Editorial, March 2015

John Joseph Adams

Welcome to issue fifty-eight of Lightspeed!

Our Queers Destroy Science Fiction! Kickstarter campaign has now concluded, and we’re happy to report that it was extremely successful; we asked for $5,000 and got $54,523 in return, which was 1090% of our funding goal. As a result of all that success, we unlocked several stretch goals, including additional special issues Queers Destroy Horror!, which will be published in October as a special issue of Nightmare, and Queers Destroy Fantasy!, which will publish in December as a special issue of Fantasy Magazine. Thanks again so much to everyone who supported the campaign, and thanks of course to our regular readers and subscribers! And, next year, we’re planning to ask People of Color to destroy science fiction, so stay tuned for that!

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Awards season is officially upon us, with the first of the major awards announcing their lists of finalists for last year’s work, and we’re pleased to announce that “We Are the Cloud” by Sam J. Miller (Lightspeed, September 2014) is a finalist for the Nebula Award for best novelette. Congrats to Sam and to all of the other Nebula nominees! That brings Lightspeed’s lifetime Nebula nomination total to twelve since we launched in June 2010. We’ve currently lost eleven in a row, so here’s hoping Sam breaks the streak! You can find the full slate of nominees at sfwa.org/nebula-awards. The Nebulas will be presented at the 50th annual Nebula Awards Weekend, held this year in Chicago, Illinois, June 4–7.

In other awards news, Nightmare had two stories — “A Dweller in Amenty” by Genevieve Valentine and “Sleep Paralysis” by Dale Bailey — on the preliminary Stoker Awards ballot (and your humble editor was represented in the anthology category as well, for The End is Nigh), but alas, none of them made the final ballot. Well, we can’t get nominated for everything, I suppose! Congrats anyway to Dale and Genevieve, and to all of the finalists. You can find the full slate of what did make the final ballot at horror.org. The Stokers will be presented at the 25th annual World Horror Convention, held this year in Atlanta, Georgia, May 7–10.

In happier Nightmare news, Nightmare was announced as the winner of the This is Horror Award for Magazine of the Year. It’s quite an honor to be selected as Magazine of the Year, especially amongst such stiff competition! Thanks so much too to all of the writers and editors who work on Nightmare with me — without them, of course, it wouldn’t exist. You'll find the rest of the winners and other finalists at thisishorror.co.uk.

And last but not least: the Hugo Awards! Nominations for the Hugos close March 10, so if you’re planning to participate, you’ve only got a short time left to do so. Anyone who is or was a voting member of the 2014, 2015, or 2016 Worldcons by January 31, 2015 is eligible to nominate. If you need some help remembering which Lightspeed stories fit into which categories, I put together a list of all of the material I worked on that is eligible for this year’s award, which you can find at bit.ly/Hugo2015.

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In other news, this month sees the publication of Operation Arcana, my new anthology of military fantasy, which will be published by Baen on March 3. Operation Arcana contains sixteen never-before-published tales (about 100,000 words of material), from Glen Cook, Myke Cole, Genevieve Valentine, Elizabeth Moon, Django Wexler, Weston Ochse, Yoon Ha Lee, Jonathan Maberry, Tobias S. Buckell & David Klecha, Ari Marmell, Tanya Huff, Carrie Vaughn, T.C. McCarthy, Simon R. Green, Seanan McGuire, and Linda Nagata. The stories run the gamut from military epic fantasy to military urban fantasy to military historical fantasy — and everything in between. You’ll find a reprint of Linda Nagata’s story, “The Way Home,” in this very issue. If you’d like to learn more about the book, read additional stories from the anthology for free online, or read interviews with the authors, visit my Operation Arcana website at johnjosephadams.com/operation-arcana.

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In case you missed it last month, Wastelands 2 (the sequel to my bestselling — and first! — anthology, Wastelands) was published by Titan Books. It contains nearly 200,000 words of fiction, including stories by George R.R. Martin, Seanan McGuire, Hugh Howey, Nancy Kress, David Brin, Ann Aguirre, Paolo Bacigalupi, Lauren Beukes, and Junot Díaz, among others. Learn more about it at johnjosephadams.com/wastelands-2.

Speaking of Wastelands, Titan also just recently released the original Wastelands in mass market paperback edition. So if you’ve been wanting to read it all these years and just couldn’t abide paying more than $7.99 for it, now’s your chance!

• • • •

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

We have original science fiction by Marissa Lingen (“Surfacing”) and Cat Sparks (“Hot Rods”), along with SF reprints by Michael Blumlein (“The Brains of Rats”) and Ursula K. LeGuin (“The New Atlantis”).

Plus, we have original fantasy by Matthew Hughes (“A Face of Black Iron”) and Vajra Chandrasekera (“Documentary”), and fantasy reprints by Linda Nagata (“The Way Home”) and Naomi Kritzer (“The Good Son”).

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with our review column and a feature interview with Patrick Rothfuss.

For our ebook readers, we also have the novella “The Weight of the Sunrise,” by Vylar Kaftan and novel excerpts from Genevieve Valentine’s Persona and Daryl Gregory’s Harrison Squared.

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.

Surfacing

Marissa Lingen

Mishy had lived in the undersea city for twenty years. When she went down in the submersible, she was very young and very frightened, all bones and worries, but the years under the water did not feel like they had aged her on the inside. It was only when she had to look at the others that she could see that she was different after all.

She remembered dimly that in the lands of her childhood forty was not at all old, but in the army and under the sea there were hardly any forty-year-olds, and they watched her carefully to see what she might do. She began to grow tired of being watched, and that was when she came back to the surface world again.

She walked for two days before she ran into her first person.

It was a dark-skinned woman with fuzzy black locks, bringing the sheep in from the field. She had a toddler on her hip. She looked Mishy up and down carefully — it took Mishy a moment to remember that this was always done, this cursory search for a weapon — and then said, “Evening, sister.”

“Evening,” said Mishy. “Where am I, can you tell me?”

The woman looked at her a bit more closely, and the toddler squirmed. “You look like you’re right here,” she said. Mishy smiled politely, but the woman’s voice was one of caution, not teasing. “I can fetch my grandmother. She can check for you.”

“No, I mean —” Mishy groped for words that would not make her sound like an army spy. She found none. “Here is as good a place as any, looks like,” she said finally.

“Seems to me,” said the woman amiably, and motioned for Mishy to follow her and the sheep in. The sheep were faintly orange and eyed Mishy with ill-concealed crankiness. The toddler, on the other hand, reached out to Mishy to be held. The woman shrugged and handed her over.

“Been away awhile,” the woman observed. “But wherever you’ve been had childers.”

“That’s true,” said Mishy, surprised. “How did you know?”

The woman shrugged. “You take Tirzah easy enough, but your skin’s gone pink as an apple in the sun.”

Mishy squinted at her. Apples, she knew despite years under the sea, were green. But again, the woman did not seem to be making a joke. She wondered if the entirety of living on land again would be people failing to make the jokes she thought they were making. She twisted a finger in one of Tirzah’s tight knots of curls and got an incoherent toddler monologue in return.

“How’s . . . how have things been?” Mishy asked.

The woman grinned with no happiness behind it. “The war, you mean.”

Mishy had hoped not to mean that any more. She nodded.

“Well, in some ways it seems like more of the same, and in others — my man hasn’t got leave as often as he used to. As you’ll see.”

They approached a low building with a stone base and wooden beams supporting paper walls. The roof was pitched thatch, slumping in a happy mess over the whole. On the back porch there was a white glow coming from a silver cube. Mishy regarded it warily. Under the sea, several of her best comrades had glowed. It was a charming personal quirk, like being a good whistler or left-handed. Here it was out of place.

As they got closer, Mishy saw that in addition to the white glow, the cube had an old refrigerator unit hooked up to the back of it with trailing cables and wires. The woman followed her gaze and grinned. “They’re going to give us a power supply, might as well use it,” she said.

Mishy guessed, “The government?”

“The army. Haven’t you seen the training cubes? I suppose I didn’t have one when I was that age.”

“No,” she said slowly. “I’ve never seen the training cubes. How do they work?”

“The kids get in for a few hours a day, and they do different . . . training modules, I guess they call them. Languages, fighting, math. Strategy. My eldest is pretty good at them. She does half the town’s training time for them.” The woman looked sidelong at Mishy, waiting for her response.

“Hard to know what to do with the bright ones, isn’t it? The army got me, but I got away in my own good time,” said Mishy.

The woman relaxed. “I mean, her daddy’s in the army. I had just hoped . . .”

At that point, a skinny brown boy with a springy black halo of hair came running out of the house wearing only shorts. Mishy had grown unused to guessing the ages of surface children — those under the sea grew differently — but she guessed he was perhaps eight. “Momma, Momma! Who’s the stranger?”

“Name’s Mishegoss,” said Mishy. “You can call me Mishy.”

“That’s a crazy name,” said the boy.

“Coriander!” said the woman sharply. “She’s not from the army, so keep a civil tongue.”

The boy ducked his head, unrepentant but willing to keep the peace. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“It means craziness,” said Mishy. “My name. So you were righter than you knew. I think my parents were onto something when they named me. What do you think?”

His grin dazzled like sun on the sea. “I think so! We should have named Tirzah that!”

“Coriander,” sighed his mother. “Where’s your sister — no, don’t tell me. In the training cube?”

“Luis was busy with their flock, so she’s doing his training time for him,” he confirmed.

Mishy sat on the floor playing with Tirzah while Coriander ran about, sometimes fetching things for his mother and sometimes just regaling Mishy with his knowledge of his immediate world. It was from him that she learned that his mother’s name was Breonia, and that his absent sister was Dhargey; that his mother and father had once lived in the city, before it was bombed out, and that he had only recently learned that there was more than one city; that he had six cousins and only liked two of them.

“Coriander!” said Breonia. “I expect our new friend has enough sense not to spread that around, but you can’t go telling people you don’t like your cousins.”

“She doesn’t know anybody,” said Coriander reasonably. “She can spread it wherever she likes.”

“Get your sister, and get more water from the well,” Breonia told him with a mock-swat.

He returned with a wet-haired girl of about thirteen, freshly splashed and slicked back from the well. Her brother had not escaped splashing, and they treated Mishy with solicitous interest, making sure she had plenty of the radish pickles on her dinner. After crunching thoughtfully, Mishy decided she even liked radish pickles, which was convenient under the circumstances.

“You said you’d been away awhile,” said Breonia when they had finished washing up their bowls and were relaxing in the cool breeze that came off the fields. “Care to say where you’ve been?”

Mishy glanced at the two older children, who were trying to pretend they were playing with their baby sister. She didn’t buy it. “I . . . I’m not sure you’ll believe me.”

“Try us,” said Breonia.

So she knew the children were listening, too, Mishy thought. All right then. “There are some . . . people. I don’t think they’re human any more, but they’re still people. And they’ve built habitats under the sea, and . . . they found me. Or I found them. Or something.”

She saw the confused faces around her and realized she was making a mess of it. “I deserted from the army with some of my friends, and when we were running, we came upon a house on the coast. Probably hundreds of miles west of here. And the house had a dock, and at the dock there was . . . a submersible vehicle.

“The undersea folk came out of the submersible and found us. And we asked them to take us with them. We were tired of war. We wanted to see how they lived. So two of us went with them, and two of us stayed behind.”

“What happened to the ones who stayed behind?” said Dhargey, abandoning her pretense of not listening.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them in twenty years. That’s one of the things I thought maybe I’d do when I got back, was look them up. Their names were Ilahi and Tran. I don’t suppose they’ve become famous artists or politicians or . . . or generals or anything?”

“Never heard of them,” said Breonia.

Mishy shrugged. “It was a long shot.”

Coriander captured a grasshopper and was busy showing it to his baby sister, who kept trying to poke her fingers inside his cupped hands to get at it. “Did they have trained fish there, under the ocean?”

“Oh yes,” said Mishy. “Mostly not fish. Mostly dolphins and octopus. But some fish. With the octopus I’m not sure I could say trained, but . . . they knew how to communicate. It went both ways. Perhaps the octopus trained us.”

She smiled at the memory of how startled she had been when she figured it out. The army didn’t even use dogs or horses very much, so her last exposure to humans and animals working together had been the cat her aunt kept to kill mice and grasshoppers like the ones the boy held. The cephalopods who interacted with the undersea folk, though . . . she wondered if they had been interfered with, the way humans had interfered with themselves, or if they’d started out that smart and had just learned to show it.

“I didn’t see you in my dreams,” said Dhargey. “I wonder why that is.”

“I didn’t see you either,” said Mishy. “I’ve found there’s a lot I haven’t seen in my dreams. But that may just be me.”

Dhargey shook her head. “Dreaming around corners is hard. Even harder if you don’t know the corner is there and keep training your dreams straight ahead.”

“Training . . . your dreams?” The predictive power of dreamers had been limited when Mishy left, at least in her region. “How do you do that?”

Dhargey waved her hands, frustrated, and Breonia laughed. “These young ones, they take for granted all the crazy things they can do. When I was their age — well, it was a different time, let’s say that.”

“It was,” agreed Mishy. “That’s probably about when I left, when you were their age.”

“Sounds about right.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence. Mishy was used to silence with the denizens of the undersea habitat, and she had worried about whether she’d grown too unaccustomed to the chatter of the surface. But she had been too hasty to judge her own kind. Apparently not everyone on the surface felt the need to fill every idle moment with noise.

She bedded down near the others in the main room of the house, but not too near. She could see that Breonia was glad she’d brought her own bedding, for there wasn’t much room for spare niceties in their thatched house — probably not much more in the linens than a spare blanket and the winter things. Mishy realized that she had no idea what the climate was on this part of the coast.

“Breonia,” she whispered.

“Mmm?”

“In the morning, can I look at a map?”

“Dhargey will show you. In the training cube. They have lots.”

“Thank you.”

“Mmm.”

The morning had a mellow and rounded smell, which she eventually identified as the lack of salt. There were plenty of obvious things to do to help Breonia and the children start their day, but then they seemed to have the chores about evenly divided up. Mishy was glad she’d thought of the map, not only to orient herself but also as a way to shape her time while she figured out what to do next.

The training cubicle was a dingy blue on the inside and smelled of adolescent girl sweat. There was a screen, but also goggles and gloves that looked like they were from a different world than the rest of the farm, a world with shiny plastics gone cracked and dingy. There would be room for them both inside if they squeezed. Mishy looked down. The floor appeared to have pressure sensors on it. She stepped carefully around them.

Dhargey pulled the door shut, suited up with the goggles and gloves, and matter-of-factly went through an artillery targeting program that glowed in blue and white lines through the entire cubicle. Then language. Then Mishy said aloud, “All right, enough. It’ll be easier to see the physical training stuff outside on the grass.”

Dhargey grinned, and they both took deep, relieved breaths of the fresh air. Stripped of the goggles, Dhargey looked her proper age again, not the serious young soldier they had made her. Mishy hated herself for even having the reaction and was glad something could undo it. They both stretched, thoroughly and slowly.

“If you were in the army, where are your campaign tokens?” said Dhargey. “My papa has so many tokens, his beard sounds like rain.”

Mishy smiled; she had known veterans like that, though not many. She had liked them. They made her feel safe, like a father probably. Not like her own father, who had not been able to keep her out of the army or teach her anything of life in it. “I threw them in the sea,” she said.

“You threw — how could you bear to do it? After you’d fought hard to win them?”

“I fought hard to survive. In the sea — in the city under the sea — that meant something completely different. It was a new life. At least, I wanted it to be.” Now that she was back on land, she wondered if it had ever really been a new life, or just a facet of her old one. She had learned many things in the undersea city, but to its denizens — and possibly to herself — she was always the soldier from the surface.

Not the person from the surface, or the woman, or the daughter, or the lover of jellyfish salads. Always the soldier first.

Well, she thought, the old soldier could make herself useful.

“All right, let’s see what this cube’s been teaching you, then,” said Mishy.

Dhargey grinned. “I’ve never gotten to spar with a real instructor. Just kid stuff with the other kids around the village, and frankly, they can’t handle me.”

“I bet they can’t,” Mishy said, grinning back. She dropped into her easy sparring stance and waited. Dhargey looked to be all elbows and knees when she was around the house and the field with her brother and sister, but she was serious now, focused, her movements far more coordinated than Mishy’s had been at her age.

Dhargey tried several kinds of attack, at least five styles of fighting. Mishy repelled them, smacking her just lightly enough to make it clear that this was all a test. Then there came two styles Mishy didn’t know, and she just had to deal with them as she would sparring with a grown-up.

“Good,” she said. “Good. You’ve been picking up a lot from these cubes, I can see that. You’ll still need practice to fight actual adults, but you’ve got a solid base to work with.”

“Show me what the undersea people do,” Dhargey demanded. There was a fine sheen of sweat on her brow, but her breathing was even.

“The undersea people are different,” said Mishy. “They would do like — so.” She moved in deftly, striking three points before Dhargey could defend against them.

“Good,” said Dhargey. “Good good. I’d like to learn more. Give me an edge on the others.”

“I thought you already had one.”

“You can always use more of an edge. But — that felt like a pressure point strike. I’ve got pins and needles. And the training cube said pressure points are no good in a real fight, only for things like subduing civilians.” When she said the last part, a cloud went over her open, friendly young face. Even with a thrashing toddler sister to deal with, Dhargey clearly did not like the idea of having to subdue civilians.

But Mishy thought she would bring that up again later, almost not noticing that she had decided there would be a later. “Well, the training cube is right, except for one thing. The undersea folk have modified themselves to have venomous stingers here — ” She gestured along the side of her little finger. “And here.” She poked out her elbow. “Pressure points are a lot more effective if the pins and needles are followed by a gentle nerve paralyzer. Then they can take prisoners without having to kill or concuss anybody. They like it better that way.”

“I would too,” said Dhargey soberly.

Mishy examined her young student. “If we’re going to have you fighting, we should get your hair braided up, but I don’t know how to do it with hair like — I don’t know how you say it here — hair like yours. Instead of like mine, where one little braid will do.”

“We call it strong hair,” said Dhargey. “Not that people with weak hair can’t be strong!”

“No offense taken.”

“I know the warrior braids,” said Breonia behind them. Mishy wondered how long she’d been watching. “Married to an army man fifteen years, you think I can’t braid hair for a warrior? Come on, girl. We’ll get it done.”

“That’s if you don’t mind me staying a bit,” said Mishy shyly. “Showing her some things. Otherwise there’s no need.”

“Oh, there’s probably a need anyhow,” said Breonia. “Come on, then. This’ll take a while. You can go help Coriander pick plums, Mishy.”

“I’d be glad to,” said Mishy, her mouth watering at the thought of fresh plums, pickled plums, plums of any kind. She would not have said that plums were one of her favorite land foods, but twenty years away from them made them sound like the most scrumptious thing she could imagine.

When she and Coriander returned from the plum orchard laden with fruit, Breonia had braided both of her daughters’ hair, though Tirzah’s had only grown long enough for a tiny stump. One of them had also made dumpling dough, ready to plunk the smaller plums into and boil for supper.

“I surely do appreciate your hospitality,” said Mishy. “The maps, the dumplings, everything.”

“Well, mind you teach my girl what she needs to learn, then,” said Breonia. “That’s all the gratitude I need.”

“And tell us stories about the fishy people,” Coriander put in.

Mishy laughed and tried to think how to explain to him how the stories were different under the waters.

At first she had been grateful to live under the sea, which was mostly to say, grateful to live in any way that was not the army’s, any way that was not the war. But even the most exhausted soldier can find rest in the cities under the sea, and when she was rested, Mishy began to observe the folk around her, to watch them keenly for their marks of difference and to wonder where they had changed themselves from the people like herself.

They were amphibian, and that was the obvious change, but also the subtle one. They had choices where she had none. It changed how they thought, how they moved, even when they were in the dry parts of the world.

And then — she had not asked closely about their births and deaths, though they had learned enough about how her kind died, even aside from wars. But she thought they were shorter-lived than the standard-line humans — that they wore out sooner.

She had seen no signs that their dreams were anything more than a child’s dreams, a jumble of images and leftover processing. She had asked, and their answers did not seem to indicate that they entirely understood what she was asking.

Even when they had learned each other’s languages better, that was often the case.

After Mishy and her hosts had finished their dumplings, they rested in the breeze again. Mishy expected it was their habit as long as weather permitted — or perhaps they were accustomed to visiting their neighbors and relations and were only not doing it because she was there.

“You must have been brave, to go under the sea alone,” said Coriander.

“Soldiers are used to having to go alone,” said Dhargey. “Look at Papa.” Their mother pursed her lips but said nothing.

“I had a friend who went with me, at first,” said Mishy slowly. She hadn’t talked about Edward in years, but Dhargey didn’t seem to notice anything wrong.

“What happened to him?” she said.

Mishy drew a deep breath. “He died. They tell me some land people just don’t thrive under the sea, and he was — he was too scared to go back. It was too close to our desertion. I should have tried to make him do it — I mean, I should have tried harder.”

She remembered the week she had spent with Edward in a hut on a rocky island. Their undersea friends — if in fact they were friends, if they understood friendship in the same way — had left them there with a supply of food and basic first-aid sorts of medicine, telling Mishy that Edward would either turn a corner in the week or not.

So Mishy held his hand while he died, talking in slow bits about what they had missed from on land, none of which was available on the little rocky island that was sufficiently isolated to let undersea-dwellers come and go without possibly betraying anything to the land-dwellers. After he died, she made a cairn for him, and then sat on the northern point of the island with her knees drawn up under her chin, smelling the salt water that she had been taking for granted when she was immersed in it and waiting for the undersea folk to come back for her.

“Why did you come back?” said Dhargey. “Did you find that you didn’t thrive there either?”

“No,” said Mishy. “No, I — I got older, and it seemed time. It seemed that I could do some good on the surface. Share what I’d learned. I’d lived twenty years without war. I wondered if anyone else on the surface could say the same.”

“Nope,” said Dhargey. “Sure would like to.”

“Sure would,” Breonia agreed. “But no. Not one year without war, much less twenty. What keeps them interested, then? If not news of the war, and not visitors from the surface?”

So Mishy told more stories of the collaborative projects with the octopus, which no one had ever entirely been able to explain to her. She mentioned the orchestra of strange instruments and then had to stop to explain to the children what an orchestra was. Breonia and her husband had heard groups play music in their younger days in the city, before it was bombed, but that was before they were even married, before the children were born, and no one they knew had saved an instrument larger than a drum or a fiddle from the bombing.

Then she tried to explain the quiet, the way that the undersea city did not have cicadas or crickets or oxen, did not have trees in the wind or neighbors in the next pasture over, just . . . quiet, and the rushing of air and water.

Eventually she gave up, and they all went to sleep, even Mishy, even with the cicadas and the oxen and the noise.

In the morning, she was awakened by Coriander’s chatter. “I dreamed of Papa,” he was saying. “I think Papa’s coming home.”

“Not for a while yet, sugar,” said Breonia.

“But when you and Dhargey dream of Papa — ”

“When you’re a little bigger, that’s what it’ll mean,” said his mother reassuringly. “And you’ll go to Auntie Rhee to learn how to cast your dreams. But for now, you just get rest at night. That’s all you need to do. Get rest to grow big and strong.”

“We never cast our dreams,” said Mishy.

“Mmmm,” said Breonia, handing her a cold plum dumpling. “They gave us shots when I was a teenager.”

Dhargey burst back into the hut, her braids swinging. “The sensor pad is malfunctioning. It won’t log me in.”

Breonia glanced at Mishy. “Can you check it? I’ve got enough to do getting the little ones up.”

“I can get myself up,” Coriander protested. “I’m up.”

“You help your Mama with your baby sister,” said Mishy. “I’ll go check this out.”

The power appeared to still be flowing to the cube out back, and the hacked refrigerator hummed along. Mishy peered in at the sensor pad. “So you step on this, and then it prompts the login?”

“It’s supposed to,” said Dhargey. “But it’s not doing it. I checked the connections in four places. I’m pretty sure it’s shut down somewhere in the programming. It’s too bad, too; with my math time and Luis’s, I was going to start calculus in two or three more lessons.”

Mishy’s stomach churned like the sea in a storm. “You’re not doing the same math several times for yourself and the other kids? It doesn’t repeat for you?”

“Oh no. That’d be pretty boring, wouldn’t it? Having to do the same all the time? No, it just moves me along no matter whose time I’m using.”

“Okay,” said Mishy, taking deep breaths. “Okay. Okay. We need to get away from the cube, Dhargey. Is there somewhere you can hide? A — a forest or something?”

The girl’s dark eyes went round. “Sure, of course, but why?”

“You haven’t been using the other people’s time, kiddo, you’ve been using your time. It’s tracking your progress. And when they come for someone to take into the army — ”

Dhargey’s brown skin went ashen.

“I’m going to find your mom, and we’ll talk about this,” Mishy assured her. “Will your mom know where you’d go?”

“Tell her the coppice by the lake.”

Mishy nodded, and the girl ran off lightly through the fields. Mishy wanted to watch her go, but she had no idea how soon the army would come after shutting down the transmissions. It was possible, of course, that it really was a malfunction and no one was coming, or that the only person coming would be a technician. But the training cube showed no other signs of breaking down, and if it was not today, it would be another day. They were grooming Dhargey to become what Mishy had been, or worse.

And Mishy would not let that happen if she could help it.

When she went to find Breonia, Breonia was standing in front of the house talking to a hovering metal thing, a miniature craft with flying blades and a little speaker. “Heard and acknowledged,” Breonia was saying.

Mishy waited until it flew off to hiss at Breonia and call her inside. “What was that?”

“Army drone. They’re sending people.”

“I know they are. They’re sending them for Dhargey. What’ll they do if they can’t find her?”

“Not just for Dhargey,” Breonia protested.

“What’ll they do?” Mishy repeated.

Breonia pursed her lips. “In the village where my cousin moved, they didn’t have anyone to send to the army when the army came. No one was ready. So they levied a bigger tax on them.”

“They tax the food you grow?”

Breonia nodded. “Everything we make.”

“We have to go join Dhargey. I’ll tell you why I think they’ll want her specifically, her alone.”

She tried to answer Breonia’s questions without scaring her too much, as the two of them and Tirzah made their way to the coppice. She was glad Tirzah’s vocabulary was still limited, because even her attempts at not terrifying her hostess could only do so much in the face of the news that her beloved and brilliant daughter was being personally groomed to go away and kill or be killed.

“I always thought it would be an even chance, a fair chance,” said Breonia. “Maybe even a bit better odds than that, with all Candlestick’s boys being so big. I thought if they took one from the village and it wasn’t at random, they wouldn’t pick her.”

“I’d want her,” said Mishy, honestly thinking like a squad leader for the first time since Edward’s death. “If I had to go into a fight with some child at my back, Dhargey’s level-headed, and she thinks about all the things they’re stuffing her head with. It’s not just rote learning for her.”

“And Luis’s sister Yevgenia is a leap-dreamer,” Breonia continued, clearly still on her own track of thoughts. “They always take the leap-dreamers if they can.”

“There’s no reason they won’t take Dhargey and Yevgenia both,” said Mishy. “They can feed them. They can use them.”

Breonia stopped and stared at her. “Then why in the name of all the little saints are we leaving without Yevgenia?”

Mishy sat down suddenly on a fallen log. Her mouth worked, but no sound came out. “Look, if I’m wrong, they might not take anybody this time. It may just be a malfunction, and they’ll send someone out to fix it, or they won’t, and if that’s the case, having Dhargey where she won’t come to their attention will be enough for now.”

“Same for my cousin’s girl Yevgenia,” said Breonia stubbornly. “And if you’re right . . .”

“If I’m right, they may still take somebody. They may not want to waste the trip, may figure they can make another child work once they get them back to headquarters.” The log was strangely bumpy. Mishy had not sat on anything with ridges of that sort since she had deserted.

She was thinking a lot of her desertion, since her return.

“I’m going back for the older children,” said Breonia.

“No! Not yet,” said Mishy slowly. “Let’s meet Dhargey and — and she and I will figure out what you need to bring. When you bring them. So that I can get them away.”

“You’re taking the children away.” Unconsciously, Breonia clutched at Tirzah, who wailed. Her mother joggled her and shooshed her absent-mindedly.

“I’m not stealing your children. I promise,” said Mishy. “But — they’re going into the army unless someone stops it.”

“And you’re going to be that someone?”

“I came back from the sea for something,” said Mishy. “I think it’s this. I think I’m here to — to get the children organized. To get the parents organized.”

Breonia snorted. “You’re not going to avoid a war that way. You’re going to start a revolution. And as much as I don’t want my baby joining her daddy in the army, I’d rather have her in an organized army than dying an unarmed rebel.”

Mishy pressed her lips together. She looked around her at the countryside. They were in a light wood at the edge of the field, and it wouldn’t shield them from more than a casual inspection. But a little further, off on the horizon, she could see hills, hills strewn with darker green trees and grey rocks.

“Those hills,” she said. “We can gather people in those hills. Figure out how to do this. We’ll have me and Dhargey, and she’s as good a little tactician as I’ve ever known. If she wants to be.”

“If she wants to be?”

“I sent her running,” Mishy admitted. “When she hears it all, when she thinks it through, she might want to come back to the village. Might want to join the army when they come for her.”

“Sweet Martha, no,” said Breonia. “Not my girl.”

“What other choices do we have? What other choices does she have?”

“It’s not a choice.”

“It is. It’s her choice.”

Breonia sighed and hoisted Tirzah a little higher on her hip. “I suppose it has to be. I’m not ready for her to make choices that big.”

Mishy nodded sympathetically, although she had never had a daughter or a niece or a protégé without gills. And the gilled protégés . . . had their own agendas. Always.

She hadn’t always been able to determine what those were.

When they found the coppice, Dhargey was up one of the trees, waiting impatiently. “They will take you,” Mishy said without preamble. “I will get you out of here if you’ll go. Your mother thinks we should take your cousin and all the older children.”

Dhargey swung down out of the tree, her new braids smacking against her neck and ears. She pursed her lips thoughtfully, looking for all the world like Breonia if Breonia had ever had to wear a warrior’s braids. “They should get to choose,” she said.

Breonia did not seem to notice the mirroring. “Child, your papa says — ”

“My papa will find me gone when he comes, and how will he feel then?”

“Glad,” said Breonia. “Oh, honey. You have no idea how glad.”

“I’ll get them,” said Dhargey. “I can go quick and quiet, and they don’t know Mishy. They wouldn’t go with her.”

“I’ll help,” said Breonia.

“No. You pack food,” said Dhargey. “We’ll go up to the yam fields. There are caves near there.”

“We’re not going to live in caves forever,” said Mishy. “At least, I’m not. I didn’t come out of the sea for that.”

Breonia hoisted Tirzah a little higher on her hip. “Then what did you come out of the sea for?”

“I — ” Mother and daughter were both watching her carefully. Mishy realized they were not waiting to see what the answer was, they were waiting see if she knew it. “To lead you. To teach you things. So that — so that you wouldn’t have to do this. So no one would have to do this. And — you’ll tell your husband? When he gets leave? So that he can pass the word among the troops?”

Breonia nodded slowly. “Yes, all right. The little ones and I may have to stay with my sister. But we won’t move again, like we did from the city. We won’t hide again. We’ll do this. Together. Just keep my baby — well, as safe as you can.”

“As safe as I can,” Mishy promised, already thinking of supply lines and communications.

Dhargey’s grin finally returned. “All right. Let’s get started.”

“Hurry up, then,” said Mishy. “It’s a long walk to those hills.”

© 2015 by Marissa Lingen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marissa Lingen is a short fiction writer living in the Minneapolis area. She has sold over one hundred stories to publications such as Year’s Best, Tor.com, Analog, and Lightspeed. You can find her online at marissalingen.com.

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

The Brains of Rats

Michael Blumlein

There is evidence that Joan of Arc was a man. Accounts of her trial state that she did not suffer the infirmity of women. When examined by the prelates prior to her incarceration, it was found that she lacked the characteristic escutcheon of women. Her pubic area, in fact, was as smooth and hairless as a child’s.¹

There is a condition of men, of males, called testicular feminization. The infants are born without a penis, and the testicles are hidden. The external genitalia are those of a female. Raised as women, these men at puberty develop breasts. Their voices do not deepen. They do not menstruate, because they lack a uterus. They have no pubic hair.

These people carry a normal complement of chromosomes. The twenty-third pair, the so-called sex chromosome pair, is unmistakably male. XY. Declared a witch in 1431 and burned at the stake at the age of nineteen, Joan of Arc was quite likely one of these.

Herculine Barbin was born in 1838 in France; she was reared as a female. She spent her childhood in a convent and in boarding schools for girls and later became a schoolmistress. Despite her rearing, she had the sexual inclination of a male. She had already taken a female lover, when, on account of severe pain in her left groin, she sought the advice of a physician. Partly as a result of his examination, her sex was redesignated, and in 1860 she was given the civil status of a male. The transformation brought shame and disgrace upon her. Her existence as a male was wretched, and in 1868 she took her own life.²

• • • •

I have a daughter. I am married to a blond-haired, muscular woman. We live in enlightened times. But daily I wonder who is who and what is what. I am baffled by our choices; my mind is unclear. Especially now that I have the means to ensure that every child born on this earth is male.

• • • •

A patient once came to me, a man with a painful drip from the end of his penis. He had had it for several days; neither excessive bathing nor drugstore remedies had proven helpful. About a week and a half before, on a business trip, he had spent time with a prostitute. I asked if he had enjoyed himself. In a roundabout way he said it was natural for a man.

Several days later, at home, his daughter tucked safely in bed, he had made love to his wife. He said that she got very excited. The way he said it made me think she was the only one in the room.

The two of them were both rather young. While he was in the examining room, she sat quietly in the waiting room. She stared ahead, fatigue and ignorance making her face impassive. In her lap, her daughter was curled asleep.

In the room the man milked his penis, squeezing out a large amount of creamy material, which I smeared on a glass slide. In an hour the laboratory told me he had gonorrhea. When I conveyed the news to him, he was surprised and worried.

“What is that?” he asked.

“An infection,” I said. “A venereal disease. It’s spread through sexual contact.”

He nodded slowly. “My wife, she got too excited.”

“Most likely you got it from the prostitute.”

He looked at me blankly and said it again. “She got too excited.”

I was fascinated that he could hold such a notion and calmly repeated what I had said. I recommended treatment for both him and his wife. How he would explain the situation to her was up to him. A man with his beliefs would probably not have too hard a time.

• • • •

I admit that I have conflicting thoughts. I am intrigued by hypnotism and relations of power. For years I have wanted to be a woman, with small, firm breasts held even firmer by a brassiere. My hair would be shoulder-length and soft. It would pick up highlights and sweep down over one ear. The other side of my head would be bare, save for some wisps of hair at the nape and around my ear. I would have a smooth cheek.

I used to brush it this way, posing before my closet mirror in dark tights and high-heeled boots. The velveteen dress I wore was designed for a small person, and I split the seams the first time I pulled it over my head. My arms and shoulders are large; they were choked by the narrow sleeves. I could barely move, the dress was so tight. But I was pretty. A very pretty thing.

I never dream of having men. I dream of women. I am a woman and I want women. I think of being simultaneously on the top and on the bottom. I want the power and I want it taken from me.

• • • •

I should mention that I also have the means to make every conceptus a female. The thought is as disturbing as making them all male. But I think it shall have to be one or the other.

• • • •

The genes that determine sex lie on the twenty-third pair of chromosomes. They are composed of a finite and relatively short sequence of nucleic acids on the X chromosome and one on the Y. For the most part these sequences have been mapped. Comparisons have been made between species. The sex-determining gene is remarkably similar in animals as diverse as the wasp, the turtle and the cow. Recently it has been found that the male banded krait, a poisonous snake of India separated evolutionarily from man by many millions of years, has a genetic sequence nearly identical to that of the human male.

The Y gene turns on other genes. A molecule is produced, a complex protein, which is present on the surface of virtually all cells in the male. It is absent in the female. Its presence makes cells and environments of cells develop in particular ways. These ways have not changed much in millions of years.

Certain regions of the brain in rats show marked sexual specificity. Cell density, dendritic formation, synaptic configuration of the male are different from the female. When presented with two solutions of water, one pure, the other heavily sweetened with saccharin, the female rat consistently chooses the latter. The male does just the opposite. Female chimpanzee infants exposed to high levels of male hormones in utero exhibit patterns of play different from their sisters. They initiate more, are rougher and more threatening. They tend to snarl a lot.

Sexual differences of the human brain exist, but they have been obscured by the profound evolution of this organ in the past half-million years. We have speech and foresight, consciousness and self-consciousness. We have art, physics, and religion. In a language whose meaning men and women seem to share, we say we are different, but equal.

The struggles between the sexes, the battles for power, are a reflection of the schism between thought and function, between the power of our minds and powerlessness in the face of our design. Sexual equality, an idea present for hundreds of years, is subverted by instincts present for millions. The genes determining mental capacity have evolved rapidly; those determining sex have been stable for eons. Humankind suffers the consequences of this disparity, the ambiguities of identity, the violence between the sexes. This can be changed. It can be ended. I have the means to do it.

• • • •

All my life I have watched men fight with women. Women with men. Women come to the clinic with bruised and swollen cheeks, where they have been slapped and beaten by their lovers. Not long ago, an attractive middle-aged lady came in with a bloody nose, bruises on her arms and a cut beneath her eye, where the cheekbone rises up in a ridge. She was shaking uncontrollably, sobbing in spasms so that it was impossible to understand what she was saying. Her sister had to speak for her.

Her boss had beat her up. He had thrown her against the filing cabinets and kicked her on the floor. She had cried for him to stop, but he had kept on kicking. She had worked for him for ten years. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

Another time, a young man came in. He wore a tank top and had big muscles in his shoulders and arms. On one biceps was a tattoo of the upper torso and head of a woman, her huge breasts bursting out of a ragged garment. On his forearm beneath this picture were three long and deep tracks in the skin, oozing blood. I imagined the swipe of a large cat, a lynx or a mountain lion. He told he had hurt himself working on his car.

I cleaned the scratches, cut off the dead pieces of skin bunched up at the end of the tracks. I asked again how this had happened. It was his girlfriend, he said, smiling a little now, gazing proudly at the marks on his arm. They had had a fight, she had scratched him with her nails. He looked at me, turning more serious, trying to act like a man but sounding like a boy, and asked, “You think I should have a shot for rabies?”

• • • •

Sexual differentiation in humans occurs at about the fifth week of gestation. Prior to this time, the fetus is sexless, or more precisely, it has the potential to become either (or both) sex. Around the fifth week a single gene turns on, initiating a cascade of events that ultimately gives rise to testicle or ovary. In the male, this gene is associated with the Y chromosome; in the female, with the X. An XY pair normally gives rise to a male; an XX pair, to a female.

The two genes have been identified and produced by artificial means. Despite a general reluctance in the scientific community as a whole, our laboratory has taken this research further. Recently, we have devised a method to attach either gene to a common rhinovirus. The virus is ubiquitous; among humans it is highly contagious. It is spread primarily through water droplets (sneezing, coughing), but also through other bodily fluids (sweat, urine, saliva, semen). We have attenuated the virus so that it is harmless to mammalian tissue. It incites little, if any, immune response, resting dormantly inside cells. It causes no apparent disruption of function.

When an infected female becomes pregnant, the virus rapidly crosses the placenta, infecting cells of the developing fetus. If the virus carries the X gene, the fetus will become a female; if it carries the Y, a male. In mice and rabbits, we have been able to produce entire litters of male or female. Experiments in simians have been similarly successful. It is not premature to conclude that we have the capability to do the same for humans.

Imagine whole families of male or female. Districts, towns, even countries. So simple, it is as though it was always meant to be.

• • • •

My daughter is a beautiful girl. She knows enough about sex, I think, to satisfy her for the present. She plays with herself often at night, sometimes during the day. She is very happy not to have to wear diapers anymore. She used to look at my penis a lot, and once in a while she would touch it. Now she doesn’t seem to care.

Once maybe every three or four months, she’ll put on a pair of pants. The rest of the time she wears skirts or dresses. My wife, a laborer, wears only pants. She drives a truck.

One of our daughter’s schoolteachers, a Church woman, told her that Christian girls don’t wear pants. I had a dream last night that our next child is a boy.

• • • •

I admit I am confused. In the ninth century, there was a German woman with a name no one remembers. Call her Katrin. She met and fell in love with a man, a scholar. Presumably, the love was mutual. The man traveled to Athens to study, and Katrin went with him. She disguised herself as a man so that they could live together.

In Athens, the man died. Katrin stayed on. She had learned much from him, had become something of a scholar herself. She continued her studies and over time gained renown for her learning. She kept her disguise as a man.

Some time later, she was called to Rome to study and teach at the offices of Pope Leo IV. Her reputation grew, and when Leo died in 855, Katrin was elected Pope.

Her reign ended abruptly two and a half years later. In the midst of a papal procession through the streets of Rome, her cloak hanging loose, obscuring the contours of her body, Katrin squatted on the ground, uttered a series of cries and delivered a baby. Soon after, she was thrown in a dungeon, and later banished to an impoverished land to the north. From that time on, all popes, prior to confirmation, have been examined by two reliable clerics. Before an assembled audience, they feel under the candidate’s robes.

“Testiculous habet,” they declare, at which point the congregation heaves a sigh of relief.

“Deo gratis,” it chants back. “Deo gratis.”³

• • • •

I was at a benefit luncheon the other day, a celebration of regional women writers. Of five hundred people, I was one of a handful of men. I went at the invitation of a friend because I like the friend and I like the writers who were being honored. I wore a sports coat and slacks and had a neatly trimmed four-day growth of beard. I waited in a long line at the door, surrounded by women. Some were taller than me, but I was taller than most. All were dressed fashionably; most wore jewelry and makeup. I was uncomfortable in the crowd, not profoundly, but enough that my manner turned meek. I was ready to be accosted and singled out.

A loud woman butted in front of me, and I said nothing. At the registration desk I spoke softly, demurely. The woman at the desk smiled and said something nice. I felt a little better, took my card and went in.

It was a large and fancy room, packed with tables draped with white cloths. The luncheon was being catered by a culinary school located in the same building. There was a kitchen on the ground floor, to the left of the large room. Another was at the mezzanine level above the stage at the front of the room. This one was enclosed in glass, and during the luncheon there was a class going on. Students in white coats and a chef with a tall white hat passed back and forth in front of the glass. Their lips moved, but from below we didn’t hear any sounds.

Midway through the luncheon, the program started. The main organizer spoke about the foundation for which the luncheon was a benefit. It is an organization dedicated to the empowerment of women, to the rights of women and girls. My mind drifted.

I have been a feminist for years. I was in the room next door when my first wife formed a coven. I gave her my encouragement. I celebrated with her the publication of Valerie Solanas’ The S.C.U.M. Manifesto. The sisters made a slide show, using some of Valerie’s words. It was shown around the East Coast. I helped them out by providing a man’s voice. I am a turd, the man said. A lowly, abject turd.

My daughter is four. She is as precious as any four-year-old can be. I want her to be able to choose. I want her to feel her power. I will tear down the door that is slammed in her face because she is a woman.

The first honoree came to the podium, reading a story about the bond between a wealthy woman traveler and a poor Mexican room-maid. After two paragraphs, a noise interrupted her. It was a dull, beating sound, went on for half a minute, stopped, started up again. It came from the glassed-in teaching kitchen above the stage. The white-capped chef was pounding a piece of meat, oblivious to the scene below. Obviously he couldn’t hear.

The woman tried to keep reading but eventually stopped. She made one or two frivolous comments to the audience. We were all a little nervous, and there were scattered titters while we waited for something to be done. The chef kept pounding the meat. Behind me a woman whispered loudly, male chauvinist.

I was not surprised, had, in fact, been waiting from the beginning for someone to say something like that. It made me mad. The man was innocent. The woman was a fool. An automaton. I wanted to shake her, shake her up and make her pay the price.

• • • •

I have a friend, a man with a narrow face and cheeks that always look unshaven. His eyes are quick; when he is with me, they always seem to be looking someplace else. He is facile with speech and quite particular about the words he chooses. He is not unattractive.

I like this man for the same reasons I dislike him. He is opportunistic and assertive. He is clever, in the way that being detached allows one to be. And fiercely competitive. He values those who rise to his challenges.

I think of him as a predator, as a man looking for an advantage. This would surprise, even bewilder him, for he carries the innocence of self-absorption. When he laughs at himself, he is so proud to be able to do so.

He has a peculiar attitude toward women. He does not like those who are his intellectual equal. He does not respect those who are not. And yet he loves women. He loves to make them. Especially he loves the ones who need to be convinced. I sometimes play tennis with him. I apologize if I hit a bad shot. I apologize if I am not adequate competition. I want to please him, and I lose every time we play. I am afraid to win, afraid that he might get angry, even violent. He could explode.

I want to win. I want to win bad. I want to drive him into the net, into the concrete itself and beneath it with the force of my victory.

• • • •

I admit I am perplexed. A man can be aggressive, tender, strong, compassionate, hostile, moody, loyal, competent, funny, generous, searching, selfish, powerful, self-destructive, shy, shameful, hard, soft, duplicitous, faithful, honest, bold, foolhardy, vain, vulnerable, and proud. Struggling to keep his instincts in check, he is both abused and blessed by his maleness.

Dr. P, a biologist, husband, father, and subject of a widely cited study, never knew how much of his behavior to attribute to the involuntary release of chemicals, to the flow of electricity through synapses stamped male as early as sixty days after conception, and how much was under his control. He did not want to dilute his potency as a scientist, as a man, by struggling too hard against his impulses, and yet the glimpses he had of another way of life were often too compelling to disregard. The bond between his wife and daughter sometimes brought tears to his eyes. The thought of his wife carrying the child in her belly for nine months and then pushing her out through the tight gap between her legs sometimes settled in his mind like a hypnotic suggestion, like something so sweet and pure he would wither without it.⁴

• • • •

I asked another friend what it was to him to be a man. He laughed nervously and said the question was too hard. Okay, I said, what is it you like best? He shied away, but I pressed him. Having a penis, he said. I nodded. Having it sucked, putting it in a warm place. Coming. He smiled and looked beatific. Oh God, he said, it’s so good to come.

Later on, he said, I like the authority I have, the subtle edge. I like the respect. A man, just by being a man, gets respect. When I get an erection, when I get very hard, I feel strong. I take on power that at other times is hidden to me. Impossibilities seem to melt away.

(A world like that, I think. A world of men. How wondrous! The Y virus, then. I think it must be the Y.)

• • • •

In the summer of our marriage, I was sitting with my first wife in the mountains. She was on one side of a dirt road that wound up to a pass and I was on the other. Scattered on the mountain slope were big chunks of granite, and around them stands of aspen and a few solitary pines. The sky was a deep blue, the kind that takes your breath away. The air was crisp.

She was throwing rocks at me, and arguing. Some of the rocks were quite big, as big as you could hold in a palm. They landed close, throwing up clouds of dust in the roadbed. She was telling me why we should get married.

“I’ll get more respect,” she said. “Once we get married, then we can get divorced. A divorced woman gets respect.”

I asked her to stop throwing rocks. She was mad because she wasn’t getting her way. Because I was being truculent. Because she was working a man’s job cleaning out the insides of ships, scaling off the plaque and grime, and she was being treated like a woman. She wanted to be treated like a man, be tough like a man, dirty and tough. She wanted to smoke in bars, get drunk, shoot pool. In the bars, she wanted to act like a man, be loud, not take shit. She wanted to do this and also she wanted to look sharp, she wanted to dress sexy, in tight blouses and pants. She wanted men to come on to her, she wanted them to fawn a little. She wanted that power.

“A woman who’s been married once, they know she knows something. She’s not innocent. She’s gotten rid of one, she can get rid of another. They show respect.”

She stopped throwing rocks and came over to me. I was a little cowed. She said if I loved her, I would marry her so she could divorce me. She was tender and insistent. I did love her, and I understood the importance of respect. But I was torn. I couldn’t make up my mind.

“You see,” she said, angry again. “You’re the one who gets to decide. It’s always you who’s in control.”

“I am a turd,” I replied. “A lowly, abject turd.”

• • • •

A woman came to me the other day. She knew my name, was aware of the thrust of my research but not the particulars. She did not know that in the blink of an eye, her kind, or mine, could be gone from the face of the earth. She did not know, but it did not seem to matter.

She was dressed simply; her face was plain. She seemed at ease when she spoke, though she could not conceal (nor did she try) a certain intensity of feeling. She said that as a woman she could not trust a man to make decisions about her future. To my surprise, I told her that I am not a man at all.

“I am a mother,” I said. “When my daughter was an infant, I let her suckle my breast.”

“You have no breasts,” she said scornfully.

“Only no milk.” I unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it to the side. I squeezed a nipple. “She wouldn’t stay on because it was dry.”

“You are a man,” she said, unaffected. “You look like one. I’ve seen you walk, you walk like one.”

“How does a man walk?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“I am courteous. I step aside in crowds, wait for others to pass.”

“Courtesy is the manner the strong adopt toward the weak. It is the recognition of their dominance.”

“Sometimes I am meek,” I said. “Sometimes I’m as shy as a kitten.”

She gave me an exasperated look, as though I were a child who had strained the limits of her patience. “You are a man, and men are outcasts. You are outcasts from the very world you made. The world you built on the bodies of other species. Of women.”

I did not want to argue with her. In a way, she was right. Men have tamed the world.

“You think you rise above,” she went on, less stridently. “It is the folly of comparison. There’s no one below. No one but yourselves.”

“I don’t look down,” I said.

“Men don’t look at all. If you did, you’d see that certain parts of your bodies are missing.”

“What does that mean?”

She looked at me quietly. “Don’t you think it’s time women had a chance?”

“Let me tell you something,” I said. “I have always wanted to be a woman. I used to dress like one whenever I had the chance. I was too frightened to keep women’s clothes in my own apartment, and I used to borrow my neighbor’s. She was a tall woman, bigger than me, and she worked evenings. I had the key to her apartment, and at night after work, before she came home, I would sneak into her place and go through her drawers. Because of her size, most of her clothes fit. She had a pair of boots, knee-high soft leather boots which I especially liked.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I want to. It’s important that you understand.”

“Listen, no man wants to be a woman. Not really. Not deep down.”

“Men are beautiful.” I made a fist. “Our bodies are powerful, like the ocean, and strong. Our muscles swell and tuck into each other like waves.

“There is nothing so pure as a man. Nothing like the face of a boy. The smooth and innocent cheek. The promise in the eyes.

“I love men. I love to trace our hard parts, our soft ones, with my eyes, my imagination. I love to see us naked, but I am not aroused. I never have thoughts of having men.

“One night, though, I did. I was coming from my neighbor’s apartment, where I had dressed up in dark tights, those high boots of hers, and a short, belted dress. I had stuffed socks in the cups of her bra and was a very stacked lady. Very shapely indeed. When I was done, I took everything off, folded it and put it neatly back in her drawers. I got dressed in my own pants and shirt, a leather jacket on top, and left. I was going to spend the night with my wife, who at the time lived separately from me a few blocks away.

“On the street I still felt aroused. I had not relieved the tension and needed some release. As I walked, I alternated between feeling like a man on the prowl and a woman wanting to grab something between her legs. I think I felt more the latter, because I wanted something to be done to me. I wanted someone else to be boss.

“I reached the top of the hill and started down the other side. It was late and the street was dark. A solitary car, a Cadillac, crept down the hill. When it came alongside me, it slowed. The driver motioned me over, and I took half a step back. My heart was pounding. He motioned again. I took a deep breath, swallowed heavily, and went to him.

“He was a burly black man, smelled of alcohol. I sat far away from him, against the door, and stared out the windshield. He asked where my place was. I said I had none. He grunted and drove up a steep hill, then several more. He pulled his big car into the basement lot of an apartment complex. ‘A ladyfriend’s,’ he said, and I followed him up some flights of stairs and down a corridor to the door of an apartment. I was aroused, frightened, determined. I don’t think he touched me that whole time.

“He opened the door and we went in. The living room was bare, except for a record player on the floor and a scattered bunch of LPs. One was playing and was close to being done. I expected to see someone else in the apartment. But it was empty.

“The man went into another room, maybe the kitchen, and fixed himself a drink. He wasn’t friendly to me, wasn’t cruel. I think he was a little nervous to have me there, but otherwise acted as if I were a piece of something to deal with in his own way, in his own time. I did not feel that I needed to be treated any differently than that.

“He took me into the bedroom, put me on the bed. That was in the beginning; later, I remember only the floor. He took off his shirt and his pants and pulled my pants down. He settled on me, his front to my front. He was barrel-chested, big and heavy. I wrapped my legs around him and he began to rub up and down on me. His lips were fat, and he kissed me hard and tongued me. He smelled very strong, full of drugs and liquor. His beard was rough on my cheek. I liked the way it felt but not the way it scratched. He began to talk to himself.

“‘The swimmin’ gates. Let me in the swimmin’ gates. The swimmin’ gates.’

“He muttered these words over and over, drunkenly getting more and more turned on. He rolled me over, made me squat on my knees with my butt in the air. He grabbed me with his arms, tried to enter me. I was very dry and it hurt. I let him do it despite the pain because I wanted to feel it, I wanted to know what it was like, I didn’t want to let him down.

“Even before then, before the pain, I had withdrawn. I was no longer aroused, or not much. I liked his being strong because I wanted to be dominated, but as he got more and more excited, I lost the sense that I was anything at all. I was a man, but I might just as easily have been a woman, or a dog, or even a tube lined with something from the butcher. I felt like nothing; I was out of my body and growing cold. I did not even feel the power of having brought him to his climax. If it wasn’t me, it would have been something else . . .”

I stopped. The woman was quiet for a while.

“So what’s your point?” she asked at length.

“I’m wrong to think he didn’t need me. Or someone to do what he wanted. To take it without question.”

“He hurt you.”

“In a way, I pity him. But also, I admire his determination.”

She was upset. “So you think you know what it’s like to be a woman? Because of that story, even if it did happen like you said, you think you know?”

“I don’t know anything,” I said. “Except that when I think about it, I always seem to know more about what it is to be a woman than what it is to be a man.”

• • • •

Having a penis, my friend said. That’s what I like best. It reminds me of a patient I once had, a middle-aged man with diabetes. He took insulin injections twice a day, was careful with his diet, and still he suffered the consequences of that disease. Most debilitating to him was the loss of his sex life.

“I can’t get it up,” he told me. “Not for more than a minute or two.”

I asked if he came. Diabetes can be quite selective in which nerves it destroys.

“Sometimes. But it’s not the same. It feels all right, it feels good, but it’s not the same. A man should get hard.”

I nodded, thinking that he should be grateful, it could be worse. “At least you can come. Some people can’t even do that.”

“Don’t you have a shot, Doctor? Something so I can get it up.”

I said no, I didn’t, it wasn’t a question of some shot, it was a question of his diabetes. We agreed to work harder at keeping it under control, and we did, but his inability to get an erection remained. He didn’t become depressed, as many do, nor did he get angry. He was matter-of-fact, candid, even funny at times. He told me that his wife liked him better the way he was.

“I don’t run around,” he explained. “It’s not that I can’t . . . the ladies, they don’t seem to mind the way I am. In fact, they seem to like it. I just don’t want to, it doesn’t feel right, I don’t feel like a man.”

“So the marriage is better?”

He shrugged. “She’s a prude. She’d rather not have sex anyway. So how about a hormone shot, Doc? What do we got to lose?”

His optimism was infectious, and I gave him a shot of testosterone. And another a few weeks later. It didn’t change anything. The next time I saw him he was carrying a newspaper clipping.

“I heard about this operation.” He handed me the article. “They got something they put in your penis to make it hard. A metal rod, something like that. They also got this tube they can put in. With a pump, so you can pump it up when you’re ready and let it down when you’re finished. What do you think, Doc?”

I knew a little about the implants. The rods were okay, except the penis stayed stiff all the time. It was a nuisance, and sometimes it hurt if it got bent the wrong way. The inflatable tubes were unreliable, sometimes breaking open, other times not deflating when they were supposed to. I told him this.

“It’s worth a try,” he said. “What do we got to lose?”

It was four or five months before I saw him again. He couldn’t wait to get me in the examining room, pulling down his pants almost as soon as I shut the door. Through the slit in his underwear his penis pointed at me like a finger. His face beamed.

“I can go for hours now, Doc,” he said proudly. “Six, eight, all night if I want. And look at this . . .” He bent it to the right, where it stayed, nearly touching his leg. Then to the left. Then straight up, then down. “Any position, for as long as I want. The women, they love it.”

I sat there, marveling. “That’s great.”

“You should see them,” he said, bending it down in the shape of a question mark and stuffing it back in his pants. “They go crazy. I’m like a kid, Doc. They can’t keep up with me.”

I thought of him, sixty-two years old, happy, stiff, humping away on an old mattress, stopping every so often to ask his companion that night which way she wanted it. Did she like it better left or right, curved or straight, up or down? He was a man now, and he loved women. I asked about his wife.

“She wants to divorce me,” he said. “I got too many women now.”

• • • •

The question, I think, is not so much what I have in common with the banded krait of India, him slithering through the mud of that ancient country’s monsoon-swollen rivers, me sitting pensively in a cardigan at my desk. We share that certain sequence of nucleic acids, that gene on the Y chromosome that makes us male. The snake is aggressive; I am loyal and dependable. He is territorial; I am a faithful family man. He dominates the female of his species; I am strong, reliable, a good lover.

The question really is how I differ from my wife. We lie in bed, our long bodies pressed together as though each of us were trying to become the other. We talk, sometimes of love, mostly of problems. She says, my job, it’s so hard, I’m so tired, my body aches. And I think, that’s too bad, I’m so sorry, where is the money to come from, be tough, buck up. I say, I am insecure at work, worried about being a good father, a proper husband. And she says, you are good, I love you, which rolls off of me like water. She strokes my head, and I feel trapped; I stroke hers and she purrs like a cat. What is this? I ask, nervous, frightened. Love, she says. Kiss me.

• • • •

I am still so baffled. It is not as simple as the brains of rats. As a claw, a fang, a battlefield scarred with bodies. I want to possess, and be possessed.

One night she said to me, “I think men and women are two different species.”

It was late. We were close, not quite touching.

“Maybe soon,” I said. “Not quite yet.”

She yawned. “It might be better. It would certainly be easier.”

I took her hand and squeezed it. “That’s why we cling so hard to one another.”

She snuggled up to me. “We like it.”

I sighed. “It’s because we know someday we might not want to cling at all.”

References:

1. Wachtel, Stephen: H-Y Antigen and the Biology of Sex Determination, New York, Grune & Stratton, 1983, p. 170.

2. Ibid, p. 172.

3. Gordon, H., in Vallet, HL & Porter, IH (eds): Genetic Mechanisms of Sexual Development, New York, Academic Press, 1979, p. 18.

4. Rudolf, IE, et al.: Whither the Male?: Studies in Functionally Split Identities, Philadelphia, Ova Press, 1982.

© 1986 by Michael Blumlein.

Originally published in Interzone.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Blumlein is the author of The Movement Of Mountains, X,Y, The Healer, and The Roberts, as well as two story collections, The Brains Of Rats and What The Doctor Ordered. He has been nominated twice for the World Fantasy Award and twice for the Bram Stoker Award. He has written for the stage and for film. His novel X,Y was made into a feature-length movie. In addition to writing, Dr. Blumlein is a practicing physician. You can find out more about him at michaelblumlein.com

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

Hot Rods

Cat Sparks

The winds blow pretty regular across the dried-up lake. Traction's good — when luck's on your side you can reach three hundred KPH or faster. Harper watches the hot rods race on thick white salt so pure and bright the satellites use it for colour calibration.

Harper doesn't care about souped-up hot rods. Throwdowns, throwbacks, who can go the longest, fastest, hardest. But there's not much else to do in Terina Flat. She used to want to be a journalist, back when such professions still existed. Back when the paper that employed you didn't own you. Back when paper still meant paper. Back before the world clocked up past three degrees and warming. Back when everybody clamoured for Aussie coal and wheat and sheep. The sheep all died when the topsoil blew away in a dust cloud stretching almost five hundred ks. Ships still come for the uranium. Other countries bring their own land with them. Embassies, fenced off and private, no one in or out without a pass. Cross the wire and they get to shoot you dead.

Harper thinks about her boyfriend Lachie Groom as the racers pick up speed. The future plans they've made between them. How they're gonna get the hell out of Terina, score work permits for Sydney or Melbourne. They say white maids and pool boys are in high demand in the walled suburban enclaves. Only Lachie couldn't wait. Said they needed the money now, not later.

The racers purpose-build their dry lake cars from whatever they can scavenge. Racers used to care about the look, these days it's all about the speed. There's nothing new, no paint to tart things up. No juice to run on except for home-strained bio-D. You need the real stuff for start up and shut down. The racers pool their meagre cash, score black market diesel from a guy who hauls it in by camel train.

She can hear them coming before she sees them, kicking up thick clouds of salty dust. The pitch drops dramatically as they pass; she takes a good long look as the cars smudge the horizon. Hot rods, classics and jalopies, streamliners and old belly tankers, all the side windows and gaps taped firm against the salt. It gets into everything: your clothes, your hair, your skin. Nothing lives or grows upon it. No plants, no insects, not a single blade of grass.

The short racecourse is five k long, the long one near to twelve. King of the short run is Cracker Jack, Lachie's cousin — plain Cracker to his mates. Obsessed with Dodges. Today's pride and joy is a 1968 Dodge Charger, automatic, gauges still intact. Purpose built for the super speedway, veteran of Daytona and Darlington.

He loves those cars like nothing else alive. Spends everything he has on keeping them moving. Harper has come to envy the racing regulars: Bing Reh, Lucas Clayton, Scarlett Ottico. Others. There's enough on the salt flats to keep them focused. Enough to get them out of bed in the morning.

Cracker nods at Harper; she throws him half a smile. Checks out his sweat-slicked, salt-encrusted arms. "I'll take you out there," he says, wiping his forehead. No need to specify where out there. She knows he's talking about the American Base — and Lachie.

She doesn't say no but he gauges her expression. "After sundown. The others don't have to know."

Unfortunately, in towns like Terina Flat, everyone knows everybody else's business.

"Was a stupid plan," she tells him. "We never should have . . ."

Cracker dusts salt flecks off his arms. "It was a fucken' awesome plan. 'Bout time we got a look behind that wire. Found out what all the bullshit is about."

She shrugs. Her and Lachie's "plan" had sounded simple. Just two people trying to keep in touch. Inching around a Base commandment that seems much harsher than it ought to be.

Cracker tried to talk Lachie out of taking the job at all. Too late. By then, Base medics had tested his blood, piss, and spit. He'd signed away his rights on the dotted line.

Lachie's been gone almost a week — the full week if you're counting Sunday, which Harper is because she's counting days, hours, minutes, seconds. Segregating Sundays is for the churchy folks. Whole town's riddled with true believers since the heavens clammed and the good soil blew away.

"S'no trouble," says Cracker.

Harper shakes her head. Her eyes are focused on the middle distance. On Janny Christofides and that beat up 1968 Ford Mk 2 Cortina she loves more than most girls love their boyfriends. Janny's boyfriend's been on Base six months. She never wins a race, but she keeps on trying.

Lachie's not so far away, just over the wire on newly foreign soil — American, although it could just as easily have been China or India or Russia.

Once past that wire, you don't come back until your contract's through. Money comes out, sometimes with a message. Stuff like I miss you honey and I love you and tell grandma not to worry and it's okay in here, the food is pretty good.

The whole town knows about that food. They watch it trucking in by convoy, trucks long enough to fit houses in them. Refrigerated, loaded up with ice cream. Bananas from the Philippines, prime beef barely off the hoof. They stand there salivating in the hot red dust. Whole town's been on starvation rations since before the last town council meeting proper, the one where Mr. Bryce got shot in the leg.

Crude jokes about Lachie circulate, not quite out of earshot. Somehow everyone found out about their ribbon secret. Voices carping on about how he's probably too distracted. Too busy shagging those hot chick Growler pilots. Boeing EA-18Gs — sleek and fast — have been burning across the blanched blue sky all week.

She ignores them, watches as a flecked and rusted 1936 Plymouth sedan tailgates a '58 Chevrolet Apache that once used to be red, apple rosy.

Cracker tries to shift the subject. Says those 18Gs were manufactured in Missouri — what's left of it. Mumbles something about future threats across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Harper recalls peculiar ads on free-to-air: The smiling lady saying shit like Stealth is perishable; only a Growler provides full spectrum protection. Making stealth sound like a brand of sunscreen. What use could there be for stealth in Terina Flat? Nothing but more sky than anyone can handle laced with impotent wisps of cloud.

The racers pass, wave, whoop and holler, some of the vehicles disintegrating in motion, belching smoke and farting acrid fumes. People used to think that only topless roadsters could hit top speeds. Back when Lake Gairdner was the only lake to race on. Back before the Bases and the droughts. Back before a lot of things that changed this country into someplace you'd barely recognise.

Harper turns her back on them all and starts walking toward home.

Cracker runs to catch up with her. "Those guys don't mean nothing by it. Half of 'em's gonna be taking Base contracts themselves."

She keeps walking.

"Wanna ride?"

"Nope."

"You really gonna hoof it all the way?"

She nods. Walking gives her time to think. Time to run through all the reasons she's not going back to the Base. Not tonight — or any other night. Not even with Cracker, who she trusts more than she's ever trusted anyone aside from Lachie.

Eventually the salty crunch gives way to russet dirt. Her boots disturb the road's powdery dust. No salt here, just brown on brown. Crooked fence posts, barbed wire curling in the sun.

Not everything is dead or dying. She admires the millet, still holding its own, but the sorghum fields have seen far better days. There used to be rice, but rice needs irrigation and for irrigation you need rain. No decent rainfall three years running, which is how come council got desperate enough to call in a priest-of-the-air. Prayer vigils week in, week out, have altered nothing.

Apparently a flying priest worked miracles in Trundle, scoring them forty millimetres three days in a row. Not just hearsay, plenty of Terina locals were present when the heavens opened. Plastic buckets clutched against their chests, praising Jesus and the man in the yellow Cessna.

When the downpour ceased, a flock of black and white banded birds descended. Whole sky was thick with them. Stilts, reportedly confused, as if they had been expecting something other than Trundle mud at the end of their epic journey.

A year on now and prayer vigils have all dried up. Terina passed the hat around, everybody kicking in what they can scrounge.

Harper's toes are blistered and her shirt is soaked with sweat. Things come in threes — or so folks say. Three days of rain for Trundle, in a row. Three nights was how long Lachie managed to tie a bit of ribbon to the fence. Low so the Hellfighter spotlights wouldn't catch it. Nothing fancy. No messages attached. But from the fourth night onwards there was no ribbon. Nothing.

Lachie is as close to family as she has. Dad's long gone, there's only her and Mum. Mum was all for him taking that contract job.

Dusk is falling by time she makes it back. Still hot, but tempered by gentle breaths of wind. A warm glow pulsing from the big revival tent. She knows her mother will be in there alongside all the other mothers. She knows she ought to go inside and grab a bite to eat, if nothing else.

• • • •

Beyond the fraying canvas flap lies a warm enveloping glow; a mix of lantern light and tallow candle. Town still has plenty of functioning generators, but they make a lot of smoke and noise.

The overpowering tang of sweat mixed in with cloying, cheap perfume. Still hot long after the sun's gone down, women fanning their necks with outdated mail order catalogues. Out of their farming duds and all frocked up, like Sunday church, not plain old Thursday evening. Scones and sticky Anzac biscuits piled high on trestle tables. Offerings. Harper's stomach grumbles at the sight.

Reg Clayton has the microphone. He's telling some story she's sure she's heard before about nitrogen and ploughing rotted legumes.

Her mother claps and cheers from second row. Dry dirt has got inside her head. Made her barking mad as all the others. Farmers with their fallow stony fields, rusted up tractors and heat-split butyl tires. All for praying for the rains to come. They really believe that praying makes a difference.

The big tent puts some hope back in the air — Harper gives it that much credit, even if she doesn't buy their Jesus bullshit. Jesus isn't coming and he isn't bringing rain. Jesus and his pantheon of angels have snubbed their town before moving on to bigger, better things.

She lets the tent flap fall again before anyone catches sight of her. Not everyone in the tent is old but most of them are. Old enough to believe in miracles. To believe that flying in some Jesus freak from Parkes might make it rain.

When the singing starts, it's sudden as a thunderclap.

When peace like a river,

attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll . . .

Three years have passed since any of them clapped eyes on the dirty trickle that was once the proud Kilara river. Sea billows — whatever the hell they are — seem more than a million miles from Terina Flat.

Harper jumps when a firm hand presses upon her shoulder. It's only Cracker and he jumps back in response.

"Didn't mean to startle ya. Coming out to Base with me or what?"

She shies away from the tent flap, away from the candied light. He lopes after her like a giant puppy.

"Not going back out there again," she stops and says at last. "What would be the point of it? There's nothing to see but wire and towers — and what if we get caught? You know what they say happens to trespassers. Those two guys from Griffith that — "

"Those two bastards buggered off to Sydney."

"Cracker, nobody knows what happened to those guys."

The swell of hymns gets louder, the voices enunciating clearly.

He sends the snow in winter,

The warmth to swell the grain,

The breezes and the sunshine,

And soft, refreshing rain.

Cracker grunts at the mention of snow. "Not bloody lately he doesn't."

Harper almost smiles.

The two of them bolt when the tent flap flies open, taking cover behind the shadowy row of trucks and cars that reek of sour corn pulp and rancid vegetable oil. Cracker barely spares the cars a glance. He has no interest in vehicles whose sole purpose is to ferry occupants from A to B.

"Yer mum in with that lot?" he asks.

"Yup."

"Mine too."

She nods. All the mums and dads are in the tent, banging tambourines and clapping hands. All the folks who yell at the younger ones for frittering their time and cash on hot rods.

They wait until the coast is clear, then climb the tufty knob of ground that offers a clear view across the dried up river. All the way to the American Base. Harper can't see that river bed without picturing Lachie, boasting about the time he and his brother dug a rust red 1936 Ford Model 48 up out of the silt. How they had to scrape out twenty-six inches of dirt from firewall to tailpan.

The Base has a glow to it, a greeny-ochre luminescence. The kind of colour mostly seen in long-exposure borealis photos.

Behind that wire and the machine gun-guarded towers lies a big rectangular grid: a forty-eight-element high frequency antenna array. Beyond it stands a power generation building, Imaging Riometer, and a flat-roofed operations centre built of cinder blocks. They all know this; it's no kind of secret. Base PR admits to investigating the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. It supports a cluster of ELF wave transmitters slamming 3.6 million watts up at the ionosphere. There have been whispers of other things such as successful moon bounce experiments — whatever that means. New kinds of weapons for new kinds of war, still in experimental phases. What weapons and what war are never specified.

The tent hymns fade, absorbed by other forms of background noise. Cracker stuffs his hands into his pockets, closes his eyes, feels the warm breeze on his face. When he opens them, Harper's staring at the Base and pointing.

Above it, the sky has shifted burgundy, like dried blood. Lightning bolts, ramrod straight — not jagged — strike the ground, then thicken, changing colour, and slowly fade.

"What the . . ."

"Did you just see that?"

She's fidgeting, running her thumb along the friendship bracelet knotted on her right wrist. Three blue ribbons tightly braided. Three wishes for bringing her Lachie safe back home.

• • • •

The plane appears like a lonesome dove, winging its way to Terina Flat, bringing with it salvation in the form of a priest decked out like Elvis Presley. Elvises aren't unusual in these parts, what with Terina being so close to Parkes and its famous Elvis festival. Back in January, fifty thousand tourists flooded in to celebrate the King's hundredth birthday.

Harper has never seen one of them up close. The Elvis who lands on the blistered tarmac is dusty and kind of faded. Paunchy, but not in the proper Elvis way. A golden cross hangs around his neck. A knife tucked into his boot if he's smart. A pistol hooked through his belt if he's even smarter.

Town folks skip right past the rhinestones and move straight to calling him Father. Press around him like bleating sheep. Harper doesn't plan on making contact. She cringes as the shrivelled biddies primp and fuss and preen. Flirting with the sly old dog, promising him pumpkin scones and carrot cake — all chokos with artificial flavour added if truth be known, although you won't catch any of them admitting such a thing. Lamingtons run soft and gooey from the broiling sun. Local pissweak beer to wash it down with.

The Elvis plane though, that's something else. An ancient Beech A60 Duke, knocked up and turbo charged — Cracker was mouthing off about that plane before the sunlight hit its yellow sides, planes being the one thing capable of distracting him from Dodges.

Harper waits until the fuss dies down. Elvis shoos his flock away from the landing strip towards the revival tent. Promises to be joining them just as soon as he's checked his luggage. Once the parents and grandparents have moved off, small children run to place their grubby palms on the fuselage.

"Piss off, you little buggers," spits Darryl Quiggen, charged with checking the battered old bird over, hand-rolled cigarette dangling from his pinched white lips. Used to be some kind of expert once. The tang of avgas hangs in the air — the good stuff, not the crap distilled from corn.

Quiggen pays Harper no attention. He's never had much luck with women, finds it preferable to pretend they don't exist. She makes sure she's out of his line of sight, inching as close as she can get away with to examine the peculiar assortment of religious symbols painted across the plane's canary yellow casing.

Jesus — rendered clear as day, hands pressed together in prayer. Surrounding his head, a thick halo of icons: an egg with a cross, a flaming heart with barbed wire wrapped across its middle. A snake and an anchor. Some poorly rendered birds. A hand with an eye set into its palm. A star made of two triangles. A crescent moon and a tiny little star. Some writing that looks like it might be Hindu — not that she'd know a Hindu from a Sikh.

There's something strange underneath the wings. Bulging clusters of attachments reminiscent of wasps' nests. She steps up closer, but she isn't game to touch. Up closer still, she can see the welds and other bodged repairs beneath paint blisters. Paint costs a fortune. There must be something well worth hiding under there.

She peers in through the grimy windows until Quiggin shoos her off. The rear cabin's stuffed with all kinds of junk. Looks like maybe Elvis sleeps in it.

The plane serves well as a distraction. She's trying not to think about the Base's empty wire, the thick red lightning and the sickly green light rippling over everything the night before. The Base is locked down, nothing unauthorised in or out — not even bits of ribbon tied to wire. Earn good money was what they said, money they were all in need of. They were desperate or curious, all the ones that took up contract offers. Three months on. No worries. She'll be all right. But how often three months extended into six or twelve. How often, at the end of it, they climbed into one of those Blackhawks and disappeared.

She's sheltering beneath the concrete shade of what remains of a Shell service station. Hard to believe people used to drive right up and pump petrol into their tanks.

Dusty Elvis saunters over, his jaw working over a wad of gum. "Like the look of my equipment now, do ya? Give you a private tour if you come back later." He winks.

Harper straightens up and inches back. "You oughta be ashamed of yourself," she says. "These people don't have much to spare. Drought's taken everything the wheat rust missed the first time through."

"Mind your own goddamned business," he spits, forcing her back with the bulk of his rhinestoned, jumpsuited bulk, fiddling with a bunch of keys attached to his belt. Reaches into his pocket for mirror shades, the kind with wire frames. He somehow looks bigger — meaner — with them on. He leans his shoulder against the crumbling concrete wall, looks her up and down until she itches. Tugs a packet of cigarettes from another pocket. Tailor-mades — they cost a bloody fortune. Sticks one on his lower lip, lights it with a scratched and battered zippo.

"Girl like you oughta be thinking of her future," he says. Rhinestones sparkle in the stark midmorning light. The scent of tobacco curls inside her nose. "I was you, I'd be fucking my way up and out of this dustbowl shithouse." He jams the cigarette between fat lips and smiles.

"Lucky you're not me then," she says drily. Waiting. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction. He keeps on smoking, smiling, leering, his B.O. permeating the plumes of tobacco smoke. She turns on her heel and walks away, angry, but keeping it bottled up like she's learned to do with guys who stare at her like hungry dogs.

"Don't wait too long," he calls after her. "Yer not that far off yer use-by date, you know."

Harper avoids the revival tent and its excited, anticipatory believers. She heads for the crowd amassing in Whitlam Park, which still boasts two functioning wooden picnic tables not too warped and cracked from years of exposure. Young people cluster around a battered laptop, taking turns to log on through the Base's webpage portal.

Janny looks up when she sees Harper coming. "There's one for you," she calls across their heads.

Harper almost doesn't want to read it. She already fears what it isn't going to say. Four simple words: Pet Cooper for me. There isn't any dog called Cooper. Lachie created the imaginary pooch when he filled in his application form. Cooper is their private code meaning everything's okay. No mention of Cooper means everything isn't.

The message on screen supposedly from Lachie is bland and cold. Words that could have been written from anybody to anybody.

"They still eating like kings in there?" calls someone from behind.

She nods in silence and hits the delete key.

• • • •

By sundown, everyone is drunk. Rain is the only topic of conversation. Anecdotes stretching from Lightning Ridge all the way down to the Eden coast.

Outside the tent it's hard to tell at what point prayer vigil descends into full bore hootenanny. Night wears on and the music gets louder. Clapping and shouting and stomping for rain, fuelled by Ray Clayton's palm heart toddy, what they drink when they're out of everything else. Songs for Jesus, dancing for him, too, work boots and sun-cracked plastic sandals thumping hard on the warped and weathered dance boards.

With a blast of laughter, a couple of Country Women's Association stalwarts burst their way out through the tent flaps. "Just as hot out here as 'tis inside," says one, fanning her bright pink face — frowning when she notices Harper, a look that screams Girl, you oughta be throwing your lot in with the righteous.

Because everyone who's anyone in Terina Flat is stomping and shrieking and hollering, both inside and outside the revival tent — social niceties be damned. Priest-Elvis has prepared his song list well: "Kentucky Rain" for openers, following on with "How Great Thou Art." Short verse speeches in between, paving the way to "I Shall Not Be Moved."

In the pauses between numbers, conversational buzz drones like the chittering of cicadas. A few stray blasts of it swim towards Harper through the heat. Nothing she doesn't already know: that entrance to the revival tent is by gold-coin donation; that the way-past-their-bedtimes children scampering underfoot have been encouraged to write to God on precious scraps of multicoloured paper (the remaining dregs of the school's once vibrant art department). At the crack of dawn tomorrow, smoke-lipped Elvis is going to hit the skies. Fly up high as close as he dares to deliver God their messages, extra personal.

Yeah, right.

As "It's Now or Never" starts up, Harper's surprised to catch old Doc Chilby slipping out through the tent flap. The women exchange suspicious glances. Doc Chilby nods, so Harper returns the favour. Doc Chilby delivered her into this world. She deserves respect even if she's thrown her lot in with the Bible thumpers.

Up on the knoll, the racers admire the Base lit up like Christmas squared, same as every other night, but this night there's something extra in the air. The town itself emits barely a glow. Night skies dark enough to drown the Milky Way in all its glory.

There's talk of cars and trade in missing parts. Who needs what and what they're going to barter for it. How the camel guy is late again. How someone's cousin's investigating other sources.

Janny Christofides saunters over sipping on a can of something warm and flat. "Saw you checking out that Jesus plane. A cloud seeder for sure."

"Didya get a look at it up close?" says Harper.

Janny shakes her head. "Didn't have to."

Harper continues. "It's got these bulges under the wings like wasp nests."

Janny nods, enthusiasm causing her to spill a couple of splashes from her can. "Dispensers holding fifty-two units apiece. Flares built into the wings themselves. Avoids resistance. As little drag as possible." Her eyes are shining.

"How'd ya know all this?"

"Old man used to do crop dusting, don't forget."

"But dusting's different. Seeding's illegal — "

"Dusting's illegal — there's nothing left to dust. Everything's illegal, unless you're frackers or big foreign money or those massive fuckoff land barges dumping toxic shit deep into cracks."

"We oughta report him," Harper says bitterly, remembering Elvis grinding his cigarette butt into Terina dirt.

"Like anybody's gonna give two shits." Janny cocks her head back in the direction of the revival tent. The singing has long since become incoherent. Songs mashing in to one another, Presley numbers indistinguishable from hymns. "How much you reckon we're paying that — "

She doesn't get to finish her sentence. Somebody calls out "Lightning!"

Janny looks up, startled, points to the empty airspace above the Base. Racers stand there frozen, jam jars of fermented melon hooch clutched in their hands.

"I don't see any — "

"Wait — there it is again!"

This time they see and hear it, too, a cracking split. Like thunder but not. Thick spikes stabbing at the fallow dirt. Aftershocks of colour, green and red.

There's a scrabble for phones as a volley of sharp, thick beams shoot upwards from the Base. High-pitched whining that fades, then swells, then fades. A sonic boom followed by overbearing silence. The town dogs start barking and howling all at once. Nothing to see now. No more laser lights. The racers stuff their phones into pockets and head for their cars.

Cracker's already seated behind the wheel of his precious Dodge Charger. Harper runs up to cadge a lift.

"Stay here," he warns as he's revving up his engine.

"Are you shitting me?"

But he's got this serious look on his face and he's not going to give her a ride. No matter. She waits till he takes off, then climbs in beside Bing Reh in his 1951 Ford Five-Star pickup. The racers are heading to the salt, their vehicles overloaded. Everyone's in a hurry to get out there.

The Base has fallen still and silent. No more lasers. No more lightshow. No Blackhawks either, which seems odd, considering.

There's more light than there ought to be, all coming from a suspicious patch of sky above the salt.

More lightning strikes drown out the growl of engines.

"Looks dangerous!" says Harper. Bing nods, eyes on the road. Half drunk or not, they have to go check it out.

Her heart pounds; thinking Lachie, please stay under cover, whatever you do, stay away from that chain link fence.

Things are not as they had seemed when viewed from the edge of town. The lightning's localised, not spread across the sky — they got that right, but it isn't striking anywhere close to Base. The salt flats are soaking up the brunt of it. Singed salt particles fling themselves at Harper's nose. She sneezes, half expecting blood. Too dark to tell what she wipes across her jeans.

There's no stopping Cracker. He aims his Dodge straight out into the thick of it. Looks like he's deciding to play chicken with the lightning. Bing slows down. Harper knows what that means; he's giving her the opportunity to get out. And she should get out, because not doing so is crazy, but instead she nods and the pickup's engine roars and surges.

She can smell that smell no one ever smells anymore, that heady, moody tang just before a thunderhead lets rip. Plant oil sucked from dry rocks and soil mixed up with ozone and spores. Chemical explanations half remembered from biology class, never dreaming back then how rare the experience of rain would become in future times.

They gather, staring at the crazy lights.

"Red Sprite lightning," says Bing, "Or something like it."

Nobody argues. They've all seen strange stuff above and around the Base. Clouds that didn't look like clouds when no clouds hung in any other patch of sky. Lenticular shapes like UFOs, only insubstantial. Ephemeral, like ghost residue of clouds. Not made of metal like anything you'd expect.

"Check it out!"

Sharp intakes of breath all round as a thick red lightning bolt travels horizontally from one cloud to another. Hits the second hard, like there's something solid at its core, shatters into separate fragments, which coagulate into orbs.

Balls of cracking light drift down, hover, pause, pink neon glow emanating from their centre mass. Pulsing. Like the crackling orbs are breathing.

"Man, I don't like the — "

"Shhh."

More crackling, louder, like automatic weapons fire. They cover their ears and duck, only it's not ammo. It's coming from the glowing orbs, close to the ground now, pulsing with red and light. A high-to-low-pitched whistle, almost musical.

A blood red, cloudshape jellyfish emerges, dangles tentacles of pure blue light. Drags across the surface of the salt. Almost moves like a living, breathing creature.

The air hangs thick with acrid ozone stench. Some of those lightning stabs are getting close.

Beneath the cloudshape, thick swirling coils writhe like a nest of snakes. Pale clouds forming angry faces, elongated skulls, animals with jagged teeth.

Somehow, some way, they lose track of time. Dawn is so insipid by comparison, they almost miss it when it finally arrives. Their eyes are dazed from the flash and flare. Colours dancing across their inner vision.

• • • •

Harper isn't the one who first spots Lachie. She's staring in the opposite direction. Up into a pink and orange sky at the dark gnat wobbling across its luminescent swathe. Elvis in his patched-up plane, heaven bound with a hangover, she hopes, of Biblical proportions. A plane packed tight with cigarette-size sticks of silver iodide if Janny's right. Cold rain. Pyrotechnic flares. At best it's alchemy, at worst, yet another hick town scam. Perhaps he will coax moisture from the wispy cirrus. Not enough to make a difference. Just enough to make sure he gets paid.

"Harper!"

Cracker's voice. She turns around as, dazed and moaning, three figures stagger across the salt. Somebody's got binoculars. They shout the names out: Lachie, Danno, Jason. Staggering like zombies, only this isn't some kind of joke. They get back in their vehicles and race out to intercept the scarecrow men. Clothing torn up, singed and smoking. Eyes wide and shit-scared sightless.

Harper's screaming Lachie Lachie Lachie when she comprehends the state he's in. He doesn't react. Doesn't even look at her. Doesn't stare at anything. Just ahead.

All three are hurt bad. Jason is the worst.

Everybody's shouting at everybody else. Eventually Lachie cocks his head at the sound of Harper's voice. She goes to fling her arms around his neck but Janny grabs her wrist and holds on tight. "Needs Doc Chilby," she says grimly. Harper slaps her hand away, but she doesn't dare touch Lachie, because Janny's right.

"Base's got a hospital," says Lucas Clayton, son of Reg. "State of the art."

Nobody else says anything, but everybody's thinking it. If they take the injured boys back to the Base, they'll never be seen again. That lightning was not the natural kind. Whatever just happened here is Base-related.

A siren wails in the far off distance. The sound makes everybody jump.

"Doc Chilby will know what to do," says Bing.

Lachie and Danno get loaded into the back of Bing's pickup. Harper spreads down a blanket first, a ratty old thing balled up and wedged beside the tool kit. She tries not to wince at the sight of those burns. Keeps saying, "Everything's gonna be okay," although it isn't.

The third guy, Jason, is laid gently across the back seats of a Holden Torana. Softly moaning like an animal, he seems the most out of it of the three.

They don't notice the Blackhawks until too late. The cars split up — a reflex action — fanning in all directions, two vehicles heading for Doc Chilby's by different routes, the others planning to drive decoy all over until they're apprehended or run out of juice.

Harper presses her back against the cabin, crouches, hanging on with one hand to the pickup's battered side. The ride is reasonably smooth until they reach the limits of the salt. Each bump and pothole sets the injured men off moaning.

By time they reach the town's outskirts, Lachie is delirious and screaming. Impossible to keep the salt out of their wounds. He tries to sit up, but the passage is too ragged. Harper holds her breath, heart thumping painfully against her ribs. Hang on, Lachie. Hang on till we get there.

The sky is streaked with morning glow, the Jesus plane now the size of a lonely bird. A few clouds scudding, clumping stickily together. More than usual.

Any minute now the pickup will get intercepted by soldiers in full combat gear. Or a HAZMAT team in an unmarked van — they've all seen that in movies on TV.

But the streets are empty. Everyone's still clustered around the revival tent or passed out on the ground. All necks are craned, all eyes on the Jesus plane looping and threading its way through a puff of clouds like a drunken gnat. Rosaries muttered, beads looped tightly around arms and wrists. Clutched in hands, pressed against hearts and lips. Holy Mary Mother of — Jesus, is that rain?

Thick, fat drops smack the dusty ground.

Proper rain for the first time in three long years. Rain coaxed from clouds not even in sight when the plane began its journey.

Looks like Elvis is no charlatan after all. Elvis is the real deal. Elvis can talk to Jesus and make it pour.

And then they're dancing, arms flung into the air. Laughing and shrieking and praising the heavenly host. "Ave Maria" as bloated splats drill down upon their heads, soaking their shirts and floral print dresses, muddying up the packed dirt hospital car park. Mud splattered boots and trouser legs.

There'll be time for Jesus later. Harper stays by Lachie's side as the injured men are unloaded off the pickup. Straight through to Emergency, lucky such an option still exists. Terina Community Hospital once boasted fifty beds; now only ten of them are still in operation. The place was supposed to have closed a year ago. They're all supposed to drive to Parkes if an accident takes place. Supposed to use the Base if it's life or death.

One of the racers must have thought to phone ahead. Two nurses stand tentatively inside the sterile operating theatre. Waiting for Doc Chilby to scrub up. Waiting for something. Harper doesn't find out what — she's hustled into another room and made to fill out forms. Their Medicare numbers — how the fuck is she supposed to know? Didn't they have their wallets in their pants?

"Don't call the Base," she says but it's too late. That helicopter stopped chasing them for a reason — there's only one place in town they can go for help.

An hour of waiting before a nurse brings her a cup of tea. Two biscuits wrapped in cellophane and a magazine with blonde models on the cover. The magazine's two years old, its recipes ripped roughly out of the back.

"Is Lachie gonna be okay?" she asks.

The nurse is about her age or maybe a few years older. Nobody Harper knows or went to school with. The hospital has trouble keeping staff. They rotate young ones from the bigger towns but they never stay for more than a couple of months.

"That other boy died," the nurse says eventually. "I'm not supposed to tell you."

Harper knows the nurse means Jason even though she didn't say his name. He'd been in the worst shape of all three.

"Were they all from the Base?"

"Yeah, reckon." The nurse doesn't seem to think anything of the fact. Definitely not a local, then. To her, the Base is nothing more than it seems.

The nurse chews on her bottom lip. "Never seen anything like it. Multiple lightning strikes, each one, poor things. Left its mark on them, it did. Tattoos like blood red trees." She points to the base of her own neck by way of demonstration. "What were they doing out there on the salt in the middle of the night?"

Harper doesn't have an answer. The nurse is not expecting one, not even wild speculation. She wanders over to the window and lifts the faded blue and purple blind. "Still raining, I see. Least that's something."

Still raining. Words that take a while to sink in. Harper unfolds her legs from underneath her, heaves up out of the sagging beige settee.

The nurse's heels clip-clop against linoleum as she leaves.

The opened blind reveals a world awash with mud and gloom. Water surges along the gutters like a river. Slow-moving cars plough through, their wheels three-quarters covered. More water than Harper has seen in a long, long time.

"When can I see Lachie?" she calls after the nurse. Too late. The corridor is empty.

Harper slips the crinkly biscuit packet into her pocket, hops down the fire escape two steps at a time.

The water in the car park is brown and up to her knees already. A couple of men in anoraks wade out in an attempt to rescue their cars.

• • • •

The rain keeps falling, too hard, too fast. Main Street is barely recognisable. Whole families clamber up onto roofs, clinging to spindly umbrella stems — and each other. Half-drenched dogs bark up a storm. Nobody's singing songs of praise to Jesus.

She pictures the revival tent swept away in a tsunami of soggy scones and lammingtons, trampled as panic sets in, random and furious as the rain itself.

The deluge is too much, too quick for the ground to cope with. Hard baked far too many months to soak it up. There's nowhere for the surge to slosh but up and down the streets. Vehicles bob along like corks and bottles.

She doesn't want to think about the cattle in the fields. Dogs chained up in unattended backyards. Children caught in playgrounds.

She's wading, waist-deep in filthy swell when a wave breaks over her head. A wave on Main Street, of all unlikely things. Next thing she knows, she's going under, mouth full of mud and silt. Scrabbling for a slippery purchase, bangs her shins on something hard, unseen. This can't be happening. The rain keeps falling, mushing everything to brown and grey.

Her leg hurts but she keeps on moving, half swimming, half wading, crawling her way to higher ground. To the knoll. She doesn't recognise it at first. Not until she stands and checks the view. A line of lights snaking out from the Base and heading in her direction.

She's shaking, either from the cold or shock. Bit by bit, the sky is clearing; bright blue peering through grey rents and tears. Clouds the colour of dirty cotton wool break up. Voices shout from rooftop to rooftop. A sound that might be a car backfiring — or a gunshot.

She wipes grit from her eyes with the heel of her palm. Hugs her shoulders, slick hair plastered against her face.

"Leg's bleeding."

It's Janny. She glances down at red rivulets streaking her muddy calf.

"It's nothing."

"Can you walk?"

She nods.

"Better get you up to the hospital then."

Steam rises from the rapidly warming sludge. A cloying smell like rotting leaves and sewage. Damp human shapes mill about, disorganised. Unanchored.

She watches three men in anoraks attempt to right a car. Others stand staring stupidly at the mess. Like they don't know where to start or what to do.

She limps back up to the hospital with Janny by her side. Only two army trucks are parked out the front of it. Doc Chilby stands her ground in a sodden coat, arms folded across her chest. Four soldiers briskly unload boxes, stacking them up on the veranda out of the mud.

Doc Chilby argues with another soldier. "We didn't ask for anything. You're not taking anyone out of here — that's final."

The soldier has his back to Harper; she can't hear what he's saying. Only that the doc is getting flustered, flinching every time a Blackhawk thunders close. She repeats herself, but the soldier isn't listening.

The nurse who told Harper that Jason had died stands smoking on the veranda.

Loud voices emanate from inside the building, then a sudden surge of soldiers swarm. That nurse starts shouting, Doc Chilby too. Three stretchers are borne swiftly down wooden stairs. Weapons raised. Threats issued. The steady thrum of Blackhawk blades drowning out all attempts at negotiation.

The Base has come for its wounded contract workers. Wounded doing what, exactly? Harper has been watching without comprehending. Now wide awake, she adds her own voice to the shouting. Ignores the nurse signalling frantically from the veranda, the ache in her leg, and the Blackhawk's thudding blades. She runs after one of the trucks — too late, it's out of reach. Picks up a rock and throws it. The rock bounces harmlessly off the taut khaki canvas. She almost trips as she reaches for something else to throw. The road's sticky and slippery from rain.

The convoy lumbers like a herd of beasts. A minute later and she's standing helpless in the middle of the road, a chunk of rock gripped tightly in her hand.

Her bleeding leg gets sprayed with mud as a car pulls up beside her. Cracker in a rattling old army Dodge from his collection. The M37 convertible minted 1953. Same colour as the green-grey mud. Dented. Spotted with rust and a couple of bullet holes. Thick treads built to handle difficult terrain.

Neither of them says anything. The crazed glint in his eyes fills her with hope. She climbs into the passenger seat. He floors it, following close behind the trucks at first, then lagging. The old Dodge putters and chokes, but it holds its own.

A bright new day. Sun and daylight are banishing the nighttime landscape's sinister cast. Red-and-blue jellyfish lightning seems like another world ago.

Cracker races, slams his palm down on the horn. The convoy of army trucks ignores him. He keeps his foot pressed to the accelerator. Harper keeps her gaze fixed on the Base.

They can't get in. They'll be turned back at the front gate. Threatened with whatever trespassers get threatened with. Whatever happens, she's ready for it. So is Cracker.

The Base's electronic gates do not slide open. The truck convoy halts. Cracker stops too, but keeps the engine purring. Just in case.

A soldier gets out of the truck ahead and slams the cabin door. He's armed but he hasn't drawn his weapon. She's still gripping that rock chunk in her hand.

"Get out of the vehicle," booms a megaphone voice.

"Not fucken' likely," says Cracker.

"I repeat: Get out of the vehicle."

Nothing happens. Nobody moves. The Dodge keeps grunting and grumbling like a big old dog.

Harper turns the door handle, slides out of the passenger seat. "You can't just do whatever you like," she shouts. She's shaking hard and she knows she'd better drop the rock, not give them any reason. She's waiting for that soldier to draw his gun. "You've got no right," she repeats, softer this time.

He approaches, one arm raised. "Ma'am, this country is at war." The walkie-talkie on his shoulder crackles but he doesn't touch it.

"Which country?" she says, squinting through harsh sunlight. "Which war?"

He gives her a half-arsed smirk but doesn't answer. Mumbles into the electronic device. Turns his back, gets back in the truck.

She lets the rock fall to the dusty road. Dusty. It appears the rain didn't reach this far. Not the strangest thing she's seen in recent times. "Lachie," she says, but it's too late. Too late for Lachie, too late for her and Cracker. The gates slide open with electronic precision. Trucks pass through, one by one. Cracker's Dodge amongst them — too late for turning back. A voice behind commands her to keep moving. Not to turn. Not to pick up any rocks. Not to make any sudden movements.

She looks up just in time to catch a speck in the wide blue sky. A wedge-tailed eagle, coasting on the updraft, its diamond-shaped tail unmistakable. Those birds partner up for life — something else she learned in school. They fly together, perform acrobatics, but she cannot spot the other one, its mate. When she cranes her neck and shades her eyes, a soldier twists her arm behind her back. Pushes her forwards through the steel Base gates. Metal grates as they snap and lock behind her.

© 2015 by Cat Sparks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cat was born in Sydney, Australia. Before settling down to do a PhD in YA climate change fiction, she worked as a graphic designer, photographer and media monitor amongst other (much less interesting) things. She’s currently fiction editor of Cosmos Magazine and formerly manager of Agog! Press. Sixty-five of her short stories have been published since 2000. Her short story collection The Bride Price came out from Ticonderoga Publications in 2013. Right now she’s putting the finishing touches on a novel, Lotus Blue. Cat’s fiction is represented by Jill Grinberg Literary Management, New York.

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

The New Atlantis

Ursula K. Le Guin

Coming back from my Wilderness Week, I sat by an odd sort of man in the bus. For a long time we didn’t talk; I was mending stockings and he was reading. Then the bus broke down a few miles outside Gresham. Boiler trouble, the way it generally is when the driver insists on trying to go over thirty. It was a Supersonic Superscenic Deluxe Longdistance coal-burner, with Home Comfort, that means a toilet, and the seats were pretty comfortable, at least those that hadn’t yet worked loose from their bolts, so everybody waited inside the bus; besides, it was raining. We began talking, the way people do when there’s a breakdown and a wait. He held up his pamphlet and tapped it — he was a dry-looking man with a schoolteacherish way of using his hands — and said, “This is interesting. I’ve been reading that a new continent is rising from the depths of the sea.”

The blue stockings were hopeless. You have to have something besides holes to darn onto. “Which sea?”

“They’re not sure yet. Most specialists think the Atlantic. But there’s evidence it may be happening in the Pacific, too.”

“Won’t the oceans get a little crowded?” I said, not taking it seriously. I was a bit snappish, because of the breakdown and because those blue stockings had been good warm ones.

He tapped the pamphlet again and shook his head, quite serious. “No,” he said. “The old continents are sinking, to make room for the new. You can see that that is happening.”

You certainly can. Manhattan Island is now under eleven feet of water at low tide, and there are oyster beds in Ghirardelli Square.

“I thought that was because the oceans are rising from polar melt.”

He shook his head again. “That is a factor. Due to the greenhouse effect of pollution, indeed Antarctica may become inhabitable. But climatic factors will not explain the emergence of the new — or, possibly, very old — continents in the Atlantic and Pacific.” He went on explaining about continental drift, but I liked the idea of inhabiting Antarctica and daydreamed about it for a while. I thought of it as very empty, very quiet, all white and blue, with a faint golden glow northward from the unrising sun behind the long peak of Mount Erebus. There were a few people there; they were very quiet, too, and wore white tie and tails. Some of them carried oboes and violas. Southward the white land went up in a long silence toward the Pole.

Just the opposite, in fact, of the Mount Hood Wilderness Area. It had been a tiresome vacation: The other women in the dormitory were all right, but it was macaroni for breakfast, and there were so many organized sports. I had looked forward to the hike up to the National Forest Preserve, the largest forest left in the United States, but the trees didn’t look at all the way they do in the postcards and brochures and Federal Beautification Bureau advertisements. They were spindly, and they all had little signs on saying which union they had been planted by. There were actually a lot more green picnic tables and cement Men’s and Women’s than there were trees. There was an electrified fence all around the forest to keep out unauthorized persons. The forest ranger talked about mountain jays, “bold little robbers,” he said, “who will come and snatch the sandwich from your very hand,” but I didn’t see any. Perhaps because that was the weekly Watch Those Surplus Calories! Day for all the women, and so we didn’t have any sandwiches. If I’d seen a mountain jay, I might have snatched the sandwich from his very hand, who knows. Anyhow, it was an exhausting week, and I wished I’d stayed home and practiced, even though I’d have lost a week’s pay because staying home and practicing the viola doesn’t count as planned implementation of recreational leisure as defined by the Federal Union of Unions.

When I came back from my Antarctican expedition, the man was reading again, and I got a look at his pamphlet; and that was the odd part of it. The pamphlet was called “Increasing Efficiency in Public Accountant Training Schools,” and I could see from the one paragraph I got a glance at that there was nothing about new continents emerging from the ocean depths in it — nothing at all.

Then we had to get out and walk on into Gresham, because they had decided that the best thing for us all to do was get onto the Greater Portland Area Rapid Public Transit Lines, since there had been so many breakdowns that the charter bus company didn’t have any more buses to send out to pick us up. The walk was wet, and rather dull, except when we passed the Cold Mountain Commune. They have a wall around it to keep out unauthorized persons, and a big neon sign out front saying COLD MOUNTAIN COMMUNE and there were some people in authentic jeans and ponchos by the highway selling macramé belts and sandcast candles and soybean bread to the tourists. In Gresham, I took the 4:40 GPARPTL Superjet Flyer train to Burnside and East 230th, and then walked to 217th and got the bus to the Goldschmidt Overpass, and transferred to the shuttlebus, but it had boiler trouble, so I didn’t reach the downtown transfer point until ten after eight, and the buses go on a once-an-hour schedule at 8:00, so I got a meatless hamburger at the Longhorn Inch-Thick Steak House Dinerette and caught the nine o’clock bus and got home about ten. When I let myself into the apartment, I flipped the switch to turn on the lights, but there still weren’t any. There had been a power outage in West Portland for three weeks. So I went feeling about for the candles in the dark, and it was a minute or so before I noticed that somebody was lying on my bed.

I panicked, and tried again to turn the lights on.

It was a man, lying there in a long thin heap. I thought a burglar had got in somehow while I was away and died. I opened the door so I could get out quick or at least my yells could be heard, and then I managed not to shake long enough to strike a match, and lighted the candle, and came a little closer to the bed.

The light disturbed him. He made a sort of snorting in his throat and turned his head. I saw it was a stranger, but I knew his eyebrows, then the breadth of his closed eyelids, then I saw my husband.

He woke up while I was standing there over him with the candle in my hand. He laughed and said, still half-asleep, “Ah, Psyche! From the regions which are holy land.”

Neither of us made much fuss. It was unexpected, but it did seem so natural for him to be there, after all, much more natural than for him not be there, and he was too tired to be very emotional. We lay there together in the dark, and he explained that they had released him from the Rehabilitation Camp early because he had injured his back in an accident in the gravel quarry, and they were afraid it might get worse.

If he died there, it wouldn’t be good publicity abroad, since there have been some nasty rumors about deaths from illness in the Rehabilitation Camps and the Federal Medical Association Hospitals, and there are scientists abroad who have heard of Simon, since somebody published his proof of Goldbach’s Hypothesis in Peking. So they let him out early, with eight dollars in his pocket, which is what he had in his pocket when they arrested him, which made it, of course, fair. He had walked and hitched home from Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, with a couple of days in jail in Walla Walla for being caught hitchhiking. He almost fell asleep telling me this, and when he had told me, he did fall asleep. He needed a change of clothes and a bath, but I didn’t want to wake him. Besides, I was tired, too. We lay side by side and his head was on my arm. I don’t suppose that I have ever been so happy. No; was it happiness? Something wider and darker, more like knowledge, more like the night: joy.

• • • •

It was dark for so long, so very long. We were all blind. And there was the cold, a vast, unmoving, heavy cold. We could not move at all. We did not move. We did not speak. Our mouths were closed, pressed shut by the cold and by the weight. Our eyes were pressed shut. Our limbs were held still. Our minds were held still. For how long? There was no length of time; how long is death? And is one dead only after living, or before life as well? Certainly we thought, if we thought anything, that we were dead; but if we had ever been alive, we had forgotten it.

There was a change. It must have been the pressure that changed first, although we did not know it. The eyelids are sensitive to touch. They must have been weary of being shut. When the pressure upon them weakened a little, they opened. But there was no way for us to know that. It was too cold for us to feel anything. There was nothing to be seen. There was black.

But then — ”then,” for the event created time, created before and after, near and far, now and then — ”then” there was the light. One light. One small, strange light that passed slowly, at what distance we could not tell. A small, greenish white, slightly blurred point of radiance, passing.

Our eyes were certainly open, “then,” for we saw it. We saw the moment. The moment is a point of light. Whether in darkness or in the field of all light, the moment is small, and moves, but not quickly. And “then” it is gone.

It did not occur to us that there might be another moment. There was no reason to assume that there might be more than one. One was marvel enough: that in all the field of the dark, in the cold, heavy, dense, moveless, timeless, placeless, boundless black, there should have occurred, once, a small slightly blurred, moving light! Time need be created only once, we thought.

But we were mistaken. The difference between one and more than one is all the difference in the world. Indeed, that difference is the world.

The light returned.

The same light, or another one? There was no telling.

But, “this time,” we wondered about the light: Was it small and near to us, or large and far away? Again there was no telling; but there was something about the way it moved, a trace of hesitation, a tentative quality, that did not seem proper to anything large and remote. The stars, for instance. We began to remember the stars.

The stars had never hesitated.

Perhaps the noble certainty of their gait had been a mere effect of distance. Perhaps in fact they had hurtled wildly, enormous furnace-fragments of a primal bomb thrown through the cosmic dark; but time and distance soften all agony. If the universe, as seems likely, began with an act of destruction, the stars we had used to see told no tales of it. They had been implacably serene.

The planets, however . . . We began to remember the planets. They had suffered certain changes both of appearance and of course. At certain times of the year Mars would reverse its direction and go backward through the stars. Venus had been brighter and less bright as she went through her phases of crescent, full, and wane. Mercury had shuddered like a skidding drop of rain on the sky flushed with daybreak. The light we now watched had that erratic, trembling quality. We saw it, unmistakably, change direction and go backward. It then grew smaller and fainter; blinked — an eclipse? — and slowly disappeared.

Slowly, but not slowly enough for a planet.

Then — the third “then!” — arrived the indubitable and positive Wonder of the World, the Magic Trick, watch now, watch, you will not believe your eyes, mama, mama, look what I can do —

Seven lights in a row, proceeding fairly rapidly, with a darting movement, from left to right. Proceeding less rapidly from right to left, two dimmer, greenish lights. Two-lights halt, blink, reverse course, proceed hastily and in a wavering manner from left to right. Seven-lights increase speed, and catch up. Two-lights flash desperately, flicker, and are gone.

Seven-lights hang still for some while, then merge gradually into one streak, veering away, and little by little vanish into the immensity of the dark.

But in the dark now are growing other lights, many of them: lamps, dots, rows, scintillations — some near at hand, some far. Like the stars, yes, but not stars. It is not the great Existences we are seeing, but only the little lives.

• • • •

In the morning Simon told me something about the Camp, but not until after he had had me check the apartment for bugs. I thought at first he had been given behavior mod and gone paranoid. We never had been infested. And I’d been living alone for a year and a half; surely they didn’t want to hear me talking to myself? But he said, “They may have been expecting me to come here.”

“But they let you go free!”

He just lay there and laughed at me. So I checked everywhere we could think of. I didn’t find any bugs, but it did look as if somebody had gone through the bureau drawers while I was away in the Wilderness. Simon’s papers were all at Max’s, so that didn’t matter. I made tea on the Primus, and washed and shaved Simon with the extra hot water in the kettle — he had a thick beard and wanted to get rid of it because of the lice he had brought from Camp — and while we were doing that he told me about the Camp. In fact he told me very little, but not much was necessary.

He had lost about twenty pounds. As he only weighed 140 to start with, this left little to go on with. His knees and wrist bones stuck out like rocks under the skin. His feet were all swollen and chewed-looking from the Camp boots; he hadn’t dared take the boots off, the last three days of walking, because he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get them back on. When he had to move or sit up so I could wash him, he shut his eyes.

“Am I really here?” he asked. “Am I here?”

“Yes,” I said. “You are here. What I don’t understand is how you got here.”

“Oh, it wasn’t bad so long as I kept moving. All you need is to know where you’re going — to have someplace to go. You know, some of the people in Camp, if they’d let them go, they wouldn’t have had that. They couldn’t have gone anywhere. Keeping moving was the main thing. See, my back’s all seized up, now.”

When he had to get up to go to the bathroom he moved like a ninety-year-old. He couldn’t stand straight, but was all bent out of shape, and shuffled. I helped him put on clean clothes. When he lay down on the bed again, a sound of pain came out of him, like tearing thick paper. I went around the room putting things away. He asked me to come sit by him and said I was going to drown him if I went on crying. “You’ll submerge the entire North American continent,” he said. I can’t remember what he said, but he made me laugh finally. It is hard to remember things Simon says, and hard not to laugh when he says them. This is not merely the partiality of affection: He makes everybody laugh. I doubt that he intends to. It is just that a mathematician’s mind works differently from other people’s. Then when they laugh, that pleases him.

It was strange, and it is strange, to be thinking about “him,” the man I have known for ten years, the same man, while “he” lay there changed out of recognition, a different man. It is enough to make you understand why most languages have a word like “soul.” There are various degrees of death, and time spares us none of them. Yet something endures, for which a word is needed.

I said what I had not been able to say for a year and a half: “I was afraid they’d brainwash you.”

He said, “Behavior mod is expensive. Even just the drugs. They save it mostly for the VIPs. But I’m afraid they got a notion I might be important after all. I got questioned a lot the last couple of months. About my ‘foreign contacts.’” He snorted. “The stuff that got published abroad, I suppose. So I want to be careful and make sure it’s just a Camp again next time, and not a Federal Hospital.”

“Simon, were they . . . are they cruel, or just righteous?”

He did not answer for a while. He did not want to answer. He knew what I was asking. He knew by what thread hangs hope, the sword, above our heads.

“Some of them . . .” he said at last, mumbling.

Some of them had been cruel. Some of them had enjoyed their work. You cannot blame everything on society. “Prisoners, as well as guards,” he said.

You cannot blame everything on the enemy.

“Some of them, Belle,” he said with energy, touching my hand —” some of them, there were men like gold there —”

The thread is tough; you cannot cut it with one stroke.

“What have you been playing?” he asked.

“Forrest, Schubert.”

“With the quartet?”

“Trio, now. Janet went to Oakland with a new lover.”

“Ah, poor Max.”

“It’s just as well, really. She isn’t a good pianist.”

I make Simon laugh, too, though I don’t intend to. We talked until it was past time for me to go to work. My shift since the Full Employment Act last year is ten to two. I am an inspector in a recycled paper bag factory. I have never rejected a bag yet; the electronic inspector catches all the defective ones first. It is a rather depressing job. But it’s only four hours a day, and it takes more time than that to go through all the lines and physical and mental examinations; and fill out all the forms, and talk to all the welfare counselors and inspectors every week in order to qualify as Unemployed, and then line up every day for the ration stamps and the dole. Simon thought I ought to go to work as usual. I tried to, but I couldn’t. He had felt very hot to the touch when I kissed him good-bye. I went instead and got a black-market doctor. A girl at the factory had recommended her, for an abortion, if I ever wanted one without going through the regulation two years of sex-depressant drugs the fed-meds make you take when they give you an abortion. She was a jeweler’s assistant in a shop on Alder Street, and the girl said she was convenient because if you didn’t have enough cash you could leave something in pawn at the jeweler’s as payment. Nobody ever does have enough cash, and of course credit cards aren’t worth much on the black market.

The doctor was willing to come at once, so we rode home on the bus together. She gathered very soon that Simon and I were married, and it was funny to see her look at us and smile like a cat. Some people love illegality for its own sake. Men, more often than women. It’s men who make laws, and enforce them, and break them, and think the whole performance is wonderful. Most women would rather just ignore them. You could see that this woman, like a man, actually enjoyed breaking them. That may have been what put her into an illegal business in the first place, a preference for the shady side. But there was more to it than that. No doubt she’d wanted to be a doctor, too; and the Federal Medical Association doesn’t admit women into the medical schools. She probably got her training as some other doctor’s private pupil, under the counter. Very much as Simon learned mathematics, since the universities don’t teach much but Business Administration and Advertising and Media Skills any more. However she learned it, she seemed to know her stuff. She fixed up a kind of homemade traction device for Simon very handily and informed him that if he did much more walking for two months he’d be crippled the rest of his life, but if he behaved himself he’d just be more or less lame. It isn’t the kind of thing you’d expect to be grateful for being told, but we both were. Leaving, she gave me a bottle of about two hundred plain white pills, unlabeled. “Aspirin,” she said. “He’ll be in a good deal of pain off and on for weeks.”

I looked at the bottle. I had never seen aspirin before, only the Super-Buffered Pane-Gon and the Triple-Power N-L-G-Zic and the Extra-Strength Apansprin with the miracle ingredient more doctors recommend, which the fed-meds always give you prescriptions for, to be filled at your FMA-approved private enterprise friendly drugstore at the low, low prices established by the Pure Food and Drug Administration in order to inspire competitive research.

“Aspirin,” the doctor repeated. “The miracle ingredient more doctors recommend.” She cat-grinned again. I think she liked us because we were living in sin. That bottle of black-market aspirin was probably worth more than the old Navajo bracelet I pawned for her fee.

I went out again to register Simon as temporarily domiciled at my address and to apply for Temporary Unemployment Compensation ration stamps for him. They only give them to you for two weeks and you have to come every day; but to register him as Temporarily Disabled meant getting the signatures of two fed-meds, and I thought I’d rather put that off for a while. It took three hours to go through the lines and get the forms he would have to fill out, and to answer the ’crats’ questions about why he wasn’t there in person. They smelled something fishy. Of course it’s hard for them to prove that two people are married and aren’t just adultering if you move now and then and your friends help out by sometimes registering one of you as living at their address; but they had all the back files on both of us and it was obvious that we had been around each other for a suspiciously long time. The State really does make things awfully hard for itself. It must have been simpler to enforce the laws back when marriage was legal and adultery was what got you into trouble. They only had to catch you once. But I’ll bet people broke the law just as often then as they do now.

• • • •

The lantern-creatures came close enough at last that we could see not only their light, but their bodies in the illumination of their light. They were not pretty. They were dark colored, most often a dark red, and they were all mouth. They ate one another whole. Light swallowed light all swallowed together in the vaster mouth of the darkness. They moved slowly, for nothing, however small and hungry, could move fast under that weight, in that cold. Their eyes, round with fear, were never closed. Their bodies were tiny and bony behind the gaping jaws. They wore queer, ugly decorations on their lips and skulls: fringes, serrated wattles, featherlike fronds, gauds, bangles, lures. Poor little sheep of the deep pastures! Poor ragged, hunch-jawed dwarfs squeezed to the bone by the weight of the darkness, chilled to the bone by the cold of the darkness, tiny monsters burning with bright hunger, who brought us back to life!

Occasionally, in the wan, sparse illumination of one of the lantern-creatures, we caught a momentary glimpse of other, large, unmoving shapes: the barest suggestion, off in the distance, not of a wall, nothing so solid and certain as a wall, but of a surface, an angle . . . Was it there?

Or something would glitter, faint, far off, far down. There was no use trying to make out what it might be. Probably it was only a fleck of sediment, mud or mica, disturbed by a struggle between the lantern-creatures, flickering like a bit of diamond dust as it rose and settled slowly. In any case, we could not move to go see what it was. We had not even the cold, narrow freedom of the lantern-creatures. We were immobilized, borne down, still shadows among the half-guessed shadow walls. Were we there?

The lantern-creatures showed no awareness of us. They passed before us, among us, perhaps even through us — it was impossible to be sure. They were not afraid, or curious.

Once something a little larger than a hand came crawling near, and for a moment we saw quite distinctly the clean angle where the foot of a wall rose from the pavement, in the glow cast by the crawling creature, which was covered with a foliage of plumes, each plume dotted with many tiny, bluish points of light. We saw the pavement beneath the creature and the wall beside it, heartbreaking in its exact, clear linearity, its opposition to all that was fluid, random, vast, and void. We saw the creature’s claws, slowly reaching out and retracting like small stiff fingers, touch the wall. Its plumage of light quivering, it dragged itself along and vanished behind the corner of the wall.

So we knew that the wall was there; and that it was an outer wall, a housefront, perhaps, or the side of one of the towers of the city.

We remembered the towers. We remembered the city. We had forgotten it. We had forgotten who we were; but we remembered the city, now.

• • • •

When I got home, the FBI had already been there. The computer at the police precinct where I registered Simon’s address must have flashed it right over to the computer at the FBI building. They had questioned Simon for about an hour, mostly about what he had been doing during the twelve days it took him to get from the Camp to Portland. I suppose they thought he had flown to Peking or something. Having a police record in Walla Walla for hitchhiking helped him establish his story. He told me that one of them had gone to the bathroom. Sure enough I found a bug stuck on the top of the bathroom doorframe. I left it, as we figured it’s really better to leave it when you know you have one, than to take it off and then never be sure they haven’t planted another one you don’t know about. As Simon said, if we felt we had to say something unpatriotic we could always flush the toilet at the same time.

I have a battery radio — there are so many work stoppages because of power failures, and days the water has to be boiled, and so on, that you really have to have a radio to save wasting time and dying of typhoid — and he turned it on while I was making supper on the Primus. The six o’clock All-American Broadcasting Company news announcer announced that peace was at hand in Uruguay, the president’s confidential aide having been seen to smile at a passing blonde as he left the 613th day of the secret negotiations in a villa outside Katmandu. The war in Liberia was going well; the enemy said they had shot down seventeen American planes but the Pentagon said we had shot down twenty-two enemy planes, and the capital city — I forget its name, but it hasn’t been inhabitable for seven years anyway — was on the verge of being recaptured by the forces of freedom. The police action in Arizona was also successful. The Neo-Birch insurgents in Phoenix could not hold out much longer against the massed might of the American army and air force, since their underground supply of small tactical nukes from the Weathermen in Los Angeles had been cut off. Then there was an advertisement for Fed-Cred cards, and a commercial for the Supreme Court: “Take your legal troubles to the Nine Wise Men!” Then there was something about why tariffs had gone up, and a report from the stock market, which had just closed at over two thousand, and a commercial for U.S. Government canned water, with a catchy little tune: “Don’t be sorry when you drink/It’s not as healthy as you think/Don’t you think you really ought to/Drink coo-ool, puu-uure U.S.G. water?” — with three sopranos in close harmony on the last line. Then, just as the battery began to give out and his voice was dying away into a faraway tiny whisper, the announcer seemed to be saying something about a new continent emerging.

“What was that?”

“I didn’t hear,” Simon said, lying with his eyes shut and his face pale and sweaty. I gave him two aspirins before we ate. He ate little, and fell asleep while I was washing the dishes in the bathroom. I had been going to practice, but a viola is fairly wakeful in a one-room apartment. I read for a while instead. It was a best seller Janet had given me when she left. She thought it was very good, but then she likes Franz Liszt, too. I don’t read much since the libraries were closed down, it’s too hard to get books; all you can buy is best sellers. I don’t remember the title of this one, the cover just said “Ninety Million Copies in Print!!!” It was about small-town sex life in the last century, the dear old 1970s when there weren’t any problems and life was so simple and nostalgic. The author squeezed all the naughty thrills he could out of the fact that all the main characters were married. I looked at the end and saw that all the married couples shot each other after all their children became schizophrenic hookers, except for one brave pair that divorced and then leapt into bed together with a clear-eyed pair of government-employed lovers for eight pages of healthy group sex as a brighter future dawned. I went to bed then, too. Simon was hot, but sleeping quietly. His breathing was like the sound of soft waves far away, and I went out to the dark sea on the sound of them.

I used to go out to the dark sea, often, as a child, falling asleep. I had almost forgotten it with my waking mind. As a child all I had to do was stretch out and think, “the dark sea . . . the dark sea . . .” and soon enough I’d be there, in the great depths, rocking. But after I grew up it only happened rarely, as a great gift. To know the abyss of the darkness and not to fear it, to entrust oneself to it and whatever may arise from it — what greater gift?

• • • •

We watched the tiny lights come and go around us, and doing so, we gained a sense of space and of direction — near and far, at least, and higher and lower. It was that sense of space that allowed us to become aware of the currents. Space was no longer entirely still around us, suppressed by the enormous pressure of its own weight. Very dimly we were aware that the cold darkness moved, slowly, softly, pressing against us a little for a long time, then ceasing, in a vast oscillation. The empty darkness flowed slowly along our unmoving unseen bodies; along them, past them; perhaps through them; we could not tell.

Where did they come from, those dim, slow, vast tides? What pressure or attraction stirred the deeps to these slow drifting movements? We could not understand that; we could only feel their touch against us, but in straining our sense to guess their origin or end, we became aware of something else: something out there in the darkness of the great currents: sounds. We listened. We heard.

So our sense of space sharpened and localized to a sense of place. For sound is local, as sight is not. Sound is delimited by silence; and it does not rise out of the silence unless it is fairly close, both in space and in time. Though we stand where once the singer stood, we cannot hear the voice singing; the years have carried it off on their tides, submerged it. Sound is a fragile thing, a tremor, as delicate as life itself. We may see the stars, but we cannot hear them. Even were the hollowness of outer space an atmosphere, an ether that transmitted the waves of sound, we could not hear the stars; they are too far away. At most if we listened we might hear our own sun, all the mighty, roiling, exploding storm of its burning, as a whisper at the edge of hearing.

A sea wave laps one’s feet: It is the shock wave of a volcanic eruption on the far side of the world. But one hears nothing.

A red light flickers on the horizon: It is the reflection in smoke of a city on the distant mainland, burning. But one hears nothing.

Only on the slopes of the volcano, in the suburbs of the city, does one begin to hear the deep thunder, and the high voices crying.

Thus, when we became aware that we were hearing, we were sure that the sounds we heard were fairly close to us. And yet we may have been quite wrong. For we were in a strange place, a deep place. Sound travels fast and far in the deep places, and the silence there is perfect, letting the least noise be heard for hundreds of miles.

And these were not small noises. The lights were tiny, but the sounds were vast: not loud, but very large. Often they were below the range of hearing, long slow vibrations rather than sounds. The first we heard seemed to us to rise up through the currents from beneath us: immense groans, sighs felt along the bone, a rumbling, a deep uneasy whispering.

Later, certain sounds came down to us from above, or borne along the endless levels of the darkness, and these were stranger yet, for they were music. A huge, calling, yearning music from far away in the darkness, calling not to us. Where are you? I am here.

Not to us.

They were the voices of the great souls, the great lives, the lonely ones, the voyagers. Calling. Not often answered. Where are you? Where have you gone?

But the bones, the keels and girders of white bones on icy isles of the South, the shores of bones did not reply.

Nor could we reply. But we listened, and the tears rose in our eyes, salt, not so salt as the oceans, the world-girdling deep bereaved currents, the abandoned roadways of the great lives; not so salt, but warmer.

I am here. Where have you gone?

No answer.

Only the whispering thunder from below.

But we knew now, though we could not answer, we knew because we heard, because we felt, because we wept, we knew that we were; and we remembered other voices.

• • • •

Max came the next night. I sat on the toilet lid to practice, with the bathroom door shut. The FBI men on the other end of the bug got a solid half hour of scales and doublestops, and then a quite good performance of the Hindemith unaccompanied viola sonata. The bathroom being very small and all hard surfaces, the noise I made was really tremendous. Not a good sound, far too much echo, but the sheer volume was contagious, and I played louder as I went on. The man up above knocked on his floor once; but if I have to listen to the weekly All-American Olympic Games at full blast every Sunday morning from his TV set, then he has to accept Paul Hindemith coming up out of his toilet now and then.

When I got tired, I put a wad of cotton over the bug, and came out of the bathroom half-deaf. Simon and Max were on fire. Burning, unconsumed. Simon was scribbling formulae in traction, and Max was pumping his elbows up and down the way he does, like a boxer, and saying “The e-lec-tron emis-sion . . .” through his nose, with his eyes narrowed, and his mind evidently going light-years per second faster than his tongue, because he kept beginning over and saying “The e-lec-tron emis-sion . . .” and pumping his elbows.

Intellectuals at work are very strange to look at. As strange as artists. I never could understand how an audience can sit there and look at a fiddler rolling his eyes and biting his tongue, or a horn player collecting spit, or a pianist like a black cat strapped to an electrified bench, as if what they saw had anything to do with the music.

I damped the fires with a quart of black-market beer — the legal kind is better, but I never have enough ration stamps for beer; I’m not thirsty enough to go without eating — and gradually Max and Simon cooled down. Max would have stayed talking all night, but I drove him out because Simon was looking tired.

I put a new battery in the radio and left it playing in the bathroom, and blew out the candle and lay and talked with Simon; he was too excited to sleep. He said that Max had solved the problems that were bothering them before Simon was sent to Camp, and had fitted Simon’s equations to (as Simon put it) the bare facts, which means they have achieved “direct energy conversion.” Ten or twelve people have worked on it at different times since Simon published the theoretical part of it when he was twenty-two. The physicist Ann Jones had pointed out right away that the simplest practical application of the theory would be to build a “sun tap,” a device for collecting and storing solar energy, only much cheaper and better than the U.S.G. Sola-Heetas that some rich people have on their houses. And it would have been simple, only they kept hitting the same snag. Now Max has got around the snag.

I said that Simon published the theory, but that is inaccurate. Of course he’s never been able to publish any of his papers, in print; he’s not a federal employee and doesn’t have a government clearance. But it did get circulated in what the scientists and poets call Sammy’s-dot, that is, just handwritten or hectographed. It’s an old joke that the FBI arrests everybody with purple fingers, because they have either been hectographing Sammy’s-dots, or they have impetigo.

Anyhow, Simon was on top of the mountain that night. His true joy is in the pure math; but he had been working with Clara and Max and the others in this effort to materialize the theory for ten years, and a taste of material victory is a good thing, once in a lifetime.

I asked him to explain what the sun tap would mean to the masses, with me as a representative mass. He explained that it means we can tap solar energy for power, using a device that’s easier to build than a jar battery. The efficiency and storage capacity are such that about ten minutes of sunlight will power an apartment complex like ours, heat and lights and elevators and all, for twenty-four hours; and no pollution, particulate, thermal, or radioactive. “There isn’t any danger of using up the sun?” I asked. He took it soberly — it was a stupid question, but after all not so long ago people thought there wasn’t any danger of using up the Earth — and said no, because we wouldn’t be pulling out energy, as we did when we mined and lumbered and split atoms, but just using the energy that comes to us anyhow: as the plants, the trees and grass and rosebushes, always have done. “You could call it Flower Power,” he said. He was high, high up on the mountain, ski-jumping in the sunlight.

“The State owns us,” he said, “because the corporative State has a monopoly on power sources, and there’s not enough power to go around. But now, anybody could build a generator on their roof that would furnish enough power to light a city.”

I looked out the window at the dark city.

“We could completely decentralize industry and agriculture. Technology could serve life instead of serving capital. We could each run our own life. Power is power! . . . The State is a machine. We could unplug the machine, now. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. But that’s true only when there’s a price on power. When groups can keep the power to themselves; when they can use physical power-to in order to exert spiritual power-over; when might makes right. But if power is free? If everybody is equally mighty? Then everybody’s got to find a better way of showing that he’s right . . .”

“That’s what Mr. Nobel thought when he invented dynamite,” I said. “Peace on earth.”

He slid down the sunlit slope a couple of thousand feet and stopped beside me in a spray of snow, smiling. “Skull at the banquet,” he said, “finger writing on the wall. Be still! Look, don’t you see the sun shining on the Pentagon, all the roofs are off, the sun shines at last into the corridors of power . . . And they shrivel up, they wither away. The green grass grows through the carpets of the Oval Room, the Hot Line is disconnected for nonpayment of the bill. The first thing we’ll do is build an electrified fence outside the electrified fence around the White House. The inner one prevents unauthorized persons from getting in. The outer one will prevent authorized persons from getting out . . .”

Of course he was bitter. Not many people come out of prison sweet.

But it was cruel, to be shown this great hope, and to know that there was no hope for it. He did know that. He knew it right along. He knew that there was no mountain, that he was skiing on the wind.

• • • •

The tiny lights of the lantern-creatures died out one by one, sank away. The distant lonely voices were silent. The cold, slow currents flowed, vacant, only shaken from time to time by a shifting in the abyss.

It was dark again, and no voice spoke. All dark, dumb, cold.

Then the sun rose.

It was not like the dawns we had begun to remember: the change, manifold and subtle, in the smell and touch of the air; the hush that, instead of sleeping, wakes, holds still, and waits; the appearance of objects, looking gray, vague, and new, as if just created — distant mountains against the eastern sky, one’s own hands, the hoary grass full of dew and shadow, the fold in the edge of a curtain hanging by the window — and then, before one is quite sure that one is indeed seeing again, that the light has returned, that day is breaking, the first, abrupt, sweet stammer of a waking bird. And after that the chorus, voice by voice: This is my nest, this is my tree, this is my egg, this is my day, this is my life, here I am, here I am, hurray for me! I’m here! — No, it wasn’t like that at all, this dawn. It was completely silent, and it was blue.

In the dawns that we had begun to remember, one did not become aware of the light itself, but of the separate objects touched by the light, the things, the world. They were there, visible again, as if visibility were their own property, not a gift from the rising sun.

In this dawn, there was nothing but the light itself. Indeed there was not even light, we would have said, but only color: blue.

There was no compass bearing to it. It was not brighter in the east. There was no east or west. There was only up and down, below and above. Below was dark. The blue light came from above. Brightness fell. Beneath, where the shaking thunder had stilled, the brightness died away through violet into blindness.

We, arising, watched light fall.

In a way, it was more like an ethereal snowfall than like a sunrise. The light seemed to be in discrete particles, infinitesimal flecks, slowly descending, faint, fainter than flecks of fine snow on a dark night, and tinier, but blue. A soft, penetrating blue tending to the violet, the color of the shadows in an iceberg, the color of a streak of sky between gray clouds on a winter afternoon before snow: faint in intensity but vivid in hue: the color of the remote, the color of the cold, the color farthest from the sun.

• • • •

On Saturday night, they held a scientific congress in our room. Clara and Max came, of course, and the engineer Phil Drum and three others who had worked on the sun tap. Phil Drum was very pleased with himself because he had actually built one of the things, a solar cell, and brought it along. I don’t think it had occurred to either Max or Simon to build one. Once they knew it could be done, they were satisfied and wanted to get on with something else. But Phil unwrapped his baby with a lot of flourish, and people made remarks like, “Mr. Watson, will you come here a minute,” and “Hey, Wilbur, you’re off the ground!” and “I say, nasty mould you’ve got there, Alec, why don’t you throw it out?” and “Ugh, ugh, burns, burns, wow, ow,” the latter from Max, who does look a little pre-Mousterian. Phil explained that he had exposed the cell for one minute at four in the afternoon up in Washington Park during a light rain. The lights were back on on the West Side since Thursday, so we could test it without being conspicuous.

We turned off the lights, after Phil had wired the table-lamp cord to the cell. He turned on the lamp switch. The bulb came on, about twice as bright as before, at its full forty watts — city power of course was never full strength. We all looked at it. It was a dime-store table lamp with a metallized gold base and a white plasticloth shade.

“Brighter than a thousand suns,” Simon murmured from the bed.

“Could it be,” said Clara Edmonds, “that we physicists have known sin — and have come out the other side?”

“It really wouldn’t be any good at all for making bombs with,” Max said dreamily.

“Bombs,” Phil Drum said with scorn. “Bombs are obsolete. Don’t you realize that we could move a mountain with this kind of power? I mean pick up Mount Hood, move it, and set it down. We could thaw Antarctica, we could freeze the Congo. We could sink a continent. Give me a fulcrum and I’ll move the world. Well, Archimedes, you’ve got your fulcrum. The sun.”

“Christ,” Simon said, “the radio, Belle!”

The bathroom door was shut and I had put cotton over the bug, but he was right; if they were going to go ahead at this rate there had better be some added static. And though I liked watching their faces in the clear light of the lamp — they all had good, interesting faces, well worn, like the handles of wooden tools or the rocks in a running stream — I did not much want to listen to them talk tonight. Not because I wasn’t a scientist, that made no difference. And not because I disagreed or disapproved or disbelieved anything they said. Only because it grieved me terribly, their talking. Because they couldn’t rejoice aloud over a job done and a discovery made, but had to hide there and whisper about it. Because they couldn’t go out into the sun.

I went into the bathroom with my viola and sat on the toilet lid and did a long set of sautille exercises. Then I tried to work at the Forrest trio, but it was too assertive. I played the solo part from Harold in Italy, which is beautiful, but it wasn’t quite the right mood either. They were still going strong in the other room. I began to improvise.

After a few minutes in E-minor, the light over the shaving mirror began to flicker and dim; then it died. Another outage. The table lamp in the other room did not go out, being connected with the sun, not with the twenty-three atomic fission plants that power the Greater Portland Area. Within two seconds somebody had switched it off, too, so that we shouldn’t be the only window in the West Hills left alight; and I could hear them rooting for candles and rattling matches. I went on improvising in the dark. Without light, when you couldn’t see all the hard shiny surfaces of things, the sound seemed softer and less muddled. I went on, and it began to shape up. All the laws of harmonics sang together when the bow came down. The strings of the viola were the cords of my own voice, tightened by sorrow, tuned to the pitch of joy. The melody created itself out of air and energy, it raised up the valleys, and the mountains and hills were made low, and the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. And the music went out to the dark sea and sang in the darkness, over the abyss.

When I came out, they were all sitting there and none of them was talking. Max had been crying. I could see little candle flames in the tears around his eyes. Simon lay flat on the bed in the shadows, his eyes closed. Phil Drum sat hunched over, holding the solar cell in his hands.

I loosened the pegs, put the bow and the viola in the case, and cleared my throat. It was embarrassing. I finally said, “I’m sorry.”

One of the women spoke: Rose Abramski, a private student of Simon’s, a big shy woman who could hardly speak at all unless it was in mathematical symbols. “I saw it,” she said. “I saw it. I saw the white towers, and the water streaming down their sides, and running back down to the sea. And the sunlight shining in the streets, after ten thousand years of darkness.”

“I heard them,” Simon said, very low, from the shadow. “I heard their voices.”

“Oh, Christ! Stop it!” Max cried out, and got up and went blundering out into the unlit hall, without his coat. We heard him running down the stairs.

“Phil,” said Simon, lying there, “could we raise up the white towers, with our lever and our fulcrum?”

After a long silence Phil Drum answered, “We have the power to do it.”

“What else do we need?” Simon said. “What else do we need, besides power?”

Nobody answered him.

• • • •

The blue changed. It became brighter, lighter, and at the same time thicker: impure. The ethereal luminosity of blue-violet turned to turquoise, intense and opaque. Still we could not have said that everything was now turquoise-colored, for there were still no things. There was nothing, except the color of turquoise.

The change continued. The opacity became veined and thinned. The dense, solid color began to appear translucent, transparent. Then it seemed as if we were in the heart of a sacred jade, or the brilliant crystal of a sapphire or an emerald.

As at the inner structure of a crystal, there was no motion. But there was something else, now, to see. It was as if we saw the motionless, elegant inward structure of the molecules of a precious stone. Planes and angles appeared about us, shadowless and clear in that even, glowing, blue-green light.

These were the walls and towers of the city, the streets, the windows, the gates.

We knew them, but we did not recognize them. We did not dare to recognize them. It had been so long. And it was so strange. We had used to dream, when we lived in this city. We had lain down, nights, in the rooms behind the windows, and slept, and dreamed. We had all dreamed of the ocean, of the deep sea. Were we not dreaming now?

Sometimes the thunder and tremor deep below us rolled again, but it was faint now, far away; as far away as our memory of the thunder and the tremor and the fire and the towers falling, long ago. Neither the sound nor the memory frightened us. We knew them.

The sapphire light brightened overhead to green, almost green-gold. We looked up. The tops of the highest towers were hard to see, glowing in the radiance of light. The streets and doorways were darker, more clearly defined.

In one of those long, jewel-dark streets, something was moving — something not composed of planes and angles, but of curves and arcs. We all turned to look at it, slowly, wondering as we did so at the slow ease of our own motion, our freedom. Sinuous, with a beautiful flowing, gathering, rolling movement, now rapid and now tentative, the thing drifted across the street from a blank garden wall to the recess of a door. There, in the dark blue shadow, it was hard to see for a while. We watched. A pale blue curve appeared at the top of the doorway. A second followed, and a third. The moving thing clung or hovered there, above the door, like a swaying knot of silvery cords or a boneless hand, one arched finger pointing carelessly to something above the lintel of the door, something like itself, but motionless — a carving. A carving in jade light. A carving in stone.

Delicately and easily, the long curving tentacle followed the curves of the carved figure, the eight petal-limbs, the round eyes. Did it recognize its image?

The living one swung suddenly, gathered its curves in a loose knot, and darted away down the street, swift and sinuous. Behind it a faint cloud of darker blue hung for a minute and dispersed, revealing again the carved figure above the door: the sea-flower, the cuttlefish, quick, great-eyed, graceful, evasive, the cherished sign, carved on a thousand walls, worked into the design of cornices, pavements, handles, lids of jewel boxes, canopies, tapestries, tabletops, gateways.

Down another street, about the level of the first-floor windows, came a flickering drift of hundreds of motes of silver. With a single motion, all turned toward the cross street, and glittered off into the dark blue shadows.

There were shadows, now.

We looked up, up from the flight of silverfish, up from the streets where the jade-green currents flowed and the blue shadows fell. We moved and looked up, yearning, to the high towers of our city. They stood, the fallen towers. They glowed in the ever-brightening radiance, not blue or blue-green, up there, but gold. Far above them lay a vast, circular, trembling brightness: the sun’s light on the surface of the sea.

We are here. When we break through the bright circle into life, the water will break and stream white down the white sides of the towers, and run down the steep streets back into the sea. The water will glitter in dark hair, on the eyelids of dark eyes, and dry to a thin white film of salt.

We are here.

Whose voice? Who called to us?

• • • •

He was with me for twelve days. On January 28th the ’crats came from the Bureau of Health, Education, and Welfare and said that since he was receiving Unemployment Compensation while suffering from an untreated illness, the government must look after him and restore him to health, because health is the inalienable right of the citizens of a democracy. He refused to sign the consent forms, so the chief health officer signed them. He refused to get up, so two of the policemen pulled him up off the bed. He started to try to fight them. The chief health officer pulled his gun and said that if he continued to struggle he would shoot him for resisting welfare, and arrest me for conspiracy to defraud the government. The man who was holding my arms behind my back said they could always arrest me for unreported pregnancy with intent to form a nuclear family. At that, Simon stopped trying to get free. It was really all he was trying to do, not to fight them, just to get his arms free. He looked at me, and they took him out.

He is in the federal hospital in Salem. I have not been able to find out whether he is in the regular hospital or the mental wards.

It was on the radio again yesterday, about the rising land masses in the South Atlantic and the Western Pacific. At Max’s the other night I saw a TV special explaining about geophysical stresses and subsidence and faults. The U.S. Geodetic Service is doing a lot of advertising around town, the most common one is a big billboard that says IT’S NOT OUR FAULT! with a picture of a beaver pointing to a schematic map that shows how even if Oregon has a major earthquake and subsidence as California did last month, it will not affect Portland, or only the western suburbs perhaps. The news also said that they plan to halt the tidal waves in Florida by dropping nuclear bombs where Miami was. Then they will reattach Florida to the mainland with landfill. They are already advertising real estate for housing developments on the landfill. The president is staying at the Mile High White House in Aspen, Colorado. I don’t think it will do him much good. Houseboats down on the Willamette are selling for $500,000. There are no trains or buses running south from Portland, because all the highways were badly damaged by the tremors and landslides last week, so I will have to see if I can get to Salem on foot. I still have the rucksack I bought for the Mount Hood Wilderness Week. I got some dry lima beans and raisins with my Federal Fair Share Super Value Green Stamp minimal ration book for February — it took the whole book — and Phil Drum made me a tiny camp stove powered with the solar cell. I didn’t want to take the Primus, it’s too bulky, and I did want to be able to carry the viola. Max gave me a half pint of brandy. When the brandy is gone I expect I will stuff this notebook into the bottle and put the cap on tight and leave it on a hillside somewhere between here and Salem. I like to think of it being lifted up little by little by the water, and rocking, and going out to the dark sea.

• • • •

Where are you?

We are here. Where have you gone?

© 1975 by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Originally published in The New Atlantis and Other Novellas of Science Fiction,
edited by Robert Silverberg.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of innumerable SF and fantasy classics, such as The Left Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven, The Dispossessed, and A Wizard of Earthsea (and the others in the Earthsea Cycle). She has been named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, and is the winner of five Hugos, six Nebulas, two World Fantasy Awards, and twenty Locus Awards. She’s also a winner of the Newbery Medal, The National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award, and was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress.

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

The Way Home

Linda Nagata

The demon, like all the others before it, appeared first in the form of a horizontal plume of rust-red grit and vapor. Almost a kilometer away, it moved low to the ground, camouflaged by the waves of hot, shimmering air that rose from the desert hardpan. Lieutenant Matt Whitebird watched it for many seconds before he was sure it was more than a mirage. Then he announced to his squad, “Incoming. Ten o’clock from my position. Only one this time.”

But even one was deadly.

Sergeant Carson Cabuto, some six meters to Whitebird’s right, huddled against a jut of rock, black as obsidian, a stark contrast to the gray-brown camo of his helmet and combat uniform. “Okay, I see it,” Cabuto said. “That’s fifty-six minutes since the last one. I was starting to get worried.”

“Just starting?”

White teeth flashed in a round face tanned dark by the sun as Cabuto glanced at the lieutenant, his eyes invisible behind black sunglasses. “Now we know the rules, bring it on.”

The squad — what was left of it — had taken refuge atop a low plateau, one of several that punched up through the desert plain. Ten meters high and maybe twenty at its widest point, the plateau’s black rock was cracked and fissured, skirted by sharp-edged fragments that had fallen from the walls. The squad had spread out around it, so they could watch the desert in all directions.

Their combat training had neglected to cover a situation in which they were alone in an unmapped desert with no GPS, no air traffic, no vehicles, no goats, no sheep; where the radios worked, but there was no one to talk to; where the enemy emerged from churning dust wielding glittering, lethal swords — but they were learning.

There was no sun above this desert, and no real sky, just a dust-colored glare so bright it was impossible to squint against it for more than a second or two, but though there was no sun, there was heat. One hundred twenty-one degrees Fahrenheit, according to Whitebird’s weather meter. He sucked in the heat with every breath. Belly-down on the black rock, he soaked it in, an exhausting, brutal heat that seeped past his chest armor and the heavy fabric of his combat uniform, heat that got inside his brain, making him think thoughts that never would have entered his mind if he was still in the world. Thoughts like, If Goodfellow breaks down one more time, I’m going to shoot him and I’m more than halfway sure we’re already dead.

Whitebird knew that in all likelihood he had simply gone mad.

“This one’s coming fast,” Sergeant Cabuto warned.

“Roger that.”

Madness was not an assumption he could work with. It offered no way out. It demanded that he give up the fight, retreat from the battle, wail at a soulless sky, and pray for a rescue that would never come.

Fuck that.

This was real, for whatever value of real might get defined along the way.

He licked at the salt tang of blood seeping from his cracked lips, wondering if the demons smelled it, or just felt the presence of their souls like an invisible lure, undetectable by any human measure.

Whitebird turned his head, projecting his voice across the rock. “Estimated forty-five seconds until the next dust bunny gets here. Foltz, any more showing up on your side?”

“Not so far, sir!” the specialist shouted back. “But if I spot one, is it mine?”

“This isn’t a game, Foltz. Alameri, how about you?”

“Negative, Lieutenant!”

Assurances came back from Fong, Keller, and Cobb that no other demons were in sight.

Last of all, Whitebird turned to Private Goodfellow, down on his belly five meters to the left. The eighteen-year-old was not watching the horizon as he’d been assigned to do. Instead, his worried gaze was fixed on the thing of sand and vapor, his gloved fingers clinging so tightly to his assault rifle Whitebird wondered if he intended to use it as a club. “Goodfellow.”

The private flinched. He turned to Whitebird. Dust coated the dark skin of his cheeks; behind his protective glasses his eyes were red-rimmed. All the warrior accoutrements — combat uniform, helmet, boots, safety glasses, body armor, backpack, assault rifle, grenades — could not make Goodfellow look like anything but what he was: a scared kid, overwhelmed by the unknown and the unexpected.

“Still with us, Private?”

“Yes, sir,” he whispered, not sounding too sure of himself.

“This one is yours.”

His brows knit together in abject worry. “Sir, please no, I — ”

“You’re going.” Whitebird didn’t want to send Goodfellow. He had more worthy soldiers, but Goodfellow was the weak link and Whitebird didn’t want him around. “Stay down,” he instructed. “Don’t move until I tell you and do not use your weapon.”

With Goodfellow, the worst-case scenario was all too likely: At some point the kid would panic, and then his friendly fire would be more dangerous than the demons that hunted them. “When I say go, you jump down that ravine. You’re only going to have seconds to get to the bottom, so move fast. You got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lieutenant,” Cabuto warned, “it’s here.”

Whitebird looked down in time to see the train of dust boil up to the base of the plateau. He could hear the burr of unknown forces swirling within it . . . or maybe that was just the sound of sand rubbing against sand, and maybe the sparks of electricity flaring and dying within the cloud were caused by friction, too, or maybe they were generated by magic — he didn’t know. He only knew it was a waste of ammo to shoot at the demon while it was in its sand and vapor form. The squad had learned that early. So Whitebird leaned over the edge of the shallow precipice, his M4 carbine aimed at the demon’s churning mass, and waited. Sergeant Cabuto did the same.

Seconds passed, and then the skein of sand drew itself upright, a snake raising its head.

“Here we go,” Cabuto whispered. “Show yourself, dust bunny.”

To Whitebird’s shock, the demon’s sand form shot up the cliff face. It burst over the top between him and Cabuto, showering them in a storm of grit that crackled and pinged against their helmets and eyewear. Whitebird rolled onto his side, his weapon aimed up as the demon congealed from the cloud.

It came dressed in a gray-brown desert combat uniform, with an M4 carbine clutched in its long, black-clawed fingers.

That was new.

• • • •

For eight weeks, ever since his unit had transferred to their combat outpost, Whitebird had been haunted by a sense of disaster lurking just out of sight in some unknowable direction. Every night he’d awakened in a rush of panic, sticky with sweat in the aftermath of some monstrous dream. He had told himself it was the altitude, the unrelenting aridity of the high-desert air that made it hard to breathe, hemmed in as he was by the bare plywood walls of his little bunkroom.

On most nights he had wound up outside under a blazing firmament of stars, the soft purr of the outpost’s generator the only sound in the world — and when the generator cut out, silence enfolded him, silence so deep his brain hallucinated noises and he would imagine he heard a susurration of sand-on-sand, a crackle of electricity, and a haunting, hungry wail that made his hair stand on end — and his heart pound with fear.

He imagined other worlds brushing up against the one he knew.

He never spoke of these imaginings — who would? — and when the generator kicked on again he would go back inside and prepare for the day’s assignment.

That day the squad had been patrolling on foot, chasing down numerous reports of insurgents in the district. At the end of a brutally hot afternoon, they were returning to the shelter of the outpost — a haphazard collection of plywood buildings surrounded by sand-filled barriers and barbwire situated at the crown of a low hill. They were five hundred meters out and Whitebird was looking forward to food and email when a missile came screaming out of the north.

“Get down!” he yelled and dropped to his belly.

He watched the missile hit. It missed the outpost, striking instead the hill beneath it. That hill proved to be made of ancient, weathered, rotten stone. Afterward, Whitebird would conjecture that the slow pressure of a cosmological intrusion had seared and heated and cracked the stone within that hill until it was shot through with dimensional faults and fractures. A blistering weakness, it shattered at the missile’s impact, collapsing into roiling clouds of dust and fire . . . and the demons slipped loose — boiling, vaporous plumes sweeping toward the squad with all the deliberate speed and inherent purpose of charging predators.

More than fear, Whitebird felt an instinctive repulsion. He didn’t know what was going on. He only knew he didn’t want to be touched by it, or caught up in it. Turning to his squad, he screamed at them to run.

Too late.

The land rejected the intrusion. It trembled and heaved and folded in on itself, crushing the demons in the seams of that transition, pinching off their shrieks and wails as day turned to night. Whitebird felt himself falling without ever leaving the ground, as if gravity shifted around him . . . and then the sky ignited into an unbearable glare and he was here, his squad with him, prone in the heat and the red dust of a lifeless plain, without a blade of grass or a fly buzzing anywhere around them.

Cast out.

No longer in the world.

• • • •

They had been delivered to a desert plain as flat as an ancient lakebed. Heat shimmers rising from the clay surface bent and blurred the air, limiting clear sight to just a few tens of meters. So they heard the first demon before they saw it — a murmuring of blowing sand though there was no wind, and then a sparking snap of electricity as a train of dust charged into their midst where it congealed into . . .

. . . a glimmering white sword — that was the first thing Whitebird saw, a curved weapon nearly a meter long looking like the tooth of some monstrous T. rex or a slaughtered dragon. It was held in long-fingered hands, red-brown like the desert. Behind that primitive weapon was a manlike figure — if a man could be seven and a half feet tall with eyes like asymmetrical black fissures slashed into a white-bearded face with red lips around sharp teeth and its tongue a cluster of tentacles glimmering with moisture as it darted in and out, in and out, the creature wearing only a low-slung belt of what looked like human finger bones, with an exaggerated stallion dick dangling flaccid between its legs.

The sword swung, severing Yuen’s neck, sending his helmeted head tumbling from his shoulders. Blood fountained just like in the movies. It showered the squad. Screams erupted as everyone fell back, separating themselves from the collapsing body and the long white sword. Whitebird brought his M4 to his shoulder, at the same time dropping to one knee, a move that let him aim up so his rounds wouldn’t hit his soldiers who were behind the monster.

He put three quick shots into the demon’s chest.

• • • •

No one knew where the demons came from or what they wanted, but it was now clear that they could learn — and adapt. The creature presently looming above Whitebird was no naked warrior with a sword. It was modernized, weaponized, and far more lethal — assuming it knew how to use the carbine that it held. It hooked a finger over the trigger and started experimenting, firing a string of rounds that hit the rock behind Whitebird. Stone and metal fragments pummeled him as he returned fire, shooting it in the face. Cabuto punched holes in it from behind, shots aimed outside the protection of the armored vest it wore, hitting both shoulder joints and rupturing its neck.

Fire erupted from every wound. Roaring, sinuous streamers of yellow-orange flame, the energy of the demon’s existence maybe, bursting into this dimension from some lower world.

The thing arched its back in agony as the fire enveloped it. It shrieked and it shook, but it did not go down.

They never did.

In the twisted landscape of his exhausted mind, Whitebird was more disturbed by the demon’s refusal to collapse than he was by the hellfire, or by the creature’s inexplicable appearance out of blowing grit and vapor.

The reality he once knew had been stolen away. The rules were different now.

“Can you see it?” Cabuto shouted over the demon’s keening. “Is it opening?”

Whitebird vaulted to his feet, backing away from the searing heat. “Not yet!” But it would open. “Goodfellow, get your ass over here!”

“Sir, I — ” He backed a step away. “Let Foltz go first. He really wants to go — ”

It wasn’t a debate. Whitebird had made his decision. He just hoped like Hell —

Ah, fuck that. He needed to cut that phrase right out of his vocabulary. He hoped to God he was sending the kid home and not to Hell.

Holding his M4 in one hand, he grabbed Goodfellow’s arm with the other and marched him up to the fire while the demon’s shrieks faded as if its voice was retreating into the distance.

Cabuto circled around to watch.

The demon’s shape could no longer be seen. The fire that had consumed it became a thin sheet that expanded into a pointed arch seven-and-a-half feet high. As soon as the arch formed, it split in the middle, opening along a vertical seam, the fire drawing back until the shimmering flames framed a passage that had been burned through to the world. Whitebird could see through the passage, to home. He knew it was home because he could see the proper color of the sky. He could see figures in the distance in familiar uniforms; he could see vehicles, and helicopters circling the collapsed ruins of the outpost.

Cabuto called it Death’s Door.

Whitebird longed to pass through it. So did Cabuto. Everyone wanted a chance to go — except Goodfellow. “Now or never,” Whitebird warned him. “You will not be given a second chance.”

He shoved the kid hard, and when that failed to convince him, he brought his weapon to his shoulder and trained the muzzle on Goodfellow’s face. “Go now, or die here.”

For a second, Goodfellow was too shocked to react — but then he stepped through, a moment before the fire burned itself out. When Death’s Door closed, he was on the other side.

• • • •

Whitebird intended to get everyone out, but it was a slow, dangerous game, and it had taken time to learn the basic rules: that a door only opened if they killed a demon, and then only one soldier could pass through.

No one knew why.

No one knew who had made the rules: God or the Devil or an ancient magician or random chance. It didn’t matter. “We know how to get home. That’s all that matters.”

Whitebird knew — they all knew — that the longer any of them stayed in that place, the more likely they were to die there. The demons might kill them or, worse, the demons might stop trying to kill them. If the demons didn’t come hunting them, if there were no demons to kill, there would be no passage back, and whoever was left behind would die of thirst.

So in his mind Whitebird weighed the merits of each of his soldiers. He balanced the potential of their unknowable futures against the immediate needs of the squad, and he developed a list in his head that prioritized their lives.

“Keller!”

“Yes, sir,” she answered from her position on the opposite side of the little plateau. Specialist Trish Keller, who had a year-old daughter and no support from the dad.

“You’re going home next, Keller. Be ready.”

“Lieutenant, who goes after Keller?” Foltz wanted to know.

Foltz was a good, determined soldier, but not a selfless one. He’d been putting himself forward at every opportunity, pushing hard to be the next to go home — but Sergeant Cabuto didn’t approve of his lobbying.

“Knock off the chatter, Foltz! Keep your eyes on the desert. The lieutenant will let you know when it’s your turn.”

Whitebird squinted at the glassy haze of heat shimmers rising above the dust, going over again in his head the evacuation list he’d developed. Foltz was going to be disappointed, because after Keller he planned to send Private Bridget Cobb, who was an only child. Then Private Ben Fong, who would make an excellent non-com if he lived long enough. Only after that would he let Omar Foltz go, and after him, Private Jordana Alameri, who was basically a fuckup and didn’t have much of a future to go home to. Once his soldiers had all made it back, then Sergeant Cabuto would be willing to go.

It was a tentative schedule, subject to revision. Whitebird considered moving Cabuto up the list, ordering him to follow Keller. He didn’t want to have to get by without the sergeant, but Cabuto had a wife and three kids. Or maybe he should send Alameri next. After this tour of Hell’s suburb, she might be ready to walk the strait and narrow.

There was only one position on the list that Whitebird was sure about, and that was his own. He would go last, which meant that for some unknown interval of time, a few seconds or forever, he would be here alone — and what that would be like?

It didn’t bear thinking on.

• • • •

After Yuen died and Whitebird killed the first demon, Death’s Door had opened for the first time. Foltz had been nearby. He’d seen through to the world and had tossed a rock into the passage to test the way — but the rock bounced back.

Specialist Jacobs had a different idea. “Let’s try something from our world.” He moved in close to the searing fire, tossed a cartridge — and it passed through. The squad pressed in around him despite the heat, watching the glittering cartridge shrink with distance and then silently strike the ground on the other side, bouncing and skipping across the familiar gray grit of the desert they used to patrol.

There was a nervous catch in Jacobs’ voice when he announced, “You know what? I’m going home.” Then he stepped through.

Whitebird had been badly startled. He’d grabbed at Jacobs, tried to catch him, to pull him back out of harm’s way, but Jacobs was already on the other side, a distant figure seen in utter clarity as he turned to look back at them. His mouth moved with words Whitebird could not hear as he gestured emphatically for them to follow — but Whitebird could not follow. The passage pushed at his mind and he could not move his limbs in any way that would take him through it.

“Foltz, go!” he ordered, and Foltz was willing.

He pushed past the lieutenant and tried to push on into the passage, but it was closed to him too. When he realized it, he turned on Whitebird in an explosion of frustration. “Goddamnit, Lieutenant! What the fuck is going on? Is this some kind of crazy experiment? Yuen is fucking dead. What the Hell did you get us into?”

Jacobs was still looking back at them from the other side when Death’s Door closed.

• • • •

What did you get us into?

Whitebird had no answer for that or any of the other questions the squad lobbed at him:

What is this place?

Why are we here?

Is this Hell?

“I don’t know!”

They clustered around him, Cobb and Goodfellow weeping, Keller praying quietly, her folded hands pressed to her forehead, the rest clutching their M4s, their gazes flitting from him, to each other, to the heat-blurred horizon — scared, suspicious, angry.

Whitebird forced himself to use a matter-of-fact voice: “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why we’re here, but we are going back. Sergeant Cabuto!”

The sergeant stepped up, stern, determined. “Sir!”

“Set up a perimeter guard.”

“Roger that, sir.”

Foltz still had questions. “I don’t get it, sir. Why the hell did Jacobs get to go back? He did go back, didn’t he? It looked like he went back.”

“He went back,” Whitebird confirmed. He was not going to allow doubt on that — it was all they had to hold on to — but the question that really mattered was, could they do it again? Could they send someone else back?

He put Keller to work inventorying their supplies, and then he helped get Yuen’s head and body wrapped up in an emergency blanket. When that was done, he conferenced with Cabuto. “If it happens again, we need to be ready.”

“Agreed, sir.”

They pulled Private Lono aside, selecting him because he was their strongest man.

Whitebird asked him, “If the chance comes, are you willing to try it? To follow Jacobs?”

“Roger that, sir. I sure as fuck don’t want to die here.”

Whitebird nodded. “I want you to carry Yuen’s body with you when you go. We’ll follow if we can.”

Out on the open plain, Whitebird felt too vulnerable, so he directed the squad to make for the nearest plateau. They would take turns carrying Yuen’s body.

They’d been walking only a few minutes when the second demon came. The soldiers out front started shooting when it was still churning sand. That drove it back, but only briefly. It charged in again, congealing into existence only inches from Fong, who fired his M4 point-blank at its belly and then fled as fire erupted. The passage back to the world opened just like the first time, and Lono escaped with Yuen’s body. But though Keller tried to follow, she could not.

The next demon came just as they reached the rocks and it got LaBerge.

After that, two demons came together. One was killed. Fernandez used its death to return to the world with LaBerge over his shoulder. After he left, Cobb got all weepy, claiming she’d seen LaBerge’s soul seeping through the passage — “Like a glowing light cleaner and brighter than daylight” — which convinced Whitebird that she was full of shit because there was nothing clean and bright about LaBerge’s soul.

But that didn’t mean he’d deserved to die here, halfway to Hell, with his head cut off by a lunatic demon.

• • • •

They spread out once again around the top of the small plateau, waiting for another demon to appear. Five minutes crept past, and then ten before Cabuto spotted a sand plume, far out on the desert and barely discernible above the heat shimmers. It churned up against the wall of another low plateau a kilometer and a half away, and disappeared.

Fong spotted another, but it too failed to come after them.

It had been six hours since the squad dropped out of the world, but there was no sign of nightfall in this place and the heat remained constant. They’d been low on water from the start. Soon it would be gone and then they’d have only a few hours before they succumbed to dehydration. They needed to find more demons before then.

Whitebird turned to catch Cabuto’s eye. “We’re moving out. The dust bunnies didn’t have any trouble finding us on the plain.”

Cabuto turned to look again at the next plateau, a black island rising from the shimmering red-brown flat. “We saw one disappear over there.”

Whitebird nodded. It was as good a direction as any.

• • • •

They made their way down from the rocks and then set off across the hard clay surface. Every footfall sent a puff of fine red dust into the still air. Sweat leaped off their skin, evaporating as soon as it formed. Whitebird sipped at his remaining water, but the relief it brought was wiped out by the next breath of hot, dry air.

They stayed ten meters apart. Whitebird and Foltz marched in front, Cobb, Alameri, and Fong formed a second rank, and Cabuto and Keller held the rear, keeping watch behind them.

They couldn’t see far. Hot air rose in shimmering columns, reflecting distant plateaus while hiding what was really there so that again, like the first time, they heard the demon before they saw it. “Three o’clock!” Whitebird called out, turning toward a faint rustling white noise.

“I can hear another,” Cabuto warned. “Five o’clock.”

“Fucking two dust bunnies?” Alameri grumbled. “Again?”

“Two tickets home,” Whitebird reminded her. “Fall back if they materialize between us — and stay alert for more.”

“I see it!” Foltz shouted. “Three o’clock!”

“Fall back!”

“Incoming from behind!” Cabuto warned.

The two plumes of sand and vapor churned past their outer ranks, converging in the middle where Cobb had been standing. She tried to get away. She plunged right through one of the sand plumes, but the other curled around to cut her off. Both demons transformed. Giant figures, they stood back-to-back, dressed in desert camo and armed with carbines. Cobb was caught between them as gunfire erupted from all sides.

Whitebird dove for the ground. Bullets chewed through the hot air as demon howls broke out, competing with the racket of the weapons. The demons had been hit. Whitebird rolled, coming up on one knee to see the two creatures on fire, their weapons burning and useless in their hands — with Cobb sprawled and bloody on the ground between them.

“Cease fire!” he screamed. “Cease fire!”

The shooting ended, and Whitebird charged toward the two flaming figures. As he did, he saw Foltz move in the corner of his eye. “Foltz! Help me get Cobb!”

“But, sir — ”

“Now!” He crouched beside Cobb. Her jaw was shattered. Blood soaked her right arm and thigh. Grabbing her pack strap, he dragged her away from the fire.

Goddamn. Goddamn.

The demons couldn’t have shot her where she’d been standing.

“Foltz!”

Whitebird looked up to see Keller, Fong, Foltz, and Alameri, all waiting near the flames.

“Keller goes next!” Whitebird ordered. He strode into their midst, grabbed Foltz, shoved him away, shoved Alameri. “And you, Fong, go.”

Foltz and Alameri looked mutinous, so Whitebird kept his finger just above the trigger of his M4 and watched them until Keller and Fong were gone.

Foltz cursed into the quiet that descended. “Goddamn shit. Why the fuck do I have to stay here? Why? We are going to fucking die here.”

From somewhere behind Whitebird, Cabuto spoke. “Lieutenant, Cobb’s not going to make it.”

“I know that.”

“I can’t get a heartbeat. We’ve lost her.” And then, “Holy shit. Lieutenant, you have to see this.”

Whitebird turned.

Cabuto was backing away from Cobb as a black shadow, utterly dark, seeped up from the ground beneath her body. It spread out to surround her, and as it did, Cobb sank into it, her shattered corpse dropping slowly away — into some place worse than this one?

“Don’t let her go.”

“She’s dead, sir.”

What did that mean, here? LaBerge had died here. Yuen had died. This had not happened to them.

Whitebird rushed to Cobb’s side, went to his knees and grabbed for her, but though she was only inches away, he couldn’t touch her. A twist of geometry had placed her out of reach as she lay cradled in darkness, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses, but with the mangled flesh and shattered bone and broken teeth of her jaw exposed.

He didn’t exactly see it happen. He couldn’t point to the moment, but the pliant geometry that held her stretched and shifted and she was suddenly away, lying on rocky soil among tufts of grass with a moon rising over sharp peaks, spilling a yellow light.

Whitebird knew the place. “That’s home. That’s right by the outpost.” He looked up at Cabuto. “Go. Follow her. Follow her through.”

Pale dust frosted Cabuto’s dark face. “No, sir. We’ve got two soldiers who need to go ahead of me, sir.”

“Goddamn it,” Whitebird whispered. “I want you to go.”

“Not before them, Lieutenant. No fucking way.”

Whitebird stood up, furious. Cabuto was worth more than Foltz and Alameri together. He had a wife and kids. Arguing, though, would only waste the chance.

“Foltz!”

Foltz was still steps away, cursing his luck, but Whitebird discovered that Private Alameri had come quietly to his side. She looked up at him from behind her dark sunglasses. He nodded. “Go. And don’t waste your fucking life.”

No hesitation. As Foltz came charging up, she stepped into the shadow and then she was standing on the other side, standing beside the body, an infinite distance away but still close enough that he could see her as she turned, looking up at the three of them gazing down at her. Then searing desert light infiltrated the shadow, destroying it, leaving only hardpan covered in red dust.

• • • •

“What the fuck just happened?” Foltz screamed, probing at the ground with the butt of his weapon and then hammering at it. “Why did that happen?”

“Death’s Door,” Cabuto said.

Foltz turned on him. “It didn’t happen when Yuen died! Or LaBerge! What was different this time?”

“Leave it!” Whitebird snapped. He already knew what made this death different. “It just fucking happened. You are going to make it home, Foltz.”

“Yeah? Alive or dead?”

“Alive if you can hold yourself together. What happened to Cobb doesn’t need to happen again. It was an accident.”

Whitebird regretted the words as soon as they were out, because they pointed Foltz to the truth.

He backed a step away, eyeing Whitebird with a guarded expression. “The demons didn’t kill her, did they? We killed her.”

“Friendly fire,” Cabuto affirmed as he turned in a slow circle, eyeing the terrain.

“But it’s not going to happen again,” Whitebird added.

Foltz nodded, though he was thinking hard.

Thinking the same thing Whitebird was thinking: that Death’s Door opened every time they took a life . . . and not just a demon’s life. They knew that now, but it was a poisonous knowledge.

“We’re in this together,” Whitebird emphasized.

Foltz nodded again, though he did not seem convinced.

• • • •

They went on, deciding that it was more likely another demon would notice them if they kept moving. Or maybe more than one would come. There might even be three. Three would be enough to get them all home, and then Whitebird wouldn’t have to stay here alone.

He’d kept his fear locked up for hours, but they were close to the end now and his dread of what that meant was rising up to choke him. Foltz would get to go home next, and then Cabuto. Whitebird would make sure of that. It was his duty. He swore to himself he would make it happen.

Then only he would be left behind, left here, alone.

And if the demons killed him, then what? There was no one to take his body back. What would become of his soul?

He wasn’t sure he believed in a soul, but he worried over it anyway.

A faint susurration reached his ears, barely audible over the crunch of their boots, the creak of their packs. He stopped and turned, scanning the plain — and this time he saw the demons at a distance, reflected in the heat shimmers so that their plumes of dust appeared elevated above the ground. One snaked toward them from two o’clock and another from four o’clock, two came from behind, and a fifth raced in from their left.

“Ah, fuck,” Cabuto swore.

Whitebird said, “Run.”

Their packs banged against their backs as they sprinted for the rocks. Cabuto took the lead with Foltz on his heels. Whitebird followed. If they could get behind the fallen boulders with their backs against the black cliff, then they could make a defense, hold the demons at bay, reduce their numbers . . .

But they were already too late.

More than an hour ago they’d watched a plume of sand and vapor wander the plain before disappearing into these rocks. That demon was still there, waiting for them. Dressed in desert camo with an M4 carbine in its black-clawed hands, it crouched behind the shelter of a massive, angular boulder lying like a black prism on the ground. They were fifteen meters away when it started shooting.

The first shots went wild. Then a burst struck Cabuto in his chest armor, knocking him over backward. Foltz caught a round in his hip. It spun him, dropping him ass-first to the ground. Whitebird jumped over him, jumped sideways, pulled a grenade from his vest, and hurled it behind the rock as a bullet chewed past his helmet.

He dove for the ground. The grenade went off.

The explosion blasted a cloud of dust into the air and shook the cliff hard enough that an avalanche of sharp stones dislodged, tumbling down with a roar. The body of the demon ignited on the edge of the debris.

Foltz saw it and heaved himself up in an act of will that somehow got him to his feet. Under the incandescent light of the false sky, the blood that soaked his hip blazed red. He took a step and his leg gave out. He sat down hard again. “Goddamn it! Goddamn it, Whitebird, you got to help me!”

Cabuto, a few meters behind Foltz, had recovered enough to make it to his hands and knees. He rocked back to a kneeling position, his weapon aimed at the oncoming assault. The storm front of demons was a hundred meters out, five plumes that blended into one, bearing down on them with a low whisper of sand on sand, punctuated by the sharp crack of arcing electricity.

“Help me!” Foltz screamed.

Whitebird ran past him, ran past Cabuto, and lobbed another grenade, heaving it as far as he could in the direction of the oncoming cloud. It went off ahead of the churning sand, with no effect that he could see. He looked back over his shoulder.

The burning demon swayed like a balloon afloat on hot air, its feet just brushing the hardpan as flames spread over it in a blazing sheet: the prelude to Death’s Door opening. Foltz was trying to drag himself toward it, but for him, it was too far.

So for the last time, Whitebird mentally updated the order of his evacuation list. “On your feet, Sergeant,” he said, rejoining Cabuto. “This one’s yours. You can make it if you run. Now, move!”

Cabuto didn’t. He scowled past dark sunglasses while keeping his weapon trained on the oncoming cloud. “Take Foltz, sir!”

“Goddamn it, there’s no time! Get on your feet and go!”

Foltz had stopped his slow crawl. He twisted around, his M4 gripped in two hands. Past the blood-smeared lenses of his safety glasses, Whitebird saw fury and a sense of betrayal in his gaze. “Foltz,” he said, trying to reassure, “I’m staying with you.”

But a decision had already crystallized in Foltz’s eyes. A calculation born of logic and desperation: There was still a way for him to go home.

The demon storm was eighty meters out when Foltz raised his weapon, training the muzzle of his M4 on Whitebird, and on Cabuto, who was still kneeling with his back turned.

Whitebird screamed “No!” — but it was already a meaningless protest, an empty aftermath to a decision made and acted upon. Deep in the pragmatic layers of his battle-trained mind, he’d concluded a calculation of his own. His conscience continued to wrestle with the choice even as his own weapon fired in a drawn-out peal of hammering thunder, dumping slugs into the midline of Foltz’s chest armor, stitching a straight line to his throat, through his face, shattering his glasses and his skull. His weapon flew out of his hands, tumbling, caught in a shower of blood.

Cabuto lunged to his feet. He spun around, eyes wide with horror, his mouth a round orifice of shock as he held his M4 tucked against his shoulder, contemplating Whitebird over its sights.

Whitebird shook his head, gesturing with his own gun at a black shadow seeping up through the desert floor, enfolding Foltz’s body. “Go.” Already, the body was subsiding into darkness. “Go, Sergeant. Follow him home.”

“You killed him!” Cabuto screamed. “Why? Just to buy a way out?”

Whitebird answered, saying what Cabuto needed to hear: “He was aiming to kill you. Us. We were his passage out of here. You saw him before. You know what he was thinking. I had no choice.” But that wasn’t the whole truth. “I fucked up and called it wrong. He was never a hero — and I let him think he could be left behind.”

Cabuto looked like he wanted to argue more, but what was left to argue?

“Go now!” Whitebird shouted, knowing that neither of them — no one who had been in that place — would ever really leave.

The sergeant’s gaze shifted to the burning demon, transformed now into an arch of flame framing a transient passage back to the world. “You better get your ass in gear, Lieutenant. You better fucking run!”

Cabuto turned and stumbled into the shadow, dropping out of Whitebird’s sight.

The swirling sand storm was almost on him when Whitebird took off, sprinting for the fire. The demon-driven sand swept past him and then spun around, encircling him to block his way, but he plunged through it, the grains hammering in tiny, painful pricks against his cheeks and pinging against his sunglasses, his helmet, his clothes. Demon figures resolved out of the red-tinged chaos, some armed with white swords and others with guns.

Whitebird started shooting. He emptied his magazine at half-seen shapes until he felt the fire’s searing heat radiant against his face. Only then did he look at it, and within the encircling arch of flame he saw familiar stars spangling the moon-washed night sky of home — a step away or an infinite distance, he didn’t know.

In the dusty air above his head the whistling passage of a demon’s white blade sounded, descending on him.

He dove.

© 2015 by Linda Nagata.

Originally published in Operation Arcana,

edited by John Joseph Adams.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

Editor’s Note: If you enjoyed this story, you might also enjoy the anthology this story first appeared in, Operation Arcana edited by John Joseph Adams. It contains sixteen never-before-published tales of military fantasy, and is available now from Baen Books. To learn more, visit johnjosephadams.com/operation-arcana.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Linda Nagata is the author of The Red: First Light, a near-future military thriller nominated for both the Nebula Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Among her other works are The Bohr Maker, winner of the Locus Award for best first novel; the novella “Goddesses,” the first online publication to receive a Nebula award; and the story “Nahiku West,” a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. Though best known for science fiction, she also writes fantasy, exemplified by her “scoundrel lit” series Stories of the Puzzle Lands. Linda has spent most of her life in Hawaii, where she’s been a writer, a mom, and a programmer of database-driven websites. She lives with her husband in their long-time home on the island of Maui.

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

A Face of Black Iron

Matthew Hughes

Previously on The Kaslo Chronicles: An ancient evil, lurking in another dimension through all the aeons since magic last ruled the universe, is striking out at Erm Kaslo, former hardboiled confidential operative (op) turned wizard’s henchman, and his employer, the proto-thaumaturge Diomedo Obron. Now the two, along with the mysterious Archon Filidor of Old Earth, must re-enter the Seventh Plane, discover what awaits them there, and try to destroy it before it destroys them.

[To read the other stories in the series, visit lightspeedmagazine.com/kaslo.]

Diomedo Obron and the Archon Filidor passed the evening and much of the night in the latter’s study, discussing the next day’s journey into the wastes of Barran and the expected confrontation with whatever survivor of the Nineteenth Aeon wizards’ cabal still lurked in the Seventh Plane. Erm Kaslo struggled to try to understand the concepts the two thaumaturges threw onto the table — sometimes literally, as the Archon’s integrator, Old Confustible, rendered their ideas in diagrams, mathematical formulae, and even in three-dimensional models whose planes and curves mutated into shapes that caused the op’s brain to overheat.

Eventually, he went back down the corridor to the landing outside the palace, where the dragon Saunterance — formerly Obron’s space yacht — squatted, wings folded, beside the shining dome of Testroni’s Impervious Conveyance that had brought them here from Novo Bantry. Kaslo had no experience of reading the body language of dragons, but he sensed that Saunterance was at ease with the circumstances in which it found itself — but peace of mind was so far from Kaslo’s grasp that he could not even see a path toward it.

“What is it like for you?” he asked the dragon. “To be so changed?”

The creature spoke as it would have when it was a ship’s integrator, so that its voice seemed to emanate from the air beside the man’s ear. “I am not so changed,” it said. “Before, I was a core connected to the systems of a spaceship. My function was to travel. Now I am a mind enclosed in a body that performs much the same function.”

“Are you content?”

The dragon’s features momentarily formed an almost human expression. “I suppose I am,” it said. “It is not a question I am disposed to ask myself.”

“You are fortunate,” said Kaslo. “You retain your function as well as the ability to perform it. I, however . . .” He finished the thought in a sigh.

“Obron values you,” Saunterance said. “You may have more worth than you allot yourself.”

“I used to know my worth to an exact measure,” Kaslo said. “And it was considerable. Now — ”

“Now you are in the business of rediscovering it, using a different set of calibrations,” said the dragon. “Why don’t you wait and see what turns up in you?”

It wasn’t bad advice, Kaslo thought, especially from a dragon. He bid Saunterance a good night and found his bunk in the Conveyance. He expected to lie awake, but instead fell quickly into a dreamless sleep.

He was awakened by the sounds of voices, footsteps, and the movement of bulky objects, and came out of his cabin into the vessel’s common area to find it being loaded with cabinets and chests by men and women in green and black livery. Filidor was supervising the business, with advice from Obron.

Kaslo’s employer turned as the op entered. “I was telling the Archon,” he said, “about how your spring-gun shot a nouble into one of the preyns and destroyed it utterly.”

“True,” said Kaslo.

Filidor said, “How large a missile will it take?” When Kaslo made a circle with finger and thumb, the hole about the size of a child’s marble, the Archon said, “I was hoping for something larger.” He put two hands together, the space between them the dimension of a fist-sized ball.

“No one ever had a need for a spring-gun of that caliber,” the op said.

“Too bad,” said the Archon. “It might have been useful.”

Kaslo’s practical mind furnished a suggestion. “How about a sling?”

Both wizards gave him a blank look.

The op said, “One of the skills of a confidential operative is the ability to make a deadly weapon out of the most basic materials. A sling is one of humanity’s oldest death-dealers, and the second-most basic — the most basic being a hand-thrown rock.”

He explained the mechanics of the weapon, and the simplicity of its parts. “I could throw a fist-sized nouble almost as far as I could shoot a pebble from a spring-gun.”

“With lethal effect?” said Filidor.

“Certainly.”

“Simple centrifugal force doesn’t apply in the Seventh Plane,” the Archon said. “You would have to add your will to the operation.”

“Then I would need some practice.”

“We’ll try to arrange that.” Filidor returned his attention to what he and Obron had been doing: ordering the contents of a triple-shelved bookcase. Kaslo went into the galley and made a breakfast out of their supplies. When he came back into the common room, the new furnishings had been arranged to the wizards’ satisfaction. A footman came in, made a subtle gesture that attracted Filidor’s attention, then handed over a coil of leather cord into which a wide patch of the same material had been fitted.

Filidor showed the item to Kaslo. “Will this do?”

The op took it, stretched out the cord, examined the slots where it passed through the patch, and tested the strength. “Yes,” he said.

“Then we’re ready,” said the Archon, “except for . . .” He turned and made a summoning gesture through the Conveyance’s open hatch. The entrance darkened as an oddly shaped figure stepped through. At first impression, Kaslo thought it was a small man in a coat of rough fur, then he took in more detail: the too-long arms, the short, splayed legs, the long, prehensile toes, and of course, the face — a combination of great ape cross-bred with some other creature that had supplied pointed, tufted ears and a protruding muzzle that ended in a somewhat feline snout.

The newcomer turned a pair of lambent yellow eyes on Kaslo, and the op felt himself intelligently assessed. At the same moment, he knew what he was seeing. “Old Confustible,” he said.

“I’ve never cared for that name,” the creature said.

“Accustom yourself to it,” said the Archon. “It suits.” Then to Obron, “We should leave. It’s a far distance to Barran, even by dragon.”

Obron gave orders. The Conveyance sealed itself. Saunterance, long since freed from constraint, positioned itself on top of the dome, talons grasping the carrying ring. Then the dragon threw itself skyward, its vast leathery wings digging into the air, and the expedition was off and away.

Old Confustible wandered into the galley and began rummaging through the food stores. It came back into the salon, carrying a karba fruit, found an out-of-the-way spot beside a cabinet, and hunkered down to peel the purple rind.

Kaslo exercised his curiosity about the ancient creature. “Have you had other names, in your previous incarnations?”

“‘Iterations’ is the term we prefer,” was the answer, delivered in the even-more-neutral-than-usual tone that Kaslo remembered as the way integrators expressed deepest indignation.

“My apologies,” he said. “This is all new to me, and much of it inexplicable.”

“I have had other names, and have them still,” said the familiar as its flat-nailed fingers separated a segment of the karba and popped it into the black-lipped mouth. “But to use them would disharmonize the basal fluxions.”

“I see,” said the op, though he did not. “I have seen, in Obron’s texts, a creature similar to you, called a ‘grinnet.’”

Old Confustible’s jaws closed with a snap and the yellow eyes gazed at a point over the op’s shoulder. “I am no grinnet,” it said. The tone was so neutral as to alert Kaslo that another apology was advisable.

When he had delivered it, he said, “I am only trying to understand.”

The creature consumed another segment of fruit and regarded him sideways. Then it sighed and said, “I am to a grinnet as you are to the lowest ranked tyro in whatever profession you followed before your present employment.”

“I was a confidential operative,” Kaslo said, “of high standing.”

“Then a grinnet would be comparable to a youth you hired to sweep the walk and make a pot of afternoon punge.”

“Ah,” said Kaslo. “Then, if not a grinnet, what are you?”

Old Confustible swallowed the last of its meal and said, “I am . . .” — there was a discernible pause, which Kaslo imagined ought to be filled with a flourish of trumpets — “a groffet.”

“A groffet,” he said.

“A groffet, first-magnitude. Nothing less.” It withdrew its attention from him, closed its eyes, and began to doze.

After the Conveyance had lifted off, Obron gestured to the wall and one segment became a forward-facing window. Now Kaslo went to look out and down, saw the cityscape below give way to green countryside: fields and woods, isolated farm houses and small hamlets wherever the infrequent roads intersected. He saw diminutive figures in fields, wagons drawn by draft animals.

“It can’t be that simple,” he said to Filidor. “The whole universe changes and life goes on.”

The Archon looked up from the papers Obron had spread on his workbench. “It wasn’t simple,” he said. “When I knew the change was coming, I encouraged a new trend in old-fashioned ways of life. The aristocracy immediately followed suit, had themselves drawn about in carriages and told their servants to plow fields and plant vegetables.

“The middle classes copied their social superiors, as they often do. When the moment arrived, the elements of a pre-machine culture were already to hand. It eased the transition.”

“Here, perhaps,” Kaslo said. “Why didn’t you spread the word to other worlds? You might have saved countless lives.”

“Would you have believed me if I had?”

The op remembered the man he had been. “No, I wouldn’t have.”

“Nor would one in a million,” said Filidor. “In a rational age, sympathetic association is ridiculous. Anyone who argues for its merits is either a loon or a purveyor of bunkum, and therefore liable to be locked up on either count.”

Obron spoke up. “My friends and family called me a noddy and a nibblewit. After a while, I stopped trying to make them see.”

Kaslo turned back to the window, then a thought brought him back to the two wizards, now bent over their calculations again. “But why does it happen?” he said.

Obron’s face said the query was nuncupatory. Filidor, however, took the question seriously. “We don’t know,” he said. “We must assume that the demiurge, when making the multiverse, had some goal in mind — and presumably, the alternation of reason and magic plays some part in achieving that end. But that knowledge has not been vouchsafed to any of us who must make our lives in it.”

He went back to the diagram Obron had spread on the workbench, then he stopped and turned back to Kaslo. “If it’s any consolation,” he said, “an operative of mine claimed to have met one of the demiurge’s helpers, imprisoned in a cave far, far down The Spray. The assistant said that the Nine Planes and all within it are not the real multiverse.”

“Then what is all this?” Kaslo gestured to the land and sky beyond the window. “Just a fiction meant to deceive us?”

“Nothing like that,” said the Archon. “There’s no evidence that the purpose of phenomenality has anything to do with us at all — just as the meaning of your own life has no relationship to any particular cell in your liver or any of the microscopic plant-like organisms that live within that cell.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” said Kaslo, though he would have preferred another answer. “But if this is not the real multiverse, what is it?”

“According to the assistant,” said the Archon, “we’re part of a rough draft, a preliminary sketch that should have been thrown away once the true, perfect creation was achieved.”

Kaslo blinked. Not for the first time, he felt a sad longing for the life he had used to have: when all his problems were practical, and, once he’d solved one, he could go fishing.

“Is the operative who made this melancholy discovery still around?” he asked. “I would like to speak with him.”

“Hapthorn?” said Filidor. “I’m not sure. Old Confustible might know.”

The creature by the cabinet spat a karba seed into its pink-palmed hand and said. “I do not. He disappeared during the confusion. Or he may have gone off-world.”

Filidor shrugged and returned his gaze to Obron’s papers. The wizards discussed some point with lowered voices. Saunterance flew on, now carrying them over a dark forest. Kaslo went back to his cabin and calmed himself by practicing the combative arts.

• • • •

By midday, they had overflown a vast forest that had gradually given way to open grassland. As the faded orange sun sank toward the horizon, the grass thinned and became desiccated earth dotted with thorny scrub and ground-hugging dryland plants. Finally, even the hardiest vegetation admitted defeat and they were flying over bare rock and sand.

Filidor and Obron had been working together throughout the flight, consulting texts from both wizards’ libraries and performing incomprehensible operations with odd-looking instruments and apparatuses that the Archon had had brought aboard in the various chests and cabinets that crowded the salon. Now, as the sun turned blood-red and began to disappear behind the planet’s edge, he straightened, stretched, and came to join Kaslo at the viewing port.

“There,” the Archon said, pointing toward the farthest horizon, “where the land rises and throws a shadow. That is the rim of the crater.”

Kaslo looked as they swept toward the huge landmark. It took a moment for his mind to adjust to the scale of the thing: a low-rimmed circle so immense it was hard to discern the curve, its floor stretching flat and level to the horizon.

“Smooth as glass, beneath the dust,” Filidor said. “The first time I crossed it, we had to skate half a day.”

“Why didn’t you just fly in?”

“I was then apprenticed to my uncle, the Archon Dezendah VII. He had a decidedly idiosyncratic approach to training his successor.”

Once they had passed over the rim, Saunterance descended until the base of the Conveyance was just above the flat surface. The dragon’s wings threw up vortices of dust that spiraled behind them, like an aerial wake. Kaslo assumed the proximity to the surface created a ground effect that made for easier flying. Filidor said he was probably right.

“How long can a dragon keep it up?” the op asked.

“That largely depends on the dragon,” the Archon said.

“And what about energy?” Kaslo said. “What do they eat?”

“That,” said Filidor, “depends entirely on the dragon.”

The sun was now completely below the crater’s rim. Darkness rushed across the sky and filled it, except for the cold pinpricks of the stars.

Kaslo had been on planets that had moons. “They can be useful things when you’re out at night, far from the nearest lumen.”

“Indeed,” said the Archon. “Majestrum and his cronies had a lot to answer for.”

Obron had come to join them. “And you’re certain they’ve done so?” he said.

“I am.”

“Then whom are we coming to deal with now?” Kaslo’s employer said.

“That’s something we’ll have to find out.”

It was full dark now. Filidor consulted a book, then spoke several words. A globe of light appeared in front of the Conveyance and rose until it was above Saunterance’s scaly head. The orb narrowed its output until it was casting a bright conical beam of light far before them.

They flew on, the beam illuminating nothing but uniform emptiness, except once when it suddenly swept over a flock of sting-whiffles nesting on the ground, causing them to explode into the air and scatter in all directions, their leathery wings raising a cloud of obscuring dust, their barb-tipped tails lashing at nothing and everything. Later, the light also fell upon a fand — probably out hunting for sting-whiffles — that crouched and bared its needle-like incisors at Saunterance.

“That might be a descendant of the one that chased us when we came and turned off the interplanar device,” Filidor said. For a moment his face softened under the influence of nostalgia, then he said, “We can’t be far now.”

His estimate proved correct. Not long after, the light revealed a square object that Kaslo first took for a low, featureless building set in the middle of the emptiness. Then, as Obron bade Saunterance to circle the structure, the op realized that he was seeing the top side of a great machine sunk into the dust-covered smoothness of the glassy plain.

On one side there was a panel with studs and levers that must be controls. Before it lay a scattering of human bones, picked clean by scavengers and polished by wind-blown dust.

“Majestrum’s golem,” Filidor said. “Once it had performed its function of reactivating the device, it fell apart.”

“The device is not active now?” Kaslo said, contemplating the power of a machine that could create the nothingness in the middle of which they had arrived, not to mention obliterating a moon.

“That is all over and done with,” said the Archon.

“Then, again, whom have we come to confront?”

Filidor shrugged. “Might be a who,” he said, glancing at Old Confustible dozing in his corner, “or perhaps a what.”

The night journey ending with the sight of the interplanar evil-capacitator had not given Kaslo an appetite for mystery and ambiguity. But before he could try to reset the mood, Obron was telling the dragon to land and they were descending into a dust storm raised by Saunterance’s wings. The two wizards busied themselves gathering materials and Obron’s green book, so that the moment the Conveyance touched down, Obron had the hatch open and the two wizards went out onto the plain, followed by Kaslo and the Archon’s yawning assistant.

Filidor ordered the globe of light out over the emptiness, then stopped it to hover over a space a few dozen paces from the Conveyance and the interplanar device. Then he and Obron began laying out noubles in a manner the op recognized. Kaslo’s employer had his green book open and was directing the work, forming a larger circle than the one that had created the whimsy through which Saunterance had returned from the Seventh Plane.

The operation required precise placement of the pearlescent orbs, and the two wizards were continually conferring and squatting to sight along invisible lines between the points the noubles made on the rim of the circle. Old Confustible was also pressed into service, to move a little globe here or there, back or forth. At some point, Saunterance, squatting with wings folded beside the dome, uttered a hiss and clacked its jaws twice. Obron looked up from what he was doing and called to Kaslo.

“There is an outside compartment on this side of the Conveyance.” He gestured complexly and a part of the shining surface slid aside. “Would you give Saunterance one of the bundles inside?”

The dragon’s jaws clacked again and Obron amended the order. “Two of the bundles.”

Kaslo went to the space that had opened in the side of the vehicle. Inside were packed several large, cubical masses wrapped in heavy brown paper. He wrestled one free — whatever was in the paper was dense and heavy, and there was a pronounced odor of fish — and tossed it toward the dragon. Saunterance picked up the cube in one huge paw and raised it to its mouth. The jaws bit and flakes of fish-meat sprinkled down as the creature swallowed half of the bundle, paper and all. By the time the dragon had eaten the remaining half of the cube, Kaslo had thrown a second parcel at its feet. Saunterance ate that one in three bites, then folded its arms across its scaly chest and closed its eyes. After a moment, the jaws parted again to emit a rumbling belch that enclosed the op in a miasma of fish stink.

Kaslo fanned the air and moved away from the dragon. Obron and Filidor continued their measuring and positioning, an activity to which he could make no useful contribution. He noticed Old Confustible become suddenly alert, eyes turned toward the darkness, ears cocked forward.

“What is it?” Kaslo said.

The creature half turned its head toward him, then refocused on the plane. “It is difficult to judge because of the energies being built up here in the circle, but I thought I detected the . . . call it a chime . . . of an interplanar fistula, very faint and short-lived.”

Kaslo looked out at the darkness beyond the cone of light shed by the globe, then went into the Conveyance, found his spring-gun, and made sure that its magazine was filled with the steel-shelled lead balls it was designed to shoot. He cranked its energy-storage mechanism up to maximum.

He went out beyond the circle of illumination, his back to the hovering globe, and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. After a couple of circuits of the illuminated circle he heard something. It sounded like a flood of ball bearings falling and bouncing on hard stone, a rapid clickety-clicking sound that came suddenly out of the distance and grew louder by the second.

“Preyns!” he shouted and back-stepped into the light, raising the spring gun, already set for repetitive fire. As the clicking grew louder, he aimed at the direction the sound came from and depressed the weapon’s activation stud. A stream of missiles spewed out into the darkness and Kaslo heard them strike something. But the clicking tide came on.

Kaslo frantically worked to recock the spring-gun. But now Obron and the Archon were on either side of him. His employer pointed the black wand, spoke a string of guttural syllables, and a beam of silver sprang from its tip and lashed at the night like a whip as Obron moved the instrument back and forth. Filidor clasped his hands together at chest height, sang a chant of four tones, then showed his palms to the darkness. A fan of purple light, harsh and flat, spread out from the Archon’s hands.

The clicking onrush ceased. Kaslo heard other sounds: the cracking of shells, the breaking of armored limbs, wetness splashing into dust. Obron discontinued his lash and Filidor closed his hands to extinguish the purple fan. The Archon moved a finger in the direction of the overhanging globe and it both brightened and extended its reach. Kaslo, looking around for Old Confustible, saw the groffet peeking out of the Conveyance’s open hatch.

The extended illumination, a few paces out on the plain, showed a score or more preyns lying broken and crushed. Those farthest out bore the circular wounds that spring-gun missiles made. A couple of these were still alive, one still trying to drag itself forward on broken legs. Kaslo shot them both, in the place where he figured their rudimentary brains must be, then turned back to see that the two wizards had resumed their nouble-placement.

“That seemed a waste of his forces,” the op said to Filidor, “whoever he turns out to be.”

Filidor glanced up from where he was setting down a green nouble. “It had the odor of an act of desperation,” the Archon said. He moved the orb a little to one side then compared its position to two others. “Interesting. But we’ll know for sure in a little while. This is almost ready.”

He was right. Soon after, Obron placed the black nouble in the center of the arrangement and pointed his wand at it. Moments later, a round hole appeared in the night, tall and wide, swirling with eye-searing non-light and colors Kaslo could not name.

“Wake up, Saunterance,” Obron said. “We’re ready to move.”

The men went back into the Conveyance and Obron sealed the hatch. Moments later, Kaslo felt the floor rise and they were in motion, the whimsy visible through the transparent front panel. He flinched involuntarily as they swept toward it, the peril of entering non-space without medications to cushion the mind long inculcated in the veteran space traveler.

But they passed through the interplanar portal without ill effect, though the sights the op saw through the viewport outraged his vision-processing neurons and caused him a wave of vertigo that made him look away. He saw Filidor putting on a close-fitting leather helmet that set two large round circles of opaque crystal over his eyes, the cusps far larger than the ones Kaslo had worn in his previous visits to the Seventh Plane. The headgear also had something in the places where the ears would be covered: They looked like puffs of wire wool.

“Here,” Obron said. He held two of the helmets, and offered one to the op. Kaslo pulled it on and snugged it down, fastening a chin strap to hold it securely to his head. The crystal cusps left him blind, until he turned toward the transparency and saw the Seventh Plane as he had seen it before.

A vast, colorless plain stretched in all directions under an equally vast, equally colorless sky. Kaslo squinted through the now transparent crystal cusps, trying to make out the line of a horizon, but without success. Indeed, as he focused more closely on where the apparent sky should have met the supposed earth, it seemed to him that the ground curved upwards to meet the overhanging celestial dome.

He remembered his previous visits to this nonspace, and how he had willed color and definition into what he had seen. He did this again, making the plain red and the sky the color of cream, but still he could not make out a place where one gave up and the other took over.

Frustrated, he complained of its noncooperation to Obron, who said, “You are trying to make the Seventh Plane meet the expectations of a Third Plane sensorium. Because it responds to your will, it will do so to a certain extent, but you haven’t the will to make it perform to your satisfaction. Better to let it be what it is, and adapt your experience of it to the terms of its own reality.”

“What does that mean?” the op said.

“It means stop insisting on the impossible. Things are as they are.”

Filidor had been looking through the viewport with the air of a man who sees no more than he had expected. Now he summoned the groffet and said, “Let us get on with it.”

Obron caused the hatch to open and they went out onto the seeming plain. Kaslo stooped and examined the “soil,” finding it again composed of hard, smooth spheres of various sizes. He selected enough of the right dimension and filled the spring-gun’s magazine. And when the weapon was fully charged he picked out more of the pearlescent orbs and stowed them in the pockets of his singlesuit until they bulged.

The task completed, Kaslo felt a little less apprehensive about being in a situation he knew he could never really make sense of. He went over to where Obron and Filidor were in conference. He could not hear what they were saying — the physics of sound did not apply in this place — but then Obron turned toward him and somehow spoke without moving his lips, the words sounding in the op’s head in the recognizable tones of the wizard’s voice.

“Tell the Archon what Phalloon’s ba told you.”

Kaslo opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Filidor held up a hand and now his voice resonated in Kaslo’s mind. “Just think it and, at the same time, want me to hear it.”

Kaslo tried it, thinking the words, “Nineteenth Aeon, a face of black iron, and the blood of a dragon.” Along with the words came the images that had formed in his mind when Phalloon’s shade had spoken them.

Filidor nodded. “Nineteenth Aeon,” he said, “takes us back to Majestrum’s time.” As he said the words, Kaslo saw his own vague conception of what Old Earth had been like in the distant past be replaced with a panorama of sharply realized images: manicured landscapes, verdant and criss-crossed by roads of smooth white stone and canals of still blue water; cities of pastel domes and soaring arches; elegant citizens strolling through sun-dappled arcades or seated on marble benches beside grand fountains, conversing with languid gestures and ironic quirks of lip.

Kaslo’s image of a face of black iron had been that of a mask, such as a mummer might wear. Now, as Filidor repeated the phrase, he saw instead an immense visage, rising like a black sun over a horizon, the hard metal features set in a rictus of divine madness: the face of a demented deity bent on capricious destruction.

“It was,” the Archon’s voice spoke in his mind, “an attribute of Majestrum — a manner in which he presented himself to those who had displeased him. It promised not only death and destruction but told the victims that they would be pursued even into the Underworld, to be harried and tortured even beyond death.”

“That was the fate Phalloon feared,” Kaslo said.

“He needn’t have,” Filidor said. “The pursuer would not come for him unless Majestrum sent it. And Majestrum is not here to do the sending.”

There now came a pause and Kaslo had a brief glimpse into the Archon’s mind as Filidor sorted through a quick flicker of thoughts before saying, “Now, ‘the blood of a dragon’ has me puzzled. I can imagine the substance — dragons do have blood, after all — but I cannot see how it correlates to Majestrum or the iron face or — ”

“Excuse me,” Kaslo formed the words and projected them over Filidor’s mental voice without knowing how he did it — only that he needed to do so.

“What is it?” said the Archon.

“You said that Majestrum sent some entity wearing an iron mask to destroy his enemies, and you said that Majestrum is no longer around to do the sending.”

“Yes.”

“Then who is sending that toward us?”

Kaslo was pointing into the seeming distance, where it was now possible to infer a horizon. It was possible because there was clearly a dividing line between plain and sky, and above it was rising a huge black face, its eyes wide with madness, its lips curled in an insane smile that revealed tusks protruding from both upper and lower jaws, with a long, dagger-shaped tongue reaching down to the sharp-pointed chin.

As the chin cleared the horizon, the mouth opened then clashed the tusks together. The eyes squeezed into a squint of deranged glee, as the face rose higher into the non-sky, looming ever larger as it came toward them. Behind the mask was an amorphous shape of no particular color, with only the suggestions of limbs and torso.

“Good question,” Filidor’s voice said in Kaslo’s mind.

But instead of answering, the Archon went into conversation with Obron and the groffet. Kaslo was left to watch the great mad face loom toward them. It came at a measured pace, the same as he remembered from his own passage from the whimsy in Novo Bantry’s ruined Connaissarium Square to the hills that had turned out to be alive.

The memory brought an idea. He formed words in his mind and sent them to Diomedo Obron, but the wizard waved a dismissive hand and continued his colloquy with Filidor.

“Master,” Kaslo tried again, “I think — ”

But just as, in this place, one willed another to hear one’s thoughts, that other could will not to hear them. The result was the Seventh Plane equivalent of a palm over the mouth.

Kaslo reached out a hand to Obron’s shoulder, but the touch never landed. The Archon and his employer turned and moved swiftly toward the Conveyance, the groffet sailing after them. Obron’s voice spoke in Kaslo’s mind: “Come, now!”

Saunterance had roused itself from where it had been squatting beside the dome, which in this place did not shine but showed a dull surface. The dragon looked toward the oncoming thing and the mask it wore and, if the former space yacht showed any fear, it was not apparent to Kaslo. Saunterance spread its wings and flexed its forepaws, the talons flicking out like great curved knives.

The op saw his employer pause at the hatch and look up at the dragon. Saunterance looked down at Obron, and it was clear that some communication was passing between them — and that the dragon disagreed with what it was being told. The wizard raised both arms in a gesture that expressed angry frustration, then pointed one index finger in the opposite direction from the approaching threat.

Saunterance shook its head the way a man does when he is doing what he doesn’t agree with, then leapt up into the air and, wings spread, flew off in the direction Obron had ordered. The wizard looked back toward Kaslo and did not need to use the mental voice to urge the op to hurry. Then he climbed the ramp and entered the Conveyance just behind Old Confustible; while Obron had been arguing with the dragon, the groffet had smoothly slipped up the ramp.

Kaslo had gone the farthest distance from the Conveyance and was now still several paces — though here one did not actually pace — from whatever safety it offered. He willed himself to travel faster, while looking over his shoulder toward the masked creature that came relentlessly toward them.

But Kaslo’s will was overthrown. Instead of going faster toward the open hatch, he felt his progress slowing. Then it stopped altogether. He saw Obron looking at him from the opening in the dome, and knew that his employer was projecting some thought to him. But no voice appeared in his mind. Just as Obron had willed himself not to hear Kaslo earlier, another more powerful will was now interposing itself between Kaslo and Obron. And that will was canceling Kaslo’s determination to flee into the Conveyance.

The op had had no real experience in focusing his willpower, and knew he could never match the skill wizards acquired through innate talent augmented by dedicated practice. Still, he strove to move himself forward, against the power being exerted against him.

The effort availed him nothing. He slowed, then stopped completely, an arm’s length from the base of the ramp. He saw Obron beckoning him on, then the wizard looked up and beyond Kaslo. And now the op saw anxiety replaced by regret, as Obron lifted a hand in a gesture of sad farewell.

Then the ramp rose up and fitted itself seamlessly into the curve of the dome. Another segment became transparent, and Kaslo saw the three occupants regarding him and the huge thing coming from behind him. There was nothing to do but turn and raise the spring-gun; he would go down fighting.

The iron face was descending toward him from the non-sky, house-sized, implacable, the tusked mouth opened wide, the dagger-shaped tongue lengthening and vibrating. Kaslo had no doubt what fate the creature behind the mask intended for him. In his mind, he formed the word “No!” and projected it at the entity. His thumb found the weapon’s activator and he shot a stream of noubles into the open mouth.

He was hoping for the same result as when he had shot the preyn and seen it dissolve. Instead, the effect of the several missiles that entered the iron maw was simply . . . nothing. The face came on, the mouth opened wider, the tongue protruded even further until it reached Kaslo and wrapped him in an iron grip. Then he was pulled into the gaping mouth, which closed behind him with a final clash of tusks.

Behind the mask’s mouth was a cavity, behind the cavity a fleshy tube. The tongue curved and threw the op back into this gullet. He flung out his hands to prevent his being swallowed, but it was yet again a matter of will, and he did not have enough of that vital quality.

He slid down a frictionless slope. Moments later, he fell into a wider space, a place he recognized: the curving walls of nonflesh, the place where the preyns had crammed the still-living bodies of the stolen people, the gap that led to the seeming plain — and, of course, the preyns themselves. There were only two of them in the cavern, but two was more than Kaslo could handle. As he hit the floor of the open space, they were waiting for him. One extended its pincers and tore the spring-gun from his grasp; the other seized Kaslo in its tooth-edged claw, the tines entering his flesh, and carried him, despite his struggles, toward where the scab clung to the wall.

He was spun around, jerked back and forth by the arthropod’s odd locomotion. It was hard to keep his eyes focused on the scene around him. But he caught glimpses of another figure in the cavern, just within the opening through which he had entered that first time, the aperture out of which he had blasted the preyn that sought to block his escape.

The shape, silhouetted against the non-light, was not human. But nor was it unfamiliar. Kaslo’s thought was that help had arrived, though he could not imagine how, nor even if it would be, could be, anything but futile.

He struggled again, but the claw’s grip was unbreakable. It had not brought him all the way to the edge of the scab. It reached out with its free pincer and peeled back some of the fibrous mass, exposing the covered wound. Then without pause or ceremony, it stuffed Kaslo through the gap and resealed the opening.

It should have been dark, but this plane was beyond physics. Kaslo could see, through the crystals still covering his eyes. And what he saw was cause for despair. Beneath the scab had been a cavity, and the preyns had stuffed that cavity with the living bodies of the people stolen from the village beside Obron’s castle. They were all still there. He could see the shapes of limbs, heads, shoulders and hips, feet and hands, beneath a kind of thick membrane that pulsed slightly.

The sheet of tissue also had the property of glue: Wherever it touched Kaslo, it stuck. The preyn had thrust him against the stuff sideways, so that the left side of his body, his left arm and leg, and that side of his head, was firmly attached to the membrane. He tried to pull away, but the effort was useless.

There was no sensation. Contact with the membrane was neither hot nor cold. It did not press against him nor he against it. But as he tried to discover some piece of information that might prove useful, Kaslo found one that was disheartening. He was not just stuck to the layer of tissue; he was sinking through it. By dint of what passed for osmosis on the Seventh Plane, he was being drawn through the membrane. And at an accelerating rate.

It was like a water level rising. His left arm and leg disappeared into the stuff. Then it reached his left cheek and smoothly progressed over his eye and nose. His right eye and mouth went next, then he was suddenly on the other side of the tissue. Now he was no longer stuck to it; instead, he was pressed against the jumbled body parts of the people compressed into the cavity, with the membrane forming a stiff barrier between him and the cavern.

There was nowhere to go. He could not move. But he saw that the wall of the cavity where it met the membrane was now bulging toward him, the bulge becoming a kind of pseudopod that wriggled toward his helmeted head like a blind worm. He tried to pull back as it neared his face, but the back of his head was hard against some unknown person’s anatomy.

The helmet covered his head down to where his nose met his upper lip. The tip of the pseudopod made contact with the headgear at his temple. It paused there, as if the leather was not what it expected. Then it moved down to the top of his cheekbone, paused again, and kept going. A moment later, it reached the skin of his cheek.

The touch was light, and with it came the same flood of emotions as when Kaslo had touched the fleshy wall on his previous visit: sadness, regret, despair. But now he could not break the contact, and so the sentiments swept through his being, a flood of feeling that almost drowned Kaslo in his own mind.

But he struggled against the tide. They were not his emotions. He did not have to be deluged in them. He fought back, forming words and feelings and projecting them toward wherever this stream of pain and remorse was coming from.

“I have done no wrong. I have always striven to do right. I have helped the oppressed and fought those who menaced them. I have been faithful to my oath and true to my clients. Why do you inflict your guilt on me?”

The tide of remorse and pain continued to flow over him. He felt a flash of anger, followed immediately by a sense that anger would do him no good. The source of the emotion flooding against him was so immersed in self-reviling that Kaslo’s antagonism was like a thimbleful added to a waterfall.

He purged his mind of animosity, sought a mood of nonconfrontation, and when he thought he had achieved as dispassionate a state of mind as possible, he projected the same thought as before: “Why do you press your guilt on me?”

And then he added a question: “What did you do that was so wrong?”

The flood of sorrow coursed on. But it seemed to Kaslo that it was losing some of its strength. After a few moments, he was sure of it. The tide became a softer flow, reduced itself to a trickle, and now it died away altogether.

Kaslo put the question again: “What did you do?”

No answer came, yet the op had the sense that he was in a conversation, and more than that, he was experiencing a pause in that conversation. And the pause was meaningful.

The caesura continued, and then a new flood crashed into Kaslo’s consciousness: an overwhelming spate of knowledge, wisdoms, concepts, realities, meta-realities, images, emotions, visions, and epiphanies.

“Stop!” he projected, with all the force he could muster. “It is too much, too fast!”

The kaleidoscopic torrent ceased as swiftly as it had begun. A new tone of remorse entered his mind.

“Never mind that,” he thought back. “Just give it to me at a pace I can handle.”

The information stream returned, but this time at a slower rate. And it was organized, so that one concept led to another, one realization opened the door to the next. On and on it went, and Kaslo’s mind was strained to its limits — then forced to expand those limits — to take in all that was shown him.

The process might have taken moments or hours or a lifetime. But as it had had a beginning, so it had a middle, and eventually an end. And when that end was reached, Kaslo said, “I understand.”

It was the truth.

He understood.

Everything.

© 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.

The Good Son

Naomi Kritzer

I don’t just want to be with you. I want to live with you. In the kingdom under the hill, we could have been together forever. I didn’t want that. I wanted you — all of you. But that was before I understood what that meant.

• • • •

Maggie was an American tourist when I first saw her, hiking across the Irish hills with a group of other college students. It was raining. Maggie had no umbrella, and when the drizzle turned to a downpour, the water plastered her hair to her cheeks in black curls. The other students ran back to the bus, but Maggie lingered, her camera dangling at her hip, and when everyone else had gone, she pulled a pennywhistle out of her pocket and played it for ten minutes before she turned and trudged back up to the road.

I made a door, so that I could slip out of the hill and follow her. My elder brother caught my hand and said, “Don’t do it, Gaidian. Bring her here, if you must have her.” When I didn’t answer, he shook his head. “You get nothing but grief when you follow a mortal.”

“I just want to see where she goes,” I said, and went out into the rain.

I caught up with her in Dublin. I put on a young face, and clothes to match the ones I saw around me. My first thought was to tell her I was an Irish student the same age as she was, but when I realized she would return to Chicago in less than two weeks, I decided to be an American student, instead — heading back myself at the same time, though to a different city.

There were fiddlers at the pub and Maggie danced with me, her black curls wild in the humid air. “Where did you say you were from, again?” she asked after last call as I walked her to the bus stop.

I named a city I’d heard one of the other students say earlier that evening: “Minneapolis.”

“That’s not so far! Maybe I’ll see you again,” she said, and gave me a long kiss. “Let me give you my address.”

• • • •

Had possession been all I desired, I could have lured you under the hill. But I wanted your mortal love; I wanted you to choose me. Of course, it never occurred to me to tell you the truth. You’d have thought I was crazy. So I needed a mortal name. I needed numbers, references, addresses. I needed papers.

I never thought, when I started out on this, about all the other lives I would be embracing.

• • • •

Making myself a door to Minneapolis was easy enough. I’d gone on outings to the mortal world before, so I knew how to change gold into money, and how to find someone to make forged papers. I wanted a common name, so I flipped through a phone book and chose Johnson. I’d told Maggie my nickname was Finch — I wasn’t going to give a mortal I’d just met my true name. I had the man make me a driver’s license, even though I didn’t intend to drive anything, and one of those number cards. Making up an identity I could use for more than a few days was a great deal of work. I finally settled into an apartment near the university, and got in touch with Maggie.

Less than a day after I sent her my address, she showed up at my door.

It turned out she went to school in Chicago, but she was from Minneapolis. And when I didn’t give her an address in exchange for hers, she’d figured I wasn’t really all that interested in her. We spent a very pleasant evening, and morning, and afternoon, and evening. And then she got up, made us both pancakes, and said, “You must have just moved in, huh?”

“Why do you say that?” I asked, already a little nervous that my lies would be uncovered.

Maggie laughed. “Your kitchen is so well stocked I’m guessing your mother did it for you. But nothing was open. Not the flour, not the eggs, not even the milk. The milk and eggs are fresh, though, I checked before I made the pancakes, so it’s not that you never cook. Do you cook?”

“Of course I cook.” I took the plate of pancakes she offered me and sat down at the kitchen table. “I’ll make you dinner.”

Maggie sat down across from me with her own pancakes. I was afraid she might start asking me questions I hadn’t thought of answers to, so I asked her to tell me more about herself, and then listened to her talk. She was a good storyteller. It was even better than hearing her play the pennywhistle.

But she did, eventually, ask me for my own stories. “Tell me about your family,” she said, when she’d finished telling me about her four sisters (she was the youngest) and twenty-seven cousins.

“I’m an only child,” I said.

“Where did you grow up?”

I always paid attention to stories, wherever I went. Since coming to Minneapolis, I’d paid careful attention to the stories I heard about my new home, and I drew on those stories now, to give myself a history. “Brainerd,” I said.

“Really? I used to vacation up there. It’s beautiful. I guess you hear that a lot.”

“Yeah. Well, I don’t mind.” I cleared my throat. “My parents — well, you’ve heard that old joke about the Scandinavian man who loved his wife so much he almost told her? That was written about my father.”

“Oh yeah, I think I’ve met him. Or one of his thirty-six identical twin brothers.” She shook her hair out of her face. “My family’s Irish. They’re, like, the complete polar opposites.”

“So is that why you went to Ireland?”

“No, actually, I went because the program let me satisfy one of the requirements I needed to graduate, and it wasn’t too expensive.” She laughed. “I never thought I’d go to Ireland — I mean, come on, the Irish-American who wants to go get in touch with her roots, that’s so not me. Except then I had my picture taken next to the statue of my famous ancestor, just like every other American dork. It’s so embarrassing.”

“Ha. Which one’s your ancestor?”

“The Crank on the Bank. Patrick Kavanagh.”

“Oh yeah, I should have guessed that.” Her name was Margaret Cavanaugh.

• • • •

Maggie, you were everything I’d dreamed a mortal woman would be. If we are stone, unchanging, you are fire. All mortals are, but you, especially. I knew I’d done right to follow you.

But to keep you, I would need to back up my story.

When you went back to your college in Chicago, I went to find a family.

• • • •

“Hello, Mother,” I said. The white-haired woman stood wide-eyed and still for a moment, twisting a heavy gold ring she wore on her right hand. Before she could slam the door in my face, I gave her a kiss on the cheek, sealing the enchantment. Memory is a malleable thing — half the enchantments of my kind are as much suggestion as anything else. “It’s nice to see you.”

She had blue eyes. Her white hair was tightly curled. She made an old mother for a man my age, but she and her husband fit my requirements — childless, without a lot of people in their lives who would need their memories altered as well.

“I don’t have — ” She met my eyes, and I saw a look of deep longing pass through them like a shadow. She blinked. “That is, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I know. I was in the area and thought I’d stop by. I don’t get up here often enough anymore. How are you and Dad?”

“Bob?” She retreated from the door. “Robert’s here.”

Robert? Well, fine. I could be Robert. “Hi Dad,” I said, and shook his hand. Men his age didn’t kiss their sons, but I felt my magic settling as soon as our hands touched. “How’s the business?”

“Eh. As bad as always. You want a beer?” I nodded. “Doreen, since you’re up . . .”

We all sat down together in the living room. It was a musty old-person living room, full of knickknacks. Doreen apparently did needlepoint. A reproduction of Van Gogh’s Starry Night hung over the fireplace, and they had a framed map of Norway on the wall. I sat down in a chair near the fireplace and sneezed from the dust. They didn’t get many visitors. Perfect. Well, unless Maggie met them and ran screaming in the other direction.

But they were very nice. Bob was the perfect laconic rural Minnesotan and Doreen was sweet and fairly quiet. She twisted the ring on her right hand when she was nervous. Towards the end of the evening I mentioned that since they’d lost all my old childhood photos the time the shed flooded, I thought I’d give them a start on a new collection, and handed over a picture I’d had taken the day before, framed and ready for hanging. Doreen took it and thanked me. Her hands gripped it tightly. Bob gently took it from her, took down a needlepoint and put up the picture in its place.

“By the way,” I said, as I was getting ready to leave, “I have a new girlfriend, Maggie. She’s really great. I was thinking I might bring her up to meet you the next time she’s home on vacation — she goes to school in Chicago.”

“That would be lovely, dear,” Doreen said. “I hope you can make it up here again soon. We miss you.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek and ruffle my hair. “Drive carefully.”

• • • •

I fretted for days the first time you met them, but it was fine. My parents remembered me, they were pleased to meet you, and you were charmed by them. I worried before our first Thanksgiving, and even more before our first Christmas, but it all went fine. The spell kept its hold. The picture of me always hung on the wall; my mother even dusted it.

You finished your studies and got a job in Minneapolis. We found an apartment and moved in together. It was perfect. Just what I’d dreamed of when I followed you.

Of course, there were limits. I couldn’t marry you. Because there would be all these other relatives — too many at once. I shuddered at the thought of enspelling them all. Even if we’d eloped, I couldn’t take wedding vows as Robert. Or even as Finch. I couldn’t do that to you, to swear an oath to you without using my real name. And there was too much to explain. I still believed you’d think I was crazy, but even if you didn’t — well, I had lied to you. I really did love you, and it really was me who loved you, but there were so many things I had lied about. It was too late.

And then my mother got sick.

• • • •

“Doreen is in the hospital,” Bob said. The phone had rung as Maggie was getting out of the shower, and now she was watching my face, her hair clinging damp to her own. “We’re in St. Paul. I thought I should call you.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“She’s been having dizzy spells. I nagged her to go to the doctor and yesterday she finally went. They did some scans, and then sent us here for more tests.”

“What do they think it is?”

A pause. “They saw something on the CT scan,” Bob said slowly. “They don’t seem to want to call it anything yet. I figure it must be bad if they don’t want to tell us what it is. Can you come over?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

I hung up the phone, then called my boss — I was working then at a bookstore. “My mom’s just gone to the hospital,” I said. “She’s here in the cities. I’m going to go see her.”

“Do you want me to come?” Maggie asked.

I hesitated. Seeing Maggie with my parents always made me tense. “I’ll call you once I know what’s going on,” I said. “This might be nothing. Okay?”

“Okay.” She gave me a kiss. “Send her my love. I have some yarn I bought for her last week — I’ll send it with you.”

I peeked in at the bag of yarn as I rode the city bus to downtown St. Paul. It was a deep red-brown and soft like a tangle of silk. Doreen had taken up knitting in the last year, but she mostly seemed to use cheap acrylic yarn, fearing to “waste” the nicer yarns Maggie tried to talk her into buying. I stroked it for a moment, thinking of Maggie, and bracing myself for the hospital.

There are mortals who think they hate hospitals because they fear their own mortality. I am not mortal, so I can say with certainty that I hate hospitals because they are horrible places. Whenever Maggie was ill, I tried to ensure she got restful sleep and wholesome, tempting food. Hospitals offer disrupted sleep, and vile food. Why anyone expects to get better in a hospital is something I still find a mystery.

Doreen looked wasted and shrunken in her hospital bed. Her hands were bare without her rings, which they’d made her take off for the MRI. “I want to go home,” she said when I came in. “Are they going to let me go home soon?”

“I think they wanted to run more tests,” I said, leaning over to give her a kiss.

“They’ve run all the tests they have. When are they going to let me go home?”

“Why don’t I go get you something decent to eat?” I said.

Bob shook his head. “The doctor was going to come by in a few minutes,” he said. “Wait till then.”

Of course, he didn’t come for over an hour, and then stood outside our door talking to a nurse for another ten minutes before he actually came in to talk to us. “Doreen,” he said, looking at my mother’s chart. “I have some bad news about your dizzy spells. You have a brain tumor. Now, it might be benign . . .” He talked on, about different kinds of brain tumors, treatment options, prognoses. I don’t think any of us heard much beyond “brain tumor.”

“Can I go home?” Doreen asked when he was done. “Do I have to stay in the hospital?”

“You’ll have surgery here, and we’ll do a biopsy. You can get the rest of your treatment in Brainerd, if you want, and you can probably be home most of the time.”

Doreen burst into tears. “It’s time to plant my bulbs,” she said.

• • • •

I called Maggie at work from a phone in the waiting room. “Oh, Finch,” she whispered when she heard. “I’m so sorry. I can come over . . .”

“She’s napping,” I said. “You can come over later. And you know — it might not be that bad. The doctor said the benign ones aren’t nearly as scary as you might think.”

Maggie laughed, a little shakily. “I don’t buy the idea of a non-scary brain tumor.”

“Yeah, me either.”

We chatted a little more and then hung up. A woman was waiting to use the phone, so I moved to another chair. “Jenny?” I heard her say after she dialed, and then her voice faded. She’d covered her face with her free hand, and her shoulders were shaking. She was crying too hard to speak.

I closed my eyes, trying to think about my own problems instead of eavesdropping on other people’s. It occurred to me that I could find out if Doreen were already doomed. The Banshee would know. No, I decided. Best to be as ignorant as the mortals, lest they suspect something was strange.

The woman on the phone was still crying too hard to speak. I wanted to touch her hand, to offer her some sort of comfort, but instead I went to the elevator and headed downstairs.

As I went outside into the rain, I thought I heard my brother’s voice, laughing at me. “You’re right,” I said to him, half already in my dream. “I don’t want to know. I’d rather believe she’s going to make it.”

• • • •

It was the bad kind of brain tumor.

They weren’t sure how bad until after the surgery. Doreen was still unconscious, her head swathed in bandages; the doctor told us that he’d cut out as much of the tumor as he could. He talked about radiation and chemotherapy. He gave percentages, rattling numbers off so quickly none of us understood any of them. He forced a smile, said something that tried to be encouraging but wasn’t, then left.

Bob turned to me and said, “She’s dying, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

When Doreen woke up, for a few minutes she didn’t know either of us. I wasn’t surprised she didn’t recognize me; traumas could shake the grip of any spell like this. But Bob was horrified. Doreen’s lapse scared him more than any prognosis from the doctor. Something slid into place after a bit and Doreen was herself again. But as I left that day, Bob turned to me and said, “That’s what it’s going to be like, isn’t it. She’s going to forget me. And you. Both of us.”

“I don’t know,” I said again.

“One of our friends got Alzheimer’s. Didn’t know any of us after a while. I thought I’d rather die, than live like that.”

“Mom was only confused for a minute,” I said.

Bob shook his head and didn’t answer.

• • • •

Doreen was discharged a few days later, and Maggie drove all of us up to Brainerd. We’d expected to be able to head up in the morning, but the doctor didn’t come to discharge her until afternoon, and we didn’t get on the road until after three. Doreen sat up front with Maggie; I sat in the back seat next to Bob. It was a quiet trip. Doreen dozed most of the way. Bob stared out the window. As we grew near Brainerd, Doreen stirred, and Bob looked at her from his seat behind Maggie. I saw naked terror in his eyes, as if he’d glimpsed her death out there rather than grain elevators and cornfields.

“She’ll be okay, Dad,” I whispered. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Bob gave me a long, bleak look, and went back to staring out the window.

Their house was dark when we pulled up. Bob unlocked it and turned the lights on, and Maggie gently roused Doreen. Maggie had to work tomorrow, and we’d decided she would drive back tonight. I’d take the bus home from Brainerd in a day or two. Maggie settled Doreen into her chair, then heated up some soup for dinner while I found sheets for the guest bed. We ate dinner in front of the TV, and then Maggie kissed Doreen and headed back to Minneapolis.

When I came back into the living room, Doreen stared at me. “Who are you?”

“I’m Robert, your son,” I said, and tapped my picture on the wall, trying to nudge the spell.

She stared at me, her face a complete blank. “We never had children,” she said.

“Doreen,” Bob said, and sat down next to her.

Doreen burst into tears, burying her face against his neck. “Bob, why not? Why not?”

Bob stroked her hair; it was damp with sweat. “What did the doctor say about fevers?” he asked me, his voice shaky.

“He said any fever was an emergency. If she runs a fever we’re supposed to take her to the ER.” I came over and touched her forehead. “Do you have a thermometer?” I asked, though her head was scorching hot.

“I don’t know. Doreen’s always the one who looks after that sort of thing.”

Doreen looked up at me. “Oh, Robert,” she said. “Thank goodness. I thought you’d gone. Back to Minneapolis, I mean.”

“I’ll see if I can find one,” I said, and went into the bathroom. I found a digital thermometer in the medicine cabinet, its instructions still folded around it. Doreen’s temperature was 102.

“I’ll get the car,” Bob said.

St. Joseph’s medical center was only about a mile from their house; it didn’t take long to get there. I helped Doreen into the ER while Bob parked the car. She was admitted almost immediately; they suspected infection. This hospital room was eerily like her last, right down to the color of the privacy curtain. Bob slumped in the chair next to her bed. I fidgeted with the thermometer, which I’d put into my pocket on our way out the door.

“Are we still in St. Paul?” Doreen asked.

Bob raised his head and gave Doreen a look of bleak horror. “Don’t you remember coming home?”

“We’re in Brainerd,” I said. “We brought you home this afternoon, but then you started running a fever.”

Doreen looked at me helplessly. “I don’t remember coming home.”

“You slept most of the way.”

Her hands plucked at the thin hospital blanket. “Can’t I just take some aspirin for the fever and go home?”

“They think you have an infection.”

“But I don’t want to stay here.”

“I don’t think they’ll keep you here long,” I said. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

Doreen nodded. “Take your father home. He looks like he’s having a rougher day than I am.”

• • • •

When I got up in the morning, Bob was gone.

I found his note on the kitchen table. It was very short — just that he was sorry. The car was gone, but he’d taken no money. With the note, he left his wedding ring and the two rings Doreen usually wore — her wedding ring, and the heavy ring she normally wore on her right hand. I slipped them into my pocket.

I’d hoped to avoid telling Doreen, at least right away, but when I came in, she looked past me and said, “Where’s Bob?”

“He couldn’t come in today,” I said.

Doreen scoffed at that. “The man’s retired. What, he had some sort of pressing engagement?” She looked closely at my face. “What happened, Robert? Is it the house? Did the house burn down?”

“Oh, no!” I said with false heartiness, wondering why I couldn’t lie about this when I lied about myself so well. “The house is fine, don’t worry.”

“He left me, didn’t he?”

I curled my hand around the rings in my pocket. “Yes,” I said, finally. “He left your rings.”

Doreen didn’t cry. She just nodded once, and said, “I’d like them back. Even if he ran out on me. I’ve worn a wedding ring for thirty-six years. It doesn’t feel right not having it on my hand.” She slipped the rings back on. “Now, this one,” she said, pointing at the one she wore on her right hand. “This one was my great-grandmother’s. My mother told me the ring was looted from Gaul by the Vikings and that’s how it came into the family. But a jeweler told me once there was no way it could really be that old. I was supposed to hand it on to my daughter, but I never had a daughter. I don’t get along well with my nieces. I guess it will go to you, and you can give it to Maggie when you get married.”

“I’m in no hurry,” I assured her.

“Psht. If you two would hurry up and get married, I could give her the ring now. I’m not going to live forever, you know.”

• • • •

The staff at the hospital were sympathetic when they found out about Bob, but not as surprised as I’d expected. They responded to the news with an efficient command of regulations: Doreen needed new paperwork. She’d drawn up papers years ago giving Bob the power to make health care decisions for her. That all needed to be changed, and the nurses thought I should be designated. “Of course,” the doctor said. “You’re her son. The next of kin.”

But I’m a fraud. How was I supposed to make decisions for her? I barely knew her. I was only beginning to realize how little I knew about these people. I can’t do this.

“Don’t be silly, Robert,” my mother said. “I don’t have anybody else.”

“But I don’t know what you’d want.”

“Use your common sense. If you wouldn’t want it for yourself, you can assume I wouldn’t want it, either.”

“I’d want it all, Mom. I’d want every minute of life I could possibly have. If they could keep my body breathing, my blood pumping, I’d want it.”

“No you wouldn’t,” she said. “Only if there were some hope of recovery.”

“There’s always hope. Where there’s life, there’s hope. I bet I could find you a dozen stories of people who were supposed to be brain dead who went on to walk out of the hospital.”

“If I’m not in there anymore, Robert, let me go.”

“How am I even supposed to know that?”

“You’ll know.”

There was always the Banshee. I signed the paper. Better me than a stranger.

• • • •

The infection kept Doreen in the hospital for weeks. Even after she seemed to have recovered they wouldn’t discharge her — her blood count was too low, they said. She wasn’t tolerating chemo well. Worse, the treatments didn’t seem to be working. The tumor wasn’t responding to the chemo and radiation the way it was supposed to.

Maggie and I fell into a routine. I worked Wednesday through Saturday. Saturday nights, we drove together to Brainerd. Maggie stayed with me on Sunday, then drove back down Sunday night, since she had to work on Monday. I stayed until Tuesday evening, then took the bus back to Minneapolis.

I had a lot of time to think on the bus, which wasn’t good. What I thought about most was my elder brother telling me I would regret following Maggie. I don’t regret following Maggie. I’ll never regret following Maggie. I just wish I’d chosen a healthier mother. Or told Maggie I was an orphan.

One night the bus was late, and I thought about making a door to Minneapolis. What am I doing riding around on a bus like a mortal? I am Fey. I don’t need to do this.

And then a darker echo of the thought. I am Fey. I don’t need to do any of this.

I could go home. It was what we were supposed to do, after all. Woo the mortal maid, then leave her. Or lure her back to our own banquet hall. I would miss her, but I would get over her. Or so my brother would assure me. Time moved differently there. I’d settle back down at the feast, and before I knew it, it would be too late anyway. She would have moved on with her life, married a dentist, had three children . . .

It began to rain.

I didn’t want to leave Maggie. I didn’t want to leave Doreen, either. I don’t have anyone else, she had said.

She’s not your mother, the dark echo whispered.

Maybe not, but I’m her son.

The bus arrived, finally, and I climbed on, feeling my exhaustion like a weight on my shoulders. Maybe next weekend I would go back with Maggie and get some extra rest.

I didn’t, though. The next Saturday, when we arrived at the hospital, Doreen gave us her smile of gratitude and desperation, and I knew I’d stay until Tuesday, just like always.

Doreen remained stubbornly optimistic for weeks. She endured the sickness and covered her bald head with soft cotton hats that Maggie crocheted for her. Her favorite was canary yellow with rainbow threads stitched through. She wore it so often, Maggie bought more of the yarn and made her two others.

One evening, I went out to get sandwiches for us, and came back to hear my mother telling Maggie a funny story about my childhood. I’d colored with my crayons in a book, apparently, and then claimed the dog did it. “I remember blaming my sister for something like that when I was a child, but the poor boy had no brothers or sisters, so he tried to blame the dog. I’ve never met a dog who could hold a crayon, but apparently he thought it would be worth a try . . .”

I could see it all, as she described it: the defaced book open in the middle of the kitchen; the spilled crayons; the guilt-stricken child. My mother glanced up when she heard me in the doorway, and gave me a fond smile.

“What was the book he colored in?” Maggie asked.

“You know, I can’t remember.”

“For Whom the Bell Tolls,” I said, settling into the other visitor’s chair and handing Maggie a sandwich. “I think I thought it needed some illustrations.”

“I took away your crayons for weeks after that,” my mother said, a bit nostalgically. “But you were a good boy, most of the time. Nearly always.” She glanced at Maggie.

“You taught him well,” Maggie said, saluting her with a sandwich.

• • • •

The night after the doctor suggested we call hospice, I sat with Doreen until long past midnight. When I thought she was asleep, I gathered up my coat as quietly as I could and started to leave.

“I always knew,” she said, as I put my hand on the door.

I turned back. In the darkness of the hospital room, a mortal wouldn’t have been able to see her face, but I met her eyes squarely, and she met mine. “Knew what?” I asked.

“I knew. When you knocked on my door that day and greeted me as mother, you were a stranger. Your magic, or whatever it was, it worked on Bob. But I knew.” Her eyes glittered with tears. “We wanted a child. Years, we tried. Once I even got pregnant but I lost the baby a few weeks later . . . These days you read in the paper about drugs, fancy procedures, but back then we had nothing. My mother told me to relax, take a vacation . . . nothing worked. It almost killed me.” She let out a harsh sigh. “I would have adopted, but Bob wouldn’t hear of it. And to tell you the truth, I was afraid of adopting. I was afraid I wouldn’t love the baby as my own, and if I couldn’t be sure, maybe better not to. I know Bob wanted a child, but he didn’t feel the loss like I did. Or if he did, he didn’t let on.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

“Then you came. And took us as your parents. Oh, Robert.” Tears trickled down her cheek. “I’m sorry. If I’d known what this would lead to, if I’d known the burden I’d become, I’d have closed the door.”

I sat back down, my coat in my lap. “You know I could leave, Mom,” I said. “And I choose to stay. With you.” I squeezed her hand.

“You’re a good son,” she whispered.

A few minutes later, I thought she’d fallen asleep, but she stirred and spoke again. “I have something I want to give you. I can’t change the will — anyone could challenge it if I changed it now. But I can give you this before the cancer steals what’s left.” She tugged loose the heavy ring from her right hand. “This is for you, my only son. Give it to your Maggie when you’re ready to get married.”

“I can’t — ”

“You can.” She closed my hand over it, and I felt the power in it burn against my palm. The ring stolen by Vikings. Ah. It came from Ireland, surely. “I always knew,” she said again. “This is for you.”

• • • •

That was probably the last of the good days.

I called Hospice; Doreen wanted to die at home, so we moved her home. I worried it would only depress her with Bob gone, but even without Bob she took comfort from her house. Hospice nurses came for long spells during the day. I tried to stay with her the rest of the time. Sometimes Maggie gave me breaks.

I wore the ring on a leather cord under my shirt. I couldn’t think about marrying anybody right now; it was too hard to think about anything but Doreen’s next dose of morphine, the next visit from the hospice nurse, Maggie’s next trip to Brainerd.

One night about two weeks after the night in the hospital, Maggie and I sat in the living room of my mother’s house. Maggie sat by the reading light, knitting a two-headed stuffed bunny with a red fringe around its wrists and ankles, and a little heart on its chest. We could hear the tick of the mantel clock. I had thought Doreen was sleeping, but from her bedroom, I heard her moan. I stood up and looked in on her. She seemed to be sleeping again, so I went back to the living room and sat down.

In one of those strange tricks of light and shadow, for a moment Maggie looked old. Then she shifted in her seat, and was twenty-three again. She twisted her knitting around to look at it, flicked back over the pattern, and picked out a few stitches. She glanced up at me, gave me a sweet, tired smile, then started knitting again.

She would be old, someday, like my mother. I would never be old. But Maggie would.

• • • •

There is no time in the faerie hill. Mortals think they’ve spent a night there, and go home a hundred years later, but to us, it’s like a party that never ends. No cares and no pain. Nothing that matters.

I wanted you. All of you. I wanted to share your mortality.

The night Doreen died was when I knew what that meant.

• • • •

I was sitting with Doreen when she died. She had been truly failing for several days: not speaking, not opening her eyes. Her breath had slowed and become more shallow, and for a full twelve hours I didn’t leave her, thinking that every breath would be her last. She didn’t want to be alone when she died. Maggie brought me sandwiches and coffee, and I sat by her bed.

The room was very quiet when she was gone.

Mortals tell stories about Death coming with a scythe to take their soul; they tell stories about angels escorting them home, and tunnels of light. When Doreen died, I saw nothing but her cluttered bedroom, and heard nothing but the silence after her breathing stopped.

I stood up and stretched. It was four in the morning. I stepped out of her bedroom. Maggie was sleeping in a chair in the living room, curled up, her knitting in her lap. I put my hand out to wake her, then thought the better of it. I wanted to take a walk.

I thought about Doreen, walking along in the cold wind near the river, and felt a dark emptiness, and a faint guilty relief that the bedside vigil was over. And a less guilty relief that her pain had ended.

Nothing but grief, my brother had said when he warned me to turn away from Maggie.

Maggie was young. We had years yet — probably. But someday she’d be old, and I wouldn’t. She would be sick, and I wouldn’t. I would have to go through this again — the hospital, the uncertainty, the suffering, the loss. I would have to go through it with Maggie.

I pulled out Doreen’s ring and looked at its yellow gleam under the streetlight. If I marry Maggie, if I really do it, I have to stay. I can’t promise her my loyalty and then run away like Bob. If I’m going to do that, better to leave now.

I thought about Maggie’s death. Would it be cancer for her, too? Or the dark theft of her mind from dementia? Or something quick, like a heart attack, with neither lingering pain nor time for goodbyes? Maybe it would be a car accident at twenty-five. Whatever it was, I’d have to be there for it. I’d have to sit with her, moisten her lips with a swab when she couldn’t swallow, hold her hand. Bury her body. Say goodbye.

It was the price I would pay for loving a mortal.

I unknotted the leather cord and slipped the ring into my pocket. Then I turned back towards my mother’s house.

• • • •

I take you, Margaret. As Gaidion, my true name, I take you; I vow to you with the vow I cannot break.

With this ring, I pledge myself.

If you will have me, I will live with you for the whole of your mortal life. I will love you. I will stay with you. And someday, I will bury you. Because I love you. And I will pay the price without regret.

© 2009 by Naomi Kritzer.

Originally published in Baen’s Universe.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Naomi Kritzer is the author of the Dead Rivers Trilogy and the Eliana’s Song series. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jim Baen’s Universe, as well as many other publications. She lives in Minnesota, and her website is naomikritzer.com.

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

Documentary

Vajra Chandrasekera

Kamaria turns into a helicopter gunship at the full metal moon. She stalks the fallow killing fields by night, chop-chop lost in the wind. Helicopter thoughts are slick with oil, but she will not fire her guns. That much she holds in place, like a single sputtering candle underneath the roar of her blades.

• • • •

Transformation scenes are off-camera. We don’t have the budget. Jump cut to:

At dawn she wakes up naked and heavy on the beach where after the war they burned all the bodies and denied their existence. There are nobodies there now, watching her.

She shakes the ash from her blades and clambers to her feet, gravid with unfired magazines. Now she has to walk all the way home with her hands clasped under her belly, hoping to reach home before the sun gets too hot.

Zoom out to an extreme long shot centred on the thin brown comma of a lone woman: We see a pleasant tropical landscape. Sparkling blue water, palm trees, all the scattered nobodies and the churning of the secret charnel soil, all the ashes mixed with sand.

• • • •

We cannot film the nobodies. To the camera, as to the naked eye, they are nothing but twists in the air like heat haze. We are uncertain whether they are the ghosts of those who died in the war. This is the only answer anybody will give us, but we suspect most of our viewers will not believe in ghosts. We don’t dwell on the possibility. They can no longer affect the material world, or least not much beyond dreams and words and a light breeze.

The nobodies harry Kamaria all the way home. She ignores them. They are only pockmarks on the skin of the world, there to signify that something has been survived. It is impossible to tell now which side of the war they might once have been on. Being chased by them in their masses is like being caught in a stiff wind. We focus on her, the only vital figure in this landscape, her hair blowing about her face despite the air being still and warm. We hope to depict them in our documentary if only through the perturbations they cause in her arc.

• • • •

When Kamaria gets home, her husband Wielan is folding again. He is a compulsive folder. She sits by him and watches him fold paper money. He layers notes over themselves into the shapes of little animals. A boar, a bull. Nothing that flies, not for another cycle. Last night’s paper birds hang from the clothesline, held in place by their crooked necks. They jangle and bob with the passing of the nobodies.

“Will you put some clothes on?” Wielan says, after a while. “What will the neighbours think?”

He does not look at the cameras. Unlike Kamaria, Wielan has never got used to the cameras. We know he’s talking about us, and we make faces at him.

“We don’t have any more neighbours,” Kamaria says. She’s tired, and she stopped seeing us long ago. “Only nobodies.”

Wielan no longer asks after the child in her belly. From interviews, we have gathered that he was once excited, when they first realized she was pregnant so long ago. But then there was the first post-war full moon. And then another, and another, and as the months became years he folded the child’s name away so thoroughly even Kamaria can’t remember it any more.

It is lost to us, which is frustrating because names are important to the story we’re trying to tell, and there are so few of them.

• • • •

Nothing important happens until the next cold moon. We can cut this part down to a montage. They fight, they cry, they make up, they fight off a midnight invasion of nobodies that tousles their hair and upsets their crockery. Slow fade to:

“Gibbous is a funny word,” Kamaria says to Wielan.

They’re out in the yard waiting for the moon to rise. Kamaria has undressed already, letting Wielan fold her clothes away, and taken up her spot far enough away from anything that might be destroyed when her tail boom snaps from her fuselage and her blades whip out so fast and deadly. Wielan lost three fingers once because he had her face cupped in his hand when the moon rose.

• • • •

Every time the change comes over her, Kamaria’s last human thought is that next time she and Wielan will speak of it, discuss the wherefores, make plans. Was she infected because she was bitten by a helicopter during the war? Will their daughter inherit the curse if it is not broken before she is born? Will she have a compulsion to fold? So much to talk about.

She has told us these things in interviews, and we suspect there are many other things that she wants to say to him that she kept to herself, even then.

But the two of them never talk about those things because the other phases of the moon pass in the exhaustion of respite. The half-moons, the new moon, the crescents like sickles, they all skip past like a stone over water. We have been following them a very long time, and we have come to the understanding that their story will either end badly or it will not end at all. We cannot prompt a climax, and so must await it.

• • • •

Flashback, sepia-toned: Wielan did say something once, just after he lost his fingers. When Kamaria came back the next morning, she found him folding and refolding a bloody cloth around the stumps, weeping with the pain.

“You have to fire your guns,” Wielan said, folding and weeping. “That’s the only way. You pass it on like it was passed on to you.”

“Who do I shoot?” Kamaria said. “I can’t shoot anybody.”

“Shoot the nobodies,” Wielan said. “And maybe the baby will be born normal. Maybe the baby will be born.”

“You can’t shoot nobodies,” Kamaria said, and she thought about that all month, round and round, helicopter thoughts slick with worry.

We depict this period of her meditations with a fast-forward strobe of the lunar cycle. The moon looks like a disc thrown across the sky, sickly and spinning.

• • • •

“We would like to see you verbalize your process a little more,” we tell Kamaria. “Your struggle to not perpetuate the cycle of violence. What are you thinking?”

“Shush, nobodies,” Kamaria says. Lately, that’s the only thing she says to us.

• • • •

We don’t really have any cameras. We’re not stupid, we know that. Even the dead have their affectations, if we are the dead. But then, after all, we are cameras, because we are nothing but perspectives. We have no meat. We remember nothing of ourselves, if we ever had selves of our own. We are the world regarding itself, hungry for somebody’s narrative, anybody’s narrative. And maybe we are the dead.

Sometimes we wish Kamaria would shoot us. We are not sure what would happen, but it would break the tension. We are taut, and whenever we cannot take it any more, we fall on them like rain, pulling at them, until they beat us away.

• • • •

Wielan folds paper money into birds only in the full moon afternoons. It’s his way of wishing her luck. Kamaria is outside, practicing her helicopter thoughts. Wielan still won’t look at us, but he tells us that it’s all our fault.

He says we are holding the world caught in this endless post-war moment, making it impossible for the living to move on and find peace. That our sheer invisible mass has folded time and space upon itself. That this world is a bubble. Or perhaps he is saying that he folded this world over us, to contain us, but he didn’t mean to be trapped in here with us. Wielan contradicts himself often, his truths bent in on themselves.

“How?” we ask. We imagine seeking out a master generator for the bubble, something protected by paper boars and bulls, strung with wires that paper birds dangle from. We imagine destroying it, leaking into the world.

“If she would just shoot you,” Wielan says. “Then the bubble will pop. I think so. Yes. It’s your fault.”

He does not mention his daughter.

We look for hope in his eyes, but all we see are red veins. This is because we never let Wielan sleep. Every night, we tug at his hair, pinch his brows, haunt his dreams. Wielan does not tell Kamaria about these torments. He is suspicious of us and what we might still be capable of.

• • • •

Slow dolly in: Kamaria’s guns. Pan across their potency, their frustrated chastity, until the helicopter moves away from us.

The helicopter always moves away from us, as if she is fleeing. We chase her, always. We seek resolution, when we remember to want it. But most of the time we follow her because we have no narrative of our own. We are nobodies, and we are waiting for her to decide.

Pull back to see the crowding nobodies below, our not-arms raised with what might be fear or repudiation or yearning. We have no eyes or cameras apart from our attention, but under the full moon we are always focused on the candle that isn’t sitting in front of her rotor, the flame guttering in her wind but still lit, still somehow lit.

© 2015 by Vajra Chandrasekera.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vajra Chandrasekera lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His short fiction has appeared in Apex, Clarkesworld, and Three-Lobed Burning Eye, among others. You can follow him on Twitter at @_vajra or find more stories at vajra.me.

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

The Weight of the Sunrise

Vylar Kaftan

1. The Disfigured God

So you ask for the story of your origin, beautiful boy, and why you and your father are different from those around you. You are fourteen and nearly a man. Before you choose your name, you should know yourself — and I, your grandfather, will tell you the story of you. The tale is written in the scars of my hands, and told in the blood of the Incan people.

You must imagine me younger, child — much the age that your father is now. Picture a warm December day, just before midsummer. It was 1806, though back then we did not count the years as Europeans do. Smallpox raged through the southern Land of the Four Quarters. You’ve seen your grandmother’s pitted face; once she was considered a beauty for those telltale scars. I worked in the fields near Cusco, because I enjoyed farming. I had never liked the city. The cool soil on my hands reminded me of childhood, and of home in the northern mountains.

When the gods summoned me, I was planting late-spring tomatoes — the ones that would blossom shortly before June frost. I knelt on the terraced slopes south of Cusco, on land owned by your grandmother’s clan — since as you know, I myself came from a poor potato-farming family. Each seed entered the ground lovingly; I thanked Pachimama that I could enjoy the planting and not fear the harvest. The noon sun blessed my bare head. My water jug rested nearby, with my flintlock rifle leaning against it.

The sunlight faded — but no cloud marked the sky. I looked up. Two men approached, noble in dress and bearing. They wore macaw feathers at their throats, so I knew they outranked any noble I’d ever met. Although society did not require me to bow, I stood and did so anyway.

The taller one, who wore the brighter feathers, said, “Lanchi Ronpa?”

“I am Lanchi,” I said, leaving off the honorific as I often did. I disliked claiming noble status simply because my family survived smallpox, even though it was my right. I was traveling at the time and never exposed. For all I knew, smallpox would kill me if I ever caught it. Even the great physician Ronpa himself had admitted that while Inti marked certain families with the sacred scars, he would still take their children as he pleased.

The shorter man looked disdainfully at my dirty tunic and hands. I guessed he was subordinate, because he didn’t speak. The first man said, “I am Amaru Aroynapa, and this is my cousin Paucar Aroynapa. We come on behalf of the Sapa Inca himself, Coniraya the Condor, Emperor of the Four Quarters. A matter of great importance has arisen. You are summoned into his presence.”

My knees trembled. The Aroynapa family? Not just any nobles, but cousins to the god-emperor himself! It was only three years ago that the former Sapa Inca joined the Court of the Dead. The ruler now called Coniraya was barely a man, yet had proved his godhood through skillful combat against his brother. And now the god’s mortal cousins summoned me into his presence?

“What honor could the Sapa Inca possibly wish to grant me?” I asked, my mouth dry.

“Your grandfather was British, was he not?”

“Yes,” I said, “born Smith in the land of Britain, but he came here as a trader and learned our ways. He took the name — ”

“And do you speak English?”

I hadn’t spoken it since I was ten. My grandfather had lived in isolation on our farm, and we had always feared an edict ordering his death. He had died of digestive ills twenty years ago. “I have spoken English,” I said cautiously, worried that I had forgotten it. “But the foreigners were expelled from our land forty years ago. What possible need has the Sapa Inca for that language?”

“Things have changed,” said the shorter man abruptly. “Do not question the need.”

“His question is intelligent, Paucar,” said Amaru gently. “He will want to understand why the Sapa Inca summons him.” He addressed me. “There are visitors from the northern lands. They bear a British flag, but call themselves Americans. They brought their own translator, a poor fisherman from a distant village with heritage like yours. But such a man cannot appear before a god.”

I understood instantly. “And there are no true nobles who speak this language anymore.”

“Exactly. There are several families with English heritage, particularly among the farmers and fishermen in the distant north. There are also several families elevated to nobility as the Ronpa, because one parent and two children proved resilient to smallpox. However, there is only one man in Cusco who has both qualities.”

I put down my hoe as my palms sweated. I had never felt like I belonged in Cusco, despite my rank. It was only at manhood that my family earned a place in the capital — and that, only by chance, as smallpox swept our village. I was no more elegant than the fisherman I would replace. But I had learned some manners in the city, and of course the Sapa Inca would not speak with a fisherman. Perhaps if I went, I might spare this man the pressures I had felt since arriving — the burden I could only share with my wife, who understood my fears.

I said calmly, “If the Sapa Inca calls, then I answer gladly.”

Amaru nodded. “Prepare yourself and inform your wife. Come to the palace at nightfall, where we will begin your quarantine.”

I paused, concerned for my coarse appearance. “I have an embroidered tunic, perhaps — ”

Paucar snorted, but Amaru gave a tiny smile. “Your clothes will be burned, Lanchi. You may as well wear what you have on now.”

My face grew hot. “Of course.” The Sapa Inca would shower me with clothes and jewelry, as casually as a dog sheds its hair. And that was only the beginning. No matter what came of the meeting, my life would be different forever. No man could meet a god and remain unchanged.

• • • •

I shouldered my musket and water jug and headed home. I had a long walk. There were few fields near Cusco itself, since few commoners lived in the capital. In those days it was quite strange to be of Ronpa class; we existed in a world halfway between the established families and the workers. My home lay across the city. It would have been shorter to cut through, but I preferred the scenic route on the beautiful fitted stone roads, which had remained strong for four centuries. I’d heard that the roads in Europe were full of holes. It amazed me that the inventors of muskets could not build a road.

As I neared home, I recognized the scent of llama stew, which my beloved Yma had promised me for supper. I hurried toward the familiar stone house, which still felt too lavish. We had a traditional blanket door rather than the newfangled European doors, because we preferred the fresh breeze.

I pushed the blanket aside. “Yma, darling. I’m home early with news.”

She looked up from her cookpot. My heart filled with contentment at the sight. My wife was as lovely as the day I gave her mother coca leaves; still sweetly shaped, like a goddess, with cornsilk hair falling to her hips. The pockmarks dotting her face proved her health and strength; no partial scarring to ruin her symmetry! My Yma had survived the pox at fifteen, which made her a good mate for a Ronpa like myself. With Inti’s blessing, our children might escape death by pox.

Yma smiled, but her expression faded. “You look troubled. Is the news bad?”

“Not bad,” I told her, “but unexpected.”

With a peal of laughter, my little Chaska raced through the doorway, covered in cornmeal. “Papa!” she cried, hugging and kissing my arm with flour-covered lips. The joy of my life! She would be nine at Midsummer. Bright stars, her nickname meant — or planets, as we now called them, after sharing knowledge with European astronomers in the past century.

“Hello, sweet child,” I said affectionately, patting her head so as not to spoil her. I pushed her away and went to my son, who crawled in his baked-earth playpen. I picked him up and swung him around once before setting him down. My heart ached to give this boy his nickname, but I didn’t dare tempt the spirits to steal him. He must simply be “the baby” until his second birthday.

My wife said, “Chaska, get back to grinding.” My daughter bounded out the door. Work seemed to brighten her spirits, which we thought was positive. We took great care with our daughter, as she was considered one of the prettiest girls in Cusco, and we hoped she might be chosen as a priestess someday.

“What has happened?” asked Yma, setting down her spoon.

When I told her, her eyes widened and her face grew pensive. Yma was a youngest daughter of the lower nobility, and she knew what an imperial summons meant. It could mean our family’s great fortune — or the execution of us all, should I displease our ruler.

Finally she said only, “I must cut your bangs before you go. I don’t want locks of your hair in the palace’s power.”

I nodded, even though she had cut my hair only last week. She called Chaska to stir the stew. Yma trimmed my hair neatly to eyebrow length in front and chin on the sides. She wielded the knife carefully, as if her haircut would protect me when she herself could not. Ah, my child — how I loved that woman, your honored grandmother! I miss her every day, now that she has gone to the Empire of the Sun. She was the moon to my sun, the silver to my gold — the lesser but equally important half of our pairing, as all things in this world are matched. Without her, I would have been nothing. Someday, my child, you will choose a woman yourself, and you will understand why family is the world’s true gold. The greatest joy imaginable is to love another person as I did my Yma.

But that evening, I kissed my wife goodbye fearing that I might lose all happiness. I embraced both my children lovingly, regardless of what others might say about spoiling them.

• • • •

I saw my city with new eyes as I crossed it that evening. I admired the square at Huacaypata, where workers prepared the vast stone tables for the Midsummer feast. I watched the lesser nobles bustle through the streets on evening calls, clad in bright wool tunics and shining feathers from the Amazon. A few even wore hats, which the Europeans had popularized, though many Incas now scorned that tradition as foreign. Yet none could argue that bright-feathered hats were practical, and thus the custom persisted in noble circles.

Cusco seemed newly fragile to me. Even as servants bathed me in the Coricancha’s stone chambers, scouring away dirt and hard work, I could not appreciate the palace’s beauty. The Americans! What could they want from us? They were a British splinter group, ruled from overseas — much the way we ruled tribes across three thousand miles of desert, rainforest, and mountains. Yet they called themselves both British subjects, and Americans.

No Incan ruler would tolerate such a thing. The leaders of conquered peoples were granted nobility in Cusco, and imperial loyalists were sent to the new lands as rulers. In this way all became Incan. I could not understand why the British did not do likewise.

And so I waited, naked and solitary, for my turn to see the god-emperor. Twelve days must pass before contact, per Ronpa’s guidance. The ruler had singlehandedly saved the Incan Empire, or what was left after millions died in the 1500s. I was comfortable enough; the waiting chambers held heated bricks and fascinating mosaics. I was not allowed to touch anything, and so I sat and thought. It was hard not to think through my history lessons, to remember foolish Pizarro who attacked 80,000 Incas with only 168 Spaniards; mere horses, cannons, and armor could not daunt so many Incan warriors! The brave Atahualpa slew most of Pizarro’s men, keeping seven to teach him how cannons worked.

I thought of these men, as my attendants dressed me in the finest tunic I had ever touched. But even those Spaniards, who had lived with smallpox since anyone could remember, did not know how to manage it. It was Incan science that figured out how to quarantine and sanitize. I found courage here. The gods may have tested us, but my people triumphed — and eventually took back our lost lands, until our empire was as glorious as before. This time, Incas and outsiders would meet on equal ground.

But one thing nagged me, as the servants pressed thick gold earplugs through my ears. I would be held responsible for these Americans’ words. Surely they came to bargain. If they threatened the Sapa Inca, I would have to alter their tone — or the ruler might blame me for their sacrilege. Yet if the Sapa Inca knew I translated imperfectly, I might be killed for that offense too. I held an unwinnable position.

The attendants strapped a heavy gold block to my back, for no man could meet the Sapa Inca unburdened. I staggered under the weight. Unless the barbarians were perfect nobles — gentle and respectful in all ways — my fate was tied to theirs. And I had little hope that they would respect our god-emperor enough to avoid offense.

A servant led me from the waiting room. I stumbled barefoot on the tiled floor, nearly blind to my surroundings. Massive stone pillars and golden trim marked my route. I passed lines of nobles, each clad more finely than the last, wearing gold sun-masks that marked their ranks. It was like a strange dream that might vanish on waking. I waited behind three different doors, each grander than the previous, until finally the imperial crier summoned me forth.

I steeled myself. If the Sapa Inca received the Americans, then surely he must hear their request. He would want my honest translation. With aching back and pounding heart, I stumbled into the throne room. I walked what seemed like the entire length of Cusco to reach the Sapa Inca’s pedestal. I pressed my body to the floor and did not lift myself until called. Even then I rose slowly and kept my eyes downcast.

Before me stood the great gold screen, carved with pumas and condors and flowers, which hid the man my eyes were unworthy to see.

2. The Sapa Inca Speaks

You, my grandson, have seen the throne room yourself, because of your father’s accomplishments. Perhaps my story seems mundane. You must remember — I never dreamed of meeting the Sapa Inca. When I was fourteen, I still lived in the village Pitahaya, where I farmed and hunted and studied my British grandfather’s Bible. I had only two dreams: to farm my own land, and to have a brother. You will not appreciate how difficult a boy’s life is with two elder and two younger sisters!

So you must picture this day as if you were me, my child. When smallpox struck Pitahaya, my elder sisters had already married into other villages. I was away on my first solo hunt, preparing to become a man. My parents and younger sisters stayed home.

Imagine yourself on a hunt today — yes, I know you prefer sailing, but bear with me. You’re alone, with your musket and your senses. You stalk a raptor or wildcat, and think yourself clever. You might kill a condor, as I did, and declare yourself a man. You mark your face with its blood. You walk home, proud and triumphant, after your five-day hunt.

Then you reach the village hill and find you cannot walk further. Imperial soldiers block your way. Smallpox has struck your home. Houses burn, to kill the disease, and you don’t know who’s inside. The soldiers tell you three-fourths of your village has died. They cannot tell you of your family. You must look to the sickly clusters, sleeping in the open air, quarantined by scarred pox survivors. You cannot join them, so you squint from a distance, wishing your eyes were those of the condor you killed.

But no. My child, you cannot imagine such madness. You no longer fear smallpox the way we did. Three days passed before I learned my family’s fate. My mother recovered, but my sisters went blind. My father died moaning my name. My grandson, you will never come home to a deeply scarred family — to learn that overnight your family is newly valued as Ronpa. Your fortune is made. But at what cost! Look at your wrecked village, where women weep, where possessions burn. See your friends and neighbors, drowned by the dozens in pestilence.

Try to understand, dear boy. Because the story of you depends on this fear.

• • • •

My burning village haunted me as I met the Sapa Inca, who sat unapproachable behind his solid screen. I knew he had never seen such a thing.

“You are Lanchi Ronpa,” stated an imperious voice from behind the golden wall.

“Yes, Your Divinity,” I answered, and flushed hot as the nobles tittered behind their masks. I was supposed to address him as Greatness; that other title meant his brother the High Priest.

Luckily, the voice sounded amused. “Lanchi Ronpa, you will translate for the Americans when they are granted entrance. Keep yourself firm at all times. Speak in your most imperial tone when you convey our words, as if you were the greatest of men. When you interpret their words, use a vulnerable tone. We command you to translate as accurately as possible.”

Those words relieved me somewhat, but not entirely. The Sapa Inca might announce one thing, and do another if sufficiently angered. No one would question his fickleness. So I simply said, “I hear and obey, Your Greatness.”

“Stand beside this screen to speak.”

Nervously I approached the screen, which extended sideways to shield the god-emperor completely. I heard nobles whispering. No matter what else happened this day, I would be remembered as the Ronpa who stood on the highest step. My knees shook. I could not have borne seeing the Sapa Inca’s face.

A woman’s voice spoke softly next to me. “Lanchi Ronpa, you will also ask any question I have of these Americans when the time comes.”

The Coya Inca! She was here as well. Most ruling women kept to their domestics, but this one had always been ambitious. Wife to the Sapa, she was the moon who shone beneath his daylight. I had no idea how to address her. I murmured, “I hear and obey, star of the purest sky.”

The compliment seemed acceptable, as no words came from behind the screen. Thus I waited for the Americans.

Soon the imperial guards appeared, armed with every weapon known to us, from traditional bolas to modern flintlock rifles — the best our scientists had developed. We had not stumbled through centuries of poverty and war; only plagues interrupted our science. Ever since Atahualpa’s reign, imperial guards remained armed at all times. One never knew when a diplomat might attack. So many warriors arrived that I could see nothing else. Then the procession parted like grain in the wind, and I saw the Americans.

My child, I tell you — I feared disappointment that they were only men, but in fact I was astonished. The Americans were five in number. All wore heavy stones on their backs. First I noticed their leader — who, at that time, I thought might be king. He had deep-set eyes like my grandfather, with ghostly irises and rust-colored eyebrows. His hair amazed me, for it was curled throughout, and aged white despite his young face. It looked like he had rolled it on sticks and slept on it while damp. I wondered why this man would arrange his hair so strangely.

But these thoughts vanished quickly — for among the Americans stood the strangest man I’d ever seen. His skin was dark as fertile soil, with hair like the black llamas that honor the creator god. Like the others, he wore strange clothing: a fine white shirt, with excess fabric gathered at his throat. His shirt was far too short, only falling to his waist, and fine wool fitted the shape of his legs. I saw no point in this; it seemed confining, but I recalled that Europeans had long dressed in this fashion. He looked younger than the leader, though perhaps that was because of the leader’s white hair.

I met the dark man’s gaze, though he quickly looked down. The pale man addressed me in English. I thanked Inti that he spoke slowly, which helped me. He said, “Praise God that we have arrived here to meet you, and that you have welcomed us. We are Americans, and currently subjects of the British Empire. In the name of the thirteen American colonies, I greet you and request that we negotiate.”

I paused before translating “God” — did he mean Inti or did he mean the character from British mythology? I finally translated as “divinity,” and I think the Sapa Inca took it as meaning the true gods.

The court scribe said, “State your name, title, and rank for the records.”

“I am Ambassador John Fernando Loddington de Godoy. As you request my rank, I will state that my father owns an enormous farm in Virginia, which is the most proud and courageous of the American lands. My mother was Spanish-born of noble blood, and thus my titling is to Catalan lands. In America my nobility comes from the amount of land I own. You must forgive my slow response. American ranks are understood very differently.”

I wondered how Americans recognized their nobles, but it was not my role to ask. I translated his words. The scribe took notes and said, “You may address the Sapa Inca. He will respond only if he pleases. When you are finished, you must leave, whether or not he has spoken.”

Loddington looked at the screen. I saw his distrust; he clearly lacked confidence that any man sat there at all, let alone the Sapa Inca. Yet he recognized his place, and his words showed his cleverness.

He said, “I am pleased that the Sapa Inca considered our proposal worthy, and that he would bring his most honored presence to this meeting so that he might hear with his own ears and respond with his own voice. Though we had chosen our translator and prepared ourselves accordingly, his great wisdom moved him to choose his own man. Indeed, what effective ruler could trust a translator who was not self-selected and aligned with his interests?”

By this, I learned not to underestimate this man. I felt uncomfortable translating the last part, because it might inspire the Sapa Inca to ensure that I was in fact perfectly aligned. I worried that this might force the marriage of my daughter to an imperial cousin, perhaps within the week. You may think this an overreaction — but that is precisely the power the ruler held, and he might on a whim raise my fortune and deprive my daughter of her free choice. At any rate, I saw Loddington’s intent. He had both complimented and condemned the man in the same words — and ensured that the Sapa Inca would prove his presence with his own voice.

Our ruler did precisely as Loddington intended. The voice from the screen spoke with the strength of a mountain storm. “We are most curious about your intent. Why have you come to this land? What could your impoverished people offer us?”

“We bring relief from the smallpox which devastates your empire.”

“A cure?” I blurted out, forgetting myself.

“Better than a cure. We bring something that will make you — ” and here he spoke a word I did not know.

I meant to clarify, but the scribe interrupted me and said, “Translate immediately for the Sapa Inca.”

“I am trying,” I said in Quechua, “but I must understand properly first.” I addressed Loddington in English. “What does this word mean? Say it again?”

“Immune,” he said clearly. “Smallpox will never affect you. This is what happens after a person receives the vaccine.”

That last word was also unfamiliar, but I didn’t need a definition. This vaccine was a brilliant device that could save my people. My heart lifted at the thought. What was a vaccine? Perhaps a gift, or an item? My imagination suggested a suit of golden armor, with gaps too small for a pustule to cross. I wondered how many men could wear it.

But of course I must translate, and so I said in Quechua, “He offers something called vaccine, which he says will prevent smallpox from affecting a person. They will not sicken.”

“Not sicken?” repeated the Sapa Inca, clearly surprised. All the nobles whispered at once. Words swelled among the crowd and flowed outward from the lower palace, like water cascading down a hillside.

“That is his claim, Your Greatness,” I said.

“Convey neither surprise nor interest. Ask how this vaccine works.”

I did so, and Loddington smiled in a familiar way. A man smiles like that when he knows he will win the coming battle. But, my grandson: Remember that an unseen battle has no certain victor, for time and terrain will vary the outcome.

Loddington said, “Surely Your Greatness will understand that the precise method of conveying the vaccine cannot be shared without guaranteed payment.”

At my translation, the Sapa Inca said, “Explain how the vaccine works. We cannot believe anything known to science would stop the illness.”

Loddington’s response surprised me greatly. He said, “Bring twenty healthy men to my camp outside Cusco, and let them stay five days. I will give them the vaccine. Then send them to a village where smallpox rages. Have them share drinks with the infected. Your men will remain whole.”

I couldn’t believe what I heard. All men knew that sharing a drink with an infected person meant exposure; even breathing air might contaminate a man. Before I translated, I asked Loddington, “What is this vaccine? The Sapa Inca will be more tolerant if he has some idea of its nature. Is it a mask, or . . . a charm perhaps? Or maybe a kind of healing earth? How do you know it will work on our people?”

Loddington chuckled and said, “It’s like teaching a boy to shoot a bird. When the boy grows up, he can shoot a lion. I could not show you the vaccine even if I wished to; it is so small that a beetle wearing spectacles could not see it.”

I blew my breath out my cheek, thinking perhaps the man was mad — but I translated these words for my audience. I knew what lions were from the Bible, but I used the word puma for simplicity. At my speech, even more murmurs rose from the nobles. Cusco would discuss this day for years to come.

The Sapa Inca remained silent for a long time. I heard the Coya Inca whispering, but I couldn’t make out her words. Finally the Sapa Inca said, “Lanchi Ronpa, are you sure you understand this man?”

“Yes, Your Greatness.”

“Ask him — if this vaccine proves effective, how many men could we protect?”

Upon hearing this request, Loddington replied boldly, “Your Greatness, I will teach your doctors how to protect every man, woman, and child in the Four Quarters. With the vaccine, your doctors can save your great Empire from this terrible scourge.”

As I considered this, he added, “Think of what you might become, if you cast off the Spanish plague. Your empire even now surpasses those of Britain and Spain, including their New World holdings. France is a distant contender — and believe me, I have patrolled our western border and dealt with many Frenchmen. The world could lie at your feet. The Inca could expand northwards and expel Spain from the California Territory and Mexico. We offer you the chance to seize these rich lands from their overseas masters, that they may serve Incan glory instead.”

As soon as I dared, I translated so I would not miss any nuance. It was difficult to keep it all together. I was thinking about how, after the worst of the sixteenth-century plagues, we Incas had needed two hundred years just to recover our former size. The reconquest of the southern lands had required huge expense and effort — slowed by smallpox. We’d lost time in quarantining victims and performing medical experiments. We’d grown skilled at limiting the disease’s reach, but made no progress on understanding its cause. If those great minds researching smallpox could be transferred to the project of Incan expansion — !

It seemed the Sapa Inca thought as I did, for his next question was, “If this vaccine proves effective, what is its price?”

Most diplomats would have hedged their answer, but Loddington proved a bolder man. He said, “Four thousand times my own weight in gold, and a peace treaty between our nations.”

I was certain I’d misheard that, so I clarified the number with him. But I had indeed heard correctly. I conveyed the request to the Sapa Inca, thinking he’d laugh the American out of the room. Gold belonged to Inti; we valued it for spiritual power and not as a bargaining tool. But the Sapa Inca said nothing, even though the nobles shouted their outrage.

After some time, the Sapa Inca replied, “That is the weight of the sunrise itself.”

“That is our price,” said Loddington firmly.

“As a mere subject, you have no right to speak for Britain and thus cannot offer any such bargain. Furthermore, if you truly possess such a scientific miracle, any man with humanitarian values would offer it for only the cost of his voyage and supplies, plus some incidental reward.”

“To your second point — if I acted on my own free will, then a humanitarian mission might happen, which would assure me the richest seat in Heaven. But I represent the thirteen American Colonies under British rule, and in their name, I ask such an enormous price. For you see, we wish our nation free of British rule. We desire a land of free men who decide their own affairs, rather than suffer rule from afar. And the price of this vaccine would fund our war against Britain — who taxes us unfairly and strips our resources, while giving nothing in return. You must understand — our overseas tyrants are nothing like what you’ve seen in your Empire’s history. Here in the Four Quarters, the government cares for its people. Tales abound in our history books of how the Sapa Inca provides new clothing for every bride and groom in the land. Surely you understand why men must pursue fair treatment from their leaders.”

I prayed for him to fall silent so I could catch up. Even a polite wave of my hand had not cued him to stop. I tried my best, although I stumbled on the part about rebelling against rulers. I thought surely the Sapa Inca would find this man and his ideas threatening, but once again, the ruler remained silent for a long time.

As we waited, Loddington spoke again. “It is a most reasonable price for — ”

The Sapa Inca interrupted with, “What if we killed you and took this vaccine?”

I translated uncomfortably, but Loddington didn’t blink. “You don’t even know what it looks like, much less how to use it. If we thought you did, we would destroy it before you came close. I do not fear your empty threat.”

More silence, and then the Sapa Inca said, “State the full terms of the agreement.”

“We ask four thousand times my weight in gold, plus a permanent peace treaty between our nations. We intend to claim all land west of us, up to a river called the Mississippi.”

The Sapa Inca did not respond, so Loddington said, “I can show Your Greatness this river on a map if necessary.”

“We know where it is,” said the Sapa Inca.

Before I could translate that response, Loddington continued smoothly, perhaps understanding the Sapa Inca’s tone. “You may claim all land west of the Mississippi, though Spain might challenge you. But Spain is chaotic and impoverished right now, as is Britain. I’m sure you’ve followed the troubles in their lands.”

Even I saw the true nature of this game. If we distracted Spain in the northern lands, they couldn’t help Britain defend against the American rebellion. Both wars would more likely succeed. I translated this proposal for the Sapa Inca, and Loddington continued, “Surely you of all people would — ”

The Sapa Inca interrupted with, “Silence. We are thinking.”

The room fell silent for some time, aside from nobles whispering. I watched Loddington’s llama-haired companion. Although he was taller, and bore himself like a man, I thought after a close look that perhaps he was yet a boy. He was certainly no older than seventeen, and I thought he might be as young as fourteen — just on the threshold of manhood. I wondered why he accompanied Loddington. Perhaps he was a servant? His stance indicated deference, as did his positioning. The boy fascinated me, even then. I suppose that Inti himself signaled how my fate lay entwined with this almost-grown boy, in a way that none could foresee. At the time I thought to myself he was the lesser of the pair with Loddington, for all great things were paired, and perhaps that included Americans.

Loddington shifted on his feet. He was impatient — a fact that my people might use against him, if necessary. I wondered how expensive the Sapa Inca found this proposal. Our ruler was wealthy beyond any earthly standard — but four thousand times the weight of a man? And to insist on payment in gold, which should be too holy for common transaction! I thought that even if the Sapa Inca considered the sum astronomical, he wouldn’t dare show it.

After what seemed like hours, the living god-emperor of the Incan people pronounced his decision.

“We will provide these twenty men as requested. You will give them this vaccine and we will expose them to smallpox. When you have proven your claim, you will receive half the amount you request, paid in silver.”

“Half!” shouted Loddington, then regained himself. “Half is simply not enough,” he said. “And our payment must be in gold. Our creditors will not accept silver. If you do not want this vaccine, then I will go home.”

“You are a fool to throw away so much wealth,” said the Sapa Inca.

“We will find resources through other means,” said Loddington.

“You would kill innocent men, women, and children for the sake of greed?”

Loddington’s face darkened, and he said, “I would save each and every citizen under threat. It is you who would kill them by refusing this deal.”

I cringed as I translated this, carefully specifying that he said these things, not I. After a long silence, the Sapa Inca said, “One-fourth your requested price in gold when you prove your claim, and another one-fourth half a year after this vaccine continues to be effective.”

Ah, the wisdom of the gods indeed! Loddington countered with, “One-fourth when the vaccine proves effective, and the remaining three-fourths at the half-year mark.”

“You are dismissed,” said the Sapa Inca coldly.

To my surprise, Loddington shrugged and smiled. He bowed deeply and turned to his dark-skinned companion. “Come, Marco,” he said. “We have a long voyage ahead of us.”

Loddington strode down the long hallway, chin lifted like an emperor. His party followed. Every noble’s head turned to follow them. I heard loud whispering behind the screen — this time an unknown man’s voice, along with the two rulers. Loddington had nearly left when the Sapa Inca commanded, “Call out for him to stop.”

“Stop!” I shouted. Loddington paused near the door, tilting his head. But he didn’t turn around. He gave no indication he would hear any more. I realized that I had met a rare creature: a man to whom the living god himself must submit.

The Sapa Inca said, “One-half when the vaccine proves effective, and the other half a year from that day. The full amount that you request, paid in gold.”

Loddington turned on the threshold, and smiled. His face reminded me of a raptor diving toward prey. “And the peace treaty?”

“As requested, provided it cover aggression by either nation.”

“Agreed,” said Loddington smoothly, “by power vested in me from the Governor of Virginia and the General of the American Revolutionary Army. Shall we formalize in writing?”

The rest of the day — and then the week — fell to writing endless documents. The scribes took care of the Quechua versions, and Loddington wrote the English ones. I had to catch discrepancies, which twisted my stomach. Too many papers and not enough time! Luckily English and Quechua shared an alphabet, as we’d taken the Spanish letters — but still I felt overwhelmed. No one could help me; even another English-speaker offered little help, as those few men were illiterate peasants.

I was not called to further meetings, as they mostly consisted of Coniraya with his chief advisors. I did hear about the changing plans, though. The first plan was to test the vaccine on criminals, in case the American intended to attack us with poison. Because we do not keep prisons, this required bringing in criminals who’d committed two crimes and would normally be killed outright. They were kept under strict guard, until someone realized that of course the guards could not accompany the criminals so closely to an infected village and ensure proper exposure.

Attention turned to those loyal men who would volunteer for this task, and to my surprise, twenty were found. I suspected that the Sapa Inca had ordered compliance, and they dared not disobey, but I was not privy to these discussions. Most likely many llamas died as the High Priest examined their entrails, and runners wore themselves out relaying messages between the Sapa Inca and his spiritual advisor. I was notified that the village chosen for the test was Sayacmarca, and that several pox survivors would accompany these men, in order to assist should they fall ill.

Thus I learned that my wife Yma would go with these volunteers, as one volunteer was a widow who required a female companion. I supposed this was the Coya Inca’s doing; it made sense to ensure the vaccine worked on women too, but I wished anyone other than my wife might go. My family was already entangled too far above our station. Great harm came to those who mingled with too-powerful people. Yma would go, and endure a twelve-day quarantine before her return. I was assured that my children would be cared for in her absence, as I was needed at the palace — and in particular that my lovely Chaska would join the priestesses, as a reward from the Sapa Inca. Yes, I was assured.

So you will understand, dear child, my dead panic when I heard of the Sapa Inca’s plans to appease the gods. You see, Amaru and Paucar — his cousins who had come to me earlier — paid me a visit, shortly into this time of paperwork. I drowned in scrolls, with aching eyes and head. The windowless room was stuffy and hot, and all I could think of was seeing my wife and children again. But then Amaru told me of my next task as translator.

“The Sapa Inca awaits the results from Sayacmarca. Meanwhile, he instructs us to take the American leader and his servant to Machu Picchu and show them that palace’s glory. Their entourage will remain in the palace as honored guests, under guard.”

“Machu Picchu!” I exclaimed, setting down my papers. “No one sees Machu Picchu except the most — ”

“Even I have not seen it,” interrupted Paucar, “and I believe the American does not belong there. But this is the order and so we shall obey.”

“I believe,” said Amaru quietly, “that the intent is to impress the man. But yes, the fact that our cousin would allow such savage eyes into a holy place — I think that Coniraya already believes this vaccine will work, and he wants nothing to stop this deal. Perhaps he hopes that an impressed American will show mercy in his dealings.”

I shook my head. “This is all amazing to me,” I said. “I have never dreamed of visiting Machu Picchu.”

Amaru said, “We will meet the High Priest there. I believe Ahuapauti wishes to talk to the Americans without his brother present.”

I knew he meant the Sapa Inca, for then as now, the Sapa and Coya and High Priest were all siblings or at least cousins — and those three were full siblings, which was most unusual. I asked, “What do you suppose the High Priest thinks of Loddington?”

Paucar snorted. “You know as much as we do. You translated his every word.”

I blinked, startled. The High Priest had been speaking in the throne room, as if he ruled the land? I had heard two different male voices behind the screen, along with the female. It was said that Ahuapauti as the elder brother always coveted the throne, despite losing to Coniraya in combat. Perhaps there had been an arrangement between them that they might share governance, and their sister would be wife to both.

“Does Ahuapauti rule this land then?” I asked, feeling like an ignorant villager.

Amaru said, “The rumor around court is that the Sapa Inca defers to the High Priest in all complex and unusual matters. He spends his time listening, rather than speaking, so he can accurately assess the situation. There are some who feel that this encourages the High Priest to desire too much power, but others think the brothers found an effective balance.”

Paucar added, “Some say the Coya Inca prefers her elder brother, but no one says this unless he wants to be thrown off a mountaintop.”

Amaru narrowed his eyes at his cousin, then continued, “However, the Sapa Inca makes all the decisions, including the plan for a hundredfold sacrifice on Atun Cusqui.”

“A hundredfold!” I exclaimed, for normally only six boys and six girls were married at the festival.

“Yes. Six hundred boys and six hundred girls, aged nine to thirteen, will be married and then given to the gods near Lake Titicaca. The Sapa Inca believes we must increase our sacrifice as penance for spending our gold, which is Inti’s sweat that we have earned.”

I hardly heard his words, for my world collapsed around me. My family was being discussed in every noble household by now. Any hope of obscurity was gone. My beautiful Chaska — my darling daughter, admired by all around me, would surely be targeted for those marriages. She could hardly escape such a huge gathering of children. My daughter would be crowned with flowers — and then killed by a penitent priest.

I had never liked the festival sacrifices, but Inti demanded them, and who could question a god’s will? And now the sacrifices seemed nightmarish. What god would ask this of a father? I turned away, that these men would not see my pain. I was trapped between two terrible outcomes. If the Sapa Inca consummated this trade, it would cost me my daughter — and hundreds of other daughters and sons. Yet if he rejected it, how many children would die from smallpox? Perhaps twelve hundred lives was a bargain indeed.

I had no answer then, and no answer now. At that moment, I desperately wished for my child’s sweet face and her arms thrown about me.

3. Machu Picchu

Let me tell you, child, of how smallpox strikes. This is the tale told to me by your grandmother Yma, from when she was fifteen.

Put yourself here, with your grandmother. You’re lying on your reed mat in your house’s loft. It’s summer and you’re far too warm. You hear your parents talking below, of how smallpox has swept through villages too close to Cusco. They talk of rumors, how a man escaped quarantine. This man, you think, may be in Cusco now, infecting the millions gathered here.

The thought makes your forehead sweat. You shiver. And you think, I am scaring myself, but you know you can’t sicken yourself with a thought. Still, your stomach twists and your back hurts, which could be from weaving wool today. And there’s a lump in your cheek, which you run your tongue over, which might be where you burned yourself on supper. Perhaps you should show your father this lump, or not — why worry over nothing? — but you decide you should. You try to stand up, but the world spins. So you crawl, and fall against your hand — and where did you get those two blisters on your cheek? You’re sure they’re new, those two dots like the sun and the moon. You call for your parents, but your voice is weak.

And your parents come, and wrap you in blankets, but you hear soldiers surrounding your house. This must be quarantine — it happened once before, in childhood. But that was other children, not you who lay here, sweating and shaking, your tongue swollen like boiled squash. A hot red rash blisters all your skin. A scarred stranger brings you water, and you drink, and the stranger is gone and back again. You call for your parents, but they do not come. All around you the city of Cusco is silent, except for cries of pain and death. You do not know what happens next.

In time you come to your senses, not knowing the day or week, and the stranger is someone else. You’re feeble as a newborn pup and your face is scarred like baked earth. You ask for your parents, but the stranger shakes his head. You wail as grief consumes you. And this house is yours now, empty and cold.

And that house is this house, where now we sit and I tell you the story of you. That plague was in 1793, when one-fifth of Cusco perished by smallpox — and still that toll was better than sixteenth-century plagues, where nine of ten might die. It’s a miracle that we survived at all, Inti’s blessing that the physician Ronpa discovered quarantine. Even the Europeans who brought this horror could not destroy the Incan Empire at its height. Though had the Spanish fully assaulted us in the earliest years, it might have been different, child — so very different.

So you see the choice we faced in 1806, my dear grandson, and why it mattered. Smallpox crippled us. It forced a twelve-day quarantine for all travelers. Without smallpox, our Empire could explode northward, taking the Spanish lands and all their wealth. We could replenish any funds we’d spent to get this vaccine. But everything relied on the vaccine doing what the Americans promised.

We went to Machu Picchu on litters carried by imperial runners, and we had scarcely begun our journey before Amaru ordered his runners to carry him close to me. The Americans were far behind us; I had no doubt they were being reminded of their place.

Amaru said, “I’m told that when the twenty volunteers reported to Loddington’s camp, he blindfolded them and separated them from their sighted companions. He brought them into a tent and promised that the vaccine would hurt only briefly, and they would sicken slightly but recover within three days. Then they would journey to Sayacmarca. Five volunteers quit at this point. I believe they preferred to risk the Sapa Inca’s wrath over sickness.”

Intrigued, I asked, “What did he do to them?”

“None are sure,” said Amaru. “All reported a stab in the arm, as with a cactus. The woman declared it was a sewing needle she felt. Several heard labored breathing and coughs — small coughs, like a child. One man reported the stench of stale urine and feces, as if someone had perhaps lain in them for some time.”

I considered the mystery and had no ideas. “And did they sicken?”

“Yes,” said my companion, as if thinking aloud to himself. “They became ill, though not with smallpox. All had to wait in these tents for three days. The smallpox survivors who had come with them were forbidden to enter the tents, and witnessed nothing. But these volunteers all emerged with slight scars, mostly on their hands.”

“As with smallpox.”

“No, nothing like. The scars were so mild they might have been caused by childhood injury. They reported feeling feverish, and blistering a bit — but with larger blisters, they said, based on talking with the smallpox survivors.”

I glanced backward where the Americans rode. “And now they will not get smallpox?”

“So he claims. They are traveling to Sayacmarca now. I am sure that word will come from that village before the volunteers return; the Emperor has of course assigned smallpox survivors as runners.”

And their clothes would be burned before they met the next runner, and their hair shaved off. No chances could be taken. With a start, I realized my wife would lose her beautiful hair, and this was only the beginning of changes for my family.

I realized Amaru had addressed me while I was lost in thought, and I asked his pardon. “Again, please?”

“I said — befriend this American. Get him to trust you. I must play the arrogant noble, but he will relax around a man of more ordinary rank. Find out what this vaccine is, if you can. If nothing else, learn what moves him, so that we might leverage it against him if needed.”

“I will try,” I murmured, feeling pressured.

Shortly we crossed the holy bridge over the Urubamba, and stopped to let our carriers rest. Amaru and Paucar offered coca leaves to the river, since this site lay on the sacred lines. Amaru gave me two small leaves and I understood his intent.

I took the leaves to Loddington and his companion. Loddington looked quite pale from his travels, though his servant appeared wide-eyed and excited. Up close, I saw that Loddington’s coiled white hair was actually a fitted item that sat atop his head, like a hat. Small tufts of red-brown locks peeked out underneath. How peculiar, to wear hair as a hat. I wondered if the boy’s llama hair was also a hat, but it looked natural.

Bowing slightly, I offered the two leaves on an outstretched palm.

“What are these?” asked Loddington.

“Coca leaves,” I told him. “They will help you adjust to the mountain air.”

Loddington grabbed both leaves and stuffed them in his mouth. Surprised, I looked at his companion, but the boy seemed to expect this behavior. I had meant one for each man, but indeed the boy seemed healthier. I knew from my grandfather that some men found our air easier than others.

“I am called Lanchi Ronpa,” I told them. “Lanchi is my name, and Ronpa is where my father’s name should be — but because some of my family survived smallpox, we are children of Ronpa, the great physician who became Sapa Inca. He is the disfigured god of our people.”

“I know Ronpa,” said Loddington. “Without him, Incan civilization would have collapsed. You owe him a great debt. Actually, some of our modern science is based on his work. For a man who didn’t know what a germ was, he did an amazing job protecting your people.”

I didn’t know what a germ was either, but felt reluctant to ask. “We will meet Ronpa at Machu Picchu. He lives there along with all other past rulers.”

Loddington gave me a strange look. I figured he might not understand that our god-emperors were immortal, but he didn’t question me further. Personally, I was excited beyond belief that I would see the mummies of Ronpa and Atahualpa and our other great leaders. Loddington’s color improved greatly with the coca leaves, and he asked me, “How is it that you speak English?”

“My grandfather was a British merchant. He came to these lands before the Expulsion and married here.”

“Oh, he went native. I see. Our previous translator had a similar story, but his English was better. I’m sorry, that was rude of me. I prefer to speak my mind. Diplomacy tires me.”

The boy smiled at this, but didn’t say anything. He picked up a fan and created a small breeze for Loddington. I liked the way this boy kept his own counsel and never spoke out of turn. Suddenly I wondered if he was mute. I asked him, “What’s your name?”

He looked away shyly. Loddington said, “Go on, boy. Answer the man.”

“Marco,” he said, quietly but clearly. I noticed that his jawline was nearly as square as Loddington’s, and both Americans had hooked noses. They bore a certain barbaric look; they resembled coarse peasants rather than elegant nobles. Despite their oddness, I felt more comfortable with them than the wealthiest of Incan society.

Loddington said, “Named him for the famous explorer who opened China. His mama still cooks for my family back in Virginia. He’s here to help me carry out my work. And he helped sail the ship here. Smart boy, he is. Natural on the water. Shame he’s a mulatto, or he’d be a captain by now!”

“What is a mulatto?” I asked.

Loddington grinned at me. “Dark enough for a houseboy, but white enough you won’t lose him at night!”

I didn’t understand his riddle, so I asked, “And his family works for you?”

“Close enough,” Loddington replied. “He was born into our household. Marco was always special to Father.”

“Ah!” I said, understanding. I looked at their faces again and saw proof. “You are brothers!”

Marco’s eyes widened like a startled cat’s. Loddington’s face grew tight. “We are not brothers,” he said stiffly. “My mother is a Spanish-born lady of the noble house of de Godoy, who gave up her privilege to marry my father in the New World. Her bloodline traces back to cousins of Queen Isabella three centuries ago. Marco is my manservant and his mother is from Africa.”

My heart pounded. Clearly I had offended Loddington in some major way. Marco ducked his head and busied himself with a strange leather bag, as if the contents needed immediate inspection. I quickly said, “Please forgive any offense I have caused. You must understand, my knowledge of English is limited to reading my grandfather’s Bible and speaking with him, and my knowledge of America is almost nothing. I do not have the education that Incan nobles receive, for I was raised on a farm and I achieved my status through luck. I regret the insult and ask only that you let me learn from you. I may not be born into privilege as you are, but I have worked hard to improve myself.”

I felt I hadn’t said any magic words. But perhaps Loddington regained control of himself, because he said, “Please forgive my temper. I am very proud of my father and I’m sure you can understand that.”

“What man should feel less for his father?” I asked, smiling at Marco to show I meant no harm. “I have a baby son myself, along with an older daughter, and I pray myself worthy of my boy’s respect.”

“Please do join us in our carrier,” said Loddington. “I would like to learn more of the Incan people. I read widely before I came here, but naturally our histories are sparse after the Expulsion. How is it that your grandfather stayed here through the wrath of the Sapa Inca?”

Gratefully, I joined him and Marco, where we passed the remaining ride in pleasant talk. I told them of how my grandfather had become so Incan in his ways that the villagers accepted him, and the soldiers from Cusco had never forced him out. A handful of men had escaped the Expulsion in this way. I improved my accent by copying Loddington’s speech — a longer sound than I was used to, deeper in the throat, with r’s that carried longer than seemed necessary. I thought then that I must be out of practice with English, though later I learned that Americans speak differently.

I told him how I farmed some land with my wife’s family. He seemed very interested in our terraced landscapes, and I was able to point out several well-built ones on our journey, where peasants farmed food for the magnificent imperial palace at Machu Picchu. I learned that his two loves were farming and sailing; his crop was tobacco, which was a luxury in my land, and his waters were the sea called Atlantic. I asked how he managed both enterprises, and he said, “My wife manages the plantation and my men work the fields,” by which I concluded American families must be as broad and complex as our own.

At one point on our journey, we crossed a thick stone bridge over a narrow stream. I noticed Marco eyeing the water hungrily, as if he wished to explore where its merry waters led. I leaned over and said, “We have reed rafts, if you wish at some point to travel the land with Imperial companions.”

Marco grinned and glanced at Loddington, who shrugged. Marco said, “I don’t think I’ll have time for an adventure.”

Loddington said, “We’ll be here a while, Marco, and traveling great distances to vaccinate the people. It’s possible you’ll get your wish.”

“You’re that sure of your vaccine?” I asked.

“Positive. It works. I have no fear as we head to your famed palace — although I note how easily we might mysteriously disappear on our way there, or back. Your ruler is no fool.”

I couldn’t think of a diplomatic answer, so I just said, “You’re wise to see it.”

By afternoon we’d reached a narrow path, from which Machu Picchu rose in the distance. A leafy canopy shaded us from the sun’s rays. On our left rose a vast stone wall; on the right the cliff dropped away to sheer rock and a distant crevice. Though I was used to the mountain heights, the sight floored me; no man could look down and forget his place in Viracocha’s creation. Loddington gave it the barest glance before settling back into comfort. Marco stared downwards, his eyes dancing like wild men. Slowly our carriers marched, step by step, toward this most sacred palace. It felt like the trees sank as we climbed.

As the palace drew into view, Marco’s jaw dropped. Energy rushed through me, as if the gods themselves spoke in my body and declared me worthy. Never in my life had I dreamed of seeing this miracle, this beautiful jewel on the mask of the Incan people — me, from humble origins, whom fate had vaulted into this place. Even Loddington’s eyebrows went up at the sun-drenched stones, shaped into perfection over three centuries ago and faultless ever since.

Now my child, let me tell you: Though you have seen Machu Picchu before, you have not seen it through my eyes — on that day shortly before Midsummer, when the sun honored this incredible creation. You have run through its corridors with the sons of the Sapa Inca himself. To you perhaps Machu Picchu is a happy childhood memory, a place where noble cousins might play hide and seek with you. You have run your hands along the stones’ fitted edges, feeling no gap — yes, the palace proves the Incan mastery of stonework, before we’d ever heard of Europe or smallpox. Can you believe, child, that even today the Americans spread plaster on their stones, like thick llama guts, to glue their walls together?

Ah, our Incan engineers, they surpassed even the modern European artisan! They built seventeen channels to splash water through the palace and siphon away the rainy season, so that the palace would never flood or erode. They reshaped the ground under this palace into graveled terraces, that the water might restore the earth. All of this, done in a few decades — solely because the Sapa Inca Pachacuti demanded it, and a god’s bidding must be done without question. Men gave their lives to ensure Machu Picchu would merit its holy location — for why else build a magnificent palace in the most unreachable mountains, other than to prove that one can?

And those were my thoughts as we arrived — that Machu Picchu represented the peak accomplishment for the early Empire, before the European diseases wasted us so deeply that we spent a century regaining our lands. But Cusco and Machu Picchu had remained ours always, their glory crowning our legacy.

I remained silent until our carriers reached the palace entrance, for I did not wish to disturb anyone’s thoughts. Marco drank in the sights like woolen yarn with dye; he looked as if he were memorizing everything he saw, as if it could sustain him through a lean period surrounded by white walls. Loddington’s eyes swept the plaza, from the gold-leaf pumas and carved birds to the massive stone pillars that marked the first step. Terraces rose above us like earthen warriors. Water splashed through the channels, and I knelt to refresh myself with a drink. I did not fear tainting the water, for this was the lowest point. Only the Sapa Inca could drink from the heights.

Amaru and Paucar drew near, and Amaru addressed Loddington. “This is the imperial palace of Machu Picchu, summer home of the Sapa Inca himself. He has instructed us to show you the palace in all its glory.”

“I thank you for the privilege,” said Loddington, but I detected a note of humor in his voice. I couldn’t understand it.

Amaru and Paucar led our little processional, with Loddington following, and Marco and myself in back. Eight armed guards accompanied us, stone-faced and attentive; we Incas held a long memory after the treacherous Pizarro. Personally, I felt no danger that the Americans might harm us, but caution was wise.

We toured endless terraces and plazas, each more glorious than the last, lined with so many gold-leaf cornstalks I went cross-eyed. So much glamor overwhelmed me. I appreciated the beauty of isolated fountains, and the occasional secluded passage — but I thanked Inti for not making me Sapa Inca, for I think I would have perished of richness.

Amaru discussed the palace’s history, and Paucar commented on its architecture. I learned much as I translated for the Americans, but mostly I spoke to Marco. He listened with shining eyes, as if I narrated legends rather than history. Loddington listened too, but his eyes were distant, and in time he drifted away to study the delicate gold sculptures lining the pools and archways.

Amaru said, “We understand that gold is valuable in every known nation. Europeans — and Americans, it seems — trade it for earthly goods and services. But we consider it spiritual currency. Gold buys honor in Inti’s eyes; it is created by the sun itself, and is holy. Thus why Machu Picchu is laden with the sun’s sweat; it marks the hard work done to honor our Sapa Inca and the god Inti himself.”

When I had translated this, Marco asked, “What do you use for money?”

Amaru answered, “We have bartered since the early days of the Empire. When Europeans arrived, they nearly destroyed us — but our Empire survived, and eventually welcomed the Europeans. We quickly saw the value of a single tradable item, useful in any context. So the Sapa Inca — this was Ronpa’s reign, in 1543 — declared silver as our currency. Gold is reserved for religious and imperial use. Of course some nobles buy and sell gold, but it is not demeaned with everyday economic use.”

“So if you pay us in gold,” said Marco thoughtfully, “it’s like selling us a piece of heaven.”

“Marco!” exclaimed Loddington. “Come here. I need you immediately.”

The boy went to his leader, and Amaru asked me quietly, “Have you learned anything of interest yet?”

“No,” I said, worrying that I’d been given a too-difficult task. I couldn’t see why Loddington might tell me anything surprising. He seemed too smart a man to reveal any clues to his thinking.

“Unless I miss my guess, he will open to you,” said Amaru, smiling. “Keep translating for me, please.”

I bowed slightly, still bothered by Marco’s words. It was true — if we paid in gold, we were selling our gods for the people’s health. No wonder the Sapa Inca felt we should make a hundredfold child sacrifice. Without that additional gift, the gods would be angry at our heathen choice — and a new illness might strike us down.

We headed next to the great Temple of the Three Windows, where all the former Sapa Incas lived. Their lovingly wrapped mummies once lived in the Coricancha to advise the Sapa Inca, but they had been moved here in 1766 for peace and privacy. Now I felt Macchu Picchu’s true power, and my knees grew weak. Amaru led us through winding passages towards the rulers’ alcoves, and he chose Ronpa’s nook first.

I admired Ronpa’s clean wrappings, and I imagined the living god standing before us. Amaru droned on and on, describing the complex family relationships among the various rulers — most were cousins of some fashion — and stressing the importance of good imperial heritage. I translated mindlessly; family terms and names were easy, without nuance, and could vanish from my head once spoken. Loddington looked exceptionally bored during this part, and even Marco’s eyes dulled a bit. As I explained how the Sapa Inca and the High Priest were often brothers, and the current Coya Inca was their sister, Loddington snapped to attention.

“Do you mean to tell me that your rulers are siblings?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, taken aback. “It’s always been this way.”

Loddington looked like he wanted to say something angry, but he controlled himself with tight lips and narrow eyes. Marco just looked confused, as if he couldn’t understand how such a thing were possible. Amaru asked, “Is there a problem?”

“They wished to clarify my translation,” I said.

“Ah,” he said. “We will tour the upper fountains and the plaza next, and then we can rest. I suspect our guests need it.”

Indeed, Loddington looked exhausted, and even Marco looked worn down. But Amaru spent the entire afternoon lecturing on the sights at Machu Picchu. I thought my eyes couldn’t handle any more gold. As the sun dropped lower, Amaru stopped in a room with a lovely window, which framed a dropaway landscape of the valley and the setting sun. I couldn’t even appreciate it anymore; I was numb with awe.

“You may rest here,” he told the Americans. “Lanchi will stay in case you need anything. Paucar and I will attend to the High Priest.” He handed me two more coca leaves and departed.

When we were alone, Loddington sat on a bench and took a deep breath, looking pale. Marco sat next to him and leaned against the wall. Marco had carried all of Loddington’s bundles up hundreds of flights of stairs, so I offered him the coca leaves. He took them and offered both to Loddington, who glanced at me and chose only one leaf.

He chewed it roughly, like it angered him. “Royalty is the same anywhere you look,” he said.

I wasn’t sure if he addressed Marco or me. When the boy didn’t answer, I said, “How do the royals act in the colonies where you live?”

“Uppity. They think they own us. Nobles think it’s all about the family you’re born into. Did you hear him going on about the lineage of each ruler? It’s like that heritage mattered more than what the man actually did.”

I thought this odd from a man so proud of his noble Spanish mother, but didn’t say so. “According to legend, we Incas appeared on earth at the end of a golden rod,” I told him. “The nobles ensure that our rulers always connect back to Manco Inca and the other seven original people.”

“What does it matter, though? A man’s worth is in his deeds. It doesn’t matter if he was born a king or a shoemaker. A good man proves his worth regardless of his station.”

“That much is true,” I agreed. “I have known peasants who were kinder than I deserved, and nobles who angered at nothing.”

“That’s what I mean,” said Loddington. “Do you think these nobles deserve all this wealth? Look at the gold in this place. Every man in your nation could be rich. Yet your people toil in the fields to support the Sapa Inca, and they have no say in their future. Do you think that’s fair?”

“The Sapa Inca deserves the best of everything,” I told him. “The gods choose him to rule us, and he must lack for nothing.”

“But why should an ordinary man suffer to offer him such tremendous wealth? When there is no chance of that man becoming noble himself, unless disease should spare his family, as happened to you?”

“It’s an interesting question,” I said cautiously, as Amaru’s wisdom dawned on me. “It is true that a man can find great strength by doing things for himself. Many nobles don’t understand this.”

“Exactly,” said Loddington. “Marco, fetch me some water from that fountain, will you? I’ve developed enough great strength for a week after those stairs.”

“Most nobles are born with everything — all that they might want, and they never question that. I have more humble origins, and I still feel awkward among them.”

“Really?” asked Loddington, sounding interested. Marco slipped a cup out of his pack and filled it with water. “How did you arrive at court?”

“I’m not really part of court,” I said. I told him of the day I left for a hunt, and came back a man. When I reached the part about my younger sisters contracting smallpox, he listened very acutely. A bird flew in the window and he barely noticed; he listened as I described the horror of finding my sisters maimed and my father dead.

“That must have been a nightmare,” he said quietly, sipping water. “You’re lucky you were never exposed to the disease. It might have killed you. God willing, your Sapa Inca will make this deal, and spare your people such suffering. Smallpox has always been cruel, but particularly so to your people. No one knows why.”

“I sincerely hope the vaccine will work for us,” I said, “though my heart aches at my personal grief, should that be true.”

“How so?”

I was torn by uncertainty. I wanted to tell him about the Sapa Inca’s plan to sacrifice twelve hundred children at Atun Cusqui, and that my Chaska was likely to be chosen for this honor. On one hand, Amaru had instructed me to befriend the man and learn his secrets, and what better way to open a man than to open oneself? Yet on the other, perhaps in discussing the true cost of his demand, I would harm future negotiations.

I’m not sure what decided me. I think something in Marco’s face moved me to share my fears, something about his innocence mixed with excitement. Somewhere, I thought, this boy’s mother has released him into the world to become a man, and she must miss him terribly. Besides, perhaps if Loddington knew the full consequences, he might lower his price. Surely a mere thousand times his own weight in gold would buy a whole kingdom.

So I told Loddington and Marco of their vaccine’s ultimate cost, and Loddington’s face turned solid white. He stood and paced the room, then leaned against the window looking at the view.

“That’s horrible,” whispered Marco. “Those poor kids — they’re killed? For what purpose?”

“To appease the gods,” I said. “Because if we pay the price requested, we are spending divinity itself. Gold is not money to us.”

“Barbarians,” said Loddington, almost inaudibly.

Now I feared I had done terrible damage. I said, “Perhaps there is another way that my nation could pay, with silver? Or a smaller amount, or — ”

“Silver would be too heavy in the amount I need,” he said. “I can’t transport it. Besides, it’s useless for backing our money. Military service wouldn’t help either; you don’t know our terrain the way we do, and — Ugh! Child sacrifice and incestuous marriage. Jesus protect us.”

Greatly worried, I said, “Perhaps the Sapa Inca will change his plan, or — ”

“It’s not my business,” he said sharply. “My job is to make this deal and fund our war. There’s more than twelve hundred American children praying for me to succeed. They’re praying for an independent land, free of unfair tax policies and royal meddling — a land of brotherhood and equality. And in my homeland, each of those children has value for who they are. Any boy can work hard and be a landowner, like my father did to earn his plantation. And that’s a cause worth fighting for, even if the price is far too high. Every life has value — even if the Sapa Inca cannot understand that. But you understand, I think.”

His speech moved me, despite my fears. I thought then that despite his rough manners, this kind of man made history — and if indeed he planned to free his home from British oppressors, this he would do at whatever cost. His word “brotherhood” rang through my ears. I had always wished for a brother, squeezed as I was between sisters. A man like Loddington would make a fine brother, so self-possessed and strong in his convictions.

“It sounds like a marvelous land,” I told him. “I would like to see what would happen if the worthy were allowed to be wealthy.”

“So would I,” said Loddington, staring out into the valley. “I would like to see that very much.”

Something in his manner troubled me, like I’d glimpsed a cat’s yellow eyes in the night.

4. The Condor’s Brother

My grandson, today you should reflect on what it means to be a man. The story of you includes several great men, and several who failed to achieve such greatness. Your story also describes men with mixed motives — both good and evil, as many men are in the end. Most men who have walked the earth since time began appear in this tale, in one form or another, and I leave you to judge their hearts.

That evening, we were summoned to the Temple of the Three Windows, where we learned that the High Priest would consult the gods. Loddington and Marco had rested well by this point. So we headed to the temple, our steps light upon the stone. Since the summer solstice would occur in only three days, the sun hovered well into the evening, and it felt like darkness would never touch this glorious place.

In the temple, hundreds of priestesses washed and scented us. This was the role I hoped my little Chaska might play someday, if she lived to see adulthood, and I prayed quietly as the women combed my hair. One offered me a mug of chicha, the sacred wine brewed from spit and corn, and I drank deeply. Loddington submitted to their care without much reaction. Marco seemed very interested in admiring the lovely priestesses, who represented the best of Incan beauty.

During the preparations, Amaru pulled me aside and said, “It is said that tonight the High Priest determines whether the bargain offered is satisfactory, and whether a great sacrifice is required at Atun Cusqui.”

“I hope the omens are good,” I said.

“So do we all,” he said. “Some are troubled, including myself. It is unwise that the High Priest should openly question the Sapa Inca’s will. It’s one thing to speak from his chair sometimes, but another entirely to consult the gods about another god’s decision.”

Astonished at Amaru’s openness, I looked at his hands, which folded and unfolded in front of him. I decided he must be nervous, and perhaps even looking to someone as unimportant as myself for guidance. Perhaps he could talk to me without worrying which nobles might hear of his concerns. I said, “Maybe the gods will confirm the Sapa Inca’s decision.”

“I hope so,” he said distractedly, and left for another room. Meanwhile, I hoped with all my heart that the entrails would say otherwise, that I might not worry about my daughter’s fate, entangled with the fates of other children in the Four Quarters.

We gathered outside the Temple, and Amaru deferred to his cousin Paucar, who apparently held higher religious education and experience. Paucar instructed me, “The High Priest will consult a llama’s entrails about the American proposal. The Americans must stand quietly near the consultation and not disrupt it. Translate some basics for them, but don’t give too much detail. They are not allowed to understand too well. The ceremony will be held on the outside altar so that the barbarians do not see this most sacred place.”

I had no idea how to combine that instruction with Amaru’s direction to be forthright with the Americans, so I decided to pretend I understood little of what happened. It turned out that I did not need to pretend; in fact the ceremony was nothing like the public festivals I had attended.

A row of priests wearing speckled gold masks stood next to the golden altar. They chanted low words I couldn’t understand, though I heard the names of Inti and Viracocha and many others. I glanced at Paucar, who stood on the far side of Loddington and Marco. His head remained bowed and he chanted along with the priests.

A priest brought in a hooded condor; its wings were clipped, so it could not fly away. They chained its foot to a perch over the altar. I guessed they meant it to represent the Condor, as the Sapa Inca Coniraya had been known in his younger days, fighting for the rule of our land. I thought it odd that the bird would be chained to the post, symbolically, but I was no priest and I supposed it necessary for the ritual.

Another priest led a young llama to the altar. He pushed her down on the stained gold slits that lined the cutting surface. She bleated loudly. Strong men strapped her down on her back, tying her forelegs together, and then her hind legs. I glanced over at Loddington, who watched with mild distaste, and at Marco beyond him, who looked worried.

“Marco,” I said quietly, “you may wish to look away for a while.”

“I can handle it,” he said stubbornly — and he did, for when a priest slashed her belly, and the intestines sprung forth like writhing maggots, it was Marco who remained stoic, and Loddington who blanched. The smell of rotten vegetation and llama manure curled my nose hairs, and even though I’d slaughtered my share of animals in the fields, I had always disliked the task.

The High Priest stepped out from the shadows, wearing a fancy gold mask with rays scattering from his face, so large that two priests mirrored his every move just to support the sides. He plunged a fist into the llama’s guts and lifted forth a bloody mass. He examined it from all sides like a jeweler examining turquoise, and then shoved it back into the body. Other intestines bulged as he smoothed down the belly.

“What does it say?” whispered the ever-curious Marco.

“I have no idea,” I said honestly. I glanced up at the roof’s edge, looking at the stars. The roof here stood high above us, with irregularly shaped stones carved in interesting patterns. Something felt wrong to me, but I couldn’t place it. By now, the night fell blackly over us. I saw only hundreds of torches circling the altar, and the stars beyond the rooftop. I thought of Chaska then, my bright-star planet, and looked towards the sight that had inspired her nickname. The light blinked into view, vanished, then blinked back. Mystified, I stared at the sky. How could a planet vanish?

Too late I realized what I was seeing. “Look out!” I shouted, heedless of the ceremony. I leaped forward and pushed Loddington as the boulder tumbled off the roof towards us.

My grandson, picture these events happening now. Imagine time moves like water, and air hardens to rock. I cannot speak; my lungs are full of stones. Loddington leaps away like me — but says nothing. His silence is an accusation. Time itself slows to witness the crime. Loddington stands idle, not reaching for this boy who shares his father — his brother, whose face speaks the truth. The boulder is falling, and I cannot save Marco. But one man can help — does help. To this day I bless him, and trust Inti to warm his spirit in the brightest sunlight.

Time restored itself. Marco lay face down, thrown from the boulder with mere scrapes, but Paucar’s legs lay crushed beneath the rock. Paucar still lived — though later I learned not for long. Priests rushed him away for treatment. He said nothing to me as he passed, nor I to him. How I wish I could speak now, to thank him for his courage! I don’t know what moved him — but Paucar was a great man, worthy of his birth. And thus you know a man’s measure: How he dies is how he lived. Loddington’s empty claims of brotherhood echoed in my mind. This was how he treated a brother: by ignoring a threat to his brother’s welfare, since it bothered him not at all. He was no brother, but a snake.

The rest of the night blurred. We were whisked away to sleep on reed mats, all in one room. I slept fitfully, dreaming of Paucar’s crushed legs, and of llama entrails spilling the fate of my people and my child. In my dreams the entrails snarled my wrists and ankles. I tried to run a long road through the Empire, but I slipped on blood and fell nonstop through the night.

Near midnight, someone shook my shoulder. I woke quickly and saw Marco’s face, silhouetted by moonlight through the window. I sat up and he lifted a finger to his lips. He pointed at Loddington, who slept soundly.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Thank you for saving our lives,” he said simply. “I wanted to tell you myself. I’m sorry about the man who was so gravely injured.”

“Marco,” I said, worried, “why did your companion not save you when he could have?”

“He surely meant to,” said the boy defensively. “He was startled and not thinking.”

I looked at him, realizing that some part of him needed to preserve this lie. “You are half-brothers, are you not? Is it so different in America that half-brothers are not kin?”

“His father lay with my mother,” the boy said, with great shame, “and surely here too that is a crime, if a man and woman are not married.”

Ah, illegitimacy! Finally I understood why Loddington did not acknowledge his brother. Or so I thought, at the time. “So then you will leave once you are fully a man, and build your own life away from the accusations written on your face.”

Marco said, “I must stay with John Fernando, unless he sells me elsewhere. I am surprised he did not do so upon his father’s death, but perhaps he humors his sister who cherishes me. He is decent to me; he never beats me nor insults me.”

“Sells you?” I asked, wondering if this word held a modern meaning I did not know.

Marco’s eyes flickered. “John Fernando may sell me to another man as he pleases, and I would serve that man as I do him.”

Oh my child, so much of the world I did not understand then! I thought merely of brotherhood, and America as Loddington claimed it: a land where any man might fight for his freedom to live as he pleased. In my mind I reconciled this image with Marco’s words by thinking that servants might change lords for better pay — but the cracks in the mirror already glimmered. I knew even then that Loddington’s brotherhood was as shoddy in spirit as he.

So I said to Marco, “Dear boy, I would be proud to know you as servant, or free man, or brother — whichever role Inti would give you in the Land of the Four Quarters, for I admire your spirit. I am delighted that you were uninjured today.”

Marco smiled at that, and clasped my hand. “Someday, Lanchi, I would like to name a ship for you.” He lay down to sleep again, and I did the same, resting uneasily through the night.

In the morning Amaru came, his face lined with grief and pain. He beckoned me out of the room, and I hastened to follow. He said, “I trust you are well and whole.”

“By Inti’s grace, I am,” I said. “I am sorry for your hardship. But Paucar saved Marco’s life.”

“If my cousin lives, he will be crippled,” said Amaru. “I pray that the boy proves worthwhile.”

I attributed the unkindness to lack of sleep and his deep suffering. “All lives have value, and Paucar is a hero to that child,” I told him.

I wasn’t sure my words would help. We Incas loved our children so much that it hurt. In their eyes, we saw the wise adults they would become. This is why we sacrificed so many children in those days — we were returning their potential to the gods. But any doubts on this practice are a modern anachronism; in those days, we gave children to the gods, and none questioned it.

Amaru smiled sadly. “I also like the boy’s spirit, but I would rather have my cousin,” he said. “But I come bearing news. The vaccine works and the Sapa Inca is pleased with the results. All the volunteers remained in Sayacmarca, shared drinks with the victims, and walked out unscathed.”

“By the sunrise, a true miracle,” I whispered. Indeed, I had not believed it until that very moment! With such treatment, I could keep my children and myself safe from the dread disease — and every father in Cusco could do likewise. My heart surged with desire to see my family, but fell again as I remembered what this news meant. A working vaccine meant the Sapa Inca would surely consummate this deal with the American delegation. And that meant my Chaska’s future would likely see her lying in a snowy mountain pit, dead in her flower crown.

Amaru continued, “We are to return immediately and undergo another quarantine. At that point the Sapa Inca will require translation to continue negotiations.”

“And of this assassination attempt?” I asked. “Surely anyone can see what it was. I suppose a gun could not look so much like an accident.”

“All the workers on the wall that day were killed,” said Amaru matter-of-factly. “Rumors say that some very high-level priests may be implicated in scandal. Do not trouble yourself with such matters. Leave them to my investigation. Do not befriend the Americans any further; it would complicate matters at this point. Leave them to their business as you attend to your own.”

And thus our processional wound away from Machu Picchu, and its tall pillars like teeth in the sky, as we returned to Cusco. Per Amaru’s instructions, I conveyed the information, and then stayed distant from the Americans. Thus I trapped them in a silent cloud through which they could not communicate. Upon arrival in Cusco, they were taken to one area for quarantine, and I to another.

I expected that twelve days from our arrival, we would all appear once more before the Sapa Inca, or perhaps the Condor’s brother speaking in his place. But on the fifth day, I heard rumor from the attendants of great unrest in the palace, and on the eighth day I smelled burning flesh in the courtyards. I could see nothing from my barren waiting room, but an attendant told me that those loyal to the High Priest were burning alive for treason. On the ninth day I heard of the execution of the High Priest Ahuapauti for treason against the gods. No one would tell me precise details — perhaps they did not know — but I deduced that it involved the attempt on the Americans’ lives. The only thing I felt sure of was that my daughter’s fate was sealed. The Sapa Inca Coniraya now held sole power — and he had insisted we increase the festival sacrifice.

My dear grandson, I am no priest, but it seems to me that a man who kills those who disagree with him — especially his spiritual guide — cannot then argue that his way is righteous.

I expected a quick conclusion to the business at hand, but instead I was kept a thirteenth day, then a fourteenth. On the fifteenth day of my quarantine, an unfamiliar noble came to my chambers and told me to go home until I was summoned back. I had heard that morning that the Coya Inca was permanently exiled to a remote mountain palace. If only we had known then of the complex web of treachery against the Sapa Inca and the Incan people, woven by those two high-profile lovers and siblings to our ruler! But we owe the traitors a great debt. Had they delayed their conspiracy to steal the throne, the Sapa Inca might have paid the Americans’ steep price. The siblings’ crimes saved the Incan people from sacrilege.

But I digress. I was surprised, but delighted about returning home. I wondered of the Americans, but knew not where they might be. When I returned to my house, there I found my wife Yma — head shaven, dressed in new clothing, but more beautiful than ever. I kissed her deeply and traced her cheekbones with my finger, the familiar bumps of her scarred skin like a blessing. Scarcely had I finished embracing her than Chaska leaped into my arms, and I hugged her as if it might be the last time. Sternly I ordered her back to chores, ignoring my own aching heart, and she obeyed without even a childish glance backward. I stroked my son’s head, and he giggled as I placed him back in his pit.

The room smelled like boiled greenery; Yma was preparing yucca to ease aching joints, which she sold at the medicine market. We reconnected as man and woman will, and then lay in each other’s arms, savoring each other. Then of course the daily tasks of the household called, and my son squalled for feeding, which my wife obliged.

She listened to my tale with fascination, asking many questions about the Americans. She gasped at Loddington’s price, and felt even more horror than I.

“They demand money like blood,” she said. “How could they steal our spirit itself? Do they not see how entire families — whole clans — are wiped by this dread disease?”

“They see,” I said, “but they desire their nation of brotherhood — or so they call it.”

I told her of Machu Picchu and Loddington’s careless disregard for his brother, and her face crinkled with disgust. When I told her of the Sapa Inca’s likely decision to sacrifice twelve hundred children, she immediately formed the same conclusion I had about Chaska. My heart sank, for she proved to me that I was not wrong.

“We could leave Cusco,” she said. “Travel to the distant southern lands, and raise our family there.”

“Impossible,” I said. “I am now in the Sapa Inca’s service as translator, and thus our family is bound to him. He would not let me leave, and we cannot run from the Imperial guards. They would find us no matter where we were.”

My wife grieved here, for we had lost another daughter at birth shortly after Chaska, and she knew the pain of losing a child. I held her, and stroked her shorn hair. When she had cried, I said, “Tell me of what you witnessed in Sayacmarca.”

She straightened and said, “Truly, I wish I had more to report! I saw death and torment in the stricken village, as always, and I wish I could banish those memories. But the volunteers all survived, and bear only the strange scars on their hands that marked them after their illness.”

“What illness?”

“The American took them into a dwelling at his camp and made them somewhat sick for a few days. It was like a lesser version of smallpox — a kind which did not ravage their bodies, but rippled them like a pond.”

“And did you see how this was done?”

“No, though I did hear a child’s cry at one point.”

“A child’s cry?” I asked, remembering Amaru’s tale of strange noises and the smell of urine. “Are you certain?”

“I am a mother,” she said pointedly, and I acknowledged her talent. As I have stated, the husband is not complete without the wife; he may be the greater of the pairing, but he cannot stand alone.

I said, “It is all very strange. I cannot help but think that the Americans are being unfair in this debate. They would kill millions of Incan men, women, and children — for the sake of their rebellion against England, which is supposed to be about brotherhood. Yet they do not demonstrate this brotherhood even when the stakes are smaller. Why should I think they will behave differently on a larger scale?”

My wife nodded, saying, “It is wrong to hold us hostage against such a deadly enemy.”

My dear grandson, I must tell you something. A moment comes where an idea visits your mind, straight from the gods themselves. An idea is a guest, worthy of the best hospitality. It taps on the door, or simply walks in like it lives there, and you must handle it wisely or it may depart forever. The gods had given me an idea, and let it linger for some time before I noticed it. By this point the idea had so firmly lodged into my being that it seemed part of my family, which I must protect at all costs.

“Yma,” I said to my wife, “if I were to ask you where the American camp was located, how close could you bring me to that place?”

“Within arm’s reach,” she said, “for I paid close attention to our direction as we went, in case I became separated.”

“Wise woman,” I said. I did not mean to tell her my plan, because if it went poorly for me, there was a chance she could beg for mercy and claim she had no knowledge. A slim chance, for a man’s family was held accountable for his misdeeds — but given her noble family, I thought her cousins might protect her from Imperial wrath.

But my precautions proved needless, for my wife asked with narrow eyes, “Lanchi Ronpa, what is it that you mean to do?”

I did not dare answer her, but stood and inspected my musket where it hung over the door. Let her think I wished to shoot the American, for that might be more honorable than what I intended. But I underestimated her — ah, how often I did that! — for she said, “My husband, in our land, medicine is available for any man who requires it.”

“This is true,” I said.

“If a thief can prove that an official should have provided him with an item, and did not do so, it is the official who is executed for failing to serve.”

“It is so,” I admitted.

She kissed me and said, “My darling, you are on an errand of mercy. Steal this vaccine, if you can, and provide it to our people! I would consider this moral and right, and the Sapa Inca himself could not convince me otherwise.”

“I fear for you, if you know what I do,” I said.

She laughed. “Perhaps I shall tell you precisely where that camp was, in case you happened to want to visit that place tonight.”

You see, I loved my wife with all my heart, and in that moment I loved her a hundredfold. Someday, child, I pray that you will be equally fortunate.

5. Ronpa’s Blessing

I followed Yma’s directions and approached a grove outside Cusco — an area I had not visited often. I expected Loddington’s men would guard the camp that stored his precious vaccine. I did not know what I sought. I only knew it was small, and perhaps involved a sewing needle — or so Amaru had surmised, from the volunteers’ reports. I feared the vaccine might be something that Loddington kept on his person, in which case I had no idea how to obtain it. Would I kill a man for this vaccine, if I felt sure it were necessary? I debated in my mind and decided that yes, I would if I must — but then I could have no argument with the gods if Chaska were chosen for sacrifice. I steeled myself for the possibility, but prayed that it would be otherwise.

And so you see, I was on a fool’s errand — seeking a vaccine of unknown shape, size, and location. I pictured something like thread through a needle’s eye, but knew no definitive answer. It was easy to move through the area alone; guards surrounded the camp, but they were protecting against an army encroachment, or a violent war party. The Americans likely thought that a single man like me could not possibly find and identify their vaccine. They failed to understand that a determined man — one responsible for his family’s fate — possesses a fox’s cunning and a raptor’s strength.

I crept closer, using shady trees and leafy ferns for cover. One American started, as if he saw me; he aimed his musket briefly. A squirrel darted out, and the man relaxed, presumably thinking the animal had startled him. I thanked the squirrel, vowing to honor them later if I survived. I prayed quickly to Mama-Quilla the moon goddess to shadow my way, and then darted through a glade to my next target.

In this manner I found a path to the closest tents, and then wondered where to look first. I would not have long before someone spotted me. I knew the outside tents would hold only supplies, nothing critical — and thus I sauntered towards the central tents, hoping for some divine sign of approval to hint me in the right direction.

And there! A small cough. Despite lacking a woman’s intuition, I knew that sound was a young child. I hoped not to startle the child, but a youth might be persuaded to tell me of the vaccine, if indeed they knew. And a child’s declaration of an invader, if it came to that, might be tossed off as fancy and nothing more.

It was risky, but so was this whole attempt. I folded the cloth away from a tent and peeked inside.

The tent was dark, but moonlight crept in as my silent assistant. As my eyes adjusted, I saw two sleeping boys, perhaps five or six years old. Their heads pointed toward me and their feet away. Even through the forest air, they smelled of human waste. The wind rustled the leafy trees behind me, granting a moment of brighter moonlight. To my shock, I saw that these children were darker even than Marco — how was that possible? — and had the same llama-hair as he. Cousins perhaps? Iron chains with solid-looking locks wrapped their bodies. I did not know what it meant. The tent darkened again as the trees settled back. A child coughed, and I hastily withdrew.

I turned around and faced the muzzle of a musket, pointed directly at me. Behind that gun stood Marco, his eyes masked and unreadable.

I held perfectly still. The boy and I looked at each other. I had no doubt that he knew well how to use the gun, and I had no urge to test his reflexes. What I didn’t know was why he had not shot me already, nor what he intended for me.

We stood that way for what seemed like a whole night, though I am sure it was only moments. After a while, I murmured, “It would be better for both of us if you made a decision.”

Marco’s lip quivered, but the gun stayed firm. “I’m supposed to protect the camp,” he said.

“Where is Loddington?”

“He stayed in Cusco at the palace. He’s refusing to leave until the Sapa Inca agrees to speak with him again, through our original translator.”

We held still a bit longer, looking at each other. Finally I said, “I’m sorry you will have to think of a new name for your ship.”

“Step inside that tent,” ordered Marco, keeping the gun on me.

We entered the tent where the boys lay. I said, “What happens now, Marco?”

“I — I don’t know,” he admitted, sounding more like a child than ever before. “John Fernando said someone would probably sneak in and try to steal the vaccine, but I never expected it would be you, Lanchi. How — how could you be a thief?”

“In this land . . .” I said, preparing to tell him what my wife had told me, but the boy lowered his gun and looked at the ground. Of course I could have jumped him and overpowered him there, without alerting anyone, but I had no intention of doing so.

I studied him, slumped against the tent wall, and simply said, “There are so many lives at stake. I cannot see how I could stand by and watch my people die, for the sake of a foreign war with no sensible grounds.”

“No grounds!” he exclaimed. “John Fernando fights for the freedom of Americans, to live their lives as they choose.”

“So he says,” I said as gently as possible, “but his actions show the lie.”

“That’s not true!”

“Does he fight for your freedom?”

“It’s different for me,” he admitted, “and these other slaves.”

I knew what slaves were, of course; even my grandfather’s Bible mentioned them. I had always felt sorry for them in the stories. And many things made sense to me now, about Marco and the way Loddington treated him. “Who are these boys?” I asked.

“They are the carriers of the vaccine,” he told me. “I help John Fernando with his medical work. We brought with us five dozen slave boys from the auction. We have kept the vaccine alive by transmitting it through them, two boys at a time. This is why John Fernando so urgently insists on seeing the Sapa Inca; it has taken far longer for him to negotiate the deal than he thought possible. If the last boy heals before the vaccine is transferred, then all is lost to us.”

“What is the vaccine?” I asked. “Each boy carries it separately?”

At this Marco smiled, and said, “It is very clever indeed. It is a disease called cowpox, which comes from Britain and infects some farmers and milkmaids who work with the animals. A person with cowpox sickens, but heals again — and once the body has witnessed cowpox, it guards well against smallpox! The terrible germ cannot touch the man, for the body now understands the threat and will not let it take hold.”

So simple! So marvelous! You see, the principle of vaccination had been known to the Incan people since the beginning of time. It was written in our pairings of greater and lesser, of sun and moon, of husband and wife. There was the greater disease and the lesser, and neither was complete without the other.

I said to Marco, “So how does one pass the disease? Will I contract it, having been here?”

“No,” said Marco, “I must vaccinate a person, or John Fernando does, by extracting pus from a cowpox blister and injecting it into a new person.”

“Then if this is not done before those blisters heal . . .” I said, understanding finally.

Marco blurted out, “Lanchi, why did you come here? I wish you hadn’t. I don’t want to kill you, but I cannot let you leave. What can I do?”

“You can vaccinate me,” I said, “and let me leave. Speak no word to Loddington, or just say you never saw me.”

“I can’t,” protested Marco. “He will know. He always knows. I cannot be free of him.”

“Then you can come with me,” I said, “for I admire your courage and honesty. I see the fine man you are becoming — and nearly are.”

His eyes brightened, and I knew he was intrigued. Still, I saw he was unconvinced. He said, “John Fernando has been kind to me . . .”

“I expect he treats you like gold. He is most careful with his possessions,” I remarked. “Though a lump of gold cannot withstand a falling boulder.”

Anger flashed through Marco’s eyes, and I thought he might shoot me after all. Then he said, “I have nowhere to go and I don’t know this land. I would do no better in your service.”

“Then come with me as a son,” I told him. “I would welcome you into my family. Here you are considered a man at fifteen, when you take a new name. I will teach you the Quechua language. And I will trade goods until I can give you an adventure such as you desire. You will be your own master.”

Marco cried silently, and his body shook. I knelt to embrace him, and said, “We don’t have much time. Quickly — give me the vaccine. I will carry it in my own body.”

“I can’t leave the boys,” he said. “There’s nearly sixty of them, lying in their own filth and chained to beds. They cry at night, and I can’t soothe them. Some are as young as three. They call for their mothers but none are here.”

My heart ached for these poor children, who could not understand their role here. “Where did they all come from?”

“They are field boys, chosen for sturdiness. I believe John Fernando plans to sell them back to the auction when he returns home — whichever ones survive. Three children died on our voyage here.”

“I don’t see how we can free them all,” I said slowly.

“I cannot leave them here,” insisted Marco. “I could not walk away knowing their future. If I stay, I might at least persuade John Fernando to sell them to known houses, who might care for these boys.”

“We must find a way,” I said. “There are many childless families who would be grateful to adopt a son — even one not from the Four Quarters. In the older days of the empire we commonly adopted children from conquered regions. These boys cannot go back with him.” But I was thinking — how could we possibly get them all out? Marco could have crept away with me unnoticed, but not five dozen children.

I considered for some time, and then asked Marco, “Have you ever de-fanged a snake?”

• • • •

We implemented our plan quickly. Marco infected me with cowpox and gave me ten needles to transfer the disease. I promised him that we would meet again soon, and he must remain quiet until that time. He distracted a guard so I could slip away unnoticed.

I returned to my wife and told her the whole story. Concerned, she sent me to bed, and insisted I rest so as not to worsen my fever. Within days I developed a rash on my hands and arms, and yellow blisters that ached to touch. My wife said it was indeed the same illness that she had seen on her visit to the camp, and at my direction, she carefully extracted the pus and injected both our children.

Oh, how hard it was to infect them, even knowing the benefits! As they sickened, I started healing; the hardest part was disguising our efforts from our neighbors, for I feared that if they discovered our illness, soldiers would quarantine the house and alert Loddington to my plan. Our daughter we persuaded to be as silent as possible, but our son did not understand, and he wailed with pain. I thought of the boys in Loddington’s camp, not much older than he. I did not know what would happen to Marco — and just as bad, I feared that someone would notice us. An official quarantine would lose us precious time. We could not afford to let the last blister heal before we had transferred the precious disease to other people.

Though I was not entirely well, I decided it was critical to accelerate my plan. I asked my wife to beg favor at the palace, using any rank or pleas she could think of, to get a message to the wise Amaru — on whom all my hopes rested. With all the political chaos, I was unsure that she would succeed. But my good wife persisted, and after spending a day and a sleepless night pleading for audience, she found a servant willing to bear her message.

And so on that next night, as my body healed and my children lay ill — Amaru came alone, and at night. He was plainly dressed and wore no mask, which might call attention to himself.

When I told him my tale, his face darkened with anger. For a moment I wondered if it might be directed at myself, for thievery, but that was mere anxiety. Amaru finally said, “So this vaccine is now in the possession of the Incan people. We have no more need for this greedy bargainer.”

“I do not wish to see him killed,” I said hesitantly, wondering if that was his thought.

“Nor I,” he said, “for the Americans might not take kindly to that. Yet I also do not wish to see him profit on the suffering of others, even if they are mere children.”

“We can refuse his deal now, provided we keep the vaccine alive in our people.”

“Refuse his deal, certainly. He has negotiated in bad faith. There are worse punishments for a man such as he,” said Amaru.

And with that, we discussed a plan.

The next day, Amaru and I visited Loddington, where he had encamped in the palace’s waiting chambers. He was speaking in broken Spanish to anyone who understood and would listen, begging for audience with the Sapa Inca. I kept my hands clasped behind my back. When he saw me, his face brightened with a generous smile.

“Lanchi Ronpa!” he exclaimed. “I asked for you, but no one would bring you.”

Amaru said, “The Sapa Inca is unavailable, but he has authorized me to finalize our bargain. Here is a measure of faith.” He opened his purse and poured out golden beads, more than I had ever owned myself, which tumbled into Loddington’s hands and scattered across the floor. He crawled around after them, scooping up handfuls like a monkey gathering food.

Amaru said, “I have gathered more, and my warriors will bring it to your camp. Let us go there, and we will bring you — as promised — at least a tenth of what you requested, with the remainder to follow tomorrow. We would bring the entire amount today, but it is simply too much gold; the warriors must return tomorrow with it.”

At my translation, Loddington’s eyes narrowed. “This is a sudden change of direction for the Sapa Inca.”

“He is busy,” said Amaru smoothly. “He deals with matters of state and cannot attend directly to this business. He does desire the vaccine, now that it’s been proven.”

Loddington looked directly at me and said, “Lanchi, tell me the truth. Is the Sapa Inca really ready for the vaccine?”

“I assure you,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “that the Sapa Inca will be delighted to know the secret of this vaccine.”

Loddington smiled and got to his feet. “Then we shall do business together,” he said. “Come, let us go to my camp.”

And so we went, a processional of warriors led by the American, who did not know he was already defeated. Loddington led the parade on an imperial riding-llama, his head held high, as if he ruled all the land. I kept to the middle, not wanting him to see my hands, to know his ruin was already upon him.

When we arrived at the camp, Amaru murmured to me, “Here we go. Good luck.” He assumed a haughty expression and said, “An emissary of the Sapa Inca requires all people in the visited realm to present themselves and stand forth for viewing.”

I translated these words for Loddington and added, “All men may of course retain their weapons; we know you are not a fool.”

Marco stepped out, carrying his musket. “What’s going on?” he asked me.

I addressed him directly. “The Sapa Inca’s representative asks that all persons be visible as he enters.”

Marco glanced at Loddington, who said, “Humor them, Marco. They bring gold in exchange for our vaccine.”

Marco looked at me, but to his credit did not show surprise. Around twenty American men appeared from the woods, all heavily armed, ready to shoot us. Amaru subtly dug his knee into his llama, and the beast reared back and spat.

“There are more,” he said calmly, which I translated.

I added, “You had best bring forth all persons here, since the llama smells the presence of many who remain unseen.”

Loddington frowned, then signaled with his hand. Ten more American men slid into view. Clever man. But Marco had caught on, and said, “John Fernando, shall I bring all the — ”

“No!” exclaimed Loddington. “This is my encampment. Now let us close this deal.”

Amaru said, “You have not been honest with us. I can smell the children as clearly as this llama can.”

At these words, Loddington paled, and Marco ran off to open several tents. He flung aside canvas to show the children huddled together like clustered pebbles, staring at us with enormous eyes. Amaru frowned at the sight. He said, “Who are these children?”

“They help me with the vaccine,” said Loddington angrily. “They are my property.”

I counted our warriors. We had nearly a hundred men. Amaru had enough wealth to command an army. “Come here, Marco,” I said. The boy came, and I grasped his shoulders firmly like a father.

Amaru waved his hand commandingly, and I addressed Loddington. “The Sapa Inca has changed his mind,” I said. “He wishes to buy your children instead of the vaccine. That purse which his emissary gave you is more than the amount you paid for them. These children will now be the Sapa Inca’s subjects in the Land of the Four Quarters.”

“But . . .” Loddington sputtered, “but — why?”

“The Sapa Inca’s word is law, and his representative merely implements it. We do not question his decisions and neither can you.”

“But they are mine!”

“These children were free the moment they stepped onto our soil,” I told him. “Any damage to your finances is repaid with gold. A few beads in exchange for a few children, clearly neglected. How could that not satisfy you?”

“You will never get the vaccine,” said Loddington, his face red with anger. I could tell he wished to order an attack, but didn’t dare, in the face of so many armed Incan warriors.

Marco spoke up defiantly. “They already have it,” he said. “Look at Lanchi’s hands.”

I held them up. Loddington stared in disbelief. I feared he might order me shot, regardless of consequence, but Marco added, “By now he has transferred the vaccine to others, and those others can be used for vaccines. Most likely they already have been.”

“You may leave this land,” said Amaru. “Our deal is done.”

“You — you thieves,” Loddington screamed. “You have stolen what is mine!”

“You have tried to sell what should be any man’s,” I said. “It is not a crime to take it.”

Loddington suddenly went white. He raised his gun and aimed at Marco. Before anyone could react, he shot. Marco reeled back, collapsing against the llama. Four Incan warriors shot Loddington where he stood, but I held Marco, pressing his shoulder where blood poured out. I hardly noticed Loddington fall, nor his men staring in shock. We are all lucky they did not shoot back; perhaps they too had some doubts about the circumstances. Or perhaps the gods guided our hands that day. I cannot say, nor can any man.

“Marco!” I shouted.

“It is — ” he gasped for breath — “It is not so bad. Bind the wound tightly.”

I ripped my tunic and obeyed. Oh my grandson, my heart broke — I thought I would lose Marco. But I crushed his hand in mine, and said, “Marco — stay strong. Let my hand keep you in this world. My hand, which you have marked with a blessing — stay here with your gift, and with me.”

Marco smiled through his pain, and I thought that this boy had much left to do. He would not leave this world — not yet.

And he did not, for you know who Marco became.

• • • •

So my child, that is the story of you, which I tell you on your fifteenth birthday that you might know yourself. And you know the rest of the tale — how the Americans fought their war without our funding and achieved their freedom anyway, though they still suffer the schism of slavery in a so-called free land. The boys we freed from Loddington were adopted into the Empire; the childless Amaru and his wife adopted three boys themselves, and rewarded me richly. I built a school with those funds, so that all boys might attend and learn.

Marco stayed in the Land of the Four Quarters and became my son. He took my name, and then traveled the seas to foreign lands as the great explorer Marco Ronpa. Your father opened the prosperous trade we now share with China, by sailing the Lanchi across the vast ocean. All this shortly after marrying my darling Chaska, now a beautiful woman in her own right, who had honorably left the temple for love’s sake. Your father gave you his features and his voice, and blessed you with your proud strong face — the face I love as much as my wife’s and my children’s and my own, for you belong to the Incan people with all your soul. Someday I expect you will explore further than your father, in our faster modern ships, and visit your grandmother’s homelands in Africa. But that day is not here, and you, my grandson, must find your own destiny.

And my child — the interesting thing about China is that they’d already solved the smallpox problem with a technique called variolation, which they’d learned from India. But our vaccination was safer and more effective, and Marco found that technology vital in opening China to trade. But that is another story, child, and not the story of you. Sleep now, and in the morning you must tell me your new name, the one that marks you a man in the Land of the Four Quarters.

© 2013 by Vylar Kaftan.

Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vylar Kaftan writes speculative fiction of all genres, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and slipstream. She’s published more than forty stories in magazines such as Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, Realms of Fantasy, and Strange Horizons. She lives with her husband Shannon in northern California and blogs at vylarkaftan.net. Her story, “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” (originally published in Lightspeed), was nominated for a Nebula Award, and this novella won the Nebula.

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

Saga Press Presents
Persona
(novel excerpt)

Genevieve Valentine

1

The International Assembly audience hall was half-empty — too empty, Suyana might have said, in her first year there, when she was still surprised by the distance between good public relations and good politics. Now, looking across so many empty seats just made her heavy to the bones.

“Georgia,” the proctor called. “Germany. Ghana. Gibraltar.”

Missed opportunity, Suyana thought, every time the proctor’s eyes fell on an empty chair. An open vote was one of the rare times Faces pretended at politics. You were voting the way you were told, but even pretending was something, and she couldn’t imagine giving it up.

The rest of your life was photo shoots and PSAs and school visits, and saying what your handler told you to say, and going to parties where you tried desperately to look like you belonged amid a sea of other Faces who were higher on the guest list than you were.

Suyana put up with the rest of it because three or four times a year, she got to raise her hand and be counted. And today was a vote, and only half were here.

Some — the ones who ranked above her on guest lists — didn’t bother. Some feared what would happen if they did the wrong thing in front of the Big Nine, and their handlers had advised them to steer clear.

Her stomach twisted.

“They might as well just decide without us and inform us how we voted by mail,” she muttered.

Magnus said without looking over, “Try to sound professional, please, on the incredibly slim chance a reporter has a camera on you.”

No chance. The United Amazonian Rainforest Confederation had only been interesting three years ago, when the outpost got blown to pieces. Cameras had watched her for six weeks, until some other story broke.

That was before Magnus had been installed; she suspected he’d have worked harder to keep her in the public eye.

She pulled the day’s agenda into her lap, and picked the corners of the page off one at a time, where no one could see.

Magnus glanced over, said nothing.

In the sea of middle-aged handlers always conferring just out of camera range, Magnus looked more like a Face — tall, slender, fair, with a sharp expression — and she suspected he’d washed out from IA training, once upon a time. Just as well — he cast glances at the Big Nine as if he couldn’t wait to cut himself free of her. Diplomats couldn’t be so nakedly ambitious.

Little pieces of paper came off in her hands.

She couldn’t blame him; sometimes people had different loyalties than they were supposed to.

Smooth it over, she reminded herself. Keep an even keel. Don’t let anyone catch you out. Some things you can’t afford.

“I’m just nervous,” she said, softly.

It was true, but it was also what Magnus wanted to hear from her. Sure enough, he looked over.

“Understandable,” he said, high praise from him. “I have the rental.”

The rental was a necklace that was supposed to make her look fashionable, prosperous, alluring. Suyana thought it was useless, since her owning a bib of semiprecious stones would seem either openly false or a monstrous luxury depending on how much you knew about UARC economics, but Magnus had set his mind on it, and she wasn’t going to let it matter.

“Not sure it will do much. In Closer last year, he said he liked natural beauties.”

Magnus raised an eyebrow. “How cosmopolitan.”

“Iceland,” the proctor called. “India.”

“I don’t like the non-compete clause,” Magnus said. “Six months is restrictive. They’re hoping to leverage the re-up option in case the public likes you.” From his tone of voice, that wasn’t likely.

“Exclusivity ends the day the contract ends. They have the physical clause; you can’t enforce a non-compete on that. If he doesn’t want me to go elsewhere, he can make his offer alongside everyone else.”

He frowned. Three years on, he still got surprised whenever she slipped and got honest. (Most of the time Suyana wanted to strangle him. She measured her success as a diplomat by how little he caught on.)

“Japan,” the proctor called, and at the Big Nine table, far down the chamber ahead of her, the Face from Japan raised his hand.

“Suyana,” Magnus said, as careful as with any stranger he was trying to persuade. “We’re not in a place to dictate changes. We’re lucky they’re interested. After what happened — ”

“I remember what happened.”

There was a little silence.

She missed Hakan, a knife of grief sliding between her ribs. She held her breath, like it could bring him back from the dead. Smooth expression, she thought. Show nothing. Be nothing.

“Norway,” the proctor called, with no answer.

Only six of the Big Nine had deigned to appear. Grace, the best of the lot, was without her handler — she always looked more eligible sitting alone. Grace was number two on Intrigue magazine’s Most Eligible Faces list for the fourth year in a row.

Suyana had already planned an attack of nerves so she’d miss Grace’s party. She was wary of open invitations; felt too much like charity sometimes.

Norway’s seats were empty. They were voting on some potential additions to the IA’s Human Rights Declaration, but apparently Martine didn’t think that was something that needed her attention.

(“You should go talk to her,” Magnus said once at an afternoon reception, and Suyana said, “Yes, nothing raises your social stock like being ignored by your betters.”)

Ethan Chambers, the American Face, had sent one of his assistants as a proxy; the Big Nine had enough staff to have them in two places at once.

At least there she knew the reason why.

Ethan Chambers was sitting in a boutique hotel a few miles away, waiting to meet her and sign the contract for a six-month public relationship. There would also be discussion of the terms of the physical clause; they were rare enough that they required careful debate, which meant everyone was preparing for several awkward hours. Still, you did what you had to, to get someone’s attention — the physical clause was the reason the United States had taken her offer seriously.

Suyana suspected the American team thought that if Ethan got her in bed, she’d get emotionally involved, and be easier to pressure with PR fallout whenever they wanted the UARC to fall in line.

Everyone could dream, she supposed.

“New Zealand,” the proctor called, and a few rows in front of her, Kipa raised her hand for each count of the amendments. Each time, it was steady and sure, and Kipa locked her elbow as if to make sure her vote was counted. Suyana tried not to smile. Her turn was coming soon enough, and she didn’t want to know what she looked like when she was pretending she made a difference.

After she’d exercised her duties, there would be lunch with Ethan. After lunch, they’d start mapping out the first place they’d be caught together “accidentally.”

After that —

“United Amazonian Rainforest Confederation,” the proctor called.

Suyana smiled for the cameras, raised her hand to be counted.

2

Daniel wished he’d stolen a camera he actually knew how to use.

He huddled deeper into the restaurant alley and pried the long end of a paper clip into the lens assembly, trying to loosen whatever had jammed the thing in the first place before the sedan showed up and he missed his chance to shoot Suyana. His hands were shaking a little.

Suyana Sapaki was a risk for a shoot on spec. She’d barely escaped being burned out three years ago; she was on the verge of a comeback, but a verge is a tricky thing to measure. Too late and you’re drowned in the tide, too early and the pictures go for nothing and get used as archive footage without royalties whenever they finally do something interesting.

But the alley was perfectly positioned across the street from the swank hotel where Ethan Chambers, Face of the United States, was waiting to meet Suyana Sapaki on business unknown. The bellboy Daniel bribed said Ethan had been there since yesterday while his empty car drove all over town.

The lens assembly slid back into place, and Daniel settled behind a garbage can — the poor man’s tripod — to focus before Suyana’s car showed up.

He hoped it was worth what he’d spent on intel to catch negotiations between the US Face and what Daniel suspected was his girlfriend-to-be. He couldn’t afford to go home.

The sedan turned the corner — a cab, not one from the IA fleet. Daniel braced his hands. They still shook a little before a great shot. (It was embarrassing — he was twenty-two, not twelve, he knew how to take pictures — but sometimes the thrill got the better of him.)

Magnus got out first. He was the UARC’s new handler, a pro from some Scandinavian country they’d brought in to help spin the disaster, and he looked like a man who was used to getting out of messes clean.

Magnus scanned the square for a moment before he reached back into the car, to call Suyana out.

• • • •

[Submission 35178, Frame 7: Magnus Samuelsson standing beside a black sedan sitting around the corner from the front entrance to the Chanson Hotel. Subject in profile and three-quarters length, hand extended into the backseat of the car, looking at something out of frame.]

• • • •

Weird, Daniel thought, risking a glance up from the viewfinder. Magnus didn’t seem the type to get swept up in scenery, and it wasn’t as though Ethan Chambers would be standing with flowers at the balcony to greet the girl he might be about to contract to date.

He didn’t know much about most of the IA handlers — you weren’t supposed to, that’s why countries had Faces, to give you something to look at — but something seemed off. Had they fought in the car? Was Magnus just cautious? Had he arranged for official nation-affiliated photographers to catch the first moments of budding romance, and Daniel was going to be without an exclusive after all this?

But then Suyana stepped out of the car, and Daniel forgot everything in the queasy thrill of a scoop.

• • • •

[Submission 35178, Frame 18: Suyana Sapaki (Face UARC), sliding out of the backseat of a sedan. Large necklace — appears genuine (ID and trail of ownership TK). Face three-quarters, turned to the hotel. Has not taken Samuelsson’s hand.]

• • • •

Daniel had, once or twice in his research for this, questioned why Suyana had been considered the best option for the Face of the UARC. She was Peruvian, and the Brazilian contingent had given her flak for it — they were a much bigger slice of that pie, and a Quechua was playing even harder against the numbers, unless you were going after diversity points. She was a little stocky in a world that liked its Faces tall and thin, a little hard around the eyes in an organization that prized girls who could fawn when the cameras were going. Even from here it looked like she was suffering a punishment. No way that was true — if she could get Ethan to sign on the dotted line, it was a PR coup the UARC could only dream of.

But her brown skin and knotted black hair and sharp eyes made a decent picture when the light hit her, and she moved with more purpose than Daniel saw from a lot of IA girls. (Wasn’t much purpose for her to have, except look good and do as she was told. Handlers did the real work. Faces just made it look sharp to the masses. Though nobody wanted a Face getting ideas, as they’d reminded him plenty back home.)

Once the car pulled away, Magnus looked Suyana over with the focus of an auctioneer. He lifted his chin as if inviting her to do the same; Suyana stared through him and didn’t move. Magnus straightened the collar of her shirt, tweaked one of the careless gems on her necklace so that it lay right side up against her collarbone.

Daniel raised his eyebrow into the viewfinder, took a few shots as fast as he could.

He’d seen backstage prep on the Korean Face, Hae Soo-jin, when he was still apprenticing as a licensed photographer. Most of it looked like grooming animals for auction, if you were being honest. This was something different; some message passing back and forth through a necklace that was laughably out of place on her.

Suyana glanced at Magnus for a moment with a frown that was gone before Daniel could catch it. Then she turned her head, as if she was used to being altered by people she didn’t look at.

That was about right. The ideal combination of hanbok and national designers a Face should wear to present the correct ratio of tradition and modernism had been a hot topic at home when he left. The news had a segment on it at least once a week. Historians were weighing in; fashion-industry insiders staged demonstrations. Hae Soo-jin hadn’t been called on for an opinion. Decision making happened before anything ever reached them. You could measure the length of a Face’s career by seeing how good they were at agreeing with other people’s outcomes.

But Suyana had looked at Magnus so strangely. Maybe it bothered her to know how far on the sidelines she stood.

• • • •

[Submission 35178, Frame 39: Magnus Samuelsson, back to the camera (identified in Frames 1–13). Facing the camera, Suyana Sapaki. Samuelsson has his hand extended toward Sapaki’s elbow.

Sapaki looking off-frame (object of gaze unknown), hands in pockets. No acknowledgment.]

• • • •

“It doesn’t matter,” Suyana said. “He’ll know it’s not mine.” Her voice floated a little around the square before it settled on Daniel.

“We’re impressing an ally, not a jeweler,” said Magnus. “You need all the help you can get. No use looking shabby first thing. Are you ready to be charming?”

She looked right at Magnus, and Daniel flinched at her expression (murderer, he thought wildly, like he was watching a movie) and wished for a concurrent video function so he could try to capture what the hell was even going on.

Then she blinked, and her eyes softened, and her smile broke wide and white across her face. “Of course,” she said, in a voice that sounded barely hers. “Are you ready to chaperone?”

Magnus’s jaw twitched — surprised, maybe, or put out — and he looked back toward the street like he was thinking of making a run for it. “Let’s go.”

Suyana pushed her shoulders back, licked her lips, and headed for the front door of the hotel like she was on her way to a prison sentence. Magnus followed a little behind; most handlers did when their Faces were onstage. There was no good in the policymakers hogging the spotlight.

Daniel should have kept better track of how the light was moving; shadows giving way to the flood of sunlight across the white hotel made him blink into the viewfinder, and he took pictures by reflex as he waited for his eyes to adjust.

He was still waiting when the gunshot rang out.

All the sound was sucked out of the square for a second in the wake of the shot. His finger never stopped moving. He hoped against all luck that he’d managed to catch the moment the bullet hit. If there was a bullet.

There were publicity stunts like this, sometimes, when someone needed the sympathy. They made front pages, no matter how horrible and obvious a ploy it was.

As the shutter clicked, the sound washed back — people shouting behind the closed door of the restaurant, Magnus staggering back with one arm out toward Suyana, casting an eye around the rooftops (why wasn’t he in front of her? Why wasn’t he protecting his charge?).

And Suyana was scrambling up from the ground, favoring one leg but already trying to bolt for the nearest cover. She looked young, in her terror, but her jaw was set — she would live, if she could.

Too bad he’d missed that shot, Daniel thought as he pocketed his memory card and shoved the camera into the trash. He wasn’t going to get arrested for unauthorized photography, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to get shot in some publicity stunt. She was coming his way, and he knew when to exit the scene.

But as Suyana dove toward the alley, there was another shot. She staggered and cried out — once, sharp — and he saw she had a bloody hand pressed to her left arm, that now the right leg of her jeans was blooming dark with blood.

He had to get out of there.

But she was running for the alley — lurching, really. She wasn’t going to make it in time to avoid a kill shot if it came, if this wasn’t a stunt. It might be a stunt. Either way, snaps didn’t get involved. The hair on his arms was standing up.

Magnus was shouting, somewhere out of sight (the hotel?). A car engine flared to life (the cab?).

Suyana was gasping for breath.

You’re a sucker, Daniel thought, you’re a sucker, don’t you dare, but by then he was already out in the square, scooping her under her good shoulder.

There was a bottle-cap pop from somewhere far away that he knew must be a bullet. Then they were running a three-legged race into the safety of the alley.

He let go as soon as she was in the shadows, but she caught hold of his elbow with more force than he’d have guessed she could manage. The tips of her fingers were rough; they caught on his sleeve.

“Save it,” he said, eyeing the street on the far side of the alley, to make sure it was clear when he ran for it, but then he made a mistake and looked back at her.

Either she was a damn good actress or she was tougher than he’d thought. Her mouth was pulled tight with panic, but she looked at him like she was sizing him up.

“Thanks,” she said, and somehow it was a demand for information, which was funny coming from someone who was bleeding in two places.

He couldn’t believe he’d gone out there. This was a handler’s job, if the shooting was even real — where the hell was Magnus? — and not one damn second of this was his business except behind a lens. This story had played out, and he was in enough trouble. He’d come back for the camera later. Maybe.

He said, “I have to go.”

Tires screeched around the corner, and from somewhere came the echo of footsteps, and the hair on Daniel’s neck stood up — his heart was in his throat, this was amateur hour, this was chaos.

Who knew this was happening today besides me? he wondered, from some suspicion he didn’t want to examine.

Suyana swayed, braced herself on her good arm against the wall like a sprinter on the starting line, her eyes fixed on the far end of the alley. There were footsteps, voices shouting. They’re looking for us, Daniel realized, and his blood went cold.

Suyana looked up at him, and for a moment he remembered the footage from a few years back, right after terrorists hit the UARC, and she’d bored holes at any camera that crossed her like she was daring them to ask.

She said, “Run.”

© 2015 by Genevieve Valentine.

Excerpted from Persona by Genevieve Valentine.

Published by permission of the author and Saga Press.

All rights reserved.

No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Genevieve Valentine’s first novel, Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, won the 2012 Crawford Award and was nominated for the Nebula. Her second novel is speakeasy fairy tale The Girls at the Kingfisher Club. Her third novel, political thriller Persona, was just released from Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press in 2015. She’s currently the writer of DC’s Catwoman. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Journal of Mythic Arts, Lightspeed, and others, and the anthologies Federations, The Living Dead 2, After, Teeth, and more; her stories have been nominated for the World Fantasy Award and the Shirley Jackson Award, and have appeared in several Best of the Year anthologies. Her nonfiction and reviews have appeared at NPR.org, The AV Club, Strange Horizons, io9.com, Lightspeed, Weird Tales, Tor.com, LA Review of Books, Fantasy Magazine, and Interfictions, and she is a co-author of pop-culture book Geek Wisdom (Quirk Books). Her appetite for bad movies is insatiable, a tragedy she tracks on her blog at genevievevalentine.com.

Tor Books Presents
Harrison Squared
(novel excerpt)

Daryl Gregory

Prologue

What I remember are tentacles. Tentacles and teeth.

I know that those memories aren’t real. I was only three when my father died, too young to understand what was happening. So later I filled in the gaps with snippets from monster movies and nature documentaries, with half-forgotten visits to dim aquariums, with illustrations from my mother’s grad-school textbooks.

This is how the brain works. It makes up stories out of whatever odds and ends it finds. Sometimes they’re scary stories.

But there are gaps I can’t fill. Like, the sound of my father’s voice. I can’t remember what he sounded like, even though I can picture him calling to me. In my memory I simply know that he’s yelling my name. He’s lifting me up out of the water, and there’s something trying to pull me back down. It’s black as oil and I can feel its teeth, digging into my leg. In my memory I’m screaming, but I don’t hear that either.

We’re in the ocean, and it’s night, and the waves are lifting us and throwing us down. Somewhere nearby, a boat is upside down, showing its white belly. We’re getting farther and farther from it. (How would a toddler know this? Well, he wouldn’t. These are “facts” I’ve layered on over time, like newspaper on a papier-mâché piñata.)

Some images, however, are so clear to me that they feel more true than my memory of yesterday’s breakfast. I can see my father’s face as he picks me up by my life vest. I can feel the wind as he tosses me up and over the next wave, toward that capsized boat. And I can see, as clearly as I can see my own arm, a huge limb that’s risen up out of the water.

The arm is fat, and gray, the underside covered in pale suckers. It whips across my father’s chest, grasping him — and then it pulls him away from me. The tentacle is attached to a huge body, a shape under the water that’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen.

And then nothing. My memories end there, with that frozen moment.

I know there’s no such thing as monsters. Yes, we were out on the ocean, and the boat did flip over. But no creature bit through my leg to the bone — it was a piece of metal from the ship that sliced into me. My mother swam me to shore, and kept me from bleeding to death. My father drowned like an ordinary man.

Don’t feel bad for me. I barely remember him. I certainly don’t remember the infection that nearly killed me, and the series of surgeries, and the months I was in the hospital. Those memories are gone with the sound of my father’s voice.

But I do know this: My parents saved me. My brain can make up all the scary stories it wants to, but I know that much is true.

1

Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

The building seemed to be watching me.

I stood on the sidewalk, gazing up at it. It looked like a single gigantic block of dark stone, its surface wet and streaked with veins of white salt, as if it had just risen whole from the ocean depths. The huge front doors were recessed into the stone like a wailing mouth. Above, arched windows glared down.

The sign out front declared it to be The Dunnsmouth Secondary School.

This was like no school I’d ever seen before. I didn’t know what it was — a mausoleum, maybe? Something they should have torn down. Yet some lunatic had looked at this hulk and said, I know, let’s put kids in here!

Except the kids were nowhere to be seen. Nobody was outside, and the windows were dark. I’d suspected that I’d made a mistake coming with my mom to this town, but I now realized that I was wrong: I’d made a horrible mistake.

The truck door slammed behind me. Mom hustled around the back of the vehicle. In the bed of the truck were “the buoys in the band”: four research buoys labeled e, h, s, and p, otherwise known as Edgar, Howard, Steve, and Pete. The devices, which looked like red-and-white flying saucers with three-foot-high towers attached, were the reason we’d driven across the country.

“Hmm,” Mom said, looking up at the building. “It is kind of . . . tomb-y.” She touched the back of my neck. From inside the building came the sound of distant murmuring, or perhaps a chant. Maybe they were saying the pledge of allegiance. Or the pledge of something.

“It’s not too late, H2.” That was her nickname for me: Harrison Harrison = Harrison Squared = H2. It was the kind of humor that scientists found hilarious. “I can call your grandfather tonight. We can put you on a plane — ”

“It’s fine,” I said, lying through my teeth. “I’m fine.” It had been my decision to come to Massachusetts with her on this research trip. I’d insisted. She wasn’t going to dump me in Oregon with my grandfather. It was only going to be a month, two months tops before I got back to my regularly scheduled life. Besides, I couldn’t see Mom doing this research trip alone. She’d probably get so obsessed she’d forget to feed herself.

So we’d crossed the continent, four days from ocean to ocean, pushing the pickup as fast as it could go, and rattled into town so late last night that not a streetlight was burning. We’d lost all bars on our phones, and the GPS apps had stopped working, so it was almost by accident that we found the clapboard house Mom had rented, sight unseen, over the phone.

It had looked dismal in the dark, and morning hadn’t improved it — or the town. We’d awoken (late!) to find ourselves surrounded by mist, fog, and cold. The Heart of Bleakness. I don’t think Mom had noticed; she’d been focused on readying the buoys for deployment. Each tower supported a signal light, a satellite dish the size of a medium pizza, and a solar panel; and each of these components had to be wired to the batteries in the base. That had taken us longer than we’d thought it would. Then we’d loaded them into the truck and driven back up Main Street to the school.

Mom glanced at her watch. She’d chartered a boat to take her out, and she was supposed to have met the captain at the pier fifteen minutes ago.

“It’s okay,” I said. I slung my backpack onto my shoulder. “I’ll check myself in. You’ve got a boat to catch.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I’m still your mother.”

Together we pushed on the big wooden doors, and they swung open on squealing hinges. The large room beyond was a kind of atrium, the high ceiling supported with buttresses like the ribs of a huge animal. Light glowed from globes of yellow glass that hung down out of the dark on thick cables. The stone floor was so dark it seemed to absorb the light.

Corridors ran off in three directions. Mom marched straight ahead. There were no sounds except for the slap of our feet against the stone. Even the chanting had stopped. It was suddenly the quietest school I’d ever been in. And the coldest. The air seemed wetter and more frigid inside than out.

I noticed something on the floor, and stopped. It was a faded, scuffed logo of a thin shark with a tail as long as its body, flexing as if it were leaping out of the water. Below it were the words Go Threshers.

My first picture books had been of sharks, whales, and squids. Mom’s bedtime stories were all about the hunting habits of sea predators. Threshers were large sharks who could stun prey with their tails. As far as I knew, no one in the history of the world had ever used one as a school mascot.

Mom stopped at a door and waved for me to catch up. Stenciled on the frosted glass was Office of the Principal. From inside came a slapping noise, a whap! whap! that sounded at irregular intervals.

We went inside. The office was dimly lit, with yellow paint that tried and failed to cheer up the stone walls. Two large bulletin boards were crammed with tattered notices and bits of paper that looked like they hadn’t been changed in years. At one end of the room was a large desk, and behind that sat a woman wearing a pile of platinum hair.

No, not sitting — standing. She was not only short, but nearly spherical. Her fat arms, almost as thick as they were long, thrashed in the air. She held a fly swatter in each hand and seemed to be doing battle with a swarm of invisible insects. Her gold hoop earrings swung in counterpoint.

“Shut the door!” she yelled without looking at us. “You’re letting them in!” Then thwack! She brought a swatter down on the desk. Her nameplate said Miss Pearl, School Secretary.

“Excuse me,” Mom said. “We’re looking for Principal — ”

“Ha!” Miss Pearl slapped her own arm. Her platinum hair shifted an inch out of kilter. She blew at the pink waffle print on her arm, then sat down in satisfaction. I still could not see any bugs. The air smelled of thick floral perfume.

She looked up at us. “Who are you?”

“I’m Rosa Harrison,” Mom said. “This is my son, Harrison.”

“And his first name?” She stared at me with tiny black eyes under fanlike eyelashes.

“Harrison,” I said. Sometimes — like now, for example — I regretted that my father’s family had decided that generations of boys would have that double name. Technically, I was Harrison Harrison the Fifth. H2x5. But that was more information than I ever wanted to explain.

“He’s a new student,” Mom explained.

“Oh, I can see that.”

“Principal Montooth is expecting him.”

“Now?” Miss Pearl said. “It’s already fourth period.”

“We’re running late.”

“Did you bring his transcripts?” Miss Pearl asked. “Test scores? Medical records? Proof of residency?”

“No, we just — ”

“Not even proof of citizenship?” Uh-oh.

Mom is Terena, one of the indigenous peoples of Brazil. Which means that her people — my people — were nearly wiped out in A.D. 1500 by Europeans who looked a lot like Dad. He was Presbyterian white (like “eggshell” and “ivory,” “Presbyterian” is a particular shade of pale). I’m a Photoshopped version somewhere between the two, with Dad’s blue eyes but skin a lot darker than your typical hospital waiting room. You grow up in southern California looking like me, a lot of people assume you’re Mexican. Some of those people assume you’re undocumented, and let their biases spool out from there. Mom got annoyed when people said racist stuff about her, but when somebody started talking stupid about me, her only begotten?

Jaguar claws, my friend.

Mom leaned over the desk. “Does he look like he doesn’t belong here?”

Miss Pearl blinked up at her, finally found her voice. “It’s standard,” she said.

“Look, Miss . . . Pearl, is it?” Classic Mom. “I’m in a bit of a rush. Let’s take care of the paperwork later and get my son into class.”

It was then I realized that she’d forgotten all the forms I’d filled out back in San Diego. When she was deep into a research project — which was pretty much all the time — she was prone to falling into Absent-Minded Professor mode. When Mom was AMPing, mundane details fell through the cracks.

Miss Pearl was confused. “Are you telling me you don’t have any documentation for this child whatsoever?” The cloud of perfume surrounding the woman seemed to expand. My nose itched madly.

“Of course I have documentation,” Mom said. “Just not with me. If you could just give us some sort of class schedule, we can — ”

I sneezed, and Miss Pearl glared at me. “He’s what, fifteen years old?”

“I’m sixteen,” I said. “A junior.”

Miss Pearl sighed. “Why don’t you start in Mrs. Velloc’s class, then. Practical skills. Room 212.”

“Thank you,” Mom said. It was the “thank you” of a sheriff putting the gun back in the holster after the desperados had decided to move along. Miss Pearl, however, had already returned to fly-swatting. “Close the door behind you!” she called.

Out in the hallway, Mom looked left, then right. She seemed to have already forgotten Miss Pearl. She was like that: Her mind moved fast, and she didn’t let anger fester.

“Two-twelve,” she said, and glanced at her watch.

“Just go, Mom,” I said. “I can find it.”

She heard something in my voice and looked up into my eyes. About a year ago I’d passed her in height.

“You’re mad,” she said. She was worried.

I didn’t let things go as quick as she did. And when I was little, I was the King of All Tantrums. Do you know how wild you have to be to be kicked out of elementary school? The answer is: very.

“A little bit,” I said.

“Is it about this school?”

“I thought you were taking care of the forms.”

“Paperwork is for small minds,” she said. But she was smiling as she said it.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

“Your mind’s too big for paperwork too,” she said. “How’s the leg?”

First the question about being mad, and now the leg. She hardly ever asked about it. When I was little she’d checked in with me all the time, making sure the socket was fitting, and that my skin was okay. But she’d stopped the constant questioning when I became a teenager. I hadn’t told her that the leg had started acting up last night. It wasn’t socket pain; it was a weird coldness in my phantom limb. I’d chalked it up to the long trip and hadn’t mentioned it to her. Had she noticed me limping?

“You’re being parental,” I said. “Go find that squid.”

My mom specialized in finding big things swimming in places they didn’t belong. She’d studied whale sharks, sperm whales — the biggest of the toothed whales — and all varieties of squids. Her latest obsession was Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the colossal squid. Forty-five feet long, with the largest eyes in the animal kingdom, whose suckers are ringed not only by teeth but sharp, swiveling hooks. It’s never supposed to come north of Brazil — but she was sure it did, based on, among other evidence, the beaks found in the guts of certain whales. Down in the abyss it’s a dog-eat-dog world, where some of the dogs are the size of city buses.

“Fique com Deus, querido,” she said, and kissed me on the cheek. “Até depois.”

She ran for the exit. She didn’t run in that straight-backed, floor-skimming, not-really-running way adults did — she ran like a kid, all out. She hit the big doors and escaped into daylight.

Science Mom flying off to her next adventure.

Copyright © 2015 by Daryl Gregory.

Excerpted from Harrison Squared by Daryl Gregory.

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

Daryl Gregory was the 2009 winner of IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award for his first novel Pandemonium. His second novel, The Devil’s Alphabet, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award and was named one of the best books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly. His short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and The Year’s Best SF. He has also written comics for BOOM! Studios and IDW. His novels from Tor include Afterparty and Harrison Squared. You can find him at DarylGregory.com and on Twitter @DarylWriterGuy.

Interview: Patrick Rothfuss

The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy

Patrick Rothfuss is the author of the epic fantasy trilogy, The Kingkiller Chronicle. The first two books, The Name of the Wind and The Wiseman’s Fear, are out now. His latest book, The Slow Regard of Silent Things, is a novella set in the same world.

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 and the rest of the show, in which the host and his guests discuss various geeky topics.

Your new book is called The Slow Regard of Silent Things. In the very first line of the author’s introduction, you say, “You might not want to buy this book.” Why do you say that?

Well, a lot of people that have read the first two books are eagerly awaiting the third book. They make no bones about that online. They’re impatient for it; insistent upon getting it. And this is not the third book. I really wanted to make that clear to people, because if you pick this up thinking it’s going to be the third, they’re bound to be disappointed, and I don’t like disappointing people. The other thing is if you’ve never read any of my books, this would be a really odd place to start. It’s like coming in halfway through a movie; if it’s a decent movie, you’re going to be baffled about what’s going on. I want to avoid that if at all possible.

It seems like you were also saying that, even for people who do know your work, this is sort of a weird story that doesn’t do some of the things you might expect.

Absolutely. That was the third thing I wanted to make really clear to people. Earlier this year, I came out with a little slice of Bast’s life, another one of my characters. And that’s a little bit more of a traditional story: it’s got a little more action; it’s one of the characters in there being charming, and he’s a bit of a rake and a bit of a con man, and it’s a lot of fun. But this one is different. And so if people walk into it thinking this will be kind of a classic fantasy story, with a little adventure and some drama and action, that’s not necessarily what they’re going to get, and when we don’t get what we expect, we tend to get disappointed and irritated.

In your author’s afterword, you say that people are going to read this and be pissed. Has that been the case with people you’ve shown it to? Have people had that sort of hostile reaction to it?

They haven’t, actually. And it could be that I’m just being fidgety, that I’m being kind of anxious; it’s something a lot of authors go through when you finish the book and it’s out of your hands and you have nothing to do but wait for it to hit the shelves and see what people think. I tend to have a very extensive beta reader process: I give my books and my stories to a lot of people, and I gather a lot of feedback so that I can refine and revise. With my books, I did it hundreds of times for each book. For this one, I didn’t have quite that amount of time, so it was only with about forty or fifty beta readers. And nobody got back to me and was pissed, but then again, I guess I fear the worst. If only five percent of my readers end up reading this and hating it, that’s still a lot of readers; I’ve got upwards of half a million here in the US alone.

Speaking of pissing people off, you also say in the introduction that your editor and marketing people are going to hate you for telling people not to buy this book. How did they react to that?

There was a little bit of raised eyebrow there and it’s really to their credit that they let me put that in right up in the front of the book. And then I just asked them if it would be okay if I shared it on Goodreads, too, as one of the top reviewers on Goodreads. And so I posted that author’s forward up as my review of my own book, and they were okay with that, too. I’m not saying it’s an awful book — I wouldn’t publish an awful book — but I do really want to let people know that this is a different kind of story than what I typically write: It’s from a different point of view than you might have gotten used to, and the actual mechanics of the story are different because Auri is a strange character, and her situation leads to a certain type of story. I hate to vague that up for you, but I really prefer not to share details of the story, because you only get one chance to read a book for the first time.

You say you revised this eighty times or something; what is your revision process? Are you adding stuff? Cutting stuff? Changing words around?

I can probably say, with a fair amount of confidence, that I revise more than anyone else in the genre, if not maybe more than anyone who is published today. That seems like a bold statement, but I’ve asked around, and a lot of authors do, like, four drafts: They write one and then rewrite it and show it to someone, then they revise it, then they show it to their editor and revise it, then they copy-edit it and it gets printed. I like to show it to thirty or forty people and make changes based on their feedback before I ever show it to the editor. Then when I get the feedback from the editor, I change those things and show it to another thirty or forty people. It’s a very labor intensive process; it takes a long time, especially when you write big books like I do, but it helps me be aware of what parts might be confusing or a little slow or distasteful or rough for a vast variety of people. You’re so close to a book as an author, it’s easy to forget what it’s like reading a book for the first time.

As for what I change, a lot of people think, “God, Rothfuss, why does it take you so long to revise this book?” and I kind of imagine them thinking of me running spell check on it again and again. Which is true; I do have to run spell check, and when you write a book that’s a quarter of a million words long, spell check takes eight hours. But that’s nothing compared to what I actually do: I go through, reread it, smooth out rough bits, tweak phrases, pull out things that aren’t pulling their weight — phrases or sentences or paragraphs; I move things around to adjust the pacing. I’ve pulled out whole chapters, inserted chapters; I insert characters, change description. Sometimes I just massage the language so that it’s beautiful; sometimes it gets too beautiful, and that can be distracting, so then I have to tone that down. It would take me an hour to tell you everything that I do in revision. I think I actually posted a blog once where, as a joke, someone wrote in a fan-mail thing, “I’m not really impatient, but I’m really curious: You’ve been revising this book for years. What does that involve?” That’s pretty much what their letter said, but they said it in about 400 words, and it was a very nice fan letter, but then I revised their fan letter like two or three times, and I say, “Here is how I do that.” And at the end it was a much shorter, tighter, snappier fan letter with better paragraphing and phrases. In another blog once, I think I wrote 800 words about how to punctuate a particular sentence, about what the different types of punctuation could potentially imply to the reader. Am I obsessive? Yes; it’s entirely possible that I am not a well person.

You mentioned making the prose beautiful and we did have a listener, Gerard Hines, who says, “Please ask him about his prose style; it’s like dark chocolate.” Do you have any idea what he means by that?

It’s flattering, no matter what he might particularly mean. Well, I hope that he likes dark chocolate; that’s the first thing I should say. I’ve read fantasy my whole life. Quite literally; my mom read me The Hobbit before I could read stuff to myself. So I love fantasy; that’s what I read for fun, it’s what I read professionally to keep abreast of what’s in the genre — it’s where my heart is. But that said, that doesn’t mean I can’t be critical of the genre, and the truth is we do things better than any other genre. Some things we excel in. We play the “What If” game better than anyone else; we can have fantastical things, we engage the imagination, we force people to speculate and consider impossibilities. And that’s wonderful.

But that said, as a rule, because we have the ability to have fantastic plots and armies clashing and magic and dragons, it’s easy to leave out other things and one of the hardest ones to do is language. I’m not talking about being florid or lyrical or whatever; I’m just talking about good attention to the brick and mortar of any story: how the words are fit together. It doesn’t have to be a dactylic verse; it doesn’t have to rhyme or be cadenced. Some words simply sound beautiful together, and some authors love playing with it and some authors don’t. In fantasy, a lot of authors — that’s just not the game they care to play. I think a lot of my readers — some of them know it; some of them read the language and they’re like, “This is beautiful.” But I think others of them, they read the book and they like it, but they don’t know why, so they say, “Oh, I really like this character,” but what they really like is the cleverness of how that character speaks, or maybe the phraseology of how I’ve described that character. I can only guess at what he meant by “dark chocolate,” but I’m hoping he meant that it was a bit of a luxury; something delicious to him; something that he doesn’t get every day.

Yeah; if I were to describe your prose style in The Slow Regard of Silent Things — and in “The Lightning Tree” — I would describe it as playful. The paragraphs are just filled with words that seem put in for fun.

Yeah. And anyone who’s read the previous two books, and who knows Auri, knows that she is a playful character. So of course a story from her perspective has to have that same element of play in it; has to have that same delightful language in it. That took a lot of work; writing a little bit of dialogue from Auri takes a while because she has this wonderful method of expressing herself. I had to maintain that much longer than I ever have in the novels and it taught me a few things. I learned a lot about the language and her character.

You actually say in the introduction that without Tunnel Bob there would be no Auri. I’m just curious what the story is behind that, and why is Tunnel Bob called Tunnel Bob?

Generally speaking, when people ask me — because I do writing workshops, I go to conventions, I talk to aspiring authors — ”Do you base characters on real world people?” I say, “No, I don’t. And you shouldn’t either, because it’s almost always a bad idea.” There’s a bunch of reasons that I won’t bother going into unless you’re really curious, but the true answer is a little more complex. I don’t just try to take a person out of our world and put them into my world; that wouldn’t work. It’s sort of like bad Photoshop: If you see something Photoshopped together — and even if it’s done pretty well — the eye catches on it. And you might not think, “The light sourcing is wrong there,” but you look at it and you’re like, “No. No, that’s fake.” That happens a lot when people try to cut and paste people from our world into their fourteenth-century historical romance novel.

But, sometimes, I will get an idea for a character from something in the real world, and Auri started from stories my father would tell me about a guy that he knew called “Tunnel Bob.” He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and he’s just a little different from the rest of us; he is constantly getting arrested for being in the steam tunnels underneath the university — the access tunnels that every big city has. My dad used to run engineering for one of the hospitals down there, and you had to learn how to deal with Tunnel Bob, like everyone in the city, because he gets into your tunnels. My dad actually solved the problem by saying, “Tunnel Bob can volunteer here three hours a week, but the rest of the time he can’t be in.” And it worked like a charm; suddenly, they didn’t have to worry about him wandering around when he wasn’t allowed, because he would do anything to protect these three precious hours where he was officially sanctioned to be in their tunnels. At the end of his shift, my dad would buy him a Coke and then they’d talk for a little while, and my dad would tell me these stories about Tunnel Bob. He was this ponderous, thoughtful guy who loved these tunnels. “So what do you do down there in the tunnels, Bob?” my dad would ask. And he’d say, “Well . . . first hour, I walks around a bit . . . And the second hour I cleans up some . . . And the third hour, well . . . that’s just for me.” And I’d think, “That’s just so neat that this person is there.” Auri is not Tunnel Bob, but I started thinking about this love of the tunnels — what if I started with the love of the tunnels, this delight — and that was the seed that Auri as a character grew up around.

You mention that Tunnel Bob isn’t like the rest of us, and Auri is the same way too; could you talk about portraying that character and making her different?

Whenever you write a character, you want to make them themselves, you want to make them unique. You don’t want fifty characters in your book and they all pretty much act and think the same except they have different colored hair. Auri is really different. Anyone who’s read the books knows that. She’s kind of childlike and she’s kind of strange. By no measure would you say she’s normal. And by most measures you would probably say she has some real problems. You don’t abandon society and live underground and are afraid of noises and questions and people to the point where you cannot interact with human society anymore. That’s somebody who is running different software than the rest of us. And that was an incredible challenge, learning to write from that perspective. Originally when I sat down to write this story, I thought, “This will be fun; this will be kind of like a trickster tale. Auri’s so playful; Auri is so sweet.” And then I started writing the story and I started getting into her head more and more, and I realized . . . no. Auri is sweet, and childlike, and she’s lovely, but there’s a lot more going on there. That’s really what the story is about: who Auri is and what she’s like. That sounds really awful; that sounds like a boring story. I don’t know if I’d read that, but that’s the truth. The people that are curious about Auri, and about this piece of my world — that’s who this story is for. If, really, you just want more about Kvothe, you can wait for book three. I’m working on that, we’ll get it done, but this is something else you can read, if you’re interested, to tide you over.

Another aspect of this story is that I think that this is the first place that you name this world. Can you talk about coming up with that name and including it in this story?

I’ve kind of had it rolling around in my head for a while, but I wasn’t sure about it. If you think of your favorite fantasy worlds, they did usually have a name; people don’t talk about “Tolkien’s World,” they talk about Middle Earth. They don’t talk about Lewis books, they talk about Narnia; we talk about Pern; we talk about Arrakis from Dune. For a long time, I referred to the world as “The Four Corners of Civilization,” but I’ve always known that’s just the piece of the world that this particular story — Kvothe’s story — is taking place in, and that’s how people in the world refer to it. But there’s a lot of other stuff that doesn’t show up on that map, and the people who aren’t on that map probably wouldn’t say, “Oh yeah, over there is the Four Corners of Civilization; we’re all a bunch of bumpkins and hicks over here. Yep, just barbarians, move along.”

The thing is, naming a world is a tricky thing; I didn’t want to rush out there and make a wrong choice, so I’ve been holding on to the world’s name for a couple of years now, just smoothing it around in my head and making sure that I genuinely like the feel of it. Then I actually launched it earlier in relationship to a fundraiser that I run: I raise money for Heifer International with a charity called Worldbuilders, and I said, “If we hit 100,000 dollars for our mid-season fundraiser, I’ll announce the name of my world.” We hit 200,000 so I let everyone know that it’s Temerant. And this is the first book where it shows up; Auri refers to it as Temerant to herself.

You had another Temerant story that came out recently called “The Lightning Tree.” You were talking about trying to do stories that weren’t typical fantasy, and this is a story you wrote for the Rogues anthology, and it is definitely not a typical rogue story. Can you talk about the atypical roguishness of this story?

That’s nice to hear. For that one, I did not specifically sit down and say, “Okay, I’m going to write an atypical rogue story,” but I’m coming to realize that it might be simply impossible for me to write anything like I’m supposed to. I’ve known Bast as a character for upwards of twenty years now, but we always see him in conjunction with Kvothe; he’s Kvothe’s conversational foil, his assistant. You never see him off by himself, with very rare exceptions. So I figured, “Let’s follow him around; let’s see what he really does in his free time.” I was very proud of how that one turned out, especially because I wrote it amazingly quickly for me. The whole thing was pretty much done in two weeks. I wish I always wrote that fast and the stories came together that well.

And I saw on your blog that you didn’t plan it out in advance? It just sort of grew organically?

That is how my stuff typically goes. I’ve heard somebody say that some writers are architects and some are gardeners; I’m absolutely a gardener. I know the characters, I know the world, and then the story moves forward and flowers up. That’s not to say that I don’t have a plan, it’s mostly that I don’t chain myself to my plans and expectations. I like to leave myself open for beautiful accidents, for strange things to happen, and then I want to pursue those. That can be hard if you’ve shackled yourself to an outline.

What was your starting point for this story? The kernel that the rest of this grew from?

For “The Lightning Tree,” I remember thinking, “Well, I need to write a rogue story; let’s talk about Bast.” Because he’s obviously one of the most classically roguish characters; he’s a clever, active, interesting person, and it would be real easy for him to go nuts with all this time on his hands in this tiny little town. How would he amuse himself? That’s where I started, and I started knowing the character, and I started knowing the town, and then I think, “Who would this person interact with? Who would judge him the least? Who would he have the most fun with?” The answer is the kids. And, because he is who he is, the older daughters and the younger wives of the villagers are very interested in Bast as well: He’s charming and attractive and somewhat amoral, one could say; not immoral, but without traditional societal morals. That makes for a pretty interesting sort of rogue.

He has all these rules and rituals; was that inspired by anything in real life, or in other stories you’ve read or anything?

No. While I won’t say that I never steal anything out of other books, I try not to steal — or “be inspired by,” if you want to phrase it that way — with both hands. It’s not any surprise; anyone who’s read my books knows that Bast is a Fae creature; he’s not a normal human. He’s very close, and he looks like us. One of the things I knew was going to be fun was showing how he actually lived his life, and traditionally — mythically, legendarily — all Fae creatures tend to be bound by rules.

The truth is we all are; humans are. It’s just that the really deep superstitions are not things that we talk about. They’re things that are so given that we would never think of transgressing against them. For example, you would never walk over to your neighbor’s house and let yourself in by the front door without knocking. You might, but you would kind of be a sociopath, to just wander into a stranger’s house. We knock, and the thought of not knocking? It’s really weird. That’s one of the rules of our culture that’s really ground into us. Now the Faeries always seem to take this to another level: There’s debt and obligation. In some of the legends, they can’t lie; in some of the legends they lie all the time. I took this story as an opportunity to show some of the mythos in my world; to unveil part of who Bast is by showing him moving through his own rituals, some of which are his and some of which he has created with these children.

And Bast — He’s so clever; the soaking of the brother’s shoes in urine was just so devious.

Yeah. The kid comes to him and says, “I want vengeance,” and Bast is like, “Okay, well, how much vengeance?” And the boy holds up his hands about a foot apart and is like, “This much vengeance.” Because, like I said, Bast is this amoral creature, and if the kid had come to him and said, “How do I kill him and hide the body?” Bast would be like, “Well, here’s what you do.” He’s learned, over the years, some survival skills among these humans; that vengeance does not necessarily mean driving a nail through someone’s leg and leaving him hanging in a tree. He’s become this counselor to the town’s children in secret. More than anything else, I like writing clever characters and, yeah, the vengeance he deals out — even if it’s not catastrophic or epic — is clever. The lies that he coaches the children in, and the interactions he has with the children, are clever. That’s what makes this story worthwhile.

As a child, were you clever like that, in terms of getting out of trouble and meting out vengeance and stuff like that?

The truth is, I was a very good boy. I was not terribly rebellious. I liked to stay at home, and I liked to read books. At one point, I got a neighbor: I lived out in the country, and the only neighbor within any sort of walking distance was my grandpa who lived up the hill. He moved out and some other people moved in, and there was a kid who was exactly my age and he would come to my house and knock on the door and say, “Do you want to do something?” He came from a suburb where there were a ton of kids, and they were always playing and doing something together. And I would look at him like, “What the hell are you doing here?” And I’m thinking, “I am doing something; I’m reading a book, and you are interrupting me. Go away.” In some ways, I was an ideal child; you can’t get into much trouble just sitting at home and reading books and playing D&D with your friends. On the plus side, if you’re going to be clever, a good way to bone up on that is reading the right sort of books and playing D&D; it teaches you how to be a problem solver, gives you the joy of experience without the burden of acquiring that experience.

Speaking of D&D, listener Robert Coleman says, “Ask him about D&D in general and the Acquisitions Incorporated games in particular. I love his books.” You want to tell us about the Acquisitions Incorporated games?

The guys from Penny Arcade — almost two years ago at this point — played D&D onstage at their convention, which sounds really weird unless you’re an old D&D player. Do you play?

I played a lot when I was in high school.

I played a ton starting back in high school, and then in college. These days, I don’t role-play so much because I’ve lost my crew, but I have a real love for the game, so they invited me out to play and we do it on camera. First we tape some podcasts, us just goofing off around the table, and then we perform on stage at PAX Prime, their convention. And they pack an auditorium; easily 2,000 people, live, sitting in the stadium, watching us play D&D with the excellent GM Chris Perkins, who works at TSR and Wizards of the Coast working on Dungeons & Dragons. It’s one of the most enjoyable times I’ve had in the last couple years. I’ve met with very good success and wonderful people, but playing D&D with Mike and Jerry and Scott, and most recently Morgan Webb — it’s a ton of fun.

I don’t know if you know the Harmontown podcast, but they do a live show where they also play Dungeons & Dragons on stage. I just wonder how large the audience is for that; could this be like the next NFL or something? It just keeps growing and growing.

I told my publisher that, “I’m going to go play D&D with the Penny Arcade guys,” and she’s like, “You know, you should probably stay at home and work on your book.” And I said, “No, you don’t understand; I’m going to go play D&D onstage in front of like 2,000 people, and another 20,000 are going to watch it live streaming, and another couple hundred thousand are going to watch it online after the fact.” And she was flabbergasted by that, in the same way that those of us that aren’t into sports can’t understand why anyone would go to a football game. But it’s a little more understandable if you say — instead of role-playing or D&D — ”I’m going to watch a group of incredibly quick-witted, articulate, funny people engage in interactive improvisational storytelling for two hours.” Then suddenly you realize that it’s Whose Line Is It Anyway? with a strong narrative thread. And, as a bonus, we get dragons and swordfights, too.

Yeah; sometimes if people ask me why I like fantasy and science fiction, I’ll describe it as the imagination Olympics. So you’re sort of saying the same thing there, right? You’re watching people with the best imaginations push themselves to their limits live on stage.

Exactly. I remember when they invited me, I was like, “Sure, I’ll come and goof around with you,” and then I listened to all the previous podcasts and watched the previous games so that I knew what I was getting into. At first it was just a core group from Penny Arcade and PVP, and they’re funny and quick, and Chris was in it from the beginning running these games for them. As an author, I’m pretty quick-witted and I’m a good performer and pretty funny, but that’s as an author. These people are professionally funny, every day, as a living. And I had some anxiety about being able to hold my own with them. Then Wil Wheaton joined the party and he is a professional actor and professionally funny. He really raised the bar in terms of the overall interactions in the group, and I was legitimately sweaty going into that group. Then I just forgot all of my anxiety when I was doing it and just had fun, and I was all hopped up on caffeine and we were eating Doritos and I’m like, “Yeah, this is awesome. This is everything I love about the game.”

You mention that the Dungeon Master’s really good. What would you say categorizes a really elite Dungeon Master?

I touched on it very briefly before: You asked me if I planned my books ahead of time or how I got ready to write a story, and I said I did it very organically. Then I kind of backpedaled and said, “I’m not saying I don’t have a plan, I’m just very willing to deviate from the plan if it seems like there’s a better path.” That is the true sign of mastery of my favorite type of DM; you can tell that I’m older because I say DM — Dungeon Master — instead of GM — Game Master. Chris has this whole game laid out; he’s got a bunch of things prepared and he’s got figurines waiting in the wings and he’s got maps and riddles and puzzles and NPCs. We ran through this adventure, and it was brilliant, and I go, “How did you come up with this when you were planning?” And he’s like, “Actually, I didn’t have anything ready for that room so I made that all up on the spot.” A lesser GM would’ve panicked and gone, “Uh, there’s a dragon there and it scares you away. Two dragons. Ten. The force-field.” I don’t doubt for a second that if, instead of pursuing the main line of the plot, we had said, “Let’s go hunting bandits in the forest. Let’s get a cart and we’ll mount a ballista on it,” Chris probably would’ve ridden along with us on that trip and had fun.

The other thing is we are also experienced players and we know he has some stuff planned, and we know that the game will be better if we allow ourselves to be gently led through this story. That doesn’t mean we have to do everything he expects, but the best games are cooperative. We’re all trying to tell a really good story. The GM is the lynchpin, and Chris has that unique skillset.

I know you did a podcast for a while called Storyboard, and in one of your episodes you talked about stories in games. I played a lot of computer RPGs growing up. Ultima 7 was my favorite one, and I sort of fell out if it after that because I felt like the stories had disappeared from the games. And I gather maybe they’re starting to come back now, but what is your opinion on the current situation with stories in computer role-playing games?

Do you have another hour and a half? In some ways, I get to be a legitimate curmudgeon, because I was playing computer games at the very beginning; I have played the earliest games, like the Infocom Text Adventures, where all you had was text. They would describe a room and you would type in, “Get lamp. Turn on lamp. Go north. Look at file. Climb rope.” They called it interactive fiction, and it was; your actions influenced the game. One of these games, Zork III, I played with my friend Chad; we started in sixth grade and played it for two years before we solved it. There were riddles in the game we could not solve, things that we couldn’t beat. We would go home and work on it and try all of these different things and we’d come to school and talk about it. It was pre-internet; we had no answers and no way to get them. Playing that game changed my life; playing those games taught me to be a problem solver, taught me how to deal with frustration, how to stick to something.

So now here comes the curmudgeon part: I lament that my child will never have the opportunity to experience frustration on that level because, these days, if you start to get irritated at a game, what do you do? The internet. And that sucks. When I talk to the brilliant people in my generation — people doing things, telling stories — they played Infocom games. Neil Gaiman played Infocom games; Terry Pratchett played Infocom games; Felicia Day played Infocom games. And they all spent months trying to get the frickin’ babelfish in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and now it’s virtually impossible to write a game which successfully provides challenge and frustration, and that’s a shame. We are going to lose something. That makes scientists; that makes doers and hard-minded, clever, witty people, and I worry that those people aren’t being made these days.

I know you’re involved in the new Torment game. To what extent do you think that’s going to be able to recapture some of the admirable qualities of older games?

The lack of challenge is one issue; the other one that I lament the loss of is the lack of narrative in most big release games. I’m not saying there’s none: Portal — if you haven’t played Portal, it’s your own damn fault — is brilliant, not just because of the gameplay, but what made that game is the narrative line; same for the second Portal game. Half-Life: Good solid narrative. The Bioshock games. The original Deus Ex — I’m dating myself there, but that had good story; thoughtful stuff: Future dystopia and, at the end of it, who are you supporting? The secret masters who rule the world and are trying to make things better for people by controlling them? Or do we go for enlightened anarchy? That’s a big question, and it was very legitimately brought up and discussed through the course of this game that also had amazing gameplay. Torment is going to have a focus on the story, and I know this because I’ve been involved in the meetings and the people involved are really taking it seriously. They want a good game with good story. And they want the player to be able to make legitimate choices that legitimately influence the story, which is something you can only get in video games, so it’s a wasted opportunity if you don’t have it. I have very high hopes. Honestly, I am the least qualified there because everyone else has been all over, making games for years. The only thing I can really bring is the fact that I get stories; I get character. That’s my wheelhouse.

Could you say a little more about what your role is on the project? Or what you’ve contributed?

I’m creating one area and I’m creating a companion character. I went in and I was chatting with them and everybody talked about the character they were thinking of and wanted to make. And honestly I was intimidated, because these are pros: The head of story worked on the original Planescape, and people are there from Black Isle and Obsidian and all these amazing studios. So I sit down and I say, “Here’s my thought: If we want to give people true freedom of choice, and we know that some of them want to be a hero, we need to give them certain opportunities. This is a weird idea for a character, but hear me out . . .” And I just talked for fifteen minutes about my idea, which, even playing as many games as I have, I have never run into a character like this in any of these games. And I pitched it to them, thinking they’re going to think I’m an idiot. Finally I saw Chris Avellone — who is a superstar — nodding along a little bit. And they said, “Absolutely, we can do that.” I’m obviously being vague here because I don’t want to spoil the reveal of this character, but just yesterday I was working on concept art and shipping it off to the team; I’ve already worked out a personality and I’ll be doing a comic with my friend and illustrator Nate Taylor to introduce the character in part of the Numenera world in conjunction with the release of the video game.

So now I’m really curious about that character, but I guess we’ll wait and see.

I can say this: You’ve probably never had a character like this as a companion in one of these role-playing games before.

Getting back to your commentary on games, one of our listeners, Jaycel Adkins, wants to know if Storyboard is coming back. Could you say a little about why you did the Storyboard podcast and whether you have any future plans for it?

Felicia Day was just kicking off the Geek and Sundry network and she invited me in for her launch of it; they did a twenty-four-hour Google Hangout to announce the launch. I think she was putting it together and dropped me an email and said, “Hey, you want to help me fill an hour of this time for our launch?” And I was like, “Sure; I could bring together a few writers and we can talk about writing.” So I did, and I said to Felicia afterwards, “That was a blast. I don’t know what you’re looking for, for shows in Geek and Sundry, but I would put together a monthly show — me and authors talking about writing stuff.” I did it for about a year, but then they had a programming shift; they were doing less of the live Hangout shows. Which was fine, because I was busy working on various projects.

The main reason I did it is because I go to these conventions and I’ll sit on a panel and we’ll talk about how to write good characters; what makes epic fantasy epic; how to develop a magic system; how to portray women less awfully in fantasy, which is a huge deal; how can we be more sex positive in our books without being smutty; what makes urban fantasy so appealing; how can you write a better vampire. And I loved talking about these things and people love attending these panels, but not everybody lives next to a convention. And even the people who do might not know about it, or maybe they hate crowds, or maybe they don’t have fifty bucks to blow on a badge or $200 for a plane ticket and hotel room so they can come hang out. So I’m like, “Why don’t we start doing these panels online? It’s much more egalitarian.” I had a great time and I was finally starting to figure out what made it work well when I got to the end of that first season.

My intention is to start it back up again, but . . . I think we’ll pre-record it next time around. I’ve got so many projects, I’m hesitant to pick up another one. It might happen as early as next year; maybe I’ll make that a stretch goal in Worldbuilders.

So when you say you were starting to figure out what made it work well, what was it that you were figuring out?

Some people are really smart about these topics, some are funny, some are really witty in the moment, some are good teachers, but not everyone is all of those things. If you have five people who are all knowledgeable but very slow to speak, it’s not a good discussion. If you have five people who are very witty, but none of them are knowledgeable? Everyone quickly realizes that it’s just kind of pointless. Some people who are very good speaking in person or on a panel are not good on a webcam. The more of it that I did, the more I realized what makes for a really good mix of authors and what makes for a good discussion and topic. It’s more like alchemy than chemistry; it’s not like you can put five ingredients together the same way and you’re always going to get a good discussion. It’s more of an art than a science.

We do panels on this show, and I totally agree with all the stuff you’re saying. Actually, speaking of audio, I saw that you were personally performing the audiobook for The Slow Regard of Silent Things. Could you talk about that experience? How do you read all that stuff without blundering it all?

You do blunder, is the key. You blunder a lot, and then they clean it up in the edit. Or at least, I do. I’m certainly no stranger to public speaking: I’ve preached sermons and sung in choirs and been a teacher for years and played D&D on stage and done Q&A, been on TV. I like talking about these things and I’m quick on my feet, but reading this audiobook has given me a whole new appreciation for people who do this professionally. There’s an incredible amount of craft involved. I’m okay. I could even say that, at this point in my career, I am good. I’m not great. I never would have dipped into it for this book except that I know this character, this world and story, and there were things going on in the language — hidden things about the sound and the meter and how things are presented — that I knew I was aware of that no other audiobook narrator would’ve been. I hope to someday be Neil Gaiman good.

So you are planning to do more audiobook narration?

I did enjoy it, and I’d like to be better at it and I know the only way to do that is to practice. I will do more. I’m not going to do book three, because that already has a narrator and I don’t want to change horses mid-race. You get used to one voice and then somebody changes the audio narrator on you, and that’s just unforgivable.

Did you learn anything about doing it in the course of this one book that you wish you could go back and tell yourself?

I’d probably tell myself to read it, one more time, to myself, out loud the day before my performance, or a couple of days leading up to my actual recording. I had revised and revised it, and I had read through it once all the way and made edits and corrections to make sure that I would be able to read it smoothly. Then a couple of weeks had gone past so I felt confident in it, but then I sat down to read it again and I had gotten a little rusty. The problem is, just reading it out loud, even this relatively short book — even if I never stop and repeat anything, which you kind of need to do to get it right — is eight hours of just sitting and reading. It’s exhausting. It doesn’t seem like it would be, but you’ve got to emote, you have to really control your breathing and your voice; you feel like a wrung-out rag after five hours.

There’s one other listener question I wanted to get to. Nick El Plated asks, “Is it weird that I have a quote from your book getting tattooed on me?”

I would say weird but awesome. I’d also say that you’re not alone. Some people have sent me pictures of their tattoos, either of art or quotes. I actually have another ten or so that I’ve been meaning to post up in a blog for a while, but I haven’t managed to get around to it.

So he says the quote that he picked is, “All the truth in the world is held in stories.”

That’s a very popular one. Not for tattoos, but people have commented on that quote before. As far as tattoos, I know that there are at least two people that have “My heart is made of stronger stuff than glass” tattooed on them.

I was struck, on your blog, that you had the photograph of the women with The Wiseman’s Fear bikinis.

We ran a photo contest a couple of years ago, and the response to it was huge; thousands of pictures were sent in. Then my life got busy, and I got a kid, then my dad was sick and I’ve been struggling to sift these photos and announce the winners and organize them into blogs. It’s been a huge source of guilt for me. But I’m finally getting them all up now, and that was the arts and crafts blog where people actually silk-screened my book covers on the cloth and then made bikinis out of them; somebody sewed a mural; people made jigsaw puzzles out of the map. People got really creative.

Speaking of those feelings of guilt, I’ve seen you talk about how you have too many people showing up at your events now to sign their books, and you have a stack of 200 letters on your table that you haven’t even had time to read. It just seems completely overwhelming.

They say you can boil a toad if you warm up the water slowly enough; have you ever heard that?

Yeah; it turns out that’s not true. They actually did that experiment.

Did they?

The toads are smarter than you give them credit for. But I know what you mean.

I’m glad to hear that you can’t, although I’m horrified to hear that they did it as an experiment. But the truth is it certainly works with people, because apparently we’re less smart than toads. I have pictures of me at my very first signing, where it’s me sitting at a card table grinning desperately for three hours while everyone avoids eye contact. A couple years go by, and twenty, thirty people show up and that’s awesome. And then a year goes by and a hundred people show up and I posed for pictures and will write quotes in books and I make funny jokes and we hang out and chat, because you can do that with eighty people; it’ll take a couple hours and then you go home. And then a year goes by and 250, 300 people show up and you still hang out, you chat, you take pictures, you put quotes in the books and you get back to your hotel at one o’clock at night but that was a good night; you made a lot of people happy. Then you have 600 people show up, and you only do short quotes and not so many pictures and you kind of hurry people along and it goes on and on like that. I went to Madrid, and 2,000 people showed up to my book signing. I remember sitting there, and that was twelve solid hours of me signing, and we couldn’t do pictures and everyone could only have one book, and I felt bad because these people have been standing in line for hours. I didn’t get out of there until five in the morning, and I started before five in the afternoon. You start thinking, “Maybe instead of writing ‘To: Marta,’ I could just write. ‘Marta.’” It seems like a silly thing, but if you write the word “to” 2,000 times, it takes thirty minutes.

Those are the sort of things that are happening in my life right now, where I’m thinking, “How can I still make people happy, still feel good about myself, and not burn my entire life away?” It’s actually a huge source of conflict for me. I just can’t do everything for everyone all the time, and because I’m from the Midwest and predisposed towards being a nurturer and helper, giving people what they ask for — and predisposed to guilt, too — I’ve struggled with that lately.

See, now I’m starting to feel guilty that I’m taking up so much of your time when you could be answering your fan-mail and stuff like that.

No. Here’s what I’m coming to realize, and it’s one of the reasons I’m bringing Storyboard back: If I go to a con, I can spend all weekend there, get a hotel, buy a plane ticket, and I meet fans and shake hands and sign books and I’m on a panel. I get to interact with maybe 2,000 fans — and that’s a lot; that would be a big con and big rooms and good paneling, a lot of autographing, kind of exhausting, but that’s worth it. I find it very energizing and I like hanging out with my readers. But if I do an episode of Storyboard, anyone who wants to can hang out with me for an hour and hear me talk and opine about storytelling or videogames or urban fantasy or whatever.

So what I’m searching for is more efficient ways to make people happy, and the deal-breaker for me is the fact that I have two kids now and I go to too many conventions and my boy misses me, and the youngest one is too young to miss me but I miss him and I’m missing a chunk of his childhood because I’m obsessing about making myself available to people. Something like this is actually wonderful, because we can do this, it might eat up a couple of hours of my day, but I love talking about these things. Then, when it comes out, everybody gets to listen to it, and you don’t have to spend twenty bucks to get into a con, you don’t have to subscribe to something — you don’t even have to sit in front of your computer anymore; you can listen to it on your headphones, off your phone. That’s efficient; 100,000 people could listen to this if they wanted.

I wish they did, yeah.

In a lot of ways, that’s smarter for me than going to another convention; it saves me time.

I do think we should probably start wrapping this up, though. I just have two more listener questions I wanted to hit. Dave Rhodes asks, “Are you a wizard?”

I would say yes, for certain definitions of the word.

Which definitions are those?

Well, that would be telling.

William Olejarz says, perhaps predictably, “When is book three coming out?”

Believe me, if we had a date I would share.

Are there any other short stories or other projects on the radar that you want to mention?

The big one is going to be when Torment eventually comes out, but I don’t know when that will be. Right now, I’m mostly going to be getting Slow Regard out there, then I’m going to be focusing in on the big project: book three.

Do you want to say anything about Worldbuilders? You mentioned that earlier.

Worldbuilders is a charity that I kind of started by accident. We rally the geek community and raise money for Heifer International. It has been doing good work in the world, educating and promoting sustainable agriculture, feeding hungry kids and making peoples’ lives better for over sixty years now. I’ve been running it for the last six years, and with the help of a team of like-minded geeks and a bunch of donors, we’ve raised over three million dollars. If you are interested, we do auctions and give away books: a lot of gorgeous, first edition books, signed books, out-of-print books; probably $80,000 worth of books every year, donated by publishers and authors. We auction off reading critiques — if you want a professional to read your manuscript and give you feedback — from authors and editors and agents. We’ll be doing our big yearly fundraiser starting on November 10th, and you can swing by our website to check out the festivities; it’s worldbuilders.org. Or if you swing by my blog, for the month of the fundraiser, you will see a lot of posts; a lot of pictures of books and cool things.

Sounds great. We’ve been speaking with Patrick Rothfuss, and his new book is called The Slow Regard of Silent Things. Pat, thanks so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction/fantasy talk show podcast. It is produced by John Joseph Adams and hosted by: David Barr Kirtley, who 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: March 2015

Amal El-Mohtar

Aqueduct Press’ Congress of Ghosts*

In her introduction to Aqueduct Press’ Conversation Pieces series, L. Timmel Duchamp offers a quote from Jonathan Goldberg to articulate its core purpose: “To look forward to the history that will be, one must look at and retell the history that has been told.” Numbering forty-three titles thus far — including collections of poetry, essays, short fiction, and more — the series is a fascinating endeavour, and one which I was keen to engage for this column. Having now read its three most recent publications — The Haunted Girl by Lisa M. Bradley, Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett, and Ghost Signs by Sonya Taaffe — I find I want not only to engage but to actively celebrate these powerful, versatile, mesmerizing voices and the people who enabled me to hear them.

These books, in addition to being the most current Conversation Pieces, make a superb triple bill: here are poems and stories concerned with (among others) ways of being dead, ways of being alive, encounters with ghosts both literal and metaphorical, memories, echoes, speech and silence, freedom and constraint. It’s wonderful to read these books in sequence — and, in the spirit (badum-tsh!) of the series title, exciting to place them in conversation with each other to see where they intersect and overlap.

The Haunted Girl
Lisa M. Bradley
Trade Paperback/Ebook
ISBN 978-1-61976-063-9
Aqueduct Press, August 2014
146 pages

Lisa Bradley’s The Haunted Girl is divided into two sections, containing twenty-one poems and five short stories respectively. With the poetry, I was most struck by how sharply original and fantastic a perspective they reveal: In “Lament for a One-Legged Lady,” for instance, “a mortician’s daughter” mistakes an empty cello case for a coffin, and the visual mondegreen sparks a gorgeous meditation while she looks at sheet music:

“As she pondered this foreign script,

the meaning of bereft and

blackened circles

trapped within lines,

she wondered where the corpse went,

half hoped it had escaped

like these winged spheres

breaking free

of five brittle bars.”

There is a theme, throughout the collection, of false prisons and false escapes, reflections on who and where one is and where one’s going. “I struggle against the pattern,” says the speaker in “embedded,” a poem about the tensions and expectations of family across generations, and I took it to be at the collection’s core: resistance to norms, to imposition, be they of language, sexuality, or mortality. There is a sharpness, a sting to most of these poems, of the kind that makes you hiss and then seek it out again.

I loved the collection’s bilingualism, both in the presence of Spanish and the musings on being between languages, on the thermodynamics of translation. I loved how often the sheer inventiveness of the lines startled me — hot wind against a car window “keens with the steadiness of a seashell” in “Immobility,” while in “Teratoma Lullaby” a chimeric twin “is more than living gristle. / He is a ghost with heft and hate.” The poetry culminates in the staggering “we come together we fall apart,” a long poem about marriages and families and the damage of incompatible desires.

It perhaps couldn’t be helped that, after being so thoroughly amazed by the poetry, I should find myself a little disappointed by the prose. This may well be more to do with me than the stories themselves; I suspect I’m not a very good reader of short horror fiction, as I’m often left wanting something the story wasn’t setting out to give (or was, in fact, deliberately withholding). While all the stories were characterized by the same dazzling invention as the poetry, putting intriguing spins on vampires, demons, and fairies in contemporary settings, I was sometimes left feeling the stories didn’t quite stick the landing, didn’t nail my heart to the wall the way the poems did. That said, I liked about half of the six stories, and of those genuinely loved “Bilingual, or Mouth to Mouth,” which pushed my language-loving buttons and gave me gorgeous writing to boot: “she was a thimbleful of darkness lurking under a mesquite tree” hooked me from the start.

Overall, a very strong collection and one I heartily recommend.

Elysium
Jennifer Marie Brissett
Trade Paperback/Ebook
ISBN 978-1-61976-053-0
Aqueduct Press, December 2014
208 pages

I’ve seen many reviews exclaiming in surprise that this is a debut, and I’m here to add my voice to their number. The concept is brilliant: A computer program inscribed on the atmosphere itself is malfunctioning, and in so doing is throwing up iteration after iteration of a single story, transforming it every time by changing the variables of gender, sexuality, location, and moment. In so doing, the novel throws into sharp relief our own social programming: It was fascinating to observe in myself the different reactions to a situation if the genders of the actors were swapped, to see where I felt more or less forgiving, more or less critical.

The iterations are, in a way, echoes, but in the novel they operate in reverse: Instead of becoming fainter with each repetition, the echoes gain substance until we find ourselves at the heart of the shout that created them. The whole text is haunted by it, by a sense of its own lack of substance in the wake of it.

There are moments that I felt were missteps: In particular, the rendering of one character as trans in a certain iteration, and that character’s subsequent narrative treatment, felt like a lapse into damaging convention in an otherwise shockingly original novel. But the flexibility of the concept, and Brissett’s dexterity in treating each iteration’s characters as whole people, however briefly glimpsed, makes room for other readings. And, overall, the circling of the novel’s originating event, the thing that damages the program and explains our interaction with it, is breathtaking and wonderfully satisfying.

Elysium is an ambitious, challenging, and thoroughly absorbing novel, and I can’t wait to see where Brissett goes from here.

Ghost Signs
Sonya Taaffe
Trade Paperback/Ebook
ISBN 978-1-61976-071-4
Aqueduct Press, January 2015
208 pages

Far and away my favourite of the three, Ghost Signs is a masterpiece: In content, in curation, these poems and one story are that species of perfect that has me struggling with metaphor. I can hardly bear to speak of it: All I want is to sit you, dear reader, down in a comfortable place with a beverage to hand and make you listen to each one, pausing periodically to say “can you even believe this line” or “RIGHT?” as you exclaim, inevitably, over the feelings these words provoke. “Eden / where the windfalls lie silent as serpents in the grass”; “the ghost I see walking the rust-soft wreckage”; “You could never have slept / in my shipwrecked bed” — Taaffe’s lines are so sufficient unto themselves, so smooth and sharp, so like bones or an ocean full of anchors, hooks, nets. “To shrug back the sea’s indifference / like a postcard in the lighthouse keeper’s store / and settle for being innocent.”

What can I tell you but that my notes on this collection consist of a series of titles followed by “unbearably beautiful” and “lost time over this poem — so entranced, tears” and “Perfect. Crying.” What can I say but that Taaffe understands classical literature in a way that teaches it by default, that shares her knowledge like a meal. To read Taaffe writing of the ocean is to long for drowning; to read Taaffe writing of the theatre, of history, of haunting, of ghosts, of travel, of memory, is to feel yourself straining against the limits of your skin in order to fall deeper into her work.

I’ve reviewed “The Boatman’s Cure,” the collection’s concluding novella, more fully for Tor.com; briefly, I will say that it unites all the successes of her poetry into a prose structure that follows the movement of an oar through water, and that the prose style is some of the most beautiful writing I’ve seen, bar none.

If this column smacks, overall, of hyperbole, I can only say, in my defense, that I was given a broad remit in choosing what to review, and that I have excellent taste. So too do the good people behind Aqueduct Press; their Conversation Pieces will — in the best possible way — haunt me for a long time to come.

* With thanks to Wondermark [wondermark.com/566].

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amal El-Mohtar’s essays have appeared in Chicks Unravel Time, Queers Dig Time Lords, Science Fiction Film & Television, Apex, Stone Telling, The Outpost, Cascadia Subduction Zone, and Tor.com. She reviews books for NPR, edits and publishes the poetry in Goblin Fruit, is a Nebula-nominated author and founding member of the Banjo Apocalypse Crinoline Troubadours, and has been occasionally known to deadlift other genre professionals. Find her on Twitter @tithenai.

Artist Gallery: Wylie Beckert

Wylie Beckert was born in 1987 in Boston, Massachusetts. She received a degree in studio art from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She currently works as a freelance illustrator creating book covers, advertising illustrations, and fine art for clients such as Simon & Schuster, Young & Rubicam, and McCann. Her work has been featured in publications including Spectrum and ImagineFX. She currently lives in northern Maine with a dog, a cat, and a scientist. Her website is wyliebeckert.com.

[To view the gallery, turn the page.]

Artist Spotlight: Wylie Beckert

Henry Lien

Your artwork comes across like postcards from a world where Halloween and Valentine’s Day fall on the same day. The paintings are all very inviting, despite having subject matter that is often given a darker treatment by most science fiction/fantasy illustrators. The paintings are also warm and analog in feel, despite being created, at least in part, through digital means. Are you deliberately challenging notions of what digital work can look like?

I love that description, and I wish I could restructure my calendar accordingly! I think much of the tone of my work comes from my love of Golden Age illustrators (Arthur Rackham and Aubrey Beardsley are two of the most obvious); I’ve always tried to emulate their aesthetic — creepy, elegant, and charming all at the same time — and the traditional-media feel is a big part of that.

I do feel that the chasm separating digital and traditional media isn’t as vast as we sometimes make it out to be, and there is a lot to be gained by borrowing freely from both sides. Traditional media has a distinct advantage, in that it shows the hand of the artist so plainly, even in a pencil sketch; digital media seems to demand a greater mastery of the tools for that unique essence to come across. This is why pencil underdrawings are so important to my process — no matter what media I use to finish out a piece, that individual thumbprint is always present under the surface.

I often cannot identify the gender of the characters in your paintings with confidence. Very often, they could as easily be artsy, bookish male characters with long hair as they could be female characters without makeup or revealing clothing, or else people somewhere confidently vague between the binary poles of identifiable gender. Is this a response to the depictions of female figures in traditional science fiction/fantasy illustration?

There does seem to be a tendency to homogenize female characters in fantasy art — you’ll see an artist designing these awesome inventive male faces with stylized bone structure and a sense of character and dimensionality . . . and then the corresponding female faces are just soft, glossy ovals that don’t convey much about the character other than “pretty” — and it always seems like a missed opportunity.

I wouldn’t say that I intentionally design androgynous characters — but while I always know what gender I want a character to be, it’s rarely the main point I want to make about who that person is — so sometimes a female character will end up a bit more rugged or bony than is de rigueur, and will come across as masculine. I have noticed that women tend to read the more ambiguous characters as female, and men tend to read them as male — so if there’s a silver lining, I suppose it’s that my characters end up more broadly relatable than if they exhibited a more typical sexual dimorphism.

Can we talk about the motif of swirling, fluttering things in your work? You’ve got swirling fabric, swirling vapors, swirling fish, swirling water. It’s like rhythmic gymnastics done by jellyfish in a whirlpool, or like Yoshitaka Amano (of Final Fantasy fame) painting a cyclone hitting a handkerchief factory. Can you talk to us about the power of the swirl and the flutter?

I don’t tend to paint very “action-y” scenes — I think there’s often more interest and emotion to be had in quiet moments or suspenseful turning points. The downside is that these scenes can come across as somewhat static; my solution to this is to find movement within the piece — whether literal (as in trailing fabric, smoke, or water) or abstract (in surface patterns, gestures, or a flowing arrangement of compositional elements) — to create contrast, and to maintain a sense of energy. Plus, these things are just fun to draw!

Even though your works are clearly narrative illustration, there is an element of abstraction in them. If you turn many of them upside down, and squint until they’re fuzzy, the paintings look like abstract paintings. There is so much delirious motion, but it feels like you’ve harnessed the power of the chaos for your own purposes. Is that because you have incorporated elements of chance into the compositions? How much does chance play into your work? Do you have any formal mechanisms to incorporate chance? For example, the Surrealists played a game called “frottage,” which means rubbing, in which they would rub the outline of a tossed length of rope onto a surface and then paint around whatever image that rubbing suggested. Philip K. Dick famously consulted the I Ching at every critical plot juncture to ask how to proceed when writing The Man in the High Castle, a novel that is in part about chance and the I Ching. Do you have any such formal mechanisms to incorporate chance and harness the power of chaos in your work?

Chance plays a major role in my compositions — sometimes it’s the only thing to fall back on when my imagination fails me and all my ideas start to look the same. Studying natural, randomized elements like tree bark or smoke helps remind me that shapes don’t need to be precise or carefully planned to be beautiful — borrowing from these sketches and snapshots provides a wealth of new ideas which, combined with unexpected details culled from reference photos or stray pencil marks, can generate images with a lot of abstract appeal.

I’ll even recycle elements of my older work for a randomized effect — to create a thumbnail sketch for my recent piece Sword of Purpose, I assembled a digital collage out of snippets of my old pencil drawings, then set out to find suggested forms within the chaos and developed them into an entirely new scene. It’s a technique I’m hoping to experiment with more in future pieces.

Visual tricks aside, chaos is a great source of conceptual ideas. Random word generators, word association games, and idea maps help me pull new ideas out of the ether or examine an existing concept from a new and more exciting angle.

You also have a motif of winding paths in your work. There are literal paths, such as the piece with the path snaking through the woods beset with creatures lying in wait but also marked with warnings from prior travelers. Travel along a path seems to be a regular theme. Further, there are visual paths all throughout the works in the form of the meandering lines created by swirls of fabric, smoke, etc. They evoke endpaper maps of fictitious kingdoms that so many growing, young geek brains nourished themselves on. Is this motif of a winding, map-like path just a visual preference for you, or does it have a more personal or thematic significance?

Endpaper maps! So many of the books from my childhood had them, and they certainly had an effect on how I viewed works of fantasy — each one taking place in its own distinct and cohesive universe. The fantasy worlds I would imagine and write about all had their corresponding crayon-drawn maps, and even now I like to think of my personal work, in part, as snapshots from travels in surreal foreign landscape full of strange sights — people and things that a traveler might encounter over the course of a journey along those uncharted roads. Many of the characters in my work are on journeys or quests of their own through this landscape, and so the path theme certainly has some significance in that respect; it’s also a natural tie-in with the winding shapes I love to include in my compositions.

I see that you did a painting, the one with the giant snail, inspired by The Magnetic Fields song “Time Enough for Rocking When We’re Old” from their immortal 69 Love Songs album. The band’s leader Stephin Merritt is a friend of mine. He is an art lover and I think he’ll be amused to see his song given visual identity. Have you done other works inspired by other art forms?

A number of pieces in my portfolio are inspired by other works — most notably, Tam Lin was inspired by the Child ballad of the same name, and Cold Wind was based on a short story by Nicola Griffith. Other pieces are less traceable to a single source; fairytales and legends are always a source of inspiration — they’re an interesting combination of common threads that exist across cultures and eras, and bizarre, distinctive details that set them apart from each other; they can be endlessly scrambled, recombined, and embellished upon. In a similar vein, I’m always getting inspired by lines in songs and poems; they’re good at evoking a certain mood or tone, and are often open-ended — another medium that leaves plenty of room for artistic interpretation and invention.

What are your greatest influences as an artist? Other illustrators? Fine art painters? Film? Architecture? Nature? Athletics? Fashion? Music?

I think my main influence is the natural world — there is such an infinite variety of forms and patterns to draw from that the tiny sliver I’m able to actually include in my work always feels frustratingly abridged. I especially love the forms that have been shaped by external forces, like trees twisted by the elements or earth shaped by erosion — they have a built-in narrative that makes them especially relevant to an illustrator!

The work of other illustrators has also been a major influence — fairy tale artists like Arthur Rackham, decorative artists like Alphonse Mucha, and commercial artists like J.C. Leyendecker, along with too many modern-day illustrators to name. I think the common feature that draws me in is the strong graphic look of their work, and their attention to line and detail. I also love how distinctive the styles of these artists are; each seems to have taken such thorough ownership of their own aesthetic that there’s no mistaking their work for anyone else’s.

What is your dream project?

Art directors always seem to find my work a little hard to place — a bit too playful for most adult genres and too peculiar for children’s products. I’d love to take on a huge, immersive narrative project of my own creation — like an illustrated fantasy volume, or a traditionally-painted, sweeping epic of a graphic novel — where all my fierce characters and obsessive, swirling detail work would fit right in.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Henry Lien is an art dealer in Los Angeles (www.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. Visit his author website at www.henrylien.com.

Author Spotlight: Marissa Lingen

Lee Hallison

What was the spark for this story?

I’m usually the world’s least visual person, but this entire sequence of stories each has a spark in an image from a Miyazaki film. This one was the part of My Neighbor Totoro that’s looking out over the people working in the fields. Of course the story has nothing to do with the plot or characters of Totoro — it was just that image combined with the world I’d been playing with.

No matter what she learned in her time under the sea, Mishy remained an old soldier. At the end, she accepts who she is and transforms what she knows in order to stop the war. Had you planned that she would redeem herself that way or did the story evolve in a way that surprised you?

I write my stories out of sequence, so it’s rare that an ending will sneak up on me. This one was basically whole from the time I thought of it, all one piece.

The sea and her time there is tantalizing — the images and ideas are so unusual. Is the sea important to you in real life as well as in your stories?

Actually, no! I’m a freshwater person. Lake Superior is my idea of a wonderful body of water. But I was thinking of where people go to flee a bad political situation, or where they might go. Historically, that’s hills, forests, and the sea — stay tuned for more stories set in the hills and forests of this world.

Also, I like cephalopods. They’re neat. Any time there’s room for cephalopods, I say they hardly ever make a story worse.

What do you see in war that intrigues you?

This question amused me at first, because I think of myself as less war-focused than the average SFF writer. I was raised by wild Baby Boomers, with war protest songs for lullabies, and I write a lot about science and families and other things that are not war. But this sequence of stories really is engaging with war, and I do have to own that.

One of the books I read last year was Queen Victoria’s Little Wars. It talked about all the small but violent conflicts the British Empire was embroiled in worldwide, in the part of Victoria’s reign that the British people on average thought of as “at peace.” It looked very familiar to me. The American people are often not even aware of how many violent conflicts the US is involved in at any given time. It’s a normalization of perpetual warfare that’s alarming to me, particularly with the number of friends and family members I have who are past and current military.

One of my favorite singer-songwriters, Meg Hutchinson, has a line in an anti-war song about a (real-life) vet who came home from Iraq and killed himself, where she says, “No place for a good kid just trying to pay for school.” And this is true, but I think she missed a step there, where a lot of us miss a step. It’s also no place for a bloodthirsty bastard who just wants to kill a racially stereotyped Other. War isn’t hell only on the sensitive, and as citizens of modern democracies, we have to keep a close eye on what we are creating demand for in our policies — what negative traits we’re encouraging in some subset of our citizens. So while I write a lot of stories on a lot of themes, I do feel obliged to have war stories, stories of veterans, stories of civilians affected by war, in the mix.

The other thing about war stories is that war is great at shifting people’s motives so that what they say about what motivates them and what they’re actually doing are in conflict. There are a lot of other high-pressure situations that do that. But war definitely does it. I know a man who honestly and truly joined the US Army in order to help Iraqis democratize themselves . . . but by the time he’d finished his tour, the things that would come out of his mouth were completely opposed to that set of goals, despite his sincerity. War changes people, and not always in the easy and obvious directions.

Um. Looks like I have a lot to say about this, so I’d probably better stop there.

People have commented that they would enjoy more stories or even a novel written about these dreamers and tokened warriors. Are you planning to write more in this world or are you working on something else?

It’s funny, because if you’d asked me this question two weeks ago, I would have said that there are more short stories, but that they’re just going to be a series of short stories. But about a week and a half ago, the stuff I would need to do to write a novel with this material sort of fell on my head, so yeah, there’s definitely more there. (I’m also doing other stuff, though. I work on more than one project at a time, usually, so there’s room for me to chew things over and wander off in different directions.)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lee Hallison writes fiction in an old Seattle house where she lives with her patient spouse, an impatient teen, two lovable dogs, and the memories of several wonderful cats. She’s held many jobs — among them a bartender, a pastry chef, a tropical plant-waterer, a CPA, and a university lecturer. An East Coast transplant, she simply cannot fathom cherry blossoms in March.

Author Spotlight: Michael Blumlein

Patrick J. Stephens

Originally printed in 1986, do you feel like the theme and message of “The Brains of Rats” has changed — or could — according to the status of gender in the current climate? What kind of changes in gender equality do you feel adds to the strength of the story?

Gender identity, for many of us, is not binary. It’s pleasantly hazy, or can be pleasant, and should be. It’s slippery. Today there’s a growing consciousness of this inherent fluidity. There are pockets where the words “male” and “female” are obsolete, even offensive. Where L, G, B, T, Q, and Z are beginning to lose their meaning. But these pockets are few and far between. The vast majority of our country and our world is as rooted in the same gender definitions and stereotypes as ever. This is changing, and I expect will continue to change. Global warming has taught us that even glaciers don’t last forever.

From a biological standpoint, gender identity — and the physical effects of gender identity — is no different today than it was 100,000 years ago. We have the same X chromosome, the same Y. This, of course, will also change. Genotype will catch up to phenotype, possibly through natural selection but more likely through genetic engineering. We’ll tweak our X and our Y to produce perfect offspring, with perfect gender identities, perfectly adjusted, in perfect environments.

Could you lead us through the inception of “The Brains of Rats”?

To be honest, I don’t remember the story’s “inception.” I doubt there was a single, triggering flash of light. Joan of Arc played a part, that innocent, ingénue face of hers as brought to us by Ingrid Bergman in the ’48 film version. Innocence, culpability, gender identity, and sexual politics have been recurring themes in my writing and my life.

“The Brains of Rats” has also been classified as a horror story, and many often feel that horror brings out a lot of elements about humanity that we can explore more effectively through science fiction. How do you think the horror aspect of this story illuminates the science fiction element?

The things that are horrifying to us, that paralyze us with fear, release their grip somewhat when we speak them aloud. Fear lives in the primitive brain; stories come from the outer edge adept (more or less) at sympathy and rationalization. Science fiction is the quintessential art, the great joke, of imposing reason on what is essentially irrational.

The big laugh in this story is hard to pin down . . . there’re so many.

Given the knowledge of genetics and medicine in this story, how much of a history did you have with the subjects before writing “The Brains of Rats”?

I’ve been a practicing physician for nearly forty years. Most everything medical in my stories is either true or could be. I’ve had a particular and lifelong interest in genetics. My very first job, back in the ’60s, was in one of the early genetics labs. In my recent story, “Success,” I discuss the relatively new field of epigenetics, and propose another, as-yet-undescribed, higher level of genetic organization, which I call perigenetics.

What might we be seeing from you in the near future?

My newest story, “Your Quantified Self,” is a look at the quantified self movement. You can read an abridged version of it in the December issue of New Scientist (newscientist.com/article/mg22430004.700-your-quantified-self-a-short-story.html). My current project is a look at common problems and themes of health and disease from the ages of twenty to fifty. Part memoir, part instruction manual, part musings of a lifelong observer of our bodies and minds: a work of non-fiction, one hopes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Patrick J. Stephens graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2012, and has published two books since his return. Aurichrome (and Other Stories) and Sondranos: the Narrative of Leon Bishop are both available in free ebook form and hard copy.

Author Spotlight: Cat Sparks

Laurel Amberdine

The setting is so vivid, it’s almost another character. How did you build such an intense world — did you visit any real salt flats or salt-flat racers?

I’m afraid my answer might be disappointing — I’ve never set foot on a salt flat or watched hot rods racing live. I’m not a vintage car enthusiast — I don’t even have a driver’s license. The setting for my story was entirely constructed using YouTube clips, other people’s photo essays, and accounts of their salt flat racing experiences.

I have, however, been to the Parkes Elvis festival, which cops a mention. Parkes is an outback Aussie town probably most familiar to Americans for its radio telescope featured in a movie called The Dish. They hold an annual Elvis festival where the town becomes awash with Elvises and Priscillas of all ages and persuasions: tinyurl.com/lsurvdg

A few years back, I researched land yacht racing for another project. Trace elements of that research triggered this story and its setting.

Why were Lachie and his friends on the flats during what seemed to be a lightning storm — were they running away?

The Base was engaging in weaponised weather experiments. Lachie and his friends were expendable contractors, Lachie particularly expendable, having been busted attempting to communicate with the outside world against the express directives of the base operators. They were being used for target practice when the other kids found them.

The Base is all-powerful in this story. Did you know from the start that Cracker and Harper would fail?

Yup. Harper and Cracker were always doomed — and the whole town along with them. The country, too, as more and more of it becomes the property of foreign governments and corporations, used as experimental testing and dumping grounds, its local populations marked as expendable: the do-not-matter caste. A fantastical scenario, yet not entirely without real life precedent: In the ’50s and ’60s, the British Government, with the agreement and support of our own, carried out secret nuclear tests on Australian sites, the most well known of them being Maralinga in South Australia. The indigenous Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people were relocated, but suffered health issues as a result of radiation, as did involved Australian service personnel.

You’ve written before about people on the other side, or locked out of a better life. What about this theme particularly resonates for you?

Nearly half the world’s population live on less than $2.50 a day. That’s three billion people locked out of a better life, for starters. I’m not one of them — I grew up lower middle class and am a big fan of that particular strata of society. Middle class is all about having enough (whether we recognize such privilege and advantage for what it is or not), but “having enough” does not fit the capitalist ideology of limitless, relentless expansion. I believe Western middle class society is currently being eroded by an elite that would rather see the world divided into two convenient categories: the super rich and the working poor. But this process necessitates perpetual growth and expansion, which in turn requires gambling with terrifying stakes: the ongoing sustainability of the one and only proven life-sustaining planet we know of.

My country’s relatively strong economy is closely tied to the mining industry’s cycles of boom and bust. Things could easily change here. Australia is a remarkably inhospitable place. A massive land mass, the sixth-largest country in land area, yet there are only twenty-four million of us, mostly clinging to the eastern coastal fringe, well illustrated by this Australian Bureau of Statistics population density map: tinyurl.com/lgcz2je

Rising sea levels, salinity, and the increasing frequency and catastrophic intensity of bushfires, cyclones, and other extreme weather events are already impacting on our economic stability. To top it off, we’re saddled with a climate change denier for a Prime Minister. First day in office, he sacked the Climate Commission, then set about decimating environmental and climate change legislation, policies, and programs while the rest of the world has been upping its response to evidence of human-induced global warming.

Yeah, I do tend to repeat and reinforce with the choice of themes I tackle with my fiction. It’s unbelievable to me that there are people willing to gamble on destroying everything we have. The argument that it may be the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself seems overwhelming some days. Surely as a species we’re smarter than this?

What are you currently working on?

I’m at the tail end of three months of agent-directed revisions to a novel I’ve been struggling with across the past eight years. Lotus Blue is a biopunk SF adventure set in a future climate-changed and war-ravaged Australia — approximately 500 years after the events in “Hot Rods” take place.

I’ve completed this book, submitted it to readers and my agent, pulled it apart, reimagined and reconstructed it more times than I’d care to remember — or admit to. Well over 300,000 words have gone into the bin. At one point an earlier version received an offer of publication, but I knocked it back because the book wasn’t good enough.

I’m also halfway through a PhD in young adult climate change fiction, examining the ways in which science fiction authors utilize scientific data in their narratives. This research infects and influences everything I write. I no longer believe in a non-climate changed future — as you’ve probably figured from my answers. The biggest, most terrifying issue of our time.

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: Ursula K. LeGuin

Liz Argall

In “The New Atlantis” there is a joy in mystery and murky mysterious lights in the darkness. Things that slither are sinuous and musical. The deep ocean sequences feel like a delightful inversion of H. P. Lovecraft’s fear of things unknown and mysterious. What is your relationship with the work of H. P. Lovecraft?

Early, rudimentary, and unenthusiastic.

You have commented that the Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching has influenced a lot of your work and I feel like the pull of yin and yang is strong in “The New Atlantis.” How consciously were you drawing upon this influence while working on this story?

Not consciously at all; but when a way of thinking, such as Taoism, has been settled deeply in a person for a long time, it tends to influence what they say and do.

“The New Atlantis” combines such different elements, how did it come about? Was it a lengthy process?

I wrote it a long time ago, so don’t trust my memory . . . but I don’t recall having problems with it once I realized that what I thought were two different stories was one story.

The “land” story was nearly complete; the “undersea” story was unfinished. When I saw they were separate parts of the same story, all I had to do was figure out how to combine them — where and how they should interlock with each other. And doing that enabled me to see how they both should end.

I find that, as someone who reads a lot of speculative fiction, my instinctive way of reading a story is often more literal and assumes everything is factual, while readers of realist fiction might interpret fantastical elements as metaphors or dreams. People from different reading cultures (I was going to say genres, but genres are diverse enough that they contain many decoder rings) are trained to collaborate with the text in different ways. As an author that crosses many divides and cultures, what has been the most interesting or unexpected way a reading culture has engaged with your text?

It’s a nice question, but I don’t have an answer. How children (under ten) read, understand, interpret fiction is sometimes surprising, but the common adult assumption that kids don’t know the difference between real and make-believe is naïve. I think kids often know it better than adults do.

Who is your favorite political activist?

I guess I don’t have one.

My favorite intellectual activist is Charles Darwin.

In your National Book Foundation Medal acceptance speech, you said we need writers who remember what it is like to be free. It reminded me of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and Rainbow of Desire projects, where it speaks to the police that have gone from outside ourselves to inside our heads. What do you think are the greatest challenges to writers’ freedom?

In this country, unchecked growth capitalism: the irresponsible control corporations and profiteers are allowed and encouraged to maintain over the culture as a whole. In many countries, including ours, the rise of religious fundamentalisms that repress expression, restrict thought, and disrespect humanity.

It’s a little bit depressing to see how long scientists and creators have been banging on about climate change. When you wrote this story in 1975, what did you think 2015 would be like? What do you think 2055 will be like?

The story itself answers the first question (sea-level rise is an all-purpose metaphor for the destruction we were so clearly wreaking on our habitat). As for the second question, what I think, at age eighty-five, about the year 2055 doesn’t matter. What matters is what we/you do about it.

Who are you reading right now?

Roz Chast, Can’t We Talk About Something Pleasant?

What needs destroying in fiction?

The belief that one should buy books from Amazon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Liz’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: Linda Nagata

Robyn Lupo

What was it that set this story off for you? What inspired you to take soldiers and put them in a Hell?

“The Way Home” only exists because John asked me to contribute a story to the anthology that became Operation Arcana. I think he was slightly concerned though. I’m mostly a science fiction writer, so he emphasized that this needed to be fantasy, not SF. “Sure, no problem!” But I didn’t want to do a story where magic was a normal part of the world or something available to the protagonists. So I went with the classic “portal world” situation, and this is just the setting that came to me.

What struck me on re-reading the story long after it was written is that, despite the fantastical setting, and despite John’s admonition, it feels like a science fiction story. What I mean by that is all the soldiers are regular people, with no magical ability or magical technology, who’ve been plunged into a situation they can’t explain and don’t understand — and they have to figure out the rules of this world to escape it. So it’s a problem-solving story, but also a psychological story of how people react under pressure.

You’ve written quite a bit about the military in an SF context; what keeps bringing you back to this sort of story?

I haven’t really written that much military fiction; it’s just what I’ve done recently. It started with my novel The Red: First Light, a near-future military thriller. I wrote a couple of short stories to support the novel, and then there were two sequels to finish the arc. (The Red: First Light is currently off the market, but will be republished in June by Saga Press/Simon & Schuster.) Anyway, what I find fascinating about military fiction is the confluence of so many of the themes that have always drawn me to fiction: honor, duty, action, physical challenges, moral questions, technology, and a means to examine real-world policies and politics.

Throughout the story, Whitebird talks about his command in terms of his ever-shifting triage of who leaves the desert when. What prompted this narrative choice?

As above, that fascination with honor and duty. Whitebird is very aware that this is his defining mission, he is being challenged to live up to his ideals and the responsibility of his command. The situation demands that he maintain control over his soldiers while making life and death decisions: Who gets to go home? And why? That’s a huge responsibility, but it’s a responsibility that any military commander might one day face. Whitebird struggles with the situation, and with himself, trying to get it right.

What’s next for Linda Nagata?

As I mentioned above, my novel The Red: First Light will be re-released in June by Saga Press/Simon & Schuster as The Red, with the sequel, The Trials to follow in August. If all goes according to plan, the third book will be out in the fall — so three novels in one year. That’s pretty exciting.

As I write this, I’m waiting for editorial notes on the third book. Turning in a finished draft of that is my priority, but I have in mind at least two pieces of short fiction I’d like to do this year, and I’ve started putting together ideas for my next novel. So sooner or later, there will be new fiction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robyn Lupo has been known to lurk around Southwestern Ontario, complaining about the weather. She helped destroy flash-sized science fiction in 2013 and hopes to wreck poetry for decent people everywhere soon.

Author Spotlight: Matthew Hughes

Sandra Odell

You carry over the characters and worldbuilding so well from story to story. What is the hardest part of maintaining such continuity when writing a series?

It isn’t really hard, because I’m working with a setting that is already familiar to me. The Kaslo Chronicles are part of a larger narrative, that of the technological civilization of the Ten Thousand Worlds on the eve of the cataclysmic event that will shatter it completely: the sudden transition from a universe based on cause and effect to one based on sympathetic association — i.e., from rationalism to magic. I’ve been writing elements of this megastory for more than twenty years now; the original idea occurred in my first novel, Fools Errant, which was written back in the 1980s and first published in 1994, and I picked it up again when I created Henghis Hapthorn in 2004.

Kaslo’s early conversation with Saunterance touches on questions of identity and worth, and perhaps even what it means to be alive. Elements of this can also be seen later when Saunterance disagrees with Obron’s decision. Self-awareness in constructs is a frequent theme in science fiction stories, yet here you ask the reader to consider the implications in a distinctly fantasy setting. What other themes or subjects do you encourage readers to consider while engaging with these stories?

The overarching story is that of Kaslo, an immensely competent man in his natural habitat, who has to learn how to cope with a sudden shift to a very dangerous environment in which his skills are not much use. By contrast, there’s also Obron, who was a bit of a ninny in the old universe but who is becoming a genuine power in the new. The theme there is that we are all creatures of our environments, and if we are plucked from them into something new and antithetical, we’ll find out just how adaptable we are. Or not.

The narrative voice for the story lends itself well to the worldbuilding, a new and fantastic reality framed by perceptions and longing for the old. How important is a distinct narrative voice to you in a story?

Very important. I doubt that people of the far distant future I’m imagining would speak like twenty-first century North Americans. So I give them a formal diction drawn from Edwardian English, with fair doses of irony. It’s appropriate to the story because the Edwardians saw their own civilization crash and become something unrecognizable as a consequence of World War I. I’ve written other stories in other styles, including hardboiled noir and what I think of as straightforward North American genre prose, if that’s what fits the mood of the tale I’m setting out to tell.

There’s a nod to the wry, adventurous, and sometimes hapless Henghis Hapthorn in the story. You recently mentioned being open to the possibility of another Hapthorn novel. Might Kaslo make an appearance if such a novel gets the green light?

Could be. I never know what’s going to happen in a story when I start writing. I get the thing going and wait to see what the guy in the back of my head (or, as my wife insists, my right brain) sends me.

You make no argument about your love of Jack Vance’s writing. How do you feel his works have influenced your own writing over the years?

Immensely. I was formed largely in the sixties, when anti-heroes were all the rage, and Vance was wonderful at anti-heroes. He has strongly influenced my dialogue, as anyone who reads us will recognize, but he was also a genius at minimalist description — only the necessary details, and nary a jot more — and I have always been attracted to that as well. Our themes are different; he tended to create tough-minded protagonists who drive themselves relentlessly through the plots, whereas my lead characters are more prone to self-doubt. That’s mainly because, like Kaslo or Hapthorn or Filidor the apprentice Archon in the Fool books, they find themselves having to deal with situations where they have to react counterintuitively to their normal ways of thinking.

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: Naomi Kritzer

Laurel Amberdine

I loved “The Good Son” so much! Such an amazing, bittersweet story. What inspired you to write it?

I wrote this story after the death of my mother-in-law.

My mother-in-law died in 2005 from complications of Type II diabetes. She was in her sixties, so not particularly old, but in the eighteen months before her death, she’d lost all kidney function and had to go on dialysis; she lost her sight; and she had a heart attack. In her last weeks, my husband went out to be with her and was sitting at her bedside when she died. It was emotionally very hard on him, and when he came home, he said, “Am I going to have to do that with you?” I said, “I was planning to outlive you,” and he said, “Okay, good.”

This started me thinking about how outliving your partner means experiencing their death, whenever it comes, and I wanted to write about that. So that was one piece of where the story came from.

The other piece: I was in a store one day and I heard a parent paged for a lost child, which somehow got me imagining a childless person who hears herself paged, and shows up, and there’s this kid there, insisting that he’s hers. What if, instead of swapping a fairy changeling for a human child, the fairy child just showed up and insisted that he’d been your child all along? I poked at that a little but I couldn’t quite get it to work as the light, humorous story I’d initially imagined.

I really enjoyed the effect of the structure you chose, interleaving the letter to Maggie with the tale as it unfolds, leaving us unsure how events are going to turn out. How did you settle on organizing the story like that?

The very earliest drafts of the story have that organization. I think that initial narration was really essential to how I was telling the story.

What was your process for planning and writing this story? Did it ever give you trouble?

I looked back at the early drafts, and there were a couple of things I had to iron out to make it work. In one early version, the mother had Alzheimer’s. But, for the narrative to work, I felt like I needed a more compressed timeline, with the illness happening over months, rather than years.

In the initial draft, the ring Doreen gives the narrator is just a ring, and the gift is symbolic of the fact that she’s accepted him as her son. My critique group wanted an explanation for why the narrator’s magic didn’t work on Doreen, and I realized that if the ring provided protection against fairy magic, then it has more weight as a gift, because handing it over is such an act of trust.

Any new projects you want to share?

I wrote a near-future SF novel, Liberty’s Daughter, about a teenage girl on a seastead. (Seasteads are real-ish: There really are people who are actually trying to build them. The idea is that if they build a man-made island, they can use it to found their own tiny country which they can then run on their pet political principles.) I haven’t been able to sell it as a novel, but I’ve been selling it an episode at a time to F&SF. There’s a story in the January issue, and there will be another story coming out from them this summer. I’m currently planning to self-publish the novel version this summer or fall.

I have two more short stories I’ve written recently that are on similar themes to “The Good Son.” When my husband and I first started dealing with caregiving issues, it seemed like we were the only ones among our friends who were facing this, but everyone else is catching up now, which has me thinking about the issues again. I have a story I just started sending around that’s about cleaning out your parents’ house, which is an experience more and more of my friends have had to get through. And I have a story about caregiving for someone with severe dementia, which I haven’t been able to sell yet because I framed it as a zombie story — so I’ve gotten all these rejections saying, “Wow, this was great, but I’m sorry, I can’t buy a zombie story.” (I am confident I’ll sell it eventually to someone who will agree with me that it is completely different from the other zombie stories out there.)

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: Vajra Chandrasekera

Sandra Odell

“Documentary” is vivid and intense. What was the inspiration behind the story?

This story was of course inspired by the events of May 2009 and the controversial 2011 documentary concerning those events. I prefer not to speak of those things directly, which is why this story is the way it is; it’s all avoidance and misdirection and looking away; a finger pointing at the moon. Part of this is that I don’t know how to think about these things outside fiction. History isn’t fixed; there’s no such thing as “what really happened.” There is only the science fictional project of writing and rewriting history, forever.

You have managed to make an important statement about cultural differences and the media. What are your thoughts on the importance of how fiction relates to real world events?

The problem is that the dichotomy is false; “real world events” are themselves fictions. I don’t mean that in either the solipsist or conspiracy-theorist senses; I just mean that the true reality of events is always too big to be known and ends up getting folded into simplified cartoon narratives. I do think it’s good for writers to try and complicate that when they can. Writers, unlike gen pop, have the advantage of already knowing themselves to be liars.

You approach many of your stories with an eye towards reaching beyond the limits of Western views, and this only helps to enrich the reading experience. What advice do you have for writers hoping to do the same?

I don’t construct it that way. I don’t think in terms of what’s Western or not-Western (or neither Western nor not-Western) at all. Rather than seeing the self as a unitary, frictionless object that can be inside or outside any particular box, I feel it’s more useful for a writer to just get neck-deep in their own innards and have a good rummage about. The idea being, I suppose, that it’s people that contain the categories, rather than the other way around.

This isn’t advice, though. I don’t have any actual advice. I don’t think I’ve been around long enough to be giving other writers advice; I should wait until my beard is mostly grey before I risk inventing any aphorisms. Besides, writing advice is almost always fancy-sounding bullshit, yes? Like what I just said in the earlier paragraph. Sturgeon’s revelation holds.

The only writing advice that I’ve ever cared for is just “read more,” which I do think is good advice that works in nearly all contexts, including this one: The easiest way to break out of any box is just to read widely.

“Documentary” also addresses issues of women in the military, the toll of PTSD on the family, and the learned ignorance to the casualties of war. While military science fiction is making a slow comeback, many writers consider such subjects verboten. What subjects, if any, do you consider off limits in your writing?

I love the idea that “Documentary” could be considered military science fiction! Hadn’t occurred to me. I’m terrible at knowing what genres I’m wandering into on any given day. My reading of it is probably a little too uneven for me to opine on what it’s doing or not doing lately, though.

As for limits, I don’t think I consider anything off limits as such, though as I said there are some subjects I prefer to be obscure about. But then I suppose I also don’t plan my stories very much, but for the most part discover the subjects and themes during the writing itself. One can get away with this sort of irresponsible behaviour in short fiction.

Your stories have appeared far and wide, from Lightspeed to Clarkesworld to Betwixt. What is it about short stories in particular that appeals to you?

I find writing short fiction intrinsically enjoyable, even exhilarating. Or to put it another way, I’m mildly addicted to the heady buzz from a completed arc. And as I said in the previous question, there’s a great freedom in the short story.

It also has to do, I think, with me reading a lot of old SF anthologies and collections as a kid and imprinting really hard on this romantic notion of the SF magazine tradition. It was a shiny desirable alien universe, very far away, completely untouchable. I never actually thought I could be a part of it in a small way, even if twenty-five years later. Sure, a lot of things have changed, but there’s also a lot of continuity. It’s quite surreal. I feel like I tripped over a portal back in ’12 and am having strange adventures in a secondary world. Exacerbating this, the whole short fiction scene is actually set up like a quest! Every magazine is a new adventure.

What’s next for Vajra Chandrasekera? When can eager readers expect the next story?

I have a new story, “Rhizomatic Diplomacy,” coming out soon in the anthology An Alphabet of Embers. I’m also experimentally trying out some slightly longer work  — a novella, perhaps — though that will probably take a little longer to complete itself to my satisfaction! (I’ve already written and thrown away several novellas.) In the meantime, I mean to keep writing new short stories, and I maintain an up-to-date bibliography here: vajra.me/publications.

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: Vylar Kaftan

Robyn Lupo

How did this story start for you? What drew you to the Inca and this version of our world?

I’ve always loved historical epidemiology. In high school, I competed at National History Day with a paper on pandemics in the Americas. So I’ve known for a long time about the tragedy.

Specifically for this story, I happened to be reading about the Balmis Expedition, (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balmis_Expedition) and how the smallpox vaccine was brought over inside orphans (who apparently make great petri dishes). I started to build a story around the method they used. I still remember the moment where I was at a gas station on the way to San Diego, getting back in the car, and suddenly saying, “Oh God. In America, they’d use slaves.” And suddenly it became a very different (and much better) story.

As for why the Inca — well, Pizarro’s invasion makes a perfect divergence for an alternate history. Really, Pizarro should have been crushed like a bug under a shoe. He won because local leaders used the chaos to rebel against Atahualpa. Pizarro essentially capitalized on an ongoing civil war. Not to mention — it’s so easy to imagine things differently with just a little more smallpox resistance. Different people would have become local leaders; different people would have been present to support Atahualpa. And in a small village somewhere, a medical genius might have discovered the effects of quarantine and sanitation . . .

What’s different in the process of writing something alt history as opposed to something like “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno”? Were there any surprising similarities?

They were pretty darn different. “Reno” was more like a meditation around a theme. “Reno” shows the connections between physics and beauty; science and love. I explored the themes as I drafted it.

“The Weight of the Sunrise” was planned out, index card by index card, sorted into sections and color-coded. It fit neatly into a small box for cards, and from the side my card-stack was all colorful and perfectly striped. I may have an office supply purchasing problem. Mmm, office supplies.

What led you to tie the understanding of how the vaccine worked into the power relations in Incan culture? Power and control as themes have figured into your work before. What makes these themes compelling to you?

(a) On some level, power underlies almost every human interaction. Control is about who exercises that power. The shift towards empowerment is one of the greatest human stories we know. My passion for that story runs deep.

(b) Because power is awesome!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robyn Lupo has been known to lurk around Southwestern Ontario, complaining about the weather. She helped destroy flash-sized science fiction in 2013 and hopes to wreck poetry for decent people everywhere soon.

In the Next Issue of

Coming up in April, in Lightspeed . . .

We have original science fiction by Kat Howard (“The Universe, Sung in Stars”) and Jason Gurley (“Quiet Town”), along with SF reprints by Carolyn Ives Gilman (“The Invisible Hand Rolls the Dice”) and John Barnes (“The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees”).

Plus, we have original fantasy by Joseph Allen Hill (“We’ll Be Together Forever”) and Dale Bailey (“The Ministry of the Eye”), and fantasy reprints by Sonya Taaffe (“A Wolf in Iceland is the Child of a Lie”) and Ken Liu (“The Ussuri Bear”).

For our ebook readers, we also have a novella reprint from Kate Elliott (“On the Dying Winds of the Old Year and the Birthing Winds of the New”) 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 stories coming your way by C.C. Finlay, Seanan McGuire, Sean Williams, Helena Bell, Andrea Hairston, and many, many more.

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!

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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).

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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.