The Fourth Bear

“The International Space Station,” said Ashley. “We can wave if they’re looking through the portholes. It perks up their day a bit.”

As it turned out, they were watching, and they waved, and Ash and Mary waved back.

“Hey,” said Ash impishly, “show them your breasts.”

“No!”

“Oh, go on. It would be funny. I won’t look.”

Mary smiled. It seemed infantile, but she thought it actually would be funny, so while Ash covered his eyes with his hands, Mary rolled up her top and showed her breasts to the occupants of the ISS, who also thought it funny and gave her the thumbs-up sign and waved some more as the space station drifted past and on.

“Have you put them away?” asked Ashley, eyes firmly closed.

“Yes.”

He uncovered his eyes.

“Tell me,” said Mary after they had watched the Earth move beneath them for a while, the shape of the North American landmasses easily recognizable by the delineating inky blackness of the oceans, “do you find humans at all odd?”

“Not really,” replied Ashley after a moment’s reflection, accelerating the globe on and moving around into the midday region of the planet to make a full orbit before returning home, “but your obsession with networks takes a bit of getting used to. Still, it’s understandable.”

“How do you mean?”

“Because networks are everywhere. The road and rail systems, the postal services, the Internet, your friendships, family, electricity, water—everything on this planet is composed of networks.”

“But why ‘understandable’?”

“Because it is the way you are built—your bodies use networks to pass information; your veins and arteries are networks to nourish your bodies. Your mind is a complicated network of nerve impulses. It’s little wonder that networks dominate the planet—you have modeled your existence after the construction of your own minds.”

Mary went silent for a moment. She hadn’t thought of this. “And you don’t?”

“We most certainly do. But we are wired more sequentially. Every fact is compared with every previous fact and then filtered to find the differences. Our minds work like an infinite series of perfectly transparent glass panels, with all our experiences etched onto them. Where clusters of certain facts appear, then we know what importance must be attached.”

“You remember everything?”

“Of course. I remember every single word you have said to me. Where you said it, and when, and what would have been showing on TV at the time.”

“That must make lying very difficult.”

“On the contrary, it makes it very easy. Since I can recall every lie I tell, I repeat the lie in every context in which it is required. Humans are such poor liars because they have poor memories. The strange thing is that everybody knows everyone else is lying, and nothing much is done about it.”

“You’re right about that,” said Mary, gazing up at the sable blackness above them. “Which is your star?”

“That one there,” said Ashley, pointing in the vague direction of Cassiopeia. “No, hang on. Over there. No… goodness,” he said at last. “They all look so similar from here.”

And they both fell silent for a while, staring at the sky, deep in thought, with Mary resting her head on Ashley’s shoulder, his thoughts and memories seeping into her like a warming stew on a cold day. She saw a green sky with a moon hanging low and dominant in the heavens, and small houses like igloos dotted about a rocky landscape.

“Do you ever think about going home?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“Reading’s my home,” he replied.

They returned only ten minutes after setting out, before Mary’s exhaled carbon dioxide had time to make itself known. Ashley piloted the small craft back to the same estate in Pangbourne, where, after knocking over the birdbath and hitting the sides of the garage several times, he finally managed to park.

“That was amazing,” said Mary, giggling like a schoolgirl.

“Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“We’ve got a problem. I think the birdbath damaged a thermal exhaust port… or something. Quick!”

He grasped her hand, and they jumped out of the pliable skin of the globe onto the dusty floor of the garage, then outside, where they got as far as the other side of the street when there was a whoomp noise and they were knocked over by a blue ring of light that shot out in all directions as the globe exploded.

“Oh, dear,” said Ashley, picking himself up and walking back to his parents’ house, which had been badly shaken by the concussion. The walls had cracked, and the roof had lost several dozen tiles. The garage itself had ceased to exist—except for a few tattered walls. Of the globe there was nothing. Isolated fires had been set alight on the lawn, which helpful neighbors were already stamping out.

“Was that you, Ashley?” asked Roger, who was standing at the off-kilter doorway of the house, wig askew and one slipper blown off.

“I cannot tell a lie, Father—Mary was driving. She wanted to have a go, so I let her, but her binary is a bit rusty, and… well, there you have it.”

“Is this true?” asked Roger, staring at Mary.

“No,” said Ashley before Mary could answer. “And I think I broke your birdhouse, too.”

Ashley’s father turned a paler blue. “You’re banished, young man,” he said sternly, jabbing the remains of his pipe in Ashley’s direction. “I think you’d better take Miss Mary home and not return for at least a week.”

Ashley bowed low. “I take my punishment with good grace. Thank you, Father.”

He looked at his Datsun, which had been blown onto its side.

“I think we’d better take the bus.”

“Wait a minute,” said Mary, picking her way across the wreckage to the front door and inside, where Abigail was staring sadly at the plaster ducks, now in several pieces. “Thank you for dinner, Mrs. 1001111001000100111011100100. It was most enjoyable.”

“Oh!” said Abigail happily. “Well, you must come again. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

“Yes, indeed,” added Roger kindly. “Our house is your house. Sorry about Ashley. He’s always been a bit difficult.”

“The last one out of the egg sac,” added Abigail with a sigh, by way of explanation.

“…saw the first launch of the Proteus…” muttered Uncle Colin, speaking from beneath the print of The Hay Wain, which had fallen on top of him.

“What did she call you?” whispered Roger as they stood at the front door and waved good-bye.

“I’m not sure,” Abigail whispered back. “Something about how her prawns have asthma.”

“So,” said Mary as they walked away from the smoldering ruin of his parents’ house, “where are you going to stay tonight?”

“I’ll sneak back and sleep in the potting shed,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “It’s relatively undamaged.”

“I’ve a spare ceiling,” said Mary. “You can stick yourself to that if you want.”

“Well, o-o-kay,” said Ashley a bit suspiciously. “But if you’re trying to invite me home for sex on a first date, I don’t have a penis, so you might be a bit disappointed. Then again, you haven’t got a 1010111010101, so I might be, too.”

Mary hid a smile. “I’ll try and resist the temptation to jump you, Ash.”

But then he saw the funny side and relaxed, and made several of those squeaky-toy-being-sat-upon laughs.