Analog SFF, April 2010 (14 page)

He walks in, smiles. If there's hurt there, I can't see it. “So..."

I take a breath. “I made some coffee. Would you like a cup?"

"Thanks, but I don't drink coffee."

"Me, I live on the stuff.” The corner market, in fact, makes a brew they call Ultra-Extreme Super Jolt. I don't think they sell much: it tastes like reagent-grade caffeine mixed with burned cork. It does the job, but I know better than to offer it to others. At the moment, I've got a thermos of Kenya's best.

I pour myself a cup, and try to get to the point—try to pretend there really
is
a point. “Karla can be a bit . . . enigmatic."

"You don't say?” The smile touches his eyes and it's all I can do to keep my train of thought.

"Is she really an actress?"

"Yes. And I'm really a playwright. Though that's not my only job. I'm also a sail maker."

"A what?"

"I make sails. For boats. Down near Shilshole Bay. It's what, in my field, they call a day job."

"And the two of you?"

"We gave it a go, but she's a long way from being ready to settle down. I'm not sure why I let her talk me into this. She gets these goofy ideas, and then you're in, up to your eyebrows, wondering what you're doing."

I check my clipboard, trying to figure out how, earlier, I'd gotten so rattled I never even asked him the most basic questions. “How old are you?"

"Older than I look. I still get carded all the time. I actually collected a degree in mechanical engineering before I quit the corporate rat race. Some of it comes in handy, though, working with boats.” He's looking at me oddly. “I'm forty-one. And you?"

"Thirty-seven."

"This isn't about science, is it?"

It hadn't been about science since I'd lost my grant. Maybe for some time before that. If it had been, I'd have remembered to have him fill out the damn intake form before we'd started. If it had been, I'd have had no excuse to call him back.

"Didn't think so,” he says. “Can we go to dinner?"

I almost say no because I'm afraid of what it is that draws me to him: those eyes, so much like my father's. Kind and confident in the good years . . . and then, gone, like the snowflake you can never hold. I want the good years, but can't stand another round of bad ones. “Let me think about it."

I can't concentrate, and there's nothing I need to be doing for the rest of the afternoon. Without conscious plan, I find myself drawn to the same park bench where weeks before I'd watched the children play. It's summer now, and the park is crowded.

I know now that there really is a neurochemistry to love—or at least to the attraction that's fueled a million sonnets. It's potent stuff, mediated by chemicals strong enough even to blast through years of sexual orientation, at least temporarily. I may not have identified them all, but I've found a few dandies. And I've used them to create a love potion. Chemistscan create diamonds in the lab, real in every way but for the fact they don't come from the earth. Soon perhaps, anyone can buy them. How much does that matter? Is there a clear distinction between that which comes naturally and that which is forced, even when what's forced looks like the real thing?

More than just the seasons have changed since my last visit to the park. Then, everything seemed magical; now, a little boy is screaming, throwing himself on the ground and flailing his limbs, pounding fists too small to do damage except to himself. “No!” He screams. “No home! Want stay. Not all done!"

What is it that I want? True love that can't be lost? Or just a man to call me beautiful even though I'm not and to let me gaze in his eyes and pretend I see . . . what? Someone worthy of his love?

A little girl runs after a ball. She's laughing, no thought but for the ball. But she's running fast, on a sidewalk. I can see it coming; she's running too fast for those little legs. I see her tip forward, try to catch herself, and go down, hands and knees on rough concrete.

On the other side of the playground, two boys are tugging at a tricycle. “Mine,” one yells. “Mine!"

From a hundred feet away, I can hear the frustration in the mother's voice. “We have to share, Jackson. Let Tyler have a turn."

"No, mine!"

Where have all the daydreams gone? What happened to the magic?

I remember Alice and Victor, the retired couple, still capable of generating neurochemical flares just by talking to each other. They'd been married for fifty-one years. Back then, I'd been doing real research: I'd spent an hour collecting their bios. “We met at a sock hop,” she'd said. “I bet you don't even know what that is.” Which was right; I had to look it up.

That kind of love is rare. I try not to think how rare. I'd rather believe one in a thousand than one in a million. My father's face flashes again through my mind—that grin, buoyant and heartbreaking. There and then gone.

I have a concoction that might not only generate love, but bring it back on demand. The good years, forever.

Trevor and I meet at an outdoor café. It's still sunny and warm, a slight breeze riffling the blue umbrella above us.

I've dressed up, the first time in years.

"You look beautiful,” he says.

I feel myself smile. “Thank you."

We talk comfortably and a bit randomly. About academia, the weather, sailmaking.

"Do you have a boat?"

"Yes. A thirty-two foot trimaran. I keep her at Shilshole. Maybe you can join me sometime."

I like this quiet man. But will he go the way of my father? Even Carl and I generated sparks at first.

In my pocket is the bottle that can, if not hand me my dreams, at least bring them closer. I don't have to spray both of our breaths; he'll pick up enough from mine. The old love song about kisses sweeter than wine: that'll be me. This time there's not even any mouthwash to give it away. Tasteless and odorless, that's the potion in my purse.

But if it works, all he'll see is me. There will be no memories to ignite the blaze. No squash or petunias. No summer barbecues or Christmas Eves cuddling by firelight. No vacations basking on faraway shores or camping beneath the Milky Way. My potion will bypass all of that. An instant sun, created from nothing.

The café isn't far from my home, so Trevor offers to walk. Time to use the spray soon, if I'm going to. But my mind is on fried squash and petunias.

One of the things that made Alice and Victor different was that they had four decades of shared memories. You can't get those from a bottle. It wasn't just the squash and flowers: it was what they signified. Alice and Victor were attentive. Carl was an okay kisser, but he was never attentive—always more wrapped up in his astrophysics than in me. As I, to be honest, had been more wrapped up in chemistry. Chasing tenure is an all-consuming goal—too much attention divided by too little time. Neurotransmitters are both causes and effects. Maybe what I'd created was a drug, masquerading as love.

Trevor is talking, but I'm not catching much of it.

"You okay?” he asks.

"Yeah. Just a little . . .” What? Confused, but that's not what I want to say. On a scan, my cerebral cortex would be lighting up in spots and flickers all over the place. “. . . out of practice,” I finally say, because that too is true.

Then my apartment is in view. Ground floor in a nice old Victorian. Ground zero for my moment of truth. A block away, I open my purse, fumbling as though for keys. Pull out the sprayer.

Whatever love is, it doesn't reside in the cerebral cortex. It shouldn't take a Ph.D. to know that. Nor is it something you strive for like tenure. Alice and Victor had been attentive, but they'd also been relaxed, comfortable not only with each other, but also with themselves.

I veer into an alley and throw the spray bottle into a dumpster.

"What was that?"

"Nothing.” Nothing and everything. In a distant corner of my mind, my father's eyes twinkle at me. I never asked my mother what happened; just assumed that somehow he changed. But maybe it had been at least partly her fault. Maybe she'd tried too hard, like she had with the porcelain doll and the snowflake box. Like she had with the story of Europe. I'll continue my work, but this time I'll do real science. This time, I'll look at how our brains work . . . and not try to force them.

I'm suddenly aware of Trevor beside me.

"Thanks for saying yes tonight,” he says.

"I didn't."

He grins.

"I said okay."

"Semantics.” He moves closer and I realize we're about to have our first kiss in the alley behind Wong's Chinese Buffet. He's not the artificially created diamond I'd been trying to perfect, but a diamond pulled from the earth, mammalian and primal. Whatever else this will be, it will be real.

Every neurotransmitter in the book must be playing in my brain, plus a few never seen by science. I suppress them all. Brains have will, not just chemicals. I don't need an instant supernova or flare. Even stars take millions of years to ignite, and suddenly, they don't seem so rare. He leans in, and so do I....

Copyright © 2010 Holly Hight & Richard A. Lovett

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So you think music is a universal language, huh?

At each hop in his journey from Earth to Choff, Roger observed that the alien to human ratio had gone up exponentially—even though the hops were between planets where the sentient inhabitants were oxygen-breathers. And now, as he walked through the long, flexible airlock from the quantum-tunneling ship to the Choff Spaceport Terminal, Roger saw that
he
was the alien while everyone else was presumably a Chuff.

He began to observe his fellow passengers clinically. As the new Anglo-Terran cultural liaison, he had to know and understand these people, but until now he'd never even
seen
a Chuff. And he'd not had any time at all to study up. Not that there was much
to
study. Distant Choff was beneath Earth's radar—until the Nrrilgan language team reported that the planet virtually bulged with the purest lutetium ore in the known galaxy.
And now everyone's running around like frenzied ferrets.

His boss had ordered him to come immediately to help negotiate a lutetium-mining contract. Thinking about it now, Roger gave a soft sigh. He'd hardly had time to pack a small travel bag and make sure he had a spare reed in his bassoon case. He'd set off knowing nothing about the natives, and all he'd been told about their planet was that the surface gravity was 0.8 g, the atmosphere was remarkably similar to Earth's, and the climate was well within the capabilities of his temperature-adaptive clothing. In short, he could survive there—at least as long as he stuck to embassy-provided food and drink.

Out of the corner of his eye, Roger observed the nearest Chuff. He—if it was a he—stood about seven feet tall and was very powerfully built, and, like most oxygen breathers in this part of the galaxy, was bilaterally symmetric: head on top with recognizable very large eyes, ears, but with what looked like breathing noses beneath the ears. They had legs and arms each with an extra joint, and hands with four fingers.
Sort of like cartoon animal hands.

He, like all the other Chuff in the terminal, wore a tight-fitting headset over his ears.
To block out noise, I guess. Odd though since the ship wasn't particularly noisy. These guys must have really acute hearing.
Having made a logical deduction, Roger felt his confidence returning.
These aliens aren't all that alien. I should be able to figure them out without much trouble.

Roger watched as a uniformed spaceport official opened the door to the terminal—and a gush of sound flowed through the airlock like a physical force. Quickly, Roger set down his two items of luggage and covered his ears. Then he saw the Chuff taking
off
their headsets, and he realized his deduction had been completely wrong.
Jeez! What kind of a planet is this?
Roger slowly slid his hands down from his ears. The sound was tolerable, just barely, but he could hardly think.
Oh my gosh! I thought it was chewing gum the stewardess handed out. Could it have been earplugs?
Roger followed the crowd into the terminal.
That gum did taste funny, now that I think of it. Earplugs? Maybe that's why the Chuff were staring at me.

Roger hefted his luggage—
I wonder if I could tear up some underwear and make earplugs
—and, as he followed the stream of Chuff toward what was passport control or something of the sort, he gazed around the terminal looking for his boss. But Duncan wasn't there—nor was any Terran, for that matter. As his walk slowed to standing-on-line speed, Roger examined the signage on the walls.

A large, rectangular sign with moving characters seemingly floated over the presumed passport control area.
It seems that the Chuff are a technologically advanced species.
The characters were complex.
Must be a non-alphabetic writing system. Strange!
And the contrast of the characters was low. Roger had to look hard to actually see them.
Maybe Chuff eyes are sensitive to a different spectrum—UV, maybe.
But what was not hard to see was a flickering disk at the upper left corner of the sign.
Wonder what that's about.