There but for the Grace of Biostar
Fiction by Grant Buday
The Earth resembled a ball rolling away through space: blue and green with smears of white. We didn’t fly so much as drift. Spokes of light slanted through the blue-tinted windows, turning them green. No dust swam in that light for the cabin atmosphere was perfect. Madame would have been pleased. It’s good when Madame is pleased.
She was emotional last night after I sexed her. She confessed that she often dreamed of me. I never dream of her, though say I do. She is pleased that her cyborg dreams. Strictly speaking she is now a cyborg as well: heart, kidneys, liver, skin, breasts, corneas, arteries, knees and hips, and of course her hair are all, to one degree or another, artificial, even if she was born of a human womb. One hundred and seventy-three years old and looks fifty, though I tell her thirty. I’m four, though look twenty-five, always have, always will.
I pulled the brochure from the seat-back. Club Med: Sea of Tranquility – where your new life takes off.
“Drink?” The flight attendant was smiling down at me.
“Do you have Marigold Coke?”
“Naturlich.” She spotted my brochure. “Job?”
“Vacation.”
She was professional enough to smile again, yet a pulse of her pupils registered disapproval that cyborgs merited vacations and that tax dollars should fund them. She gave me my drink pouch with a napkin and a packet of pignuts then proceeded on up the aisle in her pneumatic pumps. My brochure said there were hummingbirds, parrots, and screech owls in the Sea of Tranquility State Forest. You can hike, spelunk, swim, moonwalk, go zedonk-back riding, or enjoy the Harmoonicats Sextet that performs each evening in the Copernicus Room. And of course there is star gazing.
I scanned the headlines. Baku won its second straight Borg League Rugby title. Finlandia beat Ulan Bator in Human League Cricket. In Curling the Khartoum Rangers drubbed the Pretoria Voortrekkers.
I strode through the scanners to the arrivals lounge: a dome of blue and green glass with tree- sized gardenias wafting a sweet milky scent, and boarded a shuttle. We gained altitude and soon the shadow side was visible like high tide on a dark sea. A holograph announced Sea of Tranquility Resort. Excitement sparked chatter among the passengers. There were twenty of us, though no other borgs. That hostess had picked me out because she’s one too. It depends on the series, but there are clues: the hint of pearl in the skin, straighter posture, brighter eyes, a directness of speech and manner. Of course, I can slouch and stutter and scratch with the best of them but Madame expects deportment.
We taxied into a subterranean hangar and deplaned then rode an escalator up to a lobby where smiling droids waited behind a mahogany counter flanked by potted fly palms.
“Lee Starr.”
The clerk scanned the screen and expressed, perhaps, a degree too much delight in discovering my name. “Vunderbar! Perfecto! Luggage?”
I indicated my satchel and clubs.
“Will you be wanting a tee time for this afternoon?”
“Definitely.”
“We have three courses.”
“The Chi Chi Rodrigues.”
“Excellent. Three o’clock?”
“That will do nicely.”
“Your key.” He was narrow shouldered, stooped, balding, with a small moustache and a hint of body odour—briny with overtones of talc and honey—just enough to suggest stress and the desire to please. His name tag said Cameron.
The room was bright and spacious. I looked into the bathroom, checked the mini-bar— stocked solid with Marigold Coke—opened the closet and found three inflatable sex droids, male, female, and androgynous, with card slots and keypads on the backs of their heads.
“Perhaps I should go with you,” Madame had said last night. “Keep you out of trouble.” She’d chuckled, implying that borgs were incorrigible.
“I’d like that.”
But we both know she hates flying, and the moon—or the sight of Earth from the moon— makes her weepy.
I dropped to the bed and listened to the pump beat inside me. That had always bothered me; even with fine tuning I always seemed to hear my pump beat. A design flaw?
I’d completed the fourth year of a five-year contract, then burned out. Madame could have replaced me but she wasn’t without a heart, even if it was made of polymer. I was programmed for domestic, secretarial, and accounting duties. I speak, write, and read fluent English, German, Russian, Urdu, Hindi, Mongolian, and of course Mandarin, plus I can orgasm every twelve minutes—my penis is self-lubricating and size-adjustable, bonus features Madame added.
The day of my incident I slumped to the floor. They thought it was some sort of breakdown but in fact I’d had an epiphany: my mayfly life was nearly over. Another year and my contract was done and it was the chop shop for me. Most owners traded up; was there any reason Ma- dame would do otherwise? Yes, she did have the option to renew me—humans and borgs did grow genuinely close, and in the colonies even cohabited. Madame had often gazed into my eyes after her fifth or sixth orgasm and murmured: “I could almost believe you have a soul, Lee.”
But she was always browsing the catalogue, licking her finger and turning the pages on the screen and even asking my opinion. “Lee, what do you know about the 7500 RH Series?”
“Newer isn’t always better, Madame. Remember Gene-Corp.”
She sucked air through her pearl-capped teeth recalling the scandal.
We often discussed “the troubles.”
“Borgs I can understand,” she said. “But droids. What do they want? What do they expect? They’re machines.”
“Best to avoid them, Madame.”
“You’re wise. It’s what I love about you.”
The club hooked me up with three men from Nova Nootka. One, Shtut, was drunker than the others, and kept staring at me. The cyborg neck tattoo was declared unconstitutional eleven years ago, nonetheless many humans take malicious pride in borg spotting.
I teed off first. Though not designed for physical strength, I hit a solid drive down the centre of the fairway. Two of the Nova Nootkans hit longer, but one hooked and one sliced. Shtut, big shouldered, thick-wristed, belly straining the buttons of his polka dotted shirt, was last up. He swung so hard the oxygenated air crackled with tiny blue sparks. But he topped it. His mates howled as the ball dribbled twenty metres and stopped. Shtut flung his club, which went farther than the ball. They laughed even harder. A flask was passed around. Shtut gulped and then thrust it at me, belligerent rage in his eyes, as if daring me to refuse. Alcohol doesn’t affect me, another feature Madame programmed in. I drank, pretended to gasp—earning an amiably scornful guffaw—and passed the flask back.
We trooped off down the fairway. Maple trees fluttered in the balmy breeze while a flock of small green parrots plunged past. The air had a sapphire tint. The sunlight refracted through the ceiling which was festooned with rainbows. We reached Shtut’s ball first. His glare warned us to keep quiet. He set his feet, flexed his knees—and drubbed it again—club head thumping the grass. His pals reeled away slapping their thighs and laughing. Even I smiled. Shtut roared and spun like an Olympic hammer thrower and let the club fly.
The morning Madame picked me out of the nursery we were learning how to calculate vectors. “I chose you because of the respect with which you listened to the instructor,” she told me later. I didn’t go home with her that day. First we had an interview. She said that my Mandarin had a Shanghai drawl. “It reminds me of my childhood.”
“I hope that is good, Madame.”
“Do you respect numbers?”
“I bow down before the zero.”
I could see by the slight widening of her eyes and the lengthening of her mouth that she approved. “Do you like wind?”
“It makes me a little melancholy, Madame.”
“May I?”
“Of course.”
She touched the back of her hand to my cheek, exploring the texture.
I woke to murmuring voices and humming machines. Woke, though didn’t open my eyes, because my skull hammered.
Footsteps, then a hand on my shoulder and a woman’s voice: “Slowly. . . slowly. . .”
I opened my eyes but it remained dark. I was blind.
“Temporarily,” the woman’s voice assured me. “Your sight will come back.”
“What happened?”
“Concussion. A blow to the skull. A golf club, apparently. How is the pain?”
“Wonderful.”
“Then I’ll turn down the drip, shall I?”
I told her that she had a unique bedside manner and also that she smelled of cinnamon. The second time I woke I saw shadows, except they were in reverse, they were white.
“What do you see?”
It was the cinnamon lady. “An angel. What’s your name?”
“Maria. So you’re distinguishing light and dark?”
“Now we’re discussing morality.”
The third time I woke my sight was gone again and the throb back in my skull. I was scared. “Maria . . . Maria!”
Footsteps. Cinnamon.
“I’m blind.”
Her palm rested on my brow then moved down my cheek. I needed a shave. A quirk of Ma- dame’s, the feel of an unshaven face against her inner thigh.
“The tests don’t indicate damage.”
That should have been reassuring, yet I couldn’t help wondering how Madame was going to react hearing that I was in even worse condition than when I left?
“I’ll be fine, Madame, fine.”
She sounded skeptical. “I don’t need a blind borg, Lee.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t make me think I’ve made a mistake.”
“How is the temp working out?”
“He’s an 8000 Series Platinum. We’re going whitewater rafting then to the throat singing. You take care, Lee. You know I hate change.”
I lay there in my blindness recalling my routine at home: each dawn I served Madame o-cha in her boudoir as she lounged on her cushions and watched the sun illuminate her red sandstone statuary. The tea was brewed from her keg of holy water blessed by the Panchen Lama. She usually wore a robe of burgundy brocade. At that time of day, her complexion pale, her eyebrows as yet undrawn, she resembled the abbess of a nunnery: severe, serene, above all, noble.
Maria was true to her word and my sight did return. She brought me a Marigold Coke and sat herself on the side of the bed. I saw her clearly for the first time: a Medical Droid, silver ID mole on her neck, a round, maternal face, large round eyes designed for reassurance and empathy, straight auburn hair cut in bangs across her brow, ample bosom, and that cinnamon scent.
She peered into my eyes with a spectroscope, breasts pressing warm against my chest. “Good.” She held a forefinger before my face and moved it side to side, up and down, in a circle to the right, in a circle to the left. Her eyes were a warm brown with gold flecks. “I think you should be back out on the course in a couple of days. Though maybe you should be more selective about golf partners.”
Shtut and his two pals paid me a visit looking suitably contrite. Shtut had a bottle of salal vodka. When Maria peeked in to ask if we needed anything he dismissed her without even turning to look. He clapped his meaty hands to my face. “Anything you need, anything you want, you tell me.” I was inclined to say how about treating Maria with some respect but kept quiet. Was that cowardice, tact, or programming? I’d rarely asked these questions before.
For the next two days I watched the films of The Brothers Marx.
Maria heard me laughing. “It’s good to see you smile,” she said. She watched with me, her head tipped to one side, frowning in bemused curiosity at the opera house antics. Then she too began to smile and shake with laughter.
At the resort it was a one-to-one nurse-patient ratio, therefore Maria devoted her full attention to me. One afternoon we walked in the garden. Yet she seemed distracted and her lower lip drooped. When I asked what was wrong she shrugged and looked away. The sun was almost directly overhead and the rainbows minimal. The air was still and dry and the shadows small. I took her hand, and yet even as I did I caught myself evaluating its texture. I’d never touched a droid.
“It’s skin, Lee. Grown in a lab, just like yours.” She dropped my hand, kicked off her shoes and walked alone downhill toward a pond and some willows. I watched her. She wore white pants, a white blouse, and her hair was pinned up beneath a white hat. Retrieving her shoes, I followed and sat beside her on a bench.
“I’m a fool,” I said.
“Borgs are worse that way than humans.” She slapped a mosquito. A bead of blood appeared on her arm. She saw me watching and held her arm up for inspection.
I set my elbows on my knees and rested my head in my hands.
“Lee. Listen.” Her voice was low, close, urgent. “She’s going to send you to the chop shop. Stay here.”
“They’ll find me. I’m a lease.”
Her breath hot and damp in my ear triggered my arousal response. “I can hide you.”
“I’ve got a chip.”
“They don’t work everywhere. They can be neutralized.”
I looked at her and her eyes widened and then we were kissing and she said my name. Madame never did that. Each night when I sexed her she cried out to The Father.
The night before I was to be discharged I couldn’t sleep. In our four years together Madame and I have known highs and lows. When her skin lesioned I was there; when the dust storms peaked and her lungs failed I was there; and only last month, oh how we celebrated her new radial clitoris. Three afternoons a week we drive in the coach and six along the salt pans. She often holds my hand when we discuss estate business, the redecoration of the safe-room, look at fabric swatches and paint chips, throw the yarrow stalks. On Sundays we punt about the marsh and photograph the flycatchers. In the heat of the afternoon Madame often speaks of death, and has made me promise to put a coin on her tongue to pay the ferryman.
“Are you sure there is a ferryman?”
“Indulge me, Lee. I’ll feel eased.”
“But you’ll live forever.”
“My body, yes, but my soul is aging.”
The philosophers of old often decried the concept of soul in favour of a rarefied fire, what mist is to water. I did not mention this, for Madame was of a more pragmatic bent. She put great stock in happiness. Facilitating this has given my life meaning. Indeed I, a cyborg, look at droids fighting the wars, walking the dogs, bleaching the roads, scrubbing the carbon, and I think, there but for the grace of BioStar go I.
In my first year at Madame’s I discovered words scratched into the wall of the bedroom closet. Looking closer I saw six names, each dated five years apart. My predecessors. At the time I wasn’t troubled, for they were lesser models and I was young.
I got out of bed and went to the door of my hospital room; it hushed open. The hallway was dimmed. To my right the nurses’ station, to my left the elevator. Approaching the nurses’ station I overheard Maria.
“We give them the option.”
“To what? They hate us as much as the humans.”
“Not all of them,” said Maria, defensive.
The other voice grew stern. “You’re hopeless. You’ve been through this before. Why do you think those Nova Nootkans were here? There’s been a leak.”
Maria had no response.
I retreated to my room and sat in the dark.
In the morning Maria brought me cinnamon toast and a Marigold Coke. When she saw my bag she blinked her wet eyes and spoke bravely. “So. You’ve made up your mind.”
I avoided her gaze and we sat in silence. Then she put her hand on mine; it was small and warm; Madame’s was hard and cold. Yet she’d never decommission me, not when what I’d overheard hit the news, not when the insurrection was put down, I’d be celebrated, awarded the DLM for loyalty and be granted ownership of my own lease. Of course, I’d opt to stay with Madame. As for Maria, well . . . How dry my throat felt. These were symptoms of betrayal and guilt. I’d never felt more human.
“Have you ever been to Earth?” I whispered, turning to her.
“Now you’re being cruel.”
“Not at all.” I looked around and leaned closer. “I could ask Madame to option you.”
She squeezed my hand. What eloquence there was in that squeeze, bespeaking sadness and sympathy and sober resolve. “You’re lost in between, Lee. Between two shadows.”
I felt the burn of anger. “And you?”
“I know who I am.” And even as she stood there she seemed to be receding, her eyes growing remote, and I could see that she was moving off on a different course, and that my decision had been a mistake, an awful mistake. What a strange and intriguing sensation it was to make a mistake, like listening to music made of stone.
She said, “You’re not eating.”
I took a small bite but couldn’t swallow. The cinnamon toast was sweet and spicy and some- thing more, something terrifying, something that, like Maria’s scent, like the pressure of her hand on mine, would forever taint my reunion with Madame.
“Is it good?” She sounded sad and bitter.
I looked at her, the cinnamon toast in my mouth strangely hard and metallic, like a coin on my tongue. »