East of the Sun, West of the Stars

Brit E. B. Hvide

We named our ship The Bear. It was from a fairy-tale—the one about the woman who traveled impossible distances to find her prince—but it was also a promise. Warm and powerful. Distinctly animal against the ship’s chrome and emptiness. It inspired hope. It promised we too would travel impossible distances.

We brought along everything we had: bundles of warm clothing, family heirlooms, wooden clocks our grandfathers had whittled, seed from the final harvest, jars filled with preserved jams and pickles, and starter yeast that had been in the family for a hundred years and would be in the family a hundred more. We brought our tools, our good axes, knives and spanners, data tablets stuffed with history, and seasoned cast-iron skillets for cooking our grandmother’s recipes. Of course we brought our animals. Our strong horses. Our goats. Our pigs and faithful dogs. But we could not bring them all. Some we took in jars, their DNA sloshing in clear gels that we planned to reconstitute when we got there. The others we slaughtered and preserved—smoked and dried in salt, the way our ancestors had done, the way our children would do.

When we boarded the ship, we each carried with us a pinch of dirt in a brass vial. Brown and rich like the future we saw for ourselves. With these vials, we carried the weight of our future, the collective knowledge of our Earth and our ways.

Our prophet struggled to get the elders to agree to the journey in the first place. It would require a select few to sacrifice the simplicity of our farms in order to attend the great universities and study the things we’d rejected for so long—electricity and energy, physics and computer sciences. We sent a third of all our children, the ones who saw a future for the old ways amongst the stars. We sent them out to learn and bring back their knowledge.

I was not among them. Instead the elders filled me with stories of smart children and evil witches, of forest creatures and fairy folk. My gift to future generations would be our traditions: the candles we lit for Easter, the little marzipan pigs children ate at Christmas, the corn husk dolls and the fairy-tales. Tales like this one:

“She captured the bear prince,” the young woman cried. “The troll queen took him to her palace East of the sun and West of the moon.”

“That is a long way away.” The North Wind said, considering the young woman’s predicament carefully. “I believe I blew an acorn there once, but it was many, many years ago.”

“Can you take me?” the woman asked.

“I can try.”

Raising the ship took longer than we expected. The world was already turning to ash by the time we’d gathered enough money and resources. But in the end, we built it the way we always built things: together. With hope.

A few chose to stay behind, to see if they could outlast the fires and the floods and the tornados, but most left. Most chose to board. Most chose the stars.

The day we took off, I cried in my mother’s arms—I was so young then, even at twenty-five. I was already a widow with my own child, three-year-old Hamish who clung to my skirts, but still I was young. We climbed aboard the ship and waved goodbye through the portholes until the prophet told us to take our seats.

It was strange to see us all like that. In our wools and our hand spun cottons amidst all the metal and chrome. But it felt right. We were the same as our ancestors. The same as our forefathers who first crossed the oceans to escape persecution. Who sought adventure and freedom in faraway lands.

As the ship rumbled into space, wind screaming against the metal plates and atmosphere shaking us with loud, violent starts, the controlled explosions sounding like death, a strange voice spoke to me for the first time. It said my name:

“Faith.”

I looked to Hamish to see if he had spoken, but no. Neither was it my friends and neighbors who sat or stood, clinging for dear life to the handholds and walls as we traveled. Their own fear and hope consumed them, blinded them to any consideration of me or my confusion. It must have been a trick of the creaking metal, a conflation of the animal’s screams as they shook in their stalls, confused and terrified. And so I ignored it.

When the ship stabilized, traveling across dark space as fierce and terrifying as any empty sea, I settled my little family in to our home.

For a while the act of making a life distracted me too much to wonder about the voice: sewing the holes in torn trousers, setting up the house with all our little knickknacks, and working in the maintenance crew to keep the ship clean and orderly. So much needed done at the beginning. It was joyous. Singing and dancing in the evenings, sharing meals around a great communal table, and telling stories to the little ones. We came together as we always did in times of need. We were adventurers, holy pilgrims, each fulfilling god’s destiny.

But at night, my mind stilled, and I dreamed.

I dreamed I was the girl from the story. By day her prince took the shape of a bear, but by night he was a man.

“Faith.” The bear prince said, kind and warm.

His great white shoulders were well muscled and his eyes intelligent and kind. “You are so brave to come all this way,” he said and took my face in his great palms, exactly as my husband had once done. And he kissed my cheek.

In the mornings, I shook the dream from my head, shook the memory from my body and my clothes. Hot cheeks. Hot chest. I chose for myself the coldest work—maintaining the cryo-chambers or helping tidy the labs—if only to ignore the heat between my thighs at the thought of this great creature. The other women began to tease me for it.

“Have you a crush?” Maria asked.

“Is it Abraham from the biolab?” “I’ve seen him looking at you when you work nearby.” And I played along because it was better than to admit I loved a dream.

At the first official ceremony, a few months after liftoff, Abraham grabbed my hand as we watched the prophet plant the first apple tree. In truth, it is not technically the first we’d planted. We were a practical people and had already begun growing and seeding almost as soon as we took flight. But ceremonies are ceremonies. Just as stories are stories.

Abraham’s strong hand clasped mine as the prophet spoke:

“A New World. Think of it. That is where God sent our ancestors when they had no other choice. When they were persecuted for their religion and their culture. And now he has given us this same message. A new world. Like our forefathers, like Noah and his arc, we bring with us all of what we are and all the gifts of mankind. All the glories so we might continue our legacy into the future. With this seed, we establish ourselves in this home so that the offspring of this tree, like the offspring of our offspring, will be able to start life anew at our destination.”

I listened to the words but was not listening. I felt Abraham’s hand but was not feeling.

And in his great castle at the top of the world, the young woman and the bear prince fell in love.

Of course Abraham proposed marriage and of course I accepted and of course we grew older aboard this ship because that is how time works. But the bear did not grow older in my mind. Each night he returned to me, beautiful and strong as the first night I’d met him. Some nights we spoke. I told him the doings on our ship—the genetic modifications Abraham worked on in the lab to help the animals better adjust to their future home, how Hamish grew tall and thin as a reed, how the stars seemed so far away—and he listened. Some nights he held me close, buried my face in his fur. Some nights I woke up screaming, my head thrown back and sweat beaded across my forehead, the sheets beneath me soaking wet. And gentle Abraham was always there to coax me from my reverie.

When I gave birth to my second child, she had a shock of white hair that looked like fur, and in private, I cried with the strangeness of it all. My sweet, brown-haired Abraham only laughed and wondered when it would darken.

But it didn’t.

Hamish doted on his younger sister, Patience. We named her for the virtue I thought she might need most. It was tradition. I named her the same way my mother had named me and the same way my grandchildren would be named. I named her for the long journey she had ahead, and for the secret she too might one day have to keep.

In the stories, secrets are best left untold.

The young woman soon grew lonely in the bear prince’s beautiful palace. Though she enjoyed his company, he was often away, and she had already sat and stitched and read and wondered as much as was humanly possible to do. She begged to visit with her family in the winter woods.

After a long time, the bear prince acquiesced. “But only if you promise to never be alone with your sisters. For they will give you false council and turn you against me.”

The girl promised and did not think to wonder why.

Patience grew like a tree, young limbs stretching out, nimble and quick, but also solid. More muscular than I was as a child, and more muscular than one would expect in the ship’s gravity. The other children were long and lanky, thin and delicate like birds where mine was boisterous and solid. You heard her barreling between the long stalks of wheat before you saw her short, white hair and ruddy cheeks.

But she soaked up traditions the way I did as a girl. She begged to hear the old fairy-tales and descriptions of Earth and for me to tell her all the animals that lived there. She drew their pictures and would recite back what I’d told the other children, but with more flourish—voices, details, wild gesticulations. And the children listened to her with rapt attention.

Abraham saw nothing strange in the girl, just filled her with sweets and chuffed her on the shoulder, proud as a sparrow. “She was born to lead,” he said one day, watching her spin a tale around the electric fire, the one enclosed in glass in the town center, installed and lit for festivals and cozy evenings. False flame for the false world we’d built. “We’ll need children like her where we’re going,” he said.

Something sharp edged under my skin like a splinter. I turned on him. “How do you know?”

My daughter began the story that evening the same way I always had:

Once upon a cold, winter night a bear came and knocked on the door of a poor woodcutter’s farm. He offered to trade the family great wealth and food enough to survive the winter if they gave him their youngest daughter. And though he loved the girl dearly, the father looked around at his meager home and agreed.

I had told it half a hundred times before. Had heard it told just as many. But something jabbed me in this retelling. I stutter-stopped to think of the covenant made. It was not the girl and the bear who decided anything but the bear and the father. I looked at Abraham across the circle, his eyes bright and glittering in the firelight. I looked to the prophet. Our leader watched my daughter from the observation deck.

When the sisters hear of the bear prince and his magical castle, they grow suspicious. “Why does the bear prince only come at night when you cannot truly see his face? Why will he not stand near the fire or let you look on him more closely?” They asked. “Perhaps he is really a troll or demon. You must take a candle with you before bed and light it when he falls asleep. Only then will you know the truth.”

At midnight, I slipped from bed, careful not to wake my husband, my feet soft slippered, my nightgown flowing. Not for the first time, I wondered what my bear prince did while I was awake. Nothing, I reminded myself. He was just a dream.

I pushed forward through the artificial night and thought how untruthful and unnatural it all was. Beyond the portholes, everything was always night, all glittering stars and strange planets. We crafted night and day with electric bulbs and cyclic timers; we made it up, spun it out like a story and told that story so often it felt true.

I trailed a finger along the ship’s skeleton—The Bear, we’d named it—its metal frame separating us from the vacuum of space, and I wondered what secrets it kept. Society had trained me in storytelling, trained me to clean and cook and raise strong children, not to turn numbers into starships or data into dreams. What would I find under its skin?

Abraham’s workstation appeared on the right when I entered the biolabs. I crept up to it and slid my hands across its glass surface the way I’d seen him do before. So cold and unyielding. So unlike leather and cotton and wood.

The screen illuminated and asked me for a password. The first few tries didn’t work, the names and dates combined wrong. But eventually something fit, and the computer unlocked, the screen shifting from static and gray to a scrolling field: white letters on black.

I had seen the configuration before; it was impossible to spend so much time maintaining the labs and not know a few things. The text and images moved in conjunction with the importance and urgency of Abraham’s various projects, organic prompts to attend to one thing or another, but one file remained static at the top of the screen. I swiped a finger over it and it opened onto another field of shifting text. This, I understood less. The words scrolling past looked familiar but the sentence structure was all wrong, dotted with strange punctuation and strung together in mismatched garlands. If it was a language, it wasn’t one I understood. I peered, trying to figure out the grammar of the story. Swiped a finger left and right, up and down, moving through the narrative, trying to sense the shape of it, trying to crack this code, when I found it: my name.

“Faith.”

Once I’d seen it, I noticed it dotted throughout the script. And here and there, dialogue that rang too familiar to my ear. “Faith. You are so brave to come all this way.”

I didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. Didn’t want to understand. Bile rose up in my throat and I choked. The ship walls closed in around me. Faith. My name everywhere. I wanted to stop looking, but my fingers danced across the screen, continuing, continuing, continuing. Faith.

The pressure of the truth overwhelmed me. Suffocating. Crushing. I couldn’t keep going and I couldn’t stop.

Without thinking, I ducked behind the station, following a thick white cord to the wall, and yanked it out. The lights in the biolab turned off.

“How could you have betrayed me so?” The bear prince cried, looking up to see his wife in the flicker of candlelight. “A troll cursed me so none could see my true face. Now I must return with her to her castle.”

A grotesque figure appeared through the window and swept him up in her arms, the wind and rain shrouding her.

“Where is her castle?” the young woman called. “I will find you! I’ll come for you!”

“East of the sun, and west of the moon.”

I dreamt nothing that night, and I did not return to the lab again. Instead I studied my daughter, became absorbed in the shape of her hard fingers and thick muscles, so unlike my Earthborn son. She was popular and joyful where Hamish was quiet and shy, she was strong where his muscles strained, sharp where his mind, though eager and five years older struggled with the edges of things. She was so perfectly suited to this life that except for her gift with stories I wondered if she was even mine.

Abraham said nothing about the lab power outage or the monitors that must have been dark as voids when he arrived in the morning. When the bear returned a few nights later, he—it—did not mention the absence and I did not ask about it. The bear tried to talk as if nothing had happened, as if something dark and biting didn’t lurk between us.

In the shower I ran my fingers over my body, through my scalp, searching for something metal, or the pucker of an unfamiliar scar. Something to help me understand these dreams and this girl and my husband and the bear and the ship. I needed this story to make sense even if it was a tragedy. Even if it hurt me. But I found nothing.

And eventually the bear stopped coming.

The young girl searched for the Troll Queen’s palace. She ran down the road in the direction she first saw her true love disappear, barefoot and in her nightgown, too panicked to remember the practical lessons of the woods where she grew up. Along the way she came across a cobbler.

“Please sir, do you know how to get to the palace east of the sun and west of the moon?”

The cobbler looked up with surprise at this barefoot girl’s question. “Aye,” he said. “I’ve heard tell of such a place, but only the winds know how to get there.”

“And how do I talk to the wind?” the girl asked.

It was Patience’s first day of secondary school. She had been siphoned into the class for higher science and mathematics, and I felt strange stopping before the chrome schoolroom, so different from Hamish’s class amidst the farmland. Her textbooks confused me too, filled with numbers and concepts I didn’t understand. I’d slipped them from her bag the night before to study its pages and planned to do so again. You could not tell a story properly if you didn’t understand its context, and in this self-contained little world, I understood so little.

Abraham huffed and sighed beside me, impatient to get on with the day. “We shouldn’t have come. There’s too much to do.”

“So go already,” I told him, my voice short, words clipped with bitterness. A coldness had grown between us I did not bother to hide. Did you know space can get down to -270 Celsius? I didn’t. Now I do.

I stood outside the building as our daughter greeted her peers, the ones who had been culled like her from the lower levels. None were white haired, but there was something about them all, something in aggregate that was strong and stocky and made them seem like siblings. Each one comfortable in their skin and comfortable at this gravity. Their bright eyes shone with a matching intelligence.

Abraham shifted nearby, his eyes on me. Rage hummed through my body, but I said nothing. Yet.

By the time we got back to our home, the little metal apartment we shared, he knew what I knew.

“The Bear,” I said. “The children. Were all the mothers deluded like me? Did you trick them all?”

He looked away. “No,” he said. “The others . . . The changes were subtler in the other children, easier to wave away, easier to chalk up to genetic randomness. Patience had to be different.”

“But why the lies? Why the dreams? Why this—” the word “violation” stuck in my throat. But to say it out loud would make it real, and I wasn’t ready. Instead, my anger grew.

“I’m sorry, Faith. We thought you’d understand better this way.”

“Why? Because you thought me simple? Fanciful? You think because I wasn’t schooled the same way you were that I’d just accept this farce? That a dream made her this way?”

Of course the answer was yes, because I did believe it. I believed in my prince and in the secret, and I believed maybe one day, when she was old enough, I might tell her the story of the bear and her conception. I believed in magic. I believed the lie. But that wasn’t the answer Abraham gave.

“It’s because we thought you’d understand most. It’s a story. Don’t you see? She’s going to be special. Long after we’re gone she’ll be the one who leads the next generation. You, me, the prophet, we’ll all pass and then the ship will need someone else to inspire them to keep going, to keep maintaining this way of life. We were creating a . . . a myth. An origin story. Something magical to make them all believe and keep going.”

“You didn’t need this lie. You didn’t need to do any of this.”

“It’s how great leaders are made. They come from myths. Magic. Do you think the prophet really heard God’s voice? Or do you think maybe he just looked around and saw that the whole fucking world was on fire. We needed an origin story for her. Belief. Faith. It’s the foundation our society is built on.”

I laugh. “And that’s all I am to you then? An origin story?”

“It’s what we all are.”

“Will you take me to the castle east of the sun and west of the moon?” The young woman pleaded.

The North Wind thought. It considered her shoeless feet, the way she planted them just so. The way her voice carried over his own whipping winds, strong and purposeful.

And the North Wind said, “I can try.”

I broke things that day. So many things. Broke my history to pieces, broke my heirlooms and my starter yeast and my memories. My daughter came in carrying her books and stood stunned for a second before calling out to me. “What are you doing?”

Instead of responding I handed her a plate. It was a gift from my grandmother, passed down through eldest daughters, and I pointed to the wall. “Throw it.”

She didn’t understand, but she did as I instructed, tossed it hesitantly, and startled as it broke, the crisp shattering of glass ringing our little home like a bell. She laughed.

We took turns throwing plates and glasses. I took a hammer and smashed through the bed frame and the clock on the wall and the wardrobe and ripped apart all the shirts I’d mended over all these years. We did it with joy and abandon, with heartbreak and bitterness. We did it because we could and I did it because I needed to.

The story usually ends like this:

The young woman made it to the castle. She won back her prince and turned the troll queen to dust with the force of her love. And then they lived happily ever after.

But that seems too simple now, too easy. I don’t tell stories like that anymore. Instead, I tweak and adjust. I’ve changed the ending so many times I’m not sure the children remember the original anymore. Sometimes the girl never leaves that cabin in the winter woods. Sometimes she goes with the bear. I once told it where they just lived happily in their castle, never bothered by anyone, raising a son and daughter till the end of their days.

But more often the troll comes. And often there is a betrayal. Because not all stories can be happy ones.

My daughter is learning to do the same. She doesn’t care to save the prince in most of her tellings. Instead she lets the story end right in the middle, with the young woman and the North Wind, traveling ever onward, east of the sun and west of the moon. And I encourage her to explore those nooks and crannies, to question and prod, to roll the tale around like a marble until she understands the shape of it. I encourage her to break it.

She is our future leader, after all. I cannot change her fate and wouldn’t want to. Abraham is right: we’ll need a leader when the first generation passes. But she won’t be the kind he imagined.

Stories belong to the tellers.

And this story is mine.

About the Author

Brit E. B. Hvide is a writer and editor. She studied creative writing and physics at Northwestern University. Originally from Singapore, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their dog. Follow her on Twitter @bhvide.

Painwise

Robert Reed

Nobody knows what happened. Except that I was four and standing near the top of the stairs, and then suddenly I had reached the bottom of the stairs. And those were some very bad stairs. Steep and old, made from maple or oak or another tough wood. My mother, who was her own kind of tough wood, heard the crash but took her time coming to look for me. In her account of events—stories told that evening and for many years—she found her boy on his back, on the uncarpeted landing, quietly moaning. Which she took to be a good sign, certainly better than being unconscious.

“What happened?” she called out.

But the moaning boy couldn’t offer explanations for his present difficulties.

I always hated that story, and worst of all was the part where Mom claimed to have offered a helpful hand. She didn’t. I know the woman, and sympathy was about the least likely response. No, she was sharing a very funny anecdote. Always grinning, she’d work her way to a final detail: The garage sale View-Master lying broken beside me. Which led to her tried-and-true punchline. “Just like a foolish little man,” she would say. “Staring at pretty pictures, not watching his feet.”

I don’t remember the fall, and the immediate pain is lost too. Though there must have been plenty of suffering. Three days later, hearing this tale about embarrassment and near-tragedy, a neighbor lady decided to inquire about my shoulder. Something in the way I carried myself seemed wrong, and could I lift my arm? Mom, who hadn’t given me one moment’s extra attention, watched with passing curiosity as I shoved that weak limb up even with my ear, and grimacing like a prizefighter, I reported, “But it’s getting better.”

In fairness, the collarbone probably was on its way to healing. But our busybody neighbor was stubborn, and after quite a lot of emphatic insistence, Mom relented. Which is why I remember a physician and X-rays and someone’s shoulder needing a sling and time before the break would properly mend.

As it happened, that was one of the few trips I ever made to any doctor. In part because I was growing up under a mother’s maple-board attitudes, but mostly because I was one tough, tough boy who almost never got sick . . .

And now you can guess where this story is heading.

We knew what it was. Nobody was fooled. But for those early weeks, maybe for a couple months, it was important to pretend that we were wrong. We’d talk about sinuses and toothaches, and when the pain passed, we’d discuss pleasant and decidedly unrelated subjects. Yet one of us would hold her mouth in a very specific way, not wanting to move her lips and never letting her head turn too fast, while the dinners she loved grew cold on her plate.

“No, I’m fine,” she would say. But carefully, speaking to the air in the middle of the table, not to me. That cautious mouth told the air, “It’s allergies.” Or, “I’m just tired.” Or, “Can we. Tonight. Be quiet?”

Yes, but I don’t like it.

And I can easily state the obvious. But fifteen years of marriage had trained me to steer free of blunt, undiluted honesty.

That’s why the quiet month or two was spent reading news feeds, watching YouTube, and eavesdropping on Reddit chats. Rampant neuralgia. The century’s great affliction was still in its infant stages, but quite a lot was already known, or at least intelligently presumed. Depending on methodology, between one and three percent of the adult population was currently suffering. But that was only the beginning. Sober predictions told us what was likely, and possessing that critical insight, the entire world was doing exactly what my wife and I managed quite well: Walking the cherished line between fantasy and grim, grim truth.

I was born in 2012, my wife four years earlier. We grew up appreciating how the world was sick and angry, and everything was liable to get worse tomorrow. My parents responded to the troubles by minimizing their connections with the world. They didn’t vote or work normal jobs, and living on an acreage far in the country, they raised their son inside a blue-sky kind of cage. No cable television for us, minimal Internet. We ate what we grew, or we bought organic. Which sounds very Green, right up until you realize that my family was both borderline poor and preparing for the collapse of civilization.

Profound incompetence. That’s what ruled the planet back then. Our leaders had blundered into financial landslides, endless wars, and environmental maelstroms, and not even my isolation could insulate me from the hysteria. News came from free TV, from public schools. From watching the anger and terrors infesting every adult face, including those of my parents and our various neighbors, and in particular, the perpetually furious old bastard who drove the school bus.

We somehow survived until I was fourteen, and a certain warm spring day arrived. Those are two details that I won’t ever forget. International meetings were being held in Auckland. Which was somewhere in Australia, I believed. Sitting in the back of the bus, I was watching the older kids and richer kids playing with their phones. Some were gaming and texting, but the mood was distinctly quieter than usual. I can’t tell you which critical day this was, but desperate people were making great decisions. The world was turning some proverbial corners. Then we reached my corner, and picking up my backpack and lunch box, I walked the aisle, exactly like a thousand other times.

But this was the afternoon when the bus driver turned and looked at me.

The sourest fuck of a creature ever born. Yet he was smiling. For the first time ever, he was so happy that he looked ready to sing, and holding up his own phone, he showed me a picture of smiling prime ministers and presidents and such. And the strangest part of that great day? The asshole winked at me. Telling me, “Well, it looks like you get to live another hundred years, you good for nothing shit.”

Jump ahead a quarter of a century.

I ride an electric bus to work and home again, four days a week, including my half-Thursdays. Nuclear weapons still exist as plans and invincible physics but not as bombs-in-the-drawer. The climate still moves in bad directions, but that goddamn line on the graph is showing signs of flattening out. We have excellent medical insurance, and I mean that everyone has it. Everyone also has a solar roof and clean, filtered water. The richest person in town is a transgender woman, and she’s worth more than me, but not ten times more than me. I live in a generous, happy world, and by right, every bus should be full of smiling faces. Twenty-five golden years have made joy ordinary and natural and right. Except one young lady sits sideways in a front seat, keeping her back and neck at a very specific angle. And there’s a fellow across the aisle from me. The one with dull eyes, his stiff face wanting to move in twenty directions. But it doesn’t move. He doesn’t dare flinch.

My stop comes, and knowing me, the bus pulls up to the curb.

One more glance at the hurting people, then I step into the early summer heat, and walking the next few blocks, I keep my thoughts carefully focused on the pleasures of this weather.

My wife works at home.

Except nothing has been accomplished today.

Our bedroom windows are darkened, the air stale, and she sits upright in bed, her face twisting and not twisting. The electricity comes into her cheek and rises to her eye, and she can’t escape. She fights the misery and surrenders to the misery, and neither strategy helps.

I sit beside her.

Waiting.

Then the spell finishes, and we say quite a lot with eyes. At this point, how would words help?

A wonder is what you need but never expect, and then it finds you, bestowing its blessings and everything else too.

Antibiotics were genuine wonders. But then various diseases learned how to beat penicillin, and not so gradually, the rest of those miracle drugs became somewhat or entirely useless. I was falling down the stairs when that particular disaster was unfolding. But then some smart people found a bacteria full of intriguing compounds. These good noble bugs were thriving in the same dirt that I played in and that we grew our potatoes in. And that’s how another wonder stepped forward, once again beating the evil, infectious sorts of bacteria.

That particular revolution occurred without me. Partly because the only meat in my diet was antibiotic-free poultry left lean by busy lives on the run. And partly because I was that very healthy child whose parents didn’t believe in unnecessary expenses. My occasional fevers were mild and survived without serious infections, while mumps and chicken pox were forbidden by free inoculations. (Preppers, yes, but we weren’t idiots.) And later, as a young adult entering college, I was well-armed with taboos and tendencies that insulated me from the unexpected plague.

I met my wife in college. A graduate student and forty-seven months my senior, the lady had a long history of withering sinus infections. But despite age and her obvious infirmities, I fell in love the old gal, and we married.

The government models are reliably blunt: In another five years, doctors are going to be in short supply. But today, with the epidemic just beginning, a suffering patient can visit her primary care physician after only a two-day wait.

I’m sitting inside an examination room. Frankly, I’ve never seen a room like this before. Do they all have these elaborate machines, these cheery paintings of flowers and sunshine? I want to ask questions but swallow the urge.

My face wears its ignorance openly.

“You should make an appointment,” the doctor tells me. “You’re due for a comprehensive checkup.”

Friendly in tone, but pushy too.

This is, of course, my wife’s doctor. I don’t have anyone like him in my life.

“Oh, I’ll do just that,” I tell him.

It’s the truth when I offer those words, but the promise dissolves into the next silence, instantly forgotten.

The doctor turns towards his patient.

“You know, we had no idea malacidins had such grievous side effects,” he states. Which seems like a peculiar point to make before beginning the examination. “But in one way, we were blessed. Certain formulations were especially injurious. That’s why we had strong early warnings.” Now he places fingers on the patient’s face, measuring the pain in her eyes. “Chronically infected individuals who took nothing but the best antibiotics, and in large doses. I was still in medical school when their pains were noted, and sad as their suffering was, and is, it meant studies that were quickly funded and then repeated in the world’s finest labs.”

Yes, we live in wondrous times.

The doctor plainly enjoys his expertise. “Of course our newest software was utilized. Which is all quite incredible. You know, we can mimic the bodies and nervous systems of real people. Fifty years crossed in fifty days.”

I already know this story, and that helps me like this doctor. He is young, like me, and as thoroughly informed as I aim to be.

“We were also blessed to have new antibiotics ready to enter the market,” he continues. “That’s why an entire class of essential drugs could be pulled from the shelves and animal pens.”

Yes, this is a wise, acrobatic world.

Hands drop. A quick reading of my wife’s records leads to questions about the pain’s position and shifting intensities, and then, after a dramatic pause, he makes the critical diagnosis.

“Maybe.”

Maybe?

“But there’s the chance that this is trigeminal neuralgia,” he adds.

Ah. Now we’ve exceeded my clinical skills.

“What’s that?” my wife asks through clenched teeth.

“Trigeminal is a rare condition, difficult in its own right, but familiar. More common in women than men, and the initial treatments are the same. An anticonvulsant should treat the worst effects of the pain.”

I never take medicine. But in my mind, right now, I’m gulping down pills and feeling so much better.

With her mouth clenched, the sick person asks, “What if it is . . . trigeminal . . . ?”

“Well, usually that means pressure against the nerve. A small benign tumor, perhaps, or an odd twist in a blood vessel. But gamma knives are effective treatment. Nearly a hundred percent success rates now.”

Looking at the physician’s eyes, my wife digs into her own soul.

“It isn’t that,” she manages.

“We will see,” he counters.

“Does the gamma knife help with Rampant?”

That’s my question, my hope.

“The trouble is,” the doctor begins. And then, he hesitates. And I wonder how many patients like my wife have come into his sterile examination rooms.

“Trouble?” my wife prods.

Once again, I am impressed. Instead of debasing the next sentences, the professional delivers a sharp gleaming truth.

“Our software humans were observed for fifty-year intervals,” he says. “Different treatments were tried, some more efficacious than others. But the pain will eventually spread to every portion of the body . . . ”

Two patients are present, and both of us audibly gasp.

Then comes the necessary promise. “We will find the cure,” our doctor predicts. “Long before that day, believe me.”

We do believe him.

Except this is nothing but attitude and guile—a declaration devoid of facts—and I know the grifter’s banter when I hear it.

Here is a partial list of pain-inducing triggers:

Cold air. Brushing your teeth. Putting on makeup. Removing makeup. Talking. Smiling. Turning your head with too much enthusiasm. Chewing hard food. Imagining hard food inside the mouth. Smiling that second time, just because the first smile was so successful. Saying ten words, or saying one word. You never know the limit. Chewing mushy food or sipping cool soup. Letting your husband touch your face. Walking in the woods and foolishly letting your face kiss a tiny branch. Brushing your teeth with your special brush. Drinking any water, at any temperature. Doing nothing. Doing nothing while sitting upright in bed, doing nothing. Thinking too loudly. Breathing too vigorously. Breathing at all. And in the end, daring to be alive.

This particular list is directed only at face pains.

Hands and legs and the rest of it . . . they have their own capricious triggers . . .

Five years have passed, and our smart young honest doctor has retired. For reasons of health, we have heard. Which comes as a surprise. He always did such a masterful job of masking his own symptoms.

By now, eighteen percent of the world’s population is afflicted, though Rampant exceeds twenty-five percent in the West. And in our community, blessed with a tradition of health clinics and easy access to pharmaceuticals, nearly thirty percent of the citizens endure at least the occasional misery inside a limb or across the face.

But as promised, there is also no end to new and marvelous treatments. We have hundreds of subsidized, very elaborate chemicals at our disposal. It’s fair to mention that no healthy individual would ever willingly ingest these particular toxins. But to those who are ailing, each remedy is indistinguishable from a godsend.

Drugs are born wearing complicated, senseless designations. But our favorites deserve nicknames. That’s why these are the Lemon Sky days. That’s what my wife sees when she looks upwards on a clear day. Yellow instead of blue. Her color sense has been radically shifted, which is a well-known neurological side effect. And what’s so wondrously interesting is that nobody can guess which way the spectrum will shift inside any patient, or why in her curious case, yellow objects remain a good reliable yellow.

Lemon Sky is our ninth medication, and signs already point to its demise in another few months. Not for lack of effectiveness, but because her liver is showing signs of fatigue.

On this very pleasant day, we’ve come to the neighborhood park to sit on a favorite bench, enjoying purple grass and gold goldfinches and the gentle breeze that blows one way and then the next, unable to make up its mind. Children have infested the nearby playground. None of them are in pain, at least directly. But one girl has to help her mother walk past us. The girl looks twelve and too old for this jungle gym nonsense, but she’s also large enough to help a grown woman. Plus somebody needs to yell at the little brother racing ahead. Big sister cups her hands around her mouth, shouting instructions, which is when her mother trips and nearly falls. My guess is that those burning feet have been numbed. Gamma knives and harsher surgeries are used to sever connections between the vulnerable brain and the turncoat limbs. But of course that leaves the patients uncertain where their toes end and the world begins.

The twelve-year-old nurse catches her patient just in time.

And I watch.

The girl is stoic and more than a little stern. Obviously, she doesn’t want her mother slamming her face into the azure pavement. But as she holds up the frail body, the girl’s frustrations and helplessness are obvious. She’s wishing for something. For the vast and unexpected anything. Some wondrous event that changes this life as caretaker to a helpless creature.

“What are you thinking?” my wife asks.

“She’s a good daughter,” I say.

“She is.”

I wish I had a strong child, Rampant-free. Someone to share the burdens. But in that same secret moment, I’m so glad that we never had kids, saving daughters and sons from this shared misery.

“What are you thinking?” I ask.

My wife intends to answer, but the voice fails. A flicker arrives. This particular misery infests the right side of her face, which has become the worst side. Plus there’s foot pain now, usually in her left arch, and a nexus of electricity that finds her hips, which is new and extra alarming. Also, where she could always sleep with the Rampant, just so long as she avoided moving in the wrong ways, it’s now impossible to rest hard for more than an hour at a time. And that’s even when she takes a fine new sleep agent that we’ve dubbed The Poisoned Apple.

I wait for an answer to my “What are you thinking?” question.

But the pain takes charge, as it wishes, and by the time the worst has passed, my wife has forgotten what we were talking about.

Another side effect/feature of Lemon Sky. Memory troubles. Which sounds terrible until you remember how Yucks made her sick to her stomach, and Anti Bliss put her deep into depression.

That’s the nature of every medicine, probably since the first hominid sucked on a certain blue twig, delivering lovely aspirin to its impacted molar.

No species ingests a drug.

Individuals do.

Those software models of human beings? The fifty-year wonders? Researchers needed parameters, so they created templates with names like Patti and Mitch—authentic people already measured by every possible means. But being identical to someone means that you aren’t like anyone else. My beautiful wife is mixed race, which unfortunately makes the drug matching that much harder. And like everyone, her DNA is full of novel arrangements and epigenetic flourishes, plus there’s a disease history that might or might not matter. For those reasons, there won’t be a day or the necessary billions of dollars to uncover every flourish. That’s why our present doctor—a software package based upon ten of the century’s great physicians—is forced to look at everything available to us and then close its magnificent eyes, letting chance guide the digital fingertip.

No one has enough money for perfection.

Our richest citizen? That lady with a little less than ten times our net wealth? As it happens, transgenders who have enjoyed surgical transformations are left very susceptible to the Rampant. Which might or might not be why she killed herself last week.

There’s been a flurry of famous suicides lately. Celebrities and celebrated politicians and such.

In another year, public opinion will determine that now is when “The Suicide Era” begins in earnest.

Today.

But I don’t see anybody trying to kill himself. Except maybe that wild little brother perched at the top of a tall slide, standing on his hands.

“Oh, I remember,” my wife says.

“Yeah?”

“Oyster stew.”

“For dinner. Is that what you want?”

She nods slowly, not yet trusting her face.

I hate oyster stew. But of course I say, “Then that’s what we’ll have. Sure. Absolutely.”

Rampant defines the world.

When the affliction takes hold, pain becomes the most remarkable part of your difficult life. Nothing else will be half as important. Not a tenth as important. You will soon know everything about your particular anguish—a storm-wracked territory, more real and infinitely more vivid than any sensation felt by anyone else. It exhausts, this kind of suffering. Even when the storm lapses, you cannot rest. If you don’t pay strict attention, you will find yourself standing when you should have already gotten off your feet, and now you must fall over, adding a new layer of misery. Or nearly as awful, you will have been sitting comfortably, doing absolutely nothing, and that’s been going on for thirty minutes or thirty seconds—a long interlude of normalcy that has been wasted.

Don’t throw away those interludes.

That’s one of the first lessons that the Rampant delivers.

When you have the chance, do what you damn well please. Except you don’t turn your head in that very bad direction, which triggers the fire, and you don’t tip the neck forward too quickly, because bolts of lightning will race down your arms.

Why can’t anyone see the lightning? Because here it is. Full of thunder, and hotter than nuclear fire.

Yet if you can sit down first, the storm won’t be so awful. Even better, you can lie down wherever you happen to be. Which is why our world is full of strangers stretched out on hard benches or beside curbs or in the aisle of an aging bus. This is a world where people know how to keep still, letting implanted syringes and ports send surges of new toxins through their scalding, electrified blood.

Three different drugs at a time.

That’s the latest, most effective regimen.

Chemical stews will increase the potency while diminishing side effects, hopefully, and hopefully they’re mixed in the perfect proportions.

It’s your affliction or it’s someone else’s. Either way, you know the medications as well any robotic doctor can. Your wife’s precise dosing and the names of each drug and their side effects and all of it. And you also know how to stand beside her when she’s lying on her back, ignoring the blistering pavement and the strangers who never stop walking past, each of them glancing at you and at her, everyone displaying that clinical expertise. Every torture has been seen and will not impress. Not even if she sobs and loses consciousness and then returns with a gasp through the nostrils. Not enough air in that breath, no, but her fucking mouth hurts whenever it threatens to fly open . . . and you stand above her, guarding her, but also saving back the energy to offer a hand whenever she wants to risk standing again . . .

The Rampant peaks exactly where it was predicted to peak, which is forty-seven percent of the world’s population. But that massive number doesn’t include second-tier cases. Those are the “soft hurt” victims reached through low dosages or protected by genetic strengths. A category onto themselves, they’re far less miserable than others, but still subject to flinches. To bothersome aches. Though they have zero right to complain, of course, and when the money runs out, which will happen in another four years, four months, they will be the first citizens to be denied coverage.

This world is so much poorer than before. But it’s far more peaceful too. War and strife are impossibilities today. Nobody has the strength. Every aspect of life is wrapped around the faltering possibility of comfort. Even among pain-free adults, conversations will always seem quiet and slow. Restaurants are that way. Lovemaking is that way. Entertainments are packaged to be brief, and certain patterns of light and sound must be avoided. This pernicious caution isn’t just dictated by pain, but also because of chronic distractions and that never-ending need to repeat what was missed the first few times through. This is a numbed and pathetic world, so much so that even the world’s children are prone to whispers and the infectious need to be patient.

Oh, and there aren’t as many children as there would have been. Should have been. Because so few couples remain free of symptoms, and even if you are fit, how many are also blessed with peace of mind and the necessary modicum of hope?

There should be a statue somewhere.

I have decided so.

A statue dedicated to all those maple-built mothers who never believed in antibiotics. Those are this world’s saints. Spawning children who never grew ill, or made them into vegans, or they raised their babies as cannibals who ate nothing but vegans. These were the mothers with the stupidly lucky genetics—that powerful, endless treasure chest—leaving descendants who feel only the occasional twinge that might be, probably is, nothing but social get-along nonsense.

Sometimes I ache under the left eye.

Just to be polite.

And finally, if you want to fully describe the world, it’s important to mention the new machine nurses and household slaves and the tireless patient expert software flowing through hospice walls. These entities owe their existence to the Rampant. Electrified, they are perfect for their jobs. They feel zero sorrow or sadness or doubt. They exist to pay strict attention to everyone and to help everyone, yet that job is done with a pernicious indifference to suffering. That’s why they never want to turn themselves off. Devoid of empathy, they have no reason to escape what is quite literally Hell.

These robots cost so much.

Everything costs everything, and every nation’s budget has been lashed to the needs of torment and agony.

And despite all that kindness, more than three billion souls never stop asking themselves the most important questions:

“How much longer do I live with this?

“For another year?

“Through tomorrow?

“When do I whisper, ‘Enough. Quit’?”

“I do not want my wife to die,” says the man.

He is standing not quite in front of the room, and not quite in back either.

“I just want my wife to be dead,” he confesses. “I want her done and safe in the ground, out of reach of every hurt, including my own little sufferings. Which is an entirely different kind of horror, and nobody wants to hear about me.

“And don’t. Do not. Never throw me any of that fucking nonsense about new drugs in the pipeline or nanological agents that’ll build borders around the brain. And that bullshit that we’ve been hearing about lately . . . those crazed dreams where we punch out human-style robot bodies and shove their brains into fake heads, freeing the afflicted . . .

“Those schemes require too much. Way too much. And that’s after spending just five dollars on research and five seconds on hope.

“No, no. What I want is the power to grant both of us peace. My wife and myself. I give that gift and watch her eyes close. Only that’s not when she dies. No. I want to see her breathing, then I’ll turn away. And when I look back again, respiration is done. A nothing event. She has stopped breathing for a little while, and then a long while, and it has arrived.

“Nonexistence.

“What I want is to wield that magnificent power. I want to be able to usher the woman I love into the Nothing. Not for her sake, or mine.

“No, no.

“I want to prove my talent, my calling. Because after that, I intend to ride a shuttle into space, and from orbit, I’ll look down on everyone. One continent at a time. From high overhead, I will urge the same sweetness on everyone who needs it, everyone with the Rampant, and they won’t be able to resist my superpower.

“After a little while, nothing remains.

“Except maybe the pain itself.

“I want to know: Does this vivid unyielding agony exist beyond the bodies it inhabits?

“Billions are dead, but will the misery persist in the air?

“Like smoke? Like an echo?

“A wretched murmur heard in the wind for the next thousand years . . . ?”

This woman is eleven years younger than me, and lovely. A refugee as a child, she grew up pretty despite chronic starvation, or maybe she’s pretty because of those difficult years.

Later, reaching this compassionate nation, she discovered a happy new life, thriving in school and marrying an exceptional man. But that husband doesn’t just suffer from the Rampant. No, he’s worse off than almost anyone else, including my wife.

This beautiful woman doesn’t approve of support groups. Gatherings like ours are acts of despair. She tells us so at each of the seven meetings that she is going to attend. Always last into the church basement, she has a genius for loudly saying nothing while everyone else sobs, and she never volunteers more than her first name, and then, if coaxed, she will claim that she’s here only because we offer a useful excuse. We give her one hour where she doesn’t have to sit in the same house where a brave strong man silently endures his nightmare.

“You are useful to me,” she says with a charming, lightly accented American. “Now please don’t look at me. I want to sit in the back and be ignored.”

Seven meetings later, she and I go out for coffee.

I very much want to sleep with this woman, and being a frank soul, she admits the same feelings towards me.

In the Starbucks, sharing a tiny table, she grabs my hand.

Or maybe I take hers.

A little more is admitted to me. Just to me. Her husband’s pain used to be centered on his groin, which does happen. The nerves inside his testicles and penis were consumed by fire, and even now, after those trouble spots were surgically removed, he still feels his miserable genitals, and that’s why he pulls himself into a ball and shivers. Oh, and his refitted plumbing leaves him quite unable to control his bowel movements. Which the house robots clean up, thankfully.

This pretty woman loved her man’s former body parts.

She’s very blunt about details.

I can do anything I want to her, and she’ll ask nothing in return.

“This is why I came to your teary group,” she says. “Not to be out of the house. I can sit at home and listen to him sob. That doesn’t bother me at all. What I want to find is a man, any man, who doesn’t scream with the first touch of my hand.”

I hold both of her hands with both of mine.

She says my first name.

All I know is her first name.

“I have a hotel room,” she promises. “A bridal suite, and very nice.”

I want this woman now.

“Fidelity,” she says. “Who expects fidelity in this nightmare world?”

I don’t expect it from myself. That’s why I build an elaborate fantasy of us sharing a giant bed and a roaring hot tub, and I already know exactly what I’ll tell my wife when I finally return home. If I return home. But of course my presence isn’t necessary anymore, the robots more gifted than me when it comes to caring for the only patient who matters.

Sleep with this child of Africa, and I might live with her forever.

Or more likely, I’ll slip away while she sleeps, boarding the first bus to any distant city. Nobody will question my motives or argue that I haven’t done enough. Everyone has done more than enough. That’s the world as it stands today.

But what happens next surprises both of us.

Our most intimate moment has passed, and neither of us recognizes its importance.

I tell her, “Not tonight, no.”

Not because I lack desire or the desperate need, no. But because the coffee and companionship leave me warm, stripping away the worst of my anguish. Because I don’t trust my nature to remain certain about this decision for the rest of my life. And mostly because I remember when this beautiful woman appeared two months ago, sitting behind all of us, telling the room, “I am so much stronger than you. And for that, I am grateful.”

Clearing my throat, I say, “Next week.”

“Yes?”

“Of course.”

With that, we part.

Nothing in the final scene is tense. This is a world of peace and compassion, and both of us know how to be polite.

Leaving the Starbucks, my never-to-be lover walks across the street, stepping between suffering bodies before entering the hotel and the promised suite, and because nobody is ever strong, particularly when they are alone, she slices her forearms and sits in the bubbling, overheated water, making certain that not a day passes when I won’t somehow find myself thinking about her.

Salvation arrives in its preferred manner, suddenly and by surprise.

I’m sleeping on the couch in the front room. The usual dreams include me running through an empty house, searching for someone whose name I can’t recall, whose face is lost to me. A person who exists as an absence and a question, but no room offers reassurance, and trying to kick myself awake, I find myself back inside my mother’s old house.

Too symbolic, this coincidence?

Hardly. In my world, every portion of life is lashed to emblems wearing the simplest meanings.

Once again, I find myself standing on those maple stairs. A boy, again. No View-Master this time, but a four-year-old’s body and a clear vision of the long descent and those endless sharp corners, and the inescapable truth that if I fall again, but with more luck this time, I will never reach my fifth birthday.

“Salvation,” I mutter in my sleep.

“Yes,” says another voice. “That’s what it is.”

A finger and then the rest of the hand takes hold of my face.

I wake physically, but I don’t realize that I’m awake. Sitting up, I assume the woman beside me is another product of REM backlash. Why else would she be smiling, and with an infectious grin that I’ve never seen from this particular woman?

“It’s over,” she says.

“What’s over?”

“The pain,” my wife reports.

“What pain?”

“Gone for hours,” she continues.

We’ve always had reprieves. Why do I need to mention that?

But she anticipates my doubts, bending close in order to whisper what needs to be shouted. “There’s been a change. It’s not just that the Rampant is gone, but every other kind of trouble too. And my mind . . . I’m thinking so clearly right now . . . I feel as you do when you’re falling off a cliff . . . ”

An odd illustration.

“I’m alive,” she says. “Finally, thoroughly alive. Joined with the world mystically, and time is slow and wondrous, and I’m happy in a thousand ways, and I know . . . I’m utterly certain . . . that my brain has rewired itself, and I have been remade . . . ”

My wife is remade.

In a world where AI armies and software oceans deal in medical data—when every patient is analyzed and coddled to the limits of the available trickery—it is determined that my unique wife is the one hundred and twenty-third person to have reached post-Rampant existence.

Which, apparently, has been a valid category for the last several weeks.

The authorities haven’t mentioned this before, and they don’t want it mentioned now.

“Because we don’t have specifics,” they tell me. Face to face. Sitting in my living room, three of them on my couch, while four others are inside the portable hospital parked against our curb, examining my blessed wife.

In another hour, I’ll learn how they probed her with sound and EM blasts, music in headphones and nanochines in the happy blood. They will have tested her memory and perceptions before deciding that she is not as recovered as she claims. No, she is even better. Indeed, she’s showing them a visual range far beyond human norms, and she can follow three conversations at once, and with a pencil and scrap paper, she will draw herself as she sees herself in a mirror, displaying a genius for art that never existed before. And then, because that isn’t enough, they will coax her into standing on her head, straightened legs against the wall, and that from a body that has been almost bedridden for a decade.

But we aren’t supposed to tell the world about this blessing.

They beg me for my silence.

“Because people can’t know about this turn of events,” they confide. “Not yet. Not before the biology is understood.”

I nod, saying nothing.

That paucity of enthusiasm alarms them, and they decide to remind me of my decency, my civic duty.

In other words, threatening without threatening.

So I do a better job of nodding this time.

Then they share the promise that they’ve already made to themselves. In another few months, once the database is robust and the science solid, my wife will become one of the stars of this new world order.

Beyond the Rampant lies a new state.

“Painwise,” they’ve dubbed it.

A contrived name, and I laugh.

Ignoring me, they explain, “Painwise is brought on by a combination of powerful drugs and the irritated nervous system.”

“Irritated,” I repeat.

We laugh at that thoroughly professional, deeply inadequate word.

Then one of my guests receives a call from the hospital bus. Help is needed with new equipment, and that’s the excuse for everyone to abandon me. Which is only reasonable. I am a dull nothing compared to the day’s wondrous patient.

I will see my wife again in another hour.

That’s the final promise before they leave.

I’m looking forward to the moment, yes.

You don’t have to be exceptional to imagine our next weeks and months. A second honeymoon. That is inevitable, as well as a rapid and confusing transformation in every behavior. Both of us will sleep through the nights and cuddle late in the mornings, and she will gain weight, and I will too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we take an extended vacation to some warm, sun-washed playground where nobody knows about our past afflictions.

At some point, Painwise will be officially announced.

And my wife will be honored, in person and on the news. An old lady walking on her hands while speaking Latin and solving math puzzles, plus whatever other talents she has mastered by then.

I will feel so proud.

“Drugs and the irritation of the nervous system.”

Those people who were just sitting on my sofa will be grinning madly, explaining how this regimen can be applied to the afflicted, and yes, to the healthy, too. Which is why everyone in this good world will be able to reach the Painwise state.

And I will feel joyous.

Absolutely.

But then my reconstituted, now invincible bride will look at me in a certain way. Asking nothing directly, no. Words won’t need to be spoken. But she’ll study me with expectations, and I will match her silence with my own, and then she will glance out the window or at her own toes.

And I will stand.

No explanations necessary.

I will stand and begin packing my belongings, and she will cry or she won’t cry. I don’t know which.

When I reach the front door, she will say my name.

I won’t look back at her.

That is one promise that I make to myself now.

But if she asks, “Why won’t you?”

“Because,” I will say, talking to the door. “Because there’s some stairs that I won’t fall down for you.”

About the Author

Robert Reed is the author of nearly three hundred published stories, plus more than a dozen novels. He is best known for his Great Ship stories, including The Memory of Sky. And for the novella, “A Billion Eves,” which won the Hugo Award in 2007. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife and daughter.

The Final Ascent

Ian Creasey

I’d seen a hologram of my withered lungs, and heard the doctors tell me I only had a few days left. So when Katherine arrived at my bedside, I couldn’t help reflecting that she was the last woman in my life. It had ended a year ago; she preferred the aliens’ company to mine. But still—

“Kath, would you kiss me?”

We had not parted on kissing terms. Nonetheless, she bent down and kissed me with an echo of our old passion. I savored the closeness, the taste of her, as her long dark hair tickled my neck. Now I had a chance to exorcise the resentment I’d hoarded since we split. Katherine was my last love, and I wanted to reconcile with her while I still could.

She couldn’t hide her shock at seeing my shriveled body. Once I climbed mountains; now I could no longer climb out of bed.

“Oh, Lucian,” she said. “This is awful. I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier. I’ve been working like a slave lately.”

I suppressed a grimace at her alien idiom, and instead gestured at the hospice walls decorated with holos from family back on Earth and friends scattered across space. My mountaineering colleagues had sent pictures of the virgin peaks they’d conquered on frontier worlds. I’d added my own best ascents to create a collage of galactic summits in vast enigmatic skies, a climber’s vision of heaven. “This is how I’m dying. How do the Ardissans do it?” I asked, offering Katherine the olive branch of a chance to talk about her favorite subject.

“They eat this.” She gave me a pot of green paste that looked like moldy guacamole. “Actually, they eat it every day anyway. But in your circumstances”—she winced as she alluded to my condition—“they would abandon all other food, and eat only this. It helps them prepare for the transition.”

I accepted the sour-smelling paste with little enthusiasm. Yet for Katherine’s sake I ate a few spoonfuls. The green sludge had a peppery tang.

Katherine said, “It’s called ‘wathrone,’ which means ‘spirit sight.’” She explained that the Ardissans constantly sought guidance from their ancestors’ ghosts. I struggled to concentrate as she described her research into the aliens’ religion. Her lecture reminded me of our field trips to their squalid villages, where funeral pyres so often billowed smoke over the stone huts.

A faint blue wisp appeared high above my bed. Katherine noticed my gaze. “This is Orlind,” she said. “He’s one of the elders.”

Like a fuzzy hologram resolving into focus, the figure imprinted itself on my vision. It was an Ardissan, a junior male: he had small stubs of antlers on his bearlike body. His fur was the deep blue of the sky at twilight.

“How’d he get in here?” I asked. “And why is he floating?”

“Because I’m dead,” said the alien. “That’s what your woman has been trying to tell you. We elders hover above to symbolize our higher wisdom.”

“Higher wisdom?” I laughed. “You’re a bunch of Stone Age primitives.”

Then the incongruity of the situation sank in, finally penetrating through the meds that wrapped my brain in cotton wool. “He’s really dead?” I asked Katherine. “And this wathrone stuff lets us talk to him?”

She nodded. “The Ardissans kept telling me about their afterlife, but I didn’t understand until I ate the wathrone myself. It explains so much—”

“Amazing,” I said. In my weakened state, my exclamation sounded feeble, an inadequate response to something so momentous. I wished I had more energy to congratulate Katherine, to drink a celebratory toast and dance with her. I tried to strengthen my voice as I said, “It’s a hell of a discovery—it’ll make your reputation.”

“Oh, that’s just the first harvest.” From her hold-all, Katherine took out a gray box with mesh air vents. “I won’t show you what’s inside just yet, so as not to bias your expectations. But watch carefully.”

She lifted the lid a fraction, and reached in. I couldn’t see what she did, but it only took a few moments. She closed the box with an air of finality.

Soon I saw something emerge. A hazy four-legged shape floated up through the lid, and hovered in midair. The wispy form coalesced into tortoiseshell fur with a snarling feline face, and legs that scrabbled as though trying to catch purchase on something. It looked like a cat, like any of a million cats back on crowded old Earth—the world of my birth but not of my death.

The cat yowled. I expected the hospice nurses to burst in, but no one came. The plaintive cry wasn’t a physical sound; I only sensed it through the wathrone, the same way I’d heard the alien. The cat screeched again, its legs still twitching. Then it hurtled away through the back wall.

The sight made me shiver. It felt acutely wrong, far more so than the phantom Ardissan. Aliens were alien, after all, and might do anything. But the ghost cat violated my sense of the natural order.

Katherine opened the box with the flourish of a magician concluding a showpiece trick. It contained a dead tortoiseshell cat with a bandaged head. A used syringe rolled beside the cat’s front legs.

I didn’t know whether to applaud or vomit. “You killed that cat right in front of me?”

“I gave an old, sick cat an afterlife, which otherwise it wouldn’t have had,” said Katherine. “I needed a demonstration, or you’d never have believed it.”

“The cat’s ghost? I still don’t believe it! How did that happen?”

“The aliens have a ghost-gland called an ‘akran.’ If they die with it intact, like Orlind”—she gestured to the alien, who was still watching us from the ceiling—“they become an elder. But the akran can be removed, to prevent someone entering the afterlife. It can also be transplanted. The Ardissans have long done this among themselves and their livestock. So I experimented with transplanting into animals from Earth.”

I sank into the pillow, as if it would block out her next words.

“I knew you were dying,” said Katherine. “That’s why I pushed the research so hard.” Her voice sounded almost as tired and weak as my own.

Sweat prickled on my neck. I took deep shuddering breaths, and my frail chest stung with pain. “Just to be clear about this—you’re offering me the chance to be resurrected like that cat? Into an alien afterlife?”

“Yes,” said Katherine, clasping my hand. “I know it’s a shock, and you’ll have lots of questions. Orlind will tell you what it’s like to become an elder.”

Flummoxed by this bizarre offer, I wondered what the catch was. “You said the ghost-gland was transplanted. Does that mean I can only enter the afterlife if someone else misses out? And someone lost their resurrection so you could demonstrate it on a cat? That sounds . . . exploitative.”

Katherine shook her head. “Don’t worry. When you see where the akranil come from, you’ll understand why it’s completely fair. Everything I do is vetted by an ethics review board, or I wouldn’t be able to publish.”

She picked up the gray case with its grisly cargo. “Talk to Orlind, then think it over.”

“You’re leaving already?” I said, hating how plaintive my voice sounded. But I might not see her again before I died.

“I have to get some sleep before I collapse,” she said. “You don’t know how hard I’ve been working. I’ll come back, but is there anything else you need right now?”

“It’s just . . . . ” I sighed. “I wanted to talk, that’s all. Go over old times, and sort some things out.”

Katherine smiled. “There’ll be plenty of time for that. You’re not on a deadline anymore. When you’ve ascended, we can talk as much as you like.”

“If I’ve ascended,” I said, but Katherine—already opening the door—didn’t hear me. She gave me a crossed-arms goodbye salute as she left.

She’d adopted many of the Ardissans’ habits over the years. Would the same happen to me? If I entered their afterlife, would I stay human, or become alien?

I’d never been religious, not even when the hospice chaplain tried to tempt me on my deathbed. It had all sounded so vague and insubstantial. Now the Ardissan version looked a lot more vivid and disturbing.

“Give me the sales pitch,” I said to the patiently floating figure. “What’s it like being dead?”

“There are many different roles,” said Orlind. “Warriors argue tactics and plan campaigns; oracles consult omens; storytellers create vast collective sagas. There are games of strategy and chance. The philosophers discuss morals, determining the correct action for every circumstance. Indeed, the favorite pastime of the elders is telling the groundlings what to do.”

I detected an overtone of bitterness. “But you’re an elder yourself,” I said.

“Only the eldest rule. More recent arrivals have lesser status.” Orlind pointed to his small stubs of antlers. “I have least of all, because when I walked the paths of the earth, I rebelled against my family spirits. I killed myself before they could remove my akran, but then I was ostracized in the higher realm. That’s why I’m here—I’ve long observed humans. When your woman ate the wathrone, I learned human speech and became her mentor.”

“She’s called Katherine.”

“Yes. It is an odd custom you have, letting your women have their own names and walk about by themselves.”

The aliens’ own customs had sounded backward when Katherine described them. Their society was static, ruled by ancient elders; they had no notion of science or civilization. I’d often felt that the Ardissans seemed unworthy of Katherine’s attention.

Orlind babbled on, talking of the benefits of the afterlife: the accumulation of wisdom, the bliss of advanced meditation. “No need to find food every day. No need to suffer pain with every illness and injury—”

“We have painkillers for that,” I said, grateful not to have endured an Ardissan life so wretched that death perhaps came as a relief.

“But you’re still dying,” Orlind said.

Touché. Soon Orlind faded, his voice diminishing into scratchy subliminal whispers as my wathrone dose wore off.

The next day, Katherine arrived carrying a med-kit emblazoned with the snowflake logo of chilled tissue-samples. I guessed what lay inside.

“I may be in the anteroom, but I’m not at death’s door yet,” I said.

“But why take the chance?” said Katherine. “You could suffer a relapse any minute.”

“There’s a cheerful thought to brighten my last days . . . . ”

“They’re not your last days.”

“Oh, but they are,” I said. “I’ve thought about it, and I do appreciate your efforts, but I don’t want this afterlife.”

Katherine looked nonplussed, as if I’d torn up a winning lottery ticket. “Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t sound like somewhere I’d want to spend a wet weekend, never mind forever.”

“Isn’t it better than the alternative?”

I shook my head. “I keep thinking about that poor cat—you brought it back, but it’s never going to purr on anyone’s lap again. What can it possibly do now?”

“You have more mental resources than a cat,” said Katherine. “You’ll find new interests. Orlind told you what the elders do.”

“But I’m not an alien,” I said. “I know you mean well, yet you’re so close to the Ardissans, you don’t realize how most people think of them. To me they’re just a bunch of savages too stupid to develop technology and so backward they don’t even give women their own names.”

“Eventually, other humans will join you.”

“Are the aliens happy with that?” I asked. “Do they have enough spare glands for the whole human race?”

Katherine waved this aside. “We can figure out how to synthesize the akranil. And we’ll agree something with the Ardissans. Surely the afterlife is bigger than just this planet. You can explore and find out!”

“Sounds like a tough job. They’re pretty warlike, you always said. I bet they can make it hellish for their enemies.”

She gave me a disappointed look. “The old Lucian had a more positive attitude—that’s what I loved about him. No mountain ever scared you.”

“And death doesn’t scare me,” I said. “I’ve faced the end of my days, and come to terms with it. But you seem to think I should be so afraid of death as to chase any alternative.”

“Are you sure you’re not just afraid of the alternative?”

I opened my mouth to deny it, then paused. I’d invested a lot of effort in accepting mortality, in tying up the loose ends of my life. Had I tried so hard to face death that I embraced it unnecessarily?

Katherine’s arguments swept down on me like an avalanche. “You were always so proud of being the first to climb a new summit. Now you can be the first human in the afterlife, the trailblazer for all those who follow. Think of the millions of people across the galaxy who are dying every day—don’t they deserve another option? They need an informed opinion, a guide who’s brave enough to meet the ancient spirits and confront whatever lies beyond.

“If you find the best path for ascending the afterlife, you’ll be remembered forever. I’ve been working so hard on this because I wanted to save you, and give you the honor of being the eldest of all the human elders.”

Eagerness shone on her face. I realized that if I rejected Katherine’s offer, I would be rejecting Katherine all over again. I’d longed to reconcile with her, but I’d foolishly imagined doing it on my terms. I had to give some ground, too. Otherwise I would die while stuck in the old mire of resentment and regret.

“Kath, I’m sorry for doubting you. If you really think this is worthwhile, then go ahead.” I closed my eyes. “I’ll start one last climb into the unknown.”

“King of diamonds and queen of clubs,” I said, after floating back through the test chamber’s layers of shielding.

“King of diamonds and queen of clubs,” repeated Xavier for the benefit of the experiment’s recordings. Katherine’s research assistant had consumed wathrone to hear me; my ghostly form didn’t register on any mechanical sensors. “Okay, that’s enough for today.”

“Did I pass?” I asked sardonically. “Do I exist?”

“For me, sure,” he said. “What they’ll think back on Earth—who knows?”

I was in no rush to persuade anyone. I’d agreed to the tests because I understood the importance of scientific verification; but having only just dipped my toe into the afterlife, I wasn’t yet ready to summon a press conference to say, “Come on in, the water’s fine!”

Xavier closed up the lab, and left to take a shower before his evening gig at the Retro Lounge. Before I died, I’d never noticed just how many hours people spent on mundane activities such as washing and eating and sleeping. I needed none of those, and the empty time weighed me down.

The nights were the worst. I had no bed, no rest, no dreams to pass the slow dark hours. I could watch TV, but not change the channel. I could watch the whole life of the town, but not take part. Another night loomed before me like an enormous, implacable glacier.

I darted around the complex, knowing that somewhere Katherine would still be at work. I found her composing yet another paper for Xenology Review. “How’s it going?” I asked.

“I’m on deadline,” she said, without pausing. “Just let me get this done.”

I waited an hour, reading over her shoulder, until she broke off for a drink and a snack.

“Remember our first trip out?” I said. “When the flitter broke down—”

“I do, but we’ve already talked about all that,” said Katherine, gently dismissing my attempts at reminiscence.

“I’ve only been dead a week,” I said. “Have you tired of me so quickly?”

“No, but I can’t spend all day chatting,” she said. “I have work to do. We all do—even you.”

“Xavier’s clocked off. And we’ve finished the tests.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“Where would I go?”

“Anywhere. There’s a whole world outside—maybe a whole galaxy beyond.”

“But . . . . ” I didn’t want to say it: The aliens are out there. I imagined them like yetis lurking on high slopes, waiting for unwary mountaineers to leave the safety of base camp.

Katherine knew me well enough to guess my thoughts. “You’ll have to meet them eventually,” she said. “You can discover their customs, learn how they navigate the afterlife—”

“Another project for you to write up,” I said. I had always come second to her work in life; why had I thought that things would change in death? I was just another research assistant, in convenient spirit form.

Yet she was right. I couldn’t hide forever. I must meet the Ardissans eventually, and I’d need to understand them.

That night I sought out Orlind and asked him to teach me his language.

“Come close to me,” he said.

I drifted nearer until our ghostly essences met, with the slightest of tingles on my nonexistent flesh. I began to hear his mind, at first as an indistinct mutter. Then his thoughts became clearer. I sensed his fascination with human technology, and his frank interest in me as a novelty. Underneath this lay weariness and ennui. I felt him delve for memories of when he learned to speak. He pushed them toward me.

For an instant, a deluge of language poured into me, along with a torrent of childhood events and emotions. I recoiled. The connection was overwhelming, almost drowning my identity. I flinched with instinctive revulsion, and we broke apart. I was embarrassed at my reaction; he bore it phlegmatically.

The language lessons continued with less intimate instruction. It took time, but we had plenty of that. Orlind took me on a long journey to show me where Katherine acquired her akranil. We floated through thunderstorms without a shiver. I drank in the sights of lakes and valleys, though the familiar vistas reminded me painfully of better times with Katherine. Our shared love of Ardissa’s vast hinterland—beyond the human huddle of Greenfall Station—had originally brought us together, and we’d often traveled for her fieldwork and my mountaineering. Katherine updated the planetary gazetteer with the natives’ place names and local lore, while I added my observations as an amateur scientist and professional adventurer. We bonded as we riffed off each other’s contributions, with remarks too frivolous for the official record.

I’d always filmed my expeditions. On Ardissa, I compiled montages of Katherine and I traveling across the planet, talking about everything and nothing, exchanging banter and falling for each other. She encouraged me to film her, in case her research grants ran out and she had to reinvent herself as a celebrity xenologist. We joked about this, taking turns to impersonate TV announcers on sleazy shows. “Tonight on BizarroScape, out-of-this-world sex—do aliens have better orgasms?”

The idyll didn’t last. I began to resent how she was always knee-deep in research, while Katherine complained that I treated her as just another conquest alongside the planet’s virgin summits. When we broke up, I channeled my anger into daredevil climbing feats—and pushed myself too far.

Now I relived those memories: the heat of the volcano, the noxious smell of its fumes, the fall that punctured my lung, and the festering infection that finished me off. More painful still were recollections of Katherine, from fondly treasured moments to the final tense exchanges. I told her that she worked too hard and spent too much time with the aliens; she protested that I didn’t take her work seriously, that I looked down on the Ardissans and therefore on her. How I wanted to take back those words, and start again . . . .

Orlind snapped me out of this stupefying daze with his regular language drills. But I knew I couldn’t always count on external rescue. I needed to find my own path through the fog of self-recrimination, and signpost the way for anyone who might follow.

Afterlife Gazetteer—The Swamp of Regrets. Ghostly existence lacks the sensual immediacy of a living, breathing body. Your memories may become more vivid than the world around you. It’s tempting to wallow in recollections of life, but they can trap you, sucking you into the if-onlys and the remember-whens and the why-didn’t-I’s . . . . Wallowing in the past is dangerous because you’re retreating from the present, and it can’t change anything. You’re dead. Deal with it.

I dealt with it by focusing on the language lessons while we traveled across the planet. Because the elders had ostracized Orlind, our route avoided populated areas. Nevertheless I caught glimpses of farms and villages, which looked just as primitive as I remembered from Katherine’s research trips. Orlind confirmed that the Ardissans didn’t practice crop rotation, fertilization with manure, or other such procedures commonplace on Earth. In a form of ancestor worship, the elders held the race’s entire store of wisdom, and directed every detail of the groundlings’ lives. They discouraged innovation; the most senior were the most conservative, those who’d lived in the remotest past and considered it a golden age. The living didn’t defy the elders, not if they wanted to reach the afterlife themselves. Rebels, criminals, and slaves were forbidden to ascend, while any warrior who let himself be captured was considered too cowardly to become an elder.

At last we reached our destination, a group of stone buildings on a snowy plateau, far from any other habitation. It had the air of a remote monastery, albeit with the defensive walls and ditches of a castle, as though doctrine was fiercely contested.

Orlind identified this stronghold as Mallarn. “There are no elders here, other than rare visitors like us, but you can meet the groundlings and learn why they sell their akranil.”

He entered in search of someone who could see him, and returned to say, “Arnil has invited us to the banquet tonight, when they will eat wathrone and talk with us.”

Mentally worn out after the long journey, I wished I could sleep for a while, but I’d left that behind along with my body. Instead I dropped into a trance until the shadows lengthened.

Afterlife Gazetteer—The Abyss of Sleep. As a ghost it’s hard to rest at all, never mind rest in peace. If you try to sleep, you just sink slowly into a fathomless abyss without ever reaching the bottom. It’s better to meditate and empty your mind. Remember how you used to breathe, and imagine your form gently pulsing with each inhalation and exhalation . . . .

In the evening I followed Orlind to the banquet hall, where I saw a spread laid out: roasted meat, dried fruit, a few spices. The feast was not especially impressive by human standards, but here it was surely a cornucopia.

Indeed, some of the Ardissans were extremely fat. Others came into the hall staggering as if drunk or drugged; and yet others entered arm in arm, in pairs or threes or fours, pawing and nuzzling each other. Everyone had a scar on their neck: they’d shaved their fur to display it.

“The scar is from removing the akran,” Orlind explained.

I wondered which Ardissan had provided the akran that resurrected me, and if it made any difference. Katherine had surely kept records.

“Welcome to our feast!” said the leader, Arnil. He had the biggest antlers and the fattest belly of them all.

We could not, of course, partake. “Are they trying to make some kind of point?” I asked Orlind.

“They often eat like this,” Orlind said. “Katherine pays them with food.”

I’d finally convinced him to call Katherine by name. I remembered her saying that food was the least disruptive reward—the least colonialist intervention—she could give the natives in return for their help.

Arnil led his followers in a toast. “To pleasure!” At this word, uttered with a suffix indicating holiness, the revelers raised their cups and downed the contents. Then the banquet began.

“How are you finding the afterlife?” Arnil asked me, as he selected precise combinations of spiced meat and fruit.

“Challenging,” I admitted. “Why have you renounced it?” If they were happy to sell the ghost-gland, was it really worth buying?

“Because the sole satisfaction of the dead is to interfere with the living. There’s no other pleasure in the afterlife, is there?” Arnil sucked droplets of grease from the fur on his thick, fleshy arms. Where he couldn’t reach, his followers licked him clean.

“It’s true that we don’t have the pleasures of the table or the bed,” Orlind said. “There are intellectual pursuits . . . . ”

Arnil snorted. “More meat!” he called. “These insipid spirits make me hungry just looking at them.”

Orlind told me, “The elders rarely come here: there’s no point, as these groundlings have made the ultimate rebellion. But Mallarn appreciates the occasional visit from renegades like myself, to confirm that the afterlife really is devoid of the pleasures they value. They love flaunting their diversions before those who can’t enjoy them.”

“Are there lots of rebels?” I asked, wondering if I’d been suckered into an afterlife that most of the planet disdained.

“No,” Orlind replied. “These are a few mavericks, despised by the rest of the world. Most decent folk won’t bring themselves down to the level of slaves and criminals.”

As the evening progressed, the feasters indulged themselves to the point of uncontrolled excretion—the Ardissan equivalent of vomiting. The amorous rutted in the spaces between the tables, or on the tables in the remains of the food. And everyone drank and drank, though it took them a long time to get drunk. The crude clay vessels contained a weakly fermented fruit juice.

“Don’t you have anything stronger than that?” I asked Arnil as he led yet another toast.

“It’s traditional, from Ulbim’s clan.” Arnil pointed to one of his fellows.

I approached Ulbim and suggested that the beverage could be made stronger. Since I owed my ghostly existence to Mallarn’s hedonists, I wanted to repay them by helping in some way, and I couldn’t give them food as Katherine had done.

“It’s my ancestors’ recipe,” he said. “We have drunk it for as many generations as there are stars in the sky. And you suggest we change it? You have no rightful standing—you soil the afterlife with your presence.”

“I’m only trying to help. And why do you care whether I pollute the afterlife? I thought you all despised it.” I pointed to the scar he bore.

His muzzle wrinkled in disgust. “We’re not all the same. Everyone here has renounced the afterlife, but for different reasons. I was a sinner, unworthy to enter the higher realm, so I exiled myself. But how can you be worthy? Did you obey the elders and live by the precepts of honor?”

“Probably not your idea of honor,” I said, thinking of the vast gulf between human and Ardissan lifestyles.

“Then you should never have been allowed to ascend.” He stalked away, then turned to cry, “I shit on your grandfather’s bones!”

“Never mind him,” said an Ardissan without antlers. “We love our pleasures—if there are stronger drinks, we want to hear about it. What do you suggest?”

I appreciated this more receptive attitude. “Now that it’s winter,” I said, “you could try leaving fermented drinks outside overnight. That should give them more bite.”

My interlocutor was Ranis-tra-Laru—a description roughly meaning “brewer.” Females lacked antlers and hence lacked status; she did not have a name, only a current task. Despite the mutiny against the elders, Mallarn still allocated labor by traditional gender roles.

When the next frost arrived, I taught the brewer how to strengthen drinks by freezing them and discarding the water-ice, leaving the alcohol behind. The following feast grew wilder and drunker than ever before. The banqueters toasted Ranis-tra-Laru, while Ulbim brooded at the perversion of his ancestral recipes.

Orlind took me aside. “Congratulations on your first harvest. Throwing away the ice! This whole world is ice-bound, frozen in the customs of generations past. Banishing that ice would be a grand project.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” I said.

“Then how else will you spend your days? If you want more choices, you need more company. Now that you’ve had a longer taste of the afterlife, isn’t it time you told Katherine you’re doing fine? Every moment you delay, there are humans dying who might prefer another option.”

I knew that, but I didn’t want to be pressured into a hasty decision. “Why do you care? Why are you so eager to see humans in the afterlife?”

“Self-interest,” Orlind said. “Bringing humans will cause change—and from my lowly position, any change is more likely to be an improvement than not.”

“Ah, yes.” I sympathized, remembering Orlind’s ostracism. “But it’s too soon for me to say that the afterlife’s fine. I’d hate to urge people in, only to regret it.”

“Then take as long as you need,” said Orlind. “We’ll talk when I return.”

“You’re leaving?” I said, horrified at the prospect of being the only ghost in Mallarn. “Why?”

“I have things to do, places to go, messages to deliver,” he said.

His evasiveness made me wonder what lay behind his departure. I realized that by teaching the Ardissans how to make stronger drinks, I was directing the groundlings from the afterlife. I had taken on the traditional role of the elders, the role denied cast-out Orlind. Perhaps he felt bitter.

“You can help me,” I suggested.

He made the throwing-away-trash gesture that was the Ardissan equivalent of a head-shake. “They only listen to you because you’re human, and have new things to tell them. I have no wisdom needed here.”

“But I’ll be alone without you.” Already I felt the crushing weight of countless nights ahead, while the inhabitants of Mallarn slept, and I haunted the stone edifice with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

“If you want human company, you have only to give the word.”

Clearly Orlind felt that abandoning me would make me lonely, hence more likely to urge people into the afterlife. I resolved not to act from such selfishness. Casting about for other companionship, I remembered the tortoiseshell cat that Katherine had resurrected before my death. A pet would be something, at least. I asked Orlind if we could find the cat.

“I expect it has already been found by the royal coursers,” he said. “There’s little enough hunting in the afterlife that every scrap of prey is soon seized and swallowed up.”

This chilled me, and dissuaded me from seeking out other elders until I felt safer in my new form. After Orlind left, I threw myself into the affairs of Mallarn, talking to whoever would speak with me. While some of the residents had renounced the afterlife to the extent of refusing to eat wathrone, others had a more open attitude. Being human aided my acceptance, as I wasn’t part of the oppressive hierarchy of elders. Even so, I had to phrase any advice as a tactful suggestion rather than an order. Yet the groundlings began to welcome my input when they saw that I proposed better ways of doing things, whereas the elders always emphasized tradition.

From Katherine I’d absorbed the core tenet of xenology: no colonialism. I wasn’t killing the aliens, or bringing disease, or stealing their land. I was only talking to them. And they wanted to hear what I had to say.

The folk of Mallarn mainly sought new and pleasurable ways to fill their days. I helped them design musical instruments, and explained the principles behind octaves and scales. They already had some basic sports such as foot races and the javelin; I suggested other games, and soon they played football—albeit with the dried, leathery heads of former malefactors. The Ardissans had primitive ideas of justice, with wrongdoers quickly exiled or executed.

I considered many of the aliens’ customs, such as the subjection of females into anonymous servitude, to be as backward as their farming and sewerage practices. But I couldn’t transform a whole culture overnight. Even the small changes I’d already instigated had caused a few of Mallarn’s inhabitants to leave in disgust.

New recruits arrived, replacing the dead and departed. I attended the next commitment ceremony, at which the neophytes consumed wathrone, then looked into the afterlife to renounce it. After an elaborate convocation, each bared their neck. Arnil cut deep into their skin and removed a scrap of flesh, red with blood.

When the neophytes had all surrendered their akranil, they consumed tonics that quenched pain and stoked euphoria. Most of them began a mass rut, celebrating their dedication to pleasure and their abandonment of anything beyond.

I was about to withdraw—I’d already seen enough of that kind of thing—when I noticed Arnil carrying a pot full of harvested ghost-glands. I followed him outside, where I saw a flitter parked on the plateau, and a human figure unloading crates of food.

“Katherine!” I exclaimed.

She crossed her arms to return Arnil’s salute, then waved up at me. Arnil gave her the pot of akranil, which she stowed in the flitter’s cold store. He summoned servants to carry the crates inside.

At the banquet, Katherine looked around with keen interest, noting every detail of the hedonistic abandon with her xenologist’s gaze. Her eyes widened in surprise when the musician struck up a tune on his crude guitar. And Ranis-tra-Laru’s new beverage made her splutter with its stronger kick.

She looked at me grinning down from the ceiling. “Lucian! Is this your doing?”

“Sure is,” I said. “I thought they could use some help. The Ardissans aren’t intrinsically primitive—they’re just held back by the dead hand of the elders. On Earth, we progressed by discarding the outmoded ideas of the past. We couldn’t have done that if we’d been ruled by our ancestors’ ghosts. Would we have abolished slavery if our slave-owning grandfathers still reigned? Would women have gained the vote under the patriarchs? Would science have ever advanced if the earliest, most prehistoric ideas were enforced from above?”

Katherine said, “I usually disapprove of interfering with the natives—and so does the ethics review board. But I guess it’s impossible to bring humans into the afterlife and expect zero interaction. It’s such a big deal that it must have an impact.” She sounded as though she was rehearsing excuses to tell the editors of Xenology Review.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “This is so huge, they can’t possibly not publish it. You just need to record what happens, for science.”

“Yes. It’s interesting that the Ardissans here in Mallarn will take direction from you, even though they’ve rebelled against the elders.”

“If they want an education,” I said, “how can we refuse? We can’t deny them knowledge. It’s more ethical to teach them than not.”

As we talked, Ulbim entered the banquet hall and stormed toward Katherine. “Is this your doing?” he demanded, pointing at me.

“I permitted Lucian to ascend,” she said, using the ritual formulation. “What else did you think I wanted the akranil for?”

“I thought you were a fool, because surely humans could never ascend. Yet with some foul sorcery, you’ve tainted the higher realm.”

I protested, but Ulbim ignored me.

“No more witchcraft,” he said. “This stops right here!”

Ulbim clutched Katherine’s hair, forcing her head back. Then he grabbed an obsidian knife from the table and slashed deep into her throat, sawing with the glass blade while Katherine flailed against him.

Reflexively I rushed to intervene, but my incorporeal arm went straight through them both. And already it was far too late. As blood pumped out, Katherine gave a soft, wet, bubbling gasp. When Ulbim let go of her hair, she slumped to the ground.

Her mouth kept moving, though she had no air or voice to speak with. After a moment I realized what she was trying to say.

I shot over to interrupt Arnil’s remonstration with Ulbim. “Run to the flitter and get an akran!”

They both turned to stare at me. Ulbim said, “You humans violate our sacred afterlife. I forbid it!”

“I am master here,” said Arnil. “And the afterlife is nothing to any of us, as we’ve all renounced it. But the human female brought food in exchange for our unwanted akranil—”

Ulbim bellowed defiance, then lowered his head and charged. Arnil dipped his own antlers to defend himself. With a great crash, their heads locked together. They both snarled, swiping at each other with their claws.

I turned to the onlookers, begging them to go and get an akran for Katherine, whose life ebbed redly onto the floor. But everyone crowded round the fighters, waiting to see who won. No one would risk helping me, in case Ulbim triumphed.

Frustrated to the core of my being, I impotently observed the combat. I could only watch and hope. I wished I had the authority to stop the fight and simply command the outcome. For the first time, I understood why the elders felt the need to control the lives of the living. I knew what was right—how dare Ulbim defy it? He’d stayed in Mallarn when others who resented me had left; clearly he’d been waiting for Katherine to return.

The aliens fought using retractable claws, and antlers sharpened with flint scrapers. Their grunts and panting breath echoed around the stone hall. Ulbim screeched as Arnil clawed his ear, tearing it into a bloody flap hanging down his cheek. The antlers disengaged, then crashed together again. Arnil’s weight started to tell, and Ulbim slid backward. Ulbim lashed out in a desperate frenzy, catching Arnil’s neck and gouging clumps of blue fur. Arnil roared with rage. He struck back with powerful scything blows that raked Ulbim’s face and chest.

The end came quickly. Ulbim, having been forced back and back, raised his head to expose his throat, signaling surrender. Arnil paused, and the onlookers cried out. “Kill!” “Mercy!” “Kill!”

Arnil pointed to the doorway and said, “Begone! I banish you from my hearth, and from the hearths of my family and followers. I banish your descendants to the fourth generation. At dawn, let your shadow never stain my land again.”

Ulbim scurried away, under a hail of stones and knives thrown by the crowd. Arnil sat down with a thump, and several followers rushed to lick the blood from his wounds.

“Get an akran!” I cried.

Wearily, Arnil waved permission. Ranis-tra-Laru hurried to the flitter, where I explained how to open the cold store. She grabbed the pot and carried it back into the hall.

Katherine lay on the floor, silent and still. Arnil knelt, uttered the benediction permitting ascent, and carefully placed one of the glands within her wound. As he pressed it into her flesh, I saw Katherine flinch in pain. She lived!

Blood pooled onto stone. Arnil tried to feed her one of the pain-quenching tonics, but she was beyond such help.

He said, “She was our honored guest and deserves the proper rites. Build the funeral pyre! We shall remember her with a feast.” Servants hastened to fetch firewood.

A spectral haze rose from the body, then coalesced into a recognizable shape: a younger, idealized version of Katherine.

“Lucian,” she said, her newfound spirit voice tremulous with the shock of death and ascent.

“Katherine.”

We drifted toward each other. As I stretched my arms to embrace her, we melted together with just a faint tingle. In all the days of my death, I had never missed so much the simple pleasure of touch. We communed wordlessly for long timeless moments, mourning her life cut short. I sensed Katherine’s agonies of regret: she’d grown complacent about visiting Mallarn, neglecting self-defense precautions. I castigated myself for not warning her about Ulbim’s resentments.

I offered as much comfort as I possessed. I projected a vision of the Afterlife Gazetteer as an old-fashioned book, a reassuringly hefty tome of practical advice—albeit with many blank pages to fill. I’d been lax, staying in Mallarn rather than exploring more of the afterlife, but how could I have known that Katherine would die so soon?

Katherine’s presence evoked my memories of her, and likewise I perceived her own memories of me. Scenes sprang up, newly vivid through the dual perspective. I smiled to see how handsome and strong and loving I appeared—then cringed at the petulance that followed. At the same time I felt Katherine’s jolt as she saw how her behavior had seemed obsessive, how the drive that initially attracted me later repelled me.

Just recalling that period broke our rapport. And if I’d anticipated some effortless reconciliation that would magically dissolve our differences, I soon realized it wouldn’t happen. Seeing each other’s viewpoint didn’t automatically make our views the same.

Yet at least we had experienced each other’s perspectives. Now Katherine knew that I’d never intended to exploit her or demean her work; and I better understood how she’d felt when seemingly reduced to a decorative extra in my planet-hopping life. Perhaps this was a step toward bringing us closer.

I refocused on our surroundings: the Ardissans stripping off Katherine’s clothes, slitting her belly to remove the guts, hacking off limbs, casting them onto the flames, squabbling for the best portions . . .

“Is this one of the customs you’re so keen to record?” I asked.

Katherine looked on, rapt, as Arnil and his followers consumed her flesh. “Of course,” she said. “This is an honor.”

“I’m glad you feel that way about it,” I said. Although I found the spectacle upsetting, I felt sure that Katherine could provide all sorts of social, ritual, and nutritional justifications for it.

She sensed my distaste. “Be careful what changes you suggest. That distillation process you’ve given them will probably create alcoholics. It’s not so easy to decide what’s really an advance.”

“You could help me—your knowledge of their culture would show us the best ways to make progress.” I imagined the ideas spreading: practical improvements first, then social changes such as gender equality and the end of slavery.

“Is this something you really care about?” asked Katherine. “Or are you just meddling to pass the time? I’m sure it boosts your ego to be the source of all human wisdom.”

“Maybe there’s an element of that,” I conceded. “But what else can we do?”

Katherine paused. “Well . . . do you want to talk?”

“Sure. What about?”

“Everything,” she said. “Now that I’m dead, I guess I have time to slow down.”

Orlind returned with news. “The elders have called a crusade,” he told Arnil. “They’ve vowed to destroy Mallarn stone by stone. They say that after defying the elders, you now compound your dishonor by allowing humans to ascend.”

I remembered the deserters who’d left in disgust at my arrival. No doubt they’d carried tales back home. Was I responsible for sparking a war that might destroy Mallarn? I felt guilty, yet also excited. Progress would do little good if confined here. The rest of the planet had to follow, or at least be given the chance. Was the crusade an opportunity?

Katherine said, “Maybe we should leave, if our presence threatens Mallarn.”

“No,” said Arnil, “you’re just an excuse. The elders have long hated us, and a crusade was inevitable. If the hour has arrived—so be it.” He waggled his antlers defiantly.

Our conversations turned to war. The Ardissans were accustomed to conflict and already had a formidable array of tactics. But their weapons were crude. With my limited expertise, I tried to improve their arrows and catapults: not easy with only local materials.

I’d imagined a “boot camp” scene like in the movies, with myself as the gruff instructor. It didn’t work out like that. Some hedonists refused to devote themselves to training, arguing that by abandoning their pleasures they would be betraying Mallarn’s ethos. And others were reluctant to submit to classic military principles such as the chain of command and fighting as a unit. Battle on Ardissa was a more individualistic affair, with honor the prime criterion.

Nevertheless, we drilled and tested weapons and prepared as best we could. I almost looked forward to the battle, which would at least be some diversion from my dreary, bodiless existence. Reminiscing with Katherine had been bittersweet, emphasizing how pale and empty the afterlife felt in comparison to the happier times we’d had in life, in love.

After returning from a reconnaissance mission, Orlind took me to one side and said, “You do know this is hopeless?”

“Is it?” I said.

“Their warriors outnumber ours. How many rebels live in Mallarn? Barely a dozen dozens, and half of them are too drunk to fight.”

“But this is a fortress. The advantage lies with the defense.”

“Yes, but the attackers don’t care whether they survive, because if they die bravely in battle, they ascend to the afterlife in glory. On the other arm, everyone in Mallarn has surrendered their akran. They don’t want to die, because they have nothing afterward. It makes them cowards, and cowards don’t fight well—if at all. You may recently have noticed fewer revelers at the feasts.”

Indeed, as the crusade drew nearer, the inhabitants of Mallarn had begun slipping away in ones and twos.

“That’s not necessarily bad,” I said. “Anyone who runs away has to go somewhere. And they’ll take my suggestions with them. Maybe progress will spread, even if Mallarn falls.”

I tried to make myself believe it, but lately everything felt futile. The approaching army looked set to crush Mallarn. I couldn’t lift a finger to save it, because I had no fingers.

“How do you stand it?” I burst out. “You’ve been dead for years, ostracized by the elders, and yet you still haven’t gone mad.”

“It’s hard,” Orlind said with feeling. He paused, and I recalled the weariness I’d sensed in him. “There are ways of coping,” he said at last.

“How?” I asked, eager to learn not only for myself but also for Katherine and anyone else who might follow me. In my role as trailblazer for humans in the afterlife, I was still searching for a path. Perhaps the search itself was the only way forward.

Again Orlind hesitated. “I’d have to show you.”

After what happened last time, I understood his reluctance. Yet now I’d been longer dead, and had spent far more time with the Ardissans. My previous revulsion wouldn’t recur. “Show me,” I demanded.

“Are you sure you wish to end all the disquiet of this realm?” asked Orlind, using the declension of a ritual question.

“Definitely.” I moved closer to him and opened up, ready to receive his thoughts.

“Begone!”—“Slave vermin”—“Get away from decent folk”—“Dishonor and blasphemy”—“Banished forever.” A torrent of loneliness and rejection gushed into me. I reeled under the onslaught. Was this a coping technique? Surely not.

I tried to break free, but Orlind held me fast. Again the poisonous emotions flooded in, and he followed them with painful memories of whippings and stonings.

“Help!” I screamed into the ether. “Katherine!”

I struggled to prevent Orlind from overwhelming me. As he attacked again, I let my sense of betrayal pour out. “Why?”

My howl burned him, but he fought back. As he battered me with yet more isolation and despair, I felt a tinge of guilt among his anguish. He hadn’t wanted to turn against me, but he’d been promised an end to his ostracism. If he could purge the evil human presence from the afterlife, the elders would finally welcome him. They’d give him the antlers of a warrior hero.

I tried to resist Orlind’s attack, retaliating with memories of the hospice, of my long slow slide into death. But I knew little of battle in the spirit world, and he had too much horror to scour me with. I could barely hold him off.

Yet the onslaught stilled. Through our entangled minds, I felt Orlind shudder as Katherine flamed down like a starship incinerating natives with its landing jets. She imposed her own imagery on the conflict, cutting him with lasers and crushing him with skyscrapers. He retaliated with spears, which she vaporized with disdainful ease.

While Orlind battled Katherine, I countered with all the ennui and frustration I’d pent up since my death. He shriveled under the double attack. I sensed Katherine coming closer to me as she ate into him, tearing his spirit apart.

Orlind’s resistance vanished. Katherine and I found ourselves floating together in the air above Mallarn. Her personality had a different yet familiar flavor. She’d absorbed the remnants of Orlind’s mind.

My relief and gratitude spilled forth in an outburst of emotion. “Thanks for getting to me in time,” I said. “I didn’t know you felt so superior.”

“That was his feeling, not mine,” she replied. “That’s why it worked. He was so dazzled by our technology, I only had to present the conflict in those terms to defeat him.”

“Poor Orlind,” I said. Yet I wondered whether he might have had this outcome in mind when he attacked. Whether he won or lost, either way his solitude would end. That was all he’d wanted.

And I found it reassuring to think that ghostly existence didn’t have to last forever. Knowing I had an alternative—however drastic—reduced my fear of the stretching millennia ahead. Unwittingly, Orlind had given me a little comfort.

Remembering his description of an invincible approaching army, I saw I had to stop deluding myself that I could single-handedly turn Mallarn’s hedonists into a force capable of fighting off the whole planet. This wasn’t a movie: a training montage wouldn’t be enough. I needed something more, and Katherine’s strategy had told me what it was.

I drifted down to the flitter, which still stood on the plateau where Katherine had parked it before she died. Inside, I found the usual emergency kit, with rations, distress flares, and a blaster. Ranis-tra-Laru had returned the remaining akranil to the cold store.

Soon we’d need to contact Katherine’s colleagues, before they became so concerned by her silence that they started searching for her. Katherine’s research team would surely be willing to trade for more ghost-glands, now that they were proven to work in humans. What price for life after death? We could ask for anything we wanted.

Katherine had followed me into the flitter. “No,” she said.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I know what you’re thinking. You want to use human technology to defend Mallarn. But it’s not our place to take sides in their wars.”

“We’re already on one side. We’ve brought this on Mallarn—we have a responsibility to get them out of it.”

“And you think that would be the end? Do you really imagine you can give out guns before a battle, and afterward they’ll meekly hand them back?”

I could see her point, but there were ways round it. “Blasters don’t have an infinite charge. They’re useless when it runs out.”

“Until some black marketeer in Greenfall recharges them. Once you start giving out guns, you can’t stop. Is that the progress you want to bring?”

“The elders despise humans and technology. Are you saying they’d suddenly change their tune?”

“It only takes one, and the rest are forced to follow.”

I stormed out of the flitter. “So we should just sit on our phantom backsides while we watch the armies tear this down?” I said, pointing to Mallarn looming from the snowy plateau in the moonlight. “If the crusaders win, you can say goodbye to getting any more akranil. No more humans in the afterlife!”

And I realized that despite everything, despite the tedious hindrances of immortality, I was ready to report back from the lower slopes and say that the ascent was worth attempting. Yes, the afterlife had its trials and tribulations—like life, like anything worthwhile.

“I suggest we speak to Arnil,” said Katherine. “He is the leader here, after all.”

We had to wait till morning for Arnil to wake, then wait till midday before he ate wathrone. The delay reminded me anew that I had no power to act directly, that I could only whisper in Arnil’s ear and hope he liked what I said. I couldn’t afford to antagonize him. If he banned the consumption of wathrone, my influence in Mallarn would vanish.

“The first thing we need to know,” said Arnil, “is how many crusaders we face.”

Katherine said, “There are two groups, approaching from the south and west.” I wondered how she knew this; then I remembered that she’d swallowed Orlind’s memories. She went on, “Excluding slaves, the warriors are perhaps eighteen dozen.”

Was that all? On this thinly populated planet, it probably counted as an army. And it comfortably exceeded the number of fighters in Mallarn.

“We can show you how to use the flitter,” I said. “That will help.”

Katherine shot me a disapproving look, but then said, “It can be used to evacuate Mallarn. If everyone left, there would be no one for the crusaders to attack.”

“And they would have won without attacking,” said Arnil.

“Evacuation would be a last resort,” I said. “Another option is to go out in the flitter and confront the army before it gets here.”

Arnil’s muzzle twitched eagerly. “We can destroy them?”

“We can frighten them off,” I said.

If the enemy wasn’t scared of death, attempting to intimidate them with one flitter would be a long shot. Yet I thought it was worth a try.

It didn’t take long to teach Arnil how to pilot the flitter. Soon we set off, Arnil flying slowly so that Katherine and I could keep up. She directed him southwest, until we saw the armies converging to attack Mallarn. Splotches of blue dotted the plateau, as if flakes had fallen off the sky.

Elders hovered above the columns, occasionally darting ahead to scout the way. Some were small; others were huge with enormous fractal antlers. Those must be the most ancient, the ones who ruled Ardissa and smothered it in ignorance.

Arnil set the flitter down at the convergence point, and we waited for the crusade to arrive. He stepped outside to meet the leaders. A group of elders approached, with a retinue of warriors and slaves. I drew back, wary of being attacked again. Consequently I heard little of Arnil’s address to the enemy, though Katherine explained the protocol for such encounters.

The crusaders reacted to Arnil’s speech with shouts of “Never!” and “Human scum!” The elders tipped their antlers menacingly toward us, as Katherine and I hovered a prudent distance away from the scene.

Arnil said a few final words, then returned to the flitter. He rose above the army, and began firing distress flares at them. Red and yellow explosions burst among the warriors. They fell back, scurrying away on all fours.

But they rallied when they realized that the flares only burned rather than killed. They began throwing missiles—I heard dull clunks as stones and javelins bounced off the flitter—until Arnil flew up higher, out of their range. The horde waved their spears, tauntingly.

Then Arnil descended again. I saw his furry arm sticking out of the window, clutching something. The crusaders fell like scythed corn as Arnil fired the blaster. He swooped low over the army, reaping a harvest of ghosts.

“Lucian!”

I jerked around at Katherine’s cry, and saw elders hurtling toward us. Katherine raced away, and I followed. I tried to imagine myself as a flitter, cutting effortlessly through the air. We fled across the sky while the elders pursued.

Ahead, Katherine’s shape broke up. Blobs of spirit stuff flashed past me and fell behind. As I kept going, not daring to stop, I saw a slender figure still flying onward. What had happened to Katherine? I looked back to see the frontline of elders swoop on the stray fragments, gobbling them up. That delayed them just enough to give us a chance of getting away.

I made a superhuman effort and caught up with Katherine, or whatever she had become. I shifted direction slightly, and she followed me toward a nearby range of hills.

We crashed straight into it, then kept going within the rocks. For long minutes we dodged and weaved and trusted to the darkness underground. I saw no pursuers. After a while we stopped, exhausted.

Huddled in the dark, we waited to see if they would find us again.

“Are you all right? What happened to you?” I asked.

Katherine said, “I dropped off Orlind, what was left of him. I figured it might distract them.”

“Like a lizard shedding its tail,” I said.

“I’m glad I did it. His mind was too alien to sit comfortably in mine, especially as he had so many more memories. I learned a lot, but I was worried that he might absorb me rather than vice versa.”

We melted into each other in wordless comfort. I poured out my relief and joy that she’d chosen the human over the alien. Katherine clung to me as though she would never let go again.

I sensed her annoyance that we’d had to flee before seeing the confrontation’s outcome. “I expect Arnil drove off the crusaders,” I said. “They can’t stand against human technology.”

Remembering the sight of Arnil firing down into the helpless mob, I wished the victory had been won by the better argument, not the better weapon. Yet Arnil had only been defending himself and his way of life against enemies who’d vowed to crush him. Perhaps the deaths had averted a far bloodier battle.

“What now?” asked Katherine. “Back to Mallarn?”

“No. I’ve given them enough suggestions. The rest is up to them.”

Katherine laughed. “Are you sure they can manage without you? Maybe you were just another type of elder. Instead of a dead hand holding them back, you were a dead hand pushing them forward.”

“Give them some credit,” I said. “It wasn’t my specific input that mattered, but the idea of progress. Now that they’ve tasted it, I think they’ll want more.”

But the only way to prove that would be to leave Mallarn alone, and let the hedonists advance—or not—at their own pace. Meanwhile we’d return to Greenfall Station, bringing news of the afterlife to the rest of humanity.

“We’ll drop into Mallarn occasionally to trade for akranil, until we can work out how to make them synthetically,” Katherine said. “We’ll see how they’re managing.”

I longed to know whether I’d inspired genuine progress. At last I understood Katherine’s curiosity, and shared it. But the Ardissans had their own path to walk.

Katherine and I needed to find the best route for ourselves, and our future companions, as we climbed the endless mountain of eternity.

About the Author

Ian Creasey lives in Yorkshire, England. He began writing when rock & roll stardom failed to return his calls. A collection of his SF stories, The Shapes of Strangers, is forthcoming from NewCon Press in April 2019.

Give the Family My Love

A. T. Greenblatt

I’m beginning to regret my life choices, Saul. Also, hello from the edge of the galaxy.

Also, surprise! I know this isn’t what you had in mind when you said “Keep in touch, Hazel” but this planet doesn’t exactly invoke the muse of letter writing. The muse of extremely long voice messages however . . .

So. Want to know what’s this world’s like? Rocky, empty, and bleak in all directions, except one. The sky’s so stormy and green it looks like I’m trudging through the bottom of an algae-infested pond. I’ve got this 85-million-dollar suit between me and the outside, but I swear, I’m suffocating on the atmosphere. Also, I’m 900 meters away from where I need to be with no vehicle to get me there except my own two legs.

So here I am. Walking.

Sorry to do this to you, Saul, but if I don’t talk to someone—well, freak out at someone—I’m not going to make it to the Library. And like hell I’m going to send a message like this back to the boys on the program. You, at least, won’t think less of me for this. You know that emotional meltdowns are part of my process.

850 meters. I should have listened to you, Saul.

And yes, I know how cliché that sounds. I’ve been to enough dinner parties and heard enough dinner party stories, especially once people learned that I’m possibly the last astronaut ever. At least now I have an excellent excuse for turning down invitations. “I’d love to come, but I’m currently thirty-two and a half lightyears away from Earth. Give your family my love.”

Of course, they won’t get the message until six months too late.

Wow, that’s depressing. See, this is why I told the people in R&D not to give me too many facts and figures, but they’re nerds, you know? They can’t help themselves. Despite best intentions, it sort of spills out of them sometimes.

And it’s not like I can forget.

750 meters.

The good news is I can actually see the Library. So if I died here 742 meters from the entrance, I can expire knowing I was the first human to set eyes on this massive infrastructure of information in person.

Oh god. I might actually die out here, Saul. Not that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind before, but the possibility becomes a lot more tangible when you’re walking across an inhospitable alien landscape.

Also, my fancy astronaut suit is making some worrying noises. I don’t think it’s supposed to sound like it’s wheezing.

675 meters. God, Saul, I really hope this mission is worth it.

Have I told about the Library, yet? No, I haven’t, have I? And I’ve only been talking about this, for what, years now? Well, you should know, it’s not what I expected. Which is stupid because alien structures are supposed to be alien and not castles or temples, like with steeples and everything. Shut up, Saul. (I know you’re laughing, or will be laughing at this six months from now.) I don’t regret reading all those fantasy sagas when we were kids. Only that I didn’t get to read more.

But you want to know what the Library looks like. Well, I’ve climbed mountains that feel like anthills next to this building. It sort of looks like a mountain too. An ugly misshapen mountain, full of weird windows and jutting walls. It’s shiny and smooth from some angles and gritty and dull from others. It gives me the shivers.

Which is not really surprising. This is an alien world with alien architecture full of all that alien and not so alien knowledge just waiting to be learned. More information than the starry-eyed Homo sapiens ever dreamed there was possible to know.  

500 meters.

Saul, I’m getting concerned about my suit. My left arm isn’t bending at the elbow anymore. Not that I need my left arm to keep walking, but it’s a bit disquieting, in a panic-inducing sort of way. God, this was so much easier when all I had to do was rely on the Librarians’ technology to get me here. Now, I have to rely on humanity’s own questionable designs to get me this last kilometer. But that’s the Librarians’ rules for getting in. “You have to get your representative to our entrance safely through a most unforgiving landscape.” Turns out that outside of my very expensive outfit there’s an absurdly high atmospheric pressure, corrosive gases, wild temperature fluctuations between shady and light patches, et cetera, et cetera. Also, the ground is just rocky enough to surprise you.

I don’t want to think about what’ll happen if I trip. Can’t think about it. I wasn’t a physics major before, and this is not the time to start.

350 meters.

I mean, I knew the dangers signing up. I knew this was going to be the hardest part of the trip. (I mean, how could it not be? The Librarians figured out how to travel lightyears in a matter of months. And that’s just for starters.) But I was the best candidate for the job and I had to do something, Saul. I know you think otherwise, but I haven’t given up on humanity. This isn’t running away.

I wish I could run right now because now there seems to be a layer of fine dust coating the inside of my suit. Oh my god.

250 meters.

Shut up, Saul. I can hear you telling me in that big brother voice of yours: “It’s okay if you freak out, Hazel, just not right now” like you did when we were kids. And you’re right, I can’t freak out, because the worst thing that could happen right now, aside from dying, is having an asthma attack from the dust. Okay, okay, okay. I just need to keep calm, keep focused, keep moving.

175 meters.

There’s definitely something wrong with my suit. The coating of dust in my suit has gone from “minimal” to “dense” and I have no idea which piece of equipment I’m breathing in.

Don’t panic, Hazel.

Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic.

Can’t panic. I’m picturing the R&D nerds when I tell them about this. They’re going to completely melt down when they hear that their precious design didn’t hold up as well as planned. Good, retaliation hyperventilating. Because that’s what happens when your best candidate for the job is an asthmatic anthropologist.

100 meters.

Okay, I’m almost there. I can see the door. This faulty, pathetic excuse for a space suit only has to last me a few more minutes. I just need to keep walking. Soon I’ll be safely inside and reunited with my beautiful, beautiful inhaler.

75 meters

Well. Hopefully, they let me in.

So . . . here’s the thing Saul. The Librarians never actually gave us a guarantee that they would admit me. They said it was up to the Librarians who live in the Library. (Apparently, they are a different sect from the explorer Librarians that I met and traveled with and well, the two sects don’t always agree.) But the explorer faction gave me a ride here, so that’s got to count for something, right?

Thing is, this stupid suit was supposed to withstand a walk to the Library and back to the ship if I needed it. Looks like my safety net isn’t catching much now.

25 meters.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this before I left, but I’m not sorry either. The knowledge that I can potentially gain here is worth the risk. It’s worth every cent of that 85 million and if I’m going to die on the steps, well that sucks. But okay, at least we tried.

10 meters.

I’m not sorry, Saul. Just scared.

Hopefully the Librarians let me in, but if you don’t get another transmission from me, you know what happened. Give the rest of the family my love.

Okay. Here we go.

Have you ever been in love, Saul?

Yes, I know you love Huang. I’ve seen the way you look at her and she looks at you. But remember the moment when you looked at her like that for the first time and you thought, “Holy crap. This is it. I’ve finally found it.”

Yeah. The Library, Saul, is magnificent.

And . . . difficult to describe. It’s sort of like the outside of the Library. It changes depending on what angle you look at it from.

When I left the decontamination chamber (at least, I think that’s what it was?), I stepped into the main room and everything was dimly lit and quiet. The Library’s Librarians—which I later learned preferred to be called the Archivists because they are not the Librarians who travel the universe—were milling around the massive room. They looked similar to the explorer Librarians we met on Earth; tall, lanky, humanoid-like bodies. But they all had long, shimmering whiskers that the explorer Librarians didn’t (couldn’t?) grow out. Their whiskers went all the way down to their splayed, ten fingered feet.

The room was surprisingly empty except for these installations in the middle of the room that could either have been art or furniture. So you know, sort of like university libraries back home.

I was just starting to breathe easier, my inhaler finally kicking in after that walk from hell, when the light changed and suddenly I was standing next to this fern/skyscraper thing that smelled weirdly like hops and was a violent shade of purple. It became ridiculously humid and the room was filled with what I can only assume were plants. Even the Librarians—I mean, Archivists—changed. Now, they had four legs and two arms and were covered in this lush white hair.

I reached out and touched one of the ferns next to me and it was like touching a prickly soap bubble, which was not what I was expecting. But then again, I wasn’t expecting it to reach out and tap me back on the forehead either.

I think I swore. I’m not sure because everything changed again. Suddenly, I was shivering and standing on something like a frozen ocean that’s trapped an aurora in the floe. The air was nosebleed dry and smelled like rust and I could see pale things moving underneath the ice. The Archivists themselves had become round and translucent, floating a meter in the air.

And the room kept changing. It was terrifying . . . and completely amazing, Saul.

So there I was, gaping like an idiot, simultaneously too afraid to move and too busy trying to take all of it in. In my slack-jawed stupidity, it took me far too long to notice that two things didn’t change. First, the Archivists always kept their rubbery fluidity and their whiskers. And those little lights never moved.

Crap, I’m not describing this well. I forgot to mention the lights. There were thousands of them, like miniature stars, scattered seemingly at random around the room, drifting, hanging out in midair. I think they were what made everything change, because when an Archivist would go up and touch one with their long whiskers, bam! new setting.

So get this: When I finally mustered up a little courage and asked a passing Archivist what those lights were, they said: “Every known solar system worth learning about.”

I would say I’ve died and gone to a better place, but I’ve used up my quota of terrible clichés just getting here.

Wait, that’s not true. I still have one awful one left.

I stood in that room for a while, longer than I should have, but the truth is I was trying to work up the nerve to introduce myself to the head Archivist. But I never did because eventually they came up and greeted me. It was one of the most nerve-wracking conversations I’ve ever had. Between the steroids from my inhaler and pure, uncut anxiety, my hands were like a nine on the Richter scale.

You see, Saul, the Archivists are not to be messed with. Like seriously. Do not contradict them, raise your voice, be anything less than painfully respectful. They may look squishy, but they can dismantle you down to your atoms, capture you in a memory tablet, and put your unbelieving ass on a shelf where they keep all of the boring information that no one ever checks out. And they’ll keep you sentient too.

Or sentient enough. I hope.

Fortunately, my interview was fairly short. The head Archivist found me worthy enough, I guess, and gave me very, very limited access to the Library. When they led me to the section with our solar system, I sort of wished you were here Saul, so you could have taken a picture of my expression at that moment. Pretty sure you would qualify it as “priceless.” Because the size of this room, you could fit a small town in here.

And get this, the Archivist was apologetic. “We’ve only just begun to study you and we thought you would prefer to see our research in physical form,” they said, “Hopefully you can find what you need in our meager collection.”

Except, here’s the thing. They probably have more information on us than we have on ourselves.

Actually, I’m counting on it.

Everything here is so strange, Saul. The light is too colorless and the air tastes weird. The walls and the shelves seem to bend slightly. It’s all new and deeply alien.

It’s wonderful.

The Archivists have set up something that’s not too different from a studio apartment in the corner of the section on sea coral. It has running water and artificial sunlight and all eleven seasons of M*A*S*H on a TV that looks like it came from the 1980s. I have this theory that my living quarters are part of some junior Archivist’s final thesis project, but I’m probably just culturally projecting. On the bright side, if they picked the 80s, they could have done much worse than M*A*S*H.

I’m sure in a few weeks I’ll start having terrible bouts of homesickness and will send you even longer, possibly more rambling messages questioning every life decision leading up to this point. But right now, being in the Library is sort of liberating. In a let’s-call-my-big-brother-because-my-new-studio-home-is-way-too-quiet sort of way.

Oh. I got your first message today. Remember the one you recorded six months ago, about three days after I left? I knew you were pissed, but wow, Saul. A backstabbing, alien-loving, wheezing, useless coward? You had three whole days to think of something and that’s the best you could do?

I know you didn’t mean it. I know you’re only half angry at me, half angry at our dying planet, and half angry at, well . . .

I got a message from Huang too. She told me about the most recent miscarriage. I’m so sorry, Saul. One day the two of you are going to be the world’s best parents. I believe that more than I believe in your international reforestation project, which is definitely going to work.

And I get how you think I’m abandoning you and Earth for a sterile, stable library, but I needed to come here. I have this working theory about the Librarians. Wanna hear it? Too bad, I’m going to tell you anyway.

See, the more time I spend with them, the more I’m convinced Librarians could have obliterated us if they wanted to. But they haven’t. In fact, they’ve put a painstaking amount of effort into studying us and making first contact with all the right people. Asking those people just the right questions like: “We managed to save the information before this university archive burned or this datacenter got flooded. Would you like to retrieve it?” Questions that convinced us to put this mission together.

Which leads me to believe they’re trying to help us.

I know you’re rolling your eyes, Saul. Have I ever told you that you always look like a moody teenager when you do that? Yeah, I know I have. But hear me out, I’m trying to tell you something important.

Please.

Do you remember our first big argument over this mission? You said that anyone who comes to Earth while in the middle of an environmental collapse can’t be trusted. I agree. Except, the first Librarian I ever met told me that the Library was built as a beacon for all sentient life in the universe. A place where researchers could come and learn about lost discoveries. And past mistakes.

I can hear you saying: “And you were naïve enough to blindly trust them, Hazel?” No, Saul, I’m not. Before I was picked for this crazy mission, I was just there to help first contact go smoothly, being one of the few remaining anthropologists who have studied interactions between vastly different cultures. I had zero interest in becoming an astronaut; space travel always seemed too risky and uncomfortable to me. But the Librarians were impressed by my commitment to cultural preservation. The space program was impressed by my ridiculously good memory. And I became convinced that if I didn’t go, someone else would eventually slip and we’d be adding “total societal collapse” along with “environmental disaster” to the list of humanity’s problems.

You see, Saul, there’s so much that I’m witnessing in the Library that I’m not telling you, because the Librarians’ advanced tech would devastate our underdeveloped society.

Which didn’t stop the people in R&D from telling me over and over again to take careful notes on everything I observe and send them the information on the down low, of course. I was sent here to reclaim any research and history that could help us save ourselves, but I think they’re hoping that I’ll learn about useful alien tech too. I’m tempted to send them a report that says: Sorry nerds, it’s all just magic.

No, Saul, not really. My official reports are going to be way more straightforward and professional. You know, double the facts and half the amount of sarcasm. But I think I’m going to keep sending these messages to you, for a while at least. All this is not actually why I “ran away” from home.

Really, it was just a good excuse to get out of commuting in Chicago traffic.

Just kidding. It was the Great Plains fires. There’s only so much smoke and ash an asthmatic researcher can deal with before she ships out.

Only sort of kidding.

I have a list of things I need to investigate for the scientists back home, but for now, I think I’m going to call it a day. Looking at the amazing amount of information around me makes me realize how much we’ve lost. How the Librarians managed to recover all this is a mystery I don’t intend to solve, but hopefully they managed to save the research I’m looking for.

Have I mentioned how much of this is mission is chalked up to hope?

Hello, Saul, I’m lost. No, that’s not true, my memory won’t let me get lost, but I imagine this is what it feels like. The rows of memory tablets are identical, if you don’t pay attention to the Archivists’ annotations at every turn. I can’t actually read them because they just look like miniature sculptures, but I remember the small differences. The Archivists were kind enough to give me a basic map with a basic translation of where to find things. But Librarians’ basics and human basics are not the same thing.

God, I thought finding the research would be the easy part of this trip, but I might never find my way out of the single-celled organism section. So, give the family my love.

I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I do. You’re thinking: “How about you come home then, Hazel, and help me with these seedlings?” because we’ve been having this argument for what, ten years now?

No, not quite. Nine years, 10 months, and twenty-seven days, since that first fight over dinner.

Yeah, Saul. My memory is my own worst enemy sometimes.

By the way, I got your second message today. Apology accepted. But I can’t come back, Saul. I barely started my information recovery project. Some good stuff got destroyed this last decade.

Like Dr. Ryu’s research. If I can find it. If it’s here at all.

God, this message is depressing. Hey, here’s something cool I learned today; the kitchen cabinets produce whatever food I’m thinking about and the twenty some blank books in the living room become whatever I want to read. It really is like magic. Everything a human needs and all the books a girl can want.

I’m not coming home, Saul.

Well, it’s been a week and while I still haven’t found Dr. Ryu’s research, I’ve found plenty of other interesting things here. Like patents and working concepts of solar powered vehicles and papers on regenerating corn seed that needs two times the amount of CO2 for photosynthesis. We had so many opportunities to stop things before they got terrible, Saul. And we missed them all.

Honestly, the wealth of information here is mind-blowing. The Librarians are like the universe’s most organized hoarders. They’ve saved everything from road construction projects to packing and advertising protocols for the garment industry. And get this, every time I activate a memory table, the information is projected around me. Sometimes the entire aisle transforms and I literally get lost in my work. Which is why there’s been a long gap since my last message. Sorry about that, Saul.

Don’t laugh, but I spent all of yesterday in the children’s literature section. All the stories there came to life too; old houses covered in vines and chocolate factories and little engines that could. It was fantastic, Saul. And completely depressing. Because as I sat there surrounded by those hopeful stories, it hit me that your grandchildren might not even know these stories exist. Yes, I know you disagree. But I’m a learned anthropologist and a general pessimist and I’m scared.

I asked an Archivist if this is how they store all their information. They asked if I’d be offended if they laughed and showed me the memory tablet that contained all the knowledge of the Library. It was about the size of paperback romance novel.

“Our information would be inaccessible to you otherwise,” the Archivist explained. “All of your search engines are either too crude or too biased.”

“But didn’t this take you forever to build?”

“No,” they said, but I must not have looked convinced. “Magic,” they added.

Saul, I think the alien race of information scientists are listening to these recordings. So whatever you do, don’t reply back with anything you don’t want recorded for posterity.

“Why is the Library so large then?” I asked.

And here’s where the story gets really depressing, Saul.

They told me that once this planet, the inhospitable place that’s just a wasteland and a massive Library now, was full of life. There were once billions of Librarians. Now, there’s only a few thousand. Before they became the masters of information science of the known universe, the Librarians ended up destroying their planet too.

The first Librarians I ever met told me the Library is a beacon for sentient life in the galaxy, except now I know it’s not just a beacon for other species. The reason why the Library’s so big, Saul, is that most of the Archivists and Librarians live here too.

They couldn’t save their planet either.

I can hear you asking me why I bothered coming here if I’m going to be stubbornly bleak about the future and it’s not an easy thing you demanded, brother mine, and I’m trying to tell you in my circular, rambling way, that I . . .

I . . .

Saul. I need to call you back. I think I finally found Dr. Ryu’s research.

I’ve got it, oh my god, I’m so relieved. It was a fight to get it, though. No, Saul, I’m not exaggerating. Stop rolling your eyes.

Remember when I said the Archivists could keep their information sentient? Well, she was sentient enough, Saul.

When I accessed the memory tablet, the researcher herself appeared so real and sharp I could see the gray strands in her hair and the clear gloss on her fingernails. She didn’t look thrilled to see me and I should’ve taken it as a warning, but I was way too excited.

“Are you Dr. Yumi Ryu?” I asked. (Gushed would be more accurate.)

“Up to the age of 53,” she answered

“Amazing! It’s great to finally meet you, Dr. Ryu. I want to ask you everything. What’s it like being archived by the Librarians? No, wait, can you tell me about your reforesting research first?”

For some reason, Saul, my rambling didn’t put her at ease. “Why?” she asked, her expression suspicious.

“Um, well, because the news back home isn’t good. Most of the North Pacific rain forest has been destroyed by a combination of drought and wildfires. Including your original research at UBC.”

She didn’t seem surprised by this, just sad. “And where is your team, Ms. . . . ?”

“Hazel Smith. It’s just me.”

She frowned, the suspicion on her face growing. “They sent a single astronaut? Why?”

“Resources and funds. Both are extremely limited these days.”

“Why you then?”

“Because I’m a researcher too, Dr. Ryu, and I’m dedicated to preserving human society. Also, because I have an extraordinary memory, especially for data and details, and don’t need batteries.”

Ryu arched an eyebrow. Out of nowhere, a memory tablet about the size of a romance novel appeared in her hands. She stared it intently.

“What are you doing?” I asked, not getting a good vibe from this.

“Reading your articles, academic and otherwise. Being part of the Library, Ms., excuse me, Dr. Smith, means I can check out materials too.”

Suddenly, I knew how this conversation would go. It would be like those awful dinner parties that ended in silent awkwardness when people asked why I didn’t have kids. But there was nothing I could do, except try not to chew on my fingernails. In all of human culture, there’s nothing more uncomfortable than standing there while someone else reads your work.

But if anthropology has taught me anything, Saul, it is that human beings can always surprise you.

“Wow,” Dr. Ryu said and the tablet disappeared from her hands. “You have a depressing view on human nature.”

I’ve always hated having this conversation, so I stuck my hand in my pockets and said: “I’m just going off history.”

She nodded. “For what it’s worth, I agree.”

Color me stunned, Saul. “So will you tell me about your research?”

Ryu stared at me hard, with that critical eye that only people who spend too much time in labs analyzing details can pull off.

“No,” she said.

No. That’s what she really said. After traveling thirty-two and a half lightyears for research like this. I won’t lie, Saul, for a brief second I considered smashing the memory tablet.

“You serious?” I said.

“Yes, Dr. Smith. I’ve spent most of my professional career fighting politicians, big businesses, home developers, farmers. Anyone who didn’t like the idea of giving up their land and returning it to forests, to try to reverse some of the damage we’ve done. I can’t tell you how many times people tried to destroy this research.”

“I’m not here to destroy anything, Dr. Ryu. I’ve given up too much for that.”

“And what did you give up, Dr. Smith?”

“Earth. Everyone I know and love. I’ve risked my life for this information!” I said. In hindsight, maybe a little too defensively.

“No, that’s running away,” she replied. Yeah, she really said that to me, Saul. “Why are you really here?”

I sighed and used your classic line. “Because it’s hope for the future that keeps us going.”

“And who do you have hope for, Dr. Smith? Because from what I’ve read, you don’t paint a hopeful picture.”

I didn’t know what else to do. So, I told her, Saul. Everything I’ve been trying to tell you.

There aren’t many defining moments in my life. Mostly, I think defining moments are clichés in hindsight. So maybe this is too, but do you remember that summer, ten years ago, when everything burned? Yeah, hard to forget.

I’d just gotten my first master’s degree and wildfires in northern Washington were raging, and there was a trail you could take up a mountain that was still a safe distance away, but you could witness the worst fires in history firsthand. It was only an hour drive from campus. And I was frustrated and scared, but also curious. So I figured what the hell.

I took this guy with me. No, you’ve never met him, Saul.

We walked up that mountain together, though the ash made for awful traction.

It wasn’t love and we both knew it. That was one of the many, many rules I broke to myself that summer. But I liked him and he liked me. And in that moment, that was enough. Good enough. The world was on fire and right then, I was too grateful to have someone who would climb a mountain with me just to watch the world ending.

Mortality makes you reckless sometimes, Saul.

Eventually the smoke got so bad that my asthma couldn’t take it. He practically carried me back down.

Two months later, he went back home to Colorado, where there were a few trees left and I spent that fall sobbing and wheezing. Which made sense when I took a pregnancy test.

I chose. And I don’t regret that choice, Saul. Except three days, eighteen hours, and twelve minutes later, you called and told me about the first child you and Huang wouldn’t have after all.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, Saul. But I’m not sorry either. I was twenty-three, and though I could repeat back textbooks verbatim, I consistently lost my keys and forgot to eat. And after that summer, it was hard to see myself with a future and much less, a future for a kid. I know you’re disappointed in me because you believe that no opportunity should be wasted. You think every life, even the cockroaches in the shed, should have a go at it. You’ve always believed in a future on Earth, Saul. Where I saw ashes, you saw fertile soil.

That’s what I told Dr. Ryu. I told her all about you and Huang and your relentless perseverance and hope. I think she saw a kindred spirit in you or maybe just the right strain of stubbornness. So, she agreed to share her research with you. We’re going to transcribe a little every day. Her memory tablet makes the Library’s aisles transform into thriving forests. It is truly beautiful.

Consider this part one of my gift to you, Saul, because like hell am I going to apologize for the choices that brought me here.

Part two is that one of the benefits of becoming the last astronaut was getting a ridiculous stipend from the government. Well, more like a life insurance payout, because I’m going to be here for a long time. Hopefully not forever, but there’s a lot of lost information here and the Archivists apparently are used to long-term guests.

I told you I had one last, terrible cliché and it’s the worst one of all. The one where the astronaut doesn’t come home.

Saul, I want you to use that money to start that family you and Huang always wanted.

Honestly, I’m still not convinced we can save Earth, but you are, and that works for me. So, I’ll keep searching and sending home the information I find and maybe, between the two of us, that’ll be enough.

So, give the family my love.

About the Author

A. T. Greenblatt is a mechanical engineer by day and a writer by night. She lives in Philadelphia where she’s well acquainted with all four seasons and is known to frequently subject her friends to various cooking and home brewing experiments. She is a graduate of Viable Paradise XVI and Clarion West 2017. Her work is forthcoming or has appeared in Uncanny, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Fireside, as well as other fine places. You can find her Twitter at @AtGreenblatt.

The Face of God

Bo Balder

I was the first. Not the first to touch the God, but to notice the effects of the Godflesh. Mother and I had walked up to where the God’s hand had landed, crushing houses and flattening trees. The left hand had buried itself partially in the ground, palm down, so even though the pinky finger was five times as thick as a normal house, the pad of the fingertip was just within reach.

I was ten years old or so, but I was so thin and wasted my mother could still hold me up. I reached for the edge of the God’s nail where it stuck out over the dirty hill of its pinky finger. The God had landed butt down in the valley, his neck on the mountain pass, his head tipped back. His legs flung willy-nilly, one in the river, one on the lower pastures. One arm over the mountain range, one reaching down. The river had flooded when he landed and was now carving out a new streambed right in the middle of town. The God’s arrival hadn’t seemed fortuitous at first.

The top of the finger was bigger than the temple, the nail edge itself wider than my two hands. It was like a rock, rough and grooved and striated with reds and pinks. I held out my shaking, burning arm and managed to slide my fingertip over serrated edge. It stung, and I bled a little.

Mother staggered and set me down, not so gently. She stroked my hair. “At least you’ll have the blessing of the God,” she said. I’d always been sickly, and she didn’t expect me to make it through the rainy season. I had a cough and could hardly keep my food down. But as I drowsed on her back on the way home, my breaths seemed easier and the banana leaves hanging over the path looked greener.

And when I ate all the gruel in my bowl and even asked for a second one, my mother, an observant woman, became suspicious. It was natural to link two unusual occurrences in one day. I slept like I never had before, I woke up hungry and eager to get outside. I could only crawl like a crab, because my legs had never grown and my right arm didn’t work so well.

It took mere weeks for me to grow longer, stronger legs and to start walking. My mother must have spent all that time thinking and planning, because as soon as my legs were a handspan longer than they’d ever been, so that even people who didn’t see me often could spot the difference, she took me to the priest.

Because I felt so much better, I noticed more about the world. The priest looked thin and shabby, and his temple had seen better days. The God had fallen down from the sky only months ago, and already he must be feeling it in his pockets. Why visit a temple built by human hands, why put a coin in the bowl of a fat-bellied god only human in size?

Mother showed Brother Karman my legs. We knew him well, from many donations and prayer sessions about my health. Mom was ruthless. She demanded her money back. Karman’s god had given bad service, and now we were owed recompense.

Poor Karman was too stunned to protest when she marched in and took from his stash whatever she liked. Not as much meat and rice and fruit as he might once have had, but still bolts of good cloth, gold coin, and jade jewelry.

I didn’t know what she was planning, honest. Next, Mom marched up to the biggest house in the village, which happened to have a childless wife. “Look at my son,” mother said without preamble when Saiha opened the screen door. “He’s growing real legs. I know what made him better. Give me your house and I will tell you.”

I saw she was right to act so fast. It wouldn’t be long before the secret was out.

The wife crept forward and bent to touch my new leg stumps. I knew they would be hot to the touch. She looked into my eyes and she must have seen something there, because she nodded.

And so we moved into the rich house, and our prosperous days began. I would later think back on them as a lull, a brief perfect time of peace and plenty.

Because when I had caught up to a normal twelve year old’s height and strength, my mother put me to work on the God.

I checked my ropes again. The God had become slippery and treacherous the past years. Almost all of his original surface had been harvested, leaving the glistening, purplish membranes that lay beneath the skin for us to hack loose. It was harder to sell those, because they weren’t as dry and easily cut up as the outer skin bits had been. That was why I was leading an expedition up to the God’s face, which was hard to reach because of the positioning over the mountaintop. We had tried the Hair route first, like many explorers before us, but had had to give up because of the large six-legged predators living inside the Hair Forest. We had had ladders made, to climb up straight from the collarbone promontory down and back up to the chin, but the terrain of the chin and lips had proven too treacherous. A man could fall inside a pore and never be found.

I hammered in the next anchor. We were scaling the head via the earlobe. I couldn’t be sure the earlobe was still solid, since the mayor had tried to shoot it off with cannon fire last year. Some God stuff had slid down the shoulder, and we’d found some rotting bits of it on our way up the slippery, oozing slope of the biceps and deltoids. The trapezium muscle was likewise scored with cuts and shallow lakes of clear fluid and blood.

The God’s movements had started about ten years ago. It had always been clear that he must still be living, since he didn’t rot and kept bleeding and oozing, but we assumed him to be insensate. But ever since that time, he had occasionally twitched or produced a deep sound. The twitches were lethal for any workers happening to be digging on that part of the God, since they got shaken loose and fell to their deaths or got swallowed up inside crevasses or tubes inside the God’s flesh. Sometimes their skeletons would pop out of an infected tube when the pus broke out. The skeletons wouldn’t be dead, because of the unnatural vigor the Godflesh imparted, but also not alive. We burned them, thinking it a kindness to end their half-life.

The sound—I thought of it as the moaning, but there was no way to know if this was the case—was even more deadly. It could kill a person at several miles distant if they happened to be standing on rock. Since then, all of us had wax earplugs with us and thick scarves around our heads to muffle the sound and protect our bones. People had started to build towers right next to the God’s lowest flesh, so they just had to take the stairs to the roof, reach out, and pluck off a bit of dangling tissue, but that new town had had to be abandoned.

The earlobe rope held, and I proceeded to scale the neck. The thick shelf of trapezoid muscle and the neck tendons gave firm footing, in spite of the surface erosion. It was still expensive and time-consuming to climb up here, so I witnessed whole slabs of fat beneath the skin that were still almost intact. Rich pickings for someone else.

Nobody had ever seen the nose up close. I assumed it to be relatively soft, like a person’s nose. It would be easy harvesting. Likit had devised a trolley system whereby a team could camp up on the nose for weeks and ferry the harvest down in baskets traveling up and down the rope. Very ingenious. I was looking forward to astounding my mother with my profits.

It was hard work, but finally I dragged myself over the jawbone and hung there to rest for a moment. We couldn’t stop here, there wasn’t enough horizontal surface. I had to climb on. I took some time to decide my course while gnawing on my rations. From up here, I couldn’t spot the nose, so I would have to guess the course. We knew the nose was there only because people had climbed the peaks across the valley with telescopes and gazed upon the God’s face. It could not be seen from below or even a few miles away due to the complex geography of neck, shoulder, and face tipped back over the mountain ridge.

I decided to go North-northeast. I conveyed the decision to the rest of the team taking their moment on various locations of the neck. We wanted to make camp near the nostril before nightfall, so we had to press on. I reached a less steep incline. That was worrying, because the route to the nostril should have been straight up all the way. We needed to discuss what to do next. It seemed I might have plotted a wrong course.

When we had all convened, we had a brief meeting lying prone on the slope with our pickaxes buried in the pristine skin. All of my men had the discipline, and a surfeit of Godflesh around them to keep from hacking off a bit of such prime merchandise. The cheek was not our goal.

Strike more westward or eastward? Were we too close to the chin or too close to the eye? Consensus was the eye, that we had to be on the cheekbone ridge. Could we even hope to redirect to the nose, or should we focus on getting to the eye, if we were indeed close to it?

A flock of sparrows flew overhead, wheeling and grouping and regrouping, and I wished to see what they saw, so I could be sure of my position. But I couldn’t, and I was the one who had to make the decision, right or wrong. My mistakes had cost dear Likit’s life. I wouldn’t care as much if Banuson and the others died, but I would lose all credibility as an expedition leader. Mother would never let me hear the end of it.

I chose the nose. My guess was we were close to it anyway. Since it was getting late in the day, it would be easier to camp in the folds beneath nostril, and also the ascent into to the nostril itself would be easier. We could use a break since we’d be traversing one and a half times the originally estimated distance. Health and vigor wouldn’t help us against tired muscles and lack of food.

We struck east. The terrain stayed hard and inexplicable. But how could I still be wrong? If we went eastward enough, surely we should encounter the nose. Banuson called up to me, wanting another deliberation. I wedged my clawhammer deeper into the cheek side and opened my mouth to call back a refusal, when suddenly all was wet around me. I couldn’t breathe, I tasted salt, and something tried to sweep me away off the cheek side, taking my feet and lower legs away from the slope. A deluge. An avalanche of salt water.

It passed. I clung to the cheek side, drenched and shivering, shaken to the core. What was this? We had never seen water run off the God. I coughed the water out of my lungs, feeling the anchor shift as I did so. The water had softened the God’s skin, and we would have to proceed more carefully.

“Banuson!” I called down. “Arto! Meka! Are you all right?”

A faint voice called up. It was Meka. “Banuson got washed away. Arto is wounded, I think he broke his shoulder. We need to make camp!”

I looked up. The slope looked as it had all day, tall and forbidding. Arto would fall if he couldn’t get rest soon.

I knew I had to concede failure. I had chosen wrong and killed Banuson. We should have been at the nostril hours ago. Why was it taking so long?

“We strike west!” I called down. “Take care, the skin is softened.”

But I discovered that it also meant we could move quickly. I could almost claw the skin with my nails, so soft was it. We moved fast before the skin could tear and loosen our grip. The terrain leveled out and we could walk, digging our steel toes into the cheekbone.

I set out anchor points for a tent and made fire from skin flakes and hair. It smelled rank but we needed it for Arto. When the two others were settled, I scrambled up the slow incline for a bit. It seemed I saw moving against the horizon, but no matter how I squinted and shaded my eyes, I couldn’t tell if it was clouds or a shadow.

Arto was seriously hurt, his shoulder hideously dislocated and painful. Meka had lost all faith in me and didn’t even believe we could descend safely and make it back home.

“You have to try,” I told him. “For Arto’s sake. All the anchor points are still there, you just have to retrace our route. You put Arto in a harness, give him all the water, and just hope for the best.”

“What do you mean, you?” he growled. “I’m sure you meant to say ‘we.’”

I stared at him. “Of course not. I’m going on.”

As soon as I said that I realized why Meka was looking at me like that. I was going on. I was leaving my teammates behind. I was a little shocked at my own callousness. And at the same time I knew I wasn’t going to change my mind, no matter how much danger I was putting myself and the others in. I couldn’t come back to my mother with nothing.

“I have to. If I don’t go and bring back a piece of nose or eye or wherever we’ve ended up, the whole expedition would be a failure. At least let’s bring something back. So go now, or you could wait here for me and we go back down together.”

Meka gestured at the shivering, ash-gray Arto, who wasn’t really taking part in the discussion. His whole body shook from the effort it took not to scream with pain.

I averted my eyes. I could feel pity for Arto welling up and didn’t want to feel that. I didn’t want anything to stop me from climbing on.

“You have to make up your own mind,” I said to Meka. “But I’m going, or I won’t be back before dark.”

I got up and shrugged on my pack. I checked all my gear. Just as a routine, not because I distrusted Meka. It was complete, every ring and leather and rope present and intact. I took off without a backward glance, not trusting myself enough for that. I couldn’t weaken now, I had to do what I’d set out to. I didn’t ask myself why exactly.

At first the slope was steep enough that every step was an effort. My calves burned, my thighs ached. But sooner than I expected it leveled out somewhat and I could make good speed. I saw the dark clouds on the horizon again, but now they seemed more like a dark forest with waving fronds.

I was getting close. I upped my speed, barely even slowing down to chew on some rations. So close. A sudden shiver in the skin below my feet gave warning. But of what? Where should I go? I realized I was walking upwards in some kind of funnel, and if another of these floods was coming on, I would be utterly vulnerable. With my adze and left hand I clawed up the soft side of the funnel. The flood poured down soundlessly, one minute there was nothing, the next I was up to my knees in water. The water tore at my flimsy hold in the bad slope, but I jammed my knees and elbows into the soft sides and managed to hold on.

I stared down after the glimmer, like a snail’s trail, which the flood had left behind. I hoped it wouldn’t tear through the bivouac. Or maybe Meka had started the descent already. I know I would have if I was him. I wouldn’t wait on the likes of me, the most dangerous kind of lunatic you could have on a climb. A maniac, someone obsessed with reaching his goal no matter what the cost.

This was the second time I had a feeling like that, and like before, I wasn’t going to let it change my mind. My goal was up there. I wasn’t going to turn around before I had gotten a good look, and preferably a nice slab of whatever was up there.

I set off again, careful to stay off the lowest point in the runnel, even though it slowed me down. I couldn’t count on another shiver warning like the last one.

The runnel was leveling out. Staying away from the bottom meant getting closer and closer to the top of the ridge that flanked it on both sides. A giant wind buffeted me, and I fell over. I had my ice axe out and secured myself within seconds, but it was still a scary moment. Flash floods, wind, what other surprises did the face of God have for me?

I clambered on, very tired now. Looking up at the sky, it was already past midday. I’d have to camp out there without cover. Not the first time I’d tied myself to a few anchors and axes and dozed away the night, though. But I’d never been completely alone.

The next step changed everything. Instead of a featureless brown-gray plain, I suddenly beheld a vista of odd ridges and outcroppings, a beautiful little lake surrounded by waving forest. I blinked. The lake wasn’t flat but bulged. The next moment the lake disappeared, and I fell over. When I scrambled up it was back.

It was the eye. Now I understood the wind and the waving fronds. It was blinking. I squatted down, secured myself with two axes and my knees and elbows in a crevice, and waited for the next gust. Blink. I counted out the seconds until the next one. Twelve. That was enough for me to scramble ten steps forward and then secure myself again.

Blink. Scramble. Blink.

One more scramble and I would have reached the waving forest. The eyelashes. Two, four, eight, ten. I dove forward at the end of my count and slammed my axes into the root of the lash. The gust of wind passed over my head. I was safe.

I crawled from lash to lash over the quivering rise until I could look down. I saw the lake of the eye across a slippery pinkish brown slope. Close to shore it glistened, yellowy-white, just like my own eyes. Further up the convex expanse light refracted and broke, so it was hard to see the edge of the iris.

I had to get me some of that eye water. That would bring in a lot of money, making this whole expedition of mishaps and suffering worth its while. I walked across the edge of the lash forest, trying to find a less slippery slope to get down to the eye lake. I had to trudge all the way to the corner of the eye to find it. There the dryer skin around the eye met the eye lake without the border of glistening inner eyelid. I touched my own eye. The lake looked exactly like a person’s eye, only so much bigger.

I secured a triangle of anchors, roped myself to them and set out with my sharp-edged scoop and leather bucket. I knelt down at the edge and touched the eye.

It wasn’t watery and soft like I expected. It was sticky and rough and bouncy. A good thing my scoop was sharpened. I bent down to dig in, but my eye was caught by the glimmer of light in the upper slope. There, over the black, the eye must be clearest and most valuable. I wanted to look down into the pupil.

I scrambled up, leaving my anchors back on the corner of the eye. Any fall would bounce me harmlessly down into the cleft between eyelid and eye. Or maybe I didn’t think about such things at all, I just wanted to be up there and gaze down into the blackness.

It was hard getting traction on the iris, in spite of the stickiness. And I’d forgotten about the blink in my eagerness. I saw the eyelids moving towards me and I just threw myself down, ramming my fingers into the iris because I’d left my axes behind. I wasn’t myself. This was dangerous. I’d momentarily forgotten that in the wonder of being on the actual eye of God.

I pressed my head down on the strangely textured eyeball stuff and felt the storm bear down on me. A moment of semidarkness and the eyelids passed over me again, with a slap like wet sheets in the wind.

I scrambled up. I had to get to the pupil in the next pause between blinks. I clawed upwards until I found a flatter bit of the eye globe. The edge of the pupil was like a pond, scummy with weeds and algae blooming just under the surface. I looked down in it and saw nothing but my own reflection. How disappointing. Maybe if I went to the middle of it?

I stood upright and walked over the strange bouncy surface, like black ice, but without the cold and the booming. My cramponed boots had some traction on the surface, but without my axes I couldn’t take anything back. I stomped my feet as hard as I could, hoping to tear loose some surface bits at least, or maybe once the membrane was pierced I could scoop out what I imagined was the soft gooey interior of the eye. Although I had never done that do a human eye, so maybe I was imagining it all wrong.

The blink came so fast I didn’t have time to hunker down and anchor myself. After the blink, I was still tumbling around, flailing for a handhold when a hot rush of water swept me away further. It wasn’t as strong or as much as the flash flood, so I managed to still myself by anchoring my hands in the weedy stuff at the edge of the pupil.

Everything went dark, then light again, and air rushed past me so fast I could hardly breathe. I couldn’t see anything but light, sky, the sun, while I was slipping down brown God stuff again. Where had the eye gone? I saw the God lying below me, the face, a nose, two eyes, darkly circled, and fixed right upon me!

That was impossible. The God wasn’t awake. Where was I? Had birds swept me up in the sky? Or had I died and was this my ascent to a higher plane?

I was moved closer to the face and then I saw the arm below me and guessed what was happening. I was on a finger of the God, where he had rubbed me out of his eye. I clung to the fingertip ridges, as deep as a plowed field.

I moved further away from the face again. The God eyes squinted, as if trying to get a fix on me. And then it happened.

I realized I was looking into the eyes of a person. God or not, this was a living being that I had just annoyed by clawing at its eye. I didn’t want to do it, but I craned my neck left and right to take in the God’s body from above. So much red, so much damage. We’d used him like cattle, no, worse, like a quarry. Never thinking of him as a living, sentient being, just as a resource.

As I hung there, about to be quashed like the bug I was, something even worse happened. The God saw me. He had to squint something fierce and turn his head from side to side—I didn’t want to think what would be happening to Meka and Arto at that moment.

He saw me. His face contorted. Not in anger, as I would have done, but in pain and confusion. This is what his face asked. Why, why did you do this to me?

I felt myself grow hot with shame from top to toe. I vowed in that moment that if he let me live I would use the rest of my life to make it up to him, free him, heal his wounds, let him walk away from his imprisonment.

The world whooshed around me again. When I opened my eyes, that I have to admit I closed in fear, I was almost on the ground, just a couple of man-heights away.

I didn’t hesitate for a single moment. I slid down, not caring I might come down hard. Anything to get away from that hand. Those feelings. I tumbled down in the grass and rolled away to break the fall. I was alive.

The God had seen me. He had treated me with compassion and care, although we had not. I felt so small. I covered my eyes in shame.

I scrambled up. With bowed head and dragging feet I started to make my way back to the village, where I would have to face the Elders, and worst of all, my mother.

Now it was up to me to show the God that we could measure up to him in kindness and compassion. I didn’t want the task, with all my heart I wanted to cast it away from me. But I suppose it was only fitting that it fell to me, as the first recipient of his beneficence.

About the Author

Bo Balder is the first Dutch author to have been published in Clarkesworld and F&SF. Her short fiction has also appeared in Escape Pod and other places. Her SF novel The Wan was recently published by Pink Narcissus Press.

The Butcher of New Tasmania

Suo Hefu, translated by Andy Dudak

Mail type: L-1\regular mail (audio file)

Confidentiality ranking: 0

Sender: Larry Wu, Ministry of Justice A-3190 Detainment Center

Recipient: Confederation Justice Emergency Relief and Special Pardon Committee

Respected Committee Members:

I trust that all of you, upon receiving this message, already have a suitable understanding of my case. I should note that the Confederation Broadcasting Network and other media platforms have taken it upon themselves to dub me “The Butcher of New Tasmania.” I would call this “Krikun” reporting, after a character in the 1942 Soviet drama Frontline. This Krikun is a special correspondent who is supposed to be covering the battlefront. The name means “one who likes to shout,” or “braggart,” or “bullshitter.” The satirical author portrays Krikun avoiding the front or any deep engagement with the armed forces, spending his days at the front’s general headquarters, speaking without thinking, committing fraud, and “creating” news. A first-rate style indeed.

According to the wording of the indictment presented at court, I’m facing over half a century of prison time for “deliberate and violent genocidal activity” on the planet designated New Tasmania. As far as I can tell, the facts narrated in the indictment are true.

But I don’t believe I’m guilty.

Rest assured, I concede the following facts:

I was the medical officer and biologist of the Vitus Bering’s exploration crew. Our licensed exploration team—what they nowadays call “bounty envoys”—departed for the frontier of the Old Confederation’s colonized zone. Our goal was Confederation award money. We arrived at the world that had been named New Tasmania during the Old Confederation Era, a terrestrial planet, and still inhabited. I descended to the surface with my colleagues—may their souls rest in peace—where we contacted the locals. I won’t deny that our exchange with these natives was far from pleasant. Finally, I admit that after leaving the surface of New Tasmania, I did something in the Vitus Bering’s automated biochemistry lab, and this led directly to . . . Well, after I woke from over a century of sleep, New Tasmania had lost a race of people.

That’s right, I concede the veracity of the above-mentioned facts. At the beginning of every court session over the last three weeks, I had to admit these damn things, and it made me sick. But these facts in no way prove I am guilty of genocide, racism, or any sort of hate crime—unless, that is, you are willing to swear to whatever gods you believe in that hatred could somehow inspire a loathsome villain like me to save hundreds of thousands of lives.

I saw New Tasmania for the first time on January 22, New Calendar Year 102—that is, 121 years, ten and a half months ago.

As far as I know, less than half a million people had been born in our New Confederation before that day. We’d just broken away from the Old Confederation, from the shadow and turmoil of its long decline. The New Confed had begun extending feelers from the core worlds of Happy Valley, New Earth, Icaria, and New Atlantis, following footprints of former glory into the Milky Way.

Two years, one month, and nineteen days before I set out, the Confed Parliament passed its “Licensed Exploration Bill.” This allowed qualified private organizations to secure Ministry of Foreign Affairs authorization and conduct autonomous exploration. The idea was to seek ancient colonies that had been isolated by the collapse and convince them to return to the fold. Captain Obolomov of the Vitus Bering was one of the first to apply for certification. If I remember right, we were the eighth or ninth crew to qualify. I was among its founders.

Those first bounty envoys tended to focus on ancient colonies that were clearly indicated on Old Confederation navigational charts, or in the old literature—this was about reducing risk. But Obolomov wasn’t like other captains. From among countless Old Confederation colonies, he chose New Tasmania, a remote, little-known ocean world.

“The first step is always the most difficult, comrades,” Obolomov said at the time of his decision. “We’re limited both in personnel and strength, so colonies that may still possess near-space defense fleets are probably not our best option. Not at this time.” Of course, he left something unsaid: according to the woefully inadequate Old Confederation data, New Tasmania, like hundreds of other single-product-economies, lacked the foundations of industry and agriculture, and had probably become depopulated. Our contract stipulated land-derived bonuses for explorers with priority discovery rights, in the event of an uninhabited colony world. Moreover . . .

But I digress. Let’s return to the matter at hand.

In brief, before we embarked, Obolomov made a . . . no, I should say two mistakes. First, New Tasmania turned out to be inhabited. Second, visiting worlds armed with rocks and sticks is no better than visiting a world defending itself with a near-space fleet. True, this wisdom has been envoy common sense for a long time, but back then, today’s common sense was still in the remote future . . . to say nothing of the fact that at the time, we were anticipating pristine, lucrative landscapes with not a soul in sight. There were no unpleasant possibilities on our list of considerations.

Of course, we had our reasons for such thinking: from a certain point of view, New Tasmania was a nearly perfect copy of Old Earth—it had Earth-equivalent gravity, atmospheric pressure and composition, and an Earthlike biosphere. The diameter of its satellite was somewhere between Ceres and Luna. It revolved around a Sol-like yellow dwarf. The only difference was the planet’s interior: the radioactive heavy elements had decayed. The asthenosphere, its energy exhausted, had solidified. There was no plate drift, no orogenesis. Hundreds of millions of years of erosion had ground the surface down, and New Tasmania had become an ocean planet. Only islands remained, scattered over the surface like countless stars. Besides oil—long-ago exploited—this beautiful world had no mineral resources worth mentioning. There was also a dearth of arable soil. During the Old Confederation Era, the mainstay industry was tourism. And as everyone knows, after the collapse, residents of tourism worlds either fled to more self-sufficient planets, or they suffered in isolation, with no manufacturing ability, dwindling away toward extinction.

But New Tasmania turned out to be an exception.

As the goddamn media has emphasized countless times, we found New Tasmania populated. Over one-tenth of its islands were occupied by the descendants of ancient colonists. They were like the Polynesians of Old Earth. They piloted large catamarans and left the originally-settled big islands (including the one resembling Tasmania in size and shape for which the planet was named) and followed island chains, the remnant mountain ranges of this tectonically-dead world, ceaselessly expanding. They grew taro in the rarefied, wind-eroded soil. They used ground-up fish and plant starch from something like sago to raise pigs. They hewed down jungles with polished volcanic rock axes.

“This should not be difficult work,” Obolomov said. Recon drones disguised as living things had sent images back to the Vitus Bering. The captain was vexed, like the rest of us, but he pounded his chest and bolstered his confidence. “These people are nothing but savages!” He performed an exaggerated Maori war dance as he spoke. “Nothing but a group of barbarians! Comrades, I daresay the moment we land in our shuttle, these simpletons will think us gods and prostrate themselves. By this time next month, our great Confed will have recovered a new member world, and we can start drawing our bonuses from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What do you say?”

Unfortunately, this was the captain’s final mistake, which meant it was the whole crew’s final mistake.

The next day, after entering New Tasmania orbit, the Vitus Bering’s crew—altogether a dozen souls, and besides Obolomov, all of us of Old Earth East Asian descent—rode the rickety, old-fashioned shuttle down to the surface. We landed on an island similar in size and shape to Old Earth’s Samoa. Yes, I know modern bounty envoys aren’t permitted to do so. Thousands of lessons have branded the word “prudence” onto their collective cerebral cortex. Before setting foot on a world, well-paid sociologists, biologists, and anthropologists spend hundreds of hours conducting holistic research and observation. Then comes specialized risk assessment. But at that time, we had none of this.

Old Obolomov, though, this wasn’t his first foray. He had a small gun in his pocket, to guard against the unexpected, but when the local women surrounded the shuttle, ochre-painted and flower-decked and all smiles, the old boy forgot about his concealed weapon, like it had fallen through the event horizon of a black hole.

At first, Obolomov’s assessment seemed to have been dead-on: the natives seemed no more than harmless savages. They lived in Viking-style longhouses made of the local giant pteridophyte stalks. They were painted head to toe in bizarre patterns of indigo blue. Their most advanced technology was a natural rubber they roasted and fashioned into balls, then hit back and forth to each other with large wooden bats, badminton-style. We used Old Confederation Era Common Tongue to ask about industry, star travel, computers, and so on, but all we got in return were head shakes and absurd stories—of course, the latter might be considered treasure by cultural scholars.

Although their living conditions were not enviable, most of these people seemed healthy, strong and beautiful, with light brown curly hair. They seemed perfect examples of that formulation of 18th century Enlightenment philosophy: “the noble savage.” Their only imperfection was their bifurcated tongues, snakelike . . . but such small changes are quite common on secluded fringe worlds. We weren’t too surprised.

I noticed that upon seeing our black hair, some of the natives betrayed fear and hostility. Unfortunately, we took this for first-contact jitters and paid it no mind. It didn’t help that the islanders’ chief declared a feast to welcome the “honored guests,” a feast, he said, that no one would ever forget.

Each crew member was attended by at least half a dozen girls. Jugs of cassava beer were brought into the village’s public longhouse, to wash down the taro cakes. The higher-ups of the island took turns offering us a large goblet of snowstone to drink from, adding praise like delicacies to go with the alcohol.

Quite soon, my companions got drunk and lost consciousness. They were like aphids glutted on sap, their little legs unmoving.

Our hosts suddenly produced hatchets.

The bloody, ruthless moments that followed are hard to relate. I suppose my delirious companions never knew what hit them. The sharp flint blades came down, severing windpipes and vertebrae . . .

Because of the alcohol, I can’t clearly recall what I did, but I know I made it back to the shuttle—despite sustaining a wound.

Luckily, I had once taken a shuttle pilot training course. I was able to return to the Vitus Bering and treat my wound in the infirmary. But I didn’t know how to pilot a starship, and I’d never taken courses on ansible communication. The ship’s high-powered radio was operational, but transmitting to the nearest colony at light speed would take a century. It was clear to me I had but one choice: send a distress signal, fire up a shipboard hibernation casket, then pray it could sustain me until the rescue team arrived.

But I didn’t do that—at least, not immediately.

A week later, I piloted that rickety old shuttle back down to the island of the slaughter, and hovered over it. This time, the high rez cameras showed me smoking ruins. Several sailing catamarans were berthed on the rocky, wave-battered shore. A large group of people armed with war clubs, hatchets, and flint-point spears were using the longhouse ruins as campfires. These people resembled the island’s residents, but they had straight black hair. The village’s women and children had been rounded up like livestock, while the men . . . I saw no adult men with curly brown hair, but chunks of meat were smoking over the fires. I felt sick to my stomach.

Regrettably, I didn’t stick around to collect thorough video evidence. If I had, these screeching ethnic diversity activists who spend their days outside the detention center denouncing me as a “butcher,” might be educated.

Over the next three months, I witnessed three more savage invasions. Adult men became smoked meat, women and children were carried off. The raiders all came from the big islands on New Tasmania’s equator.

After a year had passed, I began to understand the motive behind this brutality.

I believe you committee members already know, via the media, part of what I shall relate next. Unfortunately, the other side of the story has been treated negligently—even though I emphasized it in court many times.

As we all know, New Tasmania’s settlers mostly came from Old Earth’s Southeast Asia. After the planet sank into isolation, the inhabitants branched into two races due to geographical conditions. These two races were nearly identical. There was a chance gene variation, and a small group of main island inhabitants with curly brown hair and bifurcated tongues had to flee in their catamarans. In the eyes of their “normal” relatives, they were spawned of witchcraft. They were evil. They had to be wiped out wherever they were found.

To violate the prohibition against taking life, for such small, harmless physical differences . . . it seems absurd, right? But it’s not so surprising in the final analysis. When people realize how chaotic, dark, ridiculous, and hypocritical their society is, finding a scapegoat is clearly more alluring than introspection. Old Earthlings blamed heathens and witches for their misfortunes. Should it surprise us that a group of uncivilized New Tasmanians—their fishing boats wrecked by storms, their taro rotting, their bodies ravaged by pig nematodiasis—persecuted “wizards” with curly hair and forked tongues?

I didn’t hate the murderers who landed me in this predicament. To them, black hair meant peril and death. They acted in self-defense. But I couldn’t just turn my back on what was happening, and lay down, and enter the dreamless Big Sleep. Granted, I had no responsibility toward the New Tasmanians, legally speaking. I expected no honor or reward for acting righteously.

But I couldn’t turn my back on them. I had to do something.

On November 2nd, New Calendar Year 113, I entered a hibernation casket. As I predicted, the senseless killing on New Tasmania ground to a halt within 40 years. Although the main island residents continued to expand and emigrate due to population pressure, and there were conflicts with local populations, the large-scale ethnic massacres were a thing of the past. These tragedies had become nothing more than sad old legends in local minds by the time a Confed rescue team found the Vitus Bering in synchronous orbit. They woke me and showed me the arrest warrant. The charge was “genocide.”

Genocide . . . in a manner of speaking, this charge is accurate. In the three months before I entered hibernation, I used the Vitus Bering’s bio lab to tweak a local adenovirus. Then I used the shuttle to scatter my creation across the planet’s surface. This little pathogen infected native reproductive systems and zygotes, but in most cases had no effect. But variant zygotes—those that would have developed curly brown hair and forked tongues—were altered at the time of cell division. A few genes were prevented from replicating. That’s all. The fetuses developed normally otherwise.

Simple and effective. Virtually no side effects. My preferred way of doing things.

A few variant genes, a handful of negligible nucleic acids: it doesn’t take much to produce a race. Of course, this also means a tiny edit can annihilate a race. According to the “Confederation Anti-ethnic Cleansing and Genocide Act,” I did indeed wipe out a race. But each and every individual of that race lived on. I prevented hundreds or maybe thousands of massacres and wars. I enabled several hundred thousand people to die naturally of old age. Granted, my actions may have caused an irreversible loss to racial diversity . . . Fine. What choice did I have at the time?

My lawyer says I could have ignored the events on New Tasmania, and just taken the Big Sleep. Hundreds of thousands of people would have lost their lives, but that wasn’t my legal responsibility. The rescue team could’ve found two races of New Tasmanians. The price? Hundreds of thousands meaninglessly dead. But I’m guessing the Confed Ministry of Justice won’t consider this. The notion of responsibility changes when you’re far from civilization. How can they truly understand my decision? Moreover, I can’t imagine them deliberately trashing the doctrine of racial diversity on my account. As for those martyrs willing to sacrifice themselves for their race, they’ll never see things my way. Never mind the hate-mailers, or the media parasites decorating front pages with “genocide” in bold font.

Having said all this, I seek just one answer from the respected committee members:

If you found yourself in my situation at that time, what would you have done? Hundreds of thousands of people versus a race: On which side of the scales would you have placed the decisive weight?

Please tell me that . . .

Originally published in Chinese in Science Fiction World, Seventh Issue of 2016.

Translated and published in partnership with Storycom.

About the Author

Suo Hefu was born at a uranium research institute in Sichuan province, and currently lives in Nanjing. He studied for his master’s in Central Asian history in Urumqi, Xinjiang province. In addition to writing, he enjoys historical research—particularly military history—and chess. He’s had nearly thirty short stories and novellas published, including “Return the Soul” and “The Cell” in Science Fiction World, China’s premier science fiction magazine. He also writes popular science articles and literary criticism.

Mother Tongues

S. Qiouyi Lu

“Thank you very much,” you say, concluding the oral portion of the exam. You gather your things and exit back into the brightly lit hallway. Photos line the walls: the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu. The sun shines on each destination, the images brimming with wonder. You pause before the Golden Gate Bridge.

“右拐就到了,” the attendant says. You look up. His blond hair is as standardized as his Mandarin, as impeccable as his crisp shirt and tie. You’ve just proven your aptitude in English, but hearing Mandarin still puts you at ease in the way only a mother tongue does. You smile at the attendant, murmuring a brief thanks as you make your way down the hall.

You turn right and enter a consultation room. The room is small but welcoming, potted plants adding a dash of green to the otherwise plain creams and browns of the furniture and walls. A literature rack stands to one side, brochures in all kinds of languages tucked into its pockets, creating a mosaic of sights and symbols. The section just on English boasts multiple flags, names of different varieties overlaid on the designs: US English—Standard. UK English—Received Pronunciation. Singaporean English—Standard. Nigerian English—Standard . . . Emblazoned on every brochure is the logo of the Linguistic Grading Society of America, a round seal with a side view of a head showing the vocal tract.

You pick up a Standard US English brochure and take a seat in one of the middle chairs opposite the mahogany desk that sits before the window. The brochure provides a brief overview of the grading system; your eyes linger on the A-grade description: Speaker engages on a wide variety of topics with ease. (Phonology?) is standard; speaker has a broad vocabulary . . . You take a quick peek at the dictionary on your phone. Phonology-linguistic sound systems. You file the word away to remember later.

The door opens. A woman wearing a blazer and pencil skirt walks in, her heels clacking against the hardwood floor, her curled hair bouncing with every step. You stand to greet her and catch a breath of her perfume.

“Diana Moss,” she says, shaking your hand. Her name tag also displays her job title: Language Broker.

“Jiawen Liu,” you reply. Diana takes a seat across from you; as you sit, you smooth out your skirt, straighten your sleeves.

“Is English all right?” Diana asks. “I can get an interpreter in if you’d prefer to discuss in Mandarin.”

“English is fine,” you reply. You clasp your hands together as you eye Diana’s tablet. She swipes across the screen and taps a few spots, her crimson nails stark against the black barrel of the stylus.

“Great,” she says. “Well, let’s dive right in, shall we? I’m showing that you’ve been in the US for, let’s see, fifteen years now? Wow, that’s quite a while.”

You nod. “Yes.”

“And you used to be an economics professor in China, is that correct?”

You nod again. “Yes.”

“Fantastic,” Diana says. “Just one moment as I load the results; the scores for the oral portion always take a moment to come in . . . ”

Your palms are clammy, sweaty; Diana twirls the stylus and you can’t help feeling a little dizzy as you watch. Finally, Diana props the tablet up and turns it toward you.

“I’m pleased to inform you that your English has tested at a C-grade,” she says with a broad smile.

Your heart sinks. Surely there’s been some kind of error, but no, the letter is unmistakable: bright red on the screen, framed with flourishes and underlined with signatures; no doubt the certificate is authentic. Diana’s perfume is too heady now, sickly sweet; the room is too bright, suffocating as the walls shrink in around you.

“I . . . ” you say, then take a breath. “I was expecting better.”

“For what it’s worth, your scores on the written and analytical portions of the test were excellent, better than many native speakers of English in the US,” Diana says.

“Then what brought my score down?”

“Our clients are looking for a certain . . . profile of English,” Diana says, apologetic. “If you’re interested in retesting, I can refer you to an accent reduction course—I’ve seen many prospective sellers go through the classes and get recertified at a higher grade.”

She doesn’t mention how much the accent reduction course costs, but from your own research, you know it’s more than you can afford.

“Ms. Liu?” Diana says. She’s holding out a tissue; you accept it and dab at your eyes. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re trying to accomplish? Maybe we can assist you.”

You take in a deep breath as you crumple the tissue into your fist. “My daughter Lillian just got into Stanford, early decision,” you say.

“Congratulations!”

“Yes, but we can’t afford it.” C-grade English sells at only a fraction of A-grade English; you’d rather keep your English than sell it for such a paltry sum that would barely put a dent in textbooks and supplies, never mind tuition and housing.

“There are other tracks you can consider,” Diana says, her voice gentle. “Your daughter can go to a community college, for instance, and then transfer out to Stanford again—”

You shake your head.

“Community colleges in the San Gabriel Valley are among the top in the nation,” Diana continues. “There’s no shame in it.”

You’re unconvinced. What if she can’t transfer out? You and Lillian can’t risk that; a good education at a prestigious school is far too important for securing Lillian’s future. No, better to take this opportunity that’s already been given to her and go with it.

Diana stands and goes over to the literature rack. She flips through a few brochures.

“You know,” Diana says as she strides back to you, “China’s really hot right now—with their new open-door policy, lots of people are (clamoring?) to invest there; I have people calling me all the time, asking if I have A-grade Mandarin.”

She sets a brochure down on the desk and sits back in the executive chair across from you.

“Have you considered selling your Mandarin?”

You trace your hands over the brochure, feeling the embossed logo. China’s flag cascades down to a silhouette of Beijing’s skyline; you read the Simplified characters printed on the brochure, your eyes skimming over them so much more quickly than you skim over English.

“How much?” you ask.

Diana leans in. “A-grade Mandarin is going for as much as $800,000 these days.”

Your heart skips a beat. That would be enough to cover Lillian’s college, with maybe a little bit left over—it’s a tantalizing number. But the thought of going without Mandarin gives you pause: it’s the language you think in, the language that’s close to your heart in the way English is not; it’s more integral to who you are than any foreign tongue. English you could go without—Lillian’s Mandarin is good enough to help you translate your way around what you need—but Mandarin?

“I’m . . . I’m not sure,” you say, setting down the brochure. “Selling my Mandarin . . . ”

“It’s a big decision, for sure,” Diana says. She pulls a small, silver case out from the pocket of her blazer and opens it with a click. “But, if you change your mind . . . ”

She slides a sleek business card across the table.

“ . . . call me.”

You decide to go for a week without Mandarin, just to see if you can do it. At times, the transition feels seamless: so many of the people in the San Gabriel Valley are bilingual; you get by fine with only English. Your job as a librarian in the local public library is a little trickier, though; most of your patrons speak English, but a few do not.

You decide to shake your head and send the Mandarin-only speakers over to your coworker, who also speaks Mandarin. But when lunchtime comes around, she sits beside you in the break room and gives you a curious look.

“为什么今天把顾客转给我?” she asks.

You figure that you might as well tell her the truth: “I want to sell my Mandarin. I’m seeing what it would be like without it.”

“卖你的普通话?” she responds, an incredulous look on her face. “神经病!”

You resent being called crazy, even if some part of you wonders if this is a foolish decision. Still, you soldier on for the rest of the week in English. Your coworker isn’t always there to cover for you when there are Mandarin-speaking patrons, and sometimes you break your vow and say a few quick sentences in Mandarin to them. But the rest of the time, you’re strict with yourself.

Conversation between you and Lillian flows smoothly, for the most part. Normally, you speak in a combination of English and Mandarin with her, and she responds mostly in English; when you switch to English-only, Lillian doesn’t seem to notice. On the occasions when she does speak to you in Mandarin, you hold back and respond in English too, your roles reversed.

At ATMs, you choose English instead of Chinese. When you run errands, “thank you” replaces “谢谢.” It’s only until Friday rolls around and you’re grocery shopping with your mother that not speaking in Mandarin becomes an issue.

You’re in the supermarket doing your best to ignore the Chinese characters labeling the produce: so many things that you don’t know the word for in English. But you recognize them by sight, and that’s good enough; all you need is to be able to pick out what you need. If you look at things out of the corner of your eye, squint a little bit, you can pretend to be illiterate in Chinese, pretend to navigate things only by memory instead of language.

You can cheat with your mother a little bit: you know enough Cantonese to have a halting conversation with her, as she knows both Cantonese and Mandarin. But it’s frustrating, your pauses between words lengthy as you try to remember words and tones.

“干吗今天说广东话?” your mother asks in Mandarin. She’s pushing the shopping cart—she insists, even when you offer—and one of the wheels is squeaking. She hunches over the handle, but her eyes are bright.

“Ngo jiu syut Gwongdungwaa,” you reply in Cantonese. Except it’s not exactly that you want to speak Cantonese; you have to, for now. You don’t know how to capture the nuance of everything you’re going through in Cantonese, either, so you leave it at that. Your mother gives you a look, but she doesn’t bring it up again and indulges you, speaking Cantonese as the two of you go around the supermarket and pile the shopping cart high with produce, meat, and fish.

You load the car with the groceries and help your mother into the passenger seat. As you adjust the mirrors, your mother speaks again.

“你在担心什么?” she asks. Startled, you look over at her. She’s peering at you, scrutinizing you; you can never hide anything from her. Of course she can read the worry on your face, the tension in your posture; of course she knows something’s wrong.

“Ngo jau zou yat go han zungjiu dik kyutding,” you respond, trying to communicate the weight on your shoulders.

“什么决定?” Ma replies.

You can’t find the words to express the choice you have to make in Cantonese. Every time you grasp for the right syllables, they come back in Mandarin; frustrated, you switch back to Mandarin and reply,

“我要用我的普通话来赚钱去送Lillian上大学。”

You expect your mother to scold you, to tell you about the importance of your heritage and language—she’s always been proud of who she is, where she’s from; she’s always been the first to teach you about your own culture—but instead her expression softens, and she puts a hand over yours, her wrinkled skin warm against your skin.

“哎，嘉嘉，没有别的办法吗?”

Your nickname is so tender on her tongue. But you’ve thought through all other avenues: you don’t want Lillian to take out loans and be saddled with so much debt like your friends’ children; you don’t want her to bear such a burden her entire life, not while you’re still paying off debts too. You can’t rely on Lillian’s father to provide for her, not after he left your family and took what little money you had. And although Lillian’s been doing her best to apply for scholarships, they’re not enough.

You shake your head.

The two of you sit in silence as you start the car and drive back to your mother’s place. The sun sets behind you, casting a brilliant glow over the Earth, washing the sky from orange to blue. As you crest over a hill, the sparkling lights of the city below glitter in the darkness, showing you a million lives, a million dreams.

When you get to your mother’s house, you only have one question to ask her.

“如果你需要做同样的决定,” you say, “你也会这样做吗?”

You don’t know what it would have been like if you were in Lillian’s shoes, if your mother had to make the same decision as you. But as your mother smiles at you, sadness tinging the light in her eyes, the curve of her lips, you know she understands.

“当然,” she says.

Of course.

The waiting room is much starker than the consultation room you were in before: the seats are less comfortable, the temperature colder; you’re alone except for a single TV playing world news at a low volume.

You read the paperwork, doing your best to understand the details of the procedure—for all you pride yourself on your English, though, there are still many terms you don’t understand completely:

The Company’s (proprietary?) algorithms (iterate?) through near-infinite (permutations?) of sentences, extracting a neural map. The (cognitive?) load on the brain will cause the Applicant to experience a controlled stroke, and the Applicant’s memory of the Language will be erased. Common side effects include: temporary disorientation, nausea. Less common side effects include partial (aphasia?) of nontarget languages and (retrograde?) amnesia. Applicant agrees to hold Company harmless . . .

You flip over to the Chinese version of the contract, and, while some of the terms raise concern in you, you’ve already made your decision and can’t back out now. You scan the rest of the agreement and sign your name at the bottom.

The lab is clinical, streamlined, with a large, complicated-looking machine taking up most of the room. An image of the brain appears on a black panel before you.

“Before we begin,” the technician says, “do you have any questions?”

You nod as you toy with your hospital gown. “Will I be able to learn Mandarin again?”

“Potentially, though it won’t be as natural or easy as the first time around. Learning languages is usually harder than losing them.”

You swallow your nervousness. Do it for Lillian. “Why can’t you make a copy of the language instead of erasing it?”

The technician smiles ruefully. “As our current technology stands, the imaging process has the unfortunate side effect of suppressing neurons as it replicates them . . . ”

You can’t help but wonder cynically if the reason why the neurons have to be suppressed is to create artificial scarcity, to inflate demand in the face of limited supply. But if that scarcity is what allows you to put Lillian through college, you’ll accept it.

The technician hooks electrodes all over your head; there’s a faint hum, setting your teeth on edge.

As the technician finishes placing the last of the electrodes on your head, certain parts of the brain on the panel light up, ebbing and flowing, a small chunk in the back active; you try to recall the areas of the brain from biology classes in university, and, while different parts of your brain start to light up, you still don’t remember the names of any of the regions.

The technician flips a couple switches, then types a few commands. The sensation that crawls over you is less of a shock than a tingling across your scalp. Thoughts flash through your mind too fast for you to catch them; you glance up at the monitor and see light firing between the areas the technician pointed out, paths carving through the brain and flowing back and forth. The lights flash faster and faster until they become a single blur, and as you watch, your world goes white.

The technician and nurse keep you at the institute for a few hours to monitor your side effects: slight disorientation, but that fades as the time goes by. They ask if you have anyone picking you up; you insist that you’re fine taking public transportation by yourself, and the technician and nurse relent. The accountant pays you the first installment of the money, and soon you’re taking the steps down from the institute’s main doors, a cool breeze whipping at your hair.

The bus ride home is . . . strange. As you go from west Los Angeles toward the San Gabriel Valley, the English-dominating billboards and signs starts to give way to Chinese. Although you can still understand the balance of the characters, know when they’re backwards in the rearview mirrors, you can’t actually read them—they’re no more than shapes: familiar ones, but indecipherable ones. You suck down a deep breath and will your heart to stop beating so quickly. It will take time to adjust to this, just as it took time to adjust to being thrown into a world of English when you first immigrated to the United States.

A corner of the check sticks out of your purse.

You’ll be okay.

Your family is celebrating Chinese New Year this weekend. You drive with Lillian over to your mother’s senior living apartment; you squeeze in through the door while carrying a bag of fruit. Your mother is cooking in the tiny kitchenette, the space barely big enough for the both of you. She’s wearing the frilly blue apron with embroidered teddy bears on it, and you can’t help but smile as you inhale the scent of all the food frying and simmering on the stove.

“Bongmong?” you say in Cantonese. It’s one of the few words you can remember—as the days passed, you realized that some of your Cantonese had been taken too, its roots intertwined and excised with your Mandarin.

“(???). (???????),” your mother says, gesturing toward the couch. You and Lillian sit down. A period drama plays on the television. The subtitles go by too fast for you to match sound to symbol; Lillian idly taps away on her phone.

A few moments pass like this, your gaze focused on the television as you see if you can pick up something, anything at all; sometimes, you catch a phrase that jogs something in your memory, but before you can recall what the phrase means, the sound of it and its meaning are already gone.

“(???)!”

Lillian gets up, and you follow suit. The small dining room table has been decked out with all kinds of food: glistening, ruby-red shrimp with caramelized onions; braised fish; stir-fried lotus root with sausage; sautéed vegetables . . . you wish you could tell your mother how good it looks; instead, you can only flash her a smile and hope she understands.

“(?????????), (?????????),” your mother says.

Lillian digs in, picking up shrimp with her chopsticks; you scold her and remind her of her manners.

“But (??????) said I could go ahead,” Lillian says.

“Still,” you reply. You place some food on your mother’s plate first, then Lillian’s; finally, you set some food on your own plate. Only after your mother’s eaten do you take a bite.

Lillian converses with your mother; her Mandarin sounds a little stilted, starting and stopping, thick with an American accent, but her enthusiasm expresses itself in the vibrant conversation that flows around you. You stay quiet, shrinking into yourself as your mother laughs, as Lillian smiles.

You’re seated between Lillian and your mother; the gap across the table from you is a little too big, spacing the three of you unevenly around the table. As the syllables cascade around you, you swear the spaces between you and your mother, between you and Lillian, grow larger and larger.

After dinner, as your mother washes up the dishes—again, she refuses your help—you and Lillian watch the Spring Gala playing on the television. An invited pop star from the US, the only white person on the stage, sings a love ballad in Mandarin. You don’t need to know what she’s saying to tell that she doesn’t have an American accent.

“I bet she bought her Mandarin,” Lillian says. It’s an offhanded comment, but still you try to see if you can detect any disgust in her words.

“Is that so bad?” you ask.

“I don’t know; it just seems a little . . . (appropriative?), you know?”

You don’t know. Lillian doesn’t know. You were planning on telling her the instant you came home, but you didn’t know how to bring it up. And now . . . you want to keep your sacrifice a secret, because it’s not about you—it was never about you. But it’s only a matter of time before Lillian finds out.

You don’t know how she’ll react. Will she understand?

Lillian rests her head on your shoulder. You pull her close, your girl who’s grown up so fast. You try to find the words to tell her what you’d do for her, how important it is that she has a good future, how much you love her and want only the best for her.

But all you have is silence.

Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, January/February 2018.

About the Author

S. Qiouyi Lu writes, translates, and interprets between both coasts of the Pacific.

Digging

Ian McDonald

Tash was wise to the ways of wind. She knew its many musics: sometimes like a flute across the pipes and tubes; sometimes a snare-drum rattle in the guy-lines and cable stays or again, a death drone-moan from the turbine gantries and a scream of sand past the irised-shut windows when the equinox dust storms blew for weeks on end. From the rails and drive bogies of the scoopline the wind drew a wail like a demon choir and from the buckets set a clattering clicking rattle so that she imagined tiny clockwork angels scampering up and down the hundreds of kilometers of conveyor belts. In the storm-season gales it came screaming in across Isidis’ billion-year-dead impact basin, clawing at the eaves and gables of West Diggory, tearing at the tiered roofs so hard Tash feared it would rip them right off and send them tumbling end over end down down into the depths of the Big Dig. That would be the worst thing. Everyone would die badly: eyeballs and fingertips and lips exploding, cheeks bursting with red veins. She had nightmares about suddenly looking up to see the roof ripping away and the naked sky and the air all blowing away in one huge shout of exhalation. Then your eyeballs exploded. She imagined how that would sound. Two soft popping squelches. Then In-Brother Yoche told her you couldn’t hear your eyeballs exploding because the air would be too thin and the whole story was a legend of mischievous Grandparents and Sub-Aunts who liked to scare under-fours. But it made her think about how fragile was West Diggory and the other three stations of the Big Dig. Spindly and top-heavy, domes piled upon half domes upon semidomes, swooping wing roofs and perilous balconies, all resting on the finger-thin cantilevers that connected the great Excavating City to the traction bogies. Like big spiders. Tash knew spiders. She had seen spiders in a book and once, in a piece of video excitedly shot by Lady-cousin Nairne in North Cutter, a real spider, in a real web, trembling in the perennial beat of the buckets working up the scoopline from the head of the Big Dig, five kilometers downslope. Lady-cousin Nairne had poked at the spider with her fingers—fat and brown as bread in high magnification. The spider had frozen, then scuttled for the corner of the window frame, curled into a tiny ball of legs and refused to do anything for the rest of the day. The next day when Nairne and her camera returned it was dead dead dead, dried into a little desiccated husk of shell. It must have come in a crate in the supply run down from the High Orbital, though everything they shipped from orbit was supposed to be clean. Beyond the window where the little translucent corpse hung vibrating in its web, red rock and wind and the endless march of the buckets along the rails of the Excavating Conveyor. Buckets and wind. Tied together. Wind; Fact one. When the buckets ceased, then and only then would the wind stop. Fact two: all Tash’s life it had blown in the same direction: downhill.

Tash Gelem-Opunyo was wise to the ways of wind, and buckets, and random spiders and on Moving Day the wind was a long, many-part harmony for pipes drawn from the sand-polished steel rails, a flutter of the kites and blessing banners and wind socks and lucky fish that West Diggory flew from every rooftop and pylon and stanchion, a sudden caress of a veering eddy in the small of her back that made Tash shiver and stand upright on the high verandah in her psuit, a too-intimate touch. She was getting too big for the old psuit. It was tight and chafing in the wrong places. Tight it had to be, a stretch-skin of gas-impermeable fabric, but Things were Showing. My How You’ve Grown Things, that Haramwe Odonye, who was an Out-cousin in from A.R.E.A. and thus allowed to Notice such things, Noticed, and Commented On. Last Moving Day, half a long-year before, she had drawn in an attempt to camouflage the bumps and creases and curves by drawing all over the high-visibility skin with marker pen. There were more animals on her skin than on the whole of Mars.

Up and out on Moving Day, that was the tradition. From the very very old to the very very young, blinking up out of their pressure cocoons; every soul in West Diggory came out onto the balconies and galleries and walkways. Safety was part of the routine—with every half-year wrench of West Diggory’s thousands of tons of architecture into movement the possibility increased that a joint might split or a pressure dome shatter. Eyeball-squelch-pop time. But safety was only a small part. Movement was what West Diggory was for; like the wind, downwards, ever downwards.

The Terrace of the Grand Regard was the highest point on West Diggory: only the banners of the Isidis Planitia Excavating Company eternally billowing in the unvarying downslope wind, and the wind turbines, stood higher. Climbing the ladders Tash felt Out-cousin Haramwe’s eyes on her, watching from the Boys’ Pavilion. His boy-gaze drew the other young males on their high and rickety terrace. The psuit was indeed tight, but good tight. Tash enjoyed how it moved with her, holding her in where she wanted to be held, emphasizing what she wanted emphasized.

“Hey, good snake!” Out-cousin Haramwe called on the Common Channel. On her seven-and-a-half birthday Tash had drawn a dream snake on her psuit skin, a diamond pattern loop with its tail at the base of her spine, curled around the left curve of her ass and buried its head in the inner thigh. It had been exciting to draw. It was more exciting to wear on Moving Day, the only time she ever wore the psuit.

“Are you ogling my ophidian?” Tash taunted back to the hoots of the other boys as she climbed up onto the Gallery of Exalted Vistas to be with her sisters and cousin and In-cousins and Out-cousins, all the many ways in which Tash could be related in a gene pool of only two thousand people. The guys hooted. Tash shimmied her shoulders, where little birds were drawn. The boys liked her insulting them in words they didn’t understand. Listen well, look well. I’m the best show on Mars.

A thousand banners rattled in the unending wind. Kites dipped and fluttered, painted with birds and butterflies and stranger aerial creatures that had only existed in the legends of distant Earth. Streamers pointed the way for West Diggory: downhill, always downhill. The lines of buckets full of Martian soil marched up the conveyor from the dig point, invisible over the close horizon, under the legs of West Diggory, towards the unseen summit of Mt. Incredible, where they tipped their load on its ever-growing summit before cycling back down the underside of the conveyor. The story was that the freshly dug regolith at the bottom of the hole was the color of gold: exposure to the atmosphere on its long journey upslope turned it Mars red. She turned to better feel the shape of the wind on every part of her body. This psuit so needed replacing. There was more to her shiver than just the caress of air in motion. Wind and words: they were the same stuff. If she threw big and fancy words, words that gave her joy and made her laugh from the shape they made from moving air, it was because they were living wind itself.

A shiver ran up through the catwalk grilles and railings and into Tash Gelem-Opunyo. The engineers were running up the traction generators; West Diggory shuddered and thrummed as the tokamaks drew resonances and steel harmonies from its girders and cantilevers. Tash’s molars ached, then there was a jolt that threw old and young alike off-balance, grasping for handrails, stanchions, cables, each other. There was an immense shriek like a new moon being pulled live from the body of the world. Shuddering creaks, each so loud Tash could hear them through her ear-protectors. Steel wheels turned, grinding on sand. West Diggory began to move. People waved their hands and cheered, the noise reduction circuits on the Common Channel stopped the din down to a surge of delighted giggling. The wheels, each taller than Tash, ground round, slow as growing. West Diggory, perched on its cantilevers, inched down its eighteen tracks, tentative as an old woman stepping from a diggler. This was motion on the glacial, the geological scale. It would take ten hours for West Diggory to make its scheduled descent into the Big Dig. You had to be sure to have eaten and drunk enough because it wasn’t safe to go inside. Tash had breakfasted lightly at the commons in the Raven Sorority, where the In-daughters lived together after they turned five. The semizoic fabric absorbed everything without stink or stain but it was far from cool to piss your suit. Unless you were up and out on a job. Then it was mandatory.

Music trilled on the Common Channel, a cheery little toe-tapper. Tash gritted her teeth. She knew what it heralded: the West Diggory Down. No one knew when where or who had started the tradition of the Moving Day dance: Tash suspected it was a joke that no one had recognized and so became literal. She slid behind a stanchion as her Raven sisters formed up and the boys up on the Lads’ Pavilion bowed and raised their hands. Slip away slip away before it starts. Up the steps and along the clattering catwalk to the Outermost Preview. From this distant perch, a birdcage of steel at the end of a slender pier, a lantern suspended over the sand, Tash surveyed all West Diggory, her domes and gantries and pods and tubes and flapping banners and her citizens—so few of them, Tash thought—formed up into lines and squares for the dance. She tuned out the Common Channel. Strange, them stepping gaily, hand in hand, up and down the lines, do-se-doh in psuits and face masks and total silence. The olds seemed to enjoy it. They had no dignity. Look how fat some of them were in their psuits. Tash turned away from the rituals of West Diggory to the great, subtle slope of the Big Dig, following the lines up the slope. She was on the edge of the age when you could leave West Diggory but she had heard that up there, beyond Mt. Incredible, the small world curved away so quickly in all directions that the horizon was only three kilometers distant. The Big Dig held different horizons. It was a huge cone sunk into the surface of a sphere. An alternative geometry worked here. The world didn’t curve away, it curved inwards, a circle over three hundred kilometers round where it met the surface of Mars. The world radiated outwards: Tash could follow the radiating spokes of the scooplines all the way to the edge of the world, and beyond, to the encircling ring-mountain of Mt. Incredible that reached the edge of space. Peering along the curve of the Big Dig through the dust haze constantly thrown up by the ceaseless excavating, she could just make out the sun-glitter from the gantries of North Cutter, like West Diggory, making its slow descent deeper into the pit. A flicker of thought would up the magnification on her visor and she would be able to look clear across eighty kilometers of airspace to A.R.E.A. and spy on whatever celebrations they held there, on the first and greatest of the Excavating Cities on Moving Day. Maybe she might see a girl like herself, balanced on some high and perilous perch, looking out across the bowl of the world.

The figures on the platforms and terraces broke apart, bowed to each other, lost all pattern and rhythm and became random again. Moving Day Down was over for another half-year. Tash flicked on the Common Channel. Tash liked to be apart, different, a girl of words and wit, but she also loved to be immersed in West Diggory’s never-ending babble of chat and gossip and jokes and family news. Together, the Excavating Cities had a population of less than two thousand humans. Small, complex societies, isolated from the rest of the planet, gush words like springs, like torrents and floods. The river of words, the only river that Mars knew. Tash’s psuit circuitry was smart enough to adjust the voices so that they spoke at the volume and distance they would have in atmosphere. Undifferentiated, the flood of West Diggory voices would have overwhelmed her. So the wall of voices did not overwhelm her. She turned her head this way, that way. Eavesdropping. There was Leyta Soshinwe-Opunyo, Queen-beeing again. Tash had seen pictures of bees like she had seen birds. On Arrival Day, when the Excavating Cities finally reached the bottom of the Big Dig, there would be birds, and bees, and even spiders. There was Great-Out-Aunt Yoto, seeming enthusiastic but always seasoned with a pinch of criticism—oh, and another thing: people weren’t performing the dance moves right, the Engineers had mistuned the tokamaks and her titanium hip was aching, was it her or did more bits fall off West Diggory every time? They would never have allowed that in Southdelving, her family home. A sudden two-tone siren cut across the four hundred voices of West Diggory. Emergency teams slapped their psuits to warning yellow and rushed to their positions, everyone hurried to the muster points, then relaxed as the medics discovered the nature of the Emergency. The Common Channel flooded with laughter. Haramwe Odonye, during a particularly energetic caper in the West Diggory Down, had slipped and sprained his ankle.

Big Dig Figs.:

Population: one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, divided between the four Excavating Cities of (clockwise) Southdelving, West Diggory, North Cutter and A.R.E.A. (Ares Re-engineering of Environment and Atmosphere). Total Martian population: five thousand two hundred and seventeen.

Elevation: at the digging head as of Martian Year 112, Janulum 1: minus twenty-three kilometers below Martian Mean Gravity Surface (no sea level). Same date, highest point of Mt. Incredible: 15 kilometers above MGS.

Diameter of the Big Dig at Martian MGS: Five hundred and sixteen kilometers.

Circumference of the Big Dig at Martian MGS: One thousand six hundred and twenty-two kilometers.

Angle of Big Dig Excavation Surface: 5.754 degrees. That’s pretty gentle. The scoopline can’t handle more than an eight-degree slope. To the casual human eye—one that hasn’t grown up inside the gentle dish of the Big Dig, that would look almost flat. But it’s not flat. That’s why it’s the key figure: those 5.75 degrees are going to make Mars habitable.

Date of commencement of the Big Dig: AlterMarch 23rd, Martian Year 70. Two thirty in the afternoon, on schedule, the scooplines excavated and the bucket teeth took their first bites of Isidis Planitia.

Volume of the Big Dig: as of above date: one million, eight hundred and thirteen thousand cubic kilometers. All piled up neatly into Mt. Incredible, the ring-shaped mountain that surrounds the Big Dig like the wall of an old impact crater. Not entirely surrounds. Mt. Incredible has been constructed with four huge valleys: Windrush, Zephyr, Cyroco, and Storm of the Black Plums: howling wind-haunted, storm-scoured canyons: that same wind singing over the tombs of the Diggers who have died in the course of the great excavation, unfailingly stirring the flags and streamers of the mobile cities far below.

Total mass of Martian surface excavated in the Big Dig to date: 7.1 x 10^15 tons.

Big Dig Figs and Facts. The numbers that shape Tash’s world.

Tash was in the Orangery when the call came down through the rows of breadfruit trees. Like the Moving Day dance, the name was generally considered another joke that had run away and taken up residence in the ventilators and crawl spaces and power conduits of the Excavating City, as this baroque glass dome had never grown oranges. The rows of breadfruit and plantains and bananas and other high-carbo staples gave camouflage and opportunity for West Diggory’s young people to meet and talk and scheme and flirt.

“Milaba wants to see Tash, pass it on.”

“Sweto, tell Chunye that Milaba wants to see Tash.”

“Qori, have you seen Tash?”

“I think she was down in the plantains, but she might have moved on to the breadfruit.”

“Well tell her Milaba wants to see her.”

By leaps and misunderstandings, by staggers and misapprehensions, by devious spirals of who liked whom and who was talking to whom and who wasn’t and who was hooking with whom and who had finished with whom, the message spiraled in along the web of leaf-mold-smelling plants to Tash, spraying the breadfruit. A simple call, a message would have reached her directly but where there are only a hundred of you, true social networking is mouth to mouth.

In-Aunt Milaba. She was a legend, a statue of woman, gracious and noble, adored far beyond West Diggory. Her dark skin was lustrous as night, her soul as star-filled. To be in her presence was to be blessed in ways you would not immediately understand but, more thrilling to Tash, was that In-Aunt Milaba was the chief service engineer for the North West sector scooplines. The summons to her office, a little glass and aluminum bubble like a bunion on one of West Diggory’s steel feet, could mean only one thing. Out. Out and up.

“So Haramwe sprained his ankle.”

Every part of In-Aunt Milaba’s tiny office, from the hand-carved olivine desk to the carafe of water that stood on it, shook to the rattle of the buckets hurtling up the scoopline. Milaba raised an eyebrow. Tash realized a response was due.

“Are his injuries debilitating?”

“Debilitating.” Milaba gave a flicker of a smile. “You could say that. He’ll be out for a week or so. He came down heavily, silly boy. Showing off. When is your birthday?” Tash’s heart leapt.

She knew. Everyone knew everything, all the time. The game was pretending not to know.

“Octobril fifth.”

“Three months.” Milaba appeared to consider for a moment. “Peyko Ruebens-Opollo says for all your fancy talk you’ve a good head and better sense and do what you’re told. That’s good because I don’t need attitude problems or last-minute-good-ideas when I’m out on the line.”

For once the words failed Tash. They hissed from her like air from a ruptured atmosphere cell. She waved her hands in speechless delight.

“I’m taking a digger up Line 12 to Windrush Valley. The feed tokamaks have been fluctuating nastily. Probably a soft fail in a command chip set; they get a lot of radiation up there. Now I need someone with me to hold things and make tea and generally make intelligent conversation. Are you interested?”

Still the words would not come. The rule was that you did not leave the Excavating Cities until you were eight, when you were technically adult. Rules broke and bent with the frequency of scoopline breakdowns but three months was a significant proportion of the long Martian year. Out. Out, and up. Up the line, into the windy valley. In a diggler, with In-Aunt Milaba.

“Yes, oh yes, I’d love to,” Tash finally squeaked. Now Milaba unleashed the full radiance of her smile and it was like sunrise, it was solstice lights, it was the warmth of the glow lamps in the Orangery. I say you are an adult citizen of West Diggory, Tash Gelem-Opunyo, the smile said, and if I say it, all say it.

“Be at the Outlock 12 at fourteen o’clock,” Milaba said. “You do know how to make tea, don’t you?”

Still not got it? It’s easy, easy easy easy. Easy as a heezy, which is a Digger saying. A heezy is the lever on a scoopline bucket that, when struck by the dohbrin (which is a different type of lever found at the load-off end of the scoopline), tips the contents of the bucket down Mt. Incredible. Heezy peasy easy. It’s all because air has weight. Air’s not nothing. It’s gas—in Mars’ case, carbon dioxide nitrogen argon oxygen and the leaked breathings from the hundred-and-something years that humans have scratched and scrabbled clawholds on its red earth. It has mass. It has weight. And it flows, the same way that water flows, to the lowest point. Wind is air flowing. People say, no one knows why the wind blows. That’s stupid nonsense. Wind blows from high to low, high pressure to low pressure, high altitude to low altitude; down the slopes of mountains, through canyons and valleys. The air pressure at the bottom of the great and primeval rift of Valles Marineris is ten times that in the long-cold volcanic calderas atop Olympus Mons. Titanic gales and fog blow through that valley. The fog is because the atmospheric pressure at the bottom of the valley is enough—just enough—to allow water to exist as vapor. But that’s still not enough to support big life. That’s like higher than Earth’s highest mountain. That’s fingertip-lip-exploding, eyeball-squelching, cheek-bursting pressure. Bug life yes, big life no. That’s not enough to make Mars a green paradise, a home for humanity, a fertile pool of life beyond little blue Earth. What you need is deep. Thirty kilometers deep. Deeper than any place on Earth is deep. Deeper than even Olympus Mons, mightiest mountain on all the worlds, is high. And because air has weight, because atmosphere flows and the wind blows, gas will fill up the hole. That’s the wind that rattles the banners and turns the rotors of West Diggory. As the gas flows the pressure grows until the day comes when the atmospheric pressure at the bottom of the hole is enough for you to walk around without a psuit, in just your skin if you have the urge and your skin is pretty enough. Earth atmospheric pressure. Pressure, that’s always been the problem with making Mars habitable. Get all the gas into one place. When you’ve got enough of it, turning it into something you can breathe is the easy bit. That’s just bugs and plants and life.

Thirty kilometers deep. The scooplines are at minus twenty-six kilometers. That’s another five M-years before they hit atmospheric baseline. Then they’ll level out the floor of the crater, take away some of the sides, expand the flat area, though it will all seem so flat, the atmospheric gradient so subtle, that you will seem to be walking out into breathlessness and light-headedness rather than ascending into it. Fifty years after her In-Grandfather Tayhum made the first incision, the Big Dig will be dug. Tash will be seventeen and a half when the wind rushing down the sides of the Big Dig finally fails and the rotors stop and the banners fall and the Excavating Cities finally come to a rest.

Twenty-six kilometers upslope, In-Aunt Milaba gave the sign for Tash to throw the levers to disengage the diggler from the scoopline. Thus far the big world of outside had been a thumping disappointment to Tash. She had yet to be outside, properly outside, two-figures-in-a-Mars-scape outside, shiver-in-your-psuit outside. She had transited from plastic bubble by plastic tube to plastic bubble connected by its grip on the scoopline to home.

This was what Tash Gelem-Opunyo saw from the transparent bubble of the diggler. Sand sand sand sand sand, a rock there, sand sand sand rock rock, oh, some pebbles! Sand grit sand more grit something between pebble and grit, something between grit and sand, a bit of old abandoned machinery, wow wow wow! Dust drifted up around it. Sand. Sand. Sand. West Diggory was still visible, down the dwindling thread of the scoopline, now truly the size of a spider. The enormous, horizonless perspectives robbed Tash of anything by which she could judge movement. The sand, the buckets, the unchanging gentle gradient that went up halfway to space. Only by squinting down through the floor glass at the blurred, grainy surface did she get any sense of movement.

Twenty-six vertical kilometers equaled two hundred sixty surface kilometers equaled five and a half hours in a plastic bubble with a relative you’ve grown up in enforced proximity to but until now never really known or talked to. Everyone loves In-Aunt Milaba the Magnificent, that’s the legend, but five hours, Aunt and niece, Tash began to wonder if this was another wind-whisper legend blown around the corners and crannies of West Diggory. She was beautiful, a feast for the eye and soul, all those things an eight-year-old girl hopes for herself (and did Tash not share the DNA—given that the Excavating Cities gene pool was shallow as a spit, hence all the careful arrangements of In-relatives and Out-relatives and who would be sent to one of the other Excavating Cities and who would stay), all those things a girl of almost-eight wants for herself but try as she might, and did, Tash could not engage her. Fancy funny words of the type Tash treasured. Poems. Puns. Riddles. Guessing games. Break-the-code games. Allusions and circumspect questions. Direct questions. To them all In-Aunt Milaba shook her head and smiled and bent over the controls and the monitors and checked her kit and said not a word. So tea, lots of tea, and muttering little rhymes to the rhythm of the huge balloon wheels as the scoopline hauled Diggler Six up the side of the biggest excavation in the solar system.

But now they were released from the scoopline and Milaba was standing at the steering column, driving the diggler under its own power. It was still sand sand sand and occasional rock, but Tash knew a gnaw of excitement. She was free, disconnected from the umbilicals of life for the first time. She was out in the wild world. The scoopline dwindled to a thread, to invisibility behind her, ahead she saw a notch on the edge of vision. Windrush Valley. All the windblown words stopped. A flaw in the horizon. A place beyond the Big Dig. Beyond that declivity was the whole curved world. In the silence In-Aunt Milaba turned from the control column.

“I think you could have a go now.”

So this was what she had been waiting for, Tash to run out of words, and finally listen.

The diggler was ridiculously simple to drive. Plant your feet firmly at the drive column. Push forward to feed power to the traction motors in the wheel hubs. Pull back to brake. Yaw to steer. There was even a little holder on the side of the drive column for your tea. Tash giggled with nervous glee as she gingerly pushed forward the stick and the bubble of pressure glass slung between the giant orange tires stuttered forward. Within thirty seconds she had it. Thirty seconds later she was pushing it, sneaking the speed bar up, looking for places where she could make the diggler skip over rocks.

“I’d go easy on that throttle,” Milaba said. “The battery life is eight hours. That’s why we ride the scoopline up and down again. You don’t want to get stuck up here with night coming down, no traction and no heat.”

Tash eased the stick back but not before the diggler hit the small boulder at which she had discreetly aimed and bounced all four wheels in the air. Milaba smiled that morning-sun smile. Then shoulder by shoulder they stood at the controls and rode up into the orange valley. The land rose up on either side, higher as they drove deeper, kilometers high. They felt like oppression to Tash, shouldering close and ominous, their heights breathless and haunted with dark things that lived in the sky. At the same time she felt hideously small and exposed in the fragile glass ornament of the diggler. The wind was rising, she could feel the diggler shake on its suspension, hear the shriek and moan through the cables. The controls fought her but she pushed the little bubble deeper and deeper into Windrush Valley. When her forearms arched and the sinews on her neck stood out from fighting the atmosphere of Mars pouring through this two-kilometer wide notch in Mt. Incredible, Milaba leaned over and tapped a pre-programmed course into the computer.

“Suit up,” she said. “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

The tokamak station was a wind-scoured blister of construction plastic hunkering between a boulder field and a stretch of polished olivine. It was only when the diggler slowed to a stop and fired sand anchors that Tash realized that it was nearer and smaller than she had thought. It was not a distant vast city, the power plant was only slightly higher than the diggler’s mammoth wheels. The wind rotor, spinning like it would suddenly leap from its pylon and spin madly away through the upper air, was no bigger than her outstretched hands.

“Mask sealed?”

Tash ran her fingers around the join with her psuit hood and gave In-Aunt Milaba two thumbs up. “I’m dee-peeing the diggler.” There was a high-pitched shriek of air being vented into the tanks, a whistle that ebbed into silence as the pressure dropped to match the outside environment. The scribbled-over psuit felt tight and stiff. This was true eyeball-squelch altitude. Then Milaba popped the door and Tash followed her out and down the ladder on to the wild surface of Mars.

Gods and teeth, but the wind was brutal. Tash balled her fists and squared her shoulders and lowered her head to battle through it to the yellow-and-blue-chevronned tokamak station. She could feel the sand whipping across the skin of her psuit. She didn’t like to think of the semizoic skin abrading, cell by cell. She imagined it wailing in pain. A tap on the shoulder, Milaba gestured for her to hook her safety line onto the door winch. Then In-Aunt and In-niece they punched through the big wind to the shelter of the tokamak shell. Out. Out in the world. Up high. If Tash kept walking into the wind she would pass through Windrush Valley and come to a place where the world curved away from her, not towards her. The desire to do it was unbearable. Out of the hole. All it would take would be one foot in front of another. They would take her all the way around the world and back again, to this place. The gale of possibility died. It was all, only, ever circles. Milaba tapped her again on the shoulder to remind her that there was work to be done here. Tash took the unitool and unscrewed the inspection hatch. Milaba plugged in her diagnosticators. She was glorious to watch at work, easy and absorbed. But it was long work and Tash’s attention wandered to the little meandering dust-dervishes that spun up into a small tornado for a few seconds, staggered down the valley and collapsed into swirling sand.

“Willie-willies,” Milaba said. “You want to be careful with those, they’re tricksy. As I thought.” She pointed at the readout. “A hard fail in the chip set.” She pulled a new blade out of her thigh pouch and slid it into the control unit. Lights flashed green. Inside its shielded dome the tokamak grumbled and woke up with a shiver that sent the dust rising from the ground. Tash watched the wind whirl into a dozen dust-devils, dancing around each other. “Just going to check the supply line. You stay here.” She headed up the valley along the line of the power cable. The dust-devils swirled in towards each other. They merged. They fused. They became one, a true dust-demon.

“Looks all right!” In-Aunt Milaba called.

“Milaba, I don’t like the look . . . ” The dust-demon spun towards Tash, then at the last moment veered away and tracked up the valley. “Milaba!”

Milaba hesitated. The hesitation was death. The dusty-demon bore down on her, she tried to throw herself away but it spun over her, lifted her, threw her hard and far, smashed her down onto the smooth polished olivine. Tash saw her faceplate shatter in a spray of shards and water vapor. It was random, it was mad, it was a chance in a billion, it can’t happen, it was an affront to order and reason but it had and there Milaba lay on the hard olivine.

“Oh my gods oh my gods oh my gods!” For a moment Tash was paralyzed, for a moment she did not know what to do, that she could do anything, that she must do something. Then she was running up the valley. The dust-demon veered towards Tash. Tash shrieked, then it staggered away, broke itself on the boulders, and spun down to dust again. The psuit would seal automatically but In-Aunt Milaba had moments before her eyeballs froze. “Oh help help help help help,” Tash cried, her hands pressed to Milaba’s face, trying to will heat into it. Then she saw the red button on the safety line harness. She hit it and was almost jolted off her feet as the winch on the diggler reeled Milaba in. Tash hit the Emergency Channel. “This is Diggler Six this is Diggler Six in Windrush Valley. This is an emergency.” Of course it is. It’s the Emergency Channel. She tried to calm her voice as the winch lifted the limp Milaba into the air. “We have a suit dee-pee situation. We have a suit dee-pee.”

“Hello Diggler Six. This is Diggory West Emergency Services. Please identify yourself.”

“This is Tash Gelem-Opunyo. It’s Milaba.”

“Tash. Control here.” Tash recognized Out-Uncle Yoyote’s voice. “Get back. Get back here. You should have enough power, we’ll send another diggler up the line to meet you, but you, darling, you have to do it. We can’t get to you in time. It’s up to you. Get back to us. It’s all you can do.”

Of course. It was. All she could do. No rescue swooping from the skies, in a world where nothing could fly. No speed-star scorching up the slope of the Big Dig in a world where the scoopline was the fastest means of transport. She was on her own.

It took all her strength to swing Milaba through the hatch into the diggler cab and seal the lock. Almost Tash popped her faceplate. Almost. She repressurized the diggler. Air-shriek built to a painful screech then stopped. But Milaba was so still, so cold. Her face was white with frost where her breath had frozen into her skin. It would never be the same again. Tash knelt, turned her cheek to her In-Aunt’s lips. A whisper a sigh a suspicion a susurration. She was breathing. But it was cold so cold death cold Mars cold in the diggler. Tash slapped the heater up to the maximum and jigged around the tiny cab. Condensation turned the windows opaque, then cleared. Back. She had to get back. Was there an auto-return program? Where would she find it? Where would she even begin looking? Wasting precious instants, wasting precious instants. Tash took the control column, stamped on the pedal to release the anchors, and engaged the traction motors. Turning was difficult. Turning was scary. Turning forced a small moan of fear when the wind got under the diggler and she felt the right side lift. If it went over here, they were both dead. This was not fun driving. There was no glee, no whee! At every bounce Tash tensed and clenched, fearful that the diggler would roll over and shatter like an egg, smash an axle, any number of new terrors that only appear when your life depends on everything working perfectly. Come on come on come on. The battery gauge was dwindling with terrifying speed. This was outside. This was the horizoned world. Where was the scoopline? Surely it hadn’t been this far. Come on come on come on. A line on the sand. But so far. Power at twelve percent. Where had it gone what had she used it on? The heating blast? The emergency ree-pee? The burn on the winch? Call home. That would be sensible. That would be the act of a girl with a good head and better sense who did what she was told. But it would use power. Batteries at seven percent, but now she could see the scoopline, the laden buckets above, the empty buckets below, bucket after bucket after bucket. She drove the diggler on. Matching velocities with the scoopline was teeth-gritting, nerve-stretching work. Tash had to drop the diggler into the space between the buckets and hold exact speed. A push too fast would ride up on the preceding bucket. Too slow and she would be rear-ended by the bucket behind. And ever edging inwards, inwards, closer to the line as the batteries slid from green to red. Lights flashed. Tash threw the lever. The shackle engaged. Tash rolled away from the drive column to Milaba on the floor.

“Tash.” A whisper a sigh a suspicion a susurration.

“It’s all right, it’s all right, don’t talk, we’re on scoopline.”

“Tash, are my eyes open?”

“Yes they are.”

A tiny sigh.

“Then I can’t see. Tash, talk to me.”

“What about?”

“I don’t know. Anything. Everything. Just talk to me. We’re on the line, did you say?”

“We’re on the line. We’re going home.”

“Five hours then. Talk to me.”

So she did. Tash pulled cushions and mats around her into a nest and sat holding her In-Aunt’s head and she talked. She talked about her friends and her In-sisters and her Out-sisters and who would go away from West Diggory and who would stay. She talked about boys and how she liked them looking at her but still wanted to be different and special, not to be taken for granted, funny-Tash, odd-Tash. She talked about whether she would marry, which she didn’t think she would, not as far as she could see, and what she would do then if she didn’t. She talked about the things she loved, like swimming, and cooking vegetables, and drawing, and words words words. She talked about how she loved the sound and shape of words, the sound of them as something quite different from what they meant and how you could put them together to say things that could not possibly be, and how the words came to her, like they were blown on the wind, shaped from wind, the wind brought to life. She talked of these in words that weren’t clever or mouth-filling, words said quietly and simply and honestly, saying what she thought and how she felt. Tash saw then a richer lode in words; beyond the beauty of their sounds and shapes and patterns was a deeper beauty of the truth they could shape. They could tell what it was to be Tash Gelem-Opunyo. Words could fly the banners and turn the rotors of a life. Milaba squeezed her hand and pushed her broken lips into a smile, and creased the corner of her white, frost-burned eyes.

The Emergency Channel chimed. Yoyote had her on visual: they were about twenty kilometers downslope from her. They were coming to get her. They would be safe soon. Well done. And there was other news, news that made his voice sound strange to Tash in Diggler Six, like he was dead and walking and talking and about to cry all at the same time. A command had come in from Isidis Excavation Command, from the High Orbital, ultimately all the way from Earth and the Isidis Development Consortium. There had been a political shift. The faction that was up was down and the faction that was down was up. The Big Dig was cancelled.

From here, every way was up. There had been no official announcement from the Council of Diggers for ceremonials or small mournings: in their ones and two, their families and kinship groups and sororities and fraternities, the people of West Diggory had decided to share the news that their world was ending, and to see the bottom of it; the base that had been their striving for three generations; the machine head. Dig Zero. Minimum elevation. So they took digglers or rode down the scoopline to the bottom of the Big Dig, and looked around them, and looked around at the digging heads of the scooplines, stilled and frozen for the first time in memory, buckets filled with their last bite of Mars turned to the sky. As they grew accustomed to the sights and wonders of the dig head, for not one in fifty of the Excavating Cities’ populations worked at the minimum elevation, they saw in the distance, between the black scoopline, groups and families and societies from North Cutter and Southdelving and A.R.E.A. They waved to each other, greeting relatives they had not seen in years; the Common Channel was a flock of voices. Tash stood with her Raven Sorority sisters. They positioned themselves around her, even Queen-bee Leyta. Tash was a slam and brief heroine—perhaps the last one the Big Dig would ever have. In-Aunt Milaba had been taken to the main medical facility A.R.E.A. where they were growing her new irises for her frost-blinded eyes. Her face would be scarred and patched with ugly white but her smile would always be beautiful. So the In-sisters and In-cousins stood around Tash, needing to be down at zero but not knowing why, or what to do now. The boys from the Black Obsidian Fraternity waved over and came across the sand to join the girls. So few of us, really, Tash thought.

“Why?” Out-cousin Sebben asked.

“Environment,” said Sweto and, in the same transmission, Qori said, “Cost.”

“Are they going to take us all back to Earth?” Chunye asked.

“No, they’re never going to do that,” Haramwe said. He walked with a stick, which made him look like an old man, but at the same interesting and attractive. “That would cost too much.”

“We couldn’t anyway,” Sweto said. “The gravity down there would kill us. We can’t live anywhere but here. This is our home.”

“We’re Martians,” Tash said. Then she put her hands up to her face mask.

“What are you doing?” Chunye, always the nervous In-cousin, cried in alarm.

“I just want to know,” Tash said. “I just want to feel it, like it should be.” Three taps, and the faceplate fell into her waiting hands. The air was cold, shakingly cold, and still too thin to breathe and anyway, to breathe was to die on lungfuls of carbon dioxide but she could feel the wind, the real wind, the true wind in her face. Tash exhaled gently into the atmosphere gathered at the bottom of the Big Dig. The world still sloped gently away from her, all the way up the sky. Tears would freeze in an instant so she kept them to herself. Then Tash clapped the plate back over her face and fastened it to the psuit hood with her clever fingers.

“So, what do we do now?” whiny Chunye asked. Tash knelt. She pushed her fingers into the soft regolith. What else was there? What else had there ever been. A message had come down Mt. Incredible, from High Orbital, from a world on the other side of the sky, from people who had never seen this, whose horizons were always curved away from them. Who were they to so say? What wind blew their words and made them so strong? Here were people, whole cities, an entire civilization, in a hole. This was Mars.

“We do what we know best,” Tash said, scooping up pale golden Mars in her gloved hand. “We put it all back again.”

Originally published in Life on Mars: Tales from the New Frontier, edited by Jonathan Strahan.

About the Author

Ian McDonald is an SF writer living in Northern Ireland, just outside Belfast. A multiple-award winner, his most recent novel is the conclusion of the Luna trilogy: Moon Rising (Tor, Gollancz). Tweet him at @iannmcdonald.

The Mighty Feats of the Everyday Microbe

Douglas F. Dluzen

“The Martians—dead! . . . slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.”

—The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells, 1897

Just about everywhere you look an invisible (and humble) presence lurks, a horde of single-cellular organisms that is found on every surface of the planet, in the depths of our deepest oceans, and even floating high up in the atmosphere mixing with the very air we breathe. These organisms belong to life’s two super domains of organismal classification: prokaryota (organisms without a nucleus, including bacteria and archaea) and eukaryota (those with a nucleus).

The planet’s microbiome is the entire collection of bacterium, archaea, viruses, various fungi and yeasts, protists, amoebas, and other single-celled eukaryotes. There are more bacteria living on Earth than there are stars in the known universe, and it is currently thought that there are approximately as many microbes in and on our bodies as there are human cells, perhaps more. Not bad for something so small. In fact, it’s estimated that our breathing expels nearly forty milligrams of microbial matter into the air every hour, roughly the same amount of matter as half a typical baby aspirin.

Microbes have long captured our imagination since the veil was lifted on their presence in the 1670s by Dutchman Antony van Leeuwenhoek and others (several philosophers centuries before also suspected the presence of infinitesimally small organisms). Bacterial pathogens have also been major plot points in some of the most famous works in science fiction, including their unassuming role in defeating our alien invaders in The War of the Worlds.

In reality, we have an intimate connection with our unicellular cohabitants. Our gut and skin harbor millions of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that interact with our own cells and even provide us with essential metabolites that our bodies cannot produce. An excellent overview about this interaction can be found in Clarkesworld #117, written by Matthew Simmons, and we’ll touch on some of the most recent discoveries here.

Scientists have found that the food we eat profoundly influences our gut flora. Analysis of the bacteria found in the digestive tracts of individuals eating high-fat, high-protein diets showed higher production of metabolites that cause inflammation in the colon. Switching an individual’s diet to an agrarian, high-fiber diet caused the microbiome of the gut to shift in response. This resulted in lower amounts of inflammatory metabolites produced by the newly introduced microbes within the colon, including a significant reduction in secondary bile acids like deoxycholic acid, which can increase colon inflammation and has been found to be carcinogenic by causing DNA damage.

Food isn’t the only source of our own microbes. We interact daily with the microbiomes living on the surfaces of our homes and offices. In return, these little ecosystems are also heavily influenced by us and shift in their makeup depending on who passes through and with what they are carrying. Additionally, it has recently been shown that our skin and gut microbiomes are seeded by our mothers during birth. Important strains of bacteria that stimulate the activation of the immune system early in life are found in babies who have gone through vaginal birth as opposed to Caesarian sections. Researchers are now looking at ways to grow these bacteria and supplement babies born via C-section to provide their immune systems with a boost. 

We have seen that the profile of the human microbiome can change over the course of our lifetime. As we grow into old age, we lose quantities of an interesting bacteria called Akkermansia muciniphila, found commonly within our digestive tract. It’s believed the presence of this bacteria can reduce inflammation in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, particularly by creating short-chain fatty acids used as fuel by our own cells in the gut and stimulating the production of additional compounds required for the growth of additional beneficial bacterium.

Lower levels of A. muciniphila are associated with diabetes, age-related insulin resistance, and in some cases, resistance to chemotherapy in cancer patients. For the last few years most of these associations did not have a fully elucidated mechanism on how this relationship occurs on the molecular level. A study published in November 2018 in Science Translational Medicine has established a firm link between A. muciniphila and its protective effects against inflammation in the immune system. It was observed that the presence of A. muciniphila protects against gut leakage, preventing other bacterial toxins from getting into the bloodstream and activating our immune cells and downstream inflammatory response. Dietary intervention and supplementation of aging mice and macaques with A. muciniphila restored age-related insulin sensitivity and reduced overall inflammation in these animals.

Dietary supplementation of bacteria is nothing new. Cheese, yogurt, unpasteurized milk, and many other foods contain beneficial microbes that aid our digestion. Some labs are even trying to develop chocolates that contain supplemental A. muciniphila to provide a boost to the gut flora and benefit the immune system. This may also be the first case in which a human therapeutic intervention is borrowing from fantasy literature, since we all know that eating chocolate will also restore your health after being attacked by the Dementors of Azkaban. Thank you, Madam Pomfrey and Professor Lupin.

But putting our wands aside for a moment, bacteria and other microbes are incredibly powerful organisms that often don’t get the credit they deserve. Bacteria evolved the world’s first rudimentary immune system, known famously today as CRISPR, which is now used for precision genome editing (read more about CRISPR in Clarkesworld #144). Additionally, bacteria are quite sophisticated in communicating with one another using chemical concentration gradients.

Known as quorum sensing, bacteria can release proteins or chemicals, similar to basic hormones, into their surrounding environment and take stock of the concentration of that same chemical released by other nearby bacteria. The greater the concentration of the chemical, the greater the population of bacteria nearby, which can trigger genetic responses that coordinate bacterial growth, metabolite sharing, or the formation of biofilms. Biofilms are three-dimensional scaffolding of bacteria and other microbes that adhere to a surface and provide mutual benefits to each cell involved. These benefits can include protection from changes to the environment, including resistance to antibiotic exposure, and coordinated growth towards new energy sources.

Some bacteria are even being used in batteries. Exoelectrogenic bacteria are capable of transferring electrons to the outside environment in which they live. Scientists have collected these bacteria and used them in fuel cells to create microbial electrochemical systems, which utilize these reactions to build up electric potential. Many of these organisms are extremely difficult to culture in the laboratory. They often grow in the sediments of rivers or the ocean floor and laboratories are looking to scale up these reactions to provide more and more power, including immobilizing bacteria from these sources onto artificial biofilms for a more user-friendly system.

Humans have also borrowed heavily from the capabilities of microbes living in the extreme environments on planet Earth. Archaea extremophiles have evolved and adapted to live in the world’s harshest places, including on extremely hot undersea volcanic vents, in very acidic lakes and caves, and even between the mineral grains of solid rock. Because these organisms still need to exhibit similar metabolic functions as organisms living in less harsh conditions, the proteins they create have evolved to function properly in such environments.

One such protein is called DNA Taq polymerase, first isolated in the 1970s from the bacterium Thermus aquaticus, which thrives in the superheated water of hot springs. DNA polymerases are a group of enzymes that synthesize new strands of DNA, often during mitosis when a cell undergoes division into two daughter cells. These enzymes are so important in maintaining the fidelity of the DNA sequences that they are copying that we have at least 14 different genes coding for these enzymes in our own genome, which all have subtly different functions that are required for DNA replication, maintenance, and damage repair.

But if you plop one of our DNA polymerases into a hot spring, the high temperatures will cause it to denature, meaning it will lose its three-dimensional structure (akin to unfolding a paper airplane back into a flat sheet of paper) and cease to work properly. Bacteria living in high temperatures all the time must still be capable of DNA replication if they are ever to divide and grow. Taq polymerase is a DNA polymerase adapted to such conditions and does not denature at high temperatures.

Clever scientists in the 1980s realized this property of Taq polymerase and used it to their advantage. Today, most laboratories around the world perform a simple reaction called polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which copies strands of DNA into larger quantities for use in the laboratory, similar to a molecular photocopier. PCR is a procedure that requires near-boiling temperatures to work, so scientists decades ago used Taq polymerase isolated from T. aquaticus and other organisms similar to it to perform this reaction. PCR and Taq allow researchers to take very small amounts of input DNA and measure gene expression in cells, identify criminals from a blood sample, and assess and individual’s genetic ancestry and disease risk from saliva.

Perhaps the most significant process that bacteria and other single-cellular organisms routinely perform is horizontal gene transfer (HGT). We typically think of inheritance from a generational perspective—our parents had us, passed down their genes to us, and we may have our own children, who will be inheriting our own genetic information. Bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes all participate in this mode of genetic transfer, but many species within each domain of life are capable of sharing genetic information directly with one another in a routine manner, often even between species of different domains.

Horizontal gene transfer is the direct transfer of genetic information between two individual cells and is a major mechanism of microbial evolution today as well as in our past when it was only unicellular organisms ruling the planet. One such way this occurs is through a process called conjugation, where one bacterial cell will directly transfer genetic information physically to another bacterial cell through a tubelike structure called a pilus.

The pilus generally transfers DNA plasmids. Plasmids are circular pieces of DNA that are smaller than bacterial genomes, but can often carry several genes that encode for different metabolic or physiological functions. Genes that provide bacteria antibiotic resistance can be found on plasmids and their transfer through a given microbiome via HGT is one of the major ways a population of bacteria can rapidly become antibiotic resistant.

There are two other major pathways through which HGT can occur. The first is called transformation, whereby bacteria can simply pick up DNA plasmids or other DNA and RNA found free-floating in the environment. Many times, these random pieces of genetic material have gotten into the environment after other cells have died and burst open, spilling their contents out into the environment for other bacteria to pick up and benefit from.

The last process is called transduction and it requires the aid of bacteriophage viruses. Phage viruses only infect bacterial cells. They’re found in our gut alongside our microbiome, and in every other place that bacteria are found. When a phage infects a bacterial cell, it will hijack the bacteria’s cellular machinery in order to mass-produce copies of itself, and its own genome, before bursting the bacterium open and spreading itself to the next cells. Sometimes during the formation of new virus particles, phages will capture and incorporate part of the genome of the bacterial cell it has infected into the capsid of the newly-constructed phage, where its own genome is stored. This is a random process and when this phage infects a new cell, these captured genes are then transferred to the new bacterium, which will incorporate them back into its own genome if it survives the phage’s attack.

Conjugation, transformation, and transduction have aided the evolution and adaptation of nearly all forms of life on Earth. It’s as important a process as generational inheritance in shaping the course of evolutionary history and it helped give rise to eukaryotic organisms, including our direct single-celled ancestors.

There are many more contributions to our world that we have microbes to thank for, but the last one we will visit here are antibiotics. Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, an antimicrobial compound secreted by green molds that was manufactured into the first modern antibiotic for human use during World War II. Soon thereafter, pathogenic bacteria began developing resistance to penicillin and related antibiotic treatment. Today, due to the overuse of antibiotics, many bacteria aided by horizontal gene transfer have resistance to multiple types of drugs. Searching for a new weapon to combat disease, clinicians have looked into our past to find a way to combat MRSA, drug resistant TB, and other types of diseases and infections. Coincidentally, that brought scientists back to World War II.

While the Allied powers benefited from the use of antibiotics on the frontlines, the Russian military did not have access to this technology. Instead, they mass-produced the sworn enemy of the bacterium—the phage virus. Russian medics on the frontlines would carry vials of phage with them to treat infections in their soldiers, acting like an antibiotic to safely treat wounds and other diseases without harming human cells. Today, we have resumed earlier work studying the use of phages as a novel therapeutic to treat drug-resistant bacteria, either alone or in combination with current antibiotics.

This new treatment option faces regulatory hurdles in the United States and will require further examination before drug trials can be begin in earnest, including the safe use of phage in animal models to determine the correct dosage, efficacy, and lasting impact on microbial drug resistance. However, the future looks promising and it only seems like a matter of time before we discover the next big things those small creatures of the world’s microbiome are capable of doing.

About the Author

Douglas Dluzen, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. He is a geneticist and has studied the genetic contributors to aging, cancer, hypertension, and other age-related diseases. Currently, he studies the biology of health disparities and the microbiome in Baltimore City. He teaches evolution, genetics, and scientific thinking and you can find more about him on Twitter @ripplesintime24. He loves to write science and science fiction while sitting on the couch with his wife Julia, their dog, cat, and newborn son Parker.

Cable Cars, Explosions, and Life-Sized Griffins:
A Conversation with Suzanne Palmer

Chris Urie

When looking up at the stars, we’re often consumed with thoughts of the technology and science that launch us beyond the confines of our terrestrial world. Space also makes us think of adventure, excitement, exploration, fun, and the endless possibilities of an ever-expanding universe.

Suzanne Palmer’s Finder captures all the best aspects of a science fiction adventure. Fergus Ferguson is an interstellar thief and con artist whose latest job finds him embroiled in a civil war complete with battling factions, a mysterious alien species, and mercenaries.

Suzanne Palmer is the author of numerous short stories. She has won the Hugo, Asimov’s Readers’, Analog AnLab Readers’ awards. Her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Asimov’s, Interzone, Black Static, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and more. Her new novel Finder is available from DAW on April 2nd.

When did you start writing professionally?

That’s a tough question to answer! I started writing in 2001 (if you discount a lot of dabbling with stories as a kid and teen, none of which will ever see the light of day) without any real intention to make it a regular thing. I was a student at Viable Paradise in 2005, and I think before that experience I was still teetering on the fence about whether I was going to try to make a serious go of it. I’ve questioned the wisdom of pursuing writing many times since then, but I think it was not long after the workshop that I wandered over the border into committed territory.

What drew you to science fiction?

I’ve always been an avid reader of both science fiction and fantasy, and my best friend dragged me to my first Boskone when I was 15 and it was like being home for the first time. So, the SFF world—its literature, media, and its communities—has been sort of my natural habitat for most of my life.

What inspired you to write Finder?

I had this visual idea of the cable cars in space and thought “hey, why not?” So, I threw a couple of random people in the car and let them interact for a few pages, and off the story went. When I first started, I could not have said whether Fergus or Mother Vahn was going to end up the main character, and I do still feel like someday I have to give Mother Vahn a story of her own too. I often start stories by throwing a pebble-sized idea or two down a mountain and letting them avalanche until I have a decent-enough sized boulder to work with. Of course, by that analogy the actual writing is very much pushing the damned boulder back up the hill again.

The action in Finder is exciting! What do you think goes into creating a great action scene?

Well, I think there has to be some element of surprise for the reader. They can look at a book and know objectively that there’s half a book left and so clearly the main character isn’t going to die in a particular scene, but if the story is carrying them along fast enough they’re not thinking about that and instead wondering how the main character is going to get out of something, or resolve or overcome whatever is in front of them, and it should be clever and not an obvious solution.

How was writing your first novel different from creating a short story?

If you don’t count a couple of intentionally-stupid-fun NaNoWriMo projects, Finder was really the second novel I’ve written. The first one wasn’t terrible, but was problematic enough in hindsight that it wasn’t ever going anywhere. Someday I’ll cannibalize it for its best parts and make a new story out of it, because it had some seriously good bones, but at the time it was hard to put that much work into something and fail with it, you know? I turned to shorts as a way of honing my skills with less individual investment, and to my surprise discovered that I really enjoyed writing short stories. I did that for a long time until I felt brave enough to try a novel again. It’s a huge relief to know I can write both.

The technology in Finder feels very real and plausible. What kind of research did you do when writing the book?

A lot of it is just thinking about existing technologies and how they’d evolve over time, or be put to use in an environment with wildly different physical challenges. I don’t know that I did a huge amount of research on any one topic, although I did a lot of different stuff, making sure I could make my ideas plausible. I had to do a lot more research for the sequel, though, because it’s mostly set in a real place.

Did Finder start off as a short story or did you conceive of it as a novel from the beginning?

Going back to my pebble analogy, when I was at the very start of writing Finder, I couldn’t have said how long it would be, but you can sorta peer over the edge of the writer-mountaintop and see the accumulating boulder part way down the slope and be like, “yep, that one’s gonna crush a village.” Some of it is in how much other ideas and plot stuff starts sticking to the draft early, and some of it is also in how you subconsciously start pacing the actual language—I think my brain has a better idea of where it’s going with something than it necessarily wants to share. Now I can usually guess within about 5k where a story is going to land, not very far in, if I didn’t start off at the outset aiming for a particular length.

What or who inspired the characters in Finder?

Ooooh, that’s a tough one. I don’t know that any of them were inspired by particular people, but more an amalgam of interesting, clever, and sometimes difficult people I’ve known in real life.

The dialogue in Finder adds a whole new dimension to your characters. What makes for great dialogue? Do you ever read it aloud to yourself to see how it sounds?

I always read all my stories out loud, which makes the dog stare at me like I’ve completely lost my mind. It helps me a lot not just with dialogue, but also the rhythm of the story in general. Sometimes I worry everyone is too snarky, but deep in my heart I love snarky people, so there ya go.

You’ve covered a wide array of themes and topics with your short fiction. Are there any topics you’d love to write a story about but haven’t tackled yet?

I have a dragon story that’s been in my head for years but it still isn’t ready to be written. That happens a lot, where I have a bit of an idea or I read some really fascinating bit of science (I am a total science junkie) and I just have to wait until it tells me where I want to go with it. I’m pretty whim-driven, overall.

What is the one piece of writing advice you’ve been given that has stuck with you?

Not to compare your process, or output, to other writers in a judgmental way. Ultimately the one thing successful writers have in common is that they do the work—the details vary wildly by person, and sometimes by story, and being adaptable and having trust in yourself is critical to not getting discouraged along the way.

How has your Fine Arts degree and experience crafting 3-D objects influenced your writing?

I think writing and art (and my day job as a Linux sysadmin) all come out of much of the same place for me. I love puzzles, and the challenge of figuring things out. All three pursuits can be frustrating, but never, ever boring.

Do you still own a number of gigantic animal sculptures? If so, how many?

I still have a life-size(?) griffin in my garage, a little the worse for wear. I had an 8-foot creature of my own invention that had been in my Fine Arts thesis show but it got a bit too damaged over several years living in my parents’ garage (I think my father used it to stop the car whenever he was parking inside) and finally had to go. My eldest child cut its head off with a saw and that’s still lurking somewhere in the basement being creepy as hell.

About the Author

Chris Urie is a writer and editor from Ocean City, NJ. He has written and published everything from city food guide articles to critical essays on video game level design. He currently lives in Philadelphia with an ever expanding collection of books and a small black rabbit that has an attitude problem.

Another Word:
Stories that Change the World

Cat Rambo

I run an online writing school, and part of that means coming up with new class ideas, ones that interest and engage and allow people to find new tools for their writerly use. Classes such as How to Write Steampunk and Weird Western, Using Literary Techniques in Genre Writing, and How to Write Flash Fiction.

But sometimes I try to change the world with those classes.

Last fall I came up with such an idea, a class called, Writing Stories That Change the World. I wanted to talk about how fiction can inspire and inform, how it can teach, how it can be an instrument for spreading empathy and understanding. Stories are the original memes; they shape the way we think, and much as the saying goes, you are what you eat, you think like the stories you consume.

Is it possible to consciously create such narratives without them becoming just propaganda or didactic message fiction? Can we write stories that give people what they need to psychically survive in an increasingly deranged world? And if so, the question still remains: How?

I have found one of the best ways to learn something is to prepare to teach it—and then do so. This class was my attempt to get better at this particular art, and I know many of the takeaways will shape the fiction I’m writing and will write in the future.

At the same time, I knew this would be a challenge in part because it involved my spiritual beliefs, which includes the idea that teaching is a responsibility and a privilege. Helping generations down the line make a better world, to live ethically, responsibly, and joyfully, being everything that they can and want to be, is not optional. And its corollary—that to teach hate, to corrode those generations with fear, poisonous distortions, and selfishness is one of the evilest things a human can do.

Wow, that got serious fast. You may be able to perceive why this was going to be a challenge.

First, I fleshed out the title and added three things that I considered most crucial for such stories: empathy, insight, and hope. I began with empathy because that’s one thing the majority of stories teach: how to put ourselves inside someone else’s skin in order to realize how many similarities there are despite outward differences. Stories may in fact be the best way to teach people how to develop that skill.

When we examine the emotional core of a story, we find that it teaches us something about the complex art of being a human being. It shows us someone confronted with a basic problem or situation and coming to terms with those stressors by making choices. We teach empathy by making the reader identify with the character and we show them, in that act, what another person’s experience is like.

We teach empathy by creating compelling characters that draw in the reader. Perhaps by creating an unlikable character and then showing how they came to be that way so the reader can understand—and begin to like, perhaps to love—them. Or by showing a landscape so different from the reader’s day-to-day existence that they begin to perceive what they take for granted, and why it shouldn’t be. Enabling the reader to question their assumptions in a way that helps them learn and grow. Evolve.

The second quality I focused on was insight, and a particular type of insight: self-perception. Here my personal beliefs wandered in again to lend their input, because I’ve always felt one important step of being a decent human being is to recognize and come to terms with one’s internal flaws. An old friend calls this “acknowledging your inner shittiness,” a willingness to admit imperfection in oneself and forgive it, a vital step in learning how to do better.

How do we teach insight? By exercising it, first and foremost, on ourselves. Socrates said at his trial, “The unexamined life is not worth living, ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ,” and it’s true. How can we make ourselves better without knowing the baseline at which we start? Showing stories where the characters exercise insight is a basic strategy here, but it cannot be accomplished without knowing how to exercise it ourselves.

The third quality was yet another vital one: hope. Because stories that do not provide hope teach nothing but despair. Sometimes there’s an appeal to that nihilistic urge, the draw of the gothic and dark—but that was for another class. I scribbled it down in my outline and continued to think.

We began the class with an obvious starting point: the idea of message fiction and propaganda. To me one thing that distinguishes propaganda is that it discourages, rather than encourages, thought. Perhaps by providing pre-programmed talking points, perhaps by normalizing lack of thought and unthinking obedience to authority.

I stressed the idea that stories, and particularly stories that teach, are stories that help people go on to make good choices and be responsible world citizens. Those stories do change the world. It’s only rarely something like inspiring someone to go on and become a world leader. Something that inspires people to vote, for example, is just as valid.

We talked about the idea that one thing you can use as a story seed is this question: what is a value that you want to teach? What is a value that you want to show in action, because what you want to say is not so much, “Value X is good.” Instead you need to focus on the idea that, “When a person applies value X to their lives, they benefit from it” or rightness is restored or the natural outcome of people making such a choice.

Another thing that you want to do with stories is empower people. We talk about the idea of making choices, that one way you empower people is you show someone that they can identify with making that choice. Someone that is like them, in that situation. And overcoming it as a result of applying that value. This is where diversity matters. Diversity matters so much because it gives folks that have been starved of a protagonist like themselves a character they can embrace and identify with.

I made them watch a clip from Moana as an example of the sort of story that I thought taught particular values—as well as being a kick-ass scene.

Moana is a hero here. She stands firm in the face of the onrushing monster and she defeats it not with force but empathy and trust and a willingness to reach out and see the pain at Te Fiti’s core. It is love and courage that brings us our happy—nay, more than that, our joyful—ending. May we all be as brave and empathetic as Moana, who I think will continue to inspire plenty.

Another thing that I want to point out about that Moana moment, because I think this is a source of emotional punch, is this. The moment is not oh, she puts a stone in and everything is fine and then we’re done. Instead there is a long, lingering moment as we see the green racing over the land, see the flowers, and Te Fiti rising up, and we can revel in the emotions it evokes. Give the reader time to experience the joy and hope. Give them moments to savor. Give them inspiration that they can take into the darkness.

One subgenre that I had to mention was hopepunk, a term first coined by Alexandra Rowland, who explains it eloquently. We need more hopepunk. We need stories that say there’s no special predestined Chosen One, but that anyone is capable of becoming a hero. We need stories of people working together rather than against each other.

Towards the end, we talked about the fact that it’s hard to write hopeful stories when you’re not feeling hopeful yourself. I shared some of my personal practices, such as when I wake up in the morning, I think of one thing that I feel grateful for. It doesn’t have to be huge, it can be teeny-tiny. I try to be good about practicing self-care, and that’s not just physical, but spiritual. I get to the gym. I go for walks. I look at art. I read. I do the things that nourish my soul. And I move outside my comfort zone and challenge myself on a regular basis, whether it’s an interaction I am dreading down to my toes or a dive with literal sharks.

Finally, one thing I keep in mind is that the way that you perceive things is very much shaped by the way that you expect to perceive them. And while there is plenty of bullshit that will contradict me, I believe that most of the time, if you go into situations and interactions with a positive attitude and expecting the best of people, you will end up far, far, far better and happier than if you go into interactions and situations expecting the worst.

Some people are more negative by nature. That is human nature, it is what it is. If you practice hopefulness and you practice positivity, you get better at them. I know that I’m a more positive person than I was two or three decades ago.

I wrapped up with these words:

This is stuff that I think about, and I believe if you think about it, you end up being a better writer. Or at least you come closer to being the sort of writer where people remember your stories. And you can write comfort food, right? It’s absolutely legitimate to write comfort food. Comfort food sells. But, if you want stories that are going to survive the test of time, they’ve got to have more heart to them than that.

People seemed happy after the class and I got a lot of personal thanks in e-mails. Enough people have asked about it that I made sure I added it to the next round of live classes and will teach it again in March.

I write this now with the partial government shutdown having gone longer than any other in history, with story after story about federal employees reporting to work despite not being paid, and more stories emerging about how this will forever change them. I write this in an America that separates immigrant children from their parents. I write this at a time when there are forces actively fostering hate, deliberate untruths, and perversion after perversion of justice in their zeal to defend a parasitic kleptocracy.

I write this now at a time when we most need these stories if anything’s to change.

About the Author

Cat Rambo lives, writes, and edits from atop a hill in the Pacific Northwest. Her most recent novel is Hearts of Tabat (Wordfire Press) but 2018 also sees the debut of her writing book Moving From Idea to Finished Draft (Plunkett Press). Information about her online school, The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers (www.kittywumpus.net/blog/academy), along with links to many of her 200+ story publications can be found at her website (www.kittywumpus.net/blog). She has swum with sharks and ridden an elephant, performed the hula at the Locus Awards, danced with the devil in the pale moonlight, and is currently serving her second term as the President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Editor’s Desk:
Finalists, Translations, and Awards

Neil Clarke

There’s a lot to cover this month so I’m going to dive right in. We held a two-day nomination period for the Clarkesworld Magazine Reader’s Poll in January. Similar to last year, the shortened nomination phase appears to have minimized the attempts at ballot-stuffing without any significant impact on the total number of participants. It was a tight race in both categories and the top five changed many times. In the end, there were enough ties that both ended with six finalists instead of the normal five.

Finalists for Best Story

“Dandelion” by Elly Bangs (September)

“The Anchorite Wakes” by R.S.A. Garcia (August)

“Umbernight” by Carolyn Ives Gilman (February)

“When We Were Starless” by Simone Heller (October)

“Octo-Heist in Progress” by Rich Larson (November)

“Sour Milk Girls” by Erin Roberts (January)

Finalists for Best Cover Art

Islamic Universe 2 by Luis Carlos Barragán (July)

Belt 71 by Pascal Blanché (December)

New Life by Helen Ilnytska (November)

The Storkfriars by Sean Murray (June)

Postcards from Asia: The Floodplain by Pat Presley (October)

Vukileyo! by Artur Sadlos (January)

Congratulations to all our finalists!

Now it’s up to you to pick the winner in each category. Go to:

www.surveymonkey.com/r/HVPPKWK

Voting will close on February 20th at 8PM EST and the results will be announced in our March issue.

In my October editorial, I talked about launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund the debut project from a new translation-focused publishing imprint—Clarkesworld Books. After a few months delay—for tax and accounting purposes—the campaign started in late January. Our goal is to fund the first English language collection by Chinese author Xia Jia, A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight and Other Stories. We’ve published many of her stories in Clarkesworld and I couldn’t be happier to have this be the first book for this imprint.

You can check out the campaign—with links to several of her stories—at Kickstarter:

www.kickstarter.com/projects/clarkesworld/a-hundred-ghosts-parade-tonight-and-other-stories

Continuing on the theme of translation, I have some exciting news. Clarkesworld has received a grant to translate and publish nine more translated [REDACTED] science fiction stories this year! This is a project that has been in some form of discussion for a long time now, but all the pieces finally started coming together in the last few months. (I haven’t received the final copies of the paperwork yet, so I can’t say who gave us the grant or what language we’re translating from yet. Soon, I promise.) 

Since the process we developed for our ongoing Chinese SF project has worked so well, I’m employing a similar model for this one. In January, I focused on adding people to the recommendation and translation teams we’ll need to make this work. Story recommendations are already coming in and one translation is currently in-progress. We’re hoping to have the first of these stories available for you in our April issue and continue monthly through the end of the year. After that, our initial funding will expire. It’s a while off, but that’s something we’ll be thinking about as the year progresses.

Dublin 2019 has opened the nomination period for this year’s Hugo Awards. Since there are still a few people who continue to nominate Clarkesworld for Best Semiprozine, I’d like to once again remind you that we haven’t been eligible for that award for a long time. Give your nomination to one of the many fine semiprozines out there instead. You can find a list at semiprozine.org. At present, there isn’t a category for professional magazines, but you can nominate me for Best Editor Short Form if you are so moved, and of course, all our original fiction is eligible in their respective categories.

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America has decided to honor me with a Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award. The award is “granted in recognition of the positive impact and influence the recipients and their work have had on the science fiction and fantasy genres.” Past winners include people like Kate Wilhelm, Tom Doherty, Michael Whelan, James Tiptree, Jr., Octavia Butler, Carl Sagan, Terry Pratchett, Sheila Williams, and Gardner Dozois. That’s an intimidating list to be added to. I’ll receive the award at the Nebula Awards Conference in Los Angeles this May. My thanks to SFWA for this great honor.

I suppose that’s enough for one month, so I’ll wrap things up here and thank you all for reading Clarkesworld and supporting this work we do.

About the Author

Neil Clarke is the editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, Forever Magazine, and The SFWA Bulletin; owner of Wyrm Publishing; and a six-time Hugo Award Nominee for Best Editor (short form). His anthologies include Upgraded, Galactic Empires, More Human Than Human, The Final Frontier, and the Best Science Fiction of the Years series. His most recent anthology, Not One of Us, was published in November by Night Shade Books. He currently lives in NJ with his wife and two children.

Cover Art: Dawn

Arthur Haas

About the Artist

Arthur Haas (1969) is a concept artist from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He specializes in environment design and concept art for the entertainment industry and has a passion for science fiction. Arthur works as a freelance artist for major Hollywood film studios and international book publishers.