Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 160 by Neil Clarke

Author:Neil Clarke [Clarke, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magazine, science fiction, Science Fiction - Short Stories, science fiction magazine
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2020-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chang remembered the day Shu had sung these verses. It had been winter then, too, and as cold as today.

Hahnoe considered each of the seasons beautiful, but Chang found the winter unbearable. It must have been the same for the others. They’d covered the entrance of the tin pail in which they lived with a thick piece of cloth. But that hadn’t been enough to shut out the bitter winds, and everyone had shivered.

As they huddled around the brimstone bonfire they’d made, Shu sang, his eyes sparkling. The song was not their own, but one translated from a human language. Chang knew flies were dangerous animals but didn’t know what a corset was. She knew the colors black, white, red, green, and blue, but didn’t understand the words in between them nor what vowels were. Roos could count numbers, mark the passing of time, measure spaces, and make simple tools. They also drew and painted. But they didn’t have a written language. They communicated by spoken word alone and had to repeat what was conveyed several times so they could be sure to remember it. Hahnoe had once told Chang that writing was the materialization of meanings and that it remained long after people died. She couldn’t comprehend what that meant.

“If we could record what we mean with letters,” Hahnoe had said sadly, “we’d be able to make more complex tools and hunt much better. We might even be able to make machines like humans. Damn it! How come we don’t remember anything? Those who once used our bodies might have known how to do all that stuff. Maybe they could’ve done it, but just hadn’t. Why can’t we remember a single thing?”

His yearning was something that Chang didn’t understand, despite the fact that she couldn’t remember anything either.

At first, it was very hard for her to accept the fact that someone else, someone who wasn’t her, had occupied her body. But that no longer bothered her. Whoever they had been, they were long gone. Now Chang had Hahnoe and Lu. Lu was not just a machine, but a part of herself, a living being that loved speed as much as she did. Those who had decided to leave the cave had one thing in common. They had known that they were no longer who they had been before and so therefore they had to leave. But now that they had left, Hahnoe’s eyes were always turned toward something different than Chang’s. Maybe that was why she loved him.

That day, sitting by the bonfire, Chang had asked Shu where he’d learned the song. He’d answered with his usual faraway look. “I don’t know,” he’d said. “Maybe in a dream.” Everyone had laughed.

Such had been Shu’s way: he’d often said strange things that no one understood and had dreams that no one else dreamed. While Hahnoe agonized over not being able to understand human letters, Shu had admired them with pure wonder.

Now Shu lay wrapped in black leaves, his Lu standing like a barrel outside the circle of people.

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