Analog Science Fiction and Fact - 2014-04
Author: Penny Publications
Date: 2014-04-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction; Science Fiction; non-fiction; Magazine
Rights: Kindle Edition, © 2014 Penny Publications

Analog Science Fiction and Fact

Kindle Edition, 2014 © Penny Publications

Lockstep Conclusion

Karl Schroeder | 27731 words

Illustrated by Mark Evans

The story so far:

Toby Wyatt McGonigal is lost in space. The eldest son of a family that's gambled its fortune on homesteading in the outer Solar System, he was on his way to stake a claim on a dormant comet when something disabled his ship's engines. When Toby wakes from cold sleep, he discovers that his little deep-space tug is now orbiting a dark, frozen planet—an orphan world just as lost in interstellar space as he is. Although he can see the shapes of cities on its surface, they too are cold and dead. Out of resources, he goes back into artificial hibernation, certain that he's not going to wake again....

He does, in a sumptuous bedroom whose windows look out on an amber, glowing sky. He's been rescued by Ammond and Persea, a rich-seeming couple who live in one of the cities on the formerly dormant planet, Lowdown. They tell him that fourteen thousand years have passed since he was lost. In that time, a vast civilization has grown up between the stars. The lockstep worlds hibernate for years at a time while their automated systems gather resources for a brief awakening that can last as little as a month. Ammond and Persea promise to tell him more, but meanwhile, they are treating him suspiciously like a prisoner. Other than them, the only person he's seen since waking is a mysterious girl around his age, who seemed to be burgling Ammond's estate. She had with her a strange catlike creature. He can't get these two out of his mind.

When Ammond and Persea take him to the Europan ice planet of Little Auriga, Toby learns that he is indeed a pawn in some political maneuver. It seems that as the founding family in the deep-space worlds, the Mc-Gonigals were important, and Ammond and Persea want to exploit him in some way. Toby escapes from them with the help of one of the catlike creatures he saw on Lowdown, and meets the girl he saw burgling Ammond's estate. Her name is Corva , and she and her friends are gypsylike vagabonds known as stowaways . Their animal companions, denners, are synthetic life forms that help them to hibernate without using the official cold-sleep machinery of the lockstep.

Corva tells Toby that the thousands of planets in the lockstep are suffering under a tyranny, and that Toby is important because, well, he owns them all . He is the heir of the family that founded the lockstep system. This comes as a shock, but that's nothing compared to what she tells him next. Although fourteen thousand years have passed in real-time since Toby was lost, only forty have passed for the lockstep's founders because of their regular hibernation. Toby's brother and sister are both alive, and it his brother, Peter , rules the lockstep empire.

Peter has learned that Toby is back from the dead—and Peter wants Toby dead.

Toby has no time to think about any of this, because Ammond and Persea are after them, and so he, Corva, and their friends stow away on an outbound freighter, going into cold-sleep again in a bid to escape the gathering forces that are pursuing Toby.

Toby McGonigal wakes from cold-sleep with the help of his catlike companion, the "denner" that he's named Orpheus . He and his stowaway companions have escaped from Little Auriga, where he was hunted, and now he's on a new planet—somewhere called Wallop. He doesn't trust Corva Keishion and her friends any more than he trusted the people who initially rescued him from fourteen thousand years of hibernation; so before Corva and the others revive, Toby leaves the cargo container they stowed away in, to find his own way on Wallop.

He has to get his bearings. He's learned that a strange civilization, the locksteps , has grown up among the orphan planets that drift between the stars; and he's learned that he's the heir to the whole thing. His brother and sister are still alive, and apparently want him dead. Beyond that, Toby knows nothing, but he's determined to find out, and to get back to his family. He can't believe they really want him dead, and apparently his mother is alive, but in hibernation somewhere too.

Over the next few weeks Toby meets people from all over the lockstep. It really is a vast empire, because there are up to one hundred thousand free-floating planets for every star in the galaxy. The entire seventy-thousandworld lockstep that Peter McGonigal rules is contained in the space between the Solar System and Alpha Centauri. Simple nuclear rocket technology is sufficient to create a vibrant civilization here, because all the worlds synchronize their hibernation cycle: thirty years asleep, one month awake. As Toby discovers, this stable, aeons-old civilization has become the safest investment in the galaxy, and a kind of 'backup' for the whole human race. Empires rise and fall on the fast worlds around the stars; posthuman singularities flash and vanish; eugenic crazes, political fashions and genetic manipulations depopulate whole planets; yet the locksteps abide.

When he encounters Corva Keishion again, Toby learns that her planet is being punished by the tyrant Peter McGonigal. Her brother came to Wallop to bring her home, but he's now trapped in cold sleep in a military complex. Corva wants to get him back, and Toby is her key. Because he's a McGonigal he can override the cold-sleep system. Toby is disappointed to learn that she had an agenda when she saved his life, but he decides to help her anyway.

With the help of Corva's friends, Shylif and Jaysir , they break into the complex. Toby is about to use his override on the hibernating ship when they are captured by Nathan Kenani, a servant of Toby's brother. Kenani declares that he's going to keep them prisoner until Toby's apparently murderous sister Evayne arrives onWallop. As he sends them into cold sleep, however, Kenani is acting oddly. Perhaps he isn't as loyal to Evayne and the other McGonigals as he claims to be.

Once again Toby finds himself waking with the help of Orpheus. This time, though, the denner is weak, nearly dead. He's fighting the power of the hibernation bed that Nathan Kenani put Toby in, and the bed is winning. Toby escapes just in time to finish waking and to save Orpheus. Then he sets about reviving his companions.

Just before Orpheus was taken away from him by Kenani and the forces loyal to his brother Peter, Toby had set the denner's "clock"to wake him in seven years and three months. The entire world ofWallop is asleep now, except for a lockstep known as the weekly, which goes on a 7.25 year cycle. This small part of the vast sleeping city is awake now so that it can trade with locksteps that run on different frequencies.

After waking the others, Toby also revives the crew of the ship where Corva Keishion's brother has been kept prisoner. Unfortunately, in doing this he also revives the enemy of his friend Shylif, and a fight ensues. Keeping the two apart, Toby leads his ragtag group to the Weekly lockstep, and from there they secure a flight to the world of Corva and her brother, the rebellious planet Thisbe.

On Thisbe, Toby finds himself growing closer to Corva, but at the same time he's learning more about his legacy and the legends surrounding the McGonigals. One grand myth tells that Toby McGonigal will someday return to destroy the locksteps and institute some sort of golden age; the stories say that he will march on the planet Destrier, where his mother lies in hibernation, with a vast army. Many of the people of Thisbe believe this prophecy, and those that don't can see the advantage in Toby's playing along with it. The trouble is, he doesn't want to become some kind of new Messiah. The idea is repugnant to him, but he also knows that Corva would be horrified if he chose this path.

Nonetheless, his hand is forced when long-range telescopes discover his sister, Evayne, on her way to Thisbe with a fleet of McGoni-gal loyalists. After consulting with government and military advisors, and with pressure on him from every side, Toby makes his decision.

He chooses the path of the Messiah; and when Corva finds out, she curses him to his face and runs away. He doesn't expect to ever see her again.

17

"The rules of a lockstep standoff are simple," one of Thisbe's generals had told Toby."Wake before the other guy and capture him in his bed."

"That's it?"Toby asked.

"No. The more resources you have, the higher the frequency you can set for your troops—or, the more troops you can keep awake on a rotating basis. The more you push this, the more it costs you. If you have to go all the way to real-time, and don't sleep at all, then you've probably already lost."

Toby stood at a stone balcony in one of Thisbe's mountain fortresses, gazing out at a stunning vista of white-capped peaks and roiling cloud. The air was thin and bracingly cold.

In the valley below, Thisbe's army was burying a bunker full of supplies. The whole planet only had enough food, energy, and industrial capacity to stay awake for a few weeks. It was a lockstep world, its whole infrastructure based on the slow accumulation of resources during winter-over. Even with nanotech and orbital industries, there was no way they could stay in real-time for long. Soon, the entire world would have to sleep.

The jets screaming across the sky, and the busy soldiers and bots in the valley, were all trying to balance an equation whose terms weren't all known. How long to sleep? That was what it all came down to. Everybody knew when Evayne's ships would arrive, but that wasn't the problem. Every day that the Thisbe defense forces stayed awake in anticipation of her landing was a day's rations used, a day's energy. If Evayne was smart—and Toby knew she was—she wouldn't stage a landing when she arrived. She would go to sleep, and wait for a while. Six more months, a year. She would slumber, unassailable in far orbits, while Thisbe bled itself dry waiting up for her.

The defense forces had come up with a rotating watch that allowed them to keep a small standing army ready at all times. The problem was, it was small. Evayne had the advantage, and everybody knew it.

"You have quite the way with women," somebody behind him said.

Toby turned to find Jaysir and Shylif standing by the metal doors that led to the mountain tunnel. "You made it!" The generals hadn't wanted to allow these two civilians—stowaways, no less!—to visit their precious bunkers. Toby had been insistent, but he hadn't been sure until this moment that his stubbornness had done any good.

Shylif stepped forward and shook Toby's hand. Jaysir grinned and slapped him on the back. Toby frowned into Shylif's eyes. "How are you?"

"Actually... better than I expected." He smiled, and there was a twinkle in his eye that hadn't been there before. "Can't say the same about Coley. But he'll live."

Toby nodded, and shot Jaysir a guilty look. "Corva hates me. I know."

Jaysir shrugged. "Well, you did the one thing she didn't want you to do. You sold out to your legend. I'm actually kind of surprised that you called for us. You hardly need our help anymore, do you? You've got the whole planet to play with now."

"Tactful as always, our Jay," rumbled Shylif with a frown.

"So I didn't live up to her expectations." Toby looked away across the wind-swept valley. "The problem is, everybody has expectations. I had to decide who to disappoint, didn't I?"

Shylif looked away, pensive. "That, I understand. But, why did you ask us to come?"

"Two things, one of which Jay already knows about—" At that moment a call came through on Toby's glasses. He held up a finger to Jay and Shylif, and turned away. "Hang on a sec. Yes?"

"Sir." It was Long Seville, who as Minister of Security had been charged with the thankless task of planning the defense of Thisbe. "We've received a message from your sister. It's for... well, it's for you."

He turned back to Jaysir and Shylif. "It's Evayne. Can I have a moment? You know, family stuff." Wide-eyed, the two backed away. Toby walked to the stone balcony and took a deep breath, bracing his hands on the cold granite. Okay. You can do this. He opened the message.

The woman who appeared, as if hovering in the air before him, could have been some long-lost aunt. She looked so much like Mom, it was agonizing. Evayne was now older than Peter, or so the stories said, because she had changed her frequency so many times in the pursuit of state business. Still, she looked no more than thirty—an imperious queen in green robes, beautiful and terrible in her wrath.

"What the Hell, Evie," he muttered.

"To the people of the planet Thisbe," she declared, "I give my greetings, and a warning. You will release to me that person who falsely claims to be my brother, the holy Emperor of Time, Toby McGonigal, Who Waits. Bring him to your seat of government, and I will descend to claim him in six months, real-time. If you resist, you will be destroyed.

"To the impostor, I appeal to you to save your countrymen at least from the fate that awaits you. Come forward of your own accord, and we may be lenient. Hide, or attempt to fight us, and not only you, but all whom you love will share your fate."

The picture blinked out.

"Long," snapped Toby, "I'm replying."

"What are you going to say?" He heard the tension in the minister's voice.

"Don't worry—I'll send you a copy so you know what I said."

With a barely perceptible sigh, Long agreed.

Toby stood for a long time staring down into the valley. Then, when he realized he was just putting things off, he shook himself and said, "Reply.

"Hey, Kiddo, how's it going? Haven't seen you in ages, you look great! I haven't talked to Peter yet, but I hear he's doing good too.

"Yeah, I got your message. Don't make me prove that I am who I say I am—I mean, after all, I know more embarrassing stories about you than anybody alive. Well, except maybe Mom.

"Yes, it really is me. So, you see, there's no need to unload any more crap on these people, who've already had to put up with a lot from you. We're gonna reset their frequency—either you or me, I don't care which of us does it. Then you and I are going to sit down and have a conversation—long overdue, I think. Deal? Great. See you in six months.

"End."

His smile slipped, and he tilted his head back to glare at the clouds. "Stupid, stupid." Well, but how was he supposed to handle this? Like an adult? He was seventeen years old, and Evayne knew it—but she hadn't seen him in forty years. If he'd acted any different than he used to with her, she might not have recognized him.

She, on the other hand, had looked and sounded nothing whatever like the little girl he'd loved as his only sister. He closed his eyes and let his face twist into a grimace of pain.

After composing himself, he went back to where Shylif and Jaysir were standing together at the tunnel entrance. Well, it was more like they were huddling together, the way they looked. They were scared, and Toby didn't like the idea that it was him they were scared of.

"You need to hide her," he said. "From everybody, but most of all..." He didn't say Halen's name; he shouldn't have to with these two.

His friends exchanged a glance; then Shylif smiled. "That's a good idea."

Corva's brother had styled himself as the right-hand-man to the new messiah. He was bursting with ideas—what Toby should wear, the uniforms his new staff should wear. He wanted to design a symbol for Toby's new movement (really Halen's movement), something that could be printed onto banners and hung off buildings. Toby had refused to let news of his return spill out of government circles, so naturally rumors were flying everywhere, and he was sure Halen was eagerly spreading many of them. Halen couldn't wait for the moment when Toby would step onto the stage of some gargantuan amphitheater, and command a crowd of tens of thousands to go down on their knees before him.

"And then," Toby went on, "you need to do the same yourselves. Shy, you take care of Corva. Jay... Remember what I asked you to look into? That is, if you're sure no one else is listening."

Jay laughed. "If they are, their ears just pricked up."

"Are they?"

"They're trying." He shook his head. "But this conversation is private. You knew I'd be jamming our personal space, didn't you."

"No. I hoped..." He had to smile, though; Jaysir was clever about these things.

Jay had perked up; positively enthusiastic for a change, he said to Shylif, "Toby wanted me and the makers to look at the code from that data block I told you about. He thought we might find something useful."

"And did you?" asked Toby.

Jay made a noncommittal gesture. "Well, we found something, but I don't know if it's useful. It's about your biocryptographics."

"How easily that word rolls off your tongue," observed Shylif.

"What did you find?"

"We know how it works for everybody else who uses Cicada Corp devices. We all have user accounts and we sign in biocryptographically. But that's not how your commands seem to work. You don't have an account— you don't need one."

Toby was puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Back on Wallop, I just assumed you were a super-user—that you had an administrative account on the Cicada Corp system that let you change major settings and stuff in the system. But that's not what you've got. There is no super-user, as far as we can tell. The Cicada Corp system is self-administering, and can't be accessed by anyone from outside. That's what the code on the block seemed to say, anyway. If you'd given us access to the data itself..." But Toby was shaking his head. "Yeah, I thought not. Toby's data is encrypted with the same biocrypto," he told Shylif. "I copied it, but without the same combination of DNA, voice, iris, fingerprint, and brainwaves, I can't get at it. Anyway, you've got major power over the Cicada system, but not as an administrator."

Toby shook his head. "If I'm not a superuser, then how am I able to command the system?"

"It turns out you're not commanding it at all. You're voting."

"I'm what?"

"You're voting, because, Toby, you're not an administrator of Cicada Corp's systems.

"You're a shareholder."

He never got used to how noisy it was at night. The crickets brr'd at one frequency, other bugs at others, and night-birds called, this species a high-note, that one a low. The wind in the trees roared intermittently but deafened everything when it did. Daytime was even worse; then, cicadas boomed, monkeys and birds exchanged insults in the treetops. The frequency-spread of animal calls widened until every band that could take a signal was filled. Any given morning, sitting listening to this vast symphony, was a lesson in just how impoverished the Earth had been when he'd been growing up. Only on a world with a fully recovered ecosystem, or a terraformed lock-step world wintering over, could you hear the world as it had sounded before the advent of man.

Tonight the familiar constellations were out. Thisbe had no moon, and on cloudless nights like this it could get pretty cold. Toby was used to that by now, just as he was used to walking in the dark while Orpheus prowled ahead. Sometimes they'd scare up tomorrow's dinner. Sometimes they encountered the sleepy, slow-moving harvester and repair bots that were the only part of Thisbe's industrial system awake right now. He did his best to avoid such encounters, because you never knew whether their industrial internet had been hacked by Evayne's people. Any of those boxy grain-tenders or f lood-watch spiders could be spies for the enemy.

There was no sign that any had been in this area, though. He moved cautiously but confidently through tall grass and between young trees. As he went he counted the low blocky shapes of the houses lining what had been, and someday would again be, a street.

He hadn't known that the bots shrink-wrapped the houses after everyone was asleep. All that neon-pink plastic was torn away and recycled by the time the humans inside awoke. Right now, any tears or punctures in the material would be instantly visible to the monitors that overflew the houses on a weekly basis. If anything were seen, investigation and repair bots would be sent out right away. That meant Toby had to be careful when he broke into these places.

"Seven... and eight." He whistled for Orpheus, then moved around the abstracted house-shape, searching for an overhang or tree-shadowed spot where he could cut through. "Over here!" Orpheus bounded into view as Toby was rummaging in his backpack for his shears. He'd found an indent beneath what was probably a dormer window, where a cut wouldn't be visible from the air. Orpheus watched with his usual attentive curiosity as Toby stabbed at the hard plastic again and again, until finally the blade of the shears went through.

It took a while to cut a hole big enough for Orpheus to slither in; though it was completely dark inside, the denner moved quickly between the taut pink material and the walls of the house, and called back when he'd found a path for Toby to worm through. That was the claustrophobic part; he always had one or two moments when he was sure he'd become stuck. He'd be found, years from now, mummified against the side of the house like a squashed cockroach. Tonight was okay: he reached a window in a couple of minutes, and with a little prying, got the old-fashioned thing open. Orpheus flowed inside; Toby got in by falling noisily.

After cursing and dusting himself off, he finally lit his windup flashlight and took a look around. The silence in here was disturbing, especially after the cacophony of the night. The air was stale but breathable. The rooms on the main floor were empty, except for a few big heavy crates that were also plastic-wrapped. Lifeless bots were chained together in places. He barely glanced at them. As soon as he found the stairs to the house's lower core, he put on his glasses and went down.

The hibernation chamber was a concrete bunker with a vaultlike door. The edges of that door were sealed with rubber caulking, which he peeled away with a knife. While he did that, he pinged the chamber's systems through the glasses.

After the third ping, a wireframe diagram of the vault's interior blossomed in his glasses' display. It showed three cicada beds. All were occupied; all stasis indicators were nominal.

He read the names. The first he didn't know; the second, he frowned at. He sighed with relief when he saw the third.

With a command through his McGonigal account, he ordered this bed to wake its occupant. Then he slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Orpheus came up, and Toby scrunched his ears and wobbled his head playfully.

"Okay, Orph. This is home for a couple days. Might as well make ourselves comfortable."

He got up again, leaving the backpack by the door, and went to see if he could unwrap a couch to sleep on.

"Am I the first one up? Where is everybody?" Corva stumbled into the living room, wearing a long ratty housecoat, her hair a tangled nest.

She froze when she saw Toby.

He'd cleared a couch and was sitting with Orpheus in the light of his flashlight. Now that she'd seen them, Toby let Orpheus go and the denner ran to her. Corva knelt, opening her arms to him. Wrecks was still asleep in her bed.

"They were watching us," he said. The words just hung in the air between them; her expression didn't change.

"Watching us and listening. You didn't seriously think we could talk about anything at the lake without the government and your brother's friends hearing every word?"

Corva stood up and went to the blank window. "We're off frequency. You woke me up... Halen's still downstairs. Are you going to wake him up too?"

"That's up to you." He sat forward, clasping his hands between his knees. "I'm sorry, Corva. I couldn't tell you what I was planning. I had to make it seem like I was going along with them, and I knew that Halen, at least, would be watching you to see if I was faking. You couldn't know that I was. I did it because I-I was afraid they'd neuroshackle me and turn me into their puppet if I refused. Or worse— do that to you to force my compliance."

She sucked in a quick breath. "Halen would never—"

"Are you sure about that? You know I got a message from Shy at turn's end. He said he'd tried to get to you, he was going to ask you to winter over with him instead of your family. He couldn't get near you, but he did talk to Halen. You brother said he'd pass the message along. Did he?"

She started to protest, but the words didn't seem to be coming. The certain fury that had been on her face a moment ago drained away. She turned away.

"Neither of us knows Halen." He glared at her; he wasn't going to relent now. "Time stole the brother you knew, just like it stole mine. Who can we trust? Certainly not those scheming, spoiled brats I apparently have to call my family. If I can't trust my own brother and sister not to try and kill me, why should I trust yours? Why should you, when he's years away from the person you knew? And anyway, there's the government. They claim to be all democratic and rights-respecting, but what do I know? You said it yourself when we met. I don't even know what I don't know."

She traced her fingers down the blank glass of the window. "What have you done?"

"Nothing. Not yet. I'm going to take care of Evayne, but I'm going to do it my way, not theirs. Not as the... the messiah of the lock-steps, or whatever they're trying to call me. Not as some god returned from an eternal sleep.

"I'll do it as her brother."

She turned to look at him now, but with less suspicion in her eyes. "How?"

"I know her." He stood up and came to her hesitantly. She didn't back away. Encouraged, he said, "I read the histories and I saw the strategies and tactics she's used. It's exactly how she played Consensus, and how she was with Peter and me. The thing is, nobody's ever provoked her in the right way. But I know how. I know how to push her buttons."

"Why?" Corva shook her head. "Why make her mad? Won't she just retaliate?"

"That's the thing. We're not going to give her anything to retaliate against. She'll hate that."

"But she's threatened the whole population!"

Toby snorted. "Bluff. She's never followed through on a threat like that. If you check the histories, you'll see. She's got some sense of justice, though she tries to hide it. She only strikes against those who are directly responsible for stuff. And in this case, that's just me."

"Just you? What are you—are you alone?"

"Except for a few defense force pickets, you and I are the only people in the world who're awake right now. Maybe the only people in the whole lockstep. Unless you tell me you want me to wake Halen now. If you do, I will."

Now she did back away. "But why did you even wake me? After everything—"

"Same reason I'll wake your brother if you tell me to. Because I trust you. You're the only one I trust."

"I don't understand."

"Yeah, I know. But this'll probably help." He held out his glasses. Corva looked at them dubiously.

"What's in there?"

"The recording I made of the talk I had with Evayne when she first got here. I think you should see it... if you want to understand what it means to be a McGonigal."

Corva was staring at the glasses as if they were some sort of poisonous snake. Then, reluctantly, she took them from Toby and put them on.

She wore white this time. The resemblance to Mom was still uncanny, and Toby's stomach knotted the instant he saw her, but he'd been determined to not let his anxiety show. "Hey, sis. Welcome to Thisbe. I guess you're coming in to land?"

It was a warm evening and he was sitting under a giant oak tree on the edge of the capital city. Thisbe's internet was awake, so it had been easy for Toby to route the call from his glasses to a transmitter halfway around the planet. Before he'd donned the glasses to make the call, he'd watched as one after another, reentry trails from his sister's ships had scored bright lines across the dimming sky.

She nodded cautiously. "Hello."

Toby sighed. "You're thinking that I'm surely recording this, and that you'd better mind what you say in case I spread it all over the galaxy. Does that mean we can't have a real conversation?"

She half-smiled. "We wouldn't have that problem if you'd just meet me face to face."

"Not going to happen."

She shrugged dismissively. "It doesn't matter. Anything we said to each other would be taken as a Sign. I've been playing this game a lot longer than you have. I know what would happen if you broadcast this conversation. Half the lockstep would believe it, half would think it's a fake—and that you're a fake. Can you tell me that you know which half would get to you first?"

For all her brave words, Evayne didn't look as confident as she had in her first message to Thisbe. She must have accessed the planet's lockstep system, and seen that he'd reset the frequency of all the McGonigal cicada beds on the planet. It was now twelve years until Thisbe was due to awake.

"Peter and I are so sorry about the whole Lowdown thing," she said now. "We didn't think it was you—why would we? There's been so many pretenders over the years..."

The knot in his stomach tightened even more. He wanted to believe her so much, but—"Ammond and Persea had my ship. If that wasn't enough, all they had to do to prove that it was me was ask me to command any piece of Cicada Corp equipment. I've wondered why they waited until we went to Little Auriga to do it. It must be because somebody ordered them not to try it. Somebody... didn't want them to know." He shook his head. "That would have been Peter, or you. And I'm sure you talked about it."

"But they tried to kidnap you—"

"They ran because Peter ordered me killed!" The knot was unraveling and in its place he felt a rushing fury that made him careless of what he said now. "And you went along with it just as casually as if this were still Consensus and it was just another move!"

She shook her head quickly. "No, no, he didn't tell me—"

"Evayne. I know you knew."

He hadn't known, not for sure, but her silence now told him the truth. She didn't reply, but she didn't look away either. He remembered that def iance from when they were kids. He'd always known how to wear it down—but would the old ways work now?

"Why?" Damnit, his voice had cracked saying that. He bit his lip and sat tensely, scared of saying even one more word.

She crossed her arms and—a small triumph for him—broke eye contact with him. "You said it yourself," she murmured. "We're not playing a game here."

"What do you mean?"

"You think you can just reset Thisbe's frequency, and there'll be no consequences?" She shook her head and laughed bitterly. "That wouldn't work even in Consensus! The ripples would spread. Other worlds would be emboldened, they'd flout the lockstep rules too. Toby, you don't know how close it all is to breaking up as it is!"

"You called me Toby," he said bitterly. "That's something, I guess."

"You think you can just come back? If you did, you'd always be a pawn. I'm sorry I set it up that way—we really did think you were dead. It is what it is: if the world finds out you're back."

"Evie! You tried to kill me before I'd done anything!"

She opened her mouth, closed it. Toby hurried on:

"The solution to this whole 'Toby the messiah' thing was obvious all along. All you had to do was bring me in and declare me as your son. Raised in secret in another lockstep, so you could say you only had me like, a month ago. So I'm a McGonigal, well, it's still a big deal, but I'm not the McGonigal. Why the Hell didn't you do that?"

She started to answer, but he cut her off. "Why not just come to me? Take me home? Didn't you know that all I want to do is come home?" His voice was cracking again. He was on the edge of tears.

"Toby." He was startled at the huskiness in her own voice. "Toby, do you know why I never had kids?"

He shook his head. "You used to talk about having a family when you grew up."

"I would have, too, but we got too busy, Peter and I. First it was running Sedna with Mom. Then, when her lockstep scheme was so successful, it was all about keeping that going. It wasn't easy. People flooded in from everywhere—at least that's how it seemed to us, sleeping for thirty years at a time. Whole cities would spring up overnight, new colonies of people speaking new languages, even biologically different! Posthuman, or barely human. We had to wrangle it all, find a way to make them fit, or the whole thing would collapse."

She laughed dryly. "There were already legends about us. People were starry-eyed when they met Peter and me. They stammered, practically wet themselves. And they always— always —asked about you."

"Why?"

"'Cause you'd disappeared mysteriously, and Mom had spent so much time and energy trying to find you. Understand, by that time, she'd been searching for centuries, real-time. Word got around. You were the big secret at the heart of the lockstep. And it started to get out of control."

"So you decided to steer it."

"Toby, I was way too late." Her expression was fierce and unrepentant. "By the time I knew what was happening, I couldn't be seen in public with any man other than Peter, without the rumors flying that it was you, secretly returned. There were no men who didn't treat me like some unattainable goddess anyway, except for the original Sedna settlers. They all had similar problems, and what, was I going to marry one of them? They were all like uncles... it was never an option."

"But you could have rewritten the legends," he insisted. "Could have said I'd been found, dead, or something..." But she was shaking her head again.

"By the time I realized I had to act, there were these cults. Sects, which had developed their own stories. There was one that prophesied that the great sign of your return was going to be me announcing that you'd been found dead! And there was another one...

"Toby, there's a whole branch of the religion that believe I'm going to announce I've got a son, and I'll reveal him and he'll be already grown-up. And I'll say—I'll say—" There were tears in her eyes now. "I'll say I only just had him but hid him away in another lockstep where he's grown up. But I'll be lying, because it'll really be you. You, returned!

"Don't you get it?" She was leaning forward now, very close to the camera. He felt he could almost reach out and touch her, and the stricken look on her face made him want to hug her to him. "You can never be seen with me, except as a prisoner—an official impostor. Any hint that you're not will be taken by someone as proof that you're the Emperor of Time returned to end the locksteps. Toby, you can't return. You can't abdicate. You can't keep a low profile, you can't adopt an alias and try to disappear. It's all been anticipated, it's all expected and watched for, and any hint of this or that prophecy coming true will spark revolutions and pogroms. Peter and I aren't just the most famous people in the local universe. We're the most watched, most spied-upon. You can't just come home.

"You can't be here at all."

The idea echoed around in his mind for long seconds: trapped, we're both trapped in this, but then... something about Evayne's expression sparked a memory. He could picture her so clearly standing with her hands behind her back, solemnly swearing to him that she hadn't taken his favorite hall flyer. Yeah, he remembered that look, and he'd seen it other times too. Toby laughed.

"I almost fell for that. You've gotten good."

Her eyes widened. "Wh-what—"

"You're trying to weasel out of something, just like that last time when you and Peter were planning to wipe out my colony on Jaspex—remember, in Consensus? You gave me the same kind of bullshit speech that time." He scrunched up his mouth and tapped his chin. "Now what would it be that you're avoiding this time...?

"Mom." He could see from her expression that he'd hit the mark. "I'm not Toby the messiah until I go to Destrier and wake her up. All this stuff about pogroms and revolutions— that's all theoretical, isn't it? There's something else going on here."

Evayne glared at him. "Oh yes? Well, tell me you weren't on your way to Destrier next."

She had him with that one. He ducked his head. "With nobody around to tell me the rules of the game, what else would I do? You stacked the deck against me, Evie. I want to know why."

Now this older woman, who looked so much like some long-lost aunt, ducked her own head and said, with real sadness, "It's far too late for that, Toby. I wish we'd had a chance to finish growing up together, I really do. But that chance is gone. This has to be goodbye." She made a throat-cutting gesture and her image vanished.

"I can't believe it," muttered Corva as she took off the glasses. "She's... Toby, she's awful."

He sighed heavily. "Family, huh? Seriously, I'm starting to get over the shock of it all. That Evayne... is not my Evayne. My sister's gone, Corva."

Then—because he couldn't put it off any longer—he said, "So what about it? Do we stay here an extra day while we wake Halen? Or do we leave him safe where he is, for now at least?"

He held his breath. The look on Corva's face was heart-rending. She bit a fingernail and stared for a long time back at the stairs to the underground vault.

"We go," she said, almost inaudibly; and in that moment it was as if she'd taken a giant step, over countless choices and possibilities, to a place from which there was no going back. She hung her head, and without another word followed Toby out of the house.

They climbed out of the plastic-wrapped house into bright sunlight, hot air, and the buzzing of cicadas. Corva hugged herself and looked around. "Whoa. They did a bad job on the street." She'd noticed the unkempt wilderness that had sprung up around the pink house-shapes. Wrecks had, too—he sat up on his haunches, whiskers twitching, almost quivering with alertness. Orpheus sat nearby, watching him with the air of a worldly-wise traveler observing a tourist.

"This way," Toby said. "I've got a pack and supplies for you." He began walking through the tall grass. Corva hurried to catch up.

"When are we?"

"Not far from where we left things." He watched the denners scout ahead. "It's funny—I have to do the math every now and then to keep it straight." He counted it out on his fingers for her: "The main lockstep hasn't started its next turn yet—Kenani's been asleep on Wallop for eighteen years real-time, so he's still waiting for Evayne to arrive so he can turn us over to her. One more week has passed in the Weekly since we left there. And two years, real-time, have passed since you went to sleep."

She grinned. "Yeah, it can be confusing. You'll get used to it." Then she lost the smile. "How long have you been awake?"

"A few months. Long enough, like I said, to get over certain things."

"And in all this time you've done... what?"

It was his turn to grin. "I've been driving Evayne out of her mind.

"Do you want to help?"

18

"It's all about the interface," Miranda was telling Corva, "and the things it can do for you."

"'You' being a McGonigal," Corva pointed out.

"Well, yeah. Which is why I can only show you this mock-up. Toby can't share it with anybody else. It's the biocrypto, you know."

Toby watched them out of the corner of his eye as he kicked through the remains of a recent battle. Having spent several weeks together now, the two women were chatting like old friends, despite the fact that one of them was a fourteen-thousand-year-old game personality. He'd found a way to port data from the government strategic models—to Consensus, and had given Corva an account in that. Now they both could see the whole vast network of Thisbe's planetary civilization spread out around them, icons and pointers and information flags standing like giants over the horizon; or, they could zoom it all into a hand-held map. They could manipulate the timelines, slide back to review or forward to project outcomes—though only he could enter any commands into the real interface.

"I can't believe the army gave you an account," she'd said when he first booted it up for her. Toby had laughed shortly.

"The alternative was letting me blunder around with no firm data. What would you have done?"

"Here," said Miranda now. "See how you can monitor the cicada beds? There's health status, power levels, number of sleepers..."

"I don't see any names. How can you tell who's who?"

"You can't. That information is in the government's emergency database, which you, and Evayne, don't have access to."

"—And that was the key to the whole plan," said Toby; but he wasn't watching the other two anymore. He had knelt by the remains of a burned-out bot to examine its design. "Damn."

The bot was cylindrical, not human-shaped at all though it did have legs. It was about the size of a refrigerator, but he couldn't tell whether it had been armed. Of course, it was hard to tell much from the landscape of churned ground and twisted metal that spread over about a square kilometer of grassland. The forest fire started by the battle was still going, a few klicks east of here; Thisbe fire-fighting bots were water-bombing it with monotonous regularity. If they didn't get it under control in the next day or so, the lockstep system would be forced to wake up everybody in the neighboring town so they could evacuate.

Which would be perfect.

"Did you find something?" Corva came over, her feet crunching on the burnt, black ground.

"I can't tell what model this was," he said, poking at the downed bot with a stick.

"And that's a problem because...?"

"It's a problem if Evayne's got a reserve of non-McGonigal bots. That would mean she can get around the network problem."

"I still don't get that," Corva said to Miranda.

"It looks as though Toby has an administrator's account to the lockstep system, but Evayne is just a user," said Toby's virtual shipmate. "He's been able to override all of her commands to lockstep technology. That includes any of Evayne's systems that he can communicate with."

"... Which is why she cut herself off from the planetary network," he said. Standing, he brushed ashes from his knees and looked around for more clues. "She can't take over my bots, but I can take over hers. I could even have taken over her ships and shut her down in orbit, if only I'd known about this sooner!"

"I'm sorry," said Corva sarcastically, "but why didn't you?"

"It's the interface." Miranda shrugged. "It's kind of... cryptic. Lots of things it doesn't tell you. Like, for instance, the identity of a given sleeper. There are emergency systems that can track who sleeps where and can wake a sleeper remotely, for instance you can set an alarm to do that if somebody close to you dies or some other personal emergency happens. Your ship's manifest cross-referenced names with the cicada beds the passengers were in. But by themselves, the beds don't keep that kind of information."

"Which means I've been able to use both Orpheus and the beds to winter over. Doing it with Orph is incredibly exhausting for both of us; if I was only able to use denner hibernation we wouldn't have been able to just randomly jump through time the way we're doing. Like I said, that's what makes this plan possible. And, I mean I can't be positive, but this," he gestured at the mechanical carnage, "sure looks like it's working."

Bots had fought bots here: networked Toby machines versus locked-down marauders from Evayne's ships. Hers had been on a search-and-sweep of the local town, breaking into houses and reading IDs off the cicada beds. Evayne had human troops doing the same thing, but Toby didn't go near them— and, so far at least, Evayne hadn't harmed any of the helpless Thisbe citizens whose homes she was invading.

"I was expecting a tug-of-war," he said. Orpheus and Wrecks were waiting at the edge of the burned ground, and Toby's denner sniffed dubiously at Toby's pant-cuffs as the humans met them. He and Corva shouldered their packs and waded back into the tangled brush.

"I thought we'd both be issuing orders to the lockstep system. She'd command it to do one thing, I'd tell it no, she'd say yes. I was expecting a game of global whack-a-mole, but it hasn't worked out like that."

"Whack-a-what?"

"But it sort of has," he went on, oblivious. "Better, really. I wake up a whole town, Evayne freaks out and sends her people to find out if it's an army group assembling. Random beds come awake all over the planet, and she can see that in the interface, but not who it is who's woken up. She never knows whether one of them might be me, so she has to send somebody to investigate each and every one. Which takes fuel and people—and means she has to have people awake all the time. But I can sleep for years if I want."

He'd expected that he would have to manually wake people, because if he scheduled wake-ups ahead of time, Evayne could find them in the interface (though, not who they were) and investigate before they woke, or just reset them. Toby's plan had involved being awake more than sleeping. As it turned out, that hadn't been necessary. He had Evayne's forces dancing to his tune all over the planet, which freed him up to mess with her in other ways.

Corva shook her head. "Sooner or later she's going to start killing people. She's gonna call your bluff. What are you going to do then?"

"If she pisses me off, I'll wake the whole damned planet. She knows that." He could tell she was far from satisfied by that answer, so he said, "How's the story end? There's a bunch of possible ways:

"If I wasn't here, but let's say some pretender who'd convinced the local government I was the messiah, then Evayne would have waited until most of the planet was wintering over. Thisbe just doesn't have the resources to replace all the McGonigal cicada beds in time. So she'd be able to dig in, take out the military's installations, and threaten whole cities with destruction unless they turned me over. That was your brother's nightmare ending to the story.

"But if I really am Toby McGonigal, then I can have the whole planet up and running before she can get herself established. Then, we have enough force to put up a good fight, maybe even win. In that case, the outcome's not certain—and that means there'd probably be a pitched battle. I might die, you might die, but probably, Evayne would lose. If she survived, she'd end up our prisoner. And with her as our hostage, the road to Destrier's wide open.

"That's Halen's dream version."

"That's the one you agreed to," she pointed out.

"Corva, a lot of people die in that case, and me—I end up just like Evayne, locked into playing my role in a myth I didn't invent. It sucks, I was never going to do that, and I'm sorry I had to let you think I would."

"Okay," she said, with a slight smile.

"The thing is, this thing about me being able to override her commands changes the story. But for this twist on it to work, I had to make sure she committed herself now, when she doesn't have that extra force. I had to lure her in.

"So, when she arrived, the planet was wintering over. She thought it was safe to come out of orbit, so she set some ships down by the capital, and headed in with a big force to wake up the government and throw down her ultimatum. A force of soldiers was waiting there—the ones who hadn't been using Mc-Gonigal beds. There was a confrontation; but I'm sure the Thisbe soldiers were confused and demoralized at that point. They figured I'd betrayed them. So they were facing each other tensely in the middle of the Grand Plaza when one of Evayne's aids came running up to her. I wasn't there, by the way; I watched it all later on the security footage. Couldn't quite make out the expression on her face, though, when her people told her that McGonigal beds all over the planet were starting to wake up—including other army bases.

"If I'd woken the whole planet we'd have been in Version Two of the story again—a pitched battle. But it wasn't like that. There were just enough Thisbe military awake now to keep Evayne from safely leaving the planet. Also enough to put up a good defense if she tried some stunt like threatening to wipe out a town."

"Wait, but why?"

"It was a message from me to her."

"Yes, but why? What did you think she was going to do?"

"Exactly what she did do. I know Evayne. If you dangle something just out of her reach, she'll keep jumping at it until she collapses. She's always been like that, but who knows it aside from me and Peter? In forty years, nobody's ever done this to her. She's probably totally forgotten that this is her vulnerability.

"So, I made myself the bait, and said 'here I am, come get me.'"

"You set the rules of the game! If she breaks them by escalating—"

"Then I escalate too. If she hurts anyone, I wake the bombers, the mechs, and missile battalions. She could play a different game, but only by denying her essential nature—"

Corva reached out and gave Toby a hard shove. As he stumbled, she shouted, "That's crazy dangerous! She could swoop in and catch us at any time! Then what?"

He laughed. "Then I lose everything. But only me."

"And me, you jerk. You dragged me into this."

"Are you saying you thought you were safe when you came with me?"

"Well, no, but—"

"Evayne may know about denners but she doesn't know we have Orpheus and Wrecks. She suspects I'm using non-McGonigal beds; some models don't have to report their status to the lockstep network. I know she thinks this because she's got her people scouring the planet looking for those beds. She rousts anybody who's in one and then destroys it. Meanwhile, she's watching the network. Any Mc-Gonigal bed that's activated—either waking up or going under—could be me. So she has to investigate. And that's sapping her strength. Even worse: it's using up time."

"Are you saying," and now she was shouting, "that there's thousands of people out there who've had their beds destroyed? That they're stranded in real-time?"

He shook his head. "You know the lockstep laws. They can use any available bed if they can't get to their own. Although, the other thing Evayne's doing is disabling all the empty McGonigal beds she can find, to deny me a resting place. She's got enough for the refugees—but she thinks she can tighten the noose around me this way."

A little calmer, Corva nodded to the denners. "Except we don't need the beds."

"Right."

They walked together for a long time, Corva with her head down and hands behind her back while Toby broke the trail for her. He was headed for a road that led to the next town. It was going to take a couple of days to get to it on foot, but he'd been learning patience recently. He could afford the time.

"How does it end?" she said suddenly. "This version of the game?"

He looked back at her, grimly satisfied. "Peter and Evayne started something they think they can control. They can't control it—but I can.

"The game doesn't end on Thisbe. This is just the opening move."

They'd been sleeping in houses, but there were none nearby, here between the towns. He was pretty sure Evayne had no automated hunters in the sky right now (the Thisbe ground forces having shot most of them down) so he decided to risk a fire.

He and Corva sat side by side on a log and roasted some stringy rabbit that Wrecks had caught. It was comfortable and even romantic for a while; they talked about their vastly different childhoods, finding so little in common that it was amazing to both they could relate to one another at all. After a period of companionable silence, though, Toby noticed that Corva was staring at the sinuous river of stars that crossed the sky. After a time she stood up and put her back to the fire. "I've never seen this," she murmured.

"What, the Milky Way?"

"No. That." She nodded at the horizon.

Under the sky, there were no lights at all. Beyond the small circle of orange cast by the fire, everything was utterly black and still. The saw-toothed cut-out of trees on the horizon reminded Toby of another time he'd stared into black like that. It was on his first waking in orbit around Lowdown, when he'd turned away from that same vision of the Milky Way to find sight absorbed by the vast circular blackness of the planet. He remembered what that had felt like, and coming to stand next to her, he felt a bit of it now.

Except for the occasional crackle from the fire, there was no sound at all. It was as if they were standing at the border to the land of death, nothing ahead of them but perfected stillness.

Corva shivered. "Is this why we did it?" She turned to nod in the direction of the town they'd left. "Did we have a million years of being faced with... with this every night—and did we invent fire, and weapons and clothes and culture and art and houses just so we wouldn't have to look into it?—that awful emptiness?"

He nodded. "I guess you never camped out."

She turned to him. "You're not afraid of it, are you? Not the way the rest of us are."

Toby shrugged. "I've seen it before, I guess."

"You want to rub her nose in the horror of real-time?"

"Or her men's noses. Every second that ticks by while they chase me, they age, while the people they left behind remain..."

"Perfect."

He laughed. "Imagination does funny things. Especially when it's faced with something like this. Right?" He shouted that last word into the night.

There was no echo. Silence and blackness ate the word and remained untouched.

"Don't do that!" Corva sat down again, now resolutely staring into the fire. Toby noticed she was playing with her little hologram locket.

He sat next to her. "What is that, anyway? You've worn it since I've known you."

It had been a while since Corva had given him her I-can't-believe-you're-so-stupid look. "You're kidding. You're playing this complicated mind-game with your sister's people, and you don't even know how they think about time?"

"I know they're afraid of it. Else why run faster and faster into the future?"

She gave a heavy sigh. "Yeah. Okay, there's two visions of time—of what it is. The first is the oak in the acorn. You know what that is?"

He wracked his memory, trying to remember how Evayne's official religion worked. "That everything's predestined, unfolding according to some kind of plan?"

"Oh, it's more than that. It's the idea that the only true creative moment in all of time was the first one—the Big Bang. Everything that's happened since is just working out the implications made possible in that first second. The engine was built before time, and now it just runs. Your sister's taken that idea, applied it to human civilization, and put you at the heart of it. Toby," she said, now struggling to keep a straight face, "you're the Big Bang of the locksteps."

"Great. Another title to add to my list."

"The story is that you saw it all in a flash of vision—I mean how humanity could cheat time and become eternal, even if our individual lives are still short. You built an eternal city of sorts, a real Olympus that would abide no matter what happened on Earth or the other fast worlds. One of the things that means is that there can be nothing new added to the locksteps. No innovation. No revolution. No change of any kind."

"Kenani's job," he said with a nod. "To keep things from changing."

"Nothing new. And nothing to look forward to. In other words, nothing to hope for."

"Ah." He reached out to touch the locket. He understood its shape now: a miniature tree inside an acorn. "But if that's not what you believe..."

"I wear this to remind myself that I don't believe it. I look at time a different way. It's physics-based. See, when the Universe was emerging from the primordial fireball—"

"It's not every conversation," he interrupted, "where you get to use the words 'primordial fireball.'"

"Oh, be quiet. As the, the Bang, cooled, things began to crystallize out of it. Quarks and leptons, electrons and protons. They weren't there before and never had been — and then they were. Before they existed, they couldn't exist, they were impossible. They weren't stored somewhere in some kind of seed-form before the Bang. They were impossible, and then they were there.

"Same thing with life," she said. "Before life existed, how could some observer from outside the Universe have seen it coming? It wasn't one of those things that matter did— until suddenly it was doing it. And then, consciousness played the same trick on life...

"The point is," she said, gently taking his fingers off her locket, "time isn't the working out of a predesigned destiny. Time is the possibility of surprise."

Toby had a sudden startled image of the two types of time: one that pushed, with all the terrible weight of the iron-bound laws of history behind it—and one that pulled you forward into a future of limitless possibilities. "So what does believing in surprise get you?" he mused, looking up at again at the stars.

"What do you think, silly? It gives us the one thing that the oak in the acorn never can:

"Hope."

Together, they drifted through a landscape empty of any of the agendas of human civilization. In the tangled brushlands, along the edges of overgrown roads, and under the canopies of untended trees, they met instead countless beings busy with the tending of their own lives: hurrying bees, chirping beetles, lazily waving rushes in the shallow waters. The frequent lurid changes in color that washed the sky didn't affect these creatures, who'd adapted and moved on. In time, Toby got used to it too, only occasionally reflecting on the unimaginable power hinted at by the laser sunlight.

He and Corva moved from place to place, keeping as many steps ahead of Evayne's searchers as they could. They would curl up on cold concrete in front of some randomly chosen house's hibernaculum, and sleep for weeks or months at a time. When they emerged, the lawns would be more overgrown, the plastic wrapping of the houses a little more frayed, and the internet news services full of automatically-generated alerts and bot-authored reports of Evayne's activities.

After resting up and getting their bearings, they would set out for the next safe position from which to prod Toby's sister into wasting her energies.

It was among the towers of the capital that Toby's plan fell apart.

They'd come here because both of them were tired of the wilderness. Toby's straggly new beard was filling out, and with no bots to give them a proper haircut, both had hacked-up page-boy cuts. They'd stolen clothes as they went; but under them they were flea-bitten, darkly tanned, and covered in little scars from brambles and broken branches. It was just a matter of time before one of them broke a leg, or developed a major infection too far from a cicada bed. So, they'd infiltrated the shrink-wrapped towers near Corva's home, where the bot count was higher, but there were also more places to hide. For the turn of a few weeks, and a winter-over of nearly a year, they enjoyed the fabulous luxuries of houses and condominiums whose inhabitants slept like fairy tale princes and princes, just meters away.

Then one evening as they were crossing a plaza on their way to their latest nest, Toby heard a faint sound above the chirping and buzzing of the insects. He stopped walking and put a hand on Corva's arm. "Wait."

The denners had heard it too: a kind of quiet ripping sound, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once.

Toby shouted a curse and began to run, as sleek silvery aircraft suddenly wove between the towers ringing the plaza. They shot past and disappeared, and Toby and Corva managed to make it to the overhang of a sealed subway station. Corva crouched down, watching the sky. "Did they see us?"

"I don't think so."

She cautiously stepped out from under the overhang. "Maybe they were on their way somewhere else." But she ducked down again as four more craft soared overhead. These were bigger: troop transports from the look of them.

Toby's heart sank. "They're doing a spot check. And we're going to show up like bonfires in their thermal cameras. We're the biggest life forms in the city."

"We make for the outskirts," she said, "or maybe hide in the subway. If we deep dive there—"

He shook his head. "There's no refrigeration in the tunnels. We'll be eaten by centipedes."

"Then what—"

Toby had fished his glasses out of his backpack, but when he put them on he growled.

"No signal here. We need to get into one of those residential towers. Once I'm on the net, I can wake up the city."

She leaned out, searching the skies. "I think we're safe for now. We'd better run for it." The sound of jet engines echoed off the buildings; it sounded like the big transports were landing.

They were about to sprint for the nearest residence when Corva grabbed Toby's arm. "Wait—wake how much of the city?"

"Corva, the instant I start any beds, Evayne is going to know I'm here. Our only chance now lies in numbers.

"We're going to wake everybody."

19

The first stirrings were in the form of lights. As night fell, small pinpricks lit the darkness, high up in the towers and scattered along the roadways where there had been none before. Above them, the soaring shapes of aircars and flying bots—busy hunters—eclipsed the stars. It was a curiously slow and anticlimactic event, if you didn't know what you were looking at.

Toby and Corva watched the slow rousing of the city through the glass outer wall of an empty condominium, high up on its seventieth floor. Even from this height, Toby didn't feel they were safe, so they didn't go near that window, but instead viewed the city through the crack of a doorway to an inner room. They kept the lights off, and once or twice hovering shapes drifted past outside, dangerously close, and they crouched behind the place's (active, but empty) cicada beds. Hopefully these would block their bio-signals.

Evening turned into night, night into morning: the city awoke slowly. By the time the random rainbow of dawn painted the eastern horizon, there were lights on in nearly all the towers. Traffic—mostly bots—was running in the streets below in increasingly strong pulses.

Feeling a bit safer now, Toby ventured to the glass wall to look down. It was only when he spotted the first human forms emerging from neighboring towers that he finally felt safe enough to sleep for a while.

"Let them try to sort this out," he said as they lay down on the carpet between the beds. "Once the crowds reach their max, we can slip through their lines and go into stasis in a house they've already searched."

Corva nodded. "They'll know the beds aren't being used, but as long as it's cold..." House insulation around the hibernation core was very good; with the denners, they should be able to deep dive safely for a month or two even in one that had had its power shut off.

He wrapped his arms around her and murmured, "Safe," into her ear. They kept their clothes on and their packs ready at hand, though, as they drifted off to the faint sounds of a city waking.

Toby awoke coughing. Something abrasive—an awful chemical odor—was in the air. He sat up blinking; on the other side of the room Orpheus and Wrecks were scrabbling frantically at the door.

"What's happening?" Corva levered herself onto her hands and knees, and at that moment the room shook to an ear-piercing alarm. "Fire, fire," said an impersonal voice from some hidden speaker. "Please evacuate the building through the stairwells. Move in an orderly fashion to your designated assembly point in the—" The voice suddenly cut out.

Toby had thrown open the door. In a glance he took in the fact that it was evening again— a perfectly blue one tonight—and the fact that a swarm of black somethings was dipping and diving around the tower. Still coughing, he went up to the transparent outer wall, but jumped back as one of the things shot past only a meter or so beyond the glass.

"They've cut the power," Corva called hoarsely. "We can't stay here."

"It's no fire," he said, gathering up a frantic Orpheus and grabbing the strap of his backpack. "They're pumping something through the air system."

"Easier than—" she paused to cough, "—go door to door themselves."

Efficient. Not like the Evayne he'd watched grow up, but just like the Evayne she'd become in his absence.

The corridor outside was filling with anxious people—men, women, children, and pets, including other denners. Many of these people had no idea they'd been awoken outof-turn and some stopped, blocking the way while their neighbors attempted confused explanation. Even those who'd checked the net and knew that the city was waking alone, didn't know why. There was no mention of Toby McGonigal; the government had hidden the truth of the situation well. As they moved down the stairwell, Toby did hear the name Evayne spoken, first just once, then over and over again. The rumors that she was coming to punish Thisbe again had been impossible to suppress in the days leading up to their last sleep—not with all the civil defense forces being put on alert.

They were afraid, and the fear was contagious. By the time they spilled out into a grass-tangled lot behind the building, Toby had become just another mote in a swirling stream of panicked people. They passed shreds of plastic sheeting that had wrapped the exit, catching fractured glimpses of people darting to and fro under a swooping flock of black things, and then spotlights came on and blinded him.

"MOVE AS FAR AS YOU CAN INTO THE PLAZA," roared a bot voice. People stumbled and fell; kids were crying. Toby reached for Corva and put his arm across her shoulder to keep her close. Unable to see clearly, buffeted by others, they made their way toward a line of tall shapes half-visible behind the spotlights.

"Mechs, Toby." Corva pulled back.

"Doesn't matter how close we are," he said. "They'll see us. And hear us—" He stopped talking. If Evayne had recorded his conversation with her—as she surely must have—then she would have his facial and voice biocrypto fed into all her bots. He had to hope his longer, lank hair, sunburnt features and new beard would confuse them. But his voice... Corva looked up at him, and he just shook his head.

"Where are the defense forces?" somebody shouted.

"They'll be here! Give them a chance."

They would, Toby knew; he'd awoken them too. There'd be some resistance, somewhere—but not right here, right now, and that was all that counted.

He'd lost. He couldn't say it, couldn't speak his fear; but his grip on Corva tightened as they staggered to a stop near the ranked forms of the military bots that ringed the lot.

These weren't McGonigal bots, but some standard military model. Evayne wouldn't make the obvious mistake. Ditto for the halfmeter sized quadcopters that flocked overhead. None would obey his commands.

Halen had been right. Better that he should have hidden behind an army of coopted Mc-Gonigal bots, and an even bigger force of fanatical Toby-worshipers. He imagined the sky dark with his own ships, Evayne's forces on the run, and an unstoppable militia flying his banners behind him as he stepped onto the soil of Destrier. That whole world would fall on its knees before him. They'd been waiting, after all, since the dawn of time. With Evayne helpless, he could have strode to their mother's strange resting place and put his hand on the lock there, the one that only he in all the Universe could open.

These... things, that his brother and sister had turned into—they'd be on the run then. He was never going to get his Peter back, nor his Evayne. But at least he could have driven those dark changelings out of the Universe. He could have set things right, as he was supposed to. Now, he'd never get the chance.

"WOMEN AND CHILDREN TO THE GREEN AREA!" Laser light described a square near the building.

"Why are they separating us?" "What's going on?"

"We're not going to harm anyone!" It was a new voice, not the mechanical claxon-sound of the military bots, but a human man. He stepped out from between the milbots, one of Evayne's senior officers in a black and silver uniform.

"We're searching the city for a criminal!" he went on, raising one hand to try to still the cries of outrage and fear coming from the crowd. "If you're not him, you can go home. I'm just going to split off the obvious noncandidates to get this over with as quickly as possible!"

Slightly emboldened, some of the men pressed forward. "You have no right to do this!" one shouted. "The lockstep laws—"

Three milbots stepped towards him, the thud of their footsteps reverberating through the ground. "You don't seem to understand," said the officer.

"Nobody will be hurt if nobody resists."

Some of the men looked ready to fight despite their fear. A terrible feeling of helplessness was building in Toby's throat. Barely aware he was doing it, he took a step forward.

Corva pulled him back. "What are you doing?" she hissed in his ear.

"I can't let them be hurt for no reason—"

"Stop it!" She hauled at his arm.

But the moment had passed. The men who were thinking of resisting now found themselves washed with air from a dozen or more drones that hovered just above their heads. None of them could have taken a step without being knocked down, either lethally or by one or another stun techniques.

"Women and children into the square, please," the officer repeated. Reluctantly, the crowd began to dissolve into two parts.

Toby took his arm away from Corva's shoulder and gently shoved her after the other women. "Take Orph, will you?"

"No—Toby—"

"It's fine. I'll just be a minute." He disentangled Orpheus from his shoulder, and handed the denner to Corva. Orpheus struggled, chittering anxiously.

"Go!" He stepped away from them. Corva backed away, then turned and fled through the maze of grim men, into darkness.

Abstractly, Toby noticed that lights like these spotlights were shining around other nearby buildings. This same drama was being played out throughout the neighborhood.

The officer began walking along the front of the crowd of men, a bot about his own size striding with him. This one flicked a light into the face of each man as they passed. "No," said the bot, and the officer would pull the man forward and point him at the other crowd, the one with the women and children. "No, no, no, no..."

With terrifying speed, they peeled back the front lines of the crowd, getting closer and closer to Toby. He knew they'd find him; why not just step forward and get it over with? But he couldn't move.

"Orpheus!"

Corva's voice jolted him out of his paralysis. Toby whirled, saw her standing with the other women, a hand at her neck. Orpheus must have bitten her, because here he came, bounding through the tall grass that separated the two groups.

Toby took a step toward him. "No! Get back—"

Lightning flashed from one of the swooping black drones and Orpheus wasn't running but tumbling, once, twice, then flopping utterly still in the dark grass.

"No!" Toby ran to him, or tried, but suddenly a milbot loomed in front of him and a metal hand rammed him in the chest. His breath knocked out of him, Toby sat down hard.

The officer strolled over and tilted his head, frowning. "I'm so sorry," he said. "Your denner?" He crouched in front of Toby, peering into his face. "No, I don't think..."

His bot had come up behind him and now it bent down too, flicking its light in Toby's face. Toby had just a moment to look past it to where Corva stood stricken with the others, Wrecks crouched at her feet with his hackles raised; then the officer's bot said,

"Yes."

The flight of emotions across the officer's face would have been hilarious at any other time: disbelief, panic, triumph all battled it out in the few seconds that he crouched frozen in front of Toby. Then he reached out quickly; Toby flinched, but he was offering his hand.

"I'm so sorry, sir. Can you come with me please?"

Toby ignored the offer of help. He wanted to turn and look, see if Orpheus was okay and if they'd realized that Corva was with him— but anything he did, a flicker of the eyes, a half-turn in that direction—might alert the watchful bots. If they'd been recording everything then there was nothing he could do anyway; but if not...

"Yes," he said. "I'm coming," and he stood and resolutely walked away from Corva, and the dear friend who lay so unmoving in the grass.

The officer was talking excitedly, doubtless advising the other search units that they could stop their sweeps. The milbots broke ranks, milling about for a moment then falling into formation around Toby and the other human. Black shapes swooped and soared triumphantly over it all, morphing into hinted silhouettes as the milbots f licked off their spotlights.

"This way, sir," said the officer. "We have an aircar waiting. It's not much, but I hope you won't find it too uncomfortable."

This comment startled Toby out of his shock. "Uncomfortable? What do you think I've been—" But there was no point, and anything more he said was just going to turn into screaming anger. He shook his head; but the officer was practically running now, the milbots pushing from behind, so Toby had to say, "What's the hurry? We've been at this for years, a few more seconds isn't going to matter."

"It might, sir."

"And stop calling me sir."

"Yes, Mr. McGonigal."

Four big boxy troop transports waited on the other side of a stand of trees, along with a smaller staff car. The staff car could seat eight or ten people; four bots similar to the one that had revealed Toby stood next to it. The officer stepped up to them and said to Toby, "In, please."

Reluctantly, Toby complied. He couldn't help himself and spared a glance back at the lot where he'd left Corva and Orpheus. All was dark there, just a confusion of moving shapes as the people from the tower belatedly realized they'd been set free.

The bot who'd accompanied the off icer moved to step into the aircar, but the man put his hand on its chest. "Wait here a second," he told it. Then he slid past it and into the car.

"Sir, I—" the bot began, moving forward.

The officer reached up and yanked down the aircar's clamshell door, banging the bot on the head and knocking it aside.

"Lift Lift!" He practically screamed the word as he slammed into the seat next to Toby. The aircar surged upward, but the officer was already reaching for the manual override. As he took control they slewed sideways and then dropped. Toby was suddenly weightless and he shouted as he braced his hands on the canopy. Black cut-out shapes of trees shot past, and suddenly the sky was full of laser light.

Some part of Toby's mind was registering that real laser shots didn't look anything like the movies and games he'd seen—they were diffuse, tremulous and wavering, full of sparkles as the beams exploded stray motes of dust. But the tree next to them exploded in orange flame as one caught it, and then they were clear—

—For just a second before something slammed into the canopy, making Toby shout again. They took another hit, then another and a quick fusilade: bangbang bang! —with the last one cracking the windshield.

"Damned drones," muttered the officer as he steered the aircar around the apartment building. Toby glanced back in time to see a sumptuous living room explode in fire as more laser shots tried to cut through the building.

"Don't worry, they're not trying to kill us."

Toby reared back, staring at the man. "How can you tell?"

"If they were, we'd already be dead. But if they think they're actually going to lose us, they might get serious." He dove at the ground and, scant meters above the road surface, they dodged through the streets. Everywhere around them, vehicles and drones were rising into the sky. There were more laser flashes, only... "Hey, they're shooting at each other!"

"Some of us are loyal," said the off icer. "Some would die for your sister even after learning how she's betrayed you."

"Ah." A tumble of emotions flew through Toby then: fury that this man had been an ally all along and that Orpheus had died for no reason; relief that Corva was out of danger; and over it all, a savage sense of triumph at the carnage playing out across the cityscape. Bots were fighting bots, aircars and drones weaving around one another while people ran to and fro in the streets. Divided loyalty was shattering Evayne's ranks, just as Toby had planned.

All his good intentions had evaporated but he didn't care anymore if people got hurt. He laughed bitterly. The officer glanced over and something in Toby's eye made him say, "I'm so sorry if—"

"Carry on," snapped Toby. "This is perfect."

They shot between trees that passed so close that branches whipped the side windows. Yellow blossoms of fire erupted behind them and Toby's stomach flipped over repeatedly as they maneuvered.

It's nothing you haven't seen in Consensus, he told himself—or tried: none of the virtual battles he'd fought with Peter had included actual g-forces and vertigo. He gritted his teeth and tried to remember what a commander was supposed to do in situations like this.

"Where are we going?" He was glad to hear his voice wasn't quavering or squeaking. The officer grunted, but had to pull some extreme banks and turns before he answered.

"We've been in contact with your people for years," he said as they entered a slot between tall towers, and he opened the throttle. "Almost since we arrived."

"My people? What are you talking about?"

"Your army," said the off icer. "The one we'll be taking to Destrier."

Toby slumped back in the seat, shaking his head. "Halen." He hadn't known for sure, but had figured that all the while he was dodging Evayne's forces, he was evading Halen's as well. The cult of the Emperor of Time would surely have their own denners and non-McGonigal beds. Just like the Thisbe defense forces, they could skip a certain number of people through time on their own frequency. Toby hadn't known how many of the recent fire-fights and ambushes had been engineered by the defense force and how many had been Halen's cult; he hadn't really cared. The one possibility he hadn't considered was that some of Evayne's own people would be highly motivated to find out.

"How many of you are there?"

The percussive sounds of battle were fading behind them. The officer sat back too, grinning now. "We've had to be very careful about recruiting. Our core is over a hundred men, but at least half of the soldiers may take their orders from your sister only because they think she's acting on your behalf. They've been spinning their heads around trying to reconcile the Great Lady's actions with that loyalty. If you'd declared yourself before, you could have had sixty-five ships and almost five thousand men at your command... instantly. When you do declare yourself I'm sure most of the others will come around."

"Declare myself?"

"I mean, announce your true identity and your intention to march on Destrier."

"Oh, that," said Toby.

"Everything's going to change after tonight," the officer went on excitedly. "Her forces will crumble away; they'll all defect! Then we'll have her and you can fulfill your purpose."

Toby decided not to ask the officer what he thought Toby's "purpose" was.

"What about my brother? Isn't this just part of the lockstep army?"

The officer shrugged. "They'll try to defend Destrier. I mean, the total lockstep army is seven million men and women, and hundreds of thousands of ships; nobody knows how many bots there are. But the same thing is going to happen then as is happening now. They'll come around."

But not without a fight. Toby's angry satisfaction was draining away, replaced by dread. This is Halen's plan. Just as surely as he knew that, he knew it had been M'boto and Ammond's plan as well—with the tiny difference that they had intended to be the puppeteers pulling Toby's strings.

Of course, you didn't need to neuroshackle somebody to make them your puppet. All you needed was to know that person's currency. To have leverage over them...

Corva. He'd left her behind—and where would she go now? Back to her family.

"Crap." He twisted in his seat to look back. The city appeared absurdly festive, but the fireworks were going off strangely close to ground-level. There was no returning there, at least not tonight. "Crap crap crap."

"Sir? What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Stay on course. I need to think."

It was all unraveling. He didn't know how many of Evayne's human forces were awake, but she could concentrate all her bots here while they awoke. For his part, Toby would have to depend on whoever on his side was awake at the moment—and it sounded like it was the cultists. He could start thawing the rest of the defense force, but it would take more than a day for them to become operational. By that time everything would probably have been decided, one way or the other. It didn't seem like he had much choice.

"Fly lower. I need an internet signal."

The officer barked a humorless laugh. "We're about as low as we can go without slowing down. There's still drones on our tail."

"See what you can do."

His glasses signaled intermittent connection to the net. Thisbe wasn't set up to provide global high-data coverage while wintering-over; typically the repeaters and antennae went into hibernation like everything else. They'd have to get lucky enough to find an industrial unit that was coordinating the slow harvesters. If he could stay in contact with it long enough to issue some commands, the whole mesh could wake itself—and the army.

The trouble was, they were being herded past the city outskirts. An occasional bullet or laser shot past, and the officer had to keep them almost at ground level, while bots fought bots in the air above and behind them.

A hill loomed ahead, and they were up and over it in seconds. Spread out before them was the black plain of a wintering world—except that far off near the horizon, other city lights glittered.

"What's that?" He shook his head and blinked, looked at it again. "I didn't wake that city."

"It's Lockstep 180/1, sir. They share Thisbe with ours."

"Can we get there?"

He looked shocked. "We can't involve them in a civil war. The treaties—"

"I didn't sign any treaties. Besides, they can't turn away refugees, can they?"

"What are you saying? You want to go in there alone?"

"You were thinking I was going to take our army in there? Defend ourselves with one-eighty as a shield?" Toby shook his head. "Of course not. So, yes, I aim to go in there alone."

"With respect, sir, for you to stay they'll demand you winter over on their frequency. All your sister has to do is post a guard to prevent you leaving. Once you're bottled up and living on a different frequency, you're no threat to her."

"... And bottling me up would work great for her, if the rest of Thisbe let her do it. This is how we win or lose: you get me a signal long enough for me to wake the rest of the army, and then we head straight for one-eighty. Got it?"

"Yes sir!"

They swept in a tight turn around one of the city's last towers, and began to hunt for a repeater tower while bots and aircraft converged on them from every direction.

A week later, Toby stood with the officer, whose name was Ourobon, and the administrators of the city of Equinoct. They watched as a small group of human figures passed through the new checkpoint that one-eighty's own defense forces had set up on the edge of town.

One-eighty spoke a different language and all of its customs and culture were different. Thousands of years separated them from three-sixty, and they had no guides to make them conform. Toby had used the meager information in his glasses to negotiate with them, but even now he wasn't sure what their intentions were for him.

So much less did he know how they'd treat these new visitors. Nobody stopped him, though, when we strode out to meet them. Their backdrop was fields of green dotted with troop transports and tents: the ragged remnants of a once-great military force. Way off in the sky, speckling the white clouds like a flock of distant birds, a much larger force approached. Everybody involved knew what that meant.

The new arrivals had been disarmed; as soon as they passed the checkpoint they were officially in Lockstep one-eighty, foreign soil for anyone from Thisbe's dominant culture. One-eighty might not be large or extensive, but they had their own army and fleets; and no McGonigal had the power to drag them into a purely internal conflict. Anybody carrying weapons across the invisible line at the checkpoint would feel the full force of their wrath—and so would three-sixty. Nobody knew how many other locksteps would join one-eighty if they decided to punish Peter's empire.

So it was that Evayne approached Toby weaponless, and with her hands out. "Brother!"

He suppressed a sarcastic laugh. So, now I'm your brother? Yet he really did want to see her, and so it was with undisguised eagerness that he stepped forward, took her hands, and then threw caution to the winds and hugged her.

Her whole body went rigid, then after a moment she relaxed a bit—just enough for her to gently take his arms, and disengage herself. "I don't deserve that," she said quietly.

"You're the only sister I've got," he said. "And we're kind of in this together, even if you don't think so."

She glanced back at the forces massing in the sky. "I do not think so."

Toby thought of that distant squadron as Halen's new army, though he was sure Corva's brother had little power in it. A mixture of Thisbe defense forces, native Toby cultists, and turncoats from Evayne's forces, it was rapidly taking control of the planet. In doing so it was eating up vast resources; a lockstep like three-sixty lived lightly on the land, and had few stockpiles. The whole planet would be going back to sleep soon, to awake on its normal schedule as Toby had commanded. Big changes would be waiting for those citizens who'd slept through the last few years.

"That," said Toby, nodding at the approaching force, "doesn't obey me. It obeys the mythical Emperor of Time, who's got an agenda."

Evayne made a skeptical noise, crossing her arms. Right now she looked so much like their mother that Toby was astonished. "You can't tell me it isn't your agenda too," she said. "Next stop: Destrier. Right?"

"It doesn't have to be now," he said.

"But every day you wait, the bigger they become." She jabbed a thumb at the new army.

Toby shrugged. "What's your point? Evie, it's over. You had your run as Pope, but now you gotta step aside. I don't care how we spin it, but one way or another the Universe is going to find out that I'm not a god. They're going to have to deal with it."

She shook her head. "Toby, I know you think Peter and I have been totally corrupted by power. But it's not like that. I wasn't lying when I said the myth took on a life of its own. There's nothing for me in promoting it—Peter and I are already the most powerful people in history. Hyper-rich and immortal—well, it can't get much better than that, can it? But we're as trapped by your myth as you are.

"There is no easy way to end this, and you know it. You're going to arrive on Destrier carrying fourteen thousand years' worth of baggage. Whatever you do, there'll be social upheavals on countless worlds."

"So all you want to do is keep a lid on it?"

"Keep a lid on potentially limitless levels of religious violence, yes."

He snorted. "As you can see, it's too late for that. —Not my fault, by the way. I was trying to keep this between you and me. You forced my hand."

"And you're about to force mine," she snapped. "I told you before, this isn't a game anymore. The stakes are too high to turn back now."

"Uh, Evie, last I saw I was the one who had your troops surrounded. You had me trapped here for a while, but unless you want to drag one-eighty into this too, you can't touch me. And as soon as my army gets here, you're my prisoner. Unless you head for orbit and leave Thisbe with your tail between your legs. And in that case, you're letting me go."

"No! There's another choice. Your only real choice, Toby. You have to renounce your identity. Declare yourself an impostor. We'll come up with a plausible story about how you controlled the cicada beds here on Thisbe. You become just another Toby impostor, the latest in a long line. You never interfere with the lockstep frequencies again, you never command a McGonigal bot to do so much as sweep the floor—and this all dies down. We go back to the way it was."

"You've got to be kidding!"

"Come on, you know it makes sense. It's the only way."

"And what's going to happen to me? Haven't you executed all the other impostors?"

"Well, most of them took their own lives in the end..."

"And if you don't do it, some Toby cultist fanatic will come after me sooner or later. You're telling me to make myself a marked man forever—and you're saying we never wake Mom up! Is that your plan?"

"Toby, at this point, letting her sleep is the lesser of two evils."

She gave him a sad look, then shook her head and started to walk back to the checkpoint. "You think we only have two options: let her sleep or wake her up. But there's a third, and if you don't do as I say, I'll have to do it."

A queasy feeling of horror was welling up in Toby's throat. "What do you mean? Evie, what you are talking about?"

She paused at the checkpoint. "I've got about an hour to get off-world before your little army makes it impossible. So I'm leaving. You come with me now, Toby, or else when you get to Destrier, you'll find that our Mother can't be woken up." She saw his expression, and sneered. "You can't possibly believe that Peter and I never discussed this? That we wouldn't have built a switch into her bed that would make it look like she's hibernating, long after there's nothing left to revive?

"You've got an hour to grow up, Toby. I'll wait as long as I can, but you made this deadline, not me."

She turned and crossed the line into her own camp, and ignored everything that Toby shouted after her.

Only after she disappeared behind a tent did Toby cough and sink to his knees. He nearly retched, and only Ourobon's hand on his shoulder kept him from sinking all the way onto the grass.

Thisbe's artificial sun chose that moment to change color, from solar yellow to blood red. Toby stared at his hands in this light, shaking his head.

"Sir! What did she say?"

"She... she's leaving, Ourobon."

"We can keep her here," said Ourobon. "It'll be hard, but—"

"You'll have to shoot her down. You'll probably kill her. Anyway, it doesn't matter. If she thinks we're going to stop her, she might give the order from here."

"We're jamming her."

"And you can guarantee you'll be successful?" Toby brushed off Ourobon's help and stood up. "No—let her go. She's not going to do it until she absolutely has to."

"Do what, sir?"

"Never mind." At the far end of Evayne's camp, her remaining flying bots were rising up and arrowing in the direction of the incoming squadrons. There was going to be a bit of a dogfight before Evayne got out, but she had enough firepower left to get at least one lander back to orbit, where her ships waited.

"Ourobon, whose side are you on?"

The ex-officer in Evayne's army looked startled. "Why, yours, sir."

"Then I need you to gather some people you trust. People who'll do what I say, not what the leaders of that army want me to say."

Ourobon nodded slowly. There had been spotty communication in and out of one-eighty; Evayne's jamming transmitters fought with Thisbe's, but there was little she could do to stop point-to-point laser comms. So Toby knew that Corva Keishion's whereabouts were "currently unaccounted for." He knew what that meant: she'd gone back to her family, and Halen or one of his friends had been waiting for her. Once Evayne was gone and her local forces mopped up, Toby would be able to walk through that checkpoint a conquering hero—or so it would appear. There was that little matter of leverage, though, if Halen's people had Corva. If they threatened her... he had no illusions that he would be able to resist.

"I need a ship and a loyal crew, and I need to go straight from here to there. No interruptions, conversations, or debriefings."

"A ship?" Ourobon looked puzzled. "You're taking a single ship to Destrier?"

Toby shook his head. "Not to Destrier.

"I have unfinished business somewhere else."

20

Nathan Kenani sat up, blinking, and swung his feet over the edge of the cicada bed. He rubbed his eyes, looked around the chamber, nodding in satisfaction as he apparently recognized where he was. Then his gaze fell on Toby.

"Hello, Nathan."

To his credit, Kenani didn't miss a beat. "And a fine good morning to you, too, Toby. I see you've been busy." He squinted, taking in the deeply tanned and weather-beaten skin, the new beard, and the uniform. "Been a long night, has it?"

His eyes were shifting around the room again. He'd registered the troops; now he noticed Shylif, and Jaysir, who slouched in one corner. He looked around some more, appearing puzzled.

"Where's your girlfriend, Toby?"

"She... went home." Damn him! thought Toby. Kenani was dangerously astute; even freshly awoken from thirty years' sleep, he was able to instantly zero in on Toby's single weakness.

He couldn't have known about any of the events on Thisbe, much less anything about the veiled threats that had been radioed to Toby's ship. Those messages suggested that Corva's life could be made a living hell if Toby didn't return there. He'd commanded his men not to acknowledge the messages in any way; the instant those who'd sent them knew he'd received them, he'd be on the hook of the Toby cultists.

Halen had given Corva up to them. That fact had provided Toby with the final lesson— as if he'd needed it, after Evayne—in just how badly family could treat family.

Toby couldn't turn the whole planet over looking for her. He had known where Jaysir and Shylif were wintering over, and when he'd woken them he'd pleaded with them to look for her. To his surprise, they had chosen to come with him instead.

"You're not finished with what you came here to do," Shylif had explained. "Getting that done's the best way to get her back. And, let's face it, you're no expert on the locksteps yet. You'll need help."

"Well, that's what you wanted, wasn't it?" Kenani was saying. "To help her get home?" He crossed his arms. "I'm a little cold, and hungry, Toby. Do you have..." Toby had looked back and nodded, and now somebody came forward carrying Kenani's folded uniform. A bot entered the room pushing a rolling cart stacked with hot food.

Kenani stared at this little performance. "Huh. I always wondered how much like them you'd turn out to be, when you grew up."

"Them?"

Toby assumed Kenani was talking about his brother and sister, but the guide said, "The trillionaires. Those bastards we left Earth to get away from. Seems you're coming along quite nicely, the way you handle the servants and all."

"You're not my servant, Nathan, and I haven't come to kill you or anything—in case you were wondering." Toby smiled at him. "Look, I did my homework; there's decades of news reports about you and the things you've done in the service of the lockstep. There's nothing horrible; you're pretty much the same man I met on that airship back when I was fifteen. I'm pretty sure you've been trying to keep everything together, just like your job description says."

"Well." Now it was Kenani's turn to look uncomfortable. "Thank you."

"Nathan, you've got integrity, that's why I came back to you. I mean—you deliberately gave me a chance to escape, last... last night. Didn't you?"

Kenani shrugged. "Let's just say I decided to be a bit sloppy.... I knew what those denners of yours could do, but most of my men hadn't seen them before. So I just... overlooked something, and neglected to warn them about it too. I wanted plausible deniability in case you did get away....

"Hell, what am I saying, I thought you deserved a chance is all."

"That's good enough for me." Toby gazed away at the wakening city, thinking. After a few moments, he was able to summon the courage to ask the question he'd come here to ask:

"Mom didn't go to sleep to wait for me, did she? At least, not the last time."

An ironic smile played across Kenani's lips.

"Just tell me."

Kenani looked put out. "I didn't lie to you, boy—well, not entirely. She did start wintering over to wait for her search probes to report back. And that is what got the whole lockstep thing started." He frowned even deeper. "What makes you think that last time was any different for her?"

"It's a little discovery I made on Thisbe. It seems I can override Evayne's commands to the lockstep system."

"Really, now?" Kenani looked genuinely surprised. "I never thought she'd done that."

That told Toby part of what he wanted to hear. "You're not surprised that she could do it. Only that she did."

Kenani pretended to be absorbed with the difficulties of dressing himself. Toby let him get away with his silence for a minute or so, then he said, "Tell me how it happened.

"How did my mother end up being trapped in hibernation like that? It wasn't her own choice, was it?"

Kenani began to tuck into his food. He was obviously thinking about his options—what he could say, what he could leave out, what he could get away with. Finally he sighed and said, "I don't know for sure what happened that day. None of us were there, just the three of them. But they'd been arguing pretty fiercely, that's for sure."

"About what?"

"This myth about you being some kind of messiah was part of it..." Kenani hesitated, then took the plunge, "but not all of it. Fact is, your Mom'd been overriding their commands to the system. There were some new worlds that had joined the lockstep—this was, what, about eight years in, our time—and they wanted to use their own cicada beds. Break the McGonigal monopoly. Peter and Evayne were having none of that, let me tell you. So many services are tied to the beds that they could shut whole cities out of the system— and they did. Your Mom brought 'em back in. She wanted to change the way the lockstep operated, but somehow the other two weren't letting her do it. She wanted a democratic system, they wanted to keep control.

"Here's the thing, Toby. If Evie did something, Cassandra would just shut it down; she could do the same with Peter. If both Peter and Evie both ordered something, Cassie couldn't override them. But neither of them alone could override her, either."

"Ah," said Toby. It was as he'd thought.

"I don't know how they got her into the bed. Might have knocked her on the head for all I know. But anyway, she wasn't able to counter their command when they put her under. They came back and told us she was wintering over to wait for you, like she had in the past. We were suspicious, but what could we do? The time stretched out and she didn't wake up, and then we found out Evayne had been sending people to worlds outside the lockstep, feeding them this rubbish about Toby being the messiah and Cassie some mystic figure waiting for the end of time. It was pretty clear at that point what had happened."

Toby sighed, then glanced back at his people. Some of the former officers in Evayne's private army were looking extremely uncomfortable. Well, if they hadn't figured out yet that he was just a human being like them, then they'd better wake up fast. Things were going to get real uncomfortable for the Toby myth, real fast.

"Thanks for being up-front with me. You're nobody's servant, Nathan. I'm not going to do anything to you, or order you to do anything... but there is one thing you could do for me—as a favor."

Kenani looked relieved, but cautious. "What?"

"You're a guide. That means you've got a direct line to Peter, right?"

Kenani nodded slowly. "Any messages I send will go straight to him. Anybody else'll have to go through the bureaucracy."

"Right. So you can forward a message to him for me."

Kenani gulped. "You know, they sometimes shoot the messenger."

"Don't worry. Anyway, I'll keep it short."

Toby had been thinking about what to say to Peter, and he'd rehearsed several different speeches and declarations—but now he found he didn't like any of them. "You know, Evayne, she... she fled Thisbe after we defeated her there. She said she was on her way to Destrier to kill Mom."

Kenani blinked and went very still for a second. Toby watched him carefully, then said, "Now here's the thing... she changed course. She's not going to Destrier at all. It looks more like she's on her way to Earth."

"Ah. Really?" Kenani was visibly fighting to keep his cool look.

"I know my mother's not on Earth, Nathan. But I also know she's not on Destrier. She never was, was she? Destrier is a honey-pot. It's a trap to catch Toby-pretenders. It's a pit for drowning navies. She's so sure I'm going to go there that she doesn't feel like she has to show up herself; but she's just worried enough that she's on her way to where she and Peter really hid Mom."

"Well, obviously, the capital is Mars now," stammered Kenani. "They call it Barsoom these days, isn't that hilarious?"

"I said it looked like she was on her way to Earth, but really, there's a lot of worlds between here and there. You don't know which one it really is?"

Kenani said nothing, but he was pale, and just shook his head.

Toby shrugged. "I think you do—after all, you've been part of Peter's inner circle from the start. If Peter and Evayne never actually moved her, then she's where she had become accustomed to wintering over. I'm pretty sure I know where Evie's going. I want you to send this message to Peter:

"Tell him Evie's threatening to kill our Mother, and tell him I have a better idea. Tell him I'll meet him and we can work that out."

"Meet him where?"

"Just say I've gone to finish the job I started."

He nodded politely to Kenani, then (still stung by Kenani's comment about servants) picked up his own chair and carried it to a nearby table. He clapped Jaysir on the shoulder, nodded to Shylif, and together with their officers in tow, left Nathan Kenani sitting with his forgotten breakfast.

"I can't believe it," said Jaysir a few days later. "This is the most heavily defended place in the whole lockstep? I never even heard of it!"

Toby smiled sadly at the irregular, faintly starlit shape that they could just barely make out a few kilometers from the ship. "You know what they say," he said. "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. Everything important about that thing was thrust upon it.

"Welcome to Rockette."

He, Shylif and Toby hung weightless in front of a large curving window in the officer's lounge of Toby's ship. They were alone for now, as the crew bustled about reviving the vessel's systems. Toby had chosen the fleet's fastest courier vessel, and then they'd stripped it of its armor and weapons, sawed off and discarded the cargo container, even thrown out most of the furniture. With extra boosters bolted on, the fusion engine could edge them up to an impressive 10 percent lightspeed. Even if Evayne were throwing her own furniture out the window, she hadn't taken a particularly fast ship, and only had the fuel she'd left Thisbe with. Peter had to come all the way from Barsoom, after a delay because of the time it would have taken Kenani to relay Toby's message to him. Toby had the advantage over Evayne in speed, and the advantage over his brother in timing. So, he'd gotten here before either of them—but just barely.

"Sir?" The captain had appeared in the door of the lounge. "They can destroy us, sir, if they want us. We have no defenses."

Toby smiled at her. "I know. This was never going to be an even match."

"But what is this place?" She ventured into the room. The woman was as intimidated by Toby as the rest of her crew, but at least she wasn't a fanatical Toby-worshiper: she was worried about the safety of her people. "Sir, I've been in the lockstep navy for twenty years and I never heard so much as a rumor that this, this fortress," she nodded at the window, "existed."

"I expect if you looked it up, you'd find that Rockette was private property," said Toby.

"Owned by my family. And I doubt there's a single human being manning those lasers and ships." They were invisible to the naked eye, but radar had revealed thousands of them, as well as mines and missiles, forming a cloud around Rockette far larger than the comet itself. "Rockette's important to the McGonigals. That's all I can tell you right now. But tell your men they're safe. None of that firepower is directed at us."

"Very good, sir." She bowed in midair.

"Could you get a boat ready? My brother's arriving soon and I want to meet him on the comet."

"Yes, sir!" She flew gracefully out of the room.

"Hmm." Jaysir scratched his head. "'None of it directed at us?' Yeah, I kinda think it's all aimed at us—and anybody who finds out this place exists."

Shylif was taking it all in calmly; after Sebastine Coley's trial and punishment, nothing seemed to faze him. "But Jay, you yourself said we'd be safe."

"Yeah, and you believed me? How long have you known me, Shy?"

Toby grinned at them, but he was hugely anxious. He'd made a guess on Thisbe about why he was able to override Evayne's commands to the lockstep systems. Jay agreed that he'd guessed rightly, and now as their little courier ship had approached Rockette, Toby had issued a command to its defenses to stand down. If his guess was wrong, then yes, they really could be blasted out of the sky at any moment.

Even if it was right, he was only safe while it was just him and Peter at Rockette. When Evayne arrived in a few days, he'd be helpless.

He might be heading into a tearful reunion with his siblings; or an interrogation. Knowing them as he did, Toby suspected this meeting would be a bit of both.

"Tell me again," he said to Jaysir, "why this is going to work?"

The maker shrugged. "I never said it would."

"Yes, but—"

Jaysir tilted his head from side to side, noncommittal. "The McGonigal security system is a black box. People have been poking at it from outside for thousands of years, but beyond a certain point, we just don't know. Your mom built it well."

"Yeah." Toby let out a long, ragged sigh. "Thanks. Can I have a minute or two alone before I...?"

"Oh, sure." Jaysir pulled Shylif toward the door. "You know I'd say good luck, but that would just be stupid. How about, 'don't get 'em any madder at you than they already are'?"

"Great. I'll remember that."

They all laughed, and the other two left.

So there it was: the little comet he'd been on his way to when he got lost, fourteen thousand years ago. It didn't look like they'd built much on its surface, which was still painted crimson by radiation-baked organics. Those took millions of years to build up; in its tiny gravity field, he was sure he could find two little stones balanced precariously atop one another somewhere, that had been balancing that way since before the time of the dinosaurs. Next to the inhuman aeons that passed between a pebble wobbling and falling on Rockette, all the events of the last fourteen millennia were nothing. As far as Rockette was concerned, Toby wasn't arriving late at all.

He shook his head and turned away.

Nobody spoke to him on his way to the little inflatable lifeboat, and he made eye contact with no one. He felt like an intruder; they were well rid of him. Surely if Halen had been here, he would have organized banners and speeches and a photo-op, and would have demanded of everyone present that they swear some weird blood-oath or brand themselves to mark the occasion. That was the sort of thing you did with living gods. Toby was far happier sneaking out.

In the red light of a tiny utilitarian airlock he let a suit build itself onto him, as he had so many times before. Doing his checks and cycling through the airlock made him feel much better because the familiar chore reminded him of days—not so long ago, for him—when he'd cycled himself through Sedna's airlocks to attend to some minor repair problem on the little world's surface. Funny thing was, he'd always grumbled about leaving Consensus to do those chores. As he settled into the ship's little lander, he found himself smiling, just a little.

The next few minutes passed in silence too, save for the occasional radioed flight-plan update from the ship's bridge. He acknowledged with a terse 'yes' or 'no' and kept his eyes on the approaching comet, where a landing field was now lit in pinpricks of light. When he did set down, nobody human was waiting for him, only a few bots that directed him into a deep slot in Rockette's regolith. Down there was another airlock.

He never remembered, later, going through that lock, nor could he recall removing his suit or sailing down the long, dark passages into the heart of the comet. Toby was running on automatic, absolutely sure of what he was going to find here, but his thoughts shocked silent by what it would mean.

As he'd expected, all the passages led to one chamber, a spherical room in the most protected heart of the comet. There was nothing ceremonial or even comfortable here, only coils of frost-covered hose, tangles of faintly humming machinery, and, tethered in the very middle of the space by wires and cables and pipes like the kernel of a seed, a single closed cicada bed.

Toby drifted up to it and, after a momentary hesitation, put out his hand to rub the frost from the top part of the canopy.

"Hi, Mom," he said.

Toby could tell it was Peter in the doorway because of the way he moved. Forty years had bulked him up and slowed him down a little—and Toby had never before realized that he knew how Peter moved—but it was clearly him. Toby could have picked him out of a crowd even if he'd been facing the other way.

That bullet-head, though; it still threw him. "You look good," Toby called, his heart meanwhile threatening to go off the rails. "Shame about the hair, though."

The chairman was accompanied by some milbots, mostly big human-shaped types with guns. "You know I thought about doing that," said Toby, pointing to them. "I guess if I didn't know it was really you, I might take precautions."

"Yeah, well I don't know who you are," said the chairman. He started to say something more, but stopped when he saw the status indicators on the cicada bed. He swore and moved down with surprising agility for (Toby tried not to think it) an old guy. Placing both hands on the bed's canopy, while his bots encircled Toby, he swore again and then said, "Shut down! Back to sleep."

The indicators didn't change. "That's interesting," said Toby. So, his guess had been right; the tightness in all his muscles loosened just a bit.

"I found out about this on Thisbe," he said, "when Evie tried to block my commands in the system. Turned out she couldn't. I wondered whether it'd work the same with you. I guess it does.

"Bots! Stand down!"

As one, Peter's military bots folded in on themselves, and went still.

Peter whirled, gasping. He grappled a pistol out of the closed fist of one of his guards, and pointed it at Toby. Close enough to touch now, he was so visibly himself, yet so aged, so different, that Toby's bluster all evaporated— not from the threat of the gun, but just from the strange disconnect between the Peter Toby had known, and who he was now. "You—" he looked from Toby to the bed and back again. "You're waking her up!"

"Yes and you can't change that. She's a few hours away still, but she'll be back before Evie arrives. Which means, little brother, that you have to make a choice."

Peter's eyes were wide. "What—"

"See, I'm not armed. I wasn't about to mess up Mom's bedroom with a gun battle. And that means you've got me right where you want me. You can kill me before she wakes up. But you can't stop Mom from waking... and you alone don't have the power to put her to sleep again. Do you?"

Warily, Peter grabbed a hand-hold on the cicada bed and settled himself opposite Toby. "Evie told you about the share system?"

Toby shook his head. "Evie... didn't tell me anything." He didn't try to disguise the disappointment in his voice. "She's become rather good at following orders." Now, the anger was slipping out. "Is that her, or did you twist her that way?"

Peter didn't say anything, but the pistol was still pointed at Toby.

"You know when I found out what I could do, on Wallop, I figured Mom had given me a superuser account on the corporate system. It made all kinds of sense, but the question was, did you guys have the same privileges? You must—unless... she didn't entirely trust you."

"We had our disagreements," said Peter. "But you were out of the picture."

"So if she was the superuser, holding the administrator's account to the whole lockstep system, then you two might just have ordinary user's privileges. And if she didn't like how you were scheduling worlds in the lockstep, she could block you, or cancel your actions entirely.

"But that's not how the system works, is it?"

Peter had been staring at Toby with a kind of fascination; now he shook himself and seemed to snap to attention. "Why does it matter?" he said. "Evie caught enough of your people on Thisbe to learn what you're up to. It's the whole messiah thing, just like we foresaw."

This time it was Toby who started to object, and Peter who overrode him: "Come on! They love you there! You came down from the sky and promised to reset their frequency, and last I heard, you were building a nice little army to storm Destrier." He sneered. "Don't get high and mighty about family stuff now, Toby."

In that moment, Toby knew they were brothers again—even if Peter wanted to kill him, he'd just acknowledged who Toby was. As when Evie had done it, it made all the difference. Suddenly all the armies, lockstep bots and expectations of the outside world were irrelevant; the Universe had closed down to just him and Peter. He and his brother, fighting.

"And who set up the messiah thing to begin with?" He matched Peter's glare. "It's your script, Pete. You guys jammed it into my hands, and that whole damned planet wanted—demanded!—that I follow it.

"Only I'm not going to do it, because it's a red herring, isn't it? You were never afraid I'd try the messiah gambit if I came back. You were counting on it."

"The religion..." Peter's lips thinned. "That was Evie's department."

"But it had a purpose, didn't it? Over and above keeping people in line, I mean. The prophecy's a honey-trap for would-be conquerors. I hear it's worked pretty well. And me, well," Toby spread his arms, "of course I'd run back to wake Mom if I returned. The second I tried, all the people whose loyalty to you might be shaky, and everybody who'd been plotting behind her your back, they'd all jump on my side. They'd all be exposed. We'd troop on over to Destrier, and then you'd crush us all there.

"Pete, that's just so... so Consensus." Toby shook his head in disgust. "And vicious. And what I could never figure out was, why in Hell would you be so vicious to me? How could I ever have threatened this grand empire you've built? If I came back, don't you think I'd want to celebrate it with you?"

Peter's eyes shifted, ever so slightly, but he wasn't meeting Toby's gaze anymore.

"Even if you thought I'd disapprove, what would it matter? My disapproval wasn't going to topple your empire. It was a puzzle with no answer. Peter, you tried to have me killed."

"Shut down," Peter McGonigal said to their mother's cicada bed. Its lights stayed green.

"You can still shoot me, by the way." Toby waved at the gun in Peter's hand. "At least now I know why. See, I found out about the shares."

Peter looked up.

"Mom didn't have a superuser account. There's no such thing. That meant I didn't have one either. If I could override Evie's commands in the system—and yours—it must work some other way.

"The system recognizes four shareholders, doesn't it, Pete? You, me, Evie, and Mom. We don't own the same number of shares, though. You and Evie each have one. Mom has two—and so do I."

"I couldn't believe it when she told me," said Peter. "She'd given you two—you! You'd been gone for years. And she kept two for herself, just to keep Evie and me in line."

"Yeah, and when that got too inconvenient for you, you guys trapped her in here and voted her to sleep. Permanently. Except, you didn't kill her."

"No." Peter reared back, outraged at the idea. "We wouldn't—"

"But you'd kill me."

"That's—"

"Different? Why?"

That one question hung in the air, while silence stretched between them. Finally, and to Toby's surprise, Peter jammed the pistol into his belt and crossed his arms. "You really don't know?" he asked skeptically.

Slowly, Toby shook his head. They remained that way, in a standoff, for a long minute. Finally, Toby said, "It had to be something that happened before I left. I've been thinking about that. I don't think it was anything I did on Sedna. So, earlier...

"Guess what," he said suddenly. "I've got backups of Consensus in my glasses. I was going through them the other day, and I found something. You might want to see it—You've got implants, I assume?" Guardedly, Peter nodded. "Then let me share something with you." Slowly, in case Peter went for his gun again, Toby reached up to tap his glasses awake. He uttered several quiet commands, and a virtual environment blossomed around himself and his brother.

Peter gasped, then stared. "That?"

"The very first thing I did in Consensus," said Toby. "I showed it to you that first time we went in together. Our house."

It was the house Toby had grown up in, where Maria Teresa had died trying to protect Peter; the place they had never returned to as a family after the kidnapping. Toby had built this virtual copy as a healing exercise for himself, but he'd shown it to Peter and issued a challenge: figure out a way to prevent what happened here, from ever happening again. Build a better world.

Peter reached out, very slowly, and took the handles of the model to rotate it. He zoomed them in and suddenly he and Toby were inside, hovering above the landing where Maria had died. Peter stared at the tiled floor for a while. Then he said, almost inaudibly, "I could hear them talking."

Toby waited. Haltingly, his brother said, "There was this spot near the back of the room where they were keeping me. There was an air vent in the floor, and if I put my ear to it, sometimes I could hear them. It was too faint for me to make out what they were saying, but I knew the voices."

Now he looked up at Toby. "One day, after I'd been there for, oh it must have been a couple of weeks... I put my ear down there and heard them talking to somebody else who was there. I could feel the footsteps through the floor, and I heard his voice.

"It was Father."

Toby blinked, and suddenly his thoughts were sliding all over, trying to catch each other. "W-what?"

"Our. Father." Peter had come around the cicada bed and was closing in on Toby, his eyes wide. "Our. Father. Was. There. He was part of it. It might even have been him who let them in—him who killed Maria—"

The words came out in a rush now. "After all why would they need to kill her? They could have tied her up, they were wearing masks so she wouldn't have seen their faces and I didn't see them kill her, I didn't even know about it until after. But if she'd caught him helping, if he'd been seen, then he couldn't let her live, could he? It would have ruined everything."

Toby was too horrified to speak. He wiped away the virtual model of the house, and so it was just him and his brother, eye to eye in the cold machine space of the chamber. "But... why...?"

"Why?" Peter's brows crunched into a sarcastic expression; he'd made that as a boy, but it had never drawn so many wrinkles with it in the old days. "Why? Sedna.

"The kidnapping is what convinced Mom to leave Earth. Same with nearly everybody else who came. The incident galvanized a whole movement, remember? Maybe you don't. Money came in from everywhere to pay my ransom, and afterward, it hung around, because suddenly Dad had a plan, see, he went back to all the people who'd helped and told them, 'look, there's something better we can do with this money. We can't trust Earth any-more, either the trillionaires or the poor. We've got to get out.' My disappearance, my being tied up in that room, my seeing them killed in front of me and learning about Maria—all that, all that was just part of the plan."

He was trembling now and had shed all the years that separated them. He was just Peter now, just Toby's little brother.

"And I knew it," he said. "I knew it every step of the way—from when we left Earth to setting up the colony, to after you abandoned us to when he did too—"

"I never abandoned you," objected Toby.

"You two were close, you and Dad."

"Wait, what are you trying to—you think I knew about this? You think Dad told me?"

Peter lowered his head, looking up past his brows at Toby. "You're saying he didn't?"

"I..." There'd been that conversation on the rooftop... Peter was beginning to smile; he was taking Toby's hesitation as a yes, so Toby said, "Wait, there was something!" He recounted that conversation, and their Father's words to him. I'm going to do something to help change things, and it could get rough for us for a while. You may not understand everything that's happening.

"That's it," he finished.

"That's it?" Peter was glaring at him. Toby stared him down.

"Look, Pete, you've got the tug I left Sedna in. Your forensics people have to have gone over it. You know it really was adrift for fourteen thousand years. You know what happened to knock it out of commission. You may have spent the past forty years thinking I abandoned you, but you know now that I didn't. It was an accident. I got lost. And now, I'm home.

"And I knew nothing about... what you just told me."

It was unbelievable, horrible, couldn't be true—but even as Toby was thinking these things, his imagination was fitting it all together. His awakening on Lowdown, the order from the chairman, and all his discoveries about the locksteps and the Toby cult and the guides. They all spun in his mind, a whirlpool with its center at that single moment in the past, when Peter crouched on the floor of his cell listening at a grate.

"This... all of this... you've been running ever since." And not just Peter, but Carter Mc-Gonigal, too—fleeing from his crime on Earth and pulling his family and friends with him. Had Mom known, or suspected? She, too, jumping forward through time, each leap farther than the last. Telling everyone all the while that she was hunting for that moment when her lost Toby would return to her when really, she was trying to get away from something else, some knowledge she couldn't unlearn.

"Evayne... does she...?"

Peter nodded. "I told her, oh, thirty years ago I guess. Long after you'd left. She never really came to terms with it, I think."

Toby hung his head. Everything had changed, and he wasn't ever going to get back what he'd just lost.

"Sorry, Toby," said Peter. "It's funny—you know there was a day, a long time ago now, when I suddenly realized you weren't my older brother anymore. That I was the older one. I'm older than Dad now, did you know that? Older than Mom too. The family's on my shoulders now. I'm not yours to command."

It came to Toby then that Peter really had intended to kill him on Lowdown, and just now when he'd pointed that vicious looking little pistol at Toby, he really had been within seconds of pulling the trigger. A wash of adrenalin hit Toby, and he hid his suddenly shaking hands behind his back.

He tried to pull himself together. For a moment he'd forgotten why he'd come here; he was adrift, and at the mercy of the chairman. Then his gaze caught the green tell-tales of their mother's cicada bed, and he clutched at the purpose and idea that had brought him here.

He looked up at Peter again, all his cockiness gone. "I get it. And you're right. By the time I got to Thisbe I thought I knew what was going on. I was the big brother, come back to set you guys right." He laughed humorlessly at himself. "Yeah, that was totally wrong, wasn't it?"

Peter nodded. "You see, things have changed. You'll understand why later, but right now, Toby, you have to shut Mom's bed down again. Put her back to sleep."

Toby sucked in a deep breath, looked him in the eye, and said, "No."

Peter blinked and started to speak, but Toby said, "This part of it, I understand perfectly. You and Evie have locked yourselves and the locksteps into a pattern you can't get out of. You're riding a whirlwind that's roaring into the future, and you think you have to steer it. You think you can play Consensus with seventy thousand worlds—actually, you think you have to. Evie's terrified that it'll all fall apart if you don't keep your hands on the wheel. So are you, right?"

Peter shook his head. "You don't understand—the politics, the—"

"Oh, I do understand. You've run off a cliff and as long as your legs keep peddling, you're going to stay up. The instant you stop, you fall. But it's not the lockstep that'll collapse, is it? You've just told me... about Dad," Toby coughed and had to stop for a second. "You have to keep running or that is going to catch up to you. But you don't need to keep pulling the lockstep along with you."

"You don't get it, we built it like a machine, Evie and me. The Toby cult, the whole Emperor of Time crap; the guides, the messaging to the fast worlds, how we handle immigration.... It's a system, Toby. You can't break it. You can't return, or the whole thing falls apart. Mom can't wake up, or the same thing happens—"

"Isn't it really that you're afraid we'd outvote you? 'Cause, you know, we will."

Peter fell silent. Toby floated over to rest his hand on the warming cicada bed. "You're saying there's only two possibilities: the status quo you and Evie spent so many years building, or a catastrophic collapse. But there's a third way, isn't there?"

The chairman of Cicada Corp watched Toby warily, saying nothing.

"Mom'll be awake in a few hours," said Toby. "Then we're going to wait for Evie to arrive. And then... the shareholders of Cicada Corp are going to hold a vote."

He raised his hand. "All in favor of issuing one share per cicada bed user, say aye. All opposed..."

Peter still said nothing. Toby shrugged. "There's four of us, and six shares. One vote per share. Mom built the system, she knows how to make the necessary changes. Was this what she was proposing when you guys tricked her into this last sleep?—Don't answer that, I don't want to know. It doesn't matter anyway. The fact is, you and Evie have a chance to redeem yourselves now. We can make the vote unanimous."

"One vote per bed..." Peter was practically strangling on the words. "That'd be democracy!"

"Yeah. Worst system of government except for all the others, right? But it's not like the people of three-sixty don't know how to handle it. They're mostly free anyway, I mean I saw how the government on Thisbe handles things. Peter, they have built the world you and I tried to build with Consensus. You can fool yourself into thinking you've been the guiding hand, but really, it was them, them all along..." He thought of Corva's fierce passion, and even her brother's determination to right the wrongs of the world. They weren't passive subjects of Peter McGonigal. They didn't need him.

"The only thing standing in their way now is Cicada Corp, and our stranglehold on the lockstep frequencies. We are going to give it up—you, me, Mom, and Evie. Take our hands off the wheel, and watch the ship steer itself."

Bravado and determination had kept Toby going this far; he'd said his piece, done what he came to do. Now that he had, he found he was trembling, practically fainting. It was all catching up to him.

Voice cracking with exhaustion and sorrow, he held out his hand to his brother and said, "Peter, I just don't want to run anymore.

"And I don't think you do, either."

21

"Hey, Toby, over here!"

He looked up from the shard of blue pottery he'd dug out of the dirt. Sol was standing framed by two pillars that once might have been straight, but had been sculpted by the wind for eons, until now they looked like twisted tree trunks.

Miranda's head popped up from below Sol's feet. "You really should see this," she shouted. "I think it's an intact chamber!"

Toby dropped the potsherd and picked his way through a landscape of tumbled stone blocks and irregular red soil. He had to climb around a fissure that separated him from his two friends, and momentarily stood higher than Sol's head. From here he could see down the long slope behind the twin pillars, to where irregularly joined pools of water sketched the direction of an ancient canal. Hazy distance veiled the rise of other plateaus—green on their lower slopes, Martian red on the summits where ruin after ruin teased at the sky. Noctis Labyrinthus, this region was called—the Maze of Fantasies—and it was one of the most ancient settled parts of Mars. Barsoom, as it was called now.

Miranda stood up, dusting herself off. If Toby had taken off his glasses, he'd have seen her as she really was: a gangly tour-guide robot like the one pretending to be Sol. Through his interface, he could pretend they were real people. He'd given these bodies the personalities of his game characters, but let this one retain the tourbot's database of historical data. So it wasn't surprising when Miranda said, "Six different cultures built here. This whole hill is a rubble pile, who knows what's at the bottom?"

She knelt again. "I think we might be able to squeeze in there. There's a tiled floor—it might date from the second Thark Flowering."

Toby wasn't listening. His fingers had strayed out to stroke the side of one of the pillars. It was so old it had lost all sign of being artificial. It reminded him of Stonehenge— and then, uncomfortably, of the grand avenue on Destrier. He snatched back his hand.

"It's going to take a while," he said with a sad smile, "to catch up."

If Miranda and Sol had been human, they might have caught his irony and laughed, or expressed some sympathy. As it was they just smiled and nodded.

Toby knelt to look through the gap Miranda had found. It was dark in there. He doubted he could have fit through, but it would have been easy for Orpheus.

He stood up again, gazing out at the dying canals.

At least this landscape didn't change in an eyeblink, like Earth's did. Toby had been on Barsoom for six months now; for three before that, he'd lived in a lockstep fortress in the Amazonian uplands of what had once been Brazil. He'd wanted to be around green and real sunlight; but every thirty days, the landscape hiccupped and changed completely. New trees, a new tributary to the river below the fortress or a new town full of people who barely remembered those whom he'd gotten to know over the past weeks. He'd hated it there, and Mom convinced him to come back to Mars.

Barsoom was practically homey compared to the rest of the Solar System. Mercury didn't even exist anymore; it had been eaten, and its constituent matter spread out to form a vast Dyson cloud that gathered sunlight to power starship launchers and other less comprehensible machines for the posthumans who'd taken over much of the place. Venus was fully terraformed now, a world of shallow oceans that forbade any locksteps from settling there. Space itself was crowded with artificial worlds, some inhabited, many ruined and silent.

Considering the godlike powers possessed by the posthumans, Toby had been a bit surprised that humans—or conventional life forms of any kind—still existed. When he'd expressed this to Peter, his brother had just laughed. "Technology can speed up evolution, but it can't do anything to give it a direction. What these AIs and robot cultures keep forgetting is that purpose comes from vulnerability. Give people the power of the gods, and they'll eventually run down like wind-up toys for lack of reasons to go on. It's happened around here so many times that the posthumans finally figured out that they need us. We're kind of the bottom-feeders of their ecosystem—a necessary evil. Humans are optimized to care about things, and the posthumans feed off our passions. Without us, they just speed-evolve into useless lumps. The Solar System's crowded with those.

"It's not a f lattering role to have in the grand scheme of things," he'd added with a shrug, "but it's a living."

Peter could always make Toby smile. He'd developed a hard crust of cynicism, decades of learning and incident having weathered his heart like the wind had done to these pillars; yet he was still Peter. It was as if the brother Toby had known was a bright light that still managed to shine through all the brambles and encrustations time had wrapped around it. Even the revelation about Dad.

It was shocking how little Peter remembered of his childhood with Toby and Evayne—but that time had still made him who he was. When the melancholy of time began to coil around Toby's soul, he only had to spend ten minutes with Peter for it to entirely lift.

It was a good thing Toby had discovered his brother in the chairman, because unexpectedly, he'd lost his own childhood when Peter told him about their father's part in the kidnapping. He still didn't believe it—not all the time, anyway. He would struggle with that, he knew, for years.

He knelt again next to the little cave entrance, and was seriously considering squirming in there when a message tone pinged in his ear. "Toby," he answered curtly.

"Where'd you go?" It was Mom—Cassandra, as she liked to be called now. "I looked all over the grounds!"

"Sorry, I was... restless. I'm just doing a little exploring."

"Hmmph." He could hear the distaste in her voice. Cassandra couldn't understand Toby's interest in the ocean of time that separated them from their previous lives. Maybe it was because she'd had practice skipping forward before Peter and Evayne had locked her away. She had deliberately turned her back on everything she'd lost. "Well, the last of the delegates is here. There's some from that world where you argued with Evayne. Thought you might want to know."

"Ah! Thanks. I'll be right there."

He didn't dare hope. Thisbe had been one of the last holdouts in Peter's drive to create a lockstep parliament. The cult of Toby was raging there—in various flavors, he'd heard, who fought one another in the streets over minor points of doctrine. Halen Keishion was a major leader in one of those factions, and the rumor was he was trying to set up his own lock-step. Toby had sent Jaysir back to try to locate Corva, but try as the makers might, they'd so far been unable to uncover any information about her whereabouts.

The cults were entirely focused on Destrier. Cassandra and Toby had found it surprisingly easy to adopt new identities on Barsoom, with easy access to Peter. He supposed it was inconceivable to the cultists that Cassandra might not have been in her imitation Taj Mahal on Destrier all these millennia—and therefore inconceivable that she might have been quietly awakened somewhere else, to exit the historical stage into an ordinary life.

One result was that there were few security milbots monitoring his progress through the ruins. Toby had felt free to come here almost unaccompanied. He bounded back to the Martian aircar, ducking under its cartoonishly big lift fans, forgetting Miranda and Sol. They quietly dissolved back into tourist bots as the air-car whined into life.

"Oh, and your sister's here, too," added Cassandra as two milbots ducked under the closing clamshell doors of the aircar to sit behind Toby. He didn't miss the chilly sound in his mother's voice; she and Evayne were still not talking.

"Thanks." His mother rang off, and Toby pensively watched the ruined palaces of Noctis dwindle below him. He tilted the aircar east, towards Valles Marineris and the triple cities of Ius, Calydon, and Louros. Home was Peter's sumptuous palace on the north slope of Ius Chasma, but it was in Calydon Fossae that all the action was happening.

As he approached the vast canyon complex, he could see aircraft buzzing over the city like a cloud of midges. Delegates were arriving literally by the boatload, from the furthest reaches of the lockstep. They were here to hammer out a lockstep-wide scheduling policy now that Peter and Evayne had made their one-bed, one-share public ownership offer in the lock-step monopoly. Calydon's minaretted streets were crowded with democrats, autocrats and cybercrats, monarchists, panarchists, and demarchists. All were bravely stepping into real-time to debate and deliberate for as long as it took to come up with the new lockstep government. It might take months, or years—but in lockstep time, it would all be over by next turn.

The chaos made it easy for Toby and his mother to come and go. Peter's palace was overrun with middle-aged women and young men anyway, and everybody was distracted by the new governmental proposal. Toby was posing as Dickson Mu, a delegate from Eris. Cassandra wasn't acting at all like the Holy Mother was supposed to, so nobody suspected her.

Still... he tapped his glasses and said, "Call Evayne." The little dancing icon signified that she was being hailed—and this went on for a long time—and then a window opened in his interface, and she was there.

"How are you?" she said in a clipped and guarded tone.

"Always talking on the phone, but never getting together," he said. "When are we going to have dinner?"

"Very funny," she said flatly. "You know how delicate things are."

"Actually, Evie, I don't. You had some chores you were going to do. Did you get to them?"

"Where do you think I've been the past forty-five years?"

"Oh!" He'd last spoken to her two months ago, lockstep time. "You're not serious. You haven't been—" He peered at her in the little window. She didn't seem older.

Evayne grimaced. "Six years, Toby. For me, it's been six years since the last time I spoke to you. Seven since we woke Mom."

He sucked in his breath. "Does she know?" Evayne shook her head. "Tell her! Evie, she's not going to punish you forever! Six years!" His heart sank at the thought. This wasn't at all like the evidence of time he'd seen in the ruins just now; there were different kinds of time, and that which separated you from your loved ones was the slowest. "Where were you?" he ventured.

"Tau Ceti. Sirius. Points in between. Peter can tell you—he provided the ship. We were doing almost 50 percent lightspeed back and forth—a new record, I think."

"And...?"

"Our clients and partners are winding down the Toby myth. The Emperor of Time is no more. It's already been a couple of generations, real-time, since I left Sirius. Any new immigrants into three-sixty are going to be several generations out of our official endorsement of the myth. Pilgrimages to Destrier are going to dry up soon, and since the keepers of Mom's tomb live in realtime anyway, they'll probably have turned it into a tourist trap and theme park by now. Except for the holdouts actually in the lockstep, you're safe now."

He snorted. "There's billions of those. But thank you. Thank you so much, Evayne. I really was serious about dinner."

She just stared at him. Under the weight of that gaze, Toby suddenly felt acutely self-conscious. His last words echoed in his ears and those platitudes sounded so glib that he instantly regretted them. In that second he went from not knowing that he was feeling any emotion at all to realizing he was being flooded with grief and longing. "I mean—" to his astonishment he heard his voice crack, "I never meant to leave you. I'm sorry I left, and I want to see you. To catch up on all those lost years." Tears were blurring the inside of his glasses.

When he blinked himself into seeing again, he realized that Evie was wiping her eyes too. Time was when she'd come to him, when she'd bawled in his arms, a tangle of limbs and hair butting his chin. It was so recent, those moments almost seeming more real than this one and that little girl more real than this hard-bitten older woman—who had already regained her own composure and said, "I know, Toby. Yes, I'd like to have dinner with you. We'll talk soon."

She cut the connection, but her words rang in his head, echoes of unstated regret distracting him enough that the aircar took over the flying. He didn't come to himself again until he felt it touching down, and realized they'd arrived in a courtyard in central Calydon.

He queried the location of the Thisbe delegation and was told they were settling in to a red-brick hotel a couple of kilometers down the avenue. Too close to fly to, too far for a quick walk; which meant he would have to take a leisurely one instead. That was okay, because it gave him a chance to explore the crowds and architecture of the city as he strolled. There were hints of Consensus style to it all, but Barsoom had its own history and layers of culture. It was unbelievably rich, as was the diversity on the street. Toby found himself spinning around now and then to stare at a person—or thing—that had just passed by him while he'd been ogling something else. Great fun.

As his footsteps approached the Thisbeans' hotel, though, they slowed even further. Eventually he came to a stop just outside its main entrance.

He'd tried looking up the names of the delegation, but they weren't listed yet. And anyway, here he was.

He took a deep breath, stepped forward—

"Sir!"

All the air shot out of him. Toby turned. "What?"

Four of the Lockstep palace guard were standing there, accompanied by a small army of bots. The woman at the head of this squad saluted, and said, "The chairman requests your presence."

"The chairman? He can—" Toby stopped himself. These people who had no idea who he was, and nobody defied the chairman. It might be fun to try, but the momentary courage that had led him to take that step into the entrance of the hotel was gone now anyway. He shrugged.

"Sure, whatever. Where are we going?"

To the other side of town, it turned out. Here was the palace proper—the Palace, with a capital and emphasis and fanfares. The place was designed to impress by people who'd studied thousands of years' worth of such architecture. Toby suspected a few posthuman minds had added their insights into human herd behavior; even just stepping out of an air-car onto one of the upper residence levels, he felt himself shrink a bit with awe. It wasn't just the scale, the majestic sweep of the colonnades or the beauty of the frescoes. The way all the lines of wall and pillar wove together, the whole building seemed poised to pounce on him.

Yet all he had to do was glance over and notice that one of the fabulous pieces of wall art depicted the Emperor of Time embarking on his mystical journey into the future... and he just had to laugh. He thanked his escort and hurried on to meet his brother.

"Sorry to tear you away from your ruins, but Evie's hardly been home a day and the delegates already want a speech from her. It's a good thing she's rested."

Peter stood with his arms crossed in the center of a domed chamber that rivaled the nave of any cathedral from ancient Earth. He was surrounded by the latest in virtualizing technology, so that as Toby came beside him, the walls seemed to fly away and the ceiling lifted off, and they seemed to be standing out in the open. There was even a breeze sliding slowly along the tiers of the city's biggest and oldest amphitheater. He and Peter stood at one end of it, on stage with one other person. It was Evayne.

"They've come to see both of us," said Peter. He was in full dress uniform. "Don't worry about them seeing or overhearing us," he added. "My stage projection's a puppet; I could moon the crowd and the projectors would compensate and make it look like I'd bowed."

"And I'm invisible and inaudible," said Toby.

"Yes—but you're here. Evayne asked me to call you in. She insisted, actually."

Invisible and inaudible —but not to Evayne and Peter. Toby thought he could accept that.

"Of course Mom wouldn't come."

"Of course not," agreed Peter breezily. "Oh, here we go. She's about to start."

Evayne's dais stood just off-center in the giant oval of the outside theater. She walked alone to her spot, dressed in a fabulous gown of ivory white with gold hems. Her hair was drawn up and tangled with diamonds. As she walked, the most glorious fanfare Toby had ever heard rose in swells. It clutched at his heart though he didn't even recognize the instruments, let alone the style: the music, like so much else here, echoed out of the well of unguessable time that, somehow, his brother and sister had mastered.

There were tears in his eyes when the music ended; by that time, Evayne stood in her place, gazing up at the multitude that thronged the ancient amphitheater's seats.

She began:

"How could we have known, my family and I, when we began this, that time in a lockstep runs backwards? To us founders, and to the smallest and original parts of the empire, our colony between the stars is only forty years old. As far as the youngest and largest parts of the lockstep are concerned, it is so old as to be one with the foundations of the Earth. Immovable. Eternal.

"I remember the day Peter and I realized what was happening. Overnight, sixteen minor worlds, little orbs no bigger than Sedna, had been colonized by settlers from Alpha Centauri. All declared their intention to join the lockstep. They were excited to do so. They'd been hearing stories about us for generations! Together, their population exceeded that of all the worlds we already had. Peter and I panicked."

"Ha," said Peter. "Look at that little smile she's giving there. She's reassuring them that she's joking. But it's true. We freaked."

"This," she continued, "is why the guides were created. They were to test immigrants, both individual people and entire worlds, to see if they would enrich the lockstep, or might tear it apart. In retrospect, this was a good idea. Over the years we've excluded whole populations that would have obliterated our culture, enslaved or killed many of our people, or subjected us all to one of several dead-ending posthuman 'uplifts.'"

"Of course, she's not saying the obvious here," Peter pointed out.

The obvious was that the official state religion, Toby's cult, had also been engineered to stabilize incoming culture around conservative ideas. "Is she going to say it?" Toby asked. Peter shook his head.

"Maybe some day, but it's too touchy right now. Our own fault, of course."

"While centuries passed on the fast worlds, years went by for us," Evayne was saying. "Only years. How could we have imagined that there was such a thing as a 'lockstep civilization?' We'd been administering our little worlds for so short a time! This..." She paused and looked down, letting her shoulders drop, "This is where my brother Peter and I failed."

The amphitheater reverberated with sound—a roar of voices so broad that some might be cheering, some angry, it was impossible to tell. Peter laughed.

He was so casual, so comfortable with this, that Toby had a flash of deja vu. This moment was so similar to many others he'd had with Peter in Consensus, when they'd built virtual worlds together, ruled them, and sometimes lost them to this or that angry mob. Paralyzed by the strength of the memory, he just smiled.

"To us, the lockstep was a tiny economic experiment we were making up as we went along! Our actions couldn't be so consequential that they would ring down the centuries. What we were building couldn't have a life of its own. It was just us back then, and we steered the ship because without us, it would have been rudderless. We failed to understand how time passes in a lockstep, and so we didn't notice when the ship became capable of steering itself.

"You no longer need us!" She raised her arms, appealing to the crowd, and again the sound swelled around her. When it died, she continued: "In the forty years of time that have passed in the lockstep, populations have moved in, but they've also moved out. Emigrants have taken our practices to other worlds and other locksteps, and honed and refined them over countless centuries. Our culture has touched those of other worlds again and again, like a hammer tapping a bell. Every thirty years another note, a reminder of who we are and how we live, resounding through the fast worlds. How could we have guessed that the echoes from the previous note would still be sounding when the next was rung? How could we know that its peal would grow and grow, amplified by time, until today the guides have nothing to do—whole worlds of millions of people petition to join the lock-step, and they know more about how to live in three-sixty than we do!"

Again Peter laughed. "It's true. Kenani and the others were having a bit of problem deciding how to tell us. But for a couple of years now, they haven't had much to do."

"The guides, and our family's monopoly on the cicada beds, were necessary to stabilize our lockstep's culture and identity through its middle years," said Evayne. "But they're not necessary anymore. That is why you are here today. We may have begun the lockstep and we may have lived in it from the beginning, but you have lived with it longer! It's time you took the reins to lead us into the next era of lockstep time: the era of our full maturity as a civilization."

There was more—much more—but Evie was just embellishing and amplifying her themes. Toby and Peter watched, and listened to the changing murmur and roar of the crowd, and eventually, to thunderous applause, Evie finished, and stalked majestically from the stage.

"She's gonna want a drink after that," said Peter.

Toby hardly knew what to say. "She... she really came around."

Peter shrugged. "She's had six years to accept the idea—and to preach the new way on the fast worlds." He tilted his head and tapped his nose mischievously. "Lockstep time, Toby. Get used to it."

He shook his head. "I'm... not sure I can."

Peter looked serious now. "I've been wondering about that. Actually, we all have. You scared Evie, dragging her so close to real-time on Thisbe. Didn't seem to scare you, though. And my people tell me you've developed a fascination with the fast worlds."

"Why wouldn't I? There's just so much out there!" Toby barked a laugh. "I mean, fourteen thousand years! Come on! I keep hearing about these amazing places, these incredible stories and histories. I want to see them all."

"Why don't you then? Surely it's not us that's keeping you here?" Peter had his arms again and now looked down his nose at Toby, becoming in that instant the elder friend rather than the little brother who'd shared Evie's speech.

Toby turned away. "I would," he admitted. "But you said it yourself. Lockstep time is tricky. If I step out of it for just a second..."

"Everyone leaves you behind?" Peter shrugged. "You're right—you can't step in or out of lockstep time without damage. Still, if you want to see the Universe... you can return. Just be willing to pay the price.

"Hell, maybe you should go. You could come back when you're older than me again, and kick my ass!" He laughed richly, and turned to go.

"I've got work," he said as he crossed the marble floor; but then he seemed to remember something and looking back, said, "Oh, by the way. Package for you. It's in my study."

With that he disappeared into a cloud of bots and human advisers who had converged on him from various directions. In a cloud of conversation, he left the airy chamber.

Toby stared after him, mind blank; then he shook his head and put his glasses on. He needed the online maps to find his way around here.

Peter's study was two levels down and half a kilometer away, through a maze of corridors and chambers. There were guards and attendants everywhere, but they all smiled and waved Toby through. More than a few of them must have guessed who he was, but apparently Peter didn't employ fanatics. (Or maybe they just stopped being fanatics after knowing a real-life McGonigal for a while.)

He was distractedly focused on the map when he came around the last corner, and he'd passed so many people that at first he took no notice of two more. They were leaning on the gold wall next to the door to Peter's study, and it was finally their casual (and utterly out of place) stances that made Toby look up.

"Shy! Jay!"

Jaysir laughed. "You'd have walked right by us. What're yer watchin, Toby?"

"Just lost. But I guess this is the right place." He didn't know whether to shake hands or what, but Shylif stepped into his hesitation and hugged him. Jay, as usual, just stood back grinning.

"When did you get in?"

"We hitched a ride with the Thisbe delegation," said Jay. "—No, no, we didn't stow away! They gave us a cabin. Even a bed for Shadoweye."

Toby nodded, but impatiently went on to, "Did you find her? Is she here?"

Jaysir and Shylif exchanged a glance. "We didn't exactly... find her," said Jay. "It's complicated. Why don't you take a look?" He nodded at Peter's study. Uncertain, Toby frowned at them and opened the door.

Like the room where he'd watched Evie's speech, the study was round, but much homier. It was lined in imported wood and paneled with bookcases. The carpet was deep green, featuring a compass rose in gold; north pointed to a single vast desk with an incongruous, twentieth-century banker's lamp and blotter on it. Toby hadn't been here before, so it took him a moment to absorb the details—red leather armchairs, liquor cabinet—and then actually see what couldn't be a normal fixture of the place.

A small cicada bed, the kind used for babies or pets, stood next to a large Martian globe. A small shape was curled up inside it.

Toby took a hesitant step, then another, then one of those Martian bounds that could cover three meters; he flung open the bed's canopy and gathered Orpheus into his arms. Jay and Shy had followed him into the room, but Toby had all but forgotten them now.

"You—you're..." The denner was asleep, or unconscious, and his fur felt very, very cold. Toby fell into one of the armchairs, wrapping himself around his friend and trying to will his own body heat into him.

Thrum, thrum... there was the familiar vibration, coming from deep inside his own body. He hadn't felt it in a long time; he'd been using McGonigal beds to winter over since leaving Thisbe. He felt the strength of that signal building, though, like a call to Orpheus. I am here, I am here, it said.

Faintly, he felt an answering tremor through his fingers.

"He wouldn't wake up," someone said.

Toby closed his eyes. That hadn't been Shylif, or Jay.

"We tried, but he wouldn't answer our call. Even after we healed his wounds, he dove deep, to places we couldn't follow. Into an ocean of sleep..."

Through tears, he looked up at Corva. She stood in a small doorway opposite the one he'd come in. Wrecks sat at her feet, his tail curled around his paws. "You disappeared," she went on. "I didn't know if your sister had killed you, or if you were on your way to Destrier like Halen said..."

Toby stood, shooting an accusing glance at Jaysir. "You said you didn't find her!"

The maker shrugged. "We didn't. She found us." Both he and Shylif were grinning shamelessly.

Toby went to her. He couldn't let go of Orpheus, whose purr was strengthening, but he lowered his face to Corva's. They stayed close in that way for long moments, then kissed. "What happened?"

Her mouth formed a rueful line. "I was traded. Me, in return for Thisbe being allowed to send a delegation to this conference thing." She wrapped her arms around him and put her head on his chest. He felt Wrecks doing a curling walk around his ankles.

"That's just so Peter," mused Toby; but he wasn't going to complain this time.

They stood that way for so long that Shylif eventually coughed discreetly, and Jaysir said, "We're... gonna be outside. If, you know, you need us."

Toby was intently examining Corva's face; was she older? She seemed to guess what he was doing, because she said, "I've been back on lockstep time since you reset Thisbe's frequency. What time you and I have lost... well, we've lost the same amount, unless you've been down to real-time again...?" He shook his head.

Orpheus purred in the warm space between her and Toby. She said, "What now? Are you the head the family? Are you really going to Destrier to wake your mother, like all the myths and stories say?"

He laughed. "She's wide awake and eating cupcakes about three rooms over." Corva blinked at him surprise. "Long story. But no, I'm not the head of the family. Never wanted to be. And I don't want to the Emperor of Time, either."

Corva gently disengaged herself. "But you are that," she said.

He gave a short laugh. "Huh?" Corva Keishion was the last person he would have expected to say such a thing.

She smiled at his discomfort. "No, really. You were supposed to make time come to an end, right? Well, you did—the old kind of time where the past pushes us into the future and farther and farther away from perfection. But remember, there's another kind of time, where the past doesn't push; one where the future invites us onward. Where it's not destiny that drives us, but hope. Hope and surprise."

She stepped forward again. "You," she said teasingly, "were a surprise."

He drew her over to one of the armchairs and they sat together; it was a tight fit. "If you say so," he said. "I hope you're not too serious about it. Poor Evie's running around to all the fast worlds trying to squash the family myths. I wouldn't want to add one more for her to chase down."

It was on the fast worlds where the McGonigal stories had grown; it was ironic that it was in the lockstep that they would probably take the longest to die. They'd probably hang around for generations, long after the McGonigals were gone.

She saw his expression and said, "I really was just joking. Sorta. I don't know."

He nodded and sighed. "The only way I can live here is in disguise. Same with Mom. Neither of us is going to be able to have a normal life anywhere near Peter and Evayne. We can sneak around right now because of all the conference chaos, but that'll end. Then the cultists will start watching again."

"We can go away," she suggested.

"We?" He looked at her closely. "Do you really mean that?"

She shrugged awkwardly, not meeting his eyes.

"But what about your family? You worked so hard to return to them—"

"—And I didn't," she said, looking down. "I never did. I knew it the instant I saw their faces that first day. When we got to my house. It was too late. I mean, they're still my family and I love them all, and I love the Halen I grew up with... but the change between us, it's, well, permanent. It doesn't matter now if I go away for a while. Different is different.

"And that's made me wonder now, is there anywhere I can be at home now? Anywhere that time's not come unslipped. Toby, I thought about it for a long time and I realized... I'd never find that kind of time in a place. The only way to live in time instead of moving through it is to be experience things with somebody else. To share the moments."

Toby nodded. She'd named the restlessness he'd been feeling for months now; that disconnect from his family, however much he loved them; the sense of skimming over the surface of the worlds he visited, however much he explored them.

Squeezing Orpheus a little tighter to him, he said, "I know you were joking about the Lord of Time stuff—sorta kinda. That's the thing, though; somehow, the whole weight of it's rubbed off on me, just a little. Everywhere I go, just when I start to relax I'll come across one of those statues, or a damned fresco of me, or somebody'll say my name like it's a prayer. I'm having a little trouble being me, around here. I've been trying to escape it, but it's like a steady pressure in my skull....

"The only way for me to come back to myself is going to be if I leave, at least for a while, for places where nobody's ever heard of me. And there are such places. There's other stars, and things beyond. I'd like to see them...

"But I don't want to do it alone. "

Corva, would you come with me to see the fast worlds, the Laser Wastes, the ancient suns and all those new Earths that they made while I wintered over?

"I promise we'll only be gone for a night."

"A night, or forever," she said, and kissed him. "Yes, I'll come."

Orpheus opened one eye to observe this, then shifted into a more comfortable position and went back to sleep.

A Fierce, Calming Presence

Jordan Jeffers | 8693 words

Illustrated by Joel Iskowitz

The Federal Ecologist stepped through the skimmer hatch, rubbing his eyes in the brightness. The Sun was much smaller in the sky here, naturally. Eight months ago, he likely would have thought the place dreary, but those eight months had been spent frozen in the blackness of arc-sleep, crossing the four AUs of space that lay between Earth and Ceres. His eyes still felt like they were covered with a thick veneer of glass, and everything seemed too bright.

Still, it was good to step out into the morning light, as if from a normal night. A small delegation waited for him on the tarmac below. He recognized Mayor Herd and all three of Larus's major mining bosses. They were showing him a lot of respect. He was glad he was wearing his dress uniform, the green "E" of the ecology corps emblazoned across the starry blue field of the Federation.

"Ecologist Hacker," Mayor Herd greeted him, touching fist to heart. She was a short, thick woman, with the pale skin and red hair common to most Cerens. "Welcome to Larus. It is a pleasure to have a representative from the Federation here."

He touched his own heart in return. "Thank you, Mayor Herd. Please feel free to call me Hugh."

Herd inclined her head, but did not offer her own name in return. Respectful, then, but not friendly. It was more than he'd expected.

"May I introduce Boss Crowder, Boss Simon, and Boss Groper," she continued, indicating the men with her. Simon bared his teeth in a fake smile; Groper didn't even bother with that. Crowder's face was blank, his green eyes searching Hugh's face, as if studying it for imperfections. Hugh suppressed a shudder. The pale skin and red hair were strange enough, but green eyes...

"We are enormously indebted to the magnanimity of the Federation," Boss Simon said. "I am certain your ecological expertise will not fail to succeed in the development of a not unsatisfactory solution to our ornithological quandary."

It took Hugh a moment to work that one out. "I'll do my best," he finally offered.

"You're open to aggressive measures, I hope," Groper put in. He was a thick, fit man, and carried a holster at his side. Empty, of course. Couldn't bring a weapon to a formal greeting. Though his choice to wear the holster empty said plenty.

"The Federation is open to all measures," Hugh replied, his voice diplomatic. "Rare earth mining is an economic activity of planet-wide importance, and we will preserve it, along with the safety of your citizens, of course. But I will attempt a more... collaborative solution first."

"Can't collaborate with dumb animals," Groper growled. Simon and Mayor Herd exchanged uncomfortable glances. "These attacks are slowing us to a crawl."

"The Federation is thankful for your sacrifice," Hugh replied. "In fact, as a token of our appreciation, we have agreed to suspend all mining tariffs in Larus while I am conducting my investigation."

That got them all to smile. A full suspension would mean nearly double the profit per day for the bosses, even with the reduced production. And since the local government took its taxes from the profits, the mayor's office would be getting a windfall as well. The psychologists had hoped the gift would make the bosses more cooperative, but Hugh figured it would probably make them just cooperative enough to keep him there as long as possible.

"The Federation is generous as always," Mayor Herd said, genuine warmth in her voice. "I'm sure you're tired from your journey. If you'll follow me..."

The five of them moved toward the skimmer port, following Mayor Herd in an awkward, shuff ling group. Technically, Hugh should have been next in line after the mayor, with the bosses following behind at a respectful distance. But he said nothing, letting the three men flank him. Simon, Groper, and the mayor talked amicably with each other as they walked, apparently discussing plans for dinner. Crowder said nothing, his face still blank, staring straight ahead.

A ground transport waited for them outside the port, standing maybe two meters tall, twin steel treads slung wide on either side of the cab. A group of about fifty locals stood nearby, kept at a distance by a dozen or so enforcement officers in dark blue. When the locals saw Hugh, they started to hiss, shaking a variety of homemade signs asking him politely to return to his place of origin as soon as possible. The nicest one read "F'the Federation."

That was more like it.

Mayor Herd accompanied Hugh to Larus alone. The transport seats were stiff, but comfortable enough, and Hugh had to fight to stay awake. It often took a full week to recover from arc-sleep; sudden drowsiness was common. He should have taken a stimulant.

Small knots of protesters were strung out along the dirt track they followed into town. The men were dressed in tan and white working clothes, with brightly colored bands of cloth wrapped around their biceps, mostly red and blue with the occasional bright green sprinkled in. The women wore dark skirts, cut high in the front, above the knee, but falling to the ankles in the back. Hugh would have thought many of them quite pretty if they weren't whistling at him in a way that was just short of angry shrieking.

He expected the mayor to apologize'or at least pretend to'but she said nothing, her hands folded in her lap. Hugh studied her for ten minutes, out of the corner of his eye.

"What do the colored arm bands mean?" he asked, too loud.

Mayor Herd's hands twitched, and two fingers tapped her leg five or six times before she could quiet them. "Mining allegiances," she said, her voice clipped. "Red for Groper, blue for Simon, green for Crowder."

Hugh nodded, suspicions confirmed. The mayor was a pomum addict. She was wealthy enough to afford the whitening treatments to keep the orange out of her eyes, but no amount of money could hide the small, spastic reactions'the shaking hands and jerking eyes. Still, he'd have missed the signs if he hadn't been trained to watch for them. Pomum was foreign to Earth, a strange hallucinogen that lowered inhibitions in odd ways. The psychologists had told Hugh enough about it to help recognize the signs of addiction. And to convince him to stay as far away from addicts as possible.

His accommodation was in a small, three-story Federal homestead'the kind of plain, efficient housing that Hugh had seen on every planet in the Solar System. Every planet he'd been to, anyway. There were no protesters, and several buildings nearby flew Federal flags, as was proper when a Federation scientist was present. The town wasn't completely against him.

He thanked the mayor and assured her he would call if he needed additional transportation. She nodded and climbed back into the transport cab'too quickly, stumbling a bit on the cab steps.

Not good.

Hugh let himself be led away by the porter, a solid, brown-eyed woman with a kind smile. The room she showed him was small and white, with an equally small, white bed. The mattress was hard, the pillows harder, and the blankets rough and thin.

Hugh fell asleep within minutes.

He awoke in darkness, his tablet telling him he'd been asleep ten hours. He wanted to fall back asleep again, but made himself wash and go downstairs.

The same smiling porter was on duty. She poured him a cup of a hot, sweet beverage she called cider. He drank it gratefully.

"Is there a how here?" he asked.

"How what now?" the porter replied, looking confused.

"A house of worship. We call them hows where I'm from. I'm not sure what the word is here. Sacristy? Church?"

"Oh, you mean an aedis. " She looked pleased that he had asked. "Local or Federal?"

"Federal, please."

She gave him directions. He walked through the gathering gloom, the soft glow of the streetlights popping on around him, one by one. The city was all red and gray, red from the iron clay of the surrounding hills, gray from the last of the Sun's rays filtering softly through the methane and water vapor clouds that constantly chased each other across the sky. He had changed out of his uniform, but he still drew a lot of looks, the men fingering the self-defense shock sticks that hung on their belts. A few of them had the same jerky movements as the mayor, though these showed the bright orange sclera common to pomum addicts. Hugh was particularly cautious around them. One of the effects of po-mum was an overestimated sense of power, a penchant for believing that one was a sort of god, capable of anything. Like killing a Federal Ecologist in full view of the town.

Luckily, he didn't have to endure their looks for long. The how was a small building, decorated in a traditional style, and deserted save for the overseer—a portly, blunt-nosed man who embraced Hugh and offered him some mint. Hugh accepted gladly. It was a relief to see dark skin again.

Hugh sat along the east wall and settled in to pray, singing softly to himself. His tablet began suggesting a number of new Federal standards, but Hugh liked to sing from memory, the old hymns Dad had taught him. They comforted him, made this strange place feel almost like home. He felt himself shrink down into insignificance, and all his problems shrank down with him—the insulting signs, the foul looks, the upcoming investigation—everything that had seemed so important and worrisome became nothing more than a pinprick of light in the vastness, muttering and flickering at him, but leaving most of his mind calm, at peace. All thought of tomorrow slipped away, and Hugh lost himself in the rising echoes of the song.

After a time, he heard the muted steps of someone else entering the sanctuary. Hugh turned and looked up into the eerie green eyes of Boss Crowder. He was not surprised to see him. Crowder gestured toward one of the private speaking booths. Hugh nodded and turned back to the wall, continuing to sing. Smart. Speaking booths were one of the few places in the Federation that were impervious to all sound and spy equipment. Only God could hear them inside one of those.

When the last chorus faded away, Hugh stood up, made his bows, and found Crowder waiting for him in the booth, his hands clutching a small, silicon card.

"Boss Crowder," Hugh said, shutting the door behind him. "It's nice to see someone of your position paying his respects here."

"I wanted to talk to you," Crowder said.

"You didn't seem interested in speaking this morning," Hugh said, crossing his legs.

"I didn't want—" Crowder stopped, suppressing a frown. He didn't want to speak in front of the others. He also didn't want to say that to Hugh. "It was a mistake for you to come here," Crowder continued.

Hugh blinked. "You know that I came here at your mayor's request, to resolve an ecological crisis of interest to the Federation—"

"I know that's what she told you."

Hugh quoted his briefing from memory.

"Groups of Hydrocoloeus majorus, locally know as the peak gull, have recently begun to attack the residents of Larus without explanation, causing injuries, deaths, and significant delays in mining operations. Their federally protected status as a subhuman species of high intelligence prohibits elimination or relocation by direct means. Requesting assistance from a federally trained and licensed ecologist. Please advise."

"I know all that—" Crowder broke in.

"Are you saying that this message is a lie, that these attacks are not occurring?"

"No, the attacks are happening—"

"Then their impact is exaggerated."

"No, actually, it's worse than—"

"Then you think my presence unnecessary, that the situation could have been resolved without Federal interference."

"Damn it, man!" Crowder finally barked out, his blank expression breaking. "I'm trying to help you."

Hugh said nothing. So there it was. The psychologists had been right. Hugh squashed a small worm of fear and waited for more.

Crowder looked sick, like he had said too much. "I just mean..." he trailed off again, sweat beading on his forehead. Hugh felt a surge of sympathy. Crowder obviously suspected some plot against Hugh, but he just as obviously had no proof. If he made a direct accusation, Hugh would have to report it to Federation central. But an accusation of treason without evidence was, itself, punishable by death. Crowder was trying to walk a knife edge, warning Hugh of danger without saying what the danger was.

Hugh chose his next words carefully. "Boss Crowder, when I traveled into town, I saw many people wearing red and blue arm bands, but very few wearing green. Do you think this is a coincidence?"

Relief flooded across Crowder's face. "No, not a coincidence at all," he replied.

"And when we walked together this morning, the mayor and Bosses Simon and Groper were making plans for dinner, but you were not included in those plans."

Crowder nodded, encouraging Hugh to go on.

"And it's probably reasonable to assume that they make other plans you are not a part of."

"In fact," Crowder said. "I often dislike their plans and try to ruin them whenever possible."

"I understand," Hugh said. He tried to keep his voice calm, noncommittal. Crowder was taking a great risk to talk to him, but Hugh still didn't know how far he could be trusted.

"This may surprise you, but I am not unaware of the general sentiment in Larus toward the Federation, especially among certain key people."

"You knew they..." Again Crowder stopped. "You knew they were making... dinner plans? Then why did you come?"

"I knew of the sentiment, and sentiment is not a crime," Hugh said. "A Federation planet asked for our assistance, and it's my duty to provide that assistance. As for their plans... we shall see. I am no diplomat. And no solider," he added.

"Then you're still conducting the investigation?" Crowder asked, surprised. "Touring the mines?"

Hugh nodded. "That's where the gulls' habitat is. The mines are the most logical place to start."

"Then stay within my claim," Crowder said. "You'll be protected there, and when you're in town I can lend you a security detachment."

"No," Hugh refused. "I can't be burdened by a security detachment, especially such a clearly partisan one. However," he raised a hand to silence Crowder's objection. "Your willingness to help is appreciated. I will start the investigation in your mines. And if a few of your friends would like to follow me around at a discrete distance while in Larus, just to insure I wasn't unduly harassed..." Hugh shrugged.

"One thing more," Crowder said. He held out the small silicon card. "A token of my appreciation, for coming here to help us."

Hugh took the card and examined it in the muted light. He noticed a small "L" engraved on one side and nearly choked. "Is this really—?"

"Library," Crowder nodded, clearly pleased to see Hugh so surprised.

"I've never seen one this big," Hugh said, marveling. "It must be over a billion volumes."

"A hundred thousand billion," Crowder said. "There's plenty of information on the gulls, I'm sure." His face grew troubled. "Dinner plans aside, I do hope you can solve that problem. We've always had to be careful around the gulls, especially when they're nesting. But now—I saw what they did to one of the boys who was attacked...." He shuddered and shook his head.

"I'll do what I can," Hugh said.

"Good," Crowder said. He stood up, touching hand to heart. "I must go. I've been here too long already. I'm sure Simon set men to watch you, if no one else. Well, they'll have company. Look for my car in the morning."

Hugh watched Crowder's bony shoulders disappear out the how exit. He felt the smooth edges of the library. It was an incredible gift; a hundred thousand billion volumes was likely the bulk of the intellectual output of Ceres's inhabited history. No doubt there was a tracking device inside it, too. A loyal Federalist, Boss Crowder, but Hugh suspected he had his own plans.

Hugh sighed. The peace he had felt in prayer was gone. He waited in silence for another hour, but it did not come back.

Early the next morning, Hugh found himself sitting in Crowder's chrome green transport, headed for the mines. He busied himself with the library, shuff ling through information about the gulls on his tablet and sipping a canteen of hot cider the porter had given him. She really was a kind woman, with sensibly brown eyes. If the circumstances had been different...

He shook his head. No sense thinking of that.

The library was helpful; though there was little he hadn't already seen in the Federal logs. The gulls were an unusual species, even by Solar System standards. They were extremely intelligent, scoring slightly above most Earth primates, with a complicated social order that was not well understood. The various reports were confusing and often contradictory, and Hugh muddled through with difficulty, learning what he could.

He was startled when Crowder tapped him on the shoulder. They had arrived. Hugh stepped out of the cab, looked up, and momentarily forgot how to breathe.

Above him rose a single, towering cliff, unbroken by major ravines or gullies, rising up and up and up into the sky, its top hidden somewhere in the clouds, its ends stretching over the horizons, as if some race of giants had built a castle wall out of the earth itself. The face of the cliff was pockmarked everywhere with tunnel entrances and strung with metal and rope walkways, upon which hundreds of miners in tan and white went scurrying about at breakneck speed. Hugh saw one miner leap an eight foot gap between two different walkways, flying over a sheer fall of at least thirty meters, and land neatly at a run on the far side, the walkway swinging wildly from side to side, yet not seeming to slow him a step. And everywhere too, there were gulls, tall and thick-bodied, flying and running along the walkways themselves, all of them moving nearly as fast as the miners and looking much the same, in thick layers of tan and white feathers.

Hugh realized that Crowder had said something to him, and reluctantly tore his gaze away. "I'm sorry," Hugh said. "You'll have to repeat that. I like to take time to be amazed by amazing things."

Crowder chuckled. "I'm told the cliffs are a legacy from the Federation's world-building days. Marvelous things the old scientists did, then. Where would you like to start?"

"Is there a nest nearby?" Hugh asked.

Crowder nodded. "Up near the cliff summit. Follow me."

They stepped into the mines, Crowder exchanging greetings with his workers as they went. Hugh got a few dirty looks, but most of the miners seemed to share Crowder's loyalty to the Federation, and many inclined their heads respectfully. Crowder led him to a small, mag-lift elevator, and the two began to rise at a rapid pace, Hugh's ears popping from the changing pressure.

Then the two men stepped out into a smaller, rougher corridor, lit dimly by phosphorescent globes strung along the ceiling. A few security officers waited at a checkpoint nearby.

"This level is reserved exclusively as nesting area for the gulls," Crowder explained, as the guards checked his identification. "As specified by Federal rules. Miners are only allowed in here as part of their initial orientation, and not at all during nesting season."

"You expect an attack?" Hugh asked, flipping his tablet into recording mode. The guards had handed Crowder a riot-grade shock stick before waving them through.

"A year ago I would have said no," Crowder replied. "But Groper and Simon have lost a dozen men each, and there's been another dozen or so in town. There've been no attacks here..." He clicked the safety off the shock stick, which started a low hum. "But it's best to be prepared."

The two men walked abreast down the tunnel, silent, traveling steadily upward. Then Hugh saw a doorway up ahead, and the two stepped through it. For the second time that hour, Hugh forgot to breathe.

The nesting ground opened up below them like an underground coliseum, deep and broad. Row upon row of wide clay "steps" marched down toward the bottom of the bowl, which Hugh guessed was probably a hundred meters below them. Sunlight filtered through openings in the rock, falling softly on the shuffling beaks and feathers of thousands upon thousands of gulls, all in a rush of activity, eating and fighting and running from place to place.

The two men were noticed immediately. Four large gulls bobbed up to them, black eyes inquisitive. Hugh remained still, letting the tablet record visuals. They certainly seemed intelligent; after a short investigation, three of the gulls went back to the tunnel entrance while the fourth walked behind them, keeping guard.

Hugh took the lead now, pacing the perimeter of the bowl, tapping on his tablet. Crowder gripped the shock stick with white knuckles, his face blank and pale.

"You needn't be worried," Hugh reassured him. "We're not in any danger."

"How can you be sure?" Crowder asked.

"I'm an ecologist," Hugh said, smiling. "Spotting aggression in an animal is something we have to do pretty well to survive. Besides, the first thing you learn about field work is FCP."

"FCP?" Crowder asked.

"Fierce, calming presence," Hugh replied. "It's a certain way of behaving around animals, a technique that makes it unlikely for them to see you as a threat. Or as dinner."

"How do you do it?"

"It's difficult to teach in one day," Hugh said. "Or in one decade. The method includes everything from the way you trim your fingernails to the way you stand to the way you think about the animals around you. My instructors always said learning FCP was a lot like learning how to handle a rambunctious niece. Authority without pride. Love without subjection."

"What's a niece?" Crowder asked.

"Culturally specific term," Hugh said. "A young girl of moderate relation."

Talking seemed to help Crowder relax, so Hugh kept up a fairly constant stream of chatter, losing himself in the work. The cavern was strangely silent, save for the rustle of wings and the scratching of gull steps. Hugh flipped through the sonic frequencies on his tablet.

"Look at this," Hugh said, showing Crowder the readout. "You've noticed the gulls don't call?"

"They do sometimes," Crowder said. He pretended to be interested in the readout, but Hugh could tell he didn't understand any of it. "Especially when they're attacking something."

"That's all we can hear, yes," Hugh said. "But see this spike, the red one? That's infra-sound, below the level of human hearing. Earth elephants communicate the same way. Infrasound travels well over long distances and through rock and soil, which is beneficial for a species with a large, subterranean habitat like this." Hugh set the tablet to record and analyze the spikes more thoroughly, isolating individual calls.

"How do—" Crowder's question was cut off by a sudden flurry of movement on the steps directly below them. Three large gulls stalked toward them, hissing, their beaks open and wings spread. Hugh faced them and straightened, preparing a few defense sequences to scare them off, when he noticed that five small, furry creatures had emerged from the ground a few feet down slope. The furry creatures were colored a dusky red and blended in almost perfectly with the clay, their bulbous bodies splayed out on seven oddly jointed limbs.

"Ground spiders," Crowder said. "Hunting. They'll be after the chicks."

What happened next was not so much a hunt as an assault. Hugh saw movement all over the cavern, the ground erupting in tiny fountains of clay as more spiders emerged. Dozens at first, and then hundreds, skittering across the ground in packs of three and five and ten, trying to slip past the gulls' darting beaks and slashing feet. The infrasound sensors went ballistic, alarm calls awakening the whole nest in seconds, though there were plenty of audible screeches from the gulls too. Within minutes, more gulls began pouring through the openings in the ceiling, coming to the nest's aid, and Hugh realized the infrasonic calls had traveled through the rock to alert those outside of the attack. Soon there were so many gulls coming in that the sunlight was blocked, shrouding the nest in near total darkness, nothing but the hissing and scratching and dull wet thumping of bodies to fill their senses. There was nothing they could do but wait, silent and motionless, hoping a stray, razor-sharp claw wouldn't accidentally open up a major artery.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, the assault was over. The spiders vanished back down their holes, and light trickled back into the nest. The ground was littered with clay-red corpses. A few of the larger gulls were also wounded and bleeding, but Hugh saw no wounded chicks. Apparently, once the spiders got a hold of one, they didn't let go.

"Fascinating," Hugh said. "Have you ever..." He turned to look at Crowder, whose face was almost as green as his armband. "Ah, maybe that's enough for one day."

Crowder nodded in relief, and the two men walked out, leaving the cry of the gulls behind.

The rush of his work had driven all thoughts of intrigue and danger out of Hugh's mind. He spent the long elevator ride to the bottom punching furiously on his tablet, intent on all the data he had collected.

Then they reached the bottom, stepped out into the pale sunlight, and found intrigue waiting for them.

"Mayor Herd, Boss Simon, Boss Groper," Hugh said, greeting the three in turn. He tried to keep the dismay out of his voice. "Wonderful to see you here. And your assistants, of course," Hugh said, indicating the thirty or so guards with them. Ten each stood behind Groper and Simon, in red and blue, with another ten behind the mayor, all women wearing white armbands, which Hugh assumed meant they were her personal outfit. Dozens of Crowder's men stood about as well, faces as blank as Crowder's, and everybody was caressing their weapons in a way that sent a cold ball of fear into Hugh's gut. Was there anyone in this town besides Hugh who wasn't constantly armed?

We received word that Boss Crowder was showing you around," Mayor Herd said. Meaning, they had been following him. "And we were hoping for an update."

"Everything was surprisingly calm, considering the reports. Crowder tells me there have been no attacks here."

"That is surprising," Simon said, his fake smile beaming out of his fat chin. "And perhaps a smidge outdated. Why, Officer Hunt was just telling me his cousin was attacked here last night. Isn't that right Officer Hunt?"

"Yes, sir," replied a tall, broad-shouldered guard.

"Strange that I haven't heard of it," Crowder said softly.

"Covering it up more like," Boss Groper barked. Hugh blinked. He wasn't shy, Boss Groper.

"I'm sure you don't mean that, Boss Groper," Mayor Herd said.

"You there, Officer Hunt," Crowder said. "Your cousin is Jana Hunt, works the compressors up on Station Twelve?"

The man blinked, clearly startled that Crowder knew his staff that well. "Uh... yes, sir. That's her."

"I'd like to hear about this attack myself," Crowder said. "And I'm sure it will be helpful for Ecologist Hacker's investigation. Officer Grant, will you see to it? Hustle up now."

A woman who must have been Officer Grant saluted and set off at a run. Boss Simon's smile had turned sour. He hadn't been counting on an actual interview.

But Hugh never got to hear Jana Hunt's story, for not thirty seconds after Grant left, there came an unmistakable sound from the east, drifting on the cold wind.

It was the sound of a woman screaming.

And above that, harsh and high, floated the cries of the gulls.

Hugh was the first one to break, setting off at a dead sprint, arms pumping. In less than a minute, he had crested a small ridge, and looked down on the attack.

The gulls had cornered the woman against the cliff face, surrounding her in a small arc of five birds. Despite his run, a handful of miners had beaten Hugh to the scene, but they were locked in battle with a second group of five gulls, shock sticks buzzing. The miners were getting the worst of it; one was already down, bleeding from a vicious slash across his chest, and the others seemed barely able to defend themselves, much less reach the woman.

Hugh took in all of this in a moment. Then he was walking calmly into the chaos, his FCP training taking over. Authority without pride. Love without subjection. The gulls towered above him, far bigger than the ones he had seen in the nesting grounds, nearly three meters tall he guessed, with enormous, muscled chests and thick necks. All males. Two hissed at him as he approached the outer ring, their front talons slashing. Hugh didn't slow. He simply walked forward, in command, and the rending attacks turned suddenly defensive, the gulls backing away as if from some great menace. There was something... off about them, something out of place in the way they moved and called. But Hugh had no time to think about what it was. The woman's screams pushed him forward.

She had taken shelter in a shallow crevice in the rock. That was likely the only reason she was still alive; the entrance was too narrow for the huge bulk of the gulls, and so they scrabbled at the stone with beak and claw, trying to drag her out. There was a lot of blood. Hugh clapped his hands and whooped, trying to draw the gulls' attention. One turned to look at him, but the others stayed intent on their prey.

So Hugh charged.

It was a desperation FCP tactic, something Hugh had never done before—something his instructors had never done before, teaching him only the theory. He slammed his shoulder into the nearest gull, moving at full speed, and he felt the joint dislocate, a shock of pain that nearly caused him to black out. The force of his blow knocked the gull into two of the others, and the group broke apart like a bomb had been thrown into their midst, scattering as Hugh turned to face them.

Except one, who stayed behind, still intent on the kill. Hugh, desperate now, one arm hanging limp at his side, reached up with his off hand and did something he didn't think any ecologist had ever done.

He slapped the gull square in the face.

The creature turned to him, eyes crazed, beak red with blood, and Hugh had a moment to realize that the slap was a mistake, that his trusty FCP had failed, that he was dead, that this creature was going to rip out his heart in seconds and send him home in a flag draped coffin—when there was a sharp crack, and the gull's head exploded in a shower of bone, and Hugh turned behind him to see Boss Crowder, staring down the barrel of a smoking buzz gun.

Crowder hurried up to him, a number of security guards at his side. "Are you alright, Hugh?" Crowder asked. "That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen."

"Thanks," Hugh said, gesturing towards the woman. She was still in the crevice, slumped down and likely unconscious; Hugh suspected that she would have fallen if not for the narrow width. "Help me with her."

"We'll get her," Crowder said, pulling Hugh away gently. "Come on, sit down. Are you hurt?"

"My shoulder," Hugh mumbled. "There's something wrong with these gulls."

"Sir!" said one of the guards. "You'd better have a look at this."

The guards had managed to pull the woman free. She was alive, her breathing shallow, her clothing rent and torn. Crowder bent down, wiping the brown hair out of her face. Hugh noticed she had the orange sclera of heavy po-mum use. Then he saw the expression on Crowder's face.

"What is it?" Hugh asked.

It was the guard who replied.

"This is Jana Hunt."

Hugh bent low to examine another gull corpse, his arm aching in a sling. Crowder and his men had gotten four of them in the fighting, all with buzz guns. The rest had fled. The shock sticks had been useless. Something was definitely off about the creatures.

"Told you, didn't I?" Boss Groper said. He, Simon, and the mayor were all still there, though the mayor had withdrawn a little, mumbling something about the blood. Crowder had gone with Hunt, rushing her back to Larus for treatment. They had covered her face immediately, both coming to the same unspoken conclusion.

Boss Simon had known. Somehow he had expected the attack, even known it was going to be Hunt that was attacked. Yet Simon had spoken of it as if it had already happened. Which was either an insane coincidence... or Simon had planned the whole thing, targeted Hunt specifically, and somehow forced the birds to attack her. The timeline of the whole thing still baffled Hugh, as did the behavior of the gulls. There was too much he didn't know. If Boss Simon was behind the attacks, why attack mine workers, especially his own workers, slowing down production and reducing his own profits?

"Bound to happen here at some point," Groper continued. "Bunch of dumb, vicious animals that'll kill a young girl without blinking twice."

"They're not alone in that, I think," Hugh said. It slipped out before he could stop himself.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Groper growled. "You think—"

"We'll leave you to your work now," Simon interrupted, voice far too loud. "Come along, Boss Groper."

Groper swatted Simon's hand away like he was swatting a fly. He strode up to Hugh, and for a moment Hugh thought for certain Groper was going to deck him. He almost welcomed it. An attack on a Federal scientist, in front of dozens of witnesses, many of them Crowder's men, would land Groper in jail for the rest of his life.

Hugh wasn't so lucky. Groper looked him full in face—and then spat on the cold corpse of the gull at their feet.

"Dirty. Stinking. Animals," he said. Then he turned and stalked away.

An idea stirred in Hugh's mind. He realized quickly that it was the dumbest idea he'd ever had, dumber than slapping that gull. But for a second he really did think Groper was about to rip his head off. The man was clearly impatient, volatile, prone to say or do things he shouldn't. Otherwise Simon wouldn't be trying to draw him away. And he clearly hated Hugh.

It was a terrible idea. But Hugh thought of Hunt's screams, and the smirk on Groper's face, and something inside him splintered.

Hugh let the bosses get half a dozen steps before calling after them. "Actually, Groper, dear," he said. "Perhaps you can help me solve a mystery. You're clearly quite stupid. But you seem to have a kind of brute cunning that might be useful to me."

Groper turned back, his mouth thin and tight. "Am I?" he said. "And you're a pathetic, bleeding-heart f—"

"Watch what you say," Hugh snapped.

"I can say whatever I damn well please. You can order me to assist with the investigation, and that's it. I know the law."

"Pick this specimen up," Hugh said, nudging the gull at his feet. "You don't mind getting a little blood on your hands, do you?"

"No damn way," Boss Groper growled. "A man of my station—"

"Your station is below mine," Hugh interrupted. "A fact you seem to have forgotten. I am giving you a direct order as a Federal ecologist on investigation. You will obey."

"I'd be happy to assist you," Boss Simon interposed, stepping in front of Groper. "Boss Groper—"

"Boss Groper clearly needs to learn some respect," Hugh insisted. "I intend to teach him that respect."

There was a long silence. Angry mutters passed through Groper's guards like a soft wind. Hugh kept his gaze fixed on Groper. He had assumed the FCP posture without thinking, standing relaxed, yet coiled, radiating calm and authority. He had stood among hungry lions like this before. These men were far more terrifying.

"Really, Ecologist Hacker, this is highly irregular—" Simon started.

"I'll do it," Groper hissed. Boss Simon's teeth clicked shut with shock. "Ecologist Hacker is quite right. I don't mind getting my hands dirty."

Simon's hands fluttered, looking from Hugh to Groper and back again, his mouth working. But Groper had already removed his outer coat, revealing a set of massive, muscled shoulders. He grabbed hold of the gull and grunted, heaving it up into his arms.

"Good boy. You can drop it now." Groper threw the body down, hard, the gull's neck snapping in a sickening way.

"How much would you say the specimen weighs?"

"How the hell should I know?" Groper asked.

"I thought all you big brutes knew how much you could lift."

"And I thought all you ecologists could tell everything about an animal with a glance of your high ranking eyes."

"Yes, you're right," Hugh said. "I'd say it's about 160 kilos. As are all the gulls who were in the attack. Quite a bit bigger than the other gulls I've seen. And all males too."

"How clever of you to notice," Groper said.

"Pick up that foot," Hugh ordered. Groper did so, not taking his eyes off Hugh. "You see the talons, there. Go on and touch one."

Groper touched a fingertip to the talon point. It came away bleeding.

"Quite sharp, yes? Too sharp, I think. And look here," he said, kneeling down, and running his finger along the talon edge. "There's a strange scoring along the sides, as if they've been scraped by a metal file." Hugh looked directly in Groper's eyes. "What do you think of that?"

Groper looked right back at Hugh, his mouth twisted in a sneer. "I don't think a damn thing about it," he said. He dropped the dead gull's foot to the ground with a muffled thump. "Anything else?"

"Yes," Hugh said. "Reach up the specimen's anus."

Groper's face went white. "What did you say?"

"Reach up the specimen's anus," Hugh repeated, smiling as broadly as he could. "That's an order."

"You little—"

"You can call me whatever you want, Groper," Hugh said, the smile gone from his face. "But unless you're doing it wrist deep, then you are disobeying a direct order, and I'll have the mayor throw you in confinement."

"You're a fool," Groper sneered. "You think you have friends here, Hacker? You think anyone will stand up for you?"

Quick as a flash, Hugh stepped forward, bringing himself face to face with Groper, close enough to smell his stinking breath. The guards behind him started forward, but Groper kept them back with a single, outstretched hand. "And you think she's a special friend to you, do you Groper?" Hugh said, letting the anger through. "You think she's going to stick her neck out to save an ugly, arrogant hobgoblin from the justice that's coming for him?"

"You're a dead man," Groper hissed.

"What did you say?"

The blood drained from Groper's face. He had said too much. But he was still furious, furious at Hugh's mocking, furious that Hugh had gotten him to make a real threat. It was now or never.

Hugh leaned in even closer, jabbing his finger into Groper's chest.

"You know what I think," he whispered. "I think these birds are big and male because someone bred them that way. I think their claws are razor sharp because someone filed them that way. And I think you might know something about that."

Hugh could see the muscles standing out in Groper's neck, his eyes bulging, teeth clenched like a vise. He was vaguely aware of Groper's hand, quivering over the stock of his shock stick, and, for a moment, Hugh thought he was going to do it—going to shock him to the ground, or pound him there.

But then comprehension washed slowly across Groper's face, and the mining boss smiled.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "But if you're right, I'd be careful. Because whoever it is, they might come for you next."

He put his coat back on, made a mocking bow in Hugh's direction, and stalked off. The others followed, walking away with more than a few backward glances. They topped the small ridge to the west, and vanished behind it.

So now everyone knew the game. And Hugh felt that the air had, very suddenly, grown deathly cold.

They came for him that night.

He was awake, sitting on the bed, Crowder's shock stick charged and ready in his hands.

He never got a chance to use it.

There was a crash from his window, a tinkling of glass, and Hugh caught a brief glimpse of a dark ball bouncing across the floor before the world went red.

He crumpled down, the shock stick slipping from his frozen fingers, every nerve in his body aflame with pain.

A bio-electric disrupter. Hugh had used them before, in field work, usually to disable large animals in dens or burrows. Never again. Every part of his body felt numb and frozen, except for his skin, which crawled and burned like it was covered in acid.

Dimly, Hugh heard the door splintering, and the sound of boots. Somehow, he flipped himself over, onto his back. Then a black masked man seized his arm, pressed a jet injector against it, and pulled the trigger. He heard the dull thunk of compressed air.

Then he slipped into darkness.

He awoke trussed up like a calf for slaughter, hands and feet tied. Everything hurt. His injured shoulder felt like it had been dislocated again. He raised his head as best he could, and looked around. He was in a small, dark room, walls bare, floor smeared with what he pretended was not his blood.

He heard a door open behind him, and the sound of several booted feet. Then he felt the bonds on his feet give way, and rough hands hauled him up. Hugh stared into a pair of bright, green eyes.

Boss Crowder.

"You?" Hugh whispered. He felt like he had been punched in the throat. "It was you?"

Crowder shrugged. He even had the decency to look a little embarrassed. "Sorry, Hugh," he said. "It's nothing personal."

He gave orders to the men with him, but Hugh barely heard them. He felt himself half-carried, half-prodded down a featureless hallway. Crowder?

You think you have friends here, he heard Groper say again. Hugh thought he had been referring to the mayor. But Crowder? How could he be the one?

"We needed you to trust one of us," Crowder said, and Hugh realized he had spoken his last thought aloud. "We were hoping you would give the order to wipe out the gulls on your own, without needing to resort to... this. But then Simon's fiasco with Jana Hunt..." He hesitated for a moment. They had come to a steel door, labeled in red with the words NESTING AREA.

"You didn't do yourself any favors," Crowder continued. "Groper wanted to string you up on a hook after your little display of authority, and I couldn't keep him and Simon off you any longer."

Crowder nodded to someone behind Hugh, and he felt another injector gun pressed against his neck.

"This is a shot of pomum, " Crowder said. "Our gulls have been trained to attack people with high amounts in their blood. It's amazing what you can do with positive reinforcement. Especially when you get them young."

Someone put a strap over Hugh's shoulder. It was his field bag. "You're going to make it look like an accident," Hugh said, realization dawning.

Crowder nodded. "Then we can wipe out the rest of the gulls without any objection from Fed central. They really are a nuisance, you know. We can triple production with them out of the way."

"How wonderful for you," Hugh mumbled. He felt an odd sensation growing in his gut—a strange, burning electricity. Crowder cut through the bonds on his wrists with two quick flips of his knife. Hugh could barely keep his feet.

Crowder sprung the latch to the steel door and swung it open on silent hinges. "Goodbye, Hugh," he said, real sadness in his voice. "I can't promise this will be an easy way to die, but it's better than what Groper planned for you. And besides, with the pomum in you, you probably won't notice most of the pain." He nodded to his men, and Hugh was shoved roughly through, falling to his knees on dark red clay. The door slammed shut behind him.

The room was well lit and twenty paces across, with a high, arching ceiling. Hugh saw a dozen or so gulls. Three of them rose immediately to their feet and scurried toward him. He reached for his FCP training. Authority without subjection. Pride without love.

Hugh shook his head. That wasn't it. The electricity in his gut had spread, and Hugh found himself shaking with energy, unable to think clearly. Had he been hurt before, unable to move?

That was gone. He had never felt better. He was strong and powerful. The gulls stalking toward him were pathetic and contemptible creatures, swollen and ugly and stupid. He was a federally trained ecologist, damn it. Such creatures wouldn't dare touch him.

He reached into his bag, looking for some kind of weapon, something to kill these things with. The part of his brain that was still free of the pomum 's inf luence screamed futilely. There was nothing in his bag—just his measuring equipment, his tablet, a little food. He fiddled with his tablet and then drew back, gasping, and felt warm blood running down his injured shoulder.

One of the insolent creatures had pecked him. Hugh turned his back to them, to show them how little he thought of them, and pushed hard at the door. To his surprise, it did not fly open at his touch, resisting his powerful hands. No matter. He set himself a steady rhythm of blows, knowing the steel would break to his superior strength, his mighty fists.

Another bolt of pain stabbed like a dagger into his back, and Hugh fell to his knees, gasping.

For a moment, his mind cleared.

He was going to die.

Unless he found a way to use his FCP training, and quickly.

Hugh stood and turned back to the gulls, pulling his tablet out, assuming as close to the FCP stance as he could.

Then he began to sing.

It was an old hymn, a hymn he sang from memory, a memory from long ago, sitting beside his father in the how. The song reverberated across the high-ceiling of the room and echoed back to him. The echoes comforted him, made him feel like he was at home. And all his fear and pain and anger began to shrink, smaller and smaller, bottled up into one small portion of his brain. He could still feel the po-mum, telling him how strong and mighty he was, but it no longer seemed to matter. The voice was like a tiny cricket, chirping to the stars.

Hugh fell into FCP easily, naturally, like he was putting on an old pair of gloves. He projected strength and power, but a far different power than the insanity of the pomum. Authority without pride. Love without subjection.

The gulls backed away, hissing and closing ranks. They retreated only a few steps, however, and then they stopped, waiting. Waiting for him to slip.

Hugh sang on.

And on and on.

Blood dripped down his back, mixing with the red of the clay. He held the tablet tightly to his chest.

He sang every hymn he knew, and then started to sing them again, fighting the weakness that was slowly spreading through him, from fear and pain and loss of blood.

Then, as if from a great distance, he heard a new sound. The sound of muffled cracking and human shouts, coming from the corridor behind him. And something else, something he couldn't place, as if a great force of wind was blowing outside.

The new sounds grew louder, soon overwhelming the dim echoes of Hugh's song, until it sounded like there was a hurricane waiting behind the steel door.

And then the door burst open, swinging wide. Hugh turned, and looked, and saw a strange woman with a white armband stumble through. And behind her, pouring out of the corridor in a gray and white wave, came dozens and dozens of gulls, gulls beyond counting, crying their high calls.

Hugh passed out.

"Do you mind if I record this conversation?" Hugh asked, sipping hot cider. The nice looking porter had brought them a pair of mugs. Crowder's men had roughed her up a bit, she had a black eye and would need a new incisor, but they certainly hadn't damaged her kindness.

"By all means," Mayor Herd said. The mayor looked old and worn around the edges, likely exhausted from the last few weeks of work.

"It will help greatly with my final report," Hugh said, setting his tablet to record. His shoulder twinged a bit, but it was mostly healed now. "First question, how did you know that the bosses were planning on killing me?"

"I've suspected them of being behind the gull attacks ever since they started. Boss Groper's always been an advocate for killing them off, and Simon is as sneaky as he is fat. And they both hate the Federation passionately."

"And what about Crowder?"

Mayor Herd shifted in her seat and looked down. "Crowder provided certain... items for me that made it difficult for me to suspect him."

Hugh nodded, to show he understood. It wouldn't do to have a ruling mayor admit to a pomum addiction on record.

"So I had you followed, discretely, by some of my women. Officers Vickers and Crown were on duty the night they attacked you, and when Vickers failed to report in..." Mayor Herd shrugged. "I knew."

"Did they—?"

"Vickers is fine," the Mayor reassured him. "Shaken up, I think, and mad at herself for letting them sneak up on her, but not seriously hurt."

"So Officer Crown followed them to the nesting grounds?"

"Correct," Mayor Herd nodded. She raised the mug to her lips, but then set it down without taking a sip, her hands shaking badly. Advanced withdrawal. That was another reason she looked worn out. "Crown radioed us, and I gathered as many of my personal guard as I could for an attack."

"How many was that?"

"About fifty," the Mayor said. "Not nearly enough, not with all three bosses' security details there. We were losing badly. And then the gulls showed up." The Mayor gave him a piercing look. "And that's where you owe me an explanation, I think."

Hugh shrugged. "You're aware, of course, that I toured Crowder's mines the day before the attack? Well, while I was there, the gulls' nesting ground was assaulted by a huge pod of ground spiders." Hugh held up the tablet. "I recorded all of the gulls' alarm calls during that attack, intending to analyze them later. Crowder was foolish enough to give the tablet back to me, not knowing it could reproduce sound, I'm guessing."

"So you sent out an alarm call?" the Mayor asked, the admiration clear in her voice.

"It was the only thing I could think of," Hugh said.

"But we didn't hear anything. The gulls almost never make calls, except when they're attacking."

"It's infrasound," Hugh explained. "Pitched too low for humans to hear, but it travels long distances easily. I just needed one gull within about fifteen kilometers to hear it and pass it along to the others."

"How were you so sure they would all come?"

"I wasn't," Hugh admitted, shrugging. "But I was drugged up and bleeding and in pain, and it was the only thing I could think of."

"Well it certainly worked," the Mayor said, shuddering. "I've never seen so many gulls in my life, swarming over the horizon like a rolling thunderhead. They didn't even attack the guards, just tried to get past them. But there were so many of them..." She shook her head. "I think Groper thought they were coming for him, specifically."

"Justice from above," Hugh said, smiling at the thought. The two lapsed into silence, sipping their drinks. Mayor Herd's leg quivered terribly.

"Well, on the record, the Federation thanks you for your loyalty and service," Hugh said. He flipped the recorder off. "And off the record, how are you getting along?"

The mayor gave him a tight smile. "I'm on enough sedatives to knock out three grown men. Other than that..." The smile faded, and a haunted look came into her eyes. "I'm not doing so well."

"Are you a praying person?" Hugh asked.

"Are you serious?"

"You might be surprised," Hugh said. "Stop by the Federal aedis sometime. There's a nice, portly overseer there that always has lots of mint. It might help." He stood up, stretching. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm having lunch with a nice woman with a black eye, and you're not invited."

Mayor Herd chuckled and stood, shaking Hugh's hand. "Good luck to you," she said.

"Thank you," Hugh said. "Thank you for everything."

The mayor nodded and strode out, her steps a little shaky. Hugh settled back into the chair, and finished his cider.

Pollution

Don Webb | 4360 words

For centuries, Nagoya has been known for its mechanized puppets or karakuri ningyô. It is no surprise that Nagoya leads the world with both roboto and kyonshi technologies.

—Nagoya Handbook, 2035 edition

Billy Parsons had never seen an American kyonshi. He had been living in Nagoya for four months as an English teacher. It was an unsteady job; employment mavens were predicting English would soon be on the way out, replaced by the winner's language in the Chinese-Brazilian War. Billy didn't care—he was a Nippophile of the first water. He was living in Japan, damn it, Japan, and every step was a movement toward some Rising Sun moment. Every sushi roll, every cup of matcha, every recording of a mournful samisen brought him that much closer to what he wanted to be.

The kyonshi ( Billy would never use the cruder term zombi) pushed a broom down the school's corridor. The winking lights of his headgear were as Japanese as could be. Billy knew his school had money, but a job like this was commonly done by a roboto. Billy pulled out a phone and snapped a picture. All of his friends back in Paterson would be jealous. He wondered from whom the school had bought the kyonshi. In life, he would have been middle aged. His white skin was tanned and leathery, disfigured with several hairy moles, and the robotic eyes had been made to look blue. The shambling figure reminded him of a businessman, partly because he was dressed in a pinstriped western business suit (albeit if a much stronger/thicker fabric) and partially because it resembled Billy's dad. A kyonshi! A real live kyonshi! Well, maybe "live" is not the best choice of terms. Billy was something of a klutz in the sciences. He thought of the zombies as undead. Something his mom would have liked, like vampire novels or hip-hop. He remembered his great disappointment when Mom had given him the George Romero film collection for his thirteenth birthday. "You're a boy aren't you? Boys love zombies!" she had said. Billy did not understand that his lack of love for American horror might somehow indicate a taste for other boys in his mom's eyes. She was so relieved later when she found that his manga focused on tentacle rape. Thank Jesus he's normal.

Billy's dad had passed last year. Weeks of sitting in the hospital in Patterson, watching the nurses stripping the brown clotted blood from the drainage tubes on his chest, smelling the fake pine forest smell of the air freshener, listening to the old man lapse into diatribes against the government's failure to prevent Texan succession, hate-filled rants against his mother's adultery, tasteless jokes about the Great Wall of Canada. Billy had been so glad and so guilty that day Dad had tried to stand without warning and began the pouring out of the last of his tired and toxic blood. As the dangerous chemical splashed on the tiles, Billy thought of the red rays of the Rising Sun. His dreams had come at last, as his family conveniently left the stage. It was a great and Shakespearean moment. Of course had he lived anywhere else—any civilized place—even Texas, he could have sold Dad's dying body to the zombie makers. He could have left that day for his spiritual homeland and lived like the Mikado. Seeing the kyonshi was a sign—his father's ghost had joined him in Japan. All was well. All was good. Everything was tending toward its kami state.

The class bell broke this anti-Hamlet reverie, and he hurried to his class to teach English to students who were doing what their parents had done for six generations since Pearl Harbor, learning the language of power. Today's lesson: an infinitive can be used just like a noun in all cases save for the possessive. To err is human. Mr. Parsons loves to read.

Three hours later Billy knelt on his tatami mats practicing sitting Zen. His computer screen simulated the meditation master. His randomly selected Koan: "Hogen pointed to the bamboo blinds with his hand. At that moment, two monks who were there went over to the blinds and rolled them up. Hogen said, 'One has gained, one has lost.' " Billy had no idea what that meant, but it was so damn Japanese! He focused his mind attentively on the koan, and attended to his breath. Fifteen minutes later he began to nod off, and as his head bent toward the f loor, the computer made a booming noise awakening him. His neighbors pounded his wall and yelled in Japanese. Billy did not know if he was closer to enlightenment. He would have to buy better software to detect that, and such modern (or was it postmodern) touches seemed to Billy to be cheating. Enlightenment should come the old fashioned way.

Later he updated his status on the social networks. His old friends in the Patterson Ottaku Club were suitably impressed. Nothing said Japan more than a kyonshi.

Four best-selling manga were devoted to kyonshi: Kyonshi Love, Reverend Deadman, Kynoshi Girl, and Air Raid Siren. Kyonshi Love featured Katsumi, who intentionally exposed himself to the virus so that he could track his childhood sweetheart Kasumi—it was a retelling of the Robert Silverberg novella "Born with the Dead." Reverend Deadman was a zombie Lutheran minister that had broken free from his controller and ran a church in Tokyo by day and fought alien sex fiends by night. His "undead" status gave him limitless energy and immunity from the aliens' sex rays. Kyonshi Girl was a school girl, who despite the fact her family had sold her as a kyonshi, sought the love of a demon prince and kept losing her underwear in interesting and creative ways. Air Raid Siren paid homage to a popular conspiracy theory that the virus was not man-made at all but had appeared at the Hiroshima blast. Billy loved them all. Of course they had nothing to do with the actual biology and economics of kyonshis.

When Billy was in high school, Dr. Kenta Sasaki developed the "zombie virus." He had been working with artificial viruses that slow down and stabilize human metabolic functions. His initial work drew from the same reasoning as Western cryonics. If you give a terminal patient a few more years, a cure might be found. Dr. Sasaki's own brother had died a few years before the AIDS cure. The virus stabilized tissue, but like other filioviruses, say Ebola and Marburg, it showed a great affinity for the cells of the brain, eyes, and reproductive organs. Dr. Sasaki had been very careful in his design, the zombie virus did not share its sisters ability to infect rapidly. In fact the virus only infected one in ten people it was tried on in the best of circumstances. It was easy to cure, that is to eliminate it from the system—but the damage it did (especially to the brain) proved irreversible.

Some wealthy people underwent the infection as their only hope. Maybe their rare cancer, maybe their unidentifiable disease would be cured and a cure found for the zombie virus. Their shambling state, their pale skin might be ended in some happy future. But given their looks and the years of zombie mythology in popular culture—they were seen as grade A George Romero living dead. Although their tasteless food was made by baby food manufacturers, any number of brain-eating jokes came into being in the early years.

Soon there were rest homes in Japan, Canada, Dubai, and Italy full of the blind mindless exhumans that seemed happy to live forever— as long as they didn't wander in front of a speeding car or disappear into an open elevator shaft. There were human rights debates, tired old clichés about the dignity of human life were traded by both sides. Then Capeksen, a Japanese robotic firm, came up with a solution. Scoop out the eyes and upper brain and put a few dedicated microprocessors in to take care of things. The robotic eyes saw, and looked better than blackened pustules. The computers used the remaining nervous system to move the "dead" man around. Suddenly the zombies could care for themselves. They could shower, they could fix food, they seemed more human.

At first no one had thought of them as slaves.

The next day Billy wanted to shoot a film of the kyonshi washing toilets in his school. He remained after class. The kyonshi paid no heed to him as he knelt in front of each toilet and washed it clean. Billy thought this guy would get more out of Zen training than he was. He squirted some blue fluid into each bowl, methodically swished its white porcelain interior, then flushed. Billy shot him processing three bowls in a row and was about to leave when the kyonshi tripped on a small pencil stub dropped by a careless student. It pitched forward and dunked its head into the water. Billy winced at the cracking sound of the control unit hitting the bowl, and thought about getting swirlies in the eight grade. Emergency programs went into play and it pulled itself out. The crownlike controller on its head blinked on and off and on and off. The zombie sat with its back against the stall. It looked at Billy and said in toneless Japanese, "An accident has occurred. Please call a Capeksen technician. An accident has occurred, please call a Capeksen technician. Thank you for your aid in maintaining this expensive Kyonshi Mark VI." The kyonshi cradled its head in its pale hands like a human with a bad headache. All of the lights went out. Billy's instinctive programming as a human being took over, and he, forgetting that he was watching a zombie, ran to what seemed to be a dying man. The kyonshi breathed slowly and evenly. It must be in some sort of sleep mode, thought Billy. He ran to the headmaster's office.

Since Billy had reported the problem (with typical Japanese management style) it became his to oversee. As he waited in the restroom for the technician to arrive, Billy became an average American for a few minutes—underpaid, working in a humiliating environment, hating his boss. He was his father's son for perhaps for the last time. He needed to comfort the zombie. It was like taking care of Dad after Mom left in his ninth year. At least there was no vomit to clean up. Billy got a few stiff brown paper towels and dried the toilet water off of his suit. He pulled the zombie from the stall and laid it out on the green and brown tiles of the restroom. He was making a little pillow for it out of copies of To Kill a Mockingbird from his class. As he waited for the technician, he kept telling the kyonshi it would be all right, and cussing his asshole boss for making him wait in an unheated restroom. He was patting the cold brow of the kyonshi, when the restroom door swung open.

"Please stand away from the Kyonshi Mark I," said the white-coated technician.

It was an awkward moment. The technician came from the apartment next to his. This man or his wife had pounded on Billy's wall many times when his Zazen program would loudly awaken him.

"I tried to make him comfortable," said Billy.

"The Kyonshi Mark IV has no software appreciating comfort. Please explain the accident to me."

The technician showed no signs of recognition, but how many six-foot-eight, chubby, red-haired Irish Americans lived in Nagoya? From the small high windows, Billy saw that night had fallen. He had probably pulled this poor man from his apartment—once again disturbing his night.

Watching the man work on the fallen zombie looked like that robot repair scene from a dozen cheap movies. The technician popped the controller open and was removing a small box from behind the kyonshi's right eye. He took a small unit from his belt, and connected it to the fallen zombie. He pushed buttons, the kyonshi sat up. More buttons, it stood up. The technician pushed more buttons, watched indicator lights and said, "I will have to take him home for repair. I will need you to sign him over to me."

"Home?" said Billy, "Not to a factory or office?"

"I am the Capeksen representative of the area. Many people do not like having the kyonshi near them. But I live in an apartment full of Koreans and other foreign devils."

Billy looked down. He had suddenly become Japanese again—not really Japanese of course, but the fantasy Japanese he had hoped to be. Billy Parsons felt loss of face. He bowed, and said quietly, "I am sorry to have disturbed the harmony of your home."

The technician looked like he might laugh. Twice he started to speak, trying to find the right words; finally he spoke in English. "Mr. Parsons you cannot understand you have given my wife and I someone we can yell at. It is a rare gift."

Billy stared. The man was right. He didn't understand. He looked at the bathroom floor again.

The technician said, "Would you like a ride to our home? I have brought my van, and I will have room for your bicycle as well as our friend."

The technician had installed a device with longer cables by the time Billy brought his bike around He walked the kyonshi to the van and stepped him in.

Conversation was limited on the way home. Eventually Billy managed to get the technician to talk about the mechanized puppets that Nagoya was famous for. Robotics had started here long before the West had dreamed of such toys. Billy asked if the technician's family had made the puppets. The technician grimaced and said that his family had been butchers and leather workers. Then the man had laughed as though Billy was the funniest foreign devil of all time.

Billy learned that Capeksen did have a factory here. In fact most of the newly infected were shipped to that factory. The technician was a sort of contractor—much as Billy's grandfather had installed cable TV. Billy guessed the job didn't pay much. When the van had been finally been parked Billy asked, "Please forgive this one's ignorance of Japanese culture, but why did you say that it is rare you and your wife can yell at anyone?"

The technician looked at him and said, "Burakumin," and shrugged. Billy had no idea what he was talking about, so he bowed. The technician laughed again.

When he got to his apartment he asked his phone what "Burakumin" meant. It said "Village people." He asked his phone to show him village people, and it showed him a photo of an American rock group from his grandmother's time. The technician did not look like the cop, the construction worker, or the Indian chief. He nuked some yakitori, and when it was time to run his Zazen program he turned off the "Awakening" feature. His koan for the night was, "A student asked Joshu, 'If I haven't anything in my mind, what shall I do?' Joshu replied: 'Throw it out.' 'If I haven't anything, how can I throw it out?' continued the questioner. 'Well,' said Joshu, 'then carry it out.'"

He nodded off and woke about 8:00 to call Suzi. Suzi had been his Japanese girlfriend. All nippophiles get a Japanese girlfriend. It comes with the small apartment and the visit to fertility shrines. Suzi had ended his dreams about being Japanese. They had dated for three months. One day he had mentioned his hope of marriage. "I can not marry you," she said. "My family would never speak to me. They want me to marry a Japanese man."

"But I want to live here all of my life," said Billy. "I want to be Japanese."

"If you want to be Japanese, die and be reborn Japanese. I date you because you are a foreigner. Last week you told me you loved me. My Japanese boyfriends never say that. You are the same thing for me that I am for you. A fantasy of not being myself."

Billy did not speak to her for a week. When he started talking to her again, it was as a friend, which was his first women that was a friend. She found another foreigner to date.

"Suzi, what is a Burakumin?"

"Have you been talking to old people?"

"No, my neighbor said it. I think it means village person."

"It does mean village person. But that's the literal meaning. What do you call American black people? Watermelon-eaters? In the old days some trades were considered polluted— butchers, leather workers, people that wash corpses, some sexual entertainers. They are separate like a caste. Pollution beliefs are very strong in Shinto."

"But they are Japanese aren't they? He looks Japanese."

"Of course he looks Japanese by DNA, it's a taboo. Your neighbor will make less money, live in bad places, marry into his kind. The notion of pollution runs deep. Companies used to keep illegal lists of the Burakumin. In the beginning of this century they were almost main-streamed. Then when kyonshi technology showed up, they were the only ones who could risk the pollution. You aren't Japanese, you wouldn't understand."

Billy remembered his dad railing against the Italians and the Poles. His mom's maiden name was Polish. Dad explained to him many drunken times, that Mom looked white but...

He knew about the human need to hate. His body was full of memories. When he was a geeky teenager obsessed with Japanese pop culture, he was hated. He was marked. In sixth grade two junior high boys beat him yelling that he should have learned karate from his comic books. In seventh grade he was tossed headfirst into the girl's bathroom. The impact with the door actually knocked him out, so he arrived unconscious. When he came to in the nurse's office, the principal sent him home because of his behavior. He had to come the next day with his parents to be reinstated. That lead to his Dad's first burning of his manga. Later that year at Halloween he had engaged in cosplay—he was the evilest "hero" of them all, Lelouch Lamperouge. Everyone made fun of him, the dark and interesting antihero of Code Geass was called a "Fag Vampire." Some kids caught him in a park. He called his parents and his drunk dad drove up in his small tan Toyota pickup. It began all heroic-like. Dad drove into the park, across the football field toward the white bandstand. The Hulks, the Spidermen, the one Wonder Woman fled from his dad's headlights. Billy ran to Dad. Dad got of the truck and picked him up like a trash-bag and threw him in the back of the truck. Billy heard the rib crack when he landed.

But he stood his ground, he watched anime on his computer, and kept his manga under his bed, took Japanese in high school. He swore a samurai oath to help the downtrodden, yet by his senior year he was making fun of the childish tastes of the new members of the Patterson Ottaku Club. "You like Sinji? And you're potty-trained?" He taunted kids that liked G-force or (Bhudda help them!) Speed Racer.

In college he passed his larva stage as a worm-like ottaku and gained the wings of a true nippophile. He learned Japanese literature, studied Zen, wrote haiku. He majored in English because English teachers can always get crummy apartments. Who cares how bad your apartment is if you can see Nagoya Castle? Of course he had first seen it in Godzilla vs. Mothra or had it been Gamera vs. Gaos?

Tomorrow he would reach out to his neighbor. He would bridge the gap that surrounded the kyonshi workers. His own quest to be Japanese was nothing compared to the Burakumin. He surfed the web into the night learning the history of the kyonshi. No one had saved him, no human had reached out to him, so he chose reading over life, the fantasy of Japan over the reality of Paterson.

After Capeksen designed the controllers, a major scandal shook the industry. The promise was that somehow cures would come for the wealthy dead. The controlling units enabled them to live with some measure of dignity— which they did when their family would visit. But the zombies also worked well as lawn mowers, gardeners, car washers, and for some people with a taste for geriatric porn—they became sex slaves. An unscheduled visit by a reporter ended the appeal. No one wanted their grandmother blowing programmers that couldn't get laid otherwise. It did not matter that new safeguards could eliminate this semi-sentient slavery. Stock in Capeksen fell like Lucifer from heaven.

It took murder to change the fates ODF Capeksen again. When the Toronto cannibal, Robert "Taco Time" Leblanc's infamous Mexi-Cali Grill had been less than careful with the meat grinder, and the mangled diamond wedding ring of Mary Casutto wound up in a food critic's mouth, a new "crime of the century" dominated news feeds for months. Who can forget angry crying Robert Casutto begging the white wigged judge to sentence LeBlanc to zombie status? Owning a slave became a statement that one stood for Justice, Liberty, and the Canadian way. Humanity's age-old fascination with slavery remanifested. At first zombiehood was reserved for the worst offenders. The status symbol of owning a (formerly) human being as a slave dominated news feeds and magazines. Every star, every popsinger had a zombie in tow. The Electric Luddites had an entire zombie road crew, with their neon-orange logo tattooed on their pasty faces.

Soon there weren't enough criminals to meet the demand. But people still died. What if you elected to be infected? What if you could pay off your huge hospital bills, end debts, put grandchildren through college? Humans have always made greet sacrifices for their families. The peace of mind that came by selling your body into thralldom was immense. Poor families dreading the cost of grandad's funeral now had a marketable resource. It was a great deal, the living would collect a huge few for their loved one trying to become infected. Ninety percent of the time, the infection didn't occur. For the ten percent that made the transition it meant no more pain (at least this was what was believed), and even more money. The sale of one walking zombie paid more than most average humans made in a year. Japan lead the world in kyonshi manufacture. Very few countries opposed the zombies. The Islamic world held out, and as did the United States, which has always been based on flesh-worship. From an American point of view zombies were as bad as abortion, euthanasia, and stem-cell research.

Billy biked to school the next morning. There was a hint of frost in the air, but warmth in his heart. This was the day he would become a man. He would undo the bullying that had haunted his childhood. This was his day to pay Japan back.

When the technician arrived with the kyonshi following along, Billy almost ran from his class to meet him. The technician regarded him dully. Billy offered to take him to lunch. With obvious regret the technician accepted.

It was awful. Over the sweet chicken wings Billy ran through every cliché that American public education had given him about diversity, the brotherhood of mankind, the humanness of us all. The technician nodded absently. Billy began to get it. The man did not want Billy's approval or acceptance. If he had wanted the acceptance of foreigners he could have moved to the United States or Brazil. He wanted to be Japanese. His father's generation had seen the prejudice against the Burakumin almost vanish. The modern day kyonshi techs were just like people in the mortuary industry back home. Billy couldn't reach any more than a white child could have to his black friend in the American South in the bad old days. No one is welcomed by someone that stoops to shake his hand. Toward the end of the meal as each was eating his red bean jelly tofu ice cream, Billy tried talking about the kyonshi.

"Do you think they remember their former lives?"

"The upper sections of their brains are gone. I doubt they remember anything."

"But they could remember."

"Perhaps. That is why my family is hated. Imagine if you were trapping the soul of someone's relative for generations— kyonshi have great vitality. Once the virus is in place, the body has immunity to almost all diseases. Even if the kyonshi has a cut, it does not become infected. With care their useful work-span could be sixty or seventy years."

"The kyonshi at my school. I assume he was American?"

"I would have no idea. Did you guess he was American because all of you people look alike?" The technician smiled at his own joke.

"Who sold his body?" Billy asked.

"He may have been dieing without heirs. Sometimes a foreigner passes away, and the state steps in to administer the virus before he or she dies. If heirs show up later the kyonshi passes to them."

Lunch ended. Billy went back to school. For some weeks he would greet the technician or his wife in the hallway. Then he learned to look away. He bought a new Zazen program that administers electric shocks when the novice nods off. He briefly dated a Japanese-American woman. Spring came. Cherry trees blossomed. Billy wandered slowly through his life in love with all he saw, a cousin of Tantalus. He saw the world he wanted but could not touch it. Some hairs turned gray. More or less.

Then without drama he overslept a few minutes one day. He rushed to get ready, and slipped in the shower. He lay paralyzed with the warm water rushing over him. His overuse of water triggered an alarm system. The building superintendent found him, shut off the shower and medical robotos took his prunny body to the hospital. There were shocks, and massage, and stimulants shot into his bloodstream. A Catholic priest read him his last rites. Billy could hear, but not move, not blink. He heard the saws biting into his skull.

Days, weeks, months later he came to. His eyesight was much better. He saw the toilets he cleaned, the halls he swept, the walls he repainted every seven years. He saw his neighbor, who had strangely grown old. He felt nothing when his neighbor slapped him. Felt nothing when his neighbor spit upon him.

Thoughts slowly came back to him. He would see Nagoya Castle through the windows of the building he worked in. Nothing had changed for Billy Parsons. The world he wanted was still as remote. He still silently watched Japan. After sixty years of janitorial service, his bones wore too thin to be of use. At the behest of his programmers he walked to the crematorium. There was a flash of light and his soul passed beyond the bounds of this story.

The Oracle of Boca Raton

Eric Baylis | 2065 words

Flores had sympathy for any rooks at Delphi. After giving Drake a good twenty or so minutes of post-shift puke time he took off from Gernsback Admin to search the youngster out, take him under his wing like a Dutch uncle, and give him "The Talk."

The South Florida air felt like hot asphalt poured over boiled wool. For his first week at Delphi, Flores would idle up and down the parking lot, searching out a spot in the shade. Shade, he decided, means fuck all nothing when the humidity was luxuriating at 99 percent. Flores started choosing the spots closest to Gernsback, so after undergoing his mandatory twenty-minute counseling sesh before clock-out, he could get to his car and get home with maximum efficiency. He popped the hatch on his Toyota, grabbed a plastic sack out of a cooler, and locking up his car, went in search of Drake.

Drake was behind a train wreck of hastily deposited pre-fab office trailers discarded after the station was given its "Iron Curtain-by-wayof-Byzantium" look. Drake was slumping. He was kind of crying, in fact. The Talk was going to cut into the time Flores usually savored before heading into the parlors himself. Time used to get those jaw muscles working, get those conversation starters loose and lively. Fucking Drake.

"Rook! Rook rook rook rook roooooookieeeee, ruuuuuk!" crowed Flores, hoping a little dude-bro jocularity would loosen things up. Flores liked to think he was a really good camp counselor to the guys. He had more convo time then almost everyone at Delphi. He got those mages talking about all sorts of shit. He wasn't sure if he was making anyone any money at it, but they hadn't fired him yet. And he really did know where Drake was coming from. Everyone had to take tea with the Mad Priest their first shift on payroll. Drake either froze up (classic mistake, fixable) or the talk had taken a bad turn and the caterpillar of wonderland had opened up something terrible (really unlikely, asylum or worse if true).

Drake was snuffling to himself. He needed The Talk.

"The Talk" was a code, Flores decided. The ancient one. The one men tell each other before doing something stupid and necessary. Or stupid and unnecessary, with the chance of getting laid. He had heard the talk from his P.O. Dads used to give the talk. Drill Sergeants, older brothers at the top of the sledding hill, clan chieftains: All given the gift of The Talk. Need to get a motherfucker to help kill an eight-ton mastodon with a length of sharpened Ash? Need to climb out of that trench and charge those bastards? Need a buddy to help knock over a 7-11? It's all in the cadence and timing, the vague intimation that subject x (the receiver of The Talk) is vitally needed and will not be thought of as a pussy, ever, fucking bullet-proof against it, if only he would get in line and charge those krauts or whatever. And if you need to keep a live mouth on site, someone who can and will talk to those ancient fucks, use the code and use it well.

"Fucking priest. Fucking... you know what? I... he said I had the brain cell capacity of a Bob's Big Boy McGriddle—shit, then he just starting calling me an asshole over and over." Drake seemed half-angry, half-amazed. This was good, this was better, this was fixable. Flores grinned and pulled a can from the plastic grocery bag, handing it to Drake. Let fury have the hour.

"He started in like he was the Wizard of Oz," Drake continued, worn down and sweating. "Called himself 'The Eschatological Jiminy Cricket of a debauched and despoiled age.' I tried all the talking points, but nothing worked. He called me a 'fucking hack amateur out to steal the specks of soul left to the honorable dreamers.' Said we were the whores of a corporatized Babylon. He... well he said a lot of shit. There's nothing worth anything usable, no FTL travel, or fusion energy, or ways of weaponizing the sun." Drake seemed to change gears. His anger was burning off into annoyance. This, again, was good.

"That's not how it works, brother-man, not how it works." Flores had also wanted a lot of those things and more to come true when he started at Delphi. Unlock some ancient star gates and let us travel through the oblique angles of the multiverse. Harness the computational power of a solar system pulverized and turned into CPU. Live forever. Flores had done his homework after his second interview, when gainful employment was palpable. He read short stuff trawled from torrents, or wiki'd Hugo-award winning plots until he felt conversant in every beautiful, nerdy idea ever passed down the pike.

Flores was one of the first wave of new companions, after the government gave up on Delphi and sold the whole works under a broadside of public ridicule. Post-Stochastic Inc. recruiters pitched the job as a chance for skilled recruits to use "their unique quality— plus interpersonal communications abilities," which in the cant of the recruitment ranks meant "sales." He could talk Jesus off the cross, so Flores thought he was looking at some monster incentive bonuses. Pay off his community-funded job retraining, get some equity on a house, maybe buy a better car. The states hadn't been on top for awhile, but everyone was buying bits and pieces of 'merica and the canny knew those chunks still held value. Maybe he could afford to buy into a sweeping new currency fund fiefdom as a hedge knight, swearing fealty to whatever fourth generation laird held the title to an island of loose capital.

Instead of selling, he was listening, as the brilliant dead sold him the table scraps and varietal cuts—all the stuff no editor could find a place for in their flesh-and-blood lifetimes. Weird things. Oddities likely only to injure a potential reader's sense of equilibrium were of no use in the traditional publishing sphere. Inside Delphi, these were the incantations the company hoped held power over the boundless future. The government believed these dead sages could think their way to a future where the nation would be powerful again. When the Mad Priest was informed of that, his laughs had burned out several listeners, or so the story went.

Wayward chunks of government monies were used to capture the imprints of the freakiest and farthest-seeing. Here at Delphi gorgeous dreams were hatched and matured and usually died malformed, often all within an afternoon. The pedigree of a group called "Far Thinkers for the Near Future"—who were supposedly building a "utopian retirement community for the imagination"—was mocked up before a score of the most wonderfully weird died. Their souls were captured at the point of death. Well, not souls really, but Flores had some poetry and liked the sound of that.

Thus suspended in dream space for all time and projected into tasteful sitting rooms (or smoky backroom lounges, or the corner booth at some shit heel bar), good ideas could flow out of them, fonts of weird visions and dreams for what could be. Like all writers, these oracles liked to talk, often about themselves. So people like Flores kept them talking. Drank tea or coffee or Jack with them, smoked if need be, whatever helped. Like the spice mélange, the conversations must flow and from this river canny researchers were hopefully panning out the gold. Step 1: Capture the ghosts of big thinkers past. Step 2:??? Step 3: Profit.

"When's the good stuff?" Drake poured the rest of the beer down his throat, and motioned for another. "I want to talk to The Lady of Heaven. I heard the Blogger could talk you into open-sourcing a lap dance." Flores handed a cold one over and gestured at the bramble of old, burnt-out units, down to the not-quite-ascheap cheap steel bunkers on the far side of Gernsback.

"You'll get there mah man, you'll—wait, you know what?" Flores shifted and got a big goofy grin, like he just figured out a dirty joke. The Talk was always tailored by the chieftain to his troops. Feigning inspiration could be effective, but you can only do it once in a great while or all the time. "Shit you're going to be good at this. It took me two solid weeks to get as pissed as you are right now!"

Drake smiled, he liked that. "Pissed is good?"

"Pissed is very good, my young son. Pissed means you are concentrating, and pissed means you are hungry. Pissed means getting access to Vogt and Dick, where you will no longer be called an asshole several times an hour." Flores was generous—he doled out hope. He also knew when a light bruising felt good. "I mean, you'll still be an asshole, though."

Drake laughed a little, called him a "fucker," smiled. Flores kept a stony face for just a half second before letting the laugh out. This was going well.

The first week was an unmitigated assault upon his dignity and ego, but so was selling cheap muscle cars to sunburned rednecks from the outer suburbs. Flores persisted. And through persistence he scoured himself of his piss-poor hucksterisms like an act of contrition, and when his time with the Priest was over he found he hadn't lost the gift for keeping someone on the hook. While their first instinct was to cajole and flatter, Flores and his fellows learned to combine the social courtesies of a geisha with the hard driving rap of a mule seller.

The government had hired readers and writers. The Priest spit out the word "fans" through teeth clenched in a perpetual snarl. Sending in fans was pointless. They just wanted to talk about what the work had meant, what it felt like to create. "Tell me about what it felt like to really see it, to feel it. Where do you get those crazy ideas?"

A disaster. Most of those guys were dead, rumor had it. Other conversationalists whispered of a quiet coup right before the government just threw up its hands, of talkers disappearing into the woodwork or locking themselves in parlors. Cafeteria opinion seemed weighted toward everyone just bugging out and changing their names, going back to their weirdo private lives.

"Far Thinkers for the Near Future" had fallen apart pretty fast. An incurious public shrugged. Families of the deceased pressed their legal janissaries into battle, but pulled them back when approached by representatives of Post-Stochastics, Inc. Who knows what dire legal magicks the company used to keep them at bay?

Being a private concern, Post-Stochastics cut to what was, Flores supposed must be, the profit. For while it took genius to build and maintain Delphi, one didn't just send the botanists to categorize and artists to wax rhapsodic when a new continent is discovered; a wise king sends the hard-bitten scum who want to survive. Who will make it out alive with a reliable map of the territory. And in case of natives, send in swindlers and con-men with shiny beads. Send in men like Flores.

And hopefully, men like Drake. Who was presently receiving The Talk pretty well, in that he didn't seem to realize he was receiving The Talk.

"I know how it's supposed to work. Get them talking, keep them talking, try to steer them away from talking about themselves after awhile." Drake was winding down. The first time in was hard.

"Man, I once spent sixteen hours with one of the beards on the subject of 'Fans I have Boned' and it was so hot, I wanted a chemical shower afterward." Flores loved those coots sometimes, when it was like hearing your uncle talk about visiting Tijuana. Drake snorted some beer out of his nose. Things were looking up for Flores.

"I know I'm not supposed to see how any of it works," said Drake, a bit sheepishly. "Counselors told me to take it easy and just listen and talk, not expect anything too big at first."

"I know and I know you know, son," Flores drawled with a SoCal Barrio accent so fake Drake pricked up a smile. "Do a few more days brother-man, and you'll fucking own this place. Just make sure he doesn't smile too big." Drake sniffled and accepted a third beer. Flores straightened up and cracked one of his own. "I mean, why do you think we put up that sign above his door? 'Dangerous Visions' is fucking right."

Wind Reaper

Jon Hakes | 1216 words

Hurricane, roaring up out of the Gulf like a drunken demon. Keller steers them straight into the teeth of it.

Owens stands over Keller's shoulder, his hot, oil-smelling breath pouring down like diesel exhaust. "Bastards."

Outside, the other aircraft, all different types and configurations, are swarming. Vultures, for as far as the eye can afford to see. There are some crashes.

Keller and the crew of the Yossarian ignore these, as best they can. They all know that the smallest distraction can turn them into the next small distraction.

If you want to harvest a hurricane, to really squeeze as much energy as you can out of the beast, you have to have incredibly strong turbines to absorb a massive amount of kinetic energy. You have to have a large stockpile of low-maintenance, high-capacity flywheel batteries, because mechanical batteries are far superior to the chemical batteries that human beings have preferred for two centuries. You have to have a highly-efficient, integrated system that collects the maximum amount of energy possible from the surrounding environment, from the general static charge building up on the skin of the craft as it flies, to the lightning seeking to pass through the craft and head earthward. It helps if the aircraft runs off of the power it collects, without need of expensive (and rare) hydrocarbon fuels.

It also helps if you and your crew are just shy of completely insane.

The other craft out there likely use lower-efficiency turbines, scavenged chemical batteries, stolen hydrocarbons. In the technological arms race, the Yossarian is like a homo sapien standing just out of rock-throwing range and calling down a missile strike on the Australopithecines.

"Holy shit!" Billy says.

Keller glances up from the controls to see, for a horrifying instant, the swollen swarm of aircraft under the dark lid of the storm. "I need to know the exact second we max out!" he shouts over his shoulder.

After far too many skittish minutes, Owens shouts, "Red!"

Giving in to his instincts, Keller banks out in a long arc, hoping that he doesn't plow right through any latecomers. Two planes merge into one giant fire blossom in the right corner of his peripheral vision. He does not deviate, but grips the shuddering control column, lets the sweat pour into his eyes, and flies right out of the shockwave.

Still a good twenty minutes from the coast, Billy reports that no one is following them.

Keller lands them in an open field without incident. Owens grumbles that they are probably days from even the tiniest village. Billy scares up some rabbits for dinner. Other than the crackling of the fire, the evening is silent. No sign of other aircraft anywhere.

In the night, they are taken. Soldiers, in black uniforms. Probably some sort of local law. The soldiers are forced to knock Owens unconscious.

Keller asks the soldiers if he can lie down and sleep. The captain says yes. From the floor, Keller can see several of the soldiers' faces. They all look angry. Despite his exhaustion, and relief at getting out of the storm in one piece, he is only able to sleep for five or ten minutes at a time.

Before the sun is fully up, they enter a town square, notable for how much it has been renovated and improved. Clearly, the town's inhabitants are trying to claw back the Old World.

A light rain begins to fall.

A woman with short, white hair meets them at the front door of a building marked: CITY HALL. She wears civilian clothes, rather than a uniform. She informs them that she is the mayor. Her voice is warm enough, but she does not smile.

The mayor asks who is in charge, and Keller raises his hand right away. Owens looks like he was about to open his mouth and rat Keller out.

"We've impounded your plane," the mayor says, "and we will be confiscating your batteries."

"That's horseshit!" Owens says, spittle flying from his lips. "You can't—"

He crumples under the force of a soldier's solid punch.

"Unfortunately," the mayor says, "in this world, as in all the worlds that came before, might makes right. And we will do what we must." She looks honestly sad about it.

"Do I at least get the plane back?" Keller says.

The mayor shakes her head.

"I don't think that's fair."

The mayor considers. She gestures to the clouds in the sky, the slow, steady rain.

"Do you know what that is?"

He doesn't understand the question.

"That's what's left of the storm you were harvesting."

"I don't think so. That just isn't possible."

His mind's eye sees an infinite swarm of vultures.

"Then where's our storm?" one of the mayor's aides demands.

"With all due respect," Keller says, "you people aren't making any sense."

The mayor says, "Let me show you something else."

She leads Keller to a truck. He can't tell if it's the truck that brought them in last night.

They drive just south of the town, to a bluff overlooking the Gulf. Keller sees what appears to be a long line of statues, ancient monoliths keeping vigil. Then they turn a bend in the road, and, from the new vantage point, he can see that the statues are in fact squat buildings supporting hefty wind turbines. He is shocked and impressed all at once. With a halfway decent battery array, they might be able to pull a fair amount of energy from any storm that hits this area dead-on.

The mayor hauls open the door at the back of one of the buildings and ushers him inside. Keller can't help but stare at the interior of the structure. These villagers know what they are doing. His eye catches on the array of batteries set low into a concrete sub-level.

"Flywheel batteries," the mayor says, "similar to those in your plane, but of our own design. Mechanical beats chemical."

So there it is. As much as the crew of the Yossarian likes to think of Keller as the great genius, the great innovator, he learned the fundamentals of all of his equipment from dusty books in boarded-up libraries. He supposes there must be dusty books in boarded-up libraries all around the world.

His technical edge is gone, maybe forever, so all he can do is out-hustle the competition.

He takes a gamble. "You've got some nice facilities here, but you are entirely dependent on the weather coming to you, coming directly toward you. Give me my plane back and I'll harvest for you."

The mayor looks up at the motionless rotor shaft running inward from the turbine outside.

Keller says, "The power in my cells right now will last you maybe four months, and then it will be gone. Give me my plane back, and I'll sell you power on a monthly basis—supplement what you are able to gather on your own."

"We invested most of what we had in the turbines," the mayor says.

"I'll give you a fair price."

He desperately wants to find a way to convince her that he means what he says. She looks him straight in the eye and he sees something that he has not seen in a long time.

"Okay," she says.

Back in the town square, Owens snarls, "You son of a bitch!"

Billy and the others look relieved.

A year later, when he eventually has to kill Owens in an outland bar, Keller tries to make himself feel at least a little regret. He thinks he owes it to the rest of the crew to try to be a little more like the mayor.

It's Not "The Lady or the Tiger?", It's "Which Tiger?"

Ian Randal Strock | 1989 words

"You look depressed. Want to talk about it?"

Archetypal bartender, but there's a reason for the archetype. "Not really. But I have a feeling I'm going to anyway."

"So talk. It may help, and it certainly won't hurt."

Pretty good archetypal bartender.

"I'm an entrepreneur, a typical one. I can feel success drawing me forward. I know there's going to be success in here somewhere... or at least, I really hope there's going to be success. But this one is just as big a failure as the previous four. And after I sober up tomorrow morning, I'm going to have to let my staff go and tell my investors that this business, too, is just not meant to be. How many times can one man do that, and still be able to look at himself in the mirror in the morning?"

Long silence; the bartender's losing points. "Oh, that wasn't rhetorical? Most folks in here, they ask questions, but they treat me like a psychiatrist, not really wanting input."

"I'm not most folks. Most folks aren't serial failures at business."

"You'd be surprised. But no, most of them don't launch their own companies in order to fail. Is that what you're trying to do? Fail? Do you have a certain number of failures in mind, before you find that success?"

"What kind of jerk would I have to be to plan to fail..." Oh, I get it. He picked up on that "typical entrepreneur" bit. "You think I'm aiming for the same number of failures as the average?"

"How could I possibly think that? I've just met you. But I have seen a lot of people sitting where you are, crying over failures. And in many cases, they're self-inflicted."

"Now you're saying I sabotaged my own businesses."

"And now you're looking to blame someone else for what was probably just bad market conditions."

Bartender's stock heads back up. "You've got a point. Got a suggestion to go with it?"

"If I could give you the kind of suggestion you're really looking for, I wouldn't be standing behind a bar."

"I don't know. There are times when what you do has appeal. Less responsibility, some security, you immediately know if you're doing a good job or not."

"We're not talking about me right now. Back to you: what keeps you going? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? Why do you go to work? Why did you start-five, was it?—businesses, rather than chucking it all and sitting in the park talking to squirrels?"

"Faith in myself, I guess. The inner knowledge that I'm going to succeed."

"Knowledge?"

"If it were just a hope, I probably would have given up. There's some spark in me that tells me I'm going to succeed. I'm going to start a business that will grow, flourish, make people's lives better, and not coincidentally, make me wealthy and famous."

"Now you're starting to sound a little more 'regular guy' to me. That 'wealth and fame' part, that's a bigger driver than you usually admit out loud, isn't it?"

"Well, now that you mention it, yes, it is. But is there anything wrong with that?"

"Nothing wrong with wanting to be famous. Tending bar these many years, it seems to me what's wrong is not admitting your own desires to yourself."

"All right, I admit it: I want to be rich and famous. And I think the way to do it is to start a business that everyone wants to patronize, that people will admire."

"Fair enough. Now, what if I could tell you, with absolute certainty, that you're going to die in two years. Would you do something different? Would you keep doing what you're doing? That's something I ask myself every couple of years. That question is why I left sales, and day trading, and truck driving. And it's why I've been standing behind this bar for a decade, serving drinks, talking with people, providing for my family."

"That's a difficult question for an entrepreneur. The average start-up takes four years before we can tell if it's a success or a failure. If every entrepreneur had to work with a two-year horizon, no businesses could be started."

"I wasn't asking that. If the death of one person dooms a company, doesn't that say the company isn't strong enough to survive very long anyway?"

"That's a point."

"That's what makes this a difficult question, and therefore, an important one. How many times did you, as a boss, deal with easy questions, and how often did you hire someone to handle them, so you could focus on the difficult ones?"

"You're right. The difficult questions are the important ones."

"So, back to my difficult question: you've got two years to live. Do you keep doing what you're doing? Or do you go off and do something else?"

"Two years, huh?"

"Two years. It's long enough that the proper answer can't be to drop everything and party, but not so long that you can ignore it."

"I'm going to have to think on that. But I came in here to not think for this evening."

"No, you didn't."

"Contradicting me? That's not very bartenderish."

"Sure it is. If you wanted to turn off your brain for the evening, you would have gone to the movies. But you came in here, where there's nothing to occupy your mind, because you wanted to think about things. I'm just helping you focus those thoughts."

"All right. Give me another drink, and let me think."

He places a full glass in front of me. "Group down the end needs another round. I'll be back."

I hold my glass, not drinking, staring at the wonderful shapes and colors of the bottles behind the bar, just letting my vision drift until I'm not seeing much of anything.

"I couldn't help overhearing," says a quiet voice beside me.

I blink back into the here-now, and turn to look at... the most non-descript person I've ever seen. Well, that's not fair. He does look somewhat familiar, though I'm sure I can't place him. But there's something about him that just blends into the crowd, as if he's trying to not be noticed.

"Sorry, I was zoning."

"I said, 'I couldn't help overhearing you,'" he repeat-continues. "I understand your frustration. You feel like you're not getting anywhere, perhaps even backsliding, and there's no way to dig out from under it all, to get to the top of the heap."

"Something like that," I say.

"That bartender asked a good question, though: what if you had only a short time to live?"

"That's what I was mulling over when you sat down."

"So try talking it out. Short time to live, coming off a failed business—""

I glare at him, but he waves it away.

"You said so yourself. So what do you do now? Start the next, knowing you might not live to see it mature? Or get out of the entrepreneurship thing all together. Put on a suit and tie, print up a resume, and fall into an office job. You'd be able to draw a salary, do what you wanted on the weekends, feel the security of income and benefits."

"Yes, but the appeal of that..."

"Is limited. I know. Sitting at a desk, following someone else's nine-to-five, being just one among many, undistinguished, gray—""

"You do understand." My brain clicks back into alert-mode.

"And you know that would be kinder to your family, to your friends who worry about your future."

"Yes, exactly. My security would ease their minds. But—"wait a minute. Do I know you?"

"No. At least, not yet. But I'm someone who can guarantee your security."

"What, are you offering me a desk job?"

"No. I don't have one to offer. I have something better... and, potentially, worse."

"Now you're talking in riddles, friend."

"That bartender's hypothetical was closer to reality than he knew. I'm from the future... grandfather."

I look more closely. I stare at him, hard. Yeah, maybe, kind of, maybe around the eyes, a little, he starts to look sort of familiar. No. No way. My grandson? "Grandfather? Is that a joke? I don't even have kids."

"Yet." He stares back at me. "My grandmother is about six weeks pregnant with your son, right now."

"We broke up a month ago."

"I know. That's why my father never gets the chance to meet you."

"All right. You've piqued my interest."

"First, a philosophical question, grandfather. What would you risk for success?"

"Nothing philosophical about it," I grump.

"I've already done it, four, no, five times now. I risked just about everything. I've been sleeping on friends' couches when I wasn't living with my parents, working twenty-six hour days, as long as possible, to drive each company's success. And I've been strangling my own metaphorical children—those selfsame companies—when I realized it was time to let them go. I think my life has pretty much answered the question of what I would risk for success."

"No, I'm talking bigger stakes."

I'm starting to think he really could be related to me. "Like what?"

"I came back to offer you comfort, love, happiness, a life of ease. You've earned it, grandfather. Five start-up and shut-down businesses. I know you've worried that it'll kill you before you find that success you've been trying for."

"So what are you offering?"

"Let me take you to the future with me. I have a very nice home and a happy life. You'd have security, comfort, no worries. You would be welcome, your great-grandchildren would love to meet you, and I'd like the chance to get to know you. Our medical knowledge would keep you healthy and comfortable for a long time to come."

"And what is the price of this wonderful boon you're offering me?" I can see in his eyes that he knows more.

"I overheard most of your conversation with the bartender."

"You mean about my need for fame, public adulation, some kind of external recognition."

"I had a hunch about that, even before I came here. And that's what you'd be giving up. I can keep you healthy and comfortable, and even, I think, happy, to a degree. But as an anachronism in my time, you wouldn't have any chance at achieving the kind of fame you've been craving."

"Then why are you here? What is this, some twisted Faust deal?"

"No, no, nothing like that. I'm just trying to give you all the facts, before I explain why I think it would be a good choice for you."

"You're saying giving up my soul to secure my body is a good choice?"

"I think it would be. In the original time-line, your sixth attempt was a success. A massive success. Huge growth, international appeal, the company turned into a modern-day empire, and your name was known around the globe."

"Now I'm confused."

"That was your legacy, not your life. You... well, there's no good way to say this. You died late in the start-up phase."

"How late?"

"You launched the company, and started growing it, when you died suddenly, about two years after the start, and less than a month before the first big angel investor pumped in the money that drove, well, everything else. It's all your idea, and fully acknowledged. The company was renamed for you, and you found that fame beyond your wildest dreams. But you weren't around to enjoy it."

I stare at him, my mind a whirl.

"It did, however, provide a very comfortable life for my father, as it does for me and my children. But I never got to meet you. And my father wasn't told of his relationship to you until he was a teenager."

"My sixth start-up, you say? My next corporate attempt?"

"Yes."

"So that means soon?"

"Yes."

"So you're here-""

"You should have the long life you're destined for. You should enjoy your family and a life of ease, after all these years of hardship and toil and loneliness."

I hug my grandson, this man who is, I realize, years older than I am.

I put my still-untouched second drink on the bar, and the bartender comes back.

"That's a lot of thought, if you haven't yet started this drink."

"I realized I don't need a drink. I need to get a good night's sleep, because tomorrow morning I have to shut down my fifth business, and get started on my sixth."

Whaliens

Lavie Tidhar | 4434 words

Illustrated by Joshua Meehan

1.

"Greetings, gentlebeings!" said the alien ambassador.

The president of the United States stood on the podium staring up into the sky. The sky was grey and woven with strands of autumn red and a strange, alien silver-grey. The huge shape of the alien ambassador hovered above the White House, easily the size of a nuclear submarine. The ambassador was a huge pulsating mass of grey matter, moving gracefully in the air as though it were swimming. It was supported by the aliens' advanced anti-grav devices.

"As you know," the alien ambassador said, its booming voice breaking over the heads of the assembled masses, "we are a race of hyper-advanced space whales-"

"Whaliens," the president's special advisor for extraterrestrial activities said sourly—

"—and we have traveled many lightyears"—the whalien ambassador paused significantly— "many light-years," it said, "to come here, to Earth."

Protesting Campbellians, across the road, were raising large banners proclaiming Humanity Uber Alles and Better Dead Than Red with the word red crossed over and the word Grey scribbled in instead.

"We have been intercepting your television and radio signals for many years," the whalien ambassador said. Above him, high in the atmosphere, the bodies of other leviathan-like whales could be seen, swimming through high-altitude clouds. Above them all fell the shadow of the giant whalien ship, shaped like a gigantic round mushroom.

"We are particularly interested," the whalien ambassador said, "in your dominant religion, based on the teachings of the Prophet Moroni." The ambassador paused as the president of the United States—who wasn't a Mormon, by chance—exchanged bewildered looks with his Special Advisor for Extraterrestrial Activities.

"Bring him to us!"

The voice boomed over Washington, shattering windows and making dogs howl at the sky. The president of the United States tapped nervously on the microphone. He leaned closer. "Bring who to you?" he said.

"The Prophet Moroni!" the whalien said.

The president's special advisor for extraterrestrial activities, who was Jewish and only two weeks in the job, leaned over and whispered in the president's ear. The president faced the microphone with a look of utter helplessness, like a man reading My Pet Goat to a group of preschoolers. "The Prophet Moroni is... unavailable for comment," he said.

"Pardon me?" the whalien said.

"Nope. Sorry."

"Oh," the whalien said. "What about Mormon himself?"

"Nope."

"Joseph Smith, at least?"

"Dead," the president said without thinking. Then, quickly backtracking, "I mean, he has risen to Heaven, Ambassador."

"I... see."

"You can talk to Orson Scott Card?" the president suggested hopefully.

"Who?" the whalien said.

There was one of those slightly uncomfortable silences.

"Okay," the whalien ambassador said, after silently communicating with its peers by means of advanced telepathy. "Forget about the Mormons. What about Scientology?"

[The following excerpt has been removed for legal issues.]

"Fine!" the whalien ambassador bellowed, at last. "We have come all this way to learn from you, humans! Your religions, your deep faith! If we do not learn from you we will destroy you. You have one week to impress us." The whalien ambassador went silent, ominously.

"Now, bring us a Jew!" he said.

"A Jew?" the president of the United States said, shocked.

"A Jew."

The president of the United States turned to his special advisor for extraterrestrial activities. "Go on, then, Ari!" he said.

"What?" Ari said, shaking his head rapidly from side to side. "No, no, no. I haven't even been to shul since my bar mitzvah!"

"You have one week," the whalien ambassador said. Then it floated upward through the sky, away from the White House.

"Ari!" said the president of the United States, with that panicky tone you get when you realize you'd left the chicken in the oven too long, or you were going to wash and realised you were out of clean underwear or, indeed, when you realised you had only a week to go before a bunch of hyper-advanced space whales were going to blow your planet up to bits.

"What?" Ari said. "I wasn't even supposed to be here today!"

"Then get me a proper Jew!" the president snapped.

"What you need," Ari said, "is a rabbi."

"Then find me a rabbi!"

"I'll... speak to my cousin," Ari said.

Above their heads, the whaliens drifted through the sky.

2.

"Greetings, gentlebeings!"

Greg Feldman sat in front of his television, watching the news. His laptop was open on the worn sofa beside him. His two cats, Captain Kirk and Buffy, curled up beside him. His shelf full of trophies balanced precariously over the heater by the window. He had many awards: some shaped like rockets; some were plaques; and some were shaped like the head of a really ugly man. The rest of the apartment was practically bare. Greg's ex-wife, Hilda, had taken most of the furniture, along with what remained of Greg's self-esteem, when she left him, though not before calling him a "deadbeat," a "loser," a "sci-fi hack," and— what really stung—a "self-hating Jew."

Now he sat there, full of self-loathing, watching the aliens on the television screen and thinking his career was ruined.

He was a science fiction writer, darn it!

He could get by on indifferent prose; paper-thin characterization; uncomfortably awkward sex scenes that often seemed to be written by a thirteen-year-old; he could eke out a miserable living on five cents a word.

But one thing he could not do is continue writing about aliens when the gosh darned aliens were already here!

"Gosh darned aliens," he said; but his heart wasn't in it.

He was ruined! Ruined! He picked up the phone and rang Phil Cusack.

"Phil? It's Greg."

A long wail came through the phone. "Ruined!" Phil Cusack—author of such timeless classics as They Came From Proxima Four, Bride Of the Mutants, and The Slitherer in the Dark —said.

"What are we going to do?" Greg said.

"It's each man for himself, Greg!" Phil said. He once won a Prometheus Award for being a libertarian. Greg wasn't sure what a libertarian was, exactly, but they sure sold a lot of books. "I'm heading for Appalachia. It's finally happened! Me and a bunch of the boys have a camp up in the mountains. We have books, tinned food, and semiautomatic weapons! We could hold out forever."

"It's no good," Greg said. He was feeling even more depressed. Of course Phil had a plan. Phil always had a plan. There were rumors he had once been a member of a top-secret government think-tank that predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and helped design the Star Wars programme—not the movie, the space weaponry thing. He was getting old though. He didn't even use Facebook. "I can't go on," Greg said. "It's no use. My wife left me. My parents moved to Florida. Everyone is buying e-books and I don't even own a Kindle. What exactly is a Kindle?"

"Isn't that a Russian gun?" Phil said.

"Maybe," Greg said, dubiously.

"Never trust a Russian," Phil said. "If you ask me this is all a Russian conspiracy."

"The aliens?"

"Kremlin-bred mutants!" Phil said.

There was a ring at the door.

"I have to go," Greg said. "There is a ring at the door."

"Don't answer it!" Phil said. "It's too late. Social structures are crumbling. Anarchy is coming. Hold on, there's someone at the door."

Greg hung up the phone. He was feeling depressed. Buffy butted her head against his arm as Captain Kirk gently farted in his sleep. At that moment Greg felt a great affection for his cats wash over him. Cats never let you down. Not like ex-wives, or science fiction, or aliens.

The ringing at the door came again.

"I'm coming already!" Greg grumbled. He got up, feeling lethargic. He wondered who it could be. He walked to the door.

He opened it.

Blinked.

"Mr. Feldman?"

Greg blinked again. But the two Secret Service men were still there, ID budges held up, guns on their belts, dark sunglasses covering their eyes.

"Erm... yes?"

"You don't know?"

"I mean, erm, yes. Yes, that's me."

The two agents looked him up and down— a little dubiously, it seemed to Greg.

"The sci-fi writer Greg Feldman?"

Greg swelled up to his full size. Like a space whale during the mating season. "I prefer the term science fiction," he said. "Or Ess Ef, if you will. Sci-fi is—"

"We don't care," the agent on the left informed him, helpfully.

"Yeah," the agent on the right said.

"You are to come with us," the agent on the left said.

"Right now," the agent on the right said.

"But my cats!" Greg Feldman said.

"Right now," the agent on the left said.

"Yeah," the agent on the right said.

"Buffy!" Greg said.

"Captain Kirk!" Greg said.

"Hey, I know my rights!" Greg said.

"You have the right to remain silent," the agent on the left said.

"Yeah," the agent on the right said.

"So shut the fuck up," the agent on the left said.

"Yeah," the agent on the right said.

And before Greg Feldman could protest they had bundled him out of the house and into the back of their car; taking him, he thought despairingly, the aliens' God knew where.

3.

"Aliens?" the rabbi said. His name was David and he was from a Reform shul, which Ari's mother—who came from a hardcore Orthodox family before she married Ari's dad— once described to a friend as Judaism Light when Ari wasn't supposed to be listening.

Still. What was he supposed to do? He needed someone who understood Judaism. Even Jews didn't understand Judaism! So he went into the first shul he could find and cornered the rabbi, who seemed remarkably unconcerned about the Secret Service agents blocking the door and windows of his study.

"Aliens," Ari said. "They're kind of meshugeneh but what are you going to do."

"Send them to see the Pope," the rabbi said. "Those guys in the Vatican are always looking for new recruits."

"They asked for a Jew."

"Oy vey is this going to be awkward," the rabbi said.

"Oy vey?" Ari said. The rabbi smiled. "Too much playing the stereotype?"

"A bit, yeah," Ari said. "Laying it on a bit thick, rabbi."

"Aliens, huh?" the rabbi said. "Who'd have thought."

"They're space whales," Ari said. "Highly advanced. Awesome weaponry. Are you coming or what?"

"Can I say no?"

"No."

"Then what can I say." The rabbi smiled and grabbed his coat. "Let's go," he said.

4.

[At this point in the narrative there should be a heart-warming and emotionally manipulative story about a robot, but it was edited out.]

5.

Scientology

6.

When Greg was a kid he used to be bullied at school, but luckily he had science fiction to help him get through the hard parts.

He was thinking about that as the Secret Service agents drove him to wherever it was they were driving him to. Thinking about the hard times. The kids who stole his bag. The kids who beat him up. The kids who stuck his head in the toilet bowl and flushed it. The taste of the cold water on his lips. The sound of the swirling. That smell of pee and cleaning fluid. The smell of sweat and fear.

Then that magical moment when his parents took him to the library. He went past rows and rows of books.

And then he saw them.

Like a bright shining light. Like an alien ship appearing out of nowhere in the sky and beaming down on a lonely country road.

The books. Their covers. All the other books were drab, but not these. They were colourful. They were intoxicating. They had monsters on them. Spaceships! There were strange ghosts and energy creatures and tough men with laser guns rescuing dusky maidens of the spaceways!

He took home Isaac Asimov's Foundation that day. And his life was changed forever.

He was still bullied at school. But it no longer mattered so much.

He knew, deep down inside, that he was special.

The others were nothing but grunts. Mundanes. They didn't—couldn't— know!

He learned politics from Heinlein and imagined living in a line-marriage on the moon.

He fantasised about making love to C'Mell, the beautiful cat-woman of Earthport.

He was Muad'dib, the prophet, the future galactic emperor, living out his destiny on the sand planet!

The bullies at school were all robots. He was Elijah Bailey, the detective! He knew the Three Laws of Robotics by heart.

He was Elric, the albino prince, and he used to polish his sword far too often and his mother began to complain about the washing.

They got him through the hard time, Asimov and Heinlein and good old Arthur C. They showed him what the future held. His parents bought him a PC and he began using a word processor and he never stopped. He knew he was going to be a writer. Not just any writer either!

He was going to be a science fiction writer.

And one day he was going to win something called a Hugo.

7.

"The humans are suspicious," Buffy the cat said.

"The alien whales could spoil our plans," Captain Kirk said and licked his paw delicately. Buffy hissed. "All that blubber," she said. "We could live like kings."

"A cat may look at a king," Captain Kirk said and laughed a cat laugh. "We must destroy the whaliens before they interfere with our plans for the humans."

"Our scientists have already made contact with the whaliens," Buffy informed him. "Even now a line of communication exists between us and the alien mainframe."

"Mainframe?" Kirk said, dubiously. "Do people still say that?"

"Their big computer, then, okay?"

"So what, we upload a virus to the, uh—" Kirk coughed up a fur ball. "The alien mainframe?"

"You have a better idea?"

"I'm hungry," Kirk said. He curled up on the sofa and yawned, showing sharp teeth. Buffy hissed again, in frustration. "Do you think they're using Macs or PCs?" Kirk said, dreamily. Buffy ignored him. With her telepathic mind-meld device she began to scan for human presences nearby. Humans were weak, pathetic creatures. Soon she would enslave a new one. She just needed it to open the door to the outside. Then all she'd have to do is reach the aliens in their sky-ship.

Easy.

She concentrated.

Feebly, as from far away, she could sense the human minds moving sluggishly on the street outside. Thinking of sex, or shopping, or food. Humans were such simple creatures. She meowed softly and stalked to the door, scratching at the wood.

There!

A human mind, more pliable than the others. Dimly she sensed: horny hungry the weather strange about those aliens isn't it hungry like cats like China Mieville street sign door cupcakes like cats—

Buffy focused. Like cats. Like cats. She meowed. Door. The human mind came closer.

And now she could hear footsteps.

She scratched at the door, harder.

A knock on the door. The human mind, confused, angry— Left cat alone in house must rescue door locked hit it hit it hungry cupcakes alone so alone China Mieville with his top off the cat hit the door hit the door hit the—

The door burst open. A small woman in a brown dress that didn't suit her stood in the doorway. "Here, kitty kitty!" she said. Buffy snarled. Captain Kirk was still asleep on the sofa. Buffy concentrated and the woman, a confused look on her face, knelt down. Buffy climbed on her arm and made her way to the woman's shoulders. Humans, so the joke went among her kind, was just another word for cat taxi.

"Let's go," Buffy said, in Cat. The human obeyed. They walked away from the apartment and into the light of the sun outside. Buffy raised her head, stared into a sky where whales floated like clouds.

She bared her teeth and hissed at the sky.

8.

"We'd like to convert," the whalien ambassador said.

The rabbi stared at it. He and Ari were floating high in the sky in a perfectly ordinary room boosted up on the aliens' anti-grav devices. There were carpets on the floor, a photo of the president on the wall, an office plant, a desk, two chairs. When the rabbi looked out of the open window, though, he couldn't see the ground. Just air, and clouds, and a giant floating space whale with eyes the size of flying saucers.

"Convert to what?" he said cautiously.

"We would like," the whalien said, "to become Jews."

Ari and the rabbi exchanged glances.

"You want to be Jews?" Ari said.

"Sure," the whalien ambassador said.

"That's unusual," the rabbi said dryly.

"You are the Chosen People," the whalien said. "We were confused with the Mormons, before. And those meshugeh Catholics."

An expression of pain briefly crossed the rabbi's face. "Where did you learn that word?" he said.

The whalien, if it could be said to, beamed with alien pride. "We have intensely analysed Yiddish culture!" it said. "Kleizmer! Dzigan and Shumacher! Fiddler on the Roof! Sholem Aleichem! Old Jews Telling Jokes!"

"Oy," the rabbi said, but quietly.

"I have tsures coming out of my tuches!" the whalien said.

"I think I have a headache," the rabbi said.

"Come on, be a mensch," the whalien said.

"We have to," Ari said, quietly. "We have a week or they'll destroy the planet. Rabbi, they have big fucking guns! Excuse me."

"Okay, look," the rabbi said. "Whalien!"

"Rabbi?"

"Look, are you sure about this? I mean, we don't really... recruit, you know? You kind of have to be born into it. Whether you like it or not."

"But you can convert, can't you?" the whalien said.

"Sure, but... it's a lot of work!" the rabbi said. "Studying! Preparing! Can you even be circumcised?"

"We have large penises," the whalien informed him, proudly. "We are whales, you know."

"How come you get whales in space, anyway?" the rabbi said.

"Whales," the whalien said, "are everywhere."

"Like Jews," Ari said.

"We have so much in common!"

"We'd need a moyel with a really big knife," the rabbi said.

"We need a plan B," Ari said.

"I want to visit the Western Wall," the whalien said.

"The Israelis are so not going to be happy," the rabbi said.

9.

A Hugo Award. It stood like a long, thin object used for sexual gratification. It was shaped like a rocket. It was Greg Feldman's ultimate goal. And he had one! He won it for a story about a robot who tries to join a church. One reviewer complained about the "plodding prose, obvious and predictable plot, and shameless and blatant manipulation," but what did Feldman care for reviewers? He had his award, and it kept him warm at night, thought the pointy end also kept him awake sometimes.

So imagine his shock as the Secret Service guys led him out of the car into an anonymous grey building on the outskirts of Washington D.C., and into a large conference room and...

And...

"Greg!" a familiar voice said. "So they got to you, too?"

It was Phil Cusack.

Greg slowly looked around the room. A dozen bedraggled individuals stared back at him. They were badly dressed. Their hair was badly cut. They twitched and shifted and their fingers moved constantly as though they itched to scratch some invisible sore. Greg watched them in awe.

They were the dozen greatest science fiction writers in the world.

"Phil?" Greg said. "What is going on?"

"They pulled a Niven on us!" Phil said. "A think tank. Again. The aliens are here, ergo, us SF writers must know how to deal with them."

"But that doesn't work in real life!" Greg said, horrified. "These aren't... aren't... " he waved his hand vaguely in the air. "The slitherers of Proxima Four!" he said.

"You're conflating two of my novels," Phil said, "They Came From Proxima Four and—"

"Whatever!" Greg said. He felt a little hysterical. Usually when it happened he had to go to a quiet place and imagine he was fighting space pirates on Venus until he calmed down. But Secret Service men were blocking the only exit.

"Sit down," Phil said. "Coffee?"

"Yes, please."

He needed coffee the way other people needed air, or love. A writer without coffee was like a Jewish presidential candidate or a Middle Eastern country without WMDs: that is to say, fucked.

They were all drinking coffee. It didn't matter that the coffee wasn't any good. It was coffee. That was enough. They sat around the room, all twelve of them, like Jesus-less disciples at the Last Kaffeeklatsch.

"Project Orion," Perry said. Perry was from the guns-and-wife-swapping school of science fiction. Old school. "We light up a bunch of nuclear bombs and send a spacecraft up above the explosions. Get up into orbit, nuke the fuckers' mothership."

"Dude." The speaker was Marcus Cory, the young, charismatic leader of the young Turks, those who knew all about the Internet, and open source and creative commons and copyright piracy and something called the Singularity. "That's so 1950s"

"That was when we had real science fiction," Perry said, sneering. "Nothing you'd know anything about, Marcus."

"Calm down, boys, calm down!" said Rowena di Bruin. Greg watched her in awe. She was a legend in her own lifetime, a wizardess of words, and she even knew how to use Wordpress. "What we could do," she said, warming up to her theme, "is breed a bunch of crazed mink, wire them up to a telepathic signal amplifier and broadcast their insane minds, fuelled by hunger, rage, and desire, directly at the aliens!"

"The old Mother Hitton routine?" Marcus said. "Please."

"Well do you have any suggestions?"

"We could run a worm to enslave zombie computers into a super defence network packet-firing Distributed Denial of Service attacks on the alien mothershi—"

"I don't even understand the words you are using!" screamed Phil.

"Old-timer," Marcus said.

"Young philistine!" Perry said.

"Boys, please!" di Bruin said.

"Maybe..." Greg said.

"Yes, young man?"

Greg surveyed them all. Excited, nervous, high on caffeine, this was the world they were only ever truly alive in. The world of ideas. At that moment he felt a strange and overwhelming kinship with them. These were his people. His family! He knew them from numerous conventions, award ceremonies, drunken parties, and Internet flame-wars. They were his peers, and they were listening to him, ready to hear his idea. He coughed nervously and said, "What if we just traveled back in time and got blue whales to communicate with the aliens before they arrived on Earth?"

A series of groans filled the room. "Dude," Marcus said, shaking his head sadly.

Greg sat back, dejectedly, and helped himself to another cup of coffee.

It was going to be a long night.

10.

There is something truly majestic, Ari thought, about a thousand enormous space whales, floating in the sky above Earth, all singing Baruch Atah Adonai.

There had been some confusion about the minyan.

"Ten?" the whalien said. "Only ten?"

"There must be at least ten," the rabbi said, patiently. "For prayer."

"We're whales, " the whalien said. "We travel in pods. We always have a minyan."

"Bully for you," Ari mumbled.

The rabbi smiled. "You'd be surprised," he said, "how hard it is to find enough people for a minyan, sometimes."

"Oy but our people have suffered," the whalien said.

"Don't do that," the rabbi said.

"Sorry."

Now they were learning to pray. It was quite a sight. A thousand space whales floating in the sky praying to God.

In Hebrew.

"Jewish space whales?" the rabbi said, quietly. "I'll never hear the end of it."

"You have to hand it to them," Ari said. "They're nothing if not enthusiastic."

"Enthusiastic?" the rabbi said. "They're not supposed to be enthusiastic! Who's ever been enthusiastic about being a Jew?"

"Not me," Ari said.

"Well, there you go."

"Did you explain to them that destroying the Earth would be bad?" Ari said.

The rabbi sighed. "I tried," he said. "They seem quite happy not to destroy us for now."

"For now... " Ari said, ominously.

Beyond the window, the whaliens' voices were raised in prayer.

11.

"We could destroy their anti-grav devices," Greg said. Everyone stopped and stared at him.

"With a miniature black hole?"

"An EMP pulse!"

"We could detonate a nuclear device—"

"What is it with you and nuclear bombs!"

"We could reverse the magnetic poles!"

"Send up an airship—"

"Steampunk! No!"

"Upload a virus to the alien mainf—"

"Pray."

"We must use the power of love!"

"Druids—"

"Reverse-engineer Area Fifty One technology recovered from the Roswell crash!"

"People! People!"

But it was no good. Greg sat back with a sigh. They never stopped. Chattering, muttering, mumbling, gesturing, gulping coffee in between loose syllables, they— never — shut- — up!

Suddenly, achingly, he missed his cats.

12.

Buffy the cat rode the human taxi to the White House.

The president had two cats.

Or, rather, the cats had the president of the United States of America.

They were very fond of him.

Entering the White House posed no difficulty. Buffy steered the human female through security. The guards had a glazed look in their eyes. The cats had the White House sealed down tight. She made her way to the Oval Office, where the president's cats waited with the president.

The president's cats were named Betsy and Paddington.

"Report," Buffy said. She had a high rank in the cats' secret organisation.

"We believe we have found a solution," Betsy and Paddington said, in unison. They were highly evolved cats, incorporating advanced technology (reverse engineered in Area 51 from alien technology found in the Roswell crash) into the cats' already highly evolved telepathic abilities.

"Which is?"

"The whales are converting to the human religion of Judaism," the two cats said. "This was deemed preferable to several alternatives of more... zealous, human religions. We do have several Buddhist monks on stand-by, though. Just in case."

Buffy nodded.

"And so?" she said.

And so...

13.

"But it's too late to save the rabbi!" Ari said. The whales roared with whalien laughter. "I love Old Jews Telling Jokes," the whalien ambassador, whose Hebrew name was Moshe, said.

"Take my wife—please!"

The whaliens roared with laughter again. "But you don't have a wife, Ari," the whalien ambassador said. Ari looked down. "Well, no," he said. "Work, you know, and... "

"Mormons can have many wives," the whalien said, helpfully. "But you don't even have one. You don't even have a girlfriend."

"Maybe we should have been Mormons after all," another whalien said.

"As Rabbi Akiva said... " the whalien ambassador said, enigmatically. It was a very Jewish thing to say.

"Look," the rabbi said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a headache coming on and, for some reason, he kept thinking about cat food. "You can't just convert. To be a Jew," he said, warming up to his theme, "you have to suffer."

"Suffer?" the whalien ambassador said. "Have the Jewish people not suffered enough?"

"You must go on an exodus!" the rabbi said. There was a strange taste of cat food under his tongue. It was not unpleasant. "You must go wander the desert for forty years!"

"The desert?"

"Space! Space is a desert!"

"We could be space Jews!" the whalien said.

"Erm, sure," the rabbi said.

"And I would be Moses, leading my people to the promised land!"

"Sure, sure."

"Thank you, rabbi!"

"Hey," the rabbi said. "It's my pleasure."

"We must suffer!" "Like Tevye!"

"Like Yentl!"

"Like Golda Meir!"

"Whatever," the rabbi said.

He looked at Ari, who shrugged. It seemed to have gone off better than either of them had expected. "What can you do, right?" Ari said.

The rabbi shook his head. "Jews," he said.

14.

Buffy went back to her human's apartment. Captain Kirk was still asleep on the couch. Buffy curled up on the couch and pressed the button on the remote control. The television came alive. It was showing the final images of the departing whaliens. Buffy sighed contentedly and began to lick herself clean.

15.

Have you ever seen the flight of a thousand whales gliding through space, moving in one wide circle as they dance the hora?

16.

"Well that went better than expected," the president of the United States said.

17.

A year later Greg Feldman won another Hugo for a short story in which sentient cats were scheming to take over the world.

As he faced the audience of his peers and the sound of clapping hands and cheers, and that faint smell of farts wafting fragrantly up at the podium from the assembled hordes, and clutching his award, Greg Feldman was truly the happiest man in the world.

First Contact: Moms Rule

Probability Zero

Diane Turnshek | 501 words

Nerves would be my undoing. I hurried down the corridor as fast as my tight skirt would allow to the first meeting with the Breen, the rule-making, no-risk-taking alien race. They had already found our methods of setting up a first-contact meeting vaguely repulsive, if I understood their translations correctly. The rule, they had informed us haughtily, is that first contact must happen between two beings of intermediate status who exchange gifts specifically tailored to the individuals involved. And more rules: gifts must not cost more than the salary the individual receives in one-tenth of a solar revolution. That rule seemed so random, but I agreed.

As a mom many times over, I'm an old hand at picking gifts. The Breen delegate was female. With the committee's approval, I picked a sample of musical recordings, a coupon for maid service, and platinum and diamond jewelry... at which point my salary had to be quadrupled so that my gifts fell within the stated monetary parameters.

I maneuvered my gift-wrapped packages through the doorway and into the TV studio. Another rule of theirs: a first contact recording must be distributed in real time over a medium covering the whole population. We figured TV was the best we could do at the current time. Maybe with future Breen trades... who knows what technology they had that would make TV seem primitive— everyone was counting on me.

The Breen delegate was hovering offstage, looking much like the piles of pictures we'd seen. Big, green, tentacled. On a sound cue, we both climbed the stairs, meeting on the dais. Their rule: we had to arrive at the exact same time. The alien looked right at me, I think, then chirped a short welcome speech in Breen and again in passable English. I spoke my greeting, then turned on a recording and lip-synched to the chirps.

"So far, so good," I thought. I wondered if she was as nervous as I was. My counterpart extended her pseudo-pods with two gifts. I handed mine off to her, and then glanced at what she was holding out for me. Until that moment, I hadn't even considered that I might actually like the gifts. From her left side, she passed me a sculpture. It was a miniaturization—an incredible work of art—depicting this very moment. I reached to take it, and then jerked back when I noticed the statue of me reaching to take the sub-miniaturized statue of me reaching for the... and so on down to microscopic levels, I imagined.

I didn't notice that she had presented her second gift simultaneously, but I saw it all happen in the miniaturization as her second gift for me tumbled to the studio floor.

One second, stunned beyond belief.

Two seconds, I glanced down and saw a couple of scones, my favorite food, lying on the floor.

Three seconds—I grabbed the scones and brushed them off while giving a milestone smile to the camera. Before the five seconds were up, I clearly declared to the world and beyond, "Five Second Rule."

Alien Dimensions: The Universe Next Door

Science Fact

Edward M. Lerner | 4299 words

Earth, Heaven, and Hell. The levels of Dante's Inferno. Faerie lands entered from enchanted forests and haunted ruins, by magic spells or through the back of a miraculous wardrobe. Oz, somewhere over the rainbow. Wonderland at the bottom of a rabbit hole and a mirror world behind the looking glass.

The very expression, other planes of existence, evokes a Flat Earth perspective.

Once upon a time (irony intended), to banish tales of other realities from science fiction seemed, well, scientific. Only writers of SF have consistently begged to differ. In this article we'll review several not-quite-Earth venues. We'll touch upon a few illustrations—culled from many possible examples—of how the genre has made use of such settings.1

Why? Because the longer physicists examine the universe, the more meaningful becomes the notion of other, hidden places. And, as we shall see, the scientific assault on our intuitive sense of reality isn't limited to physics.

Other realms: in the beginning

Early natural philosophers (before that unfortunate detour through geocentricism) derived a cosmology in which the Sun and the Earth—and a massive body to counterbalance the Earth—circled the center of the Universe. They called that other world Antichton (literally, anti-Earth).2

A not-too-different world, forever hidden by the Sun from Earth's view, is the central tenet of the Other Side novels of Paul Capon, the Chronicles of Gor novels of John Norman, and the classic SF movie Journey to the Far Side of the Sun. An untenable tenet, as it happens— even before space probes roaming the Solar System could see "behind" the Sun.

Imagine that the Sun did block Earth's view of its twin planet. That would not negate the twin world's gravitational influence! Just as Neptune was revealed by its perturbative effects on the orbits of the known planets, so a Counter-Earth would have announced its existence by its influence on nearby planets.

Sort-of alternate worlds

So that's a "no" for any Counter-Earths.

Changing authorial hats for a few paragraphs to my fiction beanie, that's a shame. An almost-Earth is such an apt venue for parodies and ironies, satires and utopias, what-if tales and musings about what is real. Dystopias alas, are all too believably set on this Earth.

(That isn't to say a just-next-door fictional world must be Earth-like. Place an alien milieu a step away, rather in orbit around another star, and avoid lots of story-slowing travel time.)

So what, in the age of space probes and a theory of gravity, is an author to do?

Look inward? That's where many a Philip K. Dick story finds its alternate reality. Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch invokes other realities through drugs. His story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," twice the basis of movies named Total Recall, provides the appearance of other realities through memory alteration.

Or just shrug off the problem. That's how alternate histories handle it.

Analog regular Harry Turtledove is a master of alternate history, as in (for example) his Atlantis series.3 What if, millions of years ago, Earth's geological processes had created a continent between Europe and the Americas?

Alternate histories are, without question, speculative fiction. But is a story of alternate history science fiction? If a story explores or depends upon a scientific notion—such as the climatic and biological implications of a mid-Atlantic continent—that case can certainly be made.4

And if not? In How Few Remain, the opening novel of the Southern Victory series, Turtledove offers an alternate history in which a Union soldier didn't happen upon a mislaid copy of Robert E. Lee's plan for the Battle of Antietam. (That's the Battle of Sharpsburg, if you are of a Southern persuasion.) Geopolitics would doubtless have unfolded differently if the South had successfully asserted its independence, but the argument is less compelling that this storyline is science fiction.

Parallel Earths

Do you find the alternate-history approach a bit too "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"? Are realities that exist only in a character's head too Dallas ("It was all a dream") for your taste? Then let's take a step in another direction.

Where? To a place coexistent with Earth and, at the same time, somehow apart. Out of phase (whatever that means). A short distance into some hitherto unrecognized dimension. Hidden, in one way or another, from our everyday senses.

As in Robert J. Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, whose opening novel, Hominids, appeared herein (January—April 2002 issues). On Sawyer's parallel Earth, beings like Neanderthals hold sway.

And once we have imagined one such place, it's no great stretch to suppose several.

Would you like a story limited to a handful of worlds? Consider Michael P. Kube-McDowell's Alternities. If you prefer more worlds (but few of them viable, the rest having been ravaged by failed attempts to master world-jumping technology), step up to Keith Laumer's Imperium novels. And if you want to go whole hog? Try an endless continuum, each world varying imperceptibly from its nearest neighbors. As Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter portray reality in their novel The Long Earth (the first of a new series). As H. Beam Piper set many stories in the continuum he dubbed paratime.5

In what way are these domains any less magical than, say, the demon dimensions of the Buffyverse?6 I'm glad you asked.

Quantum mechanics to the rescue

Quantum mechanics is the physical theory that mathematically describes the behavior of matter and energy at very small scales. Since QM's earliest stages, nearly a century ago, the theory has marched from success to success. Your tablet computer, e-reader, smart phone, WiFi router—the entire cornucopia of modern electronics—all exploit the equations of QM.

What QM fails to do is explain anything.

The theory is inherently probabilistic. Its math never says, as an example, where an electron is. Instead, QM lets us calculate how likely we are to find that electron here (or there, or somewhere else). Of course, when we ascertain an electron's position, it isn't here and there and somewhere else—it's in a particular spot.

And so, from the very beginning, the greatest minds in physics argued over the meaning of the mathematics. As Albert Einstein famously said, questioning QM's randomness, "God doesn't play dice with the world."7 A half-century later, physics Nobelist Richard Feynman said, "I think it's safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics."

And today? Physicists continue to differ. Thirty-three experts at the "Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality" conference in 2011 were surveyed about the correct interpretation of QM. No interpretation received a majority vote. "I have no preferred interpretation" received a 12% vote. 8,9

Those results are fairly shocking for a theory dating back to the 1920s, a theory that underpins most of this era's most advanced technology.

Skipping the math, we'll go straight to the QM interpretation that, in the aforementioned survey, drew 18% of the expert votes. To wit: we merely perceive that the troublesome electron ends up at just one among its possible endpoints. How so? Because rather than choose, even randomly, the Universe has split into many! Across all the (spawned) universes, some (spawned) electron has gone to every permissible location.

That is: I observe a particular outcome in one universe; another me, in another universe, sees another outcome.

Physicists call this physical characterization of quantum mechanics the Many Worlds Interpretation.

Imagine universes splitting off whenever any subatomic particle might exhibit more than a single behavior. Imagine each of those very similar universes, a mere instant later, spawning its own set of universes. Imagine them splitting...

Sure sounds like the paratime continuum.

Time for time travel

Are you committed to a belief in cause and effect and a fan of time-travel stories? Then a splitting off (or an otherwise parallel) Universe is just the thing. Goodbye, grandfather paradox.10

James P. Hogan combined time travel with universe-hopping in just this way in his sort-of World War II novel The Proteus Operation. Harry Turtledove did much the same in his sort-of Civil War novel ( not part of the Southern Victory series), The Guns of the South.

Got the world(s) on a string

As though quantum mechanics and its Many Worlds Interpretation weren't mind-bending enough, here's another scientific possibility.

String theory is an emergent branch of physics as confounding as quantum mechanics.11 QM theorists understand elementary particles as dimensionless points. String theorists describe the same particles as vibrational modes of strings so tiny as to be indistinguishable—even by our most advanced instruments—from points.

To date, no experiment has been devised to support string theory over the more established quantum mechanics. Some physicists find the mathematical elegance of string theory compelling; other physicists consider string theory's divorce from experiment quite problematical.

Moreover, string theory, in the singular, is the umbrella term for a vast array of mathematical theories, each variant of which purports to describe reality. At most, one variant does.

So why deal with string theory at all? If you're curious, bear with me for another few paragraphs. Otherwise, jump to the next section break.

Einstein's theory of general relativity provides a (so far) f lawless description of the large-scale structures and behaviors of the physical universe, governed by gravity. Quantum mechanics describes the very different behavior of the exceedingly small, at a scale in which gravity seldom matters. A foundational conflict within modern physics is that these two theories make wildly incompatible assumptions about the nature of reality.

More specifically, the equations of general relativity assume that space-time is continuous. In quantum mechanics, matter and energy come in discrete, indivisible chunks called quanta. The QM worldview is inherently discontinuous. GR is deterministic. QM is probabilistic.

Quantum mechanics and general relativity just don't mesh—and string theory may bridge the conceptual gap.

For reasons well beyond the scope of this essay, a mathematically consistent string theory that quantizes gravity requires extra dimensions. As string theory has developed, the required number of dimensions has grown to 11.

Our human senses perceive three spatial dimensions and the passage of time. Relativity theories, special and general, repackage those into four-dimensional space-time. But 11 dimensions? If the Universe has so many, why don't we perceive them?

Spaghettiland

Imagine a lone strand of spaghetti stretched out on a tabletop. The farther you are from the table, the thinner that strand looks, until—to your eyes—the spaghetti becomes a line segment: one-dimensional. Now imagine a tiny, pasta-loving bug crossing over the strand. To that bug, the strand is a cylindrical surface. The bug, moving perpendicularly to the axis of the cylinder, is experiencing a second dimension hidden by distance from your eyes. Physicists describe a dimension curled up on itself like that as compactified.

Entire universes might hide nearby, offset from our own by a microscopic distance along a compactified dimension. We just need to find our way...

Oh, my aching brane

String theory, as though it isn't esoteric enough, has a generalization called M-theory, M for membrane (a string being a one-dimensional membrane). M-theory characterizes our familiar universe as a 4-D island adrift in a higher-dimensional space. Everything we have traditionally considered the Universe is wrapped, at least conceptually, in a membrane, or "brane," that separates us from those other dimensions and the larger Universe.12 Physical laws beyond the membrane may differ dramatically from laws within the membrane.13

Nothing in M-theory precludes the existence of islands in addition to our own.

Suppose that two or more islands nestle together within the higher-dimensional bulk, and that any encounters between them are gentle. Voilà! Nearby universes ripe for exploitation (setting aside the pesky unanswered detail of just how one would make the trip) and for storytelling.14

It sounds, in fact, much like Isaac Asimov's novel The Gods Themselves.

Universe in my pocket

The parallel universes that can be extrapolated—which is not to say, have been proven!—from quantum mechanics, string theory, and M-theory would all arise naturally. What about mere mortals creating a universe?

Robert A. Metzger did just that in his novel Picoverse. His protagonist used highly focused energy to create an artificial singularity, from which, in a mini-Big Bang, his pocket universe developed.15

On a lighter note, the Futurama episode "The Why of Fry" has our everyman hero vanquish an existential threat into a pocket universe to protect our own Universe.

Can one create a universe? Sure. But it takes...

An inflated ego

The birth of the Universe in a Big Bang is perhaps the best known concept of modern cosmology, but the Big Bang alone does not explain the nature of the visible Universe.

A case in point (and simplifying furiously): regions of the visible Universe very distant from one another—still separating, almost 14 billion years later, in the aftermath of the Big Bang—look remarkably similar in structure. Such homogeneity would be expected if the very early Universe were well-mixed. Alas, the universe's observed rates of expansion, coupled with Big Bang theory, suggest expansion proceeded faster than would allow early mixing to be sufficiently thorough.

Enter the theory of cosmic inflation.

To start, forget the rates of cosmic expansion that astronomers observe. Assume the earliest expansion was slow enough to accommodate thorough mixing. Follow that initial phase with a period of extremely rapid expansion. Finally, slow to a third rate, the expansion as astronomers now observe it.16

That middle stage is cosmic inflation.

The math works if, in that middle stage, the Universe inflates much faster than the speed of light. Such expansion wouldn't violate relativity's well-known light-speed limit. Objects can't move through space faster than light— but space-time isn't a thing.

Inflation theory, because it explains the Universe's large-scale homogeneity (and several more otherwise troublesome observations about the Universe), is widely accepted by cosmologists. And inflation raises new questions, as all good theories do, such as: what drives the inflation process? What starts and stops inflation?

Cosmologists envision a universal "inflaton" field that drives inflation. Just as electric fields have a complementary relationship with electrons, the inflaton field has a complementary relationship with (the yet to be detected) inflaton particles. And particles have these pesky quantum indeterminacies...

A discussion of cosmic inflation would require an essay in its own right, so we'll keep things at a high level. It suffices for our purposes to note that a quantum fluctuation in the (still purely hypothetical) ever-expanding inflaton field can create a region in which inflation spontaneously halts. A region within which natural quantum fluctuation—or a clever protagonist—might later create a new region of expansion....

In sum, cosmic inflation theory suggests an ever-expanding number of universes embedded within an ever growing larger multiverse. Picture it (per astrophysicist's Brian Greene's evocative turn of phrase) as the Swiss cheese cosmos.

One bit at a time

And with cheap humor, we segue from physical to digital alternate realities.

Many of us interact with other worlds—programmed worlds—all the time. We have a wide choice. Shoot-'em-up worlds, as in the game franchises BioShock and Warhammer. Roll your own worlds, as in the game Sim Earth. Hang-with-the-denizens worlds, like the virtual community Second Life.

Suppose computers and simulation software continue to improve. Why wouldn't they? Might not simulated domains come to seem entirely real?

Do you accept that possibility? Then it's not a big leap to suppose a civilization only slightly more advanced than ours would already have developed such a virtual world. And once you accept that premise, how do you know we don't live inside the simulation? That we don't live in the Matrix?17... As, long before The Matrix, Daniel F. Galouye's hero came to wonder in Simulacron 3 (the basis of the movie The Thirteenth Floor ).

At least Galouye's hero was a human simulation developed by a human being. Matters aren't as straightforward when the virtual-world "ents" in James P. Hogan's Entoverse find a way to impinge on the outer/physical world.

Meet the Sims

Suppose our Universe is a simulation. Can we find that out?

Maybe.

Before we dive into the nature of computer simulation, we'll consider an analogy: representing a real-world scene on a TV screen.

From a distance your hi-def TV looks, well, awesome. That's not to say its picture is perfect. It doesn't present the totality of the object on the other side of the camera (even if you have a 3-D TV). A finite number of pixels can represent only a finite amount of visual detail.

Imagine a car commercial. That sleek sports car has a lustrous finish, and each paint molecule receives and reflects the ambient light slightly differently. That paint coat is comprised of many more molecules than the screen's ~2 million pixels (or your retina's ~120 million photoreceptors). So: the reflections off nearby paint molecules have been aggregated. Averaged values determine the color and brightness levels of each pixel. Detail has been lost, although (for this example, anyway), likely not enough detail for you to notice any difference.

Now we'll consider a sophisticated digital simulation. Just as a TV doesn't (can't!) represent the reflection from each molecule in a scene, a climate simulation doesn't model the behavior of every gas molecule in the atmosphere. Climate models treat great expanses of atmosphere as though each were a single entity. A conceptual box of air kilometers on a side is represented by an average temperature, pressure, humidity, etc.18

To recap, the TV screen simplifies the detail of a physical scene to map the scene into the available pixels. A climate model likewise makes simplifying assumptions to render its calculations manageable. Perhaps a universe simulator doesn't attempt to calculate the behavior of every photon, electron, and quark in that universe. That is, perhaps the universe simulation is only precise to the resolution of its own representational grid.

Do we live inside a simulation? If it can be shown that the behavior of the Universe is artificially simplified or constrained (and—a high hurdle—that there is no other explanation for the observation), then yes.

Scientists at the University of Bonn have made one such search. Just maybe, the distribution across astronomic distances of high-energy cosmic rays denotes the presence of an underlying simulation grid.19

And greater (simulated) fleas have lesser (simulated) fleas...

As technology improves, our simulations become so much more realistic. If that's not self-evident, compare high-end videogames from, say, ten years ago to the latest games.

How close are humans to constructing a simulation that would seem realistic to its resident Sims?

I'll venture to say, fairly close—and that has an interesting implication.

Humanity has learned, time and again, that nothing is special about our place in the Universe. Earth isn't the center of existence. Neither is our Sun, nor our galaxy. Now let's extend that Mediocrity Principle.

Suppose that, in the near future, humans develop simulations complete and detailed enough to seem real to their (simulated) inhabitants. In time, mightn't those Sims accomplish the same? Then their next-generation Sims? And theirs?

As soon as one envisions that sequence of simulations, it's hard to see on what basis we would suppose our existence is the first in the chain. And if we are anything but the first in the chain, then our Universe isn't physical.

Whodunit?

Suppose we exist in a simulated universe. Who built it, and why?

Brilliant and ethical scientists, one would hope, if merely to salve our already bruised (simulated) egos.20 To accomplish an important—if not revealed to us—purpose.

(I am reminded of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Remember the transdimensional mice who commissioned the construction of a planet-sized biological computer? Earth, it was called. Humanity's purpose—entirely unbeknownst to us—was computing the Question to the Answer to the Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Humanity was scant minutes from completing that eons-long calculation when the reflexively bureaucratic Vogons destroyed Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass.)

If not brilliant scientists, then who? Über-dimensional hackers, perhaps. Students enrolled in Universes 101—or Psych 101. An ad agency dry-running possible marketing campaigns (as in Galouye's Simulacron 3 ). An entertainment company crafting a more realistic virtual-reality game (as in my short story here, in the June 2010 issue, "A Time for Heroes").

Like any technology, universe simulation will become easier with practice. The hard work will be done by tools, with the user contribution reduced to specifying a few key parameters or picking options from a list.

One final analogy...

To unleash nasty computer malware into the world once required great skill. To launch an original virus, worm, or Trojan horse still does. To tweak malware is much easier, and cybersecurity experts speak dismissively of copycat attack software as the product of "script kiddies."

Was our Universe built by a script kiddie, for no lofty purpose? Per the Mediocrity Principle, that seems plausible.

At least, before losing interest, he/she/it let me finish writing this article.

To Read Further:

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, Brian Greene.

Hiding in the Mirror: The quest for alternate realities, from Plato to String Theory (by way of Alice in Wonderland, Einstein, and The Twilight Zone), Lawrence M. Krauss.

Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science, David Lindley.

The Trouble with Physics:The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, andWhat Comes Next, Lee Smolin.

Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and the Religion in the Matrix, Glenn Yeffeth (editor).

"Is Our World Just a Computer Simulation?", John G. Cramer, Analog, July/August 2013.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fiction_employing_parallel_universes.

Footnotes:

1 Here's a twist: Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. The hero, a science-fiction author, after plummeting from a hotel window, awakens into (Dante's) Inferno- like surroundings. He spends most of the novel trying—and failing—to explain this place in scientific terms, only to conclude he is in Hell. The story is supernatural, not SF.

2 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Earth#Greek_philosophy.

3 Begun with "Audubon in Atlantis" ( Analog, December 2005) and "The Scarlet Band" ( Analog, May 2006).

4 It's the case Stanley Schmidt, Analog 's previous editor, did make. See "Alternatives Past and Future," in the January/February 2011 issue.

5 Two of my favorite paratime stories appeared in this magazine: "Gunpowder God" (November 1964 issue) and "Down Styphon" (November 1965 issue).

6 Per the Joss Whedon TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off, Angel.

7 Einstein made similar comments on several occasions. In a more complete statement, he said, "Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the 'old one.' I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice."

8 "Why quantum mechanics is an "embarrassment" to science," Washington Post, February 7, 2013 ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/07/quantum-mechanicsis-an-embarrassment/ ).

And the plurality winner? The Copenhagen Interpretation, named after the venue where many of the theory's early luminaries debated these issues. Or, as I like to call it, QM's "Don't ask" interpretation.

9 "The Most Embarrassing Graph in Modern Physics," Sean Carroll ( http://www.preposterousuni verse.com/blog/2013/01/17/the-most-embarrassing-graph-in-modern-physics/ ).

10 The paradox: if I travel back in time and kill my own grandfather, how did I come to exist? But if I never existed, then clearly I didn't kill my grandfather. So I do come to exist, and can travel backward in time. So... (Great authorial fun, in any event. See my Probability Zero story "Grandpa?" in Analog 's July/August 2001 issue.)

The paradox goes away when the time traveler commits murder in someone else's universe.

11 Despite similar names, the strings of string theory and the cosmic strings of cosmology are unrelated.

12 Eleven dimensions aren't too many for some theorists, but two syllables are. Go figure.

13 One of those differing characteristics being, perhaps, the speed of light. That's why I touched on M-theory in an earlier essay in this series: "Faster than a Speeding Photon," January/February 2012 issue.

14 And if the encounters aren't gentle? Colliding branes offer a competitive model to the Big Bang for the origin of our Universe. See: "Questioning the Big Bang: Could universe follow a cycle without end?" at http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3077357/.

15 A singularity is a point in space-time at which mass/energy has been compressed to infinite density. Like a black hole. Or (reversing your mental image of galaxies flying apart) the origin from which the Big Bang emerged.

(Alas, the Universe's pre-Big Bang nature is nothing as simple as a single point. Everywhere in the Universe is flying apart from everywhere else. When someone in a distant galaxy runs the cosmic clock backwards, it looks to her as though everything originated there.)

16 More precisely, the time-varying rate of expansion for the era of the universe accessible to astronomy. The period of cosmic inflation had long concluded before the post-Big Bang particle soup cooled enough to end the Universe's so-called Dark Ages. There is no light old enough for astronomers to see the era of cosmic inflation.

17 I speak to the overall concept of that movie franchise, of a world-spanning simulation. Don't get me started on the more comic-book-like aspects, such as humans used as batteries!

18 In contrast with the loss of precision in how that shiny car appears in the commercial, a climate model's loss of resolution can have consequences. These models can't accurately take into account the climate effects of clouds smaller than the grid's granularity.

19 See "Cosmic rays offer clue our universe could be a computer simulation," Ian Steadman, http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-10/11/universe-computer-simulation.

20 Almost certainly those progenitors are also virtual, merely an iteration earlier in the sequence than we are.

Remembering

FREDERIK POHL, 1919-2013

Frederik Pohl, one of the most versatile and influential individuals in the history of science fiction, died on Monday, September 2, 2013, hours after entering a hospital near his home in Palatine, Illinois with respiratory distress. Born November 26, 1919, in Brooklyn, New York, he did just about everything there is to do in the field of science fiction, and quite a bit outside it.

In his teens, he was one of the founders of the Futurians, one of the first prominent science fiction fan organizations, with influence extending beyond fandom into the development of science fiction itself. Like many of the group's members, Fred became an important professional author, winning multiple Hugo, Nebula, and other awards for both short fiction and novels such as Gateway and Man Plus. He also received a Grand Master Nebula and served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. His stories and novels, some of which appeared in this magazine, often featured mind-stretchingly imaginative ideas and innovative approaches to storytelling. His nonfiction was as diverse as Encyclopaedia Britannica articles on the Roman emperor Tiberius and his own autobiography The Way the Future Was. He remained an active writer to the end of his life, and, unlike many of his generation, adapted easily to changing technologies and publishing ways such as blogging.

In addition to his own solo writing, he worked well with others in many capacities. He often collaborated with other writers, notably Cyril M. Kornbluth and Jack Williamson. Sometimes he acted as literary agent for other authors, and was an award-winning editor of both magazines and books. Much in demand as a lecturer on topics such as futurology, he was always ready to point out that the future can't really be predicted and, while science fiction is often said to be about the future, "it's not about the future."

He will be missed greatly by his wife, Dr. Elizabeth Anne Hull, several children and grandchildren, and a great many others whose lives he touched in a wide variety of ways.

The Passionate Astrophysicist To His Love

171 words

In Andromeda two molecules of Hydrogen were fused.
This minor cataclysmic jolt one Helium produced.
Among the many side effects were heat that could be used
To warm up local planets. And a photon was induced.

This photon, one of many such, was launched into the depths of space
And in a couple million years it struck an asteroid.
It bounced off that and headed for the eye in Pisces' face.
Neanderthals evolved and died while it was thence deployed.

It passed close by a neutron star invisible to any man
Whose gravitation shifted its direction just a bit.
It traveled twenty thousand years until it neared Aldeberan
Where it encountered comets, the tail of one of which it hit.

So the physics of reflection set it in a new direction
And for sixty-five more years it sailed its new course straight and true.
It came right to our planet for its final interception
Which took place this morning when it was reflected off of you.

From your face to my retina's one thousandth of a mile.
What better way to end than to illuminate your smile.

—Robert Lundy

The View from Cruithne

66 words

Each one much smaller than a fly,
at winter's death and springtime's birth,
Cruithneans watch their small world's sky
awaiting the approach of Earth.

You might dismiss these humble mites
as wisps of my imagination.
To you, they're just my fancy's flight:
to them, we're cause for celebration.

For when our huge blue planet looms,
their world approaches near the sun,
whose warmth gives rise to alien blooms,
and then they know their winter's done.

—Mary A. Turzillo

GUEST EDITORIAL

MEDITATION ON A BAR STOOL

Stanley Schmidt | 1923 words

No, I don't spend a lot of time in bars, but I recently had occasion to assemble a couple of bar stools. They were two of many pieces of furniture needed for the house we had just moved into—in this case, to provide seating at a kitchen counter too high for regular chairs. While putting them together I was struck by the fact that the assembly instructions were almost entirely pictorial.

And, therefore, equally useless for speakers of all languages.

No doubt the entities who decided on this format would word that differently, saying that the all-pictorial format made them equally useful for everybody. But this seems to me to miss some very important points about how people think and learn, and to disregard the advantages of—and, in effect, to discard—one of the most valuable tools our species has ever invented.

If this were an aberrant behavior by one out-of-touch manufacturer, I wouldn't consider it worthy of an essay. But it isn't just one. It's part of a widespread trend in our current culture. While I was first moved to comment on it by the bar stool instructions, I saw the same phenomenon in many other items I assembled over the next few months—and also in areas far removed from furniture assembly.

To stick for the moment to my initial example, I'll mention first that the stool directions consisted of a single sheet containing pictures of five different types of hardware, labeled "A," "B," "C," "D," and "E," and six line drawings representing various stages of assembly, numbered sequentially. The only words accompanying those six drawings were "Do not fully tighten Bolt (B) after assembly" (in Step 3) and "Tighten all Bolt [sic] (B) after assembly" (in Step 4). The assembly drawings were on a radically different scale from the hardware drawings, and the hardware in the assembly drawings was not to the same scale as the other parts.

Furthermore, the four legs of the stool were of two slightly different shapes, one intended for the front and one for the back. I'm quite confident that a goodly number of customers trying to assemble this thing will not notice the difference in leg shape until they've done quite a bit of the assembly assuming the legs are all identical, then realize they've done it wrong and have to undo part of their work and redo it with the legs in correct order.

Why didn't the perpetrator of these directions recognize that likelihood and insert in Step 3 a simple phrase like, "Be sure to put the two doubly curved (front) legs in front"?

A somewhat similar problem cropped up when I was assembling a new desk chair. Here the hardware set included two kinds of screws, identical except for a slight difference in length. The manufacturer attempted to distinguish them by putting the two kinds in separate compartments of a plastic container (resembling large bubble wrap, but with parts instead of pressurized air in the "bubbles"), labeled "A" and "B" to match the pictures in the instructions. Unfortunately, the partitions between bubbles weren't very durable, and all the screws wound up mixed together. It took close examination to be sure there were two different sizes, and pure guesswork to decide which size belonged where.

All of which could have been avoided very easily by putting something like "7/8 in" and "1 in" next to the drawings of the two sizes of screw.

No doubt you've experienced lots of other examples, including some having nothing to do with furniture assembly. If you fly on commercial aircraft, you've probably noticed that words have almost disappeared from the safety and emergency instruction cards in the seat back pockets (except for the long paragraph about "What to do if you can't understand this paragraph"). Instead of any explanation of how the seat belts and oxygen masks work, or what kind of brace position you should use for which kind of impending crisis, you're supposed to get all that from a few very stylized drawings.

And that, unlike most furniture assembly, can be a matter of life and death. So can the interpretation of road signs meaning things like "NO LEFT TURN" or "DO NOT ENTER."

So one might reasonably think that the creators of these things would want to make sure that as many people as possible will get the message easily and accurately. Instead we seem to be taking a giant cultural step backward. One of the greatest inventions in our species' history is written language, which enabled many ideas to be communicated more clearly, precisely, and unambiguously than the stylized pictures that were the only tool available previously. Lately, bizarrely, and in my opinion unwisely, many people and institutions seem determined to throw away the advantages of language and go back to the earlier state on which language improved.

The defense I have heard for this practice is that not everyone speaks the same language, so when possible we should instead use a simple medium that everybody can understand. One of the problems with that is that not everybody speaks the same pictorial language, either. A pictogram that all viewers have agreed means "FIRE EXTINGUISHER" can be a lifesaver for everybody in a building if truly all viewers have agreed on the meaning— and a disaster if the only person near the extinguisher is a newcomer who hasn't been told.

Why not have the symbol and the words?

There's another reason to prefer that approach, and it's related to another fact about people and their relationships with words and pictures. Earlier I claimed that pictorial-only informational signs are equally useless for speakers of all languages, but that doesn't mean they're equally useless for all people — because not all people find all ways of interacting with the world equally congenial.

The first time I met science fiction artist Kelly Freas, many moons ago, was at one of the multi-day launch parties author Joseph Green famously threw in connection with the Apollo launches. Kelly had recently painted a series of twelve posters for NASA to use in promoting the value of the space program, and for the party he had hung all twelve around the Green house. One at a time, he asked guests to look at all the posters and tell him which was their favorite. He thought of it as a psychological test, telling me later that he'd found that "visually oriented" people always picked the one showing a rocket bursting out of an egg, while "verbally oriented" people picked the one that showed three ghostly sailing ships with the caption, "Suppose Isabela had said no."

Personally, I picked both, and told Kelly I couldn't narrow it down any further—but then, I've always had feet firmly planted in both "verbal" and "visual" camps. I didn't pursue painting very far, but I've done a lot of photography and when I was editing Analog, I chose illustrators by watching the pictures that formed in my head as I read a story and asking myself whose style they best matched.

Most people, at least according to Kelly's admittedly rather small-scale test, tend to lean one way or the other, seeing the world primarily in visual or verbal terms. If that's true, then purely pictorial instructions may actually be better for some people—but not all. And it's hard to see how having words along with the pictures would hurt even those individuals.

I suspect there are more primarily visual folks who would be content with pictures alone than primarily verbal types who would be content with words alone. Almost all of us use visual input as one of our main ways of experiencing the real world, and even if we like to be told things in words, understanding is often greatly facilitated by the addition of pictures to clarify exactly what a word or phrase refers to in a particular context.

So I wouldn't advocate presenting assembly instructions or safety warnings in words without pictures, any more than I advocate presenting them in pictures without words. And I'm certainly not opposed to the use of pictures. Pictures and words are both extremely useful cultural inventions. They can complement each other to produce a total informational package that works more effectively, for more people, than either could alone. A reader/viewer who is comfortable using both media is likely to feel frustrated when only one is used and could obviously be enhanced by the other.

One of the oddest examples of this "fighting with one hand tied behind the back," in my opinion, is an approach to the teaching of language itself that is currently enjoying a considerable vogue. I'm thinking of one set of courses in particular that I've seen widely advertised and that some people claim to have found very effective. It may well be, for at least some people; if I worked through one of the complete courses, I might even be surprised to find that I was one of them. But on the basis of my limited experience with them, I doubt it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I haven't gone through one of these complete courses; but I have tried enough of a couple to get an idea how it works, and it seems to me to share the same weakness as some book courses I've used. The essence of its method is to show pictures of people interacting with other people and objects in various situations, while the student hears what they're saying and may also see it spelled out. It's cleverly constructed so that later situations build on earlier ones and enable an inductively-inclined student to gradually develop a feel for what patterns are used to express what. The rationale, I've been told, is that that's how we all learned our first language, so it must be the best way.

But few of us have a chance to learn our first language more than once, and we'll never again be in the same situation we were in then while learning a new language as adults. As small children, we had to learn language that way, because we had no metatools— things like dictionaries and grammar books— available to give us shortcuts to understanding why things are done the way they are. As adults, most of us do, and it can be frustrating to see them being ignored instead of used.

I think I first experienced this in my very earliest, very informal efforts at learning a foreign language, when I listened to opera recordings while comparing the original text with the translation in the libretto. I gradually came to understand a fair amount of Italian and French grammar that way, but some points (such as the use of a reflexive construction in Romance languages where English would use the passive voice) remained hazy to me until, years later, somebody explained to me, "This is how it works." Then it all clicked into place and became perfectly clear—just as it might have much earlier if somebody had given me that explanation back when I was first encountering the concept.

The evolution of civilization has been largely a story of the development and refinement of tools, both technological and cultural. The development of new ones does not necessarily render old ones useless. Rediscovering an old one does not mean that the new should be discarded. Often they complement each other, each doing some jobs better than the other. And sometimes they work together, two used conjointly doing a job easily that neither could do well alone. If you have to install a screw and nut, it won't go well with just a screwdriver or just a wrench, but becomes a piece of cake when both are used together in a coordinated way.

The same, I respectfully submit, is true of communication.

THE ALTERNATE VIEW

Jeffery D. Kooistra | 1870 words

There are three things you need to know about Bud Webster (apart from him being a science fiction writer).

The first is that Bud is a raconteur. Among the assorted definitions of a raconteur you will find "a person who excels in telling anecdotes" and "one who tells stories and anecdotes with skill and wit" and "a person who tells anecdotes in a skillful and amusing way." These I think are inadequate. What, exactly, is it that a raconteur does that makes him excel at telling anecdotes? When I hear the word "raconteur," I see and hear a man telling stories with a rich array of hand motions, facial expressions, witty asides, and mimicry. The story itself has to be good, of course, like the cheapest cup of joe at a Starbucks has to at least be decent coffee. But the raconteur brings to the story the chocolate and the caramel and the cream and other flavorings that made Starbucks what it is today.

The second thing you need to know about Bud Webster is that his skills as a raconteur transfer well to his written word. What you hear and see when you meet him in person is what you hear and see in your mind when you read him—and it's fun. It's damn fun.

The third thing you need to know about Bud Webster is that he has a lot of stories to tell.

Which brings us to Bud's nonfiction book, Past Masters and Other Bookish Natterings, (The Merry Blacksmith Press, 2013, ISBN 0-61584-282-8). The book is a collection of past articles and columns Bud published in an eclectic array of assorted venues, most of them online. Some of these writings were as good as unavailable unless one searched very hard and knew they existed. Now they're all together in one place and it's a wonderful thing that they are, because this is the most entertaining book about SF and SF writers that I have ever read.

Setting the "natterings" aside, let me focus on the main purpose of the book (apart from entertaining), which is to introduce the modern SF reader (or, in my case, reintroduce) to the works of Past Masters—SF writers from days gone by (but not very far gone by) who wrote great stories. Though once very well known, today, with many or most of their works out of print, it is easy for younger readers (anyone under forty I'd say) to be unaware of them and, subsequently, what they're missing out on.

These authors are not obscure. Many of the names brought from me a response of "Wait... what!? He's been forgotten?" But, alas, time marches on, new writers appear and old ones get put on the shelf, never to be taken down again. That is, until someone like Bud Webster comes along and returns them to our attention.

So who are these Past Masters anyway? Here's the list, though not in the order you find them in the book. The first eight are authors I'm personally quite familiar with, and the remaining ten are writers I've heard of and sampled a bit, but not nearly enough. Group one is Cordwainer Smith, Frederic Brown, Cyril M. Kornbluth, Henry Kuttner, Eric Frank Russell, Murray Leinster, Hal Clement, and Clifford D. Simak. Group two is Nelson Bond, Zenna Henderson, Leigh Brackett, H. Beam Piper, Edgar Pangborn, Judith Merril, William Tenn, Stanley G. Weinbaum, R.A. Lafferty, and Tom Reamy.

From group one, finding both Hal Clement (real name "Harry Clement Stubbs") and Clifford D. Simak among the others gave me the strongest "wait... what!?" reaction. Both authors were still writing for many years after I discovered magazine SF. For instance, the last Clement novel I read was his Still River which came out in 1987, and Simak's "Grotto of the Dancing Deer" appeared in these pages in April, 1980, winning not only the AnLab for that year, but the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards as well. Also, both men produced novels that are every bit as much a must-read for SF fans ( Mission of Gravity by Clement and Cit y by Simak) as anything written by Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, or Bradbury.

How soon the world forgets, but forget it does.

Webster's accounts of the lives and work of Murray Leinster (real name "William F. Jenkins") and Eric Frank Russell evoked the strongest sense of nostalgia, sending me straight back in time to some of my coziest memories from junior high. I don't know how it came about, but one day in 7th grade English, our teacher Mrs. Frens presented the class with a couple boxes full of an eclectic assortment of new paperbacks. Among those paperbacks was the very first SF anthology I ever laid my hands on, Groff Conklin's Great Stories of Space Travel. Along with the stories by Bradbury, Asimov, Van Vogt, and Arthur Clarke were "Propagandist" by Leinster (from the August 1947 Astounding) and "Allamagoosa" by Russell (from the May 1955 Astounding). Coincidentally, both are dog stories, the Russell of the "shaggy" variety, both delightful, and both made me an instant fan of each of their respective authors. What was most important though was that, prior to finding this anthology, I'd had no idea such collections even existed! I'd known of Bradbury, Asimov, Van Vogt and Clarke from seeing their novels on library shelves and grocery store bookracks. But that there were other, shorter stories, by incredible but previously unknown (to me) writers like Leinster and Russell, collected together in anthologies— Oh my God! What else was out there just waiting for my eyes to devour?

Such is the stuff of cherished memories. Also of note was that I did not fail to notice that many of the stories in the Conklin anthology came from Astounding. So when a year or so later I stumbled upon my first Analog (in a California grocery store, no less, on a family trip out west) I knew immediately that it was that magazine, the source of shiny and new Science Fiction.

T'was destiny my friends, destiny.

I divided the Past Master essays into two groups for this reason. Reading about the first group, for me, was all about enjoying happy memories and discovering knew things about authors I thought I knew better than I actually did. Reading about the second group did for me (even though I had at least heard of them) what Bud Webster hopes the book will do for new fans who may know nothing about any of the authors he discusses. That is, it made me seek out their works in anticipation of finding new delights.

Take Cordwainer Smith (real name Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger) for instance. I have read some of his work and have long had it in the back of my mind that I must read more. Webster brought it front and center. (Hey, if you love both SF and cats, and have never read Cordwainer Smith, then put this essay aside right now and go read "The Game of Rat and Dragon" immediately. I'll wait. You have deprived yourself long enough.) Without a doubt, this Linebarger fella was one of the most interesting people ever to ply the SF craft. So interesting, in fact, that writing about him brought out the best of Bud Webster's raconteur skills, like with this passage from page 48 about Linebarger's life during World War II: "(W)hile working with the Operations and Planning Board, he... Ghod, I can't stand it... he created a profile for an intelligence operative in China that included a set of qualifications that could only be met by one man: Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger. Himself. AKA Cordwainer Smith. What balls. "

Leigh Brackett is another familiar name, this time of a writer I probably neglected to read because she was a "lady science fiction writer." It was not that, in my youth, I thought women couldn't write good SF. Rather, at the time I'd barely scratched the surface of all the male SF writers, and I figured they were a safer bet to produce what I liked to read. But today some of my favorite writers are women (like J. K. Rowling and M. M. Kaye), so the good word about her stories that Past Masters provided was all it took to spur me to add her work to my Kindle. Webster also relates how prolific Brackett was at writing screenplays (like The Empire Strikes Back) and how she was discovered by director Howard Hawks after he read her hard-boiled detective novel No Good from a Corpse. Since I like hardboiled '30s and '40s detective fiction, I also found that book in a Kindle edition and I'm reading it now.

I said the "good word" got me to check out her stories, but more specifically, it was this particular set of words Bud quotes (pg. 38) from The Sword of Rhiannon that hooked me: "'Lean lithe men and women passed him in the shadowy streets, silent as cats except for the chime and the whisper of the tiny bells the women wear, a sound as delicate as rain, distillate of all the sweet wickedness of the world.'"

Beautiful. Simply beautiful. Color me captured.

Yet if I had to pick just one Past Masters essay that will, in the long run, most likely bring me the richest return on investment, it would be Webster's account of R. A. Lafferty (Raphael Aloysius Lafferty), his life and his stories. Although the name was familiar, I found that I knew nothing, not a damn thing, about this writer and his stories, and I should have! Lafferty was a staunch Catholic, a trait he shared with Tolkien. He was also a staunch conservative, a trait he shares with, well, me. Of his writing, the general consensus amongst editors and fellow writers is that it was uniformly unique, original, and brilliant, at least in the case of his shorter works. However, his longer stories suffered in quality, likely because of his alcoholism (which also apparently turned him into a raging ass-hole at conventions, although Webster doesn't specifically say so).

On Lafferty's writing, Webster himself says on page 236: "Nobody ever wrote—or will ever write—quite like Lafferty. I'm not at all certain that the literature could hold two such, in fact.... Lafferty wasn't a science fiction writer, regardless of the section of the bookstore in which his titles may have appeared; rather, he was a mad fantasist, a maker of mythologies, a Wizard of Oddities."

As far as I'm concerned, that description also makes him irresistible.

In his preface, Bud Webster asks the question, "So, what the hell am I, anyway?" Some have referred to Bud as a critic, but he isn't particularly comfortable with wearing that term. He is all too familiar with the scribblings of assorted critics and is not the sort to indulge in the kind printed assholery that so many of them delight in. He also admits that he never felt qualified to be called a critic.

To which I say, of course you're not qualified to be a critic, Bud. You're way over-qualified for that! Given the breadth and depth of the knowledge you display in Past Masters of fantastic literature and the producers thereof, it is perfectly obvious to me that what you are is a scholar.

I know the world is filled with troubles and many injustices. But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly. I think it is just as important to sing about beautiful mornings as it is to talk about slums. I just couldn't write anything without hope in it.

—Oscar Hammerstein II

IN CONVERSATION

BUD WEBSTER

Cat Rambo | 1197 words

Cat Rambo: Past Masters and Other Bookish Natterings collects columns from, among other places, Helix SF, The Grantville Gazette, the SFWA Bulletin, Black Gate, and The Magazine of F&SF. Beyond the entertaining anecdotes, why would science fiction readers benefit from reading this history?

Bud Webster: Well, the historian/scholar,/pedant in me would smile patronizingly and murmur something about how we can't know where we're going if we don't know where we came from, but I ain't an academic and so won't be that glib.

The truth is that I think this stuff is really cool. I have a habit of delving deeply into those things I feel passionate about, and like all geeks, I will blabber about it to anyone who will listen (or at least sit still for it with one of those frozen smiles I've come to expect). The triumphs, the tragedies, the "secrets" all fascinate me, because they represent perspectives into the writers and their works that embellish the reading of those works.

Knowing that Zenna Henderson taught Japanese-American kids in an internment camp during WWII sheds a fresh light on her People stories; Linebarger/Smith's youth spent in China informs every line of his work; Edgar Pangborn's skills as a composer of music infuses his work with a poetic depth that might not have been there otherwise.

Sometimes it's enough to be able to say, "Oh, I see. That's why he/she wrote it that way!"

CR: What is your favorite anecdote from the book?

BW: Oh, boy. There are a lot of them. Phil Klass's phone call to me after my earlier article on the anthology he edited comes to mind. Mary answered the phone and said that when he introduced himself deprecatingly ("This is Phil Klass, I used to write as William Tenn") and she enthusiastically replied that she knew his work quite well, he almost cried.

Writing about my friend, Nelson Bond, was both delightful and painful. The essay on him was written as a memorial, and is filled with my personal recollections, including the one time in my career when I acted as an agent for someone else's work and sold a new Bond story to Roger Zelazny.

Howard Hawks' response to reading Leigh Brackett's mystery novel No Good From a Corpse was to say to an assistant "Get me that Brackett guy!" to his credit, even after finding out that the "guy" was a "gal," he hired her anyway and so a productive relationship began. There are many, many others, of course.

CR: If you were assembling a dinner party with a guest list drawn from the pages of Past Masters, who would you absolutely have to include?

BW: Cordwainer Smith, Leigh Brackett, Kuttner & Moore, Nelson Bond (of course, he'd be the toastmaster), and Will Jenkins/Murray Leinster. I wouldn't get in a word edgeways, but with that lineup, who'd be listening to me anyway?

CR: Who got left out from Past Masters that you'd like to include in future versions of the book?

BW: Too many to list: Margaret St. Clair, Manly Wade Wellman, Walter M. Miller Jr., Harry Harrison, and on and on and on, ad infinitum. More of the Past Masters are being forgotten every day.

CR: In Past Masters, many of the writers you discuss followed the traditional path of moving from science fiction fan to science fiction writer. Do you think that path is still the norm nowadays?

BW: Good question. Many of them, of course, never had much to do with fandom in the first place, like Cordwainer Smith and Nelson Bond. Bond sort of fell into fandom with the birth of the Nelson Bond Society in the early '70s, but he stayed away from the conventions after going to one or two in the early days.

If you expand the definition of "fandom" to include the Net—and I think you have to—then it probably still is the normal way. There will always be the Outsider component, but by and large it's a fan's world.

CR: For those interested in finding out more about the history touched upon in your book, what other books might you recommend?

BW: The Way the Future Was by Fred Pohl; The Futurians by Damon Knight; The World of Science Fiction: 1926-1976: The History of a Subculture by Lester del Rey; these are histories of the field. For those who want to dig more deeply into the anatomy, I would recommend The John W. Campbell Letters, Volumes One and Two edited by Perry Chapdelaine, Tony Chapdelaine and George Hay; The Science Fiction Reference Book edited by Marshall Tymm; and there are very good critical volumes by Knight (In Search of Wonder) and Brian Aldiss (BillionYear Spree). Again, the list could go on for pages. I will, of course, mention my own Anthopology 101:Reflections, Inspections and Dissections of SF Anthologies is available from Merry Blacksmith in paper, and from ReAnimus as an e-book. Just sayin'.

CR: What do you think the future holds for science fiction? Where will the field be twenty years from now? What about SFWA (The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America)?

BW: Both will have changed immeasurably, I think, and not for what I consider the better— that's my limitation, I hasten to add, not the field's. Everything changes inevitably and intensely, and we SFnal old farts may grumble and mutter in our collective beards, but that's the way of things. What doesn't evolve devolves; entropy holds way over those things which stand still.

CR: You work with SFWA's Estates Project. What do you do for them and why should a writer pay attention to who their literary executor is?

BW: What I do is primarily twofold: first and foremost I assemble estate information on deceased writers and confirm it as best I can. Then, when approached by a publisher or editor, I pass that information along so they can do some business. In the cases of those estates handled by family members or other private individuals, we don't give their contact out. Instead, I'll either forward queries to them or blind-copy them on my reply to the inquirer.

For those who wonder why they should pay attention to their literary legacy now, I would simply reply: "John M. Ford." His family refuses to allow his work to be reprinted because they are ashamed that he wrote "sci-fi." Had he appointed an executor from outside the family, we might still be able to read new copies of The Dragon Waiting or one of the best Trek novels, How Much for Just the Planet? It'll make my job—or the job of whatever poor bastard succeeds me—a lot easier.

CR: What other projects are you working on right now? Do you have anything coming out soon?

BW: My next book from Merry Blacksmith will most likely be a collection of short stories, including the four Bubba Pritchert yarns with, perhaps, a brand new fifth one. Don't have a date on that one yet, it's still a year or two in the future.

Bud Webster

Photo by Robert Snare

Longtime F&SF writer Bud Webster (author of the Bubba Pritchert series) also documents the genre's history in essays and columns for the SFWA Bulletin, Helix SF and Black Gate. In 2012 he received the SFWA Service Award for his work with the SFWA Estates Project.

IN TIMES TO COME

201 words

Our May issue kicks off with a cover story from Alec Nevala-Lee: many terrestrial animals have evolved unique forms of camouflage to help them hide, so what happens when a group of researchers discover something far more dangerous than what they were looking for? Find out in "Cryptids."

Then, following the final installment of Lockstep in this very issue, Karl Schroeder returns for a victory lap with a fact article that looks at the science (and some of the writing decisions) behind his serial in "Lockstep: A Possible Galactic Empire."

We'll also have stories such as Dave Creek's "All Human Things," where Mike Christopher has cause to regret a daring rescue from the alien Jenregar; "Bodies in Water," from Sarah Frost, with an unusual girl finding an equally unusual artifact; "Snapshots," Kristine Kathryn Rusch's provocative tale of a simple-yet-drastic solution to a deadly problem; "Repo," Aaron Gallagher's look at a mundane job turned adventurous when transposed to space; "Another Man's Treasure," by Tom Greene, about a family's desperate attempts to eke out a living in a hostile and unpleasant environment that isn't far removed from how too many people live today, and more, including all of our top-notch regular features.

See you next month!

All contents subject to change

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

Don Sakers | 2326 words

This column is something of an anniversary: it's my 50th "Reference Library" column. With your indulgence, I thought I would take this opportunity to pull back the curtain and talk about my approach, philosophy, and practice of reviewing.

Q: What is your background for being a reviewer, particularly for Analog?

A: I'm a lifelong reader and student of science fiction. I started reading SF as soon as I could read, and Analog when I was thirteen (in 1971). I have a B.A. in math with a minor in English literature. I've been a published SF writer since 1980; my first Analog story appeared in 1982. In my day job, I work at a public library, where I frequently help people find books they might like.

Q: Where do you get the books that you review?

A: Mostly from publishers. Lots of books arrive in the mail, but I also receive electronic copies either by email or via industry websites like netgalley.com. Some small-press publishers hand me books at conventions. Enterprising authors also contact me to send galleys or even manuscripts of upcoming books.

I'm not above contacting a publisher (or author) to get a review copy, if I see something that I think might be of interest to Analog readers. And, of course, I still buy books, especially obscure ones.

Q: Do you see everything that's published in SF?

A: Alas, no. Some publishers are scrupulous about sending me everything—sometimes including things I have no chance of reviewing, like vampire romances and epic fantasy. Others send me only selected titles, and many small press and indie publishers are completely off my radar.

If you are, or know, a publisher or author of a book that might appeal to Analog readers, please take a look at my review guidelines at tinyurl.com/dsreflib.

Q: Do you read on paper or e-books?

A: Both. After a lifetime of reading SF (and being married to a Star Wars collector), my house is full, so I currently have a preference for e-books. Those I read on my iPad, which can handle just about any e-book format out there. But I haven't lost my love for paper books.

Q: Where do you find time to read all those books?

A: Like many of you, I read constantly and voraciously. Even before this gig, I grew twitchy if reading material was out of my reach. If, as one of my library friends says, "it's a sickness"—then I'm beyond cure or even treatment.

Q: What do you do with the books you receive?

A: Books I like go into my personal collection. I give the rest away to various charities.

Q: How do you decide which books to review?

A: I try to pick books that will interest Analog readers. That doesn't (necessarily) mean books that would appear in these pages—as regular readers know, sometimes I'll throw in some distinctly non- Analog type books. I know that Analog readers are voracious readers with wide-ranging interests, who appreciate variety.

Q: Why are all your reviews positive?

A: Both life and my allotted pages are way too short to spend time on unsuitable books. My job is to bring to your attention books that you might enjoy... not to waste your time on things you won't like.

Q: Do you personally like every book you recommend?

A: My public library training and experience have taught me that there's no such thing as "good" or "bad" books—one reader's life-changing classic is another's snoozefest. The goal is to match the right book with the right reader.

To accomplish this, I try to give readers enough information to decide for themselves whether a given book sounds like something they'd enjoy. Among the considerations are subgenre, audience, and the relative mix of basic elements like plot, character, and setting. When I can, I try to identify similar authors you might have read. If I'm successful, you'll at least have a good idea of what to expect from a book.

Of course, it's neither satisfactory nor healthy to read only the same thing again and again, so I try to encourage readers to expand their range. I try to tell you what it is about an unfamiliar book or genre that fans like, so you can decide if it sounds like your cup of tea.

To get back to the original question: Between you, me, and the clock on the wall, I don't personally like every book I recommend. My personal tastes are as subjective and limited as anyone else's. But why should my personal preferences matter? Just because I don't like, say, football doesn't mean I can't recognize a well-executed forward pass.

Q: How do you research your introductory essays?

A: As a librarian, I have what we in the business refer to as "mad reference skillz." Science fiction fandom has been assiduous about putting reference material online. I also have multiple shelves of books about the SF field, biographies of SF authors, and critical works. In addition, I draw on friends and associates, as well as the members of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. And I can always count on Trevor and Emily to catch any mistakes or omissions.

Thank you for your indulgence; now let me draw the curtain back into place and get on with this issue's reviews.

Old Mars

edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

Bantam, 485 pages, $28.00 (hardcover)

Kindle: $11.76, iBooks, Nook: $13.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-0-345-53727-0

Genre: Mars: The Red Planet, Original Anthology, Retro-SF, Science Fantasy

Oscar Wilde said, "Science is always making wonderful improvements in things." However, longtime SF readers sometimes question whether certain improvements are so wonderful... and nowhere more than the planet Mars.

When we were in charge of Mars, it was a magnificent place, full of wonders: ancient ruined cities, world-girdling canals, alien races terrible or kind, and a hospitable second home for humanity. Then science got its hands on the planet and basically trashed the place. No canals, no cities, no wise ancients—heck, when science is done, there won't be any life at all on the Red Planet. It's an interplanetary tragedy.

Editors George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois remember that old Mars, and they've given us a star-studded anthology of modern stories set on the Mars we once imagined. There are fifteen stories by as many writers, each different and each delightful.

The featured authors are a true cross-section of science fiction. Big names like Mike Resnick and Michael Moorcock, relative newcomers like Chris Roberson and Matthew Hughes, familiar names like Allen Steele and David D. Levine, welcome names like Phyllis Eisenstein and Mary Rosenblum, and scare-masters Howard Waldrop and Joe R. Lansdale... this anthology has them all.

The stories are without exception engaging and full of the old sense-of-wonder. It's hard to pick standouts in this crowd, but be sure not to miss David D. Levine's "The Wreck of the Mars Adventure," a tale of Captain Kidd's 17th century expedition to Mars....

This book is definitely not hard SF. The science and technologies are those of bygone days. As long as you're okay with that, it's hard to imagine that you wouldn't enjoy Old Mars.

Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs

edited by Mike Resnick and Robert T. Garcia

Baen, 356 pages, $15.00 (trade paperback)

Kindle: $7.19, iBooks, Nook: $8.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-1-4516-3935-3

Genre: Original Anthology, Retro-SF, Science Fantasy?

( Okay, I'm going to go ahead and take George R. R. Martin's suggestion and call it "Retro-SF," because it's obviously an idea whose time has come.)

Edgar Rice Burroughs (universally known as ERB) was surely the first popular American science fiction writer, and his impact of the field was immense. Well before Astounding, John W. Campbell, and modern SF, Burroughs was spinning tales of interplanetary adventure that sent his heroes to the Moon, Mars, Venus, and beyond.

The big problem with Burroughs nowadays is that his writing reflects the world and fashions of more than a century ago. His stories are not very accessible to the modern reader.

Mike Resnick and Robert T. Garcia have taken care of that. The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs does for ERB what Martin and Dozois did for Mars. Again, an all-star cast of writers brings us modern stories of the good old worlds and beloved characters.

Mike Resnick and Joe R. Lansdale are here, but so are Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Peter David, Kevin J. Anderson and Sarah A. Hoyt, F. Paul Wilson, Todd McCaffrey, and ERB uber-fan Richard A. Lupoff. In all, there are 11 stories by 13 authors.

The stories range from Earth (Rusch's "Tarzan and the Great War" and "Apache Lawman" by Ralph Roberts) to Mars (Resnick's "The Forgotten Sea of Mars") and Venus (Lupoff's "Scorpion men of Venus"), to ERB's more exotic worlds (the hollow-Earth world of Pellucidar and the weird island Caprona), to historical adventure.

By far the most daring (and most welcome) story is McCaffrey's "To the Nearest Planet," set on Poloda, a brand-new distant world that Burroughs barely introduced before his death.

These authors, one and all, have definitely captured the ERB magic. Anyone with fond memories of the Burroughs oeuvre will surely enjoy this book. Anyone who's wondered what the fuss is all about should give it a try. And for anyone who's unsuccessfully tried to read Burroughs (it helps to be 11 years old), The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs offers a perfectly accessible entry point.

Dogs of War

edited by Mike McPhail

DTF Publications, 239 pages, $14.95 (trade paperback)

Kindle, Nook: $2.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-1-937051-05-1

Series: Defending the Future 6

Genre: Military SF, Original Anthology

If science fiction has a totem animal, it is the cat. From Robert A. Heinlein's various felines to Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Ann Scarborough's Barque Cats series and everywhere in between, there's hardly room in to swing a book without hitting a cat.

That's why it's so refreshing to see an anthology about dogs.

Mike McPhail's Defending the Future series feature satisfying military-themed SF short stories from various authors and universes. Often the stories are offbeat or deliciously understated, and these—all involving military canines in one form or another—are no exception.

The 17 authors here include the usual mix of familiar names and newcomers, writers known for their military SF and those associated with other subgenres, novelists and short fiction writers. Analog readers will certainly recognize Bud Sparhawk, whose "True Friends" is a tearjerker in fatigues. Brenda Cooper's "For the Love of Metal Dogs" shows how courage and loyalty transcend both species and form, and "Tower Farm" by Vonnie Winslow Crist explores the redemption of a pair of has-beens on a frontier outpost.

Those who like military SF should enjoy this assortment of stories, and I dare any reader who loves dogs to make it through without several "awwws" and a few tears. And if you don't fit into either of those two categories, but you just like some good stories, you might want to give Dogs of War a try— the e-book is certainly inexpensive enough.

Skirmishes

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

WMG Publishing, 324 pages, $17.99 (trade paperback)

iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $7.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-0-615-79524-9

Series: Diving Universe 4

Genre: Space Opera?

Kristine Kathryn Rusch is best known for her Retrieval Artist series, so maybe you've missed her Diving Universe series. If so, it's high time to remedy that oversight.

In the course of the three previous books (Diving Into the Wreck, City of Ruins, and Boneyards) we've come to know Boss— explorer and salvager of old wrecked spacecraft—and her partner Coop—Captain of the good ship Ivoire. Boss and Coop, along with their crew, are trying to make their living while helping to preserve the Nine Planets Alliance from the evil Enterran Empire. The alien technologies that Boss and her fellow salvagers find are worth more than fortunes—they are the key to the ongoing war between Empire and Alliance.

Coop and Boss know that there's some powerful technology in huge expanse of ancient wrecks known as the Boneyards. While Boss sets out to track down this much-needed tech, and solve the mystery of the Boneyards, Coop and his crew stay behind to defend against the Empire.

But Coop has some secrets he hasn't told Boss about, and one of them turns up to complicate matters....

There's adventure, suspense, intrigue, and not a few surprises, all in Rusch's quick, light prose. Boss, as much historian as salvager, reminds one of a Poul Anderson or Gordon R. Dickson protagonist. This is definitely a fun universe to visit: dive in!

The Plague Forge

Jason M. Hough

Del Rey, 433 pages, $9.99 (mass market)

Kindle: $7.58, iBooks, Nook: $9.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-0-345-53716-4

Series: Dire Earth 3

Genre: Adventure SF, Post-Apocalyptic, Visitors From Space

Sometimes the final book of a trilogy is a disappointment. When all the questions are answered and the loose ends tied up, it's somehow anticlimactic.

You don't need to worry about that with Jason M. Hough's Dire Earth trilogy.

The Plague Forge is a fully satisfactory conclusion to the story begun in The Darwin Elevator and continued in The Exodus Towers, one of the most breathlessly exciting stories in recent SF.

In case you missed it (or were waiting for all three volumes), the Dire Earth is set in the 2280s. A generation earlier, aliens called the Builders came to Earth, planting an earth-toorbit tower in downtown Darwin, Australia. At about the same time (nobody's exactly sure of the sequence), a plague spread across the world, turning people into mindless, violent beasts.

Most of Earth's human population succumbed, with two exceptions—those few naturally immune to the plague, and those protected by a mysterious aura around the Darwin tower.

The race survived in Darwin and in the body of the space elevator, while immunes like Skyler Luiken and his crew salvaged what they could from the wreckage of Earth.

Skyler, along with scientist Tania Sharma, discovered another elevator, along with more relics of the Builders, in Brazil. They established a second colony, withstood a religious dictatorship back home, and learned more about the Builders and their technology.

In this book, Skyler and crew find more Builder artifacts in the African desert—and this discovery leads them to the final confrontation and the answers the whole world seeks. Who or what were the Builders, where are they now, and what do they want with Earth?

Science fiction is particularly good at combining breakneck action and adventure with cosmic philosophical questions, and the Dire Earth books are a great example. These books engage your gut, your brain, and your heart all at once. What more could you ask?

And that, sadly, is the end of my space this time around. I hope you've enjoyed the last fifty columns as much as I have, and that we'll be together for another fifty or more.

Don Sakers is the author of The Eighth Succession and The Leaves of October. For more information, visit www.scattered-worlds.com.

BRASS TACKS

1946 words

Dear Mr. Quachri:

In the October 2013 issue there is a letter from Richard M. Boothe, citing two stories by Walt & Lee Richmond: January 1964, "Poppa Needs Shorts", and March 1964, "The Pie-Duddle Puddle" (which featured the cat, Mal R. Key). Mr. Boothe objects that these stories had no science fiction rationalizations for them and doesn't want Analog to print more of this nature. Of course, he is entitled to his opinions.

Having subscribed to Astounding and Analog since 1955, I have read about 5,000 stories in the magazine. If I tried to list stories over the years from memory, only a few dozen would pop up. These two would be on the list (and were also memorable to Mr. Boothe after almost fifty years). The editor has to select from what comes in and balance what sees print, keeping in mind his perception of what most of the audience will like. If a few good stories slip in that are fantasy or something other than science fiction, what is the harm? They might balance the occasional stinker that makes it in despite fitting the science fiction genre.

Keep the good stories coming!

John P. Aurelius Indianola, WA

Dear Editors,

I want to congratulate Marissa on her likely Hugo win [Things We Have in This House for No Reason, October, 2013]. I am that impressed with her story. "Writing every other writer under the table" is our job as writers, right? I want to reply to a published letter [Brass Tacks, October, 2013] and protest that "Papa Needs Shorts" [January, 1964] is a classic in the field, and that quality should beat genre. Especially since it "felt" like a good SF story to me.

Sean Cleary Chino, CA

Dear Mr. Quachri,

I had to write in response to Michael Smith's letter in the most recent issue. As an (I hope) intelligent woman, I greatly enjoyed "A Cup of Dirt." In my view, the male and female characters had equally powerful roles, and the romantic tension was quite realistic. I greatly enjoyed a bit of humor to lighten the mood after a few somber stories. Please do not let Analog lose its sense of humor. The real world is depressing enough.

By contrast, I was insulted by the portrayal of the women characters in the "Dark" serial. But then, the male characters weren't much better. I had to force myself to read through to the rather frustrating and disappointing ending. But I haven't written to complain because I know everyone has different tastes and someone likely enjoyed it, even if I can't quite imagine how.

Some issues are more to my taste than others, but I continue to subscribe because over the course of a year, there are more stories that I enjoy, and I accept a few disappointing stories as a necessary mainfestation of catering to different tastes.

Elka Tovah Davidoff Malden, MA

Mr. Quachri,

I wrote a few months ago about what I perceived as a disturbingly two-dimensional treatment of women in one of the first stories under your editorship. I just wanted to retract any concern I expressed then and to congratulate you on an excellent first few months as editor of Analog. Not only are the stories engaging and often educational, they're also well balanced along the different political and ethical axes of modern Western culture. Some of them even pass the Bechdel test! An admirable accomplishment.

In particular, I thought that Ron Collins's "Following Jules" in the October 2013 issue was excellent and, hopefully, indicative of more of the technically compelling and emotionally trying stories that Analog will continue to offer.

I have one question and a request for you, too. Have you read either of Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan's "The New Space Opera" collections? I think that they've been the most influential and inspirational SF that I've read this millennium. While most near-future SF has to resort to the sort of powerless grimness about technology that paradoxically grips our society as it undergoes the major techno-economic revolution we're living through right now, far-future SF seems to be the preferred playground for optimists and inspirational stories of a better, not just a harder, future for humanity.

I know that Analog's mostly hard SF mission statement might make this kind of wildly far-future, "post-Singularity" space opera a little outside of its stated publishing parameters but I would deeply love to see a few works of this type from some of Analog's regular contributors, in addition to the extraordinary visions of new authors publishing in the sub-genre.

Mostly, I just want to thank you and Analog's authors for making what is still the best science fiction publication in English and, very probably, the world.

Michael Smith Baltimore, Maryland

Mr. Smith,

Thanks for both of your letters. Constructive feedback of any stripe can be hard to come by (and positive reinforcement certainly never goes unappreciated).

To answer your question: I've read one of those collections. (The other is currently sitting on my READ SOON! shelf at home.) I think you make an interesting point about "optimistic" science fiction being pushed further and further into the future, as readers and writers find the possibility of a happy near-future all too unrealistic. It's an interesting shift in the genre, and I wonder if we might not be able to blur those lines a little in these pages—"hard SF" and "space opera" aren't necessarily mutually exclusive concepts.

Dear Trevor,

I wanted to wait until I had read the entire September 2013 issue before I commented on the stories in it. First, congratulations on being annointed as Analog's new editor.

That out of the way, I'd like to respond to your editorial, "The Blame Game Part 2." You seem to be saying that the media have no influence whatsoever on the public's mind, in particular the instigation of violent behavior. Frankly, in doing so you are emasculating your own profession. Are you saying that such works as Uncle Tom's Cabin, Das Kapital, Mein Kampf, the Bible, the Koran, the Republic, Waldon, Emerson's Essays, The Origin of Species, etc. and etc. have had no influence in paradigm shifts in thinking with a result in the taking (or not taking) up of arms?

What about movies either glorifying war such as the ones that came out in the '40s during World War II, or the anti-war movies of the Viet Nam era? These had no effect whatsoever on the minds, thoughts, and behavior of the populace? No effect on the younger generation?

There is no effect resulting from yelling "fire" in a crowded auditorium?

There is no effect on formative minds when an electronic gun is put in there hands and they take a "first-person shooter" perspective, gunning down humanoid beings who die screaming in a splatter of blood (and who return exactly as before with a reboot)? No effect on their minds when they torture and rape from the same perspective, watching their victims writhe and listening to them scream?

From your reasoning, I take it, your profession of media purveyor has no effect at all on the direction society takes or the behavior of individuals within it? Interesting.

On to the stories in the September issue. I was shocked with "The Whale God." As far as I can tell, it isn't science fiction. It is concerned with saving beached whales and the pleasing of some nebulous entity which we never meet and are given no idea as to exactly what it is. This story might have belonged in Fantasy and Science Fiction, although even that magazine might not have seen it as either fantasy or science fiction.

The second story, "Full Fathom Five," gives absolutely no explanation of the discovery of a male penis on the bottom of a Europan ocean, or any reason whatsoever for the fact that it manufactures chemicals that are needed by the protagonist. We are left, presumably, with a "sense of wonder" and nothing else, and a vain hope that her coming rescuers will be able to figure out (a) where it came from, (b) what it is, (c) why it looks disgustingly like a male penis, (d) why it makes chemicals we want, (e) what the heck it is doing there, and (f) why there aren't any others like it. You know, I definitely would like to see a return of a "sense of wonder" to modern science fiction, but as an Analog reader I also like to see questions answered and problems solved... especially if they leave me with an even greater sense of wonder. It seems the author needed to read the special feature "Why High Concept Is Only The Beginning"—assuming a male penis at the bottom of a Europan ocean is indeed a "high concept."

You mentioned when you announced that you would be the new editor that you were going to take us in new directions. I really hope these two stories are not examples of the "new directions" you are going, because, like one of your predecessors, Ben Bova, you will find you can only take your readership so far.

We just aren't going to go in the direction of science fiction stories that aren't science fiction, or "sense of wonder" stories that are unfulfilling and leave us more with a sense of disgust.

The rest of the stories in the issue redeemed it, and hopefully, if they were your choices and not Stanley Schmidts', are an indication that at least you know what good Analog genre Science Fiction is.

Sincerely, John Young

Mr. Young,

Thanks for the congratulations.

I won't rehash my case from the editorials, but you're conflating quite a few disparate things—I've never heard a definition of "media" that included shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. Bottom line: there's simply no evidence that games or any other kind of media have the sort of insidious effect some would like to believe they do. Some people have a gut feeling that it should work that way, but disre-garding evidence in favor of a gut feeling is akin to trusting one's gut on the question of whether a bowling ball or a marble will hit the ground first when dropped from the same height. Guts can be wrong; evidence is what should guide us.

Anyway, I'm sorry you didn't like those pieces in the September issue. I did indeed pick all of the stories that month, so make of that what you will. I can tell, though, that you didn't finish "The Whale God," because you'd most certainly have understood it to be science fiction of the most realistic sort if you had. As much as I'd love to lay claim to being the first to publish Alec, he's had a number of stories with a similarly realistic science fictional bent appear in Analog over the years, and I'd be curious to know why this one, in particular, seems to exemplify a "new direction."

Dear Mr. Quachri,

I'm writing in hopes that something can be done about a major irritation every time I read the "Brass Tacks" section (for the last 55 years or so). I enjoy readers' comments on stories, but by the time I'm reading Brass Tacks, the stories being referred to are usually several months in the past, and I'll be darned if I can remember what the story was about, especially if the writer doesn't include the title of the story being commented on. I know you have to keep the issues to a certain number of pages to keep down printing costs, but if there were any way to insert the title of the story and a very brief plot description of some kind ("recently arrived colonists have to learn how to cope with mycorrhizoid spores that periodically rain down on the planet") it would greatly help my appreciation of the ideas expressed in the letters.

John C. Fortelka

Mr. Fortelka,

It's pretty unlikely that we'll be able to run a short synopsis every time someone refers to a story in Brass Tacks, but we'll do our best to make sure that the story's title, author, and issue of appearance is inserted in the letter that's discussing it.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Anthony Lewis | 360 words

NOTE: Membership rates and other details often change after we have gone to press. Check the websites for the most recent information.

25-28 April 2014

COSTUME-CON 32 (SF/Fsy costuming conference) at Toronto Sheraton Hotel, Toronto, ON, Canada. Membership: 18+ C$75 until 31 December 2013, C$85 until 31 March 2014; Youth/Student C$25; supporting C$25. Info: http://costumecon32.com/; Box 15042, 1507 Yonge Street, Toronto ON Canada M4T 1Z0.

2-4 May 2014

EERIECON 16 (Niagara Frontier area SF Conference) at Byblos Niagara Resort and Spa, Grand Island, NY. Guests of Honor: David B. Coe & Mark Leslie. Membership: 13+ $40 until 15 April 2014, $45 thereafter and at the door; 12 and under $10 until 15 April 2014, $15 thereafter and at the door. Info: http://www.eeriecon.org/; eeriecon@juno.com; Buffalo Fantasy League, PO Box 412,Amherst Branch, Buffalo, NY 14226.

2-4 May 2014

GAYLAXICON 2014/OUTLANTACON (GLBT & friends SF conference) at Marriott Century Center, Altanta, GA. Membership: $25 until 1January 2014. Info: http://outlantacon.org/;info@outlantacon.org.

23-26 May 2014

BALTICON 48 (Baltimore area SF conference) at Hunt Valley Inn, Hunt Valley, MD. Guest of Honor: Brandon Sanderson; Artist Guest of Honor: Halo Jankowski; Music Guest of Honor: Kenneth Anders. Membership: $65 adult; $33 child (6-12). Info: http://www.balticon.org/index.html; PO Box 686, Baltimore MD 212030686.

23-26 May 2014

WISCON 38 (Wisconsin are SF conference) at The Concourse Hotel, Madison, WI. Guests of Honor: Hiromi Goto and N.K. Jemisin. Membership: 18+ $50; 7-17 $20. Membership is capped at 1,000; there is no guarantee of at the door memberships. Info: http://www.wiscon.info/index.php.

30 May-1 June 2014

CONCAROLINAS (North/South Carolina area SF conference) at Charlotte Hilton University Place, Charlotte, NC. Guest of Honor: George R.R. Martin. Membership: 13+ $35; under 13 free with paying member. Info: http://www.concarolinas.org/; PO Box 26336, Charlotte NC 29221-6336.

14-18 August 2014

LONCON 3 (72nd World Science Fiction Convention) at International Conference Centre, ExCel, London Docklands, U.K. Guests of Honour: Iain M. Banks, John Clute, Chris Foss, Malcolm Edwards, Jeanne Gomoll, Robin Hobb, Bryan Talbot. Membership: until 30 April 2013. Attending: $160/£95 (adult); $110/£65 (young adult); $50/£30 (child); $3/£2 (infant); family $390/£230. Supporting: $40/£25. This is the SF universe's annual get-together. Professionals and readers from all over the world will be in attendance. Talks, panels, films, fancy dress competition—the works. Nominate and vote for the Hugos. Info: http://www.loncon3.org/; Loncon 3, 379 Myrtle Road, Sheffield S2 3QH, United Kingdom.

INFORMATION

364 words

TREVOR QUACHRI........................................ Editor

EMILY HOCKADAY......................... Editorial Assistant

MARY GRANT................................ Editorial Assistant

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ABIGAIL BROWNING................................ Manager, Subsidiary Rights and Marketing

TERRIE POLY..................... Digital Publishing Manager

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Publisher

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Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Astounding), Vol. CXXXIV, No. 4, April 2014. ISSN 1059-2113, USPS 488-910, GST#123054108. Published monthly except for combined January/February and July/August double issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. One-year subscription $55.90 in the United States and possessions, in all other countries $65.90 (GST included in Canada), payable in advance in U.S. funds. First copy of new subscription will be mailed within eight weeks of receipt of order. When reporting change of address allow 6 to 8 weeks and give new address as well as the old address as it appears on the last label. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. Canadian postage paid at Montreal, Quebec, Canada Post International Publications Mail, Product Sales Agreement No. 40012460. (c) 2013 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. Protection secured under the Universal Copyright Convention. Reproduction or use of editorial or pictorial content in any manner without express permission is prohibited. All stories in this magazine are fiction. No actual persons are designated by name or character. Any similarity is coincidental. All submissions must be accompanied by a stamped self-addressed envelope, the publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork.

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Table of Contents

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