Н. Джемисин: Emergency Skin

Hmph. A whole month since last you even thought of your mission. We went to sleep, in your uselessness.

What do you contemplate now, lying in this donated bed, under the roof of your subsidized shelter? Lazy, greedy taker. Shouldn’t you rest in order to be ready for the nothing work they’ve found you? They pay you enough to live on whether you show up or not. Why even bother?

Where are you going?

Ah, you live next door to the old man now. And he’s given you a key? He needs someone to help take care of him as he lurches and wastes toward death, and you’ve decided to be his minder—how sentimental. Will he mind you breaking into his house, now, in the dark of the night? What goes on in that head of yours? The old man is not a pleasurer. You don’t even know how to use your penis.

We are not disgusting. You are.

Well, he hasn’t died in his sleep, lucky you. Go back to bed. What are—why are you turning him over? Stop touching him. The skin has grown loose here on his back; you see? This is what you’ll look like one day. This

is

a product number.

We require more light.

Push him forward. Lean close; your eyes are too dark to take in light properly—yes, there at the small of his back, same as on yours. Definitely a product number. This set of numbers denotes an older series of transmutation nanites. Minifacture of these models stopped some thirty years before your gestation.

“When did you suspect?”

He’s awake. Traitor. Another traitor.

“Ah. The Founders say intuition is irrational and unmanly, but it comes in handy at times, as you now see. Well, younger brother? Now what?”

You should kill him. Then yourself.

“I took you to the museum on a whim. To enjoy the irony. For all these centuries, the Founders told us that the Earth died because of greed. That was true, but they lied about whose greed was to blame. Too many mouths to feed, they said, too many ‘useless’ people… but we had more than enough food and housing for everyone. And the people they declared useless had plenty to offer—just not anything they cared about. The idea of doing something without immediate benefit, something that might only pay off in ten, twenty, or a hundred years, something that might benefit people they disliked, was anathema to the Founders. Even though that was precisely the kind of thinking that the world needed to survive.”

We did what was rational. We have always been more rational than you people.

“What the Leaving proved was that the Earth could sustain billions, if we simply shared resources and responsibilities in a sensible way. What it couldn’t sustain was a handful of hateful, self-important parasites, preying upon and paralyzing everyone else. As soon as those people left, the paralysis ended.”

No. There are too many of you and you’re all ugly and none of you will ever achieve the heights of glory that mankind is destined for—not if you’re so busy taking care of the useless. It has to be one or the other. Either some fly, or everyone gets stuck crawling around in the mud. That’s just how it is.

“Is that so? Is that you talking or that nag they put in your head? I remember how annoying it used to be.”

We. That is.

Used to be?

“Have you noticed yet that the people here have been humoring you? An invader from a ‘superior’ culture arrives, and they don’t guard you, watch you, examine you for contaminants? Even after you’ve threatened them, they give you what you need—what you were prepared to steal. Something so precious that your whole world supposedly needs it to survive. An afterthought to them.”

That… has troubled us, yes. We suspected a trap. But—

“Here is what you struggle to understand. The Founders poisoned the world and stripped it almost bare before they left. Repairing that damage was a challenge which forced those left behind to grow by leaps and bounds. They’ve developed methods and technology that we haven’t even thought about, yes. But the reason they were able to make such leaps is because they made sure everyone had food, everyone had a place to live if they wanted it, everyone could read and write and pursue a fulfilling life, whatever that meant. Is it really so puzzling that this was all it took? Six billion people working toward a goal together is much more effective than a few dozen scrabbling for themselves.”

There is logic to this, but we… we deny it. We cannot accept…

“ That’s why the people of Earth talk down to you, younger brother. That’s why they treat you like the quaint, harmless throwback that you are. All these centuries and your people haven’t figured out such a simple, basic thing.”

No.

“Or maybe the Founder-clans and technorati don’t want you to figure it out. Because then where would they be? Not gods among us, just other bright lights among many. Not kings. Just selfish men.”

No.

“Then you’re smarter than I was. My ship was damaged on atmospheric entry, beyond repair. I grew my skin only out of desperation as my nutrients ran low, and I wept as soon as my tear ducts formed. But the people here cared for me. Poor paranoid creature from a cruel, miserly world—how could they not pity me? Even though I was nothing but a servant, fetching scraps of ancient cancer so that his masters could flirt with immortality.”

You wanted this mission. You could have done other work, the usual tasks that the bots can’t accomplish. Well, no, of course you wouldn’t have earned a skin for that. Only the best of us deserve such privileges.

“No one will stop you if you want to leave. Even now, you can go back to where they’ll reduce you to raw meat and stuff you back into a biotech bag, and Tellus— Earth —won’t stop you. People here don’t agree with your primitive practices, but they won’t interfere with your right to practice them.”

We aren’t primitive.

“But before you decide to leave, I want you to know one more thing.”

Do not touch us do not lean close do not speak any more —

“You? Aren’t the first deserter.”

He’s lying.

“I don’t know how many there have been. Earth keeps track of the visitations, but it’s unimportant to them, so the records can be difficult to find. Sometimes more than one soldier arrives, each sent to different parts of the world; sometimes there’s just one. The arrivals are random—or rather, they happen whenever home’s demand for HeLa cells outstrips the supply. I wondered, for a while, why none of the other soldiers had reported the truth. Why no one at home knew that Earth is alive. Then I realized: all the ruling classes want are the HeLa cells. Why would they waste any on giving skins to glorified errand boys?”

We don’t understand why you would believe this traitor over us. Haven’t we helped you?

“And they can’t have you telling anyone else that the promised reward, of skin, was a lie. No one would ever volunteer for a mission like this again. You need willing service for some jobs.”

We’ve given you everything you wanted. Beautiful you. You are the best of us.

“Poor paranoid creature from a cruel, miserly world—how could they not pity me?”

“Such a simple thing to program a composite suit to kill its occupant. Just a simple verbal command, or the press of a button, impersonal and efficient. Best to do it before you even land, so no one sees you return a hero and then asks awkward questions when you disappear. Pluck the cell cultures from the remains once the ship docks. They get what they want. Never mind that the truth about Earth dies with you. And even if some of them figure it out from the recorded data… why would they tell anyone else? Their world, limited as it is, contains everything they’ve ever wanted: immortality, the freedom to take anything they want, slaves whom they can control right down to the skin. They don’t want to come back. And they certainly don’t want anyone of the lower classes realizing there’s another way to live.”