Melissa Scott - The Sweet Not-Yet.pdf - Melissa Scott - margozap

The Sweet Not-Yet

Melissa Scott

Breakfast , the prosthesis said. I looked where it pointed me, and took a meal bar out of the box.

Achronics often didn’t feel hunger, it explained, as I undid the wrapper and took a bite out of the oily

bar. We lost the sensitivity to any but the grossest physical symptoms; it was better to eat small meals

before we knew we wanted them than to wait until we noticed something was wrong.

Hurry , it said. You’re late.

I ate as I walked, letting the machine prompt me through the tangle of unmarked and white-painted

corridors that it identified as our Glasstown complex. I could smell things the prosthesis named hot metal

and fiber-form and acid; heard noises that were labeled as coming from the shop and the support line and

the office; saw faces that smiled and nodded as the prosthesis attached names. I came at last to a short

flight of stairs, and a red light flared in the center of the door jamb: the house mainframe, the prosthesis

whispered, and its voice belonged to my dead grandfather, whose personality lived on in memory.

“You’re late,” that voice said, an old man’s, no more familiar than that, and another voice said, “Leave

him be, Pappy.”

Your father , the prosthesis said, and I braced myself, realizing I wouldn’t know him, either. The face that

looked down at me was all angles like the one I’d seen in my mirror, just lined and older, the hair white

and cropped to a stiff and bushy halo, the nose tilted out of true like someone had hit him. Someone

probably had, from the things the prosthesis was whispering about him, and the stranger looked down at

me for a second longer before he stepped back out of the door.

“Morning, Cass.”

“Morning, Daddy,” I answered, and in the moment I met his eyes I saw both our hopes defeated.

He looked away, busied himself with a big urn that took up half the service console behind the

workstation. “Pappy bring you up to speed?”

“Not really,” I said, and took the cup he handed me.

Daddy glanced at the node that glowed red in the upper corner of the room, and Pappy said, “The boy

didn’t get up till just now. And you know how long it takes him to get going now.”

A personality construct shouldn’t be able to sound accusing, but this one did. Daddy ignored it, and

nodded me toward one of the chairs.

“We got a problem.”

We had lots of problems, according to the prosthesis-the family shipping business was barely breaking

even, and we couldn’t supplement it with racing since I’d wrecked myself and the family ship and there

wasn’t anybody left who could take my place, plus there was new competition from Echt-Hanson, who

were planning to build a transfer station in the Merredin system that would take even more of our

business-and I made a soft and hopefully encouraging noise, wondering what it would be this time.

“We got a runner,” Daddy said.

“It ain’t ours,” Pappy corrected, and I blinked once before the prosthesis caught me up to them.

“Who is it?” Runners happened when the workhorse, the artificial life that was supposed to mediate

between the driver and the ship’s systems, seized control of the ship and bolted, heading for some

destination known only to its circuits. Most of the time, the drivers just bailed, but sometimes they hung

on, trying to retake control, and the horse made its jump with them still on board. That was a runner.

There wasn’t a very high survival rate among runners.

But that never stopped us from looking. If a workhorse bolted and took the driver with it, every

spaceworthy ship in the system went out after it, on the off-chance that one of our own horses might spot

it-quantum-processor-based, they could see a little way into the adjacent possible-or if the driver

regained control and forced it back out a jump point, at least there would be someone there to pick him

up. It all depended on where the ship had gone missing.

“Where’d it happen?” I said, just a few seconds too late, and saw my father wince.

“About two minutes off the N-2 jump, coming from J-8.”

The prosthesis presented me with a map, Merredin’s system and the jump points that honey-combed

local space/time, and there was a part of me, down in the muscle memory, that understood how the ship

had been heading, how it would have felt under the driver’s hands.

“And,” Daddy said, “it was Alrei Jedrey.”

The name sparked anger, contextless and disconcerting. I blinked again, waiting for the prosthesis to

supply something, anything, that would explain the feeling, but all I got was a passionless biography. Alrei

Jedrey was a pilot, too, a racer and the son of a racer, just like I was. We were of an age, we’d raced

against each other dozens of times; I’d won a few more than him, but we’d both lost more to the

current-make that last year’s- champion. There was no reason to be angry-but the feeling was there,

unmistakable, a core of heat down in my gut, and I savored it, nursed it, disconnected as it was. It was

the closest thing I’d had in a long time to a real memory of my own, and I shivered with the excitement.

Whatever was between us, it had to be something big to have imprinted itself that deep, beyond normal

memory. . . .

“Old Man Jedrey’s asking for all hands,” Daddy said. “And that includes us.”

That was a problem, too, I could read it in his face, and I dragged myself away from my own exciting

anger, focused instead on the way his hands flexed on his coffee cup and then relaxed, as though he was

afraid of breaking it. Once again the prosthesis gave no reasons, and I rummaged in its front-brain

storage-the artificial memory that was supposed to give me immediate contexts in conversation-for

possibilities.

“Don’t we have something that can fly?” I asked, drawing the words out a little to give the prosthesis a

chance to correct me if it needed to. No, it assured me, we had ships capable of running the local

jumps-even my wrecked racer was pretty much ready for launch, just a few cosmetic repairs still to be

done.

“What we don’t have is a pilot,” Daddy said bluntly. “I’m too old, and you’re not up for it.”

“I can fly.”

The panic at the back of my words scared me. If I couldn’t fly, what the hell else was there for me to do?

I’d never done anything else in my life. More than that, it was the one thing I knew bone-deep, worked

so far down into the muscle memory that I could actually almost remember it, could function as though I

did consciously remember it, the sense of the controls against my hands and feet, the way the horse and

the ship responded to my lightest touch. I’d proved it in sims, the prosthesis reminded me, hours and

hours of them, the only time I felt like myself, and Daddy knew it.

“I can do it,” I said again, and Daddy shook his head.

“You haven’t been out the house for 241 days,” Pappy said.

“That ain’t right,” I said. “Can’t be.”

“It’s right,” Daddy said, grim-faced. “And that’s why I say you can’t do it, never mind the sims. And

Colton Jedrey can-” He broke off, shaking his head, mouth clamped tight over bitter words.

And what in hell’s name do we have against the Jedreys? The prosthesis was silent, and Daddy went on

as though the words were forced out of him.

“We’ve lost enough.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I knew he was talking about me.

“The law says we have to go,” Pappy said. “The company charter mandates it.”

“We don’t have a rated pilot,” Daddy said. “Ty’s out-system, Dee’s not due in until day after tomorrow,

and Cass-Cass can’t do it.”

“Then you’re just asking for somebody to sue to get your charter,” Pappy said. “And they’ll win, too.”

The prosthesis whispered in my head, confirming local law. Merredin was a poor planet, and not

particularly law-abiding, either. We didn’t have much of a local search-and-rescue group, relied instead

on deputizing all available shipping in the event of an emergency, and those terms were written into the

charter that let the family operate. Pappy was right; if we didn’t send a ship, someone could take the

charter away from us, and the anger in my belly made me wonder if it would be the Jedreys who’d try.

“Pappy’s right,” I said. “You know we have to do it.”

“We’re obliged to send somebody,” Daddy said. “Not necessarily you.”

“You just said you didn’t have anybody else,” I said.

“Peeky’s in Cah’ville,” Daddy said. “That’s only a couple hours away; we could hire him to take the

flight.”

“Peeky Toms?” I laughed even before the prosthesis finished feeding me the details. “Peeky hasn’t flown

anything but sub-light for-oh, it must be six, seven years. I bet he doesn’t even have a jump license

anymore.”

“The boy’s right,” Pappy said. “Peeky’s not an option.”

I looked at my father. “You got to send me. We can’t risk losing the charter.”

Daddy scowled, the frustration plain on his face. “Goddammit, I shouldn’t have to keep telling you

this-and the very fact that I do is the reason I don’t want you doing it. You already lost most of your

perceptors. You only got six minutes of natural memory. You lose that, even that goddamn prosthesis

won’t do you any good.”

“I ain’t actually stupid,” I began, and Daddy slammed his cup down on the table, not caring that the

coffee splashed across the scarred fiber.

“You sure are acting it. You remember the last time you went outside?”

No. I bit back the word, knowing the question was rhetorical, knowing that attitude wouldn’t do me any

good. The prosthesis answered his question anyway, spilling pictures into my mind as it accessed images

I could no longer create. A chaos of light and color, explanation lagging behind the perceived shapes; my

feet stumbling on a flat walkway, splashing through liquid color that became advertising that became a

puddle. . . . There had been friends there, people that I knew before the accident, but I’d been too busy

trying to learn to see again that I hadn’t remembered to tell the prosthesis to remember who they were.

The Glasstown skyline loomed in memory, jagged color against the sunset, and I felt remembered

nausea-anger, too, that so many people had been there to see. I guessed Daddy had been one of them,

but I didn’t, couldn’t, remember.

“Yeah,” I said, reluctantly, and Daddy glared at me.

“You still think you can fly.”

“It’s different,” I said, and knew it sounded feeble. But it was different, a different kind of memory. . . .

“Besides, somebody’s got to do it.”

“He’s right,” Pappy said again. “You know the law.”

Daddy muttered something under his breath.

Pappy said, “What about this? Send the racer up-send the tender with the racer grappled on. The tender

crew can do the real looking, and the boy will be onboard as the jump pilot.”

“What if they find Alrei?” Daddy asked.

“Odds are 283.2 to one against it,” Pappy said. “That’s based on the number of ships the

charter-holders are throwing up there.”

“I don’t like it,” Daddy muttered.

I said it before Pappy could. “I don’t think we got a choice.”

Once the decision was made, it didn’t take long to get things moving. We had procedures in place for

this kind of emergency, just like any charter holder, and they pretty much worked the way they were

supposed to, so that by nightfall we were on our way to the port for a midnight launch. We went in a

closed runabout, passenger windows blanked as though it was full daylight, screening out Glasstown’s

lighted towers. I kept my head down for the walk into the hangers, and the queasiness I had been

expecting did not recur. It was a struggle, though, the prosthesis always a heartbeat behind what I

needed, and I knew there were people I should have known who I passed without a greeting. That I’d

expected, been braced for, but somehow I’d thought I’d still know our tender. I’d thought that

knowledge would be burned into me at the same level as piloting itself, but the heavy ship that hung in the

launch cradle was just another round-bellied modified lifter. I recognized it only by the family logo

splashed across its nose.

We slipped aboard without fuss, and I found myself at the door of the pilot’s cabin without knowing how

I got there. A little dark woman was waiting there with a stack of data-the prosthesis identified her as

Tetia Curry, the ship boss, and I looked away, seeing her hair uncovered. Tetia was Alari, the prosthesis

reminded me, not Merredina; she didn’t mind being seen without a scarf. But she’d seen my mistake, and

her eyes were sad as I took the multi-colored wafers and retreated into the cabin. Not knowing the

tender had depressed me, even if I had been able to find my own cabin without trouble; messing up with

Tetia depressed me even more. I knew I ought to review the data, it was bound to be stuff I needed to

know, like the exact approach Alrei Jedrey had been taking, and the local space/time weather, but I

couldn’t bring myself to do it. Anyway, it was late enough that I had an excuse, and I stripped and rolled

myself into the familiar bunk. The lights faded automatically, but I stopped them with a wave of my hand.

There was a scratch pad where I expected to find it, the top film curled from long disuse. I tore it away,

and wrote on the next one, leaving myself a message for the next day.

Why do I hate Alrei Jedrey?

I woke to familiar vibration and a voice repeating a name. I moved, listening, and the light strengthened,

bringing color back out of the gray. I lay there, sorting perceptions of an unremembered place. The

vibration was right, though, comforting; the bed was large, pleasantly warm beneath a weight of covers.

The air outside the blankets was cold, my hand pale and tingling as though I’d slept on it, and the light

was strong and cool now, a light to match the delicate trembling in the air.

Your name is Cass Lairmore. You are achronic. Connect your prosthesis before engaging in

further activity .

I didn’t remember a prosthesis-but, of course, if I were achronic, I wouldn’t remember it. I sat up, the

movement triggering the room lights and a whirring that carried warmth, and saw an odd, skin-colored

ovoid lying on the ledge that had been above my head. A jack lay loose on top of it-no, extended from it,

a short, flat head, clear plastic that showed a hint of gold in its depths. I reached for it, picked up the

seashell round, smaller and flatter and softer than I had expected, and found myself reaching behind my

left ear. There was a jack there, not consciously expected or even fully recognized, but my fingers had

gone to it immediately, and the connection seemed clear. I slid the head into the socket, the ovoid nestling

cozily against my skin, and-expanded. The world brightened, gained depth and context, and I took a

deep breath, letting the prosthesis’s information cascade through me.

I was Cass Lairmore, all right, and that meant I was a pilot, a jump-and-JSTL pilot. I had been a

moonlighter not all that many years back, and now I was a hauler, a legit shipper, and a sometime racer

and the hope of the family. I had six minutes of natural memory left, plus whatever implicit and muscle

memory could give me-it was implicit memory that led my fingers to the prosthesis’s jack-and everything

else, any past six minutes earlier than my permanent now , was backed up in memory, stored somewhere

in the family mainframe to be accessed by the machine. The prosthesis kept me updated, kept a few

important things always in that six-minute window and prompted me for the rest, so that in practice I

could keep up with about a day’s worth of events. It had to download every night, and I started over

every morning. Except that we were on the tender, going out on a rescue run, so the prosthesis was

working from the ship’s copy: no real difference, except that I would have to be sure to check that

everything I stored here was downloaded when we got back. The process was supposed to be

automatic, but the prosthesis reminded me it never hurt to double-check.

I’d heard most of this before, and often enough that it was kind of like an echo, not exactly remembering,

but enough like it that I pushed myself out of bed and began my morning listening with half an ear while I

washed and shaved. I’d been a moonlighter because my father was a moonlighter before me, back when

it was serious business-the prosthesis reminded me of the tax reforms that made it less profitable, and the

two years Daddy’d spent in federal suspension, both of which probably had a lot to do with the decision

to stick to legal work. But regular haulage didn’t earn what smuggling did, even when you added a

machine shop on the side, and we’d gone racing to help make ends meet. He was pushing sixty, reflexes

shot, so I was what was left. I was just a bit past thirty, the prosthesis told me, though the body I

watched in the mirror looked older than that to me, and I was already at the point where I was using

Melissa Scott - The Sweet Not-Yet.pdf

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