The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Vol. 2 Read online

  Urban planning was my artform, iCity my medium.

  I sought advice from a couple of my compatriots whom I trusted and who also weren’t involved in this competition. (I trusted any of my peers just so far.) Virgule and Yvonne saw my roughs and offered suggestions.

  “You really think the tensile parms of the senstrate will support a pylon that high?”

  “You used that same skin last year in Marple Cheshire, remember?”

  “Siting the Jedi Temple within a hundred yards of the Zionist Charismatics? What were you thinking!”

  The long hard slog to a final plan took all my concentration and energy. But still, I spared a little attention pinging the grapevine and trying to learn what the other contestants were doing.

  That included Holly Grale of course. That stinker ranked two spots below me, but still within the top ten. Right this minute, as I struggled to balance greenspace with mall footage, taverns with schools, she was doing the same.

  But her security was tight, and no news filtered out about her design.

  Not even when I bumped into her at the reformation of Las Ramblas.

  Back when the announcement that Bloorvoor was up for reformation appeared, the Las Ramblas remodeling was already in the populace-inspection period. The eventual popular vote awarded the honors to Lafferty Fisk and his plan, and tonight Lafferty was throwing the usual party to witness and celebrate his triumph.

  The venue was a restaurant named Myxomycota that cantilevered out from the side of Mount Excess. Mount Excess held all the extra mass of sensate substrate not currently in use by any neighborhood. It was in effect a solid vertical reservoir which could be drawn down or added to, and thus its elevation and bulk was constantly changing. Tonight Mount Excess was pretty substantial - minimalist designs were hip just then - affording us a good panoramic view of iCity and Las Ramblas, the neighborhood lit up all red as a sign of the impending transformation.

  The food and drink and music were splendid - I seem to recall a band named the Tiny Identities was playing - the company was stimulating, and I was just beginning to relax for the first time in ages. My plan for the competition was almost finalized, with a day or two to spare till the deadline. As midnight approached, a wave of pleasant tension and anticipation enveloped the room. Everyone clustered against the big windows that looked out over the brilliant city.

  I turned to the person at my elbow to make some innane comment, and there stood Holly Grale.

  Her black hair was buzzed short, she had six cometary cinder studs in each earlobe, and she wore a cat suit made out of glistening kelp cloth, accessorized with a small animated cape. Her broad, wry, painted mouth was ironically quirked.

  “Well, well, well,” she said in a voice whose sensuous allure I found distractingly at odds with my professional repugnance for this woman. “If it isn’t Frederick Law Moses, once the baron of Floradora Heights.”

  My name sounded so pretentious coming from her lips. I suppose “Robert Olmsted” might have been a less dramatic alternative to honor my heroes, but when I had chosen my name I had been much younger and dreamier.

  “Oh, Holly, it’s you. I didn’t recognize you for a moment without your copy of Urban Planning for Dummies in your hand. Shouldn’t you be home trying to master that ancient emulation of SimCity?”

  My jibes had no effect. “I have plenty of down time now, Moses. I’ve just locked in my design for the Bloorvoor competition.”

  This news unnerved me. Only a very confident or foolish planner wouldn’t be making changes right up till the last minute. I tried to dissemble my anxiety with a quip, but then events outside precluded all conversation.

  The reformation of Bloorvoor had begun.

  The entire red-lit district began to dissolve in syrupy slow-mo fashion, structures flowing downward into the sensate motherboard like a taffy pull. The varied cityscape, the topography of streets and buildings and all the district’s “vegetation,” was losing its stock of unique identities as all constructions were subsumed back into the senstrate from which they had once arisen.

  Of course, all businesses, clubs, cafes, workshops, restaurants, and other establishments had closed down early for the evening prior to the change, and people had retreated to their homes and condos, if they had not left the district entirely. These domestic units were autonomous permanent nodes and had sealed themselves off, locking their occupants safely away. Those inside would ride out the reformation without a jolt or qualm, cradled by the intelligent senstrate. Many people even slept through the whole process. And anyone absent-minded enough to be caught out during the change would be envaginated by the senstrate in a life-support vacuole and protected till the reformation was over. Inconvenient, but hardly dangerous.

  Now the district was a flat featureless plain, a hole in iCity, dotted with the capsules of domestic units and the occasional person-sized vacuole, awaiting the signal to transform.

  Lafferty Fisk proudly transmitted the impulse from his phone.

  Cascades of information coursed through the senstrate.

  iCity: a lattice of pure patterns.

  Just like the time Mode O’Day had instantiated the old model of Bloorvoor on the tabletop in Desire Path, so now the new version of Las Rambias (to be named Airegin Miles) commenced to be born. Structures composed of pure senstrate arose amidst a matrix of streets and other urban features, incorporating the autonomous domestic units into themselves where planned. (I swore I felt Mount Excess drop by a centimeter or three.) The sensate material assumed a variety of textures, and skins, right down to a very convincing indestructible grass and soil. Water flowed through new conduits into ponds and canals. Normal-colored lights came on.

  Within less than an hour, Aieregin Miles stood complete, iCity’s newest district.

  A huge round of applause broke out in the restaurant. Lafferty Fisk stood at the focus of the approbation and envy. Memories of being there myself flooded powerfully through me.

  When the tumult died down, I looked around, feeling I could be generous even toward Holly Grale.

  But she was nowhere to be seen.

  All the tabletop models and phantom zone walk-thrus for the Bloorvoor reformation went live a couple of days later. So I saw what Grale had accomplished.

  Her design was magnificent. There was no denying it. Just the way Alpha Ralpha Boulevard looped around and flowed into von Arx Plaza - this was genuine talent at work.

  Was her design better than mine and all the others?

  Only the populace could say.

  And soon they said yes.

  Grale’s was the winner.

  I moped around for forty-eight hours in an absolute funk, a malaise that was hardly alleviated by the fact that my plan for Bloorvoor had garnered the second highest number of votes. Doubt and despair assailed me. Was I losing my touch? Had I plumbed the depths of my art and hit a stony infertile bottom? Should I abandon my passion?

  I spent an inordinate amount of time inside the phantom zone walk-thru of Grale’s winning plan. I kept comparing her accomplishment, her sensibilities, to mine, fixated on discovering what had made her entry so appealing to the populace. Was it this particular cornice, this special wall, this juxtaposition of tree and window? The way sunlight would strike that certain gable, or wind funnel down that mournful alley?

  And by the end of my fevered inspection, I had decided something.

  The taste of the populace was debased. The residents of Bloorvoor - soon to become (yuck!) “QualQuad” - had voted incorrectly. My design was indeed the superior one.

  I realize now how crazy that sounds. The citizenry is always the ultimate arbiter. Without them, we urban planners would have no reason to exist. There can be no imposition of our tastes over their veto, no valorizing of a platonic perfection over perceived utility. We all offer the best we have, and they choose among us.

  But in my anger and jealousy and despair, I lost sight of these verities. I was more than a little insane, and that remains my o
nly excuse for what I did next.

  I went to see Sandy Verstandig.

  Sandy was one of the tech gnomes who kept the senstrate bubbling and ready for use at top efficiency and reliability. A rough-edged petite woman who favored a strong floral perfume and employed more profanity than any random half-dozen athletes. I say “gnome,” but of course that designation was just a nickname for her job. She didn’t live literally underground. There was no need for her to be in physical proximity to the intelligent material that formed the substance of iCity. Except for the occasional regular maintenance inspection of various pieces of subterranean hardware, she could handle all of her duties via her phone.

  Duties such as establishing the order of the reformation queue.

  I knew Sandy from frequent help she had given me in the past, when I had had questions about the senstrate that only a hands-on expert could answer. In our face-to-face conversations, I had always gotten the sense that she would not be averse to a romantic relationship.

  I’m ashamed now to describe how easy it was to get Sandy Verstandig into bed. How easy it was to secure access her phone while she slept.

  And finally, how easy it was to substitute my plan for Grale’s in the reformation queue, and conceal all traces of my crime.

  Crowding against the windows at Myxomycota once again, as the final seconds ticked away until midnight, I almost shivered with anticipation. There was Bloorvoor down below, all lit in red. Soon it would be rechristened Bushyhead, when it assumed the lineaments of my visionary design. It was all I could do not to chuckle aloud at the shock Grale was about to receive.

  Of course, the mix-up would be immediately apparent, the unmistakable substitution of my superior design for her inferior one. But it would not be totally improbable that the second-place entry might have been mistakenly inserted ahead of the winner in the queue. Yes, Sandy Verstandig would take some minor blame. But no lasting harm done. And then, in the morning, the populace would see just how wonderful their new neighborhood was, and vote to keep it. I’d get the accreditation, and be back up to eleven. Grale would look like a whiner and sore loser if she contested the results.

  As I said, I wasn’t thinking too clearly.

  Various people addressed me in those last few minutes, but I don’t recall anything they or I said.

  And then midnight arrived.

  The deliquescent “demolition” of Bloorvoor occurred perfectly, rendering the district featureless. All the condo nodes and vacuoles awaited reincorporation into the new buildings. Our room held its collective breath for the manifestation of the winning design.

  And that’s when all chaos erupted.

  The senstrate began to seethe and churn, tossing out irregular whips and tendrils and geysers. Condo nodes bobbed about like sailboats in a typhoon. I could barely imagine the ride the inhabitants were getting, although I knew that automatic interior safety measures - inflatable furniture, airbag walls and such - would prevent them from being harmed.

  The watchers were stunned. I saw Grale with her eyes wide and mouth agape. That image alone was sufficient reward. But also my only tangible satisfaction.

  Because what happened next was utterly tragic.

  My design emerged, but hybridized with Grale’s!

  Somehow I had botched the queue, overlaying and blending the two plans. I never would have thought such a thing would be possible. But the reality stood before us.

  The most outré buildings began to self-assemble, mutant structures obeying no esthetic code, arrayed higgledy-piggledy across the district. A nightmare, a surreal canvas-

  I backed away from the window. “No, no, this wasn’t supposed to happen-”

  I have to give Grale credit for sharpness of hearing and intelligence. She was on me then like a tigress, bearing me to the floor and pummeling me half-senseless, while outside our sight the mashup reformation surged on. We rolled around for what seemed a bruising eternity, until other planners managed to separate us.

  Restrained by Partch and O’Day, almost growling, Grale confronted me. “Moses, you don’t know what a huge fucking mess you’ve gotten yourself into!”

  And I certainly didn’t.

  But neither did she.

  Of course you know how the new hybrid district of QualBushy (sometimes also known as Head-Quad) broke all duration records. Approved the morning after by a shocking 97.6 percent of the populace. Not falling to its next reformation for an astonishing 10,139 hours.

  Mashup designs became the sine qua non for all reformations. iCity experienced a renaissance of design fecundity and doubled in acreage. Mount Excess was joined by Mount Backup. Partnerships formed, broke up, and reformed among the planners at an astonishing rate.

  Except for one pairing that endured.

  Grale and Moses.

  I give Holly top billing because I’d never hear the end of it at home around the dinner table if I didn’t.

  The Space Crawl Blues

  Kay Kenyon

  “Going to the Graveyard, then?” Ian stood by the quantum arch, ready to deliver a sales pitch.

  But Blake Niva was not a customer, would never be. Even if Ian was his best friend and owner of the latest wizardry in space travel, even then he would never cave in and do it.

  “Yeah, the Graveyard, Ian. But going the slow way.” Space crawl, and proud of it. Blake eyed the far end of the transport center where the space time, real time, old time shuttle concourse lay. He wished he could bypass the QT desk, bypass Ian and the inevitable excruciating conversation.

  “I could get you there in a pico second,” Ian said, “like I’ve said before.” Ian exchanged conspiratorial glances with the quantum engineer who manned the arch. They were so proud of themselves, so smug. So rich.

  “Right,” Blake said, not wanting to argue. The Graveyard hung in low Europa orbit at 1200 kilometers, so in fact Ian’s arch could save him about two hours round trip transit time, if time was all Blake cared about. “Catch you for a beer on the way back?”

  Ian nodded. Beer was the glue between them, thin as horse piss, thick as habit. The two men had been thrown together for three years on this chunk of ice. Europa spectacularly orbited the great Jovian planet, or, more accurately, forever fell into it, due to the elegant relation between gravity and tangential velocity - concepts that, in space travel these days, were in danger of irrelevance.

  The two men could not have been more different. Ian the self-confident partner in a company that had just broken the barrier to quantum travel; Blake the annoyingly shy pilot of real - and real slow - nuts and bolts space ships. Next to Ian, Blake felt comfortably inadequate, glad to take his friend’s leavings, including the women who took pity on Blake because he was bad at small talk in bars.

  As Blake edged away, Ian kept him in the web of conversation. “You ought to try my way. Just once. Make a man of you,” he said, joking, but meaning it. “You’d come out the other side with a mean knack for the ladies, yeah?” He stood by the arch and its quantum engineer like a barker at a carnival, drumming up business.

  Blake grinned, but as so often around Ian, he seemed to miss the point. Since when did women find it sexy if you’d gone quantum? It proved you had the balls to travel digital? Maybe it was a macho thing. It did scare some people, those who didn’t understand quantum teleportation. Which was basically everybody.

  Ian kept proselytizing. “Let us give you the ride, man; you’ll be better for it.”

  “You’re crazy. It’s quantum teleportation, not a new aftershave.”

  “You need a defrag, guy. We’re here to help.”

  He waved at his friend, in a hurry to leave, uncomfortable with Ian’s smug suggestions that he needed fixing. Or proving. Or more women. Or all the other things Ian was that Blake wasn’t.

  Sammy, at least, had never thought he needed to be different. With her lying in the Graveyard, life would never be the same.

  The space shuttle was slow transport, yeah. But it would give him time to prepare. He
’d say his goodbyes in the Yard, and he’d do so personally - no long-distance fare-thee-wells. It wouldn’t be right. They’d been too close.

  He looked back at the QT station where Ian and crew had snagged a customer. The quantum engineer directed her into the arch of the processor. Light crawled over her skin, haloing it. Then she disappeared. Blake wished her bon voyage, wherever her final destination might take her, as he used to say over the com back when he had a goddamn job.

  The rush of resentment surprised him.

  It wasn’t Ian’s fault that it had come to this: People as bits. Travel as transmission. Clean, cheap, elegant. The technology was bound to be viable sooner or later. Thing was, QT arrived a tad early for Blake Niva.

  For one thing, it put him out of a job. Permanently.

  No use for pilots. You remember pilots? People who could navigate their way out of a comet cluster and change a lithium heat exchanger with their left hand while coaxing a balky optical computer to make nice to the hydroponics. No navigation needed these days. No ‘ponies, either. Nope. What the worlds need now are hyped-up data slingers.

  “Ticket?” The flight desk guy took Blake’s boarding pass, sending him into the gullet of the loading tube. No lines, of course. Nobody was taking shuttles in these last weeks since QT got the OK from the UN. Thing was, quantum teleportation was brand new, so lots of people had postponed trips, waiting for the QT fares to come down, and then they’d just teleport. Folks who’d booked ram jet scoop flights to Procyon IV or ion drive passages to the Trapezius cluster all cancelled. Pretty soon business would be booming for Ian and company.

  Folks had good reason to cancel space crawl plans. You didn’t want to be scooped in your ram jet scoop. You’d be out in real spacetime, say, thirty light years, and QT clients would zip past you at quantum speeds. Course, it’s not speed at all. It isn’t even travel. It’s just your bits entangling with the bits of the universe, until you come out the other end, reconstructed.