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Vol. CXXXV No. 4

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April 2015

March 17, 2015

6

79

NOVELETTES

THE EIGHTH ITERATION, Bond Elam ___________________________________ 6

DANCING IN THE DARK, Ramona Louise Wheeler _______________________ 87

SHORT STORIES

DAILY TEDS, Ron Collins ____________________________________________ 37

TRANSFER POINT, Barry N. Malzberg & Bill Pronzini ______________________46

PARTIBLE, K.J. Zimring _____________________________________________ 59

DOWN PLEASE: THE ONLY RECORDED ADVENTURE

OF LARS FOUTON, CAPTAIN'S LIFT OPERATOR

ON THE STARSHIP MAGNIFICENT, Adam-Troy Castro __________________66

THE LAST DAYS OF DOGGER CITY, Mjke Wood _________________________79

SCIENCE FACT

NEW HORIZONS AT PLUTO: THE GRAND TOUR

FINALLY COMPLETED, Richard A. Lovett _____________________________ 29

SPECIAL FEATURE

HIDING THE INFO-DUMP OR: FEEDING INFORMATION

WITHOUT CHOKING THE READER, Stanley Schmidt ___________________ 51

PROBABILITY ZERO

WHEY STATION, Guy Stewart ________________________________________73

POEM

VOTING RIGHTS, Ken Poyner ________________________________________78

READER’S DEPARTMENTS

GUEST EDITORIAL: YAY! THE FUTURE . . . OH, DAMN, Ian Randal Strock _____ 2

BIOLOG: BOND ELAM, Richard A. Lovett ________________________________ 5

IN TIMES TO COME ________________________________________________74

THE ALTERNATE VIEW, Jeffrey D. Kooistra _____________________________ 75

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY, Don Sakers_______________________________ 99

BRASS TACKS ___________________________________________________ 103

UPCOMING EVENTS, Anthony Lewis _________________________________106

Trevor Quachri Editor

Emily Hockaday Assistant Editor

Cover design by Victoria Green

Cover Art: Planetfall by Daniel Romanovsky,

Indicia on Page 3

Form Language Studio

GUEST EDITORIAL Ian Randal Strock YAY! THE FUTURE . . . OH, DAMN.

e’re living in the future, and I am by

Africa to the war in Iraq and Syria. Each of
turns thrilled and scared of it.

those stories overwhelmed regular news

Science fiction writers have been
with all-the-time, pay-attention-it’s-impor-

Wanticipating the future—showing its tant newscasts and reports,onlyto be re-potential glories and possible pit-
placed after a few weeks with the next. And
falls—for decades. We never claimed to be
each keeps cropping up in the SF of the
fortune tellers, and the author who can make
past.

more correct than incorrect predictions

Don’t get me wrong; I love living in this fu-
about the future hasn’t yet been born. But
ture. We have enhanced medical care (in-
that’s not a problem. Our first goal is to write deed, the two Americans infected in the Ebo-an entertaining story. Only secondarily are
la outbreak may have been cured by a new,
we trying to see into the future.

not-yet-experimental anti-Ebola drug), greater Yet, every day, I see more and more of our
communication, better nutrition . . . easier
predictions coming true, and most of them
living in general. In all the little ways, the fu-are not the predictions I was hoping for.

ture we’ve built ourselves is wonderful. But

Tom Clancy was eerily prescient in Debt of there are still warning signs, thunderclouds

Honor (1994), when he predicted the use of on the horizon, that I worry we’re not taking
a jumbo jet as a weapon of mass destruction.

seriously enough.

The entire world was shocked when the

A common panel topic at science fiction
events of September 11, 2001, happened . . .

conventions these days is “We’re living in the all except we science fiction readers and
future, so where’s my flying car?” I’ve sat on writers. As I’m writing this, one of the cura few of those panels, and I always open with
rent crises making headlines is the Ebola out-
a bit of seriousness: Look at how many dri-
break in West Africa. The Centers for Disease
vers have trouble in two dimensions. I am

Control and Prevention (CDC) has just raised
eternally grateful that they don’t have three
its travel alert, suggesting that no one under-to deal with.

take any nonessential travel to the affected

But then I turn on the television, and I see
countries, and there is talk of health screen-
the best, latest, most innovative, coolest, ear-ings at U.S. airports, with possible quaran-
lier-than-tomorrow gadget that some tech
tines in line for travelers who appear to be in-company is pushing. A big one these days is
fected by the disease. Once again, I look at
remote access. As one television commercial

Clancy and cringe (this time, from Executive shows, you can use your smartphone to log

Orders [1996]).

into your home security system and make

I also think about Ben Bova’s tongue-in-
sure your kids turned off the water, shut off
cheek prescience in “Crisis of the Month”

the lights, and locked the doors. And if they

(1988, F&SF). As I’ve been thinking about haven’t, you can do it yourself, remotely. Fan-this article, the all-encompassing, 24-hour-a-
tastic! We’re in the future. It was a marvelous day, breaking news story has changed from
invention in the background of the recent
the war in Israel to the Ebola crisis in West
comedy Parental Guidance (2012).

2

APRIL 2015

At the same time, however, not a day goes
new version. I understand that part of that is by when there isn’t a report of another new
marketing, and part is improvement. The
hacking problem. Whether it’s the Chinese
software developers are in a never-ending
military trying to hack into U.S. control com-
battle to upgrade their products, to keep the
puters, credit card thieves stealing thousands bad guys out. And those bad guys are first in
of numbers from major retailers (which is
line to buy the newest version of the soft-
why you’ll be getting a new credit card with
ware, to keep working on their hacks to
a computer chip in it next year), or the kid
break into it. There doesn’t appear to be a so-next door whose computer was infected by a
lution; it’s a never-ending arms race, building virus and is now spewing out spam on its
the levies higher to keep back the flood wa-
own. In such a world, do you want your
ters of the rising river of hackers. I’m not al-home to be computer-controlled? With dead-
ways the first on my block to get the newest
bolts and physical keys, breaking into your
program. Sometimes it’s orneriness on my
house meant physically breaking in. Hopeful-
part, but sometimes, a little voice in my head ly, a helpful neighbor would hear the smash-wonders, “If I’m using an older version of the ing glass and call the police on your behalf.

program—not the current one, but one from

But in the computer-controlled home of to-
three or four revisions ago—it still works for morrow (it might be today), breaking in
me, but is it possible that the hackers are no means writing a hacking program, and then
longer interested in breaking in? And if so,
walking up to the house and clicking a but-
am I safer?”

ton. And do you remember the older film,

Avi Rubin, writing in the July 2014 issue of

Demon Seed (1977), in which the computer All In Magazine, talks about how easy it locks the protagonist into her own house?

would be to break into online poker pro-

I was worried when our Toyota came with-
grams, to view players’ hole cards with an
out an ignition key: just an electronic remote eye to cheating the system. And he talks
to unlock the doors, and then you start the car about a work-around solution, involving the
by pushing a button. It’s the wave of the fu-
use of two different devices in concert to
ture, but how do you know if the beep you
provide the added security. I can see some
just heard was a car’s owner unlocking it, or a merit in that solution. It will take time to
thief doing the same? Again, no sound of
crack one security system; cracking two will
breaking glass to alert you, no strange tool
take longer.

jammed down alongside the window to un-

On the other hand, at Balticon this May, I
lock. And now, you may be locked out of your
was talking with a fellow who is making
own car if the battery in the remote dies. Ever money by mining Bitcoins. The system re-have that problem with a physical key?

quires solving incredibly complex mathemat-

I’m annoyed every time one of the com-
ical problems very quickly. The first to find
puter programs I use is “upgraded” by its
the solution “wins” a bit of electronic cur-
manufacturer, forcing me to upgrade or buy a
rency. And then, ten minutes later, there’s a

Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Astounding), Vol. CXXXV, No. 4, April 2015. 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) 2015 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved.

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Printed by Quad/Graphics, Taunton, MA U.S.A. (1/19/15) YAY! THE FUTURE . . . OH, DAMN.

3

ANALOG
new problem to solve. He’s not making his

Marty McFly traveled to the far future: Octo-
money solving those problems. He’s doing it
ber 21, 2015. In the film, they were advertis-
by building faster and faster computers to do
ing Jaws 19, and Marty said “the shark still the solving (as are his competitors). In effect, looks fake. ” In reality, Steven Spielberg
he’s hacking; he’s just hacking legally, and
stopped after four Jaws films, and computer not stealing something. But what he does is
technology has advanced so far that the shark
easily translatable to what the bad guys might would look incredibly real, but as much as
do (if it isn’t what they’re doing already). So we keep envisioning and missing the future
again I ask, where does it end?

to be, I’m still worried about it, flying De-

We’re living in the future, clearly and un-

Lorean or no. ■
equivocally. In Back to the Future Part II, TREVOR QUACHRI ........................................

PETER KANTER

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EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE ONLY analog@dellmagazines.com 4

IAN RANDAL STROCK

BIOLOG Richard A. Lovett

BOND ELAM
ond Elam has been a trucker, public
health official, and alcoholism counselor,
but the twin loves of his life are comput-

B
iedemer
ers and writing science fiction. “I read

W
science fiction pretty much continually,” he
says of his grade-school years. But like many be-erry
ginners, his first forays into the field were too ambitious. “I put together a novel which was
absolutely horrible.”

Meanwhile, the early 1970s computer revo-
lution was hitting American business, and he

Photo by J
was able to convert an English major and an
eclectic career background into a job at one of the East Coast’s largest banks. “I ended up managing software development,” he says. “My area of expertise was very large databases.”

By the time he took early retirement a few
years ago, he’d gotten back into writing—again beginning with novels. “I wrote three or four
really see language and metaphors and the way
and none was any good,” he says. So he shifted Laura Esquivel manages transitions. In English, to short stories. “I figured I could get a lot more it goes from the writer’s head to my head. In
practice. And if something didn’t work out, I

Spanish, I have to really process the language wouldn’t have a year invested in it—I would
and see how an idea gets translated into
have a month.”

words.”

His first sale, “A Plethora of Truth,” went to Computers enter in because his stories often

Analog in 2008, with four more, including this involve programmer-style logic. “I did a Proba-month’s, following. “It felt like I was getting a bility Zero on the idea that we could be holo-start on the second big thing I wanted to do,”

graphic projections on the surface of a black
he says.

hole,” he says, “but I was thinking in terms of a Not that there weren’t third and fourth
big computer database. In the story, people, by things on his list. One is running, which at age observing, were forcing more and more proba-69, he still does at 25 miles a week. Another is bility events to collapse, and reality, like a big learning another language. (He picked Spanish, computer, was running slower and slower and
and now teaches introductory computer class-
had to be rebooted.”

es to Spanish-speaking students.)

But programmer logic isn’t the only thing

Two of these—learning a second language
that drives his stories. “I like to explore ideas of and computers—have also influenced his writ-what human beings are,” he says. “What is con-
ing.

sciousness? What is identity? Is it real or an illu-Language, he says, plays a role simply be-
sion created by our genes so we’ll get them to cause the process of reading a foreign tongue
the next generation? [I enjoy] exploration of
slows him down enough to see not only the
ideas that go a step beyond what we see and
story, but also the writer’s craft. “I read Like Wa-know, but have legitimate roots in actual sci-
ter for Chocolate in Spanish,” he says, “and you ence.” ■

5

Illustrated by Vincent DiFate

The Eighth

Iteration

Bond Elam
he bird—a flightless raptor, nearly four
up the side of the dome, the bird skidded to a feet tall with a hooked beak, glistening
halt. Slowly tilting its head from one side to black talons and claws jutting from its
the other, it glared down through the trans-

Tstubbywings—burst from the forest in parent surface,fixing one green eye on the a flurry of yellow feathers. It charged past the upturned face of Jake Sanchez.

two maintenance bots working on the

“Friend of yours?” Margaret Winslow asked.

colony’s crew shuttle and bounded up the

Brushing aside her dark curls, she squinted up side of the small observation dome. Ahead of
at the bird. “Looks like it knows you.”

it, half a dozen lizards with wrinkled white

Not likely, Jake thought. This particular
skin and slit amber eyes scrambled over each
specimen was only a juvenile, still a foot short other in their desperation to escape. Midway
of its adult height. Chances were he and

6

APRIL 2015

Margaret represented its first encounter with

Jake wasn’t sure what he disliked most
the featherless aliens that had invaded its for-about Sweeney—the constant sneer, the arro-
est sanctuary.

gant tilt to his chin, or that bony nose he was

“Maybe it’s tired of lizard,” he said. “Looking always looking down at people. Probably the
to feed a little higher on the food chain.”

nose, he decided. Someone needed to do

“You mean us?”

something about the nose.

Suppressing a grin, Jake shrugged. “Every-

“Lucas, I’m not your problem,” Jake said,
body’s got to eat.”

turning back to Martel. “Your man Sweeney

“Then we wouldn’t want to disappoint it,
here has a knack for rubbing people the
would we?” a voice interrupted from behind
wrong way. Maybe you should talk to him, let
them.

him know that pushing people around doesn’t

Jake turned to see Lucas Martel emerge
make them work harder.”

from the enclosed walkway that wound back

Jake’s problems with Sweeney had been
through the forest to the main dome. As usual, brewing for weeks. They’d finally boiled over
an entourage of hangers-on trailed along be-
the previous morning when several of the
hind him. Jake counted f ive men and three
colonists complained that the latest work
women. All looked to be in their mid-twenties, schedule, which Sweeney had just posted,
in perfect health, with flexible smart screens once again exempted Martel’s hangers-on
strapped to the forearms of their standard-is-
from the hard work in the f ields. Sweeney,
sue brown coveralls—like so many freshly
like the petty despot that he was, told them to hatched chicks, Jake thought, all of them
quit their bitching and climb aboard the crew
working hard to mimic their leader’s harsh
shuttle his men had just landed in front of the scowl.

main dome. Jake had known he should keep

“I had nothing to do with this,” Margaret
his mouth shut, that he should let events work said from the corner of her mouth. “They
themselves out of their own accord; but see-
must have seen us come out to the dome.”

ing that curled lip, those indifferent eyes

Above them, the bird cackled, hopping in a
sneering down the length of that nose, he’d
small circle as it tried to get a better look at the been unable to stop himself. He’d plucked the
new arrivals. When Martel looked up, it held
schedule from the wall, folded it into a neat lithis gaze for a moment, then thrust out its
tle square and tapped it into the chest pocket beak, giving him an angry squawk.

of Sweeney’s brown coveralls. “Maybe you

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he said. He
should to try your own hand with a bush ax,”

wheeled on the other colonists. “That’s what’s he’d suggested, offering Sweeney a bright
out there waiting for us —the birds, the
smile. Then he’d led nearly a third of the work lizards, things we don’t even know about yet.

crew back into the dome.

That’s why we can’t let people like Jake

“Jake, I thought I could count on you,” Mar-

Sanchez disrupt our preparations.”

tel said with a disappointed shake of his head.

Jake sighed, shaking his head. Martel was a

“I thought you were part of our team. If you
showman, he’d give him that. The resonant
wanted to spend time out there in the forest
voice, the lean cheekbones, the dark eyes
cataloging, exploring, whatever it is you do . . .

glinting in the afternoon sun. People were nat-I said f ine, have at it. But you and everyone urally drawn to him. Couldn’t help them-else need to understand: if we’re going to surselves, in fact. At least some people. Jake
vive in this . . .” he grimaced out at the gnarled didn’t doubt that he had the best interests of trees twisting up around them “. . . this godfor-the colony at heart, but he couldn’t help won-
saken wilderness, then each of us needs to
dering how much of what Martel said he actu-
pull his own weight.”

ally believed, and how much was for the ben-

Above them, the bird squawked a second
efit of his ever-present brood.

time, lowering its head as though fascinated

“I take it this is about Harold,” Jake said.

by the scene playing out below it.

Harold Sweeney stood just beside his boss.

In response, Harold Sweeney tucked his

Unlike the other colonists, Sweeney’s scowl
fists into his armpits and squawked up at the
looked real. “I warned you, Sanchez. But guys
bird, giving his elbows a quick f lap. “Bird
like you, you never listen, do you?”

looks hungry,” he said. Grinning, he gave Jake THE EIGHTH ITERATION

7

ANALOG
a flap. “What do you think, Sanchez? Think it
of the human form, with flexible limbs, tubu-
looks hungry?”

lar torsos and just the hint of a nose and brow

“Harold, look at yourself,” Jake said. “Flap-
sculpted into their ovoid heads. At the mo-
ping around like that, it’s no wonder no one
ment, their attention was focused on the near-
listens to you.”

est of the shuttle three fan housings. They

“Squawk, squawk, squawk,” Sweeney said.

picked through the disassembled pieces

“All you do is squawk.”

spread on the deck like bugs searching for a

Jake frowned, his forehead tightening. “Is
meal.

that supposed to mean something? Or are you

“They couldn’t care less what goes on in
just running your mouth ’cause you like the
here,” Sweeney said, turning back to Mar-
sound of your voice?”

garet. “They’re maintenance bots. They f ix

Sweeney laughed. Continuing to flap his el-
things.”

bows, he hopped around the small circle of

Jake was inclined to agree. While the bots
colonists, squawking up at the bird.

used their stunners to frighten off any of the Jake turned to Martel. “Lucas, is this really
forest predators that came too close, their pri-the guy you want out there giving orders for
mary function was maintenance. They played
you? I mean, really. It’s embarrassing just
so little role in the internal activities of the watching him.”

colony, in fact, that he’d come to think of

Martel sighed disappointedly. “Jake, I had
them as little more than mobile extensions of
such high hopes for you. I think a lot of peo-
the dome’s infrastructure—preprogrammed
ple did. I truly wish it hadn’t come to this.”

hardware, incapable of human thought or

“Come to what?” Jake said. “Where are you
speech.

going with this, Lucas?”

“And they sure as hell aren’t going to help

Martel sucked in a breath—letting his en-
you,” Sweeney said, grinning at Jake. “Except
tourage see that he didn’t like what he had to maybe watch when we feed you to the birds.”

do, but sometimes these things need to be

He dropped back into a crouch, squawking up
done. “I’m sorry, Jake,” he said, nodding to
at the bird.

the two men who’d moved around behind

Overhead, the bird responded with a

Jake.

squawk of its own. With its attention now

“What the hell . . .” Jake said, glancing from fixed on Sweeney, it skittered in a tight circle, one to the other.

as though trying to find some way inside.

“Time to feed the bird, ” Sweeney

Turning his head slowly to the side,
squawked, still flapping. “Bird’s hungry, Jake.

Sweeney hopped back and forth, taunting it.

Got to feed the bird.”

“Bird’s got to eat,” he squawked, flapping his

“Lucas, wait,” Margaret interrupted. She
elbows. “Time to feed the bird.”

stepped forward, her blue eyes tight with wor-

The bird clawed at the dome, its agitation
ry. “You don’t want to do this. There are
rapidly increasing. Suddenly it slammed its
things going on. Things you need to know
beak down against the transparent surface
about.”

with a resounding crack that echoed through

Martel held up his hand, stopping the two
the dome.

men who’d started toward Jake, giving her a

“Lucas, he’s out of control,” Jake said, glar-
chance to continue.

ing from Sweeney to Martel. “You need to rein

“The bots—” she said. She jerked her chin
him in. Now.”

toward the two bots working on the shuttle.

“Squawk, squawk, squawk,” Sweeney cack-

“You’re playing into their hands.”

led. Hopping across the circle, he got in Jake’s Sweeney barked a laugh, his craziness mo-face. “What we need is to rein in your
mentarily forgotten. “You got to be kidding,”

mouth.”

he said, straightening. “They’re nothing but

Jake wasn’t sure whether it was the crack of
dumb machines.”

the bird’s beak still echoing in his ears, or the The two stick-like automatons clung to the
sight of Sweeney’s beady amber eyes peering
railing surrounding the shuttle’s circular deck up at him along that bony nose. He knew only
like oversized insects. Which was exactly how
that the frustration welling up inside him

Jake thought of them—like grotesque parodies
somehow resolved itself into a fist that landed 8

BOND ELAM

APRIL 2015
squarely in the center of Sweeney’s face. He

She held up her forearm, showing him the
shouldn’t have thrown the punch, of course.

map of the dome’s ductwork on her smart

There would be repercussions on top of reper-
screen. “The computer,” she said. “The archi-
cussions. But at that moment, standing there,
tectural schematics for the dome are all in
watching Sweeney roll on the f loor with his
there. All you have to do is look.”

hands pressed to his broken nose, he felt only

“Easy for you to say.”

an immense satisfaction, a soothing warmth

Like the other colonists, Jake used his
that spread through his body, washing away
smart screen to look up specif ic bits of in-
every last ounce of the tension that had been
formation—in his case, mostly about biolo-
building up inside of him.

gy, which seemed to be his area of exper-

Unfortunately, his satisfaction was short
tise. When it came to computers, on the
lived, for in the next moment, Martel’s men
other hand, Margaret was the real expert.

grabbed him by the arms, and events took a

She could f ind virtually anything in the
decided turn for the worse.

dome’s databases. Whether that was the
skill that had qualif ied her for their mission, It wasn’t until later, sitting against the wall however, was another question. The prob-in the dark storage room where Martel’s men
lem was, the colonists had awakened from
had locked him, that Jake realized he’d been
cold sleep six months earlier with no mem-
played. Sweeney was no crazier than he was.

ory of who they were, where they’d come

All the f lapping and squawking were part of
from, or even why the y’d volunteered.

an act designed to keep people off balance—

They’d assumed their memories would re-
which was exactly what Martel wanted. With
turn with time, but thus far that hadn’t hap-
no one quite sure what to expect from him
pened. Aside from their names, which had
and his minions, it made it all the more diffi-been stenciled above the pockets of their
cult to organize against him.

one-piece brown coveralls, they still had no

In this case, the strategy had backfired—at
memories of their previous lives. In fact,
least to the extent that Sweeney had ended up
the y couldn’t even remember waking.

with a broken nose—but Jake had given Mar-

They’d simply found themselves in mid-
tel exactly what he wanted: an excuse to take
task—some of them in the f ields, some in
the one person who would stand against him
the kitchen, some loading the produce
out of circulation.

they’d already harvested into storage bins: a

“Hey, Sanchez. You down there?” Mar-
circumstance that had allowed Lucas Martel
garet’s voice whispered from the darkness
to simply seize control. Since no one knew
above him. A light f lashed down through the
what anyone’s off icial capacity had been
ventilation grate in the center of the ceiling.

prior to their arrival, no one felt qualif ied

“What are you doing?” he whispered, climb-
to object. At least not initially. As time
ing to his feet.

passed, however, and Martel’s heavy-hand-

The grate swung down. “I need to get you
ed style became apparent, some of the
out of there.”

colonists had begun to grumble. Now, it ap-

Margaret leaned her head and shoulders
peared, Martel had decided to neutralize
down into the room, shining a small f lash-
the competition.

light—first in Jake’s face, then along the walls.

“They’re planning to put you on trial,”

The circle of light came to rest on a stack of Margaret explained as they dropped down
plastic produce containers against the rear
through another grate onto one of the food
wall. Jake slid the containers to the center of preparation tables in the mess-hall kitchen.

the room, climbed on top, and reached for the

“They’re going to accuse you of jeopardiz-
sides of the grate.

ing the stability of the colony by encourag-

“Try not to make any noise,” she grunted,
ing people to refuse their shifts in the
helping to drag him up by the collar. “The
f ields.”

guards are just outside.”

“That’s ridiculous. I’m not jeopardizing any-

“How did you f ind me?” he whispered as
thing.”

they scrambled along the ventilation duct on

“Maybe not, but if Harold has his way, they
their hands and knees.

really will feed you to the birds.”

THE EIGHTH ITERATION

9

ANALOG

Jake grimaced. “Come on. Martel’s not that

“And you think that someone is testing us,
crazy.”

playing us off against each other?”

“I’m not so sure,” she said. “In any event,

“I can’t be sure what they’re doing, but in
that’s what I wanted to talk to you about be-
every one of the simulations, your confronta-
fore he interrupted us.”

tion with Martel escalated until you ended up

Jake sighed. “And here I thought it was my
at each other’s throats.”

sparkling personality.”

Jake grunted. “Why doesn’t that surprise

She rolled her eyes. “Your personality is a
me?”

lot of things, Sanchez, but sparkling ain’t one

“The problem is—” She drew in a breath,
of them, believe me.”

pressing her lips into a tight line. “The prob-

“Really?” Jake said, pressing his hand to his
lem is, the two of you invariably bring the rest heart.

of the colony down with you. In every one of

“Really,” she said. She brushed aside her
the simulations, we all ended up dead.”

curls to f ix him with her blue eyes. “While
you were out cavorting with the wildlife, I’ve With Martel determined to put Jake on tri-been digging through the computer, trying to
al, it was clear that he couldn’t remain in the f ind out how we got here, where we came
dome. At least not until things settled down
from, that kind of thing. Anyway, I stumbled
a bit. Fortunately, the rest of the colony was onto what looked like a series of simulations
asleep, so he and Margaret had no diff iculty
involving the colony.”

making their way to the main entrance.

“What kind of simulations?”

“Listen, I really appreciate your help,” he

“Different scenarios involving the members
said as they stood looking at the two bots
of the colony,” she said. “Like someone was
guarding the far end of the arched corridor
trying to figure out how we would behave in
leading outside. “I know I’m over the top at
various situations, under different kinds of
times, but I understand how big a risk you
stress. I got the impression they were trying
took.”

out various possibilities, then using us to test

“You don’t have to appreciate anything,”

their assumptions.”

she said. “I’m coming with you.”

“That doesn’t sound like Martel.”

He laughed. “Much as I’d love to have your

“It isn’t. His people don’t have that kind of
company—and believe me, I would—I don’t
expertise. No one in the colony does. It has to think that’s a good idea. Even with a bot
be the bots. Them, or whoever’s controlling
guard, it’s dangerous. Like Martel says, we
them.”

have no idea what could be out there.”

“Controlling them?”

“But if we can figure out what’s going on . . .”

“From that ship up there.” She cast a quick

She lowered her voice, turning her back to the glance toward the ceiling.

two bots standing at the entrance. “If we can

Like everyone, Jake had seen the point of
find out what we’re doing here, maybe we can
light moving across the sky each night. They’d convince Martel that we all need to work to-all assumed it was the ship in which they’d ar-gether.”

rived, but there’d been no way to contact it,

“Good luck with that,” he said.

so no one knew what it was for sure.

“No, think about it. What if we could show

“I hate to agree with Sweeney,” Jake said.

him that someone—or some thing—is run-

“But based on everything I’ve seen, the bots
ning some kind of experiment, using us as its
really do act like dumb machines.”

test subjects?”

“They may act that way,” she said. “But

“That sounds ominous.”

they’re always there, watching, listening. . . .

She grimaced. “Maybe. But we really don’t

Just because they don’t communicate with us
know what’s up there in that ship, do we?”

doesn’t mean they aren’t paying attention.”

Jake turned his attention toward the two

“But what would be the point? Why would
bots at the far end of the entryway, not sure
they even care?”

how much credence to give to her suspicions.

“I don’t know, but when I tried to look at the With their thin, flexible limbs and tubular tor-simulations the next day, someone had changed
sos, they looked anything but human. But
the security codes. I couldn’t get back in.”

it was really their faces that he found most

10

BOND ELAM

disconcerting—like human faces over which

“Which, ” she said, giving him a tight
someone had stretched a thin sheet of translu-
smile, “is exactly why you need me. You may
cent plastic, hiding their true identities.

know about the forest, but I know about the

“Still, I don’t think our suspicions are going bots.”

to mean much to Lucas,” he said, turning back
toward her. “He’s going to want proof.”

Margaret’s coordinates were nearly three

“What if I told you I know where the bots
days distant, which meant that they would
originally landed?” she said. “Where they
have to trek across a series of rocky ridges that staged the equipment and materials they need-Jake had not previously explored. If they’d had ed to build all this.” She gestured up at the
access to the colony’s crew shuttle, they could dome.

have tapped the coordinates into its naviga-

“You figured that out?”

tion system and lifted over the trees to their She took his arm, turning him away from
destination in a matter of hours. But the shut-the bots. “I think I found the location in the tle had been guarded by Martel’s men, leaving
database they use to navigate the forest.”

them no choice except to set off on foot with

“You have been digging, haven’t you?” He
one of the bots from the entrance trailing
held out his forearm with his smart screen.

along behind them.

“Give me the coordinates, and I’ll have a look.

Fortunately, the navigation systems built

It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

into their smart screens were up to the task.

“No. I’m coming with you.”

Otherwise, they quickly would have lost their

He frowned down at her. “Honest, I don’t
way in the labyrinth of gnarled trees.

think that’s a good idea. Like I said, the forest

“I’m glad you know where we’re going,”

is dangerous. Besides, if the bots really have Margaret said, peering into the shadows. “I
something to hide, they could decide to kill us wouldn’t last ten minutes out here, even with
themselves, couldn’t they?”

my smart screen.”

THE EIGHTH ITERATION

11

ANALOG

Around them, the trunks twisted up from

She gave him an adamant shake of her head,
the dark soil like squat pillars. Overhead, they then they both turned and hurried on in the
branched outward, intertwining with the
direction they’d been going.

branches of the nearby trees to form arched
caverns and passageways that ran off in all di-As they picked up their pace, Jake glanced
rections. If not for the occasional ray of sun-to either side, searching for a darker passagelight slanting down through the canopy, it
way that might conceal their footprints. He
would have been impossible to find their way
was so focused on f inding a less obvious
through the misty shadows.

route through the forest that he didn’t see

“As long as our friend back there keeps the
the carnage spread out in front of them until
predators at bay, we’ll be f ine,” Jake said,

Margaret gasped. They had just entered a nat-
jerking his thumb toward their trailing bot.

ural clearing with an arched canopy of thick

“The birds have learned to keep their dis-
leaves. The fresh carcasses of two lizards lay tance, but the lizards are too dumb to know
directly in their path, amid the gnawed bones
better. They like to drop on their prey from
of half a dozen herbivores. Bloody feathers
the branches.”

from the herbivores lay everywhere, while

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

the air hummed with the buzz of f lies.

she said, glancing up at the canopy.

Based on the footprints and scattered

“Not to worry. They mostly go for the her-
bones, it looked as though the lizards had fall-bivores.” He nodded toward the small band
en on the herbivores from above as they
of feathered quadrupeds clinging to the
crossed the leafy atrium. The lizards, in turn, branches just ahead of them. Roughly two
had been caught in mid feast by one or more
feet long, with bright yellow and orange
of the birds. The birds didn’t eat the lizards, feathers, they looked a bit like smaller ver-but they went out of their way to kill them
sions of the birds, but they had forelimbs in-
anytime the opportunity presented itself, typi-stead of stubby wings. Several of the crea-
cally dispatching them with a quick strike to
tures nibbled at the purple gourd-like fruit
the backs of their necks.

that hung from the surrounding vines, appar-

“This way,” Jake whispered. Leading Mar-
ently indifferent to the clouds of insects
garet to the side of the chamber, he made an
buzzing around their heads.

effort to step as lightly as possible in the tracks

“Do they bite?” she asked.

left by the birds and lizards. To his surprise,

“The herbivores?”

their trailing bot did the same, making sure

“No, the flies.”

that its footprints, which looked more like the He laughed. “Huh-uh. Apparently, we don’t
birds’ anyway, didn’t show in the soft soil.

taste all that good, or I expect they would turn

“Up there,” Jake said, grabbing hold of one
our lives to misery. They’re the one thing the of the smaller branches.

bots couldn’t protect us from.”

With Margaret just behind him, he began to

She pursed her lips to one side, listening.

climb. Their bot, apparently aware that its

“You ever notice how their buzzing almost
presence could give away their position, slunk sounds like voices?”

off into the underbrush.

They both stopped, looking at each other.

They had almost reached the highest point

“Those are voices,” Jake said, glancing back in in the arch formed by the intertwined branch-the direction from which they’d come.

es when Martel, Sweeney, and several of Mar-

“Our footprints—” she whispered. She
tel’s men came into the clearing, trailed by
pointed at theirs and the bot’s footprints,
two bots of their own.

which were clearly visible in the damp soil.

Jake eased himself back into the shadows,

The voices were far enough behind that
lying motionless in the darkness.

they couldn’t see anyone or make out what

“You think the lizards got them?” Sweeney
they were saying, but they sounded excited,
asked.

making it clear that they’d found Jake and Mar-Jake couldn’t help noticing that his voice
garet’s trail.

sounded congested, which wasn’t surprising,

“You could still tell them I kidnapped you,”

given the purple bruise enshrouding his
he said. “It’s your chance to go back.”

nose.

12

BOND ELAM

APRIL 2015

“That would be a terrible way to go, no

“They may have a point,” Sweeney said to
question about it,” Martel said, shaking his

Martel. “Sanchez can’t last forever out here.

head in resignation. “Still, in the end, I supNot with that girl in tow.”

pose that might be for the best.”

“I’m not so sure,” Martel said. “Sanchez

Yeah, right, Jake thought. He could imagine
knows the forest better than any of us. There’s Martel’s heartfelt eulogy. He’d probably have
no telling how long he could last. Still, I’m in-half the dome in tears.

clined to agree with you. If we’re going to

Another of the men, shorter than Martel,
catch him, we need to do it right.”

with narrow, close-set eyes, gazed nervously
down at the exposed vertebrae of the nearest

Once they were sure Martel and his men
lizard. “Maybe we ought to head back. Even if
were gone, Jake and Margaret climbed down
the lizards didn’t get him, he can’t last long from the trees. By the time they reached the
out here.”

ground, the fallen lizard had regained con-

Martel scowled. “People need closure. If we
sciousness and fled. The carnage, however, re-
don’t find some evidence of what happened,
mained to remind them of the dangers await-
people are always going to wonder if he’s still ing them in the shadows.

alive. The next thing you know, they’ll start

“You can still go back,” Jake said. “I could
running off into the forest every time they detake you as far as the clearing outside the
cide the work’s too hard.”

dome.”

Sweeney grunted. “What we need is an

She shook her head. “After that little
ear.” He stepped gingerly over the scattered
episode, I’m more convinced than ever that
bones as he looked for some sign that Jake and something’s going on with the bots.”

Margaret might have been caught in the

“How do you figure?”

slaughter. “Or a nose, maybe. Something to

“It was one of Martel’s bots that shot that
show what happens when guys like Sanchez
lizard,” she said. “It adjusted its charge so that think they can run their own show.”

it wouldn’t knock us out of the trees. I think it Jake was just starting to think that maybe
went out of its way to make sure Martel didn’t he and Margaret were going to pull off their
find us.” She turned to their own bot, which
escape when he caught a terrible stench.

had emerged from the trees as they climbed

Looking up, he found himself staring into
down. “It did, didn’t it?” she said.

the slit amber eyes of a lizard creeping to-

She spoke as though convinced the bot
ward him across the branches. It hissed
could understand her, but as usual the bot sim-from deep in its throat. Overwhelmed by
ply stood there, silent, its face giving no indi-the odor of rotting f lesh, Jake gagged, un-
cation that it even heard.

able to catch his breath. Then, just as the
lizard lunged for his head, a f lash of blue

By nightfall, they’d covered only a third of
light exploded around him. The f lash was
the distance to what Margaret thought might
focused enough that he was stunned for
be the bots’ staging area. With nothing else to only a moment, but the lizard had received
eat, Jake decided to try the purple fruit dan-
the full impact of the blast. It slid from the gling from the vines above the clearing where
branches and tumbled into the carnage be-
they’d stopped for the night.

low.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” Margaret said.

The men in the clearing stared down at the

“I’m thinking we probably grow our own
fallen creature, too surprised for a moment to crops for a reason.”

move. The lizard lay on its side, twitching

Jake shrugged. “Unfortunately, we’re a day
every so often as a spasm slid the length of its away from our crops, and I haven’t had any-wrinkled white body.

thing to eat since yesterday. So unless you

“Kill it,” one of the men finally managed. He
can f igure some way to trap and skin one of
turned to the nearest of the two bots. “Now,
those . . .” he squinted up at a band of herbi-before it wakes up.”

vores watching them from the above “. . . I

The bots, of course, showed no reaction.

don’t think I have much choice.”

“We need to get out of here,” another said,

He’d considered trying the fruit in the past,
looking around at the gnarled trunks.

thinking anything would make a nice change

THE EIGHTH ITERATION

13

ANALOG
from the cereal and legumes on which the

With leaves swaying in the breeze, whatev-
colony subsisted, but he’d always hesitated.

er he’d seen was now obscured beneath the

There were, after all, more than enough risks
canopy.

in the forest without poisoning himself. Now,

“I think you’re right,” he said. “I think
however, he had no choice.

there’s something down there.”

Grasping one of the branches, he began to

As they started down once more, the bot
climb. Above him, the herbivores cooed and
again stepped in front of them. Jake looked
cackled, watching him pick his way along the
down at the stunner snapped to its tubular
branches. When he reached the lowest of the
waist.

vines hanging from the canopy, he plucked

“You don’t think it would actually use that,
five of the gourd-like fruits. As he worked his do you?” Margaret said.

way back down, however, it quickly became

“One way to find out,” he said.

evident that climbing down with an armload

Tightening his jaw, he started around the
of fruit was more difficult than he’d anticipat-bot a third time. This time, to his relief, it ed—so diff icult, in fact, that ten feet above made no attempt to stop them, apparently rec-the ground, he slipped, bouncing down
onciled to their decision.

through the remaining branches to land in a

At the base of the ridge, they crossed a nar-
heap amid his scattered gourds.

row stream, then headed on toward the cen-

“Quite the acrobat, aren’t we?” Margaret
ter of the valley. Two hundred yards into the
said.

forest, the maze of trees suddenly gave way to Jake looked down at the fruit lying on the
the transparent shell of a dome exactly like the ground around him. It never failed. Try to
one they’d left three days earlier.

show off, and invariably, you end up in a

“It can’t be,” Margaret said. “Not out here in heap—with a handful of squashed gourd, no
the middle of nowhere.”

less.

With the bot trailing behind them, they

He sighed, licking the purple pulp from his
worked their way around the dome’s perime-
fingers. “Not bad,” he said, smiling up at her.

ter to the arched entryway. Fortunately, it had He picked up one of the undamaged gourds
been left open when the previous occupants
and tossed it to her. “Don’t say I let you go
left; though once Jake and Margaret entered, it hungry.”

was clear that the power had failed. The mess
hall, the dormitories, the equipment sheds

Shortly before noon on the third day, they
and other structures—which were construct-
crested a rocky ridge overlooking the valley
ed of the same extruded ceramic as those in
that held Margaret’s coordinates. As they start-their own dome—were all in an advanced
ed down the slope, their bot stepped around
state of disrepair. Doors had been knocked
them, blocking their path.

down, windows broken, tables and chairs

“What’s going on?” Margaret said.

shattered.

“I have no idea,” Jake said. In all his explo-

“You think the birds and lizards did all this?”

rations outside the dome, he’d never had a bot Margaret asked.

try to stop him from going anywhere. On sev-

Jake shook his head, pointing toward a long
eral occasions they’d stunned predators that
scorch mark across the wall of the dormitory
approached too closely, but he’d assumed this
beside which they were standing. As they con-
was the limit of their programming. They
tinued to explore, they found more scorch
were machine, after all; they never interacted marks, then two buildings with jagged holes
with colonists.

burned through their walls.

He was about to seek another route down

“If we can f ind a hard-wired terminal,
when the wind shifted, turning up the pale
maybe I can sign into their computer,” she
undersides of the leaves as it swept across the said. “My smart screen isn’t picking up any-valley. As he followed it progress, a momen-
thing.”

tary glint of light caught his eye.

When they entered what looked like the ad-

“Did you see that?”

ministration building, the terminals in the

“What?” Margaret said, following the direc-
small data center were intact, but like every-
tion of his gaze.

thing else, they lacked power.

14

BOND ELAM

APRIL 2015

“So what happened to the people?” Mar-

Margaret, who gazed back at him with a
garet said. “Where did they go?”

stunned expression. Then they both turned

Jake could only shrug. He had no idea.

toward the bot.

“Are you telling us that we’re your last

Early the next morning, after another meal
batch?” Margaret asked.

of wild fruit, Jake and Margaret climbed to the

“On the contrary,” the bot answered. “I’m
bluffs on the far side of the valley.

telling you that you are my only batch.”

“This is beautiful,” she said as they stepped
out onto a windswept plateau. The forest be-

Jake had no idea what to make of the unex-
low was in full bloom, with bright orange and
pected turn of events. The same purple and
purple f lowers glittering beneath the clear
yellow f lowers still swayed in the sun. The
blue sky.

same blue sky still opened above. But the

Jake slapped at a bug that had settled on his
world felt different—less substantial, less real, neck. When he pulled his hand away, he saw
as though the disjointed pieces of his life had a small smear of blood. “I think the damned
been scattered like leaves in the wind.

thing bit me,” he said, scowling down at the

“So you’re telling us that these graves are re-blood.

ally us?” Margaret said, grimacing at the low

He held out his hand for Margaret to see,
mounds. “They’re really Jake and me and the
but her attention was now focused else-
other colonists?”

where—on a series of low mounds along

“Some of you,” the bot answered. “Those of
one side of the clearing. Each was approxi-
you my minions were able to find.”

mately seven feet in length and three feet

“Find?” Jake said, pulling himself back to re-
across.

ality. “What do you mean—those you could

Jake stared silently at the mounds as the
find?”

grim reality of what he was seeing sank in.

“Some of you disappeared into the forest,”

During the six months since they’d awakened,
the bot said. “When your biometric transpon-
no one in his and Margaret’s dome had died.

ders stopped transmitting, I assumed you had

None had even been sick. Clearly, however,
perished.”

the same could not be said for whoever had

“You just let the colonists run off without
inhabited the dome below.

anyone to protect them?” Margaret said.

“We aren’t your first group of colonists, are

“They had weapons of their own,” the bot
we?” he said, turning to the bot that had fol-
answered.

lowed them up from below.

“You mean stunners?” Jake said.

As always, the bot gave no indication that it

“More powerful weapons,” it said. “In some
heard.

of the earlier iterations, I allowed you to arm Margaret also turned. “So what happens
yourselves, to act as your own protectors in
when we finally succeed in killing each other
the forest.”

off ? Do you wake up your next batch of

“How many iterations have there been?”

colonists and start over?”

Jake asked.

When she also got no response, she huffed

“Seven,” the bot answered.

in frustration, staring off across the valley.

“Seven?” Margaret said. “That doesn’t make

“They’re responsible for this,” she said. “I
any sense. How could there be seven of us?”

know they are.”

“I reconstituted you from your DNA. From

Jake stood beside her, staring down at the
the code I brought with me.”

abandoned dome, which was just visible

“You mean in your ship?” she said. She
through the foliage. “You’re right,” he said.

looked up toward the sky.

“This has to be some kind of experiment.

Jake studied the bot’s face. With its translu-

They watch us kill each other, then they wake
cent nose and brow, it still looked as inhuman up their next batch and start over.”

as ever; but when it spoke, it sounded as self-

“There is no next batch,” a voice said from
aware as he and Margaret.

behind them.

“How is it we know how to eat, how to

Jake stiffened, not sure he’d heard what
speak, how to use our smart screens,” he
he thought he’d heard. He turned toward
asked, “and yet we have no idea who we are? I

THE EIGHTH ITERATION

15

ANALOG
mean, how do I even know what something

“And that makes this all right?” Margaret
like DNA is?”

said. “This experiment you’re running here,

“I encoded your cerebral cortices with the
watching us kill each other off ? Because we
procedural and semantic memories you need
were already dead?”

to function in your current environment,” it

“I am doing what I was programmed to do,”

said. “But I gave you no personal memories
it said.

prior to your awakening. My hope was that

“By whom?” Jake demanded.

you could learn to survive without any inter-

“By you, of course,” it answered.

vention on my part.”

“What are you talking about?” he said.

“You mean grow our own food . . . learn to

“You created me. To save your species.”

coexist with the lizards and birds?” he said.

“That’s what you think you’re doing here?”

“That was my hope.”

Margaret said. “Saving us?”

“But what about our personalities—the dif-

“My objective is to f ind out what went
ferences between us?” Margaret asked.

wrong with the code embedded in your

“Where did those come from? Are we real

DNA.”

people, or did you just . . .” she cast around,

“Those simulations I found in the comput-
looking for the right word “. . . did you just er . . .” she said. She blinked as the realization make us up?”

sank in. “Those aren’t simulations at all, are

“No, your personalities are your own. They
they? They’re recordings. What actually hap-
emerge from the deeper connections be-
pened in those earlier iterations?”

tween your knowledge and experience, and

“They are the biometric recordings from
the nonconscious regions of your brain—
the transponders I wove into your brainstems.

those neural structures that evolved over mil-

The circuitry allows me to record your experi-
lions of years on the planet of your origin.”

ences, your perceptions, everything mediated

“You can do that?” she asked. “Just manu-
by your nervous systems at the synaptic level.

facture memories out of nothing?”

I am trying to understand how your personali-

“Memories are synaptic patterns, configura-
ties and behavior emerge from the interaction
tions of dendrites,” the bot said. “They can be between your higher nervous-system func-recorded, replicated, even stored in my long-
tions and the somatic platform that evolved to term memory for future reference.”

support them.”

Jake scowled. “Come on. Are you telling us

“So I actually found my way into the database
you’ve got all that information stored up there you set up for your experiments?” she said.

in your head?”

“I didn’t realize you would gain access to

“The bot you see before you is one of my
that information. I had no f irst-hand experi-
minions,” it said. “It is an extension of my sen-ence with your species prior to my arrival
tience. I am the ship you see in the sky at
here. Your ingenuity sometimes catches me
night.”

by surprise.”

“What do you mean—you are the ship?” he

“Wait a minute,” Jake said. “If we created
said.

you, how can this be your f irst experience

“My circuitry is its circuitry.”

with us?”

“But why wouldn’t you use our real memo-

“It was actually my predecessors your
ries?” Margaret asked. “Didn’t you want us to
species created. At the time, you lacked the
know who we’d been?”

technology to build sentient entities such as

“I didn’t know who you’d been. That infor-
myself. But you could design robots with the
mation wasn’t available to me. At least, not in capacity to design and fabricate more intelli-sufficient detail to make use of it.”

gent robots. They, in turn, could create yet

“I thought you said memories could be
more intelligent generations. I am the product recorded, ” Jake said. “Why would you
of that evolution.”

record the code in our DNA and not our

“How many of you are there?” Margaret
memories?”

asked.

“I recovered your DNA from your remains,”

“I am the only artif icial sentient that made
the bot said. “From your bones. You perished
the trek out from the planet of your origin,” it long before I rose to consciousness.”

said.

16

BOND ELAM

APRIL 2015

“So what happened to your original cre-
the men head off through the trees in the di-
ators—the people who built your nonsentient
rection of the dome.

predecessors?” Jake said. “What were they do-

“Actually, it’s only the primary systems that
ing while you were busy evolving?”

lack power,” the bot said.

“I thought you understood,” the bot said. “I

“What are you talking about?” Margaret said.

recovered your DNA from a world that no

“There are the energy weapons,” the bot
longer supports your kind of life. Your species answered. “They are still charged.”

is extinct.”

“What energy weapons?” Jake said, then he
remembered the scorch marks he’d seen on

Jake was so stunned by the bot’s revela-
the walls inside the dome. “Are they still
tions that he didn’t at f irst recognize the dis-there?”

tant whine carried toward them on the wind.

“I left them when I reconstituted your itera-

Then he saw the silhouette of the crew shut-
tion in your new dome. They were too dan-
tle gliding over the ridge on the far side of
gerous, so I equipped my minions with neural
the valley.

stunners that merely render you or any of the

“How did they f ind us way out here?” Mar-
wildlife unconscious.”

garet asked as they hurried toward the cover

“You’re not serious,” Margaret said. “How
of the trees.

could you leave them?”

“It was you, wasn’t it?” Jake said. He

“It didn’t occur to me that you would
turned toward the bot following along be-
come back and find them,” the bot said. “As I
hind them. “You told them where we were.”

explained, my experience with the ingenuity

“Martel’s men are tracking your biometric
of your species is limited. I am continually
transponders,” it explained.

surprised by the turns your intelligence

“Did you show them how?” Margaret de-
takes.”

manded. “Is this part of your game?”

“You are not the only ones with the

Jake and Margaret could do nothing but
knowledge to access my computer systems,”

wait until Martel’s men f inished their explo-
it answered. “Some of the colonists with the
ration of the dome. When they f inally lifted
necessary skill have chosen to join with Lu-
off and headed back in the direction from
cas Martel. It has happened in every itera-
which they’d come, Ship—as they’d begun to
tion.”

call the bot—conf irmed that the men had

“It looks like Martel was serious,” Margaret
found the weapons.

said. “He said if they were going to f ind us,

“You’re sure they found them all?” Jake said.

they needed to do it right.”

“Two of my minions were with them,” Ship

“Is there any way to keep them from track-
said. “They recovered everything that was still ing us now?” Jake asked.

functional.”

“I’ve already changed the frequency of your

“And you just let them take the weapons
transponders,” the bot answered. “They have
and go?” Margaret said.

lost the signal.”

“The less I interfere, the more I’m likely to

And, in fact, the shuttle, which had been
learn,” it answered.

moving toward them, slowed. But now the

“But you’re willing to talk to us, tell us at
men standing at the rail had spotted the aban-
least some of what’s going on,” Jake said. “You doned dome amid the foliage below them.

don’t think that’s interference?”

Jake tried to make out whether Martel was

“Martel has gained the upper hand,” Ship
with them, but they were too far away to
responded. “It’s unlikely that you will have any identify any of their faces. He did, however,
more meaningful interaction with the other
recognize the insect-like f igures of the two
colonists for the rest of this iteration. As a re-bots that had accompanied them. As he
sult, I will probably learn more by communi-
watched, the shuttle descended, landing in a
cating with you than by simple observation.”

small clearing about a hundred yards from the

“You mean you’re willing to talk to us on
dome.

the offhand chance that we might come up

“With no power, the old dome isn’t going to
with some new insights?” Margaret said with
do them much good,” he said as they watched
an indignant scowl.

THE EIGHTH ITERATION

17

ANALOG

“The chances are small, I realize,” Ship an-

“We actually killed ourselves?” Margaret
swered, “but your species does have a certain
said.

creativity, especially under duress; and, as I

“You overheated your planet,” the bot said.

say, there is little to lose by talking to you at

“Just by a few degrees, but enough the bring
this point.”

the anaerobic bacteria in the deep oceans

“And when the time comes, you’ll just let
closer to the surface. The bacteria then re-

Martel kill us?” she said.

leased the hydrogen sulf ide gas that killed

“If I interfered at that point, I would simply you.”

be prolonging this iteration to no purpose.”

“Bacteria can do something like that?” she

Margaret glared at the bot. “But we’re peo-
asked, incredulous.

ple. We’re human beings.”

“At a one percent concentration, it only

The bot looked momentarily in her direc-
takes a single breath to kill higher life forms tion, but did not respond. To Ship, Jake real-like yourselves,” it answered.

ized, they were as alien as the birds and

“Didn’t they see it coming?” Jake asked.

lizards were to him. Probably even more so.

“The surviving evidence suggests that they

It watched their behavior, it recorded what
did, yes. In fact, those who raised the alarm
they did and said; but it had no sense of their apparently pointed out that the same phe-inner lives—possibly because it had no inner
nomenon had occurred two hundred million
life of its own. In fact, it might not even be years earlier, when volcanic eruptions resentient in the same sense that he and Mar-
leased gasses that warmed your planet.”

garet were.

“Why didn’t they do something?” Margaret

“I think it sees us more as repositories for
asked.

our genetic code,” he said. “We think of our-

“That’s what I’m trying to understand,” the
selves as alive and aware. It may simply see us bot said.

as life-support system for our DNA.”

“And you think you can f ix all this by

“Is that right?” she said, again turning to the watching us kill each other?” she said.

bot.

“That wasn’t my intention. I wanted to max-

“I thought I’d already made that clear,” it an-imize your chances of survival, so I pick DNA
swered.

from individuals who appeared to have sur-

She puffed out her cheeks in frustration.

vived the longest once your planet’s environ-

“Maybe if we went to Martel and explained
ment began to fail. Unfortunately, some of
what we’ve learned . . .” she said to Jake.

them managed to survive by exploiting their

“Maybe we could convince him that we all
fellows—behavior that may have been com-
need to work together.”

mon with your species.”

Jake shook his head. “I don’t think the truth

“Has it ever occurred to you that if you just
is going to do much good.”

left Martel out of the mix, this might not hap-

“You think he really believes you’re that
pen?” Jake said.

big a threat to the future of the colony?” she

“I have considered leaving both you and Lu-
said.

cas out of the mix, as you put it. But your

“I think he believes whatever he needs to
species’ propensity to spawn leaders like your-believe to keep himself in charge,” Jake said.

selves is embedded in the fabric of your genes.

“But if he could see where it’s leading,

Individuals like you and him arise sponta-
maybe that would change his perspective.”

neously. Unfortunately, you don’t always give

“That’s a nice thought, but I can’t help
due considerations to the long-term conse-
thinking he’ll twist whatever anyone tells him quences of your decisions.”

to justify what he’s doing.”

“Have you thought about weeding all of

“I would concur,” Ship said. “In the previ-
them out?” Margaret asked. “All these self-
ous iterations, neither Jake nor Lucas has ex-
styled leaders?”

hibited the capacity to look objectively at the

“I have,” Ship said. “Unfortunately, when I
long-term consequences of their behavior. I
do that, the remaining population lacks the ca-believe this is symptomatic of the f law that
pacity to survive. It appears that the biological led to your species’ extinction in the f irst
imperatives necessary for your survival also
place.”

lead to your destruction.”

18

BOND ELAM

APRIL 2015
esters in the fruit you’ve started eating appar-Several times over the next week, Jake and
ently attract them.”

Margaret saw the crew shuttle out searching

“What kind of virus?” Jake asked.

for them with four or f ive men leaning over

“At f irst I thought it might be interfering
the rail. Fortunately, the shuttle never came
with the neurotransmitters that carry signals
close enough to pose a threat. Then, two
across the synapses in your brain,” Ship said.

weeks into their exile, the dreams began.

“But it turns out that the virus actually stimu-Jake assumed that the vivid images of the
lates the growth of new dendrites. Your brain
birds, lizards, and other forest creatures were tries to interpret them as memories, which is
the result of spending so much time foraging
what causes the unusual perceptions. Fortu-
among the trees. Then Margaret, whose
nately, the dendrites wither rather quickly, so dreams were filled with the same intense im-there doesn’t appear to be any permanent
ages, reported that the dreams—or whatever
damage, but I’ve already started working on a
was behind them—seemed to be effecting her
vaccine, just to be on the safe side.”

waking perceptions as well.

“In the event we survive, you mean?” Jake

“It’s like the leaves and branches keep try-
said.

ing to resolve themselves into shapes that I

“Actually, I was thinking more of the other
can remember, but can’t quite place. Like
colonists,” it said. “Regardless of whether you faces, maybe. Or living creatures.”

survive, a vaccine could be of value to them.”

“I’ve been seeing the same thing,” Jake said.

Jake rolled his eyes. “Well, that makes all

“I assumed it was just the stress of being out the difference, doesn’t it?”

here all day, always having to keep our eyes
open for lizards and birds, not to mention the Even though the perceptual distortions
damned bugs.” He slapped at one of the pests
were relatively minor, Jake and Margaret de-
that had settled on his wrist.

cided to return to the ridges nearer their own

“It’s the fruit,” Ship explained. “I noted the dome, where they could steal legumes and
same phenomenon in several earlier itera-
other vegetables from the f ields at night.

tions. It doesn’t cause full-blown hallucina-

Along the way, they continued to study the
tions—at least, not in the short term—but
birds and other wildlife in an effort to learn there appears to be some kind of interaction
what they ate in addition to the fruit. The
with your nervous systems. That’s the reason I lizards, it appeared, were strict carnivores,
arranged for you to cultivate your own vegeta-
surviving to a large extent on carrion, but also bles and cereal grains.”

on anything they could kill and any eggs they

“What about the long term?” Margaret
could steal from the birds, while the birds ate asked.

pretty much anything—the fruit, the herbi-

“I haven’t had the opportunity to observe
vores, even the insects themselves; though
any of the iterations in the long term,” Ship
not the lizards. They went out of their way to said.

kill them, but they never ate their meat.

“Maybe you ought to give it some thought,”

“There’s nothing wrong with the meat,”

Jake said. “I’d like to think we might actually Ship explained. “They simply avoid it.”

f ind some way to keep ourselves alive for a

“It’s almost like they have some sort of
while.”

taboo,” Margaret said.

At their suggestion, Ship drew blood sam-

“It has to be genetic,” Jake said. “Some kind
ples from each of them. “This kind of investi-
of instinctive behavior. A taboo would suggest gation is new to me,” it explained. “It’s not ex-a culture, and a nonsentient species like the
actly the same as isolating a bug in a software birds aren’t likely to have developed much in
algorithm.”

the way of culture.”

In the end, ironically, the problem turned

“Maybe they just don’t like the taste,” Mar-
out to be exactly that—a bug. Not a software
garet suggested.

bug; a real one.

Whatever the reason, the prohibition was

“It’s the insects,” Ship explained after com-
strictly one-way, a fact that became apparent
pleting its analysis. “They carry a virus-like following several days of particularly heavy
particle that invades your blood stream. The
rain. Jake, Margaret, and Ship were working

THE EIGHTH ITERATION

19

ANALOG
their way along the crest of a narrow ridge,

“Nothing,” Ship said.

watching a pack of birds foraging beneath

“Then what’s going on?” he said. “How can
the storm-ravaged trees directly below them.

a nonsentient species like a bird manage to

On the opposite side of the ridge, where the
create a raft and use it to escape?”

storm damage was even worse, a swollen

“I have no idea,” Ship said. “The behavior is
river had f looded its banks, carrying fallen
completely—”

limbs and even entire trees downstream in

The bot was interrupted by an explosion in
the muddy cur rent. Fascinated b y the
the trees beside them. Jake looked up to see
swirling currents, Jake caught sight of a lone the intertwined branches engulfed in billow-bird scurrying beneath the denuded trees
ing orange f lame. Without thinking, he
along the bank. A juvenile, no more than
grabbed Margaret’s arm and scrambled into
four feet tall, it had apparently been separat-the nearest thicket, heading downhill toward
ed from its pack in the storm and was now
the foraging birds. Even though the storm had
being chased by four lizards that scrambled
done less damage on this side of the ridge,
over the fallen limbs behind it. Normally, the they found themselves stumbling across fallen
bird would easily have outrun the lizards,
limbs; while up on the crest of the ridge be-
but the river had blocked its escape route.

hind them, they could hear the shouts of Mar-

As a result, the bird found itself cornered on tel’s men. As they scrambled downslope, sev-a narrow peninsula, with the lizards closing
eral more explosions erupted around
in on one side, and the river, with its churn-
them—brilliant balls of orange f lame that in-
ing whitecaps, blocking its escape on the
stantly vaporized the leaves and vines, leaving other.

only the charred branches behind.

“We have to do something,” Margaret said.

“They’re on the ground,” Jake shouted.

“We can’t let them just kill it.”

“They’re using the weapons from the old

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do,”

dome.”

Jake said. “Not from here.” He turned to Ship.

He and Margaret reversed direction, looking

“As you say, we are too far away. Even if it
for cover as they heard the throbbing whine
would be appropriate to intervene, my stun-
of the shuttle coming out over the ridge di-
ner has a limited range.”

rectly above them.

Jake assumed the juvenile bird was finished.

Jake caught only a glimpse of the platform

Clearly, it was no match for the lizards slinking through the twisted branches, but he was sure
toward if over the fallen trees. But the bird
he’d seen Martel himself at the rail, his deter-wasn’t ready to give up. It dragged a large
mined eyes sweeping back and forth in search
branch to the edge of the rushing water. The
of them.

lizards, wary of its beak and talons, hissed and Halfway down the slope, one of Martel’s
snarled as they cautiously circled closer.

men stumbled out of the trees just in front of Squawking at them, the bird picked up a sec-them. As he swung around to face them, Jake
ond, smaller branch, stripped off the excess
recognized Harold Sweeney. Sweeney grinned
foliage with its beak, then climbed onto the
wildly, raising a long stunner-like rod with a larger limb and pushed itself into the turgid
bulbous knob on the end.

water, using the claws jutting from its stubby Jake leaped forward, driving his shoulder
wings to pole its way into the current.

into Sweeney’s stomach. As they collided,

“There’s no way that’s instinct,” Margaret

Sweeney’s weapon discharged, setting off an
said.

explosion farther up the ridge. Then Margaret, Below them, the lizards scurried back and
who couldn’t stop herself, piled into them
forth on the bank, testing the current with
from behind. The impact sent the three of
their foreclaws as they hissed out at the bird.

them tumbling down through the trees, with

Jake couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Jake and Sweeney struggling over the energy

“A bird that age, it can’t possibly have had the weapon. Crashing off a gnarled trunk, Jake
opportunity to learn something like this.”

saw that the ground below gave way to a

“So how do you explain it?” she asked.

steep drop-off. He let go of Sweeney and

Jake turned to Ship. “What haven’t you told
grabbed for Margaret, reaching for a low
us?”

branch with his other hand. As the two of

20

BOND ELAM

APRIL 2015
them swung around, he caught a quick

Sweeney. Jake couldn’t help feeling that this
glimpse of Ship crumbled against a smolder-
was the calm before the storm, that at any
ing trunk above them. The bot had been hit
moment the bird would launch itself at
by the blast from Sweeney’s weapon, but be-
them. But then it squawked down at the
fore Jake could determine how badly it had
younger birds, turned and guided them,
been damaged, the branch to which he’d been
along with the herbivore chicks, out of the
clinging broke, and he and Margaret tumbled
nest with only a single glance back at Jake
over a nearly vertical precipice, plummeting
and his weapon.

toward the valley below.

Slowly, Jake, Margaret, and Sweeney crept

Jake bounced off several gnarled trunks jut-
along the base of the slope to a point where
ting from the rocks, then he and Margaret
they could make their way back toward the
landed on top of Sweeney, who responded
summit.

with a loud grunt as the air was driven from

“I can’t make it,” Sweeney groaned. “I think
his lungs. Dazed, Jake slowly sat up to f ind
you broke my arm.”

himself surrounded by twenty or more freshly

Jake considered leaving him where he
hatched herbivores. The hatchlings cooed and
stood, but without a weapon to defend him-
pecked, freely mingling with half-a-dozen yel-
self, he would never make it. “Here, you take
low-feathered bird chicks. He, Margaret, and
this,” he said, giving the energy weapon to

Sweeney had landed in middle of one of the

Margaret. “If he causes any trouble, shoot
birds’ communal nests.

him.” Then he turned to help Sweeney up

At the moment, the herbivore hatchlings
through the rocks and stunted trunks.

appeared far more interested in the ripe fruit Halfway up the slope, Jake heard the whine
scattered on the ground around them than in
of the shuttle again coming toward them over
the featherless aliens who’d landed in their
the trees. As he looked up, he saw a f lash of midst. The bird chicks, on the other hand,
light. A ball of orange flames burst in the trees gave their unexpected visitors their full atten-just above them, bring down a cascade of
tion. All six of them glared menacingly at their burning branches.

human invaders, cawing and scratching at the

“Up the hill,” he shouted. “Now!”

ground with low, menacing chirps.

The three of them scrambled up through

Jake snatched up Sweeney’s energy weapon
the trees, keeping to the densest pathways
and pointed it at the nearest of the chicks,
they could f ind. But the men on the shuttle
ready to blast their way out of the nest. To his had spotted them, and flaming orange energy
surprise, the chicks immediately backed away.

bursts rained down around them. Margaret

As he slowly swung the weapon back and
stopped. Raising the weapon Jake had taken
forth, searching for the firing mechanism, the from Sweeney, she f ired up through the
immature birds continued their retreat, shep-
branches. Her f irst shot went wide, but the
herding the herbivore hatchlings along with
second hit one of the shuttle’s three outboard them.

fans. The shuttle wobbled erratically as the pi-Jake and Margaret scooted toward the op-
lot struggled to regain control. One side
posite side of the nest. Sweeney, who had in-
dipped, catching the tops of the trees as it
jured his arm in the fall, glanced nervously
powered out over the valley. After a few mo-
from them to the chicks and back again. De-
ments, it righted itself, hung brief ly motionciding that Jake was the lesser of the two danless, with its remaining two fans whining at a gers, he scrambled across the nest to join him higher pitch as the pilot continued to struggle and Margaret.

with the controls. Then the platform slowly

The three of them then inched their way
moved off, heading back toward the dome
backward along the base of the precipice.

from which it had come.

They had just reached the edge of the nest-
ing area when the chicks separated, making

When Jake and Margaret reached the top of
way for a larger adult bird. The adult f ixed
the ridge with their prisoner, they found Ship Jake and his energy weapon with its green
hobbling toward them through the trees. His
eyes. Tilting its head to one side, it moved its right arm and leg had been severely damaged
gaze from Jake to Margaret and then
by the blast from Sweeney’s weapon.

THE EIGHTH ITERATION

21

ANALOG

“The rest of Martel’s men have started back

In the end, they allowed Sweeney to return
to the dome on foot,” Ship reported. “I’ve dis-to the dome in the company of Ship’s dam-
patched another of my minions to take the
aged minion—minus his energy weapon, of
place of this one.” It held up its right arm,
course, which Jake and Margaret kept for their which was broken and badly burned. “As you
own defense.

can see, it suffered extensive damage in the at-

“Martel’s going to come looking for us,”

tack.”

Margaret said. “The next time, he’ll do a better

“Is the new bot going to know what’s going
job.”

on?” Margaret asked. “What we’re doing out

Jake nodded grimly. “Maybe trying to raid
here?”

the fields wasn’t such a great idea.” He turned

“It will be me,” Ship said. “I am all my min-
to the new bot, which looked exactly like the
ions.”

old one, with the same translucent brow ridge

“It looks like your friends abandoned you,”

and nose. “How are you doing with that vac-

Jake said, turning to their prisoner.

cine?”

Sweeney didn’t respond. His eyes were

“It took a bit longer than I anticipated,” the wide, fixed on Ship. “It talks,” he managed af-new Ship said. “The DNA of this world’s life
ter a moment.

forms is structured differently than yours.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Jake said. “A

“But they do have DNA?” Jake said. It sur-
lot you’ll never know if you spend all your
prised him that a different species that had
time listening to Martel.”

evolved in a different environment could be

“What we need is to be free of troublemak-
so similar.

ers like you,” Sweeney snarled, clutching his

“Carbon-based entities need to replicate
broken arm close to his body.

their characteristics from one generation to

Jake had always seen Sweeney as a petty
the next,” Ship said. “There are a limited
tyrant who got his kicks exercising the power
number of molecular conf igurations that can
that Martel’s authority gave him, an oppor-
both replicate and carry the necessary infor-
tunist who went with whomever he though
mation. So, yes, the creatures here use a mol-
could do him the most good; but apparently
ecular construction quite similar to yours,
he actually believed Martel’s line. Enough so
though there are some signif icant differ-
that he’d been willing to risk his own life com-ences.”

ing after Jake.

“What kind of differences?” Jake asked.

“Why didn’t you warn us they were com-

“The virus has the capacity to incorporate
ing?” Margaret said, turning back to Ship.

templates for specific memories into its DNA.

“Now that Martel’s men are armed, my min-

That’s what was causing the perceptual distor-
ions no longer accompany them into the for-
tions you saw. The virus was stimulating the
est,” it said. “They no longer need my protec-
activity of dendrites in your hippocampus.

tion.”

Your brain tried to interpret them as new

“But you could have at least warned us they
memories.”

were out looking,” she said.

“But you can still stop it, right?” Margaret

“The less I interfere, the more I learn,” the
said.

bot said.

“There are specif ic proteins in the sheath

Jake nodded toward the bot’s damaged arm
surrounding the virus’ genetic material that I and leg. “How’s that working for you?”

can target, yes.”

Ship looked down at its arm. “The damage

“So, at least, we’ll be protected,” she said.

is only a minor inconvenience.”

“We can go back to the old dome and live off

Jake turned back toward Sweeney. “You
the fruit.”

shot up our bot. Maybe we ought to toss you

“You could,” Ship said. “But I have an alter-
back into the nest with the birds. What do you native suggestion.”

think?”

“Really?” Jake said. “I thought you were just

Shameful as he knew it was, he couldn’t
an observer.”

help enjoying the look of terror that spread

“That is true, but if you return to the old
across Sweeney’s face.

dome and simply avoid contact with Martel,
there will be nothing of note for me to learn.”

22

BOND ELAM

APRIL 2015

“They did recognize it,” Jake said. “I’m sure

To Jake’s surprise, Ship led them back
of it.”

through the forest to their original dome,

“But they were just chicks,” she said. “They
though in this case by a circuitous route that couldn’t possibly have seen a weapon like that kept them well away from the main entrance
before.”

where they might be observed. As they ap-

“No, they couldn’t have, could they?” He
proached what looked like the unbroken sur-
turned to Ship, who was sitting with them.

face of the dome, a door-sized panel slid aside.

“I concur,” Ship said.

Only when they entered did Jake notice the

“Then how do you explain their reaction?”

touchpad beside the door.

Jake asked. “And that juvenile—the one that

They descended an enclosed staircase, then
made the raft to escape from the lizards. How
proceeded along a narrow corridor with large
could it have figured out something that com-
rooms opening on either side. Most of the
plicated with no prior experience to draw
rooms were dark, but even so, Jake could
on?”

make out machinery that he couldn’t identify.

“And what about the herbivore hatchlings

He was just beginning to appreciate how
in the nest?” Margaret said. “It looks like the much he didn’t know about the dome when
birds may actually be raising them, protecting they passed a smaller lighted room in which
them until they are old enough—for what? To
several of Ship’s minions appeared to be work-
hunt? That can’t all be instinct, can it? Not being on what looked like Ship’s damaged earli-
havior that sophisticated.”

er self.

“She’s right,” Jake said. “We’re seeing evi-

Jake stopped, stepping inside the doorway
dence of a culture here. Information is getting to look more closely. The damaged bot was
passed along. A lot more than simply how to
seated beneath the bright overhead lights on
hunt or what they can and can’t eat.”

a gurney molded from the same extruded

“I have no explanation,” Ship said.

plastic as the tables and chairs in the dome

Jake frowned, shaking his head. “This just
above. The damaged bot stared straight
isn’t possible. These are not intelligent crea-ahead, showing no reaction to Jake’s en-
tures. At least, not in any sense that I under-trance.

stand.”

“Is that you?” he asked Ship, who, along

“Maybe they’re intelligent in ways we don’t
with Margaret, had come into the room be-
understand,” Margaret said. “I mean, they
hind him.

evolved in a different environment than we did.

“As I explained, all the minions are me,”

On a different world.” She slapped at a bug that Ship answered.

had found its way into the area beneath the

“But it doesn’t recognize me. I don’t think it dome. She scowled down at the crushed insect
even knows I’m here.”

in her palm. “These things are everywhere,

“I know exactly where you are,” Ship said.

aren’t they?” she said. Frustrated, she continued Jake turned and looked at the bots nearly
to stare down at the bug, then suddenly her
featureless face. Clearly, it had no idea what he face brightened and she looked up.

was talking about.

“The birds,” she said, “they eat the fruit too, don’t they?”

With everything that had happened, Jake

Jake tilted his head questioningly.

and Margaret didn’t have a chance to put the

“If the bugs bite them, they’ll be infected
day’s events in perspective until later that
with the virus, just like we are,” she said.

evening, after Ship had shown them to a small

Then it hit him. “Exactly,” he said. “Only
suite of rooms in which his minions had set
they and the virus coevolved together, didn’t
up beds and provided them with a meal.

they?” He turned to Ship as the possibilities

“Did you notice how the bird chicks react-
coalesced in his mind. “Its effect on them
ed to Sweeney’s energy weapon?” Margaret
could be very different than its effect on us, asked as they sat at their small table, once
couldn’t it?”

again eating the cereal that made up a major

“Yes,” the bot said. “Yes, it could.”

part of the colonists’ diet. “It was almost like Jake smiled. “Maybe in ways we’ve never
they recognized it.”

even thought to consider.”

THE EIGHTH ITERATION

23

ANALOG

Jake stared into the middle distance as the

The next morning, Ship gave Margaret the
implications sank in. “And because they had
necessary security authorization to watch
contact with earlier iterations of the colony . . .”

what was happening in the dome above them
he turned back to Ship, “they would know all
through the eyes of its minions. In addition, it kinds of things about us.”

again allowed her access to the recordings of

“So it would appear,” the bot said. “They
the seven earlier iterations in the hope that
may even recognize you as individuals.”

her fresh perspective might provide some
new insight in its search for the flaw in their Early that evening, when he and Ship re-DNA. Then, while she worked, it accompa-
turned to the dome, Jake assumed Margaret
nied Jake into the forest to gather blood sam-
would be full of questions about what they’d
ples from the birds for further analysis.

learned. As it turned out, however, a more

Even with the stunner that Ship had given
pressing issue had arisen.

Jake, it was all they could do to corner the

“It looks like Lucas has decided to make an
birds. Despite the fact that they were dumb
example of Sweeney,” she said. “He’s holding
animals, they managed to outwit Jake and
him responsible for allowing us to capture his Ship at every turn. As a result it took most of energy weapon and damage the shuttle. He’s
the day to gather enough samples for Ship’s
staging a public trial in the mess hall.”

analysis. From that point, fortunately, the

“When?” Jake asked.

analysis went fairly quickly.

“Now,” she said. “I’ve already set up a feed

“You and Margaret were right,” the bot said.

through Ship’s bots so we can watch.”

“The birds have the same virus in their blood.

Margaret projected a holograph of the pro-

But more importantly, the dendrites the virus
ceedings over the table in their small mess
particles stimulate in the birds’ brains don’t area. As the image f lickered to life, Martel
wither away like they do in yours.”

and several of his hangers-on were seated at

“So they really can pass memories from one
a long table at the front of the hall. Sweeney bird to the next?”

sat to one side, while the rest of the

“Exactly,” Ship said. “And for the birds, the
colonists were seated in front of them. It ap-
memories passed by the virus may seem as
peared that many of the colonists wanted
real as their own.”

nothing to do with the trial and had been

“So they could have learned about our ener-
forced to attend. At least that was Jake’s im-
gy weapons through the bug bites?” Jake said.

pression, given the hard looks they ex-

“Actually, no. At least, not quite in the way
changed with the armed men Martel had sta-
you’re suggesting. Martel’s men haven’t had
tioned along the walls.

the weapons long enough for the current gen-

“If we’re going to survive, we need people
eration of birds to have learned anything
we can depend on,” Martel was saying. “Peo-
about them.”

ple who won’t let us down when the going

“But the chicks recognized my rif le. I’m
gets tough. Harold, unfortunately, has allowed sure of it.”

our enemies to capture his weapon—desert-

“Oh, I don’t doubt that,” it said. “But those
ers who would destroy the colony for their
memories were actually passed down from
own selfish gains.” He paused, his lips pressed earlier generations in the pool of common
in a pained grimace as he turned his attention memories that the birds maintain among
toward Sweeney. “Believe me, I take no plea-
themselves.”

sure in meting out justice. But if we’re to sur-

“You mean like a gene pool?”

vive, someone must be willing to make the dif-

“In a way, yes. Though in this case it’s a
ficult decisions.”

memory pool. The bugs pass memories from

Jake grunted a humorless laugh. Martel’s de-
parents and older siblings to the chicks, which cisions weren’t difficult; they were stupid and in turn make them available to their progeny.

self-serving. Though as best Jake could tell,

Old memories that have no survival value are
the majority of the colonists seemed too taken gradually lost, and new ones are added. But
by his rhetoric to see through it.

the pool is always there, constantly augment-

For his part, Sweeney protested his inno-
ing the memories of each new generation.”

cence, claiming that he’d risked his life to

24

BOND ELAM

APRIL 2015
stop Jake. But Martel needed an example to

“They’re afraid, too,” Jake said. “Martel has
quell what he saw as growing unrest among
too many of them convinced that he can pro-
the other colonists. Apparently, as word had
tect them from all those unseen dangers out
spread that Jake and Margaret had managed
there in the forest. They think sticking with
to survive, more and more people had begun
him is the best way they can keep themselves
to complain about Martel’s heavy-handed tac-
safe. They’re more than ready to lash out at
tics. Now—despite his protestations that all
anyone he identifies as a threat.”

was for the good of the colony—he intended

“But the forest isn’t that dangerous. If you
to make sure that everyone understood ex-
pay attention, you can get along just fine.”

actly what would happen if they failed to live

“You know that, and I know that,” Jake said.

up to their “responsibilities,” as he called

“But most of the others haven’t been out there.

them.

They don’t know what it’s really like. People

“Though it pains me greatly,” he said in con-
are afraid of what they don’t understand. Espe-clusion, “I’m afraid we have no choice. To-
cially when you have someone like Martel fan-
morrow, at first light, Harold Sweeney will be ning their fears for his own purposes.”

banished from the dome.”

“Maybe if we told them about the bots,

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

about how we got here . . . how we ended up

Jake said, turning to Margaret and Ship. “It
destroying our own world.”

sounds like he’s just giving him back to us.”

“We could try,” Jake agreed. “But that could

“Actually, I believe he intends to use the
scare them even more, push even more of
crew shuttle,” Ship said.

them over to Martel’s side. The problem is

“You mean leave him where we can’t f ind
they lack the experience to put what he’s
him?” Margaret said.

telling them in perspective. And when people

The bot did not respond.

don’t know what to do, they turn to people

“You mean push him over the rail, don’t
who act like they do.”

you?” Jake said.

“I am afraid Jake is right,” Ship said. “Your

“That has been the preferred methods of ex-
species has always had diff iculty putting the ecution in several of the previous iterations,”

claims of its leaders in perspective. It’s one of Ship said.

the limitations that led to your demise.”

“You’re kidding. . . .” Margaret said. She

Jake grimaced, staring into the middle dis-
turned to Jake, open mouthed. “They can’t
tance. “It’s too bad we aren’t more like the
just kill him. . . .”

birds.”

At least a few of the colonists in the mess

“The birds?” Margaret said.

hall shared her feelings. “So he screwed up,”

He nodded. “Ship thinks they actually pass
one of the men said, rising to his feet. “You
memories down through the generations. If
can’t kill someone for a mistake.”

people could share in the memories of their

Several others nodded their agreement.

parents and grandparents, if they could actualOne or two even shouted out their protest.

ly have those experiences for themselves,

But when Martel’s men threatened them with
they’d be a lot better able to assess the claims their weapons, the grumbling quickly died
of people like Martel.”

away.

“The birds can really do that?” she said.

Jake explained what they’d learned. “It’s al-

“He’s gone totally crazy,” Margaret said
most like they’d been there themselves.”

when the proceedings f inally concluded.

Her brow tightened, and she looked away,

“Why would he go after Sweeney? I’m the one
as though something in what Jake said had
who shot up his shuttle.”

triggered a thought she couldn’t quite get her

“He thought he was going to die,” Jake said.

arms around. Then suddenly her face bright-

“He can’t catch us, so he’s striking out at any-ened.

one he can get his hands on. Fear does that to

“That’s it,” she said, looking back at Jake.

people.”

“That’s the answer.”

Margaret huffed in frustration. “You’d think

“What?” he said.

more people would stand up to him. If he’ll go

“That’s what we have to do,” she said.

after Sweeney, he’ll go after anyone.”

“Don’t you see it?”

THE EIGHTH ITERATION

25

ANALOG

Jake frowned, not sure what she was get-

“You’re not understanding me,” Jake said.

ting at.

“Starting over in a new body isn’t the same for

“Memories, experiences . . .” she said.

us as it is for you. We have an inner life. If we

“They’re what let people put things in per-
lose that, we lose who we are.”

spective. If people could experience the actu-

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Ship said.

al memories of their parents and grandpar-

“You would have the same memories that you
ents, they’d be able to see Martel for what he have now. It would be no different than wak-really is.”

ing up from sleep.”

“Some people, maybe,” Jake said. “Unfortu-

“Not for you, maybe,” Jake said. “But I’m
nately, some people never learn.”

attached to my circuitry. I don’t want to lose

“But we don’t need everyone,” she said.

all those little wires or neurons or whatever.

“Just enough to shift the balance.”

They’re intimately bound up with who I am.”

“Maybe,” Jake said. “But we aren’t like the

“But I don’t know how I could manage
birds. We don’t inherit memories from any-
that, how I could upgrade your neural cir-
one.”

cuitry while you’re up and running, so to

“But what if we could? What if we really
speak.”

were like the birds?” She turned to Ship. “You

“The virus,” Margaret said. “You could use
said it yourself. Memories are nothing but
the virus.”

synaptic connections, patterns of dendrites—

Both Jake and Ship turned toward her.

just like the patterns you conf igured when

“You could modify it,” she said. “You could
you regenerated us from our DNA. What if you
create a strain to carry our memories just like also gave us memories from our parents and
it does the birds?”

grandparents?”

“She’s right,” Jake said. “You could start in-

“That’s an interesting idea,” Ship said. “But I cluding esters from the fruit in the colonists’

don’t have access to the memories of your par-
food, use the bugs to distribute it.”

ents and grandparents.”

“I don’t know. . . .” Ship said. “Something

“No. But you have something just as good,
like that would take time. Weeks, or even
don’t you? Maybe even better.”

months. In all probability I would have to en-

Jake straightened in his chair. “She’s right,”

gineer an entirely new virus, one that could
he said, turning to Ship. “You have the simula-replicate your mnemonic patterns in its DNA.

tions.”

That could take—I don’t know how long.”

“Exactly,” she said. “Only they aren’t simu-

“I’m willing to wait,” Jake said. He turned to lations, are they? They’re the actual recordings Margaret, offering her his best bright smile.

from the transponders you implanted in our

“How about you? Do you think you can wait?”

brainstems.”

“Absolutely,” she said. But then, just when

“I suppose I could try something like that,”

Jake thought things might finally be going his Ship said. “Maybe with the next iteration.

way, she completed her thought. “Just as soon

Those memories might very well broaden
as we figure out how to rescue Sweeney.”

your perspective.”

“No, no,” Jake said. “We need to do some-

In the end, of course, Jake had to admit she
thing now, in this iteration. Seven iterations was right. If they were going to set the colony are more than enough.”

off on a new course, they couldn’t just aban-

“But it would be so much simpler to allow
don Sweeney to his fate—which explained
this iteration to run to completion,” Ship said.

how the two of them ended up creeping

“Then we could start over with a clean slate,
through the dome in the early hours of the fol-so to speak.”

lowing morning.

“Except the we you’re talking about

Fortunately, they’d convinced Ship to give
wouldn’t really be us, would it?” Jake said.

them each a stunner, but the bot had re-

“That would be you, and two different people
mained behind, refusing to take part in their
with the same DNA as Margaret and me.”

early morning rescue, claiming its participa-

“But I’m not sure I could upgrade every-
tion would be inappropriate until it con-
one’s memory while they’re online,” the bot
firmed that their plan involving the modified
said.

virus actually worked.

26

BOND ELAM

APRIL 2015

With the colonists asleep, they had no diffi-
of course. Some—the lunatic fringe, in Jake’s
culty reaching the mess hall, where Sweeney
estimation—thought the memories were frag-
had been locked in the same storage room as
ments from past lives. But most assumed the

Jake.

problems were simply the result of cold sleep

Two guards were seated outside the door,
and that they would resolve themselves with
both armed with energy weapons. Rather
time.

than climbing through the ventilation ducts,

For his part, Jake was perfectly willing to let Jake simply stunned the guards where they
his memories sort themselves out while he
sat. Then he used a heavy skillet from the
spent his time learning about the new world
kitchen to knock the lock off the door.

in which they found themselves. At least, that

“Sweeney, are you in there?” he said, peer-
was true until the morning he crested the
ing into the darkness.

rocky ridge overlooking the old dome. He

Only as he stepped inside did he sense the
hadn’t believed it really existed, but when
deeper shadows coming at him from either

Margaret Winslow, who’d been elected presi-
side. Before he could react, hands seized him
dent of the colony’s executive committee,
by the arms and the stunner was ripped from
asked him to investigate the coordinates she’d his grasp. In the ensuing struggle, he took sev-found in their dome’s computer, he’d decided
eral blows to the shoulders and head before
to give it a try—maybe score a few points with he was knocked to the floor. Only after sever-her, if he were lucky.

al men piled on top of him, driving the air

He hadn’t put much stock in the visions of
from his lungs, did he give up the struggle. Fi-a second dome and the long-ago battles that
nally, as the lights came on, he was jerked
some of the colonists claimed to remember.

back to his feet to see Margaret dragged into

Memory, he’d come to understand, was not
the room behind him.

nearly as reliable as some people liked to

“Well, you’re nothing if not predictable,” Lu-
think. The brain was perfectly capable of
cas Martel said coming in through the door be-
weaving all sorts of things—including dreams
hind her.

and desires—into what appeared to be a con-

“It’s you,” Jake wheezed, trying to catch his
sistent whole. At least, that was what a little breath.

research with his smart screen had led him to

“Indeed,” Martel said. “Once Harold here
believe. As a result, he was totally unprepared told me about your talking bot, I thought you
for the f lood of fully formed memories that
might be using them to spy on us.”

rose into his mind as he looked down at the

Harold Sweeney stood beside his boss, grin-
abandoned dome.

ning, despite his now-crooked nose.

“What the hell’s going on?” he said, turning

“I guess you aren’t as crazy as I thought,”

to the bot that had accompanied him. “Why

Jake said.

didn’t you tell me?”

Martel smiled. “That’s your weakness, Jake.

To that point, he’d assumed the bots were

Your conviction that you know what’s best for
nothing but extensions of the dome’s infra-
everyone else keeps you from seeing the big
structure, mindless automatons incapable of
picture.”

speech; but the rush of memories triggered by

“Oh, I see it all right,” he said. “I just don’t the sight of the dome clearly contradicted that like the way it looks.”

assumption.

“Yeah?” Sweeney said, stepping forward.

“You did it anyway, didn’t you?” he said. “Af-

“Well, you aren’t going to like this either.”

ter everything I told you, you still had to start Jake saw the punch coming, but with Mar-another iteration.”

tel’s men holding his arms, there was nothing

When the bot still said nothing, he gave an
he could do to stop it.

exasperated grunt and turned back to the
overgrown dome. “I just can’t believe people

Jake Sanchez didn’t realize there’d been a
could possibly have taken someone like Martel
break in the events making up his life until
seriously,” he said, shaking his head.

roughly four months after he and the other

Four months earlier, Lucas Martel had failed
colonists awoke from cold sleep. Everyone
to secure more than a handful of votes when
knew about the problems with their memories,
he ran for the colony’s executive committee.

THE EIGHTH ITERATION

27

ANALOG

Despite Harold Sweeney’s attempts to “per-

Winslow. Their former relationship had never
suade” people to the contrary, too many
gotten off the ground, but they had shared
colonists saw Martel as a power-hungry mar-
more than a few unique experiences, which
tinet who was trying to play on their fears. As promised an adventurous, if possibly rocky, fu-a result, he’d ended up as the spokesperson
ture. Assuming he could get things off the
for the lunatic fringe, convincing them that
ground this time around.

the memory fragments they couldn’t quite

“I guess you never are going to talk to me,
reconcile with their daily lives were proof that are you?” he said, turning back to the bot.

nefarious forces were at work and that only he Its lack of response didn’t surprise him. It
could sort his way through them.

had found the f law for which it had been

Most of the colonists would never appreci-
searching, and with the reengineered virus
ate what had happened, Jake realized. Their
now loose in the world to carry the memories
former iterations had simply not been close
of past generations into the future, Jake and
enough to the critical events. Still, as their the rest of the colonists were finally on their brains integrated the memories they’d inherit-own—a fact that was confirmed that night as
ed into a comprehensive whole, they would
he watched the ship overhead power up its
see their world and the people in it in a differ-engines in a burst of light so bright that he
ent light, with a longer view; and that was re-could actually see the leaves below swaying in ally all that was necessary to give humankind
the night wind. Then the ship slowly broke
its new chance.

from orbit, sliding off into the darkness in

In the meantime, he needed to look to his
search of the next world on which humankind
own future, especially as it related to Margaret could begin its rebirth. ■

28

BOND ELAM

Science Fact

New Horizons
at Pluto:

The Grand Tour

Finally Completed

Richard A. Lovett
ifty-one years ago, a NASA engineer

Titan, which at the time (perhaps correctly)1
named Gary Flandro realized that once
seemed to be the more interesting target. But
every 175 years or so, the planets align
for the next three decades it left Pluto as the Fso that it’s possible to use Jupiter’s gravi- forgotten stepchild of the Solar System—a staty to boost a probe on a “grand tour” of the
tus reinforced in 2006 when it was kicked out
outer Solar System. The result was the two
of the pantheon of planets into the nether-

Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977, which
world of “dwarf planets.”

in the ensuing years provided close-up views

But there’s always been something about
not only of Jupiter but also of Saturn, Uranus, Pluto that holds special fascination. Perhaps
and Neptune, doubling the number of planets
it’s just because it was, for decades, the most visited by humans.

distant known object in the Solar System—and

But one body was omitted: Pluto.

there’s something about being the “most” of

Flandro’s calculations indicated that a Pluto
anything that draws interest. Perhaps it’s be-
fly-by was possible, but only at the cost of for-cause the Solar System’s beloved “little guy”

going a close passage of Saturn’s giant moon
shared a name with Disney’s cartoon dog

1 See Richard A. Lovett, “Cryovolcanoes, Swiss Cheese, and the Walnut Moon: What Cassini’s first year taught us of the Solar System,” Analog, June 2007, pp. 40-52.

29

ANALOG

(who debuted the same year the one-time
certainty. We now know, though, that Pluto is
planet was discovered).2 Whatever the reason,
about 2,390 kilometers in diameter (roughly
the public outcry against Pluto’s demotion was two-thirds the size of the Moon), with a sur-so strong that Scientific American put Pluto’s face area slightly smaller than the United
status change at the top of its list of most im-States. Its density is only one-third that of
portant science stories of 2006—astounding in

Earth, giving it a surface gravity of only 0.06g.

a year that also featured the sequencing of NeIts rotation rate (6.39 days) is surprisingly
anderthal DNA, the discovery of methane
slow—and not only does it rotate “backward”

lakes on Titan, and the development of the
from the Earth and most other bodies in the
first light-bending “invisibility cloaks.”3

Solar System, but its axis is tilted so dramati-Pluto also draws fascination in the U.S. be-
cally (more than 57°) that its poles must expecause it is a uniquely American object: the
rience decades of continuous midnight sun
only one-time planet to be discovered by an
and winter darkness. Its orbit is so odd that for American, and only then as the culmination of
twenty years out of its 248-year circuit, it cuts a twenty-f ive-year hunt that remains one of
inside Neptune’s orbit, creating speculation
the great legends of astronomy. First postulat-that it may once have been a moon of Nep-
ed sometime before 1905 by Percival Lowell
tune’s that somehow escaped. And in 2006,
due to irregularities in the orbits of Neptune radio astronomers were able to measure its av-and Uranus,4 Pluto wasn’t found until 1930,
erage temperature at 43°K (-382°F)—cold
when Clyde Tombaugh, using a 13-inch tele-
enough to freeze every gas in the Earth’s atmo-scope built specifically for the purpose, finally sphere, including argon.6
picked it out of the starry background via a

Much of which, especially the Neptune-

“blink comparator” that allowed him to com-
crossing orbit, is why it got demoted from
pare images taken several days apart to f ind
planetary status. “[Y]ou’ve got no business dothe one starry dot that had shifted position.

ing that if you want to call yourself a planet,”

astrophysicist and science communicator Neil

Science f iction, however, hasn’t been as
deGrasse Tyson has said.7 “There’s something
kind to Pluto as the crowds who complained
especially transgressive about that.”

about its change in status. By one compendi-
um, there are more stories about Ceres than

Rudimentary Maps

Pluto.5

Science fiction thrives on scientific myster-

The problem is that until recently, precious
ies, but mystery isn’t the same as absence of little has been known about Pluto other than
data. Stories need to be grounded in enough
the most basic facts—and even these took
facts to provide something concrete to work
decades to determine with any degree of
with, and with Pluto such facts have been rare.

2 This has been suggested by Neil deGrasse Tyson. See Gilbert Cruz, “Q&A: Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson,” Time (online), January 21, 2009, content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1872621,00.html.

3

“Most Important Science Stories of 2006,” Scientific American (online), December 28, 2006, www.scientificamerican.com/article/most-important-science-st/.

4

Some sources put the date at 1905, but according to the Lowell Observatory website 1905 was simply when Lowell began his search “in earnest.” See www.lowell.edu/about_history_pluto.php.

5

Wikipedia (as of June 30, 2014), which tabulates stories about all of the Solar System’s major bodies.

Its list isn’t complete, but appears to be the best available. The true forgotten planets of the Solar System, however, are Uranus and Neptune.

6

Maggie McKee, “Pluto is colder than its moon, Charon,” New Scientist, 3 January 2006, http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8529-pluto-is-colder-than-its-moon-charon.html#. The difference in temperature between Pluto and Charon (which is 10°K warmer), the scientists concluded, is probably due to the fact that Pluto’s higher gravity allows it to hold a thin nitrogen atmosphere, while Charon does not.

7

Linda Holmes, “Neil deGrasse Tyson on Why Pluto Is Transgressive and Nobody Hugs the Moon,”

March 2, 2010, http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/03/neil_degrasse_tyson_on_why_plu.html.

30

RICHARD A. LOVETT

APRIL 2015

One of the few hard science-fiction writers

* * *
to have overcome this is Larry Niven, whose

Aluminum-27, Potassium-40, and

1966 Known Space novel, Word of Ptavs, is Radiogenic Heating
based on two of the long-known basics: Plu-

Part of the fun of such a voyage of discovery
to’s odd orbit and its extreme cold. The f irst is that nobody knows what to expect.

fact Niven worked into a billion-year timeline But the mere fact of having a spacecraft en
in which Pluto begins as a moon of Neptune’s
route to Pluto has turned the scientif ic spot-but gets knocked out of orbit by a giant im-
light on that distant world—attention that is
pact. The second led him to postulate that
beginning to reveal Pluto as a startlingly com-frozen gases on Pluto might exist in layers, like plex place. There is even a possibility that Plu-strata in Earthly rocks. If one layer was oxygen to and its even more enigmatic moon Charon
and another was methane, he realized, Pluto
might once have been suitable harbors for
might be a very dangerous place on which to
life.

land certain types of spaceships, because a

Not that anyone thinks some strange organ-
high-temperature exhaust could melt through
ism with cryogenic tentacles is going to beam
the layers, mixing the gases and igniting the
a message to us as we go by saying, “Hi, take
entire planet like a giant natural-gas flare.

me to your leader.” But it’s possible that both Whether this is possible depends on the de-Pluto and Charon might, like Jupiter’s moon
gree to which Pluto’s primordial oxygen exists Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus,8 once
in pure form or is bound up in H 0 and CO .

have had long-lasting subsurface oceans

2

2

But the fact that Niven’s 49-year-old novel rewhere life might have developed and thrived.

mains one of science f iction’s most rigorous

It’s possible, in fact, that on Pluto, such an treatments of Pluto underscores just how little ocean still exists.

we’ve learned about it since Tombaugh f irst

Billions of years ago, at the dawn of the So-
spotted it.

lar System, it would have been easy for Pluto

The lack of data, of course, is due to the
to have formed an ocean. That’s because early
same basic problem that made Pluto so hard
on, the nebula from which the Solar System
to find in the first place. It’s simply too small formed appears to have been rich in relatively and far away to be more than a dot in most
fast-decaying atomic isotopes such as alu-
telescopes. It wasn’t until the 1980s that as-
minum-27 (half-life 720,000 years). There
tronomers were able to produce even the
were enough of these, in fact, that the heat of most rudimentary maps, and even today the
their decay could easily have warmed the
best Hubble Space Telescope images have res-
world that would become Pluto enough to
olutions measured in hundreds of kilometers.

produce liquid water, possibly beneath a layer At that scale, on a map of the United States,
of ice.

Manhattan wouldn’t exist. For that matter,

Such a proto-ocean wouldn’t have been

New York City would be indistinguishable
long-lived. Within a few million years, the sup-from Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the
ply of aluminum-27 would have been depleted.

rest of the Eastern Seaboard. Washington

Heat escaping from the core would have di-
state’s 14,410-foot Mt. Rainier would merge
minished, and Pluto would have begun heading
into Puget Sound.

for the deep freeze. But there is another possi-But this summer, on July 14, all of that is
ble source of ice-melting heat: potassium-40.

about to change. That’s when a spacecraft

Heat from the decay of this radioisotope is
called New Horizons will zip by Pluto at the third most common form of radioactive

23,000 miles per hour, f illing the gap left by heating in the Earth’s interior, accounting for the Voyagers, and snapping photos with reso-somewhere between a quarter and a f ifth of
lutions as fine as twenty-five meters per pixel.

our planet’s total radiogenic heat.9 And it is 8 See Richard A. Lovett, “Saturn’s ‘Jet-Propelled Moon’ and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life,” Analog, September 2014, pp. 22-29.

9 R. Arevalo Jr., W. F. McDonough, and M. Luong, “The K/U ratio of the silicate Earth: Insights into mantle composition, structure and thermal evolution,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 278(3), 361–369

(2009).

NEW HORIZONS AT PLUTO: THE GRAND TOUR FINALLY COMPLETED

31

ANALOG
not short-lived. Instead, it has a half-life of 1.25
solids, including ice, contract as they cool.11
billion years.10

But it gets even more interesting than that,

Heat from this source alone could easily be
because Pluto isn’t alone: it has an enormous
sufficient to generate an ocean 60–105 miles
moon, called Charon. And it turns out that the deep (100–170 kilometers)—planetary scien-interaction between the two can provide hints
tist Guillaume Robuchon of the University of
as to whether Pluto had an ocean at the time

California, Santa Cruz, suggested in December

Charon was formed.

2010 at a meeting of the American Geophysi-
cal Union in San Francisco, California—so

Spin-Down of the Double
long as that ocean lies beneath a two-hundred-

Dwarf Planets
kilometer thick shell of ice. “Ice is a good in-Science f iction stories frequently refer to
sulator,” explained his collaborator, Francis
the Earth and Moon as a double planet. But on

Nimmo, also of UC Santa Cruz. Given the
this count, Pluto and Charon very much beat
slow decay rate of potassium-40, this means
us out. The Moon is 1.23% of Earth’s mass,
that an ocean, once formed, might still exist.

while Charon’s is a whopping 11.6% of Plu-

“One factor which might help is some kind of
to’s. At 1,207 kilometers in diameter, Charon
antifreeze [in the water], like ammonia,” Nim-
is half the size of Pluto . . . and it’s close, orbit-mo added.

ing ever y 6.39 days at a distance of only

What’s needed for a potassium-40-warmed

19,570 kilometers. Seen from Pluto, Charon
ocean are two basic conditions, Robuchon
must look huge.

and Nimmo said. (1) Pluto’s rocks must con-

These aren’t just random factoids. Properly
tain at least one hundred parts per billion of interpreted, they can tell us a lot about the
radioactive potassium; (2) The primordial alu-
possibility of a subsurface ocean, Geoffrey
minum-27 heating must have been suff icient

Collins, a planetary scientist at Wheaton Col-
to melt all of Pluto’s ice, allowing its rocks to lege in Norton, Massachusetts, and Amy Barr
settle into a core where subsequent potassi-
of the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI)

um-40 heat could concentrate.

in Boulder, Colorado, reported at a 2008

Neither of these seems unlikely. Earth rocks
meeting of the Amer ican Geophysical
contain more than one thousand times more

Union.12
than the necessary potassium-40. And while

That’s because planets and moons don’t
different parts of the Solar System may differ, a start out permanently facing each other. Ini-factor of one thousand is a lot.

tially, they spin much more rapidly. But if

One way to verify this is to look for signs of they’re close enough to interact, each pro-shrinking or expansion on Pluto’s surface—
duces a tidal force on the other, as gravity tugs something New Horizons might easily be able more strongly at the part of each one closest
to spot.

to the other. The result is “tidal braking” that If there ever was an ocean, Pluto’s surface
gradually retards their spins. Simultaneously, should show extensional cracks, created over
the two bodies spiral outward from each other
the course of billions of years as it gradually until eventually they are “tide locked” into a lost heat and the ice cap thickened (with
configuration like the one we see today with
freezing water underneath expanding and

Pluto and Charon.

pushing the surface upward). If there had nev-

“The same forces are working on the Earth
er been an ocean, the cooling planet should
and the Moon,” Collins said, “but at present
have contracted rather than expanded, pro-
it’s only the Moon that is tide locked.”

ducing a different type of cracks, because

* * *

10

It’s also the potassium isotope used for potassium-argon dating of ancient rocks.

11

Furthermore, if there never was an ocean, Pluto should be slightly flattened at its poles, containing a “fossil” equatorial bulge, leftover from early in its history, when it was probably spinning more rapidly than at present. Earth’s Moon has precisely such a bulge, making it about 4 kilometers wider at the equator than at the poles.

12

Barr, A. C. and Collins, G. C., “Tectonics and Interior Structure of Pluto: Predictions from the Orbital Evolution of the Pluto-Charon System,” American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #P51C-1425.

32

RICHARD A. LOVETT

APRIL 2015

To understand what this is telling us, we

Pluto/Charon “then” must have somehow got-
need to back up to the formation of Charon.

ten to Pluto/Charon “now,” can be used to test In a 2005 article in Science,13 Barr’s SWRI col-various possibilities for Pluto’s one-time interior.

league, Robin Canup, posited that Charon was

To do this, Collins and Barr used three sce-
formed when another dwarf planet—one we
narios for what Pluto’s interior might have
can think of as proto-Charon—slammed into
been like at the time of impact.

Pluto. “It’s the same kind of giant-impact hy-

In one scenario, they gave it a rocky core
pothesis as for the Earth’s Moon,” Collins says.

and a completely frozen icy mantle presumed

The impact that formed our Moon generat-
never to have melted, either from a preexist-
ed enough heat to melt the Earth’s crust into a ing ocean or the heat of spin-down. But from
magma ocean. The one that formed Charon
that starting point, the only way Pluto’s spin was less powerful. “It seems to have been a
could have been halted within the 4.5-billion-
grazing impact,” Collins says.

year history of the Solar System would have

That means there wasn’t enough energy to
been if at the time of impact its ice had been melt substantial quantities of ice. “We warm
squishy enough to be very close to melting but up Pluto by, like fifty degrees,” Collins says.

never quite did so: a rather unlikely scenario.

But there’s another source of energy from

Score: subsurface ocean 1, alternative theo-
the despinning of Pluto and Charon.

ries 0.

Immediately after impact, the two worlds

Another scenario is that Pluto was solidly
would have been extremely close together,
frozen but not separated into layers: an undif-spinning rapidly. Over the course of time, tidal ferentiated mass of rock and ice, from core to braking would have slowed them, in the
surface. Under these conditions, the scientists process converting rotational energy into heat found, it was possible to get Pluto/Charon spun as they were continuously flexing and deflex-down within 4.5 billion years, but only if its ining by each other’s gravity.14
terior temperatures and the grain sizes of its ice That heat would then have made each
particles fell into a very limited range. “It’s a world’s interior warmer and softer—more
very unstable solution,” Collins said. “Pluto has

“squishy” in Collins’ terms—increasing the
to be stiff but not too stiff, squishy but not too rate of spin-down in a mutually reinforcing cy-squishy. We can’t rule it out, but it’s unlikely.”

cle that would have lasted until spin-down

But there’s more recent data indicating that
was complete. It might have generated
this scenario is even more unlikely than that.

enough heat to have formed a subsurface

That’s because it’s probable that the primor-
ocean, even if none had previously existed.

dial Pluto was not only hot enough to melt ice And if there already were an ocean, the heat-

(thereby allowing rock to settle into a core), generating cycle would have been even more
but hot enough to melt the rocky core itself.

intense, because water is squishier than the

Such interior melting, scientists discovered in warmest ice.

2012, appears to have happened at a much

Given that information, the process can be
smaller world, the asteroid Vesta, visited for modeled, constrained by two known data

13.5 months in 2011 and 2012 by NASA’s
points: Pluto/Charon at the time of impact

Dawn orbiter. And Vesta is less than one-quar-

(close together, rapidly spinning) and the preter the diameter of Pluto, making it corre-
sent system (with the two worlds in their pre-
spondingly less able to retain heat during the sent orbits, mutually tide locked). The fact that melting/differentiation phase.15

13

Robin M. Canup, “A Giant Impact Origin of Pluto-Charon,” Science 307, January 2005, pp. 546-550; DOI: 10.1126/science.1106818.

14

Angular momentum is conserved as the two worlds move further apart.

15

The evidence for this comes from measures of Vesta’s gravity field. See M.J. Toplis, H. Mizzon, O.

Forni, M. Monnereau, T.H. Prettyman, H. Y. McSween, T.J. McCoy, D. W. Mittlefehldt, M.C. De Sanctis, C. A.

Raymond, C. T. Russell, “Bulk Composition of Vesta as Constrained by the Dawn Mission and the HED

Meteorites,” Vesta in the Light of Dawn: First Exploration of a Protoplanet in the Asteroid Belt (February 2014), http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/vesta2014/pdf/2033.pdf. To put this in context, Vesta measures 525 kilometers in diameter. Pluto, even ignoring its ice, would be about 1,700 kilometers.

NEW HORIZONS AT PLUTO: THE GRAND TOUR FINALLY COMPLETED

33

ANALOG

In the early Solar System, it appears, there
upheavals, the most notable being long, north-
was a lot of radioactive heat, enough to allow south ridges and trenches, says Robert Pap-even relatively small bodies to melt, through
palardo, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet
and through.

Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California.

Score: subsurface ocean 2, alternative theo-

If there was an ocean, he quips, Pluto might
ries 0.

well turn out to be “a groovy place.”

Collins’ and Barr’s third scenario was that at On other rapidly spun-down worlds, similar
the time of impact, Pluto had a solid, rocky
features may also have been formed, then
core, topped by ice. Then the impact and ini-
erased by subsequent asteroid bombardments
tial tidal heating melted the lower part of the and other geological processes. But maybe, on
ice, producing a planet-girdling subsurface

Pluto, Pappalardo says, “[the process] was so
ocean, while the upper layer remained solid: a severe there may be a record preserved.”

thick, insulating icecap.

Collins agrees. “If we get there and [Pluto]

As expected, this process, once started,
is covered with fractures, then we know there
produced a much more rapid spin-down—the
must have been a big ocean at some point,” he
only one of Collins’ and Barr’s scenarios that says.

uncontrovertibly spins down Pluto and

Even more exciting would be to find signs

Charon quickly enough to reach their present
of liquid eruptions, called cryovolcanism, ob-
state. And this scenario, it should be noted,
served on some of the moons of Jupiter and
doesn’t even start with aluminum-27 or potas-

Saturn. “John Spencer [also of SWRI] thinks
sium-40, which might have had an ocean al-
there’s going to be volcanoes all over Pluto
ready present at the time of the impact.

and we’re not going to see our fractures,”

Score: subsurface ocean 3, alternative theo-

Collins says.

ries 0.

Collins notes that if such cryovolcanoes do

The third scenario, of course, is the one
exist, they might make it easier for future ex-we’re all secretly cheering for, because it gives plorers to look for life without having to drill us a Pluto much like Jupiter’s moon Europa,
deep into the ice. “Your critters will have
long hoped to be a suitable abode for life.

come to the surface in a volcano,” he says,

Better yet, Collins has calculated that it al-
tossing off the idea of life on Pluto as though it lows that subsurface ocean to exist for tens or wasn’t something that even science f iction
hundreds of millions of years, long enough
has barely dreamed of.16
that life might possibly have emerged. And

Not that he has any clue whether it’s likely,
that’s still without taking into account the
let alone possible. But his reaction to the
prospect of potassium-40 heating.

thought is pure Analog. “Wouldn’t that be Put it all together, and you could get Europa-fun?” he asks.

like conditions existing for billions of years, including, quite possibly, today.

No Rings, Please!

But before we can even begin to get to seri-

Groovy Place
ous speculation on Pluto’s astrobiological po-

So far, that’s just modeling. But this model,
tential, it’s necessary to determine if it ever too, makes a prediction that might be testable had an ocean. And to do that, New Horizons by New Horizons. Specifically, it suggests that must not only get there, but also beam its data just as a steadily thickening ice cap from a
back to Earth.

slowly cooling ocean might leave traces on

That far from the Sun, the latter is no easy

Pluto’s present-day surface, a rapid, ocean-me-task. Even though the spacecraft can gather
diated spin-down would have left its own
enormous amounts of data in only a few
traces by putting Pluto’s outer shell under con-hours, it will take a year to transmit everything siderable stress. That stress would have pro-back. In the interim, if anything goes wrong,
duced a distinctive pattern of tectonic
all of that precious information is lost. Even 16 One exception is a 2003 story by Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper, which envisions a living sky cable of mysterious vines that connect Pluto and Charon and serve as a tether for human colonists going from one world to the other. See, “The Trellis” Analog, November 2003.

34

RICHARD A. LOVETT

APRIL 2015
the data collected on the inbound leg would

Charon-forming impact, which may have pro-
be lost if the spacecraft hits something at its duced not just Charon, but a string of moons
point of closest approach.

in a series of nesting resonances a bit like

As little as six months before the mission’s

Russian dolls.18 More important for the mis-
launch, hitting something didn’t seem all that sion, however, is that so far nobody’s found a great a concern. There was Pluto, and there
dust ring. “Unless significant new hazards are was Charon, both big enough to see and
found, expect NASA’s New Horizons space-avoid.

craft to stay on its original course,” NASA an-Then astronomers turned the Hubble Space
nounced in 2013.19

Telescope on Pluto, looking for possible new

This doesn’t mean scientists won’t be on
hazards. Almost immediately, they found two
the lookout for additional hazards. If they find new moons now known as Nix and Hydra,
one, the New Horizons’ f light crew has a one for the Greek goddess of darkness and the
ready-to-execute “bail out” plan in which, as
other for a nine-headed monster.17 Six years
late as a week-and-a-half before closest f lyby later, astronomers found a fourth moon, now

(currently scheduled for a distance of ten
named Kerebos for another underworld
thousand kilometers from Pluto),20 they can
guard, this one a multi-headed dog.

fire the engines and divert to a safer, more dis-Suddenly, Pluto had evolved from a
tant route.

wannabe planet to an entire system. “The dis-

But everyone’s hoping this won’t prove nec-
covery of [Kerebos] lit up a light bulb about
essary. “Any option like that comes at a huge
what else is in the Pluto system that we don’t cost in the science,” Showalter says. “You
know about,” said Mark Showalter, a planetary
don’t want to do it unless you’re really con-
astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain
cerned about the safety of the spacecraft.”

View, California, at a meeting of the American The spacecraft, he adds, is armored in

Astronomical Society’s Division of Dynamical

Kevlar. And, he notes, Voyager 2 actually flew Astronomy, May 6—10, 2012, at Oregon’s
through the inner edge of Saturn’s G ring with Timberline Lodge. The big concern, he said, is no noticeable harm. “There were dust impacts,
that Pluto, like other multi-moon bodies in the but they didn’t seem to do any damage,” he
outer Solar System, might have Saturn-style
says, though he adds that the New Horizons rings, which it would be nice to avoid, lest
crew would still rather not take such a risk.

New Horizons’ multibillion-mile journey end Meanwhile, Pluto might not be the only
in an ignominious smash-up with a chuck of
world worthy of a close look in the precious
ice. That led to an even more intense search
minutes of New Horizons’ flyby. Charon itself for hazards and the discovery of yet another
might once have harbored an underground
moon, now known as Styx (for the river
ocean formed by processes similar to those
across which the underworld ferr yman
that might once have operated on Pluto,

Charon carried souls).

though Charon is small enough that its ocean

The existence of five moons around a world
is much more likely now to be completely
as small as Pluto was a surprise, though there frozen. But in an unpublished study
are theories that fairly easily relate it to the announced by NASA on June 13, 2014,21

17 The names were also picked to make sense as a pair, says Alan Stern, a planetary astronomer at SWRI who was part of the discovery team. “N” and “H.” New Horizons. They are the first moons to be named for a spacecraft.

18

This is supported by the fact that the new moons aren’t super-tiny. Nix and Hydra are roughly 50 to 150 kilometers across; Kerabus and Styx are somewhere between 13 and 34 kilometers—roughly the size of Mars’s twin moons Phobos and Deimos.

19

“New Horizons Team Sticking to Original Flight Plan at Pluto,” 14 Jun 2013, solarsystem.nasa.gov/
news/display.cfm?News_ID=44029.

20 NASA, “New Horizons Pluto Kuiper Belt Flyby,” nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=2006-001A.

21

“Cracks in Pluto’s Moon Could Indicate it Once Had an Underground Ocean,” http://www.

nasa.gov/content/goddard/cracks-in-plutos-moon-could-indicate-it-once-had-an-underground-ocean/

NEW HORIZONS AT PLUTO: THE GRAND TOUR FINALLY COMPLETED

35

ANALOG
postdoctoral researcher Alyssa Rhoden of

And, whether you like it or not, Pluto’s demo-

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Green-
tion from planethood kicked it from the fringe belt, Maryland, suggested that the same types
of our more familiar Solar System into the
of “groovy” surface patterns being hunted for
realm of the Kuiper Belt, where enormous
on Pluto might also exist on Charon.

numbers of equally mysterious objects f loat

“Depending on exactly how Charon’s orbit
on the dark edges of the Solar System. Already, evolved . . . there may have been enough heat
scientists are turning the Hubble Space Tele-
from tidal deformation to maintain liquid wa-
scope on the region beyond Pluto in the hope
ter beneath the surface of Charon for some
that after its primary mission is complete,
time,” she said.

New Horizons might be able to swing toward

“We’re going to Pluto, and Pluto is fascinat-
an even more distant body, giving us not one,
ing. But Charon is also going to be fascinat-
but two Kuiper-Belt visits for the price of a sin-ing.”

gle launch.22

That evolving knowledge of our Solar Sys-

In the decades since the Voyager teams first
tem might perhaps have made the multi-
chose not to visit Pluto, one of the biggest sur-decade delay in the f inal stage of Flandro’s
prises in outer Solar System exploration is the Grand Tour worth the wait. In 1977, the
prevalence of liquid water: Europa, Enceladus, Kuiper Belt was only a dimly realized figment

Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, Triton—icy moons
of astronomers’ imaginations. Even if we’d sus-with a large enough tidal heat source may all
pected there was something out beyond Plu-
have subsurface oceans.

to, we’d have had no idea how to steer for it.

But until recently whoever thought the

But no longer. “We now know that Pluto is
same might apply to Pluto?

just one prominent member of a large family

“Pluto is so far out there and so small that
of icy dwarf planets out beyond Neptune,”

most people are like, ‘It’s frozen, cold, dead.’”

Collins says. “Are they dead, cratered iceballs, Collins says, “‘Probably nothing interesting is or geologically interesting and active worlds?”

going on, on Pluto.’”

If Pluto lives up to expectations, he says, “the But now, suddenly, it appears that cold,
upcoming flyby will just be a taste of a huge, dark, forgotten Pluto—demoted from the
diverse, and exciting new area of the Solar Sys-ranks of planets only months before New
tem.”

Horizons was launched—might turn out to be And it’s not just interesting for scientists. Be-a very intriguing place.

cause if there’s one thing we keep learning in

“Europa is very interesting, but you have gi-
space exploration, it’s that every time we an-
gantic Jupiter to drive it,” Collins says. “It’s swer one set of questions, we produce new
very interesting that the little Pluto/Charon
puzzles. And puzzles are exactly what’s need-
system, way out lonely in the Kuiper Belt
ed for a new round of exciting science fiction could drive itself to the same state. ”

stories. ■

22

As of press time, they had found three candidates. See "NASA's Hubble Telescope Finds Potential Kuiper Belt Targets for New Horizons Pluto Mission (October 15, 2014), www.nasa.gov/press/2014

/october/nasa-s-hubble-telescope-finds-potential-kuiper-belt-targets-for-new-horizons/#.VFqLFxbvLEc.

Unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.

—Peter Marshall

36

RICHARD A. LOVETT

Daily Teds

Ron Collins

1
or it downloads into your ganglia, or you
his is a story about hope.

sense it in the radiation patterns across some Professor Dietrich says that telling the
distant galaxy, or . . . whatever.

reader what a story is about before it

And then you’ll read it.

Tstarts is a cardinal sin,but in all sinceri- When you do,keep in mind that it’s sup-ty, I think I’ve got her number when it comes
posed to be a story of hope.

to cardinal sin. She says I’m supposed to be a good enough writer that you can f igure out

2
what a story means all by yourself. She says I It started with a particle with a wavelength
should trust you.

just under five picometers, which classified it Sorry about that.

firmly as a gamma ray. It landed on a photore-

Let me assure you that I didn’t spill the
active plate and left a strange image, thick and beans because I think you’re stupid, or fool-rounded at one end, then trailing off as it
ish, or in any other way without wits. In fact, arced across the frame. It looked like a sperm I’m absolutely certain you’re sharp and in-cell, which is why I took to calling it the
sightful, because after all, you are me and I am sperm-a-gram.

you and we are also all in this together.

This was not a pattern the design team ex-

Coo coo ca joob.

pected.

I’ve told you this story is about hope be-

I should probably tell you that I am Ted
cause this is no time to beat around the bush, Gaz, though you might know me as “AV.” Or,
and because for all I know you could be con-
maybe my name will have been covered over
fused as hell by the time you get around to
by the weights of thousands of voices by the
reading this.

time you read this, and you won’t have heard

And you will read it.

of me at all. I dunno. So I should tell you that I Eventually.

am a graduate student at Jackson Community

Because it will come back to you again and

College, and at the time this whole thing start-again, until that one day when you pick it up
ed, I was studying under Dr. Leakman. You

37

ANALOG
should remember Leakman, but in case your
particles (what others might call photons) to
memory has degraded over multiple shifts, he
shape electromagnetic f ields. Leakman had
was a semi-alcoholic physicist doing back-wa-
predicted a nice, clean blot on the target, but ter work that he hoped would lay the founda-then, that’s what he predicted every experi-
tion for the gamma gun and make him the
ment.

next Albert Einstein.

I never thought it had a chance in hell to

To be honest, I took the gig only because I
work, so I was surprised to hear a result had
wasn’t interested in the whole nine-to-f ive
come through that morning. Leakman,
thing. I could have graduated the year before, smelling of bourbon, celebrated by telling the but I never really saw the appeal of a steady
dean he deserved a bigger budget and by dis-
job, and I didn’t expect to change in that de-
tributing about three hundred black-and-white
partment anytime soon. Day jobs were about
copies of the sperm-a-gram around campus.

other people, and I don’t like other people. At I don’t need to tell you what I was thinking.

best, other people are boring, and at worst,

While everyone else ran off to figure out how
they’re dumb—or are freshmen, who are a
our little sample could have emitted this weird particularly vile form of spoiled scum.

arc, I was pretty sure I knew the score. I kept But I do like learning. I like feeling smart. I my trap shut, though, for two reasons: one, I
could be content spending my life drifting
wanted to make sure I was right, and two, if I from class to class across every discipline
was right, I wanted to think about what it
there is.

meant, and also maybe figure out how to take

Unfortunately, when this all started I was a
best advantage of it.

Graduate Assistant teaching freshmen three

So, during the day I f iddled with the guid-
days a week, which is totally relevant seeing as ance fields and helped the team chase down
it goes to prove I meant well. I just wanted to sources of radiation leaks, and at night I came get the freshmen outta my hair, you know? To-in and did my own thing.

tally justifiable. Right?

In retrospect, this was probably my f irst

Perhaps I should describe the experiment
mistake.

now.

4

3

You see, I leapt to a far more exciting inter-

It was basically a box the size of a refrigera-pretation of the sperm-a-gram than everyone
tor lying on its back. The first stage was an ini-else. I thought this might be a relativity gap, tiating cell ringed by a set of magnets and
that the arcing pattern might be the mark of a solenoids that provided impulse to any gamma
single particle wave etched across the page as degradation that occurred in the sample,
the target moved through space—like if you
thereby directing particles into the collector.

were writing and someone pulled the paper

The collector looped on itself to amplify the
away. In this case, the particle would trace an output before being fed into the “barrel”—
arc because the paper was attached to the
which was comprised of a second set of mag-

Earth, and the Earth was moving.

nets and mirrors that was supposed to tighten

It’s all relative, Watson. Except when it’s
the beam into the f inal segment where the
not.

Ray of Death was supposed to become con-

Or something like that.

centrated.

If I was correct, this was an astounding re-

It felt wonderfully Rube Goldberg-y, like
sult. I was fairly sure it had to do with photons something out of an old-time comic. One of
and their zero-mass property interacting (or
the guys even used a cutout of Superman as a
not) with the guidance section of the experi-
target, but Leakman took care of that quickly.

ment. If this interaction was at the root, my

Mark Grumman, a blunt-brained junior who
idea required an injection of energy to coun-
had been on the design team for three weeks
teract the force of gravity on the Gamma
called the device a “Gamma Box,” and the

Box—energy that I couldn’t explain, but I fig-
name stuck.

ured that could all come later. If my interpre-On the day of the sperm-a-gram, the Gam-
tation was correct, and if enough energy
ma Box amplif ier was set to use zero-mass
could be harnessed, the guide fields could be

38

RON COLLINS

APRIL 2015
modif ied. And if the guide f ields could be

Nothing happened to the pen, exactly as I
modified just so . . .

predicted. I shut the entire thing down, and

Well, then it would be like I was a quarter-
put everything back the way it was.

back leading a receiver. Yes, I thought I could Then I waited.

actually project something through space-time

At exactly 3:12 A.M. an audible crack came
and into the future.

from the wall. I ran over to find the back half Freaky, eh?

of the pen on the floor, its last inch melted to The directional element of the guidance
a point. I got a whiff of burnt plastic and
section would be critical, of course. The Earth scorched drywall, and I saw a perfectly round
was constantly moving, and the key would be
hole now appeared in the wall a few centime-
knowing the exact place the Earth would be
ters above my eye level. It was of a size that during the moment I wanted the football to ar-perfectly accommodated the pen, and I was
rive. I worked for days on the calculations.

certain the other end of the instrument was

As complex as it sounds, once I had the
behind the drywall.

equations down it was pretty simple, requir-

The import of this result gave me goose-
ing the Sun’s path and velocity, the rate of the pimples.

Earth’s rotation around the Sun—and, of

I had my time machine. Sort of. It was more
course, an exact representation of the location of a transporter, really, except the original
of the “football” relative to the Earth’s surface.

didn’t disappear. Instead, the system scanned

On average, the Earth rotates around the Sun
the original, then launched a duplicate into
at 66,660 miles an hour, but that needed to be the future. So, it wasn’t so much a time ma-altered for time of year. It also spins on its own chine as a chronal fax.

axis at 1,051 miles an hour. I combined those, Freaking cool.

then adjusted that result to account for the

That the pen arrived embedded in the wall
gravitational effects of the Solar System’s mass-meant my calculations had been close, but not
es, as integrated over time. That was the tough quite perfect.

part, but in short order I thought I had that

It was getting late, so I went home to not
about right—which was important because
sleep.

determining timing and location with preci-

Each night I tried different tweaks. Two
sion over the distance the Earth travels in a
weeks later, I had successfully launched and
day is an incredibly fine line to cut. A picosec-retrieved pens three times in a row. It was
ond error in any axis would make me miss my
time to see if it would work on something liv-
target by a centimeter or a millimeter, or be a ing. At f irst I tried a cockroach, but it’s a bit tenth of a second off. Either of these occur-hard to get the damned things to actually
rences and whatever I launched would
stand still, and the scanner apparently
emerge on the other side someplace or some-
couldn’t attach zero-mass particles well
when it shouldn’t be.

enough to make the magic happen.

Given the nature of these physics, that the

The lab cat, however, eventually just lay

Earth’s motion had a single direction, I
down and went to sleep in the target zone.

would be able to project only forward
through time. I could aim for the past, and

5
even pinpoint the right place in space, but if Here’s a bit of trivia I don’t think you all

I sent something backward it would arrive at
knew. The cat was originally named Leo, after
the proper place only to f ind the Earth was
da Vinci, but I changed it to Thing 1 after I had long gone.

successfully projected Thing 2.

Once I had the equations, it was time to run
the test.

6

I went to the lab at midnight so I could be

I tested them together for a bit in order to
alone. It took me a couple of hours to set the see if they were really duplicates. They looked guides to a spot I calculated to be exactly one identical. They sounded the same as far as my
hour away. I put my ink pen into the Gamma
own ear could tell. I recorded their meows,

Box, then checked my watch. It was 2:12 A.M.

and ran them through the audio spectrum an-

I pushed the button.

alyzer on my computer to find no appreciable

DAILY TEDS

39

ANALOG
difference. I played with them together and

I stayed close by as he taught that first lab.

separately and tried different foods to see if He did just fine, and no one noticed anything
they would respond in unique ways.

different. I slept in on Thursday, and Tuesday All I could say for certain at the end of my
did fine once again.

study is that Thing 2 ate, and purred, and

To celebrate our great intellect, we went out
moaned to go out just like Thing 1 did, and
drinking that weekend and were in the middle
that neither particularly cared for my intru-
of a deep conversation about the math we
sions on their naps.

needed to add precision to the space-time cal-

As far as I could tell, they were exact dupli-
culations when we hooked into a pair of girls
cates.

who thought it was cool to be with such per-
fectly identical twins. I am not good with girls, 7
but Tuesday didn’t seem to have that problem.

The late-night work took its toll. Never one

In retrospect, this should probably have
to be particularly gregarious, I’m sure I got
been my first warning sign that we weren’t ex-worse. I was tired and cranky all the time, and actly the same—any version of Ted who can I know neither Leakman nor the rest of the
talk to a girl without breaking out in an upper team always appreciated my sarcastic wit. If
lip full of sweat is an anomaly—but a steady
my personality showed up in other ways, I’ll
stream of beer and a head full of theoretical
cop to being oblivious because, well, hind-
physics had us both running on rock-star
sight is 20/20 right? I was oblivious to a lot of mode.

things back then.

It was a great night.

When Leakman posted GA assignments for

The following week was great, too.

the second semester I saw I was teaching a

We each worked part-time and spent off

Tuesday/Thursday lab in addition to my
nights improving the chronal calculations. A

M/W/F optics class. I complained, but he just
week later, we came to the opinion that we
told me to suck it up.

could use a Wednesday, a Thursday, and a Fri-

I admit I was pissed.

day. Being the alpha issue, I figured “what the In no way was I interested in teaching fresh-hell” and added in a Monday, too. They could
men when I had such an interesting toy to play each work one day a week, and I could basi-with. You see, I was trying to stretch the calcu-cally supervise.

lations to send material more than a day out. I So were born the first set of Daily Teds.

was close. Those two afternoons were my time
to sleep, and without that time, I would never 9
make it. Teaching another class would bring all I apologize if this is the f irst time you’ve
this momentum to a crashing halt.

heard this. I’m sure it can be a shock to learn I decided then that I needed some help.

about where you came from this way.

8

10

I made Tuesday on a Sunday night.

The Secret Service calls the President of the

I took him to the apartment and we talked

United States “POTUS.” In keeping with that
until sunup.

f ine institution, we took to calling the “on”

All his senses and skills seemed to come
version “Motted,” the pronunciation of the
through intact. He was just like me in every
acronym for “Man of the Day.”

way, he picked up on my thoughts and

It took us a while to figure out how to op-
scratched the side of his jaw when he
erate together.

thought—just like I did. It was totally freaky.

The second weekend, for example, Friday

He slept on the couch.

came back from the grocery upset because

I called him Tuesday because I expected

Wednesday hadn’t told anyone he accepted an
him to work for me on Tuesdays and Thurs-
invitation to a party on Thursday, then ditched days. He seemed cool with that. He called me
the bash when a better opportunity raised her

Ted. I was cool with that.

head. Friday had run into Professor Tompkins,

By Monday evening, I decided he was good
who asked if he was okay and said they had
to go.

missed Ted at the party.

40

RON COLLINS

APRIL 2015

It left Friday in a compromising position.

and two-day projections, so I extended the

We decided then that five people working a
process out to a week and then two. Both
day a week required a coordinated approach
were perfect.

in order to maintain a sense of continuity. Din-I explained it to the rest of the Teds that
ner became a standing “team meeting” where
night.

Motted debriefed the rest of us on everything

We were all impressed.

that had happened. This included conversa-
tions and meetings, and any other events that

12
seemed important. We shared pictures and

“We’re going broke,” Wednesday said at our
vids to ensure we stood a f ighting chance of
team meeting. “Six mouths are, uh, consider-
remembering important faces and places.

ably more costly than one.”

This was a great gig, though.

We let Wednesday be our banker because

I spent my time thinking about chronal
he was the only one who wanted the job. It
physics, watching my beloved St. Louis Cardi-
was the end of the semester, and he had taken
nals on net streams (baseball is the most math-a peek at the savings account.

ematically beautiful game of all, don’t you

“AV could get another job,” Thursday said.

think?), and observing the female species as it All eyes turned to me because AV meant Al-migrated around campus.

pha Version.

On a lark, I decided to take an anthropology

“He’s the only one of us freeloading.”

course next semester, and maybe a section of

I stared Thursday down.

modern political theory. It was all very cool. I

“I’m not the one who likes to play poker in
have to admit it was about this time, however, his spare time, and,” I said, glancing at Friday, that it became obvious that we weren’t actual-

“And I’m not the one who downloaded $300
ly identical. The differences were tiny, things of music from Tune-Tower. We’ve got to be
like the fact that Friday would raise his left smarter about these things.”

brow when he was thinking, and Monday

“We could set ourselves up better next
would raise his right. Thursday was more sar-
time,” Tuesday said.

castic and less patient than the rest of us.

“Tell me more,” I replied.

Wednesday was the most methodical and, in

“You’ve developed long-range accuracy,
fact, had gone ballistic when Friday and Thurs-right?”

day had swapped days without letting every-

“Sure. I think so, anyway. Of course, I can’t
one know in advance. As life would have it,
test multiple-year projections until we get that Friday was a bit laid back and easier to be
far out, but I can’t see why they wouldn’t
around, while Monday was sometimes cau-
work.”

tious to the point of paranoia.

“We could put some cash in the market or

At the time, I didn’t consider these differ-
some other kind of account and let it ride,
ences to be of any great concern. I guess I was then we could send ourselves forward f ifty
having too much fun to pay attention.

years. When we got there we would be rich

Or maybe I just didn’t want to face respon-
enough to live like this for a lot longer.”

sibility.

“That’s a great idea,” Monday said.

Tuesday raised his hand. “Why not send our-

11
selves one hundred years into the future, and

Things were progressing on the scientif ic
let the cash grow even more?”

front, though.

“We could do that, too,” I replied, strug-

I had been able to cast the guide-beams for-
gling to keep up for a moment. “But I worry
ward as far as three days into space-time with about the math’s accuracy out to one hundred
a reasonable shot at success, but the precision years. Fifty years is probably the max I’m com-required was very tight. All the calculations
fortable with.”

were manual, and a total pain, until I automat-

“We could link versions,” Tuesday added.

ed them in a small app. Then I came upon the

“Send ourselves forward fifty years, then do it idea of using a recursive fractal based on Ein-again right away. That would mean we would
stein’s relativity equations, and it became even live three lives: this one, the zero+f ifty set, easier. They were spot on during trials of one-and the zero+one hundred set.”

DAILY TEDS

41

ANALOG

“It would be great to be rich,” Monday said,
the only way to ensure our future selves
leaning back. “Then none of us would have to
would be independently wealthy.

work. We can call it Operation Pay Forward.”

It was anticlimactic, like throwing darts in

“I like that,” Tuesday said.

the dark.

“Yes,” Wednesday butted in with an air of

I admit I felt a bittersweet sense of indiges-
impatience. “It would be great. But right now tion as we dropped 300 thousand dollars into
we’ve got no money and the rent is due next
two bank accounts that we would never
weekend. All this blue-sky stuff is useless if we touch ourselves. But once it was done we
can’t find a way to make some money.”

each sent a copy of ourselves out f ifty years, We all smiled at the same time.

each with the account numbers written on
notes we put in our shirt pockets and instruc-

13
tions to send another set out fifty more years.

We called it hitting the daily double.

It was weird, really. Fifty years is a long time.

Wednesday suggested we convert all our

We knew we may never see these Teds, and
cash to ones before we started because he
may not ever know if it worked.

wanted to roll in a bed of cash. It amounted

We had a good party in their honor, though.

to 108 dollar bills. At an hour a cycle, we
could safely run the process f ive times in an 15
evening without risk of getting caught. So we

It was about this time I started to worry
had 108 dollars going into the evening, and
about what we were doing. I mean, really
before it was all over, Wednesday had a 1,728-
worry. I had spent all my free time thinking
dollar money bath. Friday worried about the
about the output side of the equation—trying
identical serial numbers, but even he had to
to expand our ability to cast forward. But one admit that once we shuffled the deck a bit it
day I started to reconsider the question of en-would take someone with the focus of Rain
ergy.

Man to catch the sequences. To be safe,

After all, E=MC^2 no matter what space-
though, we each converted the ones to tens
time we’re in.

in a bunch of different places that next after-A standard Ted carries just over one hun-
noon. That night we turned 170 tens into
dred f ifty pounds-mass. That translates into

2,720 tens, and then the next night 1,360

6.1 million-terajoules. To give you an idea of twenties into 43,520. Three nights, 870 thou-size, a bomb named Little Boy once went off
sand dollars.

over Hiroshima—it registered at around sixty

Not a bad return.

terajoules. So, it takes a hundred thousand Lit-Through it all we had long and heated dis-
tle Boys to make a Ted.

cussions about whether this was counterfeit-

I had made five Teds, and now we had each
ing or not. We agreed the IRS would probably
made another set of ourselves. It’s safe to say just consider it income, and tax the hell out of they would likely make another set. That’s sev-it, but that the FBI would be mad as hornets if enteen new Teds, not to mention Thing 2 and
they ever found out. Personally, I’m happy to
a bunch of inanimate material. That’s a few
report that we never passed a fake bill.

million Little Boys.

Regardless, with nearly a million bucks in

I kept asking myself: where does the energy
our pockets, it was time to turn our attentions come from?

to Operation Pay Forward.

I had to admit that I didn’t know.

14

16

Thursday argued that there was no reason

It started to unravel the weekend before the
for us to send our cash forward because he
long Thanksgiving break.

f igured that future Teds could all just make

“What the hell are you doing?”

their own cash like we had. Everyone liked

The question echoed from the living room.

that line of thinking until Friday pointed out I went to see what was going on and found
the possibility that the future may not use ac-Monday looming over Thursday, who had
tual currency and if that were true the full im-been lounging on the couch and playing War plementation of Operation Pay Forward was
in the East over the net.

42

RON COLLINS

APRIL 2015

Thursday gestured with his controller.

“We’re all just slugs sitting here fat-dumb-

“What the hell does it look like I’m doing?”

and-happy. We work for you every day like

“You know what I mean.”

good little boys, teaching a bunch of useless

“All I know is that you’re standing in the
idiots whose parents are wasting their inheri-
way of me kicking the crap out of some
tance on their tuition. And all you do is play Nazis.”

around with equations all night, and plan to

“You used the machine this morning.”

stay in school until you’ve taken the entire cur-

“What are you talking about?”

riculum. It’s like you’ve got nothing to do.

“I went there this afternoon to send myself

What a waste.”

home for the holidays. The machine was still

“You’re stealing our future because I’m tak-
hot.”

ing classes?”

“I did no such thing.”

“What are we accomplishing?” Thursday

“Well, someone did. Tuesday was shopping, yelled. “Nothing! We’ve got more resources
and Wednesday was at the health club. Friday
available to us than most third-world countries was sleeping late after his day on.”

and we’re sitting on our butts. Someone need-

“What about AV?”

ed to take charge—needed to make a differ-

They both turned and looked at me as I
ence, if not in this life then in the next.”

stood in the hallway.

“You’re deranged,” I said.

“He was here playing with his energy equa-

“Don’t worry,” Monday replied. “I had
tions. He interrupted my movie to get break-

Thursday pegged from the beginning. So I
fast.”

sent a copy a month earlier that he did, with

“You were going to create a Ted to send
instructions to put an end to it. So Thursday’s back home?” I asked, still catching up.

double won’t be able to access the funds.”

Monday f lushed with embarrassment. “I

“It’s so unlike you to be a hero,” Thursday
know I shouldn’t have been thinking that way,
said. “I’m actually surprised you’re standing
but it’s my turn to go to Dad’s and I didn’t
here right now.”

think I had the energy for it.”

Monday took the first swing, but Thursday

“Hypocrite,” Thursday said.

was better prepared. Before long, Thursday ran Monday turned back to Thursday. “Screw
out of the apartment bleeding from the jaw,
you, buddy. You’re just trying to divert atten-and Monday was unconscious on the floor.

tion from the fact that when I got to the lab
the machine was still hot. So either you went

17
late and sent something near-term, or you

Things spun out of control from that point.

went early and . . .”

Monday wanted to track down Thursday,

Monday’s eyes narrowed.

and Friday wanted to send another copy into

“Sent something a long time out.”

the future to make sure Monday’s attempt was

No one said anything for a moment. Thurs-
successful. Wednesday asked everyone to
day hit the pause button on his game and
calm down and stay the course, but Tuesday
stood up.

ripped him a new one for that idea, and the

“You bastard,” I said, f inally starting to
debate ran around in circles all night.

catch on. This had to do with our money.

“The machine,” I f inally said. “Thursday is

“You actually did it, didn’t you? You sent a
going to go to the machine.”

copy of yourself out to steal our money.”

“Damn!” Monday was the first to catch my

Thursday said nothing. “When did you send
drift. “We should have seen that.”

your copy to?”

We all piled into the car, but it was too late.

“Probably a week or so before our target

Thursday had probably rented a truck.

date,” Monday answered for him. “He would

Who knew where he was now? Not that it
need a few days to transfer the cash to another mattered anymore. With one of us gone rene-account and get out of Dodge.”

gade, the rest of the dominos fell quickly.

“Why?” I said, feeling a sudden sense of pan-

Tuesday decided we couldn’t trust Friday,
ic as I stared darts. “We had the perfect setup.

and Friday couldn’t deal with Wednesday,

Why ruin it?”

and Monday, well, no one liked Monday any-

Thursday glared at me.

way.

DAILY TEDS

43

ANALOG

A week later Friday moved to LA and was
to create the mass it creates. I’m thinking that apparently thinking about doing something
linked massed/non-mass particles create a
with Hollywood. Monday lived on the north
quantum pairing with matter at the nearest en-
side. Tuesday hooked up with a blonde from
ergy source large enough to support the trans-
one of our labs, and Wednesday took an apart-
action.

ment in Centerville. Thursday just disap-

The Sun is the only candidate that makes
peared completely.

sense.

I’ve been reading data from various solar ob-

18
servatories for the past few months, and I’ve

It’s not a complex machine to make, real-
noticed a chaotic slew of lags in its spectrum.

ly. We would have made our own earlier, but

My guess is that these mark the creation of a
it was just as easy to use the one at school.

new Ted.

And as Leakman’s results grew less fascinat-

So, 3.86x10^26 J/second.

ing, the attention had drawn down so far

That sounds like a lot of energy, because it
that we could get to it pretty much whenev-
is.

er we wanted to. So I’m sure ever y Ted

Still, I was worried I created a doomsday de-
made his own machine and his own set of
vice that was going to eat up humanity’s
daily Teds, not to mention his own pile of
source of energy.

money.

So I did some more calculations and deter-

I saw one of me in the bowling alley the
mined that the mass of a billion Teds would
other day.

cost the Solar System nearly sixteen thousand

He could have been my twin, but his hair
seconds of Sun-power, or just under f ive
was curled. I talked to him at the bar as he was hours of its life. Not a big deal, really. Surely a ordering a turkey sub. At first he was a bit per-billion of me are worth five hours on the scale plexed, and called me Delta. I asked him
of the Solar System’s life span?

about how their box worked, and he was

This made me feel better for a while.

even more confused. It was obvious that Ted

But then I got to thinking further.

had no physics.

The number of us Teds, you see, is growing

Was he only second gen?

exponentially. It could already have happened.

Third?

And with hundreds, or thousands of these de-

How far shifted did we have to get before
vices around in the near future, one will cer-
we were totally different people?

tainly get into the wrong hands. What kinds of The third generation could be 125 Teds, the
things would a government do with this kind
fourth gen 625, the fifth 3,125. Then the num-
of replicator?

bers start getting big. Fifteen thousand six

Oil.

hundred twenty-f ive, then 78,125, then

Yes, the Gamma Box could be a virtually

390,625, then 1.95 million. Another couple of
never-ending supply of oil. And food—the
generations and we’re in the billions. And
world will be able to feed itself in perpetuity that’s just one thread. How many Ted threads
on a daily basis. These are the good things,
will start next month?

true enough. But I can also see despots build-

Next year?

ing armies that multiply in power by the day.

Next decade?

The image of thousands of little Thursdays

Do you know how many Hiroshimas that is?

goose-stepping down Times Square made me

Or let me put it another way.

queasy.

Do you know the energy output of the Sun?

Still, the good news here was that the ener-
gy required to create even this kind of excess 19
isn’t too bad—a few solar days a year.

The output of the Sun is 3.86x10^26 J/sec-

I could live with it.

ond, by the way.

It’s an important number because after

20
looking at it for several months, I’m pretty

But it gets worse.

well convinced the Sun is the most likely

The energy required to create mass is only
source of the energy each Gamma Box needs
the tip of the iceberg. If my calculations are 44

RON COLLINS

APRIL 2015
correct, most of the energy used in our projec-generation of expansion cuts it to ten million tions is expended in the process of latching
or so, then less than a million.

non-zero-mass particles to zero-mass particles.

You get the idea.

It’s a quite large number, and it increases with the square of the time-space traveled.

23

So let’s talk colonization.

So I’m saying this to all Teds—you know

If it can happen, it will. And this chronal fax who you are. Tomorrow, before you use your
makes it even easier because all you really
machines, go outside and check out the Sun.

need to do is point and click.

Look at the world around yourself.

The Moon? Simple. Mars, not hard, but very

It’s not too late.

costly in Sun-years, especially if someone de-

I know you’re a good guy. I really do. I
cides to colonize even further into the future.

know you don’t want to see the world end.

Billions of more people to feed and provide

Before you push that button again, I pro-
energy.

pose this: set yourself up, make sure you’re
okay, then send this story to each of the time-21
spaces where you’ve sent yourselves so that

And they will each have their own ma-
they can read it. And then destroy your boxes.

chines.

Burn your plans. Speak to no one. Do not send
any more of us to future states. Otherwise, it’s 22
possible the Sun will not even be there when

I think my oblivion was my true mistake.

they—you—arrive.

Just not paying attention, you know? I should

For my part, I’m spending my wad distribut-
have thought harder. I should have seen the
ing this story. Then I’m going to send myself
end game coming.

forward in time once again—one copy to each

I wish I had been a better man.

time period in f ive-year spans—to do the

My latest equations say that it’s not long be-
same thing.

fore each chronological year eats into the Sun That’s why I know you’ll read this story. But
for an extra thirty years of its life, then forty, as for listening to it, as for being smart and do-then sixty.

ing something about it before it’s too late,

Scientists project the Sun to live another
who can tell?

f ive billion years, but drawing an extra sixty years a year from it makes the Sun’s f ive bil-24
lion years become only 83 million. One more

I told you this was a story of hope. ■

DAILY TEDS

45

Transfer

Point

Barry N. Malzberg and Bill Pronzini
t was just before I went on duty at 0800

“That is pure foolishness. We’re operating
hours that I was told Luna Immigration,
at less than full capacity as it is.”

the entire Luna Dome in fact, would be

This was quite true. Luna Dome is a massive

Isummarilyshut down within the year. structure more than sufficient in size to The date was Thursday, August 9, 2289.

process the constant daily flow of interplane-

The news was stunning. When I recov-
tary tourists and luminaries bound for Earth. It ered, I said to the super visor, Amadeus
had been built to last indef initely by robot

Finney, “It doesn’t make sense. The check-
crews of “selenous materials,” as some long-
point has been a viable clearing house for
dead Federation wit had termed them; it con-

Earth travelers from other worlds for close to tained many hundreds of cubicles and airlocks
a century. We have a tight, effective opera-
to accommodate each of the various races; it
tion here; there have been only a handful of
was surrounded by some fifty ports, a number
attempted security breaches in the past few
more than sufficient to accommodate daily ar-
year s, and just three —the mad Lyran
rivals from and departures to Earth and the
bomber, the dancing Mesmerist drug smug-
many other worlds. And it was, in my opinion,
gler from Carinae VII, and the nitrogenous
overstaffed. The checkpoint divisions could

Rhyx fugitive—that came anywhere close to
be handled by less than a third of the three
succeeding. Why, then, would the Federa-
hundred employees currently working each
tion suddenly decide to scrap Luna Dome
shift. If I were supervisor, as I should have
and open up a new facility on Mars, of all
been, given my exemplary record, I would
planets?”

have petitioned the Federation to trim those

“Exactly what I said when I was told.”

numbers by a third.

“And?”

Amadeus Finney sighed. He had only been

“A necessary expansion of facilities was
sector chief for three years, having been pro-
the only explanation.”

moted when our old supervisor retired. I had

46

APRIL 2015
been next in line for the administrative posi-
if I were bounding above the checkpoint
tion, as a matter of fact, being senior inspec-f loor rather than walking across it, in a curi-tor, but I was passed over for unexplained
ously graceful and exhilarating dance. Almost
reasons, my age possibly being one of them.

as if . . . Almost as if what? Well, no matter.

Finney had not been a good inspector; he

Ours not to reason why.

was not a good supervisor. He had delusions

I took up my customary position at table
of grandeur, I’d always thought, yet he was
number three and prepared to begin another
dilatory in his decision-making and rather
day of what was, for me, the most stimulat-
sloppily unorthodox in his implementation
ing job in this or any other solar system. For of policy. We did not get along. He knew I

Luna Checkpoint was the gateway to Earth,
considered him incompetent and resented
its f irst line of defense, and I and the other me for that and for my f lawless record.

inspector s were its gatekeeper s, its

“I don’t have the answers,” he said. “We
guardians. Every day it was our responsibility are in the hands of larger powers and so on.”

to carefully screen and either pass through or A large gray man, he essayed a large shrug.

reject travelers from all corners of the known

“We’ll do just as well on Mars, and the sched-

Universe. Creatures such as green-speckled
ules will remain the same.”

and lavender-hued Altairians, striped Melnu-

“Have you told the other inspectors yet?”

sian miners, porcine Poldrogs, falcon-wor-

“No. Only you, as senior inspector. And I’d
shipping Rigelians,

Archipor te yx
rather you said nothing to any of them just
spirit-bearers, Titanian slitherers, Aldebarian yet. Bad for morale.” He pinched one of his
musicians with their long trilling snouts, and rather unhealthy looking cheeks and sighed
of course the variegate new breeds from
again. “In any event, the decision won’t af-
planets only recently swept by Federation
fect you for long, nearing voluntary retire-
troops and pronounced benign by Federation
ment age as you are. You’ve been on the
exobiologists. The Checklist of Creatures, tables for, what, thirty years now?”

the checkpoint’s bible, had quadrupled in

“Thirty-two,” I said. “But that’s not the
size and scope during my tenure, until it now
point. The point is the decision makes no
contained more than one hundred different
sense from any perspective. A Mars facility
races.

would be prohibitively expensive to build,

The vast majority of visitors were benign,
and the Federation couldn’t possibly put one
of course, but we were ever vigilant for the
up and move the entire operation before the
individual or group seeking passage to Earth
end of the year. I don’t understand why
for nefar ious purposes. If it wasn’t for
they’d even consider it.”

trained inspectors like me, all sorts of riff-

“Ours not to reason why,” Finney said sen-
raff—assassins, drug merchants, plague car-
tentiously. “Besides, I worry only about the
r ier s,
smuggler s,
swindler s,
slave
things I can change or inf luence. This can’t
traders—would be free to wreak havoc on
be changed. We’ll just have to grin and bear

Earth. In my three plus decades at Luna Im-
it.”

migration, only one dangerous mutant, a Sig-

That was another reason he had been a
ma Draconan revolutionist, had actually
poor choice for supervisor, or perhaps exact-
made it through checkpoint and onto an
ly the right choice insofar as the Federation

Earth-bound vessel, and he had been found
politicos were concerned. He had an inex-
out and captured in transit.

haustible storehouse of clichés that he

The detective aspect was one reason I prized
dragged forth at every opportunity.

my job; I pride myself on having an astute,

There was more to our conversation, but I
watchful, highly instinctive and ratiocinative na-seemed to have forgotten it by the time I
ture. Another reason is that I enjoy the daily reached the checkpoint. In fact, the outlines
contact with the heterogeneous flow of aliens
of the entire session in the supervisor’s office who pass through checkpoint. No xenophobe,
were as fuzzy in my mind as the rationale for

I, as some inspectors became after long service, the Federation’s order. I was less upset now,
but rather the truest of xenophiles. The third too, perhaps because Luna gravity seemed
reason is that the job keeps one free of easy an-even lighter today than usual; it was almost as swers, easy assumptions, and requires trust in TRANSFER POINT

47

ANALOG
one’s judgments and quick action in dealing

“To view f irst-hand the Vatican, the Holy
with diff icult situations. Altogether, being a Land, and other such marvels.”

Luna Immigration officer permits the mind to

“That is your only purpose, a religious pil-
remain flexible, cultivates both intelligence and grimage?”

reflex.

“Yes.”

These thoughts brought me back to the

“The length of your stay?”

Federation’s decision to close down Luna

“One Earth year.”

Dome. Was it nothing more than bureaucrat-

“According to your passport, you have
ic mindlessness moving into a vacuum of un-
never traveled there before.”

cer tainty? Or was there some rational

“I have wanted to but could not afford pas-
purpose behind it after all? Yes, there must
sage.”

be. I really mustn’t question authority. We

“Do you have relatives or acquaintances
were in the hands of larger powers.

anywhere on Earth?”

First in line this morning was a female Beta

“No.”

Hydran methane roller on her way to a trade

I asked several more questions and re-
conference in Washington, D.C. I examined
ceived the same apparently straightforward
her Federation passport, off icial traveler’s in-answers. Yet there was something about the
signia, identifying genotype, and vitae and

Centaurian that did not seem right to me. It

DNA scans. All was in order. Her answers to
was nothing tangible, merely a hazy presenti-
the standard questions struck me as slightly
ment of wrongness—but a much stronger
evasive, however, perhaps due to travelers’

feeling, nonetheless, than the one I had re-
fatigue. Or did she have something to hide, a
ceived from the Beta Hydran female.

different, possibly sinister agenda? I probably Random thoughts commenced to form in
should have marked her as marginal for fur-
my mind. Or perhaps they weren’t random at
ther evaluation, but I surprised myself by
all.

stamping her passpor t and letting her

Why did a Centaurian want to go on a reli-
through.

gious pilgrimage to Earth? The Checklist statI further surprised myself by passing the
ed that the only religion of interest to them
second in line, a minor off icial in the diplowas their own.

matic corps from Betelgeuese, even though

Why was the Federation closing Luna
he was inclined to be unpleasantly short-tem-

Dome? It didn’t make sense.

pered and critical, and I had had diff iculties Why was the Centaurian a perfect specimen
with him before.

of his race? I had never encountered such per-

It must be the Federation decision to close
fection in one of the creatures before.

Luna Dome that was making me careless. I

Why would the Federation decide to build
warned myself to be more cautious.

a new facility on Mars? It didn’t make sense.

Sixth in line was a 179 Centaurian, a reptil-

“May I pass through now?” the Centaurian
ian species noted for clusters of hanging
said in his sussurative Federation English.

metallic scales of f laming red and the distinc-

“The next Earth shuttle will soon be leaving
tive tick-tick-swish sounds the scales make.

from Port Nine.”

According to The Checklist, they are nonag-Why had the decision to close been hand-
gressive, apolitical creatures mostly given to ed down on the ninth day of the month in-long periods of deeply religious meditation.

stead of the last day when all Federation

Consequently few Centaurians travel, and I
edicts were usually presented? And why so
have passed only a handful in all my years as
suddenly, with no previous warning?

customs inspector. His bona f ides all seemed

How did the Centaurian know the next
in order. In point of fact, he was an absolute-shuttle would be leaving from Port Nine? The
ly perfect specimen of his race: He did not
scheduled f light was posted on the Vid mon-
have a single genetic f law.

itors, but not the time or the port number as

In universal English-based Federation lan-
yet.

guage I asked him the f irst of the standard

Why had the supervisor requested I not
questions. “What is your purpose for visiting
tell the other inspectors about the closing?

Earth?”

Bad for morale was not an adequate reason.

48

BARRY N. MALZBERG AND BILL PRONZINI

APRIL 2015

Why had Luna gravity seemed so much
their customary dispatch and in an uncer-
lighter this morning, so that I felt as if I were tain, shuddering way that mirrored my own
cavorting across the checkpoint f loor in such lack of focus. One was a multi-appendaged
a graceful and exhilarating fashion? That had

Andromedan, the other a humanized Polyp,
never happened to me before.

security having long since been parceled

“My credentials are in order,” the Centauri-
amongst the various inhabitants of the pop-
an said, “everything is in order. You must
ulated galaxies—the consequence of a plu-
stamp my passport and my insignia and pass
ralism I have sometimes felt was as
me through.”

dangerous as it was benef icent.

Why was the Federation closing Luna

The guards f lanked the Centaurian, look-

Dome?

ing at me with inquisitive puzzled faces,

Why was—

“face” of course being only an approximation

Why did—
of their aspect and their expressions more

Why—
likely those I had projected upon them. In

My head had begun to ache painfully. The
any case, they were quite clear to me, while

Centaurian seemed to waver in my vision; for
the Centaurian continued to waver between
just a moment he seemed smaller, humanoid
gray and f laming red, though more the for-
and gray-f lecked rather than reptilian and
mer than the latter now.

f laming red. Tick-tick-swish. Tick-tick-swish.

“Take him prisoner,” I ordered, “and keep

Then the fuzziness vanished and I saw him
him restrained by any means necessary.”

more or less clearly once more.

“Injustice! Bigotry! My government won’t

Ours not to reason why. Just grin and bear
stand for such treatment of a humble peni-
it.

tent on a religious pilgrimage to Earth.”

No!

“You’re neither a penitent nor a Centauri-

“No,” I said.

an,” I said. “You’re an imposter. You’re—”

“But you must. You have no reason to deny

Gray-f lecked, gray-f lecked. Other beings
me.”

capering across the checkpoint f loor in the

“Don’t I?”

light Luna gravity with such grace that it

“I strongly object to this unreasonable de-
seemed almost a lusty and intricate dance.

lay. Pass me through at once.”

Yes!

Again, the Centaurian seemed to waver,

“—a member of a banned race, a Mes-
the checkpoint itself seemed transparent; it
merist from Carinae VII.”

was as if I were looking through the familiar

The miscreant emitted a cry of rage and at-
semi-chaotic scene in order to see something
tempted a leaping, whirling escape, but
else, something of considerable signif icance.

there was nowhere for him to go. More than

The alter-images were there but still unfo-
one security guard f ired his remedif ier, a
cused.

nonlethal Federation weapon that emits what

“No,” I said again. “You’re not to pass
is euphemistically known as “nerve gas scat-
through, you’re to be detained.”

ter” and causes immediate paralysis.

The Centaurian shook his metallic scales in

I watched as the guards performed a scan
an angry fashion, causing them to shimmer
search of the unconscious Mesmerist and
in the checkpoint’s radiant, intense light.

uncovered a cache of the highly addictive,

Tick-tick-swish. “You have no cause to detain
often deadly Carinae hallucinogen that had
me. Do so and I will report you to your supe-
caused the Federation to ban Earth access
riors.”

to the race. Now that the smuggler’s hyp-

Aggressive gesture, aggressive words, and
n o t i c h o l d o n m e h a d b e e n b ro k e n , I Centaurians were a nonaggressive race.

should have been able to see him quite

I signaled to the nearest security guards, a
clearly for what he was. Yet he continued
signal I give only two or three times a year,
to shimmer in my vision, even more hu-
f irst with the electronic synapse and then
manoid and gray-f lecked now but still lack-
by standing at the desk and raising an arm
ing in full def inition. This should not be.

high over my head. The two guards ap-

Nor should the fact that the Mesmerist had
peared to respond slowly instead of with
gained access to Luna Dome in the f irst

TRANSFER POINT

49

ANALOG
place have been possible; the creatures’

“Preposterous! I have no such powers.”

spellbinding powers were well-document-

“The Mesmerists could have taught you
ed and this one should have been detected
the basics,” I said. “For all I know, you might by the checkpoint entrance scanners.

have Mesmerist genes yourself; your skin

“Put him in one of the detention cubicles,”

may not be f lecked but it’s certainly gray. In I said to the guards, “and see to it he remains any case your hypnotic skills are weak and in-comatose.” They proceeded to follow in-
effectual. You were able to brief ly convince
structions.

me that the Federation was transferring Luna

Why was the Federation closing Luna

Immigration to Mars, and to make me believe

Dome? It didn’t make sense.

I was dancing about like a Mesmerist, but the

No, it didn’t, and the reason it didn’t—
spell wasn’t powerful enough to last. I was

I quickly closed my station and left check-
able to break through it just in time.”

point, once again with that sensation of

“Utter nonsense. Why would I try to make
bounding weightlessly, though it was not as
you believe Luna Dome was being shut down
strong as before. When I reached the admin-
if it weren’t true? What purpose would I have
istration building, I entered the supervisor’s in making you act like a Mesmerist?”

cubicle without observing the usual proto-

“For the same reason you sent the smug-
col. Amadeus Finney was standing before the
gler to my station of all those at check-
vid monitor that covered one wall; he swung
point—a vindictive desire to cause me
around and glared at me.

ultimate embarrassment. You hate me, don’t

“Here,” he said, “what’s the meaning of
you, Finney? Because I’m smarter and better
this intrusion? You have no right to barge in
qualif ied than you. Because I’ve accom-
on me this way.”

plished more as senior inspector than you

“Under the circumstances,” I said, “I have
have or could ever hope to as supervisor.”

every right. You’ve been watching my check-

Finney had begun to tremble; no longer
point station on the Vid, you know what just
making eye contact, he sank bonelessly into
happened there.”

his desk chair. He was a weak individual,

“Not entirely. Only that you prevented
whatever his origins; he would not be able to
some being from attempting to gain illegal
maintain his position of blustering denial for passage.”

long. Just as he could not have hoped to

“Not some being, a Mesmerist hypnotical-
maintain his position as supervisor for long,
ly disguised as a Centaurian and carrying a
which may have been the impetus for his
small fortune in Carinae VII hallucinogens.

joining, perhaps even masterminding, the

As you well know.”

Mesmerist scheme. His delusions of grandeur

“As I well know? How could I possibly
might even have led him to envision himself
know when I didn’t witness everything that
as the head of one of the largest systemized
took place?”

drug smuggling rings in Federation history.

“You didn’t need to witness it,” I said.

In any case we would soon know the full

“You were part and parcel of the attempt.”

story behind the cabal. No creature has ever

“What the devil are you talking about?”

been able to withstand the interrogations of

“You colluded in the plan to smuggle a

Federation security; neither the Mesmerist
dangerous alien and dangerous goods to
nor Amadeus Finney would be the f irst. Both

Earth. You arranged for the Mesmerist to
would spend the rest of their days in the pe-
reach Luna Dome, bypass the scanners, and
nal colony on Jupiter’s moon.

enter checkpoint. No one else on the staff

Once Finney was taken into custody, the
could have managed it.”

Federation would waste no time appointing a

Finney made spluttering noises. “I did no
new Luna Immigration sector chief. Yes, and
such thing. How dare you accuse me!”

perhaps this time the right person would oc-

“That’s not all I accuse you of. You also
cupy the supervisor’s chair.

placed a preliminary hypnotic hold on me,

Not to be immodest but I was certainly en-
so that it would be more diff icult for me to
titled to the promotion, wasn’t I? ■
detect the ruse at my station.”

50

BARRY N. MALZBERG AND BILL PRONZINI

Special Feature

Hiding the

Info-Dump
or: Feeding

Information Without

Choking the Reader

Stanley Schmidt
cience fiction is a literature of ideas.

There are obviously clumsy, clunky ways to

That’s not all it is, of course, and the fill a reader in on background. We’ve all heard field has diversified so much that it’s
the cliché “As you know, Bob . . . ,” in which Snot as generallytrue as it once was.But one character explains something to another many readers—especially of Analog—expect who must already know it. The situation is so
their stories to have woven into them fasci-
obviously contrived for the reader’s benefit
nating, thought-provoking ideas, ranging
that readers today are more likely to ridicule from cute technological speculations to full-than welcome it.

blown worlds utterly different from contem-

Just as wince-worthy is interrupting the sto-
porary Earth. How can you as a writer get
ry while the author lectures the reader on
those ideas across to your reader without
how all the Nifty Stuff works. If the Nifty Stuff choking her and bogging your story down in
is sufficiently nifty, some readers may put up explanation?

with some of this, but many won’t. To see

51

ANALOG
how awkward it is, consider this made-up con-
deeply in readers’ minds if the stories had not temporary example:

made clear what they were. Instead of shying
away from explanations, or making apologies

Knowing the police would soon be in
for them, writers should learn to do them well hot pursuit, Beauregard, carrying his
when they’re needed.

bag of loot, ran out the door of the con-
venience store (so-called because of the

Is this really necessary?

long hours it stayed open for the conve-

The first question a writer must ask when
nience of its customers) to his waiting
tempted to lecture is: does this need to be ex-getaway car. The product of decades of
plained? Does the reader need, or want, to
engineering evolution, this was a com-
know?

fortable four-wheeled vehicle powered

When I asked several authors for their
by a hidden engine in which controlled
thoughts on this subject, Michael Flynn point-
explosions enabled it to reach impres-
ed out, “The trick is to figure what informa-
sive speeds quickly.

tion the reader needs either to understand the

“Step on, it, Bill!” he barked, referring
story or to experience a fully-textured world
to the pedal his waiting driver was al-

(‘atmosphere’).” Too often, “Infodumps . . . re-ready depressing to make the car lurch
sult when an author has done lots of research
away from the curb with a squeal.

and wants the reader to know it. (Or, more

The next stage in their plan was to
kindly, is enthused and wants to share it.)”

pass the loot off to another partner, but

But, as Carl Frederick said, “While an author
they had to be sure he was where he be-
may well suffer for his research, the reader
longed. Beauregard took out his
must not.”

portable communicator and punched

When you’ve done a lot of research to con-
buttons. The radio waves it emitted
struct a rich, consistent background, you may
were too weak to reach George, but a
be tempted to show it all off—but must resist
nearby tower would relay them . . .

the temptation.1 A useful rule is, “Know as
much as you can about your background, and

You get the idea.

tell no more than you must.”

Such clumsy exposition has given exposi-

Let’s take another look at that getaway car I
tion itself a bad name in some circles—in-
mentioned earlier, doomed to failure because
cluding many critics and some readers—and
it’s bogged down in excess verbiage—but this
caused some writers to shy away from it even
time let’s see how a reasonably competent
when a story needs it. “Infodump” has be-
contemporary writer might have told it:

come a dirty word, and authors hesitate to ex-
plain anything for fear of being branded with

Knowing the police would soon be in
it. “It’s telling,” author Robert J. Sawyer ob-hot pursuit, Beauregard, carrying his
serves, “that the critical lexicon, foisted on us bag of loot, ran out the door of the con-by the English-literature community that
venience store to his waiting Chevy.

looks down on anything that actually sells,

“Step on, it, Bill!” he barked. The car
has no nonpejorative terms for this narrative
lurched away from the curb with a
device.”

squeal.

Yet ideas, and the ways they’re presented,

Beauregard took out his cell phone
can be some of the most memorable parts of
and . . .

stories. Some have made such an impression
that SF aficionados need only a word or two to There you have fifty words instead of 153,
recall them. Think, for example of Isaac Asi-
and a crisper, more vivid narrative. There’s no mov’s psychohistory, Bob Shaw’s slow glass,
need to explain what a car or an accelerator or or Vernor Vinge’s Singularity. But these ideas a cell phone is, and its name evokes the image would not have engraved themselves so
much more directly than a long-winded

1 A feature of the Analog website called “The Science Behind the Story” lets authors showcase parts of their background that wouldn’t fit gracefully in the story.

52

STANLEY SCHMIDT

APRIL 2015
description. If you’re telling the story from

* * *

Beauregard’s point of view, you must describe

“There is no need,” Flynn says, “to explain
things as he would. He probably doesn’t even
what a flicker is and why it must be calibrated, know how his car or cell phone works. Even
nor what focusing rings are. Simply to speak
if he does, he’s not likely to think about it
knowingly about them reassures the reader
while making his getaway. He’ll simply regard
that the narrator knows what he’s talking
them as ordinary parts of his everyday envi-
about.”

ronment.

Which is true unless the details are impor-That was a major contributor to Robert A.

tant to how the story plays out. If how some-

Heinlein’s extraordinary success when he sud-
thing works is essential to the plot, the reader denly appeared on the SF scene in the late
needs to know. If it isn’t, he doesn’t. In that 1930s: he took the future for granted, just as case, spare him. If how something works isn’t
his characters would. The technique was so
important to the story development, and it
effective in making the future feel real and
doesn’t appear blatantly impossible, it can be lived-in that it has been standard practice for taken for granted.

most writers since then, unless they were try-

There are two main reasons a reader might
ing for a special effect that required something accept a piece of your future without balking: else.

because it’s a reasonably obvious outgrowth of But wait, you may say. I can take a cell
known science, or because enough other
phone or a souped-up Chevy for granted be-
writers have already suggested possible ways
cause I’ve lived among them and know what
that it’s become commonly accepted as plau-
they are. But what would that passage mean
sible, as in the case of faster-than-light travel.

to a reader in 1814? What would a comparably

And there are two main reasons why you
told passage about something happening in
might need to explain something. One, al-

2214 mean to me?

ready mentioned, is that some detail of a sci-

More than you might think, if the author
entific or technological speculation is essential has chosen evocative names. “Cell phone” or
to understanding what happens. The other is

“farspeaker” can suggest enough about what
to convey the look and feel—the “sense”—of
the device does for the reader to run with it, an unfamiliar time and place.

and it hints at a larger background of which it As Mike Flynn says, “Infodumps are most
is one small part. To quote Mike Flynn: “Dump
needed where the reader comes to a text with
a small amount of info to suggest a larger
contrary expectations rather than with no ex-
amount.”

pectations.” By default, most readers will as-

He cites an example from his novel The
sume that the milieu of a story is similar to the Wreck of The River of Stars 2: one they’re living in unless given a reason to believe otherwise. You don’t need to mention

Miko threw the switches and locked
nearly as many details to evoke New York City
them out, one by one. The engineer
in 2014 as you do to make an alien world or a

[Ram] was terrified of outside work. He
past or future Earth feel real.

tried to keep it secret, but Miko could

So what do you do when something needs
tell. A cold start would require recali-
to be explained?

bration of the flicker. Someone must
physically adjust the focusing rings after

Tricks that work (at least sometimes)

each test burst. It was dangerous work,

The first thing you must do, if the reader
normally done in the Yards. Get the
needs to know something, is make her want
rhythm wrong—miss a beat—and a
to know. Let’s look at several ways of doing
nanopulse of fusion would be more
that, each of which works well in some situa-
than flesh and bone could bear. The sit-
tions (and not so well in others).

uation must be serious indeed if Ram

•A character explaining something to
was willing to accept that risk while un-
another who shouldn’t already know.

der way and with a high velocity.

The trouble with “As you know, Bob . . .” is

2

Tor Books, 2003.

HIDING THE INFO-DUMP OR: FEEDING INFORMATION WITHOUT CHOKING THE READER

53

ANALOG
that it seems silly for people to explain things be an unabashed academic lecture—but there
to one another that both of them already
has to be a reason why the character listening know.3 But a character explaining something
to it is doing so. The character’s being a stu-to somebody who can’t be expected to know dent and attending a class in which the profes-is another matter.

sor just happens to be lecturing on a topic

But it can’t be just anybody. I would not
relevant to the student’s life seems contrived walk up to a stranger in the street and start ex-and feeble.6 But in Poul Anderson’s The People plaining how to integrate exposition into fic-of the Wind,7 Chapter 4, a military officer who tion, or how to solve second-order differential must lead a campaign against the winged, inequations. There has to be a believable reason telligent inhabitants of Ythri steals moments
why the explainer would want to explain this
during his duties to listen to a canned lecture subject to that person, and why the explainee
about the evolutionary and cultural back-
would stick around to listen.

ground of the Ythrians—because he needs to

A common version of this is what Edward
know his enemy. Personally, I don’t think that M. Lerner calls “the expert/novice pairing.

section is Poul’s best writing (though I do

Here, the expert character lectures an unin-
think the novel as a whole is one of his best), formed character (such as a reporter, politi-but the ideas are fascinating, and Lt. Rochefort cian, or a charming but clueless love interest) has solid story reasons for wanting to absorb
whose main purpose is to be ignorant—in the
and understand them.

interest of eliciting such lectures.” It can work, One of my favorite examples of an expert
but the uninformed character has to have
explaining something to a layman is Bob
more purpose than being ignorant for the

Shaw’s “Light of Other Days,” a quiet little gem reader’s convenience. The reporter, for in-of a story that first appeared in Analog in Austance, might be trying to get the inside story gust 1966.8 It contains one of the most memo-on what seems to be a particularly troubling
rable speculative ideas ever hatched, a
crackpot theory, as in Isaac Asimov’s “Night-
uniquely moving story of human interaction,
fall.”4 The politician might be trying to pre-
and one of the most perfect integrations of the vent government action based on what seems
two I’ve ever seen. The story couldn’t happen
to him such a theory, as in my own “The
without slow glass, and it can’t be understood Prophet.”5 The love interest might not be so
without knowing what slow glass does. It takes clueless after all, but trying to gather informa-place on a “glass farm” where a couple stops to tion to further an agenda of her own.

consider buying some slow glass. The wife is

You may sense that those examples have
shocked at the price the farmer is asking, so he something important in common, and you’re
starts to explain why it’s so high. The husband right. But I’ll wait a while to say what it is.

has heard it all before, and he’s preoccupied

Sometimes this sort of explanation can even
with a big problem in their relationship, so his 3 It does happen in reality; human conversation is not always about conveying new information. Quite a bit of it is reinforcing shared beliefs, two people thinking out loud about a problem they’re both trying to solve, etc. A lot of things happen in everyday life that readers won’t accept in fiction, and this is one of them.

4

Astounding Science Fiction, September 1941, and many anthologies.

5

Analog, April 1972; now available in Generation Gap and Other Stories (print-on-demand and various electronic formats, from FoxAcre Press). I’ll sometimes use examples from my own work, not because I think they’re the best possible examples, but because I’m particularly familiar with them. And ideas do tend to figure prominently in my stories.

6

Although that, too, can happen in reality. The inspiration for one of my first stories came from a line in one of Richard Feynman’s filmed lectures, which I was watching because they were being shown in the physics department where I was a graduate student. Something similar could happen to a character in a story, though this may be one of those cases where fiction isn’t allowed to be as strange as truth.

7

Analog, February-April 1973; Signet Books 1973.

8

In general, I’m only citing the original publication of my examples, though many are now available online.

54

STANLEY SCHMIDT

APRIL 2015
attention wanders; but as it does, he recalls the

“Eugenie Satterwaithe had been ply-
gist of what he already knows about slow glass.

ing the solar system in concentric rip-

With that dynamic among the three characters,
ples ever since she had first jumped
it doesn’t feel at all like a lecture, and in any into that vast, dark ocean. She had
case the reader has been primed for it since
flown in the beginning as a ballistic pi-
the beginning of the story:

lot: a young woman, lightning-witted,
riding a fiery arc between the antipodes

Leaving the village behind, we fol-
of Earth . . .”

lowed the heady sweeps of the road up
into a land of slow glass.

Or, in my own Newton and the Quasi-

I had never seen one of the farms be-

Apple,9 this opening of Chapter 14:

fore and at first found them slightly
eerie—an effect heightened by imagina-

What all quasimaterials have in com-
tion and circumstance. The car’s tur-
mon is that they are artificial standing
bine was pulling smoothly and quietly
wave structures qualitatively similar to
in the damp air so that we seemed to be
ordinary matter—although in general
carried over the convolutions of the
their actual energy content is much
road in a kind of supernatural silence.

lower. And, just as computer-generated

On our right the mountain sifted down
sounds can have properties “natural”

into an incredibly perfect valley of time-
sounds can’t, or hologram images can
less pine, and everywhere stood the
be made of objects which could never
great frames of slow glass, drinking

“really” exist, they can have properties
light. An occasional flash of afternoon
wildly unlike those of ordinary matter.

sunlight on their wind bracing created

Some, like the outer hull of the landing
an illusion of movement, but in fact the
boat, are totally invisible from at least
frames were deserted. The rows of win-
one direction. Some, like some of the
dows had been standing on the hillside
trinkets Tina peddled after their ex-
for years, staring into the valley, and
plorator y magic shows—the balls
men only cleaned them in the middle of

Kangyr had shown them, for instance—
the night when their human presence
have inequivalent gravitational and iner-
would not matter to the thirsty glass.

tial masses. Most can be induced to
damp out and vanish exponentially—

How could you read that and not be filled
like Instavac, or the ghost statues Chet
with eagerness to know what this stuff is, and used to finish the magic shows.

welcome a chance to find out?

The special qualities of the Type

•An omniscient narrator, appearing

76CB3 control elements used in
occasionally, briefly, and for good cause,

Reynolds airfloaters are a little harder to
can get away with things that a more lim-
describe.

ited viewpoint can’t. Jerry Oltion says, “In my own writing I try to tell the story from the Why should a reader sit through these
viewpoint of someone within it, not someone
when she might balk at similar passages in an-
observing it, so the reader gets only what the other context? Context—and timing—are the
character notices. The trick is to make the
keys. In each of these examples, a new block
character notice the details that the reader
of narrative is just beginning, and these bits of needs.” Most fiction writers these days would
description create curiosity and anticipation
agree, most of the time—but sometimes a big-
about what is to follow. In the Flynn example, ger perspective is needed, and readers will ac-a new character has just appeared, and a few
cept a brief episode of omniscient narration
broad strokes give the reader enough of an im-
like this character introduction from Michael
pression about who she is to wonder what

Flynn’s The Wreck of The River of Stars): she’s going to do now. In mine, quasimaterials have been mentioned in passing throughout

9

Doubleday, 1975; now available from FoxAcre Press.

HIDING THE INFO-DUMP OR: FEEDING INFORMATION WITHOUT CHOKING THE READER

55

ANALOG
the book, with little explanation, and the last alien background, in which a reader takes a
line of the preceding chapter (“At last the sor-while to get oriented, there is the risk of concerer’s apprentice would be the star of the
fusion over which details are parts of the main show.”) hints that they are now about to play a narrative and which provide necessary back-central role in the story. The two paragraphs
ground. Juliette Wade, who quickly estab-
launching this chapter provide some relief
lished a reputation for such backgrounds with
from a lurking curiosity that (I hope) has been stories like “Cold Words,”10 uses some subtle
building since the beginning. In the process,
but effective devices to keep the two cate-
they make some quasimaterials sound suffi-
gories distinct in the reader’s mind: “My pri-
ciently remarkable to make the reader won-
mar y tool in this area . . . is character
der, “What could be even stranger than
judgment. A character is likely to judge cur-
those?”

rent circumstances—perceptions, other char-

The important fact is that these descrip-
acters, etc.—on the basis of his or her own
tions, tantalizing as they’re intended to be,
most relevant experience. This can let me
come as something is getting started. Readers
bring in backstory in concise pieces where it
would be considerably less forgiving if the ac-will be most directly relevant to ongoing
tion were already rollicking along and the au-
events. The other technique I use is a gram-
thor interrupted it to shoehorn these in.

matical one. Essentially I make sure that ele-

•Chop it up and spread it out. A com-
ments of the main action stay in main clauses, mon suggestion that’s sometimes helpful is to
and that backstory elements appear in subor-
sprinkle tidbits of background information
dinate clauses, used as support for judgment,
throughout a story, rather than explaining it
or reasoning behind a choice of description.”

all in one fell swoop. The earliest ones—for

•Reference excerpts as section heads.

example, bits of slang or jargon from the sto-

Many chapters in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation ry’s setting, or passing references to some-trilogy open with italicized excerpts from the thing that happened in the past—will likely
fictitious Encyclopedia Galactica giving au-raise more questions than they answer. That’s
thentically scholarly-sounding introductions to fine; in fact, as long as they’re not too mystify-characters and concepts that figure promi-
ing, it can help keep the reader turning the
nently in the story. The first one, for example, pages. If the writer inspires trust, the reader is three paragraphs from the encyclopedia’s ar-will keep reading, looking forward to seeing
ticle on psychohistorian Hari Seldon, ending,
all the puzzle pieces click into place.

“The best existing authority we have for the

Naturally, these pieces shouldn’t be sprin-
details of his life is the biography written by kled in at random. Even if their main purpose

Gaal Dornick who, as a young man, met Sel-
for you as the author is to build up a frame-
don two years before the great mathemati-
work that the reader will eventually need to
cian’s death. The story of the meeting . . .”

understand, anything mentioned should have

That provides a natural bridge into the up-
some reason that makes sense to the reader at
close-and-personal story itself, while the earli-the time. As Richard A. Lovett says, “If a char-er references to the context of Seldon’s
acter has to dump a bunch of info, make sure
life—and the very existence of an Encyclope-it happens ‘in’ character.” Mike Flynn de-
dia Galactica—succinctly provide essential scribes an example in a novel he’s currently
details of background and suggest the grand
working on that starts out in 1965. Some of us scope of the story. It was very effective at a now alive have already forgotten how different time when the concept of a galactic empire
that time was from the present, while others
was still pretty new. Jerry Oltion recalls that weren’t alive then. He creates the feel of the quite a few stories used similar openings in
period by integrating into the story conversa-
the ’60s and ’70s, but cautions, “When I was a tions at parties, breaking news stories on TV, teenage reader I thought that was pretty cool, and people arguing about the impact of cur-like reading an encyclopedia entry and then
rent events.

segueing into a story about it, but nowadays I When a story has a particularly rich and
find that kind of opening clichéd and clunky.”

10 Analog, October 2009.

56

STANLEY SCHMIDT

APRIL 2015

Like any device that’s been used quite a bit, it have been puzzling them for quite a while.

can still work, but it’s a good idea to think be-

•The best approaches to filling in in-
fore using it yet again about whether it’s the formation often involve some form of
best approach to your particular story.

conflict or tension, such as a character

•A character (or reader) who doesn’t
trying to extract information from anoth-
understand what’s happening, but needs
er who doesn’t want to share it. Detective to, will welcome ways to find out. Those stories lend themselves particularly well to
ways can include, but aren’t limited to, refer-this, so it’s not surprising that some of the best ence books (or their counterparts, such as
examples are found in stories by Isaac Asimov, websites). In Karl Schroeder’s Lockstep,11 Toby who excelled at combining mystery and sci-McGonigal goes into artificial hibernation as a ence fiction. See, for example, his short story desperate response to a hopeless situation. He

“The Billiard Ball”.12 The speculative device at doesn’t expect to wake up again, but he does,
its core was the joint product of a theoretical fourteen thousand years later, into a world
physicist and an inventor who were bitter ri-
both complicated and dizzyingly unfamiliar.

vals, both personally and professionally. One

Naturally he’s full of questions, which his res-of them died mysteriously during a demon-
cuers (or are they captors?) answer—bit by
stration of the device involving a game of bil-tantalizing bit. Like this, when Toby asks why liards between the two. The story is told by a the civilization in which he finds himself is
journalist who suspects the incident was more
built around what seems to him a thoroughly
than the accident it has been assumed to be.

bizarre practice:

He interviews the survivor, trying to extract
enough information to determine whether

“Two reasons,” said Ammond. . . . If
what happened was an accident, coincidence,
we tried to live like this all the time
or murder. Determining that requires under-
we’d use up these little worlds in no
standing how the device works, so the jour-
time . . . That’s reason one. We live like
nalist has to get the survivor to explain it—and arctic flowers, with a short growing sea-he hangs on every word, because from his
son and long winter. It works for them,
point of view, the physics is the key to a
it’ll work for us. But secondly . . .”

crime.

But Persea put a hand on his arm.

Similar situations abound in such novels as

Toby’s head was drooping with sudden

The Caves of Steel 13 and The Naked Sun14, exhaustion—and from the reminder of
but there the speculation is more sociological how far through time he’d fallen, and
than physical. In the latter, detective Lije Ba-how much was now lost to him.

ley, reluctantly partnered with robot detective

“Maybe . . . we’ll talk about that an-

R. Daneel Olivaw, is sent to investigate a murother time,” said Ammond.

der in a culture so different from his own that he visits a local sociologist to try to under-Toby, in his present condition, might not be
stand its ways well enough to judge who
able to appreciate the second reason yet, but
might be a suspect, and why. The cultural dif-
the reader wants to find out, now that he’s
ferences make the sociologist profoundly un-
been given some information and been told
comfortable with Baley’s mere presence for
there’s more—as will Toby, after he’s had
the interview, so there’s an underlying tension some rest. Later, he finds himself with access throughout.

to a library from which he can get history

But the utility of such tensions is not limited lessons, and he devours them hungrily, with
to detective tales. In my novelette “Generation the reader looking over his shoulder so that

Gap,”15 Robert Lerman, CEO of a minor aero-
both can more fully understand things that
space contractor who had youthful aspirations

11

Analog, December 2013 through April 2014.

12

If, March 1967.

13

Galaxy October-December 1953; Doubleday 1954.

14

Astounding, October-December 1956; Doubleday 1957.

15

Artemis, Spring 2000; now available in Generation Gap and Other Stories.

HIDING THE INFO-DUMP OR: FEEDING INFORMATION WITHOUT CHOKING THE READER

57

ANALOG
of being an important research physicist, is

Yet when I remember how powerfully Asi-
having trouble getting Antonio João Pereira,
mov’s “Nightfall” hit me when I first read it, one of the brightest physicists now in his emand think about why, I find that what I re-
ploy, to concentrate on commercially viable
member most vividly is this paragraph, right
projects instead of “pie in the sky.” He also
after darkness falls, and the stars come out for finds a letter he wrote at the age of fifteen to the first time in centuries:

be read by his older self, and becomes ob-
sessed with wanting to answer it. It occurs to Not Earth’s feeble thirty-six hundred
him that Pereira’s “pie in the sky” just might stars visible to the eye—Lagash was in
provide a way to do that, so he feels Pereira
the center of a giant cluster. Thirty thou-
out about it. That involves getting Pereira to sand mighty suns shone down in a soul-explain what he has in mind, but it isn’t just searing splendor that was more
another physics lecture to a captive audience
frighteningly cold in its awful indiffer-
of students. Lerman is conflicted on several
ence than the bitter wind that shivered
levels: He wants to answer that letter, if he
across the cold, horribly bleak world.

can, but he doesn’t want to let wishful think-
ing lure him into doing something he’ll regret; That paragraph was not in the story as Isaac
he wants to keep Pereira producing for the
wrote it. How do I know? He told me, years
company, but not encourage him to go off on
later, and he was not happy about it. John W.

wild goose chases; and he must be careful not

Campbell, editor of Astounding, added it, and to let Pereira know his real reason for agreeing Isaac didn’t like it because it was a clear and, to reconsider the proposal.

to him, jarring break from the consistent viewpoint he had maintained throughout the story.

Wrapping things up

The inhabitants of Lagash knew nothing of

I’ve talked about several methods of weav-

Earth; the story never answered the question
ing background information into a story: bad
of whether even their remote ancestors had
ones generally best avoided, and good ones
come from here. They had never seen stars
that often provide a graceful way to do what
before, and they couldn’t possibly have com-
needs to be done. I’ve also promised to tell
pared the ones they saw to what they might
you what I think the most effective ones have
have seen on Earth.

in common.

But for a reader on mid-Twentieth-Century

The answer is surprisingly simple. Just as

Earth, the paragraph, despite breaking all the conflict and tension drive stories, they often rules, worked. For me, it was the focal point drive the best expositions. Simply laying out
of the story; it instantly gave me a vivid picture facts isn’t enough. Whether you alternate teas-of just how starr y that sky was, which I
ing and satisfaction by doling out bits of infor-wouldn’t have had without it. In this case, I
mation that answer some questions while
have to agree with John. In general, I don’t
raising others, or let characters come to
like editors changing my stories without my
fisticuffs over information that one has and an-consent, but in my opinion, this change
other wants, you have to capture the reader’s
strengthened the story—a lot.

interest at the outset and hold it by making

But before going off and doing whatever
him want the next bit.

kind of exposition you want, regardless of

The best way to do that will vary from story
rules, bear in mind that artists who successful-to story and author to author—and there are
ly violate rules usually know exactly what
no absolute, inflexible rules. Storytelling is they’re doing, and why. Keep in mind what
such a diverse, subtle thing that almost any

I’ve said, but remain open to learning by ob-

“rule” can be violated if there’s a good reason servation. When a story works for you—or
for it. For example, I said above that, in gener-fails to—you’re likely to know it first as a gut al, it’s best to tell a scene from the viewpoint feeling. But then look closely at what the
of somebody participating in it. An omniscient writer is actually doing, and think about why it narrator might be accepted (briefly) at the be-does or doesn’t work, and how you can apply
ginning of a chapter or block of action, not in what you’ve learned to your own writing. ■
the middle of it.

58

STANLEY SCHMIDT

Partible

K. J. Zimring
ongratulations on your impending
love life has been ever since I’ve known you, I fatherhood.” Eileen grinned as she
can’t believe you held out on me about a juicy waltzed into our office.

vacation hookup. Where was it?”

“C “Veryfunny.”I didn’t even look “Nowhere.I promise.”That was the truth.

up from my computer. “You’re late. We have

It had to be some kind of mistake. I slit open that trend analysis meeting in f ifteen min-the envelope and pulled out the papers.

utes.”

Eileen peered over the desk and read up-

“Seriously.” She waggled an official-looking
side down just about as quickly as I read
document in front of me. “You got mail from
right-side up. Of course, shock might have
the Bureau of Immigration and Naturaliza-
slowed me down a little. Because she was
tion.”

right. A kid had come through SeaTac, origi-

I took the envelope from her and stared at
nating in the Pacif ic islands and connecting
the return address. “What’s the Minor Emigra-
through the Philippines. The passport was
tion Division?”

fake, but he claimed an American father,

“That’s the department of baby daddies.

named me, and the allegation had to be eval-

I’ve read about them. Any kid of an American
uated. I was to present myself for an inter-
has the right to emigrate, you know. If you go view at the Tacoma Northwest Detention
to another country and impregnate a fair

Center on May 5 at 1:30 P.M. Lawyer option-
maid—knock a local up—pop a bun in a
al.

hometown oven—”

“Aw,” said Eileen as she flipped through the

“I get the picture.” Except I didn’t. Because
papers. “It’s a boy. Nine years old, so you’ve I hadn’t. I’ve traveled, of course, but the clos-missed those first steps/first words. Still time est I’ve ever come to sampling the regional
to teach him to play ball, though. I mean, if
delicacies has been to get out to a Zagat-ap-
you knew how to do that kind of thing.” She
proved restaurant or two.

tipped her head. “So where were you nine

“I’m hurt.” Eileen picked up my statue of St.

years and nine months ago?”

Jude and gave it a little smooch. “You should

I remembered it exactly. Nine years and
have told me what you’d gotten up to. I tell
nine months ago I’d been hopelessly, helpless-
you everything I’ve done, love-life-wise.”

ly in love. On the Pacific island of Kiribati. But

“You couldn’t possibly have.” I took my stat-

I hadn’t done anything. Just like always, I’d let ue back. “No one has that much time to lis-the moment slip away from me.

ten.”

So I couldn’t have a son. It wasn’t possible.

She snickered. “Well, I’ve told you the high-

Even if my heart had sped up, just a little.

lights. And really, given the utter zero your 59

ANALOG

I’d pictured the Tacoma Northwest Deten-

“I need to take a sample. For the test.” She
tion Center on the drive down from Seattle
sighed and looked impatient. “The DNA test.”

and frankly I’d been expecting something a lit-Oh. Of course. I opened my mouth obedi-
tle nicer. I mean, they send minors here. Kids ently and let her rub the swab up and down
who aren’t accused of anything other than
inside my cheek. It tickled, but it wasn’t un-
having the wrong papers. If there was a differ-pleasant. Not enough to explain my sudden in-
ence between the Tacoma Northwest Deten-
tense desire to retch.

tion Center and a jail, though, it wasn’t

“So it doesn’t really matter,” I said as she
apparent from the high walls and the barbed
sealed the swab in a plastic tube and labeled it wire on the outside.

with my name. “What I say at the appoint-

Not much different on the inside either,
ment, I mean. You just want to know if the
though I freely admit everything I know about

DNA matches.”

prisons I’ve learned from HBO. Still, it was

She smiled with her lips alone again. “That’s
grey and cold and concrete and claustropho-
right, sir. If the DNA doesn’t match, it’s not bic as all heck. I couldn’t imagine how bad it your child. If it does, he is. That’s all we need would feel to end up here if you’d spent your
to know.”

entire life growing up in the greenness of Kiri-

“Oh. How long does it take to get the re-
bati.

sults?”

I presented my ID and got waved through

She dropped the tube through a slot and
into a waiting room someone had painted an
turned around. “We do a rapid PCR test here,
overly optimistic yellow. Stacks of years-old
sir. You’ll have the results by the end of your magazines littered the tables and after con-interview with the emigration officer.”

f irming my phone had no connection, I set-

The guard came back and showed me
tled in to find out who Larry King’s ninth wife down the hallway, past another set of locked
was going to be. Back here in the present,
doors, and into another office. A dark-haired
he’d already divorced her, but I decided to sus-guy of about my own age, mid-thirties or so,
pend my disbelief and marvel at the pretty,
sat behind a desk.

pretty ceremony.

I introduced myself and took a seat as the

Hell, he’d gotten farther than I had, depend-
guard closed the door behind him.

ing on how you squinted. I’d never even made

“Henry Wong,” the emigration off icer said
it down the aisle once. Which one of us had
in return. He caught me looking at the picture done it right?

on his desk and smiled. “My husband and our

My depression had deepened to the deep
kids.”

grey of the typical Seattle sky by the time they

“I don’t have any myself, ” I said then
called my name. A guard buzzed me through
stopped. “I mean—”

a series of doors, taking me deeper and deep-

He laughed. “I guess we’ll be the judge of
er into a maze even Mrs. Frisby couldn’t
that, huh?” He pulled his keyboard toward
solve. Finally I got left in an antiseptic-
him and clicked open a form. “You’re an an-
smelling room.

thropologist? For Amazon?”

I waited there a long time. I’d had dreams

I nodded. “They’re interested in popula-
like that, dreams where I’d waited and waited, tions, trends, predictions of behavior. Ama-and no one ever came. There weren’t even
zon’s got a bigger anthro department these
any magazines, which helped my sense of in-
days than most universities.”

feriority-to-celebrities, but left me with noth-

“So you studied it in college? Then ended
ing to stare at but the posters on the walls
up there?”

(VOTE! IT’S YOUR RIGHT!).

I shook my head. “I started in the real Ama-

Finally, the door opened and a woman in
zon. The Amazon basin, in South America.

scrubs came in. She gave me a professional

The Salesian missionaries run everything
smile—quick and not reaching to the eyes—
there.”

and then she was in front of me with a swab

Henry’s lip quirked up, but he didn’t out-
in her hand.

right laugh. “You were a priest?”

“Open up.”

“I was a seminarian.” I looked away. How

“I’m sorry?”

could I sit across a desk from a stranger and

60

K. J. ZIMRING

APRIL 2015
explain losing my vocation? Not my faith,

I shifted in my seat. “I mean, if there was a
though, for better or worse—I hadn’t ever lost chance the kid was mine, I’d tell you. I
that, even if it seemed sometimes to have cut
wouldn’t lie.”

me off from people instead of leading me to-

“I wouldn’t want you to. It’s hard to turn a
ward them. “I left that and started working
child away, of course, but we have rules to fol-with one of the anthropologists down there.

low. If he’s your son, he’ll be admitted. If not, The fellow I ended up doing my PhD with, in

I’ll have to send him back.”

fact—he focused on indigenous concepts of

“I know Kiribati’s in trouble.” The awk-
partible paternity.”

wardness was rising. “I mean, of course I

Henr y kept his eyes on his computer
know that. It was barely above sea-level when
screen, politely. “What does partible mean?”

I was there and with the ocean rising most of

I blessed him for going for the academic
their land is gone now.” All those places
question. “It’s the idea that a child can have where I’d been young and in love had to be
more than one biological father.” I cleared my underwater now. Everything washed away,
throat and felt that old lecture mode settle over salted and scrubbed bare.

me. “The Mehinaku of Brazil, for instance,

“His name is Anote.” Henry cleared his
don’t think having sex just once can result in a throat. “The mother is deceased.”

child. It takes many acts and all the men who

Grief struck me, cold and sudden as an ice
ah—contribute—are felt to be the fathers. The
bath. Teata. Dead. I should have contacted

Xocleng and the Arawate think the same, and
her, somehow, even if there was nothing to
the Tapirape think that intercourse has to con-say. Obviously she’d remembered me, even if
tinue all during the pregnancy or it will fail. All there’d never been more between us than
the men involved, up to the very end, are ac-
smiles and talk and warm nights I hadn’t let
knowledged as fathers of the child.”

lead anywhere.

He typed that in, too. Gotta f ill all those

Before I could say anything to that, a knock
blanks in one way or another, I suppose.

came at the door.

“I spent most of my time with the Kuikuru,

The nurse pushed her head inside. She gave
though. They believe a spirit sculptor lives in-me a knowing look and handed Henry a piece
side a woman and takes all the donated mate-of paper. “Got the results right here.”

rial and uses that to make the baby. The more My stomach knotted. I knew the answer—
male donations the better—”

no—but I wished it could be yes. I wished I Henry f licked me a look. “I’ve got friends
had, back then. I had waited, thinking some-
who’d agree with that.”

thing more real, more right would appear

I grinned back and thought of Eileen. “I
someday, and it never did.

have a friend who said if that was true, she’d Henry sat back and opened the paper. He
have had the world’s biggest baby already.”

studied it for a moment, and I think he almost

“I don’t think Uncle Sam concurs, for what-
smiled. He handed it over.

ever that’s worth.” He paused and looked di-

There was a lot of government-speak at the
rectly at me. “Not to pry unduly . . . but . . . Did top. I skipped that and let my eyes f ly to the you?”

bottom of the page. Match, it said in big let-

“Make a deposit? Nine years ago in Kiri-
ters. Below it were the lines of base pairs.

bati?” I shook my head. “I was there with a

Every section showed a match.

Catholic mission, on the secular side. Medi-

I was a father. Except I couldn’t be.

cine, education, outreach. I admit that. I
mean, I know you have airline records.”

I sat in the last pew of the cathedral. I’d driv-He nodded. “We always conf irm foreign
en back to Seattle in shock. Henry had made
travel in these cases. It’s part of the prelimi-arrangements for me to meet Anote. The kid-
nary investigation. But the mother—”

who-couldn’t-possibly-be-my-son. Two days

“I knew her.” I swallowed. “Not knew her, from now, together with Henry, we’d have our
knew her. But I never did—anything—with
f irst meeting at the detention center. They
her.”

were already processing his citizenship papers.

He turned back to the computer and typed

The door opened with a creak, and foot-
that in.

steps clicked in the aisle.

PARTIBLE

61

ANALOG

Eileen slid in beside me. “I knew you’d be

“That’s why this is a miracle.” Late afternoon here.”

sunshine streamed through the stained glass

“I’m sorry I didn’t come in today.”

windows. “I should have, back then on Kiri-

“Please. It’s your f irst day off in, what,
bati. I’ve thought that so many times since
ever?” She cut me a smile and a sideways look.

then. I wished I had. I loved her but I thought

“You better save the rest of your sick days
something more real and right and perfect
though. Gonna need those now that you’re a
would come along afterward and it never did.”

dad.”

She took my hand. “The results say you’re a

“Eileen.” I drew a deep breath. “Do you be-
dad. You can’t be a virgin, kid.”

lieve in miracles?”

“I’m a virgin and it was the worst mistake of

“Nope.” She pressed her shoulder against
my life, not being with her. I didn’t do any-
me. “Got any other questions?”

thing but I should have.” The light coming

“No, really, I mean it. It’s the only explana-
through the window intensif ied, turning the
tion for this.” I must have looked like an idiot, blue of the Virgin Mary’s gown into a cobalt
but I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. “For glow so deep it almost hurt. “Seriously. You
me being a father.”

don’t believe in miracles?”

“Actually, I can think of a better explana-

“I believe in Budweiser. Are you absolutely
tion. When a really nice mister bird meets a
certain you didn’t have too many one night? If nice lady bee on a beautiful Pacific island—do this kid is really a match, DNA-wise, and you
you see where this is going? You’re an anthro-
don’t remember being with her, that has to be
pologist, right? You had to have passed fresh-
the answer.”

man bio.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t drink back then

I snorted. “I passed it. It’s just we didn’t—”

either. And I’ve never taken drugs.”

“Listen, I know how it goes when you drink

“Lord, your body really is a temple. And not
too much. Do you think I’ve never had a night
the fun, ancient Greek type either.” She gave

I could only reconstruct via Instagram?”

me a speculative look. “Speaking of ancient

I laughed. “Oh, god. I remember Instagram.”

Greeks?”

“Happiest day of my life when Instagram

I blushed like the virgin I was. “No. I like
crashed and burned forever. Thought I was go-
women. I’m not confused or in the closet or
ing to have to fake my own death and come
anything like that.” I bit my lip. “I just wanted back as someone else if I ever wanted to show
it to be right, you know? And each year, with
my face professionally.”

every opportunity I passed up, the pressure

“Don’t worry. We all think you’re as innocent
grew. For the big event to be just right, with as a lamb.” I cleared my throat. “I’m a virgin.”

the exact right person.”

“What?” Eileen whipped around and

“Hell, I would have laid you myself if I’d
coughed hard. Or laughed. Whatever it was, it
known.”

involved her eyes bugging out. “You are not.

“You’re too kind.” I leaned against her. “I

You can’t be.”

would have turned you down.”

“Why do you think I’ve never mentioned

“I think we might be developing a Madon-
being with anyone in the entire time we’ve
na/whore complex here, between the two of
been together?”

us. And I know which side of that slash I’ve al-

“Because you’re more polite than me? Be-
ways been on.”

cause a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell?” She

I took her hand. “I think you might’ve got-
bit her cheek but her eyes kept dancing. “Be-
ten the better end of the bargain.” A wave of
cause maybe you once caught that antibiotic-
grief rolled over me. “There’s so much I
resistant gonorrhea and had to spend a week
should have done. So much time I spent
in the hospital getting it treated by IV and it alone, being pure, when I should have been
scared you off sex for ever after?”

with someone else. I didn’t make mistakes,

“You thought that? About me?” I might have
but I never made anything right either.”

sputtered.

“You made a son. Somehow. Some way.”

“No. Maybe. Well, it was a possibility.” She

“I did.” Light f illed me up, fast as the grief made a moue. “But a virgin? Honestly, no. I
but somehow more enduring. “I don’t under-
never considered that.”

stand how it happened but somehow it did.”

62

K. J. ZIMRING

APRIL 2015

The Virgin Mary and me. Preposterous, but
f ine folks at Planned Parenthood. I wouldn’t
we had something in common, me and the
be crazy with my kid. I’d make sure he treated saint in the window. We each had a son. Con-girls well but didn’t take the catechisms too lit-ceived who knew how but wanted nonetheless.

erally. He’d manage everything better than I
had, if I could help it.

I spent the next day in a frenzy of prepara-

“Anote has something to show you,” Henry
tion. The local middle school is good, my
said finally.

nephews go there, and I could get Anote en-

Anote leaned back. He seemed reluctant, al-
rolled right away. My sisters had dropped off
most, but pulled something out his pocket un-
hand-me-downs, but I’d sprinted to the store
der Henry’s gaze. “I have this. From Mum.”

after work and bought some new clothes, too.

I might as well have been kicked in the

And junk food. Lots of it. If the clothes weren’t heart. He held a brooch. Tortoise-shell frame
right then at least the Cheez Doodles ought to surrounding a glass-enclosed double lock of
be.

hair. Hers and mine, pulled out by the roots

This time at the Detention Center I got sent
and wrapped together, just like the Victorians directly to Henry’s off ice. No one was there
had done it. That’s what you get for dallying
when I arrived ,but they had me take a seat in-with an anthropologist, I guessed. Ancient ro-
side. I sat, and I waited. I could practically mance, instead of modern love.

hear my stomach acid percolating by the time

“It’s noted in the intake paperwork as a
the door eased open.

piece of jewelry.” Henry looked from one of

“Henry,” I said, standing up. My heart was
us to the other. “I haven’t been more specific in my throat as I craned to see the boy. My
than that in my notes.”

son. “Anote.”

Okay. His look seemed— significant—shall Anote was a little taller than I’d expected
we say? “I don’t think it’s worth much. If that’s and boy-kid skinny. He smiled at me, eyes
the issue. I mean, I can pay, if there’s an im-down, nice-looking but a little awkward. A
port tax.” Tortoises weren’t endangered now,
couple of cold sores lingered near the corner
were they? Was Henry implying there was
of his mouth. I wondered whom he’d kissed.

something important about the brooch?

Nothing like me, then, at his age. Good for

Anote looked from one to the other of us
him.

and licked his lip, nervously.

Henry brought him in and eased the intro-

I put out my hand, took his, and squeezed
ductions and soon had us both sitting, eyeing
it. I was a little worried—he’d never even seen each other. I smiled and tried to put my soul
me before today—-but Anote shot me a grate-
into it. I wanted him, my miracle son. I need-
ful look. We were together in this, it seemed
ed him to know that.

to say.

“Can I take him home? Now?”

“I also reviewed the medical records.” Hen-

Henry booted up his computer. “Paperwork
ry kept his face f ixed on the screen, though
first.”

there was nothing there he hadn’t typed him-

I couldn’t complain. What was a little bu-
self. “Absolutely clean on entry. No sign of dis-reaucracy compared to labor? Nobody had
ease.”

ever needed morphine for paperwork, even if

“Great,” I said. “I mean, not that I’m not go-
it came in triplicate. We ran through names
ing to find a good pediatrician. I’ve got some and dates, and Anote even smiled when I
referrals already—”

talked about the time I had spent in Kiribati.

“The oral stomatitis virus doesn’t manifest

He talked too, loosening up as he told me
clinically until one week post-exposure. Ge-
about places I’d known that were gone now
netically, of course, its effects appear as soon and places that were still there. His English
as the virus integrates into the buccal mu-
was good. Australian accented, which didn’t
cosa.” Henry looked at me. “My husband is in
surprise me—most of the Kiribatians had
the genetics department at the U. I get to hear learned English from the Aussies. He’d proba-about all the latest developments. Especially
bly be the hot foreigner to the girls in his class.

any speculation about things that could affect Anxiety seized me, equal parts determination
emigration.”

to introduce him to the parish priest and the

“I’m sorry?”

PARTIBLE

63

ANALOG

Anote touched the sore on his lip. I moved
the CRISPR/Cas9 system to engineer a perfect
my chair closer to his, instinctively. Was he ill?

match to it. Something like the oral stomatitis Did he think I wouldn’t want him if he need-virus would work well to deliver it. It infects ed medical aid? “I have health insurance. I’ve the inner cheek, just where we take swabs for
already applied to add a dependent.”

DNA.”

Henry still didn’t look at me. “I haven’t up-

“It would just be superf icial, a minor
dated the forms on physical health. As far as
change in a few DNA regions in only the cells

I’m concerned, we don’t have to.”

of the cheek. It wouldn’t match DNA from the

I didn’t understand, and I was getting mad.

blood.” I heard myself say that, though I could Who cared if he documented a cold sore? “It
barely feel my lips move. “You could tell that doesn’t matter what it is. We’ll deal with it.”

way.”

Henry finally swiveled toward me. “There’s

“Sure,” Henry said. “If we did a full blood to a paper that came out a little while ago. The
blood DNA comparison, the mismatch would
oral stomatitis virus as a vector for delivery of speak for itself. It would have to mean emigra-engineered DNA.”

tion fraud. But like I said, there’s no require-I admit it. Panic seized me. What was the
ment for more extensive testing at the current oral stomatitis virus? Was it as bad as HIV? Ebo-time.”

la? Double Dengue? “I don’t care. I’ll take him

“Could I request it though? A full blood
directly from here to the hospital if I need to.

DNA test?”

I’m not leaving my son here and I won’t let

“Of course. If you want it, we can do a test
you send him back.”

via the old RFLP method. If—if—there’s emi-

“Have you heard of CRISPR-Cas9?”

gration fraud—which I want to be clear I’m

It sounded like a boy band. I shook my
not accusing anyone of—it would show up on
head. Anote’s body was rigid, almost. I
that.”

squeezed his hand again.

I pushed back my chair. I stood up and left

“It’s a gene therapy system. The one they
the room. No, let’s be honest here. I ran from used to cure sickle cell anemia, if you remem-the room. Like I ran away from everything big, ber that? Targeted the sickle hemoglobin
everything that could be real, but wasn’t ex-
genes, stripped them out, and replaced them
actly what I wanted.

with functioning copies. They’ve cured a lot

I stopped when I got to the antiseptic-
of chromosomal diseases with it since then.

smelling swab room. It was empty now. The

Anything you want switched out, genetically
nurse was gone, thank god. I sank into the
speaking, can be changed these days.”

chair, put my head in my hands, and went

It rang a bell. Maybe. The science I looked
ahead and cried.

at for work these days was mostly psychology

Gene therapy. Not my child. Not my mira-
and sociology. “What does this have to do
cle. This wasn’t perfect. This wasn’t even
with my son? Does he need gene therapy?”

close to right. Grief f illed me so full I felt

“No. He doesn’t need it. He’s already had a
swollen. Like there were places for grief be-
little of it, I bet. Haven’t you, Anote?”

neath my skin that I hadn’t even known were

Anote blinked. That was the only move-
empty.

ment he made. The rest of him was frozen

Finally, I stopped. I went back to Henry’s of-
stiff.

f ice. Anote was still there, but I almost

“There’s been some rumors about some of
couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t track the tears the more enterprising Chinese gene labs.

that were dripping down his cheeks too. I

Nothing we’ve been off icially instructed to
closed the door and took a seat. “How did it
screen for. Yet.” Henry sighed. “If you can
happen, Anote?”

strip out a defective gene, you can strip out

“Mum was sick.” He pointed to the right
any other small region. Like a testing region
side of his stomach, just beneath his ribs.

for paternity. Then replace it with the se-

“Hepatitis,” Henry said. “According to the
quence of your choice.”

paperwork.”

“A new sequence?” I heard myself say.

I nodded. It was so common there. Curable,

“A sequence that matches a certain paterni-
if you had good healthcare. With gene thera-
ty. If you have someone’s DNA, you can use
py, come to think of it. A reputable use, that 64

K. J. ZIMRING

APRIL 2015
one was—stripping out a virus was hardly the

“I appreciate that,” I said. “I understand
same as faking a paternity test. “She couldn’t everything. And I appreciate all you’ve done
afford a doctor?”

to help put my family back together.”

“We had the money. For the treatment.”

The brooch trembled in Anote’s hands.

Kiribati sank last year. It was on the news.

Henry leaned forward. “But she decided to

Of course, it had been sinking for a long time, spend it on you instead? Is that how it hap-but now every last piece of it is underwater.

pened?”

Teata is underwater, in her grave. I wondered

Anote nodded miserably. “She said the doc-
if she’d ever float free, up among the bobbing tors said it was really too late, by the time we waves, or if she’d sunk further and ended en-had the money. She was already too bad. Even
cased in coral. She would have preferred that, if they took the virus out, it wouldn’t make

I think. She’d never wanted to leave her green her better.”

and perfect land.

Her liver had been too badly damaged. And

Anote is doing well.

Kiribati was sinking. I felt sick, sicker and hot-I’m not perfect. Lord knows, Anote’s not
ter than I’d ever felt in my life.

perfect. He’s thirteen now, and sometimes I

Henry swiveled a picture toward me. “That’s
despair of everything about him, from his
my oldest on the right. Helena. She’s seventeen grades to his attitude to his inability to pick up now. We did an open adoption to get her. In
a towel up off the bathroom floor.

the middle is Evan—he came from foster care

We’re both alive, though, and not just in
and never left. Daniel is our youngest. He was the breathing sense. We’re making mistakes
left in bathroom in Nevada, nobody could find
and moving on, and I even think I’m coping
any next of kin for legal forms and the adop-
well with the things I’m sure he’s getting up
tion paperwork was unbelievable.”

to with his very f irst girlfriend. I like his

“It wouldn’t be hard for me.” I still couldn’t genes, no matter where they came from.

meet anyone’s eyes, not Henry’s and not An-

That doesn’t mean he needs to be in a hurry
ote’s. “The paperwork, I mean.”

to pass them on. I might be a father, but I

“I won’t make it hard, if that’s your ques-
don’t need to be a grandfather anytime too
tion.” Henry pushed the keyboard away and
soon.

leaned back.

Sometimes I wonder what percentage fa-

Anote might have started breathing again.

ther I am. Just the tiniest amount, a few small Shallowly, but breathing. Teata was dead, I re-sequences on the inside of his cheeks? Is it
minded myself. How resourceful she’d been.

like Uncle Sam says—one genetic father and

She must have gotten my DNA from her old
that’s it? One hundred percent or nothing? Or
brooch, from decades-old skin cells on the
is it a more Catholic thing, a trinity type deal?

roots of my dead hair. Then she’d found the syn-Is there me, and whoever actually fathered An-
dicate that specialized in gene-based fraud—
ote, and Henry, too, playing the part of the

I wondered how many people had already

Holy Ghost, stepping in to offer a little wis-
come in this way, matching themselves to peo-
dom from someone with a little higher knowl-
ple here, living or dead. I wondered how many
edge but no actual hand in the game? Or is it
more would come before they shut this down.

like the Amazon tribes think, and there’s a

I didn’t need to wonder what I would do. “I
huge range from zero up to one hundred, en-
don’t see anything wrong with my son. He
compassing everyone who ever loved or
looks perfectly healthy to me.”

cared or made some contribution to the moth-

I heard Anote swallow. The tears didn’t
er of the child?

stop, and if anything, he shook a little more.

Then I pick up a towel, and the answer is

The rigidity left his limbs, though, and that
obvious. I’m 100 percent of the fathers that
helped me breathe, too.

are here right now. Also, I need to do some

“I’ll put no visible sores or other illness on laundry. Or make him do it. He’ll be going off the form then.” Henry looked from one of us to to college soon enough. I should probably
the other. “I wanted to be sure there’s no mis-teach him how to sort everything out, as best
understanding here. I won’t be part of mislead-I know how to do it. ■
ing you even if I think the end result is good.”

PARTIBLE

65

Down Please: The

Only Recorded

Adventure of Lars

Fouton, Captain’s

Lift Operator on
the Starship

Magnificent

Adam-Troy Castro
obody was more surprised than Ensign
exuded slime, creatures whose organs hung

Lars Fouton when the lift doors
outside their bodies like handbags, and other
whooshed open and revealed his cap-
creatures so vile to the human eye that only

Ntain standing next to something inde- the academy’s sensitivitytraining permitted scribably awful.

him to gaze upon them and not commit a se-

It wasn’t just the sight of the awful thing
rious diplomatic faux pas by projectile vomit-
that unnerved Fouton. He had been the cap-
ing.

tain’s private lift operator for all seven years Truth to tell, Fouton was, if anything, even
he had served on the Magnificent, and even more surprised to see the captain, a democra-that socially isolated position had given him
tic sort, who, despite heroic exploits that had the opportunity to see representatives of any
made him a legend throughout civilized
number of the alliance’s member races in the
space, had for most of Fouton’s many years on
f lesh. Just walking down the corridor to
the job always made a point of using the same
and from work, he had seen creatures who
elevator banks patronized by the rest of the

66

APRIL 2015
crew, even if that required uncomfortable

“Ensign, this is our honored guest, General,”

small talk and time-consuming stops on all the and here he made a noise like a high-pitched
intervening decks.

whistle in a factory beset by misaligned gears.

The captain’s personal lift may have been

“The general will be onboard over the next few 20 percent larger and 10 percent faster than
weeks to observe our maneuvers in the Ikiirish what the crew got, but the captain had always

Cluster. Because of the size of his particular treated this prerogative of command as an un-species, he will not be comfortable in most ship-necessary affectation, reducing Lars, the crew-board conveyances and is hereby authorized full man assigned to that duty, to an invisible man, access to this my private lift on his daily travels existing in a limbo that was only rarely dis-between guest quarters and the bridge.”

turbed by incident.

“Yes, sir,” said Fouton, who was unable to

The Magnificent was so legendary a star-resist adding, “It will be a pleasure to have a ship that it was impossible to count the alien regular passenger, sir.”

civilizations who had immortalized the deeds

The captain’s noble features betrayed a
of its crew in song. But stuck at the corner of twinge of guilt. “Yes. Well. Extend him every
this little box, manning the f ive buttons that courtesy.”

controlled all its possible functions, Fouton

“Up or down, sir?”

had missed entire shipboard crises, aware that After a moment of uncomfortable silence,
they were happening only because he could
the captain said, “Down.”

hear the red alert sirens and grim shipboard

Fouton depressed the down button and
announcements from where he stood.

cupped his hands together at belt-attitude. He The captain had one of those faces that al-stood at the one green square in the corner of ways ages deeper into itself, the years marking the elevator that designated his post, not shift-him with little but additional nobility and graving even for comfort.

itas; and as always on the rare occasions when Silence reigned in the cramped space. It
he deigned to appear at the lift doors, he had usually did, of course, since the only sound
trouble suppressing the wince that came over
that filled these few square meters was most
him whenever he saw how much further En-
often Fouton himself, doing deep-breathing
sign Fouton’s features had been marked by
exercises to avoid nodding off, but it was
time over the months the captain had been
somehow thicker and more intolerable when
successfully avoiding him.

the captain was involved. It never took more

He nodded. “Ensign.”

than two minutes in this express lift to travel Fouton stood straighter at his control panel.

the seven kilometers between one end of the

“Captain.”

massive starship to the other, and the captain The awful thing followed the captain into
was usually capable of maintaining silence for the lift. Its method of personal locomotion
that long, so conversations here were rarer
was less the gait of a walking creature than
than humanoid life on methane planets. But
that of a flesh avalanche, acquiring additional the awful thing must have found the void too
debris as it careened downhill. Fouton could
oppressive to endure. “Good captain? Will eti-
discern eyes in the chaos it possessed instead quette permit me to ask some questions of
of a face, but no other features he recognized, this crewman?”

unless the sacs that hung from its substance in The captain bore the nauseated look of
various places were organs that evolution
somebody who would have rather been al-
hadn’t thought to store inside where all good
most anywhere else. “Of course.”

organs should be. It did, however, wear the

The awful thing turned its singular gaze on
starburst badge of the alliance, along with a

Lars. “Your name is Photon? Like the light par-number of other medals and decorations,
ticle.”

which marked it as a being Fouton was oblig-

Fouton said, “No, General. It isn’t spelled or ed to respect.

pronounced quite the same way.”

The captain recovered from the usual horror

“This is a shame. Had you truly possessed
he displayed whenever exposed to his occa-
the name of such an elemental particle, you
sional reminders that Fouton existed, and re-
might have been able to derive strength from
turned to his usual Shakespearean baritone.

it.” The general’s single eye migrated across

DOWN PLEASE: THE ONLY RECORDED ADVENTURE OF LARS FOUTON, CAPTAIN’S LIFT OPERATOR ON THE STARSHIP MAGNIFICENT

67

ANALOG
the lumpy landscape that didn’t qualify as a

“You do outrank me, sir.”

face and focused again on the captain. “For-

“We are on a starship that can travel at mul-
give me. Will it violate human etiquette for me tiple times the speed of light, performing in-to ask this one additional questions?”

tricate maneuvers that defy Euclidian

The captain sighed. “No.”

geometry and three-dimensional physics.

The eye rolled toward Fouton. “We boarded

Many of those are counterintuitive to human
this conveyance at the ship’s bridge. Is that
experience and therefore require substantial
correct?”

input from artificial intelligence. Because even

“Yes, General.”

competent human beings are able to make dis-

“The bridge is, relative to ship’s gravity, the astrous errors in crisis situations, your con-highest point on the Magnificent. Is that cor-soles are capable of interpreting voice
rect?”

commands differently depending on the meta-

“Yes, General.”

bolic levels and other stress indicators of the

“There are no hidden decks higher than the
human beings who provide them. In the fleet-
bridge to which this conveyance can travel. Is ing conditions of interstellar combat, they can that correct?”

calculate the fastest, safest and most efficient

“Yes, sir.”

methods of pursuing a given strategy at a rate

“And the VIP deck, where the captain also
far exceeding your own neurological process-
retires when off-duty, is relative to ship’s grav-ing time. By such standards, the Magnificent ity the lowest point on the ship. Is that cor-is indeed alive, and sentient, by any measure-
rect?”

ment you can name. One would think your

“Yes, sir.”

technology also capable of programming an el-

“There are no hidden decks lower than the
evator capable of transporting any given indi-

VIP deck, to which this conveyance can trav-
vidual to and fro within that ship, without
el. Is that correct?”

completely monopolizing the time of one

“Yes, sir.”

crewman to that dreary and mind-numbing

“And there are no intervening decks upon
task. And yet here you are, stationed at the
which this vehicle can stop?”

controls to this internal vehicle that travels

“No, sir.”

along a fixed track, asking us ‘Up’ or ‘Down.’

“So this conveyance only travels back and

It beggars logic. Why would your superiors
forth between those two points, the VIP deck
condemn you to this purgatory? Why did they
and the bridge?”

not automate your function long ago?”

“Yes, sir. It is an express lift.”

Fouton said, “I suppose they never saw it as

“Then why,” the general asked, “did you
important, sir.”

f ind it necessary to ask the good captain in

The general paused and said, “Good after-
what direction he desired this conveyance to
noon, Ensign Fouton. I look forward to con-
travel? Was ‘down’ not by default the only diversing with you again.”

rection available?”

“And you, General.”

“It was,” Fouton replied, “but that’s proto-

The ambulatory avalanche cascaded out the
col. You always ask the passenger ‘up or
door, continuing to churn as it made its way
down’ even if you already know exactly where
into the corridor outside, and followed the
you’re going.”

captain to the VIP suites. The captain did not

“I see. And the same follows when you pick
look back, nor did he return to the private lift up the captain or one of his VIP guests, down
that day; when the time came for him to re-
below.”

turn to the command chair, he must have

“Yes, sir.”

made his way through the maze of corridors

The doors opened on the VIP deck.

to one of the crew elevator banks rather than

Fouton announced their destination. “VIP
use the lift that was his by prerogative of com-deck.”

mand.

The captain exited with signif icant relief,

Fouton stood at attention another four hours and but the general paused at the threshold, turn-twenty minutes, then went off duty, returned to ing to address Fouton some more. “May I ask
his quarters, and put on a movie.

you another question?”

* * *

68

ADAM-TROY CASTRO

APRIL 2015

The next day Ensign Fouton was standing at

Universe, seeing great sights and performing
his post when he received a call to collect the great deeds. You had to be the kind of person
general from the VIP deck. He pressed the
your superiors would see as worthy of this
button, rode the lift down, then stood aside as splendid destiny. Instead, you spend your days the alien dignitary maneuvered his massive
in this isolated position, denied all opportuni-bulk into the available space.

ty to demonstrate your mettle, insulated from

The general rumbled, “Good morning, En-
every decision of importance, protected from
sign Fouton.”

every sight but the four walls that surround

It had been a long time since anybody had
you, never tested beyond the elementary skill
wished Ensign Fouton a good morning.

it takes to push either the button that sends

“Thank you, sir. Going up?”

this conveyance up or the one that sends this

“Not just yet, if you don’t mind. I still have a conveyance going down. Is that correct?”

few minutes before I am due at today’s ma-

“Yes, sir.”

neuvers, and I confess that I am still so fasci-

“Unlike, let us say, the captain, who is pre-
nated with your situation that I cannot resist cisely your age and would have attended the
the opportunity to ask you more questions.”

academy at the same time as you, you have

Fouton broke out into a broad grin because
never had the opportunity for any grand ad-
it was also extremely rare for anybody to ask
ventures. You have never covered yourself
him personal questions. “Very well, sir.”

with glory, never proven yourself, never made

“You are not an enlisted man, but an ensign.

yourself a name, correct?”

Correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

The general hesitated. “Forgive me if the fol-

“That indicates you completed your full
lowing questions appear confrontational. Are
course of study at Star Command academy.

you held in poor regard for some reason?”

The academic standards at that fine institution

“Excuse me, sir?”

are among the most rigorous in the Universe.

“Are you a member of some despised caste

It is open to only 1 percent of those who ap-
the privileged will not permit career advance-
ply, and only the top 25 percent of each year’s ment?”

graduating class graduates to actual service on

“Oh, no, sir. The human race evolved past
a starship. The rest, I’m told, stay on the
all that nonsense long ago.”

ground or in orbital docking facilities, provid-

“Do you have a personality offensive to oth-
ing support services for the more accom-
er members of your species?”

plished among you, those who are considered

“I’m told I’m rather likeable, sir.”

the best of the best of the best. Is that cor-

“Are you disabled in some manner unde-
rect?”

tectable by me that would lead your people to

“Yes, sir.”

assign you this pointless busywork out of

“This means that in order for you to qualify
pity?”

for your little job, you must be among the

“Not that I am told.”

smartest and most talented representatives of

“Are you being punished for some infrac-
your species. You must have excelled in astro-
tion that would lead your people to condemn
physics, engineering, astrogation, military his-you to a career spent trapped in this most hu-
tor y, hand-to-hand combat, psychology,
miliating of all possible duties?”

diplomacy, multiple alien languages, f ield

“Oh, no, sir. I get positive reviews every
medicine, software design, and numerous oth-
quarter.”

er highly demanding disciplines, just to get a

“Is there any possibility that by doing this
berth aboard any ship, let alone aboard this,
banal work you might somehow be compen-
the legendary f lagship of the alliance f leet.

sated with a more rewarding assignment more

Am I correct on this?”

appropriate for one of your qualifications?”

“Yes, sir.”

“No, sir.”

“Further, to even enter the academy you

“Then pray explain to me how you wound
had to want to dedicate your life to something up doing this.”

larger than yourself, something that would

Fouton glanced at the array of buttons be-
grant you the opportunity to travel the
fore him. It wasn’t a complicated array, cer-

DOWN PLEASE: THE ONLY RECORDED ADVENTURE OF LARS FOUTON, CAPTAIN’S LIFT OPERATOR ON THE STARSHIP MAGNIFICENT

69

ANALOG
tainly not one tenth as blessed with options as

“I changed mine to spare him the embar-
the one on a helmsman’s console. They were
rassment.”

all clearly labeled: UP, DOWN, DOOR OPEN, DOOR

“Still, the two of you must have been very

CLOSE, ALARM, EMERGENCY STOP and SHAFT MAINTE-
close growing up.”

NANCE . The array of options represented signif-

“Yes, sir.”

icant false advertising in that only six of these

“You must have learned together, strived to-
seven buttons did anything. The DOOR CLOSE
gether, had dreams for each other that rivaled button, like every DOOR CLOSE button in the en-your individual dreams for yourselves.”

tire three-millennium history of elevators, was

“Yes, sir.”

a dummy, not connected to any controls at all;

“And he became the most decorated cap-
it was, he well-knew, just a psychological
tain in the Fleet and you became . . . what you placebo, there to console lift passengers with are.”

the f iction that they possessed more control

“Yes, sir.”

than they actually had. Sometimes, to fill the

“And he rarely uses this lift and avoids con-
long hours, Fouton pressed the DOOR CLOSE
tact with you, because . . . ?”

button repeatedly, aware it did nothing, but

“Because being with me here unnerves
counting how many times he could perform
him, sir.”

this action in a typical shift.

“Do you believe he feels guilt over what has

He confessed, “I took the aptitude test.”

become of you?”

“You what?”

“I’m certain of it, sir.”

“The aptitude test. The academy gives you

“Do you resent him for achieving the suc-
an aptitude test on graduation day, determin-
cess you were denied?”

ing what job best fits your qualifications and

“Yes, sir. I live my days stewing in rage, sir.”

psychological prof ile. Some cadets become

“Ah.” The general backed against the lift
first contact specialists; others join ops, or get wall, and with a glowing sense of deep satis-the command chair. The computer decided
faction, licked what might have been his fore-
that I was best suited to my current duty. I be-head with what could have been a tongue.

gan on small frigates, graduated to cruisers,

“We may be able to discuss ways for you to
and then gradually worked my way up to the
arrange a far more appropriate destiny for

Magnificent, where I’ve served for the last yourself. In the meantime, I believe I have tak-seven years.”

en up too much of your time this morning.

“An aptitude test? An aptitude test con-

You may fulfill your ship’s function.”

demned you to this?”

Fouton’s f inger hovered over the buttons.

“Yes, sir.”

“Up or down, sir?”

“Have you never been permitted the chance

The general managed to keep the pity out
to retake it?”

of his voice. “Up.”

“I retake it every quarter, hoping to earn
transfer to another assignment. But the results Nobody ever told Fouton anything, but he
are always the same.”

could have spent his day in a box even more

Air sacs inf lated and def lated at various
removed from the bustle of shipboard life and
places on the general’s huge, amorphous bulk.

still been able to discern that something terri-

“Just a few more issues today, ensign. First, I ble had happened.

gather that the captain uses this lift only rarely.

The wail of battle sirens, the numerous ship-

There indeed appears to be something per-
board announcements detailing extensive dam-
sonal between you. Do you mind telling me
age to various decks, the distant explosions,
what that would be?”

and the clear odor of something burning all sig-

“He’s my twin brother, sir.”

naled a crisis that required the full vigilance of

“Ah. I must confess that I have trouble
each and every one of the Magnificent’ s six telling human beings apart and did not discern hundred highly trained crewmen.

a family resemblance.”

Fouton did all he had ever been empow-

“We’re fraternal, sir.”

ered to do, which is to say stand at attention

“Why do you not possess the same sur-
on his green square at the corner of the lift, name?”

awaiting his call to duty.

70

ADAM-TROY CASTRO

APRIL 2015

Nobody summoned him until the indicator

“Why, that’s terrible,” said Fouton.

lit up to impress him with an emergency sum-

“The various alien ships involved in these
mons to the VIP deck, to pick up the alien
test maneuvers have been inf iltrated by
general with the name that sounded like the
forces that seek to destroy your precious al-
factory that needed its gears realigned.

liance. Mutineers have seized control of a

Fouton wasted no time getting there, and
number of them and commenced f iring on
found the general churning like a pyroklastic
your vessel. The Magnificent has taken sig-flow as the corridor filled with smoke behind
nif icant damage. As you say, it has been
him. “There’s no time to waste!” he cried.

known to prevail with worse, but in the

“Up!”

meantime the captains of the vessels repre-

Fouton shouted the closest thing he had to
senting your less steadfast allies have pulled a heroic catchphrase. “Mind the gap!”

their forces back, refusing to commit one

The general did indeed mind the gap as his
way or the other until they see just which
substance tumbled and spilled and in various
way the battle turns. Depending on what
signif icant ways exploded past the sliding
conditions they perceive, they may either
doors.

ride to your rescue, or join the enemy forces

“Up!” he cried. “Up!”

and blow this vessel out of the sky.”

Fouton depressed the appropriate button

“How uncommitted of them,” said Fou-
and the lift started to rise, at the same speed it ton.

always traveled, not even remotely reflecting

“Meanwhile,” the general said, with hardly
the nature of the crisis affecting the ship
a pause for breath, “other forces hostile to
around it.

the alliance want neither eventuality to oc-

This was rather anticlimactic, but the gener-
cur.”

al said, “You have saved my life, young Fou-

“Golly.”

ton. I shall always be in your debt.”

The general didn’t falter. “Yes, as you say,

Fouton shrugged. “I only pushed a button.”

‘Golly.’ These partisans know that the Magnif-

“Are you not going to ask what’s happen-
icent is by far the most advanced warship in ing?”

the alliance fleet, possessing technology that

“I see no point, sir. Around here, we call
has long been kept from all but your closest
thrilling life-or-death battles ‘Wednesday.’ I’ve partners in war. They would prefer to seize
seen worse. It never impacts me.”

the Magnificent and take it back to their most

“Be that as it may, it was the correct button
learned savants, in order to plumb its secrets and it hauled me away from the lethal condi-and enable the manufacture of ten thousand
tions on that deck. You are in my debt, and the ships just like it. But they also know that this sentients of my species always pay our debts.”

is unlikely to happen unless the Magnificent is

“I appreciate that,” said Fouton.

so badly outnumbered that surrender is your

“In fact,” the general said, a certain crafti-
captain’s only choice.”

ness now sneaking into his voice, “I shall take Fouton nodded. “I get you, sir. But my
the opportunity to tell you what has hap-
brother will never surrender.”

pened.”

“No, he won’t. But what if he were not cap-

“Oh?”

tain?”

“Indeed. Alas, it may take longer than we

“Sir?”

have, so you might want to halt this vehicle’s

“What if you were captain?”

progress, so I may take my time imparting the

“Excuse me, sir?”

necessary intelligence.”

“You are a qualif ied off icer fully trained in

“Is that an order, sir?”

all matters of starship command, wasted as

“It is a very strong suggestion, Fouton.”

lift operator all his life—a man robbed of the Fouton depressed the EMERGENCY STOP but-glory that would ordinarily be his. You have
ton, halting the car midway between the VIP
no reason to owe the f leet your loyalty. You
deck and the ship’s bridge.

are indeed the kind of unfairly dispossessed

The general said, “It is my duty to inform
person enemy governments look for when
you that the Magnificent has been led into a they f ind themselves in need of spies and de-fiendish trap.”

fectors. This special opportunity therefore

DOWN PLEASE: THE ONLY RECORDED ADVENTURE OF LARS FOUTON, CAPTAIN’S LIFT OPERATOR ON THE STARSHIP MAGNIFICENT

71

ANALOG
falls to you. You may cling to misplaced loy-

“My aptitude test,” Fouton explained, with
alty and spend the rest of your career wasted
something like pity. “Did you really believe
at this post, feeling the years of your life
that it only cleared me for moving a lift up and drain away like sand . . . or you may switch al-down? Far from it. I scored an A in decision-
legiances now, join those who oppose al-
making. This lift is not just for him. It’s also reliance tyranny, and agree to take the
ser ved for alien diplomats he’s not sure
command chair after I release the gas that
about.”

kills everyone on the bridge. Your subse-

He pressed the button labeled SHAFT MAINTE-
quent betrayal of everything the captain held

NANCE.

dear will not only serve as your vengeance

Fouton, who still stood on the one green
upon him, but also the system that has con-
square by the lift controls, survived what hap-demned you to this living death.”

pened next. The general would not be so lucky.

Fouton had not stopped nodding at all dur-

The explosive bolts anchoring the rest of the
ing that speech. Now he fell back against the
lift floor to the lift walls all went off at the same wall, heart pounding, eyes moist with long-instant, releasing both that floor and the gener-repressed emotion. His iron self-control re-
al it supported to the mercies of the shaft’s arti-mained, though, and he did not stir any
ficial gravity. The general cried Fouton’s name further from his place at the controls. “That’s as he plunged out of sight, the second syllable

. . . one hell of an offer, general.”

rising higher and more disbelieving and then fi-

“It is a once in a lifetime offer, Fouton. All nally fully understanding in the fraction of an in-you need do is embrace it.”

stant before it dopplered into a shriek of

“You have it all f igured out,” Fouton said,
imminent extinction.

“And you’re right; it is impossible for me to

Fouton, who remained safe on the one
spend more than thirty seconds in the pres-
green square, permitted himself f ive seconds
ence of my brother without seething in re-
of job satisfaction. It was good to be useful, sentment over the opportunities denied me.

better yet to know that you have contributed

He is very much aware of this and it is the
to your cause by carrying out the one vital
main reason he avoids using this lift whenever function you perform better than anybody
possible.”

else. It was a job of genuine life-or-death re-

“He cannot face you,” the general said.

sponsibility, a job that required fast deci-

“Oh,” Fouton said, “he has no trouble fac-
sions, a job that genuinely did suit him better ing me, if he ever encounters me elsewhere.

than anything else in the f leet. And it was all He just doesn’t feel safe with me, in this lift.

his.

He knows I resent him and doesn’t trust my

He pressed the UP button and, feeling bet-
impulse control.”

ter about himself, began to whistle a happy

“Eh?”

tune. ■

72

ADAM-TROY CASTRO

Probability Zero

Whey

Station

Guy Stewart
ey Jungkarara stared at the cluster of

“You’re an electrical engineer . . .” she began.

outlets over the inexplicable set of

He turned to glare at her and said, “You’re
eight old chest freezers. Someone had
an aerospace engineer; can you fly a space

Rnumbered each one with black paint. shuttle?”

He and his wife had removed a thick layer of

“Yes,” she said, paused, then added, “What
old straw, discovering the things tucked at
do you want me to do?”

the ver y back of the milking barn. He’d

“For starters, you want to unwrap the new
reached out to open one. Ni had exclaimed,
outlets and lay them out on the table?” He

“You can freeze yourself right there, mister! I gestured vaguely in the direction of the white have the recycling company online and
plastic collapsible table they’d set up in the they’ll be here Wednesday!”

brilliant midmorning Wisconsin light. Soon

Today, he let out a deep sigh.

the crinkle of her effort mixed with his

Ni Jungkarara, his wife of ten years, said,
grunts as he climbed up onto freezer number

“Now what?”

two and shone the high intensity flashlight

He gestured to the barn’s ancient, gray ceil-
into the dust-clogged receptacles. “I don’t
ing joists. They’d blown them free of cob-
know what they needed all these wires for!”

webs a week ago, then hired a fertilizer com-
he exclaimed.

pany to remove the mostly decomposed

Wearing heavy gloves to wield the wire
manure from the milking stalls, the room
cutter’s rubberized handle grips, he reached
with the wooden, racked cheese molds, and
into the open space then paused. “Turn on
the loft overhead. Rey said, “It looks great
the lights, would you, Ni?”

now, but the barn’s still a hundred and three

“What for?”

years old. I don’t think anyone’s touched the

“I’m going to cut a couple of these wires. I
wiring since it was built.”

want to see what the effect will be.”

“Do you have to mess with it?”

“That’s the precision methodology you

“If we want a B&B here, I have to bring the were bragging about?”

wiring up to code.”

“Just do it,” he snapped. “Please.”

73

ANALOG

Snickering, she turned on as many light

“Look,” Ni breathed in his ear. He followed
switches as she could find. Rey took a deep
her gaze right, toward the barn’s stone wall.

breath, said, “Let’s see what happens now,”

Banked with soil outside, there were no win-
and cut a wire.

dows. Flickering white letters on a blue field The freezer he was kneeling on started to
appeared in the dark corner. “It’s words.”

hum.

Holding hands, they stepped closer. Rey

Ni said, “What’s that?”

squinted and read, “wstat120254 2 whey-

He slid off, staring at it. “It came on.”

stat18328 NatOnyxyfm II. N2checkon. 2LIQ-

She arrived a moment later, peering over

TANK. SOLN 27. DEP4 wstat31591
his shoulder. A row of lights along the edge

@615.5.05.00084.0000141. Rog?” He paused
blinked in slow marquee. “Doesn’t look like
then muttered, “The hell?”

any freezer I’ve ever seen.”

Behind them, something beeped as if for

“Probably from South Korea or India.”

attention. Ni blinked three or four times,

They stared until a teapot whistle sheared
then said as she tur ned around, “The
the hum. They both jumped back. Rey said,

Onyxyfm has arrived.” ■

“It’s not coming from this.”

IN TIMES TO COME

Even a man who sees further than the rest of us can have his eyes opened to a universe he never knew existed, as we’ll find out in next month’s imaginative lead novella from Rajnar Vajra.

Then Nick Kanas, M.D., brings us an overview of the phys-iological effects of space travel, the perfect complement to his earlier fact articles on the psychological effects of same.

We’ll also celebrate the warm days of May (in our pages, if not outside your window) with a tale of familial expectations and baseball in Bud Sparhawk’s “Slider”; see that the best explorers of the unknown might not be human (or alien) in Robert R. Chase’s

“Cetacean Dreams”; look at the price of athletic glory in Aubry Kae Andersen’s “No Gain”; and more.

Start breaking out those shorts and swimsuits, and I’ll see you back here next month.

All contents subject to change

74

THE ALTERNATE VIEW Jeffery D. Kooistra ASTOUNDING ARMSTRONG

’ve found a new idol. It happened while I

(not to be confused with Lawrence Lessig)

was refreshing my knowledge about Tesla
from 1956. The reason the book is referenced
and his work for my previous two-part col-
so often is because it is both an excellent bi-Iumn.At one point I wanted to find out ographyand the onlybiographyof Armstrong.

whether it was Lee de Forest (the inventor of

Though long out of print, I had to have it, so I the triode or “audion” vacuum tube) or Edwin
ordered a used copy for around $60. It used to Armstrong (the inventor of FM radio, among
reside on a shelf at Howard University. Judging other things) who had once worked with
from the library card and “Date Due” slip, it

Nikola Tesla. Turns out it was neither, though never left that shelf except to be discarded.

de Forest tried several times to get Tesla to

What a shame. Not only is Armstrong well
hire him, to no avail.

worth knowing about, but as I read the book I

I’d first heard about both men in my pre-
kept thinking that I wished all biographies
teen years by reading my father’s TV repair
were written as well.

manuals, but I knew very little about either.

Born on December 18, 1890, Armstrong’s

While trying to learn more about them I dis-
early life was rather unremarkable. He was a
covered what a truly astounding man this good but not outstanding student and as a boy

Armstrong was. You can argue all you want
was interested in all things mechanical. In
about whether Marconi or Tesla is the “real”

1902 the family moved into what would be
inventor of radio, but the inventor who gave
the family home, the one he’d always consider us the radio technology that Astounding and

“the house [he] grew up in.” In Yonkers, New

Analog readers grew up with was Edwin York, it was a “big gabled house overlooking

Howard Armstrong. Though de Forest invent-
the Hudson at 1032 Warburton Avenue.”

ed the triode tube, it wasn’t until Armstrong

There is a picture of the house in the book,
invented the regenerative circuit that put it to and the eyes of any writer of SF, fantasy, or
use that radio as we know it became possible.

horror cannot help but be drawn to the turret

Armstrong also invented the superheterodyne
in the front. (An additional floor would make
circuitry that lay at the core of radio technolo-it a tower.) By 1905, influenced by The Boys’

gy for decades, and, as noted above, FM freak-Book of Inventions and inspired by his two ing radio! Yet, among the general population personal idols Faraday and Marconi, in that
and even the SF readership, mention the name

“high attic room on Warburton Avenue, in the

“Armstrong” and they think of that guy who
turret under the cupola roof with its sweeping walked on the moon. Happy as I am that peo-view of sky and rolling river, as from a cap-
ple remember Neil Armstrong, it pains me
tain’s bridge, the boy hugged these figures to that he is the only Armstrong they recall.

him and burned to set off into the unknown.”

Though de Forest ceased to interest me,

(p. 32) No inventor protagonist from the best

Armstrong’s accomplishments demanded I
of golden age Astounding ever had a better find out more. Poking around the web re-boyhood lab than Armstrong’s.

vealed that almost every source of information Armstrong’s first important invention
referenced one particular biography of Arm-

(which changed radio technology forever) was
strong, that being Man of High Fidelity: Ed-the regenerative circuit. This came about in
win Howard Armstrong by Lawrence Lessing 1912 while he was an undergraduate studying

75

ANALOG
electrical engineering at Columbia. Over six
very weak signals previously heard only under
feet tall, already balding, and frequently seen the best conditions, amplifying them to the
carrying a tennis racket, he was a good student point at which they could be heard across the
in most subjects but an outstanding one in his room from a pair of headphones left lying on
chosen major. He’d arrived at school with sev-
the table. (p. 67) The hissing sounds he de-
eral years of personal experimentation in the
scribed were key to another astounding as-
electrical arts already under his belt, and it pect of his new circuit, that with a bit of ad-showed. Frequently he haunted the school labs
justment, the regenerative receiver could be
until all hours, doing his own thing and not be-made to oscillate on its own and become a
ing very forthcoming with administrative types transmitter.

who inquired about exactly what his own

In one fell swoop, the undergraduate Arm-
thing was. But it was radio.

strong, this kid working in his attic lab, put all Radio and wireless communication at the
the pieces together in just the right way to
time was still in its infancy. Oblivious to Tesla’s solve the two biggest problems in radio, one
ground current method of wireless transmis-
being the amplification of weak signals into
sion, gobs of power were poured into huge
strong ones; the second, providing the much-
antennas so sufficient signal energy could
needed simple and compact way to produce
reach the primitive receivers. Spark gaps were high frequency, continuous electromagnetic
still widely used, and sometimes elaborate,
waves. Sparks were kicked out of radio forev-
brute-force alternators, to produce the high
er.

frequencies needed for broadcasting. Though

And then the world beat a path to his door
de Forest’s triode arrived in 1906, no one, inlike he’d invented the proverbial better
cluding de Forest, knew how to use it to pro-
mousetrap, right? HA! Although this was the duce significant amplification. Then came
time when his public fame and recognition of

Armstrong. Though Tesla was the wizard of
his inventive genius started to grow, it was
electricity, Armstrong was the circuitry virtu-also the point at which the unending litigious oso, a grand master in the art of electronics, shenanigans began. Having accomplished
so deeply passionate about radio that his love what had never been done before, suddenly
for it would never weaken.

the world was awash in other inventors who

So how does the regenerative circuit work?

claimed they had done it before. That there Consider the simple diode, or two-element
was at best scant, and more likely no, evi-
tube, with electrons streaming from the cath-
dence of them having done so was irrelevant.

ode to the positively charged anode. Interpose Oftentimes a big company would purchase
between these two elements a third element,

“similar” patents from inventors and then use
the grid, making the new tube a triode. Apply

Armstrong’s circuit for free, claiming they
a varying voltage to the grid, and it is possible were not infringing at all, relying on the engi-to control the amount of current flowing from
neering ignorance of judges and their suscep-
the cathode to the anode, the anode current
tibility to technological bafflespeak to carry then going through the headphones. Arm-the day. Almost half of Lessing’s biography de-strong figured out how to add and tune some-
tails Armstrong’s court battles and how
thing called a “wing circuit” (a sub-circuit)

grotesquely industry and the laws treated in-
that fed back some of the anode output to the
ventors. In the case of the regenerative circuit, grid, and voila!

Lee de Forest was ultimately deemed the legal

Success came on September 22, 1912, a
inventor, by which time the decision was
date that should rank up there with June 20,
moot. But the Institute of Radio Engineers,

1969. Armstrong described it this way: “Sept.

knowing the truth, resoundingly refused Arm-

22, 1912 set up circuits and tuned ‘wing cir-
strong’s offer to return the gold medal they’d cuit.’ Great amplification obtained at once.

awarded him for the invention years before.

Noticed peculiar change in tone of signal just With Armstrong, there was always more in-as maximum amplification was obtained. Sig-
venting to be done. As anyone who grew up
nals changed from hissing note and audion
listening to AM knows, AM radios are good
also hissed when wing inductance was set at
thunderstorm detectors. Wonderful as it was
certain value.” (p. 66) Soon he was bringing in to be able to amplify weak radio signals,

76

JEFFERY D. KOOISTRA

APRIL 2015
natural noise and static were also amplified.

signal that his receiver delivered “with a life-Radio men were always working on the prob-
like clarity never heard on even the best clear-lem of improving the signal to noise ratio,
channel stations in the regular broadcasting

Armstrong being no exception.

band.” (p. 209)

While in France during World War I, when

And yet . . .

Armstrong appropriately served in the army

For the next 19 years, Armstrong’s energy
signal corps (ultimately earning the rank of
and fortune went into keeping FM radio alive.

major, often being referred to as “Major” for

He fought valiantly against the vested interests the rest of his life), he invented the super-of the RCA, the military, and the courts to
heterodyne receiver. I lack the space to de-
bring hi-fidelity FM transmissions into the
scribe the circuitry in detail, but you can
home—to reproduce the glorious sounds
check Wikipedia for that. In short though, a
heard inside the concert hall, so faithfully it high frequency radio signal is picked up by
would be as if one were in the concert hall it-the receiver, and there it is mixed (hetero-
self. . . .

dyned) with a slightly different, internally gen-But the battle killed him. In 1954, facing le-
erated frequency. This yields a third frequen-
gal defeat, his health deteriorating, his wealth cy, the difference between the other two,
depleted, despondent that his absorption in
typically in the kilohertz range. From this inthe FM war had cost him his marriage as well,
termediate frequency the content of the
he took one giant leap from the window of his
broadcast is amplified and decoded, then am-
thirteenth-floor apartment.

plified again for the speakers. I feel this invention is to radio as Beethoven’s Ninth is to mu-Twenty-five more years would pass before
sic and the Mona Lisa is to painting—nothing FM radio finally surpassed AM in market share.

short of an artistic masterpiece.

In the final pages of the book, Lessing, who

The superheterodyne method made it pos-
knew Armstrong personally for 15 years, de-
sible to amplify even the weakest of signals,
scribes him this way: “His only faults sprang
and because the output stage only had to
from his great virtue and strength of purpose.

work with one frequency range regardless of

He was a man who would stand up and battle
the station tuned in, it could be optimized for for principles as he saw them against the pow-that range. Though this reduced background
ers of the world, however formidable. This is
noise and improved sound quality, it still
becoming so rare a trait as to be prized above didn’t eliminate the bane of static.

rubies.” (p. 308) I call Armstrong “astound-

To banish static, Armstrong turned to fre-
ing” because, to me at least, he is the embodiquency modulation, bucking the accepted
ment of the brilliant, virtuous, engineer pro-

(and mathematically “proven”) wisdom of the
tagonist John W. Campbell Jr. liked so well.

day that FM offered no advantage over AM. But

Lessing ends his account of Armstrong’s life
the major knew that not everything was in the
with a sentence that will serve for this essay as textbooks and that some of the stuff that was
well, for what more can you ask of a hero?

there was wrong. Again successful, by 1935 he

“It is a life which, almost at every point, was ready for the first public demonstration, a touches something endless and deep in the
surprise for the IRE no less, during which a
human spirit, errant and free, forever un-
small, distant amateur station broadcast an FM
trapped.” ■

ASTOUNDING ARMSTRONG

77

Illustrated by Josh Meehan

The Last

Days of

Dogger City

Mjke Wood
t wasn’t a loud noise. It wasn’t a noise at

She crouched and pressed an ear to the rub-
all, more a reverberation. Laura sensed it,
ber f looring. She tuned in to the pulse and
and she woke in an instant. Fifteen years
heartbeat of the platform, visualizing every

Iof maintaining offshore wind turbines creak and strain.

had taught her which sounds deserved atten-

There was no mistaking the next sound. It
tion.

was like the crack of a rifle shot. Laura jerked 79

ANALOG
her ear up from the floor and stumbled back-

Josh, Sally, and Coral, but she was desperate
ward. In the cabin, nothing had changed. Her
not to let her own guilt-fueled anxieties stifle partner, Sally, remained asleep, her steady
the children’s passion for life. Josh was so en-breathing just audible over the ever-present
thusiastic and curious about everything and
hum of the ventilation. The second hand of
just couldn’t wait to start each day.

the clock above the door continued its steady

Only last week they had been making paper
progress around the green glowing dial, but
windmills at school. Paper wasn’t good

Laura knew that time had run out.

enough for Josh, though. He wanted to be like

“Sally!” It was a forced whisper rather than
his MommaLa. (Laura and Sally were Mom-
a shout. Was there a right way to bring a loved maLa and MommaSal to the children, a neat
one up from the peaceful embrace of sleep
way of sidestepping one of the issues of single-into chaos?

sex parenting.) Josh wanted to improve the

“What is it?” said Sally in a duvet-muff led
windmill’s design, of course—try different ma-
voice.

terials. Laura had received a call an hour after

“It’s started. Something just broke. Some-
school to come get him, not because he need-
thing structural. I’m fetching the kids. You get ed his mother to take him home, but because
the packs. We’re leaving.”

his teacher wanted to finish up and go.

Sally slipped out of bed and ran to the

Today, though, was different. That cracking,
wardrobe, pulling down the rucksacks they
rending noise had changed everything.

had prepared weeks earlier. Four small packs.

“Sally, is Josh in there with you?” Perhaps

Everything else they had ever owned would
she hadn’t noticed him slipping through into
soon be gone.

their bedroom. Wishful thinking, she knew.

Laura ran to get the children, hopping into

“Isn’t he in bed?” said Sally.

fleece-lined trousers on the way. In the girls’

Laura hurried back into their room and
room, Coral was asleep. Maya’s bed was emp-
went to the front door. She looked out along
ty. It had been empty for more than a year but the corridor. No sign of Josh.

they still called it the girls’ room, plural. Laura

“I’ll go and check with Rob and Ed,” said
felt the same knife-thrust to her heart every

Sally, pulling on her anorak and helping Coral time she looked in the empty bed. She always
do the same.

said that one day she would have to let go of

Rob and Ed were the biological parents of
the tangible things. That day was now. She

Laura and Sally’s children. Josh often went
had the memories of her f irst daughter, and
round there in the morning. But this early?

now they would have to be enough.

“I’ll try the playdeck,” said Laura. “Sally, take She lifted Sally’s daughter, Coral, out of her your rucksacks, yours and Coral’s. If Josh isn’t bed, supporting her sleep-f loppy head with
with Rob and Ed you should go, all of you.”

her hand. The child didn’t even murmur;

“Laura, I’m not . . .”

Coral could sleep through anything. Laura car-

The evac alarm started to sound. A chilling
ried her through into Josh’s room.

wail.

“Josh, wake up, we’ve got to . . .”

Laura took Sally’s two hands in her own.

Josh wasn’t there.

She spoke quietly.“Sally, there’s Coral to think It was not all that unusual to f ind her son
about. Let’s not make this any worse. You and
missing in the morning. The seven-year old

Coral should get off, now! This is serious, Sal-had an independent streak and would often
ly, I’m not messing.” Laura tried to smile and rise long before Laura and Sally, and lately he looked Sally straight in the eye.

had taken to wandering off alone. Laura hated

“Be careful, Sal, both of you. Please.”

this, hated it, but deep down she knew she They hugged. Laura squeezed her eyes
couldn’t wrap him in cotton wool and mark
closed to stem the tears. She bent down and
him out from other children. This was Dogger
hugged Coral.

City. They had a society built on freedoms that

“Now go. I’ll be right behind you with Josh,
no longer existed over on the beach, in Britain I promise.”

or Europe. Children were safe to wander here.

Sally paused to take a last look at their

Like Maya had been ‘safe’. Laura would have home, then, grasping Coral’s hand, she pulled
happily locked them all inside the apartment,
open the door and left.

80

MJKE WOOD

APRIL 2015

Laura returned to their room, strapped on

So many what-ifs and why-nots. What if Laura
her harness—once a skywalker, the habits re-
had taken her jumar sling, as she was supposed mained; she still wore her Petzl harness with
to? What if the playgroup leader had called Sally almost religious obsession, even though she
instead, as she was supposed to? Why hadn’t had not been aloft even once since the acci-the tag lock mechanism on the gantry door
dent. Then she pulled on a heavy duvet jacket, been maintained, and why hadn’t the week-old
hefted both her own and Josh’s rucksack to
ice damage to the gantry rail been repaired? A her shoulder and, like Sally, paused long
chain of systematic failure, but top of the list: enough for a final, wistful survey of her home.

Laura should have been there.

So many memories here. Not all of them good.

She should not be doing this. She’d berated

She felt drawn, one last time, to Maya’s room, herself so often before. This, now, was not the but she stopped. Josh needed her right now.

time. This was the time to focus. She had to

Through the door Laura turned left, not
find Josh.

looking back, and broke into a jog, heading up He’d be with Ed and Robin. Or up on the
to level six toward the playdeck. She used her playdeck. He was always at one of those
tag to access the outside walkway because it
places. Laura was being fatalist. She should
was the shorter route.

snap out of it, collect Josh, then get the hell The wind on the gantry was strong today,
out of Dogger before the support legs col-
and it stung Laura’s cheeks. She was no
lapsed and the whole damn city slid beneath
stranger to harsh weather, having spent most
the North Sea ice.

of her career atop deep-sea wind turbine tow-

A buzz in her ear.

ers, coaxing them back to life. Ten months

“Sally?”

ago all that had come to an end.

“He’s not here, Laura!”

She had been on a powered rope ascender,

A pause. “Okay,” said Laura.

an electrical device that allowed her to shoot It wasn’t okay.

up a rope as if riding an elevator. The rope had Laura gave a deep sigh and tried to calm
twisted, knotted, and the PRA had jammed,
herself. “Sally, I’m just coming up to the play-leaving her suspended twenty feet below the
deck. I’m sure he’s okay. Get Coral down to
hatch at the top of the pylon.

evac.”

Not usually a problem, this happened from

“Laura, I’ll come up.”

time to time. The solution was to use a jumar,

“No. Just get Coral off. Let me speak to her.”

a rock-climber’s device that allowed her to

“MommaLa?” came the little girl’s voice.

step up the rope and take the tension off the

“Coral, I’ll be a little while. Go with Mom-

PRA, giving her enough slack to clear the jam.

maSal. I’ll be right behind with your brother.

But that morning she had rushed. She hadn’t

Look after her for me. Will you do that?”

brought her sling with the various pieces of

“Yes, MommaLa.” She sounded scared, like
emergency kit attached. She was stuck. There
she was about to cry.

was a classic DIY solution from the past using

“Laura?” So did Sally.

bootlaces, but modern boots shunned such

“Please, Sal, this is hard enough. I’ll be along out-dated devices. She had tried looping the
soon, I promise. I’m native Dogger, remember.

rope around one foot and taking a big step up, I’ve been here all my life. I know all the places but one step was not enough, she couldn’t
a child might go.”

free the PRA.

He’d be on the playdeck. He had to be.

She had been rescued three hours later, a lit-

“But it will help me if I know you and Coral
tle cold, a little annoyed at herself, but she had are safe, Sal. Make sure Ed and Robin go with
been late collecting Maya from playgroup. The
you.”

playgroup leader should have called Sally,

They exchanged encouragements and
should have kept an eye on little Maya until
promises, and it sounded an awful lot like
she could be collected, but Maya’s playgroup
goodbye. Sally hadn’t been on Dogger for
was, after all, only three minutes from home,
long. She’d come from the beach only ten
and children often made their own way home
years earlier, driven off by regressive new
when their parents were late. Because Dogger
laws. Her expertise in marine biology had got
was safe.

her a job in the plank farm.

THE LAST DAYS OF DOGGER CITY

81

ANALOG

Laura rang off. It felt like cutting a lifeline.

“Look, you’re welcome to look around, but

She ran up the last gantry steps to the play-
you’ve heard the sirens. If your little boy is deck, her feet clattering and ringing on the
missing then you need to spend your time
metal.

looking for somewhere else he might be. He’s
not here, I promise.”

The playdeck. It was an entire level given

Laura knew the steward was right. He’d
over to the children of Dogger City.

worked the playdeck for years, and she trust-

When Dogger was first conceived, it hadn’t
ed him. DC was big. If she was going to look
been intended as a place for families. DC had
elsewhere, then she ought to start now.

begun as a harsh world of roughnecks and
roustabouts on months-long tours far out in

Laura needed to tell Sally. She didn’t want to the inhospitable North Sea. The EuroPower
make the call. She didn’t want the argument.

project demanded huge resources of man-

Sally had to get off DC. Her priority had to be power, and it soon became apparent that the

Coral’s safety. Laura did not want to create
scale of the enterprise was demanding a city-
dilemmas. But Sally had to be told. She might
sized infrastructure to support it. It just
think of somewhere else Josh might have
wasn’t practical to ferry employees in and
gone.

out, on ships or helicopters, in the required

She called Ed, instead.

numbers.

“Where are you, Ed?”

So they brought the families to Dogger. Lau-

“I’m with Robin, Sally, and Coral, down on
ra’s parents had been among the f irst. Both
the spider deck. They’re taking everyone
her mother and father had begun their careers
straight onto the ice. Have you got Josh?”

on the Scottish rigs, oil and gas, as rig safety

“No. He wasn’t there. I—”

officer and mud engineer respectively. It was

“I’m coming back up.”

a way of life, and they had been naturals for

The spider deck was the lowest deck,
the Dogger City project. It wasn’t long before washed by the North Sea swell in the days be-Laura had come along, one of the f irst chil-
fore the ice. It was a long way back up, and
dren of Dogger. She’d watched DC grow and

Laura guessed it would be against a tide of
had grown with it. There was nowhere she
panicked humanity fleeing DC. She wanted to
hadn’t explored and nowhere she hadn’t got
say no, stay with Laura. But Ed was Josh’s fa-
herself into trouble, because the playdeck had ther.

arrived years too late for her childhood. But

“Okay. Yes, please. But what about Sally
she knew the playdeck now. She had come
and—”

here often with Josh. And with Maya.

“Robin will stay with Sally and Coral. I’m on

Much of the playdeck had once been open
my way back up. Where should I start look-
to the sky, but ever since Yellowstone got it-
ing?”

self launched into the stratosphere, ever since

“I don’t know.” She steepled her f ingers
the ice, it had been necessary to jury-rig a
and pressed them to her lips. Think. “Try the roof. The doghouse was the old covered area
rope locker. It’s a possibility. I know he was on the north side, a refuge from the weather
friends with the kids of some of the other sky-in days when weather had not always been
walkers.”

quite so life threatening. The doghouse was

The skywalkers. As a turbine mech, Laura

Josh’s favorite haunt.

herself had once been part of that elite club.

As Laura pulled open the hatch a steward in

Dopes-on-ropes they were sometimes called.

a dinosaur vis-jacket, who was leaving, greet-

They were the abseilers; the maintenance
ed her.

crews who worked the sides of DC and the

“Nobody here, miss,” he said.

high turbine pylons. She remembered the

“Are you sure? My son, Josh. He’s . . .”

rope locker as a place she liked to go herself

“He’s not here. I’ve done the walkabout.”

as a girl. It was warm and secretive and cozy, He saw the look in Laura’s eyes. “Look, miss, I and she would curl up amongst the loops of
know the playdeck. I’ve checked it out myself, rope and feel safe. It was a place to hide from in person.” He put a caring hand on her fore-the world when things went bad. She’d last
arm.

hidden there, not as a child but just a year ago, 82

MJKE WOOD

APRIL 2015
when she’d lost Maya. She’d talked about her
walk off DC, Laura. Lots of people down here.

secret place to Josh. Maybe all the uncertainty Sally’s going to need help. I’ll do what I can over the encroaching ice had been having a
but she’s not the only one injured. Doctors are deeper impact on the seven-year-old than she
struggling.”

had guessed.

“What about Coral?”

“What about you, Laura?” said Ed.

“Coral’s fine. She fell too, but she seemed to

“I’m going to try the school. You know
bounce. No ill effects. She’s upset though.”

how much he loves school. I sometimes can’t

Laura began to move again, a steady jog.

get him away from the place. I’ll let you

“Is she with you? Can I talk to her?”

know.”

“MommaLa?”

The school was just two levels down but

“Hi sweetie. Listen to me, Coral. MommaSal
then a good fifteen minutes along the central
will be f ine, you’ll see. Just stay with Robin highway. Laura clattered down the stairs. She
and he’ll watch out for you both. I’ll be down was four rungs from the bottom when the
there just as soon as I get Josh. You’ll be a
world shifted. There was no sound—not
brave girl for me, won’t you?”

straight away. The sound came later, booming

There was no answer, but Laura knew she’d
and groaning.

be nodding.

Laura found herself on her back looking

“Now put me back on with Robin, sweet-
straight up at the bulkhead lights along the
ie.”

ceiling. They should have been lit. Laura had

“She’s okay, Laura. Just a bit shaken.”

never seen the highway with the lights out be-

“Have you heard from Ed?”

fore. An eerie red glow from emergency lamps

“Yes, Ed’s okay. Laura, you need to get Josh
was barely enough to see by. Laura sat up, re-
and get off there, soon.”

lieved that she still could. The pain from her

“I know.”

right hip foretold a triumphant bruise to fol-

“You don’t know. Laura, the Ess has gone.”

low.

“What? Gone as in . . . ?”

The steps she had just descended were now

“As in no longer there. It just dropped
almost vertical. The central highway sloped
through the ice. That was the lurch. The legs
upward. The city, or this part of it, had moved just snapped sideways and it went down.

by twenty degrees. Time was running out.

The whole damn thing. Nearly took Rig

Laura stood, and, hobbling at first, she began Town with it. Would have if the gantries
to run off the pain. Uphill.

hadn’t sheared.”

Five minutes into the run, her phone buzzed

The Ess was the new build. When Dogger
in her ear again. Laura slowed. She used to be City was built it grew from old oil platforms
fit, but it was a long time since she’d worked strapped together. They called it Rig Town. It the high turbines. The incline was steep and
didn’t become Dogger City until the Ess was
her breathing was coming in snatches.

added. The Ess, named for its shape, from

“Hi,” she said, between breaths.

above, was a purpose-built offshore city,

“Laura, it’s Robin. Are you okay?”

complete with parks, hotels, leisure centers,

“Running. Uphill. Not . . . used to it.”

shopping malls . . . just about everything you

“Sally’s hurt.”

could f ind in a conventional mainland city.

Laura stopped.

The Ess was only the second phase of DC.

“How?”

There had been plans for many more sec-

“We were on the spider deck and the whole
tions, even a marina, each paid for from the
city lurched.”

prof its they made from power generation.

“I felt it.”

But after Yellowstone, the ice had come, and

“Sally fell. Over the railing and onto the ice.

the expansion plans had been put on hold.

About fifteen feet.”

The Ess was home to nearly a quarter-million

Laura closed her eyes.

people. Laura wondered, with chill dread,

“Is she . . . ?”

how many had made it off. And of them,

“Okay? Not really. She’s shook up and . . .

how many had put enough distance between
her ankle . . . just snapped. The doctor’s with it and themselves before it had turned the ice her now. She’s in a lot of pain. We’re having to to slush.

THE LAST DAYS OF DOGGER CITY

83

ANALOG

“Robin, get away from DC. You, Sally, and

“You can’t help, Ed. This is my patch. He’s

Coral. Don’t stay beside the legs. Get moving
gone high. I don’t need to be rescuing two of
and put some air between you and the city. If
you. You’re no skywalker, Ed. Go! Robin’s go-
you have to drag Sally along behind you, do it.

ing to need you. So long as there’s still time I’ll Don’t waste time, you hear?”

get Josh.”

“Understood.”

Laura was already on the ladder, going up

From the tone of his voice, Laura knew that
the Arkansas Derrick. She couldn’t see the top he did.

because the extension platforms —new

She broke the connection and picked up
builds—obscured her view. But she knew he
her pace.

was up there, he had to be. Arkansas was the
tallest Derrick on Rigtown. Only the Dogger

The schoolroom was empty. The lights

Hilton on the Ess was taller. And that was gone were out, but enough early sunlight was com-now.

ing in from the large windows along the wall

“Ed, get my family to Libya. Me and Josh will
to see into all the darker places. Through the see you there.”

window, looking down, Laura could see a tiny

She thumbed her ear and climbed.

line of ants, black against the snow, heading
away from the city. They were still too close.

The world hadn’t put all her eggs into one

Laura wished they would hurry. She prayed
basket. She’d put them into two. Europe had
that Sally, Coral, and Robin were amongst
gone for offshore wind, which would have
them.

worked, but then the turbines froze and the

Josh wasn’t here. Laura knew she could not
power from half of those remaining had to be
leave DC without him. She would search until
diverted. What had once been used for keep-

. . . Well, she would keep looking, that was all.

ing Europeans warm now had the job of de-

But she didn’t know where to look next. Even
laying sea ice build-up around Dogger; they
without the Ess, DC was a big place.

had warmed the North Sea like a gigantic

She looked around the schoolroom. A row
electric kettle. And for a while it had worked.

of paper windmills brought a lump to her

The other basket was solar. The north coast
throat. They were multicolored; each jabbed
of Africa—Algeria, Libya, and Egypt—became
into a ball of Plasticine to keep it upright.

the world’s biggest solar plant. And that

Some of them even turned in the draught
would have worked except for the small in-
from the open door. She remembered how
convenience of one of the U.S.’s largest na-
much Josh had enjoyed working on his. She
tional parks going airborne and hiding the
looked along the row but Josh’s windmill

Sun.

was not amongst them. Was that because

North America and much of Asia had cho-
he’d gone rogue with his own improved de-
sen to stay with fossil fuel. Who knows how
sign? It had irritated the teacher, that was for that went. The U.S. obviously had her own
sure. Or was it his perfectionist streak that
problems after Yellowstone, as did everyone
made him . . . ?

on the Pacific Rim, but news coverage wasn’t

A ball of Plasticine with a hole in it. Midway what it used to be. Laura didn’t know anyone
along the row of windmills. One windmill
who’d had news from such distant places in a
missing.

long time. Some said they had ceased to exist.

Laura was running even as she thumbed her

Perhaps that was the truth of it.

ear.

But there were optimists on DC who be-

“Ed? Talk to me Ed.”

lieved Libya was now the place to go. It was

“Laura, he’s not . . .”

guesswork because there hadn’t been com-

“Never mind. I know where he is. Ed, you’d
munication with the beach for some years.

better go.”

There wouldn’t be much energy from the

Even as she spoke the deck gave another
ever-dirty skies now, but surely there must be lurch.

some. And the fact that Africa was south

“Now, Ed! You don’t have long.”

didn’t harm the argument, either.

“He’s my son, too, Laura. I have to help.

So that was the plan. Walk to the Nether-

Where . . . ?”

lands, on through France and Spain, and see

84

MJKE WOOD

APRIL 2015
what was happening at Archimedes, the
small, inward cry, then reached, with trem-

Gibraltar Tunnel.

bling hands, for the rope. She heaved the PRA

Laura had an idea that a lot would be hap-
up over the side of the platform. It snagged
pening: that it would be the destination of
on the edge. Laura had to lean out over the
choice for many, that there might be some
drop to free it. The politi put his head
competition for food and water down there.

through the hatch.

But she didn’t have a better idea. One thing

“Now, will you come down?”

was for sure: DC would not be part of the sur-

The PRA came free, clattering over the lip
vival equation. It might stay around for few
and onto the mesh platform floor.

hours more, though, if she was lucky.

“Don’t play with that, miss. Those things

She reached the platform. It was awkward
are dangerous.” He pulled himself up onto the
because someone had left a PRA dangling
platform in one fluid movement and reached
down through the hatch. She was tempted to
out with self-locking cuffs.

try and use it, but she hadn’t been on a rope

Laura took a step over the edge of the plat-
since . . . Well, with her luck, the charge
form. At the same moment she clicked the
would be low, and she’d end up dangling and

PRA onto her harness.

stranded again, and there’d be no outside help

“Stop!” The politi made a lunge, and Laura
this time. Better to use what she could rely on, thumbed the “up” control. With a hiss she
she rationalized. So she pushed the PRA aside
was propelled into the air, out from the
and heaved herself through the hole onto the
grasping arms of the politi.

platform. She looked up to the top of the Der-

The ascender gave out a whining noise as
rick. Right at the top she thought she could
it ejected rope by the yard though its spiral
see a splash of red.

gears, rocketing Laura into the air. She felt
free and exhilarated. The PRA was fast. One

“What are you doing?” The shout came
of the ex-military models that some of the
from below.

more favored skywalkers got to use. And as

Laura looked down through the opening.

she f lew into the air the splash of red formed There was a politi below.

into a recognizable shape.

“I’m looking for my son.”

“MommaLa!” shouted Josh. “I’m sorry,

“Up there? Come on, come down. We’re

MommaLa.”

evacuating.”

He was clinging to the Derrick, about six

She didn’t have time for this, she faced a
feet from the top. Right on the very top was
long climb. She turned toward the ladder, but
his windmill, his new improved design, spin-
she heard the clang on the rungs below. The
ning so fast it hissed.

politi was coming up after her. Laura used to

Laura shut off the power as she drew level.

be a skywalker. She knew how to climb, but

“Nice windmill,” she said, smiling and
she’d just run, f lat out, for over a mile up a laughing and crying. “Are you okay, Josh?”

steep slope. If the politi had fresh legs he’d

“I was climbing down and the tower start-
catch her. Worse, she realized the Derrick lad-ed to lean,” he sobbed, tears running down
der was on the wrong side of the city’s new
his cheeks. “I couldn’t get down the ladder.

jaunty angle. She’d be climbing an overhang all I’m so sorry, MommaLa, I know I shouldn’t
the way.

have come up.”

The politi was nearing the top. He was ag-

“You’re safe now, Josh. Let me grab you.

ile. Laura recognized the steady, lilting

Now, put your feet in my jacket pockets.

rhythm. Just her luck to draw an ex-rope-

That’s it. Hold my neck tight with both arms.

dope. She looked around. She saw a line,

We’re going down.”

stretched tight, attached to something heavy

The politi was waiting for them below
over the lip of the hatchway. The PRA. She
with wide eyes.

took a step toward the ladder and then

“Miss, I’m sorry. When you said you were
stopped. Damn! Could she do it? Could she
looking for your son, I thought . . . I mean . . .”

snap herself onto one of those cursed things

Another lurch from the platform. This time
again? Even for Josh? She was wearing her
was different. It didn’t stop. The whole city
harness. Thank God for that habit. She gave a
was on the move.

THE LAST DAYS OF DOGGER CITY

85

ANALOG

“Doesn’t matter. We need to get off DC as
cold, but she had been cold before. Josh had
fast as we can. You’re a skywalker.” It wasn’t stopped crying and often slumped into spells
a question. The politi nodded.

of silence, a bad sign, so Laura constantly

“Good. We’re going over the side.”

pushed him to talk; about school, about his

It felt natural again. Safe. Laura freed the
climb to the top of the Derrick, anything.

rope that went up the tower and pulled it

They had no shelter, no food, no water.

loose. She ran it through an “eight” on her

Laura didn’t notice the point where they
harness and lashed it to the rail. The platform abandoned their more accurate navigation
now hung right out over the ice below. With
method, and drifted into just stumbling

Josh still standing in her pockets, she
along, following the compass south; it was
launched her self over the side. The y
too cold for standing around, and too slow.

dropped fast. Almost freefall. The politi was

Laura had to keep them moving. Her only
right behind them. The rope hissed and
motivation was to keep Josh safe, to keep try-
burned in the “eight”—an aluminum f igure
ing, and, if it came down to it, to be with
eight descender. Laura held her brake hand

Josh at the end.

straight down to avoid twists in the rope,

Nothing but white. White and . . . black
slowing them just in time. They hit the ice,
dots ahead. Black dots everywhere. The ef-
which was already turning to slush around
fects of sun-blindness? But the black dots
them, and they ran. Dogger City shuddered
were getting bigger. And shouting.

and groaned and cried. And then it sank.

When Sally wrapped her arms around her,

Laura could only bury her face in her hair

There were no reference points. It was
and cry. Two days and a night and she barely
white above, below, and all around them.

knew what was happening around her. But

Laura found herself craving for something
she knew Sally was safe. She was limping,
she could focus on. They followed the com-
but, she later learned, her injury was only a
pass south, taking turns walking ahead along
sprain. Above all, she knew now that Josh
a bearing, then waiting for the other to catch was safe.

up, thus avoiding straying too far from their

What would they f ind in mainland Europe?

course.

How might they fare farther south? Ques-

They would die out here. That was the con-
tions for another day. Because now there
stant and irritating promise from Lars, the poli-would be another day. They had choices.

ti. Laura refused to concede defeat. She was

They had a future. ■

86

MJKE WOOD

Dancing
in the Dark

Ramona Louise Wheeler
was dreaming when the alarm rang.

star, she was a bulk of blackness against the

I saw comets raining down like icebergs
stars. The dayshift and nightwatch captains
in a whirlwind, crashing against the dried-
were at their emergency stations, although

Iout husk of the planet Tarse.The comets everyone was simplystaring out at the comet.

melted into tears of thunder, splashing and

So was I.

spilling through the red canyons, pouring

I found my way automatically to the callo-
down to the Lower Plains. Spiders burst
sum at the center of the tri-bridge, stumbling awake in the soil at the touch of the water.

over the steps of the raised dais. I could not I dream that dream every time we are on
look away from her. I had never seen anything
the chase, every time that my comet-hunting
like this one before. I could not see enough of ship the Roaring Candle senses a Questing her. I wanted to run to the viewport, to press Beast emerging from the outer darkness to
my nose to the glass, just to see more. Instead, swim across our scopes.

I settled myself into the captain’s seat on the The bridge alarm kept ringing. I punched it
callosum and punched in my command
off and said, “Okay. I’m awake.”

codes.

“Forgive me, Captain White Eyes,” came

“Captain White Eyes is in the callosum,
through the monitor, much too loudly. “We
ladies and gentlemen,” the computer an-
need you on the bridge, Captain. We’ve got a
nounced softly. “The bridge quorum is now
big one.”

complete.”

I still tasted the salt of melted thunder, a

Oortbridge Captain Matholooch did not
remnant of the dream, but the Questing Beast
look up from his comet monitors to acknowl-
was really out there now. I shrugged on my
edge my arrival. I did not want to interrupt
uniform, stepping into my boots while I fas-
him. If I was this thrilled by the creature, then tened up the collar, and I ran through the cor-Matholooch must be wild with anticipation.

ridors of the Roaring Candle to the bridge.

Grace Wing, starbridge captain on my right,

I saw it in the main viewport as I arrived.

was busy at her keyboard, but she looked up

Out there was an enormous comet-beast, a
and smiled at me.

beautiful behemoth f loating in an ocean of

Day Captain Pelgrim, however, drew him-
night. In these cold distances so far from our self up stiffly and strode across the tri-bridge 87

ANALOG
catwalk toward the callosum dais where I sat.

“Captain Pelgrim,” I said finally. “Take a mo-

Pelgrim was not happy. Even from the corner
ment to meditate upon the chance that we
of my eye, I could see that. I was happy. That would find such a marvelous beast so soon in
enormous beast f loated almost at my f inger-
the Quest.” He hates to meditate; that’s why
tips. I ignored Pelgrim, calling out “Lights!” as he’s a day captain.

my first order as captain of this Quest.

“Marvelous is perhaps a strong word for it,

Ship’s spotlights played out across the

Captain,” Pelgrim said. “Comets as big as this frozen shape. Our lamps, however powerful,
one were discovered back in the Solar System,
were only candlelight caressing her darkness.

even before our colony was founded. We were

Her carbonized skin was black with cold, con-
bound to find them in our system as well.”

densed, pitted, and scarred by the passage of

“But, Pelgrim!” I said with a smile. “Imagine
eons in the comet cloud of the Tarsean sys-
our luck at being the ones to find her—and so
tem. She had been swimming out here in the
soon!” I had him. The other captains saw him
dark since creation, and no one but the distant trying to diminish their amazement for the sake stars had ever seen her. Her glowing aura had
of his argument. Their attention returned to the never been lit by our star’s harsh particle
creature outside. Pelgrim had no audience.

winds. The precious water and atmosphere

The comet spun past slowly as the Roaring
locked up within her were still virgin, uncol-

Candle spiraled around her.

lected, unsullied by any touch of gravity,

“What’s the problem, Pelgrim?” I said. “We
warmth, or life.

have found ourselves a good comet, a sublime

Catching a comet in a f ishing net of mag-
comet—and that’s why we’re out here.”

netic flux lines is a well-practiced art, but each

“With a crew of students!” Pelgrim said
beast is different; each one thrashes and tears with ill-disguised agitation. “We don’t know if at the net in its own way. That behemoth wait-a ship our size can tackle a monster like that at ing out there was as eccentric as she was
all. With a crew of children, it’s madness!”

huge. Although not big enough to pull herself

“I’d hardly call them children, Pelgrim.

into a sphere, she was nonetheless as big as a There’s not one under twenty-f ive. We were
mountain and shaped somewhat like a pair of
student crew at some point in our lives, and
rough pyramids smashed together tip to tip.

yet—here we are.”

Starlight glinted in her many eyes. She was

“They’re students!” he said in a breathless
cold. She was as cold as creation’s coldest mo-protest.

ment. Her thick, carbon hide was frozen so

“And this will help them to grow up,” I said
tightly that none of our magnetic harpoons
evenly. “Maybe she’ll grow us all up, Pelgrim.

could penetrate. She would require direct con-

Maybe even you.”

tact. We would have to go out and jumpstart,

His dark, sullen face grew even more sullen.

by hand, the plasma engines that would drive

“I take it then you are voting for capture?”

her to Tarse. I would get to touch her, to walk

“Oh, I am insisting on it.”

about on her and let her massive, dark being

He turned tightly and strode back to his
fill my horizon.

post.

The Roaring Candle orbited slowly in spi-I gave instructions to communications offi-
rals around her, caressing her with laser light cer Moolchand to radio full reports back to
until she had no secret untold. She was on

University HQ every ten minutes, even if only
record now as the biggest comet ever found
a “no update” time check. I wanted University
in this system. I was breaking my own record.

to know where we were, exactly, in case that

I had also brought in the previous “biggest
giant comet decided to take us someplace
comet ever found,” one less than half the size else. Her core was enormous, massive, and
of this. The Roaring Candle has harpooned dense. She was rich. A shroud of water en-many a comet. The bright cities of Tarse in
closed her, enough water for a lake, enough
their glass-lined caverns breathe comet air
water to run as a wild river through the
that I have brought them from the Outer
canyons of home. We had been out on this

Dark.

run in the cold dark for only a month. I sat a Day Captain Pelgrim remained at my elbow,
moment longer, lost in the vision of our won-
glaring.

derful monster.

88

RAMONA LOUISE WHEELER

APRIL 2015

Grace Wing came over to stand beside me
comet-towing operations. The callosum also
on the callosum, close enough that her per-
coordinates the teaching activities for the
fume distracted me from the comet. “You see
ship’s student crew.

any problem with this? Seriously?” She spoke

I am the seventh captain, the “weekend
very quietly, so that only I could hear.

captain.” I can hold any position on the ship

“Seriously?” I said. “No.” I gave her a reas-
should a sudden replacement be needed
suring smile. “Those extra students are extra
somewhere, anywhere—from shipboard envi-
brains and brawn to throw a net around this
ronmentalist to ship’s mechanic. So in times
leviathan and haul her in. Think of it, Grace.

such as this, I am in command: the odd man

We go out with an extra-big crew of student
out, the seventh vote. The six captains had
ice-keteers, and—lo and behold—we find an
not been able to make up their collective
extra-big comet. They were meant for each
minds about this behemoth of a comet, so I
other. Who am I to deny them?”

had been called on duty to the callosum

“As long as you’re happy,” she said.

bridge at the tip of the pyramid of command.

“I’m happy.”

This was now my Quest. She was my

“Okay.” She shrugged. “Then I’m going
comet. I was going to ride this leviathan
back to bed. I have to be on duty again in
home—icebergs of frozen thunder crashing
three hours.” She left, giving me that smile.

on the sand.

I hurried through the rest of the routine

Once in her precise orbit, the Roaring Can-bridge checks to begin evaluating the comet
dle began to unwind the centriole, the golden and how to take her. Then I followed Grace.

band of filigree-foil and crystals, many kilome-She and I work well together.

ters long, that directs the electromagnetic
fields controlling the comet. The centriole is a As the weekend captain, I am the peace-ring-grid spun out around the comet’s center
maker. Mine is the tie-breaking vote that saves of gravity and closed with a Moebius twist.

the bridge captains from the paralysis of their Theories varied about why the twist, but no
conflicting wills. In a very real sense, howev-one argued that the ring would not work with-
er, I am in charge, even though the Roaring out it. The discovery of the twist was acciden-Candle is a training ship and supposedly run tal, proving once again the vital role that
as a democracy. We are really out here to hunt human error plays in the advancement of sci-comets, so when we are about to be so wildly
entif ic knowledge and hard technology. The
successful, I am in charge.

gold-foil filigree is made of intricate fractal pat-There are seven captains on a comet ship,
terns, diatoms of gold with faceted crystal in-and their command is divided among the
sets. These cr ystals were once worn as
three sections of the tri-bridge: the starbridge, jewelry. Now they tune and stabilize the elec-the Oortbridge, and the callosum. The star-
tromagnetic fields to create the hot plasma jar bridge section controls the body of the ship it-which spins the comet and hurls it sunward
self.

The Oortbridge controls the
on the raw harmonics of ionized hydrogen,
plasma-magnetic f ields that are used to cap-
creation’s most primal stuff. My student crew
ture, hold, and navigate the comet into
and I were going to control that unthinkable

Tarsean orbit. They are called “captains” be-
power and take this comet home.

cause they are the heads of their sections.

They make decisions without consulting com-

When they land comets on Tarse, the
mittees.

comet ice-keteers guide them down gently, al-

“The left hand spins the comet and the
ways at night. The plasmonics that f ire their right hand steers the ship.”

flight glow with angelic light, casting a lovely Three bridge posts, each with two captains,
whiteness brief ly on the iron-hard, rust-red
the dayshift and the nightwatch. That’s the six landscape below, f loating down like giant
captains. Starbridge and Oortbridge captains
snowflakes, spinning inside golden rings.

take their orders from the captain in the callo-The precious air and water contained in the
sum command-post between them. The callo-
comets are released to the atmosphere, which
sum-bridge links the starbridge and
is, comet by comet, becoming thicker and

Oortbridge, coordinating the comet-hunt and
wetter. In a thousand years, humanity has

DANCING IN THE DARK

89

ANALOG
trebled the pressure. Life is oozing out of the Out here among the comets, we face each
air onto the sterile soil. The buried cities and other with our masks removed. We have free-homesteads of Tarse are built into the side
dom to look at each other with our fingertips
canyons and protected gullies of Grander
and skin, with our monkey-selves. We have

Canyon, in the deep valley where pressure is
time for the slower senses that work in the
greatest. Life grows plentiful and lush in the dark. We were born under an alien sun, and
network of f issures and caverns there. Up
we are nourished by the light of each other in above, on the plains of Tarse, are the prison-the dark of the Outer Rim. There is nothing
factories where oxygen is beaten out of the
darker than the Outer Rim, where comets
rocks, literally, by hand.

roam.

The air on Tarse, denser now than in a bil-

I am one hundred and eight Terran years
lion years, does not come only from the oxides old. On Tarse, I am only fifty-three, but trees I bound up in the soil and rocks. Comet ships
planted as a child in the parks of Coyote De-
like mine, the Roaring Candle, have been cap-pot have now grown faces through ancient
turing comets for seven hundred years. We
bark. I recognize in them the faces of friends send them raining down into the dry throats of I’ve buried. Fist-sized fruits that fit in my palm the canyons of home. The minerals of the
are curved like tiny skulls.

comet crystallize as the plasma cools. These

I could walk off the stage with honors and a
comet-made cr ystals scatter through the
parade. Tarse loves a parade. Mansions await
canyons, to be gathered up by children as life-me beneath topaz skies. The gravity of Tarse
time souvenirs. The water from the Outer
would feel solid and planet-sized after nearly a Zone condenses in the midnight cold as pond-century of ship’s decks under my feet, decks
sized splashes running through the dry canyon
quivering with the imperfect engines of cen-
sand, heralded by clouds of vapor that are the trifugal gravity and ion drive. Yet there is al-first blush of air meeting Tarse.

ways one more comet, one more Quest,

I watched the comets landing when I was
finding another miracle in the dark. When I revery small, small and new enough that the
tire, I will arrive raining down on a snowflake magical vision of glowing icebergs f loating
as big as the sky; crystal eggs will break open down the canyons transformed me utterly, so
over the canyons, and water, bright as sun-
that the course of my life was guided as surely shine, will spill out.

as a comet itself. I had no choice but to do
anything and everything that would lead me

Grace Wing came in to tell me that the
to comets, more comets, bigger and bigger
rover team was suiting up. It had come time ficomets, sending me deeper into the outer
nally to go out and touch the comet.

black to hurl comets against Tarse, lighting the I put on three pair of spider-silk thermals.

midnight landscape, filling the thin air. That’s The eggman, the mobile suits we wear for
all I’ve ever done and ever will do. I’ve gotten working outside the ship, keep in bio-warmth,
old at it, and good.

but the cold of the outer dark is psychological cold. Only ritual lets you believe you are warm.

Everyone on the comet-ship is married to

The eggman, as it is named, is a spacesuit plus someone else on the comet-ship. Some of the
private vehicle. The egg comparison is over-
marriages are circadian, some are not, but
simplified; the ovoid surface bristles with wal-every breakfast conversation is about the
does, attitude jets, tools, and patch-ins. The comet. Everybody gets out of bed in pursuit of egg-tip is the helmet, clear all around. I like the Questing Beast. Driving passions are need-that. I like to look up and see stars over my
ed to survive in the outer dark. Partners in
head. The egg-shaped design is a compromise
failed marriages transfer to other ships and
between the need for instant access and exit
other quests. Our group was still on its “slow while maintaining control in micro-gravity. The boat to China” part of the voyage. These hon-comets are the magic that becomes the crystal
eymoons were fresh, and everybody was
eggs of Tarse, and the ice-keteers are herds-
showing off. I knew I could count on these
men, the shepherds, the comet cowboys.

hot shots to do their best. The reflexes of pas-I did have complete faith in the ability of sion walk such a keen edge.

those kids to steer the comet. I reminded my-

90

RAMONA LOUISE WHEELER

APRIL 2015
self sternly that they were not kids, yet I had a

“A hundred years ago, dear Grace, I was just
brief vision of myself riding a comet bareback a brat stealing cocoa beans from my uncle’s
to Tarse because they could not catch me. I
trees, bragging to my friends about how far I
shook it away.

could spit.”

Grace, in her eggman, was perched at the

“And I wasn’t born yet.”

velvet-black arch where the pyramids met.

“Your mother wasn’t born yet.”

Her suit, lit from within, was a glowing, jew-

“I know for a fact that my grandmother is
eled egg enclosing the treasure of her face, the madly in love with you.”

raven-wing sweep of her hair. I dialed up

“She can probably spit further than I can,
binoculars to see her eyes. She was happy.

too.” I said that to make her laugh, and she

The adrenaline thrill of this ride was working did. I’ve always been able to make Grace
its magic on her. She had her binoculars dialed laugh. If I ever lose that, I’ll jump out an air-up as well, looking at me. She tilted her head, lock.

and we smiled face to face.

“This could be the last time we do this,” she

“Care to go for a stroll, Captain?” she ra-
said then. “You’ve found your magical comet,
dioed.

the biggest that ever will be found—now you

I answered by lifting off from the comet’s
can go back to Tarse and retire. This is the last darkness, bouncing across the frozen surface
time we’ll do this, walking together, holding
to land beside her, touching her eggman-suit
hands on a new comet that’s the biggest there
with mine. Starlight and the soft blue guide
ever was. I want a hundred years more of you.

lights of the surface teams were ref lected in I don’t want this to be the last.”

her eyes. The centriole was a flashing curve of I was startled, to say the least, giddy and
golden fire overhead. We both have privately
solemn at once, because my Grace was, most
modif ied spacesuits, with miniature airlock
often, a silent woman, more eloquent with a
valves at hand-holding level. It’s awkward but look or a touch than a month’s conversation
it works. We held hands and rolled off gently
with another. It is impossible not to wonder
across the comet, drifting purposefully to the what goes on behind those eyes, yet I had
far side of its black bulk, to the absolute priva-been too absorbed in comet lore to see the
cy of the Outer Dark above our heads.

magic right in front of me. I did not have

There was a delightfully adolescent thrill in
enough time left to make that mistake. I am,
actually touching her f ingertips this way, in after all, one hundred and eight, not f ifty-this place. It was something that we did a
three. We f loated there in the absolute dark
hundred times a day on shipboard and have
beneath the golden band, f ingertips warm
done thousands of times, but to be here in
and electric in touch, the bonds between us
this magical place, untouched since creation,
nearly visible. I needed to say something as po-this was unique. The newness of this comet
tent, as enduring as what she had said, but the made the magic of fingertips and skin as pow-Universe was ref lected shining in her eyes.

erful as the first time, more exhilarating than Nothing in words could touch the perfect
falling in love all over again. The speaker be-thrill of her.

side my ear rustled with her sigh. She, too,

I didn’t get the chance to answer. We were
was trembling. The curve of the eggshell hel-
interrupted by the radio signal that the kids on met made a starlight sheen over her face,
board the Roaring Candle were ready to ig-making her insubstantial, an angel of golden
nite the centriole.

shadows in some other dimension. Her soul

In spite of everything I’d said to Pelgrim, I
was full and sweet in her eyes, dark honey,
was still thinking of them as kids. I had to
warm. No wonder I was so in love. Who
work on that. Grace and I separated our hand-
could not love a being of so many crystalline
link to go back to our posts monitoring the ig-layers, beautifully complex, dark and brilliant nition of the centriole. I turned one last time at once?

to look at her, jeweled and sparkling against

“I wish I had met you a hundred years ago,”

the permanent stars. She made me feel, for
she said softly. She did not use the radio. The that instant, young and new enough that I was
low, solemn thrill of her voice came through
in a dream world where you can turn to look
the handlink to me alone.

at your beloved behind you.

DANCING IN THE DARK

91

ANALOG

The cold dark of space has no forgiveness

“Would you like to take me home now,
for loving fantasy.

ma’am?” I was breathless for a lot of reasons.

I miscalculated the power of the turn, jet-

“Sorry, Captain. I used the last control I had ting myself out instead into the tenuous fabric left linking up with you out here.”

of nothingness, spinning away into a void of

The coldest comet in creation was going to
my own making, f loating free. I cued the
be diff icult to tame. I heard her signaling for eggman for the return, prepared to do the or-the Roaring Candle, her voice carr ying bital mathematics in my head if necessary,
through the handhold valve that linked us. I

It didn’t matter if I could or couldn’t. I had began to wonder seriously about the fail-safe
prowled for too long on the ultra-cold comet.

backups on the suit life-supports. Grace’s

My eggman had frozen; the attitude jets and
voice through the link became tenser.

controls had shut down, and I was helplessly

“Your eggman must be in better shape than
spinning away.

mine,” I said. “It lasted longer.”

Grace’s call in the radio seemed a million

After a moment’s silence she said, “No.” She
kilometers away. Visual cues of distance out in patiently explained then that I had used extra the ether mean nothing, constantly shifting
fuel in order to move to her at the comet sur-
and confusing. I saw her face both as close as face, therefore, my eggman must have been
a kiss and as far away as the stars.

better maintained. That’s Grace.

I swallowed down panic; I was too old to re-

We were, meanwhile, tumbling slowly but
act like a green spacer caught in his first missurely away from both the comet and the
take—or his last.

Roaring Candle. The view was totally breath-Grace’s eggman-lights were fireflies swarm-
taking. We held hands through the airlock
ing toward me. “I’m coming, Captain,” she
valve and waited. From this point on, it was all tight-beamed to me.

video games. My trusty crew of student space-

“No!” For a frightened moment, my denial
men would prove if they were true comet ice-
seemed strong enough to push me even fur-
keteers or only apprentice sorcerers.

ther away, but it didn’t matter because Grace
wouldn’t listen. She was swooping towards

It was a slow motion rescue. Grace and I
me, navigation lights ablaze. I was not seeing missed the last of it, because the life support the distortion of vision in a vacuum. I had to backups did not backup long enough, forcing
turn inside the eggman to keep her in sight as us to resort to deep meditation, then unconI tumbled in slow motion away. Grace became
sciousness, to make our oxygen last until we
my orienting star. The comet was now below
were rescued. I missed, therefore, seeing the
and behind my f ield of view. Galaxy light
comet break herself in half.

sparkled in the dark.

In order to catch us safely, the Oortbridge

Then I heard the main signal she broadcast
crew had had to interrupt the centriole firing to the tri-bridge. “The Captain’s eggman has
in mid-stroke, which destabilized the ungainly misfired, gentlemen,” she said calmly. “Could
mating and left the two halves in a slight but you get someone onto this?” She might have
perceptible orbit about one another.

been asking a waiter for a glass of ice water.

By the time I was awake enough to look,

I fashioned a mental image of my eggman
the two cold, dark pyramid shapes were
prof ile dwindling away to navigation lights
waltzing around each other with leviathan
blinking against the stars, f lashing once and rhythm. I watched the playbacks for hours
gone. Grace would have nothing of it. She ma-
while resting up in sickbay, with cold dark
neuvered herself in the awkward eggman
thoughts orbiting my brain in the same incom-
shape as elegantly as she danced in any gravity prehensible dance.

f ield, then carefully linked her handhold air-Then those kids, bless them, made a bet
lock with mine. In mid flight, we were hold-
with me—and through me, with Pelgrim.

ing hands again, tumbling on slowly together.

Suddenly, I felt younger than all of them to-

“I thought I’d keep you company until the
gether. I had been so locked onto the Quest-
kids get here,” she said through the handlink.

ing Beast that the idea of flinging her away to

“They aren’t kids,” I said breathlessly.

go in search of her master was beyond me. I

“You’re damn straight they aren’t.”

might have thought of that on my deathbed,

92

RAMONA LOUISE WHEELER

APRIL 2015
but these kids had given me the jump on it.

the fleet. It was time to gorge on comets. The They wanted to know what had knocked that
outer dark was throwing snowballs at our star.

enormous double pyramid of a comet out of

There were lifetimes of fun to be had here,
its complacent path, a path billions of years
with enough water to drench the sands of
long. She was already on her way toward our

Tarse.

star, much too swiftly. What had shunted her

Meanwhile, I watched Pelgrim grow more
onto that new path?

sullen, tense, and distracted. He kept tying up I had been content with a comet to retire
computer time with some mysterious orbital
on. These innocent youths wanted a grander
mechanics, the kind that kids learn in order to conclusion to this voyage. They were truly in-play virtuality games. None of us had played in nocent enough to know they could have it.

years—we worked with the real thing all day

They bet me that if they could send that behe-
and dreamed of it at night. Pelgrim used com-
moth safely onto a course toward Tarse, then I puters, hoarding the data like a neurotic drag-would let them track her back to her previous
on. I left him alone and paid close attention
realm, deep in the Outer Rim. They were in
whenever he said anything.

quest of that still larger beast which had star-Pelgrim refused to believe in coincidence or
tled her into the light. They were young; they even luck. The mere suggestion that we were
were in love. How could I deny them the won-
destined to be out here at this gathering of a der of it? The bet was made, with Pelgrim
plethora of comets was enough to make him
lodging a formal complaint with the universi-
storm out muttering. Thus, when Oort-Cap-
ty. We let him.

tain Matholooch reported the sighting of a

Nothing succeeds in a marriage quite like

“shy comet, one that changes its position
success. Pheromones taxed the ventilators
every time we shine light on it,” some dis-
like orchids from the Twilight Zone. Those tance ahead, I put Pelgrim on it, with full over-lovely boys strove to look good in the eyes of ride priority. I think he was almost happy for a their lovely brides, and the ladies were not go-moment there. Grace said he was happy.

ing to let them mess it up. They trusted them-

As we approached this “shy comet,” she
selves because I trusted them, and “agitator X”

turned an unusual face to us, as though wink-
was f ixed in our scopes as surely as Ahab’s
ing in the dark to get our attention, but un-
whale. We just had to f igure out which blip
willing to be seen
was X.

Pelgrim found nothing in any physics text to

As it turned out, they all were.

explain a “shy comet,” but there was plenty in It was not simply one monster out in the biology texts for it. Our Questing Beast turned Deep Rim that had knocked our comet loose,
out to be a very different animal, indeed.

but a baker’s dozen of them. A once-in-an-eon

Passive receivers, such as our long range
gathering had become a cluster of comets
scopes, would report the little comet as being cruising through the comet zone, scattering
suddenly brighter, active in a portion of the
everything around like bats in a storm. They

EM-band where comets do not usually emit,
were hunks of ice and rock so big that they
yet when we turned long range lasers on her
had squeezed themselves down into almost-
to look at her in some better light, we saw
spheres, bulging, broken, knocked-up bottles
nothing but the relentless dark of an inactive, of primal waters, moon-sized gulps of life to
frozen comet. If we just looked at her, the
steer toward Tarse. Could we bring one back
brightness and radiation returned, peekaboo
as proof ? Could we pluck even one megalithic
style, as if the bright side of the comet could Goliath from the outer dark? Could we spin a
only be seen, as it were, out of the corner of planetesimal the size of a moon and play the
the ship’s eye. It was not just an eccentric pat-biggest game of pinball ever played?

tern of rotation: As long as we did not shine

I was certain of it. I was so deliriously cer-
any light on her, she stayed bright. Shine a
tain of it that I paced the corridors of the Can-light, and she went dark.

dle like Kublai Khan pacing through Xanadu.

We decided to waste some fuel on this and

The f inal frontier was a wave cresting at our changed course to get a closer look, but even
feet. Was Kublai ever more certain of paradise from a hundred kilometer orbit, the light
than I? Calls went out to every comet-ship in

(dubbed “faery light” by the kids) continued

DANCING IN THE DARK

93

ANALOG
to elude us. From here, however, we could
they were the wagon train, but nobody fired a
see that it was not the comet but something
shot. We just took a lot of pictures, millions of on the comet, something that could move, ap-pictures. We kept our lights as dim as possible parently at will, away from the light.

and watched the creatures glowing in the ul-

We decided to have a real look and got out
tra-dark. Sometimes, we just hung there in the the eggmen, now heavily fortified against the
strange silence and looked at them.

coldest cold. Even that did not work until we

The news media picked up on our f ile
split up into seven teams of four each and lit-name for the creatures, R-O-X, for “Rocklike
erally surrounded the comet, herding the

Organism X,” and they were “rox” ever after.

eerie faery lights together so that we could see We had been given our orders: “Look—don’t
them, finally.

touch.”

There were nine of them, nine little tiny

Survey ships were still weeks away, even at
brocade asteroids, each no bigger than a cou-
top drive, so we studied the rox every way we
ple of whales. They were bright, lumpy
could think of without actually interfering
shapes, shiny as though coated in crystal, with with them, actively wondering what they
swirls and whorls of mathematically precise
would surprise us with next. As nearly as we
patterns in gold and silver on gray and black, could tell from that distance, rox biology was glowing against the comet’s cold, dark bulk.

based on superconduction, which explained

They were moving, stirring like restless ani-
their avoidance of light and their need for the mals caught in a corral. We just hung there in near absolute cold of the Outer Rim. The pre-space, lost in the wonder of it. No one, not
cise patterns of pure gold and palladium un-
even Pelgrim, was able to speak.

der the crystal “skin” f lickered and surged

Then, in a single gesture as though the im-
with incomprehensible intentions, in rhythms
pulse were carried on the sound of breathing
disturbingly similar to the electrical activity of in the radio, we all began filming and record-the human brain. But that was little more than ing at once, every camera and scope wide

“Hi, how are you?” in terms of getting to know open, broadcasting back to the Roaring Can-them.

dle at the same time in a wild tumult of data.

After a while, we realized that they were

Moolchand, on com-link back at the ship,
eating the comet. They rested on the comet’s
broke the spell with a strong enough signal to black surface like fallen baubles, absorbing her interrupt us. “What the hell is going on out
one layer at a time, molecule by molecule.

there?”

This digestion took place at the speed of su-

We all answered together, until Moolchand
perconduction. The entire precious comet
cut through the babble with a sharp whistle. I melted away in a couple of days. The nine lit-spoke then. “Get everyone out here to see
tle comet-eating rox each grew larger as they
this, Moolchand,” I ordered. “You included.

ate, until the comet was gone.

Everyone deserves to see this with their own

Then, on curious spikes of ions emitted in
eyes. Pictures just won’t do.”

careful but powerful bursts, the nine rox set

I myself hardly believed my own eyes. Why
off toward another comet a few hundred thou-
would anyone ever believe this just from pic-
sand kilometers out.

tures? I debated with myself over trying to reThe Roaring Candle followed at a respect-port this to University HQ. Their responses
ful distance, all of us experiencing an awe at over the next few days, suggesting crisply that how fast the creatures could move, accelerat-we had better not be making this up, made
ing steadily on their ion spike emissions. X-
me wish we had kept the miracle to ourselves.

rays showed them as solid inside, so we

We waited for the science teams and news-
rejected the idea that we were seeing space-
ships.

craft, piloted or otherwise, but no one had an The nine creatures gave not the slightest re-explanation for rocks that could fly. Of course, sponse to anything we did (from our discreet
no one had ever had an explanation for the pe-
distance as commanded by HQ,) except to
culiar, not-quite-there natives of Tarse, so spec-move away from any light above starlight lu-
ulation ran pretty wild. Some of it sounded
mens. The crew, in their eggmen, circled
innocent. Some of it was just acting wise, but around as though we were the Indians and
these kids could feel their brains waking up

94

RAMONA LOUISE WHEELER

APRIL 2015
on the mystery. They were demonstrating
spine was f illed in with carefully packed
some real smarts.

quartz bubbles, each with something uniden-

I had to stop thinking of them as “kids.”

tifiable inside.

Once the rox reached the next comet, they

The excitement that the Roaring Candle
decelerated with coordinated precision, orbit-
crew felt was nothing to the uproar back on
ed the new comet for a few hours, then set-

Tarse. Emotional gravity waves were shaking
tled down to begin eating her. They absorbed

Tarsean society in a dozen dimensions. Our
her quickly, and each rox expanded in size.

ancestors had come to Tarse from Earth’s So-

The increased surface area showed on them as
lar System a thousand years before in sleeper
dark bands of carbon between golden lines.

ships, but since then, we had had no contact

“We needed those comets,” Pelgrim said
from anyone other than occasional radio
darkly. He said everything darkly these days.

bursts from the home planet. The peculiar na-

He was on to something. “Aren’t we supposed tive life of Tarse was not exactly conversation-to be the ones who get the comets?”

al. We had thought we were alone out here,

Leave it to Glenn Pelgrim to find something
the only sentience among the stars. All at
wrong with f irst contact. “How long before
once, we were not alone in the galaxy any-
they get all the comets?” I asked him that be-more. Everything had changed.

cause I realized suddenly that he knew the an-

The news frenzy resulted in the launch of
swer, had worked it out and only needed
every spaceship in the system capable of trav-
someone to ask.

el to the Deep Rim. Every screen on the planet

“Just under two hundred years.” He made it
was tuned to our reports, despite the hours-
sound like twenty minutes.

long delay from our great distance. Everyone

I realized then that I loved this man as
knew how to look for “shy comets” now, and
much as Grace did, and I understood her
the rox hunt was heating up.

careful tending of his heart. Nurturing has a

The rox worked with the silent, relentless
million faces. I saw Pelgrim’s for the f irst
purposefulness of insects building dirt
time. I also saw that my own by comparison
mounds. Nothing we did attracted their atten-
was a loose and careless kind of tending. At
tion or distracted them from their work.

least I know how to keep good people

Until Grace Wing took one of their crystal
around me. I gave his information the re-
bubbles.

sponse it deserved: I called an immediate

Grace and I were on an off duty eggman
ship-wide “red alert,” and pulled everyone

“stroll,” taking it in with our own eyes, both out of their respective sacks or tasks for an
still amazed by the creatures and their
emergency powwow. We had encountered a
promise. Our eggmen were linked together
new alien life-form, and we had to chase
this time, so that “the poor old captain
them away or kill them—or else lose ten
couldn’t float away again.” Grace’s natural cu-thousand years of our own world’s future.

riosity got the better of my judgment, and she tugged me with her over to the neatly stacked

Once the nine alien rox had eaten the sec-
and enigmatic bubbles clinging to the even
ond comet, including all the boulder-sized sili-more enigmatic spine. She plucked a bubble
cates in the comet’s center, they began to
out carefully with a precision waldo and held
grow something. They grew it out of their
it at face level in front of the eggman helmet own substance, like bees pressing out hexago-to look at the mysterious shape inside with
nal plates of wax. Each rox shrank as it
her own living eyes, unmagnified, through no
worked. They grew it from the inside out, lay-
lens. Our experience with the native Shuffles
er by layer, starting with a kilometer long
of Tarse had taught us a powerful lesson about

“spine,” a segmented helix of metallic crystals the limits of our machines.

in odd alignments. They took about f ifty

The bubble was a sphere about ten cen-
hours to accomplish this. We got very good at
timeters in diameter, of hard, brilliantly clear taking pictures in the dark, recording every
quartz. The something inside was hard to look
nanometer of that structure. We watched the
at, not quite blurred yet oddly unfocused.

rest of the rox structure grow, and it looked

“It looks different now that I can see with
like almost anything. A spiral web around the
the naked eye,” she said. “Not at all like its DANCING IN THE DARK

95

ANALOG
pictures. Look.” She held it out so that I could The bubbles had to be kept ultra cold. We
see it more clearly. The link made it easier for found that out the hard way, although the ex-me to see what she was holding. Before I
plosion did not entirely wreck the laboratory
could fully focus on it, I noticed that the near-and no one was hurt too badly. That put seri-
est rox had noticed, at last, and was thrusting ous limitations on our ability to study them.

itself towards us.

The Candle just wasn’t equipped for that kind I jetted us both away, dragging Grace out of
of research. The teams catching up with us
its path, prepared to put the eggman to full
would have to f igure out what the shifting,
throttle if necessary, and we braked after a
half-seen forms inside the crystal spheres
few hundred meters to watch. The radio in
were. We just collected them.

our headsets fell silent as the rest of the crew We had no idea how the rox signaled each
got word of what was happening. The rox
other, but, like fish in a school, they worked hovered over the pile of bubbles, its bulk
with perfect coordination. When they aban-
blocking any view of what it was doing. After
doned their structure, it was in a single mo-
twenty minutes, it went back to its interrupt-
ment, all at once setting off in formation,
ed work further along the spine.

accelerating away on their curious ion drive.

The careful stacking of spheres was com-

They were out of sight before we had finished
plete again. The rox had replaced the bubble
reporting in. We lost them in the time it took that Grace had removed.

to get everyone back on board the Roaring

Grace jetted back over to the site, tugging

Candle. The crew who were off-ship in their me along, and compared the two bubble con-eggmen reported back quickly enough, but it
tainers. “Looks to me like the same thing in-
was unprecedented to have so many out at the
side,” she whispered. She whispers when
same time. They were limited to negotiating
she’s excited. She was so excited I could hard-the airlock entryways two by two for the re-
ly hear her. “Now you take one.”

turn.

I needed the automatic waldo; my hands

I made them stay long enough to buoy-mark
were trembling with the fierce rush of hope.

the abandoned spine. There was no way to

Once I had it secured, we lifted away from
load it onto the Roaring Candle. It was too the structure and hung in the void, waiting.

big and too cold. We were built for spinning

The radio was silent; everyone was waiting.

comets, not carrying them. Science resource

The rox returned, clung with massive gentle-
ships would have to retrieve it. It was too valu-ness to the layer of crystals for another twenty able a prize, even if we had no concept of
minutes, then, as patiently, returned to its
what it was.

work elsewhere.

Despite the delay, we had a head start on

This bubble had also been replaced.

the rest of the system, so it was not surprising A whoop of excitement went through the
that we found the next group of rox as well.

radios. It might have been me. Grace and I be-

They were much further along on their mys-
gan to load up with every piece we could grab
terious construction. As we arrived and
with our waldoes, filming everything like mad, spread around them to watch, they were cov-laughing and talking wildly all the while, until ering the framework with a layer of carbon
we both looked like Easter-egg trees floating in panels that blocked every kind of radiation.

space. By then, eggmen were streaming out of

An instant debate sprang up over whether
the Roaring Candle, and they descended like these were part of their original plan or sima plague of electronic locusts.

ply a means of preventing us from raiding the

Every piece we took was patiently replaced
crystal bubbles.

the same way, until the rox had all shrunk

The rox disappeared inside and pulled the
down to a third their original size and the tight last panels over themselves. Just on a whim, I swirls and metallic whorl patterns were a solid made everyone get back into the safety of the
brocade coat. By then, we had stolen about

Roaring Candle.

half of their bubbles, with the oddly spiraled Two hours later, energy readings from the
spine hanging in space, empty. Everybody was
rox construction went off the scale in every
working on solving the puzzle: Here are all the range. Just beyond it, a “hole in space” unfold-pieces—what did they do?

ed, showing a sudden exultation of stars in the 96

RAMONA LOUISE WHEELER

APRIL 2015
gap, stars too close together, too brilliant, as if with you, so do I. So any plans you make had

I could reach out with my hands and touch
better have me in them.”

them through the rift.

The people around me were getting too

Without warning, the rox construct slipped
good at second-guessing me before I’d second-
through that rift, dwindled away into the
guessed myself. It was a striking question,
starfield distortion, and was gone. The hole in though, because it would never have oc-space zipped up behind it with a wild burst of curred to me to go without Grace. I began to
radiation exploding outward that swept the
feel the distant rumble of a new and wonder-

Roaring Candle away like a twig in stormy ful excitement—I was going to the stars.

surf. In this vast emptiness, there should have There were plenty of new comet ice-keteers
been no ripples of anything; the fabric of
to escort comets down to Tarse. The wakes of
space itself was rippling around us. It was a
the rox starships were f linging them at the
hell of a ride on the Roaring Candle before re-planet. Capturing comets from now on could
ality got itself under control.

be done from a comfortable, close-to-your-

We had, at last, found out why all those
own-backyard distance.

comets had scattered out of their ancient or-

My backyard had just opened up to include
bits so far from the star: they were dancing in the galaxy and beyond. “Could we really build
the wake of alien starships sailing through,
a starship just from having watched the rox
bobbing on energy waves washing around our
build theirs?” I said.

entire stellar system. There was a hailstorm of

“We will,” he said def iantly “But that’s not
comets to come.

the point. Grace won’t let you go without her.”

“Well, of course she won’t,” I said. “Do you

Once we had put the pieces back into place
really think we can build one?”

and recovered from the shaking, Pelgrim had

“You’re f ifty-f ive years older than she is!”

a serious suggestion to make to me, so serious Pelgrim said this as if prepared for me to deny that he insisted on talking to me about it alone it. Clearly, he had been fighting with me over in my quarters. In the ten years since he
this in his head for some time.

signed onto my crew, he’s never crossed that

“Fifty-four,” I said. “But I won’t quibble.”

threshold. He made me sit down, then he

The air around him darkened, and I could
paced a little back and forth before speaking.

hear his breathing thicken. “What’s going to

“We have to talk about your idea of taking
happen to her when you’re dead and gone?”

Grace out to the stars with you,” he said. He

I remembered holding hands with Grace
really meant it.

while out on the comet’s surface, the mad

“I wasn’t actually aware that I’m going to
tumble while waiting for death or rescue. He
the stars,” I said to him, but, of course, now had asked the right question. “That’s why
that it had been said, I would never stop think-there’s two of us,” I said to him. “Who else but ing it.

you would there ever be to protect her from

“We’re either going to capture the next rox
losing me?”

starship,” he said. “Or else build our own from The f ight went out of Pelgrim then. He
the recordings and materials we have.”

stopped pacing. “You’re a bastard,” he said

Our f irst starship. Captain White Eyes on gently.

the bridge of a starship. The concept was daz-I should have let him rant a little, but he had zling. I rolled the words around in my brain for distracted me from his distress with his vision a moment, feeling them click into place. “You
of building our own starship. I shrugged, mo-
make it sound like a bad thing, Glenn.” I used tioned him to the opposite chair and pulled
his informal name, because this had nothing
open the bottom desk drawer where Grace
to do with ship’s business.

keeps a set of real glasses and a very old bot-

“You have to realize,” he continued, hold-
tle. He watched with dulling hostility while I ing his breath a moment and coloring a little.

poured us each a generous glass and pushed

“You have to realize that if you insist on chas-one toward him across my desk, but he took it
ing around the galaxy in a borrowed starship,
without hesitation.

then Grace will insist on going with you, and

“To the wonder of Grace who keeps us
you damn well better realize that if she goes
from misunderstanding each other,” I said.

DANCING IN THE DARK

97

ANALOG

“May she outlive us both.” We clinked glasses

He had stopped pacing and stood in front
solemnly and drank. Pelgrim sat back in the
of the holo-display of the Milky Way that hov-
chair and some of the f ierce tension in him
ers in an open corner of my off ice. The pro-
eased. He sat looking down at the glass in his gram was a special gift, living on ambient
hand for a long time.

light, and it’s been a long-time companion.

I poured myself another and waited. He

Pelgrim sat down to its control panel and
sighed a couple of times as though about to
proved he could make my galactic holo-dis-
speak, the sound of his powerful emotions ris-
play do some very interesting visualization
ing to words. I had undercut the angry speech
tricks, showing me some things he had al-
he had obviously rehearsed, leaving him only
ready learned from the rox. He convinced me
the raw feeling. I would need to calm him
we had a chance.

down some to get to the heart of this. He put

I made him put the Milky Way back before
the glass back on the desk, and I poured him
he left.

another. He drank it and sat staring at the glass in his hand.

We waited for the rest of Tarse to catch up

“Can we really build a starship?” I said.

and went back to studying pictures and mak-

“Yes. Just a matter of time now.” He looked at ing guesses. Were the rox even really alive?

me finally, tilting his head as though looking up There were plausible arguments both ways. If
into bright light. “I knew you would jump at
they weren’t alive, what were they? Automat-
that. You have the prestige to make it happen.”

ed starship builders? Could this be how star-

“Prestige ain’t worth smoke if we can’t un-
traveling civilizations built their starships, ravel their technique. They pull starships out sending automatons out to raid comets from
of their asses!”

other systems? I was personally most taken

“A mere technicality.”

with the realization that we had stolen from

That made me laugh. His offhand certainty
them, yet they used no violence against us.

was delightful. “Okay. The three of us are go-

They showed no weapons. Once they had had
ing to travel to the stars someday soon. What’s enough of our interference, they simply
your problem? Are you afraid of being left out?

pulled up and left. Whatever the answers to

Or of going?”

the hard questions about them, their peace-

“There’s no way of knowing what’s on the
able nature was evident. I allowed myself to
other end of that ride,” he said in protest.

believe it was evidence of the peaceable na-

“There’s one way.”

ture of the galaxy beyond, where we were

Pelgrim began to heat up again. “Can you
about to tread.

justify taking Grace into that kind of danger?”

For a thousand years, no one of Tarse has

I reminded myself that Glenn Pelgrim was a
seen anything of Earth except a twinkle in the widower, and how it happened. “Do you
night sky and ghosts of the Hollywood ma-
think she’d have it any other way? Do you
chine the Founding Families had brought
think she married me for the sake of physical
along. We forget so easily that there was ever security? Or do you maybe think I married her
anything except Tarse, no other world except
so that I could hide her away here in deep
our own rusty globe. The whole great planet
space, secure in the ultimate glass tower?”

seemed to shrink into something fragile,

“I have always thought of marriage as a mu-
dried, wispy, something that we must wrap
tual protection pact,” Pelgrim said stiff ly.

our hands around to keep from blowing away

“Back to back against the uncertainty of life.”

in the stellar winds. The mystery of the rox

He had to stand up again, pushed around by
was too solid to deny and too exciting to ig-
the conf lict of choices and feelings. He
nore.

doesn’t like to meditate. He would rather twist I had never felt my years so clearly before. I out on the ends of branches until he’s got it
had never felt so fragile. Would I live to see our right. Maybe for him that is meditation, a med-own starship assembled? Would I f ly her or
itation of results.

would they carry only my ashes to the stars?

“You’re facing the wrong way, Glenn. We’re

The time had come to hunt for shy comets
all just holding hands together so that no one with diamonds in their hair. ■
gets lost.”

98

RAMONA LOUISE WHEELER

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY Don Sakers ast month I argued that Analog readers Francis McComas. This 1946 anthology of
benefit from knowing something about
nearly 1,000 pages is the definitive collection the history of science fiction. I gave
of pre-war SF classic short fiction. Used

Lyou some resources to learn more copies are readilyavailable for less than this about the development of the field and the
copy of Analog you’re reading.

personalities involved.

Next, you’ll want to look for The Science

But the essence of SF’s history is the works

Fiction Hall of Fame series. Volume 1, edit-themselves, the books and stories that caught
ed by Robert Silverberg, contains over 500
the minds, hearts, and imaginations of gener-
pages of classic short stories from 1929-1964.

ations of readers. More than events or people, These stories were chosen by vote of the Sci-these classic works are the history of science ence Fiction Writers of America as “the
fiction. Unfortunately, many of SF’s classics
greatest science fiction stories of all time.”

aren’t as available as in days of yore.

Volumes 2A and 2B, edited by Ben Bova, con-

The good news is that they’re out there.

tain similarly-chosen novellas from the same

Many SF classics are in print or e-books in
time period. All three of these volumes have
small-press editions, self-published by the au-stood the test of time.

thors or their heirs, or (at worst) available as Another classic anthology is A Treasury of
fairly cheap used books. Search and you

Great Science Fiction (2 volumes) edited by
should find.

Anthony Boucher. This 1959 omnibus from

One place to start is with awards. You can
the Science Fiction Book Club contains just
get a fairly good grounding in book-length
short of 1,100 pages of quality SF.

classics by searching out the Hugo and Nebu-

In 1965 SFWA began voting the annual
la winning novels of each year. For added

Nebula Award to short fiction as well as nov-
depth, you might want to consider including
els. A single volume containing short fiction
each year’s nominees as well. Be sure to in-
winners and runners-up has been published
clude the Retro Hugo Awards, which are giv-
just about every year since then, with a dif-
en retroactively for years before the regular
ferent editor each year. Titles have also var-

Hugos started in 1955.

ied: Nebula Award Stories X, Nebula It’s going to be a bit more difficult to put

Awards X, and Nebula Awards Showcase X
your hands on all the classic pieces of short
are common, where X is either an integer or
fiction in the field. After all, it’s been 89 years a year. Used volumes are fairly easily avail-

(to the month, coincidentally) since Amaz-
able.

ing Stories fir st appeared—that’s nine In addition, SFWA has continued the Sci-decades of short fiction.

ence Fiction Hall of Fame series, reprinting Fortunately, dedicated anthologists have

Nebula-winning stories for a range of years.

been plowing through those nine decades

Volume 3 covers 1965-1969 and volume 4
ever since the late 1940s. There are plenty of 1970-1974.

good anthologies filled with the best of the

Short fiction Hugo winners have been
best.

compiled into periodic collections. The

First, find a copy of Adventures in Time

Hugo Winners volumes 1-5 (all edited by and Space, edited by Raymond J. Healy and J.

Isaac Asimov) cover 1955-1982, while the

99

ANALOG

New Hugo Winners volumes 1-4 (with vari-ISBN: 978-1-77085-264-8
ous editors) cover 1983-1993.

Genre: Nonfiction

This next batch of books can be somewhat
harder to come by, but they’re definitely

Speaking of the history of the field, here’s
worth the effort.

an absolutely gorgeous book with appeal to

Starting in 1979, Isaac Asimov and Martin
every SF fan, from the oldtimer who started

H. Greenberg edited a series for DAW Books
reading with Gernsback to the newest Millen-
called Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF
nial-generation devotee of anime and dystopi-

Stories X, with X an integer between 1 and an movies. And everyone in between.

25. Each volume presented the best SF sto-

This dense, full-color tome is packed with
ries of a particular year, staring with 1939.

pictures and chock-full of information. The

With publication notes on each story by
author takes a modified chronological ap-

Greenberg and historical notes by Asimov,
proach, spending anywhere from a single
these volumes are a treasure trove of classic
page to a multi-page chapter on each of hun-

SF short fiction. These books are in great de-
dreds of topics: authors, books, magazines,
mand; don’t be surprised if prices on the
movies, tv shows, games, and short stories.

used market are higher than you’d expect.

For each there’s a timeline, pictures, and col-Volumes beyond 20 must have had smaller
or-coded categories.

print runs, as they’re much harder to find. Al-For example, the entry on Starship Troop-
though they were published as mass market
ers comes in 1959 and covers the original ser-paperbacks, at least a few volumes were of-
ial, the book, various games (board and
fered in hardcover by the Science Fiction
video), movies both animated and live-action,

Book Club.

comics, and discussions of the book’s influ-Another well-beloved series from the late
ence on the subgenres of both Space Opera

1970s and early 1980s is the Ballantine
and Military SF. And all of this in just two

Classic Library of Science Fiction. Each vol-pages.

ume focused on one big name SF author; in

You’ll want this book as a reference source
addition to short fiction, each contained an
covering everything of importance in the SF
introductory essay by another big name au-
field from 1885 to the mid-2000s. But you’ll
thor. These books had a fairly uniform look
find yourself dipping into it at random, sur-
and titles: Best of (Author’s Name). I facing hours later wondering where the time
haven’t been able to find a complete list of
went. From a full chronology of the Flash
these, but there were easily two dozen of

Gordon universe to the connection between them. If you can think of a big name of the

The Jetsons and Twelve Monkeys, there’s period, there was likely a volume devoted to
more than enough in this book to please and
them. Used copies are fairly common and
amaze any SF enthusiast.

usually inexpensive.

There have been too many annual “year’s

Twelve Tomorrows
best” anthologies to keep track of, by too
edited by Bruce Sterling
many editors and under too many title varia-

Technology Review, Inc., 230 pages, $12.95
tions. Be on the lookout in particular for such (trade paperback)

volumes edited by Terry Carr, Brian Aldiss

Kindle: $9.99 (e-book)

and Harry Harrison, and Judith Merril. Don-

Genre: Original Anthology
ald A. Wollheim’s Annual World’s Best SF anthologies, published for nearly twenty years

Since 2011 the MIT Technology Review has starting in 1972, deserve special mention.

produced an annual anthology of original sci-

If you can track down and read even half
ence fiction stories by leading authors in the of these books, you’ll be rewarded with the
field. As you’d expect, the stories are oriented best that science fiction has to offer.

toward technology, exploring the effect of
tech upon societies and people. In other

Sci-Fi Chronicles
words, right down Analog’s alley.

Guy Haley

Here you’ll find nine stories by familiar

Firefly, 576 pages, $29.95 (trade paperback)

names such as Pat Cadigan, Cory Doctorow,

100

DON SAKERS

APRIL 2015

William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling, as well as When Adrian Sommers lost his son in a dri-some less familiar ones: Lauren Beukes,
ving accident, he devoted his life to develop-

Christopher Brown, Warren Ellis, Joel Gar-
ing technology to capture and preserve a dy-
reau, and Paul Graham Raven. There’s also an
ing per son’s memories and
interview with Gene Wolfe conducted by Ja-
personality—”soul,” if you will—until it can
son Pontin, a review of Stanislaw Lem’s Sum-be reinserted into a new or repaired body.

ma Technologiae, and a full-color gallery of Sommers calls this technology Soulminder.

art by John Schoenherr, one of SF’s trailblazing In true SF fashion, Zahn explores the impli-artists and a name that should be familiar to
cations of Soulminder, especially unintended

Analog readers (in fact, six of the twelve illus-consequences. Sommers confronts extortion,
trations originally appeared in this magazine).

legal issues, and criminal use of his technolo-With such a lineup you’d expect the stories
gy as Soulminder’s ripples spread through so-
to be good, and they don’t disappoint. Pat
ciety. And then the military gets involved. . . .

Cadigan’s “Business as Usual” is a story of the Zahn is a master storyteller, and Soulmin-Internet of Things: a tale of a wise old grandder is a fast-paced thriller as well as an intel-mother and a refrigerator with personal trou-
lectual delight. Whether or not you encoun-
bles. “The Shipping Forecast,” by Warren El-
tered the original Soulminder stories, you
lis, pits plate-girdling market forces against owe it to yourself to give this one a try.

one woman with technology on her side. Joel

Garreau’s “Persona” tells of a global arms race Dark Lightning
in the field of cognitive enhancement. In

John Varley

Bruce Sterling’s “The Various Mansions of the

Ace, 352 pages, $26.95 (hardcover)

Universe,” a bioengineered couple travels a

Kindle: $10.99, iBooks, Nook: $12.99
posthuman world in search of their dream

ISBN: 978-0-425-27407-1
house. The other stories are equally thought-

Series: Thunder and Lightning 4
provoking.

Genre: Hard SF, Space Opera, Trips in Space

If you enjoy the stories in Analog, you’re certain to find much to like in Twelve Tomor-John Varley’s Thunder and Lightning series
rows.

is a chronicle of new technology and its con-
sequences, both intended and unintended.

Soulminder

In the first book, Red Thunder (2004), in-Timothy Zahn
ventor Jubal Broussard creates a new technol-

Open Road, 326 pages, $14.99 (trade paper-
ogy, the Squeezer, which compresses matter
back)

to yield immense energy. Using the Squeezer
iBooks, Kindle: $9.99, Nook: $10.49
as the basis of a space drive, Jubal and his mis-ISBN: 978-1-4976-4620-9
fit friends cobble together a makeshift space-

Genre: Biological SF, Philosophical/Religious
ship and beat America and China to the first

SF
landing on Mars. Red Lightning (2007) takes place about twenty years later and follows the Long-time Analog readers, please cast your adventures of two children of the original
minds back to 1989. In that year, two stories

Martian colonists as they cope with political
by Timothy Zahn appeared in these pages: “I
unrest following a planetwide disaster on

Pray the Lord My Soul to Keep” in the January

Earth.

issue, and “The Hand That Rocks the Casket”

Book Three, Rolling Thunder (2009), car-in the November issue. Then in the October
ries the story into a third generation, as a

1991 issue came “Guilt by Association.”

young woman in the Martian Navy travels to

These three stories dealt with the same char-

Europa and faces a threat to the entire Solar
acters and situations. Since then, frustrated

System.

readers have been asking for more—and final-

Now Dark Lightning concludes the saga. It ly, Zahn delivers.

takes place aboard a huge starship (called

In Soulminder, Zahn expands the three

Rolling Thunder) made from a hollowed-out stories and adds extra material to form the
asteroid and powered by yet another magical
novel that we’ve all been waiting to read.

technology created by Jubal Broussard. The

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

101

ANALOG
crew of Rolling Thunder are on their way to Beyond Human: Engineering Our Future

New Earth; they spend most of the voyage in

Evolution
suspended animation, with periodic awaken-

Erik Seedhouse
ings.

Springer, 153 pages, $19.99 (trade paperback)

The voyage goes well, until the day Jubal

ISBN: 978-3-662-43525-0
himself emerges from stasis with startling

Series: Science and Fiction
news: the ship must come to a stop, or every-

Genre: Nonfiction
one aboard is doomed. Since Jubal’s the only
one who really understands the technology

The usual pattern for a book in Springer’s
that powers the ship, of course everyone is

Science and Fiction series is a work of SF fol-concerned. Half the crew trusts Jubal, and the lowed by essays examining the science be-other half think he’s lying. Mutiny hangs in
hind the fiction. Beyond Human is a depar-the air.

ture: it’s just the essays, apparently without It falls to Jubal’s twin daughters, Cassie and any accompanying fiction.

Pollux, to determine the truth.

In reality, the SF is there; it’s just not conLike the other three, Dark Lightning is an tained within the covers. Beyond Human
unabashed homage to Robert A. Heinlein. If
was inspired by Ridley Scott’s 1982 movie
you’re not a Heinlein fan, you should proba-

Blade Runner (which in turn was inspired by bly steer clear. But for anyone who has fond

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by memories of those old Heinlein “juveniles”

Philip K. Dick.)

like The Rolling Stones, Time for the Stars, Erik Seedhouse is a spaceflight consultant
and Have Space Suit, Will Travel, this whole and triathlon coach, and in this book he sur-series is not to be missed.

veys the state of the art in human biological
enhancement: genetics, genetic engineering,

A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Nonfiction cloning, organ transplants, bioprinting, and

Terry Pratchett
evolutionary engineering. Along the way he

Doubleday, 307 pages, $26.95 (hardcover)

reviews such topics as genetic enhancement

ISBN: 978-3-385-53830-5
of athletes, customized astronauts, underwa-

Genre: Nonfiction
ter humans, and super-soldiers.

The book is well-written and fully illustrat-

Sir Terry Pratchett, best known as the au-
ed in color. As Seedhouse conducts the read-
thor of the hilarious Discworld series, is an in-er on this journey, he doesn’t stop with tech; ternational figure with millions of fans world-he fully explores the social and ethical chal-
wide. He is also a consistent voice of reason
lenges of the technologies he covers. He re-
and compassion. Since 2007, when he was di-
mains conscious of the role of science fiction agnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease,
in all this, and relates his material to examples he has been a leader in the fight against the
from SF books, stories, and video.

disease, as well as a right-to-die activist.

All told, this is an excellent volume that

A Slip of the Keyboard collects dozens of reads like the best science fact articles in Ana-pieces of Pratchett’s nonfiction, most of
log. SF writers in particular will want to read them short enough to read at one sitting. The

Beyond Human as a reference, but it’s also a topics include writing, fantasy and science
rewarding read for anyone who enjoys specu-
fiction, autobiography, politics, religion, hulating on the frontiers of current science.

mor, Alzheimer’s, assisted dying, and many

And now I’m out of space—so like the ear-
others.

ly days of SF, I’m history. Until next time, en-Forget the fact that Pratchett is a profound
joy.

thinker, a great communicator, and perhaps
the funniest man in literature today . . . he’s a hell of a good writer, and these essays sparkle Don Sakers is the author of Children of the and fizz with delightful energy. Pick up the

Eighth Day and Meat and Machine. For book, open it at random, and start reading. If more information, visit www.scattered-
you’re not caught in three lines, then you’re
worlds.com. ■
not human.

102

DON SAKERS

BRASS TACKS
ear Trevor,
was solid—but suspected that the further link

I thoroughly enjoyed your December
from the latter to celare/helan might prove to 2014 guest editorial “A Choice of Apoc-be a bit, er, speculative. I like the independent Dalypses”byHoward V.Hendrix.I want inheritances from a shared Proto-Indo-Euro-to applaud you for making extensive use of
pean original, though. “Fountainhead” may be
guest editorials; I believe they add a richness the wrong metaphor since, as you suggest,
of content and perspective that serves your
they are more likely siblings than parent and
magazine (and audience) well. I know that
child.

when I read the editorials of other magazines I Howard Hendrix
sometimes come away thinking that the editor
didn’t have anything compelling to say but

Dear Mr. Quachri:

needed to meet a deadline. Excellent job!

I enjoyed “Predictable Futures: Climate Fic-

Jack Courtney
tion and Climate Fact” by Dr. Anderegg. Too

Punta Gorda, FL
few popular news sources—TV and newspa-
pers—cover feedback mechanisms such as

Dear Analog,
those discussed by Dr. Anderegg. Additionally, Since I majored in linguistics at college, I
most discussion I’ve seen are oriented toward
was surprised to see Mr. Hendrix write [“A
returning our climate to, say, 1970. It would

Choice of Apocalypses,” December 2014] that
be interesting to see discussions about
the Greek word “kalyptein, meaning ‘to whether it be better to go to a different
cover’ . . . is the fountainhead of celare in decade.

Latin, and helan in both Old High German Everyone seems to think that we just need
and Old English. . . .” Words that show up with to get back to what we remember as good.

a k in Greek, c in Latin, and h in Germanic Might be a good idea for a SF/alternative histo-languages are seldom (if ever) words that orig-ry story.

inated in Greek and then were borrowed into

Ernest Schlich
other languages. Rather, these are words that

Norfolk, VA
each language had independently inherited

(and variously changed in sound) from a Pro-

Dear Analog,
to-Indo-European original: these three words

Thank you for publishing Ron Gould’s letter
are related as siblings, not as parent and chil-in the October issue, in which Mr. Gould felt
dren. (Although it is easy to suppose that any Grey Rollins’s “Determined Spirits” [Janu-word resembling a Greek one must have been
ary/February 2014] was so politically propa-
borrowed from Greek, in this case the suppo-
gandistic that he couldn’t see himself reading sition is wrong. It is like supposing that, be-any more Analog stories! I had forgotten the cause the hands of humans and gorillas both
story, and his letter sent me back to it. I am have five fingers, gorillas must descend from
glad.

humans.)

I read it more carefully this time, and it re-

Kate Gladstone
warded me more, I think because it lacks the
kind of personal relationship hook or senti-

The author responds . . .

mental bang that communicates the experi-

My thanks to Kate Gladstone for her letter. I
ence of “grabbing” from the very beginning. I
knew the link from apokalyptein to kalyptein had the very opposite reaction of Mr. Gould,

103

ANALOG
who added in his letter that even disregarding manner that, at our level of technology, leaves the political aspect it was very poorly written.

little or no evidence of that contact but has in-Down to small details, the dynamics between
triguing implications for what we are.

the opposed main characters, roughly juxta-

Even if space exploration is not too costly,
posing fanaticism and pragmatic realism, were
unless it has very high priority (and perhaps
played out against the mundane needs of
even if it does) any exploration program will
physical maintenance of a high-tech piece of
be constrained by available resources. In par-
big-time manufacturing—a starship—with a
ticular, it is reasonable to assume that there vividness, verisimilitude, and economy that
will at the least be constraints imposed by
for me were vintage Analog and virtuoso writ-budgets and bureaucratic rules and regula-
ing. Perhaps Mr. Gould missed the point. Poli-
tions, and the exploration might well have to
tics are irrelevant to the dynamics of the story get by on the E.T. equivalent of a shoestring.

and that the fanaticism could have been

Further, assuming c remains a constraint, the demonstrated using either end of the political ability to physically visit and return from other spectrum but wasn’t, seems to be because
stellar systems will be severely limited. If we contemporary fanaticism in America is most
wish instead that exploration be made by
obvious in public on the extreme political
some other instrumentality, that instrumental-
right, though, of course, only the wholly irra-ity must travel for long periods through space-tional part of it. Although the extreme political time and be either self-repairing or sufficiently left has an equally irrational element it isn’t robust so that damage while travelling will not publicly prominent right now, and I’d say cur-unacceptably degrade its functioning. Once a
rent interest counts for something in publish-
life form is detected, the instrumentality must ing, and should. In addition, the reasons for
initiate a sequence of events culminating in
the ascendency of one side to the public
the sending of a sufficiently informative mes-
sphere, rather than the other, bear examina-
sage to the originators. In other words, a form tion. I think Grey Rollins promotes it.

of Von Neuman instrumentality.

Proof for me of the balance in Mr. Rollins’s

So the E.T.s try to keep expenses down and,
product is that his hero caps the tale by
consistent with this, the method they chose
mulling over the idea of going against the
requires that it maximize some combination
world-wide prevailing winds for what at least
of coverage and the probability of response
on the surface seems a sort of libertarian mo-
from any interesting system. Usually, these intive, not a leftist one. This, too, is in the Camp-strumentalities are assumed to be machines.

bellian Analog tradition.

But the instrumentality might also be some-

Once in a while a story as think piece on
thing like coded information. For example the
important contemporary concerns can be ex-
originators might send out information in the
tremely helpful, if only we know it is there
form of DNA contained in something like a
and are ready for it when it comes. Perhaps
virus. An enormous number of such “viruses”

this one is of so pure a kind that it is a little too are sent—perhaps broadcast through the
scarce to be ready for in that way, so that its ilk galaxy—as they are cheap to make and cheap
should have a presence in the magazine a little to send. DNA is information encoded at the
more often, if such quality efforts can be
molecular level and can include effective and
found a little more often! When it is included, robust repair mechanisms. The “virus” seeks

Analog seems to me an indispensable forum.

out any life form it is designed to or capable of Joseph E. Quittner
infecting.

Cleveland Heights, OH

Since the purpose of the entire operation is
to get a sufficiently detailed message back to Mr. Quachri:

the originators, let’s speculate further and as-Edward Lerner’s article “Alien AWOLs” in
sume that the “virus” is capable of exercising the October 2014 issue of Analog is a wel-some form of control over the evolution of
come summary of suggested solutions to the
the infected life form, with the purpose of

Fermi Paradox, but there is another possibility promoting the development of a technologi-he did not mention, which possibly suggests
cal civilization whose members have an in-
we may very well have been contacted in a
tense curiosity and desire to send messages

104

BRASS TACKS

APRIL 2015
into, and travel in, space—perhaps “because

Dear Sir:

it’s there.” After all, what better message to I greatly enjoyed Ed Lerner’s article [“Alien
send back to the originators than a sample

AWOLs,” October 2014] about the Fermi Para-
member of the dominant life form with its life dox. There are two other factors which I think support system. And why go through the ex-may offer an explanation of “The Great Si-
pense and dangers of interstellar travel if you lence.”

can make some other species assume them.

First, there is real estate. Galactic centers are And there is little or no observable evidence, occupied by super massive black holes. This
at our current level of technology, of alien in-creates an environment with large amounts of
tervention.

ionizing radiation. Such an environment would

It is interesting that the technology to cre-
be very hostile to the complex chemistry re-
ate such an instrumentality might be almost
quired for life to develop. This would seem to within our economic and technological capa-rule out “new life and new civilizations” in a bility today. If so, for exploration further than large volume of the galaxy. This volume is also the nearest star systems, it might be the galac-home to a substantial fraction of the billions of tic exploration mode requiring the lowest lev-stars that would enter into a naive version of el of technological sophistication and cost,
the Drake equation.

and perhaps the first one to come within the

The other factor is availability of resources.

capability of an advancing technology. Yes, it It is simply implausible that the conditions
will likely take a long time to get a response.

necessary for the development of life have ex-

But it is not clear that any other method would isted for a substantial share of the Universe’s be both faster and able to maintain an accept-history. The early Universe would have been
able level of cultural interest. We lack the abil-almost completely devoid of what as-
ity to adequately define the relative costs and tronomers characterize as “metals,” basically
benefits of the alternatives.

any item after helium in the periodic table.

Finally, a more disturbing consideration. If,

Other than the Solarians of David Brin’s fic-
indeed, my suggestion has validity, what addi-
tion, any plausible life forms will require ele-tional instructions would the E. T.s include? In ments from at least the next two rows of the
addition to requiring that we contact them
table. These will not be present until several and incur the costs and risks, perhaps also
generations of supernovas have enriched the
that we be incapable of hostility to them. It’s interstellar medium.

interesting to speculate on how this might be

I lack the ability to determine exactly when
achieved.

this happens, but it seems plausible that at

I don’t mean to imply things must have hap-
least ten billion years are required. In other pened this way, only that they could have and, words, Earth may be among the first of many
if they did, then we have been visited by a Von life- and intelligence-bearing worlds. Thus,

Neuman machine. Only it wasn’t a machine

“they” may be out there, but at a similar level and we are the result.

of development. The next million years might

Bernard Springer
thus break the silence.

* * *

John Howard Brown ■

BRASS TACKS

105

UPCOMING EVENTS Anthony Lewis NOTE: Membership rates and other details

Apocryphal £1 (£1). Info: http://www.dyspro
often change after we have gone to press.

sium.org.uk/; enquiries@dysprosium.org.uk.

Check the websites for the most recent infor-
mation.

10–12 April 2015

AD ASTRA 2015 (Toronto area SF conference)

at Sheraton Parkway North Toronto Hotel,

26–29 March 2015

Richmond Hill ON. Guests of Honor: Author:

AGGIECON 46 (Texas A&M conference) at

Anne Bishop; Author/Musician: Charles de

Hilton Hotel and Conference Center, College

Lint; Artist/Musician: Mary Ann Harris; ScreenStation, TX. At the door memberships: Full
writer/Producer: Denis McGrath; Literary
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CA$20; Children (8–12) CA$10; under 7 free.

Info: www.ad-astra.org; info@ad-astra.org.

2–5 April 2015

MINICON 50 (Twin Cities SF conference) at

24–26 April 2015

Minneapolis MN. Writer Guests of Honor: Jane

RAVENCON 10 (Richmond area SF confer-

Yolen, Larry Niven, Brandon Sanderson; Musi-
ence) at DoubleTree by Hilton Richmond Mid-
cian: Adam Stemple; Publisher Guest of Hon-
lothian, Richmond VA. Writer Guest of Honor:

or: Tom Doherty; Artist Guest of Honot:

Allen Steele; Artist Guest of Honor: Frank Wu; Michael Whelan. Info: http://mnstf.org/mini

Gaming Guest of Honor: Brianna Spacekat
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neapolis MN 55408-0297.

Jack McDevitt; Plush: Barry Mantelo. Member-
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10% discount with valid military/student ID.

conference) at DoubleTree by Hilton Seattle

Info: http://www.ra vencon.com/.

Airport, SeaTac, WA. Author Guest of Honor:

George R.R. Martin, Artist Guest of Honor:

19–23 August 2015

Julie Dillon, Science Guest of Honor: Amy

SASQUAN (73rd World Science Fiction Con-

Mainzer, Spotlight Publisher: Randon House.

vention) at Spokane Convention Center,

Membership: $65. Info: http://www.nor

Spokane, WA. Guests of Honor: Brad Foster,
wescon.org/;
i n fo@norwescon.org;

David Gerrold, Vonda N. McIntyre, Tom

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Smith, Leslie Turek. Membership: currently.

Attending adult $190; YA (17–21) $95; child

3–6 April 2015

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readers from all over the world will be in at-

Inn, Heathrow, London, UK. Guests of Honor:

tendance. Talks, panels, films, fancy dress

Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Herr Doktor,
competition—the works. Nominate and vote

Carline Mullan. Special Guest: Tanith Lee.

for the Hugos.

Info:

s a s q u a n . o rg/;

Memberships until 31 January (until 3 April
info@sasquan.org; 15127 Main Street East,

2015): Adult attending £70.00 (£80); Adult

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Child 6–11 £15 (£15); Infant 0–5 £5 (£5);

106

ANTHONY LEWIS