And he smells truth, so he shrugs and rummages in bins behind his small counter, smelling doubtful, because he does not sell to people, just to us. But he drags a long cloak out into the light and shakes it. I smell old dust, insect wings, and summer and sneeze. I have seen a few cloaks on the street on my way here, enough like this that she will pass and it will hide her convent-whiteness.
He wants money, of course.
I have no money. As the servant for a Speaker-in-training, I have no time of my own to trade with others in the convent, so have not amassed the coins that we use among ourselves. I flatten my ears in apology and smell need for that cloak. Now his ears flatten and he smells thoughtful and crafty.
“Bring your people here,” he finally says. And he reeks now of curiosity.
I cannot hide the smell of my relief and that makes his ears prick again. We servants love a good story and clearly I am going to have one to show him, never mind tell. I take the cloak, roll it tightly, and run down the narrow alley-of-us to the main street where I once again stroll—invisible to those people-eyes—to the garden. My ears are flat with worry by the time I reach the convent alley, even though I have been gone a short time. They may be looking for her. Someone may have wandered into the night shadows to see her whiteness.
But she is there, her sightless eyes turned upward, her hands palm up on her thighs. She no longer smells afraid.
I touch her, inviting her to use my eyes and see the cloak and the garden shadows.
“There is no place for me out here.” She smells peace as she says these words, but a whiff of darkness lurks behind that peace and it makes the hair on my shoulders bristle.
“We will find you a place,” I tell her. And I drape the cloak around her shoulders.
She raises a fold to her nose. “It smells like you. Where are we going to go?”
“To a place.” To pay for the cloak that smells of us. “I do not think the convent will look for you there.”
I am sure of it. The hair on my face is gray and I have lived all my life among the people in the convent. They will not think that the servant led her. We are eyes only, a tool to use. They will look for her among the people of the city.
I take her hand. People do not walk with their hands on our shoulders, the way they do in the convent. Out here, they have their own eyes. But all she needs is a touch to use my eyes. I feel the effort she makes, to walk easily on this strange street and she smells fear even though she does not show it. I am full of pride for this puppy. She is much stronger than any other pup I have raised. She is… different.
Perhaps it is not my fault. Perhaps I have not contaminated her after all.
I lead her past the shops and through the crowds of people who see only a slight woman wearing a cloak, walking hand-in-hand with her servant. The food-smells make my stomach hurt because it has been a long time since I ate my breakfast roll. But I have no coins and I fear to take her into a shop where someone might speak to her.
Her head tilts and her steps begin to drag. She smells… shocked.
“They are speaking Words,” she whispers to me, almost too low to hear. “The God Words.”
“They are speaking the tongue that everyone speaks,” I tell her softly. I want to kiss her cheek, to comfort her. “They are only God Words to you.”
Now her feet stumble and I pause, smelling fear so strong that for a minute I think that even the people with their dead noses might notice.
“What are we?” she breathes.
My blasphemous thought comes to me, that she is as created as I. Only now, I think that she is more created than I. I have been created to be a servant, but she has been created to be a machine.
I relax a bit when we reach the darkness of the alley. By now, the convent must guess that she has left. They probably record our traffic in and out of the small door and now they will know that she left with me.
They will not look for her here. They will not even know that here exists.
The shopkeeper’s eyes widen as we enter his shop and her hair catches the light from beneath her hood. He reeks curiosity now. “Welcome,” he says and flattens himself almost like a puppy in front of her.
“She doesn’t understand, any more than she can smell.” I shrug. “She has run away.”
His eyes narrow and his ears flick nervously, but he smells thoughtful rather than afraid. “Why did you bring her here?”
“She speaks to my litter-brother.” My ears flatten in spite of myself and I cannot keep my lips from drawing back from my teeth. “He is on a star a long ship-travel from here. When I sleep next to her, I speak with him.” I know my teeth are showing now and his eyes burn bright in the dim light of the shop. My she was wrong when she thought that speaking-across-the-stars brought the convents money.
It brought them power.
“They can speak for us, too.” The words sound deep in my throat. Like a growl.
His eyes gleam in the darkness and I think for a moment that I can see the moon of my puppy-hood reflected in them. Only citizens can speak across the stars.
“She can speak for us.”
THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS
by Robert J. Sawyer
Robert J. Sawyer is the author of twenty novels, including Hominids, which won the Hugo Award, The Terminal Experiment, which won the Nebula Award, and Mindscan, which won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He has also won ten Aurora Awards, three Seiun Awards, and is the only three-time winner of Spain’s prestigious UPC Award, which bestows the largest cash prize in all of science fiction.
Sawyer’s novel Flashforward is currently being adapted for television and is scheduled to air on ABC this fall. His latest novel project is the WWW trilogy, consisting of Wake, Watch, and Wonder. The first volume, Wake, was recently serialized in the pages of Analog and was released in hardcover in April.
“The Shoulders of Giants,” which first appeared in the anthology Star Colonies, is Sawyer’s attempt to capture the sense of wonder that drew him to science fiction in the first place. “The title,” he said, “is a tip of the hat to Asimov, Clarke, Clement, Herbert, Niven, and all the others upon whose shoulders the SF writers of my generation are fortunate enough to stand.”
It seemed like only yesterday when I’d died, but, of course, it was almost certainly centuries ago. I wish the computer would just tell me, dammitall, but it was doubtless waiting until its sensors said I was sufficiently stable and alert. The irony was that my pulse was surely racing out of concern, forestalling it speaking to me. If this was an emergency, it should inform me, and if it wasn’t, it should let me relax.
Finally, the machine did speak in its crisp, feminine voice. “Hello, Toby. Welcome back to the world of the living.”
“Where—” I’d thought I’d spoken the word, but no sound had come out. I tried again. “Where are we?”
“Exactly where we should be: decelerating toward Soror.”
I felt myself calming down. “How is Ling?”
“She’s reviving, as well.”
“The others?”
“All forty-eight cryogenics chambers are functioning properly,” said the computer. “Everybody is apparently fine.”
That was good to hear, but it wasn’t surprising. We had four extra cryochambers; if one of the occupied ones had failed, Ling and I would have been awoken earlier to transfer the person within it into a spare. “What’s the date?”
“16 June 3296.”