The Transmigration of Souls (50 page)

“Times change and we are changed within them. What changes, I suppose, is mainly our perspective on the past.”

And then, a long, low, soft whisper of sound, a distant scraping, of metal on metal, and Ling laughed, laugh tinged with dread, a familiar whistling-past-the-graveyard sort of laugh. “That sound. I keep expecting a TARDIS to materialize.”

No time to wonder what the Hell the idiot was referring to, spiral of metallic glitter twisting downward out of black nothing, floating above them in the empty sky.

Softly, Ling said, “And which one are you?”

To which Kincaid added, only in her head, Or who...

The same whispered voice.
Transition manager
.

Well, even if you didn’t know the which of it, straight from the Scavengers’ Toolbox, the name was sufficiently evocative. She whispered, “Toolbox calls to the transition manager evoke inter-gate connectivity. This is, supposedly, how the Colonials set up their node network in the first place...”

Ling whispered, “Oh.”

And the voice whispered,
Not quite true. The node network was here before there was anyone to use it, in the very limited sense that there
was
a before in which it existed. Even God’s thoughts need channels in which to flow
.

God again. Always the suggestion of God. Merely a bogeyman to frighten us? Why would God want us to be afraid?

Down in the middle of the Dish, Amaterasu and Genda were visibly cowering, obviously afraid. They know, somehow, that it’s their turn, just as I, a glance at Ling, just as we know it’s not our turn. I didn’t put anything like fear into my robot girl. Roddie wasn’t a sadist, just oblivious to the pain of others. I made him a little whore who didn’t mind being hurt, that’s all...

Sudden memory, back on Faux-Barsoom, of Robot Amaterasu talking about being left in her box, alone, for age on endless age. All right. So all I did was make her hide the pain. Behind the mask, the agony was there all along. Maybe the fear as well. Fear that, now, she’ll be left alone, once again, left alone to face all those empty gray years, years that threaten never to end... Poor Amaterasu. I’m sorry, daughter. But
sorry
is never enough.

Time to go home
, said the voice.
Time to live
.

A sparkle of light in the black sky, sparkle of light from far, far above. Stack-element suddenly falling on them, faster than the speed of light, growing huge in quicktime, vast, swelling like the fireball of a nuclear explosion until it filled the entire universe.

Universe with a starry sky.

The starry sky of home.

And a moment of dread within Kincaid: Oh, God! Take us with you! Followed by a distant wondering: Is that what I want, after all, merely to go with them, for this empty quest to go on and on?

A bright glitter, glitter of blue light against that starry sky, something moving... Disk swelling in a slower quicktime, visibly decelerating, flying saucer floating in front of them, rotation a soft background whine.
Baka-no-Koto
.

They stood, hand in hand, superimposed against the ship, watching. A door opened in the hull, impossibly motionless against its spinning backdrop; a ramp extruded like some silver metal tongue, slid down until it touched the soft white surface of the Dish.

Lord Genda Hiroshige looked up at the double helix, and said, “Where are we going?”

Back into the Multiverse
.

His shoulders seemed to slump. “So it just goes on? Am I never to find God? Never to go... home again?”

No one meets God
.

“Because there is no God? Who runs all this then? You?”

No. Not I
.

“So I continue my search. Not knowing...”

The voice seemed amused.
It’s a version of your own skein, Lord Genda, a very similar thread indeed. But this one has no gates
.

He shouted: “Then what’s the
point
!” More softly, defeated, “Then what the Hell is the point?”

Why does there have to be a point to your life
?

Lord Genda, holding hands with his Amaterasu, speechless.

Kincaid thought, I know why. Because, when we are children, they tell us it must be so. Otherwise, why grow up at all, why grow up to work and fight and worry and wonder? If there’s no point to it all, why bother?

The voice said,
Go home, Lord Genda Hiroshige
.

He took a step toward the ramp, took a step and stopped, looking at Amaterasu. Amaterasu uninvited, standing still under the starry sky.

And you as well, Robot Amaterasu
.

Something odd in her voice when she spoke: “Will... will I become a machine again?”

If that’s what you want
.

Astonishment on Genda’s face. Possibly horror.

Amaterasu took him by both wrists, looking into his face, beseeching, begging him to understand, perhaps. She said, “I do.”

Genda, stammering: “But...
why
?”

She smiled. Smiled and said, “Because I was happy.”

No understanding. Only bewilderment on his face.

What is he thinking? Kincaid thought, Does he wonder why she wants to be happy, when she can be
real
? She was real when I made her. She remembers that. Maybe that’s what kept her whole and functional, while she waited in her box for him to come.

Prince Charming then, fighting through the thorn forest to the side of his sleeping girl, bending to awaken her with a kiss?

They were up the ramp then, already gone, ramp sucked back into the ship, doorway gone, ship sailing away into the starry sky, starry sky receding to a glassy twinkle, then gone.

Ling, softly: “And us?”

Kincaid could feel him reaching out to take her by the hand. His fingers were trembling gently. Afraid? Well. No one wants to meet their fate alone. Not even me.

But the transition manager, silent, only slid upward, twisted away to some other dimension, some other part of this impossible reality, leaving them alone together.

o0o

Ling Erhshan stood watching her, waiting, Astrid Kincaid sitting on the edge of the abyss once again, sprawled almost carelessly. Has she stopped caring about it all? So many disappointments, heaped one upon another. And this, probably the greatest of all. Knowing that soon, some manager will come and take us away, first one, then the other, stick us back into the stream, of life, never knowing... never...

I wonder which one of us will go first?

It made him shiver, imagining himself left here alone for who knew how long... Why should that make me afraid? I’ve been alone, one way or another, all of my life.

Kincaid wasn’t afraid. Kincaid, superwoman, never afraid. Never showing it, at least. Look at her, sitting here now, sitting on the edge of forever, like she was sitting on a clifftop somewhere, somewhere in Fortress America, perhaps, or the still open America of her youth, looking down over field and forest...

A faint smile. Then, of course, she’d have something on. I imagine her as a muscular young woman, a physically fit teenaged girl, perhaps, dressed in hiking shorts and tee shirt, nipples of her unsupported breasts vaguely visible through the material perhaps, white socks reaching up her calves almost to her knees from heavy canvass walking shoes, stick picked up at an odd moment somewhere, held idly in one hand as she dreams...

Naked woman sitting here now, naked breasts carelessly exposed, one knee drawn up, the other sprawled to one side, relaxed. If I move just so, I can see...

Ah. Glistening like a jewel in the universe’s eternal light, like magic, like...

Dry inner voice, whispering ridicule. Listen to you, Ling Erhshan, spouting primitive poetry to yourself, mooning about the fact of a wet hole in a mammalian carcass. As well sing paeans to raw liver...

I wonder, he thought, which god saw fit to make men long to see them thus? The God of Aimless Evolution? Is it only biology that makes us so? Is their no music in our souls?

Kincaid was looking at him now, eyes amused, mouth set half in frown, half in smirk. She said, “I learned a hundred years ago that what my mother said about men’s one-track minds was absolutely true.”

He looked down and beheld himself, had the grace to feel embarrassed. What did I expect her to do, throw herself on me like Subroutine Passiphaë Laing, accommodate me with a will, like Robot Amaterasu?

Well, said the dry voice. She does
know
. She made the robot for a man, after all...

Kincaid said, “Take it easy, Ling. I’m not mad at you.” She patted a spot on the white padding by her side. “Just sit down and wait. They’ll come for us when they’re ready.”

And they sat, alone together, waiting.

o0o

Sitting on the edge of nothingness, one leg dangling out over an emptiness so profound the word abyss was inadequate, the other tucked up, heel pressed against her rear end, knee clutched in the angle of one bent arm, Astrid Kincaid could feel his eyes on her. Not so much that fabled prickling in the back of the neck as a delicate clutching sensation, somewhere near the bottom of her belly. Slightly bitter amusement. We never escape from our origins, do we?

She briefly considered the possibility of sitting more demurely. That’s it, knees pressed together tightly, legs folded up under you, so all he can see is calves and rounded haunch and flat curve of belly, arms folded across breasts, so all he can see is elbows. Almost as good as being dressed? Idiocy. Who was it, put us here naked together? And to what end? Some experiment by God On High, some test, just to see if I’ll give in and fuck him?

Right. Just the sort of test a male god would devise for a woman to fail. Fail no matter what her choice. Fucked him?
Harlot
. Didn’t fuck him?
Castrating bitch
.

Two quick memories passing through.

One of standing in the hallway, just at dawn, Saturday morning perhaps. Maybe ten years old, Roddie not even born yet, no one with whom to watch Cartoons while Mom and Dad lazed away their goof-off time.

Standing in the hallway then, slipperless feet on a cold wooden floor, because her parents liked that “natural” feeling, ear pressed to the door, listening. Mostly just the sound of their bed, a kind of soft crunching sound. An occasional murmur, always her mother’s voice. Crunching sound going on and on, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. Her father’s voice, deeper, not as soft, a grunting noise, once, twice, something not quite human, perhaps. Cessation of other noises, then her mother, murmuring softly for a while.

In a little while they’d come out, father aglow, bustling about, ready for his usual Saturday routine. Mother quiet, withdrawn, tired perhaps.

That other memory, maybe five years later, of being awakened late one night by her father’s voice, raised in anger, words indistinct. Mother saying something back, brittle outrage coming through the wall, little else. Crunching of the bed, a muffled
splat
of some kind. Silence. Then the sound of someone moving about, feet on the floor, first the soft thud of bare feet, then the echo-like
tock
of leather soles on wood. Bedroom door slamming. Front door slamming. Car starting, driving away.

Me, creeping out of my room a little later. Mother sitting in the living room, watching TV, crying. Me, creeping up on the couch beside her, remembering that muffled
splat
from the bedroom, suddenly knowing... Touching her. Are you all right, Mom? Did he... Not wanting to say it, imagining my father, face twisted with animal rage, lashing out at her with his fist.

Looking at her then in the half light. Looking for a telltale bruise. Feeling my anger grow. Mother looking at me, tears in her eyes. Putting her hand on my hair. Oh, Astrid. No. Opening her hand, showing me a bright red palm. No, I hit him. Me, suddenly imagining a scarlet handprint on my father’s cheek.

But... why?

Mother crying again. Because he... just wouldn’t let me be.

Me, old enough to understand what was being implied. Anger growing again.

Mother sighing. I guess... I guess I should have given in. It wouldn’t have taken long. It wouldn’t have hurt anything. Now... what was she imagining? Father sulking alone in some bar, or merely driving his car round and round, slowly cooling off? Will he be home in an hour, full of apologies, or in a motel room somewhere, with some pig who’ll do it for cheap drinks and cab fare?

Image of my father, screwing a whore.

Image of my mother, confiding in a child.

After a while, little Astrid had crept back to bed, still full of anger. And bewildered as well. When you’re fifteen, you think you
know
. But then you look back from thirty or forty-five or sixty and, if you remember, if you truly remember, you laugh.

In the morning, when she got up, the car was in the driveway, her parents’ door closed, though it was a school and work morning, bed crunching softly away, mother’s voice softly murmuring, all of it ending on her father’s little animal grunt.

Ear pressed to the door, she heard her mother say,
There now
.
There now
.

Anger. Anger and frustration. How could she? Anger at her for just giving in. Anger at him for... being that way. Getting dressed, going to school a half hour early so she wouldn’t have to face them, see his obscenely glowing face, her wan, withdrawn exhaustion.

And, of course, Roddie was born the requisite nine months later, helping to keep my anger fresh for a little while longer. They probably chalked up my sullenness to adolescence, or else never gave it a thought. A glance over at Ling, staring down on darkness.

“Well,” he whispered. “I...”

I... I... Kincaid jerked suddenly, pulling in her legs, rolling to her knees, turning. There was a dull gray metal helix rolling in the black sky above them, a lightless, almost-invisible helix, and the thought had not been hers.

Astrid Kincaid
, said the voice.
Time
.