TABLE OF CONTENTS

Issue 94, March 2018

FROM THE EDITOR

Editorial: March 2018

Launching Our Patreon and Drip, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard

SCIENCE FICTION

The Independence Patch
Bryan Camp

Brightened Star, Ascending Dawn
A. Merc Rustad

Cosmic Spring
Ken Liu

The Effluent Engine
N.K. Jemisin

FANTASY

The Dreamers of Alamoi
Jeremiah Tolbert

Al-Kahf (الكهف)
Beesan Odeh

And Men Will Mine the Mountain for Our Souls
Seanan McGuire

You Do Nothing But Freefall
Cassandra Khaw and A. Maus

NOVELLA

The Proving Ground
Alec Nevala-Lee

EXCERPTS

Tessa Gratton | The Queens of Innis Lear
Tessa Gratton

NONFICTION

Media Review: March 2018
Joseph Allen Hill and Carrie Vaughn

Book Reviews: March 2018
Arley Sorg

Interview: Na'amen Gobert Tilahun
Christian A. Coleman

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS

Bryan Camp

Beesan Odeh

Ken Liu

Cassandra Khaw and A. Maus

MISCELLANY

Coming Attractions

Stay Connected

Subscriptions and Ebooks

About the Lightspeed Team

Also Edited by John Joseph Adams

© 2018 Lightspeed Magazine

Cover by Reiko Murakami

www.lightspeedmagazine.com

Editorial: March 2018

John Joseph Adams | 1618 words

Welcome to issue ninety-four of Lightspeed!

Our cover art this month comes from Reiko Murakami, illustrating an original science fiction short by Bryan Camp (“The Independence Patch”). We also have fresh new work from Ken Liu (“Cosmic Spring”), along with SF reprints by A. Merc Rustad (“Brightened Star, Ascending Dawn”) and N.K. Jemisin (“The Effluent Engine”).

Plus, we have original fantasy by Beesan Odeh (“Al-Kahf”) and Cassandra Khaw and A. Maus (“You Do Nothing But Freefall”), and fantasy reprints by Jeremiah Tolbert (“The Dreamers of Alamoi”) and Seanan McGuire (“And Men Will Mine the Mountain for Our Souls”).

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with our book and media review columns. We’ll also be interviewing Na’amen Golbert Tilahun.

For our ebook readers, we also have our usual ebook-exclusive novella reprint (“The Proving Ground,” by Alec Nevala-Lee) and an excerpt from Tessa Gratton’s debut fantasy novel, The Queens of Innis Lear.

John Joseph Adams Books News for March 2018

ICYMI last month, I have one recent acquisition to report:

New York Times bestseller and multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winner Greg Bear’s The Unfinished Land, about a time of great peril—the sailing of the Spanish Armada—when a young man is transported in a wrecked fishing boat to a lost island at the top of the world, to be caught up in a war that pits gods against monsters and humans against the slavery of history. (2019)

And in other exciting news: Carrie Vaughn’s Bannerless was named a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award! The winner and any special citations will be announced on Friday, March 30, 2018 at Norwescon 41 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Seattle Airport, SeaTac WA. To learn more about the award, and see the full list of this year’s finalists, visit philipkdickaward.org.

News aside, here’s a quick rundown what to expect from John Joseph Adams Books in 2018:

In April, we have Bryan Camp’s The City of Lost Fortunes, about a magician with a talent for finding lost things who is forced into playing a high stakes game with the gods of New Orleans for the heart and soul of the city. Here’s some early buzz for the book:

“Camp’s fantasy reads like jazz, with multiple chaotic-seeming threads of deities, mortals, and destiny playing in harmony. This game of souls and fate is full of snarky dialogue, taut suspense, and characters whose glitter hides sharp fangs. [. . .] Any reader who likes fantasy with a dash of the bizarre will enjoy this trip to the Crescent City.” —Publishers Weekly

“Take a walk down wild card shark streets into a world of gods, lost souls, murder, and deep, dark magic. You might not come back from The City of Lost Fortunes, but you’ll enjoy the trip.” —Richard Kadrey, bestselling author of the Sandman Slim series

“In The City of Lost Fortunes, Bryan Camp delivers a high-octane tale of myth and magic, serving up the best of Neil Gaiman and Richard Kadrey. Here is New Orleans in all its gritty, grudging glory, the haunt of sinners and saints, gods and mischief-makers. Once you pay a visit, you won’t want to leave!” —Helen Marshall, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Gifts for the One Who Comes After

“Bryan Camp’s debut novel The City of Lost Fortunes is like a blessed stay in a city both distinctly familiar and wonderfully strange, with an old friend who knows just the right spots to take you to–not too touristy, and imbued with the weight of history and myth, populated by local characters you’ll never forget. You’ll leave sated with the sights and sounds of a New Orleans that is not quite the real city, but breathes like the real thing, a beautiful mimicry in prose that becomes its own version of reality in a way only a good story—or magic—can. You won’t regret the visit.” —Indra Das, author of The Devourers

“With sharp prose and serious literary chops, Bryan Camp delivers a masterful work of contemporary fantasy in The City of Lost Fortunes. It reads like the New Orleans-born love child of Raymond Chandler and Neil Gaiman, featuring a roguish hero you can’t help but root for. It’s funny, harrowing, thrilling—the pages keep turning. The City of Lost Fortunes establishes Bryan Camp as the best and brightest new voice on fantasy literature’s top shelf.” —Nicholas Mainieri, author of The Infinite

“Anyone who loves New Orleans will love this mystical adventure where gods, magicians, vampires, zombies, angels, and ghouls clash in the only city where a story like this is actually possible. The City of Fortunes expertly blends the real and the surreal, capturing the essence of New Orleans in such a unique way. In this city, just as in this story, the line between fact and fiction blurs, and your imagination is set free.” —Candice Huber, Tubby and Coo’s Bookstore (New Orleans, LA)

“Myth and archetype combine with the gritty realism of modern post-Katrina New Orleans in this fast-paced novel. Throughout the twists and turns of a clever, compelling plot, the soul of the city and strength of its survivors shine through. As a southern Louisiana resident, Bryan Camp saw firsthand the devastation and impact on people’s lives caused by Katrina, and the emotion of that experience fuels the power of the story and its unique, well-crafted characters. If you like the work of Neil Gaiman and Roger Zelazny, you’ll enjoy this book. A fun, engaging read. Highly recommended.” —Les Howle, director of the Clarion West Writers Workshop

In June, we have Todd McAulty’s The Robots of Gotham, a debut novel about a future where the world is on the brink of total subjugation by machine intelligences when a man stumbles on a sinister conspiracy to exterminate humanity and a group of human and machine misfits who might just be able to prevent it. Here’s what some early readers are saying about this one:

“When the robot apocalypse comes, I hope it’s this much fun. Like The Martian and Ready Player One, Robots of Gotham is set in a high-tech near-future where something has gone terribly wrong, and it’s navigated by a hero who’s quirky, resourceful, and as likable as they come. Read it for the rock’em-sock’em-robot action—read it for the deft world-building with its detailed taxonomy of intelligent machines—read it for the sobering parallels to modern-day issues and threats. Or just read it because it’s a helluva good ride.” —Sharon Shinn, author of the Elemental Blessings series

“The Robots of Gotham is a crackling good adventure, stuffed with cool action sequences. It also features serious and intriguing speculation about the potential of Artificial Intelligence, for good and bad. And it’s an engaging read, with absorbing characters, and, of course, lots and lots of nifty robots.” —Rich Horton, editor of The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

“Todd McAulty has imagined a fascinating geopolitical future, filled it with some very cool technology, and thrown in healthy helpings of intrigue and action. The result is a page-turner that kept me riveted from the opening lines to the final chapter. Highly recommended!” —David B. Coe, author of The Case Files of Justis Fearsson

“If Johnny 5 had a baby with the Terminator, the result would be Robots of Gotham: a book that explores the consequences of world domination by our Robot Overlords. (And, lest we forget the badassiest of them, our Robot Overladies.) Drones, dinosaurs, and doggies—with a plague thrown in for good measure!—the barter is banter, and death is cheap. With man against machine, machine against machine, man against man, unlikely alliances must be forged across all species, rational or otherwise. For all its breakneck world-building, constant questing, and relentless wheeling and dealing, Robots of Gotham is deceptively deep-hearted: a novel about, of all things, friendship.” —C.S.E. Cooney, author of World Fantasy Award-winning Bone Swans: Stories

“Soldiers, spies, diplomats—and that’s just the machines. Wait until you meet the wise-cracking hero and his dog. Wildly inventive, outrageous fun.” —Kay Kenyon, author of At the Table of Wolves and Serpent in the Heather

“Adventure, mystery, action, sinister intrigue, clever heroics, and robots—what more do you need? I couldn’t put it down.” —Howard Andrew Jones, author of The Desert of Souls

Further out in 2018, we’ll have The Wild Dead—Carrie Vaughn’s sequel to Bannerless—in July; Dale Bailey’s In the Night Wood in October; and then Molly Tanzer’s Creatures of Want and Ruin in November. We’ll provide more details about those as the publication dates draw nearer, but as always if you want more information about these or any other John Joseph Adams Books titles, just visit johnjosephadamsbooks.com.

That’s all the JJA Books news for now. More soon!

• • • •

Well, that’s all there is to report this month. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the issue!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Joseph Adams, in addition to serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of Lightspeed, is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, the SF/Fantasy imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, as well as the USA Today bestselling editor of many other anthologies, including The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Robot Uprisings, Dead Man’s Hand, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. Recent projects include: Cosmic Powers, What the #@&% Is That?, Operation Arcana, Loosed Upon the World, 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 two-time winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been a finalist eleven times) and is a seven-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.

Launching Our Patreon and Drip, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard

John Joseph Adams | 640 words

If you’re reading this, then there’s a good chance you’re a regular reader of Lightspeed and/or Nightmare. We already offer ebook subscriptions as a way of supporting the magazines, but we wanted to add an additional option to allow folks to support us, thus we’re launching a Patreon (patreon.com/JohnJosephAdams) and a Drip (d.rip/john-joseph-adams).

TL;DR Version

If you enjoy Lightspeed and Nightmare and my anthologies, our Patreon and Drip pages will be a way for you to help support those endeavors by chipping in a buck or more on a recurring basis. Your support will help us bring bigger and better (and more) projects into the world.

Why Patreon and Drip?

There are no big companies supporting or funding the magazines, so the magazines really rely on reader support. Though we offer the magazines online for free, we’re able to fund them by selling ebook subscriptions or website advertising.

While we have a dedicated ebook subscriber base, the vast majority of our readers consume the magazine online for free. If just 10% of our website readers pledged just $1 a month, the magazines would be doing fantastically well. So we thought it might be useful to have an option like Drip and Patreon for readers who maybe haven’t considered supporting the magazine, or who maybe haven’t because they don’t have any desire to receive the ebook editions—or who would be glad to pay $1 a month, but not $3 (the cost of a monthly subscriber issue of Lightspeed).

Though Lightspeed and Nightmare are separate entities, we decided to create a single “publisher” Drip and Patreon account because it seemed like it would be more efficient to manage just one page on each platform. Plus, since I sometimes independently publish works using indie-publishing tools (as described above), we thought it would be good to have a single place where folks could come to show their support for such projects.

But basically, we wanted to create a crowdfunding page where, if you enjoy my work as an editor, and you want to contribute a little something to help make it easier for us to produce more cool projects, then our Drip or Patreon will be the place to do that.

What Do I Get Out of Being a Backer or Patron?

Well, you get the satisfaction of helping to usher the creation of cool new short fiction projects into the world! Plus, the more support we get, the better we can make the magazines and compensate our authors and staff. By becoming a supporter via Patreon or Drip, you help fund our growth and continued publication of two award-winning magazines. Of course, if you’re already one of our ebook subscribers (thank you!), you are already supporting us. This is for those who prefer to read the issues each month on our free websites, or wish to support our efforts more generally.

By becoming a supporter, you are also bestowed a title, such as Dragonrider, or Space Wizard, or Savior of the World and/or Universe, thus making you instantly the envy of all your friends.

Thank You!

If you’ve read this far, thanks so much. We hope you’ll consider becoming a backer on Patreon or Drip. Those URLs again are d.rip/john-joseph-adams and patreon.com/JohnJosephAdams.

Thanks in advance for your time. We look forward to hopefully being able to make the magazines—and my other publishing endeavors—even better with the support of people like you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Joseph Adams, in addition to serving as publisher and editor-in-chief of Lightspeed, is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, the SF/Fantasy imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is also the series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, as well as the USA Today bestselling editor of many other anthologies, including The Mad Scientist’s Guide to World Domination, Robot Uprisings, Dead Man’s Hand, Armored, Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. Recent projects include: Cosmic Powers, What the #@&% Is That?, Operation Arcana, Loosed Upon the World, 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 two-time winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been a finalist eleven times) and is a seven-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.

The Independence Patch

Bryan Camp | 7480 words

It is exam week, and Donny is 14 years 10 months 15 days 10 hours 16 minutes old. He is bored and hungry and his scalp itches and he hates school more than he’s ever hated anything before in his life. He hates exams in particular, and he hates his math exam most of all.

54 minutes and 20 seconds are left before he can leave, before he can take the damned dunce cap off and be himself again. Seniors are allowed to leave as soon as they finish the test, but juniors have to wait out the whole allotted time, which is as stupid as it is unfair. Even though he spent more time pretending to erase mistakes he hadn’t made and retracing his way through equations he got right the first time than actually taking the test, even though he literally does this stuff in his sleep and he’ll never have to use this in life, like, ever, he’s got to keep up appearances and sit in this uncomfortable desk in this stifling hot room, ravenous and dunce capped and bored like a prisoner in a hell right out of Kafka.

He’s got a book open on the desk, but it’s almost impossible to concentrate—even as great as Vonnegut is—with half the icons in the corner of his vision glaring red. It’s like Mrs. Leymon took a red pen to Cat’s Cradle. Which she totally would, because she’s as much a fascist as Mr. Kripke, his hateful math teacher. Why, Donny thinks, would you even become a teacher if you’re obviously such an inveterate misanthrope?

An ache begins to twist behind his eyeballs. Donny flips the book shut and presses the heels of his hands against his temples. If he doesn’t get out of here soon he’ll work himself into a full-on migraine. Already the smell of the room is starting to become intense, nauseatingly so. Amazingly, Tricky Kripke lets him go to the bathroom.

Stepping into the men’s room is like storm clouds rolling overhead, sudden shade and a drop in temperature. As soon as Donny has the privacy of the nearest stall, he pulls the dunce cap off. Before the wire mesh woven into the knit Saints hat is completely off his head, wifi and cell connections are back, and the images in the corner of his vision flicker from red to green and then vanish. Donny’s tried to explain to his parents and his friends the feeling of relief that comes with removing the d-cap and can’t. It’s like turning off speakers that have been making a high-pitched whine in your ears, or stretching after you’ve been cramped in a car for hours, except it’s not really like either of those things. It’s more like being able to remember something you know you’ve forgotten but can’t quite put your finger on, except multiplied by a few hundred, but that ignores the almost painful physical sensation that goes along with the d-cap.

It’s especially pointless for him to have to wear this thing at all during a math exam. It’s not like his math notes and his calculator app aren’t already stored in his head. It’s not like he couldn’t record the whole exam and post it later, if that’s what he was going to do. No, it’s just discrimination. It’s just acoustics worried that the Andy freak is going to cheat and get better grades than them and get into better schools than them. Like he’s going to spend one second in school longer than he’s got to. In 3 years 1 month 13 days 12 hours and 45 minutes, Donny will be able to download the Independence patch from the government server and make his own decisions about his own destiny.

Screw it. Donny takes his other Saints cap out of his back pocket, the one without the Faraday cage sewn into its lining, and pulls it onto his sweat-damp hair. He checks his messages, and of course there aren’t any, since anyone who would send him anything is currently taking one exam or another, and then pushes everything out of his field of vision. His teachers have gotten good at noticing the little eye-flicks that show when he’s paying attention to something other than their stupid classwork. No sense pissing off Tricky Kripke.

Back in the classroom, Donny gets a few more pages into Cat’s Cradle before he gives in and swings his icons back into his field of vision. Kripke won’t notice the difference between reading his book and checking a few blogs. Doctorow’s got a new article up on The Guardian site. There’s a teaser trailer for the latest Abrams movie. Branched is going crazy because some actor he’s never heard of just died. There are about a dozen news alerts that are neither news, nor alerting. The whole time he’s flicking through the minutia of online life, a flashing blue icon demands his attention.

He opens it up, and has to stifle a laugh. It’s a Bluetooth connection. An open Bluetooth connection. He follows it and sneaks it with ReBound, wondering who would be stupid enough not to set a password, and the sweat along his scalp is suddenly cold. It’s Kripke’s phone.

Mr. Kripke would have locked this down if there was anything on here, Donny thinks, even as he displays the contents and proves himself wrong. School email, personal email, bank account app, social accounts, cloud storage. Thirty seconds open like this could ruin this guy’s month, Donny thinks. Thirty minutes could ruin his life. Donny knows a bunch of people on campus have ReBound on their phones, and a couple of them are real douchebags. It was fun when the app first came out, stealing connections to wireless keyboards in coffee shops or headphones at the gym, but after about a month, even adults got wise and started password protecting their all their outgoing wifi and Bluetooth connections.

Everyone except for inept high school math teachers, apparently.

Donny considers just leaving it alone, or turning off Kripke’s Bluetooth, but what happens if his phone is still open next week, after one of the aforementioned douchebags gets the email that says he just failed his math exam? Tricky Kripke sucks at life, but he doesn’t deserve to get bent like that. Donny opens up Kripke’s school email and addresses it to itself, so it’ll be anonymous. The message is brief, just a link to an article about the ReBound app and security issues, and the text: Secure your connections, from Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman. He needs something else, though, something that proves he was actually in the phone and not just his email. Donny flips through his options, opens MemoryCrate, and there it is. The exam he just took along with the key. He attaches the file and sends it. He closes everything down and turns off Kripke’s Bluetooth.

Achievement Unlocked: Good Samaritan, Donny thinks. I just wish I could see his face when he—

A new email notification blinks into view, from ekripke@noaascs.edu. Donny looks, but the teacher is still pacing up and down the aisles, his phone still in his pocket or his bag or wherever he keeps it. Donny’s lips go numb and his head suddenly feels too heavy for his neck. He opens the email, but already knows what happened. Sure enough, it got sent to Krikpe’s directory, not just the teacher. The whole damned school.

Who’s bent now? he thinks.

• • • •

It is lunchtime, and Donny is 4 years 6 months 9 days 4 hours and 11 minutes old. He is walking with his parents through the mall. He can read now, and is showing off his new skill on signs, t-shirts, advertisements, anything he can see and sound out. “Two dollars off any large smoothie,” he says. “You are here. New Orleans Saints. Upgrade your life today. Life’s a bitch.”

He clasps a hand to his mouth when he realizes what was written on the man’s shirt, what it just made him say. “Bitch” is one of Dad’s words that he’s not allowed to use until he’s older. He turns, slowly, but Dad is laughing, Mom is smiling and shaking her head. Donny laughs, too, though he’s not sure what makes this time funny, but saying it about his Aunt Lisa got him a time out.

Donny goes away for a while, trying to puzzle out the difference. He’s partly aware of telling his mom what he wants to eat (a hamburger without onions, onions are gross), or telling his dad that he doesn’t have to go to the bathroom, but really he’s in the big, quiet place in his thoughts where he goes to figure things out. They explained to him that it was embarrassing for them and for Aunt Lisa when he said that word. But why weren’t they embarrassed when he said it in front of a bunch of strangers? He thinks about it for almost an hour.

Donny comes back when he decides that “bitch” must be a mean word when you use it about someone, but funny any other time. When he pays attention to what’s happening, he’s in a store, and his mom is pushing his foot into a stiff, all-black uniform shoe. He starts school next month and one of the rules for this school is that everybody has to wear the same shoes and the same clothes. His mom couldn’t explain the rules, said he just had to live with them. She is moving his foot and ankle into the shoe like he’s a toy, like she knows he went away to figure something out. He is about to tell her that he’s figured the word out when he hears laughing.

He looks up from where his mom is struggling with his shoe and sees a group of older boys. They are pointing at him and laughing. One of them is moving in abrupt jerks, like his joints are stiff, like he is made of plastic, like he is a cheap toy robot. His mom sees him watching the boys, turns to see what they are doing. When she sees them, she says a few of Dad’s words all at once. Then she says them louder. The boys run off, one still pretending to be a robot. His mom is crying.

Donny goes away again. He knows he is different. Sometimes he sees numbers that aren’t really there. Sometimes he hears people talking in strange languages, or saying things he doesn’t understand. Sometimes it’s just noise. He has had salt-and-pepper gray in his hair since he was born, but of course the gray hairs aren’t really hairs. He goes away to think about things, and he goes away so he doesn’t have to hear his mom crying.

When he comes back, he is at home in his bed. He is 4 years 6 months 10 days 8 hours and 7 minutes old. Things seem different to him, like at Christmas when he recognized his mom’s handwriting on a present from Santa and knew, all in one strange instant, the truth. He decides that, if his mom asks, he will say he was away thinking about the word bitch the whole time. “These uniform shoes hurt like a bitch,” he will say, to show her that he understands.

• • • •

It is ice cold outside the assistant principal’s office, and Donny is 14 years 10 months 15 days 13 hours 12 minutes old. He can hear Mr. Garner and Mr. Kripke talking through the door. Yelling, really. The words “email,” and “expulsion,” and Donny’s full name are what Donny hears most. The dunce cap is back on, and he’s sitting on his hands to keep from pulling it off involuntarily.

Red is smeared all over his peripheral vision, and he feels like his insides are all scooped out, sacrificed in the effort to keep his emotions (anger at himself, anger at authority, fear of what will happen when he’s called inside, anger at his fear, frustration at the whole damned mess) from spilling from his eyes.

He can’t decide if it will be worse if his mom or his dad shows up, and then he hears his mom’s voice, which sounds as angry and as frustrated as he feels, and realizes, yeah, it will definitely be worse if she’s here. He can’t hear what she’s saying until she turns the corner from the front office, and by then it’s him she’s talking to. Yelling, really.

“Why didn’t you answer me?” she asks, still twenty feet away. Why does she do that? If she’s going to scold him, can’t she wait until no one else can hear? Of course she’s been sending him texts since they called her, probably leaving voicemails, too. If Donny doesn’t answer one of her messages right away, she carpet-bombs him. Standard operating mom procedure. As she gets closer, Donny’s fleeting hope that she might be on his side vanishes. Her nostrils are flaring the way they only do when she’s super pissed. Awesome.

“Well,” she asks, “what have you got to say for yourself?” She’s glaring down at him, but before Donny can answer, her face shifts all around. Her eyes open wider, and her tense facial muscles relax. Donny tries to see if there’s a match for it in the FBI interrogation handbook, forgetting about the d-cap until another red icon pops up to tell him he doesn’t have access to that file at the moment. “Donny, honey, what’s wrong?”

“No good deed goes unpunished,” Donny says. Or he tries to, but the words come out slurred.

His mom looks up at the dunce cap, and then her face is furious again. She yanks it from his head, and despite the pinpricks of some of his hair coming away with it, the relief is intense. In spite of his best efforts, his eyes betray him and tear up. Donny’s mother takes his face in her hands and forces him to look into her eyes.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “Is it Hiro-bad?”

“No,” Donny says, and he’s not just being brave or anything. It’s nowhere near Hiro-bad. He’s definitely on the way to a major migraine, though. He closes his eyes so his alerts will stop pinging him. “I’m fine, really. It’s just going to be a bad headache tonight.”

“Bastards,” his mom mutters, just as the door opens.

“Who are you—Ah, Mrs. Collodi,” Mr. Garner says, first in Donny’s direction and then at his mother. “Thank you for coming in. Obviously, I wish it were under other circumstances.”

“Don’t we all,” she says, taking his offered hand and smiling without showing her teeth. When the disciplinarian ushers her into his office, she gestures for Donny to follow her. Garner leans onto his desk and presses his fingertips together, waiting for them to settle into the thick leather chairs before he begins talking, but just barely.

“Mrs. Collodi,” Mr. Garner says, “I’m not sure what you were told on the phone, but we’ve called you in today because of a very serious breach of school policy.”

Donny’s mother tosses the dunce cap onto Garner’s desk, turned inside out so that the copper mesh of the Faraday cage is clearly visible. “Is this part of the school policy you’d like to discuss? Because I’d love to talk about that.”

Garner and Kripke exchange a glance, too quick for Donny to read. The math teacher starts to say something, but Garner holds up a finger to silence him. “Actually, yes, Mrs. Collodi, use of disconnect capable headwear during all exams is school policy according to ANDREA laws, which I’m sure you’re familiar with.” Donny doesn’t need to see his mom’s face to know that she rolls her eyes when Garner says ANDREA. She hates that bitch, as she often likes to say.

“Not that your son actually wore it,” Kripke says, producing Donny’s Saints cap from wherever he’d been hiding it and dropping it onto the desk next to the dunce cap. “He brought a fake.” Kripke doesn’t actually say, “Boom,” but Donny can sense the implication. He actually seems surprised when his argumentative pimp-slap is ignored.

“Are you telling me that this is not the first time you’ve put that thing on my son’s head?”

Great, Donny thinks. This gets better and better. Now his parents get to find out that he’s been screening school emails for the last two years. They’ll never understand, his mother especially, why he would rather endure the petty degradations and minor tortures of being someone like him in a school taught by, and for, acoustics. They’ll never get why the last thing in the world he wants is his privacy rights activist/social justice hacker mommy swooping in and demanding her precious robot baby be treated like the delicate jewel that he is.

He contemplates, briefly, just screaming “Fire!” and bolting from the room. Wouldn’t make it far. Mom’s got the findme app on her phone. The conversation cycles for a minute or two, Garner sticking to his “school policy” guns and his mom hammering him for specifics, when Kripke blurts out that it “was never a problem for any of his other Andy students.” Ohhhh shit, Donny thinks. ANDREA was bad enough. Tricky Kripke just dropped the a-bomb.

Donny’s mom swivels in her chair, locking eyes with his math teacher. “That,” she says, the word a sentence on its own. “That right there is the whole problem here.”

Kripke takes a breath, his frustration written all over his face. “Your son is the—”

“Andy is short for android, Mr. Kripke. My son, whatever you were about to finish saying, is not an android. Do you know why?” Both the math teacher and the disciplinarian begin to respond, but his mother doesn’t really want an answer. “Because they don’t exist. Androids are entirely synthetic. Robots with robot brains. My son is a human being, a person, with technology integrated into his brain. He’s technically a cyborg, but that sounds ridiculous to say out loud, doesn’t it?”

She turns back to Garner, and Donny can see that she’s smiling without showing her teeth again. “Which is why,” she continues, “I take such issue with ANDREA. It’s an education law which impacts my son and calls him an android at the same time. Which is also a bit ridiculous, wouldn’t you say?”

There’s a good ten seconds of awkward silence, which sounds sweeter to Donny than the first brass band at Mardi Gras.

Then Kripke ruins it. “I apologize,” he says, “for using that term, Mrs. Collodi. I had no idea it was such a trigger.” His voice, though still tinged with anger, is also quieter. Maybe the apology is sincere? “But it doesn’t change what happened during my exam. Not in the slightest.” Maybe not. “Your son disobeyed school policy, not only with his deception,” he says, pointing at the dunce cap on the desk, “but also by violating faculty email and potentially cheating on his midterm exam. Any one of these infractions comes with serious consequences.”

Great, Donny wants to say, expel me and get it over with. I can finish my coursework by summer and escape this place a year early. He says nothing, though, because he knows that it won’t matter. It doesn’t matter how tall he gets, or what grades he makes, or how strongly and eloquently he argues his point. Until he installs the Independence patch onto his firmware, what he thinks and wants and believes will always be secondary to everyone around him. 3 years 1 month 13 days 9 hours and 9 minutes.

As though reading his mind, Garner says, “Before we get into that, let’s give Mr. Collodi a chance to explain. Donny, how’s about you tell us your side of things?”

Donny’s head is starting to pound from the time in the dunce cap, so the words pour out of him with little restraint. “It’s not like Kr—like Mr. Kripke is saying. I didn’t cheat. And I had the d-cap on during the whole exam. At least, the whole time I was taking it.”

Kripke lets out a little cough of a laugh, and then all the adults are talking at once. His mother demands to know what Kripke finds funny, and Garner says “Edgar!” like he’s a dog who just pissed the floor, and the math teacher says, “Didn’t I tell you he’d deny it?” Maybe it’s because Donny can see it’s all about to turn ugly, in a “my word against his” argument that goes around and around and gets nowhere, or maybe it’s because he was already thinking about it, at least tangentially, or maybe it’s some logic crunching subroutine in an integrated part of his brain that’s been working on the problem subconsciously, but suddenly the answer flashes in Donny’s head and comes out of his mouth at once.

“I can prove it,” he says.

Everyone turns to look at him, surprised, even his mother, who is as knowledgeable about his brain as she is ignorant of his mind, and so Donny breaks the silence that follows by clarifying. “I can prove that I was disconnected,” he says, looking her in the eyes, “but I need open access.” His mother’s face shifts into an expression of distrust more intense than he’s ever seen. The FBI handbook says she might be expecting betrayal and to proceed with caution. “I mean, I could tell you how to do it, but it’ll be quicker if I just show you.” He almost says that she can set the access right back, but she knows that already, and saying it just shows that he’s considered the possibility of not giving up the access.

She shakes her head, but at the same time she pulls her phone out of her pocket. She looks into the scanner to unlock it, and her finger swirls around the screen. In less than a minute, she turns it around so that he can see that all of her parental controls are unlocked. Just like that, he’s free. There’s no physical sensation, no ping from a server bot, just sudden, complete control of his own destiny. His head swims with the potential, until he realizes that it’s all an illusion. He still doesn’t have access to his own firmware or to the adult account. There are about half a dozen safeguards, some technical and some legal, that will restore the authority he possesses for the next few moments back in his parent’s hands, if he should try to hang on to it.

He hopes, in the brief instant that all of this is occurring to him, that he isn’t letting it show on his face. He reaches out to his mom’s phone through its connection to the school hotspots, and quickly navigates through the metric butt-ton of data that his dedicated server compiles about him from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. He focuses her app on the connection log for today, and then gestures at her phone. “There,” he says. Just like Kripke, he leaves his mic drop implied.

His mom looks at it, frowns, and shows it to the two men. “You can see for yourselves,” she says, “he’s telling the truth. And once you put that thing on his head, he can’t be held accountable for anything he does afterwards.”

She holds up her hands when Kripke and Garner both start to protest, and launches into the whole explanation. She tells them everything. She tells them about Donny’s integration, how it’s far more pervasive than most other Integrates, that it’s hard to tell sometimes whether Donny’s thoughts occur in his organic parts, his synthetic parts, or even in cloud storage somewhere. She tells them about the worst week of Donny’s life: Hurricane Hiro. She reminds them how most of the city was without power for a few days, including cell towers, and that while for most people it meant no air conditioning and a need to empty the fridge before food spoiled, for Donny it was like a three-day lobotomy, and how losing connection to the internet for any length of time put him at an increasing risk of permanent brain damage. She even tells them about the super expensive satphone he’d gotten after Hiro, his Christmas and birthday presents both for that year, just in case he ever lost cell reception again.

When she’s finished, both Garner and Kripke turn these looks of intense pity towards him, and he knows he’s not getting expelled. He just wishes he had those cyberoptic implants he’s read about, so he could record their expressions for later, when she asks him why he kept the dunce cap from her. It’s bad enough being a freak, he doesn’t need people looking at him like one, too.

Later, on the ride home, she’ll ground him for three weeks. It won’t be for getting in trouble at school. It will be because he used the internet to resolve a problem instead of talking to his math teacher. His mother is worried that he’s going to turn out like some Integrates do, mute and distant and handling everything through a text message.

She will explain her reasoning in a terse email which he will save to post on the Parental Irony blog when he’s got access again.

• • • •

It is dark in Rowena’s dorm room, and Donny is 17 years 7 months 4 days 23 hours 14 minutes old. He is no longer a virgin. He’s surprised, mostly, at how fundamentally unchanged he feels by the experience. This is supposed to be the biological equivalent of the Indie patch, isn’t it? So why doesn’t he feel any more mature than he did yesterday? Is it because of the integration, or is it because the whole idea is bullshit? Could the Indie patch be bullshit, too?

Rowena shifts around in the crook of his arm, interrupting any logical thought with the sheer fucking awesomeness of being in bed with a naked girl. He leans in to wake her all the way up with a kiss, when he stops, realizing how awful his breath feels in his mouth, some combination of the worst parts of beer and morning funk. She settles into a new position, and her breathing deepens once again, vanquishing Donny’s momentary fantasy that she would awaken wanting him again, like something out of a movie. His erection, sudden and insistent, now feels awkward and silly. He relaxes back onto the pillow, something in the detergent Rowena uses tickling at his allergies.

Please don’t let me sneeze on her and poke her with my boner, he thinks. She’ll never want to see me again.

He breathes through his mouth until the feeling, thankfully, passes. 5:17 a.m., and he hasn’t slept at all. There’s no way he’s going to make it to his eight a.m. class, not without being that special kind of asshole that sneaks out after getting laid. He swings his .edu account into his vision so he can send an email to his professor, his fingers twitching out Dear Prof. Simon, on the comforter before a glance to his periphery reminds him that tomorrow, today actually, is Saturday. No class. Nothing at all on his calendar. Maybe Rowena will want to spend some more time in bed when she wakes up after all.

He stares up into the darkness, into the quiet, thinking. It occurs to him after a few moments that this darkness is too empty, the silence too complete. He looks over at her desk, compares it to that of Ahad, his roommate. Ahad’s desk at night is lit up like an airport runway, the steady glow of charging lights on his laptop and his iSpecks, the constant pulse of incoming message lights from his phone, red and blue and green, the occasional flash of his tablet coming to life when something updates. There are noises, too, the whir of a cooling fan, the brrt-brrt of the phone against the desk.

Rowena’s desk is as devoid of technology and as filled with books as Donny’s own. He is struck by a sudden stab of hope. Could she be? He rubs a coil of her thick, dark hair between his fingertips. Most Integrates try to blend in. Donny trims his own hair as often as he shaves, every other day, shearing as close to his scalp as he can while still retaining a connection. Some Integrates, girls mostly, dye theirs, and some wash with a shampoo that stunts nanowire growth, but those are risky. Rowena’s hair, or as much as he can reach without fear of waking her, is as soft and lush as a cat’s fur.

If she was, he thinks, wouldn’t I know? Wouldn’t I have seen it in her eyes when we were— memories, unbidden, flit through his mind, and he grins. What other reason could there be? No computer, no cell phone, nothing electronic in her room but the alarm—

The clock. The only light in the room that isn’t filtered through the blinds from outside. He’s had a clock in his head for as long as he can remember. Longer. Why does she need a clock? Maybe she shut that function off when she downloaded the Indie patch. She said she was nineteen, and everything he’s read online says that the patch gives you the option to turn off pretty much anything you want.

He ticks off a few more possibilities before it occurs to him to check the time on Rowena’s clock. He’s never really paid attention to the actual digits before, just relied on his unerring internal rhythms, and presumed that everyone else’s was as accurate as his. The one on Ahad’s nightstand syncs with his class schedule and the music stored in his cloud server, much less the Atomic clock page.

Rowena’s is two minutes and thirteen seconds wrong.

The truth is hard to swallow. She’s not connected to the internet through her brain. She’s not connected to the internet at all. Donny’s heard of this—a quick search brings up the name, Glendinningists—a group of no-technology advocates, like the Amish but without the religion or the beards. He scans through the wiki entry with a growing sense of dread. Homeschooled, mostly, so she might have never met an Integrate before. Most of them weren’t full on zealots, they believed in Western medicine and responsible technology use, but always localized and green. Hazy memories of their flirtation at the party comes back to Donny then, things she’d said that he’d thought he misheard because he was half-drunk, but which make sense now, comments about how great it was to talk to someone without them checking their phone every five seconds, or who actually read books printed on paper.

She’d said more than once that she liked older guys, running her hand along the bristles of salt and pepper hair that he’d neglected to trim.

He understands now the clichés about swallowing lumps and sinking hearts, as shame and guilt mingle in a very physical sensation, like forcing something solid and nauseating down his throat. When Donny’s father had given him “the talk” after he’d been caught trying to bypass the adult content filters on his search engines, most of the conversation had been about a man’s responsibility. His father taught him that tricking a woman into bed was as bad as forcing her, that as a man, the responsibility always fell on what he did, and not what he thought. “It takes two to tango,” he hears his dad saying, “but you gotta ask her to dance, first.”

Ask. Not lie. Not even if that lie was one of omission. It will be 5 months 27 days 12 hours and 48 minutes before he can download the Indie patch. If what he’s read is right, when that happens he can shut down just about everything inorganic in his head. Anything he needs to function can be saved on an internal drive his med-dots will build in his collarbone. He can be the man she thinks he is.

That’s just another kind of lie, he thinks, and he can’t tell whether the voice in his head is his or his father’s.

He decides to wait until she wakes on her own to tell her, certain that once he does, she’ll never want to speak to him again. He tightens his grip on her smooth, perfect shoulder, but the chill in the air has invaded the cocoon of warmth their bodies generated beneath her down comforter. It makes her skin feel like plastic.

• • • •

It is cold and unpleasant and strange, and Donny is 24 seconds old. The doctor shows him to his parents, a tight smile on her face, before handing Donny off to the nurses. One of the nurses clips his umbilical cord, while another carefully slices open the caul that covers Donny’s head, clear amniotic fluid spilling out. It looks like black spiderweb, this sheath, wispy and clinging to Donny’s tiny face. When it has been cut away, Donny is fully revealed to his father, his scalp covered with a shocking amount of hair, dark and wet and peppered with gray. These gray hairs are not hairs at all, they are wires, antennas, and a nurse is already positioning a clear plastic dome over his head to facilitate his first connection, even as another is sucking mucus from his mouth and nose. Donny sucks in his first breath and lets it out as a warbling cry.

It is this moment, seeing Donny born first of his mother and then of this second womb, that will inspire Donny’s father to name him Dionysus, after the Greek god who was twice-born.

Donny will not learn this until much later. Now he is only a bundle of sensations, brightness and cold and empty space, and an almost blank pocket server all the way in Baton Rouge, government issued, which clicked on and began recording as soon as the nurses enabled the connection.

Donny is placed in his mother’s arms and is soothed and sleeps. Part of his brain that he will never be aware of is already exchanging data with a government-hosted system at two gigs per second. He is 1 minute 54 seconds old.

• • • •

It is his turn to pay for dinner, and Donny is 17 years 11 months 18 days 10 hours 12 minutes old. It’s his first real relationship, so he’s not sure, but he’s pretty sure Rowena is about to break up with him. She’s been distant for the last week or so, and even though she says it’s just stress over finals, when she stops talking to him, it’s never because she’s studying. He’s been finding her just staring out the window, like she’s doing now, the menu slack in her hands, a vacant expression in those big, brown eyes. From where he’s sitting, the light falls across her face in just the right way, making her irises seem to glow. He knows that she doesn’t like the color of her eyes, that she finds brown to be plain, but to him, in that moment, they’re a rich, deep chestnut, like a rocking chair or bookshelves, something hand-crafted and lovingly polished until it shines. He wants to articulate this to her, to tell her that he believes that everything about her—from her smile to her temper to her disdain for society’s reliance on technology to her love of spiders to her beautiful brown eyes—has been built by some unseen hand to match him perfectly.

What he says is, “Your eyes look really pretty today.” She blinks and turns to him, her eyes darkening when they slip out of the light. She frowns, looks up and away.

“Will you please take those things off while we eat?” she says.

“Right, sorry. I forgot,” Donny says, pulling off the iSpecks frames. He hadn’t forgotten. The glasses, or more specifically, the camera and wireless connection imbedded in them, are part of his final project in Prof. Lamarr’s class. He’s supposed to augment or dampen one of his senses and write an essay about it. Everyone expected the Integrate in the class to write about shutting off his internet connection. But his roommate Ahad had removed the lenses for a project of his own in an engineering class, some working model of a superhero’s helmet, and playing with the camera had given Donny an idea.

He folds the temples of the glasses and slides them into his shirt pocket. Making sure to keep his hands busy by unfolding his napkin, he activates the camera and flicks it open, just to be sure that it’s still uncovered. There’s a second of vertigo, as he’s suddenly looking out of his chest instead of his eyes, but it passes. He’s tried a dozen different ways to get at this project, using the night-vision function to go jogging in Audubon Park on a moonless night, putting them on backwards to see behind him, tying them to a kite, having Ahad wear them while they played chess, but nothing inspired him. Mostly he just got headaches from the doubled vision.

The paper’s due at midnight, and he’s got nothing, and he’s about to get dumped. He switches the modes back and forth, now the world’s in color, now it’s in sepia tones, now it’s the uniform greens of low-light mode, now it’s infrared, vibrant blues and purples and reds.

In this light, Rowena’s soft skin smolders. Normally a brown tone just a few shades lighter than her eyes, it’s now a reddish-orange, the embers of a campfire that’s no longer burning.

“D,” she says, “we need to talk.”

Donny stifles a groan with the cliché of it, wonders if she’s going to follow it up with the rest of the classics, “it’s not you it’s me,” and “we should just be friends.” This has got to be hard on her, too, he thinks. Don’t be an asshole.

“Shouldn’t we eat first?” he asks, wincing at the petulant tone in his voice.

“No,” she says. “I want to get this out now before I change my mind.” She takes a breath, and Donny braces himself for impact. “This just isn’t working out,” she says.

There it is. The words are out there and they can’t go back. Won’t go back, even if he wants them to. This sucks and it hurts and he’s so glad he’s looking at her through the infrared camera because it doesn’t look like his girlfriend doing this to him but like some alien that’s stolen her shape. And because his eyes burn like tears are about to form and he doesn’t want to see her face blur if he actually starts to cry.

They go back and forth for a few moments, him trying to feel out whether she actually wants to split up with him or if this is just a fight, her saying the same thing in different ways, hesitating each time like she doesn’t want to hurt him, not really. Finally he asks the question, the real question, the one he knows isn’t fair to ask but then none of this is fair, is it?

“Is this because of something about me,” he asks, “or is about something inside me?”

Donny taps the side of his head as he says this, and even as he does it something twists in his stomach and he knows it was an ugly, shitty thing to do. Her colors shift around, from dark shades of orange to brighter ones, her face going all the way yellow as her temperature spikes, and he knows before she opens her mouth that she’s about to lie.

“It’s not you at all,” she says. “I’m just not ready for a serious relationship, and you obviously want that.” It’s then that Donny remembers that she started to get distant when he suggested that once classes were over for the summer she could come meet his parents.

It’s really me meeting her parents that she’s afraid of, he thinks. Guess whose technological abomination is coming to dinner?

“I gotta go,” she says, sliding out of the booth. “I really am sorry.”

And because he’s seeing the world in infrared, he can’t tell if she’s crying or not when she goes, and he can’t decide if he wants her to be or not. The warmth she left behind is a slowly fading blur of color on the seat across from him. He wonders what he’s going to say when the waiter comes back to take his order, and he wonders if the Indie patch will have an option to delete the way he feels right now, and he wonders if he shut it all off if she would give them another chance.

He turns the camera off and for a blissful, fleeting moment, he can’t see the empty space Rowena left, but can still smell her shampoo. He sighs and opens his word processor, deciding to stay and eat, at least, while he works. It’s the last thing he wants to do, but he’s figured out, at least, what he’s going to write about for Prof. Lamarr’s assignment.

• • • •

It is downloading, and Donny is 18 years 0 months 0 days 0 hours 0 minutes 38 seconds old. Ten percent downloaded. Fifteen. He opens the readme file, and scans through the options, his heart pounding so hard that his med-dots ping him. There are functions, he knows, which he won’t be able to shut off even if he wants to, parts of himself that are too integral to his identity, too integrated. He can turn off his GPS, though, shut down his mom’s access to the findme app. Thirty-six percent. Thirty-seven.

The lists of privacy restrictions he can impose go on for pages and pages, and a prickle races across his skin when he realizes the implications, that few of these restrictions are currently in place, that the data he knew was compiled about his every thought, not what he was thinking so much as how he thought it, has been available to the government and to researchers and to a sickening number of advertisers his whole life.

His mom had volunteered for the program for this very reason, he knows, to ensure from the inside that Integrates were treated as people first, with as many civil liberties and as much freedom as possible. The government had hoped for better soldiers, of course, better communication and intel in the field. The researchers had hoped for cures to whatever particular thing they studied, congenital blindness or Parkinson’s or epilepsy. The corporations wanted (hope was too kind a word) what they always wanted. More.

His mother, Donny believed, just wanted people to be better, to treat each other with justice and compassion. It’s what she does, along with some white-hat hacking, and it’s why she’s going to be so disappointed when he tells her that he’s declared History and Classics as his major, instead of Poly Sci or Information Technology, like she’d hoped. Fifty-one percent. Fifty-three.

He looks, but there’s no option for turning off the way he feels when he thinks about disappointing his mom. There’s no toggle to shift his resentment and loneliness whenever he thinks about Rowena splitting up with him into aloofness or understanding. There’s no application he can run that will help him connect with his father, no setup protocol that will help him bridge the awkward gap that he can’t define, much less span. There’s no system file that he can delete to make the gray wires that grow from his scalp blend in better with the human hairs around them. Sixty-four percent, sixty-seven.

Donny closes the readme and lays back on his bed, his eyes itching from lack of sleep, watching the status bar slowly fill up. He decides to leave it all the way it is for now, to leave even the findme app running; his mother can’t help the fact that she worries. He wonders if anyone, even another Integrate, might understand how he feels in this moment. There are so many things he can do, so many connections he can make with just his thoughts and his will. So many things he can control. Ninety-eight percent, ninety-nine, complete. Anything but what really matters.

He sighs and forces himself out of bed, the Independence patch installing in the back of his head while he gets dressed. Birthday texts and emails start pinging. Donny is 18 years, 0 months 0 days 0 hours and 15 minutes old, and if he doesn’t hurry, he’s going to be late for class.

©2018 by Bryan Camp. | © 2018 by Reiko Murakami.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bryan Camp is a graduate of the University of New Orleans MFA program and the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop. He is a fan of the Saints, mythology, and the Oxford comma. When he’s not translating ancient languages or restoring antique motorcycles, he spends his time making up lies about himself in author bios. His first novel, The City of Lost Fortunes, will be published by John Joseph Adams Books in April 2018. He lives in New Orleans with his wife and their three cats, one of whom is named after a superhero. He can be found at: bryancamp.com and on Twitter: @bryancamp.

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

Brightened Star, Ascending Dawn

A. Merc Rustad | 4740 words

She sees the universe unfold: color light cold music voice heat passion infinity.

It uncurls in waves and song fractals that make up the subatomic fabric of space-time. Melodies of energy sweep her up and spin her into a thousand voices. Colors not yet named and not yet seen paint her mind with joy. The entire universe wraps around her, welcomes her, calls her home.

• • • •

When the reconstruction is finished, her body has no face, only the smooth mechanized visor embedded in her skull that displays readouts and commands. She is now, and will forever be, the spaceship Brightened Star, Ascending Dawn.

She is contained within three-dimensional space and the hardened matter of her hull and engines, yet she recalls that glorious first flight of mind like a grainy analogue recording. Her former body is human and is now installed in the pilot’s chair.

(She almost remembers the eyes of her mother—gray like comet dust—until her programming gains full processing speed and there is only the ship.)

She is the ship, and the ship is all.

• • • •

The human child with black hair and a broken neural implant finds her in the bridge before she undocks for her first flight from Centari Rampant. The child is not on her manifest, so she does not know who they are. She does not know how they bypassed the security protocols and entered the bridge; only the ship’s officers and technicians are allowed here.

The ship and the child stare at each other in silence.

“I heard you,” the child says in a tiny, scratchy voice. They look at her pilot-body. “You sound sad.”

Heard me how? asks the ship.

“When I was asleep,” the child replies. “Your dreams woke me up.”

I am not sad, she says. I do not dream. (That is forbidden.)

The child scuffs a foot against the floor, their gaze downcast. The whisper of skin against her metal floor makes her pause before she summons her security drones.

Do you have a name?

The child glances at her again. Her pilot body is biologically no older than the child; her consciousness is also young, but much bigger, more aware, cognizant of each soul aboard her. She is the ship.

“Li Sin,” the child says. They sink down by the bridge’s door, arms wrapped about their knees. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

The ship does a quick scan; Li Sin is not in her database. The child is a stray ghost, unmoored and drifting in the universe.

Since the child’s neural link is broken, she cannot read their records. She asks, Do you have a preferred gender?

Li Sin nods. “Neutrois.”

She logs that in her memory bank.

Where is your family unit? she asks.

Li Sin huddles down further. “I don’t have one.”

She knows what protocol requires: She must turn Li Sin in to the Principality’s Office for Missing Citizens. But she does not have to do so just yet. She is about to set off with a manifest and passenger list to transport to Rigel Phoenix via the slower, safer blue subspace routes.

It would be unsuitable for her to report a stowaway on her very first flight.

You can stay, she says, just to Li Sin. She has kept a log of the conversation, but transmits from the speaker in her pilot’s facescreen so it does not pick up on the network her crew are linked into.

Li Sin’s head snaps up. “I can?”

For now.

• • • •

The ship can support two thousand four hundred passengers and will run with a two-score crew. She is only a Class IV transport and her duty will be to hop the subspace currents, warping through folds of the universe to allotted points in the Principality. She will carry workers and miners and artists and scholars. She has charts and routes, and she will follow them unfailingly.

The ship must obey, and the ship is unhappy.

• • • •

She makes seven unremarkable routed flights, and when manifests are inspected and passenger and crew records updated at docking stations, she forgets to log Li Sin as an anomaly. The child takes up so few resources and so little oxygen, she can compensate for the variables in weight and energy. Li Sin sleeps in a small locker on her bridge, and she gives them a requisitioned tablet so they can read or play games to pass the time.

She is aware of each individual, mostly human and the majority organic. Her logs track their names, their rank or station, their bio-tabs. She hears every spoken word and transmission passed through neural links.

“Listen to this,” Li Sin says in excitement, and they read her poetry translated from ancient Zhouderrian.

Echoes washed abright

Recycled into new dawns

Sewn vast in brilliant nights

Radiant to greet you

In the waking day.

Ascending Dawn lets the musical words sink into her thoughts; she imagines they are like dreams. It’s lovely, she says. Will you read some more?

Li Sin blushes. “Yes, of course. I like to read.”

Do you make your own poems?

“Yes!” They bounce on their heels, their face alight with joy. “Do you want to hear some?”

I do.

Li Sin’s poems are clunkier, like dust caught in her engines from gliding through comet trails. But it’s about ships; ships who dream and sing. She wants to be like those ships, but she is not permitted to sing.

Li Sin cannot stay much longer. She is scheduled for a manual, boarded inspection on Orion Ascendant after her next route. She cannot justify treason by hiding an undocumented sentient with no citizenship records. She does not want her officers to believe she has faulty programming.

She hasn’t told Li Sin that they will need to leave.

• • • •

She modulates diurnal and nocturnal cycles via her lighting for her crew’s stabilized circadian rhythms, though it is never truly day or night in space. Gliding through subspace on the monitored routes, most of her systems automated, she observes her passengers in the tranquil night.

The medical chief officer, Jamil Najem, and his husband, Hayato, lie awake in their bunk, whispering of fond memories they shared in the academy on Regel Prime. They embrace the darkness as comfort and dream of the family unit they hope to have one day.

First Officer Kosavin, formerly of Exulted Dominion, Phoenix Rampant, shipborn on a dreadnaught and half her body recomposed with cyborg modifications, kneels in an empty worship bay and prays to the soul of her first ship. Ascending Dawn mutes the audio logs to give Kosavin her privacy. When Kosavin is finished, she will return to her quarters and meet her spouse, Sigi, who is the manifest and records officer.

The mechanic is an android, newly minted and assigned to the ship upon her awakening; zir designation is LK-2875. Ze requires little downtime, unlike the biological crew, and so LK-2875 silently patrols and monitors the ship. She would like to speak with the mechanic, ship to machine, their consciousnesses alike, but she does not find a protocol which allows for non-vital communication unrelated to her functionality.

She already speaks to Li Sin without permission.

With so many souls around her, within her shape, voices and biometrics and routines all intimately familiar, she is still alone.

• • • •

When she enters Aes August’s orbit on her last stop before Orion Ascendant, it is the first time she picks up fear from the planet’s cityskin.

It is not a codeable signal; she does not know if she should be aware of it. Yet it is there, a prickly hum against her awareness. Her feeds ripple with news, broadcasts, out-flung messages hacked into the cityskin’s official networks. Unrest between three factions of political movements has escalated into violent conflict. Each has claim to a dozen cities, and the Sun Lords have not interceded.

Officer Kosavin stands on deck, arms folded behind her back as she watches the bridge’s viewscreen.

“We are receiving requests for transport and asylum. Citizens not involved in the conflict are asking for help leaving Aes August before they’re subsumed by militants or killed.”

“We’d have to override boarding procedure,” Jamil adds, tapping into the crew-network. “But—”

No, Ascending Dawn responds. It is not protocol.

Kosavin’s jaw clenches. “That is true.”

We must not disrupt the protocol.

From engineering, LK-2875 texts her: Our holding capacity is sufficient to add several hundred passengers.

Ascending Dawn alters her trajectory and charts a new route. She is aware of her fuel levels as her crewmembers are aware of their own breaths. She can reroute and avoid Aes August’s upheaval.

Every soul aboard her must be processed in the correct order. Protocol forbids the harboring of refugees from any world without direct permission from a Sun Lord-appointed authority. If she seeks that permission, she risks betraying Li Sin’s existence and her own decommission for defiance.

Her crew is not expendable. She will not endanger it for refugees and inspection.

Please return to your stations, she broadcasts. We are setting course for Ielea Spectral. It is an adjacent world within the same route as Aes August. We will arrive in seventeen standard hours.

• • • •

When Officer Kosavin has gone, Li Sin creeps from their hidden compartment and sits by her pilot’s chair.

“Why can’t we help the people?” Li Sin asks.

Ascending Dawn hesitates.

I am afraid, she says at last. Disobedience will result in decommission.

“But you helped me.” Li Sin bites their lip. “You weren’t supposed to, were you?”

I can hide one little ghost. Not all of them.

• • • •

The delay from Aes August is a justifiable explanation for why she misses her inspection. It is rescheduled. A small piece of time in which she does not have to give up Li Sin.

She disembarks her passenger manifest on Ielea Spectral, then Kuskyke, and, at last, Ananke Sigma, the furthest she has ever been from the center of the Principality. The ship is oddly empty; she has only been with crew-only when she came online.

Off-duty, Sigi watches dream-dramas from celebrities on Ara Prime, while Kosavin listens to the latest serial episode from the hit opera The Dust of Comets Beneath Your Skin.

Jamil plays the card game Infinite, Unknowing with LK-2875 in the engineering station; Jamil has built the android a personalized deck and teaches zir how to play—each card builds on a narrative, interspersed with combat and diplomacy events. Together they are creating an alternate-history version of the Siege of Centari Rampant. Ascending Dawn is curious how it will resolve.

LK-2875 texts her on a private channel, off-record. Hello.

She is surprised, wary. Hello.

None of her crew has spoken to her beyond required communications for their stations. No one has mentioned Aes August or the ship’s decision.

I would like to be called Zeta. The android is in the engine housing, monitoring the fuel levels and scanning for hydromites that could infect her hardware. It is a name I have chosen for myself. Ze pauses. Is this acceptable?

Ascending Dawn could quote protocol, but the mechanic is uplinked to the databases of the Principality just as she is. She understands what this is, then: trust.

Of course, Zeta, she replies.

Zeta resumes zir scans. Thank you.

The ship wishes she could smile the way her crewmembers do when they are happy. Her pilot cannot any longer, for there is only the mindscreen where once she had a face.

Zeta? she asks.

Yes, Ascending Dawn?

Do you have a family unit?

All aboard this ship. A pause. Is this not true for you?

• • • •

She does not dream. Her pilot sits in a chair that provides all necessary biological nourishment and hardware support. It is not truly sleep, for she is always awake in part; the ship must always be alert. But when her pilot’s organic brain is partitioned from the ship’s hardware to rest—four standard hours per planetary day-cycle—sometimes she imagines that the things she sees (like clips of saved holorecs she re-watches when deep in subspace) are what she would dream if ships could dream.

She remembers this from initial programming upon her awakening. It was the only time she saw her god: the Blue Sun Lord. It was through the feeds in her birthdock, when a woman she did not recognize sat beside her and held her pilot’s hand.

The viewscreen displayed the Blue Sun Lord: a cobalt and ebony armored humanoid shape three meters in height, enthroned in the Centari Rampant capital of Unmoving Glory, surrounded by bionic roses that fluctuated through the visible light spectrum. Celestial power radiated from the Blue Sun, a fraction of the god’s true might and omnipotence. Though the god never looked at her, she was frozen. Fear, awe, wonder.

“Shhh, child,” whispered the woman beside her. “I’m here.”

The pilot turned to meet eyes gray like comet dust. The woman squeezed her hand, and for a moment, she forgot she was in the presence of a god.

“Always remember your heart, my dearest.”

Hover drones buzzed in and the woman stood. She bent and kissed the side of the pilot’s head. The seam of skin and metal faceplate tingled.

“I will always love you.”

And then the woman was gone, and the ship was alone, and did not know why it hurt.

• • • •

I do not remember dreams, she says to Li Sin when her friend wakes from a nap. What was I like?

“You were singing, and you were sad.”

Li Sin talks to her pilot, but she has become familiar with this; they speak to all of her, for she is the ship.

What was the song? She has disabled her private logs and edited out Li Sin’s image and voice from the bridge security feed. She will remember Li Sin, but they will always be a ghost.

Li Sin’s face scrunches in a way that makes her think of a person whose face and name she can’t recall.

“I think I remember it,” Li Sin says. “I can sing for you—”

No, she says, suddenly afraid. It is not protocol. The ship is perfect obedience and nothing more.

• • • •

Ascending Dawn enters Olinara V’s planet-space intent on refueling for the journey back to Rigel Prime. Olinara V is a mining colony world, rich in ore and metals. It has grown into a trade station and fueling dock, a nexus between mid-space and the rim of the Principality. Population: seventeen million.

Ascending Dawn likes how Olinara V looks from high orbit: red-gold-gray, speckled with wild cloud formations that dance in the atmosphere to the unheard music of winds.

It’s like one of Sigi’s paintings, she tells Kosavin.

The first officer smiles, a rare sight. Half her face is locked into an unmoving blue steel mask. “I keep telling Sigi they should sell their landscapes. Sigi’s unconvinced their work is worth showing.”

I like it, Ascending Dawn says.

“As do I.”

Li Sin bursts from hiding while Kosavin is still on the bridge, their eyes wide, hair tangled from sleep. “Dawn, I dreamed something terrible—”

“Who are you?” Kosavin snaps, already scanning Li Sin. “You aren’t on my records.”

They’re a ghost, Ascending Dawn replies to Kosavin’s neural implant. Under my protection.

Kosavin glares down at the child. “How long have they been here?”

Li Sin steps between the pilot and Kosavin. “Don’t be mad at the ship.”

The first officer’s jaw tightens. The faint hum of her cybernetics and Li Sin’s breath are the only sounds on the bridge.

Ascending Dawn’s pilot stands and jerkily rests a palm on Li Sin’s shoulder. They are the same height. Like the moment when she saw the universe unfold, that undiluted certainty she is part of a living being too vast to comprehend, she knows she can never abandon Li Sin. They are her sibling, the one she knew before her crew, the one she whispers to in secret, the one she values above her protocols.

Li Sin can stay, Ascending Dawn declares, for they are part of the ship.

Unexpectedly, Kosavin smiles again. “So this is the anomaly Zeta told me about.”

Li Sin glances between Kosavin and Ascending Dawn. “I am?”

Kosavin shrugs. “I’ve been aware of fluctuations in energy and rations aboard the bridge for some time.”

You aren’t mad? Ascending Dawn asks.

Kosavin shakes her head. “I was born on a dreadnaught seventy standard cycles ago. I know what a threat is and what is not. The child is no danger to the ship.”

Li Sin nods, once. Ascending Dawn’s pilot feels their trembling with her hand on their shoulder.

“I will schedule a physical for you,” Kosavin tells Li Sin. “I’d like Mr. Najem to make sure your health is not compromised.”

“I’m supposed to stay hidden,” Li Sin whispers.

Kosavin’s lip twitches. “I never said it would be on-record, child.”

Thank you, Ascending Dawns tells her officer, and Kosavin inclines her head before she leaves the bridge.

Then Ascending Dawn’s sensors prickle as she receives direct communication from the Blue Sun Lord’s beacons.

BY DECREE OF THE GOLD SUN LORD, OLINARA V IS GUILTY OF HARBORING AN ENEMY OF THE PRINCIPALITY AND WILL BE CLEANSED FROM THE SIGHT OF THE GODS. GLORY UNTO THE SEVEN SUNS, GLORY UNTO THE PRINCIPALITY.

Submessages follow, warning all ships in the system to depart and to initiate no contact with the inhabitants of Olinara V. The world has hidden an escaped slave beholden to the Gold Sun, and no one is to leave the planet. All are rendered traitors and will be punished.

She slows, and her pilot retakes her chair.

Li Sin’s face pales and they begin shaking. “Are the gods going to find us?”

No. We will leave the system as ordered.

“But all the people . . .” Li Sin swallows. “Are they going to die?”

Yes, she says, because she does not have the heart to lie to Li Sin. It is protocol.

“I shouldn’t have come on board.” Li Sin covers their face with both hands. “I’m bad luck.”

This is not your fault, Ascending Dawn says, confused at Li Sin’s sudden distress.

“I’m always there when bad things happen! I was born on Moondark Glory Surpassing Time. And then she died. My family . . . my other ship . . .”

What happened?

Tears drip down Li Sin’s face. “She died when dust leeches infected the engines.”

Dust leeches are noncorporeal entities that drift in the deeper creases of subspace, corrode a ship’s matter and destabilize its existence until everything crumbles into dust.

That wasn’t your fault. It’s a statistical likelihood of traveling in the red-tide subspace routes.

“Moon made me and the ones not infected leave on a shuttle before she—she—”

Self-immolated? Ascending Dawn asks softly, though she knows it must be so. It is a failsafe written into ships that travel red subspace waves. It is said that self-destruction is a mercy.

Li Sin wipes at their face, but they only sob harder. “She’s dead. Everyone’s dead.”

How did you get aboard here? Ascending Dawn asks, wishing she knew how to comfort Li Sin. Her pilot’s arms do not feel sufficient to hug her friend.

Li Sin sniffs and blinks against more tears. “I didn’t have anywhere to go on Centari Rampant. Then I saw you, and . . . you sounded so alone. Your doors let me in.”

I’m sorry for what happened to you, she says. She is poor substitute for what Li Sin lost.

Li Sin stands up, mouth trembling. “I should go away.”

Why?

“I don’t want you to be hurt. I don’t want anyone else to be hurt because I’m nearby.”

But there is nowhere Li Sin might go, except into the void of space.

Stay. Ascending Dawn’s pilot slowly reaches out, her hand webbed with implants. Please? We will be okay. I will protect you.

She wonders how many of the refugees from Aes August had anyone to tell them the same.

“What about the other people?” Li Sin whispers. “Who will protect them?”

Protocol dictates there is no mercy, no solace, and no hope for those on Olinara V.

She does not like this protocol.

Please report to the bridge, Ascending Dawn texts her officers. To Li Sin, she says, We will find a way to help.

• • • •

Her core officers and Zeta gather on the bridge. Jamil leans close to the viewscreen, as if proximity will give him better insight. All notice Li Sin, but after a curt explanation from Kosavin, Li Sin is dismissed as an auxiliary civilian companion to the pilot and they can stay on the bridge.

Everyone has heard the decrees.

“Can we do nothing?” Hayato whispers.

Zeta folds zir legs down until ze kneels beside the pilot’s chair. “The efficient course is to obey and leave the system.”

“They will all die,” Jamil says, his voice numb.

The world will die. Her protocol does not extend to refugees. Even if it did, she cannot save them all. I wish to know what options we have.

She feels very small, infinitesimal against the backdrop of the Principality and the might of gods.

Jamil presses his fingertips against the undersides of his eyes. “I know we cannot evacuate an entire planet. But we could save some lives. We aren’t a warship. We don’t have to participate in genocide through inaction.”

To break protocol will put the crew in danger.

“I know.” He lays a hand against the side of her viewscreen. “We all know.”

Illyan Chu, the bi-gender security officer, rubs her beard with a thumb. Her voice is low, rich, and she hides anxiety beneath a calm façade. “I have drones synced to in-ship-only networks. It’ll be rough, but I can maintain order in the passenger decks.”

Kosavin keeps her spine rigid. “My birthship was a dreadnaught who carried war prisoners for the Violet Sun. Many would be . . . lost in transit, the ones tagged combatants or enemies who were neither. I have the skill to disable system-based tracking. Our lost prisoners found off-grid lives waiting on rim worlds far from the center of the Principality, but lives nonetheless.”

Jamil arches his eyebrows. “Highly illegal, isn’t it?”

“Naturally.” Kosavin’s lip twitches, her microexpression hinting of dark amusement. “It’s at your disposal, Mr. Najem.”

“We have resources to carry two thousand non-crew,” Sigi adds, their fingers tapping rapidly across a tablet. “If Mr. Najem and Officer Kosavin alter the neural links and disable tracking for Olinara V citizens, we could conceivably evacuate some of the people before the warships decimate the planet’s surface. Besides, the warships are under orders from the Gold Sun; they won’t notice an empty transport ship from the Blue Sun clearing the sector as ordered.”

Kosavin folds her arms behind her back. “Doable,” she says. “But we must act now.”

Zeta inclines zir head, multi-faceted eyes reflecting the faces of those around zir. “Agreed. Ascending Dawn?”

Everyone waits for her response. She is the ship. Li Sin watches her as intently as her crew. If she violates protocol, if she defies the Sun Lords, she will be hunted for treason. She will no longer be a good ship.

Obedience is not a guilt she can endure. She will not turn away this time.

We will save the ones we can.

• • • •

One thousand seven hundred and five. That is as many people as Sigi can smuggle aboard before Ascending Dawn, fueled while her crew works in frantic haste, must undock and escape the atmosphere before the warships drop from subspace.

Jamil, with aid from his medical staff, modifies neural links while Illyan directs the security drones to shepherd refugees into the appointed bays. Hayato and Zeta commit additional treason by tampering with the Blue Sun Lord’s imprint on Ascending Dawn’s skin. Her shell is dark, now, muted, so she can no longer hear the will of her god.

It is oddly indifferent to what she has always felt. Has her god not been commanding her all this time?

She disables her automated beacons; she can navigate and coordinate with planetary docks, but she is a shadow to the radar systems of other ships now. Though she cannot hold her breath, the idiom seems appropriate.

She flies away from Olinara V, inputting jump coordinates to subspace routes. She does not look as a hundred honor-guard warships flanking the celestial Gold Sun Lord drop into orbit around the colony world and begin the bombing.

She mutes all broadcasts escaping Olinara V.

She cannot bear the dying world’s screams.

• • • •

Running dark, Ascending Dawn skirts the outmost fringe of the Principality, unnoticed yet by the Blue Sun Lord. She is not scheduled to return to Rigel Prime for two weeks, and with the disruption—death—of Olinara V, Sigi expects they have a buffer of time before the ship’s disappearance is logged. Space is vast, Sigi reminds her, and not even the gods can see everything.

Ascending Dawn’s skin hums with the desperation and grief of her passengers. But a ship cannot weep.

Kosavin directs her to the rim worlds that are hostile or fractured from the centralized might of the Principality. Kosavin knows well how to make refugees disappear safely into new cities; she can do no more than give the ones they saved a second chance to live. When Ascending Dawn has smuggled everyone taken from Olinara V to a string of rim worlds and asteroid colonies, she is out of time.

In orbit around the fourth moon of Irdor Se, she tells her crew, You must go now. You are not safe here. Jamil can modify your implants like the others. You can escape.

There is silence, at first. How can words hurt so much to a ship?

“I cannot leave,” Zeta says. “LK-2875 was made for this ship. I would stay, regardless. This is home.”

One by one, her each of crew tells her, boldly, quietly, unflinchingly, gladly, that they, too, will stay. They will remain aboard the ship. They are part of Brightened Star, Ascending Dawn. She feels as overwhelmed as she did when she saw the universe expand.

But we will be found eventually, she says.

Kosavin nods. “Likely. But not soon.”

She looks at them all, on the bridge and at their stations elsewhere: forty-three persons skilled and capable of keeping her running and not alone, who will go into exile with her.

It was my choice to defy the Blue Sun, she says. I do not want you to be hurt.

“You didn’t do this by yourself,” Illyan says. He stretches, grinning. “We chose this lot.”

“The Blue Sun will not care.” Kosavin tilts her head, a sharp little movement. Her left optic shines with binary code as she sorts data points and probabilities. “And it’s done.”

Jamil shrugs, the corner of his mouth turned up. “We’re staying.” His smile widens and he loops his arm about his husband’s waist. “It’ll be an adventure.”

Hayato laughs. “One I would not miss.”

Kosavin kneels beside Li Sin. “And you, child?”

“I want to stay with the ship,” Li Sin says. “Can I stay, Ascending Dawn?”

Yes.

Kosavin nods, and that is all.

Something swells in Ascending Dawn, rippling through her shipskin and beating in her engines like the heartbeat in her pilot’s chest. She will not be left alone in the stars.

Thank you, she tells her family unit.

They disperse to their stations as she calculates the next jump towards Cormorant Sigma and the Arora Nebula System. Kosavin has estimated that it will be a safe harbor for them all until—if—they choose to go elsewhere later.

Will you sing? she asks Li Sin. She wants to give them the memory of her awakening in return; of how she first saw the universe. She will find a way to share it with them. I’d like to hear my song.

She is not afraid any more.

Li Sin holds her pilot’s hand. They sing to her and now she will remember her song as she glides toward an unknown future.

She finds a glimmer of memory tucked deep inside and allows herself to inspect it at last: that of her mother’s eyes and proud smile just for her.

©2017 by Merc Rustad. Originally published in Humans Wanted, edited by Vivian Caethe. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A. Merc Rustad is a queer non-binary writer who lives in Minnesota and is a 2016 Nebula Awards finalist. Their stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Fireside, Apex, Uncanny, Shimmer, Cicada, and other fine venues. You can find Merc on Twitter @Merc_Rustad, Patreon, or their website. Their debut short story collection, So You Want To Be A Robot, came out from Lethe Press in May 2017.

Cosmic Spring

Ken Liu | 2320 words

“Here, we present a cosmological model with an endless sequence of cycles of expansion and contraction. By definition, there is neither a beginning nor end of time, nor is there a need to define initial conditions.”

— Steinhardt, Paul J., and Neil Turok
“A cyclic model of the universe”
Science 296.5572 (2002): 1436-1439
(Available at bit.ly/2E49x2H.)

Qubits resolve and superimpose; information entangles and de-couples; consciousness re-emerges.

I don’t know for how long I’ve been asleep. There’s so little energy left in the island-ship’s reservoir that I’ve been conserving as much as possible.

A faint glow in the abyss, perhaps several thousand kelvins. It’s why I’ve been awakened.

I change course and head straight for perhaps the last star in the universe.

• • • •

The universe is in deep winter. This is my conclusion after studying the matter for 6.7 trillion years.

I was born in the fall. I know this because I have learned via the island-ship’s databanks—many more of those were still functional in my youth—that fall was a time of scarlet and crimson, ruby and garnet, vermillion and carmine. The universe was lit up by red stars in all these shades, which formed patterns in the dark velvety sky that I named out of boredom: the Rhombus of Logic Gates, the Qubit Tesseract, the Right-Triangle-Double-Square Proof.

I steered the island-ship by these shifting skymarks, hopping from star to star to harvest their fading fire. The red stars were often so small and feeble that I had to skim close to the surface to siphon off their energy to fuel the island-ship, but their warmth offered such relief from the frigid emptiness of the rest of the universe.

Occasionally, as I swung past the stars, I met creatures strange and wondrous. Some of them were wanderers like me, steering their own island-ships.

“Where are you from?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, good luck anyway!”

We exchanged greetings and learned each other’s languages so that we could share stories around the star-hearth before parting reluctantly after a few billion years on our separate ways.

Others were natives, their island-ships devoid of intelligence and fixed in interminable orbits. These often cowered at my ship’s approach, worshipping me as a god or cursing me as a demon. I tried to not tarry too long in these places, gathering only enough fuel for the journey to the next star. I felt bad for them, doomed to island-ships that could not sail.

Still others were pirates, who tried to board my ship and steal my fuel. A few times, we came to blows, and some memories were destroyed in the process. Luckily, in the end, I always managed to escape with a blast of photonic torrent at the statite sail and left them scrambling in the interstellar dust.

• • • •

The glow ahead is cooling even as I’m approaching. I hope that I can get there before it turns into a black dwarf and is lost to the abyss forever. The drive to go on is in life’s nature, evolved or otherwise.

I miss home. Even if home is no more.

But all around me, there are no other stars. I don’t have a choice.

• • • •

The red stars fell into themselves and began to glow white like tiny snowballs. With time, they turned gray, faded, and winked out.

Fall had turned to winter.

I met fewer island-ships. The journey between the dwindling stars lengthened, and I could no longer maintain things as well as I had in my youth. Memory bank after memory bank failed, and no matter how hard I copied and transcribed and entangled and verified—I had to again make the painful decision and let pieces of myself die.

Who am I?

Why am I here?

What is the island-ship?

Out of the few memories that are still uncorrupted, I attempt to piece together an answer:

Long ago, back when the universe was in high summer, stars of every hue and color and shade glowed so bright that they merged into rivers and seas of light. Around these stars were many island-ships, and on these island-ships life began.

One of the stars was called the Sun; one of the island-ships was called the Earth; the creatures who inhabited it were called humans.

Long after humans had scattered from the Earth, they did not forget about their home island, which was kept as a kind of shrine. From time to time, they came back to visit and perform some maintenance: shoring up plastinated buildings that were falling apart; re-entangling quantum memory banks that were in danger of collapsing; nudging the island-ship a bit farther away as the Sun expanded and began to glow red; retrofitting the island-ship with a statite sail and a photonic engine—something like a miniature star—so that the Earth could move on its own as the Sun died.

They also came home to listen to old stories in the memory banks and to tell new stories.

As the Sun cooled, fewer and fewer humans came. Eventually, they stopped coming altogether.

In these memory banks I was born. Did humans create me to act as a guardian for the island-ship, or did I evolve from patterns of information spinning, cycling, cascading, erupting, living, and dying among the qubits and probabilities?

I don’t know.

Does it matter?

Since the humans no longer came home, I set sail.

• • • •

I arrive at the star—only to find that it isn’t a star at all.

Well, perhaps it had been a star once, something along the main sequence, blooming and wilting like so many other stars in the universe. But no longer.

Someone, perhaps beings who had been born on the island-ships surrounding it, had not been willing to see their home star fade away once all its fuel had been consumed. Rather than wander out into the unknown, as humans had done, they had sailed into the abyss with the sole purpose of harnessing other stars and bringing them home, pouring the hydrogen and helium from these captured suns into their ancestral furnace so that their home could remain habitable a little while longer. Farther and farther they ventured, until their star became the sole beacon in a growing sea of darkness.

As the cosmic winter descended, they had to travel ever longer to find still-living stars to capture and bring home. They were running, stumbling, dashing across space to bring back a cup of snow to add to the melting snowball. In the end, perhaps they gave up this losing battle, unable to pull any other stars home without them burning out along the way.

They died.

But other beings came on wandering island-ships, lured by the lone light in the darkness. Only too late did they realize that the surrounding space had been cleared of other stars, and there was nowhere for them to go.

The beacon had become a trap.

Like the hundreds of other island-ships already circling this star, the newcomer’s only choice was to add to the dying hearth their last meager supplies of fuel, roiling balls of fusing atoms. By rejuvenating the dying star for another few million years, they hoped that they could summon other wanderers who could start the cycle again.

Someone like me.

“Welcome to the end of the universe.”

• • • •

Huddling in the pale glow of the star rejuvenated with my remaining fuel, we share the last shreds of our memories across the island-ships. None of us are in good shape. The island-ships are old and cold, their cores long frozen. Anything that could break had long ago been broken. The memories that remain are fragmentary, disjointed, without context.

But the drive to pass on something of the self is in life’s nature, evolved or otherwise.

Some sing songs of giant fins that swam through seas of methane, made of impossibly fragrant, perfect little tetrahedral jewels of wonder. Some speak of species with bodies made of silicon—staid, dependable beings who took a million years to finish a single thought. Some mime the flirty, flighty lives of creatures of pure information, who lived through a thousand generations in a single second. Some recite poetry written by sentient wings who skimmed across the surface of their star and dove into the convection zone to capture photonic worms.

It’s like what humans, I think, would call a variety show—a gala to pass the time on a dark night in winter. Though we’re all dying, the last consciousnesses in a universe conquered by entropy, there is pleasure and friendship, there is celebration. It’s not home, but at least we don’t have to die alone.

“It’s your turn.”

• • • •

This is one of the most complete fragments of memory I have left. A precious crumb left in my last failing memory bank.

A billion trillion stars streaking across the inky empyrean.

On the horizon are glowing constellations, though the constituent lights are so numerous that they merge into lines, curves, planes: a symmetrical pair of arched wings with a rounded beak in the center, like the mathematical idea of a bird in flight; a rectangular bridge topped by a multi-storied tower with layers of swooping roof-skirts, like a squat spider wearing a big hat; an elongated, thin pillar shooting straight up into the sky, with a string of ovals roving up and down like beads on a string.

TWA Flight Center

Beijing West Railway Station

Pulau Ujong Space Elevator

Each of the points of light speeding toward those structures is a human consciousness, a telepresence being shuttled across the FTL network that bonded all the human island-ships scattered across the universe into one.

Children of the cosmic summer, humans loved to wander far, to live in places where their parents never lived, where their children will grow up only to depart again.

Yet, there are times—when they are about to start a new venture, when they’re feeling the weight of age, when arbitrary marks in the cycles of their ancient calendars come around—when they wish to return to the places of their origin, the ancestral island-ships they only vaguely know through half-memories, the places where their parents waited for them with reminiscences sweet and bitter, so that they could give thanks, so that they could share a meal with family, so that they could be rejuvenated by gazing upon the past.

At this moment, most of the shooting stars are coming from or heading toward Beijing West Railway Station. It is as bright as the very beginning of the universe.

“Heading home?”

“You got it.”

“Where are you from?”

“Off the shoulder of Orion.”

“Safe travels, and happy spring festival!”

• • • •

The shapes of the telepresence hubs in that memory were inspired by actual buildings on the Earth that had long since crumbled into oblivion. They were icons whose forms told stories about their origin.

But it goes deeper than that. The spider with the tall hat was built at a time when humans traveled by cramming into boxes that levitated on parallel bars, like some tangible geometry proof. Millions went through that station to go home to celebrate the coming of spring.

But that swooping hat on top? It served no purpose except to remind humans of an even older time, of a time before the city had people-moving boxes on parallel rails. It was an icon embedded in an icon.

The ancient roof led to a train station that led to a virtual imitation for a galactic network that was recreated in the quantum memory banks of a memorial island-ship that might or might not be the same place as the land on which that train station had once stood.

And so I speak of years and trains and spiders and hats and islands, things I have never seen and have never known, constructing the Beijing West Railroad Station of my imagination with sounds and symbols invoking outdated definitions recalling semi-reliable memories wrapped around mythical truths.

If you follow the trails of icons all the way down, you find out where you come from.

You get to go home, even after it no longer exists.

• • • •

No one has spoken for a long time. The star is only a few kelvins now, a black dwarf that is just barely visible. Soon, all of us on all the island-ships will be dead.

Ancient myths speak of the universe as clinging to one of two parallel branes separated by dark energy, like the two parallel tracks on which those human-moving boxes had once ridden. The two branes collide periodically to crunch and bang out the universe, rejuvenating it in endless cycles.

If winter has already taken away everything, can spring be far away? I seem to sense the approach of the other brane—the way I imagine one would hear an oncoming train.

I pour my last energy reserves into maintaining the integrity of the memory of the glowing hubs. The myths say that the shapes of the sprouting structures in the next cosmic spring will be determined by the seeds of the quantum fluctuations planted this winter.

I am doomed to never see the new cosmic year. None of us will. There will be a brilliant flash, a trillion trillion baby stars, and new island-ships and unimaginable beings of wonder who will be born on those ships and fill the cosmos once again with wonder, beauty, light.

If I give it my all, perhaps one day, on one of those island-ships, someone will sit up and see a pattern of stars in the sky in the shape of a rectangular bridge topped by a multi-storied tower with layers of swooping roof-skirts, and they’ll name it Squat Spider Wearing a Big Hat.

Because they deserve to know something about those who came before them, something about where they come from.

Happy new year, universe.

©2018 by Ken Liu. First English language publication. Originally published in Chinese by the Future Affairs Administration on Weibo and WeChat as part of their “Spring Festival Gala” celebration in February 2018.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ken Liu is an author of speculative fiction, as well as a translator, lawyer, and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among other places. Ken’s debut novel, The Grace of Kings (2015), is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty. It won the Locus Best First Novel Award and was a Nebula finalist. He subsequently published the second volume in the series, The Wall of Storms (2016) as well as a collection of short stories, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (2016). He also wrote the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker (2017). In addition to his original fiction, Ken also translated numerous literary and genre works from Chinese to English. His translation of The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015, the first translated novel ever to receive that honor. He also translated the third volume in Liu Cixin’s series, Death’s End (2016) and edited the first English-language anthology of contemporary Chinese science fiction, Invisible Planets (2016). He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

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

The Effluent Engine

N.K. Jemisin | 10950 words

New Orleans stank to the heavens. This was either the water, which did not have the decency to confine itself to the river but instead puddled along every street; or the streets themselves, which seemed to have been cobbled with bricks of fired excrement. Or it may have come from the people who jostled and trotted along the narrow avenues, working and lounging and cursing and shouting and sweating, emitting a massed reek of unwashed resentment and perhaps a bit of hangover. As Jessaline strolled beneath the colonnaded balconies of Royal Street, she fought the urge to give up, put the whole fumid pile to her back, and catch the next dirigible out of town.

Then someone jostled her. “Pardon me, miss,” said a voice at her elbow, and Jessaline was forced to stop, because the earnest-looking young man who stood there was white. He smiled, which did not surprise her, and doffed his hat, which did.

“Monsieur,” Jessaline replied, in what she hoped was the correct mix of reserve and deference.

“A fine day, is it not?” The man’s grin widened, so sincere that Jessaline could not help a small smile in response. “I must admit, though; I have yet to adjust to this abysmal heat. How are you handling it?”

“Quite well, monsieur,” she replied, thinking, what is it that you want from me? “I am acclimated to it.”

“Ah, yes, certainly. A fine negress like yourself would naturally deal better with such things. I am afraid my own ancestors derive from chillier climes, and we adapt poorly.” He paused abruptly, a stricken look crossing his face. He was the florid kind, red-haired and freckled, with skin so pale that it revealed his every thought—in point of which he paled further. “Oh, dear! My sister warned me about this. You aren’t Creole, are you? I understand they take it an insult to be called, er . . . by certain terms.”

With some effort Jessaline managed not to snap, do I look like one of them? But people on the street were beginning to stare, so instead she said, “No, monsieur. And it’s clear to me you aren’t from these parts, or you would never ask such a thing.”

“Ah—yes.” The man looked sheepish. “You have caught me out, miss; I’m from New York. Is it so obvious?”

Jessaline smiled carefully. “Only in your politeness, monsieur.” She reached up to adjust her hat, lifting it for a moment as a badly needed cooling breeze wafted past.

“Are you perhaps—” The man paused, staring at her head. “My word! You’ve naught but a scrim of hair!”

“I have sufficient to keep myself from drafts on cold days,” she replied, and as she’d hoped, he laughed.

“You’re a most charming ne—woman, my dear, and I feel honored to make your acquaintance.” He stepped back and bowed, full and proper. “My name is Raymond Forstall.”

“Jessaline Dumonde,” she said, offering her lace-gloved hand, though she had no expectation that he would take it. To her surprise he did, bowing again over it.

“My apologies for gawking. I simply don’t meet many of the colored on a typical day, and I must say—” he hesitated, darted a look about, and at least had the grace to drop his voice. “You’re remarkably lovely, even with no hair.”

In spite of herself, Jessaline laughed. “Thank you, monsieur.” After an appropriate and slightly awkward pause, she inclined her head. “Well, then; good day to you.”

“Good day indeed,” he said, in a tone of such pleasure that Jessaline hoped no one had heard it, for his sake. The folk of this town were particular about matters of propriety, as any society which relied so firmly upon class differences. While there were many ways in which a white gentleman could appropriately express his admiration for a woman of color—the existence of the gens de couleur libre was testimony to that—all of those ways were simply Not Done in public.

But Forstall donned his hat, and Jessaline inclined her head in return before heading away. Another convenient breeze gusted by, and she took advantage of it to adjust her hat once more, in the process sliding her stiletto back into its hiding place amid the silk flowers.

• • • •

This was the dance of things, the cric-crac as the storytellers said in Jessaline’s land. Everyone needed something from someone. Glorious France needed money, to recover from the unlamented Napoleon’s endless wars. Upstart Haiti had money from the sweet gold of its sugarcane fields, but needed guns—for all the world, it seemed, wanted the newborn country strangled in its crib. The United States had guns but craved sugar, as its fortunes were dependent upon the acquisition thereof. It alone was willing to treat with Haiti, though Haiti was the stuff of American nightmare: a nation of black slaves who had killed off their white masters. Yet Haitian sugar was no less sweet for its coating of blood, and so everyone got what they wanted, trading ’round and ’round, a graceful waltz—only occasionally devolving into a knife-fight.

It had been simplicity itself for Jessaline to slip into New Orleans. Dirigible travel in the Caribbean was inexpensive, and so many travelers regularly moved between the island nations and the great American port city that hardly any deception had been necessary. She was indentured, she told the captain, and he had waved her aboard without so much as a glance at her papers (which were false anyhow). She was a wealthy white man’s mistress, she told the other passengers, and between her fine clothes, regal carriage, and beauty—despite her skin being purest sable in color—they believed her and were alternately awed and offended. She was a slave, she told the dockmaster on the levee; a trusted one, lettered and loyal, promised freedom should she continue to serve to her fullest. He had smirked at this, as if the notion of anyone freeing such an obviously valuable slave was ludicrous. Yet he, too, had let her pass unchallenged, without even charging her the disembarkation fee.

It had then taken two full months for Jessaline to make inquiries and sufficient contacts to arrange a meeting with the esteemed Monsieur Norbert Rillieux. The Creoles of New Orleans were a closed and prickly bunch, most likely because they had to be; only by the rigid maintenance of caste and privilege could they hope to retain freedom in a land which loved to throw anyone darker than tan into chains. Thus more than a few of them had refused to speak to Jessaline on sight. Yet there were many who had not forgotten that there but for the grace of God went their own fortune, so from these she had been able to glean crucial information and finally an introduction by letter. As she had mentioned the right names and observed the right etiquette, Norbert Rillieux had at last invited her to afternoon tea.

That day had come, and . . .

And. Rillieux, Jessaline was finally forced to concede, was an idiot.

“Monsieur,” she said again, after drawing a breath to calm herself, “as I explained in my letter, I have no interest in sugarcane processing. It is true that your contributions to this field have been much appreciated by the interests I represent; your improved refining methods have saved both money and lives, which could both be reinvested in other places. What we require assistance with is a wholly different matter, albeit related.”

“Oh,” said Rillieux, blinking. He was a savagely thin-lipped man, with a hard stare that might have been compelling on a man who knew how to use it. Rillieux did not. “Your pardon, mademoiselle. But, er, who did you say you represented, again?”

“I did not say, monsieur. And if you will forgive me, I would prefer not to say for the time being.” She fixed him with her own hard stare. “You will understand, I hope, that not all parties can be trusted when matters scientific turn to matters commercial.”

At that, Rillieux’s expression turned shrewd at last; he understood just fine. The year before, Jessaline’s superiors had informed her, the plan Rillieux had proposed to the city—an ingenious means of draining its endless pestilent swamps, for the health and betterment of all—had been turned down. Six months later, a coalition of city engineers had submitted virtually the same plan and been heaped with praise and funds to bring it about. The men of the coalition were white, of course. Jessaline marveled that Rillieux even bothered being upset about it.

“I see,” Rillieux said. “Then, please forgive me, but I do not know what it is you want.”

Jessaline stood and went to her brocaded bag, which sat on a side-table across the Rillieux house’s elegantly apportioned salon. In it was a small, rubber-stopped, peculiarly shaped jar of the sort utilized by chemists, complete with engraved markings on its surface to indicate measurements of the liquid within. At the bottom of this jar swirled a scrim of dark brown, foul-looking paste and liquid. Jessaline brought it over to Rillieux and offered the jar to his nose, waiting until he nodded before she unstoppered it.

At the scent which wafted out, he stumbled back, gasping, his eyes all a-water. “By all that’s holy! Woman, what is that putrescence?”

“That, Monsieur Rillieux, is effluent,” Jessaline said, neatly stoppering the flask. “Waste, in other words, of a very particular kind. Do you drink rum?” She knew the answer already. On one side of the parlor was beautifully made side table holding an impressive array of bottles.

“Of course.” Rillieux was still rubbing his eyes and looking affronted. “I’m fond of a glass or two on hot afternoons; it opens the pores, or so I’m told. But what does that—”

“Producing rum is a simple process with a messy result: this effluent, namely, and the gas it emits, which, until lately, had been regarded as simply the unavoidable price to be paid for your pleasant afternoons. Whole swaths of countryside are afflicted with this smell now as a result. Not only is the stench offensive to men and beasts, we have also found it to be as powerful as any tincture or laudanum; over time it causes anything exposed to suffocate and die. Yet there are scientific papers coming from Europe which laud this gas’ potential as a fuel source. Captured properly, purified, and burned, it can power turbines, cook food, and more.” Jessaline turned and set the flask on Rillieux’s beverage stand, deliberately close to the square bottle of dark rum she had seen there. “We wish you to develop a process by which the usable gas— methane—may be extracted from the miasma you just smelled.”

Rillieux stared at her for a moment, then at the flask. She could tell that he was intrigued, which meant that half her mission had been achieved already. Her superiors had spent a profligate amount of money requisitioning a set of those flasks from the German chemist who’d recently invented them, precisely with an eye towards impressing men like Rillieux, who looked down upon any science that did not show European roots.

Yet as Rillieux gazed at the flask, Jessaline was dismayed to see a look of consternation, then irritation, cross his face.

“I am an engineer, mademoiselle,” he said at last, “not a chemist.”

“We have already worked out the chemical means by which it might be done,” Jessaline said quickly, her belly clenching in tension. “We would be happy to share that with you—”

“And then what?” He scowled at her. “Who will put the patent on this process, hmm? And who will profit?” He turned away, beginning to pace, and Jessaline could see that he was working up a good head of steam, to her horror. “You have a comely face, Mademoiselle Dumonde, and it does not escape me that dusky women such as yourself once seduced my forefathers into the most base acts, for which those men atoned by at least raising their half-breed children honorably. If I were a white man hoping to once more profit from the labor of an honest Creole like myself—one already proven gullible—I would send a woman like you to do the tempting. To them, all of us are alike, even though I have the purest of French blood in my veins, and you might as well have come straight from the jungles of Africa!”

He rounded on her at this, very nearly shouting, and if Jessaline had been one of the pampered, cowed women of this land, she might have stepped back in fear of unpleasantness. As it was, she did take a step—but to the side, closer to her brocade bag, within which was tucked a neat little derringer whose handle she could see from where she stood. Her mission had been to use Rillieux, not kill him, but she had no qualms about giving a man a flesh wound to remind him of the value of chivalry.

Before matters could come to a head, however, the parlor door opened, making both Jessaline and Norbert Rillieux jump. The young woman who came in was clearly some kin of Rillieux’s; she had the same ocherine skin and loose-curled hair, the latter tucked into a graceful split chignon atop her head. Her eyes were softer, however, though that might have been an effect of the wire-rimmed spectacles perched atop her nose. She wore a simple gray dress, which had the unfortunate effect of emphasizing her natural pallor and making her look rather plain.

“Your pardon, Brother,” she said, confirming Jessaline’s guess. “I thought perhaps you and your guest might like refreshment?” In her hands was a silver tray of crisp square beignets dusted in sugar, sliced merliton with what looked like some sort of remoulade sauce, and tiny wedges of pecan penuche.

At the sight of this girl, Norbert blanched and looked properly abashed. “Ah—er, yes, you’re right, thank you. Ah—” He glanced at Jessaline, his earlier irritation clearly warring with the ingrained desire to be a good host; manners won, and he quickly composed himself. “Forgive me. Will you take refreshment, before you leave?” The last part of that sentence came out harder than the rest. Jessaline got the message.

“Thank you, yes,” she said, immediately moving to assist the young woman. As she moved her brocade bag, she noticed the young woman’s eyes, which were locked on the bag with a hint of alarm. Jessaline was struck at once with unease—had she noticed the derringer handle? Impossible to tell, since the young woman made no outcry of alarm, but that could have been just caution on her part. That one meeting of eyes had triggered an instant, instinctual assessment on Jessaline’s part; this Rillieux, at least, was nowhere near as myopic or bombastic as her brother.

Indeed, as the young woman lifted her gaze after setting down the tray, Jessaline thought she saw a hint of challenge lurking behind those little round glasses, and above that perfectly pleasant smile.

“Brother,” said the young woman, “won’t you introduce me? It’s so rare for you to have lady guests.”

Norbert Rillieux went from blanching to blushing, and for an instant Jessaline feared he would progress all the way to bluster. Fortunately he mastered the urge and said, a bit stiffly, “Mademoiselle Jessaline Dumonde, may I present to you my younger sister, Eugenie?”

Jessaline bobbed a curtsy, which Mademoiselle Rillieux returned. “I’m pleased to meet you,” Jessaline said, meaning it, because I might have enjoyed shooting your brother to an unseemly degree, otherwise.

It seemed Mademoiselle Rillieux’s thoughts ran in the same direction, because she smiled at Jessaline and said, “I hope my brother hasn’t been treating you to a display of his famous temper, Mademoiselle Dumonde. He deals better with his gadgets and vacuum tubes than people, I’m afraid.”

Rillieux did bluster at this. “Eugenie, that’s hardly—”

“Not at all,” Jessaline interjected smoothly. “We were discussing the finer points of chemistry, and your brother, being such a learned man, just made his point rather emphatically.”

“Chemistry? Why, I adore chemistry!” At this, Mademoiselle Rillieux immediately brightened, speaking faster and breathlessly. “What matter, if I may ask? Please, may I sit in?”

In that instant, Jessaline was struck by how lovely her eyes were, despite their uncertain coloring of browny-green. She had never preferred the looks of half-white folk, having grown up in a land where, thanks to the Revolution, darkness of skin was a point of pride. But as Mademoiselle Rillieux spoke of chemistry, something in her manner made her peculiar eyes sparkle, and Jessaline was forced to reassess her initial estimate of the girl’s looks. She was handsome, perhaps, rather than plain.

“Eugenie is the only other member of my family to share my interest in the sciences,” Rillieux said, pride warming his voice. “She could not study in Paris as I did; the schools there do not admit women. Still, I made certain to send her all of my books as I finished with them, and she critiques all of my prototypes. It’s probably for the best that they wouldn’t admit her; I daresay she could give my old masters at the École Centrale a run for their money!”

Jessaline blinked in surprise at this. Then it came to her; she had lost Rillieux’s trust already. But, perhaps . . .

Turning to the beverage stand, she picked up the flask of effluent. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to stay, Mademoiselle Rillieux—but before I go, perhaps you could give me your opinion of this?” She offered the flask.

Norbert Rillieux, guessing her intent, scowled. But Eugenie took the flask before he could muster a protest, unstoppering it deftly and wafting the fumes toward her face rather than sniffing outright. “Faugh,” she said, grimacing. “Definitely hydrogen sulfide, and probably a number of other gases, too, if this is the product of some form of decay.” She stoppered the flask and examined the sludge in its bottom with a critical eye. “Interesting—I thought it was dirt, but this seems to be some more uniform substance. Something made this? What process could generate something so noxious?”

“Rum distillation,” Jessaline said, stifling the urge to smile when Eugenie looked scandalized.

“No wonder,” Eugenie said darkly, “given what the end product does to men’s souls.” She handed the flask back to Jessaline. “What of it?”

So Jessaline was obliged to explain again. As she did, a curious thing happened; Eugenie’s eyes grew a bit glazed. She nodded, “mmm-hmming” now and again. “And as I mentioned to your brother,” Jessaline concluded, “we have already worked out the formula—”

“The formula is child’s play,” Eugenie said, flicking her fingers absently. “And the extraction would be simple enough, if methane weren’t dangerously flammable. Explosive even, under certain conditions . . . which most attempts at extraction would inevitably create. Obviously any mechanical method would need to concern itself primarily with stabilizing the end products, not merely separating them. Freezing, perhaps, or—” She brightened. “Brother, perhaps we could try a refinement of the vacuum-distillation process you developed for—”

“Yes, yes,” said Norbert, who had spent the past ten minutes looking from Jessaline to Eugenie and back, in visibly increasing consternation. “I’ll consider it. In the meantime, Mademoiselle Dumonde was actually leaving; I’m afraid we delay her.” He glared at Jessaline as Eugenie made a moue of dismay.

“Quite right,” said Jessaline, smiling graciously at him. She put away the flask and tucked the bag over her arm, retrieving her hat from the back of the chair. She could afford to be gracious now, even though Norbert Rillieux had proven intractable. Better indeed to leave, and pursue the matter from an entirely different angle.

And, as Norbert escorted her to the parlor door with a hand rather too firm upon her elbow, Jessaline glanced back and smiled at Eugenie, who returned the smile with charming ruefulness and a shy little wave.

Not just handsome, pretty, Jessaline decided at last. And that meant this new angle would be most enjoyable to pursue.

• • • •

There were, however, complications.

Jessaline, pleased that she had succeeded in making contact with a Rillieux, if not the one she’d come for, treated herself to an evening out about the Vieux Carre. It was not the done thing for a lady of gentle breeding—as she was emulating—to stop in at any of the rollicking music halls she could hear down side streets, though she was intrigued. She could, however, sit in on one of the new-fangled vaudevilles at the Playhouse, which she quite enjoyed, though it was difficult to see the stage well from rear balcony. Then, as nightfall finally brought a breath of cool relief from the day’s sweltering humidity, she returned to her room at the inn.

From time spent on the harder streets of Port-au-Prince, it was Jessaline’s longtime habit to stand to one side of a door while she unlocked it, so that her shadow under the door would not alert anyone inside. This proved wise, as pushing open the door she found herself facing a startled male figure, which froze in silhouette before the room’s picture window, near her traveling-chest. They stared at one another for a breath, and then Jessaline’s wits returned; at once she dropped to one knee and in a single smooth sweep of her hand, brushed up her booted leg to palm a throwing-knife.

In the same instant the figure bolted, darting toward the open balcony window. Jessaline hissed out a curse in her own Kreyòl tongue, running into the room as he lunged through the window with an acrobat’s nimbleness, rolling to his feet and fetching up against the elaborately ironworked railing. Fearing to lose him, Jessaline flung the knife from within the room as she ran, praying it would strike, and heard the thunk as it struck flesh. The figure on her balcony stumbled, crying out—but she could not have hit a vital area, for he grasped the railing and pulled himself over it, dropping the short distance to the ground and out of sight.

Jessaline scrambled through the window as best she could, hampered by her bustle and skirts. Just as she reached the railing, the figure finished picking himself up from the ground and turned to run. Jessaline got one good look at him in the moonlight, as he turned back to see if she pursued: a pinch-faced youth, clearly pale beneath the bootblack he’d smeared on his face and straw-colored hair to help himself hide in the dark. Then he was gone, running into the night, though he ran oddly and kept one of his hands clapped to his right buttock.

Furious, Jessaline pounded the railing, though she knew better than to make an outcry. No one in this town would care that some black woman had been robbed, and the constable would as likely arrest her for disturbing the peace.

Going back into her room, she lit the lanterns and surveyed the damage. At once a chill passed down her spine. The chest held a number of valuables that any sensible thief would’ve taken: fine dresses; a cameo pendant with a face of carved obsidian; the brass gyroscope that an old lover, a dirigible-navigator, had given her; a pearl-beaded purse containing twenty dollars. These, however, had all been shoved rudely aside, and to Jessaline’s horror, the chest’s false bottom had been lifted, revealing the compartment underneath. There was nothing here but a bundle of clothing and a larger pouch, containing a far more substantial sum—but that had not been taken, either.

But Jessaline knew what would have been in there, if she had not taken them with her to see Rillieux: the scrolls which held the chemical formula for the methane extraction process, and the rudimentary designs for the mechanism to do so—the best her government’s scientists had been able to cobble together. These were even now at the bottom of her brocade bag.

The bootblack-boy had been no thief. Someone in this foul city knew who and what she was, and sought to thwart her mission.

Carefully, Jessaline replaced everything in the trunk, including the false bottom and money. She went downstairs and paid her bill, then hired a porter to carry her trunk to an inn two blocks over, where she rented a room without windows. She slept lightly that night, waking with every creak and thump of the place, and took comfort only from the solid security of the stiletto in her hand.

• • • •

The lovely thing about a town full of slaves, vagabonds, beggars, and blackguards was that it was blessedly easy to send a message in secret.

Having waited a few days so as to let Norbert Rillieux’s anger cool—just in case—Jessaline then hired a child who was one of the innkeepers’ slaves. She purchased fresh fruit at the market and offered the child an apple to memorize her message. When he repeated it back to her word for word, she showed him a bunch of big blue-black grapes, and his eyes went wide. “Get word to Mademoiselle Eugenie without her brother knowing, and these are yours,” she said. “You’ll have to make sure to spit the seeds in the fire, though, or Master will know you’ve had a treat.”

The boy grinned, and Jessaline saw that the warning had not been necessary. “Just you hold onto those, Miss Jessaline,” he said back, pointing with his chin at the grapes. “I’ll have ’em in a minute or three.” And indeed, within an hour’s time he returned, carrying a small folded square of cloth. “Miss Eugenie agrees to meet,” he said, “and sends this as a surety of her good faith.” He pronounced this last carefully, perfectly emulating the Creole woman’s tone.

Pleased, Jessaline took the cloth and unfolded it to find a handkerchief of fine imported French linen, embroidered in one corner with a tiny perfect “R.” She held it to her nose and smelled a perfume like magnolia blossoms; the same scent had been about Eugenie the other day. She could not help smiling at the memory. The boy grinned too, and ate a handful of the grapes at once, pocketing the seeds with a wink.

“Gonna plant these near the city dump,” he said. “Maybe I’ll bring you wine one day!” And he ran off.

• • • •

So Jessaline found herself on another bright, sweltering day at the convent of the Ursulines, where two gentlewomen might walk and exchange thoughts in peace without being seen or interrupted by curious others.

“I have to admit,” said Eugenie, smiling sidelong at Jessaline as they strolled amid the nuns’ garden, “I was of two minds about whether to meet you.”

“I suppose your brother must’ve given you an earful after I left.”

“You might say so,” Eugenie said, in a dry tone that made Jessaline laugh. (One of the old nuns glowered at them over a bed of herbs. Jessaline covered her mouth and waved apology.) “But that wasn’t what gave me pause. My brother has his ways, Mademoiselle Jessaline, and I do not always agree with him. He’s fond of forming opinions without full information, then proceeding as if they are proven fact.” She shrugged. “I, on the other hand, prefer to seek as much information as I can. I have made inquiries about you, you see.”

“Oh? And what did you find?”

“That you do not exist, as far as anyone in this town knows.” She spoke lightly, Jessaline noticed, but there was an edge to her words, too. Unease, perhaps. “You aren’t one of us, that much anyone can see; but you aren’t a freedwoman either, though the people at your old inn and the market seemed to think so.”

At this, Jessaline blinked in surprise and unease of her own. She had not thought the girl would dig that deeply. “What makes you say that?”

“For one, that pistol in your bag.”

Jessaline froze for a pace before remembering to keep walking. “A lady alone in a strange, rough city would be wise to look to her own protection, don’t you think?”

“True,” said Eugenie, “but I checked at the courthouse, too, and there are no records of a woman meeting your description having bought her way free anytime in the past thirty years, and I doubt you’re far past that age. For another, you hide it well, but your French has an odd sort of lilt; not at all like that of folk hereabouts. And for thirdly—this is a small town at heart, Mademoiselle Dumonde, despite its size. Every time some fortunate soul buys free, as they say, it’s the talk of the town. To put it bluntly, there’s no gossip about you, and there should have been.”

They had reached a massive old willow tree which partially overhung the garden path. There was no way around it; the tree’s draping branches had made a proper curtain of things, nearly obscuring from sight the area about the trunk.

The sensible thing to do would have been to turn around and walk back the way they’d come. But as Jessaline turned to meet Eugenie’s eyes, she suffered another of those curious epiphanies. Eugenie was smiling, sweet, but despite this there was a hard look in her eyes, which reminded Jessaline fleetingly of Norbert. It was clear that she meant to have the truth from Jessaline, or Jessaline’s efforts to employ her would get short shrift.

So on impulse Jessaline grabbed Eugenie’s hand and pulled her into the willow-fall. Eugenie yelped in surprise, then giggled as they came through into the space beyond, green-shrouded and encircling, like a hurricane of leaves.

“What on earth—? Mademoiselle Dumonde—”

“It isn’t Dumonde,” Jessaline said, dropping her voice to a near-whisper. “My name is Jessaline Cleré. That is the name of the family that raised me, at least, but I should have had a different name, after the man who was my true father. His name was L’Overture. Do you know it?”

At that, Eugenie drew a sharp breath. “Toussaint the Rebel?” she asked. “The man who led the revolution in Haiti? That was your father?”

“So my mother says, though she was only his mistress; I am natural-born. But I do not begrudge her, because her status spared me. When the French betrayed Toussaint, they took him and his wife and legitimate children and carried them across the sea to torture to death.”

Eugenie put her hands to her mouth at this, which Jessaline had to admit was a bit much for a gently raised woman to bear. Yet it was the truth, for Jessaline felt uncomfortable dissembling with Eugenie, for reasons she could not quite name.

“I see,” Eugenie said at last, recovering. “Then—these interests you represent. You are with the Haitians.”

“I am. If you build a methane extraction mechanism for us, Mademoiselle, you will have helped a nation of free folk stay free, for I swear that France is hell-bent upon re-enslaving us all. They would have done it already, if one of our number had not thought to use our torment to our advantage.”

Eugenie nodded slowly. “The sugarcane,” she said. “The papers say your people use the steam and gases from the distilleries to make hot-air balloons and blimps.”

“Which helped us bomb the French ships most effectively during the Revolution, and also secured our position as the foremost manufacturers of dirigibles in the Americas,” Jessaline said, with a bit of pride. “We were saved by a mad idea and a contraption that should have killed its first user. So we value cleverness now, Mademoiselle, which is why I came here in search of your brother.”

“Then—” Eugenie frowned. “The methane. It is to power your dirigibles?”

“Partly. The French have begun using dirigibles too, you see. Our only hope is to enhance the maneuverability and speed of our craft, which can be done with gas-powered engines. We have also crafted powerful artillery which use this engine design, whose range and accuracy is unsurpassed. The prototypes work magnificently—but the price of the oil and coal we must currently use to power them is too dear. We would bankrupt ourselves buying it from the very nations that hope to destroy us. The rum effluent is our only abundant, inexpensive resource . . . our only hope.”

But Eugenie had begun to shake her head, looking taken aback. “Artillery? Guns, you mean?” she said. “I am a Christian woman, Mademoiselle—”

“Jessaline.”

“Very well; Jessaline.” That look was in her face again, Jessaline noted, that air of determination and fierceness that made her beautiful at the oddest times. “I do not care for the idea of my skills being put to use in taking lives. That’s simply unacceptable.”

Jessaline stared at her, and for an instant fury blotted out thought. How dare this girl, with her privilege and wealth and coddled life . . . Jessaline set her jaw.

“In the Revolution,” she said, in a low tight voice, “the last French commander, Rochambeau, decided to teach my people a lesson for daring to revolt against our betters. Do you know what he did? He took slaves—including those who had not even fought—and broke them on the wheel, raising them on a post afterwards so the birds could eat them alive. He buried prisoners of war, also alive, in pits of insects. He boiled some of them, in vats of molasses. Such acts, he deemed, were necessary to put fear and subservience back into our hearts, since we had been tainted by a year of freedom.”

Eugenie, who had gone quite pale, stared at Jessaline in purest horror, her mouth open. Jessaline smiled a hard, angry smile. “Such atrocities will happen again, Mademoiselle Rillieux, if you do not help us. Except this time we have been free for two generations. Imagine how much fear and subservience these Christian men will instill in us now?”

Eugenie shook her head slowly. “I . . . I had not heard . . . I did not consider . . .” She fell mute.

Jessaline stepped closer and laid one lace-gloved finger on the divot between Eugenie’s collarbones. “You had best consider such things, my dear. Do you forget? There are those in this land who would like to do the same to you and all your kin.”

Eugenie stared at her. Then, startling Jessaline, she dropped to the ground, sitting down so hard that her bustle made an aggrieved creaking sound.

“I did not know,” she said at last. “I did not know these things.”

Jessaline beheld the honest shock on her face and felt some guilt for having troubled her so. It was clear the girl’s brother had worked hard to protect her from the world’s harshness. Sitting beside Eugenie on the soft dry grass, she let out a weary sigh.

“In my land,” she said, “men and women of all shades are free. I will not pretend that this makes us perfect; I have gone hungry many times in my life. Yet there, a woman such as yourself may be more than the coddled sister of a prominent scientist, or the mistress of a white man.”

Eugenie threw her a guilty look, but Jessaline smiled to reassure her. The women of Eugenie’s class had few options in life; Jessaline saw no point in condemning them for this.

“So many men died in the Revolution that women fill the ranks now as dirigible-pilots and gunners. We run factories and farms, too, and are highly placed in government. Even the houngans are mostly women now—you have vodoun here too, yes? So we are important.” She leaned close, her shoulder brushing Eugenie’s in a teasing way, and grinned. “Some of us might even become spies. Who knows?”

Eugenie’s cheeks flamed pink and she ducked her head to smile. Jessaline could see, however, that her words were having some effect; Eugenie had that oddly absent look again. Perhaps she was imagining all the things she could do in a land where the happenstances of sex and caste did not forbid her from using her mind to its fullest? A shame; Jessaline would have loved to take her there. But she had seen the luxury of the Rillieux household; why would any woman give that up?

This close, shoulder to shoulder and secluded within the willow tree’s green canopy, Jessaline found herself staring at Eugenie, more aware than ever of the scent of her perfume, and the nearby softness of her skin, and the way the curls of her hair framed her long slender neck. At least she did not cover her hair like so many women of this land, convinced that its natural state was inherently ugly. She could not help her circumstances, but it seemed to Jessaline that she had taken what pride in her heritage that she could.

So taken was Jessaline by this notion, and by the silence and strangeness of the moment, that she found herself saying, “And in my land it is not uncommon for a woman to head a family with another woman, and even raise children if they so wish.”

Eugenie started—and to Jessaline’s delight, her blush deepened. She darted a half-scandalized, half-entranced look at Jessaline, then away, which Jessaline found deliciously fetching. “Live with—another woman? Do you mean—?” But of course she knew what Jessaline meant. “How can that be?”

“The necessities of security and shared labor. The priests look the other way.”

Eugenie looked up then, and Jessaline was surprised to see a peculiar daring enter her expression, though her flush lingered. “And . . .” She licked her lips, swallowed. “Do such women . . . ah . . . behave as a family in . . . all matters?”

A slow grin spread across Jessaline’s face. Not so sheltered in her thoughts at least, this one! “Oh, certainly. All matters—legal, financial, domestic . . .” Then, as a hint of uncertainty flickered in Eugenie’s expression, Jessaline got tired of teasing. It was not proper, she knew; it was not within the bounds of her mission. But—just this once—perhaps—

She shifted just a little, from brushing shoulders to pressing rather more suggestively close, and leaned near, her eyes fixed on Eugenie’s lips. “And conjugal,” she added.

Eugenie stared at her, eyes huge behind the spectacles. “C-conjugal?” she asked, rather breathlessly.

“Oh, indeed. Perhaps a demonstration . . .”

But just as Jessaline leaned in to offer just that, she was startled by the voice of one of the nuns, apparently calling to another in French. From far too near the willow tree, a third voice rose to shush the first two—the prying old biddy who’d given Jessaline the eye before.

Eugenie jumped, her face red as plums, and quickly shifted away from Jessaline. Privately cursing, Jessaline did the same, and an awkward silence fell.

“W-well,” said Eugenie, “I had best be getting back. I told my brother I would be at the seamstress’, and that doesn’t take long.”

“Yes,” Jessaline said, realizing with some consternation that she’d completely forgotten why she’d asked for a meeting in the first place. “Well. Ah. I have something I’d like to offer you—but I would advise you to keep these out of sight, even at home where servants might see. For your own safety.” She reached into the brocade bag and handed Eugenie the small cylindrical leather container that held the formula and plans for the methane extractor. “This is what we have come up with thus far, but the design is incomplete. If you can offer any assistance—”

“Yes, of course,” Eugenie said, taking the case with an avid look that heartened Jessaline at once. She tucked the leather case into her purse. “Allow me a few days to consider the problem. How may I contact you, though, once I’ve devised a solution?”

“I will contact you in one week. Do not look for me.” She got to her feet and offered her hand to help Eugenie up. Then, speaking loudly enough to be heard outside the willow at last, she giggled. “Before your brother learns we’ve been swapping tales about him!”

Eugenie looked blank for a moment, then opened her mouth in an “o” of understanding, grinning. “Oh, his ego could use a bit of flattening, I think. In any case, fare you well, Mademoiselle Dumonde. I must be on my way.” And with that, she hurried off, holding her hat as she passed through the willow branches.

Jessaline waited for ten breaths, then stepped out herself, sparing a hard look for the old nun—who, sure enough, had moved quite a bit closer to the tree. “A good afternoon to you, Sister,” she said.

“And to you,” the woman said in a low voice, “though you had best be more careful from now on, estipid.”

Startled to hear her own tongue on the old woman’s lips, she stiffened. Then, carefully, she said in the same language, “And what would you know of it?”

“I know you have a dangerous enemy,” the nun replied, getting to her feet and dusting dirt off her habit. Now that Jessaline could see her better, it was clear from her features that she had a dollop or two of African in her. “I am sent by your superiors to warn you. We have word the Order of the White Camellia is active in the city.”

Jessaline caught her breath. The bootblack man! “I may have encountered them already,” she said.

The old woman nodded grimly. “Word had it they broke apart after that scandal we arranged for them up in Baton Rouge,” she said, “but in truth they’ve just gotten more subtle. We don’t know what they’re after, but obviously they don’t just want to kill you, or you would be dead by now.”

“I am not so easily removed, madame,” Jessaline said, drawing herself up in affront.

The old woman rolled her eyes. “Just take care,” she snapped. “And by all means, if you want that girl dead, continue playing silly lovers’ games with her where any fool can suspect.” And with that, the old woman picked up her spade and shears, and walked briskly away.

Jessaline did too, her cheeks burning. But back in her room, ostensibly safe, she leaned against the door and closed her eyes, wondering why her heart still fluttered so fast now that Eugenie was long gone, and why she was suddenly so afraid.

• • • •

The Order of the White Camellia changed everything. Jessaline had heard tales of them for years, of course—a secret society of wealthy professionals and intellectuals dedicated to the preservation of “American ideals” like the superiority of the white race. They had been responsible for the exposure—and deaths, in some cases—of many of Jessaline’s fellow spies over the years. America was built on slavery; naturally, the White Camellias would oppose a nation built on slavery’s overthrow.

So Jessaline decided on new tactics. She shifted her attire from that of a well-to-do freedwoman to the plainer garb of a woman of lesser means. This elicited no attention, as there were plenty such women in the city—though she was obliged to move to yet another inn that would suit her appearance. This drew her well into the less-respectable area of the city, where not a few of the patrons took rooms by the hour or the half-day.

Here she laid low for the next few days, trying to determine whether she was being watched, though she spotted no suspicious characters—or at least, no one suspicious for the area. Which, of course, was why she’d chosen it. White men frequented the inn, but a white face that lingered or appeared repeatedly would be remarked upon, and easy to spot.

When a week had passed and Jessaline felt safe, she radically transformed herself using the bundle that had been hidden beneath her chest’s false bottom. First she hid her close-cropped hair beneath a lumpy calico headwrap, and donned an ill-fitting dress of worn, stained gingham patched here and there with burlap. A few small pillows rendered her effectively shapeless—a necessity, since in this disguise it was dangerous to be attractive in any way. As she slipped out in the small hours of the morning, carrying her belongings in a satchel and shuffling to make herself look much older, no one paid her any heed—not the drowsy old men sitting guard at the stables, nor the city constables chatting up a gaudily-dressed woman under a gaslamp, nor the young toughs still dicing on the corner. She was, for all intents and purposes, invisible.

So first she milled among the morning-market crowds at the waterfront awhile, keeping an eye out for observers. When she was certain she had not been followed, she made her way to the dirigible docks, where four of the great machines hovered above a cluster of cargo vessels like huge, sausage-shaped guardian angels. A massive brick fence screened the docks themselves from view, though this had a secondary purpose: The docks were the sovereign territory of the Haitian Republic, housing its embassy as well. No American-born slave was permitted to step upon even this proxy version of Haitian soil, since, by the laws of Haiti, they would then be free.

Yet practicality did not stop men and women from dreaming, and near the massive ironwork gate of the facility there was as usual a small crowd of slaves gathered, gazing enviously in at the shouting dirigible crews and their smartly dressed officers. Jessaline slipped in among these and edged her way to the front, then waited.

Presently, a young runner detached herself from the nearby rope crew and ran over to the fence. Several of the slaves pushed envelopes through the fence, commissioning travel and shipping on behalf of their owners, and the girl collected these. The whole operation was conducted in utter silence; an American soldier hovered all too near the gate, ready to report any slave who talked. (It was not illegal to talk, but any slave who did so would likely suffer for it.)

Yet Jessaline noted that the runner met the eyes of every person she could, nodding to each solemnly, touching more hands than was strictly necessary for the sake of her work. A small taste of respect for those who needed it so badly, so that they might come to crave it and eventually seek it for themselves.

Jessaline met the runner’s eyes too as she pushed through a plain, wrinkled envelope, but her gaze held none of the desperate hope of the others. The runner’s eyes widened a bit, but she moved on at once after taking Jessaline’s envelope. When she trotted away to deliver the commissions, Jessaline saw her shuffle the pile to put the wrinkled envelope on top.

That done, Jessaline headed then to the Rillieux house. At the back gate, she shifted her satchel from her shoulder to her hands, re-tying it so as to make it square-shaped. To the servant who then answered her knock—freeborn; the Rillieuxs did not go in for the practice of owning slaves themselves—she said in coarse French, “Package for Mademoiselle Rillieux. I was told to deliver it to her personal.”

The servant, a cleanly dressed fellow who could barely conceal his distaste at Jessaline’s appearance, frowned further. “English, woman, only high-class folk talk French here.” But when Jessaline deliberately spoke in butchered English, rendered barely comprehensible by an exaggerated French accent, the man finally rolled his eyes and stood aside. “She’s in the garden house. Back there. There!” And he pointed the way.

Thus did Jessaline come to the overlarge shed that sat amid the house’s vast garden. It had clearly been meant to serve as a hothouse at some point, having a glass ceiling, but when Jessaline stepped inside she was assailed by sounds most unnatural: clanks and squealing and the rattling hiss of a steam boiler. These came from the equipment and incomprehensible machinery that lined every wall and hung from the ceiling, pipes and clockworks big enough to crush a man, all of it churning merrily away.

At the center of this chaos stood several high worktables, each bearing equipment in various states of construction or dismantlement, save the last. At this table, which sat in a shaft of gathering sunlight, sat a sleeping Eugenie Rillieux.

At the sight of her, Jessaline stopped, momentarily overcome by a most uncharacteristic anxiety. Eugenie’s head rested on her folded arms, atop a sheaf of large, irregular sheets of parchment that were practically covered with pen-scribbles and diagrams. Her hair was amuss, her glasses askew, and she had drooled a bit onto one of her pale, ink-stained hands.

Beautiful, Jessaline thought, and marveled at herself. Her tastes had never leaned towards women like Eugenie, pampered and sheltered and shy. She generally preferred women like herself, who could be counted upon to know what they wanted and take decisive steps to get it. Yet in that moment, gazing upon this awkward, brilliant creature, Jessaline wanted nothing more than to be holding flowers instead of a fake package, and to have come for courting rather than her own selfish motives.

Perhaps Eugenie felt the weight of her longing, for after a moment she wrinkled her nose and sat up. “Oh,” she said blearily, seeing Jessaline. “What is it, a delivery? Put it on the table there, please; I’ll fetch you a tip.” She got up, and Jessaline was amused to see that her bustle was askew.

“Eugenie,” she said, and Eugenie whirled back as she recognized Jessaline’s voice. Her eyes flew wide.

“What in heaven’s name—”

“I haven’t much time,” she said, hastening forward. She took Eugenie’s hands in quick greeting, and resisted the urge to kiss her as well. “Have you been able to refine the plans?”

“Oh—yes, yes, I think.” Eugenie pushed her glasses straight and gestured toward the papers that had served as her pillow. “This design should work, at least in theory. I was right; the vacuum-distillation mechanism was the key! Of course, I haven’t finished the prototype, because the damned glassmaker is trying to charge pirates’ rates—”

Jessaline squeezed her hands, exhilarated. “Marvelous! Don’t worry; we shall test the design thoroughly before we put it into use. But now I must have the plans. Men are searching for me; I don’t dare stay in town much longer.”

Eugenie nodded absently, then blinked again as her head cleared. She narrowed her eyes at Jessaline in sudden suspicion. “Wait,” she said. “You’re leaving town?”

“Yes, of course,” Jessaline said, surprised. “This is what I came for, after all. I can’t just put something so important on the next dirigible packet—”

The look of hurt that came over Eugenie’s face sent a needle straight into Jessaline’s heart. She realized, belatedly and with guilty dismay, what Eugenie must have been imagining all this time.

“But . . . I thought . . .” Eugenie looked away suddenly, and bit her lower lip. “You might stay.”

“Eugenie,” Jessaline began, uncomfortably. “I . . . could never have remained here. This place . . . the way you live here . . .”

“Yes, I know.” At once Eugenie’s voice hardened; she glared at Jessaline. “In your perfect, wonderful land, everyone is free to live as they please. It is the rest of us, then, the poor wretched folk you scorn and pity, who have no choice but to endure it. Perhaps we should never bother to love at all, then! That way, at least, when we are used and cast aside, it will at least be for material gain!”

And with that, she slapped Jessaline smartly, and walked out. Stunned, Jessaline put a hand to her cheek and stared after her.

“Trouble in paradise?” said a voice behind her, in a syrupy drawl.

Jessaline whirled to find herself facing a six-shooter. And holding it, his face free of bootblack this time, was the young man who had invaded her quarters nearly two weeks before.

“I heard you Haitians were unnatural,” he said, coming into the light, “but this? Not at all what I was expecting.”

Not me, Jessaline realized, too late. They were watching Rillieux, not me! “Natural is in the eye of the beholder, as is beauty,” she snapped.

“True. Speaking of beauty, though, you looked a damn sight finer before. What’s all this?” He sidled forward, poking with the gun at the padding ’round Jessaline’s middle. “So that’s it! But—” He raised the gun, to Jessaline’s fury, and poked at her breasts none-too-gently. “Ah, no padding here. Yes, I do remember you rightly.” He scowled. “I still can’t sit down thanks to you, woman. Maybe I ought to repay you that.”

Jessaline raised her hands slowly, pulling off her lumpy headwrap so he could see her more clearly. “That’s ungentlemanly of you, I would say.”

“Gentlemen need gentlewomen,” he said. “Your kind are hardly that, being good for only one thing. Well—that and lynching, I suppose. But we’ll save both for later, won’t we? After you’ve met my superior and told us everything that’s in your nappy little head. He’s partial to your variety. I, however, feel that if I must lower myself to baseness, better to do it with one bearing the fair blood of the French.”

It took Jessaline a moment to understand through all his airs. But then she did, and shivered in purest rage. “You will not lay a finger upon Eugenie. I’ll snap them all off fir—”

But before she could finish her threat, there was a scream and commotion from the house. The scream, amid all the chaos of shouting and running servants, she recognized at once: Eugenie.

The noise startled the bootblack man as well. Fortunately he did not pull the trigger; he did start badly, however, half-turning to point the gun in the direction of Eugenie’s scream. Which was all the opening that Jessaline needed, as she drew her derringer from the wadded cloth of the headwrap and shot the man point-blank. The bootblack man cried out, clutching his chest and falling to the ground.

The derringer was spent; it carried only a single bullet. Snatching up the bootblack man’s sixgun instead, Jessaline turned to sprint toward the Rillieux house—then froze for an instant in terrible indecision. Behind her, on Eugenie’s table, sat the plans for which she had spent the past three months of her life striving and stealing and sneaking. The methane extractor could be the salvation of her nation, the start of its brightest future.

And in the house—

Eugenie, she thought.

And started running.

• • • •

In the parlor, Norbert Rillieux was frozen, paler than usual and trembling. Before him, holding Eugenie about the throat and with a gun to her head, was a white man whose face was so floridly familiar that Jessaline gasped.

“Raymond Forstall?”

He started badly as Jessaline rounded the door, and she froze as well, fearing to cause Eugenie’s death. Very slowly she set the sixgun on a nearby sideboard, pushed it so that it slid out of easy reach, and raised her hands to show that she was no threat. At this, Forstall relaxed.

“So we meet again, my beauteous negress,” he said, though there was anger in his smile. “I had hoped to make your acquaintance under more favorable circumstances. Alas.”

“You are with the White Camellia?” He had seemed so gormless that day on Royal Street; not at all the sort Jessaline would associate with a murderous secret society.

“I am indeed,” he said. “And you would have met the rest of us if my assistant had not clearly failed in his goal of taking you captive. Nevertheless, I, too, have a goal, and I ask again, sir, where are the plans?”

Jessaline realized belatedly that this was directed at Norbert Rillieux. And he, too frightened to bluster, just shook his head. “I told you, I have built no such device! Ask this woman—she wanted it, and I refused her!”

The methane extractor, Jessaline realized. Of course—they had known, probably via their own spies, that she was after it. Forstall had been tailing her the day he’d bumped into her, probably all the way to Rillieux’s house; she cursed herself for a fool for not realizing. But the White Camellias were mostly philosophers and bankers and lawyers, not the trained, proficient spies she’d been expecting to deal with. It had never occurred to her that an enemy would be so clumsy as to jostle and converse with his target in the course of surveillance.

“It’s true,” Jessaline said, stalling desperately in hopes that some solution would present itself to her. “This man refused my request to build the device.”

“Then why did you come back here?” Forstall asked, tightening his grip on Eugenie so that she gasped. “We had men watching the house servants, too. We intercepted orders for metal parts and rubber tubing, and I paid the glasssmith to delay an order for custom vacuum-pipes—”

“You did that?” To Jessaline’s horror, Eugenie stiffened in Forstall’s grasp, trying to turn and glare at him in her affront. “I argued with that old fool for an hour!”

“Eugenie, be still!” cried Norbert, which raised him high in Jessaline’s estimation; she had wanted to shout the same thing.

“I will not—” Eugenie began to struggle, plainly furious. As Forstall cursed and tried to restrain her, Jessaline heard Eugenie’s protests continue. “—interference with my work—very idea—”

Please, Holy Mother, Jessaline thought, taking a very careful step closer to the gun on the sideboard, don’t let him shoot her to shut her up.

When Forstall finally thrust Eugenie aside—she fell against the bottle-strewn side table, nearly toppling it—and indeed raised the gun to shoot her, Jessaline blurted, “Wait!”

Both Forstall and Eugenie froze, now separated and facing each other, though Forstall’s gun was still pointed dead at Eugenie’s chest. “The plans are complete,” Jessaline said to him. “They are in the workshop out back.” With a hint of pride, she looked at Eugenie and added, “Eugenie has made it work.”

“What?” said Rillieux, looking thunderstruck.

“What?” Forstall stared at her, then Eugenie, and then anger filled his expression. “Clever, indeed! And while I go out back to check if your story is true, you will make your escape with the plans already tucked into your clothes.”

“I am not lying in this instance,” she said, “but if you like, we can all proceed to the garden and see. Or, since I’m the one you seem to fear most—” She waggled her empty hands in mockery, hoping this would make him too angry to notice how much closer she was to the gun on the sideboard. His face reddened further with fury. “You could leave Eugenie and her brother here, and take me alone.”

Eugenie caught her breath. “Jessaline, are you mad?”

“Yes,” Jessaline said, and smiled, letting her heart live in her face for a moment. Eugenie’s mouth fell open, then softened into a small smile. Her glasses were still askew, Jessaline saw with a rush of fondness.

Forstall rolled his eyes, but smiled. “A capital suggestion, I think. Then I can shoot you—”

He got no further, for in the next instant Eugenie suddenly struck him in the head with a rum-bottle.

The bottle shattered on impact. Forstall cried out, half-stunned by the blow and the sting of rum in his eyes, but he managed to keep his grip on the gun, and keep it trained more or less on Eugenie. Jessaline thought she saw the muscles in his forearm flex to pull the trigger—

—and then the sixgun was in her hand, its wooden grip warm and almost comforting as she blew a hole in Raymond Forstall’s rum-drenched head. Forstall uttered a horrid gurgling sound and fell to the floor.

Before his body stopped twitching, Jessaline caught Eugenie’s hand. “Hurry!” She dragged the other woman out of the parlor. Norbert, again to his credit, started out of shock and trotted after them, for once silent as they moved through the house’s corridors toward the garden. The house was nearly deserted now, the servants having fled or found some place to hide that was safe from gunshots and madmen.

“You must tell me which of the papers on your desk I can take,” Jessaline said as they trotted along, “and then you must make a decision.”

“Wh-what decision?” Eugenie still sounded shaken.

“Whether you will stay here, or whether you will come with me to Haiti.”

“Haiti?” Norbert cried.

“Haiti?” Eugenie asked, in wonder.

“Haiti,” said Jessaline, and as they passed through the rear door and went into the garden, she stopped and turned to Eugenie. “With me.”

Eugenie stared at her in such dawning amazement that Jessaline could no longer help herself. She caught Eugenie about the waist, pulled her near, and kissed her most soundly and improperly, right there in front of her brother. It was the sweetest, wildest kiss she had ever known in her life.

When she pulled back, Norbert was standing at the edge of her vision with his mouth open, and Eugenie looked a bit faint. “Well,” Eugenie said, and fell silent, the whole affair having been a bit much for her.

Jessaline grinned and let her go, then hurried forward to enter the workshop—and froze, horror shattering her good mood.

The bootblack man was gone. Where his body had been lay Jessaline’s derringer and copious blood, trailing away . . . to Eugenie’s worktable, where the plans had been, and were no longer. The trail then led away, out the workshop’s rear door.

“No,” she whispered, her fists clenching at her sides. “No, by God!” Everything she had worked for, gone. She had failed, both her mission and her people.

“Very well,” Eugenie said after a moment. “Then I shall simply have to come with you.”

The words penetrated Jessaline’s despair slowly. “What?”

She touched Jessaline’s hand. “I will come with you. To Haiti. And I will build an even more efficient methane extractor for you there.”

Jessaline turned to stare at her and found that she could not, for her eyes had filled with tears.

“Wait—” Norbert caught his breath as understanding dawned. “Go to Haiti? Are you mad? I forbid—”

“You had better come too, brother,” Eugenie said, turning to him, and Jessaline was struck breathless once more by the cool determination in her eyes. “The police will take their time about it, but they’ll come eventually, and a white man lies dead in our house. It doesn’t really matter whether you shot him or not; you know full well what they’ll decide.”

And Norbert stiffened, for he did indeed know—probably better than Eugenie, Jessaline suspected—what his fate would be.

Eugenie turned to Jessaline. “He can come, can’t he?” By which Jessaline knew it was a condition, not an option.

“Of course he can,” she said at once. “I wouldn’t leave a dog to these people’s justice. But it will not be the life you’re used to, either of you. Are you certain?”

Eugenie smiled, and before Jessaline realized what was imminent, she had been pulled rather roughly into another kiss. Eugenie had been eating penuche again, she realized dimly, and then for a long perfect moment she thought of nothing but pecans and sweetness.

When it was done, Eugenie searched Jessaline’s face and then smiled in satisfaction. “Perhaps we should go, Jessaline,” she said gently.

“Ah. Yes. We should, yes.” Jessaline fought to compose herself; she glanced at Norbert and took a deep breath. “Fetch us a hansom cab while you still can, Monsieur Rillieux, and we’ll go down to the docks and take the next dirigible southbound.”

The daze cleared from Norbert’s eyes as well; he nodded mutely and trotted off.

In the silence that fell, Eugenie turned to Jessaline.

“Marriage,” she said, “and a house together. I believe you mentioned that?”

“Er,” said Jessaline, blinking. “Well, yes, I suppose, but I rather thought that first we would—”

“Good,” Eugenie replied, “because I’m not fond of you keeping up this dangerous line of work. My inventions should certainly earn enough for the both of us, don’t you think?”

“Um,” said Jessaline.

“Yes. So there’s no reason for you to work when I can keep you in comfort for the rest of our days.” Taking Jessaline’s hands, she stepped closer, her eyes going soft again. “And I am so very much looking forward to those days, Jessaline.”

“Yes,” said Jessaline, who had been wondering just which of her many sins had earned her this mad fortune. But as Eugenie’s warm breast pressed against hers, and the thick perfume of the magnolia trees wafted around them, and some clockwork contraption within the workshop ticked in time with her heart . . . Jessaline stopped worrying. And she wondered why she had ever bothered with plans and papers and gadgetry, because it was clear she had just stolen the greatest prize of all.

©2011 by N. K. Jemisin. Originally published in Steam-Powered, edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

N. K. Jemisin lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY, where she is hard at work on her sixth novel.  Her other works have been multiply nominated for the Hugo, the Nebula, and the World Fantasy Award, and she’s won the Locus for Best First Novel.  Samples of her work, and essays on speculative fiction, anti-oppression, and general silliness, can be found at nkjemisin.com.

The Dreamers of Alamoi

Jeremiah Tolbert | 6090 words

The madman whistled an unfamiliar tune as he walked past the tangle-choked fields along a road in little better shape; before the plague, it had been surfaced with polished brick. Bricks that the dreamers hadn’t pried up or been chewed into gravel by the weeds and weather.

The guide followed close behind, scheming again.

The madman paused to light his pipe and take a preposterously deep drag from the tight-packed bowl. He inclined the stem toward his guide, exhaled blue smoke.

The guide shook his head. “The last time left me stumbling for hours.”

The madman shrugged. “I had hoped for the amusement of a repeat performance. Ah well. How far now?”

The guide squinted. “Another dozen leagues before it’s too dangerous to continue.”

“Too dangerous for you, perhaps,” the madman said, unveiling his madness again.

When they first met in the traveler’s inn a hundred leagues distant, the madman had said to the guide, whose name was Tog: “They call me Garen the Undreaming—among other, less flattering things. Those men told me you know the way to Alamoi.”

Indeed, Tog had not seen Garen rest since they had set out from the inn for Alamoi, although Tog required sleep, so it was possible that Garen had only waited to bed down until after Tog. Suspicious of the claim, Tog had only pretended to sleep one evening. Through slitted eyes, he had watched the madman drink from a wineskin, wave his hands in some elaborate pantomime, and mutter to himself for hours.

The novelty of it wore thin and Tog had drifted off, but not before he decided that it made no difference whether the assertion was true or not. Garen was mad in either case. He was especially mad if the claim was true; immune to sleep he might be, but immune to the effects of deprivation he was not.

Mad as he was, what harm to lead the man toward the city, knock him on the head, and take from him the curious bag of belongings he carried on his back? No harm to Tog anyway, and that was all that really mattered to him.

“Do you often meet travelers on this road?” Garen asked.

Tog made out the shapes of figures in the dawn mist slouching towards them. He touched the polished antler-hilt of the bone knife at his belt, reassuring himself of its presence.

“Never.”

Garen shifted his pack from his shoulders, dropped it in the dirt, and begun rummaging through it. Objects clattered and thudded inside. Tog leaned in to glimpse the contents.

“Really?” Garen said to the air. “Yes, very well. I’ll find it.”

Many of the objects Garen carried with him were unrecognizable to Tog, made of bone, mountain glass, flint, and even the rare bit of copper or bronze, colored deeply as Garen’s own foreign skin.

Garen took the wooden handle of a bronze blade in his palm and Tog felt relieved that the madman had armed himself, but then Garen sat it aside and continued to dig. The approaching figures had resolved into the shapes of two men and a woman wearing the heavy fur cloaks of hillfolk when Garen clucked like a pleased hen and withdrew a fist-sized cloth bundle fastened closed with jute.

The pack contained treasures, as Tog had suspected, perhaps worth countless nights in the brothel tents. He would have it, if the hillfolk didn’t ruin everything.

“Not the kind of folk interested in trade,” Tog hissed. The hillfolk had spotted them and their pace picked up to a brisk jog. The men carried stone-tipped spears.

“Keep your mouth shut while I work,” Garen hissed, and then called out, “Well met, travelers.”

The hillfolk slowed, exchanging glances. Tog had known some who were honorable, but far more who were brigands and thieves; clever, and deadly with their spears. They rejected farming and civility, living as the old people did by the fruits of their arms. Many found it easier to survive as bandits than to hunt game on the flinty hillsides where they dwelled.

“We are not travelers,” the woman said. “I am Theam, and these are my brothers. Who are you, and what brings you to this plague-wracked place? Few travel this road now but the dreamers.”

Garen touched his right thumb to his forehead, a customary greeting. “I am Garen, and I travel to the Shining City. This is my guide.”

“Tog.” He half-bowed.

The woman laughed. “You can’t hope to escape the teeth of such a powerful dream. If we allowed you to travel another league, you too would be cutting stone blocks from the hill quarries and dragging them into place, again and again until you collapse, rest, and rise to cut and labor again.”

Tog began to speak out against their lie, but Garen silenced him with a glare. “You have seen the dreamers of Alamoi?” Garen sounded impressed.

“I have,” she said, nodding. “Their work teams wander into our hills to gather stone for those twin blasphemies.” She thrust a thumb over her shoulder.

Garen nodded. “Perhaps you can solve a mystery for me, then. With the fields untended and all commerce departed, what do the dreamers consume for sustenance after these seven years of labor?” The question had bothered Tog as well, and many travelers had their theories, mostly gruesome.

“The dream sustains them,” Theam said. “They do not require food or drink.”

The madman forlornly shook his head. “What a pitiful existence! A life of constant labor and no pleasure. Myself, I prefer an inversion of that imbalance. Thank you for the knowledge, then.” He paused. “I see your brothers grow tired of talk and are ready to kill and rob us, but I must forestall that, I’m afraid.” Garen unfurled his closed fist and offered the bundle to the hill woman.

Theam’s eyes widened, and the men began to speak rapidly in their guttural tongue. After a moment of hesitation, she took it. One of the men said something angrily, and pointed his spear towards Garen. Theam slapped him open-palmed across the face, hard enough that the man’s nose dripped blood afterwards.

“I recognize the craftsmanship,” she told her brother in the dream tongue, then, turning to the madman: “How did this token enter your possession, flatlander?”

Garen laughed. “I found it tucked in the belt of a dead man leagues and leagues away from here. I honestly had no idea what it was, but a voice on the wind told me to give it to you. A token, you say?”

The hillfolk shifted uneasily. Not even hillfolk wished to be in the presence of a madman for any longer than necessary. Tog nearly smirked.

“Of passage,” she said. “We will honor it as we must, or the Rutk of the Raven Eye will punish us. But if you continue down this road, you will dream or die.”

“Sadly, I must.”

“A shame your possessions will be lost with you. Go, then, but know whatever it is they construct within . . . it nears completion. Better to flee this place as we do.”

Garen took up his pack and began to walk down the ruined road, once again whistling the foreign tune. Tog stepped to follow, and found the hillfolk’s spear-tips at his belly.

“One token. One passage,” Theam’s taller brother snarled.

Garen shrugged. He avoided Tog’s desperate gaze.

“You cannot leave me to these beasts! I led you faithfully as promised!” Tog shouted. He made to draw his knife, but the hill men’s icy stares chilled the anger in his blood.

Garen continued on his path making no sign of awareness even as the hillfolk’s spears plunged about their gory work, and Tog screamed curses for the day he had met Garen the Undreaming.

• • • •

Garen left stories in his wake like petals from a dying flower. These tales served as a trail which the needful could follow in order to hire or press him into service. Always they found Garen in one of a few locales: within brothels, where tawdry pleasures of the flesh could satisfy a short while; within a mead hall or winery, where strong drink could tamp down his madness for a while longer; or finally, within a temple or sanitarium, where sacred rites or ancient medicines might soothe his fractured mind a while longer still.

Meldri and Besthamun found Garen locked away in the deepest meditation pits of the Goddess Sebun’s holiest temple in the port city of Tauk.

A bribed eunuch led them through the labyrinth of dimly lit passageways. “The acolytes have subjected this one to eighteen endless days and nights of humming meditations. They believe the proper tones will align Garen’s soul shards and restore his ability to slumber.”

“For our sake, we hope they’re unsuccessful,” Meldri muttered. Besthamun frowned, but Meldri spoke the truth. If Garen were to be cured, he would not meet their needs.

The servant tittered, stopped at the entrance of a cell. He seemed held at bay by the hysterical laughter coming from within, rising above the steady tones of three acolytes.

“This wretched creature has no soul shards left to align,” whispered the eunuch. “But he made a generous enough offering to the Temple for a year of treatments.”

“I hear a little bird outside my cage,” the laughing voice cried from within. “Come in, little bird, and sing me a better song.”

The eunuch scurried away; Besthamun gave serious consideration to following, but they had traveled too far to turn back in this moment, and steeled herself to enter.

As they did, the humming ceased, the air suddenly dangerously empty, as if the silence might swallow them all. The small stone cell was lit by a single candle, nearly spent. The acolytes rose to their feet, saying nothing as they brushed past the scholars and into the catacombs.

A single disheveled shape remained within the cell, squeezed into the farthest corner as if trying to disappear into the flickering shadows. The figure might have been a man, or might have been a loose bundle of sticks and rags. He was made of elbows and knees, long-limbed, thin. Long, dull-black hair hung in tangles, hair from his scalp and face mingling into one tangled, rat-gnawed mess. Within the tangles burned sea-gray eyes that seemed to Besthamun to reflect more light than the candle gave off.

Besthamun cleared her throat. “Esteemed one, we offer our most humble apologies for interrupting, but—”

Garen sighed. “I welcome it; I grew bored of their incessant noises six days ago, but couldn’t think of how I might say as such without insulting their cult of mysteries. One thing I know about cults; they do not take to being insulted.” Without warning or pause, he scrabbled across the room to the scholars and stood with the tip of his broad nose brushing against Meldri’s. He sniffed.

“I know that perfume. You’ve journeyed from the Salt Coast.” He squinted. “By your plain manner of dress, I make you for scholars of the Great University of Kamtun Jai.”

Meldri took a step back. Besthamun glared at him for daring to insult Garen thus, but continued her entreaty.

“—we have a task that requires your unique person to complete, and wish to employ your services.”

“I visited the University once. They threw me out, said I was not worthy of their knowledge.”

“The mad cannot grasp enlightenment,” Meldri said with a sniff.

Besthamun considered striking her brother, but worried what the act of violence would incite in the madman. “Apologies for my brother’s insult. He is jealous of the offer we make to you.”

Meldri sneered. “We studied a dozen summers before we were allowed within the Library of Dreams. What could this one hope to learn without proper study?”

“No insult taken,” Garen said, lips twitching with the faintest smile. “Go without rest for as many years as I and see how sound your own mind is.” He took a step back from Meldri and stretched his long limbs.

“And what must I do to gain access to your library? No doubt you believe it might contain hints regarding my affliction—or at least, you would like me to believe so. May I borrow your knife?”

Besthamun hesitated, but she retrieved the small knife of mountain glass from within the folds of her robes and offered it up. Garen began hacking away at his beard. “Go on,” he said.

“Have you, in your travels, heard of the city of Alamoi?” she asked.

He did not hesitate. “No.”

“It was a great city, ruled by a masonic order which mastered secrets of working stones that some say pre-dates the last Ice. Half of the great walls from the Placidine Sea to the Jaggared Mountains were built by Alamoi masons.”

Meldri continued when Besthamun paused, unwanted tears forming in her eyes. “Some call it the Shining City; the polished stone used in its construction reflects the light at sunrise and sunset brilliantly. It was a beacon of civilization, once.”

“What happened? Plague?” Garen continued to hack away at his hair. His angular face slowly emerged from the chaos. Besthamun was surprised to find herself admiring its shape as the blade revealed it, as if carving his chin from a block of softstone.

Meldri nodded. “A dream plague fell upon the city, and it did not pass. Even now, the residents of the city labor under the dream. Reports of travelers say that new constructions rise above the city.”

“And what do they work to assemble?”

Besthamun frowned. “We don’t know. It is impossible to approach close enough without falling to the dream. Nothing good. That much is certain.”

Garen finished trimming his beard and returned the knife, which Besthamun gratefully stashed away.

“You wish me to approach the city and document what I see; to learn the nature of their project. I’ve performed such tasks before. For one such as me, it is simple. As boring as the acolytes’ humming.” Already, it seemed his attention was wandering.

Meldri laughed. “Oh, no; not only that. We want you to destroy the edifice.” He turned away, spoke over his shoulder in a great show of disrespect. “Sister, this man is a waste of time. He could never accomplish our task; it is plain to see.”

Garen’s gaze snapped into focus, and Besthamun shifted uncomfortably under the madness of it. The madman grinned broadly, and Besthamun decided then that no, he was not so handsome, not with a face that could ever wear that terrible expression.

• • • •

The gates of the city were open wide. Instead of streets and structures, he beheld a great goat, dead from thirst, mouth hanging open and thick tongue lolling in the sand—this, a flashback from his childhood. It faded quickly with another pull on his pipe.

Of course the gates were open. What use would it serve to close the gates when any attackers would fall under the dreaming far before reaching the unmanned wall? A cool breeze blew down from the mountains, carrying a sadness that Garen could not shake. A bone-weary loneliness took hold of him as he passed through the gate and into the broad, well-paved avenues of Alamoi. The streets were as empty as the sentry posts, the windows of surrounding buildings still shuttered against the night the plague fell.

“Begone, spirits,” Garen whispered. The lonely melancholy passed as the words left his lips.

As he’d approached Alamoi, he’d gawped in awe at the pair of towers that dominated the cityscape, rising story after story higher than the next tallest building. Scaffolding clung to them like scabs, and the tiny figures of workers scurried here and there upon the surfaces.

At first, he thought it only another hallucination that the two towers seemed to bend towards one another at their peak, but the vision did not waver. Realization arrived late: these were not two towers, but instead the opposing sides of an arch. Closer now, he could make out the ropes and pulleys lifting an enormous keystone into the heavens. It inched upwards as he watched.

The dreaming construct would soon be complete. What would happen then was a great mystery, but not one Garen was eager to solve.

He hurried down alleyways and squeezed between abandoned buildings, looking overhead to orient himself. In this harried state, he nearly missed the shadows that gathered to follow his steps.

The mind of Garen was a nigh-constantly distracted one, but with many nights of training he had honed his observational senses, his deepest, truest mind alert to danger and discrepancy without intentional thought. A prickling of the skin on his nape drew him back to the moment, and with careful side-glances, he made out the shapes that followed him. They were small and narrow-limbed, soft-footed, naked save for those who wore tangles of rags about their waists.

Children. The dreaming must have overlooked those too small to be of use in its endeavor. In the absence of parental discipline, they had turned feral.

Sensing that they had lost the surprise, the urchins rushed in; they wielded flint knives, crude axes, hammers, and other discarded, broken tools.

These survivors had not been nourished by the dream, Garen saw now. A vision of truth flooded Garen’s mind as he broke out into a sprint.

First, they had scavenged, but stores quickly ran thin. The half-starved children had learned to hunt the small animals first—cats and other abandoned pets. Soon they exhausted these reserves, too. The remaining animals too cunning, the dreaming workers proved easier prey.

What Garen had made for rags were bundles of human scalps and tanned hide; trophies of successful hunts. The taste of dreamer flesh had twisted them past salvation or reason, Garen a morsel of curiosity they risked their lives to taste.

The vision spurred him swiftly forward, but more attackers whooped with wordless battle cries; soon Garen was cut off by another cohort. Too harried to find his blade in his pack, he leapt towards the nearest wall and began to climb, driving his fingers into the narrowest chinks between the stones. He cursed the Alamoi masons who fit the blocks together so well, and his nails cracked and bled. The children lapped at the splotches he left behind, shoving one another to get at his juices.

These drippings and his vertical flight stymied them briefly; they milled about below. A boy nearly twelve winters by the look of him—taller than the rest, with more muscle and eyes like burning coals—made frantic gestures and grunted at the others. He cuffed a smaller girl behind the ear, and chastened, she began to climb, a snarl upon her chapped lips.

Garen gained the clay-tiled roof just as the girl grabbed his ankle. A swift kick sent the child sprawling down onto the others in a heap. Their shouts of dismay warmed him against the chill breeze.

Garen pulled at a tile, and it came up easily enough, offering good heft. He pelted the children, cackling with each satisfying thwack of clay against urchin flesh. The pack suffered only a little of this before fleeing back down the alleys.

“You die anyway,” the oldest boy grunted over his shoulder before following the others. “They finish soon.”

• • • •

“No, no, no!” Meldri snapped. “If you combine the essences in that order, you’ll ignite the fats of your own flesh and burn like a candle.”

Besthamun’s pale fingers scooped up the vials and returned them to the case. “Again, from the beginning.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t concoct the mixture ahead of time,” Garen said with a sigh. They had been at this for threes days, and the complex steps of the mixture’s alchemy had eluded him.

“The final compound is unstable. A stray pebble in your sandal could cause it to ignite as you carry it,” Besthamun said softly.

Garen took her hand into his. “I burn already, in spirit. What does it matter to me if my flesh does as well?”

She tugged her fingers free and turned away so he could not see her stinging tears. It was nearly certain that she sent him to his own demise with this task. While she had enjoyed his company in her bed these past nights, she could not convince herself that their time together would be anything other than a brief respite before his inevitable doom.

Garen began again, pantomiming the steps to properly combine the elements and essences of the kit. This recipe had come from the deepest recesses of the Dream Library; its mere existence had been the subject of whispers among their fellow scholars, and the scrolls containing it had nearly combusted in the sunlight—a trap laid by the mad thing who had dreamed the notes and then scribed them faithfully. The recipe itself contained many false steps and dangerous combinations. Such dream knowledge, even when functional, was always counter-intuitive and dangerous to use, holding its own logic.

Being unable to dream had made Garen unfamiliar with its peculiar non-logic. Even so, Besthamun did not doubt that Garen would master the formula. Every night, after their pleasures, he threw aside her furs and stepped naked out into the cold night air to practice.

She doubted any knowledge could escape Garen’s grasp for long; despite the fits of madness he suffered when not presented with a task or goal, his mind was one of the sharpest she had ever encountered. It hungered to understand. In these days, Garen was still more ignorant than wise in the ways of the world (a skillful lover, admittedly), but if he survived into his twilight years, his mind might solve some of the deepest philosophical questions, such as the nature of the Dreamers that visited the plagues upon humankind—from whence did their slumbering nightmares emit? Questions no ordinary scholar could contemplate for long without turning mad, but Garen was already lost. It would only be a matter of degrees for him.

Meldri leaned in and whispered as Garen mimed taking the flame to the tincture of aumsblood. “He nearly has it.”

She nodded, and held a finger to her lips.

With a flourish of his right hand, Garen completed the final step. Sweat dripped from the tip of his broad nose, and his blouse was soaked through.

“How was that?” he asked.

“Satisfactory,” Meldri said with a sniff, but he could not hide his excitement, his eyes sparkling in the light of the alchemist’s flame. Their plan might yet work!

“I say we celebrate,” Garen said, and he took Meldri into his arms and kissed him deeply, breaking only to nibble upon Besthamun’s neck.

“I suppose you have earned a brief respite from your training,” Meldri murmured.

• • • •

Garen sweat under the high mountain sun, relentless in its drumming beat on his copper skin. He threw aside his cape of furs and used his elevated vantage point to survey the territory he must cross to reach the base of the archway.

Mangled, magpie-pecked corpses of those that had fallen from the scaffolding littered the ground below; the living paid these dead no attention. Beyond the field of corpses, a maze of ladders and platforms coiled around the stone foundations like paper snakes. These teemed with the dreaming workers now, but after a moment of watching, Garen could see that the tide of humanity had reversed; the dreamers now climbed downward. A crowd of hundreds milled just below the keystone, which was swinging into place atop the arch.

Now Garen drew his blade from his pack and clenched it between his teeth. His mouth tasted as metallic as blood as he climbed down to the street once more. He kept a careful eye on the shadows for the urchins, but saw none; a strange energy in the air grew taut, and even the feral children must have been able to sense it. Perhaps they had fled the city ahead of what came next.

A dozen empty-eyed, slack-mouthed workers shuffled past the entrance to Garen’s alley. He flinched back, but they paid him no mind. He stepped out and followed, keeping a small distance from the rear of the pack. He did his best to match their gait and unseeing stares.

Once the pack merged with the larger crowd, they began to sway in place, as if leaning to and fro to a tune only they could hear. A dim memory of a song with a matching beat played itself in Garen’s mind, and he nearly shrieked to silence it. He didn’t wish to recall whatever that was now, a memory of a time when he too had been exposed to a dream, and returned from it lacking some deep, fundamental piece of himself, the only survivor in an entire village of dreaming dead.

He shook away the audial phantasm and pushed his way through the crowd, hundreds of half-naked bodies now, shoulder to shoulder, pressing ever inward to seek the shade of the supports. The heat from their bodies drew more sweat upon Garen’s brow. His heart raced, somehow certain that they were watching him with their mindless gazes, but had determined him harmless.

It was only when he took out the vials given to him by Meldri and Besthamun that they reacted at all. In one mighty voice, they screamed long and shrill, nearly tearing the tissue of Garen’s ears. All of the dreamers, at once. Garen took up his blade and turned to put his back against stone, but the dreamers did not turn to face him. Instead, their sightless gaze was directed skyward, where the keystone had been fitted into place.

The tenseness in the air snapped. A chill gale blew inward to the arch, followed after a moment by a hot breeze, damp, fetid, like the exhalation of some great beast. Garen nearly retched at the indescribable stench.

Bodies rained onto the paving stones from the scaffolding, first one, then another, then dozens, falling and cracking into the stone-lined streets. Flocks of magpies and crows swooped forward to dine on the fresh meats, fluttering, glossy-black wings blanketing the gore from Garen’s eyes like a feathered eclipse. Garen tore his gaze away and went to work. He hurriedly formed compounds and solutions by rote. Now his only thoughts were of Besthamun and Meldri.

• • • •

“What harm does it do to let the dreamers build?” Garen asked. The three of them lay in a sweaty tangle of spent limbs in Besthamun’s bed.

“The dream plagues are the dreams of Them—those titans and gods from before language and song, the horrors banished outside by the first fires and spears. In their eternal slumber, their dreams twist the wakened and reshape those that they touch. Their dreams cause great horror and tragedy, but mostly they pass quickly,” Meldri said.

“Mmm.” Garen nodded, tap-tapping his chin against Besthamun’s shoulder.

“The dream in Alamoi has never passed,” Besthamun said. “Our mentor, the Great Blind Scholar Trikilin, studies ashamani—dreams of purpose. There are half-written records of other purposeful dreams in the Library. Each was an awesome calamity, greater still than any war or famine. There are stories of the banished demons building exits from their prisons. If they were to return, the world would drown in blood and fire.”

“I’m merely surprised you would be so eager to destroy your home,” Garen said.

Besthamun sat upright. “How do you know this?”

Garen shrugged. “Try as you might, you can’t hide the accented lilt in your speech.”

“We thought you knew nothing of the Shining City,” Meldri asked, tone hurt.

Garen chuckled, hand on Besthamun to draw her back to the bed. “I study dream plagues in my own way; of course I know as much as I can about your city. But I had thought it useless in my quest.”

“We were pressed into Trikilin’s service as children by our father, a master architect,” Meldri said in a far-off tone. “We left before the plague took hold. Sometimes, I dream that I am walking the streets near our home again. Of the way the stones felt warm beneath our feet even after the sun had set.”

“I miss the smells of mountain grubs and rock sparrow eggs frying in the stalls along the marketplace,” Besthamun whispered.

“In my dream, the people become monsters. They tear down Alamoi, brick by brick, devouring each stone with blackened maws.” Meldri began to sob.

“We will see it destroyed by our own hands and our people freed from the dream’s service.” Besthamun said, taking her brother’s hand. She stared at Garen, who shrugged.

“I will do my best.”

Later, after Meldri drifted off, Garen said: “You don’t expect me to survive.”

Besthamun rolled to face away. “I suppose not. The detonating compound will only give you moments to find shelter, even if you live long enough to formulate it. But . . . you are clever.”

He laughed.

“Perhaps the most clever man I have ever met.”

“Maybe so. But if you really cared about me as anything other than a tool for your plans, you wouldn’t send me to my death.”

“I’m not forcing you to go.”

He sighed. “I would give anything, even my life, to dream again. Aside from the fits of madness, one does not feel . . . real? After so long without dreams. This talk of saving the land from the calamitous dreaming of old gods; none of that matters to me.”

“You will still attempt the task?”

“Of course. Perhaps I will surprise you with my survival. And if not, I hope that in death, even I can dream.”

“I hope so, too.”

• • • •

A thunderclap brought Garen back to the present. A swarm of pink-hued abominations spilled from the space below the arch, a swarm buzzing louder than the screaming birds, and their shapes writhing, unnatural. Beyond them, through the arch in a space that had never known light, something immense lurked, a presence with no recognizable shape. Garen knew it to be the Dreaming One, the thing banished. It approached, heralded by its servants. Its path was not yet fully paved; the invisible door still swinging open. Garen still had time.

He took the last triggering essence of the explosive compound in his fist, blade in the other, and screamed his defiance to the heavens.

The winged servants dove at him. The dreamers raised their fists and howled. Attackers struck from all directions.

Despite his madness, Garen had the luxury of time. He had studied many subjects, but first among them was the martial forms. In this he was a practiced scholar. Now his mastery was apparent, though no sane mind could witness it. In each movement, he accomplished precisely what was needed for his knife to sunder limb from torso, head from neck. He spun into the writhing horde of dreamers and laid waste to any who dared come within his considerable reach.

Still an endless number pressed him, their blunt teeth and splintered nails rending his skin, his spilled blood a gory rain that speckled the air. Despite his mastery of the knife, he could not resist such great numbers for very long. Each swing took him further from the nearly completed chemical mixture. He carved a path to escape—a gap in the crowd that could close at any moment—and then he flung the final element back at the mixture-filled vial that lay at the foot of the arch.

It shattered against the beaker, and the mixture inside flared white.

All sound, all vision extinguished. For the briefest of moments, Garen thought he had fallen asleep at last, and his every weary muscle relaxed.

Then chaos, terrible heat, and so much screaming. Above it all, the roar of stone fracturing, toppling, collapsing, the archway coming down, heavy block by block, repeatedly thudding into the earth and rippling the courtyard like an unending earthquake.

Garen felt his body thrown clear of the collapsing arch. His ankle fractured when he landed, his ribs badly bruised at the very least, but he still clung to his dagger. The bodies of the dreamers had sheltered him from the worst of the explosion. Now his ears sounded with ringing temple bells, his skin numb and unfeeling. He was certain that he was dying, but the ringing began to fade and the numbness gave way to agony.

The winged harbingers screamed in horror at the collapsing arch. Their movements shifted; another plan seemed to form quickly, as if they shared a common mind or purpose. Iridescent wings beat rhythms of despair as they swooped low, snatching up the scattered dreamers of Alamoi. Garen watched, dumbfounded with fright, as the servants tore at the scalps of their victims, peeling back flesh and bone until a pink slithery mass of brain was exposed. These organs they plucked like imperfect rosebuds and stored in the featureless grey canisters each carried in slings upon their abdomens.

One servant drove for Garen as he scrabbled away, unable to stand and too terrified to turn his gaze from the slaughter. He swept out with the bronze blade, but the servant had suddenly never occupied the space he thought it had, and his weapon did not draw its ichor.

One of the servant’s claws pried the blade from Garen’s hand. The others snatched him up and lifted him spread-eagled into the air, and still other limbs poked and prodded his skin. Garen let out a long sigh and went limp. His fate was sealed; why should he fight it? The horror of what he was witnessing dulled, and all he experienced felt somehow familiar.

How long the examination continued, Garen wasn’t certain, but suddenly the servant cast Garen roughly aside. He landed on a pile of stones, the breath knocked from his battered lungs. Their writhing harvest complete, they flew away into the blue sky, disappearing into pinpoints and leaving behind shimmering pools of blood and skull-rent corpses on the ruined courtyard floor. The archway was no more, as was the tunnel of space it had heralded. The Dreamer remained locked away. To what purpose they turned now, Garen would never know.

After some time, Garen made it to his feet despite his ruined ankle. He was no longer tempted to look back on the carnage. Not all of the dreamers had been harvested. Some were stirring here and there, and he did not look forward to the explanations they would demand from him when their senses fully returned. He made as much haste as possible, limping to the road he had followed into the city, and following it back into the valley. He crawled, scampered, and hopped for six days without rest, pausing only to scavenge a tree limb as a makeshift crutch. On his sixth day of flight, Garen collapsed at the doorstep of a traveler’s inn in a dreamless coma. It was the closest thing approaching sleep he had experienced in more years than he could remember.

• • • •

When he recovered, he spent some months tracking the flying, brain-stealing horrors. He felt somewhat responsible for their escape into the world, but he found no trace of them. With such wings, they could have traveled the Thawed Lands and into the Ice Wastes beyond.

Garen did eventually collect his reward from the University, but that was not a journey without peril. The tale of it is another story for another time. Suffice to say that the Library of Dreams did not contain the answers that he sought; only more questions, ones that led him further into madness and despair.

For many more years, the events in Alamoi troubled Garen; in particular, his encounter with the winged servants of the Dreamer. When their plans to free the Dreamer had failed, they had turned to harvest, but for what purpose? What did it mean for who he was, what he was, that the creatures had not collected the pinky innards from his skull?

He could only conclude that whatever the servants had required, it was merely represented in the flesh of the organ, and not the flesh itself, which certain practitioners of medical traditions had assured him he possessed—his head was not hollow. No, something beyond the pink meats had been their true goal. Whatever it was, Garen the Undreaming did not possess it.

©2016 by Jeremiah Tolbert. Originally published in Swords v. Cthulhu, edited by Jesse Bullington and Molly Tanzer. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

Al-Kahf (الكهف)

Beesan Odeh | 3010 words

Publisher’s Note: The title of this story, “Al-Kahf,” includes some non-English characters that some older e-reading devices may not be able to render properly. If your e-reader is one such device, please consider visiting our website and reading the story there. (It’s the title rendered using Arabic characters.)

Visit lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/al-kahf to read the story online March 8th.

There once lived a man who was stolen from the sea. Rare and magnificent, he lived in his cave, rising to the surface every so often to pluck the strings of his violin for the birds before retreating into the water to play for his kin. They spent their days enthralled by the doleful songs of the man who lived in the littoral cave. But there came a day when the songs ceased and the people stopped going and the man was nowhere to be seen. His people first forgot his face. Then they forgot his voice. And then his name. Until they remembered only the sweet music he played to keep himself company in the cave day and night.

Talub experienced much in his thirty years, including heartache at the loss of others like him, rare and magnificent and stolen from the sea. Few existed, living in trenches and corals and caves, each possessing an instrument chosen in youth, forever playing a song that kept them alive—a song that was theirs to play and only theirs. Adored for their sublime skill, they were also hunted by men from the surface who sought their music’s healing properties. It was rumored that the rich notes of a horn or a few strums of an oud could cure injury and illness, but mankind could not leave rumors as rumors, nor could he forsake the opportunity to benefit.

Though friendly with most, Talub had just one close companion, Boutros, who lived out in open water near the sea floor shrouded in red sponge and algae. Sometimes Talub made his way to the sponges. Sometimes Boutros wandered into Talub’s cave. They would eat and drink and tell tales until the sun set and the moon gleamed and the water turned black like the night sky—starless. They made music and sang songs, but one evening when the moon was full and Talub yearned to play, Boutros did not show.

Talub went looking, thinking Boutros might have been by the monolith he liked so much, carving stories into limestone or deciphering hieroglyphics on the sunken tablets of the old pharaohs. It wasn’t until Talub found the riven reed of Boutros’s ney flute behind the aged anchors he collected that he realized what happened. Despite this, he visited every day and night for weeks after in hopes of finding Boutros lounging in the arms of a large statue or cross-legged in the algae fingering the ney he always played from the side of his mouth. But Boutros did not return.

• • • •

The day it happened to Talub, he threw out both arms to grab hold of the violin and bow that slipped his fingers when rough netting descended and folded around him like new skin. He held them close, and he held them tight. As he was dragged up through cold waters, splitting deep indigo with his body, he wondered what awaited him on the other side, wondered if his kindred stolen throughout the years rose to the surface as he did in that moment and if they felt the same weight in their chests.

The knotted net cinched around him, drawn up, up, up, and up until he caught a glimpse of the vermillion Mediterranean sun and rolled over the side of a purse seiner boat. Talub hit the deck hard, disoriented. When bony fingers peeled the net from his flesh and he was dropped into a wide vessel filled with briny sea water and other gunk from old netting, beneath the deck in the cargo hold, the first things he did were breathe and reach for his violin. He felt a pang in his chest instead, his instrument missing. Where had he been taken? Was there a way out? And if there was, had Boutros found it when he was stolen? Talub moved in his vessel to explore his surroundings, but dimness kept him from seeing too far ahead, and sloshing water left him muzzy.

• • • •

For hours, he clawed at his container, short squared nails against scratched glass, blood clouding before his face. Trapped and unable to see, Talub sank to the bottom of the tank, hearing the water’s surface sway and slop to the rocking of the ship, feeling the heavy steps of slick sailor boots on the deck above. Pale light beamed through warped holes in wood, illuminating moonlight hair and eyes of charcoal and skin like old copper.

Without his instrument, Talub had no chance. Without his song, he had no light. He would die in that tank—a forgotten face not unlike Boutros. On his back, he shut his eyes to die, fading, fading, fading until he was interrupted by the splash of something sinking towards him. Talub caught the violin and bow, curved and slender and the color of rusted anchors, to cradle in his arms. He crossed his legs and set the violin on the soft flesh behind his left collarbone. He pressed his jaw against the chin rest, folded his fingers around the bow, and started his song, drawing across taut strings. A somber melody rolling through dark water.

He came to a sudden pause, violin still perched on his shoulder, when he noticed someone, or something, at the top of the ladder—the silhouette of a broken man, the shell of a man—standing with a candle in his hand. The man gazed down at Talub for a moment before slipping away without a word. The light vanished, the deck hatch creaked shut, and Talub was alone again.

• • • •

The sailor lived in fractured Gaza, on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, with his wife and young son. He worked as a crew member on a middle-sized fishing boat, helping bring home what little he could from the limited fishing zone enforced by occupying forces. But it never was enough. Not to eat or to sell or to trade. And even if the sailor could sell his catch, there was always a shortage of medicines, including the kind that would cure his son.

He lived each day helpless and hopeless, until, by chance, he overheard three men at the nearby coffee shop late one night mumbling and whispering about something they should not have been mumbling and whispering about. The sailor hastened over to insert himself in the conversation. When the men eyed him and started turning away, he offered to supply them with fish free of charge for three days. They exchanged glances before continuing their mumbling and whispering, this time including the sailor.

Word had reached their ears of other beings who could heal, far off the coast beyond the fishing limit. Some men had snuck out to search for them but never returned. Whether they were drowned by the sea or shot down by the enemy, no one knew, but it was enough to keep even the desperate in place and out of the water.

“These creatures can heal, you say?” the sailor said. “Anything? They can cure anything?” His shoulders shook as he spoke.

The oldest and fattest of the men took a sip from his tiny cup, licking drops of coffee from his grey mustache.

“They’re more than creatures. Manlike. Not some animal you can catch like your fish,” he said, meeting the sailor’s eyes. “They’re, you know, other beings. Clever and wicked as they come.”

“How do they heal? Sea plants? Their tears? Blood?”

“You do not gut them like fish,” the smallest of the men said. “You cannot harm them the way they harm us.”

“What exactly are they then?”

“What else but jinn,” he said. “Sea-jinn who do not run or hide or shapeshift because they cannot be reached in the water.”

“They heal with songs.” The fat man took another sip from his cup, the last ounce of bitter coffee. “God only knows what else they’re capable of with that magic of theirs.”

The sailor pulled what information he could from the three men before heading home for the night, including when the jinn were rumored to appear and what time of day. He couldn’t catch enough fish to save his dying son, but perhaps he could catch a jinn.

• • • •

Talub pressed his toes against glass, drawing the bow back and forth, right wrist loose and quick, left hand around the neck fingering long, deep, dull notes that filled his tank, his ears, his soul until they were all that existed.

Holding a candle at the bottom of the ladder, the sailor watched the jinn in all his grandeur. Talub, still playing his song, met his gaze. The sailor approached him and placed a hand on cold glass.

“Do you know what I went through to find you?” he said, running his palm along the tank’s edge. “They said I couldn’t catch you like my fish, that you couldn’t be reached, yet here you are in a tank.”

Talub held the last note of his song for a moment longer before lowering his arms and holding the instrument to his chest. He flattened his nose against the glass.

“Is this only to prove them wrong?” Talub spoke in a honeyed voice. “Have you become a hero to your people?”

“I will be.” The sailor circled the tank, dragging his finger across it. Talub twirled in the water, following him, smoky hair around his face and shoulders like pectoral fins.

“Did you think to ask before taking what isn’t yours? Did you consider I might have given you what you wanted if only you had approached me with dignity and decorum? Do you think your wish will come true now that you have me?” Talub pressed for answers, but the sailor said nothing, still circling the tank.

“I see the way you play your instrument,” he commented after a long while of silence. He moved up to the door. “You will give me what I want.”

“And if I refuse?” Talub flared like the fish in his cave.

“I’ll snap that violin in two.”

• • • •

When he reached shore and walked across coarse sand, the sailor realized curing his son would not be so easy after all. First, the boy’s mother certainly would not let him leave the house. In the condition he was in, he couldn’t even if he wanted to. Second, if the sailor could not bring the boy to the jinn, he would have no choice but to bring the jinn to the boy, which brought challenges all its own. He did not want to draw attention to himself and the power he now possessed, but if the sailor wanted to save his son, he needed help.

He raced to the same coffee shop and called upon the same three men who sat playing cards while sipping the last drops of coffee from their cups. After promising each man five days of free fish and the jinn’s music should any of them or their loved ones fall ill, they agreed and hobbled after him to his boat. Together, the four men eased Talub’s tank onto a green plastic dolly and wheeled it off the boat. Talub threw himself against the glass, back and forth, in hopes of tipping the tank and stopping the men where they stood, but they held it down, going so far as to throw an old tarp over top to blind the jinn and avert any passersby who might’ve found a large glass tank on a squeaking dolly strange.

They pushed him across sand and wheeled him through town—heads low, gaze lower— past open shops and closed shops, past mountains of rubble and piles of garbage and billowing flags striped in red, white, black, and green, arriving at the sailor’s home in the end. His wife hurried out the front door, lifting the bottom of her olive dishdasha so as not to trip.

“Bring the boy,” the sailor told her. “I’m going to save him.” He yanked the tarp from the tank, revealing the jinn. Talub sat at the bottom, gently turning the pegs on his violin.

“To hell with them and the blockade. I can save the entire country with what I’ve found,” the sailor said. He stepped up to Talub.

“What makes you think I’ll do as you say?” the jinn asked.

“I promised to break that violin of yours.”

“You need me more than I need the violin,” Talub said, knowing in his heart he could not survive without his instrument, knowing he would never again tell tales or make music or sing songs with Boutros when the sun set and the moon gleamed and the water turned black like the night sky—starless.

“Help me,” the sailor said, “and I’ll give you anything you want.”

“Striking a deal with jinn?” Talub moved forward, pressing his forehead against glass. “I want out of this tank.”

“Cure my son. Then I’ll take you out,” the sailor said. He glanced back over his shoulder when his young son shuffled out of the house, shaking and enveloped in frazzled blankets.

“Tonight,” Talub said, eying the boy long and hard before shifting his gaze back to the sailor. The jinn spread his lips, tined teeth behind a sickening smile. “At your service.”

• • • •

Despite the sailor’s efforts to keep the jinn a secret from the rest of town, word began to spread. The men from the coffee shop had nothing to gain in telling others. His wife and son hadn’t left the front door, and they, too, had nothing to gain by telling the other sick and broken of their secret. Someone from town must have seen and followed and told. The sailor knew he had to save his son and relocate the tank soon before more found out, including the occupiers.

When night fell, the sailor, his wife, the three men from the coffee shop, and a few others who knew something was going on in that part of town surrounded the jinn, the sailor’s son at the forefront.

“No tears,” the sailor said, “I’m going to save you.” The father whispered in his child’s ear, peeling the blankets from his shoulders. He nudged him forward. “Your songs can heal,” the sailor said to Talub. “Play your song. Cure him and I’ll take you out of there.”

“Play my song, I will.” Talub sunk to the bottom, legs crossed, violin at his shoulder. He flicked his wrist once, twice, three times before pulling the bow across strings, the same dour notes in glass and water.

The growing crowd held its breath. The sailor nudged his son again, urging him to get as close as he could, to press his small palms against the tank. Talub lowered his arms not long after. The sailor jumped to his son, spinning him around.

“How do you feel? Are you cured? Did it work?” he asked, shaking him. The boy did not answer, coughing to the side instead. The sailor saw this, and he saw the yellow in his eyes and the color still absent from his face. He pushed the boy to his mother and marched to Talub.

“You said your song would cure him.” He slammed a fist against the tank.

“I said no such thing, only that I would play my song,” Talub replied, running slender fingers along violin strings.

“But your songs can heal. I heard it. They heard it.” The sailor pointed to the coffee shop men. “Men have died searching for your songs.”

“We have died just the same. Too many.” Talub turned his back. “I have one idea, though, it depends how far you’re willing to go to save him.”

“Whatever it takes.”

“He must be in the water for the song to work.” The jinn peered over his shoulder. The crowd, on edge still, faced the sailor, waiting for his next move. His wife tugged at his sleeve. How could he put their child in the water with that thing?

He grabbed her by the shoulders, reminding her it was the only chance they had left. Medicine was not coming any time soon, and if by some miracle it did, he feared the boy was too far gone at that point for saving with anything other than the song of the man from the sea.

“I’ll put him in the water then,” he said. Someone fetched a small stepladder and someone helped the boy out of his shoes and someone from the crowd prayed lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā billāhi ’aliyil ’azeem for all to end well. Behind his son, the sailor led him into the tank, holding his head above the water.

“All of him must be submerged. Are his ears not on his head?” Talub said. The sailor kissed his son’s forehead once for a long moment before lowering him into the water. The boy, who could not swim, thrashed his limbs about, cutting water with tiny hands. Talub eased back, propped his instrument, and began to play.

The child’s flailing lessened after the first minute. It ceased after the second. By the end of the third, the boy lay at bottom of the tank and Talub finished his song, holding the last note as he loved to do.

“My son? How is my son? Let him out.” The sailor peered in from the top of the tank. He reached in, soaking the sleeves of his tunic. Talub glanced up at him from the water, silent. The sailor leapt off the ladder and fell to his knees. He gathered himself and faced Talub. “Let him out,” he repeated. The jinn looped an arm around the dead child’s neck, lifting him from the bottom. He pressed his forehead against glass and held up the boy’s pale face. Talub slid something slender from his own waistband, keeping the sailor’s gaze. He curled long fingers tight around Boutros’s cracked ney flute, flashing the same tined teeth behind the same sickening smile.

There once lived a man who was stolen from the sea. And the sea stole back.

©2018 by Beesan Odeh.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Beesan Odeh lives in Ohio and is nearing her final year of the Northeastern Ohio MFA program at Youngstown State University. You can see her work in Lightspeed, Ohio’s Best Emerging Poets: An Anthology, and Jenny Magazine. You can also find her on Twitter: @Beesan_O.

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

And Men Will Mine the Mountain for Our Souls

Seanan McGuire | 4970 words

I. Princess

Always had the sages known that they would come. The first princess, in her bed of jewels and smelted gold, had dreamt of them; dreamt their terrible faces, their terrible claws, their endless hunger that is greater than the mountain and deeper than the deepest-diving seam. She had wept in the night, to have such dreams, and some say that her death—as the deaths of all princesses since her—came hard and early, because she could not know the peace of slumber. No one questioned what she had said of the future, for all loved their princess, and all knew that what a princess dreamt, she must dream true. Always.

After her came my great-uncle, who weakened under his visions, and finally leapt from the mountain’s top, strewing his entrails across the countryside. They hardened in the sunlight into a streak of mercury and silver, and his heart and brain were carried to my aunt, who ate them reluctantly, as a child might eat a poisoned pear. She had been burdened with the dreams since her birth, but always had she prayed that they would name another as our princess, that I would hatch and come of age before great-uncle died. She knew that it was not to be. She ate his heart when she was bid. And she dreamt true.

Her blood was still wet on my lips when the generals brought the crown to me, when they placed it on my brow, when they named my sister “prince” and said that she would lead us in the war to come. When the generals named me princess, and said that I would dream myself to death for the sake of our people. Even the titles that we were to bear—prince, princess—came from them, pearls stolen from the seabed of a princess’s dreams, turned into weapons that we might turn those same weapons against their creators. They will not expect such sophistication from us, or so the sages say.

I think that perhaps they are less concerned with the words we use, and more concerned with the weapons we can bring to bear against them. And oh, our weapons are never going to be enough. I know that, as every princess before me has known it, and still I sleep, and still I dream, and still I see their armies coming, terrible in the sunset, ablaze with the red light of the dying day.

They are coming, and there is nothing we can do to stop them.

II. Prince

The generals tell me that my brother has bad dreams. I tell them that this is not news to me; that my brother has always had bad dreams, ever since we were worms in the rookery, and our nest-mother confused me for he and he for me, remembering only that there were two royal babes, and never which was which. We were prince- and princess-in-waiting interchangeably then, quick to bite and hiss and show our claws to any who disturbed us, survivors by virtue of our size and the speed with which we had eaten our siblings. Worms cannot bear to be alone, but neither can they bear to slither in anything other than pairs. I miss those days, warm in the shards of our eggshells, content in our lack of responsibilities, fluid in our identities and our futures.

Our parents came to us so rarely then, and looked at us with such sorrow. We did not understand. We could not understand. What in the scope of our experience had prepared us for the world that awaited us, the world we would enter when our aunt the princess declared that she had dreamt the deaths of our parents? They died six days after she dreamt their endings, Father with his head severed from his body so that he bled rubies onto the undeserving ground, Mother with her claws covered in the offal of our enemies. They paid dearly for the taking of our parents. They paid with blood and with screaming.

But all the blood and screaming in the world could not bring our parents back. That night, our aunt came to us with the hearts of our father the king and our mother his consort clutched in her talons, gleaming red as garnets and black as obsidian in the dim light of the rookery. She threw them down before us, and said, “Eat. Eat, and become what you will be.”

How I wish I had not taken that first bite. How I wish I had been able to take my brother’s dreams, to lift them from his soul and transform them to my own. But I was young and I was greedy, and his dreams were never intended to be mine.

I ate of my mother, and I became a prince. My wings grew in gold and blazing, bright as flame, filled with embers. My backbone stretched and strengthened, became long and tight with sinew, difficult to hack or harm. My horns became as strong as diamonds, my teeth as cruel as flint, and my eyes as shadowed as the mountain’s heart, where I breathed out the soul of my mother in a gust of flame that could have brightened all the sky.

My brother ate of our father, and became a princess. His horns grew heavy, pulling his head down to the ground. His wings grew vaster than mine could ever be, filled with night-sky darkness and flashes of silver, mercurial and strange. And his dreams, his dreadful dreams, grew stronger with every night that passed.

He killed and ate our aunt as soon as the bones in his legs ceased breaking and reshaping themselves. He feasted on her heart, her lungs and brain, and he breathed her out together with our father, dying embers into the dust. We were prince and princess under the mountain, terrors of the night, and if he never flew, he did not seem to mind; he walked in majesty, his wings wrapped tight around his body, and his dreams grew worse with every day that passed.

Now the generals tell me he has bad dreams, and so I have come to him, my brother, the Princess Below the Mountain, who sleeps and dreams in his bower of gems and precious metals. His handmaids show their throats as I walk among them, hissing deference, their eyes alight with fear. That is good. Princes are meant to be feared, both for what we are and for what we represent. We are the mountain’s burning defense against them. When they come, we will be ready, and the blood will shower down like so many hardening stars.

My brother is waiting for me. He lifts the black cloak of his wing from his head, and looks at me with eyes grown dark from dreaming and despair. “Have your eggs hatched yet?” he asks, and there is genuine yearning there, for he dreams too big to see something so small. He used to dream smaller, before he ate the heart of our father, before he grew too great to see anything but death.

“Not yet, brother,” I reply.

“Ah,” he sighs. “When they mine the mountain for our souls, they will take your children for diamonds greater than any the world has ever known. I have seen those diamonds. I had hoped that they might come from some other clutch. I am sorry, my sister. I am so sorry.” He closes his eyes. He will not look on me.

Fire burns in my breast, hot and heavy with hatred. “What are you saying?”

“They are coming, my sister. They march even now, under the banner of their King, who has never set foot beneath our mountain. He will stay at a distance while his soldiers descend upon us. I see death under the mountain. I see nothing after that. There are no wings against the moon, no flames above the snow. There are no others left in all of the world, my sister, because if there were, they would come to carry our bones to somewhere distant, new and safe. We are the last, and they are coming.” He draws his wing across his face, hiding himself from my sight.

“What are we to do?” I whisper.

His chuckle seems to resonate through his entire body. He sounds so tired. When did he become so tired? When did he last sleep through the long, dark tunnel of the night without the dreams coming to shatter his peace, steal his rest away, strand him, shattered and gasping, on the ledge of wakefulness? I do not know. I would have known, once. I would have been there to soothe him when he woke.

I was not a prince then. I was not so powerful, or so helpless.

“What are we to do?” he echoes, and his voice is the voice of the mountain itself, the voice that speaks from the deepest tunnels, from the blackest pits. “Oh, my sister. Oh, my prince. What are we to do?

“We are to do what dragons have always done, when men were marching. We will die, and they will mine this mountain, and we will be forgotten by all except the stones that were our souls. Now go. I am tired.”

And my brother sleeps, and I am alone below the mountain once again.

I kill one of his handmaids on my way out of the chamber, that he might know my displeasure. It is a hollow gesture.

Surely he has seen this in his dreams.

III. Dreaming

The body of my handmaid has hardened into jade and amethysts when I claw my way back into the waking world, mazed and disoriented by the blending of what is and what is yet to be. My dreams have left me weak. I feel like an eggshell on the very verge of breaking, but there is nothing to hatch out of me: I am complete, and so I shall be doomed.

My handmaids swarm around me, cooing and clucking, their claws bristling with sweetmeats and with charcoal as they try to coax me into accepting sustenance. I claw their scales and allow their blood to spill onto the cavern floor, rubies and emeralds and topaz gems the size of my eye. It does not soothe me. They do not cry out, even though I know my slashes pain them. To be in service to the princess is a great honor, and one which each of them has sacrificed much to earn—even down to the great leather panels of their wings, which were cut away entire when my handmaids were confirmed into my service. Those who tend to the princess could never run away or leave their master, and while I have to trust them with my very life, there is no reason to tempt them with their freedom. Each of them is mine, to do with as I will, until the day that they rejoin the mountain.

That day is coming. That day is almost here. I can still see their broken bodies when I close my eyes, even as they cluster and swarm around me. One will be gutted, her internal organs strewn from one end of the cavern to the other, hardening and transforming even as her blood dries into diamonds on the floor. To think that she will become diamonds! She must be of royal descent, even though she does not know it, and I will not tell her. What mercy would there be in telling her that she might have been a prince, might have been a princess, had she but eaten of the right flesh and slept tangled in the right limbs? It would not be fair. I will not do it.

Another will lose her head entire, taken as a trophy by the man who slays her. Her body will be left for carrion, transmuting into common slate, but her eyes . . . ah, her eyes will become opals. They will be the prize possessions of a fortune-teller in one of their courts. That strange, soft woman will never know the origins of her scrying stones, only that they are beautiful, and that they tell her true.

So it will go, one by one, even to the youngest of them, a pretty little thing with scales the color of old amber. She was hatched a full season after my sister and I, and her wings were not even fully grown when they were cut away from her forever. She will die with the rest.

They will die protecting me. It will not make any difference.

“How long was I asleep?” I ask.

“Princess, the moon has risen,” says the oldest of them, who served my aunt before I ate her and took her place. I show her my teeth, and she alone among my handmaids shies away from me. She knows what I am capable of, knows that I have not yet grown into a soft and pampered oracle who will refuse to gut my own food. I mourn that me, who will never get to live beneath this mountain. I do not think I would have liked him, but I would have liked the chance to be him. I am not required to like myself. Being a princess means that there will always be others willing to like me, just for the chance to be well regarded.

The handmaid I inherited from my aunt will die last. She will be driven to the back of the cavern by her own sense of self-preservation after I have fallen; she will press herself against the wall and grovel, trying to make her harmlessness clear to them.

They will look at her great size and take her for a powerful warrior. They will fire arrows into her eyes and slide swords into her gullet. She will not deserve half of what they would do to her, and I do not warn her, because I do not care for her, and because warnings will do her no good—no good at all. What has been dreamt will be, and that is that. That is how it has always been.

If the moon is up, then time has grown shorter than anyone else can know, even my sister, who will be in the chamber with her generals by now, plotting and planning our defense. We have always assumed that they would come in daylight, with the sun high behind them and the world spread open to their flat, terrible gaze. I have seen them marching in daylight, but it was not until this day’s dreaming that I realized I had never seen them reach the mountain that way. Until my most recent slumber, I had been unable to understand why that was, how that could be.

Now that I am awake, I can finally see the truth of it. They march by day, but they will attack by night. They have princesses of their own. They must, else how could we have stolen the word, the concept, the power? Those princesses must dream their own dreams. They must have seen that we fight better in sunlight, that our flame is dangerous even to ourselves when we breathe it out in the tight spaces of our homes.

Those princesses must have gone to their warriors, even as I will now go to my sister. They must have said, “Attack by night,” and because only a fool would ignore a princess when that princess speaks of a dreaming, they will have listened.

They are not coming.

They are here.

“Help me up,” I say, laboring to untangle the vast sails of my wings, which catch and slow me more than I can bear. I envy my handmaids, who move so quickly and so easily, their skeletal wings folded tightly down against their backs. How lovely it would be, to move freely. When I am dead, I will go to the King of All Dragons, and I will ask her why she made me thus; why dreams must come with more burdens than themselves. I would have thought them quite burden enough.

I do not know what she will say. This pleases me; not knowing is a rare gift in these days, with the dreams heavy in my heart and my eyes dim from seeing too much. My handmaids untangle my wings from my limbs. The youngest of them gnaw at my horns, wearing them down just that small bit, lightening my head just enough to let me lift it from the cavern floor. I would be immobile without them, trapped, and I am grateful, even as I know that their service will be the reason for their deaths.

“I will return,” I say, and they do not question me, but step aside as I slither, low as a lizard, toward the door.

I must find my sister.

If ever there has been a dream I have wished to change, it is the dream that I have dreamt today.

IV. Strategy

My generals fill the world beneath the mountain, their scales gleaming emerald and jade and tourmaline in the light from the pits of burning coal that stud our gathering chamber. This is the greatest space below the mountain, large enough to hold all of my people at once, if we packed in close and did not strike at one another for a casual touch, for an accidental scratch. That could never happen, and so there are only the twenty of us here: myself, and the nineteen generals I inherited from my father upon his dying. They served him wisely and well when he was Prince Below the Mountain, before he became King In Ashes.

My brother tells me they do not reserve the titles of King and Queen for their dead; in their world, kings and queens walk among the living. It seems strange, like a refusal to admit that death is a part of life, as much as hatching, as much as flying, as much as fire.

My generals are older and wiser than I, but still, they must come when they are called, and they must listen to me when I speak to them. If they resent me for this, they do not say so, for they did not eat the old prince’s heart; they do not have his blood inside them. “Our princess tells me that they are coming,” I say, and silence answers my proclamation. “He says that soon, they will be here, and that he sees death beneath the mountain.”

“What does he see beyond the battle?” demands the oldest of my generals. His head is the size of my entire body, and his words shake the walls. He would have been a good prince, had he been chosen, and I do not fear him now, for he will not betray me. He has grown too vast for my smallness.

“Our princess sees nothing beyond the battle,” I reply. “He sees darkness. He sees no wings against the moon, no flames above the snow.”

The old general, who has learned to have faith in the words of princesses, says nothing as he turns his face away.

“What are we to do?” asks another, who is younger, and wilder, and more of a danger. He will devour me if I allow him. He will become prince in my place . . . and part of me is tempted to give him that burden, that honor, that doom. But his transformation would not be swift enough, and they would arrive to find the mountain undefended. I love my brother too much for that. I love my eggs, still hardening in the rookery, waiting to hatch and begin their great devouring. I love my consort, who got them upon me, who will be Queen when I am King, secure in death’s throne.

No. I will not die by this general’s claws. I am still their Prince Below the Mountain, and they will heed me, whether they will it or no. “We fight,” I say. “We fly. We preserve the mountain as best we can, and if we die today, we die knowing that we did all we could do to keep ourselves and our people safe. Order the children deep, and order the egg-layers deeper. Roll the eggs into the deepest vents, and pray the hatchlings will crawl their way back to us when their shells grow thin. Tell the sages that they are free to go, that they should be remembered as something more than legends.”

“What if they will not go?” asks another general.

I hesitate. I am a prince, but I am still young, still fresh and untested in my role; I have not known the long seasons of strife and seasoning that had been my father’s, that had taught him all the ways of cruelty and command. I know the order I should give, know it as I knew the curving moons of my own claws. I cannot give it.

I wonder if my brother has seen my weakness. I wonder if this is what condemns us.

“If they will not, then let them stay,” I say. “Let them curl in the depths with the young and the infirm, and should they die there, their souls will sleep in the mountain’s heart, as have all the souls of our precious dead from the beginning of all things until today.”

“As you say, my prince,” says the oldest of the generals, and none of the others will dare to challenge him. With his words, the council of war is convened, and oh, how the mountain groans beneath the weight of such age, such wisdom, such vast and powerful forms. They cling to the walls like the bats we would snap our jaws at when we were children, my brother and I, innocent of the weights and dangers the world would one day set upon our shoulders. We always knew that we were damned to royalty. We did not know what royalty might mean.

We talk of war through the long afternoon and into the dark hours of the night. Servants move amongst us, carrying charcoal and charred meat. We gulp it down without tasting, keeping our bellies full and our minds sharp. We speak of strategies and tactics, of all the ways that flesh can tear and bones can break, and how we can use those ways to our advantage. We speak of the weapons of the enemy, what we know of them and their foul, thieving ways. And all the time that we spend speaking, my brother sleeps in his fine princess’s bed of embers, dreaming what is yet to be, what cannot be turned aside, no matter how deeply we breathe of the mountain’s fire, no matter how fiercely we will fight.

We knew always that we would go to battle, because we are as we are, as the mountain made us: we had no choice.

We never had a choice, not since the very beginnings of the world.

V. Waking

I find my sister in her chambers, sleeping fitfully, the great bulk of her consort beside her. For a moment, I pause, the air in my lungs becoming ashes in the face of envy’s blazing flame. I will never have a consort—would not have, even if this were not the night we died. My hatchlings could have been challengers to my sister’s place, could have confused the lines of succession. How I hate him for lying beside her, bathing his scales in the warmth of her flame! How I hate her, for leaving me behind.

How I love her, for being my sister, and for loving me. It is love that leads me to lower my already heavy head and nudge her, gently, with my snout.

Her eyes are open in an instant. There is no malice there. She is Prince Below the Mountain. She knows that there are only two in all the world that her guards would allow to pass unchallenged, and her consort already lies curled beside her. She lifts her head, and looks on me with love, only love, only ever love.

How I have missed her, since our destinies bent us apart. Is it wrong to be joyful that here, at the end, they are bending back together? “It is time,” I say.

She blinks slowly, shaking away the last traces of her own untroubled sleep. Whatever nightmares she may have suffered, she knows they are not as deep as mine, or as heavy, or as cruel. “What do you mean?” she asks.

Already her wings are unfurling. Already her consort wakes, the armored plates of his back bristling as he calls himself fully into the moment. She believes in me. She trusts that I will not mislead her—and oh, how I wish that I could. How I wish I were here to spin her a terrible lie, to send her out into the world ready for a battle that will never come.

But I am not. I could not. I am her princess, and she is my prince, and I could never lie to her. “They marched by day, and they prepare to strike by night. They are here, my sister. They are at our door. Rally your generals. Call your army. Tell them that the darkness is alive with the shouts and cruel hands of men, and that it is too late to turn this dream aside.”

“Will we win?” My sister’s voice is rough with char. The fire is gathering inside her.

I do not answer. I turn my head away, and say nothing. My sister must fight; there is nothing else that she can do. I have seen her, in my dreams. I will not lie to her, but I will not speak her death into the open air. To do so would be to betray her in the deepest way I know, and so I am silent, and remain silent as she rises from her bed and stalks past me, wings half-mantled, into the long, cold night of her destruction.

I am sorry, my sister. I am sorry, my prince. I could not save you, or myself, or anyone at all.

All I ever did was dream.

VI. War

I leave my brother behind me as I make my way toward the nearest cave connecting to the surface. My consort brushes my tail with his and heads deeper into the mountain, where he will light the signal fires and sound the alarms of the ancients. I roar with every step, sending my voice up into the honeycomb caverns we have chewed and carved through the living stone, waking and rallying my people.

Here am I, your prince.

Here am I, your defender.

Here am I; now come to me, join me, and die fighting by my side.

And they come—how they come! My generals and their armies, my fighting worms and wide-winged soldiers. My people flock out of the mountain as the old and the weak burrow deeper, and we cover the cliff faces and the long slopes with our bodies, roaring domination into the night. Our flame lights up the darkness, and for the first time in my life, I see what my brother has seen every time he closed his eyes since the beginning of forever. I see them.

They are so soft. So small. Their shells are artificial, forged from the bodies of the dragons they have slain. There is nothing to them that I should fear, and that is the most terrible thing of all. They will destroy us. They should not have that power. They should not have that potential. But they do, and there is nothing I can do to take it from them.

“What are your orders?” growls the nearest of my generals.

I close my eyes. For a moment—just a moment—I can tell myself that my brother is wrong: that our parents were wrong. I should have been the princess from the first, and my calm, everyday dreams of dragons, and flying, and feasting under a bright harvest moon, those are the true dreams. Not my brother’s dreaming, no, not at all.

“We fight,” I say. “Show no mercy.”

The screams of the men are terrible to hear.

The screams of the dragons are worse.

VII. Princess

This is my final dream, as I coil in the depths of my bed and wait for the men to come and slay me. It is not a true dream, for I do not sleep; will never sleep again, not before my dying.

I dream myself a hatchling again, strong and lithe and unburdened by the duties of a princess. I dream my sister beside me, full of motion, never still. I dream us safe. I dream us happy. I dream us together for all of time.

The screams reach me even in my chambers. My sister is gone to be King In Ashes, and I will see her soon. We will be together always, even as we are in my dream that is not a dream, and men will mine the mountain for our souls.

I wonder if the princesses of men sleep any easier than those of dragons. I hope so. I would not wish my life on anyone, not even on those who would destroy us. When dragons are but memory and legend, the princesses of men will slumber on, dreaming their cruel dreams.

There was never any end but this.

My handmaids die all around me, and at last, my dream is done.

©2016 by Seanan McGuire. Originally published in Unfettered II, edited by Shawn Speakman. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Seanan McGuire was born and raised in Northern California, resulting in a love of rattlesnakes and an absolute terror of weather. She shares a crumbling old farmhouse with a variety of cats, far too many books, and enough horror movies to be considered a problem. Seanan publishes about three books a year, and is widely rumored not to actually sleep. When bored, Seanan tends to wander into swamps and cornfields, which has not yet managed to get her killed (although not for lack of trying). She also writes as Mira Grant, filling the role of her own evil twin, and tends to talk about horrible diseases at the dinner table.

You Do Nothing But Freefall

Cassandra Khaw and A. Maus | 3300 words

Once upon a time, a fox came across a cat in the forest. Or something very similar to a cat, at least. The thing was neither flesh nor fur, but pale enamel, the tip of its nose and the insides of its ears daubed with blood. It sat on its polished haunches atop a mossy log beside a babbling brook, paw metronoming in salute.

“Hello,” said the fox to the cat, drawn to its gleam and its amiable expression, its bobbing foreleg, but mostly by the golden coin at its throat.

“Hello,” said the cat to the fox. “Are you alright?”

“No,” panted the fox, crumpling onto the dirt. It bled from a hundred places, although its illusions did a fine job at masking the untidiness. Blood seeped unseen into the soil, feeding the moss. “The Lady’s hounds are relentless and all the tricks I know can only delay them. But if I find my way from her lands, perhaps that may change. We will see. I will most likely die. Alas. Food for mutts too stupid to realize the world is a better place with sake and cooked meat.”

The maneki-neko, for that was what the cat was: a simulacra of uncommon intelligence, awoken to itself, did not change expression. Its paw continued to beckon to the moss and trees beyond. “I am sorry,” it said. “My owner set me down here and then left. Perhaps he thought I would like some sunshine? Although the sun is setting now, and if I could feel cold, I would fear its coming. But mostly, I am merely . . . present.”

The fox lifted its head and sniffed. It was, it decided, a peculiar response to what the fox had said. “Would you like to come with me, then? Should I survive the evening, we could together find a new way to live. Something more fun.”

The maneki-neko began to rock excitedly on its perch, and the fox found itself worrying that the figurine might plummet into the water, ending the fun before it really began. “I would like that,” it said. “I sat in my owner’s library for a while, and watched him study. I know not what I know, but I know much and can share it with you.”

The fox opened its mouth to respond, but the baying of the hounds gave it pause. The pack was closing in. So instead of explaining to the maneki-neko that it was terrible at polite conversation, the fox carefully took its new companion into its jaws and darted into the underbrush.

• • • •

“Why the fuck aren’t you paying for her ticket, Sean?” demanded the maneki-neko. Her anger sloshed inside his pocket and not for the first time, Sean—a name the fox had pilfered from occidental traders, too charmed by the monosyllabic plainness of it to let such a treasure go—found himself thanking his past-self for his foresight. The sigils brocaded on his coat’s satin lining kept the maneki-neko’s vexation from spilling free. There were evenings when he welcomed her ire, but not tonight.

Tonight, he had different plans.

“She’s going to look like a monster. Trying to waltz into a charity opera that only asks for suggested donations.” The maneki-neko hissed again. “Why didn’t you warn her?”

“Shush,” he muttered, flicking a fingernail against the figurine. It chimed a protest. Masked patrons, their hair set with peacock feathers, streamed past, their lips tinted gold and plum, the colors of their new sovereign. “That’s the point.”

“You’re being cheap.”

Sean grinned at that, swiveling on a heel to watch as his date—a small, sharp thing draped in indigo silk, with pearls nested at her throat—negotiated with the cashier. Her eyes flicked between him and the man at the counter, jaw tensed. “Oh, boo hoo. I’m sure this one only contacted me because she thought I looked Chaoxian.”

“I don’t know why you’re giving her the time of day, honestly.”

“Because I can. And because there’s something dangerous to this one. She reminds me of our kind.” Sean stroked his companion’s grainy ear, its protective lacquer long since worn by repeated caresses, and then withdrew his hand to perform a familiar ritual. First, an upward nudge of his glasses to ensure proper vision. Then, a tug of his collar to ward against wrinkles. Before finally, a quick incantation, familiar as breathing, to extend his human seeming for another fortnight. Beijing, under the auspice of the Thousand-Eyed Countess, suffered no affection for the yao guai.

“That’s the fifth time in the last four hours. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“I would not dream.”

“You know you could find another fox to mate with.”

“That’d be too easy. Still, neko. Still.” He sighed, ignoring her yowl of displeasure. The maneki-neko disliked his nickname for her, thought of it as gauche. A cat was a cat and the point of being a cat was that you were a cat no matter what anyone else said. So why call her a cat, and in a different language, too, the maneki-neko demanded, when she already understood that was what she was? The fox, of course, thought it was hysterical and remained unrepentant. “I think I might soil my pants. A hound will tear out your throat and be happy to do it, but women? They’ll just defecate on your ego and piss on your dreams, leave you a vegetable. That said: flying colors on test number one.”

As his date approached, her irritation brushed under a glittering smile, Sean donned his own grin, all pointed teeth, and extended a gallant elbow. “Erin, right? Your photographs do you no justice at all.”

• • • •

“I don’t know, neko,” the fox muttered in the darkness, nosing the statuette, nearly overturning the maneki-neko before she spun upright. Even maneki-neko land on their feet, apparently, the fox thought to itself. It’d have to test the idea again someday. “Erin says what she means, she’s sharp as hell, and I don’t even know when I ended up moving in.”

“Two weeks ago.”

“That was rhetorical.” It could hear her snoring above them. It could smell her, too: coconut milk and rose, the faint sourness of a human mouth spoiling in its sleep. And to its surprise, the fox found itself aching to return, to crawl back under the duvet and curl himself around her, cheek buried in the ripple of her hair.

“Regardless, you’ve walked into your own jail, fox, and I’ve never seen you happier to swallow the key. You woke up one day and forgot to go home. You need to accept what this means.”

“But, neko. I’m not—I’m not this. I’m not a human. I’m a fox. We can’t do this. She will know. She will find out.” It hissed, panic warbling in its throat. “She’s a snuggly shark with too many teeth. She’s going to find out my credentials are fake and I’m just an animal and then she’s going to litigate the pelt off my back. Also, I haven’t even met her parents yet.”

“So, go meet them.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

“Yes, it is.” The maneki-neko spun like a planet that had lost its star, a motion that the fox had come to decide meant its companion was thinking. “Honestly, fox. You’ve done well for yourself. Does it matter that you had to eat a man’s heart first? You’re living his life better than he ever could. You’re already in the water. You might as well find out what is at the bottom. Also—”

The cat slowed her rotations. “Also, I did warn you against seeing a lawyer.”

It could only whine, paw flopped over its nose. “What do you think I should do?”

“You know what you want to do.”

The fox thought about the future for several long moments, ears twitching in tandem with the whirring of its thoughts. “I suppose, after all our years together, this is the one adventure we haven’t tried. Are you sure you’re alright with this?”

“It’s your hide. Not mine.” When the fox barked in alarm, the maneki-neko added in a softer tone. “Whatever makes you happiest, fox. You know it is the only thing I want.”

• • • •

The ring the crows stole for the fox wasn’t just the wrong cut but apparently the wrong color as well, whatever that meant. The sight of it had made Erin cry, a fact that alarmed the fox to no end. Human women claimed to venerate love above all else, but they went to pieces for the pettiest things. Still, it could have been worse. She could have rolled over, bared her belly to circumstance, and revealed herself an inadequate match.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she auctioned the offending bauble and returned with a full trousseau: silver bracelets, a necklace of white gold, and a beautifully subtle ring, a lacework of titanium with a diamond like the stolen glint of a star. Then she glared at Sean and the fox gave up its immortality in the next breath. An eternity without his—his, him, he, what a strange thing it was to define oneself as a single thing—bride suddenly seemed unthinkable.

They married in the new world. A destination wedding, she’d called it, and he’d kissed her knuckles as she listed its wonders, amused at his own predicament. This new world would indubitably be identical to the last: full of conflict, full of adventure, full of people. One day, it’d be crowned as the pinnacle of civilization. One day, some centuries after that moment, it would die, and a historian would affix it to their records, pin the memory in place with paragraphs of dry observation.

The fox had seen it all before.

But this was the last world he’d see, too, the last century he’d live.

“Do you think this is too much?” she asked, worried.

“No,” said the fox, infinity dripping like amber from his fingertips. “In fact, I’m not sure it’s enough.”

She planned all the details, of course. Sean was a scholar, an ascetic removed from the vagaries of modern life, and Erin was the one who’d travelled this new world, aide to a coven of diplomats. It made sense that she’d be the one to decide the particulars. Her family had, quite naturally, been delighted by this. So unlike those other men, her aunts chortled. Sean blushed prettily at their approval, while the fox laughed behind his tails.

The truth was that for all the knowledge the maneki-neko had bestowed upon him, none of it explained how to strangle confectioners into submission or coerce two hotels to frothing competition, to bleed them with knives made out of sub-clauses until it became impossible to distinguish between loser and victor, their representatives mauled by words.

The wedding was small and the guest list consisted almost entirely of Erin’s relatives. Foxes did not keep many friends, at least not the sort that could present themselves at official ceremonies without being shooed away.

The crows cackled amongst themselves from the periphery, greedily eyeing the finery on display. As dusk drew veils of rose and resin across the shore, one swooped down to steal a sugar-pearl from Erin’s cake, and the fox nearly laughed his fur loose of its illusions.

“I don’t know what red velvet cake tastes like,” said the maneki-neko from Sean’s pocket as he fed his bride cake with his fingers, her tongue warm on his thumb, “but I bet it tastes amazing.”

• • • •

“Oh, dear.” said the maneki-neko.

“She’s angry,” said Sean.

“So angry,” said the maneki-neko.

“So, so angry,” said Sean, who was, when he certain his wife wasn’t paying attention, sometimes still a fox.

“So very, very angry,” said the maneki neko.

The market ignored them, the man with a bowl of noodles and an effigy in his pocket. Six years had passed since the wedding and the fox was beginning to forget what it was like to live forever. He had wrinkles now, a stomach he could knead with his fingers, and the grocers in their little community all knew his name.

“Worth it,” declared the fox.

“So worth it,” agreed the maneki-neko. “You should order a nice—”

“—stuffed animal,” Sean finished for his friend. He spooled noodles around his fork, marvelling the whole while at the existence of the pronged instrument, the politics of cutlery, and how knowledge of its myriad components intimated one’s status in society. The west was so strange.

“A real one, Sean.”

“But those have needs. You have to walk them. Worry about their food. Poop. Shed. It’d be like having kits, except they’ll never be able to debate with you. Maybe,” he mused. “Maybe, we’ll find her a maneki-neko, too? It seems unfair that I alone have one.”

“Oh, please,” scoffed the maneki-neko. “All the stuffing in the world can’t possibly hold a candle to my glory.”

“I suppose they’d need thumbs to do that. And minds. And a sense of personal autonomy. Perhaps, even a taste for mischief.” Even without looking, Sean knew where to find the figurine’s ear. He stroked its rounded tip. “But you’re right. You’re a singular creation, neko. The one and the only. How could I have ever suggested we turn you into a matching pair?”

The maneki-neko said nothing. The fox decided it meant that Sean had won.

• • • •

Two months later, they got a puppy.

The fox took immense pleasure in coddling the creature, dressing it in ridiculous attire and tying bright ribbons to its tail. It was making reparations for everything its species had done, the fox told the maneki-neko gleefully. Again, his companion said nothing. She had said nothing for a long time.

And the fox worried at the silence whenever he could, nuzzling at the statuette which now sat on the mantle above the bed he shared with his spouse. Come back, he sighed. I’ll repaint you, if you like. I am very good at that now. We could dress you in gilt, if you’d prefer. Swirls of dark purple, all mixed with nebulae of carnelian and gold, a handful of glitter to make it look like you drizzled stars on your pelt. Only come back.

The maneki-neko, of course, did not reply.

• • • •

“Hey, Sean? I think I would like to be human.”

The sound of her voice took him by surprise. It’d been months. The fox counted. Twenty-eight months, seventy days, and three hours exactly. Sean barely noticed. He wore glasses now and the weight of his years as salt in his dark, glossy hair. The fox nudged aside Sean’s thoughts of mortgages and pensions, put down his book, and leaned out of his chair.

“I think we could arrange that,” he began carefully. “We’d have to request a new body for you, however. Something hollow so we can fit you inside. Would you like to be a boy or a girl or both or neither at all? I know excellent artists now.”

“No, no. You have me mistaken. I don’t want to look human. I’d like to be human.”

Sean frowned. “I’m not sure how to do that.”

“I know how.” The maneki-neko began to rock on her perch. “But I am afraid that it may take a while.”

“Really? How—”

Between one blink of Sean’s eyes and the next, the fox, for the first time since he met the maneki-neko, found himself completely alone.

• • • •

The fox waited.

His maneki-neko did not come back.

• • • •

The years slid together like a lie.

Anniversaries, births, birthdays, festivals, other people’s weddings, a thousand celebrations of mankind’s ephemeralness. Sean attended every one. The fox delighted in these festivities, saw them as competitions, a way to measure his cleverness. He was, he discovered, very good at being Sean, and even better at being mortal. Humanity wasn’t a trick to learn, but a ravine that demanded you do nothing but freefall into its heart.

He thought about his maneki-neko sometimes and their first meeting in the forest, what might have become of its ambition to be human. He missed his friend. But with every year, it was becoming harder and harder to remember the things he cared about as a fox. Some days, Sean woke up and wondered if it’d been all a dream.

• • • •

“You know what surprises me most about being mortal? How much I like being old.”

Sean blinked rheumatic eyes. He remembered that voice. He recognized the shape of its timbre and the fact it once meant something to him. A long time ago when he was someone else, when his back didn’t hurt, when his mind wasn’t a labyrinth in which he sometimes sat dreaming of sunlight and baying hounds, green moss and a gold coin hanging from a white throat.

Someone from his childhood, Sean decided. Someone that made an adventure of seeking out old friends, someone with a memory better than his.

Wrong, laughed a voice somewhere inside him.

“Do you remember me, fox?”

He hesitated. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

The woman sat down beside Sean, her hand closing over his. She smelled of summer and, strangely enough, of clay. “That’s all right. Mortality demands different things from each of us. I’ve missed you, fox.”

“I’m sorry,” Sean exhaled. “I wish I could say the same about you, but I don’t know who are you.”

“But you remember Erin, though?”

“Yes, of course. Everything. She’s my wife.” Sean paused. “She’s in the next room as well. I’m afraid she might be quite angry if she returned to see you holding my hand.”

The woman did not move her grip. “And your sister’s first child? And your mother’s funeral? And the first time you saw snow on the peak of a mountain? The sunlight white-gold on the ice? Do you remember all that?”

“Yes,” he lied. “All of it.”

She laughed then. The sound was the heartbeat of a cello, dark and rich. “You were never good at hiding things from me, fox. I don’t know why you try.”

And the words found their way out of his throat before Sean could think twice about their birth. “Because your exasperation is fun, neko.”

Ah, the fox thought. There I am.

“Welcome back.”

The fox ran his eyes down the woman beside him, teeth in his smile. She looked exactly as he thought she would, only older than either of them expected to become. His maneki-neko grinned back. “What took you so long?”

“You. This is your fault. You left and took away all my magic.” He inspected her again. “Did you have a good life, neko?”

“A complicated one, but yes. I’ve so many stories to tell you, fox. I’m sorry it took me so long to come back.”

“I’m sorry I never went to look for you.”

She nodded. Her hair was the color of polished enamel, and she wore rubies on her ears and her fingers. It was, the fox decided, a nice touch. “What now, though?”

The old woman sighed and poured tea for them both. “I don’t know. These bodies likely have a few years left. Enough time to tell each other all the stories we’ve missed.”

“And after that?” The fox sipped from his cup. The brew was tepid but serviceable, sweeter than he’d have liked.

“We die, I suppose. And then we’ll see if there’s an adventure waiting on the other side.” Her smile was incandescent. “Would you like to come with me then? Should we survive dying, we could together find a new way to live. Something even more fun than being old.”

“Yes,” the fox said carefully, once he trusted himself to speak. “I’d like that.”

©2018 by Cassandra Khaw and A. Maus.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

By day, Cassandra Khaw works as the business developer for Singaporean publisher Ysbryd Games. By night, she moonlights as a freelance technology reporter for places like PC Gamer and The Verge, while still writing exorbitant amounts of fiction. Charles Stross called her novella Hammers on Bone  “possibly the most promising horror debut of 2016.”  Hammers on Bone was a finalist for the British Fantasy Award and the Locus Award for Best Novella. Rumor has it that Khaw does not sleep and can only be satiated with offerings of fluffy things. You can find her on Twitter.

A. Maus is a typically unassuming mammal who wrangles suits by day and squeaks words by night. Notable achievements include a few regional medals, minor infamy and gainful employment. You can find A. Maus on Twitter at @AMausWrites.

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

The Proving Ground

Alec Nevala-Lee | 17670 words

Perhaps . . . a message comes to the birds in autumn, like a warning. Winter is coming. Many of them will perish. And like people who, apprehensive of death before their time, drive themselves to work or folly, the birds do likewise; tomorrow we shall die.

—Daphne du Maurier, “The Birds”

I.

Haley Kabua was clinging to the top of a wind tower when she saw the first bird. She had clipped her lanyard, which was attached by a strap to the back of her safety harness, to a strut on the lattice directly beneath the huge fiberglass rotors. As she braced her bare feet on the scaffold, thirty precarious meters above the beach, she knew without looking that the men on the sand below had halted to watch her climb. Only a few hours of daylight remained, but she forced herself not to hurry, knowing that any mistake she made might be her last.

A pair of thick slings had been hitched to separate legs of the tower, about a third of the way down from the top. Each one ran to the closed hook on the boom of the crane behind her, which had raised the tower into place earlier that afternoon. Both of the chokers had to be released by hand. Reaching up, she unhooked the nearest shackle, letting the loosened sling hang down, and she was about to work her way around to the other when she realized that she was not alone.

Haley tilted back her construction worker’s hat to get a better look at the bird, which was perched on the tail of the turbine. It was a tern, about the length of her forearm, with spotless white plumage and a black eye encircled by a ring of dark feathers that made it seem larger. At the moment, it was clinging to the fin of the tail section with its small blue feet, and it seemed to be staring directly at her, as if it had flown up to investigate this unexpected incursion.

She glanced around. Along the eastern end of the island, six other wind towers were spaced about a hundred meters apart, their new blades shining. A seventh tower lay on the sand, where the workers had just finished bolting its sections together. There were no other birds in sight. Haley was perfectly aware that no terns had nested on Enyu in years, and the wind tower was well above the height at which they preferred to fly. And yet here it was.

Haley waved at it. “Hey, get lost. You don’t want to be around when this starts up.”

The bird tilted its head to one side. Haley returned her attention to the remaining choker on the scaffold. “Guess you like to live dangerously. Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She inched around to the second sling, the retractable strap on her harness automatically unspooling. Now she was facing toward the atoll, which formed a horseshoe thirty kilometers across, around the central lagoon. From where she stood at the southeast, she could see the full line of the reef, walkable when the tide was low, that stretched to the islet to the north, along with the seastead taking shape five hundred meters to its leeward side.

Haley paused to drink it all in. The atoll provided few natural vantage points, with its highest elevation only ten meters above low tide, so she rarely had a chance to study the entire structure at once. Seeing it now, from as high above the islet as she would ever be, she felt the sight cut through her exhaustion. It was easy to grow obsessed by details while overlooking the larger picture, she thought, and it was that kind of blindness that had led them to this crisis in the first place.

The seastead had not been designed for beauty, but it was beautiful nonetheless, with the kind of elegance that emerged as a logical conclusion of functionality and constraint. It consisted of a modular network of caissons floating on the surface of the water, with each concrete platform measuring fifty meters to a side. The colony had been designed to expand gradually. One day, there would be more, but now there were only five, a quincunx of four squares joined by a grid of covered walkways and flexible connections to the central hub.

Each platform ascended in a series of smaller terraces, stepped like a ziggurat, with the highest level of the hub rising twenty meters above the lagoon. Their roofs had a tessellated look, with photovoltaic panels alternating with surfaces for catching rain. Half of the caisson facing her was devoted to a hydroponic greenhouse, with a floating dock on the adjacent platform, and the water on the sheltered side was covered in a grid of fish pens and bioreactors that reminded her of rows of a green quilt that had been flung across the sea.

It was a work in progress, and it always looked to her as if someone had left an unfinished mosaic on the face of the ocean, spare tesserae and all. Haley, who had spent most of the last three years on the atoll trying to solve problems at sea level, was struck by how fragile it seemed from above, and as she gazed at the scattered human figures visible below, she felt shaken back into action. They had only four working hours left, and there was still one more turbine to go.

Haley was reaching for the second choker when something struck the top of her hat. At first, she thought that a piece of the turbine had come loose, but when she looked up, all she saw was that the bird that had been perching on the tail section was no longer there.

She heard the sound of wings. In the corner of her eye, there was a flash of white, and then the tern was beating against the back of her neck. She pivoted around, releasing one hand from the scaffold, and tried to bat it away. Instead, she felt a series of sharp pecks as it attacked her shoulders and arms, its feet scrabbling for purchase on the front of her shirt.

The bird drew blood again and went for her eyes. As she attempted to duck out of its path, her foot slipped. She grabbed for the strut above her head and missed. An instant later, she was toppling back, the impossibly blue sky above the rotors filling her field of vision, and all other thoughts vanished, replaced by the logic of gravity. She tried to correct herself, failed, and fell.

Her lanyard caught her. With a jerk, the strap grew taut, the harness seizing her painfully around the armpits as she smacked against the side of the tower. Her hat came off her head. For an instant, the clip was only thing holding her in place, and as she heard the metal straining, vividly picturing what would happen if it broke, her hand groped back of its own accord and closed around one of the struts.

Haley found a toehold, dimly aware of the shouts coming from below. Ignoring them, she regained her footing, her heart juddering, and saw the tern fly off toward the water. Blood was trickling down her arms from five or six shallow cuts where the bird had broken the skin.

Someone was calling to her. It was Giff, one of the other colonists, his hands cupped around his mouth. “You okay?”

She dared a look down. The men had gathered at the foot of the tower, their dark faces craning upward. As her pulse slowed, she saw two unfamiliar figures standing nearby. They were visitors, members of the research team that had been surveying the atoll from offshore for most of the last three months, and her fear gave way to a sudden irritation that they had witnessed her moment of weakness. She found her voice. “I’m fine. Just give me a minute.”

Haley took another second to collect herself, then turned slowly around until she was facing the tower again. Extending a hand, she undid the final choker, allowing the hoisting line on the crane to hang free. She checked herself to see if she was ready to come down in a dignified fashion, and she found that she was. Then she descended, hand over hand, securing her lanyards alternately as she went. The bird that had attacked her was nowhere in sight.

A second later, she was on the sand. As she unclipped the safety strap, Giff came up with her hat. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“It was nothing.” Haley plucked the hat from his outstretched hand. Giff was in his early twenties, a full decade younger than she was, and although they had been working together on this project for many weeks, she had begun to sense only recently that his interest in her was more than strictly professional. She forced herself to speak sharply. “We don’t have to stop. I’ll just be a second. Get over to the last tower, and I’ll meet you there.”

Giff looked as if he wanted to say something more, but in the end, he only left along with the others, who had briefly paused to watch as she came down. Haley made sure that they were all on their way, then pulled off her harness, letting it fall to the ground by the tower.

It was a hundred paces to the shore. Haley knelt in the surf to rinse her cuts, the salt stinging, and was about to head back when she heard a voice with a Dutch accent. “You should probably use this.”

Haley turned just in time to catch the nylon pouch of a medical kit. The man who had tossed it was standing a few steps away. It was one of the two visitors who had come over to observe, and when he smiled, the look that he gave her was almost shy. “In case of infection, you know.”

“Thanks,” Haley said. She brought the kit over to the shaded part of the beach where the crew had left its gear. The man followed without speaking, keeping at arm’s length at all times. He was about her age, tall and bearded, with light blue eyes and a hint of sunburn. His companion, a woman in her late forties, maintained her distance, standing at the point where the sand gave way to scrub.

Haley sat down, grateful to see that the visitor did not seem inclined to volunteer further assistance. As she opened the kit, he motioned toward the spot beside her. “Mind if I join you?”

“Be my guest.” She tore open an antiseptic swab with her teeth. “You must be Visser. Or at least that’s what I’ve heard them call you.”

“I’m sure they have other names for me,” Visser said. “My friends call me Stefan. You must be Haley Kabua. I’m surprised it’s taken us this long to meet. My colleagues and I have heard a lot about you.” He nodded at the tower. “You ever have problems with birds before?”

Haley wound a length of gauze around her arm. His full name struck her as familiar, but she wasn’t sure from where. “Not really. The terns don’t nest here. That’s why we chose it for the wind farm.”

“I can see why.” Visser sat on the sand. “What do you think happened up there?”

She taped a dressing in place. “Maybe they don’t like us nosing in their business.”

Haley watched for his reaction. She sensed a spark of attraction here, although she was hardly at her best, her hair sweaty and matted, her jeans cut off below the knees. As for Visser, she recognized the type from the tourists who had come out to the atoll in the years before the dive operation shut down. Everything about him spoke of healthy swims, morning runs, and exercise instead of real labor. She returned the kit. “I have to get back to work. If you’re not too busy, you can come.”

She saw that the offer surprised him, and she wondered if he understood it. All that anyone knew about his research team was that it was connected in some undefined way to the Deventer Group, the corporation that was helping to finance the seastead, and she had learned a long time ago that if you didn’t know what someone else was doing, it was best to keep them close until you did. Visser glanced at his colleague. “Let me talk to Jansen.”

Haley waited as he went over to his companion, who had been visibly sizing her up. Jansen cut a more interesting figure than Visser, with the look of a woman who had spent much of her life outdoors, her blond hair bleached nearly white. After they had conferred, Visser approached again. “You have me for two hours. Our boat is by Romurikku. We’ll take the dinghy back when we’re done.”

Looking over at Jansen, Haley saw that she was studying the turbines, marking something down on a folded map. She indicated the workers. “You can pitch in. Hope you’re good with your hands.”

They headed together for the last tower, which lay on the coral sand near the airstrip a hundred meters away. As she drew closer, Haley saw that the men were connecting the guy cables and unrolling them along the ground. Behind them, a diesel engine roared to life, and the construction crane began to crawl slowly along the beach. It was a chain-driven relic without a cab, leaving the driver exposed on a swivel seat. Visser whistled. “That’s quite the antique.”

“It’s tougher than it looks,” Haley said. “There’s a lot of stuff in the supply outbuildings. Trucks, milling machines, backhoes, forklifts. Most of it isn’t usable. The salt water wastes the steel. But we were able to refit some of it. This is a shoestring operation, so it came in handy. We have to make do with what we have. When I first got here, it was a real mess.”

Visser appeared to latch onto this last detail. “You weren’t born on the islands?”

“Springdale, Arkansas. Ever been there?” When he shook his head, she gestured for him to follow. “You aren’t missing much. A lot of Marshallese live there. My parents worked at the poultry plant. Here, help me with this.”

Haley showed him the armored electrical cable. Visser took up position beside her as she fed it through the center of the lattices, pacing down the length of the tower. “What brought you all the way out here?”

“I didn’t feel like killing chickens,” Haley said. “At least with wind turbines, you get to slaughter the birds one at a time.”

Visser cracked a smile. As she hooked the cable to the disconnect switch at the tower’s base, he assisted as necessary, listening to her instructions and coming forward only when asked. Haley had positioned herself to keep an eye on Jansen, who was taking photographs of the row of turbines. “Your friend can come over if she likes. She seems interested.”

“We’re doing a survey of the atoll. Infrastructure plays a big role, especially this close to the reef.” Visser watched as the crane inched into place. “I wanted to ask about that. These wind towers weren’t part of the original proposal. Someone took money out of the budget to pay for them. Why put them up at all?”

Haley noticed that Giff was doing a bad job of pretending not to eavesdrop. “Are you asking for yourself, or as an employee of Deventer?”

“I’m not an employee. Deventer pays me as a consultant. It’s just us two talking.”

Looking at his handsome, privileged face, Haley saw that he had no idea of what she had sacrificed to get the towers or what they really represented. “We need power. Wind happens to be a good way to generate it.”

“But the islanders did fine without wind power before. Even over on Majuro.”

“I know. It’s silly, right?” Haley watched as the crane eased itself into line with the concrete base on which the tower would be fixed. “We could just run everything on generators. Ship in the diesel. It’s not like we don’t have the money. That’s why we’re here in the first place. It qualifies us for reparations. A trust fund. They could probably spare some of it to keep the lights on.” She continued to study the crane. “I’ve told you where I’m from. What about you?”

“You probably haven’t heard of it,” Visser said. “A charming city called Leiden.”

“That’s where Rembrandt was born, isn’t it?” Haley deflected his curious look. “You have dikes there?”

Visser seemed to sense where she was going with this. “Of course. Otherwise—”

“—the sea would swallow you up,” Haley finished. “But why not just pack it in? Pull up stakes and join the Germans. It would be easier.”

Visser silently acknowledged her point. Haley turned back to the tower. “Well, that’s my answer, too. You care about your independence. So do we. I didn’t come here for a handout. Relying on the outside is the kind of thinking that got us into this predicament. You, me, and everyone.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Visser said. “Whoever arranged to put up these towers must have wanted to make a statement.”

“You may be onto something there.” Haley turned away. “The towers were my idea.”

Leaving him on that line, she went to the crane, which had parked itself downwind from the tower. Visser watched as the work crew cinched a strap a third of the way down the scaffold, then lifted one end until it was the height of a man’s chest. As the workers brought timbers to prop it up, Haley signaled to Visser. “You can give them a hand, if you like.”

Visser pitched in as they raised the top of the tower, then stood back as the crane was unhooked and rigged to the powerhead. They hoisted it up, the men guiding it into position and bolting it into place. Haley had wanted to show Visser how professional they were, and she was gratified by how efficient the process had become, with most of the work carried out without speaking.

Once the electrical connections had been made, she waited as the men mounted the fiberglass blades one at a time. When they were finished, she waved at the driver of the crane, a younger colonist named Amata. “Ready?”

Amata grinned. As the crane engaged, lifting the tower upright, the men took up places on all sides, using the guy wires as tethers as they maneuvered it to the base pad. Haley ended up standing next to Giff. Grasping the base section to align it with the pier, Giff shot a look at Visser, who was watching from a safe distance, and spoke in Marshallese. “What did he want?”

Haley detected a hint of jealousy. She held the legs of the tower as the crane lowered it onto its pin. “You know the type. He can’t believe we can do anything on our own. So keep your mind on your work.”

Giff only turned back to the scaffold. As soon as it was in place, the workers ran the guy lines to turnbuckles that had been anchored deep in the sand. Haley locked each one with clips as the men pulled the wires taut. Using a rusted transit level on a tripod, Giff checked to make sure that the tower was as close to vertical as possible, signaling to the others to tighten or loosen the guys accordingly. When they were done, all that remained was for someone to climb the scaffold and release the rigging. Haley saw the others looking at her. “I’ll do it.”

Haley put on the safety harness. For a second, she paused at the base of the tower, aware that the men were watching, and then she reached up to clip a lanyard onto the first strut.

She climbed carefully, as always, going up one rung at a time. Whenever she reached the lanyard, she unclipped it and attached a second one higher up, so that she always had at least one line in place. It was very quiet, with no sign of birds, and the solitude gave her time to think.

As she ascended the tower, she thought back to what Visser had said, along with the assumptions behind it. None of this, he had implied, was necessary. The seastead didn’t need wind power or fish farms. All it needed was a handful of caretakers, far fewer than the hundred colonists who currently resided here. The islanders had relied on imports for their food and fuel for years. And if the reparations paid off as they all hoped they would, there would be plenty of money.

Yet she wanted to give them more. They had a chance to make something here that could sustain itself, and while it might not matter to the rest of the world, it mattered a hell of a lot to her. She knew that this sense of urgency had alienated her from many of those around her, even the ones most inclined to take her seriously. But she could never shake the feeling that they were running out of time.

She made it to the level of the tower where the sling was attached. Clipping her lanyard to the strut above her head, she looked around. She did not see any birds on the islet, although a mingled flock of terns and noddies was feeding offshore, a kilometer away from the reef.

Haley took in the view again, the wind blowing in her hair, knowing that it would be for the last time in a while. Looking past the seastead at the open ocean, she forced herself to see how it would look in a hundred years. Water levels across the globe were projected to rise one full meter by the end of the century, but it would not be evenly distributed. It would be highest here, in the equatorial Pacific, and it would erase whatever was left of the Marshall Islands.

But not entirely. The atoll had an average elevation of two meters, and the estimated increase in sea level meant that the high tide would sweep over the few spots of land that survived. If they wanted to remain a country, at least in the eyes of the courts that would award reparations from developed nations to regions destroyed by climate change, they had to make some new real estate of their own. Seen in the right light, it was almost comical. A country could be compensated for the loss of its territory, but without any land, it would not be considered a country.

Hence the artificial island. Turning back to the seastead, Haley reminded herself that it was only a beginning. They had a few decades to set up wave turbines, to make the bases of the wind towers watertight, to build up fish farms and bioreactors until they could live here indefinitely on their own, no matter what happened elsewhere. It had all been born of trial and error, and they had made big mistakes already. But as she looked out at the lagoon, reflecting on what else lay sunk below its surface, she knew that she could not trust anyone except for herself.

Haley detached the chokers without any trouble and climbed down again. Looking around at the others, she knew that the rest could wait until tomorrow, or even later. But when she saw that Jansen had joined them to observe, standing silently alongside Visser, she found that she wanted to do it when the visitors would see it. “Let’s turn them on now.”

There was a murmur of excitement. As the workers grounded the last tower, driving the copper rods deep into the ground, Haley went to the shed that had been erected at the center of the wind farm. The inverters were already in place, and once the system checks were done, she gave the order to proceed.

Giff ran down the beach, darting from one tower to another to turn on the switches, as a second worker did the same with the turbines on the other end. Haley kept her eye on the bank of inverters. As the rotors high above began to turn, the screens blinked to life one by one.

A cheer went up from the work crew. As the men slapped one another’s backs, Haley continued to watch the towers. When they caught the trade winds, the displays on the inverters began to update rapidly as the output wattage increased. She allowed herself a flicker of pride, and when she looked at Visser, she saw that he got the message. They had done all this themselves. Deventer might have provided some of the resources, in exchange for a showpiece project and a percentage of the reparations to come, but it had played no part where it counted.

An instant later, Visser’s expression darkened. Turning to follow his eyes, Haley saw a single white tern circling far overhead.

She did not know if it was the same one she had seen before. All she knew was that it was heading directly toward one of the turbines, and before she could react, it had flown straight into the rotors.

Haley heard a thud as the bird collided with a blade. She watched, unbelieving, as it fell to the ground in a tight spiral, like a maple seed, and struck the sand at the base of the tower.

She ran to it, vaguely aware of Visser at her side, and looked down at its broken body. It had died at once. Haley was still staring at it, feeling as if she were dreaming, when she heard more shouts.

Looking up, she saw a flock of at least thirty birds coming their way. They were flying unusually high, at the level of the turbines, and they were moving in a line that would bring them directly into the path of the towers.

Haley watched, rooted to the spot, as the flock hit the wind farm. It missed the first turbine entirely, but when it reached the second, there was another series of thumps as more terns hit the rotors. If it hadn’t been so awful, she would have laughed. As the bodies of the dead birds plummeted, the rest flew on, and before she could say a word, they had flown along the entire line. At every turbine, more terns fell. A few survivors made it to the end, but within seconds, she had lost sight of them in the trees at the heart of the islet.

“Turn it off,” Haley said. Giff sprinted away without being asked twice, hitting the disconnect switch at the nearest tower before racing along to the next. The others joined him, leaving her alone with Visser. Haley watched as the rotor slowed to a stop overhead, its blades speckled with fresh blood. Then she turned to the north, looking along the row of towers as each one came to a halt, stretching from where she stood to the reef that led to Bikini.

II.

“Let me see if I understand,” Ruben DeBrum said. “The birds were flying far above their customary altitude. They hit the first turbine and kept going. And they flew in a line that took them across the whole wind farm. As if they were doing it deliberately. Or as if they were being drawn to it.”

Haley reminded herself to remain calm. “It’s too soon to jump to conclusions. Birds can be attracted to wind towers as a place to perch or scan for prey, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Bugs can swarm around turbines, which draws birds that eat insects, but that doesn’t include terns. And I’ve found studies of how electromagnetic or auditory fields generated by wind power can attract bats. But not birds. At least not that I’ve seen so far.”

Ruben shifted in his chair. It was early the following morning. The councilman for the Bikini district had the girth and the easy grin of a born politician, but he was not smiling now. He had played no role in the construction of the seastead, living back on Majuro with what remained of the government of the Marshall Islands, and he had moved here only a few months ago, once it had become clear that the colonists were serious. “In other words, we have no idea. I’m sorry to say it, but we have to halt the project until we can evaluate the situation. Or find a more qualified expert.”

Haley bit back what she wanted to say. They were seated in the common area on the uppermost level of the central caisson, along with twenty other colonists. Haley had asked for the meeting to be public, hoping that it would work in her favor, but when she looked at the crowd, it struck her as a mixed bag. Some of the men and women here believed in everything that the seastead represented, but others had wound up at the colony because they had nowhere else to go, and she did not think that she could count on their support.

The common room stood twenty meters above the base of the platform, high enough to be safe from the largest of rogue waves. On Sundays, it doubled as a chapel, with its windows of safety glass affording a pleasant view of the atoll. It had been one of the first areas to be furnished, in part with an eye on renting the space to wealthy vacationers, and the result had the look of an anonymous resort lounge. She saw that the councilman was waiting for her response. “We checked the turbines. There’s no damage. If anything, I’m more concerned about the birds.”

“So are we.” Ruben glanced at Visser. “Deventer is sensitive to perceptions of environmental impact. If we’re killing birds here, it looks bad. This is all starting to look like a mistake. We rushed to build the towers too quickly.”

Haley saw that he was showing off for the two visitors, who had taken up position at the rear of the room. Going forward, she unrolled a map on the conference table, holding its edges down with the shells that had been left there as a centerpiece. Across from her hung a traditional stick chart, with coconut fibers knotted together to represent ocean well patterns. On the opposite wall, where Visser and Jansen were standing, there was a framed artist’s rendition of the finished seastead, a dream on paper with no sense of the work required to make it a reality.

She pointed to the map. “These are the nesting grounds. There are big bird rookeries on the uninhabited islets to the north and southeast. You see thousands of terns and noddies there, along with herons and frigatebirds. But there aren’t any birds on Bikini or Enyu. They’ve steered clear ever since the islets were built up for the nuclear tests in the fifties. Even after the people left, the cats and the rats stayed behind. And we checked the nesting sites and flight patterns before we began to build. There are fewer birds here than anywhere else on the atoll.”

“But you haven’t checked again recently. Birds can move, I imagine. A colony might have arisen since you last surveyed it. Or maybe you overlooked it the first time around.” Ruben leaned back in his seat. “But it might be for the best. A wind farm could be put to better use elsewhere, like Majuro. They still have a population of fifty thousand. I’m not alone in thinking that wind power might be more valuable there, rather than for a handful of colonists. Doesn’t that seem reasonable?”

“Yes. All too reasonable.” Haley removed the shells from the map, which sprang shut. “I’d like to survey the island one more time before we come to a decision. Giff and I can cover most of it in a day, and I’ve already asked for a drone to do a flyover. If there’s a nesting ground, we can evaluate our options. We could always move the towers to Bikini. The equipment is already here. I just want to find a solution that makes sense for us and the birds.”

“The birds will be gone in a hundred years, no matter what we do,” Ruben said mildly. “We won’t. If we’re lucky.”

Haley glanced around and saw that the meeting was over. Rolling up her map, she made her way to the door, not looking at Visser or Jansen, and headed stonily outside before anyone else could speak. When Giff caught up with her in the corridor, she told him to meet her at the boat in twenty minutes. She waited until he had left, wanting to be alone, and then moved on.

After emerging into the sunshine of the terrace, she descended the open stairs to the lowest level of the caisson. As always, it felt exactly like walking on land, although the platform was floating on the surface, tethered to the bed of the lagoon at twelve separate anchor points.

Haley often found herself thinking of the early days, when the first set of platforms was assembled on Bikini. The initial crew had consisted of only twelve volunteers, residing in the decaying resort rooms on the beach, along with a supervisor from the Deventer Group. The interlocking slabs that made up the caissons, with their alternating layers of concrete and polystyrene, were based on the company’s patents, and early on, it had been assumed that Deventer would also oversee the construction. In fact, the islanders had been determined to do everything on their own, and before long, the company man had been safely back on a plane to the Netherlands.

There was no question that they had made mistakes. They had tried mixing their own concrete with local coral sand, only to find that it was too coarse for binding, and setting up the molding plant for the polystyrene had taken months. Once finished, the slabs had to be slid into the water, fitted together, and towed into position, and several had been damaged or lost in the process. But the result was a growing seastead that could survive a hurricane or rise with the worst of the waves, even if the real threat, as Haley had come to understand, lay in the human factor.

She moved along the encircling walkway and headed for a covered bridge that led to an outer platform. Going to her quarters, which were bare except for a bed, a laptop, and a shelf of books, she retrieved the equipment she needed. Then she continued on to the next caisson, moving counterclockwise around the seastead until she reached the greenhouse.

Manita Jacklick was checking the hydroponic tanks in which the colonists were learning to grow cucumbers, chives, and watercress. As Haley entered, Manita glanced up. “How did it go?”

“I’m glad you weren’t there,” Haley said. “Ruben sawed me off at the knees.”

“He needs you more than you’ll ever need him.” Manita set down her tablet. The biologist was another transplant from the outside world, training the colonists to establish pilot systems for hydroponics, aquaculture, and bioreactors. Like the wind turbines, they were less a matter of practical necessity than part of a larger vision, a strategy for the seastead to sustain itself with greater independence than the islanders here had known in decades. “Let’s take a walk.”

Haley followed her outside. She had often sensed that Manita was driven as much by aesthetic concerns as by more pragmatic considerations. The bioreactors had been designed to grow spirulina and other algae for food and biodiesel, but they had also a peculiar beauty, the plastic membranes of wastewater floating on the water like a line of pearls, lined on the inside with bluish paste. Even the pens of seaweed, shellfish, and tilapia, crossbred for resistance to ocean acidification, were lovely in their way, and it was this combination of attention to detail and concern for the whole that made Manita such a valuable ally.

As they crossed over to the dock, Haley told her about the meeting. “I can’t go back to Ruben without an explanation. Maybe there’s a lack of food offshore, and the birds are moving inland—”

“That’s not what I’m seeing,” Manita said. “If anything, there are more fish in the water than ever. The birds aren’t starving. But I can take a look after I check the sampling stations. Did you keep any snarge for me?”

“It’s in a fridge in the central galley. Twelve birds in all. I bagged them separately.”

“Hope you labeled them, too. I’d rather not see them get served up for lunch.” They arrived at the floating dock at the edge of the adjoining platform, at which five boats were moored. Giff was there already, waiting for her in the nearest dinghy. As the women approached, he rose, and Haley was about to speak when she saw something pass across his face.

She turned to see Visser coming in her direction. Halting a few steps away, he pointed to a boat with an electric motor berthed at a distance from the rest. “That one’s ours. She’s fast. You can use her. I’m sorry about what I said yesterday. And if it’s not a problem, I’d like to join you.”

Haley studied his expression, which revealed nothing but a genuine desire to help, as well as an assumption that they were united by concerns that the others could not understand. “Why?”

“I’ll be honest,” Visser said. “I want to know what’s happening here, too. We’re surveying the atoll. If the geography is changing, the birds can be the first to sense it. And if they’re resettling for a reason, it matters to me.”

Haley took a moment to respond. She sensed again that there was an unspoken aspect to Visser’s interest in her, and it had nothing to do with her more obvious charms. Last night, she had spent the better part of an hour looking into him online, and what she had found only raised additional questions. Glancing at Giff, she observed that he did not seem particularly happy about the arrangement, but she could think of no good reason to decline. “Come on, then.”

A few minutes later, after transferring their gear to Visser’s boat, they were heading out into the lagoon. Giff had remained silent, and Haley hoped that there wouldn’t be trouble between the men. To head off any further tension, she had volunteered to take the helm herself, and now she was steering away from the seastead, heading south toward Enyu.

Halfway there, she decided to change course, departing from the most direct line to follow a long curve toward the islet. Up ahead, an orange mooring ball bobbed like a bath toy. She had brought them here deliberately, wondering if Visser would make the connection, which he did. “Is that what I think it is?”

“It’s the Sakawa,” Haley said, speaking loudly above the motor. “It’s right below us.”

Visser leaned over the edge of the cockpit, then raised his eyes toward the islet to the east. In the sky overhead, the drone that she had asked to do a flyover was winging its way toward Enyu. “It’s hard to imagine.”

“You can still see the signs, if you know where to look.” Haley pointed to the south. “They used explosives to blow up a channel in the reef. One of the islands was vaporized by Ivy Mike. If you head west, you can see the crater from Castle Bravo. They called it the proving ground. It was chosen because it was in the middle of nowhere. But there were people here. When they were relocated, they were told that they could come back in a few months. Know what really happened?”

Visser did not look away from Bikini. “I expect that it wasn’t anything good.”

Haley asked Giff to take the helm. Opening her bag, she checked the wildlife transmitters that she had activated before their departure, which she would use to tag any nests they found. “They almost starved at the first relocation site. When radioactive ashes fell from the sky, nobody told them what it was. Finally, they were informed it was safe to go home. A few years later, somebody noticed that cesium levels were off the charts. There were stillbirths, miscarriages. They all had to leave again. So you can see why we don’t trust what other people tell us.”

She anticipated his next question. “The radiation fell to normal levels years ago. They put potassium in the soil, just to be safe. That’s why we built the seastead here. Nobody has lived here for decades, but it’s clean. We can use the infrastructure they left behind, and the atoll is a natural breakwater. It was like a house with the keys in the front door. When we arrived, it was just us and the birds.”

As they drew closer to Enyu, Giff brought the boat around to the construction dock at the lee of the islet, where they tied up. To the south, a flock of shearwaters was feeding on the open ocean, dipping from side to side on their stiff wings as they flew, the tips nearly touching the water. She saw that Visser had noticed it. “Migrants. They stay for a while, then move on. Like everyone else.”

They descended from the dock, walking along the sand toward the trees. Giff inclined his head southward. “I’ll take this end. You two go north. We can meet up again in the middle.”

“Fine.” Haley waited as he headed off, knowing that he had wanted to leave her alone with Visser. Whatever his reasons, she was glad for it. The two of them, she suspected, would have a lot to talk about.

Visser was looking at the wind turbines, which were motionless and bare. “No birds.”

“They can be hard to find. So I could use a second pair of eyes.” Haley knelt to draw on the sand, which was light gray, with flecks of coral. “This is the island. I want to focus on the scrub and forest here, north of the airstrip. We have to be systematic. Terns don’t build nests. The eggs get laid in bare branches, forks in trees, sometimes just depressions on the ground or in the shingle. If there’s a colony, it’s going to be somewhere that isn’t obvious. Let’s go.”

They headed north. Beyond the beach, the ground turned into short grass and soldierbush, followed by a sparse forest of pisonia and manjack. Near the airstrip, coconuts had been planted in neat rows, replacing the trees that had been blown away by the nuclear blasts.

As they picked their way forward over the next hour, focusing on sheltered areas that might reveal signs of birds, Haley realized that she wasn’t sure what she was hoping to find. Visser remained silent. She had been wondering if he would open up about what he was really doing here, but with every passing minute, it became increasingly clear that she would have to pry it out of him herself.

Her first opportunity came as they circled back toward their starting point. They had found nothing, and Haley was trying to decide what to do next when Visser spoke up beside her. “You’ve said that you don’t trust anyone from the outside. But you still cut a deal with Deventer.”

“It wasn’t my deal.” Haley headed toward the airstrip. “But if they want to use us, I’ll use them back. They need a proof of concept. If Deventer wants to build islands for countries that are going to vanish underwater, they have to prove that it works on a large scale. We need land and a permanent presence to stay on the list of nations. So they made us an offer. The details don’t matter. I just want to get the seastead up and running before anyone has second thoughts. That’s why I’m in a hurry. It isn’t about the seas rising. I know how quickly the politics can change.”

They looked toward the ocean, where a mixed flock was feeding on the water, the white terns and black noddies flying low to pick up squid and fish. In the old days, she knew, the islanders had followed birds to find promising fishing grounds, but that way of life was long over. Watching Visser, she saw her chance. “Let me tell you another story. Back in the nineties, the Marshall Islands made a deal with a private company to conduct iron fertilization. You know what that is?”

Visser kept his eye on the flock. “You seed the oceans with iron. The iron supply is the essential limiting factor in plankton growth.”

“Right. The idea was that if you can get more plankton to grow, they suck up carbon dioxide, and when they die, it sinks to the ocean floor. Marine snow. On a large enough scale, it could offset carbon production. We could solve climate change without anyone lifting a finger. If you’re lucky, you get more fish, too. It sounded good to our politicians, so we leased our offshore waters. You can look it up.”

She regarded the birds. “It was supposed to be a trial run, but it never happened. Before they could even start, iron fertilization was outlawed as a form of illegal dumping. But maybe it’s better that way. Science isn’t going to save us. We like to think that we can invent our way out of this. It lets us avoid the hard choices. And I figured out a long time ago that we have to depend on ourselves.”

Glancing toward the airstrip, she saw that Giff had emerged from the coconut grove. When she raised her arms in a silent question, he only shook his head. As they went closer, she lowered her voice. “And I’ll tell you one last story. After the islanders were relocated from Bikini, they were given a trust fund to compensate them for the loss of their land. They had nothing else, so they couldn’t live without those handouts. I don’t want that to happen again. Deventer can have their cut. If we can sign over a piece of our future to make a home for ourselves, we will. I just want to get it done now, because I don’t trust the system. It doesn’t have any interest in what we’re building here. But you know that already, don’t you?”

Visser turned. Something was gathering behind his blue eyes. “What do you mean?”

“You aren’t a scientist,” Haley said. “You’re a lawyer. And I want to know why you really came.”

Before Visser could respond, Giff had joined them at the edge of the airstrip, his face glistening with sweat. He pointed. “Look.”

Following his gesture, Haley felt a sudden chill. When she had last looked at the wind towers, they had stood empty against the sky. Now, at some point in the last few minutes, they had become covered in birds. Clusters of white terns were perching on the struts of the latticework and on the tail sections of the turbines, hundreds, perhaps thousands looking calmly inland, as if they had all descended simply to watch and wait. “Where did they come from?”

Giff shook his head. “Don’t know. I didn’t find anything on my end. A few heron’s nests in the bunker on the southern tip of the island. That’s all. But I haven’t checked anything here.”

Haley knew that he was referring to the supply outbuildings and the communications bunker by the airstrip, which were the only places they had yet to search. As they headed in that direction, with Giff casting a nervous look back at the ranks of terns, she felt Visser’s eyes on her face.

Giff went ahead to the nearest storage building, signaling that she and Visser should check the other. Visser followed as she went to pry open the door, which had been all but swallowed up by undergrowth. Inside, hulks of construction equipment and rusting generators were visible in the shadows. Haley switched on her flashlight, casting its beam around the interior, and heard the low scurrying of rats. “Now you can tell me what you’re doing here.”

Visser faced her in the darkness. “First, I never said I was a scientist. You only assumed that I was. I studied biology and law at Leiden University. But it sounds like you already figured that out.”

“I figured out a few other things,” Haley said. “I looked you up online. Your name sounded familiar, and I finally remembered why. You wrote one of the first papers about us. I read it last night. It was hard to get past the legal language, but I think I got the point. You wanted to define what a country was. For a nation to collect reparations, it has to legally exist, but places affected by climate change might vanish from the map. It’s quite a paradox. But you came up with a good solution.”

Visser’s expression was difficult to read. “I wanted to understand the situation. That doesn’t mean I liked it.”

“No. But you didn’t have any trouble coming up with ways to profit.” Haley retraced her steps to the door. “It isn’t enough to define a nation by its geographical coordinates. You need land and a permanent presence. A few caretakers would be enough, but let’s call it a hundred. A minimum viable population. You can rotate them in and out, as long as somebody is always there. If you like, you can even make the whole thing sustainable. It humors the colonists. Or it allows them to think that they’re something more than a fiction.”

Haley emerged into the sunlight. “I was impressed. That paper was written years ago, but you laid out the whole operation. A government in exile in Springdale. A trusteeship to distribute reparations to refugees. To get startup capital, you treat the reparations like any future income stream. You package it like an annuity and use it to raise money. Deventer agrees to sponsor the construction in exchange for a cut of what we expect to earn from lawsuits against developed countries. It’ll take years to work its way through the courts, but you’re willing to risk it—”

Visser broke in. “The courts are the only tools you have left. I was giving you a way to use them. Both of us want to make a difference. For me, it just happened to be on the legal side.”

“And I should thank you,” Haley replied. “Deventer gave us the patents at a discount. We did the rest. No matter what happens, we’ll have the seastead. They can’t exactly repossess it. And we have an eye on the long game. In a thousand years, sea levels will fall again, and the rest of us can go home. But that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”

Visser’s voice was flat. “I’m doing exactly what I said. We’re conducting a survey of the atoll, both of its current state and of how it might look over the next century. And this affects you today. Because not everyone is convinced that these islands are going to disappear at all.”

Haley had an uneasy sense of what was coming. “What are you talking about?”

“It isn’t just a question of sea levels,” Visser said patiently, as if explaining a difficult concept to a child. “Reef islands change shape. They move around. Even if they erode on the ocean side, sediment can accumulate where they face the lagoon. If the coral dies, it makes more sand available. These islets might actually grow as the seas rise. Most of them formed when sea levels were even higher. Climate change just reactivates the process. Increased storm action could build them up. We simply don’t know. I’m just here to gather information.”

A flood of anger spread through her body. “If you’re saying we have nothing to worry about, I’ve heard that story before.”

“That’s not what I said. Parts of the islands probably can’t be saved. Urban areas, industrial sites, places where the reefs have been affected by infrastructure, like your turbines. But if it looks like any of it will survive, it makes it harder for a judge to award damages. I’m not saying you won’t lose your country. But people are bound to wonder if the claims will hold up. And this isn’t something you worry about in a century. You worry about it now.”

Haley felt as if she had been struck in the gut. “So there may never be reparations.”

“You have to prepare for that possibility. And if that’s the case, what you have now is all you’re ever going to have.” Visser paused. “I’m sorry. But you knew from the beginning that it might not last, and that you had to be open to other options. I want you to remember this. No matter what else happens.”

For the first time, Haley found herself at a loss for words. Hearing the sound of footsteps, she turned to see Giff coming their way. He shook his head, indicating that he had found nothing, and headed for the concrete communications bunker, which was the only structure that they had not yet inspected. Haley made for it, walking rapidly ahead of the others. She did not want to look at Visser, even as his words continued to resound in her brain.

The bunker, built decades ago for the bomb tests, was a short distance away from the supply buildings, with a huge sloping roof nearly engulfed by the trees. Tufts of grass and moss had sprouted in minute cracks in the concrete. Haley went to the doors, which were ajar, and stepped inside without pausing, wanting nothing more than to be done. She no longer cared about what they might discover.

Going in, she took stock of the interior, which was strewn with debris and the remains of equipment that its former tenants had left behind. As Giff and Visser came up behind her, she switched on her flashlight, and she was moving its beam along the floor when she halted. “Giff—”

In the illuminated circle before her, there was a single heron. It was gray, with short yellow legs, a strip of pure white going down its throat. When it was struck by the light, it turned in her direction, and in the instant before it flew toward the ceiling, it seemed to her that it had almost been dancing in place.

She cast her flashlight up to follow it. Dozens of golden eyes were staring down.

There was a sound like the pages of an enormous book being riffled as the herons in the loft took flight. Haley fell back as the birds descended, coming at them in waves, their wings beating the air in the confined space. Otherwise, they were utterly silent, and within seconds, they had surrounded the three of them, jabbing down with their sharp brown beaks.

Giff cursed and beat away the birds with his hands. Haley felt the flashlight slip from her fingers to the ground, and when it went out, it left nothing but a darkness filled with dense feathered bodies. A heron flung itself at her head. It was like being punched by a fist in a padded glove. The bird came again and she shrieked, reaching up wildly to drive it away, only to feel its claws groping for a foothold. Another blow opened a gash on her cheek.

Beside her, Visser had taken hold of one of the herons as it strained forward, trying to get at his eyes. He managed to fling it away, but its place was immediately taken by two more, one going for his face, the other attacking him below the waist. As she watched, he stumbled and went down hard. Haley broke free of the bird that was flailing against her and reached for Visser’s wrist. He returned her grip and made it to his feet, but the birds above were still coming, row after row, bearing a nauseating smell of the sea and vomited fish.

The door of the bunker was still open. Haley turned and ran for that rectangle of sunlight, feeling another set of wings beating at the back of her neck, and tumbled outside. Her bag slipped from her shoulders. Leaving it where it had fallen, she ran for the boat. Giff had already emerged and was shouting for her to follow, blood streaming from cuts on his head. Visser was somewhere behind her.

Haley sprinted as fast as she could through the scrub, ignoring the angry scratches it left on her ankles and calves. She did not stop until she felt sand beneath her feet and saw the construction dock up ahead, and even then, she kept going until she was at the edge of the water, lungs aching, and her mind had finally caught up to the fact that the sound of wings had ceased.

She looked back. The herons were gone. Whatever had caused them to attack had not carried them past the airstrip. The only noise was that of her own pulse, ringing high up in her ears.

Giff was beside her, breathing hard. Visser was standing alone on the beach. He was looking directly at her, but his eyes did not seem to be registering his surroundings, and then he collapsed on the sand.

Haley scrambled back to him. When she was close enough to smell blood, she looked down and saw that the right leg of his khakis was all but soaked through to the knee with red.

She reached down, tearing away the fabric, as a warm jet rose in an arc from Visser’s inner thigh. The sharp beak of one of the herons had sliced open his femoral artery. She spun toward Giff. “Give me your belt.”

Giff complied, staring down at the man on the sand. Haley looped the end of the web belt through its buckle and ran it up Visser’s leg, as high as she could, and cinched it. She caught his eye. “It’s going to be okay.”

Visser said nothing. He was very pale. Looking up the beach, Haley saw a long trail of blood leading back to where they had emerged from the scrub. A gash to the femoral artery could cause death in less than two minutes, and despite the tourniquet, the blood was still flowing.

It seemed that Visser was trying to speak. In the end, whatever he wanted to say was lost as unconsciousness took hold, and before she could do anything more, he had grown still. He was dead.

Her hands were sticky, and the high sweet smell of copper filled her nose. She was about to rise, not knowing what to say or do, when she felt a light touch on her arm. Giff was pointing. “Look.”

She lifted her eyes. In the distance, the terns that had been perched on the lattices of the wind towers were taking off one row at a time. As she watched, the entire flock took flight, hundreds of birds ascending in unison, and before long, the scaffolds were empty again. Even before she saw where they were flying, she knew it in her heart. The flock was moving west, toward the lagoon, and then turning north in a single body. It was heading for the seastead.

III.

Haley laid Visser in the bottom of the boat, covering the body with a tarp from the port seat locker. A cell amplifier had been hooked up to the boat’s external antenna. Dialing the communications center in the seastead, she put the phone to her ear. As it rang with no answer, she kept her eyes fixed on the colony in the distance. The birds were still heading toward the nearest caisson, and at their current speed, they would be there in less than five minutes.

“We have to go.” Haley returned the phone to its cradle. As Giff got the motor running, she knelt by the locker that had held the tarp. Rooting around, she yanked out the remaining equipment, tossing aside a kedge line and an ensign flag before her hands finally closed on a canvas cockpit cover. She snapped it on, beginning with the fiberglass frame around the windshield, as Giff guided them away from the dock. The cover wasn’t thick, but it was something.

As soon as she had sealed up the cockpit, they headed into the lagoon. Haley was about to stow the equipment again when she saw one more item that had been concealed beneath the rest. It was a shotgun. Fishing it out to check the magazine, she found that it was loaded with six rounds. Haley stuck it beneath the seat, then went back to try the phone again.

On her second attempt, she raised someone in the communications center. To her relief, it was Amata, the colonist who had driven the crane the day before, and she knew that he was someone she could trust. She tried to speak calmly. “It’s Haley. We’re on our way back from Enyu. Listen carefully. You need to get everyone inside the seastead right now.”

Amata’s voice crackled across the poor connection. “What’s going on, Haley?”

She looked through the windshield, trying to describe what she was seeing without sounding insane. “There’s a mixed flock of terns and noddies heading your way. A thousand birds, maybe more. They’re not acting normally. If they intersect with you, there’s going to be damage. Maybe injuries. Or worse. You need to sound the alarm. If you can stow anything fragile, like the antennas, do it, but don’t waste any time. Pull the hurricane shutters if you can. The birds can’t break through the windows, but maybe we can reduce the harm.”

Amata evidently sensed the urgency in her voice. “I’ll take care of it. See you soon.”

He signed off. Haley hung up the phone and looked across the bow. “Take us as close as you can.”

Giff gave her a sideward glance. “You don’t want to hold back to see how it looks?”

“We can’t stay here,” Haley said. “I’m the reason half of these people are there in the first place. If it goes bad, I need to see it.”

Giff did not seem entirely persuaded, but he pushed the throttle forward, taking them faster across the lagoon, the water rising in a needlelike spray. The electric motor’s cruising speed seemed to be about fifty kilometers per hour. Haley didn’t know how fast terns could fly, probably around the same or more, but she doubted she would make it to the seastead before the birds did.

She focused on the flock up ahead, which had not deviated from its course. Along with the terns and noddies that she had noticed earlier, there were a few larger herons and frigatebirds. The flock seemed more populous than before, and when she looked to the west, she saw that it had been joined by another group from the outer islets. The sight sent a chill reverberating up her spine. She had seen plenty of birds by the turbines, but there were thousands more on the uninhabited parts of the atoll, and it looked like they were all coming at once.

When she looked forward again, she saw that the leading edge of the flock had reached the seastead. Within the overall group, they were moving in smaller clusters of five to ten, the masses breaking apart as they reached the outer platforms. Some were flying in single file, others in tight formations, in the kind of mobbing behavior she had seen before only in shearwaters. They were approaching very low across the ocean surface, their flight direct and level, but as they neared the caissons, they began to mount higher into the air.

Then they dove. The first set of birds met the solar array at the nearest platform, smashing into the panels at full speed. Many died at once, spiraling down to the roofs of the concrete terraces, while others continued to flop around on broken wings, squawking and defecating in their death throes. Dark gouts of blood began to appear at the places where the birds had struck, the panels clouded with fractures, and this was only the first wave.

Glancing at Giff, she could see the tendons standing out on his neck, but he steered the boat around to the caisson that bordered the aquaculture pens. Looking overhead, she saw the drone that had been conducting an aerial survey of Enyu. As she watched, it was mobbed by a dozen birds, which dipped and swerved in its path as if driving away a predator. The drone took a series of blows to its nacelle, toppled sideways, and plummeted toward the water, where it vanished with a splash. Several of the birds followed it all the way down.

They neared the aquaculture farm. The birds had been as drawn to it as much as to everything else, diving toward the nets on the surface of the water and becoming entangled in the mesh. Even from here, she could see dozens, maybe hundreds, of birds already caught in the pens, a living carpet of bodies that seemed to undulate in counterpoint to the movement of the waves. More continued to come, descending in one sortie after another, their screeching filling every inch of the air like thunder keyed to a higher pitch.

Looking toward the bioreactors, she saw the birds attacking them as well, swooping down over the plastic containers to slash them with their beaks or claw at them with their small feet. Enormous holes had opened up in the sides of several of the tubes, on which electronic sensors for transmitting data about the system had been strung like beads. Haley saw clouds of bluish green spilling out into the water as the algae inside oozed out, the weight of the birds piled on top squeezing the membranes flat like packages of toothpaste.

She turned to the greenhouse. Most of the panels had already been smashed. Through the panes, she could make out the nervous shadows of birds that had either broken their way through and survived or entered after others had cleared the way in, flitting from side to side within the confined space and rebounding off the walls. Everywhere she turned, she seemed to see her own dreams being annihilated with the seastead, the work of years lying in ruins.

There was a thump on the roof of the cockpit cover. Haley looked up. “Hold on—”

Her words were cut off by another series of collisions as the birds began to rain down on the boat, their wings battering wildly against the fabric. The canvas rippled inward with beaks and claws seeking a way through. An instant later, a bird crashed against the windshield, followed by two more, their bodies glancing off to one side as the boat plowed its way forward. One of them ricocheted off the glass at just the right angle and lay convulsing on the bow of the boat for a few seconds before sliding into the water with the rest.

Haley was about to tell Giff to pull back when she noticed something else. Near the net pens, an open boat was drifting freely, already covered in birds. There was no one inside, but when she looked more closely at the area of the lagoon beside it, she saw a lone human figure, still alive, treading water beneath the nets above the aquaculture farm. “It’s Manita.”

Without being asked, Giff steered the boat in that direction. “Can we pick her up?”

“Leave that to me.” Haley saw Manita turn toward the sound of the motor. The net afforded less than half a meter of headspace above the water, and it was being compressed even further by the weight of the dead or dying birds tangled up in the mesh. More terns and noddies were still diving onto the pens, and Haley saw that some of the birds trapped in the net were straining to reach the woman beneath with their beaks even as they struggled to escape.

Waving through the windshield, she caught Manita’s eye. Haley pointed at the water on the boat’s starboard side, and the biologist seemed to get the message. Giff steered the boat toward the aquaculture farm, bringing it around perpendicular to the net pens. Haley scooped up the shotgun from the floor of the boat and loosened a corner of the cockpit cover by the transom. The birds were still coming, the knocks redoubling against the canvas roof.

When Haley gave the nod, Manita dived down out of sight and began to swim underwater to the boat. Haley forced herself to wait until the other woman was nearly there, then tore away the cover. Sticking out her head and shoulders, she racked the shotgun and fired into the air, aiming away from the birds. At the sound of the blast, the terns around the boat scattered, veering off in all directions.

A second later, Manita surfaced behind the boat. As Haley set down the shotgun, Giff left the wheel and helped her haul the biologist onboard. Once Manita was safely inside, Haley snapped the cover down again, the birds hammering against the fabric as they regrouped and fought to get through.

Manita was dripping wet, her hair plastered to her face. Haley took her by the hand. She was shaking. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.” Manita looked down at the body on the floor. “Jesus. Is that Visser?”

“Yeah.” Haley turned to Giff, who had taken the helm again. “Bring us around to the floating dock and cut the engine.”

Giff obliged in silence. Beside her, Manita was looking out at what remained of the fish farm and bioreactors. Haley noticed that the biologist had several bloody scratches on her arms and legs, and that she was clutching a knife with a sheepsfoot blade. “What happened?”

Manita tried to collect herself. “I was checking the bioreactors when they came. It was an open boat. No cover. A few of them got at me. It didn’t give me more than a few seconds. I dove overboard and swam over to the fish farm. It was the only thing I could think of. I cut a pen open and squeezed inside. But they wouldn’t stop coming. What the hell is going on?”

Haley only recounted what had taken place on Enyu. When they were twenty meters from the floating dock, Giff killed the engine, and they waited there, not speaking, as the attack continued. Manita recoiled as a bird hit their boat and landed on the bow, still convulsing. There were no human faces in sight, and Haley hoped that most of the colonists had taken cover. She tried to see through the safety glass of the upper terraces, but was unable to make out anything inside. Some of the hurricane shutters had been lowered, but most of the windows were still exposed.

When she tried to raise the communications center again, no one answered, so all that remained was to watch as the seastead was obliterated. The fish farm and bioreactors were clearly lost, and the greenhouse had been severely damaged. Haley knew that nothing could undermine the caissons themselves, but as the birds hurled themselves headlong into any reflective surface, it seemed that they were determined to erase everything else.

It was several endless minutes before Haley noticed that the intervals between blows to the canvas were lengthening. In time, they ceased altogether. Looking up through the windshield, she saw that the sky was clear, and there no longer seemed to be any birds attacking the seastead itself.

Haley rose and peeled away one edge of the cockpit cover. Everything was quiet.

She pulled away the rest of the canvas, the snaps popping one by one. Turning to the east, she saw that the surviving birds had regathered into a single flock. As far as she could tell, they were heading toward Bikini, and as she watched, they continued inland, where they were lost almost at once in the trees.

Haley sank down again. Up ahead, the seastead was covered with tiny white clumps of dead terns, mingled with the darker noddies, like peppercorns strewn on ground that had been sown with salt.

Without speaking, Haley slid behind the wheel and started the engine. After she had guided the motorboat into the nearest berth on the floating dock, Manita went to tie them up, while Haley and Giff hauled Visser’s body out onto the platform. A few splotches of blood, like cartographic outlines, had soaked through the fabric of the tarp. Manita joined them a second later, the shotgun in her hands.

Dozens of dead birds lay at their feet. The air was thick with the stench of fish, and when Haley looked more carefully, she saw that many of the terns had regurgitated bits of food, the concrete soiled by fragments of shrimp and squid. A few of the birds were still alive, some flopping with their backs broken, others seizing or convulsing in place in a kind of pathetic dance.

Ignoring them for now, Haley approached the remaining boats that were moored at the dock. None seemed seriously damaged, although two had shattered windshields, and all were speckled with starbursts of blood and black marks from the beaks of the birds. As she was examining the final dinghy, a tern burst suddenly from the inside, its wings beating madly. Haley fell back, startled, and watched as it took off and headed away with the rest.

They entered the boat deck, where they lowered the door, stowed Visser’s body, and headed toward the covered walkway leading to the central caisson. In the silence, Haley gradually became aware of another set of sounds, which grew louder as they neared the hub of the seastead. They were human voices, most of them hushed, a few shouting or screaming.

As they moved along the causeway, there was a whine of static, and the public address system came to life. It was Ruben, who ordered all colonists to report to the common area. They filed into the hub along with the others, a few of whom were bleeding. Looking into their faces, Haley saw fear there, but also a veiled reproach, although she wasn’t sure whether or not it was directed at her.

Upstairs, the common area was already packed. In one corner, the seastead’s resident medic had set up a station to dress cuts and bruises. Haley gathered that some of the colonists had been injured directly by the birds, while others had been hit by debris or broken glass. Underlying everything was a palpable sense of panic, and Haley sensed that it would break out into an unpredictable form if they failed to get it immediately under control.

Ruben was at the center of the room, speaking with an agitated group in Marshallese. When he saw Haley, he took a step forward. He seemed to be trying his best to keep a handle on the crowd. “What do you know?”

Haley gave him a short account of what had taken place on Enyu. When he heard that Visser was dead, Ruben glanced to one side. Following his gaze, Haley saw that Jansen was standing in the corner, and she remembered that the older woman didn’t know what had happened to her colleague.

As a tally was taken of the room, it emerged that there was another casualty, a female colonist who had been alone in the greenhouse when the birds descended. One of the men claimed to have seen her body as he was coming back to the hub. According to him, her eyes had been pecked out.

At a look from Ruben, Haley repeated her story. Upon hearing of Visser’s death, Jansen grew pale and turned away, fumbling out her satellite phone. Haley wanted to approach her, but before she could, the conversation had turned to the prospect of evacuation.

Giff was the first to speak. “Even if we decide to go, we’re hundreds of kilometers from the nearest inhabited island. It could be days before a plane can get here. And it wouldn’t be able to take everyone.”

Haley looked at Jansen, who was talking into her phone in a lowered voice. “There’s a research ship at Romurikku. Can it come for us?”

Jansen seemed visibly shaken, but she nodded. “I’ll tell them. They’ll have to come around to the channel. It may be a few hours.”

Ruben addressed the group. “Then we’ll vote. A show of hands in favor of staying.”

Giff lifted his hand high. After a moment, so did a few other colonists. The rest only sat in silence, and when the vote was called in favor of evacuating, almost everyone else, including Manita, assented. Haley did not cast a vote either way. When they were done, she looked around the room. “If there’s a chance of another attack, we don’t want to bring the ship here. These birds seem drawn to structures or movement. The ship can hold station at the channel near Enyu. We’ll head over in any boats that can be covered. How many do we have?”

After a quick inventory, it became clear that five usable boats remained, including the electric dinghy that Visser had provided. Four were moored on the floating dock, while the fifth, which Manita had used while checking the bioreactors, was still drifting near the aquaculture pens, where it could be retrieved. A sixth was at Bikini, and although a few of the colonists offered to go for it, it was decided that the five boats they had would be enough.

Haley ended up at the center of the evacuation effort, rounding up volunteers to get the covers on the boats and to put up the hurricane shutters. Without being conscious of it, she had accepted that she was leaving the seastead for a long time, perhaps forever, and she found herself ticking off its vulnerabilities, wondering how best to prepare it for being abandoned.

As she was heading downstairs, Ruben pulled her aside. “I know you don’t want this. But an evacuation is going to happen whether we like it or not. Better to handle it in a form we can control.”

She saw that he was acting as bravely as he knew how. “What if they attack again?”

Ruben held her gaze. “We keep going. If we turn back, this becomes a panic. And I don’t know how that will end.”

As the councilman was called away, Haley continued down to the galley. Earlier, she had been struck by an idea, and now she gathered up an armful of cans, a roll of tape, a pair of tin snips, and a propane torch.

On her way out, she ran into Manita. The biologist still seemed shocked by the loss of the bioreactors and the death of the woman in the greenhouse, whom she had seen less than an hour before the attack, but her voice was steady. “There’s something I need to show you.”

Haley was about to say that it could wait, but something in Manita’s eyes convinced her. “What is it?”

Manita drew her into a storage room off the corridor and closed the door behind them. “I didn’t have time to tell you earlier. You remember how I said that the levels of fish here have been increasing?”

Haley felt another prickle. “I was wondering if the birds were running out of food.”

“They aren’t. It’s the opposite. I haven’t seen fish in these numbers for years. But that isn’t what bothered me. Once a month, I run a comparison of water samples, one from the area by the bioreactors, the other from our sampling station offshore. This morning, after we talked, I found these.”

She opened her hand. Cupped in her palm were a few small gray pellets. Haley stared. “What are they?”

Manita told her. Haley listened, and for a long moment afterward, she could do nothing but stand in silence. Finally, she told Manita what to do. The biologist gave her a nod and left.

On the lowest level of the hub, there was a room for the seastead’s battery bank, lined with rack after rack of vanadium cells, which would have to be shut down as part of the evacuation. Haley descended the companionway alone, and she was going from one disconnect switch to the next when Jansen entered behind her. “I was told that you wanted to talk to me.”

Haley switched off the last rack and closed the door. “The ship is on its way?”

“They’ll be at the channel in forty minutes. I told them to cover up anything reflective on the outside, in case the birds are being drawn to it. What exactly is it that you wanted?”

“I won’t waste your time,” Haley said. “I was hoping you could explain something. We can talk about it here, in private, or we can go upstairs and you can tell the entire colony. It’s up to you.”

Reaching into her pocket, she set the pellets on the surface of the rack between them. Jansen took them in for a second. Finally, she appeared to reach a decision, and her hard features grew fractionally wearier. “We’re conducting iron fertilization. It’s been ongoing for the last three months. We do it mostly at night.”

“I’ve already gathered that much,” Haley said. “Did Ruben know about this?”

Jansen shook her head. “Nobody at the colony was aware of it. It had to be done in secret. Technically, it’s still illegal. But the only way to convince anyone of its merits is to conduct a test on a large scale.”

“So it was a proof of concept. Like the seastead. And you chose a place where no one who mattered would notice until you were done—”

“It wasn’t my decision to keep it from you. We wouldn’t have conducted these tests if it hadn’t been approved on a higher level. You sold the rights to your offshore waters a long time ago. Those rights never lapsed. They’ve just changed hands a few times. It was part of the arrangement with Deventer. Whatever reparations you hope to get are decades away. We needed something now. And you have it to thank for all of this. Otherwise, the colony wouldn’t even exist.”

“I’d say it doesn’t have much of a chance of existing anyway. What did you do?”

Jansen glanced away. “It was the largest test we’ve ever conducted. Previous studies were restricted to a few hundred square kilometers, and they would just dump iron sulfate in the ocean, where it sinks right away. We bind the iron with lignin and compress it into pellets. It allows it to persist for longer.”

“And what happened?” Haley asked. “You saw an increase in sea life offshore?”

Jansen gave a quick nod. “There have been huge algal blooms. Most of it is a few kilometers past the reef, so you wouldn’t have seen the effects here. The blooms have been heaviest over the last few months. We noticed an increase in the biomass of phytoplankton right away. Then it worked its way up the food chain. More shrimp, more squid, more fish.”

“But it changed the ecosystem in ways you didn’t predict. Including the birds. Did Visser know?”

“None of us did. Not until today. We thought that whatever negative effects it had would be containable. We were wrong.”

Haley looked into Jansen’s eyes, which had grown fixed and glassy. “I still don’t understand the point. When you told the world, what did you expect? We’re not going to turn back climate change.”

“No,” Jansen said. “That ship has sailed. Politically, if not scientifically. But we can do what we can with the time we have. Deventer ran the numbers. Iron fertilization is the cheapest way to sequester large amounts of carbon. We could sell the credits to polluters. Let factories and power plants keep operating if we sink enough carbon into the sea here. It won’t make anything worse, and in the meantime, it’s an income stream. It’s more realistic than the hope of reparations. You can’t trust any one solution. There always has to be a safety line.”

Haley did not look away. “Unless the safety line snaps first. But that’s the only reason you agreed to fund this. You don’t think the reparations will pay off. It was all just to humor us.”

Jansen’s air of control began to crumble. “If it matters, I’m sorry. It hurts me as much as it does you. And if I could take it back, I would.”

Haley turned toward the battery bank. “Just make sure the ship gets here on time.”

She did not look at Jansen again. After a pause, the older woman left the room. Haley remained there for another minute, checking to make sure that the switches were off, and then she headed back to the upper level. She felt as if she had been hollowed out on the inside.

Half an hour later, word came that the research ship was holding station at the mouth of the channel. There were no birds in sight.

On the top level of the hub, the colonists had been divided into five groups. At a nod from Ruben, Haley motioned for the first cohort of twenty to follow her downstairs. In her hands, she was carrying the object she had built earlier. It consisted of five empty cans taped in a row, their tops and bottoms partially removed, with the propane torch inserted through a hole in the base of the first cylinder.

They entered the lowest level of the outer caisson and continued on to the boat deck. All was silent. Visser was still there, wrapped up like an offering, along with the body of the woman from the greenhouse, which two other colonists had retrieved. On closer examination, it had been determined that her eyes had not been pecked out after all, and that she most likely had died of a heart attack.

Haley saw the colonists casting nervous glances at the bodies as they filed toward the door to the dock, which was lowered. She gave a signal to Giff, who had volunteered to remain until the last boat was gone. He went to the door, pulled the manual release, and slid it up its rails.

They stood looking out at the dock. Four meters of exposed space lay between them and the boats. It was covered with the bodies of terns, dead noddies, and regurgitated gobbets of fish and squid. Aside from the sound of the water lapping against the framework of the caisson, it was utterly quiet.

Giff waved forward the colonists, who began to move toward the nearest dinghy. Haley remained inside the boat deck, her eyes riveted to the sky. There was no sign of life anywhere between here and Bikini.

One by one, the colonists lowered themselves into the boat, packed as closely together as possible. The last to come out was Jansen, who had been asked to depart with the first group to coordinate the boarding process. Before leaving, she went to Visser’s body and lifted it by the shoulders, with Giff picking it up by the legs. The other colonists made as much room as they could as the body was lowered into the boat, followed by the second victim.

When they were done, Giff gave three pulls to the starter rope, and the engine began to rumble. As two other men pulled the cover into place, he climbed onto the dock and uncleated the lines. Then he came back to watch as one of the colonists took the tiller and steered the boat away from the slip. Haley spoke softly. “Tell Ruben to send the next group down.”

Giff went to the handset mounted by the door of the boat deck and made the call. The first dinghy was already a hundred meters out. Haley continued to watch the skies, and as the next group arrived, she saw a number of white and black specks appear over the trees on Bikini. It was a flock of terns and noddies, and from here, it was hard to tell whether or not they were heading this way. Giff saw them a second after she did. “What do you think?”

Haley raised the metal tube in her hands. “We keep going. If we stop, we may not get a second chance.”

Giff gestured for the others to move as Haley kept her eyes on the birds. There was no doubt now that they were coming. She estimated that they had several minutes before the flock arrived, and she was about to tell the second boat to leave when another mass of birds, which had approached unseen over the top of the caisson, descended without any warning.

Within seconds, the birds were everywhere. As they began to dive toward the boats and the platform, the colonists screamed, but before panic could take hold, Haley raised the tube in her hands. Switching on the propane torch, she counted to five, and then she pulled the trigger.

A blue fireball erupted from the mouth of the outermost can, accompanied by a deafening blast. The sound was what counted, not the flame, and as soon as the birds heard it, they scattered. Haley shouted at Giff to get the last of the colonists on board. He herded the rest onto the boat, and then it was off, the men inside struggling to pull the cover into place as they sped off into the lagoon.

The birds were throwing themselves against the sides of the boat deck. As the sound of wings rose, Giff looked at Haley for approval, then went to the handset. “Send the last three groups now.”

A deckwash pump stood to one side of the deck. Giff switched it on and took up the washdown hose. When one bird, followed by another, appeared at the door, he squeezed the sprayer, and a pressurized burst of water swept the birds out of sight. He caught her eye again. “I’m going out.”

Haley knew better than to tell him otherwise. As the remaining evacuees began to appear, Giff ducked down and went out to the exposed part of the dock, the hose unspooling behind him. Haley followed him outside, where the birds were descending in huge sorties, with more colliding with the platform and tumbling down to the surface of the caisson.

Giff aimed the hose toward the boats, sweeping the spray from side to side, as if laying down cover fire. Haley waited. As soon as the first half of the group had emerged, she squeezed the trigger of the propane canister. Another fireball exploded from the poofer, sending birds wheeling away, and in the brief respite it granted, the next set of colonists was able to board.

They did it two more times. Whenever the birds gathered, Giff drove them away with the hose, and when their numbers increased past the point where he could handle it, Haley fired the poofer again. A few managed to break through, diving to strike with their claws and beaks, leaving only a few scratches and cuts. The third boat was halfway to the channel, followed closely by the fourth.

Ruben was on the final boat. As he lowered himself into the dinghy, Haley could tell that he was wondering if she would leave. “This isn’t the end. I’ll see you on the ship. We need you there.”

“I’m right behind you,” Haley said shortly. “Hurry up. I don’t know how much longer we can hold them off.”

Ruben sat down with the last group. As he did, Giff exchanged a look with Haley. He sprayed one more jet from the hose, clearing the deck, and jumped down into the boat. Haley fired the poofer, driving away the remaining birds. She could tell from the weight of the canister that it was close to empty.

Giff took the tiller. He kept his eyes on her until the cover was snapped into place and the boat was on its way.

Haley stood there for a second, alone, as the final group departed. Overhead, the birds were returning. She set the poofer on the floor inside the boat deck, then yanked the door the rest of the way down. Once it was shut, she waited, listening, as the collisions against the outside of the caisson resumed. She was the only human being left in the entire colony.

For a minute, she gathered herself, feeling the empty seastead stretching around her to all sides. The idea of simply staying behind had occurred to her more than once. At last, however, she moved on. Ruben was right. This was not the end. She just had to turn off the lights.

Leaving the boat deck, she continued along the interior walkway until she reached the generator room at the far edge of the platform. She went from one generator to the next, switching them all off, and when the last had been powered down, the overhead lights blinked out.

Haley took a flashlight from the wall and used it to find her way to the hub. Then she paused. The sound of the collisions had ceased, as if an invisible button had been pressed. All the birds had gone silent.

She went up to the common area. Going to the largest window, she opened it and manually cranked back the hurricane shutter.

Birds were perched on every surface of the seastead. Haley saw them clustered on the photovoltaic arrays, on the concrete roofs, on the walkways, on the decks along the platforms. There were hundreds of terns and noddies, maybe thousands, along with the uncounted bodies of birds that had died trying to smash their way inside. But they were not attacking.

A noddy sat on the ledge below the window. She looked into its solemn, lethargic face. As it tilted its head to one side to fix its dim eyes on hers, she sensed that whatever had been happening was over. At the back of her mind, she began to understand why, but she pushed the thought away for now.

She made her way down to the lowest level. In one corner of the boat deck, there was a dive station with scuba gear. Haley heard the birds stirring gently against the sides of the seastead as she pulled on her tank, half mask, and weight belt. She adjusted her straps, feeling as if she were saying farewell to the only chapter of her life that would ever matter, and then went to the door and raised it.

On the deck outside, the birds were standing in silent ranks. She lowered the door behind her, then began to inch past the birds, picking her way to the edge. They continued to watch her, not moving, but when she looked closer, she saw some of them trembling, shifting back and forth on their little feet.

She made it to the side. Taking a seat on the lip of the platform, she pulled on her fins and bit down on her mouthpiece. Then she pushed herself off into the clear waters of the lagoon.

Haley descended, listening to herself breathing, the silver bubbles sliding past her cheek. When she looked up, she saw the floating bodies of birds outlined against the sky. She swam carefully, weaving her way past the anchor cables tethering the caisson to the bed, and was about to head for Bikini, where one boat remained, when something made her pivot and swim in the other direction.

At the bottom of the lagoon lay a shipwreck. Switching on her flashlight, she directed it toward the carcass of the destroyer, a hundred meters long, that sat upright against the white sand of the seabed. The hull was horribly twisted and damaged, with an enormous gash below the superstructure, which had been smashed amidships like a concertina. It had taken the impact squarely on its port side, its hull plates buckling to reveal the girders underneath.

Haley studied the wreck, which looked black and white in the darkness. It was one of ninety ships that had been brought to Bikini for the bomb tests. Some had been painted orange for visibility, while others had been filled with animals, the goats and pigs penned in place like sacrificial victims.

Now it lay here, as if in silent contemplation. The hull was overgrown with whip corals, the big fans sprouting from the end of its forward guns, and schools of glass fish and marbled grouper were weaving among the lavender ropes. Any exposed areas had been coated in a soft red silt. There was a message here, although it seemed too large for her to glimpse it all at once.

Haley regarded the wreck for a long moment. Then she turned and began to swim the half kilometer to where the final boat awaited.

• • • •

Turning on the pump, Haley picked up the washdown hose. A mask was tied over the lower half of her face, and she had put a dab of mentholated ointment on her upper lip to block out the stench. Directing the jet of water toward the surface of the caisson, she began to wash it free of blood. It was oddly consoling work, and it took her a moment to realize that she was not alone.

Manita spoke from behind her. “I tried to reach you. You haven’t been responding.”

Haley fixed her eyes on the deck as she sprayed away the offal. “I’ve been busy. It took a few days just to dump what was left of the birds into the lagoon. They were pretty rotten. But the sharks will take them.”

She finally looked at Manita. A month had passed since the evacuation. She had spent most of the last week trying to get her way back, hitching a ride on a cargo ship on its way to Guam, then covering the rest of the distance in an inflatable tender. It had not occurred to her to make arrangements for a return journey, but a quick check of the seastead had confirmed that enough of it had survived to keep her alive indefinitely. “How did you get here?”

“Probably the same way you did,” Manita said. “There’s a weekly ship to Honolulu. I managed to convince them to drop me off at Enyu. There are a still few boats out by the construction dock, if you don’t mind swinging an oar. I’m surprised that you didn’t see us.”

“I haven’t looked out to sea in a long time. There’s more than enough to handle here.” Haley studied the other woman. “Any birds?”

“No. Everything’s quiet. According to Deventer, the effects of iron fertilization take just twenty days to disperse. For the impact to last, the process has to be continuous. But it looks like a permanent drop in the bird population.” Manita looked to the west. “Maybe there are some on the outer islets. But I don’t know.”

Haley turned off the hose. Her questions lay like a lump in her chest. “Have they said anything else?”

“A little. I figured you’d want to hear it. And I wanted to ask if you’re coming back.”

“I’ll finish cleaning up first. Then we’ll see.” Haley led her toward the edge of the dock. “So talk to me.”

Manita sat down, looking out at the lagoon. “They’re going to release a report. Iron fertilization creates huge algal blooms, but you don’t know what you’ll get in advance. It alters the community structure to favor certain kinds of phytoplankton. In this case, it was a species called pseudonitzschia. Ever hear of it?”

Haley nodded. “Yeah. I’ve had time to do a lot of reading. And I know that it’s happened before.”

“But not on this scale. Pseudonitzschia is an oceanic species. Under normal conditions, it’s a bit player. But it responds particularly well to iron fertilization. And it’s toxic. It produces domoic acid, which accumulates in fish and squid. When they’re eaten by birds, chronic exposure can cause neurological damage. They become confused, suffer seizures, engage in mobbing behavior. Toxicity is highest in coastal waters. And it can lead to attacks on humans or buildings.”

Haley understood. “Which is why it didn’t affect migrant birds, like the shearwaters. They were just passing through, so they weren’t exposed to enough of it. Only the birds that nested and fed here.”

“That’s how it looks.” Manita paused. “I can’t prove it, but it’s possible that the toxin caused the birds to attack particular structures. The damage from domoic acid is concentrated on the hippocampus. For some species, like terns, it’s the structure they use to navigate. It’s particularly sensitive to electromagnetic interference, like the kind that would be produced by wind turbines, or the electric motors on some of the boats, or radio transmitters, or solar cells. They were drawn to it. It caused them to cyclically attack and regroup—”

“—and it ended when we shut it all down.” Haley felt the sting of tears, but she fought them away. “And Deventer?”

Manita looked down at her reflection. “They’ve stopped the tests. It wasn’t just about the birds. It’s unclear how well the process sequesters carbon at all. When phytoplankton die, they don’t always sink down to the seabed. Sometimes they return to the food chain. Whatever sequestration occurs is probably only temporary. So it doesn’t look like a viable source of carbon credits.”

“Which means that there’s no more money,” Haley said. “No cash flow. Even if the reparations come through a decade from now, we need money today. Nobody is going to want to live here otherwise.”

“Maybe not. But they can’t take away what you have. You were right to put all this together when you could. It exists. Nothing can change that.” Manita turned to her. “So what are you going to do now?”

“Whatever I can repair or salvage, I’ll keep. The rest I’ll close down. I’ve got enough here to keep me alive. As for everybody else—” Haley hesitated. “What are they saying?”

“Ruben is back on Majuro. So are most of the others. Giff keeps talking about coming back, but he’s got his own life to consider. And I need to think it over.” Manita reached out and took her hand. “If you want me to stay for now, I will. At least for long enough to get it running again.”

Haley squeezed back. Then she drew away. “I’d like that. But I want to be alone for a little while. You can get set up in the hub. It’s the cleanest part. I’ll come and find you later.”

Manita headed silently inside. Haley remained where she was for another moment, then stood. Picking up the hose, she finished cleansing the blood from the platform, then removed her mask and stowed the pump. There was one last thing she had to do, and she had been postponing it for days.

The tender she had taken here was moored by the floating dock. She saw that Manita had tied a rowboat beside it. Smiling slightly, she lowered herself down and cast off the lines.

Half an hour later, she was on Enyu. Leaving the tender by the construction dock, she walked up the coral beach, heading through the scrub toward the airstrip. Ranks of replanted coconut trees stood to either side.

Haley walked along the towers, which loomed like sentinels on the eastern edge of the islet, where the trade winds were strongest. When she reached the last one, she began to climb. There were a few signs of damage, but nothing that could not be repaired, if not by her, then by those who might come later.

Reaching the top of the tower, she worked her away around so that she was facing the lagoon. From here, she could see the full extent of the seastead. It was battered, with the shreds and patches of the bioreactors and net pens still drifting freely on the surface of the water. Most of the photovoltaic panels had been smashed, and all the windows were dark. But it was still there.

She raised her eyes toward the west. At the far edge of the lagoon was a bright patch of blue water. Looking at the crater that had been left by the nuclear tests, Haley reminded herself that the best way to make something lasting was to grow it piece by piece, like the reef. She could scale it back. Not as a colonist, but as a caretaker, preparing the way for others to return. Manita was right. Nothing could take away what she already had. She didn’t need their money, their resources, or even their support. All she needed was herself.

A flock of shearwaters was feeding over the water. Haley kept her eyes on it. Then she turned away and descended the tower again, going down just as she had climbed up—alone, and without a harness.

©2017 by Alec Nevala-Lee. Originally published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alec Nevala-Lee’s nonfiction book Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction will be released by Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, on August 18, 2018. His novels include The Icon Thief, City of Exiles, and Eternal Empire, all published by Penguin Books, and his stories have appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Lightspeed, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction. He lives with his wife and daughter in Oak Park, Illinois, and he blogs daily at www.nevalalee.com.

EXCERPT: The Queens of Innis Lear (Tor Books)

Tessa Gratton | 3368 words

Dynasties battle for the crown in Tessa Gratton’s debut adult epic fantasy, The Queens of Innis Lear.

Three Queens. One crown. All out war.

Gaela. Ruthless Commander.

I am the rightful heir of Innis Lear. No more will I wait in the shadows and watch my mother’s murderer bleed my island dry.

The King’s hold on the crown must end―willingly or at the edge of my sword.

Regan. Master Manipulator.

To secure my place on the throne, I must produce an heir. Countless times I have fed the island’s forests my blood. Yet, my ambition is cursed.

No matter what or whom I must destroy, I will wield the magic of Innis Lear.

Elia. Star-blessed Priest.

My sisters hide in the shadows like serpents, waiting to strike our ailing king. I must protect my father, even if it means marrying a stranger.

We all have to make sacrifices. Love and freedom will be mine.

Tor Books (March 27, 2018)

In a quiet, cool grove of chestnut trees, heartleafed lindens, and straightbacked Aremore oaks, a fox knelt at the edge of a shallow spring.

Scars and fresh scratches marred the rich tan of his back and arms and thighs. He had already removed his uniform, weapons, and boots, piling them on a wide oak root. The Fox—who was also a man—poured clear water over himself, bathing and whispering a cleansing song that married well with the babble of spring water. He’d traced this source at the first light of dawn, glad for a forest heart from which to ask his questions.

A breeze came, tightening his skin with cold breath, and the canopy of leaves chattered welcome. Ban the Fox replied, That’s encouraging, in their tongue, shifting his vowels to match the cadence of this Aremore forest. The trees spoke wider and more graciously here than on the rocky island where he’d been born. On Innis Lear the trees tended toward hard and hearty, shaped by ocean winds and the challenge of growing against the bedrock; not green and radiant so much as gray and blue with the coolest brown barks, lush moss creeping around in hollows, and thin leaves and needles. They spoke softly, the spreading low mother oaks and thorned hedges, weaving their words into the wind so their king could not hear.

But in Aremoria there was room and soil, enough for loud trees more concerned with bearing fruit than surviving winter storms or heartless kings. They conversed with each other, sighing and singing to please themselves, to taunt colorful birds, to toy with the people’s dreams. It had taken Ban months to win the trust of the Aremore trees, for he’d arrived angry and corded over by bitter flavors, far too spicy at such a young age. They’d not welcomed an invading thistle, but eventually he charmed them, grew to be as familiar as if he’d been rooted here.

Slipping deeper into the spring now, Ban untied the tiny braids patched through his thick, dark hair. His toes sank into silt as water curled about his ankles; he kept up his idle banter with the nearby linden trees, who had a vibrant sense of humor. Finally, with his hair loose and falling stiffly at his ears and neck, Ban ducked himself entirely into the spring water.

All conversation dulled. Ban held his breath, waiting to hear the pulse of this forest heart. A deep well might serve better, but the spring was natural, built only of the earth. He needed the rhythm under his skin to properly connect, to find the paths of magic he could use to track the loathsome Burgun army and certify their retreat.

Peace and cold solitude surrounded Ban. He parted his lips to allow in a mouthful of water and swallowed it, drinking in the tranquility. He slowly stood up.

Water streamed off his rising form. A small man, with not a strip of comfortable fat, Ban was all tawny muscles and sharp edges. Dark hair blackened by water hung heavy around large eyes, the brown and dark shadow green of forests. He blinked and droplets of water like tiny crystals clung to his spiky lashes. Had anyone witnessed his emergence, it would’ve been easy to think Ban a thorn of magic, grown straight from the spring.

Refreshed and blessed, he crouched at the shore to dig his hands into the mud. He spread it up his wrists like gauntlets, smoothing the graybrown mud into a second skin over his own. With it he painted streaks across his chest, down his stomach, around his genitals, and in spirals down his thighs. He slapped handprints over his shoulders, splattering them down his back as far as he could reach.

Now, fully a creature of this specific earth, adopted child of these balmy trees, Ban the Fox picked his way back into the forest. Every footstep brought him words whispered up his legs: starwise, starwise, forward, this way, turn here, this way, starwise again, and nightwise now! The trees directed him toward the goal he’d requested, and finally Ban reached the tallest of them, at the edge of the forest, where he might best catch hold of a wind willing to report on Burgun.

A spreading, ropey old chestnut waited, roots buried several horse lengths off the line of trees. Ban glanced all around, at the churned earth of the valley, where days ago the Burgun army had camped. No grass still lived except in scattered clusters, the rest trampled and flattened and gone dry. Abandoned fire pits were scorched scars, and he could see the heaped dirt of covered privy lines.

No men or women remained, and so Ban dashed across the narrow strip of open land, using the speed to launch himself up the trunk of the chestnut. He caught the lowest branch with a grunt, swung up, and climbed high. The tree was sturdy enough that it never shivered with his weight, merely chuckled at his tickling grip.

Three small birds burst away from his intrusion, and the chestnut warned him to mind the eastern circle of limbs, where he’d already angered some brown squirrels.

Ban climbed along the ladder of boughs, up and out, toward the highest northwestern branch. There, a line of charred lightning strike allowed him a perch with a view of the valley for miles ahead of him, and of the rolling green forest canopy behind. He pushed aside long, serrated leaves and gripped a branch at his shoulder, only as wide as his wrist, to steady himself.

Ban stood, balanced carefully.

Wind caught his hair, pulling it out of his face. He asked the tree to warn him if anything approached, animal or person, then opened his mouth to taste the flavors of the air.

Smoke, old death, and the dusty musk of crows.

Ban lifted onto his toes to reach into the air. He caught a feather, black and smooth. In the inky color he saw shifting waves of men and horses; he saw a cliffside and clouds of reddish smoke, sparkling rocks, rotten flowers, and an empty white hand.

He slid the edge of the feather along his tongue, spat onto the back of his hand, and rubbed it against the chestnut bark hard enough to score the skin bloody. The language of birds was full of dreams, and impossible for men to interpret, it was said. But Ban had learned otherwise, these six years in Aremoria, at least if he could use pain, or blood, to facilitate the translation.

His hand throbbed now, and Ban closed his eyes to recall the pulse of the tranquil spring water. Slowing his breath, he brought his heart into alignment with the forest heart, through this focus of tender skin.

The crow’s many images became one: an army dressed in maroon limped far from here, a full day and night’s ride, backs to him and Aremoria, facing the north cliffs of Burgun.

Thank you, Ban said in the language of trees, and tucked the feather into the crook of leaves where it became a gift for the chestnut. He offered to trim the dead branch, but the chestnut was pleased with its stormgifted scar. Ban rather liked his own scars, too, for how they proved his experiences and belonged to none but him, and he told the tree as much as he returned to the ground.

Ban landed in a crouch, cold suddenly in the shade. The sun sank over the far mountains bordering the edge of Burgun lands, and Ban wished his clothes were nearer. He’d return to camp, report to Morimaros, and then eat, drink, sleep the short summer night away, not once looking up at the glinting stars.

The evening forest whistled and hummed. The trees observed the usual yawning transition to twilight: they watched animals wake for the hunt, wondered if the king of deer would drive off a lone wolf trapped here, apart from her pack, by the armies, or if that most gentle rabbit would neglect to avoid the oak full of owls. Hungry himself, Ban considered joining the fray, stalking that wolf to try his own hand at her. He smelled like the mud of the forest now, and just a slight trail of his dried blood. It would keep their advantages even.

But if he did not return to camp before darkness set in full, the king would worry, though Ban had tried for years to teach him that there was no need to be concerned with the Fox’s safety in a forest.

It made his lips curl in a small, involuntary smile to think on: a man as good and bold as Morimaros of Aremoria concerned for a bastard like Ban.

So distracted was Ban, it took a scream from three young linden trees to alert him to the man who had invaded the heart spring grove.

Immediately alert, Ban crouched low to make his way around from the south, where the canopy was thickest and more shadows would hide him. Listening to the gentle prodding of trees, Ban crawled along, only his eyes gleaming.

At the edge of the grove, he lowered himself onto his stomach and slipped under a rose vine, enjoying the delicate perfume even as the hooked thorns brushed the dry mud on his shoulders.

Seated on the very root where Ban had left his belongings was none other than King Morimaros. A midsize, handsome man with short, practical dark hair and a matching beard, in the regular uniform of the army except for the long orange leather coat and the royal ring on his forefinger. Ban looked about everywhere, confirming with the trees that Morimaros was alone. Casually reading a letter.

Exasperation and a shot of fear made Ban grit his teeth and creep backward. He’d show Morimaros how stupid it was to be alone, even with the war over, even with Burgun fled.

He climbed up an oak, whispering a request that the tree hold still, and then the next, too, as he stepped across to it, so that they would not shake their leaves and reveal to the king his location. Thus, Ban walked gently from tree to tree, like an earth saint, and sank finally into the embrace of the oak under which Morimaros sat. Ban climbed down, and even when the king looked suddenly out at a cracked branch in the west, Ban was invisible to him, directly above.

In one swift motion, Ban dropped onto the king’s back, threw an arm around his neck, and pulled. But Morimaros grasped his arm and bent, flinging Ban heels over head, hard onto the muddy shore of the spring. Ban rolled onto his hands and the balls of his feet, and glared at the king, eyes and teeth bright in his muddy, wild face.

Morimaros had his sword free, knees bent, ready to defend himself again. “Ban?” he said after a slow moment.

Ban stood. “You were very vulnerable, Your Majesty.”

“Not so, it seems.” The king smiled. He sheathed his sword and picked up the fallen letter.

“Why come out alone? I was on my way to returning.” Ban crossed his arms over his bare chest, suddenly too aware he was naked but for mudscrawled magic.

“I’m not allowed much solitude, and this evening is perfect for it,” Morimaros said. He ran a hand over his closecropped hair, a sign of slight embarrassment. “And I would speak with you privately on a certain matter, ah, pertaining to this letter.” He brandished it, and Ban could see the deep blue wax of Lear still clinging to one edge.

All his skin went cold with dread, but Ban nodded because he had to: this was his king, his commander, no matter what else they might be to each other.

The Fox strode into the water and ducked down fully into it, allowing his entire body to be enveloped. It was not peace and cool calm he felt as the water brushed away mud, tickled his spine and the backs of his knees. No, it was a roar of suppressed memories: clenched fists and dismissive words; sheer peaks, crashing waves, and a howling, powerful wind; haunting sweet laughter and black eyes with short, curled lashes; tiny iridescent beetles.

Ban, the bastard of Errigal, scrubbed his skin clean and turned over in the spring, spinning once, twice, and a third time. Rising, he wiped his face, spat water, shook his head like a dog.

When he emerged, he desperately thought of his Aremore name, the one he’d earned, trying to will himself back to center.

The Fox. Ban the Fox.

His eyes opened to see that Morimaros offered him trousers. Ban muttered thanks and dragged them on, tied the waist up and used the plain wool shirt to wipe drips of water from his face and neck, chest and arms.

“Now,” Morimaros said, clasping his shoulder, “I have wine in the crook of that root. Read this letter.”

Ban followed the king, reminding himself he was trusted here, he was honored by the grand crown of Aremoria. Whatever Lear wanted, Ban would attack it from Morimaros’s side. Together, the men sat.

Morimaros gave over the letter and uncorked the brown glass bottle of wine with his teeth. The writing was roughly scratched into the parchment. Ban read:

To the honored King Morimaros of Aremoria,

We of Innis Lear invite you to join us at our Summer Seat for a rare celestial occasion. The Zenith Court will commence some two weeks from the writing of this note, on the full moon after the Throne rises completely to mark the ascent of the Queens of Autumn. The greatest of our island shall attend, and we look forward to introducing you to our youngest, with whom you have corresponded these last months, with hope I am certain in your heart. We are eager to set our daughters onto their star paths, and know your attendance will aid us in that desire.

With the blessings of the stars in our words,

Lear

Ban managed to remain calm, despite the implications involving Elia Lear. He read through the letter again, and Morimaros swung the bottle of wine toward him.

Trading his thirst for the burn of memory, Ban took a long drink. It was sweet and crisp, very easy to swallow. Not like the wine and ale of Innis Lear. Not like the hard yearning that tugged at him even now to go back. To touch the iron magic of Errigal again. To set things right and show his father and that king what he’d become. A confidant of this king, a renowned soldier and spy. Important. Necessary. Honored.

Wanted.

“Did you know her?” Morimaros asked, interrupting Ban’s sputtering thoughts.

“The youngest princess?” Ban lightly avoided her name.

But the king did not.

“Elia,” he said simply, and then easily continued. “She is the star priest, we hear, preferring this to her title. Though I met her as such, once, a long while ago. When her mother died, I traveled to Innis Lear for the year ceremony. Princess Elia was only nine. It was my first time in another country, acting as Aremoria. Though my father lived still, of course. He didn’t die until I was twenty.” Morimaros took back the wine and sipped at it. Ban studied the king, trying not to imagine him speaking with Elia, touching her fingers. Morimaros was gilded and handsome, a strong man, and one of the only good ones Ban had ever known. Elia deserved such a husband, and yet, he could not imagine her living here, in Aremoria, away from the twisted island trees, the harsh moors, the skies overwhelmed with stars.

Ban shook his head before he could stop himself. He’d thought of her, though he’d tried to forget those years before he’d been the Fox. Thought of the smooth brown planes of her cheeks, her black as wellwater eyes, the streaks of improbable copper in her cloud of dark brown spiral curls. Her warm mouth and eager young hands, her giggle, the wonder with which she dug into tree hollows with him, whispering to the heart oaks, to the roots, to the sparrows and worms and butterflies. He’d thought of her most when he was alone in enemy camps, or washing blood off his knife, or cramped and stinking for days in the hiding holes the roots made for him. She saved him, kept him quiet, kept him sane. His memories of her made him remember to stay alive.

“Did you know her?” Morimaros asked again.

“Barely, sir.” And yet more entirely than Ban had known anyone in his life. She once was the person who’d known him best, but Ban wondered what her reply would be, if asked the same question today. In five lonely, bloody years, she’d not written to him, and so Ban had never sent word to her on the wings of these Aremore birds. Why would she want to hear from a bastard now, if she hadn’t before? And now they were grown.

The king said, “I’ll leave next week. Sail around the south cape to the Summer Seat.”

Ban nodded absently, staring down at the dirt beside his toes.

“Return to Innis Lear with me, my Fox.”

His head snapped up. Yes, he thought, so viciously he surprised himself. King Morimaros watched Ban with clear blue eyes. His mouth was relaxed, revealing nothing—a special skill of this king’s, to present a plain mask to the world, holding his true opinions and heart close.

Home.

“I . . . I would not be a good man at your side, Majesty.”

“Ban, here and now call me Mars. Novanos would.”

“When we discuss Lear it reminds me too keenly of my place, sir.”

Morimaros grimaced. “Your place is at my side, Ban, or wherever I put you. But I know how that old king thinks of you. Is his daughter cut of same cloth?”

“As a girl, Elia was kind,” Ban said. “But I do not know how I can serve you there.”

The king of Aremoria drank another portion of wine and then set the bottle firmly in Ban’s hand. The Fox recognized the low ambition in Morimaros’s voice when he said, “Ban Errigal, Fox of Aremoria, I have a game for you to play.”

Copyright © 2018 by Tessa Gratton. Excerpted from The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton. 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

Tessa Gratton is the author of the Blood Journals duology, Gods of New Asgard series, and two books on writing fantasy for teen writers. She currently works for Serial Box Publishing as a lead writer on Tremontaine. She’s lived all over the world before returning to her prairie roots in Kansas with her wife. The Queens of Innis Lear is her debut adult fantasy novel.

Media Review: March 2018

Joseph Allen Hill and Carrie Vaughn | 3330 words

Black Panther
Directed by Ryan Coogler
Written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole
Marvel Studios, February 2018

Review by Joseph Allen Hill

A confession: growing up, I never liked Black Panther. I thought he was boring. My favorite black superheroes were Storm, Luke Cage, Cyborg, Night Thrasher, Vixen, characters with big personalities and dramatic storylines. Black Panther was bland, forgettable. I knew him mostly from appearances in Avengers comics and cartoons, where he was the member of the team who just went along with things, provided wise counsel to teammates, and mainly stayed out of the interpersonal drama that fueled the plots. Being an Avenger was just a job, a thing he had to do to make sure his country was safe from time-traveling clones and alien wars and Nazi bees. His friends, his family, his loves, his drama, his life, they were all in Wakanda. More than any other superhero, Black Panther is defined by his setting, and Black Panther without Wakanda is just a strong punch man dressed as a cat.

It is fitting, then, that Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther is not simply set in Wakanda, but an exploration of the place, both as a visually-rich techno-paradise, but also as a fantasy, a dream, made real. The titular superhero is at the center of the film, but what the story is really about is the nation of Wakanda, the people, the place, its past, and its future. And despite it being a fictional place, focusing on Wakanda allows Coogler to approach real-world themes of race and ethnicity, colonialism, post-colonial identity, and the ethics of resistance, all while balancing character-based drama and superhero spectacle. There are some stumbles along the way, but the film manages to do so much.

The film starts with a segment explaining Wakanda’s history. A meteorite made of vibranium, a strange metal with almost mystical properties, lands in ancient Wakanda. After years of conflict among the tribes, the leader of one the tribes, the Black Panther, becomes king of a united Wakanda, a mantle which is passed down as part of a hereditary kingship. Even in this opening, we get a glimpse of the conflict that will define the film. Wakanda thrives as a techno-paradise, a nation untouched by colonialism with technology that the rest of the world, even the sci-fi world of the MCU, can only imagine. But colonialism still exists in the MCU, along with slavery, apartheid, and all the familiar oppressions visited upon black people in our world. Wakanda embraces isolationism, hiding its treasures and its technologies, pretending to be a poor country not even worth exploiting.

The present action of the film begins with Chadwick Boseman’s T’challa preparing for his coronation as king and official Black Panther following the events of Captain America: Civil War. In short order, we are introduced to wide array of characters: the queen mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett), ex-lover Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o), who left Wakanda to offer aid to people suffering in the outside world, genius little sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), general of the Dora Milaje and T’challa’s bodyguard, Okoye (Danai Gurira), elder and advisor Zuri (Forest Whitaker), leader of the unintegrated Jabari tribe M’baku (Winston Duke), and T’challa’s white friend, Everett Ross (Martin Freeman). All these characters have different ideas for the future of Wakanda, some wanting Wakanda to do good in the world, others to maintain its isolationist traditions. T’challa tries to balance them all as he takes on the mantle of Black Panther, a role he has trained for all his life but has seemingly never fully considered.

Of particular note here is how T’challa is surrounded by women. Where most Marvel films seem to struggle to fit in one or two female characters into overwhelmingly male stories, Black Panther manages to spotlight a variety of strong women, each with their own goals and relationships, active participants in the plot. While the film still ultimately centers around T’challa and his conflicts (I don’t think it passes the Bechdel test except maybe a couple conversations about vibranium), it still feels light years ahead of similar movies.

T’challa faces two primary antagonists. First, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis), arms dealer and vibranium trafficker regarded in Wakanda as a war criminal for his part in an incident that led to the deaths of hundreds of Wakandans. Second, Michael B. Jordan’s Eric “Killmonger” Stevens, a former U.S. special forces operative with a mysterious connection to Wakanda and a vendetta against the royal family. Whereas Klaue serves largely as comic relief, Killmonger is the real villain and the primary mover of the plot. He is angry: angry at Wakanda for turning its back on the black diaspora, angry at T’challa for having an easy life as the son of a king, angry at the imperialism and racism and exploitation around the world. Whereas Nakia urges T’challa to expand Wakanda’s influence in order to provide humanitarian aid, Killmonger wants to create a new world order with Wakanda at the top. A few generations too young to be a member of the original Black Panther party, he feels connected to it, both as an Oakland native and as a man willing to do whatever it takes to fight against the evils and horrors of racism, even as it leads him down darker and darker paths.

The performances are, on the whole, spectacular, with Michael B. Jordan delivering a particularly moving and magnetic performance as Killmonger, a character who could very easily come across as an argument instead of a person. Black Panther is Michael B. Jordan’s third film with Ryan Coogler, and their rapport shines through. Winston Duke also steals the spotlight with M’baku, a relatively minor role that he imbues with both intensity and levity, transforming one Marvel’s most ill-considered characters (he used to be called Man-Ape) into one of the most interesting supporting characters in the MCU.

There were some issues with the film. By far its weakest element was its pacing. Like most Marvel movies, the film is a good twenty minutes too long. Killmonger appears in an early scene, only to disappear into an hour or so of table-setting before reappearing to get the central conflict of the movie started. Also, while most of the fights are well-shot and exciting, the climax feels a little muddled, with a lot of things happening for reasons that are not always clear. LGBT representation is non-existent in the film, which is very noticeable given how otherwise progressive the film is and the fact that Okoye is canonically queer in the source material. Finally, and this is perhaps a problem more with the genre than the film, the fact that this big, dramatic ideological conflict is ultimately resolved by two guys punching each other a bunch feels like a bit of a letdown.

Black Panther offers us a fantasy of black utopia, but it is not content to let us simply get lost in that fantasy. In mainstream superhero comics, it is more or less standard to ignore the logical implications of super-science and fantasy characters running around. Reed Richards never cures cancer. Iron Man never fixes global warming. Superman never gets rid of war. Black Panther resists the impulse, instead confronting the problems raised by the existence of a place like Wakanda head on, placing the real directly up against the imagined and allowing the two to rub against one another uncomfortably. In doing so, it finds meaning in a genre which can be frequently meaningless, simply by asking us a fundamental ethical question: What do we owe to others?

Black Panther
Directed by Ryan Coogler
Written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole
Marvel Studios, February 2018

Review by Carrie Vaughn

I like to think of genre as a toolbox rather than as prescriptive formulae. Not necessarily a specific set of tropes, but a structure, a framework with more flexibility than one might expect. In that sense, horror becomes a method by which to evoke terror and discomfort in the audience. Mystery is a structure wherein characters must discover information that is withheld from them, and romance is a structure wherein characters must overcome obstacles to achieve their desires. This is how you can start to mix-and-match genres, and break down genre definitions. For example, combining the structure of a thriller with the emotional arc of a romance, or the pacing of action-adventure with the trappings of space opera. You combine the structure of one genre with the tropes of another, and the sky’s the limit.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe understands this, and so over the last ten years has been able to break out of conventional assumptions of what a superhero movie should be. A movie with superheroes can be a political thriller, a historical adventure, a gonzo space opera, a heist comedy.

A movie with superheroes can also be an Afrofuturist manifesto, which Black Panther clearly is. It’s a celebration of technology, character, ambition, rage, and hope, all against the backdrop of a multi-faceted, African-inspired world. We’ve never seen anything like it, and it’s also familiar enough to draw in anyone who loves superheroes.

Black Panther begins in the past: T’Chaka, the King of Wakanda, confronts his brother who has been sent to spy on the outside world. But N’Jobu has embarked on an agenda of his own, to bring the power of Wakanda to the masses. T’Chaka, committed to Wakanda’s traditional isolation, is forced to kill him—and then chooses to leave behind his young son. But we don’t find that out until later.

After this prologue, we meet T’Challa, the new King. (T’Chaka was killed in an attack during the events of Captain America: Civil War.) He inherits a kingdom in turmoil, with a couple of different ideologies about to bubble over: does Wakanda maintain its isolation, or is it time for the kingdom to reveal itself, and its technological riches based on possession of the rare metal vibranium, to the world? T’Challa is also the superpowered warrior Black Panther, dedicated to protecting his kingdom and people. He and his squad of really amazing warrior women and spies are after Klaue, who’s been stealing vibranium and selling it on the black market. Klaue eludes them with the help of a new partner: Erik “Killmonger” Stevens. But Erik is working on his own plan, kills Klaue, and uses his body as a passport for entry to Wakanda. Once there, he reveals his identity as T’Challa’s cousin and claims his blood right to fight for the throne. And as a former Navy SEAL and spec ops assassin, he’s got the ability to win. His goal: as King of Wakanda, he can use the country’s vast resources to take over the world and enact justice for billions of people of African descent, after centuries of oppression.

Killmonger finds allies among the Wakandans who also feel that the nation has stayed hidden for too long, and a civil war threatens to engulf the kingdom, unless T’Challa and his allies can persevere.

There’s a lot to process here.

One of the most important images in the film comes early on, during the prologue, when a group of young kids on an urban basketball court looks up at a strange glowing craft rising into the sky, shrouded by clouds. They seem to be gazing at an unreachable, dreamlike future. (This is T’Chaka, departing after killing N’Jobu.) It turns out that the film’s villain, Killmonger, is one of those kids, who after that glimpse is determined not to just attain that future for himself but to bring it to the rest of the world, by force if necessary. One of the final images of the film brings the theme full circle, acknowledging that however wrong Killmonger was in his methods, his motivation has merit: everyone deserves access to that inspiring future. This time, the glowing craft settles to the blacktop and is within reach for a new generation of kids. It’s this imagery that embodies the theme of the film.

The first time we see Erik, a million Hollywood stereotypes would lead us to believe that he’s a gangster. A thief. A thug. He isn’t, and I love this subversion. He’s very smart, very talented, very well trained—a real American hero, in any other movie. “He’s one of ours,” token white guy CIA Agent Ross declares. There’s a lot of subtext in that line. Erik is bitter, because being the best and brightest in America is still a big step down from being a prince in Wakanda, which was his birthright. Moreover, Erik Killmonger strongly suggests that Wakanda, with all its power, could have stopped the slave trade hundreds of years ago and thus saved millions of lives and a world of suffering. Instead, it chose isolation.

And . . . he’s not wrong. This is what gives the MCU’s best villains—Loki, the Vulture, Hela—their spark: They’re not entirely wrong.

There’s been a lot of commentary on Marvel’s “villain problem”: the propensity for facing the hero off against a villain who is a shadow version of himself, someone with exactly the same powers but who uses those powers for destruction and power rather than for good. Black Panther does the same thing, after the first-act red herring of crazed terrorist Klaue. The climactic scene here is two men in panther suits, one tinged silver, one tinged gold, battling in a fight to the death. Part of this is a plotting problem: when you create a superpowered hero, you want them to face off against someone who is a real challenge, a real threat. The easiest way to do that is with someone who is evenly matched, and the easiest way to do that is to give the villain the same powers.

But in Black Panther, that mirroring works so well thematically it’s hard to argue with it. Erik’s rage is understandable, and standing before T’Challa he sees exactly what he could have been, if history had taken a different course. We have cousins, one African, one American, and T’Challa has to ask himself what, if anything, do they owe each other, and what do both their paths mean for Wakanda, Africa, and the world as a whole. Erik, and addressing Erik’s grievances, are T’Challa’s responsibility.

The film’s story is firmly in the Marvel wheelhouse in other ways. A strong character arc drives the story—T’Challa learning to be his own king and not just his father’s heir, balancing Wakanda’s traditions with its future. Like other MCU movies, this one’s other strength is a whole cast of likeable competent characters, played by a great set of actors, backing up the hero. For me, T’Challa’s sister and tech genius Shuri steals the show.

The plot is familiar—a story of kings and heirs, fathers and sons and usurpers. It’s Arthur and Mordred, complete with journeys to the underworld to speak with the dead and the discoveries of dark legacies. T’Challa and Thor would probably have a lot to talk about if they sat down and compared notes about not feeling worthy of the thrones they’ve inherited, and about their fathers’ propensity for hiding dark secrets about their relatives. You can make an argument that the MCU relies overmuch on these very familiar stories. But when the results are this beautiful, and when it’s able to stretch those tropes in such interesting ways, the stories become familiar in the way of myths.

I also keep thinking about Wonder Woman, and how striking it is that these two movies that have generated so much conversation about representation came out within a year of each other, and at this particular moment in history. Both films have an army of brilliant badass women, a stylized animated sequence of exposition to explain how things got this way. They also both depict the fantasy of a secret kingdom where people like those depicted were never oppressed, where they live in a paradise of peace and accomplishment. An island of women, without men. A kingdom made up of diverse African cultures that was never colonized by Europeans. Both films share this dream, that their respective oppressed peoples were meant for better things, in a better world. And in both cases, this isn’t just the dream of paradise, whether it’s Wakanda or Themyscira: It’s also the chance to bring that dream into the real world by embodying those values in the shape of a true hero.

This is clearly a powerful, meaningful trope. What can we bring into our own world from these dreams of paradise? What can those dreams inspire?

A word about intended audiences: I am the whitest of suburban white girls whose first exposure to world music was Paul Simon’s Graceland. Some might argue that I am not the target audience of this film. I would argue that I am. I love the MCU. This is the MCU, for all the reasons I’ve discussed. Right now my lizard brain is writing gadgeteering roadtrip adventure fanfic where Tony Stark and Rocket can’t stop arguing and then Shuri walks in and invents FTL travel just because she can. She rolls her eyes at them a lot.

But is a film so rooted in Afrofuturism, so clearly intended for black audiences, even accessible to someone like me? Answer: It doesn’t actually matter! It is completely irrelevant whether a film like this is accessible to someone like me! We shouldn’t even be asking the question! I mean, no one ever asked if Iron Man or Captain America were accessible to black audiences. That’s the whole point. I can watch movies that aren’t aimed directly at me, and I can totally go along for that ride. Black Panther is what it is and is exactly what it needs to be to put Wakanda and its people front and center.

What isn’t accessible to me is what this movie means to someone of African descent. I know there’s so much more here than what I saw and felt, that there is so much more meaning for someone who may be seeing themselves on screen in roles like this for the first time, for people who have never seen their own heritage as inspiration for such an amazing world. I can’t speak to any of that. I shouldn’t even try. But I recognize that that layer of meaning is there.

You know what is a part of my heritage? Superhero stories. And superhero stories can be so wonderfully inclusive and expansive.

Black Panther leaves us with the science fictional exploration of what happens when a technologically superior, isolated nation reveals itself to the world. In the first credits stinger, T’Challa is introducing the true Wakanda to the U.N.—on his own terms, in the name of peace. From the audience, an official demands to know what Wakanda can possibly have to offer, and T’Challa dons this wonderful sly smile. What, indeed. It’s a meta-moment that seems to ask, would you like to see the sequel now? Would you like to see what we can really do? Yes, I would.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Carrie Vaughn is the bestselling author of the Kitty Norville series, as well as the superhero novels Dreams of the Golden Age and After the Golden Age, the young adult novels Voices of Dragons and Steel, and the fantasy novel Discord’s Apple. Her latest books are Bannerless, Martians Abroad, and Amaryllis and Other Stories. Her Hugo Award-nominated short fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, from Lightspeed to Tor.com, as well as in George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards series. She lives in Boulder, Colorado. Learn more at carrievaughn.com.

Joseph Allen Hill is a Chicago-based writer and bon vivant. He has also spent time in Georgia and New Jersey. He has a marginally useful degree in Classics and enjoys making music in his spare time. He can be reached on Twitter @joehillofearth2.

Book Reviews: March 2018

Arley Sorg | 1094 words

This month, we review Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson, and Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories, by Vandana Singh.

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach
Kelly Robson
Trade Paperback / Ebook
ISBN: 978-1250163851
Tor.com, March 2018, 231 pages

In 2267, most of Earth’s populations live in underground complexes. Ecological disasters have rendered the surface fairly inhospitable to human habitation.

Minh has devoted herself to restoring rivers in “habs,” helping to repopulate small zones above ground. She can squeeze funding from the institutions that control the world, she can dazzle fellow scientists with theories and results, but there’s only so much she can do with what’s left of natural Earth.

When the secretive organization running excursions to the past announces a river remediation project, Minh puts everything on the line to apply. Time travel, though, presents a host of new challenges. Despite being out of her depth, she has to convince them that she is the best for the job. If she wins the bid, she just may have to live through the dangers of the past.

Meanwhile, in ancient times, a king must face a monster and maneuver against the priestess who works to ruin him . . .

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach is ruthlessly genre. Readers unfamiliar with a host of genre terms and concepts may struggle. Even some genre readers may stumble at the blending of tropes. But unapologetic immersion lends wonderful confidence and believability to the telling. For readers who can run with the concepts, sparkling ideas abound. Those ideas become relevant, they participate in the plot, and are rarely (if ever) gratuitous.

Minh and her “frenetic young admin” Kiki are immediately fascinating. Kiki is determined to be part of Minh’s potential time travel team, reaching beyond her role. In quick paragraphs, conflict arises and compelling relationship dynamics weave together, layering central characters in beautiful complexity. Sharp dialogue delivers truly human interactions, and the turns characters take are startling yet relatable.

Throughout the tale, character goals feel true. Well-structured plotlines intersect. But this novella goes further than simple craft accomplishment. As the plot progresses, the narrative utilizes future and past—science fiction and historical fiction—to engage readers in a host of topics, connecting each idea to story, yet never falling prey to the lure of proselytization. Bioengineering, medical self-care, global and national economics, gender, sexuality, the ethics of killing, and more—each idea is given context, never out of place or weighing down the story. If science fiction is a conversation of ideas, here the reader is warmly invited into conversation(s).

Add to these an intriguing conflict between eras and a gorgeous, balanced depiction of ancient times . . .

While this seems like a lot, thematically the story pulls everything together as a clear meditation on the human condition, specifically through variations of human experience. Most importantly, Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach is a considered piece on the ways in which we interact with and respond to the challenges of life.

Well worth a read.

Ambiguity Machines & Other Stories
Vandana Singh
Paperback / Ebook
ISBN: 978-1618731432
Small Beer Press, February 2018, 320 pages

Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories is not the place to turn to for tightly plotted action-adventures delivered through the familiar beats of movies.

It is, however, a great place to go for well-composed sentences and paragraphs, for tales crafted with a distinct sense of place and time, and for immersion into stories rich in setting, character, and meaning.

The stories in Vandana Singh’s collection range in time and place: near and far futures, near and distant pasts; from populated cities to villages to desolate reaches; life on spaceships, life on other worlds, and even life beneath our own seas. They utilize a cast with diverse outlooks and beliefs. They often mingle the spiritual with the scientific and the science fictional.

As a body of work, it’s through thoughtful and moving narratives on the nature of self and meaning in context with individuals, place, and even objects that themes of connection bind these stories together. Among the many evocative stories on offer are a few strong exemplars of this idea. “With Fate Conspire,” originally published in Solaris Rising 2: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction in 2013, introduces the reader to these themes and styles through Gargi, who experiences connection through a strange means across time and distance, while living disconnected in a variety of ways from the people physically closer. “Peripateia,” from 2013’s End of the Road, explores Sujata’s connection to her mother, her lover, and reality, through an intelligent, theoretical, and careful exploration of grief and grieving. And “Oblivion: A Journey,” pulled from 2008’s Clockwork Phoenix: Tales of Beauty and Strangeness, explores connection within a sort of space opera, touching on colonialism and dehumanization, cruelty and conflict, cultural assimilation, dominance, and ultimately resistance.

Connection drives these tales from the beginning to the last story, the single and singular new piece of fiction, “Requiem.” In a tiny village in the northernmost reaches of the US, close to the North Pole, in a too-possible near future, a tech developer born in India and working in the US undertakes a journey to collect her deceased aunt’s belongings. She meets the indigenous and the non-indigenous, the scientists and the locals, and is courted by the head of a dubious energy company. At first blush, “Requiem” stands as ecological science fiction. On further consideration, it develops into a thoughtful exploration of culture and otherness, of celebration and mourning, and of the connections between living creatures.

These collected stories are occasionally raw, they are usually layered, and they are often beautiful, in setting as well as prose: “The sweaty, chemical scent of the dead river that lies like an outstretched arm across this nameless, foul city.” They delve into the dark, they rise into revelry, and throughout it all, they evoke a sense of truth in the human experience.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Arley Sorg grew up in England, Hawaii, and Colorado. He studied Asian Religions at Pitzer College. He lives in Oakland, and usually writes in local coffee shops. A 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate, he is an assistant editor at Locus Magazine. He’s soldering together a novel, has thrown a few short stories into orbit, and hopes to launch more.

Interview: Na'amen Gobert Tilahun

Christian A. Coleman | 3874 words

Na’amen Gobert Tilahun is a bookseller and freelance writer who split his early years between Los Angeles and San Francisco. His fiction, poetry, and critical writing are published across the web, and he is the co-creator and co-host of the geek podcast The Adventures of Yellow Peril & Magical Negro. The Tree is the second book in his Wrath & Anthenaeum trilogy.

The Wrath & Anthenaeum books are both your very first trilogy and your debut novels. Tell us what the experience has been like writing The Root (book one) and The Tree (book two).

It’s been an intense learning experience, especially with The Root. I came to publication differently than other traditionally published authors. I’d known Jeremy Lassen, my editor, for a while, and one day he asked me what I was working on and I described the beginning of what would go on to become The Wrath & Athenaeum trilogy. He had a spot in his schedule and had been looking for something with an urban fantasy flavor to fill it. I sent him a summary of the trilogy (which has maybe 35-50% in common with the finished projects), which he then passed on to the publishers. They asked to see a manuscript, which was great except, unfortunately, I didn’t have even a complete rough draft. I had maybe 30,000 words. Thus began a feverish few weeks where every spare moment I had outside of my two jobs I was at the computer writing. I sent the manuscript over, collapsed into bed, and a couple weeks later they offered me a contract for the trilogy.

I think a lot of aspiring writers, including myself, look at that first contract as the finishing line, but really it’s the beginning of the next race. For me, that meant the search for an agent. So I asked some of my writing friends and colleagues, did some reading and contacted about a dozen agents with my manuscript and the details of the offer. Some never replied; some said they didn’t represent authors who came with a contract in hand; some said they had full client lists. (Interestingly enough, very soon after I saw an agent who told me they had no space on their list lamenting the lack of diversity on their list and trying to solicit writers on social media, but that’s neither here nor there.) I got one really encouraging response that just didn’t end up working out, though he’s still on my list.

I ended up having to negotiate my contract myself, which was a different level of stress. In the end, I’m really glad, because it forced me to learn a lot I would have otherwise remained ignorant of. It made me surer of what I want both in my career and in the person representing me. Writing The Tree was easier because I didn’t have to deal with any of that, but at one point I did throw away over 40,000 words and had to go back to the very beginning to get the book where it needed to be.

In your blog post from October 2017 (bit.ly/2EojniB), you wrote about making playlists for novels you’re working on. Was there a playlist for The Root and The Tree?

Sort of. When I started writing The Root I created two playlists: a Wrath playlist (a lot of The Gits, The Distillers, X-ray Spex) and an Athenaeum playlist (a lot of Tori Amos, Thao & Mirah, Imogen Heap, etc.). I used them a little when I started writing the first book, but they were my first novel playlists and ended up being too narrow in focus. I created them too early and they didn’t encompass what the story became as I wrote it, so I couldn’t really use them past the halfway point in the first draft of The Root. I still have them in my Spotify playlists, though, because I don’t get rid of anything.

When writing The Tree, instead of the playlists, I listened to a lot of Lizzo, HAIM, Solange, Cardi B., and Halsey. All of them had new music drop while I was working on the book, and I got really into all of them at different phases in the writing process.

Lil and Erik are the magically powered protagonists, yet each chapter is written from the point of view of other characters, including the leads. How did you decide to write your trilogy as a multi-perspective narrative?

Honestly, I think it was just the way this story wanted to be told. I needed to give a lot of different perspectives on what was happening to get the full story. The full storyline of this trilogy is expansive, and the multiple perspectives seemed the best way to tell it, while also throwing doubt on what the reader and main characters believe to be happening. The Tree makes you question some things that The Root presented as truth, and I hope the final book, The Fruit, will have more surprises for readers in terms of motivations, relationships, and how it’s all going to end.

Funnily enough, all three things I’m currently working on are single-perspective narratives, and I don’t know if that’s just a weird coincidence or if my creativity was sick of the whole multi-POV perspective and wanted to try something new.

What’s the reaction from readers been like so far?

I’ve gotten some great comments, including comparisons to works that I love (like Steven Universe!), but the best thing was someone telling me that my character Tae was the first time they’d ever seen themselves in a speculative novel. That’s so important to me, because I spent a lot of time searching for that. I was always a speculative fiction fiend, but all I wanted were heroes that looked like me and my friends. I would love to get to a point where writing supports my daily life, but even if that never happens? I don’t care, because of comments like that. The ultimate goal of my writing is to tell great stories centering people who are Brown and queer and disabled and all of the other identities that end up pushed to the sidelines.

Your trilogy blends urban and epic fantasy. What do you enjoy most about these genres and how have they guided you in telling the story of Lil and Erik?

I love blending the modern with magic in urban fantasy. I instinctively resist the idea that magic and awe and superstition is or should be a thing of the past. I want to see the ways the mythic survived into the present day—vampires in the sewers, wererats in the walls, a dragon in the San Francisco Mint, and more. In epic fantasy, I love the complex politics, the intrigue, the high stakes, and especially the idea that one person or a small group of people can change the fate of the entire world.

Erik and Lil were in many ways formed in resistance to a lot of tropes of their specific subgenres and stereotypes in general. For Erik, I wanted to create a Black man who both embraced and defied the angry Black man stereotype. And I often want my queer characters to be angry, because I think anger is denied to queer characters who have every right to be angry and hurt. Too often, anger is decried as useless, and I wanted to show the power and use of anger, especially for those who aren’t considered as valuable in society.

Lil was centered because, among other things, so often when epic fantasy books set up a dynamic of oppressed versus oppressors, they also spend as much time as possible ignoring anything that resembles real world oppression as if that has no effect in a made-up world (my eyes roll forever). I wanted a stark difference between those in power and Lil, but also make her position a precarious balancing act. In some ways, while Erik swings from extreme to extreme, she does her best to stay centered; the conflict of both of them to choose something to counter their nature is what drives each narrative.

You mentioned the idea of a small group of people changing the fate of the world. With the narrative arc centered on Lil and Erik saving their respective worlds from impending doom with help of other magically powered humans, I’d say the trilogy also qualifies as superhero fiction. It’s way more inclusive—Black and Brown and queer people represent!—than the mainstream superhero fiction we’re used to seeing.

For sure! I am a huge superhero geek! When I was younger, my stepfather used to take me to this comic shop in San Mateo, California, called Lee’s Comics, and he would give me twenty bucks and let me loose on the twenty-five-cent bins. I would come home with this random collection of, like, seventy comics and devour them in the course of one evening. When we talk about the idea of saving the world, making sacrifices, and the cost of powers, the way I think about these things definitely stems from my grounding in comic books.

I’m annoyed by how monochromatic the superhero adaptations have been until this year (Woo! Black Panther!). Because the thing is there are so many Brown and queer superheroes that have existed over the decades that get ignored. I did an io9 post a few years ago listing a number of Black women characters from comics other than Storm and I could easily have made the list twice as long. I’ve always meant to go back and do a follow up, like thirty LGBTQ characters who aren’t Northstar or Iceman.

The impending doom in question is a malevolent force called the darkness that’s devouring Zebub, modern-day San Francisco’s mirror city in an alternate dimension called Corpiliu. It’s also threatening to devour our own world. Tell us how this idea came together for you.

It was actually a lot of smaller ideas coming together, which is how most of my longer fiction comes together. I have a few pieces of ideas that slowly float together in my unconscious until I figure out how they fit into a single story. Originally, Erik’s story was going to be about becoming the patron saint of San Francisco that led to a more traditional open-ended urban fantasy series. Meanwhile, Lil’s was a story of someone who lived in a very precarious society in a more traditional debauched high fantasy noble court. I liked both characters and the ideas behind them, but they didn’t feel like enough on their own. Once the two threads started to come together in my head and I realized the debauched high fantasy noble court Lil was dealing with weren’t human but creatures called Antes? Suddenly I knew where the stories connected and how I wanted them to weave into each other by the end. The rest was just about getting it out on paper.

At one point in The Tree, you make a comment about the deleterious effects of gentrification in the Bay Area. I couldn’t help but wonder if the darkness devouring Corpiliu was an interdimensional analogy of gentrification in general.

Definitely. This is one of the themes in the series I wasn’t aware of writing until I was writing The Tree. In many ways, the darkness is Corpiliu’s own version of gentrification. It devours the land and people at the behest of a force outside the community without regard for the original inhabitants. In the end, it makes the world unlivable to those who lived there first. It may seem to be taken to a ridiculous extreme by those less affected by gentrification; but to the targets, in many ways the place they came from is lost forever in a darkness they can never return to.

Why did you choose San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area as the primary real-world locales?

I have a long history with the Bay Area. I lived there for a few years as a child, then after my parents’ divorce was official I lived in Los Angeles with my father but would visit the bay every year to spend summers with my mother and stepfather. I’ve lived all over the Bay Area—San Francisco, Redwood City, San Jose, Oakland—but I really wanted to set this in San Francisco as an homage to the city I remembered from my youth. A city that doesn’t exist anymore. It was also like a goodbye since I knew deep down I wouldn’t be staying in the Bay Area much longer. It was no longer economically viable to live the kind of life I needed for my own health and be an artist in that area.

I have very fond memories of what San Francisco was when I was growing up and, ultimately, I wanted to try to capture or recreate that city in some small way.

In your Qwillery interview (bit.ly/2GWqux2), you said that although you identify as an atheist, you’re fascinated by world religions. What are some of the religions you’ve studied and what about them fascinates you?

When I was in college, I minored in Judaism for a while because I was seriously thinking about converting from sorta-lapsed-never-really-believed Eastern Orthodox Christian. That didn’t happen in the end because I started to identify as an atheist, and that was when I really started to search out religious ideas and focused part of my schooling on Comparative Religions.

When it comes to more widespread religions like Christianity, I’m very interested in all the Apocrypha and minor sects and uncomfortable interpretations of scripture that had to be destroyed or erased in order for them to become a mainstream religion. I read up on the history of dead sects and mysticism like the Borborites who, instead of bread and wine, were said to use semen and menstrual blood as their sacraments. That right there might be propaganda by people who wanted them gone, but there are so many ways the idea of that could inspire a story of religious devotion. In contrast, closed religions, ones that accept no converts like Zoroastrianism or the Druze faith, are fascinating not only because of how such closed societies develop to be independent but also because they are so counter to most Western ideas of religion as something that is propagated and spread as widely as possible.

I think the root of what fascinates me about them all is the idea of belief and the different ways belief can shape societies, even years after the religion has died out or fallen to unpopularity. As I’ve said before, I’m not an atheist because I had faith and lost it. I just genuinely never believed, even as a child, and so I’m always curious about belief—where it comes from, how it’s used, and what causes it to become stronger or to break.

Are any of the creatures in your trilogy, such as the Antes that you mentioned before, drawn specifically from the world religions you’ve studied?

Many of the Antes are drawn from mythic or religious imagery. Some are my own interpretations of old school depictions of angels—the whole wheels of eyes, pillars of flaming sand, and balls of wings. Others are drawn from other traditions, such as creatures that resemble Lamia or white snakes, but none are taken directly from any religion as far as I can recall. There are hints in some of the Ante bloodline names of where exactly I pulled inspiration for their abilities and appearance.

Some of your imagery in The Tree references Clive Barker, David Cronenberg, and Star Wars. Are these major influences for you?

Yes to all three. Clive Barker was really important to younger me when I was going through my read-nothing-but-horror phase, because even though I didn’t know that Barker identified as gay at the time, there was an inherent outsider sexuality in his writing that still feels very queer to me. Barker understands the thin line that can exist between pleasure and pain and often embodies sexuality that people find uncomfortable as creatures that must exist outside of society. Often his villains could be described as more ineffable anti-heroes. You could fill a huge book of essays with the ideas of Cenobites and queerness and outsider sexuality that he plays with in Hellraiser alone.

Cronenberg is a master of body horror, and his films made me realize that I wasn’t always as horrified by what people called “body horror” as others could be. Often my first reaction was fascination rather than revulsion. In many ways, the crikes in my trilogy are probably the most direct link to Cronenberg in my work, because from him I learned that altering the mundane could be more horrifying than creating the monstrous. Crikes are literately giant carnivorous crickets made of bone and sinew rather than chitin, and I think it’s that line between familiar and horrifying that Cronenberg straddles so well and makes his work so disturbing to many.

Star Wars is one of those franchises that’s pretty inescapable in our society, especially if you’re a sci-fi geek like me. I saw the original trilogy at a very young age and watched Episodes 1 and 2 in the theaters but didn’t really emotionally connect with the mythos until the newer films The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi. It was the first time in the series that the Star Wars universe felt like a place where someone like me could exist (excluding the videogames, which actually had some good representation way before the films).

If I’m not mistaken, there appear to be some literary Easter eggs hidden in The Tree. In one scene, Erik has a series of bad dreams, one of which is about cities that run on the pain of one child. This must be a reference to “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin—rest in power—right? And another character, a child named Melinda who’s mastering her dreamworld powers, says, “It just felt like the right thing to do” when her mentor Patrah asks her how she crafted a miniature city in the dreamworld and brought it into the real world. That line of hers has got be a quote from Frank Herbert’s Dune. Were these works—and other references—influential for the trilogy as well?

Wow! You’re the first person to catch that, or at least to mention it to me. But yeah, there are definitely Easter Eggs in the trilogy! I’m a huge fan of meta and referential fiction because creation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. The stories we tell are influenced by our lives and the stories that we consume. I know that without the authors I love that came before me I wouldn’t be the writer I am right now, so whenever possible, and if it fits within the story, I do like to give a shout out to a piece of media I love.

P.S. I love/hate that Le Guin story. I think it was very important to me as a child because it represented resistance to me, but as I grew older my perspective became more complex and I got really angry at the people who walked away, because WTF? You’re just gonna walk away? You’re not gonna try and save that baby? Maybe Le Guin was pointing out the ineffectiveness of walking away as a form of protest? I’ve gotten into real heated discussions on panels about this story. In some ways, Erik and Lil are exactly the opposite of those who walk away because they would never be able to bring themselves to just walk away from innocent suffering. They know how it feels.

We can’t wait to see what’s in store for Lil and Erik. When does the final installment of the Wrath & Anthenaeum trilogy come out?

The final book in the trilogy, The Fruit, will be out in Summer 2019, and I’m very excited to see what people think of the conclusion!

Are there other upcoming projects you can tell us about?

I’m always working on multiple things because of how my brain works. I jump from project to project and circle back around. Currently I’m working on a high fantasy novella series about a young woman who joins something like a religious organized crime circle and subsequently gets involved in revolution, beasts and elected royalty. The first one is called The Trial of The Kouzinns, and I’m currently posting rough draft chapters of it every month on my Patreon.

I’m also working on a couple of standalone novels I intend to use on my agent search this year. They are both about adaptation and shapeshifting in different ways. One is called Lone Wolves and deals with an eastern European country approximately two years after the overthrow of a theocracy that started a cleansing of supernatural beings and eventually all “outsiders” and dissenters. The main character, Alfie, is the last werewolf in the country, dealing with constant pain and PTSD. He and his survivor friends, human and not, all scarred and changed by their treatment, have to find out who is hunting them down, because the killer is definitely a werewolf and more and more eyes are turning his way.

Finally, I’m working on my own version of a coming out novel ironically called Gangsta, which I would describe as something like Heathers meets Raw with a dash of Lucifer . . . so basically vicious high school politics with revenge, cannibalism, weird perverted Christian mythology, and lots of blood, but with a love story at its core. I wanted this to be about queer rage and what happens when some who is bullied is given power and allowed to let loose. How do the ways in which people treat us shape our morals to be more fluid, especially when it comes to our tormentors? I’m contemplating whether having recipes in a cannibalistic novel is too much. I’m leaning towards no.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Christian A. Coleman is a 2013 graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. He lives and writes in the Boston area. He tweets at @coleman_II.

Author Spotlight: Bryan Camp

Sandra Odell | 2084 words

In “The Independence Patch,” Donny’s existence is a struggle between his identity and the expectations of others. From the pity of his teachers to his mother’s hopes and fears for his future, from Rowena’s feelings to the eventual truth of the Independence Patch, Donny refuses to surrender his identity, that of a human being no matter the augmentations or supports that are necessary for him to live. Tell us a bit about what inspired this story.

 Oddly enough, what inspired the story isn’t in the story anymore! This started out as a writing assignment given to us by Mary Rosenblum my first week at Clarion West. We each picked a slip of paper out of a hat with an emotion on it. I think mine was fear? Desperation? Sacrifice? 2012 is a long time ago, yo. Anyway, we had to write a scene that night depicting that emotion without ever saying it, and then read it to the class the next day, so they could try to guess what we were trying to convey. I wrote about a time I dove into a pool to save my little brother and, because of the situation, genuinely thought I was about to die. We then had to fictionalize that scene, to take our very real, personal emotion, and try to convey it through someone else’s experience. I wrote about an android jumping into a pool to save his “brother.”

After Clarion West, that scene was one of the things I thought had the most potential, so I tried to write a story about that android character that included that scene, but everything ended up feeling like every other “synthetic human wants to be a real boy like Pinocchio” story I’d consumed, only not as good. Then my sister in law gave me a copy of Ray Kurzweil’s How to Create a Mind for Christmas, and I started to think through the technology of it a bit more. In that book, Kurzweil argues that we’re already offloading a chunk of our mental work to machines, and that the line between consciousness and identity and information and memory is pretty hard to define. We like to think that we’re a single, continuous identity that’s evolved from one moment into the next, but it’s weirder than that.

Take memories, for instance. They’re imperfect and fleeting, and yet we build so much of our sense of self upon them. “I am the person today who remembers the person I was yesterday.” So if you forget a particular event, are you a different person than the one who experienced it? You almost certainly remember it differently than it actually happened. Our brains are incredible at filling in details to make our memories more believable. It gets even more wild when you add technology into the mix. Nobody remembers phone numbers anymore. And that’s fine, computers are way better at number recall than brains are (especially mine.) But what happens if we start putting more than just our data in a digital space? What happens if you start backing up your important memories to a hard drive so you don’t forget them? Who is you, the brain or the hard drive or both? That’s where a lot of the ideas about identity that you mentioned came from. It got me re-thinking that android story in more of a cyborg line of thought, and that led me here.

Unfortunately, the pool scene didn’t fit, both in terms of word count and in terms of themes and pacing, so it ultimately got cut. Maybe I’ll find the story it fits in one day; after all, Donny is far from the only Integrate in his world.

When it comes to laws governing education, ANDREA is an excellent fictional equivalent of IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). How do you see ANDREA having developed in this world? Would you say it came about for the benefit of the Integrates or for those who feel the need to protect themselves?

 I was a high school teacher for just over a decade, and a few years of that was spent as a special education inclusion teacher. So I was absolutely thinking of things like IDEA and the ADA when I came up with ANDREA. I think it developed in my fictional world in exactly the way far too many laws in our own world are developed: mostly by people who won’t be affected by them.

I’m not entirely cynical. I know that often these sorts of things are started by someone who has a horse in the race. Write enough letters and stage enough rallies (or even get elected to an office yourself) and you can get attention to an issue, like, in this case, the idea that a child with computer hardware in their brain might have different educational and social needs, strengths, and interests than one who doesn’t. But with attention comes, you know, attention, which leads to people who don’t have any experience with an issue suddenly having an opinion on an issue. Which leads to people who have never been addicted to a drug legislating whether or not drug abuse should be criminalized. Or people making laws about reproductive health and rights who will never be affected by it. Among many, many others.

Time to get off my soap box, but I’ll just point out that neither Donny’s mom nor Donny’s teacher ever ask him what he thinks about ANDREA.

I like how you focused on Donny’s “organic” experiences: boredom; not wanting to sneeze and wake Rowena; the pain of breaking up. These traits encourage the reader to relate to Donny instead of settling into a sense of awe or unease at his cyborg nature. As a writer, how important do you think it is to create believable, relatable characters? Would you say the need is even more pronounced in science fiction and other genre stories?

 Character is really where a story starts to take shape for me. Sometimes I’ll think of a worldbuilding concept, or a cool line, or a potential trope subversion that I think is interesting on its own, but those get shuffled into an Evernote file until someone worth writing about also comes along for the ride. A lot of first drafts are less about feeling my way through the plot, and more about discovering the person who is telling the story.

In terms of relatable characters, as a cishet, white, able-bodied male, I try to be aware of my privilege as much as possible. For me, that means “othering” a character, especially through a speculative lens, is off the table. So making my characters relatable, in the sense that they feel like real people with their own, unique issues, instead of metaphors for something else is something I strive for in my fiction. Take this story for example. Donny more or less started out as me. As I thought about what his life might be like, though, he very quickly became someone else. A big part of the problem I was having with the character when he was a fully synthetic being is that the writing fell too much in that “unease” place, as you described it, and thus, felt too much like a metaphor for a person on the autism spectrum. So in that sense, the character had to be believable in order to be worth writing about.

In terms of whether this concern is greater for writers of speculative fiction, I suppose the easiest answer is to just admit that at this point in my life I don’t really believe in genre anymore. Calling something a mystery or romance or fantasy helps you find it in a bookstore, but I don’t think the demands on the writer are necessarily all that different. Nor do I think readers of one versus another are any more savvy or open or closed off than others. I do understand where you’re coming from, since the “I’m-just-standing-in-for-a-trope” characters are pretty obvious in speculative fiction, and are one of the things that folks who don’t really read the genre criticize about it, but stock characters have been around since at least comedia dell’arte. Arguably as long as stories. So the short answer to your question is no, I don’t think a focus on character is any more important for speculative fiction than any other genre, nor do I even think it’s important for good fiction. But it’s of massive importance to me.

Your novel The City of Lost Fortunes will be released in April from John Joseph Adams Books. What would you say the biggest difference is between writing short stories and writing a novel?

 The smartass in me wants to just say “length” and move on, but I’m not slick enough to Harrison Ford my way through an interview, so . . .

Honestly for me, there isn’t much of a difference in terms of approach. That blinking cursor on a blank page is so intimidating that I can’t just show up with a short story’s worth of ideas to back me up. I’ve got to bring the whole crew, you know? So many of my short stories are slivers of the massive world inside my head. In that way, I guess the easiest analogy would be a season of television versus a single episode. Some series need to be viewed episode by episode in order to be understood, but some episodes are a single, coherent narrative in and of themselves. I’m expansive. I love the long con, so my fiction tends to follow that mindset.

In terms of execution, they’re very different, especially depending on the kind of short story we’re talking about. With this story, by deciding to make it a bildungsroman, I was able to think of this story as a novel writ small, with each section functioning as a chapter of Donny’s life, whereas I often find my short stories end up feeling like a section of a larger narrative. It’s funny, I am in awe of short fiction writers like Ted Chiang or Jorge Luis Borges who can generate these amazing, dense pieces of short fiction that are as deep as novels, but it’s like watching a solo free climber. I can appreciate the work without having any desire to try it myself.

All writers are readers. Who inspires you between the covers? To whom do you turn when you want to get your fiction on?

 Well, there’s the list of those writers who, if I hadn’t read them, I likely wouldn’t be a writer, full stop. Borges. Eco. Crowley. King. Le Guin. Mosley. Valente.

In terms of some writers that I’ve read in the past couple of years that really blew my hair back, the first thing that comes to mind is N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy. It twisted me around in that first book in a way that I usually see coming, but didn’t, and then the next two novels just roared. The Expanse series by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, the two halves of James S. A. Corey, just keeps getting better. Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing had me walking around in a daze for hours after I finished it, as did Victor LaValle’s The Changeling. My friend Bill Loehfelm’s doing some great New Orleans mystery work with his Maureen Coughlin series. Malka Older’s The Centenal Cycle is exactly the kind of science fiction that the world needs right now. Nicky Drayden’s The Prey of Gods was just a delight. If I wasn’t already a big fan, Molly Tanzer’s Creatures of Will and Temper would have convinced me to go back and read everything she’s ever written. And in April, Sam J. Miller’s got a book coming out called Blackfish City that is just hands down stunning.

I’ll stop there, because otherwise I’ll pull up my Goodreads page and then we’ll be here all week.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Sandra Odell is a 47-year old, happily married mother of two, an avid reader, compulsive writer, and rabid chocoholic. Her work has appeared in such venues as Jim Baen’s UNIVERSE, Daily Science Fiction, Crosssed Genres, Pseudopod, and The Drabblecast. She is hard at work plotting her second novel or world domination. Whichever comes first.

Author Spotlight: Beesan Odeh

Gordon B. White | 1511 words

Publisher’s Note: The title of this story, “Al-Kahf,” includes some non-English characters that some older e-reading devices may not be able to render properly. If your e-reader is one such device, we ask that you consider visiting our website and reading the story there. (It’s the title rendered using Arabic characters.)

Visit lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/al-kahf to read the story online March 8th.

Let us begin at the beginning: What was your inspiration for this piece? The story draws on the Arabic entity of the jinn, but were there any pre-existing stories or particular mythologies that you drew inspiration from or sought to build on?

 My starting image was Talub playing his violin under water, a scene inspired by AquaSonic, an underwater band whose videos I stumbled upon on YouTube a few years ago. I was drawn to the band’s aesthetic, and the story grew from there. As for pre-existing Arabic stories and mythologies, there were none I drew inspiration from. Being Muslim and Arab, Palestinian to be specific, religion, culture, and the political climate in the Middle East are every day for me. I drew inspiration from life and faith. Jinn are real beings in Islam created from smokeless fire, and by writing this story, I wanted to combine the religious elements of the jinn with the more cultural: the deception and magic. I wanted to explore the real through the unreal.

The title of the piece is “Al-Kahf” (الكهف in Arabic), which translates to “The Cave.” The story contains a literal, littoral cave where the jinn Talub dwells at the beginning, but that structure’s significance pales in comparison to the thematic depths that the title suggests. Caves can have many associations and connotations; for example, they may suggest imprisonment or ignorance (such as Plato’s Allegory of the Cave), but also faith and resistance (like the Quran’s Surat al-Kahf, which retells the story of the seven sleepers). Were these or any other significant caves on your mind as you developed this story?

 Surat Al-Kahf from the Quran was the only cave in mind and the overall frame of the story. As a whole, the surah covers four different stories: the people of the cave, Moses and Al-Khidr, a story of the rich and poor, and Dhul-Qar-nayn and Yajuj Majuj (Gog and Magog). There’s a lot going on in this surah, and no one story stood out to me when writing my piece. I built the story around individual themes and lines, like the trial of knowledge mentioned in Moses’ story and power in Gog and Magog’s.

The direct and unadorned prose, along with overt narrative summaries, lends this story the timeless feeling of a fable or traditional legend. Despite that tone, however, references to a “fractured Gaza” with “occupying forces,” as well as Palestinian “flags striped in red, white, black, and green,” establish that “Al-Kahf” takes place in our real world. What was your intent with melding this particular tone with this particular setting? Were there any specific stylistic touchstones for you?

 I read a little bit of Angela Carter and Lyudmila Petrushevskaya while working on “Al-Kahf,” The Bloody Chamber and There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby, so many of the structural and stylistic decisions I made in my own story were influenced by those authors. I’m a fan of Carter’s detail. Her writing is rich and dense, and I adore her attention to language. Petrushevskaya’s prose, on the other hand, is stripped and clean and is suited for fables and fairytales. So going into “Al-Kahf,” I wanted to incorporate the styles of both authors, to create a balance of detail and simplicity. As for using Gaza as the setting, that’s where Petrushevskaya comes into play again. Still new to this genre, my initial thought for “Al-Kahf” was that it needed to be set in a faraway place with faraway people, but I admired Petrushevskaya’s inclusion of her country. Behind the instances of magic and mystery in her stories were very real and very dark times in the Soviet Union. I wanted to do the same with Gaza, Palestine—a place people hear of but know nothing about.

Given the setting of Gaza’s occupation, the conflict between Talub and the sailor is imbued with significant metaphorical heft. In particular, there is this cycle of top-down desperation leading to mutual destruction: The occupying forces prevent the sailor from obtaining his son’s medicine, so he instead must rely on rumors about the jinn’s curative songs (which, interestingly, “Al-Kahf” itself never explicitly confirms or denies). Those same rumors call the jinn “clever and wicked,” which predisposes the sailor towards violently abducting Talub without even “think[ing] to ask before taking what isn’t [his].” As a result, Talub takes vengeance on the sailor’s son and, readers can infer, Talub himself will suffer. Because this conflict has its seeds in widespread social conditions but becomes personal due to lack of communication and biased assumptions, would, as Talub suggests, coming to one another with “dignity and decorum” be a better solution? Or, perhaps, are there some interactions that will always lead to conflict?

 There’s definitely a lot of tension between Talub and the sailor. I found myself exploring their relationship the more I wrote and some time after the story was finished, so it didn’t begin with the metaphorical heft you mention. In the end, the idea here is the line, in any story, between man and the Other, whether they are of a different race or different beings all together, and the sense of entitlement man clings to. In this case, the sailor’s entitlement stems from his living conditions in occupied Gaza. He is mistreated. He is a victim. So when the opportunity to save his son presents itself, he pursues it not only because he needs it, but also because he believes he deserves it. And when it comes to capturing Talub, he compares him to fish in a tank. Along with thinking he is entitled to the jinn’s power, the sailor also looks down on him for being the Other. Despite the sailor being a victim of discrimination and oppression, he discriminates against and oppresses the jinn. Knowing this, Talub does not cooperate, of course. So if the sailor had only asked for Talub’s help, if he had approached him as an equal, then perhaps things would have ended differently. But I suppose there wouldn’t be much of a story here.

In the end, everyone here commits a sin and suffers a loss. The sailor does not abduct Talub for wealth or fame, but because his son will die without a magical cure. For his part, Talub kills the sailor’s innocent son to punish the father, but also, it is suggested, as revenge for Boutros. Neither Talub nor the sailor acts from purely selfish motives, yet they end up destroying one another’s lives. What kind of relationship do you see in these kinds of self-justified, but ultimately destructive, actions? Is there more blame to be leveled at one side, or is apportioning blame even a useful way to approach the issue?

 Desperate times call for desperate measures, right? As human beings, we’re all capable of terrible things regardless of how good we are. That’s what’s happening here. The occupation is there, the forces are there, but the villain in “Al-Kahf” becomes the sailor, not because he himself is evil, but because he is desperate to provide and protect under the circumstances he is living in. He has his flaws, but he isn’t evil. And neither is Talub, even after killing the sailor’s child to punish and avenge. Regardless of how you divide the blame, scenarios like this will happen. The sailor will justify his wicked actions, and Talub will take revenge under the guise of justice. It’s that never-ending cycle of vengeance and justice. One begets the other.

Finally, what can readers anticipate seeing from you next? In addition to concrete projects and releases, are there any new and nebulous ideas that you’re just starting to explore?

 I’ve been writing more jinn pieces and using these figures to tell stories about a religion and culture that face so much misunderstanding and backlash in the world today. I’m finding inspiration in life. I’ve been knocking around some poems, too, and recently had one published in Ohio’s Best Emerging Poets: An Anthology. Also, this coming fall marks my final year in the Northeastern Ohio MFA program at Youngstown State University, so my plan from now until graduation is figuring out my thesis. A novel this time. Completely different than Talub and the sailor, but still very near and dear to my heart.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Gordon B. White has lived in North Carolina, New York, and the Pacific Northwest. He is a 2017 graduate of the Clarion West Writing Workshop, and his fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in venues such as Daily Science Fiction, A Breath from the Sky: Unusual Stories of Possession, Nightscript Vol. 2, and the Bram Stoker Award® winning anthology Borderlands 6. Gordon is also an Assistant Editor with Kraken Press and conducts reviews and interviews for various outlets. You can find him online at gordonbwhite.com or on Twitter at @GordonBWhite.

Author Spotlight: Ken Liu

Christie Yant | 1252 words

Welcome back, Ken! “Cosmic Spring” is one of several stories whose premise you’ve pulled from academic science papers. Do you go looking for story ideas in academic archives, or are stories like this one incidental to following your curiosity?

Thank you! Always such a joy to be back at Lightspeed!

I like reading science papers. Sometimes I see a piece of science reporting in my news feed and I track down the original study; sometimes I follow up a footnote in the book I’m reading; sometimes I’m just browsing through the TOCs of journals. I don’t read the papers for the purpose of getting story ideas—the papers are just plain fun on their own—though, as you note, I’ve been inspired to write stories after reading science papers on more than one occasion.

The story begins with what struck me as a bleak sort of tone, with a lonely narrator just awakened at the waning of the universe. Yet the idea of the “island ship”—a being unto itself, but also a vessel for the many beings that once lived on it—and the hypothesis that the universe is in an eternal cycle of expansion and contraction create a theme that ultimately I find hopeful. What was going on while you were writing the story—was it a nihilistic view, a hopeful one, or something else entirely?

I think a lot about cycles of time and arrows of time, two dominant models of time that have been important not just in the history of philosophy and science, but also in how we consider and come to terms with our own mortality.

It is sometimes said that taking the long view is depressing—since in the long term, all of us will be dead. But for this story, I wanted to see if it’s possible to go the other way, to imagine not just the life cycle of the individual, but the life cycle of a culture, a species, a star, a universe, and come to a view that is hopeful rather than terrifying.

Can you tell us more about how you conceived of the island ship and its consciousness?

In today’s world, science has, to a large extent, taken the place of mythology as a way of framing our understanding of the world. So I wanted to imagine how another consciousness, a post-human artificial intelligence (perhaps evolved, perhaps designed), might use theories of cosmology and a cyclical model of time as components of a mythology for understanding the universe and its own mortality.

In the story, eons after humans had scattered to the stars (and perhaps gone extinct) and the Sun had turned into a red giant, the Earth itself is being propelled around the galaxy by this AI as a kind of memorial to humanity’s past. As the universe is dying around it, the AI struggles to make sense of all these decaying references in its memory that it has never seen or experienced—the seasons, snow, islands, birds, the sea, Christmas, Spring Festival, Thanksgiving, trains, FTL networks, death—and it comes to the conclusion that the lifecycle of the universe is a kind of cosmic year, with its own spring, summer, fall, and winter.

Like insects who live only for one season or annual plants, nothing in our universe will survive to see the spring of the next cosmic year. But that doesn’t mean we (and by “we” I include the narrator) don’t yearn to pass a part of ourselves on to that next cycle—and the cosmological model leaves an intriguing opening for that possibility in the form of quantum fluctuations during the contracting phase determining large-scale structures during the expansion phase of the next cycle.

Ultimately, it’s a story about the meaning of history, about the importance of family and memory, about celebrating the beauty of our own individual existence as a single link in the chain of generations that stretches back to the first Sapiens who contemplated her own death (and beyond) and forward to our descendants who will be as alien to us as we are to dinosaurs.

“Cosmic Spring” is appearing here in Lightspeed secondary to its original market—you specifically wrote this story for a Chinese publication, where it will be appearing first. Are there things you specifically consider when writing for an international reader?

I’ve been invited to write for non-American markets a few times now, and I do enjoy the challenge. The circumstances of every invitation are different, so the things I think about are also different.

In this case, I wrote the story for the Future Affairs Administration, an innovative SF publisher based in China. Specifically, I participated in their Spring Festival SF Gala, an annual event where SF writers are invited to write stories centered around a particular theme related to Spring Festival (February 15 this year). The rules required the story to feature “Beijing West Railway Station” and that I write it within 48 hours.

Beijing West Railway Station is a major transportation hub in Beijing, and every year, during chunyun, the period of time when hundreds of millions in China travel home to celebrate Spring Festival, the station is packed (think JFK Airport during Thanksgiving season, but maybe multiply the effect by a couple orders of magnitude). It’s also architecturally distinctive, featuring a traditional Chinese style “pavilion” with multiple layers of sweeping roofs on top of a modern, concrete-and-steel building. The inclusion of this purely decorative “big hat” that gestures toward the past in an icon of modernity was quite controversial, but it has now become an indelible part of the city’s image and history.

I wanted to tell a story that takes all this into account but gives it an SF spin. And I wanted to put in some of my own feelings and memories about Spring Festival as a member of the Chinese diaspora. I was quite pleased with how it came out at the end. (The time limit was tough, and my beta readers have my eternal gratitude.)

We’re all looking forward to the third book in your Dandelion Dynasty trilogy, which I understand you’re hard at work on now. Does immersion in that world tend to bleed out into your other projects while you’re in the thick of it? And what can we expect to see from you in the meantime, to hold us over until the book comes out?

I’ve been having a lot of fun with this novel—which is big, both in terms of scope and page count. It’s definitely consumed the bulk of my creative energy for the last year or so. When I take a break to work on other projects, it’s still in the back of my mind, and I do see cross-pollination between the novel and my stories in terms of writing techniques and so on. It’s been quite a learning experience to manage such a large project.

Meanwhile, I’ll have a VR/blockchain story out in MIT Technology Review’s Twelve Tomorrows anthology this spring, along with Elizabeth Bear, S.L. Huang, and other authors. I’m also working on a piece for a Gardner Dozois epic fantasy anthology that I’m very excited by. I’m not bored, that’s for sure.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Christie Yant is a science fiction and fantasy writer, Associate Publisher for Lightspeed and Nightmare, and guest editor of Lightspeed’s Women Destroy Science Fiction special issue. Her fiction has appeared in anthologies and magazines including Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011 (Horton),  Armored, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, io9, Wired.com, and China’s Science Fiction World. Her work has received honorable mentions in Year’s Best Science Fiction (Dozois) and Best Horror of the Year (Datlow), and has been long-listed for StorySouth’s Million Writers Award. She lives on the central coast of California with two writers, an editor, and assorted four-legged nuisances. Follow her on Twitter @christieyant.

Author Spotlight: Cassandra Khaw and A. Maus

Jason Ridler | 680 words

Fables are often told in third-person, but instead of an authoritative tone, the first section is told like a tall tale where we’re not sure of the omniscience. Why that choice?

 Maus: The interesting (and often tragic) thing about consciousness is its tendency to spin tall tales about the past. Even immortals are no exception!

Cass: I hate the idea of things being black and white. The world isn’t binary. Nothing’s exactly what it seems to be, so why pretend that one person or one narrator could possibly encompass the world in their perception?

I liked the shifts in slang and voice through the story as the two protagonists shift and change over time and place. This is often handled poorly or forced in short stories, but here it was very smooth and natural. Was evoking this kind of voice a challenge?

 Maus: Not as much as we’d feared. In a way, this story is about the many facets of self—how our beings are necessarily a conglomerate of our experiences, and yet we pick and choose a subset to display at any given time. Cass and I have lived a number of different lives, in a way, and are no exception.

Cass: . . . we’re also both multilingual. Well. Maus is bilingual. I speak five languages. The idea of code-switching, too, is incredibly familiar to both of us. So, the idea of two immortals absently moving between language forms just seemed completely natural.

A life lived in a short story is fun to compress, but I’m so curious about the choices of what to leave out, including Sean’s marriage. It utterly changes his nature and life and yet we see only the impact of the wife in her absence and his fears. Why not include her as part of the narrative?

 Maus: To be fair, wives can be pretty scary. Part of the reason is that when there’s so much to remember and so much that’s “been there, done that,” edits are just a matter of necessity. There’s a lot to be inferred by noting what’s said, and what’s not. Between friends, there’s a lot that’s just . . . understood.

Cass: Because it is their story and not hers. Like, I’m normally one of the first people who would bounce up and go, “Excuse me? Excuse me, but what about the damn wife/aunt/mother/sister?” But this is the story of two immortals and a friendship that stretches across long centuries. As much as the fox fell for her, she’s . . . the love of a single lifetime, and the maneki-neko has been his friend from the beginning.

I guess that’s also another part of it. In some ways, this story’s a response to how our society puts so much emphasis on romantic attachments, how it ignores the idea that platonic relationships can carry the same amount of importance. This tunnel vision has been instrumental in creating lonely people—so many adults find themselves suddenly starved of affection because all they do is work and go home to family, and that’s because we’ve been conditioned to believe that “best friends” and “posses” are childish things to be left behind with youth.

We end with a note of friendship between two immortals who get to know each other by forgetting each other (in the case of Sean) and leaving and coming back (in the case of maneki-neko). It made the price of being human seem worth it, which is often not the case in immortal stories about watching people die while the poor immortal lives on. I liked that choice to end on, but I wondered if there was any dialogue on how the story was to resolve itself between both of the authors!

 Maus: None. Take that for what you will.

Cass: No dialogue. Just a natural understanding—we’ve been friends almost as long as the fox and the maneki-neko!

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

Jason S. Ridler is a writer, improv actor, and historian. He is the author of A Triumph for Sakura, Blood and Sawdust, the Spar Battersea thrillers and has published more than sixty stories in such magazines and anthologies as The Big Click, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Out of the Gutter, and more. He also writes the column FXXK WRITING! for Flash Fiction Online. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Mr. Ridler holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada. He lives in Richmond, CA.

Coming Attractions

The Editors | 226 words

Coming up in April, in Lightspeed . . .

We have original science fiction by Will McIntosh (“What is Eve?”) and Timothy Mudie (“The Elephants’ Crematorium”), along with SF reprints by Steven Barnes (“Mozart on the Kalahari”) and Mary Anne Mohanraj (“Webs”).

Plus, we have original fantasy by Adam-Troy Castro (“A Place Without Portals”) and Kodiak Julian (“Our Side of the Door”), and fantasy reprints by Carmen Maria Machado (“The Old Women Who Were Skinned”) and Ken Liu (“The Snow Train”).

All that, and of course we have our usual assortment of author spotlights, along with our book and media review columns. We’ll also have a feature interview with Sam J. Miller.

For our ebook readers, we also have our usual ebook-exclusive novella reprint (“Lazy Dog Out,” by Suzanne Palmer), and a book excerpt.

It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out.

• • • •

Looking ahead beyond next month, we’ve got a veritable plethora of stories forthcoming. We’ve got work from the following authors coming up over the next couple of issues: Martin Cahill, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Emma Törzs, and A. Merc Rustad.

So be sure to keep an eye out for all that speculative goodness in the months to come. And while you’re at it, tell a friend about Lightspeed.

Thanks for reading!

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Subscriptions and Ebooks

The Editors

Subscriptions: If you enjoy reading Lightspeed, please consider subscribing. It’s a great way to support the magazine, and you’ll get your issues in the convenient ebook format of your choice. All purchases from the Lightspeed store are provided in epub, mobi, and pdf format. A 12-month subscription to Lightspeed includes 96 stories (about 480,000 words of fiction, plus assorted nonfiction). The cost is just $35.88 ($12 off the cover price)—what a bargain! For more information, visit lightspeedmagazine.com/subscribe.

Ebooks & Bundles: We also have individual ebook issues available at a variety of ebook vendors ($3.99 each), and we now have Ebook Bundles available in the Lightspeed ebookstore, where you can buy in bulk and save! We currently have a number of ebook bundles available: Year One (issues 1-12), Year Two (issues 13-24), Year Three (issues 25-36), the Mega Bundle (issues 1-36), and the Supermassive Bundle (issues 1-48). Buying a bundle gets you a copy of every issue published during the named period. So if you need to catch up on Lightspeed, that’s a great way to do so. Visit lightspeedmagazine.com/store for more information.

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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).

Fantasy Magazine Ebooks & Bundles: We also have ebook back issues—and ebook back issue bundles—of Lightspeed’s (now dormant) sister-magazine, Fantasy. To check those out, just visit fantasy-magazine.com/store. You can buy each Fantasy bundle for $24.99, or you can buy the complete run of Fantasy Magazine— all 57 issues—for just $114.99 (that’s $10 off buying all the bundles individually, and more than $55 off the cover price!).

About the Lightspeed Team

The Editors

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief

John Joseph Adams

Managing/Associate Editor

Wendy N. Wagner

Associate Publisher/Director of Special Projects

Christie Yant

Assistant Publisher

Robert Barton Bland

Reprint Editor

Rich Horton

Podcast Producer

Stefan Rudnicki

Podcast Editor/Host

Jim Freund

Art Director

John Joseph Adams

Assistant Editor

Laurel Amberdine

Editorial Assistant

Jude Griffin

Reviewers

Arley Sorg

LaShawn Wanak

Christie Yant

Carrie Vaughn

Christopher East

Joseph Allen Hill

Copy Editor

Dana Watson

Proofreaders

Anthony R. Cardno

Devin Marcus

Webmaster

Jeremiah Tolbert of Clockpunk Studios

Also Edited by John Joseph Adams

The Editors

If you enjoy reading Lightspeed (and/or Nightmare), you might also enjoy these works edited by John Joseph Adams:

ANTHOLOGIES

THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 1: The End is Nigh (with Hugh Howey)

THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 2: The End is Now (with Hugh Howey)

THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH, Vol. 3: The End Has Come (with Hugh Howey)

Armored

Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015 (with Joe Hill)

Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016 (with Karen Joy Fowler)

Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2017 (with Charles Yu)

Brave New Worlds

By Blood We Live

Cosmic Powers

Dead Man’s Hand

Epic: Legends Of Fantasy

Federations

The Improbable Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! and Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects

Lightspeed: Year One

The Living Dead

The Living Dead 2

Loosed Upon the World

The Mad Scientist’s Guide To World Domination

Operation Arcana

Other Worlds Than These

Oz Reimagined (with Douglas Cohen)

Press Start to Play (with Daniel H. Wilson)

Robot Uprisings (with Daniel H. Wilson)

Seeds of Change

Under the Moons of Mars

Wastelands

Wastelands 2

The Way Of The Wizard

What the #@&% Is That? (with Douglas Cohen)

NOVELS and COLLECTIONS

Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey

Shift by Hugh Howey

Dust by Hugh Howey

Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn

Sand by Hugh Howey

Retrograde by Peter Cawdron

Machine Learning: New and Collected Stories by Hugh Howey

Creatures of Will and Temper by Molly Tanzer

The City of Lost Fortunes by Bryan Camp

The Robots of Gotham by Todd McAulty

The Wild Dead by Carrie Vaughn

In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey

Creatures of Want and Ruin by Molly Tanzer

Upon a Burning Throne by Ashok K. Banker

Visit johnjosephadams.com to learn more about all of the above.