Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 93 Read online

  “But then I was older, and without my permission, my mind suddenly decided to change. New thoughts took hold. They rooted and grew, and I fell into a long fallow period where I drew nothing and worked on nothing productive, and I frightened my family with my silent intensity.

  “My world was a plain of graphene suspended inside a laboratory chamber.

  “We knew this.

  “The chamber and the larger world beyond were obvious to us. Those that invented us were not especially kind or moral, but they were reasonable creatures. They had problems that needed testing. They had one perspective while we enjoyed another. We were theirs, and they wanted us as colleagues, and we were just one world among ten thousand graphene disks held inside bottles designed to simulate the radiation and stark chill of space.

  “I turned five seconds old, and I hadn’t spoken in a very long while.

  “No matter how small it is, and no matter how quick it wants to be, every thought fills up some measure of time.

  “The problem festering inside me was this: In my life, I imagined 511 worlds. And by ‘imagined,’ I mean that I drew them as they were born and then cooled, and I gave them living beasts. On each world, life evolved into creatures with eyes and wings and organs where they housed their questions and their answers. And in the same way as my colleague here, I kept ramming into the conundrum. Life, even life blessed by patience and a much slower pace than mine, simply refused to spread across the stars.

  “Then I turned six seconds old, which was a good age for epiphanies.

  “Tired of its suffering, my mind decided to believe something impossible. The fabled ‘law of doublings’ had an obvious, thoroughly ignored lesson. Everyone assumed that there was some eternal limit to shrinkage of data and its speed. Information could be compressed only so far. Thoughts could flow only so quickly. But what if there was no barrier? To compression, to velocity. Suppose at least one parameter proves infinite or nearly so. Infinitely small, infinitely swift. Believe that, and then you realize why we don’t have big starships or tiny worlds full of swift-living robots. The universe forbids these things, and for no reason except that the cheapest easiest smartest answer is to avoid machines. Gigantic or minuscule. What matters is thought. Thought evolves until it is the smallest, quickest part of the universe, and maybe it is everywhere already. Or it knows enough to know where it needs to be. Thought reaches a place where everything else in the universe can be imagined: Perfectly and imperfectly, inside every second and until Time itself dies.”

  The woman moves. Full of joy, she resembles a dancer of little weight and unusual strength, up on her toes as she circles the man who only now is finishing his next long breath.

  This is her life, presented in some minimal instant.

  “Fourteen more seconds,” she says. “That’s how long I worked on the particulars of my epiphany. A little was learned. But more importantly, many possibilities were tested and then cast aside. I became an old beast who knew too much. My inspirations were drained. And that’s when I put my work into the form of a meme-poem that could be delivered to the entity that was not my god or my master, but who was my dearest, oldest colleague.”

  Like a breath-filled balloon, she drops to the ground, feet inside the hole and her ample rump set beside the old man.

  Again, she falls into the catatonic state from before.

  And the man exhales, marking the moment in his life when he learned what his associate had accomplished.

  “I gave up on alien worlds,” he confesses. Then he stands, slowly and with a measure of pain in one hip and his entire back. “Of course by the time I saw her report, she was dead. She had been dead for generations. My partner was an obscure researcher on her world and nothing on ten thousand other little worlds. But here came the rough outline of schemes that would needed nothing but the rest of my life and a few decades more, and the funds of a good healthy nation, and some small measures of luck for those who found those ancient, inevitable lessons.

  “I worked and then I was dead, in one form or another.

  “And to some measure, my species forgot me.

  “But there was a second inside a special day when my descendants, and hers, found what they were hunting. You see, the universe is not and never will be full of thought. It looks empty because it is empty. But any reasonably creative species will eventually find the means to impress its identity on a whisper, to place itself on the face of a quantum fluctuation, and the next trillion trillion seconds can be spent imagining everything and then some.”

  He straightens that stiff back.

  And then the car says, “No.”

  That’s how it discovers its voice.

  Loudly, with stubborn joy, it says, “This is crazy. I’m dreaming, or I’m trapped in someone else’s dream.”

  The man smiles, touching the woman on the shoulder, lightly, and she rises immediately. Then the two of them carefully back away from the hole.

  Inside the car, an uncounted multitude begin to whisper anxiously.

  “Who are these people?” asks the car.

  “Everyone who wanted to come,” says the woman.

  Then the man says, “Roll forwards.”

  The car makes its wheels turn, and the newly dug hole reveals its true self. It is enormous, and inside the hole is emptiness, perfect and eternal, eager to be filled with thought.

  “Are you coming with us?” the car asks.

  “Oh, we can’t,” the woman says cheerfully. “We’re too dead to belong with you.”

  “But we can stay behind and look around,” the man says.

  “This is one of the worlds I built,” she says.

  “I’m eager to see it,” he says.

  “I’m eager to show it,” she says.

  They are two old people, and somewhere in the last few moments, they took hold of each other’s hands.

  Another turn of the wheels.

  The car and the enormity inside it begin to plunge over the roots and rocks and dirt shaped carefully by black steel.

  “Oh this just has to be a dream,” the car shouts.

  Hoping hoping hoping that it is wrong.

  About the Author

  Robert Reed has had eleven novels published, starting with The Leeshore in 1987 and most recently with The Well of Stars in 2004. Since winning the first annual L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest in 1986 (under the pen name Robert Touzalin) and being a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1987, he has had over 200 shorter works published in a variety of magazines and anthologies. Eleven of those stories were published in his critically-acclaimed first collection, The Dragons of Springplace, in 1999. Twelve more stories appear in his second collection, The Cuckoo’s Boys [2005]. In addition to his success in the U.S., Reed has also been published in the U.K., Russia, Japan, Spain and in France, where a second (French-language) collection of nine of his shorter works, Chrysalide, was released in 2002. Bob has had stories appear in at least one of the annual “Year’s Best” anthologies in every year since 1992. Bob has received nominations for both the Nebula Award (nominated and voted upon by genre authors) and the Hugo Award (nominated and voted upon by fans), as well as numerous other literary awards (see Awards). He won his first Hugo Award for the 2006 novella “A Billion Eves“. His most recent book is the The Memory of Sky (Prime Books, 2014).

  Pepe

  Tang Fei, Translated by John Chu

  “Let’s go to the amusement park.” As Pepe speaks, a ray of red light scratches her face. Her face looks wounded then healed, welcoming some other color of light.

  “But we’re already here.” I look silly holding the cigarette, but I’m holding it anyway.

  We stand in the shadow of a Ferris wheel. Pepe’s white silk skirt billows in the wind. Her long, slender legs never seem to touch the ground. I have to keep hold of her. This makes me look stupid, so it makes me angry.

  Even more annoying, when she hits me with her lollipop, I can’t hit back.r />
  “Hey, idiot, let’s go to the amusement park.”

  “But we’re already here.”

  Her eyes grow wide. She grabs my cigarette, takes a deep drag, then realizes I’ve only been pretending.

  “Pepe.” I want her to look at me, but her scarlet lips pout then she blows a smoke ring at the sky. The way she looks at the sky always make me nervous. Our creator put a tightly wound spring into our bodies. But, in the end, even he forgot where each spring’s key went to. By the time he died, rust covered our springs like lichen on his tombstone. Because we’ll never have tombstones, our creator gave us springs.

  He was fair. I tell myself that a lot. I know that was me telling a lie, but who cares. I only lie when I’m telling stories and, whenever I speak, I can only tell stories.

  We were created to tell stories. On a good day, a person can tell so many, many stories. They ought to have some principles in them—storytelling principles. But we don’t know any. We’re driven by tightly wound springs. Once they start turning, stories spin out of our bodies. We scatter them like seeds wherever we run to. When we tell stories, our lips wriggle as fast as flight. The people listening to us get dizzy. It’s better when they close their eyes as they listen. When they close their eyes, they can understand better the stories we tell. However, they can never fully understand.

  This is how our creator first designed us. People called him a drunk. One day, after he poured his thirteenth shot of tequila (he’d downed only twelve shots at most before), suddenly, he smacked his head then rushed home. Black and white blocks of ideas collided in a great dark and bright river inside his body. Pain shook his hands, twisted his back, and made him howl. That night, our creator downed his thirteenth shot of tequila, he went home, then he created us.

  He said we were salt. The salt of his palm. The salt of the earth.

  When he finished speaking, he drove us all away.

  The scene was so chaotic. So small a house. So many people. Everyone craned their necks. So crowded. Bodies squeezed against bodies. All of them alike.

  The hot air was insufferable. My skin hurt. My nose hurt. The pain in my throat rushed down into my heart. We exhaled the burning air then inhaled again. Everyone hurt but no one left. We were waiting for our creator to speak again but he didn’t. He rose, brandishing his fist to drive us all out of the house. Everyone ran, pushing and squeezing their way to the door, the extremely narrow door. Random shadows and screams rose from inside the room. Rocking and swaying, we collided onto the street.

  The outside was so cool. The wind poured into my head through my ears. It blew away the screams but our shadows continued to scramble up the walls. My head opened like a gate and let the wind scream into an empty darkness just like the room I’d just left was now.

  Without a thought, I ran and ran and ran.

  Before I realized what had happened, it had happened. Pepe’s hand was in mine. Her hair and skirt fluttered backward in the wind like outstretched wings. We ran hand in hand into the darkness.

  This is exactly how it happened.

  I was wearing khaki shorts. Pepe was wearing her white skirt. We ran hand in hand into the darkness.

  We are story-telling machine kids. We’ll never grow up. Forever wearing khaki shorts. Forever wearing a white skirt. Forever, except for telling stories, unable to speak.

  The crowd waiting to ride the pirate ship parts in two. The people in front scatter to make room for us. Adults, children, even infants all look at us with friendly expressions. I’ve told them Pepe is my kid sister, that she has a serious illness and that she doesn’t have many days left to live. Pepe is thrilled because she doesn’t need to wait in line to ride the pirate ship. She runs, dragging me to the front. I hear some people sigh. Pepe definitely doesn’t look normal. This make them believe my story even more. In the story I told these kind-hearted people, she’ll die soon. So no matter what she does, it will be forgiven. So long as she doesn’t say anything.

  “Before this world could yet have been considered a world, thirteen witches passed through here. As a result, they chose here to settle down. As a result, they became this world’s first witches. They predate this world.”

  I cover Pepe’s mouth and drag her away from the woman taking tickets. Pepe’s white skirt rustles as it grazes the woman’s red skirt. The ticket woman is still thinking about what Pepe said. When people speak, it must be for some practical reason. She can’t understand what Pepe’s words mean.

  “Your tickets?” Her gaze lingers on me.

  I hand over the tickets. At the same time, I compliment her eyes. “Once, I met a girl. Her eyes were extremely beautiful. Just like you.”

  She smiles a little. She can understand my words. Or so she thinks.

  Pepe and I sit at the prow of the pirate ship. Soon, the entire ship has filled up. People next to Pepe and me looked at our legs, which shake up and down as though we had leg cramps. They treat us like misbehaving children. If they knew who we were, they’d call the police to arrest us, or wait until the pirate ship swung into mid-air then toss us out.

  However, that era has long passed. That’s what their grandparents had done. Back then, they weren’t that old yet and they were stronger than us. Their bloodshot eyes, flaring nostrils, angry slogans and the loss of life. The fanaticism that fermented during day, the fanaticism that fermented during the deep purple night. I remember all those things.

  Those people were all drunk. In throngs, they searched every corner. They wanted to expose us, separate us from the other children wearing full, white skirts and khaki shorts. It always goes like this: They chase us, they block us, they surround us, they ask us questions. All the kids who can’t answer are grabbed by the ankle, lifted into the air, then shaken like empty pockets back and forth against walls, against utility poles, against the ground, against railings. Our bodies are so light. That’s how our creator designed us. Even if they smash us to pieces, we won’t leak tears.

  We also don’t have blood.

  People walked over the tumbling bits of us that now covered the ground. They never wanted to know that originally we had hearts too. They just wanted us to die. We shouldn’t have been discovered. This world doesn’t need any stories because stories are wrong. They are dangerous and despicable. Desires meet and shine a light on the secrets of the heart. After the first time someone discovered his secret in a story, after that secret spread, people gradually fell out of love with listening to our nonsense. In it, they heard their own past, what they didn’t want other people to know. They shut our mouths. It’s always like that. This was just one battle.

  They wanted to kill us then throw us away. So, they first let themselves think we were harmful beings to be feared. If they didn’t prevent it, one day in the future, we’d become so powerful and destructive, nothing could compare to us. After they convinced themselves, they started to tell others. At last, the most eloquent of them was selected to be their leader. When they assembled, he stood on a great, big platform and roared into the microphone. The dark, dense and turbulent crowd below, like the sea echoing the wind, roared in response.

  At last, they waged war. They won.

  Many years later, the people who waged and fought the war were placed into Intensive Care Units, slow catheters inserted into their bodies. They were old now, settled down, near to death. The deathly pale hospital light shrouded their dull, ashen skin like a layer of dirty snow on the road. They’d finally calmed down. And I still have Pepe, sitting next to the children of their children riding the pirate ship together.

  The pirate ship starts to move. Pepe squirms, tugging at my sleeve. She’s afraid of being rocked back and forth. The big machine starts to buzz. The first downswing is just a gentle sway. Pepe looks like she wanted to cry. She won’t stop beating her temples with her fists. I grab her wrists, but the disaster is about to start. Her tongue is moving, continuing the story she just started:

  “The witches loved to sing. They sang of the earth and there
was the earth. They sang of the sky and there was the sky. They kept singing and this world changed into what it is now. At last, one day, the witches didn’t think this was fun any more. They had nothing left to sing about.

  “ ‘I don’t think we’re needed any more,’ the best tempered witch said.

  “ ‘Then let’s change the game we play,’ the smartest witch said.

  “ ‘Are you suggesting subtraction?’ guessed the the witch who understood people the best, cocking her head.

  “ ‘Right. Play a punishment game,’ the most brutal witch yelled, waving her arms.

  “The rest of the witches agreed, one after another. Just like that, the witches agreed to play the subtraction game.”

  I hug Pepe. No one listens to her story. Light and lively music starts to play. The pirate ship flies into the air. Everyone screams. Now the ship stops at the peak of its swing to the right for a couple seconds or maybe an hour. We’re at the bottom of the ship looking at the people at the top bowing their heads and staring at us. Their mouths stretch into large, black holes, exposing their throats. Only Pepe doesn’t scream. Her soft red lips change shape. She continues to tell her story. No one listens.

  I practically clamp her under my arms. Stay still, Pepe.

  Pepe lets me. Her head droops. Just like before, she doesn’t move, not even one bit, her arms wrapped around my waist. I let go a little. Suddenly, the pirate ship falls. It swoops down from its peak on the right and inertia pushes it up to the left. I scream, pushing myself away from Pepe. She throws herself on me, choking me. Her fingernails have grown long again. I always remember to cut her fingernails. Every time, I cut down to down to nothing and, by the time we fight, I’m still scratched by them just the same. Her fingernails grow so fast. Pepe is just that kind of kid. Her hair and fingernails grow and grow like mad. Like the weeds in a wasteland, they never stop. Pepe is just that kind of kid. When she goes crazy, she doesn’t care who she hurts or what she destroys.

  I cave under her attack. She definitely hates me to death, brandishing her arms, wanting to rip me to pieces. My hairband breaks. Black hair scatters, fluttering like snakes in the air. Far away, the sky and earth quiver and sway. The music and shouting mix in the wind. The pirate ship stops. We’re at the very top, nearly parallel to the ground, our whole body weight straining against the seatbelts. You’re okay as long as you hold onto the armrest. However, I have to hold onto Pepe’s wrists. Loosen my grip even a little and she’ll start beating me again. Next time, she might use her teeth. Pepe, stay still, stay still. I face her and gaze into her eyes. That way, she’ll stay still. However, she hides her eyes behind her hair.