Otherness (24 page)

"I . . . don't think . . ."

"Watch, I'll show you!"

Gaia's tongue popped out as she concentrated, quivering with excitement from her red ponytail down to her rounded belly, passing the stick-probe through a sealed hatch to delve after six-legged prey. "Got one!" she cried, drawing a twitching insect to her lips.

"You're not seriously . . ." My throat stopped as the termite vanished, headfirst. Bliss crossed Gaia's face. "M-m-m, crunchy!" She smacked, revealing two legs and a twitching tail.

I found enough manly dignity to raggedly chastise her.

"Don't . . . talk with your mouth full."

Turning away, I added—"If you need me, I'll be in my workout room."

Gaia had rearranged our sleep quarters again. Now the cramped chamber merged seamlessly with a tropic paradise, including raucous birdcalls and mist from a roaring waterfall. The impressive effects made it hard navigating past the bed, so I ordered the hologram blanked. Silence fell as the vid-wall turned gray, leaving just the real-life portion of her pocket jungle to contend with—a tangle of potted plants warranted to give off purer oxygen than a pregnant woman could sniff from bottles.

Wading through creepers and mutant ficuses, I finally found the moss-lined laundry hamper and threw in my work clothes. The fragrant Clean-U-Lichen had already sani-scavenged and folded my exercise togs, which felt warm and skin-supple when I drew them on. The organoelectric garment rippled across my skin as if alive, seeming just as eager for a workout as I was.

I'd been through hell at the office. Traffic was miserable and the smog index had been redlining all week. Termites were only the last straw.

"Let's go," I muttered. "I haven't killed anything in a week."

Long Stick spotted a big old buck gazelle.

"It limps," my hunting partner said, rising from his haunches to point across a hundred yards of dry savannah. "Earlier, it met a lion."

I rose from my stretching exercises to peer past a screen of sheltering boulders, following Long Stick's gnarly arm. One animal stood apart from the herd. Sniffing an unsteady breeze, the buck turned to show livid claw marks along one flank. Clearly, this prey was a pushover compared to last Sunday's pissed-off rhino. The virtual reality machine must have sensed I'd had a rough day.

My hands stroked the spear, tracing its familiar nicks and knots. An illusion of raw, archetypal power.

"The beaters are ready, Chief,"

I nodded. "Let's get on with it."

Long Stick pursed his lips and mimicked the call of a bee-catcher bird. Moments later, the animals snorted as a shift in the heavy air brought insinuations of human scent. Another hundred yards beyond the herd, where the sparse pampas faded into a hazy stand of acacia trees, I glimpsed the rest of our hunting party, creeping forward.

My hunters. My tribe
.

I was tempted to reach up and adjust the virtu-reality helmet, which fed this artificial world to my eyes and ears . . . to zoom in on those distant human images. Alas, except for Long Stick, I had never met any of the other hunters up close. Good persona programs aren't cheap, and with a baby coming, there were other things for Gaia and me to spend money on.

Yeah, like a crummy termite hive
! Resentment fed on surging adrenaline.
Never trust a gatherer
. That was the hunters' creed.
Love 'em, protect 'em, die for them, but always remember, their priorities are different
.

The beaters stood as one, shouting. The gazelles reared, wheeling the other way. Long Stick hissed. "Here they come!"

The Accu-Terrain floor thrummed beneath my feet to the charge of a hundred hooves. Sensu-Surround earphones brought the stampede roar of panicky beasts thundering toward us, wild-eyed with ardor to survive. Clutching my spear in sweaty palms, I crouched as graceful animals vaulted overhead, ribcages heaving.

Meanwhile, a faint, subsonic mantra recited.
I am part of nature . . . one with nature
. . .

The young, and breeding females, we let flash by without harm. But then, trailing and already foaming with fatigue, came the old buck, its leap leaden, unsteady, and I knew the program really was taking it easy on me today.

Long Stick howled. I sprinted from cover, swiftly taking the lead. The auto-treadmill's bumps and gullies matched whatever terrain the goggles showed me, so my feet knew how to land and thrust off again. The body suit brushed my skin with synthetic wind. Flared nostrils inhaled sweat, exhilaration, and for a time I forgot I was in a tiny room on the eightieth floor of a suburban Chitown con-apt.

I
was
deep in the past of my forebears, back in a time when men were few, and therefore precious, magical.

Back when nature thrived . . . and included us.

Easy workout or no, I got up a good sweat before the beast was cornered against a stand of jagged saw grass. The panting gazelle's black eye met mine with more than resignation. In it I saw tales of past battles and matings. Of countless struggles won, and finally lost. I couldn't have felt more sympathy if he'd been real.

My throwing arm cranked and I thought—
Long ago, I'd have done this to feed my wife and child
.

As for here and now?

Well . . . this sure beats the hell out of racquetball
.

Mass-produced con-apt housing lets twelve billion Earthlings live in minim decency, at the cost of dwelling all our lives in boxes piled halfway to the sky. Lotteries award scarce chances to visit mountains, the seashore. Meanwhile, Virtuality keeps us sane within our hi-rise caves.

On my way to shower after working out, I saw that Gaia's private VR room was in use. Impulsively, I tiptoed into the closet next door, feeling for the crack between stacked room units, and pressed my eye close to the narrow chink of light. Gaia squatted on her treadmill floor, shaped to mimic a patch of uneven ground. Her body suit fit her pregnant form like a second skin, while helmet and goggles made her resemble some kind of bug, or star alien. But I knew her scenario, like mine, lay in the distant past. She made digging motions with a phantom tool, invisible to me, held in her cupped hands. Then she reached down to pluck another ghost item, her gloves simulating touch to match whatever root or tuber it was that she saw through the goggles. Gala pantomimed brushing dirt away from her find, then dropping it into a bag at her side.

Sometimes, eavesdropping like this, I'd feel a chill wondering how odd
I
must look during workouts, leaping about, brandishing invisible spears and shouting at my "hunters." No wonder most people keep VR so private.

Gaia tilted her head as if listening to somebody, then laughed aloud. "I know! Didn't the two of them look funny? Coming home all proud with that skinny little squirrel on a stick? Such great hunters! That didn't stop them from gobbling half our carrots!"

Naturally, I couldn't see or hear Gaia's companions—presumably other women gatherers in the same simulated tribe she had been visiting since years before we met. She stopped again, listening, then turned around. "It's your baby, Flower. That's okay, I'll take care of him." She laughed. "I need the practice."

A warm feeling spread as I watched her gently pick up an invisible child. Her body suit tugged and contracted, mimicking a wriggly weight in her arms. Awkwardly, but with clear enjoyment, Gala cooed at an infant who dwelled only in a world of software, and her mind.

I crept away to take a shower, at once ashamed of spying and glad that I had.

We had met at a campus Earth Day festival, soon after the price of full bodysuits fell to a level students could afford. By then she and I each had our own Pleistocene worlds, the same ones we maintained five years later, with upgrades and improvements. If I had known on that day of our shared interest in the simulated past, it might have made approaching her easier. As it was, I followed her strolling by booths and exhibits proclaiming this or that planet-saving endeavor, single-mindedly entranced by the graceful way she moved. Since she wore a smog mask and sunglasses against the UV, I couldn't see much of her face. But Gaia laughed a rich contralto, clapping as contestants jousted with padded lances from the backs of flapping skycycles. When the undefeated champion called in vain for fresh challengers, I stepped forward impulsively, eager to impress her. . . .

When I came to, later, it was in the air-conditioned first-aid tent. An angel cradled my head on her lap, speaking my name. I didn't even recognize her till she laughed at my confusion. "You're okay," she said. "It's just a bump on the head."

I recall sagging back, aching and content. It turned out Gaia had already noticed me, days before in the library, asked friends about me, accessed my open postings on the Net. . . . As usual, she was one step ahead of me, and I didn't mind a bit. I never had any cause to, until the day of the termites.

Emerging from a long shower, I found the wall screen in the bedroom had been tuned to Mother Earth Channel Fifty-three. A green-robed priestess recited a sermon.

". . .
some radicals say science and nature are foes. That we should get rid of all machines, farms, cities, returning to more natural ways of life
. . . ."

Gaia emerged from her closet wearing a bright cotton shift over her blossoming figure, sorting through a cloth bag slung over one shoulder. "Where are you going?" I tried asking, but the life-size matron on the wall was doubly loud.

". . .
As we learn about healthy diets, it seems we should eat like our ancestors, back when meat was caught but twice a week or so, and all other food was gathered by skilled women
. . . ."

I tugged Gaia's elbow, repeating my question. She startled, then smiled at me. "NatuBirth class, sweetheart. Lots to learn before I'm ready. Just two months left, you know."

"But I thought . . ."

". . .
Fats and sweets were rare back then, hence our cravings. But now forests topple for cattle ranches and sugar farms, producing far too much of a good thi
—"

I shouted. "Computer! Shut off that noise!"

Welcome silence fell. The priestess's mouth moved silently while Gaia looked reproving.

"You said I might come along next time," I complained.

Gaia stroked my face. "Now, dear, we're just going over nest and birthing procedures. You'd only be bored."

How could I answer that? My dad used to proudly describe the day I entered the world. He assisted, and even cut the cord, back when old-fashioned "feminism" touted sharing all life's duties. Unlike today's "femismo," which says there are some things men just aren't meant to take part in.

Undaunted, I changed tacks. Snaking arms around Gaia's waist, I drew her close. "Actually, I was hoping this evening . . ."

Her laughter was indulgent. "You had a good hunt, yes? I can tell. It always leaves you frisky."

"Mph. Go to the damn class, then. I'll be okay."

"Aw, sweetie." She tiptoed to kiss my chin. "Look by the console for a present . . . something to show I haven't forgotten you." Gaia blew another kiss from the front door, and was gone.

I wandered to the master house controller and picked up a brighdy colored program chip, still tacky where Gaia must have peeled off a discount sticker from the NatuLife Store.
Something for the Hunter
, the tide read, and I snorted.
Right
. In other words, something to keep the man of the house distracted beating drums with a bunch of make-believe comrades, while a wife's attention turns to
serious
matters—nesting and the continuity of life. It might have been meant as a loving gesture, but right then it made me feel superfluous, even more left out than before.

Sliding the chip into the console, I accidentally brushed the volume knob, and the booming voice of the priestess returned.

". . .
must face the fact that Earth's billions wont accept returning to nature by scratching mud and sleeping on dirt floors. We must learn
new
ways, both more natural and
smarter. . . ."

I snickered at that. Funny how each generation thinks
it
knows what "smarter" means.

Long Stick greeted me with a sweeping bow, at once sardonic and respectful. "Welcome back, O Great Chief."

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered at my simulated sidekick. "Okay, I'll bite. What's different this time?"

Everything seemed less real without my virtuality helmet and bodysuit. Here in the living room, primeval forest cut off sharply where the vid-wall met the couch. Yet I could have sworn my ersatz companion seemed friendlier,
warmer
, somehow.

"The flint-smiths are ready to show their wares, Chief," Long Stick said.

"The who . . .?" I began. But Long Stick had already turned to begin striding down a path. From past adventures in this simulated world, I knew the trail led to a stone-lined gully. The living room had no treadmill-floor, so I stood still, watching the image of Long Stick's fur-draped back plow past trees and boulders down a series of switchbacks! A rhythmic sound grew steadily louder—a tinny clatter of brittle objects colliding and breaking. Finally we reached a sandy streambed where several figures could be seen sitting on logs, hammering stones together.

Oh, yes. Flint-smiths
. NatuLife stocked countless "You-Are-There" programs in all the ancient arts, from bronze casting to automobile design. With our shared interest in the Neolithic, Gaia had cleverly bought a Stone Age simulation the computer could fit right into my private world, to help pass an evening while she trained for motherhood.

Okay
, I sighed.
Let's get on with it
.

A youngster with a wispy beard noticed us, stopped hammering, and nudged the others—a weathered old man and a sturdy-looking fellow with one leg much shorter than the other.

"We have worked those chert cores we traded from Seacliff Tribe, O Chief," the oldest one said, lisping through gaps in his teeth. "Would you like to see?"