Crystalline Sphere Publishing
www.crystallinesphere.com
Copyright ©2006 by Crystalline Sphere Publishing
Publisher Crystalline Sphere Publishing
Editor David M. Switzer
Contributing Editors Luke Felczak, Michael Felczak & Andrew Hudson
Cover Artist Cédric Trojani
Challenging Destiny (ISSN 1719-9727), Number 23, November 2006. Copyright (c) 2006 by Crystalline Sphere Publishing. All rights reserved by the individual authors and illustrators. All correspondence: Challenging Destiny, R. R. #6 St. Marys, Ontario Canada N4X 1C8. Email: csp@golden.net. Web site: challengingdestiny.com.
There's Nothing More Important Than the Environment by David M. Switzer
The Vampire Who Doted on His Chicken by Ken Rand
Interview with Edward Willett by James Schellenberg & David M. Switzer
The Message by Richard R. Harris
Service With a Smile by Craig Q. Rose
James Tiptree Jr. and the Tiptree Awards by James Schellenberg
Suck of Clay, Whir of Wheel by Pat Esden
"I hope my grandchildren will never look at me and tell me, ‘Grandpa, you could have done more for us.’ If we adults fail to put the environment on the front burner, our children and their children will not have any hope of experiencing the abundance and diversity of life's creatures that existed when we were still young."
—David Suzuki & Holly Dressel, From Naked Ape to Superspecies
If we don't take care of the environment, we're not going to be around to do anything else. Although the state of the environment is not so great, it's not hopeless—we need to consider this moment in time as an opportunity. As David Brin says in an interview with Living Planet (posted on his web site): “Pessimists and optimists offer little to this transforming process, because both views encourage complacency. Cautious hopefulness seems best, recognizing that good things are happening."
Environmentalists have been warning us for many years—for example, John Brunner's novel of ecocatastrophe The Sheep Look Up was published in 1972. But on the whole we haven't listened. Lots of decisions are made by governments, companies, and individuals as if we humans are separate from the environment, as if we can do whatever we want—but that's not true.
Al Gore demonstrates in his movie An Inconvenient Truth the link between temperature and the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. He shows that ice in Greenland and Antarctica is disappearing at a shocking rate. He reminds us that solving this problem wouldn't be completely unprecedented. We've already solved one global environmental problem—we no longer produce CFCs and the ozone layer is on its way to recovery. As Gore says, “Political will is a renewable resource."
We're going to run out of oil within my lifetime—maybe not every last drop, but at least in terms of supplying all the demand. This is going to require a huge change, sooner or later, voluntarily or involuntarily. We can wait until we run out of oil, and risk the self-destruction of our culture. Or we can do something now.
We like to believe that we're smarter than our ancestors, but younger cultures (younger in comparison to tribal cultures) have regularly self-destructed when their main fuel source runs out—it happened to the Mesopotamians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Inca, and the Aztecs.
Jared Diamond in Collapse describes in detail what happened to several cultures that self-destructed. For example, he takes us to Easter Island—the location of those mysterious stone statues with big hats. The island was completely deforested by the time Europeans came exploring. Consequences of the loss of forest for the islanders would have been “losses of raw materials, losses of wild-caught foods, and decreased crop yields.” Secondary consequences were “starvation, a population crash, and a descent into cannibalism."
With respect to societies that have chosen to fail or succeed, Diamond says: “Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping their outcomes towards success or failure: long-term thinking, and willingness to reconsider core values.” The inhabitants of Easter Island kept cutting down trees until they were all gone. In contrast, Japan in the late 17th century began to regulate use of its forests—and today, even with its large population, Japan still has a huge percentage of forested area.
Whereas in the past cultures have collapsed without affecting other cultures far away, now the world is interconnected to a great extent. We're all in the same proverbial boat. Although we may colonize other worlds at some point in the future, right now Earth is the only planet we have.
In The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight Thom Hartmann explains some of the major environmental problems we face, why it is that we have these problems, and what we can do to turn things around.
Hartmann shows how deforestation, extinctions, and climate change are causing problems in various places in the world and will cause even more problems in the future. He points out that alternative energy sources require oil to produce—for example, solar cells are made of minerals that need to be mined.
There are some places in the world where we can see what our future will be like if we don't change things. In Haiti trees cover less than one per cent of the land. About 80 per cent of the people live in abject poverty. Hartmann writes: “As much as 16 hours a day are spend by the average country-dweller in search of food or firewood, and an equal amount of time is spent by city-dwellers in search of money or edible garbage."
How is it that so many of us don't know important things about the world, and even if we do know we don't do anything about it? Hartmann argues that we have become docile, easy to control. “Far more seductive than opium, infinitely more effective at shaping behavior and expectations than alcohol, and used for more minutes every day than tobacco, our culture's most pervasive and most insidious ‘drugging agent’ is television.” Spending so much time watching a flickering box, we have become disconnected—from other people, from nature, and from life itself.
Our culture tells us that we humans are the pinnacle of creation, that the world was created for us. Where can we find an example of a culture that thinks differently? Tribal cultures, which have lasted much longer than ours, believe that we are part of nature and should cooperate with the other parts. Hartmann doesn't advocate returning to a hunting and gathering lifestyle, but he does think we can learn some things from the older cultures.
"The evidence from analysis of tribal peoples alive today is that tribal life is relatively stress-free, satisfying, produces more leisure time than city/state life, and—perhaps most important—is sustainable indefinitely.” What does he mean by a tribe? A tribe is a politically independent unit with an egalitarian structure, obtaining resources from renewable local sources. Each tribe is unique, and has its own identity; at the same time, people in one tribe have respect for those in other tribes.
The goal of the tribe is the security of all its members—that is, getting everyone to the point where they have what they need to live. After that, each member is free to pursue their own interests. As more and more people in our culture realize that money is not making them happy, they are looking for some other way to live—some way to transform their lives.
The subtitle of Hartmann's book is “Waking Up to Personal & Global Transformation.” If we transform ourselves—that is, start telling different stories about how we view ourselves and our place in the world—eventually a critical mass will be reached and our culture will be transformed. (For a fascinating description of how small changes can make a big difference, read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.)
Does this seem unlikely to you? It's happened before. Hartmann gives the example of segregation. Two generations ago it was considered normal by most people in the US but then over a relatively short period of time it became unthinkable by most people. Our culture was transformed when enough people started telling a different story.
How could we do things differently? Robert J. Sawyer has some ideas, which he includes as aspects of a Neanderthal culture on a parallel Earth in his Neanderthal Parrallax trilogy. Neanderthals keep their population constant, use clean sources of energy, and call for a vehicle when they need one rather than everyone having their own. Neanderthal houses are “grown through aboriculture, tree trunks shaped around building forms that had subsequently been removed” (Humans).
This last feature reminded me of Hundertwasser, a painter, architect, and environmentalist whose work I encountered when I was in Vienna. His work is full of bright colours, spirals, and the integration of humans with nature. He designed buildings that have grass on their roofs, trees in their midst, and floors that aren't flat. Why don't we have more buildings like this?
In David Suzuki and Holly Dressel's Good News For a Change, they describe how people are making positive contributions to the environment. We don't hear about these people in the news very often—as I argued in a previous editorial (issue #16) the major news sources aren't always good at telling us what we need to know. People often think that they can't do anything significant by themselves—but you could certainly join one of the many groups that are making a difference.
What makes people happy? Ultimately it's not buying things, which is what our culture tells us will make us happy. Studies have shown that once you get beyond a certain basic level, having more things doesn't bring you more happiness. Suzuki and Dressel believe that it has “more to do with connecting with others, with feeling useful and, amazingly enough, with sharing everything—from food and feelings to ideas and beliefs.” So if you think some things need to change in the world, get out there and share your thoughts with someone.
I have some links to web sites that deal with the environment here: www.davidmswitzer.com/fascinating.html. Also see my editorial “What Could Be Better Than Civilization?” from issue #10 for a discussion of Daniel Quinn's books—another perspective on essentially the same topic.
Dave Switzer recently cancelled his cable TV. He plans to spend more time communing with nature, thinking, and talking with friends.
Cover artist Cédric Trojani is a French illustrator. He's studied painting and sculpture in a fine art school and he's always been a science fiction and fantasy reader. Cédric does his images using 2D and 3D graphic programs and a graphic tablet. When doing a 3D picture, he spends most of his time on texturing and lighting. He would love to be hired to draw science fiction covers and illustrate books. Cédric is 36, married, with one child.
Collin curled up in front of the monitor, keyboard strapped to his wrists and held before him. He'd be the first to admit the posture was ridiculous but, somehow, comforting as well. As if he were sitting, as if sitting were possible in the absence of gravity. Aboard the ship such habits were called planet-memory: the way your hands shot out before you when you tripped over a ledge, the way people instinctively lunged to catch loose objects seen out the corner of their eye, how everyone automatically oriented themselves when entering a crowded room. Memories of your birth-planet, instincts embedded deep in muscle and bone, pernicious, inescapable and worthless aboard an interstellar craft. One of a million different ways the universe reminded people they could pilot ships in space but home was meant to be a place of dirt, wind and gravity.
"Try again?"
Exasperation in the voice, a frustration politely muted but naked to those familiar with the speaker. Collin smiled, raising his keyboard to hide his expression.
"Launching on my mark,” Collin said. “Two, one: Launch.” He tapped his keyboard, watching his friend's brow knot as his computer spooled out information. Amir was a software genius, his skill envied ship-wide, but like all geniuses he had his eccentricities. Dramatic sighs, of course; anyone struggling with computer systems knew the value of a shoulder-rolling sigh, inhaling enough air to straighten your posture before the noisy exhalation let you collapse into a thoroughly defeated slump. What separated Amir from the other technicians was his humming, a loud, almost happy sound which, while lacking in musical ability, signalled his focus on a problem.
On Collin's screen a probe mission, culled from the ship's archives, scrolled merrily on. One of the most challenging assignments, a terrestrial planet drop with sample return. Collin had offered to seed the mission archive with a few easy hits but Amir refused, vowing to make the new software work regardless of conditions. The new software cycled easily through the complex launch sequence and piloting cycle, deftly handling an unexpected course correction caused by dark object gravitation, but as the virtual probe warmed against the planet's atmosphere the software glitched. Again.
As the inevitable sigh occurred, so deeply felt that Amir had to reach out and steady himself, Collin again raised his keyboard to block his amused grin. “Sorry,” he offered.
"Not your fault,” Amir replied. “Thought the atmo-data stream was the bugger but that's not it. Maybe, hey yeah, maybe the shield integrity subroutine? Yeah. Da, da, da-duh, da, da, da-do—” His thoughts trailed off into vigorous humming counterpointed by the relentless clatter of Amir's keyboard.
Calling up the next recorded mission, Collin looked to his own monitor and saw a blinking red icon. A text message. Without thought, he opened it.
Collin's body tensed, straightening into a standing position. Sweat burst from every pore, guilt-sweat. His brow furrowed as he reread the message but the words refused to change. A simple message, friendly in tone, but Collin had been aboard ship long enough to know how unusual the message was. He read it a third time.
COLLIN—WHEN YOU HAVE A MOMENT, SEE ME IN MY OFFICE.—LYNETTE.
Lynette. In her office. Collin's mouth was dry, all his moisture seeking escape through his armpits. His body's betrayal was pungent but Collin ignored it. With a guilty glance at Amir, Collin deleted the message. Amir hadn't seen his reaction; he was humming away, totally focussed on the software glitch. Somehow Amir's not knowing calmed Collin, soothed the sour panic knotting his stomach. Lynette's office. Collin shook his head, trying to think of some reason for such an extreme message.
When Lynette wanted to speak with you, she found you and spoke to you. Lynette knew the ship better than anyone; her sense of the crew's movements bordered on the supernatural. She could find anyone, at any given time, anywhere on the ship. If Lynette wanted to speak to you alone she'd find you when you were alone; when she wanted everyone to know she'd spoken with you she'd find you with a group of people. She could be discreet or loud or whatever she felt was necessary but she was never shy and she always knew where you were. When Lynette needed to see you, she found you.
When the Captain wanted Lynette to speak to you, she called you to her office.
Collin mumbled some excuse to Amir but Amir only nodded, too focussed on the software to look up from the screen or interrupt his wordless song. Kicking off the wall, Collin headed toward the ship's centre.
It wasn't a long journey; the ship was in orbit around a Commonwealth world and was folding up at a leisurely pace before breaking orbit. Passing others in the corridor, Collin tried to appear calm with only moderate success. At the top of the spin Collin gripped the ladder and began his descent.
Gravity pulled at him, a sensation Collin normally enjoyed; but now, sweaty as he was, it only made him feel dirty. And short, he realised as he waved to a couple of crewmates in the hall. Without gravity, height didn't matter, but things were different down in the spin and Collin was the crew's shortest member. The blue door of Lynette's office beckoned; the dark blue rectangle where Lynette's name plate should be glared like an accusation. An angry newbie had knocked Lynette's name plate off the wall five years ago but, as everyone on the ship knew whose office it was, no one had gotten around to replacing it. Collin waited for the computer to announce him, desperately hoping no one would see him go in.
The door opened before anyone saw him. Lynette waited inside, her sharp blue eyes appraising him as he entered. Frowning, she walked back behind her desk.
"I thought my message said ‘when you have a moment,'” Lynette reminded him, waving to a worn seat. “Not within two minutes of receiving the message. I didn't mean to frighten you."
"I'm not frightened,” Collin fibbed as he sat down. Lynette looked unconvinced. Her features were severe but not unattractive; she was only a couple of inches taller than Collin but something in the awkward way she handled gravity made her seem shorter. Her blond hair was longer than most of the crew's, an indulgence which softened her appearance.
"You're not in trouble, Collin,” Lynette assured him. “The Captain has a question for you."
"A question? From the Captain?” It was a strange notion. There were only two ranks aboard the ship, the Captain and everyone else. Everyone else asked but the Captain gave orders; it was what being Captain was all about.
"Well, not so much a question as a job offer, one you're free to decline.” Lynette leaned over her desk, her eyes meeting his squarely. “Collin, do you remember the last time you were in my office?"
Collin's eyes dropped to the floor, looking anywhere but at Lynette. It had been seven years but he wasn't likely to forget his last visit here. The question wasn't fair; it was clearly out of bounds. The ship contained a mere three hundred and twelve souls; certain rules had to be observed to insure everyone got along, and some things were not to be discussed. Still, Lynette was waiting for his answer, her eyes steadfast. Muted by shame, unable to met her unflinching gaze directly, Collin whispered his answer.
"Yes."
"Collin, the Captain wants you to be a watcher."
"A what?"
"A watcher.” Lynette repeated, seemingly satisfied by his confusion. “We're taking on a new crew member, and the Captain wants you to watch over her."
"Watch over her?” Collin frowned. “You mean show her around, let her know how things work, that sort of thing?"
"No.” Lynette shook her head. “The Captain wants you to watch her and when she tries to kill herself, well, you don't have to stop her yourself but you need to sound the alarm so we can try and save her. You need to know up front that not all suicides can be prevented—it's possible this newbie will off herself in such a way that she can't be saved. In that case, we need to take precautions to insure she doesn't take the rest of the ship with her. You don't need to worry about all that, though—your job is just to watch her."
"A suicide watch?” Collin frowned but he understood now why Lynette had asked him about his last visit to her office. “What makes you think this woman will try to kill herself?"
Lynette smiled and, seeing Collin's confused expression, her laughter escaped her efforts to contain it. “Oh Collin,” she managed, “everyone tries to kill themselves. I told you that the last time you were here. Everyone tries. Have you ever met anyone who didn't?"
"Well...” Collin looked around the room. It wasn't something you talked about, wasn't something you asked about. A small ship needed boundaries. Still, it was hard to imagine some people ever reaching so desperate a state. His eyes strayed towards Lynette and, catching his look, she laughed again.
"That's very flattering, Collin, but completely wrong. For the record, I tried to vent myself out an airlock six months after coming aboard. Traditional, I know, but you've got to love a classic. The Captain was more inventive—on his first ship he impressed the crew by trying to drown himself in a reclamation tank. An adventure in odour apparently, but it showed impressive frugalness. The point is, Collin: Everyone attempts suicide, so everyone gets watched. Some can be saved, some can't, but we watch them all."
Collin digested this. Lynette seemed to be waiting for some sort of response but all Collin could manage was, “Oh."
"There are rules, do you want to hear them?"
Collin nodded.
"Four rules, they're pretty simple. Number one: Being a watcher is secret. At some point you'll be tempted to tell the newbie you're her watcher. Don't, and don't tell anyone else either. It just makes things more difficult."
"But—"
"No.” Lynette cut off his objection. “I'll be here to help you, so will the Captain, nobody else needs to know. It's for the best. If this newbie does kill herself, you'll want to take the blame and that'll be hard to resist if others are blaming you too. Trust me on this, we've done it before and secret is the best way."
Reluctantly, Collin nodded.
"Number two: Being her watcher gives you full access. The computer will let you see her wherever she is, let you read what she reads, watch what she watches, examine her files. This is a trust the Captain places in you, do not betray it. You're there to save her, not take advantage, sexually or otherwise."
"I wouldn't—"
"It's not a reflection on you, Collin, it's a rule. You need to understand what's expected of a watcher. Okay? Rule three then: If you need to choose between saving the watched and saving the ship, save the ship."
"Bit obvious that,” Collin remarked.
"Obvious but heroic. If you like that, you'll love the last one. Watchers are not allowed to commit suicide until a year after their watch is over. Those are the rules, any questions?"
Collin shifted in his seat. “Why me?"
"Because the Captain picked you. I don't know why but I know he has a reason, he always does. You can say no, this isn't an order, but if you're going to decline I need to know before Victela comes aboard. Once you're her watcher, you'll stay her watcher until she's lost, saved or the Captain removes you from the post. So, we break orbit in two days, think about it—"
"I'll do it.” Collin interrupted.
Lynette raised a quizzical eyebrow at him. “You certain?"
Collin shrugged but answered, “Yeah. I don't know why I'm sure, but I am. I'll do it."
"Okay then.” Lynette's fingers stabbed at her keyboard, and a picture of an earnest young woman with soft features and dark-honey hair appeared on a monitor. “Her name is Victela,” Lynette said. “Her test scores are outstanding, wrote her Masters on Jovian planetary evolution. Some space experience, strictly orbital, of course, but still. An only child, her parents were killed when she was a teenager—"
"Does that make her more or less likely to suicide?” Collin asked.
Lynette shrugged. “Makes no difference really. You need to stop thinking that way, Collin. There's nothing wrong with her—there was nothing wrong with you when you tried to kill yourself. Suicide is a perfectly reasonable response to what we go through out here. People are meant to live on planets, Collin, not spacecraft. Some of us find ways to make our lives work out here, some don't. Anyway, her files are in the computer and you've full access. Any time you want to talk about her, call me. Call the Captain if you like—” Seeing his startled reaction Lynette carried on, “—or just talk to me."
Lynette stood but Collin lingered in his chair, suddenly curious. “So,” he tried to sound casual, “I had a watcher?"
"You did.” Lynette returned his smile.
"Was it Moe?"
"No, it was the person who sent Moe to pull you out of there. Don't look at me like that, it wasn't me and I'm not going to tell you who it was. Rule number one, remember?"
Collin stood. “And you've no idea why the Captain picked me for this?"
Lynette shook her head.
"Would you tell me if you knew?"
"If I knew, I'd tell you,” Lynette admitted, seeing him out the door. “I only know there's a reason and that's enough for me."
It wasn't enough for Collin. He spent the night examining Victela's records, searching for some hint as to why the Captain selected him for this job. He found nothing beyond the obvious: they were both scientists, both scored in the top two percent of their respective classes, both volunteered for interstellar travel. More striking were their differences: Collin had come from a world in the midst of a generations long terra-forming attempt, whereas Victela was a Norian, from the garden world Elpenor. Collin had left behind both his parents and two sisters, and Victela had no immediate family. Collin's interest had always been in rocky planets and biology; Victela devoted herself to the mathematical realms of planetary formation and gravitational physics. Still, he was sure Lynette was right. The Captain picked him for a reason and Collin was determined to discover what the reason was.
Victela came aboard the day they broke orbit. The ship continued pulling in its gantries and extensions, compressing its interior spaces until everything fit within the Bose-Einstein field generators but the process was leisurely. They were in Commonwealth space after all, in sight of the green world of Elpenor; it was something to savour before returning to the unknown.
Worried his interest might seem unusual, Collin waited until Victela had been aboard for a few hours before trying to catch a glimpse of her. Amir worked out the probe software problems and the two of them headed to one of the cubbies for a celebratory drink. Victela was there, her unfamiliar face a shock among the regular crew.
"That's the new girl, isn't it?” Amir asked, craning his neck and staring unabashedly. He wasn't the only one gawking; Victela seemed surrounded by admirers. After years of the looking at the same faces, someone new was an irresistible novelty.
She was more attractive than her picture, with a wide, inviting smile and dark, expressive eyes. Her first day aboard ship, having bested the rest of her planet to get here, and she found herself awash in suitors. Collin remembered his first day aboard, the dizzying intoxication of free-fall and pride. Sipping his drink, he wished Victela as much pleasure as the day could hold. Her world would change soon enough. It had changed for him; Lynette told him it changed for everyone and he believed her.
"Come on,” Amir urged, pulling at his elbow.
"What?” Collin was jarred out of his contemplation.
"The newbie's going down the spin to watch something,” Amir said eagerly. “We should go too."
"Why?” Collin couldn't help but ask.
"Because,” Amir pressed, biting his lip. “She's new. Come on, Collin. Look, your favourite colour is green, your passwords are 8457, friglet and CTE-82, you've had homosexual lovers but prefer women, don't like strong drink—"
"Who told you my 8457 password?” Collin asked.
"Doesn't matter. Look, the point is we know each other far too well. We know everyone far too well, we can't help it. It's a small ship. Don't open your mouth, I know what you'll say: What's wrong with that? Nothing wrong with it but, look over there: Someone new! Who knows what she'll say? Who knows what she wants to watch? Could be anything. So drink up and let's follow her. Could be fun, or staggeringly mundane, or shocking even, but it'll be unpredictable. We won't know what it is unless we go, so let's go!"
Finishing his drink, Collin allowed himself to be dragged down the spin. Past the hallway where Lynette's nameless office sat was a seldom-used lounge, made unpopular by gravity. Tonight, for the first time in Collin's memory, the place was packed. A screen showed some sort of sport, broadcast from Victela's home world.
"What's that on their feet?” Amir asked, staring at the broadcast.
"I think they're playing on ice,” Collin observed.
"What, like water-ice? Must be cold. Why?"
Collin shook his head. Amir came from a Commonwealth world called Circe, blessed with a warm climate. Collin's home world had no outdoors but they'd chipped ice off equipment often enough. “It makes the game fast,” Collin explained, watching as Victela leaned forward to watch the game.
"I'm going ask her to have sex with me tonight,” Amir decided aloud.
"Expect to be surprised by her answer?” Collin laughed. “Not a bad idea but you'll have to get in line. Bet Venks has already asked her."
"He has not!” Amir seemed shocked by the idea.
"Bet he has.” Collin smiled. “He asked me before I'd been aboard three hours."
"He's never asked me,” Amir complained. He tried to watch the game but Collin could see his friend's eyes drifting constantly towards Victela. He needn't watch her tonight; tonight the whole ship was watching her. Collin clapped Amir on the shoulder and said goodnight. He walked past Lynette's office and rested against the ladder for a moment before going up.
Stepping on the first rung, Collin heard a noise behind him. Turning, he saw Victela wiping her eyes as she walked with enviable confidence through the spin's gravity.
"What's wrong?” Collin asked, startled to find himself alone with the woman he was supposed to be watching.
"Nothing.” Victela waved, her other hand over her eyes. “It's stupid—"
"Look, if it's Amir, he doesn't mean any harm, he's just—"
"It's not Amir.” Victela shook her head. “It's not anyone. I mean, everyone has been so nice."
"Some a little too nice maybe?” Collin ventured.
Victela smiled, nodding. Her smile was remarkable, shifting the whole geometry of her face. “I don't think I've ever had so many offers in a single day but that's not what upset me. It's stupid, but—my team lost tonight."
Collin's expression remained impassive, and Victela hurried to explain.
"I know it's stupid, it's just that they promised to win. For me, because it's the last game I'll ever see them play."
"Why?” Collin asked.
"We leap the day after tomorrow,” Victela explained as if it were obvious.
"But, when we leap, we remain in the same time as the system we're leaving. When we arrive in the next system, the next game won't have happened yet."
"It's fifty light-years, won't the broadcast signal be too weak to pick up?” Victela asked, her eyes hopeful.
"Shouldn't be a problem,” Collin assured her. “I'll talk to Lynette, see if we can work something out."
"That would be—” Unable to find a suitable word for what it would be, Victela embraced Collin and kissed him on the cheek. Quicker than anyone else aboard ship could have done it, Victela was up the ladder and on her way to her cabin. Collin smiled, leaned against the ladder and touched his cheek where the kiss, hurried but sincere, had landed. Only then did he notice Lynette leaning out the doorway of her office, frowning at him.
"You're not off to a great start, Collin,” Lynette warned.
Collin straightened, hand reaching out for the ladder. “Any problem picking up the game for her?"
"Technically no.” Lynette made it sound like a concession. “Not that she needed to know that. Are you sure it's better for her to watch the games? It's the play-offs. If they lose, it could hasten her depression. If they win, I'm not sure it'll be any better."
"If she doesn't watch, she'll always wonder,” Collin argued. To his surprise Lynette nodded in agreement.
"So you're doing this because you think it's what's best for Victela, not just to make her like you?"
"I haven't forgotten rule two,” Collin assured her. Lynette nodded again but her eyes didn't seem convinced. Rather than argue, Collin climbed the ladder and returned to his cabin.
Almost reluctantly, the ship made ready to leap. Collin drew a late duty station; it gave him a chance to check the computer and see that Victela was safely in her cabin. No matter how much a person tried to prepare, attempted to ready themselves for their first leap, it was always a shock. Newbies were told to wait the leap out in their cabin, both to protect them and to keep them out of the crew's way. On his monitor Victela floated in her cabin, bored and impatient but safe and surrounded by items familiar and significant to her. Satisfied, Collin headed to the primary forward sensor array.
This sensor array was the last part of the ship pulled back behind the field generators before a leap and the first piece of equipment extended afterwards. Large steel crossbeams folded neatly into place, concealing the high voltage power cables behind them. The task wasn't difficult but the proximity to that much voltage always made Collin anxious. Watching the cables carefully, making certain they didn't snag in the sensor array's framework, Colin didn't notice Victela until she tapped him on the shoulder.
"Hey Collin,” she said, oblivious to his sudden concern.
"Victela, you're supposed to be in your cabin!” Collin said a bit too loudly, unable to hide his fear.
"It's so boring down there, I thought—"
"Hold this,” Collin commanded her, wrapping her hands around a support rung. “Stay right there. Whatever happens promise me you'll hold on. Okay?"
"Collin, I—"
"Promise me!"
"Okay I—"
And they leapt.
Simple physics, the mathematics so basic they were routinely taught in grade school. Around the ship a Bose-Einstein field froze the light from all the stars but one. Impaled on this single strand of light, trapped in this frozen moment, the ship was thrust at light speed to its next destination. Teachers drew lines between stars, marking the ship's route. Such demonstrations weren't wrong; from the perspective of the planet-bound that was what happened. Aboard the ship, at the mercy of relativity, things weren't quite as simple.
Aboard ship the slowed light swung before them, coalescing into a single point directly ahead. All of reality falling away, collapsing into a radiant pearl whose light could not be denied. It shone through the metal hull of the ship, through tightly shut eyelids, glorious reality beckoning to those escaping its realm. Seeing that distant, glowing pearl, your soul cried out to return. Time had no domain beyond the leap, to scream in mid-leap was to scream for eternity, but somehow the ship always fell back. The glow of reality expanding and dimming as the ship re-entered, emerging in the glow of a new star. The clock insisted only seconds had passed, the transmissions of the star you'd left behind confirmed the fact, but having travelled beyond such truths believing in anything so empirical required effort.
Collin blinked, a veteran of hundreds of leaps. He looked to Victela, saw her wide eyes and the white knuckles gripping the support rung.
"That's right, Victela, you hold on as tight as you like for as long as you like. No sudden movements. There's the all clear from the bridge, time to extend these sensors and see where we are. You just hold on now while I do this.” And Collin kept up a steady patter of conversation, none of it important; he just wanted his voice to be there when she returned to herself. Wanted her to feel safe, to feel watched.
They met down in the spin lounge to watch the final play-off games. The crowds dwindled with each passing night but Collin always went. Amir was jealous and each time Collin walked past Lynette's blue door he felt guilty but he went anyway. Her team won and, as they were named champions, Victela kissed Collin in earnest. The sensation was intense but Collin broke the embrace, apologised and retreated to the safety of his cabin. He lay in the dark, wondering if Lynette had been right, wondering if he'd made things worse.
Two nights later, unable to sleep, Collin asked the computer to show him Victela and she appeared on his monitor having sex with Amir. Collin didn't mean to watch but he didn't shut the monitor off as quickly as he might have. As he should have. For a while he wanted to go to her cabin, explain why he'd refused her advances, confess to being her watcher and promise to keep her safe. He didn't, though; instead he sent Lynette a text message saying simply that rule one sucked and rule two was worse.
Having finished their survey of the unexplored system, they leapt again. Victela was too busy to notice, seemingly unaware of the tie just broken. They were no longer on Elpenor time; back on Victela's home world history went on without her. Collin watched, digging through the records, trying to find the Captain's reason for choosing him. He found nothing.
A brief survey, barely four weeks, and they leapt again. Three days in the new system and Collin, watching on his monitor, saw the look on her face. It was in the hesitation of her smile, the new wariness in her eyes. A quick check of ship's systems proved Victela didn't need Collin's help to turn an antenna towards Elpenor anymore. Collin sent a text message to Lynette; her response was quick.
I KNOW—WATCH HER.
Collin's monitor showed Victela climbing down the spin, sitting in the empty lounge as gravity pulled tears down her cheeks. Shaking his head, Collin shut off his monitor.
Reaching the bottom of the ladder Collin walked, whistling to announce his presence, down to the spin lounge. Lynette was there, her face hastily dried on her sleeve, a drama playing on the lounge's screen.
"Oh, hello,” Collin said, hoping to sound casual. “What are you watching?"
"Nothing really,” Lynette answered, her tone unreadable. Since Collin had declined her invitation there had been a distance between them.
"Is it something from Elpenor?” Collin asked as innocently as he could.
Victela nodded. “I'm probably the only person in the universe who remembers it,” Victela mused.
"Probably,” Collin agreed. “Mind if I stay and watch? Could we back it up, see it from the beginning?"
Her shrug of acceptance was casual but she watched the drama avidly. When it was done they both stood and stretched. Collin studied the woman out of the corner of his eye; her expression was settled. The smile that danced across her features, the broad smile of a thousand inflections and degrees, was lost in uncertainty but Collin was confident she wouldn't harm herself tonight. There was a lifetime of nights ahead of her, though.
"Thanks, Collin,” Victela said, looking up at him. “That was fun."
"I had a good time too,” Collin admitted. He'd surprised himself by enjoying both the drama and the quiet company. More than that, Collin knew now why the Captain had chosen him to be her watcher. The answer had been in the drama and in the way Victela looked up at him. Climbing out of the spin, they bid each other good night and Collin went back to watching her on his monitor.
Her break-up with Amir was sudden and dramatic, played out in a corridor before many watching eyes. Amir sulked in his cabin, coming out only for duty shifts, while Victela took up with Byron. They leapt again, putting more history between Victela and her world. Byron was out, Helen was invited in. Another survey complete, another duty cycle over. Leaping again, they found a data buoy left by another Commonwealth survey ship a mere one hundred and fifty years before. In terms of interstellar travel it was a near collision. Everyone talked about it, about how strange it would be to encounter another crew out here, while Victela quietly ushered Helen out of her bed. Victela flirted but there was something needy in her eyes now, something unsettling. Everyone knew what it was, what might happen, what was almost certainly going to happen, but they chose not to speak about it. Failing to acknowledge her need freed them from having to take action.
"What do you expect, Collin?” Lynette demanded after he complained to her. “She's in the bad-lands, driving for the edge. They've all been there, none of them want to go back. They're protecting themselves and it's a good thing they are."
"Someone could help her.” Collin's words were bitter. “If it weren't for the damn rules I'd—"
"No, Collin, you wouldn't.” Lynette's blue eyes were uncompromising. “You'd keep your distance. You'd protect yourself and, in doing so, protect the ship. You care for her because you've spent so much time watching her. If you weren't her watcher you'd be acting just like the rest of them. And even if you were sleeping with her, Collin, I'd be running into you in some private corridor and warning you to be careful."
Collin fumed, knowing Lynette was right and hating the fact. Angry but unable to refute her, Collin snarled the first words that came into his thoughts. “I know why the Captain chose me for this."
Lynette shook her head. “And does it matter anymore? We're in this now, we need to see it through. For Victela's sake, for the safety of the ship. Don't forget rule three."
"Save the ship,” Collin answered. He stood and walked toward Lynette's door.
"Collin, I know how much you're watching her—"
"I just want to be ready,” Collin countered.
"Fair enough. It won't be long now. I'm trimming your duty schedule so you'll have more time to watch but Collin—"
"Yes?"
"—take care of yourself too. If she can't be saved, don't follow her down. Rule four, Collin. We need you too."
Nodding, Collin returned to his cabin and the monitor that had become his universe. Victela was spending a lot of time stretched in her bunk, inactive and unresponsive, rousing herself only for the duty cycles she dragged herself through without any enthusiasm. Collin noted how Lynette had a second team double-check Victela's work. The Captain and Lynette were good at this; they were obviously experienced. If they had to, they'd watch Victela die just as they'd watched others die before her. Their concern was the ship, first and foremost; they made no pretense otherwise. Collin knew that if it came down to a choice, they'd vent Victela before risking the ship.
Collin thought Victela was worth some risk.
The ship leapt again and Victela again turned an antenna towards her distant home. As the ship unfolded and the survey began, Victela seemed to improve. She became more active, going to the rec-pods and lounges more, taking more care while completing her duties. People around her relaxed, spoke more easily with her. Collin wasn't fooled; he started watching her while she slept, certain she'd act if he looked away. He was a mess, he knew it, but it would be worth it if he saved her. And if he couldn't—
Rule four was heavy on his mind these days, the rule against suicide. If he couldn't save Victela, Collin had decided he would wait the promised year before taking his own life. If he couldn't save her, he didn't think he'd be able to live beneath the weight of his failure.
One more survey complete, the ship began folding up in preparation for the leap. Collin begged off his duty schedule, claiming his was sick. He watched the monitor, following Victela from camera to camera. Even so, he still almost missed it.
Scheduled to work on the main gantry during the leap, Victela traded with Venks so she could work the primary forward sensor array. Once there she composed a brief note and sent it to herself. Collin read it and hurried out of his cabin. He had to reach her before the leap.
Rushing through corridors, shoving his crewmates out of the way, Collin considered contacting Lynette. He still had no idea how Victela was going to do it but he didn't think she'd jeopardise the ship, not on purpose anyway. It wasn't like her. Collin reached for the hatch leading to the forward array and, as the universe collapsed into a pearl before him, screamed his fear, frustration and failure into the nothing. Falling back into the real, Collin's hands scrambled at on the hatch.
"Victela?"
She jumped, startled. He reached out to steady her.
"Collin, how you'd get in? You weren't there when we leapt."
Shrugging, Collin examined her dark eyes. “I guess I just recovered more quickly than you. “Victela—"
Now that he was here, he had no idea what he should say.
"You'd better leave Collin, I've got work to do."
Collin's eyes darted around the room, looking for some sign, some clue as to what she planned. “Okay,” Collin said lamely. “I just wondered if you wanted to watch a drama with me tonight, something from Elpenor."
"Some other time, Collin.” Her voice was flat, a still surface concealing depths of meaning. Collin's mind was racing, searching for something—anything—to say. He couldn't tell her he knew, couldn't tell her he'd been watching. It would buy him time but it would be a betrayal. She'd know then they hadn't trusted her, she'd misunderstand. He needed something else but what?
He couldn't think of anything, then he remembered why the Captain had chosen him.
"You know, I'm from Elpenor too,” Collin admitted.
Victela turned towards Collin, looking up at him distrustfully.
"I mean, it wasn't called Elpenor when I left,” Collin admitted. “Didn't even have a name then, just CTE-82, one of dozens of terra-forming experiments. My parents always believed their work would be rewarded but I lacked their faith."
Her eyes were fixed on him; he had her full attention. Collin paused, to give her a chance to speak, but when she didn't say anything he continued. “I didn't know, when we were in orbit. Didn't know the world had earned a name—I stopped checking years ago. There was a crisis—it seemed like the bio-functions were collapsing, and I was afraid the world would be abandoned and my family's lives spent in vain. Rather than hear the bad news I just stopped checking. I'd never have known about Elpenor if you hadn't come aboard. I used to be the shortest person on the ship, you know, until you arrived. The high gravity of Elpenor, no amount of terra-forming can change a planet's mass. Even then I didn't notice. I mean, if I hadn't watched that drama with you and noticed how short everyone was—"
"Collin, what's your last name?” Victela asked, her eyes narrow.
"Halett. Of course nobody on board uses last names but—What's wrong?"
Victela covered her mouth with her hands, her wide eyes stared at Collin as if seeing him for the first time. “Collin Halett? That's impossible, you'd have to be a thousand years old!"
"About eight, no, make that nine years for me now. I know what it's like to leave a world behind, Victela, to be the last of your generation. I remember their faces, what made us all laugh, what we were passionate about. Sometimes I feel like an old flag, hanging in a dusty museum, covered in symbols no one can understand any more. There was a time when I wanted to rejoin my generation the only way I could. I'd have done it too except, well, someone explained to me we were all the same out here. We're all haunted by the people and places we left behind. Some of us find a way to carry on. Some don't."
Her eyes twitched, looking at something to Collin's right. Following her gaze Collin at last saw something that didn't belong. A metal pole, sharpened at one end, not something you could hurt yourself with—unless you jabbed it into a high voltage cable. Collin looked to the senor array gantry. When retracted the cables were hidden behind the metal supports but, as the array was extended and the metal beams scissored out, the pole would be the perfect length. Collin wanted to reach out and take it, bundle Victela up and carry her back to her cabin, but he resisted. He couldn't save her; his own experience had taught him that. Only Victela could save herself. Letting the silence grow, Collin waited to hear what Victela would say to end the quiet.
"Um, Collin, maybe we could catch something tonight. I know a drama you might like—"
"Sounds great.” Collin smiled.
"You know...” A ghost of her former smile brightened Victela's face and her dark eyes shone mischievously. “I tried to get into the university they named after you but my marks weren't good enough."
"What?” It was Collin's turn to gape. Victela's smile broadened.
A buzzer sounded, and Lynette's voice came over the intercom. “Is there a problem down there? Why hasn't the sensor array been extended?"
"My fault,” Collin answered. “Sorry. Duty cycle mix-up.” To Victela, he asked, “Want some help?"
"I've got it, I'll see you tonight down in the spin."
Collin nodded and left, returning to his cabin to clean up and rest. A red icon blinked on the monitor there, a waiting text message. He opened it, seeing without surprise it was from Lynette and co-signed by the Captain. Reading it, Collin smiled.
WELL DONE—YOUR WATCH IS OVER.
JR Campbell's fiction has appeared in a wide variety of publications including Fantasy, Folklore & Fairytales, Wax Romantic and Spinetingler Magazine and the anthologies Fantastic Visions IV, Bone Ballet and Curious Incidents. From time to time his work can also be heard on radio's Imagination Theater and The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
There are books you admire and books you love. Ulysses is easy to admire; Pride and Prejudice is easy to love. I think that when you love a book, it's almost always because of voice, because you want to know the person telling you the story.
—Graham Sleight, “Yesterday's Tomorrows” in Locus (June 2006, Vol 56 No 6)
A feller parted the batwing doors of the Lucky Nickel Saloon, letting in a bucketful of snow and a cold gust off Second Ave, Laramie, Wyoming Territory, U S of A, holding a chicken in his hand, and he looked bewildered. The feller, I mean, looked bewildered. The chicken looked dead.
The feller looked preacher-like, clean-shaven, and gussied up in a black frock coat, boiled shirt and string tie. Hatless. He wasn't a preacher, though. He held a chicken in hand instead of the Good Book.
The chicken, your regular white bantam, hung upside down, feet grasped in the feller's bony fist. A white feather drifted floorward.
The feller, tall and rail-fence skinny, all knees and elbows, blinked somber-faced in the dim light—the saloon was bereft of windows—as if he wasn't sure where he was at.
'Twas a tranquil though cold winter day. Me and Banky and Casper sat at table playing poker, matchstick stakes as we were broke as usual. We sat close to the potbellied stove so we could shove sticks in as needed because ‘twas colder than a banker's smile. Blizzard been going on three, four days. We'd caulked the wall gaps as best we could with gum and chaw and spit. Helped keep the heat in, but it kept the smell in too. You don't want to know.
Still, ‘twas tranquil enough.
The guy wasn't armed, so Banky made no move for his Colt. Casper didn't bother to look up out of his good eye, so I figured he was trying to fill him an inside straight. I held me two aces so I didn't look much neither.
Mick, our taciturn and Irish barkeep, stood behind the bar buffing shotglass with snotrag. Charlie lay asleep under the piano and Jack Thatcher hadn't arrived yet. I expected he might not arrive atall, as the storm was hefty.
Nobody else present as ‘twas a Tuesday noon, a week and a half till payday, and this blizzard afield, as told.
Mick upped “Help you?” just as Sam Something pushed through the doors, puffing like a locomotive making a seven-degree grade. Sam was a back-east dude reporter who stopped by from time to time to wet his whistle between trains and whose family name I never cottoned proper. He wasn't a pest, much, nor a damnfool. He played lousy but enthusiastic poker and paid in cash, so we let him be a semi-regular.
"There you are,” Sam declared. He patted the feller on his bony shoulder and snowflakes fluttered to the sawdust floor. “See you found it.” He waved a hand at us as if we was medicine show displays. “Yessir, these here are the regulars of the Lucky Nickel—"
"Is that a cooking bantam?” Casper took out his glass eye, puffed a garlicky breath on it and buffed it on his sleeve.
"Well, sir,” Sam responded, wiping snow off his white mustache, “you see—"
"We-all ain't had dinner in a day or so,” Banky informed. “On account of the storm and all. Supplies are scarce."
"Well, sir—"
"We'd be pleased to help you cook up your hen,” I offered.
"Well, sir.” Sam looked at the guy. “Ain't for me to say."
"How's about it, partner?” I quizzed.
The guy looked puzzled, and Sam spoke in Persian or Polish or Pakistany, dunno which, but it wasn't American nor even Mexican. The guy responded likewise and Sam reported: “He says, sure, you can eat the chicken, but he gets to guzzle down his share first."
"Huh?” we all inquired.
"Just fetch up a skillet,” Sam retorted. “This won't take but a second."
Sam and the feller and the chicken sat at a table, also close by the potbellied stove, and the guy wrung the chicken's neck. We all stood around watching. Sam and his friend both smelled pepperminty, freshly shaved, I reckoned. The chicken smelled like a chicken.
Then the feller did something I never seen in all my days, and I've had me a few days, and seen me a few things, sober and not. He cut the chicken's neck with his jackknife and held the cut to his lips and sucked the blood outten the chicken. Slurp, slurp, slurp. Eyes closed, he looked as content as a newborn calf at titty. Sucked on that bantam, slurpslurpslurp.
Casper's eyeball popped out and he caught it afore it went clattery across the sawdust floor, Banky drew reflexively, Mick grunted in bewonderment, and I was impressed too. Charlie slept and Jack Thatcher hadn't arrived yet, so I don't know how they took it.
At last, “Ah!” the fellow sighed, and set the bloodless chicken down. He muffled a satisfied burp with a pale fist, set back and smiled like he'd just et a home-cooked Thanksgiving dinner and got the wishbone. Real tranquil.
You can disbelieve this next part if you want, since Sam was as apt to make stuff up for entertainment purposes as the next feller, but we listened to his story, as ‘twas polite to do so, and we didn't guffaw a bit.
Here's what Sam told: the feller, whose name we finally took to be “Count Wreckala,” was a foreign royal feller, and what Sam called a “vampire.” Thought he's said “umpire” at first and that got us off on a tangent, but we got back in the saddle pronto. Seems as the Count dotes on blood, his favorite food, and he can't stomach meat nor potatoes, poor guy.
Worse, Sam related: Count Wreckala dotes on folks’ blood.
"You mean—people?” Casper.
Sam nodded and the Count looked embarrassed. He didn't speak American, but I reckon he understood well enough.
"But he sucked up this bantam,” I pointed out.
"Reformed,” Sam informed. Seems as how the Count aimed to reform of sucking folks’ blood on account of his neighbors took exception to the practice and threatened a necktie party—this was back in Hungary or Roomany or one of them European places—so he skipped town, resolved to mend his ways afore he did a mid-air ballet under a cottonwood. He come out West, sampling alternate fare and found bantams right tasty and nourishing. Sam met him outside a poultry farm in Saint Jo.
"He's wanted in six states for chicken thievery,” Sam declaimed, “so he's on the lam. Looking for a spot to light where folks ain't apt to shoot nor stretch him. I'm resolved to assist, the comradely thing to do, but I'm short of notions, and this storm—"
"Stuck, then?” Banky.
"Tracks are blocked a spell. Then—well, dunno what then."
Just then, Jack Thatcher arrived, snow and wind in his wake. We brought him up to date as we husked the chicken and set plates and forks. Sam ordered up a bottle and kindly shared as we was all broke, as told. Count Wreckala sat, elbows and knees askew, smiling content as a canary-fed cat. Burp. Tranquil.
Dinner got cooked up pronto; roast chicken smell replacing unwashed body smell in the saloon.
"Eat up good, boys,” Jack saluted us with a forkful of chicken liver, “cause this might be the last bite we get till spring thaw."
"Huh?” Us all again. Except Charlie, asleep.
Jack told: as he made his way to the saloon, he got turned around in the blow, and entered the telegraph shack two blocks over by the railroad station instead. There, he heard the storm was getting worst instead of petering out and no supplies was coming for a week.
And we was bereft of supplies, foodwise.
At this news, Banky drew, Casper took out his eye and buffed it, Mick polished glassware, scritchitchitch, and I was concerned too. Sam wrote in his itty-bitty reporter notebook and Count Wreckala smiled and burped. Charlie slept.
We set aside a slab of chicken for Charlie. When he woke up, he'd be hungry as well as thirsty, and we was comrades, after all. We ordered another whiskey bottle; Sam paid, bless his heart, and we drank slow, as it was going to be a long day.
Long week.
We'd et just now, sure, but how long afore we required more fuel? Whereat was we to get said fuel? As I told, the pantries was empty. Not just the saloon storeroom shelves, but the whole town. We was in dire straits for certain sure.
Except, I pondered, for the Count. Hadn't Sam told us the Count doted on folks’ blood? Sure, he'd reformed, but what if he ran out of chicken and had to rely on—
"Um, Jack,” I wondered. “Seen any chickens about?"
"Nor dogs nor cats nor horsehide nor flesh of any sort. The whole town's bust. This here chicken—burp, ‘scuse me—is the last of the foodstock betwixt Cheyenne and Grand Encampment, so I heard in the telegraph office."
"Uh, Sam,” I continued wondering, “what if—"
I couldn't finish the thought. Imagine your very blood the only food source for a hundred miles around. I stoked the stove but still felt as cold as a well digger's pale patootie.
Well, no point in dragging out this part, so here ‘tis: the week drew on, we boiled Jack's wooden leg and chewed it for sustenance, and as feared, by and by, the Count got hungry too.
We could chew our boots and belts and holsters to last out another couple days, as needed, but the Count required blood to keep bellybutton and backbone apart. We had us no chickens to suck on, but there was folks.
"What ought we to do?” Casper bemoaned.
'Twouldn't be neighborly to let the Count starve to death, but who among us, starving too, would offer up our very blood?
We drew straws is what we did.
Charlie lost. We'd included him in the drawing even though he was asleep at the time as ‘twouldn't be neighborly to leave him out, would it? Anyways, he got the short straw.
Just in time, as the Count was woozy and near to buzzard bait when he crawled under the piano and bit Charlie on the neck.
"Don't you drain our buddy,” we warned.
Slurp, slurp.
After a short time, the Count burped, smiled, and curled up under the piano next to Charlie to take an after-dinner nap.
He snored. From both ends. From the nether end, he was eye-wateringly odiferous.
Now, I reckon he snored whilst asleep in the week he was with us, and passed wind. We couldn't go nowheres in the blizzard and had to sleep right here, close by the stove and all of us curled up in a ball to keep warm, but nobody heard him snore afore as we was all asleep at the time. Nor smelled him, praise Jesus.
But we heard now. And smelled. And fainted from the gassy venting, mostly.
Charlie woke up. He looked a tad pale and woozy.
Maybe Charlie had woken those other times the Count had fallen asleep, but we didn't know for sure neither, because, as told, we was asleep them times.
"Gosh,” Charlie yawned, “he snores loud enough to wake the dead.” Charlie had nasal restrictions; he couldn't smell diddly.
Come to think of it, nasal problems probably explained whyfor Sam could pal up with the Count while the lack of nasal problems explained whyfor those foreigners wanted to string the Count up. Sucking blood was a bad enough habit, but—well, you get my drift.
The storm abated two days later, a supply wagon got through, and we all ate hearty. The tracks got cleared and Sam left with the first westbound U-P, but the Count didn't go with him. No sir, Count Wreckala's days of running from mobs with pitchforks and rope are over, for he has gainful and welcome employment right here in Laramie.
Go down the alley betwixt Grant and First toward the stockyard, behind Miss Dolly Dubois’ Residence for Refined Ladies, and listen up. From the ladies’ backyard, where they got a henhouse for breakfast eggs for the ladies and their guests, and choice white pullets for dinner, you'll hear, louder the closer you get, a sawmill buzz, the foreign royal making it asleep and content in a cozy little hut they built for him.
Coyotes nor wild dogs nor chicken thieves bother those bantams. None dare get too close unless you're desperate hungry, crazy, asleep, or got nasal problems.
They pay the Count in a chicken now and then, as needed, which he sucks out and offers the leavings to his new friends.
Burp. Tranquil.
Ex-reporter, humorist, and Wyoming-lover Ken Rand resides with his family in Utah where he writes “semi-full time.” He's sold millions of words of nonfiction, 200 humor columns, more than 75 stories to 50+ magazines and anthologies. This is his third appearance in Challenging Destiny, following “The Ear of Mt. Horiuchi” in Number 16. He has several novels and collections out (and upcoming), plus a growing bookshelf of writers how-to's from his publishing company, Media Man! Productions. Details on his Web site: www.sfwa.org/members/Rand. He teaches writing at conferences and workshops (arrangements on request).
CD: How does writing fiction for young adults compare to writing nonfiction?
EW: Fiction is more fun. While I've enjoyed writing my various science and biography books for educational publishers (and learned a lot in the process—until I wrote Kiss the Sky, my children's biography of Jimi Hendrix, I had no idea The Experience once opened for The Monkees), my first love is storytelling.
CD: Do you need to switch back and forth?
EW: Usually I'm working on both at the same time, but I wouldn't say I need to switch back and forth. Better to say I like to switch back and forth.
CD: Does one strengthen the other?
EW: Well, maybe. To a certain extent, writing is writing: you have to put words together in a (one hopes) coherent fashion and communicate ideas by doing so. But the kind of nonfiction I've been writing doesn't allow for a lot of use of my storytelling muscles—it's not what is sometimes called “creative nonfiction,” nonfiction told using the techniques of fiction, but rather pretty basic educational writing, designed to communicate information in as straightforward a manner as possible.
CD: Do you read up on various theories of communicating with younger audiences or do you jump in and write what you might have wanted to read at that age?
EW: You mean there are theories of communicating with younger audiences?—G—No, I've never read anything like that. What I usually say is that I started writing as a kid—I wrote my first short story ("Kastra Glazz: Hypership Test Pilot") when I was 11, wrote a couple of novella-length stories in junior high, and wrote three novels in high school—and although I grew up, my protagonists didn't.
CD: What kind of guidelines do you get from publishers for YA nonfiction?
EW: I'm occasionally told I write at too high a level, so I've been urged to break up long sentences, explain more terms, that kind of thing. It's tough to write, say, The Basics of Quantum Physics: Understanding Line Spectra and the Photoelectric Effect without writing at a reasonably high level, though.
Each publisher has a style guide they provide with hints about what they're looking for. I'm not sure I've ever read one all the way through. Partly that's because all my nonfiction has all been assigned. An editor contacts me and says, “We need writers for such-and-such series. Here is a list of topics. How many can you do?” They do that, presumably, because they like the books I've turned in for them in the past, so I just keep writing them the same way.
CD: How do you find time to write so much? What is your typical schedule like?
EW: I get up, get my wife to work and my daughter to daycare. Then, if I'm being good, I jog around Wascana Lake or lift weights at the YMCA. If I'm being bad/lazy or can come up with a good excuse, I go to Second Cup for an iced cappuccino and a cinnamon bun and read whatever book or magazine I'm currently reading. I come home and read blogs and news sites on the Internet for far longer than I should. Finally, late in the morning, I get started writing, and continue in fits and starts, with occasional venturing out for meetings, errands, etc., until it's time to pick up my daughter from daycare. I usually avoid working in the evenings, but if I'm way behind on a project, I might put in two or three hours after my daughter is in bed, which usually isn't before 9:30.
CD: Are you a fast writer?
EW: Yes. Years of newspaper reporting forced me to be. (I was a newspaper reporter/photographer at, and eventually news editor of, the Weyburn Review in Weyburn, Sask., over an eight-year period out of university.) . There's no time for writer's block with that news hole to fill—even on a weekly.
CD: How much time do you spend researching a nonfiction book before starting to write? Does this compare to the research for a science fiction novel?
EW: My short educational books typically just take a few hours of research before I'm ready to begin. I really can't be more precise. My science fiction novels to date have not really required a lot of research, although I'll need to do more than usual for the new one for DAW.
CD: Can you give us any hints about your next DAW novel?
EW: Sure. It doesn't have a title yet—DAW didn't like the working one I provided on the synopsis. I can tell you it's set on two worlds, Earth and an even more watery planet, as well as outer space, and it features a conflict between genetically modified humans and religious fanatics. Since I haven't written it yet, I don't want to be any more precise!
CD: Tell us about Lost in Translation. What is the book about? What kind of a story were you trying to tell? It was originally published in hardcover and now is coming out in paperback from DAW—can you tell us how all this happened?
EW: Lost in Translation began as a short story which was published in the premiere issue of TransVersions in the 1990s. One review said something to the effect that it built a more effective space opera universe in just a few pages than many long novels had ... which was impetus enough for me to consider turning it into a novel. Which I did: the short story is still embedded in it, for the most part, with a piece in the prologue and another piece in the middle, but a great deal more happens around it.
Lost in Translation is set in far future in which an interstellar, inter-species Commonwealth has recently stepped in to end a war between humanity and a race of somewhat bat-like flying aliens called S'sinn. Humans started the war by inadvertently killing S'sinn without realizing they were sentient. The S'sinn were not happy about the Commonwealth ending the war, and neither were some humans, so conditions are ripe for a resumption of hostilities.
The Commonwealth is held together by the Guild of Translators, natural empaths whose abilities are augmented by a universal nervous system interface—an engineered symbiote that Translators take into their body and allows them to link with each other, establishing a telepathic connection that enables them to provide absolutely honest, absolutely accurate translations among some very alien species.
The main characters are Kathryn, a human Translator whose parents were killed by the S'sinn, and Jarrikk, a S'sinn Translator whose young friends were killed by humans in the incident that started the war. Nobody has more reason to hate the other race than they do, but they must work together, in a highly unorthodox and dangerous fashion, to somehow stop a new war from breaking out.
I suppose the story I was trying to tell is that old cliché of people learning to overcome differences and find a peaceful solution to their problems. It may not be an original sentiment, but it still seems a worthwhile one.
CD: On top of all the writing, you also act and sing. Tell us about this part of your career.
EW: I've enjoyed acting since I played the role of Petruchio in a one-act adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew in junior high. I was involved in drama and musicals through high school and slightly in university. When I returned to Weyburn from university I was one of the charter members of Crocus 80 Theatre, a new community theatre group (formed in 1980, hence the rather odd name—Crocus, of course, was W.O. Mitchell's fictionalized version of Weyburn). Over the next few years I acted in several plays, directed two, and served on the executive. When I came to Regina to take on the job of communications officer of the Saskatchewan Science Centre in 1988, I became much more involved in musicals, specifically with Regina Lyric Light Opera Society.
Over the years I'd always sung—my father taught at Western Christian College, then in Weyburn, now in Regina, a private high school/junior college/Bible college affiliated with the churches of Christ. The churches of Christ practice a cappella congregational singing—no choirs, no instruments. I grew up in that church, and sang soprano, alto, tenor and bass as I grew up. Then, in high school, I sang in my Dad's chorus, and at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, where I studied journalism, I sang in one of the finest choruses anywhere.
I brought that background to Regina and gained a modest reputation as a local singer. When I became a fulltime freelance writer in 1993, leaving the Saskatchewan Science Centre in October of that year, I did so partly because I had an offer of eight weeks of professional theatrical work with Prairie Opera out of Saskatoon, going on a school tour. (I'd sung in a couple of Prairie Opera and Opera Saskatchewan productions already by that time.)
I did that tour for three years, and in the meantime auditioned on occasion for Susan Ferley, then artistic director of Globe Theatre, Regina's professional theatre company. In 1998 she hired me for her production of On Golden Pond, her last production at Globe. That earned me my Equity card. Since then I've done occasional professional roles in Regina and Saskatoon and other places in the province. However, my usual outlet for performing and directing continues to be community theatre. For instance, this year I directed the classic thriller Rope for Regina Little Theatre and played the lead role of Voltaire/Pangloss in Regina Lyric Light Opera's production of Candide.
Allow me to immodestly mention that there are a number of samples of my singing, and singing by some of the choirs I've been in, online at www.edwardwillett.com/music.htm.
CD: How do you go about getting work as a freelance writer? You seem very busy—do you just start digging into something? Did you make a lot of contacts when you were starting out as a writer? Do you spend a lot of time on self-promotion?
EW: I had a few contacts as communications officer of the Saskatchewan Science Centre that I parlayed into work early on, but essentially, I auditioned for the nonfiction books just like I'd audition for a role. My first book was Using Microsoft Publisher for Windows 95, from the computer-book publisher Que. I frequented a forum on CompuServe where nonfiction publishers occasionally posted, looking for writers. Que posted, I responded, they had me write a sample chapter, I got the contract. My editor there moved to what is now John Wiley & Sons (before that it was Hungry Minds, and before that it was IDG) and hired me for some more work there, which led to additional books. I similarly auditioned for Enslow Publishers, for whom I've written more than half a dozen books, including my recent children's biographies of J.R.R. Tolkien and Orson Scott Card, after I read online somewhere that they were looking for writers. Ditto McGraw-Hill, for whom I wrote Genetics Demystified.
Rosen Publishers, for whom I do a lot of work-for-hire, first hired me when Josepha Sherman was (briefly) an editor there. I noticed her appointment to the position—I think it was in Locus, though I'm not 100 percent sure—and contacted her because she had come very close (as she said publicly at the Winnipeg WorldCon) to buying my YA SF novel Star Song for Walker and Company when she was there. (The publisher died just at that time and the new guy didn't want any more SF. That book remains unpublished.) It so happened she was looking for an author for a book called Careers in Outer Space. She hired me, and after that, her successors continued to hire me.
I don't spend a lot of time on self-promotion because I've got just about as much work as I can handle right now! But I do try to keep my website (www.edwardwillett.com) up to date (it's been around now since 1994 or 1995, so its quite venerable) and I do try to keep track of what various publishers are looking for in the nonfiction field just in case something really jumps out at me.
One self-promotion thing I do is make my weekly newspaper science columns available for free to anyone who wants to give me an email address. I have a couple of hundred subscribers now (maybe more, I haven't counted recently) from around the world. Whenever I have major writing news to announce—a new book coming out, that sort of thing—I append that to the column.
You, too, can subscribe to my weekly science column! Just visit www.edwardwillett.com/columns.htm. All of my past columns are available online on my website at that same URL.
Elsewhere, I post photos, story excerpts, reviews, and all that kind of stuff. I guess that's all self-promotion.
CD: Blogging seems to be the thing to do for a writer. Is it a job-related task for you or something you would be doing anyways?
EW: I'd blog no matter what, I think. I actually keep four blogs: my main one, Hassenpfeffer, at edwardwillett.blogspot.com, one called The Willetts on Wine where my wife and I blog notes about the wines we drink, at willettsonwine.blogspot.com, the SF Canada news blog, with members’ latest news, at www.sfcanada.ca/currentnews.htm, one I post too very very rarely called Walter Twiddle's Twiddlepated Rhymes, which I go to when I have an urge to write doggerel. (I'd never ever call it poetry!) It's at twiddlepated.blogspot.com. (Walter Twiddle is, of course, an anagram of Edward Willett.)
CD: Andy Nebula felt like it had everything a science fiction novel could possibly have. How did you fit it all in? Also, does American/Canadian Idol really scare you that much?
EW: Did it? And here I thought I left out the Singularity, nanotechnology, virtual reality and three-breasted green-skinned Martian Amazons.
I just wrote. It fit itself in.
Seriously, Andy Nebula came about because an exhibit at the Saskatchewan Science Centre on how memory works cross-pollinated with a news story I read about one-hit teen pop wonders in Japan who were washed up at 16. The former gave me my aliens, whose memory doesn't work the same as ours, the latter gave me the music-scene setting and the idea of Sensation Singles. The rest ... I have no idea. Stuff came to me, I wrote it down. It's been more than 10 years, so it's hard to remember anything about the process.
CD: Are you writing the sequel to Andy Nebula?
EW: It's written. Alas, Roussan, which published Andy Nebula, went belly-up. My agent doesn't think he can market Andy Nebula. So right now, Andy Nebula: Double Trouble remains unseen by anyone. I'm toying with the idea of turning them both into ebooks and giving them away for free on my website and blog.
CD: What is your favourite nonfiction topic to write about?
EW: I don't think I have one. I find any topic becomes interesting once you dig into it. Recent favorite topics have included Orson Scott Card, major engineering projects in Saskatchewan, genetics, the element neon, and Jimi Hendrix.
CD: You write a lot about science and scientific developments. What new things are most exciting to you?
EW: I'm fascinated and astonished by the pace of change in medicine, where we're learning new things about how our bodies work every week, it seems. My book Genetics Demystified was out of date before it could be printed, it seemed to me. I'm also excited—and slightly alarmed—by new developments in nanotechnology, and just plain thrilled by all the private space activity we're starting to see. I'm still hoping the daVinci Project, which failed to win the X-Prize, turns Kindersely, Saskatchewan, into a spaceport at some point. And I'd buy a Virgin Galactic ticket in a minute, had I the money.
CD: You've been involved with SF Canada. Tell us about that.
EW: I was just a member for a long time, but I took over the website (which was designed by Karl Schroeder) in the 1990s and then a few years ago agreed to become the administrative assistant, which means I handle membership renewals and applications (though we have a committee to which I pass applications I can't make a solo judgement on). The website has a new “issue” every three months (well, that's what I aim for, anyway) featuring fiction, articles and interviews. It used to be I just updated members’ news every three months, too, but now that's done as a blog which is updated as soon as I become aware of some newsworthy item—books sold, awards won, readings scheduled, that sort of thing. It's made the site much more timely and it really is a great place to find out what's up with SF Canada members, who range from writers just breaking in to established pros. There's also a SF Canada Bookstore, with Amazon.ca links for recent books by members (not just SF books, either; it includes romance, nonfiction, historical novels and other works by our members from outside the boundaries of speculative fiction, whatever those boundaries may be).
As far as the organization itself, it's very widespread, just like the country, and thus most members know each other, and interact with each other, via the listserver, which I also maintain (but not moderate; it's unmoderated). The listserver is open only to SF Canada members.
You ‘know’ in your limbic brain. The seat of instinct. The mammalian brain. Deeper, wider, beyond logic. That is where advertising works, not in the upstart cortex. What we think of as ‘mind’ is only a sort of jumped-up gland, piggybacking on the reptilian brainstem and the older, mammalian mind, but our culture tricks us into recognizing it as all of consciousness. The mammalian spreads continent-wide beneath it, mute and muscular, attending its ancient agenda. And makes us buy things.
—William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
Like a good meal, our town began with bread.
My father and mother, Master Bakers, were the first settlers in Golden Valley, where the soil is rich and dark and crumbles through your fingers, the best soil for growing wheat. They arrived when I was no more than a seed myself, and by the time I took my first steps, the wheat grasses they planted reached past my head, so when I wandered among the rows, all I could see was a forest of swaying gold.
We lived alone and isolated in the valley, but Mama and Papa welcomed travelers into our home, I think so that I would grow up knowing we were not the only people in the world. When I was a little girl, I thought the travelers who stopped for a night and a meal were family, cousins and aunts and uncles. I never voiced this belief, so no one corrected me. I once mistook a white-bearded traveler for my grandfather. He told me stories of the land he hailed from at the tip of the world, where they ate fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and decorated their hair and ears with the leftover bones. I cried when he said goodbye and moved on.
The old man—whose name I later came to understand was not Grandpa, but Spiridon Margolis—spread word of the Master Bakers who settled in Golden Valley, how it sparkled with young wheat, and how the bakers’ bread was better even than that served to kings. After that, we weren't alone in Golden Valley for long.
My parents were not pleased. They had traveled far to leave behind the city of their youth, where they were no better than slaves, forced to bake at all hours of the day and night to supply an aristocratic household with breads, most of which went to waste for the excess. They wanted only to find a place where they could start over, where they were required to bake for none but their own family, which had grown with the addition of my new baby brother, Stephen. But Stephen was only a baby, and not very interesting. I loved the travelers who came with their stories, who sat round our kitchen table, they with their cups of wine or ale and me with creamy milk, all of us munching on cheese and after-dinner breads made with oats and honey and cinnamon. I wanted them to stay so that one day, when I too was a Master Baker, I could be the one who baked for them.
I got my wish. Spiridon was the first to settle, choosing a spot of land on the other end of the valley, so he wouldn't crowd us. He never came to us to ask for bread or if he could join us for dinner. He always waited for an invitation, and to my immense joy, he received them in plenty. His consideration softened my parents, and they soon came to cherish his company as much as I did.
"Spiridon is coming for biscuits and tea this afternoon, Harper,” Mama said one morning. “Would you like to learn how to make biscuits?"
Whatever I was doing, I dropped it in a blink. I was only six, but it seemed like I'd waited ages to begin my training. Every time I watched my parents standing side by side at the baker's table, kneading soft dough with hands that seemed all knuckles, every time I propped my chin on the table and watched the bread rise, wondering at the magic that made it do so, the secret that I would learn when I came of age, I knew I would follow in my parents’ footsteps. I too would become a Master Baker.
Biscuits were a specialty of Mama's that Papa couldn't match. Her biscuits were warm and flaky and melted on the tongue like salted butter. She demonstrated how to sift the flour, how to combine the dry ingredients first, then add the wet. My small fingers mimicked my mother's long, graceful ones as we kneaded dough together.
"What about the magic, Mama?” I asked when we had cut out our biscuits with round metal cutters and laid them out in even rows on a tin baking sheet. “Don't we have to do magic to make them rise?"
Mama's face changed, and for a moment I thought she was mad at me. Then she smiled. “The magic is in your fingers. It's already working. You see."
I did. My biscuits were rising, just like hers. They weren't quite as neat, weren't perfect circles, but I knew they were good. My chest swelled up with pride, like a hen after it lays an egg. I had the magic in my fingers, just like Mama and Papa. I would be a Master Baker.
"You mustn't speak of what you learned today, not to Spiridon or anyone else,” Mama warned. “Part of being a Master Baker is knowing how to keep our secrets."
I nodded, my eyes open wide. I knew she'd broken with convention by telling me about the magic before I came of age.
"Because, if everyone knew our secrets,” she went on, “they would take away our magic. And we would not be Master Bakers, only regular folk, like anyone else."
I didn't want to be regular. I wanted to be special. I would never tell our secrets, not for anything.
Golden Valley continued to grow, filling with settlers from across the land and beyond the borders of our country, people who heard rumors that an entire family of Master Bakers lived in the valley. Dismal working conditions for bakers and their apprentices had prompted the Baker's Guild to initiate a strike, and bread was in short supply in the cities.
The settlers stayed clear of our wheat fields and gardens, but the newcomers were not so shy about knocking on our door to inquire whether we were willing to trade bread for a leather hide or a bolt of cloth. And because we so often needed the items our new neighbors came to trade, my parents spent more time at the baker's table. But they would not trade their freedom for dry goods and leathers and the occasional basket of eggs; instead, they put me to work. I became an apprentice on my eighth birthday, a full two years before my coming of age, and I couldn't have been more pleased.
It soon came time to expand the fields. My parents put some of the settlers to work, tilling and planting, harvesting wheat and grain, squashes and berries and a host of other vegetables and vine fruits.
By the time I was sixteen, the valley could no longer be termed a settlement; it was a full-fledged town, with a general store, an inn and an alehouse, a butcher, a blacksmith. My family had many friends and admirers, and, aside from the occasional grumble or complaint about crowding and lack of privacy, Mama and Papa were happy to see the way the town had grown up around us. The needs of the settlers kept us busy, and although I was still an apprentice as far as my parents were concerned, I was an accomplished baker in the eyes of the town. Folk requested my wares as often as my parents'.
From the beginning, I took to the work with a passion that was unspoiled by memories of grueling labor, as was my parents'. They loved their trade and rarely thought twice about putting in a hard day's work, but their true joy was in each other. They shared a love that only grew with the years. I doubted I would ever find a love like theirs, but the thought didn't bother me. I loved my work and couldn't imagine I had room for anything more in my life.
A knock came at our door one afternoon in the late summer of my sixteenth year. I had flour on my hands, on my nose and cheeks, in my eyelashes. I could see it in the wisps of hair that hovered about my face, clinging like a dusting of snow. My brother Stephen was supposed to stoke the fire in the oven, but he stood idly, picking at his fingernails with the tip of a knife.
"Get the door, would you?"
He pretended not to hear me. He was in the midst of what my parents referred to as his “uncooperative turn.” I didn't remember going through such a stage.
I sighed and wiped my hands on my flour-covered apron as the knock came again. “Stoke up that fire, you lazy fart,” I said to Stephen. “I have orders to fill, and Mama and Papa are busy overseeing the harvest."
When I opened the door, I expected to see the face of Mrs. Tepper, who always arrived early to pick up her order. But the boy standing on our doorstep was a stranger.
I tried to say hello, but the words stopped somewhere in the back of my throat.
He was older than me, but by no more than a few years. His hair caught the honeyed light of afternoon, making it the same color as our sun-drenched fields before autumn harvest. His skin was stained the color of chestnuts, and his light blue eyes appeared to have been bleached by the sun. It was his eyes that caught me and held me, struggling like a butterfly in a net, eyes as clear as dream-waters.
He shifted on his feet. “Are you the Master Baker?"
My hands went to my hair, my face, brushing at the powdering of flour that seemed to cover every inch of me. It puffed into the air between us. “Y—yes,” I coughed. “I mean, no. I'm—Harper. I'm an apprentice. My parents are the Master Bakers.” All at once, I felt very young and rather silly.
He waved at the air, smiling a little. “My grandfather, Spiridon Margolis, said that you—"
"You're Spiridon's grandson!” I wished I could have dampened the words, but they came out like an announcement.
His smile politely, but I could tell my enthusiasm caught him by surprise. “Yes. He told me—"
"Please, come in.” I realized with a kind of helpless dismay that I had interrupted just about everything he said. My cheeks heated and I glanced at his face for a sign of judgment. His smile had broadened to an amused grin, but he hesitated before stepping through the door, reaching out with a tentative toe, as though testing the temperature of a lake before he dived in.
My useless brother looked up from his nails, looked the boy up and down. I was reminded of the way dogs passing in the street size each other up. “What's your name?” Stephen asked.
I stared at the boy, stricken. I'd forgotten to ask his name. In our part of the world, it was considered bad luck to invite someone into your home before you knew his name.
"Jeremy Margolis,” the boy said. He feigned an impatient tone of voice, as though he were tired of saying his name. He gave me a quick wink that Stephen didn't see and I released a breath I didn't know I'd kept.
Stephen tossed aside the knife he was using to pair his nails. “You can stoke the fire,” he said to me. “I'm going to help Pa."
"Pleasure meeting you,” Jeremy said to my brother's back as he dashed through the backdoor that led directly into our fields.
"Sorry about him,” I said. Remembering that I'd left several mounds of dough rising on the table, I hurriedly placed a cloth over them, both to keep in the warmth and moisture and to hide them from the eyes of this stranger. But when I looked back at Jeremy, I saw he was looking everywhere but at the dough. This respect for the privacy of our work made me like him instantly.
"You came to see my parents?"
He nodded. “My grandfather thought they might have work for me in their fields."
"I'll fetch them for you."
I turned to go, but he caught my arm. When he let go, the imprint of his fingers remained in the light coating of flour on my skin. I noticed he did not wipe the flour from his hand. “Grandfather mentioned you."
"Oh?” My neck and cheeks felt suddenly fevered. Had Stephen added more wood to the fire after all?
"I thought you might be willing to show me around the valley, introduce me to some of the townsfolk."
"Are you here to stay then?"
He nodded, and I felt a thrill of excitement.
It was harvest time, and my parents needed the extra help. They put Jeremy to work the next day, cutting wheat. I often found myself standing at the backdoor, hoping to catch a glimpse of him in the fields. And each time my eyes lighted on him, my heart grew wings.
But it was the busiest time of the year for my family, as well as for the field hands. I waited for Jeremy to remind me of my agreement to introduce him around town, but for two weeks, he did nothing but nod and sometimes wave when he saw me.
One day I went to draw a bucket of fresh water from the well and found Jeremy there, filling his canteen. I almost turned and headed back to the house, but he smiled and beckoned to me. This time it was he who was disheveled, patches of sweat darkening his shirt, wet hair clinging to his neck and brow in snaky clumps.
"Are you busy this evening?” he asked. He was breathing heavily. I thought he might shake himself like a dog that's just come from a dunk in the river.
"Well, there's always work to do.” I don't know why I said it. Maybe because it was true. He tipped his head to study me and I quickly amended, “But I suppose the work will still be there tomorrow."
For our outing, I wore the only attire I never baked in: a moss-colored, tiered skirt that brushed my ankles, and a clean, white tunic with subtle embroidery about the neck. I tied my hair up atop my head, leaving a few stray curls dangling along my hairline. He wore the clothes he worked in that day, but he washed up at the well, and somehow managed to look scrubbed and fresh.
Conversation came hard as we made our way into town, but the fault was not his. I was nervous, remembering our first encounter, when everything I'd said and done had been wrong.
But as we walked, he asked about Golden Valley and how my family had come to settle here. He inquired about Mama and Papa and Stephen, and then myself. Soon my tongue loosened and I forgot about my fears of sounding like a fool. I talked and talked, and he listened, with genuine interest, always ready with another question.
We explored every business in town and I introduced Jeremy to all the proprietors. He was unfailingly polite and found something on which to compliment each person he met. They all grinned and made sure to shake his hand when he left.
The sky was the deep blueberry shade of night by the time we finished our tour. We ended up sitting, chatting easily, beneath the bows of a pear tree on the edge of the wheat field. The workers had gone home, and in the distance I could see the lights of my house, small squares glowing yellow in the blue night.
"What do you like to do?” Jeremy asked me, leaning back against the tree. “I mean, besides work."
I frowned. “I don't work all the time. I like to do lots of things."
"Like what?” He was smiling, but it was a clear challenge.
"Well ... sometimes I help out in the fields, and I always visit with people when they come to pick up their orders."
He laughed, and the sound disturbed something living in the tree, which skittered nervously above us. Jeremy stood and picked two pears, handed one to me. “You don't have to be ashamed,” he said. “If work is what you love, then you'll be happy for the rest of your life. You'll always have work."
I folded my arms over my chest and turned my face away, feeling that I was the butt of a joke I didn't understand.
"Me, on the other hand,” he went on, “I'm not sure I know what I love. I've worked the lines at sea; I've been a laborer; I apprenticed under a blacksmith; I even joined a traveling show once. I was a juggler, but I couldn't juggle more than two apples at a time, so that didn't last long.” He sighed and turned his face to the open sky, linking his arms behind his head and leaning against the tree trunk. “Grandfather keeps talking about settling down and growing roots. He says there's no better place than here."
He looked at me and his eyes were darker, as though they'd absorbed the color of the night. “I envy you,” he said. “If I had what you have, I could stop moving, grow some roots."
He let his words trail off and reached over to take my hand.
Weeks passed, and summer closed in on fall and the harvest festival, when the best of the corn would be brought in for a feast, to be roasted over spits in the center of town while the folk of Golden Valley drank and danced and celebrated another year of plenty.
Since that night under the pear tree, Jeremy and I talked every day. My parents made jokes that my work had suffered since I discovered boys. I didn't find these jokes particularly funny and, surprisingly, neither did Stephen. He cornered me one day after I burned a batch of sesame rolls, which I had to bury in the yard, an offering of contrition for the waste.
"Too busy thinking about that boy to concentrate on your work?” Stephen said as I dug the bread grave with a trowel.
I ignored him. In truth, I hardly heard him.
He grabbed my arm and I dropped the trowel. When I looked at him, his face was changed, no longer the impassive face of a boy. “I don't like him."
I yanked my arm away. “Go and fetch another bag of flour from the shed. I'm tired of doing your work for you."
I had not encountered Spiridon since meeting Jeremy, but the day after Stephen made his feelings toward Jeremy known, I ran into my old friend at the butcher shop. He greeted me warmly, but I couldn't help feeling awkward, wondering if he was aware how much time Jeremy and I were spending together. Also, his appearance startled me. His white hair, always so thick and wild that he tamed it with a bit of cord, was undone, and seemed to have thinned and lost its slivery sheen. His arms trembled as he gave me a brief, fatherly hug.
"Spiridon, have you been ill?"
He offered a tired smile and squeezed my hand. “Not ill, dear, just old. I thought Jeremy would have told you. It's why he came to live with me. I need a strong back and a good pair of hands around the house. Can't seem to make do on my own anymore."
So he knew that Jeremy and I talked frequently. But did he suspect that we'd formed something of an attachment? I searched his hooded eyes for some clue to whether he approved, and as though he guessed what I was looking for, he said, “I hope my grandson's earning his wages over in your parents’ fields, not loafing about like boys his age do these days."
I shook my head. “He's been a great help. My parents like him very much.” I watched Spiridon's face for a reaction. His weathered face remained expressionless.
"He's a good boy,” Spiridon said. “I'd like to see him make a home for himself here. A boy that age won't be content long living with an old man like me."
A smile grew on my face and kept growing until I had to turn away and pretend to cough so that I could hide it with my hand.
I was still too young to have an official escort for the harvest festival, but it was understood between Jeremy and me that we would meet there. On the evening of the festival, I dressed carefully in a newly made dress that fit me perfectly, as none of my other dresses did anymore. They were all too short in the legs, too tight in the chest, and most were saturated with flour. This dress was of white linen instead of cotton; its plunging neckline revealed the slight dip between my breasts. This was not a dress for work.
In town, the streets were alight with the fires of roasting spits, and rows of candles burned in lines on long tables set with bounteous fare: roast chickens, pyramids of buttered corn, cinnamon baked squash, bowls of mashed potatoes, glazed honey cakes, all provided by the townsfolk. My family, too, had worked tirelessly for days to provide our addition to the feast. It took three carts to transport it all. We brought every variety of bread you can imagine: corn bread, biscuits, rustic bread, cinnamon bread, bread made with zucchini and carrots, bread with nuts and seeds, dark bread, light bread, loaf after loaf, rolls by the bushel. We outdid ourselves.
But in the rush to compile such copious provisions, I'd had no time for Jeremy in nearly a week. I longed to see him. The moment we arrived in town, before my father could bring the cart to a complete stop, I hopped down and began searching the crowd. But I did not see Jeremy, and so, with half a heart, I helped unload the carts and set out our fares on the tables, taking far less pleasure than usual in the compliments I received.
The feasting and celebrating was well underway and most of the townsfolk were helping themselves to second plates before I saw him. I knew him by his silhouette, lit by the blaze of the bonfire. He and Spiridon walked side by side, very close and very slow. Jeremy wore gray pants and a white, collarless shirt with a blue vest. His hair was washed and fresh; it still looked damp.
"Spiridon! Happy Harvest!” I hugged the old man. He felt like a sack of bones. I was glad Jeremy was here to help care for him, and I thought for a giddy moment of how well we could care for Spiridon together, Jeremy and I.
Spiridon returned my hug, then held me at arms length and studied my face. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jeremy said, “Grandfather, let's get some ale in you.” The two of us led him to one of the long tables and pulled out a chair for him.
When the feasting dwindled, the music began. Couples wheeled into the street, spinning and clapping. Jeremy and I joined the fray, though neither of us were much good at dancing. Still, our rhythms fell to matching, as though we were performing steps only the two of us knew. We laughed and danced through so many songs they all seemed to blend together, one continuous blur of sound. As the hour grew late, the tempo of the music slowed and Jeremy and I moved closer. I circled my arms around his neck, and he rested his hands on my hips. We didn't talk as we danced, so when Jeremy leaned close and spoke urgently into my ear, it startled me. I wondered if I'd been dozing against his shoulder.
"Do you want to be alone?” His tone was concerned, as though I'd done something to give him the impression that this was what I wanted.
"Do you?"
In answer, he led me away from the dancing couples. After pausing on the outskirts of the crowd to look left and right, he gave my hand a little tug and we disappeared into the wedge of space between the alehouse and the general store. Jeremy was my guide now, and I followed where he bade, hardly realizing until we reached the edge of the wheat field that we were heading in the direction of my house. But when I asked about this, he smiled and said only, “Your parents will be at the festival for hours yet."
"They'll know I'm gone,” I protested.
"Not if they've had as much ale as the rest of the townsfolk."
We entered through the backdoor. The house was silent in a way a busy household rarely is, so that it seemed to be listening. Our footsteps on the wood floor made heavy, dense noises, like we were on a stage.
We drifted into the kitchen, where the warmth of the oven lingered from that day's baking. I was used to its constant heat, but for some reason, it made my head feel swimmy, my whole body fevered, and I wanted to fall back on something I knew would catch me and hold me. Then I grew scared, and I turned from Jeremy and placed my hands down on the baking table where I stood most days, for hours at a time, carefully mixing, kneading, testing. This was where I was comfortable, where I was in charge.
Jeremy came up behind me and reached his arms around me to place them on top of my hands. I could feel his breath through the heavy curtain of my hair. I felt that fever all through my body again, a sick feeling that was somehow pleasant. I leaned into him, so I could feel his chest against my back.
"Show me what you do,” he whispered. “Show me what you love."
I tried to turn and look at him, but his arms were firm over mine, holding me in place. “I—I don't know what you mean,” I said.
"I want to see you work,” he said, and then I felt his lips, warm on my neck.
I said nothing. What could I say? At that moment, the meaning of the word “no” was foreign. Why not show him how I worked? The ingredients were there on the table, right in front of me: the flour and sugar, egg and milk, the salt and oil and the bowl of warm, clean well water. And the other ingredient, which we kept in a small, sealed pot—the secret dust that made bread rise, the other half of the Master Baker's magic.
But I didn't have to tell him our secrets. If I only let him watch ... what could it hurt? He would see me soon enough, either way. If we were to have a life together...
I admit, I was already thinking about marriage, though I was barely sixteen. Before Jeremy, I never understood the way my parents looked at each other, or why, sometimes, they disappeared into their bedroom when there was still work to be done. Now I understood and more: I wanted what they had.
I measured out sugar, and a bit of the secret powder, and poured it into the bowl of warm water to dissolve. We waited as the water became cloudy, and I felt Jeremy's breath in my hair, his lips pressed to the skin of my neck.
"What are you doing?” he asked.
"Shhhh. You can watch, but you mustn't speak."
Next I added the milk and oil, mixing; and then the flour, a bit at a time, always mixing, and last, the salt. It would be the most basic of breads, a simple wheat with no variations, no seeds or nuts or fruit.
Then came the kneading, my fingers buried in the soft, pale dough, my knuckles protruding white and strong, the creases of my skin filling with whitish paste. As I kneaded, Jeremy moved my hair aside and kissed my neck, my ears. His hands, which had rested near my hips as I worked, slid down my arms, and then over my hands, until mine disappeared beneath his.
When the dough was smooth and elastic, when my new white dress was covered with flour that blended into obscurity, when his hands and mine were white to the wrists and our breath came in little gasps, I smoothed the dough with oil and covered it with a damp cloth.
I turned in his arms.
"What happens now?"
"It rises,” I said, and our mouths met for the first time.
Jeremy was gone before my parents and Stephen arrived home. I did not realize until the following day how gone he really was.
The harvest was over, and so when I didn't see Jeremy in the field and he didn't come to call, I made a bold decision and sought him at Spiridon's house. I knew the moment Spiridon opened the door that something was wrong.
"He left in the night,” Spiridon told me, his eyelids drooping at the corners. “Didn't bother with a note, but all his things are gone. I shouldn't be surprised. His mother warned me not to not to expect much from him in the way of reliability, but I wanted to give the boy a chance. I don't suppose he told you he was leaving, did he?"
I shook my head numbly. I couldn't manage a word.
The old man reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “Don't worry, Harper. There are other boys in town. Maybe not as handsome, but I'd like to think most of them are courteous enough to say goodbye before they take their leave."
I nodded and mumbled my own goodbye, and when I was out of Spiridon's sight, I began to run. I let the tears come and drain from my eyes. I ran until I reached the wheat field, where I lost myself in the slender stalks, letting them beat against my arms and face. I stopped somewhere in the middle and sat in the dirt and sobbed with the abandon of a child who doesn't understand pain.
It was after dark when I returned home, and the air carried the chill of fall. Mama and Papa were in the kitchen, rolling out dough for cinnamon buns and talking of the festival. Stephen was there too, sitting in a chair by the fire, doing his best to remain uninvolved in the work.
"Where have you been?” Mama asked, giggling at something Father had just said. “We could use another pair of hands here."
I stood there in the doorway, the skin of my cheeks feeling tight from the tears that had wet them. Then I took a breath and smiled and joined in the work.
In the first days after Jeremy disappeared from my life, my heart felt like it had been cinched. Some days I couldn't force down so much as a glass of milk; others I ate sweet rolls and mashed potatoes until my stomach swelled and I was uncomfortable but comforted. I cried every night before I went to sleep and woke with my eyelashes full of dried, crusted tears. And I worried, about what he'd seen, what I'd shown him.
Stephen didn't tease me; he didn't speak to me at all. But sometimes the way he looked at me said he knew what had happened between Jeremy and me, or maybe he only guessed. When Papa asked what became of the blond boy from the field, I had to run to my room and shut the door.
The days dragged by and became weeks, and I stopped entertaining the hope that Jeremy would return with some fantastical explanation, maybe that he'd gone to seek his mother's blessing for our marriage. One day I woke up and felt only a twinge of sadness. It felt wrong not to be miserable, and I called up Jeremy's face in my memory to drive away this seed of contentedness. But I found that Jeremy's face, his lovely eyes and inviting hair, had faded to an impression, a silhouette. He was a traveler who stopped for a night, but who was never meant to stay.
I was walking by the general store one day when I overheard a group of women gossiping about news of a young man traveling the land, trying to make his fortune selling the secrets of the Master Bakers. My heart turned to ice, and I ran home immediately. I found my mother alone in the kitchen. Papa had taken Stephen fishing. I confessed all to her. I expected her to be angry, but she only held me.
"I broke my promise,” I cried. “I've ruined everything. Now the whole world will know our secrets."
She rocked me and smoothed the hair on my brow. “There is more to our trade, to any trade, than a few secrets,” she said. “It takes a lifetime of work and devotion to become a Master Baker. One night can't change that."
I looked at her and saw that her eyes were shining. I hugged her fiercely. I felt clean and empty inside, ready to be filled.
"Do you know,” Mama said, “there is a recipe for a bread filled with jam and fried in oil that your father's never heard of?"
I smiled and shook my head, ready to learn.
Jennifer Bosworth graduated with a degree in English, and went on to teach courses on writing horror, fantasy and science fiction at the University of Utah. She worked for several years as senior copywriter at a marketing company before she decided she'd had enough of convincing people to buy things they didn't need. She has completed two dark fantasy novels, and her short horror story “Shelter” is forthcoming in Midnight Times. She currently lives with her husband and puppy in Los Angeles, and doesn't spend as much time at the beach as she should.
"Charlie, it's time to wake up."
Warm, velvety soft, her voice caresses me out of Sleep. I look out on hard starry darkness, the warm lingering fingers of her words gently easing me to full awareness.
"My dear, we have a crossover."
She does not need to say it. An unnatural coldness ... as though someone just outside the ship was screaming ... the wail unable to penetrate the hull ... something tickling the delicate magnetic field of the central nervous system. A deep shiver passes through me as I check the instruments.
"Do you have him yet, my dear, or must I come out there myself?"
I can't help but smile, despite the unnatural chill. Lucy's timing is perfect, as usual. Though Sleeping, the link kept me fully aware of my ship's status. Twenty days out of Ganymede, her voice still requires time to reach me from Phobos Base even with the enhancement. But she has the uncanny knack to time her transmissions to arrive at just the right moment.
"Thanks, Lucy, but I have him."
Activating the extreme visual magnifier produces a three-dimensional image over my instrument panel. The Ghost has a strange configuration, with a spider-like apparatus clinging to the front as though they had struck some huge ungainly bug. It is heading in nearly the opposite direction, moving out of the plane of the solar system. Jupiter's greedy fingers reach out even at this distance, but cannot quite grasp it.
"You're copying this, Lucy?"
"Affirmative, Charlie. In our timestream it would match up as an Apollo-class spacecraft, circa 1970. Designed for lunar travel only."
"Do you copy the damage?"
Part of the large supporting section appears to be gone, a long piece ruptured and open to space. And the same haunting aura, the same preternatural light emanating from within...
"You know the Barrier Directive,” Lucy says simply, and needlessly. “We must not violate the crossover's integrity."
Early human probings, reaching the asteroid belt ... earth-like spacecraft coming from nowhere and vanishing into nothingness ... the haunting sensation when they appear, the tingling of a ghostly apparition ... terrifying the first explorers as the sudden appearance of the Flying Dutchman must have the superstitious sailors on the open seas of earth. Barely registering on instruments—and always in the crossover zone between Jupiter and Mars.
"Charlie, does it match up with any of the catalogued universes?"
As I look out the viewshield, I picture the missing planet breaking up around me—or more likely, not even allowed to form—the spacetime distortion of the zone leaving a broken ring of lifeless rock in its wake. And the Ghost ships are always familiar, yet somehow alien. I still wince at the memory of a crossover Saturn probe once catalogued with a large black Swastika on its side.
"Possible match to C-4 through C-9 classifications. Significant damage is confirmed, although the onboard systems continue to function at a low power level. Their communication system is very similar to ours and also appears to the functional—"
"We've never contacted one of the Ghosts, Charlie."
The Directive ... fears of a stronger culture overwhelming a weaker ... contagion ... parallels of smallpox, venereal disease—and maybe the most dangerous contagion of all, technology...
And the fear that contagion can spread both ways.
"This is a manned spacecraft, Lucy. They're damaged. We can't just leave them out here."
I don't tell her the code of the mariners. Or the theory that energy cannot crossover, all things being internally coded like human DNA, sub-atomic particles knowing their own. Or the risk of being too close when a Ghost fades away, pulled out of our timestream like a helpless seaman sucked under by a sinking ship. After all, Lucy already knows these things.
"You're not much,” she taunts gently, playfully, “but I would hate to lose you, Charlie."
"It's possible they could be alive. In their timestream, Apollo-type spacecraft may have been designed to complete interplanetary missions. We can't be sure—"
"You can't help them, Charlie."
My visual signal grows fainter as the distance between us increases. I open a wide band channel, and at the same time program an intercept course. I suspect Lucy already knows this too.
"Apollo spacecraft, this is earth shuttle Hermes. Come in please, over."
Across dark waters, there is no response.
"Earth shuttle Hermes calling Apollo spacecraft. My readings indicate you are damaged. Do you require assistance? Over."
I focus and boost my signal as much as I dare without damaging them.
"Apollo, I can help you. Please acknowledge my signal."
Empty silence. As I let the seconds pass, I can't help but wonder what I would do if trapped like that in a primitive air bubble in space.
Altering the direction of my ship is like changing the course of an orbiting planet. It utilizes almost all of my energy reserves, and although some regeneration is possible from drawing on various gravity webs, I will pass well beyond the point of safe return. Lucy knows this from my telemetry, and I'm quietly relieved to hear no order to turn back.
"I have an errand to run, Lucy,” I tell her, trying to match her playful banter. “Don't wait up for me."
The Hermes stubbornly resists change, every atom of its mass struggling against the interference. My original course had been meticulously calculated with all available gravity webs subtly utilized, a symphony of intertwined energy now disrupted by harsh dissonance.
My new arcing course executes perfectly. I swing in slowly to take up a parallel course, gaining rapidly on the shimmering Ghost thousands of kilometers away. My energy readings are dangerously low.
As I gain on the Ghost, the sight through my viewshield is one of a large cone—clearly the propulsion exhaust where ignited gasses once thrust the frail craft on its journey. To them I would seem a behemoth, a monstrous alien spacecraft increasingly filling their viewports. To men who willingly strapped into a tin can held together by archaic bolts and solder, the Hermes would seem like the arrival of a god.
I plan my interception carefully. It is crucial that I not disturb their course, and I record every nuance so any disruption can be corrected later. Their course—their future—must not be altered, even if it lies a million empty years distant among the stars of another universe.
Lucy is right, of course. I have no oxygen for them, no water, no way even to bring them safely onboard. Even my own life support reserves are already far too low.
I brake gently as I continue to close.
Details of the strange craft are now visible unaided through my viewshield. I marvel at the sheer daring of ancient astronauts who explored space in such a contraption. Bolted panels, tangled wiring, primitive antenna and thrusters ... and the stark violent damage of seemingly being ruptured from within...
Such people would have risked anything just to see the planets firsthand. Even people like me, hopscotching in and out of our own timestream between Sleep and the time dilation inherent in the long voyages between planets ... seeing other hopscotchers in various points of our lives, having aged a few days or a few decades in our absence ... spending most of our lives alone in the vast dark waters ... a hopscotcher especially admires such courage as theirs.
The Hermes dwarfs them as I slowly come up alongside. The radiant ship seems to pass into my pale shadow as I delicately ease up close. Windows are visible in their spacecraft, but they're small and I can't see through to the inside.
"Apollo spacecraft, this is the Hermes. I am alongside and ready to assist. Can you hear me?"
Again the long empty silence.
"Apollo, I know I must seem like an alien, but I'm human like you and I want to help. Please respond to my signal. Over?"
There is not even static.
"Charlie, you must turn back."
"I'm going over to them, Lucy."
"No,” she says quickly, anticipating me. “Please, Charlie, you must turn back right now. You're already beyond any safety margin."
We are plunging out beyond the solar system, beyond the grasping fingertips of local gravity. The perspective is strange, just as early astronauts must have felt when first viewing the earth from space. The Ghost and I do not belong here ... and there is no telling when he will fade back into his own timestream.
But such courage...
"Apollo, I'm coming to give assistance. Please standby."
Lucy reads the transmissions, but knows better than to argue further. I disconnect from the instrumentation in the cockpit and break the seal. The void flows in freely. I open the hatch wide and ease out.
I'm careful to follow procedure and attach a safety line between myself and the Hermes. It's disconcerting to see firsthand how awesome she is compared to the Apollo ship. Hundreds of times as long, filling their viewports, beyond their understanding.
I take a moment to prepare myself, and then I leap.
I spread myself wide and sail effortlessly across open space. My movements are the gliding wings of a bird in flight. The safety line lengthens out behind me, an umbilical cord reaching out from mother to stricken infant.
The eerie aura that is the Apollo ship envelopes me. It is about to pass beyond, back to its own universe. And if I am onboard...
I chose a point on an open area where the engine appears to be located. I ease away from the damaged panel and close on a section between small thrusters. The distance closes rapidly and I slow my speed, trying not to even slightly disturb the ship's course. At the last moment I pull back, slowing to within a meter of the hull and coiling a tendril about one of the thrusters. Fortunately, the disturbance is minimal and easy to correct.
I gently pull myself alongside the raw open wound of the damaged section. This is clearly a service module and not the living quarters. Evidence of an internal explosion is all too clear ... a gaping hole, tangled bunches of primitive wiring hanging out in open space, fuel tanks and piping exposed by the ruptured panel.
I come to an edge that angles away to the attachment on the forward section, crinkly gold skin shimmering even through the distracting aura. A lunar lander in our timestream. I see a window close to me, which would be the main section housing the crew. I ease up to it slowly, hoping not to startle anyone looking out.
There is no need to worry. The three astronauts are peacefully strapped into their seats. Even fully suited they are unmistakable. I wipe at the window as though it were dirty, peering closely within. They are adult men, but they seem like cherubs, undeveloped, unprotected, unable to fend for themselves. Three daring young sailors venturing in a small leaking rowboat into the unforgiving ocean.
Carbon dioxide poisoning. Lightheadedness, nausea, disorientation as the oxygen ran out. Eventually a gentle unconsciousness, prior to suffocating. In my timestream they managed to return, of course, but in their universe ... unable to fix their crippled ship, not finding a way to rid their rowboat of the CO2 buildup, knowing only too well that they were doomed ... just babies, frail and innocent, so wondrously formed...
I lean heavily against the window. It comes to me why they are here. Their ship should have swung around the moon, and been doomed to a perpetual orbit about the earth. A constant reminder to the world of their failure—and a constant source of pain to their families. When the end was certain ... they set their main engine on full thrust ... breaking free of the gravity fingers and plunging forever into deep space...
I imagine the terrible moment of decision, their mutual agreement, all eyes on the commander's finger as he pushed the ignition button...
"They're dead."
"I know.” Lucy's voice is gentle, soothing.
"You know how they died?"
"I know, Charlie."
I ease back a little from the window, catching a faint glimpse of my reflection. What would they feel now if they'd lived? Unholy terror, blind panic, seeing only an alien with distended arms resembling tendrils, insect eyes—and a human face all the more ghoulish?
Would they have struggled so courageously to explore space if they knew about rapid evolutionary development? If they knew just how quickly the power of human DNA evolved without the tight confines of the earth?
"Please, Charlie, it's time to come home."
I peer inside one last time. Admiring their fragile beauty, the strangely noble daring I too can take pride in. I caress the window gently, softly. It would have been nice to talk to them, just for moment, sitting by an earth fire...
I am naked without the Hermes close around me. I feel like a solitary vampire returning to his coffin, but it is good to be back where I belong. I reconnect to the ship and gently seal the hatch.
As I pull away, the aura around Apollo intensifies.
I wonder what it would be like to sit by a cozy fire ... did they ever wonder what it would be like to see gravity, feel the cosmic wind flowing about you like a swift current, or hear planets swirling gracefully in their orbits?
"I corrected any disturbance I caused,” I tell Lucy, who I know is waiting. “I left everything the way it was."
"Charlie, are you all right?"
"I hated to just let them go, Lucy. But that was the way they wanted it. I just wish ... I could have done something to help."
"I'm proud of you, Charlie,” I hear her say. “All of us are."
"It would have been nice to talk to them, Lucy. They're us, you know, just a different timestream. They're human beings too."
"Charlie, you did talk to them."
"What do you mean?"
The pause is not like her. I use the strange silence to reset my course to Phobos Base. The gravity fields present a very different configuration, and I need to alter course drastically from the original one. I enter the necessary data and at once begin to accelerate, sucking on some small gravity wells nearby.
"Charlie, some kind of relay was in operation. It may have been an accidental interaction between our universe and theirs. Your messages were received by Apollo and retransmitted."
I look back toward their ship, just a hazy blur as it passes through the Barrier. Beyond is Jupiter ... and the delicate music of the spheres.
"They must have did it on purpose, Lucy. I'm sure of it! During that age we wanted very much to make contact. They must have jury rigged some kind of relay, just in case some alien..."
I don't finish, thinking of their frail appearance.
"But my signals couldn't have gotten through the Barrier..."
"Our readings indicate the messages passed through, Charlie. The signals were retransmitted off their own equipment, using their own energy. You did it, Charlie. Your message got through."
"But, Lucy, I'm no diplomat."
"It doesn't matter. You didn't just talk to them, Charlie—you showed them. That was the best message we could have sent."
They are gone now. Heading back out through the uncharted darkness of their own universe. Until perhaps the next message...
"Are you picking up my readings?"
"Of course, Charlie."
"The Hermes is returning. But ... you know I won't be coming back. The life support reserves..."
She pauses again.
"We may be able to send a rescue ship, Charlie."
Lucy, of course, knows better than that.
"I will miss you, Lucy,” I tell her. “I think maybe I'll Sleep now."
I hear her warm lulling words.
"Good night, Charlie. Sleep well."
As I drift off, I imagine what it must be like to stretch out before a warm fire...
Richard R. Harris is a lifelong resident of the Seattle area. He currently splits his time unevenly between writing science fiction, earning a living, and helping to raise two beautiful daughters. Stories of his have appeared in Absolute Magnitude, Talebones, The Leading Edge, Tickled By Thunder, and online at Anotherealm.com. He also has a science fiction novel titled The Martian Solution available via Barnesandnoble.com. In addition, stories of his have also been awarded first prize in contests sponsored by the Science Fiction Writers of Earth and the National Writers Association. Despite popular belief, he has never been to Mars.
Only from the abyss can one turn and see the world as it truly is.
—Sean Russell, The Initiate Brother
The first few days your face hurts from smiling. But then you get used to it.
Nobody smiles in the warehouse. Or talks much. It's discouraged.
They wake us at dawn. We think. There aren't any windows in the warehouse so we don't know. But the guards turn the lights on and tell us it's dawn so we believe them.
We all get off the floor, roll up our mats and stow them under our hooks along the wall. We then get undressed and hang up the green hospital smocks on our hooks. Men and women together. It doesn't matter. We're all too tired and too hungry to really notice.
We're always hungry.
As we wait in line for the showers, one of the guards puts his rifle down and hands out our breakfast. Usually some week-old bread they can't sell anymore. If it's moldy you scrape off the worst of it and begin gnawing. It's always stale and rock hard.
I think they leave the bread out on purpose. The gnawing cleans our teeth pretty good and they don't have to waste toothbrushes on us. Those are still very expensive. I don't think anyone has started making them again since the Collapse.
I learned to save the hardest parts of the bread till I get in the shower—the water softens it up. It's okay with the guards, they look the other way. My teeth are pretty good. I've always had good teeth.
Most of the guards are pretty nice that way. Let little things slide. As much as they can, but they have a job to do too. Its not like any one of us newbies wouldn't trade places with them in a heart beat.
So after the shower, shaving and relieving ourselves, we are led back to our hooks and put on our uniforms. Underwear, Khakis, denim shirt with nametag, socks and shoes. We all had lots of blisters, those first days inside. Most of us had had our last pair of shoes fall apart a few years earlier. Even though we had all worn shoes almost all our lives, a few years without them and we got blisters when we put a pair back on.
Once we're dressed the guards lead us from the warehouse into the front of the grocery store. As we walk through that swinging door we all place a smile on our faces that will stay there till we walk back into the warehouse at the end of the day.
The first thing that hits you is the smells. They never feed us enough. I think they like to keep us hungry so we appreciate what we have. Being on the inside.
Foxdale Village is the ultimate gated community. I'm not sure how it started, after the Collapse, but the ultra-rich will always find a way to get by. In style.
Other than the walls and guards, it would look like any of the thousands of retirement villages from before. Scores of near-identical condos, a golf course, rec area, movie theatre—even a few shops, and of course, a grocery store.
I know they could feed us more. I know the guards get a lunch. I've never seen a guard eat—they always go to their break room, but I know they go there for lunch. And they aren't as skinny as us. And I've seen them throwing out food—food to be dumped out in the refugee camps.
But when you walk through that door. The smells are amazing. Bread, fresh bread. And donuts. And cakes. And pies. And chicken frying. And usually some roast beef roasting. Things you took for granted before the Collapse. But now you know. You know how important they are.
You learn to swallow a lot of saliva. As you smile.
With all this good food and all of us being hungry, no one eats any of it. That's the first rule.
The first few days a few people couldn't handle it. One guy started laughing and crying at the same time and started stuffing his face with donuts. His cheeks were bulging with tears streaming down them as the guards dragged him away and back to the camps.
A few tried sneaking food but they were always caught. Always. The guards are all over the store watching us, looking left then right then left again with their hands on their automatic rifles. And then there are the cameras. All to keep us from the food. And there is food everywhere; it's a grocery store after all.
They start you on stocking canned foods, things you can't tear open with your teeth. Helps you build your self-control. And builds their trust in you. They could lose a fortune if they let a newbie loose in the produce section.
After a few weeks in canned foods, you move to frozen, then boxed and bagged foods, then produce, then the deli. Man, if you can work the deli they know you can handle anything. And then, if you show the willpower and are quick enough that you can chat up the customers, they train you on a register. I made it to the register in two months. I knew this was my one shot and I wasn't going to blow it.
The register is a big deal. When you're looking at salami all day you can kind of steel yourself against it. But when you are on register, who knows what's coming down your belt. Could be some apples, then a corned beef sandwich, and then some chocolate cake. You've got to be ready for anything.
But also when you're on register you have the most direct contact with the customers. And it's all about the customers. Maintaining the illusion they are paying for. The pleasant, normal environment. Whoever said you couldn't buy happiness has never been rich. Or, for that matter, hungry.
You can't just smile; you have to mean it. And you have to be ready with some light conversation, lots of them want that. There are rules about what you can say to them. You have to think like they do. One awkward comment and it's back to the camps. So you have to be good. Real good. All while you're scanning their items and taking their money.
So this one day after I had been inside a few months, I finished my stocking and they put me on a register. Like I said, I'm good at the register. Fast. Courteous. I hardly notice the food anymore. I like to pick out one item with every customer and say something like, “I've heard the cherry pies are excellent today.” They leave with a smile, thinking they made a good purchase with their thousands of dollars.
I know it'd be safer to just speak when spoken to but I feel pretty comfortable by now. I'm empathizing with the customers. I figure if someone is going to spend as much money on groceries as I used to on a car, well, they should feel good about their purchase.
So this one day I'm working the register. This old guy is coming down my line. They're almost all old. A few of them are my age, but they are the kids of the old rich ones. He's got on one of those banker suits and I'm thinking he was a Wall Street guy before the Collapse. Had enough gold and cash stashed away that he could afford to buy his way in. He looks at me as I'm scanning things and I can tell he's going to talk to me.
"Son, I just can't get used to these prices. You people make a fortune off me every time I come in here.” He picks up one of the oranges he's buying. “I mean, my God, thirty dollars a pound!"
I pick up the orange and think back to what that guard who transferred in had told me. He'd been in one of the orange groves they had got started again. Soldiers everywhere. Guard towers and patrols and barb wire encircling the whole grove. All to keep the refugees out. A cargo helicopter would dash in, load up and head back.
Thirty bucks a pound sounded like a bargain to me, but I say, “End of the season, prices shoot up. Pears only seventeen dollars a pound."
"Nah, I'll keep the oranges but you people are going to put me in the camps.” He laughs. I laugh too. And ring up his oranges.
"Well, I suppose you don't see much of this money."
None, not even much of the food, I think. “I'm fine. They take very good care of me.” I weigh his lettuce.
He sobers up a little. “So were you in those camps?"
For years. I shrug and say, “A little while.” I scan the cereal.
"Are they as bad as they say?"
I remember the open sewage, the food riots, the soldiers firing into the mobs. “Not really. People like to complain. Want someone else to solve their problems.” I scan one of the canned soups and enter a quantity of four.
He smiles and nods. This is what he wanted to hear. “So what did you do before the Downturn? Get much schooling?"
On the inside they always call it the “Downturn,” not the Collapse. I glance at the guard up at the manager's station. He is watching us very closely. This is the longest I've ever talked to a customer. I'm getting nervous. I lick my lips. I graduated from Penn State, worked as a civil engineer. I ring his milk up.
"School wasn't really for me, at least I thought then. Never applied myself. Never held a job for too long either, just day work. That's why I'm glad for this job. Learning a skill. Learning responsibility.” He only has a small bag of coffee. I weigh it. Gold dust would be cheaper.
He smiles again. “That's good. Hard work is good for you. Builds character. Do you have any family?"
Now I'm getting very nervous. Where is he going with this? I see the guard at the manager station has called another guard over. Both are whispering and looking at me. I remember Sarah and Eddie, back in the camps. I say a quick prayer that they are safe and can last until I get promoted enough that I can bring them inside too.
"No. Never found the right woman.” What we're supposed to say. Never tell a guilt-provoking truth. I set aside the two loaves of bread so I can put them on top of a bag.
He smiles again. “That's good. Wait till you're financially stable before getting married. Too many young people today aren't thinking ahead."
I remember our wedding. Sarah had a small law practice and I was a junior partner at the engineering firm. We had a house, cars, savings—even started a college saving account before Eddie had been born a couple years later. All gone now. It had all been electronic, almost nothing hard. No gold, very little cash on hand. All gone.
The old man's groceries are all bagged and he signs his debit slip. He looks at me intently. “Son, I like you. You seem like good people. I know this is unusual, we're supposed to go through the agency and all, but my wife and I are looking for someone to help around the house. Yard work, cooking, cleaning, shopping. Couldn't pay you much, but there is an apartment over the garage—and meals, of course. It's not a big apartment but in a few years, when you choose to settle down, it might be big enough for a small family. Any chance you'd be interested?"
My heart pulses in my ears and I flush. I catch a glimpse of a future. Of bringing Sarah and Eddie inside. She could get a job—maybe here at the grocery, and Eddie could work as one of the boys they have sorting the garbage. And we could live together as a family. And eat together. Every day. Maybe not as much as we used to eat or want to eat, but enough. Again.
Do I dare risk it? This isn't the way it's done. A few years, a small promotion, a few more and another promotion. And then maybe Eddie could come in. And then a few more years and Sarah could come in. Do I gamble it all on this? Maybe get sent back out, but maybe, just maybe, get them in here now?
The old man is waiting for my answer.
And then the dream ends. I see over the old man's shoulder the guard has walked up. He heard the offer. He grimly shakes his head once, while resting his hand on his rifle.
I lower my eyes. I can't look the old man in the eye. “No thank you, sir. I have a good job here. I want to put my time in, work my way up."
The old man smiles one last time as he picks up his groceries. “Well, I have to respect that. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and all that. Have to respect that. I wouldn't want charity either."
I start working on the next customer's groceries. I still smile but I don't talk much. I still have seven hours till my shift is over. And dinnertime.
Craig Rose has tried countless careers, most recently teaching high school before his current gig doing childcare full-time as a stay-at-home dad. He has enjoyed writing science fiction for several years as a hobby and this is his first published story. Most of his other stories are not as light-hearted and humorous as this one. He lives in State College, Pennsylvania with his wife and two sons.
James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, Julie Phillips, St. Martin's, 2006, 469 pp.
Writing a biography of a writer is a tricky thing. A professional writer will have produced hundreds of thousands or even millions of words, both as sold to publications as well as in letters to other people. Such a mountain of fictional words can be daunting to analyse. In addition, most writers have some amount of self-awareness, and will be busy analysing their own lives and their own work; it's very tempting to piggyback on this, to the possible detriment of original analysis. The life of James Tiptree, Jr.—with an overwhelming amount of public and private wordage—is therefore not an unusual challenge for the biography of a writer, but it's still a challenge.
I've also noticed that biography, in general, can be a tricky thing. Does a life wrap up into neat little packages, complete with a message and a narrative trajectory? Possibly, but those would be the atypical cases. Narrative is tempting, though, since it's an old and venerable human impulse. The alternative—to present a shapeless mass of anecdote, arranged chronologically—simply isn't appealing. It's like a minefield, with no ideal choice in sight.
So we come to the biography of Alice B. Sheldon, a woman who lived a long and unusual life, gaining the most fame for herself in the guise of a man writing science fiction. Since her career as Tiptree only started in her mid-50s—the late 1960s—there is a lot of material to cover before the point which most people know. Was her life a simple line leading directly to the Tiptree moment? A narrative that concludes logically and/or inevitably with a manly pseudonym for a woman?
Perhaps. And in some ways, that's how Phillips presents Sheldon's early life. I was a bit alarmed at this “narrative” strategy, since I'm a bit nervous about reading an author's life through their writing. There will always be personal things in an author's work, since if nothing impinged from private life into the fictional sphere then everyone's writing would be identical—there has to be something unique in a book or story, or else why read it! But there's a reason why it's called fiction: writers who know what they're doing can filter their personal life, twist it around, make surprising connections, contemplate the darker aspects, and generally play with it as brutally or as sentimentally as necessary. Life events can be fodder, but fiction does not equal autobiography. Even if it comes anywhere close, it's like one of those stories told in the first-person with an unreliable narrator. You have to spend most of your time deciphering what is really going on.
All that said, I came to agree that Phillips’ strategy works, in this particular case. That's because Sheldon only started writing as Tiptree late in life, and then didn't write anything of equal power once her pseudonym was uncovered only a few years later. Clearly there were some personal obstacles to overcome before she could start expressing herself in this way, and then something about the covering notion of writing as a man let her write and then stopped her from writing once that cover was gone.
Phillips points out in her introduction that Sheldon went by different names over the course of her life. She was born Alice Hastings Bradley, became Alice Davey during her first marriage, and then Alice Sheldon during her second. She was also fond of nicknames, so her own name became “Alli,” after her mother-in-law's formulation, and her writerly persona became “Tip.” Phillips notes that she has “mostly taken the liberty of using the name [Sheldon] liked best: Alli” (7)—this gives the biography a personal flavour that probably suits the material. I'll use “Sheldon” as appropriate in this review.
Born on August 24, 1915, Alice Bradley had an unusual early life. Her parents were amateur explorers of Africa, and they took her on two trips to the “dark” continent before she was 10. The epithet was still apropos at the time: she was often in regions where the tribes had never seen white people before, and members of her party of explorers were the first whites to see gorillas in their natural habitat.
Her mother Mary wrote extensively about the trips, and the difference between mother and daughter became clear early on. In one of Mary's books:
She defended cannibalism as rooted in custom and a dietary lack of protein, and related the horror of the Congolese on being told that whites killed in war without even eating the enemy ... [W]hat to Mary was an ethnographic observation was to Alice a threat: she could all too easily picture people getting eaten. Besides, if getting mad at somebody was a sin in Chicago, why was it alright to murder him in Africa? (33-34)
The Bradleys entertained extensively back home in Chicago, and the family was often written up in the society pages of newspapers. Mary Bradley was a famous woman at the time (if forgotten now), and Alice did not know how to escape her mother's shadow. Much of what Phillips writes about in the first segments of this biography—and later as well, although less so—deal with this mother-daughter relationship.
Phillips is also frank about Sheldon's sexuality throughout the book. She discusses how this worked in light of two things: Alice's never-acted-upon lesbian tendencies and the model set by her mother. Mary Bradley was smart and did things women weren't supposed to do, but she often fell back on her femininity and recommended that Alice do the same. Alice's family organized a debut for her, and she married a boy she met there within a few days. But none of this seemed to help:
As a sexual object—a beautiful woman—Alice was of course a success. But being a sexual object is not in itself an erotic experience, and models for women's sexual subjectivity—for wanting, and not just being wanted—were few and far between. She wanted to be equal to a man, purposeful and exploring, but didn't know how. (84)
Sheldon also lacked in role models in her professional life. This is a slightly different case, since there was clearly another factor at work: she was a precocious child, and never quite found an outlet for her supposed brilliance. This rootlessness plagued her throughout her life, and she moved from one endeavour to another without much result. For example, during WWII she joined the Women's Auxiliary Corps:
It did give her more confidence in her own capabilities, but as an experiment in what it meant to be a woman, or what it could mean, it was highly inconclusive. Ironically, Alice's time in the WAC would end up making it easier for her to pass as a man. In the 1970s, Tiptree's casual references to his Second World War service seemed to confirm his masculinity. Like many things Alice had done, the army made more sense in a male biography than a female one. (138)
In reading the heartaches and hard times of Sheldon's life, early and late, I can't help but think that she was a woman born before her time. Perfect equality might not exist yet in current times, but she would have many more role models for both her professional and personal behaviours. Sheldon struggled with bouts of depression throughout her life, exacerbating her feelings of alienation and lack of self-confidence, and even this depression might be treatable nowadays.
The marriage to Huntington Sheldon, or “Ting” as she liked to call him, seemed to be the best that she could do, in terms of personal happiness and in the fight with her obsessive demons. And things really seemed to have worked out for them, at least until later. The Sheldons met while they were both doing photoanalysis during WWII, they worked for a couple of years in their own chicken hatchery, and then Ting returned to his CIA work, while Alice went back to school to get a PhD in psychology.
This gets us to Tiptree, since Sheldon starting writing science fiction stories after she found teaching in a university setting too draining. So it's halfway through the book that Phillips arrives at a chapter called “Birth of a Writer.” By this point, she has set up most of Sheldon's psychological contradictions and impulses, and marked out the context for her as a person, growing up as a smart and beautiful woman who never quite found her ideal path.
This is where the groundwork pays off, since, like in any biography of a writer, Phillips can't quote whole stories, only enough to give a flavour of the stories. And it's approximately true that the flavour of her life resembles the flavour of her stories. I'll talk about a few of her best/award-winning stories to help tie the biography side to the fiction side of Sheldon's life.
The first story that brought Tiptree any notice was “The Last Flight of Dr. Ain,” a 12 Monkeys-style scenario that was published early in 1969. Another early story, “The Girl Who Was Plugged In,” took four years to get published, and it won the Hugo Award the following year in 1974—it's the story of an ugly girl who animates the body of a movie starlet, and needless to say her fate is not a happy one. Sheldon stuck to her disturbing ending, and her stubbornness paid off.
"Love Is the Plan, The Plan is Death” was written in 1971 and published two years later. It won Tiptree's first Nebula Award. It's told from the point of view of an alien creature, as the creature struggles futilely against the fate dictated for it by its biological and sexual instincts. The title of the story seems to say it all.
"Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” came a bit later in 1974, was published in 1976, and won both the Nebula and Hugo Awards. Some male astronauts are thrown forward in time, and discover that world is now populated by women. No men. What would this world be like? Would some of the more terrifying sexual politics be out of the picture? No such luck ... since it's a world of clones (the only way to survive the epidemic that wiped out the men), and the clones can't really handle the men. The ending is ambiguous only in that the men are either put to death or filed away in permanent isolation.
In the mid-1970s, Sheldon created a second pseudonym, a woman named Raccoona Sheldon. Raccoona didn't get as much recognition as Tiptree, but one of her stories, “The Screwfly Solution,” won the Nebula Award in 1977. It's a horrifying story—aliens attack our civilization by the simple means of amping up the aggressiveness of men's sexuality. Soon men are murdering women all around the world. It's another story with an epitaph of one kind or another for a conclusion.
The Tiptree story I always remember most vividly is “Milk of Paradise” from Harlan Ellison's Again, Dangerous Visions (published in 1972). It's a story of profound sexual and personal disappointment, told in evocative detail. Unlike some of her other stories, there is no death involved, but there is the same sense of biological impulses gone so awry that mad or impossible choices are the only ones left.
One other story that's worth mentioning, at least for its level of pertinence here, is “The Women Men Don't See.” A plane with three passengers in it crashes in the wilderness—a government agent and a mother and daughter. In addition to trying to survive, they encounter some aliens. The mother and daughter make the surprising decision to leave with the aliens. As Phillips puts it: “By showing women longing to leave Earth for the stars, it describes women's alienation in terms any male science fiction reader can instantly recognize” (280). This is the story that Karen Joy Fowler riffs off of in her story, “What I Didn't See"—see the next review. Sheldon withdrew “The Women Men Don't See” from Nebula consideration after it reached the final ballot.
Sheldon wrote two novels as Tiptree, Up the Walls of the World in 1978 and Brightness Falls from the Air in 1985. Neither had the same impact as Tiptree's short work. As is obvious even from my brief summaries, the Tiptree short stories were explosive stuff, and in addition to being well written and convincing, the ideas in each story couldn't help but leave an impression on the reader's mind. The longer works got lost in the mechanics of creating a large-scale structure—the shorter form seemed ideally suited to Sheldon's strengths.
Tiptree as a pseudonym lasted from the late 1960s until 1976. The revelation of Sheldon's identity came because of the death of her mother, which Tiptree wrote about in letters to friends with one detail too many. The obituary for Mary Sheldon said that she had been an explorer in Africa and that she was survived by one daughter—the game was up. Sheldon wrote to some close friends about it—Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ in particular—but the rest of the process of telling people she had gotten to know through the mail was haphazard.
The uncovering of Tiptree as Sheldon marked the termination of Tiptree's productivity. Friends had tried as hard as they could to reverse the impact of the circumstances in Sheldon's early life—surely she could write openly under her own name! But it was all too ingrained, the moment was past. Sheldon's essential isolation and depression were getting worse, and advancing age seemed to leach out the last bits of hope. In May of 1987, she shot her ailing husband and then herself.
Phillips’ biography of Tiptree/Sheldon conveys an overwhelming sense of lost potential and thwarted ambition in one life. At least at first glance. A more hopeful way of looking at it would be to say that Sheldon overcame enormous obstacles—alienation, lack of role models, depression—to write 8 years’ worth of remarkable stories. It's like the romantic lament about the death of Keats—if only he had not died so young! But you can turn it around too: the other way to look at it is to marvel that Keats produced so much in such a short span of time. Likewise Sheldon. Circumstances and time conspired against Sheldon and Tiptree, but there was a happy window when she conspired right back.
The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1, edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith, Tachyon, 2005, 302 pp.
In the early 1990s, a new award was announced and organized: the Tiptree. As the back cover of this volume helpfully points out, the award “honors fiction that explores and expands gender.” What might this mean? What kind of writing would be honoured by such an award? As we'll see, these are open questions, and the Tiptree Award is designed to keep them open.
In 1991, awards in science fiction and fantasy were not the crowded field that they are today. The Tiptree has held its own, however, mainly due to its unique aim and its unique structure. It recognizes no distinction between novels and short stories, it is a juried award, and it has the specific goal of shaking up readers and their understanding of gender. The judges have to figure out the meaning of “best story or novel” in this context, each and every year.
Tachyon, the noted small press, is the publisher of this ongoing series of anthologies. The series tries to represent the award and what it has done—two volumes are already in print, and a third volume arrives early in 2007. An award anthology series is not easy, and a book like this has to cover a number of difficult areas.
For one thing, this book has to be an ambassador for the Tiptree Award; first contact for those who might not have heard of the award before, but deep enough for the old hands. Volume 1 spends more time explaining the award, the jury process, and so forth, than the next entry in the series.
Secondly, Tachyon published the first anthology for the award in 2005, so nearly 15 years of material had already accumulated. How to represent this wealth of goodness? The first book does so obliquely, with a handful of older items and a general focus on the award's 2003 year for the fiction.
The award, as represented in a space-limited anthology, has an additional problem: insofar as I see it, the strongest material has been the novels (in a marked contrast between Tiptree's own work and the award given out in her name). There are no separate short and full-length categories in the Tiptree Award, unlike the Hugo or Nebula Awards, for example. That's fine, since a unified winner works well within the context of a thematic award like this one. But when it comes time to represent the award in anthology form, it breaks down a bit. If the novel winners have been the best exemplars of Tiptree-ness so far, how to represent this in a 300-page collection? It's an open question, but not one with a happy answer.
For setting the context of the award, this anthology relies on a variety of non-fiction pieces. The introduction, written by Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler, does double duty introducing the award and this anthology, with a strong flavour of personal reminiscence. Next up is a piece from Tiptree/Sheldon herself, titled “Everything But the Signature Was Me.” Sheldon wrote this piece to a friend right after the revelation of her identity. Suzy McKee Charnas provides a piece called “Judging the Tiptree” which takes us into the actual process of picking the winners of the award. I found this fascinating, since it seems like a process in constant tumult.
Ursula K. Le Guin is represented here by a talk on the topic: “Genre: A Word Only a Frenchman Could Love.” The editors use key points from this essay to introduce the works by Ruff and Fowler—two works that push the boundaries of what might be generally classified as speculative fiction. As Le Guin puts it: “There are many bad books. There are no bad genres” (68).
The editors write small bits to introduce each piece. The book also has a fairly substantial section at the end, including a list of all winners and shortlists, divvied up by year, as well as acknowledgements and a section of bios for the authors and the editors.
On to the fiction! This volume has no story from Tiptree herself. I don't know why I was expecting one, since this is the award named in her honour, rather an anthology of her writing. In any case, it might have been nice, since Tiptree's stories aren't as available as they used to be.
Two strong stories stand out from the rest of the fiction. Ruth Nestvold's “Looking Through Lace” rests on a relatively simple reversal or secret, but the rest of it is solidly written and convincing. The main character is a young female xenolinguist named Toni—she is called to a planet named Christmas to study the Mejan culture. Nestvold presents a neat puzzle, and she takes the time to present it just-so. It's the longest story in the collection.
Karen Joy Fowler's “What I Didn't See” is a deliberate referencing of Tiptree's famous story, “The Women Men Don't See,” but as the introduction points out, Fowler is playing with many other threads—"primate studies, King Kong, Belgian Congo politics, Tarzan, harems, spiders, and perilous card games” (191). Fowler also feeds some Tiptree biography into the mix as well, and the result is one of the smoothest and most deceptive postmodern stories of this type that I've read. A warning: knowing more about Sheldon's life makes the story much more effective.
The Tiptree Award winner in 2003 was Matt Ruff's novel Set this House in Order: A Romance of Souls. The editors have picked what seems like a good excerpt, but by necessity it still feels incomplete. We get a glimpse of the story: two people living with multiple personality disorder deal with it in as logical a manner as possible. Ruff's most famous novel is the perennial campus favourite, Fool on the Hill, and now I'm looking forward to reading this book too.
A few of the short stories don't work as well as the Nestvold and Fowler contributions. Geoff Ryman's “Birth Days” opens the fiction section of the book. The story skips ahead ten years at a time in the life of a young gay man, a structure which lets Ryman create some sharp bursts of speculation. “The Ghost Girls of Romney Mill” by Sandra MacDonald asks an unusual what-if: what if gender prejudice continued past the grave? Both stories are more mood pieces than satisfying narratives, if that's what you're looking for. Carol Emshwiller's “Boys” is one of those pseudo-Tepperish stories that sometimes pop up in her oeuvre. I like Emshwiller but this one feels a bit rote for her.
The weakest material in the book can be found in two places. Richard Calder's “The Catgirl Manifesto: An Introduction” tries to be a witty satire/engagement with the way gender is de/constructed in academia and pop culture. Unfortunately it fails, sinking under the weight of its own supposed cleverness.
The second place of weakness is unfortunately a major one, and it's a unit made up of the last three items in the book. The editors include three versions of “The Snow Queen,” starting with a new translation of the original by Hans Christian Andersen. Andersen's tale feels quite up to date and sharp, so much so that the two that follow and adapt it strike me as superfluous. Kara Dalkey's “The Lady of the Ice Garden” takes up Andersen's tale and maps it to a Japanese setting. Closing the book is Kelly Link's “Travels with the Snow Queen.” Link's story is a legitimate inclusion, since it shared the Tiptree in 1997 with Candas Jane Dorsey's Black Wine. But it's a case of too much of a good thing; with three versions of the same story in a row, there's not enough distinction between them.
So, a decent anthology: some non-fiction bric-a-brac that may or may not be of interest outside of the context of the Tiptree award, one novel that is now on my reading list, two strong stories, and an assortment of weaker fiction.
The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2, edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith, Tachyon, 2006, 252 pp.
The second volume of the Tiptree Award anthology series features the same editors and the same basic format. This time around, the series has moved ahead to a basic focus on 2004, with a handful of older stories. The heart of the book seems to be Le Guin's “Another Story Or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea” which was first published in 1994. The other material is mostly more recent.
I'm still not quite sure how the novel excerpts might fit best into a collection like this. And this time around there are two; fortunately, the two books that shared the Tiptree Award in 2004, Joe Haldeman's Camouflage and Johanna Sinisalo's Troll, are both top-notch. The excerpts don't do the books justice—of course if it was possible to do them full justice in a shorter length, the authors would not have written novels.
Camouflage is a canny novel written in Haldeman's deceptively simple prose. There are three main characters, only one of them human. Russell is hired to raise an artifact from the Pacific Ocean—he's somewhat of a stereotypical engineer for this kind of a story, but grounds it in his practical nature. Two immortal aliens, both with the power to change shape and mimic human form, are part of the story too, one with a higher regard for human life than the other. I like how Haldeman takes an explore-the-alien-artifact story and gives it a twist, and yes, some of that twist is gender-related enough to draw the attention and approval of the Tiptree jury. The excerpt here gives a short piece from each of the three viewpoints.
Sinisalo's Troll is a different beast altogether. A hot young gay photographer who lives in Helsinki gets drunk one night, stumbles home after an unlucky night, and rescues a troll being beaten by a gang of thugs—how's that for a premise! It's clear to Angel that the troll, who he nicknames Pessi, is not feeling well, but what does a troll need to recuperate? A large part of the charm of the book is in Sinisalo's careful supply of troll history as Angel trawls the internet. I've seen this sort of faked-up pop culture/historical detritus before, but seldom done this well, and almost never to this effect. On top of all the things going on in Angel's life, Sinisalo throws in a mail-order bride who lives a confined life one floor down in Angel's apartment. The magic of Sinisalo's writing is how it all works together. In the excerpt quoted here, the editors take some passages from near the beginning of the book, leaving out much of the results of Angel's troll research.
Like Volume 1, Volume 2 relies on some non-fiction to outline the context for the award. There's more material about Tiptree, in the form of an excerpt from Phillips’ just-released biography of Sheldon. At least it looks like an excerpt at first. In fact it's called “Talking Too Much” and it's in the form of some reflections by Phillips and her experience in writing the biography of a writer who felt isolated and overly expressive at the same time.
Other non-fiction pieces include a letter written by Tiptree to a colleague, a Wiscon speech by Nalo Hopkinson, and a summary of recent research in gender/sex differences by Gwyneth Jones (a bit out of date by now since it was written in 1994).
"Another Story or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea” by Ursula K. Le Guin is the longest story in the book, clocking in at 42 pages. It reminded me of The Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed—classic Hainish tales. Le Guin tells the story of a man named Hideo who grows up on a planet named O. He leaves to do research on a matter-transporter version of the ansible, without saying a proper goodbye to the woman he loves. A wrinkle in time helps him fix that mistake. The Tiptree Award angle comes from the unusual four-person marriages on O.
"The Gift” by L. Timmel Duchamp is relatively solid but a bit odd: Florentine is a travel writer, which in the future is more of a multimedia thing. She has enormous power to bring tourist dollars to a planet. She falls in love, but the love is not reciprocated. I liked this story, since it has a classic feel like Le Guin's novella.
"Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation by K.N. Sirsi and Sandra Botkin” by Raphael Carter is a pseudo-report on a phenomenon where people have trouble identifying the sex of the person they are talking to or observing. Like “The Catgirl Manifesto” in the previous volume, this story tries to play with narrative, in this case presenting itself as debate about an academic thesis.
Volume 2 has three other not so good stories. “Nirvana High” by Eileen Gunn and Leslie What is not my favourite story, since it tries to riff on Kurt Cobain and doesn't seem to go anywhere. “Five Fucks” by Jonathan Lethem is a weird and confrontational story, about two beings who gradually degrade every time they sleep together. “All of Us Can Almost...” by Carol Emshwiller covers some familiar material for Emshwiller fans. It feels very Tiptree-ish. The Lethem story is from 1996, while the other two are from 2004.
And that's pretty much it. I like how the volume ends: “Kissing Frogs” by Jaye Lawrence wraps up the book, with a light piece with a nice twist. As the editors point out, this one is nearly irresistible as an endnote. But Volume 2 overall feels a bit like a ghost or a shadow of a full anthology. I think that's partly a function of trying to excerpt two novels rather than just one. As I've pointed out, Volume 3 is due to arrive soon—like any strong award, the Tiptree marches on. If the winners or nominees in a specific year are not to every reader's liking, the award reinvents itself the next year.
Tiptree's work is not as easy to find as it once was. Her two novels are not in print, and the original short story collections are long gone as well. Tachyon has reprinted Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, now the only thing in print.
Information about the Tiptree Award can be found at the website www.tiptree.org, complete with winners and a handy reading list.
James Schellenberg lives and writes in Ottawa. He currently works for science.gc.ca, a site which tries to organize science information for the government.
As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.
—Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
Ebner Mosby: one hundred twelve years old.
Dinner roll: ten days old.
Ebner used his fork to turn the roll over on his plate. There was blue mold on the bottom. This made Ebner angry. Why couldn't they check the bottoms? Weren't people supposed to eat the bottoms and the tops? Couldn't they t-mail up a crate of fresh rolls from Earth anytime of the day or night? Ebner dropped his fork into his creamed corn and picked up the moldy roll. Gripping it like a baseball in his bony hand, he scanned the dining room for a target. He had to act quickly while the purpose was in him, for he knew that ideas were fickle friends.
It wouldn't make sense to hit one of the other residents—they were victims just like he was. Finally, he saw a nurse, a thin, blurry woman named Lana. She was wearing her green Sunset Manor uniform. She would do.
Ebner lowered his brow in a futile attempt to sharpen his focus. He stroked the roll with his thumb and bumped his gums together, mumbling captive, inaudible curses behind his drawn lips. This would be for all of Sunset Manor's residents, and would avenge every bite of sorry pig slop that had been set before their dim eyes. Ebner raised the roll over his head while sucking air through his nose. His elbow popped. He held his breath. Lana was moving, moving. Still moving. Difficult to hit.
She stopped. Ebner's mouth sprang open to release the growl that had been clawing at his uvula like a phlegm-caked tonsil-demon. His arm arced forward, elbow rat-a-tat-tatting like a junior varsity band snare. He released his grip on the roll, but his timing was off. He let go too late and the roll flew horizontally into the face of the old woman seated across the table from him. She was only four feet away.
"Wha!” she cried, sprinkling her plate with specks of deviled ham. She raised a trembling hand to the red spot on her cheek where several bits of roll had sought refuge in the folds of wrinkled flesh. A few crumbs fell free as she rubbed; others sank further from view, swallowed by the jiggling, age-stained surf.
"Ebner!” said Lana, the nurse. She moved toward the table. As she drew nearer, she became less blurry but remained just as thin. “What was that about? Huh?"
Ebner looked up at the nurse but said nothing.
"Why'd you do that, Eb?” Lana asked, wiping Eva Polk's face with a napkin. “Why?"
Ebner smacked his lips and watched a tear fall from Eva's yellowed eye. He remembered being mad, but for the life of him he couldn't remember why. Had Eva done something to him?
"Why'd you do it, Eb?” Lana asked.
"Well,” he said, clearing his throat, “I ... I haven't the foggiest.” He would have offered a reason if he'd had one in mind.
"If I see anything like that again, you'll be eating in your room for days,” Lana said. “All by yourself. Do you understand what I'm saying, Eb?"
"Yes ma'am,” Ebner said. “Yes I do."
"Okay. Now, what do you say to Mrs. Polk?"
"I'm sorry."
"Okay,” Lana said. “Now finish your dinner and be good. I think I'd better check your med chart."
Lana walked away, watching Ebner from the corner of her eye. After a minute, Donald Roach, who was seated to Ebner's left, leaned over and chuckled and said, “That was utterly brilliant, boss. Brilliant! But, why'd you do it?"
Ebner turned and stared at his best friend's metallic stroke cap as though he were seeing it for the first time. He watched the blinking green LEDs on the silver hat, then met his friend's gaze and said, “I haven't the foggiest.” Roach's smile was as contagious as ever, so Ebner smiled back and then licked the creamed corn off the handle of his fork.
Ebner took backward baby steps toward the waiting embrace of his favorite chair next to the Space Walk. When he could finally feel the chair's pressure on his calves, he gripped the crook of his cane with one hand and reached behind himself with the other. He patted the chair's arm, grabbed it, and then lowered himself to a seated position while gripping his cane to control his rate of descent. Once comfortably situated, he blew a long breath and propped his cane against his leg. He belched and prayed the hiccups wouldn't come.
A few grown-up steps from the tips of his slippers, simulated tile flooring met real glass. Below the glass glowed Earth, and all around Earth twinkled satellites and shuttles and orbiting stations of every imaginable purpose. Ebner had been told that some of those stations were nursing homes, like Sunset Manor, and that some of the largest ones were cities populated by tens of thousands, but he could never remember which ones were which. Some days he couldn't even remember what to call the giant blue ball under the glass. But it was sure pretty.
The Space Walk was one of the manor's most eminent architectural features. It spanned a breadth of fourteen feet and extended twenty-nine feet perpendicularly from the nearest wall. At the wall, the glass floor curved sharply upward and formed a nine-foot-high window through which the moon was often visible. The nurses were the ones who had started calling the glass portion of the floor the Space Walk, and most of the residents now called it that too. But to Ebner it was just a window in the floor, and it was made of glass, and there was no way—not ever, never, nohow—he was going to set foot on it.
"Here I go, Ebenezer,” Roach said, stepping past Ebner's chair and waltzing onto the glass. “Try and stop me, old scrooge. Try and stop me. Oh, too late. I'm outta reach!” Roach walked to the middle of the glass and danced slowly about with his arms waving above his silver-crowned head. Elderly women watched from the chairs and couches lining the transparent walkway. “Did you hear that?” Roach asked, standing still and cupping a hand behind his ear. The lights on his cap were blinking green. “Was that ... was that a crack? Help me! I'm falling!"
"Stop it, fool!” Ebner said. “Get off there."
"Come get me."
"No. Get off."
"Come get me."
"No! Stop it. You're gonna give me the hiccups."
"Scared? Scared you'll fall through three feet of glass and do the ol’ reentry burn? Is that it? Woohoo! Woohoo! Look at me go! Bet you couldn't move like this at a hundred and five.” Roach danced in circles on the glass with Asia six hundred miles below the soles of his loafers.
Ebner banged the bottom of his cane on the simulated tile floor. He stood up, hiccupped loudly, and said, “My wife!"
"What?” Roach asked.
"I just ... I just remembered. My wife's in my room. I've got to go.” With the rubber toe of his cane squeaking ahead of him and the hiccups coming on hard, Ebner began a fast baby-step shuffle around the edge of the Space Walk and toward G-33.
"What are you talkin’ about?” Roach asked, shadowing his friend.
"She's in my room,” Ebner said. “I keep for—hiccup!—getting. I've got to go."
"Your wife died, Eb. Way back."
"No."
"Yeah. She got Leushaun's Syndrome. Remember? That was something like eighty years ago."
"No."
"Yeah. I was at her memorial service. You were my boss back then. I worked for you, remember? We were engineers."
"Shut up."
Roach shook his head. “Okay, let's check your room. Maybe she's in there. Only one way to find out."
Minutes later, Ebner entered his room and turned on the light. His hands were shaking; his thighs burned. A sharp pain clawed at his chest and caused his left arm to tingle.
Roach looked down at his friend's hip pockets and waved a hand in front of his nose. “I think you better check your pants, bub."
Ebner scanned the room while bubbles of saliva oozed from the corners of his bluish lips. The bed was empty. Stuck to his wrinkled pillow case was the tongue-polished watermelon Jolly Rancher he'd been sucking on when he fell asleep the night before. The chair in the corner was vacant. He stepped to his dresser and looked down at the clock on its top. It was an old clock made of olive wood in the shape of a cube. Each face of the cube was equal in width to the length of a man's hand, and the wood was carved decoratively and stained to bring out its hearty grain. Projecting slightly from the front of the cube was a round, white clock face, four inches in diameter with black hands and numbers and a narrow gold rim. The second hand was moving. Ticking, ticking, ticking.
Hiccup!
"What's wrong, Eb?” Roach asked.
Ebner said nothing.
"You made that clock for Kori,” Roach said. “That's what you told me once.” He picked up the clock and looked on the bottom. “See. There's your initials, and look. You carved the date. 2532. That was ... hmm. I think that was the same year she passed away."
Ebner stared blankly at the letters and numbers.
"What's on your mind?” Roach asked, setting the clock back on the dresser.
"Well,” Ebner began, “I ... I haven't the foggiest."
Roach patted his friend's shoulder. “It's okay, buddy,” he said. “You're just having one of those days."
Lana held a tiny plastic cup against Ebner's lower lip and said, “Open big.” Ebner obeyed, and Lana tipped the cup and watched an octet of colorful pills tumble into the darkness of Ebner's mouth. She handed him a cup of water and he washed the pills down. “Good job,” she said. She picked up one of Ebner's hands. “When's the last time Sheila cut your nails?"
Ebner looked down at his nails. He could remember the day Sheila had clipped them next to the Space Walk. She'd done his toenails, too. “Over a month,” he said.
"That's too long,” Lana said. “We'll get you taken care of."
She walked from G-33, leaving Ebner alone in his chair in the corner. He held his palms up near his face and curled his fingers so that his long, yellowish nails were lined up before his eyes. A few were chipped. And there were faint, silvery scars on three of his fingers. Old scars. Scars from his youth, from the days when he first started making things with wood and learning to respect chisels and blades. For the moment, he could remember those days. He could remember the scream of a power saw and the magical, primeval smell of sawdust. Yes, he could smell it right now, as though a fine mist of it were drifting through the air around him and catching the shaft of sunlight streaming through the shop window.
He looked down at the gold ring on his left ring finger. It was a simple, thin band with no stones or engravings. It was scratched and scuffed and old, like his fingers. As far as he knew, he had always worn it.
"Knock knock, dirty old man.” It was Roach at the door. “What are you doin’ now?"
Ebner looked up from his fingers and said, “If I remember something important, and if I tell you it's important, will you help me remember it later, when I've forgotten again?"
"I, uh ... huh? Come again."
Ebner frowned.
"Just kiddin', boss,” Roach said, his words slurred. He wobbled and grabbed the door frame. “Of course I'll help ya ... remember.” He raised a hand to his forehead, just below the blinking red lights of his stroke cap. “Think I better ... sit down.” He limped to the chair in the corner of Ebner's room.
"You're having another stroke,” Ebner said.
Lana entered the room and silenced her beeping pager. “Let's have a look,” she said, walking to Roach and opening a panel on his metallic cap. She pressed a reset button and the lights on the front of the cap changed from red to green. She watched as a tiny servopump sucked the last drop of thrombolytic cocktail from a thin, transparent reservoir, then removed the empty reservoir and replaced it with a full one she'd been carrying in her pocket. After reading Roach's pulse rate and blood pressure from a tiny screen, she closed the panel on the cap and undid the top four buttons on Roach's shirt. She checked the adhesive electrodes on his chest and then buttoned his shirt back up. She knelt in front of him.
"Talk to me, Mr. Roach,” she said.
"What do you want me to say?” he asked.
"You sound pretty good. I'm afraid you're gonna live."
"Really?"
"Lift your right hand. Now your left hand. Right foot. Left foot. Now smile. Perfect."
"Want me to dance?"
"That won't be necessary."
The nightlight cast a meager yellow glow upon G-33 and its contents. Ebner lay in bed with his back to the nearest wall and said his goodnight prayers. He looked over at the empty chair in the corner and wished Kori were sitting there wearing one of his t-shirts for a nightgown and reading a book or just smiling at him. He felt proud for recalling her name. Kori. His mind had a knack for digging deepest right before he fell asleep, but he couldn't always trust the mental artifacts it unearthed. Along with his brief bedtime clarity came a cruel form of creativity, or so it seemed, for buried along with a century's worth of recollections were strange notions that resembled memories but must have surely been bits of fancy.
Ebner caressed a green apple Jolly Rancher with his tongue and closed his eyes. He thought about her. Kori. As long as he could keep her name in mind she was with him. He opened his eyes and looked at the clock on the dresser. The second hand was moving.
Kori. Roach was right about her. Ebner could remember now. Funny how his memory could come and go like a spoiled brat with a will all its own. For now, he could remember her memorial service and her parents’ tears and the marble urn on a gold stand. She really had come down with Leushaun's Syndrome. She really had been given three months to live. She really had been wonderful.
Ebner's eyes blinked twice and then stayed closed. His mouth eased open and his glossy piece of candy, green as an emerald and no bigger than a pea, fell out and stuck to the corner of his pillow case. His eyelids were stone still for a while but then began to undulate as the pupils beneath darted rapidly back and forth.
"No,” he whispered to the room. “He's wrong. We'll get another opinion, or five more opinions if we have to. You're gonna be fine. You'll be the one crying at my funeral, not the other way around."
"Are we sure about this?” Kori asked as they boarded the J-ring tram.
"You tell me,” Ebner said, pausing just inside the tram at a panel of buttons. He pressed the one marked 23. “This was your idea, remember?” He asked the question as though he really believed the idea had been all hers. But he'd been the first to actually use the word elope. The simple truth was that he wanted to get married every bit as badly as she did. He was twenty-four years old, and he was ready.
Kori sighed as she took a seat. Ebner sat down beside her and grabbed her hand.
"Mom's gonna kill me,” she said. “She's really gonna kill me. She's wanted to plan my wedding since I was born."
"Then let her. It's not too late to back out. I can call the judge right now and cancel.” Ebner reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone.
"No! I don't want Mom planning my wedding. She'll go overboard and spend a fortune on flowers that'll just wilt. They can't afford it."
"Just tell her you want a tomboy wedding."
Kori gave him the evil eye. “Yeah, right."
"Seriously,” Ebner said, trying not to smile. “Everyone can wear jeans and we can get married on Earth by a pond and then go fishing."
"I said my mom wanted to plan it, not my dad."
A series of beeps signaled the tram's immanent departure. The door whisked shut and the tram accelerated as a computerized female voice announced, “J-ring tram leaving Spoke Eleven. Next stop: Spoke Fifteen."
"Look,” Ebner said, turning in his seat to gaze straight into Kori's brown eyes, “you're not a teenager. You can do whatever you want. If you want to get married today, that's fine with me, but don't do something you're gonna regret. There's no pressure from me."
Kori's eyes filled with tears. She wiped them and asked, “What do you want to do?"
"Whatever you want to do."
"No. What do you want to do?"
"You really want to know?"
"Yes. Please."
Ebner looked away, then looked back and said, “I want to get married right now and if I have to wait one more day I swear I'm gonna kill something or break something expensive."
Kori burst out laughing and then buried her face in his shirt and cried while he held her. He stroked her brunette hair and rubbed the back of her neck until she calmed down.
"I love you so much,” she said.
"I love you, too,” he said.
"Put your phone away. And talk about something so I won't think about my mom."
Ebner leaned over and whispered in her ear. She giggled and slapped his arm.
Ebner opened his eyes and tried to focus. He could see green lights pulsing amidst the shimmer of chrome. Then Roach's face became clear. It was only an inch away. “Hey!” Ebner said. “What're you doin'?"
"I thought you were dead, boss,” Roach said, stepping away from the bed and waving a hand in front of his nose. “Had to make sure you were breathin'. What's with the clock? Quit workin'?” Roach sat down on the chair in the corner.
Ebner realized that his arm was draped over his wooden clock. Apparently he'd been sleeping with it like it was a teddy bear. He sat up—an ordeal that took a good bit of straining and groaning—and looked down. A pink groove marked the place where his arm had been resting on the wood. The cube was there in his bed, but in place of the clock's white face was a black, four-inch-diameter hole. Ebner frowned.
"What happened to my clock?” he asked.
"Up there,” Roach said, pointing. “On your dresser."
Ebner turned his head and saw the clock face and its attached battery-powered mechanism lying face-down on the dresser. “Who did this?” he asked.
"You did, I guess,” Roach said. “But why?"
Ebner peeled the remnant of his green apple Jolly Rancher from his pillow and popped it into his mouth. “I think I had a dream,” he said.
"About what?"
"I haven't the foggiest."
"Well, you better get ready for breakfast. I double-dare you to hit Eva Polk with a boiled egg. Right in the kisser! I'm talking about a peeled boiled egg, of course."
Ebner frowned and picked up the cube of olive wood. He held it close to his face and looked down into the hole where the clock face had been. “I think my wife's ... in here,” he said. “That's what I need you to help me remember. My wife's in here."
"Okay,” Roach said. “I'll help you remember. Now, let's go eat. I'm serious about Eva Polk. If you get grounded I'll sneak in here and eat with you so you won't be by yourself. What do you say, old man?"
Ebner looked into his friend's eyes. The two stared at each other for several seconds.
"What?” Roach asked.
"Did I tell you something?"
"Yeah."
"What?"
"You're wife's in there. In your clock. Don't worry, I won't forget."
"We need to get her out,” Ebner said. “I don't have much time left. We need to get her out before I die."
"How?"
"I ... I haven't—"
"Wait,” Roach said, “let me guess. You haven't the foggiest?"
Ebner strained to remember. He squinted down at the hole in the cube of olive wood and tried to think. What was her name again? What was her name? It hurt so bad not to remember. It was like abandoning her. He saw a tear splash against the wood.
"Oh, come on,” Roach said, standing up and walking to the bed. “Give me that.” He took the hollow cube from his friend and looked down into the hole. “Yeah,” he said. “I see her. She's in there all right. She sure is pretty. I don't remember her being so tiny, though."
"Let me see!” Ebner said as tears streamed down his cheeks. “Give it back!"
"Hey,” Roach said, still looking into the hole. “There really is something in there.” He tried to reach into the hole, but his hand was too big. He turned the cube hole-down and shook it. Nothing fell out. He looked back into the hole. “You got a pencil or something around here?"
"I, uh ... I haven't the foggiest."
"Of course you haven't. Why would they let you have a pencil, anyway? You'd probably ram it through your eardrum.” Roach opened Ebner's top dresser drawer and rummaged through its contents. “What a bunch of worthless junk. What do you need with a nasal aspirator? Ah! Here we go.” He picked up a chopstick and shut the drawer. “Thank goodness for Chinese Night.” He stuck the small end of the chopstick through the hole. “Looks like a little black box in the back corner. Do you remember building this thing with a clip inside to hold something? Have you been hiding something?"
"My wife."
"Got it,” Roach said. He set the chopstick on the dresser and turned the cube upside down. Nothing fell out at first, but something banged around inside the cube as he shook it. Finally, a black box, barely small enough to fit through the four-inch hole, fell out and landed in his palm.
"Bring back any memories?” Roach asked.
"What?"
"Never mind.” Roach opened the box's hinged top and dumped its contents onto the dresser. There were three items: a woman's wedding ring, a tightly folded piece of paper, and a small charcoal-gray cube with no features other than a peculiar iridescent quality that seemed at odds with the matte finish of its surface. Roach picked up the cube first. “Well, I'll be a monkey wrench. It's been a long time since I've seen one of these."
"What is it?” Ebner asked.
"A five terabyte data block.” Roach set the block on the dresser and picked up the ring. “This belonged to Kori. I can still remember when she had it on her finger."
Ebner reached out for the ring and Roach placed it in his hand. Ebner cupped the ring, hung his head, and sobbed.
Roach picked up the folded piece of paper and opened it. It was stiff and brittle and fought to stay folded. Roach fought back and finally won. The paper was covered on one side by writing. As Roach read silently, he backed up and then plopped down on the chair in the corner. After several minutes, he looked up at Ebner and then at the data block on the dresser. “No way,” he said, shaking his head. “No ... way!"
Ebner glanced at his friend, then looked down at his hands and slid the woman's wedding ring onto his left pinky. It slid all the way down. He wiped his eyes and said, “She stopped wearing it when she started losing weight. It was loose on her finger and she was afraid she'd lose it."
Roach stood up, walked across the room, and closed the door. He walked to the bed and sat down at Ebner's knees. “You need to read this,” he said, holding the paper out.
Ebner took the paper and stared at it while Roach leaned over with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. After a few minutes, Roach looked up and asked, “Well?"
"Well what?"
"Have you read it?"
"I don't read anymore."
Roach sighed and took the paper back. “Can you listen while I read, then? Can you try real hard to listen to every word very closely?"
"Yes."
"Okay.” Roach rubbed his face, took a deep breath, and glanced at the words. He looked back at Ebner and said, “This is your handwriting. This is how you used to write, so listen up. This is important."
"I'm listening."
"Okay.” Roach began to read. “To whom it may concern: If you are reading this note, then I have either died or been otherwise separated from my clock and the enclosed memory cube. I cannot imagine how many years have passed, nor how the world has changed, but I hope for Kori's sake that there is goodwill in the hearts of men and that someone will be merciful enough to help her.
"I had to do what I did, because she is dying. The doctors diagnosed her illness as Leushaun's Syndrome and gave her three months. That was nearly three months ago. Despite her steadfast beauty and healthy appearance, she has begun to show the subtle but ominous symptoms that come with the final stage. I cannot bear to watch her die. Not yet, anyway.
"I won't ever find anyone else like Kori, so I'll never marry again. This is not a vow; it's simply what I know. It is my hope that she and I might be reunited in my last days, and that we can die in each other's arms. She knew nothing of my plan. She thought I was sending her to a hospital on New Mohall for treatment. When she asked me about the nature of the treatment, I told her that it was a surprise. She expected to be back in a few hours. I initiated the t-mail transmission myself, and she blew me a kiss from the digitizer stall just before being encoded. Instead of sending her away, though, I downloaded her onto the enclosed memory cube. This was deceptive and highly illegal, but I could think of no other way. There is no cure for LS.
"I lied to her parents and told them that she had died after instructing me to have her cremated immediately. I arranged for a fake memorial service and filled an urn with ashes that I had altered to resemble those from a human cremation. May God forgive me. As you pass your own judgment on me, remember that she would have died within days.
"Please help my wife, Kori Hanna McCain Mosby, SS 744-64-7475-986. She is the most wonderful person I know. Signed, Ebner James Mosby. August 1, 2532."
Roach looked up from the paper. “Do you understand what I just read, Ebner?"
"I ... yes. I remember now. Seven four four six four seven four seven five nine eight six. How could I have forgotten?"
"If Kori is really stored on that block..."
"She is."
"Do you realize what this means, Eb? Do you have any idea?"
"Yes,” Ebner said, his eyes glistening. “We can die together."
"No,” Roach said. “That's not what it means, buddy. They found the cure for LS two or three years ago. They found a cure! Kori can live. If we can recover her from that block, she can live."
Ebner lay back in his bed and stared at the ceiling. He bumped his gums together and scratched his cheek with his long, yellowed fingernails.
"Can you believe this, boss? You saved her life! How does that make you feel?"
"I ... don't know.” He would have offered an answer if he'd had one in mind, but at that moment he just felt very confused.
Roach stood outside the door marked DIGITAL MASS TRANSMITTING & RECEIVING—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Ebner stood beside him resting on his cane. Roach studied the keypad on the wall next to the door. On the pad were twelve keys marked 1 through 9 plus *, 0, and #. Four of the keys—the 5, 6, 7, and *—showed obvious signs of wear. The others looked brand new. Roach looked around. Once the hallway in the vicinity of the door was mostly vacant, he started pressing numbers.
*567. Nothing.
567*. Nothing.
*765. Nothing.
765*. Nothing.
"Come on!” Roach whispered. “I've seen them do this. They use the same code all over the station.” He closed his eyes. “Okay, okay ... I think I got it.” He glanced up and down the hall again and then wiggled his index finger. “I think it's the ol’ pyramid trick."
*56765*. The door's locking mechanism clicked and a tiny, green light glowed on the keypad. “All right, then,” Roach said, opening the door and peeking inside. “Nobody's home. Come on, boss.” He led Ebner into the room and shut the door. A control console occupied the middle of the small room and faced a mass digitizing stall large enough for one person or a stack of boxes. Hanging from a hook on the side of the control console was a red, metal fire extinguisher.
Ebner looked around and asked, “What are we doing?"
"Remember this room?” Roach asked. “This is the first room I saw on the station. Did they t-mail you up or send you on a shuttle?"
"I haven't the foggiest."
Roach pulled the five-terabyte data block from his pocket and stepped to the console. Ebner followed. Roach scanned the control panel, looking for a block receptacle. He kept looking. And looking.
"We got a problem, boss,” he said, pointing to a row of small, circular receptacles. “I was afraid of this. This machine won't take a memory block.” Roach held up the iridescent cube in his hand. “This thing's obsolete. Everything's set up to take petarods."
The door to the room opened. Roach slipped the memory cube into his pant pocket and donned an expression of ignorant bliss.
"How'd you guys get in here?” asked a technician wearing a Sunset Manor uniform. “What are you doin'?"
"I ... I can't rightly say,” Ebner said.
"Where's the ice cream?” Roach asked, sticking a wiggling index finger into one of his nostrils. “Mama said we could have some.” His cap was blinking green.
"You guys need to leave now,” the technician said, holding the door open. “Get out of here."
"Not until we get ice cream,” Roach said.
"The ice cream's out here,” the technician said. “Come and look."
Roach smiled and patted Ebner's arm and said, “Let's go! I want chocolate."
"Chocolate gives me the hiccups,” Ebner said, following Roach toward the door.
"Then have vanilla."
"Vanilla gives me dairy gas. Do they have Jello?"
Roach followed Ebner to the edge of the Space Walk. As Ebner began his backward baby-step shuffle toward the overstuffed seat of his favorite chair, Roach grabbed his arm and stopped him.
"Don't,” Ebner said, pulling his arm away.
"Look out there,” Roach said, pointing toward the nine-foot-high window in the wall. “That's New Mohall."
"Where?"
"Right there,” Roach said, still pointing. “See the two shuttles moving side-by-side? They just look like dots of light. They're heading right toward New Mohall."
Ebner squinted. He could see so many satellites and stations and glints of light that he had no idea which one his friend was talking about.
"See it?” Roach asked.
"No. They all look the same."
"Come here,” Roach said, stepping closer to the window.
"Why?"
Roach moved closer to his friend and spoke quietly. “Do you remember what I read to you in your room? About Kori?"
Kori. Ebner knew that name. “Kori,” Ebner said. Now he could remember. “Yes."
"Well, if we're gonna recover her from the data block, we're gonna have to go there.” He pointed toward the window again.
"Why?"
"My grandson lives there,” Roach said, taking hold of Ebner's arm and slowly leading him toward the window. “My grandson's a smart kid, see. He's a scientist, and he can probably help me help you help Kori."
Kori. There was that name again. “I remember her,” Ebner said, still moving forward, succumbing to Roach's pull and following the squeak of his own cane's rubber toe. He suddenly remembered that he was wearing Kori's ring on his pinky.
"See that station just to the left of the one with the big panels, right there?” Roach asked. “It looks like a giant wheel. See? It turns real slow. There's a freighter leaving it right now."
"It looks small."
"That's because it's so far away. It's really very big. My grandson is there right now, and I'm sure he can help Kori."
"How do we get there?” Ebner asked, still moving forward. He wanted to help Kori more than anything. He could remember her. He tried to hold her name in his mind. He promised himself that he wouldn't let go this time and wished he could make the same promise to her.
"There's a few ways we can get there, boss. We can t-mail ourselves, or we can steal a shuttle. Or..."
"Or what?” Ebner stopped in his tracks when he reached the window, but kept his eyes trained on the giant wheel.
"Or we can hide on a shuttle like stowaways. Shoot, we could even highjack a shuttle. I've always wanted to."
Ebner put his palm on the glass. He couldn't remember ever touching it before. It felt cold. “Did Kori and I ever have kids?” he asked.
"No,” Roach answered.
Ebner gazed through the glass, through his own reflection. From the corner of his eye he could see the reflections of the green LEDs on Roach's stroke cap.
"Can you see it?” Roach asked, nodding out toward space.
"Yeah,” Ebner said. “What's it called again?"
"That's New Mohall. Twenty-seven thousand people. High-dollar real estate. Great view. I bet there's some kid at his bedroom window looking at you and me right now through his telescope. Wave to him. Come on. Wave.” Roach waved. Ebner waved too.
"Can he see us?” Ebner asked.
"Yeah,” Roach said, “he can see us. And I bet there's a Chinese kid looking up at your feet right now through his telescope. Look down and wave to him. Go on. Wave.” Roach looked down toward the Space Walk and waved.
Ebner looked down, bumped his gums together, and soiled his pants.
"I need to call my grandson,” Roach said in a hushed voice. He was sitting next to Ebner at the dinner table. “I'm gonna get his t-mail address."
"They won't let you use the phone,” Ebner said.
"Look,” Roach said, “we're old. If we only do what they let us do, we're not gettin’ our money's worth outta this place. You know what it costs to keep us in here?"
"No."
"Enough that it oughta include some phone time. So here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna get up like I'm headin’ for the john. When I get over there by the door to the offices, you're gonna hit you-know-who with a ... what do you got on your plate?” Roach leaned over and took a look at Ebner's dinner. “Oh, man. Use the mac and cheese. Just grab a handful and nail her right in the face."
"Why?"
"So I can use the phone."
Ebner dropped his fork and reached for his macaroni and cheese.
"No!” Roach said in a loud whisper. “Not yet, boss. Wait until I get over there by the door to the offices. And after you throw it, stand up and start unbuttoning your shirt."
"Why?"
"Just remember to do it. You've gotta make a scene. It's a classic strategy of distraction. Lana's right over there and she'll come runnin’ once you go into action. Don't forget. Mac and cheese, then the shirt. Mac and cheese, shirt."
"I won't forget.” Ebner looked across the table at Eva Polk. She looked back and chewed her carrots and peas.
"Do it for Kori,” Roach whispered. Then he stood up and announced, “Here I go to the bathroom.” He walked away from the table, looking back at Ebner every few seconds. As he neared the door that led to the offices, he glanced back again.
Ebner cupped his hand and scooped up most of the macaroni and cheese on his plate. He looked over at Eva Polk and said, “You took my roll.” He reached up over his head, took a deep breath, and willed his arm into motion.
Roach smiled and moved to the keypad on the wall. He pressed *56765*, and the door's locking mechanism clicked.
Eva Polk screamed, shocking Ebner.
"Ebner!” said Lana, the nurse.
Ebner thought of Kori and remembered that he still had work to do. He stood up. As he began to unbutton his shirt, he looked at the door leading to the offices. Roach was nowhere to be seen.
"Ebner, stop that!” Lana said.
"I'm taking off my shirt,” Ebner said. “And that might not be all."
Eva Polk screamed again.
"Stop it,” Lana said, stepping between Ebner and the table. She brushed his hands aside and began buttoning his shirt. “I just don't get it, Eb.” She looked down at the cheese sauce on her hands and said, “Oh, Ebner! This is disgusting. What's gotten into you?"
Ebner thought of Kori. “I don't know,” he said, though at that moment he could have offered an answer if he'd wanted to.
"You're being a bad boy, Eb,” Lana said. “I'm gonna have to send you to your room. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Now go. Go to your room. I'll bring your dessert to you there, but only if you go straight to your room."
Ebner took another look at Eva Polk, grabbed his cane, and started the baby-step shuffle toward G-33.
Ebner was sitting in the chair in the corner of his room, eating a piece of key lime pie, when Roach appeared at the door. “Got it,” Roach said, holding up a small piece of paper with writing on it.
"Got what?” Ebner asked.
"The t-mail address to my grandson's lab. I told him all about the data block and your wife's case of LS. He's getting ready for us right now. Let's go."
"I'm not finished with my pie."
"Forget about the pie, boss. This is for Kori."
Kori. Of course. Ebner set his pie on top of his dresser and grabbed his cane. “Let's go,” he said.
Minutes later, Roach punched buttons on the keypad outside the door marked DIGITAL MASS TRANSMITTING & RECEIVING—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. The lock clicked, he opened the door, and the technician inside the room said, “What are you doing?"
Roach looked down the hall and said something inaudible, then turned back toward the tech. “Lana pushed the buttons and then ran back to her office. She told me to tell you that she needs your help, pronto. There's a computer problem or something. She said to hurry. What's a hard drive crash?"
"You've got to be kidding,” the technician said. He walked from the room and shut the door, then jogged toward the offices without saying another word to Roach.
Once the tech was out of sight, Roach punched *56765* and hurried Ebner into the room. “We've got to move fast,” Roach said. “Get in the stall. I'm sending you first. My grandson will be waiting. I'll send the block next. My grandson recommended I send it alone to make sure all the data remains intact. Then I'll send myself. Go on, boss. Get in the stall."
While Ebner shuffled toward the stall, Roach worked at the console. He messed up three times, then finally got the mailing sequence started and typed in the t-mail address. He triple-checked the address and looked up. Ebner was in position. “See you in a minute, buddy.” He hit the send button.
Ebner watched as a gray door slid into place at the front of the stall. He felt a little dizzy, the door opened, and two men in casual business attire stood before him. The room they were in was much larger than the t-mail room on Sunset Manor.
"Welcome to New Mohall,” one of the men said. He was graying and looked to be middle-aged. “I'm Donald's grandson. You must be Ebner."
"Yes,” Ebner said.
The middle-aged man took Ebner's hand and helped him out of the stall. Quickly the stall door closed and a sign above it glowed with the word RECEIVING.
"Excited about seeing your wife again?” the middle-aged man asked.
"Pretty much,” Ebner said. At that moment he wasn't exactly sure where he was or why he was there. He wondered if he was being punished for something he had done to Eva Polk.
The stall door opened to reveal a small, charcoal-gray cube. The middle-aged man picked it up and the stall door closed. When it opened again, Roach was standing in the stall holding a red fire extinguisher. “I had to knock that tech upside the head,” he said. “Hello, Gavinmeister."
"Hi, Grandpa,” the middle-aged man said. He glanced at the other man standing with him. “This is Dr. Lund. He's got the syringes."
"Great,” Roach said, stepping out of the stall and setting the fire extinguisher on the floor. “Thanks, Doc. Gavin, this is my old boss, Ebner. Ebner, this is my grandson, Gavin. So, Gav, you've still got a block drive around this place?"
"We've got at least one of everything up here,” Gavin said. “If we need something but don't have it, we make it."
Gavin walked to the control station and flipped up a small square cover on the panel. He dropped the data block into the exposed receptacle and then closed the cover. He typed at a keyboard, looked at a monitor, and typed at the keyboard some more. “We got lucky,” he said. “The data's intact."
"Thank God,” Roach said.
"You guys ready?” Gavin asked. “This won't take long."
"Go,” Roach said. Gavin pressed a button and the stall door closed. “Watch that door,” Roach said, slapping Ebner's arm and pointing toward the digitizer stall. Above the door glowed the word RECEIVING.
The door opened to reveal an attractive, dark haired woman in her early thirties. She was wearing an outfit that had gone out of style so long ago that it was almost trendy.
"Welcome to New Mohall,” Gavin said.
"Hi,” Kori said, stepping out of the stall and looking at the four men.
Ebner stared. His chin dropped, exposing his pink gums, and his hand began to tremble on the crook of his cane.
The doctor moved forward and placed a silver instrument on the back of Kori's hand. “You've got LS, all right,” he said. “You'd have been lucky to make it another week."
Kori frowned. “What do you mean by ‘would have been lucky'?"
"No one knew what caused LS for a long time,” the doctor said. “We just knew that about one in a hundred space dwellers came down with it. Come to find out, it had to do with artificial gravity. Didn't bother most people, but for the one-in-a-hundred it was fatal.” The doctor pulled a pressurized syringe from his pocket and placed the tip on the underside of Kori's wrist. The syringe hissed. He repeated the process with two more syringes.
"What did you just do?” Kori asked.
"You're cured,” the doctor said. “It's just that easy. Your symptoms should recede in a couple of days."
Kori looked down at her wrist. “Is this a joke?” she asked.
"No joke,” Gavin said. “Wonders of science."
Kori's eyes filled with water. “Ebner told me he was sending me here for a surprise. I just can't believe this! Why didn't he come with me?"
"He's right here,” Roach said, patting Ebner's back.
Tears streamed down Ebner's cheeks.
Kori looked at the old man with the cane.
"What's going on here?” she asked.
Ebner shuffled closer to his wife and slipped her wedding ring off his pinky. He took her left hand in his and slid the ring onto her finger. It fit loosely. She gazed down at the ring but said nothing.
"Kori, maybe you should sit down and let me explain,” Roach said. “I'll tell you what Eb did and then you can beat him."
Gavin led Kori, Ebner, and Roach to a lounge where they could sit and talk. Roach gave Kori the yellowed, eighty-year old letter and told her all about the data block and the olive-wood clock. He told her about Ebner's intermittent senile dementia and then left the two of them alone on the couch.
"I'm sorry,” Ebner said. He looked at his young wife and for the moment his mind was whole. He felt whole. He felt complete. “You're so beautiful."
"You saved my life,” she said, her tears flowing. “I just ... I still can't believe this. How long have my parents been gone?"
"A long time."
"And you never remarried?"
"No."
"So, what do we do now?"
"I'm too old to be a husband. After I'm gone, you can find someone else. You'll be happy."
She touched his wrinkled face and ran her fingers through his thin hair. “I recognize you,” she said. “You're pretty handsome for an old guy.” She laughed and hugged him and they cried together.
"I don't have much time,” Ebner said. “My heart's giving out on me."
"Can they do anything to help you?"
"They've done what they can do,” he said. “Besides, I told you once that you'd be the one crying at my funeral, not the other way around. Looks like I was right."
"No,” she said. “You'll be crying at mine."
They talked for a while longer until Ebner's mind began to dull. Kori asked Roach to find her a pair of nail clippers. She trimmed Ebner's nails and then had a private conversation with Roach's grandson.
Later, she met up with Roach to thank him for his help.
"Where's Eb?” he asked.
Kori pulled a petarod from her pocket. “He's resting comfortably,” she said. “I'll wake him up when the time's right."
Monte Davis is thirty-nine and lives with his wife and three kids in Sugar Land, Texas. He works as a mechanical engineer by day and writes when time permits. His stories have appeared in Leading Edge, Zahir, Amazing Journeys, and Jupiter. Monte learned of the death of James “Scotty” Doohan while writing “Sunset Manor.” Since the story's premise is built around senility and the sort of technology that can “beam people up,” the author would like to dedicate it to the memory of Mr. Doohan and to all the others who have suffered the cruel effects of Alzheimer's or senile dementia.
Smoke from the bottlenecked kilns clung along the rooflines of the tenements in Burslem. Through this grayed light, Meg's father pulled her by the wrist down cobbled alleyways, past the towering kilns, to the worker's entrance of Clews’ Pottery.
"Stay by the doorway, Meg,” he said, and staggered off to find the master of the works.
For a moment Meg stood motionless and watched as boys carried racks of pottery into the hot mouths of the kilns. But then she heard the soft suck of the clay and the whir of the potter's wheel and they were voices she could not resist.
Meg crept into the potworks, and wove between the stacks of crocks and crates until she was close enough to see each movement of the woman seated at the potter's wheel.
The woman's long skirt was pulled above her knees, her leather apron dark and damp. Her foot kicked the wheel, the turntable spun, and, as if by magic, the clay rose between her hands.
The woman glanced up from her work, her eyes boring into Meg's. “Seems no more than a lump of earth, but listen to Hattie: working the clay will either kill you young or steal everything that's live about you."
Trembling, Meg stared at the slick clay. She understood fear; it was something that came without warning, in the form of a flat hand when her father was into the whiskey or her mother was tired. But until now, words alone had never been enough to make her quake.
Before Meg could even catch her breath, she heard her father's voice rise. “If you don't have need for her, there are plenty of potters in Burslem wanting a healthy girl."
"She is not old enough to indenture. Take her home.” There was calm authority in the way the master spoke.
Meg turned from the whirling clay and peeked at him.
His eyes touched her body and a smile tweaked his lips.
Meg looked down. She knew the master had no intention of letting her leave.
One afternoon, when Meg was eleven years old, Hattie Savage hung herself.
Meg watched in silence as two of the laborers cut Hattie down, wrapped her in a length of canvas and lugged her into the hallway.
The next morning, Meg put on Hattie's apron. Her thin legs were barely long enough to kick the wheel, but she had to try.
From the hall came the voices of the foreman and the master of the works, Mr. Clews. Sweat formed across Meg's shoulders as their footsteps stopped at the throwing-room door. She didn't look up. Clay, be kind to me—I'll make you beautiful, she prayed as she kicked, her hands steadily forming a simple crock.
The foreman cleared his throat. “Sorry Meg, you'd best set your sights a little lower."
She cut the crock free and started another. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Clews. “She looks good there. It is easier to replace a laborer than an apprentice. Go ahead, Meg, show us."
Meg closed her eyes—her heart, beat for beat shadowing the rhythm of the wheel, the clay, warm and moist, moving beneath her touch. And while she worked, dreams came to her: dreams that pulled her far from Burslem, dreams that she kept in silence, but that became more solid with every passing year.
One evening, Meg opened her eyes and found that she was twenty-one: a journeyman potter sitting in Bull's Head Tavern. She rarely came here, preferring to stash her coin. But tonight was Guy Fawkes’ Night and Mr. Clews was paying, so she had come.
And she got drunk.
At first, she listened quietly as the men swapped stories about which pottery offered the best bonuses, bragged on new glazes and talked about the strength of the American market. Suddenly the hidden seed of Meg's dream sprouted into words. “I'm going to sell my cottage, go to America and buy a potworks. In five years I'll sell twice what the Clews’ Pottery does."
The brag came from her so loud and with such conviction that none of the men laughed—not even Mr. Clews. His eyes caught hers and knew she had no choice, now, but to leave Burslem, and soon.
Meg stabbed her shovel into the bank of wet clay and looked up at her workshop. It was only a stone's throw away, a short distance for her pony to haul the loaded cart. But with the wheels stuck tight, that distance might as well have been miles.
As she let out her breath and pushed her hair out of her face, her eyes followed the shafts of sunlight to where they struck the low eaves of her workshop and shivered along the tall chimney of the small brick kiln.
The man who had sold her the potworks last spring had not lied; the workshop and cabin were rustic, the kiln just adequate, and the pottery's clients only a scattering of villagers and Irish farmers. But it had cost no more than her worker's cottage in Burslem, it had a clay bank that would last for years, a good-size stream, and was located on a post road. It had potential.
But none of that mattered right now. She was so exhausted she didn't want to think about whether her investment had been wise, or how, only six months into her venture, she was already so strapped for coin that she couldn't afford to hire a boy to mine the clay or cut firewood for the winter.
Taking off her boots and stockings, she slid down the steep bank to the clay shelf that overhung the stream. She sat, letting her legs dangle in the knee-deep water. She'd rest for a minute, then go back up and unharness the pony. Tomorrow she'd unload the clay, pry the cart free and then, once the cart was up on bony ground, she'd use a shovel and wheelbarrow to reload it.
Her hands tore a clump of red clay from the bank beside her. She shut her eyes, feeling the suppleness. As if in a dream, she let her fingers form what they wanted to ... a body, a head, pudgy arms and legs. Opening her eyes she smiled at the clay baby that rested in her hands. She pinched eyes, a nose and a mouth.
In that moment, with the heavy heat of the afternoon and the light glittering topaz on the reddened water, Meg lost her sense of here and now, and her mind was drawn into strange thoughts: did the clay love her for forming it into shapes it could not take on its own? Or, somehow, did the clay tell her what shape it wanted to become? Or was it the clay that was forming her into what it desired?
Meg cradled the clay baby and touched its face with her finger. It seemed quite possible that below the skin of clay the baby was real.
Rising, she slid off the bank and waded into the stream. She needed to wash the baby free, to baptize it in the water—that would make the flesh real.
Meg submerged the baby.
It dissolved in her hands, fluttering as silt to the bottom of the river, disappearing into the leaves and mud.
Meg stared at her empty hands. Then suddenly she noticed that the clay streambed was sucking at her feet, trembling as if it was giving way...
She pulled her feet free of the muck, and pushed through the water, away from the clay to the middle of the river where the stream was waist-deep and gravel rolled under her toes. Splashing water on her face and arms, she tried to wash them clean of the red clay.
Holding her breath, she went under. She could hear the clay breathing: sucking, bubbling, gurgling.
Suddenly muffled reports boomed though the water. Meg came up, gasping air.
All around her pied horses bucked and tossed in the stream. Dazed for a moment, she thought she was dreaming until she heard a man's voice.
"Saw you up on the bank, but I didn't notice you come down to the stream.” The brogue was so heavy she could barely make out what he was saying: French-Canadian and something else—a gypsy peddler.
She spun around looking for the man the voice had come from.
He was crouched down on the far bank, his black hair hanging loose, his dark eyes studying her. He clicked his tongue and the horses splashed toward him. He snapped his crop and they moved up the bank behind him to where she could now see an enclosed wagon had camped. A gypsy for sure, and that meant that others were near by.
Meg faced him, her shoulders squared.
His smile broadened and it occurred to her how she must look: her chemise clinging wet, her pale skin burnt red from digging clay, hair like a mad woman. She folded her arms across her breasts.
Gold rings flashed on his fingers as he slipped his crop into his hip-pocket. He stood and started into the water, toward her.
"There's no call for you to come closer.” She moved backward, feeling the water growing shallower and the gravel under her feet turning to sucking clay. She didn't want to back any further.
"Don't look so worried. I'm not out to rape you. My name's Lanni Gry. I'll bet you supper my horses can pull that cart loose."
It didn't seem wise to have anything to do with a gypsy. But she was exhausted and as sore as her back and arms were now, they'd be worse tomorrow. The thought of not having to unload and reload the clay pushed prudence aside. Besides, she couldn't see any other wagons or tents, and a lone gypsy could not be worse than a pottery full of workmen.
Meg looked him in the eye. “Try if you want, but don't be expecting anything fancy to eat if you win your bet.” She waded quickly away and, with her skirt clutched in her hand, started to climb the slippery bank to where her cart was stuck.
But Lanni mounted the bank faster than she did. Reaching down, he took hold of her forearm and elbow. In one yank he brought her up the bank and close to him.
He smelled like wintergreen.
Lanni's horses made light work of freeing the overloaded cart from the mud and pulling it up to the shed by the workshop.
He jumped down from the cart and began unhitching his team.
Not eager to have a gypsy wandering around the yard while she was inside cooking, Meg cleared her throat to get his attention and then said, “You've got time to go back to your wagon before supper."
He nodded.
"Take the shallows above the pools, it's the best place to cross,” she suggested as she headed into the cabin.
Less than half an hour later, Meg heard the slap of the cart's tailgate falling open. Her breath caught in her throat. What was the gypsy up to?
Hurrying outside and across the yard to the sheds, she was surprised to find Lanni pouring a bucket of water into the unloaded cart: his tan face flushed from shoveling, his bare chest glistening with wet clay.
At first she felt only relief to find that he had finished a chore that her aching arms had dreaded. But there were more important things than a few sore muscles, things a woman had to be cautious of. This man wasn't going to trick her into paying him the last of her coins for doing a job she hadn't asked him to do. “I can clean the cart later,” she said. “I'll feed you for winning the bet, nothing more."
He cocked his head, his fine white teeth showing as he grinned.
His gypsy charm wouldn't work on her.
"I'd be pleased to stay for supper, but when I unloaded the cart payment was not my intent. I was thinking that you take on too much.” He picked up a broom and hoisted himself into the cart.
Hands on her hips, Meg glared at him.
Keeping his eyes down, Lanni swept the broom hard against the floorboards of the cart and said, “I'm hungry, though. And I believe that is side-pork I smell burning."
Without a word, she ran back into the cabin.
The salt-pork was crisp, barely burnt, and when Lanni sat for supper, he ate with gusto.
After his plate was empty, he pumped water to wash the dishes. Then, he said his thanks and left.
Meg watched from the open doorway as he walked down the path to the shallows, the dark-haired man becoming a part of the deepening twilight. She could see the rippling as he crossed the stream, his outline cresting the horizon, moving back and forth by his wagon, and a glow followed by flames as he lit a fire.
It was a scene devoid of sound, except for the rustle of the slight breeze high in the canopy of hemlocks. She watched him in the dark as if he was a figment from a dream, and for a moment she felt like she was a part of him, of how he lived: his wagon and horses, relying on his wits, sitting by the fire, watching the sparks and stars, alone.
Hollowness welled up inside of her.
She turned to go inside: the low light of the kerosene lamp draped across her bare table, the narrow bed. Shadows. Silence.
Meg took the lantern from its hook beside the door. She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and closed the cabin door behind her. At the shallows, she held her skirt up and let the water swirl around her legs.
Lanni turned at the sound of her wading through the stream, the light of the fire dancing on his face.
As she reached the top of the bank, he disappeared into his wagon. When he came out, he had a wool blanket under one arm and mandolin in his hand.
"It looks small.” He gestured at the wagon. “But it holds almost everything a man could need. It was my grandfather's,” he said, walking to the bonfire and setting his mandolin on an upturned log. He unfolded the blanket and snapped it so it spread out flat on the ground.
Meg found it hard to swallow. Her heart beat as fast as that of a bird flushed into flight. Maybe she'd made a mistake coming here.
"Let me play for you.” Lanni picked up his mandolin and sat on the upturned log.
Hesitating for a moment, Meg settled down on the blanket.
From behind his seat Lanni produced a green bottle. “It's from a vineyard outside Montreal—friends of my family for generations, a glorious place, magic.” He leaned forward, handing her the open bottle.
She could smell the tang of wood smoke on his shirt and feel the warmth of his fingers as they paused on her arm. She put the bottle to her lips. The wine was sweet. It heated as she swallowed it.
Lanni took up his mandolin. His fingers caressed the strings and he began to sing in words Meg understood only through his changing tone and the expression of his eyes.
She drank and listened, and watched the sparks of the bonfire rising into the moonless sky.
One song seemed his favorite. He sang it with such sadness that she stared into the darkness and bit her tongue to keep her eyes from tearing.
Lanni paused, looked at her and sang it again, this time in English as clear as any gentleman. It was a song about a selkie who shed her seal-skin and became a woman and a wife.
Putting down his mandolin, Lanni sat silent.
The sparks crackled and the crickets sang, and Lanni moved down onto the blanket next to her. He reached out and took the bottle. “I stayed at the vineyard last week, traded a pregnant mare for twelve cases of this wine.” He hesitated, staring blindly at the fire. “Usually I visit there in the spring. This year I didn't. I couldn't talk about it, then."
Meg sat motionless.
Lanni's voice was a whisper. “Last winter, in Montreal—typhus—it took my kumpania, my family and companions, all of them. Twenty empty wagons I had to burn or sell.” He picked up a stick and jabbed the fire. He laughed, sad and distant. “See the sparks like birds turning into stars—like souls flying to heaven.” He squeezed his eyes shut as he bowed his head.
Meg was not sure where the urge came from, perhaps it was her fatigue, the wine, or just to break the fevered silence. But suddenly she found herself sharing a thought she had never dared put into words before. “Sometimes I wonder if the clay is alive. It feels that way, sometimes."
He opened his eyes. “The earth's alive.” He picked up a handful of dirt and let it fall slowly from his fist. “And it can take into its darkness more than just a man's body. It can devour souls.” His eyes were shadowed. “The farmer: his every dream sown in the womb of the earth. The gypsy: dirt flying behind our feet lest the earth steal the passion that is our nature.” He paused, took a sip of wine. “And potters, turning clay, creating life the way God did: the water from your slurry, the breath from your lips, and the fire of your emotions combining with clay ... The four elements of magic are in your art."
Meg felt his hand on her shoulder, saw the firelight flickering in his dark eyes. She trembled as he continued. “Be careful—earth, water, air and fire—you may not realize the power of the magic you create. The earth lives—sometimes through the man who thinks he works it."
Meg wasn't sure exactly what he meant. But without warning a fear rose up inside her and her shoulders trembled. She covered her face with her hands.
"Hush, hush,” Lanni said.
She could feel his warmth and feel how he wanted to hold her, to comfort her. His cheek brushed her hair. Her fingers touched his scarf, then reached for the buttons of his shirt. He clutched her close. Her hand fumbled and found the sharp edge of the cross he wore, the warmth of his chest, the soft smooth hair at his beltline.
His response was fast and demanding: lips on hers, hands freeing her from her dress.
Meg closed her eyes. One by one she forgot the weight of her work, the lack of coins, the farmers scoffing and predicting failure ... The earth was hot and damp against her back. He was strong and hard, gentle and fast, giving and entrancing ... nothing like Mr. Clews when he had taken her on the turning-room floor.
She fell asleep watching the fire from Lanni's arms, coals like eyes in the dark, wood burnt black.
It was the coolness that woke her. Lanni had risen and was taking another blanket from the wagon. He returned to her, carefully covering her with it. She pretended to be asleep. Even when he lay back beside her, his arm holding her close, his breath warm and low, she lay awake listening to the coals shifting as they burned to embers.
The smell of wintergreen. Meg opened her eyes. Lanni crouched in front of her, a steaming tin cup in his hands.
She sat up, pulling the blanket around her. Shivering from the morning dampness, Meg took the tea.
Lanni reached out and pushed her hair from her face. “You are so beautiful.” He bent forward, kissing her fingers where they wrapped around the cup.
Meg shifted away.
Lanni cocked his head. “I promise, there is no shame,” he said. “We've merely loved under the stars like newlyweds.” He smiled and added, “My beautiful selkie bride."
Meg's shoulders tightened. In the dark with the fire and damp bed of dirt and leaves, the poetry of his words had made for a rich fantasy. But now, in the creeping light of morning, she could not think of a single word to say.
Lanni sat back, his brows drawn together. She knew her silence disappointed him.
And down through the canopy of hemlocks drops of rain fell, a slow prelude to the distant rumbling of thunder.
Lanni broke the stillness. “How much more clay do I need to haul, so you can work all winter?"
"There is a storm coming, the clay will be too slick to shovel.” She turned away to show him it was time for them to part.
He ignored her gesture. “Trust me, I know the signs. That storm will pass south of here."
A month later, when fall frosted the mountains, Meg still had not found a way to rid herself of Lanni.
Most often, he ignored her when she suggested that he move on, and when he did choose to hear, he had a ready excuse for staying. She had to admit that he had earned his meals. There was more than enough clay stored for winter, and the shed brimmed with firewood, enough for the kiln and cabin. It was just that, even though she enjoyed sharing her bed with him at night, she hated him watching and talking to her while she tried to concentrate on her work. What was keeping him here? Weren't gypsies supposed to wander?
Today, however, Lanni had been conspicuously absent. Meg had only caught a glimpse of him now because she happened to glance out the window. He was across the stream by his wagon building what looked like branch-wood crates. For a second she wondered what he was up to, then, grateful he was busy elsewhere, she hurried back to her work.
Meg lined up a dozen fist-size lumps of clay on her workbench, covered them with a cloth, and went to her wheel. She centered a ball of clay on the turntable, dipped her fingers in the slurry, and kicked the wheel. As her thumbs entered the clay, her body fell into the rhythm and her mind cleared. No more worries about winter. No more thoughts of coin. No more Lanni...
A waft of cool air raised the hair on her arms. Without looking, she knew Lanni was watching from the doorway. How had he gotten here so quickly? It had only been minutes since she had seen him working across the stream. But here he was ... and in front of her on the turntable sat a glistening milk-pan. It was well proportioned, perfect in every respect. Meg bit her lip. The problem was she didn't remember turning it.
Lanni's hand rubbed her shoulders. “That's enough for today,” he said. “There won't be many more afternoons like this. Let's walk."
Still trying to recall making the milk-pan, Meg closed her ears to him. She felt herself pale as she spotted six more newly turned pans lined up on the rack.
Lanni kept on talking. “I'll gather butternut, so you can't say we're wasting our time. Tonight I'll show you how my mother made penuche."
Too confused to argue, Meg let him wipe her hands with a damp rag, and lead her outside by the arm.
The afternoon sun was hot even under the bare-branch shade of the butternut trees. Lanni crawled on hands and knees tossing nuts into a basket. Despite herself, Meg rested against the trunk and closed her eyes. Lanni began to talk. At first she didn't quite hear what he was saying. “That's nice,” she mumbled.
"Renting a boat would be a better idea, but I own the wagon. If we pack them in hay, the pottery should ride well. In Montreal, I can dicker for a good price ... should be back in a week, not much more."
Startled awake, Meg scrambled to her feet.
Lanni sat cross-legged in the dead leaves, his hands stained black from the nuts, his chest the same gold as the beeches behind him. “What's wrong?” He looked at her.
Meg couldn't speak. Since she first met him, she'd never gotten over her suspicion that he was planning something, and this proved it. He had courted her, seduced her, and now he was going to take the only thing she had of value, the pottery she had spent all summer making.
"I'm going with you,” Meg said.
Lanni smiled sheepishly, unfolded his legs and rose. “Next time. I have something in mind. Where I have to go you'd not be ... you'd feel uncomfortable."
In dead silence, she turned from him and strode toward the workshop.
"Trust me, Selkie.” He hurried to catch up with her.
Meg turned to face him. Her jaw tightened, and her fists opened and closed.
Frowning, Lanni let out his breath. He spoke slowly. “You made the pots to sell, didn't you?"
Meg's heart beat wildly. She couldn't think or speak.
"Is there a reason you don't want me to take them?” Lanni gazed directly in her eyes. “Is it that you don't trust me? Or is it that your heart doesn't want to part with them?"
Meg's rapid pulse stopped. Her eyes stared beyond Lanni, to the clay pit. She swallowed. Was he right? Was she trying to avoid selling them? Was that why she couldn't even bear to talk about this? Everything he was saying made sense. In the village she could never get enough coin for them to last the winter. But Lanni was a gypsy, a horse trader—there was no doubt that he could get top price in Montreal.
Meg let out her breath. She'd have to chance that he would return.
Two weeks had passed since Lanni had taken the load of pottery to Montreal. This was the first day Meg stopped working before darkness made lighting lamps necessary.
She built up a fire in the woodstove and put on the kettle. How much kerosene had she squandered these past weeks by burning the lamps so late? The number of pots she had turned in those midnight hours had hardly made up for the cost. But unless she worked until her fingers cramped and her mind grew numb, she only spent the night lying in bed listening, thinking.
When she had first fled the smoke and noise of Burslem, the quiet of the wilderness had felt like a sanctuary. But now, especially since Lanni had left, the night crept with memories of her childhood: the heat of the hungry-mouthed kilns, the cold air freezing in her lungs, her arms straining to push the carts of pottery, and the ragged boys—at least they had steered clear of her.
Hattie Savage had given Meg more than nonsensical warnings—she had given Meg a little knife to protect herself.
Hattie Savage. How long was it after Hattie hung herself before Mr. Clews laughed at that little knife? Had he held her arms over her head? Was he heavy? He had smothered her. It had been dark outside the windows, her innocent blood red as clay washed down the banks with rain. “You're beautiful,” Mr. Clews said. Her wrist bruised. A potter needs her wrists. “I'll take care of you.” His mouth tasted like vomit, his hands damp.
Meg dropped the kettle. It fell, clanging as it hit the floor ... another louder crash echoed outside the cabin. The kiln. Something was wrong. Meg ran to the door and froze on the threshold.
Lanni's wagon was by the shed. He was tossing bundles out the back. “Give me a hand.” He grinned.
Meg's heart pounded, a chill sweeping over her as the sweat from her panic dried. Her hands went to her hips.
Lanni hopped off the wagon, a case of wine in his hands. “You mad because I'm late, or because I didn't run off?” He winked at her as he passed her on his way into the cabin.
She followed him.
Setting the case on the table, he took a bundle of folded papers from between the bottles. “Sit,” he commanded.
He sounds like Mr. Clews, Meg thought as she sat.
He pulled a chair up close to hers. Unfolding the papers, he said, “This is our future."
Meg felt her eyes narrow as she squinted at them. “They're not in English,” she said.
"This is French. This one's sort of Romany.” He flipped through the receipts and contracts. “The figures add up in any language. You'll be busy all winter filling all these orders, yes?"
Her face heated. He hadn't even mentioned how much he had gotten for what he had sold this time and he was already talking about new orders.
"If we can fill these, especially this one with Bull-leg Ben, we'll be all set.” He twisted the knob on the oil lamp up. The light glowed. “What's wrong?” He looked at Meg, then beyond her to the floor by the woodstove where the kettle lay.
She shifted and straightened in her chair. “You startled me when I heard you outside."
He leaned across the table and touched her hair. “My beautiful Selkie."
She shivered as he kissed her forehead.
"Come, I'll show you what I traded for,” he said.
Lanni hung a lantern off the back of his wagon.
The wagon was chock-full. And it was noisy.
"Chickens?” Meg gasped. She could see it: the birds trotting all over the clay pit, their droppings soiling everything.
"Hens.” Lanni gingerly slid a crate onto the tailgate, and crouched down to examine them. “They aren't layers, too old.” I traded them for a fifty-gallon crock. The woman wanted it to put up eggs for the winter."
He hopped up next to the birds and started handing things down to Meg: a velvet quilt, a box of taffy, a keg of kerosene, honey-comb, maple sugar, salt, and a crate with a picture of a red mackerel and another with oriental flowers painted on its sides.
In the circle of lantern light Meg stood at the edge of the growing pile. She took a deep breath. “Lanni,” she said quietly from between clenched teeth.
He leapt off the wagon.
"What good are chickens that don't lay?” she asked, her voice straining.
He grinned at her.
She had no choice except to be blunt. “Where is the money?"
"By trading, you end up with more.” He waved at the assortment of dry goods. “Isn't this enough?"
Meg opened and closed her hands. The pottery he had taken from her had taken six months to make. These things were not enough. The only thing that had separated her from Hattie Savage back in Burslem had been the bonuses from Mr. Clews, no matter that it wasn't always her skill as a potter that earned them. It was coin, hard and real, saved and stashed—something she could make plans with.
"Coin does matter,” she said.
Lanni's lips tightened. He pushed a small purse into her hand. “Here."
Snatching the purse, Meg headed for the cabin.
"That stack of papers in the cabin, that's the real money,” Lanni called after her.
"The quartermaster at Chambly, two innkeepers, four merchants, a poultry farmer, a vineyard and, of course, Bull-leg Ben,” Lanni summed up the pottery orders.
Meg considered the list for a moment. The items these people had requested were common and the quantities doable—except for the order signed by Bull-leg Ben, a gypsy.
It was for jugs. But not normal-sized, these jugs had to be as small as her thumb. She had never tried to make doll-size things. It certainly was possible—she could pinch from lumps of clay by hand. Still, what use did a gypsy have for so many of them?
Lanni pointed to the bottom line on the order. Meg was startled. The jugs were an odd request, but at the price Bull-leg had agreed to pay, she would be a fool not to make them.
Snow banked up against the sides of the cabin and swirled across the floor of the workshop as Lanni came in from the yard, his pants crusted with ice, a freshly slaughtered chicken clutched in one hand. “I sure wish I could catch up with one of those snowshoe hares, so we could have something different to eat,” he said. Then he glanced at the order Meg had taken from the top of the stack. “So, you're finally going to make the jugs?"
Meg looked down at the paper. Perhaps today she should begin them. It wasn't as if pinching them was going to be difficult ... But right now, she could feel the wheel waiting, almost hear its voice: fast and slow, gentle and demanding, mesmerizing, entrancing.
She shoved Bull-leg's order to the bottom of the stack.
A week later on Candlemas eve, Lanni came into the cabin carrying a crock of clay. “It's about time you try your hand at making a few of those jugs for Bull-leg,” he said to Meg.
Dredging up a yawn, Meg shook her head. “I'm too tired."
Lanni raised an eyebrow. “Think of it, two more months and the caravan will camp across the stream. Their pockets jingling, their hearts set on jugs.” He put the crock on the dry sink, and then sat opposite her at the table.
Noticing a hint of hoarfrost on the lip of the crock, Meg thought fast. “If you got that clay from the shed, it's too cold to work,” she said.
"My mother used to put pieces of clay under her breasts. It warms up quickly that way,” Lanni said.
As if the room were suddenly lit by a thousand candles, everything flared into focus. “Your mother used to make Bull-leg's jugs, didn't she?” Meg's face heated, her voice shook. “Your mother died so you had to find someone else to do the work."
Lanni's eyes narrowed.
Meg stared back. “Well?"
Without the slightest uneasiness in his voice Lanni replied. “The jugs were important to my mother. They are important to me as well.” His eyes studied her face. “They are talismans. When I am finished they will contain magic—the four elements."
Meg swallowed. Magic? What was he talking about? And why did she feel so angry? She had known he was up to something. She needed to calm down, to forget the pain that clawed at her heart. She was not his selkie. She was Meg. It was all right if he used her, if it meant her potworks would survive.
Breathing deeply, she looked away from him to the darkening window. For a moment, she focused beyond the depths of the night, imagining the snow-covered yard, the moonlit clay pit and the shrouded river. The fact that he had replaced his mother's skills with hers made sense. The danger to the potworks rested in the fact that he had involved her in some sort of gypsy sorcery. She needed to know more. Talismans, magic: maybe his own words could be used against him. “A magic talisman, I thought you were Catholic? You wear a cross,” she said.
Lanni's face darkened. “Part of the talisman is holy water from the Church of Notre-Dame in Montreal. One of the Fathers there blesses it for me. He knew my mother before my parents were married, when she studied at the Ursuline monastery.” He was silent for a second. “I am not a heathen,” he said, his eyes daring her to answer back.
She wanted to retort—perhaps an argument against using holy water in a talisman. Her mind rushed to what she remembered from Sunday School: a pale blue dress the Minister's wife had given her, the letters and sums she had learned before and after worship ... and there were the sweet biscuits they had with tea. All the children from the pottery had stolen biscuits.
A chill shook Meg and her voice went hoarse as she said, “I guess I don't know much about religion. It just doesn't seem right—magic and Christianity."
The frown lifted from Lanni's face. “There is no shame in not understanding. I'll teach you."
Meg's stomach twisted. Suddenly pinching jugs seemed preferable to talking. “A warm rag will heat the clay enough that you'll be able to wedge it,” she said, rising to get the kettle and a cloth.
Lanni kept talking. “The clay represents earth, and in the form of a jug, it encases the other elements: the blessed water, the air.” Meg glanced over her shoulder. Lanni gestured at the fluttering curtains in the window he had cracked open earlier.
It seemed that, even without her prodding, Lanni was coming clean. But Meg wondered if he would have told her these details if she hadn't caught him when he slipped by mentioning how his mother warmed the clay. Either way, it was a relief. At least now she knew what he was up to, and why he was interested in her. From this point on, as long as she listened to him closely, it would be difficult for him to get anything past her.
Lanni cleared his throat and spoke louder. “And the fourth element: fire..."
She knew this one. “The heat of the kiln,” she said, before he could finish.
"Not exactly. Fire is the passion, the feelings the potter puts into making the jug.” He made a point of catching her gaze. “It is why I must stay with you when you make them. You should never work the clay alone, like you do."
Meg's cooling anger flushed. He had nerve suggesting she shouldn't work alone. “This is a load of rubbish,” she said.
"Haven't you ever known a potter who lost their mind?” he asked in a serious tone.
Hattie Savage flashed into Meg's mind. She brought her fingers to her lips to stifle a gasp.
Lanni nodded. “It happens if you give too much of yourself, too many of your feelings to clay. The earth is more than willing to suck you dry. It takes away feelings, Selkie, but it does not return them."
Abruptly Meg rose. Though she had no thirst, she hurried to the cupboard, and took out the teapot and a jar of dried wintergreen. In silence, she crumpled the leaves and watched them fall into the darkness of the pot.
Lanni came up beside her, resting his hand on her shoulder. “I'll ready the clay,” he said.
Meg did not answer. Motionless, she listened as he picked up the crock and left: his footsteps echoing through the shed chamber, the workshop door opening, closing. Letting out her breath, Meg took the kettle and poured water into the teapot. From beyond her thoughts came the rhythmic pound of Lanni wedging clay.
Whether the clay was warm enough to work before Lanni started wedging it or not, Meg was not sure. But when he returned and she took a piece from the crock, the clay was the perfect consistency to pinch.
While Lanni strummed his mandolin, Meg rested her elbows on the table, closed her eyes and felt the clay with her fingers—smooth and supple, giving and warm. In her mind she pictured the shape of the jug she wanted, and with her fingers and her potter's pick, she worked to make the image real.
Meg opened her eyes and set the tiny jug on the table. She took a sip of tea. Though she hadn't wanted it, the wintergreen seemed to calm her. In fact as she took a second lump of clay and began to pinch another jug, she felt so tranquil she couldn't remember why she had been worrying about Hattie Savage or religion.
Lanni put down his mandolin and poured wine into his empty teacup. He smiled at her. “Don't you want to ask what the talismans are for?"
Meg shook herself alert. That did seem like a question she should have asked.
But before she could say anything, Lanni answered. “They protect against death,” he said.
Startled, Meg said the first thing that came to her mind. “But your family?” She let out her breath ... they were back to his mother again.
"My mother made the jugs for the money. But, as you pointed out, it isn't a very Catholic thing to do.” Lanni pursed his lips and scowled. “She never kept any.” He stared at the little jug that Meg was making. “A Rom, a gypsy, should never work the earth as much as my mother did. The clay is too eager for the feel of us."
By the end of mud season, when the ice stopped forming on the edge of the river and the ruts dried and the Post Road became passable, Meg had a warehouse full of pottery.
Including two hundred and eighty-eight little jugs, wrapped in hay and packed in crates that Lanni had made.
One morning in April, just as the sun reached over the mountains, Meg heard the grind of a wagon's wheels and the clink of shaft bells in the yard. She hurried to dress, but by the time she got outside she caught only a glimpse of a gypsy and his cart trundling away, disappearing into the fog-capped hemlocks by the shallows.
"You just missed Ben,” Lanni said, picking up a pair of empty mugs from the chopping block. “The caravan arrived last night.” He pointed across the stream to the gaudy wagons and tents barely visible in the misty light. “Ben came over to get the jugs. Midday, I'm going to the camp to bargain."
"But he already agreed to a price. We'll tell him there's no haggling,” Meg said.
"We are not going. This is between Ben and me. It's tradition.” Lanni looked down, pretending to wipe dirt from his pants.
So he didn't want her to read his expression. Two could play this game. Meg feigned a sigh. “If it's the only way,” she said in compliant tone.
But when afternoon came and Lanni went out and climbed into his wagon to change his clothes, Meg brushed her hair and grabbed her shawl. Making sure he was still out of sight, she went to the shed and harnessed her pony. She had just brought it around to where Lanni's saddle horse was tied, when he strode down the wagon-steps.
Any thoughts she had of going with him fled.
The man before her was not the man she knew: the man whose skin had glistened from shoveling clay, whose hands had blackened from picking butternuts. This was not the same man at all. His dark hair was pulled back tight, the scarf around his neck as smooth as the blade of a knife, his pants taut, his crimson vest embroidered with pheasants and beaded with jade—every gold chain, cross, ring, and earring that she had ever seen him wear, he wore now. And the keen glint in his eyes ... Could he see into her soul? How much magic did he really know?
She lowered her eyes. Why wasn't he moving? Why didn't he say anything? She glanced up.
His face was expressionless.
A shiver ran up her spine.
Lanni's lips twitched, then he broke into a laugh. “I look pretty swank, eh?"
Still taken back by his appearance, Meg could only muster a faint smile.
Lanni nodded at her pony. “You know you can't come with me,” he said. “This isn't just for show.” He touched his slicked hair. “This is part of who I am—a Roma.” His face softened. “Tonight, we'll both go, meet Ben and his kumpania."
In a practiced swagger, Lanni abruptly returned to the wagon. “I almost forgot,” he said, reaching inside and taking out a paper-wrapped bundle. In three strides, he was beside her, pushing the package into her hands. “This is for tonight. I bought it last winter in Montreal."
She could tell by the package's limp weight that there was cloth inside—something for her to wear.
Meg's heart thumped as hard as if she were digging clay. It had been years since she had new clothes. Even when she planned her passage to America, the only clothing she had purchased was a used cloak. Almost every coin she had ever saved had gone into buying this property.
For a moment she imagined Lanni in Montreal considering the color of her eyes, her hair, the shape of her body, as he picked out this gift. Meg flushed.
Then something else occurred to her and her flush heated to anger. He had bought the gift with her money—from selling her pottery. The paper crinkled as her fingers tightened. She thought about shoving it back at him, telling him how it made her feel: angry, cheated, confused. “Lanni, this gift...” she started to say.
But he had already swung up onto his horse, and was waving back at her as he headed down the muddy path toward the shallows.
Meg did not wait to watch him cross the stream. She headed into the cabin and tossed the package onto the table. If Lanni saw it there, unopened, when he returned, maybe that would tell him how she felt.
A memory fluttered through her mind. Before he had gone to Montreal, he had held his hands around her waist. As if he wished to memorize her size? She picked up the package, pressed it to her face: wood smoke, cedar, wintergreen.
Meg closed her eyes.
She could refuse to open it. Refuse to put on the clothes he had chosen. She could choose to never do anything for him again.
Or she could let this last night spin as it would, let it turn like her potter's wheel until all was finished. He'd be back soon, bringing home the coins—please, Lanni, bring home coins, not things. And, tonight she could go with him to the caravan, drink the sweet wine, listen to the gypsies’ songs, watch them dance, feel their fire ... feel Lanni, his hands, his lips, one last time.
In the morning she would send him off. It was spring, and she would once again be alone with her wheel and her clay—no richer or poorer for having met him. With a handful of clay and the kick of her wheel, she could begin to build her life again.
Meg slipped off her chemise. She washed her hair and sponged her body. Gooseflesh rose as she dried in the cool air.
Her fingers fumbled with the string that bound the package. The paper fell open. In waves of blues and greens, a skirt tumbled into her hands. Folded within the skirt was a white blouse and a brocade jacket, with pockets deep enough to hide her knife as well as her calloused hands. The fanciful clothes were not like anything she had ever gotten from the minister's wife, but they were delightful.
Once she was finished dressing, she brought a chair outside and set it in the scattered sunlight, to wait for Lanni.
On the western horizon, clouds banked gray against the new-green hills, and across the stream the gypsy women scurried to lug in laundry that had been drying on the cedars. Close to her, from the clay pit, came the steady drip of melting snow and the gurgle of ground water rising to join the runoff. Most of the clay had thawed, but when the sunlight darted from between the clouds, here and there in the pit, the last patches of winter's ice glittered like Lanni's eyes, like his gold rings. With these new clothes it would have been nice to have a bit of gold to wear.
The clouds choked the sun and the air cooled. Meg folded and unfolded her hands in her lap. It was odd—even with the clouds shading the sun her forehead was damp, her back hot, her breath a shallow pant, as she waited ... The water rippled down the clay ... It would be nice to have a gold ring ... Mr. Clew wore a ring. It bruised her lips when he held his hand over her mouth. The blood in her mouth, she could taste it. Her father had bruised her lip once...
The chair fell backwards as Meg staggered to her feet. She hunched over, her hands on her knees. She couldn't catch her breath. The workshop. Her wheel. Her clay. If she sat at her wheel, her skirt pulled up over her knees, she could force these ghosts to flee her mind, to go through her fingers and into the clay ... but she couldn't do it, not in this new skirt and jacket, not even with an apron to cover them.
Meg picked up the chair and sat down. Her hands fidgeted in her lap. Her fingers dug at the fabric. A patch of snow broke loose and slid down the clay into the river, bobbing in the current.
As she stood again the coarse dirt of the yard crunched underfoot. Unlike the yard, the clay was satin smooth as she stepped onto it. It felt so good. Meg closed her eyes and crouched. Her skirt swirled out around her taking up the earthy scent, the moisture of clay. She knelt, and bent forward until her cheek rested on the earth. She spread her arms out, her hands flat. She was so close to the trickle of water, the beautiful voice of the clay. It was so cool against her hot face. If she lay down maybe she'd disappear...
"Selkie!” Lanni shouted.
Panic surged though her. She opened her eyes and scrambled to her feet.
"What are you doing?” he yelled.
Meg spun around. The clay pit. The yard. What was she doing?
Lanni grasped her wrist. It hurt. A potter needs her wrists.
His voice hardened. “Inside, now.” He pulled her toward the cabin.
Meg yanked free.
His eyes narrowed, a nerve twitched in his cheek. “Go inside,” he said.
She felt the dampness of her clothes. Her hands fell limp at her sides. Her stomach twisted. Clay crusted on her face. Lanni stood still, silent. She knew he was waiting for her to explain, but how could she explain something she didn't understand herself?
She groped for an excuse. Had she been chasing the last chicken from the pit? Was she watching for him and slipped? It was best to change the subject. He was back from the caravan. She didn't see any new things. He must have coins. “You're right, we should go inside. I want to know what Ben said, and see the coins,” she said.
Lanni paled.
A rising sense of dread cleared her mind. “You did get coins?” She asked.
"We will have them,” Lanni said, taking a step towards her.
Meg opened and closed her fists.
He held his arms out. “What was I to do? It was a bad winter in Montreal. Ben is honest, generous. This fall..."
"What do you mean: this fall?"
"He'll pay us then. You don't need to worry.” Lanni's brow wrinkled. “You'll get a bonus, for waiting."
Lanni was trying to trick her. He had taken her pottery, and returned empty handed. A bonus. Mr. Clews had given her a cottage as a bonus, so he could visit her discreetly.
A wind came out of the west. It rattled the windows of the cabin, and the chimney of the kiln cried from its force.
Meg glared at Lanni, her voice gathering volume. “I don't want a bonus. I want coins and if you don't have them, then you have nothing I want.” Every muscle in her body tensed. “Do you hear me? You have nothing I want. Leave me, let me live in peace."
Lanni froze in place, his eyes dark and wide. “Selkie, you have a right to be angry, to think that Ben and I are trying to swindle you. I'll admit I am greedy—perhaps as greedy as your clay. But it isn't your money or your pottery I would take. I want your fire.” Lanni's eyes pleaded with her. “You starve me, yet you let the clay devour you."
Meg sucked in a breath. Her head throbbed. Why didn't he leave? “I have nothing to give you. And you have nothing I need,” she said through clenched teeth.
Lanni stepped forward.
"Don't.” She pulled the knife from her pocket.
Lanni grabbed her hand that held the knife. His eyes sought hers. “You may think I have nothing you need, but take this.” His free hand shoved something into her jacket pocket. Without looking she knew it was his talisman.
Letting her go, he quickly stepped back, out of knife range. He was sweating, his brow as lined as an old man's. “You're right, you need time to think, to be alone.” He hesitated as if he wanted her to tell him not to go.
Meg closed her mind to him. She stared past him, beyond the stream, at the gaudy gypsy wagons. He would finally leave. He had to leave now, before ... She swallowed back words that she could not even bear to think.
Lanni turned toward the river, and walked away from her. Above, the sky crackled from gray to yellow as thunder rumbled up the narrow valley. With his back to her, it was easy for Meg to pretend he was a stranger, a gypsy she should be wary of. But why wasn't he riding his horse? Why wasn't he taking the path to the shallows? The water was too high.
Lanni's long strides took him straight down the clay pit toward the pools—the shortest route to the cluster of gypsy wagons on the further bank.
"Good,” Meg said, clutching her skirt. She wasn't stupid; she knew what Lanni had meant when he said she starved him: he was saying she was unfeeling. If he only knew how much she felt right now. How her heart pounded and her legs trembled until she could barely stand. Her workshop, she should go there, sit at her wheel, and let the clay form what it would from this avalanche of feelings. But first, she would steal one last look, one last memory of Lanni.
He stood there, where the clay overhung the stream, his head bowed, watching the swollen water.
Why had he come home without coins? He knew she wanted them. A sick weight gathered in her stomach and a wave of grief bubbled up. Lanni had given away the jugs, and each one had been formed from the fire of her heart. She was their mother, they were her babies. She had let Lanni give her babies away. If you don't have need for her, there are plenty of potters in Burslem wanting a healthy girl. Why had her mother let her father take her to the pottery? She had been a child.
Meg dropped to her knees, her face in her hands. She sobbed so hard it was as if the ground beneath her quaked. The thunder boomed and the wind changed directions. Behind her the door to the pottery banged open and she could hear the whir of the wheel.
Again the earth vibrated.
Meg's face jolted from her hands. The ground was shaking.
At the top of the pit, where the ground water bubbled up from the earth and joined with the runoff, the clay undulated. It broke loose, sliding in a sheet toward the stream, toward Lanni.
Meg screamed.
Lanni turned. His eyes widened. He yelled as the bank under his feet gave way and he fell backward into the river, the landslide of clay rippling over him, the stream churning red.
Meg ran across the yard. Like quicksand the clay pulled at her feet. The shallows. The caravan. Running down the path, she shrieked for help. From the caravan a boy saw her. He dashed between the wagons as she started to cross the stream. The shallows seemed endless. Icy water numbed her legs. The short climb up the bank and back down to the pools was steeper than she recalled. The water pulled at her as she waded across the stream to where the clay fanned into the water. To where she thought Lanni had fallen.
The thunder detonated. Hard drops of rain pelted her. Though the downpour, Meg saw Lanni laying face up under the water. His legs and hips invisible under the silt, his eyes were crazed with fear and bubbles streamed from his mouth as his arms flayed in an attempt to push himself free.
Behind her, Meg heard splashing and shouting as the gypsies forded the stream. She glanced back and yelled, “Hurry, he's still breathing."
Ben stopped in the middle of the river, his outstretched arms signaling the other gypsies to halt. “We can't come closer,” he cried. “Look at him, it is not natural—the clay consumes him, yet his eyes are open, he breaths and forms words."
"You have to help.” Meg reached Lanni. Only one arm, a shoulder and his head were visible. Under her feet the clay writhed like a serpent. She could see it slick, and red, cleaving open like a mouth. She grabbed Lanni's arm. With all her strength and weight she pulled.
He did not budge.
"Does he have his talisman?” Ben asked, his voice penetrating the raging rain.
Meg's breath froze in her throat. She reached in her jacket pocket, and grasped the little jug. She pushed the talisman into Lanni's palm and then curled his limp fingers around it. She held his fist closed.
"Call his name,” Ben said.
His name? “Lanni?” Meg whispered, her heart knowing that the gypsy meant something deeper.
"His true name.” Ben waded closer, but when he reached where the sand bottom met the clay the current thrust him back. “Use the name you call him when you are alone together. You are his woman, aren't you?” he said.
With a tight hold on Lanni's fist, Meg sank to her knees. The frigid water rushed around her shoulders.
"Lanni,” she yelled as she leaned forward, snagged his shoulder with her free hand, and yanked. As she tugged, the suck of the clay increased, stealing Lanni from her grip and drawing him deeper.
"Lanni.” What other name was there to say?
"Lanni,” she sobbed as his head disappeared into the bed of the river. The only thing she could hold was his hand, and she clung to it with both of hers.
"Call it! Use his name. It is magic, the fire of it will burn him free of the earth,” Ben shouted.
There were no bubbles in the water. Lanni's fist slid from her grip. She held only a finger. His ring slipped off...
That first morning he had called her his selkie bride, and in return she had called him ... nothing.
Meg took a breath and went under the water. She could hear the suck of the clay and beyond that the drum of the rain, and still further in the distance other voices: her mother crying, her father crying, and for an instant she saw Mr. Clews looking away as he handed her the bonus.
In the swirl of red clay a gold ring glittered.
Meg clawed at the clay. She held onto rocks and pressed her mouth to the streambed. With the last of her air and all the fire of her heart she cried, “Husband."
The clay moaned.
The throb of rain pattered to a stop.
And in a frenzy of bubbles, Lanni's hand pushed up from the streambed. Meg gripped it, and pulled until she had his arm. She yanked again.
Meg was above the water, her legs braced against the current. “Husband,” she screamed, and Lanni's head and shoulders surfaced.
The gypsies were all around her. They hauled Lanni out of the water, dragged him to the shore and laid him down, with his head to one side.
Meg's teeth chattered and she shivered as she watched Ben put his fingers in Lanni's mouth.
Suddenly strong hands clamped her arms.
"Lanni, I want to stay with Lanni.” Meg struggled against the gypsy women as they dragged her up the bank to a smoking fire. But once close to the damp warmth, her exhaustion took over and as if entranced she surrendered to the women's care.
Two of the gypsy women held up blankets to form a wall, others stripped off her clothes, and rubbed her with warmed wool. Meg could not understand the language they chattered as they wrapped her in a quilt, brought her tea and compelled her to sit next to the fire.
Finally the men appeared, carrying Lanni in a makeshift stretcher. They set him down—it seemed almost too close to the flames.
He did not move.
Meg pushed the women aside and went to him. She crawled under his blanket. He was as cold as clay in winter. Her breath caught in her throat. But then, she felt the rise and fall of his breath against her hair...
How long she slept, Meg did not know. But when she woke and they both could stand, Lanni took her by the hand, and before the orange fire he pledged himself to her for the second time. And then Meg looked in his eyes and pledged herself to him for the first.
Eight months later, when they traveled to Montreal for the winter, Meg Smith and Lanni Gry were married at the Church of Notre-Dame. The Priest who officiated never mentioned the bride's widening belly or the clay talisman that each of them wore.
Pat Esden can be found at her country store in northern Vermont designing with flowers and selling anything that holds still long enough to bring in a coin. When no one's buying, she is either cavorting with her husband and dogs or is in the attic working on her current project, a series of short fantasy stories about women artisans.
I want a society where a parent would react to seeing violence being portrayed on a tv screen with the same repulsion as he/she would to seeing defecation being portrayed on a tv screen—where the programme would be turned off instantly, without hesitation, not as censorship but out of genuine deep revulsion. I want a society in which someone who finds violence interesting and desirable is considered mentally ill and in need of medical treatment.
—Suzette Haden Elgin, “The Profession of Science Fiction, 53: Towards a Society of Non-Violence” in Foundation (Summer 2000, Vol 29 No 79)
The Dao of Stones Yin Xi had been a teacher of the Way for many years. When the shi-ren approached him, his interest was piqued—he'd never had a student who was an alien before. “The Way that can be spoken is not the true Way,” Yin Xi said. The shi-ren scuttled away, but he would be back...
The Little Cat in the Attic Window, the Blue House on the Corner Jess saw the cat in the window every morning and evening on her way to and from work. Lately she found she was anticipating the cat, as if they were old friends. And she was even dreaming about the cat. One day the cat meowed insistently at her, and she knew that something was wrong...
Jhyoti Cadet Jhyoti was working on her final field assignment for exo-anthropology. She broke into the bashravi to find the secrets of the body washers. But she tripped over a dead body, and was found by the yighsilchi. Who would leave a dead body like this, and who killed the woman?
Camouflage The hermit finally heard something over the radio—music. But it wasn't in any language he had heard. So it wasn't their rescuers—in fact, it was coming from the third planet, which they had always thought to be lifeless. He raced down to the canal, dry these million years, to tell the others...
The Chermasu Alia ground blue corn in the traditional way, using the same three stones that her Mother and her Mother's mother used before her. She was interrupted by a stranger's singing. She invited the visitor in for lunch. He turned out to be an old man from a distant clan, but he seemed familiar somehow...
Freya's Flight Today Freya would become a priestess in the service of the Huntress. She had rejected the wealth and power of the family business—she wanted truth and meaning. She would walk up the steps of the Temple to the top, and then she would fly. Unfortunately, she didn't know how to fly...
Like Water in the Desert Max was riding the rails in search of employment when he met George. George had a job for him, but he only spoke of it cryptically. He seemed like a nice guy, though—he even shared his food with him. They jumped off the train and headed off to see a man named Robert Goddard...
Number 1
+ Stories by Tim Reid, Timothy Dyck, Terry Thwaites, Douglas M. Grant, Charles Conrad, and Gord Zajac
+ Reviews of the Blade Runner books and movie
Number 2
+ Stories by Michael Mirolla, D. Sandy Nielsen, Paul Benza, Greg Bechtel, James Schellenberg, and Stefano Donati
+ Reviews of Isaac Asimov's books and movies
Number 3
+ Stories by Bonnie Blake, Erik Allen Elness, Tom Olbert, Hans Albanese, and Robert Arthur Vanderwoude
+ Reviews of Stanislaw Lem's books and movie
+ Interview with James Alan Gardner
Number 4
+ Stories by Timothy Carter, Bonnie Mercure, Carl Mills, Nicholas Pollotta & Phil Foglio, and Erik Allen Elness
+ Reviews of Frank Herbert's Dune books and movie
+ Interview with Tanya Huff
Number 5
+ Stories by D. Sandy Nielsen, Anne Louise Johnson, B. R. Bearden, Mark Leslie, Carol W. Berman, and Hugh Cook
+ Reviews of Arthur C. Clarke's books and movies
+ Interview with Robert J. Sawyer
Number 6
+ Stories by Leah Silverman, Nicholas Pollotta, K. G. McAbee, Hugh Cook, Stacey Berg, and Daniel Pearlman
+ Reviews of books by and about Philip K. Dick
+ Interview with Julie E. Czerneda
Number 7
+ Stories by D. K. Latta, Hugh Cook, Kate Tompkins, Stefano Donati, K. G. McAbee, and Michael Mirolla
+ Reviews of feminist science fiction books and movie
+ Interview with Robert Charles Wilson
Number 8
+ Stories by James A. Hartley, Ken Rand, A. R. Morlan, Vincent Sakowski, Kelly Howard, and James Viscosi
+ Reviews of feminist science fiction books and movie
+ Interview with Phyllis Gotlieb
Number 9
+ Stories by J. S. Lyster, Kate Burgauer, D. K. Latta, Shelley Moore, Joe Mahoney, and Chris Reuter
+ Reviews of The War of the Worlds books and movie
+ Interview with Charles de Lint
Number 10
+ Stories by Hugh Cook, David Chato, Nye Marnach, Matthew J. Reynolds, Chris Webb, and Karina Sumner-Smith
+ Reviews of New Wave SF books and movie
+ Interview with Candas Jane Dorsey
Number 11
+ Stories by Peter S. Drang, Mark Anthony Brennan, Karl El-Koura, Hugh Cook, Harrison Howe, and Diane Turnshek
+ Reviews of books that Judith Merril wrote and edited
+ Interview with Guy Gavriel Kay
Number 12
+ Stories by Carl Sieber, D. K. Latta, A. R. Morlan, Justin E. A. Busch, Rudy Kremberg, and Hugh Cook
+ Reviews of books and movie about Mars
+ Interview with Nalo Hopkinson
Number 13
+ Stories by Ilsa J. Bick, Christopher East, Hugh Cook, Erol Engin, Nye Marnach, and Donna Farley
+ Reviews of Alice in Wonderland book and movies
+ Interview with Jim Munroe
Number 16
+ Stories by Uncle River, Vincent W. Sakowski, A. R. Morlan, Ken Rand, and Michael R. Martin
+ Reviews of time travel books
+ Interview with Alison Baird
+ A Survey of SF & Fantasy Art (Part 3 of 3)
Back issues are available online at www.projectpulp.com or through the mail. If you're ordering through the mail please make your cheque out to Crystalline Sphere Publishing and send it to:
Challenging Destiny
R. R. #6
St. Marys, Ontario
Canada N4X 1C8
Back issues are $7.50 Canadian, $6.50 U.S., and $7.00 International (in U.S. funds).
On the Challenging Destiny web site you'll find previews of upcoming magazines, as well as guidelines for authors & artists.
You'll also find lots of reviews from James Schellenberg that aren't in the magazine—reviews of books, movies, soundtracks & games.
The web site is here:
challengingdestiny.com