Read Online Asimov's Science Fiction: September 2013 by Penny Publications - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Penny Publications
Tags: Asimov's #452
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horrible sense of anticipation squirmed inside me, as I guessed what the figure was about to say.
The sunshine faded to half strength after I flipped us to another universe. But I was no longer hopping completely at random; I'd narrowed the parameters so that we stayed in the vicinity of this star, which in different universes had formed in different places according to local fluctuations in the primordial gas clouds.
"I've kept my original appearance," said my doppelgänger, "rather than copying all your superf icial makeovers. But when I replace you, I'll match your current look before I emerge from behind the curtain. Then the audience won't ever know—"
"You won't replace me," I said firmly, as we hopped across yet more universes. When the star grew brighter than its first appearance, I narrowed the parameters again. "Oh, but I will. That's what I was designed to do. I am your backup, after all." "I don't have a backup!" "You mean you don't have any memory of creating a backup," my doppelgänger said. "Some things are far too incriminating to remember. We always claim we work without a net, don't we? But a few years ago, we concocted a spectacular stunt: surfing a supernova. You remember that, I'm sure. It was appallingly risky. We were worried it might not work, so we created a secret backup copy to step forward in case we got burnt up. We rolled dice to see who'd be the performer, and who'd be the backup. You won. And as soon as I'd disappeared to my hiding place, you purged your memory of my existence, so that you could perform without being distracted by a guilty conscience."
"If that happened after we parted, you couldn't know about it," I retorted. "You wouldn't know whether I'd wiped my memory—"
"I knew, because we'd planned it that way. I'd have done the same if I'd won the dice-roll. And besides, after the stunt succeeded, you never contacted me. I credited you with wiping your memory, because the alternative was that you knew I existed, and yet you still didn't bother to find me."
It sounded horribly plausible, and it rocked me to the core. Was my whole career based on a lie? My hands shook; I took them off the hopper controls, suddenly paralyzed with self-doubt.
Then I realized that this uncertainty was precisely what my antagonist hoped to achieve. He was trying to disconcert me.
"If you are my secret backup, then prove it," I challenged him. "Tell me something that only we would know. Dredge up something from our oldest memories."
"I don't need to prove myself to
you,"
he sneered. "You'll soon be dead. I only need to prove myself to Veronica, when I replace you."
My doppelgänger looked grim and determined. The pod still vibrated with the drill's persistent whine. I couldn't tell how far it had penetrated through the case. At any moment, I might hear the hiss of escaping air....
But his refusal to prove himself gave me the confidence to shake off self-doubt, and proceed with my plan. I returned to the hopper controls. My assailant flinched in the appalling glare as we entered yet another universe, this one far closer to the star. The blue-white incandescence filled half the sky, bathing us in lethal radiation. My escape pod could protect me for a while; my enemy's spacesuit looked flimsy in comparison.
Swiftly, frantically, he said, "It doesn't have to end in a death struggle. We can both walk away from this. Haven't you grown tired of it all lately—the whole grind of performing, the endless search for yet another stunt to top the last? When you've escaped a black hole, what can you possibly do next? Let me replace you, and it'll become my problem, not yours. We won't fight—we'll make a gentlemen's agreement. I'll take on your identity, and you can walk away into the sunset. It'll be your ultimate coup: the escape from escapology itself!"
As soon as he said this, I knew that the pseudo-doppelgänger def initely wasn't a copy of me. He didn't know the reason I'd originally come to Cockaigne:
The sunshine faded to half strength after I flipped us to another universe. But I was no longer hopping completely at random; I'd narrowed the parameters so that we stayed in the vicinity of this star, which in different universes had formed in different places according to local fluctuations in the primordial gas clouds.
"I've kept my original appearance," said my doppelgänger, "rather than copying all your superf icial makeovers. But when I replace you, I'll match your current look before I emerge from behind the curtain. Then the audience won't ever know—"
"You won't replace me," I said firmly, as we hopped across yet more universes. When the star grew brighter than its first appearance, I narrowed the parameters again. "Oh, but I will. That's what I was designed to do. I am your backup, after all." "I don't have a backup!" "You mean you don't have any memory of creating a backup," my doppelgänger said. "Some things are far too incriminating to remember. We always claim we work without a net, don't we? But a few years ago, we concocted a spectacular stunt: surfing a supernova. You remember that, I'm sure. It was appallingly risky. We were worried it might not work, so we created a secret backup copy to step forward in case we got burnt up. We rolled dice to see who'd be the performer, and who'd be the backup. You won. And as soon as I'd disappeared to my hiding place, you purged your memory of my existence, so that you could perform without being distracted by a guilty conscience."
"If that happened after we parted, you couldn't know about it," I retorted. "You wouldn't know whether I'd wiped my memory—"
"I knew, because we'd planned it that way. I'd have done the same if I'd won the dice-roll. And besides, after the stunt succeeded, you never contacted me. I credited you with wiping your memory, because the alternative was that you knew I existed, and yet you still didn't bother to find me."
It sounded horribly plausible, and it rocked me to the core. Was my whole career based on a lie? My hands shook; I took them off the hopper controls, suddenly paralyzed with self-doubt.
Then I realized that this uncertainty was precisely what my antagonist hoped to achieve. He was trying to disconcert me.
"If you are my secret backup, then prove it," I challenged him. "Tell me something that only we would know. Dredge up something from our oldest memories."
"I don't need to prove myself to
you,"
he sneered. "You'll soon be dead. I only need to prove myself to Veronica, when I replace you."
My doppelgänger looked grim and determined. The pod still vibrated with the drill's persistent whine. I couldn't tell how far it had penetrated through the case. At any moment, I might hear the hiss of escaping air....
But his refusal to prove himself gave me the confidence to shake off self-doubt, and proceed with my plan. I returned to the hopper controls. My assailant flinched in the appalling glare as we entered yet another universe, this one far closer to the star. The blue-white incandescence filled half the sky, bathing us in lethal radiation. My escape pod could protect me for a while; my enemy's spacesuit looked flimsy in comparison.
Swiftly, frantically, he said, "It doesn't have to end in a death struggle. We can both walk away from this. Haven't you grown tired of it all lately—the whole grind of performing, the endless search for yet another stunt to top the last? When you've escaped a black hole, what can you possibly do next? Let me replace you, and it'll become my problem, not yours. We won't fight—we'll make a gentlemen's agreement. I'll take on your identity, and you can walk away into the sunset. It'll be your ultimate coup: the escape from escapology itself!"
As soon as he said this, I knew that the pseudo-doppelgänger def initely wasn't a copy of me. He didn't know the reason I'd originally come to Cockaigne:
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