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Becoming Dead [MultiFormat]
eBook by Joel Best
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$0.80 |
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$0.68 |
eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Surah is a happy woman in a disquieting future utopia--until her fiancee decides to toss down his armor and become one of the subversive enlightened ones. Now Surah faces some terrible choices about her own future.
eBook Publisher: Clocktower Books and Far Sector SFFH (magazine), Published: Far Sector SFFH, 2003
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2003
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [146 KB], eReader (PDB) [33 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [16 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [15 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [82 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [88 KB], hiebook (KML) [66 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [72 KB], iSilo (PDB) [13 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [17 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [56 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [26 KB]
Words: 4800
Reading time: 13-19 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
So some women of the working class marry well and enjoy lives filled with at least a few niceties, and they have children to comfort them in their old age, and they accumulate a library of pleasing memories, and their final thoughts before joining God are something like, This is the best existence I could have expected for myself.
Or not. We must unite, Surah's fiancee said on that last night before he went away and became dead. She clocked out at the maker facility and walked wearily to the little park near the central market place where Parl was supposed to meet her. She bought a fruit juice and found a bench to sit on because he'd be late. Sang softly to herself, lalala. Parl had only two speeds, slow and stop. She loved him in spite of that. Sipping chilled berry nectar, Surah slowly rocked her head to chase the tension away. Lalala. It had been a long shift. Huge rush order. Supervisor Wejik said it absolutely must go out today, or else. Shariim's sun, a painfully bright blue diamond, set to the south of Port Adjolah. Mothers watched their unarmored children play on the swings and slide. Surah looked for Parl and remembered being young. The air on your skin, no armor to weigh you down. There you are, Parl said, running and waving. I'm hungry. Dinner's on me. He had the strangest look on his face, but Surah didn't ask because she was thinking of fried lamb and vegetables in spicy sauce with cold beer to wash it all down. They ate in silence. She asked twice what was bothering Parl and he just made silly jokes. She concentrated on her food. Spear a bit of lamb, push it through the eating orifice of her helmet, now a bite of vegetables, a sip of beer. You had to pay attention to what you were doing. Parl mostly pushed his food around the plate. Are you going to talk to me or what? He didn't answer. After dinner they strayed to the ayo launch field and watched a few bones lift from the tarmac and slowly climb into the star-splashed night. Where do you suppose those ships are going? Surah asked. She imagined places like Whirlpool or Core 53 or even Olde Earth. Away from here, Parl said bitterly. Beyond that it doesn't exactly matter. You're in a terrible mood. Just thinking. About what? Let's go back to my place, he suggested abruptly, taking her gauntleted hand and holding it hard. Surah felt a thrill of fear, of uneasy anticipation, even of dread, but she didn't say no, not to her fiancee. Parl lived near the maker facility. Third shift was hard at work. In his bedroom she could feel the ceaseless chugging of the nearby maker machines. The walls of his apartment hummed, sending sympathetic vibrations through her armor. It was then that Parl said the strange thing. We must unite. Surah thought he meant they should shed their armor and make love. It would be a violation of True Law, but they were engaged, after all. How often had she wanted to see his eyes? But that wasn't it. Parl pulled away and went to the window. He looked out at Port Adjolah's lights. What is it? Surah kept asking. I don't know how to say the words. Try. You wouldn't understand. * * * *So this is how Parl became dead. In Port Adjolah's central marketplace, hundreds of booths set up in the cool of the city's southern wall, he calmly removed his personal armor. Cuirass, gauntlets, greaves, boots, helmet. In the ensuing riot, he climbed over the wall and disappeared into Shariim's vast, nearly endless desert. Babbling incoherently, the distraught witnesses reported. A Proctor approached Surah just before lunch break at the maker facility. Another hard day at the maker machines. Gold ring watches for the Port's wealthy elite. Precious metals were in vogue this season. Starship captains jingled with gold and the Port's upper crust rushed in to emulate. Each ring required approximately eight minutes to form, atom by atom, within a maker machine's magnetic crucible. In a single shift, Surah could produce seventy rings, in ten years never earn enough to purchase even one. Voice a dull boom, the Proctor told her the grim news. He did it in front of the entire second shift. Surah stood mute. She couldn't think of anything but last evening. Parl had been so distant. She'd said good night and he'd said good-bye. A slip of the tongue, she'd thought, but in retrospect she realized he'd known exactly what he was going to do. Using a slender, metal rod the Proctor branded an X into her helmet. This is in accordance with True Law, he said, boomboom. As your souls were to be joined in marriage, you are equally guilty in any crime your future husband might commit. Unfair, Surah protested, coughing from the odor of scorched plastic that made it through her helmet's breathing filters. Order must be maintained, the Proctor replied. True Law has maintained our society since the first colonists grounded six hundred years ago. As it was in the beginning, so it must be now. But I didn't do anything. Hush, my child.
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