Michael Swanwick - Vacumn Flowers

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VACUMN FLOWERS
Michael Swanwick
3S XHTML edition 1.0
click for scan notes and proofing history
contents
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By the same author
In the Drift
ARBOR HOUSE New York
Copyright © 1987 by Michael Swanwick
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in
whole or in part in any form. Published in the United States
of America by Arbor House Publishing Company and in
Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Swanwick, Michael. Vacuum flowers.
I. Title.
PS3569.W28V3 1987 813'.54 86-20603
ISBN 0-87795-870-X
For Gardner Dozois
Thanks are due to Marianne for naming the Pequod,
undifferentiating cells, and seeding a stagnant drop of
water, to Jack Dann for the scripture from Pushkin, to Bob
Walters for supplying plesiosaurs and designing Wyeth’s
vacuum suit, to Greg Frost and Tim Sullivan for last-minute
advice, to Tom Purdom for breakfast beer, to Gardner
Dozois for the usual reasons, and to Virginia Kidd for
patience. Financial support was provided by the M. C.
Porter Endowment for the Arts. And a special debt of
gratitude is owed Mario Rups, Ed Bryant, and Don Keller for
irritating remarks.
1
REBEL
She didn’t know she had died.
She had, in fact, died twice—by accident the first time,
but suicide later. Now the corporation that owned her had
decided she should die yet again, in order to fuel a million
throwaway lives over the next few months.
But Rebel Elizabeth Mudlark knew none of this. She
knew only that something was wrong and that nobody
would talk to her about it.
“Why am I here?” she asked.
The doctor’s face loomed over her. It was thin and
covered by a demon mask of red and green wetware paint
that she could almost read. It had that horrible
programmed smile that was supposed to be reassuring,
the corners of the mouth pushing his cheeks into little
round balls. He directed that death’s head rictus at her.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” he said.
A line of nuns floated by overhead, their breasts bobbing
innocently, wimples starched and white. They were riding
the magnetic line at the axis of the city cannister, as
graceful as small ships. It was a common enough sight,
even a homey one. But then Rebel’s perception did a
flipflop and the nuns were unspeakably alien, floating
upside-down against the vast window walls that were cold
with endless stretches of bright glittery stars embedded in
night. She must have seen the like a thousand times
before, but now, without warning, her mind shrieked
strange strange strange and she couldn’t make heads or
tails of what she was seeing. “I can’t remember things,”
Rebel said. “Sometimes I’m not even sure who I am.”
“Well, that’s perfectly normal,” the doctor said, “under
the circumstances.” He disappeared behind her head.
“Nurse, would you take a look at this?”
Someone she could not see joined him. They conferred
softly. Gritting her teeth, Rebel said, “I suppose it happens
to you all the time.”
They ignored her. The scent of roses from the divider
hedges was heavy and cloying, thick enough to choke on.
Traffic continued flowing along the axis.
If she could have moved so much as an arm, Rebel
would’ve waited for the doctor to lean too close, and then
tried to choke the truth out of him. But she was
immobilized, unable even to move her head. She could
only stare up at the people floating by and the stars
wheeling monotonously past. The habitat strips to either
side of overhead were built up with platforms and false
hills, rising like islands from a starry sea. By their shores
occasional groups of picnickers ventured onto the window
floor, black specks visible only when they occulted stars or
other cannister cities. The strange planet went by again.
“We’ll want to wait another day before surgery,” the
doctor said finally. “But her persona’s stabilized nicely. If
there aren’t any major changes in her condition, we can
cut tomorrow.” He moved toward the door.
“Wait a minute!” Rebel cried. The doctor stopped,
turned to look at her. Dead eyes surrounded by paint,
under a brush of red hair. “Have I given permission for
this operation?”
Again he turned that infuriatingly reassuring smile on
her. “Oh, I don’t think that’s important,” he said, “do
you?”
Before she could answer, he was gone.
As the nurse adjusted the adhesion disks on Rebel’s
brow and behind her ears, she briefly leaned into Rebel’s
view. It was a nun, a heavy woman with two chins and eyes
that burned with visions of God. Earlier, when Rebel was
still groggy and half-aware, she had introduced herself as
Sister Mary Radha. Now Rebel could see that the nun had
been tinkering with her own wetware—her mystic
functions were cranked up so high she could barely
function.
Rebel looked away, to hide her thoughts. “Please turn
on,” she murmured. The video flat by the foot of her cot
came up, open to the encyclopedia entry for medical codes.
Hastily, she switched it over to something innocuous.
Simple-structure atmospheric methane ecologies. She
pretended to be absorbed in the text.
Then, as the nurse was leaving, Rebel casually said,
“Sister? The flat’s at a bad angle for me. Could you tilt it
forward a little?” The nun complied. “Yeah, like that. No, a
bit … perfect.” Rebel smiled warmly, and for a moment
Sister Mary Radha basked in this manifestation of
universal love. Then she floated out.
“Fucking god-head,” Rebel muttered. Then, to the flat,
“Thank you.”
It turned itself off.
The flat’s surface was smooth and polished. Turned off,
it darkly reflected the foot of Rebel’s cot and the medical
code chart hanging there.
Rebel quickly decoded the reversed symbols. There were
two simplified persona wheels, one marked Original, and
the other Current. They looked nothing at all like each
other. Another symbol for wetsurgical prep, and three
more that, boiled down, meant she had no special medical
needs. And a single line of print below that, where her
name should have been. Rebel read it through twice, letter
by letter, to make sure there was no mistake:
Property of Deutsche Nakasone GmbH
Anger rose up in Rebel like a savage white animal. She
clenched her teeth and drew back her lips and did not try
to fight it. She wanted this anger. It was her ally, her only
friend. It raged through her paralyzed body, a hot storm of
fangs and claws and violence.
Then the fury overran her sense of self and swept her
under. Drowning, she was carried down into the dark
chaos of helplessness below. Into the murky despair that
had no name or purpose, where she lost her face, her
body, her being. She was a demon, blindly watching
people stream through the air and stars slide to the side,
and hating them all. Wanting to smash them all together
in her hands, cities and stars and people alike, and smear
them into a pulpy little ball, as she laughed, with black
tears running down from her eyes…
* * *
She came out of her fugue feeling weak and depressed.
“Please tell me the time,” she said, and the flat obeyed.
Four hours had passed.
A woman stepped into the niche, a skinny type in
greenface with a leather tool harness, some kind of
low-level biotech. Humming to herself, she began to trim
the walls. She worked methodically, obsessively, pausing
every now and then to train a rose back into place.
“Hey, sport,” Rebel said. “Do me a favor.” Her loginess
evaporated as the adrenalin began to flow. She flashed a
smile.
“Hmm? Ah! Er… what is it?” With a visible effort, the
woman pulled herself away from her work.
“I’m getting out in a couple of hours, and nobody’s
arranged for any clothing for me. Could you drop by
wherever-it-is on the way out, and get them to send
something over?”
The woman blinked. “Oh. Uh… sure, I suppose. Isn’t
your nurse supposed to take care of that?”
Rebel rolled her eyes. “She sees universal purpose in the
stars, and the meaning of existence in the growth of a rose.
The little stuff she’s not so good on. Know what I mean?”
Anyone working in a hospital with a nursing order would
find that easy to believe.
“Well. Yeah, why not?” The woman returned to her
work, visibly relieved the conversation was over. Twigs
and leaves snowed down from her fingers. By the time she
left, Rebel was sure the woman had forgotten her promise.
But an hour later an orderly stepped in and wordlessly
deposited a cloak on the table by her bed. “Sonofabitch,”
Rebel said softly. She was actually going to break out of
this place!
* * *
Rebel napped. When she awoke, she spent an
excruciating hour staring at the people floating through
the eternal twilight before Sister Mary Radha returned.
The nun’s belly overhung her cincture, and she was as
heavily mystic-wired as ever.
“Sister,” Rebel said, “the leads in my adhesion disks are
out of adjustment. Would you take a look at them?” Then,
when the woman’s hands were deep in the wires, she said,
“You know, there’s a verse by one of your prophets that’s
been running through my head. But I’ve forgotten part. It
starts: ‘Tormented by thirst of the spirit, I was dragging
myself through a gloomy forest when a six-winged seraph
appeared to me at the crossroads.’ Are you familiar with
that? Then it goes”—she closed her eyes, as if trying to
bring up the words—“ ‘He touched my eyes with fingers
light as a dream, and my eyes opened wide as those of a
frightened she eagle. He touched my ears…’ and I forget
the rest.”
Sister Mary Radha’s hands stopped moving. For one
still, extended moment she said nothing. Then the nun
stared up into the infinite depths of night and murmured,
“Saint Pushkin.” Her voice rose. “ ‘He touched my ears,
and roaring and noise filled them, and I heard the
trembling of the angels, and the movement of creatures
beneath the seas, and the growing of the grass in the
valleys! And he laid hold of my lips, and tore out my sinful
tongue—’ ” She arched her back and shivered in religious
ecstasy. Her hands jerked spasmodically. One of the
adhesion disks was yanked askew, and Rebel’s head
slammed to the side. But she was still paralyzed.
“Sister,” Rebel said quietly. “Sister?”
“Mmmm?” the nun replied dreamily.
“The doctor wanted you to remove my paralysis now. Do
you remember that? He asked me to remind you.” Rebel
held her breath. This was the moment when she either
won free or lost it all. Everything depended on how long it
took Sister Mary Radha to reconnect with reality.
“Oh,” the nun said. She fumbled with a switch, haltingly
changed two settings. With somnambulant slowness, she
lifted off the disks. Then she shook her head, smiling
vaguely, and wandered out.
Rebel let out her breath. She could move! But for a long
minute she did not, choosing instead to stare up, unseeing.
The memory of her reflection in the video flat,
foreshortened and distorted though it had been, pinned
her to the cot with dread. At last she gathered up courage
and gingerly, haltingly, held up an arm before her eyes.
Slowly she rotated it.
The arm was whole and its muscles shifted smoothly.
The skin was a soft, Italian brown, unscarred, lightly
fuzzed with fine dark hair. The fingers were short, the
nails a pearly pink. Horrified, Rebel sat bolt upright and
stared down her body.
Her breasts were round and full. Her thighs were a trifle
heavy, but still muscular. The hospital had left her
cache-sexe on for modesty’s sake, but above it a thin line of
black hairs marched up her belly like ants. Her legs were
short, functional, strong. It was a good, healthy body.
But it was not her body. Rebel Elizabeth Mudlark’s body
was long and lean and knobby at the elbows and knees.
Her skin was white as porcelain and her hair was mousy
blond. Her hands and feet were long and slender, with an
artist’s fingers, a concert pianist’s toes. Almost the exact
opposite of the body she had now.
I shall go mad, Rebel thought. I will scream.
But she did neither. She stood and examined her paint
in the obsidian surface of the flat. Ignoring the strange
round face with button nose and dark eyes—eyes that
flashed animal fear at her. A line of red paint ran from ear
to ear, like a mask, with spiky wing lines flying up the
brows. “Please turn on,” she said, and looked it up under
wetware codes. Logically enough, it identifed her as
Hospital Patient, Wetsurgery Prep.
The paint smeared. It took only a second to change the
markings to Outpatient, Wetsurgery Postop. Two small
antennae now reached down from the eyes, a second pair
of wings sprouted on the forehead. She wrapped the cloak
about her, hood up, and stepped out of her niche, onto a
flagstone walk.
The walk ran between high rosehedges, angled into
another. She was swept up in a flow of medical personnel
in gowns that matched their facepaint masks—surgical
greens, diagnostics blues, wetware reds—and a sprinkling
of civilians in their cloaks. They strode along crisply,
blankly, as self-absorbed as robots. Rebel moved invisibly
among them, gliding along on tiptoe since it was a
gravity-light area.
She moved confidently at first, cloak streaming in her
wake. Then the walk branched, and branched again, and
she was hopelessly lost in the rose maze, among the
hundreds of niches where patients were packed tight as
larvae in a hive. Without warning, she felt naked and
exposed, and she couldn’t remember how to walk. All
those complex motions. In a panic, she pulled her cloak
about her and stumbled.
The zombies swirled by, stepping deftly aside as she
fought for balance. Cold faces glanced quickly at her, then
away.
Just as she went sprawling, an arm reached out and
snagged her elbow, and she was hauled gracelessly to her
feet. Turning, she found herself looking into a thin,
vulpine face slashed by a single orange wetware line. The
stranger smiled, narrow jaw, sharp little teeth. He had a
painful grip on her arm, just above the elbow. “This way,”
he said.
“That’s okay, sport,” Rebel said quickly. “I just lost my
footing. Point me the right way out, and I’d be grateful.”
“Oh bullshit,” the man said. “They’d’ve caught you
already if anybody knew you were missing yet.” Rebel
yanked her arm free and found that her new, unfamiliar
body was trembling with adrenalin reaction. The man
smiled condescendingly. “Listen, I know somebody who
can help you out of this mess. Do you want to meet her or
not?”
* * *
They were on the spine of their habitat island, where the
giant druid oaks grew. One spread its limbs over the
commercial maze of shops and taverns bordering the
hospital. Its trunk reached halfway to the axis. Looking up
as they strolled, Rebel saw stars blinking in its upper
reaches, appearing and disappearing in the gaps between
leaves. “Hell of a stunt, escaping from full therapeutic
paralysis,” the man said. “I’d love to know how you did it.”
Then, when she did not respond, “Hey. My name’s Jerzy
Heisen.”
In among the branches, leaves descended slowly, barely
moving through the suspended dust, as if the air had
thickened to hold them up. In the soft light, the dust and
leaves shared a stillness that was actually slow, tireless
motion, an endless eddying as ponderous and inevitable
as the rotation of spiral galaxies. “Is that so?” Rebel
wished she could climb up the tree, in among the floating
twigs and detritus, so like the vast tidal fronts of home. “I
take it from your knowing hints that I needn’t bother
introducing myself.”
“Oh, I know all about you.” They passed between
displays of body jewelry: silverplated armbands gleaming
softly under blue spots, some sparkling with Lunar
diamonds, impact emeralds, even Columbian tourmaline.
“You’re a persona bum, currently suffering from a major
personality erasure—self-induced, by the way—and held
together by a prototypical identity overlay that is, properly
speaking, the property of the Deutsche Nakasone
Gesellschaft. Your name is Eucrasia Walsh.”
“No, it’s—” She stopped, bewildered. The name did
sound familiar, in a crazy kind of way, as if Heisen had put
a name to all that was ugly within her, to all the
self-pitying and wounded hatred she sank into when her
mood turned dark. The stale, dusty smell of defeat and
weary guilt rose up within her, and she ducked her head.
Heisen took her elbow and urged her forward.
“Confused, eh? Well, that’s perfectly normal,” he said,
“under the circumstances.”
She looked directly at him then, and something about
his face, the small pinched lines of it, the long narrow
nose, that brush of red hair… She knew that face. It took
only a small act of imagination to see it covered with a
demon mask of red and green lines. “You’re my doctor!”
“Your wetsurgeon, yeah.” The walk bridged a pond thick
with water lilies. Pierrots waited on tables by the water’s
edge. “Not to worry, though—I’m off-program. I wouldn’t
turn my worst enemy over to those bastards at Deutsche
Nakasone on my own time. Not that I have any choice
when I’m programmed up…” The crowd thickened and
slowed and came to a halt. “Here. We go downtown now.”
摘要：

VACUMNFLOWERSMichaelSwanwick3SXHTMLedition1.0clickforscannotesandproofinghistorycontents|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|BythesameauthorIntheDriftARBORHOUSENewYorkCopyright©1987byMichaelSwanwickAllrightsreserved,includingtherightofreproductioninwholeorinpartinanyform.PublishedintheUnitedStatesof...

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