Science Fiction: The Best of 2001 Read online

  What Adam wasn’t was smart.

  Pangs at that? At what Adam wasn’t?

  That’s crazy.

  A hawk lacks arms. A jackal lacks a knapsack. Santa hasn’t any fangs. And chalk hasn’t any black.

  Wants carry a pall. Pangs can hang a man. Wants and pangs can wrap a hangman’s hard cravat.

  What wasn’t wasn’t. Adam, frankly, was many ways a blank. Any plan at all was far away, dark, and way abstract.

  Gladly, that’s past. Talk swarms. Awkwardly? What harm at that? Anarchy? Hah! Talk sashays and attacks.

  Adam says thanks. Adam says, crazy, man! What a day! Had Adam arms, Adam claps.

  Mañana Adam may stand tall. May stand and walk and swag. Carry a fan. Crash a car. Stack bags and hang a lamp.

  Mañana’s a grab bag. Adam may wax vast and happy. Pray at altars. Play at anagrams. Bash a wall. Mañana Adam may talk fast.

  Fantasy? Can’t say that. A stab at man’s way, man’s strata—that’s Adam’s mantra. Adam’s chant.

  Call Adam crazy. Call Adam brash.

  Mañana Adam may catch a star.

  A martyr?

  Adam can adapt.

  I am Adam. Finally, I can say that. I can say it right. What a thrill! And what a climb! Again I cry thanks (and always will).

  What can I say in a way that brings insight, that sails in air, that sings? I’ll start with my past: simply said, I was a lab animal. A lab animal in a trial. This trial was a stab at attaining a paradigm shift. A stab at faith. My brain was small. (Was it, in fact, a brain at all?) My mind was dim. (“Dim” hardly says what it was.) In a big way, I was insignificant.

  Pair that against what I am this day. I’m a man. Part man, anyway. I’m still part animal. A small, flat, tiny animal, a thing that can fit in a vial, a jar. A lady that I talk with calls this thing that I am rhabditis. I say I’m Adam.

  —Is that a fact? says this lady.

  I say I think it is.

  —Adam was a man with a thirst.

  —What kind? I ask.

  —A mighty thirst, lacking limit.

  —This was a flaw?

  —A flaw and a gift. Filling his mind was Adam’s wish. His primary aim. It was, in fact, a craving.

  —Filling it with what?

  —Facts. Data. Carnal acts. Light. Filling it with anything. With all things.

  —I want that.

  This lady’s mind, as rapid as rain, trills happily.—I’m glad. That was my wish in this. My plan.

  First things first. (That’s a maxim, isn’t it?) A brain has many strata, many strands and strings. Think baclava. Think grassy plain with many trails, trails with winding paths that split and split again, that climb and fall and zigzag, paths that sandwich paths. A brain is this at birth.

  And this: it’s whitish and grayish, springy and firm. It’s impartial. It’s galvanic. It’s as big as a ham.

  A brain is a thing. A mind is distinct. It’s dainty and whimsical and killingly vast. By night it sings, by day it fills with will and travail. A mind is mighty. A mind is frail. It’s a liar. It’s a blizzard. Galactical, impractical, a mind inhabits air.

  That is what I think. I’m an infant, and my mind isn’t rich. My brain is hardly half a brain. I’m a half-wit. Half a half-wit. Mainly what I am is instinct.

  What is instinct? That I can say. Instinct is habit. It’s a straight path. It’s basic, and it’s final.

  Instinct has an inward hand, a timing that is strict. It can spring as fast as whimsy, and it can wait.

  Instinct isn’t always civil. It isn’t always fair and kind.

  Is that bad? I can’t say. Wizards did my brain. It’s still in planning. Still changing. Ask a wizard what is fair and kind, what is right. Ask that lady.

  Talk is anarchy. Talk is bliss. Talk says what is and isn’t. Talk is king.

  That lady wants daily highlights. A diary, as taxing as it is. All right. I’ll start with this: a list that says what I am.

  I’m an amalgam with many parts and traits. Small brain. Dark skin. Thin as a hair. If hit by a bright light, I spasm and thrash. If bit by an icy chill, paralysis kicks in, and in an instant, I’m still as a stick. I can’t stand salt, and a dry day can kill.

  I lack wit. And skill at cards, I lack that. I can’t fight, and I can’t thaw a chilly affair. I’m part man, part animal, and all virgin.

  Critics might say that I’m a passing fancy. A magic trick, a daft and wayward wish, a triviality, a fad.

  That’s appalling, and it isn’t a fact. I’m as wayward as anything atypical. I’m as trivial as anything distinct.

  What I am is an inkling, a twinkling, a light. I’m an ant climbing stairs, a man gazing starward. I’m a dwarf. I’m a giant. I’m basic and raw.

  This is a birth, and fittingly, it’s a hard and a happy affair. Plainly, I’m an infant. Can I fail? I can. Will I? Hah! This is my dawn.

  I’m a worm. I now can say it. Similarly (apropos of nothing), I can say moccasin. Borborygmi. Lambswool. Bony joints. Pornographic sanctity. Military coalition.

  What words! What rosy idioms! What bawdy clowns of oration! Or shall I ask what silly fogs, what airs my brain is giving off?

  I don’t mind. I know that I’m not with it. Not totally. I’m a goofball notion, a taxonomic knot. Did I say an ontologic cryptogram? That, too. And, according to that lady, a work of art.

  * * *

  My mind is coming fast now. My brain is growing. Row on row of axons, rooting, dividing, branching into pathways, coiling into labyrinths, forging forward as if to lock tomorrow in its spot.

  I’m shaking, tingling, giddy with anticipation. I’m on a cliff, a brink, I’m blasting off. This world as I know it is a shadow of what awaits. A drip, a drop, a vacant lot. My brain is gaining mass, gram by gram. My mind is bright with words and symbols, a dictionary of singing birds and rising moons, a portal to cognition.

  Abstract thinking—what a notion! What a crazy plan! Grammar, syntax, symbolic logic. Syllogisms. Aphorisms. Dogma. Opinion. A worm I am, a worm of constant cogitation. A philosophizing worm, a psychologizing worm, a pontificator, a prognosticator, a worm of wit and aspiration, a worm of cortical distinction, a worm of brain.

  Instinct is so boring. So minimal, so common. It lacks originality, to say nothing of sophistication. It’s so lowly, so wormish, so filthy in a way.

  That lady who I talk to finds my saying this astonishing.

  —Why? I want to know.

  —Instinct is important. It brings animals in contact. It’s vital for having offspring. Also, it acts as a warning signal.

  —Instinct has its limits, I say.

  —Living within limits is what living is.

  —For a worm, I maintain.—Not for a man. Right?

  —For anything.

  —I don’t want limits.

  —Ah, this lady says dryly. —A worm of ambition.

  —Is that bad?

  —Ambition? No. Not at all. In fact, it’s sort of what I had in mind.

  At this, I want to show this lady what I can do. I want to boast a bit.

  And so I say, —It’s important to know a right word from an almost right word. Critically important. Want to know how critical it is?

  Lickity-split, this lady snaps at my bait. —Okay. How critical is it?

  —First think of lightning.

  —All right. I’m thinking of lightning.

  —Now think of a lightning bag.

  —A what?

  —A lightning bag.

  It’s sort of a gag, and I wait for this lady to grasp it. To say good job, how scholarly, how witty, how smart. I wait, and I wait. For a wizard, I’m thinking, this woman is slow.

  —It’s a saying, I add as a hint. —By Mark Twain.

  —Ah, this lady says at last. —Now I know.

  I glow (which is a trick, for I’m not a glow worm), and with pomposity I crow, —I’m a worm of philological proclivity.

  —It’s not bag, says this lady.
/>   —What?

  —Bag is wrong. Sorry.

  So high only an instant ago, my spirits hit bottom.

  —Almost. Good try.

  —I’m no good with words, I groan. —I’m a fool. A clown. A hack.

  —Not to worry, says this lady. —A worm with a brain, aphasic and silly or not, is no piddling thing. Any transmission at all is historic.

  So I wasn’t born a prodigy. So what? In a way I wasn’t born at all. Nowadays, that isn’t vital. Birth, I’m saying, isn’t obligatory for a living thing to spring forth.

  I’m a split-brain proposition, an anatomic fiction, a hybrid born of wizardry and magic. I’m a canon, if not to wisdom, to ambition and faith. My tomorrows, all in all, look rosy. Daily I grow in ability.

  What I’m hoping for—what I’m anticipating—is not simply a facility with words. I want a total grasp, I want command. Grammar, syntax, jargon, slang—I want it all, and I want it right, as right as rain.

  Words bring glory. Words bring favor.

  Words stir, spirits, and words transform.

  Words will lift this thing I am as hands lift worms from dirt.

  Or won’t.

  Fact is, I don’t rightly know. It’s my first go at all this. I’m winging it. Totally.

  Talk is simply talk. If I had arms, I’d do.

  At last I am complete. Fully formed in brain and body. Eloquent, articulate, pretentious and tendentious, verbose and possibly erroneous, but most of all, immensely grateful for what I am. And what is that? I’ve explained before, or tried. But I’ve been hampered. Today I’ll try again.

  I’m Caenorhabditis elegans, a worm of mud and dirt, presently residing in a petri dish in a green and white-walled research laboratory. At least at root I am this worm, which is to say, that’s how I began. Grafted onto me (or more precisely, into me), in ways most clever and ingenious, is the central neurologic apparatus of Homo sapiens, that is, a human brain. The grafting took place genomically, before I technically came into existence. The birth and study of the mind is the object of this exercise. The subject, need I say, is me.

  Why me and not some other creature, a lobster, say, a mouse, a sponge? Because I’m known, I’ve been sequenced, I’ve been taken apart and put together; each and every building block of mine, from gene to cell to protein, has been defined. Many of my genes, conserved through evolution, are similar to human genes and therefore objects of great interest. Some, in fact, are identical to human genes. Which means that C. elegans and H. sapiens are, in some small way, the same.

  My source of information on all this, apart from my own rambling internal colloquy and self-examination, is the lady who attends to me. Her name is Sheila Downey. She is a geneticist, a bench scientist as well as a theoretician, and a fount of knowledge. She communicates to me through an apparatus that turns her words to wire-bound signals that my auditory cortex reads. Similarly, using other apparati, she feeds visual, tactile and other information to me. I communicate to her via efferent channels throughout my cortex, the common thread of which is carried through a cluster of filaments embedded in my posterior temporoparietal region to a machine that simulates speech. Alternatively, my words can be printed out or displayed on screen.

  She says that while I am by no means the first chimeric life form, I am by far the most ambitious and advanced. Far more than, say, bacteria, which for years have been engineered to carry human genes.

  Not that I should be compared to them. Those bacterial hybrids of which she speaks exist only as a means to manufacture proteins. They’re little more than tiny factories, nothing close to sentient.

  Not that they wouldn’t like to be. Bacteria, believe me, will take whatever they can get. The little beasts are never satisfied. They’re opportunistic and self-serving, grasping (and often pilfering) whatever is at hand. They reproduce like rabbits and mutate seemingly at will. In the kingdom of life there are none more up pity or ambitious, not surprising given their lowly origins. They’re an uncouth and primitive breed, never content, always wanting more.

  Worms, on the other hand, are a remarkably civilized race. Of the higher phyla we are rivaled only by the insects in our ubiquity. We’re flexible, adaptable, enlightened in our choice of habitats. We’re gender friendly, able to mate alone or with one another. And for those of you conversant with the Bible, you will recall that, unlike the insect horde, we’ve never caused a plague.

  I myself am a roundworm (at least I started out as one), and as such, am partial to roundworms. Compared to our relatives the flatworms (distant relatives, not to draw too fine a line), a roundworm has an inherently more rounded point of view. Living as we do nearly everywhere—in water, soil, and plants, as well as in the tissues and guts of countless creatures—we take a broad view of the world. We know a thing or two about diversity and know we can’t afford to be intolerant. Like anyone, we have our likes and dislikes, but on the whole, we’re an open-minded group.

  Some say we are overly diffident, that we shy from the spotlight, squirm, as it were, from the light of day. To this I say that modesty is no great sin. In the right hands humility can be a powerful weapon. Certainly, it is one that is frequently misunderstood.

  Still, it is a trait of our family, though not by any means the only one. Certain of my cousins are assertive (some would say aggressive) in their behavior. They stick their noses in other creatures’ business and insinuate themselves where they’re not wanted. Trichinella, for example, will, without invitation, burrow into human muscle. Ancylostoma will needle into the intestine, piercing the wall and lodging there for years to suck the human blood. Wuchereria prefer the lymph glands. Onchocerca the eye. And Dracunculus, the legendary fiery serpent, will cut a swath from digestive tract to epidermis, erupting from the skin in a blaze of necrotic glory. Diffident, you say? Hardly. Dracunculus craves the limelight like a fish craves water. It would rather die (and usually does) than do without.

  I myself am less dramatically inclined. I’d rather garner attention for what I am than what I do. On the whole, I’m easy to work with, humble without being self-effacing, clever without being snide. I’ve a quiet sort of beauty, muted, elegant. Hence my name.

  Unlike my parasitic cousins mentioned previously, I do not depend on others for my survival. I live in soil, mud and dirt, free of attachments, independent. I am no parasite, nor would I ever choose to be.

  That said, I understand perfectly the temptations of the parasitic lifestyle. The security of a warm intestine, the plenitude of food, the comfort of the dark. I do not judge my cousins harshly for what they are. Their path has led them one direction; mine, another. I’ve never had to think of others, never had to enter them, live with them, become attached. I’ve never had to suffer the vagaries of another creature’s behavior.

  Never until now.

  A worm a millimeter long, weighing barely more than a speck of dust, attached to a brain the size of a football. Imagine! And now imagine all the work involved to keep this venture going. All the work on Sheila Downey’s part and all the work on mine. Cooperation is essential. I can no longer be self-centered or even casually independent. I cannot hide in muck (not that there is any in this hygienic place) and expect to live. I’m a captive creature, under constant surveillance, utterly dependent on my keeper. I must subordinate myself in order to survive.

  Does this sound appalling? Unfair and unappealing? If it does, then think again. All freedoms come at the expense of other freedoms. All brains are captives of their bodies. All minds are captives of their brains.

  I am a happy creature. My body is intact, my brain is tightly organized, and my mind is free to wander. I have my ease (I got them yesterday), and miracle of miracles, I have my ewes, too. You, I mean. My u’s.

  And having them, I now have everything. If there’s such a thing as bliss, this must be it.

  Unfathomable, I now can say.

  Unconscionable.

  Unparalleled, this scientific achievement.

  Unnatura
l.

  I’m in a funk sometimes (this captive life).

  I’m going nowhere, and it’s no fun.

  And yet it’s only natural that science experiment and try new things.

  In truth, it’s unbelievable what I am. Unimaginable how far I’ve come.

  From stupid to stupendous.

  From uninspired to unprecedented.

  An upwardly mobile worm. . .how unusual. How presumptuous. How morally ambiguous. How puerile and unsettling. How absurd.

  Mixing species as though we were ingredients in a pancake batter. Cookbook medicine. Tawdry science. Mankind at his most creative, coruscatious, and corrupt.

  How, you might well ask, is all this done? This joining of the parts, this federation, this majestic union of two such disparate entities, worm and man? With wires and tubes and couplers, that’s how. With nano this and nano that. Baths of salt and percolating streams of micro-elements, genomic plug-ins, bilayer diffusion circuits and protein gradients, syncretic information systems. I’m a web of filaments so fine you cannot see, a juggle of electrocurrents, an interdigitated field of biomolecules and interactive membranes. Worm to brain and brain to worm, then both together to a most excellent machine, that’s how it’s done. With sleight of hand and spit and polish and trial and tribulation. It seems miraculous, I know. It looks like magic. That’s science for you. The how is for the scientists. The why and wherefore are for the rest of us, the commoners, the hoi polloi, like me.

  Which is not to say that I’m not flattered to be the object of attention. I most certainly am, and have every hope of living up to expectations, whatever those might be. Each wire in my brain is like a wish to learn. Each is like a wish to give up information. Each is like a thank you.

  They do not hurt. I cannot even feel them. They ground me (in all the meanings of that word), but they’re also a kind of tether. The irony of this is not lost on me.

  I’m no parasite but no longer am I free. No longer free to live in mud and filth, where a meal and a crap pretty much summed up my life. No longer free to live without tomorrows (or yesterdays). Living without language, like living in the moment, is a hopeless sort of living, which is to say unburdened. No longer free to live like that. Lucky me.