King of the Worlds. M. Thomas Gammarino

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СКАЧАТЬ the ban on teleported crops some years back, Terran crops had become a low-yield, high-price commodity. “It’s always a tough choice. I figure we’ll spring for both on your birthday.”

      13_____________

      Though beet-colored, cloveless, and in shape rather like a small pear, galric (which had been growing on New Taiwan for perhaps a billion years before the First Expedition began adding it to their spaghetti) tasted as much like garlic as any Terran apple variety tasted like any other. That the two, galric and garlic, were as seemingly cognate linguistically as they were gustatorily couldn’t help but prick one’s sense of wonder, particularly when one considered that New Taiwan, owing to its single landmass and centralized culture going all the way back, had produced but a single language.

      He nodded. Her judgment was sound.

      He couldn’t help but notice she looked especially sharp in the belly this evening. Given that gravity was a few tenths of a percent lower here than on Earth, human pregnancies tended to go longer rather than shorter, but there were never any guarantees. She looked like she was ready to pop.

      After their initial enthusiasm over Daddy’s return, Arthur and Tavi reverted to their worst selves, wailing and fighting over whatever was in the other’s hand. The upshot was that they were in bed by 7:30, and Erin wasn’t far behind, so Dylan had the run of the house for the rest of the evening.

      He tried reading for a bit, but couldn’t get traction on the words. His ears were screaming and, louder still, that box of fan mail was calling to him from the other room, siren-singing the way pornography had in his youth, the way Erin herself had back in high school. When he was sure Erin was asleep, he put down his book (Sentimental Education, Flaubert) and crept into the bedroom, lighting up the dark with his omni. As quietly as he could manage, he took down the box and carried it into the living room. He set it on the sofa and sat down beside it. He knew this was no small decision he was on the verge of making, though that hardly stayed his hand. Fate was calling. He reached in blindly and pulled out a letter.

      There. He had uncorked the winds.

By sheer coincidence, the letter bore a postmark from Taiwan, the original one.14

      14_____________

      This really did seem to be just a coincidence. Because the indigenous names of newly discovered worlds frequently turned out to be unpronounceable by Terrans, the IEF, in collaboration with PASA (Planetary Aeronautics and Space Administration), was charged with assigning exonyms where necessary. In the beginning they hewed to tradition and drew on the treasure trove of mythology, but as that quickly became exhausted, they tended toward pop culture instead—there were now planets called Radiohead, Trainspotting, and Infinite Jest, for instance (not to mention, a bit later, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet). Occasionally they drew from the well of geopolitics too: Since national boundaries were rapidly shifting and dissolving amid the emergent paradigm, it seemed fitting to pay homage to vanishing states by enshrining their names on the new celestial maps; and because China’s surprise—and surprising—siege of Taiwan was underway even as the naming committee was meeting to discuss the name of the planet Dylan would eventually move to, all delegates, even the Chinese one, voted in favor of “New Taiwan” (and cognates in other Terran languages). To be sure, outside of its name, New Taiwan was about as Taiwanese as the West Indies were Indian; witness the fact that (owing largely to its highly esteemed American School) some 78 percent of the planet’s Terran exopats were currently of American stock, whatever that might now mean.

      The native name of the planet, incidentally, was Ulmarjveul’tankuñbampok’, which was not, strictly speaking, unpronounceable for humans, though it came pretty darned close. Like the English word “earth,” it doubled as a general term for soil.

      Dear Mr. Greenyears,

      Do you remember me? We met during the premiere of ET II in Taipei. I know you met lots of girls that day, but you may remember that I asked you to sign my arm, where I had scars? I used to cut myself when I was younger. I was very depressed. But when I saw your movie I thought you were so beautiful that you gave me hope for a better life. Have you ever gotten out of a swimming pool at night and stared at a light and it has a rainbow around it? You were like that to me. You had a glow around you. You were not like ordinary people. I just wanted to tell you that I think you saved my life. Thank you.

      Sincerely,

      Mei-Ling Chen

      Now this was just not what he’d expected at all. It was as if he’d come to get some candy and would be leaving with a rack of lamb. He vaguely remembered getting this letter the first time around, maybe even signing a worrying wrist in Taipei. Of course, back then at the height of his fame, all of that must have paled in his young, virile, and already repressed mind against the more full-frontal booty calls. Now, though, he found himself moved almost to tears. It didn’t make a bit of sense to him that he had putatively saved this girl’s life, but if it was true that his acting had made a difference back on Earth, then this was some comfort. He cringed to think he had never written back to her before (as far as he could remember, he had never written back to any of them) and so, better late than never, he omni’d his reply:

      Dear Mei-Ling Chen,

      My name is Dylan Greenyears. Perhaps you remember me? I was a fairly well known actor in the middle-nineties. Well, I was just looking through some old mail and I came across a letter you once wrote me. I apologize if I never replied before, and I realize it’s a bit strange for me to be replying two decades later, but I just wanted to let you know that your words moved me greatly. I live far away these days, but I would gladly come to wherever you are if you’d let me take you to lunch sometime. In any case, I hope you are doing well, and that you are happy.

      Sincerely,

      Dylan Greenyears

      He hadn’t written that name in a long time.

      He read over the message, which struck him as just right, neither withholding nor revealing too much. He recognized, of course, that it was also kind of insane. By now she’d be about, what, thirty-five? Somewhere in there. She might be happily married, with kids and a job. He could ask Omni, but some part of him preferred not to know. He was old-fashioned that way, romantic maybe, and anyway, no computer, however super, could ever really know the richness of her inner life, right? She was acquainted with the dark—that was clear. Maybe she had some of the same well-concealed dissatisfaction in her breast that he had in his? This thirst for something strange and wondrous and new? He was not happy; it had to be admitted. He had been at times, and sometimes he managed to recover the feeling for a spell, but it never lasted long. Maybe they could help each other again. Maybe this time she could save him.

      He didn’t have to wait long for a reply:

      Your message to “Mei-Ling Chen” has permanently failed.

      He sneered. What? He hadn’t seen a message like that in many years, and he’d never seen one on an omni. Omni messages didn’t “fail.” As long as someone was alive, any of their previous addresses would direct you to their current one. And if a person had died, you’d be notified of that too. Even if you opted to have your address unlisted, there’d still be some acknowledgment of your existence. Weird. He asked Omni some questions. The name alone wasn’t much help—there were thousands of Mei-Ling Chens throughout the galaxy—but when he mentioned that this was the Mei-Ling Chen who had cuts on her wrists and who had once written a fan letter to Dylan Greenyears, the omni returned 0 results. He had never seen Omni come up empty-handed on anything before. СКАЧАТЬ