Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (645 page)

“Twelve million in tax, baby, that’s what they think you owe them. What do you think you owe
me
? That’s six million in net income, Manny, six million that isn’t going into your virtual children’s mouths.”

He’s rolling his head from side to side, as if trying to argue. That won’t do: she slaps him hard, thrills to his frightened expression. “Today I watched you give uncounted millions away, Manny. Millions, to a bunch of crusties and a MassPike pirate! You bastard. Do you know what I should do with you?” He’s cringing, unsure whether she’s serious or doing this just to get him turned on. Good.

There’s no point trying to hold a conversation. She leans forward until she can feel his breath in her ear. “Meat and mind, Manny. Meat, and mind. You’re not interested in meat, are you? Just mind. You could be boiled alive before you noticed what was happening in the meatspace around you. Just another lobster in a pot.” She reaches down and tears away the gel pouch, exposing his penis: it’s stiff as a post from the vasodilators, dripping with gel, numb. Straightening up, she eases herself slowly down on it. It doesn’t hurt as much as she expected, and the sensation is utterly different from what she’s used to. She begins to lean forward, grabs hold of his straining arms, feels his thrilling helplessness. She can’t control herself: she almost bites through her lip with the intensity of the sensation. Afterwards, she reaches down and massages him until he begins to spasm, shuddering uncontrollably, emptying the darwinian river of his source code into her, communicating via his only output device.

She rolls off his hips and carefully uses the last of the superglue to gum her labia together. Humans don’t produce seminiferous plugs, and although she’s fertile she wants to be absolutely sure: the glue will last for a day or two. She feels hot and flushed, almost out of control. Boiling to death with febrile expectancy, now she’s nailed him down at last.

When she removes his glasses his eyes are naked and vulnerable, stripped down to the human kernel of his nearly-transcendent mind. “You can come and sign the marriage license tomorrow morning after breakfast,” she whispers in his ear: “otherwise my lawyers will be in touch. Your parents will want a ceremony, but we can arrange that later.”

He looks as if he has something to say, so she finally relents and loosens the gag: kisses him tenderly on one cheek. He swallows, coughs, then looks away. “Why? Why do it this way?”

She taps him on the chest: “property rights.” She pauses for a moment’s thought: there’s a huge ideological chasm to bridge, after all. “You finally convinced me about this agalmic thing of yours, this giving everything away for brownie points. I wasn’t going to lose you to a bunch of lobsters or uploaded kittens, or whatever else is going to inherit this smart matter singularity you’re busy creating. So I decided to take what’s mine first. Who knows? In a few months I’ll give you back a new intelligence, and you can look after it to your heart’s content.”

“But you didn’t need to do it this way—”

“Didn’t I?” She slides off the bed and pulls down her dress. “You give too much away too easily, Manny! Slow down, or there won’t be anything left.” Leaning over the bed she dribbles acetone onto the fingers of his left hand, then unlocks the cuff: puts the bottle conveniently close to hand so he can untangle himself.

“See you tomorrow. Remember, after breakfast.”

She’s in the doorway when he calls: “but you didn’t say
why
!”

“Think of it as spreading your memes around,” she says; blows a kiss at him and closes the door. She bends down and thoughtfully places another cardboard box containing an uploaded kitten right outside it. Then she returns to her suite to make arrangements for the alchemical wedding.

* * * *

Copyright © 2001 by Dell Magazines.

Stories and Authors Listed Alphabetically, with page number in print edition

“2 B R 0 2 B” 694

Abdallah, Ayana R. 892

“Afterwards” 207

Aldiss, Brian W. 514

“All Cats Are Grey” 289

“Allamagoosa” 488

“Almuric” 133

“Alternate Histories” 974

Anderson, Poul 323

“Arena” 251

“Armageddon—2419 A.D.” 186

Asaro, Catherine 892

Asimov, Isaac 228

“At the Conclusion of an Interstellar War” 975

“At the Mountains of Madness” 156

“Bad Day for Sales, A” 421

Baker, Kage 905

“Barnacle Bill the Spacer” 832

Bear, Greg 704

“Bears Discover Fire” 912

Benét, Stephen Vincent 247

Benford, Gregory 710

Bester, Alfred 327

“Bicycle Repairman” 858

Bisson, Terry 912

“Black Destroyer” 305

Blish, James 333

“Blood Music” 704

“Bloodchild” 559

“Born of Man and Woman” 432

Boucher, Anthony 340

Bova, Ben 521

“Bow Shock” 710

Brackett, Leigh 346

Bradley, Marion Zimmer 522

Breuer, Miles J. 110

Brin, David 720

“Bring the Jubilee” 441

Brown, Fredric 251

Brunner, John 546

Budrys, Algis 352

“Buffalo” 780

Bujold, Lois McMaster 726

Burroughs, Edgar Rice 6

Busby, F. M. 554

Butler, Octavia 559

Butler, Samuel 40

“By the Waters of Babylon” 247

Cadigan, Pat 742

Campbell, John W. 116

Čapek, Karel 45

Card, Orson Scott 746

Cherryh, C. J. 752

Chiang, Ted 915

“City of Truth” 790

Clarke, Arthur C. 357

Clement, Hal 361

“Cold Equations, The” 396

“Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps, The” 891

“Country of the Kind, The” 412

Dance Dance Revolution 945

Dann, Jack 566

Davidson, Avram 365

“Day Million” 293

de Camp, L. Sprague 256

“Death and What Comes Next” 818

“Death of a Spaceman” 435

“Defenders, The” 367

Del Rey, Lester 263

Delany, Samuel R. 571

“Demi-Urge, The” 576

Di Filippo, Paul 756

“Diabolical Drug, The” 130

Dick, Philip K. 367

Dickson, Gordon R. 375

Disch, Tom 576

Doctorow, Cory 920

“Dogwalker” 746

“Door Through Space, The” 522

Doyle, Debra 930

Drake, David 758

“Driftglass” 571

“Duel on Syrtis” 323

“Edge of the World” 865

Ellison, Harlan 576

England, George Allan 61

Erewhon 40

“Evil Robot Monkey” 954

Farmer, Philip José 387

“Fast Times at Fairmont High” 681

“Fiddling for Water Buffaloes” 853

“Firefly Tree, The” 322

“First Contact with the Gorgonids, The” 605

“First Contact” 423

“Flashes” 969

“Fondly Fahrenheit” 327

“For I Have Touched the Sky” 819

Foster, Alan Dean 762

Fowler, Karen Joy 932

Frost, Gregory 766

Gallun, Raymond Z. 268

“Game of Rat and Dragon, The” 504

Gardner, James Alan 935

Godwin, Tom 396

“Going Under” 566

“Golden Horn, The” 476

Goldstein, Lisa 773

“Good with Rice” 546

“Gostak and the Doshes, The” 110

“Graveyard of Dreams” 484

“Green Hills of Earth, The” 281

“Griots of the Galaxy” 940

“Grotto of the Dancing Deer” 295

“Gun for Dinosaur, A” 256

Hairston, Andrea 940

“Habit of Waste, A” 948

Haldeman, Joe 583

Hamilton, Edmond 276

“Hand to Hand” 786

“Harbour Whistles” 177

“Hardened Criminals, The” 957

Harris, Clare Winger 130

Heinlein, Robert A. 281

“Hell is the Absence of God” 915

Henderson, Zenna 401

“Her Lips Are Copper Wire” 82

“Her Smoke Rose Up Forever” 666

Herbert, Frank 407

“Hero” 583

Hong, Cathy Park 945

Hopkinson, Nalo 948

Howard, Robert E. 133

“If This Is Winnetka, You Must Be Judy” 554

“Jeffty Is Five” 576

Kelly, James Patrick 776

Kessel, John 780

Knight, Damon 412

Kornbluth, C. M. 415

Kowal, Mary Robinette 954

Kress, Nancy 954

“Lady Margaret, The” 637

Lafferty, R. A. 598

“Last Days of Shandakor, The” 346

Last Man, The 76

Laumer, Keith 602

Lawrence, D. H. 67

Le Guin, Ursula K. 605

Leiber, Fritz 421

Leinster, Murray 423

Lethem, Jonathan 957

“Letter from the Clearys, A” 877

“Lincoln Train, The” 963

“Little Black Bag, The” 415

“Little Faces” 621

“Little Worker” 756

“Lobsters” 975

“Loo Ree” 401

Lovecraft, H. P. 156

Loy, Mina 68

“Lucky Strike, The” 824

“Lunar Baedeker” 68

Macdonald, James D. 930

“Madonna of the Maquiladora” 766

“Man In His Time” 514

“Man Who Awoke, The” 179

Manning, Laurence 179

“Martian Odyssey, A” 314

“Martian Sends A Postcard Home, A” 819

“Martian Way, The” 235

Matheson, Richard 432

McCaffrey, Anne 608

McHugh, Maureen F. 963

McIntyre, Vonda N. 621

“Melancholy Elephants” 645

“Mellonta Tauta” 69

Merril, Judith 433

“Metal Man, The” 319

“Microbe” 850

“Microcosmic God” 299

Miller Jr., Walter M. 435

Moon, Elizabeth 786

Moore, C. L. 283

Moore, Ward 441

Morrow, James 790

“Mountains of Mourning, The” 726

“Muffin Migration, The” 762

Murphy, Pat 809

“My Mother, Dancing” 954

“Neutron Star” 629

“Next Logical Step, The” 521

“Nightfall” 228

“Nightmare for Future Reference” 250

Niven, Larry 629

“No Direction Home” 663

“Noble Mold” 905

Norton, Andre 289

Nowlan, Philip Francis 186

Off on a Comet! 82

“Old Faithful” 268

“Or All the Seas with Oysters” 365

Pangborn, Edgar 476

“Passengers” 660

“Persistence of Vision, The” 670

Piper, H. Beam 484