Blood Music (25 page)

“Under siege,” Gogarty said.

“Yes. But we humans are very delicately balanced, chemically. You think the noocytes are trying to keep mortality rates down?”

Gogarty shrugged again and reached for the letter. “I’ve read this thing a thousand times, hoping there would be some clue to that question. Nothing. Not a hint.” He sighed. “I can’t even hazard a guess.”

Paulsen-Fuchs finished his toast “I had a dream last night, rather vivid,” he said. “In that dream, I was asked how many handshakes I was from someone who lived in North America. Is that meaningful, do you suppose?”

“Ignore nothing,” Gogarty said. “That’s my motto.”

“What does the letter say now? You read.”

Gogarty opened the paper and carefully recorded the message. “Pretty much the same,” he said. “Wait-one word added. ‘Big changes soon.’”

They went for a walk in the intermittent sunshine, boots crunching and squeaking in the snow, compressing it to ice. The air was bitterly cold but the wind was slight. “Is there hope that it will all flex back, return to normal?” Paulsen-Fuchs asked.

Gogarty shrugged. “I’d say yes, if all we were dealing with were natural forces. But Bernard’s notes aren’t very encouraging, are they?

“I am ignorant,” Gogarty said suddenly, exhaling a cloud of vapor. “How refreshing to say that. Ignorant. I am as subject to unknown forces as that tree.” He pointed to a bent and gnarled old pine on a bluff above the beach. “It’s a waiting game from here.”

“Then you did not invite me here so that we could seek solutions.”

“No, of course not.” Gogarty experimentally tapped a frozen puddle with his foot. The ice broke, but there was no water beneath. “It just seemed Bernard wanted us here, or at least together.”

“I came here hoping for answers.”

“Sorry.”

“No, that is not strictly true. I came here because I have no place in Germany now. Or anywhere else. I am an executive without a company, without a job. I am free for the first time in years, free to take risks.”

“And your family?”

“Like Bernard, I have shed various families over the years. Do you have a family?”

“Yes,” Gogarty said. “They were in Vermont, last year, visiting my wife’s parents.”

“I am sorry,” Paulsen-Fuchs said.

When they returned to the cabin, consuming more cups of hot coffee and laying a fresh fire in the grate, Bernard’s note read:

Dear Gogarty and Paul

Last message. Patience. How many handshakes an you from someone now gone? One handshake. Nothing is lost. This is the last day.

Bernard

They both read it Gogarty folded it and put it in a drawer for safe-keeping. An hour later, feeling a tingle of premonition, Paulsen-Fuchs opened the drawer to read the letter again.

It was not there.

LONDON

Suzy leaned out of the window and took a deep breath of the cold air. She had never seen anything so beautiful, not even the glow of the East River when she had crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. The burning snow was simple, entrancing, an elegant coda announcing the end of a world gone mad. She was sure of that much. In the nine months she had spent in London, in her small apartment paid for by the American Embassy, she had watched the city come to a shuddering, spasmodic halt. She had hidden away in her apartment, peering out the window, seeing fewer and fewer cars or lorries (such a fun word), more and more people walking, even as the bright snow deepened, and then—

Fewer people walking, more, she supposed, staying inside. An American consular official came to see her once a week. Her name was Laurie (not quite like the trucks) and sometimes she brought Yves, her fiancé, whose name was French but who was an American by birth.

Laurie always came, bringing Suzy her groceries, her children’s books and magazines, bringing news—what there was of it Laurie said the “airwaves” were becoming more and more difficult That meant nobody was getting much use out of their radios. Suzy still had hers, though it hadn’t worked since she dropped it while climbing on to the helicopter. It was cracked and didn’t even hiss but it was one of the only things that was hers.

She pulled back from the window and shut her eyes. It hurt every time she remembered what had happened. The sense of loss, standing in the middle of empty Manhattan, feeling foolish. The helicopter landing a couple of weeks later, and taking her back to the huge aircraft carrier off the coast…

Then they had sailed her across the ocean to England and found her an apartment—a flat—in London, a nice small place where she felt okay most of the time. And Laurie came and brought things Suzy needed.

But she hadn’t come today, and she never came after dark. The snow was very thick and very bright. Pretty.

Strangely, Suzy didn’t feel at all lonely.

She closed the window to shut out the cold air. Then she stood before the long mirror that hung on the inside of her wardrobe door and looked at the bright snowflakes melting and dimming in her hair. That made her smile.

She turned and looked into the dark wardrobe interior. The steam pipes rattled, just like at home. “Hello,” she said to the few clothes in the wardrobe. She pulled out a long dress she had worn to the American Ball six months ago. It was a wonderful emerald green and she looked very good in it.

She hadn’t worn it since, and that was a shame.

She stood by the radiator and took off her robe, then unzipped and unlatched the back and stepped into the dress. Gown, she corrected herself.

Didn’t one get to meet the queen only in a gown? That made sense.

She pulled it up over her shoulders and fitted her breasts into the cups sewn in. Then she zipped it up as high as she could and stood before the wardrobe again, turning back and forth, all but her face, smiling at herself.

She had been very popular at the embassy in the first few months. Everybody liked her. But they had stopped asking her over because the embassy was quite a distance away, and traffic was messier and messier.

Actually, Suzy thought as she looked at the pretty girl in the mirror, she wouldn’t mind dying right now.

It was so beautiful outside. Even the cold was beautiful. The cold felt differently than it used to in New York, and not because it was English cold. Cold everywhere felt differently, she imagined.

If she died, she could go up into the burning snow, higher into the dark clouds, dark as sleep. She could go looking for Mother and Cary and Kenneth and Howard. They probably weren’t in the clouds, but she knew they weren’t dead—

Suzy frowned. If they weren’t dead, then how could she find them by dying? She was so stupid. She hated being stupid. She had always hated it.

And yet—Mother had always told her that she was a wonderful person, and did as well as she could (though there was always better to aspire for). Suzy had grown up liking herself, liking others, and she didn’t really want to become somebody else, or something else just to—

She didn’t want to change just to be better. Though there was always better to aspire for.

It was very confused. Everything was changing. Dying would be changing. If she didn’t mind that, then—

The snow was making a sound outside. She listened at the window and heard a pleasant drone like bees in a field of flowers. A warm sound for a cold sight.

“How strange,” she said. “Yes, how strange, how strange.” She began to sing the words but the song was silly and didn’t say what she was feeling, which was—

Accepting.

Perhaps it wasn’t the snow making the sound, but a wind. She wiped the condensation from the window and went back to the bed to turn out the light so she could see better. If the snow was blowing one way or another, then it was wind making the sound. It didn’t sound like wind.

Accepting, and lonely.

Where was Laurie? Where everybody was. Inside, staring out at the snow, just like her. But Laurie probably had Yves with her. It wasn’t good to be lonely on the—

she unexpectedly sobbed and gulped it back

yes, it was she could feel it

—the last night of the world.

“Whew,” she said, spreading the gown and sitting on one of the table chairs. She wiped her eyes. That had snuck up on her. She was just being crazy. Stupid, as always.

Not afraid, though.

Accepting.

The wardrobe door creaked and she turned to look at it, half expecting to see Narnia behind the clothes. (She had liked the apartment—the flat—right away, because of the wardrobe.)

It was snowing inside the wardrobe. Flecks of light moved over the clothes. She shivered and stood up slowly, straightened out her gown, and one step at a time approached the wardrobe. Confetti light played over the interior, the wood at the back, the clothes, even the hangers.

She pulled the door open wider and looked at herself in the mirror. Behind the glass, she was surrounded by bright bubbles of light, like millions of ginger ale sparkles.

Suzy leaned forward. The face in the mirror was not hers, exactly. She touched her lips, then reached up and met finger tips old, glassy—with the image.

The cold and glassy faded. The finger tips became warm.

Suzy backed away until she came up against the chair.

The image stepped out of the mirror, smiling at her.

Not just herself. Her mother, too. Her grandmother. And maybe great grandmother, and great-great. Mostly Suzy, but them, also. All in one. They smiled at her.

Suzy reached behind to zip the dress higher. The image held her arms open and she was mostly Suzy’s mother and Suzy ran forward and buried her face in her mother’s shoulder, against the green velvety strap of the gown. She didn’t cry.

“Let’s use the wardrobe,” she said, her voice muffled.

The image—more Suzy now—shook her head and took Suzy by the hand. Then Suzy remembered. When the transformed city had gone away, leaving her stranded-after she had refused to go with Cary and everybody else-she had felt twinned.

They had copied her. Xeroxed her.

Taken the copy with them, just in case.

And now they had brought her back to meet the original Suzy. The copy had changed, and changed wonderfully. She was all Suzy, and all her mother, and all the others individually, but together.

The image led Suzy toward the rear wall of the flat, away from the window. They stood up on the bed, smiling at each other.

Ready? the image asked silently.

Suzy looked back over her shoulder at the buzzing snow, then felt the warm, solid grip. How many handshakes from someone in America?

Why, no handshake at all.

“Are we going to be slow, where we’re going?” Suzy asked.

No, the image mouthed, entirely Suzy now. Suzy could see it in her eyes. Cary had been right. They fixed people.

“Good. I’m awful tired of being slow.”

The image held up her hand, and together they ripped away the wallpaper. It was easy. The wall just opened up and the paper just curled away.

There was snow beyond the wall, but not like the snow beyond the window. This snow was for more beautiful.

There must have been a million flakes for everyone alive. Everyone dancing together.

“We’re not going to use the wardrobe?” Suzy asked.

It doesn’t go where we’re going, the image said. Together, they hunkered down, get ready, get set—

And sprang from the bed, through the opening in the wall.

The building trembled, as if somewhere a big door had slammed. In the night, the burning flakes of snow danced their Brownian dance. The black clouds above became transparent, and Suzy saw all directions at once. It was a delightful and scary way to see.

The storm abated just before dawn. The earth was very quiet as the hemisphere of darkness passed away.

The day began fitfully, casting along gray-orange glow on the waveless ocean and still land. Concentric rings of light fled from the dimming sun.

Suzy looked a long ways outward. (She was so tiny, and yet she could see everywhere, see very big things!)

The inner planets cast long shadows through an enveloping haze. The outer planets wavered in their orbits, and then blossomed in kaleidoscopic splendor, extending cold luminous arms to welcome their prodigal moons home.

The Earth, for the space of along, trembling sigh, held together in the maelstrom. When its time came, the cities, towns and villages—the homes and huts and tents—were as empty as shed cocoons.

The Noosphere shook loose its wings. Where the wings touched, the stars themselves danced, celebrated, became burning flakes of snow.

THOUGHT UNIVERSE

Michael Bernard, nineteen and yet not, sat in the Klamshak opposite Olivia. Over their booth hung the weary blowfish and plastic lobster and cork floats, not very original.

She had just told him about the break-up of her engagement.

He looked down at the table, sensing a very different potential between them now. The way had been cleared.

“Good dinner,” Olivia said, folding her hands behind her plate, strewn with oyster shells and shrimp tails. Thank you. I was very glad when you called.”

“I just felt silly,” Bernard said. “I acted like a real ninny last time.”

“No. You were very gallant.”

“Gallant Hm.” He laughed.

“I’m okay, really. It was a shock at first, but…”

“It must have been.”

“You know, when he told me, I just thought of coming back to school and getting on with things. Like breaking an engagement was nothing at all. It only hurt when he left. And then I thought of you.”

“Will you give me another chance?”

Olivia smiled. “Only if you can keep me feeling as good as I do now.”

Nothing is lost. Nothing is forgotten.

It was in the blood, the flesh,

And now it is forever.

My sincere appreciation to Andrew Edward Dizon, Ph.D., John Graves. Ph.D., Dr. Richard Dutton, Monte Wetzel, and Dr. Percy Russel for access to their laboratories and their valuable time and help. For special details, thanks also to Marian McLean at the World Trade Center and Herbert Quelle at the German Consulate in Los Angeles, as well as Ellen Datlow, Melissa Singer, and Andy Porter.

John F. Carr and David Brin suggested that the original short story should become a novel, some years ago. Stanley Schmidt, in his capacity as editor at Analog, suggested I should work out the original idea in more detail and see if it was more than just a fantasy. Beth Meacham expressed editorial enthusiasm for the proposed novel and provided crucial support and encouragement.

While dropping by a San Diego convention on Hybridoma and Scale-Up research, I spotted Vergil I. Ulam’s red Volvo sports car in the hotel parking lot. At this moment he is a young graduate student looking for part-time employment.

GREG BEAR is the author of over twenty-seven books of science fiction and fantasy. He has been awarded two Hugo and five Nebula Awards for his fiction, one of two authors to win a Nebula in every category. He has been called the “best working writer of science fiction” by The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. His novel Darwin’s Radio, published by Ballantine Books, won the Nebula Award for “Best Novel of 2000,” and was honored with the prestigious Endeavor Award. His most recent novel is Vitals, published in January 2002 by Del Rey. He is married to Astrid Anderson Bear. They are the parents of two children, Erik and Alexandra.