Analog Science Fiction And Fact - June 2014 (18 page)

The Slavemakers’ settlement nestled in a bowl of stone held among the high peaks. The settlement seemed to be grown from sponge. Yellow and pink and dayglo green domes clung to the rocks. Enslaved Abraxan animals moved among the sponge buildings, on mysterious errands of their own. There were other animals there that Jennifer had never seen before, brought to Abraxas from beyond the skies. Yellow shovel faced beasts scraped Abraxan slime mold into piles, tall crane like birds stalked back and forth, mist spurting from their nostrils in the cold air.

"Why are we here, again?" asked Jennifer.

"To speak to the Slavemakers," said Randy. "Look." There was movement by one of the sponge domes, a silver ribbon unrolling itself across the rocks toward them, like a tongue coming to meet them. The end of the ribbon uncurled perfectly before their feet. Jennifer stepped onto it without hesitation and walked along it toward a shocking pink sponge.

A grey Slavemaker stood waiting for them in an orifice in the sponge's side. It looked like the president of the world. Tall and distinguished, with dark eyes and a firm smile.

"It looks so human," said Jennifer.

"I heard that a Slavemaker's form is chosen while it's still in the egg." He raised his hand in greeting. He seemed more comfortable now that he was here. He was back in control.

"Good afternoon," he said.

The Slavemaker spoke in a voice that sounded like a soul singer's.

"Good afternoon, Jennifer," it said, in a voice as rich as chocolate. "Good afternoon Randy. Would you like to come inside? There is food and drink."

The Slavemaker looked at Randy.

"If you will stand aside I will command the Zil creature behind you to come inside and die. It will feed you well."

Randy turned and looked at the creature that shambled up behind him. It looked like a pig built of garbage.

Randy was too hungry to say no. Jennifer was too well bred to reveal her disgust.

They sat in a room decorated with human furniture. Only the soft, spongy walls betrayed their alien origins. The Slavemaker sat in a leather chair, one leg crossed over the other. It looked perfectly at ease, the president of the world relaxing after a busy day. They waited while Randy finished his meal. Jennifer sipped golden tea and made small talk.

"You want to take over this world," said Randy.

"We do," said the Slavemaker. "But not right away."

"You're shaping the way that we evolve," said Randy.

"Yes," said the Slavemaker. Randy looked at Jennifer.

"That's not allowed in the terms of the FE," she said.

"More precisely, it was not specifically forbidden," said the Slavemaker.

"Then you don't deny it? You intend to guide human evolution in order to make us more compliant?"

"Not at all. We intend to do nothing."

"Nothing?"

Jennifer understood.

"You don't think it's necessary, do you?"

The Slavemaker nodded.

"You understand, Jennifer." It turned to Randy. "You see, you complain that the Steam Barons sold you to us, but first you sold yourself to the Steam Barons. You are nothing but a race of slaves. Humans like to be told what to do. There are very few who are willing to take responsibility."

"That's not true!" said Randy.

"It pleases you to believe that," said the Slavemaker. "But the Steam Barons knew exactly what the deal was. Stick around for a thousand years, Randy, and you'll see I'm right. By then this planet will be shaped just the way we want it. The humans who don't like it will have left, gone somewhere else. Many will remain here, by choice."

"No," said Randy.

"It's true," said Jennifer. "Not only that, they'll have other people coming here to join them. There will be humans f lying to this planet from across the galaxy. They'll want to be part of this."

"Jennifer! How could you say that?"

Jennifer smiled at Randy.

"Because I know who I am. I'm not some great hero. I'm just someone looking for the best possible life for me and my children."

"Even if your children are fathered by a Slavemaker?"

Randy turned to his host.

"It's true, isn't it? Reynaldo is a Slavemaker."

The grey man inclined his head in agreement.

"You see, Jennifer?" said Randy.

Jennifer looked away.

"You don't care, do you?" said Randy.

Jennifer didn't answer.

"You see, we know humans," said the Slavemaker. "We know all about our subject peoples. That's why we will eventually rule the Universe. Humans only care about their freedom when they're young. Old people don't rebel."

"That's not true," said Randy.

A sound of metal plates clanking. A man walked into the room. His skin was dark metacarbon.

"Hello Daddy," said Jennifer.

"He's not your father," said Randy.

"Not biologically speaking, but he's the man who made me what I am," said Jennifer.

"Only so he could make a profit from you."

"Not just for that reason," said Jennifer's father, kissing her on the cheek. "I love her as well. There's something about a well-made piece of machinery. And Jennifer is the best."

He looked at his daughter.

"I hope you enjoyed your little excursion," he said. "But it's time. Reynaldo arrives tomorrow. We need to get you ready."

"I know," said Jennifer.

Her father looked at Randy.

"There's space in the flier if you'd like a ride back down to the plain."

Jennifer sat with her father as the flier descended.

"You always liked him, didn't you?" said her father.

"Yes," said Jennifer. "But not as much as you might think. I pity him too much. He'll always be too idealistic."

"Hmm," said her father.

Jennifer looked at him.

"We really did sell ourselves to the Slavemakers, didn't we?" she said.

"Do you care?" asked her father.

"Am I a slave now?"

"When someone can change your body, tell you what to do, tell you what to wear, even when you're going to mate, then you're their slave," said her father. "Does that bother you?"

Jennifer looked around the interior of the flier, decorated in white and gold. The floor beneath her feet was dusted in gold. The region of Jennifer had taken hold.

"Does it bother me?" said Jennifer, thoughtfully. "No, I don't suppose it does."

Her father looked out of the window.

"I can see your friend down there. He cares."

"That's good," said Jennifer. "It sort of relieves me of the responsibility. I can sit back and do what I want and hope that other people sort out the mess we're in."

Silence.

"Is that bad of me?" she said.

"It's human," said her father.

It was warm for early September, but Daytona Beach would have been busy even if the Sun wasn't blazing down. Hiram lay on a towel, propped up by his elbows, watching girls walk by. Waves slid up the beach, then slipped back toward the ocean like silent curtains. The half-moon drapes of wet sand left in the aftermath erupted with dimples made by mole crabs as they dug their way toward China.

"Look at 'em, man," Taylor said, burping as he threw another can of beer into the trash at the trunk of the car. Taylor was a junior at USF, majoring in something that would almost certainly lead to a life selling insurance. They were together with a group of guys—all friends from back at McKinley North high school, each enjoying a last blow-out before retreating to the hallowed halls of their chosen facilities of higher education, none of which would be populated with women in bikinis.

This was not what Hiram would have chosen to be doing. He had picked this host, however, and had learned long ago that making a host avoid things it would normally do was a bad idea.

"Them bugs always make me laugh," Taylor said.

"Not
always,"
Hiram replied. He hated absolutes. "For example, you're not laughing now."

"You know what I mean."

"Yes," Hiram said. "I know what you mean."

What Taylor meant—according to Hiram— was that he, Taylor, was too damned stupid to see that the crabs were just doing what they were supposed to do, that they were a species whose entire universe was contained in the top hundred centimeters or so of the crust of the earth, and whose existence relied completely upon the unrelenting waves and the constantly shifting tides to keep them in places where the water broke and helped them collect the plankton that fed them. What Taylor meant was that he was too damned stupid to notice a life-and-death struggle even when it was happening right before his eyes.

It wasn't Taylor's fault. He was a human being. Their lives are too short, their connections too slight. They did not feel things as deeply or instinctively as Hiram could.

It wasn't fair, though. Why do these humans live, while his people pass into the realm of galactic history?

Using his hand as a visor, Hiram peered over the late afternoon wash to where the constellation Taurus would soon appear if it weren't still daylight.

"You wanna go to The Drop tonight," Taylor said, fishing another can from the cooler. "Those girls said they're gonna be there."

Hiram sipped his own beer, feeling an all-consuming sense of resignation at just how deep the need to procreate is in any species.

"Sure," he said. "The Drop sounds fine."

He had left his home star some eight thousand years ago, traveling in a stasis cocoon designed to give him comfort. It had not been bad, not really. The field worked for the most part, and he woke only three times for barely a year or two each.

He was also lucky that the first time his field broke, his home star had not yet been destroyed, so he was able to enjoy the ultrahigh frequency of the Pentali music they piped to him. He also received a steady stream of news-feeds that told him of the final preparations his people were making for their star to go nova. It made him weep to know that everyone he left behind was going to be gone soon, but he could not deny that listening to the feed also gave him a sense of pride larger than his body could contain. His were a noble people. They faced extinction with such beautiful dignity.

He, along with thousands of other chosen survivors, was their hope. They had been feted, and worshiped. Their memories had been loaded with every element of information about their culture and their history that could be stuffed into them. The survivors would carry the genetic content of their species wherever they went.

They were all his people had left.

So, with the stasis pod working mostly as designed, and flying at near the speed of light, the seven-thousand-year flight—give or take a few—was easy. Then his cocoon's analytical programs deemed the third planet of this remote solar system to be inhabited, and its piloting routines guided him through the atmosphere, providing him a fiery entry made in a golden blaze one evening late in a month the indigenous people called August. It took him some time to dig out, but when he did he quickly gathered his first host, a young man named Kanji who had come to investigate the fire in the sky. Kanji was a thin, wiry man who had worked in rice paddies his entire life.

It was through Kanji's eyes that the traveler got his first view of the nebula that had once been his home—a bright spot, visible even in daylight, that would eventually become known to human beings nearly eight hundred years later as the Crab Nebula.

Something had gone wrong, though. There were supposed to be more of him on this planet, but he had searched for a thousand years across hundreds of hosts and found nothing. No signs of other survivors, no signs of other crashes. So over the years, Hiram had come to the staggeringly heavy conclusion that he was the only traveler who had landed on this planet that humans called Earth.

Until now.

Hiram was so shocked he nearly dropped his beer mug.

She was on the dance floor all by herself, moving to the beat of a Maroon 5 song that was, thank the human Gods, most definitely not that thing about Jagger. Her dark hair was cut short, or he might have missed the telltale red dot at the nape of her neck even though the strobe lights pulsed at a marvelous quarter-second interval that helped him see it glow slightly. She wore a pair of white jeans and a striped top that, when she raised her arms over her head, lifted to bare her naval.

The red dot was mesmerizing.

It was a twin to the one at the base of his own neck. It was a scar left when they took a host—the place where they entered the body and then drilled upward into the host's brain. For an instant he wondered if he had taken this girl as a host
earlier
—if the dot was one of his own making. But that couldn't be right. She was young, like Hiram's current host. He would not have forgotten something so recent.

He ran his palms down his pant legs. Was it possible? Seven thousand years in a cocoon, and a thousand scouring the planet, and he had never found another survivor. But he felt her. He sensed her presence with something humans might consider smell, but was really more of a warmth, or a tingle against the membranes of his host's nostrils. The red dot spoke to him, and the girl danced amid sound waves that rolled over him like a hot shower.

Yes. It was possible.

Taylor noticed his double-take and screamed into his ear as he put his hand on the small of Hiram's back. "She wants you, man! Get'er done!" Then he launched Hiram out of his seat.

He nearly crashed into the girl, but she had her eyes closed and didn't seem to notice.

He took a step back.

The girl turned in place, arms stretching up to the sky.

He wanted to reach out and touch that red dot. He wanted to feel the scar to make sure it wasn't just a tattoo or a birthmark.

"Are you gonna stare or are you gonna dance?" the girl yelled. She had consumed considerable quantities of alcohol.

Hiram was no dancer to begin with, and had only been in this host for a few weeks. So he just kind of bounced on his feet. The heat of the kids on the floor made him sweat. Another song replaced Maroon 5—a mash-up this time, Pink, D-Jive, and MoTzart KZ.