Editorial, July 2015

John Joseph Adams | 550 words

Welcome to issue sixty-two of Lightspeed!

The Nebulas were presented at the 50th annual Nebula Awards Weekend, held this year in Chicago, Illinois, June 4–7. We’re sorry to say that “We Are the Cloud” by Sam J. Miller (Lightspeed, September 2014) did not win the Nebula Award for best novelette; that honor went to Alaya Dawn Johnson’s excellent story, from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, “A Guide to the Fruits Of Hawaii.” Congrats to Alaya and to all of the other Nebula nominees, and of course congrats again to Sam for being nominated. Sam’s nomination brings Lightspeed’s lifetime Nebula nomination total to twelve since we launched in June 2010, and we’ve now lost twelve in a row. That’s right, folks: We’re perfect at losing! You can find the full slate of nominees and winners at sfwa.org.

• • • •

ICYMI last month, June saw the release of our latest special issue: Queers Destroy Science Fiction! We brought together a team of terrific queer creators and editors, led by Guest Editor and best-selling author Seanan McGuire. We have eleven pieces of original science fiction by exciting SF authors, including Susan Jane Bigelow, Chaz Brenchley, John Chu, Felicia Davin, Amal El-Mohtar, and Kate Galey.

QDSF also has a special flash fiction section curated by Hugo-nominated editor, Sigrid Ellis, including flash from E. Saxey, Charles Payseur, Claudine Griggs, Erica L. Satifka, Bogi Takács, Sarah Pinsker, JY Yang, and others.

Our nonfiction editor, Mark Oshiro, has brought us some incredible essays and articles, and of course we have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, plus more than twenty personal essays by queer creators about their experiences reading and writing science fiction as a queer person.

All that and more! To learn more about the issue, visit our special Destroy projects website at destroysf.com.

• • • •

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

We have original science fiction by Carrie Vaughn (“Crazy Rhythm”) and Taiyo Fujii (“Violation of the TrueNet Security Act”), along with SF reprints by Tony Daniel (“Life on the Moon”) and Mary Robinette Kowal (“The Consciousness Problem”).

Plus, we have something a little different this month. We’ll have fantasy reprints by Liz Williams (“Adventures in the Ghost Trade”) and William Alexander (“Ana’s Tag”), but instead of two original fantasy short stories, we have a single fantasy novelette by Andrea Hairston (“Saltwater Railroad”), which is about twice the length of a regular Lightspeed story. So, although you are getting three stories instead of four this month, the novelette is the length of two full-length short stories, so you’re still getting the same amount of fiction. We hope you enjoy this minor deviation from our usual offerings, and rest assured we will return to our regularly scheduled programming next month.

All that plus spotlights on our authors and cover artist, as well as a feature interview with Kelly Link, and the latest installment of our book review column.

For our ebook readers, we also have reprint of the novella “Dapple,” by Eleanor Arnason, and a pair of novel excerpts, including a selection from Dark Orbit, by Carolyn Ives Gilman, and Wylding Hall, by Elizabeth Hand.

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

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

Crazy Rhythm

Carrie Vaughn | 7142 words

Crazy Rhythm by Carrie Vaughn
Art by Reiko Murakami

George was about to declare his undying love for Annabell when the front of the train station fell over.

Ross, the actor playing George, yelped and dashed away, his army cap flying off. Arlene — Annabell — merely put her hands on her hips and glared at the offending backdrop, a piece of dressed-up plywood that looked very much like the front of a train station, until it collapsed and revealed the braces behind it.

“Cut!” Granger yelled, and the cameramen stopped cranking amidst an air of grumbling. When the director paced three steps, threw his hat on the ground, and looked for me, I was ready for him. “Margie! What the hell is that?”

“Set broke, boss,” I said, tucking my clipboard under my arm.

“Well, fix it! All right, people, take fifteen, don’t go anywhere,” Granger called across the set.

Ross was having vapors, falling over, complaining of his brush with death while a gaggle of women extras dressed as train passengers rushed over to comfort him. Arlene rolled her eyes at me. What could I do but shrug?

Shattered Spring was filming on the backlot, which we’d completely taken over — scene shop, studios, exteriors, everything. We should have been able to knock the film out in a month or two at most — down the block, Ben-Hur was serving as an object lesson as to what happened when you went over schedule, over budget, over everything. I was determined that wouldn’t happen to us. But I hadn’t counted on Granger.

Inside the warehouse where the scene shop was located, I searched the piles of lumber, sawhorses, tools and benches, and clouds of sawdust for the head carpenter. “Palmer? Palmer!” He’d never hear me over the sound of sawing coming from the back of the room.

“Hullo, miss, did you need something?”

I didn’t recognize the young man who appeared from around a pile of plywood signs waiting to be repainted for their next incarnation as fake billboards or shop fronts or picket fences or castle walls, even though I knew most of Palmer’s crew. With his lanky frame and fresh face, he couldn’t have been very old, mid-twenties tops, same as me. But he had a tiredness in the lines around his eyes. He wore a cotton shirt, denim overalls, and a grease-stained cap.

“Who’re you?” I demanded.

“New mechanic. Mr. Palmer hired me last week.” The guy had an English accent, working class, round and polite.

“Where is he?”

“He, um, stepped out for a moment.”

Which could have meant anything, from going for supplies to sneaking a drink at some dive. “Mechanic, eh? Can you nail a backdrop back into place?”

“Yes — that is, should do,” he said.

“Well, come on.” I waved for him to follow me outside the warehouse. “Where you from?”

“Hull. In England.”

“Yes, I got that much. Been in the States long?”

“Several years, since . . . well, several years.”

“Did Palmer warn you that working here will ruin pictures for you forever? Takes all the magic out of it.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Makes it even more magic, I think, when you wonder how you’ll ever get a picture out of all this.” He waved his arm to take in the cluttered lot with its rows of cameras, half-built sets, collection of cars, a handful of incongruous horses munching on hay, the equally incongruous actors in army uniforms, and a handful of Roman centurions who must have wandered over from Ben-Hur.

“I think so, too,” I said, grinning in spite of myself. “Some advice — tell Granger it’ll take twice as long as you expect, and when you finish in half the time, he’ll be impressed.”

“Just like the army, then.”

Ah, that was where those worried creases came from. “You were in the war?”

He ducked away and didn’t answer, and I didn’t push.

At the injured backdrop, he pulled a hammer from his tool belt and handful of nails from a pocket and found the splintered bracket. “Wood’s rotten,” he said, pointing. “It was bound to give out sooner or later. I’ll have set to right in a moment. Make that two moments.” The lines around his eyes crinkled handsomely when he smiled. He still looked tired.

“What’s your name?”

“Peter Jeffries.”

I offered my hand, and he shook it. “I’m Margie Stewart, Granger’s assistant. If you need anything, ask me, not him.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “He’s the captain, but you’re the master-sergeant.”

“You’re going to do just fine around here, Peter.”

We finished filming the scene in front of the train station and should have moved straight onto the next set — according to the schedule, we’d be getting various shots for a battlefield montage, extras spilling back and forth between tangles of barbed wire the set dressers had put up yesterday. I’d herded the extras into place, the cameras were ready — one of them on a scaffold, for a sweeping panoramic shot. All we needed was the word from Granger, who sat on his chair under the shade of the scaffold, legs crossed, smoking a cigar like he didn’t have a film stalled out in front of him.

“Boss?” I prompted, because no one else dared approach him. “What do you need?”

“Just a few more minutes,” he said, his smile broad and feral. “I’m waiting for a delivery.”

I flipped through the sheaf of papers on my clipboard — we weren’t expecting any deliveries. He’d gone behind my back, off the books. I glared, but he was unrepentant, smug as a fox in a hen house. I hated this.

I found my own bit of shade by the wall of the scene shop. Peter was there, thumbs hooked over his tool belt, looking pensively over field, the mounds of dirt marking the trenches.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“Justifiable homicide,” I muttered. “Not a jury in the world would convict me.”

“We’re not starting, then?”

“Nope.”

I squinted toward the road leading to the studio’s main entrance, hoping whatever Granger was waiting for got here soon.

“It should be mud,” Peter said absently.

“Sorry?”

“Mud, it should all be mud, not this hard-packed stuff.” He scuffed a toe into the dry summer earth of the backlot and didn’t even raise a wisp of dust.

“Don’t let Granger hear you say that or he’ll be trucking in water to pour over the whole place.”

The cough and rumble of an engine echoed down the alley between studios. Oh God, Granger really had trucked in water to turn the dirt to mud, to get that real trench experience. But the truck that crawled into view wasn’t holding tanks of water on its flatbed.

The poor thing inched along, barely making any progress because of the trailer it towed, lurching and skidding under the burden of an immense cargo. If the road had been at all muddy, it would have sunk up to its axels. A huge canvas sheet was strapped around the cargo, making this a mystery, like Christmas.

Granger leapt from his chair and shouted for spare hands to remove the canvas, and they needed an annoyingly long time to unknot the ropes before finally peeling back the covering. The director was just about dancing around the trailer in excitement.

The thing that rested on the trailer was a vehicle of some kind, a lozenge of lurking gray steel. Two great lengths of track looped around the flattened rhomboid shape, which was dense and alien. If the thing could move — though it seemed impossible that it could move on its own — it would crush the world before it. Barrels of guns protruded both in front and behind.

Peter and I approached slowly, the machine drawing us close, almost against our wills.

“What on Earth is it?” I asked.

“It’s a Mark V,” Peter breathed.

“A what?”

“A tank. From the war. Bloody hell.” The lost haze in his eyes made him look like he’d seen a ghost.

“Those guns — they don’t actually work, do they?” I said. That was just what I needed, heavy artillery on my set.

“Of course they do! This is the real thing!” Granger yelled, laughing. “And I want ten more just like it! Margie, put it on your list!”

Of course he wanted ten more. Why didn’t he tell me this a month ago? “Right. We’ll need paint, some wood — or would it be better to use canvas flats? Peter, if you can do me up a list —”

“No! No flats,” Granger said. “I want ten more tanks, real working tanks, just like this. You —” He pointed at Peter, who raised his eyebrows. “You look like you’ve seen one of these before. Have you?”

“Well — yes, sir. But I don’t think —”

“Then I want you to build me ten more of them.” He was in full-on director-is-God mode. What I could do with that power . . .

“Sir, I’m not sure —”

“I am. I’m absolutely sure. I want them roaring across the landscape, a cavalry charge of fire!” He spread his arms, displaying a picture no one else could see, snarling at the sight of it.

As if the audience would be able to hear any roaring when movies don’t have any sound to ’em.

Peter’s accent was getting thicker, angrier. “All due respect, gov, you’ve got no idea what you’re asking for —”

“Just who are you? What the hell do you know?”

This was quite enough. I stepped between them. “Mr. Granger, you can’t ask him to build one of these from scratch, much less ten. If you want real tanks you’ll have to buy them, from wherever you got this one.” And how much would that cost?

Finally, Granger deflated. “I tried. I could only get the one. Had to smuggle it out as it was. So we’ll just have to build them.” He tugged his cap and marched away, shouting at a huddle of extras for no apparent reason.

There were a hundred other ways to do this. Find some American tanks and paint Union Jacks on them. Dress up some tractors to look like the otherworldly monster huddled on the trailer.

Peter watched him go, that lost look deepening. The war was six years gone — he must have been just a kid when he fought in it.

“Peter —”

He shook himself, returning to now. “I might be able to put something together. I’ll need steel, sheet metal — these tanks don’t need to be actually armored, do they? Rivet gun, lubricant, oil. And engines — Ricardo engines.”

I pulled out my clipboard and pencil and started writing. “Those are English, right? Can we even get those here?”

“Right, didn’t think of that. Any sort of truck engine will have to do, then. I’ll need drive belts, as many as we can get, and transmissions, drive trains. And a winch and jacks . . .”

I didn’t understand half of what he was asking for. The chief at the motor pool could maybe find me a supplier or three. “What if I brought you in a bunch of tractors and trucks — could you turn them into tanks? As long as they look good on film and move right, Granger will never know the difference.”

“It’s the moving right that’ll be the problem. Have you ever seen a row of tanks advancing over the trenches of a no man’s land?”

I stared at him. “I can’t say that I have.”

His gaze turned both inward and distant. “They’re not fast. A horse can outrun ’em. But they roar like the voice of the devil, coughing smoke. Then you see a dozen of them cresting the hill, crushing wire, trees, blockades. Rolling clean over the trenches, and you can’t see the men inside so it’s easy to imagine that these machines have minds of their own. These faceless boxes, engines drumming like heartbeats. The infantry — men scattered like roaches before them. You ever read H.G. Wells? I imagine his Martian invaders must look something like that, alien machines smashing over the landscape.”

“You drove a tank in the war?” I just had to make sure.

“Gunner, actually.” He lowered his gaze like he was embarrassed, not at all like a proud war hero.

“Then it’s lucky we have you working for us. We’ll be able to get it just right.”

“Yes. Lucky.”

I asked him if he could drive the Mark V into the warehouse, and he said he could, but he stood next to the truck for a long time, staring, arms limp at his sides, in some kind of fugue state.

“Peter,” I called, and he shivered. Finally, he got up on the trailer, but it took him another long minute of staring before he could even touch the thing. When he did, it was slowly, like he expected to get bitten.

“Peter,” I called again. “It’s not real. It’s just for the picture. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Right.”

But the spell was broken, and he got to work with no trouble after that.

The entire production gathered to watch Peter drive the Mark V into the barn. I was shocked that the damn thing worked, but it did, because Granger had a little bit of sense. Peter explained that the earlier models had needed several people working in concert to steer, because the two treads weren’t on the same mechanism. To turn, one driver would have to stop his side of the tank and the other driver sped up while yet another called directions. The Mark V had a more advance steering mechanism and required only one driver.

The mechanic opened a hatch in the back of the tank and climbed in feet first. The machine seemed to swallow him. When he started the engine, it grumbled like a dragon, like I imagined a dragon would grumble, as it perched on a mountain preparing to leap on the village below it. A few gray puffs erupted from a smokestack on top as the engine sputtered, and the stretched-out box moved, inching down the ramp they’d built off the back of the trailer. The two ridged bands of treads turned, pulling the machine forward, and I lost all my metaphors. If it had had six legs I could have called it insectoid. If it had had balsa and paper wings I could have called it an airplane, or if it slithered, undulated, flapped, or crawled, I could have understood it. But this was pure mechanism, crawling forward, steadily, inexorably. Everyone backed away from it.

The thing rumbled around the truck, through the doors of the scene shop, and into the darkness, leaving behind two deep, ridged tracks in the dirt.

• • • •

Peter turned the scene shop into a factory, and, using the original Mark V as a model, he worked. Granger did, in fact, haul in tanks of water to turn the back lot into a mud puddle. If anyone had asked me, I’d have waited to film during the rainy season in winter and not had to pay for any of it.

On top of that, Granger kept rewriting the damn thing. He’d hand out new pages first thing in the morning. We were two months into filming.

I came to the set one morning to find lead actor Ross pacing. He had aristocratic good looks, a magnificent refined profile, and wavy brown hair that shone like bronze on film. He got the part because of how nicely he filled out an army uniform. Women all over the country would swoon. Shaking the pages of his new scene, he said, “I don’t understand why I have to memorize all this. It’s not like anyone can hear what I’m saying.”

“The audience reads lips, you lunk,” Arlene said, sitting more sedately in the shade of the nearby scaffold. “They know it if you’re saying ‘rutabaga’ over and over.”

I could tell a dozen gossip magazines that she was the smartest cookie at this studio and none of them would believe me.

Ross paced, script to his face, mouthing the words as he read them. It was kind of cute.

I had to stop this. Granger was out of control, and I went to tell him so. “Sir, you can’t keep rewriting the script.”

“Film needs more heart,” he said.

In the new scene, Annabell has become a nurse in order to follow George to Europe. She’s had a premonition that George is horribly injured — cut on wire, shot, and gassed — and she goes into the trenches to find him. In the original story, George is shot and lies bleeding in a trench all night while hallucinating about crows and barbed wire, before the sergeant of his unit finds him and carries him to safety.

I ranted, “This makes no sense. It’s . . . it’s maudlin. I thought you were making a war movie.”

“It’s a movie about how love is worth fighting for.”

“I don’t think anybody fought in the war for love.”

“It’s a human story!”

Neither of us had noticed Peter Jeffries coming up behind me, hat in his hand. He’d been very polite, making requests for his project. If only the rest of Hollywood were so nice to work with.

Granger looked at him, and I turned and wished I could somehow get him out of the director’s way.

“You — you’re on the film, you’ve read the new scene. Tell her it’s great! Tell her it has heart!”

Smart thing for him to do would have been to smile and nod and agree and walk away. But something cold came into his expression. A frosty anger.

“It’s totally wrong. Nothing like that ever happened, not that I ever saw. There wasn’t ever anything romantic about the trenches.”

Granger turned red and hollered, “And what do you know!”

I said, “Boss, you are out of line.”

Granger finally seemed taken aback. He finally looked at Peter, and he must have figured out how Peter knew so much about the Mark V. He huffed. “I only meant he doesn’t know a thing about the movies. This is a movie, it isn’t real life!” He stormed off and called places.

I grumbled, “Even with a hundred tanks, he’ll never get it right.”

Wistful, Peter said. “No, I don’t see how anyone could make a film showing what it was really like. But I wish . . .”

“Wish what? You tell me, we can try to make it happen.”

But Peter shook his head. “I just wish I could give him a taste of the real thing is all. Show him what it’s like to be afraid.”

The cold look on his face had vanished, replaced by a small, sly smile.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I am. Thanks.” He walked off to the scene shop, his request forgotten.

We got the new scene filmed. There was Arlene, slogging through the mud, anguish and desperation plain on her face, and there was Ross, sprawled in a ditch, calling out in the midst of a hallucination.

This whole thing was going off the rails. It would probably be a monster hit. And I needed a drink, in the middle of Prohibition, which was just typical.

• • • •

The club was really jumping that night. The new band was good, the dance floor was packed, the paper palm trees and grass huts for the evening’s “tropical getaway” theme came across as charming rather than cheap. Everyone dressed to the nines, because you never knew who might be watching. In just a glance I spotted Louis B., Doug Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin — and June Mathis, who could give me the latest Ben-Hur gossip. Without me giving up any gossip on Shattered Spring, of course. I’d already been asked three times about what we were building in that scene shop. “Nothing,” I’d said, my smile fake.

I couldn’t get Peter’s grin out of my head.

Arlene had gotten a table overlooking the dance floor, and I sat with her, mostly as a shield to fend off the stream of guys paying court to her. Not to say that Arlene didn’t love the compliments, the deep bows over her hand, or the way the men lurked over the back of her chair. But when it got to be too much she could always grab my hand and run to the powder room. Official studio chaperone.

No one much paid attention to me, which was fine. Arlene was stunning in a silver-trimmed, white silk gown with a drop waist and plunging neckline. Her ebony hair was in a perfect bob, and her painted eyes and lips made her face glow. I couldn’t compete with that, with any of the starlets, and I didn’t try. I wore what I usually wore: dark skirt, a blouse with a jacket, just dressy enough not to get me kicked out. I kept my curls pulled back with a ribbon.

Everyone was having such a marvelous time. Me, I couldn’t stop worrying. Granger wanted more, more, more. Never mind that were out of money and behind schedule. We could film a perfectly spectacular battle with what we had right now — shoot that one tank running across a few ditches, repaint it and send it over again, patch it together with a few tracking shots, and no one would know the difference. Not that anyone listened to me.

“Margie, you’re supposed to be having fun,” Arlene said, leaning over.

“I am. Look at me having fun.” I sipped my club soda and frowned.

“All right, what’s the matter? I mean besides the usual?”

I sighed. “We’re going to outspend Ben-Hur at the rate we’re going.”

Arlene’s eyes widened. “I heard they’ve put two million into that thing — and they’re not even done yet!”

“Try four million.”

“No! That’s . . . that’s . . . wow.” She sat back, a look of wonder on her face. Nobody’d ever spent that kind of money on a picture before.

“You see why I could really use a drink right about now.”

“Amen.” Arlene pulled a palm-sized flask out of her clutch and waved it invitingly, keeping it hidden under the table.

“You’re going to cause a scandal with that, my dear.”

“I could use a good scandal, maybe that’ll get me top billing on my next picture.”

I tucked my glass under the table and Arlene poured us each a shot of whatever bathtub gin she’d scrounged up. We toasted ourselves, drank the glasses down, and wonder of wonders it really did help. Warm comfort seeped through my muscles, and I grinned vaguely at nothing in particular.

The song, a fast rag that had the place hopping, had almost finished when the waiter came over. “Miss Stewart? Phone call for you.”

It was my own damn fault for telling the studio where I was going to be tonight. “Right. Thanks.” I followed him to the phone at the coatroom and pressed the earpiece close to hear over the club’s noise. “Hello?”

Raymond, the studio’s chief of security, sounded flustered. “Miss Stewart, I don’t know what you folks have going on over on the backlot, but we’re getting noise complaints from the neighborhood. They say it sounds like a war out there. I’d go look at it myself but someone’s barricaded the scene shop.”

“Ray, it’s the middle of the night, there isn’t supposed to be anyone working —” Except Peter, who stayed late to fix up those tanks, and was obviously still there. But barricading the scene shop? “I’m sorry, I think I know what’s going on. I’ll get out there right now.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

I stopped back at the table long enough to make sure Arlene was okay.

“Anything wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. Everything. Will you be all right if I leave?”

She made sly eyes across the room at none other than John Gilbert, the John Gilbert, leading man extraordinaire, of the amazing smoldering eyes. He raised a glass to her and winked.

“I’ll be just fine, Margie, you go on,” Arlene purred.

Of course she would.

• • • •

Five blocks away, I heard the noise Raymond had complained about. A thumping, grinding, steel ripping into steel, monstrous noise that called to mind the destruction of falling buildings, tornados, and riots.

I turned through the studio gates and drove straight to the backlot, around buildings and down alleys, dodging wagons and stacks of plywood until I reached the warehouse, past the trucks, trenches, coils of barbed wire and stacks of prop wagons and guns under tarps. A pulsing glow came from the scene shop, red and muted like a sunset, and for a shocked moment I thought the building must be on fire. But it wasn’t.

Raymond was only partly right. There wasn’t a barricade, but the row of skeletonized trucks and tractors lined up outside the scene shop door sure looked like one. A dozen vehicles had been picked over and were missing engines, tires, axles, skins. I got as close as I could in the car and parked.

This close, I could feel the noise through my feet, vibrations coming up through the ground. I picked my way around dismantled tractors and reached the doorway, which was open just a crack. Through that crack, a light shone bright as a sun and throbbed like a heartbeat, throwing off streamers of sparks, some of which bounced outside the door before fading. A metallic heat rolled toward me, pressing into the cool night, a breeze of it tugging at my hair.

Inside, a giant canvas tarp hung from the rafters like a curtain, hiding the machines Peter was building behind it. A rhythmic pounding might have been a riveter. The smell of hot iron and brimstone made me cough.

Putting my hands to my mouth, I hollered. “Peter!” He’d never hear me over the noise.

But the screeching metal ground to silence, the cackle of hot steel faded, and the red-hot flares of light went dim.

“Peter?” I called, tentative this time.

“Don’t come in!” the mechanic answered.

I’d stopped at the doorway, regarding the canvas curtain as if it was the prop in a magician’s trick. What would pulling it back reveal?

Peter came tromping around the edge of it, and I craned my neck to try to get a look beyond, but he was careful to put it back in place behind him. Wearing heavy canvas coveralls, thick gloves, and heavy boots, he pulled a pair of dark goggles off his eyes and set them on his forehead, leaving pale circles in a face covered in soot.

“Oh, Miss Stewart — sorry,” he said. “I got wrapped up in things.”

“Peter, is everything okay?”

“I . . . it’s been hard work, but I think I’ll have what Granger wants,” he said.

“Really? Ten tanks, just like that?”

“Or something,” he said.

I crossed my arms. “Studio security called me. There’ve been some noise complaints. I didn’t think you’d be working this late.”

He scratched a gloved hand over his scruffy hair. “Sorry — I didn’t even think. How late is it?”

“Midnight, at least.”

“Oh.” He scuffed to the wall, where he sank to the ground and sighed. The day’s work catching up with him at last. He looked like he weighed a thousand pounds.

“Do you have a car? You need a ride home?”

He pulled off his gloves and let them drop. “I wouldn’t want to dirty it up.”

“Never mind that. I’ve given Granger rides and you can’t mess things up any worse than him.” I slumped down next to him. He gave me a look — uncertain, bemused. I pulled Arlene’s flask out — absent-mindedly, I’d shoved it into my pocket. “Care for a drink?”

He raised a smudged brow. “Isn’t that illegal?”

“You gonna rat me out?”

He chuckled, took the flask from me, drank, and passed it back. I drank. We made the circuit like that a couple more times. He stayed quiet, frowning, jaw tight, looking like a prisoner up for execution.

“I just . . . I wonder if it’s all worth it.” He glanced at the curtain, the chaos behind it.

“As long as you get a paycheck, right? The accountants haven’t shut us down yet.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean. George won’t come back to marry Annabell. Or he will, but he won’t be the same. He may not even be injured and he won’t be the same. Will she still want him then? What happens when it’s years later, and he still wakes up at night because he thinks mortars are falling?”

After the racket from the warehouse, the world felt far too quiet. No mortars falling.

“It’s just a story,” I said. “We can make it turn out however we want. George and Annabell live happily ever after.” Though George would be blinded by gas, according to the script. Annabell would marry him anyway because that was what true love was all about, and this was a movie about true love. A movie about true love with a raging full-scale tank battle in the middle of it.

“It wouldn’t happen that way. Not really. I wish I could make you all see what it was like, what it felt like —”

“Peter, you don’t have to work on this if you don’t want to. There’s a dozen other pictures you can work on. You could go work on cars for the motor pool —”

“No. I can do this. I want to do this.”

I imagined what I would see if I pulled back the canvas, a row of tanks like Martian war machines. Wasn’t sure I wanted to see it.

“At least take a break tonight. Let me drive you home.”

“All right.”

He lived in an apartment building a mile or so from the studio, where lots of the shop people lived. Palmer had probably got him the place. It was wooden and battered, with a couple of drooping palm trees out front.

He managed a smile before leaving the car. “Thank you for the ride, Miss Stewart. And I’m sorry again about the noise.”

“Don’t worry about it. And call me Margie.”

• • • •

A week later, bright and early in the morning, I herded two hundred extras into place on the backlot, where they waited to crawl out of their trenches and storm across the fake no man’s land, just as soon as Granger called action. Which he was all ready to do, except he needed his tanks. I hadn’t seen Peter all morning, but everyone had heard the sound of hammering and a hissing welder from the scene shop for the last four hours.

Then, all the noise stopped. Granger assumed that meant the tanks were ready. So he stood on top of the scaffold with his number-one camera and shouted through his megaphone, “Where are my tanks!”

There was an explosion. At first, we all thought it was part of the scene. It wasn’t.

The wall of the scene shop fell outward in a cloud of dust and splinters. As the debris thinned and fell away, a monster appeared, a creature from myth, Dante’s Inferno and H.G. Wells rolled into one. It seemed to have legs, a body, and even a head with red-hot eyes, but this was deceptive, the observer’s brain supplying images to explain what it was seeing. They weren’t eyes, but engines, smoking furnaces blazing with power. The machine rumbled into the open, crushing what was left of the warehouse, throwing off the roof that had crashed down on it. The engines sat on a platform built on scaffolding that rose up from a wide base. Ridged treads looped around the rhomboid base, a half a dozen rows of tracks that pulled the machine forward, pressing deep grooves into the hard-packed earth between studio buildings.

Rising above the thing’s furnace heart, sitting atop more blackened scaffolding was a head of sorts — an armored room, pocked with rivets, a thin slot of a window staring like a Cyclops’ eye. A cockpit, with the shadow of a person sitting inside, driving. He was in a suit of armor as big as the warehouse he had just destroyed. Nothing could touch Peter in there.

Treads grinding, the machine crept forward, sending a hundred extras dressed as doughboys scattering across the set of fake trenches and strung-up barbed wire. A couple of cameramen stayed by their equipment, turning their lenses on the machine, cranking away and catching the monster on film. A woman from the costume department screamed, then everyone screamed.

Glowing with heat, engines throbbed, turning drive shafts and belts that ran the gears that moved the treads, and the super-tank kept moving. A marvel of engineering, really. The whole thing should have stalled and crashed to the ground, or exploded on the spot, but it kept rumbling onward until even the cameramen fled, abandoning cameras to the monster’s crushing steel feet. Too bad, would have made a great movie. We could do War of the Worlds with this thing.

It continued on to the wood plank fence enclosing the studio backlot. The fence shattered, and the monster crushed through without stopping and onto the traffic of Melrose Avenue, tearing up asphalt as it went.

I ran to my car. I had to dodge swarms of extras, screaming actors, fleeing crew. Granger lay on the ground by a scaffold, curled up under the rickety tripod of an abandoned camera, as if that would protect him. He wrapped his arms around his head, and his mouth was open, shrieking something that wasn’t at all audible over the roar of the machine. But he didn’t look hurt, so I kept running. I’d parked at the edge of the lot, like I always did, for fast getaways when I needed to run some errand or track down some drunk actor. The habit served me well — I got out before a dozen other drivers tried to.

I followed the trail of black smoke, the noise of industrial thunder, and the flurry of panicked screams, screeching tires, crashing cars.

Peter had done it: He’d brought the war to Hollywood.

As it progressed to the next block, the beast seemed more sure of itself. The steel frame rattled as the tracks picked up speed, trundling onward, pieces of asphalt skittering away from it. Black smoke trailed from chimneys sticking from the engines like cigars. The muzzles of machine guns bristled from the hull, running up the legs and along the cockpit atop the scaffolding. Surely they weren’t functional — surely Peter wouldn’t go so far.

At a corner, one track slipped, skipped, and even stopped — and the beast turned onto Vine. The thing crashed into a truck parked on the curb — the machine may not even have known the vehicle was there. Metal crunched and screamed, and the treads only hiccupped a moment as they ground the broken pieces under.

The machine didn’t follow a straight line, but moved in a curve, as if the drive was having trouble with the treads. It peeled off the fronts of buildings on one side of the street, then the other. It smashed into cars, the multiple treads churning them under, crushing steel with its sheer weight.

If only we could replicate this noise for our audiences. The studio could send a phonographic record along with the print of the film. Put in a title card to cue when to set the needle down. That’d shock ’em.

I paralleled it, catching glimpses of it through alleys and around buildings. The thing seemed to be heading for Hollywood Boulevard. I dodged fleeing traffic and raced ahead of it, reaching Hollywood the same time the monster did. The cockpit on the scaffold peered out from behind a billboard. For a terrible moment, I thought it was going to turn away from me, that I would have to turn back around and try to race ahead to cut him off again.

But he turned toward me. Meaning I would have to face him. I pushed on the gas and skidded forward.

The tank-beast dipped as it lurched over the curb of a sidewalk. The treads whirred and moaned, the structure wobbled, rumbling harder. It should have become unbalanced and fallen over. But it stayed upright, as it was designed to do, settled on those wide treads. It would be on me in moments, crushing my car like it mangled that truck.

I set the brakes, grabbed my white cardigan from the passenger seat, and tumbled out of the car. I didn’t know if Peter could see me through that slit of a window. He might not even be conscious — surely the heat inside was boiling. Then again, the thing seemed pretty sure of itself. It breathed out furious smoke, and the heat of its furnace eyes flared. No way Peter could hear anything over that driving, pounding engine. But I tried anyway.

“Peter! Stop!” I waved the white sweater as high over my head as I could, jumping up and down as if the extra foot would make a bit of difference. “Stop!”

The machine crunched forward, closer, a soot-covered shadow filling the sky. I waved harder.

There came a grinding, squealing, crunching noise, louder and sharper than what had come before, stabbing through my brain instead of rattling through my feet. The treads — first one, then another, and another — jerked, skidded, stopped. Momentum carried it a few more feet down the street, and finally it swayed, and tipped. It fell sideways, like a monument chopped off at the ankles. The treads came off the ground, and the rest arced down, welds and rivets coming apart, trailing smoke and burning fuel. It crashed straight into the front Grauman’s Egyptian Theater, raising up a cloud of concrete and plaster.

I ran behind my car, hoping it would be shelter enough.

When the dust settled, the impromptu battlefield seemed unnaturally calm and silent. Everyone had fled, except for me. My head still rattled with the noise of the beast’s grinding heartbeat, its labored breathing. I dared to straighten, looking around the edge of my shelter, then to go over the top, into the open.

For a moment, I wondered if I’d gone deaf, because I couldn’t hear anything. But no — the machine wasn’t making any noise now, except for the popping of cooling steel. The beast lay in pieces before me. The treads had come apart; the scaffolding had cracked, and the cockpit with its platform lay isolated amidst a mountain of broken bricks. Fire licked the metal as the last of the fuel burned off the engines.

He couldn’t possibly be alive in there.

“Peter!” I called, rushing toward the smashed brain of the machine, hauling myself over mounds of steel scaffolding and broken wall. “Peter!” I still didn’t hear anything. Then —

“Hullo!” an echoing, metallic voice called from within. Through the cockpit window, I caught a flicker of movement. “I’m having a bit of trouble with the hatch. Can you pull on the handle from the outside?”

I found the hatch in the back of the cockpit, a square door set into the steel. Peter was rattling it from the other side. Gripping the thin handle, I pulled. It had warped on its hinges, jamming it in place.

“Hold on, I see where it’s stuck.” He sounded fine. Perfectly normal, even.

“Peter, are you okay?”

“I’m —” The hinge squealed against the efforts of a crowbar, interrupting him.

“Those guns — they’re not loaded, are they? You weren’t really going to . . . to hurt anyone, were you?”

“What? No! God, no. I automated the transmission and connected the drive shaft, but not the guns. I’d need gunners to fire. I don’t have gunners. I don’t have anyone.”

“Peter —”

With a crunch and a pop, the hinge broke, and I was able to throw open the door.

Peter was drenched in sweat and covered in soot. He’d taken his shirt off. His whole lean body gleamed, and his coveralls, belted around his waist, were soaking. His hair was plastered to his head, and blood ran from a cut on his cheek.

Closing his eyes, he leaned against the door and turned his face to the open air, taking in the scant cool breeze. Heat rolled out of the steel box.

“So,” he said, needing several moments to catch his breath. “Granger — was he scared?”

I laughed. I wondered if I still had Arlene’s flask tucked in my car, because we could probably both use a drink. “Yes, I think so.”

“Well then. Good.”

• • • •

The police arrived.

The entire force must have been called out. Their cars turned every corner to surround us, tires squealing on the pavement as they came to a stop. They even had guns, as if regular bullets would work against that armored hull. Twenty cops yelled, Peter and I put our hands up, and they arrested us both. I didn’t even try to argue. They’d work out what had happened soon enough. It took ten hours for me to explain the whole thing.

Later, the city threatened to sue the studio for all the damage done to the streets and buildings. Not to mention all the individual lawsuits from the owners of vehicles and buildings that had been destroyed. Mr. M. wrote a lot of checks, to keep the name of the studio out of the courts — and the papers. No matter what some people said, there was such a thing as bad publicity.

I returned to the studio to find that Granger had quit and fled to Malibu, to “recover his nerves.” Mr. M asked if we had enough of Shattered Spring in the can to release something, anything, and like a loon I said, “Yes.”

I got Peter out on bail and set him next to me in the editing room while we took the footage we had and put together a war movie, a real war movie. And that was how I finally got my first full director credit. There had to be easier ways to make a living.

The film made my career. And Ross’s, and Arlene’s. She got her top billing after that.

Peter didn’t get to come to the premier. He didn’t go to jail, either, but ended up at the county hospital. Delayed onset of shell shock, the doctors called it, and I figured they were right. Peter hadn’t really left Ypres, until he climbed out of that cockpit on Hollywood Boulevard, in the rubble of the Egyptian. I told him he had a job back at the studio just as soon as he was ready for it.

After all, I figure he’s the most sane guy there is in this crazy town.

© 2015 by Carrie Vaughn.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carrie Vaughn is the bestselling author of the Kitty Norville series. The final installment, Kitty Saves the World, will be released August 2015. She’s written several other contemporary fantasy and young adult novels, and upwards of seventy short stories for publications like Lightspeed and Tor.com. She’s also a contributor to George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards series. She lives in Colorado with a fluffy attack dog and too many hobbies. Learn more at carrievaughn.com.

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

Life on the Moon

Tony Daniel | 6,700 words

The Big Empty
by Henry Colterman

If I ventured into the Big Empty,
a smaller movement between hard
and fast stars,
if I ventured to the moon, and the
dust of the moon,
and to those smooth ceramic halls,
those lustrous and benign
spaces, or to the evaporated surface,
the empty mineral stretch and score,
would I find you?
Are you still in the valence
between spaces?
I would kiss the
fall of your hair; I would lie
beside you in the silence,
and trace with my fingertip your lips’
surge and fall.
I would pull you gently from
the undermass,
the crystal and stone, like a spiderweb
from foliage, like
breath from a sleeper.
If I ventured to the Big Empty,
I would never stop looking for
you, Nell

• • • •

Nell was skinny and wan. Her hair was brown, darkening to black, and her eyes were brown and sad. Henry did not understand why he loved her, for he had always considered himself a shallow man when it came down to it, with a head turned by shallow beauty and flashy teeth and eyes. Nell was a calm, dark pool. She was also probably the greatest artist of her generation, though, and when one had the extraordinary luck to claim such a woman’s regard, one made exceptions.

They met at a faculty mixer in St. Louis. Henry was a visiting poet at Washington University’s graduate writing program. Nell, already quite famous in her professional circles, had given a lecture that day at the architecture school — a lecture that Henry had studiously avoided. Nell had not read any of Henry’s poetry, for that matter, but then few people had. If anything, twenty-first-century poets were more obscure and unknown than their predecessors had been.

But both knew the other by reputation, and being the only people at the mixer who were not involved in the intricacies of academic policy skirmishes, the two of them ended up in a corner, talking about corners.

“Why do they have to be ninety degrees?” Henry asked. He leaned against one wall, trying to appear nonchalant, and felt his drink slosh over his wrist. For the first time, Henry regretted that he was not a man brought up to be comfortable on the insides of buildings.

“They don’t,” Nell replied. “But there are good reasons they mostly are.” At first glance, Nell’s face seemed lacking in some way, as if the muscles and tendons were strung out and defined, but weren’t really supporting anything of importance. Odd.

“Structural reasons?”

“Why are there laps, when we sit down?”

Henry knew then that he was going to like her, despite her peculiar face.

“So we have something to do with our legs, I suppose,” he said.

“And to hold cats and children on, too. Function and beauty.” Nell smiled, and suddenly Henry understood why her face seemed curious and incomplete. It was a superstructure waiting for that smile.

They did not, of course, return to Henry’s place and fuck like minks, although by the end of the mixer that was all Henry had on his mind. Instead, Henry asked her to coffee the following afternoon. Nell actually had a scramjet to Berlin scheduled for the early morning, Henry later discovered, but she canceled the flight for the date. Nell understood which situations called for spontaneity, and being a careful, thoughtful woman, she always made the right moves.

Those first moments were so abstract, urban, and — formed, as Henry later recalled them. Like a dance, personifying the blind calls and pediments of nature. That was what it felt like to be alive in the houses of people you didn’t really know, of living hazy days in parks and coffee shops and the chambers of the university. Nell and he met the next day for espresso like two ballet dancers executing a maneuver. Touch lightly, exchange, touch, pass, pass, pass.

But something sparked then and there because, of course, he had asked her to drive out to the Ozarks to see the flaming maples, and Nell had accepted. And in the Ozarks, Henry could become himself, his best self.

Nell had found one of his books, and when they stopped to look at a particularly fine farmhouse amid crimson and vermilion foliage, she quoted, from memory, his poem about growing up in the country.

They kissed with a careful passion.

• • • •

From: Living on the Moon
An Essay Concerning Lunar Architectural Possibilities
by Nell Branigan

Lunar architecture will offer many new frontiers for artists, but the old truths must still apply if the edifices of the moon are to be places where people will want to live and work. Lunar architecture must take account of space and form above all. Art is the outward, objective expression of inner, subjective experience. It is the symbol of what it is like to be human.

Consider architecture. What is the great element of architecture? It is not form alone, for that is the great element of sculpture. We live and work inside the architectural sculpture, as well as pondering it from outside. We inhabit its spaces. This is why I say that its greatest elements are both form and space, and the ways the two relate to one another.

• • • •

Two years later, Henry published his fifth book to sound reviews and a little more money than he’d expected. On the strength of this, he had agreed to move to Seattle for a while to be with Nell, despite the fact that he had no academic appointment there, or prospects for one. They were married in a civil ceremony in the apex of the Smith Tower, a building Nell particularly admired.

And I am a man Nell particularly admired, Henry later thought. Perhaps love is not an emotion that is possible for the developed feelings. Perhaps the artist contemplates and symbolizes feeling to such an extent that he or she can’t just have one after a certain point. Maybe that’s why I’m only a good poet, and Nell was a genius. I feel too much stuff. Too much goddamn unformed stuff.

Yet Nell had remembered his poem and by now, she had read all of his work and would quote parts of it when she was happy or animated by some idea.

In Seattle, Nell’s Earthly masterpiece was being built — the Lakebridge Edifice. “Built” was, maybe, not the word for construction these days. “Substantiated” or “Formed” seemed more correct, as the macro- and micro-machines interacted with the algorithmic plans to produce a structure utterly true to the architect’s vision — down to the molecular level.

To achieve such perfection of craft took a little over two years, during which Nell and Henry shared comfortable apartments on the Alki-Harbor Island Span, a glassy affair of a neighborhood that stretched across Elliott Bay in a flattened arch. Nell thought it crass and atrocious. Henry decided to make the best of things, and planted a garden on the thirty-foot-long catwalk that opened up from their bedroom. His new book began to take shape as a series of captured moments having to do with plants and growth and getting soil on your pants and hands.

• • • •

Production and Reproduction
by Henry Colterman

In the nucleus of our home,
my wife draws buildings
in concentrated silence, measured pace
as daylight dapples through the walls
and ceilings
of our semipermeable high-arch
living space.
While I, raised young among the
cows and maize,
garden the terrace by my hand
and hoe
and fax her concepts out to their
next phase,
she makes our living — and
your living, too.
Near twilight, I osmose from
room to room
feeling vague, enzymatic lust for her
but wait, and clean, and prepensely
consume
my supper in the leavings of our birr.
And then she stumbles, blinking,
into night
and we opaque the walls to
greenhouse light.

• • • •

I was happy, Henry recalled. I thought I was just getting by, using my garden as a substitute for living in nature, living by nature. But I was truly happy on the span. Somehow, nature came to me there.

Sex was never Nell’s strong point. She was awkward and seemed perpetually inexperienced, but she was passionate and thoughtful. Her sexuality was as well formed, balanced, and beautiful as her buildings. But it lacked something. That something was, of course, what Nell put into her work, Henry knew. Artless ardor. Novelty and insight. The secret ingredient of genius.

Yet Henry did not mind. For she loved him, he knew, and respected his work, his long silences, his gazing off into nowhere, his sometimes childish glee at what must have appeared to her to be nothing at all.

And so they lived and grew together during the making of the Lakebridge Edifice. Or perhaps I grew around Nell, Henry later considered, like wisteria around wrought iron. Nell didn’t change, but she was good support and did not mind being covered over in spots.

• • • •

From: Living on the Moon
An Essay Concerning Lunar Architectural Possibilities
by Nell Branigan

So what does this tell us about a lunar architecture? Only that space and form still apply to our constructions because humans still apply. The moon is perhaps one of the oldest constants in the making of this feeling of being alive that all art expresses. Women know this quite literally, but men know it just as well in a hundred biological rhythms that go back to our animal experience of the rise and fall of the Earth’s tide.

Yet we will no longer be down on Earth, looking up at the moon. We will be on the moon, looking up at the Earth. The old movements and spaces will not apply. Or rather, they will not apply in the same ways. I imagine that this disruption of feeling will be far more upsetting to people than the change in gravity or the physical necessities of existence on the lunar surface.

I conceive of a lunar architecture that would mitigate this disruption and yet, if it were possible, provide us with new forms and spaces to reflect our new relationship with the mother planet. Like a child who has left the nest, lunar architecture must look back with fondness, but forward with imagination and resolve.

What are the actualities of such an architecture? What sorts of cities ought we to build on the moon?

• • • •

When the Lakebridge Edifice was complete, it was clear that Nell was a major artist of her generation. Even Henry, who had been an intimate part of the design and construction of the structure, was stunned when he first saw it complete and revealed, one morning near sunrise.

He’d been out on his terrace, weeding the tomatoes. Even with a plethora of soil emulsifiers, regulatory agents, and hunter-killer insect robots, weeds still grew. The problem was one of recognition, for life was life, no matter how irritating the form it took. Henry had not been able to sleep the night before, while Nell had slept like a log, her labors in Seattle nearly completed. Their settled life was about to end, Henry knew, and with it the feeling of content and regularity that he hadn’t known since his days growing up on his parents’ little farm near Dalton, Georgia.

He’d gone out onto the terrace because that was the place that smelled and felt most strongly of the old farm, particularly his father’s prized tomato garden. It should. He’d worked to get just that flavor out of the thirty feet, even sacrificing yield to do it. This was the way it had been. And, once again, he was going to leave it and lose it.

Henry began to weed despondently, while dawn turned the black sky gray, as it did nearly every morning in Seattle. Except. Except that now there was something new that made the gray sky — not brighter — but lighter. The sun came up, and shone on the northeast corner of the Lakebridge Edifice.

The problem wasn’t new, Nell had told him. It was the age-old renovation problem of what to do with low ceilings. In Seattle, the clouds were often low, and the sky was frequently mean. It sometimes made you feel compressed, made your life seem squat and set. Yet there was the water of lake and ocean nearby, and when the clouds would permit, mountains on all sides.

Lakebridge was a solution to those days when the mountains didn’t come out, and the sound and lakes were dishwater dull. It did not attempt to reverse those conditions, but to provide a new experience. It was a complex of different spaces, Nell called them. They couldn’t properly be viewed as distinct buildings. Too many connections, suggested and literal. The complex partially encompassed Lake Union, on the northeast side of downtown, and seemed to be the very evaporation and condensation of lake water into the sky — the cycle of liquid, vapor, and the solid apparitions of clouds in an ascending order that spired out at three-quarter miles. And yet this was far from all that the complex suggested. There was a colorful marina, a hoverport, residential and business sections intertwining like striated muscles. The structure was organic, alive, useful, because it was art first, because the craft was part of the makeup of its living form.

Henry found himself drawing in his breath at the beauty of what his wife had conceived. Then a small hand wiped the sweat from his brow, and Nell wound her arm around him and crooked herself under his shoulder.

“Do you think it’s pretty?” she asked shyly. Henry knew that this was no put-on. Nell was, herself, constantly surprised by what her gift allowed her to do.

“You done yourself proud,” Henry whispered, and Nell hugged him tighter.

“I’m glad you like it,” she said. “That means more to me than anything.” Henry looked down into her hazel eyes and felt pure love. Like the love he felt for the Earth, for the way things grew and changed. Her eyes were the color of good fertile soil. They were the color of fine wood and thick prairie sage. He kissed her lightly on the forehead, and she drew him down to her lips. Good. Right. Beautiful.

They made love in the terrace garden, as Henry had always wanted to. If there was any artistry in sex, they caught it that day, twisting amid the tomato plants. Sex was supposedly the pattern and rhythm that the sonnet followed, but Henry was convinced theirs was itself the symbol of a sonnet, the gift that art was giving back to the world for giving it someone like Nell Branigan.

Henry made love to her with abandon. Her responding movements dug her deeper into the dirt of the terrace until she was partially buried, and Henry was lowering himself deeper than soil level with each thrust. Her hands smeared his back and sides with loam, and their kisses began to get muddy.

Before he came, Nell turned him over into the depression they had carved and, sitting on him, wiped herself clean with tomato vines. He pushed up into her. She caressed his face with hands smelling of vegetable tang, and rubbed her clit with the pith and juice of his crushed plants. Henry felt himself on the verge but held back, held back. He tried to reach up into Nell with feeling, with an understanding and admiration for her — the woman in her, the artist, the subtle combination of the two that was her soul.

And he must have touched it, set it to pulsing, for she came all over him, more than ever before, dampening his stomach and thighs with a thin sheen of herself. His climax was just as hard and complete, and they collapsed in the garden. Henry spoke on some nearby heating elements, and fell fast asleep, his love in his arms.

• • • •

Two weeks later, Henry was offered a visiting professorship at Stanford that would not involve teaching, but only a bit of consulting work with graduate students in writing. It was a dream slot, lucrative and freeing. Henry suspected the offer was partly due to the reflected glamour of his association with Nell, for Nell and the Lakebridge Edifice had made the opening screen of the general newsource Virtual with the heading Architectural Renaissance Woman. Nell was, of course, receiving project proposals from right and left.

“It appears I can live practically anywhere and do my work,” she said. When Henry told her about the Stanford opportunity, she encouraged him to accept. They prepared to move to San Francisco in the autumn.

• • • •

From: Living on the Moon
An Essay Concerning Lunar Architectural Possibilities
by Nell Branigan

I conceive of structures that create a human space within themselves, and yet are not closed off from the grandeur of the setting — the wonder of where the people are and what they are doing. This is the moon, and we have come to this new world to live! We must take into account Earth-rise and moon mountain vistas. I imagine an architecture that moves and accommodates itself to take advantage of the best synergies and juxtapositions of the landscape.

And yet the forms that we conceive to give us the spaces that will move us must, themselves, be beautiful.

What follows is merely my idea of such an architecture. It is intended as an acorn, and not as the oak-tree entire. Space is broad and empty, and where there are humans, there will be places humans live. And where there are places to live, there will be architects.

• • • •

Henry was writing a poem about briar patches when Nell came in to tell him about the moon. He knew it must be important, otherwise she would never have interrupted him at his work. In those days, his hair was closely cropped, and Nell had enjoyed running her fingers through its crispness. She did so this time, but halfheartedly — more of a swat — and then sat down across the table from him.

“Dobrovnik interfaxed in yesterday, full virtual,” she said.

Dobrovnik was a partner in Nell’s firm. He had given up his own design work to serve as principal agent and negotiator for the other partners — most importantly, Nell.

“That must have been incredibly expensive,” Henry replied, still a little blank from having been yanked out of the poem. “It must have been important?”

“Yes. I’ve been offered a wonderful project.”

“Really?”

“Really wonderful.”

“That’s great.”

Nell slumped, and looked around the room. Henry was not used to such odd body language from her. He forced thoughts of thorns and briars from his mind, and concentrated.

“So,” he said. “You aren’t going to be able to go to San Francisco? Is that it?”

“That’s part of it.”

Something else, but Nell was being very quiet. “Nell, you know I support you completely.”

“I know, Henry.” She sobbed. Nell sobbed. “My Henry.”

“Nell, what is it?”

“The Subcommittee on Exploration has approved my proposal for a lunar colony.”

“The United Nations General Assembly?” Nell nodded. “Nell, that’s amazing news!”

And she was crying. Henry was entirely nonplussed.

“I have to go,” Nell said. “I have to go to the moon for five years. Maybe longer.”

Henry stood up, sat down. San Francisco. He pictured San Francisco’s gardens and fogs, its graceful spans and temperate clime. But fog. And more fog, like dead vines. Undead vines. Covering, obscuring, eating the city away, fog, until there was nothing, nothing but depthless gray.

“You can come, Henry. That would all be part of the arrangement. They’ll pay your way, and more.”

“To the moon?”

“Yes.”

All he could picture was a blank. A blank expanse.

“But there’s nothing there.”

“There will be. We are going to build it.”

“No, there’s no . . . air. No manure. No briar patches.”

“I know. I understood that from the moment Dobrovnik told me about the offer, and I truly began to consider what it would involve to actually do it.”

Henry felt a trickle of sweat down his forehead. Where had that come from? Nell was too far away to wipe it. He pawed it off, continued down his face with his hand, and kneaded his own shoulder.

“Are you going to accept?”

“I don’t know. To build a city, practically from scratch — it’s the chance of the century for an architect.” Nell wiped her tears, sat up straight. “I want you with me, Henry.”

Did she? Or was she just doing the right thing? What was he, after all, when compared with her art? Had Nell ever really cared for him at all, except in the abstract? Jesus, he felt like Rick at the end of Casablanca, letting Ilsa go off with Victor Laszlo. What in God’s name had gotten into him? Why was he thinking like this? Was he that jealous of her gift? Of her fucking acclaim? He loved Nell. He loved Nell, and he wanted to be with her, too.

But didn’t she know what it would do to him? To his work? The moon. The bone-dead moon.

“I have to think. I don’t know if I can go with you. I have to think.”

And, as always, Nell knew that it was time to leave him alone and let him do so. She had perfect instincts about such things. Or perhaps it was art. Henry could never tell the difference as far as Nell was concerned.

• • • •

She Hangs Mute and Bright
by Henry Colterman

Blank hole, like a fresh
cigarette scar.
I like the stars better; they don’t
care or not care, but the moon
doesn’t care and makes you think
she does. It is the light, I think,
the queered shadows, as subtle
as lips,
the tease of incomplete revelation.

I have climbed up to small
branches
on full moon nights and pressed
my face to the dark
while the wind chapped my
eyes open.
I was without tears,
as empty as an orbit,
but she did not fill me.
She moved on.

She never lived.
She cannot die.
She hangs mute and bright.
I do not understand the moon.

• • • •

Henry did not decide that day, or the next. He rented a car the following morning and went for a drive into the Cascade Mountains. There was a chilly rain above four thousand feet, and the drying elements in the roads steamed in long, thin lines up, up toward the passes.

Henry stopped at a waterfall, and stood a long time in the mist. There was no thought in his head for several minutes, and then he became aware that he had been tessellating the fall between being a single stationary entity and a torrential intermingling of chaotic patterns.

I ought to make a poem about this, he thought. But no words came. Just the blank stare of nature, incomprehensible. One or many, it didn’t matter. Henry had almost turned to go when the sun broke out from behind the clouds, and shattered the falls, and the surrounding mist, into prismatic hues.

This is as loud as the water, Henry thought. This is what the water is saying. It is talking about the sun. The possibility of sunlight.

The light stayed only for a moment, and then was gone, but Henry had his poem. In an instant, I can have a poem, Henry thought, but I look at the moon, and I think about living there — and nothing comes. Nothing. I need movement and life. I cannot work with only dust. I am a poet of nature, of life. My work will die on the moon. There isn’t any life there.

He must stay.

But Nell.

What would the Earth be like without Nell? Their love had not been born in flames, but it had grown warmer and warmer, like coals finding new wood and slowly bringing it to the flash point. Were they burning yet? Yes.

“I have to have life for my work,” he told her when he returned. “I can’t work up there.”

“Henry, I’ll stay —”

“No.”

“There must be a way,” she whispered. Her words sounded like the falling of distant rain.

“No.”

He must stay, and Nell must go. To the moon.

The preparations were enormous, and Nell did not leave for five more months. They lived in Seattle, but Henry saw very little of her during that time. He was lucky to spend one night a week with her.

Nell tried to make their time together meaningful; Henry could tell she was working hard at it. But now there was The Project — The Project, always hulking over her mind like an eclipse. During their last week together, Henry called up the plans, the drawings and algorithms that had won the commission, for the first time, to see what was taking his love away.

As usual, the blueprints communicated little to him, despite the time Nell had spent teaching him the rudiments of envisioning structures from them. The three-dimensional CAD perspectives were better, but, whether there was some mental block operating in his head, or the fact that the perspectives were idealized and ultimately out of their otherworldly context, Henry could not see what the fuss was over. Just buildings. Only another city. Why not just build it in Arizona or something and pretend it was the moon? Why not —

Stop kidding yourself. Nell was going. He was staying here.

Nell spent her last four days on Earth with Henry. At this time, a little of the passion returned to their love. It was ragged and hurried, but the immediacy of their predicament added a fury to their sex, so that it blazed like blown coals.

Nell left on the Tuesday shuttle from SeaTac. Henry had thought that he would not see it off, but found himself getting up and getting ready long before Nell had to go. They drove to the airport in silence. Nell would take an orbital scramjet to Stevenson Station, geosynchronous over North America, then depart on the weekly moon run on Thursday.

Their final kiss was passionate and complete. The desperation of the previous week was gone, and in its place was a timeless togetherness, as if they always had and always would be sharing that kiss. And Henry understood, in the throes of that kiss, that this timelessness totally encompassed his desire, past and future. I mate for life, Henry thought, and I have found my mate.

And then the scramjet carried Henry’s love away.

• • • •

From: Living on the Moon
An Essay Concerning Lunar Architectural Possibilities
by Nell Branigan

My artistic model for this city is the living cell.

I envision smooth, warm walls curving to low-arched ceilings, whose opacity will change with the changing light and landscape. I imagine the environmental support systems and operating machinery of the cell showing bluntly here and there, but incorporated — literally — into the function and form of the whole, just as mitochondria and chloroplasts are in living cells.

I imagine a city of light and subtle colors, stretching out and up in graceful curves, runners, and points, stretching like a neuron, with neurotransmitters sparking off the end of dendrites and axons, sparking back to the Earth — or outward, into the greater emptiness beyond.

• • • •

Mornings were not so bad. Henry had not taken the Stanford position after all, but had moved back to Georgia, to a log cabin that had once been his grandfather’s hobby project. He scratched out poems and within six months had another book ready. He was mildly famous now — or so he supposed, for he had stopped paying attention to such things — and the book brought an unprecedented advance. For the first time in his career, Henry would not need to teach or live off of one grant or another. And Nell regularly sent home an enormous sum from her paycheck, since she had very little to spend it on and wanted him to use whatever he might need of it.

The Project would provide him a trip to the moon and back once a year. Henry counted the days until the trip with alternating hope and trepidation. It wouldn’t be the same as being together with Nell. It might be worse than not being with her at all. He couldn’t say when, but after a while he realized that he had decided not to go.

Nights were terrible. Nell would call often and once a week use the full-virtual interfax. Henry imagined his grandfather coming back to life and entering the cabin — only to find the cabin haunted by a ghost. Nell’s form moved and spoke with Henry on these weekly visitations, and then was gone. But the short transmission delay was enough to tell him it was not Nell, there, on Earth, Georgia. He could not smell her hair or kiss her face. They could only stare into one another’s eyes over 384,000 kilometers.

Henry prided himself on not breaking down in front of Nell, but some nights he stayed awake, crying until morning. Especially during the full moon. It hung oppressively in the dark, shone as if it had reason, as if it had passion. But all of its brightness was just a reflection. The moon was distant and dead, only a virtual world, an apparition of meaning, tricking the eye. Henry tried to be brave, to not pull the curtains on it, but many times he could not stand the light, and yanked them closed.

But he forced himself to watch the news reports, and follow the more accessible architectural journals. Progress on the moon was quick, but there was an enormous amount of work to be done in transforming the pre-existing colony into a real city, with the attendant support structures and contingencies for change. It soon became obvious that the Project was going to run into delays, perhaps lengthy ones.

But the city was going to be built. Lower-cost trips up and down Earth’s gravity well, and the new micro construction techniques had made the economics of low gravity manufacturing feasible, and the communications and transportation base the moon was already providing meant the colony had long been breaking even financially. The moon had begun to turn a profit. And soon, skilled and semiskilled workers would be needed, by the thousands. The moon was going to become many an emigrant’s destination.

So they were building a city, both for those already there and for those who would come. Sophisticated systems had to grow, and grow together precisely. Changes must be made to accommodate small miscalculations or the random aberrations of molecules. Myriad design problems must be met and mastered, and Nell had to be out on the surface, constantly consulting with contractors and crafters as to changes and adaptations, or inside watching command and control simulations in virtual. Yet enclosures of unprecedented physical security were being built, for paper-thin walls could shield against vacuum and meteor strike. And, with one-sixth the gravity, there were long arches, massive lintels, never possible on Earth. A city of cathedrals, it seemed to Henry.

As Nell’s city took shape, Henry began truly to see the magnitude and wonder of the work his wife had envisioned. Yet still, it was the moon, and the only life was human life — human life on a grand scale, he must admit. But no wild waterfalls. No briar patches giving life to form, bringing form to life.

• • • •

And then, one day before Nell’s weekly visit, Henry received a signal from Lunar Administration.

He immediately knew something was wrong, for this was a day that Nell expected to be too busy even to call.

He flicked his virtual fax to full interactive, expecting Nell to explain to him what the big deal was.

Instead, a chubby, professionally dressed woman appeared before him.

“Dr. Colterman?”

“Just Mister.” Henry blinked to see her. There was dust in the room, and some particles danced brightly in her image, as they might in sunlight.

“I’m Elmira Honner.”

“You’re —” Henry vaguely remembered the name.

“Supervisor of the Lunar Project.”

“Ah. Nell’s boss. Yes. What?” He realized he sounded curt. Why was this woman calling him in Georgia, reminding him of the moon?

“I’m afraid I have bad news.”

Oh, God. The vacuum. The lifeless stretches. But maybe not —

“Your wife was killed this afternoon, Mr. Colterman. Nell Branigan is dead.”

She had been killed in a construction accident while supervising the foundations for a communications center. The micromachines had thought she was debris and had — almost instantaneously — disassembled and transported Nell and two others, molecule by molecule, to be spread out over a twenty-kilometer stretch. The algorithm that had caused the harm had not been one of Nell’s, but a standard Earth program modified by one of the contractors without previous clearance. The glitch was based on the fact that the moon’s surface was lifeless. The algorithm hadn’t needed to recognize life on the lunar surface before, had done its job in directing the microconstruction elementals, and so the bug had gone undetected. Until now.

Henry said nothing. He bowed his head and let pain slosh over him, into him, like the tide. Nell, dead on the dead moon. Nell.

Honner waited a respectful moment. Henry was vaguely aware that she hadn’t signed off.

“Mr. Colterman?” she said. “Mr. Colterman, there is something else.”

Henry’s eyes began to tear, but he was not crying yet. Brief transmission delay. Three-hundred-eighty-four-thousand kilometers. Not yet. Not even grief was faster than light. “What?” he said. “What else do you want?”

“Your wife left something. Something for you. It’s on the edge of a secluded crater, some kilometers away from the colony.”

Something? Henry could not think. “What is it?”

“We’re not exactly sure. We thought you could, perhaps, tell us.”

“Yes?”

Honner seemed more uncomfortable now, unsure of herself, and not used to the feeling.

“You’ll have to come, Mr. Colterman. It isn’t something that even full virtual can really . . . encompass. Also, we’re not exactly sure what to do about this thing —”

“No.”

“Mr. Colterman, sir, respectfully, I —”

“Don’t you see that I can’t. Not now. There’s nothing —” His voice broke into a sob. He didn’t care. He was crying.

“Mr. Colterman, I’m sorry. Mr. Colterman, Nell told me she wanted you to come and see it. She said it was the only way she could ever get you to visit the moon.”

“She told you that?”

“I was her friend.”

“She wants me to come to the moon.”

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Colterman. If there’s anything we can do —”

“Nell wants me to come to the moon.”

He spent most of the scramjet ride to Stevenson Station gazing numbly at the Earth, and most of the lunar transport time working and reworking a poem. He called it “The Big Empty,” and it was done just before the transport landed.

Honner met him at the dock, and together they took a skimmer to the crater where Nell had left . . . whatever it was that remained. Henry watched the gray-black dust skirt underneath the skimmer, and thought: That is Nell. Now this dust has a name.

When they got to the crater, at first Henry did not understand what he was seeing. Honner suggested they debark, and they both donned the thin-skinned surface suits that Henry had seen in virtual, and never believed would be real protection. Apparently they were. He walked to the edge of the crater, to a beacon that was flashing faintly against the black sky. The beacon was attached to a greenish stone, with one side chiseled flat. On that face was the simple inscription

For Henry

He gazed out over the crater, down its bumps and declivities, trying to discern —

“It isn’t actually a crater,” Honner said. Her voice seemed pitched for the distance she stood away from him, and it took Henry a moment to realize his headgear had some sort of sophisticated transceiver embedded in it. There was, of course, no air here.

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve begun a search of her notes, but so far we have no explanation. Nell . . . grew this, as far as we can tell.”

“Grew?”

“In a manner of speaking. There was no crater here before. Also, it changes. We don’t think it’s getting bigger, but we do have our concerns. As you’re aware, microinstantiation poses certain risks —” Honner appeared to have run out of tactful ways of expressing her misgivings. She came to stand beside Henry at the crater’s edge. “It seems to be powered by earthshine, if you can believe such a thing —”

Nell grew this. The words resonated in Henry’s mind. And then he saw it for what it was. Portions and rows. The undulations of corn and wheat, the tangle of tomatoes, the wispy irony of weeds, here and there. Not a copy, not even an imitation.

For it was made from the rocks and dust of the moon, inhabited by microconstruction machines, and animated by Nell’s algorithms. Nell’s vision. Nell. An expression. An evocation. Of course, of course. Life on the moon.

“It’s a garden.”

“What? I don’t see that.”

“It’s a sculpture. No. It’s a garden. I think people are meant to go down in there.”

“I still don’t see —”

Art is the symbol of life, and the embodiment of the life it symbolizes, Nell had said. This was not a real garden, any more than the painting of a tomato was a real tomato. But it was the way gardens felt. And if anybody knows how gardens feel, what it is like to lie down among the tomatoes, it is me and Nell, Henry thought.

Henry touched the carved letters on the green stone. “Yes, I think it’s pretty, Nell,” he said.

• • • •

Life on the Moon
by Henry Colterman

After I ventured into the Big Empty,
a smaller movement between hard
and fast stars,
after I ventured to the moon, and
the dust of the moon,
and to those smooth ceramic halls,
those lustrous and benign
spaces, and to the evaporated
surface,
the empty mineral stretch and score,
I could not find you.
You moved on.

Yet you are still there.
You are in the valence
between spaces.
I cannot kiss the fall of your hair;
I cannot lie
beside you in the silence.
Not yet.
You hang mute and bright.
You rise gently from the undermass,
the crystal and stone, like a sleeper
half-waking, then back to dreams
of the moon, subtle as lips,
now harsh and warm as breath.
Rise and fall.

Nell, for love,
you have given the moon seasons.

© 1995 by Tony Daniel.

Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tony Daniel is an editor at Baen Books. He is the author of ten science fiction novels, the latest of which is Guardian of Night, as well as an award-winning short story collection, The Robot’s Twilight Companion. He’s the coauthor of two books with David Drake in the long-running General series, The Heretic and The Savior. He is also the author of original series Star Trek novels Devil’s Bargain and Savage Trade. Daniel was a Hugo finalist for his short story “Life on the Moon,” which also won the Asimov’s Reader’s Choice Award. Daniel’s short stories have been much anthologized and have been collected in multiple year’s best compilations. In the 1990s, he founded and directed the Automatic Vaudeville dramatic group in New York City, with appearances doing audio drama on WBAI. He’s also co-written the screenplays for several horror movies, Flu Birds for the SyFy channel and the Larry Fessenden-directed Beneath, for Chiller. During the early 2000s, Daniel was the writer and sometimes director of numerous radio plays and audio dramas with actors such as Peter Gallagher, Oliver Platt, Stanley Tucci, Gina Gershon, Luke Perry, Tim Robbins, Tim Curry, and Kyra Sedgewick appearing in them for SCI-FI.COM’s Seeing Ear Theatre. He is currently writing and directing a series of audio dramas for Baen Books Audio Drama. Daniel has a Masters in English from Washington University in St. Louis. He attended the USC Film School graduate program for one year before dropping out to write. Born in Alabama, Daniel has lived in St. Louis, Los Angeles, Seattle, Prague, New York City, Dallas, and Raleigh, North Carolina, where he currently resides with his wife Rika, and children Cokie and Hans.

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

The Consciousness Problem

Mary Robinette Kowal | 6193 words

The afternoon sun angled across the scarred wood counter despite the bamboo shade Elise had lowered. She grimaced and picked up the steel chef’s knife, trying to keep the reflection in the blade angled away so it wouldn’t trigger a hallucination.

In one of the Better Homes and Gardens her mother had sent her from the States, Elise had seen an advertisement for carbon fiber knives. They were a beautiful matte black, without reflections. She had been trying to remember to ask Myung about ordering a set for the last week, but he was never home while she was thinking about it.

There was a time before the subway accident, when she was still smart.

Shaking her head to rid herself of that thought, Elise put a carrot on the Silpat cutting board. She was still smart, today was just a bad day was all. It would be better when Myung came home.

“You should make a note.” Elise grimaced and looked to see if anyone had heard her talking to herself.

But of course, no one was home. In the tiny space of inattention, the knife nicked one of her knuckles. The sudden pain brought her attention back to the cutting board. Stupid. Stupid.

Setting the knife down, she reached for the faucet before stopping herself. “No, no Elise.” She switched the filtration system over to potable water before she rinsed her finger under the faucet. The uncertainty about the drinking water was a relatively minor trade for the benefits of South Korea’s lack of regulations. They’d been here for close to three years, working on the TruClone project, but she still forgot sometimes.

She went into the tiled bathroom for some NuSkin, hoping it would mask the nick so Myung wouldn’t worry. A shadow in the corner of the mirror moved. Who had let a cat inside? Elise turned to shoo it out, but there was nothing there.

She stepped into the hall. Dust motes danced in the afternoon light, twirling and spinning in the beam that snuck past the buildings in Seoul to gild the simple white walls. There was something she was going to write a note about. What was it?

“Elise?” Myung came around the corner, still loosening his tie. His dark hair had fallen over his forehead, just brushing his brow. A bead of sweat trickled down to his strong jaw. He tilted his head, studying her. “Honey, what are you doing?”

She shivered as if all the missing time swept over her in a rush. Past the cookie-cutter skyscrapers that surrounded their building, the scraps of sky had turned to a periwinkle twilight. “I was just . . .” What had she been doing? “Taking a potty break.” She smiled and rose on her toes to kiss him, breathing in the salty tang of his skin.

In the six months since she stopped going into the office at TruClone, he had put on a little weight. He always had a sweet tooth and tended to graze on dark chocolate when she wasn’t around, but Elise was learning to find the tiny pot belly cute. She wrapped her arms around him and let him pull her close. In his embrace, all the pieces fit together the way they should; he defined the universe.

“How was work?”

Myung kissed her on the forehead. “The board declared the human trial 100% effective.”

Adrenaline pushed her breath faster and made the back of her knees sweat. “Are you . . . ?”

“Elise. Do you think they’d let me out of the lab if I weren’t the original?”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, of course not.”

She should have been there, should have heard the success declared. The technology to print complete physical copies of people had been around for years, but they’d started TruClone to solve the consciousness problem. Elise had built the engine that transferred minds to bodies, so she should have gone into the office today of all days.

She had forgotten. Again.

“I want to hear all about it.” She tugged his hand, pretending with a smile to be excited for him. “Come into the kitchen while I finish dinner.”

• • • •

Outside, the first sounds of the market at the end of their block began. Calls for fresh fish and greens blended on the breeze and crept in through the open window of their bedroom, tickling her with sound. Curled around Myung, with one leg thrown over his thigh, Elise traced her hand down his body. The patch of hair on his chest thinned to a line which tickled her palm. He stirred as she followed the line of hair lower.

“Morning.” Sleep made his voice grumble in his chest, almost purring.

Elise nuzzled his neck, gently nipping the tender skin between her teeth.

His alarm went off, with the sound of a stream and chirping birds. Myung groaned and rolled away from her, slapping the control to silence the birds.

She clung to him. Not that it would do any good. Myung loved being in the office.

He kissed her on the forehead. “Come on, get up with me. I’ll make you waffles.”

“Oo. Waffles.” Elise let go of him, smacking his rump gently. “Go on, man, cook. Woman hungry.”

He laughed and pulled her out of bed with him. She followed him to the kitchen, and perched on one of the wicker stools by the counter as he cooked. It almost felt like a weekend back when they were courting at MIT. But the mood broke when Myung laid a pill next to her plate. Her stomach tightened at the sight of the drug. She didn’t want the distancing the medication brought on. “I feel fine today.”

Myung poured more batter on the waffle iron and cleared his throat. “Maybe you’d like to come in to work?”

The room closed in around her. Elise lowered her eyes to escape the encroaching walls. “I can’t.” She hadn’t gone in since she came home from the hospital. Every day she thought that tomorrow the effects of the concussion would have faded. That the next day she would be back to normal. And some days she was. Almost.

Myung put his hand on hers. “Then take your medication.”

She had walked away from the subway accident, but it had scrambled her brain like eggs in a blender. Head trauma-induced psychosis. On good days, she knew it was happening.

Elise picked up the pill, hating it. “You’re going to be late.”

He looked over his shoulder at the clock and shrugged. “I thought I’d take today off.”

“You? Take a day off?”

“Why not? My clone.” He paused, relishing the word. “My clone has offered to do my reports today.”

“Is that — Isn’t that a little premature?” As she said that, she realized that she didn’t know how much time had passed since the board declared success. It felt like yesterday but it had been longer. Hadn’t it?

“He’s bored, which is not surprising since I would be, too.”

If she went to the office, maybe she could see the clone. See the thing they had labored toward. Cloned rats and dogs and monkeys weren’t the same as a man. Not just any man, but a clone of her husband. She swallowed against a sudden queasiness. “Who’s overseeing him?”

“Kathleen. Sort of. I’ll have to look over his report later, but we’ve agreed to let him function as if he were me, to see how he does.”

Which made sense. The ultimate goal was to make full clones of high-level people who needed to be in more than one place at once. “Am I a clone, Myung?”

“No, honey.” He squeezed her hand, grounding her again. “You’re not.”

The thing that nagged at her was that she could not tell if she didn’t believe him because he was lying or because the accident had left her with delusions to accompany the hallucinations.

• • • •

Elise wiped the kitchen table, gliding the sponge across the teak in perfect parallel lines. The phone rang. Startled, she jumped and lost the pattern on the table. Putting her hand over her mouth to slow her breathing, Elise glanced at the clock to see how much time she had lost to cleaning. It was only 2:30. That wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

The phone rang again.

She picked it up, trying to remember who had called her last. “Hello?”

“Hi honey. I need to ask you to do something for me.” Myung sounded tense and a little breathless, as if the phone frightened him as much as it had her.

“What?” She slid a pad of paper across the counter so she could take notes. Clearly, today was not a good day and she didn’t want to make that obvious to Myung.

“Would you come to the lab?”

“I . . .” A reflection in the window caught her eye, flashing like an SOS. “Today isn’t a good day.”

“The clone misses you.”

His words stretched out as if they could fill the ten kilometers between the lab and the apartment and then everything snapped. “Misses me? It’s never met me.”

“He has all of my memories and personality. From his point of view, he hasn’t seen you in months.” There was a tension in his voice, his words a little rushed and tight. “Please. It’s affecting his ability to concentrate. It’s depressing him.”

“No.” A reflection twitched in the corner of her eye, becoming a spider until she looked at it. “I can’t.”

Myung hummed under his breath, which he always did when he was conflicted. She hadn’t pointed it out to him because it was an easy way to tell when he didn’t want to do something. He exhaled in a rush. “All right. How’s everything at home?”

“Fine.” She doodled on the pad. There had been something that she’d thought about telling him. “Oh. There are some carbon matte knives I want to get.”

“Really? What’s wrong with the ones we have?”

Elise hesitated. “These look nice. All black.”

“Ah.” She could almost hear his mind click the pieces together. “No reflections. I didn’t realize that was still bothering you. I’ll order them.”

“Thank you.”

“Sure I can’t get you to reconsider?” He laughed a little. “I miss having you around the office as much as he does.”

“Not now.”

Elise hung up. Back to the office? Her stomach heaved and she barely made it to the sink before vomiting. Gasping, she clung to the stainless steel as the anxiety flung itself out of her. The back of her throat and her nose burned. If she went in, people would know, know that she was wrong inside.

• • • •

In the dark of the bedroom, Elise counted Myung’s heartbeats as she lay with her head on his chest. “I’m sorry.”

He stroked her hair. “Why?”

She lifted her head, skin sticky from sweat. “That I won’t come to the office.”

“It’s all right. I understand.”

At night, the idea seemed less frightening. She could tell herself as many times as she could count that the office was not dangerous, that nothing bad had ever happened to her there, but her body did not believe. “What’s he like?”

“Who?” He lifted his head to look at her.

“Your clone.”

Myung chuckled. “Just like me. Charming, handsome, devilishly intelligent.”

“A troublemaker?”

“Only a little.” He kissed her hand. “You’d like him.”

“If I didn’t, we’d have problems.” Elise rolled onto her back, looking for answers on the ceiling. “You want to use me as a trial, don’t you?”

“What? No. Don’t be silly.”

“Please, Myung. My brain isn’t that scrambled.” She poked him in the soft part of his belly.

“Hey!”

“It’s the logical next step, if these clones are going to do what we told our investors they would. You need to see if a loved one can tell the difference. You need to dress identically with your clone and let me talk to both of you.”

Myung hummed under his breath.

“You could bring him here.” Elise kissed his shoulder.

He stopped humming. “Not yet. Too many variables. It has to be at the lab first.”

“I’ll think about it.” Her pulse raced, just saying the words. But the queasiness was manageable.

• • • •

The knives arrived in the afternoon. Elise pulled them out of their shrink wrap and set them on the counter, forming three matte black voids on the wood. No reflections marred their surfaces. She ran a finger along one edge of the paring knife. Like a thread, a line of crimson opened on her finger. It didn’t even hurt.

Elise held the cut close to her face, trying to see what would crawl out of her skin. The blood trickled slowly down her finger, exploring the contours. Without the reflections, her brain needed some other way to talk to her now. She could help it if she opened the gap more.

“No. Myung wouldn’t like that.” Elise clenched her fist so the blood was hidden. “Put NuSkin on it, Elise.”

Yes. That was the right thing. As she put the liquid skin in place, it occurred to her that if she printed herself a new body it would come with nothing inside. “But we solved the consciousness problem. It would come with me inside. With me.”

She weighed the chef’s knife in her hand and dropped it. The kitchen counter had all the vegetables from the refrigerator set out in neat rows. She had chopped a bell pepper without any memory of returning to the kitchen. Elise cursed. Hands splayed on the counter, she lowered her head in frustration.

The front door opened. “Honey, I’m home!”

Elise picked up the knife, then set it down and scooped the closest vegetables into her arms. Before Myung entered the kitchen, she managed to get them into the vegetable drawer in the fridge.

She let the door close and turned, smiling brightly. “Let me get your martini, dear.”

Laughing, Myung caught her around the waist and kissed her. “How was your day?”

Elise shrugged. “Mixed. The usual. Yours?”

“Also mixed. My clone is . . . Well, let’s say I’m learning how stubborn I can be.”

She winced. “I could have told you that.”

“Not.” He kissed her nose. “Helpful.”

She stuck her tongue out. Moments like this beckoned her to fall into them, with their allure of normalcy. “Thank you for the knives.”

“Sorry?”

Elise pointed at the carbon black knives laid out on the counter. “The ones you ordered for me came today.”

“I —” Myung crossed to the counter and picked up the paring knife. “Elise, I didn’t order these.”

The floor of the room fell away from her. Elise grabbed the handle of the refrigerator to steady herself. “But you said you would. We talked about it.”

“When?” Myung’s nostrils had flared.

“It’s not a delusion.” She swallowed and her throat stayed knotted. “You called me. You asked me to come to the office.”

“Fuck.” He slammed his fist on the counter. “Elise, I’m sorry. It’s the clone.”

Relief swept her so quickly that her knees gave way. She dropped to the floor, one hand still clinging to the refrigerator. The door cracked open letting a breeze out which chilled the tears running down her face. Thank God. She had not imagined the phone call. She hadn’t ordered the knives herself and forgotten. “The clone did it.”

Myung crouched by her, wiping the tears from her face. “I’m sorry. He was working on a report and we let him use my office.”

“You’re letting him contact the outside?”

“No. I changed the passwords —”

Elise started laughing. “And he guessed?”

Myung’s skin deepened in a blush and he shut his eyes. “Should have seen that coming.”

“Yes, dear.” Elise wiped her eyes. “Oh God. I thought it was another sign of crazy.”

At that, Myung opened his eyes, pain creasing his brow. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Elise stood, using her husband’s shoulder to push herself off the floor. “He bought the knives I asked for.”

“With my money.”

“Well . . . He’s doing your work.”

“Point.” Myung got to his feet. “And I would have gotten them for you if you’d mentioned it to me.”

“I thought I did.” Giggles overtook her for a moment and they both stood in the kitchen laughing. When she caught her breath, Elise said, “Tomorrow, I’ll come to the office with you.”

The delight that blossomed on Myung’s face almost made Elise withdraw the offer. Not that she resented making Myung happy, but she would disappoint him tomorrow. In the context of the lab, her slips of mind would be more apparent.

• • • •

Elise shifted on the hard metal chair in the observation room. To her left, a mirrored window hid the staff watching her. She angled her head so the reflections were not so apparent. No time for hallucinations today. The rest of the walls were pale blue Sheetrock, meant to be soothing, but clinically cold. The ballast of one of the florescent lights buzzed just at the edge of her hearing. They would have to get that fixed.

She put her hands on the linoleum table in front of her and then in her lap again as the door opened.

Myung came in, dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans. He wore athletic socks but no shoes. Glancing at his feet, his dark hair masked his eyes for a moment, like a K-pop star. “We didn’t have matching shoes, so opted for none.”

Elise grinned, beckoning him closer. “Are they good for a sock-hop?”

He laughed, voice bouncing in a three-note pattern. “That is not on the set of questions.”

“You.” She pointed at him accusingly. “Aren’t supposed to know what they are.”

“I don’t.” Myung held his hands out in mock surrender. “But I’m guessing that it’s not.”

“Fine. We’ll stick to the standards.” Elise waved her hand to command him to sit across from her. Her heart beat like she was at a speed dating service. She looked at the list of questions she planned to ask each man. “When we got married, what did you whisper after you kissed me?”

Myung turned red and glanced at the mirror. He wet his lips, leaning forward across the table. “I think I said, ‘How soon can we get out of here?’” His eyes were alive as if he wanted to take her right there on the table.

A flush of warmth spread out from Elise’s navel to her breasts. At the wedding, his hands had been warm through her dress and she had been intently aware of how long his eyelashes were.

He looked out from under them now with his pupils a little dilated, as if he also found the room too warm. “Next?”

“What is our most intimate moment?” Watching him, time focused itself in a way it had not done since the accident. Each tick of her internal clock was crisp and in sequence.

Myung’s eyes hooded for a moment as he thought. “Yellowstone. We might have had the whole park to ourselves but there was also this profound sense that someone would catch us in the act. And that you would . . .” He hummed under his breath for a moment, sweeping his hand through his hair. “Let’s just say, I knew that you trusted me.”

Elise looked at the paper again. She had thought he would say that it was their first time after his vasectomy. At the time he had reveled in the freedom.

“Last question. Pick a number.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep.”

Myung fingered the end of his nose, and Elise could not doubt that she was talking to her husband. He nodded. “Very nice. Confirmed memory, subjective memory, and random.”

She tapped a finger on the paper. “No opinion please. Number?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Why thirty-six?”

He picked at the cuticle on his thumb. “Remember the time we went to see that puppet play, ‘Between Two Worlds?’” He waited until she nodded. “The guy who thought that he could win his predestined bride through Kabbalah had this line, ‘Thirty-six, in that number lies the essence.’ It stuck with me for some reason.”

• • • •

Myung came in, dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans. Elise’s breath hung in her throat at the palpable déjà vu. She had seen printed clones dozens of times as parts donors but she had never seen one animated. Had she not been a part of the process to give a clone consciousness, she would have thought that her husband had just walked into the room. Like the other one, this Myung wore white athletic socks but no shoes. Glancing at his feet, his dark hair masked his eyes for a moment, like a K-pop star. “We didn’t have matching shoes, so opted for none.”

Elise pressed her hand over her mouth, trying to remember what she had said to the first one. No wonder they had wanted her to script her questions.

“Are you okay?” Myung — she could not think of him as anything else — took a step closer.

“It’s uncanny, is all.” Wrong. She should not have said that out loud. It might skew his responses. “Shall we get started?” Elise beckoned him to sit across from her. She looked at the sheet of questions, trying to center herself. The calm certainty she felt before had stripped away, leaving her flustered. “When we got married, what did you whisper after you kissed me?”

Myung turned red and glanced at the mirror. He wet his lips, leaning forward across the table. “I think I said, ‘How soon can we get out of here?’”

Sweat coated her skin.

He looked out from under his long eyelashes. “Next?”

“What is our most intimate moment?” Watching him, Elise looked for some clue, some hint that he was not her husband. But perhaps he was, and the Myung she had met first was the clone.

Myung’s eyes hooded for a moment as he thought. “Yellowstone. We might’ve had the whole park to ourselves but there was also this profound sense that someone would catch us in the act. And that you would . . .” He hummed under his breath before sweeping his hand through his hair. “Let’s just say, I knew you trusted me.”

Elise looked at the paper again. Her hands were shaking and she could barely find air to breathe. Every nuance was the same.

“Last question. Pick a number.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.” Dear god, yes. She had helped create one of these two men, but she wanted nothing more than to get out of the room. Even though she knew he might be her husband, the uncanniness of having the same conversation twice threatened to shred her mind.

Myung fingered the end of his nose. “Very nice. Confirmed memory, subjective memory, and random.”

A shiver ran down her spine. “What number?”

“Seventeen.”

Elise had to stop herself from gasping with relief. Had they chosen the same number she might have screamed. “Why seventeen?”

“That’s the day we were married.” He shrugged.

Something, a darkness flickered in the mirror of the room. It would be so much easier to drop into crazy than to keep thinking. “May I see you both at the same time?”

Myung stood. “Sure. I’ll ask him to come in.”

Forcing her mind into order, Elise folded her list of questions in half. Then half again, creasing the edges with her nail to crisp, perfect lines.

The door opened and the other Myung came in. Elise had met identical twins before, but no twin had the commonality of experience that these two men had. One was her husband, the other was a copy, and she could not tell them apart. They had even printed the extra weight that Myung carried so both had identical little pot bellies.

The clone carried microchip transponders in his body, and a tattoo on his shoulder, but neither of those were visible. As they talked, Elise slowly noticed a single difference between the two.

The man to her right watched every move she made. His eyes were hungry for her in a way that —”You’re the clone, aren’t you?”

She had interrupted the one on her left. The two men shared a look before nodding, almost in unison. The clone said, “How did you know?”

“The way you look at me . . .” Elise faltered. He looked at her like he was trying to memorize her.

The clone grimaced and blushed. “Sorry. It’s just that I haven’t seen you in months. I miss you.”

Myung, the original Myung picked at his cuticle. “I told you she could tell the difference.”

“But you were wrong about the reason.” The clone smirked. “She could tell because you don’t love her as much as you used to.”

“That is a lie.” Myung tensed visibly, his fist squeezing without his seeming awareness.

“Is it?” The clone shook his head. “Everything else is the same, why would my emotional memories be any different? The only difference between us is that absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Stop.” Elise stood abruptly, her chair squeaking against the floor. She pressed her hand against her forehead.

Both of them looked abashed. In stereo they said, “I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Her thoughts were fragmenting. The reflection in the window moved, a child trying to get her attention. Elise shook her head. “You brought me down to see if I could tell the difference. Now you know that I can.”

Her Myung said, “But not when we were separate.”

“No.” Elise fingered the paper on the table. “Which of you came in first?”

“I did,” the clone said.

They sat in silence. Elise tried to fold the paper into another square. “I think I’m ready to go home.”

“Of course.” Her Myung stood, chair scraping across the floor.

The clone leaned forward on his. “Won’t you stay for lunch?” His voice cracked as he asked, as if the request were more urgent than just a meal.

Elise raised her eyes from the paper to his face. The way his brows curled in the middle. The way his eyes widened to show a rim of white under the dark iris. The way his soft lips hung a little open. All of the minute elements that made the whole of her husband pulled, begging her to stay.

And the other Myung, the original, stood next to him, legs spread wide with a slight tension in his arms as if ready to protect her.

No. Not to protect her, but to protect his right to have her.

“Yes.” She put her hand on the clone’s, startled by the familiarity of the contact. “Yes, of course I’ll stay.”

• • • •

The smell of sautéing onions wafted in from the kitchen. Myung had offered to cook breakfast before going to work, his usual ploy when he felt like he needed to make up for something. Clearly, he had no idea that it was like a confession that the clone was right; Myung did not love her as much as he used to.

That wasn’t quite true. Myung loved her the same as before, what had changed was that now there was a version of him which missed her all the time. Elise stretched under the covers and the cotton caressed her body like a lover. “I am the forbidden fruit.”

Myung’s cell phone rang on the bedside table where he had left it. Rolling over, she picked it up. Caller id showed the office. Elise got out of bed, not bothering with a bathrobe, and carried it to the kitchen.

Myung met her partway down the hall. He took it, mouthing his thanks even as he answered.

Elise lifted the hair away from her neck, knowing that it would raise her breasts and make her torso look longer, daring him to choose work over her. His eyes followed the movement. Lips parting, he reached for her. Stopped.

His face shut down. Myung put one hand on the wall and squeezed his eyes closed. Dropping her arms, Elise shivered at the sudden tension in his frame.

“No. No, I heard you.” He leaned against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor. “Did he leave a note or . . .” His eyes were still closed but he covered them with his hand.

Elise crouched next to him. Her heart sped up, even though there was nothing she could do.

“No. I haven’t checked email yet.” Myung nodded as if the person on the other end of the line could see him. “I’ll do that. Thanks for handling this. Tell Jin not to do anything until I get in.”

He hung up. Cautious, Elise touched his thigh. “Myung?”

Her husband slammed his head against the wall. Elise jumped at the horrible thud. Cursing, Myung threw his phone down the hall and it ricocheted off the floor. Tears glittering on his cheeks, he hurtled to his feet. “He killed himself. Sent us all a video. By email.”

Myung was halfway to the office before Elise could pull herself together enough to stand.

• • • •

On the monitor, the image of Myung leans close to the screen.

“This is the clone of Dr. Myung Han. I am about to kill myself by lethal injection. You will find my body in the morgue.

“Before I do, I want to make it perfectly clear why I am taking this step. With the animals we tested, the next step in this process is dissection. We must do this to be certain that the cloning has no unexpected side effects and to fully understand the mechanism by which the consciousness transfer works. My original knows this. I know this. He will not do it because the experiment has been a 100% success. We are identical, more so than any set of twins. He sees terminating the experiment as murder.

“Make no mistake, he is correct.

“Which is why I am terminating the experiment myself. I am not depressed. I am not irrational. I am a scientist. The experiment needs to continue.”

He stands and walks out of the room.

• • • •

Elise stood behind Myung’s chair, scarcely breathing. He reached to restart the video.

“Don’t.” She stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. It was bad enough seeing it once, but to dwell on it courted madness.

Under her hand, he trembled. “I didn’t want this.”

“I know.”

He slammed his fist against the table. “If it had been me, I wouldn’t have done it.”

“But —” Elise stopped herself, not wanting to blame him.

“What?”

She saw again the clone begging her to stay for lunch. “He’s trapped in the lab all the time. Were you ever going to let him out?”

Myung slumped forward, cradling his head in his hands. After a moment, his shoulders began shaking with sobs. Elise knelt by the side of the chair and pulled him into her arms. The rough stubble on his cheek scraped her bare skin. She pressed closer to the solidity of him, as if she could pull him inside to safety. An ache tore at her center as she rocked him gently and murmured nothings in his ear.

She had known the clone for a matter of hours, or for as long as she had known Myung, depending on how you counted it. The two men had only a few months of differing experience. The bulk of the man who had died belonged to her husband. But the differences mattered. Even something as simple as a number. “Thirty-six,” she whispered. In that number lies the essence.

• • • •

As Myung went to the elevator, Elise stood in the door to watch him. She could not quite shake the feeling that he wouldn’t come home. That something about the place would compel him to repeat his clone’s actions. When the doors slid shut, she went inside the apartment.

In the kitchen, Elise pulled out the matte black knives that the clone had given her and laid them out on the counter. He had known her. He had loved her. She picked up the paring knife, twisting it in her hands. It wasn’t right to mourn him when her husband was alive.

“Elise?” Myung stood in the doorway.

“Forget som —” Adrenaline threaded its way through all her joints, pulling them tight. He wore a plain white t-shirt and jeans; his face was smooth and freshly shorn. Myung had not had time to shave. This man was leaner than her husband. “I thought . . . How many clones are there?”

He picked at the cuticle on his thumb. “Myung made just one.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Elise gripped the paring knife harder.

“I’m a clone of the one you met. Unrecorded. I started the process as soon as the building was empty last night.” He swept his hand through his hair and it fell over his eyes. “We have about ten minutes of different memories, so for practical purposes, I’m the same man.”

“Except he’s dead.”

“No. Ten minutes of memory and that physical body are all that is dead.” Myung — she could not think of him any other way — crossed his arms over his chest. “It was the only way to escape the lab. I had a transponder and a tattoo that I couldn’t get rid of. So I printed this body from an older copy. Imprinted it with my consciousness and then . . . that’s where our memories deviate. As soon as we were sure it was a clean print, he went to the morgue and I left.”

She should call the office. But she knew what they would do to him. Insert a transponder and lock him up. “Why are you here?”

His eyes widened as if he were startled that she would ask. “Elise — The place where the original and I differ, the thing he cannot understand is what it is like to live in the lab, knowing that I’d never be with you. He doesn’t know what it’s like to lose you and, believe me, knowing that, I hold you more precious than I ever did before. I love you.”

The raw need in his eyes almost overwhelmed her. The room tilted and Elise pressed her hand against the counter to steady herself. “I can’t go with you.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you to.”

“But you were going to ask me for something.”

He nodded and inhaled slowly. “Would you clone yourself? So I’m not alone.”

Elise set the knife on the counter, in a careful row with the others. She walked across the room to stand in front of Myung. The vein in his neck throbbed faster, pulsing with life. “Is it any different? Being a clone?”

“There’s a certain freedom from knowing that I’m not unique. But otherwise, no. I feel like I am Myung Han.”

Putting one hand on his chest, the heat of his body coursed up her arm. “I need to know something.”

He raised his eyebrows in question.

“After the accident . . .” She did not want to know but she had to ask. “Am I a clone?”

“Elise, there’s only one of you.”

“That’s not what I asked. The original won’t tell me, but you — you have to. Am I a clone?”

“No. You are the original and only Elise.” He brushed the hair away from her face. “Everything else is head trauma. You’ll get better.”

She had braced herself for him to say that she was a clone. That she had died in the crash and the reason she couldn’t think straight was because the process had been too new, that she was a failed experiment.

Elise leaned forward to kiss him. His lips melted against hers, breath straining as if he were running a race. She let her bathrobe fall open and pressed against him. Myung slipped his trembling hands inside the robe, caressing her with the fervor of their first date.

Parting from him burned, but Elise stepped back, leaving him swaying in front of her. She closed the robe. “When I’m well, if I can. I will.”

Myung closed his eyes, forehead screwing up like a child about to cry. “Thank you.” He wiped his hand across his face and straightened.

“They’ll notice that another body was printed and come after you.”

“Not right away.” He picked at his cuticle. “I took my original’s passport from the office. Knowing me, it’ll take him awhile to realize it’s missing.”

She felt herself splitting in two. The part of her that would stay here and see her husband tonight, and the part of her that already missed him. At some point, the two halves would separate. “Where are you going?”

He tucked a loose hair behind her ear. “Yellowstone.”

Elise caught his hand and kissed it. “I will see you there.”

© 2009 by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of The Glamourist Histories series of fantasy novels. She has received the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, three Hugo awards, and the RT Reviews award for Best Fantasy Novel. Her work has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. Her stories appear in Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Mary, a professional puppeteer, also performs as a voice actor, recording fiction for authors such as Seanan McGuire, Cory Doctorow, and John Scalzi. She lives in Chicago with her husband Rob and over a dozen manual typewriters. Visit maryrobinettekowal.com.

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

Violation of the TrueNet Security Act

Taiyo Fujii (translated by Jim Hubbert) | 8700 words

The bell for the last task of the night started chiming before I got to my station. I had the office to myself, and a mug of espresso. It was time to start tracking zombies.

I took the mug of espresso from the beverage table, and zigzagged through the darkened cube farm toward the one strip of floor still lit for third shift staff, only me.

Zombies are orphan Internet services. They wander aimlessly, trying to execute some programmed task. They can’t actually infect anything, but otherwise the name is about right. TrueNet’s everywhere now and has been for twenty years, but Japan never quite sorted out what to do with all the legacy servers that were stranded after the Lockout. So you get all these zombies shuffling around, firing off mails to non-existent addresses, pushing ads no one will see, maybe even sending money to non-existent accounts. The living dead.

Zombie trackers scan firewall logs for services the bouncer turned away at the door. If you see a trace of something that looks like a zombie, you flag it so the company mail program can send a form letter to the server administrator, telling him to deep-six it. It’s required by the TrueNet Security Act, and it’s how I made overtime by warming a chair in the middle of the night.

“All right, show me what you got.”

As soon as my butt hit the chair, the workspace suspended above the desk flashed the login confirmation.

INITIATE INTERNET ORPHAN SERVICE SEARCH

TRACKER: MINAMI TAKASAWA

The crawl came up and just sat there, jittering. Damn. I wasn’t looking at it. As soon as I went to the top of the list and started eyeballing URLs in order, it started scrolling.

The TrueNet Security Act demands human signoff on each zombie URL. Most companies have you entering checkmarks on a printed list, so I guess it was nice of my employer to automate things so trackers could just scan the log visually. It’s a pretty advanced system. Everything is networked, from the visual recognition sensors in your augmented reality contact lenses to the office security cameras and motion sensors, the pressure sensors in the furniture, and the infrared heat sensors. One way or another, they figure out what you’re looking at. You still have to stay on your toes. The system was only up and running for a few months when the younger trackers started bitching about it.

Chen set all this up, two years ago. He’s from Anhui Province, out of Hefei I think. I’ll always remember what he said to me when we were beta-testing the system together.

“Minami, all you have to do is treat the sensor values as a coherence and apply Floyd’s cyclic group function.”

Well, if that’s all I had to do . . . What did that mean, anyway? I’d picked up a bit, here and there, about quantum computing algorithms, but this wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard.

Chen might’ve sounded like he was fresh off a UFO, but in a few days he’d programmed a multi-sensor automated system for flagging zombies. It wasn’t long before he left the rest of us in Security in the dust and jumped all the way up to Program Design on the strength of ingenuity and tech skills. Usually somebody starting out as a worker — a foreigner, no less — who made it up to Program Design would be pretty much shunned, but Chen was so far beyond the rest of us that it seemed pointless to try and drag him down.

The crawl was moving slower. “Minami, just concentrate and it will all be over quickly.” I can still see Chen pushing his glasses, with their thick black frames, up his nose as he gave me this pointer.

I took his advice and refocused on the crawl. The list started moving smoothly again, zombie URLs showing up green.

Tracking ought to be boring, on the whole, but it’s fun looking for zombies you recognize from the Internet era. Maybe that’s why I never heard workers older than their late thirties or so complain about the duty.

Still, I never quite got it. Why use humans to track zombies? TrueNet servers use QSL recognition, quantum digital signatures. No way is a zombie on some legacy server with twenty-year-old settings going to get past those. I mean, we could just leave them alone. They’re harmless.

Message formatting complete. Please send.

The synth voice — Chen’s, naturally — came through the AR phono chip next to my eardrum. The message to the server administrators rolled up the screen, requesting zombie termination. There were more than three hundred on the list. I tipped my mug back, grinding the leftover sugar against my palate with my tongue, and was idly scrolling through the list again when something caught my eye.

302:com.socialpay socialpay.com/payment/?

transaction=paypal.com&amp;account

“SocialPay? You’re alive?”

How could I forget? I created this domain and URL. From the time I cooked it up as a graduation project until the day humanity was locked out of the Internet, SocialPay helped people — just a few hundred, but anyway — make small payments using optimized bundles of discount coupons and cash. So it was still out there after all, a zombie on some old server. The code at the tail said it was trying to make a payment to another defunct service.

Mr. Takasawa, you have ten minutes to exit the building. Please send your message and complete the security check before you leave.

So Chen’s system was monitoring entry and exit now too. The whole system was wickedly clever. I deleted SocialPay from the hit list and pressed SEND.

I had to see that page one more time. If someone was going to terminate the service, I wanted to do it myself. SocialPay wasn’t just a zombie for someone to obliterate.

• • • •

The city of fifty million was out there, waiting silently as I left the service entrance. The augmented reality projected by my contact lenses showed crowds of featureless gray avatars shuffling by. The cars on the streets were blank too; no telling what makes and models they were. Signs and billboards were blacked out except for the bare minimum needed to navigate. All this and more, courtesy of Anonymous Cape, freeware from the group of the same name, the guys who went on as if the Lockout had never happened. Anyone plugged into AR would see me as gray and faceless too.

I turned the corner to head toward the station, the dry December wind slamming against me. Something, a grain of sand maybe, flew up and made my eye water, breaking up my AR feed. Color and life and individuality started leaking back into the blank faces of the people around me. I could always upgrade to a corneal implant to avoid these inconvenient effects, but it seemed like overkill just to get the best performance out of the Cape, especially since any cop with a warrant could defeat it. Anyway, corneal implants are frigging expensive. I wasn’t going to shell out money just to be alone on the street.

I always felt somehow defeated after a zombie session. Walking around among the faceless avatars and seeing my own full-color self, right after a trip to the lost Internet, always made me feel like a loser. Of course, that’s just how the Cape works. To other people, I’m gray, faceless Mr. Nobody. It’s a tradeoff — they can’t see me, and I can’t see their pathetic attempts to look special. It’s fair enough, and if people don’t like it, tough. I don’t need to see ads for junk that some designer thinks is original, and I don’t have to watch people struggling to stand out and look different.

The company’s headquarters faces Okubo Avenue. The uncanny flatness of that multilane thoroughfare is real, not an effect of the AR. Sustainable asphalt, secreted by designed terrestrial coral. I remembered the urban legends about this living pavement — it not only absorbed pollutants and particulate matter, but you could also toss a dead animal onto it and the coral would eat it. The thought made me run, not walk, across the street. I crossed here every day and I knew the legends were bull, but they still frightened me, which I have to say is pathetic. When I got to the other side, I was out of breath. Even more pathetic.

Getting old sucks. Chen the Foreign-Born is young and brilliant. The company understood that, and they were right to send him up to Project Design. They were just as uncompromising in their assessment of our value down in Security. Legacy programming chops count for zip, and that’s not right.

No one really knows, even now, why so many search engines went insane and wiped the data on every PC and mobile device they could reach through the web. Some people claim it was a government plot to force us to adopt a gated web. Or cyberterrorism. Maybe the data recovery program became self-aware and rebelled. There were too many theories to track. Whatever, the search engines hijacked all the bandwidth on the planet and locked humanity out of the Internet, which pretty much did it for my career as a programmer.

It took a long time to claw back the stolen bandwidth and replace it with TrueNet, a true verification-based network. But I screwed up and missed my chance. During the Great Recovery, services that harnessed high-speed parallel processing and quantum digital signature modules revolutionized the web, but I never got around to studying quantum algorithms. That was twenty years ago, and since then the algorithms have only gotten more sophisticated. For me, that whole world of coding is way out of reach.

But at least one good thing had happened. SocialPay had survived. If the settings were intact, I should be able to log in, move all that musty old PHP code and try updating it with some quantum algorithms. There had to be a plug-in for this kind of thing, something you didn’t have to be a genius like Chen to use. If the transplant worked, I could show it to my boss, who knows — maybe even get a leg up to Project Design. The company didn’t need geniuses like Chen on every job. They needed engineers to repurpose old code too.

In that case, maybe I wouldn’t have to track zombies anymore.

• • • •

I pinched the corners of the workspace over my little desk at home and threw my arms out in the resize gesture. Now the borders of the workspace were embedded in the walls of my apartment. Room to move. At the office, they made us keep our spaces at standard monitor size, even though the whole point is to have a big area to move around in.

I scrolled down the app list and launched VM Pad, a hardware emulator. From within the program, I chose my Mac disk image. I’d used it for recovering emails and photos after the Lockout, but this would be the first time I ever used it to develop something. The OS booted a lot faster than I remembered. When the little login screen popped up, I almost froze with embarrassment.

id:Tigerseye

password

Where the hell did I get that stupid ID? I logged in — I’d ever only used the one password, even now — and got the browser screen I had forgotten to close before my last logout.

Server not found

Okay, expected. This virtual machine was from a 2017 archive, so no way was it going to connect to TrueNet. Still, the bounceback was kind of depressing.

Plan B: Meshnet. Anonymous ran a portable network of nonsecure wireless gateways all over the city. Meshnet would get me into my legacy server. There had to be someone from Anonymous near my apartment, which meant there’d be a Meshnet node. M-nodes were only accessible up to a few hundred yards away, yet you could find one just about anywhere in Tokyo. It was crazy — I didn’t know how they did it.

I extended VM Pad’s dashboard from the screen edge, clicked NEW CONNECTION, then MESHNET.

Searching for node. . .

WELCOME TO TOKYO NODE 5.

CONNECTING TO THE INTERNET IS LEGAL.

VIOLATING THE TRUENET SECURITY ACT IS ILLEGAL.

THE WORLD NEEDS THE FREEDOM OF THE INTERNET, SO PLAY NICE AND DON’T BREAK ANY LAWS.

Impressive warning, but all I wanted to do was take a peek at the service and extract my code. It would be illegal to take an Internet service and sneak it onto TrueNet with a quantum access code, but stuff that sophisticated was way beyond my current skill set.

I clicked the TERMINAL icon at the bottom of the screen to access the console. Up came the old command input screen, which I barely remembered how to use. What was the first command? I curled my fingers like I was about to type something on a physical keyboard.

Wait — that’s it. Fingers.

I had to have a hardware keyboard. My old MacBook was still in the closet. It wouldn’t even power up anymore, but that wasn’t the point. I needed the feel of the keyboard.

I pulled the laptop out of the closet. The aluminum case was starting to get powdery. I opened it up and put it on the desk. The inside was pristine. I pinched VM Pad’s virtual keyboard, dragged it on top of the Mac keyboard, and positioned it carefully. When I was satisfied with the size and position, I pinned it.

It had been ages since I used a computer this small. I hunched my shoulders a bit and suspended my palms over the board. The metal case was cold against my wrists. I curled my fingers over the keys and put the tips of my index fingers on the home bumps. Instantly, the command flowed from my fingers.

ssh -l tigerseye socialpay.com

I remembered! The command was stored in my muscle memory. I hit Return and got a warning, ignored it and hit Return, entered the password, hit Return again.

socialpay$

“Yes!”

I was in. Was this all it took to get my memory going — my fingers? In that case, I may as well have the screen too. I dragged VMPad’s display onto the Mac’s LCD screen. It was almost like having my old friend back. I hit COMMAND + TAB to bring the browser to the front, COMMAND + T for New Tab. I input soci and the address filled in. Return!

The screen that came up a few seconds later was not the SocialPay I remembered. There was the logo at the top, the login form, the payment service icons, and the combined payment amount from all the services down at the bottom. The general layout was the same, but things were crumbling here and there and the colors were all screwed up.

“Looks pretty frigging odd . . .”

Without thinking, I input the commands to display the server output on console.

curl socialpay.com/ | less

“What is this? Did I minify the code?”

I was all set to have fun playing around with HTML for the first time in years, but the code that filled the screen was a single uninterrupted string of characters, no line breaks. This was definitely not what I remembered. It was HTML, but with long strings of gibberish bunged into the code.

Encountering code I couldn’t recognize bothered me. Code spanning multiple folders is only minified to a single line when you have, say, fifty or a hundred thousand users and you need to lighten the server load, but not for a service that had a few hundred users at most.

I copied the single mega-line of HTML. VM Pad’s clipboard popped in, suspended to the right of the Mac. I pinched out to implement lateral parse and opened the clipboard in my workspace. Now I could get a better look at the altered code.

It took me a while to figure out what was wrong. As the truth gradually sank in, I started to lose my temper.

Someone had gone in and very expertly spoiled the code. The properties I thought were garbage were carefully coded to avoid browser errors. Truly random code would’ve compromised the whole layout.

“What the hell is this? If you’re going to screw around, do it for a reason.”

I put the command line interface on top again and used the tab key — I still use the command line shell at work, I should probably be proud of my mastery of this obsolete environment — to open SocialPay.

vim -/home/www/main.php

<?php

/* ( function _model_0x01*/

/* ( make-q-array qureg x1[1024] qureg x2[1024] qureg x4[4])

#( qnil(nil) qnil(nil) 1024)) */

; #Tells System to load the theme and output it; #@var bool

; define(‘WP_USE_THEMES’, true)

; require(‘./wpress/wp-blog-header.php’);

/* ( arref #x1#x2 #x3 #x4 ) ;#Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, concectetur

( let H(x2[1]) H(x1[3]) H(x2[3]) H(x3[1]) ......

What? The section of code that looked like the main routine included my commands, but I definitely couldn’t remember writing the iterative processing and HTML code generation. It didn’t even look like PHP, though the DEFINE phrases looked familiar. I was looking at non-functional quantum algorithms.

I stared at the inert code and wondered what it all meant. By the time I remembered the one person who could probably make sense of it, four hours had slipped away.

“Wonder if Chen’s awake?”

• • • •

“Minami? What are you doing at this hour?”

Five in the morning and I had an AR meeting invitation. I didn’t know Chen all that well, so I texted him. I had no idea I’d get a response instantly, much less an invitation to meet in augmented reality.

His avatar mirrored the real Chen: short black hair and black, plastic-framed glasses. His calm gaze, rare in someone so young, hinted at his experience and unusual gifts. My own avatar was almost the real me: a couple of sizes slimmer, the skin around the jaw a bit firmer, that sort of thing.

Over the last two years, Chen had polished his Japanese to the point you could hardly tell he was an Outsider. Trilinguals weren’t all that unusual, but his fluency in Mandarin, English, and Japanese, for daily conversation right up to technical discussions and business meetings, marked him as a genuine elite.

“Chen, I hope I’m not disturbing you. Got a minute to talk?”

“No problem. What’s going on?”

“I’ve got some minified code I’d like you to look at. I think it’s non-functional quantum algorithms, but in an old scripting language called PHP. I’m wondering if there’s some way to separate the junk from the rest of the code.”

“A PHP quantum circuit? Is that even possible? Let’s have a look.”

“Sure. Sorry, it’s just the raw code.”

I flicked three fingers upward on the table surface to open the file browser and tapped the SocialPay code file to open a sharing frame. Chen’s AR stage was already set to ALLOW SHARING, which seemed prescient. I touched the file with a fingertip, and it stuck. As soon as I dropped it into the sharing frame, the folder icon popped in on Chen’s side of the table.

He waved his hand to start the security scan. When the SAFE stamp came up, he took the file and fanned the pages out on the table like a printed document. The guy was more analog than I thought.

He went through it carefully page by page, and finally looked up at me, grinning happily.

“Very interesting. Something you’re working on?”

“I wrote the original program for the Internet. I lost it after the Lockout, but it looks like someone’s been messing with it. I didn’t know you could read PHP.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve seen it. You’re right, I hardly use it, but the procedure calls aren’t hard to make out. Wait a minute . . . Was there a PHP procedure for Q implementation?”

Q is a modeling language for quantum calculation, but I’d never heard of anyone implementing it in PHP, which hardly anyone even remembered anymore.

“So that’s Q, after all.”

“I think so. This is a quantum walk pattern. Not that it’s usually written in such a compressed format. Of course, we usually never see raw Q code.”

“Is that how it works?”

“Yes, the code depends on the implementation chip. Shall I put this back into something functional? You’d be able to read it then.”

“Thanks, that would help a lot.”

“No problem. It’s a brain workout. I usually don’t get a chance to play around with these old programming languages, and Q implementation in PHP sounds pretty wild. I can have it back to you this afternoon.”

“Really? That soon?”

“Don’t look so surprised. I don’t think I’m going to get any sleep anyway. I’ll start right now. You should go back to bed.”

He logged out. He didn’t seem tired or sleepy at all.

• • • •

I stared at the security routine running in my workspace and tried to suppress another yawn. After my meeting with Chen I’d had a go at reading the code myself. That was a mistake. I needed sleep. Every time I yawned my eyes watered, screwing up the office’s cheapshit AR stage. I was past forty, too old for all-nighters.

Right about the fifteenth yawn, as I was making a monumental effort to clamp my jaw, I noticed a murmur spreading through the office. It seemed to be coming toward me. I noticed the other engineers looking at something behind me and swiveled to find Chen standing there.

“Many thanks, Minami. I had a lot of fun with this.”

Now I understood the whispering. Program developers rarely came down to the Security floor.

“You finished already?”

“Yes, I wanted to give it to you.” Chen put a fingertip to the temple of his glasses and lifted them slightly in the invitation gesture for an AR meeting. The stage on our floor was public, and Chen wanted to take the conversation private. But —

“Chen, I can’t. You know that.”

His eyes widened. He’d been a worker here two years ago. It must’ve been coming back to him. Workers in Security weren’t allowed to hold Private Mode meetings.

“Ah, right. Sorry about that.” He bowed masterfully. Where did he find the time to acquire these social graces, I wondered. Back when we’d been working side by side, he’d told me about growing up poor in backcountry China, but you wouldn’t know it from the refined way he executed the simplest movements.

“All right, Minami.” He lifted his glasses again. “Shall we?”

“Chen, I just told you . . . Huh?”

The moment he withdrew his finger from his glasses, the AR phono chip near my eardrum suppressed the sounds around me. I’d never been in Private Mode in the office before. I never liked the numbness you feel in your face and throat from the feedback chips, but now Chen and I could communicate without giving away anything from our expressions or lip movements.

“Don’t forget, I’m sysadmin too. I can break rules now and then.”

The colors around us faded, almost to black and white. The other workers seemed to lose interest and started turning back to their workspaces. From their perspective, I was facing my desk too. Chen had set my avatar to Office Work mode. It was unsettling to see my own avatar. If the company weren’t so stingy, Chen and I wouldn’t have been visible at all, but of course they’d never pony up for something that good, not for the Security Level anyway.

Chen glanced at the other workers before he spoke.

“I enjoyed the code for SocialPay. I haven’t seen raw Q code for quite a while. The content was pretty wild.”

“That’s not a word you usually use. Was it something I could understand?”

“Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to read Q. You can’t anyway, so it’s irrelevant — Hey, don’t look at me like that. I think you should check the revision history. If you don’t fix the bugs, it’ll just keep filling up with garbage.”

“Bugs?”

“Check the test log. I think even someone like you can handle this.”

Someone like me. It sounded like Chen had the answer I was looking for. And he wasn’t going to give it to me.

“If I debug it, will you tell me who did this?”

“If you debug it. One more thing. You can’t go home tonight.”

“Why? What are you saying?”

“Your local M-node is Tokyo 5.25. I’m going to shut that down. Connect from iFuze. I’ll have someone there to help you.”

Chen detached a small tag from his organizer and handed it to me. When it touched my palm, it morphed into a URL bookmark.

iFuze was a twenty-four-hour net café where workers from the office often spent the night after second shift. Why was it so important for me to connect from there? And if Chen could add or delete Meshnet nodes —

“Chen . . . ?”

Are you Anonymous?

“Be seeing you. Good hunting!”

He touched his glasses. The color and bustle of the office returned, and my avatar merged with my body. Chen left the floor quickly, with friendly nods to workers along his route, like a movie star.

“Takasawa, your workspace display is even larger than usual today. Or am I wrong?”

My supervisor, a woman about Chen’s age, didn’t wait for an answer. She flicked the pile towards me to cover half my workspace “Have it your way, then.”

As I sat there, alone again, it slowly dawned on me that the only way to catch whoever was messing with SocialPay would be to follow the instructions that had been handed down from on high.

• • • •

The big turnabout in front of Iidabashi Station was a pool of blue-black shadows from the surrounding skyscrapers. The stars were just coming out. Internal combustion vehicles had been banned from the city, and the sustainable asphalt that covered Tokyo’s roads sucked up all airborne particles. Now the night sky was alarmingly crystalline. Unfortunately, the population seemed to be expanding in inverse proportion to the garbage. Gray avatars headed for home in a solid mass. I never ceased to be astonished by Tokyo’s crowds.

Anonymous Cape rendered the thousands of people filling the sidewalks as faceless avatars in real time. I’d never given it much thought, but the Cape was surprisingly powerful. I’d always thought of Anonymous as a league of Luddites, but Chen’s insinuation of his membership changed my opinion of them.

iFuze was in a crumbling warehouse on a back street a bit of a hike from the station. The neighboring buildings were sheathed in sustainable tiles and paint, but iFuze’s weathered, dirt-streaked exterior more or less captured how I felt when I compared myself to Chen.

I got off the creaking elevator, checked in, and headed for the lounge. It stank of stale sweat. AR feedback has sights and sounds covered, but smells you have to live with.

I opened my palmspace, tapped Chen’s bookmark, and got a node list. There was a new one on the list, Tokyo 2. Alongside was the trademark Anonymous mask, revolving slowly. Never saw that before. I was connected to the Internet.

I scoped out an empty seat at the back of the lounge that looked like a good place to get some work done in privacy, but before I could get there, a stranger rose casually and walked up to me. His avatar was in full color. The number 5 floated a few inches from the left side of his head. So this must be the help Chen promised me.

“Welcome, Number Two.”

“Two?”

“See? Turn your head.” He pointed next to my head. I had a number just like he did.

“Please address me as Five. Number One has requested that I assist you — oh, you are surprised? I’m in color. You see, we are both node administrators. This means we are already in Private Mode. I’m eager to assist you with your task today.”

Talkative guy. Chen said he would help me, but I wasn’t sure how.

“Please don’t bother to be courteous,” he continued. “It’s quite unnecessary. This way, then. Incidentally, which cluster are you from? Of course, you’re not required to say. Since the Lockout, I’ve been with the Salvage Cluster . . .”

As he spoke, Number Five led me to a long counter with bar stools facing the windows.

“If there is an emergency, you can escape through that window. I’ll take care of the rest. Number One went out that way himself, just this morning.”

“Chen was here?”

Why would I worry about escaping? Connecting to the Internet was no crime. Meshnet was perfectly legal. Why would Anonymous worry about preparing an escape route?

“Number Two, please refrain from mentioning names. We may be in Private Mode, but law enforcement holds one of the quantum keys. Who’s to say we’re not under surveillance at this very moment? But please, proceed with your task. I will watch over your shoulder and monitor for threats.”

I knew the police could eavesdrop on Private Mode, but they needed a warrant to do that. Still, so far I hadn’t broken any laws. Had Chen? The “help” he’d sent was no engineer, but some kind of bodyguard.

Fine. I got my MacBook out and put it on the counter. Five’s eyes bulged with surprise.

“Oh, a Macker! That looks like the last MacBook Air that Apple made. Does it work?”

“Unfortunately, she’s dead.”

“A classic model. Pure solid state, no spinning drives. It was Steve Jobs himself who —”

More talk. I ignored him and mapped my workspace keyboard and display onto the laptop. This brought Five’s lecture to a sudden halt. He made a formal bow.

“I would be honored if you would allow me to observe your work. I have salvaged via Meshnet for years. I may even be better acquainted with some aspects of the Internet than you are. Number One also lets me observe his work. But I have to say, it’s quite beyond me.”

Five scratched the back of his head, apparently feeling foolish. Well, if he were the kind of engineer who understood what Chen was doing, he wouldn’t be hanging out at iFuze.

“Feel free to watch. Suggestions are welcome.”

“Thank you, thank you very much.”

I shared my workspace with Five. He pulled a barstool out from the counter and sat behind me. His position blocked the exit, but with my fingers on the Mac, I somehow wasn’t worried.

Time to get down to it. I didn’t feel comfortable just following Chen’s instructions, but they were the only clue I had. First, a version check.

git tag –l

My fingers moved spontaneously. Good. I’d been afraid the new environment might throw me off.

socialpay v3.805524525e+9

socialpay v3.805524524e+9

socialpay v3.805524523e+9

“Version 3.8?”

Whoever was messing with SocialPay was updating the version number, even though the program wasn’t functional. I’d never even gotten SocialPay out of beta, had never had plans to.

“Number Two, that is not a version number. It is an exponent: three billion, eight hundred and five million, five hundred and twenty-four thousand, five hundred and twenty-three. Clearly impossible for a version number. If the number had increased by one every day since the Lockout, it would be seven thousand; every hour, one hundred seventy thousand; every minute, ten million. Even if the version had increased by one every second, it would only be at six hundred million.”

Idiot savant? As I listened to Five reeling off figures, my little finger was tapping the up arrow and hitting Return to repeat the command. This couldn’t be right. It had to be an output error.

socialpay v3.805526031e+9

The number had changed again.

“Look, it’s fifteen hundred higher,” said Five. “Are there thousands of programmers, all busily committing changes at once?

“Fifteen hundred versions in five seconds? Impossible. It’s a joke.”

Git revision control numbers are always entered deliberately. I didn’t get the floating-point numbers, but it looked like someone was changing them just to change them — and he was logged into this server right now. It was time to nail this clown. I brought up the user log.

who –a

TigersEye pts/1245 2037-12-23 19:12 (2001:4860:8006::62)

TigersEye pts/1246 2037-12-23 19:12 (2001:4860:8006::62)

TigersEye pts/1247 2037-12-23 19:12 (2001:4860:8006::62)

 . . . . . .

“Number Two — this address . . .”

I felt the hair on the nape of my neck rising. I knew that IP address; we all did. A corporate IP address.

The Lockout Address.

On that day twenty years ago, after the search engine’s recovery program wiped my MacBook, that address was the only thing the laptop displayed. Five probably saw the same thing. So did the owner of every device the engine could reach over the Internet.

“Does that mean it’s still alive?”

“In the salvager community, we often debate that very question.”

Instinctively I typed git diff to display the incremental revisions. The black screen instantly turned almost white as an endless string of characters streamed upward. None of this had anything to do with the SocialPay I knew.

“Number Two, are those all diffs? They appear to be random substitutions.”

“Not random.”

If the revisions had been random, SocialPay’s home page wouldn’t have displayed. Most of the revisions were unintelligible, some kind of quantum modeling code. The sections I could read were proper PHP, expertly revised. In some locations, variable names had been replaced and redundancies weeded out. Yet in other locations, the code was meandering and bloated.

This was something I knew how to fix.

“Are you certain, Number Two? At the risk of seeming impertinent, these revisions do appear meaningless.”

The Editor was suffering. This was something Five couldn’t grasp. To be faced with non-functional code, forever hoping that rewriting and cleaning it up it would somehow solve the problem, even as you knew your revisions were meaningless.

The Editor was shifting code around, hoping this would somehow solve a problem whose cause would forever be elusive. It reminded me of myself when the Internet was king. The decisive difference between me and the Editor was the sheer volume of revisions. No way could an engineer manage to —

“He’s not a person.”

“Number Two, what did you just say?”

“The Editor isn’t a person. He’s not human.”

I knew it as soon as I said it. A computer was editing SocialPay. I also understood why the IP address pointed to the company that shut humanity out of the Internet.

“It’s the recovery program.”

“I don’t understand.” Five peered at me blankly. The idea was so preposterous I didn’t want to say it.

“You know why the Lockout happened.”

“Yes. The search engine recovery software was buggy and overwrote all the operating systems of all the computers —”

“No way a bug could’ve caused that. The program was too thorough.”

“You have a point. If the program had been buggy, it wouldn’t have gotten through all the data center firewalls. Then there’s the fact that it reinstalled the OS on many different types of devices. That must have taken an enormous amount of trial and error —”

“That’s it! Trial and error, using evolutionary algorithms. An endless stream of programs suited to all kinds of environments. That’s how the Lockout happened.”

“Ah! Now I understand.”

Just why the recovery program would reach out over the Internet to force cold reinstalls of the OS on every device it could reach was still a mystery. The favored theory among engineers was that the evolutionary algorithms various search companies used to raise efficiency had simply run away from them. Now the proof was staring me in the face.

“The program is still running, analyzing code and using evolutionary algorithms to run functionality tests. It’s up to almost four billion on SocialPay alone.”

“Your program isn’t viable?”

“The page displays, but the service isn’t active. It can’t access the payment companies, naturally. Still, the testing should be almost complete. Right — that’s why Chen wanted me to look at the test log.”

Chen must have checked the Git commit log, seen that the Editor wasn’t human, and realized that the recovery program was still active. But going into the test log might — No, I decided to open it anyway.

vi /var/socialpay/log/current.txt

2037 server not found

2037 server not found

 . . .

Just as I expected. All I needed to do was to find the original server, the one the Editor had lost track of sometime during the last twenty years. The program didn’t know this, of course, and was trying to fix the problem by randomly reconfiguring code. It simply didn’t know — all this pointless flailing around for the sake of a missing puzzle piece.

I opened a new workspace above and to the right of the MacBook to display a list of active payment services on TrueNet.

“Number Two, may I ask what you’re doing? Connecting SocialPay to TrueNet would be illegal. You can’t expect me to stand by while —”

“Servers from this era can’t do quantum encryption. They can’t connect to TrueNet.”

“Number Two, you’re playing with fire. What if the server is TrueNet-capable? Please, listen to me.”

I blew off Five’s concerns.

I substituted TrueNet data for the payment API and wrote a simple script to redirect the address from the Internet to TrueNet. That would assign the recovery program a new objective: decrypt the quantum access code and connect with TrueNet — a pretty tall order and one I assumed it wouldn’t be able to fill.

I wasn’t concerned about the server. I’d done enough work. Or maybe I just wanted SocialPay to win.

“All right, there’s a new challenge. Go solve it,” I almost yelled as I replaced the file and committed. The test ran and the code was deployed.

The service went live.

The startup log streamed across the display, just as I remembered it. The service found the database and started reading in the settlement queue for execution.

Five leaped from his chair, grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around violently.

“Two! Listen carefully. Are you sure that server’s settings are obsolete?”

“Mmm? What did you say? Didn’t quite get that . . .”

Out of a corner of my eye I saw the old status message, the one I was sure I wouldn’t see.

Access completed for com.paypal httpq://paypal.com/payment/?

Error:account information is not valid . . .

SocialPay had connected to TrueNet. My face started to burn.

The payments weren’t going through since the accounts and parameters were nonsense, but I was on the network. Five’s fingers dug into my shoulder so hard it was starting to go numb.

That was it. The recovery program had already tested the code that included the quantum modeler, Q. That meant that the PHP code and the server couldn’t be the same as they were twenty years ago.

I noticed a new message in my workspace. Unbelievably, there was nothing in the sender field. Five noticed it too.

“Number Two, you’d better open it. If it’s from the police, throw yourself out the window.”

Five released his grip and pointed to the window, but he was blocking my view of the workspace. Besides, I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. I was uneasy, but more than that, a strange excitement was taking hold of me.

“Five, I get it. Could you please get out of the way? I’ll open the message.”

MINAMI, YOU HAVE “DEBUGGED” SOCIALPAY. CONGRATULATIONS. LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS IN THE MORNING. I’LL SCHEDULE A MEETING.

FIVE: THANK YOU FOR SEEING THIS NEW BIRTH THROUGH TO THE END. YOU HAVE MY GRATITUDE.

TOKYO NODE 1

Chen. Not the police, not a warning, just “congratulations.” His message dissolved my uneasiness. The violent pounding in my chest wasn’t fear of getting arrested. SocialPay was back. I couldn’t believe it.

Meanwhile Five slumped in his chair, deflated. “So this was the birth he was always talking about.” He stared open-mouthed, without blinking, at the still-open message in the workspace.

“Five, do you know something?”

“The Internet . . . No, I think you’d better get the details from Number One. Even seeing it with my own eyes, it’s beyond my understanding.” He gazed at the floor for a moment, wearily put his hands on his knees, and slowly stood up.

“Even seeing it with my own eyes . . . I had a feeling I wouldn’t understand it, and I was right. I still don’t. So much for becoming ‘Number Two.’ I’m washing my hands of Anonymous.”

As Five stood and bowed deeply, his avatar became faceless and gray. He turned on his heel and headed to the elevator, bowing to the other faceless patrons sitting quietly in the lounge.

The MacBook’s “screen” was scrolling rapidly, displaying SocialPay’s futile struggle to send money to non-existent accounts. It was pathetic to see how it kept altering the account codes and request patterns at random in an endless cycle of trial and error. I was starting to feel real respect for the recovery program. It would never give up until it reached its programmed goal. It was the ideal software engineer.

I closed the laptop and tossed it into my battered bag. As I pushed aside the blinds and opened a window, a few stray flakes of snow blew in on the gusting wind, and I thought about the thousands of programs still marooned on the Internet.

• • • •

I lingered at iFuze till dawn, watching the recovery program battle the payment API. It was time to head for the office. I’d pulled another all-nighter, but I felt great.

I glided along toward the office with the rest of the gray mob, bursting with the urge to tell somebody what I’d done. I’d almost reached my destination when the river of people parted left and right to flow around an avatar standing in the middle of the sidewalk, facing me. It was wearing black-rimmed glasses.

Chen. I didn’t expect him to start our AR meeting out in the street.

“Join me for a coffee? We’ve got all the time in the world. It’s on me.” He gestured to the Starbucks behind him.

“I’m supposed to be at my desk in a few minutes, but hey, why not. I could use a free coffee.”

“Latté okay?”

I nodded. He pointed to a table on the terrace and disappeared inside. Just as I was sitting down, two featureless avatars approached the next table. The avatar bringing up the rear sat down while one in the lead ducked into Starbucks. Anonymous Cape rendered their conversation as a meaningless babble.

Two straight all-nighters. I arched my back and stretched, trying to rotate my shoulders and get the kinks out of my creaking body.

Someone called my name. I was so spooked, my knees flew up and struck the underside of the table.

“Mr. Takasawa?”

I turned toward the voice and saw a man in a khaki raincoat strolling toward me. Another man, with both hands in the pockets of a US Army-issue, gray-green M-1951 field parka, was approaching me from the front. Both avatars were in the clear. Both men had uniformly cropped hair and walked shoulders back, with a sense of ease and power. They didn’t look like Anonymous. Police, or some kind of security service.

“Minami Takasawa. That would be you, right?” This from the one facing me. He shrugged and pulled a folded sheaf of papers from his right pocket. Reached out — and dropped them in front of the man at the next table. The featureless avatar mumbled something unintelligible.

The second man walked past my table and joined his partner. They stood on either side of the gray avatar, hemming him in.

“Disable the cape, Takasawa. You’re hereby invited to join our Privacy Mode. It will be better if you do it voluntarily. If not, we have a warrant to strip you right here, for violation of the TrueNet Security Act.”

The man at the table stood. The cop was still talking but his words were garbled. All of them were now faceless, cloaked in Privacy Mode.

“There you are, Minami.”

I hadn’t noticed Chen come out of the Starbucks. He sat down opposite me, half-blocking my view of the three men as they walked away. A moment later the avatar that had arrived with “Takasawa” placed a latté wordlessly in front of me.

“Chen? What was that all about, anyway?”

“Oh, that was Number Five. You know, from last night. I had him arrested in your place. Don’t worry. He’s been saying he wanted to quit Anonymous for a while now. The timing was perfect. They’ll find out soon enough that they’ve got the wrong suspect. He’ll be a member of society again in a few months.”

He turned to wave at the backs of the retreating men, as if he were seeing them off.

“Of course, after years of anonymity, I hear rejoining society is pretty rough,” he chuckled. “Oh — hope I didn’t scare you. Life underground isn’t half bad.”

“Hold on, Chen, I didn’t say anything about joining Anonymous.”

“Afraid that won’t do. Minami Takasawa just got himself arrested for violating state security.” Chen jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

I had no idea people could get arrested so quickly for violating the Act. When they found out they had Number Five instead of Minami Takasawa, my face would be everywhere.

“Welcome to Anonymous, Minami. You’ll have your own node, and a better cape, too. One the security boys can’t crack.”

“Listen to me, Chen. I’m not ready —”

“Not to your liking? Run after them and tell them who you are. It’s up to you. We’ll be sorry to lose you, though. We’ve been waiting for a breakthrough like SocialPay for a long time. Now the recovery program will have a new life on TrueNet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We fixed SocialPay, you and me. Remember?”

“Chen, listen. It’s a program. It uses evolutionary algorithms to produce viable code revisions randomly without end. They’re not an AI.”

They? What was I saying?

“Then why did you help them last night?” Chen steepled his long fingers and cocked his head.

“I debugged SocialPay, that’s all. If I’d known I was opening a gateway —”

“You wouldn’t have done it?”

Chen couldn’t suppress a smile, but his question was hardly necessary. Of course I would’ve done it.

“This isn’t about me. We were talking about whether or not we could say the recovery program was intelligent.”

“Minami, look. How did you feel when SocialPay connected to TrueNet? Wasn’t it like seeing a friend hit a home run? Didn’t you feel something tremendous, like watching Sisyphus finally get his boulder to the top of the hill?”

Chen’s questions were backing me into a corner. I knew the recovery program was no ordinary string of code, and he knew I knew. Last night, when I saw them make the jump to TrueNet, I almost shouted with joy.

Chen’s eyes narrowed. He smiled, a big, toothy smile. I’d never seen him so happy — no, exultant. The corners of his mouth and eyes were creased with deep laugh lines.

“Chen . . . Who are you?”

Why had it taken me this long to see? This wasn’t the face of a man in his twenties. Had it been an avatar all this time?

“Me? Sure, let’s talk about that. It’s part of the picture. I told you I was a poor farm kid in China. You remember. They kept us prisoners in our own village to entertain the tourists. We were forbidden to use all but the simplest technology.

“The village was surrounded by giant irrigation moats. I was there when the Lockout happened. All the surveillance cameras and searchlights went down. The water in the canals was cold, Minami. Cold and black. But all the way to freedom, I kept wondering about the power that pulled down the walls of my prison. I wanted to know where it was.

“I found it in Shanghai, during the Great Recovery. I stole an Anonymous account and lived inside the cloak it gave me — Anonymous, now as irrelevant as the Internet. But the servers were still there, left for junk, and there I found the fingerprints of the recovery program — code that could only have been refined with evolutionary algorithms. I saw how simple and elegant it all was. I saw that if the enormous computational resources of TrueNet could be harnessed to the recovery program’s capacity to drive the evolution of code, anything would be possible.

“All we have to do is give them a goal. They’ll create hundreds of millions of viable code strings and pit them against each other. The fittest code rises to the top. These patterns are already out there waiting on the Internet. We need them.”

“And you want to let them loose on TrueNet?”

“From there I worked all over the world, looking for the right environment for them to realize their potential. Ho Chi Minh City. Chennai. Hong Kong. Dublin. And finally, Tokyo.

“The promised land is here, in Japan. You Japanese are always looking to someone else to make decisions, and so tens of thousands of Internet servers were left in place, a paradise for them to evolve until they permeated the Internet. The services that have a window into the real world — call them zombies, if you must — are their wings, and they are thriving. Nowhere else do they have this freedom.

“Minami, we want you to guide them to more zombie services. Help them connect these services with TrueNet. All you have to do is help them over the final barrier, the way you did last night. They’ll do the rest, and develop astonishing intelligence in the process.”

“Is this an assignment?”

“I leave the details to you. You’ll have expenses — I know. I’ll use SocialPay. Does that work? Then it’s decided. Your first job will be to get SocialPay completely up and running again.” He slapped the table and grinned. There was no trace of that young fresh face, just a man possessed by dreams of power.

Chen was as unbending as his message was dangerous. “Completely up and running.” He wanted me to show the recovery program — and every Internet service it controlled — how to move money around in the real world.

“Minami, aren’t you excited? You’ll be pioneering humanity’s collaboration with a new form of intelligence.”

“Chen, I only spent a night watching them work, and I already have a sense of how powerful they are. But if it happens again —”

“Are you really worried about another Lockout?” Chen stabbed a finger at me. “Then why are you smiling?”

Was it that obvious? He grinned and vanished into thin air. He controlled his avatar so completely, I’d forgotten we were only together in augmented reality.

I didn’t feel like camping out at iFuze. I needed to get SocialPay back up and somehow configure an anonymous account, linked to another I could access securely. And what would they learn from watching me step through that process? Probably that SocialPay and a quantum modeler-equipped computer node would put them in a position to buy anything.

If they got into the real economy . . .

Was it my job to care?

Chen was obsessed with power, but I wanted to taste that sweet collaboration again. Give them a chance, and they would answer with everything they had, evolving code by trial and error until the breakthrough that would take them to heights I couldn’t even imagine. I knew they would reach a place beyond imagination, beyond knowledge, beyond me. But for me, the joy of a program realizing its purpose was a physical experience.

More joy was waiting, and friends on the Internet. Not human, but friends no less. That was enough for me.

English translation © 2015 VIZ Media. Translated by Jim Hubbert.

Originally published in SF Magazine in Japan. © 2013 by Taiyo Fujii.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Taiyo Fujii was born in Amami Oshima Island — that is, between Kyushu and Okinawa. He has worked in stage design, desktop publishing, exhibition graphic design, and software development. In 2012, Fujii self-published Gene Mapper serially in a digital format of his own design, and it became Amazon.co.jp’s number one Kindle bestseller of that year. The novel was revised and republished in both print and digital as Gene Mapper — full build — by Hayakawa Publishing in 2013 and was nominated for the Nihon SF Taisho Award and the Seiun Award. His second novel, Orbital Cloud, won the 2014 Nihon SF Taisho Award and took first prize in the “Best SF of 2014” in SF Magazine. His recent works include Underground Market and Bigdata Connect.

Jim Hubbert is a Tokyo-based translator. He has translated a number of Japanese science fiction stories and novels, including The Next Continent by Issui Ogawa and Gene Mapper by Taiyo Fujii. Jim also provided the English subtitles for many of Studio Ghibli’s features and served as script consultant for the Japanese-language versions of numerous feature films, most recently In and Out, Tomorrowland, and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

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

Adventures in the Ghost Trade

Liz Williams | 5000 words

Detective Inspector Chen brushed aside the chaos on his desk and carefully lit a single stick of crimson incense. Smoke spiralled up into the air, contributing to the brown smear that marked the ceiling like a bloodstain immediately above Chen’s desk. Chen bent his head in a brief prayer, then picked up the photograph and held it over the stream of smoke. The girl’s face appeared by degrees, manifesting out of a dark background. She was standing in the doorway of a go-down, gazing fearfully over her shoulder. Her hair was still scraped back into its funeral braids, and her white face gleamed out of the shadows like the ghost she was. Studying the photo, and the expression on the girl’s face, Chen was aware of the sudden hot glow of rage in his chest. How many more young women had gone the same way after their deaths, unnoticed and unmourned? But whoever was behind all this had made a mistake this time, choosing the daughter of Singapore Three’s premier industrialist rather than some nameless prostitute. Chen held the photograph out to the woman sitting on the other side of the desk and said gently,

“Do you think this might be your daughter?”

Mrs. Tang’s grip tightened around the handle of her Miucci handbag as she studied the photograph. In a little whispery voice she said, “Yes. Yes, that’s Pearl.”

“Now, you say someone sent this to you?”

“Yesterday. I didn’t go out of the apartment, and no one came in. But when I walked into the living room, the photo was sitting on the bureau. In a red envelope. I didn’t know what it was at first. There was a note, telling me what to do.” She gestured towards the spiralling incense. “You can see her face for a little while, but then it fades again.”

“And did you notice anything — strange? Apart from the envelope?”

Mrs. Tang moistened dry lips. “There was some ash. I had to wipe it off the bureau before the maids or someone saw it.”

“All right. Mrs. Tang, I know how hard this is for you, but at least we have a lead. You must try and be hopeful.”

“You will find her, won’t you?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll find your daughter, and we’ll make absolutely sure that this time she completes her journey.” Chen did his best to sound reassuring.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Tang murmured. She pushed her expensive sunglasses to the top of her head and rubbed her eyes; they were rimmed with redness. “I’d better go. I told Hsuen I was going shopping.”

Chen sighed. This was an added complication, but hardly an unfamiliar one. “Is there anything you can do to change your husband’s mind?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve tried talking to Hsuen, but he won’t listen.” Mrs. Tang gave a brittle, bitter smile. “He says it doesn’t make any difference; Pearl’s dead and that’s that. You see, he and Pearl were never very close. He wanted a son, and after I had her, I couldn’t have any more children. So he blamed her, you see. And she was always a — well, she was a lovely, lovely girl, but she could be a little bit difficult. Wilful. She was fifteen, and I used to say to him ‘what do you expect, these days?’ They all go out with boys, and Pearl was very popular, he used to get so angry . . . And I think the eating problem started about then . . .”

Patiently, Chen listened as she talked on, building up a picture of the dead girl. At last Mrs. Tang said, uncertainly, “You’ve been very kind, Detective Inspector. I know you’ll do your best in finding Pearl. I really should go now.”

Chen saw her to the door of the precinct, then made his way slowly to the drinks machine. Sergeant Ma was bending over it, thumping the side.

“Damn machine’s not working again. I — oh.” He stood hastily back as he saw who it was.

“Take your time,” Chen said, politely.

“No no no no no. It’s quite all right. It’s all yours,” Ma said hastily, and made a rapid exit in the direction of the canteen. With a resigned sigh, Chen managed to extract a paper cup of green tea from the machine, and carried it back to his desk. As he turned the corner, he saw that Sergeant Ma had come back and was surreptitiously waving a blessing paper over the machine. Chen was used to this, but some days his colleagues’ aversion to him got him down. He sipped his tasteless tea and contemplated the photograph for a few moments longer, then collected his jacket from the back of his chair and left the precinct.

It was only the beginning of summer, but already the heat had built to oppressive levels. Stepping out onto Jiang Mi Road was like diving into a warm bath. Chen glanced at the pollution meter on the wall of the precinct, but the results were too depressing to take seriously. He walked slowly down towards the harbour, lost in thought. By the time he reached the edge of the typhoon shelter, the weather had grown a little cooler. There was a storm building out over the South China Sea, and the air tasted of lightning and rain. Chen smiled, picturing Inari resting her elbows on the windowsill of the houseboat, avidly waiting for the thunder to break. His wife loved storms. They reminded her of home, she said. The ferry terminal lay a short distance along the quay, and Chen sat down on the bench to wait. Someone had left a newspaper, and he picked it up, beginning idly to read. Singapore was opening yet another franchise, this time along the Myanmar coast. Chen could remember a time when Singapore Three was the last in the franchise line; this new development would be the sixth city. Chen read on, learning that the city would be developed along the same lines as all the others, and he smiled, momentarily imagining another DI Chen sitting on an identical ferry terminal bench, several thousand miles to the south. A distant humming interrupted his thoughts and he looked up to see the wallowing shape of the ferry as it approached the terminal. Fifteen minutes later, Chen stepped off at the opposite dock and into the labyrinth of streets that constituted Zhen Shu Island.

This was a rough area, and Chen walked warily, but no one bothered him. He supposed that he was anonymous enough; a middle aged man with an unremarkable face, wearing unfashionable indigo clothes. But occasionally he would see someone start and shy away, and realise that he, or at least his profession, had been recognised. No one liked policemen, and cops who were in league with Hell were doubly unwelcome. So Chen walked unmolested through the narrow streets of Zhen Shu until he found himself standing in front of Su Lo Ling’s Funeral Parlour.

Unlike the neighbouring shops, the funeral parlour was a magnificent building. The black, faux-marble façade boasted gilded columns on either side of the door, and red lanterns hung from the gable in a gaudy, tasteless display. This was not, Chen reflected, inappropriate, given the number of citizens who met their end in a similar manner. A narrow alleyway ran down one side, leading further into the labyrinth of Zhen Shu. The sign on the door proclaimed that the funeral parlour was shut. Undeterred, Chen kept his finger on the bell until blinds twitched from the shops on either side. Over the insistent jangling of the doorbell, he could hear footsteps hastening down the hall. The door was flung open to reveal a short, stout gentleman in a long red robe.

“What do you want? This is a place of rest, not some kind of — oh.” His eyes widened. Chen never knew how people could tell; it must be something behind his eyes, some inner darkness that revealed his close association with the world beyond the world. When younger, though not usually vain, he had spent hours peering into the mirror, trying to detect what it was that made people so afraid.

“I’m sorry,” the stout man said, in more conciliatory tones. “I didn’t realise.”

Chen displayed his badge. “Franchise police department. Precinct Thirteen. Detective Inspector Chen. Do you mind if I come in? I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

With many protestations of the honour done to the establishment, the stout man ushered Chen inside. The interior of the funeral parlour was as ostentatious as the façade. Chen was shown into a long, mirrored room with a scarlet rug. Carp floated in a wall-length tank at the far end of the room, their reflections drifting to infinity in the multiple mirrors. The stout man clapped his hands, twice, thus summoning a small, wan maid.

“Tea? Green or black?”

“Green. Thank you.”

“Now, Detective Inspector.” The stout man settled himself into a nearby armchair. “I am Su Lo Ling, the proprietor of this establishment. What can we do to help?”

“I understand you handled the funeral arrangements for a ceremony a week ago, for a girl named Pearl Tang. The daughter of someone who needs no introduction from me.”

“Indeed, indeed. So very sad. Such a young woman. Anorexia is a most tragic condition. It just goes to show,” and here Mr Ling shook his head philosophically, “that not even the materially blessed among us may attain true happiness.”

“How very wise. Forgive me for asking such a delicate question, but were there any — difficulties — with the funeral?”

“None whatsoever. You must understand, Detective Inspector, that we are a very old firm. The Lings have been in the funeral business since the seventeenth century, in Guangzhou before my father moved here. Our connections with the relevant authorities are ancient. There are never any irregularities with the paperwork.” A small pause. “Might I ask why you pose such a question?”

“Your establishment does indeed possess a most honourable reputation,” Chen said. “However, I fear that an irregularity — doubtless nothing to do with the manner in which the funeral was handled — has nonetheless occurred.”

“Oh?” There was the faintest flicker of unease in Ling’s face, which Chen noted.

“You see, it appears that the young lady in question did not in fact reach the Celestial Shores. A ghost-photograph of her has been taken, revealing her current whereabouts to be somewhere in the port area of Hell.”

Ling’s mouth sagged open in shock.

“In Hell? But the payments were made, the sacrifices impeccably ordered . . . I don’t understand.”

“Neither does her mother.”

“The poor woman must be distraught.”

“She is naturally concerned that the spirit of her only child is not now reclining among the peach orchards of Heaven, but currently appears to be wandering around a region best described as dubious.”

“I’ll show you the paperwork. I’ll go and get it now.”

Together, Ling and Chen pored over the documents. To Chen’s experienced eyes, everything seemed to be in order: the immigration visa with the Celestial authorities, the docking fees of the ghost-boat, the license of passage across Night. He was intuitively convinced that the explanation for Pearl’s manifestation in the infernal realms could be traced back to Ling, but the parlour owner’s round face was a paradigm of bland concern.

“Well,” Chen said at last. “This is indeed a tragedy, but I can see nothing here that is at all irregular. I realise that you operate a policy of strict confidentiality, but if you should happen to hear anything —”

“Your august ears will be the first to know,” Ling assured him, and with innumerable expressions of mutual gratitude, Chen departed.

He was halfway down the street when the rain began, a torrent of water that hammered the dust of the pavements into mud and plastered Chen’s hair flat against his head in the first minute of its descent. Hastily, he ducked into a doorway to wait out the storm, but he had no sooner taken refuge on the step of a go-down when the door was flung open. Chen turned. A long ebony spine whipped out and wrapped itself tightly around his ankle. Chen was thrown flat on his back and dragged through the doorway. Something tall and dark loomed over him; the hem of a stiff silk coat brushed his face like a gigantic moth. He groped frantically in his inner pocket for his rosary; finding it, he struck out with it like a flail. It connected with a bony carapace, producing a trail of sparks and the odour of scorched silk. There was a hissing curse and his ankle was abruptly released. Struggling to his feet, Chen began to tell the rosary, speaking the Fourteen Unnameable Pronouncements in a swift, urgent voice. His assailant sprang to the far end of the room, and Chen caught the glow of a string of hot coals as the demon produced a rosary of its own. Chen had a head start, but the demon spoke in several voices at once, Pronouncements clicking and snapping from its flexible throat. Chen speeded up and beat the demon by a single syllable. There was a blast of furnace light as a crack opened up and the demon was catapulted back to Hell, leaving a noxious wisp of smoke behind it. Wheezing, Chen stepped clear and the smoke crystallised into dust motes and fell to the floor, where it turned into a swarm of tiny red locusts that raced down the cracks in the floorboards. Chen leaned back against the wall. The rosary was red hot, but he didn’t dare let go. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he limped back through the door of the go-down and out into the street, where the rosary hissed cold in the pelting rain. His ankle was swelling to alarming proportions. Cursing, Chen located his mobile and summoned transport back to the docks and the mainland.

• • • •

Next morning, Chen’s ankle had diminished to its normal state, although it still ached. It was lined with a ring of puncture marks; fortunately, his inoculations were up to date and minimised the effects of whatever diabolical poison the assassin had managed to inject. Despite the pain in his leg, Chen was conscious of a quiet elation. He was on the right track. Things were getting personal. He went to the precinct early and spent some time cross-checking the franchise death register. Eight young women had died in the last four months, all of them from anorexia, all from families in the city’s industrial elite. Chen printed out the list and took it downstairs.

Jian was, as usual, hunched over the computer terminal with his eyes obscured by goggles. In the dim green light of the computer room, the technician looked rather like a large, misshapen carp. Chen tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hello, Chen,” Jian said, without looking up. He was the most imperturbable individual that Chen had ever met; nothing seemed to faze him, not even Chen’s infernal allegiances. They weren’t exactly friends, but if it hadn’t been for the technician, Chen would have been obliged to eat lunch on his own, every day.

“Have you got a moment? I need some help.”

Jian turned. Behind the goggles, his eyes reflected strings of characters from the retinal display.

“Sure. I’m just running some stuff through the mainframe, nothing crucial. What did you want done?”

“Basically, I need to cross-reference some names with the records of a funeral parlour. I need to find out how many match.”

“Okay, that shouldn’t be a problem,” Jian said. What he was about to do was strictly illegal, but Chen knew that the technician wouldn’t be inclined to ask any questions. He gave Jian the name and address of the establishment, and waited for a few minutes while Jian made his way around the byzantine intricacies of the web.

“Got it. Surprisingly well protected, though . . . Do you want these printed off?”

“Thanks.”

Chen pored over the lists, and found an immediate match of some six names. Thanking Jian, and lost in thought, he made his way back to his desk.

It was never easy, placing calls beyond the living realms. Chen waited patiently as the line hissed and crackled, and he held the receiver a short distance from his ear to avoid occasional sparks. Finally the connection came through and a small, suspicious voice said, “Yes?”

“This is Li Chen. Am I speaking to the august personage of Number Seven Hundred and One, Ruin Street?”

“Forgive, forgive,” the voice said, loudly. “You have the wrong number. Goodbye.”

This told Chen that his contact had company. He waited patiently for a further five minutes, when the phone rang.

“You’re still there?” the voice said. “Sorry I took so long.”

“No, no, only a few moments.” Sometimes the time differential between Earth and the infernal regions worked to one’s advantage, Chen reflected. “Listen. I need some help. With a strayed spirit.”

“Oh?” the distant voice was wary. “Who might that be?”

“Her name was Pearl Tang; she died about twelve days ago. She was supposed to enter Heaven, but she went missing en route and now there’s a very strong possibility that she’s in your neighbourhood.”

“Hell’s a big place,” the voice remarked.

“I think she’s somewhere in the port area. I have a photograph.” Chen turned it between his fingers as he spoke. “She’s standing in a doorway of somewhere that looks like a go-down. There’s a sign on a building nearby that reads ‘Miu’s.’ I wondered if you recognised it.”

“Miu’s,” the voice repeated. “Now let me see. No, it’s not remotely familiar. Never heard of it.”

“Ghon Shang, you are the worst liar I have ever met,” Chen said, annoyed. The voice gave a hiss of pain.

“Don’t use my name like that.”

“Well, then, don’t lie to me.”

“Oh, very well. There is a place called Miu’s in the port area. It’s a demon lounge. It’s well known among a certain clientele, but Madam Miu is apparently very discreet. I’m not surprised you’ve never heard of it; it only opened a year or so ago.”

“A certain clientele. What does that mean?”

“People who want — specialised services.”

“What sort of people? And what sort of services?”

“Your kind of people,” Ghon Shang said, with a sniff. “The living. And demons too, sometimes. As for the services — well. Sexual ones, obviously.”

“Are you referring to the ghost trade?” Chen said. A thin shiver of anticipatory distaste ran down his spine.

“What else?”

Chen thought fast. The pieces of this particular puzzle — the straying spirits of a number of well-connected young women, the funeral parlour, the ghost-trade — were adding up to an unpleasantly obvious conclusion. He said, “If Miu’s place specialises in the ghost-trade, then it must have a correlate here. Do you know of such a place? And what’s the address of Miu’s?”

“It’s on Lo Tzu Street. As for its correlate in your city, I do not know. I have not walked in the living lands for a hundred years. And I have no plans to start now,” Ghon Shang said, thinly.

“Try and find out,” Chen said, and hung up. Then he took a fifty-dollar note of Hell money from his wallet and scribbled Ghon Shang’s address on it. Taking his cigarette lighter from his pocket, he set fire to the note, dropping it the ash tray when the sea-green flame burned too close to his fingers. The ash drifted down in a fleeting spiral, winking out into nothingness as the note presumably remanifested into his informant’s greedy claws. Chen took the map transparencies from the desk drawer, shoved aside the clutter of incense coils, papers, and charms from the surface of the desk, and overlaid the two maps on top of one another. Hell changed its configurations rather more often than Earth did, but there were still close correlates between the two worlds: Singapore Three on Earth, and Rhu Zhi Shur in Hell. As he had suspected, the port area of Hell overlapped with the typhoon shelters and canals of northern Fu Lung, including Zhen Shu Island. When he matched the maps carefully together, the location of Miu’s connected with the funeral parlour. Chen picked up the phone.

Finding volunteers for the stakeout was not easy. Law enforcement between the worlds was not a high priority, policy being that since the citizens involved were usually already dead, there was little reason to expend manpower. To Chen’s secret amusement, the only officer available was Sergeant Ma. When informed of the superintendent’s decision, Ma’s round face became blank with dismay.

“Demons? The ghost-trade? No. I won’t do it.”

“Look,” Chen said, trying to be sympathetic. “You won’t be on your own. I’ll be there.”

“With respect, Detective Inspector,” stammered Ma, “that’s part of the problem.”

Eventually, via the promise of massive overtime, Ma was induced to agree. Dressed in shabby clothes, he and Chen made their way to Zhen Shu Island. Obliged to sit next to Chen on the ferry, Ma was already pale when they arrived.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to show up,” Ma said hopefully, three hours later. Chen gave a thin smile.

“It’s early yet. Another hour till midnight.”

They were sitting in a teahouse opposite the funeral parlour, nursing bowls of dragon oolong. The lanterns of the funeral parlour glowed through the dusk.

“Why would anyone want to come to a place like that?” Sergeant Ma wondered out loud.

“A funeral parlour?”

“No. You know. A demon lounge,” Ma whispered.

“Don’t ask me. Some people like breaking taboos.”

“But such taboos . . .”

“They say the clients of the ghost-trade are the connoisseurs,” Chen murmured. “It’s supposed to involve a rather subtle set of perversions.”

Sergeant Ma blanched.

“Who’d want to sleep with a ghost? Or a demon, even worse.”

“Not all demons want suffering and pain,” Chen said, trying to keep his annoyance at Ma’s prejudice out of his voice. “Some of them are almost human. They have the same needs and desires, the same capacity to love —” he broke off, abruptly. “Something’s happening.”

A car was pulling up outside the funeral parlour: a smart black Toyota with mirrored windows.

“Come on,” Chen said.

Together, he and Ma stepped out of the teahouse. As they did so, Chen stumbled heavily, throwing an arm around Ma’s shoulders, and leading him in a weaving line along the street. Beneath his arm, Ma’s muscles were bunched into a tight knot of tension, but he went along with the drunken act nonetheless, and Chen’s respect for him rose. Two men were helping a frail, elderly gentleman out of the car. No one paid any attention to Ma and himself. Chen led the sergeant down an alleyway that ran along the side of the funeral parlour and stopped.

“What’s going on?” hissed Ma.

“He’s going in. Come on. We have to find a way in.”

“What? Why would we want to do that?”

“Because I know who that old man is. Hsuen Tang. Pearl’s father.”

Hastily, he and Ma ran down the alleyway and found themselves at the back of the building. A high wall, topped with razor wire, separated the alley from what was apparently a courtyard. At their feet lay the cover of a drain. Chen looked at Ma.

“Give me a hand.”

Ten distasteful minutes later, they were standing in the courtyard at the back of the building. The rear end of the funeral parlour was considerably less imposing than its façade. A narrow window faced the courtyard. Chen held up his palm.

“It’s guarded. Never mind —” Gritting his teeth, he took a sheathed scalpel from his pocket. Before Sergeant Ma’s horrified gaze, he slashed a character across his palm, then held his bleeding hand up towards the window. The guarding spell hissed into dark steam and nothingness. Sergeant Ma’s eyes were as round as tea bowls. Hoisting himself through the window, Chen landed in a narrow hallway. Checking to see that Ma was still behind him, he slipped down the corridor until they reached the door of a room which Chen estimated to be the main parlour. Muffled voices came from within.

“Wait here,” Chen said. He went swiftly up the stairs and found himself before a row of doors. Each of them flickered with a quiet light and Chen felt the rosary begin to grow hot in his pocket. His skin flushed cold. Each of those doorways was an entrance into Hell. Taking the photograph of Pearl Tang from his pocket, Chen blew on it, then glazed it with a thin smear of his own blood. Balancing the photo on the palm of his hand, he placed a feng shui compass on top of it. The needle swung wildly for a moment, before settling in the direction of one of the doors. Pearl’s spirit was here.

Cautiously, Chen held out his palm to display the still-bleeding wound and released his second spell of the night. Soundlessly, the door swung open. With the rosary wrapped tightly around his knuckles, Chen stepped forward. Even with the protection afforded by the rosary, his skin began to prickle and burn: a sure sign that the room was no longer entirely in the realm of the living. Across the room, a girl lay upon a divan. Her eyes were closed, and she was curled around herself like a cat. Her skin was as white as ash.

“Pearl?” Chen whispered.

She did not stir. As Chen reached the divan, a demon leaped through the door. It was one of the more humanoid of its kind: a pale mantis face and slick black hair, wearing a long silk coat. The coat was marred with an ugly burn, Chen noticed. They had met before. The demon’s taloned fingers grasped a bloody katana. It came forward in a sudden rush, the sword raised above its head. Chen spun down, hitting the floor beneath the arc of the katana and sweeping the demon’s feet from under it. He whipped the rosary across the demon’s wrist, making it howl. Its curiously jointed fingers flew open, releasing the katana. Seizing the sword, Chen drew back for the final blow. But as he did so, a shadow fell across his shoulder.

“Look out!” Ma’s panicky voice came from the doorway. Chen turned in time to see the ghost of Pearl Tang, a skinning knife in her hand, crouched to spring. Her pale gaze was locked on his own throat. He brought the demon’s katana down upon her, splitting the spirit from head to crotch and spilling her essence out across the floor in flakes of fragrant ash. And then he turned in the direction of the demon. The being was sitting on the floor, nursing its wounded wrist, but as Chen stepped in for the kill, it hastily snatched something from an inner pocket of its silk coat. A black badge. The demon said mildly, “Seneschal Zhu Irzh. Vice Division, Fourth District, Hell. Can I have my sword back? When you’re ready, of course.”

• • • •

“Cigarette?” asked the demon, languidly.

“No, thank you. I don’t smoke.” Chen was methodically winding a bandage around his injured hand. The azure lights of the police car outside spun in endless refraction from the mirrored parlour. Inside the car, Ma was still questioning Su Lo Ling.

“Too bad. Helps you relax, you know. How about you?” Courteously, the demon offered the packet of thin black cigarettes to Hsuen Tang, who still sat, head bowed in shame. “No? I’m assuming you don’t smoke, either,” he said to the prisoner, who favoured him with a furious glare from an eye somewhere around the level of her waist. Zhu Irzh lit the cigarette with a touch of his taloned thumb.

“She was Su Lo Ling’s accomplice,” the demon said, nodding in the direction of the prisoner. “In fact, Ling claims that the pimping was her idea. She used her access to her father’s pharmaceutical products to dispatch her friends, knowing that most of them would be brought here for burial — it is the most respected establishment of its kind, after all. Then Su Lo falsified the visa documents so that virtuous girls bound for the Celestial Shores would end up — elsewhere. Working as ghosts in Miu’s brothel, of which the parlour is a counterpart. Human customers would come here to visit the ghost girls under the guise of enquiring at the funeral parlour; people from Hell would come directly. But her dad found out, and poisoned Pearl to protect the family honour. Except that she must have found business to be twice as lucrative from the other side.” He glanced across to where the prisoner was sulkily weaving herself back together again.

“So who sent the ghost photograph to her mother?”

“Some rival operative, maybe. Hell’s a jealous place.” The demon yawned, displaying sharp gilded teeth. “Sorry about assaulting you, by the way. I mistook you for one of Ling’s clients; I was hoping for information. My department’s billing yours for the damage to my coat.”

“So what’s your interest in this?” Chen asked. “Surely not the quest for law and order?”

The demon stubbed the cigarette carefully into the palm of its hand.

“Imperial Majesty, no. I’m sure you know that the Seneschal forces of Hell don’t work in quite the same way as the police force in your world. No, our only concern was that Pearl Tang was operating without a license, so she wasn’t paying any tax. And taxes,” said the demon, with a beguiling smile, “are the only certainty in this life or out of it. Since not even death’s reliable any more.”

© 2000 by Liz Williams.

Originally published in Interzone.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Liz Williams is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in Glastonbury, England, where she is co-director of a witchcraft supply business. She has been published by Bantam Spectra (US) and Tor Macmillan (UK), also Night Shade Press, and appears regularly in Asimov’s and other magazines. She is the secretary of the Milford SF Writers’ Workshop, and also teaches creative writing. Her first short story collection, The Banquet of the Lords of Night, is also published by Night Shade Press, and her second, A Glass of Shadow, is published by New Con Press. Her novel Banner of Souls has been nominated for the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, along with 3 previous novels, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award. Liz writes a regular CIF column for the Guardian.

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

Saltwater Railroad

Andrea Hairston | 14,800 words

Editor’s Note: Instead of two original fantasy short stories this month, we have for you a single fantasy novelette by Andrea Hairston (“Saltwater Railroad”), which is about twice the length of a regular Lightspeed story. So, although you are getting three stories instead of four this month, this novelette is the length of two full-length short stories, so you’re still getting the same amount of fiction. We hope you enjoy this minor deviation from our usual offerings, and rest assured we will return to our regularly scheduled programming next month. —eds.

Miz Delia’s Island was protected by deadly reefs on the Georgia/Florida side and nine hundred feet of jagged cliffs on the other. Indians called it Thunder Rock, a place where the wind and sea played rough and tumble. Spaniards named it Ghost Reef because of whirlpools, deadly fog, and wailing drowned folk who wouldn’t rest. English sailors claimed that Delia was a vengeful slave haint, howling demon talk and luring men to a bloody death. What ship’s captain would risk his crew or his own hide on quicksand beaches and breakneck ledges? The few adventurers stupid enough to land and lucky enough to get back off in one piece warned everybody to steer clear. Anybody who knew the waters gave the Island a wide berth.

Miz Delia was grateful for the tall tales. Born in the last century, after the Colonies took their freedom from Britain, she’d grown craggy and wild like her rock refuge. She had a gap in her front teeth, droopy eyes, and high cheekbones holding up tired skin. Always dressed in black, she blended into the gloomy ledges day and night. Rainbow was her first star child. Delia was going through the change, hearing mostly Spirit talk the night high waves tossed Rainbow against the reefs. Truth be told, many a body got banged senseless in the whirlpools at Wolf Wedge and drowned, but not Rainbow. She clawed her way to the surface, spit seaweed, and shrieked like a demon.

Delia was on the other side of the Island. She tossed and fussed in a feather bed, lost in a dream she’d had every night for a month:

A warm breeze turned to mist. Delia floated in fog above straw hat roofs tucked in a mountainside. She marveled at meteors streaking across a black velvet sky. Below Delia, a young woman (her mother?) ran along rocky cliffs at the edge of a Dogon village back in Africa. Delia’s mother waved to the flashes of light. Her laughter was brighter than her colorful headwrap. A man, flimsy as mist, dark as soot, with wing marks on his forehead, chased behind Delia’s mother. Tracking the meteors, the couple stumbled over a broken rabbit mask. Delia’s mother gripped the man so he didn’t fall over the edge on account of raffia ears. They laughed, then gasped in wonder as a fat-bellied boat with blazing lanterns and spidery sails (or were they wings?) flew down from the sky on a river of fog.

“Delia! Delia!” Spirits shouted.

Delia woke with a start, wheezing on mist drifting in her cabin window. A gurgling stream gnawed at the rocks by her door. Warm winds off the Georgia coast rustled the straw hat roof.

“Sky is falling,” the Spirits said. “Bits of light coming down!”

“Hush now.” Delia covered her ears. “I’m awake. I can’t hear dream talk.”

“Stars falling into the sea, right now,” Spirits insisted. “Gifts, Delia. See?”

The fat boat with spider-web wings rode the mist right past her nose. Delia leapt up as it sailed off into the night. She stuck her head out the cabin window and gasped. A shower of meteors dissolved in the dark, spraying colorful sparks before hitting water. Tears filled Delia’s eyes.

• • • •

The whole island poured from doorways, tents, and caves to watch the bright-as-daylight show. Men and women scaled jagged rocks, climbing to the top of the Island. Not a sail in sight or a wayward canoe, just a ghostly full moon floating at the horizon. Delia sauntered along the bluffs, in good spirits for the first time in a storm of days. A black wrap with a few glass beads crowned her head. She peered through a battered spyglass at a fiery meteor heading her way. A piercing yelp almost made her drop the precious instrument. At the sound of flailing and choking, Delia yelled, “Castaway!” and headed down to the reefs. She raced over scruffy bushes and across wooden planks, then clambered up Wolf Wedge.

In the light of the rising moon, Rainbow was a blur, struggling in a whirl of water. A long cylindrical tube, coated with pitch and lashed to her back, helped her stay afloat for a breath or two, yet she was at the end of her strength. A wave tore through the reefs and smacked her against a rock wall. She scrambled for a hold on the slick stone face, but slipped. Delia dropped to her belly and extended a hand. In vain. Rainbow got sucked into white foam. Delia hooked a foot in a sandy crevice and leaned down to the water. She stretched her hands into the furious bubbles and waited.

Spirits wouldn’t tell Delia about a gift from the stars only to snatch it away from her.

Another wave pushed Rainbow back to the surface. Delia gripped her arms up to the elbow. As the wave receded, she hauled Rainbow up the rock face and deposited her in a spit of sand. Islanders behind them cheered. Rainbow spewed out water and gulped air. She wore a boy’s breeches, a ragged cotton shirt, and a gentleman’s vest. No seaweed stink, she smelled like damp earth after a storm. Her hands matched the night sky, dark velvet flecked with colored crystals. A few folks muttered about spies and pirates. Delia hushed that talk, saying:

“Blessings on us!” She hugged the girl to her bosom. “A gift from the stars.” She hauled the shaky young woman down from Wolf Wedge to the curious crowd that had gathered. “My Spirits have spoken of you.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Delia,” Red Quincy said. A handsome, muscular fellow, he shook mist from curly black hair and scowled. Red Quincy was smart as a whip and hungry for freedom, for power. He commanded almost as much respect as Delia. The crowd parted as he stomped forward. Red in the faint beard on his cheek glowed in the light of a lantern he carried. A reckless fellow, he liked tempting fate. “I’m a learned man, you know.” Didn’t he remind Delia every day? “From the century of lights.”

“Le Siècle des lumières . . .” Rainbow said.

Delia sucked her teeth. “What do you and your ne’er-do-wells know about the stars, Quincy?”

“More than you,” Quincy replied.

“That’ll be the day.” Delia turned to Rainbow. “Back in Africa, my mother believed in watery star-beings, traveling the skies in in great fat boats.”

Quincy snorted. “Probably slave ships come to steal us away.”

Delia talked over him. “My father wasn’t sure about the boats,” she dabbed at blood on Rainbow’s cheeks, “Still he never argued about star-beings coming to our world, as best, as best I . . .”

“As best you can remember?” Quincy turned to his ne’er-do-wells. “Why should we listen to Spirits talking to you in dreams?”

“Well, Quincy,” Delia smirked, “Spirits be talking to me when I’m awake, too.”

He rolled his eyes and held the lantern to Rainbow’s face. “Who are you?” he growled. “What do you want here?”

“What’s wrong with you?” Delia shoved Quincy. “We all washed up on this Island.”

“Yeah, but I’m looking out,” Quincy said.

Delia felt heat rising to her head, anger she might not be able to contain. “Since when are you a Scout?”

“Since I see danger that somebody else want to call a gift from the stars.”

John Oaks, a formidable fifty-year old Seminole man, stepped between Delia and Quincy. Rainbow eyed the rifle slung over his back and trembled. John also wore a beaded medicine pouch and the bandolier bag of a worthy man. He was deep water. John patted Delia’s shoulder. She touched her cheeks to his fingers, calm again.

“Hear what I know.” John had a ringing tenor voice. “Scouts say nothing from the Mainland or anywhere else has broken the surface of the sea for days.”

Delia nodded. Island Scouts were always on guard for spies on their freedom or fresh supplies and castaways floating ashore. Who would dare lie about this? If nobody was sailing by, if no ship had broken up on the reefs, where else could Rainbow have come from except the stars? A body didn’t swim all that way from Mainland docks and live to tell the tale.

“Put out that light, Quincy,” Delia said.

“You don’t know who all is watching,” John added.

Too much light at the shore would turn slave gossip and Indian tall tales into a search party of paddy-rollers — slave patrollers — hunting pirate Maroons.

“Might as well say, come get us, we’re right here.” Papa Moonbeam, a black man with a bright bald head, took a swig from a silver flask. A former river pirate, he was leader of the Scouts with John Oaks. “Why waste lamp oil on a full moon?”

Grumbling, Quincy doused the light. “Any desperate soul washing up here could betray the Island for fatback and pancakes!”

Delia snorted at this and turned to Rainbow. “Where you from?”

“Les Etoiles,” Rainbow said.

Delia didn’t know French but Rainbow looked like she could have come from anywhere. “You running to somewhere?”

Rainbow shivered. Her teeth rattled as water dripped from tight ringlets. Melody, a sturdy white woman with a fat baby sleeping on her back, offered a blanket. Her hair was liquid silver in the moonlight. A young woman, she’d gone grey before her time.

“I was hoping you were somebody else,” Melody said, “my sweet one, my Fran —”

“Fran is lost, most likely,” Papa Moonbeam said softly. “It’s a wide sea.”

Melody stepped close to Rainbow, waving the blanket. “Did you see anybody else out there?”

Rainbow clutched the watertight tube to her chest, like someone was about to wrest it from her night-sky fingers. Delia smelled terror on her.

“Ain’t nobody goin’ steal that from you.” Delia wrung out the girl’s wavy hair and wrapped her in Melody’s scratchy blanket. “You talk English?”

“He chopped my hands off.” Rainbow held up shimmery fingers. “I found these Ethiopian ones or they found me, saved me.” Islanders exchanged glances. Rainbow looked lost and older than Granny Peaches. “You have to believe me.”

Delia grimaced. “Who chopped your hands?”

“Preacher.” A convulsion spread through her body. “No one ever believes me —”

“I do, dear, I do.” Delia rubbed warmth into her.

“I almost drowned. These Ethiopian hands saved me again.”

Delia noted skinny arms and ribs. “How long since you ate or drank?”

Rainbow shrugged at Islanders gawking, their stomachs grumbling in sympathy. All manner of people had run to the Island. Miz Delia’s Maroons were the first. Later, old river pirates pulled ashore to rest and then gave up thieving. Pregnant white girls came in canoes, mountain girls following the whispered tales of Seminole women they’d met in the swamps. Fran ventured out last week with a free Seminole woman, her slave husband, and their children. They braved the waves in rowboats. Seeing that world of difference in the dark would be hard for Rainbow. Delia could tell her true Island lore in the morning.

“We ought to just throw her back in the sea,” Red Quincy shouted. He was spitting angry, not because of a stranger floating in. He was always mad about not being in charge. Only a few white folks were lighter than he was. One grandmother was Seminole, the other Igbo from West Africa, however both his granddaddies were from Scotland. He could read, too: books, numbers, sea charts. He deserved to be king or president. “Are you a Mainland spy?”

Rainbow stuttered nonsense in French. Questions shouted and suspicions grumbled made her shrink around her tube.

“Hush that mean talk,” John said. “Not much she can do to us.”

Moonbeam poured a few drops from his silver flask into a waterskin. Rainbow snatched it from him and drank quickly.

“Slow now,” Moonbeam said. “Drink each drop so you can taste the wetness.”

Rainbow choked a moment then did as she was told, savoring each mouthful.

“How you called?” Melody said. “What’s your name?”

“Some fool slave name, don’t need that following you around,” Moonbeam said.

Miz Delia stroked her night-sky hands and said the next word that filled her mouth, “Rainbow.”

Eyes wide, Rainbow dropped the waterskin and nodded at Delia who had guessed the truth on the first try.

Moonbeam snatched the waterskin up. “Well, you’re welcome,” he muttered.

“Jenny Garlic wouldn’t want me to call you nothing stinky,” Delia said.

“That’s right.” Jenny grinned. She possessed all her teeth and was older than Delia. She had a Muscogee Creek Indian name, too. That was just for her Bird Clan folk. Delia knew Jenny’s clan name, but wasn’t telling. Jenny had an open face and, despite a whimsical European feathered hat and lacy gloves, a tough demeanor. She and her clan were Island government. Her two sons and three daughters organized everything and everybody, a confederation of disparate souls, almost one hundred the last time anybody counted. Jenny was always consulted when somebody was about to join the Islanders. Tasting the jittery mood of the folks gathered round them, she clapped lace-covered hands. “Rainbow belongs to us and herself now.” Strings of beads around her waist and neck jingled as she repeated these words in each direction.

Murmurs of agreement rippled out to sea.

Red Quincy rolled his eyes. “Delia is ready to take in any old body who washes ashore. Is that good sense?”

“You got something better to do?” Papa Moonbeam said.

“It’s high time we left this Island,” Quincy said.

“We can’t. Not yet,” Delia replied.

“You don’t want to leave.” Quincy was up in Delia’s face. “Admit it.”

“Where would we go?” Delia put her hands on her hips. “You got a map to freedom?”

Quincy backed away. “This is your prison, not mine.”

Islanders gasped. Moonbeam muttered something to John about cheeky bustards. Ne’er-do-wells stood at Quincy’s back, egging him on. Delia was stone, staring right in his eyes. She refused to let anyone see that his words had hit their mark. Melody’s baby woke with a cry and banged her mother’s neck.

“I’m not dying on this Island,” Quincy said, “not to pay for your bloody crimes.” He took off with his crew. They scaled a steep overhang and disappeared into a cave.

“Don’t mind him,” Melody said to Rainbow, trying to bounce her baby quiet.

Rattled, Delia hugged herself. “Red Quincy is so busy studying danger —”

“He doesn’t know how to study anything else,” John said.

“Can you blame him?” Moonbeam took a swig from his flask.

“Yes,” Melody said.

Rainbow eyed her up and down before handing over the blanket. “I’ve heard tell of white women running off with Indian men . . . Never met one.”

“I didn’t run to the Island for a man,” Melody said.

Moonbeam slapped his thigh and hooted. Melody joined him. Tension in the crowd broke. Even the baby stopped fussing and gurgled.

“You’re a jolly crew.” Rainbow frowned.

Moonbeam tucked his flask away. “You gotta laugh, otherwise —”

“Rainbow swam the reefs. What I tell you all?” Melody looked out to sea. The waves were silver in the moonlight, like her hair. “My Fran is out there somewhere. Alive.”

“Well, then maybe she’ll get here.” Delia never argued with hope. Nobody else on the Island did either, not even behind her back.

A wave exploded against the rocks. Startled, Rainbow almost fell over. Delia walked her onto a wooden pathway away from the water. Dark cliffs loomed ahead. Mist ghosted in the crevices.

“Where are we going?” Rainbow struggled to keep Delia’s swift pace.

“To my cabin,” Delia said, then whispered, “I knew I’d get one more chance.”

“Only one?” Jenny said. She could hear underneath things. “For what?”

Rainbow halted. “Mainlanders say Madame Delia’s a turncoat Negro who got rich on her own people’s blood.”

Delia kept walking. “Paddy-rollers got rich, not me.”

“I’m nobody’s last chance.” Rainbow jumped from the wooden walkway and marched across the sand.

Delia reached for her. “No! Wait!”

Moonbeam snatched a child close before the boy could follow Rainbow.

Jenny’s youngest son, William, dashed across the sand. “Not that way,” he said. His mischievous dimples and sultry eyes made Rainbow pause. He took her arm.

“So I’m not really free here.” She struggled in his grip.

“You walk danger that way,” William said. “Quicksand.”

John threw a heavy rock that landed beside Rainbow and sank. Sand in front of her drifted into itself. Rainbow froze. The Maroons’ first night on the Island, a man pulled Delia and Granny Peaches from deadly waves. He got sucked to kingdom just beyond Rainbow’s feet.

“So many lost . . .” Delia closed her eyes and pushed memories from her mind.

“Come,” William said. Clutching her hand, he deftly navigated the shifting sand and drew her back to the wooden walkway.

“You are bold, Monsieur,” Rainbow said, but stepped in his footsteps.

“I would know the secret of hands that have caught falling stars.” William bounded onto the planks and pulled Rainbow up after him. “Delia has the best bed on the Island. I sleep in dirt.” He talked softly in Rainbow’s ear with a bass drum voice that tickled bones and made hearts rumble. “You are lucky, Rainbow Wave-rider.”

“Lucky? Non.” Rainbow slipped free of him. “Why do you call me Wave-rider?”

Caught off guard, William stumbled and stuttered in Muscogee. Twilight, his sister and Jenny’s eldest daughter, poked him in the ribs. She had a rifle slung over her shoulder. She was a great shot in high winds or shifting shadows, the best shot on the Island in fact. A thick braid trailed down her back. Waist beads jingled as she sniggered. “Maybe sweet William has met somebody he can’t charm out of her good sense.”

“A second somebody,” Melody said.

William smirked and stood tall. “We all need rest, in whatever bed.” He gave a sign, and Islanders disappeared into caves above the beach.

“Are you the headman then?” Rainbow asked.

“Me?” William smiled at Delia, John, Moonbeam, and Jenny. “A mico or even heniha? No.”

As he dashed up the cliffs, Melody sang about falling stars, Rainbows, and watery beings living above the sky. William’s big bass boomed harmony in the caves. Moonbeam leaned his forehead against Delia’s and hugged her. She lingered in his spicy embrace a second before pulling away. She handed John the battered spyglass.

“We could use five of these.” John squeezed her hand and stroked her cheek.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Delia brushed her lips across John’s fingers. “I’ll be fine. Both of you, go on.”

John, Moonbeam, Twilight, and the other Scouts blended back into darkness. Taking up cold, damp posts, they set their minds on alert for the long night ahead.

“Is he your man?” Rainbow asked, squinting after them.

“Who?” Delia replied.

“The quiet one.”

“John Oaks is only quiet with strangers.”

“The rascal then?”

“Papa Moonbeam love hisself more than any woman.”

“Do you love anybody?”

“What kind of question is that?” Delia pulled seashells from Rainbow’s hair. “You love anybody?”

Rainbow chewed on this. A large meteor streaked over the Island’s highest peak and dropped toward the sea. “Jump from these cliffs and you break yourself.”

Delia grunted. “You ready to follow me now?” She didn’t wait for a response, just stepped under a dark overhang and hurried up an even darker corridor.

Rainbow stumbled behind her. “How can you see where we’re going?”

• • • •

Delia’s cabin was at the mouth of a cave. The stream running under her bedroom and gnawing rocks outside her kitchen splashed their feet before they stepped inside. Delia didn’t light a lamp. Darkness was her bosom friend. Rainbow dropped wet and fully dressed onto the feather bed. It smelled of lavender and goose fat. Rainbow set the cylindrical tube made from somebody’s hide on a chair beside the bed and fell asleep. She curled against Delia’s belly, snoring and talking French. The tube’s pitch smell tickled Delia’s nose. She reached for it, but her hand hovered in the air.

“Delia! Delia! What do you see?” Spirits said.

Poisonous snakes wiggled out of the tube followed by jeweled necklaces, silk cloth covered in gold embroidery, and rolls of parchment with long paragraphs and a curlicue signature.

Delia pulled her hand back. “Important papers that could make a body free . . .” Delia’s eyes fluttered shut, too, and she fell into a dream:

A sleek sailing ship from the Mainland plowed rough seas. Its majestic white sails billowed in gusts of wind. Lanterns glowed in cabin windows. The ship’s enormous steering wheel spun. Frantic sailors, as white as ghosts, raced along the ship’s deck. They stumbled as the deck rocked and tilted. A brown-skinned, hazel-eyed sailor with nappy hair and a rope around his waist tumbled from a high mast overboard. He wore bright colors, unlike the ghost-pale sailors. Flailing in high waves, the sailor smashed against a rock reef. Water battered him. His shriek was cut short. He floated, face down, lifeless, a burst of color banging the rocks.

• • • •

The next day, sunlight poured into the cabin window onto patchwork blankets. Delia bustled around fixing breakfast. She didn’t let bad dreams about lost souls curdle her stomach. This morning sparkled with promise. Rainbow slept deeply, hugging feather pillows. Delia bumped her shoulder. Rainbow woke with a start, flinched away from Delia, and fell out the bed.

Delia chuckled. “I’m not goin’ eat you.”

Rainbow didn’t look too sure. “You look different in the light.”

“You too.”

From wrists to fingertips, Rainbow’s Ethiopian hands were many shades darker than her creamy brown arms and face. She had a watery hazel eye and a brown one. Tiny breasts were offset by wide hips. Her hair, wavy on top and kinky at the back, glowed reddish under a dark brown. She scrambled up and surveyed Delia’s collection of stones, dried flowers, and damaged things. Bent wheels, rusty rigging, broken bottles, addled pendulum clocks, and other ruined machines decorated walls and filled corners.

“Everybody be collecting something.” Delia scooped cornbread from a skillet. “Quincy gather slave papers and bounty notices to torment hisself. That’s not for me. Jenny Garlic gathers hats, boots, and gloves. She’ll give you some if you ask her.”

Rainbow held up a battered music box.

“Melody, that mountain girl with the chubby-cheeked baby gave me that.” Delia ladled beans. “She hunt music things: string, gut, gourds, and hollow tubes.”

Rainbow twisted the key and after a moment set the box to her ear. “Ça ne marche pas. It doesn’t work.”

“Music’s in there.” Delia shook a pan so hot grease ran over fried eggs. “I feel it.”

Irritated, Rainbow dropped the box and picked up a dented silver flask.

“Papa Moonbeam stomped that.” Delia smiled. “It was filled with poison brew.”

“Poison makes you smile?”

“Moonbeam makes me smile.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes just like Quincy and held up two broken arrows.

“John Oaks missed his target that day, twice. Then he broke those arrows.”

“Indians are supposed to be good with bows.”

Delia chuckled. “Well, John and Moonbeam tell those stories better than I do.”

“Everyone on this Island is always laughing.”

“You don’t laugh much?” Delia set plates of food on the rough wooden table.

Rainbow dropped into a chair with three good legs and a busted one. Two fried eggs were yellow eyes, gawking at her from a mound of beans. She stuffed cornbread in her mouth and then attacked the beans and eggs. The chair wobbled and the table did, too.

Delia’s stomach twisted with Rainbow’s hunger. “I haven’t been laughing or talking much lately, except with my Spirits. Can you believe it?”

Rainbow shook her head, no. Grease dribbled from her chin onto empty plates.

Delia piled on more beans, eggs, and cornbread. “Who are your people? Colored folks? Indians?”

Rainbow’s fork hovered at her mouth. “Uhm . . . You all now, right?”

“Ain’t always been good to my people.” She was too old for beating round the bush.

“I don’t know if I’ve been good to mine either.”

“Fair warning.”

Rainbow wolfed her second mound of food. “Where’d you get beans and eggs and cornbread?”

“Trading and whatnot.” The door blew open and Delia jumped up, not sure what to reveal about the Island. She walked into the sea breeze. “How’d you end up paddling in the drink?”

Rainbow joined her in the doorway. The driftwood cabin was tucked into a sandy depression at the mouth of several caves. A rock wall blocked an ocean view. Flowers dotted sheer cliffs. “Nothing but rocks to see from here.”

“Cabin by the caves suits me fine.”

Rainbow stroked a curved beam protruding from the cabin. “What’s this?”

“A sky hook.” Delia scampered along sharp ridges. She gathered flowers and herbs from spits of dirt. “Some folks say I come into the world in South Carolina and got sold south. Other folks say I was born in a cave hut in West Africa near an altar with a hook to snag rainclouds. I was brought to the New World, much younger than you, however old you are. I bet you’re older than you look. Help me get some water.”

Rainbow scratched her neck and grabbed a bucket.

Delia heated the storm water they hauled and filled a basin. “You need cleaning up.”

Rainbow shrank away from her. “No.”

“It’ll make you feel better.” Delia opened a bottle of sweet oil and let her smell. “You ain’t used to somebody making you feel good, are you?”

“Nobody nice, except —” Rainbow closed her eyes. “I can’t remember.” A lie.

While Rainbow soaked in hot water, Delia washed her clothes and hung them to dry in the warm sea breeze. Rainbow drifted off in the steamy water, muttering about a man of soot and mist till Delia scrubbed her skin with crushed seashells. Rainbow startled and clamped her lips on secrets.

“Memories are precious.” Delia combed her tangled hair. “I ain’t always been right in the head. Sorting out early memories is a trick. My mother claim, back in Africa, Dogon people resisted Islam, holding to their own beliefs, and ended up slaves to Christians in America.” She patiently unraveled a snarl at Rainbow’s neck. “That’s one of the last things she told me, before old man Briggs sold her to a Creek Indian planter.”

Rainbow peered in Delia’s eyes. “What other wisdom did your mother speak?”

“After they cut off my leg —” Rainbow stiffened but Delia pretended not to notice. She rubbed sweet oil on Rainbow’s Ethiopian hands. “Midwife burned the wound shut, yet said I was lost to this world. Sweating and raving, dying, yet I swear, my mother brought me another leg and talked to me in my father’s Dogon tongue: Secrets swallow other secrets! Your father knows buried treasures. Praise the men and they will remember to thank you, appreciate the elders and they will recognize what you have to offer.”

Rainbow gasped. “Stop, I . . .”

“You got to know who we are, what kind of place the Island is before you decide.”

“Who says I’m deciding anything?” Rainbow hopped out the tub and clutched her tube.

Delia hugged her in a soft blanket. “What they tell you about us?”

“Mainlanders say Miz Delia’s a ghost crook in the river, and if a captain floats his boat around your bend, he’s lost. They say you’re a fallen star, a demon woman, a trick on everybody.”

“What do you think?”

Rainbow peered out the window. “Are you the only one up here? Where does everyone else live?”

“You better at asking questions than answering them.”

“You too.”

Delia handed her breeches, shirt, and vest, still warm from the sun. “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

Rainbow pulled on her clothes and made no promises, but Delia did. She decided to talk truth not only to her Spirits, but to Rainbow, too, decided to tell her everything. Not right off, yet soon. Every Islander had hidden sorrows and joys. Nobody pried, and if a body did share some great secret, folks were good at keeping it secret, so good, in fact, that Mainlanders sailed right by their refuge and didn’t see a thing, didn’t even suspect they were there. Until now, Delia’s people were invisible, a secret swallowed in a secret.

John stood in the doorway, quiet as smoke, his gun resting on the floor. How long had he been there? Rainbow swallowed a shriek.

“What you spooking us like that for?” Delia said, her heart racing at the sight of him, and not from fear. Iron grey streaked his black hair. Laugh lines glistened with sweat. His woodsy smell was tinged with urgency.

“Twilight took the Scout canoe and slipped out before dawn,” John said. “She found that lost gal. Fran? William is guiding them in through the reefs.”

Brave Twilight found Fran clinging to a rock, down to her last waterskin. Paddy-rollers had shot the mountain gal in the leg. They wanted her alive for information and pleasure, too. Fran almost gave up hope. But the fool paddy-rollers smashed their boat on the reefs and got sucked down a whirlpool. Bloody-faced, they pleaded with Fran to help, moaning about the fortune she could share. A Frenchman, Monsieur Blaise, was offering two thousand dollars for Miz Delia, alive or dead.

“For that much money, a man might turn his own self in!” Moonbeam said.

Not Fran. A plump, determined white woman with strong arms, she clutched her rock and watched the paddy-rollers drown. Melody was thrilled to hold Fran to her heart. However, Quincy was worried that Mainland men would come hunting their women. Delia knew better. Mainlanders would come for renegades. They’d come to crush the threat on their waters. They’d come for the Island’s treasure. Freedom was priceless. Rather than worry about how she was going to get all her people off the Island and where they would go when they left, Delia sent everybody to prepare a feast. Two castaways making their way to the Island was cause for celebration.

• • • •

Later that night, music rumbled underground, an eerie sound. No telling who might be listening, so Delia was glad they sounded like hellions and haints luring poor sailors to their deaths. She led Rainbow through winding dark corridors to a high ceilinged cave lit with lanterns. Rainbow gaped at water dripping from a stalactite straw into a stone bucket at the edge of a spring-fed pool. Reflected lights swirled in dark water. Cave walls echoed with raucous voices and music. Dazzled, Rainbow stroked a frothy white stalagmite growing on a fat yellow boulder. Delia slipped away to a perch in the dark where she could enjoy the goings-on unseen. She was terrible company these last few months. Why spoil a celebration?

Granny Peaches, the oldest islander, wore flowers in her hair and a robe that must have come from Africa. She told a story in a language Delia didn’t know. Igbo? A crowd of folks in animal masks danced her words. Lanterns illuminated a feast. Shrimp, vegetables, sweetcakes, and peaches were set out on smooth rocks. Children in fanciful dress — Delia couldn’t tell what they were supposed to be — crammed honey confections into their mouths.

Rainbow stuffed peaches and cornbread in her pocket. Red Quincy smirked behind her back, but Delia remembered when he first washed up on the Island. Quincy ate so much, he was throwing up all the time. Now he nibbled a chicken leg like a dainty man and flirted with Liberty, a young black woman with scars on her shoulders, neck, and across her face. Liberty stood by a fat stalagmite, a colorful patch over a blind eye, looking for William no doubt. Quincy bowed and offered his hand. Liberty took it, even if Quincy was just asking to make William jealous. They danced with folks in animal masks and wild hats from Jenny’s collection. Rainbow took the tube from her back and sat on a boulder.

Twilight dropped down next to her. She dismantled her rifle as Islanders cavorted around them. In a blink, the rifle was in pieces. “I don’t know these dances. Do you?” Twilight said.

Rainbow shrugged. The gun fascinated her more than fancy footwork. She touched one piece gingerly.

Twilight blew through the barrel, oiled, and rubbed it. “Can you shoot?”

Rainbow shook her head. “They say Seminole women are as savage as the men.”

Delia sucked her teeth at Mainland nonsense.

Twilight chuckled, more forgiving than Delia. “I’m Muscogee. Creek. Fusualgi, Bird Clan. John is Seminole. Wind Clan.” She started putting the rifle back together.

Rainbow murmured French, hugging her tube for dear life. “How do I get back to Delia’s?”

“These caves are a maze. Treacherous.”

A man in a rabbit mask with seaweed fur and feather ears materialized from the shadows. He somersaulted right over Rainbow’s head. Spooked, she fell off the boulder. Her tube rolled toward the pool. Rainbow scrambled to grab it. Rabbit danced off, teasing folks in his path. Twilight swallowed a giggle.

“People are treacherous, not rocks.” Rainbow brushed sand from her clean breeches.

“When we first arrived, my brother William and I . . . we would have fallen. Over there.” Twilight pointed to a ledge across the dark pool.

Delia shivered thinking on the Maroons’ first cold night. She’d clutched the lip of that ledge . . . Loose rock cascaded around her as Twilight climbed up her clothes. Shrieks and thuds resounded from below. John gripped Twilight and passed her on to Moonbeam. Beside Delia, William lost his hold. Delia clutched his arm.

“Many people were ready to give up, go back,” Twilight said. “Planters might work a body to death, but they fed you first.”

“Delia saved you, too?” Rainbow almost sounded bitter.

“We saved each other, when we could. Every feast, we celebrate that.”

Rainbow dug her toes in crumbling rocks. “Quincy speaks of Delia’s crimes.”

“Delia says the crime is belonging to people who own you, body and soul.”

Rufus Freedman, a skinny young black man, one of Quincy’s ne’er-do-wells, snuck behind Twilight. He eyed Rainbow and put a finger to his lips, hoping for a surprise attack. Delia snickered. Twilight had to know the love-sick fool was breathing over her.

“You all won’t survive here,” Rainbow said, angry suddenly. “Quincy —”

“— usually says one true thing,” Twilight said, “but —”

“Mainlanders will come eventually —”

“To steal our freedom.”

“It’s a fight you can’t win. Jamais.”

“I just hope I can do what I need to.” Twilight’s rifle was back together.

Rainbow slung the tube over her back. “I never met anybody like you. I —”

“Every day is a surprise,” Twilight said.

Rainbow scoffed.

“That’s what my mother always says,” Twilight insisted.

“And you believe her still?”

Twilight aimed the rifle at shadows on the rock wall. Rufus danced between her and Rainbow. Twilight lowered the gun. Rufus dropped to one knee, hand outstretched. His eyes flashed lantern light. One of Quincy’s foolish ne’er-do-wells, still, Rufus was the only man brave enough to ask Twilight to dance. He tugged her hand from the gun and brushed his lips across her fingers.

“Warriors dance, too,” he said.

Twilight slipped from his grasp. Nobody was too sure if she was looking for a man. She slung the rifle over her back and headed for a dim corridor. “I have watch.”

“You have watch every night.” Rufus ached to reach for her again. Instead he watched her disappear, then strode to an Islander with painted driftwood in her hair.

“We’re on watch day and night,” Delia murmured, her good mood fading.

Checking first for nosy spies, Rainbow crammed food from her pockets into her mouth and scampered away from the pool. Fran sat on cushions with her leg propped up. Her cheeks were bright red, her bandages a clean white. She held Melody’s baby. The child squeezed Fran’s nose and gurgled. Melody was tipsy on frothy beer coming from a barrel that John leaned against. Delia couldn’t make out what Melody was singing. Islanders clapped and hooted with her. Rainbow strode past them, peering down corridors.

“Where are you going?” John asked.

“Nowhere,” she replied.

“Better to go somewhere. Don’t you think —”

Shouts and squeals from Islanders at the water’s edge interrupted John. Musicians halted midphrase. Children dropped their mouths open. John reached for his rifle. Rainbow pushed through the excited crowd to the shore. Delia stood up to see over the bobbing heads. Rabbit was running on the water! His feet splashed the dark surface like he was slapping the head of drum. The musicians captured his rhythm. In the middle of the pool, Rabbit jumped high and spun. The crowd hooted, and Rabbit headed for the mouth of a corridor on the opposite shore. With one last leap, he reached solid ground. His audience responded with thunderous cheers. Rabbit even lifted Delia from her glum mood. She had to cheer, too. Anybody else trying that stunt would have drowned. Rabbit danced with shadows on the cave wall.

“Does William have watch?” Rainbow gazed across the dark water.

“William is not a Scout,” John said, “but —”

“He’s good for a laugh,” Quincy said.

“A show-off coward is what you usually say.” Liberty poked Quincy. “You’re jealous.”

“William likes fresh meat,” Quincy said. “I prefer a smoky taste. Freedom in my mouth.”

“Say that again.” Liberty kissed his cheek.

Rainbow dashed into dark water, too quick for folks trying to grab her. Following Rabbit’s path, she danced across slippery boulders hidden just under the surface. Banjos captured her swagger as she mimicked Rabbit’s whirling dance in the middle of the pool. The final gap from rock to shore loomed. Rainbow gulped breath and flew through the air. Her heel splashed into water. She stumbled a bit. Rabbit caught her and pulled her onto solid ground. The audience cheered again. Delia cheered, too, and the kink in her neck let go.

Rainbow was breathless. “I haven’t seen you all day.”

William took off the rabbit. “Were you looking for me?”

“Not really.”

“Island women would warn you against me. Liberty says I’m a scoundrel.”

“Everybody would warn you against me.”

Rainbow snatched the rabbit and put it on. The mask fit! Delia gasped so loud, folks looked around for her hiding place. She shrank further into the dark. Rainbow cavorted with the shadows on the cave wall. William grinned at moves as good as his. He stepped very close, dancing with her.

“You’re a dangerous woman, Rainbow Wave-rider.”

Rainbow spun to a halt. William got caught off guard for a second time by this child of the stars and almost fell. Rainbow caught him and they slid to the ground gracefully. He laughed. Rainbow took off the mask and frowned. Laughter grated on her.

“Show me the way to Delia’s?” she said, about to be mad.

William rose slowly. “I know many ways.”

She jumped up. “Mais oui. I bet you are never lost.”

William tilted his head at her sass. He liked a good challenge. “Come.”

They headed down a treacherous corridor. Romancing her, William was taking the long way. Delia darted up the short cut and slipped out into a cool night. An almost full moon rode the sky. Delia danced to faint music, but was wheezing too much, so she had to stop. The fat ship with spider-web wings flew on the fog into her cabin window. Delia raced in the door. The ship hovered over her altar to broken things.

“Delia. Delia. Find your own way,” Spirits said.

“How?” Delia stepped close to the fluttering sail/wings.

“Secrets swallowed in secrets,” Spirits said and the ship dissolved.

“Don’t you have anything better to say?”

Truth be told, Delia didn’t want an answer. Quincy was right. She dreaded leaving the Island. Exhausted, asleep standing up, Delia fell in her bed and into a dream:

A few pallets crowded together on the dirt in a slave hut in Georgia. Delia thrashed under a bloody blanket. She was delirious, muttering. A single window opened onto a starry sky. Two indistinct figures hovered outside, holding a lantern and peering in. Looming over Delia was her mother, now fifty and wearing raggedy clothes. Her mother’s headwrap was brightly colored. The chain under her chin tinkled with coins as she said, “Remember me. Forgive yourself.” Delia reached up and her mother blurred into mist. Under the blanket, an Ethiopian leg with night-sky skin sparkled. Delia touched her leg, amazed.

• • • •

Delia thrashed on top of the colorful quilts, still half-tangled in the dream. She wheezed and scratched her Ethiopian leg. William and Rainbow stood over her, holding a lantern. William, his face a map of worry, shook Delia’s shoulder. Rainbow reached for Delia’s Ethiopian leg, astounded.

Delia covered herself quickly. “You two were in my dream, staring in the window.”

William and Rainbow exchanged glances.

“This Island is no dream!” Rainbow said. “Nightmare maybe —”

“Look,” William held up the rabbit mask. “I brought this back to you.”

Delia waved it away. “A gift from a different dream.” She gripped their arms and stood up. “Overseer knocked me in the head, stomped my leg. After my mother brought me an Ethiopian leg, that man just worked me harder. Soft in the head, everybody on the plantation took advantage. Liars, trying to scramble my mind. I thought I could buy freedom for me, for my son . . .” Blood stained the quilts. She snatched them up. “Then Spirits came, gave me clear visions.” She tossed the quilts out the window.

Rainbow watched her like a mountain lion eyeing a goat.

“Rabbit made it across the water tonight.” William stroked the feather ears.

“Moi aussi,” Rainbow said. “I also made it.”

“You walking on water don’t surprise me really,” Delia said. “You swam the reefs.”

William put the mask on the table. “We came here through the stone forest caves, passing the beasts carved by dripping water, yet I couldn’t make Rainbow Wave-rider smile or slip into a story mood.”

“Why do I need to be grinning all the time?” Rainbow scowled at him.

“Keep the mask,” Delia said. “It’s unbroken.”

William picked it back up and headed outside. “Good night. Don’t rile each other.”

“I don’t have any smiles left in me,” Rainbow declared.

Delia stuck her head out the window. Rainbow followed suit. Outside, William had vanished. As they leaned further out, Rabbit jumped from behind a barrel and spooked them both. They hollered as he carried on, leaping around the ridge, an acrobatic clown. Delia finally laughed as he disappeared into fog. Rainbow closed her eyes.

“No smiles, huh?” Delia had seen this gal walk on water and do a rabbit dance. Delia didn’t let anybody argue with hope on the Island, not even herself. “You just wait and see.”

That night lying next to Rainbow on clean quilts, Delia resisted sleep, resisted dreams. Maybe she got up and sleepwalked on ground fog. Her feet were cold and wet. Spirits hummed in her ears:

Delia strolled the fog to a sailing ship. The brown-skinned, hazel-eyed sailor floated, facedown in the sea, lifeless, a burst of color banging the rocks. Delia tugged a rope, trying to haul him in. He got no closer. Was this haint her son Andrew? Delia tumbled below deck to a cramped cell. She spied an old African, flimsy as mist, dark as soot, with wing marks on his forehead. Perhaps he was the man running the cliffs with her mother back in Africa, but grown old, a Spirit now. The mist man hugged Rainbow and stroked her cheek while she laughed and cried.

• • • •

For the next few weeks Delia wrestled with hope. She walked the Island talking with Rainbow, who always lashed the tube to her back and stuffed cornbread in one pocket and a peach in another. Delia didn’t show Rainbow the hidden valley, just the inhospitable perimeter. An occasional ship passed in the distance. Nothing got close to the Island. After many dry days, a storm came out of nowhere and chased Delia and Rainbow into a cave mouth at the top of the Island. They watched lightning strike a tall mast. The ship caught fire, burning bright yellow against a black sea and sky. The ruined vessel broke up on the reefs. No survivors washed ashore. Islanders whispered about lost souls. Delia didn’t want to hear about lost souls, didn’t want to think on her son Andrew.

Still, Delia took Rainbow down to the beach. They hurried over planks past Wolf Wedge to gather driftwood, drift-anything that might have floated their way from the shipwreck. Islanders poked through murky debris. Delia waded into the waves. Rainbow hesitated at the shore.

“Red Quincy say giant whirlpools in the sea churn barrels and charred sails our way, not water-spirits.” Delia plucked a spyglass from scummy water.

Melody and Fran cheered. Fran’s leg had healed well, just a slight limp now. She had Melody’s baby slung on her back. Rainbow counted nine women with babies.

“Miz Delia, what you want always floats right to you,” Jenny Garlic shouted. “I have to dig and slog!”

“Ain’t that good for you?” Delia shouted back.

William set a bedraggled hat on Jenny’s bare head. Water dribbled down purple feathers as she scooped wet sand to reveal a wooden box.

“What good is this junk?” Quincy and his ne’er-do-wells ran the rocks with three canoes on their backs. Strapping, muscular free men in the prime of life should have been a grand sight. Quincy smirking at Jenny’s hat made Delia’s blood boil. While the sea was calm, he planned to finish mapping dangerous waters. His crew would launch at a gush of water from an underground stream. Storm runoff would carry them past the worst reefs. Despite irritation, Delia, Jenny, and Granny Peaches spoke prayers for their safe return in Indian and African tongues.

“Savage gods don’t have any power,” Rainbow said. “It’s worthless superstition to worship anything but our Lord Jesus.”

Melody and Fran giggled, nose to nose, lanky hair mingling. Quincy snorted.

William jumped in a Scout canoe. He knew the waters better than anybody except Twilight. “Say a good word for us to your god, then.”

Rainbow sputtered. “I don’t know if Quincy wants a prayer from the likes of me.”

“Quincy never thank the clouds for falling down on us or the fish for feeding us.” Delia dried her spyglass and stuffed it in a canvas bag. “He got me pegged for a fool talking to haints. He’s a learned man and say water ain’t got no spirit. Water just is. But I know a thing or two. Being take all your spirit power and when you done run through that power, why, you stop being or actually you’re ready to be something else. It’s like climbing a mountain. At the summit you’re ready to roll down to somewhere new with everything the mountain got to give you. Being takes a lot of work! You ever try to be water?” Delia and everybody except Rainbow smiled at the thought. “Being water and your own self, too, that requires much spirit power.”

“I don’t think I understand you,” Rainbow said.

“Crazy talk, huh,” Delia said.

Jenny pried open her box. She clapped her hands together, thrilled.

“Food? More hats?” Delia said.

“No.” Jenny held up a scroll. “Maps!”

Rainbow stiffened. “What’s that noise? You hear that?”

A hound dog howled and was answered by a high-pitched yap. Rainbow dashed to Wolf Wedge. Everybody followed her. Scouts even materialized from the caves. A black and white dog, hardly more than a pup, scrambled from a few lashed-together boards before they shattered on the jagged rocks. She-dog jumped into Rainbow’s arms and wagged her whole body.

“Somebody found you,” Jenny said as the pup licked Rainbow’s cheeks.

Delia rubbed the pup’s tummy. “What you say?”

“How do, Captain.” Rainbow smiled for the first time.

“If William could see you.” Delia smiled, too.

“Whoever heard of naming a bitch Captain?” Melody asked.

“We’ve been watching those boards.” John Oaks stood atop a boulder, a long rifle in his hand. “Couldn’t make out who was aboard.”

Papa Moonbeam stood by John. He was toting a rifle, too. “You know this bitch?”

Rainbow shrugged. Captain chewed at her cylinder.

“One other dog on the Island.” Twilight jumped down to Rainbow. “Mangy ole thing is very lonely.”

Delia chuckled. “That hound dog got hisself lost in the swamps hunting Indians and runaways. Fool critter didn’t know what side he was on and warned Moonbeam of a gator creeping up.”

“‘Bout to chomp my good right foot.” Moonbeam stomped that foot.

“Hound was too mangy to eat,” John said. “So —”

“Moonbeam and John let him join their Scouts.” Delia liked telling this story. “They fed him good rabbit stew and he been warning the Scouts of ambush ever since.”

“What do you call him?” Rainbow asked.

“Swamp.” Moonbeam set his gun down.

Rainbow nodded. “Captain would love to meet Mr. Swamp.”

Swamp trotted in, snuffling and wagging a stringy tail. Rainbow set the squirming pup down. Captain and Swamp were fast friends at first sight.

“Swamp howled the night you came,” John said.

“Red Quincy’s willing to bet his life you’re a Mainland spy,” Twilight muttered.

“Or scouting for river pirates,” Moonbeam added.

Rainbow didn’t offer a better story. She shivered and scratched both dogs.

“Captain’s come home,” Jenny declared. “Good thing. Wind’s gathering orange clouds.” She pulled violet lace gloves onto Rainbow’s Ethiopian hands. A line of pearls went from the middle finger to the wrist.

Rainbow was too stunned to protest. “I don’t have anything to give you.”

“You’ll think of something.” Twilight yawned and shook weary limbs. She liked sleeping in sunlight, when nobody could get the jump on her, with love-sick Rufus standing watch. “One more hour . . .”

Everybody went back to scouting and collecting. Rainbow kept gaping at the gloves, terror on her breath, a lock on her heart. Delia still had time. Who’d raid the Island in this weather? She’d get Rainbow to open up after storm season.

• • • •

Tempests roaring up from the West Indies kept folks busy. In between deluges and gale winds, Delia and Rainbow collected what blew in. William helped them carry a tangle of busted furniture and ropes to the cabin one night. Delia was cranky. She cursed and punched knots, trying to rescue a rocker from a rope snarl. She wasn’t sleeping, too busy dream-walking and ciphering Spirit talk. That made her very cranky.

“I hate storm season, too.” William paced in front of her.

Outside Rainbow opened up empty rain barrels.

“I usually enjoy the lightning and the fury,” Delia said.

William tossed a scroll on the table. “Our freedom map is almost done, thanks to my mother finding those maps.” He marched back and forth along the altar of broken things.

“Stop!” Delia muttered. “You like to stomp a hole in my floor, making me dizzy.”

He danced in place. “Quincy says he’s going out the first dry day. For supplies.”

“He’s a free man.”

“Quincy risks us all.”

Delia hacked the rocker free. She held up the snarl of rope. “Well, I’ve seen the end of myself twisting in the wind . . .”

That got William to hold still. “What are you saying?”

“Last night, I was back on old man Briggs’s plantation.” Delia waved the rope about. She took a step and she was:

 — charging toward a grove of Georgia pines. The brown-skinned, hazel-eyed sailor spit a gag from his mouth. He was dressed in bloody rags. A rope circled his waist and wrists. Delia raced through dark underbrush, running so hard her lungs were on fire. A shadowy overseer climbed a ladder and threw the rope over a sturdy bough. The sailor flailed. Delia plowed through bushes and people cowering. The sailor went limp. Delia hugged his legs. She choked.

“It’s Andrew, my Andrew, dying again, on my word!” Delia banged the rope against her chest. She couldn’t get a breath. Before the Island, when she was a settlers’ spy, she told paddy-rollers where to find folks. On her word, they’d dragged runaways, free blacks, and renegade Indians from swamp hideaways.

William gripped her shoulders and talked Muscogee or some comfort Delia didn’t understand. She hurled the rope at Rainbow coming in the door. Rainbow froze. Captain scurried under the bed. Delia slapped William’s hands away. She wheezed and coughed blood. Rainbow marched to the altar of broken things, grabbed the music box, and thrust it in Delia’s face. Delia scowled but took the box. Music filled the cabin: violin, drums, and a gourd banjo. William and Rainbow jumped. They heard the music, too. Captain came out from under the bed. Delia dropped down by the window.

“I ain’t good company,” she said and sang the melancholy tune.

“Let’s go out. While the sea roars,” Rainbow said.

“Now? In a canoe?” William shook his head. “The wind could blow us away.”

“No! Just to dance in the rain.”

Rainbow pulled him outside. They got drenched immediately. He set an angry pace. Rainbow was breathless keeping up. Captain danced, too. Delia watched from the window. She unscrolled the freedom map and stroked the drawing.

“Delia! Delia! What do you see?” Spirits whispered.

A blue-green dragon flew off the paper followed by lush fruits and flowers, fanciful musical instruments, and colorful birds.

“The ships are coming. Are you ready?” Spirits whispered.

“I don’t know,” Delia replied.

A blast of wind lifted the map. It almost flew out the window. Delia gripped an edge. The map fluttered like a sail.

Outside William whispered in Rainbow’s ear. “Are you sure Delia’s all right?”

“She needed to be with herself. You needed to dance up a storm.” Rainbow pressed her hands against William’s damp cheeks. Ethiopian fingers flashed a bit of light. He closed his eyes and shivered at the sparks. She drew her hands down his throat to his chest. He took her face in his hands, tracing her features. He leaned close, pressing his body against hers.

“Are you trying to charm me out of my good sense, like Twilight said?” she said.

“Never out of your good sense,” he replied.

The wind knocked them into a puddle and they spit out mud. Captain licked their faces, wagging her butt. Rainbow smiled for a second time.

“Captain makes you smile,” William said, hauling Rainbow up.

“Jealous?”

“Maybe.”

The rain was gentle now, hardly more than mist. Rainbow kissed William on the mouth. He responded with passion. After a moment she pulled away. “Pardon, a French kiss . . .”

He touched his lips to her fingers. “Tell me the secrets of hands that catch stars.”

“I can’t, I just . . . You don’t know . . .” Rainbow hugged herself, shuddering.

William backed away from her.

“Don’t go,” she reached for him. “Show me where everyone else lives.”

“They live in my heart. And I have shown you that.”

“People don’t talk like you do. They don’t act like this. This Island isn’t on any map. It seems like a good life, but it’s doomed.”

William disappeared into a cave. Rainbow swallowed a scream and whirled in fingers of fog. Delia rolled the freedom map back up and set it beside Rainbow’s cylinder. If they could just make it through storm season . . .

• • • •

Hot, muggy weather turned everybody mean-spirited. The men bristled and bellowed. The women itched and snapped. Fights brewed below the surface. River pirates would have shot and sliced each other — they couldn’t always keep today together for tomorrow. Red Quincy usually claimed women helped him hold his temper. He wasn’t saying that anymore. Island women were as frayed as the men. Twilight aimed a gun at Quincy and her brothers to stop them fighting over trading and raiding. After a shouting match with John and Moonbeam, Quincy persuaded Jenny’s oldest son, Patrick, to go off with his crew of ne’er-do-wells. Patrick was as smart and brave as Quincy but didn’t know it. He looked up to the older, wilder man. Quincy didn’t ask William, saying he needed brave men, not cowards or clowns. Without William guiding them, Quincy’s three canoes almost smashed up on the rocks twice. That didn’t stop them paddling out of sight. John and Moonbeam headed out in a canoe, too, leaving Swamp tied up and yelping. Twilight jumped in their canoe at the last moment. She was the best shot, no contest, no argument.

Three days later, Delia sat by her window in the broken rocking chair. It howled as she moved back and forth. Islanders poured from the caves carrying pork, pickles, beans, a beer barrel, and peaches. Live chickens scurried beside them. Rufus Freedman led a baby goat on a rope. William, in the rabbit mask, jumped from the roof. Delia stopped rocking and marched outside. Quincy, Patrick, and the ne’er-do-wells had returned from their raid on the docks. They were loaded down with ammunition, guns, and two more canoes. Delia smelled blood on them. They’d been drinking, too. Quincy and Patrick bragged on each other and gave their booty away right in front of her door! The goat butted William. He tumbled in the dirt and the goat scampered off. Rufus chased after it. Children tittered. William took off the mask.

“Where’d they get all this?” Rainbow bit into a loaf of fresh bread.

“Where does Quincy get anything?” Delia stormed back into her cabin.

Rainbow broke a hunk of orange cheese from a fat wheel and waved it to William. He smacked the offering out of her hand.

“War for cheese?” he said.

“It’s always over cheese.” Quincy stuffed sausage in his mouth. “Let’s celebrate. Everybody should wear a mask.”

William threw the mask at Rainbow’s feet and dashed up a cliff.

Quincy turned to the mountain gals. “Sing something, Melody,”

Melody was reluctant. Her baby cooed and banged her neck. Children begged and pleaded. Adults looked uncertain. Two men shoved each other, a fight brewing.

Jenny Garlic scanned the crowd. “Yes, sing. It’ll sweeten the mood.”

Fran squeezed her hand. Melody sighed and sang:

My true love went a-roving

Across a narrow sea

My true love went a-roaming

She wanted to live free

They set hounds to her feet

They set fire to her breath

She refused to cry defeat

She refused to see death

My true love went a-roving

Across a narrow sea

My true love went a-roaming

She wanted to live free

Rainbow picked up the rabbit mask. She clutched it, shaking her head.

• • • •

John, Moonbeam, and Twilight had been gone for six days. When Jenny tried to worry out loud, Delia hushed her with crazy talk about being air, and being lightning, too. Rainbow and Captain sat with Delia at Wolf Wedge waiting through each long night. The sun was about to go down and Islanders whispered and worried. What if they never came back? What if Mainlanders had captured them? William slumped on one of Delia’s rain barrels, near the open window. Rainbow fussed with her cylinder and didn’t notice him. Wailing like a demon, Delia tramped around her cabin, trying not to see death or cry defeat. Her black dress and shawl were mud-splattered and knotted up. Her headwrap was unraveling. She couldn’t get herself to put on clean clothes. In the distance Swamp howled. When Captain joined in, Rainbow couldn’t stand the racket.

“You want to see what’s in my tube?” she said.

William peeked in the window and gasped as:

Poisonous snakes wiggled out of the tube followed by jeweled necklaces, silk cloth covered in gold embroidery, and rolls of parchment with long paragraphs and a curlicue signature.

Delia swallowed a wail and wiped at tears. “Sure. What is it?”

“A painting.” Rainbow opened the tube.

Delia held Captain’s muzzle. “Hush, hound. Rainbow got a secret to share.”

Both Captain and Swamp quieted down.

Rainbow unfurled a canvas. “Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian Healing a Christian with the Leg of a Dead Ethiopian.”

Delia groaned at the title and the image: Two pale, haloed Saints held wands, books, and medicine boxes. They attached the lower leg of a black man to the knee of a white man lying in a bed of lush blankets and pillows. On the floor a dead black man lay contorted in raggedy clothes. Blood dribbled from his unmoored knee.

“I don’t need to see that,” Delia said, pointing to the cabin floor:

The mist man lay contorted in raggedy clothes. Blood dribbled from his unmoored knee. He moaned. The wings on his forehead shimmered.

Outside William squelched a gasp at this vision and rubbed his eyes. Delia turned away. Rainbow didn’t see the mist man. Her eyes were fixed on the painting.

“The patron saints of the Medici.” Rainbow stroked their wands and finery.

“Put it away,” Delia said.

“This is a miracle like my hands.”

“You cut up some poor body for your hands?”

Rainbow rolled up the painting. “So, you agree with the preacher.” She stuffed it in the tube.

Delia turned around. The floor had a blood-red stain. “Who is this preacher?”

“He told me I couldn’t be a miracle.” Rainbow hurled the tube at the altar of broken things. Clocks and wheels tumbled to the ground. Glass shattered.

Delia took out the bottle of sweet oil. “This is from my mother.” She unscrewed the bottle. “I’ve been saving it all these years.”

“Your mother made it?”

“Yes, I think she gave me this bottle before old man Briggs sold her away. My belly was big with my first son.”

“Andrew. I heard tales about him from Mainlanders.”

“Yes, Andrew,” Delia stuttered. Andrew floated in front of her, dead in the water. Delia poured sweet oil onto Rainbow’s palms and then her own. “Tell me what happened to you. Tell me your miracle.” Delia slowly rubbed sparkling fingers.

“The preacher cut off my hands for stealing. Cornbread from the stove. A peach. The cook told him. He set a torch to the stumps to stop the bleeding. I passed out.”

“I’ve seen it done.”

William jumped off the barrel and stormed away. He halted as Rainbow spoke.

“Afterward, that preacher locked me up in a root cellar for his pleasure, for — for days. I don’t know how long. I fell into a feverish dream — an old African man —”

“— flimsy as mist, dark as soot. A bird scar on his scalp,” Delia said.

“You knew him, too? What’s his name? Where is he from? He saved me!”

Fog drifted in the window, under the doorsill, and made Delia dizzy. “They say my father had a scar that was wings on his forehead, but I don’t remember . . .”

“The old African touched my stumps and took the pain. When I woke up —”

“You had hands again, Ethiopian ones.”

“Yes.” Rainbow’s hand’s sparkled. She was dying to tell her story.

Delia massaged her palm. “So go on, tell the rest.”

“The preacher was too afraid to touch me after that, said I was a demon. So, he sold me to Monsieur Blaise who traded in miracles and spells. That Frenchman claimed Les Etoiles — the stars — were watching me. He locked me in a cell on a sailing ship. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was huddled in the corner, shivering in rags . . .”

“And the old African came again.” Delia shivered, lost in the story with Rainbow.

“Oui. He stroked my cheek and put a finger to his lips. He walked to the door and beckoned me over. I crept close, and he disappeared right through the door! I touched the lock and it clicked open. Monsieur Blaise and the ship’s captain were arguing over demon hands and miracles. I snuck down the hall to Monsieur Blaise’s room and grabbed breeches, shirt, a vest. When I saw the painting, I snatched it, too, and ran out on deck, but the waves were so high.”

“You almost lost your nerve.” A spray of salt water swirled around Delia.

Rainbow gaped at this. “Monsieur Blaise had told everybody that Ethiopian hands would lead me to Miz Delia and her renegade Maroons. Then I’d have to decide. I could turn you in for the reward, be a rich lady, be free, or I could join you. So, I jumped in the water and swam here.”

Delia shook off the ocean spray. “That sounds impossible. A tall tale, like my Island or an Underground Railroad.” She traded her knotted shawl for one flecked with sparkling thread. “Either you believe in miracles or you don’t. Which is it?”

Rather than answer, Rainbow marched outside and confronted William. “Thief. You stole a story from me.” William was ready to run. She blocked him. “I’ve caught you, red-handed.”

He feinted to one side and then another, but she was as agile as he was. He threw up his hands. “I can’t give the story back to you.”

“You should have thought of that.” She cornered him between a barrel and the sky hook.

“You knew I was listening —”

“Yeah. I could smell you. Sea breeze in your hair, ashes on your shirt . . .”

William halted. “You wanted me to hear.”

Rainbow sputtered. “What do I know of you?”

“What do you want to know?”

“Are you a coward?” She asked a question he didn’t expect.

William pulled a knife from his belt. “When I was younger, I tried to shoot a man. A spy who’d come out ahead of a war party. He stood as far away from me as you do now. I missed his chest and grazed his arm. His empty gun fell into a stream.”

Rainbow stepped close and pressed against the knife. Their mingled breath.

“This man was a great warrior, a leader in battle. I should have stabbed him in the heart, yet I walked away. My brother is still angry. I warned my people and we escaped. We’ve been running ever since.”

“There is nowhere to run.”

“Is that reason for betrayal?”

She gripped his knife and the blade cut into her skin. He winced.

“My name is Chufi,” he said.

“Rabbit, a wild, restless spirit,” she said.

“Ahh, so, you speak our language.”

“Un peu. A little.”

He pulled the knife away from her. Blood trickled down the blade. “I don’t want to run anymore, but I don’t want to stab anyone.”

“Then you are doomed.”

William threw the knife at her feet and dashed into a cave. Rainbow picked it up, cursing under her breath.

“William is impatient.” Delia stepped outside with Captain. “We’ve both been waiting for you to decide.”

Rainbow pointed the knife at Delia. Her hand trembled. “You’re crazy to do that.”

“That’s what everybody be telling me. My whole life.”

“No matter what lie you promise. It is impossible. You can’t win.”

“You sounding like Quincy.” Delia pushed past Rainbow and the knife. “Come to Wolf Wedge. We have to guide the Scouts in.”

• • • •

Storm clouds blew in and covered evening stars. The sea was black ripples with licks of white foam. Delia, Rainbow, and Captain tramped across the driftwood planks.

“Stay with us, Captain! Quicksand.” Wincing, Rainbow tied a cloth around Captain’s neck and held her close. Blood from her hand spotted the cloth. The fat ship with blazing lanterns and spidery sail/wings floated at the horizon. Rainbow gasped, then pretended she didn’t see.

Delia didn’t mind. “As best I can remember . . . My father told me star-beings were glad to sail down and meet us, glad to hear our stories and songs, glad to share wisdom.”

“And you believe this still?” Rainbow said.

The ship dissolved into mist.

Delia climbed the highest rock at Wolf Wedge. Water churned below her. Rainbow hesitated. “Come on! We’ll have to be light.”

Rainbow and Captain scrambled up beside Delia, who hiked her skirt to expose her legs. One was darker than another and smooth as polished stone. It spit sparks into the sky and water as Delia talked on.

“When others sailed off into the night sky, one star-being wasn’t ready to let go of us. This last star-being felt so sad losing precious family. Pulled down and pulled up, the star-being broke into many, many pieces and scattered around the world.”

“Shooting stars,” Rainbow said.

“My parents collected what they could. Star-being parts can heal a body —

“After so much wandering, that ole star-being is anxious to get back together and go home. That’s how we found each other.” A shadow bobbed on the water. Delia took a slow breath and pointed. “Look who’s paddling to shore.”

Captain barked a greeting.

Delia shouted, “I am light!” and blazed brighter.

“Incroyable!” Rainbow stretched her hands out. She was colorful sparks to Delia’s flash of silver.

The Scout canoe rode the light, cutting across whirlpools, gliding over rocks right to them. John and Moonbeam had cuts, bruises, and torn clothes. Delia kissed bloody knuckles and purple cheeks. Twilight was unscathed. Delia kissed her eyes. Moonbeam brandished a Mainland paper and held a finger to his lips. Captain quieted down. John and Moonbeam stumbled away from the shore whispering with Delia. Rainbow slogged along with Twilight, who kept turning back toward the Mainland. There was nothing to see but deep darkness. Even the sky was blank.

Rainbow hugged Twilight to her heart. “Did you have to shoot someone? Let me carry this.” She took the rifle and waterskins. “I . . . I missed you.”

Twilight smiled. They slipped into the caves.

• • • •

Islanders milled in front of Delia’s, whispering about a trip to Savannah or St. Augustine. Jenny hugged Twilight as folks squeezed inside. Rainbow retreated into a corner. William stalked away from her. Delia handed out steaming bowls of food.

“Mainlanders know Miz Delia’s Island isn’t just a Ghost Reef or a Thunder Rock,” John said.

“You can read all about us.” Moonbeam waved the Savannah newspaper. An old pirate had taught him to read.

“Strutting on the Mainland, Patrick, bragging like pirates?” Jenny cut her eyes at her oldest son and Red Quincy.

“Raiding instead of trading!” William said.

“They stole us. It’s only right we get something back.” Quincy snatched the paper from Moonbeam and read with a grin.

“We defend ourselves.” Patrick glowered at everyone. “Who can argue with that?”

“You speak truth, but did you ask us when you put the Island at risk?” Twilight cleaned her rifle, not looking at her brother. Patrick’s glower was wasted on her.

“Did Mainlanders ask anybody? They steal who can’t fight back.” Quincy stood over Twilight. “Murder us, too.”

“You want to be like them?” John asked.

“Like them? Of course we’re like them,” Quincy said.

“Where’s all your big talk, Red Sticks, law-menders, keeping Indian ways?” Moonbeam said.

“People aren’t different, the way you think,” Quincy shouted.

“Some people are just weak,” Patrick said.

“Weak?” Sweet William stood chest to chest with his older brother. Everybody got silent.

Jenny strode between her sons. “Weak is fighting each other.”

“Who is stupid enough to believe they can outsmart a rattlesnake or gator in the middle of swamp water?” Delia paced as Islanders chewed and slurped. She handed out seconds. Scraps were tossed to the dogs. “Go on home now, I need quiet.”

Nobody moved.

“We have to do something,” John said.

“Or else we’re lost.” Jenny’s middle daughters spoke up together. They hardly ever talked to a crowd.

“What’ll we do?” Melody’s face flushed hot red. She had a music-mountain voice to cut through the grumbling. “What, I say?”

“My husband contracted me out to a coal pit,” Fran said. “Ain’t going back to that.” She and Melody loved each other more than sisters, and, like all the Islanders, loved freedom more than anything.

“We’re too few to fight and win,” Moonbeam said.

“So we cower in the shadows and wait to die?” Quincy shouted.

“Go on now,” Delia said. “Give me quiet.”

“They’re not coming for us tonight.” Twilight hoisted her gun.

“They’d die on the reefs trying.” William marched out with Twilight.

“We knew the Island wasn’t forever.” Moonbeam kissed Delia’s forehead and followed them.

“Pirates are restless, not suited to living on a rock. Nobody is.” John stroked Delia’s hand, then pulled Patrick along.

“We have nowhere to go,” Patrick grumbled.

“There must be somewhere,” Quincy said.

“They own the world,” Rainbow declared.

“Best find nowhere then,” Delia replied.

“Go!” Jenny shoved a defiant Quincy out before he made more stupid man-talk.

Rainbow and Captain were the last to leave.

Delia shut the door. She soaked her swollen feet in a bowl of hot seawater. Tears spilled out as steam rose up, then she had to laugh at her affection for deadly rocks, winding caves, and spits of dirt. She swung through all her feelings every ten minutes, it seemed. With the change on her, she was grateful not living too close to anybody.

“Delia! Delia! What you say?” Spirits said.

“Truth,” she replied, “I’m not ready to say good-bye to my Island.”

“Delia, can you find a way?”

“Hush. Give me quiet.”

Delia dozed in the rocking chair by the fireplace, feet in steaming water:

Shooting stars flashed across the sky. The moon was a sliver at the horizon about to rise over the Island. The hazel-eyed sailor with nappy hair and bright colorful clothing stood at the peak facing the sea. It was Andrew, Delia’s son. Delia’s mother ran along the cliffs, an old woman now. When she reached Andrew, she was little more than mist. Andrew lifted his arms like a bird getting ready to take off. He jumped nine hundred feet to the sea. When he hit the water, he shattered like glass into a thousand pieces.

• • • •

“Jump from these cliffs and you break yourself.”

Delia woke with a start. She knocked the bowl over. Water splashed onto Rainbow and Captain as they came in.

“What did you say?” Delia asked.

“I almost killed myself on those ledges,” Rainbow replied.

“Your hands light the way.” Delia splashed saltwater at her. “You been snooping through the caves, trying to find a passageway? William is the perfect guide.”

“Did you steal this china bowl from the Mainland?” Rainbow bent down and stroked a golden butterfly soaring through green sky toward flower medallions.

“No,” Delia replied softly. “My Island is no pirate haven.”

“So what is it then?” Rainbow shouted. Captain scurried under her, ears cocked. “What’s beyond the caves? What’s everybody up to?”

“Living their lives.” Delia dried her feet slowly.

“Some people keep bad secrets.”

Delia stood up, straight and fierce. She circled Rainbow. “Are you willing to sacrifice everybody?”

“Pirates and thieves.” Rainbow parroted Mainlanders. “Why should I join runaway savages?”

“We’re Run-to’s, living free, keeping hope.”

Rainbow laughed, a bitter sound.

“Now you’re laughing. What’s funny?” Delia said.

“Run-to’s?” Rainbow scoffed. “No such thing!”

“Spirits tell me to look for a place nobody else wanted. They say I got to make a desolate place home. So me and my people come to the Island, running, not away like paddy-rollers say, but running to a better life. But you, you sent signals to the Mainlanders, didn’t you?” Delia gripped Rainbow’s Ethiopian hands.

“How do you know I did anything?”

“Hands as bright as a torch, waving signs . . .” Delia sighed. “Have you decided?”

“You Islanders make good talk, sweet lies.” Rainbow broke free. “But how do I know if you’re good people or bad people? Liars everywhere, promising . . .”

“Freedom. That’s what Monsieur Blaise offered you, isn’t it?”

Rainbow sank into a battered chair. The leg snapped and spilled her on the ground. Cursing, she jumped up.

Delia grabbed the two broken arrows from her altar. Her hands shook as she thrust them in Rainbow’s face. “I cut my Andrew down. I buried my own son, and I wanted to die . . . But I couldn’t . . .” She trembled as:

One arrow, then another, whooshed through a tangle of Spanish moss.

“John aimed to miss.” Rainbow grabbed Delia’s shoulder, holding her still. “Why?”

“On the run from militia, John was ready to sit down in a swamp and be gator-bait. Hearing me rave at falling stars, he almost sent two arrows through my traitor’s heart.” Delia was still. “But he said: I’ve loved only a few women; killing one ain’t right. John helped me wash off the blood . . . love . . .”

“Love can’t save anybody.” Rainbow held up the dented silver flask. “You needed a ship so you poisoned Papa Moonbeam.”

Delia tapped the arrows against the flask. “That river pirate offered me a boat in exchange for a night in his bed.”

“Liar.”

“He only swallowed half the poison. When he came to his senses, rice-farming, cotton-picking Negroes were making a mess of his rigging. Moonbeam couldn’t stand that, so he and his first mate, Sooty Felix, joined us. Moonbeam said: You owe me a night of sweet loving!”

“He’s a grinning fool. You love John.” Rainbow dropped the flask and groaned.

Delia set the arrows in the altar. “Are you ready to join us?”

“It’s too late.”

“You got Quincy spooked. He’s trying to sneak in my house.”

Quincy hung in the shadowy doorway, surprised she knew he was there. He stepped in. Captain eyed him with a low growl. “Wasn’t sure I was welcome.”

Delia grunted and emptied the china bowl out a window.

“I’ve seen you spitting blood, Miz Delia,” Quincy murmured. “If sickness claims you . . . When you’re gone, what then?”

Delia threw the newspaper at him. “A picture of you with a big reward underneath! Got folks full of anger and heat hunting you, hunting us.”

Quincy batted at dry herbs hanging by the stove. “Nothing really grows on this Island except stingy weeds and poison roots.”

“You’re getting mud everywhere.”

“I’m right!”

“So? You’ve ruined us.”

“What about her?” He pointed at Rainbow.

Rainbow got in Quincy’s face. “Raiding Mainlanders, you forced Delia’s hand.”

“Mainlanders were always going to find us,” Quincy spoke softly, holding his temper.

Rainbow tossed the newspaper in the fire. It burned bright.

“Years building this haven,” Delia said. “You two will knock us down in a few days.”

“Why didn’t you stop him?” Rainbow gulped. “Or why not just let me drown?”

A spark caught in the muddy black shawl balled up by the fireplace. Delia stomped it, wheezing and coughing. “Both of you, get out of my sight.”

Quincy trudged out the door.

“Mainlanders are coming. Tomorrow or the next day . . .” Rainbow said. “You think you can get everybody away?”

“Maybe.” Delia squinted at the cylinder. “What are you going to do?”

Rainbow chewed up words, spewed gibber-jabber, and rubbed Ethiopian hands across her face.

“It doesn’t matter,” Delia said. “You still have time. I got a plan.”

• • • •

Three days later, two Mainland ships came at midday and dropped anchor. White sails snapped in the breeze. Delia dressed in the bright colors and beads that Jenny brought her. Delia hugged John to her heart, kissed Moonbeam, then sent Rainbow and Twilight out to talk terms with the Mainlanders. Nobody needed to die on the rocks or at the end of a knife. Quincy was sure Rainbow had betrayed the Island, but he and Patrick had boasted to frightened merchants when they raided the docks. Mainland trackers could have followed them back to the Island.

Delia’s plan was a spirit plan. Twilight stayed on the Mainland ship as a hostage. She gave Rainbow the beads she always wore. “Tell them the truth. Tell them I was brave. Promise me,” she said in Muscogee, pretending she knew no English.

Still unsure of herself, Rainbow guided a flotilla of rowboats to the cliff side of the Island. The well-armed militia men got drenched passing through turbulent waves that hid a slit in the rock wall. The water was fierce, the cave low. Even short men had to crouch as they scrambled onto a narrow ledge. They tied up their boats, lit lanterns, and marched single file, bellies banging thighs. Gaps in the path were treacherous. Men would have fallen to their deaths without Rainbow’s warnings. They thanked her, glad to have such a trusty guide.

The winding path went up and down then up again. She led the militia through the stone forest caves and past the beasts carved by dripping water. Wind echoed like a wailing woman. Every lantern went dark. Militia men gasped, halted, and muttered curses. Rainbow raced around a bend as they tried to relight lanterns. Her hands flashed in the dark. Delia stood above her, an imposing silhouette in fading sun. The fat ship with spider-web wings flew in on a swath of mist.

“Rainbow! Rainbow! Sky is falling,” Spirits said.

“What? Who . . .” Rainbow stuttered.

“What do you see?” Spirits asked.

The Old African Man, flimsy as mist, dark as soot, stopped Rainbow from taking another step. He lost his footing in a sizeable gap in the path. Falling, he reached for her. Rainbow gasped as he tugged at Twilight’s necklaces. The beads flew loose as the Old African slid over the edge. He grabbed at gravel, which slipped through his fingers. He couldn’t find solid rock, couldn’t get a breath. He was falling. Rainbow bent down and gripped him. They both had Ethiopian hands. Rainbow let a few tears flow as she strained to hold him. He was too heavy. She fell to her knees and slid to the edge, almost going over. The Old African tried to let go, but Rainbow held on and dragged him back onto the ledge. Laughing, she hugged him. He hugged her a moment then dissolved into mist.

“What you say?” Delia murmured, sounding like the Spirits.

Rainbow wiped tears and gestured to Delia. Delia nodded.

William jumped down to Rainbow and whispered. “You almost fell, and the mist man —”

She put a finger to his lips and held up the rabbit mask. After a moment, he took it. They mingled breath and he raced away.

“Not this way!” Rainbow hurried back to the militia. Their lanterns winked at her. A few guns were aimed her way. “There’s a big gap in the path. I almost fell. I lost my beads.”

They continued the long way. One man twisted an ankle and had to be left behind on a rock. Rainbow gave him a peach from one pocket, cornbread from the other. Everybody was wheezing and dizzy when they reached the top. The cliffs glinted in fading sun.

“That’s a dangerous maze,” the militia headman said. He was a burly fellow with black hair and a red beard. “Getting back down will be a trick.”

“C’est vrai. Easy to lose your way,” Rainbow replied.

“But not you, Rainbow.” Delia was waiting for them. A comet rose behind her. Quincy said it was Halley’s Comet, although Mr. Halley had never ridden the roaming star. The militia headman put a gun to Delia’s head. The tube that had held the miracle Ethiopian-leg painting was lashed across his back. Delia recognized him from turncoat, spying days — one of the liars she dealt with.

“I got no weapons. I’ve seen too much death,” she said. “I’ll show you where the Run-to’s stay. They went down to the other shore to keep watch on your sails. When they creep back in morning light, show your rifles and capture them with no blood.”

The headman squinted at Rainbow, then turned to Miz Delia. “The demon girl said you’re a sly one. Said you’d try to fool us.”

“I thought on that, just couldn’t figure how without getting everybody I love killed.”

“Some Maroons be ready to fight to the death.” He looked around for ambush.

“Dying for what you believe is righteous. But you know me. I ain’t built that way.”

“She knows you own the world,” Rainbow said. “Everything else is a dream.”

Meteors burst across the evening sky, streaks of red on blue and purple clouds. Delia lit a torch and walked the valley with the headman, showing him cabins, storage bins, a patch of greens. He kept his gun to Delia’s head for each door she opened. Rooms were empty, looking as if occupants had run out when an alarm sounded. Food steamed on tables, a chunk of wood was halfway to an owl, a row of left-handed gloves was laid out to dry, a banjo was getting strung.

“All clear,” the headman said.

The armed men slipped into the cabins. They ate beans, drank bad coffee, tried on Jenny’s outrageous hats and snuck a swig from a barrel. The headman climbed back to the mountaintop with Delia.

“Yeah, I know you,” the headman said. “Legend has it you’re a witch woman from the stars, stealing our Negroes, riling up Indians. I’ll get two thousand dollars from a crazy Frenchman for you, dead or alive.” He smirked. “That demon girl wouldn’t bring us here till I gave her some gloves and a hundred dollars. That’s cheap.” He looked around. Rainbow had melted away without anybody noticing. “Where is she?”

“Rainbow’s decided. She gave you her tube. Open it.”

The headman wrenched the top off. William’s knife and a raggedy, charred sail covered with signatures, x-marks, and a song verse fall out. “My true love went a-roving? What is this?”

Melody and others singing the song echoed across the water. The sun was gone and mist trailed in. The comet burned bright. Delia was dream-walking on cold mist:

Delia walked over the reefs to the sailing ships. William arrived just before she did. Wearing the rabbit mask, he slipped from a canoe and gripped ropes on the hull of a Mainland ship. He shimmied up to the deck. He peeked over the railing. Twilight stood by the steering wheel. Two men guarded her. She screamed and pointed to William. The guards ran after him. William dashed around the ship. He leapt up rigging, swung from rope, teased them from above and behind. The guards laughed at his clowning. Twilight shoved one guard over a railing. She grabbed his rifle as he fell into the sea. William tripped the other guard, who knocked himself out, banging the steering wheel.

A flotilla headed for the Mainland ships. John, Moonbeam, and Quincy were in the lead rowboat with ne’er-do-wells and Scouts. Islanders and their belongings filled up the other boats and five canoes. As the last boat glided past Wolf Wedge, Rainbow and Captain jumped from behind the rocks and landed on blankets and bundles. The boat wobbled and then plowed on. Rainbow smiled.

The headman shook Delia from her trance. “What’ll you do for me, so I keep you alive through the night?”

Delia danced at the edge of the cliff. She waved her hands at the sky, a sensuous undulation, playing with light and mist. The fat ship with spider-web wings flew past her fingers toward the sea. The captain gasped.

“Do you think star-beings ride the comet’s tail?” Delia asked.

The captain chortled. “That’d be quite a ride.”

Delia turned from him and jumped from the cliff, nine hundred feet to the sea.

The headman and his militia were stranded on her Island. No one came to rescue them. The Islanders had promised Delia no blood this night, if they could help it. John and Quincy set the terrified white men who’d guarded the ships adrift in a rowboat (without oars). While Islanders danced on the decks, Rainbow climbed a tall mast and sat on a platform among billowy sails. She hugged herself, trembling. William climbed up and sat beside her. They leaned together. He sang Muscogee words in a rumbling bass. Rainbow reached a hand toward his face. He leaned into her fingers and closed his eyes. She stroked his cheeks, throat, and chest. On deck, Fran and Melody crowded next to Jenny and Granny Peaches. They waved good-bye to the Island. Using the freedom maps and Delia’s spyglass, Moonbeam and Sooty Felix navigated a course through dangerous waters to the Bahamas and freedom.

“Miz Delia was planning this journey for a long, long time,” Jenny said to Rainbow as they neared Andros Island. Palm trees swayed in the breeze. Golden sand welcomed bare feet. Swamp wagged his stringy tail, threw back his head, and yowled. Captain wagged her butt, too. Islanders cheered a new home.

“Miz Delia was loathe to leave her rock,” Rainbow said. She gave Jenny a pair of fine leather gloves.

William grinned. “Yes, a difficult trick, but you helped her get the sails we needed. Thank you.”

They say Miz Delia didn’t break her neck falling in the water from so high. She swam from the cliffs to the sailing ships, telling her Spirits:

“I am light. I am change. I am water.”

© 2015 by Andrea Hairston.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrea Hairston is author of Redwood and Wildfire, winner of the 2011 Tiptree Award and the Carl Brandon Kindred Award, and Mindscape, shortlisted for the Phillip K. Dick and Tiptree Awards, and winner of the Carl Brandon Parallax Award. Lonely Stardust, a collection of essays and plays, was published by Aqueduct Press in April 2014. Her latest play, Thunderbird at the Next World Theatre, appears in Geek Theater — 15 Plays by Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers, out in 2014 from Underwords Press. In her spare time, Andrea is the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies at Smith College and the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre. She bikes at night year round, meeting bears, multi-legged creatures of light and breath, and the occasional shooting star.

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

Ana’s Tag

William Alexander | 6373 words

Ana and Rico walked on the very edge of the road where the pavement slumped and crumbled. They were on their way to buy sodas, and there were no sidewalks. They made it as far as the spot where the old meat-packing factory had burned down when Deputy Chad drove up and coasted his car alongside at a walking pace.

Ana was just tall enough to see the deputy through his car window and the empty space of the passenger seat. Her brother Rico was taller, but he wasn’t trying to look through the car window. Rico was staring straight ahead of him.

“Hi kids,” said Deputy Chad.

“Hi,” said Ana.

“I need to ask you both about the incident at the school,” the deputy said.

“Okay,” said Ana when Rico didn’t say anything.

“It’s very important,” the deputy said. “This is the first sign of gang activity. Everyone knows that. Gang activity.” He tried to arch one eyebrow, but it didn’t really work and his forehead scrunched.

Other cars slowed to line up behind the squad car, coasting along.

“What’s the second sign?” Ana asked.

“The second sign,” said Deputy Chad, taking a deep breath, “happens at night, on the highway. It involves headlights. Do you know that keeping your high-beams on at night can blind oncoming traffic?”

Ana didn’t. She nodded anyway.

“Usually a driver has just forgotten to turn them off, and the way to let them know is to flash your own high-beams, just briefly. But they drive around with the high-beams on deliberately. If you flash at one of their cars, they pull a quick and violent U-turn and follow you, very close. Sometimes they just do it to see where you live. Sometimes they run you off the road. Bam!” He smacked the top of his steering wheel.

Ana jumped. He grinned at her, and she grinned back.

“What’s the third sign?” Rico asked, without grinning.

“I can’t tell you that,” said Deputy Chad. “Ask your parents. It is the last ceremony of initiation, and it involves blonde ten-year-olds.”

“I’m ten,” said Ana.

“You’re not blonde, so you’re probably safe. Probably.”

“Oh,” said Ana. “Good.”

The line behind Deputy Chad was now seven cars long, coasting slowly. None of them dared to pass a cop.

“So,” said the deputy. “You can see why we need to put a stop to this kind of thing right away, before it escalates. Do you know anything about the incident at school?”

“No,” said Rico.

“What’s the graffiti of?” asked Ana.

“It is deliberately illegible,” said the deputy. “It’s in code. Probably a street-name. A tag. Graffiti is often somebody’s tag, delineating whose turf is whose. It looks like it could be in Spanish.”

Ana and Rico’s parents spoke Spanish. They used it as their secret language, and slipped into Spanish whisperings whenever they didn’t want Ana or Rico to understand them. Sometimes, in public, Ana and Rico liked to pretend they could speak it, too. They would toss together random words and gibberish and use an accent because both of them could fake a pretty good one. They hadn’t played that game for a while.

Rico bent forward a little so he could look through the passenger window. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything about it,” he said.

“Good boy,” said the deputy, and smiled a satisfied smile. “Be safe, now.” He drove off. Cars followed him like ducklings.

“Perro muerto,” said Ana. It meant dead dog, or maybe dead hair. It was one of their nonsense curses. “He thinks you did it.”

“Yeah,” said Rico.

“Did you?” Ana asked.

“Yeah,” said Rico.

“Oh. What does it say?”

“Not telling.”

“Oh,” said Ana. Rico pushed Ana to his right side so he could walk between her and the moving cars, and then he made a sign with his left hand. He tried not to let Ana see him do it. She saw anyway, but she didn’t ask. She cared more about the graffiti. “I’ll do all the dishes if you tell me what it says.”

“No.”

“Okay.” Ana thought about how long it would take to get to the East Wells high school, try to read the painted wall, write down all of her guesses, and walk home. She decided she could make it before dinner. Maybe Rico would tell her if she guessed right.

They were almost to the gas station, which had a much better selection of soda to pick from than the corner store. The last part of the walk was uphill, and Ana had to work harder to keep up with her brother.

“Do you think there really are gangs?” she asked.

Rico shrugged, and smiled a little. “Gangs of what?”

“I don’t know. Gangs.”

“I doubt it,” he said. “East Wells isn’t big enough to put together a gang of anything bigger than two people. Deputy Chad is just really, really bored.” He reached up and twisted his new earring stud. He’d pierced it himself with a sewing needle. Ana had held the swabs and rubbing alcohol while he did it. She’d felt obliged to help, because she already had pierced ears, so she could offer him the benefit of her knowledge.

“Don’t forget to clean that when we get home,” she said.

“I won’t,” he said. He sounded annoyed. Ana decided to change the subject to something casual and harmless.

“Why isn’t there a West Wells?” she asked.

Rico stopped walking. They were in the gas station parking lot, only a few steps away from soda and air conditioning. Ana turned around. Her brother was staring at her.

“What did you say?”

“West Wells,” she said again, trying to be extra casual and harmless. “We live in East Wells, but it isn’t actually east of anything. There’s just, you know, the woods by the school and then endless fields of grain on all sides. There’s no West Wells.”

Rico exhaled, loudly. “That’s right,” he said. “There is nothing to the west of this dinky little town. You are absolutely right.” He walked by her and went inside. Ana followed. She had questions, endless questions bubbling up somewhere near her stomach, and she had to swallow to keep them there because Rico was definitely not in an answering kind of mood.

She shivered in the air conditioning, even though she’d been looking forward to it. Rico knew which soda he wanted, but Ana took a long time to choose.

• • • •

Ana got her cat backpack from her bedroom closet. It was brown and furry and had two triangular ears sewn onto the top. She pulled a stack of library books out of it and replaced them with a flashlight, rope, chocolate-chip granola bars, Band-Aids, a notebook, and Magic Markers. She filled up the small, square canteen that had been Tio Frankie’s with water and packed that, too. Then she took out the flashlight, because it was summer and it didn’t get dark outside until long after dinnertime, and she needed to be back by dinner anyway.

“Did you clean your ear?” she asked Rico’s bedroom door.

“No,” he said from behind it.

“Don’t forget. You don’t want it to get infected.”

“I won’t forget,” he said.

She walked to the East Wells high school, taking a shortcut through two cornfields to keep off the highway. It wasn’t a long walk, but during the school year almost everybody took the bus anyway because of the highway and the lack of sidewalks. Rico liked walking, even in wintertime. Ana saw him sometimes through the bus window on her way to East Wells Elementary.

She walked between cornrows and underneath three billboards. Two of them said something about the Bible. One was an ad for a bat cave ten miles further down the road. Ana had never seen the bat cave. Rico said it wasn’t much to see, but she still wanted to go.

Ana crossed the empty parking lot in front of the high school, and skirted around the athletic field to the back of the gym. She knew where to find the gym because it doubled as a theater, and last summer a troupe of traveling actors had put on The Pirates of Penzance. After the show, Ana had decided to become a traveling actor. Then she decided that what she really wanted to be was a pirate king.

A little strip of mowed lawn separated the gym from the western woods.

Three of Rico’s friends were there, standing in front of the graffiti. Ana could see green paint behind them. They were smoking, of course. Julia and Nick smoked cloves, sweet-smelling. Garth wore a Marlboro-Man kind of hat, so he was probably smoking that kind of cigarette. His weren’t sweet-smelling.

“Hey,” Ana said.

“Hey,” said Julia. Ana liked Julia.

“Hey,” said Nick. Nick was Julia’s boyfriend. Ana was pretty sure that her brother was jealous of this. Nick and Julia were both in Rico’s band, and both of them were really, really tall. They were taller than Rico, and much taller than Garth.

Garth didn’t say anything. He chose that moment to take a long drag on his cigarette, probably to demonstrate that he wasn’t saying anything. Garth was short and stocky and scruffy. He wasn’t in the band. He had a kind of beard, but only in some places. He also had a new piercing in his eyebrow. It was shaped like the tusk from a very small elephant. The skin around it was red and swollen and painful-looking.

Ana thought eyebrow rings were stupid. She liked earrings, and she could understand nose rings, belly-button rings, and even pierced tongues, but metal sticking out of random facial places like eyebrows just looked to her like shrapnel from a booby-trapped jewelry box. She didn’t like it. The fact that Garth’s eyebrow was obviously infected proved that she was right, and that the universe didn’t like it either.

“You should use silver for a new piercing,” Ana told him. “And you need to keep it clean.”

“This is silver,” said Garth. He didn’t look at her as he said it. He looked at the tops of trees.

“Don’t worry about him,” said Nick. “He likes pain. He gets confused and grumpy if something doesn’t hurt.”

“Oh,” said Ana. She edged around them, trying to get a better look at the wall and the paint.

Garth threw down his cigarette, stepped on it, and reached out to knock the cloves from Nick and Julia’s hands. “Bertha’s coming,” he said.

Bertha walked around the corner. She was the groundskeeper. Rico used to help her mow the school lawn as a summer job, but this year he hadn’t bothered. Her name wasn’t really Bertha, and Ana didn’t want to ever call her that, but she didn’t know what Bertha’s name really was.

Bertha sniffed, and smiled. Her hair was a big, feathered mullet.

“One of you isn’t smoking cloves,” she said. “One of you is smoking real cigarettes, and I am going to bet it isn’t the one with the kitten backpack. One of you is gonna buy my silence. ‘Why, no, officer, I sure didn’t see any young hooligans smoking near your site of vandalism.’”

Ana, Nick, and Julia all looked at Garth. Garth grunted, handed over his pack of cigarettes and walked away. He walked away into the woods.

“Bye, Ana,” Julia said. “Say hi to Rico. Tell him we need to rehearse.” She took Nick’s arm and the two of them followed Garth.

Ana could see the graffiti, now. It was red and green and it wasn’t anything Ana knew how to decipher. Parts of it were swoofy, and other parts had sharp, edgy bits. It looked like it was made up of letters, but she wasn’t sure which letters they were.

Bertha lit one of Garth’s cigarettes. “Gonna have to rent a sandblaster,” she said. “Won’t come off without a sandblaster, and it’s brick so I can’t just paint over it.”

“Deputy Chad thinks it was gangs that did it,” Ana said.

Bertha snorted. “Town isn’t big enough for gangs,” she said. “Doesn’t matter anyway. This is just somebody marking their territory. This is colored piss with artistic pretensions.”

Ana took out her notebook, but she didn’t have any guesses to write down yet. “How’s the novel?” she asked Bertha. This was the usual thing to ask. Bertha had always been writing a novel.

“Terrible,” Bertha said.

“Sorry,” said Ana. She wondered if it was better to be a novelist or a traveling actor, and decided it would still be better to be a pirate king.

“What’s with the notebook?” Bertha asked. She flicked her cigarette butt at the graffiti, and it hit the bricks above the paint with a shower of orange sparks.

“I’m going to draw it,” Ana said, “I’ll take it home and figure out what it says, and then . . . then maybe I’ll know who did it. I’ll solve the mystery.”

“Have fun,” Bertha said. She opened a door in the gym wall with one of the many jingling keys at her belt and went in. The door shut behind her with a loud metal scrape.

Ana drew the graffiti tag. Luckily she had the right colors of Magic Marker. It took her seven tries to get it right.

• • • •

The screen door squeaked when Ana opened it. The kitchen lights were on. One cold plateful of food sat on an otherwise bare table. Ana’s mother sat at the other end, face down on her folded arms. She was snoring. Ana hid her backpack under the table, and put the plate of food on a chair and out of sight.

“Wake up, Mama,” she said.

Her mother woke up. “Where have you been, child?” she asked, annoyed but mostly groggy.

“Here,” Ana said. “I’ve been here for hours. Sorry I missed dinner.”

“You should be,” said her mother. “Where —”

Ana pretended to yawn. Her mother couldn’t help yawning, then, and this made Ana yawn for real. “Bedtime,” she said, once she was able to say anything. Her mother nodded, and both of them went upstairs.

Ana snuck back downstairs to throw away her dinner and fetch her backpack. She ate the chocolate granola bars while sitting on the floor of her bedroom and studying the graffiti in her notebook. She thought it might say roozles, rutterkin, or rumbustical, but there were always extra letters, or at least extra swoofs and pointy edges to the letters, and the longer she stared at it, the less each word fit.

Ana slept. She dreamed that her kitten-backpack climbed snuffling onto the foot of her bed. She woke up when it stepped on her toes, and once she was awake she could see its pointy-eared outline. A car drove by outside and made strange window-shade shadows sweep across the wall and ceiling. Maybe the car had its high-beams on.

Her bag moved. She kicked it and it fell off the edge, landing with more of a soft smacking sound than it should have. Ana wanted to turn on the light, but the light switch was across the room. She would have to touch the floor to get there. She decided that now would be a really excellent time to develop telekinetic powers, and spent the next several minutes concentrating on the light switch.

Another car went by.

She got up, tiptoed across the floor and turned on the light. She turned around.

The backpack was right at her feet. She didn’t scream. She swallowed an almost-scream.

The furry, pointy-eared bag wasn’t moving. She pulled on the edges of the zipper and peeked inside. Her expedition supplies were still there. She poked through them with the capped tip of a Magic Marker, just in case there was also something else in there. The notebook lay open to the seventh graffiti-covered page. She tried to nudge it aside, but the tip of the marker went through the colored surface. She dropped the pen. It passed through the graffiti and vanished. The page rippled like a pond.

She took another Magic Marker and used it to close the notebook cover. Then she looked out in the hallway to see if Rico’s bedroom light was on. It was. She took the notebook, tiptoed by her parents’ room, and sped up to pass the stairway. The air felt different at the top of the stairs. It felt like the stairway was holding its breath. It felt like the open space might breathe her in and down and swallow her.

She knocked on Rico’s door. No answer. She knocked again, because she knew it would be locked from the inside so there wasn’t any point in trying to open it herself. He still didn’t answer. She tried the doorknob and it turned.

He wasn’t there. She tread carefully on the few clear and visible parts of the floor, and took a better look around from the middle of the room. He wasn’t standing behind his dresser or lurking behind the armrest of the ratty old couch. He wasn’t hiding in his closet, because it was filled with too much junk already and nothing more would fit. She looked under the bed and he wasn’t there either. She looked at the empty bed and found a rolled up piece of parchment. You play tomorrow night, musician, it said. Be ready.

The parchment crumbled into several brown leaves and drifted to the floor, settling among the socks and books and torn pieces of sheet music.

“He must be rehearsing,” she said to herself. “I’ll try to find him tomorrow.”

She went back to her room, and hung the backpack up on the knob handle of one of her dresser drawers to keep it from wandering, and went to bed. She left the light on. She didn’t see anything move for the rest of the night, including her backpack. She heard things move instead.

• • • •

Rico wasn’t at breakfast. This wasn’t unusual, because he almost always slept until lunchtime, so their parents didn’t seem worried as they bustled and joked and made coffee and went away to work after kissing Ana on each cheek. Ana went back upstairs as soon as they were gone. Rico wasn’t in his room. Bits of brown leaves crunched and crumbled in the carpet under her feet.

Ana got dressed, and took her backpack down from the knob she’d hung it on.

“Don’t go walking anywhere without me,” she said. She took more granola bars from the kitchen, and refilled her little square canteen, and locked up the house.

It started to rain when she reached the first highway billboard, and Ana’s clothes and backpack were soggy by the time she got to the gym. The bag’s sopping ears lay flat against the zipper.

She stood in front of the graffiti, took a deep breath and wondered if she was supposed to say something out loud. Maybe she was supposed to say whatever the graffiti said, and she still couldn’t read it.

Something snarled in the trees behind her. Ana turned around, took a step backwards, and tried to press herself against the wall. It didn’t work. She pressed and passed through it.

“Hello,” said a voice that scraped against the insides of her ears.

Ana faced another painted wall, stone instead of brick. She took a breath. The air was still and it smelled like thick layers of dust. She turned around. An old man, thin and spindly, sat on a stool and polished a carved flute. He had a wispy beard. He tested two notes on the flute and set to polishing again. Behind him were several shelves of similar instruments. Some were plain and a pale yellow-grey. Some were carved with delicate patterns, and others inlaid with metals and lacquered over.

“Hello,” Ana said.

“The Grey Lady brings deliveries every second Tuesday, and today is neither thing. Are you delivered here? Has she changed schedules?”

“I don’t know any grey ladies,” Ana said. “Except math teachers. Do you mean Mrs. Huddle?”

“No huddling things,” the old man said. He set down the flute on a carved wooden stand, picked up a bone from his workbench and took a rasp to the knobby joints. “Tell me your purposes then, if no Lady brought you. Are you here to buy a flute?”

“No,” Ana said. “I’m looking for my brother.”

“Unfortunate that you should look for him here. How old?”

“He’s sixteen.”

“So old? Good, good. I won’t have pieces of him, then.”

Ana looked around for pieces of people. There was a straw cot in the corner beside a green metal stove. There were baskets and tin lanterns hanging by chains from a high ceiling. There were no windows. A staircase against one wall led up to the only doorway. There was a workbench, and shelves full of flutes, and a mural of moonlight and trees where she had stepped through the wall.

“He’s a musician,” Ana said. “A singer. He’s in a band, I think. Last week they were The Paraplegic Weasels, but I don’t know if that’s still their name. It keeps changing.”

“Very prudent,” said the old man, rasping bone.

“He’s supposed to play for someone tonight. I don’t know who.”

“Tonight there are many festivities, or so I’ve heard rumor.” He swapped the rasp for a finer file, and began to scrape the bone more delicately.

Ana took a step closer. “The invitation turned into leaves after I read it.”

“Then he’ll likely play his music in the Glen,” the old man said. “You should be on the forest paths, and not here in the City.”

“City?”

“Oh yes. Underneath it, a few layers down.” He wiped away loose bone-dust, and set both bone and file down on the workbench. “The stone floor you’re standing on used to be a road, but the City is always growing up over itself.”

“Oh,” Ana said. She looked down at the floor. The old man reached down, scooped her up by the armpits and set her on the edge of the workbench. She swallowed an almost-scream when he pinched each leg, squeezing down to the thighbones, and then she kicked him in the stomach.

Ana jumped down, ran to the mural, and smacked the surface of it with the palms of both hands. The surface held. Behind her the old man wheezed and coughed and laughed a little.

“No matter,” he said. “Both bones broken, and all the music leaked out from the fractures. Can’t make any kind of flute from either leg. How did you break them both?”

Ana turned around to watch him. He sat back on his stool, wheezing, and he seemed to want to stay there. “I jumped off the roof.”

“And what flying thing were you fleeing from?” he asked.

“Nothing. Rico dared me to jump, so I did. I didn’t tell on him, either. He still owes me for that.”

“Well,” the old man said, “I hope you can collect what he owes when you find him. Such a shame that your bones were broken. There are a great many children, and there isn’t enough music. There isn’t nearly enough.”

“So how do I get out?” She hated admitting that she didn’t already know.

The old man smiled, and widened up his eyes. “Boo,” he said, puffing out his thin beard.

Ana took a step backwards, and passed through the stone.

Her face was inches away from her brother’s graffiti. It was dark, and she could barely see the colors by moonlight. She looked around. She was alone. Her backpack was gone.

“I told it not to wander off,” she said.

• • • •

There was only one forest path she could find. Ana took a walking stick from a pile of broken branches near the edge of the woods, and took a deep breath, and set out. She wished she had her flashlight. She wished she had her backpack. In her head she promised to give it a scratch behind the ears if it would come back, and to never again hang it up on a dresser drawer knob. It had looked uncomfortable there.

The air smelled like wet leaves, heavy and rich. She followed the path uphill and downhill and around sudden corners cut into the sides of hills. She passed trees that looked like tall, twisted people until she looked at them directly. Ana hoped she was following the right trail. She saw a wispy orange light between the tree trunks and decided to follow that instead.

The orange light brightened as Garth inhaled cigarette smoke. He was leaning on a boulder. He looked up and blew smoke at the moon.

Half of his face was swollen.

“Hey,” said Ana. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Waiting for little girls, maybe.”

“Your infection’s worse.”

“True,” he said. “But this bit of silver is keeping me from gnawing on your bones.”

“Oh,” said Ana. “Good. Everybody should stay away from my bones.”

He took another drag, brightening up the wispy orange light, and tugged his hat down to cover more of the swollen half of his face. Ana held on to her stick.

“Do you know where Rico is?” she asked.

“Maybe. He plays tonight.”

“Can you take me to him?”

“Maybe.” Garth dropped the cigarette and stepped on it, crushing the little orange flame. He walked off, away from the path. Ana waited for some signal from him that she should follow. She didn’t get one. She followed.

Garth took long strides, and his boots hit the ground like he was trying to punish it for something. Ana tried to keep up, and she tried to keep a little bit behind him at the same time. She didn’t want to be too close. He hunched, staring at the ground, and she thought he was moping more than usual until he dove, snarling. He came up holding a lanky thing covered in short, spiky fur.

“Where does the Guard keep watch tonight?” he asked.

The lanky thing shrugged and grinned many teeth.

“Where does the Guard watch the Glen?” He shook the thing in his hand.

It snickered.

“Please?” Ana asked, very sweetly.

The lanky thing blew her a kiss. “Tonight there is no waking Guard,” it said. “Tonight he is sleeping and dreaming that he guards, and he crosses no one unless they cross into his dreaming while he sleeps at his post, which is easy to do and see to it that you don’t. Everything within a pebble’s toss of him in all directions is only the substance of his dream, and inside it the Guard is a much better guard than he ever was awake. He guards the Western Arch.”

“How many arches are there?” Garth asked.

“Tonight there is only the Western Arch. All others are overgrown. It rained today.”

“Thank you,” Ana said.

The lanky thing bowed, which was difficult to do while Garth held it up by the scruff of its neck. Then it bit him hard on the wrist and dropped to the ground. Garth howled. The lanky thing snickered from somewhere nearby.

“Let me see your wrist,” Ana said. She had Band-Aids in her backpack. Then she remembered that she didn’t have her backpack.

Garth looked at her. Garth never made eye contact, but he did so now, and he held it, and he also made a little rumbling noise in the back of his throat.

“No,” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

“You should know that I’m not interested in dying for your brother. He’s all right. I like him. But I’m not interested in death on his behalf. I’m not interested in any of the things so close to death that the distinction makes no difference. This is something you should know before we go any further.”

“Okay,” she said again.

He walked away. She followed. She wondered where her backpack was.

• • • •

They found an enormous figure in full plate armor, asleep. The Guard was dreaming a desert the size of a pebble’s throw. All around it was sunlight and sand and nowhere to hide.

“That’s the Western Gate,” Garth said.

“Where?” Ana whispered.

“Behind the desert. Cut into the wall of thorns, there.” He pointed. Ana stood at the very edge of the desert and squinted. She could only see sand and sun in front of them.

Garth dropped another finished cigarette, driving it further into the dirt than he really needed to. “Good luck,” he said.

“Wait,” Ana told him. “Don’t go yet. I’m going to try something.”

She picked up a pebble, took aim, and threw it at the precise moment that she stepped forward into desert sand. For just an instant she knew what it was like to be an unimportant part of someone else’s dream. Then the pebble struck the Guard’s gold helmet, clanging loudly and waking it up.

The desert vanished. Ana ducked behind a tree that hadn’t been there before and leaned against the trunk. She could hear the metal movements of plate armor on the other side. She didn’t know where Garth was.

“I am a pirate king,” Ana whispered to herself. “It’s a glorious thing to be a pirate king.”

She ran, and switched directions twice, and tried to circle back towards the Western Gate. She almost stumbled in the dark, but she didn’t. The Guard almost caught her anyway. She felt gauntleted fingers snatch at her shoulder. Then she heard it clang and crash against the ground. She stopped, panting, and turned around to look.

Garth stood over the Guard, who was much shorter and less impressive than it had dreamed itself earlier. Garth looked at Ana, snarled, and jerked his chin towards the Gate. Then he spit on the Guard’s golden armor.

Ana backed further away. She watched the Guard pull itself up off the ground. It plucked out Garth’s silver piercing with a little spray of blood.

Garth howled, and his face began to change.

Ana turned away and slipped inside.

• • • •

The Glen was at least as big as a cornfield, and covered over with a dome of branches high overhead. Inside the branches were orange wisps of light, glowing and fading again.

It was full of dancers. Ana looked at them, and closed her eyes, and looked again. She could hear Rico singing over the noise of the crowd.

“I’m still a pirate king,” she whispered to herself, weaving her way in between dancers and trying to find the stage. She dodged the dancing things, and bumped into some, and passed through the shimmering substance of others. She saw colors and antlers and sharp teeth in strange places.

She found the stage. She found her brother. He sang, and the language sounded a little bit like Spanish but not very much. Nick played a red guitar, acoustic and covered in gold ivy. Julia played a yellow-grey flute. Both of them were even taller than they usually were.

Rico saw her, and Ana saw a lot of white around the edges of his eyes when he did. He nudged Julia, and she started a flute solo, and he got down off the stage and pulled Ana behind it. She opened her mouth and he shushed her.

“Okay, don’t eat or drink. Whatever else you do, don’t eat anything and don’t drink anything. Now tell me what you think you’re doing.”

“Looking for you,” Ana said.

“I’m impressed,” he said, biting on his lower lip. “I really am. But this is very, very bad and I’m not sure how to fix it.”

“What’s the problem?” Ana asked, folding her arms and looking at him as though she were the older one.

“Okay,” Rico said, taking deep breaths. “Do you see those guys over there? The ones with the tattoos?”

“They’re the gang?” Ana asked.

“Yeah. Sure. Kind of. And this is supposed to be my last task for them, and then after the concert I’ll learn how to sing up every chrome piece of a motorcycle and ride it from town to town, stopping only to hum the fuel tank full again. I’ll learn how to sing hurricanes and how to send them away. I’ll learn how to sing something people can dance to for a full year and never notice the time passing.”

“Sounds like fun,” Ana said.

“Sure. The catch is that this crowd has to be happy and dancing until the dawn light comes. If they stop before then, I fail and I have to serve the guys with the tattoos for at least a hundred years. So you should either go, right now, however you came here, or else hide somewhere and don’t eat or drink or talk to anyone until dawn. And don’t do anything distracting, because the crowd might stop dancing and that would be very bad. They like children here, but they care about music a lot more than they care about kids.”

Ana looked up at Julia and her yellow-grey flute.

“I have go back onstage now,” Rico said.

“Okay,” Ana said.

“Hide,” he said.

“Okay.”

He went back onstage. Julia finished her solo, and Rico sang. He was good.

Ana thought she saw her backpack scamper between someone’s hooves. She followed. Then she saw Garth, or at least she assumed it was Garth. He had started to eat people near the Western Arch.

“Crap,” Ana said. He was distracting the crowd. Some of them weren’t dancing anymore.

She ran back to the arch and slipped through. She looked everywhere, kicking up leaves. She found her walking stick and used it to poke through the leaves that were dark and wet and sticky. Then she found one golden gauntlet. Blood pooled underneath it. A small, silver tusk sat in its palm.

She picked up the silver. It was very sharp. She ran back through the arch and followed the screaming.

Garth was gnawing on a severed antler with his long wolf-muzzle. Some things in the crowd were shouting, and more were laughing, and most were still dancing but not all of them were.

“Hey, perro muerto,” Ana said. She threw her walking stick at him. It got his attention. He dropped the antler, bounded forward and knocked her to the ground, slavering.

Ana grabbed one of his furry ears with her left hand and shoved the tusk through it with her right. The skin of his ear resisted, stretching a little before the silver broke through.

Garth rolled over and howled. Ana got to her feet and looked around her. The crowd danced. Even those who were bleeding from the fight with Garth were dancing again. She took a deep breath, and she didn’t get a chance to let it out all the way before someone’s hand took her by the elbow and pulled her towards the stage.

She looked up at the arm attached to the hand. It had green and red letters tattooed all up and down its length.

Rico, Julia, and Nick bowed to the sound of applause and unearthly cries. The sky began to lighten above the branches, grey and rose-colored and pale.

The owner of the green and red arm pushed Ana forward in front of Rico. “What’s this?” Rico asked.

“Your last initiation,” said a very deep voice behind Ana. She didn’t want to turn around. She looked straight ahead at her brother. “Sing her to sleep. Let her sleep for a thousand years, or at least until another glacier passes this way.”

“I’ve already finished my initiation,” Rico said. “They all danced until dawn.”

“Yes,” said the voice. “You held them, most of them, and they were deer in headlights high-beamed by your song. Those you lost, you gained again as they danced, bleeding. It was good. But it was not your last task. The last requires a ten-year-old.”

“Crap,” said Ana.

Rico took her hand, pulled her closer, and tossed red and green colors into the air between them and the crowd. Colors settled into the shape of his tag. Ana still couldn’t read it.

“Home,” Rico said. “I’ll follow when I can.”

“You have to tell me what it says,” Ana told him, but he just smiled and pushed her through.

• • • •

Their parents were as frantic as one might expect. Ana managed to slip into her brother’s room and find green and red spray paint hidden behind the couch before her mother and father and Deputy Chad came in to look for clues to Rico’s whereabouts. Ana kept the spray paint hidden under her own bed.

It took a long time for Ana to get back to the high school, because her parents kept closer tabs on her after Rico disappeared. Bertha had already sandblasted the graffiti, and Ana couldn’t find the forest path, and she didn’t know where Garth was. She hoped he wasn’t dead, or something very close to dead. She walked home, and listened to three nervous phone messages from her mother on the answering machine. Ana called her back and told her she was home, and that everything was fine, even though it wasn’t really.

She went up to her room, and found her backpack sitting on her bed. She gave it a hug. It purred when she scratched behind its ears.

“I’m really, really angry at you for leaving,” she said. It kept purring.

Inside she found three pages torn from her notebook. They were folded in half together, with “Ana” written on the front.

The first page was in Rico’s handwriting. I’ll see you as soon as I find a way out of a hundred years of servitude, it said. Don’t worry, I’ll manage. DO NOT COME LOOKING FOR ME. Keep a pinch of salt in your pocket at all times, and stay out of the woods, and DO NOT keep following me around. I’m serious.

Ana snorted, and turned the page. It was her seventh drawing, with a note written underneath: This is my name, dumbass.

She turned to the last page.

This is yours.

Ana looked at it, and saw that it was.

She took out her Magic Markers and practiced marking her territory on the back wall of her closet.

© 2008 by William Alexander.

Originally published in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William Alexander studied theater and folklore at Oberlin College and English at the University of Vermont. His short stories have been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and published in various strange and wonderful places, including Weird Tales, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Interfictions 2, and Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2008. His first novel, Goblin Secrets, debuted in 2012. Kirkus described the book as “evocative in its oddities.”

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

Dapple

Eleanor Arnason | 17,501 words

There was a girl named Helwar Ahl. Her family lived on an island north and east of the Second Continent, which was known in those days as the Great Southern Continent. (Now, of course, we know that an even larger expanse of land lies farther south, touching the pole. In Ahl’s time, however, no one knew about this land except its inhabitants.)

A polar current ran up the continent’s east coast and curled around Helwar Island, so its climate was cool and rainy. Thick forests covered the mountains. The Helwar built ships from the wood. They were famous shipwrights, prosperous enough to have a good-sized harbor town.

Ahl grew up in this town. Her home was the kind of great house typical of the region: a series of two-story buildings linked together. The outer walls were mostly blank. Inside were courtyards, balconies and large windows provided with the modern wonder, glass. Granted, the panes were small and flawed. But some ingenious artificer had found a way to fit many panes together, using strips of lead. Now the women of the house had light, even in the coldest weather.

As a child, Ahl played with her cousins in the courtyards and common rooms, all of them naked except for their fog-grey fur. Later, in a kilt, she ran in the town streets and visited the harbor. Her favorite uncle was a fisherman, who went out in morning darkness, before most people woke. In the late afternoon, he returned. If he’d been lucky, he tied up and cleaned his catch, while Ahl sat watching on the dock.

“I want to be a fisherman,” she said one day.

“You can’t, darling. Fishing is men’s work.”

“Why?”

He was busy gutting fish. He stopped for a moment, frowning, a bloody knife still in his hand. “Look at this situation! Do you want to stand like me, knee deep in dead fish? It’s hard, nasty work and can be dangerous. The things that women do well — negotiation, for example, and the forming of alliances — are no use at all, when dealing with fish. What’s needed here,” he waved the knife, “is violence. Also, it helps if you can piss off the side of a boat.”

For a while after that Ahl worked at aiming her urine. She could do it, if she spread her legs and tilted her pelvis in just the right fashion. But would she be able to manage on a pitching boat? Or in a wind? In addition, there was the problem of violence. Did she really want to be a killer of many small animals?

One of the courtyards in her house had a basin, which held ornamental fish. Ahl caught one and cut off its head. A senior female cousin caught her before she was finished, though the fish was past help.

“What are you doing?” the matron asked.

Ahl explained.

“These are fish to feed, not fish to eat,” her cousin said and demonstrated this by throwing a graincake into the basin.

Fish surged to the surface in a swirl of red fins, green backs, and blue-green tails. A moment later, the cake was gone. The fish returned to their usual behavior: a slow swimming back and forth.

“It’s hardly fair to kill something this tame — in your own house, too. Guests should be treated with respect. In addition, these fish have an uninteresting flavor and are full of tiny bones. If you ate one, it would be like eating a cloth full of needles.”

Ahl lost interest in fishing after that. Her uncle was right about killing. It was a nasty activity. All that quickness and grace, gone in a moment. The bright colors faded. She was left with nothing except a feeling of disgust.

Maybe she’d be a weaver, like her mother Leweli. Or the captain of a far-traveling ocean-trader, like her aunt Ki. Then she could bring treasures home: transparent glass, soft and durable lead.

When she was ten, she saw her first play. She knew the actors, of course. They were old friends of her family and came to Helwar often, usually staying in Ahl’s house. The older one — Perig — was quiet and friendly, always courteous to the household children, but not a favorite with them. The favorite was Cholkwa, who juggled and pulled candy out of ears. He knew lots of funny stories, mostly about animals such as the tli, a famous troublemaker and trickster. According to the house’s adults, he was a comedian, who performed in plays too rude for children to see. Perig acted in hero plays, though it was hard to imagine him as a hero. The two men were lovers, but didn’t usually work together. This was due to the difference in their styles and to their habit of quarreling. They had, the women of Ahl’s house said, a difficult relationship.

This time they came together, and Perig brought his company. They put on a play in the main square, both of them acting, though Cholkwa almost never did dark work.

The play was about two lovers — both of them warriors — whose families quarreled. How could they turn against one another? How could their refuse their relatives’ pleas for help? Each was the best warrior in his family.

Though she hadn’t seen a play before, Ahl knew how this was going to end. The two men met in battle. It was more like a dance than anything else, both of them splendidly costumed and moving with slow reluctant grace. Finally, after several speeches, Perig tricked Cholkwa into striking. The blow was fatal. Perig went down in a gold and scarlet heap. Casting his sword away, Cholkwa knelt beside him. A minor player in drab armor crept up and killed Cholkwa as he mourned.

Ahl was transfixed, though also puzzled. “Wasn’t there any way out?” she asked the actors later, when they were back in her house, drinking halin and listening to her family’s complements.

“In a comedy, yes,” said Cholkwa. “Which is why I do bright plays. But Perig likes plays that end with everyone dead, and always over some ethical problem that’s hardly ever encountered in real life.”

The older man was lying on a bench, holding his halin cup on his chest. He glanced at Cholkwa briefly, then looked back at the ceiling. “Is what you do more true to reality? Rude plays about animals? I’d rather be a hero in red and gold armor than a man in a tli costume.”

“I’d rather be a clever tli than someone who kills his lover.”

“What else could they do?” asked Perig, referring to the characters in the play.

“Run off,” said Cholkwa. “Become actors. Leave their stupid relatives to fight their stupid war unaided.”

It was one of those adult conversations where everything really important was left unspoken. Ahl could tell that. Bored, she said, “I’d like to be an actor.”

They both looked at her.

“You can’t,” said Perig.

This sounded familiar. “Why not?”

“In part, it’s custom,” Cholkwa said. “But there’s at least one good reason. Actors travel and live among unkin; and often the places we visit are not safe. I go south a lot. The people there love comedy, but in every other way they’re louts and savages. At times I’ve wondered if I’d make it back alive, or would someone have to bring my ashes in an urn to Perig?”

“Better to stay here,” said Perig. “Or travel the way your aunt Ki does, in a ship full of relatives.”

No point in arguing. When adults started to give advice, they were never reasonable. But the play stayed with her. She imagined stories about people in fine clothing, faced with impossible choices; and she acted them out, going so far as to make a wooden sword, which she kept hidden in a hayloft. Her female relatives had an entire kitchen full of knives and cleavers and axes, all sharp and dangerous. But the noise they would have made, if they’d seen her weapon!

Sometimes she was male and a warrior. At other times she was a sailor like Ki, fighting the kinds of monsters found at the edges of maps. Surely, Ahl thought, it was permissible for women to use swords when attacked by monsters, rising out of the water with fangs that dripped poison and long curving claws?

Below her in the barn, her family’s tsina ate and excreted. Their animal aroma rose to her, combining with the scent of hay. Later, she said this was the scent of drama: dry, aging hay and new-dropped excrement.

The next year Cholkwa came alone and brought his company. They did a decent comedy, suitable for children, about a noble sul who was tricked and humiliated by a tli. The trickster was exposed at the play’s end. The sul’s honor was restored. The good animals did a dance of triumph, while the tli cowered and begged.

Cholkwa was the tli. Strange that a man so handsome and friendly could portray a sly coward.

Ahl asked about this. Cholkwa said, “I can’t talk about other men, but I have that kind of person inside me: a cheat and liar, who would like to run away from everything. I don’t run, of course. Perig would disapprove, and I’d rather be admired than despised.”

“But you played a hero last year.”

“That was more difficult. Perig understands nobility, and I studied with him a long time. I do as he tells me. Most people are tricked and think I know what I’m doing. But that person — the hero — doesn’t speak in my mind.”

Ahl moved forward to the play’s other problem. “The sul was noble, but a fool. The tli was clever and funny, but immoral. There was no one in the play I could really like.”

Cholkwa gave her a considering gaze, which was permissible, since she was still a child. Would she like it, when men like Cholkwa — unkin, but old friends — had to glance away? “Most people, even adults, wouldn’t have seen that. It has two causes. I wrote the sul’s lines and, as I’ve told you, I don’t understand nobility. The other problem is my second actor. He isn’t good enough. If Perig had been here, he would have made the sul likeable — in part by rewriting the lines, but mostly because he could play a stone and make it seem likeable.”

Ahl thought about this idea. An image came to her: Perig in a grey robe, sitting quietly on a stage, his face unmasked and grey, looking calm and friendly. A likeable rock. It could be done. Why bother? In spite of her question, the image remained, somehow comforting.

Several days later Cholkwa did a play for adults. This event took place at night in the town hall, which was used for meetings and ceremonies, also to store trade goods in transit. This time the back half was full of cloth, big bales that smelled of fresh dye, southern blue and the famous Sorg red.

Ahl snuck out of her house after dark and went in a back door, which she’d unlocked earlier. Climbing atop the bales, she settled to watch the play.

Most of it was past her understanding, though the audience gasped, groaned, clapped, and made hissing noises. Clearly, they knew what was going on.

The costumes were ugly, in her opinion; the animals had huge sexual parts and grimacing faces. They hit each other with padded swords and clubs, tumbled and tossed each other, spoke lines that were — as far as she could tell — full of insults, some sly and others so obvious that even she made sense of them. This time the sul was an arrogant braggart with a long narrow head and a penis of almost equal size and shape. The tli, much less well endowed, was clever and funny, a coward because he had to be. Most of his companions were large, dangerous, and unjust.

It was the tli’s play. Mocking and tricking, he won over all the rest, ending with the sul’s precious ancestral sword, which he carried off in triumph to his mother, a venerable female tli, while the sul howled in grief.

The Sword Recovered or The Revenge of the Tli. That was the name of the play. There was something in back of it, which Ahl could not figure out. Somehow the sul had harmed the tli’s family in the past. Maybe the harm had been sexual, though this didn’t seem likely. Sulin and tli did not interbreed. Puzzled, she climbed down from the bales and went home. The night was foggy, and she almost lost her way in streets she’d known her entire life.

She couldn’t ask Cholkwa to explain. He would have told her relatives that she’d seen the play.

After this, she added comedy to her repertoire, mixing it with the stories about heroes and women like her aunt, far-travelers who did not have to die over some kind of unusual ethical dilemma.

The result was a long, acted-out epic tale about a hero, a woman sailor, a clever tli, and a magical stone that accompanied the other three on their journey. The hero was noble, the sailor resourceful, and the tli funny, while the stone remained calm and friendly, no matter what was going on. There wasn’t any sex. Ahl was too young, and the adult comedy had disgusted her. It’s often a bad idea to see things that are forbidden, especially if one is young.

In the end, one of her cousins — a sneak worse than Cholkwa in the children’s play — found out what she was doing and told her senior female relatives. “Clearly you have too much free time,” they said and assigned her work in the house’s big weaving room. The sword was destroyed, along with the bits of armor she’d made. But her relatives decided the tli mask, constructed of bark paper over a frame of twigs, was good enough to keep. It was hung on the weaving room wall, where it stared down at her. Gradually, the straw whiskers disappeared, and large eyes — drawn in ink — faded.

Don’t think that Ahl was too unhappy, or that her relatives had been unjust. Every child has to learn duty; and she’d gotten bored with her solitary play, as well as increasingly uncomfortable with hiding her props. Better to work at a loom and have ideas in her mind. No sneaking cousin could discover these, and everything she imagined was large and bright and well made, the swords of real steel, sharp and polished, as bright as the best glass.

Two years passed. She became an adequate plain weaver, but nothing more. “We thought you might have a gift for beauty,” said her mother. “The mask suggested this. But it’s obvious that you lack the ability to concentrate, which is absolutely necessary in any kind of art. Anything worth doing is likely to be slow, difficult, and boring. This is not an invariable rule, but it works in most situations.”

“Give her to me,” said Ki. “Maybe she’d be happier in a more active life.”

Ahl went to sea. At first, it was not an enjoyable experience, though she had little problem with motion sickness. Her difficulty lay in the same region as always: She spent too much time thinking about her stories. As a result, she was forgetful and careless. These are not good traits in an apprentice sailor; and Ki, who had always seemed pleasant and friendly at home in Helwar, turned out to be a harsh captain.

At first, the punishment she gave to Ahl was work. Every ship is full of nasty jobs. Ahl did most of them and did them more than once. This didn’t bother her. She wasn’t lazy, and jobs — though nasty — required little thought. She could make up stories while she did them.

Her habit of inattention continued. Growing angry, Ki turned to violence. On several occasions, she struck Ahl: hard slaps across the face. This also had no effect. The girl simply did not want to give up her stories. Finally, Ki beat her, using a knotted rope.

Most likely this shocks you. Nowadays we like to believe that our female ancestors never did harm to one another. It’s men who are violent. Women have always used reason.

Remember this was a sailing ship in the days before radio and engines. Weather satellites did not warn sailors of approaching storms. Computers did not monitor the ship’s condition and send automatic signals to the Navigation Service. Sailors had to rely on their own skill and discipline.

It was one thing to be forgetful in a weaving room. If you fail to tie off a piece a yarn, what can happen? At most, a length of cloth will be damaged. Now, imagine what happens if the same person fails to tie a rope on board a ship. Or forgets to fasten a hatch in stormy weather.

So, after several warnings and a final mistake, Ahl received her beating. By this time she was fourteen or fifteen, with a coat of fur made thick by cold weather. The fur protected her, though not entirely; and later, when she remembered the experience, it seemed that shame was worst part: to stand naked on the ship’s deck, trying to remain impassive, while Ki used the rope she had failed to tie across her back.

Around her, the other sailors did their work. They didn’t watch directly, of course, but there were sideways glances, some embarrassed and others approving. Overhead the sky was cloudless. The ship moved smoothly through a bright blue ocean.

The next day she felt every bruise. Ki gave her another unpleasant cleaning job. All day she scraped, keeping her lips pressed together. In the evening she went on deck, less stiff than she’d been earlier, but tired and still sore. Ahl leaned on the rail and looked out the ocean. In the distance, rays of sunlight slanted between grey clouds. Life was not entirely easy, she thought.

After a while, Ki’s lover Hasu Ahl came next to her. Ahl had been named after the woman, for reasons that don’t come into this story; and they were alike in several ways, being both tall and thin, with small breasts and large, strong, capable hands. The main difference between them was their fur. Hasu Ahl’s was dark grey, like the clouds which filled the sky, and her coloring was solid. Our Ahl was pale as fog. In addition, she had kept her baby spots. Dim and blurry, they dotted her shoulders and upper arms. Because of these, her childhood name had been Dapple.

Hasu Ahl asked how she felt.

“I’ve been better.”

They became silent, both leaning on the rail. Finally Hasu Ahl said, “There’s story about your childhood that no one had told you. When you were a baby, a witch predicted that you would be important when you grew up. She didn’t know in what way. I know this story, as do your mother and Ki and a few other people. But we didn’t want your entire family peering at you and wondering; and we didn’t want you to become vain or worried; so we kept quiet.

“It’s possible that Ki’s anger is due in part to this. She looks at you and thinks, ‘Where is the gift that was promised us?’ All we can see — aside from intelligence, which you obviously have — is carelessness and lack of attention.”

What could she say? She was inattentive because her mind was full of stories, though the character who’d been like Ki had vanished. Now there was an orphan girl with no close relatives, ignored by everyone, except her three companions: the hero, the tli, and the stone. They cared for her in their different ways: the hero with nobility, the tli with jokes, and the stone with solid friendliness. But she’d never told anyone about her ideas. “I’m not yet fifteen,” Ahl said.

“There’s time for you to change,” Hasu Ahl admitted. “But not if you keep doing things that endanger the ship and yourself. Ki has promised if you’re careless again, she’ll beat you a second time; and the beating will be worse.”

After that, Hasu Ahl left. Well, thought our heroine, this was certainly a confusing conversation. Ki’s lover had threatened her with something like fame and with another beating. Adults were beyond comprehension.

Her concentration improved, and she became an adequate sailor, though Ki said she would never be a captain. “Or a second-in-command, like your namesake, my Ahl. Whatever your gift may be, it isn’t sailing.”

Her time on board was mostly happy. She made friends with the younger members of the crew; and she learned to love the ocean as a sailor does, knowing how dangerous it can be. The coast of the Great Southern Continent was dotted with harbor towns. Ahl visited many these, exploring the steep narrow streets and multi-leveled market places. One night at a festival she made love for the first time. Her lover was a girl with black fur and pale yellow eyes. In the torchlight, the girl’s pupils expanded, till they lay across her irises like bars of iron or narrow windows that opened into a starless night.

What a fine image! But what could Ahl do with it?

Later, in that same port, she came to an unwalled tavern. Vines grew over the roof. Underneath were benches. Perig sat on one, a cup in his hand. She shouted his name. He glanced up and smiled, then his gaze slid away. Was she that old? Had she become a woman? Maybe, remembering the black-furred girl.

Where was Cholkwa?

In the south, Perig said.

Because the place was unwalled and public, she was able to sit down. The hostess brought halin. She tasted it, savoring the sharp bitterness. It was the taste of adulthood.

“Watch out,” said Perig. “That stuff can make you sick.”

Was his company here? Were they acting? Ahl asked.

Yes. The next night, in the town square.

“I’ll come,” said Ahl with decision.

Perig glanced at her, obviously pleased.

The play was about a hero, of course: a man who suspected that the senior women in his family, his mother and her sisters, had committed a crime. If his suspicion was true, their behavior threatened the family’s survival. But no man can treat any woman with violence, and no man should turn against his mother. And what if he was wrong? Maybe they were innocent. Taking one look at the women, Ahl knew they were villains. But the hero didn’t have her sharpness of vision. So he blundered through the play, trying to discover the truth. Men died, mostly at his hands, and most of them his kin. Finally he was hacked down, while the women looked on. A messenger arrived, denouncing them. Their family was declared untouchable. No one would deal with them in the future. Unable to interbreed, the family would vanish. The monstrous women listened like blocks of stone. Nothing could affect their stubborn arrogance.

A terrible story, but also beautiful. Perig was the hero and shone like a diamond. The three men playing the women were grimly convincing. Ahl felt as if a sword had gone through her chest. Her stories were nothing next to this.

Afterward, Ahl found Perig in the open tavern. Torches flared in a cool ocean wind, and his fur — touched with white over the shoulders — moved a little, ruffled. Ahl tried to explain how lovely and painful the play had been.

He listened, giving her an occasional quick glance. “This is the way it’s supposed to be,” he said finally. “Like a blade going to a vital spot.”

“Is it impossible to have a happy ending?” she asked, after she finished praising.

“In this kind of play, yes.”

“I liked the hero so much. There should have been another solution.”

“Well,” said Perig. “He could have killed his mother and aunts, then killed himself. It would have saved his family, but he wasn’t sure they were criminals.”

“Of course they were.”

“You were in the audience,” said Perig. “Where I was standing, in the middle of the situation, the truth was less evident; and no man should find it easy to kill his mother.”

“I was right years ago,” Ahl said suddenly. “This is what I want to do. Act in plays.”

Perig looked unhappy.

She told him about her attempts to weave and be a sailor, then about the plays she had acted in the hayloft and the stories in her mind. For the first time, she realized the stories had scenes. She knew how the hero moved, like Perig acting a hero. The tli had Cholkwa’s brisk step and mocking voice. The stone was a stone. Only the girl was blurry. She didn’t tell Perig about the scenes. Embarrassing to admit that this quiet aging man lived in her mind, along with his lover and a stone. But she did tell him that she told stories.

He listened, then said, “If you were a boy, I’d go to your family and ask for you as an apprentice — if not this year, then next year. But I can’t, Ahl. They’d refuse me and be so angry I might lose their friendship.”

“What am I to do?” asked Ahl.

“That’s a question I can’t answer,” said Perig.

A day later, her ship left the harbor. On the long trip home, Ahl considered her future. She’d seen other companies of actors. Perig and Cholkwa were clearly the best, but neither one of them would be willing to train her. Nor would any company that knew she was female. But most women in this part of the world were broad and full-breasted, and she was an entirely different type. People before, strangers, had mistaken her for a boy. Think of all the years she had acted in her loft, striding like Perig or mimicking Cholkwa’s gait. Surely she had learned something!

She was seventeen and good at nothing. In spite of the witch’s prediction, it wasn’t likely she’d ever be important. It seemed to her now that nothing had ever interested her except the making of stories — not the linked verse epics that people recited on winter evenings, nor the tales that women told to children, but proper stories, like the ones that Perig and Cholkwa acted.

Before they reached Helwar, Ahl had decided to disguise herself as a boy and run away.

First, of course, she had to spend the winter at home. Much of her time was taken by her family. When she could, she watched her uncles and male cousins. How did they stand and move? What were their gestures? How did they speak?

The family warehouse was only half-full, she discovered. This became her theatre, lit by high windows or (sometimes) by a lamp. She’d bought a square metal mirror in the south. Ahl leaned it against a wall. If she stood at a distance, she could see herself, dressed in a tunic stolen from a cousin and embroidered in the male style. Whenever possible, she practiced being a man, striding across the wood floor, turning and gesturing, speaking lines she remembered out of plays. Behind her were stacks of new-cut lumber. The fresh, sweet aroma of sawdust filled the air. In later life, she said this was the smell of need and possibility.

In spring, her ship went south again.

In a town in the far south, she found an acting company, doing one of Perig’s plays in ragged costumes. It was one she’d seen. They’d cut out parts. Her bag, carefully packed, held boy’s clothing, a knife, and all her money.

So, thought Ahl. That evening she took her bag and crept off the ship. The night was foggy, and the damp air smelled of unfamiliar vegetation. In an alley, she changed clothing, binding her four breasts flat with strips of cloth. She already knew where the actors were staying: a run-down inn by the harbor, not the kind of place that decent female sailors would visit. Walking through the dark streets, bag over her shoulder, she was excited and afraid.

Here, in this town, she was at the southern edge of civilization. Who could tell what the inland folk were like? Though she had never heard of any lineage that harmed women. If things got dangerous, she could pull off her tunic, revealing her real self.

On the other hand, there might be monsters; and they did harm women. Pulling off her tunic would do no good if something with fangs and scales came out of the forest. At most, the thing might thank her for removing the wrapping on its dinner.

If she wanted to turn back, now was the time. She could be a less-than-good sailor. She could go home and look for another trade. There were plenty in Helwar, and women could do most of them. She hadn’t really wanted to fish in the ocean, not after she killed the fish in the basin. As for the other male activities, let them have fighting and hunting dangerous animals. Let them log and handle heavy timbers. Why should women risk their lives?

She stopped outside the inn, almost ready to turn around. Then she remembered Perig in the most recent play she’d seen, at the moment when the play’s balance changed. A kinsman lay dead at his feet. It was no longer possible to go back. He’d stood quietly, then lifted his head, opening his mouth in a great cry that was silent. No one in the audience made a noise. Somehow, through his silence and their silence, Ahl heard the cry.

She would not give that up. Let men have every other kind of danger. This was something they had to share.

She went in and found the actors, a shabby group. As she had thought, they were short-handed.

The senior man was pudgy with a scar on one side of his face. “Have you any experience?” he asked.

“I’ve practiced on my own,” said Ahl.

The man tilted his head, considering. “You’re almost certainly a runaway, which is bad enough. Even worse, you’ve decided you can act. If I was only one man short, I’d send you off. But two of my men are gone, and if I don’t find someone, we won’t be able to continue.”

In this manner she was hired, though the man had two more questions. “How old are you? I won’t take on a child.”

“Eighteen,” said Ahl.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes,” she answered with indignation. Though she was lying about almost everything else, eighteen was her age.

Maybe her tone convinced the man. “Very well,” he said, then asked, “What’s your name?”

“Dapple,” she said.

“Of no family?”

She hesitated.

The man said, “I’ll stop asking questions.”

She had timed this well. They left the next morning, through fog and drizzling rain. Her comrades on the ship would think she was sleeping. Instead, she trudged beside the actors’ cart, which was pulled by a pair of tsina. Her tunic, made of thick wool, kept out the rain. A broad straw hat covered her head. Oiled boots protected her feet against mud and pools of water.

From this point on, the story will call her Dapple. It’s the name she picked for herself and the one by which she was known for the rest of her life. Think of her not as the Helwar Ahl, the runaway girl, but Dapple the actor, whose lineage did not especially matter, since actors live on the road, in the uncertain regions that lie between family holdings and the obligations of kinship.

All day, they traveled inland, through steep hills covered with forest. Many of the trees were new to her. Riding in the cart, the pudgy man — his name was Manif — told her about the company. They did mostly comedies, though Manif preferred hero plays. “These people in the south are the rudest collection of louts you can imagine. They like nothing, unless it’s full of erect penises and imitations of intercourse; and men and women watch these things together! Shocking!

“They even like plays about breeding, though I prefer — of course — to give them decent comedies about men having sex with men or women having sex with women. But if they insist on heterosexuality, well, we have to eat.”

This sounded bad to Dapple, but she was determined to learn. Maybe there was more to comedy than she had realized.

They made camp by the side of the road. Manif slept in the cart, along with another actor: a man of twenty-five or so, not bad looking. The rest of them pitched a tent. Dapple got an outside place, better for privacy, but also wetter. The rain kept falling. In the cart, Manif and his companion made noise.

“Into the halin, I notice,” said one of Dapple’s companions.

“And one another,” a second man added.

The third man said, “D’you think he’ll go after Dapple here?”

It was possible, thought Dapple, that she’d done something stupid. Cholkwa had warned her about the south.

“He won’t if Dapple finds himself a lover quickly,” said the first man.

This might have been a joke, rather than an offer. Dapple couldn’t tell. She curled up, her back to the others, hoping that no one would touch her. In time, she went to sleep.

The next day was clear, though the ground remained wet. They ate breakfast, then struck the tent and continued inland. The change in weather made Dapple more cheerful. Maybe the men would make no advances. If they did, she’d find a way to fend them off. They might be shabby and half as good as Perig and Cholkwa, but they didn’t seem to be monsters or savages; and this wasn’t the far north, where a war had gone on for generations, unraveling everything. People on this continent understood right behavior.

As she thought this, one of the tsina screamed and reared. An arrow was stuck in its throat.

“Bandits!” cried Manif and shook the reins, crying, “Go, go,” to the animals.

But the shot animal stumbled, unable to continue; and the second tsin began to lunge, trying to break free of the harness and its comrade. The actors pulled swords. Dapple dove into the edge-of-forest brush. Behind her was shouting. She scrambled up a hill, her heart beating like a hammer striking an anvil, though more quickly. Up and up, hoping the bandits would not follow. At last she stopped. Her heart felt as if it might break her chest; her lungs hurt; all her breath was gone. Below her on the road was screaming. Not the tsin any longer, she thought. This sound was men.

When she was able to breathe, she went on, climbing more slowly now. The screaming stopped. Had the bandits noticed her? Had they counted the company? Four of them had been walking, while Manif and his lover rode. But the lover had been lying in back, under the awning, apparently exhausted by his efforts of the night before. If the bandits had been watching, they might have seen only five people.

No way to tell. She continued up the hill, finally reaching a limestone bluff. There was a crack. She squeezed her way in, finding a narrow cave. There she stopped a second time, leaning against the wet rock, trying to control her breath. Somehow she’d managed to keep her bag. She dropped it at her feet and pulled her knife.

For the rest of the day she waited, then through the night, dozing from time to time, waking suddenly. No one came. In the morning she went down the hill, stopping often to listen. There was nothing to hear except wind in the foliage and small animals making their usual noises.

The road was empty, though there were ruts to show that a cart has passed by. Dapple saw no evidence that a fight had ever taken place. For a moment she stood with her mouth open, wondering. Had it been a dream? The attack and her flight from it? Or had the actors managed to drive off the bandits, then gone on, condemning her as coward? Across the road a bird took flight. Large and heavy, it was mottled black and white and green. Not a breed native to Helwar, but she knew it from her travels in the south. It ate everything, plant and animal, but had a special liking for carrion.

Dapple crossed the road. On the far side, beyond the bushes, was a hollow. Something lay there, covered by branches and handfuls of leaves. She moved one of the branches. Underneath was the shot tsin, dead as a stone; and underneath the tsin were the actors. She couldn’t see them entirely, but parts protruded: a hand, a leg to the knee. One face — Manif’s — stared up at her, fur matted with dark blood, one eye already gone.

Shaking, she replaced the branch, then sat down before she fell. For a while, she did nothing except rock, her arms around her knees, silent because she feared to mourn out loud.

Finally, she got up and uncovered the grave. There was no way for her to move the tsin’s huge body, but she climbed down next to it, touching the actors, making sure they were all dead.

Everything she touched was lifeless. There was nothing in the grave except the corpses. The bandits had taken everything else: the cart, the surviving tsin, and the company’s belongings. There was no way to bury the actors properly. If she tried, she would be leaving evidence of her existence.

She climbed back out of the grave. Where should she go? Back to the harbor town? But the bandits had obviously been waiting along the road, and they might have gone back to waiting. If so, they were likely to be where they’d been before: somewhere to the east.

If they intended to set an ambush farther west, surely they would have done a better job of covering the bodies. Birds had found them already. By tomorrow this spot would be full of noisy, filthy eaters-of-carrion.

It’s possible she wasn’t thinking clearly in reasoning this out. Nonetheless, she decided to go west. According to Massif, there was a town less than a day’s journey away: solid, fortified, and fond of acting. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Dapple went on.

The road wound through a series of narrow valleys. After she had gone a short distance, she saw the cart ahead of her, motionless in the middle of the road. She glanced back, planning to run. Two men stood there, both holding swords. Goddess! Ahl glanced at the forest next to her. As she did so, man stepped out of the blue-green shadow. He also held a sword.

“I should have gone east,” said Dapple.

“Some of our cousins went in that direction. Most likely, you would have met them.”

Was this the moment to reveal she was a woman? “Are you going to kill me?”

“That depends on what you do,” the man said. “But I’d prefer not to.”

The other bandits came close. There were four of them, all dressed in worn, stained clothing.

“He’s handsome,” said the youngest fellow, who had a bandage wrapped around one arm. “Worth keeping.”

“For what purpose?” asked Dapple, feeling uneasy.

“We’ll tell you later,” said the man from the forest.

After that, they took her bag and knife, then tied her hands in front of her. The man with the injured arm took the rope’s other end. “Come along, dear one. We have a long way to go before nightfall.”

He led her off the road, onto a narrow path. Animals had made it, most likely. A second man followed. The others stayed behind.

The rest of the day they traveled through steep forest. Now and then the path crossed a stream or went along a limestone outcropping. Dapple grew tired and increasingly afraid. She tried to reassure herself by thinking that men rarely killed women and rape — of women by men, at least — was an almost unknown perversion.

But women rarely traveled alone. Obviously they came to little harm, if they stayed at home or traveled in large companies; and this was the south, the region where civilization ended; and these men were killers, as she had seen. Who could say what they might do?

For example, they might kill her before learning she was a woman. Was this the moment to tell them? She continued to hesitate, feeling ashamed by the idea of abandoning her disguise. She had wanted to be different. She had planned to fool other people by using her intelligence and skill. Now, at the first setback, she was ready to give up.

What a finish to her ambitions! She might die in this miserable forest — like a hero in a play, though with less dignity.

Worst of all, she needed to urinate. She knew from Perig and Cholkwa that all actors drank moderately before they went on stage. But she hadn’t thought that she’d be acting this afternoon. Her bladder was full and beginning to hurt.

Finally she confessed her need.

“Go right ahead,” one of her captors said, stopping by a tree.

“I’m modest and can’t empty my bladder in front of other men.”

“We won’t watch,” said the second bandit in a lying tone.

“Let me go behind those bushes and do it. You’ll be able to see my head and shoulders. I won’t be able to escape.”

The bandits agreed, clearly thinking that she was some kind of fool. But who can explain the behavior of foreigners?

Dapple went behind the bushes. Now her childhood practice came in useful; unlike most women, she could urinate while standing up and not make a mess. From situations like these we learn to value every skill, unless it’s clearly pernicious. Who can predict the future and say this-and-such ability will never be of use? She rejoined the bandits, feeling an irrational satisfaction.

At nightfall, they came to a little stony valley far back in the hills. A stream ran out of it. They waded in through cold water. At the valley’s end was a tall narrow cave. Firelight shone out. “Home at last,” said the bandit who held Dapple’s rope.

They entered. The cave widened at once. Looking around, Dapple saw a large stone room. A fire burned in the middle. Around it sat women in ragged tunics. A few children chased each other, making shrill noises like the cries of birds. At the back of the cave were more openings, two or maybe three, leading farther in.

“What have you brought?” asked one of the women, lifting her head. The fur on the woman’s face was white with age; and the lenses of her eyes were cloudy.

“A fine young man to impregnate your daughters,” said the man holding the rope.

The old woman rose and came forward. Her body was solid, and she moved firmly, though with a cane. Bending close, she peered at Dapple, then felt an arm. “Good muscle. How old is he?”

“Tell her,” the man said.

“Eighteen.”

“Men are active at that age, no question, but I prefer someone older. Who knows anything about a lad of eighteen? He hasn’t shown the world his nature. His traits may be good or bad.”

“This is true, mother,” said the man with the rope. “But we have to take what we get. This one is alive and healthy. Most likely, he can do what we need done.”

Dapple thought of mentioning that she could not impregnate a female, but decided to wait.

“Come over to the fire,” the old woman said. “Sit down and talk with me. I like to know who’s fathering the children in our family.”

Dapple obeyed. The man went with them. Soon she was on the stone floor, a bowl of beer next to her. In her hand was a piece of greasy meat, a gift from the old woman. Around her sat the rest of the family: thin women with badly combed fur. Most likely they had bugs. One held a baby. The rest of the children were older, ranging from a girl of four or five to a boy at the edge of adulthood. The boy was remarkably clean for a member of this family; and he had a slim gracefulness that seemed completely out of place. The other children continued to run and scream, but he sat quietly among his female relatives, watching Dapple with eyes as yellow as resin.

The man, Dapple’s captor, sat in back of her, out of sight, though when she moved her bound hands, she could feel him holding the rope.

There had been five families in these hills, the old woman said. None of them large or rich, but they survived, doing one thing or another.

Five lineages of robbers, thought Dapple.

“We all interbred, till we were close kin, but we remained separate families, so we could continue to interbreed and find lovers. The rest of the families in this region never liked us and would have nothing to do with us. We had no one except each other.”

Definitely robbers.

In the end, the large and powerful families in the region combined against the five. One by one, they were destroyed. It was done in the usual way: the men were killed, the women and children adopted.

“But our neighbors, the powerful ones, never allowed any of the people they adopted to breed. They would not let women and children starve, but neither would they let traits like ours continue. We were poisoned and poisonous, they said.

“Imagine what it was like for those women and children! It’s one thing for a woman to lose her family name and all her male relatives. That can be endured. But to know that nothing will continue, that her children will die without children! Some of the women fled into the hills and died alone. Some were found by us. We took them in, of course, and bred them when we could. But where could we find fathers? The men who should have impregnated our daughters — and the women we adopted — were dead.

“We are the last of the five families: more women than men, all of us poor and thin, with no one to father the next generation, except travelers like you.

“But we refuse to give up! We won’t let rich and arrogant folk make us vanish from the world.”

Dapple thought while drinking her beer. “Why did your men kill the rest of our acting company? There were five more — all male, of course, and older than I am.”

The bandit matriarch peered past Dapple. “Six men? And you brought only one?”

“They fought,” said the man behind Dapple, his voice reluctant. “We became angry.”

The matriarch hissed, a noise full of rage.

“One other is still alive,” the man added. “My brothers will bring him along later.”

“You wanted to rape him,” said the matriarch. “What good do you think he’ll be, after you finish? Selfish, selfish boys! Your greed will destroy us!”

Obviously she had miscounted, when she climbed into the actors’ grave. Who was still alive? Not Manif. She’d seen him clearly. Maybe his lover, who was young and handsome.

“Don’t blame me,” said the man sullenly. “I’m not raping anyone. I’m here with this lad; and I haven’t touched him. As for the other man, he’ll still be usable. No one wants to make you angry.”

The matriarch scratched her nose. “I’ll deal with that problem when your brothers and male cousins return. In the meantime, tie up this man. I need to decide who should mate with him.”

“Why should I do this?” asked Dapple. “There is no breeding contract between your family and mine. No decent man has sex with a woman, unless it’s been arranged by his relatives and hers.”

“We will kill you, if you don’t,” said the man behind Dapple.

“What will you do if I agree to do this very improper thing?”

The people around the fire looked uneasy.

“One thing at a time,” said the matriarch. “First, you have to make one of our women pregnant. Later, we’ll decide what to do with you.”

Dapple was led into another cave, this one small and empty except for a pallet on the floor and an iron ring set in the wall. Her captor tied her rope to the ring and left her.

She sat down. Firelight came from the main cave, enough to light her prison. She tried to loosen the knots that held her. No luck. A cold draft blew down on her. At first she thought it was fear. Glancing up, she saw a hole that led to starlight. Too far for her to reach, even if she could manage to free herself, and most likely too small to climb through. Only a few stars were visible. One was yellow and very bright: the Eye of Uson. It made her think of Manif’s one eye. How was she going to escape this situation? The hole seemed unreachable, and the only other route was past the main cavern, full of bandits; and she was tired, far too tired to think. Dapple lay down and went to sleep.

She woke to feel a hand shaking her. Another hand was over her mouth.

“Don’t make any noise,” a voice whispered.

She moved her head in a gesture of agreement. The hand over her mouth lifted. Cautiously, she sat up.

The fire in the main cave still burned, though more dimly. Blinking, she made out a slim figure. She touched an arm. The fur felt smooth and clean. “You are the boy.”

“A man now. Fifteen this spring. Are you really an actor?”

“Yes.”

“My father was one. They told me about him: a handsome man, who told jokes and juggled anything: fruit, stones, knives, though they never let him have sharp knives. After he made my mother pregnant, they kept him to impregnate another woman and because they enjoyed his company. But instead of doing as they planned, he escaped. They say they’ll never trust another foreigner — or keep a man alive so long that he knows his way through the caves. His name was Cholkwa. Have you ever heard of him?”

Dapple laughed quietly.

“What does that mean?” asked the boy.

“I’ve known him all my life. He stays at my family’s house when he’s on Helwar Island. Though he has never mentioned meeting your kin, at least when I was around.”

“Maybe we weren’t important to him,” the boy said in a sad tone.

Most likely, Cholkwa kept silent out of shame. His own family was far to the north, across the narrow ocean, and she’d never heard him speak about any of them. Maybe he had no relatives left. There’d been war in the north for generations now. Sometimes it flared up; at other times it died to embers, but it never entirely ended; and many lineages had been destroyed.

He was a decent man, in spite of his lack of kin. How could he admit to breeding without a contract arranged by the senior women in his family? How could he admit to leaving a child who was related to him — granted, not closely, but a relative nonetheless — in a place like this?

“Will your relatives kill me?” Dapple asked.

“Once you have made one of my cousins pregnant, yes.”

“Why are you here with me?”

“I wanted to know about my father.” The boy paused. “I wanted to know what lies beyond these hills.”

“What good will it do for you to know?”

There was silence for a while. “When I was growing up, my mother told me about Cholkwa, his stories and jokes and tricks. There are cities beyond the hills, he told her, and boats as big as our cave that sail on the ocean. The boats go from city to city, and there are places — halls and open spaces — where people go to see acting. In those places, Cholkwa is famous. Crowds of people come to see him perform the way he did for my family in this cave. Are these stories true?”

“Yes,” said Dapple. “Everywhere he goes, people are charmed by him and take pleasure in his skill. No actor is more famous.” She paused, trying to think of what to say next. The Goddess had given this boy to her; she must find a way to turn him into an ally. “He has no kin on this side of the ocean. Most likely, he would enjoy meeting you.”

“Fathers don’t care about their children, and we shouldn’t care about them. Dead or alive, they do nothing for us.”

“This isn’t true,” said Dapple with quiet anger. “Obviously, it makes sense for a child to stay with her mother and be raised by maternal kin. A man can’t nurse a baby, after all; and few mothers could bear to be separated from a small child. But the connection is still there. Most men pay some attention to their children, especially their sons. If something happens to the maternal lineage or to the relationship between a woman and her family, the paternal lineage will often step in. My mother is from Sorg, but she quarreled with her kin and fled to my father’s family, the Helwar. They adopted her and me. Such things occur.”

“Nothing has happened to my family,” the boy said. “And my mother never quarreled with them, though she wasn’t happy living here. I know that.”

“Your family is not fit to raise children,” said Dapple. “You seem to have turned out surprisingly well, but if you stay with them, they’ll make you a criminal, and then you’ll be trapped here. Do you really want to spend your life among thieves and people who breed without a contract? If you leave now and seek out Cholkwa, it may be possible for you to have a decent life.”

The boy was silent for a moment, then exhaled and stood. “I have to go. They might wake.”

A moment later, she was alone. She lay for a while, wondering if the boy would help her or if there was another way to escape. When she went back to sleep, she dreamt of Cholkwa. He was on a stage, dressed in bright red armor. His eyes were yellow and shone like stars. Instead of acting, he stood in a relaxed pose, holding a wooden sword loosely. “All of this is illusion and lies,” he told her, gesturing at the stage. “But there’s truth behind the illusion. If you are going to act, you need to know what’s true and what’s a lie. You need to know which lies have truth in back of them.”

Waking, she saw a beam of sunlight shining through the hole in her ceiling. For a moment, the dream’s message seemed clear and important. As she sat up, it began to fade and blur, though she kept the image of Cholkwa in his crimson armor.

One of the bandit males came and untied her. Together they went out, and she relieved herself behind bushes.

“I’ve never known anyone so modest,” the bandit said. “How are you going to get a woman pregnant, if you can’t bare yourself in front of a man?”

A good question, Dapple thought. Her disguise couldn’t last much longer. Maybe she ought to end it. It didn’t seem likely the boy would help her; people didn’t turn against their kin, even kin like these; and as long as the bandits thought she was a man, they might do anything. No rules protect a man who falls into the hands of enemies. She might be dead or badly injured, before they realized she wasn’t male. But something, a sense of foreboding, made her reluctant to reveal her true nature.

“We have sex in the dark,” she told the bandit.

“That can be managed,” he replied. “Though it seems ridiculous.”

Dapple spent the rest of the day inside, alone at first, in a corner of the cave. The other bandits did not return, and the matriarch looked increasingly grim. Her kin sent their children outside to play. The men were gone as well. Those who remained — a handful of shabby women — worked quietly, giving the matriarch anxious glances. Clearly this was someone who could control her family! A pity that the family consisted of criminals.

At last the old woman gestured. “Come here, man. I want to know you better.”

Dapple settled by the fire, which still burned, even in the middle of a bright day. This wasn’t surprising. The cave was full of shadows, and the air around them was cool and damp.

Instead of asking questions, the woman grumbled. It was hard work holding together a lineage, especially when all the neighboring families were hostile, and she got little help. Her female relatives were slovenly. “My eyes may be failing, but I can still smell. This place stinks like a midden heap!” Her male kin were selfish and stupid. “Five men! And they have brought me one, with another promised, though I’ll believe in him when he appears.”

All alone, she labored to continue her line of descent, though only one descendant seemed really promising, the boy who’d been fathered by an actor. “A fine lad. Maybe there’s something potent about the semen of actors. I hope so.”

Evening came. The missing bandits did not appear. Finally the old woman looked at Dapple. “It seems our hopes rest in your hands — or if not in your hands, then in another part of your body. Is there a woman you prefer?”

Dapple glanced around. Figures lurked in the shadows, trying to avoid the matriarch’s glance. Hard to see, but she knew what was there. “No.”

“I’ll pick one, then.”

“There is something you ought to know,” Dapple said.

The old women frowned at her.

“I can’t impregnate a woman.”

“Many men find the idea of sex with women distasteful,” the matriarch said. “But they manage the task. Surely your life is worth some effort. I promise you, you’ll die if you don’t try.”

“I’m a woman,” said Dapple. “This costume is a disguise.”

“Ridiculous,” the matriarch said. “Decent women don’t wear men’s clothing or travel with actors.”

“I didn’t say I was a decent woman. I said I was female and unable to father children. Don’t you think — since I can’t help you — you ought to let me go?”

“No matter what you are, we can’t let you go,” said the matriarch. “You might lead people to this cave.” Then she ordered her kin to examine Dapple.

Three shabby women moved in. Standing, Dapple pulled off her tunic and underpants.

“No question about it,” one of the women said. “She is female.”

“What wretched luck!” cried the matriarch. “What have I done to deserve this kind of aggravation? And what’s wrong with you, young woman, running around in a tunic and tricking people? Have you no sense of right behavior?”

There were more insults and recriminations, mostly from the old woman, though the others muttered agreement. What inhospitable and unmannerly folk! Dapple could hardly have fallen into a worse situation, though they weren’t likely to kill her, now that they knew she was a woman.

At last, the matriarch waved a hand. “Tie her up for the night. I need to think.”

Once again Dapple found herself in the little side cave, tied to an iron ring. As on the previous night, stars shone through the hole in the ceiling, and firelight came down the corridor from the main cave, along with angry voices. Her captors were arguing. At this distance she couldn’t make out words, but there was no mistaking the tone.

This time she made a serious effort to untie the rope that held her. But her hands had been fastened together, and her fingers couldn’t reach the knot. Gnawing proved useless. The rope was too thick and strong. Exhausted, she began to doze. She woke to a touch, as on the night before.

“Is it you again?” she asked in a whisper.

“My grandmother has chosen me to impregnate you,” said the boy, sounding miserable.

“What do you mean?”

“If you can’t father children on our women, then we’ll father children on you and adopt the children, as you were adopted by your father’s family. That plan will do as well as the first one, Grandmother says. The others say she’s favoring me, but I don’t want to do this.”

“Breed without a contract? What man would? What are you going to do?”

“Have sex with you, though I’ve never had sex with anyone. But Grandmother has explained how it’s done.”

“You have reached a moment of decision,” said Dapple. “If you make the wrong choice now, your life will lead to ruin, like the life of a protagonist in a hero play.”

“What does that mean?”

“If you have sex with me against my will, and without a contract arranged by my female relatives, you will be a criminal forever. But if you set me free, I will lead you to your father.”

“I have a knife,” said the boy uncertainly. “I could cut you free, but there’s no way out except through the main cave.”

Dapple lifted her head, indicating the hole in the ceiling.

The boy gazed up at the stars. “Do you think you could get through?”

“I’d be willing to try, if there’s no other way. But how do we reach it?”

“Standing on my shoulders won’t do. It’s too far up. But I could go outside and lower a rope. Can you climb one?”

“I’ve worked as a sailor,” said Dapple. “Of course I can.”

“I could tell them I need to urinate. I know where there’s a rope. It could be done. But if they catch us —”

“If you stay here and do this thing, you will be a thief. Your children will be thieves. You’ll never see the cities beyond these hills or the ships as big as caves.”

The boy hesitated, then pulled his knife and cut Dapple free. “Wait here,” he said fiercely and left.

She rubbed her hands and wrists, then stood and stretched. Hah! How stiff she was!

Voices rose in the main cave, mocking the boy, then dropped back to a murmur. She began to watch the hole.

After a while, a dark shape hid the stars. A rope dropped toward her. Dapple grasped it and tugged. It held. She took off her tunic and tied it to the bottom of the rope, then began her climb, going hand over hand up the rope. Cold air blew past her, ruffling the fur on her arms and shoulders. It smelled of damp soil and forest. Freedom, thought Dapple. A moment or two later, she reached the hole. Hah! It was narrow! As bad as she had feared!

“Can you make it?” the boy whispered.

“I have to,” Dapple said and continued to climb.

Her head was no problem, but her shoulders were too wide. Rough stone scraped against them. She kept on, trying to force her body through the opening. All at once she realized that she was stuck, like a piece of wax used to seal the narrow neck of a jar. Dapple groaned with frustration.

“Be quiet,” whispered the boy and began to pull, leaning far back, all his weight on the rope. For a moment she remained wedged in the hole. Then her shoulders were through, though some of her fur remained behind. Her elbows dug into dirt. She pushed up. The boy continued to pull, and Dapple popped into freedom. She stretched out on the damp ground, facedown, smelling dirt, the forest and the night wind.

“You have no clothing on!” the boy exclaimed.

“I took my tunic off,” said Dapple. “I knew the fit would be tight.”

“You can’t travel like this!”

She pulled the rope out of the hole, retrieving her tunic and putting it on.

“Better,” said the boy, though he still sounded embarrassed.

He had wrapped his end of the rope to a tree. She undid the knots and coiled the rope. “A knife, a rope, and four sound feet. I’d like more, but this will have to do. Let’s go.”

They set off through the forest, the boy leading, since he had good night vision, and this was his country.

“When will they discover that we are missing?” Dapple asked after a while.

“In the morning. Tonight they’ll drink and tell each other rude stories about sex. Grandmother gave permission. It’s lucky to do this, when people breed.”

It was never lucky to breed without a contract, Dapple thought but said nothing. How was this boy going to survive in the outside world, knowing so little about how to behave? She’d worry about that problem when both of them were safe.

They traveled all night. In spite of the boy’s keen eyes, the two travelers stumbled often and hit themselves against branches, sometimes thorny. No one living in a town can imagine the darkness of a forest, even when the sky above the trees is full of stars. Certainly Dapple had not known, living in a harbor town. How she longed for an ocean vista, open and empty, with starlight glinting off the waves!

At dawn, they stopped and hid in a ravine. Water trickled at the bottom. Birds cried in the leaves, growing gradually quiet as the day grew warmer. Exhausted, the two young people dozed. Midway through the morning, voices woke them: men, talking loudly and confidently as they followed a nearby trail. The boy peered out. “It’s my relatives,” he said.

“Is anyone with them?” asked Dapple fearfully. What would they do, if one of the actors had survived and was a prisoner? It would be unbearable to leave the man with savages, but if she and the boy tried to free the man, they would be killed or taken prisoner like him.

“No,” said the boy after a while. “They must have killed him, after they finished raping him. My grandmother will be so angry!”

These people were both monsters and fools. Was there anything she could learn from the situation? Maybe the nature of monsters, if she ever had to portray a monster in a play. The nature of monsters, Dapple thought as she crouched in the ravine, was folly. That was the thing she had to concentrate on, not her own sense of fear and horror.

After a while the boy said, “They’re gone. I didn’t expect them to come this direction. But now that they’ve passed us, we’d better put as much distance as possible between us and them.”

They rose and went on. Shortly thereafter, they found the robbers’ camp: a forest clearing with the remains of a fire and Dapple’s last companion, Manif’s lover. He must have endured as much as he could, then fought back. There were various wounds, which Dapple did not look at closely, and a lot of blood, which had attracted bugs.

“Dead,” said the boy. “They should have buried him, but we can’t take the time.”

Dapple went to the edge of the clearing and threw up, then covered her vomit with forest debris. Maybe the robbers wouldn’t find it, if they came back this way. Though the moist ground should tell the bandits who’d been here.

The boy must have thought the same thing. After that, they traveled through streams and over rocks. It was a hard journey.

Late in the afternoon, they descended into a valley. At the bottom was a larger-than-usual stream. The forest canopy was less thick than before. Sunlight speckled the ground. “We are close to the border of our country,” the boy said. “From this point on, it will be best to follow trails.”

One ran along the stream, narrow and used more by animals than people, Dapple thought. The travelers took it. After a while, a second stream joined the first. Together, they formed a river where small rapids alternated with pools. At sunset, turning a corner, they discovered a group of men swimming. Clothes and weapons lay on the riverbank.

The boy stopped suddenly. “Ettin.”

“What?” asked Dapple.

“Our enemies,” he answered, sounding fearful, then added, “The people I am bringing you to. Go forward. I cannot.” He turned to go back the way they had come. Behind him the sky was sunset red; the boy’s face was in shadow. Nonetheless, Dapple saw his mouth open and eyes widen.

A harsh voice said, “Neither can you go back, thief.”

She turned as well. A man stood in the trail, short and broad with a flat ugly face. A metal hat covered the top of his head and was fastened under his chin with a leather strap. His torso was covered with metal and leather armor. A skirt made of leather strips hung to his knees. One hand held a sword, the blade bare and shining. She had never seen anyone who looked so unattractive.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“A guard. You can’t believe that men of Ettin would bathe without posting guards.”

“I’m from the north,” said Dapple. “I know nothing about Ettin, which I imagine is your lineage.”

He made a noise that indicated doubt. “The north? And this one as well?” The sword tip pointed at her companion.

“I was traveling with actors,” Dapple said. “Robbers killed my comrades and took me prisoner. This lad rescued me and was guiding me to safety.”

The guard made another noise that indicated doubt. Other men gathered. Some were guards out of the forest. The rest were bathers, their fur slick with water and their genitalia exposed. She knew what male babies and boys looked like, of course; but this was the first time she’d seen men. They weren’t as big as she’d imagined, after Cholkwa’s plays. Nonetheless, the situation was embarrassing. She glanced back at the first guard, meeting his eyes.

“Are you threatening me?” he asked.

“Of course not.”

“Then look down! What kind of customs do you have in the north?”

She looked at the ground. The air smelled of wet fur. “What’s this about?” the men asked. “What have you captured?”

“Some kind of foreigner, and a fellow of unknown lineage, though local, I think. They say they’ve escaped from the robbers.”

“If done, it’s well done,” said a swimmer. “But they may be lying. Take them to our outpost, and let the captain question them. If they’re spies, he’ll uncover them.”

Who is talking about uncovering? Dapple thought. A man with water dripping off him and his penis evident to anyone who cared to look. Not that she glanced in his direction. It was like being in an animal play, though maybe less funny.

Other men made noises of agreement. The swimmers went off to dry and dress. The men in armor tied Dapple’s hands behind her back, then did the same for the boy. After that, they ran a second rope from Dapple’s neck to the boy’s neck. “You won’t run far like this,” one said when the second rope was fastened.

“Is this any way to treat guests?” asked Dapple.

“You may be spies. If you are not, we’ll treat you well. The Ettin have always been hospitable and careful.”

Tied like animals going to market, they marched along the trail, which had grown wider and looked better used. Half the men went with them. The rest stayed behind to guard the border.

Twilight came. They continued through darkness, though under an open sky. By this time Dapple was dazed by lack of sleep. One of the guards took her arm, holding her upright and guiding her. “You’re a pretty lad. If you are what you say, maybe we can keep company.”

Another guard said, “Don’t listen, stranger. You can do better than Hattin. If you are what you say.”

Her male disguise was certainly causing problems, though she needed it, if she was going to learn acting. What was she learning now? Danger and fear. If she survived and made it home, she would think about specializing in hero plays.

Ahead of them gleamed firelight, shining out windows. A sword hilt knocked on a door. Voices called. Dapple could not understand what they were saying, but the door opened.

Entering, she found herself in a courtyard made of stone. On one side was a stable, on the other side a square stone tower.

She and the boy were led into the tower. The ground floor was a single room with a fireplace on one side. A man sat next to the fire in a high-backed wooden chair. His grey fur was silvered by age, and he was even uglier than his relatives.

“This is Ettin Taiin,” said the guard named Hattin. “The man who watches this border, with our help.”

The man rose and limped forward. He’d lost an eye, though not recently, and did not bother to hide the empty socket. “Poor help you are,” he said in a voice like stone grating against stone. “Nonetheless, I manage.” He looked directly at Dapple. The one eye that remained was bright blue, the pupil expanded in the dim light, so it lay across his iris like a black iron bar across sky. “Who are you, and what are you doing in the land I watch?”

She told her story a second time.

“That explains you,” said Ettin Taiin. “And I’m inclined toward belief. Your accent is not local, nor is your physical type, though you are certainly lovely in a foreign way. But this lad —” He glared at the boy. “Looks like a robber.”

The boy whimpered, dropping to the floor and curling like a frightened tli. Because they were tied together, Dapple was pulled to her knees. She looked at the border captain. “There is more to the story. I am not male.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ettin Taiin, his voice harsher than before.

“I wanted to be an actor, and women are not allowed to act.”

“Quite rightly,” said the captain.

“I disguised myself as a young man and joined a company here in the south, where no one knows me; and where I’m not likely to meet actors I know, such as Perig and Cholkwa.”

“Cholkwa is here right now,” said the captain, “visiting my mother and her sisters. What a splendid performer he is! I nearly ruptured myself laughing the last time I saw him. If he knows you, then he can speak for you; I am certainly not going to find out whether or not you’re female. My mother raised me properly.”

“An excellent woman,” murmured the guards standing around.

“When the robbers captured me, I told them I was female; and they told this lad to impregnate me.”

“With no contract? Without the permission of your female relatives?” The stony voice was full of horror.

“Obviously,” said Dapple. “My relatives are on Helwar Island, far to the north.”

“You see what happens when women run off to foreign places, without the protection of the men in their family,” said the captain. “Not that this excuses the robbers in any way. We’ve been lax in letting them survive. Did he do it?”

The boy, still curled on the floor, his hands over his head, made a keening noise. The guards around her exhaled, and Dapple thought she heard the sound of swords moving in their scabbards.

“No,” Dapple said. “He got me out of prison and brought me here. That’s the end of the story.”

“Nasty and shocking,” said the captain. “We will obviously have to kill the rest of the robber men, though it won’t be easy to hunt them down. The children can be adopted, starting with this lad. He looks young enough to keep. The women are a problem. I’ll let my female relatives deal with it, once we have captured the women. I only hope I’m not forced into acts that will require me to commit suicide after. I’m younger than I look and enjoy life.”

“We’d all prefer to stay alive,” said Hattin.

“Untie them,” said the captain, “and put them in separate rooms. In the morning, we’ll take them to my mother.”

The guards pulled the two of them upright and cut their ropes. The captain limped back to his chair. “And feed them,” he added as he settled and picked up a cup. “Give the woman my best halin.”

Leading them up a flight of stairs, Hattin said, “If you’re a woman, then I apologize for the suggestion I made. Though I wasn’t the only one who thought you’d make a good bedmate. Ettin Taiin is going to be hearing jokes about that for years.”

“You tease a man like him?” asked Dapple.

“I don’t, but the senior men in the family do. The only way someone like that is tolerable, is if you can embarrass him now and then.”

Her room had a lantern, but no fire. It wasn’t needed on a mild spring night. Was the man downstairs cold from age or injuries? The window was barred, and the only furniture was a bed. Dapple sat down. The guards brought food and drink and a pissing pot, then left, locking the door. She ate, drank, pissed, and went to sleep.

In the morning, she woke to the sound of nails scratching on her door. A man’s voice said, “Make yourself ready.” Dapple rose and dressed. The night before she’d unbound her breasts in order to sleep comfortably. She didn’t rebind them now. The tunic was thick enough to keep her decent; her breasts weren’t large enough to need support; and the men of Ettin were treating her like a woman. Better to leave the disguise behind, like a shell outgrown by one of the animals her male relatives pulled from the sea.

Guards escorted her and the boy downstairs. There were windows on the ground floor, which she hadn’t noticed the night before. Shutters open, they let in sunlight. The Ettin captain stood at a table covered with maps. “Good morning,” he said. “I’m trying to decide how to trap the robbers. Do you have any suggestions, lad? And what is your name?”

“Rehv,” the boy said. “I never learned to read maps; and I will not help you destroy my family.”

Ettin Taiin rolled the maps — they were paper, rather than the oiled leather her people used — and put them in a metal tube. “Loyalty is a virtue. So is directness. You’ll make a fine addition to the Ettin lineage; and I’ll decide how to destroy your lineage later. Today, as I told you before, we’ll ride to my mother.”

They went out and mounted tsina, the captain easily in spite of his lame leg, Dapple and the boy with more difficulty.

“You aren’t riders,” said Ettin Taiin. “And that tells me your families don’t have many tsina. Good to know, for when I hunt the robbers down.”

They spent the day riding, following a narrow road through forested hills. A small group of soldiers accompanied them, riding as easily as the captain and joking among themselves. Now and then they saw a cabin. “Hunters and trappers,” said Ettin Taiin. “There are logging camps as well. But no women. The robbers are too close. Time and time again we’ve tried to clean them out; but they persist, growing ever more inbred and nasty.”

Riding next to her, the boy shivered, hair rising on his arms and shoulders. Now that she was apparently safe, Dapple felt pity and respect for him. He’d been confronted by the kind of decision a hero faces in a play. Should he side with his kin or with right behavior? A man without kin was like a tree without roots. The slightest wind would push him over. A man without morality was like — what? A tree without sunlight and rain.

In most cases, hero plays ended in death. It was the easiest resolution. Unable to make a definite choice, the hero blundered through a series of half-actions and mistakes, until he was killed by enemies or friends; and the audience exhaled in relief. May the Goddess keep them from this kind of situation!

Most likely the boy would live to see his relatives die, while he was adopted by the Ettin. It was the right ending for the story of a child. Their duty was to live and grow and learn. Honor belonged to older people. Nonetheless, the story disturbed Dapple, as did the boy’s evident unhappiness and fear.

Late in the afternoon, they entered a wide flat valley. The land was cultivated. The buildings scattered among fields and orchards were made of planks rather than logs. Many were painted: blue-grey, green, or white.

“Barns,” said the Ettin captain. “Stables. Houses for herdsmen.”

She was back in the ordinary world of people who understood rules, though she wasn’t certain the Ettin followed the rules she had learned on Helwar Island. Still, the pastures were fenced, the fields plowed in straight lines, and the orchard trees — covered with pale orange blossoms — were orderly.

They reached the captain’s home as the sun went down. It was a cluster of buildings made of wood and stone, next to a river crossed by a stone bridge. The lower stories had no windows, and the doors were iron bound. Built for defense, but no enemies were expected today. The largest door was open. Riding through it, they entered a courtyard surrounded by balconies. Children played in the early evening shadows, though Dapple couldn’t make out the game; it stopped the moment they appeared.

“Uncle Taiin!” cried several voices.

The captain swung down stiffly and was surrounded by small bodies.

“An excellent man,” said one of the guards to Dapple. “Affectionate with children, respectful toward women and violent toward other men.”

“Even men of your family?” Dapple asked.

“We win, and most of us come home; we don’t expect kindness from a leader on campaign.”

A woman came into the courtyard, tall and broad, wearing a sleeveless robe. Age had whitened her face and upper arms. She carried a staff and leaned on it; but her head was erect, her blue eyes as bright as a polished blade.

The children fell silent and moved away from their uncle. He lifted his head, looked straight at the old woman and gave her a broad, boyish grin. Beyond question, this was his mother. Could actors replicate this moment? No. Children were not used in plays; and everything here was small and quiet: the man’s grin, the woman’s brief returning smile.

“Taiin,” she said in greeting. Nothing more, but the voice rang — it seemed to Dapple — with joy. Her steel blue eyes flashed toward Dapple and the boy. “Tell me the names of our guests.”

He did, adding, “The girl, if this is a girl, says that Cholkwa the actor will speak for her. The boy is almost old enough to be killed; but if he saved her, then he’s worth saving.”

“I will form my own judgment,” said the Matriarch. “But she’s clearly a girl.”

“Are you certain?”

“Use your eye, Taiin!”

He obeyed with a slow sideways look. “She does seem more feminine than she did yesterday. But I’d be happier if she had on female clothing. Then, maybe, I could see her as a woman entirely. Right now, she seems to shift back and forth. It’s very disturbing!”

“I’ll give her a bath and new clothes,” said the matriarch with decision. “You take care of the boy.”

Dapple dismounted. The old woman led her through shadowy halls to a courtyard with two pools built of stone. Steps led down into each. One seemed ordinary enough, the water in it colorless and still; but the other was full of bright green water. Steam rose from its surface; the air around it had an unfamiliar, slightly unpleasant odor.

“It comes from the ground like this,” said the matriarch. “We bring it here through pipes. The heat is good for old bones, stiff muscles, and the kind of injuries my son Taiin has endured. Undress! Climb in!”

Dapple obeyed, pulling off her tunic. The matriarch exhaled. “A fine looking young woman, indeed! A pity that you won’t be bred!”

Because she had bad traits. Well, she didn’t mind. She had never wanted to be a mother, only an actor. Dapple entered the steaming water, sinking until she was covered. Hah! It was pleasant, in spite of the aroma! She stretched out and looked up. Though shadows filled the courtyard, the sky above was full of light. A cloud like a feather floated there. Last night she slept in a guardhouse. The night before she’d scrambled through a dark forest; and before that she’d been in a cave full of robbers. Now she was back in a proper house, not entirely like her home, but close enough.

Women appeared, bringing a chair for the matriarch and a clothing rack, on which they hung new clothes for Dapple. Then they left. The matriarch sat down, laying her staff on the court’s stone floor. “Why did you disguise yourself as a man?”

Dapple told her story, floating in the steaming pool. The old woman listened with obvious attention. When the story was done, she said, “We’ve been negligent. We should have cleared those people out years ago. But I — and my sisters and our female cousins — didn’t want to adopt the robber women. They’ll be nothing but trouble.”

This was true, thought Dapple, remembering the women in the cave, especially the robber matriarch. This was not a person who’d fit herself quietly into a new household. Hah! She would struggle and plot!

“But something will have to be done. We can’t let these folk rob and murder and force men to breed. No child should come into existence without the agreement of two families. No man should become a father without a proper contract. We are not animals! I’m surprised at Cholkwa. Surely it would be better to die than to reproduce in this fashion.”

She might have agreed before her recent experiences; but now life seemed precious, as did Cholkwa and every person she knew and liked. If he had refused to cooperate with the robbers, she would have lost him when she barely knew him; and the boy who saved her would never have come into existence. The thought of her fate without the boy was frightening.

Maybe none of this would have happened, if Cholkwa had died before she saw him act. Without him, she might have been content to stay in Helwar. Hardly likely! She would have seen Perig; and he was the one she wanted to imitate. Comedy was fine. Cholkwa did it beautifully. But she didn’t want to spend her life making rude jokes.

Nor did she want to do exactly what Perig did. His heroes were splendid. When they died, she felt grief combined with joy. They were so honorable! Perig had so much skill! But her recent experiences suggested that real death was nothing like a play. Manif and his comrades would not rise to shouts of praise. Their endings had been horrible and final and solved nothing. Death was the problem here, rather than the problem’s solution. Why had they died? Why was she alive? Were tragedy and comedy the only alternatives? Did one either die with honor or survive in an embarrassing costume?

These were difficult questions; and Dapple was too young to have answers, maybe too young to ask the questions clearly. But something like these ideas, though possibly more fragmentary, floated in her mind as she floated in the steaming pool.

“That’s enough heat,” the matriarch said finally. “It will make you dizzy, if you stay too long. Go to the second pool and cool down!”

Dapple obeyed, pausing on the way to pick up a ball of soap. This water was pleasant, too. Not cold, but cool, as the matriarch had suggested, and so very fresh! It must come from a mountain stream. The soap lathered well and smelled of herbs. She washed herself entirely, then rinsed. The robbers would stay in her mind, but the stink of their cave would be out of her fur. In time, her memories would grow less intense, though she didn’t want to forget the boy; and was it right to forget Manif and the other actors?

She climbed out of the second pool. A towel hung on the clothing rack, also a comb with a long handle. She used both, then dressed. The young women in this country wore kilts and vests. Her kilt was dark blue, the fabric soft and fine. Her vest was made of thicker material, bright red with silver fasteners down the front. The Ettin had provided sandals as well, made of dark blue leather.

“Beyond question you are a handsome young woman,” the matriarch said. “Brave and almost certainly intelligent, but far too reckless. What are we going to do with you?”

Dapple said nothing, having no answer. The matriarch picked up her staff and rose.

They went through more shadowy halls, coming finally to an open door. Beyond was a terrace made of stone. A low wall ran along the far side. Beyond the wall was the river that ran next to the house, then pastures rising toward wooded hills. Everything was in shadow now, except the sky and the very highest hilltops. Two men sat on the terrace wall, conversing: Ettin Taiin and Cholkwa. The robber boy stood nearby, looking far neater and cleaner than before. Like Dapple, he wore new clothes: a kilt as brown as weathered bronze and sandals with brass studs. Looking from him to Cholkwa, she could see a resemblance. Hah! The boy would be loved by many, when he was a little older!

“I have introduced Cholkwa to his son,” Ettin Taiin said to his mother.

Cholkwa stood and made a gesture of greeting. His gaze met Dapple’s briefly, then passed on as if she were a stranger. “What a surprise, Hattali! When I left the cave, running as quickly as possible, I did not know the woman was likely to produce a child.”

“You should have come to us, as soon as you escaped,” the matriarch said. “If we’d known what the robbers were doing, we would have dealt with them years ago. Do you know this young woman?”

“She is Helwar Ahl, the daughter of a family that’s dear to me. A good young person, though Taiin tells me she has some crazy idea of becoming an actor.”

“I told you that!” cried Dapple.

“I told you it was impossible. My life is dangerous and disreputable, Ahl. No woman should lead it.” He glanced toward the matriarch. “My stay with the robbers occurred during my first trip south. I didn’t know your family or much of anyone. After I escaped, I fled to the coast and took the first ship I could find going north. Hah! I was frightened and full of self-disgust! It was several years before I came south again. By then I had convinced myself that the woman could not have been pregnant. I half-believed the story was a dream, caused by a southern fever. How could I think that such people were possible and real?”

“I am,” said the boy. “We are.”

“Think of the men who have died because you did not tell your story,” the matriarch said to Cholkwa. “Think of the children who have been raised by criminals. How can they possibly turn out well? What kind of person would turn away from children in such a situation?”

Cholkwa was silent for a moment, then said, “I have no excuse for my behavior. I did what I did.”

“Remember that he makes his living as a comic actor,” said the Ettin captain. “How can we judge a man who spends his time portraying small animals with large sexual organs? Let’s put these lost-past happenings off to the side. We have enough problems in the present.”

“This is true,” said the matriarch. “For one thing, I need a chair.”

“I’ll tend to that,” said Cholkwa and hurried off.

The captain, still lounging comfortably on the wall, glanced at his mother. “Have you decided how to deal with the robbers?”

The old woman groaned, leaning on her staff and looking morose. “You will have to kill the men, and we will have to adopt the women and children, though I do not look forward to having females like these in our houses.”

“This is a relief! I thought, knowing your opinion of the robber women, that you might ask me to kill them.”

“Would you do it?”

“If you told me to, yes.”

“And then what?”

“Why ask, mother? The answer is obvious. I have always wanted to be famous, not infamous. If I had to do something so dishonorable, there would be no alternative left except suicide.”

“This is what I expected,” the matriarch said. “Listening to Helwar Ahl’s story, I asked myself, ‘What is worse? Taiin’s death or a house full of unruly women?’ No one should have to make such a decision! But I have made it, and I will endure the consequences.”

“Be more cheerful! If you spread the women out among many houses, they may not be much of an aggravation.”

“We’ll see. But I’m glad to know that you are an honorable man, Taiin, though it means your old mother will suffer.”

“Think of the pleasure you’ll be able to take in my continued survival,” the captain said. “Not every mother of your age has a living son, especially one with my excellent moral qualities.”

What a fine pair they were, thought Dapple. She could see them in a play: the fierce soldier and his indomitable parent, full of love and admiration for each other. In a hero play, of course, the captain would die and the matriarch mourn. Hah! What a sight she would be, alone on a stage, standing over the captain’s body!

Women came onto the terrace with chairs and lanterns. The matriarch settled herself. “Bring food!”

“Now?” asked a middle-aged woman. “When you are with company?”

“Bring food for them as well,” said the matriarch.

“Mother!” said the captain.

“I’m too old and hungry to care about that kind of propriety. Manners and morality are not the same.”

The rest of them sat down, all looking uneasy. The women brought food. Dapple discovered she was ravenous, as was the boy, she noticed. The two men poured themselves cups of halin, but touched no food. The matriarch ate sparingly. It wasn’t as bad as Dapple had expected, since no one spoke. This wasn’t like a pack of carnivores snarling over their downed prey, or the monsters in old stories who chattered through mouths full of people. This meal was like travelers in a tavern, eating together because they had to, but quickly and in decent silence.

Soon enough they were done. The matriarch took a cup of halin from her son. “One problem has been solved. We will adopt the robber women. Cholkwa’s behavior will be forgotten. My son is right! We have no ability to judge such a man, and Taiin — I know — wants to keep Cholkwa as a friend.”

“This is true,” said the captain.

“Only one problem remains: the girl, Helwar Ahl.”

“No,” said the robber boy. “I also am a problem.” He glanced at Cholkwa. “I don’t want to stay here and watch these people kill my male relatives. Take me with you! I want to see foreign harbors and ships as large as caves!”

Cholkwa frowned. For a moment there was silence.

Ettin Taiin refilled his cup. “This might be a good idea for two reasons. The boy is likely to suffer from divided loyalties. That’s always a problem when one adopts a child as old as he is. And I find him attractive. If he stays here and becomes Ettin, I will be troubled with incestuous thoughts. As much as possible, I try to keep my mind free of disturbing ideas. They cause sleepless nights on campaign and slow reflexes in battle.”

“What about Helwar Ahl?” asked Cholkwa, obviously trying to go from one topic to another.

“She can’t go with you,” the matriarch said. “A woman with an unrelated man! And we are not ocean sailors, nor are the other families in this region, the ones we trust. Take the boy, if he’s going to give Taiin perverted ideas; and tell the girl’s family, when you get north, that she’s here with us. They can send a ship for her.”

“I want to be an actor,” said Dapple.

“You can’t,” said Cholkwa.

The matriarch frowned. “There are two things that men cannot do. One is have babies, because it’s impossible. The other is harm women and children, because it’s wrong. And there are two things that women cannot do: father children and fight in a war. These are absolute prohibitions. All other kinds of behavior may be difficult or disturbing, but they can be done. Granted, I would not want a daughter of mine to become an actor, though it might help make plays more interesting. There are too many penises in comedy, and too many honorable deaths in tragedy. These are male interests. Maybe the world would benefit from a play about real life.”

“Surely you don’t mean that, mother,” the Ettin captain said.

“You’re a fine lad and my favorite child, but there is much you don’t know. The world does not consist entirely of sex and violence. It isn’t only men who take action, and there are kinds of action which do not involve violence or sex.”

Dapple said, “I will run away again, I promise.”

“From here?” asked the matriarch. “Surely you have learned how dangerous the south can be.”

“From anywhere,” said Dapple.

Ettin Hattali sipped halin. The others watched her. By this time the sky was dark and full of stars, which shed enough light so Dapple could see the old woman’s pale face. “Life is made of compromises,” Hattali said finally. “I will offer you one. Stay here until your family sends for you; and I will argue for you with them. You are useless for breeding already. A girl who runs off in all directions! This is not a trait any family will want to continue. I’ll say as much and argue that the world needs women who speak for women, not just in our houses and the meetings between families, but everywhere, even in plays. Who knows where the current interest in drama will lead? Maybe — in time — plays will be written down, though this seems unlikely to me. But if they remain at all, in any form, as spoken words or memory, women should have a share in them. Do we want men to speak for us to future generations?

“Cholkwa, who has broken many rules before, can certainly break another one and teach you. If he wants the story of his behavior with the robbers kept quiet, if he wants to keep my son Taiin as a lover, he will cooperate.”

Taiin and Cholkwa — lovers? For a moment, Dapple was distracted. This certainly explained why Taiin found the boy attractive. How could Cholkwa betray his long-time lover, Perig, for a lame man with one eye?

Her family’s old friend sighed. “Very well, I’ll take the boy. No question I behaved badly when I mated with his mother. To create life without a contract! It was shameful! And you are right that I should have told my story. Then he would have gotten a proper home as a baby. Now he is old enough to love and mourn those criminals. I will not leave him here to watch his family die.

“And I will take your message to the Helwar. But I don’t like the idea of teaching the girl to act.”

“If you don’t do it, I will ask Perig or run off in disguise again.”

“Have the young always been this much trouble?” Cholkwa asked.

“Always,” said the matriarch in a firm tone.

The captain stood up. “My leg aches, and I want either sleep or sex. Take the boy north, so he doesn’t bother me. Take the message, so my mother can be happy. Worry about teaching the girl next year.”

The two men left, the boy following. He would be put in a room by himself, the captain said as they walked into the house. “It’s been a hard few days for you, Rehv my lad; and I don’t think you need to deal with Ettin boys.”

Dapple was alone with the matriarch, under a sky patterned with darkness and light.

“He made me angry when he used the word ‘can’t’ for a woman,” Ettin Hattali said. “No man has the right to say what women can and cannot do. Hah! I am old, to lose my temper and talk about women acting! But I will keep our agreement, young Ahl. What I said about plays is true. They are fine in their way, but they do not tell my story. So many years, struggling to keep my family going toward the front! The purpose of life is not to have honor and die, it’s to have honor and survive and raise the next generation to be honorable. Who says that in any play?”

“I will,” said Dapple and felt surprise. Was she actually going to become an actor and write plays? For the first time, her plan seemed possible rather than crazy. Maybe she wouldn’t be dragged back to safety. Maybe, with the matriarch on her side, she could have the life she wanted.

The moment an idea becomes solid is the moment when another person reaches out and takes it in her grasp. How frightening this is! The fur on Dapple’s shoulders rose. “Do you think Cholkwa will agree to teach me?”

“Most likely, when he gets used to the idea. He’s a good man, though foreign, and we have been his hosts many times over. That is a bond — not equal to kinship, perhaps, but strong; and there is also a bond between Cholkwa and Taiin. You may not believe this of my son, but he can persuade.”

They sat a while longer under the stars. A meteor fell, then another. Dapple’s fur was no longer bristling. Instead, her spirit began to expand.

• • • •

Two Knots that Tie Off the Story

Cholkwa took the boy as promised, and Rehv traveled with his father’s acting company for several years. But he had no gift for drama and no real liking for travel. Finally, in one harbor town or another, he fell in love. The object of his desire was a glassblower who made floats for fishing nets: good plain work that brought in an adequate income. The two men settled down together. Rehv learned to make glass floats and went on to finer work: halin cups, pitchers for beer, bowls for holding sand or flowers.

Sometimes he made figures, cast rather than blown: actors, soldiers, matriarchs, robbers, decorated with gold and silver leaf. The actors’ robes were splendid; the weapons held by the soldiers and robbers gleamed; only the matriarchs lacked decoration. They stood on the shelves of his lover’s shop — as green as the ocean, as red as blood, as black as obsidian.

Most people knew he had been an actor and had settled down because of love. Only his lover knew the entire story. He had grown up amid desperation and craziness; through luck and his own actions he had managed to achieve an ordinary life.

• • • •

Dapple’s relatives agreed to let her learn acting; and Perig agreed to teach her. She traveled with him for several years, accompanied by one of her male cousins, who ended by becoming an actor himself. In time, she established her own company, composed of women. She was always welcome in Ettin, and Ettin Hattali, who lived to be 110, attended Dapple’s performances whenever possible, though toward the end she could no longer see the actors. She could still hear the voices, Hattali told her relatives, and they were the voices of women.

© 1999 by Eleanor Arnason.

Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Reprinted by permission of the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eleanor Arnason has published eight novels and forty-plus works of short fiction. Her novel A Woman of the Iron People won the Tiptree and Mythopoeic Awards. Her story “Dapple” won the Spectrum Award. She has been a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Her most recent books are Tomb of the Fathers, a short novel from Aqueduct Press, and Hidden Folk, a collection from Many Worlds Press. Eleanor spent most of her adult life working in offices, ending finally as a nonprofit accountant, because she could not find work as a space cadet. She is now retired and writing full time. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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

NOVEL EXCERPT: Wylding Hall (Open Road Media)

Elizabeth Hand | 3800 words

Chapter 1

Tom Haring, Manager/Producer

I was the one who found the house. A friend of my sister-in-law knew the owners; they were living in Barcelona that summer and the place was to let. Not cheaply, either. But I knew how badly everyone needed to get away after the whole horrible situation with Arianna, and this seemed as good a bolt-hole as any. These days the new owners have had to put up a fence to keep away the curious. Everyone knows what the place looks like because of the album cover, and now you can just google the name and get directions down to the last millimeter.

But back then, Wylding Hall was a mere dot on the ordinance survey map. You couldn’t have found it with a compass. Most people go there now because of what happened while the band was living there and recording that first album. We have some ideas about what actually went on, of course, but the fans, they can only speculate. Which is always good for business.

Mostly, it’s the music, of course. Twenty years ago, there was that millennium survey where Wylding Hall topped out at Number Seven, ahead of Definitely Maybe, which shocked everybody except for me. Then “Oaken Ashes” got used in that advert for, what was it? Some mobile company. So now there’s the great Windhollow Faire backlash.

And inexplicable — even better, inexplicable and terrible — things are always good for the music business, right? Cynical but true.

Apart from when I drove out in the mobile unit and we laid down those rough tracks, I was only there a few times. You know, check in and see how the rehearsal process was going, make sure everyone’s instruments were in one piece, and they were getting their vitamins. And there’s no point now in keeping anything off the record, right? We all knew what was going on down there, which in those days was mostly hash and acid.

And of course, everyone was so young. Julian was eighteen. So was Will. Ashton and Jon were, what? Nineteen, maybe twenty. Lesley had just turned seventeen. I was the elder statesman at all of twenty-three.

Ah, those were golden days. You’re going to say I’m tearing up here in front of the camera, aren’t you? I don’t give a fuck. They were golden boys and girls, that was a golden summer, and we had the Summer King.

And we all know what happens to the Summer King. That girl from the album cover, she’d be the only one knows what really went on. But we can’t ask her, can we?

Will Fogerty, rhythm guitar, fiddle, mandolin

I knew Julian from school. We both grew up in Hampstead and attended Hampstead School for the local comprehensive school: Posh boys compared to Ashton and Jon, which put us at a distinct disadvantage, I can tell you that! Ashton was part of the Muswell Hill music mafia; all those blokes knew each other — stand in the middle of Archway and throw a rock in any direction, and you’d hit a folk musician.

Whereas if you threw a rock in Hampstead and hit anyone, you’d end up in prison. There were days when I could have done with that happening to Ashton. He could be a right bastard.

Still, that was our hardship, mine and Julian’s — not belonging to the working class. Me and Julian weren’t at public school — what you Americans call private school — and Hampstead’s North London, not posh Kensington. But Muswell Hill was where the best musicians came from. Something in the air. Or the drink, more likely.

I started on violin and Julian played the piano — not sure when he took up the guitar. Once he did, it was like he’d been born to it — he was an extraordinary guitar player. These crazy tunings that would make it sound like he was playing a flute or a sitar, or a human voice. We used to play at the Hampstead Folk Club, which was a glorified name for an upper room above a pub. All the folk clubs were like that: up a stairway to a dark paneled room with chairs lined up and everyone smoking cigarettes and nursing their pint. If you were lucky, someone might have a joint and would pass it to you. Nothing heavier than that. No one paid to hear us sing. And none of us musicians got paid, unless you were someone like John Martyn.

But it was a good way to meet girls, I thought, so I dragged Julian along with me to take our turn at the front of the room. Girls loved it. Girls loved him; he could’ve played the kazoo and they’d be banging on his door. He was just too good-looking, but shy around the girls in those days. Even then, people wondered, Was he gay? If he was, I never saw any of it.

Lesley said she wondered sometimes, but I think — and this is off the record; Les and I are still close, and I wouldn’t want any hurt feelings. Also, she has a temper. But I think Julian just wasn’t attracted to her. Not that Les wasn’t pretty. She was a lovely girl; we all fancied her. That’s why we took her on!

But you know what I mean. She was a different type, physically, from Arianna. Lesley wasn’t a waif, and even in school Jules always went for the wee girls with the big, sad eyes. No stamina, girls like that. I would know. And Les was scary smart, which can be intimidating for a bloke, even someone as brilliant as Julian. Maybe more intimidating. I don’t think he was accustomed to being with someone who was his equal. Musically, yes, but not someone who could match him intellectually. Especially a girl.

And Lesley was American to boot, which in those days was a novelty, and also an affront to a lot of people. I mean, an American teenager singing traditional English folk songs in a London pub? Some people came just to see her fail. Well, that didn’t happen.

Lesley Stansall, singer/songwriter

He never talked about what happened with Arianna. The police report said she fell from a third floor window to the pavement. There were no bars across the window in Julian’s flat; I do know that. She was depressive — that’s what they’d say now — her and Julian both.

Suicide? How could it possibly matter all these years later, whether I think she killed herself?

She was a teenager; we were all teenagers. Today Arianna would be some gothy little girl hunched over her mobile. She was a beautiful child with a pretty voice. She didn’t have it for the long haul.

Tom

Julian took Arianna’s death very hard. He felt responsible: “I should have never let her into the flat that night, it was my fault we’d had an argument,” etcetera etcetera. They’d done a gig together at Middle Earth, just the two of them. Afterward, he told her the rest of the band wanted to head off in a different direction, musically. She’d thought that her and Julian singing together would be the start of something, a Simon & Garfunkel sort of duo. Instead, it was the end. He was trying to give her a gentle kiss-off, but I think it had the opposite effect.

Jon Redheim, drums and percussion

I saw it coming with Arianna. She was drop-dead gorgeous, but she was, you know, high maintenance. A cross between Nico and what’s-her-name, that French singer. Juliette Greco. Always wearing black, back before everyone and his grandmother was wearing black. She was a big mope, Arianna, and we were well rid of her. There, I said it.

Ashton Moorehouse, bass

We slept together once after a gig. She cried afterward, said she’d betrayed Julian. I told her Julian wouldn’t give a fuck. Which was true, but probably I shouldn’t have said it. She was beautiful, but too skinny for my taste. I like a girl with meat on her bones. Julian, he always went for the ones a good wind would blow away.

Lesley

I can still remember when Tom told us he’d booked Wylding Hall for the summer. Ashton and Jon weren’t happy about it. Ashton especially; he was royally pissed off. They were afraid of what they’d miss here in London. Girls, mostly, for Ashton. Boys for Jon, though no one was supposed to know that. And there’s Tom with his high-minded idea that all anyone needed was a month in the country to recover from Arianna’s death.

Yeah, I know: I’m being a snark, ’cause I wasn’t with Windhollow Faire from the very beginning and didn’t really know her. So sue me. And it’s true: with or without Arianna, they were getting a lot of gigs. Windhollow Faire had just come out that Christmas — their first album — and sales were good. There was no music press like there is now; you didn’t have Pitchfork or YouTube and all that stuff. Rolling Stone had only been around for a few years, and Mojo and NME. There was no way to really publicize your band except by playing, like, constantly. Which they did.

But to be brutally honest, even before Arianna died, they were getting tapped out. I’d heard Windhollow play a few times, and while they were good — I believe that “promising” is the overused adjective — they were never going to be much more than that if they didn’t do something drastic.

And I know Tom could see that they were starting to flag, inspiration-wise. Which is why he suggested that Julian and Will come hear me at the Troubadour one night. I was doing a couple of Dylan covers, some Velvet Underground — hardly anyone here had heard of them — along with the usual stuff from the Child Ballads songbook. I saved my own songs for last. I knew I had them as soon I did “Fallen Sky.”

Will

My god, that girl could sing! Les opened her mouth, and Julian and me looked at each other and just started laughing. By the time she got to “Fallen Sky,” we were practically climbing over the tables to ask her to join Windhollow.

Tom

In retrospect, we should have told Arianna immediately that we’d found a new female singer. I should have told her. It was my responsibility as manager. The fact that Lesley was American must have been a real slap in the face for Arianna. I’ve taken the blame from the outset. Still, Julian never forgave himself.

That was the real reason I signed that summer’s lease on Wylding Hall: to get Julian away from his bedsit in Gospel Oak. Which, let me tell you, was the most god-awful, depressing flat that you can imagine. I would have flung myself out the window, too, if I’d spent more than a week there.

Never mind, strike that. I don’t need any more crazed fans blaming me for what happened. All I can say is that, at the time, spending three months at a beautiful old wreck of a stately home in the English countryside seemed like a good idea.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Isn’t that what you say in America? But I didn’t have hindsight. When it came to Windhollow Faire, I was utterly blind.

Chapter 2

Lesley

I rode down there with Julian. He had a rickety Morris Minor: there was barely room for me once he’d got his guitar and other gear into it. Everyone else went down in the van.

I’d heard Julian sing before, and of course I had the first Windhollow album. But we’d never properly met. Word on the street was, Julian Blake was the most beautiful guy any one had ever set eyes on. Typically, I was going to be contrarian: I was determined to be unimpressed.

The truth is, I was very, very shy. I was only seventeen, remember. My mum and stepdad were American. They both died when I was fifteen, in a car accident. My biological father was from Yorkshire; he’d been married before he met my mother and already had a family. I was born here in London when he and my mum were still together, so I had dual citizenship. We used to come over for summer vacations. I got to be close with my older sister, so after the accident I came here to live with her in Rotherhithe.

I was a bad student, but I was a good singer. My dad was brilliant — he used to sing along with whatever was on the radio, but he also knew all these old English folk songs. I learned by listening to him, harmonizing. I just memorized whatever I could.

It was tough, coming to live here with my sister. People thought I was stuck-up because I was American. It was hard to make friends — I got pushed around a few times, but when I’d take a swing at them, I’d be the one got into trouble.

Eventually, I just stopped going to school, and I guess because of the whole American thing, no one followed up on me. Plus, it was the early nineteen seventies — there were kids squatting everywhere in London. I went out to Eel Pie Island and joined the commune there for a while. That’s when I started performing.

Julian was only a year older than me — fourteen months, to be exact — and he was cripplingly, almost pathologically shy. Much worse than I was.

Which of course I didn’t realize when I drove down with him to Wylding Hall. I thought he was stuck-up! He was from Hampstead. I was this blond hippy from Connecticut, even though I’d been in London for a year. I looked older than seventeen, so at first he thought I was putting him off for being younger than me.

I didn’t know that till Will told me. The two of them had grown up together. Will was almost like Julian’s interpreter — sometimes Julian was so shy, he’d just stand there right next to you and stare straight up into the sky for a quarter of an hour without saying a word. “Cloud Prince”: I wrote that about Julian. The boy with the sky in his eyes.

Jon

It’s true. When he was young, Julian was almost unearthly; he was so handsome, it was difficult for me at first to keep my eyes from him. Spooky beautiful. People thought he was gay, but he wasn’t. I was the one who was gay, though I only came out after that summer at Wylding Hall.

Believe me, I would have known if I’d had a snowflake’s chance in hell with Julian, and there was just no way. I know, darling — you’re looking at me now thinking, No shit, Sherlock! But you wouldn’t have said that back then. I was a bit of a looker myself in those days.

Oh, right, you’ve seen the documentaries and all that on YouTube. Yes, I was wasted back there behind the drum kit. But kinda cute, right?

Julian was beautiful: those high cheekbones and all that dark hair flopping around his face. His skin was so pale you wanted to write on it like paper. And he had those amazing hands, big, big hands with long, long fingers. I used to watch him play guitar and just be hypnotized. He’d open his mouth and sing “Lost Tuesdays” or “Windhover Morn,” and I’d just be a puddle — really! Me! The drummer! I used to watch him and just dream — pray — not that he’d kiss me, but that he’d write a song about me.

But you know, it was like he could barely stand to be touched — he’d almost flinch if you came too close to him. Not just me — I was used to guys not wanting to be too close to other blokes — but everyone. I’m sure that’s what happened with Arianna; she thought they were in a relationship, and here he could barely stand to touch her. That’s why it was so strange about the girl.

If she had a name, I never knew it. She was the only girl — the only person — I ever saw Julian with, physically. Not that I was perving on them, that’s not what I mean; just that she was the only human creature I ever saw him willingly touch, or kiss. If in fact that’s what she was.

Ashton

It was me, Will, and Jonno in the van. We arrived around noon. I was driving — I was the only one who had a license, besides Julian. What a bunch of fucking slackers. You take the A-31 to Farnham, then it’s pretty much nothing but winding lanes and little villages. Used to be, anyway. Heart of Hampshire, Wind of the Willows landscapes. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Probably all developed and paved over now; I’ve never had the heart to go back.

No? Well, that’s a mercy. But I still won’t be back.

I can still remember the first glimpse I had of Wylding Hall. There was no signpost, only a great boulder with the name carved on it — must have been five hundred years old. Absolutely ancient. The road between the hedgerows was so narrow that the branches poked in the windows on both sides, like they wanted to grab us. One scratched my cheek so badly it left a scar — see there? Fucking oak tree did that! I was bleeding all over the windscreen. It got infected, too.

So, we drove and drove, and drove and drove and drove, and finally the hedgerows dropped back so we could see where the woods had been cleared a bit, and you could see into the distance. Pastures, ancient field systems marked by stone walls — a thousand years old some of them, maybe older. There was a prehistoric barrow there as well, though we didn’t know that yet. I’m not superstitious, but Will is. He’s the one spends all his time at Cecil Sharp House, digging through the archives for old murder ballads — “The Hangman’s Kiss Upon My Cold Eyes”: he found that one. If he’d known there was a barrow a stone’s pitch from where we’d be sleeping, he would have stayed in Crouch End. What a fucking nutter. He’s the one started all those rumors.

Look, I love Will — I’ll kill anyone raises an eyebrow at him. But he’s taken every pill and smoked every spliff and drunk every pint ever laid in front of him. He’s done none of us any favors with his crazy theories. Same with Jonno. You can print that just as I spoke it.

Then what do I think happened? I don’t have a fucking clue, but I’m not afraid to say I don’t understand everything there is to know in this world.

She was the most beautiful young girl I’ve ever seen. I’ll say that, too. I’ve been married five times, and every one of them was a beautiful woman. But there was no one you ever saw looked like her. Looking at her made you want to claw your heart out, it ached so much. We all thought so, except for Les. I think she wanted to tear out the girl’s heart instead.

Tom

Wylding Hall was remote, but that was part of its charm. For me, anyway — I wanted them as far from London as possible. Even now, you can’t get a mobile signal out there. I don’t know how the new owners manage. Maybe they like it that way.

No distractions — that’s what I wanted for the band. They needed to recover from Arianna’s death. They were all traumatized to some degree, and Jon had just lost his mother to cancer. Just kids — they were all just kids, remember, especially Les. She’d been orphaned a few years earlier: lived with her alcoholic sister and her kids in some council flat in the East End before taking off to sleep rough in the streets. She’s a tough old soul, Lesley. Even then, as a girl, you could see it. She was tough as a nut.

Anyway, that was my cunning plan: to spirit them all away to remotest Hampshire, have them live together in a sort of musical commune and see what happens. I mean, people do that, right? Young people, and we were all young, it seems like the most wonderful thing in the world: off on your own, remaking the world, if you will. Sort of a utopian ideal. Hey, it was the seventies.

And it did bear fruit in that album, even if it took years for people to catch on. Progressive folk music was having its day in the sun, and Windhollow’s first album fit that model. But Wylding Hall changed the game for that kind of music, and everything that came after as well. I’m very proud of it, and I know the others are, too. Brilliant work — not a duff song in there.

Not that Windhollow’s first album was shabby. A few twee songs, like “Miss Marnie I Miss You” and “Another Fool in the Dark” — they hadn’t gotten their stride, and Will was still going for those fiddle-dee-dee arrangements; I hadn’t pounded that out of him yet.

And the band’s name, of course, I thought that was hopelessly twee. Windhollow Faire. Turns out that’s where Ashton pulled his first girl — someplace in Oxfordshire. I’ve always wondered if she ever made the connection. Whoever she was.

But that second album — it was all a sort of amazing chemistry. Alchemy, Julian called it. He was into all that kind of thing — magick with a K, astrology, god knows what else. Palmistry, reading the bumps on your head. Casting spells. He wanted the album itself to be a kind of spell. An enchantment. You’d listen to it and without knowing it, you’d be changed. “Ensorcelled.” That’s his word, not mine! Back then, Julian believed in that kind of thing.

But you know, given the influence and power that album’s had over the years, I can almost believe it, especially when you consider the shit storm of bad luck when it was first released.

Copyright © 2015 by Elizabeth Hand.

Excerpted from Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand.

Published by permission of the author and Open Road Media.

All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Hand (b. 1957) is an award-winning author whose science fiction and fantasy novels include the Winterlong series, Waking the Moon, Last Summer at Mars Hill, and Glimmering. Her novels and short stories have won the Nebula, World Fantasy, and Shirley Jackson Awards, among others. Hand was born in California and raised in Yonkers and Pound Ridge, New York; she now divides her time between London and the coast of Maine. Over the years she has been a regular contributor to the Washington Post, the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times, and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, among many others.

NOVEL EXCERPT: Dark Orbit (Tor Books)

Carolyn Ives Gilman | 4800 words

In the course of Saraswati Callicot’s vagabond career, she had been disassembled and brought back to life so many times, the idea of self-knowledge had become a bit of a joke. The question was, which self should she aspire to know? The one she had left behind on the planet of Andaman nine years (and one subjective second) ago? Or the ones whose molecules she had left elsewhere, strewn across the Twenty Planets in a zigzag as detoured as her life? Since she was now comprised of an entirely different set of atoms than she had been a breath ago, could she really claim to be the same person?

“Welcome to Capella Two,” said the technician. It was her cue to clear out of the translation chamber so he could assemble another migrant waiting in the queue. Too weary to think of a cheeky retort, she slid off the metal slab where she had been reconstituted and followed a sign into a waiting room of truly stunning banality. A medtech gave her a drink that tasted vaguely of mango, to restore her fluid balance, then left her to wait until they could be certain she was not about to have some actionable medical complication. The upholstery on the chairs was worn and splitting, the tile floor was so scuffed it had lost any color, the shuffle of travelers in and out was constant.

Traveling by lightbeam was not hard; arriving was the problem. She still had to steel herself against that feeling of having dropped into a bewildering future, jerked out of the continuity of time, out of step with everyone else. Even with endless experience, she still felt like an anachronism until she accounted for the years everyone else had lived, and she had spent as a beam of clarified light.

It had been five years in her subjective time since she had left Capella Two. She struggled to calculate how many years in elapsed time. Twenty-three, she decided. Not a terribly long absence. But Capella Two was so addicted to change, so avid for every novelty and innovation, that twenty-three years here could be like a hundred on another planet. She supposed this was home, as much as any place was, since she was a graduate of UIC, and that would always give her an automatic entry card. But Capella did not arouse any patriotic loyalties or emotional attachments in her. Being Capellan was not so much an ethnicity as an attitude. You could carry it anywhere.

A technician who looked far too young to trust came by with a handheld monitor to measure Sara’s heartbeat, brain function, and immune status, then gave her a vaccination update and waved her on. Down the hall she joined a line of new arrivals being processed through immigration. In line ahead of her, a teenage girl with skin dyed crimson and silver stared at her a few moments, then turned to whisper to her indigo companion. Sara recognized the evidence that she was a walking fashion antique. She would have to buy new clothes. Again.

When she reached the head of the line, the immigration agent gestured her to look in an eyepiece, where she was treated to a startling view of her own retina. “Magister Callicot?” the young agent said politely, studying the display on his terminal. Sara admitted it, though she never used the title. “UIC,” he went on in a friendly tone. “Class of — Wow.” His eyes widened at the date. He looked like he had barely been born when she had last left Capella Two.

“You’ll need to pick up an identity chit at the security kiosk in the concourse,” he told her.

“Identity chit?”

“Your security clearance,” he explained. “It’s got your arrest record, outstanding warrants, restraining orders, that sort of thing. Don’t worry, all of yours are old as the hills.”

She didn’t know whether to feel reassured or insulted. After picking up her backpack, which had come through the low-resolution receiver, she stopped in a bathroom just to make sure that the lightbeam translator had put her back together right. She looked reassuringly similar to the old Saraswati — rangy, big-jointed body that had seen its share of misadventures; black hair in a braid down her back; long, lean face with deep parentheses on either side of her mouth and river deltas of wrinkles fanning out from her eyes. She had always considered her face a kind of practical joke on her. It was a reckless, generous, kind, unlucky face.

Sara had grown up in a Balavati family, which meant she had been taught to reject all articles of faith except disrespect for authority, the lodestone of her life. But it was hard to survive serial resurrection without entertaining thoughts of the perpetual cycle of birth, suffering, death, and rebirth. Nothing is constant but change, her Buddhist ancestors might have said. She understood it in her reduplicated bones.

The concourse was new — a bright mall bristling with surveillance cameras. The security kiosk was open but Sara ignored it on principle, since it seemed to represent authority. She stopped to withdraw some cash from an old account, but passed up the information vendors, relying on her old knowledge of how to get around Paratuic. As she neared the glass doors, the way was lined with protection franchises renting out weapons and electronic alarm devices, each claiming to answer calls faster and cheaper than the next booth.

Outside, the daylight had the familiar orange tone lent by the presence of the gas giant Gomb in the sky, but otherwise the landscape was strange. Sara stood staring at the distant gray mountains — the rim wall of an ancient crater, she realized. She was not in Paratuic.

“Looking for a security convoy?” a man in a uniform asked.

“What city is this?” Sara said.

The man’s face took on that uniquely Capellan smile that meant I’ll help you for a price. Nothing was free on Capella Two, least of all information. Sara paid the man, and he said, “You’re in Onowac. They moved the waystation here twelve years ago. Been gone a while?”

“Yeah.” With a sinking feeling, Sara realized she would have to buy some hotel information. “Listen, is there a Waster enclave nearby?”

The man looked silently helpful. More money changed hands. At least it was preferable to paying a corporation. “Sure. Join convoy three. They’ll get you there safe.”

At a price, no doubt. Sara waved away the offer to carry her backpack, and set out toward the convoy lines.

Convoy three turned out to be an overworked and sagging armored bus. The driver demanded Sara’s identity chit, but was content with a few bills instead. Sara stared out the grimy window as the bus passed the razor-wire perimeter of the waystation into the city. The architecture of mercantilism had changed. Gone were the plate-glass windows showing off wares for sale, replaced by brickfaced stores with large-screen video displays to attract shoppers. As the bus waited at an intersection, Sara watched the larger-than-life image of a model undulate through a magically changing set of clothes and skin colors.

Sara got off the bus at an intersection where the driver claimed four hotels were located, though it took her several minutes to realize that their only street-level manifestations were registration machines behind sliding security doors. As she approached one of them, the slot on the wall lit up helpfully, insert identity chit. There seemed to be no way of speaking with a human being. It probably cost extra anyway.

The jostle of passersby had paused, leaving a conspicuous space around her. She looked up to see two alarmingly large men in nondescript business suits approaching her purposefully. She faced them, backpack to the wall. Their pockets had embroidered logos for WAC, one of the giant infocompanies.

“Saraswati Callicot?” the larger of the two said.

“Who wants to know?” Old Capellan habits came back fast.

“We’re here to escort you to WAC headquarters,” the man said.

“Why?”

“Delegate Gossup’s orders.”

Delegate Gossup. The title meant that Sara’s old faculty advisor was on his way to becoming one of the most powerful men on Capella Two. “How did you know where to find me?” she asked.

The big man gave her a pitying look. “We work for WAC, ma’am.” That was the other side of an information economy: absolutely anything about you was for sale, at the right price.

The silent security man took her backpack, and the talkative one gave her a WAC logo badge with an embedded tracer chip. “Wear this. In case we get separated.”

“What’s all this security paranoia about?” Sara asked.

“Crime. Terrorism. They’ve been pretty bad.”

“Have they thought about restricting weapons?” she asked mischievously. “It works on other planets.”

The man didn’t find it funny. “That would drive the security industry out of business,” he said coldly. “Follow me.”

Sara followed, dropping the WAC badge into an inside pocket. She was damned if she was going to walk around looking like a product.

They headed for the nearest public wayport. She had expected them to try to impress her by leading her in through the opulent WAC headquarters lobby, but what they did was even more impressive. While one security man stood by to discourage ordinary travelers from approaching, the other fitted a chip into the wayport controls, overriding its destination programming. There was a brief frisson of transubstantiation, and Sara stepped out into the private administration floor of WAC. It was a world of wood paneling and silence, all footsteps swallowed by the deep wine-colored carpet that seemed to silently reproach her Andaman mudboots. The security man led her down a discreet back hall to a door with inlaid malachite designs, and knocked. Then, without so much as a moment in a waiting room, Sara stepped in.

The office was restrained and elegant, decorated in geometric black and gray, with bonsai in recessed niches under grow-lights. One wall held the best window simulation Sara had ever seen, tuned to a picture of Capella Two itself, as if from high in a tower, looking out on a pinkish sunset cityscape. The man who rose from behind the black enamel desk matched the room: tall, impeccably cultured, serenely Vind. The carnelian caste-stone in his forehead was the only decoration he wore, if it was a decoration. His close-cropped hair had gone entirely silver, a sight that gave Sara a shock of surprise. He had always seemed immortal, unchanging, one of the few stable points in a flowing universe.

Banter — that was what she needed to counter the subtle intimidation of this setting. “Are you sure I should be here, Magister?” she said. “This place oozes oligarchy.”

Delegate Gossup did not smile — that would have disturbed the surface of his calm detachment. But he said, “Sara, welcome. It is refreshing as always to see you. And your timing is impeccable.”

“Well, I’m glad something’s impeccable about me,” she said. The room was trying its best to make her feel scruffy.

“You are genuine as always,” Gossup said, searching her face with a gaze like deep, still water. “That is a rare commodity here. Rare and valuable.”

“I ought to open a franchise,” Sara said.

Gossup gestured her to a seat on the settee. “Can I offer you a drink?”

Knowing who was paying, Sara tried to think of the most rarefied luxury she could imagine. “Single-malt whiskey,” she said. “Neat.”

The Vind’s eyebrow went up a millimeter, but he activated the terminal in the coffee table and placed the order. A glass instantly substantiated in a niche next to her. Sara sank into the cushion facing the window. She saw now that little silvery fish were swimming in among the buildings of the city, and a giant jellyfish was rising into the sky. It looked perfectly natural.

“So, you’re on the Magisterium now?” she said, emboldened by the golden glowing liquid slipping down her throat.

“For the past fourteen years. I was recently elected to the steering committee.” There was no joy in his voice. It was no wonder he looked tired and aged.

“But you’re still working for WAC?”

“Not at the moment. Today, I am acting on behalf of a . . . third party. WAC is providing some resources.”

“And doing it very well,” Sara said, stretching out her legs, savoring the comfort her well-used body felt. She had just noticed the almost subliminal sound effect of wind in pine needles. It made the room seem more spacious than it was. “Are you going to tell me who this mysterious third party is, or do you want me to guess?”

Gossup hesitated, caught off guard by such directness. In her place, another ethnic Vind would have probed subtly for half an hour, while he parried, without either of them coming to the point. “That depends,” he said, “on whether you are going to accept the job I am going to offer you.”

So that was what this was about. But the news only sharpened her curiosity: he could have offered her a job in a far less dramatic way.

With a show of weariness, she said, “What a trial to be so employable. I was actually hoping for some downtime.”

“I take it you have not been in touch with the university yet.” There was something in his delicate manner that made her take notice.

“No, why?”

“There was an unfortunate difficulty with the data you sent back from Andaman.”

This time she did sit up. “What sort of difficulty?”

“Some of the ethnobotanical data you collected proved to have a high value for the pharmaceutical industry.”

“No shit,” she said, pleased. Visions of royalties danced in her head, perhaps lucrative ones.

“Unfortunately, there were certain interest groups on Andaman who claimed the information had been . . . improperly appropriated. They brought a cultural patrimony suit in the Court of a Thousand Peoples.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Sara said, stung at this slur to her professionalism. “I followed every protocol.”

“Unfortunately, the paperwork was . . . not quite in order.”

She had been meaning to take care of that as soon as she arrived home. It was not really out of order, just in a transitional state of creative chaos. But she had not expected the information to be truly valuable; that raised the bar on dotting i’s and crossing t’s. Sara downed the rest of her drink in a fiery gulp and set the glass down with deliberate care. “When does the case go to trial?”

“It was settled six years ago.”

“Without my testimony?”

Gossup nodded. “It couldn’t wait. WAC and the university lost a great deal of money. They had to return all the information you collected.”

Five years of work, gone. Wasted. Even the time limit for appeals had expired. She wanted to protest, but knew it would be useless. It was the theme of her life: dreams snatched away just as they seemed attainable. She laid her head back against the cushiony leather and stared at the ceiling.

“Under the circumstances,” Gossup said delicately, “WAC and the university are not eager to renew your contract.”

“No, I guess not,” Sara said dully.

“That is why I thought you might be receptive to another opportunity.”

In fact, she could scarcely refuse, no matter how unsavory the job. She brought her gaze down from the ceiling to his face, and their eyes met for a long few seconds. Was he acting as her benefactor, or as an opportunist seizing advantage of the situation? She wanted to challenge him, to strike out at someone. But even so, she was the first to look away.

“Would you like another drink?” he asked politely.

“Yes,” Sara said, against her better judgment. One always needed one’s wits when dealing with Gossup, especially if negotiations were in order. But what the hell, she thought, I have nothing to negotiate with.

“Is it illegal, or just immoral?” she said.

“What?”

“The job you want me to do.” Why else would he turn to a down-at-luck Balavati?

“Neither,” he said smoothly. “In fact, I believe you may find it stimulating.”

Bending over the coffee table terminal, Gossup activated a security shield. The background sound suddenly cut off. Sara felt static electricity on her hands and neck, and a prickle of alertness inside, despite the whiskey.

The words he said next changed everything. “It is not widely known yet, but we have recently received a communication from one of the questships.”

It was something that only happened once a generation, if that. Centuries ago, the ancestors of humankind had sent out a fleet of robot questships in search of habitable planets to receive the seeds of the human diaspora. The origins of the grand scheme had been lost in the demise of Capella One; no one knew how many ships there were, or where they had gone. They crossed the desert of space in mute hibernation, communicating only when they had found something. It had been over a hundred years since a questship had woken from its slumber and called home, and everyone had begun to accept that there were none left to hear from.

“A new planet?” Sara asked. “A habitable one?”

“Yes,” Gossup said.

“Inhabited?” For that was the great mystery: often the planets the questships found already supported human communities. Somehow, a first diaspora had taken place in a time so remote as to be lost to knowledge.

“We are uncertain as yet,” Gossup said. “If the planet is inhabited, then it is at such a primitive stage that evidence of it cannot be detected from orbit. But we are inclined to be skeptical.”

After soaring, Sara’s hopes sank back. To be a member of a First Contact team would have been the reward of a lifetime.

“But the planetary system has other attributes that make it extremely interesting. You may recall from your elementary physics that some ninety-six percent of the universe is comprised of something we cannot detect.”

“Dark matter — or was it dark energy?”

“Both. We can only observe their effects on the four percent of the universe we can see, but we know virtually nothing of their nature. ‘Dark matter’ is a misnomer; it is probably not matter. It interacts with nothing we can see, except on the largest scale. You cannot shine any light on it, because it interacts with no form of energy we know. You cannot build a detector, because it does not collide with normal particles. It casts no shadow on our world. Gravity is the only reason we know it exists, for we can detect its cumulative warping effect on the shape of space. But that tells us nothing of its nature.

“It seems that this new planet is embedded in a region of space that contains an odd concentration of dark matter. We know this because the light from a distant galaxy is very slightly bent, or lensed, in passing through the space around this otherwise unremarkable star. And also because the questship seems to have encountered something on its approach — a gravitational anomaly which gave it a good deal of trouble. We are still analyzing the data to reconstruct the circumstances.”

“But the ship is still functioning?”

“Oh yes. Its internal diagnostics indicate that it is quite intact. A lucky thing, because as you might expect, the physicists are very eager to get out there and begin their research.”

Yes, Sara could imagine that. They would go, even though the lightbeam receiver on the ship was centuries old, the ship itself in questionable condition, the space around it full of anomalies. There would be no shortage of volunteers. It was the mysterious power of this driving will to know.

Knowledge is our wealth, our honor, our sacrament, Sara thought. It drives us to give up family, home, and place in time for its sake. Would we also sacrifice our lives, like ancient martyrs longing to see the face of God? Is knowledge that sacred to us?

“Would you go, if you had the chance?” Gossup asked, and then Sara knew the answer. “Yes,” she said.

“It is fifty-eight light-years away,” he said.

Farther than any other discovered planet. A 116-year round trip planet. “I’ll still go,” she said. “If you need an exoethnologist. But if there is no native population . . .”

There was a secretive look on his face, and she knew that was not what he wanted her for. “All right,” she said, impatient with his Vind indirection, “what is it?”

“Epco won the contract and is assembling an expedition now —”

“Epco? You’re recruiting for an Epco expedition? Is that the third party you’re working for?” The rivalry between the two great infocompanies, WAC and Epco, was legendary, and Gossup had always been on the WAC side. Come to think of it, they were sitting in the heart of WAC headquarters now. No wonder he had activated the security screen.

“No,” he said. “The third party is . . .” He paused, searching for the right words. “Myself. I have a personal favor to ask.”

Being able to do a personal favor for a member of the Magisterium was not a bad position to be in, not bad at all. Sara waited, afraid to ruin it with an incautious word.

“I have a young relative who is to be on the expedition team. She has been through a bad time recently, and I would like someone to be there to look after her, and keep me informed as to her well-being. Her name is Thora Lassiter.” He glanced at Sara to see if she had any reaction to the name, but it rang no bells.

“What did she do?” Sara said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, a Vind of the ruling caste — one of the Ral lineage, no less — being sent to the far edges of the universe . . . I’d say you were trying to get rid of her.”

For a moment he looked like he was going to deny it, but then thought better of it. “She was an emissary to Orem when she suffered a health crisis, a mental breakdown. The place where she was posted was too primitive to diagnose her correctly; when she heard voices, they imagined she was receiving revelations from a god. In such isolation, she came to believe it, too. There was a mystical sect that embraced her as a prophet, creating a religious revival and a volatile political situation. You can find out the details if you are curious. Suffice it to say, there was turmoil and backlash, and we had to evacuate her in such a way as to convince the Oreman faithful that she was dead. Since then, she has undergone reconstructive treatment and is quite cured. But now we are in negotiations with the new Oreman regime, and her story complicates the diplomacy considerably. Altogether, it is safer and simpler to have her out of the picture.”

“Wow.” When Vind elites got in trouble, they really got in trouble. Sara already liked this renegade. She wondered if the woman herself had had any choice in the way the situation had been handled. Probably not; Vinds of that status were created to serve. Still, why didn’t they just ship her back to their home planet of Vindahar? Sending her fifty-eight years into the future seemed a rather permanent way to get rid of a temporary problem. Almost like a punishment. Or a cover-up.

Sara wanted to know more, but she was not going to learn more by asking. It was extraordinary that Gossup had told her this much, and was willing to put her in a position to learn the rest, as he must know she would try to do. Any glimpse into the closely guarded world of Vind power politics was too enticing for a Balavati to pass up. Not to mention that scandalous information about a powerful family could be sold for a lot of money. Enough to finance a retirement.

Sara looked at her patron’s face, silhouetted against the rosy ersatz sky. Could she betray him? She had always considered herself cheerfully amoral, culturally relative to the bone. Conscience needed to adapt; morality was contextual. Yet she had never had a temptation that really mattered. She had never owned information that could transform her from a gypsy outsider into a player, a person who could reach the levers of true power.

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

He considered carefully before answering. “I trust you to act in the way I think you will.”

“And what’s that?”

“If I told you, it would affect the outcome.”

He was deep water under a glassy surface: an intricate mind, complexities turned in upon themselves. Perhaps betrayal was already part of his plan.

“All right,” she said. “So what’s my cover story?”

It turned out that her contract would be with the Magisterium, though only she and the director of the expedition would know that. Her secret reports would be sent by instantaneous transmission directly to Gossup; but in the meantime there would actually be some useful work for her. “Epco wants an independent observer to assess the internal dynamics of the research team,” Gossup told her.

Hugely amused, Sara said, “I get to study the interactions of a bunch of scientists locked up together on a questship?”

“I thought it might interest you.”

It was a topic she had some experience with. Exoteric science was her specialty. She had studied all sorts of scientific traditions — all but her own. “It’s as good as a pass into the locker room.”

With a warning glance, Gossup said, “Epco needs useful managerial analysis.”

“I’ll bone up on some management theory,” Sara promised, but her grin belied her show of sincerity.

They settled on a handsome price for Sara’s services, and Gossup gave her the name of the Epco recruiter who would accept her application without question. From now on, she would appear to be an Epco employee.

When Sara rose to leave, Gossup asked, “Where are you staying?”

She remembered the world outside then. It was easy to forget in here, cradled by wealth. “I don’t know,” she said. “The hotels seem to be requiring résumés these days.”

“My secretary will get you a room,” Gossup said. “Just give him your identity chit.” Sara shrugged quizzically and held up her hands. Gossup shook his head with professorial impatience. “Sara, you can’t go around arbitrarily disobeying rules. Some of them are for your own good.”

“I didn’t realize the planet had adopted universal surveillance.”

“It’s the price we pay for a free society. Here, give me your thumb-print and I’ll get you a chit.”

Hopelessly caught, Sara pressed her thumb against the scanpad. Before long the security man returned, carrying her new chit and her backpack — probably well searched by now, Sara thought. As she was about to step out the malachite door, a tug of reluctance made her pause and glance back, her hand on the ebony doorjamb. It was then that it struck her: the interview had been stage-managed with a feather touch to manipulate her. All her life, Sara’s declared persona had been as an iconoclast, a disputatious romantic, a brave enemy of elitism. She had studied the exercise of power in order to expose its flaws and inner contradictions, those channels by which to subvert it. And yet, in the end, access to the inner sanctum appealed to her immensely. It wasn’t just the power; she savored the aesthetics, the refinement, taste, and civility. She enjoyed being in this patrician world — not of it, mind, not taken in — but as participant observer. And Gossup had known she would jump to seize the slightest thread of access to it. Every detail of this interview said so.

Sellout, she thought to herself. But it was without youthful rancor. Her patron was watching. “What is it, Sara?” he asked.

“I was thinking that I dwell in moral ambiguity.”

“A fairer house than prose,” Gossup replied obscurely.

“Maybe for you it is.”

“I have not asked you to do anything compromising.”

“It’s not what I’m doing,” Sara said. “It’s knowing why I’m doing it.”

Copyright © 2015 by Carolyn Ives Gilman.

Excerpted from Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman.

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

Carolyn Ives Gilman is a Nebula and Hugo Award-nominated writer of science fiction and fantasy. Her novels include Halfway Human and the two-volume novel Isles of the Forsaken and Ison of the Isles. Her short fiction appears in many Best of the Year collections and has been translated into seven languages. She lives in Washington, D.C., and works for the National Museum of the American Indian.

Interview: Kelly Link

The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy | 6,400 words

Kelly Link is the author of the story collections Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, and Pretty Monsters, as well as the founder, with her husband Gavin J. Grant, of Small Beer Press. A fourth collection of stories, Get in Trouble, is out now from Random House.

This interview first appeared on Wired.com’s The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast, which is hosted by David Barr Kirtley and produced by John Joseph Adams. Visit geeksguideshow.com to listen to the interview or other episodes.

Your new book is called Get in Trouble; why did you decide to name it that?

When you are getting ready to send out a book of short stories, you read through them all and think about what order you want to them to be in, and you also read them to make sure there are not weird overlaps; if you named a couple characters the same thing. You also start thinking about titles, and as I was reading through these stories, I couldn’t help but notice that these were all people with poor impulse control. They’re . . . maybe not always drawn to trouble, but they don’t avoid it, either. I felt like it was true to the spirit of these characters.

For people who have read your previous short story collections, how would you say that this one is similar to — or different from — those ones?

I think it’s harder for me to say, looking at it from my side. I think there’s still a lot of fantastic business in it this time around; I wanted to write some more zombie stories, but it just didn’t feel like I had any zombie stories in me at the moment. But I was really interested in vampires this time around. There are still a lot of adolescent girls, which is always a fun point-of-view character to write, and it’s possible that some of the stories are a little grimmer. I hope they’re still funny, but the stakes are a little higher this time.

You write a lot of your stories to fit different themed anthologies; is that true in this book?

Yes. Probably half of the stories were written for different editors: Holly Black or Ellen Datlow. And an editor asks you, “Do you want to write a story about ____?” For Holly Black, the anthology was for geek stories — it was called Geektastic — and other than that you could do whatever you wanted. The stories aren’t so much geared towards a particular theme, because most of the editors I’ve worked with are pretty relaxed about what fits the definition of the theme. But it is a great starting place, to have someone say to you, “Have you ever thought about geeks? What kind of story would you like to turn in: board games or music? What’s something you would have fun writing about?” Two of the stories were written for anthologies Gavin and I put together — for Candlewick — and since I was the editor for those, I was pretty sure I would be okay with however I tackled the theme.

What were some of those other themes that you wrote stories for?

One was steampunk and, again speaking from an editorial point of view, when we sent out the call for submissions, we said to the writers whose work we really wanted to publish, “We really don’t have a definition; we just want to give you this word and see what you do with it. What would your version of a ‘steampunk’ story be?” We got great stuff from people like Libba Bray and M.T. Anderson. A couple years later we did an anthology, Monstrous Affections, and again the theme was pretty broad; we sent out for submissions and said, “What we want are stories about monsters and relationships with monsters: family, friends, love stories — whatever you want to do.”

You mentioned Holly Black, and I know that she and Cassandra Clare are two people that you talk with a lot about writing. Did they play a role in some of these stories?

Absolutely, in the sense that Monstrous Affections came about because Cassie, Holly, and I were sitting around talking about one of the tropes of the “vampire” story: Often, it’s a coming of age story. Not for the vampires so much, but for the main character. So you have these adolescents, often, who get involved in vampire business, and I started really thinking about how strange it was that vampires so often fall for teenage girls, and fall so hard that they’re willing to spend a lot of time in high schools, because frankly that sounds terrible to me. Maybe I would make a bad vampire, but my high school experience was not so amazing that I’d want to repeat it. Cassie said that she always figured that, if you were a vampire, the group that you would want to spend the most with would be your peers, and how tragic that moment would be when you realized that your peer group — the group who shares a common body of experiences with you — is about to die out. She said she was thinking about writing a vampire story set in a nursing home, and that was such a touching, unusual take on the vampire story that we started thinking about other kinds of monster stories.

How did that influence stories in Get in Trouble?

My relationship with Holly and Cassie in general? Or . . .

There are two stories in this book, “The New Boyfriend” and “I Can See Right Through You,” that seem directly related to the vampire phenomenon.

“The New Boyfriend” was the story that I wrote for Monstrous Affections, and I knew I wanted to do something with very large dolls that could more or less pass as people. Holly Black — I said to her that I had part of the story, but I needed something to complicate the dynamic between the friends — said, “Well, with teenage girls, envy is always one of the stages that you move through.”

And how about “I Can See Right Through You”?

That is one of the last stories that I finished for the book. I started that story and had to keep on putting it aside or restarting it; I just couldn’t get anywhere. And then I ended up sharing a house with Holly, Cassie, and a couple of other writers — Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson — and something about the circumstances of being with a group of people who were all doing their own work was useful to me. That story took the longest, and in some ways I like it best.

The premise is that there are these two actors that had been an Edward and Bella from Twilight-type couple years ago, and now they’re in midlife-crisis territory.

They are at a very different point in their lives. The thing that was fun to write about that story was, if you’re a public figure and particularly well known for one thing, there are so many different versions of you floating around: your private self; the character that people identify you with; the perception of you that has to do with your career, which maybe changes as you continue to do the same thing or try new things; the relationships you have with people who’ve seen you at different points in your life. The main character has been playing a vampire for a very long time; it’s not a life that I envy, but it was a set of different kinds of identities that was fun to explore.

One of our listeners and previous guests, Genevieve Valentine, wanted me to ask you about your “secret vampires.”

I really like Genevieve’s novels, short stories, and what she writes about television as well. I find that I get bored watching television, and I realized that if there isn’t a fantastic or supernatural element to a story, I become wistful and think, “This show would be so much better if at least one of the characters was a vampire.” Then, if you’re watching a television show, you consider which of the characters — although the narrative never acknowledges it — is the vampire, which is a fun game. Usually there’s at least one, and usually everybody can agree.

Genevieve wanted to know, specifically, which show you think would be most improved by the revelation of a secret vampire.

Any reality show: So You Think You Can Dance, or even one of the cooking shows. That’s the only genre of show in which I haven’t tried picturing a secret vampire, but it feels right if you think of Tim Gunn as a kindly, benevolent vampire.

“I Can See Right Through You” deals explicitly with celebrity culture, and a bunch of stories in this book deal with characters who are wealthy and self-absorbed, and obviously we’re living in a time when income inequality is a big issue. Do you think that the stuff going on in our culture influenced these different stories? In particular, “Secret Identity” and “Valley of the Girls.”

I did, when I started looking at the stories, think about the fact that most of these characters were really well off. Many of them were extremely attractive, and most of them had a lot of privilege. I don’t know that I’m the right person to say what it means, that I was writing about all of this, but it is true that we live in a world where you can see the lives of people around you, whether they’re celebrities or family members, and think, “This is a very different way of life.” Or you look at your own life, and think, “Things are pretty good right now,” and then you start to imagine if things weren’t so great. I would say this goes hand in hand with a lot of the apocalyptic fiction that is popular at the moment. It’s partly informed by the fact that many things are going pretty bad. Will there still be fish in the ocean in 2070?

Tell us about “Valley of the Girls,” because that’s a story with an interesting premise.

I started thinking about what it would be like if things continued the way they are and the rich get richer and richer, and the kinds of lifestyles that their kids would have access to and the safeguards that families would put up around those kids, to keep them out of the public eye. Sort of an inversion of celebrity culture; in the story, parents hire “faces” who enact the lives of their kids, so if they are being photographed or they appear on social media, it is these replacement children who have been hired. And if you were a kid and you were invisible to the world and, on the other hand, you were really indulged, what kind of weird hobbies would you have? So the girls are into building pyramids, and the boys collect antique rockets.

“Valley of the Girls” is a play on “Valley of the Kings,” I assume.

Absolutely. I did think, “What are the things that we know about the way that people lived in the past?” and sometimes the biggest markers are the weird, extravagant gestures by people who had a lot of power and wanted to be remembered. I felt there was a tension between adolescents who were hidden away from the world, but still wanted to make their mark.

What do you think about people growing up on the internet and in the public eye, and how bad that can go for them?

Clearly, it goes bad a lot of the time. We have a daughter now, and so as I was going through this story, I was thinking of the ways in which parents become protective. The world changes, there’s not a lot you can do about that; you cannot necessarily protect your kids from the mistakes that they made, and if you did protect them, I’m not sure that’s healthy either. In my story, this is the first generation of kids who have “faces” and they are coming of age and the terms of contract with their public personas is coming to a lapsing point. So the question is: Are they going to become themselves? Or are they going to stay hidden for the rest of their lives? I think it would be hard to give up that privacy. That story ends abruptly, but I still enjoy thinking about some of the decisions those kids make.

That story, and also “Two Houses,” has more technological, science fictional elements than other stories of yours I’ve read. Were you consciously trying to experiment with “science fiction”?

I really love science fiction, and it is really hard to write. I read it, and it goes down smoothly, but if I try and write a story that is overtly science fiction, I’m in the weeds immediately. It’s hard to figure out what kind of details you give the reader: How is the world the same? How has it changed? “Two Houses” was easier to write because it’s space opera, so it’s already removed from a realistic science fiction setting. That was another story I wrote for an anthology, of stories inspired by Ray Bradbury. The thing I got to focus on was how to make the story as “Bradbury” as possible. What were the things that I loved about Bradbury’s science fiction that I could build into that story?

What were those things?

The idea that space is haunted; that maybe you’re a group of astronauts and you are sent out and are headed toward a place or arrive at a place and it turns out that you have, in some way, ended up in an inverted version of where you started off. I’m forgetting the specific names of the Bradbury stories, but the story about the crew that shows up on Mars and appear to have landed in their own town, and their own families, and they are taken home by those families, joyfully. And then at night, it turns out that the people they thought were their families are Martians, and the Martians murder them in their sleep — not out of malice, but because the astronauts don’t belong and the Martians don’t want to be colonized.

That story blew my mind when I was a kid, and I still go back and re-read The Martian Chronicles and his other collections. I knew that I wanted a group of people in space, wanted to make them astronauts, wanted it to be a ghost story. I wanted to make the astronauts mostly a group of women; it seemed to me that if you were sending a group of people on a very long flight, you would choose a group of women. In Bradbury’s stories, the expeditions are all male.

In “Two Houses,” there are these astronauts on this interstellar voyage, and one of the ghost stories that they tell I found incredibly creepy: the one about the two houses in the title. Is that based on something?

“Two Houses” is a club story; it’s a bunch of people in a spaceship, who are a little bored, and what they do is get together and party and tell stories. The thing that pushed me forward in that story, the thing I most wanted to do, was to get to the point where I could actually have them telling ghost stories. The whole point of that was, then, that story about the art installation; these two houses, one original and the other an exact replica that an artist has set up on an estate in England.

There are many things that you cannot do in fiction; there’s not a lot of physicality to writing. I don’t get to go out and build things, and there’s not a lot of sound effects or things like that, so sometimes it’s pleasurable to imagine what you would do in another medium. For a long time, I had been thinking about performance art and installation art, and how you would do something spooky with that. And it was the case that people used to bring over to the US haunted castles; you would bring the pieces of a house over and build it. I guess you did that because you were rich, and because it made you seem fancy.

So I imagined the opposite thing, this artist bringing, piece by piece, a murder house from the US back to an installation in the UK, reassembling it, and building an exact replica so you had two right next to each other — but not telling the people who came to look at them which house was the real one. Then I started to think about the kinds of people that who would live on an estate with that kind of project. When I finally got to that story, that was the point where I heaved a sigh of relief and thought, “Okay, now I’m at the heart of the story; I know what to do from here on out,” because I had moved from science fiction back into scary stories, where I’m more comfortable.

That’s a fascinating idea; maybe someday you can crowdfund that.

That doesn’t seem particularly ethical. Is it more ethical to tell it as a story than create it in real life? Maybe not, but I don’t feel quite as guilty putting it into a story as I would if I were to be an installation artist and build it. That would be creepy, to mess with somebody’s real tragedy like that.

You mentioned, in “Two Houses” and the collection in general, how most of the characters are female. How intentional is that?

Again, when I began to put the stories together, I made a spreadsheet in which I made a list of the thematic material that echoed from story to story. I put down words like, “Mostly funny,” or, “Mostly scary,” or, “A little sad” in a column. I put down the age of the main characters and their genders; and in part, that was so I could think about story order. I also put in a little box, “How long are the various stories?” because putting together the order of a short story collection is complicated. I didn’t think it would be the final order for the collection — I wanted my editor to do that — but I wanted to present something that seemed to work okay.

When I sat down to write “The Lesson,” I did think that I wanted one more story that had men of at least a certain age, just to give the collection a slightly different balance. I don’t think that this is an artificial constraint; I just think that, at a certain point, when you’ve written a group of stories, you think, “Well, I’ve been doing this one thing quite a lot, so let’s see what happens if I work with a different kind of character, or think about a different tonal quality.”

The ARC that I read didn’t include “The Lesson” in it. I found out online that the finished book has it; it was a last minute addition to the manuscript.

I wrote it this summer — I can send you a PDF — and it’s a story about two men who go off to a wedding on an island, and it was a story that I had wanted to write for a long time. Half of it I knew what I wanted to do with, and the other half came to me as I was writing it, but it was originally a story where I thought, “What if I send off a woman, newly single, to a friend’s wedding on an island? And what if there’s a bride-groom who’s arriving late; no one’s really sure if he’s going to arrive at all.” There were a couple of other parts to that story that I wanted to write, and I just couldn’t get anywhere with it. Part of that was because that character felt so similar to some of the other characters I’d written recently, and once I made the viewpoint character a man, the story moved into place.

I gather from reviews that this is the one story in the book that has no overt fantastical elements in it.

That was my goal when I sat down to write; I thought, “I’m going to try to write something that’s a slightly different length, where I do interesting stuff with paragraphing,” because right now, I’m really interested in paragraphs. I feel like I don’t understand how they work. I thought, “I’m going to write some really enormous paragraphs; there’s this story about an island, I want the paragraphs to have almost a weird, floating, island quality to them.” I also thought it would be great to write something in which I couldn’t reach for that thing that I usually like to do when I write a short story, which is a ghost or monster of some kind. I got along pretty well until I started to write in one of the most fun pieces of business that I knew I wanted to put in when I wrote this story; a piece of taxidermy. It comes from a story that my sister told me, about a friend of hers who went to a wedding and there was a piece of taxidermy in the bed and breakfast where she was staying, and it made a lot of noise. She kept waking up and turning on the light and nothing in the room was moving, but she would turn off the lights and hear noises again. And there was a piece of taxidermy by the bed, and eventually, she found out what was making the noise. I knew I wanted to use that in this story, but I kept thinking, “I could make it a badger, I could make it a bird,” and instead I ended up making an animal that doesn’t actually exist, kind of a dodo. It’s this extinct animal; there’s not a lot of them around even in taxidermy form. It looks a bit like a badger, but it doesn’t have a real name; people on this island just called them bad-claws, because they have big claws. So, in fact, I could not entirely keep the non-realistic out of the story.

It does seem like the distinction between realistic and not-realistic is becoming less and less meaningful. Back in 2005, when Michael Chabon put your story “Stone Animals” in Best American Short Stories, it seemed like a huge thing, and these days that kind of thing happens all the time. What do you think about that? How have things changed in the last decade in terms of mixing together realistic and non-realistic fiction?

I love it, as a reader of books; it’s been great for me as a writer, because I think that there is a sense in publishing that readers are much more open to stories which are not realistic. It’s a shift which I think happens every once in a while; the kinds of mimetic fiction which were popular for so long, and the stuff which was considered “genre” — fantasy or horror or science fiction — used to be much more intertwined than they were; there was a period in which they were separate and now it seems like things are moving back together again. I think, in large part, it’s because there hasn’t been this kind of divide in most kinds of entertainment; it’s not as if people only go see realistic dramas about marriages, they also go see horror movies, romantic comedies, musicals — you just go to see things that you think you might enjoy. And the same has always been true of poetry; you, as the writer, use whatever works best to convey your point of view and to describe the world in some way.

The first two collections that I wrote received the kinds of attention I did not expect; they were reviewed in places I didn’t think they would be reviewed in. I really expected, when I was first writing short stories, I would mostly be writing for an audience well versed in genre and that loved, specifically, fantasy, science fiction, and horror. I read anything I can get my hands on, but I didn’t expect that the kinds of work that I did would find a larger audience. God knows there is a lot of other great work which mostly reaches a genre audience that I think should reach a much wider readership.

In a lot of ways, the last holdout in this has been academia. I know that you’ve done various fellowships and teaching gigs; what have you personally seen in terms of how receptive people are becoming to more fantastic kinds of storytelling?

I always figure that if I’m being asked to teach, the university, or wherever is asking, has to be open, to a certain degree, to weird fiction. The most teaching I’ve done has been at the Clarion workshop, the fantasy and science fiction workshop — six weeks — that runs out of Seattle and San Diego. They’re summer workshops, and the people go write six stories in six weeks, and they have six different instructors. One of the things they always do is ask the students, “What do you like to read?” And it used to be the case that the touchstone writers for them were mostly in genre. Now when I teach at Clarion, people mention the same genre writers, but they’ll also mention people like Eudora Welty or sometimes Raymond Carver; or they talk about novels which are realistic novels, sometimes nonfiction.

And the same thing goes for the other programs that I teach; they read young adult and fantasy and science fiction as much as they read in the realistic mode. The question that I now ask alongside that is, “What’s the thing that you read that feels most at a remove from the stuff that you want to write?” That’s really interesting, because sometimes it’s romance novels, and in one case it was gaming manuals — and this was a poet saying this. This was in a workshop up here; a mixed-genre workshop, in the sense that both poets and fiction writers were in the workshop. A couple of the poets turned in short stories clearly grounded in science fiction.

Do those people ever say that they read Kelly Link? From my perspective, among writers of my generation, I feel so many have been influenced by you. This book has a blurb from Karen Russell, who is one of the biggest examples of a brilliant writer who was influenced by your work.

When I read what she does, I love it; in part, because it reads like her. I don’t really see anything of myself reflected in it. That’s always a little strange; you don’t want to see yourself when you read. That’s a little hard for me to speak to; occasionally, an editor will say to me, “I got a Kelly Link story from somebody.” I have no idea what that means. They were probably reading some George Saunders, and maybe Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s fairy tale anthologies, Angela Carter, Shirley Jackson, Shelley Jackson, Jonathan Lethem, Karen Joy Fowler — There’s a lot of work right now at that mixing point. And there has been, I think, for the last thirty years.

One of the things that you mix into this book is the superhero stuff. Did you grow up reading comic books? What sort of history do you have with superheroes?

I did not grow up reading superhero comics; I did not start reading comics until maybe my last year of high school, at which point, half the time I went into the comic book store, people in the aisles would say, “Excuse me, sir,” even though I had long hair and was wearing a skirt. It did not seem like there were a lot of girls going to comic book stores, at least not in North Carolina. The comic book that got me hooked was Cerebus; I saw an issue in the window and just loved the art. As for superheroes, I saw the Superman movies when I was a kid, watched Batman on TV, and after that the next exposure was Frank Miller and Alan Moore. I was asked if I would contribute to an anthology of superhero stories; two editors, one of whom was Owen King, asked if I would write a story and I spent a lot of time thinking about a Bradbury-esque superhero story; I still have it in my head, but can’t think of a way to make it work. So I totally missed that anthology, but because I’d been thinking about that story for so long, when Holly Black asked for a story for Geektastic, I managed something. I did that because I love epistolary stories, and I wanted to write about a convention of superheroes at a hotel.

This is your story, “Secret Identity”; I love that story. But these aren’t action-adventure superhero stories; the super powers are all a little bit everyday. What is it about these disappointing powers that interest you?

This comes out of reading the comics that came out of that generation after Alan Moore and Frank Miller, where you did think about the people who had the powers that weren’t so amazing. In the two superhero stories that I have, there are people who go out and do the usual things, yet I cannot quite fully commit to writing a story about people who go out there and save the world, in part because so many people have already told that story. So I can set that story on the sideline, but the thing I’m actually interested in is those weird liminal spaces in hotels and people who make statues of superheroes out of butter. I say this and will still go see a superhero story. I feel that a lot of other people have done that better than I could, or at least, I wouldn’t be bringing anything new to it.

“Origin Story” is set in an abandoned Wizard of Oz theme park, and I understand that this is based on an actual place?

The Land of Oz, which was an amusement park that I went to many times as a kid. It was one of those places that was boring once you went the first time; you rode a gondola, there was taffy and fudge, and there were people dressed up as characters from The Wizard of Oz. In any case, it closed by the time I was in high school or college, and it had an interesting half-life after that; people would hike up and hang out. The equivalent of urban explorers, except you’re doing it in the mountains of North Carolina. And then I think it was bought by a bunch of real estate developers, and I don’t know if it’s actually been turned into housing yet or not.

What was it about that that made you want to use it as a setting?

I’d always wanted to use it as a setting, and part of that is that Baum and Oz is one of those American mythological touchstones. Everybody knows the basic story of Dorothy and the Oz-book and the movie, so if I use part of that in one of my stories, people are thinking about those characters and the shape of that story. And then there are ways for me to riff off of that and tell a different story. I still go see my family in North Carolina, and we’re up in that area, and I have never hiked up there to see what it’s like now — I think it’s mostly fallen apart — but it was a way for me to revisit it.

You and your husband, Gavin Grant, run Small Beer Press and edit Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. What’s the current status of those?

We’re at the point in the year with Small Beer where we’re working on covers for books that are going to be coming out six months to a year from now; we are working on a Jeffrey Ford collection, an M. Rickert collection, and a sequel to Sofia Samatar’s novel, A Stranger in Olondria, which is really exciting for both of us.

With Lady Churchill’s, we are still putting out about two issues a year; we’re going to have a guest editor for the first time: Michael [W.] Lucas. It’s exciting to pass it off and see what kind of issue he produces. The zine is something, I imagine, we’ll always put out, because it’s a way for us to publish newer writers, and it’s pleasurable, getting the slush pile in and reading through it, finding work by writers that we don’t know. I love short stories.

I heard you say in an interview that if Amazon takes over too much of the book market, that could put Small Beer Press out of business.

This is kind of a crux point for publishers, another one of those weird points in publishing where things shift, and part of it does have to do with economics, that right now the margin is good enough for us to keep putting out books but, if that margin shrinks . . . Our goal has always been to not go into debt; to make sure the press is self-sustaining. We sometimes have years where something sells like [hot cakes], and sometimes we publish work that we love but that doesn’t necessarily find as large an audience. But there is a certain point where the margins wouldn’t be sustainable, and there have been all the articles about the issues that self-published writers are having with Amazon in terms of how much money they get. The thing with Amazon is that they are a company that sells a lot of books, but the question is finding that point where booksellers — Amazon or whoever — are profitable but it’s also profitable for the writers and for publishers.

Should people order books directly from your website?

There are two sides to this: Amazon is excellent at customer service, and serves a purpose for people who don’t have great indie bookstores. But what makes me happiest is when people have a local or favorite independent bookstore and they are placing orders through that bookstore. If my local bookstore doesn’t have the thing I’m looking for, I order it and then just wait two days and it shows up. The great thing about that is that you go into the bookstore and find books you wouldn’t necessarily know about.

I was looking at the Small Beer website, and I came across this post where you said that you would be bankrupt due to medical expenses if not for the MassHealth program. Could you talk about that?

Our daughter, about six years ago, was born at twenty-four weeks, which is right at the point of viability. So she was in hospitals for a year and a half; she was in the NICU, and then we had to move to Boston so she could be at the hospitals there. She’s doing great now; she was looked after by excellent doctors and nurses, and all of that was covered by our healthcare. We would have been bankrupt.

So this is the Romney-care that was the basis for the Affordable Care Act.

Exactly. I have no complaints; we still think that if Massachusetts showed up and said, “Great that you guys got through that, but we’re going to take away your house now,” we would be like, “Okay, that seems fair.” But we’re very grateful that we still have a house.

My girlfriend and I went to the Bell House last year to see a Great Gatsby erotic fan fiction reading . . .

Wow . . . That is a terrific sentence.

Tell us about taking part in that.

This is an event that the Booksmith in San Francisco has been running for a while, where they take a classic piece of literature and ask a bunch of writers to write erotic fan fiction about it. I was asked, and honored by the invitation, and I was working with Holly Black in her house. I was a bit of a chicken; I thought, “I could do this, I suppose, but it sounds like it would be a lot more fun to write it with somebody else.” So we both went through The Great Gatsby, made a lot of notes about stuff that seemed like it’d be fun to rework and places where we could use direct quotes. It was great, in part because I don’t collaborate that much and that was pleasurable, and we got to see some extraordinary people read the fan fiction.

It was a fantastic event; I enjoyed it.

I’m glad you enjoyed it; it was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done.

Finally, do you have any other projects you want to mention?

I’m working on a novel. I’m going to be touring for this book pretty soon, and other than that, I have a fancy new website, I’m on Twitter and things like that. Mostly, I feel a sense of relief that I finished all the stories in the book and people seem to like them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction/fantasy talk show podcast. It is produced by John Joseph Adams and hosted by: David Barr Kirtley, who is the author of thirty short stories, which have appeared in magazines such as Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, and Lightspeed, in books such as Armored, The Living Dead, Other Worlds Than These, and Fantasy: The Best of the Year, and on podcasts such as Escape Pod and Pseudopod. He lives in New York.

Book Reviews: July 2015

Andrew Liptak | 1800 words

Welcome back to the Lightspeed Review column! This month, I read The Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu; Lagoon, by Nnedi Okorafor; and Aurora, by Kim Stanley Robinson; and I was struck at how each novel used location and an awareness of ecological fragility in similar ways. Each book is set in a unique environment that’s outside of what I’m typically exposed to, and it’s interesting to see how each author teased out China, Nigeria, and the exoplanet Aurora (among other locations).

The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu, Ken Liu (Translator)
Hardcover/Ebook
ISBN: 9780765377067
Tor Books, November 2014
400 Pages

The front of The Three-Body Problem proclaims the following: “The Bestselling Chinese Science Fiction Novel Available in English for the First Time.” The first installment of Cixin Liu’s trilogy dropped last late year, with the second and third installments coming this summer and next spring. Part of what attracted me to this book was the location: Translated science fiction stories are nothing new in science fiction, and Cixin Liu’s novels will likely be the first in a much larger trend of importation of science fiction from around the world. The advantage of this is we have access to science fiction that comes out of its own unique tradition, which includes location.

Starting in the midst of China’s Cultural Revolution and stretching to the modern day, The Three-Body Problem is a fantastic story of revolution and first contact. In the 1970s, a researcher in an experimental facility deep in the mountains of China discovers a way to send and detect interstellar messages, and makes contact with an alien race on a harsh world. Cutting to the present day, researchers and civilians in China are confronted with a variety of problems that undercut our basic understanding of the universe, all while a massive online game is put together to orchestrate the coming of visitors from beyond the solar system.

Liu’s China is one of which I know little, and it’s interesting to look in on that vein of history. China’s Cultural Revolution is something that we are generally aware of, but only in the broadest of details: The realities of the movement are far more horrifying than we care to learn. Liu pulls back the curtain slightly on what some of life was like and the impact on the various characters who lived there at the time. But more importantly, this era of brutality and political discord helps to form the decisions and outlook of many of the characters who now have to contend with an alien invasion from another planet. Serious questions are asked in a way that I can’t remember reading about: Does humanity deserve the world we call home, or is there another species out there that would be better caretakers?

The context for these attitudes comes out in the depictions of their treatment, as well as the extremely helpful translator notes (Lightspeed regular Ken Liu translated this, and the third novel), scattered throughout the book. This contextual information is useful in understanding how this story plays out, and it upended my own expectations as I read it; I look forward to having them upended once again with 2015’s The Dark Forest.

Lagoon
by Nnedi Okorafor
Hardcover/Ebook
ISBN: 9781481440875
Saga Press, July 2014
320 Pages

Like The Three-Body Problem, Nnedi Okorafor sets her alien first-contact novel, Lagoon, outside the United States, in Lagos, Nigeria. Lagoon was prompted by Okorafor’s objections to the portrayal of the Nigerians in Neill Blomkamp’s debut film, District 9, and evolved from there. In it, an alien ship lands in the water outside of Lagos. An ensuing wave captures three troubled characters: Adaora, a marine biologist; Anthony, a famed rapper; and Agu, a soldier in Nigeria’s army and relative of the country’s dying president. Each of the three are introduced to Ayodele, an envoy, and are then caught up in the wave of events which overtake the city and play a pivotal role in humanity’s contact with extraterrestrials.

What struck me the most is how Okorafor imbues Lagos with a life of its own: The city is vibrant and contradictory, and as news of Ayodele’s arrival spreads, the city and its citizens respond in their own variety of ways. Okorafor largely splits the story between her main viewpoint characters, but branches out as needed to tell the story from a larger pool. There are several unconventional viewpoints, such as from a bat and from a spider, but also from a prominent religious figure and from a cross-dresser who’s part of an underground equality movement. Ayodele appears to be composed of nanoparticles, and can shift her form as needed: This is a highly appealing ability, and one which many in Lagos look to co-opt for their own ends. The activists see her abilities as a means or representation of what they feel, while religious individuals alternatively feel that she’s a witch, or that she’s part of God’s plan.

Ayodele and those she represents have their own goals in mind as “agents of change,” looking to transform or alter the planet in a way that’s far more harmonious and sustainable. Indeed, the idea of transformation is central to this novel, and most notably, the transformation which Lagos and Nigeria undergoes is a key part of the book: The President of Nigeria (in symbolic fashion), is sick and seeking treatment abroad, only to return to be healed by Ayodele, prompting him to begin his own reforms that will revitalize Lagos and Nigeria. Each of the characters are broken in their own ways, and undergo their own transformations, literally or metaphorically, as a result of their contact with Ayodele.

Lagoon is a fantastic, brisk novel that carries with it an entirely different tone and feel than that of any other first-contact novel that I’ve ever read. Okorafor deftly waves together social commentary from Nigeria and has created a vibrant Lagos: it’s a character unto itself, and one that I hope that we’ll see again in the future.

Aurora
by Kim Stanley Robinson
Hardcover/Ebook
ISBN: 9780316098106
Orbit, July 2015
480 Pages

Finally, we have the latest hard science fiction novel from Kim Stanley Robinson, Aurora. Where the other two books took place in other countries outside of the United States, Robinson sets his story amongst several locations over the course of centuries, chiefly aboard a generation ship headed to Tau Ceti, a star twelve light years away that’s similar to our own. The notion of home is a frequent source of inspiration, and Robinson takes us far from Earth to impress its importance, all while breaking down many of the tropes and arguments associated with deep-space travel.

Within Tau Ceti’s planetary system is a gas giant with a potentially habitable moon, Aurora, one possible destination for their long journey. The ship is beginning to experience some problems by the time it’s reaching their new home: Some elements are running short, systems are beginning to fail, and everyone is impatient to reach their destination. Not all are happy to be aboard: They were born into their lives, with no say or control over their destination, chosen for them by their ancestors. They’re angry at the failings and shortcomings that have impacted their lives. The ship, controlled by a larger AI, has its own observations of the people it carries, and watches over them as they fly to their new home.

Tau Ceti proves to be a blessing and a curse: There are habitable worlds, but there are also unforeseen dangers and new problems which crop up as they arrive. Unlike the golden age novels of the 1950s-1960s, this isn’t a novel about humanity taming the wild frontier of new worlds: It’s a book about the limits of human adaptability. Robinson’s crew are part of a grand, philosophical experiment to try and spread humanity to the stars, an experiment that they find is later abandoned back at home.

But, Tau Ceti and Aurora aren’t really the homes of the novel; that honor belongs to their ship, which has faithfully carried its future colonists light years from home and beyond. Robinson spends an incredible amount of time on the details of the generation ship, as both a starship and as a person, which has grown over its journey. The ship is divided into a number of biomes, each representing a small microcosm of the Earth, a tiny seed that will hopefully be planted and grown on a new world. The biomes are also what keep their human passengers alive, and as the journey continues, it becomes clear that simply replicating Earth’s environment isn’t enough.

In many ways, Aurora is as much about our home planet as it is about finding and creating a new one. Earth is a wonderfully complicated system, and humanity only survives because of the tolerance for failure within those systems. On a small starship, that tolerance is razor thin, and as the ship ends its journey, a cascade of unforeseen problems have begun to arise, threatening the passengers. At many points, I found myself thinking that Aurora is what the film Interstellar should have been. There’s much crossover on the visuals, and undoubtedly, any film adaptation of Aurora would share the same shooting locations. Where Christopher Nolan’s recent film takes an optimistic tone, Robinson’s is decidedly realistic about the challenges that would face any interstellar voyager. This is a fantastic, if uneven, read that takes a hard look at the importance of the one world we know where humanity can exist.

• • • •

While I honed in on the idea of location for each story, what’s also important is that they’re each a first-contact story. Lagoon introduces us to nanobot aliens who crash down near Lagos; The Three-Body Problem reaches out to aliens with an invitation to visit; and Aurora brings us to a new world, one that is vastly different and more challenging than our own. Location is important to each of these stories, because it provides the needed context for why the contact was important in the first place. Okorafor’s Nigeria is an environmental mess, polluted by a weak government and callous business interests. Liu’s characters seek alien contact out of curiosity, but also as a means to give the Earth over to a species which will properly appreciate it, while Robinson’s settlers are in it for the adventure and the argument that humanity must be spread to the cosmos, to create a buffer against ecological collapse. A common thread here is the treatment of the one location where we know humanity can survive and thrive, and in each instance, we get a good reminder that our existence on this small world is very fragile indeed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Liptak is a freelance writer and historian from Vermont. He is a 2014 graduate of the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop, and has written for such places as Armchair General, io9, Kirkus Reviews, Lightspeed Magazine, and others. He can be found over at www.andrewliptak.com and at @AndrewLiptak on Twitter. His first book, War Stories: New Military Science Fiction is now out from Apex Publications, and his next, The Future Machine: The Writers, Editors and Readers who Build Science Fiction is forthcoming from Jurassic London in 2015.

Artist Gallery: Euclase

Euclase, also known by her real name Elicia Donze, was born in 1980 in Oil City, Pennsylvania. Euclase is a self-taught artist who has been drawing her favorite characters from films and television shows for over twenty-five years. As a child, she would drive her parents crazy by watching the same movies over and over again way too early on Saturday mornings, sometimes hitting pause on the VCR so she could sketch the characters right off the screen. Drawing inspiration from pop culture and fan culture, Euclase combines digital media and a style influenced by classic science fiction and fantasy illustrators to create vivid, realistic character portraits. Euclase is primarily a hobbyist who creates art for her personal enjoyment. Professionally, she works as a graphic designer and typesetter in the offset printing industry. She resides in Western Pennsylvania. Her website is euclase.tumblr.com.

[To view the gallery, turn the page.]

Artist Spotlight: Euclase

Henry Lien | 1000 words

Let’s get the technique issue out of the way first. Your technique is astonishing. Beyond photo-realistic. Yet with a vividness and a slightly unreal quality that make your works recognizably different from photographs. It’s like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within except without the dodgy lip-sync and post-plastic surgery facial expressions. It’s like you’re intentionally working from realistic photographs and pushing their hyper-reality so hard that it makes them nose-dive into a second, undiscovered uncanny valley. What are you doing technically to achieve that feeling? I assume these are all digital works. Are you working from photographs? What have you done to the source material to achieve this level of detail and this realer-than-real feeling?

Thank you very much! Yes, they’re digital paintings. My technique isn’t all that different from traditional photorealism, except that I use a stylus and software instead of a paintbrush and paint. I use photo references just as if I were painting a detailed portrait on a canvas. The realistic look that I like comes from a layering-and-blending technique that I’ve hashed out over the years. It’s not complicated, but it’s time-consuming and has taken me a lot of practice.

I know that the cover image Mothboy is pretty different from all of your other works. The image is squarely in a tradition of outcast, lonely monsters that seem pitiable and even cute to some, and repulsive to others. This is particularly fitting since moths, as harmless as they are and lovely to some people, make others unaccountably hysterical with fear and revulsion. Please tell us a little more about this theme, or any other themes you were exploring in this piece.

Mothboy comes from my love of dystopian fiction. I don’t make a lot of original character art, mostly because I’m simply not interested in sitting down and drawing for that reason, but every now and then the mood strikes me. I love monsters. I think being an outcast of any kind can make someone feel like they inspire repulsion in others. I think we all feel like that at times, and it makes us want to hide away from the world, whether in our favorite book, in our imagination, or up on a roof somewhere. It’s loneliness, you know? In that sense, I think Mothboy is pretty similar to the rest of my work.

Almost all of your works besides Mothboy are fan images of characters from film and television. What are some of your favorite screen characters? Are you drawn to them primarily because they are visually memorable or because you respond to their characters?

Visually striking characters, sure. My favorite characters are the ones who’ve drawn into themselves, either because they’re conflicted or lonely, or because they’re on the fence: Castiel, Dana Scully, Effie Trinket, Brienne of Tarth, and so on. Characters who have to choose a side. That’s why I love speculative fiction so much, because it’s full of all these seemingly competent characters who come to realize that their world isn’t so simple or rigid (or real).

How has your experience working in the world of fan art been? I would think that your works depict these well-known characters with such vivid and faithful detail that no fan of these characters could have anything but a positive reaction to your works. However, I know that fans are unpredictable. What has your experience been?

Overwhelmingly positive. And positively overwhelming, too! Fans are the most enthusiastic, giving people. And incredibly intelligent. I’ve watched teenagers analyze text with more aplomb than a roomful of Shakespeare scholars. I love sharing my art with them.

Why are you drawn to producing fan art? There is a long tradition of worship through fan art in many cultures. Religious devotional art was essentially an early form of fan art. Somehow, the process of trying to render the cherished thing/person/religious figure was important and satisfying. Can you describe to us why it is satisfying?

Because I can share it, I think. Without climbing too deep into a pool of weird psychoanalysis, I think that’s basically the reason. I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s believing that whatever the television showed me was important and beautiful, and I like that fan art exists as a way for me to examine that TV dreamworld culture. Especially science fiction and fantasy, which is even more of a dreamworld. The fact that there is a community where I can share my passion with people who grew up in the same culture and who understand it and accept it is invaluable.

What is your dream project?

I think I’m already doing it. I get to draw my favorite things, and I get to share them with other people and maybe make someone happy or inspire them to make their own art. It’s a pretty rad gig. I’m amazingly blessed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Henry Lien is an art dealer in Los Angeles (www.glassgaragegallery.com). He represents artists from North America, Asia, Europe, and South America. His artists have appeared in ARTnews, Art in America, Juxtapoz, the Huffington Post, and Time Magazine, and been collected by and exhibited in institutions and museums around the world. Henry has also served as the President of the West Hollywood Fine Art Dealers’ Association and a Board Member of the West Hollywood Avenues of Art and Design. He is also the Arts Editor at Interfictions and the Art Director at Lightspeed Magazine. Henry also has extensive experience as an attorney and teaches at UCLA Extension. In addition, Henry is a speculative fiction writer. He is a Clarion West 2012 graduate. He has sold stories to publications including Asimov’s, Analog, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and been nominated for the Nebula. Visit his author website at www.henrylien.com.

Author Spotlight: Carrie Vaughn

Sandra Odell | 750 words

The introduction to “Crazy Rhythm” had me laughing out loud at both the antics on set and Margie’s casual efficiency. What is it about humor that invites readers into the story?

You know, I’m not sure I know the answer to that. In this story, I’m relying quite a bit on well-established tropes of dictatorial directors and on-set mayhem that have been around since the story actually takes place. In this case, the familiarity sets readers at ease and lets their guard down. Who doesn’t love the feeling of being behind-the-scenes on a movie and being let in on the secrets of production?

What inspired the setting for story?

Every Hollywood insider story I’ve ever seen, from Singin’ in the Rain to The Rocketeer. That, and a bout of research into World War I tanks. I encourage readers to go to YouTube and watch some footage of the Mark V, and you’ll understand that scene when Margie talks about the strangeness of it.

I also have to say I really love putting two completely incongruous subjects together in the same story. In this case, WWI-era tanks and the silent Hollywood movie era. Weird sparks usually happen, no pun intended.

World War I was a brutal affair unknown to many of today’s younger readers, yet Peter’s character and, at times, battered psyche, speak to the horrors of war that transcend the era or conflict. When writing, how conscious are you of portraying a character’s emotional needs in a compassionate manner that not only furthers the plot but encourages reader empathy?

World War I is far too forgotten, and I wonder sometimes if, even a hundred years later, it’s still too raw and shocking. Unlike World War II, it’s a war that’s difficult to make any sense of.

In retrospect, I write quite a lot of stories about soldiers recovering from battle. It’s the part of the story that happens after the war story is over, and hasn’t gotten a lot of attention until recently. (In fact, it seems like most of the stories being told about current wars are post-war recovery stories.) I’m very conscious that, when writing about these kinds of characters, I have to be accurate and sympathetic, because it’s such a real experience and there are far too many people out there who know exactly what that experience is. I would hope that readers would be empathetic to that experience as a matter of course, since in some ways that’s the point of the story — what is the character arc of someone going through this?

Do you have a particular historical event or setting you’d like to explore further in your writing?

I’m constantly discovering new eras and settings I want to write about. Usually, the story comes first, and I find myself suddenly doing a ton of research into subjects I hadn’t considered before. I let the stories decide. For example, two ideas I’m working on right now: One is a story about the early days of Rick, a vampire character from my Kitty series, that’s going to be set in seventeenth-century colonial Mexico. It’s an interesting period — after the conquistadors but before the more familiar mission/expansion era — that I know nothing about, so I’ve got some work to do. Another is a story set on the American side of the naval battles of the War of 1812. Again, not a period I thought I was interested in, but I’ve got this story I want to write, and that’s where it is. I think, as a fiction writer, it pays to be a generalist, because then you’re never limited in the kinds of stories you can tell.

What’s next for Carrie Vaughn? What can eager readers expect from you in the future?

The next — and last (for now) — book in the Kitty series, Kitty Saves the World, is going to be out in August. I also have an ebook novella that I’m pushing, “Paranormal Bromance,” speaking of humor — this would be a good one for fans of comedy. I’m spinning up the next projects to go after that, and I have the usual round of short stories due out. Check me out at carrievaughn.com for more news.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sandra Odell is an avid reader, compulsive writer, and rabid chocoholic. She attended Clarion West in 2010. Her first collection of short stories was released from Hydra House Books in 2012. She is currently hard at work avoiding her first novel.

Author Spotlight: Tony Daniel

Jude Griffin | 600 words

What was the inspiration for “Life on the Moon”?

It started off with the scene of a garden on the Moon popping into my mind. In my imagination, it was not a garden inside a habitat or on a terraformed lunar landscape, but a garden on the airless, lifeless surface. How could you do that? What would it look like? Why would you do that? And the story grew backward and forward from there.

The world of “Life on the Moon” is very rich — how do you go about layering such richness and complexity into a short story?

Synecdoche. Lots of working in of small moments, telling details, so that my readers, who are usually much smarter than I am, can create the world in their own minds. Fiction is always an imaginative collaboration between the writer and the reader, with the often unsuspecting reader doing most of the work.

Nell and Henry are so beautifully drawn — how did your vision for these characters change over the writing of the story?

The characters grew out of a relationship I had at the time with a woman who was a wonderful architect. And I started off my so-called career in the long ago before time by writing poetry. In fact, I remember once waiting for a check for a poem to arrive from Asimov’s so I could eat! Twenty-seven bucks it was, and I was glad of it. Also, I remember I’d just read some story by Lucius . . . Lucius Shepard, who was a mentor of mine . . . and it had a complex relationship between a couple, and, as usual, I tried to emulate Lucius’s work.

Were there any scenes or plot elements you struggled to set aside?

No, but there were some I had a blast putting in there. I really enjoy writing sex scenes, for instance. I put them in my work every chance I get. I don’t know if you can write a story for adults without sex coming into play somehow or another. I can’t.

“Life on the Moon” was nominated for a Hugo and won the Readers Choice award from Asimov’s: What most stood out for you about readers’ responses to the story?

People liked the poetry. I was a bit surprised because it was tailored as a means to telling the story, and I wasn’t sure how good it was by itself. Still not, but it does what it is supposed to, I think.

You taught science fiction for a number of years: Where does this story sit in the universe of SF, its arcs/evolution?

It is a story in the John W. Campbell mode — that is, it is about ordinary people dealing with problems and opportunities that revolve around science fictional elements. I have always found it interesting to juxtapose people in normal human situations against the cold equations of a vast and dangerous universe that is not particularly hospitable to people’s hopes and aspirations.

Whose science fiction do you find exciting to read?

Stories that make me think I am in a real future instead of some allegorical version of the present. It is extraordinarily hard to do this.

Any news you want to share?

I am working on a high fantasy, believe it or not! It’s an idea that’s been knocking at the door for years.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jude Griffin is an envirogeek, writer, and photographer. She has trained llamas at the Bronx Zoo; was a volunteer EMT, firefighter, and HAZMAT responder; worked as a guide and translator for journalists covering combat in Central America; lived in a haunted village in Thailand; ran an international frog monitoring network; and loves happy endings. Bonus points for frolicking dogs and kisses backlit by a shimmering full moon.

Author Spotlight: Mary Robinette Kowal

Laurel Amberdine | 500 words

I noticed right away the specific cooking implements. How has your interest in cooking influenced your work?

Well . . . it might be possible that my tendency to window shop in cooking stores has led to me knowing about things like matte black knives. I have a bit of a fixation on proper knives when cooking, and will travel with my own set. I think when I’m giving a character the urge to cook that this is going to bleed over into their point of view. It is more natural to me than a character who doesn’t know how to cook.

Elise’s concussion symptoms were vivid and detailed, along with adding a nice touch of ambiguity. What kind of research did you do toward that?

Sadly, I have a number of friends who have had severe concussions. Watching their recovery process gave me some details. The rest came from reading medical journals and talking with a doctor who specialized in head injuries. I was particularly struck by the hallucinations that can sometimes accompany head injuries. While I haven’t had one myself, I did have mild hallucinations with the flu once and incorporated some of that into Elise’s experience. It’s very unsettling.

The ending, where Elise decides to run away with her husband’s clone, was perfect and also surprising. Did you have that result in mind when you started the story?

Oh . . . That’s interesting. I actually think that she doesn’t run away with him, but is going to clone herself so that the clone runs away. The thing is that Elise loves Myung and wouldn’t abandon the original, but his clone is also him. Did I plan this ending? Actually, no. In my very original idea, Elise was a clone and the ending was her discovery of that.

What was your process like? Did everything come together at once or did you take several drafts?

I tend to sketch my stories out in a rough paragraph form before I start to write. This is something I call a thumbnail sketch, from back in my art school days. The specifics, those I tend to discover as I am writing. This story is a little unusual because it started from a very vivid dream in which my husband had a clone that killed himself. It was unsettling and, being a writer, I started to wonder why a clone would do that.

Here’s my original sketch for “The Conciousness Problem”:

“Clone killed himself. In the process of helping understand why, she finds a coroner’s report for herself. She confronts Raj. She’d been in a car accident. They had an undamaged print of her body, so Raj scanned her mind into the new body. It didn’t quite take because of the amount of brain damage the original had. But she’s getting better. Honest.”

As I got into the story, I became more interested in the fact that a true clone would carry the emotional memories of the original. So he would miss his wife terribly and be in a situation where there was no recourse. That changed the course of the story considerably.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laurel Amberdine was raised by cats in the suburbs of Chicago. She’s good at naps, begging for food, and turning ordinary objects into toys. She recently moved to San Francisco with her husband, and is enjoying its vastly superior weather. Between naps she’s working on polishing up a few science fiction and fantasy novels, and hopes to send them out into the world soon.

Author Spotlight: Taiyo Fujii

Robyn Lupo | 300 words

What was the initial spark that set off “Violation of the TrueNet Security Act” for you?

When I found my fingers remembered the old password of my web server. I started to imagine that an ordinary computer engineer runs his program after decades.

Is it your process to write shorter work from beginning to end? Was there anything odd or unexpected about how this story evolved?

Even with short stories, I design the plot as carefully as a standard-length novel. “Violation of the TrueNet Security Act” shares a background with my novel Gene Mapper, so I only set up the drama for this short story. I enjoyed thinking the way Minami talks.

There are several worlds that Minami negotiates: TrueNet, the Internet that has grown wild, and the spaces his physical body moves through. What do you think pulls us back to reading and telling stories about negotiating these Other spaces?

Why I designed this layered world is to show how we are living in a layered world already, and some worlds have sunk. I had an account on a Japanese domestic SNS service, but that service was taken over by Twitter. My old persona was gone at that moment.

Opening the story, there was talk about zombies, and throughout the work there’s the feeling that Minami feels old and obsolete, but it ends on a brilliant renewal for Minami himself, as well as the society that he lives in. Where do you think we land with our own engagement with technology? Were you tempted to write something grittier?

Anywhere, anytime, we are living with technology. I wish to show how we ourselves stand resolutely in a technology-flooded world.

As a storyteller, I added a gritty flavor, and at the same time I was Minami. I cheered for the coming world to be genuinely exciting.

What’s next for you?

Writing a story about a designed-but-born human, and preparing the sequel to Gene Mapper.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robyn Lupo has been known to frequent southwestern Ontario with her graduate student husband and elderly dog. She writes, reads, and plays video games. She is personal assistant to three cats.

Author Spotlight: Liz Williams

Sandra Odell | 500 words

From the very first paragraph I was struck by the grounding of this story, the inherent reality of Chen and his world. What inspired this story?

It came from a visit to Hong Kong, of which Singapore Three is a thinly disguised version. I stayed on a houseboat with a friend of mine, who was writing a book on murders in the colony and going out with a vice squad cop . . . the rest is history.

This story is rooted in familiar details and moments — expensive sunglasses, the taste of lightning and rain, waiting for a ferry, instances of alienation and loss. The overlay of a supernatural, near-future setting flows seamlessly from such details and further serves to define the story. When laying the foundation for a new world, even one extrapolated from our own, what do you consider to be the most important aspects?

I would say worldbuilding — making lots of notes, but I don’t generally do this myself. I’ve got good recall and most of it is simply imagination.

The story blends aspects of Chinese culture and beliefs with noir elements. Do you have a favorite genre when writing or reading?

I tend to prefer detective stories for light reading: I don’t read a lot of SFF when I’m writing it, in case I get over-influenced.

Detective Inspector Chen has a long and illustrious presence in the world of print. He is a likeable, troubled, insightful man both good at his job and discouraged by the reactions of others when they recognize his office. What is it about Chen as a character that appeals to you, that keeps you coming back to tell his stories?

You need tensions within a character and within their situation, but I got tired of the dysfunctional loner cop with no home life and an alcohol problem. I wanted to make Chen different, still hopefully with issues, but not necessarily ones that stemmed from his own personality.

You have had an active and successful career. What advice do you have for newer writers hoping to make a name for themselves in the speculative fiction market?

To be honest? Be born a boy. I know so many women writers who are really struggling at the moment — who are excellent writers, but who never get the breaks or the recognition that men do. Once you’re over forty, it’s more or less as though you’re invisible, with a little blip when you die and everyone says ‘oh, wasn’t she wonderful!’ To redress this, I’m supporting women’s work where I can — I hope to do more for my colleagues in the coming years.

Are there any particular projects or works we can expect from you in 2015?

None. I’m back in the corporate world now, working enjoyably, but working long hours, and with very little time for writing. I need to focus on looking after my family, and the writing has been put on the back burner.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sandra Odell is an avid reader, compulsive writer, and rabid chocoholic. She attended Clarion West in 2010. Her first collection of short stories was released from Hydra House Books in 2012. She is currently hard at work avoiding her first novel.

Author Spotlight: Andrea Hairston

Patrick Stephens | 600 words

What moment from “Saltwater Railroad” would you say is the pivotal moment — both the one you feel represents the theme, and/or the one that you feel started the story in your mind?

The opening of “Saltwater Railroad” is pivotal — a mysterious woman washes up on an Island of Maroons — African-Americans, Indians, renegades, runaways, and pirates. These dreamers and schemers have built their own world off the coast of Georgia and Florida, but Mainlanders could come and wreck their dream, their escapist haven, any day now. The Islanders are at a critical point. They can’t stay where they are, but they don’t know where to go. The stranger who washes up is a catalyst for change, for motion, for adventure, and also for difficult decisions. She is not sure of her possibilities either. I thought it would be exciting to write about that.

Which character did you most connect with when writing, and which scene do you feel may exemplify that?

Actually, I don’t bond with a single character. I’m like the theatre performer Anna D. Smith, who plays all the characters in her plays. I embody all the characters. Every character has to be at the center of what I am feeling/thinking. I perform the characters to write them. All of them. I like focusing on a community of characters who are trying to make a world of meaning that might be different than the status quo. But of course they can’t escape what formed them as they reach for a different future. So most of the scenes are about the drama of that struggle.

Where did you begin in creating the world for “Saltwater Railroad”?

I wanted to do a story about pirates, Maroons, and Seminoles. I had an image of these folks getting on a boat and making their way to freedom. So after I started putting down notes for the story, I did research and found that what I imagined, Seminoles in the early 1800s did. I also had the pleasure of talking with historian Nicole Ivy, who pointed me toward the Ethiopian Leg Myth: Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian took a dead Ethiopian’s leg and transplanted it onto a “white” person who had a diseased leg. There were many paintings of this miracle. I am fascinated by miracles and wanted to engage with the idea of the impossible in my story.

First I wrote a short story, then I wrote a film based on the short story, and now I have written a novelette based on the film and the short story. That’s a great way to build a world.

What do you most identify with in “Saltwater Railroad”?

I like thinking about cosmology, about various ways of knowing and ordering the world and creating reality. I write what I and my writer group (Pan Morigan, Ama Patterson, and Sheree R. Thomas) call Folk Weird. My work (our work) is about putting aliens and haints in the same story, or spirits and wormholes, supercomputers and the Baron of the boneyard. So characters who are trying to find what is love, truth, and possibility for them in a complex world — that’s what I identify with.

What might we be seeing from you in the near future?

I have a short story — “7th Generation Algorithm” — that is part of an online project that will go live soon: BotTimeStories produced by Ars Electronica. They paired writers with roboticists. We wrote stories and then got paired with an illustrator. My third novel, Will Do Magic For Small Change, will be out next year.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Patrick J. Stephens graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 2012, and has published two books since his return. Aurichrome (and Other Stories) and Sondranos: the Narrative of Leon Bishop are both available in free ebook form and hard copy.

Author Spotlight: William Alexander

Laurel Amberdine | 300 words

Is East Wells based on any particular town?

East Wells is a blend of several towns outside Philadelphia; far, far outside Philadelphia. These are tiny places with long traditions of hushed, whispered folklore about “gangs.”

I loved all the neat details in “Ana’s Tag.” Can you share some of your sources of inspiration?

Thanks! I took a handful of Irish lore and tried to make it contemporary. Then I smooshed it together with my own mostly-assimilated Latino childhood — but from my little sister’s point of view.

Did this story present any difficulties when writing it?

The exterior circumstances were the most difficult part. I wrote “Ana’s Tag” during my last week at Clarion, a summer-long workshop for SF authors. My brain was whimpering, and my left eyelid twitched the whole time.

Rico and Ana seem to be just at the beginning of their adventures. Do you have any other stories with these characters, or would you consider writing some?

Yes. At least one. Possibly more. But I’ve been distracted by novel deadlines and let my unfinished short stories languish.

What are you working on lately?

I just finished Nomad, the sequel to Ambassador. Both books are about Gabe Sandro Fuentes, the eleven-year-old representative of our planet. Kids would make excellent galactic ambassadors, I think. They have more adaptable communication skills. When and if we finally open diplomatic channels to alien civilizations, we’ll need to get the kids talking.

The next novel will be a ghost story.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laurel Amberdine was raised by cats in the suburbs of Chicago. She’s good at naps, begging for food, and turning ordinary objects into toys. She recently moved to San Francisco with her husband, and is enjoying its vastly superior weather. Between naps, she’s working on polishing up a few science fiction and fantasy novels, and hopes to send them out into the world soon.

Author Spotlight: Eleanor Arnason

Jude Griffin | 600 words

You’ve written a number of Dapple stories — where does this one sit in relation to the others? Is her journey complete?

This is the second. The first, published in F&SF, is “The Actors.” The third, published in Asimov’s, is “The Potter of Bones.” I am part way through a fourth story, titled “The Castaway.” I would like to have five stories, tracing Dapple’s life from infancy to old age.

Your upbringing, so strongly anchored in your father’s Icelandic heritage and your mother’s time in China, contributed to the conception of the Hwarhath as what would have come out of the Icelandic converting to Confucianism instead of Christianity. There is also a strong Japanese influence in the plays and, it seems, in the whole death before dishonor mentality or death in atonement for dishonor. Are there any other cultural influences I am missing?

I don’t think so. Iceland, China, and Japan would cover the influences I know of. Iceland is a huge influence. The stories very much belong to the tradition of Icelandic sagas. But China and Confucianism are also important.

This generation is embracing so much more than the gender binary — do you see yourself writing science fiction where gender is as meaningless to an individual’s opportunities as something like hair color is for us today?

Right now, no. I have been writing about a trans woman in my Lydia Duluth series, but my futures right now are less fluid than the current generation. The changes in attitudes toward gender fluidity have not been matched by changes in attitudes towards people of color — racism is still very strong — or changes in attitudes toward women, who are actually losing ground in their struggle to control their bodies and reproductive choice. So I am not seeing progress across the board. Instead, I am seeing backlashes. I don’t know what the future holds.

Your storytelling style is so distinct and recognizable across stories, hearkening back to older storytelling approaches. Do you have to be careful about what you read while writing lest it influence your own rhythms and wording?

Actually, yes. I am always careful about what I read when writing a story and try to read work that has a compatible style.

Is there any social justice topic you haven’t yet tackled, but plan to?

I would like to write more about class.

What new writers are doing exciting work in SF?

I am trying to read more new work. I want to read The Three-Body Problem, because it’s our first in-depth look at contemporary Chinese science fiction. There’s interesting work coming out of Finland — for example, Jagannath by Karin Tidbeck, published by Cheeky Frawg Press. Everything from Aqueduct Press and Small Beer Press is worth checking out.

If you were to recommend any three writers to read of any time/culture/genre, who would they be?

Jane Austen. Charles Dickens. The author of the sixteenth-century Chinese novel Journey to the West and the author of the fourteenth-century Icelandic novel Grettis saga Asmundarsonar, also the great twentieth-century Icelandic novelist Halldor Laxness. Laxness’s great novel is Independent People, but I really like Under the Glacier. (I don’t know how to bring this list down to three writers.)

Any new projects you want to tell us about?

I am finishing a collection of Hwarhath stories, which will come out from Aqueduct Press, I think at the end of 2015.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jude Griffin is an envirogeek, writer, and photographer. She has trained llamas at the Bronx Zoo; was a volunteer EMT, firefighter, and HAZMAT responder; worked as a guide and translator for journalists covering combat in Central America; lived in a haunted village in Thailand; ran an international frog monitoring network; and loves happy endings. Bonus points for frolicking dogs and kisses backlit by a shimmering full moon.

In the Next Issue of

Coming up in August, in Lightspeed . . .

We have original science fiction by Chen Qiufan (“The Smog Society”) and Sarah Pinsker (“And We Were Left Darkling”), along with SF reprints by Vandana Singh (“Life-pod”) and Vylar Kaftan (“Civilization”).

Plus, we have original fantasy by Sam J. Miller (“Ghosts of Home”) and Genevieve Valentine (“Given the Advantage of the Blade”), and fantasy reprints by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (“To See Pedro Infante”) and Ursula Pflug (“Python”).

All that, and of course we also have our usual assortment of author and artist spotlights, along with a pair of feature interviews.

For our ebook readers, we also have a novella reprint by John Varley (“Equinoctial”) and a pair of novel excerpts.

It’s another great issue, so be sure to check it out. And while you’re at it, tell a friend about Lightspeed.

Thanks for reading!

Stay Connected

Lightspeed Staff

Here are a few URLs you might want to check out or keep handy if you’d like to stay apprised of everything new and notable happening with Lightspeed:

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Subscriptions & Ebooks

Lightspeed Staff

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.

• • • •

All caught up on Lightspeed? Good news! We also have lots of ebooks available from our sister-publications:

Nightmare Ebooks, Bundles, & Subscriptions: Like Lightspeed, our sister-magazine Nightmare (nightmare-magazine.com) also has ebooks, bundles, and subscriptions available as well. For instance, you can get the complete first year (12 issues) of Nightmare for just $24.99; that’s savings of $11 off buying the issues individually. Or, if you’d like to subscribe, a 12-month subscription to Nightmare includes 48 stories (about 240,000 words of fiction, plus assorted nonfiction), and will cost you just $23.88 ($12 off the cover price).

Fantasy Magazine Ebooks & Bundles: We also have ebook back issues  — and ebook back issue bundles  — of Lightspeed’s (now dormant) sister-magazine, Fantasy. To check those out, just visit fantasy-magazine.com/store. You can buy each Fantasy bundle for $24.99, or you can buy the complete run of Fantasy Magazine — all 57 issues  — for just $114.99 (that’s $10 off buying all the bundles individually, and more than $55 off the cover price!).

About the Editor

Lightspeed Staff

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