obviously looked at. Cryonomics is only claiming income from the trust as an asset. In other words, the trust earns money, and that income is what the company’s been using to maintain your father. The figures are annual estimates, rounded to the nearest dollar.”

“Wait.” Jodi was having a hard time comprehending what he was saying. “What’s on the chart . . . that was only income ?”

“Yes.”

Jodi dropped the phone. She thought Harry might have caught it before it hit the floor, but she couldn’t focus on that. All she could see were numbers followed by lots of zeros, and that wasn’t even the real number.

Her father must have been a millionaire. At least.

And he’d never provided anything for her mother, or for her.

She walked away from the phone, leaving Harry to deal with Mr. Owens. All of a sudden she was too angry to talk to anyone.

Her father had left her mother to deal with a life of penny-pinching and never having enough to make ends meet. A life of macaroni and cheese dinners, and coupon clipping, and keeping the heat at sixty in the winter just to save on the electric bill.

Jodi knew exactly what she wanted to do.

Let the bastard thaw.

“Calm down,” Harry said.

He’d run after her only to find her pacing by the side of his car.

“I want him to die,” Jodi said. Apparently too loudly and with way too much venom if the wary look she got from an older couple passing by on the street was any indication. “Do you know what he did to us?

How we had to live? While he—what, dreamed about his nice little fantasy where he gets to be resurrected so he can ruin someone else’s life?”

Harry opened the car door and herded her inside. She jammed the seatbelt closed, then pounded her fist on the dashboard.

Harry glared at her as he got in the driver’s seat. “Just because you’ve found out your father, the popsicle, is a tightwad, that’s—”

“Corpse. He’s a corpse who doesn’t know it yet.”

“Okay. Have it your way. He’s a corpse. That still doesn’t mean you can take it out on my car.”

Jodi took a deep breath. Harry’s Mustang Cobra was his pride and joy. Most of his bartending tips went toward his car payments.

“Sorry,” Jodi muttered.

“Besides, he’s a rich corpse. And you’re his only next of kin, right?”

She shrugged. “I guess so. Or at least I’m the only one Mr. Owens could find. But I don’t want his money. I don’t want anything to do with him.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Oh, honey, of course you do. Don’t be ridiculous. If you didn’t want the money, we wouldn’t have made this trip, would we?”

She picked at a hole in her jeans instead of answering. This wasn’t her best pair. It was her second-best pair, and they weren’t supposed to have holes in the legs.

Harry started up the car and pulled into traffic. Jodi sat quietly in the passenger seat trying not to think about anything at all. Couldn’t she just go back to the way things were a couple of days ago? At least then she’d been poor but not quite so angry about it. And she didn’t have such a big weight on her shoulders. No matter how angry she was at the former Mr. Andrew Sommersby, he still was her father, absent and irresponsible or not.

After a few minutes she looked out the window expecting to see familiar streets on the way back to their apartment. What she saw was an on-ramp to the interstate.

She turned toward Harry. “Where are we going?”

He glanced at her, then went back to watching the traffic.

“It’s your day off, right? Well, if you’re going to let him thaw, you might want to meet him first,” he said. What?

“Sit back and enjoy the ride,” Harry said. “We’re going to Cryonomics.”

For a high-tech company, the Cryonomics building looked like little more than a standard warehouse with once-fancy landscaping and a snazzy front office. Jodi could see the resemblance to the lushly depicted building in the company’s brochure, but clearly impending bankruptcy had taken a toll on nonessentials. Like watering the lawn.

Or paying for staff.

One harried-looking middle-aged woman looked up from a desk piled high with paperwork when Jodi and Harry walked in the front door. Cardboard packing boxes with open lids surrounded her desk like a fort. She was in the process of shoving papers into a shredder.

“Lawyers frown on that sort of thing,” Harry said over the whine of the shredder.

“What?” The woman pushed up her glasses and turned the shredder off, then glanced at the papers in her hand. Understanding dawned on her face. “Oh, this stuff.” She waved it at them. “I don’t think we need to preserve the office football pool from 1998 for posterity. Amazing the amount of junk you collect over the years.”

She put the papers down on top of another stack on her desk. The woman looked sad, Jodi thought, like she was saying goodbye to an old friend. Jodi wondered if she was losing her job too. Probably, if the company was closing.

“Are you from the bankruptcy trustee’s office?” the woman asked. “I don’t have the final figures for you yet. The judge gave us until next month.

“No,” Jodi said. “I’m . . . uh . . .” How to say this. “I’m the daughter of one of your clients. Andrew Sommersby. Your attorney contacted me.”

The woman blinked, then she smiled. “I didn’t know Andrew had a daughter. I’m Willomina Hardy.”

“Jodi Carnahan. Rachel’s daughter.”

Willomina shook Jodi’s hand, and then Harry’s. “Excuse the mess,” she said. “You’re the first relative who’s come out to visit. Everyone else has just made arrangements through the mail, or through their lawyers.”

“Arrangements?” Jodi asked.

“For transfer of their loved ones to a new facility.” Willomina pushed at her glasses again. “That is what you’re here for, isn’t it? Have you found a new place for your father?”

Jodi shook her head. “I’m sorry, but . . .” She took a deep breath and started again. “I didn’t even know I had a father until two days ago.”

Willomina put a hand to her chest. The gesture seemed as old-fashioned as her name, and definitely out of place in a cryonics company. “Oh, dear,” she said. “Surely your mother told you.”

“Jodi’s mother passed away several years ago,” Harry said. “I don’t think she knew about this either.”

“Oh dear,” Willomina said again.

She stepped around the packing box fort to make her way to a file cabinet. The cabinet was locked. Willomina took a key from around her neck and unlocked it, opened the second file drawer, and took out a large file pocket.

“I’m sure your father put down your mother as next of kin,” Willomina said. She rummaged through the folder, found a slim manila file and opened it. She flipped to a page in the back, then nodded her head.

“Yes, here it is. Next of kin—Rachel Carnahan. Relation . . . oh.” Willomina paused. “Ex-wife. How unusual.”

She spent a few more minutes looking through the file. Jodi stood next to Harry, arms wrapped around herself, and waited.

Now that she was here, Jodi was less sure about pulling the plug on her father. It was one thing to think about it miles away with anger to fuel her decision. It was something else again when faced with the reality of Willomina and her old-fashioned concern.

“Well,” Willomina finally said. “Your mother is listed not only as next of kin, but also co-beneficiary of his trust. You say she passed away?”

Jodi nodded.

“Were you appointed her executrix?” Willomina asked.

Jodi frowned. That sounded official. “I don’t understand.”

“The executrix of her estate, dear. Were you appointed executrix by the court?”

“We didn’t have anything. When she died, it was just her and me. No lawyers or courts.” Jodi felt small, like she’d felt when it first hit her she was alone in the world. “It was just us.”

“Oh, dear.”

Willomina took off her glasses. They hung off a chain around her neck, cushioned against her ample breasts.

“Well, I’m no expert at this, but I’d say your mother had quite a lot, actually, when she died. You might need to see a lawyer after all, dear.”

Another person telling her to get a lawyer. “And pay him with what?” Jodi asked, frustrated with the whole thing. “I don’t have any money!”

“That’s not exactly true.” Willomina took something else out of the file. “I can give you a copy of the trust document. Have your attorney contact us, and let us know what arrangements you’ll like made for your father.”

Jodi waited while Willomina made the copies. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To know?

But it wasn’t all she wanted.

“Can I see him?” Jodi asked, her voice soft, barely audible over the sound of the copier. Willomina frowned at her. “You can’t really see him, dear. Our tanks don’t have viewing windows. We’ve always thought it was better if the family remembered their loved ones the way they were. It can be upsetting to see someone after they’ve been preserved.”

“But that’s just it. I never met him. I don’t have any memories of him.”

“You never . . .”

For a minute Jodi thought Willomina was going to say “oh dear” again, but she didn’t. Instead she reached into the folder and pulled out a video cassette tape.

“Then I think it’s about time you met your father, don’t you?”

The viewing room, as Willomina called it, was a small, private theater with four rows of plush seats and a screen only a little bigger than some of the new flat-screen televisions Jodi saw at the mall. Jodi sat alone in a seat in the back row. She’d asked Harry to stay with her, but he said she should meet her father by herself for the first time.

“Next viewing, I’m right there,” he said, and he’d gone out the door with Willomina, leaving Jodi alone with a remote control.

She took a deep breath of stale air. Heart pounding, she pushed Play . The screen came alive with a shot of the Cryonomics logo, the same one Jodi had seen on the brochure, followed by a simple white on black title page with her father’s name—Andrew Sommersby. And then there he was.

Jodi was amazed that he looked so young. On screen, he looked little older than Artemus Owens. Shouldn’t a father be old?

Andrew Sommersby had Jodi’s straight black hair, her thin face, and the same cleft in her chin boys had always teased her about. He had deep circles under his eyes, and his skin had a pallor to it. Jodi remembered what she’d read about cryonics—everyone who elected to undergo this process had an incurable illness. Her father had recorded this tape when he knew he was dying.

“Hello,” the Andrew on the tape said. “I’m Andrew Sommersby. I’m told I have to leave a video record of my wishes just in case someone wants to challenge my election to have myself cryonically preserved. So here’s the official part.”

He looked down at something, probably a printed form, and read what sounded like a canned statement. Kind of like how Jodi had recited the Pledge of Allegiance in school. She’d said it so many times the words lost their meaning.

“Now, that’s over,” Andrew said. He looked back up at the camera. “I can’t imagine anyone challenging my wishes. Rosie—”

Jodi’s breath caught in her throat. Her mother’s nickname had been Rosie.

“—you don’t even know I’m ill, do you, sweetheart?”

Andrew sighed on tape. It was such a forlorn sound, Jodi felt her chest grow tight. I’m not going to cry, she told herself. She never cried. Not anymore.

“I know you’ll never see this, but I want to explain a few things to you. Probably more for you than me, but you know how I am. Belt and suspenders, you used to say. Belt and suspenders. That’s probably what this is all about, when you get right down to it. Belt and suspenders in the age of technology.”

On screen Andrew coughed, a raspy, painful sound. He paused to take a drink of water.

“I wish you could see the future as I see it, Rosie dear, but that was another thing we disagreed on. You always saw the technology of the future as fiction. I saw it as science waiting to happen. Just think of it. All the things we read about, all the things we grew up watching on television together—they’re all just waiting to be invented! Can’t you feel it? Don’t you want to experience that? See it take shape and form and substance? I know I do, but then again, I’ve always been the dreamer too. Odd combination, a dreamer who’s a belt and suspenders guy. But I don’t deny I’m an odd duck in a world full of swans.

“I hope you’re happy in your life. I’ve done what you asked when we divorced. I’ve stayed away from you. I’ve tried to send you money, but you always send it back. You were a proud woman. Independent as hell, as passionate as a man could ever want.”

Jodi felt her cheeks blush. She wondered if she should watch any more of the tape. She almost felt like she was reading a love letter not meant for her. But her father’s next words took her breath away.

“I’ve stayed away from our daughter too, like you asked me. It’s the hardest thing I’ve even done, and there have been many times I’ve watched her and wanted so desperately to walk up to her and say

‘Hello, I’m your father,’ but I didn’t. I wanted to be a part of her life. I admit a part of me hates you for taking that away from me, but that’s how much I love you. You have always been the love of my life. My only regret— only regret—in doing this is that you won’t be there when I wake up. Maybe my daughter will be, with children of her own. I promise I won’t intrude on her life. But a man can want to live to see his grandchildren, don’t you think?”

Jodi felt tears prick at her eyes again. On screen, Andrew held his hands out wide.

“If I can’t have that,” he said, “what have I done all this for? I’ve amassed a fortune thanks to a bit of ingenuity and good luck, but without living to see my grandchildren, what really have I done?”

Andrew rubbed at his face with one unsteady hand. It took him a minute before he looked back at the camera.

“So here, in my own words, are my wishes. I believe the technology will exist one day, maybe one day soon, to revive me and cure me of the cancer that’s invaded my bones. I wish to live to see that day. I want to be around to buy my grandchild a balloon in the park, even if he never knows it was his grandpa, and maybe ride in a car that floats above the ground. I want to see my daughter grow into an old woman, see her happy and healthy and loved as much as I loved my Rosie. And if that’s not enough of a last will and testament, I don’t know what is.”

The camera held on Andrew’s face for a moment, and then the screen went black. Jodi put her head in her hands and cried.

The new apartment was twice the size of Jodi’s old place. She missed Harry’s techno music and his dirty dishes in the sink. He still came over at least once a week, and they ordered half-and-half pizza for old time’s sake. Tonight Harry brought it with him, along with a six-pack of imported beer.

“We’re celebrating,” he said, hugging Jodi after he put the pizza on her new dining room table.

“It was just an A,” she said.

“An A in psychology,” Harry said. “When did you ever get an A in any ‘ology’ class?”

Never. Science had never been her strong suit, but she’d been unusually motivated the last six months. She had the rest of the year to go before she had to declare a major, but she was seriously leaning toward some sort of bachelor of science degree. She might even go to law school. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

“Picked up your mail,” Harry said, dropping it next to the pizza box. The latest issue of Popular Science landed on top.

These days Jodi read everything she could about life sciences, particularly any advances in nanotechnology. The people at the Institute for Cryonics told her the best chance for revival of cryonically preserved people was in the area of nanotechnology. Science fiction meets science fact. Given what she knew about her parents, that was about the best way to describe her life. She’d taken Willomina’s advice. She’d left Cryonomics and made an appointment with a lawyer specializing in trusts, shown him the document Willomina had given her, and let him earn his $300 an hour figuring out a way to keep her father in his tank and let her have something of a life for herself. Jodi’s lawyer had earned every bit of his hourly fee. Andrew Sommersby had been transferred to The Institute for Cryonic Research and Studies in southern California, a non-profit foundation, where he was still happily frozen as he wished. Jodi had enrolled in college and kissed Hot Dog on a Stick goodbye. Harry opened two beers and handed one to Jodi. “What shall we toast to?” he asked. Clinking bottles to an A seemed kind of lame. Even if it was an A in psychology.

“I’ve got it,” Jodi said.

She touched her bottle to Harry’s, the clink of glass loud in her new apartment.

“Here’s to giving a little boy a balloon,” she said. “And the look on my father’s face when he does it.”

DESTINY

Julie Hyzy

‘Iam not building a shuttle,” Gran said, irritated.

“No?” I asked with a tiny bit of hope.

“I’m modifying one I have.”

She must have seen the look on my face then, because she laid her warm, freckled hand on my arm and winked.

As Gran refilled my iced tea, a breeze kicked up and rushed through my hair. A little bit cool on this otherwise warm afternoon, it made me glance over to Emily, who sat on the whitewashed planking of the porch. Gran had given Emily plenty of cookies to share with the doll perched on one dimpled leg. To give myself opportunity to process Gran’s comment, I moved over to Emily to feel her arms. She was warm enough for now.

Back at the table, I took a deep breath. “Tell me more about this modification.”

“Now . . . you ask that like you’ve got a pain somewhere,” Gran said, grinning. “Look at you, trying so hard to smile, kinda gritting your teeth, your eyes all worried.”

I wanted to argue. But she was right.

Gran grabbed me by both arms and made me look at her. I could feel the strength in those skinny little hands, see it in her bright blue eyes.

“I have a project I’m working on,” she began, slowly, the same way she used to explain things when I was five. “And it’s something I don’t want just anybody to know about.”

“But the doctors said . . .”

“Those doctors,” she said with a sniff, “think they’re so smart. One of them came nosing around here. Can you believe that? Don’t they have anything better to do with their time than spy on old ladies?” Gran sat back, shaking her head. “They caught me, too,” she said, looking more bemused than angry, “out in the workroom. Had to come up with something, so I told them I was studying sculpture. Ha! Thought I fooled them. Guess not.”

“No . . . I guess not . . .”

“Come on then. You’re the only one I wanted to show, anyway.”

The workroom was a long walk from the house through a dandelion-strewn field. It was slow going, with Emily stopping every few feet to pick up the dried weeds and blow them to the wind. I grabbed her hand to pull her along but Gran bent down and plucked one of her own.

“Make a wish, Emily!” she said. Together, lips pursed, she and Emily scattered their wishes to the wind, and then turned to each other with twin grins of uncomplicated joy. I watched the seeds take wing on the breeze and tried to remember wishes I’d made when I was Emily’s age. How many of them hadn’t come true?

As we got nearer, Emily noticed humming and pulled me along, eager to see what was making the noise behind the door.

Gran’s eyes glittered as she stood before the keypad.

“Are you ready?”

I bit my lip. “Sure.”

She tapped in a code on the entry keypad. In answer the door whooshed open. Dust danced, fairy-like, swirling through sun rays that fell in from the skylights above. I watched the motes hover, then land gently on the silver contraption that stood before us.

“Yay!” Emily said, clapping.

Gran hadn’t been too far off when she picked sculpture as her cover story. Shiny metal flanges almost obscured my old playhouse. Gramps used to tell me it was a shuttle, and as a child, I’d spent endless hours inside, hoping it could fly me backwards in time so I could meet my parents. Now, graceful curves shaped like twisted flames engulfed the cab and reached skyward. I released the breath I’d been holding as I walked around it, unsure of what it was, now. And yet, something about it . . . I pointed at the back end. Completely redone, and fitted with jets, wires, conduit. “What’s this?” I asked.

“A multiphase conversion catalyst.”

“Speak English.”

“Your grandfather and I invented this catalyst, years ago.” She grinned, rocking back and forth on her heels. “This little dohicky makes it possible to propel the shuttle and its occupants into another dimension.” She gave a little half shrug. “Theoretically.”

I almost couldn’t speak. “This isn’t a real shuttle, Gran. This is my playhouse . . . I hoped someday it would be Emily’s.”

Her eyes were clear, her expression bemused. Not at all what I’d expect from someone clearly losing touch with reality. “I believe this creation has the power to take us exactly where we want to go.”

“Us?”

She shrugged. “I’m hoping you’ll come with me.”

I didn’t know what to say for a long time. Finally, all I could do was ask, “Why?”

Gran pointed.

I ran my hand over the hull. Carefully lettered on its side— Destiny. My eyes asked the question; Gran tut-tutted. “Now don’t you go thinking that I’ve gone out of my head. Think about it some, honey. Gramps and I decided long ago that people who really care about each other should be together. But then he died. Too soon.” She shook her fist at the sky, “Too soon, you hear me?” She made a funny face then, and I thought she might cry. Instead, she turned with a smile as big as the object before us. “I know he’s waiting for me, but he’ll have to wait just a little longer because it’s a bit more difficult with only one person working.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Gran wasn’t finished. “I’m going to be with your grandpa. We’ll be together again, forever, this time.”

“But Gran, that means you’ll die.”

She wagged a finger at me. “Now that’s where assumptions’ll get you into trouble.”

The doctor’s diagnosis flashed before my eyes. I tried to mask my reaction, but I knew that Gran had read my mind. She stopped right there and made what I used to call her “mad face.”

“You know I’m not crazy,” she said.

I must have squirmed, because Gran continued, a bit vexed. “Gramps and I had it all figured out, honey,”

she said. “Death is just existence in a different dimension.”

Then she grinned and grabbed Emily’s hand, “How would you like some ice cream?”

“I’m worried about Gran.”

Don sat at the kitchen table, head bent, reading. Watching him, I grabbed a mug from the cabinet and banged the door shut a little louder than necessary.

The top of his head moved back and forth as he followed the words on the page before him, and he pushed his too-long brown hair out of his eyes. Don was one of those people who never learned to track the written word without moving his head, a habit that hadn’t bothered me years ago. Now, it was one of many that drove me insane.

I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed in the fresh-brewed aroma of the coffee warming the mug in my hands. Give me strength. A tentative sip stung as the liquid trailed a path down the back of my throat. The warmth felt good, very good.

Don was fiddling with his bottom lip, squeezing it till it formed a tight “U,” and studying a brochure he’d brought home. The same brochure that had been too important for him to put down earlier when Emily stood on tiptoe to give him a kiss goodnight. He’d said, “Uh-huh,” and absently patted her brown curly head. “Daddy’s busy.”

“Don?”

He made eye contact, but his mind remained on the glossy paper in front of him. I could almost see the struggle going on in his head: Keep reading? Or talk to her?

Talk won. Barely. His eyes were so glazed that I felt like he hadn’t stopped reading—that he was still poring over the copy now tattooed on my forehead.

“We gotta get one of these.”

“Get one of what?”

“Here,” he said, “it’s new.”

He turned the brochure for me to see, but when I tried to pick it up, Don held a corner, as if it were something very precious and he was afraid to let go. With obvious reluctance, he loosened his grip.

“Where’s my coffee?” he asked as he stood.

I fluttered my hand upward toward the counter in a vague gesture that after four years of marriage meant get it yourself .

Nice brochure. Whatever they were selling, it had to be expensive. I started to skim, and in a moment, raised my eyes to meet Don’s. He was hovering with a huge grin on his face. I gave him my best “you gotta be kidding” look.

The brochure was for Sensavision. The newest toy on the market for grown-ups so bored with the reality of their lives that they looked elsewhere for stimulation. This gizmo boasted a room-size screen with gears and sensors, speakers and cameras, aromabytes and atmospheric enhancers. Stressed? Hedonistic spa programs glittered to life, ready to soothe your troubles away. Ache for excitement? Design your pleasure. Physical, mental, sexual. Unparalleled virtual-sensory experiences guaranteed.

“We can’t afford one of these.” I said.

“We can, if we borrow from your trust fund.”

“No.” I said. “Not again. Gramps set that fund up for me years ago, for my future. And what have we done with it? Borrowed so many times I can’t count. We need that money for Emily’s education. And serious stuff.”

“There’s plenty there,” Don said, stressing the word “plenty.” I think his teeth were clenched.

“There won’t be at the rate we’re going. You bought that hover-camper last year and we’ve never even used it. I don’t think Gramps had campers and Sensavisions in mind when he put the money away for me.”

Don’s expression fell. He pulled the paper back to his side of the table with a huff and bent over it again, elbows on the table, face in hands. He started to read again, mouthing the words even as he maintained a pout. With his stubbled pink cheeks pressed firmly into his palms, his mouth was pulled up at the corners showing the bottom half of his teeth. He mumbled something I couldn’t hear, then said, “You got what you wanted.”

“What did I get?”

Don stopped and with a deliberate movement, turned his eyes upward toward the stairs and then back down at his paper.

It took me a moment. “Emily?” I asked. “You didn’t want the baby?”’

“Didn’t say that. Just saying you wanted it more,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “And I want this more.”

Hitting the brochure with his finger for emphasis, he caused a wrinkle. He smoothed out the paper with care.

A long minute passed.

When he did look up, he grinned. “They take credit.”

Dr. Andrews called me again Monday. Grin missed another appointment. I agreed to talk to her.

“My aches and pains are my own,” Gran said when I tried. “I can handle them. A few visits with those pill peddlers and I’ll be ready to pull the plug myself.”

“Gran,” I reminded her, “you’re not hooked up to anything.”

“Not yet.” She wiggled a finger at me, “But there’s a reason behind the expression ‘doctoring up.’ They want to change me. Or worse, to put me away. And I won’t have it.”

The Triage Trio, as Gran so eloquently called them, kept in contact with me. They asked that I report to them anything strange in Gran’s behavior, any indication that it was time to take action.

“What kind of action?” I’d asked.

Their answers made me cringe. Maybe a cranial implant would do the trick, maybe a short admittance to a holo-home. Maybe permanent admittance. They spent lots of time singing the praises of one particular holo-home. The best in the business and, after all, isn’t that what Gran deserved? This place, they insisted, would be virtually indistinguishable from her current home. And virtual commitment was their preferred method of treatment. She’ll love it, they said. Guaranteed. But would the holo-emitters be able to capture the sun on the hyacinths? I wanted to know. The hyacinths were Gran’s favorite.

They suggested I visit the place, to feel better about sending her there.

They’d done their homework: I had to give them that.

Emily wiggled out of my arms and ran through the holographic house, calling, “Gannie!”

“She’s not here, honey,” I said. Yet.

How, I asked, had they managed the detail? The picture I’d painted when I was five was there, the awards Gran had won were there, even the smell of the baking cookies that permeated the room. Yes. They’d gotten that right.

Casual but prim, the woman in charge of admissions smiled, showing perfectly straight white teeth. Her nose crinkled like a ferret’s. “There’s no rush, you know. We can keep your grandmother’s house on our digital file indefinitely. We want you to be comfortable with your decision.”

“How did you do this?” My mouth was open, but I was too overwhelmed to be embarrassed.

“We sent an operative to her home,” she stage-whispered, though only Emily and I were there, “posing as a realtor needing information for a neighbor. Took digigraphs of the whole house. Did we get it right?”

She giggled, knowing full well that my answer was, yes, perfectly. So why did I feel like crying?

Safely tucked in bed by eight o’clock, Emily went right to sleep. I poured myself a cup of tea and sat down to read, thinking that a good book would help me relax. When Don walked in moments later, I was surprised.

“You’re home early.”

“Yep.”

Don always went straight to bed or sat in front of the teleview when he got home. Right now he was standing in the family room doorway with his hands behind his back. He’d gotten a haircut.

“These are for you,” he said all in a rush, and thrust a bouquet of roses at me.

“But . . .”

“Happy anniversary.”

“Don,” I said, taking the flowers, “our anniversary was in May.”

“I know that. But remember how hurt you were that I forgot?”

I didn’t remember being hurt in the least. He’d forgotten every anniversary except the first one, and frankly, I’d gotten used to it.

He knelt before me and took my hands in his. Too startled to think, I let him. He was still good-looking. His brown eyes twinkled and his mouth curved into the smile that I fell in love with so many years ago. Encouraged, he took my book, closed it, and sat next to me. Tentative, his fingers stroked my forearms with light touches, moving upward in slow circles. He cupped my chin and kissed me, softly. My eyes sought his as we parted. What could have caused this change?

He pushed my hair behind one ear and pulled me close. “Tell me what’s new with you and Emily,” he said.

And so, with my head on his shoulder, I told him about the doctors and their diagnosis, and worries about Gran. I left out the part about the shuttle, which was tricky, but I sensed that he wasn’t analyzing my story too thoroughly anyway, probably because there was so much to catch up on. We sat there for a long time and I talked. It felt wonderful. I turned to look at him. That sparkle in his eyes was what did it for me. I leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, happy to feel the tingle again. The tingle I’d thought was gone for good.

When I described my visit to the holo-home, Don started to ask questions. Yes, it looked just like

Gran’s house. Sure, she could have an outdoor and an indoor world. She could even plant flowers. Could she change the program? No. That would be up to me. The goal was to make her feel as though she was truly at home and not in an artificial environment. State of the art? Absolutely. Expensive, too. He made a passing comment about wanting to see this holo-home, and in my naivete, I jumped at the suggestion.

“That would be great, Don. You have no idea what it would mean to me to have you see it too. I mean,”

I shook my head, my hands making helpless gestures, “it just doesn’t seem right to send Gran to one of those places. You know?”

I should have known better.

Don grinned. “Yeah,” he said, “I would love to see one of those things. They’re supposed to be just like that Sensavision I want, only better.”

“Sensavision.”

“Now that you got your chance to talk, I thought maybe I could tell you some more about the Sensavision.” He reached into his back pocket, displacing me from his shoulder, and pulled out another brochure, different than the one we’d argued over. “You’re gonna love it, I just know.”

I was dumbfounded. He continued, oblivious. “Y’see what a nice time we had tonight, with me home?

I’d be home every night if we had one of these. Wouldn’t you like that?”

Sitting up, I grabbed the flowers. “Is that what this is all about? You trying to look like a sweet and thoughtful husband so you could romance me into buying one of those?”

His eyes told me he was confused by the question. But his shrug told me more. I threw the flowers to the floor. “You fooled me. I’ll give you that. Here,” I went to the banking console and inputted the code that transferred funds from my trust account into a debit disk. He watched me, the whole time, his eyes alert, not contrite. I waved the silver disk at him. “Buy the stupid thing. But don’t ever pull a stunt like this again.”

The next day we sat in Gran’s kitchen.

Emily sat at my feet, and I sighed with pleasure. For the past hour, she’d been pressing Gran’s door chimes over and over. Programmed to play Emily’s favorite song, “Whatsa Whatsa,” they’d been the hit of the morning. I was relieved she’d finally gotten bored with the game. Gran sat down next to me, “So. What are you going to do about it?”

I bit my lip. Complaints about Don had just fallen out of my mouth. I usually tried to keep marital discord safely under wraps, but today something had snapped. And now Gran knew it all.

“Marry in haste, repent at leisure, isn’t that how it goes?” I asked. I was kind of kidding, kind of not. Gran snorted. “I married your grandfather knowing him only two months,” she said, her blue eyes telling me an important point was about to follow. “And a finer man, a better lover, there never was.”

Settling in for a “talk,” Gran continued. “We knew. We both knew that no matter how many years we had together, no matter how many thousands—no—millions of moments we had—they were never going to be enough. A lifetime together was just going to be the start. And we knew that right off.”

She looked at me. “So it isn’t that you married young, or quick, honey. It’s that you married someone who couldn’t make you the center of his world.” Offering me her ever-present cookies, she added, “I’d move on, if I were you.”

I hadn’t expected that. I took a pink sprinkled cookie from the plate, even though I didn’t want one.

“What about Emily?” I asked, “She deserves to have a father.” I looked over at my daughter, singing to her doll, crumbs covering both their faces.

“You think Don’s the best one for the job?”

There it was. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“No one could have talked me out of marrying Edwin. They had no right. If you would’ve asked, I would’ve given my opinion. But you didn’t, so I kept my mouth shut.”

Not for the first time since my consultation with the doctors did I question their sanity. Gran was the most lucid person I knew. I needed Gran’s company. I craved her advice, her insight. These were not the rantings of a crazy woman.

If it weren’t for that shuttle thing.

She handed Emily a photo imager just like the one she’d let me play with when I was little. “Take lots of pictures for Grannie, Emily.” Then she dug into her pants pocket. “Here,” she said. It was a debit disk.

I didn’t understand.

“Take it.” She shook it a little, tapping my arm. “There’s enough here to cover what you took from your trust. And then some.”

“But . . .”

“I don’t need money where I’m going.” She grinned and sipped her iced tea.

“Don?”

He nodded, his eyes glazed, fastened in rapt attention to the scene playing out on the Sensavision before him. “Oh!” he said. “Ah!”

Leaning in the doorway, I watched him.

The Sensavision, nine feet tall and twelve feet wide, took up nearly an entire wall of our family room. Though it stood two-dimensional, Don was standing on the bridge of a futuristic spaceship. It looked a lot like the one from the sci-fi television show he liked to watch. He wore a uniform of sorts. Several people around him, similarly clad, smiled up with looks of bland adoration and called him “Captain.”

I looked at the far wall out the spacecraft’s window where stars went on endlessly. Yeah, Don was sure imaginative if this was the best he could come up with.

A hiss, a puff and one of the hidden modules released some experience-enhancing aroma. I wrinkled my nose, not knowing what to expect.

I sniffed, then smiled.

Cinnamon.

This stripped-down version of the Sensavision was all I’d been willing to buy. Don wanted the top of the line model, but I’d finally put my foot down.

Aliens appeared on the bridge. Angry, green monsters, with bright yellow fangs. The entire crew jumped up from their stations to fight.

I watched my husband pull a knife from his pocket. The weapon didn’t belong in this time frame, but Don must have wanted to hold something real. I recognized it as one of many from our kitchen drawer. He dodged a light-beam and then charged the hologram alien who’d fired on him and whose round silver eyes quivered in fear. The warrior screamed in pain even though Don’s blade only glanced the being’s upper arm. In a blink, I understood. The Sensavision, loyally programmed, had adjusted the knife’s trajectory and the holographic soldier lay dead on the floor, pierced fatally through the heart.

“Haaaaaaaaaah.” My husband released a long breath, and dropped his shoulders.

“Don?”

He turned, eyes blazing, and advanced on me. I stepped back. “Hey,” I said, attempting a light tone, but failing to keep the panic from my voice. Although the soldier at his feet wasn’t real and the aliens’

weapons weren’t real, the blade Don held, and my fear, were.

He launched himself at me, knife high and ready to strike.

I screamed.

And, just like in stories, he blinked. For a moment, ever so brief, he looked sheepish. Then, as he lowered the weapon, his mood changed. The Sensavision froze.

“Don’t ever do that!” he yelled.

“Do what?”

“Interrupt me. You always ruin everything.”

A burst of anger skyrocketed in my chest. My mind exploded with white light as I fought for control.

“Me? Ruin things for you?”

“Look,” he said, still furious, “I work all day. This is my way to relax. All I ask is that I get a little uninterrupted pleasure here. At least I’m home. Most guys go out on Saturday nights. Can’t you just go .

. . do something?”

I opened and closed my mouth twice. “You aren’t here,” I said. “You don’t know anything about anything around here. You have no time for me. But you have time for this—thing.” I shot my hand toward the Sensavision.

He sat down hard on the chair behind him. It gave a high-pitched whoosh. “You want to talk? Fine. All the fun’s gone now anyway. Whaddyawanna talk about?”

In that instant I realized how futile it would be to discuss my concerns about Gran with him. And so I said the only other thing that was on my mind.

“We have no life together, Don.”

Did I expect him to sit up and take notice at that? I suppose I did. When he shrugged and said, “So?” my legs went a little limp. I sat down on the couch.

A few hours ticked by. But it was only seconds.

Don stood up. “OK. So, are we done talking?”

“Yeah.” I said. And I went to go check on Emily, because that’s all there was to do.

Gran and I took Emily to the very same playground that I’d scampered through in as a child. We watched her go up to a bigger girl, about five years old, I guessed, and start talking. Soon they were both giggling. Emily’s brown curls and other girl’s straight blond hair waved in the breeze and got in their eyes as they played a rhyming game that started them skipping in circles. On the bench next to me, Gran said, “She makes friends easily. That’s a gift.”

I watched them.

She kept her eyes on Emily. “You always did, too. Make friends easy. Adjust.”

I stared at the sky, but a question nagged. “What if it isn’t Gramps? Out—there, I mean.”

Gran gave a half-smile that I caught out of the corner of my eye. “I’ve considered that. Had to.”

Emily was dancing now. She’d did make friends easily.

Gran was looking right at me. “And what if it isn’t? I’ll be disappointed, to be sure. Very disappointed.”

Her bright blue eyes clouded, and for a moment she looked just like she did the day Gramps died. “But there’s a place out there that’s different from here. Do we look unusual there? Don’t know. Can we taste, smell, hear, see, touch? Don’t know.”

She laughed. “All I know is that I’m willing to go see. To find something—more. It isn’t my time yet. I’m not going to just sit here and wait to die. And if your grandfather’s there, all the better. But it isn’t a deal-breaker.”

I understood. All of a sudden. It surprised me. She was doing everything in her power, taking the necessary steps to unite her with Gramps. I was here, doing nothing, staying with Don. So which one of us was crazy?

“The only thing that could keep me here,” she said as she grabbed my arm, “is you and Emily. You two are everything to me. And if you don’t want me to go, I won’t.”

She gripped harder and looked at me intently before she spoke again.

“I’d even go live in one of those virtual homes if it made you happy.”

Emily and I ran up to the holo-home with some last-minute enhancements for the program. With Gran’s debit disk in my pocket, I was prepared to prepay all the necessary fees. The disk would ensure years of uninterrupted care. Gran and Gramps had amassed a fortune in their day, and there was plenty in the bank to cover every cost, even after the debit disk ran out.

When I got back, I finally sat down with Gran. We talked, we cried, we tried to make sense of it all. And she agreed to go to the holo-home the next day. When I told Don about it later that night, he wanted to be part of it, and his cooperativeness made me suspicious.

“You’ll be there?” I asked. “You sure you want to?”

“Will I get to see it? The holographic house?”

“Of course,” I said. “But why do you care? You have your Sensavision.”

“Yeah, but I want to see the top-of-the-line version.” He winked at me. “And you’ve got full control over her money now, don’t you?”

Gran and I arrived exactly at two and sat on hard orange chairs in the brightly colored lobby to wait for Don. Gran was holding a bouquet of fresh-cut hyacinths. Her head bent; she took a deep breath.

“Are we doing the right thing?” I asked.

She didn’t answer me.

Don arrived late, but he clapped his hands, and said, “Let’s go!” when he got there. The resident liaison, Alice, led us to the eighteenth floor, chatting about everything and nothing at the same time. My mind raced. Could I do this?

Emily liked the elevator. She pressed her face against the glass and watched the world slip away beneath us. Don watched the numbers change on the readout and avoided looking at me. My first thought when we reached eighteen was that there had been a mistake. Before us was pure white. It was luminous and beautiful, but I didn’t understand until Alice pressed a few buttons on her handheld control. Two doors appeared. The one on the right, Alice told us, was for the maintenance crew access. Don looked at the control she held and raised an eyebrow at me. He didn’t look at all displeased. He mouthed the words, “She won’t be able to get out?”

“She’ll never notice,” I whispered, moving closer to him. “To her, it’ll feel like she can go anywhere, do anything, see anyone. What would happen if all the poor demented souls here could come and go as they pleased?” I asked, then added, “Gran’s not one of them, of course.”

“Yeah, right,” he said with a snort.

I pointed toward the remote. “They’re giving me one of those for when I want to visit.”

“And behind this door . . .” Alice opened it with a flourish.

Gran’s house was there, even better than before. The sights, the sounds, the smells, all perfect. Even Don was impressed.

“Wow,” he said, “wow.”

Alice whispered, as she backed out the door, “I’ll leave you to settle in here.”

Gran stayed near the door. She looked a little shell-shocked. Emily stayed with her. I led the way to the kitchen. Don followed, his mouth agape.

“What do you think?” I asked him.

“Way more sophisticated than what we have at home.”

“Fully self-contained.” I pointed to near-invisible sensors on the ceiling. “Those pick up the resident’s life signs. Just to monitor health. Otherwise everything is completely private. State-of-the-art.”

He gave a slow whistle. “I’ll say. What I wouldn’t give to have this technology for my Sensavision.”

“Speaking of which, I had one installed in the spare bedroom.” I walked in that direction.

“For your grandmother?” he said, giving a short laugh. “What a waste. She’s never going to use it.”

He followed me. This room was larger than the real one at Gran’s house and I’d had it stripped bare of all decor. All four walls held Sensavisions. And since this was a holo-home, I tried not to think of how this was just a holographic image of holographic screens, because it hurt my head to make sense of it.

“I have a surprise for you.”

I flicked the “on” switch. Before us, the spaceship’s bridge shimmered to life. No cinnamon in the air; this time, I smelled the metallic freshness of a brand-new vessel. Space stretched out before us and aliens suddenly appeared, ready to fight. A blue-jumpsuited officer walked in and locked eyes with Don.

“Captain,” he said, “we’re under attack.” He handed Don a weapon.

Don looked at me, then the scene, then at me again.

“I want you to have something to keep you busy,” I said, in my best conciliatory voice, “while Gran and I get ourselves together.”

He smiled then, and for a moment, heartbreaking in its brevity, I saw a flash of the man I married.

“Have fun,” I said.

But he didn’t hear me say goodbye.

Back at the front door, Gran took my hand. “Are you okay?” she asked. I nodded, thinking about the playhouse—how many hours of enjoyment Gramps and I had had with it when I was little, and how much fun Emily would have with it now. Gran had been right all along. That little pretend shuttle really did have the power to transport us to our destiny. And I held Emily tight as the three of us rode the elevator down.

COLD COMFORT

Dean Wesley Smith

‘Houston Space Center, do you copy?”

I sat in the big command chair, leaning back, listening to nothing as the time lag between the asteroid belt and Earth played out. The time lag wasn’t as bad as it used to be during the early days of the Martian missions, thanks to some new developments in laser communications cutting through a close-warp space, but it still took some time. About four seconds each direction from this far out. Nowhere near as slow as the speed of light, thank heavens.

Although, at this point, it didn’t much matter.

I glanced around at the five empty chairs in the big control room of Asteroid Six, code-named Klondike after the gold rush back in Alaska. After all, that was what we had been out here to get. Minerals, from gold to anything else worth mining, to make part of this exploration profitable. I always knew that someone would get rich off of mining these asteroids, and we had proved that to be true, but now it wasn’t going to be me.

The big room with its six chairs facing six large control panels smelled of burnt wires and felt far too hot. Usually it smelled of cooking mixed with a faint odor of Captain Carry’s socks. Even with the faint burnt smell, the environmental instruments on the board in front of me were telling me everything was still all right in here, as much as it could be, considering.

The room felt even bigger than normal, with me being the only one left. I was used to this room with two or three people in it at all times. I kept thinking that one of them would come in and say something. After months together, I had gotten used to the constant interaction with the others. Now I missed it and wanted it back.

“Go ahead, Klondike. How are they doing out there, Ben?”

The voice was Devon Daniels, the day shift voice of Mission Control, and one of my best friends. He had stood up for me as my best man when Tammie and I got married twenty-two years ago. We had come up through the space program together in the late 1980’s, flying missions to both the moon and Mars. Together, we had helped establish the first bases on both places. He’d been grounded because of a bad lung condition after his sixth Mars trip, and I had planned on joining him on the ground after this mission. Now he was lucky he wasn’t on this mission. He’d be just as dead as the rest were and I was soon going to be.

I took a deep breath. “Can we go to visual? And get some recorders on this, some extra ones? I got a lot to download.”

I sat back, waiting as they brought everything online at Mission Control, thinking over the last two hours. I had been asleep, off shift, tucked in my bunk when the grinding crash had snapped me awake. Our pilot, Toby Terhume from the European Union, had been scheduled to land us on an asteroid with a number for a name that was longer than a worldwide phone number. We were to do the same tests we had been doing on other rocks for the last two weeks. It was the tenth such landing. Standard procedure. From what I could tell, he misjudged the timing on the spin of the thing and instead of landing the Klondike on the rough surface and clamping on, the ship hit, tipped over, and then bounced. And we bounced hard.

We lost Kevin Chin because he was also off shift and it was his cabin that just happened to be the one that got hit by a large rock jutting out of the asteroid. The automatic controls sealed off the rest of the ship, but it was far too late for Chin. We all figured his body was going to have to ride in there until we got back.

I had liked Chin. He was young, this being his first real mission. he didn’t deserve to die like that in his sleep.

It didn’t take long for the rest of us to discover what else was wrong. The collision had damaged some relays to the engines and they had to be repaired. Outside.

Until they were, we were just more floating debris in this field of debris, with no way to move out of the way of drifting rocks.

The five of us remaining were all heavily experienced on outside work, so we drew straws and I got the short one, meaning I’d man the controls while the other four went out to get the work done as fast as possible.

We told Mission Control what we were planning and they agreed that time was of the essence. They had only been out there less than five minutes when an asteroid on my screen appeared out of nowhere, a rock the size of a small house, spinning slowly.

I tried to warn them. But with our speed and the rock’s speed, it happened fast. Far too fast. It scraped all four off the outside of the ship like so much crap off a shoe. If the engines and side thrusters had been working, the computer would have automatically moved the ship just a few feet out of the way as it had done hundreds of times in the past two weeks.

Instead, that nasty grinding sound of my friends dying would be something that would haunt my last hours.

Suddenly, I was alone, farther from Earth than any human had ever been, drifting in a field of debris without power, or any way to get power that I could figure out. That last rock had pretty much taken out a good part of the port side of the ship, leaving me with air and environmental systems in the control room and the galley only. I suppose I could say I was lucky to have survived as well. I didn’t feel lucky.

I had enough to eat; I had enough oxygen to breathe for months. But in this mess of swirling rocks, I wouldn’t last that long. I’d be lucky to get through the conversation with Earth. Again, I didn’t feel lucky.

“We’re set up, Ben,” Devon’s voice came back on strong; then a picture flickered into place. I clicked on my uplink, then without a comment ran the recorded events of what had happened. I sat and stared at Devon’s face for a few seconds as he just waited for the time lag; then he got my video uplink transmission and his face went white.

For a moment, I thought he was going to be sick as he watched. I knew exactly how he felt. There had been a camera on all four of them out there. What had happened was not something anyone would want to see in the news services.

And besides that, they had been my friends. And Devon’s friends.

After a short time, I punched a few buttons and sent the next compacted data streams toward Earth.

“Telemetry on the ship’s status being fed now.”

At least they would know exactly what happened and why.

I gave them everything, downloaded it all, to show everyone back at Houston Control just how screwed I was. That way they wouldn’t go off half-cocked trying to come up with some harebrained scheme for me to fix this mess.

There was just nothing to fix.

I might die at any moment from some stray rock. Or some weakness in this cabin’s walls caused by the two crashes. Or I might live until my food and air ran out. I was betting on a stray rock taking me out very shortly.

“Give us a few moments to look over all this,” Devon said, his voice barely holding back the emotion I could see in his eyes.

Then he cut the link and I was alone again.

“Hope I’m still here,” I said into the silence of the big control room. At least some of the cameras and sensory equipment were still working on the outside of the ship. That way I could see what was going to kill me. I think someone once called that a cold comfort. I tested the main computer and it seemed to be up and running as well, so I worked to plot my course as best I could in relationship to the big rocks we had charted. Banging off two different rocks like a bad game of billiards could send a ship going in some very strange directions, and the Klondike had been no exception.

After about ten minutes, I had figured out that at least I wasn’t going to go head first into any of the bigger asteroids for at least a few months. In fact, the last impact had sent the Klondike upwards and slightly out of the main debris field. So it was going to have to be a small piece of rock that finally took me out. And there were far, far too many of them just in my neighborhood for even our best computers to try to track.

I might see it coming. Maybe two, three seconds ahead was all.

The connection to Houston remained blank, so I stood and moved around, stretching my muscles as best I could in the zero gravity. My magnetic boots held me to the deck, so, as I had learned over the years, I used that force to work against doing my exercises.

I wasn’t sure why I was doing that. Just force of habit, I suppose. What else could I do while waiting to die?

Poor Tammie. I could see her long, brown hair, her big eyes, her small but wonderful smile. I had been gone almost more than I was home over the last two decades. From what I could tell, she had lived the life perfectly, keeping her own interests in teaching, sharing in mine when I was there, saying goodnight to me every night, no matter how deep into space I was, or what she was busy with. A perfect astronaut’s spouse.

She never really mentioned, and we never really talked about, the fact that I might not come home. It was just understood, part of my job.

I suppose I took her for granted far too much. The job of exploring space had always come first for me. The adventure was what I loved. I had to admit I had let the marriage just coast along. When I got home after this trip, I had planned on making up for that.

Too late.

I finally sat back down and stared out the forward viewport, watching the shadows of the dark rocks turning slowly, blocking out the background stars as they moved around and past me. It was like a bunch of ghosts moving through a very dark night. Only these ghosts were real hard. And real deadly.

May 23, 2008. This would be a day that would be remembered as a footnote in the history of space exploration. All six of our names would be put up on the big golden obelisk sitting on the mall beside the United Nations building. It was a fantastic way to remember the dead. It was over thirty stories tall, yet no more than seventy feet across at the base. Standing back on the UN Plaza, staring up at it, the entire thing seemed to be reaching up for the stars. On its sides near the base, in large block letters, it held all the engraved names of those who had given their lives in the adventure of space. Unless someone else died while I was sitting out here waiting, I would be the three hundred and twenty-sixth name on the memorial.

I knew exactly where my name would be. I had stood under those names many, many times, remembering all my friends who were on that memorial.

I had no doubt Tammie would stand there as well. I always felt it was too bad we had never had children. Now I was glad. I would never want to put a son or daughter through what Tammie was going to have to go through.

It took Houston a good twenty minutes before they got back to me. Guess when there was no hope, time suddenly lost its importance.

“Ben,” Devon said. My friend’s face looked drawn and older, far older than he had looked just a half hour before. “I don’t know what to say. I’m sure you know the situation.”

“Yeah, I know it,” I said. “Got any friendly neighborhood aliens with spaceships to stop by and pick me up? I could use a lift.”

After the few seconds’ timelag, Devon would smile at my corny joke, since we had both loved that story, published when we were kids, of an alien rescuing a stranded astronaut. Where was a good alien when you needed one?

“We’re seeing what we can do,” Devon said. “And don’t give up hope just yet. We’re still working on this.”

“Sure,” I said. “Has it got out to the press yet?”

“No,” Devon said. “We’ve kept a lid on this for the moment, and no one’s paying any attention. It was just a regular day for you guys out there.”

“Yeah, real regular,” I said. “After you guys finally figure out that my goose is cooked, I’d like to talk to Tammie.”

“Copy that,” Devon said, nodding, as if my request didn’t just go in. “We’ll be back in a half hour.”

With that, the screen again went dead.

“He sure trusts that I’m still going to be here,” I said out loud. My voice echoed in the empty control room.

I sat back and stared out the front port at all the twisting shadows cutting out the stars and then blinking them back on as they moved past, a slow-motion light show.

I glanced at the clock that told me what time it was in Phoenix where Tammie and I lived. Five in the morning. She would still be asleep. What horrible news to wake up to. We had built a wonderful home on top of a rock ledge overlooking the green fairways of a private golf course that wound through the rocks and cactus in the valley below us. Actually, Tammie had built it while I was on one of my Mars runs. And I didn’t play golf, but that scene was so beautiful, I had decided I liked the place.

I commuted to Houston, being home on most weekends when I could and when I was on the ground. Last time I was home, Tammie said she had learned how to play golf, had been taking lessons. She said she really loved it. I had planned on joining her on the links after this mission, although, to be honest, I just couldn’t see myself being happy doing nothing but that. I wanted to move into test piloting some of the new suborbital planes being developed.

I stared out the viewport. I just hoped all the drifting shadows out there gave me enough time to at least say goodbye.

Suddenly, a very large shadow seemed to block out all of the stars in front of the viewport. I could see nothing in the pitch black, and the brains back at Mission Control had just never thought that headlights on these ships were worth the expense.

Looks like I wasn’t going to get to say goodbye to anyone.

I braced myself and held my breath.

Nothing happened.

The shadow remained in front of me, covering every star as if someone had just put them all out like candles on a cake.

Then there was a slight tingling in my arms and legs, and the next moment I found myself standing, facing my best friend.

Devon was sitting in a huge, ornate throne that seemed to fill a very strange, very massive chamber covered in ornate drawings and strange lights of red and blue and purple. It felt like you could put a basketball court in the space and still leave room for a lot of spectators around the edges. He was wearing the same clothes he had been wearing on the communications link. And he was the only one in the chamber besides me.

I stood there, staring, trying to grasp what I was seeing, but my mind felt numb. Nothing made sense, nothing felt right. Even the air smelled of great age, not burnt wires.

“Sorry it took so long, buddy,” he said, smiling. “We had to make sure the situation really was as bad as it seemed.”

“I’m dead. It doesn’t get any worse.”

My voice sounded just damn silly and was swallowed like so much silence in the massive chamber.

“To the rest of the world, yes.” Devon said. “The Klondike, in about two minutes, will be completely destroyed by the impact from a four-meter wide asteroid.”

“But . . . ?”

I stared around, trying to figure out a pattern in the strange lights, then back at Devon, the pitiful question sort of hanging there.

“But what’s all this?” Devon asked, indicating the vast chamber around us. “This is the Peace-Maker, on loan to us for missions like this from the aliens everyone in the tabloids refer to as the Grays.”

I nodded. “Now I know I’m dead. Or being gassed by some environmental leak.”

“Well, this is the future we always wanted,” Devon said, laughing. “Remember as kids how we used to dream about going to the moon, going to Mars, exploring out here and beyond? And finding friendly aliens to help us along the way? Well, they found us.”

“Roswell?” I asked, shaking my head at the stupidity of my question.

“Actually far before that. Roswell was just an accident with one of their small training ships as we were trying to learn how to fly them.”

“Come on, Ben,” I said to myself. “Wake up. You’ve got to wake up, check the gas levels. You’re hallucinating.”

“Yeah, I didn’t believe it either,” Devon said. “But the truth is, you’re alive, but to everyone else, you are officially dead and you can no longer show yourself to anyone. You’ll either live and work at Area 51 or on the base on Titan.”

“Titan? We have a base on Titan?”

“Actually, the Grays do, and they let us use parts of it. The Grays will be returning for their next visit to our system in twenty-three years, and we’d like to impress them with our progress. You’re going to be a great help to us. We need some experienced test pilots for some new deep spacecraft we’re testing.”

I wanted to slap myself, but didn’t. This was one hell of a hallucination for a dying person. Devon reached out and touched something in the blank air in front of him, and half the wall to my right vanished, showing me the blackness of space and the Klondike floating there. I could see the extensive damage from the two impacts. For such a proud ship, it looked very, very sad and small and helpless.

“Coming in from the right,” Devon said, his voice clearly upset by what was happening and what had happened to the rest of the crew.

I stood there, transfixed, watching what I was sure was my own death as the shadow seemed to appear out of nowhere suddenly, then smashed into the Klondike, ripping it apart and sending pieces swirling off in many different directions.

“You are now officially dead,” Devon said, his voice soft. “I just wish I had gotten here in time to save the others from real death as well. But we thought the repair plan would work.”

I stared at him, my mind still not grasping this, but I had one question that just pissed me off if anything about this dream was real.

“How come, if we have this, we let people like me go out into space on ships like that? How come we let them die?”

“Because we have to,” Devon said. “The Grays only lent us this one ship. We have to fight our own way out into space, prove that we can survive out here, that we belong out here, and that takes growth and sacrifice. We have to pay the price.”

“Five good men just paid a very heavy price,” I said, disgusted.

“Yes, they did,” Devon said. “And all six of you will have your names on the memorial in ten days, in a very large and impressive service. But what you learned out here won’t go to waste. As you discovered, there are vast riches out here, more than enough to keep the space program going for another hundred years, until we finally figure out how to reach the stars and find even greater riches.”

I glanced down, suddenly realizing my feet weren’t sticking to the floor.

“Artificial gravity?”

Devon nodded. “We don’t know how it works, but we know it exists and is possible, so there are a thousand scientists around the planet working on it in different ways.”

“You came from Earth?” I asked.

Again he nodded. “I was beamed aboard the ship where we keep it parked in a hidden orbit, and I flew it here to get you.”

“That’s one fast trip. It took us two months.”

“Some sort of dimensional jump engine,” Devon said. “Way beyond us so far.”

“Why you?” I asked.

“Mission Control figured I would be the best one to do the rescue since you were going to have trouble believing all this was real.”

“No kidding,” I said. “I’m still not.”

“I don’t blame you,” Devon said.

I walked over to the wall that seemed to be open to space and touched it. I could feel a warm, almost soft metal, even though it looked like I could stick my hand all the way out into the vacuum.

“We don’t know what that material is either, or even how it works.”

“But I bet we’re working on it,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, we are, but we haven’t even figured out how to analyze it yet, let alone reproduce it.”

“And you say this is the only ship they lent us?”

Devon nodded. “I wish we had more. That way we could shadow all the different missions going on in space, save more lives.”

I remembered my five crewmates who had just died ugly deaths. “Yeah, too bad.” The disgust and anger was clear in my voice.

Then I remembered Tammie. She was going to think I was dead.

“Can I take Tammie with me to wherever I’m going next?”

Devon shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Only very specific people can know this exists. No families allowed. Besides, you need her to keep up your legacy of what you did.”

I nodded. Tammie had always been the perfect astronaut’s wife. She would make sure my memory stayed alive and that my death wouldn’t be in vain.

“Can I at least say goodbye?”

Devon looked like I had just trapped him bluffing in a poker game. I knew that look. There was something he didn’t want to tell me.

“There is a way, isn’t there?”

He nodded slowly. “We’ve worked out a way that you can say goodbye.”

Devon’s hands flew through the air in front of him, seemingly touching and brushing different things that I couldn’t see.

Suddenly, outside the ship, the stars seemed to blur for a moment. Then at the next instant, we were in orbit around Earth. There had been no feeling at all of movement.

I had to be dead. What had just happened wasn’t possible. That was all there was to it. I had just traveled the same distance it had taken me two months before to travel, and all in a fraction of a second without feeling a thing. Dead people traveled like that, not live ones.

“We’re above the Phoenix area,” Devon said. “The Grays have this nifty device they showed us how to use that transports you to a place where you can hear and see and talk to people, but not actually be there. You’ll stay here on the ship the entire time.”

“Like a projected hologram?”

He nodded.

“And Tammie will be able to see me?”

“As a sort of ghostlike figure. If you tell her you’re dead and just came to say goodbye, she’ll believe you, especially when you vanish. But it’s going to scare the hell out of her.”

“I don’t think that learning that I’m dead is going to do her much good either,” I said. “I assume others have done this before?”

Devon nodded. “This isn’t easy on either you or her, but at least you have a chance to say goodbye, if that’s what you really want.”

“Why wouldn’t it be what I want? She’s the woman I love.”

From his large, thronelike chair in the middle of the massive space, Devon looked down at me with an expression I had seen many times before. He was worried.

“You’re not going to want to do this,” Devon said. “I think you should just let it go and we’ll beam into Area 51 and get you settled into your new life.”

“Why?”

“Just let her deal with her grief on her own, in her own way. It’s better that way. For both of you.”

I stood there, staring at my friend, thinking about what seeing me as a ghost would do to Tammie. Devon was right. It would scare her, and the news of my death was going to hurt her more than enough. If I loved her, I didn’t need to hurt her any more.

But I did want to just see her one more time.

“I guess you’re right. Can the hologram he made so that she wouldn’t see me, or hear me? I’d still like to say goodbye in my own way.”

Now Devon looked really pained. “It can be, yes, but as your friend, I’m suggesting you not do that.”

“Why?”

Devon sighed. “Sometimes it’s better to just let memories alone, leave Tammie in your mind as you know her.”

“I’m still back in the Klondike, aren’t I? Having a horrid nightmare?”

“No,” Devon said. “You are very much alive, and we very much need your experienced help in our program. If the Klondike had come back on its own, we were going to try to recruit you into the program. We were lucky that circumstances at least saved you.”

“I don’t feel so lucky.”

“Let’s go to Area 51,” Devon said. “You have great memories of Tammie; just leave them that way and start the next part of your life.”

I laughed. “You know I’m not going to, unless you tell me what is so bad that I’m going to see when I visit her.”

Devon looked like the day he had swallowed his first oyster. I remembered laughing at him for an hour that night.

I wasn’t laughing now at all.

Devon sighed again, then said, “Maybe you should just go take a look. You won’t be seen or heard, and you won’t be able to touch anything. After that, we can talk more when we’re off this ship.”

It was as if the area around me on the ship suddenly changed into my home. Devon had put me in the living room, and everything was as tidy as Tammie always kept it. Outside the open window, the sun was just starting to paint the tops of the rock bluffs pink. We had a fantastically beautiful home. It was too bad I was going to miss retiring here.

I looked around. Actually, this wasn’t really my home. Granted, I had clothes here and all, but I had never really felt at home here. I had no sense of still being on the ship. This alien stuff was really amazing. Or my hallucination was very detailed and felt real.

“Devon?”

“Right with you, buddy,” he said, his voice coming from my right and slightly above me. “Just let me know when you want to get out of there.”

“Only a moment.”

I headed for the bedroom where Tammie would be sleeping. I couldn’t really feel my feet touch the carpet, but the memory of walking without gravity boots made me think I was feeling it. Weird, really weird.

I tried to push open the half-closed door, but my hand went right through it, so I closed my eyes and just stepped forward and into the bedroom.

I was sure I was dead; now I was acting like a ghost. What more evidence did I need?

The pink morning light was gently filling the room through the closed blinds. Our big master bed filled the far wall under bookshelves loaded with Tammie’s favorite reading.

I moved about two steps toward the bed before I realized that Tammie wasn’t alone. A man, a young man, was curled up against her back, like he belonged there, like he had been there a very long time. I had already been stunned over the last few hours with five of my shipmates dying, and then discovering that we really were friends with aliens and that I was going to live. This sight just left me cold. I wanted to care, but for some reason, I just couldn’t. I stared at my wife for a long minute, wondering why I didn’t care. I should care. I should be angry.

But the image of my five friends’ deaths haunted me. Their deaths made me angry. Not this. I couldn’t care because it really didn’t matter. My shipmates, my friends were dead. I was officially dead, but getting a second chance to move on to interesting challenges that I would love. I couldn’t bring her anyway.

I stood and just stared at her. One thing was clear. She looked happy, contented in sleep. I cared that she was happy. After being married to a man who had spent most of the last twenty years either in space or preparing for it, she deserved happiness in any way she could find it.

“How long have you known?” I asked my friend. I had a hunch that he was seeing what I was seeing with the fancy alien technology.

“A couple of years,” Devon said. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s not a surprise,” I said. “As much as I was gone, how can I blame her?”

I moved over beside her, ignoring the guy behind her, and stared at her beautiful hair spread out over the pillow, at her cheek, at her slightly open mouth. I had been lucky to have the time I had with her, and all the support she had given me. I would miss that.

I would miss her.

But I couldn’t be angry at her.

I bent over and brushed my lips against her cheek. I didn’t feel anything, but her eyes fluttered a little and she sighed and then went back to sleep.

“Be happy,” I said to my beautiful wife. “You deserve it.”

Then I turned away.

“Get me out of here.” I stepped toward the door. “I got some new ships to fly.”

A moment later I was back in space.

Back where I belonged.

THE STINK OF REALITY

Irene Radford

Dr. Wallace Beebee, PhD, associate professor of biophysics at Vasco da Gama U, swept the paraphernalia atop his wife Evelyn’s dresser into a shoebox. Deodorant, perfume, hairspray, cosmetics, anything with a fragrance. When the box was full he moved into the adjacent bathroom and collected shampoos, soaps, his own shaving cream and aftershave, the candle on the toilet tank. When a second box was full he slapped the lid on it, secured it with a rubber band, and took them both to the laundry room at the opposite end of their ranch-style rental home on the campus fringes.

“The Explorers of VDGU? A bunch of bullshit. Haven’t had an original idea in fifty years,” Wallace grumbled. He’d been on faculty three years, always being promised tenure the next semester, then the next, and the next, always denied because his ideas were just a little too revolutionary. Grants controlled by the university went to projects that kept corporate America happy and conservative, not to strange new inventions worthy of science fiction novels.

Every research grant Wallace applied for ended up in the hands of a more senior faculty member. How could he and Evelyn ever hope to afford children living on the pittance the university paid untenured—and therefore disposable—professors?

Into another box, he loaded all of the cleaning supplies beneath the bathroom sink. “I’ll show them something that will keep corporate America happy!”

Max, the family corgi, followed his every step, sniffing each item with extreme interest. But then the dog lived through his nose.

That’s what had given Wallace the idea. The dog’s nose ruled his impulses. If it didn’t have a smell, the dog wasn’t interested.

Wallace now knew how to give the world every smell they ever dreamed of. That meant it had to come out of the television. TV ruled America’s desires. Corporate America ruled Americans through their TV

advertising, creating “needful” things where no need existed.

Wallace needed tenure. Only creating the next needful thing would get him that. People forgot that memory was more closely tied to scent than any other of the five senses. Long before he was through with corporate America, they’d know his name and remember it. Finally, he ejected the dog from the bedroom too. He closed the door firmly against intrusion. Then he showered with an unscented soap and donned a fresh jogging suit that had air-dried on a line in the back-yard. He couldn’t allow any stray odors to confuse his experiment. Later, when he knew it worked, he’d verify everything in a sterilized lab. Until then, the invention was his and his alone, carefully pieced together from a discarded and outdated mass spectrometer and a sniffer he’d purchased with his own money from the state crime lab, again outdated. He had to come up with a better name for that device.

His next generation of Beebevision would be smaller and more sensitive. When he had grant money and grad students to collect data.

Finally, all was ready. Cautiously, he made the last connection between his invention, a black cube about ten inches on each side, and the television that dominated one corner of the bedroom. The wires slid into place easily. He tightened the screws.

Holding his breath, he fed the special DVD into the player, turned everything on, and sat in his favorite recliner—carefully vacuumed earlier.

A deep organ note played and a lily of the valley logo blossomed on the screen. He’d borrowed the lily from a design on Evelyn’s favorite perfume, changing it just enough to keep from violating copyright. He’d also added radiating lines indicating the flower’s fragrance.

“Welcome to Fully Sensory Theatery. A Wallace Beebee Production,” intoned a husky alto voice, Evelyn, of course.

Her PhD was in medieval history. Physics didn’t interest her. Nothing interested her except her own discipline. He’d make history come alive for her as it never had before: through her nose. The scene on the TV shifted to a meadow filled with spring wildflowers. A delicate floral scent wafted to Wallace from the mesh face of the black cube.

He smiled. “It’s working,” he whispered.

Then the scene changed again; a hot desert wind that smelled of dust, sage, and mint accompanied the pictures of Smith Rock in central Oregon. Next, another scene, a beautiful woman (Evelyn) dancing lightly in the moonlight. Her phenomenal perfume made his heart beat faster and his hormones soar. Then the dog scratched at the door, whined plaintively, and farted.

“OK, OK, I’ll walk you now before you crap on the floor.”

Wallace went about his evening chores and put the bedroom back to rights, whistling a happy tune and smiling hugely.

“My, aren’t you in a good mood!” Evelyn exclaimed when he kissed her soundly upon going to bed that night.

His smile continued well into the next morning. As Wallace walked to his first class he sniffed the scent of freshly mown grass and bright spring flowers with new appreciation. He detected hints of gasoline from the mower and oil in the fertilizer spread among the flowers. That nearly destroyed his happy mood. He might have to find a way to filter his gadget. He wasn’t sure how. Yet.

Two weeks later, Wallace attached his little black cube, reduced to four inches on each side, to a different television. This one sat in the university conference room habituated by the tenure committee. Or

“God” as most untenured professors referred to it. Life or death in the academic community rested in the TC’s hands.

Wallace made his careful presentation, then switched off the DVD at the end of the third scene, careful not to let the fourth begin. He wanted to hold that one in reserve for emergencies.

“As you can see, and smell, ladies and gentlemen, this new invention has tremendous commercial as well as academic potential.” He then read Evelyn’s notes about how she would use it to bring history alive.

“Frivolous,” Dr. Pretentious declared.

“Impractical,” chimed in Dr. Beta.

“Demeaning,” finished Dr. Shallow.

“Is biophysics even a recognized discipline at other universities?” Dr. Pretentious asked rhetorically. And that was the crux of the matter for the TC. Never making a decision until they knew it would be applauded by other universities, never hiring anyone who didn’t have at least two other offers, denying tenure to any but the most staid and conservative candidates.

“Tenure denied.” If Dr. Pretentious had a gavel, the old fart would have pounded it. Instead he gathered up his thick file on Wallace Beebee and retreated.

Wallace hit the play button on the remote. Pictures of Max, fresh from the bath and still stinking of wet dog fur, filled the television screen. He wiggled and yipped and farted, then dropped a big dump right in front of the camera programmed to pickup every hydrocarbon in the air.

“Well, I never!” Dr. Shallow declared. She held a lace-edged hanky to her nose and literally ran out of the room.

“Hmm, Max got into the garbage again. He smells a little like coffee grounds and egg shells.”

Wallace stayed on at VDGU for another year. His applications to other universities were rejected or stalled in committee. He didn’t have enough publication credits. He didn’t have enough experience in academia. His work was too controversial.

He didn’t apply for tenure again at VDGU. He and Evelyn made do with their meager salaries and postponed having children once again. She was denied tenure in medieval history because of her association with Wallace.

They postponed having children once again.

Secretly Wallace worked on his invention in the garage at home. Honing, refining, miniaturizing. Paying for every part out of his own pocket. Then, at last, he had what he needed: a commercially viable version ready to roll off the assembly line.

If he could just sell it. He had to sell it. Evelyn was pregnant despite their precautions. They desperately needed the money.

Strange, he’d detected a change in her body chemistry before she even suspected her pregnancy. Working with his invention every day, testing, honing, had sensitized his own nose almost as much as it had the gadget.

Sixty query letters to various electronics companies resulted in exactly one invitation. He took most of his savings and bought a roundtrip ticket to Kansas City, Missouri, the corporate headquarters of a major televangelist, Dr. John Baptiste Feelwell. (Wallace suspected the man’s PhD in applied religions was as fake as his toupee.) A dozen suited executives and ad men filled the smallest of their conference rooms. Wallace’s entire house could have fit inside it and still had room left over. Wallace caught a whiff of musky cologne that attempted to mask a man’s body smell. Wallace almost gagged on the intensity. He’d given up all fragrances himself and grown a beard so he wouldn’t have to use aftershave. He’d gotten to the point where he could identify each individual component of artificial fragrances.

He also knew the man had had eggs Benedict for breakfast and sex within the last hour, probably with the buxom secretary who sat in the corner. Heat suffused his face. These morons were no better than the tenure committee. Angry words coiled on the tip of his tongue.

“Out! I demanded no external fragrances. All of you out until you’ve rid yourself of that . . . that . . . stink.”

“What’s he talking about?” One of the ad men smoothed his freshly barbered hair with a manicured hand. His charcoal suit molded his lanky frame as if custom tailored. He made Wallace look frumpy and slovenly in his off-the-rack navy blue pinstripe suit.

“How can we appreciate a new dimension to life when all our noses are clogged with your artificial cologne?” Wallace loomed over the man and pierced him with the same gaze he used on stupid freshman who questioned his authority in the classroom.

The ad man squirmed in his chair.

“You might as well leave, Leland,” Dr. Feelwell intoned from his place at the head of the table. “I haven’t got all day and clearly Dr. Beebee will not continue until you do leave.”

“But . . . but the account is supposed to be mine! How can I apply a new invention to your telecasts if I don’t see it tested?” Leland protested.

“Seeing is not enough. My invention goes beyond the limited sense of sight. You must use your nose, and yours is tainted by your overpowering aftershave. You will have no part in my invention,” Wallace decided on the spot.

He looked around the room at the carefully neutral yet attractive faces. No ugly people polluted Dr. Feelwell’s staff—almost as if he conveyed the impression that giving money to his crusade made one beautiful.

“She will manage my invention.” Wallace pointed to a small woman who’d scrubbed her face and hair free of cosmetics. Her soft dress looked freshly laundered as well. Wallace had seen her before, a lame child miraculously healed before ten million television viewers. “She respects my conditions for presenting this important innovation to the public.”

Immediately, Wallace’s emotions swung to guilt. He’d ruined his chances here. He’d never sell Beebevision now.

Leland eventually slunk out, but not until he’d protested and argued seniority and several other points. Wallace had to begin disconnecting his device before Dr. Feelwell put his foot down and threatened to fire Leland if he did not leave.

Once more the television screen brightened gradually. The logo of a lily of the valley with lines radiating outward opened before them. The voice, Evelyn’s beautiful, sexy voice, which could enthrall an auditorium filled with bored freshman. Then the three scenes Wallace had carefully chosen to evoke pleasant emotions.

A grandmother in a kitchen wearing an apron and removing a freshly baked apple pie from the oven. Smiles broke out around the room as noses filled with cinnamon.

A scantily clad woman dancing in the moonlight with sexy pheromones wafting through the room. Two men, including Dr. Feelwell, shifted uneasily in their seats, as if their trousers no longer fit properly. A cityscape with lightly falling snow and bright holiday lights accompanied the scent of cut fir trees and bayberry candles. The scrubbed woman sighed blissfully with childhood memories. Pleasant smells, pleasant memories, pleasant endorphins coursing through the bloodstream.

“How does it work?”

“What will it cost?”

“How fast can we get this up and running?”

Wallace smiled and answered each of the questions with pleasure.

“A pherometric ionizer analyzes the components of each scent and embeds that analysis into the digital code of the video. It is integrated into the digital camera. A mass spectrometer modified to my specifications interprets the extra code in the DVD and recreates those molecules based upon their magnetic charge and hydrocarbon content.”

“I want to see how it works before we commit.”

“It’s patented. No one sees the circuitry without a contract.”

“What will it cost us to produce?”

“Less than one hundred dollars per unit if built into a television. Considerably more for a less sensitive unit attached separately.” He grinned. “So of course every homeowner with a television more than two years old will dash out for a new unit.”

Looking around the room, smelling the greed and the cunning among these people, he wondered yet again if he needed to find a way to filter the scents. All or nothing went through the pherometric ionizer and the mass spectrometer reproduced it all faithfully.

The frontmen kept at him with more and more detailed questions. But Wallace retreated behind a barrier of “patented secrets revealed only when the contract is signed and royalties agreed upon.”

“How soon?” Feelwell cut through the garbled voices. “And who else have you shown this to?”

“I offer you a six month exclusive for the right price.”

They met his price and doubled the modest royalty he requested for a one year exclusive. Not only could he and Evelyn afford to have the baby now, they could afford to send the child to the best universities in the world—not Vasco da Gama University.

“But we can’t call it Beebevision; that sounds like something out of the Jetsons,” the scrubbed woman chimed in.

“The invention is mine. It carries my name,” Wallace insisted. He’d have his revenge on the tenure committee only when his name became a household word. Soon they’d be begging him to accept tenure. But he’d show them. He’d teach somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Or maybe not teach at all, if the money became as good and regular as he hoped. They batted around various word combinations. Wally-vision sounded wonderful to Wallace.

“It’s sort of like the feng shui of television,” the scrubbed woman finally added. “It completes the experience and attunes it to the human spirit. It opens the soul to revelation.” Her face shone with an angelic glow.

Or maybe just the sunshine creeping in through the tinted windows. More ideas spilled forth.

They finally settled on Sensaroma.

Wallace grumbled. He really wanted his name to become a household word. He’d have to settle for going down in history as the inventor.

And the money. Dr. Feelwell had his own television channel. The highest-rated of all cable channels. So he had the clout to get personal television units on the market within weeks. He also did many personal appearances that made use of big-screen televisions so that all fifty to one hundred thousand members of the audience could feel as if they were in the front seat of the massive stadiums and auditoriums. Now all of Feelwell’s followers would also experience Sensaroma.

Wallace had a niggle of guilt that Feelwell might be manipulating his audiences. The guilt only lasted until he cashed the first check.

Wallace and his wife watched the first broadcast of Dr. Feelwell produced in Sensaroma on the first augmented television unit off the production line—gratis as part of his contract.

“The odor of sanctity,” Evelyn whispered. “I think we need to start going to church again. Our baby deserves to grow up knowing the truth.”

Wallace was unmoved. His sensitized nose had separated out the various chemically produced pheromones and incense coming from Dr. Feelwell’s television studio, and he knew how the preacher used his audience.

“I think I need to demand a higher royalty,” he muttered.

Wallace turned his classes over to his grad students and hit the talk show circuit. By the end of the month, his name was on the tip of many more tongues. Sensaroma became a household word, even if his name did not.

Within the month the Secret Service, the FBI, and Homeland Security showed up on Wallace’s doorstep.

“You owe it to your government to sign over the patent,” their oily lawyer said, shoving a sheaf of papers at Wallace.

“Pay the royalty and you can use it any way you want. But the patent is mine,” he insisted. “And so is the chemical formula for persuasion. I would think the reelection committee of our much-maligned president would be more interested in that than the military. But then again the Pentagon would more likely be interested in the patent for nose plugs and filters for our troops as they bombard the enemy with scents guaranteed to lull them into complacency.”

Shortly thereafter, Wallace marketed separately a filtering unit to a television manufacturing company outside of Dr. Feelwell’s control. The FBI shut them down within an hour of going into production. He and Evelyn bought a bigger house with no mortgage, complete with a nursery and a live-in nanny, a housekeeper, and a chef who used only natural ingredients.

The tenure committee clamped their mouths shut and refused to acknowledge Wallace when they encountered him on campus or at faculty gatherings.

The much-maligned president won a second term of office by a landslide. Few people remembered to criticize him for anything.

Wallace bought Evelyn the largest diamond ring he could find. It barely made a dent in his bank account as the royalties poured in. He also gave her the funds to produce her own documentary on life in a medieval village. She adored the project and thanked him properly. She conceived a second child that night.

He had to have the housekeeper buy baby powder and baby soap at the health food stores to get away from artificial fragrances. All of their groceries came from there as well, so he wouldn’t have to smell and taste chemical fertilizers and preservatives. He spent more and more time in the sterilized lab as body odors, deodorants, and cosmetics overwhelmed him to the point of nausea.

The day before the Evelyn premiered her movie, the tenure committee summoned Wallace before their august presences.

At last!

He dressed in his best suit, a new custom-tailored one in charcoal grey, with a subdued tie and blindingly white shirt with French cuffs and eighteen carat gold cufflinks with a tiny diamond set in the center. He paused outside the door to the conference room to gather himself and settle his shoulders. Out of habit he sniffed, assessing his surroundings.

The acrid scent of a predator on the hunt stung his nostrils.

Where?

A surge of defensive adrenaline coursed through his system, sharpening all of his senses. His muscles bunched, ready to flee or fight. He sniffed again.

The scent was strongest at the closed doorway.

He took three long deep breaths, calming himself, forcing his mind to take over his instincts. Yes, inside. The TC had become predatory. Life or death committee. And glad about it. They wanted to take something very precious from him. That’s what predators did.

If not his life, then what? They’d already denied him tenure.

Suspicion crowded out his fear.

He flipped out his cellphone and speed-dialed his stockbroker. “They can’t take the money if they can’t find it.”

With a few terse orders he sold all of his stock in Sensaroma and other diversified industries and laundered the money through the Cayman Islands.

The dumping of a large amount of the stock might create a slump in the stock market. But soon the numbers would rally as investors rushed to buy a piece of the most amazing innovation to come on the market in decades.

Then he dialed his contact at Homeland Security. Time for some interesting facts to go into the background checks of key members of the university administration and the TC. Time to cash in some favors for their confiscation of the filtering unit. With renewed confidence and armored against his enemies, Wallace entered the conference room as if he owned the university.

“Our lawyers inform us that since you developed Sensaroma while in our employ as a biophysicist, the patents belong to the university,” Dr. Pretentious informed Wallace without preamble.

“We will expect the signed patent transfer documents within twenty-four hours,” Dr. Beta continued.

“Along with royalty statements and a check for the entire amount paid to you.”

“You will of course be rewarded with a small bonus for bringing such a valuable commodity to Vasco da Gama University,” Dr. Shallow concluded.

“Does tenure come with that bonus?” Wallace snarled at them. His temper boiled, but he kept it under control. He had the upper hand at the moment.

“Of course you’ll get tenure. Once all of the legalities are completed and there is an opening for a tenured position in your department,” Dr. Pretentious said graciously.

“If I’d known I could have bought tenure, I’d have taken out a loan years ago. My lawyers will contact your lawyers.” Wallace stalked out of the conference room. “And I bet my lawyers are smarter and more powerful than yours.”

At the close of business that day, instead of patent transfer documents, the TC received a counter lawsuit. The TC had rejected the invention when offered to them; therefore, Wallace was free to market it elsewhere. He tendered his resignation in a separate envelope. Something he should have done when he received the first royalty check for six times his annual salary. But his need for revenge had outweighed his good judgment.

No more. He had other plans. Like founding his own university in the Cayman Islands. The next day, Wallace left the baby with the nanny to attend the premier of Evelyn’s movie. He slipped unnoticed into the back of an auditorium filled with two hundred history majors. He wore small filter plugs in his nose, the only way he could tolerate crowds of people anymore. He took them out the moment the projection screen came to life. The camera panned across an ocean that pounded a rocky shore. Wallace smelled salt and fish and seaweed on the cold wind. The ragged coastline became the ragged ramparts of a castle. New scents assailed the audience. Mud in an enclosed courtyard. Mold on damp stone.

People clad in ancient peasant garb strolled across the scene. Their unwashed bodies, the sweat of hard labor and anxiety over daily trials and tribulations replaced the sharp, clean aroma of the open sea. To Wallace’s sensitized nose, the combination smelled like fear. He realized that for the average peasant, even in Third-World countries today, life represented fear.

No wonder so many less modern societies revolved around their faith. People needed to pray daily for survival and thank the heavens for each day they came through unscathed. A different way of life. A different way of thinking.

He sat forward fascinated, more interested in history than ever before. This was how his invention needed to be used. His love for Evelyn increased as he began to understand her passion. Unfortunately, her students took a different view. The sound of gagging accompanied the movie as the camera followed a woman with a child at her breast into a tiny, dark hut. The students vacated the auditorium in droves. Mud, pigs, disease, rotting food, and open sewers made them ill. The smell of vomit, closer and more real than provided by the movie, added its own distinct aroma. But they were natural scents, not chemical. Wallace reveled in them. Humanity had become so detached from reality, scrubbed it clean and sterilized it, that they could no longer use their noses as they were designed to work. People didn’t trust their noses like they did their eyes and ears.

And so they could be manipulated by their noses. Or they felt abused when presented by reality. They were embarrassed by the stink of life.

“I hope total reality does not become a trend in the movies,” he mused when he tried to talk to Evelyn that night about the disaster with her students.

His mind began working on how to get the filter back from the government.

“I don’t care about movies. I care about helping my students relive history, to get an honest feel for life in times past so they can better understand the people and therefore the politics of the day and great historical events.” She dashed into the master bathroom and locked the door. The sound of her sobs continued long into the night. Max scratched and whined solicitously at the door at frequent intervals and at last crept into his basket around dawn.

For once Wallace was almost glad that he had not become a household name. Homeland Security did their work. The TC exploded in a scandal of bribes, sex for favors, and classroom ethics. The university chancellor himself granted Wallace tenure. A week later, Wallace accepted the position of Dean of Research and Graduate Studies along with a seat on the newly revised tenure committee.

The next night on the national news, a reporter in the field employed Sensaroma to their coverage of the latest war involving US troops. Amongst the scenes of horror showing the wounded and dying, listening to their screams of pain and the mourning wails of the survivors, came the full array of vile odors. Blood, excrement, vomit, the sweat of fear.

Two hours later the most popular television series, a forensics drama, brought the reality of violent death and detection into everyone’s living rooms. The actors investigated the death of a homeless man dead three days, his corpse ravaged by desert scavengers and insects.

Six minutes into the script, the network went black for nearly two minutes. When they came back on they played a repeat of an innocuous sitcom filmed long before Sensaroma became a part of everyday life. Wallace called the government. “Want a major lawsuit on your hands from every television and movie studio in the country?” he asked, using a flippant tone to mask his own panic. Much grumbling and mumbling on the other end.

“Then release the lock on my patent for a filter. Now.” He didn’t tell the Pentagon he’d already bought a factory and manufactured the thing and warehoused a million units with another million in production.

“No one wants to live through their noses,” Wallace explained patiently to the Joint Chief of Staff. “All they want is sanitized niceness. Niceness doesn’t inform. It masks, it deceives, it betrays our sensibilities. But it still leaves it open to manipulation.”

“Like you are manipulating me,” groaned the JCS.

“No more than you do to the public every day. Niceness makes life comfortable.”

“Comfortable. Reality isn’t comfortable. It never has been.”

“That’s why we need to pretend it is.”

“OK. OK. I’ll have the papers in your hands by noon.”

“Make that ten. I have a world to save from the stink of reality.”

YELLOW SUBMARINE

Rebecca Moesta

Life with a sixteen-year-old is never short on melodrama.

“But Mom,” Andre groaned, rolling his eyes, “you can’t expect me to drive that. It’s positively prehistoric. That’s what moms drive. I’d be laughed out of school.”

“I’ve had that SPig for eight years now. It’s reliable and I haven’t noticed anybody laughing at me,” I said, crossing my arms defensively over my chest.

“Maybe you just haven’t noticed, period.”

“I may be your mother, but that hardly makes me old and senile,” I said, uncrossing my arms. I wiped my sweaty palms on the silvery material of the form-fitting jumpsuit I had worn to work that day. The idea of André actually having his own vehicle filled me with maternal trepidation. “You certainly don’t need anything flashy. You just have to find something to get you to and from school, and to work and back.”

“Maybe you don’t care what you drive anymore, but this is important to me.” André stopped and tried a new approach. “Please? Dad says I’ve earned the right to choose my own. I work hard.” That was true enough. At his habitat-construction job, my son had probably logged more work hours than any other kid at Marianas High. But something inside me still resisted.

I sighed. “That’s the only reason we’re discussing this. Your work schedule makes it impossible for your father and me to ferry you and your sister everywhere you have to go.”

“So you’ll take me shopping for a minisub?” he said.

I glanced up through the clear, domed ceiling of our home, my eyes unconsciously searching the ocean for any sign of Howard’s submarine returning, though I knew he wasn’t due back from his fishing expedition for another day yet. In any case, I knew that my husband wouldn’t thank me for putting off the inevitable.

“All right,” I said, giving in. “But we’ll get something used, not showy, and I’m going to insist on certain safety features. Just give me a minute to change out of my work clothes.”

By the time we reached the dealership on the outskirts of Marianasville, I was much calmer. On our way past the colorful glow of habitat domes, around the kelp fields, and past the fish processing plant, André

and I had discussed the budget and ground rules, and he was grinning with anticipation. I zoomed my faithful SPig right into the center of the lot and parked in the first available space. André had already donned his NEMM—nose-eye-mouth mask—and waited impatiently for me to put my gear on. Since I didn’t want to get my hair wet, I chose a full transparahelm. I popped the lower hatch and allowed André to drop smoothly into the water. I followed a moment later. The hatch closed behind us as we swam toward the first submarine that caught André’s eye, a sports model Nuke Mini, a muscle sub powered by a miniature nuclear generator. The vidsticker on its window proclaimed that it could do zero to a hundred twenty in under ten seconds.

Naturally, I was appalled. The I saw the price. I gasped and quickly had to adjust the flow on my air condenser rebreather unit.

“You can’t fully appreciate its features without a test drive.” The voice came from behind us. We whirled to look at the salesman in his garish plaid wetsuit. He wore a vidbadge that said, WELCOME TO SUBMARINE WORLD. I’M RON.

I activated my helmet mic. “No, thank you. I think it’s out of our range, er . . . Ron.”

‘But Mom, why not take a test drive? It would be fun,’ André said with a reproachful look as if I were trying to suck all of the joy out of his afternoon.

I kept my voice calm and reasonable. I could do this. I was his mother. “There’s no point in driving the ones you can’t afford. Why don’t we try that one?” I pointed toward a compact Waterbug. The salesman’s face fell at this much more sensible choice. The vehicle had once been red, but had now faded to a sort of rusty pink color. “It looks very fuel-efficient, and it’s in our price range.” I tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible. “Can you show it to us?” The vehicle was definitely ugly. Even a SPig would be a step up from it.

“You realize, of course, that the Waterbug is an older trade-in,” Ron replied, forcing a smile. “It can’t compare favorably to the Nuke Mini.”

“My son is buying his first sub,” I told him in no uncertain terms. “He doesn’t need all of the features on the Nuke mini. Once he shows us that he’s responsible—maybe in a couple of years—we can come back to look at a Nuke Mini, and you can help André set up a reasonable payment plan to help him establish a good credit rating.”

“Very well, then,” Ron replied as the smile dissolved from his face and was replaced by a look of resignation. He led the way toward the other sub.

‘Mom,’ André said to me over the private microphone, ‘I need to do this myself. It’s my first time, and you’re doing all the talking. It’s embarrassing.”

“Okay.” I raised my hands in mock surrender. “I’ll keep quiet. But don’t forget this is for transportation, not to impress your friends.”

He nodded as if he had heard the lecture a thousand times before, not just once on our way to the dealership. “I know, and it has to be safe enough to withstand a nuclear blast. I’ve got the whole list of your requirements right up here,” he said, tapping his forehead just above the NEMM rebreather. André was exaggerating for effect, of course. But not by much. Agreeing to let him take the lead from here on out, I made a motion across my mouth as if applying emergency water sealant. Keeping my vow of silence, I watched as Ron of the plaid wetsuit gathered himself to launch into a full-fledged sales speech, even though I could tell he was not impressed by the Waterbug. “This minisub’s a beauty, all right. She’s got low usage, sturdy crash webbing, an economical smooth-spurt engine, dual rudder controls, and not a speck of wasted space.” He gave me a conspiratorial grin, grown-up to grown-up, that was as false as his phosphor-glow hairpiece. ‘Very sensible.”

I didn’t answer. André peered into the vessel through its front viewbubble, then turned toward Ron and gave him an okay-just-try-to-impress-me look, and rattled off a series of questions. For once, apparently, my son had done his homework.

The salesman tried to keep up and had to make frequent reference to the datascreen on his wrist. Long before the man finished explaining the lack of warranty, the almost non-existent cargo capacity, and the inadequate max speed, I could tell André’s mind was made up, so I knew that his final question was just for show. “And where do the passengers sit?”

“Ahh.” Ron tugged at the collar of his garish tartan suit. “In the, ah, the interest of economy and, ah . . .”

His voice trailed of. “Actually, it’s a one-person vehicle.”

André gave me a glance and spread his hands as if that clinched it. “I’m afraid we’ll have to keep looking, then. See, I need to be able to pick up my little sister from her aquaballet lessons. I can’t even take my mom out for a test drive in this thing, much less take care of Reina. At this rate, I might as well get an AquaScoot. It’s cheaper, faster, and even more fuel efficient, plus it has room for a passenger.”

As I said, I’m a mom, and I’m not completely oblivious. André was playing both of us. I knew that one of André’s primary purposes in buying this vehicle was to be able to go out on dates without wearing the protective gear and portable ACRU rebreathers that would be required on a Scoot. It was a clever stroke, of course, to mention that only with an appropriate vehicle would he be able to free up even more of my time by picking up his sister from school and lessons. I knew, of course, he had no intention of purchasing an AquaScoot, but Ron did not. And his dealership did not sell AquaScoots. I saw his face pale by at least two shades of blue-green when he realized that any chance for a commission was about to swim away.

Suddenly Ron’s concern seemed to be all about safety. “An AquaScoot? With no protection from reefs, predators, and submersibles that don’t watch where they’re going? Besides, when you consider all the excess gear you’d need—sonic repellents, ACRU units, helmets—you would hardly save anything at all. And it’s so uncomfortable. Come with me. I think I have just the thing.”

Obviously, the plaid panderer finally understood whom he needed to please and was playing to André

for all he was worth. “Hold on,” Ron said, grabbing onto a loop on one of the continuously cycling transportation cables that crisscrossed the submarine lot. André and I each caught a loop and we were whisked away to the outskirts of the lot, where we all let go of our cables. Ron gestured with a flourish toward a sleek, flashy minisub in neon yellow. “I think that you’ll find this is much more to your liking. It just came in.”

I shuddered to think what the price would be. The slick vehicle was far too new to be within our price range, and maybe just a bit too sexy for my son to own. I was about to suggest that we keep looking when I remembered that I had promised to keep my mouth sealed. I decided to wait.

“Allow me to present the Subatomic,” Ron said, “with twelve independent propulsion jets and eight customizable attitude jets, plus six brake rotors, complete with energy-recapture turbines. She’s had some heavy usage, but for the price, this minisub is a steal. Compact and safety conscious, the Subatomic can carry the driver and three passengers—or the driver, one passenger, and a generous cargo when the rear seats are—”

‘We’ll test drive this one,’ André interrupted.

Ron obligingly cycled open the lower hatch for us, letting André enter first to get into the pilot’s chair. I took shotgun, and Ron, folding himself into the rear seat, then closed the hatch again. While we all took off our masks and fastened our crash webbing, he picked up his spiel where he had left off. I sat back in my seat, which was comfortable—perhaps a bit too comfortable—and André punched the ignition.

“The Subatomic’s TruGyro steering system,” Ron droned on like an annoying commercial, “never loses track of its orientation. It boasts a wired microperiscope that shoots a tiny camera to the top of the water to let you keep track of conditions on the surface, then retracts again at the touch of a button.”

André grabbed the steering gyro with both hands and hit the accelerator, throwing us all back in our seats, which quickly adjusted to support our backs and heads. A nice feature. Without slowing, André

curved the minisub around toward the Test Drive area and plunged us into the Level 5 Hazard Course. A forest of wriggling fake seaweed swallowed us in darkness. I bit my lip, digging my nails into the seat’s armrest. I would have cried out, but a moment later, the minisub’s exterior lights winked on. The floods illuminated the course before us, while my son’s face lit with an equally bright grin of fierce enjoyment. Then, from out of nowhere, the tentacles of a gigantic ‘squid’ reached for us. André pushed the Subatomic into a sideways spin and plaid Ron’s sales speech ended with a squawk. In spite of the quick change of direction, the ride was surprisingly smooth and quiet, and the dynamic crash webbing didn’t cut into my neck as it did when I made sudden maneuvers in my SPig.

Just as I began to calm down again, now that we were out of the squid’s reach, the heads-up display blinked a warning signal. André tapped the brake rotors, tweaked the attitude adjustment jets on the left and lower hulls, and accelerated upward in a smooth curve as a giant coral reef loomed ahead of us. I gulped and closed my eyes, expecting a crash or the screech of coral scraping metal. But the sounds never came. André started quizzing Ron on things like the number of spare universal jets in case one should go out (three), backup ACRU units (two portable NEMMs), and warranty (two years). Not bad for a used vehicle. I opened one eye to see that we were entering the cavern portion of the obstacle course. I quickly shut my eye again. That was when André started his negotiations—both of the cave passages and of the price.

I heard the occasional ping of the warning sensors and felt the almost instantaneous adjustments my son made in speed, orientation, and direction. In the background, André and Ron continued their bargaining while I cringed deeper into the passenger seat. It was amazingly comfortable.

‘You can open your eyes now, Mom,’ André said, and I realized that I had actually started to relax.

“We’re out of the hazard course and almost back to the dealership lot.”

I blinked my eyes open to see that he was right. We were almost back, and André was driving at a safe, respectable pace, observing all of the traffic laws of the sea.

“Did you hear the final price, Mom?’ André said with a note of uncertain hope in his voice.

“No,” I said, bracing myself for sticker shock and already preparing for the unpleasant task of talking my son out of the sub he had so obviously fallen in love with. Ron quoted me the number of credits, which was, as I had suspected, higher than the amount we had budgeted for, but not nearly as high as I had expected. It was, in fact, quite reasonable, considering the sub’s excellent condition, well thought-out safety features, and luxury options. But André was a teenager. He didn’t really need to start out with all those bells and whistles. In fact, it would probably do him good to start with a more humble vehicle. I certainly had.

Just as André was about to start his turn into the sub lot, a plump green SPig came barreling out at us. It shouldn’t have been much of a problem considering that SPigs can do no more than thirty at their top speed, but its teenage driver was distracted. The young man, obviously not paying attention, had turned to speak with someone in the back seat and hadn’t seen us yet.

The path of the other vessel would intersect ours dead on. I drew in a sharp breath and stifled a scream just as the other driver noticed us and began frantically trying to maneuver in another direction. But his ungainly vehicle refused to cooperate. I heard a strangled yelp from Ron in the back. André, meanwhile, seemed completely unfazed as the warning signal began to ping. I slapped my hands over my eyes, but then spread my fingers and watched in terrified fascination.

Tapping the brake rotors, André twirled the gyro steering downward and threw the upper and side attitude adjustment jets on full so that we dove directly beneath the wallowing SPig. Instead of a jarring crash that would likely have disabled both vehicles, all I heard was the tiniest squeak as the SPig’s bulky rudder scratched against our hull for a bare fraction of a second. Once clear of the other minisub, André steered the Subatomic on a slow, gentle curve back into the dealership and parked it at its original slot while I struggled to breathe normally again. This was no time for debate. I knew what I had to do. André had wanted to make the final decision, but he couldn’t afford this choice without me.

“We’ll take it,’ I said. I glanced at André. ‘We’ll split the cost.”

The next day was Friday and, as promised, André swung by to pick up his little sister Reina from aquaballet on his way home from school. Howard and the rest of the submarine fishing fleet were home from their expedition with a large catch, so the four of us—

Howard, Reina, André, and I—had dinner as a family for a change.

André regaled us all with the tale of the previous day’s shopping expedition and test drive, as well as the story of his first day at school with his new minisub.

“You drove a good bargain, son,” Howard said with an admiring chuckle. “Literally. Why don’t we all go out for a spin after supper?”

‘Could, uh, could that wait for tomorrow?” André said, his face growing pink. “I kind of have a date tonight.”

“Who with?” Reina blurted. “Do I know her? Does she go to your school?”

Howard cleared his throat, cutting off the stream of questions. “Don’t stay out too late, son.”

‘I won’t.” André wiped his mouth with a napkin and excused himself from the table. “I promised Mr. Martinez I’d have Etsuko home early.”

I stared at my son in amazement. André was going out without us, on his first date alone. Howard grinned like the proud father he was. I, however, was not quite ready to let go. “Wait. What kind of date? Where are you going?” I asked as he headed for the front floor hatch where the Subatomic was parked.

He turned, grinned at me, and shrugged. “Where else, Mom? To watch the submarine races.”

GOOD GENES

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

When Alden was six weeks old, the doctor called them into his office. Ro didn’t want to go. She had a feeling that something was wrong. None of her friends had ever been called to a doctor’s office, especially when there had been no check-up previously, no tests, nothing that would seem out of the ordinary.

Ro’s husband, Gil, reassured her, but he didn’t sound sincere. He didn’t meet her eyes any more, and his ruddy face looked even more flushed than usual. He too knew that things were wrong. They bundled up the baby, whom Ro privately thought too small to be named after his famous great-grandfather, and went to the scheduled appointment.

The doctor’s office was a different place than the waiting room. Ro had been comfortable with the waiting room. It was designed for pregnant women: large, comfortable chairs with good back support, footstools, and a gas fireplace that was in constant use in the winter. A computer in the corner constantly played information about women’s health and reproductive news, and from any of the tables, waiting patients could easily access sites that pertained to childbirth and childrearing. But the office was around the back of the clinic—actually in a different building altogether—and the waiting area felt like the waiting area of a lawyer or accountant. There was one large window with a spectacular view of the parking lot, and a less spectacular view of the lake across the street and the mountains beyond. The chairs were straight-backed with no armrests, and weren’t wide enough for Alden’s carrier. With some hesitation, Ro put the sleeping baby on the floor. She leaned over and played with his curly black hair. His tiny fists were curled against his sleeper, the soft blue blanket her parents had given him tucked beneath his chin. She had no idea how this beautiful boy with his dark brown eyes, chocolate skin, and delicate features could be ill. He was developing the way he was supposed to, he ate well, although he still did not sleep through the night. Gil paced, and somehow that reassured her: if Gil was nervous, then she had a right to be nervous too. Only she didn’t tell him—couldn’t tell him—one of the sources of her nervousness. She didn’t want to be the mother of a sickly child. She had seen those mothers, with their vaguely frantic air despite their protestations that everything was fine and under control. She had seen the despair in their eyes, the way they clung to their babies as if determination alone could prevent whatever tragedy was ahead. She had clung to Alden that way on the drive over, and had been ashamed of herself. She didn’t even know what the doctor was going to say.

Finally, the androgynous automated voice announced that the doctor was ready to see them. The door to his office swung open, and she grabbed Alden’s carrier, wishing once again that she was in the waiting room at the clinic, where real people called her name and opened the door, and gave her a reassuring smile as they led her into an unfamiliar room.

The doctor’s office smelled faintly of roses. Several tiny hybrids lined a wall just inside. Books—old, dusty, and obviously just for show—lined another wall. The carpet was plush, the desk was messy, and the view here, through the window behind the desk, was of a small fenced-in garden, well tended. She had always known that Dr. Wyatt was a nurturer. It was nice to have that sense confirmed. He looked as if he belonged behind that desk. He wore a brown sweater with a cream-colored turtleneck beneath it, setting off his mahogany skin. His shaved head shone, and the single diamond he wore in his left ear looked even more prominent than usual. As Ro and Gil entered, he stood and took the carrier from them, smiling down at the sleeping baby.

He ran a finger along Alden’s porcelain cheek. “Ironic,” he murmured so softly that Ro knew he was speaking only to the baby. She shuddered, thinking that a confirmation of all she had feared. Then he smiled at her. “Please sit.”

She waited until he placed the carrier on his desk, on the only bare spot left by the piles of paper. The carrier was turned so that they all could see the boy. He hadn’t moved, but his blanket had. His soft breath made a corner of it flutter ever so slightly.

“What’s wrong with him?” Ro asked, unable to wait.

Gil took her hand in his warm, strong one. She could feel tension in both of their fingers as they braced themselves.

“Nothing,” Dr. Wyatt said.

“Nothing?” And in Gil’s surprised growl, she heard the beginnings of anger. She squeezed his hand, warning him to wait.

“That’s what so wonderful,” Dr. Wyatt said, leaning forward. “We did the standard genetic testing on your son.”

Ro remembered. Genetic testing was required in Oregon, in all but a handful of states now, and the results were supposed to be kept private. In fact, parents could opt not to know what dangers lurked in their child’s genes. Ro and Gil had taken a moderate approach: if the problem was going to be incapacitating or life-threatening they wanted to know. Otherwise, they chose to let the information come to Alden on his eighteenth birthday—a Pandora’s box he could chose to open or not, all on his own. Gil had stiffened beside her. She knew what he was thinking: incapacitating or fatal. How could Dr. Wyatt call that nothing?

“And we discovered that Alden is only infant we have seen in this clinic, indeed in this part of the state, who had a perfect set of genes.”

“P-perfect?” Ro repeated. She had been so expecting the other, the bad, the horrible news, that the good news was hard to absorb.

“Perfect. No missing genes, no malfunctioning genes, no hereditary diseases. In fact, he is quite the survivor, with some extra genes that have been determined to fight certain viruses. Unless your son has an accident, he will live a long and healthy life.”

Ro frowned. Perfect.

“We used to think,” Dr. Wyatt was saying, “that perfect human beings could be engineered. What we didn’t know until just recently was that perfect human beings already existed. They could be born into a family like yours.”

Gil cleared his throat, and slipped his fingers from Ro’s. He recovered quicker—or at least his brain did. It always had.

“We signed the waiver,” he said. “We weren’t supposed to find out anything like this about Alden.”

“You signed the waiver, yes,” Dr. Wyatt said, “but did you read it?”

Ro glanced at Gil. She had been in labor when they remembered the consent. He had been the one to handle the business details of Alden’s birth. He shrugged. “I scanned it.”

“Then you might have missed one of the clauses in the middle. It addressed this very issue.”

“What issue?” Ro asked.

Dr. Wyatt smiled at her; then he leaned forward, folding his hands on the desk. She recognized the posture. It was his sincere-explanation posture. Once, another expectant mother had described it to her as his attempt not to patronize his patients.

“We have the capability of growing new organs from various cells. We do a lot of microsurgery, a lot of repair work on the cellular level before we can use some of these organs.” He glanced at Alden, who was still sleeping. “Sometimes we repair genetic defects in the womb. We also do a lot of work with the new techniques, ones that involve injecting new genetic material into old cells, revitalizing them. Some of these procedures are old, some are new, but they all involve the basic building blocks of a human being.”

Ro felt her breath catch. Dr. Wyatt was speaking slowly, giving them a chance to ask questions. Apparently Gil had none. She had a thousand, but didn’t know where to begin asking.

“Private bio-technology companies pay a lot of money to keep cells from people like Alden on file. We have hopes that their perfect DNA will make them useful in all areas of biological and medical sciences. There is already a use for them now.”

“This is about money?” Gil asked.

“It’s about healing,” Dr. Wyatt said. Then he sighed. “There is more.”

“More?” Ro asked.

“If you choose to have more children, any one of these companies will be willing to finance your pregnancies and the first five years of your children’s lives. You have created one genetically perfect child. The chances are you will create another.” His smile was apologetic. “If you don’t want to do that, if you only want one child, then they would pay you quite well for fertilized embryos. In fact, you could do both—”

“Is this a joke?” Gil asked.

“No.” Dr. Wyatt spoke solemnly, reassuringly. “A handful of other couples all over the country have done this already, but cases like this are very rare.”

Alden stirred. His small fist grabbed the fluttering edge of the blue blanket, and he pulled it toward his mouth, uncovering his tiny feet, encased in delicate white socks. Ro grabbed the blanket and pulled it

down, covering him again.

“What does the clinic get out of this?” Gil asked.

Dr. Wyatt shrugged. “A percentage. Small, actually. It amounts to one percent of the total fees paid your family.”

“Plus all the payments for the additional medical care,” Gil said. His anger was becoming plain. His voice was rising.

“What—?” Ro asked, loudly enough to cover him. He shot her a warning look which she ignored. “What does this mean for Alden?”

“Financially?” Dr. Wyatt said. “It means that he’ll—”

“No,” she said. “What will happen to my baby? Are there tests? Will he have to leave us?”

“No,” Dr. Wyatt said. “At his checkups, we’ll take an extra vial of blood, and send it to whichever lab ends up with his case. He won’t notice a thing.”

“Those are his genes, right?” Gil asked. “Do we have to give consent every time they’re used?”

Dr. Wyatt looked at his long, manicured hands. “If you do this,” he said, “Alden’s genes will no longer be his. They will belong to the firm that buys them.”

“Meaning they could do anything they want with his genes?” Ro asked.

“Yes,” Dr. Wyatt said.

“Will he be prevented from using his genes?” Gil asked.

“They have a waiver for reproduction,” Dr. Wyatt said. “But if he wanted to donate sperm or give blood, he would need permission. And he would need their permission if he wanted donate an organ or grow one for a family member who couldn’t for some reason.”

Ro shuddered. Such a decision. She had expected to make one today, but not like this.

“Would they clone him?” she asked.

“Cloning is illegal throughout the world,” Dr. Wyatt said.

“But we’ve heard rumors—”

“No reputable company would clone anyone,” Dr. Wyatt said, “although they might use a section of his DNA as a template for some infant’s flawed DNA.”

“How much would we get paid?” Gil asked.

“For Alden?” Dr. Wyatt shrugged. “The usual bid starts at two million dollars. It can rise from there.”

“And how long would they control his genes?”

Dr. Wyatt’s mouth formed a thin line. “For life,” he said.

They did not have to make a decision right away. All they did was ask Dr. Wyatt to wait before informing any of the companies about Alden. Dr. Wyatt agreed. They were to see him again in two weeks.

During that time, they spoke to everyone they knew. Their friends had split opinions: some felt that Alden’s gift should be used for the greater good; others believed that to give Alden’s DNA away would be to tamper with God’s plan. Their more sophisticated friends worried about the legalities. Their families worried about the restrictions.

Gil hired a lawyer who specialized in medical contracts. The lawyer believed she could negotiate a more favorable document that gave less power to the biotech company and more money to the family. She would take the case on a contingency, agreeing to work for a percentage of the final take. Gil had been satisfied with her, but Ro hadn’t. When they had gone to the lawyer’s office, she hadn’t done more than give Alden a cursory glance. No questions about him, no gentle touches, and when he woke grumpy after a long nap, she requested that he either get quiet or be taken to the daycare center thoughtfully provided by the legal firm.

It was starting to become about money. Two million dollars would pay off all their debts, including their tiny one-story home in a distant suburb. It would pay for Alden’s college, his graduate work, and, if they invested wisely, give him a nest egg, an investment that might help him as he grew older. Ro walked through her tiny house with its unwieldy ’90s kitchen with the island that always got in her

way and the hooks for the cooper pots that no one had anymore, and imagined it updated, with modern appliances. She fed Alden in the living room, always chilly because of its cathedral ceiling, and wished that she could carve the space into two rooms—one of them a playroom for her beautiful son. Gil mentioned in passing, as he always did with things that were important to him, that perhaps they could consider buying a bigger house with a real yard, close to schools and public transportation. They allowed themselves to contemplate a different life.

And through it all, they fed Alden, changed him, played with him, and held him. They carried him from room to room as they dreamed their small dreams. Sometimes he giggled. Often he slept. And sometimes he cried so hard that Ro thought his heart was breaking. During those times, she couldn’t understand what he needed, and she wished, oh how she wished, she could ask him what he wanted. Because their decision would affect him in a thousand ways. It would affect everything about him, from simple acts of charity such as donating blood to large things such as his financial future. Ro did not even think about the added offer, the way that the companies would pay for more children, the way that all of this would affect their lives.

She studied everything she could find, became familiar with genes and DNA and experiment processes. She learned that Alden was one of a select group. Less than point one-one hundredth of all the children born since the human genome project had been finished were categorized as medically perfect. Of that small percentage, only a few were born in the United States each year. There was no information on families who had chosen the options she and Gil had been offered, except short mentions in various papers that people had taken those offers. Nothing about the parents, about how they made the decisions, about how they felt later.

Two nights before she and Gil were to talk again with Dr. Wyatt, she sat in Alden’s room. The room smelled of talcum and baby, and was silent, except for Alden’s even breathing. They had remodeled the walk-in closet beside the master bedroom as the nursery, thinking that later they would give Alden a room farther from theirs. The nursery was small but bright, with a balloon mural on the wall that Gil had painted and matching pillows all over the floor, sewn by her mother. White baby furniture completed the look. They had modern smarthouse equipment in here and in the master bedroom, an expense that Ro had insisted on when she became pregnant. No old-fashioned baby monitors for her. She wanted the very walls to listen to her child, to make sure he was all right every moment of every day.

Still, she sat often in the rocker her grandmother had given her and watched Alden sleep. Ro did her best thinking when Alden slept. She remembered her fear of becoming one of those mothers, with a diseased child, a woman who clung to her baby hoping to give it life.

Alden had life. He had more than life. He had, genetically speaking, a life that would be healthy and full. He was the opposite of those children.

Something in that thought held her. She had come to it over and over again in the last ten days. She was approaching her child because of what he had instead of who he was, and she had always thought that wrong.

Alden was a joyful baby. Everyone said that. And they said how lucky she was. He could have been naturally cranky or energetic or listless. He could have been so many things, but he was not. He was born with a mind and a personality all his own. It was up to her—her and Gil—to help him develop those things.

She stood slowly, then walked to the crib, bent over, and kissed her sleeping child. He stirred slightly, confident in her touch. Knowing it was a light touch, a secure touch, a loving touch. He trusted her, especially now, when he could not do anything for himself. He trusted her to do the best thing for them all.

Dr. Wyatt’s office door was open, and he was waiting for them. He bent over one of his tea roses, his long fingers working a particularly delicate trim. Ro watched him, seeing the gentleness, now knowing that was only a part of him.

Gil held Alden’s carrier. They agreed that Ro would do most of the talking. It had been her idea, after all. Dr. Wyatt smiled when he saw them and took Alden’s carrier as he had done before. They took their places in front of the desk.

“Well?” Dr. Wyatt asked as if he already knew the answer.

“We have decided,” Ro looked at Gil, who nodded at her to continue. “To let Alden make this decision when he turns eighteen. We agree with the waiver we signed. This is not a decision we should make for our child.”

Dr. Wyatt frowned. “It would be better not to wait.”

“Better for whom?” Ro asked. “The companies? Yes, it would. And perhaps for a few patients, too. But we are locking my son into an agreement for life, which is something medieval. We don’t believe in such things, Dr. Wyatt.”

“I’m sure some clauses can be waived. Perhaps you could even get a temporary agreement, something that would be nonbinding on him when he became an adult.”

Ro shook her head. “This is not an emergency, Doctor. We are willing to be contacted on a case-by-case basis in the event of an emergency, when someone actually needs Alden’s help. What we are refusing is a business arrangement. We want our son to be a child first, and a commodity only if he chooses to be.”

“He wouldn’t be a commodity,” Dr. Wyatt said.

She stared at him for a long time. “Maybe not to you,” she said. “But the biotech company who bought his genes wouldn’t know him. To them, he would be something that would enable them to make a profit. To other patients, he would be another tool. To us, he is a person already. And people make their own choices, and their own commitments. We’re sorry, doctor.”

She stood. So did Gil. Finally Dr. Wyatt did as well. He ran a hand along Alden’s small face. “He is a perfect child.”

“No,” Ro said. “He’s not. He’s got good genes. That’s all.”

“That’s plenty,” Dr. Wyatt said. “Promise me you’ll tell him of this opportunity when he’s grown.”

“You will,” Gil said. “Or someone in your clinic will. We will stipulate that. We have an attorney who can draw up a document.”

“It was kind of you,” Ro added, “not to mention the money.”

Dr. Wyatt took Alden’s tiny hand in his own. “You realize how rare and precious he is.”

Ro smiled. “Yes,” she said softly. “We do.”

Copyright © 2007 by Tekno Books and Rebecca Lickiss.

All Rights Reserved.

DAW Book Collectors No. 1426.

DAW Books are distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

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First Printing, December 2007