Analog.Science.Fiction.and.Fact.TruePDF-September.October.2017
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Vol. CXXXVII Nos. 9 & 10

Next Issue on Sale

September/October 2017

October 14, 2017

NOVELLA

HEAVEN’S COVENANT, Bud Sparhawk________________________________ 166

NOVELETTES

MY FIFTH AND MOST EXOTIC VOYAGE, Edward M. Lerner _________________ 8

I KNOW MY OWN & MY OWN KNOW ME, Tracy Canfield __________________ 36

THE OLD MAN, Rich Larson _________________________________________ 80

ORPHANS, Craig DeLancey__________________________________________ 93

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES, Norman Spinrad_________________________ 151

SHORT STORIES

GHOSTMAIL, Eric Del Carlo__________________________________________ 52

THE FIRST TREBUCHET ON MARS, Marie Vibbert _______________________ 60

CLIMBING OLYMPUS, Simon Kewin ___________________________________ 64

EMERGENCY PROTOCOL, Lettie Prell _________________________________ 70

A TINKER’S DAMNATION, Jerry Oltion _________________________________ 72

THE ABSENCE, Robert R. Chase ____________________________________ 105

ARP! ARP!, Christina De La Rocha ___________________________________ 113

THE MATHEMATICIAN, Tom Jolly ____________________________________ 125

COYOTE MOON, James Van Pelt_____________________________________ 129

ABDUCTIVE REASONING, Christopher L. Bennett ______________________ 135

INVADERS, Stanley Schmidt ________________________________________ 142

36

80

SCIENCE FACT

THE QUEST FOR THE 2:00 MARATHON, Richard A. Lovett ________________ 28

PROBABILITY ZERO

VIKTOR FRANKENSTEIN’S BAR AND GRILL AND

TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR ROADSIDE EMPORIUM, Michael F. Flynn ________ 122

POETRY

FREE FALL HUNT, Mack Hassler______________________________________ 81

COLONY ON THE FIFTH PLANET, Bruce McAllister ______________________ 92

READER’S DEPARTMENTS

GUEST EDITORIAL: SCI-FI AND SCIENCE FICTION, James Gunn ___________ 4

IN TIMES TO COME________________________________________________ 63

BIOLOG: LETTIE PRELL, Richard A. Lovett _____________________________ 69

THE ALTERNATE VIEW, John G. Cramer ______________________________ 119

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY, Don Sakers______________________________ 194

BRASS TACKS ___________________________________________________ 201

UPCOMING EVENTS, Anthony Lewis _________________________________ 204

Trevor Quachri Editor

Emily Hockaday Associate Editor

Cover design by Victoria Green

Cover Art by Eldar Zakirov for

Indicia on Page 5

“My Fifth and Most Exotic Voyage”

GUEST EDITORIAL James Gunn SCI-FI AND SCIENCE FICTION
he recent celebration of the cultural phe-about preparing themselves for it or maybe nomenon known as Star Trek, as it even choosing between changes. Over the
marked its improbable fiftieth year, brings next two centuries, science and technology Tto mind the curious relationship between continued to work their magic, particularly on visual science fiction and print science fiction.

the American people who were already more When Star Trek emerged on the small screen (it interested in the future than the past and led: really was small back then), print science fic-in 1926 technologist and futurist Hugo Gerns-tion was more than a century old, a century back to create the first science-fiction maga-and a half if one goes back to Mary Shelley’s zine, Amazing Stories; in 1938 John W. Camp-Frankenstein. And magazine science fiction bell to focus his authors’ vision on realistic was forty years old. So readers, including fans, scientific speculation and plausible develop-watched each new film or television venture ments and launch what later became known
with a mixture of hope and apprehension.

as the Golden Age; in 1949 Tony Boucher and That confused and confusing relationship, J. Francis McComas to create The Magazine of which goes back to the first attempts to film Fantasy and Science Fiction and link the two something that would, in time, be called sci-categories as literature; in 1950 Horace Gold ence fiction, continues into the present. A to create Galaxy Science Fiction and its slickly new science-fiction film (more likely to be written social science fiction; in 1964 Michael called “sci-fi”) is released or a new television Moorcock to take over the editorship of
series is aired and is greeted by a spectrum of Britain’s New Worlds and create what became reactions. Is it a good film? Is it good science known as the New Wave; and finally to the fiction? Is it both? Or neither? It depends on cascade of novels that began after World War what you expect.

II. It led to Arthur C. Clarke to comment that Australian critic John Baxter suggested al-science fiction was the only “realistic” fiction, most fifty years ago that you’re expecting the because it was the only fiction that dealt with wrong thing. In his 1970 Science Fiction in change, and Isaac Asimov to say, “We live in a the Cinema he wrote that film and print sci-science fiction world.”

ence fiction have different origins. Film sci-But that is not what you would learn from ence fiction emerged from the tradition of the sci-fi film, which is conservative, while writ-mystery play and Grand Guignol, while print ten science fiction is exploratory, John Baxter science fiction was inspired by the scientific wrote. When a sci-fi film shows a scientist at enlightenment of the nineteenth century.

work in a laboratory, audiences know that a That explained some misconceptions.

monster is going to be created or some plague The scientific enlightment, true, but also or invasion is going to be released to kill your the Industrial Revolution and the realization family and your friends and maybe destroy that change had become a constant in peo-your community and even the world. The
ple’s lives and their realization that the future message of sci-fi film is “Don’t experiment!

was going to be different. A few writers re-Don’t go far out!” On the other hand, the mes-sponded by considering the nature of change sage of print science fiction is that humanity and the forces in the world that were creating needs to explore and experiment, because it’s it and what, if anything, people could do what you don’t know that will kill you.

4

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

There are exceptions, to be sure. The 1936
get films and big box office returns that made film Things to Come is one of them. Written sci-fi films the top moneymakers of the last by H. G. Wells and filmed by J. Arthur Rank, few decades. 2001: A Space Odyssey was not a Things to Come for many years was consid-message film like Things to Come; 2001 was ered by science fiction fans the only good sci-more ambiguous, particularly the ending—the ence fiction motion picture. It showed the novelization by Arthur C. Clarke, who collab-world nearly destroyed by war and then by orated on the screenplay inspired by his story disease until it is finally saved by engineers and

“The Sentinel,” cleared up a lot of that—but people of peace and their “Wings Over the the film also accomplished the remarkable feat World.” Most important, at least to science fic-of making the future seem lived-in, even com-tion fans, the movie ends in a utopian future monplace, and the past comprehensible. In being threatened by rebellion among people the process, it refuted filmmakers’ claim that protesting their society’s obsession with con-

“you can’t film an idea.” 2001 begins with a tinual progress. In this environment a young remarkable twenty-minute segment in which, man and woman take off on humanity’s first without an intelligible word being spoken, the space mission. They are the son and daughter audience sees a waterhole being taken over by of two of the enlightened leaders, one of them a rival group of apelike creatures, the defeated Oswald Cabal played by Raymond Massey and group cowering in a cave against the perils of the other Raymond Passworthy played by Ed the night, the discovery of the black monolith Chapmen. As the ship heads into space, barely and its touching by one of them, and his pick-escaping mob destruction, Passworthy asks if ing up a tapir bone and beginning to pound humanity will never have a chance to rest, to with it, a scene that ends with the pre-humans stop exploring. And Cabal replies that there using tapir bones as weapons to take back will be time enough for rest when they are their water hole, their leader using the bone dead. But until then they must keep striving, as a tool to kill tapirs, and finally throwing the keep trying to find out more. And he con-bone into the air, where it turns into a space-cludes, “Which shall it be, Passworthy? All the ship, as if the mixed future of humanity is im-Universe or nothingness?” And in a final sil-plicit in his picking up the bone.

houette image, we read Massey’s lips as he Visual science fiction has changed in signifi-says, “Which shall it be?”

cant ways since then, and so has print science That isn’t to say we science fiction readers fiction. The sci-fi side has produced spectacu-didn’t enjoy King Kong and The Creature lar films that have made spectacular amounts from the Black Lagoon and all the movies of money and innovative television shows, about giant ants and giant women and world some based on print science fiction (though destruction, but we knew they were not what rather more on comic super-heroes) and
we understood to be science fiction. More like sometimes even with respect for concepts
fairy tales of science. Then came 2001: A and origins.

Space Odyssey that brought science fiction Star Trek and Star Wars provide good ex-out of its second-feature status and into its amples. Both remarkably successful franchises mega-film era and paved the way for big-bud-not adapted but relying on print SF concepts Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Astounding), Vol. CXXXVII, Nos. 9 & 10, September/October 2017. ISSN 1059-2113, USPS 488-910, GST#123054108.

Double issues published bimonthly by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. One-year subscription $47.94 in the United States and possessions, in all other countries $56.94 (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) 2017 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. Protection secured under the Universal Copyright Convention. Reproduction or use of editorial or pictorial content in any manner without express permission is prohibited. All stories in this magazine are fiction. No actual persons are designated by name or character.

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Printed by Trend Offset Printing, Jacksonville, FL U.S.A. (7/31/17) SCI-FI AND SCIENCE FICTION

5

ANALOG
and images, they differ not only in their oricalled, by one critic, “silly monster s in gins but also in their approaches. Gene Rod-space.”

denberry’s sold the concept of Star Trek as After Star Trek’s syndication came surpris-

“Wagon Train to the stars,” but its social back-ing fan conventions, four TV series sequels, story was utopian: Roddenberry’s vision of a ten films, two recent prequels, and a new TV
world that had solved its problems of violence series announced.

and inequality. He had to win his battle for a Star Wars was more spectacular from its be-diverse crew—a Japanese helmsman, a Russ-
ginning. The Star Wars promotion depart-ian navigator, and a black female communicament had the inspiration to send material and tions officer, as well as a half-human, half-alien free tickets to science fiction writers and first officer—and his undisclosed moral center maybe others in the field, and I took my
in the liberal awakening of the ’60s genera-younger son to a premiere in Kansas City. It tion.

was the only film I have ever attended when at The success of the Star Trek phenomenon the end the audience stood up and applauded.

came in syndication rather than its original Star Wars and its sequels, with more to come, broadcasts, which struggled to retain an audi-have made tens of billions; their success may ence, and its third season was saved only by a be unparalleled. And yet is far more a sci-fi fan write-in campaign. At the 1968 World Sci-fairy tale with science fiction paraphernalia ence Fiction Convention held in Oakland, Cal-

(George Lucas, in the opening crawl, told ifornia, Roddenberry thanked the fans for sav-viewers not to expect science fiction). More-ing the third season of Star Trek, but he over, the moral center of Star Wars is the con-cautioned them not to expect too much. SF
servative message that there is evil in the writers, he said, had been banned from writ-world, as evidenced in the dark side of the ing for the third season, despite the fact that Force, while in Star Trek there are bad actions they had written the most popular shows:

and bad people, particularly aliens, but they

“The City at the Edge of Forever” by Harlan El-are not evil—they have reasons for the bad lison, “Amok Time” and “Shore Leave” by
things they do and issues that can be ad-

Theodore Sturgeon, “The Trouble with Trib-dressed. It’s like Star Wars is Old Testament bles” by David Gerrold, and others. The more and Star Trek is New Testament.

traditional writers of the third season knew While “sci-fi” has soared in its various incar-little or nothing about Star Trek or science fic-nations, including fandom (Comic-Con, for in-tion, and the episodes they authored were stance), print SF has not enjoyed the same TREVOR QUACHRI .....................................Editor PETER KANTER

Publisher

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JAMES GUNN

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
prosperity. The number of print magazines All this offers reasons why television dramas has dwindled to three (online is another phe-like Star Trek are not quite science fiction. For nomenon) and in readership as well, the book all its virtues, Star Trek is not the same as market has exploded over the years, even
print. Science fiction has been defined as the though the number of sales per title has been literature of change, and in the background of significantly diminished, while a few books Star Trek were utopian solutions to most of make the best-seller lists. When Star Wars was the problems that afflict contemporary soci-first released, a panel of authors and editors at ety—the threats that the Star Trek crew faced the World SF Convention in Phoenix consid-were out in space and had to be resolved by ered whether its popularity would benefit applying the lessons of tolerance and inclu-print SF. Some authors thought that the film sion that humans had developed for them-would increase reader interest in print SF, but selves, even though the Prime Directive, often the late David Hartwell predicted that it would disregarded, forbade interference in alien soci-be only in sci-fi tie-in books. And so it has hap-eties. But science fiction also is the literature pened.

of the human species, in which the individual The major expansion in print SF sales has doesn’t matter as much as all humanity, or been in tie-in novels. They not only have large-even all thinking creatures. That was realized ly eliminated mid-list books from major pub-early in science fiction publishing history, as lishers, but they sell significantly more copies in John W. Campbell’s 1934 story, “Twilight,”

than most original novels. I’ve done a couple in which a scientist visiting a far-distant future myself.

finds a world of great accomplishments made James Blish got the tie-in business started by possible by machines, but the future humans turning Star Trek episodes into novelettes have lost their curiosity and are doomed to ex-gathered into a dozen books. They sold well tinction. Before he returns and tells his story and may have contributed to popularizing the to a truck driver who picks him up, the scien-original series. Then Blish pioneered the origi-tist instructs a machine to develop curiosity.

nal tie-in novel with Spock Must Die. After And the odd result of that, for the science fic-Blish’s premature death in 1975, our mutual tion reader, was to turn a tragedy—the death literary agent Bob Mills called me and asked if of humanity—into a positive: the assumption I was interested in picking up the Star Trek-
of the human burden to understand the Uni-into-print business, and I told him that I had verse by humanity’s creation, the machine—
my own writing to do. The only writing worth or what we now would term artificial intelli-doing, I’ve told my students, is what only you gence, about which Arthur C. Clarke once
can write. Of course that may not have been said that the critical role of humanity may be the best financial decision; film and television to bridge the gap between inanimate matter tie-in books have sold better than most of my and thinking machines.

original novels. But I was never interested in If there is a message in all of this (and it’s in-writing in somebody else’s universe, and my structive that Lewis B. Mayer said “if you want two tie-in novels (the first, a novelization of to send a message, go to Western Union”), it the screenplay for The Immortal when Ban-may be that visual sci-fi will always be with us, tam couldn’t find anyone else to do it, and the and we should enjoy it for what it is: enter-second, a novelization of a Ted Sturgeon pro-taining images drawing upon science fiction posal for a Star Trek episode that I did out of world-building and tropes, but we should not friendship for Ted) were exceptions.

expect it to resemble print SF in other essen-Money is the difference-maker in creative tial ways. They aren’t equivalent. Print SF spe-production. Publishing is expensive, but not so cializes in messages. In recent years my own costly that publishers can’t take a chance once has been “let’s save the world through science in a while. Self-publishing—a new option—
fiction.” H. G. Wells warned that the world doesn’t cost as much, but it isn’t free, particu-was in a race between education and catastro-larly when the author’s time is factored. But vi-phe and called for an “open conspiracy” to sual sci-fi costs millions, and those kinds of create a better world.

investments want guarantees. That’s one rea-Maybe that is what the science fiction com-son Hollywood makes so many sequels.

munity has become. ■

SCI-FI AND SCIENCE FICTION

7

My Fifth and

Most Exotic

Voyage

Edward M. Lerner

Chapter One. A Project to share hard-won of serious improvement—or even capable of Lessons from the Author’s former Adven-printing books as the author intended and ditures. The unsatisfactory Nature of his Life in rected?

Redriff, and his Forbearance of Society. A In the years that followed my latest return strange Sighting.

to Redriff, I had rejoined, howbeit with some difficulty, the company of the occasional per-ollowing a reluctant return to England
son. I once again would dine with my wife, from my fourth voyage, I conceived the
separated one from the other by a long table. I project of reforming my countrymen
would even converse, from time to time, if Fwith an instructive account of all that I usually with but one at a time, with other had seen and learned. None can gainsay that members of my family. Of strangers and
the book thus written has made my travels fa-crowds, I perforce remained aloof. In large mous. As for bringing about any improve-measure, then, I spent my days in the compa-ment, however trivial, among my fellows, I ny of horses.

must confess to abject failure. Of this disapIn short, I did not know the troublesome
pointment I attribute a small part to a scur-publisher. Needs be, I had entrusted to my rilous publisher who took it upon himself to cousin Sympson, an advocate of this endeav-expurgate my report and a somewhat larger our, to engage a publisher on my behalf. I had part upon my technical defects as an author. I but recently begun a letter of complaint to my assign the dominant responsibility to hubris cousin about the unsatisfactory changes made and folly, for this undertaking was surely to my book in its first edition when a new ad-doomed from the start. Who but a fool might venture overtook me.

suppose any among his brutish kind capable

* * *
8

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

That afternoon, as many an afternoon, a
lesser shapes appeared: tables, perhaps, and favourite horse and I wandered across a
cryptic engines, and shadowy human figures.

rolling meadow wherein no one, whether

Of a sudden, in but a few beats of my pound-highwayman or garrulous neighbor or mis-
ing heart, the whiteness faded to nothing. It chievous child, might come upon me unwas as if only the sheerest pane of glass sepa-awares. I talked, and she listened. After rated me from a spacious room that had ap-awhile, I didn’t much talk. Sixty-six years of peared out of nowhere—and as if from within age, hard-worn by my past adventures, I was that room, people in odd garb stared at me!

all too easily winded.

I had only an instant to consider this turn of Of a certainty, I had been mad with grief events, for the apparition was too much for and loss upon my latest return to England.

my friend. She galloped away, panic-stricken, Was I insane on the day my new adventure be-and I ran after. Some rock, crevice, or gopher gan? Am I mad yet this day? In the unlikely hole unseen in the grass snagged the toe of my event anyone should happen upon this, my
shoe. My hat, and then I, went flying. My head latest account, the reader shall have to decide.

struck a rock, and all went dark.

Mad or not, I spent each day in Redriff in apprehension of the perversities into which

Chapter Two. The Place of the Author’s Ar-people so often lapsed. How carelessly we be-rival. The Debasing of the Language. An un-come cutthroats and thieves, politicians and certain Location. A curious Conversation.

vote sellers, fornicators and prevaricators, drunkards and forgers, suborners and perjur-Flat upon my back on a strangely f irm and ers, lawyers and whores. Human, we might
broad bed, I awakened in a large and unrecog-f latter ourselves to be named, but there was nized room.

nothing humane about us! And so, I never I studied this place intently. Walls and ceil-ventured from home without a hanger
ing alike were of shades of white. The room, strapped to my side. That weapon had served although windowless, was not dark, because me well throughout my voyages; I trusted it the ceiling, without evidence of any f lame, would serve again were my equine compan-somehow gave off a steady white light. The ion and I to be set upon, during one of our wall past the foot of the bed held a large, walks, by beasts or brigands. Verily, I scarcely shiny, black rectangle where a window might distinguished ’twixt the two perils.

have been. The wall to my left had a large, That afternoon, as many an afternoon, my
paneled wooden door; the wall to my right of-muscles and joints complained of the exerfered two narrower such doors. All three
tion, and yet I rejoiced in that aching. It was a doors were closed. The room, but sparsely sign that ere many more years should pass, I furnished, held, in addition to the bed, a small would be relieved of the burthensome knowl-wooden table, two cloth-covered chairs, a edge of my innate moral failings.

wooden chest of drawers, and divers other As my friend and I approached the curving items whose natures and purposes eluded me.

shore of the Thames, me gasping for breath, A scent of lemon was unmistakable. I swung she neighing in sympathy, I espied out of a my feet to the f loor, which was entirely cov-corner of my eye a disturbance of some kind.

ered in white square tiles. Apart from my The air, although the sky was clear, of a sud-clothes, muddy from my fall, the room was den held the pungent scent of an approaching spotless. My reflection in the shiny black rec-storm. The horse, too, sensing something pe-tangle showed a bruise on my forehead. Short culiar, shied away.

cloth strips, somehow adhering to my skin, Even as I turned my gaze toward that indis-seemed to serve as stitches over a gash almost tinct disturbance, it began to take form. It two inches in length.

changed into a bright f licker. The f licker be-As I sought to make sense of this strange came . . . I knew not what. A shimmering rec-place, the door to my left opened, to admit a tangle af loat just above the ground. A
man of most curious aspect. He was neither featureless, translucent rectangle. A feature-clean-shaven nor bearded but had a heavy
less, translucent box. The box, in turn, took stubble everywhere that whiskers could grow.

on an almost solid whiteness, within which His hair was curiously short. From my seated EDWARD M. LERNER

9

ANALOG
position, I judged him half a head taller than I

“We will get to that.” He hesitated. “We
and quite thin. His manner of dress was en-have much to discuss.”

tirely unfamiliar. To begin, he wore no coat.

It seemed evident that Josh and I differed on His upper garment—without collar, its short what needed to be discussed. After several sleeves not reaching even to his elbows—
urgings on my part and much circumlocution might have been some sort of mere tunic but on his, I obtained, or so he would have me befor the fabric. That cloth was of a weave so lieve, a location. “We are in Chicago.”

dense and yet so delicate as to shame a lord’s

“Chicago,” I repeated. “I know not of this finest shirt. I had only a glimpse of his stock-place.”

ings, for his trousers, going well below the

“You wouldn’t.” He shifted uneasily in his knees, went almost to his spotless white
chair. “Chicago is among the largest cities in shoes. Those seemed made partly of cloth and America.”

partly of a shiny material for which I had no

“In the Colonies? Impossible. If I had, in-name, with no bit of leather to them.

sensible the whole time, been brought by

At the appearance of the stranger, I had, by ship across the Atlantic, I must surely have instinct, leapt to my feet and reached for the starved to death during the journey. I am not hilt of my hanger. The scabbard was empty!

even hungry. The mud from my tumble has

He smiled, and never had I seen such even not fully dried. And while my travels never and white teeth. “Oh. You’re awake.”

took me to that region of the world, I well His English carried an accent I could not know its major towns. This Chicago is not place. “Where am I?” I asked. “Why am I here?

among them.”

And where is my hanger?”

“It’s complicated.” Josh laughed uneasily.

“You are among friends. You have no need

“Lem, are you familiar with latitude and longi-for a sword.”

tude? I can give you our location that way.”

“Among friends where, good sir?”

“I was for many years a ship’s surgeon, and

“Let’s start over.” He sat in one of the chairs after that a captain. I know well about latitude and gestured at the other. “Call me Josh.”

and longitude.”

Short for Joshua, I supposed. And no sur-

“A ship’s surgeon and then a captain,” Josh name? I responded in like discourteous man-repeated. “Lem. As in Lemuel?” At my nod, ner. “My name is Lem.”

Josh twitched. A disturbed look settled upon

“Good to meet you, Lem. Please, sit. Are
his face. “No. Impossible. It couldn’t be. You you all right? You took quite a blow to the couldn’t be.”

head.”

However peculiar this place, his reaction I sat on an edge of the bed, farther from this was familiar. The publication of my travels, no stranger than the vacant chair. Indeed, my matter their failure to reform my fellow crea-head did throb. I wondered anew how the
tures, had achieved a certain notoriety.

tiny strips held themselves to my forehead.

“As skeptics have remarked often of my voy-

“Can I bring you something for the pain?”

ages.” I stood to offer a courtly bow. “Lemuel I declined, although, in truth, I would have Gulliver, sir, at your service.”

welcomed a spot of rum. More than that, I needed my thoughts clear.

Chapter Three. The Author learns Some-I wondered if the blow to my head ex-
thing of his Circumstances, and finds himself plained his strange speech. His discourse was a Prisoner. He encounters much Doubt. The English, but his manner of speaking—slurring Impossible is asserted.

some letters together, dropping other letters altogether, emphasizing the wrong parts of His face gone white, Josh leapt to his Feet.

some words—appeared as indifferent as his

“I must discuss this with the physicists.”

manner of dress. I have a gift for languages

“With whom?”

that had served me on past adventures; I

“Um, natural philosophers, I think you
hoped it would accommodate as well the
would call them.”

butchering of my native tongue.

“Wait,” I said. “There is much I would know

“Where am I?” I asked. “How did I come to about this place and why I have been brought be here?”

here.”

10

MY FIFTH AND MOST EXOTIC VOYAGE

“Be patient,” he mumbled, turning for the As gentle and noble as were the Houyhn-door through which he had entered.

hnms, in appearance little different than hors-Patience is a virtue, I had once been in-
es, the creatures in that land of my aspect structed, but so is persistence.

were wild and thoughtless beasts. Surely, I had And in recalling that lesson from my learned at f irst imagined, we humans differed from master, I was reminded of a more recent com-these Yahoos we so resembled! Indeed we did panion. “Where is Rebecca?” I asked Josh.

differ, the dispassionate reason of noble Hou-

“Who?”

yhnhnms had shown me, but not in the way I

“The horse accompanying me on my walk.”

had hoped. My prideful explication of the af-

“She’s fine,” Josh said dismissively. “She was fairs and accomplishments of my own kind
racing away when we, well, took charge of only proved we had expanded and perverted you. Doubtless, she went straight home. If our innate brutishness with all manner of new not, I’m sure someone took care of her.”

vices. What cause had those gentle creatures He had more faith in humanity than I. Per-to suppose that I would not instruct the Ya-haps Rebecca had found her way back to her hoos to revolt? That I would not bring down stable, but more than likely some thief had tak-upon their gracious heads the scourge of war?

en her. The idea made me sad. Better than Instructed by their insight, shamed by the most, I understood what sort we were.

brutish depravity of my own kind, I could but I had been years in exile, but Houyhnhnm-agree and comply when their assembly con-
land remained ever in my thoughts. There, cluded that I must needs be banished ere I cor-calm and rational behavior held sway. There, rupt their Yahoos. Sending me away in a
every decision proceeded from the dictates of handmade canoe. Condemning me to live out dispassionate reason. There, every conversa-my days among my own kind. . . .

tion was imbued with, if not dedicated to the

“Lem? Are you all right?”

very topic of, some benevolent good. For a Houyhnhnms, in their virtue, did not, could time, my master there permitted me to live in not, speak an untruth. Their language lacked his household, to absorb some small part of the very notion. If a statement seemed wrong, his wisdom.

they were left, in confusion, to ask if the other EDWARD M. LERNER

11

ANALOG

“said a thing which is not.”

I had already lost my hanger and my hat; I Back among my kind, I had learned anew to did not want as well to lose my clothes. “Per-lie. And so, my answer to Josh was, “Yes.”

haps later.”

“Someone will be here soon,” he said, rush-

“As you wish.” He set the clothes he had
ing from the room to consult with the natural brought across the foot of the bed. “I apolo-philosophers. Why, I could not guess.

gize for not being here earlier. We did not ex-I heard a soft click just as the door closed pect you to be up so soon. Certainly Josh did behind him. It did not budge when I tugged not expect to f ind you awake. My name is on its handle. On the opposite wall, the f irst Doctor Ignatius Kelly. I am an historian.”

door that I tried did open, at the same time Why an historian? I wondered. “Lemuel Gul-bringing forth light from the inside ceiling. I liver.”

found naught but an empty closet and no

At my name, inexplicably, he shook his
means of egress. Behind the f inal door, in a head. “You gave young Josh quite a start by small room whose ceiling again lit when the saying that. Please, sir, let us be serious.”

door opened, I encountered: a porcelain basin My face became hot. “Lemuel Gulliver, sir, set into a cabinet but no water ewer; a second is my name.”

basin set upon the f loor like a chamber pot

“It could be a great coincidence, I sup-
but half-f illed with clear water; and a large, pose.” He seemed dubious. “A famous book
empty washtub. This room, too, offered me written at about your time has the title of Gul-no means of egress.

liver’s Travels.”

As surely as upon my first awakening in Lil-About my time? “I wrote Travels into Sever-liput, I was a prisoner.

al Remote Nations of the World. Without my leave, the editor changed the title.”

Left to myself, I had picked up and exam-

Doctor Kelly removed his spectacles to polined, to little avail, many of the curious ob-ish the lenses with the end of his cravat. “Ac-jects to be found in my prison. Quite by
tually, Jonathon Swift wrote it. It’s a satire.”

accident I discovered that by the position of

“More changes made by the accursed edi-
my hand I could cause water to flow into the tor. He claimed there were too many travel basin in the cabinet. I filled a glass and drank books on the market.”

deeply. It appeared I would not die of thirst.

With a sigh, still polishing his lenses, Doctor Thus encouraged, I had, by further experi-Kelly sat. “I understand how confusing it must ment, caused water to empty from, and then be to find yourself here. I will explain as best I ref ill the chamber pot. I was still exploring can. Please know you will be returned to
this strange place when, with another click, whence you came.”

the main door opened.

A soft chime came from the man’s coat. He A greybeard entered, of a round face and
returned the spectacles to his face, then re-wearing thick spectacles, stoop-shouldered moved a flat object from a pocket. The small and of about my height. He had on a dark coat thing seemed akin to the black rectangle upon and a red cravat, alike of unfamiliar cut, over a the wall.

clean white shirt, trousers to the ankles, and

“One moment,” he said, poking with a fin-
proper leathern shoes. More clothes were
ger at the little object. Colours shone from it.

draped across an arm. “Good morning, sir,” he Pictures and text (or so I perceived, for the de-said. His manner of speech was somewhat less tails were quite tiny) f lickered and rushed odd than that of Josh.

past. At last he looked up. “Where was I? Oh

“Good morning,” I agreed, although in this yes. Let us dispense with the notion you wrote windowless place I could not know morning that book.”

from midnight. “Are you a physicist?”

I found no reason to debate which of us

“Hardly.” He smiled. “I’m sorry the room is was the more likely to know my name. “Let us so sparsely furnished, but we were not ex-return to the question Josh did not, or could pecting a guest just yet. Fresh clothes, howev-not, answer. Where am I?”

er, were easy enough to provide on short

“The University of Chicago, in the city of notice. If you care to go into the closet and Chicago. Let me show you on a map.” He
change, I will have your clothes cleaned.”

cleared his throat. “OK Google, real-time 12

MY FIFTH AND MOST EXOTIC VOYAGE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
satellite view of North America. Highlight yet to occur? That was impossible to fathom.

Chicago.”

“We will get nowhere,” Doctor Kelly said, Real time? I had no knowledge of any other

“until you admit this truth. Come.” As he ap-kind. Satellite? Like the moon? Like the worlds proached the door, once again it clicked.

Galileo had seen circling around Jupiter, or the

“You did not as much as touch the door.

Laputans had discovered near Mars? But I had How did it unlock?”

little opportunity to wonder as the big black He waved an arm. “The door reads a tiny
rectangle on the wall lit up.

chip placed under the skin of my hand. Once Instead of a navigator’s chart of the familiar you’re settled, I’ll get you a key card that will type, I saw the continent as if from a perch so accomplish the same. But I ask that, for your tall that the very curvature of the Earth be-own safety, you not wander about by yourself.

came plain. The red expanse that I was evi-Much you would find here will be unfamiliar dently to believe a city sprawled along the and can be dangerous.”

southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. The

Upon descending from Laputa to the island Frenchman Jean Nicolet de Belleborne had renation of Balnibari, I had visited the Academy ported only rude Indian settlements along that of Projectors in their metropolis. I well re-lake. As I gauged the scale, this supposed membered how a savant of that academy, in Chicago was . . . impossible.

the city of Lagado, aspired to extract sun-While I studied the fanciful map, the small beams from cucumbers. He would in that
rectangle still in the doctor’s hands chimed manner capture warmth to be released from anew. He resumed poking at it. Text f lowed.

bottles whenever the weather was poor. In Images flashed by. Soon, like some savant on countless such endeavours, the men of the the floating Island of Laputa, he had forgotten academy had yet to accomplish a thing. So: a my presence. As he had no bladder-wielding door that could read? This University of Chica-servant to tap his head and restore his atten-go knew folly to shame even the men of the tion, I was forced to interrupt. “My good sir?”

academy.

Doctor Kelly looked up at the sound of my Except that this door had unlatched at Kel-voice. For a moment, he seemed surprised to ly’s approach. I could almost begin to wonder see me there. “Sorry. Do you see on the dis-if the unborn future was indeed real, was, in play where we are?”

some wise, a place to which a person could

“In an English-speaking city larger than Lon-journey.

don in the wilds of North America? It cannot The door opened to his gentle pull. We probe.”

ceeded down a long hall, artificially illuminat-

“In your time, you are correct, there was no ed in the manner of my room, toward a distant such city.”

wall of glass. I felt oddly weighted down, no

“That is the second instance in which you matter my relief at leaving confinement.

have spoken of ‘my time.’ How can my time Through the wall that we approached could be different than yours?”

be seen the tops of trees, and it appeared we

“Because it is. Because my time is your fu-were in a tall building. Along the hall, we ture.”

passed divers doors, some of wood, others of Struck all but speechless, I got out the
glass. Behind one of the latter, labeled Tempo-words, “You speak a thing which is not.”

ral Laboratory, I recognized the strange en-

“No,” said he, “I speak only the absolute gines that I had seen—it already seemed a truth. This is . . . my colleagues have brought lifetime ago—through the floating box while you to . . . the year 2022.”

I last walked in Redriff. Indeed, as we walked past this laboratory I had a glimpse within of

Chapter Four. The Impossible is demon-some harbour, with a three-masted merchant strated. The Author learns Something about vessel bobbing at anchor.

Travel through Time. Another Impossibility At the end of the hall, we turned to the left, presents Itself.

and beyond yet more glass, I beheld new wonders. More buildings than I could count lie be-My voyages had taken me to many a strange fore me. Directing my gaze downward into a place. But to a strange time? To a time that had grassy courtyard, through which divers men EDWARD M. LERNER

13

ANALOG
and women walked briskly, most garbed more had made on his cell, then pointed at the wall.

like Josh than Doctor Kelly, I found myself to

“That view is from high above, at a different be f ifty or more feet above the ground. The angle than what you saw out the window and sun, shining between nearby buildings, was what I captured on my cell, but do you agree not too far above the horizon, and trees and both images show us the same buildings?”

buildings cast long shadows. Whether these Carefully studying images large and small, I shadows showed me midmorning or teatime,
had to concur.

I could not judge.

“And did any such city exist in your time?”

“Lift your gaze, Lem.”

Almost a century had passed since the ex-

Miles distant, beside some ocean or vast
plorations of Jean Nicolet. If the construction lake, great towers reached into the sky!

of so great a city during those few years would

“Skyscrapers,” Doctor Kelly said. That bold seem a marvel, it was surely less wondrous name seemed no exaggeration. “Many of
than to travel into a new era.

those buildings stand several times the height Feeling foolish at speaking to the air, I in-of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Could any-structed, “Return to a global view.”

one in your day build such things?”

Nothing happened.

“Surely I am somewhere strange. Such has

“You must begin each command with the
been my fate on divers occasions. But am I, if I words ‘OK Google.’”

may coin a phrase, some when new? That, I I tried again. “OK Google, return to a global cannot believe.”

view, then slowly approach Redriff, England.”

“See my cell?” He removed from a pocket of A voice, slightly mechanical-seeming, de-his coat the small black rectangle that had so claimed from the ceiling: “Redriff unknown.”

fascinated him. With a few pokes, he made an Self-important, chatty ceilings needs be yet image appear on it. “Do you agree this is a pic-another wonder of the future. I objected, “I ture of those skyscrapers, just as you see them was taken from Redriff.”

in the distance?”

Doctor Kelly poked at his cell. “As I

“Yes,” I said, marveling that a depiction thought. That neighborhood is known more
could be drawn in an instant.

recently as Rotherhithe.”

“Then come with me.”

Indeed, the area about my home had once

I followed him back to my room, wherein a gone by that name. I said, “OK Google, return segment of the globe still showed on the wall slowly to a global view, then slowly approach rectangle.

Rotherhithe, England.”

“OK Google,” Kelly said to the air, then

Just as magically as I had, moments ago, ap-paused as if lost in thought.

peared to fall, now I seemed to soar. Then our

“Who is Master Google to whom you speak?

vantage reversed. Our bird’s-eye view con-Where is he?”

verged upon Great Britain, then southern Eng-

“A servant of sorts, but not a person. In land, then approached closer yet to the
your terms, it would be an engine.” He chuck-ground until the familiar bends and curves of led. “Actually, in our terms, too. Google is the Thames were plain to the eye.

what we call a search engine. Instead of grains

“OK Google, stop,” I ordered.

or metals or wood, Google works with inforThe shape of the river left no doubt but that mation.”

my view had come to a halt above Redriff—

With information. That, surely, was yet
and yet this was no Redriff that I knew. There more ethereal than sun-beams. “I do not un-were far too many buildings, most of too many derstand.”

storeys, and no trace of my home. In the river,

“An invention made after your time,” he
the ships, huge and of unfamiliar kinds,
said. “OK Google, zoom in on Chicago, cenmoved without having sails. All this lie deep tered on this building.” So abruptly did the within a city far larger than the London I map change that it was as if I hurtled headlong knew.

from an impossible height to my doom. It was

“Is that Redriff ?” Doctor Kelly asked, and I all I could do not to shout. “Slower. Slower.

could not gainsay him.

OK Google, stop.”

I said, “OK Google, move our view slowly

He showed me again the little picture he
up the Thames.”

14

MY FIFTH AND MOST EXOTIC VOYAGE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Even in the unaccustomed bird’s-eye view, ence—“to an unfamiliar place. By what means there could be no mistaking the Tower of Lon-can a man be delivered into a distant time?”

don nor Westminster Abbey. But among these He tipped his head in thought. “A fair but familiar landmarks, beginning with a giant up-hard question. Fair, because having been
right hoop along the river, slowly turning in brought here, it is but natural you would want place, was much I had never beheld. The
to understand. Hard, for two reasons. My sub-Palace of Westminster itself, where Parliament ject is history, not natural philosophy, and it is sat, was much expanded and had sprouted
the natural philosophers who truly understand two towers. And all about, divers skyscrapers these matters. Second, because much has been loomed far above the Dome of St. Paul’s.

learned in the many years since your time. For

“Is this London?” Kelly asked.

me to try to explain would be pointless.”

I could only agree.

“If a blind man leads a blind man, both will

“Is this the London of 1727?”

fall into a pit.”

“I cannot say that it is.”

“Matthew? No, I think Luke. Whichever,

“You see Parliament as it was rebuilt after a you are basically correct.”

great f ire. You saw skyscrapers in Chicago,

“Then I would speak with one of your nat-
where only wilderness stood in your time, and ural philosophers,” I said. “A physicist, I think now you see such skyscrapers have also come you call them.”

to London. I ask you, my friend, when are

“Do you know of Sir Isaac Newton?”

you?”

Among the most famous men in all the

What explanation, apart from what the doc-world, and doubly so in England? He had been tor offered, remained to me? The magicians of buried in Westminster Abbey but a few

Glubbdubdrib could conjure the dead. A mage months before my being taken to this time. “Of there had, at my request, once conjured the course.”

shades of Brutus, and of Alexander the Great,

“Do you understand his calculus? His great and of many more besides. But surely even the theory?”

mightiest magician could not conjure a person What need had a seaman to understand the
who never had been.

calculus or the law of universal attraction?

I took a deep breath. “I know not how, but I None. What I knew of Newton was that as
needs be in my future.”

Master of the Mint his “reformations” of the coinage had brought much chaos upon the

In the comfort of my room, a prison no
land. “Nothing. But you know more of the
longer, for I had a key card in my pocket, after matter than I.”

a fine dinner arranged for me by Doctor Kelly

“As great in his day as was Newton, so in (for the clamour of the many Yahoos in the the modern era are Albert Einstein and Erwin cafeteria remained more than I could bear), Schrödinger. Their discoveries, the physicists my state of mind was much improved since
tell me, and the mathematics to describe
my confused awakening. I had, after instruc-them, would be as abstruse to even Newton tion from the doctor, washed mud from my-as Newton would be to the ancients. It is self in the bathroom, shaved my face with a upon such learning that travel in time relies.

curious buzzing razor, and changed into clean Even the men and women who build such en-clothes of the modern style. Only a ridiculous gines argue among themselves how it works.”

rule against the use of my pipe and tobacco—

I thought anew of cucumbers and sun-
stowed away for now, with my tinderbox, and beams, but my very presence in the future comb, and other meager possessions, into the gainsaid such skepticism. “I do not under-pockets of my new attire—put the reins to my stand OK Google, but I can command it.”

complete satisfaction in this new adventure.

“Again fair. This much I can explain. There To keep me company (a boon I had not re-is an engine down the hall in the Temporal quested), Doctor Kelly had had his own meal Laboratory. This engine opens a gateway to delivered to my room. As he finished his pastry other places and times. Scholars like me look and set down his fork, I said, “Storms and ship-through the gateway, the better to understand wreck and the cruelty of pirates can deliver a history.”

person”—as I well knew of personal experi-I remembered the apparition that had startled EDWARD M. LERNER

15

ANALOG
poor Rebecca. “And those of us in history can Gulliver’s Travels.” On the display, the deceit-look back.”

ful map gave way to a more complete narra-

“Yes.” Kelly slid away his empty plate and tive, albeit with only haphazard attention to began twisting his napkin.

spelling and the use of capitals. (The article

“I think there is little to be learned about seemed part of an encyclopaedia, a modern history from watching a man and horse taking version of which, rumour had it, Ephraim
a walk.”

Chambers was in the throes of producing. I

“More than you might suppose,” he said.

wished him better luck with his London pub-

“How people work and live forms a part of my lisher than I had had.) In the days that fol-studies.”

lowed, I adopted that minimal usage of capital

“This gateway is more than a window, else I letters. If naught else, the practice saved ink.

would be at home, smoking my pipe.”

Bewildered, I tried again. “OK Google,

“As you say.”

show me the islands of Lilliput and Blefuscu.”

“So someone from here—was that you?—

“I do not know of places by those names,”

went through your gateway and brought me
said the voice from the ceiling.

here. I can well understand an historian’s cu-

“OK Google, can you show me Laputa?”

riosity about my travels. What the publisher It claimed to know nothing of the f loating did to my work was a travesty.”

island, either.

“Why do you persist in this absurdity?” Doc-The doctor said, “OK Google, what do Lil-
tor Kelly’s face of a sudden had grown quite liput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, and Houyhnhnm-red. “Having seen all you have of our technol-land have in common?”

ogy, how can you possibly expect anyone to

“Each is a fictional place visited by Lemuel believe this? Not the least speck of land on this Gulliver in Gulliver’s Travels.”

world is uncharted.”

Even as my mind reeled, I could not desist

“I do not understand your ire. I am Lemuel from inquiring, “OK Google, who is Lemuel Gulliver. My travels are famous.”

Gulliver?”

“Have it your way,” he said. “OK Google, re-The ceiling replied, even as a new con-
store the satellite view of North America.”

founding article appeared on the wall. “The The now familiar image reappeared. “OK
fictional protagonist and narrator of Gulliver’s Google, re-center the view on San Francisco Travels.”

Bay.” He turned to me, expectantly.

“Would you care to read what an ency-

Whilst I stared, in silence, slack-jawed. Up clopaedia has to say about Lemuel Gulliver?”

the coast from a great bay (a region of shore Kelly asked, “or are you prepared to offer your explored well before my day, reported upon true name?”

by Sir Francis Drake), where the land of Brob-Truly, I was struck dumb. I shook my head, dingnag, vast homeland of gentle giants, must wondering how the people of the future dealt jut far into the Pacific Ocean, I espied . . . only with their lunatics. I had horrifying memories ocean.

of Bedlam, but for all I knew those memories were as fictitious as . . . myself.

Chapter Five. Beyond even Time and Place,

“We will speak again tomorrow,” Doctor
yet more is thrown into Confusion. The Au-Kelly said. Bidding me a good evening, he let thor struggles to prove he exists.

himself from my room.

“I do not understand!” Surely my determina-My mind awhirl, I slept but little and poorly tion of latitude and longitude on my second that night. That the ceiling continued to glow voyage could not have been so mistaken. “OK
brightly did not help. After awhile, I left my Google, show me Brobdingnag.”

room, in hopes that a walkabout, and fresh

“I do not know a place of that name,” a
glimpses of the marvels of the future, might voice answered me from the ceiling.

distract me. As I opened the door, the hall

“Let’s try this another way,” Doctor Kelly changed from dark to light.

said. “OK Google, what is Brobdingnag?”

The Temporal Laboratory, apart from a The ceiling spoke again. “Brobdingnag is a scattering of green glows, was dark. Next I fictional land in Jonathan Swift’s satirical novel paused, for a long while, at the limit of my 16

MY FIFTH AND MOST EXOTIC VOYAGE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
excursion with Doctor Kelly. There, at the that endeavour, I largely failed. Only much lat-long wall of glass, I contemplated the bright er, in the composition of this account, have I, lights of the city and the more enigmatic flash-with much effort and great difficulty, recalled ing lights traversing slowly across the sky. I these strange words to mind.

studied the moon, high overhead. Was it from I stood still as a mouse, several doors re-that orb, I wondered, that OK Google kept its moved from the occupied room, considering eagle-eye watch? But none of it could deflect whether to intrude.

my mind from the puzzle that was . . . me.

“Agreed,” a woman’s voice said. “We have

Soon after I came to a doorless doorway, be-yet to detect any discontinuities or anomalies.

side which was a plaque reading Break I know people above my pay grade, Nobelists Room. The ceiling brightened as I entered, re-among them, say that’s a valid demonstration vealing a strange box-like engine labeled Re-of robustness in the timeline. Any theoretical freshments. This engine had painted sides (of effect of our peeking and poking and having metal, I judged, with a gentle rap) and a front shanghaied Ever yman just dampens out.

of glass, with divers small packages within all Somehow.”

ensnared in metallic coils. Writings on these

“But?” a man responded.

packages were mostly cryptic, but a few

“But how can we know we’d know if some-
words thereupon suggested foods. Indeed I thing had changed? Maybe we never see that would not have minded a morsel, but I found the timeline has reconfigured because we’re a the coins in my pocket were too thick for the part of it. We’ve been reconfigured, too.”

indicated slot. Turning to go, I espied, on a

“You’d know.” The man laughed. “You nev-
small table, a small notebook with flimsy cover forget a damned thing.” I heard a clinking as ers, its pages bound by a metallic spiral. The of glasses and thought I caught the smell of ale pages were wondrously thin—there might
in the air. Indeed, the whole back-and-forth, well be a hundred sheets in the slender vol-middle-of-the-night bickering had somehow ume —and ver y white. The pages were
the feel to it of idle chatter among young folk.

marked with faint blue lines: guides, I suspect-I remembered that well from my days at Uni-ed, for the quill. Flipping through the pages, I versity in Leyden.

discovered them to be quite empty. I put this Or were those more of the fictitious memo-most fortunate f ind into my pocket and pro-ries of a f ictitious Lemuel Gulliver? Had I, ceeded.

whomever that was, gone to university?

In the distance, I heard voices, the words in-When my attention returned from my un-
distinct. I walked toward them. Ceiling panels happy predicament, the argument had moved lit before me as I proceeded, and went dark on, if I heard the words aright, to matters yet behind me. Sensing a pattern, I retreated, then more arcane. “ . . . Two-dimensional time,” the went again forward. The lights ever accompa-man was saying, “has to be the most absurd nied me. If a door could read, I thought, why load of handwavium since collapsing of the should ceiling lamps not keep watch for
wave function.”

passersby? Why did only the ceiling in my

“Uh-huh,” the woman said, “and whatever
room stay ever on? Perhaps the man and
that means, we know the math of it is cor-woman I heard could instruct me how to turn rect.” She laughed. “Unless you disbelieve in off and on the lights in my room.

your iPhone, Xbox, and FitBit.”

Proceeding farther than on my earlier expe-

“Really? You truly believe the universe splits dition, some few feet of brightness overhead every time we open the gateway? How many
accompanying me as I went, I turned the cor-fracking universes do you suppose there are?”

ner into a new hall. I espied, midway down a

“Not nearly as many universes as there
murky passage, light spilling from an open would need to be if the many worlds interpre-doorway. Though here the exchange was
tation solves your collapse of the wave func-more audible, I almost doubted the words
tion conundrum. That, somehow, is an
were English. Withal, it seemed clear the con-academically respectable load of—”

versation was heated. I made myself a mental Of a sudden, the hall went dark. I fear I note to remember the divers strange words, made a startled noise.

intending to ask OK Google to explicate. In

“Is someone there?” the woman called out.

EDWARD M. LERNER

17

ANALOG

“Indeed.” At my first step toward the becking injured your head. The technicians on oning doorway, light reappeared in the ceil-duty cleaned the wound and closed it with a ing. It needs must, somehow, read motion as few butterf ly bandages.” She touched her the modern doors read a key card. I ap-own brow where mine yet wore the odd cloth proached the lit entrance to offer my apolo-strips. “You said you were f ine apart from gies. The man and woman I had heard were
wanting a bit of rest, and they”—she gave her within. He appeared African and had a long colleague a hard stare—“left you alone with-face and shaved head. She, of some type that I out contacting me.”

could not judge, was petite and had more than

“I have no memory of these things,” I said.

ample hair, albeit of an odd, mahogany colour,

“After I fell in pursuit of my horse, I awakened for them both. Their casual attire reminded in this room.”

me of Josh. Each slouched in a tipped-back

“Likely you have a concussion. Do you
chair, with shod feet resting on their respec-know what that is?”

tive desk. Empty bottles were arrayed across Had I been a surgeon as I yet believed?

their desks.

Howsoever, I believed I knew the term. “An

“Speaking of Everyman,” the Man mur-
injury to the brain, as by shaking or by a blow mured. “It’s Gulliver.”

to the head.”

“Do not mock me, sir.”

“Exactly,” she said. “Of course, some loss of

“Sorry,” he said.

memory is a common effect of concussion.”

I nodded. “Pardon my intrusion. I would

And hence, it would seem, I had forgotten have some help.”

my very arrival in this time, likely in passage That aid was provided forthwith. I was in-through the Temporal Laboratory. “Why?” I structed that my room, like that office, had a asked, “does Doctor Kelly owe me an apolo-spot by the entrance sensitive to touch. With gy?”

mere sweepings of a Finger, I could control He shrugged. “For doubting you.”

the lights and alter the temperature. Had I the I did not understand. “How, if Brobdingnag wit to have asked, OK Google would have so does not exist, could you believe me? Or does instructed me. I retreated to my room,

OK Google tell lies?”

dimmed the lights, and bade OK Google a

The woman said, “In your time, as I under-good night.

stand it, Gulliver’s Travels, is newly published In the blessed darkness, I tossed and turned and very popular. Without warning or choice, until, at long last, I was taken into the arms of you, like Lemuel Gulliver, have found yourself Morpheus.

in a very strange place. You are told of science—”

Chapter Six. The Author’s Beliefs are at once

“Natural philosophy,” Kelly interpreted.

explicated and refuted. Return to his Time is

“Sorry,” she said. “You are told of natural considered.

philosophy that must seem magical. The mind will invent memories, if need be, to fill in the I had but recently awakened, much re-blanks. Confabulation, we call it. I do not freshed, when a brisk knock came at my door.

doubt you sincerely believe you are Gulliver, With my acknowledgment, Doctor Kelly en-but whether from confabulation or confusion, tered, followed by a short woman I did not your belief is ultimately the result of the con-know, who reminded me of women I had
cussion. It’s your mind doing its best to make seen in Japan on my travels home from Glubb-sense of what must otherwise seem a nonsen-dubdrib. Doubtless, those places did not exist sical situation.” She paused. “I hope I am be-either.

ing clear. I have not studied how English was Kelly said, “It appears that I owe you anoth-spoken in the eighteenth century.”

er apology.”

“Compared to some,” I said, “your speech is

“And why is that?” I asked.

most lucid.” I had in mind my new acquain-

“Doctor Watanabe can explain it better than tances from my explorations the night previ-I. She is a physician.”

ous, but from his frown, it seemed Doctor The woman nodded, as if to herself. “Sir, I Kelly took my remark as critical of him. As an am Jennifer Watanabe. You arrived here hav-olive branch, I offered him the much-folded 18

MY FIFTH AND MOST EXOTIC VOYAGE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
sheet of paper that had accompanied me to anywhere to be seen) and a noisy test she the future. “Albeit I have no honest memories called an MRI. Both, she explained, would to offer, I have this one small document. It will somehow take pictures of the inside of my not speak false.”

skull.

He put the note into his pocket, unopened, After, as I finished breakfast, once again de-no more pleased than before my gesture.

livered on a tray to my room, she came to dis-

“Anyway,” Doctor Watanabe said, “I am
cuss her results. “No internal bleeding, just a glad you feel better. With rest and calm, the concussion. That’s good. All you need is bed symptoms of concussion usually go away.”

rest.” And then, unmindful of the irony, she

“And then I shall remember who I am?”

added, “And time.”

“Almost certainly,” she assured me. “In the meanwhile, you need to take things easy. Do

Chapter Seven. The Author’s Wound heals, no exercise or exertion. No excitement. Try but not his Memory. Conversations with a not to think too much about all this.”

new Friend. Puzzles and Perils of Travel in Not think about having been transported

Time.

into the future? About the loss of my memories, of even my name? It seemed an impossi-I found it hard to obey the order to take bed ble prescription. “And until that remedy
rest. Lemuel Gulliver was a man of action.

should take hold, what shall I be called?”

Whosoever I might be, I knew not any other

“You can choose a name.” She had a pleas-
way to act.

ant smile. “Or stay with Lem. You aren’t Gul-Withal I had been delivered to this era in liver, but you may well be a Lem or Lemuel.

part to speak of my experiences and knowl-That would be all the more reason why you edge, Doctor Kelly had no Interest in fictitious might have conflated yourself, I mean, identi-accounts. “I mean you no disrespect,” he said, fied, with Gulliver.”

“but I can read Gulliver for myself. If—I mean,

“A word, Doctor?” With a quick tipping ges-when—your memories return, then we shall ture of the head, Kelly showed that he meant have cause to talk.” And until that day should outside my room.

come, he left me with divers books to amuse

“Certainly.” She smiled at me again. “We’ll me.

be right back.”

The top book on the pile was Robinson They went into the hall, shutting the door Crusoe. Indeed, I had heard of that. I began behind them. However much concussion had
the novel with high hopes, only to find disap-addled my memories, my hearing remained
pointment. That mariner’s adventures paled excellent. I could not help but to overhear beside those I, however falsely, still remem-some of their loud dispute.

bered as my own. In truth, I envied Crusoe’s

“. . . without memory . . . unreliable . . . no lot. The memory remained quite real to me benef it to the program,” Doctor Kelly said.

that I had attempted, after my exile from

“Our resources . . . limited . . . budgets . . . dis-Houyhnhnmland, to lead a solitary life on a re-credit entire . . . we . . . send back home.”

mote island. Alas, a cruel Portuguese captain

“. . . fault,” Watanabe said. “. . . abandon a . . .

had “rescued” me, withal I had had no desire with amnesia and delusions? . . . will raise . . .

to leave. I found I had not the heart to open stink if . . .”

any more of the books.

“Hold it down,” he urged.

I turned my attention for awhile to the study Thereafter, I discerned only such widely
of divers oddities in my room. Among the
scattered words as to be without sense to me.

most puzzling, found at the back of a drawer, The door opened, and they returned to my
was a slim, clear cylinder of perhaps six inch-room. “Lem,” she said, “if I may call you that, es in length. Along the center was a much we need to do a few tests to be sure your in-thinner cylinder, it as black as soot. When, jury isn’t too serious. The tests may seem upon a whim, I removed the cap covering an strange, but they won’t hurt or do you any end, I discovered a tapered metallic tip termi-harm.”

nating in a tiny metallic ball. By gently sliding I accompanied Doctor Watanabe to a near-that ball point along a page in my spiral note-by building for a cat scan (withal no cat was book, I made a perfectly fine mark. Compared EDWARD M. LERNER

19

ANALOG
to a familiar quill, this modern pen was a mar-tudes teemed everywhere. To the north and vel and an excellent match for my new note-west of the university, I discovered a large, flat book.

expanse named O’Hare Airport, to and from And — ever y day, and many a sleepless
which great winged vehicles called airplanes night—I devoted much of my time to turning somehow flew.

over in my mind every strange thing I had I looked also to divers places at greater and seen or heard here. Those efforts yielded little greater distances from Chicago. Familiar cities in the way of sense.

from around the world—withal none from

When Doctor Watanabe came next to call

“my” famous travels—were much larger and
upon me, she declared my wound much im-
taller than in my memory. The changes were proved, with no sign of infection. I asked her most striking by dark of night as seen from OK
leave to explore the university. She gave it not, Google’s high vantage, wherein the conti-claiming that such excitement and novelty nents and islands blazed with dots and
could only impede my recovery. When Josh
splotches of bright light. One needed a dili-brought my next meal, I made the same re-
gent search to find a few scattered places not quest of him, but he had been instructed oth-marked by man.

erwise by the physician. That evening, I

Had my studies proceeded no further, I
returned into empty halls and made my way might have been well pleased, but it was my down several f lights of stairs to the ground misfortune also to ask OK Google if this era storey. There, too, I was thwarted, for a night offered a gazette with tidings of the day.

watchman stationed at the entrance sent me Then, for what seemed an age, I perused ar-back.

ticles from recent issues of the Chicago Tri-My conf inements during past adventures
bune and the Chicago Sun-Times. The had oft been far less pleasant, I consoled my-particulars often escaped my comprehen-
self—only to remember, yet again, that the sion, but the theme was clear: murderous
events so vivid in my mind needs be mere fig-outlaw bands here, there, and everywhere
ments from the blow to my head. I reversed around the globe. The hallmark of this era course, setting out for the office I had visited was fanatics slaughtering innocents with
soon after my arrival in this era. If ever a beer guns, and with bombs, and even with air
had been in order, this seemed the occasion.

somehow turned poisonous.

The future, alas, had other plans. Of a sud-Whether or no my Houyhnhnm master had
den wearied by my exertions, I took my key ever existed, I could not gainsay his wisdom.

card to hand and turned toward my room. Sus-Humanity was not better for our intelligence; taining my balance with a shoulder brushing we were the worse for it. We had not the wit up against a wall, perhaps still suffering the ef-to resist perverting technological progress fects from the bump on my head, I came upon into new debasements mere brute Yahoos
the Temporal Laboratory—whereat I heard a could scarcely imagine.

click. The door gave way to my gentle pull, When, at last, the chatter of people abated and the lights within came on. I looked for in the hall, after OK Google assured me the awhile at the cryptic engines, pulled the door hour was late, I set out in search of a beer.

shut, and continued with halting steps to my room for much needed rest.

In the office where I had first met them, I again encountered the young man and

I spent the following day in my room, in yet woman. He was named Alan, she Patricia. I in-another failed attempt to take interest in troduced myself only as Lem. Alan borrowed a Robinson Crusoe and a somewhat more suc-chair from a nearby office, and I sat, contem-cessful effort to see Chicago. The latter explo-plating the words framed upon the wall. The ration was not as I would have preferred, by sign declared: Not only is the Universe walking about the streets and lanes of the city, stranger than we think, it is stranger than but with the aid of OK Google. The place it-we can think. I knew not this Werner Heisen-self was amazing in both its extent and the in-berg, but my own experiences must surely
credible heights of its buildings. Horseless have proven him right.

carriages of divers sizes careened about. Multi-

“Let’s see what we have for tonight.” Alan 20

MY FIFTH AND MOST EXOTIC VOYAGE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
opened the door of a small box found beneath under his skin. “OK Chronos, access lab sura table, giving rise to an outpouring of cold air.

veillance for the morning of April 12.”

He removed three dark bottles labeled Guin-Chronos. Was he not, for the ancients, the ness, removed their metallic caps, and distrib-personification of time? Perhaps this was but uted the beverages. I found this Guinness to one more thing I knew that was not so. “‘OK
be a fine porter, putting aside the barbarity of Chronos’? Not ‘OK Google’?”

serving beer cold.

“They’re similar,” Patricia said, “but not the Perhaps drink loosened my tongue, for
same. Google is a service for the public.

nearing the bottom of my bottle, I found my-Chronos has its own tricks and is only avail-self asking an impolitic question. “How is trav-able to the few of us in the Temporal Project.”

el in time possible?”

She laughed. “We don’t want just anyone med-Patricia sighed. “Lem, I cannot even begin dling with the timeline.

to explain. You would need to learn centuries

“OK Chronos, begin playback at 9:30.”

of science to understand.”

The Temporal Laboratory, as if spied upon

“I do not mean the mechanics of such trav-through a peephole in its ceiling, appeared on el. I mean what is implied by it. If you go to a wall display. Among the divers people there-the past, do you not change it? And changing in, I recognized only four: Doctor Kelly, the the past, do you not then change your own historian, seated at a sort of desk with many time? Even, perhaps, to the point of prevent-buttons; Josh, he who had f irst greeted me ing that first change?”

here; and my two new friends. After a bibble-Alan said, “And the man from the past nails babble of conversation and much milling
it on the f irst try.” He clinked bottles with about, the laboratory fell to silence, and every-mine. “That is the question, isn’t it?”

one crowded into one end of the room. Kelly Patricia said, “If I travel back in time and kill waved his hand over a square on his desk, my grandfather before my father was born, then he poked repeatedly with one f inger at then I can never be born. But if I was never an array of buttons—its numbers all in a row born, who was it who traveled back in time to but the letters of the alphabet in a jumble.

prevent my birth? So I am born. . . .”

OK Chronos, with a mechanical voice like

That she was born, then not, then born,

OK Google, announced through the wall dis-then not, then . . . My head began to pound, play, “Gateway initialized.”

and not, I thought, from my concussion. I

“That means, made ready to work,” Patricia took refuge in my beer.

said.

She mistook my confusion. “No one need

I watched and listened as Doctor Kelly
literally be killed, Lem. The grandfather para-spoke to OK Chronos, specifying latitude and dox is what we physicists call a thought ex-longitude, date and time. He ended with, “OK
periment, a way to illustrate the problem you Chronos, proceed.” Of a sudden, sparkling, a asked about changing the past.”

rectangle appeared in the recently emptied

“People from your time went back to my
portion of the laboratory. The rectangle be-time to get me. Therefore I am here—or, I came, much as I remembered, a window that should say, now—and not then. Does that not turned quickly into a box.

show the past has changed?”

“Gateway active,” OK Chronos announced.

“In point of fact, I went back,” Alan said.

Beyond the wall display, in the laboratory,

“Well, two of us from the team did. And it through the box . . . there in the familiar mead-wasn’t exactly a well thought-out plan.” He ow were Rebecca (assuming that what I be-f inished his bottle and removed three more lieved to be her name was not likewise some from the cold box. Of a sudden, his eyes
f igment of concussion) and I. Rebecca gal-brightened. “Would you like to see?”

loped away. I chased after, fell, and struck my Leaving my new bottle to warm up for
head. There followed the immediate events of awhile, I said, “I do not understand.” In the fu-my arrival of which I had no memory but
ture, I said that often.

which the physician had related. Then, at He leaned forward to gesture with his hand Doctor Kelly’s command, the magical box
over a small square on his desk. It appeared shrank and vanished.

he, like Doctor Kelly, had had a chip placed At my ardent request, we watched it all a EDWARD M. LERNER

21

ANALOG
second time, and then a third. I would have range viewing. Old Man Kelly won, proposing seen it yet again, but for the evident impa-to study the effects of the some early World tience of my new friends.

War. The War of the Spanish Something-or-

Patricia said, “The instant our gateway star-Other? Succession? I forget. The point is, we tled you into conking your head, we had gone weren’t prepared to bring anyone to our
beyond observing the past to changing the time.”

past. And so, our careful, step-by-step research Gulliver had been abroad, but for the occa-was shot all to Hell.”

sional few weeks, for the duration of that con-Events indeed brought to my mind the Pan-f lict—and mad long thereafter. I (whomever demonium described by John Milton in Par-that might be) knew no more of the matter adise Lost as, after a shocked moment of than he. It seemed doubtful I could assist Doc-hush, the crowd in the laboratory had erupted tor Kelly in his studies.

into tumult. These watchers dared not to

“Why bring a person here at all?” I asked.

leave me to bleed to death where I fell. In a

“Why not speak with people in their own
single unlucky stroke, their opening into the time?”

past could have undone my descendants unto

“However long, days, even weeks, we may
the final generation.

speak here, we can return a person to scant The lesser risk to the timeline needs be to seconds after he or she left. For an historian to whisk me away, to succor me, and then return remain so long in the past seems both danger-me. Doctor Kelly was quick to promise the ous and apt to change the very events to be gateway would restore me to a brief moment studied.”

after my mishap, it mattering not whether I

“We had a plan,” Patricia said, “until you stayed awhile to heal. They might as well learn and your big, dumb feet changed everything, from me about my time.

Thereafter, we had to make it up as we went And so, Josh and Alan ventured through the along.”

gateway to get me. I saw myself carried back

“But why look to a remote meadow for
to the laboratory. I was thereupon relieved, all someone to interrogate?” I had to ask. “If you unawares, of my hanger, that weapon prompt-would study the past, why not deal with the ly shut inside a nearby cabinet. A cursory King or a general or another great personage?

search was made of my pockets—for other

Surely such as them are more involved with weapons, I supposed, as naught more was tak-great events.”

en from me. I saw myself stir, shake off the stu-

“Because,” Alan said, “such people are sel-por of the blow, to gaze about in
dom unattended. And even if we could meet wonder—averring all the while, to all and alone with one, the meeting by itself almost sundry, whilst staggering about as though gid-certainly would change the past.”

dy, that I had no need to see a physician. I saw And so they would seek someone for whom
myself f irmly led to a chair, and seated, and neither his presence nor his absence would be my wound attended to as had been explained of any note. “Whereas when one such as I re-to me previously.

turns to my own time, prating of horseless carI had, indeed, lost these memories.

riages, flying machines, and search engines, it Withal the wonder of events, much still
will be taken as merely a wild tale.”

seemed odd. “This all looks ill-considered.”

Just as many had not believed Gulliver. If Alan nodded. “Because it was. Sure, we had there were a Gulliver. Time travel or concus-done short-range controlled experiments. We sion, either was confounding. To experience had moved small objects an hour or two. We’d both? That was impossible.

moved mice in cages, to be certain time travel

“And that’s why we expect you’ll say noth-didn’t harm living creatures. After that, a few ing at home about what you’ve seen.” Alan of-of us, volunteers, had even been shifted by fered me another bottle, although I was scarce short times. But we were still early in using halfway done with my last. “Time travel mess-the gateway to watch other eras, and not pre-es with your head, doesn’t it? You might as pared to bring anyone back. The History De-well enjoy what parts you can.”

partment had only just held its lottery to pick a professor and a time period for the first long-

Chapter Eight. A frustrated Historian. The 22

MY FIFTH AND MOST EXOTIC VOYAGE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Importance of a mere Sheet of Paper. The Au-But where was home? I “knew” only of Gul-thor’s Identity reconsidered.

liver’s. “I would rather remain awhile, and see more. However long I stay, is it not true you I had but recently f inished a stroll when can return me to moments after I left?”

Doctors Kelly and Watanabe came to my

“It is true, but you heard the Doctor. A re-room. My sojourn in the future had by then turn is for your own good.” He stood to go. “If gone on for nearly a month, and apart from it helps, Lem, I am truly sorry for the harm we the brief venture out for my cat scan, I had yet have caused you.”

to leave the building.

The sooner I returned, the sooner, perhaps, As ever on her visits, the physician bade me I should recover my name and my memories.

to do odd things. I counted backward from

“When will it happen?”

seventy-three. I recited the months of the year He looked at the physician.

in reverse order beginning with October. I She peered again at my brow, from which,
stood for awhile with my eyes closed and my days earlier, she had removed the narrow ban-arms up and stretched in front of me. I walked dages. “Another few days, and the cut will along a line between two rows of floor tiles. I scarcely be noticeable. Meanwhile, I’ll run a sat, gazing up and down, left and right, wher-few tests to be sure Lem doesn’t carry any ever she directed, while she, standing close to modern bugs back with him.”

me, studied my eyes.

“Bugs?” I asked. “Tests?”

“He’s fine,” she concluded, changing it to, She said, “It’s complicated. I just mean we

“Lem, you are f ine. For a week now, you’ve want you to be well when you return, and not been totally f ine. There’s no remaining evi-give your family or neighbors some modern dence of concussion.”

disease. To be certain, I will need to take a

“Except for amnesia.” I had learned the
small sample of your blood.”

word from her. “Withal I can now remember Was aught in this era not complicated?

my arrival in Chicago”—for which, I did not

“Very well.”

doubt, the seeing of the event had certainly Doctor Kelly said, “And we’ll have a barber been a help—“I have no memories before that come by. It wouldn’t do for your hair to have apart from Gulliver’s.”

grown an inch while you took your walk.”

“Except for the amnesia.” She looked in

In a few days, then, I should return to my turn at Doctor Kelly and at me. “To be honest, past—and thereat an uncertain future.

I’m surprised none of those older memories have come back. Your concussion in every

Two days after Doctor Watanabe took a
other respect seems a minor case. You should sample of my blood, a knock came at my door.

have remembered by now.”

I expected a barber, but the caller was my Kelly frowned. “Do we know if those mem-friend Alan. He came with most unexpected ories will ever come back?”

news.

“Know?” She considered. “Sorry. Maybe a

“Congratulations,” he said. “You have
neurologist—Lem, that would be a physician brought on a revolution.”

whose specialty is conditions of the brain—

“I do not understand.” And that statement would offer a different answer. After a great was more true, even, than usual.

many tests, of course. From my reading,

He had not before visited my room. “Look
though, I have my doubts. Being here may
where they stuck you. They might at least compound the very problem we wish to ad-have given you someplace with a window.”

dress. The old, familiar sights may be just the He rubbed his chin in thought. “I suppose thing to reconnect with those misplaced
they worried an outside view would be disori-memories.”

enting. Well, we can f ix that. OK Google,

“And if Lem stays awhile longer? What like-show us a sunset view of Big Sur.” In a twin-lihood is there of any improvement?”

kling, what had been a featureless black rec-She shrugged.

tangle became a rocky coast, and wild ocean,

“Thanks, Doctor,” Kelly said.

and roseate sky. “That’s more like it.”

He pulled his chair closer. “I guess that’s it,

“I did not know OK Google could do such

Lem. Time for you to go home.”

things.”

EDWARD M. LERNER

23

ANALOG

“Just ask. If you make a request it doesn’t You can’t have written the note in this time.”

understand or can’t handle, it will tell you.”

“Then I am Gulliver,” I said. “Only how can As OK Google had said of Brobdingnag
that be? How can I be someone whose adven-when I had asked. But neither a window nor tures never took place? I can hardly have voy-its lack had brought Alan to see me. I asked, aged to the divers places he reported, when

“What was this of a revolution?”

even OK Google, with his view from on high, Alan plopped into a chair. “Some while
knows naught of those lands.”

back, I take it, you gave Old Man Kelly a letter.

“Interesting, no? The easy answer is that you Evidently he was too busy to give it a look, were delusional before the gateway ever
what with the university administration being opened, though why your family let such a per-all over him about bringing you here. And son wander about unsupervised is curious.”

fighting for another chance with the gateway

“I don’t much like being called mad, nor do once your situation gets sorted out. And, if gos-I see yet any revolution.”

sip is to be believed, giving boring lectures.”

“No, I suppose not.” Alan took a deep

I took a guess. “So he has now looked at the breath. “That brings us to our next expert, a letter, and found it of interest?”

professor of literature. She is well-acquainted

“Interest is far too mild a term. What is im-with the writings of your time, including Gul-plied by your letter is—no other word will liver’s Travels. That book was first published serve—revolutionary. To the historians and in . . . ”

the, um, natural philosophers.”

“1726,” I supplied. “The year before I came In my youth (or was it only Gulliver’s?), I hence.”

had lived through what had become known as

“Another edition, she told us, came out in the Glorious Revolution. That popular sobri-1735. It included, for the f irst time, a letter quet notwithstanding, I recalled the King’s ex-from Captain Gulliver to his cousin Sympson.”

pulsion and the accompanying tumult as well Alan stood to pace. “That letter is, word for less than glorious. Was any revolution ever to word, 90 percent the same as what you gave the good? “Once more, I do not understand.”

Old Man Kelly.”

“You’d better sit.” I did, and Alan leaned to-Too confused to consider the implications, ward me. “The letter you furnished is from I asked, “And the few differences?”

Captain Gulliver to his cousin, complaining

“Minor, I’ve heard. Even the few new pas-
about changes to his book.”

sages are in style like the rest.”

“Indeed . . . .” Yet again, confusion overtook I could imagine but one answer to this rid-me. “But wait. Your experts insist I only came dle. “It needs be I am this ‘Jonathon Swift’

to believe I was Gulliver after the concussion.”

whom your historians say wrote Gulliver’s

“Exactly so. When Kelly did look at the letter, Travels.”

he assumed it a hoax or a delusion. Whichever

“Compared to the alternatives, a split per-applied, he assumed you had written it after ar-sonality would be easy to believe. The thing riving here. Only you didn’t.”

is”—Alan completed a slow circuit of the

Indeed I hadn’t. “True, but how can anyone room and started anew—“paintings of the day know that?”

show us his appearance, and you and he look

“Carbon dating.” Alan shrugged. “That’s annot at all alike. Historians also have records of other modern technology it would take too his journeys, and he was in Ireland when we long to explain. What’s important is that Doc-visited you in England.”

tor Kelly was thorough enough to have had

“Were I not, somehow, this Swift, why
your letter authenticated despite his doubts.

would I write a letter of complaint about the Both paper and ink are conf irmed to have book as Gulliver? And why would Master Swift been made between 1720 and 1730. Also, the include such a letter in his new edition?”

review of an expert confirms the text of your

“It doesn’t seem logical, I agree. Everyone letter was written with a quill pen.”

agrees. Yet more puzzling is that far more

“Paper and ink made in 1727, certainly,
matches up than two versions of the letter.

whence I came. And in that year, with what The method is subtle, comparing choices of implement but a quill could I have written it?”

words, turns of phrase, and the like, but the

“You arrived sans inkpots and quill pens.

experts conclude your letter overall is a match 24

MY FIFTH AND MOST EXOTIC VOYAGE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
to the whole of Gulliver’s Travels.”

“Your world has whole regions unknown to

Struggling to find some sense among these us. Geographic features form slowly, and it revelations, I conceived of another explana-suggests your world and mine can only have tion. “Then this Jonathon Swift stole my man-split very long ago. But you speak recogniz-uscript, to have it published as his own.” And able English, and that suggests a considerably perhaps anger at such villainy, rather than ad-more recent split.”

venture and misadventure, was the source of

“Perhaps I am mad and from another my past madness.

world. I could as well have invented Brob-

“Historians here rejected that possibility.

dingnag and all the rest in another world as Swift was a famous author, friend to several here.”

others, and dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Alan shook his head. “You could, but I don’t Dublin. To the certain knowledge of many, think you did. Once we had to take seriously Swift worked for years on the manuscript that the possibility of other histories—other time-became Gulliver’s Travels.”

lines, as we call them—we used the gateway A well-known figure of my time of whom I
to take another look. Before, we had opened was entirely unaware. “This needs be mad-the gateway only near London. When we
ness, but I can imagine but one other possibil-opened the gateway where Brobdingnag
ity. There is not one history, but many, and should be, we found that.”

your gateway plucked me from a history other I had to smile. “It would be hard to miss.”

than your own.”

“Also giants. And all sorts of things that

“Lem, you are a constant amazement. That
made no sense, and that didn’t care whether is exactly what I think happened.”

we thought them possible, that flat-out don’t exist in this world. Forget how long it takes to

Chapter Nine. More than the World turned raise continents. The very laws of Nature must upside down. The Grandfather Paradox ex-be different, going back to the Big Bang. . . .”

plained.

The Creation, I presumed that to mean, his phrase seeming more than a little irreverent.

Of a sudden, Alan ceased his pacing. “As fas-He went on and on for awhile about squares cinated as I am by all this, there’s something and cubes and ratios, and gravity, and Brob-more important you need to know. They’re no dingnagians who would be unable to stand in longer planning to send you back.”

this world. And that with differences as an-

“I don’t mind staying awhile longer. Now
cient as the Creation and as recent as the de-that your colleagues know me to be sane, I velopment of English, histories needs must hope to see much of this city and this time.”

sometime converge as well as diverge. That

“They may never send you back. ” He rather than sprouting branches in the manner paused. “They . . . we . . . may not know how.”

of trees, timelines needs must ever be spawn-

“I do not—”

ing an ever more tangled web.

“Understand,” he completed. “I’ll do my

I was too overwhelmed to take it in.

best to keep things uncomplicated.” He

“But what,” I asked, breaking into the tor-paused to carefully choose his words. “The rent of words—and worlds—“has any of this universe has more tricks than ever I imagined.

to do with whether I stay or return?”

Those who accept the many worlds interpre-

“Right.” He considered. “We designed the
tation—and I’ve now joined that small minori-gateway to open a path back, not to . . . not to ty—envisioned reality after reality splitting off.

. . .” trailing off, I surmised, in search of words Imagine limbs, then branches, then twigs of a I might understand.

tree, a new split whenever more than one

I offered, “Not to go sideways?”

thing could take place.”

“That will do. We don’t know what makes

A new world with each choice any person
the gateway go sideways, or how far, or how made? “If so, there are many worlds indeed.”

it makes a connection with another timeline.

“It now appears the development and in-

And not knowing how it made the connection crease among the worlds is not so . . . simple.”

once, we couldn’t know if we could reach the This was simple? I was loath to ask, but I same timeline twice. It turns out we can’t, at did. “How so?”

least not yet. When we opened the gateway EDWARD M. LERNER

25

ANALOG
several times with our controls set exactly the to just say no.” He pondered a bit more. “And same, and took samples of air and dirt from someone to protect your rights in the next the far end, well, every set tested out differ-book you write. You’ll want that to pay your ently.” He managed a grin. “You wouldn’t un-way in this world.”

derstand.”

“And that someone is you?”

“And indeed I do not.”

“If so, God help us both. Lem, I’d like to

“The good news,” Alan said, “if you care to bring in a lawyer to talk with you. If you agree, think of it this way, is that at least we may to have him represent you.”

have answered one deep question. It may be I had, before expulsion from Houyhnhnm-there are no grandfather paradoxes because land, once discussed the legal system with my no one can go back into their own past. They master. Lawyers, I had explained, were “Bred can only visit, or create, another timeline.”

up from their youth in the art of proving by Withal my head was veritably spinning, I
words multiplied for the purpose that white is tried to un-jumble my thoughts. “So your gate-black and black is white, according as how way cannot reliably find my home?”

they are paid. To this society, all the rest of the

“Exactly.”

people are slaves.” My disquisition that day on

“And if I were prepared to take the
the subject had served only to demonstrate, chance?”

yet again, the vices to which my kind is both

“It’s just too uncertain. Too dangerous. The inventor and heir.

authorities won’t allow it.”

Nothing since my exile had softened my

After the strangeness of my several travels, opinion of that profession. Was I now to en-what worse peril did these authorities sup-trust my safety and future to lawyers? Once pose I might encounter? Cannibals? Fire-lawyers were involved with a problem, who breathing dragons? Werewolves? I said, “You but they ever saw any benefit? Whenever did know how operate the gateway, do you not?

a lawyer rest until his client had become desti-Will you allow it?”

tute—an affliction certain to befall me sooner I took his unease as answer to my first ques-than this vast university. Alan’s plan would, at tion and his silence as answer to my second.

best, postpone the divers tests and trials he

“If I am to stay, Alan, what do the authorities foresaw. Rather than to entrust my life and fu-intend for me?”

ture to lawyers, I should prefer—and it was an

“And so we come full circle.” Looking
opinion informed of experience—the mercies weary, Alan settled once more into a chair. “I of a horde of petty, vindictive Lilliputians.

don’t know. Hell, no one knows. The thing is, To Alan, eying me anxiously, I dissembled, you’re not only from another time, you’re from

“I needs must give this matter some thought.”

another universe.”

“Not only is the universe stranger than we

Chapter Ten. The Author takes Matters think, it is stranger than we can think.”

into his own Hands. His Adventure reaches He blinked. “Exactly so. What I expect, and its Conclusion.

why I’m here to warn you, is that you’ll be studied to, well, hopefully not quite to, death.

As soon as Alan took his leave, I turned my Scientists and historians and, well, everyone attention to the study of geography. To this already have endless questions about your end, OK Google was of great assistance. Soon world. Medical researchers are already eager several pages in my spiral notebook were
to do whole batteries of tests on you, having filled, in tiny script, with what I had learned.

seen the one sample of your blood.”

As many an evening, a servant, what the

“And if I choose not to be interrogated and university called a graduate assistant, delivered vivisected?”

the tray with my dinner. I thanked him, then

“It won’t be quite that bad.” He sighed. “But ate well and completely, knowing that, if all it won’t be much fun, either. That’s why I’m went well, this could be my last hot meal for here—as a friend. You can’t go home, so you awhile. As I waited for the halls to empty, I need someone from here to look out for you.

gathered bits of food set aside from past To guarantee you the right to decide what is meals. I had been saving provisions in case of and isn’t done to you. To assure you the right an emergency, and surely my present straits 26

MY FIFTH AND MOST EXOTIC VOYAGE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
could be so described. I likewise collected all

“Yes.”

that had come with me from Redriff, and

“OK Chronos, can an instruction placed at divers items accumulated here. After f illing the end of such a group make you forget
my pockets, I put on, over my modern garb, things?”

my own clothes. Once those pockets, too,

“Yes.”

were filled, I removed a blanket from the bed I ordered, “OK Chronos, here are my in-and draped it across my shoulder.

structions. Five minutes after I have passed When, at long last, I deemed the hour suffi-through the gateway, close it. Then, erase all ciently late, I used my key card to open the records of where I went.” Remembering how door. Listening carefully, I heard naught in the Alan had shown me my arrival to this very hall but the faint hum of the refreshments room, I added, “Finally, erase any images of box. With an empty scabbard slapping against me this night. Can you do all that?”

my leg, I hurried to the Temporal Laboratory,

“Yes.”

whose door opened, as on an earlier excur-

“OK Chronos, when I have left through the sion, upon the close approach of my key card.

gateway, proceed as I have just ordered.”

I closed myself inside, with an edge of blanket I stepped out from behind the desk and
trapped between the door and the lintel. The went through the gateway. Looking about me hall went dark even as the door swung shut, with satisfaction, I decided: here I remain.

and, I hoped, the blanket dangling within With a broad smile on my face, I waited and would hide—should anyone come seeking re-watched until the gateway winked closed.

freshment—the light that now shone in the laboratory. With a sweeping motion of a f in-With my pen all but emptied of ink and my ger, I dimmed the ceiling.

spiral notebook all but filled with tiny writing, I retrieved my hanger from whence it had

I bring to a close this account of my latest ad-been stowed upon my arrival, the familiar venture. In anticipation of this event, I have weight of weapon and scabbard most com-long preserved a treat, it being the last of the forting at my side. Seating myself at the desk food that I brought hence. These Oreos will, I from which Doctor Kelly had opened a gate-believe, go nicely with a bit of fresh milk of co-way to Redriff, I espied the small square over conut. And then, withal that the sun is yet which he had, that day, passed his hand and high in the sky, I have no plans for the day its chip. I waved my key card over the same apart from a nap, and throwing the occasional spot, then pressed buttons among the array fallen branch onto my cooking fire to keep it just as I had seen him do. If he had, as I sur-going, and enjoying the sunset.

mised, used the buttons to enter a secret And tomorrow?

watchword, and if I remembered aright the Tomorrow I shall turn my attention to the letters and numbers therein, my plan might adventures of Robinson Crusoe—whom I
succeed.

doubt not, on some timeline, is as real as my-OK Chronos spoke the words upon which
self. Then, to the murmur of the surf and the that plan relied. “Gateway initialized.”

rustle of leaves, I shall consider his advice on I retrieved my notebook and, as I had ob-best establishing myself on a tropical desert is-served Doctor Kelly do, directed OK Chronos land.

with regard to date, time, latitude, and longitude. Instead of the coordinates for Redriff, I (Signed)Lemuel Gulliver
used the f irst location from my list. With a some world.

whiff of pungent storm scent, the gateway some time. ■
opened—

Alas, the view therein brought me only dis-Edward M. Lerner is a physicist, computer appointment.

scientist, and curmudgeon by training. Writ-

“Gateway active,” the ceiling announced.

ing full-time since 2004, he applies all three I tried the second location from my list.

skill sets to SF (his latest novel being the Then, the third. And at my eighth try, I smiled.

award-winning InterstellarNet: Enigma) and

“OK Chronos,” I asked, “Can you remem-
popular science. Ed's authorial web site is edber and then follow a group of instructions?”

wardmlerner.com.

EDWARD M. LERNER

27

Science Fact

The Quest
for the

2:00 Marathon

Richard A. Lovett
hen I was a child, I read Jack Lon-
found the limit London so eloquently de-
don’s famous short story “To Build
scribed.

a Fire,” which depicts a Klondike-

Meanwhile, Isaac Asimov wrote a story

Wera gold miner who makes the mis- called “The Super Runner.” It depicted an take of setting off on foot in the middle of a Olympian of the future: gene-modified to have Yukon winter. Things go wrong, his matches lungs like bellows, bulging muscles, and an get wet, and he winds up staggering through immensely jacked-up metabolism that allowed the cold until eventually he is so exhausted he feats of endurance and speed impossible to or-can’t take another step.

dinary humans. Asimov’s super runners even It might not have been the ideal story for a had holes in their sides to help them breathe child whose sporting interests bent toward en-more efficiently. The story, which appeared in durance challenges—which at the time took the October 1982 issue of Runner’s World, the form of long hikes or bicycle rides over was basically a gee-whiz look at a high-tech fu-hilly terrain. Was it really possible to become ture. But in my mind it merged with London’s so exhausted you couldn’t take another step?

classic tale and added another peg to my fasci-Over the years, I climbed mountains, ran
nation with the limits of human performance.

marathons, competed in Ironman triathlons, Forget the gene-modification stuff: what is re-and twice bicycled two-hundred-plus miles in ally, truly possible . . . for humans as we are to-a single day. I tried my hand at snowshoe rac-day?

ing, ski marathons on back-to-back days, and desert treks hauling as much as 12 liters up I have spent much of my life as a runner, a steep trails. Occasionally, I made myself miser-good portion of it as a coach. One of the able enough to say “never again,” but I never things this has taught me is that athletes love 28

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
round numbers. Whether it’s a hat trick in Nike Sub-2 Attempt
hockey, a triple-double in basketball, or rush-Days before this article went to press, Nike ing two hundred yards in football, beating made a much-publicized attempt at thesub-2
some magic number is the closest thing many marathon, with Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, com-sports have to a true barrier: the emotional ing close to the goal running loops of a Formu-equivalent, for the most tantalizing targets, to la One auto racetrack in Monza, Italy. But climbing Mt. Everest or landing on the Moon.

however impressive Kipchoge’s 2:00:23 time Sixty-three years ago the barrier everyone was, it is not what this article is about.

was talking about in track and f ield was the That’s because running, like other sports, four-minute mile. It was such a big deal that has rules. Nobody has ever doubted, for exam-when a 25-year-old British medical student ple, that someone could run sub-2 on a mas-named Roger Bannister finally vanquished it in sively downhill course or on the Bonneville 1954, he would go on to become Sir Roger Salt Flats with a giant tailwind. That’s why Bannister. Today, the barrier that’s starting to courses like that aren’t record eligible. And draw attention is the two-hour marathon.

while the Monza course was neither downhill Since 1908, when the marathon was estab-nor downwind, there were important ways in lished at its current distance (26.219 miles, or which the endeavor didn’t match the rules.

42.195 kilometers), the world record has fall-Normally, competitors must grab drinking bot-en by more than fifty minutes, from 2:55:18.4
tles from a table as they run by. At Monza, drinks to 2:02:57. Most of this occurred in the early were distributed by an assistant on a moped—
years, as runners and coaches learned the ba-seventeen times during the entire event. That sics of training and competing in a race that spared the time and energy of swerving to a long. But since 2000, the record has fallen sev-table, breaking stride to grab a drink, then getting en times, totaling 2 minutes and 45 seconds—
back into rhythm. Multiplied by seventeen, that a rate of progress that might see a sub-2:00
could easily be a twenty-second advantage.

marathon sometime in the 2030s.

The race was also conducted with a phalanx But can a human being really run that far, of six pacers running in a tight formation to op-that fast?

timize the draft for the stars. Furthermore, a to-It’s easy to find doubters, but there are also tal of eighteen pacers rotated in and out, in people who think the record will drop even shifts, every 2.4 kilometers, guaranteeing that more quickly as the goal looms closer. One is there the pacers always had fresh legs.

Yannis Pitsiladis, a professor of sports and ex-No other male marathoner has ever been
ercise science at the University of Brighton, paced the entire distance, let alone by a team of U.K., who thinks the sub-2:00 marathon might six. In 2003, Paula Radcliffe set a women’s be achieved not long after the end of this world record of 2:15:23 in the London
decade, and who is one of the founders of an Marathon with the help of male pacers (albeit organization called the Sub2 Project
fewer than six). The closest any woman has (www.sub2hrs.com), an international re-come to matching that mark without male pac-search initiative focused on making it happen.

ers was in April of this year, when Kenyan Mary Skeptics, Pitsiladis said in a May 2016 inter-Keitany ran 2:17:01 to win the 2017 London view with The New York Times, claim that the Marathon. (Radcliffe herself held the prior two-hour marathon is too good to be possible, women’s-only record at 2:17:42.)

“like going to Mars.” (1) But for some of us, a What this means is that pacers who can go comparison like that isn’t discouraging: it’s ex-the whole distance might be good for about a actly the type of thing we dream of. Though two-minute advantage. Add another twenty
perhaps the better analogy is to the 1960s seconds for on-the-move bottle deliveries, and Moon race; in December 2016, sporting giants Kipchoge’s 2:00:23 starts to look very similar Nike and Adidas both announced (on back to to the official world record of 2:02:57—possi-back days) that they too will be throwing their bly enough to set a genuine world record in a time, resources, and reputations into trying to standard race, but not by a lot.

be the f irst to achieve the goal—possible The bottom line: this carefully orchestrated much sooner than even Pitsiladis dreams.

run isn’t what this article is about. It was fun

* * *
and exciting, but it was more of an experiment than an actual race.

THE QUEST FOR THE 2:00 MARATHON

ANALOG

Athletic Genius
how many have now duplicated it: the best I Fanning the f lames of optimism is the fact can f ind is “somewhere between 1,300 and that the four-minute mile didn’t prove to be 2,000.”1 I myself was once at a meet where anywhere close to the ultimate limit. Within the entire field ran better four minutes.

weeks of Bannister’s accomplishment, Aus-

This means that while Frederick’s running tralian John Landy clipped another 1.4 sec-geniuses remain the ones most likely to make onds off the mark. Since then, the record has major breakthroughs, we don’t have to sit fallen all the way to 3:43.13. And there’s no around waiting for the next one to surface. Two-reason to believe that the same might apply to hour dreamers can also prepare . . . and much of the two-hour marathon. In research published that preparation centers around Joyner’s physio-in 2010 in the Journal of Applied Physiology, logical variables.

Michael Joyner, an exercise researcher at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, calculated that if V What?

the best-ever values of three important exer-The best known of these is VO max. Techni-2
cise-physiology values were ever combined in cally, it’s the amount of oxygen your body a single person, such a superstar could easily processes at peak effort, but the best way to break two hours. (2) In fact, he told me in a think of it is as a gauge of the power of your aer-phone interview, such a runner might even obic engine, with all its parts—heart, lungs, get to 1:50 or below.

capillaries, and muscles—working at their best.

We will discuss Joyner’s three variables in a For people in other f ields, the nomencla-moment, but what this means for now is that, ture is odd because we tend to associate “v”

like the four-minute mile, the two-hour
with velocity, but in this case, it simply means marathon mark may not be a “real” barrier. “It’s volume (as in volume of oxygen). VO max is 2
just a number that sounds good,” says Geoffroy measured in milliliters of oxygen consumed, Berthelot, a specialist in informatics and algo-per minute, per kilogram of body mass, deter-rithmics at the National Institute of Sport, Ex-mined by the simple expedient of putting you pertise, and Performance in Paris, France.

on a treadmill and measuring your oxygen

What’s needed to break it, he adds, isn’t a su-consumption as the effort ramps up. There perhuman performance: merely someone very, comes a point at which, try as you might, your very good.

oxygen consumption has plateaued. That’s

Berthelot calls such an individual the Usain your VO max. You can hang on for a bit

2

Bolt of marathoning. Ned Frederick, a biome-longer—even run a bit faster—but your oxy-chanics expert at Exeter Research, Inc., Brent-gen consumption won’t change. Pretty soon wood, N.H., prefers the term marathoning
you’ll run out of gas and (if you’re stubborn genius.

enough to try to hold out too long) get spat off In the past 65 years, Fredrick says,
the back of the treadmill. It’s a short but brutal marathoning has seen two such people. The test.

f irst was British star Jim Peters, who in a se-A reasonably active college male might have ries of races in 1952–54 lowered the record by a VO max of about forty. (Women tend to test 2
a spectacular eight minutes (from 2:25:39 to about 10% lower.) A 3:20 marathoner (fit but 2:17.39.4). He was followed by Australia’s far behind the winners) might have a VO max 2

Derek Clayton (the first to run sub-2:10), who of 45 to 50. Elite marathoners tend to have val-chopped another 3:26.4 off the prior mark in ues in the eighties.

the late 1960s.

Part of the elites’ advantage comes from

And while Peters’s and Clayton’s times seem having better-developed cardiovascular sys-slow by today’s standards, remember that the tems. John Halliwill, an exercise physiologist same now applies to Bannister’s mile. Today, at the University of Oregon, notes that the av-so many people have been inspired by his per-erage sedentary person’s heart might be able formance that it’s difficult even to get a tally of to pump two liters of blood per minute. “An 1

The number would be even higher if the mile weren’t now largely superseded by the slightly shorter 1500-meter run (0.93 miles).

30

RICHARD A. LOVETT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
elite’s can do forty liters per minute,” he says.

at the end of a hard-fought eight hundred to People with high VO max also have more
sore muscles and the dead-legs feeling many 2
capillaries supplying blood to their muscles.

athletes have at the end of a hard workout. But And their muscle cells tend to be unusually none of this is true. Lactate is simply a fuel well-stocked with mitochondria, the subcellu-that, unlike the glucose that produced it, can’t lar powerhouses in which fuel and oxygen are be processed without oxygen. “It’s roughly combined to produce energy.

half of a glucose molecule and still has a lot of To a large extent, VO max is genetic. A few energy in it,” says Halliwill. In fact, if scientists 2
people are born with enormous aerobic po-
inject lactate into volunteers, even ones al-tential; most aren’t. But whatever level you ready working hard on a treadmill, they don’t start at, signif icant improvements can be suddenly feel fatigued. “They do just f ine,”

made via years of consistent training.

Halliwill says.

For runners, much of this training simply At different workloads, the body processes takes the form of running a lot, but there are lactate in different ways. At low exercise lev-specif ic types of intensive interval workouts els, there’s more than enough oxygen to go (in which you alternately run fast, then back around, so it’s burned up nearly as quickly as off to recover) known to be particularly good it’s formed. At slightly higher workloads, it’s at improving VO max. Research has also
produced more quickly but also used more

2
shown that additional boosts can be obtained quickly. More finds its way into the blood, but from altitude training (or sleeping in a low-oxy-not much.

gen “altitude tent”), heat training (which mim-Somewhere around marathon pace, howev-
ics the effects of altitude by diverting blood to er, things change. At this speed, the lactate the skin for cooling, thereby forcing the mus-level in the blood has edged up to about 2 mil-cles to cope with reduced oxygen), and—for limoles (mmol) per liter. That’s still fairly low, some reason—eating a lot of beets. (3)

but at faster paces, it rises more rapidly. At the But there comes a time when athletes have pace a runner could sustain for a one-hour elevated their VO maxes as far as their genes al-race (a half-marathon for elite men) it’s dou-2
low. In a 2005 study in the Journal of Sports bled, to 4 mmol. Above that pace, it skyrock-Medicine and Physical Fitness, a team led by ets. Thus the 4 mmol pace is sometimes called Alejandro Legaz Arrese of the University of the lactate threshold.

Saragossa, Spain, tracked 33 elite Spanish run-Athletes and coaches have long presumed
ners through four years of intense training. (4) that rising lactate levels are a bad thing. But At the end, the runners’ VO maxes were essen-exercise-physiology research suggests other-2
tially unchanged. “In a nutshell,” Halliwill says, wise. Instead, rising lactate levels appear to be

“VO max reaches a plateau.” VO max training part of what George Brooks, an exercise phys-2

2
is still needed to keep from backsliding, but fur-iologist at the University of California, Berke-ther gains have to come from elsewhere.

ley, calls the lactate shuttle.

In a series of papers published over the

Lactic Acid
course of two decades, Brooks found that as A major part of that elsewhere involves lactate levels mount, the body uses the blood Joyner’s second variable, lactate threshold.

to ship it from the hard-working muscles

Lactate is a molecule formed as a byproduct where it’s being produced to better-oxygenat-of the muscles’ f irst step in breaking down ed places where it can more easily be used.

glucose (blood sugar) for energy. That f irst One of these places is the heart. Another is step, called glycolysis, releases a comparative-the brain. Lactate even goes to the liver, which ly large amount of energy and has the distinc-can use oxygen to turn it back into glucose to tion of not requiring oxygen. That makes it be sent back to the muscles for another round vital for runners engaged in events such as the of glycolysis. Even lesser-working muscles like 800-meter run, in which about half of their en-the arms appear to pull lactate out of the ergy comes from this “anaerobic” process. But blood for their own fuel, sparing glucose for it produces large amounts of lactate.

the muscles that most need it.

Lactate’s accumulation in the blood has

In other words, instead of being a sign of been blamed for everything from exhaustion impending catastrophe, the rise of lactate in THE QUEST FOR THE 2:00 MARATHON

31

ANALOG
the bloodstream means the body is busy shut-by catching crosswinds on windy
tling it around to places where it can best be days and their added weight makes
used. “It helps establish a hierarchy for glu-them unappealing on hills), but
cose use,” says Halliwill. “The organs that when I was young, all bicycles had
most need it get priority and the others rely on spoked wheels, typically with 28–36
lactate.”

spokes. Now, innovation is the name
of the game. (7)

Long before lactate metabolism was fully

• Aluminum baseball bats and tennis
understood, runners, coaches, and scientists rackets. These allow you to hit the
knew it was good to train at effort levels at or ball harder (and perhaps swing more
around lactate threshold. All the way back in quickly) than traditional wooden

1982, a team of exercise physiologists led by bats and rackets.

Bertil Sjödin of Sweden’s National Defense Re-

• The Fosbury flop in high-jumping, in
search Institute put experienced runners on which you go over the bar headfirst
treadmills and asked them to run twenty-min-on your back. Before Dick Fosbury
ute runs at a pace the scientists called V

—
pioneered it in the 1968 Olympics

OBLA
the speed at which there was an “onset of (winning gold), high jumpers tend-blood lactate accumulation,” or roughly the ed to face the bar when they went
pace at which lactate hits the 4 mmol level.

over it (some even scissor-kicked).

The result, published in the European Jour-Now, everyone does it Fosbury’s
nal of Applied Physiology and Occupational way.

Physiology, was jaw-dropping: after 14 weeks

• Cross-country ski skating. Traditional-
of such training, Sjödin’s runners saw their ly, cross-country ski racers used a

V
paces speed up by 4%—from 5:43 per
technique called the diagonal stride,

OBLA
mile to 5:29 per mile for Sjödin’s good-but-by-which looks a lot like walking. Then
no-means-elite study subjects. (5)

in 1982, American skier Bill Koch

Four percent might not sound like a lot, but shocked the racing world by winning
in the elite racing world, it’s enormous, com-the World Cup by using his skis like
parable to the advantage dopers hope to ob-giant skates, pushing off on their
tain from performance-enhancing drugs. Nor edges in a pattern a lot like ice skatis it simply a laboratory effect. In 2013, a team ing across the snow. It was at least as
led by Jordan Santos-Concejero of the Univer-radical an innovation as the Fosbury
sity of the Basque Country in northern Spain f lop, remarkable because diagonal-examined 22 nationally and internationally stride cross-country skiing dates back
competitive runners and found that every six thousands of years . . . though realisti-seconds per kilometer (ten seconds per mile) cally, it took modern lightweight skis
difference in V
correlated to a seventy-sec-
to make ski skating feasible.

OBLA
ond difference in 10K personal bests. (6) To-

• Swimming with your f ingers held
day, almost every serious distance runner does slightly spread apart, rather than
some form of V
training.

pressed together. Research shows

OBLA
that there is enough drag on the wa-

Revolutionary Revolutions
ter trying to pass between your f in-

Findings like Sjödin’s and Santos-Conce-
gers that holding them this way in
jero’s aren’t the only time science has revolu-effect increases the size of your
tionized a long-established sport. Other
hand, mimicking the effect of wear-
examples include:

ing paddle-like gloves. And swim-
mers have long known that gloves,

• Disc wheels in cycling. These reduce
like foot fins, make you dramatically
drag from the “egg-beater” effect of
faster (which is why they aren’t al-
the spinning spokes, allowing cy-
lowed in races). (8)

clists to go faster for the same pedal-

• Low-resistance, full-body swimsuits.

ing effort. They don’t work under all

During their brief heyday, in
conditions (they can cause crashes

2008–09, these produced an amazing

32

RICHARD A. LOVETT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
spate of world records. The effect
also involved, partly because stronger muscles was so strong that Tom Malchow,
more effectively function as springs that store who set the world record in the
and release energy with each stride. In a 2015

200m butterf ly in the 2000 Sydney
analysis in the Journal of Strength and Condi-Olympics, told me that a coach had
tioning Research, a team led by Carlos Balsa-later told him he’d have been three
lobre-Fernández of the University of Madrid, seconds faster wearing one of the

Spain, found that a mix of weight lifting, low-resistance suits—an enormous
bounding exercises, and short sprints im-
boost in a race lasting less than two
proved running economy by 2–3% in seriously minutes. Within a couple of years,
competitive but not world-class athletes. (9) the suits were banned.

Elite distance runners are doing similar
training, though it’s only recently that they’ve Such innovations generally have one of two realized its value, says David McHenr y, effects. They are either widely adopted, like strength and conditioning coach for Nike’s the Fosbury f lop, or banned, like aluminum Oregon Project (which produced three
bats in major league baseball and full-body Olympic medalists—Galen Rupp, Matthew
swimsuits in international competition. An ex-Centrowitz, Jr., and Mo Farah—in the 2016
ception is ski skating, which split the sport Rio Olympics). For a long time, McHenry says, into two divisions: classic and freestyle (skat-it was thought that weight lifting would make ing). I.e., sports simultaneously rewards inno-distance runners bulk up too much. But revation (with wins) but resists if the innovation search and coaching experience have shown is too radical, threatening too many traditions.

that this needn’t be the case. “If done the right Not that Sjödin’s discovery of the value of way,” he says, “strength training can go a long V
training was at any risk of producing that way without having an adverse effect on the OBLA
degree of controversy. Runners have always runner’s weight.”

trained f irst and foremost by running, and But strength training isn’t the only way to some of that running has always involved run-improve running efficiency. You can also fid-ning quickly. All that Sjödin’s research dle with footwear.

changed was pinpointing a specif ic type of There is a well-known relationship between speed work that might be particularly useful.

shoe weight and running economy: every one More recent research has suggested that it hundred grams removed from the shoes
might be even better to do workouts that al-means a 1% improvement efficiency. Modern ternate between paces slightly faster than shoes are already pretty light, but Frederick V
and slightly slower. The fast part of these thinks it may be possible to shave off another OBLA
yo-yo cycles jacks up the body’s lactate level.

fifty grams. If so, that would be enough to pro-The slower ones improve the lactate shuttle duce about a half-minute improvement in the by training the body to use that lactate while current record—a signif icant chunk of the still running fairly briskly.

needed 177 seconds.

But getting rid of even more weight by dis-It’s the Economy, Stupid
pensing with shoes altogether won’t work. In The last of Joyner’s exercise-physiology varia 2012 study in Medicine & Science in Sports ables is running economy. Technically, this is

& Exercise, Jason Franz and Roger Kram of the simply a measure of how much oxygen you

Locomotion Laboratory at the University of use at any given pace. It’s important because a Colorado recruited a dozen experienced bare-runner with high running economy but a less-foot runners and measured their running
than-stellar VO max might be able to run
economy, shod and unshod. (10) They found 2
faster than one with super-high VO max but that despite the added weight, even these 2
poor economy. It’s not quite the same thing as barefoot specialists were 3–4% more econom-efficiency, but it’s close.

ical when wearing shoes.

The most obvious factor inf luencing it is History concurs. One of the f irst great
running form, which can squander energy by African runners was Abebe Bikila, who
being too bouncy, over-striding, or by leaning shocked the sport by running barefoot
too far forward or back. But muscle strength is through the streets of Rome in the 1960

THE QUEST FOR THE 2:00 MARATHON

33

ANALOG

Women and the Marathon
moved to a track? The 10,000-meter record is Like the four-minute mile, the two-hour
significantly faster on the track (26:17.53 ver-marathon is very much a men’s goal. On aversus 26:44), and there’s no reason not to ex-age, women are about thirty seconds/mile
pect that the track’s perfect, ideally cushioned slower than men in distance races, meaning surface wouldn’t provide comparable advan-that the women’s world records for the mile tages for the marathon. Combine that with and the marathon are currently 4:12.56 and Kram’s individually tuned shoes, and the two-2:15:25, respectively.

hour marathon might be in reach right now What this means is that both the 4-minute for the world’s top runners.

mile and the two-hour marathon are far

It might also be possible to run the race be-enough out of reach for women to be unin-
low sea level. High altitudes slow marathoners teresting. It’s a weird effect of the 24-hour/60-by about 1% per three hundred meters of ele-minute clock that in these events, men get all vation. If the reverse effect occurs below sea the attention. If the ancients had divided the level, a race held at the Dead Sea (420 meters day into 22 (longer) hours rather than 24, below sea level) might be a whopping ninety men would long ago have broken the two-seconds faster than one held at sea level. If hour “barrier” and it would be women who
you were to build a track there, the combined would now be knocking on the door.

effect might be a 3½-minute advantage—
enough to put the goal in play, today.

Olympics. It looked like a triumph for barefoot Would a track race held in a specially con-running because he not only won but also set a structed facility below sea level be viewed as a world record. But four years later he was back,

“true” marathon? Who knows? My own belief this time in Tokyo, this time in shoes. Again he is that it would go into the history books with won, and again he set a world record, this time an asterisk. In fact, it would probably cause of-in 2:12:12—a 2.3% improvement on his 1960
f icial records to be split into two divisions, mark of 2:15:17.

just as they are for the 10K: track and road.

The advantage of shoes comes from the

What purists want to see is a sub-two-hour ability of their cushioning to reduce strain on traditional marathon: run on the roads. But leg muscles. But not all runners need the same even that may not be all that far away. “It will amount of cushioning. Historically, they have take everything going perfectly—weather, pac-simply tried out different types of shoes until ing, preparation, etcetera,” says Dathan Ritzen-they found what they like best. But Kram
hein, America’s third-fastest all-time marathoner thinks it’s possible to use treadmill tests to (2:07:47). “It’s very hard to put all the pieces to-f ine-tune shoes to runners, scientif ically gether, but I do think it will happen.”

matching them to their perfect shoes. Freder-America’s fastest-ever marathoner, Ryan Hall ick adds that it might even be possible to (2:04:58), agrees, though he also thinks it will match the shoe to the course, possibly even require someone willing to risk everything.

designing ones that change characteristics as That’s because, unless the world record has al-the race progresses and the runner tires. “In-ready dropped very close to the magic mark, dividually tuned shoes won’t trump talent and anyone targeting it could much more easily training,” he says, “but could easily add up to achieve a world record —a tremendous
the necessary seconds.”

achievement in and of itself. Going for more More controversial would be using technol-would risk much worse than falling short of ogy to optimize the marathon course.

two hours; it would also be possible to “blow Some aspects of course design are fairly
up” and achieve nothing at all. “You have to straightforward. The top marathon courses al-be crazy enough to go for it,” Hall says.

ready minimize sharp turns, uneven surfaces, hills, and long stretches on leg-pounding con-To sports fans, all of this is the stuff of high crete, though there are rules against allowing drama, because the person who f inally
world records on courses with giant down-
achieves the goal will live forever in history, grades or point-to-point routes on which run-right with Roger Bannister. But it’s also impor-ners might get tailwinds the entire way.

tant to those who would never dream of lacing But what would happen if the race were
on running shoes and get bored even by the 34

RICHARD A. LOVETT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Olympics. That’s because studying the world’s DOI: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00563.2010.

best athletes can also benefit non-athletes, in-3. D.J. Muggeridge, et al., “A single dose of cluding those only wanting to ward off dia-beetroot juice enhances cycling perfor-
betes, heart disease, and the effects of old age.

mance in simulated altitude. Med Sci Sports

“Health deficits we identify as part of aging,”

Exerc.”

Jan 2014; 46(1): 143-50; doi:

Halliwill says, “are, in truth, long-term adapta-10.1249/MSS.0b013e3182a1dc51.

tions to low physical activity.” In fact, he says, 4. A. Legaz Arrese, et al., “The Changes in one of the most promising trends in treating Running Performance and Maximal Oxygen
cardiac patients is the use of high-intensity in-Uptake After Long-Term Training in Elite
terval training, just as is done by elite athletes.

Athletes,” J Sports Med Phys Fitness Dec

“By studying the outliers (elite athletes),” he 2005 45(4): 435–440.

says, “we understand more about the average—

5. B. Sjödin, I. Jacobs, J. Svedenhag,
or even outliers in the opposite direction.”

“Changes in onset of blood lactate accumula-For science fiction fans, there might be even tion (OBLA) and muscle enzymes after train-more benefits. If someday we really are going ing at OBLA,” Europ. J. Appl. Physiol. June to live in space or travel to other worlds, we 1982 49:45-57 doi:10.1007/BF00428962.

know that keeping fit in low gravity will be vi-6. Jordan Santos-Concejero, Cristina
tal for long-term health. The more we know Granados, Iraia Bidaurrazaga-Letona, Jon Zabala-about human performance on Earth, the more Lili, Jon Irazusta, Susana María Gil, “Onset of effectively we may be able to cope with envi-blood lactate accumulation as a predictor of ronments where even the basics of day-to-day performance in top athletes,” RETOS. Nuevas living are extreme.

Tendencias en Educación Física, Deporte y Also, sports-style competition is a basic as-Recreación, Issue 23, pages 67–69 (2013).

pect of human nature. Whether it’s low-gee 7. See, Forrest Wickman, “It’s the Wheel tiddlywinks, climbing Olympus Mons, or rac-Thing Slate,

August 7, 2012. http://
ing in pressure suits around the equator of an www.slate.com/articles/sports/explainer/
asteroid (just how long would it take to circle 2012/08/track_cycling_wheels_why_do_ol the 1,845-mile circumference of Ceres in
ympic_cyclists_use_disc_wheels_.html

0.029 g?), the better we understand human 8. Willem van de Water, et all, “More eff i-performance on Earth, the better we undercient swimming by spreading your f ingers,”

stand what might be possible elsewhere.

69th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Not to mention that for some of us, there re-Fluid Dynamics, Volume 61, Number 20,
mains that question raised by Jack London’s Abstract L19.00008.

story. Where, exactly, are the limits? What 9. Carols Balsalobre-Fernández, Jordan
happens if we try for just a little bit more? And Santos-Concejero, Gerasimos V. Grivas,
then a little bit more after that?

“Effects of Strength Training on Running

London wrote about this 109 years ago in

Economy in Highly Trained Runners,” The the Yukon. In science fiction, we’re interested Journal of Strength and Conditioning
in space, in the 2030s and beyond. But in the Research Dec. 2015.

interim, what better laboratory could we have 10. Jason R. Franz, Corbyn M. Wierzbinski, than sports, where competitors conduct long-Rodger Kram, “Metabolic Cost of Running
run experiments on their own bodies, in the Barefoot versus Shod,” Med Sci Sports Exerc hope of determining just what they can and 2012. doi:10.1249/MSS.0b013e3182514a88.

cannot achieve? ■

Richard A. Lovett is one of the most pro-REFERENCES
lific contributors in Analog history. Early 1. Jeré Longman, “Man vs. Marathon,”

this year he published Here Be There New York Times, May 11, 2016. https://

Dragons: Exploring the Fringes of Human
www.nytimes.com/ 2016/05/15/sports/two-Knowledge, from the Rings of Saturn to the hour-marathon-yannis-pitsiladis.html 2.

Mysteries of Memory, containing eighteen Michael J. Joyner, Jonatan R. Ruiz, Alejandro of his more popular Analog fact articles, all Lucia, “The Two-Hour Marathon: Who and
updated for 2017. Find him on Facebook or When?” J Appl. Physiology, August 5, 2010, at www.richardalovett.com.

THE QUEST FOR THE 2:00 MARATHON

35

Illustrated by Kurt Huggins
i know
my own

& my own
know me

Tracy Canfield

CONFERENCE MODE, SHENNONG STATION,

Utas

13:08:12

3/1/2164

Okay, which of you assholes uplifted the

Maneki Neko

13:05:02
cat?

hello evreybody my name is maneki neko

Gregory Silva

13:15:01

& i am a cat! (named maneki neko)

And could you at least have declawed him

36

TRACY CANFIELD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
while you were at it? He squirmed away be-to the quarantine, and we’ve hit a lot of dead fore my scan f inished, but he def initely has a ends.

language module with our standard English Uplifting the cat is a waste of time and re-preload and a basic cognition module. His sources—but discussing it is also a waste of head’s no bigger, so there isn’t room for time and resources. Bryan, would you disable much more in his implant. Heading to First Maneki Neko’s account?

Aid for some bandages.

Bryan Daniels

13:29:22

Gregory Silva

13:15:58

Are you sure we want to do that? Every

For me, not for the cat.

time he sends a message, the computer logs Dao Ti

13:16:22
his exact location. Might come in handy if he I will inventory the implants and deter-doesn’t want to be caught.

mine what is missing. After so many of them Utas

13:29:59
have failed in the f ield, I’m troubled, truth-I’ll get him.

fully, that any of us would waste one on a ju-Utas

13:30:31
venile prank of this sort.

God damn it, I opened my door and

Maneki Neko

13:17:04
stepped on a dead mouse.

theres somethnig sticky on my head! i cant Utas

13:33:46
reach it with my tounge! somebody lick me

. . . in fact there’s a dead mouse in front of plz
every door in this hall.

Dao Ti

13:17:37

Maneki Neko

13:34:50

And if we run out of surgical glue, the
yes i nevr see you hunt! i dont want you to nearest ref ill is forty light-years away.

be hunrgy, i will teach you how to hunt!

Utas

13:17:50

Utas

13:35:16

Standard English preload? With all those ty-Dao Ti and I are herbivorous species. Mice pos?

are not on the menu.

Gregory Silva

13:19:11

Gregory Silva

13:35:43

Maybe the language module was damaged

You say that as if any of the humans want during the installation. Or just plain installed to wake up to mouse tartare on toast.

wrong. I mean, I’m the only bioengineer on Maneki Neko

13:36:19
the team—none of you have ever hooked up
i brouhgt you a dead mouse, when you can
a synterface, right? Or . . . Bryan, could some handl that i will bring you an injrued mouse!

kind of network problem be garbling the
dont worry you will f igure it out! i am here cat’s transmissions?

to help

Bryan Daniels

13:24:28

Bryan Daniels

13:36:42

No, the conferenceware’s sending and re-

I wouldn’t have thought there were f ive
ceiving his messages correctly. He just can’t mice loose in this station.

spell.

Gregory Silva

13:36:55

Dao Ti

13:27:03

Oh shit. Back in a sec. Headed to the lab Linguistically speaking, Maneki Neko’s syn-Gregory Silva

13:42:44
tax, inf lectional morphology, and lexicon Oh shit. All the cages in the lab are empty.

have been standard so far. Orthography is a He killed all our lab mice, folks.

secondary language skill, so the problem

Bryan Daniels

13:43:08
could be in the cognition module. That

Let me pull the security footage.

would be your specialty, Utas.

Bryan Daniels

13:50:38

Utas

13:27:49

Looks like Maneki Neko opened the cages

Leave me out of this. I have actual work to using their control pads, ate all but f ive of do.

the mice, then dropped the remaining ones Claudine Mello

13:28:54
in front of our doors.

Look, team, I realize how stressful Opera-Gregory Silva

13:51:25
tion Come Home has been, especially lately.

How am I supposed to get the implants

We’re still not fully acclimated to the eigh-working in the f ield without lab animals?

teen-hour natural daylight cycle and the low The embryos in the freezer won’t be mature gravity, we’re cooped up in this station due enough for implants to be viable until ten I KNOW MY OWN & MY OWN KNOW ME

37

ANALOG
weeks after parturition. By then the parlia-follow-up on the ferals. I don’t expect a full mentary hearings about Harmonist Colony
report, just your thoughts on the best way to will have come and gone, and all of us will be move forward.

up Biohazard Excreta Creek without a gene Gregory Silva

14:17:03
sequencer.

No, I mean I didn’t uplift the cat. I

Bryan Daniels

13:51:41
wouldn’t do that.

On the bright side, if Maneki Neko can

Claudine Mello

14:17:40
count to f ive, we know he has the math im-Thank you for letting me know—I appreci-
plant.

ate it. In your opinion, as our resident neuro-Utas

13:52:12
biologist, who could have done it?

Fat lot of help you are.

Gregory Silva

14:18:25

Bryan Daniels

13:52:54

Well, anyone, really. Cat brains are so well I’ll let that go because I know redheads
documented that Bryan could have installed have f iery tempers. I’m showing Maneki
that implant, and he’s an IT guy. The com-Neko how to view videos over the network, puter could’ve walked him through the pro-which’ll keep him occupied for a while. Cats cedure.

and computers, that’s older than any of us.

Gregory Silva

14:18:38

Utas

13:53:38

Not that I’m accusing him or anything.

That redhead remark is out of line. And

Claudine Mello

14:19:12
who cares about the mice? Absolutely noth-Gregory, you worry too much, and you
ing that came out of that lab since we got worry about the wrong things. It’ll all get here has helped us make any progress what-sorted out one way or another. For now, let’s soever with the Harmonist Colony ferals.

just contain the damage.

Claudine Mello

13:54:05

Claudine Mello

14:19:51

Again, stop discussing the cat.

I know how hard the past few months

Claudine Mello

13:55:59
have been for all of us. I might not work di-Gregory, put together a list of the pros and rectly with the subjects, but I still see them cons of other available model organisms. The scuttling past my window. Those eyes . . .

colony’s terra- and eco-forming established a Claudine Mello

14:20:15
large number of animal species, including If the ferals’ eyes were empty, if they were mice. They won’t be from known genetic
just vegetables, I think that’d be easier for lines, and the quarantine means you’d have me. But their eyes aren’t empty. There’s
to use remote-controlled manipulators to
something left, even when so much has been work with them, same as the Operation
lost.

Come Home subjects, but maybe our drones

Gregory Silva

14:20:58
can trap some usable lab animals. Have your They look human.

report ready in time for the subject retesting Claudine Mello

14:21:03
this afternoon.

They are human.

Bryan, no more species jokes.

Gregory Silva

14:22:40

Utas, ignore that one.

That’s what I meant. If they weren’t hu-

Everyone, I’ve f illed out Gb-536 to desig-man, we could dissect one, scan the brain nate the cat as an unauthorized uplift that structure millimeter by millimeter, f ind what may be terminated on sight. Take care of it.

makes the implants keep failing.

Maneki Neko

13:57:23

If the Old Worlds had lost contact with a omg! even aftr i gave you a mouse
colony of canaries during the IntWars, and came back three generations later to f ind PRIVATE MESSAGES, SHENNONG STATION,
their descendants couldn’t f ly, we’d f igure 3/1/2164
out why in a week. But since even non-sen-Gregory Silva

14:16:14
tient humans are still legally human, we have I just want you to know that I didn’t do it.

far fewer tools we can use.

Claudine Mello

14:16:41

Claudine Mello

14:22:51

What, the alternative lab animal proposal?

Sounds like you’ve been giving this some

There’s still an hour left before the remote thought.

38

TRACY CANFIELD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Gregory Silva

14:23:31

We have to treat Harmonist Colony’s ge-

Just frustrated I can’t approach the prob-netic detritus with kid gloves, because the lem the way I’m used to. It’s like trying to ferals are off icially human, but Maneki Neko perform an appendectomy blindfolded.

can be destroyed because he’s not authorized And the pressure to fix the ferals . . . Have to be as smart as he is. He’s smarter than any you seen those disability rights types bitching of the ferals, I’ll tell you that. The latches for that we haven’t secured our subjects’ consent those mouse cages were as cognitively chal-to alter them? Or the species purists who lenging as a Level 2 puzzle box, and the fer-think that raising a feral to typical human inals can’t even solve a Level 0.

telligence is morally equivalent to those pre-Utas

14:01:51

IntWars human supergenius projects?

Plus they can’t talk, and he can. Well, kind Claudine Mello

14:23:57
of.

I don’t follow that stuff.

Dao Ti

14:02:30

Claudine Mello

14:25:36

I wonder if his conference uplink chip is I know the paperwork and the procedures
defective? I’ve gone through three in the past make our day-to-day jobs harder. And that half century myself.

even procedures meant to ensure best prac-Utas

14:02:42
tices aren’t always f lexible enough to cover Personally I like the Lampion subvocaliza-what’s best in a specif ic situation. But I will tion clip-on. It’s designed for hands-free hu-continue to make sure those procedures are man input, but you can calibrate it for pri-followed, because everything we do will be mates; it’ll work even if you can’t speak out nitpicked and second-guessed and Monday
loud.

Morning quarterbacked by people back in

Utas

14:03:24
the Old Worlds. People who’ve never looked But there you go again, def lecting the top-into those eyes.

ic with your reasonable tone and your
thoughtful questions. I’m a cognitive scien-PRIVATE MESSAGES, SHENNONG STATION,
tist. It’ll take more than a panda with a 3/1/2164

French manicure to get me sidetracked.

Utas

13:56:19

Suppose, unlikely as it seems, that we do Did you catch that little jab about Gb-536?

f inally get the implants working in the ferals.

Dao Ti

13:57:12

All the Old Worlds humans who were so sad-I saw that Mello f iled one for the cat. I dened, so sickened, by the early news wouldn’t call that a jab.

footage that they demanded an exception to Utas

13:57:52
the ban on uplifting humans, all those sensi-It’s a reminder that we uplifts, who
tive souls will f ind themselves face to face weren’t fortunate enough to be born human with humans whose minds are statistically in-like her and have to settle for rationally de-distinguishable from yours or mine. An up-signed minds instead of whatever gametes
lifted feral human on a distant colony is one clumped together in our mothers’ bellies, are thing . . . but would you want your daughter expendable whenever the human in charge
to marry one?

decides we’ve served our purpose.

I don’t know which outcome would be

Dao Ti

13:59:01
more embarrassing for the humanists: a non-Before I was assigned to this station, I
sentient human population, or uplifted hu-would have said that orangutans had placid mans. No wonder the Uplift Society back
dispositions.

home hasn’t released a position statement.

Utas

14:00:18

Dao Ti

14:04:02

Before you were assigned to this station, so I let my US membership lapse when I real-would I.

ized I could spend the same amount on a botI wouldn’t put it past Mello to uplift the cat tle of d’ Autriche perfume every year, and it herself, just so she could mention Gb-536.

would do more to improve my life.

Dao Ti

14:00:49

Utas

14:04:15

I f ind the idea rather far-fetched.

Oh God, you are exasperating.

Utas

14:01:37

Dao Ti

14:05:40

I KNOW MY OWN & MY OWN KNOW ME

39

ANALOG

Because I don’t want what you want me to

You knew this conference was scheduled
want?

for 15:30.

Utas

14:05:46

Bryan Daniels

15:34:11

Whatever, f ine. I’m not executing that cat, And you know, or you should know be-though.

cause I’ve told you enough times, how tricky Dao Ti

14:06:31
it is to f ind any specif ic subject, especially I have no interest in doing so myself.

once they’ve ducked into a colony building.

Utas

14:06:52

The walls block commands to the drones, for I’ll get back to work while you smoke bam-one thing, and for another, if I send a drone boo, or whatever PhD linguists do with their big enough to carry a testing packet into an time.

enclosed space, there’s no room to maneuver if the ferals get spooked and attack it.

COMPUTER SEARCH LOGS FOR USER MANEKI

Bryan Daniels

15:35:17

NEKO, SHENNONG STATION, 3/1/2164

Here we go. Here’s Priscilla, in the old ap-13:57: show me mice
ple orchards north of the colony.

14:07: show me brds

Gregory Silva

15:36:06

14:35: show me robnis

1404. It’s easier if you don’t give them

14:46: show me sparr ows
names.

15:02: show me the white bre asted

Bryan Daniels

15:36:49
nuthacth

Call her what you want. Giving them

15:15: show me mice on the menu
names keeps me motivated.

15:15: what are you talk ing about? i dont Dao Ti

15:37:08
undrstand?

Eleven years old, female, probably three

15:16: show me menu
generations removed from the last IntWars-15:16: whats that
era contact with Harmonist Colony. Belongs 15:17: petrs-carvalho cererbal augmnt
to a troop with ten adults—ten sexually ma-ation
ture humans, more precisely—and f ive other 15:17: tell me more
children.

15:18: tell me more about that plz

Gregory Silva

13:37:32

The surgical site looks good—no bleeding

CONFERENCE MESSAGES, SHENNONG STATION, or swelling. Swing the drone around so we 3/1/2164
can see the other side of her head.

Utas

15:38:23

Maneki Neko

15:24:49

Aaaaand she’s taking a piss. And now she’s why did you tell me to get off the tabel?

scratching between her legs. Your tax dollars when you cant see that i am on the tabl
at work, my human colleagues.

Bryan Daniels

15:25:02

Claudine Mello

15:40:02

Because an eleven-pound housecat can’t

With as many Gg-412s as you’ve f illed out hide behind a coffee cup. Now move.

reporting species-based jokes, Utas, I’d think Dao Ti

15:26:10
you’d refrain from cracking them yourself.

I cannot believe that you are negotiating Language test f irst, or cognitive?

with the cat, via the conferenceware no less, Dao Ti

15:41:12
when he is two feet in front of you. Enough Cognitive, I’d say. If the language implant of this foolishness.

failed the way the earlier ones all did, the Maneki Neko

15:26:58
sound might startle 1404 too much for her to omg dao ti threw me off the tabl! now my
concentrate on the cognitive tests. Bryan, butt smells like permufe! omg
have the drone drop a mochi bar for her.

Claudine Mello

15:30:01

Bryan Daniels

15:43:34

Let’s get started. Bryan, show us how our She didn’t see it. One more—bam! Right
test subjects are doing.

between her feet!

Bryan Daniels

15:31:40

Gregory Silva

15:43:45

Working on it

Yeah, you can tell she knows what that is.

Claudine Mello

15:31:53

Bryan Daniels

15:44:51

40

TRACY CANFIELD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Would you like some candy, little girl?

CLAUDINE MELLO BLOCKED MANEKI NEKO AT

There’s more in my lab.

16:07:44.

Utas

15:46:29

UTAS BLOCKED MANEKI NEKO AT 16:07:48.

When she’s done eating, drop a Level 1

Gregory Silva

16:08:09
puzzle box with another mochi bar. Use one Do you want us all to block the cat?

with the same color so she’ll be more likely Claudine Mello

16:08:42
to recognize the reward.

Use your judgment as to how distracting

Bryan Daniels

15:47:21
you f ind him.

She likes the green ones best.

GREGORY SILVA BLOCKED MANEKI NEKO AT

Utas

15:50:59

16:08:49.

Well, she recognizes the payload, anyway.

Maneki Neko

16:09:31

She’s picked up the box. She’s squinting at omg! the computr told me some humns
the plexiglass. Stop shaking it, kid, that won’t are afraid of cnetipedes but this is cmpleteley accomplish anything.

unexpetced

The video screen’s activated. It’s showing Claudine Mello

16:10:38
her what buttons to press, showing her the What’s our assessment of the implant fail-bar popping out.

ures? In all the subjects, not just 1404? Let’s Claudine Mello

15:56:50
review.

She was solving Level 1 puzzles when she

Dao Ti

16:13:16
woke up after surgery yesterday, right?

I would characterize 1404’s original lan-

Utas

15:57:13
guage module installation as only a partial Opened the same one we’re giving her
success. Even with the English pre-load, she now in eighteen seconds.

could only produce a dozen words and ex-

Utas

16:01:10
hibited articulatory simplif ication and only And now she’s just pounding the box on a
rudimentary syntax.

rock.

Utas

16:14:47

Utas

16:03:47

She didn’t exhibit the full abilities her cog-And now she’s tossed it aside, and she’s
nitive implant should have provided, either, eating a centipede.

but she did solve several Level 1 puzzle box-Dao Ti

16:04:02
es and made some progress with a Level 2.

Switch on the audio. Let’s see whether we Gregory Silva

16:16:05
can talk to her. I’ll play some phrases she re-And today she’s back where she started on sponded to yesterday.

both fronts, as if she’d never received the im-Gregory Silva

16:04:36
plant. That means there’s some factor that’s Off like a shot into the trees. On the bright causing the implants to fail.

side, we obviously didn’t injure her. As we More generally . . . Most of the literature on enter the fourth quarter, the score stands at uplifting humans didn’t survive the war, and Operation Come Home 0, Forces of Entropy
obviously nothing’s been done since. But the 18.

rest of the primates have been exhaustively Claudine Mello

16:05:45
studied. The scans we’ve run here on the fer-So let’s sum up. What are your initial imals show that the anatomical structure of pressions? Does this result tell us anything their brains is—apparently—unchanged by
new?

comparison with baseline humans, so the in-Maneki Neko

16:06:33
stallation should be straightforward.

well she urniated on the ground & didnt Therefore, we have two problems—f irst,
covr it up! she is very donimnt, that is good!

the implants don’t work as well as we’d pre-Utas

16:06:52
dicted when they’re installed, and second, GOD DAMN IT
they fail very quickly. Both might be symp-Maneki Neko

16:07:41
toms of the same underlying problem, but
she cauhgt a cetnipede, see how easy that there’s no obvious root cause.

was? if any of you feel ready to hunt centip Claudine Mello

16:20:11
eeds pm me plz

Could malnutrition cause implant failure?

Maybe the ferals are getting enough nutrients I KNOW MY OWN & MY OWN KNOW ME

41

ANALOG
to survive but not enough to support higher mutation, maybe —that loss of language-brain functions?

learning capacity occurs much earlier. Could Maneki Neko

16:20:45
such a change prevent our language implant centiepdes are very good for you thouhg!

from connecting to the rest of the brain?

i nevr ate one but they look delciious

Dao Ti

16:36:05

Gregory Silva

16:25:39

You’re correct about the severely neglect-Some mineral and B vitamin nutrient def i-ed children. Some of them exhibited normal ciencies are associated with brain damage, cognition, but none of them learned to speak and would cause an implant to fail . . . even-more than a few mispronounced words with
tually. Not in eighteen hours, though.

no grammatical connections.

The ferals are skinny, sure, but there’s fruit There are only a handful of cases on
in the colony orchards, and termites and
record, all of which predate implant tech-grasshoppers have plenty of protein. Further-nologies. We would predict, however, that a more, we’ve been offering a balanced diet at language implant would make up for any pre-the remote stations, at least to the troop lead-existing def icit in the language regions of the ers who grab most of the pellets.

brain.

Maybe the ferals are consuming some envi-

Dao Ti

16:40:15
ronmental toxin that damages their im-

But . . . let us suppose that disaster struck plants—something they eat after we release the Harmonist Colony, and a few very young them back into the wild.

children who escaped into the forest were Utas

16:26:17
the only survivors. In this scenario, our pre-Except that the implants also failed when sent-day ferals are the descendants of these we conf ined the ferals for a day after surgery.

children.

Gregory Silva

16:27:24

Bryan Daniels

16:41:15

If there’s a toxin, it doesn’t show up on My statistical analysis of Gregory’s DNA
our scans. Maybe—I’m just brainstorming—
samples isn’t consistent with the feral popu-if we knew what kind of compounds caused
lation ever having been reduced to two or the effects we’re seeing, we could design a three individuals.

test for their moieties?

Dao Ti

16:44:51

Dao Ti

16:28:39

Agreed, Bryan. However, what I have pro-

Remind me what did show up on the
posed is the only scenario in which the liter-scans, please.

ature on neglected children is most likely to Gregory Silva

16:30:28
apply.

Antibodies to various common diseases

Our young Adam and Eve might not have
and parasites—nothing serious, just whatev-an adult’s command of their native lan-
er the original colonists hadn’t stamped out; guage—though we would expect them to
stuff that can’t kill you unless you’re already have some, having been immersed in it from weakened. Cold, f lu. Parasites. All the hu-birth. If the colony computer had been dam-mans have T. gondii antibodies, all of them aged in the disaster—we will know more
over fourteen or so have T. vaginalis, every-when Br yan’s remote repair efforts suc-
day single-cell bugs that wouldn’t be surpris-ceed—it might have been unable to provide ing in an Old Worlds clinic.

an adult speech model.

Claudine Mello

16:34:07

However, Adam and Eve would still inter-

Dao Ti, throughout history there’ve been
act with each other—and we would expect cases of neglected children who spent their them, with their highly language-attuned
formative years with little or no human con-young brains, to create a new language of tact. None of them ever learned to talk, right?

their own, which their own children would As I understand it, the consensus is that phys-one day learn. That is exactly what hap-ical changes in the brain render these chil-pened, in human history, when deaf chil-
dren unable to learn language later in life.

dren left their hearing families to live at Is it possible for those neurological
schools for the deaf; together they sponta-changes to cause implant failure? Perhaps in neously created what became the signed lan-this population, for whatever reason—a freak guages. Even an isolated deaf child with

42

TRACY CANFIELD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
hearing playmates would often create what ously unknown compound damages human
was called “home sign,” a fully grammatical-cognitive and language capacity. Wonderful.

ly developed language.

Claudine Mello

16:55:37

And a similar process occurred among

Good summation, Utas.

slaves. Adult slaves, who came from different Utas, Gregory, Dao Ti, after you’ve f illed language communities, shared no common
out your Gs-215 summaries of today’s subject language; children hearing fragments of
follow-up:

many languages created a unif ied new lan-Gregory, instead of looking into alternative guage with its own f leshed-out grammar, a lab animals, compile a list of molecular com-creole.

pounds known to cause brain damage. Dao

Claudine Mello

16:46:48

Ti, Utas, there must be existing work in your What would happen if there was simulta-respective f ields on substances that specif i-neously a disruption in language transmission cally induce a reduction of language or cog-and a freak mutation that damaged language nitive ability.

capacity?

Everyone, take a few hours to do your lit Dao Ti

16:48:02
reviews, then compare your toxin lists. Gre-That would stretch the bounds of coinci-
gory can develop a scan for compounds with dence.

similar molecular structures. A new toxin Gregory Silva

16:51:32
might still have a chemical resemblance to a Looking at this from a biology perspective, known one, so testing for those structures rather than a linguistics perspective, I’d say might identify our ABC.

that if any of the feral humans didn’t have Bryan Daniels

16:56:17
this proposed speech-def icit mutation,

And I’ll make sure the researchers have the they’d quickly outcompete—and eliminate—
computing resources they need.

the ferals that did have it.

Claudine Mello

16:56:29

Three or four generations probably isn’t

I’ll do what I can to keep the work envi-
long enough for natural selection to com-
ronment productive for all of you. I’m still pletely eliminate a disadvantageous mutation, hoping to uplift at least one feral before the so we might expect to f ind a mix of pheno-Parliamentary Hearings, but even if we can’t, types. But in fact none of the ferals display we need to show some kind of progress.

any language capacity, and none of them are sentient. Two different abilities that should PRIVATE MESSAGES, SHENNONG STATION,
provide a substantial evolutionary advantage 3/1/2164
have completely disappeared from this popu-CLAUDINE MELLO UNBLOCKED MANEKI NEKO AT
lation.

17:10:41.

The more I think about it, the more I think Claudine Mello

17:11:32
that the implants’ rapid failure is connected I have a question for you.

to the destruction of Harmonist Colony.

Maneki Neko

17:12:20

Something—let’s call it the Anti-Brain Com-ok
pound for the moment—reduced the

Maneki Neko

17:12:48
colonists’ brain capacity to, well, what we and plz don’t kill me! i don’t want you to! i see now. The ABC acted so fast that there would f ind it ojbectionabl
wasn’t time for uninfected people to take Claudine Mello

17:12:49
countermeasures.

Who put the implant in you?

Fast-forward a few generations. Our sub-

Maneki Neko

17:13:03
jects have some level of ABC in their systems, i would not kill you claudine mello! beca-enough to keep the implants from installing sue
correctly, and to cause them to fail after a Maneki Neko

17:13:25
few more hours of exposure.

because i love you

Utas

16:54:01

Claudine Mello

17:13:52

So all we need to do is figure out—without Maneki Neko, someone operated on you.

doing any invasive or risky testing of the sort Someone performed surgery on you. Who
that’s only allowed in uplifts—what previ-was it?

I KNOW MY OWN & MY OWN KNOW ME

43

ANALOG

Maneki Neko

17:14:16
you mean who did the petres-crvahlo cer-
i don’t know?

berl augmntia tion?

Claudine Mello

17:14:40

Claudine Mello

17:20:39

Can you tell me what happened before and

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. How do
after you started thinking differently?

you know about that?

Maneki Neko

17:15:58

Maneki Neko

17:21:09
i dont think diffrntly thouhg
i asked the computr

Maneki Neko

17:16:11

Maneki Neko

18:04:09
im sorry i cant help you
are you still there claudine mello? are you Maneki Neko

17:16:32
ok
i saw a mous outs ide, when I f igure out Claudine Mello

18:04:50
how to opn the widnow you can have it ok

I was asking Bryan to limit your computer Claudine Mello

17:16:47
searches. He said he needed a cryptographi-Before today, you never posted messages
cally signed copy of Gp-198b to restrict an through the computer the way you do now.

existing account. It took a moment.

Maneki Neko

17:17:12

During the time period we were just dis-
i nevr felt like it i guess?

cussing, did you smell anything unusual?

Maneki Neko

17:17:25

Maneki Neko

18:05:01
but now i do
glue

Maneki Neko

17:17:33

Claudine Mello

18:05:12
feel like it i mean

Did you smell any particular person?

Maneki Neko

17:17:49

Maneki Neko

18:05:30
postnig mess ages
sorry just glue

Claudine Mello

17:18:47

Claudine Mello

18:05:33

There are some gaps in our station securi-Thank you.

ty footage. When we arrived at Harmonist

CLAUDINE MELLO BLOCKED MANEKI NEKO AT
and set up the quarantine, I thought allowing 18:05:40.

everyone a bit of privacy would be good for CLAUDINE MELLO UNBLOCKED MANEKI NEKO AT
morale. But that lapse in security also let 18:07:33.

someone cover their tracks.

Claudine Mello

18:07:46

I did see you prowling around by the hy-

You’re a good cat, Maneki Neko. None of
draulic lift earlier today, with your fur look-this is your fault.

ing f luffed-up like normal. The next time you CLAUDINE MELLO BLOCKED MANEKI NEKO AT
show up on the cameras, an hour later,

18:07:52.

you’re napping in Dao Ti’s manger with surgical glue stuck to your head. Those shots PRIVATE MESSAGES, SHENNONG STATION,
must be from before and after the implant 3/1/2164
procedure.

UTAS UNBLOCKED MANEKI NEKO AT 19:40:42.

What happened between the prowl and

Utas

19:40:53
the nap?

Watch out. The new food bowls in the cor-

Maneki Neko

17:19:36
ridors are poisoned.

well claudine mello i was walking down

Maneki Neko

19:41:16
the lab corr idor & rubb ing my face on the omg no! dont eat out of them ok!

doors, maknig them smell like me! & i saw Utas

19:41:41
my foo d dish! it was not in the kitchn, it was Thank you, I can take care of myself. I
in a box! i was eating my dinnr, i was also spotted Mello preparing them. She is trying hiding! a good arr anegmnt if you ask me! i to kill you. I wanted to warn you.

waited for some ankls to come by so i could Maneki Neko

19:42:04
att ack them but i fell asleep
thank you utas! if you get hungry (because i woke up in the lab & my head was sticky you should not eat from the bwols utas! they Claudine Mello

17:19:58
are poiosnd) come see me & we will share So you didn’t see who did it.

some mice ok!

Maneki Neko

17:20:14

Utas19:42:31

44

TRACY CANFIELD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

If Mello does kill you, I will drop every-observations in my own words and make the thing and get the Uplift Society involved. I updates from my own account, as if I’d been think they would be very interested in know-reviewing drone footage.

ing what goes on in this station.

Because of the quarantine, you won’t be

Maneki Neko19:42:50
able to come back inside, at least not until yes let them know abuot those bowls utas!

we f ind a treatment for ABC. So you’ll be an Utas19:42:59
outdoor cat for a while, okay?

I swear this conversation is making me stu-Maneki Neko

19:51:25
pider by the second. Talking to you is the is this because claudine mello wants to kill Anti-Brain Compound.

me

UTAS BLOCKED MANEKI NEKO AT 19:43:10.

?

Bryan Daniels

19:51:40

PRIVATE MESSAGES, SHENNONG STATION,

Well, yes, actually. You’re safer outside 3/1/2164–3/7/2164
right now. If you can, try to explore inside Bryan Daniels

19:47:30
the colony buildings—I haven’t had much

You sure like my lap.

success with the drones there.

Maneki Neko

19:47:42

Maneki Neko

19:51:49
its ok
ok!

Maneki Neko

19:47:51

Bryan Daniels

07:12:31
claudine mello’s is bettr

Glad to see you’re enjoying yourself out

Bryan Daniels

19:48:14
there! Hope you kept dry these last few days.

I can’t complain, I set myself up for that.

The rain’s been kind of rough on my drones, Oh, look, what’s this in my inbox? Form Gp-too.

198n, requesting limitation of your comput-The facial recognition shows that you’ve
er access. That doesn’t seem like a high pri-identif ied some new ferals our team never ority under the present circumstances, does observed before. I haven’t had time to review it? Let’s just move that to the “someday”

all your footage, but I’ve corrected the queue.

colony blueprints based on the logs of your Now, Maneki Neko, I need your help with
exact locations. Great work!

something, okay?

Maneki Neko

07:12:45

Maneki Neko

19:48:28
thank you bryan daniels! & i hope you are ok bryan i am here to help!

enjyoing yourself in there too!

Bryan Daniels

19:49:52

Bryan Daniels

07:14:02

I don’t know who uplifted you, but it’s the I’m seeing some water damage to the
best idea anyone has had since Operation
colony computer, but I think you and I

Come Home kicked off. Every time Mello
might be able to get it running again. That’s gripes I feel a swing in my stride and a song our best bet for f inding out what happened in my heart.

to Harmonist—maybe we’ll even f ind genet-Maneki Neko, would you like to be on the
ic records for the pre-collapse colonists or other side of the window? Where the rest of their own observations about ABC’s initial the mice are?

impact.

Maneki Neko

19:50:08

To get us started, I’ve rigged up some sim-omg yes
ple self-attaching manipulators for you—like

& its not just mice bryan, there are suqirr the ones Dao Ti clips to her paws when she’s ls chimpunks bluejays & the white breaested doing delicate work. I’m sending them out nuthtach!

via drone, along with a portable battery and Bryan Daniels

19:51:10
some replacement computer parts.

Once I let you out, observe the ferals, but Ready to turn on the colony computer for
be careful—they’re way bigger than you, and me?

I doubt they’re friendly. I’m putting a mini-Maneki Neko

07:14:16
cam on your collar with an onboard program which one?

that matches the ferals via facial recognition Bryan Daniels

07:14:19
to their respective f iles. I’ll just rephrase your Wait

I KNOW MY OWN & MY OWN KNOW ME

45

ANALOG

Bryan Daniels

07:16:22
evidence of this?

. . . what?

Claudine Mello

08:32:03

You were careful to say “predators,” but

CONFERENCE MODE, SHENNONG STATION,

Toxoplasma gondii is carried by cats, right?

3/7/2164

Bryan Daniels

08:34:46

Bryan Daniels

08:30:00

I’ll give you all the answers I can. Utas, I’m Sorry to interrupt everyone during crunch still going through data from the colony and time, but this is important.

the lab computers, but the overall picture is I’ve located a laboratory outside Harmonist clear. I’ve given everyone read permission on Colony that wasn’t on the original blueprints.

the data dumps—you’ll want to look at them Not only is it a couple of kilometers from the anyway for the information they provide
main settlement, in rough terrain where
about the ABC bioweapon.

there’s little reason to go, but it has military-T. gondii was perfect for the terrorist’s pur-grade camouf lage in the visual and infrared poses. It naturally encysts itself in the brain, portion of the spectrum. The colonists didn’t so she could make its preexisting behavior know it was there, either.

more damaging, rather than modifying some Harmonist broke off contact with the Old
other organism to attack the brain in the f irst Worlds during the IntWars, but so did other place. And T. gondii already shows up on colonies. A lot of them had been founded in medical scans as a largely ignorable nuisance the f irst place by separatists who wanted to infection, so it might be overlooked long live away from uplifts, or egalitarians who enough for everybody at Harmonist to get in-wanted to grant uplifts full citizenship, or fected without alarms being raised.

purists who were afraid humanity would be Mello, yes, cats are the only species where uplifted past the point of recognition, or T. gondii can reproduce in its baseline form, whatever.

but it commonly infects other species, too.

But even within a given colony, different It’s certainly food-borne, and I’m not quali-residents held different views. And at Har-f ied to evaluate how our nameless terrorist monist, one of the uplifts was an Extinction modif ied it. As much as I hate bureaucratic Event Engineer—and her faction shipped her procedures, the full quarantine probably
everything she needed to set up her own lit-saved all our lives, or at least our minds.

tle bioterrorism facility.

But ironically, the baseline T. gondii Utas

08:30:51
doesn’t affect cats’ brains—probably because How do you know all this, anyway?

their normal behavior is conducive to its life-Bryan Daniels

08:31:01
cycle. No guess whether the same’s true of If everyone will hold their questions for ABC.

the end, this’ll go much more smoothly.

The terrorist’s notes say the bioweapon is Thanks!

resistant to conventional T. gondii treatment, Bryan Daniels

08:31:42
but it’s still worth a try. And we can use it as We thought the Anti-Brain Compound
our own starting point.

didn’t show up on our scans—but it did. The Any questions?

bioweapon was based on Toxoplasma

Dao Ti

08:36:06
gondii, a common microscopic parasite that I’m used to the cat looking out my win-affects the brain. For example, infected rats dow, but why is he looking IN my window?

become attracted to the ver y predators

Maneki Neko

08:36:23
whose bodies T. gondii can reproduce in.

becuause i am on the othr side of it dao ti!

Gregory Silva

08:31:55
thats why

Toxoplasma gondii does affect human CLAUDINE MELLO UNBLOCKED MANEKI NEKO AT
brains, but much more subtly than the com-08:36:24.

plete loss of language and cognition we’ve UTAS UNBLOCKED MANEKI NEKO AT 08:36:24.

observed in the ferals.

Gregory Silva

08:36:41

Utas

08:31:58

What are you doing out there?

Wait, you’re speculating that an uplift de-Maneki Neko

08:37:02
liberately attacked the colony? What’s your so many things gregory! you wulod like it i 46

TRACY CANFIELD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
think! so many good things to eat, frogs rabb Dao Ti

08:42:13
its gr sashoppr s & the white braested The only person here who thinks this re-nuthatch! nap in an appl tree! bat a moth f lects on uplifts in general is you.

around! put your tummy in a sunbeam! your Utas

08:42:41
tumm y will get warm! give it a try gregory That’s not what I meant. I mean this will you will not regret it!

be a PR disaster over and above what we’re Bryan Daniels

08:37:04
already dealing with. And it’ll have results far Gregory, I thought I saw you block Maneki beyond Operation Come Home. People are

Neko.

going to seize on this to promote their own Gregory Silva

08:37:38
views.

I did. I mean, I unblocked him later. I
thought I should know what he was up to in PRIVATE MESSAGES, SHENNONG STATION,
case he found a way to get past my new lab 3/7/2164
security, and I’d put out some more mice to Gregory Silva

10:03:44
thaw. I mean, I’m doing my lit review—it’s Utas, you have connections in the Uplift
not like thawing mice is hands-on.

Society, right?

Utas

08:37:45

Utas

10:04:03

Gregor y, I can assure you that nobody

In the sense that I pay my yearly dues out cares.

of the pittance the Department of Bioman-

Utas

08:37:55
agement pays me, yes. Why?

Let’s get our priorities straight.

Gregory Silva

10:04:39

Claudine Mello

08:37:55

But do you know people there?

Priorities, people.

Gregory Silva

10:04:46

Bryan Daniels

08:38:05

Other uplifts, I mean?

I’ve pulled the logs. Looks like the cat was Utas

10:05:02
sent out via an airlock that was sterilized as Why don’t you get in touch with them
per procedure. He got out, but nothing got yourself ? The US website might be shitty, but in. Station’s still clean.

I’m sure there’s a contact option.

Gregory Silva

08:40:18

Gregory Silva

10:05:47

This is great news for Operation Come

Because they don’t know me, but you do.

Home. There are treatments for T. Gondii, It doesn’t have to be Uplift Society, it could but we hadn’t been bothering to administer be . . . some other uplift group. One that’s them to the ferals because it isn’t life-threat-more interested in direct action.

ening and we knew they’d get reinfected.

Utas

10:05:56

Even if the shots don’t work on the parasite’s Will you be arriving at your point any time weaponized form, we don’t have to start
soon?

from square one.

Gregory Silva

10:06:30

We’ll have to set up a sterile environment We need to get this weaponized T. Gondii to keep the ferals from being reinfected post-sequence to uplift activists. With simultane-treatment, but treating, then installing im-ous deployments in the Old Worlds capitals, plants, then keeping them quarantined
the balance of power will shift overnight.

should be enough. We’ll probably need to re-Gregory Silva

10:07:15
allocate space in the remote lab. Maybe we Once the human governments are de-can reassign the clean/dirty boundary in the stroyed, once the human monopoly on pow-station, or even reclaim a colony building.

er is broken, uplifts will f inally receive the re-Utas

08:41:46
spect they’ve been denied for so long.

No, this is terrible news for Operation

Utas

10:07:26

Come Home. We’re already in the middle of a So you’re so devoted to uplift rights that Category 5 political shitstorm—and now
you’re willing to have your own brain re-
we’re expected to announce that the Har-
duced to the level of a baseline cat’s? That’s monist disaster was caused by an uplift ter-commitment, I’ll say that much.

rorist destroying human brains? How’s that Gregory Silva

10:07:40
going to play in the parliamentary hearings?

No, you’ve got me wrong! I didn’t mean

I KNOW MY OWN & MY OWN KNOW ME

47

ANALOG
me! I’m on your side!

what good is knowing you’re a hero when

You wouldn’t do that to me!

everyone thinks you’re a buffoon? If only you Utas

10:08:23
could sabotage the project and get away with No, I would not.

your good reputation intact.

I would not do that to anyone. First of all, You uplifted Maneki Neko, didn’t you? You it’s reprehensible.

knew he’d go directly for those lab mice.

Second of all, I can think of nothing that Gregory Silva

10:10:24
would make life worse for uplifts. It will be That wasn’t it! You’ve got everything back-catastrophic when the Old Worlds humans
ward!

learn that, forty years ago in the half-forgot-Maneki Neko used to put his paw on my
ten past, a single uplift created such a horror.

knee and gaze up at me. I was sure he want-Even to speak, even to think, about turning it ed to tell me something, but couldn’t. Im-loose in a city . . .

plants were going to waste every time we

You were born after the IntWars, were you tried to uplift another feral test subject. One not? You should ask Dao Ti about the last more wouldn’t make a difference.

blue whale. How the humans cheered, she

Utas

10:10:45
said, when the crowds dragged its corpse

You look at the cat and imagine how you
down Pennsylvania Avenue.

would feel in his place. You look at me and Gregory Silva

10:08:31
imagine how you would think in my place.

It’s unreasonable to think you could avoid But you never ask me what I’m thinking, and uplift casualties completely. If you don’t when I tell you, you don’t care.

want anyone to ever be hurt, change will

How does our perfumed panda colleague
never happen.

put it? “I don’t want what you want me to Utas

10:08:52
want.”

Your sort always calls on the rest of us to Utas

10:10:01
sacrif ice for your cause, whether we want to I should turn you in to Mello, but she hates or not.

me so much she’d probably shoot me f irst Did you join Operation Come Home to
and f ill out Gb-536 afterward. She’d suspect raise uplifts onto a pedestal—or to knock hu-I’d given you some reason to believe I’d be mankind off their pedestal?

sympathetic.

Have you been sabotaging the ferals’ im-

I can’t imagine you gave that possibility plants all along?

any thought.

Gregory Silva

10:09:11

Oh, I’m sorry. Was I supposed to tell you No! I’ve done my best to make this project you’re my hero?

succeed! If there were humans with im-

Utas

10:10:36
plants, the world couldn’t ignore how differI will ask Bryan to delete these chat logs. If ently we treat them compared with uplifts necessary, I will tell him that they consist of like yourself! No matter how everything
cybersex roleplaying, and I do not want
turned out, joining Operation Come Home
them on the permanent record.

was the best imaginable opportunity for me Gregory Silva

10:10:41
to show the world how hypocritical human

No, don’t tell him that.

views on uplifts are!

Gregory Silva

10:10:50

Utas

10:09:46

I mean, if you were female, it’d be differ-

“No matter how everything turned out”?

ent.

Perhaps. But the failure of a high-prof ile mis-UTAS BLOCKED GREGORY SILVA AT 10:10:57.

sion like Operation Come Home would re-
f lect badly on the current administration.

CONFERENCE MESSAGES, SHENNONG STATION, And that’s exactly the right environment to 3/8/2164
foment revolution.

Gregory Silva

09:29:41

Or . . . maybe you just thought that when If, we can idientify who, let the cat, back the parliamentary hearing reviewed the pro-intno the base, we’ll know who, breacahed ject logs, substandard neurobiological work the quaranatine.

would make you look incompetent. And

Claudine Mello

09:30:55

48

TRACY CANFIELD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

WHOCSARES

Bryan Daniels

09:38:11

Dao Ti

09:31:46

Logsssssssssssssssssss

As usual, I agree with Mello. What we

Bryan Daniels

09:38:40
need most urgently is a treatment for the bio-catt nevvvvver ccame back heeree
engineered T. gondii. We can assign fault lat-Utas

09:38:59
er.

Gregory how do ewe even know you’re in-

Utas

09:32:06
fecteda? Youre the one who ran all theascans.

Yeah, because the saboteur totally won’t

Utas

09:39:17
sabottage the attempt to f ind a cure!

Youre imagnignin a news story about the

Utas

09:32:11
heroitic researcher who miraculoulwy avoid-

*sabotage
ed the ifnection that felled his coleleagus and Gregory Silva

09:33:01
struggled on alone.

Bryan, so far I, seeme to be more, resist-Utas

09:39:40
sant than you. Could you, give me sysop-lev-Youre willing to be a villain as long as you ele, accecsss to the computuer, before it’s can look olike a hero.

too late? We’ll need, all the reseourcese, we Gregory Silva

09:39:49
can get, to f ind a cure, for the T. gondiiii, be-Take it easy.

forer it’s too late.

Gregory Silva

09:39:56

Claudine Mello

09:33:34

Hey, back off!

Gp-198a

Bryan Daniels

09:33:50

CONFERENCE MODE, SHENNONG STATION,
shes right need gp form to chnge prmissss-3/10/2164
sions

Dao Ti

Gregory Silva

09:34:17

I deleted the security footage of Mello and That’s, not importrantn. We have to, keepe Daniels after I released them into the forest.

the cat from, geteting back into the statation, They deserve to be remembered as they
and re-re-infeceting us.

were, not as they have become.

Bryan Daniels

09:34:54

Would dashing their brains out against the Not the catt
lintel, as Utas did to Gregory, be more merci-Claudine Mello

09:34:15
ful? The feral humans avoid the succulent yet CATNOCAT
deadly yew berries, and huddle in the colony Bryan Daniels

09:34:04
buildings when the storms come. Mello and Wassssssnnnt tthe cat

Daniels have even less survival instinct than Maneki Neko

09:34:20
they.

bryan daniels are you ok? because I am a

Utas is solving puzzle boxes in the belief littl worr ied about you to be honest
that he is doing research. By tomorrow, I ex-Gregory Silva

09:35:56
pect, he will have lost interest even in that.

The cat got back in, someheow, con-

He will do well in the orchards, I think. I tamiminated the watere supply. We’re all in-wonder what political symbolism he would
feceted, the biggiegst specieis will go last, have discerned in the image of himself en-lookos like, Dao Ti, that’s you.

sconced in an apple tree.

I’m doing the best, of the humans, I will But I do not wish my body to live on when looko, for a cure, as long as I can. But I need my mind is gone. I shall not condemn the
the comoputers, Bryan.

dumb animal I would become to wander this Bryan Daniels

09:36:18
world, starving as it searches for enough No
grass to sustain it. If I do not f ind a cure in Gregory Silva

09:36:31
the few days that remain to me—a linguist, I know, you’re having trouoble, thinking
f ighting a one-celled parasite!—I think the clearly, but this, is impmortant.

hydraulic lift will be quite adequate to crush Bryan Daniels

09:37:06
my skull.

Stoppp sayingggggggggg thhat

But to whom do I address these words?

Bryan Daniels

09:37:39

To the members of parliament at their

We kknow wheere the catt was
hearings, to the political factions on their I KNOW MY OWN & MY OWN KNOW ME

49

ANALOG
forums; to the concerned and the curious; to Maneki Neko

11:04:52
the Old Worlds and to the colonies; to who-i have been wrking very hard to get you to ever will read them as more than a pretext talk to me pricsilla! but now that you are for whatever rage or pity or contempt they here my rsrch will go fastr! you have thumbs were already inclined to feel, more than a priscill a!

conf irmation of whatever conclusions they Maneki Neko

11:05:04
have already settled into.

sit down plz so there will be a lap

So much has been said concerning the

Priscilla
proper relationship between humans and up-

(Harmonist 1404) 11:05:24
lifts. Protectors, enemies; creators, usurpers; Okay.

possessions, tyrants, equals. But I say, let us Maneki Neko

11:06:38
dissolve that barrier. Let us be of one kind.

thank you! priscilal welcmoe to opreation Let us uplift humans.

come home! you are a resrcher like me now!

Humans and uplifts alike will recoil from so much wrk to do priscilla, i will show you my suggestion. A being with a mind greater how, you will like it! there will be more im-than any human, greater than any uplift: the plants, we will grow them load them put them thought disgusts us all. But why?

into evrybody, the computr will show you! we Because, I think, we fear death. Oh, we do will treat topsoclaxomsis, f igruing out how not believe that our too-clever creatures was the hard part, the computrs can tell you so would turn on us. But we know we will die; much about microobliogy though! now you
we know, but we do not believe. The worlds can just give an ijnect ion, simpl really!

cannot go on without us! The stars shall fade i saw claudine mello eating centipedes
from the skies, but we will be there to mourn down by the creek, we will f ill out form Gv-them . . . or, if not us, one of our kind. Our 325 & give her an implant too! & all the kind. And only when we contemplate the
fearls! & utas! so much paprwrk pirsc lla!

death of our kind do we truly comprehend
we will do claudine mello last i think,
our own deaths.

maybe she still wants to kill me? i don’t If I do not write again, then Shennong Sta-know? but we will wrk something out,
tion has become my tomb. Let it be that of opear tion come home is for evre ybody
our kinds as well. Make your life long, make priscilla!

your life good, make your life full; but cease Priscilla
from imagining that you will see the days to (Harmonist 1404) 11:07:10
come through another’s eyes.

You’re the softest thing I ever touched.

The time for standing on giants’ shoulders Maneki Neko

11:08:23
has passed. Let us beget giants and bequeath thank you! you are very osvrbnt, that is
our worlds to them.

good! you will make a good resrchr i am sure of it! there is a lot to lrn but dont worry prsci CONFERENCE MODE, SHENNONG STATION,
lla i am here to help! ■

8/21/2166

Priscilla

(Harmonist 1404) 11:02:51

Tracy Canfield is a computational linguist What
who CNN once called a “Klingon scholar.” Her Priscilla
short science fiction and fantasy has appeared (Harmonist 1404) 11:04:26
in Analog, Strange Horizons, and other maga-What happened?

zines and anthologies. She's currently writing Maneki Neko

11:04:39
a space opera computer game for Choice of hello pr isclla my name is maneki neko & i Games. You can find her on Twitter at @Tracy am a cat! (named maneki neko)

Canfield.

50

TRACY CANFIELD

Ghostmail

Eric Del Carlo

It’s [GOOSEFLESH] unsettling here. I

“It’s gobbledygook messages coming
would have loved to study this gravi-
through. Random words and phrases. But in tational singularity in peacetime, but
her voice.”

every scientist aboard is a soldier

“They can come for weeks or months . . . af-f irst. Luckily, they are f ine people
terward.”

whose names I can’t mention, even

Two of those with meatmail had pulled him with this going straight to your post-aside after the meeting to tell him this. They synaptics. [LONGING SIGH] I’m so look-were all a miserable lot, collecting weekly in a ing forward to seeing you again.

canteen after hours with the owner’s permis-That last furlough wasn’t enough.

sion. Through the windows, Kushal could see the arc of the colony dome, the eternal purple t was the last meatmail Kushal had gotten aurorae beyond. He had grown up on another from Svetlana before the K.I. A. notice, de-world. Svetlana’s service had relocated them livered via teleprezz by a weak-chinned
here, before a wartime footing had taken her Imajor. The Born had been in an incident. away altogether, though not before they un-And as with most catastrophic spacescape in-dertook the tangling procedure. If she was out cidents, and very much most wartime ones, there f ighting Cadres, he wanted a sure
the Max Born was utterly gone.

means of connectivity. The censoring impuls-Kushal joined a local war-widowed group, a es that kept her from divulging sensitive mili-show-up-in-your-own-skin one, because he
tary information had done nothing to spoil wanted the immediate f leshy contact, the their communications.

people-y odors, the comfort of a hand squeez-Kushal appreciated the widowed group,
ing his shoulder. Home was a dreary hollow, even if it mostly reinforced the common grief.

replete with the mementos of his fervid, all-He lay limp on his metafoam slab, the bed too-brief marriage.

he’d shared with his wife. Svetlana: her cool Four others in the group of twenty had had smooth skin, the freckle on her right earlobe, meatmail capability with their spouses. They a militarily taut build; and more—her sympa-gave Kushal warning.

thy, consideration, patience, passion. A mar-

“Get ready for the ghostmail.”

velous person. Better than he deserved. Or

“The what?”

maybe exactly who he deserved since she had

“The thing they don’t tell you about when come to him without fuss, without unneces-you get your tangle put in.”

sary testings, a joining of mutually attracted 52

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
equals, even though she had education, ambi-She must still be—
tion, a real career, and he had none of those No. Svetlana was dead. Scans had found gethings. But she had made him feel on par.

netic signatures for every former crewman of Lately, he didn’t sleep. He dozed. He drowsed.

Max Born, nearby that gravitational singulari-He had stress dreams that were encapsulated ty. Besides, this wasn’t the message of some-sagas of impossible tasks and endless failings.

one who had miraculously sur vived a

As one of these brief but subjectively inter-devastating Cadre attack.

minable nightmares started to overtake him, We’re clear now.

some other presence pushed on his con-

She was still on board. They were continu-sciousness. He recognized it and braced him-ing their mission. She was aching to see him at self, having taken the warnings he’d received the end of it. He felt Svetlana’s desire. He re-to heart. This would be a ghostmail. For
sponded to it. She had had—and evidently
months he had kept in touch with Svetlana had still, in the present!—the power to un-through their tangle. It was more than mere loose powerful adolescent energies in him.

contact. In fact, meatmail was rather impracti-It was unseemly to be having fresh erotic cal as bare communication, which was why it thoughts about her. Yet here he was, on all had no real military application. Too much fours on the lacquered floor of their bedroom, emotion came through, an overspill of per-shivering, sweating. . . .

sonality. Tangled AI mainframes traded reliable Kushal lacked career drive. Nothing he’d
information far more quickly.

done had ever quite clicked, though he had Kushal prepared to receive a useless, stuck-enough artisan skills to keep him employed.

in-the-drain message from his dead wife.

What he did possess, however, was imagina-These would be leftover fragments, catching tion. Here he surpassed Svetlana, who sought up to him in a haphazard burst.

restrictions in her scientific work, so to give it shape.

I’m still dreaming of one more scan

He was therefore able to skip what he rec-of that grav singularity but will have
ognized as a lot of naturally occurring interto make do with what we came
vening steps—a disbelief in Svetlana’s death, away with. [RESIGNED SHRUG] Things
suspicion of a vast conspiracy, doubts as to his actually got a bit dodgy back there.

own sanity. He went straight to the most outra-Can’t give you any details, of course,
geous and inevitable conclusion, the one that but we’re clear now. This run won’t
possessed a kind of outlying beatific logic.

last forever. [SPREADING CARNAL

The Svetlana he had just gotten meatmail

WARMTH] Knowing we can be togeth-
from was a Svetlana from a different reality.

er at the end keeps me going.

Slowly he picked himself up from the floor.

Her words and emotions still stung his mind.

He rolled off the foamy slab, knees hitting He savored them, even as tears rolled down the floor, shooting barely noticed pain up his his cheeks. After a time, he worked the men-thighs. The meatmail resounded in his skull, tal levers inside his own brain as he’d been its tactility crackling along nerve endings shown how to do by the wetware technician, throughout his body.

and he sent a message back to Svetlana.

Svetlana was dead, part of the drifting inco-herent wreckage of the Max Born. He had She answered, after the appropriate lag
been warned about ghostmail, how it might time, and his heart soared. But she did not an-make one think, even for a single fraught mo-swer him.

ment, the other was still alive.

Their postsynaptic receptors overlapped a Which—
tiny part of an interpenetrating dimension.

Wasn’t possible—

That was how they communicated. Kushal

Things actually got a bit dodgy back there.

had, childishly, pictured a miniature black This was wrong. Oh, this was so fucking
hole whirling in the soft mass of his brain. But wrong! These weren’t snuff les and snorts, he had willingly undergone the procedure.

scraps of verbiage. This message was intelligi-Svetlana responded to a meatmail sent by her ble, fully realized.

husband, a man named Kushal. This person

GHOSTMAIL

53

ANALOG
was Kushal in every way, apparently; but he He drank the local fermentations, not the wasn’t a man who had recently lost his wife.

good stuff, the cheap stuff, and so maintained There, then, was the divergence. They two a further illusion of frugality. He would find a had been the exact same people up until the job, stabilize his life. It just wouldn’t happen violent spacescape event that, in his reality, today.

had ended Svetlana’s life. But this other Svet-At one of those meetings of whiny, martyr-y lana had survived.

widows, he sat there half-drunk, staring out at Kushal was indeed imaginative. But to be
the dome. He thought of the black beyond
imaginative was not to be scientif ic. Still, it and imagined—for the thousandth time and
was natural that with his layman understand-counting—what Svetlana’s final instants of life ing he consider the possible rationalizations.

must have been like in spacescape.

Perhaps that gravitational singularity near It was said you had time for a last thought.

where the Max Born had been patrolling had How dire and urgent and emphatic her f inal somehow bent or split reality, allowing the cognitive twinkling must have been. Hell, other Svetlana’s subsequent meatmails to in-maybe that force alone had punched through trude here.

the dimensions or whatever—

Or maybe it had to do with the tangle itself,

“Kush.”

a one-in-a-billion glitch, some irregularity that He blinked, awash in spirits in every sense.

exploded outward into the very interpenetrat-

“What?”

ing dimension a sector of their brains supposIt was the group’s self-appointed leader, edly shared.

who Kushal found increasingly annoying. He He knew these were childish guesses. But
hadn’t even told her she could call him Kush, they were all he had.

a nickname he didn’t like.

Whatever the explanation, if any, he was

“Could you tell us how you’re doing?” she overjoyed to hear from the woman who, were asked with the tyrannical obsequiousness of she still alive, would still be his wife.

all ineffectuals who assigned themselves to But he did have his current life, his own re-leadership roles.

ality, to deal with. Svetlana’s income was far The whole group was leaned forward, look-and away the main source for their household.

ing at him.

He had been engaged in seasonal work, and

“You know what?” Kushal stood, grabbing
the job had played out. He hadn’t sought an-his jacket off the back of his chair. “Fuck you other. The benefits payment he had received people. You think you’re special because you because of Svetlana’s death provided an illu-lost someone in a war? Tragedy is tragedy.

sion of security. It was good money, but this Let’s not separate ourselves and tart up our world was an expensive one to live on, and if sorrows. You think this particular war is spe-he didn’t have a revenue stream, he was going cial? If it’s not the Cadres, it’ll be the Cartels, to be in trouble soon.

then whatever else the military muckety-

As a stopgap, he decided to give up the
mucks can dream up. I’m out.”

apartment. It was a beautiful place, the best He strode to the canteen’s door, weaving
lodgings he’d ever known, but it echoed with just a tad, and out into the endless purple absence. Even so, he wept as he packed
dusk. The outburst had felt good. A second lat-things up. Most of Svetlana’s belongings went er he heard footsteps crunching behind him.

into storage. She had no family to claim any-

“Ha! That was hilarious.”

thing. And Kushal’s family was a collection of She came into view, bony elbows and pale
miscreants he would rather forget.

jeans. He tried to remember her name, then The new dwelling was small and on the
wondered with boozy haughtiness why he
seedy side, what he was used to from his pre-should bother. He kept walking down the
marital days. He didn’t look for work. He at-street.

tended the war-widowed group’s meetings

She paced him. “I’ve wanted to say some-
spottily. Mostly, though, it was what he didn’t thing like that for weeks.”

do: He didn’t tell anyone about the ghostmails.

“Why didn’t you?”

Because these weren’t ghostmails as he under-

“’Cause it was one hour a week I had to be stood the term.

someplace. An anchorage.”

54

ERIC DEL CARLO

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

She was smaller than him. He shortened his Kelley hadn’t had meatmail with her K.I. A.

strides so she could more easily keep up. “So spouse. Kushal didn’t tell her when he received now what?” he asked.

messages from Svetlana, the living Svetlana.

Her teeth flashed in manic grin. “Now I’m Bouncing did all the things that strong deleteri-loose. It’s for the best. I wasn’t getting any-ous addictions did to a person. He became forthing out of that group.”

getful, unhygienic, emotionally erratic.

Kushal felt untethered as well. Even though He didn’t love Kelley. But bouncing was
he’d only been attending irregularly, now he their bond.

could never go back. He stopped walking and Then Svetlana got another furlough.

peered down at the woman alongside him.

She had survived the run, cataloguing spa-

“Your name’s Kelley, right?”

tial anomalies the Cadres might use for sub-

“Right, Kushal.”

terfuge in battle, and the Max Born had Kushal, not Kush. He tried for a bleary
turned for home. She was, she said, so very ea-smile, and thought he might have successfully ger to see her husband again.

produced one.

It brought a new emotion to the forefront of

“You ever bounce?” Kelley asked.

Kushal’s addled being: He was jealous of him-

“No.”

self.

“You want to?”

Well, though, not himself. This was the oth-

“Yes.” It was the stupidest reply possible.

er Kushal, the lucky one whose wife hadn’t died in a stupid-ass war. He would get to see Marriage was Kushal’s first monogamous reher, to make love with her, to renew the stal-lationship. When he and Svetlana had started wart ties of their marriage.

to see each other romantically, he’d been in-Kushal seethed with resentment. He
volved with others. So had she. But they had, bounced more than he should have—dismay-by almost unspoken consent, winnowed the
ing, considering how detrimental bouncing at extraneous players. When that was done, he all was—to the point where Kelley, who had had felt no need whatever to pursue or be more experience with the addiction, tried to pursued by anyone else.

warn him off. He turned on her for that, and To bounce, in the parlance of many worlds, the fight they had, what he could remember was to target specific atomic motions that oc-of it later, was epic.

curred during catalysis. This served, basically, At some point in their hazy relationship, she to fuck up your brain in that way humans had had moved in with him. But now, with her
found so pleasurable for so many centuries.

having—understandably—stormed out curs-

So it was that Kushal entered into his f irst ing his name, he was left alone with no way to new carnal association in some time, while pay rent on a domicile even this shabby. Also, also bouncing for the first time ever. It was a he couldn’t afford to bounce anymore. Also—
thrilling, wicked, disastrous combination.

a big also, this—the police were starting to The addiction was immediate and fantasti-ask around about him since the mechani-
cally powerful, as he had known it would be.

cal/medical equipment necessary for bounc-This was self-destruction just shy of slicing ing was highly illegal.

open his wrists. His life’s priorities reshaped It was time to leave.

themselves. Finding work no longer mattered.

He sold off his and Svetlana’s remaining pos-His dwindling supply of funds paid his rent.

sessions, booked passage on a tramp, and

Sex with Kelley was intermittent and fero-worked his way to some other world.

cious.

Their shared urgency was, of course, the

He didn’t go back to the world of his birth.

junkie routine, complex and time-consuming It took every shred of will not to go insane and illegal. When Kushal had gotten his meat-during the voyage. He worked like a fiend on mail capacity installed, the technician had the tramp, taking every duty possible, asking made him watch a cornball vid inveighing
no extra compensation, driving himself into against the dangers of bouncing. Not that meat-shuddering exhaustion to try to offset the ef-mail and bouncing were remotely the same
fects of withdrawal.

thing, but medical regulations required it.

Upon landing, he spent everything he had

GHOSTMAIL

55

ANALOG
on a rehab stint. A standard neural wash
tary. She had adjusted to the threat of combat wouldn’t do it. Bouncing was like getting in the black.

high off the fabric of the universe. Humans She had changed. Her life had progressed, were made of star stuff. If you wanted to kick and this was a different woman from the one the addiction, you had to kick yourself. That Kushal had known. That fact was both uplift-meant self-revelation.

ing and heartbreaking. All he had to make So it necessarily emerged during his recov-sure of right now, though, was that it didn’t ery that he was receiving meatmail messages send him bouncing.

from a parallel version of his dead wife.

When his rehab was done, and Ake and

“You believe me?” Kushal asked one of his the others at the facility were satisf ied he at rehabilitationists.

least stood a chance of staying straight,

“Yeah.” They were by the pool. Moldy

Kushal went out into this world. Work was metaceramic tiles. The facility was rundown, indeed easy to f ind. Terraforming, it had long like most everything on this world. The man been known, was a process never complet-was slow-moving, with a weary contented air.

ed. It was why newer, richer worlds were

His name was Ake. He continued, “Your par-domed.

ticular enslavement doesn’t lend itself to out-The ’forming equipment required constant
right hallucination. And you’re not crazy. So maintenance and babying and improvisation, there.”

especially processor colossi as old as the ones Kushal stirred his bare feet in the warm
scattered across this world. Once Kushal
mineral water. The planet was poor, an old proved himself able, he traveled from one and noticeably aged colony, but its natural re-plant to the next, in an endless sequence.

sources had a certain charm, such as these Sometimes, some of the equipment he
springs. It was also a terraformed world, worked on reminded him of the gear he and which meant it was one still being ’formed; Kelley had used to play hell with their en-which meant work for anybody with artisan zymes. These were the only times he ever
abilities, which further meant he could earn a thought of her.

living once he ended his rehab stint.

Though the job called for a little artisanal

“What do you think the ghostmails mean?”

f lair, it mostly consisted of repetitious tasks.

Ake lifted a heavy shrug. “Face value? AnBut he embraced the drudgery. Often he was other Svetlana is living her life somewhere.”

treated to sweeping views, as the processors

“And I’m living it with her. . . .” The strange were usually located on mountain ranges.

jealousy was still there. He hated the other Mossy landscapes, black stony slopes. He en-Kushal, a helpless hate that made him want to countered all sorts of weather, some of it exact out, to do something self-destructive—
acerbated by the terraforming itself.

“No, you’re not,” Ake said as if these last There turned out to be a certain cama-thoughts had played on Kushal’s face. “I’ve raderie among the maintenance personnel.

never heard of a weirder addiction trigger, Kushal wasn’t even aware that he belonged to but that’s all this is in the end. You don’t have this fellowship until he met with the lingo. He to be enslaved.” It was among Ake’s favorite was encouraged to adopt this clubhouse jar-terms.

gon.

A year had passed since Kushal had walked The war with the Cadres continued. A
out of that meeting of the war widows. He complex political/economic struggle among was not privy to the outgoing meatmails of the worlds had resulted in these hostilities.

his other self—yes, Ake was right, other—to Kushal had backed off of his earlier, comfort-Svetlana. But he could infer what was being ably cynical view that the military had manusent by her replies. They two had enjoyed factured this fight. Svetlana was still involved several furloughs over the past year. Kushal—
in the war in her reality. No longer aboard the her Kushal—worried for her and hoped she

Born, she had recently transferred to a de-would leave the service once the Cadres were stroyer. Though the meatmails were as cen-defeated. Svetlana expressed reluctance. She sored as ever, he did learn the vessel was the excelled in her field, and the best opportuni-Hannah Szenes. Kushal wasn’t as interested ties for advancement were within the mili-in the information as the warm touch of his 56

ERIC DEL CARLO

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
wife’s psyche on his postsynaptics. He expe-ing. It wasn’t a bad way to live, he had rienced her feelings, and they were as pas-found. There was security and a certain con-sionate and tender as when she really had tentment, if not anything like outright hap-been his wife.

piness.

She was sending these messages to some

They went from plant to plant by prop
other Kushal. He knew and accepted this.

plane, usually. He was aboard one of the

That other him was evidently still hoping she quaint practical vessels now. In the small cab-would leave the service. Kushal found himself in he dozed, among a handful of other work-more and more sympathetic to Svetlana’s
ers. Nightmares no longer ravaged his sleep.

view. The military needed scientif ic minds, As he sat, he felt a pressure, a presence.

and she was enthused about her duties. He Nothing had changed in the atmosphere of
wanted to send her a message of absolute
the cabin. This was in his mind. He awoke, in-support, but his meatmails never reached her, stinctively eager to hear from Svetlana. Peronly those of the other Kushal.

haps he would continue to receive her

Meanwhile, he deepened his attachment to
ghostmails for years to come. Since rehab, he the league of maintenance workers to which had told no one about them. They were his he belonged. The gravity of this world was ap-secret and his solace. He wondered if he
propriate for sports, for ancient Earth base-would always love Svetlana, and remember
ball in particular, though the base paths had her cool smooth skin and freckled earlobe.

to be slightly extended to make the timeworn mechanics of play work. Games were held on A fantastic development in the war
the grounds of the terraforming plants, and effort, [RACING PULSE] which of course
whoever was on hand filled out the teams.

I can’t tell you about in any detail; or

Kushal got his average up over .200 and
at all, in fact. [FRUSTRATED BUT WRY
proved a decent right f ielder. The rough-CHUCKLE] It is a very satisfying thing
house team dynamics were more therapeutic to contribute significantly to a cause
than anything he’d found with his old war one believes in. I guess all I can real-widows group.

ly say is that I miss you . . . but not for News of the war of course reached this
too much longer.

world and even the isolated processor facilities where Kushal spent his time almost ex-Kushal had lunged upright in his seat. The clusively. The Cadres were pressing hard. The aircraft’s propellers buzzed. His seatmate fight was more serious than it had ever been.

glanced over, stifling a yawn.

“Airsick, Kush?” Everyone had to have a

Kushal was en route. This was life now: in nickname, it seemed, so he had gotten used to transit or already there, his two states of be-the easiest shortening of his name.

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GHOSTMAIL

57

ANALOG

He almost told her, almost said, I just heard sage had hinted at, it hadn’t occurred in this from my wife. But his fellow workers, who universe. So here the war would go on, grow-knew little about his past, did at least know ing more and more drastic instead of winding that he’d lost his wife in the war. So it was bet-down.

ter not to mention anything.

The knowledge tore up Kushal. But what

Svetlana’s meatmails, necessarily restricted could he possibly do with this information?

by military security, had always involved a cer-He had to do something. So he did it. He
tain shorthand. As wife and husband, they contacted the military. When he finally spoke spoke code already. He understood immedi-to a teleprezz off icer, it was vaudeville. He ately the implications of her message.

played the comic, reciting an escalating series The destroyer on which she served, the
of ridiculous claims, and the officer acted the Szenes, had gained some advantage against the straight woman, deadpanning his every state-Cadres, and the war’s end was now within
ment. It was mortifying. But Kushal told it all, sight. That was why Svetlana would only miss a full confession.

him for a little while longer. She was coming Afterward, he rather numbly resumed his
home.

life. If the fight with the Cadres continued as it was going, the war might eventually reach But in Kushal’s reality, the war did not come this very world. He had grown attached to the near to any ending in the coming months. The stubborn impoverished planet. He liked the f leet included a destroyer named Hannah people and the scenery.

Szenes. That much information he could ac-He hated that lives were still being lost out cess, though not the vessel’s personnel, natu-in the black for a war that should have con-rally.

cluded by now. Svetlana had finally told him: Yet nothing was in the war news about this Peace had come at last. He was happy for her, ship. If it had been a part of some “fantastic and for all those in her reality who would go development in the war effort,” that triumph on living their lives.

was being held under wraps.

A prop plane landed him at one of the

Meanwhile, Svetlana’s ghostmails kept complants in the northern hemisphere, on a foggy ing. They were increasingly jubilant. And reve-morning. When he stepped out onto the tar-lator y. Things were happening in her
mac, a mechanic hurried over.

universe, good things. Though the military

“Kush. You got company. A yoltz waiting in censorship was ostensibly still in effect, its en-the foreman’s office. Dropped in half hour ago forcement had grown noticeably lax of late.

and wants you.”

The Cadres, it was evident, were going to Yoltz was lingo for military personnel. It surrender. The worlds would stand down
froze Kushal for a moment. He remembered
from a wartime footing. Svetlana, still express-getting the K.I. A. notice about Svetlana. But ing a desire to remain affiliated with the mili-that had happened via teleprezz, and he didn’t tary, would nonetheless be rotated out until have any other loved ones in the war, or any she made her allegiance official with a pledge loved ones at all for that matter. Still, could he of long service.

be in some trouble?

That meant time with her husband, with

The yoltz was a captain, lean and hard, with Kushal.

an air of menace. When Kushal entered, the But . . . why wasn’t this triumphal and wel-captain rose from the foreman’s desk and told come conclusion to the war happening here?

the door to shut itself. He asked Kushal to Kushal had an imagination. By now he could identify himself.

even hold the idea of two Svetlanas in his head

“Did you make this message?” The captain
without losing grip. He thought he knew the opened a gloved hand, and a tiny holo of
answer to this fantastical quandary, one only Kushal’s conversation with the teleprezz offi-he knew anything about.

cer appeared.

The war wasn’t ending here because in the It still embarrassed Kushal. He looked away.

other reality Svetlana, somehow, was respon-

“Yes,” he muttered.

sible for the cessation of hostilities. Whatever The captain closed his hand. He drew a
her signif icant contribution, which her mes-long audible breath. Then in a startlingly 58

ERIC DEL CARLO

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
convivial tone he said, “Please tell me all that ries. Kushal had just thrown a runner out at again. And understand that this time you will second trying to stretch a single, his throw be listened to.”

good despite the tough hop the ball took on Kushal blinked. But he sat, and he explained the outf ield moss. He liked the exertion, the it all once more. And it was different this time.

friendly competitiveness.

The captain’s hard face betrayed no ridicule.

Play was suspended for ten minutes while

He nodded. Kushal started with Svetlana’s everybody celebrated the news.

death aboard the Max Born and took the cap-The war’s end had been in sight for a month; tain through the first ghostmail, his jealousy of had, generally, become an accepted inevitabili-the other Kushal, his addiction to bouncing, ty. The discovery of the sizable but not easily and f inally to the most recent message from detected distortion at just such an advanta-Svetlana, the one declaring the war over.

geous location had allowed the fleet to move He felt limp having told it, but it was a good in on the Cadres’ lines. Spacescape had lit with feeling, bringing a sense of accomplishment.

cataclysm for a while, then things had quieted.

The captain was still nodding. He said, “The The Cadres wouldn’t be brutalized in defeat.

Hannah Szenes, you say. It will be easy Kushal got another visit from that yoltz cap-enough to retrace her patrol pattern. Tell me tain. This time he came by teleprezz and with the exact date of the relevant meatmail, won’t an offer. The military had a place for Kushal, you?”

with a lucrative future. The position was plain-Kushal named it. Svetlana’s significant con-ly a reward. He declined with thanks.

tribution, whatever it was, must have hap-The ghostmails kept coming. Svetlana
pened then. He felt excited, even moved. It stayed in the service, and when she retired, it was a marvelous thing to be taken seriously, was to a world with lots of tropical land-he found.

scapes. Kushal, in his elderly years, relocated The captain rose to leave. Kushal caught his there as well. It allowed him to feel close to arm. “You . . . really believe me, don’t you?”

his long-gone wife, whom he had never

The military man gazed back. His hard eyes stopped loving. ■
softened as he said, “You aren’t the f irst person to receive a ghostmail of this type. Though Eric Del Carlo’s short fiction has appeared you are the f irst with information that might in Asimov’s and Strange Horizons, and previ-make a difference in this war. Excuse me.”

ously in Analog. He has written with the late And he left the office.

Robert Asprin, and coauthored with his father Victor Del Carlo the novel The Golden The Cadres surrendered during game three

Gate Is Empty. His latest book, The Vampire of the informal but hard-fought local World Se-Years, is due out through Elder Signs Press.

GHOSTMAIL

59

The First

Trebuchet
on Mars

Marie Vibbert
f you come to Mars you need to know that
who was going purple in the face, “won’t
in the twelfth century French engineers
hurt to aim it away from the valley.”

popularized a model of sling catapult with She sighed heavily and used her foot to spin Ia counterweight. The Middle East had the treb around so it faced the crater wall be-been using ’em for centuries, and probably hind her habitat.

got them from the Chinese who’d been using

“That’s not a solution! What if debris f lies

’em for centuries before that, but the French back at us?”

got the publicity campaign, if you follow my Ned wouldn’t shut up until we trucked that meaning, and so the device to this day is treb all the way up to the top of the ridge and called a trebuchet.

declared war on the next crater over. He still I’m getting to the Mars part.

had a go, of course. Pushed his way to the The first trebuchet on Mars was built by Jill front of the line, after Jill, who took the first Cooper out of some broken PVC structural el-few shots for demonstration purposes.

ements, rubber tubing, and Mars-grown hemp The trebuchet was four feet tall and lighter rope. Jill invited everyone over to debut her than my emergency kit, but Jill could chuck treb. We’re usually busy in our own habitats, rocks clear across the crater with shocking ac-and it’s not an inconsiderable walk from one curacy. “Lower gravity and almost no air resis-to another, but there’s not a lot of entertaintance,” she said. “Makes a difference!” She ment to be had on Mars. Everyone came, even nudged the frame with her knee for fine-tunNed Taylor, our local fussbudget.

ing. “See that little point like a Christmas tree

“You’re not firing it there,” Ned said. “What on the far lip?”

if you hit a habitat?”

When the little spire of rock crumbled, I

“Be a lucky damn shot,” Jill said.

looked over at Ned to see if he realized she’d Ned said, “A thousandth of a percent of a been practicing on the thing before inviting us chance is too much.”

over and his fuss about where to throw was a

“Don’t care about your dating life,” Jill said.

little late. He didn’t.

“Jill,” I said, with a sideways look at Ned, Jill had been in this reenactment group, the 60

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Society for Creative Anachronism, back on

“I’m studying how the material is affected Earth. She was always trying to get people to by the temperature and pressure.”

make fake swords and bash around in their en-

“And impacts with Ned’s scalp?” I asked.

vironment suits, which was all fun and games Ned asked, “Aren’t you going to arrest her?”

until someone cracked their facemask, and He stood behind me like he was afraid Jill was then the air just went out of it. The games, I going to have another go.

mean.

Curse my insufficient reluctance. “Ned, you Point is, Jill’s “Shire of the Red Seas” never know I’d have to arrest you, too, for breaking got off the ground. Throwing boulders high in and entering, and we don’t have a jail.”

the thin atmosphere, though, that was someNed pointed around me. “She’s wasting
thing the entire colony could get behind. We community resources!”

played with that thing until half of us had only Jill got up in my face to yell around me at enough oxygen left to get back home.

Ned. “My treb is a community resource.”

Turned out not everyone was happy with

“Calm down,” I said. “With the lack of a jail the demonstration.

and all, can we agree that neither one of you will Jill came in the next day to find Ned Taylor go near the other until the community meeting in her hab. He’d taken the throwing arm off on Wednesday? We’ll put it up to a general vote the treb and was fiddling with the rubber tub-what’s to be done with the both of you.”

ing. He jumped up and, if Jill is to be believed,

“She hit me! I could have a concussion.”

threatened her with the PVC arm. She reached Jill snorted. “How would you notice?”

behind her and picked up a stout stick of ratI had a to put a hand on each of them and tan she stored next to her airlock. (More on hold them apart. Not my favorite occupation.

that, later.)

“Jill, will you surrender your weapon?”

Jill clocked Ned good with that stick, right in

“It’s not a weapon!”

the back of the head, and threatened to clock Over Ned’s shouting, I said, “Circumstances him again if he didn’t leave, so he did. He ran disagree with you. I’m taking it.”

all the way to my habitat, ten miles away.

Jill stepped back and huffed at the roof.

I guess I should have mentioned—I’m the

“Fine.”

sheriff for our little community, a position I I turned to Ned. “Do you need an escort
obtained through insufficient reluctance.

back to your habitat for your protection?”

It was a long walk to Jill’s hab with Ned

“What? No!”

complaining the whole way. I’d been just

“Then I’m going to leave now, with the
about to start dinner, too. Colony life is Spar-weapon, and you two are going to steer clear tan, and you don’t get a lot to eat and you of each other for three days. Got it?”

don’t eat very often, so you get cranky when Grudging murmurs. Good enough.

you thought you were going to sit down with I fastened my helmet, and Jill cycled the lock some nice hot soy but instead you’re tromping for me. Two hours and I could have my boiled across the red loam hungry.

soy soup. I’d been experimenting with grow-Jill met us with cold civility and gave her ing radishes, and one had just reached gumball version of events at the scene of the crime.

size. I had been planning on waiting for it to She’d reassembled the trebuchet while we
grow a bit bigger, but given my day, I decided I were gone and made a big deal over the fact was going to dice it up in my soup. I could that she’d had to re-tension the spring.

hardly wait.

First thing I asked, of course, was, “Why the Of course that’s when the alarm went off.

hell did you have a rattan club in your habi-The communication units on my suit, Ned’s tat?” I hefted the pole, felt its smooth texture suit, and Jill’s sleeve all started f lashing red.

in my hands. “Had to cost a fortune to ship.”

We all froze where we were, which means Jill

“It’s just four pounds. I’m trying to grow rat-stopped cycling the lock. I stepped back into tan.”

the hab and picked up the comm. “It’s

Uh-huh. I hadn’t forgotten her let’s-hit-each-Nguyen’s signal. Hey Tran, speak up; this is other-with-sticks game. “Rattan’s not the best the sheriff.”

crop to try. Most are doing better with hemp.

“Sheriff! Our dome has ruptured. We’ve lost Anyway, that’s no reason to bring a stick.”

pressure and air. Tell me you’re home.”

THE FIRST TREBUCHET ON MARS

61

ANALOG

My habitat was the closest to Nguyen’s. The With our suits on, we didn’t hear the sling way we’re scattered about Xanthe Terra, I fire, but we saw the silver solar cloth flash as would normally be the only one within a half-it arched high in the starry sky.

hour’s walk. Different corps, big plans for gi-

“It’s not going to work,” Ned said.

ant domes, don’t ask me. The world is just

“If you want to be useful,” Jill said, “Get impractical. “Hell. I’m on the north side, at binoculars and spot for me.”

Cooper’s.”

“I don’t see it,” Nguyen said.

Ned and I exchanged worried looks. I put

I turned on my visor’s magnif ication. “I’m my comm on wide band. “Anyone near
not seeing anything.” I fumbled through the Nguyen’s hab?”

settings. I could see Nguyen’s habitat, on the A peppering of negative responses, and
horizon, but there was no way I could spot a then a gasping female voice. “This is Jordon package in the dirt. “There’s wind coming Cameron.” Gasp. “I’m running. Got sealant.”

from the west.”

“Cameron can’t make it in time,” Nguyen

Jill turned her treb and cranked it back.

said, and you could hear tears in his voice

“So you’re going to throw equipment away
though he was trying to be calm. “She’s al-now?” Ned said.

most an hour away and we have only forty

“Shove it,” Jill said, grunting as she got the minutes of air. I should have repaired the recy-trebuchet recocked. “Here it goes! Watch it, cler. I should have gotten more sealant after Sheriff.”

the last break, but it’s all gone. My wife’s try-Good thing I paid for the premium suit oping to hold the tear, but it’s not enough. We’re tics. My heads-up locked onto the projectile on suit air.”

and lit up its arc against the sky, outlining the Radio is a wonderful technology. It lets you habs in the distance as little yellow lumps.

hear pleas for help you can’t answer. “Take it

“You’re east of it,” I said. “Wait a tic . . . I can easy, Tran. We’ll f igure something out.

call up the degrees. Six degrees east of the tar-Breathe shallow. You know how. Talk as little get. Also you’re a hair short.”

as possible. Jordon’s a real good runner. Real Jill cranked it down again and jammed the good.”

firing pin in and laid the throwing basket out.

Jill shook her head. She was looking at her It was in this sort of chute on the bottom.

comm, at Jordon’s position and speed.

“Lots of friction and loose parts,” I said. “Like

“This is why,” Ned said, “We don’t need stu-that chute. Introduces error.”

pid trebuchets. Nguyen’s needed repairs for

“Shut up,” said Jill.

months now, and there weren’t enough mate-

“You won’t get this f igured out in time,”

rials.”

Ned said. “She is aiming with her foot!”

Ned shouted this right at the comm on my

I didn’t want to give Ned ammunition, but I arm. I turned away from him. “Jordon, girl, couldn’t help asking, as our next shot sailed keep talking, let Tran know where you are, short, “You’re f iring rocks for testing, right?

that you’re on your way.”

Not canisters of oxygen?”

Jill picked up her helmet. With a face of Jill’s noncommittal grunt didn’t calm me.

stone she stomped to the airlock. I thought This time the rock (I hope) flew to the far side she was going to start walking all the way to of the Nguyen’s habitat.

Nguyen’s like a martyr. She came back,

Ned said, “You should be doing something, though, and grabbed the treb.

sheriff! People are dying while you play cata-Ned and I followed out of pure curiosity.

pult.”

By the time Ned got his helmet on, and we

“Two degrees west, and about one hundred
got through the lock, Jill was dropping a bun-feet shy,” I said. “I hope I’m reading this crap dle of solar cloth into the trebuchet’s basket.

right.”

She squatted behind the thing and peered into Jill grunted again, and the arm swung. We the distance, wiggling the base back and forth.

watched the silver package fly like a suspend-Jill said, “Tran, I’m sending sealant and oxy-ed breath. Just before it vanished from sight, gen to your dome by trebuchet. Get outside Jill said, “That’s my last O2 canister.”

and look north.”

I stared at her in horror.

“I’m on it,” Tran said.

“I see it!” Tran Nguyen shouted.

62

MARIE VIBBERT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Jill stood up, panting heavy, hands on her though. Sometimes people just get bored. ■
hips, looking like she’d just invented gravity itself.

Marie Vibbert is an IT professional in We all heard Tran and his wife shouting for Cleveland, Ohio. She played defensive end for joy. Jordon stopping for breath, saying she’d the Cleveland Fusion women's tackle foot-make her way more slowly, now, and try to ball team and has ridden 17% of the roller pick up Jill’s canisters.

coasters in North America. Her work has apNed didn’t say nothing. He turned, silently, peared in Analog, Asimov's, Lightspeed, and and walked home.

Escape Pod. In the SCA, she's Lyonnete Vibert, And that is why, to this day, every Mars
squire to Sir Ephraim ben Shlomo, and dedi-colony maintains a scale model of a medieval cates this story to all those wonderful me-siege weapon.

dievalists.

Don’t ask me why we have a castle gate,

IN TIMES TO COME

Next month’s November/December issue closes out the year in style: We open with a return to Bill Johnson’s Martin and his AI companion, Artie, in “Hybrid Blue by Firelight.” In a world where everyone is jockeying to protect his or her own timeline, any given quid pro quo can get very complicated, very abstract . . . and very dangerous.

Then our fact article is a deep dive into the dangerous effects of supernovae on Earthlike planets, in “Fatal Starlight,” by Paul Fisher.

We also have a novella that looks at one group’s survival after everything else is gone, in Catherine Wells’ “Native Seeds”; uploaded imprints that may not see things in entirely the same way as the original, in “Keepsakes” by Kenneth Schneyer; a bit of sinister silliness in

“Laminated Moose Zombies” by Dennis M. Flynn and Michael F. Flynn; a look at the economics of uploading knowledge, in “Quirks” by Marie Vibbert; the human cost of technological solutions in “Time Travel is Only for the Poor” by S.L. Huang; one possible solution to the famous paradox in “Fermi’s Slime” by Tom Jolly; a brutal bit of justice in Jay O’Connell’s “Weaponized”; some possible ramifications of making your currency a bit too smart, in “Luscina” from Robert Reed; and a touching (maybe?) Probability Zero from Edward M. Lerner.

We also have pieces from James Sallis, Scott Edelman, Brenta Blevins, Ian Creasey, Bud Sparhawk, Igor Teper, Stephen R. Loftus-Mercer, Richard A. Lovett, Brendan DuBois, and Sean McMullen, as well as—of course—all our regular fine features.

See you next issue!

THE FIRST TREBUCHET ON MARS

63

Climbing

Olympus

Simon Kewin
lorian sank to his knees, breathing

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said into ragged as his lungs battled for oxygen
his pressure suit pickup. “I think we should to feed his burning muscles. His vision
turn back. It’s madness. It’s too much.”

Ffaded, black shapes swirling in his vi- His father’s voice was calm, considered.

sion, threatening to engulf him.

We’re doing well, only half a day behind He slumped to the rocky ground, getting
schedule. Let’s camp here and see how his head as low as possible, downslope. Fin-things look tomorrow.

gers clumsy in his suit gauntlets, he turned The small, cold Martian sun was already
up the oxygen supply from the canister on dipping toward the swell of Olympus Mons.

his back a notch. They could barely afford Night would come quickly, and then the
the increase; the supply of spares on the dust cold, rather than the lack of oxygen, would sled was already short, and they’d need more be the greatest threat. They couldn’t begin and more as the climb grew steeper. There the descent now even if they wanted to. His were further supplies cached at three points father was right.

up the chosen ascent route, hauled up by

Nodding, climbing to his knees and then
crawler, their only concession to the hostile his feet, Florian began to unfold the silvery conditions of climbing on Mars. Dying before bivouac that would help preserve his body reaching the next cache wasn’t going to help heat over night.

anyone.

Slowly, his breathing calmed and normal

They’d had the idea together, Florian and vision returned. He lay for a moment, listen-his father, lying in their hammocks tethered ing to the thrumming pain that was a con-part-way up the sheer rock face of El Capitan stant in his oxygen-starved brain.

in Yosemite valley . The second night of the 64

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
f ive-day climb. Florian had been twenty-two This also accounted for the shape of the
at the time, learning, developing the strength mountain. It was, in many ways, the opposite in his f ingers and thighs and back. His father, of an Earth ascent. There you walked up
approaching f ifty, was still limber enough to slopes to get to the base, and then the real attempt such demanding ascents. They were climbing began. Here the steepest cliffs were halfway through a f ive-year period during at the start, and the top was one vast plateau.

which they tackled some of Earth’s most dif-The early stages were the most technically f icult peaks, Florian’s agility complementing demanding; after that it was more a matter of his father’s greater skill.

endurance.

A starry sky blazed above them as they lay In truth, many of the cliffs weren’t that four hundred metres above the f loor of the steep. Restricted water and oxygen supplies valley. Florian could smell the pine of the were the limiting factors, although the lower trees even that high up. The silvery path of gravity made hauling the canisters a little eas-the Milky Way cut across the sky, dazzling in ier. The other problem was staying mobile. A its beauty. They were alone on the rock face broken bone or some other incapacitating in-but still talked in hushed tones, as if they jury would be fatal. There could be no rescue were within the walls of a cathedral.

party, no help. Commander Valdez had made

“I wonder what mountains there are out
that abundantly clear.

there,” his father said. “On all those other A damaged suit could be repaired but
worlds. Perhaps we should tackle some of
there was no spare. There were enough sup-those one day.”

plies if everything went to plan, but there It was meant as a joke. His father was ex-was little leeway. Hauling the dust sled was a pressing the familiar longing for new moun-constant battle, Florian always wary of step-tains, new challenges. All the peaks on Earth ping on some rock and twisting his ankle or had been climbed many times. But it was
knee. The concentration required was almost 2020, and Earth was all they had. Probes and the hardest part. Long days were spent
robots were occasionally f ired into space, putting one foot in front of the other, fol-but there was no prospect of anyone setting lowed by nights of exhausted slumber.

foot on the Moon or Mars or any other rocky The pressure suits had a f lexible, airtight body any time soon.

head-covering that kept the oxygen f lowing

“We’d have to take a hell of a lot of oxy-while making it possible to lie down and
gen,” said Florian, continuing the joke. “And sleep. In the attenuated atmosphere, sounds some damned long ropes.”

from outside—the snap and f lutter of the The conversation had soon moved on. But
bivouac, the moan of the Martian wind—
it was one of those moments that stayed with came tinny and indistinct in Florian’s ear-Florian, implanting itself in his subconscious piece.

to nudge him from time to time. Something Times like that, drifting to sleep after the to ponder as he stared up from the tops of exertions of the day’s climb, were often moother mountains or whenever he saw the
ments for ref lection. There was something Milky Way sparkling the sky.

about the shared peril of the ascent, and the quiet darkness afterward, that made confes-The Martian night was about the same
sion easier.

length as that on Earth, to Florian’s constant I wasn’t a very good father. I’m sorry for surprise. Mars was hostile, alien, but occa-that, Florian. I regret not being there a lot of sionally you were reminded that it was the the time when you were growing up.

Earth’s sibling, similar in so many ways.

Florian breathed three, four times before The lack of tectonic plate activity was one he replied, staring into the darkness. “You difference, explaining why Olympus Mons
had your climbing, Dad. Mountaineering is was so massive. Thousands of volcanic dis-hard to combine with the demands of a
charges over millions of years had built up young family.”

the mountain. On Earth, the moving plates Then my family should have come first.

would have distributed the outpoured lava.

You should have come first. I sometimes But not here.

think climbing . . . that it might have been a CLIMBING OLYMPUS

65

ANALOG
way of escaping my responsibilities. It’s all was nineteen, killed not by an avalanche or a so simple on the mountain isn’t it? You fall fall onto jagged rocks but by her own blood off or freeze and you die. Or else you put cells revolting against her. Florian’s father one foot in front of the other and you live.

was climbing remote Andean peaks at the

Real life is messier than that.

time and didn’t hear the news for two

“You wouldn’t have been happy tied
weeks.

down, Dad.”

The plan to climb the high peaks together Happy is . . . a slippery word. When we was, perhaps, a way of coping for both of make commitments, when people depend
them. But everything changed on Denali, a on us, we accept being tied down. When week into their ascent of the tallest peak in you’re roped together on a climb you don’t North America, two years after their climb of resent the rope. I should have welcomed my El Capitan.

new life. I see that now.

They’d exchanged few words during the

“You climbed less. You provided for us.”

day, apart from a terse disagreement over the I think I did both badly. And if I had fall-best route to take up the West Buttress. His en or frozen to death, that would have left father returned to their disagreement as they you without a father and Lilith alone. I sipped the soup the y’d heated up that
mean, she was alone a lot of the time, I evening.

know. None of that was fair. You were right.

“Lilith and I used to argue a lot when we She didn’t climb much after you came
climbed together. She usually had a good eye along while I just carried on.

for a route.”

“It’s funny, I don’t remember you going

His father’s comments about his mother of-away each time, just the joy of seeing you ten annoyed Florian. In his father’s mind she come home afterward.”

was always the young, vibrant woman he’d

Then I’m still being selfish, wallowing in fallen in love with, shared climbs with. It was my own regrets as if they’re all that matters.

as if Lilith the mother, Lilith the older

“We were happy, Dad. We were. I wasn’t
woman, Lilith who battled leukaemia had
sitting at home pining. Mainly I remember never existed.

the adventures and the fun we had, the stu-

“I know,” said Florian. “We climbed to-
pid little things. There were no terrible child-gether a lot. I think she taught me most of hood traumas of loss.”

what I know.”

Perhaps. And sometimes you aren’t aware His father looked surprised. “She did?”

of the crevasse gaping beneath the surface Florian’s anger appeared from nowhere, a
of the ice. That day on Denali, when every-dormant volcano raging into life. “Of course thing changed between us. I wonder if that she did. How could you not know that? She had to do with me not being there. Perhaps was an incredible climber.”

that was the real reason for . . . what we

“I know she was. She could have done any-
said.

thing, gone anywhere if she hadn’t turned They hadn’t talked about that day since.

her back on it all.”

Florian took a moment to reply. “I was grow-Florian found himself standing. “How the
ing up, Dad, growing away from you. It’s nat-hell can you sit there and say something like ural to war with your parents sometimes. It’s that? That wasn’t how it was. She was look-an evolutionar y thing, the separation
ing after me, Dad. She loved the mountains, process.”

but she put me f irst. And how do you think Perhaps. It isn’t always quite so . . . brutal.

that makes me feel? Knowing she stopped
climbing because I was there? I used to see Their f ive-year climbing spree was sup-her staring upward, sometimes, when she
posed to be longer; they’d planned a decade thought no one was watching. She never said of ascents, of f irsts for the both of them as anything, but I knew. I always knew.”

well as peaks and routes his father had scaled

“I . . . I’m sorry.”

as a younger man and now wanted to share

“Are you? Forget it, Dad. Let’s give up on with Florian.

Denali. I don’t think I want to follow your Florian’s mother, Lilith, had died when he route any more.”

66

SIMON KEWIN

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

His father looked shocked. “You’re sure,
changing occasional words. A team.

Florian?”

“We should climb more together,” his fa-

“Yes. I’m sure. I think we’re done. It’s not ther said as they descended. “Would you like like you really want to be here, repeating that?”

climbs you’ve already made.”

“I want to climb them all, Dad. I could

“I do, of course, I do.”

come with you when you go to the Alps or

“You don’t, I know you don’t.”

the Andes. Or the Himalaya. I want to f ind The following morning, at f irst light, they new routes no one has ever climbed before.

packed up their gear and began the descent.

I want to climb them with you.”

His father laughed. “Excellent. You’re

Florian gave a cry of surprise as the dust growing quickly. Once you’re stronger we’ll sled skewed from the narrow edge and be-do it.”

gan slanting down the steep slope to his side.

It hadn’t worked out like that. Florian

It set off its own mini avalanche of Martian climbed more and more, but with his mother dust and rattling rock. He’d lost concentra-or his friends. His father, always, was away tion for a moment, his thoughts wandering on an expedition to some new peak, or else to past events.

preparing for or recovering from a climb.

There was an instant, a brief instant, when The peaks Florian could manage—higher

Florian saw events unfold, and he knew what and more diff icult all the time—were always was about to happen. The tether would go
too easy for his father, routes he had taken taut and drag him down the slope. The cliff decades before.

edge was thirty yards away. He would be

After the schism on Denali, Florian turned pulled ragdoll helpless over to plummet to his back on climbing as a profession and pur-the rocks below. He had only a few seconds sued geology, his second love. Although of-to live.

ten there were climbs and hikes to study

His father’s voice came to him, unf lus-
scree and schist, and he was always grateful tered, calm. Loop the tether around that for such opportunities when they came
rock. Hurry. Then brace yourself against it to along. He and his father never climbed to-take the strain.

gether again.

Florian did as his father instructed. Pan-He stayed busy. He was lucky, found him-
icky, he looped the tether two, three times self in the right place at the right time when around a basalt outcrop protruding from the the United Nations Space Agency was
f loor at his feet. He angled himself into it, formed. Seeing new possibilities open up, holding on, ready for the jarring shock.

Florian studied the geology of Mars, learning When it came, he was jerked forward, but
everything he could. Two decades later it the tether gripped and held. The sled ceased paid off, and he was added to the crew of the its slide. He imagined the precious cargo of f ifth manned mission.

oxygen, water and food thrown loose, rolling He was three months away from the
away over the cliff. Gloriously, they all stayed launch when the call came through from his in place.

aunt in Quebec.

Grunting with the effort, Florian began to

“Have you spoken to your father recently?”

haul the sled up to the narrow edge. It took He hadn’t. They hadn’t conversed for two
him the best part of an hour.

years, hadn’t seen each other for f ive. Martian volcanism had absorbed him completely.

He often thought about their f irst climb,

“Not recently. Why?”

Ben Nevis in the Highlands of Scotland

“You should go and see him. Now. Florian, when he was fourteen. In hindsight, it was there may not be much time left.”

barely more than a scramble, although there was snow and ice, and they stayed away

Commander Valdez had looked puzzled,
from the tourist paths. It was a delight sim-like she hadn’t heard Florian’s words proper-ply to be out with his father, sharing the ly. They sat together in the south observa-load of carrying their supplies, studying the tion pod of H. G. Wells Base on Utopia
maps together, walking in silence or ex-

Planitia. She’d done some climbing herself CLIMBING OLYMPUS

67

ANALOG
back on Earth. He was relying on that.

Identifying the precise peak of Olympus

“Sorry, did you just say you wanted per-

Mons was surprisingly diff icult, but they’d mission to try to climb Olympus Mons?”

picked as their target a point on the edge of

“I did. I do.”

one of the collapsed volcano craters that lay

“You’re not serious.”

scattered in the heart of the vast mound of

“I am.”

rock.

“Florian, you’re the geologist here. Surely I Finally they were there. They’d achieved
don’t need to remind you of the facts? Olym-the impossible. Florian’s GPS unit, syncing to pus is nearly three times higher than Everest satellites in areostationary orbit, f lashed the upon a planet with no breathable atmo-precise coordinates so long pursued. A new sphere. Just walking that far on Mars has nev-climb, made together.

er been done before; the dome is hundreds He felt he should say something profound, of kilometers across. It’s the size of France but somehow the emotions were too big to
for God’s sake.”

f it into something so small as words. After a

“Everything is impossible until someone
while, he pulled the sealed aluminium cylin-does them.”

der from his backpack. Unscrewing it, he

“No they’re not, Florian. Only the possible paused for a moment, and the words f inally things are possible.”

came.

“I’d do geology when I’m up there. And

“You weren’t always there for me, Dad.

you said we needed the new suits tested.

But later on, I don’t think I was always there This would test them.”

for you. Perhaps that was intentional on

“This would kill my team’s geologist.”

some level, or perhaps I’m simply more like

“If things go badly I’ll turn back. This is a you than I thought. Or perhaps . . . perhaps great opportunity, Commander. The atmo-we all just muddle along with no great plan, sphere’s too thin on the plateau to aerobrake and it’s only when we reach the summit and a lander, but I can walk up there. We might look down that we can see the shape of the f ind all sorts of new stuff.”

mountain we’ve climbed. I don’t know. But

“And is that the only reason you want to
it’s funny, despite everything, it’s your voice I try?”

hear in my head, guiding me.”

He wondered how much she knew about

He lifted the f lask and tipped it to scatter his family background. “It would be cool to the ashes it contained to the thin Martian be the f irst. The highest mountain in the So-atmosphere. He watched as the grey dust
lar System conquered; that could play well met with the brown of the planet, mingling with the media back home, right?”

with it. Some of it settled to the ground Valdez studied him, not speaking for a mo-around his feet.

ment, making calculations. He knew he had Kneeling, he poured the rest of the ashes her.

onto the dusty surface. The tiny mound
would be their own summit. His father’s f inal Florian, exhausted, sank to his knees while resting place.

the swirling black shapes in his vision faded.

Once he was ready, Florian turned and be-

The throbbing pain in his twisted left ankle gan the long descent, alone. ■
subsided a little when he took the weight off it. His breathing slowly calmed.

Simon Kewin is the author of over 100

He stood and surveyed the Martian land-
published short stories. His works have ap-scape around him, although he could see
peared in Nature, Daily Science Fiction, only the plateau of the great mountain

Abyss & Apex and many more. He lives in stretching away in all directions, seemingly England with his wife and their daughters.

f lat. As predicted, the haul to the summit His cyberpunk novel The Genehunter and hadn’t been the treacherous climb to the
his Cloven Land fantasy trilogy were recent-peak of an Everest or a Matterhorn. Or a Ben ly published. He is currently working on Nevis. It was a long trudge, a matter of en-Godstar, a galaxy-spanning science fiction durance rather than skill. An oxygen-starved, novel. Find him at simonkewin.co.uk.

muscle-screaming, pain-wracked trudge.

68

SIMON KEWIN

BIOLOG Richard A. Lovett

LETTIE PRELL
ettie Prell discovered science fiction alphabetically. In her high school library in tiny Durand, Illinois (population 1,400), fiction Land literature were arranged by the author’s name, regardless of genre, and somewhere between Maya Angelou and Jane Austen there was this guy named Asimov. “I was pursuing the As,” she says, “and found the Foundation trilogy.”

“B” brought her to Bradbury, and further
progress uncovered Heinlein, Herbert, and ances in Apex, Clarkesworld, Andromeda
more. “I ended up reading all of the science fic-Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and Tor.com.

tion my library had to offer,” she says.

Many of her stories focus on downloading

She went to college at Drake University, in human consciousness into computers. “It’s a her present hometown of Des Moines, Iowa, rich territory,” she says. “There is a promise, or where she majored in public administration—
opportunity, for transcendence: to be beyond

“something practical,” as she now describes it.

human, to be something new in the world. And

“But every elective I took had to do with litera-yet there is a definite horror to it, a dark aspect ture or writing.”

when one contemplates the philosophy. When After college, her practical streak took her to I download into a computer, is it really me? Or the state government, where she worked in the is it just a copy of me? That is the central ques-justice system doing policy analysis on such tion.”

topics as forecasting prison-system needs and Her day job in the justice system also influ-looking for ways to divert low-risk offenders to ences her work. “Some of my stories are per-less punitive settings. She is now director of received as dark,” she says. “I am definitely not search for the Iowa Department of Corrections, the small-town Midwestern girl who grew up where her personal specialty is offender risk as-reading science fiction.”

sessment, which entails determining just which Not that her job has her working with of-offenders can be most safely (and beneficially) fenders, but being in the system has introduced diverted, sparing taxpayer dollars for other pur-her to the dark side of human nature. Though poses.

that, she thinks, has helped produce better sto-But none of this reduced her interest in sci-ries. “There needs to be a bit of a shadow in a ence fiction. Her first serious foray into writing story to make it three-dimensional,” she says.

began at age 28, when a friend asked for con-In July, she will be presenting a paper in tributions for a tiny magazine on metaphysics.

Prague, at a meeting of the International Acad-It wasn’t a fiction ’zine, but the editor liked the emy of Law and Mental Health. Afterward she idea of including a science fiction or fantasy sto-plans on attending this year’s WorldCon, in ry in each issue. “She paid me, I think, $20 for Helsinki, Finland. It’s a combination that seems my first story,” Prell says. “And I wrote a lot for distinctly fitting. Her first forays into science fic-free.”

tion may have been as a sideline from her pri-Later she focused on writing a novel, Dragon mary job. But now, the two have merged. “I am Ring, published by a small press in 2008. “It bringing my knowledge of the justice system took me a long time,” she says.

into my fiction,” she says, “realizing it is not all Now, she’s back to writing short stories, in-that familiar to a lot of people. I think I will concluding not only sales to Analog but appear-tinue to touch on that.” ■

69

Emergency

Protocol

Lettie Prell
n case of an emergency occurring in your

The controller will use the least amount of immediate vicinity, you may be activated.

force necessary in order to handle the situa-Should you be activated, you will hear
tion. Such force may include deadly force.

Ia tone in your ear signaling remote oper- You will incur no liability as a result of acation is about to begin. Remain calm. A con-tions taken by a controller during remote op-troller will be with you shortly.

eration.

It is common while being operated re-

You may notice your inability to close your motely by a controller for your sympathetic eyes. This is for your own safety, as the con-nervous system to trigger the f ight or f light troller must have an uninterrupted view of response.

the situation. Be assured resolution of the It is common for the controller to use your emergency is at hand.

f ight or f light response for the f irst of these During the resolution phase, you may ex-options. Do not resist.

perience events happening in slow motion.

Should the f ight or f light response be trig-Alternatively, events may appear to occur so gered, your heart rate will increase to as quickly that the situation is over before you much as two hundred beats per minute.

can fully comprehend what has occurred.

You may notice yourself focusing on a sin-Should circumstances indicate, additional gle person in your immediate vicinity to the persons in your vicinity may also be activat-exclusion of everything else. This phenome-ed. Be assured all controllers are in direct non is known as perceptual narrowing.

communication with each other at all times.

Be assured the controller has made posi-

Please keep in mind we highly value your
tive identif ication prior to taking action.

safety, and the safety of those around you.

During remote operation by a controller,

Most emergency situations are resolved
your body may execute tasks you have not
within ten minutes. Fifteen percent of situa-been trained to perform. Remain conf ident tions take longer to resolve.

the controller possesses the required exper-Should a situation take longer than thirty tise.

minutes to resolve, remote operation of your 70

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
body may cease, as fresh bodies are activated protocol at all times. Tampering with, dis-and directed to respond.

abling, or destroying the device that enables In the event you are deactivated in the
your remote activation will constitute an middle of a situation, please move away from emergency situation.

the epicenter of the emergency as soon as This concludes our presentation on this
possible. It is likely your body’s f light re-protocol. If you would like this instruction sponse will engage at this time. Keep your repeated, you may review it at any time, as it upper torso low in the event projectiles are is one of your primary stored procedures.

being used. In some situations, crawling on Thank you for your attention. ■
all fours may be advised.

Following resolution and deactivation, it is common to experience a parasympathetic

Lettie Prell is a science fiction writer who nervous system, or PNS, response.

often explores the edge where humans and The symptoms associated with PNS are
their technology are increasingly merging.

those of faint or freeze and include: dizziness Her short fiction has appeared in Tor.com, and light-headedness, fatigue, and diff iculty Clarkesworld, Apex Magazine, and Analog.

thinking. You may become aware of injuries Both Tor.com and Apex have reprinted her at this time. Cuts that seemed inconsequen-stories in their “best of” anthologies, and her tial at the time may bleed more.

work will be included in the upcoming The Should you require medical attention or

Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Two psychological counseling, you will not be in April 2017. She lives in Des Moines with billed for these services.

her writer husband, John Domini, and cats Regulations require compliance with the

Laverne and Piccola.

EMERGENCY PROTOCOL

71

Illustrated by Eldar Zakirov

A Tinker’s

Damnation

Jerry Oltion
enry was elbows-deep in the nanofabri-
trying to fix it. If he could get that going again, cation unit when Neil came into the
he would be the hero of New Portland.

shop that Sunday morning. The

He hastily switched off the light and closed HNanofab was an ungainly conglomera- the access panel when he heard Neil stomp-tion of gears and levers and hoses and wires ing through the workroom, but Neil had al-that took up most of the back wall of the tin-ready seen him. “What the hell are you doing kers’ storage room. It hadn’t worked for
in there?” he asked.

years—since about the time Henry was a

“Diagnosing, ” Henr y answered. He’d
baby, in fact—but that didn’t stop him from learned not to weasel around Neil. And this 72

JERRY OLTION

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
wasn’t the f irst time he’d been caught in the tomed to it that they didn’t notice it anymore?

nanofab. Neil tolerated his obsession with it, An MRI scan of a horse’s brain could proba-mostly.

bly shed some light on the subject, but Henry

“Wasting time, more like,” Neil said. “I used didn’t imagine Doctor Sharron would allow to repair starships, bud, and I couldn’t fix that the use of her irreplaceable diagnostic tool to turkey. It’s bricked.”

answer an idle question like that. Dr. Sharron Henry hated that word. Dead as a brick, use-protected her resources with the ferocity of a ful only for a door prop or spare parts. Unfix-mother cat protecting her kittens.

able. It was an offense to a tinker to call someHe could radio to Earth for the answer.

thing bricked.

Somebody there had probably already done

Unfortunately, Henry had been hearing the the experiment, or would if he asked them to.

term more and more lately. The colony’s

His radio signal would take about twenty-eight Earth-built hardware was wearing out, and years to get there. Add a couple years for the without a nanofab to build more, he and Neil study, and twenty-eight more for the reply to and the rest of the nine hundred and some reach New Portland. If he ate healthy and colonists were fighting a losing battle against stayed on the lucky end of the bell curve, Hen-entropy. They’d learned how to make a lot of ry might still be alive when the response their own equipment, but it was rough stuff came. Provided New Portland had a function-compared to the finely crafted gems a nanofab ing radio by then. Or if anyone was listening could build up molecule by molecule.

even so. Most of the radio traffic was useless.

“We’re forging horseshoes today,” Neil said.

News of wars, treaties, and the endless pecca-

“Come on, help me get a fire going.”

dillos of the famous interested only the oldest Horseshoes. Because the motor carts were
of the colonists, who had memories of Earth.

wearing out, and even if he and Neil could re-Half the incoming data seemed to be software, wind the electric motors, not even Neil could most of it for new and ever more exotic virtu-make a new battery capable of driving one al realities, as if the colony could afford to more than a few miles.

waste computer time—or people time—on

At least they would be warm today. Spring that. Technological advances held more
was late this year, and wet. Henry had been promise, but most were just templates for the cold and damp for months. Stoking a metal-nanofabrication unit, which Earth naïvely as-softening f lame and pounding iron bars into sumed would be booming along at full speed.

semicircles beat freezing his butt off in the Their picture of the colony was vastly different front room trying to get someone’s toaster from the reality.

working again. And there was more to life Henry became aware that he was being
than electronics. Henry enjoyed the roar of watched. He looked up from his hammering
the flame and the clang of the hammer blows, to see Pamela Hong in the doorway between enjoyed the spray of sparks from the tortured the front off ice and the workshop proper, metal, enjoyed watching a featureless rod be-holding a book reader in her hand.

come something useful in his hands.

“Give me a minute,” he said to her, and he Across the shop, Neil took the shoes that finished hammering out the horseshoe he was Henry made and drilled holes in them for the working on so he wouldn’t have to reheat it nails that would hold them to the horses’

later. He didn’t mind having Pamela watch hooves. Neil was in his seventies, gray-haired him work, either. One thing about black-and thin, but still able to do all but the heavi-smithing; it gave good definition to your arm est work. He was running the drill press while and chest muscles.

Henry hammered.

He mopped off the sweat with a towel—its

Henry wondered if any of the horses appre-cotton grown in a field just out of town—and ciated their effort. Without shoes their led Pamela into the office, out of the heat and hooves got all scarred up and tender, but did noise of the forge. For once, the front room horses have enough intelligence to underwas pleasant to be in.

stand why a shod foot didn’t hurt so much?

There was a heavy plank table in the middle Or were they just annoyed by the extra
of the office that doubled as a desk and a work-weight on their feet until they grew so accus-bench for the smaller jobs—the “fiddly bits” as A TINKER’S DAMNATION

73

ANALOG

Neil called them. It was piled high with them at him and looked so forlorn that he almost said, the moment. Henry motioned Pamela toward

“Let me ask Neil.” Unfortunately, he knew the counter at the side of the shop, where what Neil would say. He also knew that Neil there was some space to set her book, and had been giving him more and more responsi-they could stand side-by-side while they talked.

bility lately and wouldn’t second-guess his de-

“What’s doing?” he asked.

cision if he just made it himself. It was only a She held out the reader. “Not this. It bricked book reader, something Pamela knew how to on me.”

run at least as well as he did, if not better.

He took it from her and pressed the “on”

“Okay,” he said. “If you stay right here in switch. Nothing. “Any symptoms before it
the office.”

died? Low battery? Flickering screen?”

Pamela’s face brightened instantly. “Oh,

She shook her head. Black hair rustled
thank you!” She gave him a f ierce hug, then across her shoulders. “Nothing unusual. It was popped the data card out of the old reader f ine last night, but when I tried to turn it on and into the new one and settled into one of today it wouldn’t power up.”

the chairs beside the table to read.

“Could you have left it on overnight?”

Henry went back to work, the memory of

“I know better than that.”

Pamela’s arms around his chest warming him

“I do too, but sometimes I still forget. Hold more than the forge. Neil looked up and made on a second.” He went into the back room, a f ish-hook-in-the-mouth gesture, then
took the fake key to the storage locker off the grinned.

peg by the door, then surreptitiously took the Henry rolled his eyes. Yeah, okay, he’d been real one from his pocket as he approached the manipulated. He didn’t care. Pamela had
thick plank wall safe. He opened it just enough hugged him.

to reach inside for a replacement battery, not-She was still there when he finished making ing that there were only five left, and a replace-horseshoes. He cleaned up in the bathroom, ment book reader, the only working one there.

combed his hair, and went out to the front of-He locked the cabinet, pocketed the key, and f ice. “What you studying?” he asked, sitting put the fake key back on the peg. He didn’t down beside her, glad to get off his feet.

think Pamela was the type to snatch Earthtech

“Physics,” she replied, holding out the
for her own use, but Neil had told him not to book. He glanced at the screen, dense with trust anyone. The stuff was irreplaceable.

text and equations.

Swapping the batter y didn’t bring up

“Better you than me,” he said. “I’m good

Pamela’s book. Her battery powered up the with physical stuff, but the theories behind it other book.

make my brain hurt.”

“Entropy,” Henry swore. “Looks like it’s the

“I like them,” Pamela said. “Equations are electronics. I’ll see what I can do. We’ve got a pure knowledge. Clean and precise. When I few other dead ones I can swap parts with, do physics, I feel like I’m on the starship or maybe get a whole one working again. Come even back on Earth. I’m not digging in the dirt back . . . Bobsday?” Today was Sunday. That or weaving cloth or—”

would give him this evening and tomorrow to There was a loud bang from the shop, and f ix it if he could. And if he was quicker than a heavy thud that could only be Neil hitting that, it would give him an excuse to take the the f loor. Henry jumped up, knocking his repaired reader to her.

chair over backward, and rushed back to see

“Can I borrow that one until then?” she
what had happened.

asked, pointing to the one that worked. “I’ve Neil lay on his back, clutching his left side, got a test tomorrow.”

which bled profusely through his fingers. Part Henry shook his head. “This is our last one.

of a horseshoe stuck out between them. The I can’t let it out of the shop.”

shoe must have bound in the drill press and She considered that. “Can I use it here?”

come f lying out sideways. Henry had seen He wasn’t supposed to let anybody use the that happen before and had bruises to show last of anything unless it was an emergency, for it. This time Neil had had the bad luck to and even then he was supposed to run it for take the jagged end straight on.

them, but she blinked her big brown eyes at

“Get Doc Sharron!” Henr y shouted to

74

JERRY OLTION

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Pamela. He heard something clatter to the simple fact that a tinker could leave something floor and hoped it wasn’t the book, then the unfixed on purpose.

door banged against its stop and she was run-Neil didn’t elaborate. After a few more sec-ning hard up the street.

onds, he didn’t breathe, either.

“You’ll be all right,” Henry said.

Doctor Sharron and Pamela and the half

Neil shook his head. Between gritted teeth, dozen other people who burst into the shop he said, “I don’t think so, bud. That’s my assumed Henry was just stunned at Neil’s
spleen under there.”

death. He didn’t tell them otherwise. He

“Sharron will sew it up.”

helped them lift Neil’s body onto a stretcher Neil looked down at the blood and the half and carry it to the hospital, then he went back of a horseshoe. “Ten bucks says she doesn’t to the shop and cleaned up the blood and
get the chance.”

banked the f ire in the forge and closed the Henry grabbed a shop towel and tried to
door and sat there at the table while the day-help stanch the bleeding, but Neil winced and light slowly faded and the shop grew cold.

pushed him away.

The colony had electricity from a generator

“What can I do?”

in the river. They had lumber from the native

“Listen.” Neil tried to sit up, then gave that trees, if you didn’t mind unpredictable grain.

up as a bad idea. From the f loor, he said, “In They could smelt iron and copper from ores, the locker, under a knot in the top shelf, ores that had played a major role in selecting there’s a key. It fits a safe . . . under the floor.

the colony site in the f irst place. They had Don’t open it . . . until I’m dead.”

food and draft animals from Earth, and some

“You’re not going to die!”

of the local flora was edible, too. If there was

“I’m pretty sure I am,” Neil said. “I’m just local fauna beyond the bacterial level, they glad . . . it wasn’t something the nanofab could hadn’t found it yet. New Portland was stable have f ixed.” He looked at Henry and said, and growing despite the loss of their highest

“Promise me you won’t hate me . . . when you technology, and until a couple of hours ago open the safe.”

Henry would have said that loss was no big

“Of course I won’t,” Henry said.

deal. Now he didn’t know what to think.

“You’ll probably be . . . the only one.”

Pamela came by with a sandwich around

“You’re getting delirious,” Henry said. “Save dark. He wasn’t hungry, but he ate it anyway.

your strength. Doc Sharron will be here any There wasn’t a whole lot to say. She chose minute.”

what she must have thought was a safe topic, Neil ignored him. “I saw where Earth was
saying, “He was one of our heroes.”

heading. Virtual this and nano that. Everything

“Was,” he admitted. The day between Sun-
the same. We’ve got a whole new world to ex-day and Bobsday was Neilsday, after all.

plore. We came here to live in it. So I made

“Always will be.”

sure . . . we would.”

“Maybe.” That was pretty much up to Hen-

It took Henry a moment to realize what Neil ry, now.

meant. When it registered, he could hardly He looked at her. Really looked. He saw
speak the words. “You . . . you sabotaged the nothing but concern in her expression. Hon-nanofab?”

est, open caring. He’d always thought she was Neil shook his head. “Not sabotage. It broke pretty, even when they were just kids raiding

. . . on its own. I just . . . didn’t fix it . . . when I the strawberry patch together. He’d lately could.”

come to think of her as beautiful and

Henry felt as if he’d been hit with a f lying dreamed about her sometimes. He had begun horseshoe himself, right in the head. He sat to think he could spend the rest of his life down hard on the floor, heedless of the blood.

with her if she’d have him for a husband.

Seventeen years of slow decline, all due to one Here was his chance to take a step toward man’s decision. Seventeen years of farming that, yet his mind felt near to bursting with and lumbering and carpentering and work-something else entirely. He cursed Neil for ing. Sweat and toil, all for nothing. He dropping this bombshell on him, now of all couldn’t decide whether he was more
times. Couldn’t he have left it in a letter to be shocked at the magnitude of the sin or the opened by the captain after his funeral?

A TINKER’S DAMNATION

75

ANALOG

Couldn’t he have just f ixed the damned
there’s a good chance of it, yeah.”

nanofab?

Her reaction was everything his was not.

He couldn’t tell her. Not yet; maybe not

She jumped up and down and squealed and
ever. Yet the idea of keeping a secret of that hugged him and kissed him and who knows
magnitude from her, from anyone, made him what else she might have done if she hadn’t physically ill.

realized he was still standing there, looking at His heart was pounding. What if he had a
the circuit boards like they were a mess of heart attack and died right now? The fate of maggots.

the entire colony shouldn’t rest in one per-She caught onto that quickly, too. “If you son’s hands.

just say you figured out how to fix it on your He stood up. “Come with me,” he said.

own, he’ll still be a hero, and you will, too.”

She didn’t ask where. He got the impression

“And New Portland becomes indistinguish-
he could have led her to his bedroom if that able from Old Portland. Or Los Angeles, or was what he’d needed right now. But he just London, or Moscow.” He closed the safe door.

f lipped on the light in the shop and strode

“Do we have any more right to do that to the over to the locked cabinet, took the key from colony than Neil did to send us down the path his pocket and opened it, then swung the
we’re on?”

doors wide.

“We can’t keep something like this secret She gasped at the riches displayed there.

from everybody.”

GPS units. Circuit boards. Boxes of LEDs. A

“You’re right. But we can’t drop it on them hand-crank f lashlight. Whole computers. All like a bomb, either.”

jealously guarded and doled out over time be-

“So what do we do?”

cause when they were gone, that was it. Back Henry looked into the storage room, now
to the iron age.

dark with shadows. “First we see if I can get it He got a stool so he could look down on the running. The whole thing’s moot if not.”

top shelf. He scooted stuff around, revealing She held the light while he swapped out cir-half a dozen knots. One of them was loose, cuit boards. Neil hadn’t just yanked them; he’d and had a key under it. It was a four-sided key, substituted burned-out boards from other
with worm-track channels on each side. Not equipment so curious tinkers like Henry
electronic. Good.

wouldn’t suspect. Henry swapped them all,

“What are you doing?” she asked him.

then went through the system from top to

“Making our lives more complicated,” he
bottom, looking for anything else that might said. “But I don’t know what else to do.”

be wrong, before plugging the machine into a The bottom of the cabinet held cans and
power socket. He’d already f ixed everything jars of chemicals. Henry had always assumed mechanical that he’d found wrong over the they were on the bottom so they wouldn’t
last year or two, and he suspected that Neil damage anything if they leaked. That may
had kept the machine ready for action, too, so have been true, but they also worked well to he wasn’t surprised to find nothing else amiss.

hide the trap door beneath them. The new

“Time for the smoke test,” he said, flipping key didn’t fit its lock, nor did the cabinet key.

the main power switch.

The fake key they kept on the peg by the door The nanofab whirred to life, its gray-white did.

display lighting up for the first time that Hen-Under the trap door was the safe. The four-ry had ever seen. It ran a diagnostic check, resided key f it that. It took some wiggling to porting low levels of several raw materials, open the latch. Neil hadn’t been in this safe which Henry topped off from the cans and
for a while.

jars in the storage locker. When it was happy, In the safe were several circuit boards. Hen-a simple line blinked in the middle of the dis-ry didn’t have to read their labels to know play: STATE YOUR FABRICATION REQUEST.

what they had come out of.

“Make me a new book reader,” Pamela said.

Pamela was no dummy, either. “The

The display flickered to show half a dozen nanofab actually works?” she asked.

different designs.

“I don’t know. It’s been years. Who knows

“That one,” she said, pointing at the one what else has died in the meantime? But
she was familiar with. When she got within a 76

JERRY OLTION

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
finger’s length of the image, it expanded to fill gone. And Henry had left it wide open.

the screen.

But the person who stepped out of the

CONFIRM? blinked over the top of it.

front office wasn’t armed with a crowbar, or

“Confirm,” Pamela said.

even a copper bar. It was Bob Harlow, the for-PROCESSING blinked, and they heard motion mer captain of the starship, now the leader of inside the machine. Pamela put her arm
the colony and the man after whom “Bobs-
around Henry and squeezed. “It’s actually do-day” had been named. He had his hands in his ing it!” she whispered.

jacket pockets and calmly leaned against the In a surprisingly short few minutes, it was doorframe.

done. The control program made a happy lit-

“I see Neil told you his secret before he tle chime, and the output hopper door slid died,” Bob said quietly.

aside, revealing the finished book reader rest-Henry’s heart gave a little sideways lurch.

ing on the delivery tray. Pamela picked it up How many more shocks could he take in one and flipped it on, and the screen lit with the day?

default encyclopedia that always came up

“It’s all right,” Bob said. “I’ve known for when no external memory was plugged in.

years. We f ired it up about a decade ago for

“It works,” she said. “Henry, it works!”

some medicine for Kaysha Toun.”

“And nobody else has to work ever again,”

“Doctor Shannon’s in on this, too?” Henry he replied. His tone of voice made it clear could hardly believe it. People had died over what he thought of that prospect. “Provided the years, some of them from conditions that we can get this thing to duplicate itself before could have been eased, if not cured, with the it dies again.”

nanofab.

“You’re such a squeeb,” she said. “You can

“She’s a psychiatrist as well as a physician,”

work as much as you want. Somebody’s got to Bob said. “She knows what limitless riches can mine raw materials, right? And hand-made
do to a society.” He stepped forward. “You can stuff is always popular, even back on Earth.”

come out, Pamela. I know you’re back there.”

“So are virtual realities, and flash fads, and—”

“Stay put. No, go for help,” Henry said.

A floorboard squeaked in the front office.

“Don’t tell them why; just get someone else He switched off the nanofab, the room
here. Half a dozen of them.”

light, and swept Pamela into his arms in one

“Yes, do,” said Bob. “Might I suggest Greg continuous motion, stif ling her protest with Heinz, or Alby Gray, or Maria Zoft, or . . .” He his lips and kissing her as if they’d been lovers named several more, among them the heads
for months. The book dropped from her
of the farming, ranching, building, school, and hand, and for a moment she struggled to get police departments.

away, then she figured out what was going on

“Is there anybody over twenty who isn’t in and leaned into him instead.

on this?” Henry asked.

She was a great kisser. Henry nearly lost Bob laughed. “Plenty of them. There are
himself in the moment, but managed to keep shortsighted people in every generation. But it together well enough to pull her out of the you’re not one of them. I overheard your dis-line of the open doorway. They’d been in the cussion with Pamela just now. You’re absolute-beam of light from the workroom; no way any-ly right. Earth culture is poison. We’ve got a one could have missed them from the front of-chance to set humanity back on the right path, f ice, but now they were in the shadow, and at least in this corner of the cosmos, and we’ve Henry reluctantly let her go.

been doing a fine job of it so far. We just need

“Get down,” he whispered, “and go for the to make sure the transition from our genera-back door.” He straightened up and grabbed tion to yours goes smoothly.” He took another the first thing he could use as a weapon: a bar step toward Henry. “Neil’s unfortunate acci-of copper about the length of his arm and big dent rushed things a bit, but he’d been arguing around as his thumb.

to bring you in for over a year. Now I see why.

“Who’s out there?” he asked, annoyed as

He chose his apprentice well.”

much by the squeak in his voice as by the in-

“Yeah, just dumb enough to buy his line of truder. He f igured whoever it was had come crap,” Henry said. “Well, the transition’s to raid the storage cabinet now that Neil was been made. The nanofab belongs to my genA TINKER’S DAMNATION

77

ANALOG
eration now. We’ll decide whether or not to bined mass of the colony could protect any-use it.”

one. So he said, “I will shoot anyone I catch Bob thought about that for a moment.

stealing anything. And I will shoot anyone

“No,” he said. “No, I think not.” He took his who makes anything that I even consider a hands out of his pockets, and in his right hand threatening move toward the nanofab. You
glistened another piece of old Earth technolo-understand?” Then he let them into the of-gy: a chrome plated pistol. Henry was good fice, directing a couple of people to haul Bob with gauging the diameter of holes: He esti-up to the hospital, and led the rest through mated the barrel at about ten millimeters. Big the workroom to the storage room where the enough to do some serious damage.

nanofab waited.

Bob didn’t aim it at Henr y. He aimed

The display was a spiderweb of cracks
through the doorway into the storage unit and around a well-centered bullet hole. The other fired twice before Henry leaped forward and hole puckered the metal casing of the spray caught him in the throat with the copper bar.

unit.

Bob gurgled and dropped the pistol, and Hen-

“Bastard’s a pretty good shot,” he said when ry kicked it across the shop into the darkness he saw it. The display would be trouble, but under a workbench, then he whacked Bob
not impossible to replace. He could patch in a again on the side of the head, hard enough to book reader, probably the one he had just send him to the f loor but hopefully not kill made tonight. But the spray unit was the heart him.

of the machine. If it was damaged, the

He heard the back door open, then slam.

nanofab was truly bricked.

Okay, then, Pamela wasn’t hit. And the gun-He opened the access panel and shined a
shots would draw attention even if the
light inside. Metal fragments had scattered wrong people caught her. He had time to tie everywhere. Shrapnel had pierced tubing,

Bob’s arms and legs together, close the stor-cut wires, shattered plastic. But that was all age locker, and retrieve the pistol before the mechanical. Stuff he could f ix, given time.

f irst of them arrived. He’d never f ired a gun The actual fabrication head looked undam-before, never even held one, but he was a aged.

tinker; he could see how it worked just by He closed the hatch and turned to the
looking at it.

crowd of people packed in around him,

Henry’s mind was working like clockwork
young and old, hopeful and worried, angry again, sharp and focused for the f irst time in and guilty. He saw the colony’s future stretch-hours. He dragged Bob into the front room ing away in a dozen different directions, some and met the first of the growing crowd at the full of resentment and bloodshed, some full of front door, glad to see that they were mostly boredom and decline, some full of hard, point-young people. Of course; they could run
less work. He couldn’t see the path to the one faster. But there were plenty of the original full of joy and fulfillment.

starship crew coming behind them.

Power corrupts, he’d heard. He could feel Holding the pistol high, he shouted, “Okay, its influence on him already as he struggled to everybody is going to be very, very calm right decide how to spin the future for his people.

now, got it? We’ve got some major stuff to sort He could ruin dozens of lives with a single out.” And as quickly as he could, he told them sentence. He could shake the foundations of what had just gone down.

everyone’s very existence. He could probably

“Did you shoot Bob?” someone shouted.

wind up running the colony if he played it

“No. He shot the nanofab,” Henry said.

right. Or maybe, just maybe, he could f ix

“Entropy! You mean it’s bricked again?”

more than just a machine tonight.

“Maybe, maybe not. I haven’t had a chance

“Bob’s a better shot than I would have
to look at the damage yet.”

thought possible,” he said. “He made sure it

“Then let’s do!”

would take me a couple weeks to f ix it, but Henry almost said no, not with this many
he didn’t ruin anything crucial. That gives us people around, but then he realized that a some time to think things over. Decide what crowd was what he needed. If the police
we want to do. All of us.” He looked pointed-were in on the conspiracy, only the com-
ly at the three or four colony leaders who 78

JERRY OLTION

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
must undoubtedly have been in on the con-

Jerry Oltion is the most prolific fiction conspiracy. “It’s time we started acting like a tributor in the history of Analog magazine, community here, instead of a colony. So go with 92 publications since his first in 1982.

home and think. Talk it over. Decide what Some of his early stories are now available you want this society to look like. I’ll get the again in Kindle format on Amazon.com. He nanofab running again.

also writes a monthly column on amateur tele-

“And the f irst thing I’m going to have it scope making for Sky & Telescope magazine.

make, is ballots.” ■

His website is at www.sff.net/people/j.oltion.

A TINKER’S DAMNATION

79

Illustrated by Josh Meehan

The

Old Man

Rich Larson
o the fed solution to one convict

“It was not a decision we made lightly, war-escaping is releasing another.”

den. This is our best chance of tracking him They watched as the gleaming
down. He knows the swamps better than

“Swhite pyramid of cryocaps rip- nearly anyone else.”

pled and rearranged itself, pulling a particular

“Knew them a decade ago. Is what you
prisoner to the front on magnetic rails. A spi-mean.”

dery robotic arm jerked the blue-lit cryocap

“Things change slowly in the South, war-
out of its slot and set it in front of them with a den. Some things, not at all.”

thud that echoed to the vaulted ceiling. Tech-A technician plugged her smartgloved
nicians wearing baggy white safesuits scurried thumb into a particular socket, and the cry-forward.

ocap turned transparent. Inside, prisoner 80

RICH LARSON

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

110924 drifted in a burnt-orange suspension gel, tethered by tubes snaking into his long A body slit open and steaming in the back bony limbs and down his throat. His shaven of a refrigerated truck. Blood turning to slip-head knocked up against the top of the cry-pery slush on the dull metal f loor. Copper ocap. Six years of cold storage with minimal smell clinging in his throat like it wouldn’t rethaws had sapped some mass, whittling him ever leave. The Old Man’s wild eyes roving, to muscle shrink-wrapped over bone, but he his voice booming, we are the instruments of was still gigantic, still imposing.

God.

“What makes you so sure your boy here

“Welcome back to the land of the living,
goes with the gameplan? Doesn’t try to skate Ezekiel.”

as soon as you drop him in the swamp?”

Zeke dragged his head up. They’d stood

“We’ll rig him out with a tracker and a
him under a skinspray nozzle long enough for biobomb. And keep a close eye on him.”

modesty, coating him in ragged black f iber

“Some people would rather get their head
that felt like cobweb, and they’d clamped his blown to bits than live the rest of their life in a hands. Now he was in a folding chair, two tank. You can dream in cryo, you know. And men looking at him from across a bolted-this asshole, he’s not having good ones.”

down table.

The cryocap began to drain, sluicing sus-

One was familiar: the warden, but aged,
pension gel into a sticky orange puddle on the deeper trenches around his mouth and a
ferrocrete f loor. The tubes retracted, wrig-crooked nose that had been straight before.

gling out from the prisoner’s f lesh like tape-The other had an artfully gashed suit, smug worms; he convulsed as the last one slid out of eyes dotted with circuitry, and Zeke could his cock. His dark skin had paled, gaining a hear the Old Man’s voice sneering in his head: grease-yellow tint underneath.

G-man, spook, puppet, sniveling government

“We’re going to commute his sentence if he puppet.

succeeds. But his real motivation will be in-

“You must be wondering why you’re
trinsic. Psychologically speaking.”

thawed,” the spook continued. “Seeing as

“You’re going to tell him dead or alive,
your next physical isn’t scheduled for another then.”

eight months. It has to do with your daddy.”

Two technicians helped the prisoner to a

That made sense, even in Zeke’s cryo-mud-
gurney that f lexed itself up to the correct dled head, because everything had to do with height for him to sit. His eyes were still the Old Man. He was the black hole at the cen-gummed shut. The thaw had been started reter of the Universe, eating and eating. Zeke motely six hours prior, but full muscle func-felt a familiar bubbling in his gut, hot sick hate tion wasn’t slated to return for another two.

churned together with more fear than he had The prisoner eased himself down like an old ever admitted to anyone.

man, gripping the edge of the gurney with

“Mass cryo failure in the LCI, so he was in long ink-laced fingers.

transit to a slam in Angola,” the spook said.

“Yes. And we’ll expect dead.”

“But something happened while they were

A technician approached him with an injec-crossing marshland. He got free. Now he’s tor, and suddenly the fingers were around her gone to ground in the southeast bayou. That’s throat. Her safesuit inf lated, punching him home territory, for him. And for you.”

backward onto the gurney, and he nearly

Zeke saw it all crystallized in an instant.

rocked it over. The other technicians scram-

“And ain’t nobody know.” He forced the
bled for the restraints.

words up a raw throat.

“Guess there’s no love lost between them.

The warden shot a surprised look sideways, With how it all ended.”

but the spook just smiled. “Officially, he’s al-

“You’re putting it lightly, Warden. We down-ready safely back in the tank. It’s not a good loaded some of those cryo dreams and the AI look, otherwise. The most notorious home-reached the same conclusion we did. Ezekiel grown terrorist of the past fifty years shaking here wants to kill his own pa more than he loose just like that.”

wants anything else in the entire goddamn

“So why you thaw me?” Zeke asked, be-
world.”

cause it seemed important to get it from the THE OLD MAN

81

ANALOG

Spook’s mouth.

He heard the Old Man booming in his head:

“To help us recapture him. Quickly and qui-and the waters will rise, and the storms will etly.”

come again and again, until we loose the

“I get what?”

Devil’s hold on this country. Either we purify The spook leaned backward. “We take you
these lands, or the floods will. You hear me, out of the tank,” he said. “Commute your life Ezekiel? You hear me, Elijah? You hear me, sentence to twenty years in genpop, if you Elim?

can go that long without killing anyone.”

Zeke f igured he would always hear him,

Zeke set his clamped hands heavily on the even after he killed him. He looked at the table, ignoring the sting. “Recapture, you sealed matte black case where the spook had said.” He peered deep as he could into the promised him a shotgun with rib barrel and spook’s wired eyes.

tac barrel, a snub-nosed handgun, hy-

The spook gave his chimpanzee smile
drophobe-coated cartridges and plenty of
again, all teeth. “If something were to go ammo for both. He fantasized sticking the .22
wrong, and he were to be killed in f iref ight, up under the Old Man’s thick jaw, so he
the deal would remain unchanged.”

couldn’t speak, and it must have showed be-Zeke clenched his f ists tight, letting the cause the guard slouched across from him
clamp sting him over and over like a Gulf jelly-tensed up.

f ish, but there was no way to test if he was

“You sweat a whole lot,” Zeke said. “Must dreaming or not. Could be he was still floating make them hands real slippery.”

in the tank. If it was a dream, though, it The guard’s knuckles were white around
seemed like a good one.

the grip of his rifle for the rest of the trip.

“Yeah,” he said. “Deal.”

They dropped him and the black case as

Finally warm again. Zeke felt the change, close as they could to the Old Man’s last trian-felt familiar damp heat creeping into the f ly-gulated position, and as the flyer droned away, er’s open fuselage, as they headed south. His Zeke felt a little bite of electricity from the skin prickled with almost-sweat, and the fresh cam under his eye. Maybe checking the cali-scar tissue where they’d welded a little cam to bration, maybe just a reminder that they
his cheekbone started to itch.

would be watching. The spook would be

The back of his head itched, too, and ached watching.

f iercely from the tracker/biobomb insertion.

He sloshed his way to higher ground, suck-They did that with a big needle that reminded ing down another deep breath of the pungent him of killing catfish, finding the little hole in air, tasting the mélange of moss and rot and the skull and sticking the wire in. The techni-mangrove f lowers, all scents he’d thought cian, jittery on something, had told him it he’d lost forever. He could hear the buzz of in-would blow his head clean off if he tried to sects, the splash and slither of a lizard or a run.

baby gator.

Zeke knew better. The Old Man had caught

Zeke dragged the case onto a humped root
a spook once and took off four of his fingers and palmed it open. He outf itted the Moss-with pliers before he triggered his biobomb.

berg, ribbed barrel for now, and loaded it with There’d been a smell of burning meat, and the buckshot. The .22 went into his waistband.

spook had slumped over right away, but his He f illed the pockets of the fatigues with head had stayed in one piece.

ammo, then went through the rest of the case.

Down below, Zeke saw the bayou spread

He pulled on the hydrophobe jacket and
out like mottled skin, poisonous green canopy put the MRE bars in the pocket, left the sleep-and water colored like the dull gray sky. Some ing roll, headlamp, and fuel cell. Grabbed the things were different. New powerlines, it knife, left the multitool. From the aid kit he looked like, sutured through the vegetation.

took clingwrap, using it to seal the tops of his And in the far distance he could see the flood-boots, and all of the painkiller patches.

water had encroached, taking new chunks out Everything else went back in the case,
of the coast, Houma and New Orleans long
which he dumped in the first pocket of quick-since swallowed.

sand he found. It sank fast. He remembered 82

RICH LARSON

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
coming home from fishing, when him and Eli-around it, four feet, good length for a spear jah were young enough that the Old Man still once it was stripped and sharpened. The Old towered over them, and Elim was still a baby.

Man had escaped unarmed and f ixed that

Zeke had been chasing Elijah through the cy-soon as possible, knowing someone was compress trees, and then suddenly he hadn’t, slip-ing after him.

ping hip-deep into a soft pale mud his older The Old Man would be ready.

brother had danced right across.

Put yourself in there, you can get yourself Dusk was falling when Zeke came across a
out, the Old Man had said, squatting down shack. Its plank pathway was all but gone, with the catch still writhing raw and pink over only a few rotted fragments poking up from his shoulder. Wail on like that, though, some-the water like broken bones, and the porch thing gonna eat you first. Zeke had stopped was half-swallowed. Zeke looked over the sog-wailing then, but the tears and snot kept drip-gy timbers, the battered roof snaked with ping down his chin, and the mud kept suck-retrofitted cables. Someone had peeled off the ing at his skin. He’d looked at Elijah for help, solar pad, leaving a square of corrugated tin but Elijah only crouched there with the same with less rust than the rest. The one window horrible blank look on his face as when he was shattered.

picked legs off beetles, and then him and the Not so different in shape from the house

Old Man had left.

where he grew up with his brothers and the Even after Zeke had realized the mud could Old Man and sometimes the pale thick-boned creep to his belly but no higher, after he’d fi-woman with weary eyes who they had to call nally figured to tip himself backward to lever Nurse, never mama. Theirs had been built bet-his legs up, finally knotted his slippery fingers ter; the Old Man was thorough in everything into a tangle of roots, it still took him hours to he did, precise. For a moment Zeke’s mind get out. Hours of wriggling and f ighting and overlaid the ruin with pieces of memory, see-biting back sobs in the dark, listening for the ing:

splash of waking gators or the bone rattle of The welded metal T off the porch where
the ghost Elijah had sworn to seeing behind the Old Man dressed deer, hanging them by the outhouse.

their hooves and then slitting them open with The Old Man had been waiting for him
his long knife. Elijah had always watched, fas-when he slopped free, stepping out from be-cinated, for the moment when the skin of the hind a tree only a stone’s throw away, shotgun belly split and the entrails spilled out as shiny hanging in the crook of his arm. His eyes were pink ropes. Zeke had liked it better when the rimmed red. If you done called even once, Old Man hung a tire for them to swing on.

even one damn time, I’d have got you out.

The spiny dish mounted on the roof, steal-Forgive me, Ezekiel. Forgive me, I wronged ing signals from a pirate satellite, filling their you. And he’d carried him home, letting him lone tablet with the web and the outside
wrap his skinny shaky arms around his neck.

world that had bored Elijah and had never Zeke was careful where he stepped now.

seemed quite real to Zeke. But Elim had de-He slung the Mossberg over his shoulder and voured the information from the time he was followed the water. Mosquitos were breeding little, and the Old Man had approved. Y’all in silvery clouds along the bank, so he paused three need to learn all you can, he’d said.

long enough to plaster his exposed skin with Learn the truth, and learn how the enemy mud, careful not to cover the cam.

lies. The climate cycle bullshit, the border The sun was out now, poking its f ingers
closing, the homeland protection drones.

through the tangled branches overhead and Learn all you can before they seal off the gleaming off dirty puddles. Looking for foot-web, too.

prints was useless here; the swamp swallowed A noise came from inside the shack.

them fast as you made them. But there were Zeke dropped low, hands already moving to other ways people left traces.

swap for the tac barrel. He brought the scope He found the f irst one at head-height, a to his eye but saw only shadows through the splintery knob where a cypress branch had broken window. He circled closer, using the been torn free. By the look of the branches spindly trees and rising fog as cover. The THE OLD MAN

83

ANALOG
sound came again, something scraping on
came looking, and one morning, Zeke had
wood, and the sagging door to the shack
found a big gray bird tangled in it.

moved just slightly.

Sometimes a body does nothing wrong

Zeke thumbed the safety off. He felt a low and they get hurt anyways, the Old Man had cold throb at the back of his skull. His heart-said. But what we’re doing, Ezekiel, is more beat was slow, like he was back frozen in the important than one heron. One hand here, tank, and his hands were steady. He crossed one hand there. Pull down hard as you can.

the space in three bent-low strides, angled out Zeke put the stock of his shotgun against of sight of the window. Paused there against the base of the pinned bird’s neck. It wasn’t the splintery frame of the porch. A muff led bait, or at least it wasn’t only bait. It was the thump came from inside, and the door shud-Old Man guessing who’d been sent after him.

dered.

The heron gave another low caw. Zeke ran his From this close, a round of buckshot would fingers down its feathery head, but he didn’t shred right through. But it would be loud, too, twist. That would all but conf irm the Old and Zeke had to be sure. He swung himself Man’s suspicion, and Zeke didn’t want him to onto the porch and shouldered the door open know. Not yet.

in one motion. He saw a f lurry of white and He looked into the heron’s filmy eye a mo-gray; half his brain had it down as a male ment longer, then slunk out of the shack and heron while the other half was clearing the closed the door carefully behind him.

room, corner to corner. Floor rotted out, aluminum cans f loating in puddles, overturned An overgrown coypu was nosing its way
rocking chair covered in green moss.

along the bank; Zeke pictured it skinned and Empty. The adrenaline kicked late, and
skewered, roasting over a sputtering fire. He’d Zeke’s hands shook a bit as he turned back, re-hunted plenty of river rats when he was
alizing the heron hadn’t bolted through the young, especially during the days or weeks open doorway, hadn’t taken the window ei-when the Old Man disappeared and left Elijah ther. There was a reason. One of the bird’s in charge. Remembering the taste made his wings was crumpled against itself, but the oth-mouth water, but he let the coypu go and
er was fully extended, all taut skin and straggly f ished an MRE bar out of his pocket instead.

feathers, pinned to the back of the door with No unnecessary noise or light until he had a an oxidized knife. The dangling heron
fix on the Old Man.

twitched against the wood and gave a weak He’d circled for hours, moving steadily out-caw.

ward from the shack but had seen no more

He ducked away from the door, his heart
sign of his quarry. Now the sky was turning thumping fast now, nowhere near frozen. The black, and the gators would be awake, the big-blood rimming the metal was coagulated
ger ones sloshing out of the water to go lie in black, but the Old Man wouldn’t have set bait wait trailside. Even armed, Zeke didn’t want to unless he planned to tend to it. Zeke went to chance across one in the dark, and he figured the window and peered into thickening fog.

the Old Man didn’t, either. He found a tree Could be the Old Man was out there some-with a sturdy crook high enough off the
where, watching the shack with his wild eyes.

ground and slid his knife under the bark to Zeke kicked through the trash, staying low, check for bugs. Nothing that bit.

scanning for bullet boxes or old casings. If the Zeke clambered up the tree and unslung his Old Man had left the knife stuck, it meant he Mossberg, hanging it from a branch above
had something better now. The thought twist-him. He held the .22 in his lap as he leaned ed Zeke’s stomach with fear. He gave a disinte-back against the trunk and closed his eyes.

grating cabinet a kick; the soggy wood

He’d been running on purpose and rage and crunched inward. Then he turned back to the the post-thaw amphetamines they’d dosed
pinned heron.

him with, but now his atrophied muscles

First thing he’d ever killed with his hands were burning with exertion. His skeleton felt had been a heron. He remembered that now.

heavy.

The Old Man had set a length of razorwire out Zeke drifted between dreams and memo-behind the house, for when the enemy finally ries. Being back in the bayou had tapped open 84

RICH LARSON

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
the oldest of them, before they were so full of Ten years later, Zeke could still see it all blood. Sitting on the porch with his brothers etched across the insides of his eyelids. The in the evening, the Old Man reading from the smoldering branches as they got closer, the Bible or The Tempest, glow from the tablet gushing steam that scalded their exposed skin, screen attracting little winged beetles. Zeke the gurgling hole where a few scorched frag-and Elijah and Elim would play a game while ments of wood were all that was left of the they listened, the one where they broke down house. Bits of blackened bone, too, because a and built up whichever gun the Old Man
trio with sad eyes and uncitizen brandings had picked from the bolted locker. Zeke was usu-been staying in the attic, and the Old Man had ally f irst to have it memorized, and then he been home repairing the roof.

would have to do it with Elim covering his He remembered fear, sicker and deeper
eyes from behind and Elijah jamming a sharp than he’d ever felt it before. He remembered knuckle under his ribs.

grabbing blindly for Elim and Elijah so they There had been other games, too, hiding
wouldn’t disappear, too; Elim clung back and games and fighting games Zeke once assumed after a moment so did Elijah. They’d been hud-all children played. The see-nothing game, dled like that when the Old Man limped out where they had to pretend the Old Man’s visi-from the steam. Coated in soot and blood, tors were invisible, whether it was the ex-sol-clothes singed to ash, a deep furrow showing diers with bristly beards and shifting tattoos or part of his shinbone.

the dark-eyed families who stayed in their attic They put a damn tracker in him, he’d said.

for days or weeks. Those sometimes spoke to Missed it in all the scars. God damn them.

each other in a throaty language, and the God damn them. His eyes had been wild for women always wore cloth over their heads.

the first time, then, but Zeke didn’t realize it Zeke’s breathing quickened as his mind
until later. He’d been too shocked, too
dragged him forward to the day it stopped be-wracked with relief and awe. We go to war ing games. The Old Man hadn’t been one for now. You hear me, Elim? You hear me, Elijah?

birthdays, but Zeke had done the math since You hear me, Ezekiel?

and knew he’d been f ifteen when it hap-

Zeke pushed the muzzle of the .22 against pened. Elijah seventeen, Elim twelve. The his head, like he could force the memories three of them had been out hunting when the out, but memories like that never left. Only drone hummed overhead. Everyone had bel-burrowed.

lied out in the mud, no hesitation, because

* * *
that was what you did when a drone or flyer

Morning came quickly, streaking the sky
went over the bayou. Once the sound sub-
with filaments of red. Zeke roused from half-sided, they kept going.

sleep to rub warmth back into his stiff limbs.

Zeke had bagged a lynx that day, came up

He licked dew from the leaves above him and on it quiet as smoke and deaded it between ate another MRE, folding the wrapper careful-the eyes, a shot that made Elim sing aloud and ly into his pocket. Then he retrieved the Moss-Elijah glower for hours. He carried it draped berg, worked the handgun back into his waist-across his bony shoulders, not wanting to soil band, and climbed down. Set off again.

or tear the pelt on brambles getting it home.

He moved through the bog like a ghost,

Every so often he rubbed his face in the soft smooth and quiet, but bits of bad dream still fur, ignoring the stink of gases leaving its slow-clung to him. He’d dreamed concrete cube
stiffening body.

bunkers and dingy apartments, the places

They’d been nearly home when a thunder-
they’d shuttled between after their home in clap shattered the cloudless sky. Loudest thing the bayou was sat-bombed. Cities that had Zeke had ever heard. A smell came, too, some-been only names to him before: Memphis, St.

thing metallic that stung the inside of his nose.

Louis, Chicago. Colder and colder, but he The birds went silent. Elim started to run, hadn’t felt it at the time. He’d had a f lame started shouting orbital, they hit us with an burning in his belly.

orbital, they killed everyone. Then Elijah ran Zeke remembered the first op best. Sitting too, and Zeke left the lynx in the dirt to keep in the back of a truck with a black S&W
pace.

bullpup, one he’d taken apart more times than THE OLD MAN

85

ANALOG
he could count, resting across his knees. His You did me proud, Ezekiel, the Old Man brothers almost invisible across from him, had said later, after they’d all taken turns wearing chamsuits that rippled light and then showering in the rusted tub, washing away dark and then back again as the truck rattled the stink of fight-or-flight sweat. And what we down a row of street lamps.

did tonight was more important than one One of the Old Man’s ex-soldiers had made government driver. His soul is in God’s a last minute protest, hissing they’re only kids, hands, not ours.

Christ’s sakes, and Elijah had given him his Zeke was still half in the memory as he
deadest look while the Old Man said they look caught a faint smell of ash. He followed it until like they only kids? The words had filled Zeke he found the charred twigs and powdery
with a fierce pride that ached the back of his traces of a f ire. Squatting down, he sifted throat. When the truck stopped, he’d felt through the remains with his hands. Still more trembly, and queasy, like he needed a warm. Overhead, another stump where a cy-shit.

press branch had been, this one cut cleanly.

But that had disappeared the instant they Too long and flimsy for a weapon, but a good pulled their hoods up and spilled out onto the length to probe for gators.

street. The prisoner transport, stalled right Zeke headed toward the bank, toward the
where the Old Man had said. The guards,
shallow point he’d seen yesterday. The Old dropping their vapor pipe and fumbling for Man was finally making a move.

their weapons, clumsy how the Old Man had predicted. Zeke had put two rounds in his tar-The algae-skinned water moved slow and
get’s chest, and it felt no different from shoot-no higher than the waist, but there were other ing deer. Elijah had downed the other and deterrents to crossing, and Zeke kept his ears then Elim had stuck the breaching shotgun up pricked as he pushed through the swaying
to the lock and blown the transport doors rushes. It was safest to wait until noon, when open.

the fog peeled away and the gators were lazy Zeke remembered the rush, the sick feeling and sunning themselves. But the Old Man had washed away by cold clear adrenaline and
never been scared of gators or anything else.

knowing that he was doing God’s work. He’d Zeke moved slowly, eyes screwed up
helped round up the driver and the guards against the fog, and when he caught a glimpse and search them for phones and sidearms.

of a familiar silhouette, his heart nearly The Old Man had gone into the back of the stopped. Then it sped up, pounding against transport and come out a moment later, haul-his ribcage as the mist parted. Tall as Zeke ing a woman whose face had been beaten to himself was, built with the same thick bones one pulpy mass of bruises because she knew and corded muscle, near identical to him or to things the government didn’t want her to.

Elijah or to Elim had Elim f inished growing.

As the Old Man helped her down, Zeke’s

The Old Man had his own way of moving,
chamsuit had started to glitch, flashing bright though. Even half-naked, wading through
acid yellow, and he’d ripped off his hood to green scum. He moved like every step had
f ind the override switch. Only for a second, been planned for a hundred years and nothing but when the Old Man noticed he pulled out could stop it.

his needler and f ired a single f lechette into Zeke raised the shotgun. Through the
the kneeling driver’s head.

scope, he saw the Old Man’s face, ridged

Never show your face, the Old Man had brow and angular cheekbones and deep-set
said. Never, you hear me? That one had a eyes. Aside from the gray scruff of beard, it wired eye. Look. So Zeke had looked, and seen was like seeing his ref lection. He’d once a single spark jump from where the Old Man’s thought all brothers looked alike, and all sons f lechette had sheared its way through the grew to look like copies of their fathers. Zeke lense, through the wiring, through the soft f licked the safety off. His f inger caressed the eyeball into the brain. Zeke remembered a trigger.

trickle of vomit had escaped his lips at the From this distance, the buckshot would
sight, but he’d kept his hood up and breathed drop him even if it didn’t get penetration. If rancid air until they were back at the hideout.

the Old Man got back up, it was another easy 86

RICH LARSON

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
shot, and if the Old Man thrashed and bled f lew into Zeke’s eyes; when they cleared all enough in the water, he wouldn’t need it. The he could see was the pale pink f lesh of an Old Man would never know where the shell
open maw, impossibly wide. He dove back-
came from. Or who it came from.

ward as the jaws clacked shut in his face. He Zeke clenched his teeth, then lowered the squeezed the trigger.

Mossberg and slid forward into the scum. Cold The shotgun’s boom deafened him. A
water crept past his wrapped boots, clinging chunk of the gator’s snout detonated in a at the knees of his fatigues. He wanted the Old cloud of red, spattering Zeke’s face, and a tiny Man to look him in the face when it hap-shard of bone or def lected buckshot buried pened. He wanted him to know who and
searing hot in his chest. The gator thrashed.

why.

Zeke got a glimpse of the Old Man through The Old Man moved slow and steady to-the spray, enough to see him drawing the pis-ward the opposite bank, and Zeke followed.

tol. Zeke pumped the Mossberg, braced the Orange fabric f lashed through the mud the stock on his shoulder, fired.

Old Man had plastered over his peeled-down He didn’t see if it landed; the gator was surg-jumpsuit, and in the knotted arms Zeke saw a ing at him, yelping through its shredded
battered pistol handle. He was using the
snout, the intact teeth glinting sharp. Zeke stripped branch to check depth as he went.

hurled himself to the side, pumping again. Be-Zeke kept one eye on the Old Man, one scan-fore he could pull, the gator twisted around ning the algae for the raised nodes of an alliga-and its tail took his legs. Zeke crashed into the tor’s scoots. Birds were warbling, hopping water. Scum f illed his mouth and nose; he into the water, a good sign.

could feel the gator moving, but he was blind-The gap shrank. If the Old Man went for his ed by bubbles streaming past his eyes. He pistol, he would have to take the shot. But he came up choking, spinning to face.

would get close as he could f irst. The water He found the gator drifting limp. There was rose to Zeke’s waist, still cold enough to bite.

a spread of bullets lodged along its bony head.

Mist swirled overtop of the thick green scum.

The third had blown clean through the eye He’d spent his whole life following after the socket, leaving a ragged red tunnel on its way Old Man. For a moment it felt as if he was a to the gator’s brain. Zeke raised his shotgun child again, as if Elim and Elijah would be again, scanning the opposite bank, but the coming behind with the fishing gear.

Old Man was gone. He watched the tree line He tightened his grip on the shotgun. Only until the gator’s limbs started to twitch.

yards away now. He mouthed the words: turn Maybe just the last few dying nerves. Zeke around, Old Man, look at death how Elijah didn’t take the chance. He f ired a last shell did, look at death how Elim did. He imagined into the top of its f lat skull, reloaded, and the Old Man’s jaw blown off before he could sloshed his way to shore.

reply, his head torn open by the buckshot.

The birds had stopped warbling. Zeke real-Once the adrenaline ebbed, the bit of shrap-ized it in the same moment the Old Man did, nel lodged under Zeke’s collarbone started to and the Old Man pivoted in the same moment sting. He found a hump of semidry ground
a gator erupted from the water. Green froth and peeled off his coat and shirt. With his chin Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive.

—Charles Darwin

THE OLD MAN

87

ANALOG
to his chest he could see the nub of distended pulled away. Zeke had already been moving to f lesh, seeping blood around a sliver of gray hook himself up for transfusion, how they’d buckshot. Zeke took a breath, then wormed done a half-dozen times before, when the Old his finger in and pulled the fragment free. He Man shook his head. He’d tapped the screen patched the wound with clingwrap and
of the unit, so Zeke could see the glowing red slapped a dermal painkiller to his neck.

fatality prognosis.

As the drug flushed cool and tingly through Elim, you’re going home, the Old Man had his body, he stripped bark to bed a fire, mov-said, in a voice thick with tears. May the Lord ing on automatic. The Old Man had downed
make his face shine upon you, and be gra-the gator. Only needed three shots to do it, cious to you, and give you peace, and may and any one of them could have gone in his you dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

head instead. That meant the Old Man still And then, before Zeke could say wait or I wanted something from him, even though it love you, Elim or anything else, he’d tapped felt like he’d already taken it all.

the screen again. The Ascelpius had rolled After the first op, they’d started to blur to-Elim onto his side and plunged a precise nee-gether: usually in the night, with gear, some-dle into the back of his neck. Like killing a cat-times in the day wearing plain clothes. Taking f ish. Zeke remembered sitting paralyzed on and leaving packages in specific places. Break-the f loor of the van while the unit worked, ing into buildings. Planting a bomb in an auto-slitting Elim’s body open with a gush of steam, cab. Holding up a morgue to carve a data im-bagging and sealing the organs, sluicing the plant out of a corpse’s leg. Rescues that were blood with a horrible sucking sound.

sometimes more like kidnaps. Government reHas to be done, the Old Man had said.

ports that called them terrorists, raw reels that Might save any one of us. It’s just a body, called them the Insurgency.

now, Ezekiel. His soul is with God.

The Old Man sleeping less and less, his eyes Months later Zeke had noticed a fresh scar always bloodshot and his late-night rants on the Old Man’s chest and realized where slurred from his medications. Elim chewing Elim’s heart had gone.

through the pillowcase he used to hide sobs.

Zeke shook himself. He unloaded the shot-

The Old Man interrogating a spook in the
gun and used it to prop up his coat by the fire; bloodstained bathtub while Elijah recorded it could maybe pass from a distance as a sitting without trembling even once. Elim refusing to silhouette. Then he took the .22 from his watch, even though it was the same spook
waistband and left the warmth and light be-who’d authorized gas attacks in Aztlan. In the hind. He found a place to watch and wait.

night, Elim sitting up and whispering: we never had a mother, Zeke, we’re seedlings, and The Old Man came from the opposite direc-he grew us like this, grew us to be just like tion Zeke was expecting, so quiet he nearly him, see?

missed the footfalls. Zeke waited a heartbeat, Zeke fed twigs into the f lickering f lame, then swept out from behind the mangrove.

coaxing it to life. He peeled off the spent The Old Man stopped, arms akimbo, his pistol derm and replaced it with a second. He
tied in its makeshift holster. He didn’t try to couldn’t remember what they’d been trying to turn around.

do on the night Elim died, but he remembered

“Put a cam on you,” he said. “And a mic?”

the escape, dragging Elim across the tarmac The Old Man’s voice had changed. It didn’t toward the getaway van and leaving a dark boom and roll like thunder. It was hoarse and smear behind. The Old Man had helped load strained and, for the f irst time, old. Zeke him into the back, where there was an As-aimed for the dead center of his shaved head.

celpius unit waiting to scan the injuries. Zeke

“I prayed they would send you, Ezekiel,”

had held Elim’s hand while he cursed and
the Old Man said. “Prayed and prayed, and choked and the unit unfurled over him like a here we are.”

white plastic squid.

“Hands,” Zeke croaked.

Two gunshot wounds in the chest, one

The Old Man put his hands on his head,
where his hipbone met his thigh. Bright blood joints popping.

leaking onto the dull metal f loor as the van

“Look at me,” Zeke said.

88

RICH LARSON

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

The Old Man turned, and from close up,
painkillers: the Old Man had stuck derm after Zeke could see new lines carving his face. For derm to his bruised neck, enough to turn his so long it had seemed like he would never limbs distant and his head cloudy. Sometimes age. Zeke let the .22 drift from one sunken eye it felt like he was being dragged. Mostly it felt to the other. He could feel the cam on his like he was f loating in the dark, back in the cheekbone humming. He imagined a dozen
tank. He saw things from a distance. He saw spooks cutting into the feed, crowding around the refrigerated van. He saw the alley. He re-screens to watch.

membered.

“I hate you,” he said.

He remembered something had come

“I heard such,” the Old Man said. “And that unglued in Elijah after Elim died. Zeke had no-hate’ll eat you alive if you let it.”

ticed the change in his face, f irst, in how he

“You ate us alive,” Zeke said. “You got
gave up the too-wide smiles or exaggerated Elim’s heart beating in you right now. Only frowns that he once used to try and put the good part you do got.” He breathed in deep.

other insurgents at ease. His face had gone

“You was just waiting for a reason to cut him back to being perfectly blank. Then other up.”

things: The hours he spent lying f lat on his

“I knew Elim wasn’t gonna make it,” the
back, whispering to himself. Maimed insects Old Man said. “Too gentle. You knew it, too.

hopping and buzzing in the screen of the win-Coulda been that night, coulda been a differ-dow. Unplanned casualties on ops gone
ent night. No difference.”

wrong.

“Elijah,” Zeke said. “You made him a mon-

Zeke had tried to talk to him, tried to use ster. He never had no choice in it. Neither of soft words like Elim would have. Elijah had lis-them got a choice.”

tened, calm and patient, and at the end of

“I know,” the Old Man said. He paused, eyes Zeke’s rambling, he’d leaned close and said slick with tears. “But I did love them, Ezekiel.”

that lynx was mine, Zeke, and if Elim Zeke fired. The bullet cracked the air, splin-weren’t out with us I woulda killed you way tered the trunk behind the Old Man’s head.

back then. And he’d smiled his too-wide

“Don’t tell me no lies,” he snarled.

smile.

The Old Man’s mouth moved, and when

Two nights later, Elijah had disappeared and the roar in Zeke’s ears subsided, he heard the so had a needler plus f ive full cartridges.

words. “I done a lot of wrong things, Ezekiel. I Bring him back, Ezekiel, the Old Man had or-have sinned. I have sinned against you a hundered, in his room where the scrambler was dred times over. I am ready to die.”

always humming in the corner, turning their Then he lunged, and for an instant, Zeke
voices untraceable. And if worst comes to saw Elijah and Elim in his face, and it made worst, get rid of his body. Nobody can find him slow to the trigger. The Old Man bowled his body.

him over, his long arms impossibly strong as So Zeke had gone after his brother, follow-they knocked the shot askew, pinned him
ing a trail of corpses. First a metrocop with his down. Zeke felt the .22 f ly from his grip and helmet cracked open and a neat semicircle of hit dirt. He jackknifed upward, trying to catch f lechette wounds in his chest. Then a man the Old Man’s chin.

and a woman tangled together in a dumpster; Air. The Old Man was quick, too quick, and from the smell at least one of them had shit now his hands were around his throat squeez-themselves dying. Then Zeke had followed
ing. Blackness seeped into Zeke’s peripherals.

the sound of screaming to a nightclub a block It constricted around him like rubber. He con-over and shoved his way inside through a
nected with a knee; the Old Man grunted,
stream of fleeing revelers.

held on.

Pounding music. A dozen more bodies

“But not yet,” the Old Man said. “Not just crumpled in corners or slumped on the bar yet.”

under the pulsing grid of holos. Blood and He drove his thumb under Zeke’s eye and
spilled drinks slicking the floor. Through the crushed the cam.

fire exit, in the back alley, Elijah pissing on the wall with the needler hanging loose in his Zeke was adrift. He knew it was the
grip.

THE OLD MAN

89

ANALOG

Don’t get twisted, Zeke, Elijah had said. All Zeke dragged his eyes open. He was curled them souls in God’s hands now. Right? He’d in the dirt; he could sideways-see the Old Man turned around, stuck the needler up under his crouching over a sleek black case streaked with chin. Clones, though. Clones don’t got souls.

mud. It hissed open, and the Old Man retrieved Clone. Zeke had recognized the word from
a sharp-hooked neurotool that he brought in hearing it muttered behind his back. It had close enough to blur. Zeke barely felt it go in, never meant anything to him.

only a dull pinch and then rasp when it twisted.

Elim tried tell you, Elijah had said, checking He heard a soft electronic bleat as it found the the weapon’s cartridge. But the old man got tracker/biobomb in his skull.

his hooks in you deep, Zeke. Elim was too Zeke’s teeth knocked together from some
soft and I was too hard, but you was just brushed nerve as the Old Man slid the neuro-right. Turned out just like him. You can kill tool back out, now stained dark red with a and you can cry about it.

glint of circuitry at the tip.

Then Elijah had swept the needler up. Zeke

“The Insurgency ain’t all gone,” the Old
remembered diving backward, the .22 barking Man said. “They rigged the cryo failure. Trans-twice from his hip, and seeing Elijah’s body port breakdown. Hid the kit for me.”

smack the pavement. But he’d managed to

Back to the war. The Old Man was going
keep his hold on the needler, and he said you back to the war, and he thought he could drag ain't stealing this one, Zeke right before he Zeke with him. Zeke watched as the Old Man put it up to his own neck and unloaded a full plucked the spook hardware off the end of scatter that nearly took his head off, shredding the neurotool. Instead of crushing it between everything but his spinal column.

his fingers, he transferred it carefully to an in-A hacked autocab with all its cams disabled jector. Zeke tensed.

had raced police sirens to the alley and won

“They gonna be waiting for us up north a
by a hair, and Zeke had taken Elijah’s body to ways,” the Old Man said. “You can go with an incinerator owned by a sleepy woman who them. Or you can go around them.”

asked no questions. He’d washed the blood off Zeke punched his heel into the Old Man’s
himself. Then he’d scoured what was left of shin. As he buckled forward, Zeke came off the web to discover what his brothers had al-the ground, smashing an elbow into his chest.

ready known, maybe for years: they were not It was weakened by the drugs but still had the Old Man’s sons. They were his copies.

enough force behind it to empty the Old Man’s For the first time, Zeke had seen it all clear.

lungs. Zeke felt a hot wash of air across his face The Old Man had grown them to be disposas he swiped the neurotool off the top of the able soldiers and blood banks and organ
black case. The hooked end gleamed sharp.

farms. He had sacrif iced Elim and Elijah, and Zeke imagined digging and dragging, open-he would sacrifice Zeke, too. Then he would ing his jugular, making sure no more lies came grow new clones, free new allies, shed new out. He looked at the loaded injector. The Old blood. He would never stop devouring.

Man twisted his head, and Zeke saw the guide Nothing on the web had said if clones had mark dotting the flesh behind his ear.

souls or not, so it was impossible for Zeke to

“Why?” he asked, hoarse through a raw
know if his brothers were with the Lord or the throat.

Devil or nowhere at all.

The Old Man choked. Wheezed. “I can’t

He had gone back to the hideout in a
give you all them years back, Ezekiel,” he trance, cold all over from fury and anguish, re-whispered. “Can’t bring your brothers back loading his gun with trembling hands. He’d neither. I can do one thing, though. I’m gonna been heading for the Old Man’s room when
take the tracker to that shack and burn it gas canisters smashed through the windows down. The DNA traces won’t tell them noth-and spooks wearing raid gear f illed the hall-ing. Spooks gonna think it’s you.”

way. He’d been so close to making sure the Behind the clingwrapped wound in his

Old Man never sacrificed anyone ever again.

chest, Zeke felt something deeper that hurt a hundred times worse. He pictured the Old

“Not much time, Ezekiel,” came the Old

Man dousing the shack’s walls with gasoline Man’s voice. “Them drones coming soon.”

and lighting it. Sitting down in the center, 90

RICH LARSON

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
waiting for the flames like a Buddhist monk’s But there was no choice. There was no way immolation. For an instant Zeke was an ex-of knowing the Old Man’s mind, if he was
hausted child, and all he wanted was to wrap telling the truth or if he was manipulating him his skinny shaky arms around the Old Man’s one last time. Zeke looked down to where the neck and be carried.

sharp hook of the neurotool was just barely Then his mind leapt ahead. He bared his
embedded in the Old Man’s skin. The blood teeth. “Could be they think that, yeah,” he beading there was bright red, the same blood said. “One body, though. They gonna think I he had f lowing in his own veins whether he burned and you got away.”

wanted it or not.

The Old Man slowly nodded, and Zeke saw

As the distant hum of drones filled the sky, it all crystallized.

Zeke stared deep as he could into the Old

“You think I’m gonna take over for you.”

Man’s eyes, searching for his soul. He saw Zeke tightened his grip on the neurotool.

nothing but himself, adrift in the dark. ■

“You think if you do this, I go to the insurgents and tell ’em how you laid down your life for Rich Larson was born in West Africa, has mine. How you was crucif ied. And then I
studied in Rhode Island and worked in Spain, keep your war going another fifty years.”

and now writes from Ottawa, Canada. His

“That ain’t what I—”

short work has been featured on io9, translat-

“So maybe I don’t go north,” Zeke snapped.

ed into Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish and Italian,

“Maybe I never tell the insurgents nothing.

and appears in numerous Year’s Best antholo-People still gonna f ind out the Old Man es-gies as well as in magazines such as Asimov’s, caped. People gonna think he out there some-Analog, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Interzone, Strange where like a bogeyman. That way you ain’t Horizons and Lightspeed . He was the most pro-ever gotta die. You get to be legend.”

lific author of short science fiction in 2015 and The Old Man shook his head. “Ezekiel, I

2016. Find him at richwlarson.tumblr.com and want you to be free. I want to give you
support his writing via patreon.com/richlarson.

choice.”

THE OLD MAN

91

Orphans

Craig DeLancey
y god what colors,” Mbasi said.

* * *
She pressed her forehead to the

The ship passed in a high parabolic, braking glass portal. Betelgeuse 2
as it swung from the world. The acceleration

“Mturned below them, as their came as a surprise to Mbasi, like someone set long ship slotted into its first pass. The planet a weight on her shoulders. In the three weeks had three huge continents that hugged the they had drifted through the system, she had equator, each covered with green forest. The grown accustomed to the microgravity.

oceans were otherwise unbroken blue,

Whereas before she glided quickly through the capped at each pole by floating ice.

ship, pulling herself along with handholds,

“What are those?” Captain Nilsson asked, as now the crew trudged on the small f loor or he drifted to her side. A Swedish man, with used the ladders to move between sections.

blue eyes that lost their focus when he

When they cut the engines and started to
thought, he had a decade on Mbasi. He point-fall back toward the world, it was Mbasi’s time ed over her shoulder at the ocean directly be-to sleep. She tied to her bunk and took the low, where pale green stripes stretched
picture of her husband from the wall. She thousands of miles in the dark water.

liked the paper print. The solidity of it. It felt

“Floating sea forests, ” she said. “Vast permanent, as if it were already ancient and swathes of photosynthesizing organisms.

enduring.

Nothing like it on Earth.”

“He’s in cold sleep, isn’t he?” Crane asked.

He shook his head. “So much life. I never She was the ship’s physician. She had the bed expected so much life. And yet, still there is si-beside Mbasi’s. The ship had a crew of f ive; lence. Fermi’s paradox is even more paradoxi-herself, the captain, an engineer, a physicist, cal.”

and Crane.

“When can I drop a probe?” Mbasi asked.

“Yes,” Mbasi added. “It is a great sacrif ice The captain laughed. “Jah. As soon as we
he makes.”

have the orbit locked. We want to have every-Crane shook her head. “He wants to be
thing in order before we drop another robot with you. It’ll be another adventure. His ad-on this world.”

venture, to match yours.”

“I’m useless until we get instruments on the

“And you?” Mbasi said.

surface,” Mbasi said.

Crane smiled sadly. “No one waiting on

“You paid a hundred years of time debt to Earth. I will return to a whole new world.”

get here,” Nilsson said. “You can wait a few

“Well,” Mbasi said, “my husband and I will days more.”

take care of you. Together, we three will ORPHANS

93

ANALOG
complain about how much better things were screen. “I also found this on Continent Three.

back in the good old centuries.”

Something like it had been observed in the The ship chime sounded. The captain’s
f irst probe mission to the planet, but at a voice came over the intercom. “Hong has
smaller scale.”

found something.”

Mbasi squinted. At f irst she saw nothing, but then Hong adjusted the image color and They gathered on the bridge. The crew por-zoomed out slightly. The pattern popped out tion of the ship had only two long rooms
to her then. Depressions, like very narrow val-capped by the cold sleep cell. A narrow cylin-leys, stretched the length of the landscape.

der connected the two rooms, lined with lad-The tree canopy in those depressions dipped ders for access during acceleration. Mbasi and noticeably lower than the surrounding land, Crane drifted now into the front section. The revealed in shadows cast by a setting sun. The rest of the crew waited in a loose group.

narrow valleys formed a triangular grid.

Hong, their chief engineer, f loated by the

“That could be an agricultural pattern,”

main screen. She was a quiet woman, and

Mbasi said. “There is something like this in Be-when they left Earth, some said she was the lize, on Earth. The ancient Mayans had created best living human engineer. Mbasi liked the square grids of farms, with irrigation canals way Hong relied largely on expressions and between the farms. The growth of rainforest gestures to convey her thoughts. “I have done over the land, after the Mayan collapse,
deep scans of the continents, using radar.”

formed a pattern like that.”

“I didn’t know you were doing a survey,”

“I thought perhaps roads.” Hong nodded

Crane said.

thoughtfully. “Your hypothesis is more inter-Hong shrugged, an awkward gesture in the
esting.”

microgravity. “We left two orbiting probes on

“So,” the captain said, “let’s review. We our f irst pass. I thought, I can make use of have a world where all previous landing mis-them. I am an amateur, let us agree. But I had sions, by robotic probes, have fallen silent af-some idea that perhaps my skills in system ter a fraction of their operational lifetimes. No analysis could prove useful.”

civilization was observed, so we had assumed

“Show them what you found,” the captain
that the probes were not attacked by hostile said.

intelligent intent. But this finding suggests that She waved at the image, and it changed col-an attack by an intelligence remains a possibil-or to vibrant greens and shimmering grays.

ity.”

Thin pale lines of white formed a grid on the

“But this looks more like evidence of past image.

civilizations,” Crane said. “Not some civliza-

“This is a false color reconstruction of mul-tion active now.”

tiple radar images. The radar on our new sur-The captain looked at Gupta. “What have
vey satellites is very sensitive; far better than you found in orbit?”

the earlier probes had. This image is from Gupta frowned. “Nothing you would ex-Continent One. Near the sea. East coast. These pect from a technological civilization. But we lines here, you see?”

have gotten a few strange radar blips. As if Everyone nodded.

something small appeared and then disap-

“They are dense materials, probably metal, peared.”

under the surface. This is infrastructure. Or, it

“Let’s put a probe down there and f ind
was infrastructure.”

some answers,” Mbasi said.

They all stared in silence. Finally, Gupta, The captain nodded. “Mbasi is right. As
their physicist, said, “There are buildings un-soon as we have orbit, let’s drop the f irst derground? A civilization underground?”

probe. Hong, Gupta, and Mbasi, pick the best Again Hong shrugged. “Perhaps. But these
landing site.”

metal lines are not very deep, and not very wide. It could just be remnants of some kind In another twelve hours, they had their or-of powerlines. Plumbing. Or even a subway. If bit: low, circling the planet every two hours. It the inhabitants were—are?—small.”

would allow good surveys of all the contiShe waved, and green forest f illed the
nents. Strapped into her operations chair, 94

CRAIG DELANCEY

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Mbasi watched the planet turn below, eager was out of view, hurrying to the back of the for the launch of the f irst probe. She ran anship, looking for the leaks.

other system’s check, ensuring the probe’s bi-Mbasi wanted to shout curses. Her breath
olab functioned properly.

came loud in her helmet, now that she had They had picked a landing sight: a long
closed it shut. But Hong’s calm voice, and the tongue of black rock that stuck out into the captain’s calm reply, made her force herself to sea of a large bay on Continent One. The site remain quiet. She would help if they asked, was not far from the underground structural but right now they didn’t need a biologist.

grid that Hong had discovered. The flat stone

“How’s the parachute?”

provided one of the only locations suitable for Mbasi turned and looked toward the capa vertical landing under thrust.

tain. He banged at the controls and did not lift

“All systems nominal,” Gupta said.

his head. But she wanted to say, Are you sure?

“Release probe one,” Nilsson said.

If we use the parachute, we’re never leaving Mbasi expected a shiver, some slight move-this world. But of course he knew that.

ment from the ejected mass, but she felt noth-

“Parachute appears intact,” Hong said.

ing. The probe started down, and she

Mbasi still had her data glasses on. She
watched with her data glasses as it turned its asked them for an exterior view, ventral side lifting body toward the atmosphere.

of the ship. The blue ocean f illed her vision,

“Captain,” Gupta said. “I have several read-frighteningly close.

ings of momentary radar reflections.”

The hiss of escaping atmosphere receded.

“Where?”

The robot had patched the punctures.

“Four kilometers down orbit, but at our alti-

“Engines still unresponsive, Captain,” Gup-tude. They . . . they’re coming one after anoth-ta said. “The steering jets don’t have enough er. They’re coming closer.”

thrust to reestablish an orbit. We’re going

“Closer?”

down.”

“Yes. Maybe we should climb to a higher orbit.”

“Why would you go to the stars?” Bashala

“Do it. Everyone prepare for acceleration.

had asked her. “A hundred years there, a hun-We will—”

dred back. To a dangerous world that has eat-A loud crack interrupted him. The decom-
en every probe they send. Why?”

pression klaxon screeched.

“To go to the stars!” Mbasi had told him.

A scrap of plastic f luttered past Mbasi’s They stood under a huge tree that lifted its head. The ship seemed to list. Another bang, great canopy high into the Congo sky. They and then a tearing roar made the ship shudder.

had come to the Salonga-Sud, the great nation-Nilsson turned off the decompression alarm.

al forest. A getaway. Some time to talk.

The ship became silent, but for the loud hiss Birds sang all around them. They walked on of escaping atmosphere. Mbasi reached for one of the public trails and in minutes were her helmet, mounted behind her head.

alone, the other tourists dispersing on other

“Crane?” Gupta called. Mbasi looked over
paths.

her shoulder. Crane f loated in her berth, her Bashala frowned and rubbed his head. His
arms listless. Red globules of blood f loated hair had small twists of gray in it. She liked from a tear in her chest.

that. It made him look distinguished. But she

“Crane’s hurt!” she shouted.

knew it really signif ied the cost of years of

“Crane, report!” Nilsson said. Crane did not worry, in his work in the government.

answer. “Hong! Ship status?”

“Our country has so much work still to do,”

“Two punctures. Damage to the fuel stores.

he told her. “No country has suffered like our We’re venting fuel. It’s pushing us down tonation has suffered. There is so much to fix, to ward the planet.”

cure, to heal. If we won’t do that work, who Mbasi realized then that she felt this accel-will?”

eration: a gentle shove against her seat straps.

“If I don’t go to the stars, who will?”

“Can we correct for that?”

“There are other biologists.”

“Main engines are failing.”

“And there are other politicians.”

A robot spidered past Mbasi. In seconds, it

“It’s negligent to send a human crew where ORPHANS

95

ANALOG
three AI missions have failed.”

chute deploy!” Gupta shouted. Mbasi could

“Bashala, I won’t be landing on the planet.

hardly believe the ship could survive that We will stay above, in orbit, and send probes.

long. The metal all around them screamed, as Only this time, we’ll be there to see what hap-if the wind bent it to breaking. The ship had pens, in real time, as the probes explore.”

not been designed for atmospheric entry. The He sighed. “You are stubborn, woman.

system they used now was an emergency

Don’t you see what this means?”

ditch procedure.

Her heart sank. “It doesn’t have to be the The second chute disconnected. They fell, end. Please, Bashala. You can wait for me.”

this time with real weight: they were down He sighed. “Why should I give up my work, into dense atmosphere now, at terminal veloc-leave Kinshasa, go into cold sleep, leave my ity. The camera views no longer burned. She mother, my father, my sisters and brothers—
could see the white caps of waves below.

leave all that behind, to wait two centuries for

“Deploying steering chute,” Gupta said.

you?”

It jerked the ship less violently now, when Tears had sprung to her eyes. “The stars, the chute pulled them up. Mbasi looked up re-Bashala. The stars. I have to go. Can’t you see?

f lexively, and the data glasses showed her You’re as stubborn as I am.”

camera views from the dorsal side of the ship.

“No one is as stubborn as you. Listen,

The red chute filled her view, two huge trian-woman, when you come back, and we start
gles.

over again like babies, ignorant of a whole Mbasi looked over at Crane. In the gravity, new world, then I get to be the stubborn one.

she slumped in her seat. Red exclamations You hear?”

blinked in Mbasi’s helmet, emergency notif iShe had barely been able to speak through cations of Crane’s biologics. But they were her sobs. But she had said, “I hear.”

useless. Crane had been dead since the impact.

“Jettison the engines,” the captain said.

“One bit of luck,” Nilsson said. “We came in

“Jettisoning engines,” Gupta repeated.

over the sea, near Continent Two. We should Mbasi heard only a clang, as the ship split in be able to land on water, near the coast.”

half. They were in the front section now, leav-Mbasi did not feel lucky.

ing behind the 80 percent of the ship that had brought them from Earth and that was the

They splashed down hard, facing a long
only thing within many light-years that could beach of white sand bordered with dark green bring them back to Earth. It would burn up in tree-like organisms. For a few seconds, after the atmosphere behind them, incinerating all they hit the water and skipped over the small of their hopes for return.

waves, banging hard on their seats, Mbasi The ship shuddered, and metal creaked
feared that they were going to slide into the dangerously. The camera views turned yellow trees. But then she was thrown forward: the with flame. They listed forward, and Mbasi re-ship hit sand under shallow water. With an ex-alized with terror that they were about to tum-plosive grinding of metal, the slide halted.

ble. If the ship began to f lip into its reentry, The ship sat in shallow water, nose just me-they would burn up in a jumble of pieces.

ters from the beach. To their left, a sand bar But the high altitude chute deployed, jerk-spotted with black exposed stone made a little ing the ship back into a lifted nose dive. Mbasi pier of dry land that reached the length of gripped her arm rests and pressed her helmet what remained of their wreck.

back against the headrest. Her seat straps

“Report,” Nilsson said.

pinched her even through the vaccuum suit, They all called out: Hong, Gupta, Mbasi.

as the ship shook violently.

“Ship appears to have atmospheric integri-Another shudder, and they let the chute go.

ty,” Hong said. “Pressure inside is slightly high-For a moment, it seemed they floated. Then a er than outside. Not changing. The robots second, larger chute deployed. It jerked them sealed the impact holes.”

down hard into their seats, slowing the dive

“We’ll still need a secondary environment,”

agressively.

Nilsson said. “The ship is too compromised.

“One hundred forty seconds until steering We need to see how many robots are intact.

96

CRAIG DELANCEY

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

They can set up a pressurized tent for us on ty as you can feel is 1.1 e-gees, and all this fa-that sandbar. Hong and Gupta, you assess the miliarity will make you overconf ident. But ship. I’ll work on the robots. Mbasi, figure out you’re on another planet. Don’t get comfort-what killed Crane. Then determine the enviable.”

ronmental parameters. We need to know

Mbasi nodded. They used the auxiliary air-what we can do with the atmosphere here.”

lock because it lay near the surface now. It had Mbasi looked out the window, at the shim-the dimensions of a small closet with a low mering sand beside them. She knew it was
ceiling; only one person at a time could pass protocol to establish reliable atmosphere as through it. “I go first,” he said.

the f irst priority. But what was the point?

“What are you going to say when you step

They had no engines. She would never leave down?” Mbasi asked him. “You are the f irst this world.

human to walk on another sun’s world.”

Gupta grunted. “Hopefully not, ‘oops!’”

She tossed the shard of metal onto the
makeshift table they had set up on what had They stood on the hot sand, water splash-before been one side of the interior hull. The ing over their feet, and looked to the wall of shard clattered and glinted as it rolled, one thick forest that rimmed the long beach at the side dark, one side mirror-bright.

end of their pier of sand and stone. The dark

“It’s some kind of shrapnel,” Mbasi said. “It fronds of the trees waved in a soft wind. Many went through Crane’s heart and lodged in her of the leaves had a strange, trapezoidal shape, spine. It has a radar absorbing material on one but otherwise these organisms looked—at
side and is some kind of alloy on the other.”

least at this distance—much like terrestrial

“A projectile weapon?”

trees.

“That wouldn’t make sense,” Gupta said.

Mbasi had never felt so awkward to be in a

“Why only stealth one side of a bullet?”

space suit, even though they wore ultralight

“Perhaps it is part of a satellite that had suits because of the comfortable pressure. The stealth exterior,” Hong said, “and was de-sun shone yellow, like Sol. The wind whistled stroyed.”

gently in the exterior microphone’s mesh. It Nilsson frowned. “Why wouldn’t the probe
was like visiting Florida in vacuum armor. It missions before us have found something like felt absurd.

this?”

“This atmosphere would be breathable, in

“Their communication sections are in high an emergency,” Mbasi said. “A bit low in oxy-geosynchronous orbits,” Gupta said. “We
gen for us. But strikingly Earthlike. This is were lower. Maybe that means there is only strong evidence for the Liu hypothesis, that space junk in low orbits.”

ecosystems will tend toward Earthlike para-

“So something orbited this planet and was meters when possible.”

destroyed,” Nilsson said.

“Let’s not put it to the test just yet,” Gupta

“We don’t even know if it was from the
said. “There have to be a lot of bugs in this planet itself,” Mbasi said.

atmosphere. I don’t want to f ind out if we The captain looked at Hong. “What about
make good hosts.”

our cold sleep unit?”

Mbasi nodded, an awkward gesture. “I’m

Hong nodded once. “Intact.”

going to set up the external biolab, and then Nilsson sighed with evident relief. “So it’s collect some samples. Also, I’ve linked with possible we could wait in cold sleep until a our comm satellites and have communication rescue mission comes.”

with the probe we dropped on Continent

Hong frowned at that. “Perhaps. The reac-

One. It’s already collecting samples.”

tor concerns me. We need to get outside and inspect it.”

Hong released the robots, standard dog-

“All right,” Nilsson said. “Let’s go outside like utility bots that could do many tasks and and see what we have to work with.”

moved very quickly. In a few hours, two of the robots unpacked the tent and attached it Mbasi went with Gupta. “Remember,” he
to the ship’s airlock with an awkward umbili-told her, “the pressure here is good, the gravi-cus that bobbed on the two-meter-wide

ORPHANS

97

ANALOG
swath of water between the ship and the

“No,” Gupta said. “The concentrations are sand. They pressurized the tent, and it grew not that high. They’re more like on Earth, in till the material stretched taught. While the the late twentieth century. Either a small war, machines worked, Mbasi set up the second
or lots of testing.”

probe, still intact, a few meters from the

“Another mystery,” Mbasi said.

tent. It assembled itself quickly. Hong printed some furniture to put in the tent, using up They gathered that night in the ship. Its at-much of their feedstocks. Before the sun set, mospheric integrity held, and they felt they they had a working environment outside the could take off their suits. The crew sat on the ship.

curving floor, waiting for Nilsson to speak.

The air in the tent smelled of plastic and

“The reactor?” He looked at Hong.

resins. But Mbasi hardly noticed. Even though She nodded. “We are lucky. It’s in good

Nilsson insisted she wear her suit, she appre-shape.”

ciated being able to take off the close-f itting

“A miracle,” Nilsson said, “but there you helmet. She put on her data glasses and set out have it. It’s got about another century of fuel to analyze her f irst samples. She had only at least. Our orbiting communications array is been working for an hour when she called to working. I’ve sent a report to Earth. Assuming Gupta.

nothing goes wrong with our reactor, we

“What have you got?” he asked.

should be able to start up the cold sleep and She pulled off the goggles. “I’ve checked wait for the rescue mission.”

the Carbon 14 quantities in a fallen tree—can

“That assumes the ship can last a century,”

I call it a tree?—by the beach. My reasoning Mbasi said. “That may be difficult, here in an was, it’s probably rather old. So I could test at-atmosphere, with storms and all the corrosion mospheric absorption of various chemicals atmosphere can bring.”

over a few years by taking samples at different Nilsson nodded. “We need to understand
depths.”

the environment. Mbasi, you’ll have to help us

“And?”

estimate expected erosion, while Hong and I

“There’s twice as much Carbon 14 in the in-try to get this cold sleep chamber ready for terior of the trunk as there is in the exterior.”

use.” He sighed and tried to smile. “Hold to-Gupta took out his tablet and accessed
gether, everyone. We might just get home

Mbasi’s data. He read through the numbers yet.”

quickly. Hong worked alone outside the tent, setting up a robot to watch their perimeter, Motion alarms woke Mbasi. Her f irst
but she listened to their conversation on ra-thought was surprise that she had fallen
dio, and now asked, “How could that be? That asleep. She had lain a long time in her sleeping makes no sense.”

berth, but the angle was uncomfortable: the

“Oh, no. It makes sense,” Gupta said. He
ship had come to rest with her sleeping sack tapped at his tablet. “Captain?”

nearly vertical. She wished now she had made Nilsson, still working on the ship’s systems some kind of bed on the floor. She wanted to from inside, answered immediately. “Yes,
roll over, but it seemed impossible. She con-Gupta.”

vinced herself she had incurable insomnia.

“Mbasi has identified strong Carbon 14 con-But she had fallen asleep after all. Now she centrations and gradients.”

sighed, remembering where she was. Then

“Nuclear blasts. ” The captain sighed.

the importance of the chime struck her.

“When?”

Gupta and Nilsson already stood by the

Gupta looked at Mbasi. She frowned and
monitors, looking at enhanced pale green im-said, “This tree I would guess could only be, ages of the forest. She climbed down and
what, at most four hundred years old? But stood between them, preferring the moni-that’s just a guess. We’ll need to find some oth-tors instead of her dataglasses. At f irst she er trick to determine how old it is.”

saw nothing. But then: a f licker of motion. A

“Recently, then, in the grand scheme of
f igure moved among the branches. It
things,” Gupta said.

stepped into full view, onto the beach at the

“A nuclear war?”

end of their pier of rock, but in a second, it 98

CRAIG DELANCEY

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
had slipped behind a trunk and disappeared.

“Why didn’t we see this happening?” Gupta Gupta backed up the recording and froze it.

asked. “We should have been woken again by A bipedal f igure, but with six limbs. The proximity alarms.”

body temperature exceeded background tem-

“The robot failed,” Hong said. She crouched perature, but not by much. A little more than over the small device that stood watch at the two meters tall, the AI calculated. A long base of their sand bar. One of the simpler ro-head. Bilateral symmetry. Two eyes. It looked bots, the size of a schnauzer. It crouched on toward their wreck of a ship brief ly, before the stone, strangely immobile. “There is some diving aside.

kind of . . . corrosion inside.” Then, clearly Hong had slipped by her side. “I wonder,”

talking to herself, she added, “This makes no she said.

sense.”

Mbasi nodded. No more needed to be said.

Mbasi looked back at the trees. As she did, a They all shared the same thoughts: were these dark object sailed up in parabolic trajectory.

the descendents of the nuclear bomb

She realized nearly too late what she saw.

builders? Had their ancestors made the huge

“Watch out!” she cried. “Cover your heads!”

farms and the underground infrastructure?

She crouched down, hands over her fragile Had they once lifted satellites into orbit? And helmet.

if so, what had happened to them?

The stone passed over her. It would have

“There’s other motion in the trees, but I struck her, had she not ducked. It clattered can’t get a good image through the foliage,”

along the rocky pier.

Gupta said.

“Back up!” Gupta shouted. “Get away from

“We need to determine if they are intellithe beach!”

gent,” Mbasi said.

They ran as best they could up the spit of Hong grunted thoughtfully. “How can we
sand and black stone. Stones clattered down do that?”

around them, thrown from within the forest.

But it seemed they were already at the limit of

“There is your answer,” Gupta said. They
the range of their attackers, who wanted to re-had suited up with the sunrise and walked to main hidden in the trees. Hong lugged the the edge of the beach.

small robot that had stood guard, trailing be-Mbasi stared in wonder. The “trees,” as they hind, but in seconds she too had moved be-called them, had a dark green outer covering.

yond the trajectory of any of the hurled rocks.

She had found evidence on the log she had ex-They continued to run till they stood by the amined that this layer photosynthesized. But tent. The shower of stones stopped.

under this green shell was a pale cellulose

“Welcome to our planet,” Mbasi said, be-
core, very much like wood, though nearly
tween gasps. Running in the heavier gravity, white.

with a full suit, exhausted her.

Figures had been scratched in the bark,

Gupta grunted. “I suspect that we’re fright-white hieroglyphs on the green-black surface.

ening. But note that they have no other

The nearest trees looked like stelae at some weapons. Not even a musket. Just perhaps
ancient temple, covered with intricate runes.

slings. The stones seem about the right size

“It’s writing,” Mbasi said.

for it.”

“We don’t know that,” Gupta said. “It could Hong set the robot down by the tent. She
just be decorative.”

opened the panel on its back. Mbasi and Gup-

“That also would indicate some intelli-
ta looked over her shoulder. At first, the inte-gence,” Hong said.

rior of the bot seemed normal. But then Hong Gupta shook his head, making his helmet
produced a small probe from her belt and
shake. “We can’t be certain.”

stuck it in among the circuits. At its tip, a But Mbasi felt certain. Some of the f igures clump of what appeared to be lichen crowded repeated, but a few looked unique, here and between several chips. Bright blue, shot
there. Did one read top to bottom, or bottom through with streaks of green.

up? Either way, the patterns looked complex

“What is it?” Gupta asked.

but not random, as if a syntax had been ex-Hong looked up at Mbasi. “Seems your ex-
pressed in the ordering of the symbols.

pertise is needed here, Doctor Mbasi.”

ORPHANS

99

ANALOG

She nodded. “Let me get a scope on it. Let’s

“It’s not the tent,” Hong said, over radio.

bring it over to the external biolab.”

“It’s my suit.”

Hong lifted the robot. But while she walked toward the probe that sat on the other side of Hong stood by the cargo airlock of the ship, the tent, Mbasi glanced at their ship. She froze where she had been unloading a second
in place.

perimeter robot. She had intended to wrap it A patch of blue covered the metal, a meter in plastic, to protect the metals inside, before above the sea level.

setting it up for guard duty. But as she worked, her suit’s depressurization alarm triggered,

“It appears to be a symbiont,” Mbasi said. “A sending its warning by radio to all the ground complex colony of organisms that pass mole-crew.

cules around, and collectively benefit not only She stood now on the other side of the clear from the oxidization of iron, but also from the tent, looking at them forlornly.

oxidation of other metals, such as tin and tita-

“Where is the leak?” Gupta asked her.

nium. I think they also excrete some corrosive

“In the helmet seal ring,” she said.

substance. It’s going to be hard to straighten Mbasi stood there, mouth open, staring at out all this biochemistry. It’s complex.”

Hong through the rippled fabric window of She and Gupta sat in the tent, looking at her the tent. The engineer tried to keep a brave tablet and the images of biolab data. Gupta face, but her eyes were wide. “Maybe nothing held his tablet in his hands, and Nilsson, still in got in,” Mbasi said.

the ship and working now on the cold sleep Hong shook her head. “I can smell the plan-cell, answered from it.

et.”

“What possible benef it can the organism

“All right, I’m bringing you all in,” Nilsson get from titanium oxide?”

said.

Mbasi shook her head. “It is hard to specu-

“Sir, you cannot,” Hong said. There was a late. Nothing on Earth makes use of such ox-catch in her voice but she spoke sharply, clear-ides.”

ly.

“Perhaps,” Gupta said, “nothing on this

“We’ll scrap your suit,” the captain said.

planet does either. This symbiont colony

“Sir, Captain, they’re in me now,” she said.

could be engineered. It might not benef it

“Or they may be. This stuff that eats metal, it’s from its action.”

biological. Airborn. If I come into the ship, Mbasi said, “But that’s not the worst of it.

then these microorganisms come into the

It’s very corrosive. Very fast. I scraped it off ship. They could destroy essential systems.”

the ship and the metal underneath is already A long silence hissed on the radio line.

pitted and scarred.”

Mbasi could picture the captain, eyes unfo-

“A weapon?” Nilsson said.

cussed, thinking furiously as he ruffled his di-

“But wait a minute,” Mbasi said. “The Hex-sheveled blond hair. Finally, Nilsson asked, es—”

“Gupta, don’t we have some emergency vac-

“Hexes?” Nilsson interupted.

cuum sacks?”

“Our name for the natives. Hexapedal or-

Mbasi had seen them only in training. Bags ganisms. The Hexes threw rocks at us. How that you could stuff crew into in an emer-could they be attacking us with biological gency, to seal up with a small air supply.

weapons, but also be reduced to rock throw-

“Yes,” Gupta said.

ing?”

“We wrap Hong, bring her in with that. Her Before Nilsson could answer, a high-pitched suit will supply the air. We get her into cold alarm sounded. The decompression warning.

sleep.”

The klaxon initiated a reaction that was al-

“It should work.”

most spinal, so many times they had drilled

“All right. You and Mbasi went through de-Mbasi in training. She had her helmet on and contamination?”

locked within two seconds.

“Full suite,” Gupta said. The tent’s airlock Gupta was nearly as fast. He looked around had an ultraviolet and alpha radiation bath.

the tent, wondering if it might deflate around

“Gupta, you and Mbasi are coming in right them.

now. We get you in the ship, one of you

100

CRAIG DELANCEY

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
comes out with the bag for Hong.”

“What do you mean?”

The decompression klaxon sounded again.

“I think a small organism, something hiding By ref lex, Mbasi checked her suit’s seals. All in the sand, bit it. Maybe it too eats plastic.”

tight.

“Gupta,” the captain called, “Hong. Did you

“What is it?” Nilsson shouted.

learn anything from the robot you sent into

“The tent is deflating!” Gupta shouted.

the bush?”

Mbasi switched her view on her tablet from Mbasi started toward the end of the tent, a data feed to the camera on Gupta’s tablet. It where the strong material began to sag. She jarred her, to see him without his helmet on, leaned forward, searching for the leak. But with blue sky behind his head. But he and Gupta grabbed her arm and pulled hard. She Hong had both taken their helmets off, after let him lead her, for a moment unsure of what the failure of the seals. Keeping them on did he meant to do. He shoved her toward the air-nothing now.

lock to the ship.

“The robot failed,” Hong replied. “But not

“Get inside,” he told her. “I’m coming af-before it found one of those underground lines ter.”

Hong identified from orbital radar. It managed She opened her mouth to protest, but Gup-to release a digger and send back some data.

ta shoved her again toward the door, and she The digger found that it was mostly f iber op-understood that they needed speed now, not tics, and below these some kind of ceramic a debate about order. She ducked and walked metal that looks like it might be a superconduc-the short, bobbing umbilicus to the airlock.

tor. But everything is sheathed in a glass tube.”

The door slid open. She climbed in. After the

“So no rot down there?” Nilsson asked.

door closed, Gupta punched at the exterior

“No.”

commands. Double decontamination, with

“These symbionts are perhaps high oxygen
microbio check between cycles.

users,” Gupta said. “That subsoil environment

“No!” Mbasi shouted. That meant the de-
is too anaerobic for them.”

contamination would repeat as long as it de-

“Perhaps,” Mbasi said. “But another possib-tected very complex carbon molecules free in lity is that none of them can eat glass.”

the atmosphere of the lock. As chief biologist,

“That would explain why our tablets con-
such a determination should be hers, not Gup-tinue to function,” Hong said. “They are en-ta’s. And now the decontamination cycle
tirely encased in glass.”

could take tens of minutes, if not an hour.

“All right,” the captain said, “I am going to When she finally climbed into the ship and warm up the reactor. The plan is still good.

pulled her helmet off, she called to Gupta.

Mbasi will bring out two emergency shells.

He said what she feared he would say: “My We’ll wrap you both, and bring you in. You helmet seals have failed.”

can stay in the wrap in cold sleep.”

“Captain,” Mbasi said. “I don’t think we can

“It’s another symbiont,” Mbasi told Nilsson.

do it.”

She sat on a sideways ladder along the curved

“What?”

wall, reading data off her tablet. “But it ap-She felt a lump in her throat. It hurt. A pain pears that this one eats plastics.”

she’d not felt since she had left Earth, since

“How did it act so fast? You went through she had watch her husband Bashala go into decontamination coming into the tent. So
cold sleep, to pass the two centuries of her Gupta was exposed only for a few minutes, af-trip. “The ship, and the reactor, won’t last.

ter that.”

The rate of oxidation and decomposition is

“I think that it got into his suit earlier, deep too fast. I think there are lots of microorgan-into the seals on the helmet, so that deconta-isms out there, specialized in different metals mination couldn’t get to it. And if that’s right, and plastics. The ship will be falling apart then I may have brought it into the airlock, within months.”

where I left my suit.”

She listened to the silence on the line. Hong The captain grunted.

and Gupta were listening, but they said noth-

“There’s more,” Mbasi said. “The tent
ing.

seemed to have a tear.”

“The biolab is still working,” Mbasi added.

ORPHANS

101

ANALOG

“Many of its parts are glass coated; I suppose She turned on the thrust. The ship shud-that’s why. So, I’ve sequenced the DNA of the dered and then creaked. She looked again at two symbionts. And I had already sequenced the anterior screen view. The air shimmered the DNA of the trees, and a number of mi-from the heat, but the f lames only reached a croorganisms from the sea. The symbionts are few meters. Four of the Hexes had come out very different than those organisms.”

on to the beach. They abandoned their slings

“We expected that, didn’t we?” Gupta said.

and fled, dropping onto four limbs. Only then

“It just means they’re engineered.”

did Mbasi notice that they had tails. In seconds

“It could mean that. Or it could mean that they crossed the beach and leapt with other they are not native to this world.”

dark figures into the forest.

“What are you saying?” Nilsson demanded.

She cut the steering engine and methodical-

“I can’t tell. They may be native to this ly reset the safeties.

world. But also: what if the civilization here

“Report,” Nilsson called. “Is everyone un-got off the planet, just as we have, and visited harmed?”

another world. And there, they encountered

“We’re fine,” Gupta said.

these organisms. And then they brought them Mbasi stared at the forest on the monitor.

home, and it ruined their civilization.”

The dark branches nodded in a gentle wind.

“That’s pure speculation,” Nilsson said.

“It’s possible. And it means we cannot ac-Gupta showed them an exterior view of the cept a rescue mission.”

ship, panning his tablet as he walked the pier

“We don’t—”

of sand. A layer of blue-green lichen covered

“Ah!” Gupta shouted.

the hull. And something like insects hovered The view on Gupta’s tablet became frenet-over it, f illing the air with delicate white ic, a jumble of sky, stone, and water as he be-wings.

gan to run. “Get on the other side of the tent,”

“Those came this morning,” Gupta said,
he called to Hong.

pointed at the f lying organisms. “I can’t tell Mbasi changed her tablet’s view feed to the what they do. Eat the lichen maybe? Or spread anterior of the ship, facing the beach. A hail of it?”

stones came from the trees. And out of the

“I’ll catch one and study it,” Mbasi said. She dark green forest, tall f igures now emerged, looked at the captain, who sat beside her swinging slings.

silent, trying to hide his despair. She could sympathize. He had been captain of one of the

“Gupta,” Mbasi shouted. “Where are you? I greatest ships ever made by human beings. He can’t see you on any monitor.”

had responsibility for it and for the mission.

A bang made Mbasi jerk in surprise. To any-And now he watched the ship rot, stranding one trained for space, the sound of impact on his crew.

a ship always caused deep and instinctual anx-

“We have a problem,” Nilsson said finally. “If iety. A second later, a chorus of clanging be-the rate of corrosion continues as Mbasi sus-gan, as many stones pelted the hull. She
pects it will, then eventually the fuel could leak.

would almost rather they hit her.

There is a lot of fuel in the steering engines. We

“We’re heading down the sand bar!” Gupta
could have a catastrophic explosion.”

called.

“But we still need shelter,” Mbasi said. “We Nilsson watched as Mbasi turned off the en-can’t leave the ship.”

gine safeties. He knew immediately what she

“We have thought of this,” Hong said, look-intended to do, and he assisted her, snapping ing to Gupta. “We build a structure. Of glass.”

up the heavy toggle switches that activated

“How?” the captain said.

the steering controls.

“We will make a furnace,” Gupta said. “And

“We’re going to burn the anterior control burn the fuel to heat it. We’ll make glass bricks jets,” Mbasi said. “They’re facing the Hexes.

of sand. They’ll be opaque, but strong. We’ll The captain is trimming the nozzles. Large dis-build a structure here out of the bricks. It can persion. Should be hot, and noisy, but not shelter us from a rock barage, at least. And if dangerous at this distance. Still: Gupta, Hong, the bugs can’t eat glass, then we’ll have a get back.”

structure that might last a while.”

102

CRAIG DELANCEY

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

“All this distance we’ve come,” the captain tition, and it has been seeding these organisms said, his voice full of sorrow. “All this distance.

on other worlds.”

And now my crew will be marooned here in a

“Yes,” Mbasi said. “And there is a worse pos-house of glass.”

sibility. What if these organisms evolved natu-

“Captain,” Mbasi said, “our mission is not a rally?”

waste. We can study these organisms. These . . .

“You said they were foreign to this planet.”

technophages. And share our f indings with

“I said they were very distant relatives of Earth.”

what I’ve observed, if they are relatives. But But the captain stared at his ship, seeming what if every ecosystem eventually evolves or-not to hear her.

ganisms that can eat technology? It took millions of years for fungi to evolve the trick of

“I believe,” the captain said to Mbasi. He breaking down cellulose, so that they could had paced the ship an hour, thinking, while eat dead trees. Maybe after a long time, nature outside Hong and Gupta began preparations evolves organisms that can eat our technolo-for their furnace. “I believe that we should gies.”

stay with our plan. We should go into cold Nilsson gave a thoughtful growl. “All of
sleep, with Hong and Gupta in vaccuum
these alternatives are dangerous to the human sacks. After they build the glass structure as race.”

our backup.”

Mbasi nodded. “We must study this, Cap-

Mbasi understood that the captain was ask-tain. We must learn how this threat can be ing for her opinion. He was not transmitting avoided on Terra. As long as our tablets work, what he said to Hong and Gupta. He wanted we can send data to the communication satel-help, not acquiescence.

lites, for storage and transmission to Earth. Fu-

“The ship can’t last a hundred years. It can’t ture missions can recover what we’ve
last a single year.”

learned.”

“I understand that. But every day we spend

“What makes you think we can find a way
in cold sleep increases our chance of survival to defeat these organisms?” Nillson said. “Sure-and rescue.”

ly the Hexes tried.”

“Captain,” Mbasi said softly. “We have to Mbasi shrugged. “Whatever we learn, it can use all the resources of the ship, before they help Earth. And if we get lucky and start to see fail, to study these organisms.”

ways to defeat these organisms, then maybe it

“Our first responsibility is to survive.”

won’t just be the Hexes that we can help. If

“No. Our first responsibility is to Earth. You this happened elsewhere, then other civiliza-said it: Fermi’s paradox. Why is the Universe tions can be saved.”

seemingly so full of life, but so silent? Our The captain f inally stopped pacing and
planetary surveys f ind thousands of planets looked at Mbasi. “Everything depends on you.

each year. Many of those planetary systems You’re our biologist. You’ll have to help us fig-have worlds of size and location similar to ure out how to survive here, as long as we Earth. We have visited two of these stars, and can. We’ll need food, we’ll need to learn what at each we have found life-covered, Earth-like we can eat. And you’ll have to show us how to worlds. Everything indicates a Galaxy full of help you study this . . .” he looked at the hull life. But: we hear no intelligent life. How is this above his head, as if expecting the corruption possible? Perhaps here is evidence for a new to show through, “this technological rot.”

hypothesis. Biological weapons that destroy

“Let’s go outside,” Mbasi said, “to tell the technology. Throwing each technological civi-others.”

lization back to a pretechnological era.”

She left her helmet behind, as she walked to

“You’re saying that this has spread, system the airlock.

to system?”

“It’s not implausible. A technological civi-Mbasi thought long and hard about what to lization evolves, they visit another world, and say to Bashala, but nothing seemed adequate.

bring the organisms home.”

They would send a message to Earth now, it The captain frowned. “Or, it’s possible that would arrive in eight years, and he would be there is a civilization that doesn’t like compe-taken from cold sleep, and left alone on an ORPHANS

103

ANALOG

Earth a century older. What could she say to the forest. She had covered it the day before him, how could she apologize? She had taken with a huge dried leaf of some form of sea him from his family, and now she had taken plant that often washed ashore. Soft shells on herself away from him.

the beach could be used like chalk to write on Later, she would send a diary. Maybe he
its surface. The natives had scrawled some-would appreciate that. My life on an alien thing there. She took a picture with her tablet planet. Day by day, they could share being and then wiped the leaf clean. She picked up a lonely on new worlds.

shell and sketched a human f igure. Below it, But for this f irst message, she said simply, she wrote, MBASI.

“I’m sorry. You be the stubborn one now. And She set the shell on the ground. She would be strong. Earth needs you.”

bring objects tomorrow, to name. After developing a repetoire of names, she would try The stone felt cool under Mbasi’s bare feet.

verbs. This was going to take a long while. But The sky had been gray for several days, a sea-then, she was not going anywhere.

son of rains and crashing waves after the many She stood. Something moved in the forest.

long days of summer. Mbasi looked back from She started in fear. But no stones came at her.

the beach toward their fortress of glass. It was No missiles rained over the tree tops. She a strangely beautiful structure, of pale gold.

heard only the sound of the wind turning the Hong proved to be an elegant architect. In the trapezoidal leaves.

sun, it glittered, though inside it could grow Eyes glittered in the shadows. She held her stiffling warm during the day. But in this gray breath and stared. Her heart hammered. She light, it seemed to be made of pale stone.

raised her hand. An instinctual human act, to

“Hurry,” Gupta shouted from where he
hold out an open hand in greeting. The Hex stood by the door to their home. The shout raised one of its four hands, the black pad of turned into a hacking cough that bent him the palm spread wide.

over. He’d started coughing several weeks be-They stared at each other, across the gulf fore. It got worse every day. The rest of the between stars: two orphans of technology. ■
crew had begun exchanging worried glances.

Beside Gupta, what remained of their ship Craig Delancey is a writer and philoso-was a heap of glass and ceramics, all that had pher. In addition to stories in Analog, he has proved indigestible. With an effort, Gupta published in Lightspeed, Cosmos, Shimmer, straightened and waved, signalling that she Nature Physics, and other magazines. His should move more quickly. He didn’t like her novel Gods of Earth is available now from getting too close to the tree line, this late in the 47North Press. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, he day. She nodded and turned back to her task.

lives now in upstate New York and, in addi-A pylon of glass sat in the sand. Hong had tion to writing, teaches philosophy at Os-forged it for her, with the last of the fuel for wego State, part of the State University of their furnace. Mbasi bent over the side facing New York (SUNY).

You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

—Jane Goodall

104

CRAIG DELANCEY

The

Absence

Robert R. Chase
eneral Sam Pendleton hated the term
drites into buckytubes and then weaved them

“spinnerets” for the space elevator
together into three inch cable, were still launch nodes. It brought spiders to
called spinnerets. So with the arguments

Gmind, and those who feared the pro- about nomenclature mostly settled, and loca-ject were already using the imagery to stir up tion (South China Sea) of Sea Anchor, the opposition. Political cartoons showed asteroid floating ground station and geographic spon-2025 DB3 (renamed Sky Hook since being
sor (Singapore) chosen long before he was ap-nudged into geosynchronous orbit) as a huge pointed project manager, Pendleton was able spider trying to ensnare and ultimately crush to focus the attention of his team on practical the entire Earth.

matters. How to move Sky Hook safely from When you become a general, you realize
its orbit out by Mars to a point directly above that half your fights are going to be political, Earth’s equator. How to supply Sky Hook, it-and the more stars you get, the more political self a solid chunk of interplanetary iron, with they become. As project manager of the multi-the carbon rich planetoids that could be bronational Highway to the Stars program, he had ken down and weaved into cable. How to hurl spent uncounted hours in meetings trying to the end of the cable beyond Sky Hook’s minis-come up with inoffensive and unalarming
cule gravity field so that Earth’s gravity could terms for every aspect of the effort. The origi-pull it steadily down as it grew. And always, nal designation for the elevator had been a how to extend each microscopic tube down
beanstalk before a consultant had pointed out to Earth unbroken.

that not only did the beanstalk come down at Pendleton’s mission command office in Sea the end of the fairy tale, but the countryside Anchor overlooked the mission control room suffered the additional impact of a falling gi-with its forty scientists and engineers watch-ant. This was not the image anyone wanted ing every aspect of the project. Maintaining the public to associate with the program.

Sky Hook’s position was the concern of the Somehow, though, the ejection ports on
scientists in the back two rows. As the cable the factory, which spun carbonaceous chon-extended itself toward the Earth, the center of THE ABSENCE

105

ANALOG
gravity would also move down and pull Sky

“Would Hollowell know?” Pendleton asked.

Hook out of geosynchronous orbit. Putting an

“If anyone,” Weber said.

equal amount of mass above the geosynchro-

“Where is he?’

nous point maintained balance. In his dreams, Weber made an exasperated sound. “Try his Pendleton found himself on a tightrope having quarters.”

to extend both ends of his pole simultaneously to keep from falling.

There was no answer from that phone either.

(Controlling Sea Anchor was the job of Cap-Lacking anyone to send in his place, Pendleton tain Chang and his crew on the bridge three took the elevator down two levels to find Hol-decks above. Chang joked with the media that lowell’s combination laboratory/living quarters.

he was the only captain whose task it was to It was below the water line, in what was mostly keep his vessel from going anywhere at all.) a storage area. No other members of staff or The scientists in the first two rows, directly crew lived this far down. Pendleton had to conunder the huge television screens that took up tinuously orient himself to keep from getting the entire front wall, oversaw the construc-lost in the dimly lit and oddly planned corridors.

tion of the cable, most of which was being He found Hollowell’s door after a little difficul-done by robots. Any member of the three
ty and knocked on it. There was no response.

groups who noticed problems was to relay

He turned the knob and pushed the door open.

them to Pendleton for resolution. On his own, A wave of heat rolled out at him. A heady Pendleton could access the data on anyone’s mixture of spices filled the air. Candles were screen. He finished scanning the noon update set around the perimeter in a complex pattern summaries and frowned. He tapped in the sta-he could not quite comprehend. A table stood tion number for John Hollowell and listened in the center. Hollowell leaned over it, holding for six rings before he noticed that Hollowell’s the limp form of a cat.

station at the end of the first row was vacant.

Pendleton tried to blink away the strange-He pressed the number for Aristotle Weber, ness, to force himself to concentrate on the who answered at once.

problem that had brought him down here.

“Dr. Weber, I see that several of your indica-

“Tube weave is diverging into suboptimal con-tors are edging into the yellow. Is there a prob-f igurations. Weber can’t say why or how to lem?”

readjust the process.”

“I don’t know.”

“I am well aware of the situation,” Hollow-In a way, that answer was more disturbing ell said. For the first time, Pendleton noticed than an emergency siren would have been.

the monitor screen tacked to the wall. It dis-However, one thing Pendleton had learned
played all the same indicators that had wor-was that Weber was both completely honest ried him in mission command.

and precise in what he said. Unlike Hollowell,

“For all his degrees and publications,” Hol-his supervisor.

lowell continued, “Weber is scarcely more

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

than a technician. Of course he has no idea

“We have never established the theoretical what to do.”

maximum strength of the buckytube weave,”

“And you do?”

Weber said. “Every test we have run indicates

“Certainly.” Hollowell said. He placed the that the cable should be stronger than the max-cat on the table. “It’s drugged,” he told Pendle-imum weight it will have to bear, certainly ton. His voice was oddly pleading, as if trying much stronger than the stresses being put upon to justify himself. “I hate suffering of any kind.”

it now. But we have never been able to test si-An oddly curved dagger appeared in his
multaneously for strength in a vacuum while hand. With one swift movement, he plunged subject to day/night temperature swings.”

it into the cat’s chest. Blood spread over the Hollowell had devised the process for man-table, outlining grooves Pendleton had not ufacturing buckytubes of arbitrarily long previously noticed.

lengths. He had done this largely through ex-

“Are you crazy?” Pendleton asked.

perimentation, prompting Weber and others Hollowell nodded at the monitor screen.

to worry that “it seems to work in practice, The readings retreated until every one of them but who knows if it works in theory?”

was green.

106

ROBERT R. CHASE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

* * *
stillness. Yet as he sank, he became aware of John Hollowell traced his life, what he came something he could not quite identify. He was to think of as his “real life,” from his participa-in the room, and Higgs was in the room talk-tion in a psychology experiment when he was ing to his autopilot self, but there was some-twenty-three years old. Like many of his class-one, something else. After a while, he realized mates, John was caught in a tightening vise as that it was sitting directly across from him. It tuition rose while student aid dried up. So was not a presence so much as an absence but when he saw that volunteers for a project of an absence that became increasingly defined.

Dr. Higgs would receive twenty five dollars an Hollowell became aware of a man’s outline, hour, he jumped at the opportunity.

not seen but felt. It was familiar. It was the out-

“Lysergic acid diethylamide,” Higgs said, line of his own body.

“LSD as it is more generally known. A drug

“Sometimes, people hear voices or halluci-with fantastic potential, but for almost three nate,” Higgs said. “Are you experiencing any-generations research has been banned be-
thing like that?”

cause of the grandstanding by people like Tim-Don’t tell him anything.

othy Lear y, not to mention the entire

Hollowell could never describe, even to

‘Generation of Love.’”

himself, how his doppelganger communicat-

Neither the term nor the name meant any-
ed with him. Sometimes it seemed that he was thing to Hollowell. Feeling some compulsion remembering something that had just been
to make a reply, he asked Higgs what he
said rather than hearing it. Other times, it as if hoped to accomplish with his research.

the words were gaps in white noise.

“I have a staircase of ambitions,” Higgs said.

“Nothing like that,” Hollowell said with a

“The f irst step is to prove that LSD, adminis-big smile. “Just the two of us here.”

tered with the proper precautions, is harmless.

Higgs frowned suspiciously but went back

I have added several buffering compounds to to stare at Hollowell’s readings on the laptop.

prevent what used to be called ‘bad trips.’

The session ended two hours later. Higgs

Once safety is established, I hope to employ it pronounced himself satisf ied and made Holas a therapeutic tool to alleviate the symptoms lowell promise to tell him if he experienced associated with post traumatic stress disorder.

any aftereffects.

Eventually, I would hope to take the third step You are the one conscious man in a sleep-and use an LSD variant as a means of personal-ing world. Every day you will become more ity integration for the general public.

completely your self. You will learn that

“Now drink this cup of tea. The LSD has been which has been hidden from the foundation dissolved in it. You will sit here and answer the of the world.

questions I will from time to time ask you. I will monitor your vital signs remotely. You will tell

“I want him off this project and off this stame immediately if you experience anything tion.” Pendleton sat back and surveyed his strange or disturbing. Do you understand?”

board of directors. The telescreen had man-He did not ask if you agree to his terms.

aged to fit them into equally sized rectangles,

“Yes,” Hollowell said. He swallowed the
with the result that each was too small to con-overly sweet tea.

vey much in the way of personal expression.

There was a sense of time having passed,

What he had hoped to see was anger and perthe way you feel after an impromptu nap. He haps even fear. What he seemed to be seeing looked up at the wall clock. Not quite a min-was hesitation and embarrassment.

ute had elapsed. He wondered if he should After a short pause it was his immediate
mention this to Higgs but he felt too relaxed, boss, the secretary of defense, who spoke.

too distanced, to do so. In any event, a part of

“Sam, you can’t just toss Hollowell. Without him was already conversing with Higgs
his work on carbon bonding, there would be though it was hard to hear what they were no project. Even Weber admits that Hollowell saying. It was like when he had been swim-is the only one who fully understands the maming and his ears were filled with water. The terials science involved.”

words were distinct, but very far away.

“Your wonder boy just killed a cat in some He settled into himself, savoring his own sort of ritual,” Pendleton said.

THE ABSENCE

107

ANALOG

“Was it the pet of someone on the station?”

nical prima donnas. I fully understand that Chedwick-Smythe, the British director asked.

Hollowell can be the most irritating of this

“Not that I have been able to determine.”

group. But we all agree that his expertise is

“Well then, under the compact, Sea Anchor necessary to success of the mission.

is under the criminal laws of Singapore,”

“I am trying to save this project from a pub-Chedwick-Smythe continued. “Is killing a cat a lic relations disaster,” Pendleton said. “We al-violation of Singapore law?”

ready have televangelists calling it an inverted Ong Soh Ling repressed a smile. “There are Tower of Babel. If they knew the main scien-laws against cruelty to animals,” she said.

tist was practicing sorcery—”

“However, I believe General Pendleton said

“I am sure that you will be watching for any that the cat was drugged before being killed, further aberrant actions on his part,” the that Dr. Hollowell said that he hated suffering.

SecDef said. “It is now part of your job to pre-So those laws would be inapplicable. If it was vent any such actions until the cable is fully someone’s pet, then there might be an action lowered and connected to Sea Anchor. There for destruction of personal property but you is to be no scandal or bad publicity associated have already said that is not the case.

with this project. Do we understand each oth-

“The only relevant law may be one against er, General?”

feral animals within city limits. Under some Pendleton gritted his teeth. “Yes, sir.”

circumstances, Dr. Hollowell would be able to

“Very good.”

claim a small bounty for disposing of a crea-The meeting was over.

ture covered by those laws.”

“It was not just the killing of the cat,”

Pendleton put his own spin on the meeting Pendleton insisted. “It was the way the crea-when he confronted Hollowell.

ture was killed. This was part of some obscure

“The directors are very concerned about
ritual, the blood was captured in specially de-anything that might generate negative publici-signed grooves—”

ty,” Pendleton said. “I have been ordered to

“Be careful, General,” Chedwick-Smythe
keep you on a short leash. Do your job. No oc-warned. “Moslems and some Jewish sects still cult rituals until we’re done.”

practice ritual butchery. You don’t want to be

“You tried to get me replaced,” Hollowell accused of antisemitism.”

said with a slight smile. “You failed. You tried Pendleton turned his attention to the Indian to resign. That failed as well. But with all your director. “Surely you, Mrs. Chatterjee, must tale-telling and alarmism, you forgot to tell object to this sort of behavior.”

them the most important detail.”

“I do f ind it disturbing, and I hate it when

“Which was what?” Pendleton asked.

any animal is killed, but I have to agree with

“That when I had completed the sacrifice, my colleagues. Dr. Hollowell is simply too imall the readings became optimal. That I had portant to be dismissed on such ambiguous saved the project.”

evidence.”

It was as if they were talking in different lan-The cable dropped into the Van Allen radia-guages despite the fact that all were using tion belts. Sky Hook technicians sent down a standard English. Pendleton took a deep
climber car to check for radiation damage. It breath. “I feared that might be your response.

stopped just before reaching the bottom. The Therefore, I have no choice but to tender my Sky Hook laser, which had been providing
resignation. If you cannot trust my recommen-power to the climber, shut down. Electrons, dations on personnel, then you should get a until that point, contained by the Earth’s mag-project manager whose evaluations are more netic f ield, f lowed into the superconductive in line with your own.”

coating the climber had applied to the cable

“No,” the SecDef said immediately. “Your
on its way down. Flowed into it and became a resignation is not accepted. You were chosen current strong enough to power the return because of your research and development
climb to Sky Hook.

background and your proven management ex-

The scientists and technicians in Mission pertise. It was understood when you took the Control stood and applauded. Pendleton
job that you would have be dealing with tech-stood with them, even though the coating had 108

ROBERT R. CHASE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
been devised by Hollowell. More than half the advisor, thinking that Hollowell would run scientif ic community had said that it would into difficulties immediately and so would be not work. That it could not work. They had forced to choose another topic.

been wrong, and now Hollowell’s name

Instead, his research began to pay off al-would join that of Franklin and Faraday.

most immediately. He learned how to make

Pendleton had time to think over their last buckytubes of an arbitrary length, how to private conversation. There was no need to at-braid them together into an almost unbreak-tribute magical powers to Hollowell. He might able “rope.” By doping the carbon chains ap-well have been able to predict, or even to propriately, he could make the rope a
have caused, the worrisome quality control superconductor, an insulator, or anything in readings. He would have been the first person between. Establishing a primitive circulatory Pendleton would consult in that situation, and system within the rope allowed it to be self-when it was discovered he was not at his mis-healing.

sion control station, it was easily foreseeable By this time, he had left graduate school, that Pendleton would go looking for him. He started his company, and was well on his way might even have had a confederate contact to his f irst billion. Einstein had a miraculous him when Pendleton left mission command so year. Hollowell had a miraculous decade.

that both cat and altar would be ready when When asked at a conference how he knew to he entered the room. And if he had predicted attack problems from such unusual angles, he or caused the quality control deviations, it would drop his eyes, smile with apparent
would have been just as easy to bring them modesty, and say, “Like Socrates, I am advised back in line coincident with killing the cat.

by a personal daemon.” And everyone would How was easy. The real question was why.

laugh.

Hollowell’s work on buckytubes had made

The Absence pressed at him night and day, him a billionaire before he reached thirty.

sometimes with more force, sometimes with Even if the space elevator failed disastrously, less, but constantly. Even as the scientific es-he would still be unimaginably rich. He would tablishment was captured by outmoded ideas still be the inventor whose work had made it that allowed advances, if any, only by tiny in-possible to build bridges of faery-like grace crements, so was he, Gulliver-like, held down and hang luxury apartments like Christmas or-by a legion of prejudices of which he was not naments from the highest skyscrapers.

even aware.

He had no need to impress anyone. Magic

“Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law,”

tricks would, if anything, alienate his col-had been the command of an earlier prophet, leagues. He had provoked a strong reaction but that barely scratched the surface. Saints do from Pendleton. Had that been the purpose, what they will, and what they will becomes to provoke a confrontation between them that increasingly narrowed to love, works of mer-would get Pendleton removed? If so, he had cy, and subjection to a will not their own. At failed. But there was no reason for Hollowell the opposite extreme, libertines are enslaved to move against him. They had worked well to their own appetites.

together before the incident. Even afterward, To be truly free, he had to endure discom-knowing that Pendleton was trying to get him fort, eat food that he did not like, and pay to fired, Hollowell had maintained a public atti-be humiliated by people he did not know.

tude of deferential politeness.

This was not to make him a masochist. It was That left one possibility—the most disturb-to free his will from any contradictory impuls-ing one of all. Hollowell had been performing es so he would be able to focus it with laser-ritual magic because he actually believed in it.

like intensity.

This reached its climax one night when he Hollowell never went back to Higgs after
woke to f ind that he was holding a knife the LSD session. He was too busy choosing a pointed at his heart. The Absence’s hand was thesis project and getting a faculty member to on his own, ready to push.

sponsor it. The latter was diff icult given the The only way to be free is not to care.

bizarre nature of some of his ideas. The head It was the ultimate test. There was no way he of the department eventually agreed to be his could deny the command without admitting

THE ABSENCE

109

ANALOG
that everything he had done in his career had Hollowell had no answer to that question, been a mistake—that what had looked like ge-but it raised another question he had generally nius was merely perversity. That admission avoided. Just what was this Absence? It
was unacceptable. He tightened his hands on seemed to be closer to being a doppelganger the hilt.

than anything else. What was a doppelganger?

There was a chittering from the corner of In mythology, it was the ghost of a living per-the room. Momentarily distracted, Hollowell son, a spirit double usually associated with glanced in the direction of the noise. Two bad luck or even death. Not that either had small eyes regarded him with what seemed to been Hollowell’s experience. Moreover, the be cool curiosity. As a child, he had thought traditional doppelganger resembled its origi-rats cute and had had one as a pet for a short nal in all ways. The Absence was at most an time.

outline, perceptible at all because nothing With one convulsive movement, he threw
seemed to be within it. Obviously, it was part the knife, pinning the rat to the wall.

of himself—a part to which he did not have Acceptable. For now.

full access even after Higgs’ experiment—but that did not explain its less than ghostly ap-The cable descended into the upper atmo-
pearance. He got no further with the question sphere where it was attacked by atomic oxy-this time than the last time he had considered gen. The usual protection, a thin layer of gold, it.

was both too expensive and would add too

Ten days later, his phoned buzzed as he left much weight. During the design phase, Hol-the morning status brief ing. The screen dis-lowell had concluded that any coating, beplayed the name of Fr. Raymond Theofandis.

sides adding weight, would eventually f lake Hollowell frowned and pressed the “accept”

off and leave the cable unprotected. His solu-button. A man about his age with a dark beard tion was to take advantage of the cable’s self-and what appeared to be an Orthodox cross healing properties. For that to work, though, hanging from his neck appeared on screen.

he had to know how quickly the atomic oxy-

“Am I speaking to Dr. Hollowell, Dr. John gen would degrade the cable. Would the car-Hollowell?” the man asked.

bon slurr y coming through the cable’s

“You are,” Hollowell answered.

circulatory system be able to heal the cable

“You were a student at Machen University
faster than the oxygen could corrode it? Run-fifteen years ago?”

ning the numbers, Hollowell found that it de-

“I was. What’s this all about? I am rather pended how quickly the slurry could travel busy at the moment.”

from Sky Hook to the site of corrosion and, of

“Yes, of course. We obtained your name
course, how corrosive the atmosphere was
from the records of Dr. Jeremiah Higgs and along whatever length it was exposed to atom-your phone number from the alumni office. I ic oxygen. The data he had on the upper
regret that I have to tell you that Dr. Higgs was atmosphere indicated that these last two val-killed two days ago.”

ues were highly variable. Most of them gave

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hollowell said au-answers within the safety parameters.

tomatically. A feeling of dread began to grow In another week, the tip of the cable would within him.

drop to the height of the jet streams. Under

“He was killed by two former students of
most conditions, the jet streams themselves the University. Like us, they took part in Dr.

would stay well to the north and south of the Higgs’ LSD experiments. You may remember
cable. Yet there were times when they would that Dr. Higgs talked of ‘buffering’ the dosages droop toward the equator. If that happened, to prevent adverse reaction and HPPD—”

the cable would be subjected to torque, and

“HPPD?” Hollowell interrupted.

its tip would swing away from the vertical and

“Excuse me, that’s Hallucinogen Persisting Sea Anchor.

Perception Disorder,” Theofandis said. “Persis-It had taken the sacrifice of a cat to get the tent f lashbacks. It appears his buffering was composition and weave of the cable back
ineffective; he thought it worked because it within parameters. What would it take to heal made his subjects reluctant to talk about hallu-a more serious breach?

cinations or mood disorders. Anyway, the

110

ROBERT R. CHASE

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

County Sheriff’s office and the DEA are inves-ered over the station. But just when it seemed tigating the murder. They have asked for help that they would collapse upon the station and in contacting everyone who was part of Dr.

pull it to the bottom, Sea Anchor would rise up Higgs’ research to determine if they have suf-the f lanks of the waves, crash through the fered or are suffering similar symptoms.”

crests, and slide into the shadowed troughs. If

“You said ‘us’ earlier,” Hollowell said. “Were everything had gone according to schedule, you one of Higg’s subjects? Have you suffered this would have been the day when the cable HPPD as a result?”

would have made its final descent and been at-There was a long pause. “Either that, or
tached to Sea Anchor. Even though the ty-
something much, much worse. It challenged phoon was far over the eastern horizon, the my most basic perceptions and beliefs. I had disturbance it was creating in the upper atmo-to take some radical steps to regain my mental sphere as well as the succession of waves it and emotional balance.”

was sending against them had forced a post-His hand strayed to the silver cross.

ponement. The cable was no longer a point in

“I can assure you that I have had no halluci-the sky directly above the station. High winds nations nor any other sort of personality disor-had blown it off the vertical. If something so der,” Hollowell said firmly.

thin could have been seen at all, it would have Theofandis stared at him doubtfully. “That is appeared to be a line across the sky.

excellent news,” he said. “I am texting you my

“Just like it’s supposed to,” Captain Chang e-mail address and phone number. If you do said, his face split in a savage grin. He was have any symptoms that you think might be making the rounds of the glass enclosed ob-related to Dr. Higgs’ experiments, even some-servation deck to spread his conf idence that thing as relatively minor as a disturbing night-high seas were nothing to Sea Anchor. He
mare, do not hesitate to contact us. Machen gave Hollowell a hearty slap on his back, who University has promised to pay for any neces-forced a smile in return. The shifting angle of sary treatments.”

the deck as well as the tug of the anchor Hollowell forced a smile. “I thank them and which, with the screw propellers, kept the you for your concern, but I have experienced station from drifting out of position were nothing of the sort. Now you must excuse
pushing Hollowell dangerously close to sea me.” Without waiting for a response, he sev-sickness.

ered the connection.

Hollowell’s cell phone pinged. It was

He had never really concerned himself with Pendleton. “Dr. Hollowell, please report to Higgs’ other students. The few times he had your station in mission control. We may have a wondered about them, he had concluded that situation developing.”

the LSD had no effect on most, and that the Hollowell took the elevator to mission con-others had, like him, kept their own counsel.

trol two decks below. Weber looked worried.

Now, according to Theofandis, it seemed that

“Take a look at this,” he said.

psychic liberation was too powerful for some Hollowell donned his headset and slaved his of the subjects. Even Theofandis had to wrap screen to Weber’s. A graphic appeared repre-himself in a culturally acceptable superstition senting the entire length of the cable. Parts of to regain stability.

it seemed to twitch. Notations on either side The only real danger was that Pendleton
of the cable, replete with relevant equations, might hear of this and use it to get him re-explained what they were seeing.

moved from the project. But surely Machen

“This has been increasing for the last half did not want to draw attention to what would hour.” Pendleton’s voice sounded tense
be considered their negligence. And in less through the earphones. “Is it going to be a than a month the cable would reach Sea An-problem?”

chor, and the first cars would be making their

“The cable is experiencing aeroelastic flut-run to Sky Hook. Success would be all the juster caused by high winds in the upper atmo-tification he would ever need.

sphere,” Weber said. “The vibrations are
converging on the natural frequency of the caThe waves marched toward Sea Anchor like
ble. If this just continues to build, we may be steel grey mountains, advancing until they tow-looking at a resonance disaster.”

THE ABSENCE

111

ANALOG

“That possibility was discussed in one of the screen at the front of the room, it was some-planning meetings.” Pendleton said. “There thing of an anticlimax. There was a puff of was supposed to be a countermeasure.”

dust, and the spinnerets vanished. Surprising-

“Vibrations can be sent up the cable to dis-ly, most of the cameras stayed online and rupt a potential resonance,” Weber said, “but showed that the asteroid itself had not been that has to be done from here, and we’re not shattered. But almost immediately, alarms hooked up yet. It was never supposed to hang sounded. Without the weight of the cable, Sky in the air this long.”

Hook was moving out to a higher orbit.

“There is no need to panic,” Hollowell said.

Hollowell tried to get over a horrified paral-

“We are not dealing with an airplane wing or ysis. His insights, his strength came from mag-the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. We are dealing ic. Magic power came from severing the
with woven buckytubes, the strongest materi-restraints that made everyone else weak.

al ever made. Look, I can give you rough cal-Killing the cat had been a minor example. This culations demonstrating that the stress being would require something far more powerful.

put on the cable is nowhere near sufficient to The whole room was in an uproar. In mis-break it.”

sion command, Pendleton was apparently in Hollowell keyed in the numbers under We-animated conversation with someone over his ber’s watchful eye. “As you can see, despite headset.

considerable stress being put upon the cable

“Is that the one who must be sacrif iced?”

when full resonance is achieved, no part of Hollowell asked.

the cable loses integrity.”

Weber grabbed his shoulder. “What was

Even though Pendleton could see every-
that?”

thing on his screen, none of the equations Hollowell shook off his arm and began to
meant anything to him. “Dr. Weber, do you make his way to the back of the room, to the concur with Dr. Hollowell’s conclusion?”

stairway that led up to mission command. Half

“I do . . .” Weber began
way there, he found the Absence directly in

“Of course,” Hollowell muttered.

front of him.

“. . . as far as the cable itself is concerned,”

I already have all of you.

Weber said. “I’m not so sure where the cable Hollowell stopped, trying to understand
is attached to Sky Hook. To make it simple, I what it had said. When he started moving
am going to take Dr. Hollowell’s figure for the again, he changed direction and entered the force exerted at the end of the cable and elevator. As it rose to the observation deck, he match that against the amount of force neces-worked out the details of the cable’s fall. It still sary to cut through solid iron. If that holds, I had the electrical charge that powered the test will refine the figures.”

car. It would gather more electricity during There was no need to do so. Even before
the descent that almost certainly would have Weber f inished the calculations, Hollowell to be discharged at some point. It would also saw that the cable would . . .

heat—not enough to burn up but certainly

. . . Slice through the asteroid like piano enough to be visible.

wire through a human throat.

A meteor falling from that height would

The Absence, hardly more than a barely per-punch a hole in Sea Anchor. The cable would ceptible outline, stood behind Weber. Cold not explode, but the combination of heat and amusement seemed to emanate from it.

kinetic energy would slice through the struc-

“What do I need to do?” Hollowell asked.

ture from top to bottom.

Weber looked up sharply. “I’m afraid there He stepped out on the Observation Deck.

is nothing any of us can do, except pray that Sea Anchor was in a trough but almost imme-my calculations are off.”

diately started climbing. Hollowell tried to ori-The graphic showing the entire cable reapent himself so that he would be looking east.

peared on their screens. The resonance ap-Sea Anchor crested the wave and seemed to peared a series of waves traveling up the cable hang motionless for an instant.

at supersonic speed. They watched helplessly On the horizon, a line of f ire reaching to as it raced toward the asteroid.

the sky, shedding lightning as it swept in The f irst wave hit. As viewed on the big and— ■

112

ROBERT R. CHASE

Arp! Arp!

Christina De La Rocha
he skies are grey with low, rolling
moment, I’ll have to make do with what re-clouds, and the ocean is a deep, empty
mains on my person: one heavy duty asthma green as the drone gut-twirlingly drops
inhaler, my favorite forceps, several pairs of Tdown. The balding man in a brown nitrile gloves, a bag of Whirl-Pak bags, and a suit and tie looks up, watching as I am de-small, six-shooting tranquilizer gun that can posited on the platform, and men in jump-stop a walrus but is far more likely to be used suits jump up to offload my gear.

against a sea otter that got up on the wrong

“Thank God,” the man says as I approach
side of the bed.

him. “It’s the marine biologist.”

Robert Robinson, scowling at my sparkly,

I blink at the man for a moment. His mean-purple rubber boots, leads me down the meting was loud and clear. You swim with dol-al corkscrew stairs and into the belly of the phins and are a colossal waste of my time.

underwater beast, or, more accurately, its He sets his jaw and extends his hand.

spine.

“Robert Robinson,” he says. This makes him

“This particular facility is the pioneer,”

the local facility director, at wits’ end.

Robert Robinson shouts as the hatch clangs

“Professor Monique Jackson,” I reply. That closed behind us. “It’s the living prototype of makes me the cultivatable marine life whis-the likes of which provide all forty-eight perer here to save his sorry ass.

states of the USA with the means to eat.”

My trunk disappears down the big hatch,

He means that this facility, together with en route to their lab, taking with it my basic dozens like it, provides the ample, steady, essentials: mask, f ins, snorkel, and wetsuit; and critical supply of phosphate fertilizer that pen-sized pulse-amplitude modulation f luo-we need to grow our food now that we’re
rometer; similarly pen-sized pH meter with past peak phosphorite.

oxygen microelectrode; DNA microarrays; fil-

“The most accessible, most phosphorous-
ters, gloves, pipettes, collection bags, sterile rich rocks, are gone, ” Robert Robinson
sample bottles; a pocket-sized, digitized set of mansplains as we clamber clanking down the identification keys for microplankton and in-stairs. “So we cannot mine for phosphorus vertebrates; and energy bars, toiletries, two fast enough to fertilize the crops we need to changes of clothes, and, for the stand-around-feed eight billion humans, just about as many and-wait times, a couple of the lurid celebrity cats and dogs, and, collectively, tens of bil-biographies that horrify Fred, my literaturelions of chickens, cows, pigs, sheep, and loving librarian spouse. This means for the goats.”

ARP! ARP!

113

ANALOG

Of course, we could have learned to recy-

“Whatever your feelings about the environcle phosphorus from sewage sludge and ef-
mental impacts and security risks of aquacul-f luent on a massive scale. But it lacked a ture, you have to admit, what we’ve come up certain appeal. That’s when the aquacultur-with here in the good old US of A is pretty ists of the world cleared their collective spiffy,” says Robert Robinson, rolling out a throat. Ocean waters hold a whopping great well-rehearsed spiel. “We’ve established an big bunch of phosphorus in the form of dis-army of oceanic bioreactors, each with the solved phosphate, we said. And there are al-area of a football f ield and a depth of thirty ready these nifty things known as
meters.”

phytoplankton, who’ve spent more than a These days there are dozens of tanks at
billion years perfecting the extraction proto-each National Oceanic Aquacultural Facility, col. If we give them light, a safe place, and a and there are dozens upon dozens of NOAFs.

steady supply of nutrient-rich seawater, they

“Each one of our tanks,” Robert Robinson
should just chug away, packing phosphate continues, “is strung through with bright into their tiny bodies as they exponentially lights and air-lift mixing systems.”

grow.

We reach another metal door. Robert

Robert Robinson stops us at a door.

Robinson puts on his sunglasses, opens it,

“To reach the culturing tanks,” he says, “we and waves me in, saying, “Ladies first.”

must pass through the Cuttlefish Room.”

The light is blinding. It makes no sense

I’m blinking at him again. This man is a
down here, beneath the waves. It takes me one-man band of disgruntled undertones.

some moments to realize we’re on a landing

“The road to Hell,” he sighs and braces
between two of the football field-sized cultur-himself.

ing tanks, and the water in the tanks is horrifI shoot him a questioning glance.

ically clear.

“On top of feeding humanity,” Robert

“Why not turn off the growth lamps?” I ask Robinson tells me, “we’re breeding a rare, lo-Robert Robinson, shading my eyes as I stare cal species of cuttlefish to save it from extinc-sadly down at the bottom of the tanks.

tion.” Then he pushes open the door and

They’re ankle deep in slime. I shudder. So walks in. A jet of water rises up out of one of much phytoplankton death. So much particu-the tanks and hits him squarely in the face.

late phosphate production ground to a halt.

It’s unprofessional, but I laugh.

“Two days ago,” Robert Robinsons says,

“She doesn’t like you,” I tell him.

“this tank was golden brown, that one was a

“Really?” he says, not grateful for my exper-brilliant green, and from top to bottom both tise. He dabs at his face with a hankie, mut-were thick as thieves.”

tering and swearing. “I hate that fish.”

“A massive, unexpected crash,” I murmur.

“It’s a mollusc,” I tell him.

I turn to Robert Robinson. “I think you

Robert Robinson gives me a look. I have
need to begin at the beginning.”

not made his day.

“The beginning . . .” He ponders for a mo-I walk over to the tank and look down at
ment what this means. “Okay. In the beginher, this broody cuttlef ish queen. She red-ning, we f ill each tank by pumping cool, dens and glares up at me, the ruff le running nutrient-rich water from several hundred me-round her like a bed-skirt thrumming angst-ters below the ocean’s surface into the tank at fully.

its bottom.”

“She’s not happy here,” I tell Robert Robin-Several hundred meters is deep enough to
son. “Let her go. She’s done her duty, and cut-hit nutrient pay dirt and to avoid a lot in the tlefish life is not long. Let her jet away.”

way of potentially fouling or contaminating Robert Robinson sets his jaw again. He’d
organisms.

rather wait a few more months, then watch

“How many exactly, more or less?” I ask.

her die. He wants to gloat as she thrashes,

“Meters? Two hundred.”

panicked, in the listing circles of senescence.

My eyebrows rise.

“Come on,” he tells me. “Time’s a-wasting.”

“We’re the test facility,” he tells me. “We do We go through the far door and resume
all the tinkering and testing. A deeper intake clunking down metal stairs.

pipe would be more trouble than it’s worth.”

114

CHRISTINA DE LA ROCHA

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

I’m not sure I agree, but I’m not the one time we assumed we hadn’t suff iciently de-footing the bill for the ROV.

contaminated the tanks after the f irst time.”

“Next,” Robert Robinson continues, “we

Robert Robinson sighs.

introduce a specif ic strain of phytoplankton

“But now yesterday.” He stops to shake his into each tank and allow it to grow.”

head. “Whatever the problem is, if it spreads Optimally, a fast growing strain with a high to other facilities . . .”

phosphorus to carbon ratio and no ability at His face grows ashen.

all to produce toxins.

So does mine.

“Meanwhile, the continuous input of cool,

“Something in the water,” I muse.

nutrient-rich water at the bottom of the tank Robert Robinson shoots me the like, wow, continuously displaces more nutrient-ex-they sent me a genius look.

hausted water full of phytoplankton from the

“Normally, the phytoplankton being fed di-top.”

rectly from the intake system grow fantasti-I stare into the length of one of the enor-cally,” he says, “some strains hitting three mous tanks—it would make a spectacular
divisions per day. Then, boom. Everybody in swimming pool—and try to feel the f low in every big tank is dead and sinking to the bot-my head.

tom. At which point we have to drain out

“We send the outf low from each tank,” he every single big tank, bleach out every single continues, “straight into continuously run-big tank, and then grow the tanks back up ning freeze-drying centrifuge units that spit into chemostat mode using stock shipped in out dense pellets of phytoplankton them-from our nearest NOAF neighbor.”

selves densely packed with carbon, nitrogen, Robert Robinson rubs his forehead. “I
and phosphorus.” He smiles at me. “These
hope I don’t have to tell you how long that pellets are perfect for eating (if you can stand takes, or how much work it is.”

the taste), for feeding to livestock (whose re-I breathe in and then breathe out deeply, sulting manure can be used to fer tilize
loudly, and sympathetically, because I can f ields), or for applying directly onto f ields as imagine, and I wouldn’t wish it on any aqua-fertilizer.”

culturer, not even Robert Robinson. Attain-What he doesn’t say, because it isn’t gering optimal continuous culture mode can be mane to the problem at hand, is that the
exhausting and elusive, even when your tank added bonus of growing phytoplankton to
is merely twenty liters and your f low rate but mine phosphorus from the ocean is that be-drips. Spinning up one (not to mention
cause phytoplankton stockpile nitrogen as dozens) of these 160 million liter tanks . . .

well as phosphorus, we’ve been able to turn I shake my head.

off all of our energy-guzzling ammonia pro-Robert Robinson growls, “We hadn’t even
duction plants (except for those producing reached equilibrium in all tanks before this ammonia for munitions because, well, war; last crash happened.”

you never want to get caught napping).

“Could I have a sample of some dead cul-

“And then you walked in yesterday to
ture water?” I ask him.

this,” I say.

“Here?” he asks. “Now? Or do you want it

Robert Robinson nods sadly.

sent to the lab?”

“First incident?” I ask.

I indicate now. My trunk’s in the lab, but I

“No,” Robert Robinson admits. “That was
have two eyes and a nose still on me.

a year ago. We chalked it up to some virus Robert Robinson walks over to what looks
sweeping through, so we just cleaned every-like an automated coffee machine on the wall thing out and started over.”

of one tank and presses a sequence of but-No report to Congress? No announcement
tons. A bottle pops down into a holder,
to the press?

there’s a whoosh, and the bottle begins to f ill

“Classif ied,” he says, reading my face.

rapidly, but gently. When it’s full, Robert

“So this is the second incident,” I say qui-Robinson brings the bottle over to me.

etly.

On my best cautious toxicologist behavior,

“No.” He shifts uncomfortably. “The sec-

I uncap it and wave my f ingers over the bot-ond incident came six months later. That
tle’s narrow neck until the odor wafts up and ARP! ARP!

115

ANALOG
out and reaches my nostrils.

ally I am able to croak, “Ever heard of apopto-When happy and healthy, at high popula-
sis?”

tion densities, the algae that had been grow-Robert Robinson thinks about this for a mo-ing in that tank smell clearly of cucumbers ment then says, “Cell suicide.”

and freshly mown lawn. It’s one of the best I clear my throat once or twice. “I’d be will-smells in the world. Paddling through a thick ing to wager,” (pause for a wheeze), “that bloom of these phytoplankton out in the wild someone has used the water intake pipe . . .”

is amazing. The essence that bursts forth from I pause here for a round of coughing.

the ocean is clean, fresh, and delicious.

Robert Robinson nods encouragingly to me.

But what roils up into my nostrils right

“To . . . feed your algae . . . metacaspases.”

now is rank and, dare I say, dill-icious. I recoil I succeed in sucking in a semi-deep breath.

and wretch (I’m so not a pickle fan), just man-

“Enough of a dose,” I continue carefully, aging to cap the bottle and hurl it down the

“to set off a chain reaction of cells bursting gangway before my lungs spasm into an asth-open.” My god, I sound like Donald Duck.

ma attack.

“This releases more metacaspases. And so on.

As my airways clamp down, I make a calm

Until the entire population knows it’s time to mental note to add this substance to my list of die.”

known triggers, at least at insanely high con-Robert Robinson whistles.

centrations. Then I’m gibbering and heaving,

“How much would be enough to clear a
and nothing’s working. I can’t get new air in tank? To clear all the tanks, in fact?” He sits to my lungs or old air out. As the moments back on his heels. “Is something like that tick on and on and my lips and fingers begin even possible?”

to tingle, I sink to my hands and knees. I’m I clear my throat again. “I’d have to do the grasping and reaching and patting down
modeling to say what the minimum critical pockets, moving towards panic. Where is it?

dose would be for your dilution rate and cell But f inally, I have it. My inhaler is out, in my density.”

mouth, and depressed. A wad of vapor bolts Robert Robinson helps me to my feet.

down my throat.

“Who would do a thing like that?” he asks, Slowly, slightly, the vice loosens, and at rubbing one hand over the shiny, freckled least a couple of bronchioles declench.

crown of his head. “And how?”

Enough air begins trickling in for me to feel I shrug. How should I know? I’m just here stupid down here on the f loor, but not
on a house call. He’s the one who works here.

enough for me to rectify the situation. At least He’s the bigwig director of the bigwig facility.

I manage to push myself shakily back into a seated position. I sit there and wheeze and Robert Robinson brings me down to the
wheeze and wheeze.

lounge because even he can see I need some

“Sorry,” says Robert Robinson, pale and
time to recover.

looking like Please don’t die (the paperwork, The lounge is cheerful and bright. There is oh the paperwork). “I should have warned a poolside bar bedecked in long strands of you it was foul.”

dried grass, like this is Hawaii or something I give him a long, hard, low-oxygen stare.

and, yes, there is also a pool. Not a pool pool, Tr ying to breathe without lungs. This is but a moon pool through which you can de-what it is like to be a f ish. But, when I f inal-ploy divers to tend to the outsides of the ly can, all I haltingly hiss out is, “Meta . . . cas tanks or a small ROV for deeper work, such as

. . . pases.”

on the intake pipe. Arranged around the

“What?” Robert Robinson says, kneeling
moon pool at the center of the lounge are down beside me and whacking me hard on
chairs, tables, and even sun loungers.

the back. How has this guy managed not to

“Full spectrum light, as in including IR and

“fall off” the rig in the middle of some dark UV,” Robert Robinson explains, pointing to and stormy night?

the lamps overhead. “Quote-unquote sun-

I take another hit off the inhaler and over bathing is more effective and better for the the next minute, I slowly stop spluttering like mental health than popping vitamin D.”

a bagpipe bouncing down the stairs. Eventu-

“Stints are that long?”

116

CHRISTINA DE LA ROCHA

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

He nods sadly.

The sea lion looks at him, then she looks at I grin. No wonder he’s such an odd duck.

me, almost rolling her eyes, and then she I f lop down on one of the algal-derived
looks back at him.

plastic chairs and take the coffee Robert She begins ambling, dripping, over.

Robinson brings me from what is this time a

“Arp-arp!” she barks, and something clicks genuine automated coffee dispenser.

inside my head.

I sink all the way back and admit he is right.

I jump up, whirl, and draw my gun in one, The heat from the lamps is soothing and won-if I don’t say so myself, stunning motion. Just derful. If I worked here, I’d be down here all as the sea lion is giving Robert Robinson’s the time, lolling about like a lizard.

cheek a big, wet smackeroo, I get her with a At this point, a sea lion bursts arp-arping in dart right behind one of her cute little ears.

through the moon pool. I hit the ceiling, my First she turns, shocked. Then she staggers.

chair hits the deck, and my coffee hits the Then she gives a furtive glance toward the wall (but luckily for Robert Robinson, not moon pool, her only avenue of escape. I put Robert Robinson).

myself between her and it, keeping the tran-Heart thumping, I goggle at the intruder.

quilizer gun trained on her the whole time.

The residual wheeze, at least, has been van-

“Don’t even think about it,” I tell her. “I quished by the spike in epinephrine.

loaded fast-acting tranquilizer this morning.

The sea lion is a female. She shakes herself You’ll drown.”

off and slap, slap, slaps her fore f lippers on The sea lion looks at me now blearily. She the now very wet hauling out platform.

sighs out through her nostrils then totters

“Hey!” beams Robert Robinson as if look-
over, asleep, onto the ground.

ing at a long-lost love. “I haven’t seen you in Robert Robinson is frozen, and his eyes are while. Where have you been?”

the size of saucers. You know, UFOs.

The sea lion arp-arps again, looking coy. I

“Russian agent,” I say, putting the gun
frown. Something is off. I avoid marine
away. “Didn’t you catch the accent?”

mammals like the plague, though (because, Robert Robinson just looks at me like,
goddammit, I’m a scientist not a dolphin-

What did you do to my friend?

swimmer). Thus I’m no expert on vocaliza-

I smile at the poor, f ish-throwing sucker.

tions. I can’t get my f inger on it. All I can say

“She doesn’t care about you,” I tell him.

is that her bark, while not wrong, isn’t right

“She’s here for the intake pipe.”

either.

Robert Robinson stares, failing to process Robert Robinson gets up, bee-lining for the this.

upright fridge behind the bar. Out comes a

“She’s your saboteur,” I spell out. “She and bucket filled with ice and fish.

probably several of her friends have been de-The sea lion barks more loudly now, but
livering the metacaspases.”

still with that strange intonation. The pitch is Robert Robinson blinks blankly.

too deep, I decide, and the vowel sound is a

“Don’t take the time to get your head
touch too long.

around it!” I bark. “Call in your animal control The sea lion stands up on her fore flippers, off icers. Get the sea lion into the brig. That arches her body up over her head, and, with tranquilizer only lasts so long. Meanwhile, I’ve her hind f lippers, waves Robert Robinson a got to call the Department of Maritime Secu-dainty hello.

rity. They need to get on this before it goes Robert Robinson laughs, his whole face
any further.”

shining, and tosses the sea lion several f ish.

“What?” Robert Robinson says.

She catches each one, wolfs it down, then

“Your NOAF is not just a testing ground for looks up brightly, wanting more.

us, it’s a testing ground for the enemy. Next

“Watch this,” Robert Robinson calls to me.

up, perhaps, simultaneous sabotage of the en-

“I’ve got her trained.”

tire suite of NOAFs.”

He sits himself down on a chair next to the This is what f inally gets Robert Robinson bar and puts the bucket of f ish on the table up and acting like the director of the oldest beside him. He holds forth his cheek. “Kiss, and most esteemed phosphate extraction fa-kiss?” he beckons.

cility in the nation (if not the world).

ARP! ARP!

117

ANALOG

I stare down at the sleeping sea lion. Snor-nants of the garland would drop off the grill, ing softly like that, she seems like such a sink, and be swept away by the currents and sweet thing.

swallowed up by the sea, and no one would ever be any the wiser.

When I get home, some days later, it is the We agreed: all in all, audacious. And hilari-wee hours, and my literature-loving librarian ous that Robert Robinson had fallen for the Fred is snoring like an elephant seal.

femme fatale. Too bad I didn’t know him well I give him a nudge.

enough (or like him well enough) to rag on

“You’re back!” he mumbles. “Did you save
him about it for the entire next decade or the world?”

two.

“Only the USA,” I tell him. “Although Mar-

“All’s well that ends well?” Fred asks me as itime Security needed some convincing to do he drifts back to sleep.

more than laugh.”

“One Russian sabotage ring taken down,” I

“Oh, poopsie,” Fred says, thick with sleep.

conf irm, although undoubtedly dozens re-

“I’m sorr y. Did someone think you were
main. At least one, presumably, for each
bonkers again? I know you hate it when they NOAF.

don’t take you seriously.”

“Hoorah, USA,” he sighs.

Actually, to their credit, despite laughing at The Department of Maritime Security
me, the Maritime Security people injected a would be busy for a while, figuring out how transmitter into the sea lion before letting her to simultaneously and continuously defend go. And go she went, straight home to a ma-hundreds of intake pipes situated two hun-rine animal rehabilitation facility along the dred to six hundred meters below the ocean’s coast. It was one run by a very private charity surface at numerous, widespread localities with what turned out to be seriously dubious normally many miles offshore.

paperwork. It was raided posthaste.

If I had money to bet, I’d put it with them What Maritime Security found there was a
going for exclusion zones, in the form of con-belowground storehouse stocked with ques-
centric cages, each with a f iner mesh, set tionable compounds. There were boatloads
around each intake opening like a giant
of the phytoplankton-popping metacaspases onion. That way nothing big could swim up that I’m sure will turn out to be the same type close enough to deliver a large, highly con-used to kill the NOAF tanks. But there were centrated dose of anything.

also multiple half-ton canisters of domoic Of course someone (or something, such as, acid, saxitoxin, anatoxins, and microcystins.

say, an octopus or other fiendishly clever mol-The laughter stopped there.

lusc) could still bore into the hundreds of me-Never mind the metacaspases, feed any of
ter s of intake pipe above and inject
those algae-produced toxins in to facilities something bad. That’s another possibility the growing f ish, shellf ish, or lobster for human Marineland guys and gals will need to consid-consumption and you could sicken, perma-
er (and probably, offensively at least, already nently damage, and even kill hundreds to
have).

thousands of people.

I yawn and stretch my arms up into the air.

Maritime Security also found enclosure af-But not me. I came, I saw, I shot a sea lion.

ter enclosure filled with sea otters, sea lions, My job there was done. ■
and dolphins that, when drilled, displayed the delivery skills of Navy Seals’ seals.

And eventually they found the garlands of Although you might not guess it from the capsules, too, with their handy central bar decades she spent vaporizing them with that could be gripped in the mouth of a sea lasers and dissolving them in hydrofluoric lion. Having, by that point, done the model-acid, Christina De La Rocha has never met ing, I explained to them that several of these a phytoplankter she didn't like. Her current garlands stuck on to the intake grill of a NOAF
considerably less vicious obsession is writ-could release enough metacaspases to start ing science fiction. Her first book, a nonfic-the chain reaction of phytoplankton death in tion number named Silica Stories, has also its tanks. Then, when spent, the physical rem-just been published.

118

CHRISTINA DE LA ROCHA

THE ALTERNATE VIEW John G. Cramer ALIEN MICROWAVE SAILING AND

FAST RADIO BURSTS
strophysicists Manasvi Lingam and
light, carries a quantity of momentum pro-Abraham Loeb of Harvard have recently
portional to its energy that can be used to speculated that we may be observing
push a sail. Unfortunately, that push is rather Aevidence of aliens in other galaxies small, about 3.3 micro-newtons of force per powering their starships with beams of mi-kilowatt of power if the radiation is complete-crowaves. To explore this amazing idea, we’ll ly absorbed by the sail, and twice that if the begin by considering microwave beaming as a radiation is perfectly reflected backward. In means of space propulsion.

other words, ever y 10 newtons (or 2.25

Presently, the most aggressive effort to
pounds) of thrust generated for propulsion re-reach nearby stars is the Starshot Project, start-quires between 1.5 and 3 gigawatts of elec-ed in 2016 by billionaire science philan-
tromagnetic power to be beamed to the sail.

thropist Yuri Milner and described in my AV

Also, the sail’s reflection efficiency must be column in the October 2016 issue of Analog.

nearly perfect, because if any significant frac-The basic Starshot strategy is to use a large tion of the huge quantity of beamed power is bank of coherent lasers to send a tiny but in-absorbed and transformed to heat, the vehicle telligent probe to Alpha Centauri, boosting it will overheat and be destroyed. The beam-dri-to 1/5 of the speed of light with light pressure ven sail propulsion scheme must also deal acting on its reflective sail. This scheme has with wavelength-dependent aperture diffrac-the advantage over conventional rocket
tion effects, which limit the system’s ability to propulsion in that no reaction mass or energy-bring the beam to a tight focus on the sail generating fuel needs to be carried on the pro-from far away.

pelled space vehicle, which can be very small Nevertheless, such beam-driven sail
and light.

schemes presently represent our best techno-A similar scheme involving microwave
logical opportunity for sending small probes beaming was proposed in 1985 by physicist to nearby star systems. And it may be that in-and SF author Robert W. Forward. It involved telligent aliens in other galaxies have reached a large space-based solar-powered maser that the same conclusion and are using beam-dri-beamed microwaves to push a space vehicle ven sail technology to reach their own nearby with a large low-mass superconducting “sail.”

stars.

Forward named his scheme the “Starwisp,”

and several of his SF novels used the concept.

In 2016, physicists James Benford and his In 2000, another physicist and SF author, Ge-son Dominic pointed out that one of the best off Landis, investigated Forward’s original ways for SETI searches to identify a high-tech-scheme and improved on it with a sail design nology alien civilization among the stars might involving carbon fibers.

be to look for leakage radiation from such The basic underlying propulsion concept
power beaming. And this kind of SETI signal used by these schemes is that electromagnet-may have already been observed
ic radiation, including microwaves and visible The aforementioned Harvard astrophysicists, ALIEN MICROWAVE SAILING AND FAST RADIO BURSTS

119

ANALOG

M. Lingam and A. Loeb, this year have ven-of such a beam-driven sail launch facility. They tured a very interesting speculation about the assume that the radio emission is broadband, origin of the unexplained radio-astronomy phe-that stellar energy is used to power the beams, nomenon known as “fast radio bursts” (or
and that water is used as a coolant. The ob-FRB). Fast radio bursts were first reported in served FRBs are consistent with a beaming ap-2007 by D. R. Lorimer and colleagues, based paratus located about three billion light-years on Australian radio telescope data that was from the Earth and beaming radio waves with recorded on June 21, 2001. Since that time, a center frequency around one GHz. L&L cal-more FRB events have been observed. As of culate that the radiating surface would have to this column being penned, there is a growing be of planet-size, about 3,000 km in diameter FRB catalog that presently lists twenty observa-and would have a water-cooled surface tem-tions.

perature of about 100° C. It would be beam-Because radio waves of different frequen-
ing radio waves at a total power level of 1015
cies travel through intergalactic space at kilowatts. (For comparison, our Sun has a slightly different speeds due to interactions power output of 3.8 x 1023 kilowatts.) The with free electrons along their path, radio as-size of the radiator—3,000 km in diameter—
tronomers can use the “chirp” of arrival time was calculated in two different ways, and the vs. frequency of an FRB to estimate how far it two results agree. A frequency of about 1 GHz has traveled from its source. This analysis was calculated to be the most efficient for shows that all of the observed FRBs originate beam propulsion, and this aligns with the FRB
well beyond our galaxy, at estimated distances observations.

on the order of three billion light-years.

For the launched vehicle, L&L assume a An FRB is fast and bright, lasting for only a large sail-plus-payload that is roughly the same few thousandths of a second. Their high
size as the radiator and has a mass of about 107
brightness at such vast distances of origin im-tons. (For comparison, at present the Earth’s plies that they are the result of a huge release largest ocean-going cargo ship has a mass of of non-thermal radio energy. While two of the about half a million tons.) L&L calculate the catalogued FRB have been observed to repeat, acceleration and the final velocity of this sail most of them are single, non-repeating events.

ship following launch. Beam diffraction con-The FRB times of arrival have never been ob-siderations limit the distance over which the served to correlate with bursts of either visible vehicle can be accelerated to about 1/3 of a light or gamma rays coming from the same di-light-year. They assume an acceleration of rection, and there is no verified observation of around one gee over that distance, and they any “afterglow” following an FRB.

calculate that the final speed of the vehicle There is no known physical phenomenon
would be close to the speed of light.

that can account for these bizarre characteris-They also consider the implications of the tics. It is not physically plausible that such a few-millisecond duration of the Earth-ob-vast release of energy in the radio domain served FRBs. The sail and beamer would pre-would be “pure” and not accompanied by
sumably both be in orbit around their parent electromagnetic radiation in other forms. This star, and the beamer would need to rotate as it raises an important question: If no natural phe-orbited in order to keep the beam centered on nomenon can make an FRB, what does that
the sail. This means that to an Earth observer leave?

the leaked beam will rapidly sweep across the sky and will only be visible for a few millisec-Lingam and Loeb (L&L) have speculated onds. The millisecond time-width of the FRBs that FRBs may be the leakage of radio waves implies that the rotation of the beamer is coming from massive works of advanced engi-about 10-5 radians per second, implying a full neering built by intelligent aliens in other 360-degree rotation in about a week. This is galaxies, aliens who are beaming high-intensi-consistent with what might be expected for ty radio waves at sails in order to power their the orbiting beamer scenario.

starships.

Exploring the full implications of this sceL&L then consider the implications of the nario, L&L have calculated the characteristics rate at which FRBs have been observed for the 120

JOHN G. CRAMER

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
probability of finding a highly advanced civi-may be regularly sending payloads to their lization that is using power-beaming launch nearby star systems. However, from another technology on a given Earth-like planet or in a angle, I rather hope that a better explanation given galaxy. Based on the rate of observation for the FRB phenomenon emerges, one that
of FRBs, they conclude that the probability of doesn’t require an advanced alien civilization.

finding an advanced civilization on a given That is because as a physicist, I’m hoping that Earth-like planet is less than one in a million.

there are yet-undiscovered physical phenome-However, since some estimates put the num-non that will provide a means of space propul-ber of habitable Earth-like planets in our sion and interstellar travel that doesn’t require galaxy as high as ten billion, there might be up mega-engineering and planet-size sails and ra-to ten thousand such advanced civilizations in diators of radio waves. It will be a long time our galaxy alone. We note, however, that no before the human race can build such vast FRB has ever been observed to originate in works of mega-engineering, and I would pre-our galaxy, and the numbers indicate that fer that we get to the stars much sooner, if such an observation might occur only once in possible. ■
three hundred years.

To conclude, L&L consider how more de-John G. Cramer’s 2016 nonfiction book de-
tailed measurements of FRBs might show a sig-scribing his transactional interpretation of nature of their beam-driven sail origin or quantum mechanics, The Quantum Hand-might falsify that scenario. Following the Ben-shake—Entanglement, Nonlocality, and
fords, they point out that radio wave leakage Transactions, (Springer, January 2016) is avail-around the edges of an opaque sail should proable online as a hardcover or eBook at:

duce diffraction edge-effects that would be ob-http://www.springer.com/gp/book/97833
servable as interference “wiggles” in the de-19246406.

tected intensity. Present FRB measurements SF Novels by John Cramer: eBook editions
have reported neither the presence nor ab-of hard SF novels Twistor and Einstein’s sence of such modulations. L&L also suggest Bridge are available from the Book View Café that radio astronomers should note the sites of co-op at: http://bookviewcafe.com/book-the major FRB bursts and look for repeat
store/?s=Cramer.

events, because “astrophysical explosions Alternate View Columns Online: Electronic tend to be single bursts, while artificial bea-reprints of over 180 “The Alternate View”

cons can repeat.”

columns by John G. Cramer, previously pub-Finally, we note that in their paper on beam lished in Analog, are available online at: leakage as an SETI signal, James and Dominic http://www.npl.washington.edu/av.

Benford speculate that an intelligent civilization using beamed-power sail technology

References:

should realize that they are sending out a bea-First Observation of FRB:

con that is likely to be detected by other ad-A bright millisecond radio burst of extra-vanced civilizations far away. That might moti-galactic origin, D. R. Lorimer, et al, Science, vate them to modulate the frequency,

Vol. 318, Issue 5851, pp. 777-780 (02 Nov intensity, or polarization of their beam so that 2007); preprint arXiv:0709.4301v1 [astro-it contains information that would interest civ-ph].

ilizations detecting their beam-beacon. This Power Beaming as an SETI Signal:

suggests that Earth-based radio astronomers Power Beaming leakage radiation as a
should devote some effort to carefully examin-SETI Observable, James N. Benford and Doing the frequency and polarization structure minic J. Benford, Astrophysical Journal 825, of FRBs detected in search of such encoded in-101-107 (2016); preprint arX-
formation.

iv:1602.05485v2 [astro-ph.IM].

Alien FRB:

From one science fictional point of view, Fast Radio Bursts from Extragalactic Light these L&L calculations are very exciting. Our Sails, Manasvi Lingham and Abraham Loeb; galaxy may be peppered with other civiliza-preprint arXiv: 1701.01109v2[astro-
tions far more advanced than ours, and they ph.HE].

ALIEN MICROWAVE SAILING AND FAST RADIO BURSTS

121

Probability Zero

Viktor

Frankenstein’s

Bar and Grill
and Twenty-

Four-Hour

Roadside

Emporium

Michael F. Flynn
ou know, ” the monster dead-

Well, what did you expect from a guy with a panned as he wiped down the
defective brain?

countertop and set up another

It was a slow afternoon, and only a couple of

“Yround, “Viktor was a funny guy.” the regulars were hanging out. The count was He waited a beat and added, “He sure kept me in a back booth sipping on a Bloody Mary.

in stitches.”

Everyone to his own taste, I suppose, but I I gave it the same chuckle the first hundred wish he wouldn’t do that in public. Mary would times I’d heard the gag; but the monster
sport one enormous hickey in the morning.

wheezed and snorted and slapped the bar top.

A rattle and a backfire announced Bubba’s 122

MICHAEL F. FLYNN

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
pick-up truck, and shortly the Creature
cy was real miffed by that last one, accusing sloshed in. The monster sighed because now the bar of ypsophobia; but she had pulled the he would have to mop the floor and clean the roof off one time while hunting her philander-barstool. Bubba lived in a shack back up in the ing husband—she was more woman than he
swamp, and he stank of fish and brackish la-could handle—and the previous owner had
goon water. He made a modest living doing taken out a restraining order.

underwater salvage. Everyone edged away

A car pulled into the lot, washing its head-from him except Mary in the back booth, who lights across the windows, and shortly the was in a trance.

bells in the gift shop jingled.

Bubba had gotten used to it by now, so he The pint of stout at the other end of the bar didn’t say anything when he took a stool at the hit the countertop, and Griffin complained, far end of the bar. He was not the most talka-

“Go ahead, ignore me like I’m not even here.”

tive amphibian in any case and more often

“Not our fault, Griffin,” the count suggest-than not had a frog in his throat.

ed. “Ve didn’t make you drink zat formula.”

But a commotion erupted when Bubba sat

“And you pulled that trick one time too
down, and the creature backed off abruptly.

many,” I added, “sneaking out in the middle of

“Gawdammit, Griffin!” he shouted. “Why
a conversation. You know how stupid people can’t y’all at least wear a hat?”

feel when they find out they been talking with A disembodied laugh answered him. That
the air for fifteen minutes?”

meant that Griff was nude as an oyster

“Go ahead and laugh,” the disembodied
tonight, an image I did not find appealing. The voice said; and naturally the monster, not be-Invisible Man’s sense of humor was as bad as ing too quick on the sarcasm thing, threw his the monster’s, but it had an edge to it that the head back and guffawed.

monster’s did not. I usually knew when he

“Okay,” said Griffin. “Just you wait. I’ll come was around because my sense of smell is bet-for you one night—and you’ll never see me ter than most, but Bubba tended to blot out coming.”

anyone’s odor but his own.

“You’re the Invisible Man,” I reminded him, I waved my empty beer mug, and the mon-

“not the Unsmellable Man.”

ster answered, “What’ll ya have, Larry? A hair

“Guys, guys,” said the monster. “Take it
of the dog that bit ya?” Again, his own humor easy. This is a friendly neighborhood road-overcame him. He laughed so hard he nearly house. Don’t we get enough grief from the broke his face and shuffled off in those ortho-mundanes? We don’t got to give it to each oth-pedic shoes he wears. The jape was objectioner. Griff, would it really be asking too much for able to us Lupine-Americans, but I knew the you to wear some clothes? Or at least a hat?

monster meant no offense. Besides, there was Nobody will ignore you if we know you’re
a full moon on the rise, and it was my night to here. And count, as long as we’re on the sub-howl. I tried to think of a snappy comeback, ject, if you’re going to give out hickeys like but only a fool antagonizes a man—or a
that, get a room. I know a man’s gotta do what thing—who is about to draw a pint for him.

a man’s gotta do, but it drives the rest of us He was quite capable of shorting the measure.

bats.”

Besides, the monster had his own problems The monster blinked, replayed his com-with stereotypes. People were often surprised ment in his mind, and he broke into another to find him, when in a serious mood, well spo-of his wheezing laughs. Bubba looked shame-ken and erudite. But he was, after all, a man of faced at the puddle under his bar stool. He parts.

dripped and leaked constantly. He couldn’t help himself—he was built that way—but that The moon was not yet risen when the old
didn’t make it not a nuisance.

neon sign out in the parking lot sputtered to The door to the gift shop banged open and life. You could hear the electric hum—at least Imhotep, who mans the cash register there, if you have ears as sensitive as mine. Under-staggered in, looking white as a sheet. That neath the main sign, the caveats ran: No semis made sense because he had changed his wrap-or flying saucer parking. And No prehistoric pings only that morning. But he stammered reptiles, giant apes, or fifty-foot women. Nan-something in ancient Coptic and pointed to-VIKTOR FRANKENSTEIN’S BAR AND GRILL AND TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR ROADSIDE EMPORIUM

123

ANALOG
ward the gift shop. “Horrible,” he choked out The monster pointed numbly toward the
in heavily accented English. “Horrible!” And rear, but the count went bats and flew out the he cowered off to the side.

window. Griffin disappeared, if that makes And then they crowded in behind him
sense for a guy who had not actually appeared clutching their tchotchkes from the gift shop.

in the first place. Some things are just too terAt first, I thought their spawn was only a zom-rifying to endure.

bie, for she staggered and bumped into door The hair was growing in on my cheeks and
frame, stools, and bar, her eyes fixed and va-palms as the moon rose into view out the win-cant and staring at a device she held in her dow. I grinned at their spawn. Young women hand and worked with her thumbs. But her
of that age do like the bad boys. “Hey, there, mother was a formidable heap of flesh wear-hon,” I said. “How about if you and I go out ing a muumuu in a floral print under a broad for a bite?” ■
sun hat. Her eyeglasses were wide and her hair piled up like Ossa upon Pelion. The father Michael F. Flynn debuted in Analog with wore flip-flops and sported an unfortunate

“Slan Libh” (11/84) and has contributed reg-pair of Bermuda shorts intended for a man less ularly ever since. His stories have been nomi-stout. He laid a packaged set of miniature ac-nated for the Hugo Award seven times, most tion figures on the bar top near the cash regis-recently for "The Journeyman: In the Stone ter. I never liked the way I had been portrayed House” and won the Theodore Sturgeon
in that set and thought that Griff and Imhotep Award for “House of Dreams.” He won the was actually the same figurine, distinguished first Robert A. Heinlein medal for his body of only by the style of clothing worn over their work. His twelve novels include the four-vol-bandages.

ume FIRESTAR series and the four-volume

“Wrap that up for me, would ya, pal?” the SPIRAL ARM series as well as the Hugo-nom-apparition demanded as he slapped a bill on inated Eifelheim and the critically acclaimed the bar. “There’s a tip in it for ya if ya do a The Wreck of “The River of Stars.” His third good job. I was tellin’ the missus this was just collection, Captive Dreams, includes three the place to get a mint set of these figurines.

Analog stories and three new stories written Didn’t I tell ya that, honey-bunch?”

for the collection. He is currently working on

“Ya sure did, Stan. Say, where’s the can in The Journeyman, a picaresque novel, and this joint? I gotta powder my nose.”

The Shipwrecks of Time, set in the alien

“I gotta hit the head, too,” Stan said. “Long world of 1965 Milwaukee.

drive back to Omaha.”

124

MICHAEL F. FLYNN

The

Mathematician

Tom Jolly
ilketat extended an appendage of bod-
glanced nervously around the eatery with
ies to Poptikka to establish a closed
beetle eyes to see if anyone was paying at-conversation. Electrical impulses,
tention to them, their quiet information

Cmind-to-mind, would keep their neigh- transmitted along the strings of a few thou-bors from overhearing their conversation—
sand writhing tiny beetle bodies between
though communicating this way was
them.

unintentionally more intimate than audible

“There are tests,” it said, “f ilters you can signals or scents. There was the inevitable use to reduce the number of less-able bodies likelihood that some bodies would pass be-you carry with you. You can select your bod-tween the two of them during the conversa-ies for certain characteristics, you know. Not tion.

just accept the random elements of mixing It was a much larger mass than Poptikka,
parties.”

having collected, controlled, and fed over

“Mixing parties take your soul away.”

two hundred thousand bodies, each six-

“Soul!” Poptikka’s bodies jerked apart from legged unit contributing its tiny mind to the Cilketat’s tendril momentarily, so disgusted whole, electrical impulses f litting down the was it with the perversion. But it needed the legs to the other units, a perpetually moving business and forced itself to reconnect. The mass of bodies the size of small seeds. Parts idea that someone would be so committed to of it drifted away from the main mass to re-retaining its current set of bodies, never retrieve bits of fruit and vegetables in the placing the aging units with fresh ones, slow-eatery, returning to the main mass only by re-ly consuming itself as the bodies died—it membering a pheromonic signature keyed to made it sick. “You will not f ind new patterns their tiny minds.

without mixing. Our whole society would

“I need more bodies,” Cilketat said. “Smart become nothing but . . .” A group of ten
bodies. I am close to a breakthrough, I
bodies extended from Poptikka’s mass, cre-think.”

ating a narrow tendril that pointed at a sin-Hundreds of Poptikka’s external bodies
gle beetle chewing on a leaf. A loner that THE MATHEMATICIAN

125

ANALOG
lost its primary body. “Losing the self means bodies glanced up at it, wondering if some gaining the knowledge of patterns.”

crisped body part would fall through the

Cilketat released a small puff of noxious mesh to the eatery f loor. By convention, this odor through one of its tiny bodies. “How was food they didn’t have to pay for.

many times have we ‘learned a new pattern’

Poptikka hissed a sigh. “I know a Kelt who and then lost the knowledge because of a
has f ilters. If you go there, it may help you.

mixing? Are we just learning the same patIts name is Sheshatak, and it lives within a terns over and over? I have a pattern of bod-tree on the eastern edge of this forest. Here is ies f ixed in my core that lets me see numbers the smell of his place.” It puffed a copy of in a new way. If I mix now, or ever again, I the odor to Cilketat. “Let me warn you; do will lose that pattern.”

not choose this path. You will destroy your-Poptikka sighed, a hiss of wings rustling on self.”

the outer surface of its mass. “That is a per-

“I must go where my mind leads.”

version many of you science-types share. You

“Your mind is everyone’s mind. We all
think and think, and you waste your body
share, changing a little at each mixing. We away, close to the next great discovery, until are all immortal.”

there are no bodies left to feed you. Un-

“Is immortality so valuable? Must knowl-
aware, you starve to death without realizing edge be so transient?”

that your thoughts have become weak, never Poptikka jerked away from Cilketat, hop-translating or transmitting your last great wis-ing that it hadn’t somehow been infected
dom.” An extra impulse of acerbic sarcasm, with such insanity. The intimate physical sharp legs jittering, accompanied its com-connection gone, it vibrated out loud to comment.

municate. “Do what you will, Cilketat. But do

“I can feed the core. I’ve configured it with not contact me again. Not in this mixing.”

passageways to feed the mass, with caretak-The mass of beetles that made up its minders to monitor the bodies.”

body moved out of the podra to the club’s Poptikka remembered the last mixing par-exit. Sheshatak would certainly help Cilketat ty that spawned this version of Cilketat, a f ilter its bodies to purge the less mathemati-group of science-types swapping bodies, pu-cally inclined bits from the mass, to excise rifying ideas, caretaker bodies seething the weak-minded entities. But what horror around masses of clarif ied bodies. A soul, in-would be left? Poptikka knew that it would deed. What narcissism would cause a think-have to report this to the counselors; there ing Keltki to believe itself so important that it would be the proof they needed if they
would no longer meld with others?

caught them in the act of f iltering, enough to

“A f ilter requires new bodies. Smaller enti-validate a forced mixing.

ties, single purpose worker groups, can be encouraged to enter the f ilter; the units that Cilketat’s massive body shifted from a rela-come out successfully can merge with you.

tively mindless moving-mode traveling across You can even f ilter your self if you f ind the the forest f loor to stationar y mind. Its mass too ungainly to care for adequately.”

thoughts took form, and it looked up at the Cilketat’s surface surged with mild anger at large oak tree, eyeing the ornately lined entry the suggestion it was already overly massive, to Sheshatak’s abode. Finely designed ceram-though it was true. Filtering itself might be ic tiles encircled the hole, and a charged net worth it to attain its goal.

to ward off predators hung above it. Birds, Near the mat of branches they rested
spiders, and other creatures weren’t really upon, a cluster of worker-bodies carried
deadly; they rarely consumed more than a
grapes past their podra, the layers of soft wo-few bodies and were often overwhelmed or
ven f ibers that held their masses. They both scared away by the massive numbers of bee-sent bodies out to collect some small grapes, tles in their bodies, but the net helped when exchanging coded electrical signals to pro-singletons and small groups were sent on
vide payment to the eatery. Outside, a web of tasks from the main body.

charged wires glowed white-hot as some

It sent a few bodies coded with pheromones predator met its surface. Many of the beetle-into Sheshatak’s domain, and after a minute 126

TOM JOLLY

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
was welcomed in by Sheshatak’s own bodies.

sitic bodies that do little but feed and exIts body stretched again into a long, thin mass, crete. Some entities think that these are the climbing into the decorated hollow of the core of our body’s personality, physically use-tree.

less but shaping what we are and how we

“Sheshatak. Thank you for seeing me.”

think. Philosopher bodies, if you will.” Its

“Cilketat. I am not familiar with you.”

mass twitched back and forth, a sign of

“Poptikka sent me. It told me you know
doubt. “From there, the f ilters become more much about f ilters. I seek to acquire a purer complex; mazes based on logic that require mind, in order to understand certain mathe-body clusters of at least ten units, visual per-matical ideas that have been forming within ception f ilters, puzzles and paths of verbal my own.”

comprehension, riddles that test the tiny

“Ah,” it said. A curious rustling of legs and mind of a microcluster.”

wings f illed the air, and its body shifted back

“I need something very special. I have a
a bit from Cilketat. “Poptikka and I share lit-strong core of mathematical skills, a f ixed tle in common. Our opinions in most matters mesh of bodies highly skilled in that one diverge. So I’m a little surprised that it, of all area. What I need are bodies who can f ind collections, should send you to me.”

the synergistic connections between a di-

“I used to know Poptikka well, many mix-
verse spectrum of ideas; the genius that can ings ago, but I believe we no longer agree on f ind linkages that open up higher tiers of some of the most fundamental aspects on
thought.”

maintaining self. The purif ication of one’s

“You wish to increase the neural connec-
mind, and maintenance of its state. I am de-tivity of your bodies. To increase understand-pending on its past companionship. It re-
ing.”

members me, I think, fondly, and offered me

“I believe that is so.” Cilketat’s body hissed this last favor before we parted ways.”

and twitched in anticipation. It could barely

“Self. That is a very dangerous subject.”

contain the vibrating beetles within itself.

Sheshatak considered this, the soft hush of

“We will need to create a baseline with
crawling and twitching bodies betraying only your existing clusters, perhaps twenty to thir-deep thought. “I can do this,” it said. “It will ty units each, then . . . what’s that?” A hun-not be free, you know.”

dred beetle eyes focused on a lone body

“Of course not. I have funds available for coming out of one of the f ilters. “A wander-this.”

er has found it’s way in through a f ilter.” She-

“Then let me show you the f ilters.” She-
shatak sent out a group to shoo it away, back shatak led Cilketat down a narrow tube of out the main tunnel above, but then another natural wood deeper into the tree’s body. A and another came in through other f ilter ex-complex weave of thin copper wire in a conits. “This is highly unusual,” it squeaked.

fusion of patterns was inlaid into the walls of In a matter of seconds, the chamber was
the tube. Cilketat admired them. A thin layer f looded with other bodies, a river of beetles of epoxy prevented the wood from growing
tumbling, rolling, crawling down the tube out around the pattern of wire, its odor over-above and pouring in through the f ilter exits.

whelming the natural smells of Sheshatak’s They formed up into new bodies as they
home.

came in. Cilketat and Sheshatak both recog-In the open hollow, there were a number
nized the odors. “The council!” Sheshatak of small wooden and metal devices with en-cried. “We are unmade!”

tries and exits. Some of the exits were at-

“Poptikka has betrayed me! Betrayed us!”

tached to tubes that led to the wall of the Sheshatak spread out, trying to f ind any tree, exiting to the outside. Where the rejects way out, but found itself blocked at every go, Cilketat thought. Sheshatak pointed to exit by council bodies, its probes failing, f ione of the smallest. “This one is the simplest, nally forming back up with wings and legs for single bodies, containing a one-way pas-f lailing and rubbing, screaming out, “Foolish sage and a lever. Each body is asked to f igure Cilketat! Poptikka is not like us! It changes at out their way through this tube. It is very ba-ever y mixing! You cannot trust one that
sic, and is merely a f ilter to weed out para-changes itself constantly.”

THE MATHEMATICIAN

127

ANALOG

“Obscenity and perversion!” one of the
bodies and spun in excitement. “It is a math council shouted. “Listen; they condemn
machine! The core of Cilketat was a calcula-themselves! Mix them, unmake them! We
tion device!”

cannot let such monstrosities as these

“So, another abomination. We should de-
abide.”

stroy it.”

All the bodies in the core of the old oak

“No!” Aratskat cried out. “This is not self, seethed together, pushing forcefully into the not narcissism, not a creature bent on avoid-writhing bodies of Cilketat and Sheshatak, ing the mix of life! It is a tool, like the digger f lowing and churning and twisting, a torna-clusters we create, or the carriers and har-do of tiny brown carapaces. One mass held vesters, an unthinking tool to use.”

together as though it was one solid unit, a Benoltba stared with a hundred eyes, try-sphere of solidity in the maelstrom, a sym-ing to penetrate the thing. “A calculator.

metric core of being, rolling to a stop as the Cilketat sought self because of a tool it main bodies of the council reformed, both of thought was part of itself. It thought a tool the renegades absorbed within them.

was its own heart.”

Benoltba shuddered as the units of its body

“But it created this tool.” Aratskat asked it-settled into a partially new conf iguration, self, Is there then value in self? Or only as a random new thoughts twisted amongst its
transition to create new tools for the mixed?

own. Where perversion appeared, it reorga-How many other tools have arisen this nized the clusters so they no longer held to-way?

gether, assuring that only the utility of their

“It did. All Keltki can use this tool now, or single bodies, and not the sparks of settled copy its structure. Perhaps they can create thought, remained behind. In minutes, the ri-variations that will work in other useful otous noise of scraping legs and rattled wings ways. We need not discard a useful tool just settled into a susurration of quiet thought.

because it was spawned by the obscenity of Benoltba spoke. “They are gone.”

self.”

“They are gone, and yet still part of each of A calculator! How many tools have come us,” echoed the council member Aratskat. It from a body bent on purifying a single shuddered at the thought, but this formality idea, where the idea was of such a value as of closure was met. “But what is this that re-to risk maintaining self to keep it alive?

mains behind?”

Aratskat wondered, twisted clusters of Cilke-The council members gathered around a
tat and Sheshatak already working their mag-strange sphere of beetles, sparking and
ic on it, tumbled bodies of untried concepts, twitching, but unmoving. Tunnels of dark-twitching connections of altered philoso-
ness riddled the sphere, tunnels they recog-phies straining at the foundations of its be-nized would be necessary to feed the static liefs.

mass of intricately and tightly connected bod-Aratskat rustled wings and legs but re-
ies. “It was in Cilketat’s very core. It must mained silent. Some thoughts could not be have carried it. Why would it carry such a shared. ■
doomed object? Wouldn’t the bodies die?”

“In years, perhaps. Maybe the filters would have given it the tools to maintain it.”

“But . . . what is it? I have seen tool-bodies Tom Jolly is a retired astronautical/elec-before, ten or twenty large, created for a sin-trical engineer who now spends his time gle purpose, but this is huge. It cannot be . . .”

writing SF and fantasy, designing board Aratskat reached out a link of bodies to
games (such as Wiz-War and Manhattan
touch the object, electrical impulses travel-Project: Energy Empire), and creating obing between them. “Ah—” it said. The other noxious puzzles. He lives with his wife Pen-councilors backed up cautiously. Dozens of ny in Santa Maria, California, in a place bodies within Aratskat clicked amusement.

where mountain lions and black bears still

“It—it adds!” It rustled anxiously, holding the visit. You can find more of his stories at connection. “It multiplies!” It detached its www.silcom.com/~tomjolly/tomjolly2.htm .

128

TOM JOLLY

Coyote

Moon

James Van Pelt
t midnight, the coyote met Hale behind
an advance on next week’s salary from both the convenience store by the dumpster.

jobs. At Rocket Blast Burgers where he

He hid in the shadows, night-cloaked
worked the lunch shift, he’d even caught him-Aamong the rotting produce. “You got self eyeing the cash register that easily held a the money?”

thousand dollars.

Hale checked over his shoulder. The Kwick-

“Be packed. You’ll hear from us in two

Goods’ backdoor was closed. A bus whis-
days.” The coyote looked up and down the al-pered by with an electric purr a block away.

ley before walking softly into the darkness.

Hale’s bike was chained to the buzzing street-Jelly, the night manager, took inventory on light in the empty parking lot. “I couldn’t raise a tablet in the back room while watching the five thousand.” He handed over a thick enve-front for customers. “They’re cutting hours lope. “It’s everything I’ve got, though. Thirty-next month, Hale. We’re not even going to do eight hundred.”

our own cleaning anymore. They’ve out-

The envelope disappeared into the coyote’s sourced maintenance to some outside compa-jacket. His baseball cap pulled low partly ny. Now there’s a shitty job.” He chuckled.

shielded his face, and even in the dark, he

“Can you imagine going store to store just to wore sunglasses.

mop and scrub? I hear it’s a hot ticket for re-The coyote said, “If you tell anyone, the tirees whose 401Ks have tapped out and col-money’s gone.”

lege grads with art history degrees.”

“We get it back, right, after we’re on

“What about your position?” Hale held the board?”

walk-in refrigerator door open so Jelly could

“Minus handling.”

see the boxes.

“Yes, minus handling.”

Jelly shrugged. “Don’t know. Two years ago Hale breathed easily. All day he’d agonized this place had fourteen employees. We’re
over the shortfall. He’d sold their wedding down to six, and, except for me and the day rings, borrowed from his parents, withdrawn manager, they’re part time. I heard every the limit on the credit cards, and begged for KwickGoods in town will be fully automated COYOTE MOON

129

ANALOG
by Christmas. Scanners pick up your credit on it mattered. He’d be gone from his shared the way in. You grab your jug of milk, ciga-apartment, his two crummy jobs, and his
rettes, and whatever. Automatically charged hand-to-mouth existence in less than forty-when you walk out.”

eight hours. “Have you applied with Lu-

“It’s a tough world,” said Hale.

naplex? The newspapers say that when they

“Yeah, unless you own KwickGoods.”

start a regular schedule, money will be flow-Hale nearly fell asleep while cycling home.

ing so fast that some of it will even stick to Jenna met him at the door with a hug.

folks like us. You could be a regular business She said, “The Carlsons forgot to take their man, you know, with a real retirement and sheets off the bed again.” She still wore her medical benefits.”

hostess outfit from the restaurant and smelled Larry checked his phone. No calls for a ride, like onions and French fries. Hale bet Jenna evidently, because he sat on a bench to
only beat him home by a few minutes. “We
leisurely tie his shoes. “I don’t think they’ll change the bed for them. You’d think they ever lift off. Too many seats on the initial ship, could show some courtesy.”

I heard. If it was just a crew of astronauts, it Hale closed the door that didn’t shut out wouldn’t be a big deal. Make it democratic much of the building’s noise. Music came
though . . . whew! Space travel for the rich.

from one of the units, mostly the bass beat, Rich people suing each other, suing the com-and somewhere else an argument erupted.

pany for the right to be on the first trip. The The eff iciency apartment was hardly bigger mess will be tied up in the courts for years. A than the bed. Their closet with everything whole city with room for thousands ready for they owned took up the left wall; the day-ten-occupants, and no one to live there.”

ants, the Carlsons, stored their clothes on the

“Construction bots, industrial-sized three-D
right.

printers, and a lot of clever engineering. Built

“Only a couple more days, Jen. Then we’re from top to bottom without human hands.

out of here.”

They say the Moon is the next frontier, if the Her eyes shone. “He took the money? We’re Wild West was like a resort hotel.” Hale stiff-really going?”

ened. Why did he bring up the Moon? Of all

“It’ll be a better life, babe.”

the subjects they could talk about, he intro-Jen unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, duced the one that could lose him everything.

looked at him coyly. “You know I hate it when

“Doesn’t matter,” said Larry. “We’ll never you call me that.”

see it.”

“You changed the sheets?”

Hale couldn’t help himself. “It would be

She nodded. He laughed, and they fell onto sweet, though, wouldn’t it? Living on another the bed.

world. No slums. No cops pounding on your At 6:30 the next morning, Hale slipped
door, shaking you down. No more Kwick-
from under the covers without waking his

Mart.”

wife, dressed, then went to the communal

Larry’s phone buzzed. “Got to run. Do they bath at the hall’s end. Larry, who ran a free-need taxies there?”

lance taxi service, said, “Water’s warm today.”

Hale came into Rocket Blast Burger for the He wrapped a towel around his waist. Two
second breakfast shift. He clocked in, traded other men stood under the showers.

good mornings with the first shift as they left,

“Still working, I see,” said Hale. He stripped then adjusted his headset. Orders called in and stowed his clothes in a basket.

while he worked. Mostly he made sure the

“Driverless taxis won’t pick up your lug-
food line stayed supplied. He poured egg from gage. Long as my car don’t break down, I’ll f ive-gallon plastic buckets when the level make out. How’s the KwickMart? Must be
dropped, reloaded the sausage and hash
sweet to drink all the slushies you want, and browns oven, and every fifteen minutes went you don’t have to go someplace else to buy into the dining room to wipe tables.

beer.”

“Hale, is that you?” A young man in a busi-Hale grinned. He didn’t tell Larry that an ness suit, sitting with a sharply dressed employee drinking or eating anything from woman sipping coffee, caught his arm. “My the store in the store would be fired, not that god, I haven’t seen you for ages.”

130

JAMES VAN PELT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Without pausing in his cleaning, keenly

“Maybe more. He stays under the speed lim-aware of the security camera that scanned the it.”

room, Hale said, “Benson? You’re right. Not The man with her, wearing a cowboy hat
since graduation. You’re looking good.”

pushed back on his head, said, “Does this feel Benson smiled. His teeth were perfect.

legit to you? I’m not liking the feel of this. I’m

“Two hours at the club a day. Aerobics is the watching that guy.” He nodded his head to-secret. Have you tried the new retro punk on ward the driver. “For five thousand bucks, we an elliptical routine? Awesome workout.”

ought to be in a limo. There better not be any Hale grimaced. “My membership lapsed.”

funny business.” His partner sighed and patted

“Sorry, man.” Benson looked around the
his arm.

restaurant f illed with people carrying brief-Hale held Jen’s hand as they pulled out of cases, holding coffees, and in a hurry to be town. Soon, she was asleep. He closed his somewhere else. “That was rude of me. What eyes too, but he found himself thinking about happened? Wasn’t your degree in engineer-the Carlsons who would have to f ind co-
ing?”

renters soon or suck up the entire month’s

“Yeah. Not much call for structural engi-
rent themselves. If he had money to leave be-neers the way the economy is going. Most
hind, he would, but other than a note he put folks do their design work with proprietary on the bed that said they had a family emer-software. Unless you’re designing the soft-gency and would be not coming back, he
ware, you’re out of luck. Let’s just say I’m be-couldn’t help them. They were a nice enough tween jobs.”

couple, a little like Jen and himself, except Benson took a business card from a pocket.

they didn’t change the sheets like they were

“Give me a call. Maybe we can get a beer, my supposed to.

treat. Something will turn up for you, I’m The van’s air-conditioner didn’t work, and sure.”

some of the passengers smelled like they’d Hale took the card. Clearly, a manicurist had been traveling too long. At ten o’clock the spent time on Benson’s nails. For once,
next morning, the New Mexico sun pouring
though, Hale didn’t feel discouraged. No jeal-through the windows, Hale and Jen shared a ousy. Yes, he was working the breakfast shift water bottle. A bald man in the bench seat be-today, but he and Jenna would be out of here hind them, who hadn’t said anything since soon. In a couple months, he’d call Benson.

they boarded, threw up noisily onto the floor.

He’d show him the view out the window. Hale Hale gulped and breathed through his mouth.

smiled at the thought. “I’m betting on it.” The Jen looked pale. In the distance ahead,
card went into his pocket.

though, through wavy heat rising off the

A van picked Hale and Jenna up in front of desert, Spaceport’s launch towers broke the their building at two in the morning. Four oth-horizon.

er couples sat inside already, each with a duf-The man in the cowboy hat said, “You
f le bag at their feet, the most they were know this is all a political ploy, don’t you? The allowed to bring. Personal belongings only. No passengers in the f irst ship cost millions of clothing. “You talk to anyone?” said the driver, dollars each to train, and they’re supposed to who, like the coyote two nights earlier, wore be on the Moon now. We’re cheap. They get sunglasses. “No cellphones on you, right? No us there and the legal challenges on the ship firearms?”

they really want to go up clear away. No more

“No phones. Nothing proscribed,” said
lawsuits. No more arguing about who de-

Hale. He tossed his bag under the seat with serves to be first citizens. It will be us. The ex-Jenna’s, then squeezed onto the bench seat cavation’s done. The city is done. They just with another couple. The woman smiled tired-need people in it.”

ly at him. “You’re our last pickups,” she said.

First citizens. Hale liked the sound of that.

“We’ve been on the road for ten hours. Hope The van exited off the highway that had
you used the bathroom before you got on. Our been heavy with truck traffic to and from the chauffeur doesn’t appear to have a bladder.”

port onto a graveled road.

“Really?” said Jen. “It’s what, another eight

“Hey!” said someone up front, “this isn’t the hours from here?”

way.”

COYOTE MOON

131

ANALOG

“We can’t go in the front gates,” snarled the even with the cost of boosting payload into or-driver as dust poured through the open win-bit tumbling to a fraction of what it once had dows.

been, that the money wouldn’t come close to He wrestled the van through a tight curve.

covering what he would have to pay for a tick-

“When we get there, I’m going to pull up to et if he was buying it. Besides, they said the the prep building. Door opens, you go inside.

funds would be returned, minus the “handling Don’t forget your bag. Don’t talk to anyone be-charge,” of course. The f ive thousand must tween the van and the building. I’ll do the talk-just be a lever to keep him quiet. If a hint of ing if someone is there. Once you are inside, what he was doing leaked, the money would the preflight techs will take care of you.”

be forfeited. He’d have no recourse either.

The van bumped and swayed over the next

Who would believe that a mysterious group fifteen minutes before pulling onto the backwas collecting money from poor working-
side of a huge asphalt parking lot. Ahead, class people to populate the new Lunar city?

long, low, grey buildings stood in front of the They directed the crowd to underground
rocket gantries that thrust bravely skyward, trams. Much later, Hale would learn how the dozens of them that reached into the hazy dis-company pulled the ruse off. Because com-
tance. Some were empty, but heavy Astraeus mercial runs to the Moon would be as regular space launch system boosters and cargo hulls as f lights from New York to Chicago, they occupied others. The van pulled behind a line built multiple ships, all which needed testing.

of dusty vehicles that unloaded passengers Hale, Jenna, and the others rode on what al-through a door on an otherwise featureless most everyone at Spaceport thought was a
wall.

test flight, but instead of an empty ship soar-A pressure swelled against Hale’s chest and ing skyward, f ive hundred passengers f illed ears. The windows vibrated heavily. The pas-the seats. The conspiracy’s scope was huge.

sengers glanced at each other. “It’s a takeoff,”

Bribes, falsif ied paperwork, inaccurate fuel said Jen, her voice filled with awe. Far across and cargo manifests over the course of
the desert, a rocket rose on a white-light pis-months went into the plan. At any point, a sin-ton that separated itself from the Earth, climb-gle detail could have failed, uncovering the ing faster than Hale thought possible until it plot.

faded into the blue and all that remained was Hale lay on his back in the seat. A tech
ringing in his ears.

checked his straps and buckles before moving The door on their van opened. “Everyone
on. Sitting near the bottom of the cabin, he out. Single f ile. Hustle.” The driver glanced saw seat backs all the way up. White-coated nervously around. Hale wondered if there had techs moved up and down the ladders, mak-been payoffs to keep security away. Other ing adjustments, murmuring encouragement.

than the vans and buses, there were no other The acceleration was loud, brutal, and
vehicles or people in sight.

painful, like a very fat, angry, roaring giant sit-Once the door closed behind them, white-
ting on him, squashing him into the seat. Free coated techs ushered them into locker rooms fall was worse. The drugs to combat nausea where they were given blue, single-piece
worked unequally well, and air scrubbers
jumpsuits. Hale watched sadly as his old
didn’t clean up floating globules as quickly as clothes vanished into a rolling bin. “Shower Hale hoped. He didn’t suffer at all, though.

f irst,” announced a tech holding a bullhorn.

Rather, he enjoyed the sensation and wanted

“Med-prep will meet you as you exit.”

to move about the cabin, but there wasn’t Hale luxuriated as hot water cascaded over room. Confines were close. The best he could him. He was tired from the trip, but he felt do was unbuckle and float above his seat. The like laughing. This was really happening. It second day into the f light, when it seemed had been a year in the planning, starting when that the passengers around them were sleep-he clicked on an e-mail ad: “Looking for a ing, Jenna suggested they try zero-gravity love-change in your life?” Over the course of the making. Hale couldn’t tell if she was serious.

next months, more and more correspon-

Small ports on the cabin’s side afforded him dence, two medical exams for him and Jenna, a view into space. Sometimes, when the ship and then the raising of funds. Hale knew that turned in the right direction, Earth f illed the 132

JAMES VAN PELT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
window, blue and white and gorgeous. A crys-Finally, the intercom clicked. “We are sorry tal ball glistening on black velvet. But what he for the delay. Negotiations have concluded sat-wanted was the Moon so large and brilliant isfactorily. We will deorbit for an arrival in and sharp-edged, like he’d never seen it be-ninety minutes.”

fore. The title beat in his head: “First citizen.

Everyone cheered, even the nauseous ones.

First citizen.” The unoccupied world would Strapped in, the rockets shaking the ship as become the springboard into the Solar Sys-they controlled the descent, Hale didn’t worry tem. Not Earth with its crushing gravity well, about crashing. He held Jenna’s hand again and but the Moon, rich in resources. Asteroids thought about how lucky they were. They
could be towed into orbit for mining. Indus-were the pilgrims, the settlers, the people who tries would spring into being. Everything rode wagons west, the founding fathers. He mankind needed to thrive could be mined or thought about Luna Prime as if it was Dodge or manufactured there: air, water, metals, miner-Laramie or Sante Fe. Someday, people would als, all of it. And in the underground city, Luna look back at them, the f irst citizens. There Prime, crops would grow in properly condi-would be plaques, statues, a founders’ park.

tioned soils. He’d heard that the construction When the ship touched down, and the
bots had excavated vast chambers. There
rocket racket became silence, he felt like he’d would be forests. In the lower gravity, with come home. Techs helped them unbuckle and wings, humans could fly.

climb the ladder to the exit. Gravity, as light as Twenty-four hours later, they should have it was, felt good. They gave him shoes.

landed. An announcement came through the

“They’re sticky,” said the tech. “It will take a intercoms. “We’re sorry there has been a
while for you to get the hang of walking here.

change in our schedule. We will orbit while You’ll slip a lot, and slowing down is hard too.

we wait for proper clearance.”

You’ve got just a sixth of the gravity you’re Proper clearance? Hale had spent the last used to. You’ll notice the ceilings are high. It’s year learning about the Moon. He’d read about not decorative.”

the automated construction, about the small Other passengers in the staging area
crew of supervisors and city builders who laughed often. Talk was loud. Giddy.

were already there. The moon was ready for An announcement directed them to an au-residents. What “clearance” could they possi-ditorium. Hale absorbed ever ything: the
bly need? He found out later that some argued white, polished hallways that felt like marble they shouldn’t be allowed to land, even
or ceramic, the echoing oddness of their foot-though they didn’t have the fuel or supplies steps, the soft indirect lighting from recessed for a return trip to Earth.

sconces, the air that smelled like ozone, like a Jenna said, “Don’t worry, hon. The Moon
meadow after a spring thunder storm. And
will still be there for us.” She put her hand on then the hallway opened into a gigantic am-his shoulder as he stared out the port. The phitheater with an arced ceiling a hundred ship wasn’t oriented so he could see anything feet overhead. For a second, Hale glanced other than black emptiness. Even the laser-like around for something to throw. How high
shine of untwinkling stars gave him little com-could he toss a baseball in here? Could he fort.

reach the ceiling that looked impossibly far Hours stretched into a day and then into
away? Skylights directed the sun’s rays in long two. One of the two bathrooms in their sec-shafts. Hale blinked at the brightness. His face tion of the ship quit working (the air flow that ached, and he realized it was from smiling.

was supposed to suck waste products away in-He’d been smiling since they arrived. The explicably reversed), and the meals turned Moon was Christmas when he was five. It was into small snacks as supplies ran low.

his best birthday ever rolled into high school A tech who worked on the toilet said, sym-graduation and the day he married Jen. First pathetically, “It’s a mess out there. They’re ar-citizens! First citizens!

guing about your legal status. It has cleared They were directed to chairs. An older
the launch for the next ship, though. The woman in a tan business suit took the podium hoity toity are on their way. You’ll have comin front of the crowd. Uniformed men stood pany up here before you know it.”

behind her. The only people Hale had seen so COYOTE MOON

133

ANALOG
far were white-coated techs. The speaker

They would have no voice in city government.

looked uncomfortable. She waited for the five The blue suits they wore now would be the hundred to become quiet.

only style of clothes allowed for them. They

“I’d like to welcome you to the Moon,” she could still be productive, though. Construc-said, “in spite of your unorthodox mode of ar-tion continued as Lunar Prime expanded un-rival. There has been much discussion of your derground. Dust settled everywhere. More
status since it was discovered that you were and more legal residents would arrive. Litter on the way.”

would need to be cleaned. Streets swept.

Hale thought, we’re first citizens, but he Garbage collected. Meals prepared and
quit smiling.

served. Some of them might be lucky enough

“There is no precedent. On Earth, thou-
to f ind positions with the legal residents to sands of people went through a long and in-keep their houses.

volved process to earn the right for their

“You have a position on the Moon,” she
home on the Moon. They endured tests. They concluded, “if you know your place.”

trained. They spent hundreds of thousands of Much, much later, when the investigations dollars of their own fortunes to reserve their closed, a cabal within the company was in-seats. The company spent millions more on dicted for the transportation of illegals to the each one of them.

Moon. They were indicted but not charged.

“You, however, sidestepped the process.

They served no jail time, and eventually relo-We are even now seeking out the people recated to the Moon where they became city
sponsible for your presence here. They will be leaders, company CEOs, and well-funded en-held accountable, but what to do with you?

trepreneurs.

We cannot transport you back to Earth. Al-Hale reported to work his f irst full day on ready, your standing is in litigation. On Earth, the Moon. They gave him a mop and bucket.

there are injunctions, lawsuits, and court or-

“You’ll go from business to business with a ders. In short, paralysis. We will make sure crew, cleaning after hours.”

you are fed, of course, and you will be provid-Jenna was assigned to food service. The le-ed quarters.

gal residents liked Earth food, familiar food,

“You are, however, illegals. You have no sta-fast food. Every night she came home from tus. To be blunt, you are without standing.

work smelling of French fries and onions.

The company is grateful that you are here, be-Their apartment was no bigger than their
cause without you, the f irst ships would not bed. ■
have been able to be launched, and this vast city would have remained empty, but we also James Van Pelt is a part-time high school have to find a place for you.

English teacher and full-time writer in west-

“You need jobs.”

ern Colorado. He’s been a finalist for a Nebu-She talked for twenty minutes more, ex-
la Award and been reprinted in many year’s plaining that they would be tenanted in apart-best collections. His first Young Adult novel, ments far from the city center, that they Pandora’s Gun, was released from Fairwood should avoid mingling with the legal residents Press in August of 2015. James blogs at when they arrived (“There will be resent-http://www.jamesvanpelt.com, and he can ments, you understand. They belong here.”).

be found on Facebook.

134

JAMES VAN PELT

Illustrated by Josh Meehan

Abductive

Reasoning

Christopher L. Bennett
he odds of a wafer-ship being struck by
she couldn’t bring it under control—but of a microsingularity in deep space were,
course, the sails were the one component her like both of the entities involved, too mi-onboard nanites couldn’t self-repair.

Tnuscule to notice on a cosmic scale. So What hurt most was the irony. Her creche-naturally it happened to Cjek’darrit while she mates only reconverged at the home star once was in a hurry—and right in the middle of her every few hundred galactic microrotations, shortcut through an uncivilized part of the and Cjek’darrit had skipped the last reunion galaxy. The spillage from her damaged vacu-because of a silly argument with her wing-sis-um-energy sails would send her badly off
ter—an impetuous choice she’d regretted ever course and critically deplete her reserves if since. And so, in her determination not to ABDUCTIVE REASONING

135

ANALOG
miss the next reunion, she’d made the equally Once the neural interface between her
impetuous choice to divert through undevel-biochip and the body’s sensory cortex was onoped space, far from anyone who could re-
line, Cjek’darrit opened her newly made eyes ceive her distress signal in time.

and found herself in a neat, circular burned Her only recourse was to head for the near-patch in the middle of the vegetation field. En-by star’s third planet, which showed signs of a gaging the motor cortex, she rose and tested technological civilization—though it looked the limbs of her new conveyance—a f lesh
like a primitive one that hadn’t learned how to form comfortably like the one she had been generate power without befouling its ecosys-born in so many embodiments ago, yet optitem. Logically, if it were advanced enough to mized for the biochemistry and environment have the materials she needed to repair her of this high-gravity, ultraviolet-bombarded sails, it would probably be part of the Galactic world. The nanites had fashioned a functional Coalition already. So Cjek might have to resign skintight garment from fused plant f ibers to herself to waiting however long it took for the provide additional protection for the body.

Coalition to receive her distress signal and As soon as Cjek neared the edge of the field, send help—or for this civilization to develop her echolocation registered the hesitant ap-starflight on its own, whichever came first. Ei-proach of a bipedal animal swathed in a simi-ther way, it would mean another missed
lar fabric covering with bits of metal atchance to make amends with her sister—and tached—no doubt one of the operators of this who knew if she would be granted another?

agricultural compound. Once again, she

At least she managed to bring the wafer-
cursed herself for her impatience. Yet after a ship through its atmospheric deceleration in moment, accepting that she’d been observed one piece. As she wafted toward the ground, by an indigenous sophont, Cjek decided there Cjek’s scans revealed a sparsely populated was no reason to delay contacting the creature area—some sort of agricultural zone, hideous-and learning what she could from it. A portion ly wasteful of land and resources—with only a of her wafer-mind had already scanned the few crude wooden structures nearby. She
broadcasts and data systems of this planet and hoped its population was sparse enough that had not flagged any clear indications of usable she could remain unobserved as she reconsti-technology, but most of her available process-tuted herself, giving her a chance to size up ing power had been devoted to constructing a the local culture before deciding whether and translation matrix. She might be able to use how to make open contact.

that matrix to gain additional knowledge from But her bad luck hadn’t ended yet. The
a native. Thus, after loading the dominant lo-strain of descent triggered a surge of energy cal tongue into her language center, she
from the breached vacuum sails, causing them stepped out to greet the unidentified farming to emit brilliant beams of varicolored light and organism.

a loud, descending hum. She damped it as

The bizarrely vertical-bodied bipedal crea-quickly as she could, then vectored in for a ture—a “human,” according to the transla-landing in the middle of a field of tall, slender tor—carried an illumination source in one of crops—an excellent source of organic com-its hands. As soon as the light beam fell upon pounds from which to build her new body.

Cjek’darrit, the human’s single pair of eyes The wafer-ship housing her consciousness
widened for a moment, then shut f irmly as biochip was ideal for spaceflight, but too tiny the creature went very tense, its hands clench-and fragile to operate planetside without the ing tightly by its sides. Realizing she’d fright-protection of an organic shell.

ened the poor thing, Cjek loped gingerly to-Still, the body would be vulnerable while it ward it on all sixes. Hello, she thought in was incomplete, so she kicked her replication Teoi’kath, hearing it emerge from her mouth-nanites into high gear, prioritizing speed over parts as “Hello.”

stealth. The synthesis process unavoidably re-The human’s eyes brief ly snapped open,
leased additional lights, sounds, smells, and then clenched shut once more. “I-I’m ready,” it clouds of vapor, and she could only hope the whispered. Based on broadcast visual images, vegetation around her would provide suff iher nonverbal interpreter protocol suggested cient concealment.

its manner was frightened but somehow eager 136

CHRISTOPHER L. BENNETT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
as well. Cjek suspected the protocol’s accuracy The human stared for a moment, then came
left something to be desired.

to some form of attention. “Roy Vincent Dun-

“I’m glad to hear it. Ready for what?”

can!” he exclaimed. “Citizen of the United The human f inally relaxed its eyelids and States of America of the planet Earth!” A tiny got its f irst good look at Cjek’darrit. Its reac-winged arthropod landed on the side of his tion translated as the expected shock—and face, somewhat spoiling the effect.

then a more unexpected reaction. Disappoint-

“Okay, okay, these ears work f ine. Roy, is ment? As though Cjek were not what it had it?”

expected to see.

“Roy Vincent Duncan!” he shouted, fright-

“You know,” the human f inally answered.

ening the arthropod away. “Citizen of—”

“Don’t toy with me. I know all about what you

“Roy it is, then. I’m Cjek. Now listen, why aliens do. The abductions. The tests. The im-don’t you take me to your—” She paused, for plants, the impregnations, all of it! And I’m Roy perked up at that for some reason. “—
ready,” it went on def iantly—but still with Your house,” she finished, “and tell me more that undercurrent of desire. “Do your worst!”

about these aliens abducting your people. If Cjek’s f irst reaction was excitement. No someone is doing something so immoral to
sooner had she landed than she’d found a lead your kind, the galactic authorities ought to be on a possible means of rescue. It seemed too notified!”

good to be true.

That last was added merely to get the hu-

But then the details of the human’s descrip-man’s cooperation. Cjek’darrit tried to be a de-tion began to sink in. “Wait a minute,” Cjek cent enough citizen, but she was no crusader.

said, the matrix providing the proper idiom.

Whatever species had undertaken to experi-

“Are you telling me that space travellers are ment on Earth’s indigenes might not be will-performing invasive medical experiments on ing to help her leave the planet if they feared intelligent creatures without their consent?”

she would report them. And any such report

“Of course you are! Everyone knows it!

would take at least a microrotation—about Even the government knows it, but of course two hundred of this planet’s years—to gener-they’re keeping it a secret from the rest of us.

ate action, given how far removed this sector The politicians and the aliens, you’re all in on was from the normal lines of galactic commu-it.”

nication. By that time, the experimenters Cjek wondered how everyone could know
would probably have concluded their study something that the government kept secret.

anyway. So what would be the point?

She also wondered how it—no, he, the inter-Once they reached Roy Vincent Duncan’s
preter advised her—could seem so ardent
farmhouse, the human had overcome his
about something he was so vehemently con-
shock and evinced deep excitement to be
demning. Perhaps her translation software conversing with a real live alien. But he soon needed an overhaul. “Look here, friend. That remembered his mission to inform Cjek’darrit sort of thing would violate half the laws and about the heinous alien experimenters. More ethical codes in the Galactic Coalition. So be winged arthropods flew through the door in careful with those accusations.

both directions as the Iteoi followed the hu-

“I, for one, have never been to this planet.

man inside. They were probably drawn to the It’s not even on my charts.” She raised the aroma of decaying food that pervaded the in-front half of her body to vertical, pushed her-terior. Cjek tiptoed gingerly through the clut-self up further on the tips of her middle limbs’

ter on her rear four limbs, wishing she could long fingers, puffed up the featherfur crest on balance on just the rear pair as easily as Roy her head and back, and splayed her short, fan-could.

like tail to its full width. “I am Cjek’darrit of

“Here,” Roy said, beckoning Cjek toward a the Fourth Rank, Subline Red, Left Wing. I am back room. “I have the photos in here.”

an Iteoi from the stellar system Ruch’danni. I

“A whole room? Don’t you have a data net-
had an accident in space. My sensors detected work connection?”

evidence of industrialization on this world, so

“And let the En-Ess-Ay eavesdrop on my

I came here to search for repair equipment.

every move? Oh-h, no. They won’t get me that And you are?”

way.”

ABDUCTIVE REASONING

137

ANALOG

Something about the room they now en-
to ruff le through the photos of the alleged tered reminded Cjek of religious shrines she’d spacecraft. Soon, she swiveled her left eyes to visited on other worlds. The walls were fes-focus on the human. “You’ve got to be kid-tooned with images, some depicting circular ding.”

objects or vague patterns of light. Most, how-Surprise seemed to be Roy’s dominant emo-
ever, depicted pale bipedal forms, and it was tion. “Well—I know they’re a little blurry. . . .”

these that Roy pointed out to Cjek’darrit. “You

“They’re all blurry! Doesn’t anyone on this see?” Roy asked.

planet know how to use a camera?”

Cjek ruff led her crest in confusion. “See

“They, they go by so fast—”

what? There are only humans depicted here.

“You’re putting me on, right? I mean, look Naked humans.”

at these. There’s no design similarity at all, oth-

“Humans?” Roy exclaimed. “They’re er than the circular shapes.” Cjek reared up aliens!”

onto her hind legs to study some of the higher

“Where?”

images, using both tongues and forehands to

“These!” He pointed to them directly. “Any-shuff le through them. “No consistency.

one can see they aren’t a thing like us!”

There’s no way these could all be produced by

“What are you talking about? They’re up-
the same race.”

right bipeds with two arms and an oval head Roy’s mouth gaped. “You mean there are
pointed at the bottom. A very distinctive head multiple species visiting us?”

shape you have; I’ve never seen anything like

“Come on, there’d have to be dozens. I
it. And they balance on hind limbs the same as can’t imagine an ordinary planet like this at-you—do you have any idea how rare that is?

tracting that much attention—especially with Two eyes, a horizontal mouth . . . ten fingers,”

this inconveniently high gravity,” she added she f inished, holding up all but two of her with a grunt as she lowered herself to a more own dozen. She gave him a quick sonar burst comfortable quadrupedal stance.

to look beneath his clothing, then consulted

“Besides—nobody uses cumbersome craft
the communications records she had down-
like these for interstellar journeys. The power loaded on descent. “Granted, they lack exter-requirements would be outrageous. And why nal sexual characteristics, but that could just bother, when you can store your conscious-mean . . . oh, no. No, Roy, I need to f ind ness biochip and a nanofabrication suite on a aliens. I don’t have time to indulge your fetish wafer-ship half the size of your hand?”

for images of unclothed immature females.”

The human looked at his hand. “Then how

“What? No, it was just the one time. And I do they get the abductees inside?”

was holding them for a friend. And the gov-

“How big do you think these things are,
ernment planted them anyway! No, I swear, anyway?” Cjek went on, engaging her optical countless people have seen these aliens. Look, analysis software to evaluate the printouts look.” He gestured at the wall dominated by again. The results were not encouraging.

the images of bright lights and circular shapes.

“This one has a diameter about a f ifth your

“These are their ships.”

height, and it’s about eight human-lengths Grasping for hope, Cjek reasoned that ex-from the camera. This one’s on a wire—right perimenters visiting this world might choose there. Wait . . . this one looks like one of those to incarnate themselves in bodies mimicking metal things on the wheels of your vehicle!

those of the indigenous civilization. The emu-Wire . . . wire . . . this one’s a cloud!” What lation was imperfect, but the approximation kind of sick joke was this creature trying to might be intended to put the natives at ease, play on her in her time of need?

or might simply be a practical adaptation to

“But—” Roy sputtered. “But look!” He led
the conditions of this planet (though how tee-Cjek into another room and activated a video tering on two limbs could be practical in this device, inserting a silvery disc into an adjacent high gravity was beyond her). So she might as machine. “Watch this. It was taken from an air-well give the human the benef it of the
plane at night.”

doubt—for now.

“What? I see a point of light moving around Roy pulled back when Cjek’s prehensile
on a black background.”

tongues shot out from her stubby probosces

“But look at the way it moves! No Earthly 138

CHRISTOPHER L. BENNETT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
vehicle could change direction that fast, be ernment is aware that a foreign power has in-that maneuverable! It’s clearly cancelling iner-vaded its soil to conduct immoral medical ex-tia!”

periments on its populace and has sided with Cjek made a noise analogous to clearing her the invaders against its own taxpaying citi-throat. “How did you say this was recorded?”

zens.” By the First Rank, this was almost

“Some passengers on an airplane saw it.

worth the risk of missing her reunion again.

They had a camera, and—”

Was his whole species this lacking in critical She stared. “A portable camera?”

reasoning skills? If so, it was no wonder the

“Yeah. Handheld.”

Coalition hadn’t bothered to contact them.

Cjek’s assessment of this creature’s intelli-

“They, they’ve taken over the government!

gence was plummeting with its every utter-They put things in people’s necks, see—”

ance. Being ignorant of interstellar spacecraft

“But you just said the government was con-parameters was one thing, but not even grasp-trolling them!”

ing the difference between an erratically mov-Roy was unable to f ind an answer. Cjek
ing object and an erratically shaking camera?

took pity on him. “Look . . . if you’re doing a

“You’re just wasting my time now, Roy. That’s clandestine survey, you set up a gravity-lens probably the second planet in your system! I telescope in a nearby system. If you’re a little saw it while I was coming in—it’s quite
more daring or want more resolution, you put bright.”

receivers in the outer cometary cloud and

“But—but millions of people have seen
monitor the radio signals. If they don’t broad-UFOs! The brilliant lights in the sky, the col-cast outward, or if there’s some other reason ors, the—”

for an on-site survey, you hide out under-

“Wait, wait a minute. Brilliant lights in the ground.”

sky?”

“Yeah! Yeah! There’s a big UFO base at the

“Uh-huh.”

North Pole!”

In spite of herself, Cjek was starting to be

“Then,” Cjek went on as if Roy hadn’t spo-amused by this whole pathetic situation. “Oh, ken, “if you need to do aerial reconnaissance, Roy, Roy, give us aliens some credit! If you you send out robot probes designed as small were a space traveller studying a planetbound f lying creatures—insects, you would call species—and you didn’t want them to know
them. Or perhaps you even . . .”

you were there—would you go flying around She trailed off. Had the answer been right their night sky in brilliantly lit vehicles?!”

in front of her this whole time? She looked

“You did!”

up at the tiny, buzzing creatures that circled

“That was an accident! And I wasn’t even
the room’s dim light source. Scanning
trying that hard to hide.”

through the recognized interstellar contact

“Well, they . . . they don’t care if we see frequencies and protocols, she soon got a them!”

ping in return. Most of the insects in this

“But you said they were conspiring with the domicile were genuine, but Cjek’darrit felt government to keep all this secret.”

great relief as two of them settled atop her

“That’s ’cause—that’s ’cause the govern-
head and sent a tightbeam transmission to ment has some of them prisoner! Area 51,
her biochip within.

Roswell, you know!”

<YOUR APPEAL IS ACKNOWLEDGED, CJEK’DARRIT

Cjek focused all four eyes on Roy, pucker-OF THE FOURTH RANK. WE APOLOGIZE FOR NOT INI-ing her probosces as she processed all this.

TIATING CONTACT, BUT WE ARE PROGRAMMED AS PAS-

“So . . . they have a whole f leet of advanced, SIVE OBSERVERS.>
powerful spacecraft right here on your planet,

<UNDERSTOOD. ARE YOU AUTHORIZED TO HELP ME
and little enough regard for your race to treat REPAIR MY VACUUM SAILS?>
you like laboratory vermin—and yet they’re

<CERTAINLY. WE ARE OBLIGED TO ASSIST ANY
not willing to attack your government facilities COALITION CITIZEN IN NEED, AS WELL AS TO MINIMIZE
to free their kin. Instead, they’ve agreed to DISRUPTION TO THE EXPERIMENT.>
keep their presence secret to protect their

<SO YOU HAVE BEEN EXPERIMENTING ON THESE BE-kin—yet they casually advertise their presence INGS? ABDUCTING AND PROBING THEM?>
in your night skies. Meanwhile, your own gov-

<OUR EXPERIMENT IS STRICTLY OBSERVATIONAL, ABDUCTIVE REASONING

139

ANALOG

EVALUATING THE DEVELOPMENT OF A TECHNOLOGI-too high to allow her to dodge in time. All CAL CIVILIZATION IN ISOLATION FROM INTERSTELLAR
she could do was isolate her biochip from CONTACT. OUR FEMTOSENSORS HAVE PERVADED THE
the body’s pain receptors before impact.

DUST OF THIS WORLD FOR THOUSANDS OF ITS YEARS.

Judging from the feedback she did receive as WE HAVE NO NEED TO ABDUCT THE HUMANS; WE ARE
the pellets penetrated her body, that had INSIDE EVERY ONE OF THEM AT EVERY MOMENT, PAS-been a wise choice. The pellets tore through SIVELY OBSERVING EVERY LAST DETAIL OF THEIR
several major organs and tendons, and the LIVES.>
hydraulic shock waves that propagated

<AND THESE HUMANLIKE FORMS THAT ROY INSISTS
through the body’s f lesh and f luids over-ARE ALIENS?>
loaded its muscular and circulatory systems,

<MERE FOLKLORE. HUMANS’ SUPERSTITIOUS BEcausing it to collapse into immobility. It LIEFS IN EXTRATERRESTRIAL VISITATION TEND TO CON-would take some time for her nanites to reFORM TO DOMINANT ENTERTAINMENT-MEDIA IMAGES
build the f lesh, and they were still depleted OF ALIEN LIFE. THIS PARTICULAR IMAGE WAS ORIGI-from the exertion of synthesizing it in the NALLY PUBLISHED AS A SPECULATIVE PROJECTION OF
f irst place. And she doubted Roy would give FUTURE HUMAN EVOLUTION, FILTERED THROUGH THIS
her the luxury of self-repair in his current REGIONAL SOCIETY’S PREJUDICES IN FAVOR OF INTEL-state.

LECT OVER ANIMAL TRAITS, AS WELL AS ITS PREJUDICE

Luckily, the observers were still with her.

IN FAVOR OF PALE SKIN. IT WAS THEN CO-OPTED BY

<LEAVE THE BODY,> they suggested. <IT HAS

CULTISTS SUCH AS THIS ONE, WHOSE BELIEFS WERE

SERVED ITS PURPOSE. COME WITH THESE DRONES IN

THEN POPULARIZED BY THE ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA, YOUR WAFER-SHIP AND WE WILL SEE YOU ON YOUR

CREATING A FEEDBACK LOOP THAT ENTRENCHED THE

WAY HOME.>

IMAGE IN THEIR CULTURE.>

Cjek’darrit thanked them and began mak-

“Yes, yes, I don’t need a sociology lecture, ing preparations to jettison her spacegoing just get me off this planet!”

form from its ruined shell, the most short-She realized a moment later that she had
lived body she’d ever inhabited. But she
spoken aloud. Roy was staring at her warily.

couldn’t resist making the effort to animate

“Who were you talking to just then? Is it its vocal tract one last time to address Roy.

them? Are they listening right now? Are they

“I’m f ine, by the way,” she told him, making coming to probe me?”

him convulse in shock. “No hard feelings.

Cjek trilled with laughter. “Oh-h, Roy, Roy.

This isolated state has clearly made your You have no idea. They’ve been inside you species delusional, so I don’t blame you. But since the day you were born.”

don’t worry, I’m going now. Keep the body.

It was the wrong thing to say. “No. No!”

Show it to your friends—well, to the people Roy cried, erupting in panic and running
who share your beliefs. Tell them what I’ve from the room. When Cjek got her laughter told you. If you’re going to obsess over aliens, under control and loped out after the poor you might as well get your facts straight.”

creature to try to calm him down, she found Before Roy could overcome his panicked
him confronting her with a pair of metal
paralysis, Cjek allowed the body to expire tubes connected to a handgrip. “Stay back!

and ordered her nanites to hollow out an exit You’ve been one of them this whole time,
pathway for her wafer-ship. The insect
haven’t you? Trying to f ind out what I know!

drones took the opportunity to ask, <YOU DIS-Trying to make me doubt! Well, you won’t

APPROVE OF OUR ISOLATION EXPERIMENT?> take me!”

<IT DOESN’T SEEM TO BE DOING THIS SPECIES A She stepped toward him, one hand spread

LOT OF GOOD.>
forward placatingly. “Oh, seriously, Roy, why

<OUR METHODS ARE WITHIN THE LETTER OF
would I need to discredit you if I were just COALITION LAW. WE MERELY OBSERVE; ANY HARM
going to—”

THEY SUFFER IS THROUGH THEIR OWN CHOICES AND

The tubes erupted in a chemical explosion ACTIONS.>
that expelled a number of dense metal pel-

<THAT’S A CONVENIENT RATIONALIZATION.> lets at dangerous velocity. Her thoughts ac-

<IT IS TRUE THAT THE LACK OF THE STABILIZING
celerated to track their approach, but this INFLUENCE OF THE COALITION HAS ALLOWED CERTAIN
body was too massive and the local gravity NEGATIVE DRIVES TO MANIFEST IN AMPLIFIED FORM.

140

CHRISTOPHER L. BENNETT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

BUT IT HAS ALLOWED POSITIVE DRIVES TO AMPLIFY AS
black helicopters showing up to silence him?

WELL. THE SAME IMAGINATION THAT LEADS THIS HU-He sighed. “No one would ever believe me.”

MAN INTO DELUSION INSPIRES OTHERS TO CONCEIVE

So Roy Vincent Duncan took Cjek’darrit’s

EXTRAORDINARY NEW APPROACHES TO PHYSICS, SOCI-corpse out to the crop circle it had come OLOGY, AND ART. THE PROBLEMS THEY CREATE FOR
from and burned it. Then he spread the ashes THEMSELVES IMBUE THEM WITH A PASSION TO FIND
around the cornf ield in a more intricate pat-SOLUTIONS. THEIR UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE COULD BEN-tern of circles and lines. A week later, he EFIT THE COALITION GREATLY ONCE THEY REACH IT
razed the faster-growing corn that had result-ON THEIR OWN.>
ed, neatened up the edges, photographed

<MAYBE. BUT IS IT WORTH THE COST?> As her the whole thing, and drove down to the local wafer-ship rose from her corpse, she took library so he could log on and tell the world one last look around Roy Vincent Duncan’s what had really happened when the saucers abode. <IT’S A TERRIBLE THING TO BE ALONE TOO
had come to take him. ■

LONG.>

With that thought in mind, she f lew off

Christopher L. Bennett has been an Analog with the drones, ready to resume her journey contributor on and off since 1998. A Cincinnati, back home to her family. This time, perhaps, Ohio resident with bachelor's degrees in physics she would stay for a while.

and history, he is one of Pocket Books’ most pro-

* * *
lific authors of Star Trek tie-in fiction, including Roy stared at the corpse of the alien for a the Star Trek: Enterprise —Rise of the Federation long time before deciding what to do. Should series and Star Trek: The Original Series —The he photograph it, freeze it, take samples?

Face of the Unknown, and his hard SF super-Should he contact his allies in the UFO com-hero novel Only Superhuman was named Li-munity and reveal these new truths to them?

brary Journal's SF/Fantasy Debut of the Month But what truths? No saucer, no abduction, for October 2012. Christopher's homepage is at no probing? Wafer-ships and passive observa-christopherlbennett.wordpress.com, and his tion? This bizarre, uncategorizable clutter of Facebook author page is at www.face body parts instead of a proper Gray? No
book.com/ChristopherLBennettAuthor.

I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here.

—Arthur C. Clarke

ABDUCTIVE REASONING

141

Invaders

Stanley Schmidt
ourists! I thought in exasperation, and threatened by the incessant construction of not for the first time today. Even though new hotels and tourist traps. Even though—or I was on the Smoky Mountain Express-perhaps because—the local economy was so

Tway, far from any major town, traffic was dependent on them, many saw the twice-an-bumper-to-bumper and creeping along at the nual waves of tourists as invaders sweeping in pace of a disabled snail. Looking at the green like locusts.

mountains all around me—and I had plenty of But the chambers never passed up a chance time to do that—I could understand why peo-to draw in more of them (and their dollars).

ple came here. I’d moved here myself for the As soon as one chamber realized that the
same reason. But did every chamber of com-eclipse could be billed as a tourist attraction, merce in a dozen counties have to work so they started promoting the daylights out of it hard at attracting so many of them?

(so to speak), with special hotel offers, pack-Admittedly, it wasn’t always this bad. Some-age deals, and so on. When the bait worked thing truly special was happening tomorrow, for one town, and accommodations started
and a lot of people wanted to see it. I’d known filling up a year in advance, every town in or that; I’d booked a room and left home today, near the path of totality got into the act.

even though my destination was normally

And so here I was, trapped in slow traff ic only a couple of hours’ drive, precisely be-on an “expressway,” and it wasn’t even rush cause I’d anticipated traffic jams. But I hadn’t hour, or a place that normally had rush hours.

anticipated anything like this. Who would I was beginning to wonder whether I
have thought that even a total solar eclipse would even get there in time.

would draw out so many people other than

Mind wandering, I almost didn’t notice that professional and amateur astronomers?

the creep of traffic had slowed to a standstill. I The aforementioned chambers of com-pounced on the brake to avoid hitting the ob-merce, that’s who. There has long been a
vious rental car in front of me, and then sat love-hate relationship between the locals there fuming. Could this really all be because (which I now considered myself, even if some of tomorrow’s eclipse? Or was there an acci-of the old-timers didn’t) and the tourists who dent up ahead?

swarmed into the mountains and valleys every Frustrated, curious, and with nothing bet-summer and fall. People who’d grown up
ter to do, I turned on the radio to an all-news here, or staked a claim and settled in, winced station with frequent weather and traff ic re-at seeing the area’s old charm increasingly ports—and even more frequent commercials.

142

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

The radio came on in the middle of one, but I most missed the weathered wooden sign that waited it out. Then I had to endure the latest said HERMINA’S HILLTOP HIDEAWAY. Turn-political gossip from Washington and Raleigh, ing into the narrow gravel driveway, which more commercials, assorted reports of domes-continued to wiggle up the hill without bene-tic violence and animal abuse, a passing deri-fit of lights, I felt a mixture of relief and dread.

sive mention of several UFO reports, and still I was here—but what did that mean? I’d wait-more commercials, before getting to traffic.

ed too long to look for a room, not realizing Which had little to offer. Nothing about an how quickly places would fill up, and this was accident near here; just “heavy volume and what was left. At least it had a website, but the slow.”

pictures posted there made the lodge look, to Slow, at the moment, still meant stationary.

put it charitably, plain. The prices were anyI left the radio on but gave the air conditioner thing but. But what choice did I have?

a rest and opened the windows to let some Finally I came around a bend and found my-outside air in. There was a bit of a breeze, but self right in front of a rustic log wall. Faint not much, and it was too hot for late August in light came from a couple of windows. A single the mountains—just like last year. Cicadas lantern, mounted to the wall on a bracket that singing in the woods made a soothing back-hung askew because of a couple of missing ground for the ongoing drone of the radio. I screws, marked the location of the door. The wasn’t paying close attention, but I shook my small parking lot was unpaved, but at least head at another reference to UFO sightings in there were a couple of other cars in it. I Idaho, Missouri, and Nebraska.

threaded my way between them to the door

It must be silly season again.

and pressed the button on the jamb. A harshly Suddenly I noticed open space in front of old-fashioned bell rang inside.

my car. Traffic was moving again, though just So much time passed that I began to won-barely. Allowing myself just a little hope, I der whether anybody was going to answer,
eased down on the accelerator and rocketed but eventually I heard steps coming toward up to eleven miles per hour.

the door, and it swung open toward the inside on creaky hinges. A tall woman of middle

It was well into dusk by the time I reached years and rigid demeanor looked me up and my turnoff from the long, winding descent to-down. “Mr. Svensen?”

ward Fontana. Even from the few pullouts

“Yes,” I said. “May I come in?”

with trees cleared to allow views of the lake Finally she smiled, though not excessively.

below, I could barely make out the water and

“Please do. Welcome to Hermina’s Hilltop
the mountains beyond. By the time I started Hideaway. I’m Hermina.” She stuck out a hand up the road to my lodgings for the next two and I shook it. Her grip was surprisingly firm.

nights, it was very dark indeed. It was late,

“I hope your trip wasn’t too trying.”

and the road wound through deep forest un-

“It had its moments,” I said. “I suppose I’m der a sky not only cloudy, but extra dark be-too late for dinner?” I belatedly noticed aromas cause of the almost complete lack of
in the air that suggested better food than I moonlight above the clouds.

would have expected here.

I worried about the weather. Forecasts were

“I’m afraid so,” she said, “at least officially.

iffy at best, and if conditions didn’t improve, Sorry about that, but I’d be glad to warm up this whole trip could be for naught. More im-some leftovers for you.”

mediately, I was hungry and had almost cer-

“I’d appreciate that.”

tainly missed dinner.

Without further ado, she started bustling The road grew steeper, narrower, and more about the kitchen, whipping things out of cab-winding for the next hour. Sometimes I could inets and the fridge and into the microwave tell that there was a steep drop-off on one side with brisk efficiency (the phrase “military pre-or the other, and pavement gave way to gravel cision” sprang unbidden to mind), and mere and ruts. Once I had to slam on the brakes to minutes later I found myself in front of a miss a yearling bear who decided to amble steaming plate of chicken, dumplings, and as-across the road in front of me.

sorted sides that smelled heavenly. It may have By the time I got there, I was so numb I al-just been because I was so ravenous, but I INVADERS

143

ANALOG
wasn’t questioning it. “This is delicious!” I said thing different from usual was yet another ref-truthfully. “I really appreciate your going to erence to UFO reports, this time including a this trouble after hours.”

few pictures allegedly taken by witnesses and

“No trouble at all,” she said. “It was already a list of places where sightings had been re-cooked, and you’ve already paid for it. Would ported (including one in eastern Tennessee).

you rather I stayed to keep you company, or I snapped it off in disgust, mixed with mild left you some privacy?”

curiosity about why this sort of nonsense was

“I’d had nothing but privacy all day,” I said.

suddenly in the air again. I found it vaguely

“Please stay, if you don’t mind.” I babbled on, troubling, more so than it deserved to be, but

“I lost my wife a few years ago and couldn’t couldn’t quite put a finger on why.

f ind anybody else who wanted to trek out By then I was finally exhausted enough that here for a two-minute show that might or

I got to sleep fairly fast. But in those last mo-might not happen. And I’ve been stuck in traf-ments when the line between waking and
f ic for a long time.” I shifted gears. “So how sleep was blurring, I suddenly realized at least did you happen to get into the B&B business part of what bothered me about the UFO non-way out here?”

sense.

“Twenty years in the army,” she said. “ComEver notice, when we get waves of this stuff, bat, among other things. Lot of noise, lot of how all the claimed photos of these things are bureaucracy, lot of stress. It was time for a blurry, as if either they’re faked or the “space-change.” She grinned. “This is a Change. Just craft” are emitting some field that mysterious-wait till you see it in daylight.”

ly blurs photographs taken of them?

“I’m looking forward to that—hopefully

These weren’t.

with an interruption. Anybody else here for the eclipse?”

I woke feeling much better. Sunshine

“Everybody. You’ll meet them at breakfast.”

streamed through my window, vague clatterShe noticed I was wolfing down the last of the ing suggested activity elsewhere in the house, blackberry cobbler she’d heated up. “Can I get and tantalizing aromas of breakfast foods filled you anything else?”

the air.

“Just my room, thanks.”

Not sure what the schedule was, I show-

It was down a short hall, a small room with ered quickly, dressed, and went out to follow wood-paneled walls that hadn’t been var-my nose to breakfast. The place looked more nished in a while and a standard bed covered inviting in daylight, with rustic walls, furnish-with a slightly tattered old-fashioned quilt.

ings, and carpets that didn’t look too shabby if There was a small air conditioner in the win-I didn’t look too closely. My path crossed a dow, but it wasn’t on; they’re seldom needed parlor with a dormant fireplace and an equally at night at this elevation. Hermina showed me dormant Irish setter curled up on a rug in how things worked and explained some of
front of it as if waiting for it to come on. She their eccentricities, then left me alone.

looked up when I entered the room, stood

The quiet was refreshing, but despite my
and stretched languidly, and ambled over for a long day, I still felt restless after a few minutes look. She sniffed calmly at my extended hand, trying to get to sleep. Noticing it was news accepted a couple of friendly rubs, and went time, I turned on the smallish TV mounted a back to her rug.

bit too high on the wall, mainly to see if the

“That’s Zelda,” a slightly familiar voice said weather forecast had improved. It hadn’t; the from the doorway ahead of me. Hermina
forecast called for a sunny morning with
stood there looking out. “Come on in. Break-patchy fog, but a pretty high probability of af-fast is on.”

ternoon thunderstorms at the time that mat-

“So I gathered. Smells great.” I followed her tered.

through the door into a dining room I hadn’t The rest of the news was much like what
seen yet. Four people sat around a butcher-I’d heard on the radio this afternoon, but with block table set for f ive, with steaming bowls pictures: the usual petty stuff of no cosmic and serving spoons in the middle, but the first signif icance (or even regional, really), inter-thing that caught my eye was the view out the spersed with frequent commercials. The one big back window. To left and right I saw far 144

STANLEY SCHMIDT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
down into valleys carpeted with fluffy white

“I guess you could say that,” I said, “if you’re clouds, with mountains rising from them like charitable with your definitions. Retired now, islands, but overhead the sky was clear deep but I used to teach astronomy at a little college blue. Straight back, a f ield of moderately tall up north. I haven’t discovered any new exo-grass sloped up to an open horizon.

planets, or anything like that.” I hesitated a litI guessed I knew where I’d be observing
tle before confessing, “I’ve never seen a total, from—if I got a chance to observe.

either. Figured it was about time I did.”

Hermina pulled my attention back into the

“Did you bring some equipment?” Laura Lee room. “These are your fellow guests,” she asked hopefully. “We don’t have much, and said. “I’ll leave y’all to get acquainted. Food’s I’m worried about how we’re going to do this all family-style. Dig in!”

safely.”

One couple had already started doing so;

“I brought a little,” I said. “I have a pretty the other was just now taking food from the decent scope, for one that will f it in a car bowls: fancy scrambled eggs, biscuits and trunk. And some extra sun filters, just in case gravy, sausage, bacon, grits. . . . The man al-anybody needs any. Which reminds me—Her-
ready eating looked up. “Morning,” he said.

mina, do you have a good long extension cord

“Tom Schneller.” He stuck out a hand, and I that can reach our viewing site?”

took it. “And this here’s my wife, Laura Lee.”

“I think it’ll do,” she said. “I’ll show y’all

“Abe Svensen,” I said. “Pleased to meet you what we have after breakfast.”

both.” The other couple still hadn’t said any-

“Good.”

thing, so I turned to them. “And you?”

“Are y’all’s homes far from here?” John

The man looked vaguely surprised to be ad-asked suddenly.

dressed, but said, “John Smith.” He stuck out

“Atlanta,” Tom and Laura Lee said in unison.

his hand as Tom had done, but it hardly re-

“Swannanoa,” I said. “Not far, but unfortu-sponded when I took it. He gestured toward nately not in the path. How about you two?”

the woman at his left. “Jane.” After a vaguely

“Y’all’ve probably never heard of it,” said awkward pause, he scanned the rest of us and Jane, in not only an accent but a voice uncan-asked, “Are y’all here for the eclipse?”

nily like her husband’s, though a tad higher.

I stifled a chuckle at his manner of speech.

“Higthappelich?” Or something like that; I was He used “y’all” correctly, which a lot of out-so far from recognizing it that I wasn’t sure siders don’t, but his accent was pure upper-how to write it. But her voice rose at the end crust British.

as if she was hoping I would recognize it.

“Oh, yes!” Laura Lee assured him, beaming.

“I’m afraid you’re right,” I confessed. “I

“I’ve never seen one before, but I’ve been don’t know the place. But—”

reading about them and it sounds like quite a I was about to ask where it was, but just show. Tom here”—she patted his hand—“is a then Hermina noticed that we were all f in-travel agent, and he’s been booking trips for ished eating and broke in, “Everybody ready other people to see it all year. I f inally con-for a look at the site?”

vinced him that after all that, we should see it, too.”

She led us out the back door, between rows

“That she did!” Tom said with a grin. “Trou-of azalea and laurel, past its bloom, along the ble was, I’d reserved so many places for other back wall, and up the grassy slope. It didn’t go folks that there wasn’t much left by the time as far as I’d thought it might, but soon leveled we got around to looking for ourselves.” He out into a gently rolling meadow with expan-glanced around quickly as if suddenly realizing sive views in almost all directions. The fog had he might have unwittingly offended Hermina.

burned out of the valleys now, but fluffy clouds

“Not that I’m complaining. This is a really nice were already growing in the west and drifting spot, if a bit out of the way. And the food’s ter-this way. If they behaved themselves, we would rific.”

have a great view, but I didn’t trust them.

It was indeed—especially the biscuits and Zelda had tagged along, waving her tail hap-sausage. As I conf irmed that for myself, Tom pily but keeping quietly to herself.

asked, “How about you? Are you an as-

At the top of the rise stood a small wooden tronomer?”

platform that smelled of fresh lumber and INVADERS

145

ANALOG
looked recently erected. “I thought y’all might this month. There were still quite a few, includ-like a good place to put your gear,” Hermina ing some of those uncharacteristically decent said. “It’ll be easier to level tripods on this photos—and a more specific list of locations.

than in the grass. And look at this.” She point-Sunbeam, Idaho; Huron, Kansas; Carrollton, ed to a strip containing several outlets on the Missouri; Eddyville and Sumner, Nebraska; edge of the platform. “See, you won’t be need-Gates and McMinnville, Oregon; Greenback
ing that big ol’ extension cord. I put the plat-and McMinnville, Tennessee; Grand Teton Na-form up for the eclipse, but figured I might as tional Park and Hiland, Wyoming.

well do it up right and then keep it. Start pro-Was there any significance, any pattern, in moting this place as an all-season stargazing those locations? For that matter, any reason site.”

why there were so many of these reports all of

“Good idea,” I said. I looked at where the a sudden?

Sun was now and figured out where it would Well, the most obvious possibility, these be at the Moment and decided I’d made a
days, was that somebody had decided to start good choice after all. And while we were set-a big, internet-driven hoax just for the fun of ting up and waiting, there was plenty to
it. Maybe trying to scare people by making it soothe the eye: waves of mountains and val-look like Earth was being invaded by aliens, in leys stretching off to the horizon, f ields, a bunch of places at once. Sort of like an up-woods, and flowers closer at hand. An old rail dated version of Orson Welles’s Halloween fence covered with morning glory in full
gag in 1938, when he reimagined H. G. Wells’s bloom stretched from the woods to the house, War of the Worlds in New Jersey and broad-passing close to our “observatory.” A hum-cast it as real-time news reports, scaring the mingbird checked out the flowers; other birds pants off thousands of listeners.

sang here and there around us, though the In that case, might the locations of the re-morning chorus was already beginning to sub-ports give a clue as to where the pranksters side.

were? Probably not; the Internet made geogra-Yes, I thought, this will do quite nicely.

phy largely irrelevant.

If those clouds cooperate.

Still . . . I looked at the names, hoping to see We all checked out the site a little more (me some pattern. One thing almost all of them more thoroughly than the others), then Tom, had in common was that I didn’t recognize Laura Lee, Hermina, and I went back to the them. Probably not significant.

house and dispersed. John and Jane stayed be-How about the fact that there were two
hind, just sitting on the edge of the platform McMinnvilles, in different states?

and drinking in the view, while Zelda curled Was the alphabetical order of the list ob-up in one corner and went to sleep.

scuring some more significant pattern?

I stared blankly a little while longer, then, I spent much of the morning getting my
on a sudden impulse, stuck electronic pins in gear out and double-checking it to make sure all those places on a map of the Lower 48.

everything was shipshape. Satisfied, I thought And gasped.

about taking it up to the platform and setting Could that really be a coincidence? And if it it up now, but decided against it. It was un-wasn’t, what did it mean?

likely that any of my fellow guests would cause any trouble, and even less likely that I could think of one possibility right off-anybody else would show up here, but I didn’t hand, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t really believe really know any of them well. Better not to it, either, but neither could I completely dis-take any chances, but keep it in sight at all miss it. Partly to take my mind off that, and times.

partly because it was almost time, I decided to With a little time on my hands, I remem-let my subconscious worry about it while
bered the UFO stuff that had been niggling at throwing myself into last-minute preparations me last night, and decided to take a closer look.

for what I’d come here for.

I got out my laptop and did a search for recent It was almost noon. I found Hermina in the UFO reports. There were plenty of hits, but I kitchen and asked her if I could get a picnic added some filters and got it down to reports lunch to take up to the platform. She cheerfully 146

STANLEY SCHMIDT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
agreed, told me she’d bring it up, and told me give us a greatly magnified direct view of the to go ahead and set up.

Sun during the partial stages, and everybody is John and Jane were still there, though sit-welcome to use it. But only one at a time can, ting on a different edge of the platform. I so we’ll have to take turns getting brief wasn’t sure they noticed me and my armload glimpses. In between those, you’ll be able to of gear arriving, but Zelda did. She got up and see the Sun shrinking to a thin crescent with-walked over, tail wagging, long enough to get out the scope, but to do it safely you’ll need to a couple of good rubs and scratches, then wear these.”

curled back up on a different corner.

I pulled out a handful of one-size-f its-all Not wanting to startle John and Jane, I said, eclipse glasses and started passing them

“Think we’ll get to see it?” Personally, I was around. Hermina showed up with a cooler full doubting; at the moment we were completely of sandwiches and drinks for everybody just as socked in.

I was passing the dark glasses out, and I gave

“Of course,” they said in unison. Jane added, her a set too. Tom and Laura Lee took them

“We’re looking forward to it.”

and immediately tried them on, but John said,

“Well, I hope somebody’s working on those

“No, thank you. We’re fine.”

clouds.” As I set up my tripod and scope, lev-

“Oh, you have your own?”

eled it, and plugged in the clock drive, I took

“No, we just don’t need them.”

advantage of the fact that they were looking I frowned. “Yes, you do. I don’t think you elsewhere to study them a bit more closely.

really understand what’s involved. You can You’ve probably noticed how couples who’ve take them off during totality—in fact, you’ll been together a long time come to look alike, have to—but you’ll literally destroy your eyes and I’d already been struck by how similar if you look directly at it any other time.”

these two sounded. They didn’t say much, but

“We appreciate your concern,” said Jane,
when they spoke, they both had that same

“but we can decide for ourselves. Thanks, but combination of British accent and Southern id-no thanks.”

iom. But they didn’t look either English or I hesitated, unsure what to do. They were Southern. I wasn’t sure what they looked, but setting themselves up for big trouble, but I’d I suspected something Mediterranean.

done what I could to warn them. They were The trickiest part of setting up was getting adults; it wouldn’t be my fault if they wound the polar axis and sidereal time right. As I was up in the hospital and carrying white canes finishing that, Tom and Laura Lee came up to for the rest of their lives.

join us, each carrying a folding canvas chair.

I wasn’t comfortable with it, but I shrugged,

“Did we miss anything yet?” Tom asked.

got a sandwich and soda from the cooler, and

“Nope.” I checked my watch. “It’s still a sat down in the folding chair I’d set up near while before one. First contact is about five af-my scope. Still a few minutes before first conter.” I looked around at everybody. “Do all tact, and I’d just have to hope nothing disasy’all understand what that means?” John and trous happened during partiality.

Jane were still staring off into space, so I ad-Assuming we got to see it at all. The cloud dressed them specif ically. “John? Jane? You situation still didn’t look good, and sometimes know about first contact?”

I thought I heard distant thunder.

They both turned enough to see me. “Yes,”

I kept checking my watch, and hurried
said John. “It’s the beginning of the partial through the last bites of my sandwich and an eclipse.”

apple to be sure I didn’t miss first contact.

“Exactly. That means there’ll be something I was standing at the scope, hands free,
to see: the backlit Moon taking a tiny chip out when it happened. The sun filled my field of of one edge of the Sun. The blocked part will view, a neat, bright yellow disk with a few get bigger and bigger for the next hour-plus, freckles here and there, when a tiny nick ap-until it covers almost the entire disk of the peared at one edge and began eating its way Sun. But even when it’s 99.99 percent cov-into the disk, slowly but perceptibly.

ered, it will be much too bright to look at safe-

“It’s started,” I announced.

ly.” I started screwing the sun filter into place

“I don’t see anything,” said Laura Lee.

over the front of my scope. “This f ilter will

“You won’t, for a while, without the scope.

INVADERS

147

ANALOG

The changes during partiality are very gradual.

while. The fading was very noticeable by then, But take a look in here.” I stepped aside to though it still just looked like a brownout, and give each of them a look at the Sun being nib-we’d lost another couple of degrees. Colors bled away. Everybody took a turn, and some looked murky and strange now, and I got some made oohs and aahs out of all proportion to more oohs and aahs by pointing out the little what they were actually seeing.

images of the crescent Sun projected on the I chuckled inwardly. Just wait till you see platform by holes in angle irons supporting the real thing!

parts of it. The morning glories had closed up It was still far from assured that any of us the way they do at dusk.

would. The clouds closed back in as soon as Zelda had become restless, still curled up on everybody had had a look, and the thunder be-a corner of the platform, but often f idgeting came more definite and seemed to be getting and looking up as if sensing some unrecog-closer. It was hard to stay calm during the next nized danger. Sometimes she whimpered soft-hour; there were too many things to worry ly. Except for when one of us said something, about. The clouds by now were largely the big, the world had become eerily quiet. Few birds fluffy, kind that often grow into thunderheads sing much around midday anyway, but I’d
on summer afternoons, and some of them
heard an indigo bunting going on and on just a seemed to be taking tentative steps in that di-little while ago and now even he was silent.

rection. Sometimes there were gaps between

“Okay, everybody,” I said suddenly, shifting them, and we took hasty advantage of them to ref lexively into astronomy-teacher mode.

steal looks at the shrinking Sun through the

“This is almost it. In a very few minutes God’s scope. I kept glancing at John and Jane, hoping going to throw the master switch on the
they wouldn’t do anything really stupid, but world’s lights and you’ll see a part of the Sun they weren’t too bad. They occasionally did you’ve never seen before. To see anything glance sunward, but only brief ly, so I hoped you’ll have to take your eclipse glasses off for they weren’t doing too much damage.

the duration—and to keep your vision, you’ll As the Moon covered more and more of the
have to put them back on right before it ends.

Sun, the ambient light grew fainter, but the We won’t be able to trust our sense of time, so change was small compared to the f luctua-I’ve made a recording of my voice counting tions caused by the coming and going of the down two minutes. When it gets to zero, hold clouds—but as we got beyond two o’clock
your eclipse glasses ready to put on instantly the dimming grew more and more noticeable.

when totality ends.”

“I’m cold,” Laura Lee said suddenly.

“How will we know when that is?” Tom

“You’re lucky we started very warm,” I said.

asked.

I showed her the recording thermometer I’d

“You’ll know,” I assured him.

set just before first contact. “At this time of day

“What are those?” Laura Lee asked sudden-
it would normally still be getting hotter, but ly, pointing down at alternating bands of light we’ve lost seven degrees since it started. It’ll go and shadow streaming across the platform and much faster during totality. If you have a the ground.

sweater, you might want to keep it within

“They’re called shadow bands,” I said. “I’ve reach.”

never seen a fully satisfying explanation of how they work, but they’re often seen in the This out-of-the-way place wasn’t exactly on last couple of minutes before totality. The best any of the easily available online listings of theory—”

viewing sites, so I had to interpolate and But before I could f inish, the lights went couldn’t predict times exactly to the minute.

out, and everybody was yelling so loud they But I knew second contact should be within a would have drowned me out even if I’d kept couple of minutes of 2:35, so at 2:30 it was talking.

time for last-minute preparations—and my
heart was pounding. We had a big patch of Zelda went wild, jumping up and running
clear sky around the sun then, and it looked madly around the platform and the surround-like it had a good chance of lasting long ing yard, barking furiously. “Glasses off!” I enough—and I hadn’t heard any thunder in a yelled over the din and looked up, directly at 148

STANLEY SCHMIDT

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
the Sun. Not the photosphere, the bright disk a spectacular flash at one point on the rim of that’s all we usually see, but the corona, the the black disk where the f irst light from the ghostly whiteness, normally overwhelmed by photosphere shot toward us through a canyon the photosphere’s extreme brightness but now on the Moon. Then, in seconds, totality was glowing gloriously, extending outward far be-over. The corona and planets and other stars yond the utterly black disk at its center. The vanished, colors returned almost to normal, sky near the horizon was still a deep blue, but and the Sun was again a thin and growing
overhead was velvety black, with two or three crescent too bright to look at directly.

planets strung along a line through the Sun and But John and Jane still stared that way for sev-a few stars sprinkled elsewhere. One of them eral seconds—which no longer surprised me as streaked suddenly across several degrees of much as it would have an hour ago. Their un-sky: a meteor. A bat flitted by, its wingtip seem-earthly wails faded quickly, as if a plug had ing to brush the corona. The chill deepened been pulled on an old-fashioned record player, abruptly.

and they looked around with odd expressions, A few seconds late, I remembered to start my first as if they weren’t sure where they were, countdown tape. I heard my own voice calmly and then as if they were embarrassed.

declaiming, “Two minutes. One minute f ifty-I grinned nervously at them. “You two came five seconds. One fifty. One forty-five. One . . .”

a long way for this, didn’t you?”

The others’ shouts had subsided somewhat, into excited chatter about how different it was At f irst neither of them seemed to know
from anything they’d expected and they could how to respond. Then Jane said, “Why do you see how the ancients feared it and how truly say that?”

awesome it was. . . .

“A bunch of things,” I said. “On my whole I agreed. I’d sworn off saying “awesome”

trip out here, and even after I arrived, I kept some time ago, because the word has had all hearing reports of people seeing unidentified the meaning squeezed out of it by overuse.

objects in the sky. In itself, that’s not strange; But this was awesome.

we’ve had a lot of waves of reports like that in There were only a few of us, so I could still our history, and nothing ever came of them.

hear a few other sounds over our babble.

Sometimes people showed what they claimed Night sounds: katydids and a screech owl
was photographic proof, but the pictures
somewhere in the nearby trees.

were always blurry, suggesting they were am-And another sound, so unfamiliar that it
ateurish fakes. Some of the ones I saw on TV
took a while to register, but was growing and and online this time were nice and sharp, and sending a shiver up my spine: a keening
unfamiliar-looking.

tremolo a bit like the screech owl’s but rising

“When I had a little free time this morning, I instead of falling, and getting louder all the got curious about where these reports were while. Then I realized there were two of
coming from and plotted them on a map. A
them, nearly identical. . . .

very interesting pattern showed up right

And they were coming from John and Jane,
away: they were all on or near the path of to-both staring transfixed at the corona and disk, tality of this eclipse, and happened shortly be-oblivious to everything else, their whole bod-fore it. That seemed like an awfully big ies trembling.

coincidence, so I started thinking about what Suddenly a lot of things fell together in my it might mean. I thought of one possibility, but mind, and I came up with a shocking realiza-I didn’t like it. Still don’t, but now I’m thinking tion. Clutching at the familiar to keep myself there may be other possibilities too.”

anchored in reality, even as my subconscious

“What’s your idea?” John asked warily.

started wrestling with what might come next,

“That some extraterrestrial civilization has I concentrated on my recorded voice. “Fif-for some reason decided to invade us, and teen. Ten. Five. Four. Three.” In the last cou-knew about the eclipse and thought that
ple of seconds I shouted over myself, “Glasses might somehow distract us from noticing. But ready! Glasses ready!”

that didn’t quite make sense. If they really I was just reaching the scope, with its filter wanted to invade us, why would they let sev-still on, as totality ended with a diamond ring, eral of their ships be clearly seen before they INVADERS

149

ANALOG
did anything aggressive, instead of just striking to get our ships in inconspicuously, and use right away, all at once?

technology to try to pass as natives. Evidently

“Then I met you two, and kept noticing lit-we’re not as good at it as we’d hoped.”

tle details that seemed off. The way you talk,

“I wondered about that,” I said. “Are those for instance. Your voices and manner of
your real bodies, or technological avatars?”

speech are too similar. You both have local Jane did a very convincing smile. “That’s a vernacular down pat, but pronounce it like very personal question.”

folks from somewhere else entirely. You re-

“Okay,” I said, “but now what? It’s going to fused eclipse glasses, and seem to have come be impossible to keep you a secret, and if your through an excessive amount of looking at the people and ours start interacting, it’s going to Sun more or less unscathed. The last piece of open up all kinds of possibilities, both good the puzzle was the way you reacted to the and scary. What are we going to do about
eclipse. We were all excited, but your excite-that?”

ment transcended any of ours. And that sound

“And how do we know,” Hermina demand-
you made . . . well, it just wasn’t human.

ed, “that you’re not just trying to cover up a real

“So tell me the truth, John and Jane. Did you invasion? We can’t just take your word for it.”

come here on one of those UFOs?”

“If we’d intended a military invasion,” John They hesitated, looking at each other, for said, “we would have done it better, and we quite a while before answering. Then John wouldn’t be having this conversation. Do your said flatly, “Yes. But we’re not aggressive. And tour operators have the same standards as milit’s not an invasion like you think.”

itary commanders?”

I raised an inquisitive eyebrow. So did Her-

“Point taken,” said Hermina. “But I was a mina. She asked, “Then what is it?”

colonel, and I still have military and govern-

“A vacation,” said John. “A very expensive ment connections. I’m going to have to tell but utterly unforgettable vacation. I just hope them what little we know. ” She paused
we haven’t ruined it by being discovered.

brief ly. “And in case you think you can pre-

“Y’all know that what we’ve just experi-
vent that by getting rid of me, I must tell you enced is pretty special. I’m told humans travel that I had some of the same suspicions Mr.

long distances to see it. But I don’t think you Svensen did, and I’ve already dispersed them realize just how special it is.

in several places that will come to light if any-

“You may know that this is the only place in thing happens to me. The cat is out of the bag, your solar system where the primary and a and you can’t stuff it back in.”

satellite have close enough to the same appar-

“Point taken,” said John. “It looks like our ent diameter to make such dramatic eclipses superiors are going to have a lot of thinking to possible. You may not know how rare it is for do. It will be interesting to see where it leads.

a solar system to have even one place where But for now, I’d say it’s out of our hands.”

that can happen.

“So would I,” said Tom, stepping forward.

“Our people have explored quite a few, and He pulled something out of his pocket and this is the only one they’ve found. So Earth’s handed it to John. “Meanwhile, I’m a travel eclipses have become quite the exotic tourist agent. Would you please give my card to your attraction for us. It’s not an easy place for us to tour director? Maybe his people can talk to my visit, though it’s easier than you probably people.” ■
think. Our physicists have discovered shortcuts that make interstellar travel much cheap-Stanley Schmidt (PhD, Physics) was the Ed-er and easier than yours think it is, but it’s still itor of Analog for a long time (34 years!) and difficult and expensive. Only a few of us can enjoys writing for it just as much now as he do it, and if we do, it’s the trip of a lifetime.”

did before he became Editor in 1978. When

“I’ll bet,” said Hermina.

not reading Analog just for fun, Dr. Schmidt

“Also,” said Jane, “our leaders have been re-can be found hiking, traveling, and playing luctant to make face-to-face contact with oth-various sorts of music. Find more informa-er species, so they’ve tried to make sure we tion about Stanley Schmidt on his website: do it without attracting local attention. We try https://sfwa.org/members/stanleyschmidt.

150

STANLEY SCHMIDT

The Sword
of

Damocles

Norman Spinrad
o member of the Order of the Galactic

They did not give us wings to fly with, be-Eye has ever gone down there, because
cause they would have been useless in the we can’t, but I doubt than any of us
vacuum between our habitats and commons

Nwould if we could. Destiny is that to spheres beneath the Galactic Eye and super-which one may aspire and therefore a poten-f luous within them for the subspecies they tial choice, but fate is what is written in one’s created. For we are never to know the re-stars. Or in our case in our DNA.

straint of any gravitational field within which Written there by those down below who
we could not survive.

built the Galactic Eye centuries ago and creat-Our generations are cloned from genomes
ed us to serve, maintain, and guide it to see designed to survive and thrive in zero gravity what was written in the stars for our civiliza-to serve the Galactic Eye, because the earlier tion and perhaps for sentient civilizations astronomers and crews brought up from be-everywhere.

low did not. We begin life as extrauterine em-To our faces, we are the Order of the Galac-bryos and are brought to consciousness some tic Eye, but to each other, they call us the two years later as preadolescent children and

“Bats.” The original bats were the only true from there raised and educated like so-called flying mammals to have evolved on the home

“natural born humans.”

world of Homo sapiens, winged creatures But despite having been created to be
that could f ly through the atmosphere of brothers and sisters in an Order of the Galac-Earth defying its gravitational f ield and hung tic Eye, in deliberate homage or sardonic ref-upside down in its planetary caverns.

erence to the ancient orders of sworn

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ANALOG
celibates, we are not neutered creatures. Our and motionlessly centered in line with the ro-sexuality has been separated from the possitational axis of our sun and therefore station-bility of accidental production of “natural ary in regard to the whirling swirling of the born humans,” in order to keep our popula-vast complexities of the systemwide Ecliptic tion no greater than the thousand Bats needed civilization “below.”

to serve the great purpose of the Eye.

The Order and the Eye above and the Eclip-Like everything else about our minimalism tics below, because though “above” and “be-genome, designed to minimize what need be low” may be meaningless in such a physical sent up from down below in terms of mass
situation, free from the political and cultural and energy expenditure. Designed to live long struggles and contentions thereof, they look and thrive here at minimal cost to the Ecliptics up to us as their Eye on the far greater realm of down below.

the galaxy, and we of the Order, looking out-And live long we do, far longer than those ward into it and reporting what we see to in thrall to the various gravitational fields be-them, can only regard them as being below us.

low. As for thriving, who is to say what that Are we less than fully human because we
can mean to not entirely human exiles from been have been created to serve our mission the civilization below that created us to serve with compulsory dedication? Or are we supe-the greatest cause our species has ever
rior to the Ecliptics down below because hav-known.

ing been granted the singular passion to look Early human civilizations believed that their up and out and not back and down is a pre-planet was the one and only center of a unicious gift? Creatures of destiny or prisoners of verse created for us by one or more omnipo-fate?

tent or at least superhuman entities, and A narrow and local version of the question xenoanthropologists have theorized that this that conscious beings everywhere must be
must be the case wherever sentience arises asking themselves. Have even civilizations mil-from mindless matter; being from nothing-
lennia in advance of ourselves learned the an-ness.

swer? Ultimately, is that not what we have When it was discovered that there were bil-been created to find out?

lions of solar systems in our galaxy, more plan-The Galactic Eye was originally created to ets than stars, more moons than planets, it confirm the existence of the handful of extra-was theorized that there must be millions, solar civilizations that previous less powerful even billions, of planets and moons capable of instruments seem to have detected by spec-evolving biospheres, and therefore millions of troscopic hints in planetary atmospheres and planets and moons where sentience should
in two or three instances orbiting moon-sized have evolved, and millions, or at least many bodies whose ratio of mass to volume seemed thousands, of civilizations more advanced to indicate that they were hollow and there-than our own.

fore created artifacts.

When extrasolar biospheres had been de-

By the time of my youth, the Eye had al-
tected and tantalizing hints of civilizations on ready discovered some score of extrasolar civ-some dozen or so of them, it was decided to ilizations, the less advanced ones by the embark on the greatest construction project tell-tale lights on planetary bodies, the more in the history of our species to learn our des-advanced, perhaps in stages similar to our tiny in the galaxy, the fate of sentient civiliza-own, showing artificial habitats in precise or-tions therein, and seek out our own place bits reaching out beyond the gas giant range, among them.

and within a thousand light-years, civilizations The Galactic Eye.

of sentient beings would seem to be almost a Half a dozen graphene photon collectors,
tenth or so as common in the galaxy as a
each kilometers in diameter, then a score, whole as the stars themselves.

then several score, more and more as the net-What grand revelation for the human race!

work continued to expand, forming a whole Yes, we were not alone, and if some scores far more powerful than its far-flung parts. Built of civilizations had been already clearly and a hundred astronomic astronomical units
definitively detected within the Galactic Eye’s

“above” the ecliptic plane of our solar system effective global range, of less hope and glory 152

NORMAN SPINRAD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
for the Ecliptic civilization below! For now culties of lack of gravity. As such, they were re-that it had been clearly established not only garded as unpleasant nuisances at best, to be that there were sentient civilizations out cozened, coddled, and shown around, and
there, but that some of them were more tech-meddlesome politicos at worst, and thus this nologically advanced than we were, it must occasional odious task was left to youths on mean that we too had such a future before us.

the vague cusp of maturity such as myself, What an exciting era to be born into! For chosen by random lot.

we were the heroes of the age, looked up to What the Ecliptics were now demanding—
as the visionary forefront of our species, look-or at any rate, this Carla Wing Destry who I ing up and out and bringing the grand revela-was chosen to chaperon—was more focused
tions down from on high.

exploration of these extrasolar civilizations I was brought to consciousness as Marco
themselves and particularly those more ad-31, the thirty-f irst iteration of the Marco vanced than our own. What could we learn
genome, designed with a tendency and ability from them and how? What was the nature of toward intellectual and theoretical pursuits, this galaxy-wide brotherhood of sentient be-and suitable to selecting sectors of search for ings? How were we to find our place in it?

more civilization-bearing solar systems, interIt was not so much that the Ecliptics were preting the discoveries of the Eye and packag-dissatisf ied with what the Order had already ing them for transmission down below, and so achieved, but that it had whetted their ap-forth.

petite for much much more. We of the Order But there are always tiresome quotidian
however were more cognizant of the difficul-tasks that of course must be performed, such ties and limitations. Make her as comfortable as keeping the life support systems running as possible and try to f ind out what this rare properly, overseeing—and when necessary revisit is really about.

pairing—the fusion torches, keeping the

Carla Wing Destry, I was told, was no ecospheres clean and tidy, and the like. So one nomic overseer, rather a politically well-con-might say that the Order of the Eye is a species nected “theoretical galactic sociologist,”

of benign gerontocracy. Such tasks are as-whatever that was supposed to mean.

signed to the young by lot who are given a I was soon to f ind out, and she was to set decade or two or even three to find their life’s me on the path that I was to follow for the rest serious paths, and since we live for four or of my centuries-long lifetime.

five centuries, there is no urgency in awaiting one’s mature place in the Order.

“I did not drag my brittle old bones all the So for my first two decades and more, I was way up here just to enjoy the zero gravity, more or less content to perform such duties Marko 31, which I do not at all enjoy,” Carla while awaiting a call to heed, though I cannot Wing Destry fairly snarled upon awkwardly claim that I had no impatience to join in the both tumbling and f lying out of the Council excitement as true participant.

Sphere in an obviously ireful mood, “and cer-More and more extrasolar civilizations were tainly not to be treated like a feeble crone in being discovered, so that the mere ever-inher dotage while being patronized like a dim-creasing number count was beginning to be witted child at the same time,
taken as boringly irrelevant down below,

“You must realize that hardly any of the Do-much as the discovery of more and more ex-mini have ever met an . . . Ecliptic before,” I trasolar biospheres in an earlier age, and more told her soothingly. “To us you seem both an-and more extrasolar planets in the so-called cient and young—as strange to us as we seem

“Golden Age of Astronomy” before that.

to you. Almost as if we were two different Inspectors from the clade of political and fi-species.”

nancial entities down below that had financed

“Almost? Almost? You think we are not?

the building of the Galactic Eye and were f i-You could not survive in any of our ecological nancing its continued operation, arrived but niches natural or created as we created you, rarely to assert their interests and demands, al-we cannot interbreed, and you live more than most always naive and unrealistic, and always twice as long as we. This is not speciation?”

complaining about the discomforts and diff iThis was the oldest and frailest human I had THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

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ANALOG
ever seen, though not even two centuries old

“How can you say that? We’ve discovered
as age was counted down below and less than nearly two hundred extrasolar civilizations half a lifetime to us. We provided her with a and still counting!”

habitat with rotational gravity, but she com-

“But we have never encountered another plained that the spin made her nauseous and sentient species, now have we? And I am now detested having to wear the void suits neces-realizing that the Order of the Eye is the clos-sary to pass from one sphere to another and est thing to another sentient species that we was quite clumsy in controlling their
have yet encountered.”

propulsers.

Carla Wing Destry braked and turned off

Yet these complaints seemed to me to be
her propulser, forcing me to do likewise, and superf icial masking of the existential despair we hung there motionless together. With a that those down below must experience
waving arm, she directed my gaze upward to when confronting beings who would outlive the Eye, then waved both arms full circle as if them by centuries, and especially those like to embrace the globe of the starscape entire.

Carla Wing Destry nearing the end of their

“Two hundred now, perhaps even three
shorter lifespans, with their immanent deaths hundred while I yet live, perhaps a thousand hovering over their head like the legendary during your lifetime, and what do we really Sword of Damocles.

know? That they are there. That some of

“You envy our extended lifespans, do you
them are conf ined to natural planets and not?”

moons in their original orbits, that others,

“Of course we do, who wouldn’t?” she
like ourselves, seem to have discovered ener-freely admitted. “Being shorter-lived, we live gy sources suff icient to f ill their solar sys-in a quicker time frame than you do. That’s tems with habitats, that others have moved why the Order seems agonizingly slow to us, planets and moons to the most eff icient or-and we must seem always impatient to you.

bits around their suns, that there are those Do we not?”

who would seem to have even englobed

“As you must know, I have never before met their stars. But what do we really know of all an Ecliptic.”

or even any of our fellow sentient beings?

“As you call us. And like virtually all Eclip-Nothing!”

tics, I have never before encountered Bats—as

“Nothing! How can you call all that noth-we call you— and I must say that I am finding ing?”

the experience quite exasperating. Though

“Do we know what they look like? Do we
quite fascinating from the point of view of have the least idea of their cultures? Their life view of a galactic sociologist—”

spans? Their relations with each other, or if

“Not an . . . astronomer?

they even have them, and if so how? Which, if

“That is the physical study of the inhabitany, should we fear? Which, if any, would emable planets and habitats that the Galactic Eye brace us? The nature of galactic-wide culture discovers, not the societies of their inhabi-itself, if there is one? We know nothing about tants—of which you tell us nothing.”

the untold myriad of sentient and technologi-We were crossing over from the Council
cal civilizations out there save that they are Sphere to the habitat where she was quar-out there, and technological evolution seems tered. Directly above, the shimmery sheen of to follow a general hierarchical pattern.”

the Galactic Eye itself masked a broad portion

“How so?”

of the starscape. But in every other direction

“First conf inement to a planet of origin, save downward to the ecliptic, we were en-then expansion into the home solar system, gulfed in the brilliant star f ield that went on then the creation of artif icial habitats, and and on into apparent inf inity. And solar sys-then . . .”

tems orbited most of those suns, two hundred

“And then what?”

or so of which were the homeworlds of al-

“Then what indeed! What is the next level?

ready-known sentient civilizations, in a single What is the nature of overall galactic civiliza-arm of the galaxy where the mathematic ex-tion? How do the most advanced civilizations trapolations said there must be hundreds, if react with each other? Do they? If so, how? If not thousands, more waiting to be found.

not, why?”

154

NORMAN SPINRAD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

“Interpretation of the data is not the missees not as discontinuous data but as the his-sion of the Order,” I told her, though I was be-tory of sentient civilization in the Galaxy as a ginning to wonder. We were created with a whole!”

specif ic mission, certainly, and with certain

“And therefore the destiny of sentience and psychological patterns and emotions. Perhaps therefore our own.”

she was right, and we were a different

“Assuming that it has one,” I found myself species. But certainly we were sentient. Were blurting.

we really created to be free of generalized cu-

“What?”

riosity?

“We cannot see the present of any civiliza-

“That is more or less what your Dominis
tion we discover, let alone their futures. We Council told me!” Carla Wing Destry said. “But cannot even know which still exist.”

that is what I came here to change, and

“How so?” Carla Wing Destry said, focusing change it I will, one way or the other.”

her considerable full attention on me. I ges-

“That sounds like . . . a threat.”

tured toward the great Galactic Eye itself.

“That’s what the Council said too. Call it

“The Galactic Eye can’t see the present, let what you will, Marco 31, but my mission is to alone the future—only the past. Only images expand the mission of the Order of the Galac-from far away traveling at the speed of light tic Eye, and that I will do by whatever means reach it, and thus are from the past. And the necessary.”

deeper into the Galaxy it peers, the greater

“The reading of what the Galactic Eye sees, the time-lag between what we see in our now not as a mere accumulation of data, but as—”

and what presently exists in their now.”

“The creation of a true science of galactic If anything, her gaze became even more in-sociology. There you have it!”

tent as she spoke. “And so, the further away

“A mighty task to be set to. . . .”

that we see, the further back in time are forev-

“The greatest task that ever there was, that er hidden the current realities of what we do ever there can be! And one that I know full well see . . . ?”

I won’t live to see fully achieved. Perhaps you

“So that the more distant the civilizations will, Marco 31, but not I. But one must begin.

we see, the more evolved they must now be Two centuries, four, a millennium, each life be-from whatever they were in the bygone eras gins a story, knowing it can never be there for we are seeing . . .”

its end. Saddened by that knowledge, but at the

“Or already long gone.”

same time hoping it will be so for the sake of

“Long gone?”

the posterity of the species, of sentience itself.

“Very long ago, before our civilization had Considering the dire alternative . . .”

even colonized our home world’s moon,” I re-Emotions were raised within me that I
minded her, “it was realized that technological didn’t know I could have. That I could be-civilization must arrive at a transformation cri-come something more than what I had be-
sis when it became possible to destroy itself, lieved I was created to be. That the Order was via nuclear war, or the terminal destruction of created to be. Surely the true mission of the the biosphere, or the depletion of fossil fuels Order of the Galactic Eye would never be en-before they could be replaced.”

tirely fulf illed by the mere discovery and

“Or things then unknown . . .”

counting of more and more examples of enig-

“Or even destroyed by things still un-matic extrasolar civilizations. The Ecliptics known.”

created us as a tool, but were we not con-

“Indeed, Marco 31, those civilizations that scious beings?

passed through the transformation crisis could And with that thought the desire was born survive to become long-term, solar-system-within me to somehow serve that higher mis-wide cultures.”

sion. For, whether those who had created us

“Our civilization and what the Eye has seen centuries ago understood it or not, was it not elsewhere . . .”

in the end the mission which the Order of the

“But perhaps to face a greater existential cri-Galactic Eye had been created to pursue?

sis we have yet to experience or even detect

“I believe I understand,” I told Carla Wing elsewhere as yet,” she said.

Destry. “The reading of what the Galactic Eye

“Those who fail . . .”

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

155

ANALOG

“Are gone.”

but the mysteries of galactic civilization as a

“So what we see are either ghosts of long-whole has become an obsession. Hardly any gone civilizations or the pasts of those which literature, dramatic, or visual art is about any-may have become what we cannot now even
thing else. Worship, that ancient neurosis, of hope to comprehend.”

imagined superior beings, is running rampart.

“Perhaps not, Marco 31. We can do more

As is fears of alien invasions.”

than hope to comprehend.”

“Surely you realize both are quite ridicu-

“With your true science of galactic sociolo-lous. The nearest extraterrestrial civilization gy.”

is a score of light-years away, and no inter-Carla Wing Destry nodded. “I’m not going
stellar traff ic anywhere has ever been detect-to let this arduous and unpleasant journey up ed.”

here end in futility,” she told me.

“But why, Marko 31?”

“How so?”

“Obviously because either the Galactic Eye

“Look down towards the ecliptic. What do
cannot detect something as small as a starship you see?”

or because no such thing exists.”

I looked down, and what I saw was the bril-

“Throughout the Galaxy?”

liance of the sun we call Sol surrounded by

“We have searched but the smallest portion pinpoints of light no different from the galac-of our own galactic arm to a radius of less than tic vista otherwise surrounding us save that a thousand light years. Perhaps in a few cen-they were more concentrated. I knew of turies—”

course that they were eight planets, scores of

“Now you are speaking like your hidebound moons, thousands of asteroids, hundreds of Domini Council!” Carla Wing Destr y ex-habitats, containing some hundred billion sen-claimed angrily. “Two hundred extrasolar civi-tient humans, orbiting round and round our lizations are quite enough to be a statistically singular star, but of course it all appeared significant sample. Another hundred or even quite static and stationary.

thousand more would be statistically meaning-

“Nothing of great visual significance. . . .”

less.”

“What I see is human civilization entire,”

“I think I’m beginning to understand,” I told Carla Wing Destry told me. “What I see that her, and indeed I was. “The Order is still doing you do not is its richness and chaotic com-what it had been created to do centuries ago.

plexity. Planets, moons, habitats, asteroids, What we had been programmed to do in our reaching out into the Oort Cloud, and each very genomes. And that mission has long in its way, to one degree, or another, a cul-since been successfully completed!”

ture. Time was this would have been—and

“There you have it, Marko 31! Unlike your was—a recipe for strife, but now it is a mosa-navel-gazing Council! If we weren’t in void ic of our glory. Once there was a multiplex suits, I would hug and kiss you. I was sent up culture whose motto was E pluribus Unum.

here—well, persuaded the commission to

Out of the many, a higher unity. And that is send me up here—to change the mission of
what the human species has now achieved.”

your Order, or more subtly to tweak its em-She looked at the Galactic Eye, and I looked phasis away from rote discovery of ever more up with her.

civilizations to a more focused emphasis on

“I came up here because that multiplex hu-understanding the ones already found, their man community is in danger of fraying,” she interactions with each other, and how we are told me. “Perhaps that is currently something to join the galactic community.”

of an overstatement, but the danger is there.

“And the Council rejected it.”

Once the discovery of each new extrasolar

“Would you, Marko 31?”

civilizations was an exciting event, but now

“Me?”

that there are hundreds, another almost every

“The Domini might not have to listen to
few days or so it seems, it is not.”

scientif ic reason, but they will f ind that they

“The Ecliptics have become bored with cannot fail to listen to political and econom-what the Order is doing?”

ic reason. The Order in the end is f inanced

“Yes and no. Further increasing the count of by the collectivity of what you call the Eclip-civilizations is no longer of general interest, tic, and I have been equipped with what was 156

NORMAN SPINRAD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
once and still is called plenipotentiary pow-Carla Wing Destry’s underling while she yet er, believe me, I saw to that.”

lived, which I more or less was. But they

“Which means what?”

could not afford to scorn us openly or fail to al-

“Which means I can and will endow your
low us our modest mandated slice of Galactic Order with the gift of financing a Dominia of Eye control time for the very same reason.

Galactic Sociology, and in return for this Before her death, Carla Wing Destry had
largesse that can’t be rejected, they must grant seen to that much mostly thanks to the finan-it a minor but signif icant slice of Eye time to cial blackmail perhaps, but she had also suc-pursue galactic sociology’s purpose.”

ceeded in presenting Galactic Sociology to the

“You can really do that?”

Ecliptic commonality as the ultimate goal of

“It will be the last and best thing I can do the mission they had created the Order of the with the rest of my short life and the first and Galactic Eye to pursue in the first place, and best thing you can do with your long one, its Dominus Arjuna as the intrepid leader Marco 31. The Dominia of Galactic Sociology thereof so that when she was gone, I was re-will need a Dominus. Do you understand what garded down below as her worthy successor I’m saying?”

just as she had planned.

I did, but I could hardly believe it.

So whether the Domini Council liked it or

“Me? You can really do that?”

not, it was the work of the Dominia of Galac-Carla Wing Destry just nodded.

tic Sociology that had succeeded in preserving

“But why me? I’m not yet even recognized

Ecliptic interest in what the they considered as a mature adult. . . .”

the central mission of the Order of the Galac-

“All the better as far as I’m concerned after tic Eye but which the Ecliptic culture down trying to tell your adult Domini Council what below had begun to regard as boringly point-they couldn’t understand but you could . . .”

less and therefore still protected by her legacy.

“Just like that?”

And was I not truly her intellectual succes-

“Just like that. Will you accept?”

sor?

“How could I not?”

More technological civilizations had been

“I understand that now you must choose a
detected since I had become Dominus Arjuna mature name.”

of the Dominia of Galactic Sociology, but

“This is so . . .”

what did it really matter? Two hundred before,

“Have you chosen?”

three hundred now, four hundred in another

“I have not yet thought of one.”

century?

“Then allow me to impose one upon you as

Statistically meaningless numerological

I impose your life’s work upon you.”

coop counting, as Carla Wing Destry had put

“Who would consider such a thing an im-
it to me. It told us little or nothing about the position?”

nature of galactic civilization itself, about the

“As an ancient myth goes, there was a
interaction among those hundreds of civiliza-prince who demanded of a deity the unmask-tions, let alone the thousands or even millions ing of ultimate reality fearing not to face it.

of them that mathematical extrapolation told The deity at f irst refused, telling him that no us must be there in the deeper beyond.

mere human was ready to see such a thing and And that must be what any civilizations of never would be. But the prince was not dissentients must demand to know, must it not?

suaded. And as he was not, so must you not What is the true and ultimate fate of mind aris-be. . . . His name was Arjuna. Dare you take it ing from matter? What is the destiny of con-as your own?”

sciousness in this universe?

“I would be honored,” I told her.

Answering those questions was the mission

“So you say now . . . Dominus Arjuna.”

of the Dominia of Galactic Sociology, and that was what was demanded of us, if not by the For several decades, the Dominia of Galac-Domini Council, then by our civilization as a tic Sociology was looked down upon by the whole. Our task must be to reduce such philo-Domini Council as the political and economic sophical speculation to a verifiable science.

necessity imposed on the Order by the Eclip-We were few but enough to do what was re-
tics that it was, and I was looked askance as quired. A crew to operate the Galactic Eye THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

157

ANALOG
when we had control of it. A crew to relate ous fact that all the solar systems we have ob-the results downward to the Ecliptics with served did not come into existence at the perhaps more enthusiasm than they actually same time. That has been our blind spot.”

warranted. Myself, and Alexandria.

“But galactic stellar evolution—”

Alexandria’s genome emphasized mathe-

“True that in terms of stellar evolutionary matical skill and interest, and she had begun time, measured in billions of years, the solar merely as our statistical historical archivist, but systems in our local galactic arm have evolved over the decades after Carla Wing Destry’s de-more or less simultaneously but in terms of parture, she had evolved into an elusive some-historical evolution of civilizations, mea-thing more. She had chosen her name in
sured in mere millions of years or even just homage not to an historical or mythical per-millennia, not at all. Some advanced civiliza-sonage but to the Library of Alexandria, a very tions we have observed would have evolved ancient archive whose then massive treasure millions of years before our own, others only trove of knowledge had been destroyed and thousands or even only centuries.”

lost by human folly.

“No overall galactic evolutionary pattern?”

Her advanced mission became to seek out

“There is a clear evolutionary pattern, but it hidden patterns in what the Eye had already has nothing to do with a galactic level time accumulated over the centuries, which, far frame or when a civilization began to evolve from being destroyed, had become a vast and within it. First confinement to a single planet, formless archive of mere data, to turn this all then to whatever habitable biospheres may but useless chaotic data heap into the basis for exist on natural bodies, then artificial habitats a real science of galactic sociology suff icient independent of them, followed by f illing the to thereby give focus to what we would seek solar system, followed by the ability to arrange when we had its usage.

planets and moons in desirable orbits, fol-The long initial stage of this work was
lowed in one or two examples by what seems drudgery that would have been tediously bor-to be englobement of the central sun . . .”

ing to anyone not designed to thrive on it, in-

“And beyond that . . . what? Civilizations en-cluding myself, so, considering that in this compassing many solar systems . . . ? A galac-manner she was functioning as my device, I tic commonality?”

left her to her own until she finally assembled

“Among the hundreds of civilizations we
what might justly be called a general theory of have observed, no such civilizations have galactic cultural evolution.

been discovered. It is statistically clear that all

“It was once written that all civilizations galactic civilizations at any technical level re-have blind spots in their understanding, and it main isolates.”

is usually something central and seems retro-

“Surely this is just speculation—”

spectively obvious once it is finally revealed,”

“Surely it is not, Dominus Arjuna.”

she finally told me. “Ours is equating distance What was I to do? I had been well-schooled from our solar system in light-years with the in the science of political reality by Carla Wing age of observed galactic civilizations and Destry to not to know that if I presented this therefore with their levels of technological de-so-called statistically proven scientif ic obser-velopment. Wrong. I have found no such corvation to the Council, the Domini Council relation.”

might very well use it to dissolve the Dominia

“What? How can that be? Each light-year of of Galactic Sociology, if only to prevent it from distance from us must mean we are looking at being used by the powers down below to dis-civilizations as they were a year in their past!

solve the Order of the Galactic Eye itself, blam-This is fundamental physics! When we ob-
ing the messenger for the dismal news.

serve a civilization f ive hundred light-years

“We must keep this to ourselves, Alexan-
from us that seems on our technological level dria, until—”

it must be really be half a millennium beyond

“Until what?” she demanded. “This is the re-us in its current present or devolved or ex-sult of decades of my efforts. Worse still, it is tinct.”

the proven truth.”

“True enough, Dominus Arjuna, but we

“Perhaps it is not. It is very difficult to prove have managed to somehow ignore the obvi-a negative, after all, is it not? We must use our 158

NORMAN SPINRAD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
time on the Eye to observe only the most ad-Einstein’s implacable equations isolated us vanced civilizations yet discovered and the en-all.

virons around them, for if there is evidence of The speed of light was an absolute limit that any multi-solar system civilizations, that is could never be exceeded.

where we would find it.”

“We won’t,” Alexandria insisted.

The Council Sphere was transparent with no

“We must try,” I told her, but even then I lecterns, screens, other impediments, or sigils knew that it was prevarication.

of hierarchy, and up or down. The dozen Do-And so we did. And so we didn’t.

mini were surrounded by the star speckled There were civilizations that filled their so-void but could ordinarily float with whatever lar systems and ventured out beyond their he-orientation each Dominus chose. Now, howev-liospheres even as we were doing. There were er, they were all hovering in a circle around the civilizations that had reshaped their solar sys-equator of the sphere with myself and Alexan-tems. There were two that seemed to be endria in its center.

globing their suns. There was one that had As was customary, First Dominus Confu-expanded beyond its own Oort Cloud equiva-cius, in his second century in the position and lent, through the Oort Cloud equivalent of an-nearing the end of his life span, formally wel-other solar system less than two light-years comed us, though the welcoming seemed
away and was beginning to colonize its plan-rather strained.

ets. There were three that seemed to be look-

“We welcome Dominus Arjuna who has
ing back at us with Galactic Eyes of their own.

asked to address the Domini Council of the Nothing at all moved among any of these

Order of the Galactic Eye and invite him to most advanced galactic civilizations in our speak.”

neighborhood. In futile desperation, we even Having been Dominus for a more than a re-sought out hints of interstellar travel among spectable century now, during which I had ig-the less advanced, knowing there it would be nored most all Council politics that did not futile.

directly effect my own Dominia and being in The Arjuna of the Bhagavad Gita had de-higher favor down below than any of them, I manded of the avatar Krishna to reveal to him had long since ceased to be considered a cal-the full face of ultimate universal reality.

low nuisance imposed upon them but rather a Krishna had tried to talk him out it, telling Ar-nuisance whose status was propped up by the juna he would wish he hadn’t if he did it, but Ecliptics, but whose status down below was at length shrugged and reluctantly relented.

grudgingly regarded as useful to the Order.

That Arjuna did not at all like what he saw So when I asked to address the full Council, revealed and neither did I.

which was seldom, I could hardly be refused, We were reluctantly conf irming a reality and such a rare event brought unusually intent that we ourselves had no wish to verify to ei-though wary interest.

ther the Domini Council or our Ecliptic spon-

“And as Dominus of the Dominia of Galactic sors.

Sociology, I invite my colleague Alexandria to A reality so depressing and yet so obvious in speak for me and report our findings.”

retrospect that it had been our civilization’s While this was not without precedence, it deepest and darkest blind spot. A self-created was unusual and as such was greeted with a blind spot willfully hidden in plain sight for palpably expectant stillness and silence.

centuries.

“Energy is the universal measure of any civi-Our revelatory avatar had been Albert Ein-lization’s wealth,” Alexandria told them
stein and his revelation of ultimate reality had pedantically. I had told her to do this, and it not been disproven by any of the civilizations wasn’t that far from her normal mode of dis-that had been discovered, even those clearly course. “Any and all economies and their tech-well in advance of humanity, and never would nologies are ultimately limited by its
be. And it was why all those civilizations, our availability.”

own, and what lay beyond, had never sent

The silence was broken by groans.

emissaries or exploratory expeditions to each

“Tell us something we don’t all know,” said other and never would.

Dominus Lustigus.

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

159

ANALOG

“I was about to,” Alexandra said evenly but

“Which is why, among three hundred civi-
coldly. “Mass increases with acceleration ap-lizations, many of which appear to have ener-proaching the speed of light as a limit where it gy sources far exceeding our own, it has never becomes inf inite. Therefore to exceed the been observed. Because it does not exist.”

speed of light would require a transf inite

“Because according to the cold equations of amount of energy, which is inherently impos-mass, energy, and ultimate economics, for all sible.”

practical purposes, it cannot exist,” said

“Is she ever going to come to the reason for Alexandria.

this meeting?” the First Dominus demanded.

Were there a pin and even the slightest gravI didn’t answer. I just motioned for Alexan-ity in the Council Sphere, in the perfect si-dria to continue.

lence, one could hear it drop.

“Furthermore, while it would be theoreti-

“This is the endpoint result of your centu-cally possible to accelerate a small enough ry’s work and decades’ worth of wasted total mass to near light speed, the energy cost to ac-Galactic Eye time?” the First Dominus f inally celerate a significant macrocosmic mass, say a groaned.

small starship, to a signif icant percentage of

“We did not create this terrible truth,” I told the speed of light would be prohibitive even the Council. “And we are hardly the f irst to to a civilization able to totally transform mass have proved it. It has been definitively known into energy: even if you could reach 10 per-since the equations of Albert Einstein. We cent of light speed, it would still take some-have only presented the unavoidable observa-thing like a millennium to traverse a hundred tional proof.”

light-years.”

“Only!”

The First Dominus gave me a jaundiced

“Next will you tell us it is written in the look. “I do hope you have not requested this stars?” said Dominus Galileo.

Council meeting just to insult us with a lesson

“In the implacable laws of mass and energy in elementary physics, Dominus Arjuna.”

in this universe which we, and all beings of This was how I had planned it. The im-sentient consciousness, find ourselves, like it placable equation from Alexandria and the im-or not,” said Alexandria.

placable Galactic Sociology from me.

“And what are we to do with this most un-

“What this means is that interstellar travel welcome knowledge?” demanded the First
even below light speed is therefore both unaf-Dominus.

fordable in energy cost and temporally im-

“That is why I requested this Council meet-practical,” I told them.

ing,” I told the assembled Domini. “That is I waited until the gasps became an awful si-clearly a decision that is not mine alone to lence.

make.”

“This has been scientif ically proven and

“So you pass it off on us!”

known for centuries and yet steadfastly re-There was a long despairing and angry si-
fused to be accepted culturally. Wormholes, lence before the First Dominus f inally spoke detours through fantastic realities, timewarps, again.

mystical quantum physics, a vast and ancient

“Clearly there are only two possible choic-dramatic form calling itself science fiction, in-es. We do not report this to the Ecliptics and deed the dominant fictional form down there violate the most basic principle of the mission in the Ecliptic even now. But fiction, not sci-we were created to serve—”

ence. And now the science of Galactic Sociol-

“Which in the end will probably prove im-
ogy via the observations of the Galactic Eye possible—”

has proven conclusively that not only is faster

“—or we do what we’re bound to do by
than light travel impossible but even interstel-the mandate of our Order as is written in our lar travel at a significant fraction of light speed very genomes, which is to announce every-is economically prohibitive. For any civiliza-thing we discover without subjective judg-tion. Anywhere in this universe. Forever.”

ment.”

“This cannot be!”

“So our free will in this most existential de-

“This must not be!”

cision our Order has ever had to make is an il-I ignored the shouts of denial and despair.

lusion.”

160

NORMAN SPINRAD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

“And the results to the Order of the Galactic There was a certain wan amount of relieved Eye?”

laughter.

“We are not likely to be hailed as heroes,”

“I do believe you will succeed me as First the First Dominus said dryly.

Dominus,” that current personage declared

“Might it not even turn the Ecliptics against not dryly at all. “I do believe that has been us?”

your purpose.”

“Might they even shut us down?”

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” I

“Poison the forward and outward looking
declared honestly. “I have never wanted to be zeitgeist of our species?”

anything but Dominus of the Dominia of

“Leading to cultural devolution?”

Galactic Sociology. I have no further interest

“Or even ultimate extinction?”

in the doings of this Council as you all must I had, of course, anticipated this obvious re-surely know.”

action and had not called for this meeting be-

“Perhaps that is true,” said First Dominus fore deciding how it must end and come up Confucius. “You may really have no interest in with a possible means to produce it. Politics, succeeding me, but you do have a duty. You the ancients said centuries ago, is the art of seem found of ancient maxims, so here is one the possible. In truth not much good was pos-for you: to save a life is to become responsible sible here, but the ancients also understood for it. And if the Order is to be saved, you have that the perfect was the enemy of the good, at least temporarily done it, Arjuna.”

and it was the best I could do under the cir-This was greeted with nods, and even a few cumstances.

cheers, of assent.

“There is good scientif ic reason to believe Mine was not among them.

that this revelation may at least not be as ter-

“I do not envy you, Arjuna,” said my-prede-minally grave as it might seem,” I told them, cessor-to-be. “I doubt that you will preside at least momentarily transforming the uproar over a golden era.”

into silence long enough to speak into it.

“Consider what else the data must mean.

Nor was it, though after half a century,

Some hundred civilizations more advanced
while no one down below deemed it a golden than ourselves. Surely those at least must age, there were those calling it the Age of Hu-know and understand what we know now.

man Maturity, and a growing number of di-

And not only have we found no evidence of verse Ecliptic cultures, believing that as such a civilization which has destroyed itself or it might never end or at least last for millions devolved from a previously higher evolu-or even billions of years, were slowly but tionary level, but we have proof positive steadily merging toward a consensus that con-that many civilizations have passed through sidered it no bad thing.

this existential crisis and evolved far beyond And just as slowly, we of the Dominia of
it.”

Galactic Sociology began to apply what we

“We do not yet know how,” Alexandria in-
had learned of the sociology of the galactic terjected, “but galactic sociology most cer-social order, namely that it did not and could tainly tells us that it has been done and not exist as anything like a monoculture, to therefore that it can be done.”

the multiple and multiplex cultures of the

“So we present the Ecliptics with the entire Ecliptics, and that to certain degree the sta-truth. Which is that while the fate of sentient bilizing situation in our single solar system civilizations in this universe may not be to the was similar to the galactic multiplexity writ liking of any of us, consciousness would seem small.

to have a destiny, and there are beings out Up to a point.

there presently more evolved than ourselves Hundreds of extrasolar civilizations with no who lived long and continued to evolve after contact with each other. Nearly two hundred knowing it.”

billion humans living in thousands of diverse

“Next you will tell us how to sell feces as habitats, natural or artificial, each a culture of flowers, Arjuna.”

its own, with more diversity among them, at

“It does fertilize their growth,” I rejoined least to human perception, than among those dryly.

mere hundred of extrasolar civilizations of THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

161

ANALOG
whose arts, sciences, histories, biologies, conder of the Galactic Eye. And as I aged closer sciousnesses we knew nothing and never
and closer to that ending, I myself began to would.

wonder if that might not be, if not a good But there the similarity ended. And indeed thing, but the appropriate thing. The Order there were movements and arts down below
could be said to have completed its mandated make reasonable claims that the multitude of task, and so had I, and if the conclusion there-cultures of our singular solar system made the of was less satisfactory than we had hoped, it overall human civilization culturally superior.

was the only conclusion that would ever be For our thousands of diverse human cultures possible.

were not isolated from each other.

And so, perhaps because the former Domi-

Far from it, they endlessly interacted,
nus of the Dominia of Galactic Sociology had merged, broke apart, cross-fertilized, and even long since become the First Dominus of our began once more to creep slowly toward the dwindling Order, or perhaps because we real-dead planets of nearby Centaurus in self-con-ly had nothing else to do, we too turned intained mobile habitats that might take a centu-ward. Theoretical galactic sociology became r y to reach them and a millennium to
more and more central to us as our aging and terraform them, assuming there would be any dwindling numbers became more and more ir-impetus to do that at all.

relevant to the Ecliptics enjoying their dynam-Thus perhaps the Age of Human Maturity
ic maturity down below.

that might not be a devolved destiny after all We developed a theory to explain why even but a dynamically stable destiny that could last the most advanced and mature galactic civi-for millions of years albeit in glorious galactic lizations did not seek to send even nonmateri-isolation like all the others.

al messages to each other though the

Philosophies and religions rising and dis-technology to do so was readily available and solving through the millennia. Art forms and the energy cost modest. For the light speed literatures. The total mastery of the laws of limit also applied to the transmission of mass-mass and energy. Ever expanding lifespans ap-less data, so it would take decades or cen-proaching immortality as a limit. In terms of turies or millennia to send a simple greeting arts and evolution of cultures and conscious-and receive even simple acknowledgment,
nesses might we not be but adolescents enter-rendering meaningful conversation eternally ing the cusp of a true species maturity that impossible.

might f lourish and f lower as long as there Civilizations in general, therefore, assuming were suns to light the void and perhaps even they survived into maturity, could only accept beyond?

such isolation from each other because there As for the Galactic Eye and its Order, the dis-was no other choice. Such was the in-
coveries of ever more extrasolar civilizations escapable fate of civilizations in this galaxy in the Eye’s thousand light-year global range and no doubt in any other. They could only became rarer and rarer and were greeted with continue to evolve internally to turn this fate ever more indifference by the Ecliptics down into the self-chosen destiny of consciousness below. We continued to be f inanced but at or expire.

ever diminishing levels, and fewer and fewer This realization would be the last legacy of of us were cloned to replace those whose life the Order of the Galactic Eye to the human spans expired, and there was serious consid-species.

eration of letting the Order fade away honor-And indeed it was accepted as the in-
ably by ser vicing our slowly dwindling
evitable by those of the Ecliptic who still pon-numbers with robotics until the last of us aged dered such matters.

out.

This was the destiny of consciousness with-We had become a nostalgic relic of a by-
in the restrictions of the implacable laws of gone era, like the monastery orders of yore the universe in which it found itself until the copying holy texts with pen and ink long after last sun burned out. And in the face thereof, the invention of the printing press, and it the only possible wisdom was to accept it.

seemed that my historic destiny might be to Or so it was thought by the Bats above and die as Arjuna, the last First Dominus of the Orthe Ecliptics below.

162

NORMAN SPINRAD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

And by Arjuna, fated to be the Last First Dominus Sagan nodded. “Do you under-Dominus of the Order of the Galactic Eye.

stand what that means?”

Or so I thought.

And I did. I understood that this was the most important discovery ever made at least

“What is this secrecy all about, Sagan?” I de-since the f irst conf irmation of the existence manded rather testily when I arrived in the of an extrasolar civilization eons ago. Perhaps Control Sphere. First Dominus or not, the aim-even in all of human history.

ing of the Eye had long since passed from the

“It has to be a manufactured artifact,
center of my attention, and Dominus Sagan, doesn’t it?”

though at least as old as I was, was someone I Dominus Sagan nodded again. “It can be
seldom encountered.

nothing else. A hollow artifact the size of a

“I will show you,” he said.

moon has entered our galactic neighbor-

The Control Sphere was girdled wide
hood.”

around its equator with vision screens, holo

“From where?”

projectors, individual control consoles for Dominus Sagan shrugged. “Currently im-each independent facet of the Eye and always possible to tell. In a decade or so, assuming it occupied by a crew of some dozen. But now follows the present steady vector, we may be there was no one in it but its Dominus and myable to extrapolate backward.”

self. Normally I was accustomed to regard the

“Where is it headed?”

Eye as “up” and the Ecliptic as “down,” but

“Again too early to tell, we cannot even yet Dominus Sagan did something with his finger tell whether it is holding a steady course, in a and the Control Sphere turned upside down, few decades perhaps—”

with the Eye below and the galactic vista

“How far away?”

above. The total effect was quite disturbing.

Dominus Sagan frowned. “A difficult calcu-Dominus Sagan did another something with
lation. We have just seen it a thousand light-his finger, and the hemisphere above revealed years away, so what we would be seeing
itself as a screen by simplifying itself. The stars would be where it was a thousand years in its remained, but as points of white light, and our past, but the blueshift compression makes its solar system was represented by an outsized current position in our realtime difficult to cal-green circle.

culate with precision—”

“This is of course a modified vision with a

“A rough estimate!” I demanded.

speeded up timeframe,” Dominus Sagan said

“Call it something like nine hundred light-as a bright blue dot appeared moving through years then.”

the starscape. Moving very slowly but moving

“How many people know of this?”

in a steady clear line nonetheless.

“Only myself and the crew that discovered

“What is that?”

this, First Dominus, and they have been or-

“That,” said Dominus Sagan, “is a massive dered to remain silent. I thought it prudent to object that has entered the Eye’s globe of vi-inform you alone f irst rather than make it sion moving in a deliberate arc at approxi-known widely myself or report it to the col-mately 15 percent of the speed of light.”

lectivity of the Council since you are well

“You are sure?”

known to be more skilled in delivering the

“We have checked, double-checked, and
news of such discoveries to the Ecliptics to triple-checked. The Eye is functioning perfect-the maximum benef it of the Order than any-ly. The blueshift is real, it has been measured, one else, let alone a Council consensus. And and it is unmistakable.

this . . . this . . . this presented properly will pre-

“How massive?”

serve the Order from extinction at least for a

“Roughly the mass of a major asteroid or the millennium, will it not, Arjuna?”

largest habitat ever built . . . that we have ever

“Indeed it will, and then some, Sagan,” I built . . . but . . .”

told him. “You have done well. And indeed it

“But what?”

has to be announced properly. Not as happen-

“But its diameter is that of a major Jovian stance, but as the ultimate triumph of the Or-moon. . . . Do you realize what that means?”

der of the Galactic Eye.”

“It’s hollow?”

“And the Eye and the Order will be vital to THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

163

ANALOG
observe it for the next thousand years or would have to die like everyone else now liv-more.”

ing never knowing the outcome.

“And restore the Order to the front and

But then that has always been the fate of center of human civilization, looking for-sapience, has it not? To come into being
ward once more from the prow of human
knowing the history of the past perhaps but destiny.”

never to know the ongoing history of the fu-And myself from the sad fate of being re-
ture. To live and then to die knowing that the membered as the last First Dominus of the unfolding story will go ever on without us.

vanished Order of the Galactic Eye. Happen-Is that not every consciousness’s Sword of stance would cause history to remember me Damocles? Is not its fruitless denial the source as its savior.

of all the ancient supernatural religions? Can consciousness exist without despair without And so the Galactic Eye was indeed thrust at least something like it?

into the center of a civilization that swiftly Religions sprang up that were not really reli-turned its back on the instantly obsoleted Age gions because they rested upon no supernat-of Human Maturity and suddenly found itself ural bases. Sciences sprang up which were not in what soon enough began to be called the really sciences because while they violated no Damoclean Age, for the inescapable fact was known scientific knowledge, they were based that the approaching mysterious unknown
upon pure supposition.

and essentially unknowable and therefore un-The Sword of Damocles contained crea-
nameable bolide would hang above it like the tures both inf initely powerful and perfectly sword hanging over the head of the mythical moral and would be our enlightening saviors.

Damocles by a fragile hair for centuries, for It contained horrible monsters of every con-generations.

ceivable sort, physical or moral. It was an arti-And no one now alive would ever know
fact from a machine civilization that had why, from where, and what it contained. We superseded protoplasmic existence. It was an would all die in frustrating ignorance and empty starship coming to transport us to
knowing that was our inescapable destiny.

some galactic paradise. It somehow was sent And likewise the next generation, and the one to our present by our distant descendants to after that, onward into the deep millennial fu-create their own future.

ture.

There were cultures who called for the reThe Eye was able to do little to relieve that vival of the martial sciences and began pro-deeply frustrating ignorance. We were able to ducing powerful weapons. There were
ascertain that the object was more or less cultures who built mobile habitats and sent metallic. The Sword of Damocles, as it at them forth in the general direction of the length came to be called, had its course back-Sword of Damocles to welcome whatever was tracked sufficiently to indicate that it probably within it. The arts became utterly obsessed came from the galactic center. Or at least from with imagining its contents. The only thing the direction thereof.

that was agreed upon was that no era of the But that was all. And where nothing was
human race had ever been forced to live
known anything could be imagined. The
through such millennia of utter existential un-Sword of Damocles brought hope and fear in certainty.

overwhelming abundance even though there

And as I grew old, I approached the end of was nothing to indicate that it would even my long life lionized by the Order as the great-pass within a hundred light-years of our solar est First Dominus in its history and the fore-system. Hope because it might be bringing a most culture hero down below, though—or
galactic future to our distant descendants. Fear perhaps even because—I had never set foot because a thousand or more years from our on any planet, moon, or habit of the Ecliptic, now it might destroy our species.

and never would. And the Order and its anThe only certainty was that our civilization cient First Dominus became something per-would know no certainty for at least the next ilously akin to secular versions of a
millennium and would have to live within that priesthood, and its prophet.

knowledge. My only certainty was that I

“Remember thou art mortal,” slaves were

164

NORMAN SPINRAD

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
commissioned to whisper into the ears of
of our Galactic Eye? The f irst atomic explo-conquering emperors. Facing my approach-
sions? Whatever it was, it would have to have ing death knowing I would never know what occurred centuries before we were born, cen-my life had wrought, I needed no such re-
turies before what our civilization has become minder.

now. Who is to say we have done anything, But I received one anyway.

Arjuna?”

In the form of Dominus Sagan, frailer than And it would seem to be the scientif ic
even I now, appearing in my own quarters.

truth. But still, when he had left me alone, I Two frail old humans near the end of our lives.

felt like a prophet standing atop a mountain Lives that could only be heroic or tragic in the and staring down into the land into which he eye of history but who would never know
had led his people at the very end of his life which.

knowing only that he would never know

“It’s turned,” he told me. “And it’s deceler-whether it would be a heaven or a hell or both ating.”

or neither.

In his demeanor I could read what his next That was my own Sword of Damocles and I
words would be.

could not escape its falling upon me. ■

“And it is heading straight for us.”

“How long?” was all I could say.

Norman Spinrad has been publishing nov-

“A very difficult calculation. I would guess els and stories for over half a century and that its rate of deceleration would be calculat-has not had a nine-to-five salaried job since ed to arrive more or less stationary at least in 1965. In addition to some twenty-five novels relativistic terms and—”

and one hundred stories, he has written two

“Your best estimate of maximum time and
produced feature films, the classic Star Trek minimum.”

episode “The Doomsday Machine,” film criti-

“No more than two millennia to reach our
cism, political commentary, and about three solar system, the minimum no less than a
decades of literary criticism for Asimov’s . Re-thousand years.”

cently published novels are The People’s Po-

“Why us? What have we done, Sagan?”

lice and Osama the Gun. Written songs, sang

“As we are seeing the Sword of Damocles in them for money, have not given up day job its deep past, so must it be seeing us in ours.

though. Now living in Paris with Dona What in our past has attracted it? The building Sadock.

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

165

Heaven’s

Covenant

Bud Sparhawk
ovenant was her name and Meridian single moment’s contemplation on the possi-her destination. The millennium since
bility that she could be offered a berth. She had she’d brought Man to rule Heaven
always assumed those were reserved for peo-C and all its creatures had not been kind ple trained as engineers or scientists, skilled ar-to her huge form. Now artif icers, tinkers, tisans, or pilots. Never in her wildest dreams and shipwrights swarmed over her pitted
had she thought of farming, of her skills with body, preparing to launch her to yet another the Folk, as a star-spanning skill.

world.

But there it was, bold and unassailable—a When Larisha ta Bul was quite young, she
berth on Covenant, a chance to set foot on the would play First Family with her brother. The soil of a new world. The chance to make Bul a big tree in the front yard had been their pref irst family—the na Buls of Meridian. Gods, tend Covenant and the yard beneath it Meridi-from such a position she could claim the best, an, the world where Ham would someday
the most productive land, the grandest pas-place his foot.

tures. An entire world lay at her feet. Hers!

Larisha had known, even at her youngest

But there was also the possibility that noth-age, that some day Ham would choose to leave ing awaited them at the end of their centuries-Bulshold for a voyage of many centuries. She long sleep. There was even the possibility that just hadn’t expected that Ham would sooner she would not awake at all. Revival was not leave her, and that it was she who would face completely assured. The risks were great, as the choice.

were the rewards.

But that was before Chen made his offer.

What should she do?

Larisha couldn’t sleep that night. Chen’s sur-Morning came too soon after a restless night.

prising proposal was still ringing in her ears, She had slept fitfully, hardly closing her eyes echoing down the pathways of her nerves to when the absurdity jarred her awake. She
her very core. Never in her life had she ever ex-could not bear to leave her land, this ancestral pected such an offer. Never had she wasted a link, this hallowed place. It was unthinkable, 166

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
impossible! There was no way she could part over three hundred of the Folk to tend the with all that had been entrusted to her.

fields and herds. Those numbers had increased But a place on Covenant. The opportunity when her father acquired the coastal tract from to travel to a distant star, to see sights no Man his brothers, the last land they held. The tract had ever glimpsed: The opportunity to found a was a prime piece of land and an anniversary dynasty that would go down the centuries. The present for her mother.

possibility that they might even find something But her mother never got to enjoy her new completely unexpected, something beyond
property. Both of her parents and Ham had per-their ken, something unknown and unknow-
ished in a freak boating accident when Larisha able beckoned to her, called to something deep was only thirteen. With all her family gone, she inside. It was probably the same urge to ex-became the steward of Bulshold.

plore that had driven Man for millennia. The At that age, she was far too young to be left same urge that had brought her ancestors to in control of the holding, her uncles had ar-Heaven.

gued. Their bias showed, probably because It would honor Ham’s memory to represent
most of them, and their pampered children, their family on the ship, she imagined. She were comfortably citified and a generation re-must admit that she had always been jealous of moved from grubbing in the soil. They proba-him. Why couldn’t he be the one to take over bly considered such toil beneath their station.

the farm and let her go, she’d once pleaded She doubted any of them ever sat astride a with her father. But he just laughed it off, not horse—perhaps only on formal occasions,
understanding how brightly her desire to jour-when protocol demanded such an arduous and ney burned within her tiny body.

uncomfortable effort.

To give up the land she loved or conquer a

“Far too young to assume the management
new world? The choice was impossible, yet of the estate,” her aunts and uncles declared she couldn’t have it both ways. She sighed. Re-when she insisted on remaining. “You’ll come gardless of the choice there was still a farm to crying for us when you see how difficult your run and crops to get into the ground.

life will be.”

Larisha stood firm against all pleas to sell out Larisha let her mind wander as Beauty fol-and live in comfort elsewhere, as if she could lowed the dirt track that was the shortest route ever allow a stranger to sleep in her parents’

to the coastal fields. It was a steady uphill off-bedroom, ride her brother’s horses, or sweep road climb for the f irst few kilometers. This their eyes along the horizon and know that all route was too steep for the wagons, which is the land from river to ocean had been watered why the winding road they used was the
with the sweat of her ancestors. No, by all that longer way. At the crest of the ridge she could was holy, she swore not to part with a grain of see the ocean, five kilometers away. The morn-its soil.

ing fog had burned off to reveal the clear divi-When she repeatedly rebuffed the family on sions of her fields and forests, of pastures and the sale, they’d sent a sister from the Hand of croplands that were her heritage. Bulshold was God to council her. The old crone had tsk-rich holding, a great gift left by her parents.

tsked and wondered aloud about “the propri-Larisha’s parents had been fortieth genera-ety of an impressionable young girl alone with tion; a line that extended to Heaven’s founding.

so many big-nosed mongrels about.” Larisha’s The halls of her home were studded with por-parents had been Empathists, who believed traits of the multitude of farmers who had set that Men owed kindness and compassion to
the fences, tilled the soil, bred the horses, Folk, both the Halfings and Heaven’s Folk. Her father and cattle, and had established their birthright stoutly forbade the use of the term “Mongrel”

on the sultry, fog-shrouded coast of Heaven’s by anyone while he was alive. Many were the equatorial continent.

times he politely informed visitors that such From her earliest days, Larisha had been in-vulgar words were not acceptable. Few who volved in running the farm, managing the as-failed to heed were invited back. Larisha felt no sets, and husbanding the seed crops that were differently and rid herself of the dirty-minded, the basis of their wealth. By her grandfather’s red-robed zealot as fast as she was able.

time, the farm required a hundred Halfings and Were it not for her father’s loyal Half ing HEAVEN’S COVENANT

167

ANALOG
supervisors, she might not have endured the be released. Gradually, the skin would unfold challenge. They were the ones who took care until a vast interior space was created. As the of the details of managing the holding and en-inner parts were freed, the crew would erect suring the health and welfare of the stock and the internal structure to form workshops, pas-the Folk. They tried, as best they could, to edu-sageways, and dormitories. When complete, cate her in the intricacies of managing her as-Covenant would resemble a huge wheel-like sets and understanding her responsibilities. In habitat—their temporary home until they left fewer years than anyone expected, she ma-to settle on Meridian.

tured into a kind and benevolent steward of No one knew Covenant’s age. The original her assets. She continued Bulshold’s tradition settlers of Heaven had arrived in her and then of providing far more comforts to the Folk than parked her in orbit until she would be needed most other landholders.

for the next outward push of Man’s destiny. In By the age of twenty, she had already trav-orbit there was no weathering, no deteriora-elled extensively, conducted the farm’s busi-tion. She looked much as she had when she’d ness, and dealt with customers and suppliers been built who knew how many worlds and
far and near. Not only had she proven herself in centuries before. History was not of great inter-managing the estate but had enlarged its
est to the Hand of God on Heaven. Their focus acreage considerably, mostly through canny was only on the future and Man’s continual ex-trading with the neighboring farmers. She had pansion.

a def inite talent for farming and all that in-

“We all live in the habitat, over there,” her volved. It was probably, she suspected, the re-guide pointed to a small disk beyond the ship.

sult of a talent bred into her by the generations

“She’s only half size but otherwise is the same of farmers who had gone before.

as the one you might have to build.”

But there was little time for reflection, she The hab was an emergency provision in case concluded. She had to get her crops rooted be-Meridian proved inimical to life. In that case, fore the spring rains washed the seeds away.

they’d build the hab as additional living space She pressed knees to Beauty’s sides, urging her until they could ref it Covenant for her sec-forward, and Beauty raced down the slope to-ondary destination, a promising star another ward the fog banks near the ocean.

five hundred light-years beyond Meridian. Lar-Perhaps she would just visit Covenant to see isha hoped that it wouldn’t come to that.

what it would be like.

But then, that wouldn’t be her concern. This was just a visit. She knew she would be back Her first impression of Covenant was disapon the farm for the rest of her life.

pointing. The pictures and models she’d seen Tam Polat swept over her like a force of na-had shown it to be a sleek cylinder with mas-ture with his quick smile, twinkling eyes, and sive engines at its far end and a tiny command determination to have her for his own. From module perched above the midships line. The the first words he spoke, the first touch of his reality was that the ship was a sprawling, mis-hand, the f irst brush of their lips, she knew shapen form with open ribs and flaccid skin—
that she could not resist. In a shorter time than

“like a partially def lated balloon,” she said she’d ever imagined possible, she’d fallen aloud.

deeply, completely, and worshipfully in love.

Her escort laughed. “Not far wrong, ma’am.

After that, thoughts of returning were quite im-She’s half the size she was a few years ago. See possible.

those men on the periphery,” she pointed.

“They’re folding the skin back toward the ship, Larisha couldn’t quite put her f inger on a plate at a time. In another couple of years what was so different about Sachet, the town they’ll have the folding completed, and then where Tam’s family lived. The houses were Covenant will look like she should—all ready larger than most and set well back on large es-for the long sleep.”

tates, as one would expect of a first family set-Now Larisha remembered. The ship would
tlement. It wasn’t the architecture—all of the have to be a compact mass as it traveled to buildings followed traditional lines, albeit on a Meridian. Once the crew awoke, the ship
grander scale. Each one, she noted, prominent-would be spun on its axis, and the folds would ly displayed a curious mark on the cornices—a 168

BUD SPARHAWK

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
crippled cross that tickled the edges of her ers as an excuse. Hans is right; the Fist still memory. But that wasn’t what was so strange.

hasn’t gone far enough. They ought to strike No, it was something else; something seemed now, firm and forceful, instead of waiting any to be missing.

longer.”

When they dismounted before his family

“Yes, yes, I couldn’t agree more, Ran,” Uncle place and let the Halfings lead the horses to the Hans continued with obvious glee. “And cull barn, she realized what Sachet lacked, what them all for what I care. Why wait for the set-had bothered her: she’d seen none of the light-tlers to depart?”

haired Folk about. Not a one.

Larisha didn’t know what to make of their Then the import of the crippled cross
comments. Gotshold was one of the most pow-dawned on her. She had heard of such en-
erful holdings in the region. “Is this a rumor or claves. Sachet must be a Separatist community.

did the Hand really send the Fist to move That was why she’d seen none of the Folk
against the Gots family?”

since coming through the town’s gates. Sepa-Hans laughed so hard a bit of soup dribbled ratists observed a strict segregation of Man down his chin. “Move, ha! Executed the whole from the lesser creatures.

bloody pack of their mongrels they did—and Strange that Tam had given no indication of their get as well—about two hundred in all. Unbeing a Separatist. But then, the subject hadn’t derstand they took some Halfing sports, too.

really come up. He’d said nothing about all the Shot the whole lot and some of the Got brats as Folk on her farm. Perhaps that was the cause of well. Good riddance to bad blood, I’d say.”

the rift between he and his family, that he was Larisha was appalled. To lay waste to so
far more liberal than they. She sincerely hoped many of the Folk was an abomination and went he didn’t adhere to their credo. She couldn’t against everything she believed. That the Fist imagine life without the Folk.

would execute members of a first family was even more unbelievable. “But why?”

The Polats welcomed Larisha warmly.

Hans snorted. “Bunch of worst kind of

Larkines Dara na Val, Tam’s mother, escorted damned radicals, they were. Gave the bloody her to a spacious and beautifully furnished mongrels too much leeway, I heard. Acted as if room. “I’ll let you alone to change for dinner,”

the damn beasts were good as Men. Gave them she said and gestured to a waiting Halfing maid too much slack, they did. Time the Fist put a to help her. “Fortune here will take good care stop to that nonsense before it spread.”

of you.” Fortune bowed politely.

Larisha was puzzled. Her own Folk managed Larisha carefully examined the room’s f ix-their own affairs quite well, even taking care of tures with an appraising eye as the Halfing un-their own farms on a few parcels she’d given packed her bags. Judging from the opulence of over to them. She’d never had any trouble as a the furnishings, Tam’s family was quite well off, result. “I still don’t understand. What was it and Dara was obviously not ashamed to show that made the Fist take such a drastic step?”

it. Gods, the ornamentation of this room made Dara was glancing around like a horse look-Bulshold look like a rude hovel by comparison.

ing for an exit from a burning barn. Larisha not-

“There’s been a culling over in Gotshold, I ed that Ran’s complexion was darkening by the hear,” Tam’s uncle said over the soup course.

second. Tam also had a look of alarm on his

“About time the Fist stepped in. Let’s hope face. “Perhaps . . .” he began.

they’ll carry through with the rest of that fami-But before he could complete the sentence ly.”

Uncle Hans leaned over and whispered. “Heard Dara wiped her lips before speaking. “Do we they were sleeping with the mongrels.”

really need to talk about such things that over

“Hans!” Dara screamed. It was a shout of out-dinner, Hans? I mean, there are so many other rage, of sensibilities grievously violated.

things we could . . .”

“Oh come now, Darakins, it isn’t as if we But Chandar Randol, Tam’s father, stopped were children here. We’re all adults. None of us his wife’s words with a curt gesture. “I agree.

has illusions about such things.”

The Hand’s been too damn lenient, letting

“But you will not speak of such horrid bethings drift the way they have, using
havior in my house,” Dara spit back. “And es-Covenant’s need for the damn mongrel work-pecially not at my table!”

HEAVEN’S COVENANT

169

ANALOG

“Which is why we should settle the problem continue to use all of the resources our ances-once and for all, starting with the first family’s tors left us.”

mongrels and working our way down,” Hans

Tam was quick to interrupt before she could shot back. “We’ve coddled the damn ugly, long-say more. “Larisha seems to feel that the capa-nosed things far too long. Time for Men to take bilities of the mongrels are underrated, Uncle.

over, I say. Past time!”

After seeing her farm, I am not so certain that

“Are you actually advocating killing over a she is wrong.” His knee was pressing hard million Folk?” Larisha said with disbelief. “Fe-against her leg. “But, as you said, let us talk of males, children, old and young alike? Killing more pleasant things. After all, we won’t have them all just because you don’t want to mingle that many more opportunities to dine together.

with their kind?”

They’ve promised that Covenant will depart in Now it was Hans’ turn to looked shocked.

just over a year, seventeen months at most.” He

“What sort of nonsense is that? The damned raised a glass in honor of the Great Work.

mongrels aren’t Men. They’re just cattle who

“Bloody damn beasts,” Hans mumbled, but
happen to resemble people. Huh, I hate to stopped when he received a searing glance compare them to cattle—most aren’t quite that from Tam’s mother.

intelligent. Getting rid of them would certainly

“Do tell us about your farm, dear,” Dara
eliminate their drain on society.”

asked in a brittle voice. “Do you have many Larisha felt the anger grow in her breast. This dances?”

was exactly the sort of blind, rigid prejudice

“Oh yes,” Larisha said nastily. “All the Folk, her family had deplored. “And if you did, who Halfings, and Men gather for one big party after would take care of the fields, who would build another.” Tam snorted soup through his nose.

the houses, who would mine the ore, build the Seeing the black looks on the other’s faces was machines, or do a thousand other things to almost worth her probable loss of stature in serve us?”

their eyes.

“But dear,” Tam’s mother asked. “Why

After that, the dinner became an endurance couldn’t Men, or even our Half ings, do such contest in which everyone strained to maintain work? I mean, we’re so much better disposed polite conversation while studiously avoiding to independent thinking and acting than those possible controversy. This resulted in an ex-poor dumb creatures.”

change of banalities and pleasantries that con-Larisha arched an eyebrow. This was exactly veyed no meaningful information but managed what she’d expect from the damned Sepa-to f ill the time allocated while the food was ratists, from people who probably hadn’t had served and consumed as quickly as was polite.

direct contact with the Folk for Gods knew

“Excuse us,” Randol said, still chewing on how many generations. “They’re not dumb ani-his last mouthful. “Hans. Tam. Could we speak mals. Just because their lives are so short and in private for a moment?” With that, both men brutal is no reason to think they aren’t human.”

stormed from the room. Tam threw her an

“Besides being unhealthy and breeding like apologetic look and followed his father.

animals, you mean,” Hans snorted. “They’re

“I am so sorry that you have to rush back in primitives, damn it; evolution’s backwater!

the morning,” Dara said sincerely, not looking Look how weak they are in comparison to us.”

up from her plate. “We did find your views so Larisha was furious. “Their lineage is as old

. . . interesting.”

as ours. And who says that being robust was Larisha was not fooled. She knew she’d man-such a great evolutionary advance?”

aged to displease Tam’s family with her re-

“Larisha thinks we shouldn’t waste our remarks. Now, this unexpected declaration that sources,” Tam interrupted loudly. “She thinks she was leaving the day after arrival confirmed the mongrels are too valuable a resource to her suspicions of the impression she had made.

waste.”

“Yes, I will remember this visit forever,” Lar-Tam’s use of the harsh term shocked Larisha isha answered with equal sincerity. “Meeting all to momentary silence. “Yes,” Larisha continued of you was quite educational.”

when she recovered. “There’s still a lot of Heaven to be developed, millions of hectares yet to

“You shouldn’t have baited my family,” Tam be established as holdings. I think we should lectured as they rode out of Sachet. If he was 170

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angry he concealed it well. “They are wonder-she’d known him long enough to trust his
ful people in most respects, but they do have friendship. Besides, he’d offered to talk with somewhat of a blind spot where the mongrels her whenever she wanted. With this in mind are concerned.”

she arranged a dinner with him when Tam was

“So I noticed.” There it was again, that nasty otherwise occupied.

word she detested. “I’d rather that you didn’t

“I heard a rumor about the Folk,” she began refer to the Folk that way. It’s demeaning and with some hesitation. “Someone said there was brutal. Call them the Folk, if you please.”

going to be a pogrom—that the Folk were go-

“Anything to please you, Larisha.”

ing to be wiped out after Covenant departs.”

Did that mean that he would change his

Chen didn’t answer at once, a sure sign that words but not his thoughts? “Tell me,” she con-it might not be a rumor after all. He pulled the tinued, “is your uncle Hans always so blood-fidget from his pocket and began to stroke it thirsty?”

with his right hand. He glanced around as if Tam laughed. “Uncle Hans is all talk and little making certain that there was no one within action. He knows as well as you and I that it earshot. “Tell me, Larisha; where do you stand would be highly impractical to get rid of the on the mongrels? Excuse me, I know you don’t mong . . . Folk. But he is also a firm Separatist.

like that term—about the Folk?”

Can’t stand the idea of them looking so human.

“I think they’re too valuable an asset to Oh, did I tell you that he tithes a good quarter slaughter. Besides, simple humanity says we of his income to the Hand? He’s a good man should be their stewards, taking care of them with a big heart.”

as they take care of us.”

Larisha wondered about that. This was the Chen leaned forward and whispered. “The
f irst time she’d encountered such ingrained Hand is under great pressure from the Sepa-prejudice and, she hoped, the last. But more ratist faction, from Sachet. That’s why the Hand she wondered where Tam stood in such matis going to choose Tam as Hadir, leader of the ters, how much his family had affected his own mission. His family is quite influential among views. Nothing he had said indicated that he the Separatist faction. Besides, three of the oth-adhered to the Separatist doctrine. At the same er candidates have fallen from favor when they time, he had said nothing to indicate that he selected common family members as mates.”

didn’t. Best, she thought, to be direct, before Larisha started in surprise. “I can’t believe their relationship progressed much further.

that the choice for Hadir would be motivated

“Tam, where do you stand on the matter of the by politics. Gods, if anything should be based Folk?”

on competence it should be the mission’s com-

“I am completely in agreement with you—
mander.”

that we need them to build the sort of world

“But his family—who mostly run Sachet—
we want our children to inherit. Don’t worry, are quite wealthy,” Chen went on, seeming not Larisha, I’ve seen what you’ve done with your to notice her interruption. “They provide con-workers and, I must admit, it opened my eyes.”

siderable support to a growing Separatist move-Larisha breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, ment within the Hand. I would imagine that Tam. That means a lot to me—more than you’ll their generous contributions inf luence the ever know.”

Hand’s views.”

So Uncle Hans, the “good man” was motivatThe remarks of Tam’s uncle Hans stuck in
ed by more than a charitable heart with his her mind for weeks afterwards. Had that all considerable contributions—or should they been Separatist bluster, or was there really a more properly be called bribes? “But are the plot to kill all the Folk after Covenant depart-Separatists strong enough to bring something ed? She’d overheard whispered rumors for
like this about? Gods, don’t tell me that Heav-years but always discounted them as ravings of en’s Men are bloodthirsty enough to permit the radicals, just as Tam had dismissed his un-such a slaughter to take place.”

cle’s talk as bluster. But what if the pogrom was Chen slowly shook his head. “You’ve been
more than a rumor, more than bluster, more living too far from the centers of power. It’s than simple prejudice? What if ?

only a few landholders, who are mostly Em-Chen was a likely source of information, and pathists, such as yourself, that see the value of HEAVEN’S COVENANT

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the Folk. Most of the others could care less find some out-of-the-way spot where they’ll be about their fate. I dare say most of your so-safe?” Even as she said it she knew the impossi-called ‘good people’ would take up their guns bility of protecting several hundred Folk and to help the Fist, given a choice. In fact, the her Half ings for long. Eventually Heaven’s pogrom has already started, but only in isolated pogrom would reach wherever they might be.

areas where no one would notice.”

Eventually the force of the Fist would crush her

“No! It can’t be.” Why had she not heard of Folk or their descendants. “Is there nothing this? Surely he was mistaken. But there was more I can do?”

that incident at Gotshold. . . . “Gods!”

He took her hand in his. “Best you not be

“We need to save as many Folk as we can,”

here when it happens, child. Accept the posi-Chen continued. “That’s why we want people tion. Marry Polat and go to Meridian. You can like you, sympathetic people, aboard
save some—getting them on Covenant is the Covenant. You are the ones who must shape only way left,” Chen continued. Quickly he the future for the Folk.”

sketched the outline of his plan. “But say noth-Larisha was numb. Never in the worst of her ing of this to anyone.”

nightmares had she imagined that people

“Even Tam?” she said. Surely she could share could be so blindly cruel, so arrogant to think that with him.

that Men alone could possess this world. “How

“Especially with Tam,” Chen said. “No telling far will they go?” she hissed, half afraid of the what he might accidentally say to his family.”

answer.

Yes, that was a good reason, but just the same

“I suspect it will go into a full assault right af-it would be awkward, withholding something ter the ship departs,” Chen replied. “The Sepa-from the man she loved.

ratists are gaining strength with every passing Chen’s revelations were deeply disturbing—
day. Their views have been accepted by more horrifying, Larisha thought gloomily. Was it people every year, and nowhere more so than right to save a handful while the rest had to within the Hand. Benalit the Palm, as you no face whatever grim future the Hand held out to doubt suspect, is in the Separatist faction.

them? Was it right for her to choose a future in

“I wish there were something more we
which she would have to abandon her charges could do, but one cannot fly in the face of so and choose Covenant? Could she deny the op-many, especially when the many have the back-portunity to save some? Would it be right to ing of the Hand.” He let out the sigh of an old marry Tam and turn her back on the conse-warhorse reconciling himself to the end of his quences of Covenant’s departure?

long ride.

But what if that was all she could do?

Then he shook himself. “I know how you
feel, Larisha. I saw how deeply you cared for The wedding ceremony was solemn and
your charges when I visited your holding. That long, too damn long, she thought. Every mem-was one of the reasons we recruited you.

ber of her family and Tam’s were present, along

“Listen, the Elsbit—the head of the settle-with a goodly number of Covenant’s crew. Her ment portion of the mission—was killed this Half ings had even brought a number of her morning.”

Folk along to listen outside the chapel when

“No!” The news was shocking. Elsbit had
she and Tam made their vows to the Hand, to been a good friend, someone she admired
the God in Man, to Covenant, to Meridian, and greatly. “How? Why?”

to one another.

“A blowout—lost pressure in the habitat

A shout went up as soon as the sister prowhere she was working. I hate to sound crass, nounced the bond complete. Her neighbors
but this opens an opportunity for you. With my and cousins rushed to snatch her from Tam’s support you can replace her and become Rag-arms. Outside they threw her on Beauty and gii—second in command, a right hand to Tam mounted their own horses. Within minutes

Polat.”

they were thundering across the plain in mock Her head was still reeling about Elsbit. “How defense of her virtue.

can I protect them,” Larisha said. She was not Chen was among them, riding a fawn geld-going to turn her back on her stewardship.

ing with surprising ease for one so old. She had

“Should I develop a new farm across the sea, been right about him—he was a man of the

172

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horse. Chen beamed as he pulled alongside her priority list when she took on her new Beauty. “The Hand’s extremely pleased at how role. “Let us handle things until you get set-things have worked out,” he shouted.

tled,” he said. This was a great help, as she had She knew what Chen had meant about the
no idea of the command level decisions Benalit Hand. Her marriage to Tam symbolically sealed and he had made.

the bond between ship and settlement com-

Since their too brief vacation—it seemed so mand. They were now Hadir and Raggii, unit-long ago—she had been working her way into ed as one voice for Covenant, one voice for her new role as Raggii. It hadn’t taken long be-Meridian. It was a victory for the Hand and fore she understood the wisdom of Tam’s sug-sealed her bargain forever. She got Tam, but at gestions in letting him handle many of the a price.

more critical decisions. Still, the list of things Far behind, she knew Tam and his laughing, she had to do seemed to grow faster than she drunken outriders would soon be pursuing.

could handle. She often asked Tam for help.

Their carriage was waiting just a few kilome-There were days when she felt overwhelmed ters further on. That was where her protectors only to be rescued by his suggestions, advice, would let Tam “rescue” her. The pursuers and and guidance.

relatives would then continue the drinking and But she did not rely entirely on Tam. Thank carousing, as was traditional. The defense of heavens that Elsbit, the recently deceased ecol-the bride was a custom long honored since the ogist, had been so methodical about her duties.

early days when women were few and pre-

Without her detailed lists of all that remained to cious, and the value of a Man was measured by be done, she would have been hopelessly lost, his horse.

even with Tam’s help.

After she and Tam returned from their brief It seemed, on reflection, that there had been vacation, it would be all work as they counted nothing but long days and short nights since down the last few months before departure.

she accepted her new role. She had been divid-She intended to make the most of the few days ing her time equally between the ship, habitat, they’d have alone.

and Heaven, and regretted not being in the oth-She was saddened that the cost of her bar-er two places wherever she was. At times she gain would be the loss of her priceless inheri-completely forgot her location; all of her oftance. She hated the thought that so many of f ices were buried in similar piles of reports, her Folk would die in the years to come. Part of summaries of reports, tracking reports, reports her protested the decision she’d made. Part of of items completed, pending, resolved, and for-her wanted to remain on Heaven where she
gotten, and even reports of things that ab-could protect them. Would it be better to stay solutely needed to be squeezed in somewhere and fight, she wondered continually, or would so “could-she-please-see-what-she-could-do!” It that be a futile effort, resulting in the loss of was maddening to be so much in demand, but everything she held dear?

at the same time so necessary for her to be in-The sacrifice of departing was great, but she volved. The logisticians, planners, and others knew it was for the best. The choice of Meridi-who worked so hard to pull things together an was the only way she could influence the fu-would not be putting their lives at risk at Merid-ture and, with Tam’s strength, she could make ian. They would not suffer the consequences their new world a kind and just place.

of their mistakes. That was why she had to review their every decision, their every choice.

Two weeks. That was all the time Chen had Larisha pushed the latest stack of dispatches allowed her to have Tam to herself. She was so aside and rubbed her eyes. Four hours of read-glad that Tam had put aside the pressures of his ing were starting to take their toll. She closed role for her, for her alone. To his credit, there her eyes and thought, as always, of Tam.

had been no more than two or three interrup-Their f irst precious married months had
tions a day—urgent matters that only the Hadir been wonderful—breathtaking. He made every could resolve but that didn’t seriously detract waking moment a pleasure, planning their
from their time together.

meals, activities, and time for each other. It was During their private time, he even suggested wonderfully f lattering for him to devote so a few items for Larisha to place at the top of much attention to her every need. For once in HEAVEN’S COVENANT

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her adult life, she allowed herself to be swept tions. Elsbit had only completed the arctic and up, carried along without a thought or concern tropic plant series and had barely started on se-for what might come next, and Tam accommo-lecting seed suitable for temperate regions. Lar-dated her, planning every last detail.

isha went over Elsbit’s excruciatingly precise Those evenings, nights, and mornings of
notes, agreed with most of the list, and added planned private time were best, miraculous in a few items from the Bulshold nursery. With those f irst two weeks when they had only luck, they would find suitable soil on Meridian themselves, unconcerned with Covenant or and provide her with a little reminder of home.

obligations. After they returned to duty, their Fortunately Elsbit had already set up the intimacy merely became wonderful. He
screening protocols for those final tests. All Lar-seemed, as she was, insatiable, and lust was isha had to do was quicken her selections, test ever present. No matter how frequently they their growth under various conditions, and en-fell into one another’s arms, Tam’s assertive sure that the seed could remain viable over the lovemaking nevertheless swept her away. She centuries. Time, that was the enemy in both retried to remain calm, to pace herself, but was spects. Was there ever enough time now, and quickly overcome by her own driving passion, would there be too much time later?

which seemed to incite Tam to the point

The choice of animals was a more delicate where his brute strength, his sexual power, matter. When Tam insisted that his horses be completely overwhelmed her. She had never among the selected stock, Larisha could not imagined submission could be so fulfilling.

find it in her heart to refuse. She well knew the Never had she suspected the joys of physical horses were essential to their future well being; intimacy. The Hand was right to reserve this as necessary to Man as air and food. The hors-physical aspect of love for the marriage bed.

es would preserve Man’s culture, their very How terrible it would be to possess another so soul. That they would be the Hadir’s own made fiercely without that bond of commitment.

it even more fitting.

All of her reservations about this marriage, Of course there were the other farm stock—
about leaving Bulshold had disappeared. She food animals as well as humanity’s dear com-no longer regretted the choices she’d made, no panions, the dogs and cats. Elsbit had already longer doubted that she loved Tam. He had his sent their agents scouring Heaven for the ani-faults, as did she, but they were now in accord, mals most likely to survive in a wide variety of one soul; united as no other before them.

climates. Larisha loved the blonde, longhaired Even now, when she was totally immersed in oxen they had suggested for the subarctic con-her daily tasks, memories of Tam’s body, his ditions, but was indifferent to their bronze, touch, his smell dominated her thoughts, dis-temperately suited cousins. Every day Elsbit’s tracting her at the most inopportune times.

agents—her agents now—presented other

When they were together, she could hardly choices, each of which had to be considered in keep her hands off of his trim body. Gods, the terms of food value, robustness, and ability to feel of his flesh under her fingers, the rough-survive in a wide range of environments. Do-ness of his stubble on her cheeks, the smell of mesticity was important as well, no less for the his hair, the exquisite pleasure of his hands, his food stocks as for the Folk.

tongue, his manhood were enough to make

Larisha left most of those decisions to Jas her damp and eager. It always took a concerted Domono, the ship’s veterinarian. Despite his act of will to calm herself and concentrate on common background, he held great promise.

the work at hand.

He’d been the best of his class and came with It had been difficult to adapt to her new re-the utmost praise from his instructors. She sponsibilities. Every day she marveled at how found him to be a shy and unaffected young Elsbit had managed to find time for the green-man, quite taken with his new responsibilities, house, not to mention those shared moments much as she.

of calm in the bower. How had she managed He soon proved his worth. It was he who,
when so many demands competed on every
despite her expressed fondness for the crea-side?

tures, insisted on crossing the blonde oxen off The first priority on the long checklist she’d her list. In a few well-chosen sentences he inherited were completion of the plant selec-proved that the very robustness that helped 174

BUD SPARHAWK

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
them survive the bitter cold prevented them According to what little she could gather from surviving the freeze on the long trip.

from the news, the pogrom had still not caught Sperm and egg was the only way they could the attention of the public. She did notice on travel, as with so many other species, Jas said.

each succeeding visit to Burlingsham that there Jas showed his broad knowledge across the were fewer Folk to be seen. She wondered if full range of domestic animals. She had no the Fist was carrying out a quiet exodus. It was doubts he could take care of whatever stock disturbing, especially when one considered they selected. Better yet, unlike many first fam-how many Halfings had to replace them in the ily, he had a friendly, open way with the Folk.

menial positions of city services.

This was a plus in her mind since they would Chen had more cheerful news. “Your Folk
be his sole patients until the other animals are excellent learners, Larisha. I am surprised were quickened from storage.

by their adaptability, considering . . . Well, nev-She had no appreciation of how many details er mind. Don’t worry about them. They are in a had to be addressed in the greenhouse alone—
safe place, far from any notice of the Fist.”

the testing of pumps and trays, of water recy-That was reassuring. But how would they
clers and condensers, of nutrients and
get them on Covenant especially since Benalit supplements, of sealants, lights, power strips, was advocating reducing the vaults for the Folk cordage, braces, lattices, insulating blankets, even further. Tam usually agreed with the Palm, and the other irreplaceable things they might but always had good, sensible reasons. She hat-need at the end of their long sleep. Constant in ed the thought that he was unwittingly sup-her mind was concern that she might omit
porting the pogrom, but could f ind no fault something vitally important, some little thing with his reasoning.

no one gave a moment’s thought to, but which Whenever she broached the subject of the
might prove essential to their survival.

pogrom Tam discounted the idea. “I doubt

If all that weren’t enough, there was the se-there’s any concerted move against the Folk, lection of which crew members would be
darling. I certainly would have heard about it among the f irst landing party and those who from Uncle Hans, wouldn’t I? Come on now, would first be quickened to set up the green-where’s your proof ?”

house. Larisha had to determine the proper bal-But her only proof was Chen’s word, and
ance of Men, Halfings, and Folk for every stage that could not be admitted to him. Not without of the voyage. The problem vexed her, and she revealing what else she was involved in.

found herself continually shifting assignments among the groups. It was an endless game of The next time Larisha returned to her orbit-chess with a constantly shifting board and evering quarters, she made a brief stop to check changing pieces.

the progress on Covenant. The meticulous The various demands were exhausting, ex-folding of her expandable ring was ongoing hilarating, and all-consuming and, had there and, to her unsophisticated eye, nearly com-not been Tam at the end of each day, she
plete. There was a constant stream of tiny shut-would have soon broken under the strain. At tles between the hab and the ship. Each carried the thought of Tam, she felt a rush of lust. All some critical item of cargo; preserved food-rational thought was swept away in anticipa-stuffs, spare parts, tools, machines for fabricat-tion of holding his magnif icent body against ing whatever might be needed, and clothing hers.

for all possible climates. Everything had to be She tried to bring her thoughts back to busi-stored so that they would be immediately ac-ness. She still had to review the tool inventory, cessible if—no, when they were needed.

attend the meeting with the greenhouse con-There would be no fragile advanced equip-
struction committee, find time for her review ment on Covenant. The simpler the technolo-of the launch milestones, schedule the cold gy, the less likely it was to break down, and, if sleep sequence review group, and, as usual, be it did break down, parts could easily be fabri-seen attending the Hand’s evening services.

cated from raw materials. Her own greenhouse Larisha sighed and put thoughts of Tam aside, depended only on gravity, or a reasonable fac-but only for a few hours—six at most.

simile of it, and pressure to distribute nutrients

* * *
and water. No fancy controls save human eyes, HEAVEN’S COVENANT

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ANALOG
a thermometer or two, and the wisdom in the he’d selected were drab—soft gray and black, life of plants.

hardly suited to her skin color. She sighed. Her It seemed to her that the pace of the folding own choice would be more pronounced—a
was accelerating. Actually it was more the case, bright blue, or perhaps rose, not these dull fab-she realized, that as the radius decreased, each rics. Oh well, if it would make Tam happy, rotational fold became far more noticeable.

she’d do as he wanted. After all, it was rather Launch time was fast approaching. Already sweet of him to pick out her clothes for her.

the shuttles were loaded on board and secured for their long wait, as were the other mining The Palm, Benalit by name, arrived and de-and exploratory machinery. The pilots and op-manded that Tam and Larisha appear before erators were already being put into their vaults, her. “I will tolerate no further absences from already in the long sleep and awaiting their fu-services,” she said. “All must attend each ture. They, and their vessels, had to be ready to evening.”

launch soon after arrival to find and collect the

“But we have schedules around the clock,”

raw materials Covenant would need to survive.

Tam explained. “Only a quarter of the crew There was a cloud of workers, ships, shut-could possibly . . .”

tles, cargo loaders, and supervisors swarming Palm Benalit cut him off. “I am not stupid, over Covenant’s skin, checking every bolt, Hadir, so do not lecture me on work schedules.

every rivet, every plate, gasket, seal, and nozzle I am emphasizing that I will provide guidance for the slightest departure from the standard of to all the crew.” She swirled the russet robes of perfection this long flight required. Most of the her station around her in a gesture of impa-inspectors were going to be aboard, so they tience. Clearly Benalit did not suffer fools.

had a very vested interest in detecting even the

“Does that include the Folk?” Larisha asked smallest error in construction or loading.

quietly, hoping to divert the Palm’s anger away She took one last look before continuing
from Tam.

along the corridor. The ship looked nearly The Palm sniffed. “One does provide what
ready, yet there were thousands of details to be help one can to the lower orders. Yes, I will do tended. Would they ever be ready in time?

so as long as they are on board.” She smiled and nodded to Tam. “But that won’t be for Larisha was unprepared to find Tam angrily long.”

pacing the room when she arrived. She

Larisha was shocked. Something must have
couldn’t help noticing that he was wearing his gone terribly wrong with Chen’s plans, her formal clothing. “Are you going somewhere?”

plans, if they were going to get rid of the Folk.

“About time you got here. The shuttle ar-

She had to talk to the doctor, and soon.

rived an hour ago. Where have you been?” His voice was sharp, angry, a tone she’d not heard When she accepted the Hand’s assignment,
him use before.

she had not realized how much it would

“I stopped to look at the progress on
change the pattern of her life. She could no Covenant. Why do you ask?”

longer go where she wished, nor even be

“There’s a formal service for two of the Men.

alone. Her days since accepting had been as The Hand wants us to act as their outriders. It’s tightly scheduled as any other high official’s—
been on the schedule for two days.”

an endless succession of meetings, meetings, Larisha had a vague memory of something
and more meetings. It had come to the point like that, not that she paid that much attention where she even welcomed the breaks for inane to the social calendar. It was all she could do to receptions with officials from near and far just keep up with her duties as Raggii. “I’ll get for the novelty they offered.

dressed,” she said wearily. The flight had been The Hand sent their instructions through Be-exhausting.

nalit and a Halfing intermediary. Messages sug-

“I picked out some new clothes for you. And gested which option she should choose, which don’t wear too much jewelry. It makes you way to ask Tam to vote on a minor committee stand out too much.”

decision, and whose side to support during a Obviously color was another thing that he dispute. These brief instructions told her what thought made her stand apart for all the clothes to say to whom, advised her on handling Tam 176

BUD SPARHAWK

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
on decisions affecting the crew selection, and sudden conversion to Empathism? Anything
told her when and where she was to lead him.

might be possible after Chen’s mysterious mes-They used her position like a tool, a mouth-sage.

piece for their words, a puppet for their hands.

“The Hand cannot overly stress the impor-

Some times she was to speak out in support of tance of this mission to Meridian, this extena position, other times against. There was little sion of our culture, of our seed into the future pattern to the requests and often little apparent where the Emerging God awaits. This is the sense. Which, she wondered, were from the word of the Hand, the word of the Emerging Hand and which from Chen? Luckily she’d not God in Man,” Benalit held up her right hand, yet received conflicting instructions from her palm outward.

two masters, but she dreaded the possibility.

“And we are the fingers,” everyone respond-Neither did she know if the strange, often ed by rote.

confusing directions were really from the The Palm glanced around to ensure that

Hand. It might even be possible that some everyone had joined in the traditional response were from a different group using the same before she continued. “There are some who channel. There was no way she could tell. She wish that the Hand not succeed in this venture.

had to treat all as valid.

Evil people who act for their self ish reasons In the end, would it really matter to her who and against the destiny of Man.”

sent the directions? No, she concluded, these

“There are no heretics on my ship, Sister!”

people were all playing shadow games, no

Tam declared with some heat. “Every one of more effective than spirits in directing the af-my Men respects the sisters of the Hand!” Lar-fairs of the living. These decisions would no isha turned away for a moment, uncertain if longer matter when she awoke.

she could manage to keep a straight face. At The communications had always been the
least she wasn’t the only one who was worried same until this time: The Halfing held Chen’s about the Palm’s meaning.

prized fidget in his outstretched palm, proof of

“Heresy is often a matter of interpretation,”

the source of his message. “You must not con-the Palm replied testily. “We are talking about tact him directly,” the Halfing whispered as he something more insidious. We are talking
glanced about nervously. “He will call when he about those whose faith is not strong enough wishes to speak to you.” There was no further to sustain them on the long journey. People explanation.

who may stray when the Hand is no longer

Larisha wondered why such a strange re-
there to guide them.”

quest would be made. There was no secret of

“I assure you that all of my crew are loyal to her close relationship with Chen, nor of their the Hand,” Tam insisted.

frequent public and private meetings. In fact,

“And mine,” Larisha added. She wanted Be-
there was a review meeting between the com-nalit to realize that Tam was not alone in his mand structure and the project management commitment.

scheduled for later this afternoon, a meeting

“Nevertheless,” the Palm continued. “The
that Chen usually chaired and after which they Fist is carefully examining the backgrounds of usually shared a meal.

every member of the crew—and those that recommended them as well. You may not realize It was the sour-faced Benalit who sat at the it, but there have been several dissenting fac-head of the table in Chen’s place. “The director tions, troublemakers who are not steadfast in is currently busy with matters of state,” she the faith, who think that the Hand’s policies are stated flatly. “Therefore the agenda will be put misguided. I assure you that the Fist will dis-aside for the next meeting. I,” she paused and cover who they are and deal harshly with
looked around the room, pausing to stare at them,” she glanced at Larisha. “I will expect each of them. “I have other matters to discuss.”

you to provide accommodations for them, Rag-Larisha heard the soft intake of breath. Every-gii.”

one probably wondered, as did she, what seri-

“Of course,” Larisha responded quickly.

ous transgression she was going to harp upon.

Were the Fist going to burst through the door It wasn’t immediately noticeable, but soon it to cart someone away? Was she announcing a became apparent that some of the crew failed to HEAVEN’S COVENANT

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ANALOG
return from their scheduled breaks. While these

“But not when ignorance can be deadly.”

were few, it nevertheless had a profound effect.

“True, but let me begin. You see, it is not As those members were replaced, often by
only the Separatists who scheme to achieve strong advocates of the Hand, everyone became dominance on Meridian. Even though our allies more guarded in their comments, more furtive within the Hand are fewer each year, we still in their behavior. Even Larisha found herself have powerful friends in key positions. I be-watching her words more carefully than before.

lieve they will be able to mold the shape of When she heard no more from Chen, she be-Covenant’s crew for a while longer. That is all gan to worry that he had become victim to the the time we need.”

fervent Separatists. Had the Fist seized him for Larisha was puzzled and said so. “But you inquiry, for prison, or worse? She had no way haven’t told me what to do, how to act, what it of knowing, and feared inquiring too deeply is I’m supposed to do for you. The only things lest she become one of the Fist’s suspects herI’ve been instructed to do have come from the self.

those old crones in the Hand.”

That was why she was so surprised when

“And some of those are from us, through our Chen stepped into the greenhouse as she was agents,” Chen smirked. “Did you think we
checking the progress of her latest batch of test would be so obvious?”

seedlings.

Larisha wondered about that. She still didn’t

“Chen!” she yelled and raced to throw her understand exactly what it was that she was ex-arms about him. “Where have you been? I’ve pected to be doing.

been so worried about you after . . .”

“In time you will understand, Larisha. Wait a He stopped her with a gesture. “Matters are while longer.”

becoming quite serious, my dear, but I was never in danger. No, I had other matters to at-A few days later, Tam insisted that she ac-tend that had nothing to do with the Hand’s company him to a dinner for his newest outrid-witch hunt.”

er, a Man called Gull Something-or-other. “I’m

“Other matters?”

awfully tired,” she complained. “And I have a Chen ignored her question, as usual. “Let us ton of work to do. Would you mind if I didn’t say that the Fist has unwittingly done us a favor go?”

by eliminating some of the less disciplined ele-

“Of course I’d mind,” he replied. “I want ments.” He grinned. “Don’t worry. We are still everyone to see what a beautiful wife I have.”

protected.”

She noted that he’d said “wife” and not Raggii.

“What protection? We’ve got a Separatist

“Besides, I’ve had this planned for days. You Palm on board and she hates the Folk!” Quickly should have noticed it and timed your work ac-Larisha explained what the Palm had intimated cordingly.”

about the further reduction of the Folk and Something in his voice irritated her. “I wish possibly the Halfings as well.

you had told me about this instead of just scrib-

“We know of that and are working on find-
bling it on that schedule of yours. I need my ing someone to replace her. We must work
own time, you know.”

carefully so as not to let them know how we

“All you have to do is let me know when you are controlling the crew assignments.” Obvi-want to do something and I’ll write it in,” he ously Chen had not heard of the Separatist re-said graciously.

placements among the crew.

The trouble was, she just didn’t think that far Larisha was determined to f ind out more
ahead where her personal time was involved.

about this so-called plot of Chen’s. Surely there Planning for what they might face three or four was more to it than simply putting Empathists hundred years ahead was all the scheming she on board Covenant.

could stand. “I’ll try to keep you posted.”

“Tell me more, Doctor,” she said. “Just what

“Well, dinner will start shortly. You’d better is it you’ve gotten me involved in?”

get dressed.”

“Ah, I knew you would ask that eventually Wasn’t he listening? “I said I was tired, Tam.

but wanted to wait until you saw the necessity.

I’ll just warm something up and eat here.”

Some times, you know, it is better to remain in Since there was no need for her to be there in ignorance.”

her official role, that shouldn’t be a problem.

178

BUD SPARHAWK

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

“That won’t do, Larisha. I need you to be few unattached among the crowd.”

there to show how tightly we work together. I

“What? Why didn’t you send this problem to need you there as both wife and as Raggii. Af-me? Damn it, Larisha, I said I’d take care of the ter all, Gull is formally accepting me as his crew assignment decisions for you.”

Hadir by taking the Polat name. Even Benalit

“I know you did, and I appreciate it. But I has agreed to come.”

deal with these two every day. Besides, I think Well, at least he acknowledged her com-its time I started handling assignments myself.

mand role this time. “Everybody knows who I’m f inally comfortable in my new role and and what I am, Tam. There’s no need to make a shouldn’t be bothering you any more.”

show of it. Besides, Jas Domono became Jas Tam leaned over and kissed her on the

Bulgat the other day with little ceremony.”

cheek. “Nonsense. It hasn’t been any bother at

“What I would expect of that one,” Tam
all. Haven’t I been doing a good job for you?”

sneered. “No matter. I said you’d be there, and Larisha wondered about that. For most of the that’s what you are going to do. I will not have workers, she had no quibble with Tam’s choic-you embarrass me by snubbing my Outriders.”

es. However, some of the supervisors he’d Larisha was surprised at his reaction. Surely picked made their Separatist views on the Folk missing one more dinner wasn’t going to bring rather evident.

about mutiny. “I’m sure they’ll understand. Tell

“No, Tam. I insist on doing my share of the them it’s duty that keeps me away.” She turned work. Besides, these are my people and there-to go when Tam reached out and pulled her fore my decision.”

back.

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Larisha,”

“We are going whether you like it or not.

Tam drew back and scowled.

What sort of Hadir would they think I was if I Larisha couldn’t understand why he was get-couldn’t command my own wife? Now get
ting so upset. “I’m going to do it anyway, Tam, dressed. Wear the green outfit I like so much.”

and thank you for helping.” There, that ought Although she didn’t understand why he was to settle it.

making such an issue out of this dinner, she did

“As to their separation,” Larisha shrugged.

realize from his reaction that he felt it was im-

“Well, it happens. Now I have to choose which portant. “Very well,” she said wearily. “But one I can afford to do without.” There were no promise we’ll leave early. I really do have a lot spare vaults for anyone on the mission. Any ad-of work to do.”

ditional crew member would displace some-

“Of course,” Tam said and pecked her on the one else, and in this case, it was either Jara or forehead. “Don’t take long.”

Micha. Or yet another of her Folk. Or two more.

Preparations had intensif ied as the launch Thanks to Benalit’s unrelenting attacks there date grew ever nearer. Unbelievably the num-had been a steady erosion of vault spaces for ber of conferences, meetings, and discussions the Folk as time went by, mostly among the increased at what seemed a geometric rate.

ship’s contingent. Tam seemed always to need Last minute problems and situations had to be one more of the Folk’s vaults for yet another addressed, compromises had to be reached, specialist, another back-up mechanic, another and, every once in the while, something totally Man or Halfing, to fill the spaces slated for the unexpected would occur.

Folk. There were still more than enough slots

“What’s wrong?” Tam asked as they lay side for her Folk, but the margin was growing small-by side after another of their inevitable bouts of er day by day.

lovemaking. “You’ve been even more scattered

“Why didn’t they tell you they were planning than normal these past two days.”

this when you still had time to train the other

“I’ve been worrying about a devil of a prob-people?” Tam growled. He sounded truly puz-lem,” Larisha said. “Two of my Men—Micha
zled by the dilemma she faced. Apparently he the mechanic and Jara, the biologist—want a wasn’t listening.

separation. Jara wants to bring her new part-

“They didn’t plan the separation to happen, ner along or she won’t go. Yes, and Micha Tam—it just developed,” Larisha responded. “I says he won’t give up his slot. He’ll probably heard rumors that Micha was taking up with a pick a new mate before long. There’s still a girl he knew. My guess is that Jara just responded HEAVEN’S COVENANT

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ANALOG
in kind. She’s a beautiful woman, in case you have been part of another of Tam’s deliberate didn’t notice, and would have no problems in plans—could it? “What do you mean?”

that respect.”

“As soon as I saw your qualif ications I had

“Not so beautiful as you, my dear.” Tam sat Elsbit arrange your work schedule to match up. “Besides, I doubt her marriage to Micha mine,” Tam bragged, obviously pleased with was ever real. After she and Elsbit . . .” he himself. “Then the good Palm rearranged our stopped suddenly, as if he’d been on the verge break schedules on my request.” He stroked of saying something he shouldn’t. “I think her cheek with the back of his hand. The short they’re trying to take advantage of you. Playing hairs tickled. “From the very first I knew you on your sympathetic heart.”

were worthy to be the wife of the Hadir. I Larisha wondered what he had almost said, knew in my heart that you, Larisha ta Bul, but put that aside for the moment. “Why do would be the most suitable partner possible.”

you keep insisting they’re up to something de-He nuzzled her neck again and then began to vious? Things like this happen when people explore further with his hand, lips, and tongue.

are under too much stress. When they have too

“Was I wrong? Are you complaining?”

little time for one other. Gods, I wonder that Larisha didn’t know what to think, and the there isn’t more of this.” Huh, she might have way her body was responding wasn’t helping.

been talking about their own situation instead.

“No, not really,” she said warmly and brought Tam bent over and put a hand on her breast.

his lips to hers.

“Are you complaining that I don’t have enough time for you?” He nuzzled the base of her neck

“How dare you?” Larisha said as she burst just below her ear. “We do have the rest of the into the Palm’s compartment. “Why didn’t you night, you know.”

consult with me before you sent this?” The ob-Larisha giggled and pushed him away. “Insa-ject in question was a report to the council rec-tiable, aren’t you? Come on, we both have a ommending that all the Folk be replaced by rough day ahead of us and have to get up early.

Halfing workers.

Besides, I need to sort this out in my own Benalit sniffed. “I did consult with the Hadir mind.”

before sending it. You were unavailable at the Tam sighed and lay on his stomach. “Listen time, so I assumed that he had spoken to you Larisha. I insist that you hold Jara and Micha to about it when he gave his approval.”

their original vows. Make the both of them Larisha was taken aback. “But it makes no leave their so-called lovers behind.”

sense whatsoever. I’ll need those workers

“You can’t be serious! Why would you even when we get to Meridian.”

suggest such a thing?”

“Nonsense,” Benalit said. “I’ve watched the

“It’s simply logic, don’t you see how careful-work in the greenhouse and see nothing that ly they planned this move? Can’t you see that couldn’t be done equally as well, if not better, this separation is just an excuse to try to slip by a Halfing.”

their otherwise unqualif ied lovers onto

Larisha was enraged. Clearly this woman

Covenant.”

hadn’t the faintest idea of the complexity of Larisha had heard not a bit of doubt in Tam’s maintaining plants in the conditions they voice. “You can’t really believe this was would face. Judging from her soft hands and planned, Tam. People don’t always plan every-carefully tended nails, the Palm had never done thing. Sometimes people fall in love accidental-any hard work of late. Probably as citif ied as ly. Look at us.”

her uncles, she thought.

Tam chuckled softly and raised up on one el-

“You have no idea of how much effort I’ve bow. “You actually think it was an accident that expended to train my people. There is no way we shared that flight where we met, that we we can do what we must with a group of
had the same work schedules, that our break damned novices!”

times were just coincidentally the same?” He

“Nonsense. It doesn’t take that much effort chuckled again. “You must be even more naive to plant seeds and harvest the crops,” the Palm than I imagined.”

said dismissively. “But one must take the longer Larisha was incredulous. It wasn’t possible.

perspective, my dear. There really is no reason Their meeting, their romance couldn’t possibly that we have to carry these primitive beasts 180

BUD SPARHAWK

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
with us to our new world. Think how much

“Why won’t you believe me,” she argued.

nicer it will be without them.”

“Why can’t you simply take my word for it. It’s Separatist. If there had been any doubt earli-a shooting club—a place where everyone can er, it was clearly dispelled by that remark. She help us clear out some game that might dam-would have to tell Chen about this turn of age the crops come Spring.”

events. Yes, and pass the word along to those

“Have it your way,” Tam said and took her on the crew who knew better before this fool hand. “But I could have saved you a lot of trou-did any more damage.

ble if you’d discussed this with me beforehand.

The Palm apparently took her lack of re-

I only want what’s best for you, you know.”

sponse for agreement. “Now I suggest that you Larisha snatched her hand away. “Decisions pick the Halfings you want so that we can have about Bulshold are mine alone, Tam. Why
a proper settlement on Meridian.”

don’t you take my word for anything?”

“I will do what I must,” Larisha promised.

“Not when you are being foolish. Can’t you see that whatever interest you’ve generated is As if she wasn’t upset enough when she re-just a temporary curiosity? This hunting idea turned to their compartment. Tam was furious.

won’t work over the long run, I assure you.”

“How could you do this without consulting So, even when she did something right it
me?” he demanded. “What is this hunting club was for the wrong reasons? He could be so inall about?”

furiating. “You may be Hadir. You may com-She didn’t know how he’d learned of the in-mand the ship and operations at Meridian, but vitations but assumed it must have been
in matters of my inheritance you have no voice.

through his father. She’d had several invitations That is mine alone, and I will do what I think to the Bulshold hunt sent to people in Sachet.

best for its future.”

“It’s a great idea,” she explained. “There’s

“Come now, Larisha. In a matter of months lots of open land at Bulshold and we’ve some we’ll leave all this behind. What possible inter-bothersome wild game that damages our
est could you have in what happens to Bul-crops. I thought it might be interesting to ex-shold afterward? Listen to me, all those people pose the place to possible buyers while open-on Heaven are dead, dead, dead. Once Chen ing another source of revenue.”

puts you down to sleep you will have no con-

“Did you think my family can’t see through trol over Heaven’s Halfings, Folk, or any other your plans, Larisha? Since there’s lots of better farmyard stock, nor should you care. They are hunting grounds elsewhere, it’s obvious that all irrelevant, ephemeral phantoms of no con-you just want our people to see your tame Folk sequence.”

in the hopes that they’ll change their minds.”

“I can’t be that cold-blooded. I can’t turn my

“But no other hunting grounds are as lovely back on what my family spent centuries build-as Bulshold,” she replied. “I think it will prove a ing. I will do whatever I can to influence what nice stream of income for the off season. And,”

happens to Bulshold.”

she continued with rising heat at Tam’s criti-

“Even if that involves manipulating me and cism, “I don’t expect that anyone’s mind will my family, of trying to convert a handful of Sep-be changed while they are there. I doubt if Un-aratists? I had more faith in you than that, Lar-cle Hans would be converted to an Empathist isha. You can’t turn back the tide of history.”

even if God almighty spoke to him.”

“I am not manipulating you or your damned

“Don’t blaspheme,” Tam warned, but his
cold-hearted family,” she shouted back. Well, grin showed that he agreed with her assess-not really. She was correct, but not in the way ment. “Just don’t expect any of my dear kin to he meant. She couldn’t say anything for that respond to your conversion plans.”

would reveal how she had been following the

“You aren’t listening. I said I didn’t have any Hand’s agenda, and that of Chen, whatever that plans beyond making Bulshold more prof-might be. No, she could never admit that. It itable.”

opened too many doors that should remain

Tam’s wrinkled lip showed that he did not closed.

believe her. “It really isn’t your nature to ma-

“Must we argue, Tam? Can’t we get back to nipulate people,” he said. “You are too trans-the way we were before?” Even as she said it, parent to pull it off.”

she knew there was no way she could regain HEAVEN’S COVENANT

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ANALOG
the Tam of their f irst romantic weeks. Her shortage problem. According to Larisha’s
view of him had changed. He wanted too
schedule, they had to start loading the settlers much say in her matters for her liking.

in just under a week, and there weren’t enough

“So you are still going through with this vaults for them. Tam would come back with a ridiculous plan of yours?” He sounded dumb-solution, she knew. He had proven fantastically founded by her opposition. “It’s a waste of time adept at solving difficult issues that would con-and resources. Come on, Larisha, let my father found most men.

take care of Bulshold for you so you can start After the Palm’s evening services, she reacting like the wife of the Hadir.”

turned to their cabin and thought she’d make His words infuriated her. Over the last
some notes on a few items. Inside a drawer, month, ever since that argument about Jara next to the pad she’d been seeking, she no-and her new husband—who had fortuitously
ticed Tam’s battered leather notebook, the been a farmer himself—Tam been giving her one he usually took along on their breaks. It constant and unwelcome advice on everything was where he also recorded their personal from what to eat and wear to how to arrange plans.

her daily schedule. He probably wanted her to Curious as to what he had in store for their think he was acting in her best interests but next break, she opened the book and began to that bit of cover was long gone. She would read. The level of detail was unbelievable. In have none of it.

tiny script, he’d written the events of each day

“Listen, I’ve spoken to my father. He’s ar-in half hour increments, a dizzying list of minu-ranging for a manager to take over Bulshold.

tiae that fascinated and bored her. Had he al-You can have confidence in his abilities to man-ways been this meticulous, or had it become age the mong . . . Folk. He’ll double the profits more pronounced only recently?

within two seasons and make your family very She flipped back through the months to the wealthy.”

date they’d f irst met. Just as he said, there it

“My family has all the money they need,
was on the schedule— intro self to LB, along thank you. And who gave your father the right with the flight time. Unbelievable! She flipped to manage my property?” She demanded. “I
forward several pages: take LB to Burling-can just imagine what he would do to ‘make sham, dinner at TPS. On and on, with every the farm more productive.’ Tell Ran and Uncle detail of their courtship, everything scheduled Hans to call off their trained dog. No, wait! I’ll and planned in exquisite detail. It was frighten-tell them myself the next time we go down to ing and flattering that he had lavished so much Heaven.”

effort to draw her to him.

“You will not embarrass my father that way,”

Then, halfway down one page in which he

Tam shouted back.

had scheduled the rides and swims at Bulshold

“Neither you nor any of your family have a was a single entry, scheduled for an hour be-voice in the disposition of my inheritance. I fore midnight. Take LB—garden. Curious, she will do what I wish and when I wish where thought, and then froze. That was the night Bulshold is concerned,” she shouted back.

they’d f irst made love. It had been a warm

“You know we’ve only your best interests at night. The smell of flowers had been heavy in heart, darling. I just don’t understand why you the bower, and Tam had been so charming, so are being so def iant. Damn it; I’m your hus-masculine, that she’d been overcome with lust.

band and you’ll do what we think best, not just Spontaneous and wonderful, she’d always
what you want.”

thought until this moment, this clarifying mo-

“Why is what we want always what you
ment when she finally understood what a ma-want?” she asked rhetorically. “And what I nipulative controlling beast she’d married.

want right now is to get a decent night’s sleep.

Suddenly all the little things he’d done fell Good night, Hadir Polat.”

into a pattern, a pattern that became more dis-They slept apart that night, and for many to tasteful by the second. Why hadn’t she recog-follow. At times Larisha was tempted to apolo-nized this earlier? Why had she let love blind gize, but the occasion never seemed right.

her to this glaring fault? In all their time together, she’d never given a moment’s thought to Tam was Heavenside, looking into the vault what was driving his careful plans, plans, and 182

BUD SPARHAWK

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
more detailed plans for their every moment towas simply because the Folk weren’t as robust gether. She hadn’t seen it as an obsession with as Men. Doubling would raise that to 30, even order but merely as a f lattering attempt to 40 percent!

please her. Now, too late, she realized that

“That’ll kill too many,” she said. “There must spontaneity was neither in his vocal or emo-be a better way.”

tional vocabularies. Chance played no role in

“It’s a simple choice, Larisha. We leave the his view of the world. His need for control was mongrel contingent behind and reduce the risk too great.

to the rest or take them all and lose a few.”

“It isn’t reasonable to kill people,” she said.

“How could you?” she demanded when he

“They’re not really people,” Tam replied
returned. She shook the diary in his face. “You haughtily. “If the Hand approved our command planned our entire courtship. Everything was recommendations we wouldn’t have to take
plotted in mechanical detail. You never loved any of the beasts. That way none of them
me at all, did you? You were just using me to would have to die.”

achieve your own ends.”

Larisha didn’t respond. She had to stop this

“You had no right to read that,” he snapped idiocy, but how? The Palm and Tam controlled and snatched the diary from her hands. “What the Hand’s perceptions too well. She realized, if I was using you—you enjoyed it. You still en-too late, that she’d been an innocent fool, a rus-joy letting me plan our lives, so you’ve used me tic farmer unschooled in the sea of subtle plots as well. Come on, Larisha. We both know what that pervaded the project. This situation had is needed to succeed. What does it matter how obviously been managed so that the Tam and we achieve our ends?”

Benalit would win either way. Leave what few While Larisha struggled for the words to ex-Folk they had left behind or kill whatever they press her anger at this betrayal, Tam leaned ca-could with this ill-advised doubling up proce-sually back. “By the way, I solved the problem dure.

with the vaults. Aren’t you going to ask me Perhaps Chen could wield his considerable how?”

inf luence to offset this idiotic idea. Yes, she Larisha said nothing. Did it matter what she would speak to him as soon as possible. And asked—he was going to tell her anyway. How about Tam as well.

like him to redirect the conversation.

“There’s no way they can deliver enough

The dinner proceeded, with Chen quietly
vaults to meet our schedule,” Tam explained.

probing what was going on that he might not

“We’re going to have to launch with little more have already heard, chatting pleasantly about than half the remaining units.”

the changes she was making at Bulshold, and That wasn’t a surprise. She had no doubts sharing some of the latest gossip about the first that some Separatist had quietly been told to families. Larisha tried to hold up her end of the slow production so there would be no place conversation, but failed miserably. “Now,”

for any but the Men and a handful of Halfings.

Chen said when the meal was done and only But Tam had said he’d found a solution, which the pot of hot tea sat between them, “tell me was curious.

what is wrong. You are obviously upset over

“Benalit told me that those damned sisters something.”

would never let us leave all the Folk behind—

“Tam indicated that someone is working to but we’re working on that—so I thought—
eliminate nearly all of the Folk from the mis-why not simply double up? Let’s put two in sion,” she said and explained what Tam had each vault. Not only does that solve the pro-told her. “So it’ll kill those we do manage to get duction problem, but it will free up a couple of aboard.”

more units for our Men and Halfings.”

“You are quite correct about the Separatist Larisha was appalled. The vaults were barely slow-down on vault production,” Chen replied.

large enough for one person. Squeezing in two

“I became aware of it a few months ago and would be extremely painful during both the shifted production to another facility. We’ll freezing process and recovery. Doubling up load the Folk in the new units and deliver them was not unheard of, but it signif icantly in-when it’s too late for the good Palm to do any-creased the risks. They’d lose 20 percent as it thing about it. I’m sure the Separatists will be HEAVEN’S COVENANT

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ANALOG
quite unhappy when they discover what we’ve Larisha protested. “But this is my life! Don’t I done.”

have a say in that? I am the Raggii!”

“Thank you, Doctor,” she choked out. “Are

“Did you think that the Hand selected you you certain there be enough units? Tam said simply because you two happened to be ro-there was a considerable shortage.”

mantically involved?”

“I will ensure that enough space remains to

“But Tam said . . .”

load your people. Unfortunately about a quar-

“It wasn’t you they wanted at first. Elsbit was ter of them will still have to be doubled up.” He their first choice—the woman the Separatists held up a hand to cut off her protest. “You will wanted Tam to marry. But after that business have to make certain that only the most robust with Jara, she was no longer an option. Just as will be doubled. That will certainly increase well. Their behavior would have shocked most their chances of survival.”

of the crew if it had come out. That is why I Larisha swore. “Damn! I’ll still lose too picked you. I had to make certain they
many.”

wouldn’t place some Separatist woman as her

“Better they die softly in sleep than in the outrider. Having a capable Empathist like you, storm that is coming to Heaven, Larisha. It’s a someone who sees the humanity in the Folk, in kindness—look at it that way.”

that position was important.”

“But there is something else on your mind,”

Politics again! Larisha could hardly believe he continued as he sipped his tea. “How are everything concerning Covenant had been things between you and Tam?” Once again,
governed by politics instead of cold reason.

Chen demonstrated his uncanny ability to

Had every decision been a f ight over which place his finger on the heart of matters.

faction would dominate? She couldn’t believe

“I can’t live with Tam any longer,” she blurt-that people could have such petty concerns ed, glad that she could share her pain with when hundreds of lives hung in the balance.

someone else. “I want to get far away from that Then she realized that the consequences were controlling bastard.”

of no concern to anyone left behind. Whether Barely containing the burst of anger that the crew lived or died near Meridian would all statement generated, she detailed how he had happen long after their own lives were done.

schemed their courtship, how he had manipu-Neither would there ever be any contact, so lated events so that she would fall in love with great was the distance. Tam was right. Not only him, and how he tried to control her every was she surrounded by dead people, but they move ever since their marriage.

probably felt the same about Covenant’s crew.

“Surely you’ve spoken to him about this. PerHer concern must have shown for Chen
haps he really does have your best interests at chided her. “Don’t look so shocked, Larisha.

heart.”

This contest has been going on long before you Larisha waved his protest away. “Every time were born and will probably continue long af-I’ve brought it up he dismisses the idea. Yes, he ter you die. This f ight is only a skirmish in a does say he only has my interests at heart, but much larger battle, a war to define what makes it is his actions that give that the lie. That is us Men.”

why I intend to leave him.”

A war? She felt an icicle of fear in her breast.

“It would be ill-advised for you to formally

“Are you saying that the Hand’s fingers were in-separate, Larisha. It would compromise your volved in Elsbit’s death?”

position, your perceived inf luence over the

“It was awfully convenient, wasn’t it?” Chen Hadir. I suspect the Hand would be terribly an-smiled. “But, no, that would be taking matters gry with such a move, especially after they too far, even for the Fist. More likely they had worked so hard to get you where you are.

other more subtle plans for removing Elsbit.

They believe, correctly I think, that it is criti-That is not to say they were averse to taking adcal to the mission for the Hadir and Raggii to vantage of the situation,” insisted Chen. He did present a unif ied face. A separation would not sound very convincing.

cast doubts on your every decision. People Larisha wanted to know more of what she
would wonder if you truly had the good of the had been drawn into. Clearly this was a danger-mission at heart or were dealing with some ous situation. She was bound to Chen by oblig-personal issue.”

ation and friendship. That relationship made it 184

BUD SPARHAWK

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
doubly dangerous for her. “Tell me more about

“Please, Larisha. Let me speak to him. Let me this contest then.”

try to get an agreement so you can at least be The fidget appeared as if by magic in Chen’s companions.”

hand as he settled back to explain. “There’s Larisha considered. “It won’t work, but go been a longstanding schism among the Hand.

ahead and try.”

It’s over what defines the shape and ethics of

“I will,” Chen promised

God when He finally emerges from our loins.

The Separatists want to cleanse the race, to On her next break, Larisha visited Bulshold, eliminate all traces of human ancestry so that while Tam opted to visit his family, a chore that only our line, our superior attributes, continue Larisha always refused because of his family’s into the future.”

rather public campaign to discourage her hunt-Larisha agreed. She’d experienced that sort ing club’s support among the Sachet Sepa-of stupid prejudice when she’d met Tam’s fam-ratists.

ily. It was just unsettling to find that this was so To Tam’s disappointment, Bulshold was en-widely supported.

joying continuing success. While some of the

“The Empathist faction wants to preserve

First families stayed away, more came, enjoyed our ancestors’ heritage,” Chen continued.

Bulshold’s hospitality, and spread the word,

“They don’t want to see those resources squan-bringing even more visitors. Her caretakers had dered by stupid prejudices. We want to ensure to turn away half of the requests, there were so that the Folk remain equal to Man in the eyes of many from the first and second families alone.

God.”

“We warned quite a few visitors about an in-

“Equal?” Larisha shrank back from his words.

cident,” Kyle, the one who ran the hunting op-Never had she heard anyone so highly placed, eration told her. “Said that one of the Folk someone as powerful and influential as Chen, nearly killed a guest with one of the long utter such heretical words. “Folk and Halfings guns.”

aren’t equal to Men. True they might share a

“Terrible thing for that to happen,” Larisha common ancestry with us, but that was long said thoughtfully. “Tell anyone who asks that ago, sometime in the far distant past. It has no you’re giving the Folk who accompany the
relevance to us, to what we’ve become.”

hunting parties safety lessons on how to use

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Chen continued.

the guns so it won’t happen again.”

“We only wish to ensure that the Folk are per-Larisha closed the ledger. “You’ll need a lot petuated wherever Man may go. Beasts the
of target practice to do that. I’ll authorize you Folk may be, and clearly inferior to Man, but to double the ammunition purchases,” she
their lives still deserve respect. They still have said. “And order more long guns in case our the right to life.”

guests lack their own.” She grinned when she With that she could not argue. Certainly that said this.

had been the feeling of her family down the Kyle smiled in response. “We’ll store them in centuries. And that was the obligation of her the villages,” he said. “That way we’ll have stewardship.

more guest rooms here in the main building.”

Still, she wondered if she should start worry-Both of them knew what that meant. It was all ing about the Fist. What misfortune would part of her plan.

Chen bring upon her before they hauled him Tam was not the only one who could play
away? Best, she thought, to keep her mouth long-term games.

shut and hear him out.

Chen must have sensed her ambivalence.

The reconciliation went well, she thought.

“Need I say that you are too involved with the Although she didn’t know what Chen had said mission, with us, to change anything. I am to Tam, she did notice a definite improvement afraid you are just going to have to live with the in his behavior. He surrendered all of the tasks situation as best you can, Larisha.”

he had taken from her earlier with only moder-

“I will not let myself be controlled by that ately grudging protest.

man,” she declared. “If you insist it is for the Tam seemed withdrawn, hesitant about in-good of the mission I will stay—at least until teractions with her. No doubt he was worried you can find a replacement.”

about how word of their rift would impact his HEAVEN’S COVENANT

185

ANALOG
leadership and reduce the perception of him as symptoms. In each case, she had to dig for a strong Hadir. Their relationship was other-facts, uncovered discrepancies, and put mat-wise cordial and, in public, impeccable.

ters to rest. On that last, her vet, Jas Bulgat, had To any casual observer, the Hadir and Raggii found no basis for the allegations. Still, she’d continued their regular routines, overworked lost the battle over pilots when Benalit and and overburdened, ever trying to pay attention Tam had managed to wrest another five vaults to more details than they could handle, with from the diminishing Folk inventory.

scarce time for one another except in the priOn the other hand, she had gained ground.

vacy of their compartment. Little did anyone re-A word through Chen was enough to have the alize that they had not shared a bed for months.

Hand intervene when she could not overcome This was not entirely Larisha’s decision, for an obstacle. She was ever fearful that support Tam was no longer as attentive, especially would be lost, for Chen had said that the Sepa-when she routinely opposed his plans and sug-ratists were gaining ever more adherents. He gested other alternatives, sometimes at the be-did not think the pogrom would become com-hest of the Hand, sometimes on instructions mon knowledge before the launch date, but it from Chen, and—more often of late—for her would be close. She could see the signs her-own good reasons.

self—the number of reported Fist’s cullings had To his credit, Tam remained civil through-increased markedly and more reports of “upris-out, still planning everything, coordinating his ings” were being heard.

schedule with hers, negotiating joint meetings, As had the number of visitors to Bulshold to and even sharing a meal now and then. Love-practice their marksmanship. She took grim less their marriage might be, but they main-satisfaction at that.

tained a thin veneer of a cordiality. At times she even found some of her old feelings for Tam re-Even though there were a million crises and turning. Perhaps, she hoped at times when lust details to attend to, protocol insisted that every seemed to overwhelm her, love would return crew member continue their mandatory visits some day. Perhaps Tam would see how greatly to Heaven’s warm surface. Everyone, with no he had disappointed her and change his behav-exceptions for Hadir or Raggii, had to periodi-ior. Time would tell.

cally spend at least a week on the surface.

They still attended the public functions, smil-

“We are all required to have as much time ing and holding hands (she always washed hers away from the ship as possible,” Benalit
as soon as possible afterward) so that no one preached at nearly every service “We might be would suspect the truth. They confined their living on board for months, perhaps years be-private war to their quarters, neatly divided fore we next see green fields and open skies.”

into separate regimes, argued the press of time That these visits to home would also bind and demands of schedules as reason for taking everyone’s loyalty to Heaven and the Hand separate breaks, and tried to remain true to the went unsaid.

mission. She had to admire Tam’s control—ab-

“You can spend three days at Bulshold,” Tam hor him for that cold characteristic—but ad-said when she brought up their overdue break.

mire him in terms of effectiveness.

“Then you have to visit my family in Sachet.”

Her own composure was less certain. She

He held up a hand to stop her protest. “This is forced herself to remain calm in the face of for form, to let everyone know we’re such a provocation even though her emotions raged happy couple.” Sarcasm was his strong suit of at each sally of the Separatists, Tam, and the late. “Oh, don’t worry. You won’t have to Palm to further curtail the number of Folk she spend the night.” That was a relief. “We’ll could rescue from the accelerating pogrom tak-spend the rest of the time in Burlingsham meeting place in the remote regions of Heaven.

ing with various officials—boring as hell, but First it had been the artif icial limitation of necessary. Bring your green dress.”

vaults, then it had been the addition of the fli-Before Larisha could protest his foray at con-er pilots, a recalculation of food supplies that trol, he thrust the paper at her. “Here, I’ve al-showed a needed 10 percent culling of the ready drawn up a schedule of activities. Let me lists, and the reported outbreak of a disease know what changes you want to make.”

among the Folk that strangely showed no

He must have remembered Chen’s lecture.

186

BUD SPARHAWK

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

For the tenth time, Larisha wished she had

“You can’t plan everything Tam. Circum-
overheard what was said. She brushed the pa-stances change, people change, life changes, per aside. Every activity, she’d noticed, was and you have to accept what it brings.” His broken down into half-hour segments. “Tam, if crude attempt at restoring his control still ran-we have to be seen together, let’s just run up kled her.

the coast and visit some of the small towns. I’d

“Ridiculous,” he snorted. “You can’t let cir-like to see what makes each different, what sur-cumstances, other people, or other agendas prises might be hidden in some out of the way dictate your life. Letting that happen is pure niche.”

foolishness and a complete waste of energy. It’s Tam picked up the paper. “That’s an interest-much better to plan ahead and then act on ing idea. So, which towns did you have in those plans. That way you stay in control in-mind? I can cut Bulshold to two days and shave stead of being a pawn in someone else’s
one off Burlingsham.”

game!”

When they were first married, she believed

“So you still think I have something planned, that the motivation behind Tam’s detailed plan-something I’m not telling you? Is that what you ning was to make her life easier. But it was ob-think?” Before he answered, she knew what he vious that it hadn’t been about her at all. His would say.

preoccupation with planning every waking

Tam did exactly that. “Well, I guess I just second was all about him, all about eliminating have to wait to discover whatever it is that you chance from intruding in his world. This trip, won’t tell me. Listen, can we do it in one day where he insisted on planning every tiny detail, instead? That way we can have one more day in was just another example of his compulsion to either Bulshold or Burlingsham.”

control.

“Put down whatever you damn well please,”

“I don’t have any particular town in mind,”

she snapped and left the room.

she answered sharply. “I want to go where impulse and interest dictate.”

As she rolled out to start her own too busy There was an awkward silence, and then
schedule, she noticed that he’d left the sched-Tam glared at her. “All right, Larisha. What is it ule on her desk. Curious as to why he had done this time? What aren’t you telling me?”

that, she picked it up.

“I just don’t want ever ything to be so

“I’m sorry you became so upset last night,”

damned rational,” she replied. “I’d just like to read the note Tam had left. “But you didn’t live life as it comes for a while. We won’t have have to be so secretive.” Then she looked at that luxury once Covenant leaves. Everything the schedule. The f irst few days were just as we do will be dictated by protocols and plans.

they had been the previous night. After that, he Come on, Tam, you can’t plan everything.

had scratched out a few lines and inserted two Loosen your hands on the reins for once, and days for “Larisha’s plan.”

give life’s horse its head.”

She crumpled the schedule and tossed it

“That’s a blatant waste of time and re-
aside. The fool had missed her point entirely.

sources,” he replied angrily. “We need to maxi-Planning was not going to provide the spon-mize the use of the time we have left and that taneity that she needed. Why couldn’t he un-means planning everything together. Now, are derstand that? Ah, the hell with it, she thought.

you going to tell me precisely what you want to Try as he might, there was no way that Tam do?”

was going to overcome his strange planning Larisha wondered if he’d heard a word she compulsion, his obscene need for control.

said. “I have nothing planned, Tam. I just want Well, plans be damned; she was going to ride to be free for a while. I don’t want to be shack-up the coast with or without him on whatever led by plans, plans, and more damn plans! It’s day suited her.

wrong to try to order your life that much.”

“There is nothing wrong with living life in-Palm Benalit was waiting in the lounge when tentionally,” Tam sniffed. “Planning gives us she returned from her too brief escape from control over the future. It gives us a firm grip Tam’s oppressive schedule. The coast had been on the reins of ‘life’s horse.’” There was no mis-beautiful with azure waves crashing on blue-taking the mockery in his voice.

stone rock and golden sands while gulls circled HEAVEN’S COVENANT

187

ANALOG
overhead, squalling into the constant offshore Not unexpected was Tam’s anger over her
breeze. She had slept one night on a bluff abrupt and unplanned departure from his pre-where a million stars glistened like diamonds in cious, detailed, damned schedule. “It was quite the ink-black vault of the sky, while phospho-disturbing for you to leave without talking to rescent trails marked the routes of sea creatures me. Especially after I set aside time for your trip on the water. In the morning, she wakened to on the schedule,” he complained. “Why didn’t damp clothing smelling of horse and earth. She you wait? Mother was quite disappointed that was surrounded by the foggy, muted silence, you couldn’t come to Sachet.”

blinded by the whiteness. It was as if she and

“Your mother and dear Uncle Hans were
that tiny bit of Heaven within a few meters probably relieved that I didn’t show up again, were all that existed in the Universe—an en-Tam, and you know it. Face it, I can’t abide shrouded cocoon. Almost she wished that Tam people who support this hideous pogrom. Be-were there to share this mystical experience.

sides, my presence would upset them even

At the same time another part of her relished more than it would me.”

the total solitude, this freedom from the forces

“I see. So this is still about your so-called plot playing on her. But these were now only mem-against your precious Folk, isn’t it?”

ories as she faced the sister.

“Yes! This is about condoning murder,

“You must remember your position,” Benalit slaughter. It’s about them trying to wipe out an said by way of greeting. “The Raggii cannot im-entire people. That’s what I dislike about your peril herself on a lark, cannot evade the pro-family, Tam—that they think nothing of killing tection of the Fist on a whim. You have a millions of people.”

responsibility to the ship, to your husband, to Tam’s face grew dark with his anger. “I don’t the Hand.”

understand why you can’t be realistic about

“And good day to you, Palm,” Larisha
this. The Folk aren’t people. They’re just dumb replied. Deep inside, she had known this
beasts that our ancestors were stupid enough would happen. The unforeseen consequence
to bring along with them.”

of bargaining with the Hand, of her role as Rag-She was trying hard to remain calm. “Just as gii, was that she was no longer free to do as she we are taking them with us,” Larisha said.

wished. Her freedom had been an illusion, a

“Over the objections of everyone. Benalit last grasp at something now lost forever. From and I have been fighting to get Halfing vaults now on, she could no longer surrender to her converted from the Folk slots that some inter-impulses, no more taste the excitement of nov-fering sisters in the Hand insist upon. Hell, she elty or experiment with the unexpected. Be-even forced Chen into accepting the mongrels nalit’s words were just another expression of and their shepherds.”

that stranglehold that misplaced love and bur-Those ‘mongrels’ had to be her contingent, densome obligation had placed on her.

Larisha thought. “I think those were the BulAt times she wondered if the Hand had been shold Halfings and Folk,” she answered calmly.

more interested in reining in her impulsiveness

“I insisted on having them along.” There, let than in restraining Tam’s. No, she decided, him chew on her ability to control events for they couldn’t possibly be that subtle. Or could once.

they?

“What!” She had never heard such explosive

“I understand, Palm,” she replied, trying to rage and anger in Tam’s voice before. “How sound more sincere than she felt. “It won’t hap-dare you do that without my agreement. How pen again.” There; that ought to shut her up.

dare you plot behind my back to bring those

“You may be assured of that!” Benalit
filthy beasts aboard my ship.”

snapped. That was when Larisha noticed the Now she too felt the heat of anger. “It maybe two hard-eyed Fists standing at the door. Her your ship, but it is not your mission. It’s mine constant guards, she assumed.

and I will do what I need to ensure our sur-

“Yes, Palm Benalit.” Good, now that was out vival. Those workers are going to be vital to the of the way she needed a hot bath and some greenhouse and even more important to estab-clean clothing. “Make yourselves comfortable,”

lishing Meridian’s farms.”

she told the guards. “I’m taking a bath.”

“You should be using Men for that,” he

* * *
screamed.

188

BUD SPARHAWK

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Larisha shouted back. “Just in case you’ve were promoting heresy. Uncontrolled breed-forgotten, the Hadir has no voice in settlement ing, Folk running free to do what they would decisions, nor do I need your permission, hus-was not something any reasonable person
band. It is the Raggii alone who decides such would consider. “Of course not,” she answered matters.”

honestly. “But that’s not what I was saying.

“But even the Raggii needs the Hand’s back-They may be different, they may not possess ing. What I don’t understand is how you, a the soul of the Emerging God, but they never-rude country nobody from a second family, theless are fully human in all the ways that gained so much influence. You’ve been using count. Can’t you see that they have emotions, Chen, haven’t you? Tell me, what did he get in that they feel as strongly as we? They are just as return?” Tam’s leering implication was unmis-human as you and I.”

takable.

Instead of calming him, her words seemed

Larisha was tempted to tell him the truth only to increase Tam’s anger. He turned to face about how he had been manipulated, but held her, fists clenched. “I will not listen to such vile back. Best she keep to the subject at hand and lies. You know what, Larisha, I think you really keep him wondering. “That is none of your do love your damned mongrels.”

concern,” she answered.

“Why do you keep calling them that?” she

But Tam would not let it drop. “So it isn’t said. “You know how I hate that word. Call you alone. Tell me, Larisha, who’s behind this them Folk.”

subterfuge to undermine the mission? Who is it

“Very well, dear wife,” Tam smiled wickedly.

that is plotting against the Hand, against Man?”

“I think father was right. You’re nothing but a When she still refused to answer, he contin-damned Folk-fucker.”

ued. “No matter, we’ll find out eventually. As Larisha felt as if Tam had kicked her in the for your damned mongrels; I want nothing to stomach as his vicious words echoed between do with them.”

them. What he called her could never be re-

“What’s the matter, Tam? Afraid that you
tracted, never be forgotten, never be erased, might discover that they aren’t that different?

never be forgiven. Never, not in all the days and Gods, have you forgotten that we all have the nights they had together had she suspected same ancestors? That we all sprang from the that he was as blind and prejudiced as the rest same root stock?”

of his bloodthirsty family.

She was unprepared for the black rage that

“Damn you, Tam Polat. Damn you and your
seemed to overcome him. His face darkened, family to hell and beyond!” She spun on her his eyes narrowed, his whole posture became heel and left him behind. She had to see Chen, aggressive. For a moment she feared he was go-and quickly, before Tam could turn the Fist on ing to strike her.

her for heresy or worse.

“Don’t ever say that!” he screamed. “I am not She wouldn’t put it beyond him. Not now.

related to those f ilthy, unclean, damnable beasts! What happened in the distant past has She threw aside her schedule and took the no bearing on today. Gods, can’t you see the next shuttle to Heaven where she demanded a heights we’ve achieved? Can’t you see how de-meeting with Chen, but not in his office, not graded they’ve become? Best they pass on and where someone could overhear. “I’m leaving leave destiny to us.”

the mission,” she said without the usual casual Larisha was unsure if he was talking about preamble that had marked all their earlier dis-the ship or on a broader perspective. Now it cussions as soon as they were alone. “This stu-was her turn to be angry. “Degraded? They are pid reconciliation you arranged isn’t working just as smart, just as human, as you and I, Tam.”

out,” she concluded after telling him every de-

“Do you really think they’re our equals?

tail of their argument. “There is no way we can They’d bury us if we let them go, breeding ever work together, not after what he said.

without control. Tell me, Larisha, would you Right now he’s probably talking to his family want them to have hundreds of their damned about ways to get me thrown off the mission—
pups eating our food, stealing everything that or have me delivered to the Fist for heresy,” she wasn’t under guard on Meridian?”

added.

That set her aback. Tam was acting as if she

“I admit that you have a real problem with HEAVEN’S COVENANT

189

ANALOG

Tam, Larisha,” he said. “But the Raggii cannot patient, kindly friend. The voice of the substi-simply walk away.” He had said the same thing tute father he had almost become. “Larisha, before, and she wondered if he actually be-this saddens me more than you know. Not only lieved he could chip away at her resolve
that but it will disappoint your family greatly.”

through sheer repetition. There was a horse’s He sighed. “I don’t know if you thought of this, strength behind Chen’s mild, polite exterior.

but wouldn’t leaving be an insult to your dear One did not achieve the position that he held brother’s memory?”

in the Great Work without great inner strength

“Damn you!” Was there nothing the man
and, regrettably, persistence.

would refuse to use to turn her head? Thus far

“Then f ind a replacement for me,” she an-he had used the bridle of duty, the quirt of fear, swered with heat.

and now the spurs of love. Chen was no better

“It is too late to train your replacement,” he than any of the others who had used her so continued. “You are too important to abandon badly. How dare he manipulate her for his own everything you’ve worked so hard to obtain.

ends. How dare he use her brother as a tool to Larisha, you’re the Raggii; an integral part of erase her decision.

the mission, too critical to the shape of the fu-Yet, he was right. She knew it would be an ture. Besides, there are all of your Folk who de-insult to Ham’s memory. His spirit had been be-pend on you, will depend on you to protect side her the entire way—from that first, excit-them.”

ing day of training, through all the many tests

“Provided we’ll ever be allowed to get them and trials, and even when the Hand had de-on Covenant.”

clared her Raggii. This was his mission as well

“We are working on that, never fear. But
as hers. This was the only way she had of send-don’t you see? You cannot back out; it is simply ing his genes onto a new world.

too late. You must continue as if nothing has But the one thing the Hand wanted, the one happened else all of us are in peril. I will see thing that certainly had more to play in her pro-that the Hand does not take Tam’s accusations motion than any other, was that they wanted to seriously. You need have no concerns on that.”

see a merger of the Polat and Bul blood lines.

He must have read something from her face That was ideal for their plans for Man on Merid-and realized her resolve. His voice took on a ian. She and Tam, so they no doubt schemed, deeper, harsher tone. “You do not realize the would produce absolutely superior children, tremendous cost of making you the Raggii, children destined to rule the next world in child. The Hand, at least our people, have an Man’s outward expansion into the Universe.

enormous stake in you, a stake you can’t sim-And perhaps, they probably prayed, one of her ply throw away with impunity. It would ex-descendants would be the emerging God that press,” he concluded with undisguised menace faith held was hidden within Man’s genetic pat-dripping from every syllable, “grave disre-terns.

spect.”

“I do not think I can abide his manipulations, Larisha wondered whether that was an emphis damned plans, his controlling nature, ty threat. A visit from the Fist would be most Chen,” she grumbled. “He has no respect for unwelcome and, given the influence Chen said my ideas or my desires unless I lay them out in the Separatists had, might result in another of advance, giving reason and detail. That’s not Uncle Hans’ cullings. Still, was that any worse me; I love novelty, chance, the opportunity to than finding herself trapped in a hideous sham face new challenges. I will not live my life con-marriage four hundred years from any refuge?

fined to a paddock like some brood mare. I am No, better to remain behind and let Tam bear who I am, Doctor!”

the burden of loneliness. Better they be dead to

“Please Larisha, do as we ask,” Chen contin-one another.

ued. “There are too many counters in play for

“I will take my chances with the Hand, dear you to do otherwise. I am not unaware of your Doctor,” she replied. “Leaving Covenant is the plans for Bulshold, for example.”

best of choices, I assure you. I will then do Larisha froze. How could he know when she what I must to protect my people at Bulshold.”

had been so careful? But, she realized belated-Chen stared at her for a moment before he ly, he was right. There was too much at stake.

spoke. This time it was with the voice of the With too many counters in play the game could 190

BUD SPARHAWK

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
become quickly deadly. The Hand was so seri-They would wake in reverse order. Actually Be-ously invested in her that refusal to leave would nalit was the first, then Larisha, and Tam. But probably make her, and the remainder of her the Palm was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she family, answer to the Fist.

had asked Chen to take her earlier, she

She collapsed, sunk in despair. “I will do as thought.

you wish, Doctor, but you better make good on Larisha had felt immense sadness as she
your promises. I want my Folk on that ship stood sadly by watching the last vaults being when it leaves.”

loaded. Those vaults should have held her own

“All will be as we plan, Larisha. Never fear.

people, the last vestiges of the Folk. Their gam-Now, let me see what we can do about Tam.”

ble had failed, the pogrom would sweep them all before it into the trash heap of history. De-Once again they held the fantasy of their spite his promises, Chen was unable to deliver.

marriage together, in form if not in fact. Tam Now the Separatists would wipe them all out, seemed to accept this for the good of the mis-every last one. Too late to back out now. Her sion and the ship. More likely, Larisha suspect-awakening was four hundred years in the fu-ed, that he wanted nothing to imperil his ture. And a grim future it would prove to be. It position as Hadir.

was all she could do to keep from weeping at Without saying so, they agreed to say noth-the loss.

ing to the Hand, reveal nothing of their mutual

“I have something interesting to tell you.”

enmity. The facade apparently was successful Tam’s voice startled her from her reverie. Obvi-for, on the day of the launch, they were feted ously he wanted to gloat over his victory over by the good sisters as Hadir and Raggii, the her. Well, the taste of defeat was bitter in her happily married couple who were embarking mouth so she might as well hear something disto this new world of Men.

tasteful as well.

Despite Chen’s promises, Larisha was tor-

“So it looks like your family has won,” she tured by doubts. The launch date was drawing said sadly. “I guess they’re out there with the swiftly nearer, and there was still no indication Fist, hunting Folk.”

that the Hand was going to overturn Benalit’s Tam smiled. “Father thought it would be
recommendation to replace her workers with nice to take a vacation during this turmoil.

Halfing novices. Damn them! Couldn’t they see They’ve left Sachet for the seaside and the how great a risk this placed on the mission?

hills—a nice little resort.”

Wasn’t anyone aware of how important the

Ran Polat had not seemed one to fritter his Folk were to the future?

time away on vacations, she thought.

The pogrom was now public news. There

“Aren’t you going to ask me where they
had been a feeble outcry of protest, but it was went?” Tam asked. He was grinning like a child quickly submerged under an avalanche of sup-with a secret he was dying to tell.

port. Crowds, it was reported, were roaming She sighed. “All right, if you insist. Where is the streets in search of Folk. Many Folk bodies, this wonderful place?” She could care less men, women, and even babies, were hung
about the answer. Maybe once he told her he’d from the street lamps in Burlingsham.

leave her alone.

Chen canceled all breaks because of the un-Tam was still smiling. “A place they got an in-rest. All the nonessential personnel were re-vitation to visit. A nice estate that will shortly turned to the surface while the freezing of the be theirs, thanks to the gratitude of their crew was accelerated. Chen had brought his friends in the Hand.”

staff on board and forbade any others from Something in his voice warned her. “Not . . .”

boarding. They would leave with what they she began.

had on hand to lessen the chance of last-minute

“Bulshold!” he shouted. “Only it will now be sabotage.

Polatshold. We bought your family out, Larisha.

That was days in the past, and now the time The place is now ours.”

had come for her to enter the vault reserved for

“Impossible,” Larisha said. “They couldn’t the Raggii. She and Tam were awaiting the call possibly . . .”

that would come when the last of the crew

“Father said he’d enjoy the hunting there.

was finished. She would go first and then Tam.

Lots of game for him and Uncle Hans. Yes, I’m HEAVEN’S COVENANT

191

ANALOG
sure they’ll have many months of prime hunt-nounced cheerfully. “My role will be to ensure ing ahead of them.” He was clearly enjoying that the Hand’s policies are followed as intend-himself.

ed and help you both make the decisions that Larisha tried to suppress her amazement at will enrich and expand humanity among the this bold stroke of luck. “They should be care-distant stars.”

ful,” she warned. “Some of the game might be She’d said “humanity” instead of “Man,” Lar-more dangerous than they expect.”

isha noticed. Was that an indication that she If Tam was disappointed by her lack of reac-was one of Chen’s agents, an Empathist? If so, tion, he didn’t show it. “I doubt it. No dumb then Chen had indeed made a masterful
beast is equal to an armed Man.” With that re-change in Covenant’s compliment.

tort, he turned to glance out the port.

When the clearly shocked Tam did not im-

“What the hell?” Tam’s exclaimed. “Where
mediately respond, Dalgrun continued: “Hadir, did that come from?” He was staring at a huge I intend to be your religious mentor, your lighter that had attached itself to the hull.

guide, your ever constant councilor so that I

“That’s not supposed to be there.”

may serve you and the ship in any way that I

“That’s the last shipment of settlers,” Chen may.” With that said, she bowed gracefully and said as he came into the chamber. “There’s offered her hand.

nearly three hundred of Larisha’s Folk and Half-Tam didn’t move. The scowl on his face was ings to be loaded.”

growing darker and darker. He drew in his Tam spun around. “You had something to do breath to say something when Larisha smooth-with this!” he accused her. “You have deliber-ly interrupted. “We are very glad to have you ately gone against the Hand of God by bringing accompany us, Palm Dalgrun. You know, I of-these animals on board my ship! I’ll have you ten wonder if our decisions are always the right answer to the Fist for this, Larisha. Once I ones. I welcome the idea of an friendly advi-speak to the Hand none of your family will be sor.”

able to see the light of day again.”

Dalgrun smiled amicably, obviously pleased.

“I think not.” Chen’s declaration was quiet,

“I would not want you to feel otherwise, my so soft in contrast to Tam’s shouting. “These dear. Although I’ve been an advisor to the high-are being loaded at the direction of the Council est council of the Hand for years, I must ad-of the Hand.”

mit,” she continued with a depreciating

“Impossible,” Tam replied. “The Palm would gesture, “that I did not know the destiny for never have . . .”

which I was being prepared until recently.” She

“Forgive me,” Doctor Chen interrupted. “Let grinned again, but it didn’t hide her obvious me introduce someone. Dalgrun, this is the nervousness.

Hadir Tam Polat.”

“But to be honest,” she said as she threw a The russet-robed cleric who had been stand-worried look about the compartment.

ing behind Chen stepped forward. “Pleased to

“Frankly, the thought of the journey frightens meet you, Hadir. I am your new Palm, the new-me immensely.” She shivered. “The idea that I ly chosen representative of the Hand of God on will not be able to return, never to see Heaven Heaven.”

again . . . Well.”

Before Tam could explode again Chen ex-

“I know what you are feeling,” Larisha said plained. “The Hand selected Dalgrun due to sympathetically. “It is hard to leave one’s some unfortunate last-minute circumstances in-home.”

volving dear Palm Benalit. The dear soul seems

“This will be a trying mission,” Tam said to have, ah, disappeared.”

harshly. Larisha could tell that he was angry at Larisha couldn’t believe it. In a few moments this apparent amiability of his nominative wife the entire Universe had been upturned. Her toward this unknown and possibly unsympa-precious Folk aboard as promised, and a new thetic Palm. “My crew are all experts. They’ve Palm who was clearly of a different personality been carefully selected to comprise all of the than the sour Benalit.

skills we’ll need to survive after we wake. Any-Dalgrun smiled, a wide grin that split her one who can’t contribute some vital skill or round face. “I welcome the assignment to ac-talent will just be a drain on the ship’s re-company you on this blessed journey,” she an-sources; a drain we could better do without!”

192

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

His implication that he did not expect her to She heard Chen speaking to the others now, be one of those contributors was quite clear.

and she could see them working around her,

“I believe that ministering to and caring for spraying her body with hoses and lowering a the souls of all of our crew to be as important covering over her face. Before it blocked her as seeing to their physical needs,” Dalgrun sight, Chen leaned forward, patted her cheek, snapped quickly. “I know enough psychology and smiled sadly. His lips moved, but she could to deal with any of the crew’s interpersonal hear nothing save the slowing roar of her own problems,” she paused and stared at him for a blood. Then the hood was in place, and she moment, “or yours.” Larisha drew in a sudden could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing.

breath—Dalgrun knew!

Yet she did not lose consciousness just yet, Before Tam could respond, she continued,
although she no could no longer gauge the pas-

“Believe me, Hadir Tam Polat, I will pull my sage of time with all sensation absent. Would own weight. You will f ind that we will work she lay aware for the hundreds of years of the very well together.”

passage? Surely she would go insane if that hap-

“Come, let me walk with you to the freezing pened. Or had a few decades already passed chamber,” Larisha volunteered. She couldn’t re-while her body cooled and her every function sist smiling as she led the Palm away. Chen, slowed? Best not to think along those lines. She standing unseen behind Tam, smiled and raised turned her mind toward the future, the past, his hand in a victory salute.

and the present.

Her people at Bulshold would take good

As the other medical personnel bustled
care of Tam’s family, she knew. When Tam’s fat about the preparation chamber, Chen leaned uncle arrived with his murderous intent, her over the table where Larisha lay naked and Folk would be ready. There would be no will-cold. Goose pimples dotted her naked body.

ing sacrifice of their lives, no slaughter of the She could not halt the shivering. “The cold will innocent. With all the training they’d had and not bother you for long,” he assured her quietly the stores of ammunition she’d arranged,
and pressed something smooth and hard into they’d make short work of Tam’s entire blood-her palm. Only one thing could have that
thirsty family.

shape. It was his precious fidget.

She only wished she could be there to see

“I will not be returning to Heaven,” he re-the expression on Uncle Hans’ face when his marked as he raised the syringe to eye level and

“dumb beasts” proved more adept at survival expelled a bubble of air and a drop of serum.

than ever he imagined.

“My job will soon be done and I will join sweet Sadly, even if her Folk were able to hold out Benalit in the afterworld. I know full well that for a while, they would eventually die. No one when the Fist discovers what we have done, could long resist the Fist’s assembled force, not there will be nothing left for me on Heaven.”

with all Heaven’s evil masses behind them.

He sighed. “Just the same I do wish there was Their death would be sad, a tragedy really, but some way that I could go with you, be with they would die with dignity, fighting as befit-you when you wake to a new and just world.”

ted human beings. That, she thought with sat-Larisha started when she felt the prick of the isfaction as the darkness finally closed on her needle but said nothing. There was so much mind, was the bloody legacy she’d left for the she wanted to say to Chen, so much to thank Separatists.

him for, so many lives that he had blessed with She just prayed that her mark on Meridian his sacrifice.

would be more enduring. ■

But it was already too late to find the words, for she could not feel her tongue. As a flood of Bud Sparhawk has contributed to this mag-warmth began to course through her veins the azine since 1992 and has had stories accept-shivering started to abate. She felt her muscles ed by three successive Analog editors. He has slacken, her bowels and bladder relax, but she put out several collections of his published was f loating beyond embarrassment or con-works in ebook and print formats. A complete cern, unconnected to her physical self. She complete bibliography can be found at: was already leaving the mundane world, leav-http://budsparhawk.com. He writes a blog on ing all cares or concerns behind.

writing at http://budsparhawk.blogspot.com.

HEAVEN’S COVENANT

193

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY Don Sakers ne of the biggest drawbacks of science
jump in without permission and produce an fiction books is that eventually, they
unauthorized allo-sequel (or more than one).

end. This is one of the reasons we have This one can be tricky, because authors and Oso many series books: once readers their heirs tend to be somewhat possessive feel comfortable with an invented universe of copyright, and one could wind up in
and its characters, we want more.

court. (Or the original author could be indif-Often, authors accede to readers’ desires ferent or even pleased and not challenge the and write additional books in a popular uni-new work, which is a sort of retroactive au-verse. Sometimes, they continue writing
thorization by default.) For that reason, it’s more and more until reader s have had
usually safest to write allo-sequels to books enough. Sometimes long after that point.

that are out of copyright.

(Yes, I’m looking at you and you . . . but not This whole process has been going on
you, we’ll never get enough.)

longer than science fiction has existed as a However, there are times when authors
separate genre . . . in fact, it’s was going on don’t write more. They give various justifica-way before the printing press was invented.

tions for not revisiting their popular worlds: In classical and medieval times, and even into there’s not enough time, I’m tired of that uni-the modern era, scholars didn’t just write se-verse, I don’t have anything new to say, I quels or commentar ies on well-known
have other things I want to write, I’ve been books—they even used the original author’s dead for twenty years—whatever the selfish name.

reason, it’s clear we’re not going to get what Take the case of John Swift’s Gulliver’s we want from that author. So we have to turn Travels (1727), arguably an early work of sci-to others.

ence fiction. The first allo-sequel came in I’ve been unable to find a simple term for 1731: The Travels of Mr. John Gulliver, Son to

“sequels written by a different author,” so Capt. Lemuel Gulliver by Pierre Despon-let’s make up some words. If an author
taines. Another, Modern Gulliver’s Travels, writes their own sequel, let’s call that an appeared in 1791 with the pseudonymous

“auto-sequel.” A sequel written by someone byline “Lemuel Gulliver, Jr.” An 1870 allo-se-else would then be an “allo-sequel.”

quel, Mr. Oscar Preen in Japan and Laputa, Some readers step in and write their own
was credited to “Anonymous.”

stories in familiar universes. This is fan fic-One of the most famous allo-sequels in SF
tion (aka fanfic), and the internet is filled is The Sphinx of the Ice Realm by one Jules with billions of words of it. If you’re interest-Verne (1897)—a sequel to Edgar Allen Poe’s ed in fan fiction, start at www.fanfiction.net T he Narrative of Ar thur Gordon Pym
and dive in.

(1838). Yes, the great-great-grandfather of sci-In some cases, an author (or their estate) ence fiction wrote fanfic. (In 1932, at age 12, authorizes someone else to write allo-se-Ray Bradbury wrote a never-published sequel quels. This theme has several variations: an to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s The Warlord of author’s literary heir might simply continue a Mars, so this kind of thing is more common series, the author might franchise part or all than you would think.)

of their universe, or someone could edit a Verne has had his own allo-sequels. Most
tribute anthology featuring short fiction.

notably The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by In extreme cases, another author might

Philip Jose Farmer (1973), The Secret Sea by 194

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Thomas F. Monteleone (1979), and 2009’s
sequel: Edison’s Conquest of Mars by Gar-Nautilus by Craig Weatherhill.

rett P. Serviss. Other (equally unauthorized) H. G. Wells is a favorite target for allo-se-sequels included Manley Wade Wellman’s
quels, especially The Time Machine (1895).

Sherlock Holmes’ War of the Worlds (1975), Some examples include The Return of the George H. Smith’s The Second War of the Time Machine by Egon Friedell (first pub-Worlds (1976), T he Space Machine by lished in German in 1946, first English trans-Christopher Priest (1976), and W. G. Grace’s lation in 1972), Morlock Night by K. W. Jeter Last Case by Willie Rushton (1984). The (1979), and The Man Who Loved Morlocks 1996 anthology War of the Worlds: Global by David J. Lake (1981). Ron Goulart’s When Dispatches, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, feathe Waker Sleeps, another Wells allo-sequel, tured stories set around the world during the appeared in 1975. As for Wells’s most popu-same time period as The War of the Worlds.

lar book . . . well, wait a bit.

The book has also been transformed into

Besides the adolescent Ray Bradbur y,
other media. The 1938 Orson Welles radio
everyone and their siblings has written allo-adaptation is legend; multiple other audio sequels to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s work. The versions include no less than three BBC pro-Burroughs heirs were pretty zealous about ductions. There have been two major films defending their copyrights, so many of these (the 1953 George Pal version and the 2005
remain unpublished (officially). One autho-Steven Spielberg effort) and a slew of minor rized allo-sequel is Mahars of Pellucidar by ones (two more in 2005 alone). We’ve seen John Eric Holmes (1976).

television series, comic book adaptations, E. E. “Doc” Smith authorized several allo-games (both board and computer), theater, sequels in the Lensman universe. David Kyle music albums, and even a set of trading
published three of them (The Dragon Lens-cards.

man, Lensman From Rigel, and Z-Lensman, There’s good reason for this fascination: 1980–1983). William B. Ellern’s New Lens-Great-Grandpappy Herbert George knew ex-
man came out in 1976.

actly what he was doing. The War of the Modern era allo-sequels are more familiar, Worlds expresses one of the basic nightmares as the practice has spread to just about every of Western Civilization: that somebody
book that has any popularity. Two, I think, stronger is going to come along and treat us deserve special mention. In 1980 Gregory
the way we’ve treated those weaker than us.

Benford wrote Beyond the Fall of Night as an Every generation, it seems, has to struggle allo-sequel to Arthur C. Clarke’s Against the with the story; we need to triumph over it, Fall of Night (1953). And Donald Kings-to prove that we can negate its power over bury’s Psychohistorical Crisis (2001) is an us.

unauthorized allo-sequel to Isaac Asimov’s Now comes Stephen Baxter with another

Foundation series.

sequel, and this one is actually authorized by And now, back to H. G. Wells. . . .

the Wells estate. Although to be fair, the British publisher announced the book in De-The Massacre of Mankind
cember 2015, the British copyright on the Stephen Baxter
original expired at the end of December

Crown, 496 pages, $27.00 (hardcover)

2016, and the first British edition was re-iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $13.99 (e-book)

leased two weeks later—so it’s not like the ISBN: 978-1-5247-6012-0

Wells estate really had any say in the matter.

Series: War of the Worlds 2

Still, “the first ever authorized sequel” makes Genre: Invaders from Space
a good marketing line, so there it is.

Fortunately, Stephen Baxter is a great

Ever since H. G. Wells published The War choice for this particular project, and the of the Worlds in 1897 (in syndication; the book’s almost worthy of the hype.

book appeared in 1898), we’ve been ob-

Baxter, of course, is one of the leading
sessed with the story. We just can’t leave it hard-SF writers in the world. He’s no stranger alone. Before six months had passed, the
to Wells: his 1995 novel The Time Ships was Boston Post serialized the first (unauthorized) a sequel to The Time Machine. In addition to THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

195

ANALOG
his own work, he’s co-authored books with military SF and alternate history, brings a Arthur C. Clarke and Terry Pratchett. Baxter’s mastery of suspense and a facility for setting a versatile writer, equally at home with pre-unusual scenes. Together, they’ve produced a historic fiction as with modern space opera, book that’s a perfect fusion of their individ-the hardest of hard SF, alternate history, and ual strengths.

parallel worlds.

The far-future galactic society of The Gods The Massacre of Mankind picks up twelve of Sagittarius is built on the ruins of a long-years after the first Martian invasion was de-extinct alien race called the Old Ones. With feated by Earth’s microbes. A shaken world their high technology, the Old Ones settled has advanced technologically by studying the worlds throughout the galaxy eons ago.

machines the Martians left behind; all over Russ Tabor, security expert and the best
the globe, sentinels watch the skies and
bodyguard around, finds himself assigned to armies prepare for the next invasion.

protect one Lord Shenoy, a brilliant human Journalist Julia Elphinstone, the sister-in-savant studying the remains of the Old Ones.

law of Walter Jenkins (the narrator of The Shenoy believes that the Old Ones developed War of the Worlds), is in New York when transcendent high technology and harnessed Walter calls with “grave news from the sky.”

unknown forces that essentially gave them She boards the Lusitania for a quick voyage the power of gods. He’s close to uncovering back to England.

the last pieces of evidence he needs to prove Then the Martians come. And they haven’t
his thesis.

been idle for the last dozen years. They strike Meanwhile, on the planet Flaak, an alien

England with vastly improved weapons; in
shaman named Occo comes home to find
the first assault, half the British Army is anni-her religion’s holiest center utterly destroyed.

hilated.

As a warrior shaman, her duty is clear—she From here Julia is on the run through a
must seek revenge upon those who commit-
war-torn world, trying to stay alive, report ted this desecration. There’s only one prob-what she can, and help with planning a way lem: all signs point to the culprits being the to save the Human race.

Old Ones. Who, apparently, aren’t as extinct Baxter tells a good story, as exciting and as everyone thought.

suspenseful as the original. He avoids falling In fact, the Old Ones are coming back to
into the trap of trying to mimic Wells’s style; the galaxy. And like any self-respecting gods, the book reads easily and is a page-turner.

the y only want one thing—to be wor-

For most of us, it’s probably been a while shipped.

since we read the original The War of the It’s inevitable that these three forces—Ta-Worlds; don’t let that stop you from diving bor and Shenoy, Occo, and the Old Ones—
into this new one. Baxter gives you all the in-will collide. And when they do, everything formation you need without slowing down
will change.

the story at all. That being said, there’s plenty The Gods of Sagittarius isn’t just an ad-of details here to delight even the most ar-venture stor y with plenty of action, susdent Wells fan.

pense, and a touch of humor. It also deals with such weighty matters as the meaning of The Gods of Sagittarius
godhood, the nature of belief, and the differ-Mike Resnick & Eric Flint
ent aspects of great power. It’s a conflict be-Baen, 330 pages, $25.00 (hardcover)

tween three forces personified in the three Genre: Adventure SF, Philosophical/
opposing groups: intellect, strength, and Religious SF
faith.

Not only that, but it’s a lot of fun as well.

When two of the biggest names in our field come together on a book, it’s a fair bet that Change Agent
it’s going to be good. Mike Resnick is an old Daniel Suarez
hand at thoughtful science fiction adventure, Dutton, 398 pages, $27.00 (hardcover)

especially involving alien beings and big iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $11.99 (e-book)

ideas. Eric Flint, coming from a tradition of ISBN: 978-1-1019-8466-6

196

DON SAKERS

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Genre: Biological SF, Genetic Engineering, SF

It’s a great premise, and Suarez carries it Thriller
out with aplomb. The science extrapolation is compelling enough for even Analog read-Daniel Suarez comes to us from the genre
ers, the future world through which Durand of science thrillers, where he’s authored moves is well drawn and exotic as any cyber-bestsellers like Daemon and Kill Decision. In punk, and the suspense is never-ending. Start Change Agent he moves toward the science this one, and you won’t be putting it down fiction side of the fence (which is, admitted-until you’re done.

ly, more of a permeable membrane).

In 2045, synthetic biology has reshaped

The Gathering Edge
the world. Genetic engineering and custom-Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
made lifeforms have made Singapore the cen-Baen, 368 pages, $25.00 (hardcover)

ter of world technology. Medical advances iBooks, Kindle: $9.99 (e-book)

have cured diseases and eliminated most ge-ISBN: 978-1-4767-8218-8
netic disorders.

Series: Liaden Universe 20, Theo Waitley 5

In this brave new world, it’s illegal to en-Genres: Romantic SF, Space Opera
gage in genetic engineering for anything but humanitarian reasons—but, of course, a

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liaden Uni-
black market exists, and there’s a thriving verse series continues to be one of the most trade in illegal mods. Most popular are “vani-popular ongoing series in the field. Space ty edits” on human embryos: every parent
opera with romantic overtones, the books
wants their children to be good-looking,
are set in a far-future universe settled by Teer-smart, strong, and enhanced in any of a mil-an humans, alien Ystrang, and the humanoid lion ways. The secret labs behind this black Liaden. The books mostly revolve around the market are constantly experimenting on
rising and falling fortunes of a Liaden trading helpless subjects supplied by global human dynasty called Clan Korval.

trafficking networks.

When we last saw Clan Korval in Alliance One of the biggest vanity editing cartels is of Equals (reviewed in the January/February the Huli jing, led by one Marcus Wyckes.

2017 issue), the family was struggling to re-With his identity concealed and even his
gain power and position after being exiled to physical appearance a mystery, Wyckes is the the far-off world Surebleak. The Gathering most wanted criminal in the world.

Edge takes place during these events, in an-Singapore-based Interpol is the agency
other part of the galaxy.

tasked with fighting the Huli jing and similar Theo Waitley, half-human and half-Liad
cartels. Agent Kenneth Durand heads the
with blood ties to Clan Korval, is a hotshot premier team in the fight. And after a long pilot who commands a loyal crew and a sym-struggle, Durand manages to positively iden-biotic AI-controlled ship called Bechimo.

tify Wyckes.

Having concluded a dangerous diplomatic

The only trouble is, Wyckes and his people mission (Dragon Ship, reviewed back in the are a step ahead. Durand is ambushed and in-December 2012 issue), Theo and her crew
fected with a “change agent”—a CRISPR-like are looking for a little rest and relaxation.

serum designed to rewrite the DNA of a liv-When was the last time any science fiction ing being.

character went on R-and-R without incident?

In a coma for weeks, Durand wakes up to

If you know of any examples, please let me find that he’s been transformed into an exact know.

duplicate of his target, Wyckes. Suddenly Bechimo takes Theo and the crew to “safe he’s on the run, pursued both by the Wyckes space.” At least, it used to be safe: now, safe organization and his own team. To regain his space seems to be overrun with leakage from own identity, all he needs to do is evade the another universe. When entire spaceships
planet’s best law enforcement while he
start to appear, Theo investigates.

tracks down the real Wyckes and his Huli

That’s when she runs across a damaged
jing associates . . . who could literally be any-battleship that claims to be fleeing a war—a one.

war that was over generations ago. Worse, THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

197

ANALOG
the new ship’s crew seem to be remote an-
even stranger SF books (Sciencey Tales of Sci-cestors of Theo herself.

ence Fiction, Blue Line Star, etc.) T he Now Theo has to choose whether to get

Biggest Bounty is definitely not for everyone.

involved in a war from the history books.

It’s something of a cross between Alice in One choice may alter history completely . . .

Wonderland and Grand Theft Auto, with a but which one?

good helping of crazy humor thrown in. The It’s always a pleasure to read about Theo best comparison I can think of is some of the and her adventures, and any excuse to revisit wackier works of Ron Goulart or Christopher the Liaden Universe is a good one.

Moore.

If you’re in the mood for a madcap ride

The Biggest Bounty
through the galaxy’s seamy underworld, this Brian Koscienski and Chris Pisano
is the book for you.

Fantastic Books, 250 pages, $14.99 (trade pa-perback)

Eagle and Empire

ISBN: 978-1-5154-1015-7

Alan Smale

Series: Zeus and the Pink Flower 1

Del Rey, 553 pages, $30.00 (hardcover)

Genre: Adventure SF, Space Opera
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $14.99 (e-book)

ISBN: 9780-8041-7726-9

There are a lot of lovable rogues in science Series: Clash of Eagles 3
fiction. You’ve got your smugglers, thieves, Genre: Alternate History
resistance leaders and fighters, fences, infor-mants of one stripe or another, forgers of cre-And now we come to the end of one of the
dentials, religious outcasts, exiled ex-nobles, masterworks of alternate history.

unlicensed medical practitioners . . . but In Alan Smale’s Clash of Eagles (reviewed none are more roguishly lovable than the
in the September 2015 issue), we entered a bounty hunters.

world in which the Roman Empire did not

Get ready for the most outrageous pair of fall, and in 1218 sent its legions to colonize bounty hunters to come along in a good long North America. Praetor Gaius Marcellinus, while.

the leader of that expedition, was captured Zeus is the brains of the team, with certi-and eventually went native, fighting on the fied super-genius intellect and a pet fire-side of his adopted nation of Cahokia.

breathing dragon-cat. Fiore is the muscle: In Eagle in Exile (reviewed in the June four hundred pounds of it, his strength and 2016 issue), Marcellinus united the tribes of speed enhanced by chemical cocktails
eastern North America to confront a re-
pumped into his bloodstream. Together,
newed invasion by Rome.

they’re on a mission to become the best (or Now comes word of a new threat ap-at least most notorious) bounty hunters in proaching from beyond the western moun-the galaxy.

tains. From what he learns of these invaders, It’s a crazy universe out there, filled with the combined might of the Tribes won’t be desperate criminals of various alien races, enough to resist them.

shadowy underworld figures, grifters and

If Marcellinus wants to save his people,
hookers and unscrupulous police. But the
he’s going to have to bring peace between worst are the competition, other bounty
the tribes and the Romans, so their com-
hunting teams out for the same targets.

bined armies can meet the threat galloping Among them, the most feared is The Legend, toward them.

a man so deadly that when he appears, other The Mongol Hordes are coming. . . .

bounty hunters hand over their quarry withLike the previous books, Eagle and Emout a fight.

pire is total immersion in a world so well re-If Zeus and Fiore are going to be the best, alized that you’ll feel as if you’ve been there.

they’re going to have to do what no one else Returning characters seem like old friends; at can, and bring in The Legend. Or die trying.

times I found myself wanting the action of Brian Koscienski and Chris Pisano are mad the plot to slow down so I could just sit and geniuses. They write strange comics and
chat with folks.

198

DON SAKERS

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017

Eagle and Empire is a satisfactorily long In the 2030s, Gale (“Stormie”) Pastorelli book, over five hundred pages, yet it isn’t and her husband Frank are owners of Lunar slow and doesn’t get bogged down in details.

Life Engineering, a company formed to realize The plot keeps moving ahead as the tension Stormie’s dream of settling the Moon. While ramps up. Smale once again makes the diffi-the first of several crews works on the Moon cult seem easy, constructing a whole world to establish the settlement, Frank and Stormie in enormous detail without the reader even deal with a host of Earthbound challenges.

noticing.

This isn’t the usual all-problems-are-engi-If you read and liked the other books, you neering-ones school of hard SF. In the tradi-don’t need me to tell you to get this one. If tion of Ben Bova, Stormie and Frank have to you’ve been waiting until the trilogy was deal with funding crises, personnel short-complete before diving in, rejoice.

ages, medical considerations, and legal diffi-

* * *
culties in addition to the engineering prob-

Walking on the Sea of Clouds
lems. Rinehart has obviously given thought Gray Rinehart
to social and political challenges.

WordFire Press, 345 pages, $18.99 (trade paThis isn’t a handbook for Lunar coloniza-
perback)

tion; better, it’s the author’s best guess of IBooks, Kindle, Nook: $5.99 (e-book)

what the total experience is going to be like.

ISBN: 978-1-61475-521-0

Until the real world gets around to catching Genres: Hard SF, Other Worlds, Space Colo-up with Astounding/Analog, this is the clos-nization, To the Moon
est most of us will come.

I don’t know abut you, but it seems that

Printer’s Error: An Irreverent History of uninformed people keep stopping me in

Books
public to say, “Now that we have things like Rebecca Romney
self-driving cars and CRISPR, what do sci-HarperCollins, 384 pages, $26.99
ence fiction writers have left to write about?”

(hardcover)

Usually, it’s all I can do to keep from an-iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $14.99
swering, “Oh, you think the real world has ISBN: 978-0-0624-1231-7
surpassed science fiction? Have you read any Genre: Nonfiction

SF lately? Your real world hasn’t even started on genetic engineering yet, and don’t get me I do have to admit that technological going on the idiot boxes you people call Arti-change is rapidly remaking the modern
ficial Intelligence. . . .”

world. We haven’t yet exhausted the potenBut you know, I don’t have to bother. Next tial of the microchip to completely alter soci-time somebody asks me what science fiction ety, and already the next few transformative writers have left to write about, I’m going to technologies are on the horizon. In times like answer, “Colonizing the Moon.”

these, it’s nice to sit back and read about the Honestly. Astounding/Analog is nearly changes wrought by another bit of technolo-ninety years old, and we’ve been colonizing gy: the printing press.

the moon for that whole time. You’d think Author Rebecca Romney calls Printer’s Erthe oh-so-advanced real world could have
ror “an irreverent history of books,” and gotten around to one tiny colony by now.

that’s a perfect description. For 384 pages Ahem.

she delightfully snarks about a multitude of Gray Rinehart is no stranger to these pages; historical curiosities. For example, the fact his most recent appearance was last Novem-that we hardly know anything about Guten-
ber’s “We Side With the Free.” An Air Force berg, the inventor of the printing press—and retiree, he also worked for the Industrial Ex-an enormous amount about the Benedictine
tension Service at North Carolina State Uni-monk who opposed the press. And all be-
versity. Walking on the Sea of Clouds, his cause the monk’s arguments were printed
first novel, is a nuts-and-bolts story of estab-while Gutenberg’s work wasn’t.

lishing the first Lunar settlement.

Or the story of how Gerardus Mercator

THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

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ANALOG
produced the first accurate world maps,
of my stories is included, so obviously I can’t which included four large nonexistent is-do a review, but I think Analog readers will lands in the Arctic Ocean. Or the multiple want to be aware. The book is called Science mediocre versions of Shakespeare’s works

Fiction for the Throne: One-Sitting Reads and that appeared in print. Or how William Tyn-it’s edited by Tom Easton and Judith K. Dial.

dale, the greatest translator of the Bible into And now, I do believe I’m out of space. See English, was burned at the stake for heresy.

you next time. ■

Or . . .

No, I’m not going to continue. If you like Don Sakers is the author of Meat and Ma-books, enjoy history, and don’t mind an ir-chine, Elevenses, the Rule of Five serial at reverent guide who knows where all the
rule-of-5.com, and A Cosmos of Many Man-bodies are buried, you want this book.

sions, a collection based on previous Finally, I want to call your attention to a columns. For more information, visit new anthology out from Fantastic Books. One www.scatteredworlds.com.

200

DON SAKERS

BRASS TACKS
ear Trevor,
developed an appreciation for poets like I greatly enjoyed the guest editorial

Dryden, Pope, and Johnson while I was in by James Gunn (“Cannons to the Left,
college, but that’s about where my personal DCannons to the Right,” Jan/Feb 2017). enthusiasm ends. It’s no sleight to the form; Every time I read something by him, I re-it just doesn’t speak to me the way other member the first line of his classic story “The things do, or the way it does to others. I Cave of Night,” “The phrase was first used by don’t really get jazzed for NASCAR or eating a poet disguised in the cynical hide of a eggplant either, you know?

newspaper reporter.” If that story is not part So even though Analog has a long tradi-of the SF canon, it should be.

tion of poetry, when I took over, I wanted to When I first started reading SF, it was pos-make sure we weren’t doing it just for the sible to read it all, and many did. Considering sake of doing it: we would either drop poet-stories for the canon, we could compare
ry entirely or commit to taking it seriously.

them with the many stories doomed to be

It happens that Emily Hockaday, our cur-read once and then forgotten. Today, I don’t rent associate editor, has extensive experi-think anybody could possibly read it all, ence as a poet and instructor, so it seemed which means stories worthy of the canon
like a sign that we should play to our may be lost and washed away in the flood of strengths. And as it turns out, there’s a lot of pretty good stories. Do young people com-good science poetry out there, so that even ing to science fiction today go back and read when it comes to poems, we’re being about Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke? How about
as Analog as we can be. We’ve had poems Lieber, Bester, and Sturgeon? Delany, Wolfe, nominated for the Rhysling recently, and and Le Guin? Will there even be a canon fifty that’s entirely thanks to Emily’s expertise. So years from now, or will sf have fragmented so I’m sure it’s not to everybody’s tastes. But I completely that two very active readers may am sure that we’re at least doing it well .

have no stories in common? I hope not, because there are stories so good that it would Dear Editor,
be sad for someone who loves sf to miss

Every once in a while a story like, “The
them. The stories James Gunn mentions in Proving Ground” (by Alec Nevala-Lee,
his guest editorial are that good.

Jan/Feb 2017) comes along and grips my atRick Norwood
tention. The setting contains strong undercurrents of man’s long-term maltreatment of Dear Editors,

Nature. The conflict intertwines a revengeful It would seem that I’m a bit of a fuddy-dud-Nature along with good, old-fashion corpo-dy as I have been reading Analog since Sep-rate deceit. Best of all, the protagonist’s char-tember of ’61. I haven’t always enjoyed every acter is one we delight in seeing in great SF: a story or editorial or science fact article, be-self-starter (loner, independent) with a con-cause I know that I don’t share everyone’s viction mindset (she is defined by her ac-taste. But, I can truthfully say that I have not tions, which are based on her beliefs) and a enjoyed the poetry—after reading a selec-unique heritage (Marshallese). What I want-tion, my typical response is, “Huh?” or ed to understand most about her was (in the

“What?” I wonder how your other readers
end) when she “descends from the tower,
feel about the poetry selections.

alone and without a harness.” I think she is Yours,
testing herself here, i.e. her view that all she Bob Dye
needs is herself. If she falls to her death without the harness, then victory goes to Nature.

Bob (if I may be informal),

Not something I would recommend doing,

I’m going to make a confession: I’m not a but a solid character characterization!

big poetry guy either. I like the epics and I Jack Courtney

201

ANALOG

* * *
The math behind his arguements does, of

Dear Mr. Quachri,
course, indicate a hopeless future someday, This March/April 2017 volume is excellent!

even with no population growth and no in-

Thanks for the care with which you select creases in resource use per capita. However stories.

if that someday is far enough off a) we may A special thanks (and hope you’ll pass
not care—eg, the sun running out of hydro-along the praise to the author) for the fine gen; b) we might get a lot better at recycling; novella “Plaisir d’ Amour” by John Alfred Tay-c) we might even get some resources from
lor. The careful crafting was non-intrusive to off Earth. Without consideration of any of the core story. However, looking back after these points his article was at best incom-reading it I can appreciate how much work it plete and not really in the Analog tradition ei-took to fit a full world-building tale within ther.

the engaging and warmly focused narration.

Neil Garston

I’ll be watching for more stories by Mr. Tay-Emeritus Professor of Economics
lor.

CSULA

Having subscribed for more than thirty
years, I’m pleased to continue opening the No, Stan didn’t get “a pass” because of his gift of fresh ideas and entertaining, thought-long association with the magazine. Stan ful, stories that you send every couple of earns his sales, just like anyone else; I don’t months.

think it’s telling tales out of school to say Carol Brumwell,
that I’ve rejected stories from him and sent Bloomington, MN
back others for rewrites.

That said, he and I debated whether his Dear Mr. Quachri,
piece worked better as an extra-long editori-I am surprised you ran the science fact artial, or as a slightly less “crunchy” fact article, cle [“Sustainability Lab 101,” March/April and in the end, I decided that I’d classify it 2017] by Stanley Schmidt as it appeared. Did as I did.

you do so because of his long association As to the specifics of your point, I turn to with the magazine? I wondered along the
the man himself . . .

way, until almost the end, where he was going with his argument only to discover that The author responds:

his main point was the need to “do some-

Professor Garston is quite right that these thing” about population growth. World pop-factors may help, but speculation about how ulation is still growing but there is abundant much, and whether they can do it soon
evidence that it will not do so forever, or for enough, is another big topic, well beyond too much longer. In almost all rich nations the scope of this article. The fact remains population growth without immigration is at that population growth is our biggest prob-or below zero (Japan for example is already lem right now, and a vague faith that some-facing declining population since it does not how things will work out is hardly a strategy welcome immigration). The US is not there for dealing with it. To develop that, we need yet, but that seems mostly to do with higher to start with a much wider realization that it birth rates among recent immigrants and to is the central problem, and start thinking se-some extent due to income inequality (high riously about what we can do about it— all of birth rates being correlated with relatively us, in all parts of the world.

low incomes). Even China will soon face
population decline and while India is not do-Dear Mr. Quachri,
ing so yet, in another generation it is likely it I applaud Stanley Schmidt’s article “Sus-will be. The fastest growth is in Africa, and tainability Lab 101” [March/April 2017], and most in the poorest nations. War, contracep-his willingness to touch the third rail of mod-tion (per se), famine, plague, are poor at pop-ern discourse—population.

ulation control but prosperity, relative in-Lately it appears fashionable to discredit come equality, and greater power for women Paul Ehrlich’s groundbreaking book, Popula-seem quite good at it.

tion Bomb. Any aggressive attack on the issue 202

BRASS TACKS

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017
in modern fiction, such as by, of all people, The author responds:

Dan Brown in his novel Inferno, is summarily Thanks for your kind words, and I’m glad
dismissed, and the fangs carefully removed you see the essence—and seriousness—of
for the screen play. China’s one child policy, the problem. Of course Malthus was right, universally denounced as inhuman, is now
about the general principle, even though he history.

was way off on the details. And quality of life Dr. Schmidt surely knows how much voltis an element that we leave out of the discus-age flows through this third rail. The entire sion at our considerable and unnecessary
economic engine of the developed world is peril.

based on population increase. Growth is seen as axiomatically good. Growth is more peo-Dear Editors,
ple needing more houses to put more things Please stop running the author bio right up into. Growth is expanding markets, increased against the end of the story they wrote. It is of-market share, new product development and ten hard to tell that this extra text isn't part of the constant quest for new customers. One the story, especially if the author has used ital-day, when we exceed sustainability, it will all ics in the story to begin with. It destroys the come crashing down. In a more contained
closure the author intends, if he actually has.

and less universally supported form, this (There are a couple of stories in this most would be called a Ponzi scheme.

recent "time travel" special that don't appear But the most amperes delivered by the
to care that the story ends without any closure third rail of population is our own animal at all, so I assume this, too, is a conscious de-compulsion to procreate. It’s more than the cision on your part. It's almost as if the author joy of sex. It’s hardwired into the DNA of all got tired of his story and just cut it off.) living things. Any threat to our freedom to re-Asimov's used to put the bio at the front produce is resisted and condemned. Such a and separate it by some whitespace. If you deep, driving urge makes us all susceptible to must spend time and space telling us how
the lures of advertising and consumption that great each author is and how many times he's make our world go ‘round. So any suggestion been published in Analog or other mags, we stop is met with resistance from all quar-please do so before the story and not as part ters—ourselves, the economy, culture, reli-of the climax.

gion, politics, etc.

Also, please drop the two column format

Aside from questions of sustainability, qual-for the electronic version. It results in two or ity of life seems to be the price we are asked three words per line, and too much white-to pay . . . and we pay it. In a variety of ways, space, especially on smaller screens.

among them pollution, overcrowding, envi-
ronmental damage and species loss. Is the rel-Well, the traditional box [■] that we run ative stability of the status quo (we still have at the end of pieces, but before any bio, sig-food on our tables) misleading us into a false nifies that the story is officially over, and we sense of security? Is it possible Malthus was haven’t had many people stumble over that right? He said that keeping mice confined to yet.

an overcrowded cage, but kept well fed, will I think bios work better after the story, result in a rise in aberrant behavior. Does any-since it means readers can get right into the one doubt that there’s more aberrant behav-piece without preamble, and the author can ior today than fifty years ago?

include comments or tidbits that might othI hope Dr. Schmidt’s excellent article will erwise spoil the story if they were read be-spark a real examination of, and conversation fore. (And yes, it helps distinguish us from about the faulty premises behind our failure Asimov’s.)

to face this issue head-on.

But I’m not against asking other readers It’s also wonderful to see Dr. Schmidt be-which location they’d prefer. Folks?

ing so prolific in his “retirement.”

And I’ll pass along your comments about John Vester
the formatting in the e-verions to the folks Rancho Cordova, CA
who might be able to do something about

* * *
that. ■

BRASS TACKS

203

UPCOMING EVENTS Anthony Lewis

NOTE: Membership rates and other details

12–15 October 2017
often change after we have gone to press. In BOUCHERCON 2017 (World Mystery Conven-addition, most conventions have age-based tion) at Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Toron-membership rates in advance and at the door.

to ON. Guests of Honor: Louise Penny, Megan There also may be rates for single days. Check Abbott, Christopher Brookmyre, Chris Graben the websites for the most recent information.

Stein, Margaret Cannon; TMs: Twist Phelan, Gary Phillips; Ghost of Honor: John Buchan.

9–13 August 2017

Info: www.bouchercon2017.com; info@

WORLDCON 75 (75th World Science Fiction
bouchercon2017.com; +1.416.458.7845.

Convention) at Messukeskus, the Helsinki Expo and Convention Centre, Helsinki, Finland.

2–5 November 2017

Guests of Honor: John-Henri Holmberg, Nalo WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION 2017 at

Hopkinson, Johanna Sinisalo, Claire Wendling, Wyndham Riverwalk, San Antonio TX. Guests: Walter Jon Williams. This is the SF universe’s an-Tananarive Due, Karen Joy Fowler, Gregory nual get-together. Professionals and readers from Manchess, David Mitchell, Gordon Van
all over the world will be in attendance. Talks, Gelder; TM: Martha Wells. Info: wfc2017.org.

panels, films, fancy dress competition—the works. Nominate and vote for the Hugos. Info: http://www.worldcon.fi/; info@worldcon.fi.

Running a convention? If your convention 1–4 September 2017
has a telephone or fax number, e-mail ad-NORTH AMERICAN DISCWORLD CONVEN-
dress, or web page, please let us know so that TION at Sheraton New Orleans, New Orleans we can publish this information. We must LA. Guests: Stephen Briggs, Esther M. Friesner, have your information in hand SIX months Pat Harkin, Omar Rayyan, Colin Smythe. Info: before
nadwcon2017.org.

Attending a convention? When calling con-6–8 October 2017
ventions for information, do not call collect CAPCLAVE 2017 (Greater DC area SF confer-and do not call too late in the evening. It is ence) at Hilton Washington DC North,
best to include a S.A.S.E. when requesting in-Gaithersburg MD. Guests of Honor: Neil
formation; include an International Reply Clarke, Ken Liu. Info: www.capclave.org; Coupon if the convention is in a different info@capclave.org.

country. n

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ANTHONY LEWIS