Short Fiction Complete by Robert Charles Wilson

Author:Robert Charles Wilson [Wilson, Robert Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry eBooks
Published: 2025-09-27T21:00:00+00:00

He stayed with her that night.

Humantown’s particle-pair communications link with Earth had lately downloaded a series of fresh entertainments, and Gray picked one to watch while Chaia dimmed the ambient light. The videostory was called The American’s Daughter and was set in the wild years of the twentieth century, when there were hundreds of quasi-independent Terrestrial nation-states and not even the moon had been settled. Gray, a history buff, pointed out some factual errors the producers had missed or ignored—the robotic servant that carried messages between the President’s daughter and the penniless alchemy student was almost certainly an anachronism, for instance.

The story was placed in North America, with most of the conventional settings of an histoire americain: huge concrete buildings, pavement streets crowded with beggars and bankers, a cathedral, a “factory,” a carnival. The story ended with a reunion, supposedly in New York City, but Chaia thought the buildings looked like the old city of Brussels, gently morphed to more closely resemble a twentieth-century city.

Gray turned to her curiously when she remarked on it. “What do you know about Brussels?”

“Well, I—” She was suddenly puzzled. “I guess I must have seen pictures.”

Brussels.

A place on Earth.

But it had seemed so familiar. She just … well, recognized it.

Remembered it.

When had she seen Brussels? Can you remember a place you’ve never been? Or was this another neurological tic, like seeing spiders turn into people, like hearing jawbones talk?

Chaia’s mood darkened. Gray stayed with her, and she was grateful for his company. But when they went to bed she turned her back to him, nestled against his big body in a way that meant she was ready to sleep. Only sleep. Or try to sleep.

Soon he was snoring. Chaia, restless, opened her eyes and watched the pebble-sized moon dart across the sky beyond the window. She thought of “lunacy,” an old English word that had figured in The American’s Daughter. After “Luna,” the Earth’s moon, linked in ancient mythology to madness, strangeness, the uncertainties of great distances and time.

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