Sidney's Comet Read online

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Really I am.” She reached across the table, took his pudgy hand in hers. “You always had that romantic dream of running away to the sky . . . even when we were kids.”

  Sidney fought back a tear, turned to study her classically featured face, with its straight Roman nose and high cheekbones. A red painted beauty mark dotted the left cheek, and long curls of golden brown hair cascaded onto her shoulders. People thought Carla of average build, and the muscle tone of her body provided evidence of time spent in Bu-Health gyms. Sidney tried to smile, said, “I remember we used to play condominium together. And we promised to become permies someday. . . . ” He cleared his throat.

  “The grown-up world isn’t simple,” Carla said.

  “Can’t we find some way to work it out?”

  “No!” She spoke firmly. “We’ve been through that before . . . the probability of cappy offspring and all. It wouldn’t be fair to them.”

  “But that’s only a fifty-fifty chance. And even if there was a handicap, maybe we could find a doctor who would—”

  Her voice grew cool. “No,” she said. “Absolutely not.” She pulled her hand away, noticed Chief of Staff Birdbright slide into a booth two tables behind Sidney. Birdbright smiled at Carla. She looked away, said to Sidney: “Let’s order now. Everyone’s arriving.”

  They mentoed orders into a tabletop receiver. Then they fell silent while waiting for the order to arrive, glancing at one another for several agonizing moments without speaking.

  The coffee shop was full now, and Sidney listened to a talkative silver-haired girl at the next table. “I don’t know what happened to Abercrombie,” the girl said. “One day I came to work and he wasn’t there. Then packing meckies cleared his desk. Judy asked her supervisor, but he just said, ‘Abercrombie is no longer with us.’ It’s all kinda weird, if you ask me.”

  A tray holding two Styrofoam cups of coffee and a plate of mini-donuts popped out of the table between Sidney and Carla. Carla signed a Tele-Charge board mounted next to the dice cage, then mento-spun the dice. Her results appeared on the Tele-Charge screen.

  “Five sixes!” she exclaimed. “That puts me in the Trip to Glitterland Sweepstakes! Now you try it!”

  Sidney signed the board, mento-spun the dice cage.

  “Aw,” she said, her voice reflecting disappointment. “Only a pair of fives.”

  “Oh well,” Sidney said, reaching for his coffee cup. “Guess I wasn’t meant to do anything exciting.”

  “I can’t believe it!” she said. “Just think! I could be a winner!”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Isn’t Freeness wonderful?”

  “Yeah.” Then his voice grew more cheerful as he said, “I’m happy for you.”

  Carla knocked over her coffee cup in her excitement, spilling liquid on her dress. “Dam!” she said, quivering as she reached for a napkin. “I’m so excited I can’t stop shaking.”

  Sidney used his napkin to wipe the table.

  “Thank you,” she said, dabbing at the dress with her napkin. “I’ll change as we leave. There’s a venda-dress machine in the lobby.”

  “That reminds me,” Sidney said. “What are you wearing to the reunion?”

  “I don’t know.” She lifted her gaze to the attentive eyes of Billie Birdbright. “I’ll shop for it tomorrow.”

  * * *

  General Munoz did not like to be kept waiting. Slapping his gold-braided military cap rhythmically against his thigh, he moto-paced the length of Dr. Hudson’s office. Passing from sunlight to shadow, he mentoed the digital cuckoo clock on the wall, noting the readout beneath the closed cuckoo bird doors: P.M. 3:39:26. He spun angrily as he reached an end wall, then saw Hudson standing in the doorway, holding a red velvet box.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Hudson said nervously. He entered and set the box on his desk. Adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses, he said, “You’re going to like this.”

  Munoz’s dark eyes flashed. “Hrrumph! Nearly ten minutes wasted! My time is valuable, you know!”

  Hudson kept his gaze on the box, smiled proudly at the corners of his mouth. “Open it.”

  Munoz rolled to the box with his orange mustache curled into a scowl, but there was a glint in his eyes. Setting his cap on the desk, he opened the box, then stared at a burnished gold cross and chain which lay on red velvet. “A cross? But I alrea . . . “ He stopped, noting Hudson’s bemused expression. Munoz lifted the cross out, studied it intently.

  “It looks like the cross you’ve always worn, General. But it’s more. Much more. The wearer of this baby commands all AmFed weather control machinery. Simply touch the cross with either hand and memo-transmit.”

  Munoz looked at the cross with disinterest.

  “This is a nicer, more compact system, General. We can dismantle the weather console now. . . . All that bulky equipment has been replaced by one little device. You can play God with this little unit, changing the weather as you please, wherever you are.”

  Still no response from General Munoz.

  “To monitor the results, you simply close your eyes and there it will be, dancing on the insides of your eyelids.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Try it.”

  Munoz took a deep breath, touched the cross with one hand and thought of a tidal wave hitting an unpopulated stretch of Kamchatka coastline. He dropped his eyelids and saw a great wall of blue green ocean thundering toward shore. There was no sound in his vision, and the tidal wave hit land with unharnessed fury, destroying trees and land shapes in its path.

  “Interesting,” Munoz said. He opened his eyes, looked at Hudson with the expression of a spoiled child who wanted a better present. “Nice gadget, Dick,” he said.

  Hudson gathered his robe and sank into his big chair. Slipping into their unspoken conversation mode, he mentoed: It’s a subliminal transmitter, too, Arturo.

  Munoz brightened. Yeah? It’ll change votes in Tuesday’s election?

  You bet. As you know, every consumer-issued brain implant has a subliminal receiver, originally for the purpose of picking up advertising suggestions from Harmak and from National Home Video. Hudson noticed Munoz looking out the window, added: Now we don’t have to worry about retaliation from the Black Box to a military attack. You can take power peacefully.

  Uncle Rosy was a crafty bastard, Munoz mentoed. I still think he spread that retaliation story as a bluff.

  “What time shall I arrive for dinner Sunday?” Hudson asked, making harmless conversation for the benefit of anyone who might be eavesdropping.

  “Six or six-thirty. We’ll play a little Knave Table afterward.”

  Hudson took the old cross and chain to a wall-mounted disposa-tube, dropped it on a shelf door which opened as he approached. I thought you would be pleased with the new cross, he mentoed. But you don’t seem to appreciate it.

  The shelf door snapped back into place. Machinery inside the wall whirred.

  It pleases me, Munoz mentoed. But wait until you hear what popped out of the trash can in my office this afternoon. You know how you’re always telling me I should reconnect my disposa-tube? Well, listen to this. . . .

  That night, Sidney mentoed his bedside dream machine, instructing it to take him on an ego pleasure space fantasy. He fell asleep within minutes, imagining a wonderful, magical adventure. . . .

  “Fsssing! Fsssing! Fsssing!” Death rays from his one-man gunship, the Galilee, cut though space, making sounds that were only possible in fantasies. Three exploding balls of orange and purple ahead marked the dream-precise hits: three Slavian warships!

  “Half-human monsters!” Captain Malloy cursed under his breath. He mento-banked the gunship, headed back to astro-port.

  “Captain Malloy!” the speakercom blared. “The President wishes to speak with you!”

  In his dream, Sidney listened as President Ogg explained: “The Slavians have diverted a great comet, Captain! It’s on a collision course with Earth!”

  “How diabolical, Mr. P
resident!”

  “The reason they are masters of the Humboldt Star System, Captain. There is strength in being evil!”

  “What are my orders, sir?”

  “The comet will pass near you in sixteen minutes,” Ogg’s dream voice said. “Stop it, Malloy. You’re the only force between us and destruction!”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “If you succeed, there’s nothing you can’t have . . . riches, beautiful women . . . even the AmFed Presidency!”

  “I don’t want any of those things,” Sidney’s imagined self told the President. “I’ll do it because . . . because . . . duty calls!”

  Sidney saw his dream ship now from a detached vantage point, watched it bank gracefully and slide through frigid black space toward a huge rainbow-colored fireball that was bearing down on Earth. Then he saw himself lying in bed with a determined but contented expression as he experienced the dream.

  “Awaken, fool!” a voice from afar said. Then another voice, equally distant and echoing, said, “We refuse to tolerate the stench and degradation of AmFed garbage! Take it back and die, fleshcarriers!”

  Sidney turned in his sleep, flailing and kicking as he struggled desperately to awaken. After what seemed an interminable period, he opened his eyes. Sticky and hot with perspiration, he stared into the blackness of his room.

  Those voices again, he thought. Am I losing my mind?

  Unable to return to sleep, Sidney mentoed for his pleasie-meckie. He heard the closet doors open, and the smooth whir of machinery as the meckie approached. It’s not Carlo, he thought, feeling the bed shake as the meckie got in and climbed under the covers. But at least I’m not alone. . . .

  * * *

  In the privacy of his rock-walled cave room, Sayer Superior Lin-Ti popped a minicam cartridge into the video machine. The machine was bright red plastic, with a wide oval screen. As the film began, black gothic letters announced its title:

  Pleasant Reef

  August 14, 2605

  Two days before anyone knew of the comet, he thought. He watched his own image appear on the screen, standing at a tutelage console with a hooded youngsayerman. . . .

  Sayer Superior Lin-Ti: “Following the questioning period today, I will make an announcement concerning your future.”

  Youngsayer Steven: “My primer tells me that Uncle Rosy granted non-revocable trade status to the Afrikari nation. It does not say why this was done.”

  Sayer Superior Lin-Ti: “Uncle Rosy developed a special friendship with the first Alafin of the present line, Alafin Inaya, more than three centuries ago. The Master does not reveal such details to the history writers, of course, but he and the Alafin struck up their friendship during a game of Swahili Croquet in the Alafin’s capital city. After that, they often vacationed together during Uncle Rosy’s last years in public life.”

  Youngsayer Steven: “I have no other questions today. What is the announcement?”

  Sayer Superior Lin-Ti: “An opening is available in the Black Box of Democracy. It is the Sixty-Six Sayer position. If you accept, you will be known as ‘Lastsayer.’ Do you accept the calling?”

  Youngsayer Steven (without hesitation): “I do.”

  Sayer Superior Lin-Ti: “You are to replace Twelvesayer Robert, with everyone below that level moving up a notch. Twelvesayer suffered from Box Fever and had to be removed.”

  Youngsayer Steven: “I am not familiar with that malady.”

  Sayer Superior Lin-Ti: “Alas, he went mad from the regimentation and confinement to the Black Box. The poor man wanted to be like any consumer, even spoke with apostrophes.”

  Youngsayer Steven: “How unfortunate! What became of him?”

  Sayer Superior Lin-Ti: “Uncle Rosy personally administered selective memory erasure and gave him AmFed identity papers. I understand he is going to work in the travel division of Bu-Free.”

  Youngsayer Steven: ‘That should make him happy.”

  Sayer Superior Lin-Ti: “Uncle Rosy is most compassionate!”

  Youngsayer Steven: “Peace be upon you, Sayer Superior. . . . ”

  Lin-Ti flipped off the video machine and rolled to a brown nauga chair next to his bed. There he re-read the following day’s history lesson—

  Chapter Three

  UP CLOSE WITH THE MASTER, FOR FURTHER READING AND DISCUSSION

  “I feel complete. This is my legacy to the nation.”

  Remarks made by Uncle Rosy to his personal secretary, Emmanuel Dade, concerning the recently completed Black Box of Democracy. Uncle Rosy disappeared three days later (on May 16,2318) after personally supervising selective memory erasures on everyone involved with the project. (From E. Dade’s unpublished notes.)

  Friday, August 25, 2605

  “What the hell happened?” General Munoz demanded. His orange mustache bristled as he glared at Dr. Hudson. “Another miscalculation?” Munoz stood in the center of his living room module with his hands thrust deeply into the pockets of a dark brown robe. His new gold cross hung about his neck, outside the robe. It was well past midnight, the first hours of Garbage Day minus seven, and his hair was sleep-tousled. A brass table lamp near the window cast yellow light against the General’s side, leaving half his face in shadow.

  A fair-haired, taller man of perhaps thirty-five stood in a gold robe at the General’s side. Hudson recognized Colonel Allen Peebles, the General’s adjutant and lover. The younger man had pale blue eyes which to Hudson seemed to look at some indeterminate point in an unfocused distance, as if Hudson was not there. Hudson had long since learned to control his thoughts of revulsion in the presence of these two, since they, like Hudson, were fitted with mento transceivers.

  “We have problems,” Dr. Hudson said, a bit out of breath. He removed his overcoat, slung it over the back of a white nauga chair and slumped into the chair. “As I told you on the phone, our biggest concern is that the comet’s speed has increased dramatically. We now estimate its arrival in seven days rather than thirteen.”

  “Oh damn!” Colonel Peebles said, speaking in an exaggerated lilt. He took a seat in an adjacent chair, crossing his legs gracefully.

  “I hate surprises,” Munoz said. Continuing to glare at Hudson, he popped a sleep-sub pill and washed it down with a water capsule.

  “And I’ve just discovered a second computer error,” Hudson said.

  “The new Comp six-oh-two?” Munoz asked.

  “No. This time it was the Willys twelve-forty that calculated the comet’s ETA . . . off by six hours.”

  “In the wrong direction, I presume?” Munoz said.

  “Naturally.”

  Munoz shook his head, stared glumly at the floor.

  “The comet is not behaving according to known laws of physics,” Hudson said, rubbing the fringe of black hair on one side of his head. “Just one hour ago, it made a ninety-four degree turn, veering off into space for a time. Then it made another sharp turn, back to a collision course with Earth.”

  “How odd!” Peebles said. “What are we to do?” He sat sideways in the chair to look at Hudson, an arm draped across the chair back.

  “Silence!” Munoz commanded, shooting a fiery glance at his adjutant. “I have to think!” Munoz moto-slippered to the couch, sat down with his hands grasping his thighs. “How could the comet change like that?” he asked, staring at the floor.

  Hudson shrugged. “I don’t know. This thing’s a complete mystery to all of . . .” He stopped as Munoz looked up and glared at him. Such words had been spoken before.

  “Get out new orders, Allen,” Munoz said. “Have the crew ship ready three days earlier . . . by Tuesday afternoon at fourteen hundred hours.” He turned to Hudson.

  Hudson spoke as Munoz was formulating a new thought. “I’ll call Saint Elba and have the mass drivers moved up too.”

  “Right,” Munoz said. “And tell ’em to double-check the E-Cell charging bays. We don’t want any last minute problems.”

  “I’ll reiterate that.”

&nbs
p; “Anything else?” Munoz asked.

  “We’ll have to set up new recharging stations along the route in deep space,” Hudson said. “The others are placed incorrectly for the new course and time. I’ll refigure it right away.”

  “Good,” Munoz said. “We still have the matter of the pilot. There’s no time left . . .”

  “Have any more garbage balls spoken to you?”

  “What do you mean by that?” Munoz snapped.

  “Maybe you were tired. The mind and eyes can play tricks. . . . ”

  “It was in flames, and came right at my face! I was there! And listen to the clincher: there is a Sidney Malloy!”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s a nobody in the Presidential Bureau—Central Forms.”

  “You’re not actually thinking of using him?” Hudson asked.

  “I have a strong feeling—call it intuition, I don’t know. Something tells me. . . . ”

  “We need to go on more than intuition,” Hudson said. “Everything rides on this mission, Arturo. This calls for the best, only the very best.”

  “I know.”

  “Did it occur to you that your trash can magic trick might have been performed by the Black Box?”

  “No,” Munoz said. “I’m sure they had nothing to do with it.”

  “On what evidence? You puzzle me, Arturo—relying so heavily on intuition for critical decisions.”

  The General’s black pupils became steely hard. “And you are a man of facts, Dr. Hudson. Precise scientific facts.” Munoz fingered the burnished gold cross which hung from his neck.

  “I am—and there is a concise scientific answer for every question.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that. I’ll tell you one thing. Anyone that can make a ball of burning trash speak to me has my undivided attention. The voice told me to use Malloy, and I’m damn sure not going against its wishes. Hell, Dick—maybe that was God himself. Speaking to ME!”

  “Okay, okay. This Malloy—can he be trained?”

  “Anyone can be trained,” Munoz said. “You know that. And Malloy knows a pilot—one of the three-hundred on whom we have files.”