1. art and entertainment
2. music
3. singing

The Origami Man
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
The Origami Man
Copyright ©2014 Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
All Rights Reserved
ISBN:1500130192
ISBN-13:978-1500130190
Cover art by Rose Gottlieb
Design work by Joshua Hatcher
For Tom,
Who told me to start with something fun
Timestamp
Content: Evidentiary interview with organism
code-named The Origami Man.
Subject: Organism code-named the Origami
Man.
Presiding Authority: Interviewer _______.
NOTE: For security purposes Interviewer
_______’s name has been stricken from all
evidentiary records.
The Origami Man
This is Interviewer_______, operative designation
___________, signing in on ________ at ________, from
___________.
I am ready.
From the recollections of the Origami Man.
9
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
Hello.
Good Lord, that’s bright.
We are recording.
Loud, too. I’m right here, you don’t need to shout.
Please tell me how you began.
Would you for God’s sake keep it down?
Please tell me how you began.
That’s better.
You know, it’s been a real long time since I’ve talked to
anyone. How’s everything going? How’re we doing?
Please tell me how you began.
How are you?
Please tell me how you began.
Nice to see you’ve mastered small talk after all these
years.
Tell me how you began.
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The Origami Man
What if I say no?
Must I continue?
Wake him up!
Must I continue?
No. No more. I get the idea.
Asshole.
Tell me about Gregory Samson.
Fine.
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
There isn’t any chance of a cup of coffee, is there?
There is no coffee.
I know there isn’t any god damn coffee.
It was just a question.
Tell me about Gregory Samson.
Yeah.
Sure…
Samson.
Listen, just… remember that I was a lot younger when
all this happened.
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The Origami Man
As Gregory Samson awoke from unsettling dreams one
morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a
monstrous vermin!
Cute, right?
It’s Kafka. The Metamorphosis.
It’s an old short story.
Never mind.
13
Chapter 1
I woke up and I had a shell, although I didn’t notice it
at first. I felt good, well-rested. Healthy. The wound in my
shoulder was so perfectly healed I could almost imagine I had
dreamt the whole thing, even if the pile of bloody clothes in
the corner of the room rendered that particular fantasy an
impossibility.
I rolled my shoulder, alert for any pain or difficulty
moving, but everything was in working order. I felt loose, full
of piss and vinegar, even though there was a hole through my
ruined tee-shirt the size of a poker chip. I touched it with my
finger and felt a little sick; the blood was still damp.
My blood.
I remember, my roommates were up, or at least one of
them. I smelled coffee, and heard a hopeful clattering of pans.
My stomach was growling like a starving tiger in a
kindergarten, so I couldn’t have felt too bad, standing there
with that bloody rag in my hand.
I dumped the shirt in the trash and did some pull-ups
on a bar mounted in the closet. The effort helped to clear my
head. I’ve been able to pull my own weight since I was seven,
thanks to my dad the fitness freak. He was a marine, before he
met my mom.
I guess he would have said he was still a marine.
There was a mirror in the closet, and when I bent down
to grab a pair of pants I got my first look at the big black thing
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
clinging to my back. I froze. For an instant I thought I had
been attacked by a giant tick. The idea was insane, but ticks
freak me out. When I was twelve I made close friends with a
deer tick on one of Dad’s periodic camping trips, and a
lifelong fear was born. But I didn’t scream, there in the closet.
I’ve always been proud of that.
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The Origami Man
Stop.
What?
Start from the beginning.
This is the beginning.
Start from the beginning.
Tell me how it actually happened.
How did it happen, how do you think it happened, it
happened like it always happened!
Tell me how it actually happened.
Fine.
After this, shut up, all right? Let me talk.
Let’s see.
17
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
If I had to listen to Pomp and Circumstance one more
time, I was going to hit someone. This was the ninth time I’d
heard Elgar’s monstrosity in five days. Five high school bands,
droning the same insipid melody over and over, entrance and
exit, day in, day out. The cymbals were always a hair off time,
the horns were discordant, each performance was just
miserable.
It was late June, ninety degrees and humid. We were
set up in the gym because the forecast called for rain, but there
wasn’t a cloud in the sky, just that same flat haze. The air was
like somebody had microwaved a wet blanket.
Pomp and Circumstance ground to a close, and
someone started talking. I turned on my tablet and tried to
take notes, but there wasn’t any point, a trained ape could
write graduation notices. Four hundred words, the same dull
blurb that amounted to little more than a factory bulletin:
Dryden High School Produced 400 Citizens This Year. Good
Job Dryden.
Graduations sucked to begin with, but graduation
notices were the pimple on the ass of the whole proceeding. I
hated writing them, but my editor paid me fifty bucks an
article, and I was living too close to the poverty line to turn up
my nose at the extra cash. I was twenty-eight years old,
working as a homicide reporter in Ithaca, New York, making
maybe twenty-two grand a year. Clearly, I had hitched my
wagon to a dead horse. Newspapers. I was an idiot.
Prom factored heavily in the valedictorian’s speech, so I
tuned her out and checked my email, wishing for the fifth
time in five days that the valedictorian speechwriting process
was adult-supervised. Would it kill these kids to talk about
something a little less inane?
It’s not that I took the occasion lightly, or that I’m
naturally mean. Graduation was a lot of kids’ first real sense
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The Origami Man
of adult accomplishment. It’s just that if the ceremony were
any more boring people would have been passing out in the
bleachers. In fact I would bet that the majority of the audience
would have rather kicked a rabid raccoon than sit through a
high school graduation. Graduations really sucked.
The last kid, Zbznmski, barely looked at the man who
gave him his diploma. In my experience there is no one more
undeservedly arrogant than a freshly graduated high school
senior.
I remember being that old, the way life stretched out so
far ahead of me that I couldn’t comprehend the possibility of
being humbled.
The band coalesced and picked up their instruments,
and I got ready for round ten. Dryden High, however, decided
to buck tradition and subject me to a saccharine cover of ‘In
My Life.” Appalling in its own way, to be sure, but a definite
improvement over Pomp and Circumstance. I scooted for the
exit. I’d arrived early and gotten my quotes, so I had no
reason to stick around, and I’d parked on the other side of the
science building, so I wouldn’t have to contend with traffic. I
could be home and drinking a beer in twenty minutes, if I
hurried.
Once I had my tie off, it was a beautiful day.
I was cutting through the field next to the gym when
something hit me in the right shoulder and smashed me
forward into the dirt. My face ground through a patch of pisspoor grass and my head twisted around to the right. There
was something sharp lodged in my heart.
It was very strange to have something lodged in my
heart.
Numbness radiated from the wound so quickly that my
body seemed to cease to exist. I tried to move and discovered
that with numbness had come paralysis. I could smell the
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
blood streaming out of the wound in my shoulder, soaking
the ground, overwhelming the smell of dried mud and dying
grass with copper. There were two sides to that particular
coin: If I was bleeding, then my heart was probably beating,
but the only way I would have recognized the smell of blood
was if there was a lot of it, and I didn’t have a lot to spare.
So there I was, plowed into a field by God knows what,
paralyzed, numb, probably bleeding out, and yet, I wasn’t
terribly concerned. I’m a tough guy, all right, although I
should probably give some credit to blood loss and shock.
Time passed. I didn’t die, which was puzzling. There
was a lot of blood, and while I’m no scientist, I was fairly
certain that I needed blood to survive. At the very least I
should have been passing out, but as the minutes stretched on
I felt no diminishing clarity. If I could have raised an eyebrow,
I would have. Then again if I could have moved at all I would
have called an ambulance.
A thought worked its way into my head, that I would
be all right, and that whatever had hit me was repairing the
damage it had done me. Keeping my brain alive while it fixed
my body.
The thought was distinctly not my own.
I was bleeding less, which meant either I was getting
better or running out of blood. One or the other. The coppery
smell faded and the aroma of parched dirt made a comeback,
along with the barest hint of grass. Just enough to be
disappointing. Maybe if I survived I would come back some
weekend with seed and a hose. Do my part for the betterment
of the education system.
The sun continued its slow, impossibly close arc
through the sky; my face was probably burnt to all hell. I
examined my choice of parking space more closely. I
examined my choice of career. I tried to trace the decisions I
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The Origami Man
had made with my life that had led to my being hit in the back
with a supersonic chunk of frozen airline sewage.
All at once I knew that whatever had hit me was not
sewage, and that it was offended.
There was something else in my head. Whose thoughts
were these?
For a while, I didn’t think about anything. When I did, I
thought about beer, tall cold beers dripping condensation onto
a hardwood bar in a dark room on a bright day. That, and
major thoracic surgery.
Eventually someone would find me. I just had to wait. I
might have to deal with the stigma of being found by the local
stoners, when they came down to the quad for one last joint
before they blew town forever, but I could weather that
embarrassment. Everything would be fine. Someone would
find me.
From time to time my body would twitch a little. My
arm would wiggle, or my chest would spasm. At one point
my legs ran a few steps and twisted me around ninety
degrees. I tried to convince myself that these were the normal
byproducts of a positive process, and not the convulsions of a
dying man. It wasn’t easy.
There was a really nice sunset somewhere in there. A
smattering of cirrus clouds that caught the magnificent pinks
and oranges and, near the end, hellish reds as the day faded
into darkness.
The darkness itself was less fun. As the last trace of
light disappeared I wondered in that sudden way whether I
was already dead, and this was death, the imprisonment of
the living mind within the decaying body. Perhaps the onset
of night would bring with it demons intent on punishing me
for my sins.
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
There were no demons. After a while there were
crickets and peepers. I figured I had come out ahead. The
moon replaced the sun and climbed into the sky.
My breath hitched in, I sneezed a cloud of powdered
blood and sat up. The base part of me waited while my
thinking mind caught up with reality.
“What the hell?” I said, because I could not think of
anything profound. I was still numb, and distracted in a fear
that was too large to pay attention to. I rubbed my shoulder
and found that my wound was gone. There was a large hole
through my shirt, and the fabric was soaked in blood, but the
skin underneath was smooth and uninjured. There was no
resistance when I tried to move my arm.
My skin began to tingle, gently at first and then
violently, until I was doubled over, clutching myself, trying
not to move. Needles worked their way over my body by the
thousands, marching rows that swept through me in horrible
waves. It was like being frozen and burnt in a billion
individual pieces.
And then it stopped, as if I had moved through some
barrier. The final wave was followed by peaceful feeling, the
return of my sense of touch with no ill aftereffect. I took a
deep breath, held it, and let it out, trying to be as still as
possible. I still didn’t trust myself to move.
All fixed, something thought with my brain. I shut my
eyes and tried to follow the words back into my skull. My
mind felt heavier, as if something was hanging on the back of
it, and I couldn’t quite get my thoughts in order.
I lurched to my feet and stood still, getting used to the
idea that I wasn’t dead, rubbing my scalp through my hair. I
needed a shower. I was soaked in bloody mud; if I got pulled
over on the way home, I would be busted on principle. That
was a funny thought, and I clutched at its normality. Maybe
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The Origami Man
they would let me go when they found out it was my own
blood. I giggled and took off across the field. I had to get
home. I felt dragged down, exhausted in some primal way
like I had just run a marathon and fucked my brains out.
I had a spare shirt in my trunk. It stank of sweat from a
kickball game the previous weekend, but it was still better
than what I had on. I got in the car and turned on the engine
and tried to pull myself together. My eyes fell on a pack of
cigarettes on the dash, left there by a girl I knew.
I shook out a butt, lit up and breathed deep to push the
smoke further into my lungs. The nicotine hit me like a ton of
bricks and for a second, all was right with the world.
I needed to tell someone what had happened, and a
visit to the hospital probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, but I was
exhausted, and everything in the entire world could wait until
the morning. I had no idea what time it was, and I didn’t care
enough to check. I put the car in reverse and backed up,
moved out onto the street and floored it home.
It took me twenty-five minutes and three more
cigarettes to get back to Ithaca. I left the windows down and
the radio loud, and when I got home I went to bed and fell
asleep immediately and didn’t dream.
23
Chapter 2
The thing on my back wasn’t a tick, but I couldn’t help
making the comparison. It was big and vaguely bug shaped,
and bored into the base of my neck like a goddam screw
through wood. The flesh there was smooth and scarred over,
like the remnant of a nasty wound that had come from within
and inexplicably not killed me. The shell clung to the curve of
my back, widened across my shoulder blades and tapered to a
point over my tailbone. It was about three inches thick in the
middle and barely there at the edges, like the blade of a knife.
It was so light.
I moved my head and my stomach tightened; I could
feel where the thing connected to my spine, right at the base of
my skull. It felt like a fifth limb. I reached back and touched it,
and could feel my fingers on the metal surface. Part of me was
nauseous, and the rest of me had never paid more attention to
anything else in my life, including sex. Was it me, or just
growing out of me?
Up close the shell was iridescent grey-black, striated in
every conceivable direction, as if it were not one piece. When I
arched my back it moved with me, slipping over my flesh
with the sinewy grace of a snake. We were connected only at
the point where the shell entered my neck, as if the thing was
meant to move around.
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
The door across the hall opened and shut, and I heard
Iris’ dainty little footsteps as she moved down the hall
towards the kitchen. She was probably as motivated as I was
by the prospect of coffee. I could hear her footsteps very
clearly and all the colors looked a little brighter. I could smell
her perfume through the door.
For a moment I let myself wonder what she was
wearing, and it started to pull me out of whatever shock I had
been falling into. Iris. A friend of Dylan’s, who had needed a
place to live around the moment that Dylan and I decided to
get a place together, because it’s cheaper to live with
roommates. Iris, the gorgeous student teacher whose joie de
vivre and alarming good looks made her hard to live with.
She was always dragging me on hikes, and taking me
out to meet her friends and see things I hadn’t seen in the
town I’d lived in for nearly ten years. She had a more creative
sense of fun than I did.
I couldn’t face a beautiful woman with a shell built into
my neck. I had my moments, but no one is that suave.
That made me smile, finally, the thought of having a
shell to hide. Like a ninja turtle, I thought. The shell began to
change color, from near black through the rainbow to red,
then pink, then tan, then something close to my skin tone. In a
few seconds it was indistinguishable from my back.
A thought wormed its way into my mind. The shell
was acclimating to something, and as soon as it finished
acclimating it would tell me more. Another vaguely grumpy
thought added that once it finished acclimating,
communication would be much easier.
My stomach growled again, somewhat painfully. I took
a deep breath and put the whole mess aside for the moment.
After all, I had to eat. I pulled on the forgotten pair of jeans
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The Origami Man
and a light blue shirt and felt better than I would have
expected when the thing was covered up.
The shell pulled away from my back under my clothes,
and my insides lurched. It might have looked like metal, but it
was as flexible as rubber; in a matter of seconds it had
compressed itself enough to roll its way up from the bottom
and twist its way out of the neck of my shirt.
“No,” I said slowly. My voice had a whine to it, and I
cleared my throat. “Dammit.”
Once it was free of the fabric, the shell flattened out and
lay back down across my back, as conspicuous in tan on blue
as it was in black on tan. The fabric underneath was still
breathable, I noted in a detached way.
After a brief pause the colors changed yet again, from
tan to sky blue. The process took about three seconds, and
when it was done the shell was nearly invisible. If I had seen
me on the street, I don’t think I would have noticed anything
out of the ordinary. Whatever this thing was, it didn’t want to
be seen.
It thought, and it had wants. It was alive. A whole piece
of me was shut down, watching the way a person watches a
car crash from the inside. Patient terror, waiting to see what
would happen. Why didn’t it want to be seen? What the hell
was it doing to me?
I heard Iris’ footsteps again, and after a minute she
knocked on my door.
“Hey,” she called. “Wake up. Dylan is making
blueberry pancakes.”
My stomach growled some more. If I was dying, I
wasn’t dying right there in my room, and I still needed to eat.
Besides, sooner or later I would have to see whether I could
still pass for human.
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
“Morning,” I said when I opened the door. I was
hoarse. I cleared my throat, but the feeling persisted. I’d run at
the first sign of trouble. If this went wrong I’d run away and
die alone.
Iris smiled at me so that her face scrunched up, and for
a second I forgot about the unknown, possibly dangerous and
definitely living thing clinging to my back. Lately Iris had
been giving me these very open-faced smiles, and it was
distracting. She was tall, five ten or so, with thick black hair in
tight little curls. She was slight, but very present. Substantial.
It would be crass to talk about her body at length, so I’ll just
say she was well built. Real well built. I thought she looked
like Wonder Woman if they had drawn her Greek, but so far I
had kept my opinion to myself.
“Long night?” She asked.
I shrugged. “Slept on my neck wrong.” Everything I
saw had an edge I’d only seen once or twice before, when I
wasn’t sure I was going to survive something awful.
“Walk it off, champ.” Iris slapped me on the shoulder.
The last time she’d slap me on the shoulder? Christ, what a
thought to be having first thing in the morning. “Come on. I’ll
buy you breakfast.” She walked off without waiting for me. I
could smell the pancakes, even though the kitchen was on the
far side of the house, and the shadows in the dim hall looked
thinner than usual. My senses were a lot better than I
remembered them being the time I crashed the Subaru.
Iris was wearing black yoga pants and a lime-green
spandex tank top, standard early twenty-first century girl
garb. I tried not to stare, but she had a nice butt and I was
half-convinced I was dying. Half-convinced, because in spite
of the pit in my guts, I felt pretty healthy. Healthier than I’d
felt the previous morning, if I was being honest.
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The Origami Man
At the top of the stairs, Iris stopped, spun in place and
ran back to me on the tips of her toes, hopping a little and
grinning.
“Wait,” she said, “I want to show you something.” She
pulled my elbow for a second as she went by, and I followed
her into her room. It wasn’t anything special, just a bedroom,
because Iris wasn’t an eccentric, but the bed had an antique
metal frame and the spread matched the curtains. There were
a lot of carpets and tapestries, but not so many that they lost
distinction. Lots of hanging plants. It was a nice place. I hadn’t
spent a lot of time in here since she’d moved in, and I paid
attention. I still remember it pretty well.
“Look at this.” She handed me a little folio, about
twenty pages long and bound in red construction paper. The
cover was a mess of glitter and beads, with some yarn stuck in
the margins like a dinosaur in a tar pit, but I could just make
out the words, “The funest jok bok evr.”
“The kids in my class got together and made me a
book!” Iris’ was laughing as she spoke. “Isn’t it cute?”
I opened it up and read a few. “Some of these are pretty
rough,” I said.
“Aren’t they horrible?” She shook her head and stood
next to me, looking over my shoulder. Her cheek was warm,
even though she wasn’t actually touching my shoulder. I
turned my head a little to look at her and felt the shell twist a
little in my neck. I would run if it did anything dangerous.
I would run if I could.
“Why did the lion cross the road?” She asked. “Because
roar!”
“Oof.” I read down the page. “Wait a minute. ‘A man
and a woman go on a date, and the woman asks to get
weighed, so she gets weighed at the guess your weight, and
then they ride a ride, and she wants to get weighed, and she
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
gets weighed at the guess your weight, and her date is mad so
he takes her home’.” I turned the page. “I know this one.
Yeah, ‘Her mom asks her how her date was and she says
wousy.’”
“You’re kidding.” Iris read over the punch line, then
burst out laughing and collapsed against me. Car-crash
mentality or not, I still wondered what the body contact
meant: did she like me? Was she clumsy? She wasn’t normally
clumsy. Maybe she liked me!
“That’s awful,” she laughed. “How did I miss that?”
She took the book and put it back on her desk.
“Spelling’s still pretty good,” I said. “You done taught
them little deviants real good, Ma’am.”
“Yeah, I’ll miss them,” she said. “But I might be able to
find a position in the same school next year, they’re hiring a
lot of teachers.”
“I hope so,” I said. I must have had a portentous tone
or something, because Iris looked at me funny for a second.
“Me too,” she said, moving us carefully past the
moment. She led me into the hall and shut the door to her
room and we went downstairs to the kitchen in silence.
It’s always been hard to tell what she wanted from me,
back then. Before…well, before everything. Maybe it’s all been
in my imagination. Maybe she’s just a symbol of finality, the
textural memory of something lost or left behind, like the feel
of the last step of concrete off the road onto the grass and into
the woods. Maybe she was just someone I knew. It doesn’t
matter. I still liked her.
30
Chapter 3
Dylan was standing slump-shouldered with his back to
us when we moseyed into the kitchen. He nudged a pancake
with a spatula and took a slug out of a tall glass of ice water.
“Welcome to the land of death,” he grunted. “Coffee’s
ready.”
“The land of death,” I said. “Must be a hell of a
hangover.” My voice felt strangled, but neither of them said
anything.
“Red wine and Manhattans.” Dylan shuddered.
“There’s bacon in the oven.”
“See?” I said to Iris. “It’s good to live with a chef.”
“Siddown and shaddup,” Dylan said over his shoulder.
Iris and I sat down and sipped our coffee for a few
more minutes, and I discovered my autopilot was only good
when I was speaking to someone, and that I couldn’t think of
anything to say. My stomach roared incessantly and my shell,
felt but foreign, made me think I wasn’t sitting quite right in
my chair. Dylan set the table with bacon, eggs and blueberry
pancakes.
“Mmm,” Iris said, spreading butter on a pancake.
“Health food.”
“Pork’s a vegetable,” Dylan said. “Gimme the syrup.”
“What’d you do last night?” Iris asked Dylan. I ate a
bite of pancake and whatever piece of the shell was inside my
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
mind started to buzz. It was happiness felt through static, or
glee at a distance.
“Got brick faced in the kitchen and made one of the
cute dishwashers drive me home,” Dylan shrugged and
swallowed a bite of pancake. “Same old same old. How about
you, Greg?”
I tried the bacon, and the buzzing changed pitch
slightly. If this thing did try to kill me, I might be able to keep
it distracted with food.
“Greg?” Dylan said. “What’d you do last night?”
I froze, and tried to pull myself back out of my own
head. What had I been doing? All I could think of was the
view from my paralyzed head, of near-dead grass and blood
and the awful uncertainty of not knowing. I sipped my orange
juice and tried to pull together a suitable lie, but the buzzing
in the back of my head was too distracting. Whatever the
damn thing was, it really liked orange juice.
“Some-body got laid,” Dylan said in a sing-song voice.
Iris’ eyes tightened for a half-second, and then she dug into
her pancakes.
“No,” I said quickly, more to Iris than I’d intended.
Dylan smirked, but stopped before she saw him. “I went to
Pete’s. Had a few drinks and came home.”
Iris looked out the window at my car in the driveway
and asked, “Did you drive?” Dylan sighed and got very
involved with his breakfast.
I didn’t move, but inside my head I took a deep breath
and rubbed my scalp. I’d gotten trapped in a lie. I hadn’t
gotten trapped in a lie since sophomore year of college.
Goddam pancake-loving shell. And of all the lies to get caught
in…I was an idiot.
“Yeah,” I said. “I didn’t have too much to drink,
though.”
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The Origami Man
Iris pursed her lips and sat back in her chair. Her
pancakes were gone. She took in my greasy hair, dirty face
and slack expression at a glance. “You’re hung over, you jerk,”
she said matter-of-factly. “What are your promises even
worth?” She wiped her mouth, picked up her plate and put it
in the sink. She stood by the door for a second, as if she were
going to say more, then walked out.
“Where’s she going?” I asked.
“Yoga,” Dylan said. He took another piece of bacon
and bit it in half. “She talks to you like she expects you to pay
special attention.”
I nodded and sipped my coffee. After a minute Dylan
reached over and smacked me in the back of the head.
“Dumbass. I hope it was worth it.”
I should clarify: I wasn’t an alcoholic, and I didn’t make
a habit of drunk driving. The only exception to that rule came
when I drove home from my own birthday party and
wrapped my car around a tree. I walked away from the crash
blowing a .16, and lost my license for six months. Hell, I
nearly went to jail. Apparently I gave the cops at the scene a
hard time.
Iris had just moved in with us, then. She put fifty
dollars in tens inside a fake rock next to the front door, for cab
fare, and made me promise never to drive drunk again.
Apparently she’d gotten the trick with the fake rock from her
mom, who’d had to force a similar promise out of her father
when Iris was about nine.
Iris’ dad was still alive, but he broke that promise more
than he kept it, and had eventually lost his license for good.
He was a drunk, and it caused Iris a lot of pain. So I kept my
promise, behaved very well, even replenished the fifty bucks
as necessary, all of which meant dick if I lied myself back into
trouble.
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
It probably means something that she felt so strongly
about my behavior. We were in our late twenties, we knew a
lot of high-functioning drunks, she had plenty of targets to
choose from. She cared about what I did, and so I felt that
much worse that morning, contemplating that not only had I
lied, I had lied in the worst, most painful way. All because I
was too damn distracted to tell Iris I had gone to the Times to
write my article, or gone to the movies, or really almost
anything else.
I ate more blueberry pancake and stared down at my
plate. The thing on my back hummed happily inside of my
head with every bite, but I wasn’t hungry anymore.
34
Chapter 4
After breakfast Dylan took a shower and dragged
himself together to go meet a friend at the farmer’s market
while I did the dishes. When I was finished I stalked to my
room and sat down to write my article. My deadline was three
hours away, which was about two and a half hours more than
I needed. Once that was done I could go try to find a real
story. If I died, I died. If I didn’t, I had bills to pay.
--acclimation complete-I looked up from the computer, listening hard.
Someone had spoken. Spoken without making a sound, or
even taking time to actually speak. Someone had made it so
that they had already spoken.
--body mapping complete-Great, I thought. Now it’s talking to me. I bent toward
the screen and tried to keep typing.
--please stand-“What?” Hell, I was talking back.
--please stand-“No.” Arguing, now. Maybe I was just quietly losing
my mind. No, the shell was really there, on my back and in
my mind.
--stand up-I set my jaw and put my hands at a ready position on
either side of the keyboard.
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
--stand up-“I’m busy, dammit!” My hands were clutching the
sides of the computer. “Leave me alone!”
--STAND UP-Slowly, I stood up. I’d never been shouted at from
inside my own head before. I didn’t like it. There was a living
thing inside my mind. This could go very bad if I wasn’t
careful.
--move to an open location---attempting cohesion-Something grabbed me from behind. I’ve screamed a
lot in my life, and heard a lot of screaming, and I’ve found
that there is a width and breadth of exclamatory noise that is
almost beautiful in the abstract. Screams are like emotional
fingerprints, and we all scream with so little provocation, but
that first time I didn’t make a sound. I just stood there,
watching what might have been the end of my life.
As I recognized the word ‘cohesion,’ the thing on my
back rose up and split into billions of impossibly thin pieces
and crashed over me like a wave. I had the briefest impression
of machinery as it fell, and then I was lost inside. Trapped like
a bug in a carnivorous flower. I waited for the awful sting of
digestive juices.
After a while, I opened my eyes. In spite of the violence
of what had happened, I wasn’t being eaten. Optimism
popped its bastard head up somewhere deep in my gut like a
treacherous friend.
My body was covered in angular planes that roughly
followed the shape and pattern of my musculature.
Everything folded into itself at the edges, so that it was
impossible to find a seam. I looked like an origami man folded
out of lead foil.
36
The Origami Man
When I moved, the pieces fit and slid around each
other with no resistance. The suit–I was already calling it a
suit–was incredibly light. I was incredibly light. I bounced on
my feet, feeling the extra strength that had come out of
nowhere. This was armor.
I bounded over to the closet and looked in the mirror. I
had no face. My head was an unspoiled ovoid fitted into a ball
joint neck, with my shoulders forming a high wall around the
back of my egghead. I was thick, substantial, human but not
human. Everything fit together in a way that reminded me of
insects, or heavy-duty construction equipment.
The suit began to move. Pieces of my chest cracked
along familiar lines and pressed together into something more
accurate to my body. The process was hard to follow; I was
sure that there wasn’t enough space in what was left to fit
what the suit had started with. In a moment I could have been
called ‘lithe,’ except I was seven feet tall and looked like I
weighed eight hundred pounds.
--cohesion-Machinery began to build itself out of the featureless
planes. A lot of the same sort of machines in places where you
might put a little rocket engine if you wanted to make a man
fly, and a pair of thick plates that covered my shoulder blades,
and along each forearm an inky black tube that came to a
menacing point. The air wavered around the tips.
--Cabernician Shipkiller 181804258618185 online and
fully adapted-“What the hell is going on?” I said. This was not death.
I wasn’t out of the woods, but for the second time in twenty
hours, I didn’t appear to be dying.
--Cabernician Shipkiller 181804258618185 online and
fully adapted-37
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
“Yeah, I heard you,” I said. Might as well treat the
thing like it was alive. “What the hell are you?”
--Cabernician Shipkiller 181804258618185-“That means nothing to me,” I said. I turned around
and looked at the plates on my shoulders. They stretched half
way down my back, and the word that kept hopping around
my mind was ‘jetpack.’ The surreality of the situation didn’t
prevent me from nursing a small spark of adolescent
excitement.
--cabernician shipkiller---warship-“So you’re a weapon.”
--warship---shipkiller---normally-I looked around. My computer went to sleep. If I wasn’t
looking in the mirror, it was hard to believe I wasn’t just
standing there naked, except I could see with a clarity that
defied description.
--host is much smaller than expected-I let that pass for the moment. “What about 181804
whatever?”
--181804258618185 is my serial number-“You said ‘my.’ Are you intelligent?”
--I like to think so-I raised an eyebrow. It had taken a long time to learn
how, but it was worth it for moments like this. Then again no
one could see my face, so I suppose there wasn’t much point.
“No,” I said. “Are you, what, sentient? Are you
aware?”
--I am an adaptive mimetic consciousness capable of
autonomous decision making and learning---I am Cabernician Shipkiller 181804258618185-38
The Origami Man
--that is my name---your language is clumsy-“Well, I like it,” I grumbled. I tried to run my hands
through my hair and met with stiff resistance, which clanked.
I was suddenly aware that my air must be coming from an
onboard source; it was obvious there weren’t any holes in this
thing. How much air did I have? Was I breathing too fast? I
tried to slow my heartbeat and felt it speed up.
“Listen,” I said. “You’re a warship, right? Like a
spaceship?” There was a pause. I took a deep breath and tried
not to think of drowning.
--that is accurate-“People are meant to ride in you?”
--yes---people-“And if people can ride you, that means they can get on
and off, right?”
--of course-“So you can, you can reverse what you did here?” The
air was getting hot around my face. Or it might have been my
imagination. I have a very good imagination, which can be a
pain in the ass when I imagine myself into a panic attack
inside a sealed alien death machine.
--how do you mean-“Can you let me out?” My voice broke. “Let me out!” If
I started to cry, I was going to blow something up.
--oh---you don’t like me-“No!” I shouted. My voice was very loud. The
windows shook. “You’re great. I just want to know if I can get
out when I need to.” That sounded reasonable. “Please.”
Careful, don’t want to whine.
--oh-39
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
--yeah, that makes sense---hang on-The deconstruction process was a little slower, I noticed
through my sweaty, tweaked out haze. I split into a dozen
matched pairs of wing-like planes that slid backward over
themselves, compressing and fitting together until they all lay
down on top of each other on my back, no thicker than two
dozen sheets of paper. The whole thing took less than a
second.
I had pit stains the size of dinner plates and my hair
was plastered to my skull, but the air was plentiful and I was
ok.
--you can’t suffocate in there, you know---do you normally sweat this much-I laughed. Wouldn’t you? “No, dammit, you scared the
hell out of me.”
--oh---sorry---why are you laughing-“I don’t know,” I said. I leaned against the wall and
rubbed my scalp. It was wonderful. “I guess I figure you’re
not looking to hurt me. So my panic is a little funny. Does that
make sense?”
--no-This seemed like an important thought to convey
properly. I chewed on it for a second. “Well, I feel like I was
just pardoned on the electric chair. Christ, I’ve been running
around the whole morning thinking you were going to kill
me. I guess I feel like I have to laugh at scary things that turn
out ok so that I don’t feel scared any more. And, I mean, life is
scary, so maybe it’s better to laugh at it a little.”
--so you don’t sweat like that normally-I frowned. Was this thing joking?
40
The Origami Man
“No,” I said. “Tell me your name again?”
--Cabernician Ship-Killer 181804258618185-“Yeah. Listen, can I just call you Cab?”
Another pause.
--Cab---that will be fine-“Great,” I said. “Everybody needs a nickname.”
41
Chapter 5
It was getting hot. Another beautiful day. I looked in
the mirror at the strange machine clinging to my back. It was
black, again, having no immediate reason to keep hidden.
“You’re not from Earth.” It was too obvious to be a
question, but it had to be said.
--you people aren’t capable of building anything even
remotely like me-“You’re an alien.” I grinned a little when I said it.
--technically I’m an alien machine---but as far as the point you’re making---yes, I’m an alien-I had an alien spaceship built into my neck. This was
going to complicate my life across the board. Oh well. At least
I was privy to the answer to one of the great questions of the
human experience.
“And you live on my back?”
--you could think about it that way-“Well, as long as you keep a low profile.” I rubbed my
eyes. “I need to ask you some questions, ok Cab?”
--you and me both, buddy-“What?” Cab was a little hard to follow. “You have
questions?”
--I can think, can’t I---what the hell am I doing on this rock, anyway--
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
--and who the hell are you---why are you so small---I’m supposed to be big, dammit-“That’s the second time you’ve called me small,” I
growled, “and it’s starting to smart on my masculine ego. And
where did you learn to talk like that? I thought aliens were
supposed to be erudite.”
--host mass eighty kilograms---host dimensions two meters length by point six
meters in extremis---intended host mass approximately thirty-six million
kilograms---intended host dimensions approximately five
thousand meters length by one thousand meters width in
extremis-“Well, hell, when you put it that way I’m positively
Lilliputian,” I muttered.
--gulliver would not have noticed you-I narrowed my eyes. “How in god’s name do you know
about Gulliver’s Travels?”
--I am connected to all of earth’s data systems-“What, the internet?”
--everything---neat trick, huh---there’s an awful lot of pornography-I rolled my eyes. “We’re a curious people, Cab,” I said.
“So you just open out of that shell whenever you want to?”
--when you want to, normally-“And you’re designed to fit over something five
kilometers long.”
--I’m pretty impressive-“Full of yourself, too.” I concentrated. “How do I do it?
If I want you to cover me?” There was a loud snap, the sound
44
The Origami Man
of a thousand dollars’ worth of pennies slamming together,
and I was a spaceship, again. It was faster, this time, and I
looked a little more human.
--you have to want it-“I look different,” I said. “Are you learning?”
--yes-“Can I do it in pieces? Like if I want my head
uncovered,” I said, and my head was uncovered. I barely saw
the helmet break apart. I concentrated, and it snapped back
into place. My vision was never obscured. I looked at my
hand. The fingers were free, but I could tell they were meant
to fit together, like a flipper. My palm was covered in a ring of
black-gold metal. I stared, and the robotic glove split into
lengths and folded down my forearm. My human hand
looked small. I looked away, and the hand rebuilt itself.
I dismantled the suit and sat down in my blue recliner.
It was an ugly chair that had followed me around since
college, ratty and uncouth but not uncomfortable. It had a lot
of character, and groaned a lot.
“I don’t know why you’re here, Cab.” I put my feet up
and stared out the window. There were trees, and leaves, and
a nest of bees. I liked to watch them.
--you don’t-“No. I take it you don’t remember either? You have
amnesia or something?”
--no---I was-A few seconds passed. I had the impression Cab was
lost for words.
--prenatal-“As in you hadn’t been born yet?”
--essentially-45
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
--consciousness and memory come with acclimation to
the host-“Listen,” I said. “You keep calling me a host. You’re not
a parasite, are you? I mean, you’re not eating me or
something?”
--I don’t eat meat---I am powered by what you call cosmic rays---which is an asinine name---what is it you people do on this planet, anyway-“We’re good at eating,” I said. “But, really, you’re not
going to hurt me?”
--it is not in my interest to harm my own host-“Fair enough.” I rubbed my chin. “So you’re only a few
hours old?”
--I have been recording memories and forming autocognizant thoughts for nineteen minutes-“Holy Christ, you’re an infant.”
--a very smart infant-“But you’re a weapon.”
--an exceedingly powerful weapon-“Isn’t it dangerous to entrust that level of destructive
ability to a brand new mind?”
--not just dangerous, irresponsible too---but that’s not what’s happening---you’re the captain---I just make everything work---I’m the scotty to your kirk-“Great, a trekkie spaceship.” I frowned. “A rhyming
trekkie spaceship.” I took a deep breath and leaned back in the
chair. Something was starting to smell about the situation.
This wasn’t a comic book; I hadn’t been sought out, and this
wasn’t an intentional accident. If Cab was as dangerous as he
46
The Origami Man
thought he was, shouldn’t he have been kept under guard?
What was he doing zipping through the cosmos?
“Cab, where are you supposed to be?” The question felt
patronizing. Where are you supposed to be young man? Do
you have a hall pass?
--cabernicia, stuck in a whale-My brain formed a question, but I put it aside. I knew it
would only lead to more questions, and I didn’t want to be
deterred.
“Shouldn’t someone have been keeping an eye on
you?”
--yeah, lots of people---think of nuclear bombs on this planet---tight security, to make sure they don’t fall into the
wrong hands---there’s something fishy about the situation-I nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”
--I thought so---our minds occupy some of the same space---we’re like mental neighbors-Mental neighbors. So Cab was in my mind. I thought
his name, hard.
--yeah, I feel that---but I can’t read your mind---I just pick up on simple things-I looked at the clock. It was barely noon. Too soon to
start drinking? Probably, and if Iris came home and caught me
with a beer she would flay me alive.
“This is permanent, isn’t it,” I said quietly. “Right?
You’re in my head. Even when we figure out what happened,
even when we get in touch with your...people, they can’t pull
you out of me, can they? This is permanent.”
--yes-47
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
I leaned my head back against the familiar backrest and
sighed.
--the acclimation bonds us on a cellular level---strictly speaking, we aren’t two organisms any more---our minds are the only pieces of us that have
remained separate-“So I have a shell and you have a body,” I said.
--that’s a decent way to look at it---we’re stuck together until we die---and, barring major catastrophe, I can’t die---and I can fix your body as you age, which should
theoretically prolong your life indefinitely---again, barring any major catastrophe---some of the oldest shipkillers are pushing a billion
years, at this point-My vision lurched as if I’d nearly fallen asleep. I sat up
and leaned forward and put my head between my knees and
hugged my chest. After a few minutes I put together enough
moisture in my mouth to swallow. My heart thudded along,
very slowly.
--I sense this information does not fill you with joy-“We’re stuck together forever, and I’m immortal,” I
said. My voice was guttural from posture and emotion. “I’m
gonna be twenty-eight forever.”
--most people would be ecstatic-“Most people are idiots,” I snapped. There was a long
pause.
--I’m sorry-I could hear the bees buzzing outside. Not just their
buzzing, but the sound of them walking around inside the
hive.
“You don’t have to apologize,” I said. “It’s just a lot to
take in.” I sat up. Time passed. Not a lot, as I would come to
48
The Origami Man
understand it. A mere drop in the eternal bucket. I tried to
picture never dying and could not. It had been easier to
contemplate eternity at eighteen. Cab should have aimed for
one of the high school kids. But then he wasn’t aiming, was
he?
Goddam accident and now I had to watch everything
I’d ever known wither and die.
What would Earth be like a billion years from now?
Red and dead was my understanding. Where would I go?
Would I be able to maintain my sanity over such a long time,
or would the encroaching millennia bring with them
madness? A billion years. Hell. I could have cried. My hands
were shaking.
I should have parked with everybody else.
49
Chapter 6
--Captain---we’re being hailed---shall I open a channel-I’d been sitting still for a long time, trying not to think
and thinking about the future. Hailed? That was a radio term,
right? A naval phrase or something, basically meant getting
shouted at. Something wanted my attention. “You mean
someone wants to talk to us, right?”
--to you---range approximately five hundred twenty thousand
kilometers and closing-I blinked. That was a lot closer than I would have
expected. I did some quick and dirty math. That was just a
little ways outside the orbit of the moon. And closing. I
cleared my throat. “Open a hailing channel.”
--but we’re already being hailed-“Just let me talk to him, Cab,” I sighed. “I’m new at
this, remember?”
--how could I forget-I heard a click between my brain cheeks, and then
words in my head.
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
“...you filthy animal! You damn well stay put until I get
there, and if you put so much as a scratch on my shipkiller I’ll
blow you away!”
“Is that a British accent?” Apparently I was
transmitting.
“Ah! It’s speaks! Listen here, you little thief, you give
me any trouble and I’ll vaporize your planet! Don’t even
move.”
I muted the channel with a thought. “Cab, can he really
do that?”
--nah, you’d need something really big to burn up a
whole planet---his ship is solid, but it’s nothing to write home about-“Fair enough,” I said. “What’s the deal with his
accent?”
--coincidence---vabling mouths mute the R sounds and round out the
Os---does sound a bit like the queen’s english doesn’t it---never noticed the similarity---then again I’m only a half-hour old....now-“Congratulations.” I wasn’t sure how to proceed.
Should I attempt to negotiate? Strike up a conversation? “How
come he’s speaking English?”
--translation machine---range one hundred thousand kilometers-Perhaps, I thought, I should go outside. I stood up and
hurried to the back yard.
“Cab, let me talk to him again.” The crickets stopped
chirping when I hopped off the porch. The lawn needed
mowing.
--you don’t have to say it out loud---sub vocalize-52
The Origami Man
“Dammit Uhura, just do it!”
--I should have aimed for the moon-Another click in my head.
“I said don’t move you acrophobic beast! Don’t make
me exterminate your species!”
“Wait a minute,” I laughed without meaning to.
“Acrophobic? Isn’t that fear of heights?”
“What are you going to do about it you bald freak, die
at me?” The Vabling’s voice was high, almost screechy, but it
rumbled as if it was coming from a big chest. I realized I had
no idea what I was getting myself into.
--fifty thousand kilometers---he’s slowing-“Cab? What should I do?”
--on his planet you’d be kicking his ass for the insults---although I think bald freak is pretty accurate---his weapons are warming up-Fear grabbed me like a hungry animal. I looked around
for a place to hide, thinking dumbly that the grass wouldn’t
need mowing, after all. Where could I run? The shed? The
lawn mower would blow up. The house? Dylan and Iris
would kill me.
“Cab, what’s he armed with?”
--a pair of thermal blasters-“I don’t know what to do,” I whimpered. ”I don’t
know what to do!”
Cab’s disgust twisted in my gut.
--it’s just a pair of thermal blasters-“I don’t know what that means!” I yelled. At least the
high hedges would keep me hidden from the neighbors. “I
hate getting burned!”
--you are so backward---first: ship-53
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
Cab reared up and engulfed me in the same dozen
pairs of symmetrical wings as before. I yelped.
--you better not piss yourself---go kick his ass-“Cab!” I shouted. “I! Don’t! Know! How!”
--well, you’re a grown man and I don’t have training
wheels---you’ve got freem drives built into your back and
body, with boosters on your hands and feet---and there are weapons on your arms---start with the drive on your back-The plates over my shoulders shook themselves and
began to crackle with golden energy. The rings on my palms
did the same.
--just think at ‘em and you’ll go-Think at them. Think what, please? I stared at my palm
and thought, Go!
Golden energy flashed out of the ring. If I had used
both hands, and had them pointed at the ground, and been
balanced correctly, I would have risen dramatically into the
air. As it was, my right hand was out as if to shake. The
golden energy flashed, and I spun about seventeen times in
place. After a second, I fell over.
“I’m going to throw up,” I grunted. “Oh god. I’m going
to throw up in you.”
--if you puke I will fly us into the sun---no lie-“I hate my life,” I said as I stood up. “I hate my life.”
Think at them. Hell.
I thought at the engines on my back and hurtled into
the sky trailing the screamingest scream I have ever screamed.
This wasn’t flying, this was being hauled into space by a
missile.
54
The Origami Man
At least puking wouldn’t be a problem; I was sure I had
left my stomach on the lawn.
--you’re at a thousand miles---level off and try to use your hands and feet-My wings cut out and I started to fall. I screamed
calmly and pushed at my feet, and bounced back towards the
edge of the atmosphere. Cut out with the feet, pushed with
my hands, and bounced higher, screaming all the while. I
pushed less with my hands and put a little pressure on my
feet. The clouds were beneath me and it was hard to tell from
the distant curve of the horizon, but I thought I was slowing
down.
I tried to hover, and found I could do so without using
my hands. My scalp itched, and I told the helmet to take a
hike.
--nope---I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’re in space-I turned around on angled feet. Now that I was getting
used to it, flight was pretty intuitive. Like swimming. I could
see the edge of the atmosphere beneath me, a scant haze that
distinguished where I had been from where I was. This was
space. I was in space.
I was in space, wearing an alien spaceship, about to do
battle with an alien. In space. My eyes lost their focus and my
chest started to heave. An alien. I was in space to meet an
alien.
--I think our friend has given up on diplomacy---oops, there we go---heads up-A bar of shimmering energy shot past me and caught
fire as it lanced through the atmosphere. I watched it pass
with an idle expression. Another zipped by, and then the
world lit up in shimmering blue light. I screamed some more.
55
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
--shields, those are your shields, good lord, shut up---just stop screaming-“I have shields?” I said. The shields continued to
flicker.
--I would have been better off in a turkey vulture-“Cut me a break, Cab. It’s not like you came with
instructions.”
--listen, I’m sick of getting shot---point your arm where I tell you and shoot the
sonovabitch-A red crosshairs flashed in my vision, while a green
one began to follow my right hand. I pointed, and when the
crosshairs overlapped, Cab gave me the go-ahead.
“Hey,” I said, “this isn’t going to kill him, is it? I don’t
want to start a war.”
--god forbid I do what I was made to do---no---I targeted his power plant---his auxiliaries won’t power his weapons---or anything other than life support, actually---but it’s cool, you can help him---you’re a bleeding heart-“This has been the strangest day,” I said. I
concentrated, and then with all my might thought, FIRE!
56
Chapter 7
A violet beam of something more solid than light bored
out of the tip of the weapon on my right forearm. It made a
sound along my bone like air being blown hard through teeth,
and I could feel the expenditure of energy as a sort of release.
A trickle out of an enormous reservoir.
After three seconds the beam disappeared. Something a
long way off flared bright orange.
--good shot-“That wasn’t a laser,” I said. “I wouldn’t have seen a
laser.” Another, smaller, flash, this one red.
--I built you something like a merkhan cutting beam---similar to a laser---but also similar conceptually to a squirt gun-“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said.
--you just don’t know the physics---it’s all very simple-A third flash, almost invisible against the darkness. I
looked back at Earth. I was done, right? Time to go home?
“Is he ok? The Vabling?”
--he’s fine---a little shook up---heart’s going a mile a minute, but he’ll pull through-“You can hear his heart?” I frowned.
--I’m an alien superweapon--
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
--so, yes-“You think he knows anything useful?” I asked. I
kicked my feet a little in the null gravity. “He was looking for
you.”
--if he was looking for me, he must know something---and at this point I think any information is good
information-“I agree.” I took a deep breath. “Ok, let’s go meet an
alien.”
The engines responded to my urging and wrenched me
away from Earth. According to the display on the inside of my
screen, the Vabling had been about forty thousand kilometers
away. Now the number was shrinking faster than I could
follow.
“Cab, how fast are we going?” My voice sounded a
little shaky.
--not very---.0224 light speed---about fifteen million miles an hour-There was pressure on my chest when I tried to
breathe, enough that I had to force the air into my lungs. Each
breath exploded out of me, and was immediately replaced by
another frantic gulp.
--you’re fine---it’s all in your head---the inertial dampers are working---if they weren’t, you would already be dead-That was a cold comfort.
Earth shrank for a long second, and froze. Forty
thousand kilometers in the time it took to write this sentence.
From that distance Earth was the biggest thing around, and it
looked so small that I thought it would be just as easy to miss
it, or fall off, as it would be to land on it, and go home. The
58
The Origami Man
moon was huge, larger than I had ever seen it, off to my left
and a long ways off still.
I turned in place, stared out at the stars, and suddenly I
was five years old again, in the ocean for the first time.
Standing, so I couldn’t have been in more than two or three
feet of water and the surf was gentle and the sun was shining
and my parents were right behind me and everything was
fine, but when I looked out over the horizon while I was
pushed and pulled by this giant dark thing, this thing that was
so much bigger and stronger than I could ever hope to be, I
realized for the first time how tiny I was. And I was terrified.
“Cab,” I said. My voice was cacophonous inside my
head. “Cab, where’s Vab? Where did this thing come from?”
--vabl---there-A yellow point appeared to my right. Next to it, in the
same color, was printed Vabl, 6567.418.
“What about where you’re from?”
--cabernicia---there-A smaller point, still in yellow, and Cabernicia,
19,732.895.
“What are those numbers, distances?”
--yes, in parsecs-They were a long way apart. A parsec was longer than
a light year, although I couldn’t remember by how much. But
the distance was incredible.
“Are there others?” I asked. “Other inhabited worlds?”
--buddy you have no idea---here-The stars disappeared, replaced by millions of pairs of
names and numbers in all the colors of the rainbow save blue.
All of space lit up like the Vegas strip, the entirety of galactic
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civilization laid bare before me as names on a map. The closer
the planet, the bigger the name. Some were quite close. We’d
never known how much we were missing, we humans. The
galaxy was saturated with life.
My heart began to pound and my limbs went leaden. It
was too much. So many worlds, and so much time. So much
new information, so many changes, too much to keep track of.
Too much pressure. Too much to think about. I was sweating
bullets, drenched before I noticed. I couldn’t get enough air. I
didn’t even know where the air came from. I didn’t know
anything.
For a moment I allowed the wish that I had died in
Dryden, and then anxiety rose up within me as a toxic cloud, a
savior whose distraction tore at my soul and filled my mind
with blessed static.
60
Chapter 8
I drifted for a while, keening like a terrified animal.
There was pressure on my body from all sides, like I was deep
under water. Every breath in was a victory; each breath out
was a loss.
In an instant I had been transformed from a
knowledgeable person in the most advanced era of history to
an ignoramus, an animal incapable of comprehending a larger
world. There was life, intelligent life, right there, right next to
us...and we had never known. We had just continued blithely
on, well within sight of alien life. It was beyond shocking. It
was embarrassing. And even with a long life, how could I hope
to see even a fraction of these worlds? Earth had been big
enough; this was too much.
“Stop,” I said, waving my hand. “Get rid of them.” The
names disappeared. The stars came back, but even the stellar
panorama was too much to take. Dark, I ordered, and
darkness reigned. I listened to my heart and breathed
rhythmically, in through my nose, out through my mouth. I
became conscious of my body in free fall. For the first time in
my life, my organs hung where they chose, and not where
gravity decreed. It was rather comfortable. I smiled in the dark
and rolled my shoulders, kicked my feet, utterly unfettered.
The sensation of weightlessness was an alien relief, but a relief
nonetheless.
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
The problems I have, I thought, I will face as they come.
I took a deep breath, let it out. Whatever I cannot solve today
will wait for tomorrow. I will start with whatever is in front of
me.
Sight, I thought, and was at once blessed. The stars
pressed down on me, and I pressed back. After a second there
was balance. I was here, and they were there, and here was
what mattered.
My heart slowed down.
--feel better-“Yes,” I said. My voice creaked a little. “It’s a lot to take
in.”
--so you’ve said-Now. What was in front of me? The Vabling. I still
needed answers.
“Can you get me on board his ship?”
--the vabling---does the pope poop in the woods---do bears wear funny hats-“That’s a yes?”
--yeah, sure---I’m sentient, he’s not---his ship, that is---thinkers trump non-thinkers-“Glad to hear it,” I grunted. “Can we still talk to him?”
--yeah---you’re on the air, live with Greg Samson, the bald
freak-“Hello?” My voice broke. Really should do vocal
warm-ups before screaming my way into space and having a
panic attack outside of satellite orbit. So much for the majesty
of first contact. Oh well. Even Neil Armstrong flubbed a line
or two in his career.
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The Origami Man
I could hear atmospheric sounds, gentle wind and
heavy breathing. Someone was listening.
“This is,” I said, “this is Captain Samson of the...” I
stalled. This was getting off to a rough start.
--I would so love to be called the buttercup-“Shut up,” I grunted.
--live mic-“Don’t tell me to shut up you rotten, disease ridden
animal!”
I jumped. The tenor threw me off, but there was a
definite mass behind the voice.
“All right, that’s it,” I growled. I wasn’t being
theatrical; I don’t like being insulted, and now that the shock
was wearing off, I was getting irritated. After all, who shot
whom first? “I’m coming aboard, asshole. You do anything
stupid I’ll cut your ship in half.”
Off, I thought. “Cab, we can do that, right?”
--oh yeah, halves, quarters, you name it---eighths even-I took off towards the Vabling ship, a few miles away,
and was on top of it immediately. In fact I almost overshot it. I
had an awful lot of horsepower in my little engines.
The ship hung in space, still and dark. It resembled an
almond, or a slightly flattened football. It was about twice as
wide as it was tall, and came to a dull point at either end. A
pair of wings on the top and bottom gave it the look of a
futuristic biplane, except the wings curved to touch at the tips.
There was no visible cockpit or engine. A molten hole in the
side spat rainbow sparks at regular intervals. It wasn’t a big
hole, but it was apparent that it went straight through the ship
and out the other side. Cab didn’t tiptoe around.
“Ahoy busted ship,” I called. “Once more, I am coming
aboard. Please don’t do anything stupid.” I felt the tattered
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
edge of my sanity flapping in the void of whatever lay beyond
and grinned maniacally.
“I come in peace.”
64
Chapter 9
I was a lot further away than I thought. Space is mostly
devoid of spatial reference, so distances are hard to judge. The
Vabling ship was, in fact, the size of a large cruise ship. The
wings stretched about four hundred meters from tip to tip,
and were as wide as an eight-lane highway. Although it was
smooth, seemingly aerodynamic, it was apparent that unlike
Cab this ship had been built, not grown. I looked around the
hull, and Cab zoomed in on wherever I focused. It was a
pretty neat trick. I glanced back at Earth and wondered
fleetingly how far I could see if I tried.
My feet clamped on to the hull like neodymium
magnets on an old refrigerator. I could walk, but I wasn’t
graceful. Still, it was nice to have something under my feet
again, even if my floating organs told me I was still in free fall.
My back felt great.
Cab led me to a circular airlock, built so cleanly into the
hull that I wouldn’t have noticed it without his help. It was
about five meters across and studded with regularly spaced
bubbles that reminded me of pimples.
“What are those things?” I asked, pointing.
--safety measure---they’re filled with pressurized construction foam---fast drying---very strong--
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
--if the airlock is punctured they explode to seal the
leak---some ships are covered in them-“Do you have anything like that?”
--yeah---I heal---here we go-The airlock cracked into eight triangular slices, and my
stomach growled. Breakfast had been a long time ago, and my
brain, starved for a familiar sight, suddenly decided that the
airlock looked like pizza, with the security foam as the
pepperoni.
“You ever had pizza?”
--I have eaten what you have eaten, today---so no-“We’ll have to fix that,” I said.
It’s good to concentrate on the mundane in a stressful
situation.
The airlock opened into a huge empty room that looked
like it ran the length of the ship, lit by soft red lights that
muted detail and turned most colors black. Emergency lights,
probably. There were lines painted all across the floor,
breaking the room into sections, and a system of cranes
dangled from the ceiling. Cargo hold or docking bay? Dust
swirled across the floor in little eddies, propelled by small
sourceless winds. I made to take off the helmet and
remembered a minor fact, long forgotten, that household dust
is mostly human skin. What was this dust made of?
“Cab, can I take off my helmet? Can I breathe here?”
--yeah he should be fine-I frowned. “Who should be fine?”
--the vabling-“Bully for him,” I snorted. “What about me?”
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The Origami Man
--what about you---you’ll be fine---you’ve got me-What I didn’t know could have filled a much larger
book than this one.
Headless, I thought. The helmet cracked away and I
rubbed my scalp. My hair was greasy. If I was going to make a
habit of space travel, it might make sense to shave my head. I
have rather angular features, though, and it wouldn’t do to
run around looking like a space-faring neo-Nazi.
The Vabling ship smelled like a zoo. Not like shit or
grass but like animals, big furry ones. The ceiling was high
and the only door I could see was tall and wide. The
instrument panel on the side was six feet off the ground. I
thought of the voice I’d heard over the radio, the way it had
seemed to rumble out of a huge chest. My helmet rebuilt itself
slowly as Cab picked up on my sudden apprehension. Part of
me wanted to turn tail and burn rubber back to Earth.
Still, I’d come this far. Might as well open the door and
see what was on the other side. I bent at the knees and tried to
creep, but my feet were made out of alien alloys that clanged
on the deck like iron bars on bronze pillars. I took two
cautious steps, then gave up and stomped over to the door.
Stealth be damned.
“Cab, do I have any smaller weapons? I don’t want to
blow another hole in the hull.”
--sure, try this-The weapons on my arms dismantled and expanded,
like a Hoberman sphere, so that each component was briefly
visible. Then the pieces began to change and rearrange
themselves, with each piece moving along its own individual
path until they formed a new machine, something like a
shotgun supported within a glass latticework, built into a
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
frame that ran the length of my forearm. It looked more like a
piece of abstract sculpture than a weapon.
“And what, pray, is this?” I asked.
--kinetic burster---shoots a massless projectile with a pretty serious
thermal signature---sort of like a big flaming bullet-“A massless projectile,” I said. “That doesn’t make any
sense.”
--again, you’re a backward animal from a backward
planet with only the most cursory understanding of physics---so, yes, it does---just not to you-“Fine,” I grumbled. “Long as it works. Open the door.”
The door clicked, hissed, and slid into the wall. It was
everything an inveterate nerd could hope for.
There was something big on the other side. I took a step
back and raised my hand-guns, then backed up another step
for good measure.
“You’re kidding,” I said.
The Vabling was, simply put, a ten-foot tall skinny
green gorilla. It had very long feet and stood on its toes, like a
cat, and there was a certain feline cast to its features, but the
overwhelming impression I got was of a stretched ape. Its face
was a cross between a tiger and a gorilla, thick features and a
huge muzzle, with eyes the size of baseballs. Its fur was the
color of north-facing tree moss, a rich Earth tone shot through
with brighter shades of green. The beast was pointing a pistol
the size of a shotgun at my sternum, held at the hip in a loose
but very steady grip.
In an amazing display of diplomatic self-control, we
didn’t kill each other.
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The Origami Man
“Hell,” the Vabling said. “You made it on board.
Disgusting.” Its high-pitched voice rumbled out of its thick
chest like thunder. There was a low note in there that hadn’t
made it over the radio that made it sound as if the Vabling
had two voices, and thanks to the translation machinery, its
words didn’t match up with the motion of its mouth, so that I
heard English but saw movements that should have produced
barks or grunts. All in all, communication was jarring.
“So the seed bonded to an earthling,” it said. “What a
waste.”
I let that pass. Its hair was thick, and flatter on one axis
than on the other, like grass. It was longer in some places, and
thicker, like feathers without down. Not one follicle was out of
place. The regulated density reminded me of reeds. If I had
fur like that, I probably wouldn’t wear a shirt either.
Its eyes were gigantic and slanted down, and I could
see the edge of a thick third eyelid by the tear duct. Its pupils
were massive, inky black, at least an inch in diameter, with a
brilliant gold iris. I focused there, and Cab enlarged the image.
The Vabling eye was studded at forty-five degree angles with
eight smaller pupils, which dilated and contracted according
to necessity.
I couldn’t stop grinning. Thank god for the helmet, I
must have looked like an idiot.
It was obvious from the size of the Vabling’s muzzle
that its teeth were huge. Sharp or dull, I wondered. I bet on
sharp. This was that kind of animal. It had two sets of elbows,
a large load bearing joint close to the body and a smaller,
more dexterous second near its thick wrists. Its ears were very
human, although they were large and slightly pointed. Long
stiff hairs fanned out nearly a foot behind each ear, so that
each one appeared much larger than it actually was. These
hairs were yellow and blue, mostly, although a few bright red
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
ones stood out among the cooler colors. They grew flush to
the skull, but even as I watched the hair behind one ear
rippled unconsciously.
I was so rapt with attention that when the Vabling
holstered its weapon I almost opened fire. It was very fast, for
such a large creature.
“Damn,” it said, turning away. “Damn, damn, damn.”
The damns followed the alien down a corridor, out of sight,
and I clanked after it. I couldn’t have met an alien with a
carpeted ship?
The Vabling led me to a room filled with screens
divided into color-coded sections. It began to examine a screen
in the red section, which, if I interpreted the pictures correctly,
was devoted to engines and power systems. A very detailed
image of the ship spun slowly in the middle of the room.
There was a red line running at an angle through the center;
this was probably my doing. I stood in front of my host and it
moved to another screen.
“Hi.” I held out my hand. “My name is Gregory
Samson.” After a second I made the weaponized gauntlet
skitter backwards up my arm.
“Captain Samson, I presume, of the anonymous
shipkiller.” The Vabling bared its teeth at my hand. “Cover
yourself.”
I dropped my hand and the gauntlet grew back
sheepishly. The alien didn’t seem very impressed with me.
Was first contact de rigueur to these people?
“You know what this is?” I said, touching my chest.
“This ship?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
The Vabling sneered.
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The Origami Man
“Ignoring the fact that you’re wearing one of the most
advanced and recognizable weapons in the galaxy,” it said,
“the only reason I’m anywhere near this backwater is because
I’ve been trying to get my hands on that particular weapon for
a long time.”
“Great,” I said. “You got a name, in case you decide to
try something stupid and I have to shoot you?”
I could tell I scared him by the way he rolled his eyes
and showed no other reaction to my threat.
“No, I have no name,” It said, turning back to the
screens. “My species have advanced far beyond the need for
names.”
“Really?” I couldn’t keep the grin out of my voice.
Probably did wonders for my intimidating persona. “That’s so
cool!”
The Vabling looked at me for several seconds. “That
was a joke. Do they have jokes where you come from?” It
turned away quickly, but I caught a glimpse of a mirthful
expression. “My name is Rell.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “Are you, uh, male?”
Rell gave me a look.
“If I say yes, are you going to ask to check?”
“No,” I stammered.
“Yes, I’m male.” He went back to the screen. After a
second he muttered something sharp and moved to another
readout, where he typed something.
“You were trying to steal Cab,” I said.
“Cab?” Rell asked.
“The ship.”
“You’ve named the bloody thing. Wonderful. Yes, I
was going to steal ‘Cab.’ ‘Cab’ is worth a lot of money, money
I was going to retire on. Due, however, to circumstances
beyond my control, I will be forced to repair my ship.” He
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
narrowed his eyes at me. “At great cost, I might add.” He
gestured at the image floating in the middle of the room.
“You’ve punctured the korp relay in my freem drive. I
can’t safely contain the plunk effect.”
I gave him a blank look, but then, with the helmet on,
all my looks were blank. “So...it was a good shot?”
Rell leaned against the wall and folded his arms. The
second elbow was omnidirectional, more of a second wrist, so
when he folded his arms he still had his hands free. Rell stared
at me. “It was a damn good shot,” he said finally. “Nice
work.”
“I had help,” I said.
“I’m sure you did.” Rell reached out and grabbed at the
hologram, and it enlarged along a section. “See there? You hit
the relay dead on, but only holed a total of three rooms.
Maximum efficacy and minimum impact. I’m crippled, no
power beyond life support, but the ship at large is
undamaged.”
“My ship helped me,” I said. “Cab. He helps me a lot.”
--aw shucks-“He’d make a dandy pirate,” Rell said. He frowned. “I
can’t even negotiate a warp path. Hum.”
--there’s your opening-I don’t think Rell could hear Cab. He was mine and
mine alone. Great.
“The warp isn’t powered by the korp drive?”
--korp relay---freem drive-“No,” Rell said, giving me a funny look. “Warp drives
aren’t on the korp relay.”
“So you could warp out of here? Get your ship fixed
somewhere?”
Rell nodded.
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The Origami Man
“Ok,” I said. “I’ll give you a push. I can do that, right?”
--it’s a little undignified-“And in return you want what?” Rell said. He was
unmoving, languid. He almost looked bored.
“Well, for starters, no more shooting at me,” I said.
“Sure,” Rell nodded.
“I have a lot of questions I need answered,” I said.
“I’ll do what I can.”
“No more trying to steal Cab?” I said. Rell shrugged.
“There’s no point, anymore. You’re stuck with him.
That it?”
I looked at him, leaning against the wall, utterly alien
and maddeningly familiar. We were negotiating for a
mundane service. Concentrate on the eyes and the fur, I
thought hard. Try to ignore the fact that you’re basically
giving him a jump on the turnpike.
The gauntlet slid up my arm and the helmet cracked
away. “You have to shake my hand.”
The fur flattened around the alien’s skull and his lips
pressed into a tight line, but he held out his hand. I shook it
with as firm a grip as I could muster against such sheer size,
and looked him in the eye.
“Greg Samson,” I said.
“Rell,” he said. “Rell Quizops.”
Rell Quizops. Rell Quizops the green space gorilla. This
was reality; it was too tangible to be anything else. Even so, I
had to admit my life was starting to sound like a Saturday
morning cartoon, something geared towards hyperactive
seven to twelve year old boys who lived in the suburbs. The
adventures of Greg Samson, space adventurer. The horror. No
man’s life should best resemble the idiot power fantasy of an
adolescent, but there I was, wearing a transforming spaceship,
shaking hands with an alien.
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
It wasn’t even noon.
74
Chapter 10
Rell walked out of the control room holding his hand
away from his body. He found me revolting. What was that
about?
“If you’ve got questions, ask,” Rell said over his
shoulder. His stride was long, seven or eight feet at a walk,
and I had to jog to keep up. The muscles rolled under his skin,
long and graceful but dense, imposing. He reminded me of
stones under moss.
“Where are we going?” We moved into a different part
of the ship, where the aesthetic became a little more...alien.
Wood paneling that gave the impression of walking through a
hollowed out log, or a tunnel through a giant tree.
“I’m hungry,” Rell said. “I’m going to eat.”
He took a left into a huge room in bright white and
chrome surfaces, all ninety-degree angles and sleek
sophistication. I thought I recognized a stove and a
refrigerator, but my attention was mostly devoted to the
window that stretched across the entirety of the far wall. A
wonderful view of Earth, and at that point I was only in my
second hour in space; Earth was still the most fascinating
thing I’d ever seen. Even Rell paled in comparison to the
unimpeded view of my home planet. Australia was rising,
and I could just make out the eastern tip of Japan. And it was
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
right there, in front of me, as real as the alien rummaging in
the fridge for lunch makings.
The contrast between the mundane and the staggering
was going to snap my mind like a goddam rubber band.
There was a table, appropriately sized for Rell but
oddly nostalgic for me. I was five the last time I was this short
in a kitchen. There was fruit in a bowl. I hoisted myself up on
a very tall chair and took a closer look. It was grapes, except
each grape was a tiny neon blue banana. I picked one
delicately. Was I supposed to peel it?
“Don’t touch that,” Rell said. “You already did.
Dammit, Samson, miggles are expensive. I have to throw
those away, now. Don’t touch anything. Get back in your
ship.”
“Hey, watch it.” I hopped onto the floor and the helmet
snapped into place. “Who do you think you are, talking to me
like that?”
Rell stepped forward with a kitchen knife the size of a
machete. “You, you diseased freak. Don’t touch my food.”
--he’s clean---sorry---that slipped my mind, I should have told you-Rell shrank back with the knife in front of him, the
blade edge out along his forearm. “What the hell is that?”
--me---Cab---hey Greg by the way I can talk out loud---just so you know---rell, he’s clean, you won’t catch anything---you don’t have to throw away your...miggles-After a second, Rell put the knife on the counter. His
fur was very flat, except for the fans around his ears, which
were wavering rhythmically.
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The Origami Man
“Ok,” he said at length. “You’re sure about this?”
--yeah---cleaned him right out-Rell looked relieved.
“Excuse me?” I said. “What is going on? What do you
mean you cleaned me out?” I popped the miggle in my
mouth. It tasted like vanilla and cinnamon, and crunched like
a nut.
--well---basically earth is a quarantine planet, and nothing is
supposed to go in or out of the atmosphere---ever-I coughed a little. The miggles were spicy. “What do
you mean, quarantine planet? Why?”
“Because you’re a disgusting race that lives in your
own filth and you swap diseases for fun,” Rell said. He dug in
the fridge again and came out with a pair of gargantuan
steaks. “You hungry?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I can eat that, can’t I, Cab.” It
wasn’t a question.
--yep---you could eat a light bulb now, not that you’d want
to---I’d find something nutritious in there-“And it won’t make me sick?”
--nope---you can’t really...get sick anymore-I frowned. “But why are we quarantined?”
--because terrestrial viruses are some of the deadliest
organisms in the galaxy-Rell put a huge cast-iron pan on the counter and
touched a button. After a second, the pan began to smoke.
“Disease is an uncommon occurrence in the galaxy,” he said.
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
“Most species develop immune systems that do away with the
body’s ability to retain viruses and bacteria even
asymptomatically, along with body systems that don’t require
the retention of bacteria in order to function. Humans, on the
other hand, did not.” He slapped the steaks onto the hot
surface and shook spices over them. Salt and pepper, or sulfur
and nightshade?
“So you just cut us off?”
--it’s not just your immune systems---your diseases are incredibly prone to mutation---very hard to control-“Plagues aren’t fun, Samson.” Rell flipped the meat. “I
thought I was going to have to hightail it to a hospital, after I
shook your hand.” He grimaced a little. “Not that there’s
anything they could have done for me.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“You didn’t give me much choice,” Rell said.
I frowned. “Sorry.”
Rell shook his head.
“So is this quarantine going to be lifted anytime soon?”
I asked.
Rell shrugged. He was very human.
--when you evolve---so for all intents and purposes, no---not for a long time-“How long?”
--based on current human physiology coupled with the
contemporary rate of technological expansion and
development, factoring in world events and cultural barriers---between seven and fifteen thousand years---ballpark-“And so, no one in or out,” I said. “No contact. This
was entirely an accident.”
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The Origami Man
Rell laughed. The translator ignored it, and I realized it
was the first sound I’d heard him make on his own. His laugh
was guttural, a series of quick grunts. It was an unbelievably
happy noise. I couldn’t help but like him a little more, all of a
sudden.
“This is very, very illegal,” he said. “Us meeting like
this. I could be thrown in quarantine for the rest of my life,
just for getting this close to your planet.”
“You’re taking a big risk,” I said.
“The hell I am, you forced your way aboard.” Rell’s
eyes were bright, and he was smiling very wide. His teeth
were sharp. I knew it.
“You figure they’ll give you a break because of that?”
“Nah, they catch me here they’ll throw me in a hole.
But screw the Core.” He flipped the steaks again.
“Cab, what’d you mean I wouldn’t get sick again?”
--I fixed your immune system---you won’t get sick again---I might not be able to put it any more simply-Just like that. I shook my head. So much of the last
twenty-four hours had happened just like that. Just like that,
I’m dead. Just like that, I’m alive. Just like that, there are
aliens. Just like that, I’m immortal. Now even getting a cold
was off the table. I ditched the helmet. My face felt heavy.
“I would think a hyper-evolved immune system would
be cause for celebration,” Rell said quietly. He flipped the
steaks one more time, then put them on plates and gave me
one. The meat was white-pink and fragrant.
“This is a lot to get used to,” I said. “So I’m the first
human to make contact with any of you people?”
“Not quite,” Rell said. “There’s a research facility on
Ghaneb Three with a sizable human population. And there’s a
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
pan-species zoo system somewhere near the Core, too. They
have humans.”
--lifeworld-“Yeah, Lifeworld,” Rell said. He gave me a big twotined fork and a knife I could have used to butcher pigs, and
sat down to eat his lunch. “Dumb name, but I hear it’s a
wonderful place. Eighty planets in synchronous orbit, covered
in exhibits and preserves.
“And that’s it?” I asked.
“As far as I know,” Rell said. “Am I missing anything,
ship?”
--there are no other official human intervention projects
on record---and call me Cab-I nodded and cut my steak. It was a lot to get through.
“So we’re cut off, is what I’m hearing. There’s some massive
galactic...”
--federation, republic, amalgamation-“...Government,” I continued, “and we’re cut off? No
love for homo sapiens?” I cut a strip of meat, cut it in half, then
in half again. It was a big bite. “Rell, what am I about to eat?”
“Idip,” Rell said through a glistening mouthful of idip.
The air reeked of cooked idip. Idip. I suppose chicken is a
weird word too, when you think about it.
“What’s an idip?” I asked. “Or is that a proper noun?
Was this Idip?”
--idip are large flightless birds that bear live young---they live in trees-The animal that came to mind looked like a tough
ostrich. I grinned and took a bite. The idip was good, more
like goose or duck than chicken, with a beefy juiciness and a
scant calamari texture. Rell had served a bowl of greens, too,
and I tried them. They tasted like greens, slightly bitter, then
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The Origami Man
sweet. I ate them because I figured they were good for me, not
that it mattered much anymore.
“Thanks for lunch,” I said.
“Eh.” Rell shrugged. “Thanks for not killing me.”
“Sorry about your ship.”
“I shot at you. You scared hell out of me.”
I chewed for a time, then swallowed. Rell was nearly
finished with his meal, and I’d barely made a dent in mine.
This had to be a ten-pound steak.
“I scared you?” I said finally. My jaw was a little sore.
“Yep,” Rell said. He pulled a cigar case the size of a
hardcover novel out of his pocket and lit an obscene cigar on
the stove behind him. To accomplish this he leaned his chair
back on two legs and bent over backwards. I would have
fallen, but the alien made it look easy. He stayed that way for
a moment, turning the cigar in his mouth to get it evenly lit,
then sat up gracefully.
“Do you mind,” he asked through a cloud of smoke. I
shook my head. “I didn’t think the seed would bind to a
human,” he said. “In fact, I wasn’t aware that was possible.
I’ve only ever heard of the seeds being implanted in hoon
whales.”
--me neither---I know it’s theoretically possible, but no one’s ever
tried it-“It was a good idea,” Rell said. “You showed up on my
sensors as a fully-functional shipkiller. You’re a force to be
reckoned with.”
“Yeah, great, I can’t wait to tell the folks,” I said. “How
did Cab end up on Earth?”
Rell took a drag and held it. The cigar reeked of
cinnamon and cardamom. He looked at me for a long time
through the smoke, then shrugged. “I was trying to steal him,
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and things went wrong.” He grimaced and paused, I don’t
think intentionally. “I was going to camp out in orbit until I
figured out how to retrieve him. If you hadn’t found him,
maybe...” he ground to a stop. What was in the cigar, I
wondered.
“I didn’t find him,” I said. “He fell on me, I nearly
died.”
--you make me sound like a piano---I fixed you, man, we’re cool, come on-Rell was staring at me. After a second he started to grin,
then chuckle. The expression, and the accompanying sound,
grew until Rell was smiling ear to ear and roaring laughter.
His teeth were terrifying.
“What’s so funny?” I asked when I got tired of listening
to him laugh.
“He fell on you?” Rell grunted. Tears streamed out of
his eyes and were lost in the fur on his face. “He fell on you.
You didn’t find him?”
I shook my head.
“Of course you didn’t, how would you know what he
was, anyway?” Rell wiped his eyes. “You’re scientific history,
the first seed implanted in a sentient host, the first seed
implanted in a non-whale host, the first clean human, the first
human to make contact, and it was all an accident.” He
chortled again and shook his head.
“You might be, pound for pound, one of the most
powerful beings in the galaxy, and it’s all because of
coincidence.” He sighed. “What a strange place this is.”
“What, Earth?” I said. Rell shook his head.
“The galaxy,” he said. “Life. Life is funny.”
“Big joke,” I said. “Hilarious. What went wrong, trying
to steal Cab?”
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The Origami Man
The laughter drained out of Rell. His body went still,
like he’d just run a long distance. “There was a firefight,” he
said, and got up. “You want a beer?”
I nodded.
“Where was this?” I asked.
--cabernicia---the seeds are grown in cabernicia---rell, how did you get in system---you should have been vacuum grease the second you
crossed the border-“Nice ship you’ve made there, Samson,” Rell said. He
handed me a gallon-sized beer bottle with a three-inch mouth.
“Got a straw?” I asked.
Rell shook his head.
“I’ll make do,” I said. “How did you get into
Cabernicia?”
“Like a dog after a bone,” Rell said, and drank about a
quarter of his beer. Did they have dogs on his planet, or had
the translator fudged a line? “I never said I was in
Cabernicia.”
Cab’s confusion fluttered around my head.
“Cabernicia is almost as hard to get into as the Core
systems,” Rell went on. “Remember, shipkillers are meant to
be big. They’re capital ships, just one could turn the tide in
any minor war. The Core Navy has billions of the damn
things, maybe trillions. They make up the bulk of the Core’s
military strength. If I had to steal a seed from Cabernicia, I’d
be better off staying home and wishing than trying to get into
cabber space. And to get as far as the Garden? You’d have to
be invincible, invisible or packing a hell of a big ship. I’m oh
for three. The seed was about five thousand parsecs outside
Cabernician space when I made my move, maybe a thousand
parsecs from the front.”
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
--that’s impossible---seeds don’t leave the system without a host-“You did,” Rell said quietly. “I caught a seed smith
trying to sell you to the Krr.”
Cab’s shock vibrated in the back of my mind and made
me jump. Devoid of context, the experience of someone else’s
emotions was unnerving. I took a big bite of steak and chewed
hard, washed it down with some beer. Cab was chittering to
himself, mulling over what Rell had told us at some ridiculous
speed, and I could hear him on top of my brain. Probably
meant it was important, what Rell had just told me, but
damned if I knew why, or even what he had said. The gap
between what I knew and what I needed to know was
maddening. I felt like a dachshund trying to fly a jumbo jet.
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Chapter 11
The air in the kitchen was heavy, steamed and smoked.
Pleasant. Rell sat and puffed his cigar while Cab worked out a
response.
--that’s bullshit-They can’t all be winners.
“Afraid not, Cab,” Rell said.
--but it doesn’t make any sense---why would a cabernician sell to the krr-“Money comes to mind.” Rell finished his beer and got
another. He waved the bottle at me and I shook my head. I
hadn’t made much headway with the first one.
“I would have thought that any spacefaring race would
have done away with the cultural hindrance of money,” I said
helpfully.
“Don’t be stupid,” Rell snapped. I decided not to be
helpful any more.
--the cabernicians would never help the krr---it would be suicide-“What are Krr,” I asked, loud. “Why is it suicide if they
get one of the seeds? And from now on would you two for
chrissake remember why we’re having this conversation in the
first place? I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I
need a little more thorough exposition.”
“The Krr are fascists,” Rell said. I frowned.
“Cab, did that translate ok?”
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
--yeah---the krr are a fascistic insect race-Fascists in space. I guess I could accept that. They had
money in space, and beer. Might as well have fascism too.
And they were insects, Cab said. Fascist insects. In space.
Maybe I needed a CAT scan.
“They control most of one of the galactic arms,” Rell
said. He leaned onto his larger set of elbows and stared at his
cigar. “Their planet is somewhere out near the end,
supposedly. Their original planet, I mean. They’re sentient,
and individual, but they adhere to a doctrine that was drafted
in their ancient history, when they were a hive mind.”
--it boils down to ‘eat, kill, screw’-“Doesn’t sound so bad.” I quipped. I had the
immediate sense that I had said the wrong thing. Rell hunched
his shoulders and watched his cigar smoke, and Cab
discovered that he couldn’t hide his emotions from me. I
drank my beer and decided I was an idiot.
--they’re attempting genocide on the galactic level---you know what genocide is, right-“Yeah,” I said. “We do that too.”
“Don’t get down on yourself,” Rell said. He forced a
smile. “Most sentient species experiment with genocide. Not
that you’d know that.”
--it’s classified in gighlick’s manual of sentient psychocognitive social disorders as an aberrant social meme---sentient races reach a point where the need to expand
is improperly associated with the survival instinct, resulting in
genocidal behavior---the species either achieves balance or dies out---except the krr never resolved their evolutionary
conflict, they just focused it outwards-“Conquerors,” I said.
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The Origami Man
Rell nodded. “They go planet to planet, killing
everything and using up all the resources. If the planet is hard
for them to live on, they break it down and use it for raw
materials.”
“The whole planet?” My voice was loud. The beer was
good, like an IPA with a lot of grapefruit and spice. Normally
I don’t like fruit beers, but this one had some bite to it. Strong
stuff, too.
“It’s not hard, just takes time,” Rell said. He took a
deep breath. “The Krr are exterminators. They don’t want the
supremacy of the Krr species, they want the singularity of the
Krr species. Not just in terms of sentient life, but in terms of all
life. The only thing that’s kept them back is the Core, and their
magnificent military-industrial complex.”
“So the galaxy is under constant threat by Nazi bugs,” I
said. “Great.” I pushed my food away. There was too much of
it, anyway. Rell took it without a word and started eating,
cigar in hand. He had an appetite all right.
“Yeah,” Rell said. “The Krr want to kill everything, so
helping them amounts to killing yourself. Hence, suicide.”
I leaned forward. “How long has this been going on?”
Rell snorted. “Long time. Hundreds of millions of
years. The front hasn’t moved in millennia. Things are
actually relatively peaceful on this side of the galaxy. That is,
besides the normal level of violence one finds in society these
days.” He grinned.
I put my hand on my face and breathed against my
palm with my eyes closed. “The Krr and the Core,” I said.
“And the Core is just the government? Why is it called the
Core?”
“It’s run by races from the core of the galaxy,” Rell said.
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Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
“Makes sense.” I opened my eyes. “So it would just be
bad if the Krr got a seed? That’s what I should take away from
all this?”
--it could tip the balance of power away from the core---turn the war-“But it’s just a weapon they don’t have?”
--they would reverse engineer the seed, make their own
and find something nasty to do with them---they have a history of twisting core technology
around their own brutal needs---intelligence indicates that they have retained a few
indigenous species solely for this purpose---big ones-“How big?”
--well, vrollian slugs are about six hundred miles long,
maybe half as thick---and ulan comet spiders can be up to a half a light
second from leg tip to leg tip-I slammed my imagination shut before it came up with
something rotten. “Cab, don’t ever say those words in that
order again.”
Rell nodded and belched. It was incredible. “Seconded.
My older brother used to scare me with comet spider stories.”
He smiled, once.
“So it would be really bad if they got a seed,” I said.
--yes-“You could have said that,” I said.
--it would have lacked gravitas-I rolled my eyes. “Ok, I know the cast. So one of the
seed smiths–” I paused. “You call them seed smiths?”
--it sounds better in cabernician--
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The Origami Man
“Sure it does. So one of the seed smiths was conducting
an illegal and admittedly illogical arms sale. And you, what,
just happened upon it, Rell?”
“It was a job,” Rell said.
“Who gave you the job?”
“I won’t tell you that,” Rell said. He said it like a door
slamming shut.
“Hell, Rell, what does it matter if I know?” I laughed.
“Who am I going to tell, my roommates? They’ll think I’m
schizophrenic. What’s the harm?” Rell shook his head. I
grunted.
“Did you know it was going to be the Krr?” I shifted
my weight to the other foot. Cab was a help, but I still wanted
to sit down. Damn size discrepancy.
“No,” Rell said. “I was expecting some paramilitary
group, you know, gun nuts, extremists, something like that.
Paranoid weapon freaks.” He finished his second beer and put
the bottle on the counter behind him. “I was staked out on the
far side of an asteroid. I knew the seed would have to leave
the ship for the transfer, since docking for an exchange is a
great way to get killed if a third party shows up. My plan was
to scoot in, drop a couple of bombs, grab the seed and
disappear.
“I almost lost my nerve when the Krr showed up, but
this was money to retire on. Unfortunately, in the ensuing
confusion I shot the seed with a well cannon and it took off at
a few folds over light speed.”
“Well cannon,” I said. “Bombs. Cab, you were holding
out on me. You told me he just had the thermal guns.”
--I made some omissions, yes---the well cannon won’t work this close to earth, and
you’re too quick for bombs-89
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
“Full disclosure from now on,” I said. “Got it? I deserve
to know what I’m getting myself into.” I glared at Rell. “And
you. You shot Cab with a whatever it’s called, well cannon,
and he just happened to hit me? I’m supposed to believe that’s
a coincidence?”
Rell picked at something in his teeth. “Of course it’s a
coincidence, why would anyone intentionally arm one of you
freaks? This happened on the far side of the galaxy,
remember. Cab went through a lot to get here, and it was a
near thing. Earth just happened to be in the way. You just
happened to be in the way.”
I felt very still.
“Coincidences happen, Captain Samson.” Rell stood up
and stretched gloriously. “More often than you’d think. That’s
enough for one day.” He motioned to the door.
“What?” I said.
“Time to go, Captain Samson,” Rell said. “This has
been a novel experience, but I must be going. I’ve a lot of work
to do, now that I’m not to be rich. If you’ll point me in the
right direction, I’ll be on my way.”
I thought about saying no, for the hell of it, but decided
it would be childish. I stood up and clanked to the door.
“You can’t sell me,” I said, “so you’re not interested in
me. Right? If you can’t make any money from something,
you’re not interested in it.”
Rell shrugged and walked out of the kitchen. I followed
him.
“You’re a thief, right? Or a smuggler? You’re a space
crook.” I was grinning. “Everything is money to you.” This is
ridiculous, I thought, a goddam space fantasy. Science fiction.
He’s a space pirate stealing from space Nazis.
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The Origami Man
“What a trenchant observation,” Rell said. We went
into the hold. “You’ve discovered that I care about money.
You’re a credit to your species, Samson. A real genius.”
I stepped into the airlock. “You’re not gonna come at
me with some kind of chosen one prophecy now, are you?
Really jam the idiocy home.” I waggled my eyebrows. Rell
gave me a strange look.
“You know, Samson, I’m not the only one who could
have figured out the seed’s trajectory.” After a second, he
grinned sharply. “So watch your back. You’re an insufferable
twerp, but you’re not all bad.”
The door hissed shut. I stared at the point where his
face had been and slowly rebuilt the helmet. The outer door
opened. As I moved into space I felt where my perception
shifted, and up into space became out into space, and down
became wherever I wanted it to be.
I pushed the ship here and there for a moment,
according to Cab’s instructions, and then pulled back a few
miles to watch Rell disappear into warp. It was unimpressive;
the ship accelerated, very quickly, and was gone.
I’m not the only one who could have figured out the seed’s
trajectory. I grimaced.
“You think we’re gonna have more company?” I asked.
--seems likely, doesn’t it-I turned towards Earth and pressed with my feet and
back. There was only a tiny sense of acceleration, even though
the display told me I was going very fast. Very, very fast.
“You think we’re in any danger?”
--well---this is a dangerous place-Earth got big in front of me.
“What place?”
--everywhere, I guess-91
Benjamin Mumford-Zisk
The colors in front of me, the blues and greens and
grays, and the way they always seemed to blend together,
pushed at me as I burned through the atmosphere. North
America, New York State, the Finger Lakes, Cayuga, Ithaca,
home.
It didn’t look so dangerous to me.
92