Michael Swanwick - Trojan Horse

Science fiction is for the most part a literature of rationalism, but this has never prevented its writers from speculating about matters that go beyond scientific knowledge. The subject of God turns up in a large number of thoughtful stories, from Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star" to Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz… and now in this intense novelette about human-computer interfacing on a future space station.

Michael Swanwick's short fiction has often been nominated for awards, and his first novel. In the Drift, was published early this year.

"It's all inside my head," Elin said wonderingly. It was true. A chimney swift flew overhead, and she could feel its passage through her mind. A firefly landed on her knee. It pulsed cold fire, then spread its wings and was go^, and that was a part of her, too.

"Please try not to talk too much." The wetware tech tightened a cinch on the table* adjusted a bone inductor. His red and green facepaint loomed over her, then receded. "This will go much faster if you cooperate."

Elin's head felt light and airy. It was huge. It contained all of Magritte, from the uppermost terrace down through the office levels to the trellis farms that circled the inner lake. Even the blue and white Earth that hovered just over one rock wall. They were all within her. They were all, she realized, only a model, the picture her mind assembled from sensory input. The exterior universe-the real universe-lay beyond.

"I feel giddy."

"Contrast high." The tech's voice was neutral. "This is a different mode of perception from what you're used to-you're stoned on the novelty."

A catwalk leading into the nearest farm rattled within Elin's mind as a woman in agricultural blues strode by, burlap gourd-collecting bag swinging from her hip. It was night outside the crater but biological day within, and the agtechs had activated tiers of arc lights at the cores of the farms. Filtered by greenery, the light was soft and watery.

"I could live like this forever."

"Believe me, you'd get bored." A rose petal fell softly on her cheek, and the tech brushed it off. He turned to face the two lawyers who stood silently nearby, waiting. "Are the legal preliminaries finished now?"

The lawyer in orangeface nodded. The one in purple said, "Can't her original personality be restored at all?'"

Drawing a briefcase from his pocket, the wet ware tech threw up a holographic diagram between himself and the witnesses. The air filled with intricate three-dimensional trac­ery, red and green lines interweaving and meshing.

"We've mapped the subject's current personality." He reached out to touch several junctions. "You will note that here, here, and here we have what are laughingly referred to as impossible emotional syllogisms. Any one of these renders the subject incapable of survival."

A thin waterfall dropped from the dome condensers to a misty pool at the topmost terrace, a bright razor slash through reality. It meandered to the edge of the next terrace and fell again.

"A straight yes or no will suffice."

The tech frowned. "In theory., yes. In practical terms, it's hopeless. Remember, her personality was never recorded. The accident almost completely randomized her emotional structure-technically she's not even human. Given a decade or two of extremely delicate memory probing, we could maybe construct a facsimile. But it would only resemble the original; it could never be the primary Elin Donnelly."

Elin could dimly make out the equipment for five more waterfalls, but they were not in operation at the moment. She wondered why.

The attorney made a rude noise. "Well then, go ahead and do it. I wash my hands of this whole mess."

The tech bent over Elin to reposition a bone inductor. "This won't hurt a bit," he promised. "Just pretend that you're at the dentist's, having your teeth replaced."

She ceased to exist.

The new Elin Donnelly gawked at everything-desk work­ers in their open-air offices, a blacksnake sunning itself by the path, the stone stairs cut into the terrace walls. Her lawyer led her through a stand of saplings no higher than she and into a meadow.

Butterflies scattered at their approach. Her gaze went from them to a small cave in the cliffs ahead, then up to the stars, as jumpy and random as the butterflies' flight.

"-So you'll be stuck on the moon for a full lunation- almost a month-if you want to collect your settlement. I. G. Feuchtwaren will carry your expenses until then, drawing against their final liability. Got that?"

And then-suddenly, jarringly-Elin could focus again. She took a deep breath. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I-okay."

"Good." The attorney canceled her judicial-advisory wetware, yanking the skull plugs and briskly wrapping them around her briefcase. "Then let's have a drink-it's been a long day."

They had arrived at the cave. "Hey, Hans!" the lawyer shouted. "Give us some service here, will you?"

A small man with the roguish face of a comic-opera troll popped into the open, work terminal in hand. "One minute," he said. "I'm on direct flex time-got to wrap up what I'm working on first."

"Okay." The lawyer sat down on the grass. Elin watched, fascinated, as the woman toweled the paint from her face, and a new pattern of fine red and black lines, permanently tattooed into her skin, emerged.

"Hey!" Elin said. "You're a Jesuit."

"You expected IGF to ship you a lawyer from Earth orbit?" She stuck out a hand. "Donna Landis, S.J. I'm the client overseer for the Star Maker project, but I'm also avail­able for spiritual guidance. Mass is at nine, Sunday mornings."

Elin leaned back against the cliff. Grapevines rustled under her weight. Already she missed the blissed-out feeling of a few minutes before. "Actually, I'm an agnostic."

"You were. Things may have changed." Landis folded the towel into one pocket, unfolded a mirror from another. "Speak­ing of which, how do you like your new look?"

Elin studied her reflection. Blue paint surrounded her eyes, narrowing to a point at the bridge of her nose, swooping down in a long curve to the outside. It was as if she were peering through a large, blue moth or a pair of hawk wings.

There was something magical about it, something glamorous, something very unlike her.

"I feel like a raccoon. This idiot mask."

"Get used to it. You'll be wearing it a lot."

"But what's the point?" Elin was surprised by her own irritation. "So I've got a new personality; it's still me in here. I don't feel any weird compulsion to run amok with a knife or walk out an airlock without a suit. Nothing to warn the citizenry about, certainly."

"Listen," Landis said. "Right now you're like a puppy tripping over its own paws because they're too big for it. You're a stranger to yourself-you're going to feel angry when you don't expect to, get sentimental over surprising things. You can't control your emotions until you learn what they are. And until then, the rest of us deserve-"

"What'll you have?" Hans was back, his forehead smudged black where he had incompletely wiped off his facepaint.

"-a little warning. Oh, I don't know, Hans. Whatever you have on tap."

"That'll be Chanty. You?" he asked Elin.

"What's good?"

He laughed. "There's no such thing as a good lunar wine. The air's too moist. And even if it weren't, it takes a good century to develop an adequate vineyard. But the Chanty is your basic, drinkable glug."

"I'll take that, then."

"Good. I'll bring a mug for your friend, too."

"My friend?" She turned and saw a giant striding through the trees, towering over them, pushing them apart with two enormous hands. For a dizzy instant, she goggled in disbe­lief, and then the man shrank to human stature as she remem­bered the size of the saplings.