Walter Williams - Lethe

First appeared in Asimovs Science Fiction, September 1997. Nominated for Best Novellette.

Davout had himself disassembled for the return journey. He had already been torn in half, he felt: the remainder, the dumb beast still alive, did not matter. The captain had ruled, and Katrin would not be brought back. Davout did not want to spend the years between the stars in pain, confronting the gaping absence in his quarters, surrounded by the quiet sympathy of the crew.

Besides, he was no longer needed. The terraforming team had done its work, and then, but for Davout, had died.

Davout lay down on a bed of nano and let the little machines take him apart piece by piece, turn his body, his mind, and his unquenchable longing into long strings of numbers. The nanomachines crawled into his brain first, mapping, recording, and then shut down his mind piece by piece, so that he would feel no discomfort during what followed, or suffer a memory of his own body being taken apart.

Davout hoped that the nanos would shut down the pain before his consciousness failed, so that he could remember what it was like to live without the anguish that was now a part of his life, but it didnt work out that way. When his consciousness ebbed, he was aware, even to the last fading of the light, of the knife-blade of loss still buried in his heart.

The pain was there when Davout awoke, a wailing voice that cried, a pure contralto keen of agony, in his first dawning awareness. He found himself in an early-Victorian bedroom, blue-striped wallpaper, silhouettes in oval frames, silk flowers in vases. Crisp sheets, light streaming in the window. A stranger-shoulder-length hair, black frock coat, cravat carelessly tied-looked at him from a gothic-revival armchair. The man held a pipe in the right hand and tamped down tobacco with the prehensile big toe of his left foot.

"Im not on the Beagle," Davout said.

The man gave a grave nod. His left hand formed the mudra for correct. "Yes."

"And this isnt a virtual?"

Correct again. "No."

"Then something has gone wrong."

Correct "Yes. A moment, sir, if you please." The man finished tamping, slipped his foot into a waiting boot, then lit the pipe with the anachronistic lighter in his left hand. He puffed, drew in smoke, exhaled, put the lighter in his pocket, and settled back in the walnut embrace of his chair.

"I am Dr. Li," he said. Stand by said the left hand, the old finger position for a now-obsolete palmtop computer, a finger position that had once meant pause, as correct had once meant enter, enter because it was correct. "Please remain in bed for a few more minutes while the nanos doublecheck their work. Redundancy is frustrating," puffing smoke, "but good for peace of mind."

"What happens if they find theyve made a mistake?"

Dont be concerned. "It cant be a very large mistake," said Li, "or we wouldnt be communicating so rationally. At worst, you will sleep for a bit while things are corrected."

"May I take my hands out from under the covers?" he asked.

"Yes."

Davout did so. His hands, he observed, were brown and leathery, hands suitable for the hot, dry world of Sarpedon. They had not, then, changed his body for one more suited to Earth, but given him something familiar.

If, he realized, they were on Earth.

His right fingers made the mudra thank you.

Dont mention it signed Li.

Davout passed a hand over his forehead, discovered that the forehead, hand, and the gesture itself were perfectly familiar.

Strange, but the gesture convinced him that he was, in a vital way, still himself. Still Davout.

Still alive, he thought. Alas.

"Tell me what happened," he said. "Tell me why Im here."

Li signed stand by, made a visible effort to collect himself. "We believe," he said, "that the Beagle was destroyed. If so, you are the only survivor."

Davout found his shock curiously veiled. The loss of the other lives-friends, most of them-stood muted by the precedent of his own earlier, overriding grief. It was as if the two losses were weighed in a balance, and the Beagle found wanting.

Li, Davout observed, was waiting for Davout to absorb this information before continuing.

Go on Davout signed.

"The accident happened seven light-years out," Li said. "Beagle began to yaw wildly, and both automatic systems and the crew failed to correct the maneuver. Beagles automatic systems concluded that the ship was unlikely to survive the increasing oscillations, and began to use its communications lasers to download personality data to collectors in Earth orbit. As the only crew member to elect disassembly during the return journey, you were first in the queue. The others, we presume, ran to nano disassembly stations, but communication was lost with the Beagle before we retrieved any of their data."

"Did Katrins come through?"

Li stirred uneasily in his chair. Regrettably "Im afraid not."

Davout closed his eyes. He had lost her again. Over the bubble of hopelessness in his throat he asked, "How long has it been since my data arrived?"

"A little over eight days."

They had waited eight days, then, for Beagle-for the Beagle of seven years ago-to correct its problem and reestablish communication. If Beagle had resumed contact, the mass of data that was Davout might have been erased as redundant.

"The government has announced the loss," Li said. "Though there is a remote chance that the Beagle may come flying in or through the system in eleven years as scheduled, we have detected no more transmissions, and weve been unable to observe any blueshifted deceleration torch aimed at our system. The government decided that it would be unfair to keep sibs and survivors in the dark any longer."

Concur Davout signed.

He envisioned the last moments of the Beagle, the crew being flung back and forth as the ship slammed through increasing pendulum swings, the desperate attempts, fighting wildly fluctuating gravity and inertia, to reach the emergency nanobeds no panic, Davout thought, Captain Moshweshwe had trained his people too well for that. Just desperation, and determination, and, as the oscillations grew worse, an increasing sense of futility, and impending death.

No one expected to die anymore. It was always a shock when it happened near you. Or to you.

"The cause of the Beagles problem remains unknown," Li said, the voice far away. "The Bureau is working with simulators to try to discover what happened."

Davout leaned back against his pillow. Pain throbbed in his veins, pain and loss, knowledge that his past, his joy, was irrecoverable. "The whole voyage," he said, "was a catastrophe."

I respectfully contradict Li signed. "You terraformed and explored two worlds," he said. "Downloads are already living on these worlds, hundreds of thousands now, millions later. There would have been a third world added to our commonwealth if your mission had not been cut short due to the, ah, first accident"

Concur Davout signed, but only because his words would have come out with too much bitterness.

Sorry, a curt jerk of Lis fingers. "There are messages from your sibs," Li said, "and downloads from them also. The sibs and friends of Beagles crew will try to contact you, no doubt. You need not answer any of these messages until youre ready."

Understood.

Davout hesitated, but the words were insistent; he gave them tongue. "Have Katrins sibs sent messages?" he asked.

Lis grave expression scarcely changed. "I believe so." He tilted his head. "Is there anything I can do for you? Anything I can arrange?"

"Not now, no," said Davout. Thank you he signed. "Can I move from the bed now?"