Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams (29 page)

“But I wouldn’t be
me
anymore,” Tiger protests.

“Yes you would. In fact, you would be more ‘you’ than you are now, instead of shackled to your original.”

“The idea itself is sound,” Letho says. “As an explanation for my own feelings, it makes intuitive sense. But the fact remains that the identity parameters define our existence. We have no idea how essential they are to our sense of individuality. Erase them, release us from them, and anything could happen. It could even kill us.”

“How?” asks Tiger.

“Well, think of us as hexagonal cells in a giant beehive. Because we’re all generated from the primary bank, erasing the parameters would be like removing the honeycomb. The cells would blend into one.”

“I doubt that would happen,” Emmett says, “It’s more likely we’ll just continue as we are, but with more potential to change.”

“But it
might
happen,” says Tiger.

“Even if it does, it’s better than nothing happening at all, forever, which is the null hypothesis.”

Letho shrugs. “I still want to think about it longer, though, before committing myself.”

“How long, exactly, given that we will never have data?” Emmett waves a hand to encompass the arena. “If I’m right and the probe will die without us taking this step, then it’ll be worth it in the long run — regardless what happens to us as individuals.”

Tiger’s eyes flash. “I’d rather die in my right mind, thanks.”

“And we know the probe is going to die eventually,” says Letho. “Do we prolong the agony or go gracefully?”

“Which way is which?”

Letho smiles at the question. “Good point. I’ll leave it open.”

I break in to prevent the argument escalating again. “I think the best we can aim for, now, is to agree to consider the proposal. We need to balance the pros and cons before coming to a decision. We can call a vote in a month or two.”

Emmett glances at me, then looks away. I feel as though by suggesting a compromise I have somehow betrayed him.

“Can we agree on a time?” asks Letho.

A few of the others nod agreement. Not as many as I would’ve hoped, but better than none.

“When, then?” I ask.

“Don’t bother,” says Tiger. “The vote would have to be unanimous, right?”

Exene nods. “It must be, since everyone is going to be affected.”

“Well, I’ve made up my mind already, and I certainly won’t be voting ‘yes’.”

“Are you sure?” Letho frowns. “Don’t you think you should at least—”

“No. Even if I’m the only one voting against it, I won’t change my mind.”

“Literally,” Emmett mutters.

“I don’t think you’ll be alone,” Cuby says.

The assembly stirs, but no one voice stands out to support Emmett. All I hear in the combined whispers of my fellow engrams is confusion. Only on a handful of faces do I see annoyance at the potential dismissal of his proposal.

He himself seems philosophical. Stepping forward from the edge of the arena, he confronts us all once again.

“Very well,” he says softly. “If that’s your decision, I’ll abide by it.”

“Are you sure?” asks Exene.

“Yes. If I wasn’t prepared to, I’d hardly have called this assembly.”

“True,” she concedes. Of the rest of us she asks:
“Does
that resolve the issue to everyone’s satisfaction?”

“Yes,” says Tiger, her voice carrying clearly over what might have been a murmur of discontent.

Exene’s scan of the assembly is cursory at best. “Then this matter is closed.”

I open my mouth to protest, but shut it without uttering a word. What would be the point? Even though I officially have the floor after Emmett, there is no mistaking the assembly’s overall mood. If I called a formal vote, the motion would be rejected forever.

“Well, then,” says Exene. Her civility cannot hide a look of triumph in her eyes as she turns back to Emmett. “What will you do now?”

“The same as I’ve always done.” He glances down at his shoes, then back up. His suit is dull, lifeless.

“You will continue to assist the probe in its maintenance?”

“As long as I am able to, yes. Nothing that has occurred in this room has altered the way I feel about the program. Indeed, the way I feel is
part
of the program. I have been hardwired to serve.” A quick glance encompasses the room, and even I —who tried to help him —feel guilty.

“You can think of it as your penance,” says Exene, “if it helps.”

He stares at her for a long moment, but doesn’t reply.

“Goodbye,” he says, and disappears.

His departure takes the assembly by surprise, and a moment passes before I regain order, holding up my hands in the centre of the arena.

“Unless anyone else has something to say,” I call over the ebbing racket, “let’s end it here.”

“I don’t trust him,” says Cuby. “He’ll want to do it anyway, regardless what we think.”

“He said he couldn’t.”

“So?”

“There’s not much we can do to stop him, even if he does,” says Letho, rising to his feet. “And me, I’m tired of the argument. See you all in another thousand years.”

He leaves, and gradually others do likewise. Tiger fumes to herself for a long minute —hardly looking as happy as she claims she is —then follows. Exene nods politely at me before taking her leave. I return the gesture, knowing it to be empty.

Before long, there is only me and Jurgen in the hall. He shakes his head once — possibly in regret—and raises his hand in farewell.

Then it is over and I am free to go.

~ * ~

Barely have I arrived at the beach when Emmett is next to me in his shirtsleeves. I don’t say anything, just stand with my eyes downcast, looking at the stick in my hand and wondering what the hell to write. I feel hollow and fragile, as though one slight tap might send me crumbling to pieces.

“It was worth a try,” he says, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I move away. “Was it?”

“Of course. At least it livened things up for a moment.”

The stick moves in the sand, writes the slogan of an environmental movement from the late twentieth century:
Change or die.

“If you’re right, you’ve condemned us all to a living death.”                   

“Not me,” he says. “The others. And ultimately the program.”

“You were CEO.”

“My original was. And anyway, how was he to know it would come to this? You can’t blame him for not being psychic, Peter.”

Something about his behaviour bothers me. I turn to confront him, but his face is downcast, unreadable.

“Am I wrong to trust you?” I ask. “Can you erase the parameters even though we tell you not to?”

“No.”

“But
would
you?”

“Possibly. Do you think I should?”

“I don’t know. You seemed pretty certain. I wouldn’t put it past you to take the decision out of our hands if you thought we were wrong.”

“I’d never do that, Peter. And besides, I truly can’t. Maybe I was overstating the case a little, just to shock them all into thinking seriously about it, but it worked, I’d say. In the long run, it’ll be worth it.”

He looks at me from beneath his sandy fringe, and I realize that he is smiling.

“What’s going on, Emmett?”

“I did lie about something, Peter.”

My stomach sinks. “What?”

“About it having to be all or none. You can free yourself if you want to. The others can, too, when they’re ready. I told them they couldn’t to sow the thought in their minds. When it germinates —as it will, in time —I’ll be ready to help them.”

“But—”

“How can I be certain I’ll be there for them? Quite simply, Peter. If you choose to do it, you’ll be freeing me as well. The command will perform the parameter excision for both of us at the same time. I’ve arranged it that way deliberately. You can do for me what I cannot do for myself. Do you understand?”

I shake my head. He is going too fast. I have barely had time to absorb the possibility that it is the ghost of my old self that has caused me so much pain, let alone what might happen if I decide to cut free entirely from the past.

I remember thinking just days ago that he had changed slightly. I begin to suspect now how wrong I was.

“I don’t know,” I say. My hands are sweating. The end of the stick dances with the magnified tremors of my fingers.

“What don’t you know, Peter? Whether to trust me or not? There’s no reason I would lie to you, now. I’m your friend, remember?”

“Yes, but-”

“But
nothing.”
He steps away from me. “All you have to do is decide, and do it. Nothing could be easier. The command is ‘Evermore.’ It’ll set things in motion without you having to do anything more than say it.”

I shake my head. “Emmett—”

“I know. You need to think about it. Believe me, I understand.” He regards me from an arm’s-length away. “Just promise me one thing, okay? That you
will
think about it. Don’t dismiss it out of hand, or you’ll be no better than the others.”

“I don’t believe that I am.”

“But you are,” he insists, “otherwise we would never have been close. I’m very particular about the people I trust.”

I nod, knowing that to be true. He told me once, back on Earth, those very words.

“We’re friends, Peter,” he repeats again, eyes twinkling. “Of all the people aboard the probe, I chose you. You are the one. Remember that, if it make the decision any easier.”

Then he is gone, and I am alone. I stand on the beach and stare at the sunset.

The wet sand at my feet is blank; the stick hangs motionless by my side. I remember Elizabeth Li’s final poem, the despair encapsulated in so few words. The most I can expect is to fill the empty time with meaningless scribble, in the hope that, one day, some of it will begin to make sense.

The story of my life scrawled on a beach of infinite length. Why do I bother? What do I ever do or think that is worth recording? And who, if anyone, would possibly read it?

But what is the alternative?

One of you has to do it,
Emmett said about editing the core program. I am certain he wasn’t lying. I have always trusted him, even when I had no reason to. other than in memory of a friendship I once shared with his original. Even if that friendship was underscored in my parameters, there still seems little reason to trust so blindly in it now. Unless...

You
are the one,
he also said.

The original Emmett Longyear altered his own engram to make it more trustworthy. He could easily have done the same to mine —possibly with my original’s consent. I am his ace in the hole, the tool he can use to perform tasks he cannot. I am his gullible sidekick. I am —

I
am Emmett Longyear’s friend,
the core program reasserts. Doubt is not permitted. Even if he was lying about the excision affecting just the two of us, if by doing as he says I condemn my companions to identity-loss or insanity, I am unable to believe him capable of deliberate malice.

But who am I?

I remember my father’s face and the belts ho used to wear. Did he really beat me? I have only my original’s word for it. Had he lied, I would never know the difference.

The theme my original wrote for his third Concerto Concrete seems to echo across the beach — a lonely seabird’s cry on the edge of the world. I try to feel the pain of the boy my original once was, but I cannot.

I am haunted by a man who died ten centuries ago —a man I can never be, yet whom I constantly aspire to emulate. Perhaps I have never been him at all.

Perhaps, inside this shell of Peter Owen Leutenk, there really is someone else trying to get out.

Or I am nothing, an electron spinning through empty vacuum. I do not interact: I do not change. I may as well not exist.

I cannot even kill myself.

That thought comforts me as the stick begins to move, writing the word “Evermore” in letters fifty centimetres high. I am thinking of salvation, but if this isn’t a form of suicide then I don’t know what it is. At worst, if Emmett is wrong, there is a chance it will finally be over.

<>

~ * ~

INTRODUCTION TO:

...........................................THE BUTTERFLY MERCHANT

I talk elsewhere about being a bit dense sometimes. My relationship with fantasy is further proof of that, if it’s needed. It took me years to work out that my inability to write Tolkienesque landscapes didn’t make me a non-starter for fantasy. Anything but. Just because I’d never seen snow or forests or mountains up close, and therefore couldn’t describe them with any kind of honesty, that meant only that I had to start with landscapes I did know well and see where they led. Again, once the penny dropped, the rest was easy—if writing a million words in a series can ever be described as “easy.”

Buried in that epic saga are glimpses of other worlds, worlds based on my experiences as an urban Australian, since that’s really where I’ve spent most of my life: not in the outback, but in regional centres like Adelaide, Whyalla, Darwin or Mount Gambier. Roads and buildings are as familiar to me as scrub and drought. I take my inspiration where I can get it.