Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe Read online

  “Roy, Roy, Roy! Come off it. Let’s get real.”

  Yeah, Roy Tabak thought, wouldn’t I love to!

  “I came over to your building, see?” Jerry sounded impatient. “And I rang the bell downstairs and somebody buzzed me in. So I went up to your place. Do I have to keep telling you?”

  “Go ahead,” Roy Tabak said. “I’m listening.”

  “I knocked and she answered the door. You probably told her not to, but she did it anyway. I said, ‘Where’s Roy?’ And she said you hadn’t come home yet and did I want to come in and wait for you? She said she’d get me a beer or some ice cream. I said, ‘No thanks and have a nice day,’ and I beat it.”

  “Listen, Jerry, this is serious.”

  “She’s married, huh?”

  “There was really a woman in my apartment? You’re not shitting me?”

  “Hell, no. You mean you don’t know about her? She was a burglar or something?”

  “No, but it’s complicated. What did she look like?”

  “Well . . . fat, like I said. Big and really heavy. She wouldn’t be bad looking if she lost a hundred and fifty pounds. Hell, she’s not all that bad now. Blond, blue eyes, sort of a square face, only fat cheeks, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know. What else?”

  “A white dress and a white apron. Sort of a gag necklace. One of those novelty necklaces. Little bottles, all different colors, strung together. Beer and Pepsi. I remember those.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Roy Tabak said.

  “One was champagne—that was the big bottle in the middle. There was a red bottle, too. I think it must’ve been Tabasco sauce.”

  Roy felt impatient, but tried not to sound like it. “How old would you say she was?”

  “Twenty-five, maybe. She could have been younger, though. Great big chicks look older, you know?”

  “Sure. Go on.”

  “No rings. I looked for them, you know how you do.”

  “Only she wanted you to come in for a beer, and you wouldn’t do it.”

  “I got Deedee, you know? Besides, I’d never do a thing like that to you.”

  Roy Tabak took a deep breath. “You said, ‘Hi, I’m Jerry Pitt and I’m a friend of Roy’s.’ Something like that?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “But she didn’t tell you her name?”

  “Nope.”

  “She told you something. What was it?”

  “Nothing. She didn’t tell me anything.”

  “Jerry, listen to me and listen real good. Are you listening, dumbfuck?”

  “Hey, you don’t have to get rough.”

  “I’d rather not, Jerry. But I work in Appliances and you work in Gourmet Foods. I’m lifting heavy stuff all day while you’re pushing cookies. What was her name?”

  “I’ll tell you, Roy. Honest.”

  “You’d better. What was it?”

  “She never said her name, only she was wearing one of those little name pins like waitresses have on sometimes.”

  “Keep talking, Jerry.”

  “Well, I read what was on it. It said Frostfree. All one word. I used to know a guy named Frost once. Was it Ed? Wait a minute . . .”

  “Don’t matter. Listen, I’ll call you back.”

  “Earl! That was it. Earl Frost.”

  “I’ll call you back,” Roy repeated, and hung up.

  Returning to the kitchen, he straddled a chrome- and-plastic chair and sat, resting his arms on the back. “Do you still talk?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied his new refrigerator.

  “Good.” Thoughtfully, Roy Tabak loaded a last corn chip. “You’ve got a little plate on your freezer door. It says ‘Frostfree.’ ”

  “Yes, sir. It indicates, correctly, that I need never be defrosted— this even though my freezer remains frigid at all times.”

  “I know what it means. Jerry Pitt came over and rang the bell. You buzzed him in.” Roy tapped a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket, lit it, and inhaled. His new refrigerator remained silent. At last he said, “Why did you do that?”

  “I hoped your caller might be a young woman, sir.”

  “Did you now?”

  “Yes, sir. I did.”

  “You wanted some female company?” Roy blew smoke through his nose.

  “For you, sir. It is my mission.”

  “You want to fix me up.”

  “Yes, sir. Precisely.”

  More smoke. “That’s a whole lot to take on, for a refrigerator.”

  “I’m acutely conscious of it, sir. May I explain? The WSPC has taken an interest in your case.”

  Roy ground out his cigarette in the ashtray on the kitchen table. “I’m a case.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s it exactly.”

  “A mental case.”

  “Oh, no, sir!”

  “Let’s get back to Jerry. When he came to the door, a girl opened it. That girl was wearing the little plate from your door. She was wearing it, or one just like it. Was she from that outfit you mentioned?”

  “The WSPC, sir? Yes, sir, she was—that is to say, I am. I belong the foundation, sir. It is my owner.”

  “That was you? You were the one who answered the door?”

  “Yes, sir. Would you like another beer, sir?”

  “Yeah.” Roy Tabak opened his new refrigerator and took out a longneck; its label read super-urb. “If I drink enough of these, you may start to make sense.”

  “I’m a very sensible machine, sir, well designed, solidly built, and useful. I will provide many years of service.”

  “What about when you’re a girl? Are you still a sensible girl then?”

  “Yes, sir. I am sensible in both forms.”

  “You can change shape?”

  “Transform, sir. Yes, sir, I can and do. May I explain?”

  Roy Tabak nodded.

  “I began, sir, as an effort of the appliance industry. You are familiar with the appliance industry.”

  Roy nodded again. “Very.”

  “It was desired, sir, to create a single appliance which would serve as both a refrigerator and a dishwasher.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “No, sir. Only difficult. It was soon realized that my dishwashing mechanism could not be interior, sir. My interior must be kept cold at all times in order to preserve the just-harvested freshness of vegetables, for example.”

  “I say that. I say ‘just-harvested freshness’ when I’m talking to customers. You’ve been listening to me.”

  “Only a very little bit, sir. Hardly at all.” Roy’s new refrigerator spoke rapidly, apparently to prevent his protesting the change of subject. “Since the dishwashing function could not be internal, it would have to be external. Utilizing the transformer principle made external dishwashing possible and, indeed, successful. It was then suggested that we might serve as programmable stoves as well. That was found to be impractical, since an oven would have to be internal. However—”

  “Wait up!” Roy Tabak sat straight. “You said you were a dishwasher, right? You’re a dishwasher, too?”

  “I am, sir. It is my glory.”

  “Well, my sink’s full of dirty dishes. Let’s see you wash them.”

  “Although I hesitate to correct you, sir, your sink is no longer filled with dirty dishes. I washed them in your absence, sir.”

  Roy rose and looked into his sink. It was empty and spotless.

  “Your dishes are in that cabinet, sir. There was an abundance of shelf space, and I felt—”

  “Sure.” Roy opened a cabinet door. “You reached up there and put them in?”

  “I did, sir. It was the only way—or so it appeared to me. May I continue, sir?”

  He nodded.

  “The oven requirement decided the matter. We could not function as programmable stoves. We could, however, apply our programmability to stove functions, by this means rendering a programmable stove superfluous. When one of us is in your kitchen, any old collection of oven and burners w
ill do.”

  “You can cook?” Roy asked.

  “No, sir. The stove cooks, at my direction.”

  “You can wash dishes.”

  “Yes, sir. I can. I do.”

  “Good.” Roy held up the almost invisible container; it showed green streaks of guavacado. “I want you to wash this dish. Now.”

  For a moment it seemed that nothing had happened. He blinked, and realized that his new refrigerator was more humanoid in appearance that he had realized. It began to rock gently, forward and back.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “You don’t really have to.”

  His new refrigerator was not listening. It had stopped rocking and was smoothing its immaculate white apron with plump, ringless fingers. “This will take me only a moment, sir.”

  While Roy watched, an obese blonde in a white dress and a white apron carried the green-smeared refrigerator dish to his sink, washed it, and dried it. “Where should I store this, sir?”

  “Anyplace you want to,” Roy Tabak told her. “My stove can cook things, right? Under your direction?”

  “That is correct, sir.” The obese blonde put it in the cabinet with his dishes.

  “I’m going to go out and cruise for chicks, but I’d like something to eat first.”

  The obese blonde smiled. “I shall be delighted to prepare it, sir.”

  “That’s good. What’s your name, by the way?”

  “I have none, sir. My owners say Fridge, or something of the kind, for the most part.” The fat blonde hesitated. “If I may be entirely frank, sir . . . ?”

  Roy Tabak nodded.

  “More often than not, no name is employed.”

  He grinned, noticing the pin on her left breast. “Okay if I call you Frostfree?”

  “Certainly, sir. I would treasure the appellation. It pertains to my mission in the most appropriate manner. You see, sir, the WSPC desires to free you—”

  “Wait up. Can you cook and talk at the same time, Frostfree?”

  “Certainly, sir. What would you like?”

  “What ever you’ve got in there. It looked like lots of chow.”

  “My menu-planning software is at your service, sir. Would you care for some boeuf à la Bourguignonne? I begin by slicing the beef into small cubes—”

  “How long would it take?”

  “My beef is of excellent quality, sir. Quite tender. No longer than three and half hours at most.”

  “I don’t have that much time. What’s fast and good?”

  “Would you consider eggs Columbus, sir? I have both small tomatoes and green peppers.” Frostfree filled a saucepan as she spoke. “And eggs, of course. Very fresh eggs, if I may say so. Your meal will be ready in twenty minutes.”

  “Sounds good. You were going to tell me about this outfit you work for.”

  “The WSPC? I’ll be happy to, sir.” She put the saucepan on a burner and turned it on. “The World Society for the Prevention of Curses seeks to exterminate those noxious prayers, orisons, and invocations whenever they have occurred. In your case, sir—”

  “I’ve been cursed.”

  “Precisely, sir. I believe I saw your salt and pepper . . .”

  “Right here.” Roy Tabak moved his arm. “Who did it?”

  “I cannot say, sir. That information was not part of the download. I am to free you from the curse. Others will attend to the perpetrator.”

  For half a minute or more, Roy Tabak considered that. “You asked me if I knew the appliance industry. Remember?”

  Frostfree nodded. She had dropped a tomato into the boiling water in the saucepan, and was holding its head down.

  “I am. Only I’ve never even heard of a refrigerator that could turn into a woman. Maybe all this is just a bad dream, the curse and everything. What do you think?”

  “I think that this has been boiled long enough for me to slip the skin off,” Frostfree murmured. “Ah! There it goes.”

  “You had your hand in the boiling water,” Roy Tabak remarked. “Didn’t it hurt?”

  “No, sir. I am an appliance, sir.” Frostfree smiled. “I was built in the twenty-third century, sir. I am native to the year twenty-two ninety-one—it is when the WSPC purchased me. May I speak of your curse, sir? You’ve been avoiding the matter.”

  “You can jump around in time?”

  “No, sir. The Society dispatched me to this period, sir. It will return me to my own period in due course, I believe.”

  “You believe?”

  “Yes, sir. It is a matter of faith—but yes, I do.” As she spoke, Frostfree picked up a pepper.

  “How many of those are you going to make?” Roy Tabak asked.

  “Four, sir. I have two tomatoes and two peppers, and four seems to me reasonable number.”

  “I don’t eat more than two eggs, usually.”

  “You have not tasted my eggs Columbus, sir.”

  “I guess not.” Roy Tabak got out a fresh cigarette, examined it, and slipped it back into the pack. “Could you change back into a refrigerator so I could have another beer?”

  “That is hardly necessary, sir.” Dropping her pepper into the boiling water, Frostfree turned to face him. Her apron swung aside, and the front of her dress with it. Reaching into herself, she took out a cold longneck and handed it to him.

  “Did you just get thinner? I mean you’re still fat—I mean not really fat, but didn’t you lose a little bit of weight just now, maybe?”

  She nodded. “The bottle you hold has been deducted from my gross mass. I take it that is what you meant.”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “The World Society for the Prevention of Curses has been policing the past, sir. I was about to say so.” She dunked the pepper. “Hyperhistory rec ords many effectual cursings, including yours. They have done incalculable harm. The present brightens as they are removed.”

  “My present or your present?”

  “Both, sir. Or so I would hope.” Frostfree sighed. “Normally, sir, some bold but warmhearted individual volunteers to visit the past and lift the curse. In your case, that proved impossible.”

  “I still don’t believe I’m under a curse,” Roy Tabak said. “I don’t buy that part at all. If I’m under a curse why would somebody send me a refrigerator that turns into a woman who can cook?”

  “It is the nature of your curse, sir.” Frostfree stripped the skin from the pepper. “Your curse limits you to coldhearted persons. No warmhearted person will find you tolerable.”

  “People buy from me,” Roy Tabak declared, “and it’s not just refrigerators. I sell stoves, grills, mixers, all kinds of stuff, and I’m one of the most successful salesmen at the store. Ask anybody.”

  “Coldhearted persons find you sympathetic, sir.” With a deft twist of Roy Tabak’s paring knife, Frostfree disposed of the seedy interior of a tomato. “There are a great many of them in this century.”

  Roy nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve noticed that about my customers.”

  “Thus I was sent. I—I like you, sir.”

  He twisted the cap from his beer. “I like you, too, Frostfree.”

  “Do you really, sir?” Smiling, she turned to face him. “As a refrigerator, I have no heart at all.”

  “Naturally,” Roy Tabak agreed.

  “While as a woman, my ice-cube trays perform the function, sir. They’re in my ice maker. They have the little chambers, you see, and they expand and contract. It’s exactly like your human heart, but colder.”

  It was excellent beer, Roy decided. Aloud he said, “It was one of my ex- girlfriends, wasn’t it? I think I could even guess which one.”

  “I’m to find you a warmhearted young lady,” Frostfree told him. “If I can accomplish it, your curse will be broken. Will you please pass the pepper, sir? The pepper and the salt.”

  It was shortly after ten when they strolled arm-in- arm into the Home Office Bar & Grill. “This is as good a spot as any,” Roy Tabak told Frostfree. “The real action won’t start u
ntil eleven or so, but it’s good to be a little early.” He leaned toward her, almost shouting to make himself heard. “Usually I sit at the bar, and it can be tough to get a seat there later.”

  “We must have a table, sir,” she said as she sat down at one. “We must be seen together.”

  He nodded, secretly glad that he had removed a head of cabbage and all of the remaining beer before they left. “Okay, here we are and everybody’s seeing us. Are you a good dancer?”

  “No, sir. It might be better if we did not dance.”

  Two blondes and a brunet came in, all talking at once.

  “Do you like any of those, sir?” Frostfree leaned across the table.

  “Yeah, Kay—that’s the brunet in the middle, only she turned me down flat last week.” A barmaid had appeared at Roy’s elbow, and he added, “What are you having, Frosty?”

  “I haven’t decided.” Frostfree smiled at the barmaid. “What do you suggest?”

  “Most people drink beer,” the barmaid told her. “We have Bud, Miller, Old Style, and a lot of foreign beers. Just about anything you want, really.”

  Roy Tabak ordered a Miller Lite.

  “Scotch and water might be nice,” Frostfree said.

  Roy Tabak waited until the barmaid had gone before asking, “Can you really drink that?”

  “I will drink it slowly, sir. I doubt that you will have to buy me another.”

  “That’s not the point. You’re—” He choked it back. “I still don’t see how dating you is going to get me a girlfriend.”

  “A warmhearted one, sir. One breaks curses, you see, by doing whatever the curse forbids. Let us suppose, for example, that a curse were to stipulate that you die before your twenty-first birthday.”

  “I’m thirty-two already.”

  “If you lived beyond your twenty-first birthday, the curse would be neutralized. Or let us say that your curse was in the form of a pig that followed you everywhere.”

  “You’re really not all that stout.” Roy found he was shouting to make himself heard above “Gotta Shine.”

  “Anyhow, I like you.”

  “If you could slip into an elevator and shut its doors before the pig could follow, the curse would be broken. That is an actual case from the eleventh century, although of course no elevator was involved. Our operative dropped a portcullis, I believe.”