Hoshino Shizuka pushed through the auditorium’s double doors and stopped short. Everything was gone. There were no chairs, no music stands, no timpani or piano. Worst of all, Memri’s paintings and photographs had also been removed. Only the Ghost Lamp with its bare bulb glowed white upon the vacant stage. It was an empty house, and an empty house is just a corpse.
Shizuka glanced back into the lobby, looking for the doorman who was now nowhere to be seen. With a twist of her shoulder, she adjusted the strap of her satchel and started down the long, sloping aisle. When she reached the stage, she turned around and looked back into the body of the auditorium with its two tiered balcony sections, the encirclement of private boxes, and row upon row of anonymous folded seats.
It was uncanny how quickly they had assembled this structure, and how identical it was to the theaters and symphony halls back home. It even smelled right, musty and slightly spicy. Like most of First City it was as much a statement of genreicism as nostalgia; and in spite of those long years of sleep, the distance between stars, and the all the talk of a new start, very little had changed. And maybe that was the point. Nothing on the old world or this new one, bespoke class difference quite as resoundingly as a symphony hall or opera house. The proclamation of Ars Enim Omnia, so boldly inscribed above the proscenium, promised art for everyone, but meant nothing when it came to who sat where, and why.
Shizuka could almost pretend that she was still on Earth.
Almost.
Stretching out her arms and leaning her shoulders against the edge of the stage, she closed her eyes and thought of Memri; thought of his smile and the way his tightly braided bronze hair had smelled impossibly of sandalwood and clover. His flesh had been the color of polished teak and his eyes that rarest of all blues that she had only seen back home in Miyako where the seawater pooled over deep pockets of snow-white sand. Not exactly turquoise, it was a hue to which she could not put a name.
Memri would have known the right word, but Shizuka had never thought to ask, and looking into his memories now for something so trivial would feel wrong. Still, if she wanted to…
“Miss Hoshino?” A man’s voice broke her reverie.
Opening her eyes she saw them there—Doctors Foreman, Lean, Davies, Kaminski and Khol—the men to whom she had been forced to submit her petition for the performance of Memri’s music.
Older than the average colonist, they represented the core of the central ministry. They called themselves The Prime, but Shizuka was not sure if she should address them as Doctor or Minister or simply call them by their names.
There was also another man with them whom Shizuka did not recognize. He was East Indian, Pakistani, or maybe Afghani. Tall and thin, he was dressed in off-white shalwar khameez and plain leather sandals. A broad streak of silver ran through his wavy black hair, and while he looked to be in his late forties or early fifties, Shizuka reminded herself to add few thousand years to that number.
She straightened, tucked her hair behind her ears, and then presented the men with her most polite bow, holding it long enough and deep enough to indicate the level of respect she meant to offer. Five of the men stared back at her with five unreadable faces, but the sixth—the stranger—returned her bow, even dropping his own a little deeper. Afterward the man gave her a brief, sympathetic smile. His face was open and genial and it struck Shizuka as familiar, though she knew they had never met before.
“The Ministry,” said Doctor Foreman, “has reached its decision on the matter of your petition.”
“Should I assume that this is it?” She motioned with her hand, indicating the empty stage and the absence of the set pieces that had been there the day before.
“We have prepared a room,” said Foreman.
His flat voice reminded Shizuka of a middle school teacher who had once described her passion for music as a hobby and waste of time. Two thousand years dead, yet just the thought of that man’s monotone was enough to set her teeth on edge.
Holding out his hand, Foreman directed her to walk ahead and Shizuka gave him a curt nod. For now at least she would do what was expected. She would play nice. What choice did she have? Perhaps she might change their minds.
If Memri had been in her place, he would have laughed. She could almost hear him. He would have folded his arms across his chest and asked if any of the Ministers had ever seen a star collapse or watched a comet’s tail flip inside out like a pillowcase turning back upon itself. And of course, they hadn’t, but Memri had—dozens of times. He would then have gone on to describe those events through poetry, confounding these men even more with its beauty and metaphor, and shear the accuracy of its truth.
That was the real difference between Memri and his makers, and the difference between Shizuka and them as well. What they could only imagine, Shizuka had touched with her own senses. What they theorized over, she had experienced. That was part of Memri’s gift and that thing of light that spiraled out from the center of his music, like God’s own thumbprint. Knowing this gave her hope. She smiled.
Nearing the bank of burgundy drapes at stage left, Minister Khol moved ahead and parted the curtains to reveal a hidden door. As Khol pushed it inward, he looked directly into Shizuka’s face. Her expression startled him. Swallowing, he quickly turned away.
Passing through the door, they followed a corridor that led to a series of offices, storage rooms and rehearsal spaces at the back of the building. Another door was opened, an automatic sensor clicked, and the overhead lights flickered to life, revealing a wide room with a low ceiling and a table meant for group readings and auditions.
On one side of the table were six chairs, on the other only one. It was an obvious arrangement and for geniuses, there was nothing subtle about their intentions.
Shizuka waited for the men to take their places before pulling out her seat. When she sat down, she rested her hands upon her knees. After a brief moment and the arranging of papers and recording wafers, Doctor Foreman cleared his throat and checked the time. He recited the date, hour, location, and the names of those in attendance and then went straight to the heart of the matter.
“Miss Hoshino, while the Ministry recognizes its technical brilliance, we are reluctant to allow you to perform this…spectacle…in public.”
Spectacle ja nai! She wanted to say, Ongaku dake, but that would’ve been a half-truth. Instead, she asked, “May I know why?” She did her best to speak without accent, but it was difficult.
Lewis Foreman’s eyes had the quality of dull metal and his face was so composed as to be utterly blank.
“The why isn’t important. We did not come here to discuss the music, only to tell you it will not be played. It is the Sitter’s memories in which we are interested. That is why we are here.”
Again, his memories. Four and a half years, and still they’re pushing. Baka desu!
Shizuka took a long, measured breath and imagined her friend standing behind them. That helped a little.
“I am here because of the music,” she said. “His memories are in the music. If you accept his music you’ll find them there.”
Foreman brushed that aside. “We want his organic memories, his actual experience of the journey, complete and unedited, not an interpretation or a biography. That is specifically why we made him. He had no right to give them to you. They belong to us.”
“They belonged to him,” said Shizuka. “And he didn’t give them to me. He passed them on as he passed away. Maybe you shouldn’t have programmed him to die upon our arrival here.”
There was a shifting about the table and the tension in the room grew so tight that the air nearly vibrated. She shook her head to clear it.
“I’m sorry. That was rude. But you need to understand, what Memri passed to me, and how it was passed, was…personal…painful. The memories that came through that pain are intimate. They were his alone. Now they’re mine—organically mine. They’re a part of me now. But his music—“
“Will never be played in public.”
Foreman’s words slapped her into momentary silence.
Never.
There it is.
Korinzai.
Not just today, tomorrow, or next week.
Never.
She reached up with her right hand for a moment and rubbed her brow as if to smooth a crease that was not there, saying, “And because I won’t let you carve his memories from my mind, you’d kill his music for everyone? Who are you punishing, me or Memri?”
“Even if you gave us his memories today. That music would never be performed or published.”
“You’re afraid of it. Why?” Her hand returned to rest upon her knee.
“The Ministry,” said Foreman, “has reviewed your composition —“
“Memri’s composition.”
Foreman paused. His affect remained dour, but his eyes snapped sideways for an instant before returning to the empty space between them.
“We,” he started again, speaking even more deliberately, “have reviewed Memri’s composition along with its libretto and the accompanying visual materials you provided. We believe that we understand the full scope of your intentions. The underlying message is subversive.”
“It isn’t political. It’s meant to be beautiful, to edify and elevate the spirit. It’s a thank you, a love letter. How can that be subversive?”
“What the Sitter composed is esoteric to say the least.“
“You mean it’s religious.”
“That is exactly what I mean. And fundamentally so.”
As Foreman said this, the sixth man, whose name was Nasir, shifted again in his chair.
Shizuka sucked in a hiss of air between her teeth, looked away and shook her head. It was a childish mannerism that used to infuriate her mother, but Doctor Foremen did not notice, just as Shizuka failed to notice the particular manner in which Nasir folded his arms across his chest.
“This world,” Foreman said, “is our second chance. We’re building a new future here, founded upon science, quantifiable facts and the greatest engineering achievement in the history of mankind. Science saved our species from extinction. Does anyone else in this room need to remind you Miss Hoshino, that it was our ship that brought you here, not some primitive god or your synthetic angel?”
That was the third time he had called her Miss, but Shizuka let it pass. Instead, her hands began to play a series of chords upon her knees, silently performing the opening movement of Memri’s theme. Feeling the music build within herself, she wished that there had been piano and not just a table between them. That would have made things so much easier. If only they could hear the music instead of just reading it. Then they’d understand even if they didn’t want to.
But the table was a table. There was no real music in the room. So, Shizuka would have to make do with clumsy words.
“Gentlemen, I was awakened seven times during our passage from Earth, while you and everyone else slept. Each time I stayed awake a little longer—a few days at first, then a week, then a month, half a year, and so on. I saw what you could not. I experienced the void between the stars. I met the Sitter. Drank his water. Ate his food. Walked with him. You cannot begin to imagine how lonely he was. I became his friend. His only friend. We spoke together and I knew him as he was becoming…himself. He liked when I played music so I taught him the piano. I thought it would be a comfort when he was alone. Later, when I was awakened for the last time, Memri played his own music for me, taught me how to listen and how to see from a place outside of myself. He taught me how to feel joy again. Gave me back everything I thought I had lost, and all the things I never knew I had.”
As she looked into their faces, she could tell that her words were not helping—that they were making Foreman, Kaminski, and Khol more uncomfortable—but she couldn’t stop herself.
“I saw the injuries he suffered while protecting us. He tried to hide them, but I saw them. I’m sure you’ve all studied the ship’s log. You know what happened during the last seventy-two years of our crossing. If it hadn’t been for Memri and the choices he made, you and I would not be here. None of us would.”
She found herself gazing into Doctor Nasir’s eyes as she spoke.
“Have you asked why The Kibu Maru, The Chang Jiang, and The Sao Paulo never arrived?”
Nasir unfolded his arms and leaned towards her, nodding his head.
“You say our journey was driven by science,” said Shizuka. “Soo desu ne! That’s true. But it also required a leap of faith. Maybe it was faith in science or in yourselves, but it was faith. That’s what Memri’s music is about. If you would try to understand it’s a gift from a child to his parents—”
“Miss Hoshino!” barked Foreman. “Memri, as you call him, did only as he was designed to do. He performed, as he was electrochemically programmed. Serve the ship. Protect its cargo. Record the journey. That was his purpose. He was meant to use up all seventy-six of his bodies. He was disposable. There was no sacrifice. He was not a man. He was not even human.”
“Honto desu! That is my point exactly. He became more! You need to hear his music!”
“It’s been read and described to us,” grumbled Minister Khol.
Foreman shot his colleague a silencing look, but it was too late.
“Described to you?” asked Shizuka. “Didn’t any of you even read the material for yourself?”
Their silence was an empty, white wall.
The recorder on the table between them clicked and clicked, as Shizuka waited for an answer that refused to come. Her eyes moved from one face to another, hoping to elicit some sort of response, but it was impossible. Davies and Lean, like the man Nasir, looked sympathetic, but something was obviously keeping those three in check. Kaminski shied from her gaze and seemed to gravitate closer to Minister Khol, while Foreman simply glared at her.
You. You’re pulling all their strings, aren't you?
But not mine. Not today.
Shizuka brought her hands up from her knees then and placed her palms flat upon the tabletop’s cool surface. The music in them had ceased.
“None of you read it.”
For an instant, she wanted to shout at them, to throw something or somehow fight, but knew it was pointless. This was defeat, final and unconditional and so any further argument would have been as Memri had once cautioned, a waste of spirit. Standing up, Shizuka opened her satchel and drew out a three-kilo, brass and silver hammer, which she carefully set upon the table.
“This is also from Memri.”
The six men stared at the hammer as Shizuka closed her bag.
“Is that a threat?” asked Minister Khol.
“It is what it looks like,” said Shizuka.
“Miss Hoshino,” said Foreman. “You have to realize, when we insist, the court will issue an edict. Then the Sitter’s memories will be extracted, with or without your consent.”
“Doctor Hoshino,” said Shizuka.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’ve called me ‘Miss’ four times now. I hold a PHD. You should address me as Doctor.”
Foreman’s eyes did another back and forth dance as his mind tried to justify this piece of information. He cleared his throat again.
“It doesn’t matter what you want to be called. We’ll still get the memories.”
Shizuka shrugged as she pushed her chair back in against the edge of the table and moved to leave.
“One last question,” said Foreman. “If you don’t mind.”
Shizuka paused.
“Yes?”
“Did you have sex with the Sitter?”
“Lewis!” snapped Nasir, now on his feet and speaking out for the first time. “Shame on you! This is—”
Foreman waved him off. “Shut up, Javid! You’re an observer only. I want her to answer my question.”
“As do I,” said Khol.
The others were too stunned, and even Kaminski looked dismayed.
Shizuka shoulders sagged. She closed her eyes. Her face burned scarlet.
How could you ask? How can I answer?
She wanted to say, he was my friend, but the words would not come.
Nasir and Foreman began arguing in earnest, both shouting over each other. Hands were slammed upon the table and Nasir’s chair was knocked over as Lean and Davies tried to calm him. Shizuka though could have been invisible at that point, and when she did manage to get her words out, nobody heard them.
She did not even bother to close the door behind her when she left.
#
Upon her seventh and final waking aboard the Arcum Vitae, it was music that lifted Shizuka from the long, cold slumber. Pizzicato tears kissing dry lips,
and the long, back and forth sighing of horsehair bows over Pirastro strings surrounded her with the essence of moonlight shining behind a curtain of rain. Violin, viola and cello enfolded her and drew her from that sea of sleep to lay her safe and warm again upon a pillow-soft bank that smelled of wild iris and Hinoki.
She inhaled sharply, as with the first breath of being born, except that there was no pain.
“You’re awake now.”
Memri’s voice always made the world real.
Soo desu.
Her eyes were still closed because she had forgotten to open them—as she had the other six times before.
Anata, doko ga imasu ka?
“Here,” he said. “I am always right here.”
It was not that Memri could actually read her thoughts, but he knew what to expect.
“Me o akete,” he said, touching her forehead with a damp washcloth.
Shizuka smiled, thinking, kimochii desu. Then she did as she was told, opened her eyes, and saw him again, looking almost exactly as he had the very first time…except a little older now and with more scars.
“Me-kun,” she said. “O-ha-yo.”
“No, Shizuka. Not morning. Not this time. It’s night, and it’s late. The crew will be waking soon. We have very little time.”
Then she knew that they had reached their destination, and that her friend’s interminable life was already ending. She could see it in his eyes and in the tension of the muscles in his neck and throat. But Memri did not look sad. He was elated, and his music joyful.
#
Shizuka walked home, following the canal that led down to the man-made falls, near The East End where she kept her apartment. It was still early and the summer rain was no longer falling, but this was a quiet quarter of the city, so she had the pedestrian path mostly to herself.
Glancing up, she noticed a young couple approaching from the other direction. They walked with their arms curled about each other, tucked in close, heads lowered and grinning as they followed some invisible course that had little relationship with a straight line.
As they drew nearer, Shizuka stepped aside and waited to give them ample space. She heard the infectious notes of their laughter, saw them kiss haphazardly and then laugh again.
They passed so close that Shizuka found herself being caressed by the girl’s perfume. Its scent reminded of her of that last night in Barcelona—reminded her of saffron and blood oranges, green olives, too much Madeira and dancing deep into the night with the beautiful Spanish guitarist. When she had awakened the following day, it was to find herself in a strange apartment, in a strange bed, entangled by her companion’s long, chestnut hair and a twisted coil of sweaty sheets. Still dizzy from the wine and feeling all at once awkward, she had scribbled down a short note and left her number, but slipped away without saying a word.
Shizuka remembered the woman’s molasses black eyes and pomegranate lips, the languid way with which she spoke, but she couldn’t recall her name. They had shared only that one night together, and Shizuka had always meant to call again, but being on tour, two weeks had stretched into three and three into four. Then in a single hour on the third of April, the first wave of destruction had swept down to scorch the entire Iberian Peninsula and that nameless woman, along with her perfect hands and three hundred year old Torres guitar, were forever silenced.
The couple, strolling together in their staggering little lover’s knot reminded her of intimacy that comes too quickly and dies as fast; of unanticipated sex, sudden shyness, neglect, and loss. The laughter though…
The laughter reminded her of Memri.
Turning, she looked down into the canal. The water below was glossy black. Its slow ripples crawled like silver mercury as they reflected the light of the twin moons overhead. A school of firefish caught her eye, glowing white, gold and vermilion as they swam in slow figure eights close beneath the surface. Except for their size and the bioluminescent trails they left faintly swirling in their wakes, the fish could have been koi swimming in a pond back home.
But they were not koi and this would never be home.
I shouldn’t have left. I should have—
“Hoshino-san!”
She heard a man’s voice and the sound of footsteps, but wanted to ignore them.
“Ano…sumimasen! Choto matte o kudasai!”
He was speaking Nihongo, and that’s what made her look up.
“Doctor Nasir?”
The man must have run all the way from the symphony hall to catch up. He wiped his face with a checkered handkerchief, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath in the sultry night air.
“Please…call me…Javid,” he said between gasps. “I am so sorry…for what happened back there. Lewis Foreman is an ass. I hope you will not take me for his friend.”
He smiled, but there was no mistaking the sadness in his eyes
Shizuka wasn’t sure what the man expected. Agreement? Forgiveness?
“Is there something more, Doctor Nasir?”
His expression said yes, but he was still trying to catch his breath.
Under his arm he carried a large package wrapped in a blue and white snowflake-patterned furoshiki. She recognized it immediately. It was Memri’s manuscript, as she had presented it with her petition, except that now it was poorly tied and with the cloth turned the wrong side out. Doctor Nasir also had Memri’s hammer.
Following her eyes, he held out the package and the hammer. “These belong to you.”
She opened her satchel and allowed him to slip the package inside, but told him the hammer should go back to Memri’s makers.
“I don’t want to be called a thief.”
Nasir winced at that. “Then,” he said, “it would be mine to keep, Hoshino-san. I am Memri’s father.”
Shizuka’s heart skipped a beat.
“What did you say?”
“It’s true,” said Nasir. “I made the Sitters. All of them. And so, I made your friend. May I walk with you? There are things…I’d like us to talk about. I promise not to be rude and it’s a lovely night for conversation, isn’t it?”
#
The music preceded them, playing through the ship’s now ancient public address system and through the other speakers that Memri had built and added himself for this very hour. Shizuka was still too weak to walk on her own, so Memri took her into his arms and carried her.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Hush,” he answered. “Listen.”
They passed out into the central corridor that served as the ship’s spinal cord and everything she saw and heard, broke her heart.
Near the compartment where she had awakened, the passage was ten meters wide and thirty meters high—narrow in comparison with the sections both further on and further behind. But its scale had become impossible to measure. Every inch of every surface was covered by paintings, large and small, that over time had been joined together to form a single unending mural, running from one end of the ship to other.
Shizuka felt as though they were passing through a gallery, except she knew it was more than that. The paintings were not merely pictures. They were Memri—his impressions, expressions and an extension of himself. They revealed his life, inwardly and outwardly, from the beginning and all the way, to where he was now ending.
Shizuka’s arms tightened about him. She clung to him, wanted to cry, even though he had told her not to. She started to speak and Memri stopped her again.
“Listen,” he insisted.
But she didn’t want to listen.
Shizuka hated this part.
This movement of the piece was too ponderous, unpleasant, driven by bass and a low rumbling of brass. She felt its rhythm and counter rhythms in Memri’s chest and in her own gut. The sound nagged at the back of her ears, made her uncomfortable, frustrated…even angry.
“I know it’s painful, but this part is the long walk,” said Memri. “It’s the dull years of my life before I met you and learned who I could become.”
He brought her closer to one of the murals, close enough to see the brush strokes, yet far enough back to reveal its overall design.
The painting was much larger and more fully realized than when she had last seen it. There was so much detail, so much color and light. She found herself almost falling into the image, made dizzy by it. She wondered how paint and brush alone could have rendered the essence of matter and energy so perfectly, so alive. The answer of course was Memri.
The picture itself was of The Milky Way,—splitting the vast sea of blackness above and below, as it spread over the entire bulkhead, all the way up and continuing upon the arched ceiling overhead.
In the painting she saw the Sitter, who was not yet Memri, walking before that river of light, unconscious of its beauty, oblivious to its splendor. He carried a mop, and bucket. His head was down. The expression in his eyes was vacant.
Shizuka felt herself swallow. Her throat was dry.
The music grew still more oppressive in its tedium, threatening to suffocate her, until what she saw next made her heart skip a beat.
The choice of colors and composition reminded her of Dali, so full of restrained energy. The figures though, were wholly El Greco, elongated like winter-bare trees, bent by the wind, deformed and perfect, haunted and yearning.
Shizuka recognized herself in one of them, a shadow following the Sitter, trailing behind, indistinct, rail thin, and barely female. This was his perception of her upon her first waking—before she had asked him to uncrate her piano—before Debussy and before Memri discovered tears.
#
“I wish you had not given in so easily,” said Nasir. “Foreman is becoming a tyrant, and the others…well, you saw for yourself what he does to them. You had the right side of the argument. And he knew it. That’s why he tried to hurt you with that question at the end.”
She gave Nasir a sideways glance, noticed he was taller than her, but that he had a habit of slouching like a man who is used to ducking his head upon entering a room. The illusion made him seem smaller and less imposing, but he was in fact exceptionally tall.
“Aren’t they your colleagues?” she asked.
“Once upon a time, yes. Not anymore.” He laughed. “I like that phrase, once upon a time. It makes me feel as though I am part of something that might have a happy ending. Once upon a time, there was a scientist who believed he’d done a terrible thing, that later turned out to be a very good thing. Once upon a time, there was heretic musician who changed the world with song. And once upon a time there was a—“
“Am I a heretic, Doctor?”
“Most assuredly. You have faith. That frightens those who do not.”
“I’m not sure if I believe in God,” said Shizuka.
“Oh but Memri did, and clearly you have faith in him.”
“You understood then what I said in the meeting.”
“Yes,” said Nasir. “But faith is frightening for those who do not have it. Fear confounds the certainty of narrow men. Especially when they are convinced of their own righteousness—be it religious or even scientific. Your faith knocked them down a peg today. And in my worthless opinion, that’s a wonderful and terrible thing.”
The bewilderment spreading over Shizuka’s face made him laugh again.
“You’re thinking, how can I talk this way if I am a man of science.”
“Am I?”
“Well, of course you are. But like you Hoshino-sensei, I am also a heretic. Worse though, because I am a heretic twice over” He held up two fingers, wiggled them playfully.
“Once upon a time, my family disowned me and mourned me as dead because they believed I had rejected God in favor of my own intellect. Now my colleagues are convinced that I have abandoned science for sentimentality. They are correct of course. But I don’t care what they think. As I said, you had the right side in the argument. That is why my friends Edward and Joseph invited me to the meeting, to meet you.”
Edward Lean and Joseph Davies — two of the five.
That at least made some sense to Shizuka.
She cocked her head to one side and asked, “Your parents were religious. Were they Moslems?”
“No. Catholics. Isn’t that odd? I grew up in a place called Lyari Town, which was the oldest and poorest neighborhood of old Karachi. My father slaved in a steel mill, fifteen sometimes sixteen hours everyday, six days a week. He often came home with terrible burns on his arms and hands. He sacrificed his flesh to buy my way to freedom with a better education. An amazing man. Never complained. Never raised his hand to me, my sisters, or to our mother. He was as strong as a tiger, but as gentle as a lamb, with the kindest smile and most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. They were blue-green, almost teal colored. Amazing. But when I became a cyberneticist and was later named Oxford’s Dean Of Synthetic Biology, it broke his heart. He would not look at me or speak my name afterwards. Would you believe, he prayed that God would strike me dead to save me from the sins I was performing in the laboratory? Can you imagine that? I brushed his beliefs aside as foolishness and superstition. I did not know then what I know now, that a good son should never break his father’s heart at any cost.” Nasir laughed again, but his laughter was full of regret and irony. “Of course, at some point in our lives, it becomes…inevitable. ”
“Memri would never have broken yours.”
“No,” said Nasir. “He would not have. I am certain.”
He paused to watch the school of firefish that followed them along the canal’s steep bank. “I wish I had some bread. I always mean to bring some when I come this way. I like these fish. Watching them makes me feel good. I know it’s a terrible thought, but creatures like that would never have survived back home. Their light would have attracted predators like us. Our ancestors would have become excellent night-fisherman and wiped them out in a single generation. So, when I see creatures like these fish and how they coexist with the other life of this world, I think to myself, here is a place that never lost its grace…until we arrived. Doctor Foreman and his colleagues could learn a great deal from the firefish, don’t you think?”
Shizuka listened politely. Nasir was clearly a great talker, and she also knew that he had something more important to say, but wasn’t ready to say it.
“I think Doctor Foreman would cut them open,” she said, “to see how their insides work. He’d never learn a thing about their nature or their beauty.”
“Yes. I am sure you are right about that.”
They resumed their walk.
The native insects were starting to sing, and every now and then, Shizuka heard the wings of a nightfox pass overhead.
After another half a block, Nasir at last said, “You know, I saw you perform back on Earth.”
This surprised her. “Eh? Doko?”
“Twice actually,” said Nasir. “The first time was in Kyoto. But you weren’t playing piano. It was during the New Years concert at Kyomizudera.”
“Soo desu ka?” said Shizuka. “Then you heard me play the Biwa.”
“Yes, it was a stunning performance. My wife insisted we go. She loves all forms of traditional music and when your name appeared in the advertisement, she spent half a month’s pay on the pair of tickets so that we would be as close as possible to the stage.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes, very much so. The second time we saw you, was in San Francisco, and your final performance before embarkation. It was beautiful and horribly sad knowing that it would be the last time such music would ever be played on Earth. I am not ashamed to admit this, but I wept the entire time…like a baby.”
“Memri cried the first time I played for him too,” she said.
“Hmm. You are very lucky. I never knew him as you did. When I gave his body life—his first body—he was fully-grown, but his mind had not yet awakened, as you would call it. He and the others like him were only Sitters, biologically engineered machines. They were human but not human. Exactly what The Ministry had ordered me to make. Underneath I knew they could all become so much more.”
Javid Nasir looked up at the false stars that were the separated remains of the ship, shining in concourse beyond the smaller of the two moons. He inhaled and then sighed, “No, I never knew Memri like you, but may I ask you something?”
“Please do.”
“Did Memri hate me for having made him?”
Shizuka hesitated before answering. Her eyes shied away from the hammer under Nasir’s arm.
“Yes.”
She watched as the man reached up and absently pinched his lower lip, mulling over her answer. Then he sniffled twice, half-nodded and half-shook his head. “How could he not, eh?”
“But he forgave you,” said Shizuka. “And he loved you for having made him.”
“Ah. Now you’re trying to break my heart.”
Then he sniffled once more and wiped his cheeks with his cuff. It was then that Shizuka realized he was crying. She looked away to spare him any further embarrassment, but had to ask the one question that had been building within her through their walk.
“You didn’t want to make Memri did you?”
“No, I did not. In ’39, I helped craft the world court’s legislation banning the production of synthetic workers. I had to argue before the parliaments of all fourteen member nations several times, until the law was ratified. It even carried my name upon it in the end. Imagine the shame when I later agreed to create the Sitters for the Ministry. Appalling. It appears I am a hypocrite as well as a heretic. What a disappointment I am to myself.“
“Why did you do it?”
Again, came a long period of silent rumination as Nasir visibly struggled to find the correct words. In the end, he asked Shizuka if she enjoyed tea.
“Yes, I do.”
“Good. My wife brews excellent Chai with the tea and spices that we grow in our garden. Sadly, the honey is artificial, but we do have real milk. Would you like to come and try a cup?”
She looked up the path, heard the quiet rumble of the waterfall and could see the top of her apartment building.
“I am almost home,” she said. “Perhaps—“
“But my house is quite close,” said Nasir. “Not far at all. Come. Have some Chai. Meet my family. Do this for me…in Memri’s place. Please.”
He brought his hands prayerfully before his lips, and there was such urgency in his eyes and voice that Shizuka found it impossible to refuse.
She tossed back her hair and said, “Yes, for Memri.”
“And for my wife’s Chai,” added Nasir.
“Yes, and for your wife’s Chai.”
#
“Are you thirsty?” asked Memri as they passed from the cargo module and into the command section of the ship.
“No,” she lied.
“Hungry?”
“No,” she lied again.
“Sukidayo,” she whispered, thinking, there, at least I’ve said it to him once…
Memri nodded.
“Good,” he said, not needing to reciprocate with the words.
Shizuka reached up, pulled his chin down and held his eyes with her own.
“Stay with me.”
They had been down this road before, had wrestled through this conversation so many times during her sixth awakening, that she already knew his answer.
He was immovable.
“No.”
Still Shizuka pleaded with him
“Choose life,” she said, her hands making small fists. “For me.”
Memri kissed her forehead.
His lips felt cool.
“I want to be a real person,” he said. “Part of being human is dying.”
“You’ve died before.”
“My bodies have died, but I have never gone with them.” He touched the crystal and platinum wafer behind his left ear that matched the one that Shizuka too now wore. ”I’ve downloaded with each death, and never lost my connection. This time I want to let go and see what comes after. I need to.”
“You’re being selfish,” she said. “It hurts.”
Memri smiled, and kissed her forehead a second time.
“Yes, I am. And so are you.”
“What choice do I have?”
“You can choose to let me go. Be happy for me.”
She shook her head. “I’m going to hate you.”
“Yes. Maybe. For a little while, but not long. You weren’t made in a minor key. Hate doesn’t suit you.”
Shizuka pressed her cheek against him, smelled the bloom of poppies in his sweat and inhaled deeply.
“You know,” he said, “I read that when people like you die, real people I mean, God allows you to take a tiny piece of your loved ones’ souls with you when you go. That’s why it hurts so much to be left behind. You not only feel the absence of the person you love, but also feel the hole that’s been left in your own spirit.”
“Your god is cruel,” said Shizuka. “I don’t believe in him.”
“But I do,” said Memri. “And he isn’t cruel at all. The pain’s a gift, so that in the next life, or the next after that, your soul can always find its missing pieces and bring you back to the ones you’ve loved. That way you can never really lose each other, no matter how much time comes in between. Those we love make us whole.”
“Honto desu ka?” asked Shizuka. “It sounds too naïve.”
“I know,” said Memri. “But I like the idea. I like the simplicity of its mathematics and its poetry. So yes, I think I’ll choose to believe it’s true. I’ll take it on faith. That’s the human thing to do, isn’t it?”
“You’ve already torn a hole in my heart,” said Shizuka. “I can feel it growing.”
Memri nodded. “I’m taking a little bit of you with me, Shizuka-chan. So, you can find me again. Is that alright?”
“Yes,” she said. “But only if you leave a piece of yourself with me.”
“I already am,” he said.
The music rose up again all around them.
#
Doctor Nasir’s home was indeed quite close. It stood just across the bridge before the falls at the very edge of the city’s perimeter fence. It was a low, sprawling structure with three wings, surrounded by a veranda and constructed almost entirely from native Tikal wood. Between the fence and the entryway was a lovely garden.
As Doctor Nasir held the gate for her, Shizuka was engulfed by her most favorite scent of all the universe.
“Ah!” she said, catching her breath. “You have gardenias! How?”
Nasir gave her a sheepish look.
“They are my wife’s passion. So, I traded half of my library to the conservator for a handful of cuttings. Now they’ve overrun most of the back yard and my wife could not be more pleased.“
“You must love her very much to give up your books.”
“Yes. And I like her a lot as well, which is probably more important. If you ever marry, take this advice, do it for like as much as for love.”
He opened the door, slipped out of his sandals and held the way for Shizuka.
“Welcome to our home.”
Then Javid Nasir called out to his wife, warning her that he had brought home a friend who was in desperate need of tea!
Mrs. Nasir’s name was Margaret, but when she appeared, wiping her hands with a towel, she insisted Shizuka call her “Maggie” and apologized for the mess.
Shizuka saw no mess, only a comfortably lived-in room, that was tidy enough, though being overrun by toys. Near the window, on the north side of the room was a small, upright piano.
“We brought that for our son,” said Nasir, “but he hasn’t learned anything beyond chopsticks.” Then to Maggie he asked, “Where is Joshua?”
“Just finishing his bath. And you know what that means.” She turned to Shizuka and explained, “Our son has problem with baths,”
“He doesn’t like to bathe?”
“No, no, he loves it. Getting him out is the problem.”
“Joshua can become quite willful,” said Nasir. “I’ll go fetch our young amphibian.”
Nasir then disappeared and Maggie, who stood a good six-one and looked to be about forty years old, draped the towel over her shoulder, ran both hands through her shoulder length red hair and gave her neck a cracking twist.
“Children are a lot of work,” she said. “And Joshua is a handful. I wish we had started our family earlier. Do you have children of your own?”
Shizuka was not used to having people ask if she had children. Usually those kinds of personal questions started and ended with are you married?
“No. Not yet.”
“I understand. You have your music,” said Maggie. “That must be all-consuming.”
“Yes. And more so now.”
“Is there a husband? Boyfriend?”
Shizuka shook her head, but did not elaborate. Instead, her eyes searched for a place to sit, and Maggie realized their guest was still standing at the edge of the foyer. The woman laughed. “Well aren’t I rude! Shows how often we entertain. Sit anywhere. Toss the toys aside. I’ll go start the tea.”
Shizuka removed a well-loved sock-monkey from the piano’s bench and heard Mrs. Nasir opening cupboards in the kitchen. Setting aside her satchel, Shizuka let her eyes roam about the room. There were a lot of photographs—pictures of places like London, Paris, Karachi, Chicago, San Francisco and Kyoto, but also snapshots of people as well—Nasir’s family in Pakistan, faded and brittle, and pictures of Maggie’s family too, though more recent…if recent was the correct word.
“And this,” said Nasir coming back into the room, “is our Joshua. Say hello Joshua.”
Standing beside Doctor Nasir was his son, twelve maybe thirteen years old, slightly built, but long and lanky, with bronze hair, dark maple brown skin; and eyes the same shade of blue she had only seen twice before in her entire life. When the boy smiled, he seemed to fill the entire room with light. “Ha-ji-me-ma-shi-te!” he said, in the carefully broken phonetics of a strange word that had just been learned.
Shizuka stepped forward and knelt before him. She took the boy’s hands between her own.
“Hajimemashite,” she said. “Yoroshiku onegai itahsimasu.”
But then a very confused Joshua looked up and asked his Papa why the strange lady was crying.
#
They rode the lift through seventeen decks and then on to the top of the central pillar in the observation dome. As the elevator shot outward from the Arcum Vitae’s spine,
Memri’s music ascended with them, becoming a continuous rolling of fat thunderous chords that hammered upon the keys, going hand over hand up the scale, swirling as it went in the style that had made Shizuka famous.
The Hoshino Wave, they had called it back home.
But now this was Memri’s interpretation. His blindingly fast movements, his subtle changes and grace notes added particular nuances to the pattern, making it entirely his own. It was yet another reflection of what she had given to him and what he wanted to return. It was also the embodiment of the one thing they could never share in the physical sense.
When they reached the top of the pillar, the walls of the lift slipped back into the tube, leaving them standing surrounded by the vast nothingness of the dome, with its three hundred and sixty degree view of the stars and planets through which the ship now passed.
“Look at it. Listen to it,” he said. Then taking her hand in his, added, “That’s music Shizuka-chan. All of that.”
“Honto da” she whispered, pressing his fingertips to her lips.
#
Nasir added a little more honey to his Chai, stirred it with a small golden spoon, and took a sip. Not satisfied he added another spoonful.
“It’s never sweet enough for him,” said Maggie.
“It’s not as strong as real honey,” said Nasir. “It doesn’t have the same taste.”
“Then maybe you should use sugar.”
“Sugar? Bah!”
Shizuka watched Joshua playing with his toys. She could not take her eyes off of him.
“He’s a little behind for his age,” said Maggie, “but he’s a happy child.”
“It’s AOe235,” said Nasir
“I don’t understand,” said Shizuka.
“AOe235 is a genetic error. It causes one of the several disorders that used to be lumped in mistakenly with autism.” said Nasir. “It’s not as pronounced, but neither does it respond to treatment. Joshua’s case is mild and manageable.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“And you never will again,” said Maggie. There was an edge in her voice. “They sterilized our Joshua before we left Earth.”
“Sterilization was one of the conditions of his immigration permit.” Nasir took a sip of his Chai. His eyes peered over the rim of his cup to meet Shizuka’s. The cup dipped up and down, once twice, three times, as he drank before he set it aside, empty except for the slurry of spices at its bottom.
He then thanked his wife and something unspoken passed between them.
“Hoshino-san,” he said. “Joshua is why I agreed to make the Sitters. If I had not, my son would not be here today.”
Shizuka recalled the health tests that she had taken before being issued a travel permit. Along with the usual blood draws and scans, they had also included a full genetic screening. She looked over at the boy with Memri’s eyes, hair and skin, and felt the answers to all her questions snap into place.
“They blackmailed you.”
“They convinced me.”
“No,” said Maggie. “Shizuka is right. It was extortion.” She stood up then, adding, “Excuse me, but Joshua’s class is going to the zoo in the morning, and the two of you need to talk.”
Shizuka also rose. She thanked Maggie for the Chai.
“It was a pleasure meeting you Mrs. Nasir.”
“It’s Maggie. And it was good meeting you too, Shizuka. I hope we can see more of each other. Goodnight. Come Joshua. Bedtime.”
The boy let out an ear-piercing squeal and leapt to his feet. He dashed off ahead of his mother, who sighed, muttered “such a handful” and hurried after her son.
Shizuka turned her attention back to Doctor Nasir. Sitting down again, she considered the man, reading his desire to confess and his obvious thirst for absolution.
Shizuka knew that she could give it to him if he would let her.
“You made Memri different from the others, didn’t you?”
Javid Nasir looked down into his hands.
He was no longer a scientist or a doctor. He was a father.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I love my son. It’s as simple as that. When I finally agreed to make the Sitters and learned what Lewis and the others wanted of them, I couldn’t help not including some of Joshua in his pattern. I am sure you already saw that.”
“Yes, but why?”
“Because I don’t believe in slavery, Hoshino-san. That is not who I want to be. So, I made him my son instead. Can you understand that?”
“I am not sure.”
“I gave him two thousand years of life and all the books in every language that had ever been written. I gave him the stars and the potential to not only become self-aware, but to create and become self-realized. Memri was even programmed to wake me when the ship arrived. We were supposed to meet, so I could explain to him why I made him, learn who he had become, and be with him on his last day. I did not want him to be alone when he passed.”
Nasir’s seemingly permanent smile returned again. Then Shizuka realized how much of himself he had also included his creation, and why he had seemed so familiar when they first met earlier in the day.
He shook his head and heaved out a long, weighty sigh.
“But the one thing I could not give him was companionship. It took God to do that, God and your faulty cryo chamber. In the end Memri broke his final bit of programing and instead of me, he chose to wake you. If I were Lewis Foreman I should be very jealous, but I am not. I am thankful. Because of you, Memri was loved. And he knew it.”
Nasir went silent then for what felt like an eternity. Shizuka watched him shrinking in upon himself, his face becoming a palimpsest for two thousand years of hidden pain and guilt.
“Am I an evil man, Hoshino-san?” he asked all at once.
Shizuka shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“You have a kind soul. But sometimes I believe I must be evil. Sometimes....” Nasir brought his hands up and wrung them together. “I am convinced of it.”
“Nasir-sensei, if you were evil, how could you have made Memri so full of grace?”
He nodded, wanting to believe her, but doubt’s persistent shadow lingered in his eyes.
“Do you know why I brought you here, Hoshino-san?”
“To meet Joshua and to understand.”
Nasir sniffled and rubbed his nose. “Yes and no. I brought you here to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
“The Ministry. Lewis is meeting with a Judge tonight. Tomorrow they will execute an order to take you to the hospital, where the Sitter’s memories will be excised from your mind. I should’ve told you that from the start. I should have fought harder for you at the hall. I am not the tiger my father was. I am weak.”
Shizuka reached over and squeezed Nasir’s hand. “Daijobu. They can’t touch them. They’re mine. Memri made sure that they could never be taken away. He promised.”
“But, he could not have imagined what men like Lewis Foreman and Joseph Kohl are capable of when they set their minds to it.”
“Of course he did. He made a hammer to destroy them, to smash their sleep chambers. He waited hundreds of years for the day when he would overcome his inhibitors and punish all of you. But by the time he was able to do so, our Memri had outgrown that desire.”
Our Memri. When did he become ours instead of mine?
Tears glistened in her eyes and slid down her cheeks.
“Perhaps he should have used it anyway, when he had his chance,” said Nasir.
Shaking her head, it was Shizuka’s turn to smile.
“No. He was better than that.”
It was time.
Turning about upon the bench, she brought her feet around and placed them beside the pedals. Then she lifted the fallboard and let her hands settle over the piano’s black and blond keys. Shizuka paused and took a deep breath. Then she did something she had not done since saying goodbye to Memri. Shizuka opened the place where his memories waited. She felt his smile and felt his thoughts, along with every experience and all the knowledge he had amassed during the journey.
Shizuka’s hands began to move and Memri’s music flowed from them like water from a spring, spilling over small, round stones to feed a dry streambed and find release in the river it had become.
The music and the algorithm that Memri had woven within its notes began to unwind and reveal itself. His memories coursed out from the music to spill over Nasir, and the man all at once felt the arms of the son he had never held, close about and enfold him in a perfect embrace.
Javid Nasir wept with joy.
#
“Don’t cry,” said Memri. “Not for me.”
He was standing at the edge of the platform with the light of the sun forming a glaring white corona that blazed all about him.
Shizuka, sitting at the center of the pillar picked out a marble among the stars. It was blue, green, and tan with white swirls girdling it around.
“Is that it?” she asked. “Our new world?”
Memri’s silhouette nodded.
“You’re the first to see it. You can name it.”
“Then I name it Memri,” said Shizuka.
But for the first time, Memri did not laugh.
Instead, he asked, “Have I been a good friend?”
Shizuka still could not see his face, but felt the absence of his smile, and knew that like her, he was crying.
“Saiko da. My very best friend.”
“Good. That’s important to me.”
His shoulders sank and then rose again as he inhaled deeply.
“I’ve lived too long. I want to move on now and find out if I have a soul like you.”
“You have a soul,” said Shizuka.
“I know I do. But I want to know if my soul is like yours and know we’re the same.”
The strings were rising again, cellos mostly, their throaty voices chanting like so many Russian monks, echoing from their cloister. The piano though had abandoned all melody. The violins haltingly returned to the pizzicato that had earlier awakened Shizuka.
Raindrops and tears, and water falling from a fern, drop upon drop to fill the natural bowl in a mossy stone.
Next came the sound of wind chimes, of glass and Nanbu iron, tinkling and ringing, accompanied by the voices of crickets and cicadas singing. It was an orchestra of summer sounds, but in the cool of the evening not the heat of the day. Comforting, they were the sounds of a home long lost—and of rest, sweet rest.
“We’re the same. Our souls are the same,” said Shizuka. “I feel it in your music.”
Memri came back to her. Exhausted, he lowered himself down to sit beside her.
“I’m all used up Shizuka-chan. I am an empty glass.”
She slipped one arm about him, pulled him close. Feeling the ebbing warmth in his muscles, she took his hand in hers. It was already more ice than flesh. As Memri rested his head upon her shoulder, she felt his tears. They at least were still warm.
“Shizuka-chan, are you wondering where I’ll go when my music ends?”
“Yes.”
“Me too, but I don’t have the answer. Isn’t that exciting?”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“A little.”
She held him tighter.
The music changed again. Now it was the beating of a drum slowing and reluctantly losing its rhythm.
The string section had gone silent.
The piano too had gone silent.
Brass
woodwinds
choir
silent
silent
Shizuka found herself in an empty hall of empty seats
all silent
with Memri’s heart
a clock slowing
tick-tock, tick-tock
winding down, tick by tock into its last score of moments
and with each faltering beat
Shizuka felt Memri’s death easing its way through her own flesh
slowing her own heart
emptying her lungs
as she and Memri together grew weaker
as his music and his life waned.
Am I dying with you?
Yes. You’ll feel my death, but you’ll live after. Don’t let go. Wait for what’s coming. Trust me.
Shizuka held on
Always.
She made no move to detach the crystal and platinum wafer that burned like a ruby at the back of her ear—
made no effort break their connection
Instead
Shizuka pulled Memri closer, buried her face in his braids
needing to smell his sandalwood and clover
yearning to become lost in the scent of him
but she had no power left to breathe him in
she clung instead in desperation
and as she did so, felt her own arms clinging to herself
felt her own face pressing into her hair
felt her breathless sobs and tears against her own flesh
Shizuka suddenly wanted to see his face
see his smile and his perfect blue eyes
and as she moved to look into his face
she found herself looking into her own
seeing through Memri’s eyes
but not here
not now
Shizuka saw herself in a bed
eyes closed and waking up
four
five
six
and seven times
again
then the music returned with the piano’s precipitous chords
awkward, disconnected, hunting for a theme
and finding it in the joyous ache of a thousand skipped heart beats
that fluttered all at once as she saw herself smiling and opening her eyes
she was overwhelmed by the hungry pain of laughter
and the exuberance of diving from a high place
towards a round pool of water
all midnight dark
and flaring with the white swirl of stars
that spiraled at the center of Memri’s soul
his voice spoke to her, but she could not answer
she had no words
and the music changed yet again
swelling with new life
and she found herself seeing not only a solar system, but the starfield beyond
recognizing it as more than matter and energy
more than empty space and full space
light and darkness
it was music
note upon note
half note, quarter note, and smaller still
dissonance and harmony struggling for balance
idea, dream, inspiration
and the thought and presence that had first bound them together
before breaking them apart in the moment of their creation
it was a word too simple to be believed
too fragile to be grasped with clumsy hands
it slipped away, leaving Shizuka lost and bewildered
Memri’s time was done.
Darkness fell between them like a curtain, silencing his symphony and making the universe weep with Shizuka’s tears. She gasped and felt air fill her lungs again. They were still connected by the crystal, but once more Shizuka saw through her own eyes.
With the last of his strength, Memri raised his hand toward the view ahead. He pointed to the yellow star that would become Shizuka’s new sun and whispered, “Make a wish.”