Exceptions to Reality (20 page)

The soft shussh of leather on stone made the trio turn as one. Standing in the doorway was their erstwhile employer, but it was a Wolfram transformed. No longer the supplicating elder, he seemed to have grown taller in stature and broader of frame. His formerly simple cloth cloak glistened in the stained-glass light, and the vitreous globe atop his staff flickered with caged lightning. His entire being and bearing radiated barely restrained power.

“So you have done that which I could not.” Stepping into the room, he ignored them to focus his attention on the figure lying supine in the bed. “Ignorant sots. Did you really think that I, Wolfram the Magnificent, the All-Consuming, Master of the Warmlands, would consign the future of the Mistress of the Namur to your puerile attentions?”

As he replied, Jon-Tom slowly edged his duar around in front of him. “Somehow I knew you’d say something like that.”

A belligerent Mudge stepped forward. “If you’re so bloody all-whatever, guv’nor, then wot did you need us poor souls for?”

The sorcerer gazed down contemptuously. “Isn’t it obvious? The bonds that conceal this place are such as I cannot penetrate. It needs the attention of a kind of magic entirely different from what I propound, powerful as that may be. It required someone such as an innocent spellsinger to blaze a path here and divert any dangers that might lie along the way. This so that I could follow safely in your wake—as I have done.”

“Then,” Jon-Tom said, indicating the exquisite figure reposing serenely in the bed, “this isn’t your beloved?”

“Oh, but she is.” Wolfram smiled thinly from behind his narrow, pointed beard. “It is just that she does not know it yet. You see, whoever touches the princess in such a way as to rouse her from her sleep shall make of her a perfect match to the one who does the touching, and shall have her to wife, thus acquiring dominion over this portion of an important realm and its concurrent significant interdimensionality.”

“Is that all?” Mudge was studying his fingernails. “’Tis okay by me, guv.”

“Oh no it isn’t.” Jon-Tom advanced to stand alongside the otter. “If an interdimensionality is involved here, it means that this piece of whiskery double-crossing scum might be able to make trouble in my world as well.”

The otter shrugged. “Not me problem. Mayhap ’is meddlin’s might improve that revoltin’ London place.”

The sorcerer nodded knowingly. “I thought I would have no trouble with you three.”

His fingers creeping across the strings of the duar, Jon-Tom mentally considered and discarded a dozen different songs. Which would be the most effective against a powerful, malign personality like Wolfram? Knowing little about the man, it was hard to conjure something specific. Then he recalled the sorcerer’s words, and knew what he needed to do.

Whirling, he made a dive for the bed.

“Hassone!”
Raising his staff, Wolfram thrust it in the spellsinger’s direction. Gray vapor shot from the globe at its terminus to coalesce directly between the diving Jon-Tom and the bed. Slamming into the abruptly materialized wall of solid rock, Jon-Tom stumbled once, staggered slightly, and then crumpled to the floor.

Gathering anxiously around their fallen comrade, Mudge and Stromagg exchanged a look, then turned their rising ire on the serene figure of Wolfram. Raising their weapons, they rushed the sorcerer, each screaming his own battle cry.

“BEEER!”
The grizzly’s bellow echoed off the walls and rattled the stained-glass windows.

“No refunds!”
the otter howled in tandem.

“Parimazzo!”
Wolfram countered, bringing his glowing staff around in a sweeping arc parallel to the floor.

Rising from the stone underfoot, all manner of fetid, armed horrors confronted the onrushing duo, swinging weapons made of the same stone as that from which they had been called forth. Mildly amused, Wolfram leaned on his staff and coolly observed the battle that ensued.

Behind the fracas, a groggy Jon-Tom slowly came around. Seeing what was taking place, he reached cautiously for his duar. Still lying on the floor, trying to avoid Wolfram’s notice, he began to play, and started to sing.

“Once there was an—urrrp!”

The unexpected belch did more than put a crimp in the chosen spellsong. The visible, tangible result was a solid, softly glowing jet-black musical quarter note that hovered in the air a foot or so in front of the astonished Jon-Tom’s face.

“Well what do you know,” he murmured to himself. “Music really
does
look like that.”

Reaching up he grabbed the note, rose, whirled it over his head, and flung it in Wolfram’s direction. Seeing it coming, the startled sorcerer raised his staff to defend himself. The note passed right through the protective glow to smack the startled mage on the forehead and send him staggering backward.

Emboldened, avoiding the nearby swordplay, Jon-Tom strode determinedly toward the stunned sorcerer, playing, singing, and belching as never before.

“And ever the drink—
urp
—shall flow freely—
breep
—to the sea—
burk
…”

Each belch produced a fresh glowing note, which he heaved one after another in the direction of the now panicking Wolfram. Desperate, the wizard executed a small motion in the air with his staff.

“Immunitago!”
A pair of large earmuffs appeared before him, drifted backward to settle themselves against his ears. Slowly his confident smile returned. Staff up-raised, he started toward Jon-Tom. Now the notes thrown by the spellsinger burst harmlessly in the air before reaching their target.

It was a newly anxious Jon-Tom’s turn to retreat. Changing tactics as he backpedaled, he also changed music. The roar of Rammstein thundered through the chaotic chamber. The duar glowed angrily, fiery with
bist
mist.

Shaken by the heavy-metal chords, Wolfram halted and clutched at his stricken ears. Trying to keep the earmuffs from vibrating off his head, he flung a wild blast from his staff. Ducking, Jon-Tom watched as the flare of malevolent energy shot over his head.

To strike the grizzly, who was busy turning his stony, stone-faced assailants into gravel.

“Stromagg!” a pained Jon-Tom yelled.

The force of the blast blew the bear backward into, and through, the stone wall that Wolfram had conjured earlier to encircle the sleeping princess. Rock went flying as the barely conscious bear landed on the bed. Groaning, he rolled to his right. His arm rose, arced, and fell feebly—to land on the waist of the slumbering princess.

Aghast, a horrified Wolfram let out a shriek of despair.
“Nooo!”
Jon-Tom remembered the sorcerer’s words.

Whoever touches the princess in such a way as to rouse her from her sleep shall make of her a perfect match to the one who does the touching, and shall have her to wife.

A delicate, swirling haze now rose about and enveloped the Princess Larinda. Her outline shimmered, shifted, flowed. She was changing, metamorphosing, into…

When the mist finally cleared, not one but two grizzlies lay recumbent on the bed. One was clad in armor, the other in attire most elegant and comely. Rubbing at her eyes, the princess sat up and turned to gaze at her savior. Blinking, holding one hand to his bleeding head, Stromagg looked back. Instantly the pain of the sorcerer’s perfidious blow was forgotten.

“Duhh—
wow
!”

“No, no, no!” Shrouded in tantrum sorceral, a despairing Wolfram was jumping up and down, swinging his deadly staff indiscriminately.

Sitting up on the bed, which now creaked alarmingly beneath the unexpected weight, Stromagg took both of the princess’s hands—or rather, paws—in his own and gazed deeply into dark brown eyes that mirrored his.

“Duh, hiya.”

Long lashes fluttered as she met his unflinching, if somewhat overwhelmed, gaze. “I always did like the strong, silent type.”

“This shall not last! By my oath, I swear it!” Numinous cape swirling about him, Wolfram whirled and fled through the open doorway. “I shall find a way to renew the sleeping spell. Then it will most assuredly be I who awakens her the second time!”

Lightning flickering from his staff of theurgic power, he raced unimpeded down the stairway and back through the foyer. Outside the smashed main doorway, the bridge back to the rest of reality beckoned.

From the shadows there emerged a foot. A furry foot, sandal-clad. It interposed itself neatly between the sorcerer’s feet.

Looking very surprised, Wolfram tripped down and forward, his momentum carrying him right over the side of the bridge. As he fell, he looked back up at a rapidly shrinking fuzzy face, astonished that he could have been defeated by something so common, so ordinary. As he plunged downward, he flailed madly for the staff he had dropped while stumbling. Though he never succeeded in recovering it, at least staff and owner hit the bottom of the canyon in concert.

Peering over the side of the bridge, Mudge let out a derisive whistle. “Bleedin’ wizards never look where they’re goin’.”

By the time the otter rejoined his companions, Jon-Tom was facing a revitalized Stromagg and his new-found paramour. The paws of each grizzly were locked in the other’s grasp.

“Sorry, guys,” Stromagg was murmuring. “I think I’d kinda like to stay here.”

Jon-Tom was grinning. “I can’t imagine why.”

A familiar hand tapped him on the arm. “You’d best lose that sappy grin now, guv, or they’ll likely ’ang you for it back in Lynchbany. You look bloody thick.”

“Be at peace, my good friends and saviors.” Though rather deeper than was traditional, the voice of the restored princess was still sweet and feminine. “I have some small powers. I promise that upon your return home, you will receive a reward in the form of whatever golden coins you have most recently handled and that these shall completely fill your place of dwelling. As Mistress of the Namur, this I vow.”

“Well, now, luv,” declared a delighted Mudge. “That’s more like it!”

It took some time, and not a small adventure or two, before they found themselves once more back in their beloved Bellwoods. Espying his riverbank home, a tired and dusty Mudge broke into a run.

“Time to cash in, mate! Remember the hairy princess’s promise.”

Following at a more leisurely pace, Jon-Tom was just in time to see his friend fling open his front door—only to be buried beneath an avalanche of gleaming golden discs. Hurrying forward, he dragged the otter clear of the mountain of metal.

“Rich, rich! At last! Finally!” The otter was beside himself with glee.

Or was, until he peered more closely at a handful of the discs. Doubt washed over his furry face. “’Tis odd, mate, but I swear I ain’t never before seen gold like this.”

Gathering up a couple of the discs, Jon-Tom regarded them with a resigned expression. “That’s because it’s not gold, Mudge.”

“Not gold?” Sputtering outrage, the otter sprang to his feet. Which, given the shortness of his legs, was a simple enough maneuver. “But the princess bleedin’ promised, she did. ‘The last golden coin I ’andled,’ she said. I remember! That were wot that slimy Wolfram character paid us with at the tavern back in Timswitty.” His expression darkened. “You’re shakin’ your ’ead, mate. I don’t like it when you shake your ’ead.”

“She said ‘gold
en
coin,’ Mudge. Not ‘gold coin.’” His open palm displayed the discs. “Remember when we were fleeing my world? These are London Underground tokens, Mudge.” At the otter’s openmouthed look of horror, he added unhelpfully, “Look at it this way: You can ride free around Greater London for the rest of eternity.”

Sitting down hard on the useless hoard, the otter slowly removed his feathered cap from between his ears and let it dangle loosely from his fingers. “I don’t suppose—I don’t suppose you ’ave a worthy spellsong for rescuin’ this sorry situation, do you, mate?”

Bringing the duar around, Jon-Tom shrugged. “No harm in trying.”

But Pink Floyd’s “Money” did not turn the tokens to real gold, nor did all the otter tears that spilled into the black river all the rest of that memorable day…

Redundancy

This story was originally commissioned for
UNIX
magazine. New intelligent software had been developed that allowed a computer to make decisions not only based on a predetermined set of standards, but also by appraising and evaluating situations and reaching an appropriate conclusion on its own. Similar software helps the Mars rovers to navigate independently while out of the range of communication with Earth.

The tale never appeared in
UNIX
magazine because, according to the editor who commissioned it, his superiors felt that a science-fiction story was not appropriate for a venue that dealt with actual science. This would, I think, be news to several generations of scientists, engineers, and researchers who have ofttimes been inspired by the science-fiction stories they read while growing up.

In composing stories, I frequently have to try to put myself in the mental and physical position of various aliens. Though designed by humans, nonhumanoid machines still qualify as perfectly alien. What, really, is your computer thinking when you put it, and yourself, to sleep? Relying entirely on the standards and practices that have been programmed into it, how could one possibly make what in the last analysis amounts to a moral or ethical decision?

In Tom Godwin’s classic SF story “The Cold Equations,” a human is forced to make a life-or-death decision in a machine-like fashion.

What if the reverse were true?

Amy was only
ten, and she didn’t want to die.

Not that she really understood death. Her only experience with it had come when they had buried Gramma Marie. Now the funeral was a wisp of a dream that hung like cobweb in the corners of her memory, something she did not think of at all unless it bumped into her consciousness accidentally. Even then it was no more than vaguely uncomfortable, without being really hurtful.

She did not recall a lot about the ceremony itself. Black-clad grown-ups speaking more softly than she had ever heard them talk, her mother sobbing softly into the fancy lace handkerchief she never wore anywhere, strange people bending low to tell her how very, very sorry they were—everything more like a movie than real life.

Mostly she remembered the skin of Gramma Marie’s face, so fine and smooth as she lay on her back in the big shiny box. The fleshy sheen mirrored the silken bright blue of the coffin’s upholstery. Such a waste of pretty fabric, she remembered thinking. Better to have made skirts and party dresses out of it than to bury it deep, deep in the ground. She liked that idea. She thought Gramma Marie would have liked it, too, but she couldn’t ask her about it now because Gramma Marie was dead, and people couldn’t talk to you anymore once they were dead. Not ever again. That was the thing she disliked most about death: not being able to talk to your friends anymore.

Thinking about it made her shiver slightly. She knew she was in big trouble, and she didn’t want to end up looking like Gramma Marie.

The potato vines and the carrots and the lettuce had not yet begun to die, though the leaves on the fruit trees were already starting to droop. Some had been killed by the explosion, torn to bits or ripped up and hurled violently against one another. One of the big pear trees had been blown to splinters. Smashed pears lay scattered across the floor like escapees from a Vermeer still life. Amy knew that the others would start dying soon, now that the hydroponic fluid that nourished their growth had stopped circulating and the special lights used to simulate the sun had gone out. The heaters were off, too, though some residual warmth still emanated from their internal radiant elements. The temperature was falling steadily, soaked up by the thirsty atmosphere of the rapidly cooling station module.

What really frightened her, though, was not the darkness or the gathering cold. It was the persistent, angry hiss that came from the base of the wall at the far end of the module. She couldn’t see the leak, but she could hear it. She tried putting some empty sacks over the hiss and then piling furniture on them. It muted the noise, but did not stop it. So she backed as far away from it as she could, all the way back across the room, as if retreating from a dangerous snake. There were four safety doors in the big module, designed to divide it into airtight quarters in the event of a leak. Not one of them had closed. She didn’t know why, but she guessed that the explosion had broken something inside them, too.

She wondered if she would know it when the air finally ran out.

She would have asked Mr. Reuschel about it, but he was already dead. He did not look at all like Gramma Marie had. His mouth hung open and instead of lying neat and straight on his back he was all bent and twisted on the floor where the explosion had thrown him. She didn’t know for certain he was dead, but she was pretty sure. He did not reply to any of her questions and he didn’t move at all, not even when she touched his eye. When she put her palm up to his mouth the way she had been taught to in school she couldn’t feel anything moving against her skin.

He had been the gardener on duty when everything had blown up. Daddy called him a hydroponics engineer, but Amy just thought of him as the gardener. Ms. Anwalt was the other gardener. Like everyone else on the station she probably knew about the explosion by now and would be anxious to check on the garden, but she couldn’t. No one could because the access door didn’t work anymore. The explosion had broken it just like it had broken Mr. Reuschel.

The door led to the lock, that led to the service corridor, that connected the hydroponics module to the rest of the station. Amy knew it was still connected because her feet were not floating off the floor. If the module had broken away from the rest of the station then it wouldn’t be swinging around the central core, and if it wasn’t rotating around the central core then she would be floating in zero-g right now.

She wondered if Jimmy Sanchez was worried about her. She hoped so. Jimmy was twelve, the only other kid on the station. His parents were photovoltechs who spent their days drifting like butterflies around the huge solar panels that powered and heated the facility. Jimmy was pretty nice, for a boy. She liked him more than he liked her, but maybe, just maybe, he was thinking about her.

She knew Mom and Dad must be worrying about her, but she tried not to think about that because it made her sad. She thought of all the bad things she had done as a little girl and wished now she hadn’t done them.

It was getting cold, and she knew she should keep moving.

She walked over to the rectangular port behind the tomato vines. Since all the overheads had gone out, the only light in the module came from the ports. Pressing her nose to the transparency allowed her to see the big blue sphere of the Earth outside, rotating slowly around the port. Doing geography helped keep her mind off the chill. She located Britain and Spain and the boot of Italy. There was no cloud cover over the Alps and she saw the snow on the mountaintops clearly. But the oceans were easiest to identify. They made her think of beaches, and the stinky-sweet smell of saltwater, and the warm summer sun.

She was able to see her breath by the light of the Earth. Mr. Reuschel still hadn’t moved. He did not protest as she struggled to get his jacket off. He was a grown-up and heavy and hard to move, and it made her stomach feel queasy to try, but she kept pushing and shoving. His jacket was bulky-warm and covered her down to her knees.

Water dripped from a broken pipe, a comforting sound in the darkness. She drank and then did her best to wash the dirt off her face, the dirt from where she had landed. She understood enough to be thankful for it. If the compost pile hadn’t been there to catch her and break her fall, she might be as twisted up as Mr. Reuschel.

After a moment’s thought she decided to sit down by the door. All of its internal LEDs had gone out so she knew it still wasn’t working. The big manual lever was bent and twisted and wouldn’t move even when she put all her weight against it.

It was very dark next to the door and away from the ports but somehow she felt better sitting there. Pouring through the ports, Earthlight made shadowy silhouettes of the injured trees and bushes. The cabin in Residential Module Six with her stuffed animals and seashells and snug second-tier bunk seemed very far away. It would have been easier if Jimmy, or anybody, had been there with her. But they weren’t. There was only poor Mr. Reuschel, and he was worse than no company at all. She was alone.

Except she wasn’t.

There was another presence in the module. It wasn’t dead, but it was not really alive, either. Awareness is a matter of technical definitions and predetermined perceptive capability. Consciousness is something entirely more abstract.

Molimon was aware of her presence but could not talk to her, could not provide reassurance or comfort. It was aware of the damage that had occurred, of Mr. Reuschel, of the falling temperature and absence of light. It had detected the leak at the far end of the module and continued to monitor the rate at which air was being lost. It was aware of everything around it. That was the job it had been assigned to do. That was the job it did well.

Until now. It knew that the environment in which it operated had undergone an abrupt and drastic change. There was damage and destruction everywhere. Nothing was functioning within assigned parameters and try as it might, Molimon could not restore anything to normal.

That was because it had suffered considerable damage itself. A pair of memories were gone, and an IOP processor had been popped by the force of the explosion. Two molly drives had stopped spinning. Efficiently, effectively, Molimon distributed the responsibilities of the damaged sectors among the components of itself that continued to function. It was wounded, but far from dead.

Internal communications continued to operate, allowing Molimon to send details to Command Central of the damage it and the module had suffered. So far there had been no response. No doubt Central was concentrating on assessing the damage to those components and parts of the station that were unable to report on themselves. Knowing that Molimon could take care of itself, Central would take its time responding.

Having reported the damage and requested instructions on how to begin repairs, Molimon rested and waited for a reply. It could not wait long. If no instructions were forthcoming, it would have to shut itself down while battery power remained, thereby preserving its programming and functions until full external power was restored. This caused it no concern. Anxiety was not part of its programming. It had no concept of unconsciousness. Shutdown was merely another state of existence. There was nothing to be concerned about, since all systems within the module were fully redundant.

It was aware of the damage to the hydroponics module only in purely quantitative terms: the absence of light, of heat, of equipment functioning efficiently and according to plan. Supervising the hydroponics environment was but one component of its mission, and it could not bring anything back online until power was restored. Knowing this, it completed its observations, allotted them a sector on one of its still-functioning mollys, and made a complete record of the situation. Programming now called for it to commence an orderly shutdown while sufficient reserve power remained for it to do so.

It did not. Unexpectedly an important component of the module still functioned.

Hedrickson studied the readouts and listened to the human static that filled his headphones. The various speakers were angry, frustrated, anxious. He worked at the console unaware that he was gritting his teeth. They were starting to hurt, but he didn’t notice the discomfort. Just as he did not immediately take notice of the hand that came down on his shoulder.

“How’re we doing?”

Pushing the phones off his ears, he leaned back in the chair and stared dully at the monitors. “It’s slow. Real slow. The corridor’s a mess. They’re clearing it as fast as possible but they can’t use heavy tools in there or they’re liable to hull the tube.”

“Doesn’t matter, if they’re working in suits.” Cassie’s gaze flicked over the readouts. The figures were not reassuring.

“They’re afraid any explosive decompression might weaken the tube’s joints to the point where they could snap. Engineering already thinks that the initial explosion may have compromised structural integrity where the corridor attaches to the module’s lock. If that goes, we could lose the whole thing.” His tone was leaden, tired, indicative of a man who needed sleep and knew he was not going to get any. “How’re the Maceks taking it?”

Cassie Chin shrugged helplessly. “Tina’s in shock. They took her down to the clinic and put her under sedation. Iwato’s watching her closely. I think he’s pretty worried about her.”

“Damn it. What about Michael?”

“Couple of the riggers volunteered to stay with him. They had to lock down the main bay to keep him from going out in a suit.”

Hedrickson’s fingers drummed nervously on the console. “How much do they know?”

“They’ve figured out Amy’s in there somewhere. They know the lights are out and the heat is going, that the AV lines are down and that no one inside is responding to queries through the board.”