Every human society has had its storytellers. There is a fundamental need in the human psyche to produce tales that try to show who we truly are, and why we do the things we do.
Most of the stories in this collection are science fiction: that is, the stories involve some aspect of future science or technology that is so basic to the tale that if that element were removed, the story would collapse.
To me, science fiction is the literature of our modern society. Humankind depends on science and technology for its survival, and has been doing so since our earliest ancestors faced saber-toothed cats. We do not grow fangs or wings, we create tools. Tool-making—technology—is the way we deal with the often-hostile world in which we live.
Over the past few centuries, scientific studies of our world have led to vastly improved technologies, better tools with which to make ourselves healthier, richer and more free. Science fiction is the literature that speaks to this.
Every organism on Earth is struggling to stay alive, to have offspring, to enlarge its ecological niche as widely as possible. We humans have succeeded so well at that quest that there are more than seven billion of us on this planet, and we are driving many, many of our fellow creatures into extinction.
The stories in this collection examine various aspects of humankind’s current and future predicaments. Some of the tales are somewhat dated: written half a century ago, they deal with problems that we have already solved, or bypassed. Many of the stories tell of the human race’s drive to expand its habitat—its ecological niche—beyond the limits of planet Earth. Many deal with our interactions with our machines, which are becoming more intelligent with every generation.
The people in these stories include heroes and heels, lovers and loners, visionaries and the smugly blind.
I hope you enjoy their struggles.
—Ben Bova
Naples, Florida
November 2014
SEPULCHER
I believe it was Michelangelo (or maybe Rodin?) who said that the finished sculpture is waiting inside the raw stone; the sculptor’s task is to remove the overlying layers and reveal the sculpture to our waiting eyes.
It works that way for writing fiction, as well. The finished story is there, deep inside the writer’s mind. The physical labor of writing is the task of revealing the story in its finished form.
When I first wrote “Sepulcher” I had no idea it was part of the Grand Tour. The billionaire who brought Elverda Apacheta to the asteroid and its alien artifact was not named Martin Humphries. Only years afterward did I understand that it was indeed Humphries, and this short tale is not only a part of the Asteroid Wars, it is a pivotal moment in the ongoing saga of the Grand Tour itself.
“I was a soldier,” he said. “Now I am a priest. You may call me Dorn.”
Elverda Apacheta could not help staring at him. She had seen cyborgs before, but this . . . person seemed more machine than man. She felt a chill ripple of contempt along her veins. How could a human being allow his body to be disfigured so?
He was not tall; Elverda herself stood several centimeters taller than he. His shoulders were quite broad, though; his torso thick and solid. The left side of his face was engraved metal, as was the entire top of his head: Like a skullcap made of finest etched steel.
Dorn’s left hand was prosthetic. He made no attempt to disguise it. Beneath the rough fabric of his shabby tunic and threadbare trousers, how much more of him was metal and electrical machinery? Tattered though his clothing was, his calf-length boots were polished to a high gloss.
“A priest?” asked Martin Humphries. “Of what church? What order?”
The half of Dorn’s lips that could move made a slight curl. A smile or a sneer, Elverda could not tell.
“I will show you to your quarters,” said Dorn. His voice was a low rumble, as if it came from the belly of a beast. It echoed faintly off the walls of rough-hewn rock.
Humphries looked briefly surprised. He was not accustomed to having his questions ignored. Elverda watched his face. Humphries was as handsome as cosmetic surgery could make a person appear: chiselled features, earnest sky-blue eyes, straight of spine, long of limb, athletically flat midsection. Yet there was a faint smell of corruption about him, Elverda thought. As if he were dead inside and already beginning to rot.
The tension between the two men seemed to drain the energy from Elverda’s aged body. “It has been a long journey,” she said. “I am very tired. I would welcome a hot shower and a long nap.”
“Before you see it?” Humphries snapped.
“It has taken us months to get here. We can wait a few hours more.” Inwardly she marveled at her own words. Once she would have been all fiery excitement. Have the years taught you patience? No, she realized. Only weariness.
“Not me!” Humphries said. Turning to Dorn, “Take me to it now. I’ve waited long enough. I want to see it now.”
Dorn’s eyes, one as brown as Elverda’s own, the other a red electronic glow, regarded Humphries for a lengthening moment.
“Well?” Humphries demanded.
“I am afraid, sir, that the chamber is sealed for the next twelve hours. It will be imposs—”
“Sealed? By whom? On whose authority?”
“The chamber is self-controlled. Whoever made the artifact installed the controls, as well.”
“No one told me about that,” said Humphries.
Dorn replied, “Your quarters are down this corridor.”
He turned almost like a solid block of metal, shoulders and hips together, head unmoving on those wide shoulders, and started down the central corridor. Elverda fell in step alongside his metal half, still angered at his self-desecration. Yet despite herself, she thought of what a challenge it would be to sculpt him. If I were younger, she told herself. If I were not so close to death. Human and inhuman, all in one strangely fierce figure.
Humphries came up on Dorn’s other side, his face red with barely-suppressed anger.
They walked down the corridor in silence, Humphries’s weighted shoes clicking against the uneven rock floor. Dorn’s boots made hardly any noise at all. Half machine he may be, Elverda thought, but once in motion he moves like a panther.
The asteroid’s inherent gravity was so slight that Humphries needed the weighted footgear to keep himself from stumbling ridiculously. Elverda, who had spent most of her long life in low-gravity environments, felt completely at home. The corridor they were walking through was actually a tunnel, shadowy and mysterious, or perhaps a natural chimney vented through the rocky body by escaping gases eons ago when the asteroid was still molten. Now it was cold, chill enough to make Elverda shudder. The rough ceiling was so low she wanted to stoop, even though the rational side of her mind knew it was not necessary.
Soon, though, the walls smoothed out and the ceiling grew higher. Humans had extended the tunnel, squaring it with laser precision. Doors lined both walls now and the ceiling glowed with glareless, shadowless light. Still she hugged herself against the chill that the others did not seem to notice.
They stopped at a wide double door. Dorn tapped out the entrance code on the panel set into the wall and the doors slid open.
“Your quarters, sir,” he said to Humphries. “You may, of course, change the privacy code to suit yourself.”
Humphries gave a curt nod and strode through the open doorway. Elverda got a glimpse of a spacious suite, carpeting on the floor, and hologram windows on the walls.
Humphries turned in the doorway to face them. “I expect you to call for me in twelve hours,” he said to Dorn, his voice hard.
“Eleven hours and fifty-seven minutes,” Dorn replied.
