I look at Svanneshal for help. "You knew her. She was no cyber. There is another explanation for the brand. She told me…" I do not finish my sentence, suddenly aware of the implausibility of the Duchess’ story. But what other explanation is there? Svanneshal will not meet my eyes. I find something else to say. "Anyway, the cybers have never been a threat to us. They are not programmed for assassination." It is another thought I do not finish, my eyes distracted by the uniform of the House of Himmlich. I get to my feet slowly, keeping my hands always visible and every move I make is watched by the Baron’s irrational cyber. "The autopsy will confirm she is human," I say finally. "Was human."
Svanneshal reaches for my arm below the shoulder, just where the Duchess held me. She speaks into my ear, so low that I am the only one who hears her. Her tone is ice. "The cybers are all that stand between us and the mob. You remember that!"
Unless I act quickly, there will be no autopsy. Already maintenance duplicates are scooping up the body in the manner reserved for the disposal of cybers. Three of them are pulling the combs from her hair, the jewels from her ears and neck and depositing them in small, plastic bags. The Baron is regarding me, one hand wiping his upper lip. Sweat? No, the Baron feels nothing, shows no sign of unease.
Svanneshal speaks to me again. This time her voice is clearly audible, "It tried to kill my father," she says. "You weren’t watching. I was."
It would be simpler to believe her. I try. I imagine that the whole time we were talking about the Mancinis, the Duchess was planning to murder her host. For political reasons? For personal reasons? I remember the conversation, trying to refocus my attention to her, looking for the significant gesture, the words which, listened to later, will mean so much more. But, no. If she had wanted to kill the Baron, surely she would have done it earlier, when the Baron returned to us without his cyber.
I return Svanneshal’s gaze. "Did anyone else see that?" I ask, raising my voice. I look from person to person. "Did anyone see anything?"
No one responds. Everyone is waiting to see what I will do. I am acutely conscious of the many different actions I can take; they radiate out from me as if I stood at the center of a star, different paths, all ultimately uncontrollable. Along one path I have publicly accused the Baron of murder through misjudgment. His programs are opened for examination; his cybers are recalled. He is ruined. And, since he has produced the bulk of the city’s security units, Svanneshal is quite right. We are left unprotected before the mob. Could I cause that?
I imagine another, more likely path. I am pitted alone against the money and power of the Himmlichs. In this vision the Baron has become a warlord with a large and loyal army. He is untouchable. Wherever I try to go, his cybers are hunting me.
The body has been removed, a large, awkward bundle in the arms of the maintenance duplicates. The blood is lifting from the tile, like a tape played backwards, like a thing which never happened. The paths radiating out from me begin to dim and disappear. The moment is past. I can do nothing now.
In the silence that has fallen around us, we suddenly hear that Romeo is coming. Too early, too early. What will it mean? The knot of spectators around us melts away; everyone is hurrying to the tombs. Svanneshal takes my arm and I allow myself to be pulled along. Her color is high and excited, perhaps from exertion, perhaps in anticipation of death. When we reach the tombs we press in amongst the rest.
On one side of me, Svanneshal continues to grip my arm. On the other is a magnificent woman imposingly tall, dressed in Grecian white. Around her bare arm is a coiled snake, fashioned of gold, its scales in the many muted colors gold can wear. A fold of her dress falls for a moment on my own leg, white, like the gown of the Grand Duchess de Vie and I find myself crying. "Don’t do it," I call to Romeo. "It’s a trick! It’s a trap. For God’s sake, look at her." The words come without volition, part of me standing aside, marveling, pointing out that I must be mad. He can’t hear me. He is incapable of hearing me. Only the audience turns to look, then turns away politely, hushed to hear Romeo’s weeping. He is so young, his heart and hands so strong, and he says his lines as though he believed them, as though he made them up.
The Baron leans into Svanneshal. "Your friend has been very upset by the incidents of the evening." His voice is kind. "As have we all. And she is cold. Give her my cape."
I am not cold, though I realize with surprise that I am shaking. Svanneshal wraps the red cape about me. "You must come home with us tonight," she says. "You need company and care." She puts an arm about me and whispers, "Don’t let it upset you so. The simulants don’t feel anything."
Then her breath catches in her throat. Romeo is drinking his poison. I won’t watch the rest. I turn my head aside and in the blurred lens of my tears, one image wavers, then comes clear. It is the snake’s face, quite close to me, complacency in its heavy-lidded eyes. "Don’t look at me like that," I say to a species which vanished centuries ago. "Who are you to laugh?"
I think that I will never know the truth. The Duchess might have been playing with the cyber again. Her death might have been a miscalculation. Or the Baron might have planned it, have arranged the whole evening around it. I would like to know. I think of something Hwang-li is supposed to have said. "Never confuse the record with the truth. It will always last longer." I am ashamed that I did nothing for the Duchess, accuse myself of cowardice, tears dropping from my cheeks onto the smooth flesh of my palms. In the historical record, I tell myself, I will list her death as a political assassination. And it will be remembered that way.
Next to me Svanneshal stiffens and I know Juliet has lifted the knife. This is truly the end of her; the stab wounds will prevent her re-use and her voice is painfully sweet, like a song.
One moment of hesitation, but that moment is itself a complete world. It lives onstage with the simulants, it lives with the mob in their brief and bitter lives, it lives where the wealthy drape themselves in jewels. If I wished to find any of them, I could look in that moment. "But how," I ask the snake, "would I know which was which?"
(1985)
TONGTONG’S SUMMER
Xia Jia
Xia Jia is the pen-name of Wang Yao, a Chinese author born in Xi’an, Shaanxi, in 1984. Xia trained as a physicist, studying atmospheric sciences at Peking University before drifting into fine art, translating, and acting. She earned a PhD in comparative literature and world literature at Peking University with a dissertation titled "Chinese Science Fiction and Its Cultural Politics Since 1990". She now teaches at Xi’an Jiaotong University. She disarmingly dubs her genre stories "porridge sf" because it mixes genre elements with generous helpings of myth, legend and folklore. Several have won the Galaxy, China’s most prestigious science fiction award.
Mom said to Tongtong, "In a couple of days, Grandpa is moving in with us."
After Grandma died, Grandpa lived by himself. Mom told Tongtong that because Grandpa had been working for the revolution all his life, he just couldn’t be idle. Even though he was in his eighties, he still insisted on going to the clinic every day to see patients. A few days earlier, because it was raining, he had slipped on the way back from the clinic and hurt his leg.
Luckily, he had been rushed to the hospital, where they put a plaster cast on him. With a few more days of rest and recovery, he’d be ready to be discharged.
Emphasizing her words, Mom said, "Tongtong, your grandfather is old, and he’s not always in a good mood. You’re old enough to be considerate. Try not to add to his unhappiness, all right?"