But the symbols on the screen disappeared! Whatever Prasp had done clearly had been a mistake; he’d ruined everything.
Fourteen sleep periods later, Prasp, his woman Kari, Dalba and the other elders, and the rest of the tribe all watched in awe as something incredible happened. The sky turned dear, and high in the sky, there was a giant blue-and-white light, shaped like half a circle, set against a black background.
“What is that?” asked Kari, looking at Prasp.
Prasp felt his voice catching in his throat, catching with wonder. “What else could it be?” he said. “The Other Place.” He repeated the phrase again, but with a slightly different intonation, emphasizing the double meaning. “The Other Life.”
Someday, perhaps, the hunter-gatherers of Copernicus will develop a technological civilization. Someday, perhaps, they will even find a way out of their roofed-over crater, a way to move out into the universe, leaving their microcosm behind.
But for us, for Those Who Had Been Flesh, for The Collective Consciousness of Earth, for The Uploaded, there would be no way out. Who’d known that The Next Step would be our last step? Who’d known that the rest of the universe would be barren? Who’d known how lonely it would be to become a single entity—yes, we refer to ourselves in the plural as if that sheer act of linguistic stubbornness could make up for us being a single consciousness now, with no one to converse with.
Maybe, after a thousand years, or a million, the men and women in Copernicus will develop radio, and at last we will have someone else to talk to. Maybe they’ll even leave their world and spread out to colonize this empty galaxy.
They might even come here, although few of them will be able to endure Earth’s gravity. But if they do come, yes, they might accidentally or deliberately put an end to our existence.
We can only hope.
We are no longer human.
But we are humane; we wish them well. We are trapped forevermore, but those who are still flesh, and can again see the sky, might yet be free.
We will watch. And wait.
There is nothing more for us to do.
Driving A Bargain
Although my novels are exclusively hard science fiction, I occasionally write fantasy or horror at short lengths; indeed, to my delight, I’ve been nominated for the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award.
My great friend Edo van Belkom is, without doubt, Canada’s top horror writer (and, just to put me in my place, he’s actually won the Stoker). In 2000, he edited a young-adult anthology called Be Afraid! It contained my story “Last But Not Least” which was reprinted in my collection Iterations.
Be Afraid! was a big hit, and so Edo did a sequel anthology, Be VERY Afraid! This story was my contribution to that book.
Jerry walked to the corner store, a baseball cap and sunglasses shielding him from the heat beating down from above. He picked up a copy of the Calgary Sun, walked to the counter, gave the old man a dollar, got his change, and hurried outside. He didn’t want to wait until he got home, so he went to the nearest bus stop, parked himself on the bench there, and opened the paper.
Of course, the first thing he checked out was the bikini-clad Sunshine Girl—what sixteen-year-old boy wouldn’t turn to that first? Today’s girl was old—23, it said—but she certainly was pretty, with lots of long blonde hair.
That ritual completed, Jerry turned to the real reason he’d bought the paper: the classified ads. He found the used-car listings, and started poring over them, hoping, as he always did, for a bargain.
Jerry had worked hard all summer on a loading dock. It had been rough work, but, for the first time in his life, he had real muscles. And, even more important, he had some real money.
His parents had promised to pay the insurance if Jerry kept up straight A’s all through grade ten, and Jerry had. They weren’t going to pay for a car itself, but Jerry had two grand in his bank account—he liked the sound of that: two grand. Now if he could just find something halfway decent for that price, he’d be driving to school when grade eleven started next week.
Jerry was a realist. He wanted a girlfriend—God, how he wanted one—but he knew his little wispy beard wasn’t what was going to impress … well, he’d been thinking about Ashley Brown all summer. Ashley who, in his eyes at least, put that Sunshine Girl to shame.
But, no, it wasn’t the beard he’d managed to grow since June that would impress her. Nor was it his newfound biceps. It would be having his own set of wheels. How sweet that would be!
Jerry continued scanning the ads, skipping over all the makes he knew he could never afford: the Volvos, the Lexuses, the Mercedes, the BMWs.
He read the lines describing a ’94 Honda Civic, a ’97 Dodge Neon, even a ’91 Pontiac Grand Prix. But the prices were out of his reach.
Jerry really didn’t care what make of car he got; he’d even take a Hyundai. After all, when hardly anyone else his age had a car, any car would be a fabulous ticket to freedom, to making out. To use one of his dad’s favorite expressions—an expression that he’d never really understood until just now—“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
Jerry was going to be royalty.
If, that is, he could find something he could afford. He kept looking, getting more and more depressed. Maybe he’d just—
Jerry felt his eyes go wide. A 1997 Toyota, only twenty thousand miles on it. The asking price: “$3,000, OBO.”
Just three thousand! That was awfully cheap for such a car … And OBO! Or Best Offer. It couldn’t hurt to try two thousand dollars. The worst the seller could do was say no. Jerry felt in his pocket for the change he got from buying the paper. There was a phone booth just up the street. He hurried over to it, and called.
“Hello?” said a sad-sounding man’s voice at the other end.
Jerry tried to make his own voice sound as deep as he could. “Hello,” he said. “I’m calling about the Toyota.” He swallowed. “Has it sold yet?”
“No,” said the man. “Would you like to come see it?”
Jerry got the man’s address—only about two miles away. He glanced up the street, saw the bus coming, and ran back to the stop, grinning to himself. If all went well, this would be the last time he’d have to take the bus anywhere.
Jerry walked up to the house. It looked like the kind of place he lived in himself: basketball hoop above the garage; garage door dented from endless games of ball hockey.
Jerry rang the doorbell, and was greeted by a man who looked about the same age as Jerry’s father … a sad-looking man with a face like a basset hound.
“Yes?” said the man.
“I called earlier,” said Jerry. “I’ve come about the car.”
The man’s eyebrows went up. “How old are you, son?”
“Sixteen.”
“Tell me about yourself” said the man.
Jerry couldn’t see what difference that would make. But he did want to soften the old guy up so that he’d take the lower price. And so: “My name’s Jerry Sloane,” he said. “I’m a student at Eastern High, just going into grade eleven. I’ve got my license, and I’ve been working all summer long on the loading dock down at Macabee’s.”