Hotel Andromeda Part 18

She kept looking toward Africa, not at me. I took her hand and held it for a long, long time, and she let me hold it and she held on to my hand till the winds had blown the storm clouds over us and the sun was shining down and drying all the rain.

I sat on the edge of the bed while the doctor removed the electrodes from my body and turned off the machines. I could feel the edge of the bed under my legs; I could feel the sheets; I could feel the doctor's hands touching my body. "You real- ize Mary's manufacturer will not be liable for any conse- quences of your decision," she said.

"I'm liable," I said. "I'm choosing this life."

The doctor looked hard at me. "It will be interesting to see how long your Mary will last. I wish you both luck."

She left the room, and I dressed and followed her out. I pa.s.sed the room where the medical robots sat waiting to be of service. Six robots were in the room, looking at me with their brilliant, ruby eyes. I walked in to thank the two who had car- ried me to the hospital, if they were there, and to leave word if they were not, but before I could say anything, one of them reached up and touched me. It knew. I suddenly realized that, because of Andromeda, the robots knew about Mary and me.

I put my hand on its hand and held it for a time. The metal was cool, but not alien.

I had connections to rebook, programmers to contact, and I was hungry. But I let it all wait. I walked to an observation deck under a dome that looked out on the black of s.p.a.ce and all the stars and sat in a chair and looked at the beauty of it for Mary and me. I felt a metal hand touch my shoulder, and I looked up at another robot with a tray of food, and I took the tray and thanked the robot but it never said a word to me.

It just pressed my shoulder and left. I held the tray, and closed my eyes, and went into my mind to Mary and home.

TO CARESS THE FACE.

OF G.o.d.

Dove Wolverton

Warren Garceau had been imprisoned on Darius IV for so long that he no longer knew which he wanted more: death or s.e.x. He no longer even dreamed of freedom, but freedom is what we gave him, in the form of a ticket off planet and a ride back to Earth after a brief layover at the Ho- tel Andromeda.

Warren had worn out six bodies serving as many consecu- tive life sentences. I watched him, as was my Job. Each time his deaths came nearly the same: In his late sixties he would develop prostate cancer, and I'd take the prison infirmary to him, download a temporary medical program, and operate- Yet after the operation, he'd stow for the next dozen years, His arms would purple with liver spots while the wispy silver hair on his head became only a memory. His bones turned brittle, like the pumice in the red rocky fields where he worked day after day hoeing the corn, his breath coming in sharp gasps as he slaved beneath the double suns.

123.

124 Dave Wolverton I kept Warren's little farm distant from those of other in- mates. When he was young, during the first three lifetimes, Warren had some neighbors that he was allowed to see, men working fields far away from him. As he aged the others won their freedom, and I sent them home.

Until he became the last, and I watched him from a dis- tance those final two lifetimes, mainly using automatic sen- sors. Yet sometimes I would use my natural eyes, and in the night I would spy on him from the mountains through a tele- scope with an infrared lens. He would hoe well into the night, even when the scorpions came out, as if, like me, he too were part machine. I can still see him. back bent, his arms gouging downward automatically, as if the hoe were some giant claw.

After six lifetimes, he knew nothing but the hoeing and the harvest- When Warren fell and broke his hip that last time, there was no one to help. and though my sensors did not indicate an attempt at escape, I did not learn that he was injured for two days. Warren had dragged himself to his shack, and there he pa.s.sed out by his front door in the shade. I found him de- hydrated and swollen, so I carried the infirmary to him, then pumped his body full of fluids.

But he died. So I thawed his last young clone, one with a powerful twenty-two-year-old physiology, and I dumped War- ren's memories into the clone.

He woke in his crude little hut with machines, pumping food and water into his veins. He faded in and out of sleep for a few days, always waking in pain, sometimes crying out for sleep, for eternal sleep, shouting, "For G.o.d's sake. Ray, let me die! Just let me die!" or sometimes he would call a wom- an's name.

But I fulfilled my duty, as is my job. I had kept him alive so he could serve his sentence; now 1 kept him alive so he could be free. When the clone began to stabilize, I made a quick trip back up to the guardhouse and began dismantling it. After nearly four hundred years, I too would be allowed to leave Darius IV.

That evening as I worked, I glanced down into Brutal Val- ley. to the barren red plains like rusted iron. Warren stood bent over his hoe, working mechanically. I got on a hovercraft and went to him. "You arc free," I said as I floated through 125.

TO CARESS THE FACE OF G.o.d.

his field, sweeping the tender young plants away with my ex- haust. He looked up at me, his face dirty and wet with sweat.

"What?"

"You are free."

He stopped, thought for a long moment. "What ... what does that mean?"

At first, I thought he might still be in shock, disoriented from the transfer. But I had not talked to him for two life- times, and I knew that at last he had forgotten. "It means you no longer have to hoe."

He stared into the short corn, uncomprehending. For nearly four hundred years he had worked that field. Little grew on Darius IV, not even weeds, so for those four hundred years I'd been forced to go into his fields from time to time and sow the thistles, dandelions, and morning glory. At harvest, I'd grind his grain into flour and add vitamin and mineral supple- ments provided from Earth. The corn had been Warren's only food now for a long time.

"What will I do without corn?" he asked.

"You are a rich man," I answered. "Over the years, you've been paid for your work-one International Dollar per day- and the government has let it accrue interest. You will be a very rich man. You can eat more than corn now. You can eat anything. You can go anywhere, do anything. You are free."

Warren looked up. His eyes were pale blue and empty, his wispy red hair down to his shoulders. His biceps were thick and powerful, and I had noticed even from a distance how he worked with gusto, glad to be young again. Yet even as a clone fresh from the vats, he had crags in his face, lines and creases, a map of all the empty roads and blind alleys he had walked down during his long lives.

"Free?" he said at last. A smile broke across his broad face.

He looked up at me, then gazed off at the Plentiful Mountains with their scarred red stone surfaces and their snow-capped peaks. All of Darius IV was covered with red pumice down here on the plains, but up in the mountains, where my guard- house rested in a valley, was a hazy swath of gentle green.

"Can I go up there?"

"If you like," I answered.

"I tike," he said, and he snapped the handle of the hoe be- tween his two broad hands.

126 Dave Wolverton I took him to the valley with its carpet of rye gra.s.s and or- chards with pear and pecan and olive and fig trees. Robot drones fretted, draping nets over a ripening cherry tree to keep out the flocks of ivory c.o.c.katoos. I pulled the hovercraft up to the marble columns at the guardhouse compound.

"I had always hoped it might be like this," Warren said, "but I never imagined ..." For the following several days I did not talk to Warren much, though he often stood near me, as if craving my presence, any human contact. I had a great deal of work to do, and there was no point in trying to speak to Warren. He could not carry on a conversation. After four hundred years he no longer recalled the meanings of most words. He could name the sun and the rocks and corn and a toilet, but he had no names for my flocks of c.o.c.katoos or for the color pink, and he could not recall the word star. Often, he would ask me the names of objects, and I would tell him, and he would forget again only moments later. Yet he did not fear his own ignorance. He grinned like a lunatic, happy to be free, and for him the world was filled with wonder.

Twice, he asked me, "Ray, why am I here?"

"You are a criminal. You have hurt people, so the government sent you here to recover."

"What did I do?" he asked. "I remember a woman, a wom- an*s beautiful face. I remember wanting to love her."

"I don't know. I used to store that information in my tem- porary memory," I admitted, "but I erased it long ago. I know only that you were found guilty, but that your term is up."

Warren went to the window of the guardhouse, looked out through the leaded crystal to the orchards. For the first time in the past several days, his smile faltered. "Have I recov- ered," he asked, "or will I still hurt people?"

"I suspect ... that either you will hurt people, or you will not."

"I don't want to hurt people."

"Maybe that will change," I said. "You've been here a long time. People have hurt you by putting you here. Maybe you will want to get even."

Warren shook his head innocently, as if denying my accusa- tion. "I hate this body," Warren admitted. "A few days ago, I was an old man and all of my bones ached. I wanted only to die. But when you put me back into this young flesh, I feel . -.

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TO CARESS THE FACE OF G.o.d.

uncomfortable. I want only s.e.x. I want to rut like an animal. I can feel my flesh burning with that desire, as if I were working hard in the midday sun. For me, this young flesh is more un- comfortable. Death or s.e.x. I've lived six lifetimes. Ray, and all through them, I have craved only those two things. Not ven- geance." He held the windowsill, clenching and unclenching his powerful hands.

I think, at that moment, I feared what he might do. He re- minded me of a panther, so pa.s.sionate, so powerful, so vola- tile. "Perhaps," I ventured, "you will finally satisfy your cravings for both."

At the end of four days, I drugged Warren to keep him pac- ified during the initial stage of his trip home, and I sent him flying in the shuttle to the star cruiser Reliable. From there he connected with the terminal at Hotel Andromeda, and met his fate.

Aboard the Hotel Andromeda, Warren went to a public res- taurant where the air was heavy, fetid. Few humans dined at the tables-a handful here, a handful there. In the center of the room, seven amphibious Fenroozi swam in a pool, like ma.s.sive red newts, chasing their own tails and grabbing at golden fish. Warren sat at a table, grinning monstrously, watching three nubile young girls all dressed in glittering white. He stared at them, forgetting about food, and wondered how to approach them, how to ask for s.e.x. Yet a more subtle craving enveloped him as he watched. He felt distant, iso- lated, and he craved human presence, any attention. In a nearby tree, a tall hairy silver beast that was all bones crouched while serving robots brought live prey for it to sniff.

Warren ignored the predator as he watched the girls. One woman finally saw that he was staring, and Warren turned away. The silver beast was watching him with all six eyes, surrept.i.tiously inhaling Warren's scent. Warren did not have to understand the beast's guttural chatter to know that it was asking the serving robots if Warren was on the menu. Warren smiled, walked up to the beast, grasped one of its ma.s.sive lower canines with his fist, and shook the beast vigorously. A long black tongue snaked out, tasting Warren's hand.

"Don't even think about it!" Warren said with a grin, slap- ping the predator's snout.

128 Dove Wolverfon He ambled to the table, sat with three girls in white. They looked like clones, all red hair and freckles and sad eyes.

"Hi," he said, "I'm Warren," and he said no more, feeling un- sure of himself. How do you tell someone that you have not held a normal conversation in four hundred years? How do you tell a woman (hat you want her body, but you also want her to love you after you've used her? How do you casually slip into conversation the fact that you've forgotten how to read a menu, or that foods have changed so much that you don't know what they taste like anymore? He listened to the girls, feigning interest in things other than their bodies. One girl kept calling him "voracious," but she used the word as if it were a slang compliment. He imagined luring the girls to his room, grabbing them, making love to them wildly there.

He was strong now, in his young body. He knew he could do it, with one of them at least. He ordered a light dinner made of things he could not remember ever having tasted.

When the food came, it was both delicious and overpower- ing. He enjoyed it immensely, but halfway through the second course, he vomited. The girls got up and left. Dumbfounded, Warren lay on the table, retching again and again. After three hundred and ninety-four years without any food but corn meal, he found to his dismay that perhaps he might not be able to stomach anything else.

Dazed, he decided to return to his room. On the way, War- ren stopped to gaze through a window into a vast tube-a chamber where the artificial gravity was so powerful that gases became swirling frozen liquids. Creatures moved in there-some were like giant purple amoebas straddling layers of frozen green methane, while others higher up were fist- sized white squids or spiders that swam through liquid helium in little Jerking spasms.

A sentry droid stopped and cautioned Warren against trying to enter the aliens' living chamber. But Warren just stood, watching. He held his hand to the window, felt the tug of that gravity, pulling him toward that alien world. Warren laughed.

It was like the unrelenting tug of s.e.x, like the grip of death.

Warren felt alone. More alone than ever. The sinking feel- ing he'd experienced in the restaurant came over him. Death or s.e.x, he told himself, death or s.e.x. One or the other. He could not decide which. Over the past few days, he had found 129.

TO CARESS THE FACE OF G.o.d.

the hotel to be very accommodating. He had only to ask at the corn console in his room, and they offered virtually any ser- vice. He wondered. If I were to order death and s.e.x from the hotel, which would they bring first? He imagined the woman of his dreams, the beautiful dark-eyed woman he had wanted to love for so long, and he went to his room-a simple room where an artificial sun shone on a carpet of living gra.s.s and a hammock swung between two trees.

Once in his room. Warren did not know what to do for en- tertainment, so he stood with his eyes closed. He tried to imagine holding a woman, just putting his arms around a woman casually, but he had not seen one in so long that the image kept fading. And at length he imagined a hoe in his hand. Warren stooped, as he had been doing for nearly four hundred years, and moved his arms steadily as if he were hoeing imaginary weeds from the gra.s.s.

A chime sounded, and Warren straightened- It chimed again, and Warren ambled to the door, wondering if the sound came from outside. When he touched the pressure plate, the door opened. A cyborg stood there, a powerful woman with hair the light brown of young corn silk, with ma.s.sive artificial arms, body armor, extra sensors, and RAM storage containers bolted to her head. Warren stared into her face, wondered what it would be like to wrap his arms around her, just hold her flesh with all that metal.

"Warren Alien Garceau?" the cyborg asked. "Penitent from Darius IVT'

"Yes?" Warren answered.

"I am Marinda Chase, from hotel security."

Without thinking. Warren turned to face the wall, spread his legs, and placed his hands flat against the wall in preparation for a body search. Marinda stood somewhat surprised. "You are not under arrest," she hurried to explain. "I came at the request of a hotel client. A woman who says you once knew her on Earth. She would like to meet you again."

"A woman?"

"Yes, a Miss Rebecca Lynn Lyons."

The name struck Warren like a fist, and he found himself gasping, trying to recall who she might be. "Rebecca Lyons?"

"Yes, you murdered her on Earth long ago," Marinda said, "but her memories, her personality, are stored in a virtual re- 130 Dave Wolverton ality aboard the hotel's module for deceased personalities, Heavenly One. She would like to meet you there-in heaven.

She says she will pay you well for the privilege. Will you come?"

Rebecca Lyons-that was her name-the dark-eyed woman of his dreams. Warren nodded dumbly and smiled. He re- called that hurt, the ache of wanting to love her, and he won- dered why she would want to see him. She will hate me, he realized. She will want to hurt me, as I hurt her. He could smell the trap. Yet he could not leave it alone. And an odd thought struck him. If she were in a virtual heaven program, then perhaps she would not be angry. Perhaps she would for- give him. Perhaps she would even be grateful that he had killed her and sent her there. Warren thought for a long time before answering, "Yes, I'll come."

Aboard the module Heavenly One, Warren found only a slate gray room with several cubicles where visitors could re- cline in comfortable chairs. Outside of these, the module had no accommodations for the living. The cyborg Marinda Chase plugged the synaptic adaptors into the socket at the base of Warren's skull and fit a helmet over his head. He had wanted to bring a gift, but what do you give someone living in a vir- tual reality? They had no physical needs, no bodies. Warren knew little of virtual realities. They had been young when he was young, and he had never created a world with computer images. He did not know what to expect.

Greens and blues swirled before Warren's eyes. and his nostrils filled with a strange sweet essence. He sniffed: a warm summer sun beaming upon gra.s.s and stone, the scent of water, and some type of sweet blossoms. Sounds began to arise, the drone of bees, a light wind whispering through the gra.s.s, the peep of a bird among forest branches, someone laughing. Then the images; He was sitting upon a stone chair carved in a black basalt mountain. Dark green hanging vines draped the mountain like a living curtain, and the scent of their sweet red flowers filled the air. Honey bees droned along the cliff face like motes of dust caught in the sunlight. All around him was a spa.r.s.e deciduous forest surrounding a shad- owed meadow. Somewhere off in the trees Warren could hear a tumbling brook, and laughter. It was late afternoon, almost To CARESS THE FACE OF G.o.d 131 twilight, so that the slanting sun over the trees came faint and golden.

"h.e.l.lo?" Warren called. "h.e.l.lo?"

He stood for a long time, until distant laughter answered him from the shadowed woods. The angels came for him, floating through the forest like thistle down. Two young women wearing luminous robes of green. Their translucent wings were broad, like those of a b.u.t.terfly, and the wings trembled in the sunlight. The angels landed at his feet, and they were twins: Clear skinned, clear eyed, with long dark hair and eyes like brown pools. They were young women.

Warren gazed into their faces for a long time, gazed at their bare shoulders, and the yearning he fell for them grew. "Are you Rebecca Lyons?" he asked.

One girl laughed, stepped toward him playfully, took his hand between hers. "We are only her servants. She is a G.o.d- dess now, ruler of this world. Will you let us take you to her?"

Warren whispered, "Of course." One of the angels clapped, and the whole forest came alive. Satyrs pranced in from the woods playing golden flutes and they danced around Warren on mincing hooves, their goat tails twitching in time to the music.

Pale green naked tree sprites with large b.r.e.a.s.t.s brought a pallet draped with silks, and while the angels stripped Warren's clothes off, me sprites cheered and fought to lift him onto the pallet.

Once Warren was naked, they carried him, dancing and singing through the forest, sometimes stopping to spin him in circles. Sometimes dryads would be singing in the trees above him, and they would toss baskets of leaves and flower petals on his head. Once, the revelers chased a herd of giant pigs from their trail. Fairy lights danced above him, and off in the deeper shadows under the trees, Warren could see men with the heads of deer moving nervously, as deer will.

The procession carried Warren forward to the sounds of flutes and song and drums, through the thickening woods as the day died and the shadows took on a life of their own.

They carried him for hours, laughing and celebrating, lighting torches in the darkness, until they reached a mountain pa.s.s.

Even from the bottom of the trail. Warren could see flames lighting the night at the mountain's top, a great bonfire, and 132 Dave Wolverton around it danced the stag men and satyrs and naked tree sprites.

For a man who had forgotten words, the scene was one of total delight. He could not even guess at the names of the wonders he beheld. Instead, he was like a child, amazed, drinking pure pleasure and enjoyment- Rebecca must have forgiven me, he reasoned, to bring me to heaven. When the wood sprites stopped at the foot of the mountain to paint him in stripes of yellow and orange. Warren did not mind even though their hands were rough. When the satyrs gave him wine, he drank until his head spun.

The satyrs poured more wine for him, pointed and laughed.

Warren could feel a warmth on his head, burning spots, and he touched his forehead, felt the nubs of goat horns sprouting above his eyes. He jumped up and danced around on the pal- let as they carried him up the mountain, and was amazed to find his feet numb. Nimble little hooves were growing where the toes and feet had been, and his naked legs were covered with a fine layer of goat hair.

One of the satyrs tossed him a flute, and Warren took it to his lips, found that it played a haunting melody that gave voice to all his l.u.s.ts and desires far better than he could ever speak them. He spun upon his pallet, dancing and laughing and playing hymns to the moon and darkness until they car- ried him before the G.o.ddess Rebecca Lyons. She was reclin- ing upon a daybed in a small meadow, and she was more beautiful than Warren had ever dreamed. The pale handsome face framed by dark hair, the obsidian eyes staring out at him.

The bed itself was the purest shade of white he could ever imagine, and Rebecca wore a single transparent sheet to cover the sleek contours of her body, the generous b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A scent more alluring than honeysuckle wafted from her bed. All around her meadow were trees, great oaks with twisted branches and dark leaves. The bonfires burned in a circle around her, so that Rebecca was a singular adornment to the forest.

Warren stopped singing, stopped dancing, let the golden flute fall from his hands, forgotten.

"Baaa ...," he said, all his desire, all his l.u.s.t and yearning for her coming out in a single bleating sound not unlike a belch.

To CARESS THE FACE OF G.o.d 133 "Do you remember me?" the G.o.ddess asked.