Lost in Transmission (12 page)

“It's a matter of degree: here, a human being in good condition—and we are all in very good condition—will accumulate fatal lung damage over the course of about ten minutes, or possibly twice that long for certain individuals. For that damage to actually result in death may take another ten or twenty minutes, or longer if the source of further damage is removed.

“And we have the fax machine, don't we? The panacea of panaceas? So in some sense, we can get by with no protective measures at all. Just stay indoors as much as possible, limit exposure to the native air, and print a fresh copy if you feel yourself starting to cough. In a more practical sense, we can design filter masks which simply reject all but the oxygen and CO
₂
and nitrogen our bodies expect. These masks would be passive and would have no consumable portions—no filters to clog, no power source to maintain or replace—so they'd last a good long while, possibly centuries. And they shouldn't need to, because you can fax a fresh one every morning, with your clothing.”

“Well we can't
all,
” Conrad reminded him. There were only six fax machines within the confines of Bubble Hood, and one of them was in Bascal's quarters, and another in Conrad's. Rank came with privileges, you bet. And there was another in the messtaurant, and a fourth in the inventory, one in the emergency center, and one on the exterior of the hull.

Most of Bubble Hood's citizens had spent at least a little bit of time onboard
Newhope,
and had gotten used to the idea that they must bathe every day, or else smell bad. This was mostly unnecessary in the technological ubiquity of the Queendom, where travel through fax plates and collapsiter grids cleaned and scented the body several times each day, but stepping into a shower for a few minutes was not so terribly different from stepping into a fax.

Nor did the people here generally print fresh clothing every day. Instead they gathered it in batches and stored it in their rooms. The dress codes had been relaxed, and while many people continued to wear
Newhope
uniforms (either out of habit or because they liked them, or because they lacked the imagination to dress themselves any differently), many others wore the clothing which for them was still fashionable: children's styles from the Queendom of 150 years before. Some others paid attention to the Queendom news feeds and sensoria, which were only six years out of date, and dressed in those styles instead, but already this had begun to seem like a quaint and vaguely boobish thing to do. Un-Barnardean. So in fact one needed a lot of clothing, and needed to pick it carefully.

Anyway, the point was that most people in Bubble Hood did not have ready access to a fax machine, not without waiting in line, and the same would eventually be true on the surface of P2. In fact, things would be much worse on the surface, because the number of fax machines coming out of storage would double or triple at best, whereas the population, finally unpacked from
Newhope
's memory cores, would increase tenfold. One of Brenda Bohobe's top priorities was therefore to establish a print plate factory, with all the elaborate machinery and supply chains that entailed. But that would be an enterprise of years, and could not even begin until a lot of other stuff had been unpacked.

Bascal chuckled a kingly chuckle. “Point taken. Also, point irrelevant. Who's digressing now? I can have the masks designed for you in a couple of hours. Probably sooner, actually.”

“And how do we know that's sufficient? How will we know they work? That they don't pinch, or leak, or whatever?”

“Oh ye of little faith! We'll have to test them, obviously, and while we could rig a special chamber here on Bubble Hood, we do eventually have to visit the surface. Go make a backup copy of yourself, boyo. I'm issuing my first royal proclamation: that you and I, Ho Ng and Steve Grush, will visit the planet next shift. Have your people prep a reentry vehicle. In fact, have them prep two, and print an extra copy of yourself to bring along. There may be unforeseen hazards, and a bit of redundancy never hurts.”

Conrad processed these words with mingled disappointment and relief. Suddenly, he was not in charge anymore. Bascal was resuming the mantle of leadership, establishing the early facets of civilian government, under which the military chain of command would fit. Fortunately, while Conrad had gotten used to his leadership role, he hadn't sought it, nor ever particularly relished it. His rebellious youth was still pretty fresh; if he stopped to calculate, he was probably thirty chronological years old, maybe even younger than that. Running a planet, or at least an orbiting colony above one, was an interesting experience, and educational, and most of his duties related to that would presumably continue for the foreseeable future. He would simply be answering to his king rather than himself or, via long-distance transmission, to Xmary. And that was a good thing, right?

He forced a smile, and then felt a genuine smile creep up underneath it, propping it up. “As you wish, Your Highness. Visiting the planet, wow. This is one of those historic events, isn't it?”

“Conrad, I wouldn't dream of doing it without you.”

Conrad's Bubble Hood quarters were considerably roomier,
and more nicely appointed, than his quarters onboard
Newhope
. Here he had a bilevel apartment, with not only an exterior view through the hull, looking down on the beiges and browns and disconcerting blues of the planet, but also one looking out over the interior of the bubble itself. Keeping an eye on things, yeah, but more importantly he simply enjoyed the view. When he was finally permitted to quit his position as
Newhope
's first mate in absentia, and as a commander in what would become Barnard's navy, he would probably miss these privileges of rank. But he would hang onto this apartment!

His long-term plans, ever clearer in his mind, were painfully straightforward: he would be the Chief Architect of the Kingdom of Barnard. He probably didn't even need to make that a request, and if he did, it was difficult to imagine that Bascal would refuse him. And maybe that, in the long run, was a better rank, with a whole kingdom of privileges to choose from. It was certainly a pleasant, daydreamy sort of thought.

But when he entered his apartment, stepping through as the door recognized him and curled open, he found the ceiling flashing red—the signal he'd told the apartment to use when messages were waiting which required immediate attention, but which were not actual life-or-death matters worth interrupting him at work or tracking him down in a corridor somewhere. This drove all other thoughts from his mind.

“Play message,” he said.

He was expecting something from Bascal, some addendum or correction, but instead a hologram of Xmary appeared, hanging down from the ceiling in a column of not-quite-invisible light. He stepped toward it, and it retreated an equal distance, for if it didn't, its illusion of three-dimensionality would break down in a confusion of distortions. Still, it looked uncomfortably like Xmary was backing away from him in fear. And he didn't like that, so he stood his ground, and Xmary stood hers.

“Yes?” he asked the recording.

“Hello, Conrad,” the recording said. “You look well.”

“I feel well,” he answered. “We're about to visit the planet, Bascal and I. Visit the surface, I mean. It's very exciting. It's the culmination of a lot of waiting and effort, obviously, and I feel sorry for the four thousand people who don't get to go. But it'll be just like old times. Me and Bascal, Ho and Steve. Raising a little hell.”

The recording's smile had a strained quality. “That sounds nice. Conrad, I know I should tell you this in person. I know it's awful to send a recording, and I apologize for that. But there just isn't opportunity. It'll be months before I see you again, and this conversation can't wait.”

Conrad felt a sinking sensation in his gut. “You're breaking off with me.”

The recording looked at the floor.

“This,” Conrad said, “is where you say, ‘No, no, nothing like that.' This is where you reassure me.”

“I wish I could,” the recording answered, with simulated gloom. “I wish things were different, but they aren't. I can't live like this, and if you search your heart, I doubt you're really enjoying it either. We have to be fair to ourselves.”

“Especially to you,” Conrad said, with sudden, sullen bitterness. Had he been anything less than supportive and loving? He hated to use the word
perfect,
but hadn't he been exactly that? What could he possibly have done to deserve this? Nothing!

“I'm so sorry.”

“I
told
you you should leave a copy with me, Xmary, or I should leave one with you. These things are workable. Or is that not it? Is there someone else involved? Some new interest catching your eye?”

The recording shrugged. “I don't have that information, Conrad. I'm just a recording. Does it matter?”

“You're damn right it matters! Shit, the mating pool is pretty limited up there. Is it Money Izolo? Is it Peter? Or one of the kids, fresh from storage? Is he better for you than I am? Oh, my gods, you're breaking off with me to bunk with some
career spaceman
. How humiliating.”

“He's not a career spaceman.”

Conrad felt his eyebrows rise. “No? He's on the
ship
. He's not
leaving,
or you'd see the same problem with him that you claim to see with me. Anyway, I thought you didn't have that information.”

The recording shrugged. “I suppose I do. I'm not self-aware in the way that you are, Conrad. I'm not here to be interrogated.”

“Ah. I see. You're some measly petabyte avatar, here to insert your barbs and evaporate into the ether.”

Unhappily: “Something like that. I'm truly sorry, Conrad.”

“You're
sorry
? I thought you weren't self-aware. Listen, Ms. Recording, this is a very small community we live in. I'm going to hear this person's name sooner or later, and I'd rather hear it from you.”

“Would you? Are you so certain of that?”

His lip curled. “Don't get smart with me. If you're not Xmary, you have . . . no right to talk to me like that. I want a name.”

The recording sighed. “It's Feck.”

“Feck?” Conrad gaped. “Yinebeb Fecre? Feck the Fairy?
Again?
”

Now the recording managed to look annoyed. “That's not what they call him, Conrad, and you know it.”

And that was true. He was “Feck the Facilitator,” hero of the August Riots and proud explorer of Xmary's pants. And he was . . . not a bad fellow. Damn it.

“How can Xmary do this to me? How, exactly, can she feel this is justified?”

“I'm sorry, Conrad.”

“Who does she think she is? Does she think she has the
right
to treat someone like this? She said she loved me. Was that just a lie? We've been together for, what? Fifteen subjective years? Even longer for you. For her. This is what I get? What I somehow deserve?”

“I'm sorry, Conrad.”

“Shit. Shit. Are you going to say anything else?”

“Is there anything else to say? I'm sorry, but I'm really not equipped to have a discussion with you about this.”

“Well, piss off, then. Tell Xmary . . . Tell her . . . shit. Just tell her good-bye.”

After the recording had mailed itself back, Conrad said some other things which are best not repeated.

“You're late,” said one of the Bascals, in the ferry hangar.
“And you've been crying. Both of you. What's wrong?”

This question was at once leaderly, medical, and deeply personal, for tears occurred very rarely in the Queendom of Sol, and were regarded with utmost seriousness.

“Xmary,” said the two Conrads together. They were freshly printed, and hadn't had much of a chance to diverge yet. Their potential responses were limitless, but bounded by identical experience. They wouldn't always say or do exactly the same thing, but until their thoughts got off on different tracks, the responses would be pretty close.

Bascal's features—not at all boyish despite their youthful construction—melted in sympathy. He held up two sets of arms, and embraced both Conrads warmly. “Ah, my friend, the vagaries of love and loss are the curse of the immorbid. Even in the Queendom, two hundred years ago and more, they were saying these first marriages, first relationships of any kind don't last. Ask a woman what animal she feels like and she will say ‘cat,' a creature as playful and graceful and cruel as God himself! Ask a man and he'll say ‘pig,' with no apology, and how long can a cat dance with a pig before somebody's paw gets hoofed?

“My parents are perhaps a reminder that true love can be found and kept, but they had—both of them!—been around the world a few times before falling in together. And they did break off for thirty years, you'll recall. Perhaps there are additional fallings-out in their future, or it may be that they're locked together by their positions as king and queen. Each was duly elected in isolation from the other, and their divorce would not—could not—change their joint monarchial status. They are as trapped by circumstances as we ourselves.

“Ah, but these are words of gloom, when you need cheer! Of empty misogyny when you need companionship! Take a cue from Plato, my boy. He said, ‘Being is real. Becoming is an illusion.' This moment is nothing but a snapshot, a sort of hologram laid out beside the happier moments before and after. Let's end it and move on. Come to the planet with me, hmm? It's the start of a new relationship, a new love affair. And if she treats us as well and as badly as our women have, then we shall have an interesting time of it indeed, and revel in our successes while they last.”

It was a nice thing to say, or mostly so, and Conrad should have been nice in return, but instead he scowled and said, “I'm not in the mood for pomposity, you fuffer. My parents are still together as well, but what difference does that make? What bearing does it have on me, on this day, right here? Just leave me alone, all right?”