Iterations Read online

  Novels by Robert J. Sawyer

  Golden Fleece

  Far-Seer

  Fossil Hunter

  Foreigner

  End of an Era

  The Terminal Experiment

  Starplex

  Frameshift

  Illegal Alien

  Factoring Humanity

  Flashforward

  Calculating God

  Hominids

  Humans

  Hybrids

  Short-Story Collection

  Iterations

  Anthologies

  Tesseracts 6 (with Carolyn Clink)

  Crossing the Line (with David Skene-Melvin)

  Over the Edge (with Peter Sellers)

  Stories copyright © Robert J. Sawyer, 2002

  Introduction copyright © James Alan Gardner, 2002

  Published in Canada

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of Red Deer Press or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency),

  1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5, fax (416) 868-1621.

  Published by

  Red Deer Press

  813 MacKimmie Library Tower

  2500 University Drive N.W.

  Calgary Alberta Canada T2N 1N4

  www.reddeerpress.com

  Credits

  Cover design by Erin Woodward

  Text design by Susan Hannah

  Cover photo of stars in the Tarantula Nebula courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute

  Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens for Red Deer Press

  Acknowledgments

  Financial support provided by the Canada Council, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, a beneficiary of the Lottery Fund of the Government of Alberta, and the University of Calgary.

  National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Sawyer, Robert J.

  Iterations / Robert J. Sawyer; introduction by James Alan Gardner

  ISBN 0-88995-303-1

  I. Title.

  PS8587.A389835I84 2004 C813’.54 C2004-900182-5

  5 4 3 2 1

  Dedication

  For

  Andrew Weiner

  friend and mentor throughout my

  first career as a nonfiction writer

  and my second one as a fiction writer

  with thanks

  Acknowledgments

  Sincere thanks to the editors who originally published these stories, especially Martin H. Greenberg (who bought seven of them—every year, Marty is one of my nominees for the Best Editor Hugo Award; he is the driving force behind short-fiction publishing today, and richly deserves the honor), Edward E. Kramer (who bought four of them), and Mike Resnick (who bought three), plus Isaac Asimov, Cathrin Bradbury, Terry Carr, Lesley Choyce, John Robert Colombo, Peter Crowther, Julie E. Czerneda, Keith R. A. DeCandido, Marcel Gagné, Dr. Henry Gee, Ed Greenwood, John Heifers, Brad Linaweaver, Sally McBride, Shawna McCarthy, the On Spec editorial collective, Patrick Lucien Price, Victoria Schochet, Larry Segriff, Robert Sheckley, Josepha Sherman, Dale Sproule, Sally Tomasevic, and Edo van Belkom.

  Thanks doubled to Edo van Belkom, who brought this book to Quarry Press; to Quarry publisher Bob Hilderley; to Susan Hannah, also of Quarry; to David G. Hartwell of Tor Books; to my agent Ralph Vicinanza; to James Alan Gardner for the wonderful introduction; and to those who were always there for me when these stories were being written, especially Ted Bleaney, David Livingstone Clink, Terence M. Green, Andrew Weiner, and, most of all, my lovely wife, Carolyn Clink.

  Contents

  Introduction by James Alan Gardner

  The Hand You’re Dealt

  Peking Man

  Iterations

  Gator

  The Blue Planet

  Wiping Out

  Uphill Climb

  Last But Not Least

  If I’m Here, Imagine Where They Sent My Luggage

  Where the Heart Is

  Lost in the Mail

  Just Like Old Times

  The Contest

  Stream of Consciousness

  Forever

  The Abdication of Pope Mary III

  Star Light, Star Bright

  Above It All

  Ours to Discover

  You See But You Do Not Observe

  Fallen Angel

  The Shoulders of Giants

  Publication History

  About the Author

  Introduction

  First things first:

  If you’re browsing through this book in a bookstore, rush to the checkout immediately and BUY THE BOOK.

  If you’ve already bought the book, don’t just leave it on the coffee table to impress your friends—SIT DOWN AND READ EVERY STORY.

  There: I’ve fulfilled my obligations as an introduction writer. Now I can relax and just generally burble on about the glories of Robert J. Sawyer.

  Also known as the Rob-Man.

  Or the Robster.

  Or R.J.

  Or the Dean of Canadian Science Fiction.

  Or the Man Who Really Deserves A Cool Nickname But No One Has Quite Found Anything That Clicks. It’s hard to come up with a short snappy sobriquet that combines talented writer, inspired visionary, and good friend all in one tight verbal package.

  I’ve known Rob for more than a decade, and I’m honored to be the person who gets to gush up front about Rob’s first collection of short stories. It’s my chance to repay him for all the support and advice he’s given me over the years, not to mention the pleasure of reading his work.

  Of course, Rob is best known in science-fiction circles for his novels: from his earliest book, Golden Fleece (told mostly from the viewpoint of a serial-killing computer), through his Quintaglio trilogy (featuring dinosaur versions of Galileo, Darwin, and Freud), to the space opera of Starplex and on into his near-future pieces (The Terminal Experiment, Frameshift, Factoring Humanity, Calculating God, et al.), which are balanced mixes of thriller-adventure stories, well-researched speculation, and philosophical musings. You owe it to yourself to get your hands on those books, too…but in the meantime, the book you’re holding now is an admirable microcosm of Rob Sawyer’s interests and concerns.

  You’ll see, for example, Rob’s ongoing fascination with What Might Have Been, often embodied in multiple realities showing alternative ways in which one person’s life might have unfolded: what would have happened if you made a different decision at some crucial moment, if you turned left instead of right? There’s also the theme of simulated life, found in several of his novels—human intelligence copied into a computer, usually as a way of cheating death, but sometimes as a technique for understanding who a man or woman truly is. Several of the pieces in this book also reveal a covert inclination toward fantasy; Rob will probably deny it, but hey, there are three stories featuring the devil, one with vampires, and another that literally sends someone to hell. (And he keeps claiming to be a “hard science fiction” writer!)

  Last and most enduringly, this book shows Rob’s love of Earth’s distant past: dinosaurs, early hominids, and paleontologists pop up over and over again, sometimes as protagonists, sometimes in disguise as aliens, sometimes in even more surprising forms…but always depicted with affection and a detailed attention to scientific accuracy. These are not trendy stage props thrown in for their current Coolness Factor—they matter to Rob, and he makes them matter to us.

  Enough preamble. I could go on to enthuse about what a fine human being Rob is, or what important contributions he’s made to Canadian science fiction and to the s
cience-fiction community as a whole; perhaps I could come up with a few telling anecdotes about the guy (or at least some juicy embarrassing ones); I could even rustle up praise and testimonials from dozens of other writers who are glad to have Rob Sawyer as their friend; but if you have any sense, you aren’t interested in blather, you just want to read some good stories.

  Lucky you. This book is full of them. Enjoy!

  —James Alan Gardner

  James Alan Gardner is a Nebula and Hugo Award finalist whose short stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. His novels include Expendable, Vigilant, Hunted, and Ascending.

  The Hand You’re Dealt

  Finalist for the Hugo Award

  for Best Short Story of the Year

  Winner of the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award

  for Best Short Story of the Year

  Author’s Introduction

  Edward E. Kramer is one of my favorite editors; he always asks me for something challenging. But when he approached me to contribute to a libertarian science-fiction anthology he was co-editing with Brad Linaweaver, I said, Ed, baby, I’m a Canadian—I don’t think it’s technically possible to be both a Canadian and a libertarian. As he always does, Ed said a few magic words: “Well, you could write a story that shows potential problems with libertarianism—we’re looking for a balanced book.” And, lo and behold, “The Hand You’re Dealt” was created.

  The Hand You’re Dealt

  And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

  —John 8:32

  “Got a new case for you,” said my boss, Raymond Chen. “Homicide.”

  My heart started pounding. Mendelia habitat is supposed to be a utopia. Murder is almost unheard of here.

  Chen was fat—never exercised, loved rich foods. He knew his lifestyle would take decades off his life, but, hey, that was his choice. “Somebody offed a soothsayer, over in Wheel Four,” he said, wheezing slightly. “Baranski’s on the scene now.”

  My eyebrows went up. A dead soothsayer? This could be very interesting indeed.

  I took my pocket forensic scanner and exited The Cop Shop. That was its real name—no taxes in Mendelia, after all. You needed a cop, you hired one. In this case, Chen had said, we were being paid by the Soothsayers’ Guild. That meant we could run up as big a bill as necessary—the SG was stinking rich. One of the few laws in Mendelia was that everyone had to use soothsayers.

  Mendelia consisted of five modules, each looking like a wagon wheel with spokes leading in to a central hub. The hubs were all joined together by a long axle, and separate travel tubes connected the outer edges of the wheels. The whole thing spun to simulate gravity out at the rims, and the travel tubes saved you having to go down to the zero-g of the axle to move from one wheel to the next.

  The Cop Shop was in Wheel Two. All the wheel rims were hollow, with buildings growing up toward the axle from the outer interior wall. Plenty of open spaces in Mendelia—it wouldn’t be much of a utopia without those. But our sky was a hologram, projected on the convex inner wall of the rim, above our heads. The Cop Shop’s entrance was right by Wheel Two’s transit loop, a series of maglev tracks along which robocabs ran. I hailed one, flashed my debit card at an unblinking eye, and the cab headed out. The Carling family, who owned the taxi concession, was one of the oldest and richest families in Mendelia.

  The ride took fifteen minutes. Suzanne Baranski was waiting outside for me. She was a good cop, but too green to handle a homicide alone. Still, she’d get a big cut of the fee for being the original responding officer—after all, the cop who responds to a call never knows who, if anyone, is going to pick up the tab. When there is money to be had, first-responders get a disproportionate share.

  I’d worked with Suze a couple of times before, and had even gone to see her play cello with the symphony once. Perfect example of what Mendelia’s all about, that. Suze Baranski had blue-collar parents. They’d worked as welders on the building of Wheel Five; not the kind who’d normally send a daughter for music lessons. But just after she’d been born, their soothsayer had said that Suze had musical talent. Not enough to make a living at it—that’s why she’s a cop by day—but still sufficient that it would be a shame not to let her develop it.

  “Hi, Toby,” Suze said to me. She had short red hair and big green eyes, and, of course, was in plain clothes—you wanted a uniformed cop, you called our competitors, Spitpolish, Inc.

  “Howdy, Suze,” I said, walking toward her. She led me over to the door, which had been locked off in the open position. A holographic sign next to it proclaimed:

  Skye Hissock

  Soothsayer

  Let Me Reveal Your Future!

  Fully Qualified for Infant and Adult Readings

  We stepped into a well-appointed lobby. The art was unusual for such an office—it was all original pen-and-ink political cartoons. There was Republic CEO Da Silva, her big nose exaggerated out of all proportion, and next to it, Axel Durmont, Earth’s current president, half buried in legislation printouts and tape that doubtless would have been red had this been a color rendering. The artist’s signature caught my eye, the name Skye with curving lines behind it that I realized were meant to represent clouds. Just like Suze, our decedent had had varied talents.

  “The body is in the inner private office,” said Suze, leading the way. That door, too, was already open. She stepped in first, and I followed.

  Skye Hissock’s body sat in a chair behind his desk. His head had been blown clean off. A great carnation bloom of blood covered most of the wall behind him, and chunks of brain were plastered to the wall and the credenza behind the desk.

  “Christ,” I said. Some utopia.

  Suze nodded. “Blaster, obviously,” she said, sounding much more experienced in such matters than she really was. “Probably a gigawatt charge.”

  I began looking around the room. It was opulent; old Skye had obviously done well for himself. Suze was poking around, too. “Hey,” she said, after a moment. I turned to look at her. She was climbing up on the credenza. The blast had knocked a small piece of sculpture off the wall—it lay in two pieces on the floor—and she was examining where it had been affixed. “Thought that’s what it was,” she said, nodding. “There’s a hidden camera here.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “You don’t suppose he got the whole thing on disk, do you?” I said, moving over to where she was. I gave her a hand getting down off the credenza, and we opened it up—a slightly difficult task; crusted blood had sealed its sliding doors. Inside was a dusty recorder unit. I turned to Skye’s desk, and pushed the release switch to pop up his monitor plate. Suze pushed the recorder’s playback button. As we’d suspected, the unit was designed to feed into the desk monitor.

  The picture showed the reverse angle from behind Skye’s desk. The door to the private office opened and in came a young man. He looked to be eighteen, meaning he was just the right age for the mandatory adult soothsaying. He had shoulder length dirty-blond hair, and was wearing a t-shirt imprinted with the logo of a popular meed. I shook my head. There hadn’t been a good multimedia band since The Cassies, if you ask me.

  “Hello, Dale,” said what must have been Skye’s voice. He spoke with deep, slightly nasal tones. “Thank you for coming in.”

  Okay, we had the guy’s picture, and his first name, and the name of his favorite meed. Even if Dale’s last name didn’t turn up in Skye’s appointment computer, we should have no trouble tracking him down.

  “As you know,” said Skye’s recorded voice, “the law requires two soothsayings in each person’s life. The first is done just after you’re born, with one or both of your parents in attendance. At that time, the soothsayer only tells them things they’ll need to know to get you through childhood. But when you turn eighteen, you, not your parents, become legally responsible for all your actions, and so it’s time you heard everything. Now, do you want the good news or the b
ad news first?”

  Here it comes, I thought. He told Dale something he didn’t want to hear, the guy flipped, pulled out a blaster, and blew him away.

  Dale swallowed. “The—the good, I guess.”

  “All right,” said Skye. “First, you’re a bright young man—not a genius, you understand, but brighter than average. Your IQ should run between 126 and 132. You are gifted musically—did your parents tell you that? Good. I hope they encouraged you.”

  “They did,” said Dale, nodding. “I’ve had piano lessons since I was four.”

  “Good, good. A crime to waste such raw talent. You also have a particular aptitude for mathematics. That’s often paired with musical ability, of course, so no surprises there. Your visual memory is slightly better than average, although your ability to do rote memorization is slightly worse. You would make a good long-distance runner, but…”

  I motioned for Suze to hit the fast-forward button; it seemed like a typical soothsaying, although I’d review it in depth later, if need be. Poor Dale fidgeted up and down in quadruple speed for a time, then Suze released the button.

  “Now,” said Skye’s voice, “the bad news.” I made an impressed face at Suze; she’d stopped speeding along at precisely the right moment. “I’m afraid there’s a lot of it. Nothing devastating, but still lots of little things. You will begin to lose your hair around your twenty-seventh birthday, and it will begin to gray by the time you’re thirty-two. By the age of forty, you will be almost completely bald, and what’s left at that point will be half brown and half gray.

  “On a less frivolous note, you’ll also be prone to gaining weight, starting at about age thirty-three—and you’ll put on half a kilo a year for each of the following thirty years if you’re not careful; by the time you’re in your mid-fifties, that will pose a significant health hazard. You’re also highly likely to develop adult-onset diabetes. Now, yes, that can be cured, but the cure is expensive, and you’ll have to pay for it—so either keep your weight down, which will help stave off its onset, or start saving now for the operation…”