Jim Baen's Universe

Fantasy Stories

Build-A-Bear

Written by Gene Wolfe

Illustrated by Paul Campbell

Sighing, Viola picked up the yellow schedule of shipboard activities and glanced at her watch. It was three thirty, still two and half hours till dinner.

"Bermuda and the Bermuda Triangle" 2 Explorers Lounge. She had gone to that one yesterday, and they were into it already. Nothing had happened.

"Line dancing for beginners" 10 Gym. She could line dance nicely already, thank you very much, and did not enjoy being laughed at. Surely there had to be something more interesting than looking at the Atlantic.

"Talent Aboard—passengers display their musical skills." 4 Seaview room. She shuddered.

"Make your pet." 9 Captain's Club. What in the world . . . ?

****

"I'm sorry I'm late," Viola told the smiling young woman with the laptop. "I didn't even know there was a Captain's Club, and the steward I got to help me find it only made things worse."

"No fret. I'm just glad somebody came. Bellatrix." Rising, Bellatrix held out her hand. "I'm in the show. Did you see me last night?"

"Oh, yes!" Viola lied womanfully. "That was you! I thought you were wonderful." She accepted the hand, larger and harder than her own.

"Thanks. But I do this, too, and I get paid by the head. I'll have to scan your keycard."

Viola hesitated.

"You won't be charged. It's included in the cruise. It's just way I get paid." Bellatrix smiled again. "We show folks always need more money.

"Thank you." She glanced at the card. "Viola. Sit down, Viola. First we need to talk. Why did you come?"

Wondering when her card would be scanned but happy to sit, Viola said, "It sounded like fun, that's all. A friend of mine went to something like this called Build-a-Bear, where they made teddy bears. She made her own bear. It's always in the living room, and she tells everybody who'll listen all about it. Oh, God! I'm just terrible!"

"That's good, Viola." Bellatrix returned the key card. "I like terrible people. What's your specialty?"

"So I thought I might build a bigger bear than Marian. A prettier one. It'll kill her."

"Great." Bellatrix punched keys on her laptop. "It's got to be a bear? You don't want to build a cat or a horse or anything?"

Viola shook her head. "A bear. Marian's is brown, so I thought maybe pink."

"Got it. You said big. How big?"

"About like this." Viola held her hands apart. "This long. That should be twice the size of hers."

"Ninety centimeters." Bellatrix punched more keys. "You want it to talk, don't you?"

"With one of those strings in back you pull? Yes, I'd like that."

"That will take a bit of doing. Wait a minute."

"I thought I'd have to sew, and—oh, I don't know. Pick out the eyes. Make it."

Still punching keys, Bellatrix said, "You will pick out the eyes. We can do that next. What kind would you like?"

"What color, you mean?"

"Right. More pink?"

Viola shook her head. "You wouldn't be able to see them."

"Oh, you would if you looked closely. And she'd be able to see you, of course."

"A girl bear?"

Bellatrix nodded. "That's what I thought. Because of the pink."

"With a hair ribbon."

"If you want. That would be no trouble."

"I—I don't." Viola felt her cheeks grow hot. "I—I . . ."

"You don't have to explain," Bellatrix told her.

"I want to. I want to get it off my—my shoulders. I went on this cruise to meet someone."

"They have singles cruises, too. That might be better."

"I thought this was one." For a moment, Viola was puzzled. "Anyway, here I am with you instead of line dancing, and Beverly and Marian both say that's typical of me. I don't meet men because I'm too feminine. I hate singles bars."

"So do I."

"And I went with Lucas for almost three years, but he played golf. I couldn't learn, and to tell you the truth I didn't want to. I didn't think that would break us up, but it did. He met a girl with a three handicap and I was—was history. Am I going to cry?"

Bellatrix studied her. "I don't think so."

"That's good. I . . . I've cried too much about Lucas already."

"How about a pink boy bear?"

Mutely, Viola nodded.

"Nice dark eyes, with just at touch of fire in them?" Bellatrix punched more keys. "We can put a little vest on him."

"A black vest," Viola muttered, trying to get into the spirit of the thing.

"Right, to go with his eyes. Now we get into the hard part. Character, and all that. You want him to need you, don't you?"

"Absolutely." Viola almost smiled. "I want a warm bear who wants to be cuddled, not just one who sits in the living room and stares at people."

"Good. I'm with you on that. Brave?"

"Very. He's a bear after all."

"Right you are. Smart, too, I'll bet."

"Very smart. Quiet, too, and thoughtful. A bear of few words."

"Strong?"

"Very strong, too." Viola was smiling now. "A regular grizzly."

More keys were punched. "Got it. If he's going to be strong, he shouldn't be too thin. But you want him cuddly, from what you said. We need a balance of characteristics. I'm good at that."

"His expression . . . ?"

"Exactly. Strong but vulnerable. Also you'll want him to be soft when you hold him, without being too soft. Suppose somebody broke in? You'd want a pet who could protect you."

"You know," Viola said, "you're deeper into this than I am."

"Of course. You should see some of mine." Bellatrix punched more keys. "There! That should do it. He's pretty close to standard, really. Some deviations, but we can use a lot of the regular subroutines. What's his name, by the way?"

Viola considered. "Theodore."

"Theodore Bear?"

"Exactly. When will I get to see him?"

"He'll be delivered to your cabin just as soon as he's finished," Bellatrix promised. "I'm making him look just a touch old-fashioned, okay? You strike me as a conservative sort of person, a bit old-fashioned yourself."

"I am," Viola said, and knew it for the truth.

****

"Four-thirty," she said to herself, as she left the Captain's Club, "and the ship's rolling a little. I hope I'm not too seasick for dinner." It seemed odd that she had not noticed the roll while she was talking bears, but she left that unsaid.

A different and somewhat more Spartan elevator carried her from Deck Nine to Deck Five, where—eventually—she found her cabin. A large pink teddy bear in a black vest lay upon her bed, propped by two small pillows.

"Well, hello!" It did not seem possible. "Hello, Theodore!" Sitting on the bed, she picked up the pink bear. His expression, she decided, was indecipherable. From one angle he looked severe, from another he appeared to plead, from a third he smiled warmly; he was a bear of many moods.

His paws felt soft—yet hard at the ends. Looking more closely she found lifelike claws, not sharp but long and curved. Playing with his face did little to alter his expressions, but led to the discovering of actual bearlike teeth behind his furry lips. "I'm taking you to dinner, Theodore. I want to show you to whoever I'm seated with today."

Her questing fingers found a ring on the pink bear's back. She pulled it, but not too hard.

"I'd like that," the bear said distinctly; his voice was deepish with a squeaky "I," and gruff overall.

"Very apropos." Viola patted the bear's furry back below the ring. "Now then . . . You will have observed, Theodore my bear, that our cabin boasts a small porch, balcony, or outdoor viewing area, called by captain and crew a veranda. Besides a little table and a great big footstool, it includes two wicker chairs. The first is large, with a splayed back. Rather a peacock-tail back, actually. It's clearly intended for the gentleman. That's you."

The pink bear appeared to smile.

"You, that is to say, when you are not on my lap—I fear your fur may quickly prove over-warm in the salubrious air prevailing on our veranda. I shall occupy the other chair, a lesser seat of the wing-back persuasion. At times you may occupy it with me—not that I've a great deal of lap to offer. May I have your opinion of the arrangement I suggest?"

She pulled the string as before, and the bear said, "I'd like that."

Only one phrase. She felt a little disappointed. "Is that all you can say?"

"Two," the bear added equally distinctly. Or perhaps "too" or "to."

Violet sighed. "I hope that extra noise doesn't mean you're broken already."

The bear did not reply; and so, not knowing what else to do, she picked him up and carried him onto the veranda, plumping him down in the wide wicker chair before seating herself in the smaller wing-backed one.

Beyond the Plexiglas-faced railing, a sea impossibly blue spread small swells to the horizon. Over it arched a sky equally blue. Someone had told Viola once that the sky was blue only because it was reflecting the blue of all the world's oceans. Looking at that sea and that sky, she felt that it might almost be true. "Cities," she thought, "have scraped away the sky with their skyscrapers. I wonder why they wanted to?"

Five o'clock. The dining room would not open for dinner until six. She leaned back, and when her eyes chose to close themselves she let them.

****

She was awakened by a tickling nose. Dispatched to wipe the tickle away, her hand encountered something large and soft.

Her eyes opened. "Theodore my bear, please mind your fur. . . ."

It took three moments and two blinks to bring the pink bear into focus. "Did I put you in my lap? Never mind." She glanced at her watch—six thirty. Dinner would be in full swing. "What about it?" she asked. "I am going to get something to eat, Theodore. You may remain here if you prefer, or—"

He might blow away.

"Inside on my bed, I mean. Or you may escort me. Which will it be?"

She pulled the string.

"I'd like that," the pink bear said distinctly.

"I thought you would. Dinner it is."

The Grand Dining Salon (as the ship called it) was at the stern on Deck Two. It was, as its name implied, very grand indeed. Wide glass doors in a glass wall opened on a spacious chamber resembling an amphitheater, wherein white-coated gladiators wrestled valiantly with laden trays. Spotless white tablecloths were embraced by massive chairs of wood well-carved—chairs that should, as Viola reflected at each meal, make excellent life preservers.

Five persons were already seated at the table to which she was brought to fill the last chair. She glanced at the faces of the three men as she took her seat, expecting signs of disappointment. There were none, and she smiled.

A blonde smiled in return and offered her hand, "Lenore Doucette."

Viola accepted it and introduced herself.

"I love musical names," the other woman said. She was meager and almost swarthy, with the hard, secretive eyes of a professional gambler. "I have one, too. I'm Raga."

Bone and a hank of hair, Viola thought. Aloud she murmured, "Pleased to meet you, Raga."

Lenore was looking at the pink bear. "Do you always carry that with you?" Her somewhat attractive face had the tight-skinned look that bespeaks plastic surgery.

"Only on the ship. Theodore's my bodyguard."

"Since the men will not introduce themselves—"

"Perhaps he'll let me do it." Viola smiled again, more relaxed than she had been at any of her previous meals. "What about it, Theodore? May I introduce you?" She pulled the string.

"I am Viola's bear," the pink bear said distinctly. "You may call me Theodore."

"You've more vocabulary than I thought," Viola muttered from behind her menu.

The round-headed, round-shouldered man seated on the farther side of Lenore said, "Don Partlowe," as if he were a little ashamed of it, to which the big, heavily handsome man on his left added, "Blake Morrison."

The waiter arrived, and Viola told him, "Five oh five four, and I'll have the split pea and the roast beef."

The man to Viola's immediate right coughed. "T—Tim Tucker, Miss Neudorf." He was small and looked (Viola thought) like a spike buck caught in the headlights.

"You have to call her Viola," Lenore instructed him. "Rules of the ship."

Raga smirked. "Another rule of the ship is that no more than six may eat at one table. I'm afraid that means you're out of luck, Viola. What would your bear like?"

"Honey," Viola told her firmly. "As in mind your manners, honey."

There was a brief, pained silence before Don said, "That's not on the menu, Viola. I'm afraid you'll have to eat