Dead Man Detail
by
Vera Searles
It looked like the man sitting opposite me on the space train was dead. His hands bobbled softly against his knees and his mustache held the shimmer of a morning frost.
We were gliding swiftly through space, but the side to side sensations and clackety sounds of an old-fashioned train ride had been programmed in. We were to assimilate it into our memicodes for future generations, so that none of our ancient history would be again lost as it had been during the twenty-first century annihilations. It was only recently that the archaeologists had discovered the archives beneath the rubble of the Smithsonian, and the compucodes of that long lost generation were salvaged. Because of my ambition to become a space pilot, I was fascinated by the account of a Mr. Lindbergh. How torturous it must have been for him, bottled up alone in that tiny, ancient aircraft. Today, space stations dot the galaxies and we commute from planet to planet as our ancestors once did from home to office.
This trip was to be my final evaluation as a pre-student. If I met all challenges successfully, I'd be sent to the Academy on Uxori. My husband would be allowed to accompany me, and we were both looking forward to it, for the planet Uxori is the Shangri-La of space.
I hadn't noticed the dead man when I first entered the train compartment, because my husband was kissing me goodbye. After wishing me good luck, he stepped into the departing visitor downshaft, and I settled into the skyview seat and buckled in. In moments we were airborne, and that's when I noticed the man's deadness.
I held back from activating the "Need Assistance" patch on my wrist, because the Academy officials always planted several hoaxes to test pre-students, to see how we would deal with various situations. Was the dead man human? Android? Synthetic? Hologram? Virtualite? If it was a test of my decision-making ability, and I was sure it was, I had to succeed. A wrong decision, and -- I shuddered, remembering the fates of other pre-students on test flights before me. I didn't want to think about that now.
"Excuse me," I said, reaching across to touch him on the elbow.
His eyelids rolled up.
"Then you're not dead," I said.
From the center of his mustache a word tape fluttered out. "Leave me alone. Mind your own business."
"But -- I'd like to help you if I can," I said.
"Find Keryl."
"Who's Keryl?"
"She wears a brown mask."
"Is she your wife?"
More tape spilled out. "Go away." He closed his yellow, rheumy eyes.
I glanced down at his shoes. They were soggy. His feet were melting. Was that supposed to be a clue? I wasn't sure.
I stepped from the compartment into the hallway. The train rattled from side to side as stars slid by outside the windows. I opened the doors of the next few compartments but they were all empty. When I reached the ob-platform, I saw a woman smoking a cigarette. An acrid taste and odor sprang from my memicodes. Before thinking, I asked, "Are you Keryl?"
She turned to look at me, her synthetic face wearing a jack-in-the-box grin. Her huge painted mouth opened and shrieks of laughter jetted out. She evaporated into a mist and the last I saw of her was the glowing end of her cigarette as it sputtered into the darkness.
I should have known. Cigarettes were banned over fifty years ago, and that should have told me she wasn't real. Okay -- I was forewarned. I'd have to be very careful from now on.
I opened the door of another compartment and looked in. A male and a female were locked in an embrace. I turned to leave, but the female called out, "Do you want to be next?"
"No," I said. "Excuse the intrusion."
She left her partner and came over to me. "Are you the pre-student?"
"Yes." I was wary, although she looked perfectly human.
"Show me your ID."
Was this another trap? How could I tell?
"Your ID, student," she demanded. "I am the training commander on this vehicle. You will show your ID. Now!" Her face was hard. The train rocked noisily.
I unzipped my arm pouch and withdrew my card.
She snatched it from my hand and scanned it. "Thief!" she cried. "This isn't your ID. It's mine!"
"But it can't be! I put it there myself back at my domipod. How would I get yours?"
"No excuses, student. You are assigned to dead man detail."
"But -- I don't think he's really dead"
"You are assigned to dead man detail. No excuses, student. It's mine. This isn't your ID. Thief!"
She was repeating everything in reverse order, and it dawned on me that she was a re-wind hologram. She gradually backed away from me as the re-wind completed and she reassumed her original embrace with her lover. I closed the door.
When I looked at my arm pouch I realized my ID was gone. But when I re-entered the compartment, the hologram had vanished. No trace of the lovers -- or my card -- remained.
Maybe the re-wind was a clue. Perhaps I was supposed to repeat everything in reverse order. But when I went back to the ob-platform, there was no sign of the woman, or her cigarette. The only thing left for me was to go back to the dead man's compartment.
####
His head had loosened and was hanging by a thread. It wobbled back and forth across his chest. A long word tape rolled out, covering his stomach. His shoulders drooped forward, and I pushed him against the seat back so he wouldn't topple out. I tore off the tape. It said:
Mary had a little lamb.
Oh, Keryl, you're as dumb as dirt.
My head is not my own. Is yours?
The lamb is now a sheep who follows, but never escapes.
I knew the cryptic message was meant for me to decipher. I sat down to study it, but it made absolutely no sense. While I sat there, the man's head sprang upward and reattached itself. It was an entirely new head. Gone were the mustache and rheumy eyes. I was now looking into the face of a worm-eaten zombie.
He stunk of earth and decay. His shoes fell apart to reveal mildewed feet with rotted, black toes. His eyes were blank and glassy. He had been dug from the ground and placed there for my benefit. But there were no more tapes for clues. I was on my own, on dead man detail.
####
For a while I wandered through the space train but found no other passengers. A ghostly dining car supplied me with nourishment, but was without waiters or other customers. I searched my memicodes for clues. The cigarette woman, the training commander and her lover, and a dead man, were all I had.
Concentrating on the last cryptic message, I made sense of one part. It was: My head is not my own. And it hadn't been. The dead man's head had been a decoy, and now his true head of a zombie was in its place. The next line asked: Is yours? I put a hand to my hair, then to my face. Of course my head was my own. The line about Keryl being as dumb as dirt didn't make any sense. I hadn't found Keryl. And what was that supposed to mean about a lamb and a sheep? I had to find out -- somehow.
I searched my memicodes but found nothing helpful. Replays of pre-students in similar situations before me sent chills down my spine. As failures, they had never been allowed to return to their domipods and families, but were doomed to spend their lives on their space vehicles -- alone. Death doesn't come until we reach at least two hundred years. That length of time alone makes one wish for death. But those are the rules.
When I applied to become a pre-student for the position of space pilot, I never realized how difficult the problem test run would be. If only I could change my mind. Or find help somewhere. The pilot? I wondered if I dared ask.
I made my way forward as the space train hurtled past Alpha Centauri. I opened the hatch into the pilot's chamber. His back was toward me. I stood behind him, looking out of the skyview. The panorama of space stretched before me, filled with billions of glowing stars. The beauty of the universe was one reason I wanted to become a space pilot. To control this ship, delivering passengers to Mars and Jupiter, was the dream of my lifetime. After six years of service, I would be retired to the planet Uxori, where my family and I would live in luxury for the rest of our lives. I sighed, playing it all out on my mental imageer.
The pilot turned to look at me. "Hello, Keryl," he said. "This is yours." He handed me a brown mask.
"But I'm not Keryl," I told him.
"Where's your ID?"
I glanced down at my empty arm pouch. "I gave it to the commander."
The pilot smirked. "You're as dumb as dirt, Keryl. The commander saw you are as docile as a lamb and she tricked you. She turned you into a sheep who followed her whims. You lack the necessary assertiveness and leadership ability to become a pilot. You fail the test. Your head is no longer your own. Put on your mask." He turned back to the control panel.
"But --" I went to stand beside him to explain further. Then I saw that he wasn't real, but a dummy made of plastic and stuffing. The controls were on automatic. A light flashed, warning me not to tamper with them, or the ship would self-destruct.
I put on the Keryl mask and went back through the hallway, opening the doors to all the other compartments. They were empty, with not even a hologram or a virtualite anywhere. On the platform, I tried to recall the smell of cigarette smoke. It had been erased.
I went back to my own compartment, where the zombie stared straight ahead, unseeing, unfeeling, unmoving.
The train rocked past Uxori.
"They're right," I said. "You're as dumb as dirt, Keryl." I was alone in space, on dead man detail.
THE END
© 2006 by Vera Searles
Bio: Short fiction by Vera Searles has appeared recently in DRED, BYZARIUM, DARK ENERGY, DEMON MINDS, and OPIUM. Her fantasy novel, "Tales of the Witchlings" will be published soon.
E-mail: Vera Searles
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