Editorial, January 2015

John Joseph Adams

Welcome to issue fifty-six of Lightspeed!

This month marks the start of our next big project. Last year, we asked women to destroy science fiction, and they did — spectacularly — in our crowdfunded, all-women special issue, Women Destroy Science Fiction!. Never ones to rest on our laurels, we thought it best to continue with that fine tradition and engage in a little more destructive behavior. Thus, this year’s anniversary issue will be Queers Destroy Science Fiction!, guest edited by Seanan McGuire.

As with Women Destroy Science Fiction!, we’ll be launching a Kickstarter campaign in support of Queers Destroy Science Fiction!. We’ll publish the issue whether the campaign is successful or not, but the campaign will determine how big and awesome we make the issue. If we raise just $5000, we’ll be able to make the special issue a special double-sized issue, and if we raise even more than that, we have a couple of really excellent stretch goals lined up as well. Our two biggest stretch goals are the same as last year: If we receive enough pledges, we’ll not only publish Queers Destroy Science Fiction!, we’ll also publish Queers Destroy Fantasy! and Queers Destroy Horror! special issues as well.

Joining guest editor Seanan McGuire will be a team of wonderful queer creatives, including Steve Berman (reprint editor), Wendy N. Wagner (managing editor), Mark Oshiro (nonfiction editor), Sigrid Ellis (flash fiction editor), Cecil Baldwin (podcast host), Paul Boehmer (podcast producer), Elizabeth Leggett (art director/cover artist), and more!

The Queers Destroy Science Fiction! Kickstarter campaign will run from January 15 – February 15. To learn more, visit destroysf.com/queers.

• • • •

With our announcements out of the way, here’s what we’ve got on tap this month:

We have original science fiction by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (“He Came From a Place of Openness and Truth”) and Jeremiah Tolbert (“Men of Unborrowed Vision”), along with SF reprints by Theodora Goss (“Beautiful Boys”) and Michael Cassutt (“More Adventures on Other Planets”).

Plus, we have original fantasy by Sequoia Nagamatsu (“Headwater LLC”) and Matthew Hughes (“The Archon,” a Kaslo Chronicles tale), and fantasy reprints by Aliette de Bodard (“The Lonely Heart”) and Rachel Swirsky and Ann Leckie (“Mother, Maiden, Crone”).

We also have a feature interview with David X. Cohen, Executive Producer of the critically-acclaimed animated series Futurama, along with our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, and the launch our new book review column.

For our ebook readers, we also have an ebook-exclusive novella reprint of “The Choice,” by Paul McAuley, and novel excerpts from The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord and A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab.

Our issue this month is sponsored by our friends at Tor Books. This month, be sure to look for the aforementioned A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab. Learn more at Tor-Forge.com.

Well, that’s all there is to report this month. Thanks for reading!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Joseph Adams, in addition to serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of Lightspeed, is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, such as The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. Recent and forthcoming projects include: Help Fund My Robot Army!!! & Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects, Robot Uprisings, Dead Man’s Hand, Operation Arcana, Wastelands 2, Press Start to Play, and The Apocalypse Triptych: The End is Nigh, The End is Now, and The End Has Come. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been nominated eight times) and is a six-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of Nightmare Magazine and is a producer for Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Find him on Twitter @johnjosephadams.

Beautiful Boys

Theodora Goss

You know who I’m talking about.

You can see them on Sunday afternoons, in places like Knoxville, Tennessee or Flagstaff, Arizona, playing pool or with their elbows on the bar, drinking a beer before they head out into the dusty sunlight and get into their pickups, onto their motorcycles. Some of them have dogs. Some of their dogs wear bandanas around their necks. Some of them, before they leave, put a quarter into the jukebox and dance slowly with the waitresses, the pretty one and then the other one.

Then they drive or ride down the road, heading over the mountains or through the desert, toward the next town. And one of the waitresses, the other one, the brunette who is a little chubby, feels a sharp ache in her chest. Like the constriction that begins a panic attack.

• • • •

“Beautiful Boys” is a technical as well as a descriptive term. Think of them as another species, Pueri Pulchri.

Pueri Pulchri cor meum furati sunt. The Beautiful Boys have stolen my heart.

• • • •

They look like the models in cigarette ads. Lean, muscular, as though they can work with their hands. As though they had shaved yesterday. As though they had just ridden a horse in a cattle drive, or dug a trench with a backhoe.

They smell of aftershave and cigarette smoke.

• • • •

That night, when she makes love to her boyfriend, who works at the gas station, the other waitress will think of him.

She and her boyfriend have been together since high school.

She will imagine making love to him instead of her boyfriend: the smell of aftershave and cigarettes, the feel of his skin under her hands, smooth and muscled. The rasp of his stubble as he kisses her. She will imagine him entering her and cry aloud, and her boyfriend will congratulate himself.

Afterward, she will stare into the darkness and cry silently, until she falls asleep on the damp pillow.

• • • •

Would statistics help? They range from 5’11” to 6’2”, between 165 and 195 pounds. They can be any race, any color. They often finish high school, but seldom finish college. On a college campus, they have almost unlimited access to what they need: fertile women. But they seldom stay for more than a couple of semesters.

They are more likely than human males to engage in criminal activities. They sell drugs, rob liquor stores and banks, but are seldom rapists. Sex, for them, is a matter of survival. They need to ensure that the seed has been implanted.

They seldom hold jobs for more than six months at a time. You can see them on construction sites, working as ranch hands, in video stores. Anything temporary.

They seldom marry, and those marriages inevitably end in desertion or divorce. They move on quickly.

They always move on. I believe that on this planet, their lifespan is approximately seven years. I have never seen a Beautiful Boy older than twenty-nine.

• • • •

Oscar Guest is not his real name.

He had all the characteristics. Tall, brown skin, high cheekbones: a mixture of Mexican and American Indian ancestry. Black hair pulled back into a ponytail, black eyes with the sort of lashes that sell romance novels or perfume. He was wearing a t-shirt printed with the logo of a rock band and faded jeans.

“I hear you’re paying $300 to participate in a study,” he said.

It’s a lot of money, particularly considering our grant. But we choose our test subjects carefully. They have to fit the physical and aesthetic criteria (male, 5’11”-6’2”, 165-195 pounds, unusually attractive). Even then, only about 2% of those we test are Beautiful Boys.

I could tell he was one of them at once. I’ve developed a sort of sensitivity. But of course that identification would have to be verified by testing.

• • • •

Sometimes, the Beautiful Boy doesn’t move on immediately. Sometimes, he stays around after the dance. He gets a job in construction, starts dating the pretty waitress. If she insists, they might even get married.

By the time he leaves, she’s pregnant.

As far as we know, Beautiful Boys mate and reproduce like human males. Based on anecdotal evidence, we suspect they’re superior lovers, but that data has not been verified. We are writing a grant to study their reproductive cycle. However, we are still at the stage of identifying them, of convincing the general population that they are here, among us, an alien species.

• • • •

We always perform the standard tests: blood tests, skin and hair analysis. Beautiful Boys are physiologically identical to human males, but show a higher incidence of drug use. They typically have lower body fat, more lean muscle. I have known some to live on a diet of Cheetos and beer. They don’t need to diet or exercise. It’s as though their metabolism is supercharged.

What Oscar used to eat: Cocopuffs with milk, orange juice from concentrate, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, leftover pizza, Oreos, beer.

Although I have no statistical evidence, I believe Beautiful Boys need more carbohydrates than human males. Once, at night, I walked into the kitchen and saw him standing in front of the open refrigerator, in his boxer briefs, drinking maple syrup from the jug.

• • • •

He showed up at my house.

“Hey, Dr. Leslie, it’s me, Oscar,” he said when I opened the door. “I was wondering if there’s anything else I can do for the study. My landlord just kicked me out and I don’t have money for another place.”

“Why did he kick you out?” I asked. It was 2 a.m. I stood at the door in my pajamas and a robe, trying not to yawn.

“I got in a fight.”

“A fight? You mean in the apartment?”

“Yeah,” he said. “With the wall.”

He showed me his bloody fists. I told him to come in and cleaned his knuckles, then bandaged them.

“How much have you been drinking?” I asked.

“A lot,” he said. He looked sober, although he smelled like beer. Beautiful Boys have a higher than average tolerance for alcohol. That metabolism again.

“You can spend the rest of the night on the sofa,” I said. “Tomorrow, you’ll have to find a new apartment.”

The next morning, I woke up to the smell of pancakes. He was in the kitchen, fixing the screen door that had always stuck. “Hey, Dr. Leslie,” he said. “I made you pancakes. How come you don’t have a man around to fix this door, a beautiful lady like you?”

“My husband decided that he preferred graduate students,” I said.

“Seriously? What an idiot. This door should work a lot better now. Anything else you want me to fix around here?”

The pancakes were stacked on a plate, on the kitchen table. I sat down, poured syrup over them, and started to eat.

• • • •

I have devised a test that identifies Beautiful Boys with ninety-eight percent accuracy. I believe Beautiful Boys emit a particular set of pheromones to attract human women. I do not know whether this is a conscious or unconscious process.

We put the test subject in an empty room. My research assistant, a blonde Tri Delt, enters the room and asks the test subject a series of questions. The questions themselves are irrelevant: What is your favorite color? If you could be any animal, what would you be? (A statistically significant number of Beautiful Boys identify themselves as predators, wolves or mountain lions.) After he has answered the questions, we inform the test subject that he has been enrolled in the study and give him the study t-shirt, in exchange for the shirt he is currently wearing. We take that shirt and put it in a sterile plastic bag.

Later, three testers smell the t-shirt and rate their sexual arousal on a scale of one to ten. Human males typically elicit no more than a five. Beautiful Boys average in the seven to nine range. Our testers are all female. I have found that the best testers are brunette, a little chubby, nearsighted. They are most responsive to the chemicals that Beautiful Boys emit.

• • • •

Why have they come to Earth?

For the same reason aliens always come to Earth in old science fiction movies: Mars needs women.

Where is their home planet? I’m not sure even they know.

Sometimes Oscar would stare off into space, and I would say, “What are you thinking about?”

He would say, “Just a place I used to play when I was a kid.” Then he would roll over and say, “Hey, how about it? Are you up for a quickie?”

He was a superior lover. I do not, of course, know if that is a characteristic of all Beautiful Boys, or unique to Oscar. I think of him sometimes, when I’m alone at night: his smooth brown skin, mostly hairless, with the muscles articulated underneath. The black eyes looking down into mine. He would grin, kiss the tip of my nose. He was always affectionate, like a puppy. One day he brought me flowers he’d stolen from the college’s botanical gardens.

“You really shouldn’t have,” I said. “I mean, seriously.”

“I know,” he said. “But what’s what makes it fun.”

One day, he came to me and said, “Dr. Leslie, I’ve got to go. My dad down in Tampa is sick, and I need to take care of him for a while.”

I didn’t tell him, you don’t have a father in Tampa. You landed here on an alien spaceship with others of your kind. Where, I don’t know.

“Give me your father’s address,” I said. “I’ll send you some books.”

He scribbled an address down on a slip of paper.

We made love one last time. It was like all the other times: intimate, affectionate, effective. Like being made love to by a combination of teenage boy, eighteenth-century libertine, and robot. Then I gave him $500 and he drove off in his pickup.

A week later, I missed my period. I was angry with myself, told myself I should have been more careful. Although I suppose my therapist would tell me that I unconsciously wanted this to happen.

I found a phone number for the address in Tampa. It was a bicycle repair shop, where they had never heard of Oscar Guest.

• • • •

The study has three stages. The first one, nearly complete, involves devising a test to identify Beautiful Boys. That test has been devised, with ninety-eight percent accuracy. We are in the process of writing up our results.

The second stage, for which we are currently seeking funding, focuses on understanding their reproductive cycle. We believe Beautiful Boys belong to a species that only produces males. To reproduce, they depend on the females of other species. In order to spread their genes and avoid inbreeding, they leave the planet on which they were born and travel to another planet, where they transform themselves into particularly appealing males of the target species. They travel around that planet, implanting their offspring.

The third stage focuses on the offspring they produce with human women. What are these children like? We do not know when Beautiful Boys first began coming to Earth, although we suspect their presence as far back as the early twentieth century. There were probably Beautiful Boys seducing women in both World Wars, in Korea, in Vietnam. There are certainly alien children among us. We should find out as much about them as we can.

• • • •

I’m going to call him Oscar Jr.

I didn’t need the ultrasound to tell me that he was a boy. Of course he would be.

What will my Oscar be like? Will he play with Matchbox cars? Will he watch Scooby Doo? Someday, will he ask about his father?

We don’t know what happens to the children of Beautiful Boys, which is why completing the third phase of the study is so important. We don’t know if some of them have the lifespan of human males, or if they all repeat the reproductive cycle of their fathers. Will Oscar go to college, settle down with a nice brunette, have my grandchildren?

Or, after high school, after we have argued because he’s been smoking pot again and he’s told me that he needs to find himself, waving a battered copy of On the Road, will he drive to the mountains, find the ship with others of his kind, fly to another planet and become whatever the women want there: green, with six arms and gills, like something out of an old science fiction movie?

I don’t know. I think I would love him, even with six arms and gills.

• • • •

I think of them sometimes, all the Beautiful Boys, driven to reproduce as salmon are driven to spawn. Driving across the country like an enormous net whose knots are bars, cheap apartments, college dorm rooms. And because I’m a scientist, I’m comforted by what science teaches us: that life is infinitely stranger than we can understand, that its patterns are beyond our comprehension. But that they tie us to the stars and to each other, inextricably. Like a net.

© 2012 by Theodora Goss.

Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Theodora Goss was born in Hungary and spent her childhood in various European countries before her family moved to the United States. Although she grew up on the classics of English literature, her writing has been influenced by an Eastern European literary tradition in which the boundaries between realism and the fantastic are often ambiguous. Her publications include the short story collection In the Forest of Forgetting; Interfictions, a short story anthology coedited with Delia Sherman; Voices from Fairyland, a poetry anthology with critical essays and a selection of her own poems; and The Thorn and the Blossom, a novella in a two-sided accordion format. She has been a finalist for the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, and Mythopoeic Awards, as well as on the Tiptree Award Honor List, and has won the World Fantasy Award.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight.

He Came From a Place of Openness and Truth

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

Mickey and I worked together at Hillman’s Horror House, and maybe the thrill of scaring people was what made me notice him. I’d never thought about another guy that way before, and so when I first got that electric jolt as his hand brushed mine in the changing room, I felt like I might puke. I went to the bathroom, where instead of throwing up I jacked off into the toilet.

Mickey was a weird one, sure as hell. He had this damn goofy laugh like he was hacking up a hairball and these glasses so thick you could probably use the lenses as hockey pucks. He never talked to anyone at school except this one kid named Allen who was really into these books with half-naked women holding ray guns on the covers. Guys liked to chat the kid up so they could get a better look at his books during class when they weren’t allowed to pull their phones out. Like they couldn’t go a second without looking at that shit. I never saw anything all that good about Allen’s books. They were cartoon women, after all, and no way a real woman would ever look that way, where they stood with their legs spread like they were just waiting for some high school loser to come and peer up there. But how would I know? I didn’t have much experience with girls. They were kinda alien to me. Mickey liked the kid for his company, or so it seemed; he hung around him even when he didn’t have a book. And the way Mickey looked at me, I knew he didn’t care about those covers.

At the haunted house, Mickey was a trailer, which meant that he stood at the entrance in a cheap alien mask and made people think he was a statue until he started following back behind them. I was a slider, so I slid out in front of people, crossing their paths in a shriek of black and sweat. I liked making people scream. At first, I tried not to talk to Mickey, but it was hard, him being the only other high school boy working there. Eventually he caught up to me after my shift and asked if I wanted to go out for waffles, his treat. I was hungry, and he seemed okay despite the grabby hands, so I went, though I told him straight up I would buy my own waffles. He seemed cool with this, and we talked a lot about all kinds of interesting stuff. He complimented my sliding, which made me feel good, and we laughed about all the dumb teachers at school, and it turned out that he even liked hockey as much as me. I invited him to come play with us in the parking lot one day. Next hockey game he showed up smiling but didn’t play, just stood off to the side, grinning. I liked being watched like that. I fantasized about it for the next two weeks, but in my fantasies it wasn’t just hockey. He watched me eat my morning bagel. He watched me read before bed at night. He watched me wash my hair during my locker room shower.

It wasn’t two weeks from that day that I grabbed him by the collar after work and asked him did he want to come out back. Earlier that day I’d seen Mickey talking to some tall, skinny college guy, and it made me want Mickey’s lips on my body all of a sudden.

That started a routine: every day outside of Hillman’s, and then it was in my bedroom while my mom was asleep, and then it was in the bathroom at the waffle place. I started referring to Mickey as my boyfriend, in my head at least, and I even let him kiss me on the mouth after he was done.

“But I’m not gay,” I told him, I said to the mirror, to the friends who teased me about how much time I spent with Mickey. “I don’t ever do anything back.”

“Whatever, man,” my friends said. “It’s okay. Be gay. Go out and get yourself a thong and some fucking glitter and a rainbow flag or whatever, just don’t expect us to start watching musicals with you.”

“I don’t like musicals,” I said. “I fucking hate glitter.”

I didn’t want to be gay. I just wanted to keep letting Mickey suck me off for as long as I liked it.

But I didn’t get tired of Mickey. Halloween came and went, and Hillman’s closed for the season so that we were both out of work and with a whole lot of free time on our hands all of a sudden, and it got to where Mickey and I were hanging out every weekend, eating lunch together with all our friends at one table, even Allen, who got weirder and wouldn’t ever look me in the eye. I didn’t want anything to change, so when Mickey told me that he loved me, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t say anything back.

We lay in my bed, naked and warm under the covers, and I liked the tickle of his leg hairs on mine but I pushed him away anyway.

“What did you go and say that for?” I said.

“I do. I love you, Ben. I thought you would return the sentiment. I was told it was good to say this.”

“Jesus, Mickey, told by who? Who are you talking about us with?”

“It is true. I love you.”

“Shit, maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t. But you shouldn’t have gone and said it. Don’t you like things like they are?”

“I like things. I like you. I like your semen.”

“Holy hell, man, why do you have to talk like that?” I lurched up from bed and started rooting around the floor for my clothes, which we’d thrown all over the place as we came in. My mom never checked on us up here, and it was probably this reason that we always went to my house and not Mickey’s, though I’d never really asked about his parents, or his house. I flipped the light on. Mickey squinted at me. He was thin and cute, damn it, and I felt like a prize asshole for knowing so little about him.

“What’s your last name, Mickey?” I asked. I hadn’t even looked him up on Facebook. “Where do you live? Why don’t we ever go to your place? Is it your parents? Do they know about me?”

Mickey shrugged but said nothing, just stared up at me with these round, hopeless eyes. I wondered, did he know what I was about to say, what I was about to do? Did he even realize that it wasn’t fair of me to keep him like this when I couldn’t say I love you and I couldn’t even tell him his own damn last name?

“I think you should get out of here. I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

I thought he would argue, beg, give me something to work with, but all he did was crawl out of bed, slip on his clothes, and go without a word. At school for the next few months he shielded his eyes every time he saw me in the hallway. Every now and then he’d utter a hello as he passed. I didn’t say it back.

• • • •

Those days without Mickey I played a lot of hockey. And jacked it. And while I could get started with porn, the girls and boys in those videos weren’t enough. I had to think of Mickey to finish. My friends asked why he didn’t sit with us anymore. I tried to learn more about my friends until I was certain I knew every question that might be asked about them ever. I already knew their last names, sure, but I made it a point to also know their favorite food, color, band, movie, and what they wanted to do when they grew up.

• • • •

Before I knew it, Halloween was here again and I was sliding at Hillman’s. Mickey was there, too, and on break I never saw him with another guy, and I hadn’t stopped thinking about him while jacking it, so I figured maybe it was time to give him another try, but this time the right way, with dates and shit. I asked him to go out with me after work. We went to a twenty-four-hour shithole diner down the street from Hillman’s and we munched burgers and I asked him all kinds of questions, which he didn’t answer. He always turned the conversation right back to me. Finally I figured I knew what he wanted before he would open up so I gave it to him.

“I was wrong before, okay?” I whispered across the table. “I can tell you right now I fucking love you, Mickey, so if you would please just open up and give me something to go off here, I’d really appreciate a little slack.”

He grabbed my hand across the table. I felt like everyone in the diner turned their heads to stare, but no one was looking, really. “I come from a place you know nothing about. I come from a place of openness and truth. The place I come from, we do not have to hide who we are.” He never did any facial expressions when he talked, just the same gaze behind those glasses. I think that’s one of the things I like about him; his no-frills way of saying things, of acting.

“Damn it.” I pulled my hand away. “Is that what you want? Listen, Mick, my parents will kill me if I come out.”

“I want you to be with me,” he said. “I want your semen. I want you to stay with me so I can have your juices always any time.”

He wanted us to live together? The prospect didn’t seem half bad. Sex any time I wanted it? A warm body to hold and be held by in the night? I imagined he intended for us to get a place together; we were seventeen, almost old enough to buy cigarettes and spray paint. But as I thought about it, I realized I didn’t for sure know Mickey’s age.

“Are you seventeen?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Are you eighteen?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

I got queasy cause if he wasn’t seventeen and he wasn’t eighteen that would make him older or younger, and either he was moved up some grades and I was in some deep shit, or he stayed back, and I wasn’t sure I liked that option either, since it meant that he might not have a lot going on in that head, and I always thought he was a smart dude. Given the choice, I would’ve chosen older, but I didn’t like being wrong regardless, so I asked him even though I wasn’t sure I wanted to know: “How old are you?”

“I am eighty-five of your Earth years,” he said.

I laughed uneasily. “Yeah, sure, but I’m being serious. You can’t be much younger or older than me, right? Are you younger than me?”

“No,” he said.

“Well, thank goodness.” I pumped my fists in the air, more relieved than I thought I’d be. I’d just have to take it, I figured, as he was probably ashamed of being held back and all. When I really thought about it, I realized that it might be better that way, if we were living together; he could buy cigarettes already, and maybe, just maybe, he was close to old enough to buy beer.

“Let me think on it,” I said, and then we were okay again, like it had never even been brought up. That night I walked him home for the first time and expected that he would let me into his house to meet his mother and all, but he didn’t, and I was nervous, so I didn’t pry. I did wonder, though, if she knew about me, if she knew about me and her son, if she knew that he was planning on moving out with me and living a big gay life. I told myself I owed it to Mickey to at least break it to my mom, even if I didn’t decide to go on with his plan to live together after all. But I couldn’t tell her. Instead I kept on with Mickey, and it was better this time. We even did more than just blowjobs.

About two weeks later, though, my mom brought it on herself. First she asked me, straight up, why I never hung out with girls, and so I thought, well here’s as good a chance as ever, and so I told her, “I hang out with Mickey.”

“Well, yeah,” she said. “But why don’t you two ever have any girls over? You can bring girls over, you know, so long as you let me know beforehand and you’re careful and safe if something like that does happen, which I know is a high possibility, but which I feel I should advise you, as your mother, isn’t the smartest thing in the world.”

“That’s cool,” I said. “Can Mickey come over?”

She rolled her eyes but told me that yes, of course he could come over, he could always come over so long as I kept getting all my schoolwork done. “I love Mickey,” she said. “He’s a smart boy. He’s a much better influence than your other friends.”

That’s what she said, no shit, and so when, about two hours later, she walked in on us in the middle of things, as it were, she was partly mad and partly just confused.

“What are you two doing?” she screamed, picking up the closest thing to her and throwing it so hard it nearly knocked us both over. I hurried to grab up the blankets and pull them over me so she wouldn’t see the hard-on shrinking between my legs, but Mickey stayed poised with his ass in the air until she yelled at him to get the hell out, and he did pretty fast for someone who never showed the least signs of sportiness.

“We’re not going to tell your father,” was the first thing she said to me as she sat on the edge of my bed. “Don’t you dare tell him.”

If there ever was a chance, it was then, so I flat out told her no, I was tired of secrets and that I loved Mickey and it was their problem, not mine. I grabbed up my clothes, slipped them on, and left the room. My mom wrung her hands, begging me to please not do what I was about to do, but I wanted Mickey to stay with me, and he’d said himself that in his house they were open, and it sounded like a good way to be.

I found my dad watching football in the living room, but really he wasn’t watching. He was cracking pecans and pretending like one was the excuse to do the other, but Dad never really did like football all that much. He admitted once to me, though, that he loved cracking nuts. I laughed a lot when he said that, but later I thought it was kind of sad that he felt like he had to cover up his real love with something he thought every man should like. Huh. That’s actually not a bad point, now that I think about it, and maybe deep down watching him watch football even though he didn’t really love it egged me on even more at that moment, and so when I said to him, “Dad, I’m in love with Mickey,” maybe I believed that because of this football-nuts thing he might take the news in stride.

He didn’t. There were a whole lot of mean words, and I’ll admit that I cried a little, and he teared up, even, and my mom definitely cried, and when he told me to leave the house, I was more than ready to.

There was only one place I wanted to go.

Mickey didn’t answer when I rang the doorbell, and neither did his parents, but when I tried the door it was unlocked so I went on inside. The house didn’t smell lived in, which I thought was weird. It smelled like a hospital, like a really sterile place, and I thought to myself that yeah, Mickey always did seem real clean, too clean maybe, for a high school boy. The house was dark, so I fumbled along the wall for a light switch, and when I found one, I flipped it.

I couldn’t breathe after what I saw.

The whole of the living room to my left and the whole of the dining room to my right was filled with what looked like naked sculptures of me, only they seemed real, like wax. They stood in rows with closed eyes and were connected to these silver stands that strapped their feet in place. They were totally still except that their chests moved in sleep breaths, and I wondered what sort of bizarre motor must have been in place, cause I’d never seen breathing sculptures before. At first I was scared to touch them — it’s weird seeing yourself from the outside, and that was what freaked me out right away. Then the reality hit and I remembered where I was and that was what freaked me out, but rather than get the hell out of there like a sane person, I went up to one and touched its cheek. It felt like it was real skin, but it didn’t move or anything. Whatever the material, it was damn good, and it looked very much like me, maybe a little different in the nose, but otherwise it could have been my twin. I took a step and my foot squished some sort of thin rubber tube on the ground, the same color as the carpet. I looked down and saw that it was connected to the twin me at the spine. They were all attached to these tubes, which led up some stairs. I started to follow when I heard Mickey’s voice behind me, saying my name.

“Stay away from me,” I said as I turned, holding my fingers up like a cross, for some weird reason. My heart was beating really fast, faster even than it had that first time outside Hillman’s. He stood in the door to the living room, blocking my way out, with a bag in his hands.

“Just let me leave, please, please,” I said.

“I’m glad you found this. This is what I came here to do,” he said. “They asked me to come do this for them. It is necessary to the continuance of our people. See, I carry your seed in my hyoglossal pouch.” He opened his mouth. Something wasn’t right about his tongue, and I had to look away or I’d start to freak myself out remembering how good his mouth felt when he went down on me. “And when I return home it is warm and safe. I combine it with our own special chromosomal mixture and I make these clones of you.” He seemed proud of it.

“Clones?” I recalled his alien mask, the way he spoke of the place he came from. I remembered those dumb paperbacks with the blue-skinned beasts in the background.

“This is all you wanted from me? This is all I’m good for?” I said, looking around at the so many faces, like a hundred mirrors, but none of them looked as sad as I felt.

“No, no,” he said. “You do not understand. I chose you. My species realized that past methods of collection were inefficient. We once collected from one specimen then moved on. We revised our plan for Earth. We would collect from one specimen multiple times. I chose you. Of all the boys, I chose you, because you are kind and you are smart and you are beautiful.” Mickey stepped closer, and I realized too late that I should have backed away; that’s what you do when you’re scared of someone, when you’re mad at someone, and damn it if I wasn’t both at him at the same time. But then he got so close I could smell him, all weird and musty like he was, and he hugged me, and I couldn’t stay mad. It was even kind of cool, that he was from another planet and shit.

“What’s in the bag?” I asked right in his ear.

“Let me show you!” And we broke apart and he pulled all kinds of awesome shit he’d bought for me from the bag at his feet: potato chips, grab bags of candy, bananas, orange juice, chocolate chip cookies. Damn, I thought, I’m going to like living with you. He didn’t ask me why I was there, even, and that night, in a bedroom where about twelve replicas of myself surrounded us, he didn’t ask why I was sniffling beside him, not saying anything. Damn, I thought, I really do love the bastard.

• • • •

The first few months with Mickey were pretty awesome. We ate what we wanted, though Mickey often grumbled about healthy food and how we had to keep our bodies clean and in shape and all this other alien shit I ignored on account of he was from another planet and knew jack shit about what was good for a teenage boy. We stayed out late with friends even on school nights, though we never invited them over on account of the weird replicas. They were okay not visiting our house. I think it might have made them uncomfortable, despite how cool they were about the gay thing. We convinced some homeless dude with an ID outside the liquor store to buy us booze in exchange for money; Mickey had a lot of money, sent from his parents or guardians or whatever on whatever spaceship he’d come down on. I didn’t understand much about how he got here, though he explained it to me. Honestly, looking up at the sky always made me feel all weak-kneed and scared, like the whole concept of something out there I could never see meant it was all monsters and things I didn’t and wouldn’t ever understand, so I didn’t try too hard to get it. I did ask him once how long he’d be staying. “As long as I need to,” he said, and this was a comfort, and I didn’t feel I needed to ask any more questions, really.

He never wanted to talk about his home, anyhow. I never talked about my parents either. I know some therapists might say how we were repressing our bad memories, but I’d say that yeah, of course we were, on account of we had way too much partying to do and not near enough time to do it, what with school and sex and all to take up our time.

Yeah, life was pretty good for Mickey and me, for a while. Until three things happened all at once.

First I found a replica in Mickey’s closet, which he’d been hiding from me, on purpose, though he says he just put him in there cause he didn’t fit with the me replicas. We were playing hide-and-seek like children. Mickey said he’d never played it as a kid; they didn’t have it where he was from or something, and so we were playing when I hid in the closet. I thought the replica beside me was another me, of course; they were everywhere, so I jokingly slid my hand between its legs to feel what I felt like down there from outside my body and it felt pretty good, actually, until Mickey flung open the door and the light revealed me to be groping Allen.

“What the fuck?” I screamed as I jumped out of the closet. When I saw it was just a replica, I breathed a sigh of relief until I realized what that meant; he’d sucked off Allen just the same as he did me.

“What is wrong?”

“What the fuck is this?” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed, my head fuzzy.

“You are upset?”

“Of course I’m upset. When did this happen?”

“I thought Allen was to be my source,” Mickey said, standing in front of me. “I did not know yet that you existed. It takes time to find the one perfect for replicating. Allen was good, but not as good as you.”

“Shit, did you use a condom at least? Who knows what that kid sticks his dick in.”

“Condoms defeat the purpose of our mission,” said Mickey. “If asked, we are instructed to move on to the next specimen.”

“Good god,” I said. “You haven’t done this with a bunch of dudes, have you?” The thought of all those hands all over my boyfriend made my stomach churn. I both wanted and didn’t want to know any more. Openness and truth? Bullshit. What does an alien know about honesty?

“You are my third specimen. The first did not take. His emissions were not potent enough for the replication process.”

“Well, I’ve only done things with you,” I said.

“My planet needs your people there, or else we are at risk of dying.”

I made the mistake then of asking one of the questions I’d told myself I wouldn’t ask. And this was the second thing that ruined our happiness in that house.

“What does that even mean? Why do you need so many replicas? What’s with all these clones?” I looked around at them, and they seemed creepy all of a sudden, like a sinister thing I’d been ignoring.

Mickey stood with his arms straight at his sides, as he often did, and I realized just how strange his posture was. How had I never suspected before he told me? “Our landscape is harsh,” he said. “We require vast technologically advanced structures to survive and live good lives. But we have other work to do. We are too busy to build. It makes our hands rough, and we have other tasks that are more important to the survival of not only our people but people on other planets as well. Our people do not love the life of physical labor. Your people are better for this. Your brains are structured more for this than for the intellectual work that is our specialty. So we came to the conclusion that it would be best to come here and, rather than take your people off your planet, for you would likely be unwilling to go, we have replicated you so that we can take a crew of you back with us.” He placed his hand on one of the clones, right on his shoulder, like he was an old friend. “When we wake your clones, we will load them into our ships. On our planet, you will build our structures for us, and then you will help us maintain them. It would be a hard, boring life for our people, but yours will feel right at home.

“Wait a fucking second,” I said. “You didn’t tell me that’s what these clones were for! I don’t want to go work myself to death on your sorry-ass planet.”

Mickey shook his head, smiling. “No, no,” he said. “You won’t be going. It is just these replicas that will go. Don’t worry. You and I will be together here, until I am asked to return to my planet.”

When he said that, my mind went all fuzzy and blank, like I didn’t even know how to respond. I tried to come up with something, anything, to say to him, but everything just seemed pointless, and the idea of the Allen clone and Mickey leaving and the me clones gave me this pressure in the chest that I couldn’t shake. I couldn’t go home, that was for damn sure, and I couldn’t try to explain why I was upset, cause holy hell, Mickey and I were from different worlds, and there wasn’t ever going to be anything I could do about that.

I locked myself in our room with the music turned way, way up. I stared at the replicas, and looking at them made me so mad I wanted to pummel them to pieces like those body builder punching bags shaped like men. I couldn’t touch them, though. I couldn’t hurt myself. I crawled under the bed where it was dark and closed my eyes and thought about what it all meant, this alien shit. Was I meant to do something here, something big, like in the movies? I could destroy all the clones. Would Mickey have to leave if I did that?

What must have been a couple of hours later, I heard this crazy echoing sound coming from downstairs and suddenly I wasn’t worried about higher purposes, I just wanted to know what the damn noise was and make sure Mickey was safe out there.

I crept through the house, my heart pounding, until I found Mickey in the kitchen in the dark with some device clutched to his ear. He was making this wracking belly sound like his body was gurgling, and when I flipped on the light he didn’t look at me, just kept on making those noises.

“What the fuck was that noise?” I asked, but he still didn’t say anything until the gurgling stopped and he dropped the little metal device and curled into himself on the floor there. “What’s wrong, Mickey?”

“I understand why you are upset,” he said, not looking up at me. “Your replicas will be used by my kind and not given a choice. I did not realize that choice is important to your people. It is important to ours, too.”

“What does that mean, though? Can we stop it?”

“It is stopped already. The replicas are no good. My people have asked me just now, over the communicator, to destroy the replicas. We have made a mistake once more. It is not good to have so many of one replica. That way spreads blight. They say that the blight is making your people perish in alarming numbers. My people say more diversity is needed, so that the blight does not take so many. They want one of you, and one of you only. The rest they say to unplug and let rot in here. They have ordered me home.”

For once in our whole time together I thought I saw something human in his face rather than the plaster gaze he usually gave.

“But you said just a minute ago . . . I mean, you seemed like you wanted to go home, eventually. And I’m not so sure I’m against destroying all these clones, Mickey. To be honest, I don’t know if I like the idea of so many of me existing all in the same place. This should be good news, right? After all, what, you didn’t think we would stay together, and I sure never thought that.”

“Stop,” he said. “You lie when you say that. And as for the other part, I will quote your people when I say that you don’t know what you have until it is gone. I didn’t know what I wanted until just now. Ben, I chose you. I chose. And I do not want to go back. I do not ever want to go back.”

Aw, hell, I thought, and I rushed across the room and wrapped my arms so tight around him I thought I might break him if he weren’t so tough, built of whatever alien skin he had in him or on him, I’d never asked much about if he looked like this all the time or just here on Earth, but I figured he had to be different somehow in his chemical makeup. And so what did I do right there, to comfort him? I kissed him. I unzipped his pants and reached my hands into his boxers and then we made love, that’s right, love, on the kitchen floor, and when it was over, this third of our problems, we figured out just what we were going to do next.

• • • •

Turns out that aliens are pretty damn good at road trips. They have the stamina, yeah, to go across country like they were driving down the street for bread. They have the money, too, what with all the cash their people gave them, compensating for every possible emergency that might arise when they sent them down here. As for keeping ourselves under the radar, making sure my parents didn’t come looking for us, though we might, we agreed, go looking for them again someday to make our amends, we sent one of my replicas in my place. When we turned him on, he smiled at me, but he didn’t even look at Mickey, really. It was weird but kind of cool to see him walking around. He already had my memories and everything, so it was easy to drop him off in my parents’ driveway. I’m sure Mom and Dad loved that I came to my senses and no longer had Mickey around or even spoke of him anymore. As for the gay stuff, I don’t know if that’s the way the replica swung or even if I could say I swing that way or if Mickey’s replicas even have ways to swing or if people do. Maybe there’s just a lot of love and when it finds you, you do what you can with it.

The rest of the replicas we unplugged and drove, truckload by truckload, out to surrounding cities. This will create some confusion one of these days, to be certain, but it seemed like the best option, and besides I thought it was one damn funny practical joke. We gave Allen his replica, to do with what he wished, and he was sure psyched about that, though not so happy that we were leaving him. We told him that we’d be back one day and gave him the keys to our house, for him to do what he wanted in there. Maybe he’ll do great things with it. Maybe when Mickey’s people come looking, they’ll find Allen and take him up there with them and he’ll get some of what he’s always wanted.

I try not to think too hard about what’s going to happen or what did happen, just the good parts, like Mickey’s hand in mine, or the open windows in the car we bought, or the look of mountains, true-to-life mountains, and the way I feel when we drive toward them. And the look of the alien mask he snuck along, which he sometimes wears when he blows me, and how it’s never like you think it’ll be, this life stuff, which is something new I’m learning all the time.

© 2015 by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam lives in Texas with her partner and two literarily-named cats: Gimli and Don Quixote. Her work has appeared in magazines such as Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and Interzone. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and curates an annual Art & Words Show, profiled in Poets & Writers. You can visit her on Twitter @BonnieJoStuffle or through her website: bonniejostufflebeam.com.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight.

More Adventures on Other Planets

Michael Cassutt

This is what they used to call a meet cute, back when movies were made by people like Ernst Lubitsch or Billy Wilder, when movies had plots and dialogue, when life and love had rules, back in the last century. A handsome officer in the Soviet embassy (does that tell you how long ago?) picks up the phone one day and hears a lilting female voice asking him if he can tell her, please, what is Lenin’s middle name. “It’s for my crossword puzzle.”

Affronted, the officer snaps, “To dignify that question would be an insult to the Soviet Union!” And slams down the phone.

But not before he hears a lovely laugh.

That evening the officer goes to the British Embassy for some reception, and hears that same laugh emerging from the oh-so-luscious mouth of an English woman who should probably be Audrey Hepburn. Smitten, the officer walks up to Miss Hepburn, bows, and says, “Ilyich.”

And so the story begins.

And so our story begins. Only —

Look, you’re going to have to be patient with me. Because the couple is not just a couple. It’s more of a quartet. And two of the parties aren’t even people.

Picture the surface of Europa, the icy moon of Jupiter. It is mid-day, local time, but the sky is black: What little atmosphere Europa possesses is insufficient to scatter enough light to give it a color. The combination of ice, snow, and rock create a patchwork of white and gray, something like a chessboard with no straight lines.

Europa is tectonically active, about ten times as bouncy as any place on Earth, so the landscape is marked by jagged upthrusts and creepy fissures known as cycloids.

But forget the landscape and the color of the sky. What really catches your attention is the striped ball that is Jupiter, looming overhead like a gigantic jack o’lantern. It actually seems to press down on the snowy landscape. What makes it a little worse is that since Europa is tide-locked, always keeping the same face toward its giant mother, if you happen to be working on that side of Europa, Jupiter is always there!

And so are several elements of the J²E², the Joint Jupiter-Europan Expedition, three tiny rovers that have been operating on the icy plains for two years, scouting the site for the “permanent” Hoppa Station and erecting such necessary equipment as a shelter (even machines get cold on Europa), radiothermal power plant, and the communications array.

On this particular day, rover element one, also known as “Earl,” is approximately seven kilometers north of Hoppa when he receives a query from a source in motion (his comm gear is sophisticated enough to detect a slight doppler effect) for range-rate data.

Element Earl can’t see the source: His visual sensor is a hardy multi-spectral charged-couple device that is excellent for showing a view forward and all around. It lacks, however, a tilt mechanism that will let it see up.

Nor, given the priorities in his guidance system, can he presently provide range-rate data. In the burst of bits that made up rover-speak, Element Earl says, more or less, “I’m a Pathfinder-class rover element. You should be talking to the base unit at Hoppa Station.”

He would think no more about the contact, except that there is a message of sorts embedded in the acknowledgment that suggests . . . compatibility. More than seems to exist between the dopplering radio source and the base unit at Hoppa, in any case.

The dopplering source is, in fact, a series of follow-up J²E² packages designed to conduct the search for life in the dark, frigid ocean under Europa’s icy crust.

All of these elements are wrapped inside a landing bag dropped from a mission bus launched from Earth two years after the initial bunch that included Element Earl, and propelled Europa-ward by lightsail. The bus has burned into orbit around Europa, then waited for a command from LaJolla to separate the bag and its retro system.

The follow-up flight has been marred by software glitches, some of them due to undetected programming lapses back in the avionics lab in La Jolla, others to the assault of Jupiter’s magnetic field. After all, the chips are only hardened against electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear weapon, not the steady and relentless assault of charged Jovian particles. Like a human trained to withstand a stomach punch only to find himself dragged behind a truck, the bus has suffered some damage.

Which is why one of its four elements, soon to be known as “Rebecca,” goes on-line during the descent phase as a backup to the lander’s systems, which are having a tough time locking on to the signal from Hoppa Station. Not to prolong the suspense, the landing package arrives safely, bouncing half a dozen times on the icy plain, punching holes in itself by design, and eventually disgorging four new elements.

It is only a week later when Element Earl, returning to station for thermal reasons, happens to detect (not see: his visual sensor was usually turned off to conserve power and he was simply retracing his original route) four new arrivals — the drilling, cargo, submersible, and portable power rover elements that will soon begin the search for life.

He passes close enough to the drilling rover, which is currently deploying its array, since diagnostics show it to have been damaged in the rolling, rocking landing. It so happens that the array wasn’t damaged. But in the stream of bits flowing from the drilling rover to the Hoppa central unit and splashing from one rover to another, Element Earl notes the familiar signature of Element Rebecca.

As a bit of a joke, he aims his dish at hers, and feeds her the range-rate data she had asked for earlier.

• • • •

Mission control for J²E² is in a crumbling three-story structure in the bad part of La Jolla, south of the Cove and bordering on the aptly-named Mission Beach. The building formerly housed an internet service provider. The ISP had purchased and remodeled the place in 1998, hoping for business from the San Diego and North County high-tech communities, which were then wallowing in an unprecedented economic boom.

And did so for the better part of a decade, until a series of mergers closed the node. Then the AGC Corporation, newly formed by three researchers from UCSD, just over the hill in La Jolla proper, leased the building for tests of their first real-time Superluminal Light Pulse Propagation/Emulation Regime, usually known as SLIPPR, on the 2012 asteroid Neva flyby. What the hell: The facility was already wired for fiber optic and extreme bandwidth, and was configured for electrical and thermal support of AGC’s ten-petaflop computer.

That was eighteen years and five interplanetary missions ago, and while the guts of what is now the J²E² mission control have continued to evolve, the exterior has been left alone. Which presents the staff with a problem. The ISP operation had never employed more than a dozen people, while the AGC SLIPPR project has thirty or more in the building at all times.

The parking lot is simply inadequate, and with public transport in this part of LaJolla (remember, this is California) limited to the occasional bus, with working hours staggered, with rents and home prices in LaJolla among the highest in the country . . . well, disputes are inevitable.

Earl Tolan pulls his battered Chevy pickup into the gated lot and drives up to space eleven, only to find a brand-new Volvo already there.

Tolan is fifty-nine, a senior operator on the J²E² project after moving to AGC from Lockheed Martin, where he led teams through good times and bad for twenty years. He is not one to lose his temper without reason.

But today he happens to be returning to work after a what should have been a quick visit to the doctor, a checkup which wound up taking four hours and has left him in a bad mood. So the site of this impudent little Volvo taking up his space launches him into a state of only theoretically controlled fury.

He squeals the truck around so that its tailgate backs up to the Volvo. This is a bit of a trick, given the confined space. Tolan has to drive up and over a curb and sidewalk median just to get into position.

Once on station, as ops guys are fond of saying, he drops the tailgate, hauls out a length of chain and a hook he usually uses for attaching the smaller of his two boats to a trailer, wedges the hook in the Volvo’s rear bumper, and loops the chain around his trailer hitch.

Then he gets into the truck, puts it in low, and hauls the Volvo out of his space, a maneuver which takes him up and onto the sidewalk and into the driveway beyond. The Volvo, its gear in park and its brake set, makes a screeching sound with its tires, followed by an ominous undercarriage scraping, before fetching up on the sidewalk/median.

Where Tolan leaves it.

Wallowing in momentary self-satisfaction, he pulls around into his space. He is still quite angry, in fact, when he emerges from the truck and heads for the building entrance, where he brushes shoulders with a woman going the other way.

Had his mood been anything less than ultraviolet anger and disgust, Tolan would certainly manage to sidestep the charging woman while simultaneously noting her looks. Which, allowing for a certain air of growing confusion, are barely worth noting: She is a little over five feet, but adding stature with heeled sandals. A pair of gray slacks suggest muscular legs, and a vest worn over a J²E² polo shirt does nothing to conceal the solidity within. Her hair is shoulder-length, dark, with a few lighter streaks, appropriate to her age, which is fifty-ish. He thinks the eyes are green, but needs a closer look.

Not that he’s inclined to give one. Twice-divorced, his sexual relationships are generally with women who would register as more attractive than this one on any visual scale.

What actually gets Tolan’s attention is this woman’s voice, which has what used to be called (in the days when people still consumed both) a whiskey and cigarette tone, tinged with some kind of Euro accent. Or perhaps it is the words she uses: “I’m gonna kill the son of a bitch who did this.” Meaning haul her Volvo onto the median.

The woman calmly walks up to the vehicle, which still quivers in the aftermath of its relocation. She folds her arms, smiles with what could have been a touch of amusement.

Tolan can still make a clean escape, though he knows it won’t be long before someone connects the evidentiary dots between Tolan’s parking space, the skid marks from it to the Volvo’s resting place. Besides, he is curious about the color of those eyes — so curious he forgets his anger over the momentary theft of a parking place, and his frustration over two hours of unwarranted medical tests.

“I’m the son of a bitch,” Tolan said.

She looks at him. Yes, green, with a charming set of smile lines. “Aren’t you old enough to know better?”

This strikes Tolan as unfair, given that he is staring at sixty on his next birthday and has just had a medical experience all-too-appropriate for that age. “Apparently not.”

To her great credit, she laughs. “I assume this was your space.” He nods. “Well, I’m so new I don’t have an assigned one. And the guard did tell me you weren’t likely to return today.”

“Surprises all around.” He holds out his hand. “Earl Tolan.”

“Rebecca Marceau.”

“I think we’ve met before.”

“Cologne?” she said, then realizes where. She blushes. “Oh! Hoppa Station.” Operators like Tolan and Rebecca are often brought into the program without prior introductions. After all, they are usually mature professionals.

“Actually, about twelve klicks away,” Tolan says, wondering why he feels the need to be so precise.

• • • •

You have to forget everything you think you know about space flight. The SLIPPR operators aren’t astronauts. In fact, there are damned few astronauts here in 2026, just a few poor souls stuck going round and round the Earth for months at a time in the crumbling EarthStar space station, hoping their work will somehow overcome the bone loss or radiation exposure or even psychological barriers that prevented a manned mission to Mars, not to mention even more distant locales such as Europa.

But exploration of the solar system goes on, using unmanned vehicles which can be controlled more or less in real-time by well-trained human beings. The advantages are many: The vehicles can be smaller, they need only be built for a one-way trip, and using SLIPPR-linked human operators allows spacecraft builders to skip the lengthy and unpredictable development of artificial intelligence systems.

J²E²’s mission control in La Jolla, then, is more like a virtual reality game den than a Shuttle-era firing room. Yes, there are the basic trajectory and electrical support stations, complete with consoles, and there is a big screen which displays telemetry from all of the many separate elements, along with selected camera views.

But the real work is done in the eight booths at the back of the control room, where each operator strips naked and dons a skintight SLIPPR suit and helmet not awfully different from SCUBA gear, allowing her to link up in real-time with her avatar on Europa.

To see Jupiter looming permanently on the horizon.

To feel the shudders of the hourly quakes.

To hear the crunch of treads on ice.

To smell metal and composite baked by radiation.

You can even taste the surge of energy when linked to the generator for recharging.

It’s all faux reality, of course, the work of clever programmers who have created a system which translates digital data from the elements themselves into simulated “feelings,” then reverses the process, translating an operator’s muscular impulse to reach, for example, into a command to rotate an antenna.

The best operators are those who know spacecraft and their limitations, who have proven that they can commit to a mission plan. People who simply like machines also make good operators. For J²E², AGC tries to find those who can fit both matrixes.

And who are willing to take the risk of permanent nerve damage caused by the interface.

• • • •

Rebecca operates Tolan’s truck as he rocks the Volvo. He has chained the two vehicles together, and is learning that undoing his prank is easier than doing it, since the tightness of the driveway is forcing Rebecca and the truck to pull the Volvo at an angle.

But she expertly guns the motor just as Tolan gets the Volvo’s front wheels on the pavement. With a hump! and a whoof! and a reasonable amount of scraping, the Volvo shoots free. “That was suspiciously close to good sex,” Rebecca says, delicately wiping sweat from her eyes.

Now it is Tolan’s turn to blush, something he can’t remember happening in years. (He is old enough to know better about this, too.) He had been thinking the same thing. “You like cars,” he says, lamely, fitting her neatly into that subset of the operator personality matrix, something the operators do both consciously and instinctively, like long-lost tribesmen smelling each other.

“Guilty, officer,” she says, and looks at the truck, with its complement of nautical equipment. “And for you it must be boats.”

“Two of them. A runabout and a forty-five-footer.” The tribal recognition isn’t strong enough to overcome their mutual antagonism. Note that there is no invitation to take a sail.

“See you on Europa.”

• • • •

On Europa, science is marching more slowly than usual. Element Rebecca is tasked with drilling a hole through the icy crust at a site seven kilometers north of Hoppa Station. The same spot Element Earl was scouting the day the science package arrived.

Now, from a distance, at the macro level, Europa’s surface isn’t as rugged as that of the rockier moons in the solar system. The constant Jovian tidal forces working on the ice and slush tend to smooth out the most extreme differences in height.

But at the micro level, down where a wheeled or tracked element must traverse, the surface resembles an unweathered lava field, filled with sharp boulders, crossed with narrow but deep fissures, cracks, and cycloids. These, of course, were mapped by Element Earl on his original recon — collecting that data was one of his primary goals, so it could be beamed to Earth, turned into a three-dimensional map file, then uplinked to Element Rebecca.

The problem is, new cycloids can form in days, changing the whole landscape. Before Element Rebecca, her traverse delayed due to other equipment problems, gets five kilometers from Hoppa, her map ceases to be useful.

And there she stops, asking for guidance.

• • • •

Earl Tolan is what they used to call an unsympathetic character, back when people still made such judgments. You wouldn’t like him, on first meeting. He is smart and also opinionated, a combination which has made friends, family, and co-workers uncomfortable, since he has a bad habit of telling others how best to live their lives, and with great accuracy.

You could wonder — Earl does, in his rare reflective moments — whether this trait was magnified by his twenty years in space ops, where you don’t open your mouth unless you’re sure of your facts, or Earl prospered in that field because it suited his nature.

He’s also bull-headed and fatalistic. See above.

He has paid for his sins, however, in two failed marriages and the cool, distant relationships with his three children. His first marriage, to Kerry, the girl from his hometown in Tennessee, crumbled under the weight of too many moves, too much travel, ridiculous working hours. Kerry, who had put her own career on hold, understandably resented raising three children by herself. Earl, even less sympathetic in this period of his life than at present, started a relationship with Jilliane, a co-worker, which destroyed the marriage as quickly and thoroughly as if targeted by a cruise missile.

The collateral damage was to Earl’s relationship with his three children, ages twelve, ten, and seven at the time of the breakup. His oldest daughter, Jordan, decided that the divorce was probably only seventy-five percent Earl’s fault, and managed to forgive him, and even made friends with Jilliane, when she and Earl married.

But the younger two children, Ben and Marcy, were lost to Earl. They are cordial, exchanging Christmas cards and the occasional phone call, and possibly seeing each other every two years. But their lives no longer intersect.

Jordan, who is in touch with her father more frequently, saw what you would see, if you spent time with Earl. His energy, for example. It is formidable enough when employed on a project such as J²E², but is downright memorable when put to use on, say, a weekend vacation with Jordan and her family, or on a remodeling job at her small house in Tucson.

Maybe this will help: Earl has learned some of life’s harsher lessons. He works less. He flosses more often. He no longer allows a first impression to be his only impression.

• • • •

“Guess what? We have a problem.”

It is the day after the meet cute in the AGC parking lot. On the floor below J²E² mission control, Earl is buttoning his shirt after a shower and pro forma medical check, having just pulled the authorized maximum SLIPPR shift in taking Element Earl back to Hoppa Station. Gareth Haas, the Swiss deputy flight director, shows up. With him is Rebecca Marceau, half out of her SLIPPR suit. She is sweaty, her skin is lined with smeared marks for suit sensors, and her green eyes are red. At first Earl is almost disgusted by the sight of her.

Then he tries to be charitable, knowing that he wasn’t looking any better half an hour earlier, knowing that, let’s face it, in physical terms, with his stocky build, thinning hair, thick jaw, and heavy brows, he’s not much of a prize on his best day.

Especially with the results of his tests, just received this morning before his shift.

“I’m listening.”

Haas and Rebecca explain the difficulties. “Rebecca,” he says, meaning Element Rebecca, “can’t get to the site.”

Earl feels sick to his stomach. “Something wrong with the map?” The map derived from Element Earl data.

“The map’s perfect,” Rebecca says. “But Tufts Passage seems to have gotten tighter.” She is referring to a tunnel in an ice hill just large enough for Element Earl (which is, in fact, about the size of a supermarket shopping cart) to pass through. “I’m stuck. Can’t go forward, can’t back up.”

“That’s pretty goddamn strange,” Earl says.

“It might have been something as simple as the heat of Earl’s passage melting the ice,” Haas says, trying to be helpful.

“The power module’s right on my butt, too,” Rebecca says, “and Asif’s even fatter than I am.” She means Element Asif, named for its operator, a Bangladeshi Earl doesn’t know well.

“So you need me to map a new route.” What Earl wants to do is walk out of J²E² mission control and never look back. To go to his forty-five-footer and take a sail, and maybe never come back. But what he says is, “Let’s do it.”

“You’re outside your margin,” Haas says. “I can’t ask you to do the job.”

“I’ll get the doctors to sign a waiver.”

“They won’t. You know that.”

“It’s so risky,” Rebecca says. “What if he has a failure while you’re linked?” This was a genuine problem: Ten years ago, during an earlier AGC SLIPPR operation on Mars, an operator happened to be linked real-time when his rover suffered a catastrophic failure. The operator suffered a stroke and was never the same again. Hence the limits and mission rules.

“Earl won’t let me down,” Earl says.

“He’s got all the power he needs,” Haas says, agreeing, “but he’s had the Big Chill. He’ll be going back into the cold without a bake. The accident rate is substantially higher — ”

“I know that, you know that, we all know that,” Earl snaps. “We also know that you wouldn’t have asked me if you didn’t need me. So let’s go.”

Rebecca requires further convincing. “What about the doctors?”

“Don’t tell them I’m getting back in the suit.”

Angry at their clumsiness, he chases them out of the dressing room. As he begins to don the suit, however, his mood changes. What if something did happen to Element Earl? The human operator knows that a mission is finite, that his linkage won’t go on forever.

But the elements on Europa are powered by radio-thermal generators that can give life for hundreds of years. Unless an element is totally destroyed, it lives on, diminished, possibly blind, but capable of responding to stimuli or processing data.

He zips up the suit, feeling a surprising pang of sadness. For Element Earl, or himself?

• • • •

It is always a mixture of pleasure and terror, being linked via SLIPPR to an element on Europa. One of Earl’s first instructors, knowing Earl’s fondness for sailing and things nautical, compared it to Acapulco cliff diving. After a dozen sessions in the SLIPPR suit, Earl decided that his instructor was an idiot. Linking with an element was only like diving off a cliff if the moment of fear and exhilaration were stretched to an hour. Yes, there is the wonder of feeling that you are crunching Europan snow beneath your “feet,” navigating your way through the jumbled heaps of ice like a child picking his way through a forest.

But you must also endure the sheer discomfort of the SLIPPR suit, the data leads that bite and scratch, the sweat that oozes from your neck, armpits, and crotch (occasionally shorting out a lead), then cools to a clammy pool in the small of your back, the stomach-turning smell of burnt flesh (which no one can seem to explain), the data overlays that mar your pristine vision, the goddamn chatter from Haas and his team, who treat all operators like children with “special needs,” all while feeling that you are being flung across the universe on the nose of a starship driven at near-light speed by a drunk.

Somehow, Earl forces himself to accept the usual stresses while ignoring the protests from the medical support team as he drives Element Earl back out on the trail. (The doctors have been conditioned to look for conditions that could be linked directly to SLIPPR side effects. Other than that, they give the operators great license, especially since each operator has already released AGC from liability now and forever.) For amusement, he watches the thermal readout of his element’s temperature. It dropped sharply as he exited the Hoppa shelter, and now it climbs slowly as friction and the general expenditure of heat are displayed. It reminds Earl of waiting for a download on his first computer forty years back.

Except for the thin wall between booths, Earl and Rebecca could reach out and touch fingertips. Yet each exchange of data must go from Earl to Hoppa Station to Element Earl to Element Rebecca back to Hoppa and La Jolla, a round trip of 964,000,000 miles in a fraction of a second, thanks to the SLIPPR technology, which pumps data at 300 times the speed of light. For years Earl grew excited every time he thought about the process; now, of course, he finds even the tiniest glitch or lag to be an annoyance.

Today he even finds the traverse on Europa to be less than totally engaging. He is re-covering the same ground as the earlier traverse, in essence, crawling through an icy ditch for the second time.

But then he emerges onto a spot of flat ground, notes the tracks of Element Rebecca and its power unit on his original route, and veers off.

This is more challenging, up and down the slopes at an amazing five kilometers an hour. It feels like sailing in the open sea.

Then, just as Earl has grown comfortable with the traverse, Element Earl stalls on a slope that is slightly too steep. He is also in a shadow. Several data packets are squirted back, forth, and around, their tone as close to panic as the operators and mission control ever get. Earl is encouraged to let Element Earl slip backwards down the icy slope in search of traction. Meanwhile, the Hoppa base unit will try to find a passable route —

Now the temperature readout, having gotten no higher than a sixth of the way up its scale, starts to plummet, like a barometer just before a storm. Earl finds this troubling, but knows that turning around now would mean doom.

“Back up twenty-two meters,” Haas says on the voice loop. “We’ve got something here.”

Element Earl slowly retraces his path — blindly, since the camera only points forward — but surely, since each turn of his wheels has been recorded and can be replayed precisely in reverse. Out of the shadow into the light.

Then forward into what appears to be a narrow passage in a wall of ice. Left. Left again. Temperature rising again. Good. Had it dropped much more, Earl would have had to begin the lengthy disengagement process —

Ping! It’s Element Rebecca pulsing him, in direct line of sight. One more turn to the left, and Element Earl has visual, not only on Rebecca, but on Element Asif, the power rover, behind.

There is time for one slight push, an expensive one in terms of power. An electrical arc leaps between them, a common enough event when two machines touch in a vacuum. The event startles both Earls, and causes the displays to drop out for a moment.

Then all is well. Element Rebecca slews free, and continues backing up, clearing the way for Earl to approach Asif. “The drill site is that way. Follow me.”

• • • •

“How do you like the work so far?” Earl has checked into Rebecca’s background and knows that the J²E² mission is her first. Just as he knows that her personal history makes him look like a model of stability, with three marriages (none lasting longer than four years) and at least one other semi-famous liaison. No children. Remembering a phrase from his youth, Earl has decided that Rebecca has commitment issues.

“Europa? It reminds me of home.”

“You must have grown up someplace very cold and a long time ago.” Which is a joke, since by 2026, after thirty years of global warming, there aren’t many cold places left on the planet.

“It’s not so much the cold,” she says. “It’s big Jupiter. My parents were teachers in B.C., British Columbia. We lived in a place called Garibaldi, which had this gigantic rockface hanging over it. It always creeped me out. Jupiter feels like that.”

They are having martinis as they watch the sun set from the stern of Earl’s boat, the Atropos, in its slip in Mission Bay. Both have been drained by the experience on Europa today, which required them to operate for six hours in Rebecca’s case, and ten in Earl’s — much longer than the usual three. In spite of his initial feeling that he and Rebecca will never have anything beyond a professional relationship, Earl has accepted her invitation for a drink. A tribute to his stamina, she says.

Hoping to control the agenda, he suggested they come to his boat. Where he pours a second round, as a tribute to her courage, he says, and now Earl is feeling the effects of the alcohol, something he does not enjoy. But he would rather stay here overlooking the Pacific than return to his condo.

“How about you?” she says. “You’ve been doing this work almost from the beginning.”

Earl is not one for introspection or emotion, or so he believes. “It’s a great way to be on the cutting edge of exploration at an age when everyone else is retired.”

She nods, amused at the banality of this. “Yeah, let’s strike a blow for our demo. Age shall not only not wither, it shan’t even slow us down.” Then she looks at him closely. “Earl, forgive me, we hardly know each other, but you don’t look well.”

And then, his barriers eroded by vodka, he starts to weep. “I’ve got a growth in my neck.” In spite of his reservations, he reaches for her, and she takes him in.

• • • •

During the next week, the elements on Europa move into position. Element Earl stays in Pathfinder mode, blazing a trail to the crevasse picked out years ago by prior orbiting imagers. Element Rebecca follows, and deploys her drilling rig. Element Asif sets up nearby, a portable power station for the submersible operation. And the cargo element begins its trek from Hoppa carrying the submersible that will soon be sinking through Europa’s ice into the mysterious darkness below.

The operations run relatively smoothly, with only nagging glitches caused by momentary loss of signal and a few jounces from J-quakes.

Here’s the funny thing about elements like Earl and Rebecca: They are only being operated during critical maneuvers, perhaps a few hours out of every twenty-four. The rest of the time, when not powered down or recharging, they are autonomous.

There is a persistent feeling among all operators that their elements retain some of their personalities, even when the link is gone. It’s silly, of course. As Earl’s idiot instructor once said, “A turned-off light bulb doesn’t remember that it used to give light!” To which Earl, in spite of his agreement with the instructor’s point, answered, “A mobile computer with several gigabytes of memory is not a goddamn light bulb.”

Every time Earl and Rebecca go back into operation, they find that Earl, no matter what his last programmed position, has returned to the crevice where Element Rebecca chews through the ice. “I think it might be a case of love at first bite,” Rebecca tells Earl one night, as they walk along the dock, hand-in-hand.

Earl’s response is to kiss her, though he stops a bit sooner than she would like. “I won’t break,” she tells him, playfully.

“I might, though.” Earl feels frail, or dishonest. He has told Rebecca everything the doctors told him, that the growth is malignant, but that chemo and radiation and even some experimental genetic treatments might knock it down. For the first few days after being slammed with the news, he almost laughed it off, knowing he could fight and win. But the first rounds of chemo left him shaken. The horizon of his life has drawn closer, like that of an ice plain on Europa compared to the Pacific.

“I’ll be gentle,” she says, kissing him again. Rebecca’s intensity has helped. It’s as if she is offering her own strength as another form of treatment.

This is an evening in winter, with the marine layer already rolling in from the west, shrouding the hills of Point Loma across the bay. Earl is lost in them. “Still plowing snow on Europa?” she says, fishing for a connection.

“No. Thinking about a trip I’ve wanted to make.” He nods out to sea. “Catalina Island’s out there, a hundred miles away. I’ve always wanted to sail up and never have.”

“Doesn’t AGC give vacations?”

“Sure. But nobody wants to take one with an op in progress.”

“This one will end.”

“For you,” he says, meaning Element Rebecca, who only has so much drilling to accomplish before she is shunted off to the side, to a secondary mapping mission for which she is ill-equipped. “Sorry,” he adds, realizing how shitty and snappish he sounds. “I just — ”

She touches a finger to his lips. “Sshh. I know exactly what you mean. I knew the ops plan when I signed up.”

Within a few steps they reach the Atropos, and the sight of it bobbing in the twilight raises Earl’s spirits. By the time he has finished rigging it for an evening sail, he feels strong enough to face anything, and slightly ashamed of his earlier weakness. “Love at first byte,” he says, laughing. “I just now got it.”

• • • •

As the drilling proceeds, Element Earl is relegated to geological surveys of the area further to the north and east of the site. He finds it smoother, icier, and flatter than the terrain around Hoppa Station, and Earl himself wonders again why that location was chosen, only to be told by Haas that it provided easier access to the crevasse. Or so it seemed.

In any case, the flight control team and the science support group are completely consumed by the descent of the submersible element through the ice and “the beginnings of the first real search for life in the history of human exploration of the solar system” — at least, according to the AGC website.

The cargo unit has replaced Element Rebecca at the drillhead, and she has been moved off to her secondary mission as well, mapping to the south and east of the hole in the ice, her data combined with Element Earl’s to give a multi-dimensional picture of the terrain. They amuse themselves by giving completely inappropriate southern California names to Europan landmarks: Point Loma for an ice lake, the Beach and Tennis Club for a jumble of ice boulders, Angeles Crest for a jagged crevasse, Catalina Island for a passageway visible on the far end of Point Loma.

Neither element can venture too far away, of course, since they need to be in line-of-sight comm every few hours. Whenever Earl suits up, he finds himself strangely comforted by the sight of Element Rebecca — shiny, box-like, asymmetrical, and small — through Element Earl’s sensors.

• • • •

In between shifts, Earl deals with ex-wives Kerry and Julianne. The old bitterness toward and from Kerry still garbles communications between them, the way a solar flare degrades the SLIPPR link. The fact of Earl’s new condition only means that Kerry will allow some sympathy and tenderness to leak into encounters that have been frosty for years. The same applies to the children, Ben and Marcy.

Julianne, who ultimately left Earl four years ago, is consumed by guilt, and offers herself as everything from nurse to sexual partner, until Earl’s work schedule and general moodiness cause her to remember why she ran off in the first place. Rebecca’s presence makes her feel superfluous.

Then there is Jordan, who takes time from her family and flies to La Jolla for a visit. She meets Rebecca, and offers her approval, and will be present whenever Earl needs her. At the moment, that’s not often. He believes he will beat the disease — at least postponing his inevitable doom by five years.

A month to the day after meeting Rebecca, after his diagnosis, Earl shows up at AGC mission control with his head shaved. Concerned about his privacy, and surprised, Rebecca can’t ask him why until hours later.

“I start chemo on Monday,” Earl says, tentatively rubbing his shiny dome. “The hair is going to be the first casualty.”

“Not right away!” she says, protesting.

“No. But everyone will be able to see it coming out in clumps, and I’d rather not display my deterioration so soon.”

Rebecca’s despair over Earl’s change in looks — the pale, naked skull is not an improvement — and Earl’s own ambivalence over what may have been a self-destructive impulse are lost in the broad spectrum noise emerging from the science support room at AGC mission control. The submersible element, after three weeks of increasingly frustrating dives in the lightless freezing slurry that is Europa-under-the-crust, has picked up motion at the very limit of its sonar system.

Is it some sort of animal or plant life? Or is it a spurious signal? The science team and its journalistic symbionts spread the news anyway.

When Earl and Rebecca return to AGC early the next day for their shifts, they are forced to park off the site and walk through the crowd that has gathered.

Earl, just out of a chemo session, is weakened by the walk and the wait to a degree he finds astonishing. He barely has the strength to zip up his SLIPPR suit, alarming the medical support team, who know by now that he has a “problem.”

Even Rebecca finds herself distracted and jittery when she finally dons her SLIPPR suit to resume the mapping operation.

It is Element Rebecca and Element Earl who find themselves together on the Europan ice plain. “Just imagine,” Rebecca says, thumping one of her manipulators on the surface, “something is swimming around down there.”

“Yeah, the submersible.”

“Come on! I mean some Europan jellyfish! Doesn’t that excite you?”

“Only because it means we accomplished the mission.”

“That’s not very romantic.”

“Who said I was romantic?”

“You did. You and your blue eyes and your goddamned boat and sailing to Catalina — ”

“Well, I’m not feeling very romantic these days. Unless dying of the same disease that killed U.S. Grant and Babe Ruth is romantic.”

In La Jolla, Rebecca forms an answer, but even at three hundred-plus times light speed, there is not enough time to relay it, because Element Rebecca has rolled across a thin sheet of ice insufficient to support even a mass of a twenty kilograms.

The ice cracks, separates. As Element Earl helplessly records the scene from a distance of sixty-five meters, Element Rebecca teeters in the fissure, antenna slewing one way, the drilling arm swinging forward in what can only be a desperate search for traction, then silently disappears into a crevasse.

• • • •

The aftermath of the event is prolonged and messy. There is only momentary loss of comm between Rebecca and her element, because Element Earl moves into position at the rim of the crevasse and provides line-of-sight.

Rebecca herself experiences the loss of support and the beginning of a terrifying plunge just as surely as if she’d been standing on the Europan ice in person.

Then there is nothing.

Then there comes a rattle of almost randomly-scattered data bits, quickly telling Rebecca that her element is wedged on its side in a fissure of ice, that her drilling arm and camera have been torn off. She is blind, broken, beyond reach.

But alive. Her radio-thermal power source ensures that Element Rebecca will continue to send data for the next several years.

Nauseous from his medication and the horrifying accident, Earl can do nothing but wait, though not silently. Even while operating Element Earl, he has grown irritated with the mission control team’s obvious distraction, as the ghost sonar squiggle of a theoretical Europan life form is played over and over again. “Haas,” he snaps on the open loop, “drop the Ahab routine and pay some fucking attention here.”

“No need to get nasty, Earl,” Haas says. “We’re on top of things.”

“If you were on top of things, she wouldn’t have fallen.”

“Earl,” Rebecca says. “It’s okay.”

Hearing her voice quiets him, as does the false serenity of the Europan landscape. Jupiter is at the edge of his field of vision. The sight angers him. Big, fat useless ball of ice —

Then he sees nothing at all. The link between Element Earl and La Jolla still functions, but the La Jolla end has failed.

• • • •

Earl Tolan is taken to UCSD Medical Center, where he dies four hours later. The cause of death is listed as a heart attack; the real cause is almost certainly complications from throat cancer and related treatment.

Once over her shock at the double loss of a single day — Element Rebecca and Earl himself — Rebecca sees the unexpected heart attack as a blessing, saving Earl and Rebecca and Jordan the horror of the almost certain laryngectomy and talking through a stoma and more radiation and the swelling and the pain and the horror of knowing that it will never get better, only worse.

Rebecca helps Jordan dispose of Earl’s possessions. The Atropos is the trickiest of them, ultimately sold for a pittance in a depressed boating market.

The submersible element records more ghost blips before falling silent, a victim of cold, several weeks past its design life. Rebecca resigns from the operator program and is reassigned to AGC’s “advanced planning” unit, helping with the design of a new set of elements for another Europan mission.

One day three months after that awful day she returns to mission control, dons a SLIPPR suit and spends a few moments on the icy plains of Europa with Element Earl.

Her last command aims him across Point Loma toward distant Catalina.

© 2001 by Michael Cassutt.

Originally published in Sci Fiction.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Cassutt has been publishing fiction and non-fiction for close to forty years, with short stories in such publications as The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov’s SF, as well as several best of the year anthologies. He has also published several novels, including a trilogy written with David S. Goyer that concluded with Heaven’s Fall (Ace, 2013). His five non-fiction books deal with space exploration. Cassutt’s primary work, however, is in television drama, where he has writing or producing credits on such series as The Twilight Zone, Max Headroom, Eerie, Indiana, The Outer Limits, and The Dead Zone. More recently he has been Co-Executive Producer of SyFy Channel’s new Z Nation. He lives in Los Angeles.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight.

Men of Unborrowed Vision

Jeremiah Tolbert

We are not terrorists. We have not done this because we wish to terrify or instill fear. We do what we have done in order to bring the truth to everyone, a truth that burns away the lies and leaves only itself.

We are no more terrorists than the invisible hand of the market is a terrorist.

• • • •

The drone cameras came online earlier than the controls — the two fish-eye camera lenses giving Mara 270 degrees of vision stitched together in one widescreen video feed. The sync icon turned from orange to green, and she pressed the right joystick on her scavenged Xbox controller to throttle up the props on the quadcopter.

Flying felt like waking up on a Saturday morning and realizing you had two whole days without work or school. This part always made her smile. It even felt real, although the drone she was flying was three hundred miles away in Kansas City.

The drone gently took to the air; Mara piloted it away from the parking garage where the Occupy Heartland street-level team had hidden the solar charging station and network relay unit. She’d flown this route over to the protest zone often enough this semester that she didn’t even have to refer to GPS anymore. She navigated out of the East Bottoms toward Main and the H&R Block building where the OHL protestors were scheduled to gather.

A knock sounded at her door. Mara jumped, and the quadcopter’s auto-stabilizers kicked in and prevented her from crashing it to the pavement.

“Hey, Mara.”

She could guess who it was without taking her eyes off the drone’s feeds. “Hi, Adam.”

“You had dinner yet? Some of us on the floor are headed down to the dining hall. I — we thought we’d check and see if you wanted to come with.”

She looked up for a moment — the drone’s software would keep it on track, and she was still a minute away from the protest site. Adam Roth stood on the threshold of her dorm room, looking too tall, too thin, too pale-skinned, and sporting a wisp of a beard — God, she couldn’t wait for Movember to be over.

What was it, the third time this week he’d asked her to socialize? And how many times had he offered to give her a ride to the local Walmart since the start of the year? He was pretty obviously into her, but she hadn’t decided how she felt about him just yet — anyway, she’d promised Dad she wouldn’t date anyone in her first semester, let alone spoiled, rich white boys from Chicago with guilt complexes about their money. Even if she hadn’t, she didn’t have time — between her volunteer work that had her remotely monitoring the Occupy protests for signs of law enforcement overreach and her eighteen-credit semester, she barely had time to sleep.

“Sorry, I grabbed something earlier. I’ve got this monitoring shift,” she said.

“Oh.” He didn’t do a very good job of hiding his disappointment. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Sure, maybe?” she said, but she was already turning back to her computer. Eventually, he would get the hint and stop asking. She hoped so — or at least she thought she hoped so.

She frowned at the video feed. Ordinarily, her view would be of several thousand protestors waving signs and chanting slogans against the corporate kleptocracy; the march was scheduled to kick off any minute. Instead, she found a relatively empty street, just the usual foot and car traffic. Nothing like any of the dozens of protests she’d seen since joining the movement.

She put the drone in standby mode and logged into the message boards via anonymous proxy. Had they canceled things and she’d missed it while she was in bio class? No . . . but there had been a lot of activity on the forum.

Mara read the posts with mounting disbelief. Dozens of people saying the same things: “Not feeling well,” or “Coming down with a cold,” or “Can’t make it out tonight.” Youth4ClasslessSocieT even said, “I just ain’t feeling it, you guys. Sorry. Maybe next time.”

Youth4ClasslessSocieT was Carlton Winstead, Mara’s high school classmate, sort-of ex-boyfriend, and the entire reason she was involved with OHL. He was the most politically aware person she’d ever met. There was zero chance he wasn’t “feelin’ it.”

The hairs on Mara’s neck stood up, and she couldn’t shake the sensation that she was in some kind of bad dream. She wrote a post describing the view from her drone and attached some snapshots to drive her point home.

“Every single one of us decided not to come to the rally? WTF?” She periodically checked the drone’s feed as she typed, hoping she’d gotten the time wrong, anything.

What was that old joke — what if they held a revolution and nobody came? Maybe this was a reality TV stunt. Was the joke on her?

Mara watched the non-protest until the battery indicator on the drone required her to fly it back to the base station, which wrapped up her shift of documenting and reporting on any overly aggressive police action taken against the rally. She filed official reports with the usual humanitarian monitoring sites and then scrambled to study for tomorrow’s Calc II test before exhaustion overtook her.

• • • •

Mara consoled herself regarding her miserable performance on her test with a visit to the campus café for a mini-pizza and a chance to finally check the discussion boards for news. She scanned the tables for a place to sit and accidentally made eye contact with Adam.

He waved her over. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen him. Mara sighed and walked to his table in the corner.

Adam was poking away at a latest-model tablet computer, something from one of the new Indian companies that were springing up thanks to the Parliament there passing new laws crushing their labor movement. Mara tried — but saw from his reaction — that she had failed to repress her scowl.

“Yeah,” Adam said, slipping it into his messenger bag. “I know. Gift from my parents. It’s like they want to embarrass me. How are you?”

She shrugged. “I bombed my calc test. Up too late last night.”

“I saw.” He flushed in a half-charming way. “I mean, I walked past your dorm on my way in from the library and saw your lights were on pretty late. Sorry about the test. Was it the monitoring?”

She shrugged again. Maybe she liked him more than she cared to admit, as tongue-tied as she was getting. “That, and I’m taking way too many classes.”

“I follow the whole Occupy Heartland thing. I really support what they’re trying to do, you know?” He glanced at his bag. “Not that I could tell that to my parents.”

“You mean your millionaire parents aren’t fans of a movement for economic equality?” she asked, feeling kind of terrible even as the words passed her lips.

He laughed. “Go figure, huh?”

“I haven’t had time to check in today. Has OHL said anything about the KC protest fizzling last night?”

Adam frowned. “I haven’t seen anything. What do you mean?”

“There was a protest last night, but nobody came. I seriously mean nobody.” She sat across from him and took a bite of her pizza to buy her some time. How much could she really tell a trust fund brat like Adam? Maybe she could trust him a little. He wasn’t a terrible person by nature, anyway. “Something weird’s going on.”

His eyes widened, and he leaned in, lowering his voice to a pitch that was kind of a turn-on. “I like weird.”

“Uh. Okay. So, people are acting strange in the movement. Talking like they’re not as interested as they used to be. People who would never burn out on it, ever,” she said. “I know that sounds weird, but . . .”

He nodded. “I trust you.”

“I don’t buy the flu season explanation. We’ve protested in flu season before and this has never happened. Something else’s going on.”

Adam sat back in his chair, exhaled slowly. “You mean, like a government conspiracy?”

“Or a corporate one.” She finished her pizza in the silence that followed. Adam stared into the middle distance, his upper lip twitching as he did some kind of calculation.

Mara’s phone blared with an unfamiliar ringtone. The caller ID read: “EMERGENCY ONLY DO NOT CALL.”

“Hello?”

“Mara? I . . . need help.”

“Carlton?” She had never heard him sound so panicked. When she spoke, he groaned like someone had punched him in the stomach.

“Can’t. Don’t talk, listen. Did something horrible. Don’t know what happened. Notes in my room — don’t let them cover it up. I —” Mara could only just make out muffled shouting in the background. “Police! Don’t move!”

The call disconnected.

Mara stared at her phone for a moment, then slipped it into her bag. It wasn’t easy with her hands shaking so badly. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Most of it. Sorry, he was shouting — ”

“That offer for a ride still stand? Look — I don’t like to ask, but I can’t afford a bus ticket right now.” Actually, she hated herself a little for taking advantage of him. She didn’t doubt that Adam would drive her anywhere on the continent if she asked. But whatever trouble Carlton had gotten himself, she had to try and help. “I need to go home.”

“Okay — when?”

“Like, now.”

• • • •

The world is broken. It has taken centuries of human incompetence to reach this place of horrific imbalance. A startling and brave act must be taken to restore balance and end this tyranny.

• • • •

They passed through Des Moines before Adam started in with questions. Mara knew she would owe him some explanation, but had been dreading it anyway.

“So, this Carlton? Is he, like, your boyfriend or something? I mean . . .”

“No.” She sighed. Might as well give him the whole story. “Well, not anymore. We dated for a while. But he decided that heterosexuality wasn’t his thing.”

Adam laughed, sounding kind of relieved. “That had to sting.”

“Not really. I was more into his politics than him anyway.” She paused. “Before I met him, it was like I was walking around half-asleep. I didn’t really care about anything. I wasn’t planning to go to college. If I thought about my future at all, I figured I would end up a janitor like my dad.”

“Your dad’s a janitor?”

“Yeah, some of the time. You got a problem with that?”

Adam didn’t take his eyes off the road, but he waved a hand in a mea culpa gesture. “No, sorry. It’s just that this is the most I’ve heard you talk about yourself all semester.”

“I’m too busy to socialize.” Mara looked out the window to the miles of empty cornfields that rolled and unspooled into the distance behind them. She hadn’t really believed that this was what Iowa looked like — she’d thought that it was a stereotype.

“Please, go on.” Adam said.

“Freshman year in high school, civics class with Mr. Frobisher. This weird-looking kid with rainbow dreads stands up and starts denouncing the class as a brainwashing exercise, saying that ‘civics’ and school in general is just a system to prepare us for factory jobs that don’t even exist anymore. And the whole time he’s going on — and I can’t believe the teacher just let him — he’s looking at me with this look like, ‘Come on. Wake up and see what’s happening around you.’”

“That’s cool. What did you do?”

“Guess I woke up. Nobody but my dad had ever paid that much attention to me before. Later, I asked him why he looked at me the whole time like that. I thought he wanted to get into my pants.”

“What’d he say?”

“Just that I looked like I had potential.”

“Look at you now — he was right.”

“I guess. Sometimes I worry that I’m not doing enough.”

Adam took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. It was something, Mara noticed, that he did before changing subjects.

“Did you find anything online about why he was arrested?”

Mara looked down at her forgotten phone and refreshed her browser. The Star had updated its crime blotter. She hoped she had it wrong, but the address matched Carlton’s building.

“Oh no . . .” Mara’s heart raced and she blinked back tears.

“What? What happened?”

“They’re . . . someone — someone murdered Carlton’s roommate, and they think it was him. But it can’t be! There’s no way! Carlton’s a pacifist. A Buddhist. He’s a vegetarian, for fuck’s sake!”

Adam said nothing, but the buzz of the engine pitched higher as the car accelerated.

• • • •

We call this startling act “The Mechanism.” Like the greatest machines, it will turn without care or concern. The Mechanism is neither good nor evil, but many will ascribe such to it.

The Mechanism is set in motion and it cannot be stopped.

• • • •

It took some asking around on the boards, but Mara finally spoke with Carlton’s lawyer from OHL, a younger woman out of Chicago named Susan Vega with a slight Hispanic accent.

“I only know a little more than you do,” Susan said. “The deal is, there’s not much I can do. Carlton confessed.”

“He what?”

“He’s not talking to the cops now, and he won’t agree to meet with me. Right after they arrested him, he signed a confession. Then he became violent again, according to my contact with the KCPD.”

Carlton, violent?

“Maybe someone drugged him?” she suggested.

“Hmm. Maybe. We’ve been dealing with some pretty underhanded tricks, but that would be a new low. Listen, Mara? I know you want to help, but you have to leave this to me.”

“But — ”

“If there’s anything you can do to help, I’ll ask. Once his OHL connection goes public, we’re going to have a mess on our hands. Do you understand?”

Mara blinked. “So that’s how it is?”

“I’m sure you’re a smart girl. You’re committed to the cause, right?”

Mara hung up and turned to Adam. “The Occupy people aren’t going be any help. How much farther to KC?”

“An hour, maybe.”

“I’m not sure what to do. We can’t get in to see him, and he’s acting weird. The lawyer doesn’t want me poking around.”

“Sounds like a good reason to poke, but I bet the police have cordoned off his apartment since it’s a crime scene.”

“If we try to go in through the door, sure. But maybe we can sneak in through a window.”

“What floor does he live on?”

Mara sighed. “The seventh. The fire escapes are garbage, too. I wouldn’t risk them.” She checked the message boards again. “Disarray” was the word that came to mind. She composed a message pleading for calm until they had all the facts. Several more people were claiming to have gotten the “shut-in” sickness that was going around. One of them was a username she could put a face to: Cyndy Loo, a fiery-haired homeless punk rock girl who attended nearly every protest. Her fire-truck hair made her easy to spot on the monitoring feeds, and she was more hardcore about the goals of the movement than Mara was.

More and more, Mara was convinced that someone had drugged them. But who, and how? Thinking about the drone feeds, however, gave her an idea.

“We don’t climb in through the window,” she said. “We fly in.”

“Oh-kaaaayy,” Adam said.

“The observation drone! Carlton smokes, and I know he never latches his window. I’ll fly the drone over to his window, use the drone to push it open, fly in, and look around. The window should be big enough.”

“Can’t we just hack into his computer or something?”

Mara laughed. “Not everyone in OHL is a master hacker. We’re not Anonymous. Anyway, Carlton keeps his computer unplugged in a makeshift Faraday cage when he isn’t using it.”

Adam glanced at her quickly, then back to the road. “You’re serious. That’s some major paranoia.”

“Paranoid? It’s pragmatic when the government admits to intercepting every cell phone and email. It’s either the drone or you distract the cops by doing something illegal while I sneak in,” she said.

He laughed and nodded. “Okay. Let’s call me getting arrested ‘plan B.’”

• • • •

There will be violence in the coming time of upheaval. Strife is inevitable, as the world is burdened with too many who would destroy the accomplishments of great men. Some will have no choice but to steal from others, as they always have. But the weak will fall, and the just will persevere.

• • • •

Adam parked outside a Starbucks. “Wake me up when it’s time to move,” he said.

Mara nodded.

He leaned his seat back and was asleep in moments. Mara tried to sleep, but her heart beat too fast to allow for sleep. She surfed the web aimlessly until Adam sighed and straightened up in his seat. The dashboard clock said an hour had passed.

“What do you want out of life, Adam? What gets you out of bed each morning?”

“I don’t know yet.” She glared at him until he added: “Look, just about anything I’ve ever wanted, my parents made happen for me. Half the time, it’s easier to let them decide what I want.”

“Maybe what you want is something you can’t easily have?”

“Maybe that’s why I want you,” Adam said. He didn’t even stammer or blush for once. Mara smiled.

“Not a good enough reason for me to date you,” she said. “But who knows; we might find one yet.”

A long moment of silence passed between them.

“Do you know what gets me moving each day?” Mara said. “Helping others. Sure, I believe in God, I guess, but I don’t do it so I can go to heaven. I want to help people because I think it’s the right thing to do. Because others helped me when I wasn’t in a good place. Someone made a difference for me, and I want to pay it back.”

“Like Carlton,” Adam said.

She nodded. “Regular people help each other. At least, we used to. Now . . .” She sighed. “I don’t know. Fuck, what do I know about anything? I’m nineteen. I’m like just self-aware enough to know that I don’t know anything.”

“Well, I think there are two kinds of people: those who are excited about the future, and those who are afraid of it. You sound like you’re excited,” Adam said.

She shook her head. “No, there’s more than that. That’s your background, see? Some don’t have the luxury of thinking ahead. For them, just getting through today is all they can do. Can you imagine living like that?”

He shifted in his seat as though the line of questioning made him uncomfortable. “I guess not.”

“Try,” she said. “If you work on that, maybe you and me, whatever this is, maybe we have a chance. Okay?”

He brightened, and Mara wondered if she had made a mistake just then, but she didn’t know how to take it back. Or if she wanted to.

“Yeah. Okay,” he said. “I’ll work on it.”

• • • •

Mara had barely dozed off when her phone’s alarm woke her. She balanced her laptop on her knees and signed into the Starbucks WiFi, then through a TOR proxy to anonymize her connections.

The drone was sluggish in the chill November air, but the engines warmed up after a minute. The biggest problem was the distance involved; even flying at top speed, she might only have a couple of minutes of battery life by the time she made it to Carlton’s apartment. Not a lot of time to look around.

Adam woke up again just as the drone approached its destination. “Save the world yet?” he mumbled.

“Not really.”

“I’m going to grab something to drink. Want anything?”

“Coffee. Black.”

“Right. Back in a second.”

She panned a camera over to the parking lot. A cop car was parked in a handicapped stall. Assholes. So typical. The car was empty, so the cops had to be standing guard in the hall outside the apartment. If she was lucky, they were out for coffee, but she’d have to make as little noise as she could, keep the drone moving slowly.

She circled the building once to make sure she had her orientation right. It’d been over a year since she’d been to Carlton’s place. It was the night he’d broken up with her. But it looked pretty much how she remembered it: a converted warehouse, upgraded in the aughts into nice condos that hadn’t been quite nice enough to balance against urban flight, sold, and resold again until it was finally turned into Section Eight housing.

Carlton had helped organize the building into a community, started a collectivized daycare and a building watch. Mara had always felt safe there, even if the neighborhood was rough.

The drone’s battery icon turned orange as Mara found Carlton’s window. She tried to swing the quadcopter in close enough to put one of its lander pads against the sliding window, but the proximity feature of the software went off and stabilized the drone away from the wall. She was forced to spend precious seconds going into the options and disabling that function.

Again, she navigated close; this time the blades brushed against the glass of the window. The view on her laptop spun, but thankfully, the auto-stabilization quickly righted the copter.

Adam climbed back inside the car and placed a steaming cup in the holder beside her leg. His fingers brushed against her hip, his touch warm even through the fabric of her slacks.

She gritted her teeth, said nothing, and tried to flip open Carlton’s window again, tilting the copter hard on its side for a moment . . . And it worked! The window was open.

No time for celebration. It took three approaches to get through the window without crashing. Once inside the room, Mara began recording. She panned the camera across the bulletin board covered in notes on his wall, the pads of paper on his disheveled bed; she was careful to move slowly enough to capture solid still images, but not slowly enough that she could actually read any of it right now.

The battery indicator turned red.

She lifted the drone back up to window level and started to turn it away. Then she saw it.

The dark brown stain on the gray carpet by the door.

She hadn’t known Carlton’s roommate well. He was an older boy, in his last year of community college. He wasn’t politically active. Mara couldn’t even remember his name, which pretty much meant she was a horrible person. Carlton always remembered everyone’s name.

“That flashing red light can’t be good,” Adam said. “We can’t let the cops find the drone in there.”

Mara snapped back to the moment, turned the drone away and out the window, just in time for the feed to go blank.

“Well, shit.” Mara let out a long sigh.

“What happened?”

“The drone has an ‘auto-land’ feature but I don’t know how well it will work next to a building. It’s either sitting safe on a fire escape or it crashed to the pavement six stories down and alerted the cops.”

They listened for sirens in the distance, but the city was only just waking up.

“It’s okay. Probably,” she said, and tried not to think about how expensive the drone would be for someone to replace.

“So did you get anything good?”

“I have no idea.” Mara rubbed her eyes. Restless as she had been all night in anticipation of this morning, she was now completely exhausted. “You know what? I want to sleep in a real bed. Let’s go to my dad’s place; he’s probably left for work already.”

“Sounds — ”

“You can sleep on the couch,” she added hastily.

• • • •

The Mechanism does no direct harm, so long as those it works upon live forever in a natural state, independent and truly free.

No — the coming deaths are on the shoulders of collectivism and the socialist machine that perverts and destroys our true selves in order to support the burden of the takers.

• • • •

When Mara woke from her nap, she found Adam sitting at her dad’s small kitchen table with her laptop. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted to go through the footage.”

She did mind, but she was still too tired to get angry. “Okay,” she said, opening the fridge. Wasn’t much in it besides a wedge of cheese and some beer. Maybe Dad just hadn’t been shopping this week. Or maybe he’d been laid off again. But he would’ve told her about that, she hoped.

“Your friend really went down the rabbit hole on this one,” Adam said. “All kinds of bizarre conspiracy theories. You ever heard of chemtrails?”

“Not really. Like contrails that planes make?”

Adam grinned. “Exactly. Some people see contrails, and they think that these aren’t just condensation. Like maybe the government is poisoning us or something.”

“Carlton thinks he was poisoned by the government?” Mara took a seat across from Adam. “That’s . . . hard to believe.”

“Well, look at this.” He pointed at the screen, and she walked around to get a better view. There was a still frame — obviously taken from a monitoring video — of one of the protests in downtown Kansas City. Carlton had circled an object in red.

“What is that?” she asked, squinting.

“It’s a reflection of the observation drone on the side of a building.”

The drone didn’t look right. It had extra equipment attached to the legs that Mara didn’t recognize, and there appeared to be some kind of haze coming off the bottom of the drone, below the cameras. “What’s that stuff coming out of it?”

“A very good question. It’s this printout that has me convinced. It’s from one of those confessional postcard sites.” Adam turned the laptop around. The screen displayed a still frame of a printout of a nondescript postcard that Carlton had heavily highlighted.

I’m a biochemist at a private research facility. For the past three years, I have been part of a team designing a nonlethal crowd control bioweapon. I studied T. Gondii because I wanted to help people, but now I think my work will be used to hurt them.

“What the hell is T. gondii?” she said.

“I googled that. It’s Toxoplasma gondii, a protozoa. Scientists like it because it’s one of the most well understood bugs that alters behavior in mammals. It infects mice and makes them want to be around cats, who kill them and eat them. I guess if you wanted to, say, modify human behavior to make them more docile, it might be a good place to start. A third of the population is already infected with it anyway. There’s some speculation that it’s linked to paranoid schizophrenia.”

“Someone set up our own observation drones to infect the protestors with a microscopic bug that causes schizophrenia?”

Adam winced. “When you phrase it that way, it sounds even crazier.”

“Because it is crazy,” Mara said. “Tear gas, which is banned by the fucking Geneva Conventions, sonic crowd control that makes us vomit, or maybe even non-lethal poison, sure, but nobody would dose protestors with bioweapons, would they?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s what Carlton believed.”

The front door slammed. Mara heard her father call out: “Hello? Who’s there? You best get your ass out of my house if you know what’s good for ya!”

“Dad!” She ran from the kitchen to the living room and wrapped her towering father’s waist in a huge hug. Mara silently thanked God he was wearing his janitor’s uniform and wasn’t carrying a case of beer.

“I shoulda known,” he said softly. “Saw that boyfriend of yours on the news this morning. Did he do it?”

“I don’t know, Dad. I’m trying to figure that out.”

“Hello, sir,” Adam said, joining them in the cramped living room. “I’m Adam — Mara’s friend from school.”

Mara let Dad go so he could shake hands with Adam. “Nice to meet you,” he said. He glanced at Mara out of the corner of his eye. With just that tiny little expression, she could feel his disapproval.

“I should have called,” Mara said sheepishly.

“I suppose,” her dad said with a smile. “I forgive ya anyway. Want some dinner?”

Mara shrugged. “I’ve seen the fridge.”

“Oh, damn. I forgot to go shopping. I’ll get on over to the corner store and fix you up a pot of chili for supper. How’s that sound, Adam?”

“That sounds amazing, sir.”

Looking as bone weary as ever, he departed before Mara could muster a complaint.

Mara went back through the notes Adam had compiled, just to be sure there wasn’t a more plausible explanation. She read up on Toxoplasma.

“This is crazy, isn’t it?” she said aloud. “I mean, if Carlton is nuts, then if we’re relying on his notes, we’re batshit, too, right?”

“We should go pay a visit to someone else who might be infected, see if they’re showing any violent symptoms like Carlton,” Adam suggested. “But maybe pick up some biohazard suits first.”

• • • •

Those who are self-sufficient will survive — they who live in the purity of truth, to the fullest of their potential.

To those who are not, you will be a danger to yourself and others.

This is the only warning you will receive. If you ignore us, then the blood of your victims is on your hands. Not ours.

For some, it is already too late.

• • • •

Mara left a hasty, apologetic note to her dad, and they walked from the apartment complex down a couple of side streets, cut across half-abandoned athletic fields, then onto east St. John Avenue.

“Where are we headed?”

“A campsite for the homeless where Cyndy lives sometimes. The police and city public works shut it down every couple of years, but then a few weeks later, people move back in. Looks great on the media, makes for some headlines, but doesn’t really change anything. It gets really cold here in the winter, so some people started digging holes to shelter in, and those holes turned into a bunch of tunnels. Folks add to them and rebuild them after the city bulldozes them.”

“Wow,” Adam said. “Points for ingenuity.”

The camp, at least on the surface, was a few tarps tied between sickly trees and some campfires just out of sight of the road. It looked cold and miserable, but more inviting than the cold concrete of downtown streets.

Mara asked a couple of young men standing next to one of the fires for directions. She’d seen one of them at protests in the past. He pointed them to a solitary tunnel at the fringes of the camp.

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” he warned. “That girl be crazy.”

“Crazy how?” Adam asked.

“Keeps screamin’ at people,” said the other. “Can I have five dollars?”

Mara gave him the change in her pockets. “If you see anyone else acting like Cyndy, tell the police. They might be dangerous.”

“Shit, girl. Everbody out here dangerous.” But he nodded and pocketed her money.

At the mouth of the tunnel — which wasn’t really much more than a four-foot-wide dirt hole in the side of a hill — Mara called Cyndy’s name, then listened. Someone inside answered with a whimper.

“What was Cyndy like before all this?” Adam whispered.

“Friendly. Personable, I guess. But . . . you know, troubled. Had things been different, she would probably be in college kicking our GPAs’ asses.” She turned to the tunnel and cupped her mouth with both hands. “Cyndy! It’s Mara. We want to help!”

“Go away!” a young woman’s voice inside said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Cyndy, please, we think we might know what’s going on — ”

“Shut up!” Cyndy screamed. “Stop TALKING!”

Mara looked to Adam. “Any ideas?”

“We could drag her to the nearest hospital?” Mara pointed over his shoulder, and he turned to see the small crowd of homeless people gathering to watch. “Or we could absolutely not do that. That might be the better idea.”

Mara rubbed her eyes. “Seems like she can’t stand the sound of people talking to her. Could that be the Toxoplasma? What do we do?”

“Do you think Cyndy has a cellphone?” Adam asked.

“No, a lot of OHL people don’t carry them because they think they’ll be tracked. But how would that help?”

“I bet she can still read and write text.”

Mara’s eyes widened. She took out her phone, pulled up Adam’s contact, and sent him a “test” text message, then threw her phone inside the hole and waited. After a moment, she heard someone shifting around inside the dark. “You are a genius, Adam.”

Adam’s phone buzzed. Mara snatched it from his hands before he could do anything.

Cyndy: who is this

Mara: Mara from Occupy Heartland how do you feel?

Cyndy: afraid of people they get 2 close I try to hurt them. I’m crazy

Mara: no, u are not crazy. Do u think u could go to hospital?

Cyndy: no no no no don’t try 2 come in I have a knif

Mara: okay, hang tight we will try 2 figure it out. Keep phone.

Mara turned to the crowd. “Cyndy is sick, and she can’t control herself. You need to stay away from her for now. She won’t hurt you if you don’t try to get too close. Okay?”

The crowd murmured in agreement. It would have to do. Mara started walking.

“Now what?” Adam asked.

“I don’t have a fucking clue.”

“We can call the media. Tell them what we figured out.”

“I can picture the headlines: ‘OHL claim corporations infecting protestors with anti-socialness.’ They already think we’re a joke.”

“Tell the OHL lawyer then!”

Mara forced a laugh. She walked faster, not sure why she was in a hurry. She was out of ideas. “Anything that makes the movement look bad will just get ‘lost.’ Like Carlton.”

• • • •

Ayn Rand once spoke of “men of unborrowed vision.” We have worked to be those men. Our actions will stop the cancer of socialism and collectivism that is eroding the human spirit. We will save the human race by making the moralistic barriers against social reliance concrete and physical ones.

God demanded that we become the correction to the natural way of existence.

He also demanded sacrifice.

• • • •

Dinner with Dad was quiet, thanks to Mara’s pointed stares any time her father looked like he was about to ask a question. To his credit, he could read her signals and knew well enough to wait until Adam excused himself to the restroom.

“Are you dating this Adam boy?” Dad whispered. In his two-bedroom apartment, no room was very far from another, but the bathroom was just off the hall to the kitchen.

“He’s just a friend, Dad.”

Her father smiled. “Too bad. I like him.”

“You made me promise not to see anyone!”

He laughed. “I didn’t think you would actually keep that promise. I just want you to keep your priorities. Elisabeth and I didn’t do a good job of that, but you can do better at balancing your life.” He always called her mother Elisabeth, and not “your mother.” She thought the word stung him sometimes.

“I’m not sure I can,” Mara said. “I dropped everything for Carlton. Who knows what this is going to do to my grades.”

“This is how I know you’re a good person,” he said. “School is important, of course, but friends and family come first. That’s how it should be.”

“Uh . . . okay, Dad.” She stood and kissed him on the forehead. “Thanks.”

“Things going to work out okay for Carlton?” Dad asked.

Mara bit her lip to keep from crying. She shook her head. “I . . . don’t think so. I think he did it. But he didn’t mean to, Dad. He’s sick.”

Her father said nothing; he simply wrapped her in his arms and hugged her again.

“Mara!” Adam called out. “You’d better come in here.”

Mara rushed to find Adam standing in front of the television. A familiar man was talking on the news channel. He had a beard, and the lighting was dim. He stood in front of a cinderblock wall, and he was making emphatic gestures with his hands. The crawl underneath said:

HOMEGROWN TERROR PLOT REVEALED?

“Who is that?” Dad asked.

“John Bloch. He’s the one of the richest men in the country,” Adam said. “I thought he was dead. Nobody’s seen or heard from him since his wife and daughter died in a train derailment a couple years ago.”

Adam turned up the volume, and the three gathered close to listen.

• • • •

Some will call us hypocrites for working together with our singular vision to create the Mechanism. It is true. We are hypocrites. But the results will justify our means, and the Mechanism reworks us now, too. We and our families will suffer for our actions, as it should be.

This is not how we wished things would end. We had grander plans to save you, but even Lucifer was burned by the fire.

The Mechanism interacted with a flu strain to spread faster than we had anticipated. Our tests ran rampant. The project is in God’s hands now.

By the time you witness this, the Mechanism will be in place, and the Men of Unborrowed Vision will be dead. The teeth of tyrannical governments can gnaw on our wretched bones, but they too will fall, as will all artifice.

• • • •

The video finished airing and the news cut back to the baffled anchors discussing the strange recording that had been delivered to all the major media outlets. Adam’s phone played a snippet of some old rock song about teachers leaving kids alone. On the sixth repeat, he finally stopped staring at the TV and answered his phone. Mara thought he looked paler than usual. He pointed to the phone and mouthed the word: “Parents.”

“Hi, Dad.” A long pause while Adam’s father spoke. “Yes, I am. How do you even know where my car is?” Pause. “A tracker? It shouldn’t really surprise me that you would violate — ” Loud argumentative words, unintelligible whispered from the phone. Adam was red-faced now — Mara had never seen him so angry. “Yes. Okay. Fine. Email me the itinerary.” He hung up.

“Did I get you in trouble?” Mara asked.

He shook his head. “I’m always in trouble. I think my parents might know something about all of this, but they won’t say what. They want me to go get treatment at a clinic run by a friend of theirs.”

“Where?”

Adam checked his phone. “A place in Chicago. If you come with me, I’ll make sure they give you a shot, too.”

Mara shook her head. “And my father? What about him?”

“Don’t worry about me, honey. This all sounds like a bunch of nonsense.”

“Yes,” Adam said. “Him, too.”

“And Cyndy?”

“What?”

“What about everyone else in OHL who is infected?”

“I can’t . . .”

Mara took his hands in hers and looked him in the eyes. “That’s right. You can’t help everybody. It’s not your fight. Go and get your treatment. I have a feeling it’s worth fuck-all anyway. A man like Bloch only buys the best bioweapons when he wants to end the world. So use whatever advantages you can. And if your parents are part of this, tell them that I’m coming for them and everyone like them.” The last sentence became a snarl. She was done with calm now.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Now you know what it’s like for the rest of us without the privilege of wealth and power,” Mara said softly.

Adam laughed. “Great.” He paused. “I’m just . . . fucking terrified. I don’t want to believe any of it, Mara.”

“Maybe it’s a hoax. But after what we’ve been through the past couple of days, I think it’s real. Shit, they’ve been trying to break us since before you or I were born. My whole life, they’ve been trying to break us. This is just a new club. And sure, they’ve got money and their designer fucking disease, but there’s one advantage we have over them; don’t you know what that is?”

“What?”

“Sheer fucking numbers. There will always be more of us than them.” She waited for him to say something.

Adam flushed and looked away. “I’ll come back,” he whispered. “I’ll bring help.”

“You don’t have to promise me anything,” Mara said. She let go of his hands. Adam stopped for a long moment, and Mara silently begged him not to say anything else. Not to ruin it with bullshit.

He left without another word, slamming the front door shut behind him. The sound shattered her composure and the silence in equal measure. It was several minutes before she pulled herself back together.

Maybe she could trust him. Maybe she couldn’t. After what they’d been through, she could understand his fear. But fear was a luxury, a rare commodity. Right now, she was flush with seething anger.

Fear was worthless. A paralyzer. Anger was something she could work with. Anger could be harnessed to productive ends.

She watched from the window as Adam drove away to his magic cure. As he passed from sight, she put any thoughts of him and whatever they had away. She sat at her dad’s tiny kitchen table, took out her laptop, and began to write. She addressed the chaos that was the OHL forums:

Fuck Bloch. He’s wrong about us and I’m going to prove it.

If we’re going to survive, we have to set aside fear and work together. What better way to spit in the face of a terrorist than to do exactly the opposite of what he wants?

We fight back. We organize house-to-house deliveries, we use the collective smarts of the Internet and we solve this. Together. That will really piss him off.

Now . . . who’s with me?

© 2015 by Jeremiah Tolbert.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeremiah Tolbert has published fiction in Lightspeed, Fantasy Magazine, Interzone, Asimov’s, and Shimmer, as well as in the anthologies The Way of the Wizard, Seeds of Change, Federations, and Polyphony 4. He’s also been featured several times on the Escape Pod and PodCastle podcasts. In addition to being a writer, he is a web designer, photographer, and graphic artist. He lives in Kansas, with his wife and son.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight.

Headwater LLC

Sequoia Nagamatsu

Bottled at the Source

Masa makes a deep bow as Yoko holds a plastic bottle beneath him, waiting for the water to drain like a tea garden waterfall from Masa’s bowl-shaped head. A trainee at Headwater Bottled Refreshments stands behind Masa with a hose, filling his head up to the brim after he finishes his bow. “We have to wait five minutes before filling more bottles,” Yoko says. “The water needs time to change.” The frosted glass walls of the factory are like clouds hovering over the river outside at dawn. Masa is standing on the cold linoleum floor; both of his ankles are shackled to heavy chains. The trainee shuffles to the lounge to smoke. Yoko picks up a tray of sliced cucumbers and hand-feeds Masa, avoiding his forlorn and tired eyes.

Situated in the same village that Yoko grew up in, on the same plot of fertile land where her parents had once farmed rice, Headwater’s ganglion network of hallways is located almost entirely underground. Its only marker on the surface is a ten-story funnel, open to the sky like a monumental Victrola. It is the heart of the company, according to the Headwater blog, and not the Kappa, the mythical, amphibious creatures of Japan with pools of water in their heads that grace the company’s anime logo.

Erectile dysfunction, Seasonal Affective Disorder, male pattern baldness — newscasters list the seemingly endless miracle cures from customer testimonials around the world. “They somehow drugged it,” says a representative of AquaLuv, one of Headwater’s competitors. “People are looting stores, gangs are dealing bottles on the street. No one loves water that much.”

In vast, desiccated oceans of sand and heat, Bedouins attest to happier camels and less arduous journeys. Headwater is the official drink of the Olympics, NASA, Japan League baseball, and nearly every teenage pop idol, believing their breasts will grow larger if they pour Headwater over themselves in music videos. Headwater, as it slogan reads, is health, vitality, and a better life.

Orientation

Yoko reviews the company rules, projected on both sides of the outside corridor, to the trainee. One — Do not drink the water; Two — Always wear your I.D. badge; Three — Leaving company grounds is strictly forbidden without permission (failure to comply will result in termination); Four — All contact with the outside world will be monitored; Five — Do not become emotionally attached to your Kappa; Six — Never leave a full head of water in your Kappa unattended; Seven — Failure to meet quotas will result in reduced leisure and food rations; and Eight — Reproduction of these regulations in any form is prohibited.

Yoko can already tell why this one was recruited, as the trainee reads Regulation Eight again and throws his notes into the dust box. She has gone through hundreds of trainees over the years, including the chief executive officers of the company — her childhood friends and partners in founding Headwater. There are over 500 Kappa in the facility, producing an average of 25,000 bottles per day and 700,000 bottles every month with the aid of over 2,000 residential employees — bottlers, security guards, cooks, doctors, and custodial staff.

“Why can’t we leave water in their head?” the trainee asks. Yoko tells him to read the chapters in his employee manual about Kappa anatomy and customs. It explains the Kappa, being aquatic by nature, receive strength from water, but due to an ingrained sense of etiquette, must reciprocate gestures of politeness (even under duress) such as bowing, forcing them to spill their magic-infused water, becoming weak and docile. Headwater left unattended for too long has resulted in escape attempts.

Yoko keeps her eyes fixed on Masa’s beak-like mouth. She thinks of the conversations she had with him as a child, tromping through rice paddies, chasing cranes and storks, collecting the dried shells of dead cicadas. She thinks about the new policies ordered by her partners: heavy chains, torn out tongues, more lies and cameras. Lies to Yoko, lies to the employees, lies large enough to cover nations.

“It’s okay. I forgive you,” Yoko imagines Masa saying to her. “You tried.”

Company Mythos

Beads of light descend through the blue water of the volcanic lake like fallen angels. The water has been talked about for centuries: the source of a princess’ beauty, the unquenchable thirst of a prince after eating a fish from the lake. Wooden signs warned of the mythical Kappa lurking in local waters, stories of them stealing children and impregnating women — explanations far more favorable than wartime rape and abortion. Mountains created by Gods, trees planted by ancestors, simple people and simple lives. This is the village that Yoko grew up in. Yoko often walked around the caldera brim of the lake, far past her home and the school she went to. The natural, mossy silence comforted her and made her feel, for brief moments, as if she belonged to the world.

Here, in another age, people sent paper lanterns afloat to deliver the dead to the other side. Here, the nearly extinct creatures of old Japan remained hidden, watching their existence become myth, watching a sad little girl kick her feet in crystal waters, pulling apart her image like a warped mirror.

Tangible Assets

From beneath the water, Masa would examine Yoko’s elfin toes — each as round and white as a miniature rice ball. He had become fascinated with her. And although the other Kappa had been talking about nibbling on Yoko, as it had been such a long time since they’ve eaten a human child, Masa was not among them. He broke the rule that had kept all old creatures safe from the new world, and floated to the surface. Yoko saw the Franciscan fringe of his hair, surrounding a pool of water like a bird’s nest fallen from a tree, and then the emerald skin of Masa’s forehead. In one of his webbed hands, he held a single lily like a champagne glass. He nodded his head in greeting and water from his head spilled into the flower. Yoko, afraid at first, giggled, bowed back, and introduced herself.

“I’m Yoko.”

“Masami. Please call me Masa.”

His voice escaped his mouth like a parrot’s or a ventriloquist’s, disembodied and hollow. Brown patches of hair circled his wrists. Beneath his brow, his eyes looked like smooth, dark stones.

Yoko took the lily from Masa’s outstretched hand and examined it, smelling the water inside. Masa motioned her to drink but Yoko hesitated, remembering stories about Kappa playing tricks on people. After much thought, she took careful sips from the flower, sucking the remaining droplets off the petals and licking the corners of her mouth after she had finished.

“It’s really good,” she said.

Nearby a praying mantis climbed a branch and embraced a caterpillar. She became more aware of her surroundings — the pattering of distant footsteps, the sticky odor of freshly steamed rice at a nearby restaurant. Everything in her body seemed charged.

“Can you feel it?” he asked

Masa came closer, and Yoko could see the subtle wrinkles of his iguana-like skin, the shiny reflections of his eyes. His three spun-out fingers with their little talons picked up Yoko’s hands, examining each finger. She saw him gazing at the top of her head, and Yoko untied the blue ribbon from her hair and tied a bow around Masa’s wrist.

“My sister gave me this, but you can keep it. I have others,” she said.

He admired the blue material, holding up his arm to the sunlight. “The others might be angry.”

“There are others?”

“Not many. There used to be thousands of us. But that was a long time ago.”

Yoko smiles. Masa bows again, refilling the flower and dunks himself underwater to replenish his head. He does not yet tell Yoko the reason why he came to the surface — that the waters have become polluted and his kind are suffering from a painful disease. “You must drink quickly. The water changes into something else if you wait too long — you won’t be able to stop drinking it,” he says. Yoko nods her head, tips the flower to her lips and closes her eyes.

Founding Partners

“So, you want to be one of us, right?” Haruka said. She was one of those girls that didn’t really need make-up to be pretty but wore tons of it anyway. Her hips seemed to always be shifted to one side, arms akimbo with glittery nails tapping at her thighs.

Since high school started, Yoko had found herself without a voice, eating her homemade lunches in bathroom stalls, although what she wanted more than anything was to be one of these girls. How she admired their clothes, the way boys looked at them, how they were everything she was not. She would have done anything to sit at their lunch table, and the only ticket she had was Masa’s water.

“Well, to be one of us, you need a bag. We’re the LV girls, and no one can hang out with us without something Louis Vuitton,” Maiko said. Maiko was the follower and, Yoko thought, anorexic.

“So, you don’t have money, and I can’t imagine businessmen paying you to keep them company. But you have your supposed little friend and that water,” Haruka said. She twinkled her fingers at the lakeshore. “Introduce us. I’ve been dying for another drink anyway.”

“You promise not to tell or give the water to other people?” Yoko asked.

Haruka and Maiko held up their pinkies and interlocked them — a pinky swear.

Yoko turned around and took a cucumber, a Kappa’s favorite food, out of her backpack and sat at the edge of the water. A part of her hoped Masa wouldn’t surface, while another part felt the towering legs of her new social circle looming behind her like gigantic, hungry crows.

But Masa surfaced and Maiko and Haruka drank water from his head, and because he trusted friends of Yoko, Masa told them stories of his kind. He told them how a samurai lord had enslaved many Kappa, using the drug-like qualities of stored headwater, to control villagers and soldiers. He told them how a Kappa’s power on land is his water, how the waters have become dirty, making the Kappa sick.

Haruka slipped out a pack of Lucky 7’s and offered one to Yoko, lit her up and waited for her to inhale. Yoko began coughing. Maiko and Haruka laughed.

“Like a drug — huh?” Haruka said. “People really fought over it?”

Masa nodded his head.

“How many of you guys are there?” Maiko asked. “Maybe we can help you.” Masa remained silent, detecting a disingenuous air around Maiko, uncertain if he should say anything more. The two girls turned back to Yoko, who was trying to decide how to hold a cigarette. Yoko glanced back at Masa, his hands outstretched and open like a wounded deity. “How many?” Maiko asked again.

Development

In the coming months, the high school basketball and soccer teams would take orders from Maiko and Haruka, assembling at the lake and local rivers after school. At night, they baited homemade traps with cucumber and set them in the water, waiting in matching tracksuits as if they were a synchronized fishing team. The Kappa, hidden from the world for centuries, could not resist the prospect of food in their weakened state. Thanks to Masa, who had been kept locked in a storage unit downtown, Maiko and Haruka now knew the Kappa would soon have no choice but to surface or die at the bottom of the lake.

The LV girls had started to amass a small fortune. They gave out samples, rented more storage spaces and walked the red light districts of Tokyo and Osaka. Their teachers at school were the first to be addicted — they wrote notes, made up stories about field trips and called parents. Then came the assisted bathhouses, brothels, and strip clubs — they all wanted water, and their customers always came back for more.

Yoko always sat far away in the darkness with her LV backpack when they caught Kappa. A seventeen-year-old wannabe Yakuza stood guard over her with a convenience store switchblade, ensuring she caused no trouble. She pulled out clumps of moist grass and stacked the tufts to make a miniature pyramid. Whenever she looked up, she imagined Masa chained up and alone. His skin was chapped, and all the water inside him ran through his body and into a puddle around his feet as if he were a flower turned upside down to dry. This is how Kappa cry — through pores in their feet. He held out a closed hand toward her and slowly opened it. Inside rested the ribbon Yoko had given him.

Now it is time to fill more bottles again, and the trainee assumes his position behind Masa, ready to fill his head with lake water. Yoko takes a tray of open bottles and places it on a small conveyer belt under Masa, running back and forth, and bows. And as her body remains bent, she stares at the water streaming from Masa’s head, pouring into the bottles until they are completely full. She imagines herself, years ago, swimming with Masa to the bottom of the lake as he whispered stories in her ear and breathed strands of bubbles into her mouth.

Naturally Distilled

As they descended past the curtains of sunlight and into the untouched darkness of the lake, Yoko felt as if she was leaving the waters known to the world and falling into something else entirely. Masa guided her hands, pointing at the other Kappa darting through the water with the speed of minnows, some of their bodies covered in bulbous tumors.

Occasionally, Yoko looked up, and tiny pearls escaped from the corners of her mouth, shooting up to the surface. All sounds seemed to be swallowed except for Masa’s voice. There were no dragon lovers at the bottom of the lake as in the myths.

“That’s just an old story,” Masa said. “Older than us.”

“Are any of the stories true?”

“Some.”

Masa and Yoko sat down on a rocky ledge and suddenly several Kappa surrounded them, and Yoko thought: They don’t want me here. They want to hurt me. But Masa waved his hand and one by one they left. Staring out into the blue expanse, he began telling Yoko about a tiny boy, even smaller than her, who lived long ago and married a princess.

“The three-centimeter samurai!” Yoko tried to motion with her hands, slicing the water with an imaginary sword.

Masa nodded and explained that a Kappa, an old friend of his, befriended the tiny boy, and because the boy and princess ruled justly, many Kappa served their court. But stories of their headwater spread through the villages, and the boy tricked the Kappa into giving him their water, using it to expand his land, slowly controlling other territories as people became addicted. Only when Kublai Khan tried to invade and the country was preoccupied with defense from the Mongols, did the Kappa escape and go into hiding.

A heavy shower came down on the lake and Yoko and Masa rose back to the surface, gazing at the raindrops hitting the water like miniature harpoons. “You remind me of the princess,” Masa said. “She wanted to help us.”

Personal Archives

Since Maiko and Haruka stopped pretending Yoko’s partnership in the company mattered to them at all, Yoko’s days and nights have been filled with elaborate plans to set Masa and the other Kappa free. She draws maps, scribbles notes in a made-up secret code and tucks them into the stuffing of her pillow. Unable to rescue Masa herself before the Headwater facility was built, Yoko knows that for any plan to succeed, she will need help.

The Scenario: Having garnered support from sympathizers in the company, Yoko will free Masa from his chains as her supporters free as many Kappa as possible. They will do this on the day when delivery trucks are scheduled to pick up bottles for distribution. Because Yoko will need to prove her loyalty to the company so Maiko and Haruka will let their guard down, Yoko will suggest packaging the water bottles in large, wooden crates instead of the pallets they’ve been using. She will suggest this not only because Headwater shipments have become prone to highway robbery, but also because the Kappa will need to be hidden during transport and wooden crates seemed like a good idea as any. The truck drivers will not suspect a thing. Yoko and her supporters will hide in crates with the Kappa until they have passed company grounds. Then they will creep out and sneak behind the drivers, holding syringes filled with tranquilizers and knock them out cold while the caravan stops for gas. The Kappa will run from the trucks like animals from a burning forest while the turncoat Headwater employees guide them to the river, leading to the ocean and to their freedom.

Of course, none of this will ever happen. Yoko always realizes this when she has lunch in the cafeteria and sees how happy the employees are to be at Headwater. She realizes the only people the company hires are those with nothing left on the outside — those without families, futures, or minds of their own. What she doesn’t realize but probably knows in some little way, is the gunshots she hears are not solely reserved for crazed customers who try to break into the facility, but are also for employees that have had enough of the good life underground. Yoko wishes she had done something sooner. She can hardly understand the choices she made as a teenager anymore, why she didn’t take Masa’s hand and run before it was too late.

Resignation

Maiko and Haruka,

We’ve known each other a long time, but I’ve realized we were never the friends I wanted us to be years ago. When Headwater officially became a business, you both said we were equal partners, although now I know you only said that so I’d believe I had the power to manage how the Kappa were treated. I’m not proud of the choices I’ve made. I’ve betrayed perhaps the only friend I’ve ever had. I can no longer be a part of this company. The only reason I’ve stayed for so long is because I’ve been afraid what you’d do to me if I left. I’m taking Masa (Kappa #001) with me. I will not expose the company but will be forced to if you try to follow us.

 — Yoko

Yoko stares at the letter she wrote last night, knowing if she puts it on Haruka or Maiko’s desk, her and Masa’s little bodies will discover what exactly happens to employees that leave the facility. She folds the paper in two, sticks it into her front pocket and dismisses the trainee after he returns from the bathroom. Masa has been crying — there’s a large puddle where he stands. Yoko mops the floor, takes a small towel and pats Masa’s feet dry. When she’s done, she pulls up a stool and takes a blue ribbon out of her pocket not unlike the one she gave him when she was a child and ties it around one of his wrists.

“How are we going to get out of this one?” Yoko says, looking into Masa’s expressionless eyes. She gets another tray of cucumber and feeds him slice by slice and begins telling him a story about a kappa and a princess that escape a dark fortress. They run through rice fields during a typhoon and shoot through rivers like Earth-bound stars until they get to an endless sea. And when they get there, she tells him how they keep going deeper into the blue abyss as their bodies shrink into hazy, infinitesimal dots until they are completely gone.

© 2015 by Sequoia Nagamatsu.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sequoia Nagamatsu was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and Oahu, Hawaii and was educated at Grinnell College (B.A.) and Southern Illinois University (M.F.A). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in ZYZZYVA, The Bellevue Literary Review, West Branch Wired, Redivider, OMNI Reboot, Puerto Del Sol, Gargoyle, Hobart, and One World: A Global Anthology of Short Stories, among others. He is currently working on a post-apocalyptic, coming-of-age novel (involving evolutionary genetics, shape shifters, and disembodied consciousness) and two short story collections (one inspired by Japanese folklore and another revolving around recurring patterns in the evolution of societies). He is the co-founder and managing editor of Psychopomp Magazine, a new journal which focuses on the spaces between genre and form. More info at sequoianagamatsu.net.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight.

The Lonely Heart

Aliette de Bodard

It was towards mid-afternoon that Chen became aware of the girl. She stood before Chen’s stall, watching the fake-jade effigies of the Buddha and the coloured incense sticks, her eyes wide in the sunlight — she was no more than thirteen or fourteen, with the gangly unease of that age. To her left, children shrieked as they passed the Bridge of Impossibility, holding each other’s hands, and went into the temple complex.

The girl’s hand reached towards a small statue of a demon, touched it — setting off a coloured lightstrobe which illuminated the statue from within.

Normally, Chen should have snatched the statue away, and pointed out to her, in a firm voice, that you didn’t touch the wares unless you paid. But the girl was so young: skeletally thin, her skin taut over high cheekbones, her eyes wide with fear. And she was so familiar, in a way that made Chen ill at ease — as young and as malnourished as Chen herself had been ten years ago, starving in the streets of Fengdu. “Can I help you?” Chen asked.

The girl said nothing. She stroked the statue again, watching the tacky lights as if they were the most beautiful things in Sichuan.

“Look,” Chen said. She glanced at the footpath: The flow of tourists going into the temple had diminished to a trickle with the sweltering heat of the afternoon. “If you want this, I can offer you a price — ”

A shadow fell over the stall, cutting off the sun. “Ah, Xia,” a low, cultured voice said. “We were wondering where you’d got yourself off to.”

The voice belonged to a man: tall and slightly obese, with prominent almond eyes denoting Mongol ancestry. He’d neatly inserted himself by the girl’s side, one podgy hand wrapped around her waist, the other resting coiled by his side. He wore expensive garb, and the digital camera strapped to his shoulder made it clear how wealthy he was.

He was also smiling, in a cold, unhealthy way that made Chen’s skin crawl. Chen knew that kind of man. She’d seen enough of them on the streets, promising food and warmth to those girls foolish enough to follow them — foolish enough not to know about men who would peddle young flesh like a rare delicacy. Chen had always managed to run away from them; but clearly Xia hadn’t been nimble enough.

It shouldn’t have mattered. Those who couldn’t run, who couldn’t scavenge, were best left behind. There was no room for pity or for charity in her life. But still . . .

Her business instincts took over. “She was looking at one of the statues — ” she started.

The girl — Xia — stood still, her eyes as glassy and as expressionless as dead fish in the marketplace. “They were pretty,” she said, in a small voice — a child, caught stealing.

The man barely glanced at the statues. “Very pretty,” he said. His hand had come up, was stroking her breasts in a slow, regular motion — a seemingly unconscious gesture that made Chen ill at ease. “But we’d best be going, Xia. There’s work to be done.”

“I don’t want to work.” Xia’s voice was sullen.

His hand tightened over her breast, squeezed hard. Xia let out a small gasp of pain; and the man squeezed again. Chen’s stomach roiled.

“You’ll do as you’re told,” the man said, pleasantly. Xia’s face was white.

Chen’s policy had always been to leave the tourists to themselves, whatever they might be doing — but this was too much. “Look,” she started.

The man’s gaze turned towards her, held her pinned against the wood of her stall. “Yes?” he said.

His face was somehow sharper, more narrowly defined — and his gaze was contemptuous, as if Chen were nothing more than an insect to be dissected. Chen struggled to speak. “Look — ” she said, and stopped, again, because all her words had fled.

“A warning.” The man’s voice was still low and unfailingly courteous — in a way which was worse than shouted threats. “Don’t meddle in my affairs.” His hand was still wrapped around Xia’s chest, but now he was stroking her again, like a favourite pet. Xia had closed her eyes, and the flush that spread to her cheeks made it all too clear what was happening.

Chen, repulsed but not about to be cowed by him, said, “I don’t see what you mean.”

The man smiled again. “I know enough about you, Du Chen,” he said, as amiably as if this were a business conversation. “Where you scavenge your living, and the sites where Liwei works. Accidents happen so quickly when you demolish a building. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work elsewhere.” With an expansive shrug, he turned around, dragging Xia with him — leaving Chen standing shocked behind her stall.

How had he known — not her name, that was easy enough, painted over the stall — but where Liwei worked? How had he — ?

He wasn’t alone, she saw. Waiting for him on the footpath, under the grinning statue of the underworld’s executioner, were other girls, too, looking as frail and lost as Xia. The man nodded to them, curtly — with a brief gaze in Chen’s direction, granting her once more a taste of the abyss within his eyes.

Then they were going over the Bridge of Impossibility, joining those already inside the temple complex. Chen knew well enough what kind of trade they’d be plying inside, what pleasures they’d try to offer the tourists. A sick taste had filled her mouth — demons take her, why was she so affected by him and his girls? She’d seen enough of those in the past: enough flesh bartered for banknotes or food, enough girls exploited by their keepers.

But the taste was under her palate, and she couldn’t swallow hard enough to dispel it.

• • • •

That evening, Chen took the footpath back into the city — the chairlift from the docks to Mount Minshan and its temples was a luxury, reserved for those tourists who could afford it.

Below her stretched the dilapidated buildings of Fengdu’s old city: the hollowed-out shells which would be destroyed by the rise of the Yangtze, when the dam at Three Gorges became operational. On the opposite bank was a brand-new city, the Fengdu that would be, filled with the bustle of moving vans and workers constructing the new electrical lines. Neither she nor Liwei had obtained a flat there: It took money and connections, of which they had neither.

A few more steps, and she was at the first of the buildings, passing between the gaping holes which had once been doors — stepping over the rubble and the debris left by the demolition crews. From time to time, a few people, lost souls like her, would pass her with a curt nod: on their way to their own stolen, temporary homes, hoping to survive a few more months on what they had.

At home, Nainai, Liwei’s mother, was playing solitaire with the mahjong game, the plastic tiles neatly aligned on the battered table. A scuffed sheaf of yuans — her latest earnings — lay by the tiles. She looked up when Chen entered.

“A good day,” she said, her wrinkled face creased in satisfaction. “Those provincials, they don’t know how to play.”

Chen laid her bag on the table, checked the insulation of the windows — sheets of oiled papers, taped to the gaping hole in the wall. Their old, ramshackle flat on the outskirts of the old city had been reduced to rubble early on; they had taken what little furniture they could, and moved towards the centre of Fengdu, where the hulking towers of concrete would remain standing until the end.

In the dilapidated building they were occupying illegally, there was no door, no windows — no electricity. But it was enough of a place to live in; and the space, after years of living cooped up in a communal flat, was almost disorienting.

“How was your day?” Nainai asked. “Those tourists, they buy many souvenirs?”

Chen closed her eyes, thinking of the tourists — of Xia’s wide, pleading eyes, and of the plump man by her side, fondling her without a trace of shame. It didn’t take divination to know that the girls would still be there in the darkness, soliciting the unscrupulous among the tourists with the promise of yielding, perfumed flesh — with breasts like lotus buds and eyes like wide almonds in the moonlight.

Nausea welled up in her, sharp, demanding; she covered her mouth with her sleeve to quell the tremor going through her.

“Chen?” Nainai asked.

Chen shook her head. “I’m okay,” she said. The sickening taste wouldn’t go away. Why was she feeling so squeamish, all of a sudden? She’d lived for five years on the streets before meeting Liwei — surely a few lost girls wasn’t enough to make her so ill at ease? “Just had a bad experience, that’s all. I’ll make you dinner.”

Nainai’s gaze was sceptical: Clearly, the old woman didn’t believe a word Chen said, but was too polite to press her any further.

Chen knelt by the camping stove, and turned it on with shaking hands — if she focused on what she was doing, she wouldn’t be thinking of the man’s eyes, of the whole pose that said that she was worth nothing, that Xia was worth nothing, just another pound of flesh to be bartered like goods at the market . . .

No.

With slow, deliberate gestures, she set the water boiling for the rice, and went back to the table to chop the vegetables into small pieces. The noise of the knife against the plastic echoed under the ceiling — long since stripped of anything that would have swallowed the noise.

Liwei came back just as night was falling. By then, Chen had lit the candles; and Nainai had put away her tiles, and was sitting in the shadows at the further end of the room, her face as unreadable as a statue.

He kissed Nainai first, as was proper — mothers before wives, the old before the young. Then he was standing over Chen, and bending down to kiss her. His touch tingled, like an electrical contact. “Hello,” he said.

The spring in his step told Chen he had good news — or better news, at any rate.

“You’re not telling me something,” she said.

Liwei smiled, an expression which transfigured his moon-shaped face — he was so young and so carefree, so unlike the man on the temple steps — who had known Chen’s name, and where Liwei worked.

Enough. She was getting paranoid.

“Let’s wait until the meal,” Liwei said. “I’d rather we all shared that.”

Chen brought the dish to the table, and they let Nainai pick the first piece with a deft movement of her chopsticks.

Over the second dish, Liwei said, “I’ve spoken with the foreman today. There might be a flat, in the new city.”

Chen, stunned into speechlessness, could only look at their living quarters — at the bare concrete walls around them through which seeped the cold of the night; at the candles strewn on the ground and on the table, providing their pitiful defence against the darkness; at the curtain hanging over the door to hide the gaping hole left by the demolition crews.

It was Nainai who broke the silence. “How much does he ask?” she asked.

Liwei’s face did not move. “We have enough.” His eyes said it all: It would take all they had, and they would have to live without electricity or water for a while. But it was a flat, and it would stay above water when the dam at Three Gorges became operational.

Chen forced a smile: They’d been waiting for this for so long, that it almost seemed impossible that it would happen. “That’s great,” she said, trying to feel the joy she was expressing — trying to feel anything but her rising nausea. “It’s — ” Beyond words, she wanted to say, but her speechlessness had nothing to do with Liwei or the flat.

Nainai was smiling. “I always knew you could do it. You’re your father, all over again.”

Liwei shrugged. “I’m not as good as him. But it’s something. We’ll have to — ”

A sudden gust of wind sent the entrance-curtain fluttering like a butterfly in a storm; and a cold draft filled the room. Chen, reacting by instinct, rose and went to the door to draw the curtain over it again.

And stopped.

For a figure stood in the corridor, limned in the shadows — small and frail and pathetic, and Chen had no need to bring a candle closer to know her face.

Xia.

• • • •

“This is trouble,” Nainai said, after hearing the whole story.

Xia slept on the ground, wrapped in one of Liwei’s old cloaks. She hadn’t said much since coming, and it was obvious that she wouldn’t ever say much. Chen had seen the fear in her gaze — a mirror of what she was feeling, right now.

A warning. Don’t meddle in my affairs.

Demons take him. She wasn’t one of his girls, to be cowed into submission so easily.

Liwei crouched by Xia’s side, his fingers delicately closed over her wrist. “Her heartbeat is strong,” he said.

“That’s not going to be the problem,” Chen said, and Nainai nodded.

“That man — ” she started.

Chen’s stomach heaved. “He knew about us. I don’t know how, but he has to know where we live. We have to — ” she stopped, then: the only option would be going to the Public Security station, to speak to the patrolmen, and reveal that for the last seven months they had been living illegally in the old city. Chen didn’t know what the punishment was for that; and she didn’t want to find out.

But she thought of the plump man, squeezing Xia’s breasts like over-ripe fruit; of Xia’s pleading eyes and of the other girls, grouped together like cattle at the marketplace.

She wouldn’t be able to live with herself, if they didn’t help Xia.

“We have to tell Public Security,” Chen said.

“No,” Liwei and Nainai said, almost at the same time.

“Chen — ” Liwei said. “We’re almost there. We’re going to have a real house again — ”

“I know,” Chen said. “But look at her.”

In the silence, they all turned. Xia lay in the abandon of sleep, curled against the wall as if it could offer her some protection. Her eyes were like bruises in the oval of her face; her skin was pale, translucent — revealing the whitish shape of her bones underneath. She was shivering: a curious spasm that racked her whole body like an electrical jolt. How could anyone not pity her?

Liwei’s hand rested in her tangled hair. “She’s so young,” he said.

Chen felt, once more, that unexplainably strong nausea well up in her. “That’s what they deal in, Liwei. Young flesh.” Pliant and vulnerable.

“What do you think Public Security can do?” Liwei asked.

Chen spread her hands. “More than we can. Do you really want to throw her out?”

Liwei shook his head. “She could stay here — ”

“No,” Chen said, covering her mouth with the back of her sleeve — trying to wipe out the sour taste, in vain. “You know she can’t. They’ll know where to look for her.”

“I think you’re over-reacting,” Liwei said. Gently, almost tenderly, he started running his fingers through Xia’s hair, untangling it strand after strand.

“Liwei.” Naiani’s voice was firm. “Your wife is right. She can’t stay here.”

Liwei raised his gaze towards her, and said nothing for a while. At length, he withdrew his hands from Xia’s hair, “As you wish, Mama. But not tonight.”

Chen thought of the plump man, taking the chairlift back to the docks — walking straight to their building in the darkness. “I’d rather — ” she started, and then stopped. Liwei was right. The lights in the old city had all been torn down. Crossing to the other side with only a candle would be too dangerous. “Tomorrow morning, then,” she said. “First thing.”

Liwei shrugged. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off Xia. “At dawn, if you want.”

• • • •

That night, Chen lay still on their bed, feeling Liwei’s presence by her side. As usual, he slept turned away from her — keeping himself separate, except when making love.

He was a good man, still. He had taken her from the streets, given her a home; he loved her in his own way. He wanted her not to worry about anything — not about the flat or the dam — but simply to be the heart and soul of their home, the hub around which everything revolved.

She could do that.

Outside, the wind was rising, laughing as it coursed through the empty streets. It clawed at the oiled papers barring the windows, and shook the entrance-curtain as if it could tear it down — and it brought down from Mount Minshan the low, anguished moans of souls in pain.

Of course, that wasn’t true. They did say that the Mount was one of the Gates into Hell — and the temple a meticulous re-creation of the trials the dead would undergo — but there was no Hell. There were no ghosts; just the wind, and Chen’s imagination. She was tired and sick with fear, imagining the man searching for his lost girl.

There was no Hell. There were no ghosts. Just the memory of a voice saying, coldly, cruelly: A warning. Don’t meddle.

She woke up with a start, still sweating from confused nightmares in which demons pierced her with iron spikes, and infernal judges from the Minshan frescoes smiled as they consigned her to the Lingering Death. Her heart was beating madly, a steady pulse that resonated in her throat.

Liwei was sitting by the furthest window, talking to Xia in a low voice. A soft, dim light filtered through the cracks in the oiled paper. “Liwei?” she asked.

He started as if stung. “We’re going,” he said.

Chen couldn’t focus her thoughts, couldn’t tear herself from the shackles of sleep. “Be careful,” she said, finally.

“Of course.” Liwei came back to the bed, and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Go back to sleep. You worry too much.”

I don’t worry for nothing. You haven’t seen the eyes of her pimp, Chen thought, but the words wouldn’t get past her lips. She watched Liwei walk out of the building, holding Xia by the hand, and fell back against the pillow, trying to get back to sleep.

When she woke, the red light of sunrise had filled the room; and the wind was still blowing, whining through the empty corridors of the building, rattling the oiled papers. It wasn’t just a few gusts; there was a veritable storm out there.

Gods, she hoped Liwei had made it to some shelter. But of course he would. He was a smart man.

Nainai was already up, smoking her pipe in the furthest corner of the room. Chen rose, rubbing at her eyes, and went to light the camping stove to cook breakfast.

“They left early,” Nainai said, pitching her voice to carry over the moan of the wind.

“I know,” Chen said. “But the sooner they can get to the station — ”

Nainai barked a short, unamused laugh. “You think Public Security is going to do anything?”

“More than us,” Chen said at last. She did not quite agree with Nainai; but of course there was no voicing her disagreement openly. It wouldn’t have been proper.

Nainai drew on her pipe: Chen braced herself for a puff of foul-smelling smoke, but the wind dispersed the fumes as soon as they were emitted. Nainai went on, “I’ll tell you what they’ll do. They’ll smile and nod and take that girl into their station — and hand her back to her keepers, who’ll have paid good money to get her returned.” She shook her head, disapprovingly. “I could have told you yesterday. You’re not learning. Still looking for miracles.”

Chen lowered her eyes. She ought to have felt some anger, to have argued against Nainai even though it wasn’t proper. But the wind howling through the building seemed to have robbed her of every emotion.

“Why did you let them leave, then? You don’t care about her, is that it?”

Nainai snorted. Behind her, the wind rattled the oil-paper; she pressed a hand against the window to hold it into place. “I’ve lived through a war and a revolution. I know women-folk stick together if they want to survive. But it’s not the girl I’m most worried about.”

“Then — ” Chen started to say something, but then she realised what Nainai was talking about: Liwei’s hands, running through the girl’s hair, his gaze lingering on her long after it should have. How could he? “He’s married to me,” she said, slowly, fiercely.

Nainai smiled. “The tigress defending her own.” She drew on her pipe again, puffing her cheeks thoughtfully. “You can’t do anything about that. Those girls — they have training of their own, arts you’ll never master.”

“That starving, beaten slip of a girl?” And then Chen realised, chilled to the marrow of her bones, that this was Xia’s attraction — the same one Chen herself had had, when Liwei had found her on the streets: the vulnerability, the need for comfort etched in the marrow of her bones. Except, of course, that Xia was younger and craftier and consciously using everything she had to seduce — unlike Chen.

Did it really make a difference, as far as Liwei was concerned?

Buddha help her, she was going to be sick again.

Nainai had sunk back into her corner, smoking her pipe as if nothing had happened. But her carefully blank expression said otherwise; she was old and she had seen many things — and couldn’t men be as weak and as naïve as kittens, when it came to sex?

“Well, she’s gone,” Chen said aloud. “She’s going to walk out of our lives as if nothing ever happened.” She knew she was only talking aloud, trying to make her words weigh something in the face of the deafening wind, in the face of Nainai’s expressionless features.

Xia was gone — but with Liwei.

Nonsense. To calm herself before she left for work, Chen picked up the mahjong tiles, and carefully started building the four-sided wall, as if this were a prelude to a real game. The familiar symbols passed under her hand, dismissed as soon as she had recognised them. Three of Characters. Two of Bamboos. Eight of Circles. Green Dragon. Nine of Bamboos — the strips of bamboo neatly stacked on each other, to build an edifice that took up the whole tile.

There was no sound but the howling of the wind, rattling the oiled paper and making the tiles in her hands shake with its contained force. No sound but the rising wails and the moaning, and the screams, as if the world outside were in agony.

The moaning . . .

Chen’s hand, which had been hovering over the North Wind, stopped. There was something about the moaning . . .

A gust of wind extinguished the camping stove, and scattered the gas within the room. Chen, driven by habit, was rising to turn off the gas — but Nainai, closer to the stove, had already done so.

Nainai said something over the roar of the wind, which Chen couldn’t hear. “What?” she screamed, and the wind carried to her Nainai’s answer.

“Listen.”

Listen to the wind? There was nothing else; just the moans, rising and rising in an ecstasy of pain. But they weren’t cries from the underworld: even magnified, they clearly belonged to only two people.

And she knew those sounds. She knew that voice, screaming its pleasure over her in the bed.

Liwei.

And Xia.

She was on her feet before she could think, running towards the door. Even Nainai’s last, indistinct words weren’t enough to stop her from going out.

• • • •

Outside, the wind was screaming its defiance, whipping Chen’s coat around her, straining the buttons as if it would tear them at any moment. The moans carried by the storm were, if anything, more intense, and the wind carried Chen through the deserted streets, from one dilapidated building to another. And all the while the moans grew, slowly, steadily — the climax not far off, hanging tantalisingly in the air. Chen’s mouth was dry, and there was an odd, prickling feeling between her legs, as if she, too, was caught in that storm of lust.

She walked bent, both hands holding to the lapels of her coat — and the storm engulfed her and cradled her and carried to her the sound of Liwei making love as he had never made it to her, like a stab through her heart.

There was a pattern to the sounds, too, an intensity that she could trace back to its source. The wind was against her now — bringing the frenzy of the lovemaking, but also a barrier against her intervention.

Don’t meddle.

She wasn’t meddling; but demons take her if she was going to lose her husband to a slip of a prostitute who could envision no other relationship with a man than lust. She trudged on, bending her head against the wind — trying to insulate herself against the sounds that seemed to be coming from every building around her.

Under her were scraps of stone, metal welded into concrete — and dust, flowing into her eyes until she thought she would cry.

Where were they?

This was hopeless; whatever had made her think that she could find them? Fengdu had been a large city; and, stripped of its inhabitants, it was even larger. Over her the wind moaned, tantalisingly spread under the vault of heaven — and she was lost, hopelessly lost as the lovemaking reached its climax and the moans became ecstatic.

And then everything narrowed to a pinpoint, the moans mingling into one never-ending scream, both infinite pleasure and infinite agony, twisting within her chest and writhing its way up her legs — and that scream was only coming from one place.

She hobbled the rest of the way, unable to ignore the effect the scream was having on her — fighting, every step of the way, to walk on and not surrender to the desire cresting within her.

Luckily, she had not far to go.

In the gutted ruins of an apothecary — the faded sign still hanging over the empty shop window, promising years of felicity to the passers-by — lay Liwei, and over him was Xia, her face creased in a smile that twisted every feature out of place.

She was still wrapped in Liwei’s cloak, and its wind-whipped folds mingled with the cascade of her unbound hair. She whispered something, over and over, as she rode him, and he writhed beneath her, pinned to the floor as surely as by a stake.

Chen stopped, frozen in the entrance of the shop. “Liwei!!” The scream was torn out of her by the wind, carried through the shop — echoing under the concrete ceiling. Xia looked up; and for a moment, in the abyss of her eyes, Chen saw the same expression as that of her pimp.

Demons take her.

And then Xia had wiggled her way off Liwei — both hands pressing against his chest, snatching something small and bloody from him before she leapt through the window frame into the street. She was running now, her feet pounding against the pavement, her hair streaming in the wind.

Chen staggered through the empty doorframe, and over to where Liwei lay — still writhing and shaking in tune with the storm. His face was frozen in the agony of desire, so utterly alien from the husband who had come home to her every night; his eyes were wide open, staring upwards without seeing her.

His chest, too, was open and empty, blood congealing around the gaping wound Xia had left in him.

Her eyes tingled, and something was tightening in her chest, but there was no time. No time to grieve, or scream, or rail at the injustice of it all. Chen rose again, ignoring the protest of her muscles — and went after Xia.

• • • •

As before, there was no other sound but the wind. And though their lovemaking had ended, she could still hear the cries of desire — and Liwei’s screams, as Xia slowly tore her way into him, slowly widened the wound until she found what she needed.

There were tales: of women dying childless, of women buried without proper rituals and snared by demons — their hearts rotting away, leaving only their hungry souls behind. But those were only stories to frighten children. Surely, in the brand-new China, the one of steel skyscrapers and giant dams, there was no room for ghosts or demons, or for anything so — absurd.

But the hole in Liwei’s chest wouldn’t be closed by denial.

He was dead. Better get used to it, Chen. Better get used to not having the flat after all, to watching as Old Fengdu was consumed by the rising Yangtze, once and for all. Better think of joining the steady flow of migrants going west into the big city, finding small jobs that only paid for another day of misery.

Better not to think of Liwei.

Her eyes stung, but it had to be the wind.

She didn’t know where she was anymore — but far away from her, at the end of the wide, deserted street, she could see Xia’s cloak — and under her feet was the trail of blood from Liwei’s heart.

And she was gaining on Xia. Every step was a struggle against the oncoming wind; but little by little, as the desire in her died and the moans on the wind lost their significance, the silhouette fleeing before her became more and more distinct.

She didn’t know what she would do when she caught up. But there was rage enough in her to face Xia and her pimp and a hundred demons from the lower levels of Hell, if need be.

You do not steal my husband, bitch. You do not . . .

Ahead was the slope of the mountain, and the dense, lush trees that covered it — the wrong side, not the one where the tourists would congregate.

It was dark under those first trees, the rising sun’s light cut off by the canopy. Panting, Chen followed the lighter colour of Xia’s cloak through the maze. Something was rising — fog, she would have said, although no fog could have withstood the buffets of the howling wind. It was wet and clammy and hung over the ground as if the earth had exhaled it.

The wind carried the smell of incense now, and of burnt candles. Chen found a second burst of speed — and stumbled into a clearing, a pit of grey light slashed through the canopy.

Xia was standing unmoving in the centre of the clearing, her back to Chen. She was crooning to herself in a soft voice which somehow was stronger than the rush of the wind. Her cloak flapped in the gusts, like the wings of a maddened bird.

Chen walked closer, hands extended. “Xia — ”

Xia didn’t move. “Such a beauty.”

“Xia.”

“It’s mine,” Xia whispered. Her cloak was fluttering around her, to the rhythm of some invisible music.

It wasn’t only the cloak which was fluttering, was it? In fact . . .

A stronger gust of wind lifted the cloak, and Xia’s hair — and the other thing, too, paler than the cloak, slowly detaching itself from glistening muscles and tendons — revealing the reddish white of bones and decaying flesh, and the arches of her ribcage.

Xia turned, slowly. The skin was almost completely loose now — and what was underneath had not been alive for a long time. There was another smell now, the soft, sickening one of rot — and there were worms, crawling under the wasted muscles; ants, flowing down the rotten mass of her hips in a never-ending stream. Only the heart held between her fingers was alive: red and bleeding and beating as strongly as if it had still been in Liwei’s chest.

Chen’s own heart was hammering against its cage of ribs, demanding to be let out. “What are you?” she whispered.

The skin came away from Xia’s face — streaming behind her, attached only to the hair and the back of her neck. Beneath were eyes as dark as congealed blood, and flesh the colour of rust, sloughing away as if eaten by the wind.

“What are you, demons take you!” Chen screamed.

Xia simply stood, with the heart held against her chest. “It’s too late. You can’t deny me. You can’t put it back where it belongs. I need — ” She opened a yawning gap in her face, a thin line of black that had once been a mouth. “I need,” she said, tightening her hold over the heart.

Chen’s chest ached, as if the heart had been taken from it. I won’t be sick, she thought. I can’t — I can’t think . . .

“Mine,” Xia whispered. She squeezed the heart again, against the glistening flesh of her innards — and it sank into her, like a stone pressed into mud.

Too late, Chen realised what was happening. “No!” She threw herself forward, trying to catch Xia before everything was over. But Xia turned away from her, and all she could grasp was the skin — and it came loose in her hands: a pelt of flesh, complete in every respect, with the healthy pink colour flowing away like paint washed by the rain — revealing the yellow taint of flayed skin, crinkling like parchment against her fingers.

She couldn’t hold that. Her hands opened and let it fall to the ground.

“Mine,” Xia whispered. “All mine, and he can’t put it back now. No, he can’t . . .”

Nausea, denied for so long, finally won; and Chen collapsed on the damp ground, her whole body racked by sobs.

The light changed, became subtly darker; and the fog rose to cover everything, including the skin at her feet. There were shadows, cast over her to darken even the dimmest light of the sun.

“I warned you, Du Chen,” a voice said over the howling of the wind. “Don’t meddle in what you don’t understand.”

The plump man, Xia’s pimp, stood over her, smiling as serenely as a statue of the Buddha in a temple.

Chen’s hands clenched into fists.

“You’re a stubborn woman,” the man went on.

They were alone in the centre of the clearing, with the rising fog and the combined smells of incense and rotting flesh. The thing that had been Xia had moved towards the edges — but the other girls were there, standing in an impenetrable circle. She moved back, angling towards the skin on the ground. Within the mass of decayed muscles beat Liwei’s heart — heaving and rippling.

Gods, why couldn’t Chen even vomit?

The man turned towards Xia. “And I warned you as well. We have work to do.”

“Work?” Chen managed to croak from her dry throat.

The man didn’t turn. He was watching Xia — and had moved to stand between her and the skin. “Every dying city has its scavengers,” he said. “Xia, come back.”

“Had enough,” Xia whispered, and her voice wasn’t human anymore. “Work — is too hard. I prefer — ”

“Flesh? Beating hearts, torn from bodies? How long do you think you’ll last, without your skin?”

“You — ” Xia whispered.

The man nodded serenely. “Dozens of hearts wouldn’t replace the one you lost. It’s too late for that. There are rules, and they govern every one of us — from my peers in Hell to lonely little ghosts like you.”

“Demons take you,” Xia whispered, and the man shook his head, amused.

“An interesting notion — but impossible, I fear.”

The wind tore at Xia’s innards — dispersing chunks of rotting muscles in a soft patter, like obscene rain. She was falling apart, a toy torn by invisible hands; but the heart was still within her, pulsing and bleeding. Liwei’s heart.

Liwei was dead. Chen had to remember that.

No, not quite. The wound had still been open — still bleeding — and he had still been moving, writhing and screaming in soundless agony. Wherever Liwei was, he wasn’t gone. Not yet.

There was still a chance . . . There had to be — if things like Xia could walk the earth, then a missing heart was such a small, insignificant thing — easily torn away, easily put back into place. Xia had implied as much.

But Xia had also said it was too late.

Chen tried to find enough strength to rise. But fog clung to her ankles and her calves, binding her to the ground as surely as chains.

“Hell is your master,” the man said. “Never forget that, little ghost. Never.”

Xia crept closer, hands outstretched like claws. Tendons shone in the space between her metacarpal bones. “Mine,” she whispered. “My kill. Mine.”

The man bent down, and took the skin from the ground. Chen gritted her teeth and attempted to rise once more, but all strength seemed to have fled her body.

“This is yours as well,” he said. He was still smiling, and the expression was exactly the same one he’d had, in the beginning. The skin dangled between his fingers, arms and legs dancing in the wind — the mask of the face letting the light through empty eyeholes and nostrils and lips. “Come, Xia.”

“Mine,” Xia whispered again. But she was walking, tottering on disintegrating legs reduced to slivers of reddened bones — she was creeping forward with her odd, shivering gait. “Mine . . .”

Her finger-bones closed on the skin, held it.

“Good girl,” the man said, and the wind took his words and magnified them; and the wind took the skin and lifted it out of Xia’s hands, wrapping it around her whole body in less than the time for a thought.

Where the thing had been was a young girl once more: Xia as Chen had first seen her. Except that she was plumper than she had been before, and the colour in her cheeks was the red of a beating heart, and she was smiling.

Chen quelled the shiver that heaved through her, and tried to focus on only one thing: rising. Reaching them. Preventing them from going away. She had to . . .

“Good girl,” the man repeated, as if to a favourite pet. “Come. We’re leaving.”

Chen, struggling against the weakness in her legs, watched him walk to where his girls waited. She tried to speak but she couldn’t. The girls stood silent in the dim light — each of them gaunt and famished as Xia had been, and she knew now that her impression of seeing the bones under the skin wasn’t only a fancy.

She had to . . .

Words had fled. She just wanted them to go away, wanted the sick sensation in her belly and in her womb to fade, to leave her feeling normal again. But . . .

“Wait,” she croaked. Even that single word left a trail of fire in her mouth.

The man paused, turned towards her, his eyes shining like beetle shells. “You’re still sane? Count yourself lucky, Du Chen. Some things aren’t meant to be seen by mortals.”

He was right. She should never have taken an interest in what didn’t concern her. She should never have run after Xia. She . . .

She hadn’t asked for any of it; not for Xia to follow her home, or for Liwei to be too weak to resist temptation.

“Wait,” she whispered. And, every word a thorn against her tongue: “You — have something that’s mine.”

The man watched her as he might a butterfly pinned on a corkboard. “Something of yours? Mortals are so amusing.”

“You — ” Chen whispered — and finally managed to pull herself into a sitting position. “Give — it — back.”

“What would you do with a heart, Du Chen? Pickle it in formaldehyde and watch it wither year after year? Eat it, perhaps?”

“It’s my husband’s heart.” Liwei. She thought of day after day of enduring in their empty flat, of Liwei’s sitting at the end of the table, speaking of the small things of his work — never encouraging despair, never questioning what they would do after the dam had flooded the old city. “I want it back.”

“Your husband’s heart? He’s such a worthy man. Just the sight of a girl is enough to stiffen his manhood. Why would you want him back? Because of the flat?” His voice was as cutting as a kitchen knife. “You can find a house of your own. Or do you want to wonder, year after year, if he comes home late because of another girl?”

Chen closed her eyes. He was wrong. He had to be wrong. But the small voice within her knew that, having heard him with Xia, she would never trust him again. The man was right: Her marriage, whatever it had been before, now lay shattered, as raw and as ruined as Xia had been under her fake skin.

The man went on, “You’re still young, and there are other means for a woman to earn her keeping.”

“I know your other ways,” Chen snapped. “I won’t go back into the streets, whether as a beggar or something else.”

“Hearts are expensive,” the man said — which was, no doubt, what he’d been driving at all along. “Will you pay the price for one, Du Chen? For a broken marriage and a petty home?”

A petty home? Home was everything she’d longed for on the streets — a dream Liwei had finally made true. Something that was hers, and that she wouldn’t let that man take away from her.

“I don’t care about your words,” Chen said. “This is all I have left. I won’t let go of it.”

The man laughed, then. “Greed and despair. That’s something I can understand.”

In a heartbeat, he’d crossed the space that separated them, and was kneeling across from her, lifting her chin to stare into her eyes. His touch was as clammy as the fog.

“Xia has the heart, and I don’t want to ruin her fun,” he said. “But I can do something else.”

Before she could even shy away, he’d bent further — and put his lips to hers. If his hands had been clammy, his lips were worse — but it wasn’t sweat that made them stick to her own.

His tongue darted between her teeth, seeking her own, like a worm blindly questing for food — and nausea was rising in her once more, travelling upwards from her stomach into her lungs, into her mouth. But still he held her; and still his lips were pressed against hers — and his eyes, as black as crushed beetles, still held the same inhuman amusement.

When he broke off the embrace, a tremor was running through her. The nausea was unbearably strong, bringing with it the taste and the smell of rotten flesh and crushed, bloodied bones — a spike arcing from her stomach into her mouth.

Something gave, finally; and putting both hands on the packed earth, she opened her mouth and started heaving, as if she could remove the taste and smell of him from her palate.

Nothing came, just the same sickening taste, the prelude to retching with nothing behind. Her oesophagus contracted, once, twice — and something tore within her, deep within her chest, and climbed upwards into her lungs and her windpipe, leaving a trail of slime within her.

A final heave, and she spat it on the ground at her feet: red meat, glistening in the returned sunlight.

“This will do as well as the old one, I should think.” The man bent again, and stroked her breasts as he had once stroked Xia’s — hardening his grip in small, sudden gestures. It didn’t hurt as much as it should have; but the same feeling of nausea, of disorientation, was rising within her, mingling with the tightening in her womb — as if some door within her were closing shut forever. “Goodbye, Du Chen. It was a pleasure doing business with you.”

His hands withdrew, but the tightening was still there — and the taste in her mouth, and the dry, stretched feeling of emptiness within.

At the edge of the clearing, the man paused, before joining his companions. “Do give my regards to your husband.”

And then he was gone; they were all gone and only the wind remained, singing the song of the dead in her ears.

She had never heard a sweeter sound.

Slowly, carefully, she pulled herself upwards — the last tendrils of fog vanished as she did so — and retraced her steps back to the plaza, cradling the heart against her chest. She felt — drained, empty, stretched as thin as rice paper.

In the shop, Liwei was still lying where she had left him — still writhing without consciousness, although his gestures were weaker than before.

She didn’t think. She couldn’t afford to, not now. With the same careful, slow gestures, she laid the bleeding heart within the bleeding wound, and put both hands on the edges and pushed.

The skin writhed against her touch, refusing to yield. But she didn’t move; and presently the edges of the wound met in a hiss — and closed as if nothing had ever happened.

Liwei’s eyes closed, and opened again; and this time he looked straight at her.

“Chen? What I am doing here? Where is — Xia?” He pulled himself into a sitting position and looked around, bewildered.

“Shh. She’s gone. Everything is going to be all right,” Chen said — and gently wrapped her cloak around his nakedness. “Come on. Let’s go home. Nainai will be waiting for us.”

As they walked home in the streets of the dying city, the wind blew over them, whipping their clothes around them in a frenzy. Liwei shivered, and pressed himself closer to Chen. But Chen just trudged on; and it seemed to her that the touch of the wind on her skin was happening outside of her — onto something that she wore like a cloak, but which didn’t belong to her anymore.

© 2009 by Aliette de Bodard.

Originally published in Black Static.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris, where she has a day job as a System Engineer. In her spare time, she writes speculative fiction: Her stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction, and have won her two Nebulas, a Locus Award, and a British Science Fiction Award for Best Short Fiction. Her new novel, House of Shattered Wings, a murder mystery set in a post-apocalyptic Paris ruled by Fallen angels, is forthcoming from Gollancz. More information at aliettedebodard.com.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight.

The Archon

Matthew Hughes

Previously on The Kaslo Chronicles: Magic now rules the universe instead of science. Some power has reached out from the Seventh Plane to attack the wizard Diomedo Obron’s demesne amid the ruins of the technological civilization on Novo Bantry. Obron and Erm Kaslo, the hardboiled confidential operative turned wizard’s henchman, must travel (by dragon!) far up The Spray to an obscure world named Old Earth to investigate an ancient evil.

[To read the other stories in the series, visit lightspeedmagazine.com/kaslo.]

“What do we call this thing?” Erm Kaslo said, gesturing to the smooth opaque walls. “It’s not a spaceship.”

Diomedo Obron tapped the green leather-bound tome he was studying. “Testroni’s Impervious Conveyance, it says here.”

They were inside an object that had looked to Kaslo like nothing so much as an oversized version of the silver dome that a butler would whisk away from an aristocrat’s meal. It even had a large ring on top — a ring that was now grasped by the talons of an honest-to-goodness dragon, named Saunterance, that was flying them through interstellar space.

“It’s not like a ship,” Kaslo said. “There’s not even the whisper of a deep-space drive.”

“No,” said the wizard, his attention drawn back to the book, “the dragon provides the motive power.”

“But how does that work? Does Saunterance flap his wings? If so, what do they push against?”

Obron looked up again, wearing the expression of an uncle saddled with an over-inquisitive nephew. “If I tried to explain it to you, I would first have to explain the integuments that connect the universe under the regime of sympathetic association. I have tried that a number of times before, without success.”

“I cannot grasp the concepts,” Kaslo agreed. “They do not make sense.”

“Of course they don’t. ‘Making sense’ was an attribute of the regime of rationalism. Now it is more a matter of . . . ,” the wizard sought for the right words, then continued, “of creating harmonies, some of them plain, some of them intricately subtle.”

“But none of them apparent to me.”

“Because you are tone-deaf.”

Kaslo sighed. Before the universe changed its mind about how it ought to function, he had spent a lifetime acquiring skills and abilities in several difficult disciplines. He had made himself one of the top-ranked confidential operatives on Novo Bantry, one of the grand old Foundational Domains settled thousands of years ago when humanity was building the interstellar civilization that became the Ten Thousand Worlds. As an op, Kaslo had solved mysteries that had baffled the best minds of the Provost Department; he had undone the intricate schemes of master criminals; he had faced down murderously capable opponents and always come out the victor.

Now he was henchman to a wizard who was still learning his craft. But he was thinking: Obron will improve — has improved greatly in the time they had known each other — while Kaslo felt himself to be no better than he’d been the day the crystal towers of Indoberia fell into shards of ruin.

He finally asked the wizard the question that had so often arisen in his mind. “Why do you keep me on? Wouldn’t you be better served by someone who understood what we are doing?”

Obron raised his gaze from the book again. “Is that what’s troubling you?” He pinched the bridge of his long nose and rubbed the back of a thumb across his brow. “Eventually,” he said, “I will take on an apprentice — perhaps two, so that each can keep a jealous eye on the other. From then on, I will have to watch myself carefully.

“Apprentices outgrow their masters,” he explained. “The better ones go off to make their own marks; the not-so-good outstay their welcomes while they try to steal their mentors’ apparatuses and libraries.”

“There’s no fear of my doing that,” Kaslo said.

“Exactly. You are the only person I can trust absolutely. In this new age of contending wills, that makes you a rare find.” Obron went back to the book, but after a moment raised his head once more and said, “There are also some things that magic cannot do. At those moments, the skills of an experienced, practical man may save the day.”

Kaslo went to his cabin and, for the first time in weeks, practiced the combat techniques of hand, foot, elbow, and knee that he had painstakingly mastered in his youth. The familiar motions calmed his mind and gave him ease.

• • • •

They were some days aboard the Conveyance. Kaslo practiced his skills, including the deft handling of knives, ropes, and sticks. Obron remained immersed in the thick green book, occasionally making notes, sometimes looking up with an almost startled expression, followed by a smile of satisfaction.

On one of those occasions, Kaslo said, “You’ve discovered something important.”

“‘Discovered’ is not the apt word,” said the thaumaturge. “It is not like studying a text in the old-world sense, deriving information and fitting it into facts and concepts already understood. This is more like achieving a new level in an evolving relationship of increasing complexity. But, yes, the book and I are becoming more intimately involved.”

Kaslo would have left it there. He had only the haziest idea of how a wizard formed a relationship with a book. But Obron was pursing his lips like a man who suddenly apprehends a connection between two heretofore separate points. He said, “Tell me again about the entity the clickers were tending.”

“I’ve told you all I saw.”

The wizard’s gaze was intense. “Tell me what you felt.”

Kaslo did not have to make an effort to recall the emotion that had washed over him when he touched the flesh of the vast entity; it now flooded through him again as he recalled the moment. “A great sadness,” he said.

“What flavor of sadness?” Obron said. “The sadness of failure at some cherished goal? Or of remorse for an evil act, either committed by the regretful one, or allowed to be committed by another? Or of separation from a loved one, never to be known again?”

Kaslo sat in the salon and let his mind go inward. He felt a dry lump forming in his throat and tears welling in his eyes. “It feels,” he began, then paused to let the emotion fill him, “it feels as if I have loved and lost, and with the passion of a fool. More, I allowed my love to weaken me, so that another could use me for ends I would never have countenanced.”

Obron nodded, as if something had been confirmed. “And is this an old regret?”

“Very old,” said Kaslo, feeling a tear trickle down his cheek, “and yet fresh as today.”

Obron made a soft grunt, then went back to the book, his finger tracing a line of text.

“What does it mean?” Kaslo said.

“I don’t know,” the wizard said, without looking up. “I only know that it means something. More, it may mean everything.”

Kaslo could get nothing further out of him.

• • • •

Another day passed, then a small chime sounded from the roof of the Conveyance. Obron looked up from his studies and made a hand motion. A segment of the wall became transparent, showing a blue-green ball set against speckled blackness. “We are arriving,” he said.

“But we haven’t passed through a whimsy,” said the op.

“Certainly, we have.”

“Without medications? Why are we not mad?”

“The Conveyance is not called Impervious for nothing,” said the wizard. He approached the transparency, studying the rapidly expanding view of Old Earth. After a moment, he said, “Saunterance, see the desert in the northeast. That is our destination.”

The dragon’s voice spoke from the air, just as in the days of ships’ integrators. “I see it.”

The vessel angled down so as to make a shallow entrance to the planet’s atmosphere. Kaslo was hard put not to think of the Conveyance as a spaceship; the experience of travel was almost indistinguishable from passage on a space yacht. They were soon high above a gray ocean, gradually descending from west to east, with a large continent looming on the forward horizon. The desert for which they were bound was now out of sight, being some distance inland.

Having nothing better to do, Kaslo remained at the transparency while Obron went back to his literary immersion. As they neared the coastline, the op saw a coastal range of ancient peaks from which a long, mountain-spined peninsula thrust far out into the sea. At its tip sprawled a city overhung by an array of black crags. Scaling the heights was an array of spires, domes, terraces, and stairs: a vast and ancient palace complex.

“That city,” he told the wizard, “does not look to have suffered as deeply as Indoberia did. I see towers still standing, and the roads are open. I can even see movement. There are people down there!”

“Mmm,” said Obron, turning a page.

Now the city passed out of sight as they overflew the end of the peninsula, heading inland. Then the floor tilted and the metropolis came back into view as the Conveyance swung in a descending arc. At the same moment, the dragon Saunterance spoke, in the same quiet, neutral voice of a ship’s integrator: “I have encountered a problem.”

Obron looked up sharply. “Define it.”

“I am being drawn down to that large structure atop the mountains.”

“Resist,” said the wizard.

“I cannot.”

Kaslo crossed the sloping floor to his cabin, entered and emerged soon after buckling on the harness he had devised for his weapons. He found Obron at the viewport, his face grave, fingers cradling his long chin.

“What is happening?” the op said.

“The unexpected.” The wizard turned and went to his workbench, where he took up a wand, fitted an ornate ring on one thumb, and slipped a small, black book into a pocket of his robe. After a moment, he retrieved the book, opened it, read a portion of a page, then put it back in the pocket.

He looked at Kaslo. “Do nothing without my direction.”

The vessel came smoothly down toward the agglomeration of buildings spread across terraces that climbed from the middle to the upper heights. Some were clearly ancient, their surfaces weathered over millennia; some were ruins.

Their descent slowed, then slowed some more.

“At least we’re not being shot down,” Kaslo said.

A new voice, freighted with an air of authority, spoke from nowhere. “When you have landed, you will disembark.”

“Who speaks?” Obron said.

“One who speaks for the Archon,” said the voice.

The title caused the wizard to knit his brows as if searching for a misplaced detail. He quickly sought through his shelves of books, found one, opened it and ran a finger down a page. Then he flipped to another page and read for a few moments. His brows rose and he assumed the expression of a man who has encountered a fact that may or may not be to his benefit.

The Conveyance landed. Obron gestured and a segment of the wall slid aside. It was a short step down to the black flagstones that paved their landing place. He went out and Kaslo followed. The op found himself on a wide terrace that overlooked the city spread out between the mountains and the encircling sea. It was late afternoon and the light from the orange sun was mellow, illuminating a vast grid of streets that, if not bustling, were not blocked by fallen masonry.

The wizard looked up at the dragon. “Saunterance, are you well?”

“I am confined,” said the dragon, which squatted beside their vehicle, “but not uncomfortably so.”

On the inner edge of the terrace, a windowless stone wall rose up several times Kaslo’s height. As he surveyed its unbroken expanse to left and right, a crack appeared in front of him, widening to reveal a door set invisibly into the seamless surface. The voice that had spoken before said, “Enter.”

Kaslo looked to Obron. The wizard produced the black wand Kaslo had acquired from Asrat Gozon weeks before. He pointed it at the doorway and said two words. Nothing happened that the op could see, but the voice said, “You need fear no harm if you intend none. Enter.”

Obron’s narrow shoulders made a tiny shrug, then he squared them and stepped through the doorway. Kaslo followed, but kept his hand on the spring-gun suspended from his harness. Beyond the portal was a corridor, its length lit by lumens bracketed to the wall at intervals of several paces. The illuminatives were such an ordinary sight that the op had passed the third light before he was struck by the incongruity: lumens belonged to the age of rationality; the energies that powered them ought to have ceased being generated in the universe of sympathetic association.

He stopped and examined one. It was, indeed, a perfectly ordinary lumen, the kind that had lit a hundred billion rooms in the Ten Thousand Worlds since time immemorial. “How can this be?” he said.

Obron turned and beckoned him, saying, “If we walk to the end of this corridor, I believe we shall find out.”

They walked on until the end of the passageway was in clear view: another blank wall that, as they neared it, revealed another door that swung open.

“Enter,” said the voice, “and wait.”

They came into a spacious office centered on a wide antique desk, walled with bookshelves and cabinets, and decorated with images, sculptures, and curios of several different aeons. Some of them were the most ancient objects Kaslo had ever seen.

He pulled his gaze from a great globe built up of innumerable layers of intricate gold filigree and said, “Does the connectivity survive here? Am I speaking to an integrator?”

The voice said, “The answer to your question is: yes or no, depending on when you ask it.”

“I am asking it now,” said the op.

The answer came from another voice. “You are asking my assistant, whom I have named Old Confustible. Not long ago, it was an integrator, and I expect it will be again, some great time from now when you and I are mere dust.”

Kaslo turned and saw that a narrow door had opened in the rear wall of the chamber, to admit a man of early middle age dressed in a nondescript singlesuit of deep green with black accents. He wore nothing to indicate rank, except for the heavy ring on an index finger: white metal in which was set a green stone incised with black runes. He came into the room, the door closing itself behind him, and took the seat behind the desk.

“As to what Old Confustible is now,” he continued, “I find it better not to inquire too closely. In the dawn of a new age, one must accept help with the emphasis on gratitude while kicking curiosity to the curb.”

The man now studied the two visitors for a moment. He seemed to notice Kaslo’s spring-gun for the first time. “You are welcome to keep your weapon, but I must warn you not to make any untoward motions with it. My person is defended and the systems are automatic.”

The op looked around the chamber. He saw nothing to alarm him. But, back in his old office and lodgings, no one would have seen the devices that he had installed to protect him. This place had lumens and something that acted like an integrator; he would make sure that the weapon hung untouched on his harness.

The man had now turned his attention to Obron. “You would be a thaumaturge,” he said. “Green school, since you arrived in a version of Testroni’s Impervious Conveyance. May I ask how you managed to contrive one? And where you acquired the dragon?”

Obron had been returning the man’s searching gaze with a close examination of his own, with particular attention to the intaglioed ring. “You will pardon me if, for the moment, I do not care to divulge that information,” he said.

“Ah,” said the man behind the desk. “Of course. Until we establish the nature of our relationship.”

“Which I hope will be one of amity,” said Obron.

“As do I.” The man laced his fingers together on the desktop and leaned forward, the ring reflecting the room’s lights onto the polished surface. “Let us begin by identifying ourselves.”

He said nothing more, making it plain that the first admission must be theirs. Obron did not hesitate, but named himself and Kaslo, and said that they had come from the Foundational Domain of Novo Bantry.

“Novo Bantry?” said the man, in a tone that said the world was familiar to him. He then said, “Old Confustible?”

A schematic of The Spray appeared in the air, the stars that hosted populated worlds delineated in various colors. Around the elderly specimen that lit this world a blue circle appeared, followed by a white circle to identify the star around which Novo Bantry orbited.

“Well down The Spray,” the man said. “I don’t expect we’ll see too many more visitors from your world.”

“You probably won’t see any,” said Obron. “There was a certain amount of attrition within the wizardly community just before and after the change. And then it turned out there was another complicating factor that by now may have eliminated the few remainders.”

“Would that be,” said the man behind the desk, “an interplanar factor?”

“It would,” said Obron, “and I would like to know your views on that issue before I say anything more.”

“My views,” said the man. “Would you not first like to know whose views those are?”

“I know that already,” said Obron. “You are Filidor, first of that name to hold the office of Archon of Old Earth.”

“I’m somewhat surprised,” the other man said. “Not too many folk as far down The Spray as Novo Bantry have heard of our mostly forgotten little world, let alone our governance.

“Technically, though,” he continued, “I am Archon of those parts of Old Earth still inhabited by human beings. And, since the change, the population has declined considerably.”

Kaslo spoke up now. “But you have not suffered the devastation that struck Novo Bantry.”

“No,” said Filidor. “Still, a distressingly large portion of the populace decided that they did not care to live without the devices that cushioned their lives. Nor to inhabit a world in which they might run afoul of some spellcaster’s caprice.” He gestured to the walls. “Out there lies the grand old city of Olkney, many of its rooms harboring the corpses of those who chose not to make the necessary adjustments.”

He sighed and for a moment his gaze went inward, then he returned to the matter at hand. “Back to that interplanar factor,” he said. “I assumed that because, after you identified your world, Old Confustible whispered in my ear to remind me that Novo Bantry and Old Earth share a curious characteristic: They are two of the three worlds in The Spray where the Third and Seventh Planes are adjacent to each other. All the others — and there are thousands of them — are out in space.”

Obron’s brows had risen. “There is a third planet where whimsies can appear?”

The Archon waved away the question. “A little ball of rock named Nestranko down near New Gargano. Completely disregarded, although if you’re interested in such matters, it appears to have been the place where the demiurge and his helpers designed and perfected the prototypes.”

He told the entity that functioned as an integrator to display Nestranko on the schematic. Another glowing circle appeared, this one in green, much farther down The Spray, almost to the Back of Beyond.

Kaslo was struggling to encompass new concepts. In the world he had known, it was customary to talk about the demiurge as the initiating cause of all phenomenality. But the nature of this “unmoved prime mover” was taken as a pious fiction, a mythological construct to explain the unexplainable.

Now his employer and this alleged ruler of humanity’s supposed original homeworld were discussing the first cause as if it were an apparaticist with a corps of attendants that had worked on some negligible little speck of a world to build the whimsies that made interstellar travel possible.

While the op had been thinking, the two practitioners of the arcane arts — for surely this Filidor had the air of a spellslinger — had fallen into a discussion. Again the op was hearing terms he could not define, although he could tell the dialogue was evolving into an argument, Obron using words like “must” and “necessity” while Filidor threw back “cannot” and “out of the question.”

Kaslo interrupted. “Wait,” he said. “The demiurge? It’s hard enough dealing with sympathetic association. Must I now move through a universe of myth?”

Filidor broke off the dispute to take another look at Kaslo. Then he turned his gaze back to the wizard and said, “So, not one of the fraternity?”

“No talent,” said Obron. “But he has very good instincts when it comes to practical issues.”

Filidor addressed Kaslo in a tone that was meant to be reassuring. “Do not worry yourself about matters that need not concern you. Neither you nor your master will be delving further into that particular ‘myth.’” His tone when he turned back to Obron was final. “Not on my world.”

“I do not act out of not idle curiosity,” the wizard said. “There is a terrible threat, to your world and mine.”

“The threat,” the Archon said, “has been dealt with. Or, rather, I should say threats, because there were two. The first was the device that became stuck in the membrane between this plane and the Seventh. My predecessor and I deactivated the thing several years ago, before I assumed the office of Archon.

“The second threat was vitiated by an agent of mine shortly before the change. Majestrum,” — Filidor rubbed his palms together in a gesture of termination — “is no more.”

Obron blinked and looked about as if expecting sudden danger. “You have no qualms in naming that name?”

“You could shout it from the rooftops. It has become a term without a referent, all its powers evaporated.” The Archon leaned back in his chair. “That is why your journey has been a fool’s errand. Your enemy no longer exists.”

“Wrong,” said Kaslo.

Now it was the Archon’s turn to blink. “I am not used to being contradicted,” he said.

“Then prepare for a new experience,” the op said. “I know nothing about this Majestrum and next to nothing about the capacitor that was supposed to draw evil from the Seventh Plane and channel it for his purposes. But I do know that some power is alive and active in that realm, and it’s doing its best to do its worst on our world. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has plans for yours.”

He saw irritation rise in the Old Earther’s face, but then he saw that reaction overtaken by a mind that had learned not to act without first obtaining a full understanding of the situation. Filidor studied the ring on his finger for a moment, then said, “You had better tell me what you know.”

For the next several minutes, Kaslo told the Old Earther all that had happened since he and Obron had taken up together: the thugs sent to steal Obron’s speculon, the deadly struggle for power of Novo Bantry’s wizards before the change, the op’s visit to the underworld where Phalloon’s shade still feared whatever lurked in the Seventh Plane, the attack of the fire elemental and the preyns.

“Preyns?” Filidor interrupted, and now he was sitting forward in his chair, his eyes bright. “Coming out of the other realm?”

“And stealing people to take back with them,” Kaslo said. He told the Archon what had happened to the refugees in the village, and of the entity whose touch had filled the op with sorrow and despair.

The Old Earther’s expression grew grave. When Kaslo had finished he looked to Obron. “You have researched the question?”

“As best I can,” said the wizard.

“And drawn conclusions?”

“There is only one to be drawn.”

The Archon took a long inward breath and let it out just as slowly. “So Majestrum was not alone in his exile.”

“Clearly not.”

“I will need to look into this.”

Obron signaled assent, but added, “There may not be much time.”

Filidor wore the look of a man who has to face yet another evil just when he thought he had already done his full share of evil-facing. “Old Confustible,” he said, “revive your dormant components that were active in the Nineteenth Aeon. We have a problem.”

“I am doing so,” said the voice from the air, “but I must advise that the problem is already being compounded.”

“How so?” said Filidor.

For answer, a screen appeared in the air. On it formed an image that Kaslo recognized as the terrace outside, where Saunterance waited. The dragon had curled itself around the Conveyance and appeared to be sleeping. But now the viewpoint pulled back to show not only the dragon but the sky above and to the east of the Archonate palace. A bank of cumulus clouds had ramped up on the horizon and shone pink as they caught the last rays of the setting sun.

But from within the rosy background a dark spot now emerged and rushed toward the image’s viewpoint, enlarging as it came. It had the form of a thick, boiling clot of dense black vapor. Old Confustible’s percepts centered on the onrushing cloud and enlarged the view. Kaslo saw shapes appearing and disappearing in the roiling motion of the black stuff: arms with clawed, seven-fingered hands; a head crowned by spiked horns and with an array of lidless eyes across its forehead; a mouth with two rows of triangular teeth, top and bottom, from which protruded a long, split tongue.

“What is that thing?” the op asked.

The voice from the air answered him in the same tone as it might have used to tell him the time of day. “An inhabitant of the Seventh Plane. It would call itself an athlenath; we would call it a demon.”

“It does not look friendly,” Kaslo said.

This time Filidor answered. “It will not have come willingly into our plane. It has difficulty holding its form here and must strain to keep itself together. That process causes it to experience its equivalent of pain. It will be very angry and eager to end its discomfort.”

The Archon looked at Obron, who was staring at the screen in mixed fascination and horror as the pulsing cloud filled the frame. “You were right,” he said. “There is something in the Seventh Plane that must be dealt with.”

The viewpoint pulled back to show the athlenath entering the airspace over the palace. In moments, its speed and course would bring it to the terrace where Saunterance lay dozing. But now the dragon’s eyes opened and its head lifted and turned toward the onrushing cloud. Saunterance pushed itself up and onto its hind legs, but could do no more; though it opened its wings, it strained against an invisible restraint.

Filidor said, “Old Confustible, release the dragon.”

On the screen they saw Saunterance shake itself. Then it sprang into the sky, its great wings digging deep into the air as it drove itself in a rising spiral to gain height.

“Can it defeat the athlenath?” Obron asked Filidor.

“Probably not,” was the reply.

“Can you do something to help?”

“Probably yes.”

“Then please do,” said the wizard. “I am fond of my dragon.”

The Archon spoke to his assistant. “Old Confustible, are we prepared?”

“Quite,” said the voice from the air.

But Filidor did not give an order.

Kaslo said, “What are you waiting for?”

Obron knew the answer. “He is waiting until we know for sure what is the demon’s target,” he said.

Filidor nodded, his eyes on the screen.

The athlenath was bearing down on the place where the Conveyance rested. The creature was even larger than Kaslo had thought and it seemed to be gaining greater control over its form: it now showed four long arms and two bandy legs, a thick torso, a short, heavy neck. The spikes on its head also continued down its back in two parallel rows.

It slid down an incline toward the terrace, head-first and all four arms extended. But as it neared the Conveyance, it pulled up sharply to hang vertical in the air, its head turning from side to side as if seeking something. Then it spotted Saunterance, circling high above. The demon’s mouth opened and the split tongue vibrated. Even deep within a palace hewn from a mountain, Kaslo could hear its roar.

The screen showed the athlenath shooting up into the sky, clawed hands spread to grapple with the dragon. Saunterance gave over its circling, folded its wings, and plummeted toward the attacker, leading with the talons of its hind feet.

“That settles that,” said Filidor. “You may open fire.”

From several places on the upper reaches of the Archonate palace, beams of coruscating energy, of an eye-straining ultraviolet shot through with gold and silver sparks, reached up to converge on and surround the rising demon. The creature was momentarily limned black against a surrounding aura. It swatted at the beams like a man beset by a cloud of midges. Then it pulsed twice and lost cohesion. Head, limbs, torso, hands, feet, all became puffs of black smoke that dissipated in the wind of its own passage.

The energy beams ceased, the purple aura disappeared, and Saunterance plunged hindfeet-first through the emptiness that moments before had been filled with raging demon. The dragon opened its wings, braked against the air, and descended to land lightly beside the Conveyance. It craned its neck to examine the sky in all directions, then lay down, curled itself once more around the shining dome, yawned, and closed its eyes.

The screen in the Archon’s chamber winked out. Filidor sat in his chair, his chin in one hand while the other tapped its beringed index finger against the desk top. Kaslo saw him come to some conclusion, then look up at Obron.

“Well,” the Archon said, “you and I need to make some plans.”

“Yes,” said the wizard.

Kaslo had a question. “Those energy beams, they looked like ison cannons.”

Filidor said, “But, of course, ison cannons are impossible in an age of sympathetic association.”

“Then how — ”

“This is Old Earth. Events that may have transpired once or twice on the Foundational Domains have happened here many times. We have developed . . .” — his hand stirred the air as he sought for the right word — “let’s say, workarounds.”

Kaslo wanted to know more but the man’s attitude said the information would not be forthcoming. The op turned his practical mind toward the realities of the situation. As Filidor and Obron put their heads together, he said, “The attack at least tells us something useful.”

The wizard and the Archon turned toward him as if he were a bumptious youngster interrupting an adult conversation. Kaslo fought down a flash of irritation and maintained a professional demeanor. “It tells us, first, that he has to send an agent rather than come himself. As he did with the men who attacked Obron, the fire elemental, and the preyns.”

“True,” said Filidor. “Which means?”

“Which means that he cannot, or dare not, leave the Seventh Plane.”

“Very good,” said the Archon. “What else?”

“This time, he attacked our transportation,” Kaslo said, “which tells us he does not want us to come to him.”

“At least not in the Impervious Conveyance,” Filidor said. “On the other hand — ”

Now it was Kaslo’s turn to interrupt. “On the other hand, that may be exactly what he wants us to think. Because his real goal may be to draw us to him, so that we arrive, overconfident, in a place where he has the strength to deal with us, once and for all.”

The Archon looked to Obron. “You were right. His instincts are indeed good.” To Kaslo he said, “So what would you recommend?”

“There is only one thing to do,” the op said. “We go to find him, but without expecting an easy time of it. It may be a trap.”

Obron said, “You always say no one wins a war by defending. It looks as if our enemy intends to do just that.”

Kaslo shrugged. “There may be different rules for different planes.”

“So there are,” said Filidor. He spoke to his assistant. “I want the complete history of the destruction of Ambit by Majestrum’s cabal of thaumaturges.”

The screen appeared again, and instantly filled with text and images. Filidor glanced at it then said, “But we now know it is not complete, don’t we? Majestrum was not the only survivor of the disaster.”

Old Confustible said, “The records are reliable. The names and fates of all his associates are accounted for.”

“No,” said Obron. “Something has been left out, some detail. And behind that detail hides a monster.”

Filidor agreed. “It would be good to know just what kind of monster that is — ”

“Before,” said Kaslo, “we have to face it.”

© 2015 by Matthew Hughes

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matthew Hughes writes science-fantasy. His SF novels are: Fools Errant and Fool Me Twice, Black Brillion, Majestrum, The Commons, The Spiral Labyrinth, Template, Hespira, The Damned Busters, The Other, Costume Not Included, and Hell to Pay. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Postscripts, Storyteller, Interzone, and a number of “Year’s Best” anthologies. Night Shade Books published his short story collection, The Gist Hunter and Other Stories, in 2005. Formerly a journalist, he spent more than twenty-five years as a freelance speechwriter for Canadian corporate executives and political leaders. His works have been short-listed for the Aurora, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards. His web page is at matthewhughes.org.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight.

Maiden, Mother, Crone

Ann Leckie and Rachel Swirsky

The mule nipped at Marjan’s hand as she burdened it with her packs. She pushed its nose away, careful not to hurt it. She needed the mule to be well. Her life — and her unborn child’s — depended on it.

She led the mule outside the stable and carefully latched the door behind them. She didn’t want the other animals to suffer from the cold. Bad enough she was stealing the mule. She didn’t want Iresna and Gavek to lose anything else.

She mounted and kicked the lazy mule into motion. Its hooves crunched slowly across the snow, step after step, into the endless night. Marjan could have walked faster, but didn’t have enough endurance for the long descent through the icy mountains.

Her whole body felt tight and tense. Her belly cramped. Relax, she told herself. She couldn’t allow herself to start the ride so weak and weary.

She stared into the dark, wishing for a thicker moon to strengthen the light. Dense clouds obscured the needle-pricks of the stars. The air smelled crisp and vacant. New, wet flakes tumbled across Marjan’s cheeks, and she realized it was snowing. She pulled her hands into the sleeves of the too-large furs she’d stolen from Iresna’s chests.

The snow came faster and harder, whipping little pains of ice. Wind hissed and howled. This wasn’t just winter’s cold, she realized with increasing dread. It was a storm, a powerful one.

Her stomach cramped with fear. She twisted to look behind, but she couldn’t tell how far they’d come through the cold and the dark. She thought about turning back to the stables and sheltering there, but she couldn’t. Gavek and Iresna would find her. They’d want to know why she’d fled. Afterward, they’d watch her. She’d never find another occasion to slip away — not before the baby was born.

Her stomach cramped again. Cold and fear and pain — she moaned. The sound came back to her on the driving wind. As she heard it, she realized that just as this wind was not an ordinary winter wind, her pain was not an ordinary winter pain.

She cursed. It was too early.

The mule plodded onward, step after heavy step. Marjan trembled against its neck, terrified of the next contraction. What would she do? She was alone. There was no help for her. Ever since her mother abandoned her as an infant, leaving her with a stranger, her life had always been like this — one moment of desperate isolation after another, with no one familiar to turn to. The Mark burned on Marjan’s hip like the brand it was, the only spot of heat in the cold.

• • • •

Marked on the arm, a witch can cast harm.

Marked on the face, she’s a healing embrace.

Marked on the heart, and love is her art.

Marked on the thigh, and let out a sigh —

She may do it all, but it all goes awry.

The old rhyme was all Marjan had been able to think of the day before as she went with her brother-in-law, Gavek, and her mother-in-law, Iresna, to the mortuary hut and consigned her husband’s body to its eternal rest.

Vatska had died while working with Gavek to fix the roof. Marjan watched them out the window as they labored, two big men with thick beards and thick arms. She felt grateful for them both, but particularly for her enormous, gentle Vatska. She’d just turned back inside when a rope broke from the pulley and Vatska fell. The ice cracked. Vatska’s spine snapped. He lingered, unconscious, for nearly a day before his breath stopped.

If it had been warmer, if the ice had broken, neighbors and relatives would have come to help. But the snows had fallen early, and seemed determined to remain until the last possible day of winter, and so the three of them labored alone.

Gavek stood atop of the ladder that led into the mortuary hut. He levered Vatska’s body while Marjan and her dour mother-in-law steadied the corpse.

“Careful, girl,” Iresna scolded. “Don’t drop my Vatska.”

Iresna had never liked Marjan. Since the moment she came into the house, Iresna had nothing to say to her but criticisms and stinging retorts. No matter how hard Marjan worked, Iresna resented her. She didn’t know why she’d expected Iresna to put aside her anger today, just because they were mourning Vatska.

Marjan’s eyes stung with her own grief. She would not let the old woman goad her into further tears.

“He won’t fall, Mama,” said the good-natured Gavek. “Besides, he’s with the Solitary God now.”

They laid Vatska’s body in the stilted hut, safely beside his father’s. They trudged back to the house in silence. Even the extra warmth of late pregnancy couldn’t protect Marjan from the knife-sharp wind and her own loneliness. She pressed her hand against the concealed Mark on her hip that would mean death for herself and her child as soon as Gavek or Iresna discovered it.

She may do it all, but it all goes awry.

• • • •

Marjan had been living with Gavek, Iresna, and Vatska for five years, ever since Vatska found her working as a maid in an inn on the southern trade route where winter was not quite so bitter. He’d courted her over the course of his annual stays, buying gifts and sitting late after the other customers so he could chat with Marjan alone. He told her that he headed a small family estate in the mountains where he lived with his unmarried brother and aging mother. It was a hard life, he said, but there was food enough and more, and he would like a wife.

Marjan was not a fool. As a Marked woman, she knew that she was lucky to be alive in times when the priests of the Solitary God killed any witches they found. She did not plan to make her mother’s mistake and become pregnant. If she bore a Marked girl, she would be forced to flee with the child until she found someone who cared more for the old ways than they did for their own safety — someone like her own foster mother.

Still, she’d lain with men while working at the inn. She’d always been careful to use the midwife’s herbs to keep their seed from catching. Vatska’s offer woke a stirring in her that she’d thought long buried, the yearning for a hearth and family of her own.

“We’ll never have children,” Marjan told him, leaving him to make his own assumptions.

That was all right, Vatska said. So Marjan packed her meager possessions and followed him into the mountains.

• • • •

At first when Marjan’s flow didn’t come, she thought it was simply late. She couldn’t be with child. She’d taken the herbs faithfully whether she laid with Vatska or not.

She began feeling sick to her stomach. Her waistband grew tighter. She checked her herbs, and found them safe, dry, and uncompromised by vermin. How could this have happened?

It was deep into autumn when she finally conceded the truth. She could think of nothing else to do except convince her husband that she needed to return to her old village. Once there, she could consult with the midwife. She went to Vatska and pleaded. He frowned; she’d never shown any interest in going back before. Still, he was a good man, and he agreed. Even though it was unseasonably late, they would go next week when he had goods.

But the snows came early that year. They crippled the crops. A girl child went walking the night before a blizzard and was found in the morning, stiff and blue. Vatska promised to take Marjan to the village in springtime. By then it would be too late.

Marjan had no choice but to try trusting the man she’d married.

There was no privacy in the farmhouse during winter, not with four people trapped in two rooms, so Marjan asked Vatska to meet her in the stables. He sobered when he saw her sitting on a bale of straw, her face pale and grief-stricken. “What is it?”

“Vatska,” she said, steeling her voice against her fear. “I am a Marked woman.”

She felt him flinch. She’d never shown herself to him naked except in the dark when shadows concealed her secret. “Show me,” he said.

Marjan bowed her head so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. She lifted her skirts. The red and black swirl on her hip wasn’t like the ordinary blotches that sometimes marred other children’s skin. The colors whirled around each other, vivid and entrancing. In the presence of her own mother or daughter, the Mark would glow — in the days before there were kings in Dellosert, people had seen that glow and known they beheld a woman of power. Now the glow attracted priests’ blades.

Sometimes Marjan wondered what it would have been like to live before the Solitary God, when Marked pairs of mothers and daughters sat on three-legged stools in temple rooms, aiding supplicants. Now, only a few Marked women survived, scattered and separated from their kin. Isolated, they posed no threat to the Solitary God’s power — even Marked women could only perform witchcraft when they were united with mothers or daughters of their blood. When their Marks began to glow with power, the Solitary God’s defenders sought them without pity.

Marjan felt Vatska’s fingers, warm and probing. It was strange to be touched there. Strange to be seen.

She wondered for a moment that she wasn’t more fearful. He could slay her now. He might.

His voice was gentle. “Hush, Marjanka. Perhaps it will be a boy.”

Perhaps — but if she was going to bear a boy, why would her Mark have begun to glow like warming embers? She tried to tell him. He stilled her lips with his finger.

“We’ll find a way,” he said, bringing her close into the comfort of his arms. She savored the smell of his skin, fish and smoke and the dusky scent underneath that was nothing else but Vatska.

Now he was gone. Marjan and her daughter were at the mercy of her stern, critical mother-in-law, who prayed to the Solitary God every sunrise and sunset.

Iresna would have killed her if she hadn’t fled. Now the ice would kill her anyway.

• • • •

She may do it all, but it all goes awry.

The snow fell so heavily that it blanketed Marjan and the mule as they rode. The donkey couldn’t progress against the driving winds. The air had the smell of a worsening storm, an emptiness that filled Marjan’s mouth and nostrils.

Marjan halted the mule and hunkered beside it, trying to share enough warmth that they could survive until morning. She dug at the snow to make an impromptu shelter. Another contraction hit. She nearly cried out, but muffled the noise with her mittened hand, afraid she’d spook the animal and make things worse for them both.

“Marjan!” A man’s baritone echoed across the snow, tumbled by the wind. “Marjan! Wait!”

Marjan scrambled to look out. The lantern-lit figures of Gavek and Iresna trudged through the snow. She felt a moment of hope at the prospect of rescue — but she couldn’t let them take her back.

“Go back!” she shouted.

“Stupid girl!” Iresna shouted back. “You married my Vatska for this? To steal from us and run?”

“You don’t understand!”

“What would you have me do? Leave you to freeze with our mule?”

“Vatska’s dead! We don’t owe each other anything! Turn back!”

Gavek swung his lantern toward her. “At least come off the river!”

Marjan looked about, startled. Surely, if the slight glow in the east was sunrise, this couldn’t be the river. She should have crossed long before.

“Stay off the ice, Mama,” came Gavek’s voice. “It’s too close to spring.”

Iresna trudged stolidly onward. She raised her arm into the gloomy dawn, mittened hand pointing at Marjan. “You, who married my Vatska. Get back on the mule and lead us home or we’ll all die here. Do you want to be my death as well as your child’s? This storm hasn’t even started! Stupid, stupid girl.”

“I won’t go home with you! You never wanted me in your house!”

Wind gusted, spattering ice onto Marjan and the mule. Another cramp gripped Marjan’s stomach.

“No!” she said to herself. “Not now!”

“What?” asked Iresna.

“Nothing! Go home — ” The peak of Marjan’s contraction twisted away her words.

“Your baby’s coming? Here? Now?” Iresna shook her head. “I hope you’re happy. Now we’ll all die.”

She moved quickly across the snow to Marjan’s side. Marjan tried to fight her off, but Iresna was not tired from long, futile hours of riding.

“Hold still, girl,” said Iresna. “We’ll argue later.”

Marjan laid back, in too much pain for further struggle. Iresna rooted through the mule’s packs, pulling out furs and blankets to drape around them. Gavek, uneasily watching his footing, came across the ice to help. They constructed something like a small, cramped tent over them, the close air smelling of hot oil and mule flesh.

“Close your eyes, Gavekska. These are women’s secrets,” said Iresna. She felt underneath Marjan’s skirts. “Ah, it won’t be long. Not the next moment, but not long. I don’t suppose you can walk.”

Pain blossomed on Marjan’s hip. Her Mark burned ever hotter, glowing like a candle flame through her clothes. She moaned.

His back to the women, Gavek peered out into the storm. “It’s getting worse.”

“Yes, yes,” said Iresna irritably. “And it will get worse than this, too. We won’t get home before the baby comes.”

Iresna made a cushion of blankets beneath Marjan’s hips. Marjan tried to pull away, to keep the woman’s eyes off her Mark. “Stop,” she said. “Sit with Gavek. I’ll do this alone.”

Iresna ignored her. “My son comes home with a woman he’s found at a village inn. A woman with no family, no money. Not a widow with children, to show she’d give me healthy grandbabies, but an old maid. I think to myself, what does my son want with such a woman? What does such a woman want with my son?”

She pulled Marjan’s skirts up to her knees and set the lantern closer. Marjan recoiled from the light.

“And the herbs,” Iresna continued. “Seasons go by with no children. I know what to think. But.” She settled on her haunches. “The seasons go by, and this woman takes care of my son. I am still suspicious, oh yes. But she cooks and sews and pulls weeds in the garden, and she never complains.”

Marjan’s voice strained. “I never meant this to happen. Irensa — ”

“I’m not such an old fool,” said Iresna. “Am I, Gavekska?”

“That depends,” said Gavek, “on whether we all die in this storm.”

Iresna went on, “You would have done better to refuse when Vatska offered to marry you. Even with herbs, this can happen. But then my Vatska would have been unhappy. And how can I blame you for loving him?”

“Iresna!” Marjan said, urgently. “Please, you and Gavek have to go. Don’t ask me to explain. It’s better you don’t know.”

“Marjan,” said Iresna, “how could I not know?”

The older woman’s eyes flickered down to the spot of brightness at Marjan’s hip. It was glowing brighter than the lantern now, bathing Marjan in scarlet light.

Marjan could hide no longer. Iresna would call the priests, and they would die, both of them, before the baby even began to live. She began to cry.

“Hush,” said Iresna. “This isn’t important just now.”

Before Marjan could protest, the pain and helplessness became overwhelming. She could hardly speak or even think. Redness, tightening, the reek of blood and exertion — and suddenly, though it seemed impossible, the baby was pushed from her and into Iresna’s outstretched hands.

A wail. The baby was alive. She saw it in Iresna’s arms, its Mark glowing brightly, calling to her like a beacon.

Iresna’s hand cupped the baby’s neck. One flick of her wrist — Marjan shivered from the cold and the fear and wondered if she would ever be warm again.

Iresna held up the child so Marjan could see her. Born prematurely, the girl was small for a newborn, with wrinkled red skin and a shock of black hair like Vatska’s that nearly covered her eyes. “Marked on the heart, and love is her art,” said Iresna, examining the girl’s glowing chest.

“Please,” Marjan begged. “I’ll do anything. You can’t kill her.”

“You think I would do that? Kill my own grandchild?”

It was so cold. Marjan could scarcely feel her lips. “You — you always call on the Solitary God.”

Iresna wrapped the crying child in her shawl. “When you meet a dangerous thing, you keep your eye on it. You don’t do anything threatening. You make sure to keep it calm.”

Gavek had turned back to admire the child. “If it’s dangerous, you should try to get away from it.”

“There is no getting away from the Solitary God. Not these days,” said Iresna bitterly. She shifted to allow Marjan to take the wrapped child. “That should have been a difficult birth, but it went more easily than I thought it would. Nurse your child. It will help you both.”

The baby’s weight felt good in Marjan’s arms. It was a strange sensation, touching someone who shared her blood. The baby quieted, sucked. Marjan flooded with warmth. Dulchenka, she thought, staring into the tiny face. I will name you after sweetness, as my own mother named me after bitterness.

The wind howled outside, but within their little shelter, it was surprisingly warm. Marjan shifted to rid herself of the heaviest blankets. Iresna looked down at mother and child, an old sadness showing in her expression.

“When I was small, I had a sister,” Iresna began. “I never told you this, Gavekska. My sister had the Mark on her cheek. A mark on her face, she’s a healing embrace. If Father had allowed her to live, perhaps she’d have had a daughter. Maybe my Vatska would still be alive.” Iresna’s mouth puckered sourly. “They told everyone the baby was born dead. I knew better.”

She ran her fingers through the baby’s shock of black hair.

“It will be hard for anyone to resist this one,” she said. “With such a mark, everyone will love her.”

“It won’t stop the priests,” said Marjan.

“No,” said Iresna.

Beneath them, the ice began making sharp, popping sounds. Marjan shifted. The water around her skirts had begun to melt. “My clothes are soaked . . .” she said.

Gavek and Iresna looked sharply toward each other.

“I told you we should not be on the river,” said Gavek.

Beneath the wind, they heard the sound of breaking ice.

“Leave the blankets and things,” said Iresna. “We must run.”

“Mama,” said Gavek, “The wind is blowing. Our clothes are wet. We won’t get ten yards before we freeze.”

“We won’t freeze,” said Iresna. “But we may fall through the ice before we reach shore.”

The older woman took Marjan’s hands, urgently.

“Listen to me. You put my family at risk by coming to marry my Vatska. You led us all to this river so we may die. But you can save us now, you and my granddaughter. Do you think all births go so easily? At times like this? And how do you think the river is melting during a storm? You were cold, weren’t you? You wanted to be warm. Your daughter has already helped you work magic. Now you must tell the ice to stay hard.”

“How?” asked Marjan.

“You’d best figure it out, or we’ll all die here, and it won’t matter whether you escape the Solitary God and his knives.”

“But we can’t . . . Dulchenka has love magic.”

“What does that matter? You’re Marked on your thigh. You may do anything. Stop the storm.”

Marjan’s heart pounded. How could she work magic like this? Even if this truly wouldn’t be her first magic, it would still be her first time commanding it. And the rhyme — women like her cast spells that went wrong. This spell couldn’t go awry. They’d die if it did. For once in her life, Marjan had to make things happen as they should.

She cradled Dulchenka to her chest. She had a daughter now. She’d never had that before. Her glance flickered toward Iresna’s stern face, and for a moment, she felt as though she were looking at the mother she’d never known.

“Let the ice stay strong,” Marjan whispered.

The creaking stopped.

She tried again. “Let there be no wind.”

The gusts fell silent.

Iresna pulled down the blankets. All around them was a circle of calm. The storm raged around its edges, sleet driven sideways by the wind.

“Can we move?” asked Gavek.

“We must,” said Iresna.

They walked home by lantern-light, in a rosy circle surrounded by storm. Marjan cuddled the baby close, treasuring the moments when Dulchenka woke for a moment to latch on for a suck or two before sleeping again. She pressed her fingers against the warm glow of her daughter’s Marked heart. Of all the loves Dulchenka would inspire in her lifetime, she could never make anyone love her more than her mother already did.

Iresna trudged alongside, a grim set to her jaw. At last, in a voice like creaking ice, she said, “You know you can’t stay.”

Marjan’s world cracked open like the river.

“The priests would discover you,” Iresna said. “As long as Dulchenka is still a baby, you could never fight them.”

It was true, of course. The stories were full of Marked mothers and their infants and how their nascent magic succumbed to blessed blades.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” said Iresna. “I believe we can risk your staying until the end of winter. The storms will protect you until the pass opens.”

“You’ll keep Dulchenka?” asked Marjan.

“My grandchild? Oh, yes.”

“At least she’ll be with family,” said Marjan, her throat caught with tears. It was more than she’d had herself.

They went the rest of the way in silence, their footsteps the only noise apart from the howling wind.

• • • •

Gavek set aside goods and coins for Marjan. She worried about taking things she had no right to, but Gavek assured her it was fair compensation for the work she’d done.

He sat with Marjan and Dulchenka during the late winter evenings while they recovered from the birth. He rocked Dulchenka on his knee as her father never would, and looked with awe at the Marks that blazed like firelight through their clothes.

Iresna stayed away. Gavek said it was because she did not want Marjan to go. She came out at last on the final day of winter and wrapped Marjan in a tight, painful embrace.

“Keep in touch with Gavek through the trade inns,” said Iresna.

“I will.”

Gently, Iresna took Dulchenka from her mother’s arms. “When she’s old enough, maybe we can find a way for you to meet.”

“Perhaps.”

Marjan packed the mule — this time with Iresna and Gavek’s blessings — and mounted him for the long ride down the peak. Within a mile, her Mark faded so that it no longer showed through her skirts.

Marjan hadn’t told Iresna or Gavek, but she had a plan. She would ride through Dellosert, and beyond if necessary, until her Mark began to glow once more, and then she would finally meet her mother.

She wondered how many people still knew the second verse of the witch’s rhyme, the forbidden one her foster mother had whispered when she was small:

One witch alone is tragic.

Two witches fill their days with magic.

Three witches who together dwell

can fold the world inside their spell.

Marjan spoke the words like a charm. They gave her hope as she descended the mountain.

© 2010 by Ann Leckie and Rachel Swirsky.

Originally published in Realms of Fantasy.

Reprinted by permission of the authors.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rachel Swirsky holds a master’s degree in fiction from the Iowa Writers Workshop, and graduated from Clarion West in 2005. She’s published over fifty short stories in venues including the New Haven Review, Clarkesworld Magazine, and Tor.com. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the Sturgeon Award, and in 2010, her novella “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window” won the Nebula. If it were an option, she might choose to replace her hair with feathers, preferably bright macaw feathers.

Ann Leckie is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Award winning novel Ancillary Justice. She has also published short stories in Subterranean Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Realms of Fantasy. Her story “Hesperia and Glory” was reprinted in Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition, edited by Rich Horton. Ann has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, and a recording engineer. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight.

The Choice

Paul McAuley

In the night, tides and a brisk wind drove a raft of bubbleweed across the Flood and piled it up along the north side of the island. Soon after first light, Lucas started raking it up, ferrying load after load to one of the compost pits, where it would rot down into a nutrient-rich liquid fertiliser. He was trundling his wheelbarrow down the steep path to the shore for about the thirtieth or fortieth time when he spotted someone walking across the water: Damian, moving like a cross-country skier as he crossed the channel between the island and the stilt huts and floating tanks of his father’s shrimp farm. It was still early in the morning, already hot. A perfect September day, the sky’s blue dome untroubled by cloud. Shifting points of sunlight starred the water, flashed from the blades of the farm’s wind turbine. Lucas waved to his friend and Damian waved back and nearly overbalanced, windmilling his arms and recovering, slogging on.

They met at the water’s edge. Damian, picking his way between floating slicks of red weed, called out breathlessly, “Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“A dragon got itself stranded close to Martham.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding. An honest-to-God sea dragon.”

Damian stepped onto an apron of broken brick at the edge of the water and sat down and eased off the fat flippers of his Jesus shoes, explaining that he’d heard about it from Ritchy, the foreman of the shrimp farm, who’d got it off the skipper of a supply barge who’d been listening to chatter on the common band.

“It beached not half an hour ago. People reckon it came in through the cut at Horsey and couldn’t get back over the bar when the tide turned. So it went on up the channel of the old river bed until it ran ashore.”

Lucas thought for a moment. “There’s a sandbar that hooks into the channel south of Martham. I went past it any number of times when I worked on Grant Higgins’s boat last summer, ferrying oysters to Norwich.”

“It’s almost on our doorstep,” Damian said. He pulled his phone from the pocket of his shorts and angled it towards Lucas. “Right about here. See it?”

“I know where Martham is. Let me guess — you want me to take you.”

“What’s the point of building a boat if you don’t use it? Come on, L. It isn’t every day an alien machine washes up.”

Lucas took off his broad-brimmed straw hat and blotted his forehead with his wrist and set his hat on his head again. He was a wiry boy not quite sixteen, bare-chested in baggy shorts, and sandals he’d cut from an old car tyre. “I was planning to go crabbing. After I finish clearing this weed, water the vegetable patch, fix lunch for my mother . . .”

“I’ll give you a hand with all that when we get back.”

“Right.”

“If you really don’t want to go, I could maybe borrow your boat.”

“Or you could take one of your dad’s.”

“After what he did to me last time? I’d rather row there in that leaky old clunker of your mother’s. Or walk.”

“That would be a sight.”

Damian smiled. He was just two months older than Lucas, tall and sturdy, his cropped blond hair bleached by salt and summer sun, his nose and the rims of his ears pink and peeling. The two had been friends for as long as they could remember.

He said, “I reckon I can sail as well as you.”

“You’re sure this dragon is still there? You have pictures?”

“Not exactly. It knocked out the town’s broadband, and everything else. According to the guy who talked to Ritchy, nothing electronic works within a klick of it. Phones, slates, radios, nothing. The tide turns in a couple of hours, but I reckon we can get there if we start right away.”

“Maybe. I should tell my mother,” Lucas said. “In the unlikely event that she wonders where I am.”

“How is she?”

“No better, no worse. Does your dad know you’re skipping out?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell him I went crabbing with you.”

“Fill a couple of jugs at the still,” Lucas said. “And pull up some carrots, too. But first, hand me your phone.”

“The GPS coordinates are flagged up right there. You ask it, it’ll plot a course.”

Lucas took the phone, holding it with his fingertips — he didn’t like the way it squirmed as it shaped itself to fit in his hand. “How do you switch it off?”

“What do you mean?”

“If we go, we won’t be taking the phone. Your dad could track us.”

“How will we find our way there?”

“I don’t need your phone to find Martham.”

“You and your off-the-grid horse shit,” Damian said.

“You wanted an adventure,” Lucas said. “This is it.”

• • • •

When Lucas started to tell his mother that he’d be out for the rest of the day with Damian, she said, “Chasing after that so-called dragon I suppose. No need to look surprised — it’s all over the news. Not the official news, of course. No mention of it there. But it’s leaking out everywhere that counts.”

His mother was propped against the headboard of the double bed under the caravan’s big end window. Julia Wittstruck, fifty-two, skinny as a refugee, dressed in a striped Berber robe and half-covered in a patchwork of quilts and thin orange blankets stamped with the Oxfam logo. The ropes of her dreadlocks were tied back with a red bandana. Her tablet rested in her lap.

She gave Lucas her best inscrutable look and said, “I suppose this is Damian’s idea. You be careful. His ideas usually work out badly.”

“That’s why I’m going along. To make sure he doesn’t get into trouble. He’s set on seeing it, one way or another.”

“And you aren’t?”

Lucas smiled. “I suppose I’m curious. Just a little.”

“I wish I could go. Take a rattle can or two, spray the old slogans on the damned thing’s hide.”

“I could put some cushions in the boat. Make you as comfortable as you like.”

Lucas knew that his mother wouldn’t take up his offer. She rarely left the caravan, hadn’t been off the island for more than three years. A multilocus immunotoxic syndrome, basically an allergic reaction to the myriad products and pollutants of the anthropocene age, had left her more or less completely bedridden. She’d refused all offers of treatment or help by the local social agencies, relying instead on the services of a local witchwoman who visited once a week, and spent her days in bed, working at her tablet. She trawled government sites and stealthnets, made podcasts, advised zero-impact communities, composed critiques and manifestos. She kept a public journal, wrote essays and opinion pieces (at the moment, she was especially exercised by attempts by multinational companies to move in on the Antarctic Peninsula, and a utopian group that was using alien technology to build a floating community on a drowned coral reef in the Midway Islands), and maintained friendships, alliances, and several rancourous feuds with former colleagues whose origins had long been forgotten by both sides. In short, hers was a way of life that would have been familiar to scholars from any time in the past couple of millennia.

She’d been a lecturer in philosophy at Birkbeck College before the nuclear strikes, riots, revolutions, and netwar skirmishes of the so-called Spasm, which had ended when the floppy ships of the Jackaroo had appeared in the skies over Earth. In exchange for rights to the outer solar system, the aliens had given the human race technology to clean up the Earth, and access to a wormhole network that linked a dozen M-class red dwarf stars. Soon enough, other alien species showed up, making various deals with various nations and power blocs, bartering advanced technologies for works of art, fauna and flora, the secret formula of Coca-Cola, and other unique items.

Most believed that the aliens were kindly and benevolent saviours, members of a loose alliance that had traced ancient broadcasts of I Love Lucy to their origin and arrived just in time to save the human species from the consequences of its monkey cleverness. But a vocal minority wanted nothing to do with them, doubting that their motives were in any way altruistic, elaborating all kinds of theories about their true motivations. We should choose to reject the help of the aliens, they said. We should reject easy fixes and the magic of advanced technologies we don’t understand, and choose the harder thing: to keep control of our own destiny.

Julia Wittstruck had become a leading light in this movement. When its brief but fierce round of global protests and politicking had fallen apart in a mess of mutual recriminations and internecine warfare, she’d moved to Scotland and joined a group of green radicals who’d been building a self-sufficient settlement on a trio of ancient oil rigs in the Firth of Forth. But they’d become compromised too, according to Julia, so she’d left them and taken up with Lucas’s father (Lucas knew almost nothing about him — his mother said that the past was the past, that she was all that counted in his life because she had given birth to him and raised and taught him), and they’d lived the gypsy life for a few years until she’d split up with him and, pregnant with her son, had settled in a smallholding in Norfolk, living off the grid, supported by a small legacy left to her by one of her devoted supporters from the glory days of the anti-alien protests.

When she’d first moved there, the coast had been more than ten kilometres to the east, but a steady rise in sea level had flooded the northern and eastern coasts of Britain and Europe. East Anglia had been sliced in two by levees built to protect precious farmland from the encroaching sea, and most people caught on the wrong side had taken resettlement grants and moved on. But Julia had stayed put. She’s paid a contractor to extend a small rise, all that was left of her smallholding, with rubble from a wrecked twentieth-century housing estate, and made her home on the resulting island. It had once been much larger, and a succession of people had camped there, attracted by her kudos, driven away after a few weeks or a few months by her scorn and impatience. Then most of Greenland’s remaining icecap collapsed into the Arctic Ocean, sending a surge of water across the North Sea.

Lucas had only been six, but he still remembered everything about that day. The water had risen past the high tide mark that afternoon and had kept rising. At first it had been fun to mark the stealthy progress of the water with a series of sticks driven into the ground, but by evening it was clear that it was not going to stop anytime soon and then in a sudden smooth rush it rose more than a hundred centimetres, flooding the vegetable plots and lapping at the timber baulks on which the caravan rested. All that evening, Julia had moved their possessions out of the caravan, with Lucas trotting to and fro at her heels, helping her as best he could until, some time after midnight, she’d given up and they’d fallen asleep under a tent rigged from chairs and a blanket. And had woken to discover that their island had shrunk to half its previous size, and the caravan had floated off and lay canted and half-drowned in muddy water littered with every kind of debris.

Julia had bought a replacement caravan and set it on the highest point of what was left of the island, and despite ineffectual attempts to remove them by various local government officials, she and Lucas had stayed on. She’d taught him the basics of numeracy and literacy, and the long and intricate secret history of the world, and he’d learned field- and wood- and watercraft from their neighbours. He snared rabbits in the woods that ran alongside the levee, foraged for hedgerow fruits and edible weeds and fungi, bagged squirrels with small stones shot from his catapult. He grubbed mussels from the rusting car-reef that protected the seaward side of the levee, set wicker traps for eels and trotlines for mitten crabs. He fished for mackerel and dogfish and weaverfish on the wide brown waters of the Flood. When he could, he worked shifts on the shrimp farm owned by Damian’s father, or on the market gardens, farms, and willow and bamboo plantations on the other side of the levee.

In spring, he watched long vees of geese fly north above the floodwater that stretched out to the horizon. In autumn, he watched them fly south.

He’d inherited a great deal of his mother’s restlessness and fierce independence, but although he longed to strike out beyond his little world, he didn’t know how to begin. And besides, he had to look after Julia. She would never admit it, but she depended on him, utterly.

She said now, dismissing his offer to take her along, “You know I have too much to do here. The day is never long enough. There is something you can do for me, though. Take my phone with you.”

“Damian says phones don’t work around the dragon.”

“I’m sure it will work fine. Take some pictures of that thing. As many as you can. I’ll write up your story when you come back, and pictures will help attract traffic.”

“Okay.”

Lucas knew that there was no point in arguing. Besides, his mother’s phone was an ancient model that predated the Spasm: It lacked any kind of cloud connectivity and was as dumb as a box of rocks. As long as he only used it to take pictures, it wouldn’t compromise his idea of an off-the-grid adventure.

His mother smiled. “‘ET go home.’”

“‘ET go home?’”

“We put that up everywhere, back in the day. We put it on the main runway of Luton Airport, in letters twenty metres tall. Also dug trenches in the shape of the words up on the South Downs and filled them with diesel fuel and set them alight. You could see it from space. Let the unhuman know that they were not welcome here. That we did not need them. Check the toolbox. I’m sure there’s a rattle can in there. Take it along, just in case.”

“I’ll take my catapult, in case I spot any ducks. I’ll try to be back before it gets dark. If I don’t, there are MREs in the store cupboard. And I picked some tomatoes and carrots.”

“‘ET go home,’” his mother said. “Don’t forget that. And be careful, in that little boat.”

• • • •

Lucas had started to build his sailboat late last summer, and had worked at it all through the winter. It was just four metres from bow to stern, its plywood hull glued with epoxy and braced with ribs shaped from branches of a young poplar tree that had fallen in the autumn gales. He’d used an adze and a homemade plane to fashion the mast and boom from the poplar’s trunk, knocked up the knees, gunwale, outboard support and bow cap from oak, persuaded Ritchy, the shrimp farm’s foreman, to print off the cleats, oarlocks, bow eye, and grommets for lacing the sails on the farm’s maker. Ritchy had given him some half-empty tins of blue paint and varnish to seal the hull, and he’d bought a set of secondhand laminate sails from the shipyard in Halvergate, and spliced the halyards and sheet from scrap lengths of rope.

He loved his boat more than he was ready to admit to himself. That spring he’d tacked back and forth beyond the shrimp farm, had sailed north along the coast to Halvergate and Acle, and south and west around Reedham Point as far as Brundall, and had crossed the channel of the river and navigated the mazy mudflats to Chedgrave. If the sea dragon was stuck where Damian said it was, he’d have to travel further than ever before, navigating uncharted and ever-shifting sand and mudbanks, dodging clippers and barge strings in the shipping channel, but Lucas reckoned he had the measure of his little boat now and it was a fine day and a steady wind blowing from the west drove them straight along, with the jib cocked as far as it would go in the stay and the mainsail bellying full and the boat heeling sharply as it ploughed a white furrow in the light chop.

At first, all Lucas had to do was sit in the stern with the tiller snug in his right armpit and the main sheet coiled loosely in his left hand, and keep a straight course north past the pens and catwalks of the shrimp farm. Damian sat beside him, leaning out to port to counterbalance the boat’s tilt, his left hand keeping the jib sheet taut, his right holding a plastic cup he would now and then use to scoop water from the bottom of the boat and fling in a sparkling arc that was caught and twisted by the wind.

The sun stood high in a tall blue sky empty of cloud save for a thin rim at the horizon to the northeast. Fret, most likely, mist forming where moisture condensed out of air that had cooled as it passed over the sea. But the fret was kilometres away, and all around sunlight flashed from every wave top and burned on the white sails and beat down on the two boys. Damian’s face and bare torso shone with sunblock; although Lucas was about as dark as he got, he’d rubbed sunblock on his face, too, and tied his straw hat under his chin and put on a shirt that flapped about his chest. The tiller juddered minutely and constantly as the boat slapped through an endless succession of catspaw waves and Lucas measured the flex of the sail by the tug of the sheet wrapped around his left hand, kept an eye on the foxtail streamer that flew from the top of the mast. Judging by landmarks on the levee that ran along the shore to port, they were making around fifteen kilometres per hour, about as fast as Lucas had ever gotten out of his boat, and he and Damian grinned at each other and squinted off into the glare of the sunstruck water, happy and exhilarated to be skimming across the face of the Flood, two bold adventurers off to confront a monster.

“We’ll be there in an hour easy,” Damian said.

“A bit less than two, maybe. As long as the fret stays where it is.”

“The sun’ll burn it off.”

“Hasn’t managed it yet.”

“Don’t let your natural caution spoil a perfect day.”

Lucas swung wide of a raft of bubbleweed that glistened like a slick of fresh blood in the sun. Some called it Martian weed, though it had nothing to do with any of the aliens; it was an engineered species designed to mop up nitrogen and phosphorous released by drowned farmland, prospering beyond all measure or control.

Dead ahead, a long line of whitecaps marked the reef of the old railway embankment. Lucas swung the tiller into the wind and he and Damian ducked as the boom swung across and the boat gybed around. The sails slackened, then filled with wind again as the boat turned towards one of the gaps blown in the embankment, cutting so close to the buoy that marked it that Damian could reach out and slap the rusty steel plate of its flank as they went by. And then they were heading out across a broad reach, with the little town of Acle strung along a low promontory to port. A slateless church steeple stood up from the water like a skeletal lighthouse. The polished cross at its top burned like a flame in the sunlight. A file of old pylons stepped away, most canted at steep angles, the twiggy platforms of heron nests built in angles of their girder work, whitened everywhere with droppings. One of the few still standing straight had been colonised by fisherfolk, with shacks built from driftwood lashed to its struts and a wave-powered generator made from oil drums strung out beyond. Washing flew like festive flags inside the web of rusted steel, and a naked small child of indeterminate sex clung to the unshuttered doorway of a shack just above the waterline, pushing a tangle of hair from its eyes as it watched the little boat sail by.

They passed small islands fringed with young mangrove trees; an engineered species that was rapidly spreading from areas in the south where they’d been planted to replace the levee. Lucas spotted a marsh harrier patrolling mudflats in the lee of one island, scrying for water voles and mitten crabs. They passed a long building sunk to the tops of its second-storey windows in the Flood, with brightly coloured plastic bubbles pitched on its flat roof amongst the notched and spinning wheels of windmill generators, and small boats bobbing alongside. Someone standing at the edge of the roof waved to them, and Damian stood up and waved back and the boat shifted so that he had to catch at the jib leech and sit down hard.

“You want us to capsize, go ahead,” Lucas told him.

“There are worse places to be shipwrecked. You know they’re all married to each other over there.”

“I heard.”

“They like visitors, too.”

“I know you aren’t talking from experience or you’d have told me all about it. At least a dozen times.”

“I met a couple of them in Halvergate. They said I should stop by some time,” Damian said, grinning sideways at Lucas. “We could maybe think about doing that on the way back.”

“And get stripped of everything we own, and thrown in the water.”

“You have a trusting nature, don’t you?”

“If you mean, I’m not silly enough to think they’ll welcome us in and let us take our pick of their women, then I guess I do.”

“She was awful pretty, the woman. And not much older than me.”

“And the rest of them are seahags older than your great-grandmother.”

“That one time with my father . . . She was easily twice my age and I didn’t mind a bit.”

A couple of months ago, Damian’s sixteenth birthday, his father had taken him to a pub in Norwich where women stripped at the bar and afterwards walked around bare naked, collecting tips from the customers. Damian’s father had paid one of them to look after his son, and Damian hadn’t stopped talking about it ever since, making plans to go back on his own or to take Lucas with him that so far hadn’t amounted to anything.

He watched the half-drowned building dwindle into the glare striking off the water and said, “If we ever ran away we could live in a place like that.”

“You could, maybe,” Lucas said. “I’d want to keep moving. But I suppose I could come back and visit now and then.”

“I don’t mean that place. I mean a place like it. Must be plenty of them, on those alien worlds up in the sky. There’s oceans on one of them. First Foot.”

“I know.”

“And alien ruins on all of them. There are people walking about up there right now. On all those new worlds. And most people sit around like . . . like bloody stumps. Old tree stumps stuck in mud.”

“I’m not counting on winning the ticket lottery,” Lucas said. “Sailing south, that would be pretty fine. To Africa, or Brazil, or these islands people are building in the Pacific. Or even all the way to Antarctica.”

“Soon as you stepped ashore, L, you’d be eaten by a polar bear.”

“Polar bears lived in the north when there were polar bears.”

“Killer penguins then. Giant killer penguins with razors in their flippers and lasers for eyes.”

“No such thing.”

“The !Cha made sea dragons, didn’t they? So why not giant robot killer penguins? Your mother should look into it.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Didn’t mean anything by it. Just joking, is all.”

“You go too far sometimes.”

They sailed in silence for a little while, heading west across the deepwater channel. A clipper moved far off to starboard, cylinder sails spinning slowly, white as salt in the middle of a flat vastness that shimmered like shot silk under the hot blue sky. Some way beyond it, a tug was dragging a string of barges south. The shoreline of Thurne Point emerged from the heat haze, standing up from mudbanks cut by a web of narrow channels, and they turned east, skirting stands of sea grass that spread out into the open water. It was a little colder now, and the wind was blowing more from the northwest than the west. Lucas thought that the bank of fret looked closer, too. When he pointed it out, Damian said it was still klicks and klicks off, and besides, they were headed straight to their prize now.

“If it’s still there,” Lucas said.

“It isn’t going anywhere, not with the tide all the way out.”

“You really are an expert on this alien stuff, aren’t you?”

“Just keep heading north, L.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“I’m sorry about that crack about your mother. I didn’t mean anything by it. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I like to kid around,” Damian said. “But I’m serious about getting out of here. Remember that time two years ago, we hiked into Norwich, found the army offices?”

“I remember the sergeant there gave us cups of tea and biscuits and told us to come back when we were old enough.”

“He’s still there. That sergeant. Same bloody biscuits, too.”

“Wait. You went to join up without telling me?”

“I went to find out if I could. After my birthday. Turns out the army takes people our age, but you need the permission of your parents. So that was that.”

“You didn’t even try to talk to your father about it?”

“He has me working for him, L. Why would he sign away good cheap labour? I did try, once. He was half-cut and in a good mood. What passes for a good mood as far as he’s concerned, any rate. Mellowed out on beer and superfine skunk. But he wouldn’t hear anything about it. And then he got all the way flat-out drunk and he beat on me. Told me to never mention it again.”

Lucas looked over at his friend and said, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I can join under my own signature when I’m eighteen, not before,” Damian said. “No way out of here until then, unless I run away or win the lottery.”

“So are you thinking of running away?”

“I’m damned sure not counting on winning the lottery. And even if I do, you have to be eighteen before they let you ship out. Just like the fucking army.” Damian looked at Lucas, looked away. “He’ll probably bash all kinds of shit out of me, for taking off like this.”

“You can stay over tonight. He’ll be calmer, tomorrow.”

Damian shook his head. “He’ll only come looking for me. And I don’t want to cause trouble for you and your mother.”

“It wouldn’t be any trouble.”

“Yeah, it would. But thanks anyway.” Damian paused, then said, “I don’t care what he does to me anymore. You know? All I think is, one day I’ll be able to beat up on him.”

“You say that, but you don’t mean it.”

“Longer I stay here, the more I become like him.”

“I don’t see it ever happening.”

Damian shrugged.

“I really don’t,” Lucas said.

“Fuck him,” Damian said. “I’m not going to let him spoil this fine day.”

“Our grand adventure.”

“The wind’s changing again.”

“I think the fret’s moving in, too.”

“Maybe it is, a little. But we can’t turn back, L. Not now.”

The bank of cloud across the horizon was about a klick away, reaching up so high that it blurred and dimmed the sun. The air was colder and the wind was shifting minute by minute. Damian put on his shirt, holding the jib sheet in his teeth as he punched his arms into the sleeves. They tacked to swing around a long reach of grass, and as they came about saw a white wall sitting across the water, dead ahead.

Lucas pushed the tiller to leeward. The boat slowed at once and swung around to face the wind.

“What’s the problem?” Damian said. “It’s just a bit of mist.”

Lucas caught the boom as it swung, held it steady. “We’ll sit tight for a spell. See if the fret burns off.”

“And meanwhile the tide’ll turn and lift off the fucking dragon.”

“Not for a while.”

“We’re almost there.”

“You don’t like it, you can swim.”

“I might.” Damian peered at the advancing fret. “Think the dragon has something to do with this?”

“I think it’s just fret.”

“Maybe it’s hiding from something looking for it. We’re drifting backwards,” Damian said. “Is that part of your plan?”

“We’re over the river channel, in the main current. Too deep for my anchor. See those dead trees at the edge of the grass? That’s where I’m aiming. We can sit it out there.”

“I hear something,” Damian said.

Lucas heard it, too. The ripping roar of a motor driven at full speed, coming closer. He looked over his shoulder, saw a shadow condense inside the mist and gain shape and solidity: a cabin cruiser shouldering through windblown tendrils at the base of the bank of mist, driving straight down the main channel at full speed, its wake spreading wide on either side.

In a moment of chill clarity, Lucas saw what was going to happen. He shouted to Damian, telling him to duck, and let the boom go and shoved the tiller to starboard. The boom banged around as the sail bellied and the boat started to turn, but the cruiser was already on them, roaring past just ten metres away, and the broad smooth wave of its wake hit the boat broadside and lifted it and shoved it sideways towards a stand of dead trees. Lucas gave up any attempt to steer and unwound the main halyard from its cleat. Damian grabbed an oar and used it to push the boat away from the first of the trees, but their momentum swung them into two more. The wet black stump of a branch scraped along the side and the boat heeled and water poured in over the thwart. For a moment Lucas thought they would capsize; then something thumped into the mast and the boat sat up again. Shards of rotten wood dropped down with a dry clatter and they were suddenly still, caught amongst dead and half-drowned trees.

The damage wasn’t as bad as it might have been — a rip close to the top of the jib, long splintery scrapes in the blue paintwork on the port side — but it kindled a black spark of anger in Lucas’s heart. At the cruiser’s criminal indifference; at his failure to evade trouble.

“Unhook the halyard and let it down,” he told Damian. “We’ll have to do without the jib.”

“Abode Two. That’s the name of the bugger nearly ran us down. Registered in Norwich. We should find him and get him to pay for this mess,” Damian said, as he folded the torn jib sail.

“I wonder why he was going so damned fast.”

“Maybe he went to take a look at the dragon, and something scared him off.”

“Or maybe he just wanted to get out of the fret.” Lucas looked all around, judging angles and clearances. The trees stood close together in water scummed with every kind of debris, stark and white above the tide line, black and clad with mussels and barnacles below. He said, “Let’s try pushing backwards. But be careful. I don’t want any more scrapes.”

By the time they had freed themselves from the dead trees, the fret had advanced around them. A cold streaming whiteness that moved just above the water, deepening in every direction.

“Now we’re caught up in it, it’s as easy to go forward as to go back. So we might as well press on,” Lucas said.

“That’s the spirit. Just don’t hit any more trees.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Think we should put up the sail?”

“There’s hardly any wind, and the tide’s still going out. We’ll just go with the current.”

“Dragon weather,” Damian said.

“Listen,” Lucas said.

After a moment’s silence, Damian said, “Is it another boat?”

“Thought I heard wings.”

Lucas had taken out his catapult. He fitted a ball bearing in the centre of its fat rubber band as he looked all around. There was a splash amongst the dead trees to starboard and he brought up the catapult and pulled back the rubber band as something dropped onto a dead branch. A heron, grey as a ghost, turning its head to look at him.

Lucas lowered the catapult, and Damian whispered, “You could take that easy.”

“I was hoping for a duck or two.”

“Let me try a shot.”

Lucas stuck the catapult in his belt. “You kill it, you eat it.”

The heron straightened its crooked neck and raised up and opened its wings and with a lazy flap launched itself across the water, sailing past the stern of the boat and vanishing into the mist.

“Ritchy cooked one once,” Damian said. “With about a ton of aniseed. Said it was how the Romans did them.”

“How was it?”

“Pretty fucking awful, you want to know the truth.”

“Pass me one of the oars,” Lucas said. “We can row a while.”

They rowed through mist into mist. The small noises they made seemed magnified, intimate. Now and again Lucas put his hand over the side and dipped up a palmful of water and tasted it. Telling Damian that fresh water was slow to mix with salt, so as long as it stayed sweet it meant they were in the old river channel and shouldn’t run into anything. Damian was sceptical, but shrugged when Lucas challenged him to come up with a better way of finding their way through the fret without stranding themselves on some mudbank.

They’d been rowing for ten minutes or so when a long, low mournful note boomed out far ahead of them. It shivered Lucas to the marrow of his bones. He and Damian stopped rowing and looked at each other.

“I’d say that was a foghorn, if I didn’t know what one sounded like,” Damian said.

“Maybe it’s a boat. A big one.”

“Or maybe you-know-what. Calling for its dragon-mummy.”

“Or warning people away.”

“I think it came from over there,” Damian said, pointing off to starboard.

“I think so, too. But it’s hard to be sure of anything in this stuff.”

They rowed aslant the current. A dim and low palisade appeared, resolving into a bed of sea grass that spread along the edge of the old river channel. Lucas, believing that he knew where they were, felt a clear measure of relief. They sculled into a narrow cut that led through the grass. Tall stems bent and showered them with drops of condensed mist as they brushed past. Then they were out into open water on the far side. A beach loomed out of the mist and sand suddenly gripped and grated along the length of the little boat’s keel. Damian dropped his oar and vaulted over the side and splashed away, running up the beach and vanishing into granular whiteness. Lucas shipped his own oar and slid into knee-deep water and hauled the boat through purling ripples, then lifted from the bow the bucket filled with concrete he used as an anchor and dropped it onto hard wet sand, where it keeled sideways in a dint that immediately filled with water.

He followed Damian’s footprints up the beach, climbed a low ridge grown over with marram grass and descended to the other side of the sandbar. Boats lay at anchor in shallow water, their outlines blurred by mist. Two dayfishers with small wheelhouses at their bows. Several sailboats not much bigger than his. A cabin cruiser with trim white superstructure, much like the one that had almost run him down.

A figure materialised out of the whiteness, a chubby boy five or six in dungarees who ran right around Lucas, laughing, and chased away. He followed the boy toward a blurred eye of light far down the beach. Raised voices. Laughter. A metallic screeching. As he drew close, the blurred light condensed and separated into two sources: a bonfire burning above the tide line; a rack of spotlights mounted on a police speedboat anchored a dozen metres off the beach, long fingers of light lancing through mist and blurrily illuminating the long sleek shape stranded at the edge of the water.

It was big, the sea dragon, easily fifteen metres from stem to stern and about three metres across at its waist, tapering to blunt and shovel-shaped points at either end, coated in close-fitting and darkly tinted scales. An alien machine, solid and obdurate. One of thousands spawned by sealed mother ships the UN had purchased from the !Cha.

Lucas thought that it looked like a leech, or one of the parasitic flukes that lived in the bellies of sticklebacks. A big segmented shape, vaguely streamlined, helplessly prostrate. People stood here and there on the curve of its back. A couple of kids were whacking away at its flank with chunks of driftwood. A group of men and women stood at its nose, heads bowed as if in prayer. A woman was walking along its length, pointing a wand-like instrument at different places. A cluster of people were conferring amongst a scatter of tool boxes and a portable generator, and one of them stepped forward and applied an angle grinder to the dragon’s hide. There was a ragged screech and a fan of orange sparks sprayed out and the man stepped back and turned to his companions and shook his head. Beyond the dragon, dozens more people could be glimpsed through the blur of the fret: Everyone from the little town of Martham must have walked out along the sandbar to see the marvel that had cast itself up at their doorstep.

According to the UN, dragons cruised the oceans and swept up and digested the vast rafts of floating garbage that were part of the legacy of the wasteful oil-dependent world before the Spasm. According to rumours propagated on the stealth nets, a UN black lab had long ago cracked open a dragon and reverse-engineered its technology for fell purposes, or they were a cover for an alien plot to infiltrate Earth and construct secret bases in the ocean deeps, or geoengineer the world in some radical and inimical fashion. And so on, and so on. One of his mother’s ongoing disputes was with the Midway Island utopians, who were using modified dragons to sweep plastic particulates from the North Pacific Gyre and spin the polymer soup into construction materials: True utopians shouldn’t use any kind of alien technology, according to her.

Lucas remembered his mother’s request to take photos of the dragon and fished out her phone; when he switched it on, it emitted a lone and plaintive beep and its screen flashed and went dark. He switched it off, switched it on again. This time it did nothing. So it was true: The dragon was somehow suppressing electronic equipment. Lucas felt a shiver of apprehension, wondering what else it could do, wondering if it was watching him and everyone around it.

As he pushed the dead phone into his pocket, someone called his name. Lucas turned, saw an old man dressed in a yellow slicker and a peaked corduroy cap bustling towards him. Bill Danvers, one of the people who tended the oyster beds east of Martham, asking him now if he’d come over with Grant Higgins.

“I came in my own boat,” Lucas said.

“You worked for Grant though,” Bill Danvers said, and held out a flat quarter-litre bottle.

“Once upon a time. That’s kind, but I’ll pass.”

“Vodka and ginger root. It’ll keep out the cold.” The old man unscrewed the cap and took a sip and held out the bottle again.

Lucas shook his head.

Bill Danvers took another sip and capped the bottle, saying, “You came over from Halvergate?”

“A little south of Halvergate. Sailed all the way.” It felt good to say it.

“People been coming in from every place, past couple of hours. Including those science boys you see trying to break into her. But I was here first. Followed the damn thing in after it went past me. I was fishing for pollack, and it went past like an island on the move. Like to have had me in the water, I was rocking so much. I fired up the outboard and swung around but I couldn’t keep pace with it. I saw it hit the bar, though. It didn’t slow down a bit, must have been travelling at twenty knots. I heard it,” Bill Danvers said, and clapped his hands. “Bang! It ran straight up, just like you see. When I caught up with it, it was wriggling like an eel. Trying to move forward, you know? And it did, for a little bit. And then it stuck, right where it is now. Must be something wrong with it, I reckon, or it wouldn’t have grounded itself. Maybe it’s dying, eh?”

“Can they die, dragons?”

“You live long enough, boy, you’ll know everything has its time. Even unnatural things like this. Those science people, they’ve been trying to cut into it all morning. They used a thermal lance, and some kind of fancy drill. Didn’t even scratch it. Now they’re trying this saw thing with a blade tougher than diamond. Or so they say. Whatever it is, it won’t do any good. Nothing on Earth can touch a dragon. Why’d you come all this way?”

“Just to take a look.”

“Long as that’s all you do, I won’t have any quarrel with you. You might want to pay the fee now.”

“Fee?”

“Five pounds. Or five euros, if that’s what you use.”

“I don’t have any money,” Lucas said.

Bill Danvers studied him. “I was here first. Anyone says different they’re a goddamned liar. I’m the only one can legitimately claim salvage rights. The man what found the dragon,” he said, and turned and walked towards two women, starting to talk long before he reached them.

Lucas went on down the beach. A man sat tailorwise on the sand, sketching on a paper pad with a stick of charcoal. A small group of women were chanting some kind of incantation and brushing the dragon’s flank with handfuls of ivy, and all down its length people stood close, touching its scales with the palms of their hands or leaning against it, peering into it, like penitents at a holy relic. Its scales were easily a metre across and each was a slightly different shape, six- or seven-sided, dark yet grainily translucent. Clumps of barnacles and knots of hair-like weed clung here and there.

Lucas took a step into cold, ankle-deep water, and another. Reached out, the tips of his fingers tingling, and brushed the surface of one of the plates. It was the same temperature as the air and covered in small dimples, like hammered metal. He pressed the palm of his hand flat against it and felt a steady vibration, like touching the throat of a purring cat. A shiver shot through the marrow of him, a delicious mix of fear and exhilaration. Suppose his mother and her friends were right? Suppose there was an alien inside there? A Jackaroo or a !Cha riding inside the dragon because it was the only way, thanks to the agreement with the UN, they could visit the Earth. An actual alien lodged in the heart of the machine, watching everything going on around it, trapped and helpless, unable to call for help because it wasn’t supposed to be there.

No one knew what any of the aliens looked like — whether they looked more or less like people, or were unimaginable monsters, or clouds of gas, or swift cool thoughts schooling inside some vast computer. They had shown themselves only as avatars, plastic man-shaped shells with the pleasant, bland but somehow creepy faces of old-fashioned shop dummies, and after the treaty had been negotiated, only a few of those were left on Earth, at the UN headquarters in Geneva. Suppose, Lucas thought, the scientists broke in and pulled its passenger out. He imagined some kind of squid, saucer eyes and a clacking beak in a knot of thrashing tentacles, helpless in Earth’s gravity. Or suppose something came to rescue it? Not the UN, but an actual alien ship. His heart beat fast and strong at the thought.

Walking a wide circle around the blunt, eyeless prow of the dragon, he found Damian on the other side, talking to a slender, dark-haired girl in shorts and a heavy sweater. She turned to look at Lucas as he walked up, and said to Damian, “Is this your friend?”

“Lisbeth was just telling me about the helicopter that crashed,” Damian said. “Its engine cut out when it got too close and it dropped straight into the sea. Her father helped to rescue the pilot.”

“She broke her hip,” the girl, Lisbeth, said. “She’s at our house now. I’m supposed to be looking after her, but Doctor Naja gave her something that put her to sleep.”

“Lisbeth’s father is the mayor,” Damian said. “He’s in charge of all this.”

“He thinks he is,” the girl said, “but no one is really. Police and everyone arguing amongst themselves. Do you have a phone, Lucas? Mine doesn’t work. This is the best thing to ever happen here and I can’t even tell my friends about it.”

“I could row you out to where your phone started working,” Damian said.

“I don’t think so,” Lisbeth said, with a coy little smile, twisting the toes of her bare right foot in the wet sand.

Lucas had thought that she was around his and Damian’s age; now he realised that she was at least two years younger.

“It’ll be absolutely safe,” Damian said. “Word of honour.”

Lisbeth shook her head. “I want to stick around here and see what happens next.”

“That’s a good idea, too,” Damian said. “We can sit up by the fire and keep warm. I can tell you all about our adventures. How we found our way through the mist. How we were nearly run down — ”

“I have to go and find my friends,” Lisbeth said, and flashed a dazzling smile at Lucas and said that it was nice to meet him and turned away. Damian caught at her arm and Lucas stepped in and told him to let her go, and Lisbeth smiled at Lucas again and walked off, bare feet leaving dainty prints in the wet sand.

“Thanks for that,” Damian said.

“She’s a kid. And she’s also the mayor’s daughter.”

“So? We were just talking.”

“So he could have you locked up if he wanted to. Me, too.”

“You don’t have to worry about that, do you? Because you scared her off,” Damian said.

“She walked away because she wanted to,” Lucas said.

He would have said more, would have asked Damian why they were arguing, but at that moment the dragon emitted its mournful wail. A great honking blare, more or less B flat, so loud it was like a physical force, shocking every square centimetre of Lucas’s body. He clapped his hands over his ears, but the sound was right inside the box of his skull, shivering deep in his chest and his bones. Damian had pressed his hands over his ears, too, and all along the dragon’s length people stepped back or ducked away. Then the noise abruptly cut off, and everyone stepped forward again. The women flailed even harder, their chant sounding muffled to Lucas; the dragon’s call had been so loud it had left a buzz in his ears, and he had to lean close to hear Damian say, “Isn’t this something?”

“It’s definitely a dragon,” Lucas said, his voice sounding flat and mostly inside his head. “Are we done arguing?”

“I didn’t realise we were,” Damian said. “Did you see those guys trying to cut it open?”

“Around the other side? I was surprised the police are letting them do whatever it is they’re doing.”

“Lisbeth said they’re scientists from the marine labs at Swatham. They work for the government, just like the police. She said they think this is a plastic eater. It sucks up plastic and digests it, turns it into carbon dioxide and water.”

“That’s what the UN wants people to think it does, anyhow.”

“Sometimes you sound just like your mother.”

“There you go again.”

Damian put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “I’m just ragging on you. Come on, why don’t we go over by the fire and get warm?”

“If you want to talk to that girl again, just say so.”

“Now who’s spoiling for an argument? I thought we could get warm, find something to eat. People are selling stuff.”

“I want to take a good close look at the dragon. That’s why we came here, isn’t it?”

“You do that, and I’ll be right back.”

“You get into trouble, you can find your own way home,” Lucas said, but Damian was already walking away, fading into the mist without once looking back.

Lucas watched him fade into the mist, expecting him to turn around. He didn’t.

Irritated by the silly spat, Lucas drifted back around the dragon’s prow, watched the scientists attack with a jackhammer the joint between two large scales. They were putting everything they had into it, but didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. A gang of farmers from a collective arrived on two tractors that left neat tracks on the wet sand and put out the smell of frying oil, which reminded Lucas that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He was damned cold, too. He trudged up the sand and bought a cup of fish soup from a woman who poured it straight from the iron pot she hooked out of the edge of the big bonfire, handing him a crust of bread to go with it. Lucas sipped the scalding stuff and felt his blood warm, soaked up the last of the soup with the crust and dredged the plastic cup in the sand to clean it and handed it back to the woman. Plenty of people were standing around the fire, but there was no sign of Damian. Maybe he was chasing that girl. Maybe he’d been arrested. Most likely, he’d turn up with that stupid smile of his, shrugging off their argument, claiming he’d only been joking. The way he did.

The skirts of the fret drifted apart and revealed the dim shapes of Martham’s buildings at the far end of the sandbar; then the fret closed up and the little town vanished. The dragon sounded its distress or alarm call again. In the ringing silence afterwards a man said to no one in particular, with the satisfaction of someone who has discovered the solution to one of the universe’s perennial mysteries, “Twenty-eight minutes on the dot.”

At last, there was the sound of an engine and a shadowy shape gained definition in the fret that hung offshore: a boxy, old-fashioned landing craft that drove past the police boat and beached in the shallows close to the dragon. Its bow door splashed down and soldiers trotted out and the police and several civilians and scientists went down the beach to meet them. After a brief discussion, one of the soldiers stepped forward and raised a bullhorn to his mouth and announced that for the sake of public safety a two-hundred-metre exclusion zone was going to be established.

Several soldiers began to unload plastic crates. The rest chivvied the people around the dragon, ordering them to move back, driving them up the beach past the bonfire. Lucas spotted the old man, Bill Danvers, arguing with two soldiers. One suddenly grabbed the old man’s arm and spun him around and twisted something around his wrists; the other looked at Lucas as he came towards them, telling him to stay back or he’d be arrested, too.

“He’s my uncle,” Lucas said. “If you let him go, I’ll make sure he doesn’t cause any more trouble.”

“Your uncle?” The soldier wasn’t much older than Lucas, with cropped ginger hair and a ruddy complexion.

“Yes, sir. He doesn’t mean any harm. He’s just upset, because no one cares that he was the first to find it.”

“Like I said,” the old man said.

The two soldiers looked at each other, and the ginger-haired one told Lucas, “You’re responsible for him. If he starts up again, you’ll both be sorry.”

“I’ll look after him.”

The soldier stared at Lucas for a moment, then flourished a small-bladed knife and cut the plasticuffs that bound the old man’s wrists and shoved him towards Lucas. “Stay out of our way, grandpa. All right?”

“Sons of bitches,” Bill Danvers said, as the soldiers had walked off. He raised his voice and called out, “I found it first. Someone owes me for that.”

“I think everyone knows you saw it come ashore,” Lucas said. “But they’re in charge now.”

“They’re going to blow it open,” a man said.

He held a satchel in one hand and a folded chair in the other; when he shook the chair open and sat down Lucas recognised him: the man who’d been sitting at the head of the dragon, sketching it.

“They can’t,” Bill Danvers said.

“They’re going to try,” the man said.

Lucas looked back at the dragon. Its streamlined shape dim in the streaming fret, the activity around its head (if that was its head) a vague shifting of shadows. Soldiers and scientists conferring in a tight knot. Then the police boat and the landing craft started their motors and reversed through the wash of the incoming tide, fading into the fret, and the scientists followed the soldiers up the beach, walking past the bonfire, and there was a stir and rustle amongst the people strung out along the ridge.

“No damn right,” Bill Danvers said.

The soldier with the bullhorn announced that there would be a small controlled explosion. A moment later, the dragon blared out its loud, long call and in the shocking silence afterwards laughter broke out amongst the crowd on the ridge. The soldier with the bullhorn began to count backwards from ten. Some of the crowd took up the chant. There was a brief silence at zero, and then a red light flared at the base of the dragon’s midpoint and a flat crack rolled out across the ridge and was swallowed by the mist. People whistled and clapped, and Bill Danvers stepped around Lucas and ran down the slope towards the dragon. Falling to his knees and getting up and running on as soldiers chased after him, closing in from either side.

People cheered and hooted, and some ran after Bill Danvers, young men mostly, leaping down the slope and swarming across the beach. Lucas saw Damian amongst the runners and chased after him, heart pounding, flooded with a heedless exhilaration. Soldiers blocked random individuals, catching hold of them or knocking them down as others dodged past. Lucas heard the clatter of the bullhorn but couldn’t make out any words, and then there was a terrific flare of white light and a hot wind struck him so hard he lost his balance and fell to his knees.

The dragon had split in half and things were glowing with hot light inside and the waves breaking around its rear hissed and exploded into steam. A terrific heat scorched Lucas’s face. He pushed to his feet. All around, people were picking themselves up and soldiers were moving amongst them, shoving them away from the dragon. Some complied; others stood, squinting into the light that beat out of the broken dragon, blindingly bright waves and wings of white light flapping across the beach, burning away the mist.

Blinking back tears and blocky afterimages, Lucas saw two soldiers dragging Bill Danvers away from the dragon. The old man hung limp and helpless in their grasp, splayed feet furrowing the sand. His head was bloody, something sticking out of it at an angle.

Lucas started towards them, and there was another flare that left him stunned and half-blind. Things fell all around and a translucent shard suddenly jutted up by his foot. The two soldiers had dropped Bill Danvers. Lucas stepped towards him, picking his way through a field of debris, and saw that he was beyond help. His head had been knocked out of shape by the shard that stuck in his temple, and blood was soaking into the sand around it.

The dragon had completely broken apart now. Incandescent stuff dripped and hissed into steaming water and the burning light was growing brighter.

Like almost everyone else, Lucas turned and ran. Heat clawed at his back as he slogged to the top of the ridge. He saw Damian sitting on the sand, right hand clamped on the upper part of his left arm, and he jogged over and helped his friend up. Leaning against each other, they stumbled across the ridge. Small fires crackled here and there, where hot debris had kindled clumps of marram grass. Everything was drenched in a pulsing diamond brilliance. They went down the slope of the far side, angling towards the little blue boat, splashing into the water that had risen around it. Damian clambered unhandily over thwart and Lucas hauled up the concrete-filled bucket and boosted it over the side, then put his shoulder to the boat’s prow and shoved it into the low breakers and tumbled in.

The boat drifted sideways on the rising tide as Lucas hauled up the sail. Dragon-light beat beyond the crest of the sandbar, brighter than the sun. Lucas heeled his little boat into the wind, ploughing through stands of sea grass into the channel beyond, chasing after the small fleet fleeing the scene. Damian sat in the bottom of the boat, hunched into himself, his back against the stem of the mast. Lucas asked him if he was okay; he opened his fingers to show a translucent spike embedded in the meat of his biceps. It was about the size of his little finger.

“Dumb bad luck,” he said, his voice tight and wincing.

“I’ll fix you up,” Lucas said, but Damian shook his head.

“Just keep going. I think  — ”

Everything went white for a moment. Lucas ducked down and wrapped his arms around his head and for a moment saw shadowy bones through red curtains of flesh. When he dared look around, he saw a narrow column of pure white light rising straight up, seeming to lean over as it climbed into the sky, aimed at the very apex of heaven.

A hot wind struck the boat and filled the sail, and Lucas sat up and grabbed the tiller and the sheet as the boat crabbed sideways. By the time he had it under control again the column of light had dimmed, fading inside drifting curtains of fret, rooted in a pale fire flickering beyond the sandbar.

• • • •

Damian’s father, Jason Playne, paid Lucas and his mother a visit the next morning. A burly man in his late forties with a shaven head and a blunt and forthright manner, dressed in workboots and denim overalls, he made the caravan seem small and frail. Standing over Julia’s bed, telling her that he would like to ask Lucas about the scrape he and his Damian had gotten into.

“Ask away,” Julia said. She was propped amongst her pillows, her gaze bright and amused. Her tablet lay beside her, images and blocks of text glimmering above it.

Jason Playne looked at her from beneath the thick hedge of his eyebrows. A strong odour of saltwater and sweated booze clung to him. He said, “I was hoping for a private word.”

“My son and I have no secrets.”

“This is about my son,” Jason Playne said.

“They didn’t do anything wrong, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Julia said.

Lucas felt a knot of embarrassment and anger in his chest. He said, “I’m right here.”

“Well, you didn’t,” his mother said.

Jason Playne looked at Lucas. “How did Damian get hurt?”

“He fell and cut himself,” Lucas said, as steadily as he could. That was what he and Damian had agreed to say, as they’d sailed back home with their prize. Lucas had pulled the shard of dragon stuff from Damian’s arm and staunched the bleeding with a bandage made from a strip ripped from the hem of Damian’s shirt. There hadn’t been much blood; the hot sliver had more or less cauterised the wound.

Jason Playne said, “He fell.”

“Yes sir.”

“Are you sure? Because I reckon that cut in my son’s arm was done by a knife. I reckon he got himself in some kind of fight.”

Julia said, “That sounds more like an accusation than a question.”

Lucas said, “We didn’t get into a fight with anyone.”

Jason Playne said, “Are you certain that Damian didn’t steal something?”

“Yes, sir.”

Which was the truth, as far as it went.

“Because if he did steal something, if he still has it, he’s in a lot of trouble. You, too.”

“I like to think my son knows a little more about alien stuff than most,” Julia said.

“I’m don’t mean fairy stories,” Jason Playne said. “I’m talking about the army ordering people to give back anything to do with that dragon thing. You stole something and you don’t give it back and they find out? They’ll arrest you. And if you try to sell it? Well, I can tell you for a fact that the people in that trade are mad and bad. I should know. I’ve met one or two of them in my time.”

“I’m sure Lucas will take that to heart,” Julia said.

And that was that, except after Jason Playne had gone, she told Lucas that he’d been right about one thing: The people who tried to reverse-engineer alien technology were dangerous and should at all costs be avoided. “If I happened to come into possession of anything like that,” she said, “I would get rid of it at once. Before anyone found out.”

But Lucas couldn’t get rid of the shard because he’d promised Damian that he’d keep it safe until they could figure out what to do with it. He spent the next two days in a haze of guilt and indecision, struggling with the temptation to check that the thing was safe in its hiding place, wondering what Damian’s father knew, wondering what his mother knew, wondering if he should sail out to a deep part of the Flood and throw it into the water, until at last Damian came over to the island.

It was early in the evening, just after sunset. Lucas was watering the vegetable garden when Damian called to him from the shadows inside a clump of buddleia bushes. Smiling at Lucas, saying, “If you think I look bad, you should see him.”

“I can’t think he could look much worse.”

“I got in a few licks,” Damian said. His upper lip was split and both his eyes were blackened and there was a discoloured knot on the hinge of his jaw.

“He came here,” Lucas said. “Gave me and Julia a hard time.”

“How much does she know?”

“I told her what happened.”

“Everything?”

There was an edge in Damian’s voice.

“Except about how you were hit with the shard,” Lucas said.

“Oh. Your mother’s cool, you know? I wish . . .”

When it was clear that his friend wasn’t going to finish his thought, Lucas said, “Is it okay? You coming here so soon.”

“Oh, Dad’s over at Halvergate on what he calls business. Don’t worry about him. Did you keep it safe?”

“I said I would.”

“Why I’m here, L, I think I might have a line on someone who wants to buy our little treasure.”

“Your father said we should keep away from people like that.”

“He would.”

“Julia thinks so, too.”

“If you don’t want anything to do with it, just say so. Tell me where it is, and I’ll take care of everything.”

“Right.”

“So is it here, or do we have to go somewhere?”

“I’ll show you,” Lucas said, and led his friend through the buddleias and along the low ridge to the northern end of the tiny island where an apple tree stood, hunched and gnarled and mostly dead, crippled by years of salt spray and saltwater seep. Lucas knelt and pulled up a hinge of turf and took out a small bundle of oilcloth. As he unwrapped it, Damian dropped to his knees beside him and reached out and touched an edge of the shard.

“Is it dead?”

“It wasn’t ever alive,” Lucas said.

“You know what I mean. What did you do to it?”

“Nothing. It just turned itself off.”

When Lucas had pulled the shard from Damian’s arm, its translucence had been veined with a network of shimmering threads. Now it was a dull reddish black, like an old scab.

“Maybe it uses sunlight, like phones,” Damian said.

“I thought of that, but I also thought it would be best to keep it hidden.”

“It still has to be worth something,” Damian said, and began to fold the oilcloth around the shard.

Lucas was gripped by a sudden apprehension, as if he was falling while kneeling there in the dark. He said, “We don’t have to do this right now.”

“Yes, we do. I do.”

“Your father — he isn’t in Halvergate, is he?”

Damian looked straight at Lucas. “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re worried about. He tried to knock me down when I went to leave, but I knocked him down instead. Pounded on him good. Put him down and put him out. Tied him up, too, to give me some time to get away.”

“He’ll come after you.”

“Remember when we were kids? We used to lie up here, in summer. We’d look up at the stars and talk about what it would be like to go to one of the worlds the Jackaroo gave us. Well, I plan to find out. The UN lets you buy tickets off lottery winners who don’t want to go. It’s legal and everything. All you need is money. I reckon this will give us a good start.”

“You know I can’t come with you.”

“If you want your share, you’ll have to come to Norwich. Because there’s no way I’m coming back here,” Damian said, and stood with a smooth, swift motion.

Lucas stood, too. They were standing toe to toe under the apple tree, the island and the Flood around it quiet and dark. As if they were the last people on Earth.

“Don’t try to stop me,” Damian said. “My father tried, and I fucked him up good and proper.”

“Let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Damian said. “It is what it is.”

He tried to step past Lucas, and Lucas grabbed at his arm and Damian swung him around and lifted him off his feet and ran him against the trunk of the tree. Lucas tried to wrench free but Damian bore down with unexpected strength, pressing him against rough bark, leaning into him. Pinpricks of light in the dark wells of his eyes. His voice soft and hoarse in Lucas’s ear, his breath hot against Lucas’s cheek.

“You always used to be able to beat me, L. At running, swimming, you name it. Not anymore. I’ve changed. Want to know why?”

“We don’t have to fight about this.”

“No, we don’t,” Damian said, and let Lucas go and stepped back.

Lucas pushed away from the tree, a little unsteady on his feet. “What’s got into you?”

Damian laughed. “That’s good, that is. Can’t you guess?”

“You need the money because you’re running away. All right, you can have my share, if that’s what you want. But it won’t get you very far.”

“Not by itself. But like I said, I’ve changed. Look,” Damian said, and yanked up the sleeve of his shirt, showing the place on his upper arm where the shard had punched into him.

There was only a trace of a scar, pink and smooth. Damian pulled the skin taut, and Lucas saw the outline of a kind of ridged or fibrous sheath underneath.

“It grew,” Damian said.

“Jesus.”

“I’m stronger. And faster, too. I feel, I don’t know. Better than I ever have. Like I could run all the way around the world without stopping, if I had to.”

“What if it doesn’t stop growing? You should see a doctor, D. Seriously.”

“I’m going to. The kind that can make money for me, from what happened. You still think that little bit of dragon isn’t worth anything? It changed me. It could change anyone. I really don’t want to fight,” Damian said, “but I will if you get in my way. Because there’s no way I’m stopping here. If I do, my dad will come after me. And if he does, I’ll have to kill him. And I know I can.”

The two friends stared at each other in the failing light. Lucas was the first to look away.

“You can come with me,” Damian said. “To Norwich. Then wherever we want to go. To infinity and beyond. Think about it. You still got my phone?”

“Do you want it back? It’s in the caravan.”

“Keep it. I’ll call you. Tell you where to meet up. Come or don’t come, it’s up to you.”

And then he ran, crashing through the buddleia bushes that grew along the slope of the ridge. Lucas went after him, but by the time he reached the edge of the water, Damian had started the motor of the boat he’d stolen from his father’s shrimp farm, and was dwindling away into the thickening twilight.

• • • •

The next day, Lucas was out on the Flood, checking baited cages he’d set for eels, when an inflatable pulled away from the shrimp farm and drew a curving line of white across the water, hooking towards him. Jason Playne sat in the inflatable’s stern, cutting the motor and drifting neatly alongside Lucas’s boat and catching hold of the thwart. His left wrist was bandaged and he wore a baseball cap pulled low over sunglasses that darkly reflected Lucas and Lucas’s boat and the waterscape all around. He asked without greeting or preamble where Damian was, and Lucas said that he didn’t know.

“You saw him last night. Don’t lie. What did he tell you?”

“That he was going away. That he wanted me to go with him.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Well, no. I’m still here.”

“Don’t try to be clever, boy.” Jason Playne stared at Lucas for a long moment, then sighed and took off his baseball cap and ran the palm of his hand over his shaven head. “I talked to your mother. I know he isn’t with you. But he could be somewhere close by. In the woods, maybe. Camping out like you two used to do when you were smaller.”

“All I know is that he’s gone, Mr. Playne. Far away from here.”

Jason Playne’s smile didn’t quite work. “You’re his friend, Lucas. I know you want to do the right thing by him. As friends should. So maybe you can tell him, if you see him, that I’m not angry. That he should come home and it won’t be a problem. You could also tell him to be careful. And you should be careful, too. I think you know what I mean. It could get you both into a lot of trouble if you talk to the wrong people. Or even if you talk to the right people. You think about that,” Jason Playne said, and pushed away from Lucas’s boat and opened the throttle of his inflatable’s motor and zoomed away, bouncing over the slight swell, dwindling into the glare of the sun off the water.

Lucas went back to hauling up the cages, telling himself that he was glad that Damian was gone, that he’d escaped. When he’d finished, he took up the oars and began to row towards the island, back to his mother, and the little circle of his life.

• • • •

Damian didn’t call that day, or the next, or the day after that. Lucas was angry at first, then heartsick, convinced that Damian was in trouble. That he’d squandered or lost the money he’d made from selling the shard, or that he’d been cheated, or worse. After a week, Lucas sailed to Norwich and spent half a day tramping around the city in a futile attempt to find his friend. Jason Playne didn’t trouble him again, but several times Lucas spotted him standing at the end of the shrimp farm’s chain of tanks, studying the island.

September’s Indian summer broke in a squall of storms. It rained every day. Hard, cold rain blowing in swaying curtains across the face of the waters. Endless racks of low clouds driving eastward. Atlantic weather. The Flood was muddier and less salty than usual. The eel traps stayed empty and storm surges drove the mackerel shoals and other fish into deep water. Lucas harvested everything he could from the vegetable garden, and from the ancient pear tree and wild, forgotten hedgerows in the ribbon of woods behind the levee, counted and recounted the store of cans and MREs. He set rabbit snares in the woods, and spent hours tracking squirrels from tree to tree, waiting for a moment when he could take a shot with his catapult. He caught sticklebacks in the weedy tide pools that fringed the broken brickwork shore of the island and used them to bait trotlines for crabs, and if he failed to catch any squirrels or crabs he collected mussels from the car reef at the foot of the levee.

It rained through the rest of September and on into October. Julia developed a racking and persistent cough. She enabled the long-disused keyboard function of her tablet and typed her essays, opinion pieces, and journal entries instead of giving them straight to the camera. She was helping settlers on the Antarctic Peninsula to petition the International Court in Johannesburg to grant them statehood, so that they could prevent exploitation of oil and mineral reserves by multinationals. She was arguing with the Midway Island utopians about whether or not the sea dragons they were using to harvest plastic particulates were also sucking up precious phytoplankton, and destabilising the oceanic ecosystem. And so on, and so forth.

The witchwoman visited and treated her with infusions and poultices, but the cough grew worse and because they had no money for medicine, Lucas tried to find work at the algae farm at Halvergate. Every morning, he set out before dawn and stood at the gates in a crowd of men and women as one of the supervisors pointed to this or that person and told them to step forward, told the rest to come back and try their luck tomorrow. After his fifth unsuccessful cattle call, Lucas was walking along the shoulder of the road towards town and the jetty where his boat was tied up when a battered van pulled up beside him and the driver called to him. It was Ritchy, the stoop-shouldered one-eyed foreman of the shrimp farm. Saying, “Need a lift, lad?”

“You can tell him there’s no point in following me because I don’t have any idea where Damian is,” Lucas said, and kept walking.

“He doesn’t know I’m here.” Ritchy leaned at the window, edging the van along, matching Lucas’s pace. Its tyres left wakes in the flooded road. Rain danced on its roof. “I got some news about Damian. Hop in. I know a place does a good breakfast, and you look like you could use some food.”

They drove past patchworks of shallow lagoons behind mesh fences, past the steel tanks and piping of the cracking plant that turned algal lipids into biofuel. Ritchy talked about the goddamned weather, asked Lucas how his boat was handling, asked after his mother, said he was sorry to hear that she was ill and maybe he should pay a visit, he always liked talking to her because she made you look at things in a different way, a stream of inconsequential chatter he kept up all the way to the café.

It was in one corner of a lay-by where two lines of trucks were parked nose to tail. A pair of shipping containers welded together and painted bright pink. Red and white chequered curtains behind windows cut in the ribbed walls. Formica tables and plastic chairs crowded inside, all occupied and a line of people waiting, but Ritchy knew the Portuguese family who ran the place and he and Lucas were given a small table in the back, between a fridge and the service counter, and without asking were served mugs of strong tea, and shrimp and green pepper omelets with baked beans and chips.

“You know what I miss most?” Ritchy said. “Pigs. Bacon and sausage. Ham. They say the Germans are trying to clone flu-resistant pigs. If they are, I hope they get a move on. Eat up, lad. You’ll feel better with something inside you.”

“You said you had some news about Damian. Where is he? Is he all right?”

Ritchy squinted at Lucas. His left eye, the one that had been lost when he’d been a soldier, glimmered blankly. It had been grown from a sliver of tooth and didn’t have much in the way of resolution, but allowed him to see both infrared and ultraviolet light.

He said, “Know what collateral damage is?”

Fear hollowed Lucas’s stomach. “Damian is in trouble, isn’t he? What happened?”

“Used to be, long ago, wars were fought on a battlefield chosen by both sides. Two armies meeting by appointment. Squaring up to each other. Slogging it out. Then wars became so big the countries fighting them became one huge battlefield. Civilians found themselves on the front line. Or rather, there was no front line. Total war, they called it. And then you got wars that weren’t wars. Asymmetrical wars. Netwars. Where war gets mixed up with crime and terrorism. Your mother was on the edge of a netwar at one time. Against the Jackaroo and those others. Still thinks she’s fighting it, although it long ago evolved into something else. There aren’t any armies or battlefields in a netwar. Just a series of nodes in distributed organisation. Collateral damage,” Ritchy said, forking omelet into his mouth, “is the inevitable consequence of taking out one of those nodes, because all of them are embedded inside ordinary society. It could be a flat in an apartment block in a city. Or a little island where someone thinks something useful is hidden.”

“I don’t  — ”

“You don’t know anything,” Ritchy said. “I believe you. Damian ran off with whatever it was you two found or stole, and left you in the lurch. But the people Damian got himself involved with don’t know you don’t know. That’s why we’ve been looking out for you. Making sure you and your mother don’t become collateral damage.”

“Wait. What people? What did Damian do?”

“I’m trying to tell you, only it’s harder than I thought it would be.” Ritchy set his knife and fork together on his plate and said, “Maybe telling it straight is the best way. The day after Damian left, he tried to do some business with some people in Norwich. Bad people. The lad wanted to sell them a fragment of that dragon that stranded itself, but they decided to take it from him without paying. There was a scuffle and the lad got away and left a man with a bad knife wound. He died from it, a few weeks later. Those are the kind of people who look after their own, if you know what I mean. Anyone involved in that trade is bad news in one way or another. Jason had to pay them off, or else they would have come after him. An eye for an eye,” Ritchy said, and tapped his blank eye with his little finger.

“What happened to Damian?”

“This is the hard part. After his trouble in Norwich, the lad called his father. He was drunk, ranting. Boasting how he was going to make all kinds of money. I managed to put a demon on his message, ran it back to a cell in Gravesend. Jason went up there, and that’s when . . . Well, there’s no other way of saying it. That’s when he found out that Damian had been killed.”

The shock was a jolt and a falling away. And then Lucas was back inside himself, hunched in his damp jeans and sweater in the clatter and bustle of the café, with the fridge humming next to him. Ritchy tore off the tops of four straws of sugar and poured them into Lucas’s tea and stirred it and folded Lucas’s hand around the mug and told him to drink.

Lucas sipped hot, sweet tea and felt a little better.

“Always thought,” Ritchy said, “that of the two of you, you were the best and brightest.”

Lucas saw his friend in his mind’s eye and felt cold and strange, knowing he’d never see him, never talk to him again.

Ritchy said, “The police got in touch yesterday. They found Damian’s body in the river. They think he fell into the hands of one of the gangs that trade in offworld stuff.”

Lucas suddenly understood something and said, “They wanted what was growing inside him. The people who killed him.”

He told Ritchy about the shard that had hit Damian in the arm. How they’d pulled it out. How it had infected Damian.

“He had a kind of patch around the cut, under his skin. He said it was making him stronger.”

Lucas saw his friend again, wild-eyed in the dusk, under the apple tree.

“That’s what he thought. But that kind of thing, well, if he hadn’t been murdered he would most likely have died from it.”

“Do you know who did it?”

Ritchy shook his head. “The police are making what they like to call enquiries. They’ll probably want to talk to you soon enough.”

“Thank you. For telling me.”

“I remember the world before the Jackaroo came,” Ritchy said. “Them, and the others after them. It was in a bad way, but at least you knew where you were. If you happen to have any more of that stuff, lad, throw it in the Flood. And don’t mark the spot.”

• • • •

Two detectives came from Gravesend to interview Lucas. He told them everything he knew. Julia said that he shouldn’t blame himself, said that Damian had made a choice and it had been a bad choice. But Lucas carried the guilt around with him anyway. He should have done more to help Damian. He should have thrown the shard away. Or found him after they’d had the stupid argument over that girl. Or refused to take him out to see the damn dragon in the first place.

A week passed. Two. There was no funeral because the police would not release Damian’s body. According to them, it was still undergoing forensic tests. Julia, who was tracking rumours about the murder and its investigation on the stealth nets, said it had probably been taken to some clandestine research lab, and she and Lucas had a falling out over it.

One day, returning home after checking the snares he’d set in the woods, Lucas climbed to the top of the levee and saw two men waiting beside his boat. Both were dressed in brand-new camo gear, one with a beard, the other with a shaven head and rings flashing in one ear. They started up the slope towards him, calling his name, and he turned tail and ran, cutting across a stretch of sour land gone to weeds and pioneer saplings, plunging into the stands of bracken at the edge of the woods, pausing, seeing the two men chasing towards him, turning and running on.

He knew every part of the woods, and quickly found a hiding place under the slanted trunk of a fallen sycamore grown over with moss and ferns, breathing quick and hard in the cold air. Rain pattered all around. Droplets of water spangled bare black twigs. The deep odour of wet wood and wet earth.

A magpie chattered, close by. Lucas set a ball bearing in the cup of his catapult and cut towards the sound, moving easily and quietly, freezing when he saw a twitch of movement between the wet tree trunks ahead. It was the bearded man, the camo circuit of his gear magicking him into a fairytale creature got up from wet bark and mud. He was talking into a phone headset in a language full of harsh vowels. Turning as Lucas stepped towards him, his smile white inside his beard, saying that there was no need to run away, he only wanted to talk.

“What is that you have, kid?”

“A catapult. I’ll use it if I have to.”

“What do you use it for? Hunting rabbits? I’m no rabbit.”

“Who are you?”

“Police. I have ID,” the man said, and before Lucas could say anything his hand went into the pocket of his camo trousers and came out with a pistol.

Lucas had made his catapult himself, from a yoke of springy poplar and a length of vatgrown rubber with the composition and tensile strength of the hinge inside a mussel shell. As the man brought up the pistol Lucas pulled back the band of rubber and let the ball bearing fly. He did it quickly and without thought, firing from the hip, and the ball bearing went exactly where he meant it to go. It smacked into the knuckles of the man’s hand with a hard pop and the man yelped and dropped the pistol, and then he sat down hard and clapped his good hand to his knee, because Lucas’s second shot had struck the soft part under the cap.

Lucas stepped up and kicked the pistol away and stepped back, a third ball bearing cupped in the catapult. The man glared at him, wincing with pain, and said something in his harsh language.

“Who sent you?” Lucas said.

His heart was racing, but his thoughts were cool and clear.

“Tell me where it is,” the man said, “and we leave you alone. Your mother, too.”

“My mother doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

Lucas was watching the man and listening to someone moving through the wet wood, coming closer.

“She is in it, nevertheless,” the man said. He tried to push to his feet but his wounded knee gave way and he cried out and sat down again. He’d bitten his lip bloody and sweat beaded his forehead.

“Stay still, or the next one hits you between the eyes,” Lucas said. He heard a quaver in his voice and knew from the way the man looked at him that he’d heard it, too.

“Go now, and fetch the stuff. And don’t tell me you don’t know what I mean. Fetch it and bring it here. That’s the only offer you get,” the man said. “And the only time I make it.”

A twig snapped softly and Lucas turned, ready to let the ball bearing fly, but it was Damian’s father who stepped around a dark green holly bush, saying, “You can leave this one to me.”

At once Lucas understood what had happened. Within his cool clear envelope he could see everything: how it all connected.

“You set me up,” he said.

“I needed to draw them out,” Jason Playne said. He was dressed in jeans and an old-fashioned woodland camo jacket, and he was cradling a cut-down double-barrelled shotgun.

“You let them know where I was. You told them I had more of the dragon stuff.”

The man sitting on the ground was looking at them. “This does not end here,” he said. “I have you, and I have your friend. And you’re going to pay for what you did to my son,” Jason Playne said, and put a whistle to his lips and blew, two short notes. Off in the dark rainy woods another whistle answered.

The man said, “Idiot small-time businessman. You don’t know us. What we can do. Hurt me and we hurt you back ten-fold.”

Jason Playne ignored him, and told Lucas that he could go.

“Why did you let them chase me? You could have caught them while they were waiting by my boat. Did you want them to hurt me?”

“I knew you’d lead them a good old chase. And you did. So, all’s well that ends well, eh?” Jason Playne said. “Think of it as payback. For what happened to my son.”

Lucas felt a bubble of anger swelling in his chest. “You can’t forgive me for what I didn’t do.”

“It’s what you didn’t do that caused all the trouble.”

“It wasn’t me. It was you. It was you who made him run away. It wasn’t just the beatings. It was the thought that if he stayed here he’d become just like you.”

Jason Playne turned towards Lucas, his face congested. “Go. Right now.”

The bearded man drew a knife from his boot and flicked it open and pushed up with his good leg, throwing himself towards Jason Playne, and Lucas stretched the band of his catapult and let fly. The ball bearing struck the bearded man in the temple with a hollow sound and the man fell flat on his face. His temple was dinted and blood came out of his nose and mouth and he thrashed and trembled and subsided.

Rain pattered down all around, like faint applause.

Then Jason Playne stepped towards the man and kicked him in the chin with the point of his boot. The man rolled over on the wet leaves, arms flopping wide.

“I reckon you killed him,” Jason Playne said.

“I didn’t mean — ”

“Lucky for you there are two of them. The other will tell me what I need to know. You go now, boy. Go!”

Lucas turned and ran.

• • • •

He didn’t tell his mother about it. He hoped that Jason Playne would find out who had killed Damian and tell the police and the killers would answer for what they had done, and that would be an end to it.

That wasn’t what happened.

The next day, a motor launch came over to the island, carrying police armed with machine-guns and the detectives investigating Damian’s death, who arrested Lucas for involvement in two suspicious deaths and conspiracy to kidnap or murder other persons unknown. It seemed that one of the men that Jason Playne had hired to help him get justice for the death of his son had been a police informant.

Lucas was held in remand in Norwich for three months. Julia was too ill to visit him, but they talked on the phone and she sent messages via Ritchy, who’d been arrested along with every other worker on the shrimp farm, but released on bail after the police were unable to prove that he had anything to do with Jason Playne’s scheme.

It was Ritchy who told Lucas that his mother had cancer that had started in her throat and spread elsewhere, and that she had refused treatment. Lucas was taken to see her two weeks later, handcuffed to a prison warden. She was lying in a hospital bed, looking shrunken and horribly vulnerable. Her dreadlocks bundled in a blue scarf. Her hand so cold when he took it in his. The skin loose on frail bones.

She had refused to agree to monoclonal antibody treatment that would shrink the tumours and remove cancer cells from her bloodstream, and had also refused food and water. The doctors couldn’t intervene because a clause in her living will gave her the right to choose death instead of treatment. She told Lucas this in a hoarse whisper. Her lips were cracked and her breath foul, but her gaze was strong and insistent.

“Do the right thing even when it’s the hardest thing,” she said.

She died four days later. Her ashes were scattered in the rose garden of the municipal crematorium. Lucas stood in the rain between two wardens as the curate recited the prayer for the dead. The curate asked him if he wanted to scatter the ashes and he threw them out across the wet grass and dripping rose bushes with a flick of his wrist. Like casting a line across the water.

• • • •

He was sentenced to five years for manslaughter, reduced to eighteen months for time served on remand and for good behaviour. He was released early in September. He’d been given a ticket for the bus to Norwich and a voucher for a week’s stay in a halfway house, but he set off in the opposite direction, on foot. Walking south and east across country. Following back roads. Skirting the edges of sugar beet fields and bamboo plantations. Ducking into ditches or hedgerows whenever he heard a vehicle approaching. Navigating by the moon and the stars.

Once, a fox loped across his path.

Once, he passed a depot lit up in the night, robots shunting between a loading dock and a road-train.

By dawn he was making his way through the woods along the edge of the levee. He kept taking steps that weren’t there. Several times he sat on his haunches and rested for a minute before pushing up and going on. At last, he struck the gravel track that led to the shrimp farm, and twenty minutes later was knocking on the door of the office.

Ritchy gave Lucas breakfast and helped him pull his boat out of the shed where it had been stored, and set it in the water. Lucas and the old man had stayed in touch: It had been Ritchy who’d told him that Jason Playne had been stabbed to death in prison, most likely by someone paid by the people he’d tried to chase down. Jason Playne’s brother had sold the shrimp farm to a local consortium, and Ritchy had been promoted to supervisor.

He told Lucas over breakfast that he had a job there, if he wanted it. Lucas said that he was grateful, he really was, but he didn’t know if he wanted to stay on.

“I’m not asking you to make a decision right away,” Ritchy said. “Think about it. Get your bearings, come to me whenever you’re ready. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Are you going to stay over on the island?”

“Just how bad is it?”

“I couldn’t keep all of them off. They’d come at night. One party had a shotgun.”

“You did what you could. I appreciate it.”

“I wish I could have done more. They made a mess, but it isn’t anything you can’t fix up, if you want to.”

A heron flapped away across the sun-silvered water as Lucas rowed around the point of the island. The unexpected motion plucked at an old memory. As if he’d seen a ghost.

He grounded his boat next to the rotting carcass of his mother’s old rowboat and walked up the steep path. Ritchy had patched the broken windows of the caravan and put a padlock on the door. Lucas had the key in his pocket, but he didn’t want to go in there, not yet.

After Julia had been taken into hospital, treasure hunters had come from all around, chasing rumours that parts of the dragon had been buried on the island. Holes were dug everywhere in the weedy remains of the vegetable garden; the microwave mast at the summit of the ridge, Julia’s link with the rest of the world, had been uprooted. Lucas set his back to it and walked north, counting his steps. Both of the decoy caches his mother had planted under brick cairns had been ransacked, but the emergency cache, buried much deeper, was undisturbed.

Lucas dug down to the plastic box, and looked all around before he opened it and sorted through the things inside, squatting frogwise with the hot sun on his back.

An assortment of passports and identity cards, each with a photograph of younger versions of his mother, made out to different names and nationalities. A slim tight roll of old high-denomination banknotes, yuan, naira, and US dollars, more or less worthless thanks to inflation and revaluation. Blank credit cards and credit cards in various names, also worthless. Dozens of sleeved data needles. A pair of AR glasses.

Lucas studied one of the ID cards. When he brushed the picture of his mother with his thumb, she turned to present her profile, turned to look at him when he brushed the picture again.

He pocketed the ID card and the data needles and AR glasses, then walked along the ridge to the apple tree at the far end, and stared out across the Flood that spread glistening like shot silk under the sun. Thoughts moved through his mind like a slow and stately parade of pictures that he could examine in every detail, and then there were no thoughts at all and for a little while no part of him was separate from the world all around, sun and water and the hot breeze that moved through the crooked branches of the tree.

Lucas came to himself with a shiver. Windfall apples lay everywhere amongst the weeds and nettles that grew around the trees, and dead wasps and hornets were scattered amongst them like yellow and black bullets. Here was a dead bird, too, gone to a tatter of feathers of white bone. And here was another, and another. As if some passing cloud of poison had struck everything down.

He picked an apple from the tree, mashed it against the trunk, and saw pale threads fine as hair running through the mash of pulp. He peeled bark from a branch, saw threads laced in the living wood.

Dragon stuff, growing from the seed he’d planted. Becoming something else.

In the wood of the tree and the apples scattered all around was a treasure men would kill for. Had killed for. He’d have more than enough to set him up for life, if he sold it to the right people. He could build a house right here, buy the shrimp farm or set up one of his own. He could buy a ticket on one of the shuttles that travelled through the wormhole anchored between the Earth and the Moon, travel to infinity and beyond . . .

Lucas remembered the hopeful shine in Damian’s eyes when he’d talked about those new worlds. He thought of how the dragon-shard had killed or damaged everyone it had touched. He pictured his mother working at her tablet in her sickbed, advising and challenging people who were attempting to build something new right here on Earth. It wasn’t much of a contest. It wasn’t even close.

He walked back to the caravan. Took a breath, unlocked the padlock, stepped inside. Everything had been overturned or smashed. Cupboards gaped open, the mattress of his mother’s bed was slashed and torn, a great ruin littered the floor. He rooted amongst the wreckage, found a box of matches and a plastic jug of lamp oil. He splashed half of the oil on the torn mattress, lit a twist of cardboard and lobbed it onto the bed, beat a retreat as flames sprang up.

It didn’t take ten minutes to gather up dead wood and dry weeds and pile them around the apple tree, splash the rest of the oil over its trunk and set fire to the tinder. A thin pall of white smoke spread across the island, blowing out across the water as he raised the sail of his boat and turned it into the wind.

Heading south.

© 2011 by Paul McAuley.

Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul McAuley is the author of more than twenty novels, several collections of short stories, a Doctor Who novella, an anthology of stories about popular music which he co-edited with Kim Newman, and a monograph on Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil, published by the British Film Institute. His fiction has won the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Sidewise Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. After working as a research biologist and university lecturer, he is now a full-time writer. He lives in North London.

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight.

Tor Books Presents
A Darker Shade of Magic
(novel excerpt)

V.E. Schwab

Kell wore a very peculiar coat.

It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two, which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible.

The first thing he did whenever he stepped out of one London and into another was take off the coat and turn it inside out once or twice (or even three times) until he found the side he needed. Not all of them were fashionable, but they each served a purpose. There were ones that blended in and ones that stood out, and one that served no purpose but of which he was just particularly fond.

So when Kell passed through the palace wall and into the anteroom, he took a moment to steady himself — it took its toll, moving between worlds — and then shrugged out of his red, high- collared coat and turned it inside out from right to left so that it became a simple black jacket. Well, a simple black jacket elegantly lined with silver thread and adorned with two gleaming columns of silver buttons. Just because he adopted a more modest palette when he was abroad (wishing neither to offend the local royalty nor to draw attention) didn’t mean he had to sacrifice style.

Oh, kings, thought Kell as he fastened the buttons on the coat. He was starting to think like Rhy.

On the wall behind him, he could just make out the ghosted symbol made by his passage. Like a footprint in sand, already fading.

He’d never bothered to mark the door from this side, simply because he never went back this way. Windsor’s distance from London was terribly inconvenient considering the fact that, when traveling between worlds, Kell could only move between a place in one and the same exact place in another. Which was a problem because there was no Windsor Castle a day’s journey from Red London. In fact, Kell had just come through the stone wall of a courtyard belonging to a wealthy gentleman in a town called Disan. Disan was, on the whole, a very pleasant place.

Windsor was not.

Impressive, to be sure. But not pleasant.

A marble counter ran against the wall, and on it a basin of water waited for him, as it always did. He rinsed his bloody hand, as well as the silver crown he’d used for passage, then slipped the cord it hung on over his head, and tucked the coin back beneath his collar. In the hall beyond, he could hear the shuffle of feet, the low murmur of servants and guards. He’d chosen the anteroom specifically to avoid them. He knew very well how little the Prince Regent liked him being here, and the last thing Kell wanted was an audience, a cluster of ears and eyes and mouths reporting the details of his visit back to the throne.

Above the counter and the basin hung a mirror in a gilded frame, and Kell checked his reflection quickly — his hair, a reddish brown, swept down across one eye, and he did not fix it, though he did take a moment to smooth the shoulders of his coat — before passing through a set of doors to meet his host.

The room was stiflingly warm — the windows latched despite what looked like a lovely October day — and a fire raged oppressively in the hearth.

George III sat beside it, a robe dwarfing his withered frame and a tea tray untouched before his knees. When Kell came in, the king gripped the edges of his chair.

“Who’s there?” he called out without turning. “Robbers? Ghosts?”

“I don’t believe ghosts would answer, Your Majesty,” said Kell, announcing himself.

The ailing king broke into a rotting grin. “Master Kell,” he said. “You’ve kept me waiting.”

“No more than a month,” he said, stepping forward.

King George squinted his blind eyes. “It’s been longer, I’m sure.”

“I promise, it hasn’t.”

“Maybe not for you,” said the king. “But time isn’t the same for the mad and the blind.”

Kell smiled. The king was in good form today. It wasn’t always so. He was never sure what state he’d find his majesty in. Perhaps it had seemed like more than a month because the last time Kell visited, the king had been in one of his moods, and Kell had barely been able to calm his fraying nerves long enough to deliver his message.

“Maybe it’s the year that has changed,” continued the king, “and not the month.”

“Ah, but the year is the same.”

“And what year is that?”

Kell’s brow furrowed. “Eighteen nineteen,” he said.

A cloud passed across King George’s face, and then he simply shook his head and said, “Time,” as if that one word could be to blame for everything. “Sit, sit,” he added, gesturing at the room. “There must be another chair here somewhere.”

There wasn’t. The room was shockingly sparse, and Kell was certain the doors in the hall were locked and unlocked from without, not within.

The king held out a gnarled hand. They’d taken away his rings, to keep him from hurting himself, and his nails were cut to nothing.

“My letter,” he said, and for an instant Kell saw a glimmer of George as he once was. Regal.

Kell patted the pockets of his coat and realized he’d forgotten to take the notes out before changing. He shrugged out of the jacket and returned it for a moment to its red self, digging through its folds until he found the envelope. When he pressed it into the king’s hand, the latter fondled it and caressed the wax seal — the red throne’s emblem, a chalice with a rising sun — then brought the paper to his nose and inhaled.

“Roses,” he said wistfully.

He meant the magic. Kell never noticed the faint aromatic scent of Red London clinging to his clothes, but whenever he traveled, someone invariably told him that he smelled like freshly cut flowers. Some said tulips. Others stargazers. Chrysanthemums. Peonies. To the king of England, it was always roses. Kell was glad to know it was a pleasant scent, even if he couldn’t smell it. He could smell Grey London (smoke) and White London (blood), but to him, Red London simply smelled like home.

“Open it for me,” instructed the king. “But don’t mar the seal.”

Kell did as he was told, and withdrew the contents. For once, he was grateful the king could no longer see, so he could not know how brief the letter was. Three short lines. A courtesy paid to an ailing figurehead, but nothing more.

“It’s from my queen,” explained Kell.

The king nodded. “Go on,” he commanded, affecting a stately countenance that warred with his fragile form and his faltering voice. “Go on.”

Kell swallowed. “‘Greetings to his majesty, King George III,’” he read, “‘from a neighboring throne.’”

The queen did not refer to it as the red throne, or send greetings from Red London (even though the city was in fact quite crimson, thanks to the rich, pervasive light of the river), because she did not think of it that way. To her, and to everyone else who inhabited only one London, there was little need to differentiate among them. When the rulers of one conversed with those of another, they simply called them others, or neighbors, or on occasion (and particularly in regard to White London) less flattering terms.

Only those few who could move among the Londons needed a way to keep them straight. And so Kell — inspired by the lost city known to all as Black London — had given each remaining capital a color.

Grey for the magic-less city.

Red, for the healthy empire.

White, for the starving world.

In truth, the cities themselves bore little resemblance to one another (and the countries around and beyond bore even less). The fact they were all called London was its own mystery, though the prevailing theory was that one of the cities had taken the name long ago, before the doors were all sealed and the only things allowed through were letters between kings and queens. As to which city had first laid claim to the name, none could agree.

“‘We hope to learn that you are well,’” continued the queen’s letter, “‘and that the season is as fair in your city as it is in ours.’”

Kell paused. There was nothing more, save a signature. King George wrung his hands.

“Is that all it says?” he asked.

Kell hesitated. “No,” he said, folding the letter. “That’s only the beginning.”

He cleared his throat and began to pace as he pulled his thoughts together and put them into the queen’s voice. “Thank you for asking after our family, she says. The King and I are well. Prince Rhy, on the other hand, continues to impress and infuriate in equal measure, but has at least gone the month without breaking his neck or taking an unsuitable bride. Thanks be to Kell alone for keeping him from doing either, or both.”

Kell had every intention of letting the queen linger on his own merits, but just then the clock on the wall chimed five, and Kell swore under his breath. He was running late.

“Until my next letter,” he finished hurriedly, “stay happy and stay well. With fondness. Her Highness Emira, Queen of Arnes.”

Kell waited for the king to say something, but his blind eyes had a steady, faraway look, and Kell feared he had lost him. He set the folded note on the tea tray and was halfway to the wall when the king spoke up.

“I don’t have a letter for her,” he murmured.

“That’s all right,” said Kell softly. The king hadn’t been able to write one for years. Some months he tried, dragging the quill haphazardly across the parchment, and some months he insisted on having Kell transcribe, but most months he simply told Kell the message and Kell promised to remember.

“You see, I didn’t have the time,” added the king, trying to salvage a vestige of his dignity. Kell let him have it.

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll give the royal family your regards.”

Kell turned again to go, and again the old king called out to stop him.

“Wait, wait,” he said. “Come back.”

Kell paused. His eyes went to the clock. Late, and getting later. He pictured the Prince Regent sitting at his table in St. James, gripping his chair and quietly stewing. The thought made Kell smile, so he turned back toward the king as the latter pulled something from his robe with fumbling fingers.

It was a coin.

“It’s fading,” said the king, cupping the metal in his weathered hands as if it were precious and fragile. “I can’t feel the magic anymore. Can’t smell it.”

“A coin is a coin, Your Majesty.”

“Not so and you know it,” grumbled the old king. “Turn out your pockets.”

Kell sighed. “You’ll get me in trouble.”

“Come, come,” said the king. “Our little secret.”

Kell dug his hand into his pocket. The first time he had visited the king of England, he’d given him a coin as proof of who he was and where he came from. The story of the other Londons was entrusted to the crown and handed down heir to heir, but it had been years since a traveler had come. King George had taken one look at the sliver of a boy and squinted and held out his meaty hand, and Kell had set the coin in his palm. It was a simple lin, much like a grey shilling, only marked with a red star instead of a royal face. The king closed his fist over the coin and brought it to his nose, inhaling its scent. And then he’d smiled, and tucked the coin into his coat, and welcomed Kell inside.

From that day on, every time Kell paid his visit, the king would insist the magic had worn off the coin, and make him trade it for another, one new and pocket-warm. Every time Kell would say it was forbidden (it was, expressly), and every time the king would insist that it could be their little secret, and Kell would sigh and fetch a fresh bit of metal from his coat.

Now he plucked the old lin out of the king’s palm and replaced it with a new one, folding George’s gnarled fingers gently over it.

“Yes, yes,” cooed the ailing king to the coin in his palm.

“Take care,” said Kell as he turned to go.

“Yes, yes,” said the king, his focus fading until he was lost to the world, and to his guest.

Curtains gathered in the corner of the room, and Kell pulled the heavy material aside to reveal a mark on the patterned wallpaper. A simple circle, bisected by a line, drawn in blood a month ago. On another wall in another room in another palace, the same mark stood. They were as handles on opposite sides of the same door.

Kell’s blood, when paired with the token, allowed him to move between the worlds. He needn’t specify a place because wherever he was, that’s where he’d be. But to make a door within a world, both sides had to be marked by the same exact symbol. Close wasn’t close enough. Kell had learned that the hard way.

The symbol on the wall was still clear from his last visit, the edges only slightly smeared, but it didn’t matter. It had to be redone.

He rolled up his sleeve and freed the knife he kept strapped to the inside of his forearm. It was a lovely thing, that knife, a work of art, silver from tip to hilt and monogrammed with the letters K and L.

The only relic from another life.

A life he didn’t know. Or at least, didn’t remember.

Kell brought the blade to the back of his forearm. He’d already carved one line today, for the door that brought him this far. Now he carved a second. His blood, a rich ruby red, welled up and over, and he returned the knife to its sheath and touched his fingers to the cut and then to the wall, redrawing the circle and the line that ran through it. Kell guided his sleeve down over the wound — he’d treat all the cuts once he was home — and cast a last glance back at the babbling king before pressing his palm flat to the mark on the wall.

It hummed with magic.

“As Tascen,” he said. Transfer.

The patterned paper rippled and softened and gave way under his touch, and Kell stepped forward and through.

Copyright © 2015 by V.E. Schwab.

Excerpted from A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab.

Published by permission of the author and Tor Books.

All rights reserved.

No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

V.E. Schwab is the critically acclaimed author of Vicious, which was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2013, a Booklist Notable Reading List Winner, and the ALA top pick for 2014. She is also the author of a number of novels for young adults, including The Near Witch, The Archived, and The Unbound. She is currently living in Scotland.

Del Rey Presents
The Galaxy Game
(novel excerpt)

Karen Lord

The only cure for a sleepless night was to lie in bed and watch the constellations projected on his ceiling. He knew them by heart, had known them since his boy-days on Cygnus Beta when he would climb the homestead water tower to stargaze (and escape his father). Then they were a distant dream, an ancient tale that he could only trust was true. Now they were the dirt on his boots, the dust in his lungs, and a constant pang of care and concern that he carried in his heart. He was homesick for everywhere, for scattered friends and family and colleagues, each with a claim on his attention.

He whispered names in soothing ritual. The First Four, crafted worlds found already seeded with life — Ntshune, Sadira, Zhinu, and Terra. Then there were the colonies, bioformed planets shaped and settled by emigrants — Punartam, Ain, Tolimán, and more. The Terran system was nearest to his Cygnian heritage, but the Punartam system was closest in travel time and galactic rank. Its sole habitable planet, a first-wave colony almost as prominent as the First Four, was reputed to be the first fully bioformed world, a point still debated by the Academes. Was Cygnus Beta a crafted world that had failed and been restored by human or non-human effort, or a bioforming experiment unrecorded in human history? Punartam could prove its origins; Cygnus Beta could not. Punartam was, of course, the Cygnian name (from a Terran language, like so many other Cygnian names). In Terran stellar nomenclature it was ß Geminorum, and Galactic Standard offered a collection of syllables that told the full story of the star’s location, age, luminosity, and life-bearing potential. The name they used for themselves was in Simplified Ntshune and it meant the same thing as in Galactic Standard — behold! we are here, we have been here long, see how brightly we shine, we are we.

The founders of Punartam traced their origin to the system called the Mother of humanity. Cygnian name: Ntshune (also from a Terran language). Terran name: α Piscis Austrini. True name: a delicate and yearning melodic phrase in Traditional Ntshune. But there was another claim to Eldest — Sadira. Terran name: ε Eridani. Sadiri name: something unpronounceable (the Sadiri language, even in the simplified, standard form, was still a challenge for him to speak). Former leader of the galaxy . . . or at least policeman and judge and occasional executioner. Not much liked, though rarely hated, and now occasionally pitied. Sadira was dead, or almost dead, its biosphere locked in toxic regeneration for centuries to come. The seat of government had moved to New Sadira, formerly known to Cygnians as Tolimán. Survivors had settled throughout the colonies, mainly Punartam and Cygnus Beta, but not Ain. Certainly not Ain.

Next in rank. Cygnian name: Zhinu. Terran name: α Lyrae. Most Zhinuvians used the Galactic Standard name, but there were variations of that. In spite of several layers of modern tech and some extreme bioforming, the origin planet of the system had begun as a crafted world. Then there was Terra, Earth. Source of most of the settlers on Cygnus Beta (Terran stellar nomenclature, the unmelodious 16 Cygni B). Youngest of the First Four and most in need of protection. Zhinu, an example of long-term, well-intentioned meddling from both Ntshune and Sadira, was now playing the role of delinquent middle child, while the two elder siblings tried to shield Terra from outside influences.

With eyes still fixed on the stars, he reached toward a bowl filled with datacharms on his bedside table and brushed a familiar piece with the tip of a finger. A woman’s voice filled the room, and he sank back onto his pillows with a sigh of comfort.

“In the beginning, God created human beings, which is to say God put the ingredients together, embedded the instructions for building on the template, and put it all into four separate eggs marked ‘Some Assembly Required.’

“One egg was thrown down to Sadira. There humanity grew to revere and develop the powers of the mind. Another egg was sent to Ntshune, and the humans who arose there became adept at dealing with matters of the heart. A third egg arrived at Zhinu, and there the focus was on the body, both natural and man-made. The last egg came to Terra, and these humans were unmatched in spirit. Strong in belief, they developed minds to speculate and debate, hearts to deplore and adore, and bodies to craft and adapt. Such were their minds, hearts, and bodies that they soon began to rival their elder siblings.

“When the Caretakers saw the Terrans and their many ways of being human, they were both impressed and appalled. Some declared, ‘See how they combine the four aspects of humanness! Through Terra, all will be transformed — Sadira, Ntshune, and Zhinu — into one harmonious whole.’ Others predicted, ‘How can any group survive such fragmentation? They will kill each other, and the rest of humanity will remain forever incomplete.’

“After some discussion, the Caretakers decided to seal off Terra from the rest of the galaxy until Terran civilization reached full maturity. They also decided to periodically save them from themselves by placing endangered Terrans on Cygnus Beta, where they could flourish and begin to mix with other humans.”

The voice chuckled and concluded, “And that, my dear, is five creation myths for the price of one.”

He smiled. “Love you,” he murmured to the recording. He would see the owner of the voice soon enough. Reaching out once more, he stirred inside the bowl with a finger . . . and frowned. The weight, the chime, and the texture of the contents — something was off. He immediately sat up and turned on the lights. Grabbing the bowl, he sifted through the charms with one hand and glared at every trinket and token that rose to the surface. Finally, he turned the bowl upside down, dumping everything into his lap. He scanned the spread of charms on the bedsheets, counting and cataloging, although he already knew what was missing.

He looked up, furious. There was only one person who could have taken them, and only one place they could be.

Terminal 5 was a suborbital city strung between the icy surface of the planet and the icy, pitted armour of a single arc of the geosynchronous station. The core of the Terminal was old, a nostalgic remnant of another era of expansion, but the station was entirely new and under constant construction, forming a fragmented ring of bends and bows that girdled ancient Ntshune with a scanty, homely touch of modernity. It represented a humble proclamation of galactic ambition and a dogged focus on one thing — control of the main hub of galactic communications and transportation.

More lived and moved in the space station and its terminals than on the surface of Ntshune, but it was a population in constant flow to and from transports and through transits. The only residents who could claim any permanence beyond the staff were the databrokers, credit wranglers, and small-goods sellers. They came from all over the galaxy — entrepreneurial, nomadic, and at once heroic and pathetic. A glance would not distinguish between the adventurer and the refugee; both exuded the adrenaline of chasing and being chased by fate, and translated that urgency into a directness bordering on discourtesy. The market sector of Terminal 5 buzzed with loud voices and high emotions. Only the unprepared and the unlucky came to do business, and they learned quickly not to expect gentle handling.

“No. Not that, not here.” The broker’s hand slapped his desk in emphatic negation. “Waste of time.”

The young traveler froze with one hand suspended in the air, dangling the delicate bracelet with its many charms. “But you know what it is?”

“Too well,” the broker replied. “Datachip, Cygnian; datacharm, ditto. Assorted Punarthai audioplugs, one Sadiri vault and one Sadiri card, Ntshune — ” He stopped himself with a gape, then leaned forward and gave the charm a few seconds of close attention. “Ntshune filigree,” he admitted with a nod of grudging appreciation. “Beautifully made. A timeless piece.” He leaned back. “I can work with that or the Sadiri vault. No guarantees with the audioplugs. Some of the channels are no longer on-air and plugs won’t play without their channel linkup. The card is another antique, likely biolocked. The Cygnian matter — trash. Too much trouble.”

“I have credit — ” the traveler began.

“Credit is not the issue. Do you have five Standard years?”

The face stayed neutral, but the hand drooped, and there was something regretful in the curl of the fingers as they slowly gathered up the loop of motley charms. The broker briefly yielded to the suggestion of softening, like a shy tug at his heart, but he soon braced himself sternly against it.

“Stop that,” he cautioned. “We are Sadiri still; we don’t have to stoop to Zhinuvian tricks. If you do not have five years, then go to Cygnus Beta, Tlaxce Province, the library city of Timbuktu-kvar. They specialize in data extraction from the most ridiculous and obsolete tech.”

The young face tried to continue its neutrality, but to another Sadiri every microexpression was a shout. The broker blinked and guessed. “You are a Cygnian Sadiri?”

Head bowed, mind shielded but alert, the traveler quietly replied, “Yes. I was born there.”

The broker was not perfect. He saw and sensed the obvious, and misread. “There is no need to be ashamed. Whether you are taSadiri or half-Sadiri, we all share the same ancestors, mourn the blackened skies of Old Sadira, and curse the Ainya for their failed attempt at genocide.”

He stopped, gave the traveler a swift but thorough glance that assessed and appreciated from head to toe, misread further, and decided to be vulnerable.

“I thought I was fortunate. So many women died, we Sadiri men became so many wifeless husbands and motherless sons. But I had a wife still living. New Sadira took her from me not too long after.

“We were assured it would be temporary, so at first I was patient. I should have gone to Cygnus Beta with the rest of the young rejects, but I assumed I had status and protection — a place in the new world order. Now I am a lonely and aging databroker working in the corners of space stations and transit terminals. Sometimes I hope that my wife found happiness, but from the tales I have heard, and the emptiness in my heart . . . I know she is dead. It has been many years since then . . .”

Mind no longer closed, the young Sadiri tried to cringe away in polite but clear retreat, but the broker had gathered steam and courage and was no longer looking for the usual mental cues and courtesies. It was time for a coarser message. He tugged desperately at the neck of his plain black jacket, letting the hidden fastenings fall open to reveal a bare, smooth chest etched with silver tracings of the best Ntshune make. The broker stuttered to a stop, trying to make his way through several layers of faux pas to formulate some kind of coherent verbal or mental response to the traveler’s demonstrated unavailability for short-term flirtation or long-term engagement.

“May your period of kin contract be long and mutually advantageous. And yet . . . you are full Sadiri? Born in the settlement on Cygnus Beta?”

The traveler did not reply, did not need to. The broker’s lazy mind was at last communicating at the appropriate level and his questions were rhetorical, a verbal trick for emphasis.

“But I did not think they permitted men to be born there.”

“We are not New Sadira,” the traveler reproached him. He reproached him not only for the insult to his people, but also for the broker’s vague, unvoiced support for that policy. He did not always encounter the caricature of the desperate, marriage-hungry Sadiri, nor did he embody it, but when it appeared it made him feel personally injured, as if conscious of a great fall in which he was complicit though not culpable.

The broker raised his hand, opened it in surrender, and let it fall, a gesture of apology that went beyond what was required toward one so much younger. His very pores exhaled embarrassment, regret, and resentment. The traveler felt such pity; if he had not been convinced of his own mental strength, he would have suspected the broker of influencing his emotions.

“I would be grateful if you could do whatever is possible with the vault, the filigree, and the audioplugs,” he said.

The broker’s ego steadied and grew stronger, anchored by the familiar process of business. “What formats do you wish for the final compilation?”

“Ntshune filigree compatible.”

“That can be done.” The broker held out a hand for the charms; the tiny lights on his desk blinked and beckoned, ready for transfer.

The traveler hesitated. “How long?” he asked.

“The filigree, less than a day. A week for the vault, perhaps, and I really cannot say for the audioplugs. I may have to have them sent for testing.”

“Send each one as soon as you finish extraction,” the traveler told him, extending his treasure.

A hand intervened, tweaking the bracelet of charms from the traveler’s fingers. The hand was almost prettier than the bracelet. Silvery new lines overlaid the faint, pale scars of long-removed filigree, like embroidery over damask, fingers to forearm. The traveler’s heart seized with fear and disappointment as he looked into dark, opaque eyes and an unreadable face. The databroker assessed the situation with a glance, and folded his desk and vanished before he could become either accessory or witness. “You could have asked me, Narua.”

The words were quiet, unthreatening, and devoid of reproach, but they still stung. “I did ask, Patron.”

“Then you should have been more patient.” The Patron tucked the charms into an inner fold of his jacket. “Come with me.”

Copyright © 2015 by Karen Lord.

Excerpted from The Galaxy Game by Karen Lord.

Reprinted by arrangement with Del Rey/Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.

Learn more at http://bit.ly/The-Galaxy-Game

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen Lord has been a physics teacher, a diplomat, a part-time soldier, and an academic at various times and in various countries. She is now a writer and research consultant in Barbados. Her debut novel, Redemption in Indigo, won the Frank Collymore Literary Award, the William L. Crawford Award, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, and was nominated for the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.

Interview: David X. Cohen

The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy

David X. Cohen is Executive Producer of the critically-acclaimed animated series Futurama, and also spent five years as a writer for The Simpsons. He has won four Emmy Awards and four Annie Awards. He also holds a Master’s degree in Theoretical Computer Science from UC Berkeley, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Harvard University.

This interview first appeared on Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast, which is hosted by David Barr Kirtley. Visit geeksguideshow.com to listen to the entire interview.

You co-developed Futurama, along with Matt Groening, and you guys wrote the pilot script together, so why don’t you tell us about how that came about, and how much of the larger story had you worked out at that point?

I was a writer at The Simpsons for five years, and four years into that, rumors started going around that Matt Groening was working on this secret science fiction project. I was very interested, of course, being the SF/science nerd on the Simpsons’ writing staff. Matt came to me and asked if I wanted to collaborate with him, and we started talking in our spare time, because we were both still working on The Simpsons, on weekends and evenings about what we might do in Futurama. A lot of it was just, “What books do we like? What movies do we like?” This went on for a year, which was too much time in retrospect; when we finally went in to FOX Network to sell the show, we had too much stuff and the meeting went on for about two hours. I think they finally said, “All right, that’s enough! We’ll take the show if you just shut up.” It ended up being a learning experience.

What were your science fiction nerd qualifications at that point?

I was mainly a science nerd; I’m an SF nerd in the sense that I like to read science fiction, but I was almost a scientist. I had two biologists as parents, I got my undergraduate degree in physics and I decided to go study computer science at UC Berkeley. I pooped out halfway through and ended up with a Master’s degree instead of a PhD and started writing comedy spec scripts. It was a torturous, circuitous route to comedy writing. I had the science side pretty well cornered at The Simpsons, until Ken Keeler showed up. He’s another writer on The Simpsons and, later, Futurama, and he has a PhD in applied math, so his credentials are a bit better than mine. But he showed up too late to get in on the development stage of Futurama, lucky for me.

I come from a family of scientists as well. My dad got into physics because he wanted to write science fiction, and he thought that would be a good background for a science fiction writer. Did your interest in science fiction play any role when you decided to go into physics?

I never really thought about that. I bet it did, but you may have just planted that idea in my head. I think that’s a really interesting thought, because it is, especially for physics, inspiring to read about space travel and intelligent stars. But I’m going to credit you with planting the seed.

Getting back to the Futurama pilot, you said that you worked out too much of it when you went into FOX; how much of the show as we know it had you worked out when you went into that initial meeting?

We had a huge number of characters; so many that some of them we did not get to during the seven seasons of the show. Matt had a couple already when he asked me to join him: Fry, Leela, Zap Brannigan, and Kif. We then created Bender and Zoidberg, but we kept going: We had Nibbler, and we even invented Pocket Pal, who was this tiny robot. He was six inches high and he was going to ride around in Fry’s pocket and explain the world of the future, because we thought that, “Oh, people are going to be so confused!” That’s one of those lessons we learned, that people don’t want a lecture on how the future works, they just want to see what’s happening. We rapidly stopped explaining things to Fry, even though he was our man in the future, from our time, we started thinking of him as another character who was just a dumb guy rather than someone who knew nothing about the future. So we never needed this little guide and, as a throw-away joke — in a literal sense — we showed the Professor in a late episode tossing little robots in the garbage and blowing them up like firecrackers, and one of them was Pocket Pal.

This is mostly a show where we interview science fiction authors and talk about science fiction books; which science fiction books in particular do you think influenced the development of Futurama?

I’ll talk about books as well, but obviously Star Trek is a huge influence. Book-wise, there’s not much comedy science fiction that I’m aware of, but when I was a kid, I used to find books lying around my house because my mom was a voracious science fiction reader. That’s where I got my love of science fiction. I found Stanislaw Lem books, like The Star Diaries and Tales of Pirx the Pilot, and I think Mortal Engines; really strange, surreal, and funny SF short stories that had a big influence on me, especially as far as the idea that robots could be characters. Bender being the most human character on Futurama does owe a little to Stanislaw Lem. I particularly remember this one story about a planet that was entirely inhabited by robots, and these humans crash-landed on it and murderous robots are out to kill all the humans and the humans have to pretend to be robots to survive. It turns out that — spoiler alert — everybody on the planet are humans who crash-landed and are disguising themselves as robots, hiding from each other. That directly influenced Futurama; we did an episode similar to that, minus the “robots-being-humans-in-disguise.” I read a lot of Kurt Vonnegut in my graduate school days, but that’s about it for the funny science fiction. Most of the stuff I like is straight science fiction.

This naturally leads into how we do SF in Futurama, which is, as a funny SF show, is it making fun of science fiction? Or is it real science fiction with jokes in it? We weren’t sure ourselves, when we were developing the show. We didn’t have a lot of models to decide what we liked best, so we just started fooling around. We did decide pretty quickly that we weren’t going to do the real goofy version where there are spaceships that look like flying bicycles. We thought those kind of visual jokes would wear thin; if you had to see a dumb-looking ship 1,000 times, it wouldn’t be funny the 832nd. As far as the tone, we weren’t sure if people would watch if it was more serious SF, and the feedback loop is very slow in animation; we would do a show that would take a year to make, and then read comments on the internet and start writing a new show, and that’s one a year later. But we noticed that the fans were responding well to the episodes that had more science fiction in them, and if you watch the series again — which I encourage everyone to do — you’ll see we go for more serious SF stories as it goes along. The thing that was surprising to me, and the other writers I think, was that a lot of those ended up being our funnier episodes as well, and that’s what we didn’t know that we could do at first — a real science fiction story, but also a comedy or touching story. The reason it worked is that having this grand, melodramatic background for the SF story sets up this bubble of tension that you can pop with the jokes, and the jokes actually end up playing better.

It says online that, when you were trying to get this show going, FOX was particularly disturbed by the concepts of suicide booths, Dr. Zoidberg, and Bender’s anti-social behavior. Can you talk about what kind of push-back you got on putting that weird science fictional stuff into the show?

We were especially nervous about sticking science fiction into this show. The famous quote in my mind is, when we handed in the pilot or maybe the first couple scripts, they said, “Hey, we thought this was supposed to be like The Simpsons.” And Matt Groening said, “It is like The Simpsons: It’s new and original.” I think they thought it was going to be a family flying around on a sofa in space. We were trying to make it as different from The Simpsons as we could; Matt especially didn’t want to be accused of being short of ideas and ripping off his own show. So we wanted to put more SF in and different kinds of characters, young adults instead of parents and kids. We got a lot of notes in the beginning — ”Bender’s too mean,” “You’re going to a different planet every week, we want to know what Earth is like,” — so we toned it down, the biggest example being the third episode of the series called “I, Roommate.” That was conceived to placate the network, and the idea was that Fry and Bender were going to become roommates; they’re going to look for an apartment together and we’re going to find out just how people live in the future. It’s a perfectly good episode, but their reaction to that was basically, “We hate this, too!” There was a lot of feeling our way the first season.

I guess some of the stuff was too much for executives; did the general public react negatively to the suicide booths or any of that?

No. People don’t care about that kind of stuff. If peoples’ little kids are watching the show, they might be slightly outraged as defensive parents, but the problem was that they let their kid watch this PG-13 rated show in the first place. The tone is in the ballpark of material you would be exposed to on The Simpsons in terms of sex and violence, so I don’t think there was much outrage at all over suicide booths, especially since the character who really wanted to commit suicide was a machine, Bender. The idea that Bender was too mean ended up being inapplicable, because Bender ultimately sticks with his friends and people took to Bender as one of our more popular characters. We probably lost a few viewers by flying to other planets, but people who don’t like science fiction are not going to watch the show, and hopefully we got a few viewers who weren’t expecting to see as much science fiction.

How about when you have political characters, like Richard Nixon or Al Gore; do you ever get any political people being unhappy about that?

Yes, we do. Richard Nixon is a great example; for those listening who don’t watch Futurama, Nixon’s head, which is preserved in a jar of liquid — as many famous people’s heads are in the future — is President of the World. The reason we did that was because we thought Richard Nixon is a great cartoon character in real life and makes an easy transition. I remember Matt Groening saying, “If you had told me in the ’70s that I was going to be able to make fun of Richard Nixon thirty years later, I would’ve been so happy.” It was one of those things that we thought would be a quick joke and that we’d do once or twice, but it ended up being a recurring thing. Early in the show, the network got a letter from the Richard Nixon Library or Estate, saying they weren’t pleased with his portrayal, and would we consider not doing it. There’s no legal reason we couldn’t do it, because Presidents are fair game as public figures, which seems to be well established in US law. But we didn’t stop. The strange thing was — we didn’t really do this consciously — but Nixon became less evil as it went along, and was more of a practical tyrant who had to put up with difficult aliens and annoying people. Perhaps that helped, or perhaps they just got used to it, but a few years later we got another letter asking for us to provide some materials, because they were going to do an exhibit about Nixon in popular culture and they wanted to include Futurama.

Al Gore, being on the other end of the spectrum, got mostly positive feedback. Each person has their own reaction; our audience probably leans in the direction of pro-science and anti-putting-carbon-dioxide-in-the-atmosphere, so it wasn’t that controversial. Al Gore was amazing; it was surprising that he agreed to be on the show the first time, because he was still the sitting Vice President. People may not remember the first time he appeared on the show as the head of the Super Nerd Squad that was trying to stop the universe from collapsing. I think he wanted to improve his public persona and show that he had a sense of humor, and he did. When you’re in the room with him, he’s charismatic and a very funny guy, and I was impressed by his willingness to scream and make a fool out of himself. As a result, we invited him back and he became one of our most frequently recurring side characters.

A big reason that we wanted to get you on the show, now specifically, is because this book just came out called The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secret by Simon Singh, and they interviewed you for that and you’re going around with Singh talking about the book. You want to tell us about what you and Simon have been doing together?

When we first started sticking math jokes in the background of The Simpsons — which is the subject of the book — the jokes were not intended for a mass audience; we had empty space in the background and we thought, “We’ve already written this scene, but we can still stick another joke in the background!” It’s something you can do in cartoons, and the few people at the time who had good VCRs could freeze the tape and see what we put there. Having come recently from computer science, I put a few math jokes in, thinking that my old friends would appreciate it, and a few of the other science and math writers did similar things. We didn’t plan for more than about eight people to see these jokes. Enter the internet right around this time, the mid ’90s, and we notice people are discussing them. That’s when I became aware of this phenomenon with The Simpsons, and later Futurama, where there’s an opportunity to put in jokes that very few people will get, but the people that do are so amazed that they’re a fan for life after. You might only add twelve fans at a time, but they become hardcore. Futurama especially had an audience composed of that kind of fan, that later saved our neck when we were canceled repeatedly. So it’s been very surreal to me that more and more people have latched on to these math jokes and it got to the point that this well-known science writer, Simon Singh from England, wrote this book. I’m doing interviews about math that I haven’t thought about in twenty years, and we’re going around doing some talks. We were at Moogfest, an electronic music festival in North Carolina, a few months ago, and I’m going to be in London at the London Science Museum in a week and a half with Simon Singh and Al Jean, who’s the head writer for The Simpsons, talking again about these science and math jokes. Al Jean was also a math major in college; it’s strange that there was this locus of science and math people on The Simpsons and Futurama.

Are there any of those math jokes from Futurama that you’re particularly proud of and want to give as an example of the kind of things you do in the show?

The highlight of Futurama math is now known as the Futurama Theorem. The writer of the episode was Ken Keeler, who I mentioned earlier has a PhD in applied math, and has two Master’s degrees, one in applied math and one in electrical engineering. The idea was that the characters were all going to switch brains with this brain-switching machine, a standard science fiction and cartoon idea, and we thought, “How can we make this a little more interesting?” We came up with this complication where it’s a one-way brain-switching machine; if Fry and Leela switch brains, those two characters cannot correct their brain placement. So we thought, “If a lot of the characters get their brains mixed up, can they all keep trading brains around in a circle or something until they get their brains back?” We were just trying to make the plot more complicated, but we realized we had accidently created this math problem, and we started talking about it, thinking it would be obvious. But it wasn’t clear whether they could all get their brains back or not. Ken comes in the next morning with a stack of papers and he had proven that, no matter how mixed up peoples’ brains are, if you bring in two new people who have not had their brains switched then everyone can always get their original brains back, including those two new people. I was very excited about this, because you rarely get to see science, let alone math, be the hero. I really wanted to feature that more than we usually do — in the background — so we presented the problem, it was the key element of the plot, and at the climactic moment of the episode, we flashed the entire proof of the theorem on screen. All credit to Ken Keeler.

In Simon’s book, he points out that in the specific situation presented in the show, they could have sorted it out without adding two new people into the mix. Did you know that at the time?

We had two characters who, by the nature of the particular switches they had done, could be used as those two “extra” bodies. As the script went along, we did some rewriting and, originally, there were a few more brain switches and it was going to be more complicated, but you only have twenty-one and a half minutes to work with, and we had to simplify things. We did not realize that, by the time we had cut a couple of switches, it could be sorted out more simply. That doesn’t really affect the outcome; the proof is still the proof. We didn’t say you couldn’t switch them back without using the two extra heroes, we just said that you could switch them with the two extras. So for any nitpickers, there you go; I’ve out-nitpicked you.

I’m best familiar with Simon Singh because he was involved in this giant libel suit that’s been going on for years now. While you’ve been hanging out with him, have you talked about that, or have you been following that situation at all?

I’m no expert on it, but I know he wrote a book called Trick or Treatment, about chiropractors particularly, but alternative medicine in general, and laying out the science, or lack of science, behind it. This led to a giant libel suit in the UK, and after years of crushing legal work and court appearances, Singh won the case; he defended himself by showing that he was citing actual science. This became such a big thing in England that there was reform of the libel laws, so he did become a major figure there in a way he didn’t want to. Hopefully it’s a victory for science.

Looking over the list of episodes, you’re credited as the head writer for the whole show. But in addition to the pilot, there are four other episodes that you’re credited as the writer on, and then you have two short bits in the “Anthology of Interest” episodes. Can you talk about why you wrote the scripts for those?

Let me say a bit about the writing credit, on The Simpsons and Futurama and almost all American sitcoms: Never give the credited writer too much credit or blame, because these are group efforts. It’s almost a rotating basis, who gets their name on the script. Whoever it says it was written by did write the first draft, but in the natural process of doing these shows, we then put the script up on a screen in a room full of writers and comb over it for a week or two, looking at every line, every word. The great majority of the script changes at that point. Even the stories themselves are often generated by a group discussion. The same goes for episodes where I am the credited writer, the only difference being that if I propose the subject for an episode, I will then approve it, whereas if some other writer proposes an idea, I may or may not approve it. The reason I’m credited on certain episodes is that I had an idea when I happened to have the time to write the script.

One is the first X-mas episode. In the future, Christmas has become known as X-mas due to the constant use of the shortened form, and this evil Santa Claus character comes and punishes the naughty and, due to a software error, he thinks everybody is naughty, so he strafes the Earth with machine gun fire from his sleigh every year. I wrote that because it is one of the many stories that Matt Groening and I discussed in the early days before we pitched the show to FOX.

I wrote one called “The Why of Fry” that filled us in on the backstory about Nibbler and Fry and Nibbler’s grand plans for the universe. Nibbler is this creature who appears to be a dumb alien pet but is actually from this super-powerful alien race who are never respected because they’re so cute. Again, that was an idea we discussed early on, so I felt I should write it. So I guess there was a good reason for me to write them, now that I’m going through it. A couple of the later ones we did for Comedy Central, those were more of the thing I was saying before: I had time.

Could you talk about the “Anthology of Interest” segments that you wrote? Even by the standards of Futurama, these are pretty geeky.

These episodes are ones where we do three mini-stories instead of one big story; this is the formula for The Simpsons Halloween episodes. In Futurama, we say, “What if ___?”, and it’s some alternate version of the future. In one, which I wrote, Fry asks the question, “What if I had never come to the future?” and we see that, because he was supposed to go into the future and the future changed, there is an instability in the space-time continuum, and the universe is going to collapse. We then show Al Gore leading this team of super nerds consisting of him; Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons; Nichelle Nichols, from the original Star Trek; Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer; and Stephen Hawking, who also appeared three times on Futurama. I was a big D&D player, to nobody’s surprise.

On a basic logistical level, what is it like trying to get all those people together to do the voices for one ten-minute segment?

Luckily with a cartoon, you can get these people separately. With our regular cast, we would try to get them in the same room because I always thought the dialogue sounded more natural. With these guest stars, it’s usually impossible; they often don’t live in Los Angeles or even in the United States in some cases. The logistics for this one were crazy; to get Al Gore, we had to fly to Washington, DC and record him in the Vice Presidential residence, which is a secure compound, and it was super cool. Stephen Hawking was at Caltech at the time, and we thought he could email his dialogue, since he uses an electronic voice anyway. But he said he wanted the experience of being a guest on the show, which was amazing, so we went to his house in Pasadena. As both a science fiction guy and a former physics major, that was one of the highlights for me.

How about “The Raiders of the Lost Arcade”?

These particular “Anthology of Interest” episodes I wrote because they are things I was especially interested in; I’m gradually taking back everything I said before about it being chance. The “what if” scenario was Fry asking, “What if life were more like a video game?” I got to use things from videogames of the 1980s, which was my era, back when you would spend your quarters in the arcade. And I spent many quarters. We had a Space Invaders-style invasion of Earth; Lrrr was commanding this force and giving orders such as, “Move left! Drop down! Reverse direction!” There were cameos from ’80s games like Q*bert, Berzerk — for any Berzerk fans out there, “Got the humanoid, got the intruder!” — and we were trying to recreate them without literally using them. It was a challenge for our sound effects guy; for a lot of them, there’s no clean recording possible because the sound effects are overlapping.

Can you put any video game character in the cartoon, or do you have to worry about any intellectual property sort of stuff?

We make designs that are closely based on the thing we want to parody, then send it off to FOX for legal review, and we end up with something, hopefully, that gives you the clear idea of what we’re talking about but which is still distinct. It’s always a back and forth process, and lots of lawyers looking at everything.

We had a couple of listener questions; Justin L. Tabor asks, “How did they manage to maintain such great continuity?” Did you have any kind of bible to keep the facts straight from one episode to the next?

We often consult fan wiki pages, where they have compiled all the appearances of various characters, and make sure we have not done what we’re going to do. There are many fans that have a better memory of the show than us. Patric Verrone — who is the only writer other than me who worked on every episode, including all of the DVDs — would keep a little page for each episode we had ever done with a picture and a list of guest stars and the air date. We would arrange these on the upper edge of the wall around the room and while we were pitching out new ideas, we’d always be pointing to things and going, “It has to be different from episode 408 over there.” Over the years, you would get used to where everything was and you’d start pointing without looking. After Comedy Central picked us up, there would’ve been ninety-eight episodes wrapped very neatly around the walls, and then when they renewed us again for twenty-six episodes, Patric printed them out and shaved them down so that 124 could fit in the same spot.

Ted Hand asks, “Should aspiring writers go into math instead of humanities?”

It couldn’t hurt. I don’t know anyone who wanted to be a writer who was held back by not studying writing. There are very few qualifications to becoming a TV writer. It’s amazing the variety of backgrounds we have; people who have PhDs and people who kind of made it through high school and became stand-up comedians. If you like writing, and stick to it, you can become a writer, so you might as well learn something more useful for a fallback career.

How did you end up with so many science people on that show? Did you specifically recruit them?

For Futurama, it makes sense. It’s a science fiction show; I purposely hired people who were science/SF types. When we get the science wrong, we know it. Now, on The Simpsons, it’s hard to explain. Al Jean, who I mentioned was one of the head writers early on, was a math major and his writing partner at the time, Mike Reiss, had always been very interested in math and puzzles. I think they hired other people who enjoyed that kind of stuff, too. At the time I was hired, David Mirkin was the head writer; he was an engineer previously, and Ken Keeler showed up later with a PhD in math. I think of it like a crystal seed, one or two people who like math and hire people with similar sensibilities and it gets magnified. Luckily, I got to know some of those people and got to use them on Futurama.

Say we have a lot of science fiction fans listening to this show and some of them might want to write for Futurama the next time it gets revived. What would the process be?

The same as any other sitcom — it’s virtually impossible. It requires a strange combination of dogged persistence and tremendous good luck. Once you get your first job, if you do a good job, it becomes more of a regular career where you have credentials. It’s the same, I’m sure, for acting and directing and all these things where things just have to fall into place. In my case, I was writing a lot of spec scripts, which are sample scripts, when I was in graduate school. I wrote samples for Seinfeld and The Simpsons and things that were popular at that time and sent them to everybody I could think of. I knew a couple of people who had become TV writers, which is a huge advantage; you have to work any angle you can to get someone to read your material. Someone I knew got my material to the head writer of David Letterman’s show — Late Night, at that time — and they almost hired me. Right about that time, Mike Judge created Beavis and Butthead, and they were airing the first episode on MTV and it was a sensation. He went on David Letterman as a guest, and afterwards he was talking to the head writer about how they had ordered a bunch of episodes and he needed really cheap writers who were funny right away. And the guy handed him my stuff, and Mike hired me.

I have another listener question from Chuck Floading. He says, “Many episodes seem to revolve around some crazy thing invented by Professor Farnsworth; a true plot device. When writing an episode, did the writers come up with a Professor Farnsworth invention first and let the story flow from that? Or does the story idea come first and the invention second?”

A lot of times we’ll have the invention, but we won’t be able to think of a story to use it in, and this plays to the heart of what makes a good script and story: A lot of times people have a good device, but they don’t have the character story that goes with it. Some examples: the Professor’s time machine that only goes into the future. That was an idea Matt Groening suggested but, for a long time, we didn’t have a story. It has to have a theme; it has to have a beginning, middle, and end, and some human emotion. We eventually came up with this story where Fry is in the time machine and Leela is left behind; he had finally professed his love and then they’re separated by billions of years. It ended up being one of our best episodes, and one of those which has a good SF story and a touching, emotional story at the same time. We couldn’t write it until both of those things came together. I think that often the form of the physical invention came first. We’d stick that up on the board and someone later comes up with a character take on it. Another example we used in our finale episode, which was quite similar in its mechanism: a push-button that rewinds time ten seconds. Again, we had that idea for a while, and made it into a story by combining it with another story we had gotten stuck on where time froze.

I loved the finale, and that push-button that rewinds time ten seconds and Fry ends up falling off the building and he can’t rewind time enough.

An interesting thing about time travel is that it’s very good for emotional stories, even time travel of ten seconds, because there are concepts in life of, “Oh if only I could do that again; if only I could have that one second back, how would my life be different?” It lets you play into key moments in peoples’ lives. By a similar token, the long-distance time travel lets you do this thing where you’re separated from the person you love or your parents. The whole set-up of Futurama is that Fry is a thousand years ahead of his family and people he’ll never see again; the one-way nature of time is just so connected to the joy and tragedy of real life.

We mentioned that was the series finale, but it was actually the fourth series finale that you guys have done. This is something I think is really frustrating, that you can have a show that is massively popular among science fiction fans — like Futurama, the original Star Trek, Firefly, Farscape, etc. — and it gets canceled. From your perspective as a TV show creator, why is it so hard for science fiction shows to stay on the air?

For live-action shows, there’s the issue of budget, and that impacted the original Star Trek a lot and forced them to do all their western episodes and everything with existing sets. The SF fan base is very dedicated but is not necessarily enough to keep a network show on the air. Animated shows are often more expensive at the beginning, and less expensive later on; there’s a lot of start-up costs and many employees animating, but you usually don’t end up with the actors making $400,000 an episode, The Simpsons being a notable exception. At the same time, you have the difficulties of a cartoon: “Are people going to buy into this world?” In Futurama, we always ended up with this audience that was exactly on the cut-off point between the network keeping it on the air or not, and we were in suspense every year. We ended up writing what we thought, at the time, was going to be our finale episode — four times. It became an in-joke that we would always have Ken Keeler write the last episode. When you start to get a lot of experience writing your “last episode ever,” you know something’s gone horribly wrong.

Most of these shows, when they get canceled, there’s a fan campaign to try to save them; when Farscape was canceled, I saw somebody say that by the time the show actually gets canceled, or by the time you as a fan hear about that, it’s too late. Really, if you care about a science fiction show, you should be organizing a campaign before, because you should just assume it’s going to be canceled. What do you think of that from the point of view as a show runner?

That’s basically true. With animation, when they cancel the show, the machine shuts down and by the time they start it up it’s going to take another year to get your first show on the air. Unless you’re South Park; then it takes six days. Then there’s the second question of what fans can do that actually influences networks, and it comes down to watching the show and buying the DVDs or downloading the video. These fan campaigns end up being publicity, and ratings go up and sales go up, and that’s what the network notices. In rarer cases, the network president is a fan of the show and stands up for it. In the cases of Family Guy and Futurama, the network head actively banished us to reruns on cable TV and Adult Swim on Cartoon Network in the middle of the night, back in the mid-2000s. Then the ratings started going up and were beating the late-night talk shows, and FOX was very surprised. Part of it was that the shows were on a regular schedule every night, whereas they had both been on Sundays and overrun by football games on FOX. Ultimately, it was the practical matters of the viewership.

So if people want more Futurama, they should buy the DVDs?

Our fans don’t owe us any more at this point; they’ve helped us more than the fans of any other show. I can’t thank them enough. We’ve come back three times, once in the form of the DVD movies, then in the form of Comedy Central, and again in the form of Comedy Central’s second order. I feel like I owe all our fans a free DVD. If they want to buy it, they should, but thanks to them we had a long run that I feel proud of, whereas when we were canceled the first time, I felt like we were cut off just when we were getting to understand what we were doing.

Do you want to talk about The Simpsons/Futurama crossover that’s coming up?

I’m excited; this also falls into the category of “coming back to life,” but in a new form — more of a reincarnation. The origin of the Simpso-rama episode that’s going to be out this fall is that Futurama was canceled, we all went about our lives, and then Al Jean, The Simpson’s head writer, called me up and asked what I thought about a crossover. It sounded great to me, but I was immediately nervous because there is a long history of crossover tension on The Simpsons, dating back twenty years. The animated show The Critic, starring Jon Lovitz and created by Simpsons’ writers Al Jean and Mike Reiss, was produced by Gracie Films, which also produces The Simpsons, and they did a crossover episode. Matt Groening felt the design styles of the two shows were completely different and that it would take away from the reality of the show. So he was very opposed to that, but it got pushed through against his objections. Cut back to the present, and I said, “Whatever Matt thinks, that’s what I think.” As it turns out, Matt was on board; since he drew all the characters, he thought the styles could go together. I suggested that Al have Stewart Burns write the episode; he was a long-time writer on Futurama before he went over to The Simpsons. I got to weigh in with suggestions at the early stage of the outline, and again recently with a rough cut of the show. It’s exciting to see these two things together, which I would not have expected a few years ago, and they worked really hard to get all of the major Futurama characters and a bunch of minor characters, such as Hedonism Bot. It’s officially a Simpsons episode, but more Futurama in tone.

In Futurama, you present this whole world of the future; is there anything you guys came up with for the show that you think might actually come true in the future?

There’s a few advertising things I imagine could come true, such as advertising in your dreams and projecting advertisements on the moon. Someone threatened to do that recently, and people were up in arms, but it turned out to be a publicity stunt. We have the tube transport system that shoots people around in clear tubes, and Elon Musk proposed the same a couple years ago. That could be done, if we put our national resources behind it.

How about on the social side? I re-watched all your episodes and there’s the line Professor Farnsworth has, “We’ve abandoned your primitive notions of decency,” and he’s naked for most of the episode. Is there anything along those lines you think might happen? Will we all become nudists in the future?

Did you notice that when Futurama went to Comedy Central, we had a lot more nudism references? The very first DVD movie, they go to the nudist home world, and the head evil alien was named “Nudar.” The looser broadcast standards of Comedy Central came into play there. I’m a nudist now; luckily this is an audio interview. No, I don’t have any strong feelings about nudism, honestly.

It’s great for laughs, but the idea that when you reach a sufficiently advanced age, and you’re not in good health anymore, that you might just plug yourself into a virtual reality environment for the rest of your existence — that seems to me like something that could happen.

I’ve tried out the Oculus Rift, I’m proud to say, and I do think that would be a good idea. For people who have mobility problems, you could put on the headset and go visit places in real time.

I wanted to mention this earlier: You mentioned reading Stanislaw Lem, and I was curious if you had read his book The Cyberiad, because that seems to have a strong Futurama vibe.

I believe I read it back in high school, but honestly my memory is very poor.

It’s one thing I think you should check out, because it’s about these two robots who are inventors, and they’re always trying to out invent each other.

Okay, yes, I’ve read it.

And there’s the part where one of them invents a poetry-writing machine, and the other one is trying to break the machine by giving it impossible poems to write. So he says, “Write a love poem about tensor calculus” and the machine does it, and the poem is actually in the book and it’s hilarious and really well done.

And you’re reading it in translation, also, which is amazing.

Michael Kandel translated it from Polish; I assume he had to basically write something completely different, because I don’t see how you could possibly translate something like that.

There’s so much wordplay in those stories, and I always wondered what I was losing from the original. I’m sure I subconsciously stole whatever you’re reminding me of now, so maybe I better not look at it.

Finally, what are you up to these days? Are there any other projects, or anything else, that you want to mention?

I’m writing down all of my “three a.m. ideas”; there’s about one good one out of every eighty. I have a couple ideas for screenplays, which I have never tried, so I may move in that direction.

If people want to keep up with you, do you have a website or anything?

I don’t do any of that stuff, which is embarrassing for a computer science guy, I guess. I haven’t bothered too much because Comedy Central has been running the Futurama Facebook page for years now, which has twenty-five million followers, so whenever we wanted to do stuff for Futurama, it would go on there. But I may need to branch out soon.

If people keep their eye on the Futurama Facebook page, will that keep them up to date on you?

Yeah. They’re reasonably nice to me; if I start something new, they’ll probably throw a good word my way.

I’m really looking forward to whatever you work on next; I was a big Futurama fan from the very beginning, and I’m really excited I got a chance to talk to you.

Likewise; thank you very much. And again, I’m honored to be among the guests of this show, many of whom have inspired me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction/fantasy talk show podcast airing on Wired.com. It is produced by Lightspeed editor John Joseph Adams and hosted by David Barr Kirtley. Dave Kirtley is the author of thirty short stories, which have appeared in magazines such as Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, and Lightspeed, in books such as Armored, The Living Dead, Other Worlds Than These, and Fantasy: The Best of the Year, and on podcasts such as Escape Pod and Pseudopod. He lives in New York.

Book Reviews: January 2015

Andrew Liptak

Welcome to the inaugural Lightspeed Book Review column! I’m thrilled to be part of this new feature on Lightspeed, and I’m looking forward to reading the reviews from my fellow reviewers Amal El-Mohtar and Sunil Patel. This month, I’m looking at books from Ann Leckie, W.C. Bauers, and Katherine Howe.

 Ancillary Sword 
Ann Leckie
Trade Paperback / Ebook
ISBN 978-0316246651
Orbit Books, October 2014
400 pages

Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword is the sequel to her debut novel, Ancillary Justice, which needs little introduction. Leckie’s first novel was nominated for, and earned, just about every major genre award there is. Following it up would always be a difficult task; Sword continues the narrative by avoiding a verbatim adventure, and for the most part, it works nicely. Picking up shortly after Ancillary Justice left off, we once again follow Breq as she’s given command of a ship and sent off to a remote station at the edge of the Radchaai Empire. Sent to secure the station, she finds problems that appear to be a microcosm of the Empire’s larger problems: imperialism, social issues, and corruption. The result is a book that’s far quieter than its predecessor, but one that, due to the themes Leckie explores, feels no less weighty.

The chief theme here would be that of the ramifications of the Radchaai Empire: Stretched to its limits, the vast, space-faring society feels as though it’s about to topple, and in this particular world, we see this through the social ills and corruption that come along with an oppressive regime. In Justice, we see the actions used to pacify a world. Here in Sword, Athoek station and its host world have long since been pacified, but problems linger. An underclass on the station is literally ignored by the station’s AI, because they’re simply not registered, and on the planet’s surface, an oppressed working class is pushed to the point of rebellion. There’s a number of standout moments where Leckie deftly examines the tensions between the rich and the poor: A wealthy citizen causes a prank that causes the death of an envoy, while later, a worker explains that they don’t feel as though they’re free to speak up while an overseer dismisses their claims out of hand. Sword is a book that looks at some of the greater social issues we face today, from racial oppression to wealth inequality, and it works particularly well against the backdrop of a failing empire that spans massive quantities of space.

Breq uses her time here to epitomize the ideal of the Radchaai Empire: a fair and decent ruler, called in to mediate the various issues that seem to be tearing the world apart. She is, however, one individual in an empire where the numerous copies of its ruler are splitting it against itself. This middle novel feels as though it’s the calm before the storm, forecasting some major issues that will threaten the Radchaai Empire in the next book. As a result of all this, Sword is a very different novel from its predecessor: It lacks the focus of Justice and Breq’s personal quest for revenge, but even so, it presents a vivid portrait of the world Breq inhabits and clues to what she will be facing next.

 Unbreakable 
W.C. Bauers
Hardcover / Ebook
ISBN 978-0765375421
Tor Books, January 2015
368 pages

While Ancillary Sword was a quiet novel, Unbreakable by W.C. Bauers, is anything but. From its early pages, this debut work explodes with action, chronicling the adventures of one Promise Paen of the planet Montana. Orphaned after a raider attack on her homestead, she joins the Republic of Aligned Worlds Marine Corps to give her life some purpose. Shortly after training, she returns to her homeworld, which has become a friction point in the fault line between the RAW and the Lustianian Empire. Bauers doesn’t go for a lot of nuance in here: Promise is soon the commanding officer on a backwater world as an enemy task force descends, and the pages quickly fly by as shots are exchanged, political maneuvering is accomplished, and starships are blown out of space. It’s a fun, exhilarating read that comfortably fits on the shelf alongside John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War and Marko Kloos’s Frontlines novels. What’s notable for Unbreakable is Promise Paen, a rare female protagonist in the military science fiction genre. She’s a balanced character, surrounded by her company of well-trained Marines who put their lives on the line to protect a planet that has its own issues with the government they represent. She’s one of the foot soldiers on the front lines of the Republic, armed with an array of high-tech weapons, yet at the same time, feels much like her counterparts Johnnie Rico (of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers) and William Mandella (of Haldeman’s Forever War). These soldiers on the front lines share a common narrative, and Unbreakable is an excellent example of the struggles all soldiers face — even those far in the future.

Bauers drops a lot of information into the pages of his book: the makeup of the human empire, the various political alignments, and enough acronyms to warrant a glossary in the back of the text. In doing so, he puts together a sort of libertarian ideal for the Republic of Aligned Worlds: They’re the Good Guys here, an epitome of equality and fairness to member bodies, replete with the ideal that a representative government will inherently act in the best interest of all. Montana feels as though it’s an idealized vision of this center-right world: Guns are aplenty, welcome and everyone’s inherent right to own, all while everyone is treated equally under the eyes of a limited government and frontier society. On the other side, the Lustianian Empire goes all in as the Bad Guys, an Imperial-styled monarchy that feels dark and oppressive: These guys certainly speak with a Soviet or British accent, on spaceships that are black and lit with red lights. All the while, Bauers goes out of his way to point out that these guys are uncomfortable with the idea of women in the ranks. As I mentioned, this book has little in the way of nuance. That being said, it’s a terrifically fun book that’ll have me looking for the next one (even as we get new military novels from Kloos and Scalzi’s respective worlds later this year).

 The Penguin Book of Witches 
Katherine Howe (editor)
Trade Paperback / Ebook
ISBN 978-0143106180
Penguin Classics, September 2014
320 pages

Finally, I want to take a look at a non-fiction book that will have some interest in the genre community: The Penguin Book of Witches edited by Katherine Howe. Over the centuries, witches have become iconic archetypes in fantasy literature, from Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time to Gregory McGuire’s Wicked.

That’s what The Penguin Book of Witches aims to do: examine the real-life examples underpinning the idea of what a witch is. Howe collects an impressive array of primary source material, ranging from biblical references, to English accounts of witches, to documentation from the famed Salem Witch Trials. Spanning sources dating from the biblical times to 1813, Howe has assembled a historical text that sheds a considerable amount of light on the subject.

The image that we have of witches is grounded in the lives and events of real people, individuals often accused by their neighbors of witchcraft for any number of ill tidings. One point stuck out in me as I read through this book: Frequently, accusations came out of communities that were highly stressed, such as the American colonies facing starvation or internal problems. Individuals, typically women, were often targeted for speaking out, falling out with neighbors, or generally not fitting in with close-knit societies in the middle of the wilderness. These are all elements that we frequently find in fantasy, particularly the brand of horror story that came out of Puritan New England and which was ultimately co-opted by the likes of Hawthorne, Poe, and Lovecraft. Howe also posits that while women suffering from mental illness seemed to be frequently targeted for their behavior, outspoken women were targeted as well, often labeled as promiscuous or seductive. This level of reinforcement of gender roles in early society had an immediate cost for the women of Salem and others around the country, and remains an ingrained part of American culture.

Ultimately, The Penguin Book of Witches is the type of read that may only interest a certain type of reader, but it’s a book that I would highly recommend picking up. It’s a collection that provides a deep level of understanding into a resilient part of Americana and goes back to original texts to show a complete picture of where these attitudes come from. This is the type of book that would serve well as a research guide for anyone wanting to understand some of the elements that run under the hood of darker stories. The truth is often stranger than fiction, and in this instance, the horrifying things that were done to people in the name of religion and society were often far worse than anything someone made up.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Liptak is a freelance writer and historian from Vermont. He is a 2014 graduate of the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop, and has written for such places as Armchair General, io9, Kirkus Reviews, Lightspeed Magazine, and others. He can be found over at www.andrewliptak.com and at @AndrewLiptak on Twitter. His first book, War Stories: New Military Science Fiction is now out from Apex Publications, and his next, The Future Machine: The Writers, Editors and Readers who Build Science Fiction is forthcoming from Jurassic London in 2015.

Artist Gallery: Zelda Devon

Zelda Devon was born in 1978 in San Francisco. She was trained unsuccessfully at Savannah College of Art and Design and successfully at a small atelier in Brooklyn, NY. Zelda has done illustration, packaging, and event pre-visualization work for clients including Christian Dior, Shimmer, DC Comics/Vertigo, The Discovery Channel, The Weinstein Company, and Godiva Chocolates. Zelda currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Visit www.zeldadevon.com to learn more.

Note: Images 1-3 are collaborations between Zelda Devon and Kurt Huggins.  — eds.

[To view the gallery, turn the page.]

Artist Spotlight: Zelda Devon

Henry Lien

One of the first things I notice about your work is how relatively few of your illustrations depict scenes taking place on land. There are so many images that take place in the air or on, or under, water. Is land boring to you?

That is an interesting observation. I’m in love with viscerally beautiful environments that are dynamic. If there is a monster crawling out of the land, or the land is covered with a thousand mushrooms of various sizes, it wouldn’t be that boring.

There is such a powerful sense of story in all of your work. Is this simply because you are an illustrator and illustrations service a story? Or would you be a storyteller in your own regard regardless of the project you are working on?

Form follows function. Stories are a wonderful catalyst that give drawings a reason to be born. Story is the glue that holds it together.

Your work is vivid emotionally as well as visually. That is one of the first things that leaped out at me about your work. Not only were the visuals lush, rich, and saturated, but the emotions as well. Talk to us about the role of emotion in your work.

Beautiful things are richer when infused with an emotional story. My backgrounds and characters have complicated, intricate, perhaps even painful lives. You are only allowed a glimpse. You get to make up the rest.

What is your dream life like? It is cliché to talk about science fiction/fantasy illustration being dreamlike, but I’m sure you’ve heard that before about your work. What relationship do your dreams have to your work, if any?

When I do dream, none of the dreams enter my remembering mind. My therapist would be really upset. What doesn’t translate to night dreams definitely translates to daydreams, in which I’m a daily participant. Towering bookshelves filled with luxurious stories, an antique Chesterfield, and a little industrial light to illuminate what I’m seeing. A glass greenhouse brimming with a crawling menagerie of exotic plants. Maybe even some have eyes.

Do you have any strong phobias/neuroses/fears that you care to share? It seems that part of the power of your works is that they tap into phobias. The scenes of flight use skewed angles and extreme perspective to make the viewer feel that she is about to tip out of a precarious cauldron or vessel and go tumbling into space. The ocean scene featuring the giant octopus with the lighthouse eyes and the vertiginous wave makes my stomach drop. The drowned ball scene is gorgeous and suffocating. Are you tapping into personal phobias here or is this just artist’s skill at work?

My phobias are banal: how to buy a car that won’t break down or how not to burn my omelet. They have little to do with real nonsense, like death or taxes or . . . heights. I just love visuals that are dynamic and spiral in motion. I am given a window to fill and I want to fill mine with ancient archetypes that hook themselves deep into your subconscious.

What are some of your influences, in illustration, fine art, literature, film, games, etc.?

My inspiration casserole has many layers. Dean Cornwell, J.C. Leyendecker, Ivan Bilibin, Ramon Casas, Dave McKean, Léon Bakst, Mike Mignola, Claire Wendling, Mead Schaeffer, Moebius, Yoshida Hiroshi, and Heinrich Kley are found on the easy-to-reach shelf. Cracks in old walls, costume design, architectural ornament, elaborate European fountains, and deep sea giant isopods are also muses. I love dark, strange, twisted, sad things. I love old occult lore, Polish poster art, stop-motion animation, and Japanese and Russian fairytales. Also, sex and death.

You also do packaging/lettering work for corporate clients. One of the things I noticed is how you resist current trends of minimalism in graphic design, especially in lettering. Do you feel that less is not more, less is a bore?

I love minimalism in my house, but adore fancy, ornate, luxurious design, à la drug packaging from the 1920s.

What is your dream project?

To contribute a heavy visual impact on a major motion picture or animated film.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Henry Lien is an art dealer in Los Angeles (glassgaragegallery.com). He represents artists from North America, Asia, Europe, and South America. His artists have appeared in ARTnews, Art in America, Juxtapoz, the Huffington Post, and Time Magazine, and been collected by and exhibited in institutions and museums around the world. Henry has also served as the President of the West Hollywood Fine Art Dealers’ Association and a Board Member of the West Hollywood Avenues of Art and Design. He is also the Arts Editor at Interfictions. Henry also has extensive experience as an attorney and teaches at UCLA Extension. In addition, Henry is a speculative fiction writer. He is a Clarion West 2012 graduate. He has sold stories to publications including Asimov’s, Analog, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and been nominated for the Nebula. He is originally from Taiwan. Visit his author website at henrylien.com.

Author Spotlight: Theodora Goss

Laurel Amberdine

How did you come up with this idea? Were there any particular Beautiful Boys who inspired you?

I think we all know Beautiful Boys. We probably knew them in high school, the ones who were in a band, and smoked during lunch period, and mothers warned their daughters about. There were certainly boys like that in my high school, and I dated several of them despite my mother’s warnings. And then you never hear about them again, unless it’s years later and they’re doing carpentry in Montana. Or something with horses.

In a way, I was writing from the perspective of that high school girl, to whom some men seemed like aliens. And in my story, they are. Maybe.

The distant, omniscient POV that you chose for the story works perfectly. How did you decide on that? Did you try any other ways of telling the story?

It’s actually not an omniscient POV: the entire story is from the POV of the main character, whom Oscar calls Dr. Leslie (although Leslie is actually her first name). But parts are her personal story, and parts are her presenting the research she’s done, the conclusions she’s come to, the questions that remain to be answered. They’re both the same voice, speaking in different ways. In dialog with one another, and with us.

I’m not sure how I decided on it — I think I always heard the story in her voice, whether it was the personal or scientific voice. I didn’t try to tell the story in any other way — once you have the voice, I find, the story more or less tells itself. She tells the story, through me.

I don’t see any hard evidence that the Beautiful Boys, as described, have to exist, or that Dr. Leslie’s proposed tests could definitively prove her theories. Did you intend for readers to draw any conclusion from that ambiguity?

I’m not sure you can draw conclusions from ambiguity, and that’s pretty much what I meant to leave the reader with: the ambiguity. Here is a scientist, a Ph.D. or M.D., confronted with the things her science doesn’t understand. Like human relationships and emotions. Yet she’s still trying to understand them the only way she knows how, rationally, by quantifying. That’s what the story is about, really.

It’s my way of writing science fiction . . .

What was your biggest challenge in writing this story?

This particular story sort of wrote itself. I’ve had stories that are difficult to write, but this one wasn’t, I think because I know that way of thinking so well. Both my parents are scientists. And here I am, the writer, understanding things in a very different way than they do, by telling stories. My narrator is trying to construct a story that allows her to understand her own experiences, in the only way she knows how . . .

Perhaps the hardest part of writing this story is actually explaining it? It’s a story about someone who desperately wants explanations. Also about what it’s like to lose people.

What are you working on now?

I’ve just finished a novel about the daughters of the classic mad scientists, based on a novella of mine written several years ago called The Mad Scientist’s Daughter (which you can read online in Strange Horizons). I seem to be interested in scientists, particularly mad ones! I suppose as the daughter of scientists myself, it was only a matter of time before I would start writing about characters like Mary Jekyll, Diana Hyde, Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherine Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein . . . Next, I may take time off to write a few fairy tales, and then it will be back to the second book in the series!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laurel Amberdine was raised by cats in the suburbs of Chicago. She’s good at naps, begging for food, and turning ordinary objects into toys. She recently moved to San Francisco with her husband, and is enjoying its vastly superior weather. Between naps she’s working on polishing up a few science fiction and fantasy novels, and hopes to send them out into the world soon.

Author Spotlight: Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

Liz Argall

How did “He Came From a Place of Openness and Truth” come about?

My partner rarely remembers his dreams, but when he does, they’re these bizarre but surprisingly well-plotted stories. About a year ago, he told me about a dream he had where aliens kidnapped people from earth to clone them; the aliens needed sperm to do so, like in some cheap porno film. I immediately wanted to write a story where I would be challenged to deepen the source material, turn it into something sweeter and truer to life.

I love how sexuality is explored in this story. While some people have a clearer or more binary orientation, it was nice to see space for people who uncover their sexuality in a way that is less bounded by certainty. Was that something you set out to explore when you wrote this story? Were there specific things you wanted to achieve?

I absolutely wanted to explore a less certain view of sexuality, one that was true to my own experience. When I was in high school, a lot of students did see sexuality as this fluid thing, even in the small Texas town where I grew up. But as someone who was attracted to both men and women, I struggled with feeling like I had to be either gay or straight; most of this pressure came from adults with a more closed-off view of sexuality. My parents were fine with me being gay, but they struggled with the idea that I could be attracted to men and women equally. I wanted to depict a teenager who was struggling with that very same pressure to give himself a strict label but who was strong enough to rally against that pressure.

You are a prolific interviewer yourself. What question that you have asked is your favorite and what did you learn from the answer?

I always enjoy asking, for selfish reasons, what people’s favorite short stories are, so I can seek those stories out for myself. But the most memorable answer was one from Ken Liu. I asked him what story of his was his favorite. He talked about a story that took a long time to get accepted, so long that he gave up on writing for a while. When it was accepted, his passion for writing was revived. He said, “It doesn’t matter how many rejections you get, only that you find the one editor, the one reader who connects with what you’re trying to do.” That advice, considering the source, was comforting to me as a writer and made me think differently about the meaning of a rejection. I’m not saying that I’m immune to feeling discouraged by them now, but resubmitting has become much more automatic for me.

Do you have any upcoming projects you’d like to tell us about?

My story “Nostalgia” will appear in the January/February issue of Interzone. I rolled a lot of personal experiences into that one story, though I won’t go into specifics, as that might be incriminating. My first Beneath Ceaseless Skies story comes out this spring, titled “Everything Beneath You.” It’s close to my heart because the writing of it helped pull me out of a particularly bad funk last year. I’ve also just written and edited my first novel (well, first that I don’t consider a lost cause, anyway), so what’s upcoming there is starting the submissions process for that, which is totally new to me. And, as with every spring, my Art & Words Show is open to submissions for the month of March. It’s a fun project, both for me and for the people who participate.

Why do so many bios have cats in them and so few bios have dogs in them?

Two words: Toxoplasma gondii. Let’s see you beat a mind-controlling parasite, dogs.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Liz Argall’s short stories can be found in places like Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, and This is How You Die: Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death. She creates the webcomic Things Without Arms and Without Legs and writes love songs to inanimate objects. Her previous incarnations include circus manager, refuge worker, artists’ model, research officer for the Order of Australia Awards, farm girl, and extensive work in the not-for-profit sector.

Author Spotlight: Michael Cassutt

Jude Griffin

What was the inspiration for “More Adventures”?

I have been fascinated by human spaceflight since I was eleven years old and have done a lot of research into and writing on the subject — five books, in fact, with a new one on the way, in addition to a couple of dozen articles. I’ve met dozens of astronauts, flight directors, and space program types. And for years I have grown a bit impatient or even completely cranky with the way human spaceflight is portrayed. (I like Gravity as an adventure film, but it is about as realistic about spaceflight as The Hobbit.) So I wrote what was, to me, a realistic near-future space story.

I loved the metaphor “the way a solar flare degrades the SLIPPR link”: Did you have any other wonderful turns of phrase you wanted to use but ultimately had to set aside?

I never let a wonderful turn of phrase go to waste, but I’d be lying if I told you that I thought this was especially elegant at the time. Looking back after a decade, though, I am pleased and a bit surprised. By golly, that young man has potential . . .

What were the other directions you considered for this story arc (or did it go according to the original vision)?

I’ve had the typical variety of writing experiences — the slow, painful slog versus the inspired improvisation. “More Adventures” was close to the former, though not painful . . . just a steady development of characters in a setting.

How does screenwriting influence your short story writing? (And/or vice versa.)

Great question, because scriptwriting forces me to think in scenes and drama — so there’s a major influence. At other times, writing fiction is a welcome respite from scriptwriting because it allows me to control time and enter a point of view.

Film and TV writers have shaped my prose writing as much as novelists and short story writers. For example, “More Adventures” is all Billy Wilder — the “Ulyanov” anecdote came straight from a biography.

Whose science fiction do you reread?

I can reread early Heinlein and Simak and occasionally do — the same with Delany and Zelazny of the 1960s. I don’t go back to a lot of newer SF I’ve read, which would include Leckie, Stephenson, Liu of late, though I do enjoy it . . .

Any news you want to share?

I have a new SF story — “”The Sunset of Time” — forthcoming this spring in Old Venus, an anthology edited by George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois for Bantam. Right now I’m getting ready to dive into season two of Z Nation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jude Griffin is an envirogeek, writer, and photographer. She has trained llamas at the Bronx Zoo; was a volunteer EMT, firefighter, and HAZMAT responder; worked as a guide and translator for journalists covering combat in Central America; lived in a haunted village in Thailand; ran an international frog monitoring network; and loves happy endings. Bonus points for frolicking dogs and kisses backlit by a shimmering full moon.

Author Spotlight: Jeremiah Tolbert

Kevin McNeil

Great to see another story from you in Lightspeed. Can you elaborate on the origins of “Men of Unborrowed Vision”?

I was fascinated by the rise of things like Occupy Wall Street and similar social movements. At the same time, I’m a tech nerd and the explosion of drone technology is also an interest. It seems like drones are set to invade our lives in a lot of ways. Maybe this will be one good way they can.

The idea of a virus that attacks our social natures arose from the basic question of “What could a motivated entity do to end protest movements permanently?” and grew from there as I explored the implications of how such a thing could work. The world in this story is only the beginning; it gets so much worse.

I originally wrote the story as part of a trilogy for the The Apocalypse Triptych anthology series, but John bought it for Lightspeed instead. I do still plan to continue to explore the effects of the virus in future stories, though.

I found this line interesting: “. . . there are two kinds of people: those who are excited about the future, and those who are afraid of it.” Maya certainly fits into the first category, while Adam (who makes the statement) seems to fall into the second. Where did these characters come from? Did the writing of these characters present you with any significant challenges?

I was first exposed to the idea of neophiles and neophobes by writer Robert Anton Wilson, and it’s a notion that has stuck with me ever since. I’m an unabashed neophile, but my personal belief is you’d have to be a little crazy to not be afraid of what the future could hold sometimes. On the net, I think I’m pro-new and pro-future. But there are some futures that I wouldn’t want to live in, Maya and Adam’s future being one of them.

They were both difficult characters; I am not a person of color, but Maya is, and so I wanted to avoid any pitfalls there and treat the fact with respect. At the same time, I did not grow up with the privileges of wealth like Adam, but I’ve known kids like him. It would be easy to treat a character like that with resentment, but I wanted to do better for him than that. Adam and those like him mean well, and that does matter to me.

The ending left me questioning the fate of these characters. I found myself hoping, although not necessarily confident, that Maya would successfully rally the people. Why did you choose to end the story at this point?

This particular story ends there, but I think Maya’s story continues. Things only get worse from there. If all goes well, you’ll be reading about Maya’s efforts to rally the people further. I expect she’ll be a street-level operative as well, helping protect and care for the infected who basically have to become shut-ins. Maya is community-minded almost more than anything else. It’ll be interesting to see her trying to divide her time and figure out where she can do the most good.

Congratulations on recently becoming a father! How have the challenges of fatherhood affected your writing and writing process?

Thank you! I’m typing this as he fusses and shouts at me for not paying attention to him. He’s a demanding kid, and it means the writing is moving pretty slow. It’s a struggle to find time for everything.

I think becoming a father has opened up my empathy a bit more, too. It’s too soon to say if that will be reflected in my writing or not, but I hope so.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about “Men of Unborrowed Vision”? What’s next for you?

Just that I hope libertarians don’t take their ideology’s role in the story too personally. The Men of Unborrowed Vision are extremists first and ultra-libertarian second. Most of the time, I think liberals like myself and libertarians have a lot of common ground.

In the start of the new year, a graphic novel I wrote called Nightfell will start publishing in weekly installments online. I’m very much looking forward to seeing it reach an audience. The artwork by artist Nicolas Giacondino is amazing. It’s been a wonderful treat to work on.

And as much as my son allows me to, I will be trying to write new stories, and maybe even get started on the next novel project. I’m trying not to get too ambitious now!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kevin McNeil is a physical therapist, sports fanatic, and volunteer coach for the Special Olympics. He is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and The Center for the Study of Science Fiction’s Intensive Novel Workshop, led by Kij Johnson. His fiction has appeared in Every Day Fiction and is forthcoming in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. Kevin is a New Englander currently living in California. Find him on Twitter @kevinmcneil.

Author Spotlight: Sequoia Nagamatsu

Liz Argall

I love the unconventional structures and techniques you use in many of your stories (I’m a big fan of well-constructed stories in second person). The use of corporate headers really adds to the impact in this particular story and helps us reset as we travel backwards and forwards in time. How did you decide to use that device?

Once I decided that this story would involve a corporation, I felt like attaching a corporate structure to the arc of the story would not only provide an annual report-style history of Headwater, but also reinforce the fact that Yoko’s life (and the life of the other employees and the customers) are very much woven into the fabric of Headwater (through addiction, through totalitarian company policy). The linear nature of the headings in conjunction with the somewhat non-linear nature of the story I think also creates a dialogue between the “free” mind and the corporate mindset. The headings suggest neatness and order and progression, but Yoko’s past is anything but. And she looks back, despite the rigidness of company policy, because she has to (as a form of coping, as a form of visiting how things got to be this bad).

In our world, I think it’s easy to lose sight of the fact (because we’re all so immersed) that our social lives, our politics, and our bodies are largely beholden to boardrooms in skyscrapers. Someone is having a conversation about the next trends. Someone is deciding who will have access to certain medicines. Someone is figuring out how to get into the minds of consumers, so they’ll buy a gym membership they’ll never use.

How has editing Psychopomp influenced you as a writer?

I think because Psychopomp focuses on a particular niche of writing (genre-bending and innovative work), I’ve become much more aware of the exciting things writers are doing right now. I’ve also become more aware of the fine line between an experimental work being daring and fresh vs. being gimmicky (or simply not reconciling form with content). It’s really exciting to come across a piece that is showing me something I’ve never seen before. Similarly, in terms of genre (i.e. fantasy vs. literary with a capital L), I’ve realized that my co-editor and I have a threshold for what we see as “too genre” or “too literary.” We want work that takes the best of both worlds and that defies categorization and expectation. Part of the reason we founded the journal is because we felt there weren’t many journals out there that accepted “liminal” work (especially journals that were realistically/practically more welcoming of emerging writers). So, when we say a work is too horror or fantasy or SF for us, it really makes me think about how writers and readers define these categories. Many literary journals outright say that they don’t want genre and this stipulation comes from a very narrow view of what “genre” means, especially to the literary community (i.e. not terribly well-written, swords and sorcery, vampire love affairs etc.). To be fair, a lot of “genre” journals don’t want these stories either. In a perfect world, we’d distance ourselves from these categories (at least as writers) and just focus on telling a well-written and compelling story with interesting and believable characters regardless of whether the story is set in Kansas or a planet caught between two universes. After seeing so many stories that are so caught up in world building and the cool science (with very little character development) and so many stories with so much character development and beautiful language but with very little of anything else, I’m reminded of where I want to be as a writer (and where I’m most excited as a reader): the realm where I’m able to feed my imagination, wonder, and SF/fantasy geekiness by using the fantastic and “unreal” to comment on the human condition. And when you can marry these things with careful attention to language, allowing the words to transcend into the ether, then I think you’re in a rare and enviable place.

“Headwater LLC” explores the terrifying impact of consumer culture and capitalism, from environmental impact, classist fashion status, exploitation of Kappa, hysterical trends, and abusive working conditions. The story ends with resignation and a protagonist that only dreams of saving the Kappa; do you see spaces for hope and change against these crushing forces?

In the story, I was really torn about how things ended. Yoko resigns. Yoko doesn’t have a whole lot of power and, despite feeling really guilty and really wanting to rebel, she allows her view of the world to crush any kind of real action. She is free in her fantasy. She retreats to her memories, perhaps as a form of escape, but also as a form of self-torture/punishment. So, as a character, she’s very passive. And while I usually tell my students to avoid this kind of character, I wanted Yoko to be an unwitting participant in what would turn out to be the destruction of herself and her Kappa friends. People lose all the time. People look at the superficial and immediate and fail to see the danger looming on the horizon. People allow control. And I wanted to tell a story where the ending was a bit more doom and gloom, where a way out seemed far away.

As for us in the real world? I think it’s certainly possible to fight against the types of forces you mention, to question various authorities. I come from a fairly activist background, so of course I think this. It’s important for people to question what allows them to live a certain way (to acknowledge our very real children of Omelas in factories overseas) and to rise as a community if something in one’s way of life is seen as morally wrong. For Yoko, she saw herself as largely alone. And I think that was a big problem for her. While people can do their part individually, change comes from many voices representing different walks of life.

How did this story come about?

I was living in Japan when I wrote the first incarnation of this story, and I’ve always been fascinated with monsters, creatures of folklore, and cryptids, so coming across the Kappa was research that was already underway (many of my stories incorporate Japanese creatures). I suppose I saw the Kappa, with their head full of water, as a natural choice for humanity exploiting magic. What was different about the water in their head? What would it do to people? Once I answered these questions, the corporate structure fell into place. Using the fantastic to comment on an oppressive force is certainly not new, and I’m aware that most of my stories are working in a tradition that is somewhat related to the fantastical work of post-Meiji and post-WWII Japan — the traditional past and the natural world colliding with the West, with technology and the corporation.

You have a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology and an MFA in Creative Writing. How has this shaped your work?

Anthropology has stayed with me in terms of my interests in folklore, cultural collision, and deconstruction of space and identity. A lot of the themes that emerge in my writing are largely inspired by my interests in how culture works, how people work. I also tend to be pretty methodical with regards to story planning, and I imagine this could be traced to a background in the social sciences.

In my MFA program (at Southern Illinois University), I learned a lot about craft, and I had time to experiment and fail. But I think most of all I was given permission to be a writer, which is pretty huge. I was in a community that expected me to write and read a lot. And as a recent graduate who is now teaching, I’m still expected to write and publish, which helps me look at my writing time as productivity time (and not just something that can be put off).

As someone who publishes speculative fiction and literary fiction, how do you navigate your way around these two genres/subcultures?

It can sometimes be pretty tough to decide where I’m going to send. Sometimes I send to both types of markets. Sometimes I see a story as being more saleable at a speculative journal if certain elements are more obvious. But I try to take turns submitting to both types of places because I want to be relevant in both worlds and converse with different audiences. I want/need the academic legitimacy of literary journals. But I also am deeply excited about the content of markets like Lightspeed and longstanding journals like Asimov’s. I think the fact that I publish in both worlds (and I feel like a lot of my stories could have ended up on either end of the spectrum) illuminates the porous nature of the wall we like to put between the various genres.

As a person raised in Hawaii and San Francisco, what have been the challenges for you writing stories set in Japan?

I’m a third-generation Japanese American (half Japanese). My great-grandmother, who came to the United States via an arranged marriage, was the only person in my family who could really speak Japanese fluently. I lived in Japan for about two years teaching ESL, and I took a year of Japanese in college. Of course, there are other things about my upbringing that stem from a Japanese heritage — the temple I used to go to with my grandmother (Tenrikyo faith) and smatterings of Japanese phrases. But I largely had to read and do on-the-ground research for the stories I write. And I try to be aware of this fact, the discourse between my identity as an American, the heritage of my family, and my experiences as an ex-pat in Japan. The stories I tell are set in Japan, populated by Japanese people and creatures. There might be Japanese sentiments and themes at play. And, as I mentioned, I’m certainly working in a tradition that has its roots in the Meiji era. But I’m still a Japanese American, and I think the voice of my stories is very distinct from Japanese writers. I view my stories as existing in a realm between all of these experiences/perspectives/cultures. And, in a way, I think that’s appropriate for the time we live in, for the culture Japan has become.

What projects do you have coming up?

I’m currently sending out a collection of stories inspired by Japanese folklore and pop culture (of which “Headwater” is part). I also have a second collection in the works revolving around the evolution of societies via social epidemics and a novel about the genetic copy of a girl who retains her memories after global catastrophes rob most of the populace of their personhood.

Where would you like literary and speculative fiction to be in ten years?

In bed together on a houseboat on Titan. I’d like to see less endless debate on why this or that kind of writing is any less or more important. I think more and more speculative work is making its way into literary journals, and I hope this trend continues (and for more fantastical writing with strong literary sensibilities to end up in more speculative markets). I think speculative writers and literary writers have a lot to teach each other, so even though we might not always dig what each other writes, I think more conversation and more exposure to different kinds of work can only be a good thing.

What needs destroying in literary and speculative fiction?

Gigantic egos. Us vs. Them mentality.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Liz Argall’s short stories can be found in places like Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, and This is How You Die: Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death. She creates the webcomic Things Without Arms and Without Legs and writes love songs to inanimate objects. Her previous incarnations include circus manager, refuge worker, artists’ model, research officer for the Order of Australia Awards, farm girl, and extensive work in the not-for-profit sector.

Author Spotlight: Aliette de Bodard

Jude Griffin

“The Lonely Heart” is a retelling of an ancient Chinese story, “The Painted Skin.” The story has also been made into movies — what compelled you to contribute your version?

I was writing a story for an anthology edited by Nick Mamatas and Ellen Datlow, which was about retellings of classic horror tales. Basically, at the time I was reading Pu Songling’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, and this was the one tale that stuck with me — because the detail of the painted skin is so horrific, I guess? There have been lots of movies, which I hadn’t watched at the time, but my husband and I really enjoyed the 2008 version with Donnie Yen, which is a great, er, romantic movie about relationships with great characters (I know, it sounds corny, but it really works!)

When writing your characters, do you place yourself inside them? Or do you write strictly as an observer with no empathy?

I have to write my characters while being inside them — otherwise I have no idea what makes them tick! Even if they do or say things that might seem horrible, they’re things that make sense to them, and I have to try to understand that.

The pimp character brings to mind the saying about the “banality of evil”; he’s so matter-of-fact, yet no less creepy. What is the creepiest character you have ever written?

I’ve written lots of creepy characters, so it’s kind of hard to decide. I think the one that comes to mind is the hungry ghost in “Golden Lilies,” a story that was published a while back — she’s this character who’s come back from the dead, focused on helping her family, no matter the cost — and her ideas of helping are sometimes very different from other people’s . . .

Would Chen have chosen to donate her heart if the pimp had told of the option before kissing her and beginning the process?

I kind of think she would have, yes — because on some level, she knew. At this point in the story, its shape becomes inevitable; not only for the reader but also for the character.

Any news you want to share? Upcoming projects?

I’ve finished the first draft of a novella in my Xuya universe, featuring four different points of view and centered around the disappearance of a technologically advanced city. And the big news is that my novel The House of Shattered Wings is forthcoming from Gollancz in August 2015. It’s set in a Paris ruined by a magician’s war and features Fallen angels, a Vietnamese immortal with a grudge, and an addictive drug made from ground angel bones.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jude Griffin is an envirogeek, writer, and photographer. She has trained llamas at the Bronx Zoo; was a volunteer EMT, firefighter, and HAZMAT responder; worked as a guide and translator for journalists covering combat in Central America; lived in a haunted village in Thailand; ran an international frog monitoring network; and loves happy endings. Bonus points for frolicking dogs and kisses backlit by a shimmering full moon.

Author Spotlight: Matthew Hughes

Sandra Odell

From the opening lines to the closing exchange, there is no doubt that “The Archon” is a story of transitions — in politics, life, reality, and perceptions. Your prose is tight, and conversations flow with a natural rhythm. Where did you find your inspiration to write this story?

In this serialized novel, as in the rest of my Archonate stories, I’m looking at a civilization that is about to be profoundly changed, though almost all of its inhabitants have no idea what’s about to happen. The general inspiration came from thinking about the western world in the summer of 1914, when the civilization of Europe was about to be wracked and transformed beyond recognition, but only a few realized that “the lamps are going out and will not be lit again.”

The narrative style is minimalism, just a few details to evoke setting and mood. For the dialogue, I don’t try to mimic real speech — who knows how people will talk thousands of years from now? — but I try to remember that every dialogue is a duel.

Your system of magic is an intricate blend of sympathies and subtle understandings not quite built on the logic of science and reason. It draws the reader in and encourages the imagination. What sort of magic would you work if you could step through the pages and into the story?

Some spell that would insulate me from the horrors I’m inflicting on the trillion poor souls who inhabit the Ten Thousand Worlds.

The characters speak to the changing world, much like the face of genre fiction. Kaslo is a man in the second act of his life, abandoned by the old world and left to find his place in the new. Obron has a better grasp on the mechanics of this new world, but even he seems taken aback at times. How do you see the changes in science fiction and fantasy, and the chances writers and publishers take to bring quality fiction to the readers?

You’re asking the wrong author. I recognize that I’m writing SF/F that could have been published fifty years ago. I haven’t seriously read SF/F since the mid-1980s and have no idea where the field is going these days.

You make excellent use of color to create a vivid, believable setting. What writers whet your imagination’s whistle when you’re in the mood for fantastic locations and worlds?

Jack Vance, of course, Gene Wolfe, Ray Bradbury, whom I read from my teens into my thirties. I still re-read Vance, and also P.G. Wodehouse, whom Vance revered. But mostly I read crime fiction and consider myself a crime writer trapped in a science-fiction author’s career. Kaslo, for example, is my take on a classic hard-boiled private eye dealing with a situation straight out of science-fantasy.

You have an extensive bibliography, ranging from novels and short stories to a variety of non-fiction work. Some writers feel they must specialize in longer or shorter works, and can’t manage to cross from one to another. How difficult is it for you to dip your toes into both ends of the writing pool, as it were?

Not very. I’ve been a professional writer for more than forty years — journalism, speechwriting, screenplays, radio comedy, ghostwritten novels and memoirs, and more. I had to produce to feed my family. I started writing short SF after my first two novels didn’t ring any bells, thinking that exposure in magazines like Lightspeed and F&SF would build readership. I found that I liked the form, especially the 10,000-word novelette, so I’m concentrating on those lately. After they run in the mags, I can bundle them into collections and sell them as ebooks and POD paperbacks from my own webstore (www.matthewhughes.org, if you don’t mind my plugging it) and Amazon. The Kaslo Chronicles will be another one of my self-pubbed projects once the last episode has run in Lightspeed.

What’s next for Matthew Hughes? What can the readers look forward to in the coming year?

I’ve turned in the last episode of Kaslo, so Lightspeed will be running those. Gordon Van Gelder has three more stories about Raffalon, my archetypal journeyman thief, in inventory at F&SF, and I’ll do at least a couple more to make sure I have a collection’s worth. Something I’m particularly proud of is a Jeeves and Wooster pastiche in Old Venus, the next George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois antho coming out in March. And I’m thinking of reviving my corpulent master criminal of the Archonate, Luff Imbry, in a few stories and offering them to John Joseph Adams.

Meanwhile, I’m writing a historical novel I’ve wanted to do since about 1971.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sandra Odell is an avid reader, compulsive writer, and rabid chocoholic. She attended Clarion West in 2010. Her first collection of short stories was released from Hydra House Books in 2012. She is currently hard at work avoiding her first novel.

Author Spotlight: Ann Leckie and Rachel Swirsky

Robyn Lupo

What was the spark for this story? How did the idea of marked women emerge?

Rachel: I came up with the raw core of the idea for this story when I was twelve or so. I think it deals with a lot of the issues that cause angst for certain kinds of teens. Who am I? Will I always be excluded?

It also resonated with what I was reading at the time which was a lot of epic fantasy, and in particular the Sword and Sorceress series edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Several years ago, when the S&S series was rebooted, Ann and I wanted to get a story into one of the books. (We never did.) After writing a few stories on our own, we decided to collaborate on a couple of the ideas I’d had as a teenager, with the hope that because they were generated when I was really into the series, they’d reflect what the series wanted. They didn’t, but that’s okay. This one landed in Realms of Fantasy, and another one came out in Lone Star Stories, which was a lovely, small online magazine.

Ann: Moment of silence while I have a small sad about Lone Star Stories being gone.

Yeah, I don’t have anything to add here. Rachel basically said, “Here’s what I’ve got of this story!” And off we went.

 What were some of the surprises along the way with working together? Were there any surprises in writing this story?

Rachel: This wasn’t our first time working together so I don’t think there were any massive surprises in the process. We usually outline a story and then break it down into scenes and then assign ourselves alternating scenes. Sometimes one or the other of us will get bored in the middle of waiting for the other one to finish all their scenes and just finish it out. (Then the other helps with rewrites and integration of course.) Usually, Ann is the one who gets bored and finishes it, but with this one, I think I may have done the huge drafting chunk.

Ann: That’s my memory, too — the other one of these started, I seem to recall, with maybe one scene drafted. This one was much farther along — though it also changed a lot as we worked on it.

But I don’t think there were any real surprises for either story. I think both of us were already aware of the places where our processes differ a lot, so it was just kind of funny when that cropped up. Like, right, of course I had to read a bit on theories about ancient Slavic burial practices before I could really get down to business. Does any shred of that appear in the story? Nope. But I felt like I had to have it in the back of my mind before I started work. It is no surprise to me that this sort of thing mystifies Rachel and/or makes her laugh at me. I doubt very much that my doing it surprised her at all, by that point.

Not many stories have a birth as the big event in the tale. What prompted this narrative choice? Do you think you’d work with this setting and these characters again?

Rachel: When I was in junior high, I often had ideas for stories that I never wrote up, but like this one, I’d toss them around over and over again with the vague intention of writing them up someday. (I’m sure I’d have been shocked to know it would be more than ten years before I actually would.) Oddly, I’m not sure whether the story idea started with the mother, or with the daughter. I think I might have had a vague idea of writing a story where the daughter was searching for her mother, and their two stories intersected.

Since the strong theme here is about motherhood and matrilineal power, I think it makes sense for the birth to be the moment of change. It’s the moment when the main character goes from magically powerless to magically powerful; it’s the moment when she goes from being relatively easy to hide to being in a significantly more precarious position; it’s the moment when she goes from being the daughter in a potential magical link to being both a daughter and a mother.

The birth scene was the one that Ann and I had the most trouble with. I wanted to write something abstract and blurry in the way that writers often do when we want to dodge details, something like “Time started to fade as she became preoccupied by her senses, and sometime later . . . “ And Ann was like, “Yeah, no, that’s not what birth is like.” She’s done it twice, so she won the argument.

On the topic of whether I’d work with these characters again — when I showed this finished draft to my own mother, she said it seemed like a good beginning for a young adult novel. She may be right. It’s certainly something I’d consider as a future project if it seemed like a good idea.

Ann: Ha, my memory is of only partially winning the argument over the birth scene! To be entirely fair, though, every birth is different, so. :D

What’s next for you? Tell us your news!

Rachel: I’m still really excited about my novella, Grand Jete, which came out in the last issue of Subterranean Online this summer. Stories of mine also recently came out in Neil Clarke’s Upgraded and Solaris Rising 3.

Ann: I just had book two of a trilogy come out — that would be Ancillary Sword, sequel to Ancillary Justice. I’m finishing Ancillary Mercy, book three. Honestly, those take up so much of my time and brain that I don’t think there’s much of anything else going on!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robyn Lupo has been known to frequent southwestern Ontario with her graduate student husband and elderly dog. She writes, reads, and plays video games. She is personal assistant to three cats.

Author Spotlight: Paul McAuley

Robyn Lupo

How did “The Choice” start for you? What was that initial spark?

I’d written a handful of stories set in a common near future after a bunch of willfully enigmatic aliens — the Jackaroo — arrive “to help” humanity after a multiple crises. The other stories had been set on the Jackaroo’s gift worlds, amongst the ruins left by their former clients, but I wanted to write something set on Earth. Specifically, England. Although the story actually started with a picture of a little sailboat in a flooded English landscape, and it was only a little later that I realised how it could fit into the Jackaroo history. From there, it became a story about a little voyage to see an alien wonder, and its effect on the lives of two boys.

This is a rich and detailed world. What were some of the challenges bringing it into focus? Do you recall any surprises in the worldbuilding process?

Once I had the voice of Lucas, who we follow closely through the story, it mostly came into focus. It helped that I was writing about an actual landscape, the Norfolk coast, that I simply overlaid with climate-change flooding and a veneer of alien biota. I found an internet site that showed the effect of sea rise on Britain, and that was very useful in getting the geography sorted out: I wanted to anchor the story in a real place. And there was research into building and sailing boats, and on the plants and animals of the area, because Lucas lives close to the skin of the land. As usual, I put in a lot more in early drafts that I later stripped out — trying to keep only that which seemed essential, or vivid. Other stuff turned up as I was writing — the Great Pacific garbage patch, for instance. The only real technical challenge was bridging the gap between the story of going to see the alien machine and the story of what happened afterwards. But in stories you can skip centuries and light years with the right sentence, so it was just a case of finding the right few sentences to bridge that gap. To get across the feel of another voyage. One surprise was the appearance and importance of Ritchy, who isn’t exactly a father figure, but is a kind of mentor to Lucas in the way I remember a couple of people were to me, when I was Lucas’s age. The kind of person you know only casually, but who says exactly the right thing to you at the right time. On a much more minor note, I didn’t know that pigs had become extinct until I wrote that sentence.

The story is framed in such a way that illustrates the boys are choosing to see going to the dragon as an adventure. They seem to be not only making their own story, but aware that they’re making it a story in a way that seems to inform their later choices. What prompted this narrative choice? How much agency do you feel the boys have in their choices?

I wanted to frame the trip to see the dragon as a classic coming of age story, and I think that people who set out on that kind of trip at a certain age have at least a presentiment that it’s important. That it’s something that’s the end of one thing and the beginning of something else. Lucas feels that more than Damian, I think: Damian wants an adventure, a diversion, and Lucas is beginning to realise that his friend’s adventures are growing ever more reckless. The dynamics of the relationship between Lucas and Damian were already set before the story begins: It simply brings them into focus for the reader and for the two boys. Lucas’s choice is more considered than Damian’s, because Damian feels that he’s trapped in a way that Lucas doesn’t, and has a greater urgency to find a way to escape. And of course, Damian is affected by the voyage more immediately and more profoundly than Lucas, but if it had been the other way around, I don’t think Lucas would have made the choices Damian did. They were already drawing apart before the story began.

What’s next for you?

I’ve just finished working through the proofs of a novel set in the Jackaroo history, with one part of the story set in London (with an excursion to Norfolk), and the other set on one of the Jackaroo gift worlds. It’s called Something Coming Through. And I’m working on a second Jackaroo novel, Into Everywhere, which will close out (or open up) the sequence.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robyn Lupo has been known to frequent southwestern Ontario with her graduate student husband and elderly dog. She writes, reads, and plays video games. She is personal assistant to three cats.

In the Next Issue of

Coming up in February, in Lightspeed . . .

We have original science fiction by Brooke Bolander (“And You Shall Know Her By The Trail Of Dead”) and Caroline M. Yoachim (“Red Planet”), along with SF reprints by John Kessel (“Buffalo”) and Tony Daniel (“Life on the Moon”).

Plus, we have original fantasy by Maria Dahvana Headley (“And the Winners Will Be Swept Out To Sea”) and Will Kaufman (“Things You Can Buy for a Penny”), and fantasy reprints by M. Rickert (“The Girl Who Ate Butterflies”) and Adam-Troy Castro (“Cerile and the Journeyer”).

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, a feature interview, and the next installment of our new book review column.

For our ebook readers, we also have an ebook-exclusive novella reprint of “In the House of Aryaman, A Lonely Signal Burns” by Elizabeth Bear, and a pair of novel excerpts.

It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out.

• • • •

Looking ahead beyond next month, we’ve got lots of wonderful fiction coming your way, including stories by Seanan McGuire, Jason Gurley, Cat Sparks, C.C. Finlay, Ken Liu, Dale Bailey, Andrea Hairston, Sarah Pinsker, Kat Howard, Carrie Vaughn, and others, plus the final installments of the Kaslo Chronicles.

So be sure to keep an eye out for all that SFnal goodness in the months to come. And while you’re at it, tell a friend about Lightspeed.

Thanks for reading!

KICKSTARTER LAUNCHES JANUARY 15

In case you missed the announcement in the January editorial, this month marks the start of our next big project. Last year, we asked women to destroy science fiction, and they did — spectacularly — in our crowdfunded, all-women special issue, Women Destroy Science Fiction!. Never ones to rest on our laurels, we thought it best to continue with that fine tradition and engage in a little more destructive behavior. Thus, this year’s anniversary issue will be Queers Destroy Science Fiction!, guest edited by Seanan McGuire.

As with Women Destroy Science Fiction!, we’ll be launching a Kickstarter campaign in support of Queers Destroy Science Fiction!. We’ll publish the issue whether the campaign is successful or not, but the campaign will determine how big and awesome we make the issue. If we raise just $5000, we’ll be able to make the special issue a special double-sized issue, and if we raise even more than that, we have a couple of really excellent stretch goals lined up as well. Our two biggest stretch goals are the same as last year: If we receive enough pledges, we’ll not only publish Queers Destroy Science Fiction!, we’ll also publish Queers Destroy Fantasy! and Queers Destroy Horror! special issues as well.

Joining guest editor Seanan McGuire will be a team of wonderful queer creatives, including Steve Berman (reprint editor), Wendy N. Wagner (managing editor), Mark Oshiro (nonfiction editor), Sigrid Ellis (flash fiction editor), Cecil Baldwin (podcast host), Paul Boehmer (podcast producer), Elizabeth Leggett (art director/cover artist), and more!

The Queers Destroy Science Fiction! Kickstarter campaign will run from January 15 – February 15.

TO LEARN MORE, VISIT
www.destroysf.com/queers

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Ebooks & Bundles: We also have individual ebook issues available at a variety of ebook vendors ($3.99 each), and we now have Ebook Bundles available in the Lightspeed ebookstore, where you can buy in bulk and save! We currently have a number of ebook bundles available: Year One (issues 1-12), Year Two (issues 13-24), Year Three (issues 25-36), the Mega Bundle (issues 1-36), and the Supermassive Bundle (issues 1-48). Buying a bundle gets you a copy of every issue published during the named period. So if you need to catch up on Lightspeed, that’s a great way to do so. Visit lightspeedmagazine.com/store for more information.

• • • •

All caught up on Lightspeed? Good news! We also have lots of ebooks available from our sister-publications:

Nightmare Ebooks, Bundles, & Subscriptions: Like Lightspeed, our sister-magazine Nightmare (nightmare-magazine.com) also has ebooks, bundles, and subscriptions available as well. For instance, you can get the complete first year (12 issues) of Nightmare for just $24.99; that’s savings of $11 off buying the issues individually. Or, if you’d like to subscribe, a 12-month subscription to Nightmare includes 48 stories (about 240,000 words of fiction, plus assorted nonfiction), and will cost you just $23.88 ($12 off the cover price).

Fantasy Magazine Ebooks & Bundles: We also have ebook back issues — and ebook back issue bundles — of Lightspeed’s (now dormant) sister-magazine, Fantasy. To check those out, just visit fantasy-magazine.com/store. You can buy each Fantasy bundle for $24.99, or you can buy the complete run of Fantasy Magazine — all 57 issues — for just $114.99 (that’s $10 off buying all the bundles individually, and more than $55 off the cover price!).

About the Editor

John Joseph Adams, in addition to serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of Lightspeed, is the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, such as The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. Recent and forthcoming projects include: Help Fund My Robot Army!!! & Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects, Robot Uprisings, Dead Man’s Hand, Operation Arcana, Wastelands 2, Press Start to Play, and The Apocalypse Triptych: The End is Nigh, The End is Now, and The End Has Come. Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been nominated eight times) and is a six-time World Fantasy Award finalist. John is also the editor and publisher of Nightmare Magazine and is a producer for Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. Find him on Twitter @johnjosephadams.