Tanith Lee: Metallic Love

I pulled away and he let me. “You’re staying? You’re their king. ”

“That’s why it can work. B.C. will make a fine leader. He’s the best of us, better than me, but you’ve had no chance to get to know any of that. I’ll be—what did you think that time—a king in exile.”

“Don’t read my thoughts.”

“Read mine, then. Read them, Loren, and see I’m telling you the truth.”

“I can’t.”

“Then take my word. Will you stay with me?”

“You mean, on Earth?”

“I mean on Earth.”

“We’ll be hunted.”

“No one will know to hunt us.”

I shivered. Below me lay the slim silver bullet that would cleave the black of space, in that short journey neglected for so many years.

I thought of the panic and pandemonium of governments, issued with a robotic threat to the Asteroid. Of the Senatorial hushing up. Of the secretive cold war he mooted.

Men and Machines. But I’m a machine, aren’t I? I held him, unable to do anything else.

He would stay, not only to safeguard his own kind, but humankind. The hostage. And could he be sure of his kind? Goldhawk—Kix—Sheena— One day the roof really might fall. But then, it always might have, anyway.

There on that platform above the wild future, I thought with dispassionate grief of how absurd we were. A metal man, and a woman filled by metal cogs and wheels. Lust, trust, rust. Our love, too, then, must be made of metal. Perhaps it could last.

He let me watch the news videos on the admin VS all day the next day, and there was nothing on them. No news—or nothing out of the ordinary. On one local channel, a minuscule footnote appeared about malfunctioning experimental luxury machines, and how that line had been folded up, throwing many people out of work.

Were the relays real? They seemed to be.

No. It was that I knew they were real, now. The decoy of a Jane or Tirso would never be able to get past me again.

That second evening, too, everyone was called to the plaza.

The bars were all lighted up and serving drinks, and the bats flitted about. But no music, and no vispos on the entertainment screens.

I looked around at them, the chosen of the gods, and as the stratagem was revealed to them by Verlis and Black Chess and Irisa, I saw that most of my fellow pets had also been given already some type of preview.

Some were still upset, frightened. A few cried, and others, comradely, comforted them. I sat watching, seeing how they had become yet one more entity, but I had no part in it. Then I caught sudden sight of Dizzy, one of my wine-friends from META. I’d never known she was here. She was consoling some guy, saying, “But you know you want to be with Co. That’s all you want. How’d you manage without him? And we’ll all be there together.” And she held a glass of wine, large, no rationing here, to the mourning pet’s lips, and he drank, nodding and nodding.

At the news of departure, others clapped and whooped. Zoë and Lily and three other (robo?) girls did a sort of little skating dance around the square on their float-boards.

They were all going on the magic voyage. It was settled. Tonight the shuttle would be automatically guided through the mountain, over its hidden underground track, to the clandestine launch area that lay behind the peaks. It was Irisa who assured us all that by the time the halifropters and other patrols lower down were able to penetrate the surveillance block and register the takeoff, it would be too late. If any countermove was then made by any world authority, even the release of a laser beam or nuclear defense module, the team (they had again referred to themselves as that) could neutralize it, bouncing it harmlessly away into the farthest reaches of space.

No one, even the ones who had gotten upset, queried any of that. Nor did I. My brain knew that now, the gods hadn’t lied.

They themselves wouldn’t be traveling aboard the ship. All seven of them would form a protective cordon to enclose the shuttle, imperiously flying with it from launch to moon landing.

It seemed, too, everyone knew that Verlis would not be with them. That Verlis was remaining in the world.

Sheena and Kix and Glaya were positioned behind Irisa. Copperfield and Goldhawk behind Black Chess. Verlis had by then stepped aside.

In all the sobbing and cheering and skipping about, I hadn’t been able to detect Jason on the plaza. Nor Demeta.

No one had asked Verlis why he had elected to remain behind. It must have been explained to them, as to me. Yet they approached him continually, touching him shyly and caressingly, like animals drawn to a shepherd.

He had no chosen but me. (I knew that, too, now.) And some of the other chosen drifted up to me as the music restarted, the last party, on the square.

They kissed me on the cheek like a bride, and praised me and Verlis. They spoke with—respect. Even Andrewest. Even Dizzy who, hovering smiling before me, said, “Hey, Lor!”

“Hallo, Dizz.”

“You know me, now,” she said. “On that plane coming, I came up and spoke to you, and I don’t think you even saw me.”

“Sorry, Dizz. Good luck.” And then, irresistible, “Who are you with?”

“Kitty,” said Dizzy. Kitty—Kix. “Good luck, too, Loren. Great to meet you. Maybe we’ll meet again.”

I raised my undrunk glass of wine to her. Madness was in the air, bright as stardust, gentle as rain.

When Verlis came across the plaza, the chains and bunches of people let him go. He came to me and put his arm about me.

We stood looking at the scene. Looking at the gods going away, and the humans and semi-humans also going away, to collect what they wanted for this outlandish storybook journey. The square emptied and became what I’d seen before, vacant, but for blossom and lights, bats and music.

“Where are they?” I asked. That was all I needed to say.

“Jason and Demeta? You tell me, Loren. Think, and see, and tell me.”

It was as if, once I’d been told what I was, what I could be, I had begun at once to be able to activate it. That little, already familiar, soundless click in my brain.

And mentally I saw, in sharp focus, Jason, lying half-unclothed in a big, glamorous, messy bed. He’d been with Sheena. She’d intoxicated and drugged him, not even had to do any of the grisly sexual acts he liked. He was out and snoring. He wouldn’t wake up for at least two more days. Demeta? Ah, not so kindly. She was locked in a well-furnished room. She was pacing about, frowning. She had no makeup on, no shoes. Her fingernails were still immaculate, and she was still as hard as them. I watched her a moment, there in my head, while her own too-clever mind scratched about to assess what she could do. But she wouldn’t get free until all this was over. And she knew which, perhaps, was the worst punishment of all.

“What will happen when the shuttle launches?” I asked.

“What was said and what you know. Anyone outside, or down here and this side of the river, will be safe enough.”

Jason and Demeta were this side of the river. There were a handful of others, too, asleep or just elegantly imprisoned. They must have offended, or failed some test. I couldn’t care anymore, or make demands.

The birds and the bats aren’t real.

We walked. One by one, the music speakers faded and the lights dimmed out.

We went to the park and looked at the champagne waterfall in the dark. Then into the apartment block, upstairs, to make love on the multicolor carpet, just as they did. Those other two. Jane, Silver.

I dreamed of going to meet my mother, to see if I could persuade her to help me publish my book. Jane:

She guesses I want to use her.