Man-Made
-- Hafren
Part II of a Trilogy
Deeta paused in the doorway and smiled at Vinni's dark head bowed intently over a scrapbook. He was sticking some new photographs in; as Deeta watched, a pink tongue emerged and licked the adhesive. Deeta breathed an involuntary "ahhh" before he remembered why he shouldn't. The head snapped up, eyes wide and wary, and Vinni's hand flew to his side. One day there'll be a gun there, Deeta thought. Things not to do. Don't come in too quietly. Don't make sudden noises or movements. Don't, ever, come up behind him and put your arms around him. He walked up to Vinni, as if nothing had happened, and held out his arms. Vinni came into them, the tension leaving his body in an instant.
"I missed you," Deeta told the top of Vinni's head.
"Why don't you stay home, then?" There was a note of resentment, which Deeta chose not to notice. Vinni knew perfectly well why he had to go out to work. There weren't that many openings for ex-mercenaries who desperately wanted not to use their one skill, and the clerk's job Deeta had landed bored him solid, but it did bring the money in. He was too tired to go through the argument again; instead he held Vinni, saying nothing, and presently an apologetic little voice said "sorry", somewhere around his chest.
"It's all right. I know you miss me too."
Vinni looked up eyes sparkling. "I want to go out to work too. I could help, and then you wouldn't have to work so late."
"Not yet. It's more important for you to learn things first."
"Well, I learned some more words today."
Deeta smiled. "When we've eaten, you can show me."
He could never recall feeling quite so angry as when he realised that Vinni, to all intents, couldn't read. He had been primed with a limited ability to recognise signs and simple instructions, and that was it. Reading for pleasure or enlightenment was not something that had ever been meant to happen to him; he'd been made for one purpose only, and as long as he could pass muster in the world while he achieved it, that was all that mattered. He knew how to dress, eat, keep clean like other people, but he had no idea how to socialise with them, how to read moods, sound polite or tone down the truth. He couldn't catch a ball, draw a picture or whistle a tune. What would have happened, Deeta wondered, if he had killed me? Would he have been destroyed or just allowed to wander off in a world he didn't understand?
He disengaged himself, very gently, because when he thought about the supremely callous indifference of those who had made Vinni, he couldn't be completely responsible for his actions. He had shown it, once, and Vinni had been terrified like any child in the face of adult anger; had not understood that it wasn't aimed at him.
After dinner, they went through Vinni's new words together. He was a quick learner, but he got frustrated easily because the simple texts he could read were still a long way below his intellect. Deeta lavished praise and watched for when to change the subject.
"Where did the new photos come from?"
Vinni brightened. "The Liberator. Cally sent them on the computer. There's some of Del. And messages, one from Del to you and ones to me from Cally and Vila. I could read most of those."
They looked at them together, fixing them into the book where Deeta was trying to create memories for the man who had none. He explained the words in Cally's and Vila's messages that Vinni had trouble with, and read his own from his brother. Del seemed to be trying to overcome old prejudices; the message contained a discreetly phrased hope that Deeta's love life was going well.
He smiled ruefully. Little brother, you wouldn't credit the chastity of my love life.
In bed, Vinni would always cuddle close. Now that his feelings and memories were developing, he'd begun to dream, which he never had before, and sometimes it scared him. He would wake needing to find Deeta there, to tell him about it.
And Deeta would hold the slim, hard body he had fallen in love with, and now loved more than ever. Sometimes he had to stop himself holding too hard, because his feelings for what he held were so overwhelming. He wanted to protect Vinni from harm, and give him everything he wanted, and help him become more independent, and keep him dependent always. He wanted to give him dreams and feelings, but not when they hurt; he wanted to shape him and feared doing it wrong. He wanted Vinni to grow as a human being and to stay as he was; he wanted a host of other things that knocked painfully at the walls of his heart as if they were too much for it to hold. And the one thing he could not think of doing was desiring Vinni. No, that wasn't true. When Vinni hugged or kissed him, he thought about it. And thought himself, shivering, away from it.
When he had comforted Vinni back to sleep, he would lie awake, contemplating the awesome responsibility he had taken on. It scared the hell out of him, except when he remembered the empty time when his life had been his own.
******
Cally smiled as she prepared to transmit the video clip Vinni had asked for. It enchanted him that just by clicking on a computer he could see his friends moving and talking when they weren't there. Though he understood perfectly how it happened, it still seemed to be magic to him. They'd all appeared on it, even Avon after a bit of cajoling.
Vila glanced over her shoulder. "He must be building up quite a stash of this stuff; he can't get enough of it."
"He needs memories. A past. All he's got is a scrapbook that started a few months back."
"He could have some of my memories for nothing. I'd rather be rid of them."
"Yes, but they made you who you are, and we all need to know that. Do you know what the first things he put in his book were? The prints from the mediscan, that showed which bits of him were human and which weren't."
She remembered Deeta, studying them intently. The brain, obviously, was non-organic, as was the heart and quite a lot of the right hand, though you'd never have known. Everything else was normal, a healthy young human body. It wasn't surprising, really. Creating anything so convincing from scratch was probably possible, but massively fiddly and expensive. Far easier to implant their technological miracle in an existing body whose owner no longer had a use for it.
She transmitted the clip. Vinni had sent her one in return, of Deeta teaching him to play catch. At the start, he was comically bad at it, letting the ball fall through his hands like a puzzled four-year-old. But soon he learned to adapt his reflexes to the new use and by the end his gun hand was plucking it out of the air like a raptor.
Vila whistled. "God, you'd never know that was fake, would you? Except it's so quick. I suppose that's why they replaced it."
"No, the brain reflexes would make a normal hand just as quick. I think they were making sure. If their gunfighter had got cramp in his hand at the wrong moment, he might never have been champion of Vandor. Same with the heart; it's just fractionally slower than the real thing, which should make his aim steadier.... oh, he missed that one, though!" They both laughed. Vinni had missed because Deeta was clowning around and distracting his eye.
Vila jumped up and turned from the screen. He'd heard Avon's step behind him, coming on to the flight deck, and he was meant to be on watch.
"Sorry, Avon. I was still keeping an eye out, honest."
"Mmm." Avon walked past without commenting or, apparently, noticing. He was very preoccupied, these days.
******
Deeta, lying by the lake's edge, trailed a hand in the water. It was golden, as was the sky, but otherwise quite Earth-like. It was his day off and he was fulfilling a promise by taking Vinni out in the park.
"Back on Earth," he said, stretching out so that his fingertips found Vinni's hair, warm from the light, "we couldn't do this. We lived indoors and you needed special permission to go out."
Vinni wrinkled his nose. "Sounds boring. Is that why you left?"
"Not really. I didn't like the government much. And I didn't get on with my father."
"Why?" Vinni was always touchingly curious about his past.
"I disappointed him. I didn't want to go into the military; he set a lot of store by that."
"Del did though, didn't he?"
"Yes." And deserted out of it, first chance he got. Deeta sighed. "He didn't want to join up any more than I did, but when I cleared out, I suppose Dad fixed all his dreams on him. I shouldn't have left him to that."
Vinni sat up, his eyes troubled. "You won't leave me, will you?"
"No. No, love, no. I won't do that." He took Vinni's hand and stroked it.
"Does that mean you love me more than Del?" There was nothing spiteful or triumphalist about the inquiry; Deeta could see he was just curious.
"I don't know. Differently, maybe. You need me more. And I need you. I wouldn't have anything to live for without you. Truly." Still playing with Vinni's hand, he dropped a brief kiss on the palm and realised suddenly that the soft, warm hand was the right one.
On the way home, they were laughing and clowning with each other as usual when they turned the corner and came upon a funeral procession. Deeta stopped still and composed his face. The mourners stared icily at the young man beside him, still laughing and doing some sort of dance step. Deeta put a hand on his shoulder and hissed, "Quiet. Stand still." He held him there until the procession passed.
"What is it?" Vinni looked puzzled and anxious. "What did I do?"
"It's a funeral," Deeta said patiently. "That means someone's died, and they knew him, so they feel sad. You have to look as if you do, too. I know you don't, that you never even knew the person and you don't know them either. But you have to try to think how they feel." He cast about for a way to explain. "If it was Del that was dead, would you feel sad for me?"
Vinni hugged him fiercely and he smiled. "Well, don't take your sympathy quite that far with the next bunch of mourners we meet, but that's the general idea."
"I'm sorry I keep getting things wrong. If I was real, would you love me more?"
"Oh, love, you are real. And I couldn't love you more."
"You don't kiss me any more," Vinni said timidly, "not like you did on the Liberator."
Deeta sighed. "I can't. It doesn't seem fair, somehow, not right. You're like one of those people in folk tales, the ones who've been brought up by wolves or locked in towers all their lives. I took you out of somewhere like that and said "I'm the one you're going to love," and you went along with it, because you didn't know any different. Maybe when you do, you'll want to love someone else."
"I'll always want to love you." Vinni's voice was warm; his lips brushed Deeta's, and Deeta couldn't tell him what else stopped him responding.
******
Rumours were nothing new. They circulated around far-flung planets all the time, whenever a new trader or refugee or travelling con-man came in. The Federation President had been found in a brothel; such and such a planet had been annexed, or freed; someone had broken the bank at Freedom City; the notorious rebel Blake had been seen here, there and everywhere. Every few months, it would be "the Liberator has finally been destroyed." Nobody took that one seriously any more, even in Deeta's household. It was true the ship hadn't been in touch for a while, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. It went to some damned odd places, after all.
******
When Deeta got home from work, Vinni rushed up and hugged him, almost dancing with excitement.
"You'll never guess! Del sent a message. Well, Vila sent it but Del and him are coming to see us. I told him what time you got home and he said they'd be here any time after that."
"So it wasn't true about the ship being destroyed, then. How are the others?"
"Fine, I suppose. I mean, he didn't say anything. I've got some food ready, and tidied up and everything."
"Good boy." Deeta felt oddly ill at ease. Vinni was still hopeless at picking up verbal nuances, but something sounded wrong. Vila was anything but a reticent correspondent, and that was a reticent message.
The Federation had been expanding again lately; Deeta had heard about some of their methods, the chemical controls they were using. You couldn't put much past them. He looked at Vinni and wondered, as he often had, whether the first owner of that body had really ceased to have a use for it or had simply been robbed of it for greater political ends. What was he like, the man who walked about behind that face? Would I have loved him?
Del and Vila teleported down about half an hour later and even Vinni stopped in the midst of rushing towards them, realising something was wrong. They both looked older, their faces greyer and more drawn. Vila nodded to Vinni and slumped into a chair; Del went to Deeta and they embraced.
"We've been hearing rumours," Deeta said.
"All true, I shouldn't wonder." Del leaned against him briefly, as if for support, then straightened. Deeta handed him and Vila the drinks Vinni had poured and Vila started making serious progress on getting outside his. Del took a sip, sat down and rested his head on his hands. "We lost the Liberator."
"How?"
"It blew up. We've got a new ship, if you can call it that." He sounded too tired and dispirited to elaborate. Deeta was still trying to think of a tactful way to phrase the next question when Vinni asked
"How's everyone?"
"Avon and Dayna are fine; they sent their regards. He took another drink. "Cally died. In an explosion. No, not the one that blew up the ship. Another fine mess we'd walked into."
Vinni hadn't moved. He shook his head. "No, she can't be. Cally? No." He looked at Deeta, as if he could make it not be so.
Deeta crossed over and held him. "Love, people you're fond of can die. It happens."
"Cally was kind to me. She made me feel better, when I found out I wasn't real."
"I know." There was a muffled noise from the table; Vila had his head in his hands. Vinni went over, crouched in front of him and hugged him.
Del made a little movement of the head and he and Deeta walked to the other end of the room. Del spoke quietly, "I don't think we've got that much longer, to be honest. We always seem to be running these days, and the Federation's expanding faster than we can get away from them. I can't see any end to it but one; that's why I wanted to come and see you once more."
"Do you have to go back? Couldn't you stay here?"
"That'd put you both at risk; I've got quite a price on me now." There was a trace of pride in his voice. Deeta started to say he didn't mind the risk, and the words stuck, because he didn't mind, for himself, but when he thought of Vinni he knew he wouldn't put him at risk for anyone.
"It's all right," Del said. "I wouldn't leave them anyhow. They're where I belong. Family."
"Oh Del, I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Just be happy. How are things with you two? Still madly in love?"
Deeta sighed. "It isn't that simple. I love him more than anything in the world, but I don't know what as. It's like I made him. He's man-made all right, and I'm the man. He's my child, and my little brother, and yes, if I met that face and that body on a grown man I'd be crazy for them, but I didn't. I want to be with him till I die, but I think that might mean getting used to celibacy. Actually it isn't that hard, after a while. I could have phrased that better." He grinned, and Del laughed.
Deeta's gaze wandered back over to Vinni, and Del followed it. Vinni was sitting with Vila at the table and they were looking at the pictures of Cally in Vinni's memory book.
"You know," Del said, "you've helped him grow a fair bit, I can see that. When you don't feel responsible for him any more, maybe the pair of you could fall in love all over again. Anyway, we'd better be going."
"So soon?"
"Yes. Avon's got a lot to do and I ought to be there to help him. Like I should have helped you, when Dad was giving you a hard time. Besides, if we stay much longer Vila will be comatose and you'll be out of alcohol."
******
Deeta lay in bed, with Vinni's sleeping head on his arm, and thought.
I was man-made too, by a man and a woman and a lot of people I've met since. And now you. You make me something else every day.
And if I make you, I'm not the only one. But the most important, the one who protects you and helps you become what you'll be, and whatever else I miss, I wouldn't change that for it.
And you'll grow up, as Del said; your mind'll catch up with your body. And then you'll know what you want. Who you want.
Suppose it isn't me? What will I do?
I will let you go. Because if I didn't, I wouldn't deserve to keep you.