EDITORIAL Sheila Williams THE SECRET SHARER I have always been intrigued by science the separate identities rarely engaged in fiction stories about characters who a dialog. share one body, and, perhaps, one mind. Science fiction does have its share of This fascination may have arisen from stories about characters with buried sec- reading Hal Clement’s signature novel, ond personalities who are following their Needle, at my father’s suggestion. I was own agendas. In SF, though, the explana- enthralled by the young boy and the tion for the buried personality isn’t a psy- four-pound symbiotic life form dwelling chological one. The willing suspension of within his body who hunt down the par- disbelief serves us well here. We are able asitic interstellar villain that has seized to accept, at least till the story’s end, that control of another human being. Of the assassin actually has been implanted course, my interest in stories about peo- or that ancient immortal entities really ple with a shared conscious could also are calling our shots. have been piqued by Robert Heinlein’s What these stories share with their ribald novel, I Will Fear No Evil, which I mainstream counterparts is that the sneaked away from my dad and de- body is never in the possession of more voured before he could attempt to de- than one personality at the same time. clare it off limits. The characters do not carry on an interi- Heinlein’s story, about an old man or dialog with each other. As with the whose brain is transplanted into the- original Sybils of ancient Greece, or Pro- brain-dead body of a young woman only fessor Trelawney in Hermione Granger to discover that the body has somehow re- and Harry Potter’s divination class, the tained her conscious mind, was published primary personality disappears when the in 1970. It is in some ways similar to the submerged entity takes over. myriad tales of telepathy that were so An Asimov’s story that does feature en- popular during the Cold War. In those sto- twined characters is Robert Silverberg’s ries, the characters could share intimate 1987 Nebula finalist, “The Secret Shar- details, but they had their own bodies to er.” This tale shares the title with and is return to in the morning. In Heinlein’s a tribute to Joseph Conrad’s 1910 novel- novel, the characters must coexist in the la. Both stories feature inexperienced same terrain. Critics panned I Will Fear captains who don’t let on to their crew No Evil, but to my unfettered teenage about a stowaway. Conrad’s story has an mind the idea was kind of awesome. excellent title. The stowaway secretly While aliens and reanimated bodies shares space in the captain’s quarters, weren’t really available to mystery and and clearly shares the major secret of his other mainstream authors, these writers presence with the captain. Bob takes the accomplished similar special effects by title metaphor a couple of steps further. creating characters who suffered from dis- His stowaway is the matrix of a young sociative identity disorders. Stories about woman’s mind. She isn’t just sharing characters that don’t know they are the physical space with the captain, she’s murderer can be traced back to Robert sharing space within his psyche. If there Louis Stephenson’s Strange Case of Dr. are no barriers to thought, how can the Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. These tales be- main character fail to share his deepest came even more common after the pub- secrets with this disembodied passenger? lication of Flora Rheta Schreiber’s novel With the stowaway in his mind, the Sybil in 1973. Characters suffering from protagonist is able to find a level of DID were generally unaware of their courage he’s never known before. We re- multiple personalities, however, and, un- alize that even when she leaves, the less they were part of a comedy routine, young captain will have been forever changed by this journey. Bob’s story is tually occur because the Ghennung’s subtle and insightful. I wouldn’t compare thoughts are integrated into the other be- it to the Heinlein novel, but a story about ing’s consciousness, but the host is dimin- two human minds commingling is proba- ished when a connection is lost. bly more closely related to that book than Will McIntosh’s Hugo award winning to Hal Clement’s adventure tale. story “Bridesicle,” which appeared in the Direct descendents of the Hunter in January 2009 issue of Asimov’s, is anoth- Needle would have to be the Trill—sym- er story that plays with the concept of biont aliens featured on various episodes multiple minds sharing one body. In this of Star Trek. The Trill are a a small slug- bittersweet tale, people can carry uploads like species that can exist within the of the dead. Will does a lovely job explor- body of a humanoid alien. The long-lived ing the pluses and minuses of this slug passes the memories of previous strange situation. He is expanding the hosts along to its companion. I always story into a novel, and I look forward to felt that these characters failed to live reading the book when it appears. up to their full potential. The depth of It would be fun to put some of these knowledge that should have been hand- different sorts of stories about the secret ed from one generation to the other just sharer together in an anthology. Keeping didn’t seem to be there. the murderer’s identity hidden might be An Asimov’s story that treats this sub- tricky in a book like this, because the ject well is Benjamin Rosenbaum’s 2004 reader would be on the lookout for that Nebula award finalist “Embracing-the- submerged personality. Still, I think the New.” Here, tiny parasites called “Ghen- idea of two entities peering through a nungs” hang onto the outside of their single pair of eyes would stay vibrant host’s body.These creatures can be inher- from story to story because there are so ited, giving their hosts the vivid memo- many different ways to approach that ries of their ancestors, and new parasites mysterious hitchhiker of the mind. can be accumulated. A dialog doesn’t ac-