Clarkesworld Anthology 2012 Read Online Free PDF Page B

mattress.

    Frederick and maman were arguing again. I did not have to try hard to hear them, since the cabin hatches had been left open in order to air out the stale and dusty smells.
    “I told her,” Frederick said.
    “And you’ve put your own spin on it. Called it ‘immortality’ or some such nonsense. You won’t rest until you’ve fully humanized it, will you?”
    “You know that she thinks of you as her mother, don’t you?”
    “I’m no such thing.”
    “You are the only mother her species will ever have. All the millions and billions of her descendents will only remember one childhood: her childhood. You have to pay more attention to her psychology, to her development, to her socialization and her adjustment. Every interaction her species will ever have is going to be governed by the shadow of you.”
    “Don’t project,” maman said. “I barely remember my own childhood.”
    “And why is that? Why are you so cold?”
    “You’ve made it clear that you have the upper hand here, Frederick, so I suppose I can’t stop you from telling it whatever you want. We can even decant another, if you think I’ve ruined this one. You can train the next one to call you papa.”
    “A second Eve?”
    “Sure, or two more, or three, or a hundred…whatever it will take to satisfy you.”
    “And have a hundred nations spring up to fight with each other, bomb each other, and create another disaster?”
    “It will happen eventually.”
    “You don’t understand. They won’t be like that. Not if we do our jobs, they won’t. They’ll remember this, every single one of them…they’ll look into each others’ eyes and see themselves. They’ll see that the good of everybody is the most important thing, and that if the race goes forward, then their memory will go forward, and they’ll live forever.”
    “I know that my survival depends on your survival,” maman said. “But that hasn’t prevented me from developing a hatred for you. Why should they be different?”
    When maman came in, she was smiling. She stared at the mattress for a long moment.
    She was far away, too far to be able to catch me up, so I scrambled out of the mattress and called out, “Is my name ‘Eve,’ then?”
    Maman frowned. “No,” she said. “You don’t need a name.”
    “Why not?”
    “What is it that you call me?” Maman was creeping closer, and I skittered back slightly.
    “Maman.”
    “Where did you get that name?”
    “In the books that Frederick showed me, that is what the elephant called the woman who took care of him.”
    “You liked his idiotic books?”
    “Nnnnooo.”
    “Good. You don’t need them.” She crouched and spread her hands on the edge of the mattress, and looked at, past, through me.
    “Your memory is good,” maman said. “I know that, from the mazes I had you run. Please. Try to remember my face. You must never forget me.”
    She coaxed me up onto her hard, pitted hands — those hands that were like whole worlds to me — and lifted me up right in front of her face. This was my first good, long look at her. Usually, I only peeked at her with sidelong glances, in order to see if she was about to come after me.
    Her strangely-scented breath shivered right through my body, and I looked up with kaleidoscopic sight at her enormous face. Since then, I’ve seen many human faces. But, in my memory, there is nothing human about maman’s face; it is a machine of snorting nostrils and slowly dilating pupils.
    Then she grabbed me by the wings and performed more tests on me.

    A few days later, Frederick motored away in the dinghy. He was heading off to the shore: to the fires. I was happy when he left, since I would not have that whistle tugging at me. But I was also sad. I crept into maman’s workroom, where she was poking her head into and out of her refrigerator and other equipments. I was all alone with her. Now that Uncle Frederick wasn’t here to protect me, she could do anything.
    She grunted as I