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SCIENCE FICTION STORIES:

Manumission

Written by Tobias S. Buckell

Illustrated by R Stephen Adams

This morning, when you wake up and look at your rippled reflection in the basin of water near the concrete wall of your cell, you only have one true personal memory left. It can’t be that your entire life is based off this one event, so you suspect they’ve left it with you to piss you off. To “motivate” you. To make you one raging motherfucker.

It’s a riff on the Countee Cullen poem. You’re six, standing on the street holding the anonymous arm of your mom, and the other kid staring back at you flips you off and calls you nigger.

That’s all they really left you with.

Sure there’s other stuff, you’re no vegetable. You can use money, eat, walk, tap the net, and know just about anything headlined over the last thirty years. But anything specific is faded, general, lost behind static and fuzzy feelings.

You empty the basin with a flourish and look around your cell.

The headache, the all-over itching, the scars crisscrossing your entire body, that gets to you too.

You’ve signed yourself away, the men in the black suits have explained back when you first arrived in this cell. They sat across from you on a sterile metal table. The document they slid toward your burnt smooth fingertips is legit.

So you listened to them, and nodded, and they got up to leave.

Oh yeah, one last thing, they had said.

Your name.

Pepper.

And your last name?

They just chuckled and closed the door.

* * *

Nine o’clock. Newport, Rhode Island. A forest of masts bobs slightly, boats cheerfully tied at their docks. You slide off the blue awning over the side entrance to a small bar and hit the slippery cobblestones to face a portly middle-aged accountant with slicked back wiry hair.

“Oh shit …” is all he has time to say.

Then slumps.

The small wires that knocked him out recoil back up into your wrists with a flick. You squat over the man, push his trousers up his hairy calf, and look at the tattoo on the back of his knee. He’s ShinnCo property. Your eyes scan for forgery, defects, get in closer for a finer look, where every hair seems to be tree-sized.

All good. You blink your eyes until they return to normal, the thin extra membrane rolling back behind your eyelids.

His hands are clammy when you grab them. His breath reeks of alcohol. With a grunt you pull him up onto your shoulder and stagger toward a waiting car.

What, you wonder, has Mr. James Edward leaked to the Federalists? You really don’t want, or need, to know.

Twelve hours later, five thousand closer to freedom, an old 6.35mm Astra Model Cub pistol tucked in the inner pocket of your oilskin duster, you’re sitting in the lounge of an airship over several hundred feet of water, languorously easing your way toward the next stop, Eleytheria.

It’s moored out in the Atlantic off the Eastern Seaboard this month.

* * *

At street level the Gulf Stream winds kick through the downtown buildings of Eleytheria. Your oilskin duster takes on a life of its own, bucking, trying to pull you off course as you make the usual staggered path, random jigs, sudden stops in front of reflective surfaces. It’s not even a conscious thing, checking for tails.

Monotone pedestrians in business camouflage, the grays and blacks of their seemingly timeless and conservative professions, mill past you.

It isn’t New York, but any of them could have been plucked out and placed in that environment without even noticing. No, just a few miles away the salt clears the breakwalls in clouds of mist and hovers into downtown.

Eleytheria is a giant bowl riding the large open ocean. Free to go where it pleases. Do what it pleases.

Many things start in Eleytheria.

Like yourself, years ago, deep in the bowels of one of Eleytheria’s denizen companies. You’ve found old archived public camera pictures of yourself walking down the streets, into the center of ShinnCo, to sign your self, this self, into what you know now.

Sometimes you hate your old self for selling you into this bondage. You wonder what he got? Lots of money? Some last great fling? Or were you just desperate, a wandering piece of hardware abandoned by some former First World secret gov project made obsolete by the Pacification?

You’d like to think you did it for some great cause, like helping your family out of a dire situation. But late at night you doubt it and think there was some stupid, selfish reason for doing it.

They’ll never tell you. Because if it was something like a family, you might try to contact them.

No. They have your memories. You’ll get them back when you serve your contract.

It always comes back to Eleytheria. When your feet hit the seacreate, your nose fills with misted salt, and you have returned to the only home you know. All your recent memories, everything that is you, starts here. Ever since you woke up behind a garbage dump in the back alley of ShinnCo.

And they’ve never let you back in through the front doors because they know full well what kind of monster they created. They control you, but they don’t sleep well at night. If you were to ever get near a door the automated security would hit you with an EMP pulse that would pretty much liquefy the machines in you, then the guns would reduce you to bloodied ribbons of flesh.

You won’t be getting your memories back using the new skills they’ve grafted into you. No way. And they still have one final trick, to keep you close, to control you.

So you stand in front of a small food cart. A faded orange umbrella hangs limply over it. When you palm the metal rail, the countdown inside you resets. You’re allowed to live for another week. A pointed way of letting you know you’re motherfucking owned, and you don’t get to stray. At all.

The edges of the umbrella flutter in the cold breeze, and on the other side of the cart an old Greek stands up.

“Morning, Kouroupas.”

“Morning, Pepper,” he says, looking you up and down. “The usual?”

“The usual.”

The front of the cart has a faded poster of a model with a strained smile, flat white teeth, holding up a gyro in perfectly manicured hands. They’re “heeeeros” she says.

“Lettuces, mayonnaises …” Kouroupas’ crazy white hair flies all over the place in the wind. It makes him look like a mad scientist.

He slaps the flatbread down. A cloud of flour tickles your nose.

A few browned strips of meat, some folded metallic paper, and you have your gyro, along with a small napkin neatly slid between your fingers.

You look at it, your eyes adjusting to the fibers, mapping out a pattern along the embroidered edges, translating the woven picture into words.

Susan Stamm. Ten thousand. Location. Eleytheria.

Ten thousand closer to getting yourself back. To freedom.

And she’s right here.

You fold the napkin and its encrypted directions into your pocket, pick up the gyro. Kouroupas smiles.

“Good day,” he tells you. “Be careful.”

You nod and slide a few bills over to him.

“You too.”

Be careful. It’s the first time Kouroupas seems to acknowledge that this isn’t just a gyro purchase. Seems to be telling you something’s not quite normal this time.

Out of sight of the gyro stand you toss the gyro into a trashcan that thanks you and trundles away.

Not nearly enough raw sugars in gyros for you. Takes too long to metabolize. What you need now is something to spike your blood sugar to combat levels.

* * *

Susan Stamm has done many, many unique things to hide her presence. But she’s on the run and wants off the planet. To do that she has to come to Eleytheria. Once an hour, every hour, a capsule is launched into low Earth orbit.

To really get far away, Stamm has to get Out There from Down Here.

So you sit and flip through pictures of embarkees who’ve been photographed at all three entrance points. One by fucking one. And these are just the ones the Port Authority computers have served up as possible matches. ShinnCo is being very generous with info and resources right now. They really want her back.

You’re sitting in a small outdoor cafe, eyes closed. On the right eyeball is Susan Stamm’s corp ID photo. On your left is some random face pic snapped by the Port Authority entrance machine.

Then another random face.

You reach for the sugary soda, take a long cold sip, and the next picture comes up.

Another sip of sugar water. Gotta keep the machines inside you running happy.

You flip to another pic.

Ha.

She looks thinner than the last official photo. She’s still five-nine, but now has a recently bobbed haircut and green eyes.

* * *

Four hours later you’re in the lobby of a smaller Eleytheria hotel, looking up at the atrium eighty stories above you, licking the icing off a Danish. In the background, over the hum of people, over the echoing shouts of kids screaming and waving from several floors above, comes the explosive whip-crack of a capsule being thrown into space.

* * *

There was this mugger that jumped you a year ago. Before you even realized it you’d spun, broken both his arms and a leg, and the man lay in an unconscious heap by the side of a brick facade.

His clothes were ragged, he was thin, and when you held his gun in your hand, you realized that it was unloaded.

Ballsy. And pathetic.

By going through his wallet you found out that his name was Jack Connely. He had three kids and a very attractive blonde wife. Jack had been a spacer entrepreneur of some sort, reduced to Earth living after the Pacification.

Now all the businesses could buy a ride into space. Move their offices up into alien stations, use alien services, buy alien products, machines. Not much use for small guys, you could hardly scrape together the price. But multinationals can, and now that they’re all in orbit, or beyond, the pretense of even caring about the world they originated from was thrown out.

You could have used the money you found in his pocket, his day’s take, though you couldn’t use it toward paying off your ShinnCo contract. They only accept their own in house credit.

You couldn’t even use the money to disable the shit laced all through your body. You tried that once before. Almost killed you on the table.

Instead, you sent his wallet and the money back in the mail to his family. And you added some of your own.

You’re a good person, you tell yourself.

But it’s very hard to believe when it was so easy, so automatic, to have grabbed that man’s gun and pulled the trigger, right down to within a hairtrigger of firing, before stopping.

That can’t be all wired into you, right?

* * *

Susan Stamm walks through the revolving door, past a doorman, and on toward a cab. You shake your shoulders and arms, loosening up the great mass of coat around you, and step in behind her. She’s better looking in person, unlike some of the dolled-up, make-up-caked women you’ve seen in the past.

As she grabs the gullwing door of the bubbly autocab she spots your reflection in the window and turns around.

“Could we share this ride?” you say. Already you flex the muscles in your wrists, begin to raise your left arm and coat to obscure her body. She’ll fall, and you’ll sweep her up and into the autocab with you.

As the autocab rides off you’ll look like two lovers cuddling in the back.

Instead her eyes widen, hands curl into fists, and a small dart burrows into your stomach.

You’re on the ground, convulsing. Spit flecks your lips. You break into a heavy sweat. Vomit tastes like sugar water, flowing out onto the concrete sidewalk. It takes effort just to slowly roll over.

The doorman turns around.

He moves, a blur that you know isn’t natural, and hits Stamm from the side. She hits the door of the autocab, shattering the Plexiglas, and the doorman grabs her neck, turning her head to confirm her ShinnCo tattoo.

Small silver fans protrude from the back of the man’s neck. Antenna. You can see heat rising off his uniform, rippling the air around him. A timeshare. Not under his own control then—just renting his body for sudden on-the-spot jobs like this one.

You have a choice. Give it up. Let this competitor grab her, kill her, whatever.

Or.

With just a quick flex of your arms the wires spit out of your wrists and hit the back of his neck. The man spasms, lightning sparking across the surface of his skin. The antenna melt, dripping down the back of his collar. He spins around and raises his arms.

“Oh fuck,” he screams, the link to whatever controls him from orbit gone. “I’m burning. They killed me! I’m burning!”

As he staggers toward the door, people gather. Someone tries to get the doorman to sit down. Someone 911s to call this in, speaking into his pinkie finger.

On your hands and knees, eyes burning and streaming tears, wires retracted back into your wrists, you push forward into the car. You grab Stamm, pull her in with you, and barely manage to shut the door.

She’s in better shape than you, coming back to consciousness as you vomit sugar water all over her red high heels.

“Drive, damnit,” she shouts at the cab’s autopilot, and gives an address.

“Damage has been detected,” it warbles. “Failure mode initiated. A replacement cab is on its way. We apologize for the delay.”

“Shit.”

The cab rocks as she leans forward.

Your muscles fail.

Your brain goes zero.

You’re out.

* * *

There are rooms and then there are rooms. They’re square more often than not, with white walls. But this one has dirty laundry, fake wooden paneling, a giant mirror on a wall, and a small cot that you’re lying on.

A wicker chair next to you creaks. Soft hands stroke your forehead.

“You’re tough. That was supposed to kill you.”

“I feel like shit.” Every pore hurts.

“I would imagine.” A finger traces the scars all over your body. “I’m sorry. I think I may have got the wrong person. It was the doorman I should have shot, he was the one coming for me. Who are you?”

Don’t say anything.

Just shiver and turn back off. It’s easier.

* * *

You wake up hungry and naked. Disoriented. You have no internal time. The small set of numbers that usually hover in the corner of your left eye is gone.

There’s a pink bathrobe on the wicker chair that you grab as you sit up.

It takes everything you have to stand. Muscles protest, and every cell seems to ache.

“Feeling better?”

She’s sitting by the kitchen counter, hands up, watching you warily.

You nod.

“Okay. So here are the rules. Any sudden moves I fire another one of these pips into you. If your hands aren’t where I can see them, I shoot. I doubt you survive another one. So sit. Put your hands on your lap.”

The bathrobe is comfortable. You slowly wrap it tighter around you and sit. Her tone drips with suspicion, guarded overtones. The air is tense.

She points at your leg. That’s where they tattooed the small logo on you. Inner thigh. It really, really hurt.

“You’re ShinnCo.”

“Yes.” She knows, you know. No point in denying.

“And the doorman?” she asks. “Did you know about him ahead of time?”

You shrug.

She stares at you and you stare right back, not sure where this is going. You have the faintest sense that you’ll get out of the door alive.

“Why are you still here?” you ask, which also implies, why am I still alive? “You could have left me here.”

Stamm smiles.

“I felt bad for you.”

That is not the response you really expected. And you don’t believe it for a second. Someone this dangerous isn’t that stupid.

“You know what I am …”

“Get real. They want me alive. You’re not that dangerous. Neither was the doorman, he was just a backup. It’s unfortunate they don’t care a whit about his life.”

You’ve never spotted backups of any sort before. This is different. Very different. She spots the frown.

“Is this your first high profile recapture?” Off in the distance is the whipcrack of another space launch, and she smiles. It’s a broad one, full of glee. “Look, I’m within walking distance of getting away. They’re getting desperate. I shouldn’t have gotten this far. You’re a backup, the doorman was an emergency backup, and the first three they sent after me are all lying in alleys somewhere.”

She’s dangerous.

Kouroupas tried to warn you.

“So what now?” you ask.

“Well I’m hungry and making some breakfast. Can I get you anything?”

You smile.

“Anything with sugar, I could really use something sweet.”

She nods.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you could, but I know what makes you tick.” Your smile drops. “None of that for you. I’m leaving you weak, and slow for now. Just stay on the bed, don’t move, and I’ll bring you some diet soda.”

You stare at her, and she laughs at you.

“I know a lot about those systems in you. How do you think I ended up with those little pips I hit you with? I designed them myself.”

She walks into the kitchen, opens the fridge, and tosses you a can.

“Drink up… . What is your name?”

You look down at the sugarless drink in your hands.

“Pepper,” you say.

* * *

Susan Stamm. ShinnCo property since birth. Mother died having her, orphanage signed Susan over. She starts telling you all this stuff as she sits at a small table across from you and eats obscene amounts of breakfast sausage and eggs. The place reeks of it.

“You never even realize there is a different way of life,” Susan says. “But I remember, when I was twelve, suddenly understanding that there were people who didn’t have logos on their bodies, who didn’t have to report into minders once a day, who weren’t being encouraged to study certain things that the company needed.” She picks up a greasy link, pauses. “And then I decided I would escape it.”

“How many years has that been?”

She flashes a smile and downs the sausage.

Then the dishes are tossed in the sink, she washes her hands while looking over her shoulder at you. You’re still sitting in the pink bathrobe, sipping from the can.

“Just on the other side of Eleytheria is a launcher. I have a ticket off this world, and out there I have passage far out as crew on a mining ship. I know it won’t be easier, but I’ll be my own person.” She raises a wrist. “I can burn this fucking logo off my skin.”

“So you’ll leave me here?”

She shakes her head.

“I have a proposition. You can’t buy your freedom from ShinnCo, I’ll bet, not for a long time yet. But what would you do for a ticket offworld?”

You just stare at her.

She takes it as hesitation.

“You owe me your life anyway. I need someone at my back, because if it’s just me they’ll try and pick me up at the gates to the launcher. Last ditch, overwhelming numbers.”

“Okay.” Opportunity glints in your eyes. At any point along this journey you may have an opportunity to overpower her. She spots the reaction. She thinks she has you.

“You’ll walk me to the launcher, then I’ll hand over the ticket. Try to double cross me before then and I’ll fire another one of these nasty little critters into you. So it’s in your best interests to work with me.”

You nod.

She laughs.

“You realize you’re free, don’t you? You weren’t just physically disabled,” she says. “I scrubbed clean all your systems. You understand what that means?”

You test everything she has just said, and she is right. But …

When you look down to your wrists she steps back slightly. It’s an unconscious move.

“Those still work,” she says. “They’re bio-mechanical. Nothing that can be scrambled, infected, or shut down.”

For the briefest flash of a moment you’ve seen freedom. And then, you think to yourself, there is the matter of the countdown. That’s firewalled off from the rest of your body and bio-mech. You can’t see the countdown, but you know it’s there. You don’t explain this to her. Right now she thinks you’re in her debt.

Play along.

“I’ve set you free from them,” she says. “You can do anything you want now.”

You nod again. “Okay, fair enough. I’ll help you for the ticket. Can I have my clothes back?”

The smile on her lips fades. She sizes you up, squinting. Apparently something satisfies her.

“Other side of the bed.”

They’ve been washed, pressed, and folded into a neat pile. The Astra Model Cub pistol lies on top of them all. It’s loaded.

Golden. Like that tantalizing glimpse of freedom she’d tried to give you.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later you’re both out the door. You’ve got the overcoat draped over your right arm. You’re weak, tired, and at a disadvantage, but all it will take is one well-placed shot where you can drop behind some cover, and she’s down.

Susan faces you as she locks the door, still wary, but there is joy in her face. She can see the end of the road.

It’s almost sad.

You walk down a corridor toward a pair of steel doors. As sunlight spills into the dimly lit area, you scope a vending niche just ahead and to the right. A drink machine hums a long low note. All you have to do is slow down, just get behind her by one step, shoot her, and use the machine for cover if she tries to use one of those lethal darts.

Two shadows force their way through the doors at the end of the corridor.

The gun’s easy enough to spot; you duck and jump to your side. Susan fires at one of them as you dodge into the niche.

What puzzles you is the wrenching pain in your shoulder that drops you to the floor in front of the neon glow of the soda machine.

They’re not aiming at Susan.

That was meant for you.

Your chest is wet with blood and your left arm can hardly move, but with your right you feel around the inside of your overcoat as Susan falls to the ground. Unconscious, not dead.

You drape the coat over the good arm to hide the Astra and wait.

It’s Kouroupas that turns the corner. His wild hair makes a halo around his head, bathed and filtered in the light of a flickering fluorescent overhead. There is no waiting, he looks down at the overcoat hanging over your right arm, hesitates for a second, and you fire four times in a row, blowing a hole in the overcoat that the muzzle sticks through.

“Damn it.” Kouroupas looks shocked as he slumps to the ground.

You crawl over to him and lean close.

There are no last words, no apologies or explanations, just his creased eyes looking up at the ceiling, his flour covered hands holding his bloody stomach, and then he stops breathing.

With some effort you retrieve his gun, pocket it with your Astra, and slump with your back against the soda machine.

* * *

Fifteen sodas later you shake Susan awake again. The first time you tried, after plucking the feathered dart out of her neck, she just lolled back into unconsciousness.

Your shoulder is packed with a shirt torn off the anonymous, dead, would-be assassin at the far end of the corner. You’re still seeping blood.

“Come on,” you whisper to her. “You need to wake up.”

Her eyes snap open.

“No!” she shouts, throwing her hands up in front of her. You grab her wrists, a quick snapping motion, and look at her. She thinks she’s been captured and been taken back to ShinnCo.

“You’re okay, you’re still here in the lobby. You got one of them first, I got the other.”

She looks at you, then calms.

You’re keyed up, your body’s retooling itself, parts coming back online. She’d given you an out, a way to leave. Your body, deactivated, could have been worked over by any shitty street surgeon. There was the slightest chance you could have found a way to be free eventually, thanks to her trick.

Now the insulin is surging, the blood sugar’s up, and the teenies in your blood scurry around, revived and back to business.

You’re back. Rebooted. Tiny emergency warnings flash in your vision, detailing the damage done to your shoulder. It numbs itself and the bleeding clots and stops.

Susan hardly protests as you pick her up off the ground by her wrists with one arm.

“Do you still have time to make your launch?”

She’s dazed, but focuses.

“Yeah. Yeah. We need to move.”

Gun in hand, the other shoved in a pocket so you don’t move it, you sweep the area ahead. Nothing stops the two of you.

* * *

In the cab she asks you why you stayed with her.

You sit there, adjusting the bloodied shoulder bandage, and avoid her gaze.

“They came at me first,” you explain. “I’m a target now.” ShinnCo has spent too much time up in orbit, not enough time on the ground. You are just ants, resources to be used. And in their eyes you’ve turned on them, bitten them. It’s easier to eliminate you and find a new worker of your talents than risk something going bad. You’ve seen it before. No doubt you’ll see it again. “What good is bringing you in if they’re going to shoot me as I try do it?”

“You could still have just left me there.”

True.

You wrap your coat back around you and look up at her. “I owed you one.”

The cab bumbles on down the road while you both sit in silence for a while. Then she puts a hand on your knee.

“You rebooted. I can fix you again, so you’re free of all their machines.”

You look down at her hand.

“Take too long. You have a launch.”

“Yeah.” She pulls back away, crosses her arms over her chest, and looks out the window. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you say. “Your trick probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.” And you tell her about the ticking bomb in you, the nano flechettes timed to go off unless they get their little code from that contact on the gyro stand.

We own you motherfucker.

“They aimed at me first,” you tell her. Kouroupas came to finish it, and they’ll get to aim at you again when you have to go back there to the cart in three days. Or you’ll be sitting, standing, somewhere, when the bomb goes off. You’ll look normal for a while, to bystanders, until your body falls down in a shapeless mass. Shredded from the inside out.

“That’s why I rebooted.”

You look out the window now as well, watching the terminals approach.

There isn’t much to say after that.

* * *

There are some things you know about memory technology.

One is that it began here on Earth. Using existing technology: superconducting quantum interferometer devices that map specific memory recalls. It was pretty much there when the Pacification happened. With alien technology brought down out of orbit it got nudged along just a little further into maturity.

Two. The memories are burned out of your head. They aren’t coming back.

Three. The same alien technology that matured memory alteration allows backups.

Four. When you figure out how to disable the bomb inside you, you will then go out and find that backup.

If there is no backup, there will be payback.

* * *

You walk Susan up to the terminal booth. Several streets behind lie the bodies of more dead ShinnCo who tried to stop you. You stand on neutral ground. Even ShinnCo wouldn’t piss off the alien launch corporation that owns Eleytheria. Overhead the floors sweep out over the road like wings. The architecture is impossible, like Frank Lloyd Wright on crack. The supports are too small. The wings too large. It’s a building designed by something that evolved on a lower gravity world and is forcing their sensibilities onto an Earth object.

The inside of the booth is filled with a light pink gas of some sort. It’s more than bulletproof; any hostile action you could take would result in vaporization.

Alien ticket takers don’t put up with shit. Too many Earth terrorists tried to take out their aggression on them in retaliation for the Pacification. The orbital corporations that own the rest of the solar system found it annoying, so they put in countermeasures.

Susan scans her ticket in.

Inside the booth, tentacles move. Half of them are plugged into the wall, the other half seem to support a globular mass. This creature looks like a cyborg octopus. It’s light years from home, trying to scrape out a living in a weird world, looking out at you with three eyes at the center of its trunk and burbling something.

“Clear. Proceed,” the speaker orders.

The security gate to the right of the booth slides aside.

Susan turns to you. She slides an extra ticket into the palm of your hand.

“In case it ever works out …” she says.

You wonder if the memory of her walking through the security gate, or the memory of her hand sliding away from yours, could easily be burned out of your head.

Not this time at least.

Several minutes later the capsule thunders out in the great above and the thing in the booth hisses at you, wondering what your deal is.

Time to move on.

You stop at a public access point near the corner of a road.

The demands you send the ShinnCo emergency contact points are as follows:

One negotiator familiar with your case, with authority to bargain. The cart, fully functional, in the usual space. And you’ll confirm the cart from a distance, making sure it isn’t a fake.

Two hours. They couldn’t get an identical fake, with heat generating machinery of the same signature inside in that time.

Or else?

Or else you have time enough to go hunting before the countdown hits the last second.

You’ll need a hatchet, for starters.

* * *

It’s a metaphorical high noon. They’re not going to back off, and neither are you. The first sign of weakness is death. You’re locked in, no turning back.

They set a nice trap. The gyro stand is up, and what looks to be a middle-aged man stands there. He isn’t putting much into the facade, half-heartedly telling interested passersby that he’s out of flatbread.

You spot the three snipers on balconies above.

Two men in doors nearby, lounging.

Four pedestrians.

One by one would take far too long, so you steal a bubble cab.

Even the new gyro guy doesn’t spot you until you swerve the stolen machine off the road and slam into the cart. Flour, flatbread, meat, and sauces explode into the air. They drip off the door as you swing it up and open, using it for cover as you knock the stunned man out with a flick of your wrist, and pull him into the car.

The shots start. Silent insect-like buzzes and then explosions of concrete. The glass windows of the cab explode, the seats kick up leather and stuffing. In addition to the glass splinters buried in your face, the concrete shards ripping your overcoat apart, they hit you in the thigh, and then again in a foot.

Keep moving.

You grab the hatchet and smash the cart apart while keeping low, and pull out what you need. Your forearm gets hit, bone splitting out of the skin and causing waves of pain and nausea until things inside your body decide the pain is getting in the way of your ability to function.

The cab can barely hold everything. Glass bites you in the ass as you sit down and barrel out of there.

Engine smoking, tires flopping, it lasts long enough to get you deep into an alley.

The gyro man is coughing blood and dying in the back thanks to a well-aimed shot to the stomach. What you really want to do is get to work on him, make him forget about that pain and worry about a whole new universe of hurt. Maybe it will help you forget about yours.

Instead you work on bandaging your own wounds with strips of fabric torn off the overcoat and watch him struggle to stay conscious.

His eyes dilate, mouth drops open.

“I know about your memories,” he croaks.

“You the negotiator?” You hadn’t expected them to actually put him next to the cart. He ignores that, moves on.

“You don’t have any. You never had any,” he says quickly. “You came to ShinnCo looking for ways to reverse the process. But you were state of the art. Recent government surplus, useless after the Pacification. If ShinnCo didn’t claim you, some other corporation would. So they screwed you over.”

“I can’t help you,” you say. Even if an ambulance got here in time he wouldn’t make it back.

The man closes his eyes and groans. The inside of the cab smells of shit from his ruptured stomach. His messy hands are both folded over, he’s almost fetal.

“Fuck them,” he rasps. “They told me this would be easy. That you wouldn’t even get to cross the street.”

“They fucked you. They fuck everyone.”

You watch him.

“At least you’re as fucked as me,” he says, eyes still closed. It’s almost a whisper now.

You don’t bother to tell him the truth.

Another long moment passes.

“They have what you did know on a recording. You had something stored. They have that.”

“And do you know what I was?” you ask.

He shakes his head.

Then shudders.

Passes out.

The actual dying will take a while more. You slowly shift, reach to his head, and snap his neck. After rummaging around you pull his wallet out. A picture of a redhead. Girlfriend? Must be, you think. No ring.

So what price are you willing to pay for your self?

Is it worth it?

* * *

Time heals all wounds.

In your case, it takes about three weeks before you recover fully.

Now you’re standing in front of that same booth, same alien in the pink gas, holding out your ticket. You have gotten your photo ID and background check (faked). It warbles behind the security glass.

“Name?”

“Pepper.”

“Secondary name?”

You pause.

“Smith.”

“The size of your luggage is unusual,” it protests.

“It is necessary,” you insist. The remains of the important bits of the gyro stand. And some extra devices to shield it from any ShinnCo attempts to make it call home and make your life miserable.

It looks at you.

“Human.” The word is unstressed through the speaker. But you know the meaning behind it.

You stare the creature down and wait.

The go-around takes several minutes, but the creature finally tacks on a massive surcharge and lets you through.

Settling into the capsule’s launch chair, the long lines of the launch tube visible through the tiny portholes ahead of you, you pull your new overcoat closely around you.

You wonder if Susan can find room for you on her mining ship.

It’s a wild non-world out there. One where humans are minorities, alien conglomerates ply the worlds and negotiate with primitives like your own people for their gas giants and extra unused planets. They trade them for space access, advanced technology. Beads and glass many suspect, but not to primitive planets like Earth.

This is your new environment.

ShinnCo you can leave behind.

* * *

You reach your hand up and caress the data amulet hanging from your neck. It is the memory of a sandy beach, your back relaxed against a palm tree. The gentle swish of the wind through leaves and water breaking against rocks at the end of the bay soothes you. That’s it. A single memory of a life you once wanted to remember back. ShinnCo put a lot of security around it. Your past is the past.

The chair wraps around your waist and comes down your shoulders. You are the person you make yourself to be.

Fifteen seconds.

You are the person you are now.

The whine of the accelerators reaches a crescendo.

You’re not going to look into the past and what you were.

Three seconds.

It really isn’t important.

Launch.

* * *

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Framed

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Jim Baens Universe-Vol 2 Num 6

Table of Contents

SCIENCE FICTION STORIES:

Manumission

Written by Tobias S. Buckell

Illustrated by R Stephen Adams

Virtually, A Cat

Written by Jody Lynn Nye

Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti

Indomitable

Written by Jack McDevitt

Illustrated by Karl A. Nordman

Honorable Enemies: A Jake Masters Mystery

Written by Mike Resnick

Illustrated by Jonathan Rollins

FANTASY STORIES:

Scraps of Fog

Written by Sarah A. Hoyt

Illustrated by Jennifer Miller

The Witch of Waxahachie

Written by Lou Antonelli

Illustrated by Terry Wisenant

Knight of Coins

Written by Margaret Ronald

Illustrated by Jared Blando

CLASSIC:

Born of the Sun

Written by Jack Williamson

Illustrated by William Johns

SERIALS:

Countdown to Armageddon,

Episode Four

Written by Edward M. Lerner

Illustrated by Dean Spencer

Fish Story, Episode Twelve: Make It More Complicated

Written by Eric Flint, Andrew Dennis, Dave Freer

INTRODUCING STORIES:

Red Tape and Cold Iron, or A Proposal for the Reintroduction of the Faery Folk To the United Kingdom

Written by Lucy Bond

Illustrated by Anna Repp

Extreme Reservations

Written by R. J. Ortega

Illustrated by Dan Monroe

NONFICTION:

Becoming Stewards of Our World: The Great Theme of the 21st Century, Part Two, Editing the Sun: A Way Out Way Out

Written by Gregory Benford

Earth’s Next Schism

Written by Stephen Euin Cobb

COLUMNS:

Attending Worldcon

Written by Mike Resnick

A Matter of Symbiosis

Written by Eric Flint

The Matrix and the Star Maker

Written by Mike Resnick

The Toy Shop

Written by Barry N. Malzberg

April 2008

Written by Stephen Euin Cobb

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Jim Baens Universe-Vol 2 Num 6

Paperback

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

First printing, April 2008

ISSN: 1932-0930

Copyright (c) 2007 by Jim Baen’s Universe

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Publishing Enterprises Publication

Jim Baen’s Universe

P. O. Box 7488

Moore, OK 73153-1488

Electronic version by WebWrights

http://www.webscription.net

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Contents

Virtually, A Cat

Written by Jody Lynn Nye

Illustrated by Lee Kuruganti

The burly male technician loomed over the smaller man in engineer’s orange coveralls as if by sheer size he would drive home his message.

“I swear, Ardway, if you tell me one more cat story, I’m going to kayo you and put you out the airlock!”

“I thought you liked hearing them, Callan,” Benny Ardway said, wondering if he could wriggle his skinny frame any farther into the bulkhead of the forward engineering compartment to escape his shipmate’s wrath. He lifted apologetic, round blue eyes to the engineer. “You laughed. I thought you enjoyed hearing about Parky and Blivit.”

“Once, on the way out of orbit, was okay. Twice, while we were waiting for the calculations to jumpspace. But you have to have told the same damned stories a million times since we broke atmosphere,” Callan said, sticking a furious finger in his shipmate’s face, “and enough’s enough!”

“All right,” Ardway said, meekly. Callan gave him one more glower, then kicked off the wall to continue replacing modules in the astrogation console. Ardway handed himself down to his keyboard and looked out at the blackness of nonspace, wishing he could swim all the way back to Earth. He felt bereft. No one on board the ship felt the way he did about cats. No one understood what it was costing him to make this long trip, knowing that back on Earth his pets were missing him. No, not his pets: his family.

When he’d been assigned to the Calliope, the station quartermaster had told him that he was entitled to bring with him 20 kg. of personal gear. Perfect, he had thought. Both of his cats together didn’t weigh more than ten. Add to that their food dishes, maybe one more kilo. The corps supplied his uniforms, his tools, dishes, food, and bunk space. He could use a discarded cabinet casing for the cats’ litter pan. That left him nine kilograms for bookcubes and personal items. The cats would sleep with him. No bunk had ever been too small to contain all three of them. He had even asked his assigned bunkmate, the communications officer named Polson, if he liked cats, and Polson had said he did. It was going to be great.

Ardway had weighed everything several times to make certain everything he was bringing fell under the allowable limit. He even had half a kilo to spare. He had been devastated when, upon reaching the launch center with his luggage, he learned that his cats wouldn’t be allowed to come with him.

“We can’t have animals in deep space,” the mission commander said, as if shocked that Ardway would even consider such a thing. He regarded the cats in their carrier with horror. Ardway recalled having moved between Captain Thurston and the cats to protect them in case the officer went crazy. The way his nostrils puffed out reminded Ardway of Parky about to have a fit. “They could panic! Destroy precious equipment! Er, soil, er, the environment.”

“Sir, they’re very clean animals,” Ardway had protested. “They’re both neutered shorthairs. They won’t cause any kind of fuss.”

“You must be out of your mind!” Captain Thurston said, crossing his arms. He was the poster-boy type for the deep space program, tall, handsome, muscular, and crew-cut, the physical opposite of Ardway, who was hollow-chested and mousy-haired. “Get those animals out of here, and I mean stat!”

There was nothing Ardway could do. He’d signed an ironclad contract, and he really did want to be in on this project. Who wouldn’t want a crack at being astronavigator on the first team to use the new jump technology for a long-range jaunt outside the solar system? NASA had wanted him, too. He was the lead software designer who had come up with the format for the benchmark system that kept the ship on beam. The program ran like a top, but NASA thought it would be better to have him out there with them in case something went wrong on a long test, after the eighteenth century custom of sending the engineer to sea with the ship he’d designed. Ardway thought he could leverage his desirability into making them agree to let the cats come, but they waved his signature in front of him, and told him to get over it. He’d only be gone two years. Two years! Ardway felt as if his heart would be torn apart.

The only way Ardway could cope was to have lots of reminders of the cats with him. With ten kilos of his personal allowance freed up, he was able to pack in a personal viewer and hundreds of videos of the cats playing and sleeping. He enlisted a trusted friend to watch over his pets, set up a mail account between his apartment and the communication station at Canaveral so he could get updates on his pets, and shared stories about Parky and Blivit with his new shipmates. Alas, the first wasn’t satisfying enough, and the last endured only as long as the patience of the final person on board the Calliope who would listen to him. That had been Callan.

Ardway watched the technician’s orange-clad legs floating weightlessly under the console. The flutter kick Callan made to keep himself in place reminded him of his orange tiger cat, Parky, lying on his side in the sun batting idly at a ribbon. He opened his mouth to say so, and very quickly closed it again. Callan might really put him outside in nonspace. Ardway glanced at the clock and decided to take a break. The program didn’t need him at that moment. No one did. His job had really been done the day he finished debugging the system, more than a month ago, and wouldn’t begin again unless something went wrong. In the meantime, he was useless baggage. He slid out of his chair, nodded to the helm officer, Frida Lawes, and handwalked out of the forward engineering compartment and made for the break room.

The Calliope had been designed to support up to fifteen crew members for a period of at least three years for her mission to Gliese 86. The ship’s complement was ten crew members, and the mission was intended to run only twenty-two months. If the bounce technology worked as planned, they would break space periodically, once just outside Sol’s heliopause, then enter the tunnel under normal space for approximately five months, surfacing occasionally to make sure they were still on beam, and emerge on the edge of the heliopause of Gliese, counting on Ardway’s program and his skill to get them there safely. The crew would undertake as much exploration of the star system as they could manage in their time frame, followed by the turnaround journey. All the crew cabins except the mission commander’s were doubles. The break room, the mess hall, and the exercise center were common areas. Six private one-man carrels were available when the pressures of the mission and communal living got to be too much for human nature. That wasn’t Ardway’s problem. He wanted company. They just didn’t want him.

“Coffee,” he told the wall in the break room. A hatch slid open in the mural, and Ardway took the insulated bulb. The food service system made pretty good coffee, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, and spaghetti sauce - anything soft. Any food with texture kind of suffered in processing. He floated over to an outer bulkhead where he secured himself on a loop to watch the entertainment hologram in the center of the room. It showed a couple of earnest men in surgical greens leaning over a patient and calling for tests. Reruns already? Who cared? He wondered if he had time to go back to his cabin and watch one of his personal tapes. Maybe the one of black and white Blivit washing herself.

“Hey, Benny!” Cora Handley, the ship’s blue-suited medical officer, swung into the room and noticed him hanging there all by himself. The oldest member of the crew, she’d been on more long-range flights than anyone else in the service. She was only around fifty, but her hair was almost pure white. Except for that and the ‘spaceman’s squint’, she looked thirty. “What’s the word from your cat sitter? How are the Terrible Two?”

Ardway perked up. “You won’t believe it, Doc,” he said, delighted to expand upon his favorite subject. “Melanie said that she showed them my message tape, and they both sat in front of the screen watching me. She said Blivit reached up to touch me through the screen. She couldn’t, of course,” Ardway said, sinking into depression again. If only it was that simple. His hands ached for the stroke of fur, to feel that soft vibration of a deep, throaty purr. “She said they are eating well, but I had to remind her to give Parky his vitamins where Blivit can’t see it, because she thinks they’re a treat, and she gets jealous …”

“Later, honey,” Handley said, hastily, her pleasant face contorting. “I’m running a stress test on the commander. Look, twenty-two months isn’t that long a time. You’ll be back there before you notice.” Handley ordered herself a coffee, and somersaulted out of the room with the bulb bobbing beside her.

Ardway appreciated her kind words. She was very sweet, but she was a hundred percent wrong. He noticed, all right. He noticed at the beginning of every sleep shift when no firm, furry bodies snuggled in with him, pushing him away from his pillow. He noticed at every mealtime when there were no sets of green or gold eyes looking up at him, hoping for the choicest morsels. He noticed when no friendly shoulders bumped into his legs while he sat at his console. And the worst was that no one wanted to hear about his troubles. Ardway blamed the space program for being shortsighted. If they’d let him have his little friends, he wouldn’t have to talk about them all the time. They’d even be good for crew morale. He drank his coffee and went back to his station. Just like the state of warp, the outlook for him looked black.

* * *

The Calliope broke space on schedule, and exactly where Ardway’s computer told them they’d be: on the very edge of the Sol system, in among the junk in the Oort cloud that surrounded the open space. The sun was a tiny dot at the edge of the astrogation screen. Ardway’s loneliness was put on hold for a time while the ship went on manual helm to explore the belt. Everyone got excited, as they were able to employ their specialties for the first time in the mission.

Spinning frozen boulders the size of small moons danced in the giant circle that surrounded his home system like a ring of mountains. Ardway enjoyed the narrow squeaks as he steered the ship close to chunks of space debris, fascinated by the largest amount of solid matter that existed anywhere but a planet. The geophysics team, Johnson and Mackay, gathered samples using both the ship’s grappling arms, and a short-range small retrieval unit that, like Ardway’s nav system, was on its shakedown cruise. The retrieval unit was nothing more or less than an empty spacesuit that went on tethered spacewalks by itself. Unmanned spacewalks were another of the service’s bright ideas to protect the fragile human beings in the crew from being exposed to radiation or accidents. The retrieval suit went out the airlock and acted as a kind of waldo while someone in the ship wearing the corresponding receptor-motivator unit felt everything the suit did, and saw everything the camera in the helmet did. The system was terrifically flexible and adaptable. When the suit successfully collected an interesting chunk of rock, Johnson made it do an end-zone disco boogie as the crew cheered.

The fun was short-lived. Once they reentered the blackness of warp space, an idled Ardway became morose, and simply didn’t talk to people for a while. He holed up in the privacy cubicles with his collection of home videos and his thoughts. Unable actually to be with his precious cats he spent a lot of time imagining himself home with them, in his personal heaven-on-earth. All right, so his bachelor flat was small and about twenty floors up with an unreliable lift; it had a great view to the south that allowed his pets to have sunlight all day, most suitable for naps and stretching. He had had so many happy days, playing with Parky and Blivit, reading with them on his lap, talking to them, and just enjoying the companionship.

He knew the others in the crew watched him and worried. Every so often he’d leave the privacy cubicle grinning over a particularly cute video or picture and catch the eye of one or another of his fellows, who would hastily look away. Ardway wondered if he could be dropped out of the service for cat addiction. But it’d be worth it. The cats were his companions, his friends, his comfort. Life like this wasn’t the life he wanted to lead. It was great during the big moments, the discoveries, but enduring the long stretches without his little friends was devastating. The view out the ports was an unchanging black, but he knew, intellectually as well as emotionally, that he was flying farther and farther away from his cats. He lived for the moments when they broke out of jump and received beamed messages from Earth. New video from Melanie of Parky and Blivit lifted his spirits like nothing else. He ached for them, and the longing got worse and worse as time went by. No one on the ship understood. No one wanted to hear about it.

With little to do and an indifferent company to keep, Ardway began to be lax about shift times, showing up when he felt like it. Who cared? Not the other people in the crew. His program didn’t need him. He started to go without shaving, and occasionally without bathing. By the twelfth week he sometimes wouldn’t even bother to get out of his bunk unless he was hungry or had to use the head. Ardway knew his behavior was unhealthy, but he simply could not motivate himself. He began to spend his break times in his privacy cubicle, screening videos, and coming out only when he was called. No one seemed to miss him. Except his cats.

Late one evening shift in the third month of the mission, Ardway heard a tap on the cubicle door. On the little viewscreen, Parky had just jumped out from behind the couch and assaulted Blivit, who’d just been having a drink, and was minding her own business as she walked back to her favorite sprawl spot. The two of them rolled together, rabbit-kicking at one another’s bellies. The tap sounded again.

“Just a minute,” Ardway called. He didn’t want to miss the best part. Here it came: Parky and Blivit rolled into the couch. The contact surprised them. They jumped apart, and sat at opposite ends of the open area washing themselves to cover their discomfiture. Ardway laughed and shook his head. He unlocked the door.

“Benny?” It was Mel Johnson, the junior geophysicist, a large, dark-skinned, friendly man with big hands. “Hey, buddy, we don’t see a lot of you any more.”

“I’m there when you need me,” Ardway said, defensively. He popped the cartridge out of the video reader and prepared to load another one.

“Yeah, but you’re not there, man. You haven’t been yourself since about four weeks ago.” Johnson looked at the recorder and met Ardway’s eyes with sympathy. “You miss ‘em that much, huh? No,” he held up a hand as Ardway took a deep breath. “Don’t tell me your stories again, man. Tell them to your diary. I’m tired of ‘em, too.

“I think even the computer is tired of them,” Ardway said, with rueful humor. “I do miss them. I can’t even tell you how much. I’d give everything for a cat. I can’t last two years like this. I’m going to go crazy!”

“Well, what is it you really miss?” Johnson asked, propping himself in the door frame so Ardway couldn’t shut him out. “You’ve got one of those virtual pets on your screen, right? Feed me, clean me, scold me … ?”

Ardway dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “It’s not the same. Feeling Parky rub against my leg in the morning when I’m getting his breakfast. That’s after Blivit has woken me up by jumping on my … my bladder to make sure I’m awake. The way they cuddle into my arm or my lap when I’m reading, even the way they run across me when they’re fighting!”

“Yes, yes,” Johnson said hastily, throwing his hands up, and Ardway remembered Johnson had been very patient about listening for weeks even when it was clear he’d had it up to his neck with Ardway’s favorite topic. “Let me think about it.”

“You think you can convince the brass to bring me a cat? Way out here?” Ardway was full of hope. Maybe Johnson, a disinterested party, could succeed where he had failed.

* * *

Not even for the finest astrogator in the service, which Ardway was proving to be. No living animals would be put into danger, or be able to put the crew of the deep-space mission into danger. Besides, as the message from NASA said tartly, nothing in the space program existed that could catch up with the Calliope in less time than it would take to return to Earth on their normal schedule. Ardway read a copy of the reply Johnson received. There had been half a dozen attachments, but Ardway didn’t read those. All he was interested in was the denial. He fell into a real depression, refusing to come out of his quarters or the privacy cubicle, sometimes not even for meals.

A couple of weeks later, Johnson’s voice came again outside the privacy cubicle, tried to persuade him to open up the enamel box. Ardway sat with his arms folded, refusing to budge. Eventually, he heard fumbling on the bulkhead and swearing. Callan’s sweating red face appeared as the door slid open.

“I’m taking the locks off all these doors,” Callan said, and turned to Johnson. “He’s all yours.”

“C’mon, buddy,” Johnson said, bravely ignoring the stink of unwashed and unshaved crewman as he took Ardway’s arm and pulling him toward the geophysics lab. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

In the white-enameled room, all the exhibits the crew had gathered on their stops were in clear, vacuum-sealed cases to prevent direct human exposure. Against one wall was the lightweight waldo-suit Johnson wore to gather specimens.

“You know what this does, right?” Johnson said, pointing to the suit. “It’s a remote-control unit for the one outside. The suit that corresponds to the motions made by this one was in a compartment behind a panel on the skin of the ship.”

“I know all that,” Ardway said, waving it away.

“But do you know how it gets its feedback? On the inside, it’s got a fine mesh suit of two kinds of sensors fused together, receivers and responders. Together, they’re only about a micron thick, like a second skin. The cloth is thinner than nylon stockings. If the suit picks up a rock, I can feel the shape of it in my hand as if I’d picked it up myself. If the suit takes a knock from a meteor, I get knocked ass over teakettle. Of course, the responses are toned down so that I can take it without getting hurt. I can feel that the rock is cold, but not the burning cold of deep space. I get pushed around by the responders, but not enough to do more than bruise me a little.”

“So?” Ardway said.

“So I made you a suit, man,” Johnson said, opening a compartment and taking out a wad of tan cloth about the size of his fist. “Instead of getting real output from out there, I’ve used your home movies to program the computer for sufficient characteristic behavior. I’m plotting the right size, shape and motion in three points in space which the suit will respond to.”

“So what?”

“So when you wear the suit,” Johnson said, smiling broadly, “you’ll have your own virtual cat around you. No one will be able to see it, or hear it, including you, but you’ll be able to feel it.”

Ardway let hope gleam in his eyes. “That’d save my life, Mel.”

“And our sanity,” Johnson said.

* * *

The sensor suit worked exactly as Johnson had said it would. When hooked up to the central computer, Ardway could feel subtle motions against his arms and legs. Nothing like a cat, yet, but it was promising. The program Johnson adapted needed to be debugged first, and Ardway jumped in to help. He pored over the code for days on end, motivated for the first time since he had left home. He gave Johnson his best videos and pictures, along with precise measurements of the two animals that he had made when he thought they would be coming along on the mission. Johnson devoted his spare shifts for a week helping him to fine-tune the responders so they would push against Ardway’s skin in the right sequence and at the right amount of pressure. The testing had to be done during the gravity periods each day so the plotting for ship placement would be accurate. Not unlike the benchmarking program, Ardway thought.

“Okay,” Johnson said, kneeling at Ardway’s side to adjust the flat control box in the middle of his back. Ardway wore nothing but the suit and a pair of boxer shorts over it. The suit itself was of pale tan filaments, not all that much darker than his skin, and was so fine he felt the cold of the floor through the feet, and the breeze from the ventilation fan. “You know, you can shower in this. And should. The sensors work best when they’re kept clean. Okay, try it. The cat ought to be right about there.” Johnson stood up and pointed to a spot approximately three feet up over a white dot painted on the floor.

Ardway put out a hand in space, and was surprised as it ran into an obstruction. He couldn’t see it, but his body told him it was there. His hand insisted there was something solid in the way. He ran a hand over the form. It was shaped approximately like a cat. The soft ears bent under the pressure of his glove, but the hard round skull resisted the downward motion. Encouraged, Ardway stroked his hand down its back. The spine arched upward to meet his caress. The edges were very rough, but Johnson tweaked the programming until the sawtooth spine under his palm melted into a surface like silken fur. Ardway felt the body shift. A rough tongue, at first limp as corduroy but stiffened with a little help into wet sandpaper, occasionally licked the back of his hand.

“It’s wonderful, Mel,” Ardway said, feeling a lump rise in his throat. “I don’t know how to thank you.” Then it disappeared. Ardway felt around with both hands.

“Where did it go?” he asked.

“On the floor, man,” Johnson said, consulting the monitor. “Wait.” In a moment, the firm body reasserted itself, rubbing against Ardway’s calf. It was such a real sensation, he could almost picture himself home again.

“It’s wonderful,” Ardway said again, shaking his head in wonder. “You’re a true friend, Mel.”

Johnson stood away from his screen and stretched his long back. “I’m starved. Let’s stop for a while and get something to eat.” For the first time in weeks, Ardway felt as if he had an appetite. He followed eagerly.

The two of them headed for the mess room. Ardway walked along, feeling the occasional sensation of the pressure against his leg as the programming caused the “cat” to bump into him impatiently.

“It’s following me,” Ardway said, with delight.

“It’s yours.”

If the rest of the crew was surprised to see Ardway in his underwear, they didn’t say anything as he and Johnson sat down to a meal. He tucked into his dinner as though he hadn’t eaten since he’d left Earth. Then, suddenly, he felt sharp pain in his knee.

“Ow! The damned suit attacked me!”

“It’s in the programming, man,” Johnson said. “It just scratched you. What’s it want?”

“It’s hungry,” Ardway said, after a moment’s thought. “That’s what Parky always does. What do I do?”

“What you would do at home. Pretend to throw him something. Or try to teach him not to beg at the table. Maybe it’ll learn. Maybe it won’t. It’s a cat. It’ll act like one.”

With an incredulous glance at his friend, Ardway reached into his plate-bowl, a clear globe with a gasket to admit his hand or fork but to keep the rest of his food from floating away in zero-gee, picked up an imaginary morsel between thumb and forefinger, and tossed it onto the floor. Instantly, the invisible presence left his side. Ardway could imagine the cat chomping and chewing at his offering, or maybe symbolically burying it in the floor the way Blivit always did. He hoped the bit had been something the cat considered good. In a moment, he felt a light touch on his kneecap, a little paw, beseeching and thanking in one soundless motion. He reached down toward the invisible presence, felt his palm stopped by a hard, round object, the cat’s head. It shifted, maneuvering his hand downward a couple of inches to a softer surface that must be its throat. Automatically, his fingers curved and began scratching lightly against the presence the glove told him was there. Incredibly, a gentle vibration came through his fingertips. The cat was purring. His heart melted. He looked up at Johnson. “Thank you, Mel. I owe you.”

Johnson held up his hands. “Hey, it’s a challenge. I’m enjoying it. Really. Just do us a favor and keep your clothes on over the suit.”

From that moment on Ardway was a new man. He wore his mesh of sensors under his uniform all of the time. Most of the time the invisible cat, whom he’d named Boojum, stayed in his cabin. Ardway leaped back into his work, becoming the most willing of the crew, working long shifts, never complaining, cheerful all day long, because he knew that at break times and meal times and rest periods, he could go back to his quarters and play with his very own cat. He rejoiced in the marvel as if he had never had a pet before. He could pick it up and put it on his shoulder, feeling a several-kilos weight there. He could sit and read, feeling a sprawled figure across his lap and a whiskery chin on his wrist. Boojum would even come to him when he called. He could play fight-games using an old sock as a glove. The mesh calculated a compensation for the padding, lessening the force of the cat’s nips or scratches. The best part was sitting in the mess, or in the break room, or floating at his station feeling a small, rumbling body cuddle up against his. He pictured Boojum as a solid, mackerel-striped tabby with black mascara markings around the eyes. A bit of a bruiser, but loving and devoted. Ardway loved him back without reservation.

The crew referred to the program as Ardway’s “imaginary playmate, ” but they didn’t knock something that had solved the morale problem so neatly. Ardway still enjoyed receiving his updates from his cat sitter on Earth, but he could see the cats were well and content, now that he was not reading extra angst into their responses. All that had come from him, and he was cured. Polson moved into a spare bunk room, so Ardway wouldn’t be embarrassed to talk to his cat in the middle of the night. The cat proved to be a good listener. The sensor receptors responded to the vibration of his voice, creating a response in the cat’s programming. Ardway talked, and the cat sat with him and purred. Ardway was happy.

When he had a chance, Mel Johnson made him a hood to go with the suit, for Ardway to wear in the privacy of his cabin, so he could be awakened by cheek rubbings and roundhouse paws to the ear, and so he could enjoy again for the first time in five months the sensation of a cat asleep curled up in the hollow of his neck and shoulder.

Johnson had gotten interested in the Boojum project in spite of himself. To the captain, he’d argued that such a refinement of the retrieval-suit technology could be a useful side product of the space program, one with applications in industry as well as the military, which kept Thurston from complaining about misused resources. Johnson had incorporated plenty of Ardway’s personal stories about his cats as well as the videos into the programming. One shift while Ardway drowsed over his control board, thinking in three dimensions, he fell asleep. Suddenly, he woke with a start. There was something slimy in his hand. No! He jumped up out of the seat, batting at his palm, and looked down. There was nothing there. What could it be? Gingerly, he felt for it, and read the shape with his sensor-covered fingers. With a smile, he remembered. Johnson had worked into the cat’s repertoire the actions from the time Blivit had decided to help feed her poor stupid human. She had brought him one of the goldfish from his apartment tank. Ardway reached down, knowing that Boojum was there, waiting for approval.

“Thanks, kitty,” he said, petting the hard little head that was under his hand, whether he could see it or not. He threw the imaginary morsel toward the disposer bin, and hoped the cat wouldn’t try to go after it and retrieve it for him.

But, Johnson had done more than invest Boojum with the characteristics of either Ardway’s stories or his home videos. He’d asked other people on board for their own cat stories, and put them into the database. And he’d added random factors, with his own sense of humor. In the mesh, the program treated Ardway as though he was barefoot all the time. Early one morning, Boojum left him a ” present, ” just inside the door to the head. Ardway hopped around for a moment on one foot, feeling the mushy, wet coldness on the sole of his foot. He limped over and pulled a towel out of the dispenser and wiped off his ship-boot. The pressure against the receptors caused the sensation to abate.

“Thanks a lot, you silly animal,” Ardway said to the air, and caught Captain Thurston coming out of a stall. The commander gave him a strange look, and edged out of the room, giving him a wide berth.

The cat’s existence was plotted within the relative points of the spaceship for all the empty internal spaces that existed, so he was never to be found sticking half in and half out of a wall, unless there was a door or a duct, and he became more real by the day to Ardway.

The sullen, unshaven Benjamin M. was gone. In its place, the crew got to enjoy a productive, happy, whistling astrogator, who could listen to other people, and felt content enough in his own happiness not to inflict innumerable stories on anyone. They grew to like him, didn’t care about his computer-generated security blanket, so long as it worked, and they stopped noticing that he was clad in tan nylon to the neck under his orange jumpsuit. Ardway was proving the recruiters right to have brought him aboard, and whatever made him functional, so long as it didn’t cross space agency policy, was fine with them.

By month ten it became more necessary by the day for Ardway to be actively involved in the mission. Space near the Gliese system was riddled with anomalies that NASA had not detected or even suspected. Odd gravitational fields suggesting minute quantities of black matter invisible from many light-years’ distance exerted gravitational pull on the ship, yanking them slightly off course and sending the instrument readings whirling. Ardway adjusted his program as needed, and was keeping up just fine in plotting new courses, assigning benchmarks to the area of space. Data came in by the terabyte, and they hadn’t even begun the exploration of the system itself.

On the fourteenth day of month eleven, they broke out of jump and passed within the heliopause of the Gliese 86 system, seeing it clearly for the first time. The geophysics and astrogation departments went crazy with delight. Johnson, Mackay and Ardway took scans, analyses, visual images of the star and its attendant pair of gas giant planets. Mackay declared them the most important satellites since human beings first looked up and saw the Moon. They toasted the planets with champagne and coffee, and promptly went back to work. No one could keep away from the viewscreens, drinking in the sight no other human eyes had ever beheld.

What could not be seen from Earth but merely suspected were the huge asteroid belts situated in two

places within the system. While life as they knew it was unlikely to exist on either giant planet, they held out hope for some of the moons they could now see circling Gliese A, the inner planet. The xenobiologist, Carmen Hosteen, felt her palms itching every time she saw the spectrum analysis of the second largest of the moons and crowed over the large bands in the scan that showed the presence of nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen.

Every department began to hoard its supply of available memory space as their databanks started to fill up. There was a general fear that Mission Control had grossly underestimated their needs, and might leave them out there scrambling for anything that would hold programming.

Suspicion of a coming storage crunch gradually became a reality. The crew simply needed more file room than they had. By month thirteen they started blanking anything that wasn’t absolutely needed for day to day operation. First, backup system files went. The techicians complained bitterly, worrying about what to do in case of a system crash, and started arguing among themselves over room. Eventually the captain stepped in and issued a fiat: any non-unique file and swap space was sacrificed to contain the incoming images, facts and figures pouring into their sensors from the two planets. Ardway and his colleagues reconfigured and reformed every possible hard drive, chip, crystal and disk on the ship to make more room, including rewritables in their personal possession. All entertainment videos were taken out of the ship banks and reused. Then, as the ship went into orbit around Gliese B, audio entertainment. Everyone’s music disks went, too, because they were rerecordable. Vital files were backed up on those, and they were put into cold storage for safety. Then, around Gli A, text went. Ardway had to upload his book disks one at a time, instead of being able to leave them in memory. One at a time, he sacrificed the disks themselves to his department. Far be it from him to lose precious navigational information because he didn’t want to do without A Tale of Two Cities.

Next went personal correspondence. The crew was given one shift to download all personal mail onto primitive cold cubes before that compartment of ship storage went, too. There was a lot of protest. The crew went in a body to confront the captain in the mess room.

“With respect, sir,” Callan said, “we don’t need all this crap. I’ve checked the files. We have hundreds of identical scans of the system! Plenty of them are redundant copies.”

“We can do without a lot of stuff, Lieutenant,” the captain said imperturbably. “I don’t want to ditch my letters from home, either, but it’s a sacrifice for the job. Should I write home and tell them we’re coming back early because you want to keep your photo collection? Put what you can on datacubes, and I promise you when we get within sending distance of home I’ll notify NASA to instruct the server to resend all of it. We’ll triage the raw information later, people. For now, we can’t be discriminatory. We need all the space there is!”

Callan, Ardway, and the others went along with the program, however reluctantly. Ardway felt he could cope without letters from home, or even his precious videos. Then, nine days before they were to depart the system, the evil day came.

Ardway, coming out of a self-induced fog at the beginning of his shift, realized that Boojum wasn’t at his knee begging for an imaginary scrap from his breakfast. No little paw touched his knee; no back rubbed against his calf. He looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. Long ago, he’d stopped thinking of the cat as a programming construct, and felt as though other people could see him. Ardway unhooked himself from the grapples holding him to the table, and felt around the floor area, wondering if the cat was lying on his side, waiting to trap his hand when he reached for him.

“Boojum,” he called softly. “Where are you, baby?”

“What’s the matter, Benny?” asked Cora Handley, the medic.

“My cat is gone,” he said, now beginning to panic. He got down on hands and knees and felt out further. “Maybe my power pack is out of whack. Will you check it?” He undid the zipper on his coverall and pulled it down to show her the middle of his back. She swam over through the air.

“Nope,” she said, unhooking the flat box to show him. “It’s on green. How many bytes did the program take?”

“What program?” Ardway asked.

“Your cat,” said Handley. “Everything nonessential has been yanked out of the system. I guess they finally had to reach for everybody’s personal files. I’m really sorry about that. We’d all given up a little of our per areas for you. In a way, seeing you so happy lifted everybody’s morale.”

Ardway was touched by the crew’s generosity, even as he felt dismay rising in him. “He’s gone?”

“Until we hit sending distance of home again, it looks that way,” Handley said, with real sympathy in her blue eyes. “Don’t worry. I’m sure Johnson put it on a disk somewhere. He wasn’t about to lose all the complicated programming the two of you have done on Boojum. He even thinks he’d like to market it when he gets home. You couldn’t be an isolated case, though I’m thankful you’re the only one on this mission. No offense, honey.” She tilted her head toward her office. “Come and see me if you need to talk. I promise I’ll listen.”

Ardway felt like mourning, even though Boojum wasn’t really dead. He had come to enjoy it, to believe in it as if it was real. The loss twisted his heart until he could hardly breathe. Cats helped provide him with a sense of identity, and he had almost nothing left. He had given up the vids he’d taken of his cats to store navigational data. Oh, the videos were just copies, but the originals, like the cats, were trillions of miles away. Home. On Earth. Boojum had made the separation bearable, and now he was backed up on disk somewhere, just as if he wasn’t real.

Of course he wasn’t real, Ardway scolded himself. But it’d felt that way. The complex programming Johnson had given him had taken on a personality so he was virtually a real cat.

“I can handle this,” Ardway said, firmly. He went about his shifts, ate his meals, and did his job, but all the time half hoping that the loss of the cat was a glitch, and that he would be back soon. He started to get edgy and snappish again. The techs on caffeine or alcohol rations or nicotine patches were starting to give him dirty looks. He was an addict of a different kind, and his fix had been withdrawn from him. He missed Boojum. He went to appeal to Captain Thurston.

“No, you can’t have your cat back. The damned thing isn’t real!” the captain roared.

“He’s real to me, sir,” Ardway said humbly. “Please. I’ll sacrifice any of my personal files you want.”

“They’re all gone anyhow, Lieutenant,” the captain said impatiently. “So are all of mine.”

It was true, but Ardway was desperate. “There must be something, sir. I’m begging you!”

Thurston snapped, and stood up, glaring. Rumor had it he was wearing a sedative patch, too. “There’s nothing, dammit. This project must be accomplished. Go back to your station. Now, spaceman!”

Glumly, Ardway went back to his station. His hands kept doing the work, but neither his mind nor his heart were in it.

Without his program he started to withdraw into himself again. It wasn’t the sight of cats he missed. He had permanent three-dee images of Parky and Blivit. Those couldn’t be re-recorded, so they’d been spared in the data crunch. It was the physical contact, the constant checking-in that cats did, the “hi, how are you? ” touches that he missed. Captain Thurston avoided him, and rumor had it that he would cheerfully have spaced him if he could have found an excuse. Ardway didn’t care about his own well-being any more. He took to shutting himself in the cubicles again.

But he was not alone in isolating himself. Other members of the crew were now suffering from detachment as much as he was. Without entertainment media to keep their minds busy, they were becoming touchy and sniping at one another. He hadn’t realized it had gone so far until the day he saw the unflappable Cora Handley haul herself into the carrel next to his and slam the door.

Benny Ardway was grateful for all the kindness his crewmates had shown him over the past months. At that moment he determined to pay it back as much as he could.

He floated over to bang on the cubicle door.

“Hey, Handley!” he shouted. “Did you ever hear the one about the computer programmer and the cow?”

* * *

From that decisive moment onward, Ardway became everyone’s court jester. Whenever he had an audience of even a single person in the mess hall or the break room, he sang songs, told every joke he knew, and made up silly games to involve the bored crew. He even oversaw a card tournament.

“The first card party in space,” he insisted. Neither he nor anyone else on board knew how to play bridge, and no books remained to teach them how, so he taught them Crazy Eights. He told stories.

“And not one word about a cat,” Callan marveled at the end of an evening. It was praise, however offhand, and Ardway glowed. In hopes of soothing everyone else’s misery, he had forgotten about his own. Though the mesh suit no longer worked he continued to wear it. He slept in it, showered in it, did his shifts in it. He considered it a kind of amulet. It was his physical contact, as much as anything else, to help keep him sane. With that to bolster him, he gave all he had to planning entertainment for his companions.

Three months passed that felt like three years. Half the crew was overweight from eating out of boredom; the other half was musclebound from intensive bodybuilding for the same reason. But they were all in better spirits than might have been expected, thanks to Ardway’s evening antics.

Having something else to concentrate on also kept him more alert at his job. As the ship’s navigator he was the first to know the moment they arrived back within hailing distance of Earth. Ardway saw the readings come up on the astrogation console. He looked up at the viewscreen. There was nothing to see, but the computers confirmed the good news. Yes! He bounced up, straining against the straps holding him in his seat during zero-gee. Whirling his arms he spun around to face the center seat, where Thurston sat rotating a couple of ball-bearings in his palm. “Captain, we’ve just entered line of sight to Earth!”

“Thank God,” the captain said, showing animation for the first time in weeks. His smile wrapped clear around his handsome, strong-jawed face. “Helm!”

“Sir!” Lawes exclaimed, the force of her salute throwing her to the end of her restraint straps.

“Drop us out of warp. Communications, send a tachyon squirt to Mission Control, my dictation, begins now. This is Captain Thurston on the Calliope. We’re about halfway home from Gliese. We’ve got data for you beyond your wildest dreams, folks. We’re going to start sending you digital squirts on this beam. In return, we need a few things. Attached to this transmission is a list of personal comm numbers for my crew. Do me a favor: check those out and send whatever’s in the servers. There’s a lot of lonely people here who need a word from home.” Ardway and the others in the control room broke into cheers. The captain raised his voice over the din. “Plus some good music. And a few new vids wouldn’t hurt. We’ve been reduced to watching Attack of the Killer Tomatoes almost every night after chow.”

After some days had passed, a message came back from Mission Control. The sound of the controller’s voice was punctuated with hoots of hysterical laughter, the response of the ground crew hearing the captain’s plea.

“Roger that, Calliope. Entertainment on the way. Can’t wait to see the vacation photos, folks! Welcome back to Sol!” A steady stream of digital data came in the wake of the reply.

A few weeks after the first message, another squirt from Mission Control came through, and there was awe in the communication officer’s voice. “First sixty terabytes of data received! You’ve got a wow coming from the big brass, Calliope. We’re proud of you. I don’t frigging believe what you’re sending back!”

“It took sacrifices from whole crew,” Captain Thurston said, and he looked straight at Ardway when he said it. “Okay,” he said to the waiting crew. “You saw the receipt. You can dump the redundant scans from the first 60T.” The crew started cheering wildly.

“Mail call,” Polson, the communication officer said, with a grin on his face. “I feel like Santa Claus.” Anyone who was not on duty kicked off for their cabins to hear their messages. Ardway had to wait until shift’s end to download his mail, but he was pleased to see he had received three new uploads, audio and video, from his cat sitter. He thought both Melanie and the cats looked a little older, but they all seemed healthy and happy. A big knot rose in his chest. He missed them so much. And, though he’d never seen it, he missed Boojum. Ardway chose a frame of his cat sitter holding Parky and Blivit on her lap, and left it glowing on the face of his reader beside his bunk when he went to sleep.

* * *

Ardway drifted drowsily halfway between sleep and waking, batting at the buzzing alarm in the bed head. The astrogation program was due for a checkover, although it had been ticking along the whole mission without hiccuping once. He glanced over at the picture on his viewer and smiled.

“Be seeing you soon, kids,” he said. Suddenly, something hard stabbed him in the bladder twice, then struck him in the leg as if it was rolling off the end of his bunk heading toward the door. Ardway threw off the covers and looked around. There was nothing there, but he knew what had happened. Boojum was back!

“Hey, kitty!” he cried. “Wait for me.” He started to roll over to unfasten his net, starting to swim toward the door, when he felt the pounding sensations again, knocking him back against the padded wall. Those footsteps were going in the same direction as the previous ones. Ardway shook his head. There must be a hiccup from the program being downloaded and uploaded again. It was repeating actions. He was going to have to help Johnson to fix it as soon as he had a break. But his virtual cat was back. He was delighted. He couldn’t wait to pet Boojum and welcome him home.

Ardway clambered out of his net, and pulled himself down to his clothing locker. Something thumped against his leg, struggling, and sharp pains lacerated his calf and knee.

“Boojum, stop that!” He bent down to feel what was going on, and his hand was captured and severely beaten up. Ardway swore, hopping around as he pulled on sweat pants while the cannoning body floated around, banging into him occasionally. “Knock it off!”

The familiar shape thudded into his chest. Ardway reached out automatically to catch him, and was rewarded with the deep vibration as the cat’s head scraped against his neck and chest. He stroked the soft, furry body. “Oh, baby, I have missed you!” The purr resonated through the receptors, vibrating deeply. Ardway sighed with delight.

Plaintive stropping at his ankles surprised him so much he flutter-kicked away in the air. He reached out a tentative hand, and felt another feline body, programmed into space just like the first. This one was smaller and slimmer, with shorter fur and larger ears.

Another cat?

It was! Completely at home in zero-gravity, the newcomer walked up his body and snuggled into his arms, shoving Boojum to one side. Ardway felt the contented rumble turn to a growl deep in the first construct’s chest, but it quickly turned to a resigned purr. Two cats! He had two cats!

He kicked across space and hit the intercom.

“Johnson!”

“Hey, Ardway, good morning,” the hearty voice said.

“The program’s back, but it’s got a hiccup. There’s a second cat walking around in here.”

Johnson sounded smug. “Yep, I know. It’s a surprise, kind of a thank you from the crew for pulling so hard when we knew it was killing you. You did good, boy. Even the captain approves. He gave the go-ahead for the extra data space. We’ve been calling the second kitty-cat Snark. Enjoy.” The intercom clicked off.

“Snark, huh?” Ardway said, bringing his hand around the bulge in his arms to scratch the top of the smaller cat’s head. “Hey, baby, nice to meet you.” An approving rumble said he had found just the right spot. The head tilted under his hand until he was massaging a tufted ear and a sharp slash of cheekbone. He wished he could see it, but he imagined Snark to be a female. Maybe a Jellicle cat, with black and white fur and big gold eyes. Boojum wriggled, trying to get at the petting hand, and captured it between two big paws. Ardway shifted so he could stroke both of them at the same time. They all floated in the middle of the cabin, Snark massaging his side with her small paws, and Boojum lying with his head on Ardway’s shoulder.

Two cats! He had never been so happy. There might have been a couple of gas giants circling Gliese 86, but as far as Benny Ardway was concerned, the most important pair of satellites in space were right here.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

Indomitable

Written by Jack McDevitt

Illustrated by Karl A. Nordman

“And this is an antigrav generator. Do you know what that is, Harry?”

Did Harry know? Sometimes his father was such a nit. “Sure, Dad,” he said.

“Good.”

“We have one at school.”

“Do you want to try it?”

A bot was standing by, waiting for him to answer, or to get out of the way for the next kid who, Harry thought, also knew what an antigravity generator was. Was there anybody on the planet who didn’t know?

Behind the next kid was a little girl, maybe six or seven, watching with her eyes wide while she waited for a chance to levitate her hat.

They moved on to the bridge mock-up. Displays indicated it was an exact replica from the XAA-466, the Tokyo, which had visited the black hole at Momsen. (Visuals of the black hole were available in the gift shop.)

Then there was a model of the Lexa Habitat from CX26, which had done interdimensional research near Antares a long time ago. Harry had read about it in the fifth grade, and it had ignited his interest in the interstellars. It was where Adcock had died and Monty Parrish had vanished out of a sealed chamber. Where Corelle had done the research that had led eventually to the star drive that now carried his name. “Dad,” he said, “do you know how long we were there?”

His father studied the interlocking tubes and spheres as if the answer lay amid the pattern. “Not sure,” he said. “It was before I was born.”

By about two centuries. “Sixty-six years,” Harry said.

His father nodded. Okay. Sometimes Harry got into his know-it-all mode and Dad got irritated.

And over there, nestled in a cradle, was Captain Songmeister’s lander. It had lost power entering the atmosphere of Antares III when Songmeister and his team thought they’d seen a city. Songmeister had used a sputtering auxiliary unit to guide the vessel to a safe landing in mountainous terrain. That had been the good news. The city had turned out to be nothing more than a reflection on an odd rock formation.

“They never found anybody,” said Harry. “Not there. And not anywhere else.”

His father was already moving on to the next exhibit. “Nobody to find, son. There’s nobody out there.”

They were looking at a space shuttle. The Rosie McGreer. It had run between the Overby station and the spaceports at Rome and Barcelona.

“Here’s something you’ll like.” They slipped into the Cosmicon, which lit up with images from the colonies, gleaming cities and soaring towers and vast parklands. Here was Mirax on Deneb II, serene and cloud-wrapped on a mountaintop; and New Paris on Altair III, awash in music and soft light; and Shay Pong, straddling the mouth of the Karraso, the longest river on any known world. But of course it wasn’t the length of the Karraso that had made Harry’s heart pump long ago in the eighth grade. It was the magnificent lighthouse.

“I’d like to go there someday,” Harry said.

His father nodded. “It is nice. Your mother and I went there on our honeymoon. We had a really good hotel. And the beach was outstanding. And there’s something about the sun. You can stay out in it a long time, and you don’t have to worry about getting burned.”

* * *

An area along the west wall was designated as the memorial room.

Virtual ships floated from the overhead and guarded the displays. Harry knew them. The Wallsley, which had made the first flight to Alpha Centauri. And the London, which had carried the first colonists offworld. And the Condrey, lost while testing the ill-fated Qubic Drive. The Dallas had visited Polaris, setting what, at the time, was a new distance record. And the Exeter, a few months later, had almost doubled that, going all the way out to Zeta Aurigae.

Harry knew them all. The Sabre, the Valiant, the Reliable. He had a picture of the Reliable on his bedroom wall. They were magic names. Harry knew who their captains had been, knew their stories. They were from the era when the survey ships were still going out, still looking.

It had been a long time ago.

“Dad,” he said, “let’s go look at the Indomitable.”

It was the reason Harry had wanted to come. Everything else there in the Calgary museum was more or less duplicated in Toronto. But not the Indomitable.

They picked up an escort bot. He was engineered to look like Captain Parmentier, who was the hero of the HV Interstellar series, Starship. All pure fiction, of course.

“We’re still working on the Indomitable,” Captain Parmentier said. “It’s in a temporary shelter next door. You’ll have to walk through clay to get to it. And the ground is still a little wet from the rain last night.

“Inside the shelter, parts are scattered everywhere. You’ll have to be careful where you walk.” He smiled. It was the familiar everything’s-fine smile from the series. “Before we proceed, you’ll have to stipulate that you understand the risks, and you agree to relinquish your right to sue. If you agree to the conditions, please move a little closer to the imager and hold up your hand.”

They complied. “Very good,” said the captain. “This way, please.”

* * *

The Indomitable did not look as big as some of the other ships he’d seen. In fact, it looked about half the size of the Seattle, which was based in that city. But it had pursued a different mission from the cargo ship. And it possessed an aura none of the others had. Not even the Valiant.

Work lights illuminated the area. The captain stood in the ship’s shadow. “It was a survey vessel.” He looked up at it, and for a moment Harry thought he sensed sadness. “It’s a Pyrrus model. The only one left.” Harry heard a door close somewhere. “We were very proud to be able to bring it here.”

Its insides lay in piles on the bare ground. Engines here, fuel tanks there. Corelle unit in the corner. Instruments, ducts, stabilizers, black boxes. A chair. One of the hatches leaned against a bulkhead.

“Eventually,” the captain said, “we’ll put it back together.”

“How long will it take?” asked Harry.

Parmentier smiled. Made a face. “Most of our workers are volunteers. They know about this ship, and they know how to take care of it. But they aren’t young, so it will take a while.”

“It’s beautiful,” said Harry.

The captain agreed. “It’s been as far as fifteen thousand light-years out. Halfway to the core.”

Harry’s dad shook his head. “You say it’s the only one left? What happened to the others?”

Parmentier stared at the hull. He seemed to be looking at the inscription beside the air lock. Deep Space Survey. “They were broken up and used for scrap.”

Harry’s dad nodded. Of course. What else would you do with old ships?

“When you’re finished working on it, would you be able to use it again? To go out in it?”

“We hope so. It depends on what we find. We don’t have a lot of money, so if there’s expensive damage …” His voice trailed off before he switched subjects. “It wasn’t the last of the operational survey ships. The Ranger was the last one taken out of service. A lot of it was used to provide the framework for the Benson Building in Tucson.”

Harry placed his fingertips against the hull. The metal was cold and unyielding. “Why?” he asked.

“Why what, son?” asked his father.

“Why did they stop the missions?”

“You know why, Harry.”

“No. I don’t. Tell me.”

He sighed. “Because we’d found enough worlds to last us a long time. Plenty of room for us to spread out. Enough for a thousand years.”

Harry’s hand was still pressed against the hull. Holding on to it. “But is that really the reason we went out there? To get more real estate?”

“Why else would we have gone? Spent all that money? And it cost a few lives, son.”

“I thought we were looking for somebody to talk to. I thought we wanted to find out whether we were alone.”

“Harry, we found out. We are alone. There isn’t anybody else.”

“How do we know?”

“Because we’ve looked on thousands of worlds, and there’s nothing. We’ve been listening to the galaxy for centuries, and there’s not a sound. Not a peep anywhere. Not even a blade of grass, for that matter.”

“Dad, maybe we gave up too easily.”

His father smiled. Benign. Proud, even. “It’s over, kid. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we could have gone farther. Maybe there’s something in another galaxy somewhere. But it costs money. And nobody really cares anyway.” He waited for Harry to say something. When the boy remained silent, he put his hand on his shoulder and pulled him away from the Indomitable. “Let’s go, champ,” he said. “It’s getting up to dinnertime.”

Parmentier led the way past the ship’s prow. They stepped through a few puddles, and he opened the door for them. Sunlight spilled in. Harry looked back as the work lights went out.

“Beautiful day,” the captain said.

They walked out into the bright afternoon. The ground was rough and full of holes.

“Careful where you walk.”

Harry wasn’t sure who made the comment. He said, “It’s not over.”

His father smiled. “Your mother said she’d have spaghetti and meatballs for us tonight.”

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

Honorable Enemies: A Jake Masters Mystery

Written by Mike Resnick

Illustrated by Jonathan Rollins

When I got to the office, I found the message waiting for me. I clicked it on, and the image of an animated beachball popped into existence right in front of me.

“Jake, I think I’m in a little over my head,” said the beachball, who happened to be my partner. He sounded worried. Hell, he sounded more than worried; he sounded scared. “I’m heading back to the office. I’m going to need your help on this one.”

That was it.

My ship had to avoid a meteor swarm once it braked to sublight speeds, so I arrived back home on Odysseus almost three hours late. I landed at the spaceport just outside Homer, and then it took me another twenty minutes to clear Customs and make it to the office. There was no sign of Max. (That isn’t his name, but it’s as close as I can come to pronouncing it.)

I checked my messages. The power company wanted to be paid. The landlord wanted to be paid. The laundry wanted to be paid. And then I found Max’s first message.

“Hi, Jake,” said his holograph. “I know you don’t want me going out alone until I’ve had more experience, but there’s a client who’s in a hurry, and I have to come up with an immediate answer. And”—he tried not to look embarrassed—”I know we’re a little short of money this week.”

“And this month, and this year, and this decade,” I muttered.

“It’s a simple tail job,” continued Max. “I just have to follow someone and report back. It seems pretty basic, so I’ve decided to take it. I should be back in the office well before you return to Odysseus.”

Sure, I thought. There probably aren’t four beachballs from Alpha Gillespie in the whole Iliad system, and you think you’re going to tail someone without being spotted in the first ten seconds.

Max’s image vanished, and I looked through all the dunning messages from creditors to see if he’d left any others. He hadn’t.

I decided there was nothing to do but sit and wait for him, and hope whoever he was following didn’t have much of a temper. It was a little past midnight, and according to the message machine he’d called in five and two hours ago. I took a hit from the office bottle (well, the office canister), spent another hour counting the cracks in the wall and waiting for Max to show up, and then started checking all the hospitals.

It was just before I tried to contact the fourth that the call came in from Lieutenant Selina Hernandez. Even the police uniform couldn’t hide her curves. She didn’t look happy.

“Hi, Jake,” she said.

“Hi, Selina,” I replied. “How are things down at headquarters?”

“About the same,” she said. “Nothing much ever changes around here.” She paused uncomfortably. “I’ve got to ask you, Jake: you’ve got a new partner, right?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I hired him after that mess on Graydawn.* He’s been with me about two months.”

“Kind of blue, looks like a huge balloon?”

“Like a beachball with limbs, right. Why?” Useless question; I could see the answer on her face.

“I’ve got some bad news for you, Jake,” she said slowly.

“Dead or wounded?”

“Dead.”

“Damn!” I said. “He should never have gone out alone. He knew that!”

“Why did he?”

“He probably wanted to prove himself to me.” And he knew I needed the money.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” she asked.

“I was hunting down a runaway kid out in the Albion Cluster,” I said. “I just got back an hour ago.”

“I’m sorry, Jake,” said Selina. “You want to come down and identify him? Not that there’s any doubt. We’ve got his ID, and how many blue beachballs can there be on Odysseus? If you’d rather get some sleep, you can come by tomorrow.”

“No, I’ll do it now,” I said. “Where’ve you got him?”

“He’s in a holding area down in our basement,” she replied.

“You don’t take ‘em to the morgue anymore?”

“They don’t leave here until Forensics is done with them, and they were starting to pile up. We didn’t want them where anyone walking into headquarters could stumble over them, so we took over half the basement.” She paused. “The lab’s done with him. We’ll move him to the morgue after you make the identification. Do you know if he has any family on Alpha Gillespie, anyone who will want to take charge of the funeral once we ship him home?”

“Hell, I don’t even know if beachballs have funerals,” I said. “He never mentioned parents or siblings or a life partner. I’ll need a couple of days to check that out.”

“No problem,” she said. “We can hold him indefinitely if need be. Forensics is going to have to do an autopsy before we release him anyway.”

“All right,” I said. “I’m on my way. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Thanks, Jake,” she said. “I’m sorry this had to be waiting for you when you got back.”

“Not as sorry as someone else is going to be,” I promised.

* * *

Police headquarters was a nondescript building, maybe twenty years old, all squares and rectangles where most of the newer buildings were curves and angles. It was stone and concrete where they were glass and glittering translucent alloys. The windows were just slits, but even so, a few had bars over them, and all of them were surrounded by crackling force fields.

Selina met me at the door and escorted me down to the basement.

“You want a coat?” she asked as we reached the holding room. “We keep it pretty chilly.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to be here that long.”

She shrugged, uttered the proper code, and the door irised to let us through.

She was right. It was a damned cold room. There were six tables. Two held dead men, one held a dead woman with her throat slit, one held a dead Canphorite, one was empty—and Max was laid out on the sixth table. There was a spotlight over each table, but the room felt dark anyway.

I walked over to Max. He didn’t look any more dignified in death than he had in life, but he’d put that life on the line for me back on Graydawn, and people who did that were few and far between.

I didn’t need the light to know what had killed him. I could see that his skull had been crushed the second I entered the room.

“Did he die right away?” I asked.

“The pathologist says death was instantaneous,” she said. “At least he didn’t suffer.”

“You got the killer in custody?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“But at least you know who it is?” I persisted.

“No, Jake, we don’t.”

“Come on,” I said irritably. “Ninety-nine out of a hundred cases, your forensics team identifies the killer within an hour. Then it’s just a matter of tracking him down.”

“Not this time, Jake. It was a professional job. This guy knew his stuff.”

Professional jobs have changed over the millennia. Once it was simply the work of a hired gunman. Then it was a murder committed with an unregistered weapon, usually by a killer from out of the area—and still later, from out of the planetary system. But as forensic science got more and more precise, any weapon could be traced and identified.

“Blunt object?” I said.

“A rock,” she replied. “It’s in the lab, but they’ve come up empty. No DNA except for your partner’s, no trace evidence, nothing.”

“The killer wore chamicha gloves,” I said. It wasn’t a question: chamicha gloves cost a bundle, but they never left a trace, and were the choice of most professional hit men who worked in close with knives or blunt objects.

“Like I said, a professional job.” Selina grimaced. “Kill someone with a club or a big rock. It’s always been the hardest murder to solve.” She turned away from Max’s body and stared at me. “What was he working on, Jake?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He left a message that he was hired to tail someone … “

“And he thought they wouldn’t spot him?” she said disbelievingly.

“He was new to the business,” I said. “He left a second message saying that he was in too deep, and was calling it off. That’s the last I heard from him.”

“Who was he working for?”

“I don’t know.”

“So you don’t know who he was tailing either?” she said.

“Not yet,” I said. “But I will. I’m the guy who talked him into quitting the force on Alpha Gillespie III and joining me in the detective business. I’m not going to say some damnfool thing like it’s my fault he’s dead—but I’m sure as hell going to make sure the guy whose fault it is pays the price for it.”

“We’ll be happy to work hand-in-glove with you, Jake,” said Selina. “Any murder on Odysseus is bad for business—your business and ours.”

“I have no problem with that,” I told her. “You give me whatever you’ve got, and I’ll keep you up to date on any progress I make.”

“Why not work on it in tandem?” she said. “You still owe me a dinner from that mess by the stadium.** If we work together, maybe I could finally get you to pay it off.”

I shook my head. “The police department has got hundreds of cases. Until I nail Max’s killer, I’ve got only one. Or were you thinking of putting a team on it full-time?”

“Come on, Jake,” she said. “You know we’re short-handed, and besides, he’s an alien. This is a human world; human murders take precedence.”

“Not with me,” I said. “Not this time.”

“We’ll work on it,” she promised. “Just not exclusively.”

“I know. That’s why we’re going to do it the way I said.”

“A full exchange of information, right?” she said.

“Right.”

“I’ll be the conduit for the department. How often should we talk?”

“Every two days for now. More or less often as the trail gets hotter or colder.”

“Deal.”

Suddenly I started shivering.

“Time to leave the room?” she asked.

“Yeah, I think so. I’ve ID’d him. I’m not going to learn anything else from staring at him.”

We left the room. The basement didn’t have much air circulation, and there was an occasional water stain where the composite wall joined the floor, but it was still considerably warmer than the room that held the corpses.

“Where did you find him?” I asked.

“You know a place called the Spacers’ Rest, down on Pericles Street?”

“Yeah, I’ve been there once or twice. That’s where he got it?”

She shook her head. “No. That’s where we found him. But he was killed somewhere else and dumped there.”

“How do you know?”

“Forensics puts the time of death at two hours before midnight,” said Selina. “I asked what the margin of error was. They said four minutes either way.”

“So?”

“So there was a street carnival in front of the Spacers’ Rest until half an hour before midnight. If he’d been killed there, dozens of people would have seen him.”

“Any shedding of skin cells, marks on the body, anything to show he’d been dragged?” I asked, but I knew it was a dumb question. You want to stand out like a sore thumb? Drag a dead beachball through the streets at night.

“No,” said Selina. “And he wasn’t carried, either. There’d be traces of skin, of fabric, of something, if he had been. It figures that he was killed, tossed in some kind of vehicle, and dumped.” She frowned. “I wonder: why there?”

I thought I knew, but since it was just an educated guess it didn’t qualify as information, so I kept it to myself.

“Did they find anything on Max?”

She shook her head. “Just his passport and some cash,” she answered. “I think we’re done with them. You can pick them up on the way out.”

“So whoever killed him didn’t even bother to make it look like a robbery,” I said.

“Maybe he was in a hurry.”

“Maybe,” I said without much conviction.

“And he didn’t give you any hint about who had hired him or who he was tailing?” she asked again.

“No.”

“Did he say whether either of them was human?”

“Not a word.”

“You’ve got your work cut out for you,” said Selina.

I noticed that the less we knew about the case, the more it was my work rather than our work. It didn’t even bother me. Max had been my partner, not theirs.

“There’s nothing more for me to see here,” I said. “I think I’ll go back to the office. I’ll check in tomorrow morning to see if the lab has come up with anything.”

But I knew they wouldn’t. Those guys don’t miss a thing. If they haven’t found it in the first hour or two, there’s nothing to find.

“All right, Jake,” she said. “Try to get some sleep.”

“There’ll be plenty of time for sleep after I catch the bastard who killed Max.”

“I didn’t know you were that fond of him.”

“He was my partner,” I said.

And he trusted me. He left everything he knew behind because I promised him a new life as a detective.

I never promised him it would be over in just two months.

I knew it wasn’t my fault. But it would be a long time before I could convince my gut. I couldn’t even start until I nailed his killer.

* * *

I figured the first order of business was to toss the office and see if Max had left any hint of who had hired him.

For some offices, that would have been an all-day job. For my little hole in the wall, it took about fifteen minutes. There was no trace of our client. I figured I could probably send a couple of the chairs down to forensics and have them go over them with all their high-powered equipment, but what the hell would I do when they told me our most recent visitor was wearing brown, or blue, or black? Besides, that presupposed he sat down, and Max had made it sound like such an urgent job that for all I knew he walked in, made his offer, and left thirty seconds later.

Max didn’t have a desk of his own, because the chair hadn’t been invented that could accommodate him. When he sat down, he sat on the floor and couldn’t have been seen (or seen anyone) from behind a desk. I checked all my own desk drawers, but there was nothing to show who had hired him.

I was stymied. Finally I contacted Selina again.

“Yes, Jake?” she said as her image appeared before me. “I hadn’t expected to hear from you before morning. Have you found anything?”

“Not a thing,” I answered. “Can you check and see how many bludgeon murders have been committed in town this month?”

“I’m ahead of you,” she said. “Three. But two of them were what I’d call amateur. A woman smashed her husband’s head open with a lamp, and a couple of drunks got into it down by the spaceport and one of them opened the other’s skull with a bottle of Cygnian cognac.”

“Waste of good drinkin’ stuff,” I commented. “What about the third?”

“That was your partner.”

“Okay, thanks,” I said. “I shouldn’t have bothered you. It’s a little early to be grasping at straws.”

I broke the connection, took a hit from the canister I keep in my desk drawer, and decided I might as well start gathering Max’s effects so I could ship them back to Alpha Gillespie.

I had turned one drawer of the desk over to him. There wasn’t much in it: a citation his department had awarded him a few years ago back on Alpha Gillespie, a laser pistol I’d given him that he never took out of the office, an alien tool he used to clip his fast-growing claws, a couple of other things.

I took them all out of the drawer and laid them neatly on the desktop. Then I pulled out his ID and the cash I’d picked up at headquarters and placed them on the desk as well.

And then I saw it. I should have spotted it down at the station, but I’d been in a hurry to get back to the office.

Max had twenty Democracy credits, and a few Maria Theresa dollars, but stuck in there were five bills, each for one hundred New Warsaw drachmas. I hadn’t seen any New Warsaw currency in maybe fifteen years. It was probably legal somewhere, maybe even here, but it was as rare as human currency got.

“Computer—activate,” I said.

“Activated,” replied my desktop machine.

“Give me a list of the currencies that are legal tender on Odysseus.”

“Democracy credits. Far London pounds. Kilimanjaro shillings. Maria Theresa dollars. Rabolian quinxes. New Stalin rubles.”

The computer fell silent.

“That’s all?”

“That is all.”

“What about New Warsaw drachmas?”

“They are not a legal currency on Odysseus.”

“Are they legal in the Alpha Gillespie system?”

“Checking … no.”

So he hadn’t brought them with him from home.

“Will the currency exchange at the spaceport honor New Warsaw drachmas?”

“Checking … no.”

“Thanks. Deactivate.”

So now I had a lead. It wasn’t much of one, but it was the only one I’d come up with. I contacted Selina Hernandez again.

“What’s up, Jake?” she said.

“I’ve got some New Warsaw drachmas to spend,” I said.

“Not on Odysseus, you don’t,” replied Selina.

“Yes, I do. Who’s likely to accept them?”

“I have no idea, Jake.”

“Can you find out?”

“Probably, but it’ll take awhile,” she said. “I’m a cop. I can’t just walk up to the people who trade in them and ask. We’ll have to go through our usual unreliable sources.”

“If you’d start right away, I’d appreciate it.”

“Jake, it’s the middle of the night.”

“Who pushes illegal currency in the daylight?” I said with a smile.

“All right, all right,” she said. “I’ll pass the word to our people, and they can pass the word to theirs.”

“Thanks, Selina.”

“Thanks be damned. That’ll cost you a dinner when we nail the killer.” She paused. “Wait. You already owe me one. Okay, one dinner, two desserts.”

“Sure,” I said. “Your place or mine?”

She muttered an obscenity and broke the connection.

I knew I wasn’t going to sit around the office until she contacted me with the information. It could take days, and since it would be coming from criminals who were cadging favor with the cops there was no reason to bank on its accuracy. I had my own sources. and I had a lot more faith in their information.

I started considering the problem as logically as I could. Obviously Max had been paid with New Warsaw drachmas. Max was an unsophisticated little alien who’d only been on three worlds in his life—and that included two months on Odysseus and three days on Graydawn. He had no idea what currency was legal and what wasn’t, so he had no problem accepting it.

But the guy who passed the currency had to know. It may have been worthless on Odysseus, but it was worth something on any planet that traded in it, so he wasn’t just paying Max with play money. Now, I could run a check and see how many worlds accepted New Warsaw drachmas, but it could be hundreds, maybe thousands, and that didn’t even count the worlds of the Inner Frontier, which accepted damned near everything.

So since I couldn’t work on its source, I’d work at the other end. Clearly he was willing to spend his drachmas here. Okay. Who besides a clueless little alien would accept them?

Men knew better. The very best that might happen if they were caught trading in illegal currency is that it would be confiscated. The worst is that they would be confiscated for a few years of hard time.

But the Alien Quarter was just beyond the spaceport. Most of the aliens on Odysseus lived and worked there, spent and earned their money there, and probably had no compunction about accepting New Warsaw drachmas. After all, it was a human currency, and they were paid in so many human currencies, what was one more?

Also, they were near the spaceport, so if they had to unload the money in a hurry, or if they were leaving themselves, they could get it off the planet before the authorities knew they had it.

Finally, Max was a beginner, but he was no fool. He had to figure the one place he might not be spotted was the Quarter.

It may have been thin, it may have been tenuous, but it felt right, and it was still the only lead I had. I pulled the New Warsaw drachmas out of the neat pile I’d made on the desk, stuck them in my pocket, activated the security system, told it that Max was no longer part of the company and to wipe his retinagram and bonescan from its memory, and headed off to the Alien Quarter.

I arrived there ten minutes later, still with no idea what to do if someone took the cash when I offered it. Rough him up? What if it turned out that twenty aliens of different species would take the cash? Where would that leave me?

You can think about consequences and permutations just so long in my business. Then you either act, or you get acted upon.

I decided to act.

* * *

Odysseus doesn’t have any waterfront dives, because it doesn’t have any shipping or fishing industry. But the Alien Quarter makes a pretty good substitute. The cops don’t like to enter it, and the residents do what they can to encourage that attitude.

It’s the only place on the whole damned planet that’s open 24 hours a day (well, 22, actually; we don’t have 24 hours on Odysseus). The only illumination on the streets comes from the interiors of the bars, drug dens, and alien whorehouses—and you don’t want to get too far from them at night, because there are a lot of aliens lurking in the shadows, and most of them can see a hell of a lot better in the dark than a Man can.

The few legitimate stores probably spend half their profits on security—force fields, stun gates, shock windows, even the occasional alien watch-creature. Men can walk through most of the Alien Quarter with impunity by day, but they’d better have a damned good reason for being there after dark—and even then they’d better be pretty good at taking care of themselves.

The first thing I did was hunt up Baro the Grub. I don’t know what planet he comes from, but his skin is smooth and oily like a worm, and his body is maybe eight feet tall and cylindrical, with a torso that takes up close to three-quarters of it. The Grub knew just about everything that went on in the Quarter, and he was happy to spill it if the price was right.

I don’t know what motivated him. He never drank or drugged. There were a few lady grubs in the Quarter, but the word on the street was that he had nothing to do with them. I don’t know; maybe he just felt a need to be part of the economic life of the city. Maybe he went home, wherever home was, and enjoyed stacking his money in neat piles. Made no difference. He was as good a source as I’d ever come across.

I found him at his business office—a little alleyway between two derelict buildings.

“Hi, Grub,” I said.

“I’ve been expecting you, Jake,” he hissed in his sibilant voice. “Ever since I heard your partner was killed.”

“You knew about that already.”

“I’m Baro the Grub,” he said, as if that explained everything.

I pulled out a hundred-credit note and one of the New Warsaw bills. “This is for you to keep,” I said, handing him the former. “And this is for you to look at.”

He glanced at it briefly, then handed it back.

“Who trades in this currency?”

“You want The Purple God.”

“Is that an alien or a location?” I asked.

“A bar, three blocks down this street, on the right.”

“Thanks, Grub.”

“Understand,” he said, “I am not saying you will find the being who passed this money, merely that you yourself will find beings there who will accept it.”

I thanked him again and headed off. I walked down the damp pavement—it hadn’t rained, but for some reason the pavement was always damp in the Alien Quarter. I kept listening to the sound of my own footsteps and wondering how many others were listening to them too. It gets on your nerves after awhile - like, say, 30 seconds. You can see into all the tawdry joints that line the street, but when you look straight ahead or into an alley you can’t see a damned thing.

I spotted two Lodinites approaching the spot where the Grub had said The Purple God was. I couldn’t read the alien sign, but it was the only bar on the block. As I was walking toward it a huge 500-pound Torqual staggered out, covered with a foul-smelling mixture I took to be vomit and something even nastier, and collapsed not five feet from the entrance. A pair of three-legged Molarians, spinning down the street with that graceful walk of theirs, pivoted around the body and pirouetted into the bar.

I got there a moment later. I looked down at the Torqual, and couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive. I made a mental note to call the cops if he was still there when I came out, then scratched the note out; the cops weren’t going to come down here in the middle of the night, just to cart a dead alien off to the morgue.

Finally I got tired of staring at the Torqual and entered the joint. I won’t say that everyone stopped talking and stared at me as I walked up to the bar, but it sure as hell felt like it. It was so rare to see a lone Man down here after dark that they were too startled to block my way.

The first thing I noticed was a table suspended from the ceiling where a couple of levitators were drinking. The walls had holos of alien scenes that made no sense to me, but right behind the bar there was one holo I recognized: a portrait of Conrad Bland, the greatest killer in the history of the human race.

Some of the customers were meticulously neat. Others littered the floor with drinks and containers. The drinks on the tables were of every color and odor imaginable. There was food on the tables; some vegetable, some animal, some alive and squealing in terror.

I made my way to the bar, and the bartender, a furry Lodinite, walked over and said something in gibberish.

“Put on your t-pack,” I said, indicating the translating device I saw lying on a shelf next to half a dozen oddly-shaped containers of some smoky blue liquid.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said in heavily-accented Terran. “I just wanted to see if you had bothered to learn my language.”

“If I ever visit Lodin XI, I will,” I said.

“I do not believe you.”

I shrugged. “That’s your privilege.”

“What are you doing here?” demanded the bartender. “This is the Alien Quarter. Your metabolism cannot handle anything we serve.”

“You’d be surprised what I can handle,” I said. I pointed to the bottles with the blue fluid. “I’ll have one of those.”

Once the crowd saw that I was ordering a drink, and not here to slaughter one or more of them, they lost interest in me. The Lodinite stared expressionlessly at me for a long moment, then got a bottle and brought it over.

“How much?” I asked.

“Thirty credits,” he said. “Or eighteen Maria Theresa dollars.”

I shook my head. “All I’ve got is this,” I said, pulling out one of the New Warsaw bills.

“Where did you get that?”

“I get around.”

“It is illegal to possess New Warsaw drachmas,” said the Lodinite.

“No,” I corrected him. “It’s illegal to exchange them.”

“What’s the difference?”

I pulled out a twenty-credit note. “This is the difference.”

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“You tell me who spends or accepts New Warsaw drachmas, and you get to keep it.”

“My life is worth more than twenty credits,” he replied.

Which meant he knew someone who dealt in drachmas. Someone who was perfectly willing to kill him if he started naming names.

“Your loss,” I said. I turned my back to the bar and faced the hundred or so aliens who had crowded into the tavern, trying to think of what to do next. If the bartender thought he was likely to get killed for telling me what I wanted to know, it didn’t seem likely that anyone else was going to volunteer the information. Still, I hadn’t come down here just to quit and go home.

I clapped my hands together. It wasn’t a sound most of them could make, and it got their immediate attention.

“I need your help,” I said, then waited for the hoots, growls and squawks of derision and laughter to die down.

“My name is Jake Masters,” I said. “I’m a detective. My partner is a member of the Broskog race from Alpha Gillespie III.” That at least got them to quiet down. They’d probably never encountered a Man who had an alien partner. “He was murdered earlier tonight. I’m after his killer.”

“Why do you care?” demanded a Canphorite.

“Because he was my partner,” I said. “And more than that—he was my friend.”

“Men don’t have alien friends!” yelled a burly Atrian.

“This man does,” I said. “I’ll tell you something else. I’m going to find his killer with or without your help, but it’s in your best interest to help me.”

“Ha!” said the Atrian.

“Why should we help you?” said a Mollute.

“Because the killer had no compunction about killing one alien. Are you content to wait around until he kills another?” I could see I had a few of them thinking, so I followed up on it. “You know and I know that the police aren’t going to pay much attention to a dead alien, so if I don’t do it and you don’t help me, then my friend is just going to be one more statistic that no one pays any attention to.”

A tall, well-muscled Patrukan pushed his way through the crowd and wound up standing just a couple of feet from me. Like all his race, he had slits for nostrils and ears, a massive chest, and was covered with coarse brown hair, not quite thick enough to be called fur. For a moment I thought he was going to take a punch at me, but then he turned to face the rest of the room.

“I believe him, and I will help him,” he said.

“He is a Man,” said a Canphorite. “That means he is lying.”

“If he is lying, we will find it out and decide what to do,” said the Patrukan. “But his argument makes sense.”

“I will not help any Man!” thundered the Canphorite.

“No one says you have to,” replied the Patrukan. “But I will.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Now that we’ve got through that, I hope you can help me.” I pulled a bill out of my pocket. “This is a banknote for 100 New Warsaw drachmas. My partner was hired to follow someone—a man or an alien, I don’t know which—while I was off-planet on another case. The only thing I know is that he was paid with this, which is not a negotiable currency in the Iliad system.”

“Why did he accept it, then?” asked the Patrukan.

“He’d spent all but a couple of months of his life on Alpha Gillespie III. He wouldn’t have known what currencies were legal or illegal on Odysseus.”

“If he was such a brilliant detective that you took him on as a partner … “

“He wasn’t any kind of detective,” I said. “He was a very minor police officer on a planet that had almost no crime.”

“Then why—?”

“Because he was willing to risk his life for mine,” I said.

“That is the only reason?”

“Can you think of a better one?” I replied.

The Patrukan extended a hairy, seven-fingered hand. “I think we are going to become friends, Jake Masters.”

I took his hand. “Good,” I said. “I can use all the friends I can get.”

“My name is Goriejyxsol,” he said.

I tried pronouncing it a couple of times, and got hoots of derision from those who were close enough to hear me.

“How about if I just call you George?” I asked at last.

“I can answer to George,” he replied.

“Good,” I said. “Can you also tell me who deals in New Warsaw drachmas?”

“No, I have never encountered this currency before. But I can help you find out.”

“I appreciate that,” I said. “I can’t afford to pay you much, but—”

“I have not asked for money.”

“Then what do you want?”

“You seem an honorable being. I am an honorable being. There is a killer on the planet, a killer who has murdered a member of a race that is neither mine nor yours. Should not honorable beings join forces to bring such a killer to justice?”

“Makes sense to me,” I said, “especially on a world where honorable beings of any race are in short supply.”

George turned and faced the crowd. “From this moment forward, Jake Masters is under my protection. If you harm or hinder him, you have harmed or hindered me. Is that understood?”

There was a sullen muttering of acknowledgment and agreement.

“I think it is time to go looking for the being who gave your partner this currency,” George said to me.

“Fine by me,” I said. “Let’s go.”

He began walking toward the door, and the crowd, which was still clearly hostile to me, suddenly parted like the Red Sea before Moses.

Just who the hell are you, I thought, and what am I getting myself into?

* * *

We walked down a couple of crazily-twisting streets, then stopped in front of a small, dimly-lit dive.

“We can talk in here,” said George. “It’s very quiet.”

We entered the place. There were maybe a dozen tables, but the interesting thing was that the table-tops ranged in height from about two feet above the ground to maybe eight feet. A couple of the smaller chairs looked like they were for toys or dolls; the bigger ones could have accommodated creatures that dwarfed a Torqual. There were no patrons.

Two Patrukans were standing by the door. They came to attention when we walked in, and one of them indicated a table in the corner. We went over to it and sat down.

“Do you come here often?” I asked.

That seemed to amuse the Patrukan who had led us to the table, and he uttered a hoarse alien laugh.

“From time to time,” answered George. “What will you be drinking?”

“This place doesn’t look like it caters to Men,” I said. “I don’t think they’ll have anything for me.”

“I happen to know they’ve laid in a stock of Antarean brandy.”

“Then I’ll have some,” I replied.

He caught one of the Patrukan’s eye and made a quick gesture with his hand, and the Patrukan sealed the door.

“We won’t be bothered now,” he said.

“They locked the place?”

“Yes.”

“Just on your say-so?”

“That’s right.”

“You own it,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.” He looked up as a robot came over, carrying two glasses on a tray. It gave me the brandy, and George got something green with smoke rising from it. He uttered a sentence or two in Patrukan and the robot replied in kind.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I thanked it for bringing our drinks.”

“It’s just a robot.”

“Good manners are good manners,” replied George. “Now, tell me about your partner.”

“Like I said at The Purple God, he’s a Broskog from Alpha Gillespie III.”

“I’ve only seen one Broskog.”

“They’re pretty rare in these parts,” I said. “He’d only been here a couple of weeks. I told him not to accept any jobs while I was off-planet, but he thought this would be an easy one.”

“And you have no idea who paid him?”

“No,” I said. “My guess is that it was an alien. A Man would know how dangerous it was to pass that currency. I’ve got the police working on it.”

“Five minutes a day, or ten?” asked George.

I smiled ruefully. “That’s why I need all the help I can get.”

“I assume you searched your office for any trace of your client?”

“Of course.”

“Possibly I can help there.”

“I was pretty thorough,” I said. “You’re welcome to take a look, but I don’t think you’ll find anything.”

“I’m sure I won’t. But I have a friend who might.”

“Oh?”

“A Cabroni.”

“Okay, I give up. What’s a Cabroni?”

“A native of Sybrenius II. Cabronis have an extraordinarily well-developed sense of smell. He might be able to identify your client, at least by race and species.”

“It couldn’t hurt to try,” I said. Then: “What’s he going to cost me?”

“Nothing,” said George. “He’ll do it because I ask him to.”

“Another honorable being?” I asked.

“A reasonable one, anyway.”

“You know,” I said, “if he’s as good as you say, maybe he won’t have to go to my office. Maybe he can get the scent right off the money. Max didn’t have it very long.”

“Let’s find out.” George uttered a command to one of the Patrukans. I want to say he barked it out, but he didn’t; he never raised his voice, yet the two practically fell over each other getting to the door and unsealing it. One raced out into the night, the other re-sealed the door and took up his position next to it.

“I assume you just sent for the Cabroni?” I said.

“Yes. He should be here in a few minutes.” He paused thoughtfully. “Was your partner intelligent?”

“Max?” I said. “Yeah, I’d say so. Inexperienced, but not dumb.”

“Then we can assume he took the job primarily because he knew it would take him to the Alien Quarter, where he’d be less likely to draw attention.”

“Probably,” I said. “He didn’t realize how much he’d stand out even down here. Like I said, inexperienced. He was new to Odysseus, and couldn’t have known there were only three or four Broskogs on the whole planet.” I paused. “Still, our client wasn’t a lot brighter. He paid Max in illegal money. If Max died, we’d find it; and if he didn’t die, sooner or later he’d spend it. So either way, there was a pretty fair chance that the money was going to get traced back to the source.”

“What if the killer took it?”

“I wish he had,” I said. “It would make him that much easier to find.” I paused a moment. “The more I think about it, the more I keep coming back to the fact that Max knew something was wrong. He had time to leave me a message saying he was in over his head and was pulling out.”

“You think the killer’s still on the planet?”

“I hope so. It all depends on whether he got paid in drachmas or not. If he did, he’s gone—but there aren’t a lot of worlds in this sector where they’re legal tender, so my guess is he got paid in credits or Maria Theresa dollars, and that means he has no reason to leave. He’s loaded with money, he killed an alien no one except me cares about, and Forensics hasn’t been able to come up with a damned thing. Why the hell would he go? He’s safe right here.”

There was a sudden high-pitched whine, and the remaining Patrukan unsealed the door. His partner entered with the first Cabroni I’d ever seen. He looked like a five-foot-tall rodent with palsy, every limb shaking, his long black nose twitching constantly. At first I thought he didn’t have any eyes; then I saw that they were obscured by the long, thick hair on his face.

The Cabroni left the Patrukans at the door and walked directly to the table. George greeted him in a tongue I’d never heard before, all grunts, coughs and clicks, and then the Cabroni activated his t-pack.

“Greetings, Friend Masters,” he said, the words coming out in a mechanical monotone. “I am pleased to meet you. My name is Wyllgerix.”

“May I call you Will?” I asked.

“If it pleases you,” he replied. “May I examine the money, please?”

I pulled out all five bills and handed them over. He held them to his nose and inhaled, then stood motionless for almost half a minute.

“These bills have passed through many hands,” announced Will. “Prior to you, they were briefly in the possession of a male Broskog. Prior to that, a female human. Prior to that … “

“Just a minute,” I said. “You’re sure that the person who touched the money prior to the Broskog was a human female?”

“Yes,” said the Cabroni. “The money was in her possession for … ” It paused, as if considering. “For between three and four Standard weeks.”

“Thanks,” I said, gently removing the money from his hand and stuffing it back into a pocket. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“I have no use for liquids,” replied Will. “I am happy to have done a service for my friend Goriejyxsol.”

“Will you need help getting home?” asked George as the Cabroni approached the door.

“Do I ever?” he replied. Then he deactivated his t-pack, waited for the door to let him through, and he was gone.

“Max never named our client’s race or gender,” I said. “That narrows it down.”

“To half the planet.”

“No, the Cabroni gave us more than that. The woman had been in possession of the money three to four weeks. I’ve got a friend down at headquarters who can check the spaceport’s Customs and Immigration records for me. We’ll start with the assumption that she was given the money off-planet and brought it with her. That means we’ll check every woman who’s arrived on Odysseus in the past four weeks.”

“That could be thousands.”

“Hundreds, more likely,” I said. “We’ll start with those who have criminal records. You and I can’t access the records to check them all out, but the cops can.”

“They won’t,” said George. “When did they ever care about a dead non-human, especially a rotund blue being that bears no resemblance to a Man?”

“Not often,” I admitted. “But they’ll care about a live human who’s bringing illegal currency onto the planet.”

“Yes,” he said, nodding thoughtfully. “I suppose they will.” Then: “What’s your next step?”

“I suppose when it’s daylight I should take a good look at the spot Max was killed.”

“I thought his body was dumped far away from the scene of the murder.”

“Yeah, but you can lead me to it.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“I thought you were an honorable being, George,” I said. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

“Why should you think so?”

“Come on, George,” I said. “All you’ve been interested from the start is the identity of my client, the woman who paid Max with the drachmas. You haven’t asked a single question about who Max was following. Not one.” I smiled a tight smile. “That’s because you don’t have to. You already knew who he was following, George. It was you. So it figures you know where he was killed.” He simply stared at me, and I continued: “When we sat down, you told me you’d only seen one Broskog in your life. But just a minute ago, you knew what Max looked like. He was the Broskog you’d seen.”

George smiled that alien smile of his. “I’d heard you were good at your job, Jake. I wanted to see for myself.”

“It was you,” I repeated.

“Yes, it was me he was following,” he confirmed. “But I didn’t kill him.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Honorable beings do not lie to each other, Jake. I may not have told you that your partner was following me, but I have not lied to you.”

“Big difference,” I snorted. “How honorable can you be? Every thief and killer in the Quarter genuflects to you like you’re a god, someone outside the Quarter hired my partner to follow you, you say one word and people jump to do your bidding. Who the hell are you, George?”

“I’m just an opportunist who tries to make the most of his opportunities,” said George. “And I assure you that I want your partner’s killer found as much as you do.”

“If you mean it, then it’s time to put your cards on the table.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s time to stop withholding information and tell me what you know.”

“All right, Jake,” he said. “But before I confided in you, I had to make sure you were as good as your reputation. I trust you to use what I tell you only in our efforts to find your partner’s killer, and not to share it with the police.”

“You talk, and I’ll decide.”

“I’m sure you are an honorable Man,” said George. “I couldn’t ask for any more.”

“Forget the honorable crap and start talking,” I said irritably.

He held up a hand, and I noticed that the two Patrukans at the door had taken a couple of menacing steps toward the table when they heard my tone, then froze when they saw his hand.

“Please moderate your language, Jake,” said George. “Not everyone knows that we are good friends who are soon to become partners.”

“Including me,” I said.

“But you will.”

“Not if you don’t start telling me what I want to know.”

“All right,” he said. “As you have noticed, I am not without a certain cachet in the Quarter.”

“An understatement,” I said. “As far as I can tell, you run the damned place.”

“Not without help,” he said, not bothering to deny it. “I view myself as the guardian of the Quarter’s economy.”

“That means you take a rake-off on every transaction,” I suggested.

“Please, Jake,” he said. “I am explaining my position to you. There is no need for rude accusations.” He paused. “Without me, without the organization I have put together, anarchy would reign in the Alien Quarter. There would be gang warfare, there would be wholesale slaughter almost every night, and we both know that the police force would do nothing to stop it.”

“No, they probably wouldn’t,” I admitted.

“They would cheer all the murderers on, because each killing would mean one less unwanted alien to share Odysseus with,” continued George. “And indeed that was the situation until five years ago. That was when I arrived here. The Quarter had been run by six criminal kingpins who were constantly at war with one another, chaos was endemic, and most of the money went into the pockets of Men who never even entered the Quarter. I decided to structure our economy along the lines of a multi-planetary conglomerate, and I think it is not unfair to say we have prospered ever since I began to apply my methods. There are no gang wars, and almost all of the money stays right here.”

“How many Men and aliens did you have to kill along the way?” I said. “Or is that an indiscreet question?”

“Under other circumstances, it could even be a deadly one,” answered George. “But I know that you would never use anything I told you to harm me.” He paused and flashed me a humorless smile. “Still, I would like to hear you say so before I continue.”

“George, all I want to do is nail the son of a bitch who killed my partner. I’m not a cop. I don’t care what laws you’ve broken. No one’s paying me to get the goods on you. As long as our interests coincide, I have no problem working with you, and I promise you that anything you tell me while we’re working together will go no farther.”

“I accept that answer,” he said. “I will put my trust in you.”

And doubtless keep me under close watch day and night.

“Good,” I said aloud. “Why don’t you start by telling me who hired Max to follow you?”

“I don’t know,” answered George. “If I did, she’d be dead by now.”

“Okay,” I said, “you don’t know who she was. Do you know why she had you tailed?”

“Certainly,” said George. “She wanted to kill me.”

“With Max?” I said disbelievingly. “The little bastard couldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Whatever a fly may be,” said George. “No. She just wanted to know where I would be so she could have me assassinated.”

“Why does she want you dead?”

“Jake, do you know the size of the underground economy I control?”

“I’m sure it’s big. I don’t play guessing games.”

“We are, after the central government, the second largest financial entity on Odysseus.”

“And you don’t pay taxes, either,” I said.

“Why should we? The government supplies no services to the Alien Quarter. But I am getting off the subject. In the past month, three of my corporate directors—you would call them my lieutenants, or perhaps my henchmen—have been murdered. One could be an act of anger or passion. Two could be a coincidence. But three? Someone is trying to take over my holding company, and the quickest way to do that is to eliminate the Board of Directors and especially the CEO.”

“Are you sure you’re not a Man in disguise?” I said. “You sure as hell sound like a corporate CEO.”

“There are those who distrust businessmen,” said George. “But I choose to accept that as a compliment.”

“So you think this woman’s planning to take over the Quarter’s business, or at least your end of it?”

“I have no idea,” answered George. “She could simply be a surrogate for the Man or alien who wants to supplant me.”

“Makes sense,” I agreed. “It could even be that the real brain behind what you would call a hostile takeover chose her because she was dumb enough to pass the drachmas he gave her a few weeks ago. Then if the cops actually bothered looking into the murder of an alien criminal kingpin, eventually the money would lead them to her—and if she’s just a bag woman, you can bet her boss will get to her before the cops do.”

“You’ve had more experience hunting down criminals than I have,” began George. I doubted it like all hell, but kept my mouth shut. “What is our next step? My entire organization is at your disposal.”

“That’s comforting,” I said. “Maybe in the next day or two I’ll think of something for them to do.”

“Think quickly,” said George. “There is a powerful organization at work here, quite possibly as powerful as my own. Once they realize that you are looking into your partner’s death, and that you have allied yourself with me, I will no longer be their primary target, Jake. You will be.”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” I said dryly.

“I am glad to have you on our side. It is a war we must win.”

“I’m not fighting a war,” I said. “I’m avenging a friend’s death. Once it’s done, I’m done.”

“I thought we were going to be friends,” said George.

“Perhaps someday we will be,” I replied. “But for the moment, we are honorable enemies who have declared a truce.”

* * *

We waited until sunrise, and then George led me through winding streets to a filthy, cluttered alley, filled with alcoves and cubbyholes. We walked down it for about 50 feet, and then he stopped.

“This is where he got it?” I asked.

“I assume so.”

“You assume so?”

“I didn’t see him killed,” said George. “This is where I found the body.”

“Why did you come looking for it?”

“I had some of my bodyguards with me when I came back. I was curious to see why he wasn’t still following me.”

“Great,” I said. “So the greatest criminal kingpin of Odysseus didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, and doesn’t know anything.”

“Don’t be insulting, Jake,” he said. “You now know where your partner was killed. That’s something you didn’t know one minute ago.”

“All right, I apologize,” I said. “I’m just a little tense right now.” I looked around. “Hell, we’ll need the Forensics team down here. The killer could have hidden in half a dozen places up and down this alley.”

“At least,” agreed George.

And then it hit me.

“Why was the killer hiding in the alley in the first place?” I asked.

“So that your partner wouldn’t see him,” said George.

I shook my head impatiently. “That’s why he was hiding. But why here? Why not in the next alley or the next block?”

George stared at me for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he said in troubled tones.

“Yes you do,” I said. “I can see it in your face. You just don’t like what you know. If the killer was after Max and nothing else, he couldn’t know where Max would be—but he knew the route you would take if you knew you were being followed. That’s why he was hiding in this alley and not someplace else. You’ve got someone on your team who knows you inside out, who knew that you’d be able to spot Max and knew exactly where you’d go to lose him or pounce on him.”

“It doesn’t make sense, Jake,” said George. “If he’s one of mine, why hasn’t he come forward and told me what he did? He couldn’t know I wasn’t in any danger. He had to figure there’d be a handsome bonus for anyone who saved my life.”

“That’s what we have to figure out, isn’t it?” I said.

“I’ll say it again, it doesn’t make any sense. If he works for me, why kill your partner and keep it a secret?”

“I can think of half a dozen reasons for him to have done it.”

“Let me hear them,” said George.

“Okay,” I said. “There’ve got to be big-money hits out on you. Given the size of your empire—”

“Corporation,” he corrected me.

“Okay, given the size of your corporation, there are probably half a dozen hits out on you. Maybe the killer thought Max was a freelance shooter, and he didn’t want to lose or share the fee.”

“That’s one.”

“You want another? Okay. Maybe the woman who hired Max moved too soon, disobeyed an order, tried to steal a march on her boss. This could have been a warning to her.”

“By one of my enforcers?” said George harshly. “My enforcers don’t even step on an insect without my orders.”

“It could be an enforcer, a secretary, an ambitious underling, even a mistress if Patrukans have them,” I said. “The fact that he or she knows your habits and is on your payroll doesn’t necessary mean he’s yours. You’re not in what I’d call an ethical business; there are quicker ways to make it to the top than waiting for promotions.” I paused. “You want me to spell out the rest of the possibilities, or will you take my word for it?”

“No, I believe you,” said George. “I’m not surprised that I have a traitor in my organization. I probably have quite a few. I was just mystified at the thought of one of them saving my life.”

“Maybe he knew all the time that you weren’t in any danger from Max,” I said. “I’m sure you’ve had Men and aliens killed to send a message to others; that could be what happened to Max. Or maybe he was just in the way.”

“In the way?” George repeated.

“Between the killer and his real target,” I said, pointing at him. “We won’t know until we find the killer.”

“So now I have to decide who I can turn my back on.”

“You want the truth?” I said. “I’m the only one you can trust, because I’m the only person you know who doesn’t want what you have. Now, why did you come down this alley?”

“I’ve got it rigged with force fields and stun rays,” he replied. “Whenever I think I’m in danger, I come here. All the devices are programmed to recognize me and let me pass. The first two will merely stun anyone who follows me, but no one else can reach the end of the alley alive. I figured he’d be more willing to talk to me after he’d been stunned.”

“Okay, that explains another mystery,” I said.

“What mystery?”

“The message Max left saying that he was in too deep,” I said. “He couldn’t have said it after spotting his killer. He’d have been too busy running for his life.” I looked around, found a small stone, and tossed it far down the alley. It exploded when it hit one of the lethal force fields. “But if Max had seen some rodent go up in smoke like that, he’d have known he couldn’t follow you any farther, and that the job was a lot more dangerous than he’d thought. The killer was watching him, and when he knew Max was quitting, he came out of the shadows and crushed his skull. Maybe he was being paid to kill Max. Or maybe he was after you, but was afraid Max had spotted him and decided not to leave any witnesses.”

George looked troubled. “I’ve probably got 40 subordinates who know I’ve set up this route.” His lips twisted almost into an S, which was a Patrukan’s equivalent of a frown. “We’re right back where we started, aren’t we?”

“No,” I said. “Two minutes ago we didn’t know what scared Max off. Now we do. Five minutes ago the killer could have been anyone. Now at least we know he works for you. Or worked for you and knew your habits. Have you fired anyone who might hold a grudge?”

“In this business, no one gets fired and no one retires. They serve until their contracts are terminated.”

He didn’t leave any doubt that I could substitute “lives” for “contracts.”

There was nothing more to see in the alley.

“Can you deactivate the force fields?”

“Of course.”

“Do it.” Then it was time to contact Selina again.

“What is it, Jake?” she said. “Night shift ended two hours ago, I’ve put in my three hours of overtime for you, and I’m going home to bed.”

“I need a Forensics team down in the Alien Quarter. I’ve found the alley where Max was killed. I’ll feed the coordinates into your computer.”

“I’ll send them as soon as we’re through talking.”

“Fine. How long will it take you to run a check on every human woman to land on Odysseus in the past 30 days?”

“Goddammit, Jake!” she said, “I’ve been here ten hours already!”

“How long?”

“I don’t know.”

“Half an hour?”

“Less.”

“Ten minutes?”

“Oh, shut up!” she snapped. “Check back with me in five minutes.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Now I owe you three desserts.”

She snarled at me and broke the connection.

“Will she do it?” asked George.

“Yeah,” I said. “She’d rather be a glamorous actress or an emperor’s kept woman, but she’s a damned good cop.”

“Good enough to cause me problems in the future?”

I stared at him for a long moment. “George, she’s under my protection.”

He stared back, then nodded. “Understood.”

Neither of us knew what to say next, so we just stood there awkwardly for a couple of minutes, and then my communicator beeped and Selina’s image popped into view. She’d looked sleepy and annoyed a few minutes ago; now she looked alert and excited.

“You found something,” I said.

“You bet!” she said, unable to keep from smiling.

“You gonna tell me, or are you just gonna stand there looking smug?”

“Did you ever hear of a world called New Warsaw, Jake?” she said, grinning from ear to ear.

“We couldn’t be that lucky,” I said.

“Well, if you’re sure we couldn’t, I guess I won’t tell you.”

“Don’t make me beg,” I said. “What have you got?”

“I’ve got two women who came here from New Warsaw in the past month,” she said. “Got your Capture on?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“The first one is Heidi Rubinski, and I’ve just fed her holo, address and passport data into your computer. The other is Elana Mador, but you probably won’t be interested in her.”

“Why not?”

“First of all, she’s a cop.”

“You never heard of a dirty cop?” I said.

“And second, she’s stationed in Ajax, 300 miles east of here. I checked, and she was on duty yesterday.”

“What time did she get off?”

“1600 hours.”

That’s 4:00 PM on 24-hour worlds, but it was dinnertime on Odysseus. Still, she was one time zone ahead of us, so if she’d caught a flight or the underground zoomway right after she clocked out, she might have had time to get here when Max left the message.

“How’s her record?” I asked.

“As a cop? Exemplary.”

“Can you transmit everything you’ve got on both women to my computer?”

She nodded wearily. “Yes.”

“Okay, and thanks, Selina,” I said. “Go home and get your beauty sleep. I’ll start with Heidi Rubinski. When you get back to work tonight, check and see if the Mador woman has any pressing debts.”

“Will do. And Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“I like chocolate,” she said. “Real chocolate. From Old Earth itself.”

“You know what that costs?” I said.

“Don’t you think what I just gave you was worth it?”

She broke the connection.

“Don’t look distressed, Jake,” said George, who had been listening intently while standing out of camera range. “I have two warehouses of human foodstuffs. I seem to remember that one of them has imported chocolate. It is yours.”

“I appreciate that,” I said. “The stuff costs a fortune, and not all of us are billionaire criminal kingpins.”

“I offer you a gift, and you call me a criminal,” he said chidingly.

“It’s my manner,” I said. “I really am grateful.” I bit my lip before I could add that he really was a criminal kingpin. “We’ve seen everything there is to see here, and we’ll just be in the Forensic team’s way. We’ve got a couple of leads. I think it’s time for us to split up and each follow one. You can start by trying to pinpoint the whereabouts of those forty underlings who know about the alley. I’ll check on the ladies from New Warsaw.”

“Agreed,” said George. “One way or another, I will extract the truth from them.”

Somehow the way he said the word “extract” made me very happy I was not one of the people he’d be questioning.

* * *

I stopped by the office just long enough to check my messages—nothing from any potential clients, plenty from the landlord and the power company—and see what Selina had sent over from headquarters.

I decided I might as well interview the closer and more obvious suspect first. That was Heidi Rubinski. According to what Selina had given me, she was 37 years old, a retired schoolteacher, born on Spica II, raised on Roosevelt III, a current resident of New Warsaw.

Little bells started ringing inside my head. 37 and retired? Not on a schoolteacher’s pay. And as far as Selina had been able to tell, she didn’t have any friends or family here. It didn’t take much mental work to turn that into the profile of an assassin.

Selina had also sent me her passport record. One trip to the McAllister system six months ago, nothing else in the past decade until she’d come here. Still, it didn’t prove anything. There were half a dozen places just on Odysseus where I could get a passport claiming that I was Julius Caesar and lived in Rome, and each of them could stand up to almost any small spaceport’s scrutiny.

I checked her Odysseus address. It looked familiar, but it wasn’t until I rode the slidewalk there that I realized it was the local hospital. I walked up to the front desk, waited until a couple of other people were directed to their destinations, and then found myself face-to-face with a robot clerk.

“How may I help you, sir?” it asked.

“Have you got a patient here named Heidi Rubinski?”

“Yes, sir, we do.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“You will have to confer with her physician, or the nursing station on her floor.”

“When did she check in?”

“You will have to confer with her physician, or the nursing station on her floor.”

“Fine. What floor is she on?”

“The seventh.”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to give me her room number?”

“You will have to confer with—”

“Forget it,” I said.

I walked over to the nearest airlift and rode up to the seventh floor on a warm cushion of air. There was a nursing station a few feet away and I approached it.

“Yes, sir?” said a tripodal Molarian nurse.

“I’m here to see Heidi Rubinski,” I said. “I believe she’s on this floor?”

“Yes she is, sir,” said the nurse. “May I ask your relationship to her?”

“Is that required?”

“To see her? Yes, sir, it is.”

“I’m her husband.”

The Molarian glanced as a holo screen. “According to our records Heidi Rubinski is not married.”

“It was a secret ceremony,” I said. “Her parents don’t like me.”

“This is most irregular,” said the Molarian. “I shall have to summon my superior.”

He went off to find his boss, and I leaned over and looked at the screen. Nothing on it made any sense. Then, on a hunch, I said “Translate into Terran,” and instantly everything became comprehensible … and disappointing.

Heidi Rubinski was suffering from eplasia, a disfiguring disease for which there was no known cure. The hospital at New Warsaw was pretty basic, and they’d transferred her here when they heard that one of the surgeons on Odysseus had been researching the disease for a few years.

“You are not allowed to read that screen!” said a harsh voice.

I turned and found myself facing the Molarian nurse and his boss, a toothpick-thin scaly-skinned Ramorian female.

“I just want some information.”

“Are you related to the patient in question?”

I resisted the urge to take a swing at both of them, and instead pulled out my ID card. “I’m a licensed detective, working in concert with the Homer police force,” I said. “A lingerie shop was robbed last night, and an eyewitness identified Heidi Rubinski. I’m checking on her whereabouts between sunset and midnight.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” snapped the Ramorian. “Heidi Rubinski cannot even stand on her own power, and has not been out of her room in more than two weeks.”

Which was all I needed to know.

“Thanks,” I said. “But if any sexy black undergarments turn up here, even on the nursing staff, I’ll be back.”

I took the airlift down to the main floor, walked out of the building, and headed to the underground zoomway. It had replaced the ground-level monorail that had once connected Odysseus’s major cities, and as long as there weren’t any earthquakes, it was fast, efficient, and safe. I always felt like I was going back into the womb when I rode the zoomway; it was dark and quiet, and I hardly felt the motion at all. There were six groups going to Ajax, maybe eight Men and ten aliens, and the six compartments we’d leased linked up, took off down the long straight tunnel, and came to a stop maybe half an hour later.

I took an airlift up to the surface, caught a slidewalk that was heading to the heart of the city, and rode it until I got off at the police station. Then I walked up to the front desk and asked to see Elana Mador.

“What’s your business with her?” asked the human sergeant who was manning the desk.

“Private,” I said, flashing my ID.

“You’re a long way from home, Detective Masters.”

“With a little luck I’ll be home for dinner,” I said.

He got the hint. “Second floor, fourth room on the right.”

I followed his instructions, and a moment later was standing in front of Sergeant Elana Mador’s door. It scanned my retina, couldn’t match it, asked for my ID, scanned my detective’s license, and finally irised to let me through.

Elana was a muscular-looking woman, nearing fifty. She didn’t bother to dye the gray out of her hair or surgically smooth out the jowls that were starting to appear. Her desk was neat, her uniform was neat, her walls and floor and chair were neat. The only rumpled thing in the office was me.

“Good afternoon, Detective Masters,” she said.

“Call me Jake,” I replied, walking farther into the room. “I’m sorry to intrude on you, but I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Have a seat,” she said, indicating a chair made of some alien hardwood. “I have nothing to hide. Well, nothing that you’d be asking about,” she added with an embarrassing attempt to be cute and coy.

“You recently returned from New Warsaw,” I said. “May I ask why you were there?”

“I had an uncle who lived there,” she said. “I was his only close relative. He died last month, and I had to go out there, arrange the funeral, and start putting his affairs in order. Why?”

“I’m just verifying what I’d already been told,” I said.

“And that’s all you want to know?” she said, frowning.

“Two more questions,” I said. “Did you bring any New Warsaw currency back with you?”

“Yes.”

“You know it’s illegal?”

“It’s not illegal to possess it, only to spend it,” she replied.

“Then why bring it at all?”

“I didn’t like the exchange rate on New Warsaw,” said Elana. “I’ll probably have to go back there in a few months to dispose of the last of his possessions—I was on a tight schedule last month, and I didn’t get everything done—so I thought I’d keep the money and take it back with me. Why pay to convert credits into drachmas, and then pay to convert drachmas back into credits a few days later?” She frowned. “Although as it happens, it’s a moot point.”

“Could you explain that, please?” I said.

“I lost the money a few days after I got back home.”

“You lost it?” I said. “Gambling?”

“I never gamble,” she replied heatedly. Then she seemed to calm down. “No, I misplaced it, I guess. My roommate and I turned the apartment upside down, but it wasn’t there. I’d say someone stole it, but let’s be honest—who the hell would pick a uniformed cop’s pocket?”

“Do you know how much it was?”

“Eight hundred drachmas,” she said. “Let me guess: it turned up in Homer.”

I nodded my head. “Yes, it did.”

“And you’re trying to trace it back.”

“Right.”

“You said you had two more questions,” she said suddenly. “What was the other?”

“Where were you last night between sunset and midnight?”

“Pulling a drunk out of the river,” she said. “And yes, I have witnesses.”

“It took you that long?”

“It took a couple of hours to pull him out and take him to the hospital. Then I came back here to dictate my report, and then I went home. Today is my roommate’s day off. You can check with her if you like.”

“Well,” I said with a shrug, “as long as I’m here.”

“I’ll let her know you’re coming. You doubtless have my address already.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then I think that concludes this interview,” she said, getting to her feet and extending a hand. “Good luck finding whoever or whatever it is that you’re looking for.”

She had to be the least curious person I’d ever met. I thanked her and took her extended hand. It was even more powerful than it looked.

I left the police station and reached her apartment in five minutes. Her roommate, a mousy little woman named Violet (which they tell me is an Old Earth flower), let me in and showed me around. It wasn’t much of an apartment—a bedroom for each of them, a cozy parlor (but neat as a pin, just like the office), and a kitchen with room for a small table. The bathrooms each had a chemshower, but the sinks boasted real water.

I looked around for a few minutes, but I knew it was useless. Elana was a cop; she knew how to toss a room. If she hadn’t found her money, it wasn’t there to be found.

“Can I make you some coffee or tea, Mr. Masters?” asked Violet when I’d finished giving the place the once-over.

“Yeah,” I said. “Coffee would be nice. It’s a long trip back to Homer.”

“Oh, not that long,” she said from the kitchen. “I made it in less than 30 minutes on the zoomway yesterday.”

“You were in Homer yesterday?”

“My boss often sends me out of town on business,” she answered. “We’ve got branches in Homer, in Achilles, in Hektor …”

“Did you get caught in the rain last night?” I had no idea if it had rained. I thought it might be interesting to see if she knew.

“It must have been while I in transit,” she answered. “I didn’t get back until about an hour before midnight.” Then: “Oh. Elana asked me to tell you: she was home and in bed about forty minutes before midnight.”

“Thank you, Violet.”

She brought the coffee, and we made small talk for the next ten minutes. Well, she made it; I grunted occasionally to prove I was listening.

She seemed pleasant enough. A little empty-headed perhaps, but hardly a hardened criminal. Still, the worst killer I ever ran across was a devout churchgoing mother of five, and I was running out of leads, so I figured it was now or never with her.

“I wonder if you can help me, Violet,” I said, getting to my feet.

“I’ll do my best,” she said.

“I saw a present on the zoomway platform that I want to buy for my ladyfriend,” I said, trying to sound embarrassed. “I tried to buy it when I arrived here, but it costs fifteen credits and all I have with me is a 200-credit note. The guy told me he couldn’t break anything that big. Can you make change for me?”

“Probably,” she said. “I’ll have to look and see.”

She walked over to a drawer and pulled out a dainty little embroidered pouch, scarcely noticing that I was right behind her. She opened it to see if she had enough small bills, and that’s when I saw them—the rest of Elana’s New Warsaw drachmas. “Ah! Here are some twenties!” she exclaimed, pulling them out and turning to me.

She jumped back when she found herself staring down the barrel of my burner.

“I offer to do you a favor and you point a laser pistol at me and rob me?” she said severely. “What kind of man are you?”

“The kind who wants to know what you did with the other 500 drachmas,” I said.

She collapsed on a chair, as if all the air had gone out of her.

“I thought I could pass the money here, but no one in Ajax would take it, so I decided to see if I could get rid of it in Homer. I couldn’t pretend to find it in the apartment after all this time. Elana would know I’d taken it.” She stared at me the way a wild animal stares at a hunter. “Are you going to tell her?”

“That all depends,” I said.

“On what?”

“On what you tell me. I don’t want to insult you, Violet, but unless you’re the best damned actress I’ve ever seen, you’re not smart enough to pull off what happened in Homer.”

“You keep a civil tongue in your head!” she snapped.

“Pay attention,” I said. “You’ve already committed at least two felonies, one by stealing the drachmas, and another by passing them to my partner.”

“Masters!” she said suddenly. I thought she was going to slap herself on the forehead. “Now I remember where I saw that name. It was on the office door!”

“Who told you to go there and hire my partner?” I asked.

“I hire lots of people,” she shot back.

“You don’t hire lots of beachballs, and you don’t pay lots of people with New Warsaw drachmas. Who told you to do it?”

“You know, he did look like a beachball at that,” said Violet.

“I’m running out of patience with you,” I said irritably. “Who told you to hire him?”

“No one told me to hire him,” she said sullenly. “It was my own idea.”

“Come on, Violet, you haven’t had an idea in years. Either you tell me, or I tell Elana who stole her money.”

“No!” she yelled suddenly. “You can’t tell her!”

“If she’s your friend, I hate to think of what you do to your enemies,” I said. “Now, I’m getting tired of asking you—who told you to hire Max?”

“No one told me to hire your partner,” she said. “I was just told to hire a detective.”

“And when you found out or guessed that he was new to the planet, you figured you could pass some of the drachmas off on him and keep what your boss had given you to pay him with?”

She nodded. “He was a trusting little thing.” She glared at me. “Not like some people.”

“Being a trusting little thing cost him his life,” I said.

“He’s dead?” she repeated, and her shock was real.

“He’s dead,” I said. “And that means along with being a thief, you’re also complicit in a murder.”

“He’s really dead?”

“He’s really dead.”

“That’s it,” she said. “I’m not saying another word.”

“Oh, you’re going to say one more thing, Violet,” I told her. “You’re going to say who told you to hire my partner, because if you don’t, I’m going to contact Elana before I leave this apartment and give her the privilege of arresting you.”

“You can’t do that!” she said desperately. “She’s my only friend.”

“The name, Violet.”

She glared at me. If looks could kill, I’d have been dead meat. Finally she spoke. “James Bryson.”

“And he’s in town?”

“Yes.”

“I think you’d better tell me where I can find him.”

“You said I just had to tell you one thing,” she protested.

“You think you’re the only one who lies?” I shot back. “Now, where is he?”

She dummied up for a minute, we went through the whole rigamarole about my contacting Elana again, and finally she gave me an address.

“Thank you, Violet,” I said, putting my burner away and walking to the door. “Don’t think of leaving town. You’re not bright enough to stay hidden.”

“Promise you won’t tell Bryson I gave you his name!” she said, suddenly panic-stricken. “It’s the best job I ever had.”

“I promise.”

“Are you going to come back and arrest me?”

“I don’t know. If things work out, the only thing you’ll have to do is pay Elana back her money.”

“But then she’ll know I stole it!” she said plaintively. “Besides, half of it is gone.”

I could have told her that she could buy some drachmas on the black market, but my partner was dead, at least in part because of her, and I was a little short on sympathy. I just walked out the door without another word, and headed to James Bryson’s office.

* * *

The building was big. The office was big. And James Bryson fit both. He stood six or seven inches above six feet, he was broad-jawed and broad-shouldered and broad-hipped, a door of a man. If he didn’t have the most expensive tailor in Ajax, it was only because a more expensive one had opened shop since breakfast. His hair was too thick and too perfect to have been his own, not when he was clearly closing in on sixty. He had piercing blue eyes, and he almost never blinked.

“Come in, Mr. Masters, come in!” he said in a booming voice. “You said you had something of the utmost importance to discuss with me. What possible interest can a former police officer from Homer have in me?”

“You know I used to be a cop?”

He smiled, displaying a mouthful of perfect teeth. “I know almost as much about you as you do, Mr. Masters,” he said. “When you entered the building, our security system began checking you out. By the time you arrived on this floor, I knew that you were a private detective who used to work for the police, I knew your financial profile, I knew that you had visited a local cop named Elana Mador, and I knew you’ve been to her apartment.” Another smile. “But I don’t know what you drink.”

“Just about anything that’s wet,” I said.

He snapped his fingers, and a robot came out of somewhere carrying a pair of glasses. “Neboolian whiskey,” he announced. “I hope you like it, Jake.” Then: “Is it all right if I call you Jake?”

“It’s my name,” I said, taking a glass from the robot. I took a sip. “Not bad.”

“All right, Jake,” said Bryson. “Now we’ve met, we’ve had a drink, and we’re just Jake and Jim. What do you think you learned from that idiot?”

“From Violet?” I said.

“Have you had time to talk to any other idiots today?”

“No,” I said. “But the day’s young yet.”

“Before we go any farther, I want you to know I had nothing to do with your partner’s death,” said Bryson.

“I’m sure you want me to know that,” I replied. “But I don’t know it yet.”

“It’s the truth. But there’s a good chance that I’m going to be responsible for Violet Ashwing’s, that I promise you.”

“Let me ask you a question, Mr. Bryson,” I said.

“Jim,” he corrected me.

“Okay, Jim. Besides promising to kill people and denying that you kill people, what else do you do for a living?”

“Pretty much the same thing as your friend Goriejyxsol.”

“What do you know about George?” I said.

“Is that what you call him?” asked Bryson.

“I’m asking the questions.”

“George considers himself a financier and an executive. I consider myself an entrepreneur. When all is said and done, they’re the same.”

“You’re saying that he runs the Alien Quarter and you run Ajax.”

“I run a part of Ajax,” said Bryson, smiling again. “I’m only a small-time criminal megalomaniac.”

“Why did you have my partner killed?”

“I already told you, Jake—I had nothing to do with it.”

“You sent Violet to Homer, she hired my partner, and now he’s dead. Tell me how you had nothing to do with it.”

“Violet works for me,” said Bryson. “She’s got the brains of a potted plant, but she’s reasonably harmless.”

“She’s also a thief.”

“We can’t all be perfect,” he said. “She knows I’ve got security holos on her every minute she’s in the building. I could care less if she steals from her girlfriend.”

“I already know she works for you.”

“I don’t just have employees and competitors, Jake,” he continued. “I’ve got a partner, and he’s a lot smarter than Violet. I haven’t been able to prove it, but I think he’s made a deal, or is trying to make a deal, with your friend George.”

“What kind of deal?”

“The likeliest is that he turns over our Alien Quarter to George and his agents if George helps him dump me and take over my organization.” He paused while he finished off his drink. “He’s in Homer right now. I’ve got a tail on him—hell, three tails, one who’s obvious, and two he’ll never spot while he’s losing the first. But to play it safe, I wanted a tail on George too, just in case my partner lost all three of the men I put on him.”

“And you sent Violet.”

“I couldn’t go myself,” explained Bryson. “Hell, if I’m tailing my partner, he’s probably tailing me. Why give him or one of George’s hitters a free shot at me? So I sent the idiot.”

“And she paid my partner off in New Warsaw drachmas.”

He almost did a double-take. “You’re kidding!”

“The hell I am,” I said. “Why do you think I’m here? I followed the drachmas back to Violet.”

“Well, I hope to hell you don’t think I killed your partner so I could steal some money that would land me in jail the minute I tried to spend it.”

“I don’t know why you killed my partner,” I said. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Look, Jake,” he said earnestly. “I had nothing to gain from killing him. I even told her to call him off.”

It was my turn to look surprised. “Explain.”

“She checked in with me a few minutes after she hired him. The second she told me he was a Broskog, I realized that he’d be spotted in less than a minute. There can’t be more than five or six of them within twenty lightyears of the Iliad system. I wanted to know if my partner was meeting George, not to alert the whole fucking Alien Quarter that I’d put a tail on their boss.”

“Then what went wrong?” I asked.

“That’s what we’re going to find out.” He touched a spot on his desk. “Bring in Violet Ashwing.”

“Right now?” said a disembodied voice.

“Right now.”

“You want her in your office?”

“No, take her down to the basement and hook her up to the Neverlie Machine.”

“She’s at her apartment?”

He looked questioningly at me.

“She was twenty minutes ago,” I said.

“Yes,” said Bryson. “Let me know when she gets here.” He broke the connection. “This shouldn’t take long, and then we’ll solve the rest of the puzzle. Would you care for another drink, Jake?”

“Later.”

“You act like you don’t trust me,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to sound hurt. “I’ve shared my liquor with you, I’ve admitted that I’m a racketeer, I’m pulling in someone who can provide some answers about your partner’s murder. What more can I do to prove that I want to be your friend?”

I thought about it. “Not much,” I admitted.

“Did you drink with George last night?”

“Yes.”

“If you can drink with him, you can drink with me.” He snapped his fingers and the robot reappeared with fresh glasses. I downed mine, and he looked approvingly at me. “Now we’re friends.”

“At least we’re not shooting at each other,” I said, handing the glass back to the robot.

“Another?”

I shook my head. “I’d like to be sober enough to understand what Violet says.”

“In retrospect, I don’t know why I keep her around.”

“Probably because you had proof she was a thief, and you promised to turn it over to her roomie if she didn’t do what you wanted.”

“True,” he said. “But I have the same hold over dozens of men and women, and more than a few aliens as well. This one wasn’t pretty, wasn’t sexy, sure as hell wasn’t bright. I never gave her anything important to do.” He sighed. “I don’t know why I didn’t just shove her off a rooftop.”

“She’d probably have had to ask directions on the way down,” I said.

He threw back his head and laughed uproariously. “By God, I like you, Jake! I hope we never find ourselves on opposite sides.”

“Just keep out of Homer and maybe we won’t.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” said Bryson. “It all depends on my partner.”

“Your partner is your business,” I said. “Someone’s still going to pay for mine.”

“I’m sure someone will,” he replied.

We were silent for a couple of minutes, and then he got word that Violet was in what the voice at the other end called the Interrogation Room.

“You want to come along for this, Jake?” he asked.

“Have you really got a Neverlie Machine, or are you just going to beat the crap out of her?”

“We’ve got one,” he said. “Latest model.”

“Okay, I’m coming.”

We got into his private airlift and descended to the lowest level in the building. There were five men and a huge Torqual waiting for us, and we followed them to the Interrogation Room. The door irised and we stepped through. It was a smallish room, maybe twelve feet on a side, and right in the middle of it sat Violet, hooked up to the machine, which was attached to her left arm, her rib cage, and both her temples. Bryson signaled one man to stay and work the machine; the others all left.

“Hi, Violet,” said Bryson pleasantly. “Thanks for coming in on your day off.”

“Why is he here?” she demanded, jerking her head in my direction.

“He has some questions to ask you,” said Bryson.

“I already answered all his questions!”

“He has some new ones. Just answer them truthfully and we’ll take you right back home, with a nice cash bonus for your time.”

She glared at me balefully.

“I thought you were going to keep it secret,” she said accusingly.

“I said if you cooperated I’d keep it secret from Elana, and I will,” I replied.

“You weren’t going to tell Mr. Bryson I gave you his name!” she snapped.

“I didn’t,” I said. “He figured it out all by himself.”

“Nobody’s that smart,” muttered Violet.

“Now, Violet, I want you to understand,” said Bryson. “When you see that little light go on”—he pointed to the machine—”the Neverlie Machine will be activated. The first lie you tell will send an exceptionally painful jolt through your body. Each lie will give you a stronger jolt. I don’t think you could survive four lies, certainly not five.” Suddenly he smiled. “But why should you suffer at all? Just tell the truth, and you can be out of here in five minutes.” He turned to me. “Jake?”

I stepped forward. “I want to make sure I’ve got this straight,” I said. “You hired Max—that’s my partner—to tail the Patrukan known as Goriejyxsol, is that correct?”

“You know it is.”

“Then, after he’d left the office and gone out on the job, you contacted Mr. Bryson here and told him what you’d done.”

“Yes.”

“Including that you’d hired a Broskog?”

“Not right away. I just told him that I’d done what he asked, and he asked who the detective was, and I told him I couldn’t pronounce his name. Then he asked me to describe him, and I did, and he told me to call him off.”

“How did you call him off?”

“I couldn’t contact him myself,” she said. “He’d been gone fifteen or twenty minutes before I got through to Mr. Bryson, and I knew I’d never find him. But I knew he had to be in the Alien Quarter, because he was following this Patrukan who was supposed to be a big shot there.”

“Okay, you couldn’t contact him yourself,” I said. “What did you do?”

“Well, I knew Mr. Perrin—that’s Mr. Bryson’s partner—was on Odysseus, so I contacted him and asked him what I should do.”

Bryson uttered a startled obscenity.

“And what did Mr. Perrin say?”

“He gave me the name of a Patrukan he said I could trust, and told me how to contact him, so I did.”

“And what did you say to him?”

“I told him that he should stop the Broskog who was following Goriejyxsol, that Goriejyxsol was not to be followed any longer. He asked me who gave me his name and I told him, and that was all I said. I was home less than an hour later.”

“Thank you, Violet,” I said. “You did fine.”

“Can I go now?”

“Just as soon as you tell me the Patrukan’s name.”

“I already told you—Goriejyxsol.”

Can you really be this dumb? I thought. Then I decided that she wasn’t that good an actress.

“No, Violet. I meant the name of the one you contacted.”

“Oh, him—Djarabaxtol.”

The machine didn’t shock her, so I knew she had to be telling the truth.

“Djarabaxtol?” repeated Bryson. “And Herb Perrin told you to contact him?”

“Yes, Mr. Bryson.”

“Okay,” said Bryson to the man working the machine. “Unhook her, give her a couple of hundred credits, and take her back to her place.”

He and I left the room and went back up to his office.

“All right, Jake. Now you know who killed your partner. You even know why: a stupid woman didn’t explain herself fully and he misunderstood her.” He frowned. “And I know my partner has been dealing with your friend George, or he’d never have a Patrukan from Homer’s Alien Quarter working for him.”

“And he has to be working for your friend Perrin,” I said. “Otherwise he’d wouldn’t have killed Max without an explicit order from George.”

“I assume you’re going back to Homer now?”

“As fast as I can.”

He pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and shoved them into my hand. “You helped me out, and Jim Bryson remembers his friends.”

I put the money on his desk. “I already have a client.”

“George?”

“My partner.”

He extended a huge hand. “We did each other a good turn, Jake. You showed me my partner is trying to sell me out, and I showed you who killed Max. We should keep in touch. I’m sure we can do each other even more good in the future.” Another one of his trademark smiles. “For example, I can tell you when and where the next shipment of alphanella seeds is arriving in Homer”—alphanella was the most sought-after drug in the Democracy—”and you can introduce me to George.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “In the meantime, what’s going to become of Violet?”

“Do you care?”

“Just curious.”

“I thought I’d found a job even she couldn’t fuck up,” said Bryson. “I suppose I’ll look for something even simpler, or maybe pension her off.”

“And Perrin?”

“That’s a very personal question, Jake,” he said. “If you’re really curious, check the Ajax newscubes for the next week or two.”

I figured the conversation was ended, so I walked to the door.

“Remember, now—keep in touch,” he said as I walked out into the corridor.

All the way down to the ground floor I kept thinking that I wouldn’t want to be Perrin.

* * *

All the way back to Homer I kept trying to decide what my next step was. If I turned Djarabaxtol over to the police, there was a good chance he’d beat the rap. There were no witnesses, and he probably had 50 friends who would swear he was nowhere near that alley all night. Besides, even if they found him guilty, he wouldn’t serve much time. The sentence for killing an alien was a hell of a lot less than for killing a Man, at least on primarily human worlds like Odysseus.

On the other hand, if I took my vengeance myself, there was a very stupid woman in Ajax who could tie me to Djarabaxtol and had every reason to hope I’d take a fall before I could talk to her girlfriend again. And then there was another consideration: nobody killed anybody in the Alien Quarter without George’s permission. What if he wouldn’t grant it? And what if I killed Djarabaxtol anyway?

Usually I find the zoomway relaxing, but this time I got off it even more tense than when I’d boarded it in Ajax. I’d used my burner when I had to, when I had to defend myself, but I wasn’t a cold-blooded executioner. Could I really walk up to a Patrukan who didn’t even know who I was, stick the muzzle of my pistol in his ear, and fire? And if not, what then? Was I going to call him out like a gunfighter of Earth’s Old West?

I didn’t like any of the scenarios, and I knew I had to get straight in my head what I was and wasn’t willing to do before I confronted Djarabaxtol.

Finally I realized that I’d been standing motionless on the zoomway platform, just staring blindly into space. I shook my head in an attempt to clear it, then took an airlift to the surface. Instead of going to my office or my apartment, I caught the slidewalk that took me to the Alien Quarter. I was going to ride it all the way to The Purple God when I saw Baro the Grub standing between a pair of buildings a block before reaching my destination. I hopped off and walked over to him.

“Hello, Jake,” he said. “How was Ajax?”

“You know I’ve been there?” I asked, surprised.

“Nothing escapes my watchful eye,” said the Grub.

“I didn’t know your watchful eye extended for 300 miles.”

“It extends in all directions and dimensions, Jake,” he replied. “It even tells me that a certain Mr. Perrin’s life expectancy can be measured in days rather than weeks or years.”

“Poor fellow,” I said. “Whoever he is.”

“You have sought me out, Jake. How may I help you?”

“I’m looking for Goriejyxsol,” I said. “Is he at The Purple God or his own place?”

“He has seven places, Jake.”

“I’m talking about the one he took me to last night. Don’t pretend you don’t know which one it was. You’ve got spies all the hell over the Quarter.”

“You have not yet crossed my palm with silver.”

“Read a different book, Grub,” I said. “You don’t have a palm, and they haven’t used silver for a couple of thousand years.”

“But it sounds evocative,” said the Grub. “For 50 Far London pounds, all will be revealed.”

“Come on, Grub,” I said irritably. “I’ll give you ten credits. Otherwise, I’m just going to walk into The Purple God, and if he’s not there, I’ll ask where he is.”

“You are abusing our friendship, Jake,” said the Grub. “Even an informer has to pay his bills.”

“Twenty credits,” I said. “Take it or leave it.”

He grabbed the money and put it into, well, not a pocket, because the Grub doesn’t wear clothes, but a slit in his skin, near the top of his rib cage, that functioned like a pocket.

“The Roost.”

“Where’s that?”

“You went there last night, after you left The Purple God.”

“Easiest twenty credits you’ve made all month,” I said, heading off for The Roost.

When I got to the door a pair of Patrukans—not the same ones I’d seen the night before—checked me out, frisked me, took my burner, and then let me in.

“Give him back his weapon,” said George, who was sitting at the same table we’d been at maybe twelve hours earlier. “This is an honorable Man. He will not use it on his friends.”

One of the Patrukans walked up to me, returned my burner without a word, and went back to his post outside the door.

“So, Jake,” said George. “Have you learned anything?”

I nodded my head. “Yeah,” I said. “Are you going to deal with Perrin?”

“No,” answered George, who didn’t look even a little bit surprised at the question. “He is not an honorable Man.”

“Just between you and me, he hasn’t got much of a life expectancy either,” I said.

“What did you think of his partner?”

“Bryson?” I said. “Don’t take offense, but he reminds me a lot of you.”

“If I enter into an arrangement with anyone, it will be with him.”

“Have you met him?”

“No. But I am aware of his reputation, and if a Man of your qualities says that he reminds you of me, then he is certainly preferable to Mr. Perrin.”

“I won’t argue that.”

“May I assume you learned more about Max’s death?”

“I did.”

“The killer works for me, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“It figured,” said George. “What do you propose to do about it?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “That’s what we have to talk about.”

“I’m listening,” said George.

“I’d have no compunction about gunning him down if he was in the act of killing Max,” I began. “But I don’t know how I’d feel about tracking him down and killing him in cold blood.”

“That’s because you are an ethical man, as well as an honorable one,” said George. “Of course, I abhor bloodshed myself.”

I must have looked my disbelief.

“Perhaps I should qualify that,” continued George. “I find murder distasteful, though occasionally necessary. That is why I have hirelings to do it for me.” He paused. “So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Another consideration is that he works for you. If he turns up dead, there’s not going to be much doubt in your mind about who killed him.”

“Ah!” said George with an alien smile. “Now we come to the crux of it. You still have not told me his name.”

“I can barely pronounce it,” I said.

“Try.”

I nodded. “Djarabaxtol.”

He was silent for a moment. “Jake,” he said at last, “I think I shall give you another present. The chocolate was for your friend. Djarabaxtol is yours.”

“I don’t know if I want him,” I said.

“I thought you wanted to avenge your partner’s murder.”

“I do.”

“Well?”

“It’s not that simple, George,” I said. “If he tries to sneak into my house or my office, I’ll blow him away. If he picks a fight with me, I’ll do my best to kill him.” I paused. “But I just don’t think I can just walk up and shoot him, and I’ll be damned if I’ll turn him over to the police where a good lawyer can beat the rap or get him out in two years.”

“I can see to it that he’s in a district where the local police owe me some very large favors,” offered George. “They won’t present any problem.”

“I wasn’t worried about the police,” I said. “I’m worried about living with me.”

“Integrity can be such a nuisance,” said George. “I assure you that Djarabaxtol wouldn’t hesitate a single second to kill you if he thought he had a reason—and even fifty credits would be reason enough.” He smiled that alien smile of his. “That is why I would never sell you out to him, while I have no compunction about turning him over to you.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“I am sure your problems will resolve themselves in the fullness of time,” said George. “In the meantime, let us relax, share a drink, and talk of other things.”

“What other things did you have in mind?”

“Tell me about James Bryson.”

We spent the next couple of hours talking, and then all the tension and traveling caught up with me, and I decided it was time to go home and get some shut-eye.

I gave Selina the chocolate the next day. She began asking me about my trip to Ajax. I shouldn’t have been surprised that she knew—after all, the cops monitor the zoomway stations—but while I told her about meeting Elana Mador, I clammed up when she asked me what else I’d done there.

It didn’t take her long to figure out I’d learned who killed Max. Since I still hadn’t decided what to do about it, I wouldn’t tell her who the murderer was, and we had one of our monthly disagreements (well, she calls them disagreements; I call them screaming matches), that ended only when she looked around for something to throw at me, couldn’t find anything but the chocolate, and decided to stalk off in outraged dignity rather than part with it.

When I got back to my office, there was a message from the bank, hidden among all the threats from the landlord and the power company. I checked it out, and found that there had been two different deposits made to my account, one for ten thousand credits, one for six thousand Far London pounds.

A minute later George’s image popped into view just a few feet from my desk.

“Good afternoon, Jake,” he said. “Are you feeling better today?”

“I felt fine yesterday,” I said.

“I think what I have to tell you may make you feel even better,” said George.

“I’m listening.”

“Thanks to you, I have a new business associate,” continued George. “I believe you know him.”

“That sure as hell didn’t take very long.”

“You vouched for him. That was all the information I required.”

“I didn’t vouch for him,” I replied. “I said he reminded me of you. That’s not quite the same thing.”

“I admire your sense of humor, Jake,” he said with a guttural alien laugh. “Would you like to know the first piece of business we transacted?”

“Whatever makes you happy,” I said with a shrug.

“I have sent Djarabaxtol to Ajax on business, and Mr. Bryson has told Mr. Perrin to remain in Homer for the foreseeable future.”

Son of a bitch! I thought. You’re trading executions! The local cops will never trace Perrin to you, and the Ajax cops will never connect Djarabaxtol to Bryson.

“Have you no comment at all, Jake?”

“I commend your organization for its resourcefulness,” I said, aware that someone somewhere could access a record of our conversation.

“And you are no longer troubled by your recent problems?”

“What problems?” I said with a shrug.

“I am happy to have done you this small service, in exchange for the service you rendered to me yesterday,” said George.

“Speaking of services, you wouldn’t know who made the other deposit in my account, would you?” I asked.

“I would be very surprised if it wasn’t my new friend from Ajax.”

So would I, I thought.

“He’ll be arriving here in less than an hour to cement our relationship,” said George. “Why don’t you come down and have a drink with us?”

“That might not be the best idea in the world,” I said. “One of these weeks or months I may have to arrest the pair of you.”

“And one of these weeks or months we may have to do to you what we will be doing to our two associates.” He smiled. “But in the meantime, I’ve just laid in a stock of Cygnian cognac.”

“Real Cygnian cognac?”

“Guaranteed.”

“I’m on my way,” I said.

You know, sooner or later friends break their promises, rob you blind, steal your women, and stick you with the tab.

But I’ll say this for honorable enemies: they always tell the truth, and their checks never bounce.

* * *

* - “A Locked-Planet Mystery” (Alien Crimes, Science Fiction Book Club, 2007)

** - “Guardian Angel” (Down These Dark Spaceways, Science Fiction Book Club, 2005)

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

FANTASY STORIES:

Scraps of Fog

Written by Sarah A. Hoyt

Illustrated by Jennifer Miller

Sandra saw the ghost in the patio, but only for a moment.

She threw open the back door of her grandmother’s house—the house where she’d lived her whole life—onto the thick white fog that sometimes blanketed the north of Portugal on summer mornings.

The fog, milky-white and thick, pushed tendrils into the cool, stone-paved kitchen, like children’s fingers exploring a candy box, and Sandra wrapped her arms around herself.

It was then she saw him on the patio—a man atop a tall white horse. A man with short red hair and piercing blue-gray eyes, looking straight at her.

“Who—” she started, stepping forward. But the fog roiled, and there was nothing there, nothing where she thought she’d seen a horse or a man. Which made perfect sense, she thought to herself, as she shivered, in her T-shirt and jeans. After all, the patio, with its pergola roof, through which green grapevines threaded, was at the back of the house, and it and the fields it bordered on were enclosed in seven-foot stone walls. A man might have climbed over it, but a horse—never.

She turned back into the house, shaking her head. She was imagining things. It was all the pressure of having to clean the house, of disposing—somehow—of the clutter of the four generations who’d lived in the house before her, of putting the house up for sale. Of marrying Miguel. Of moving.

She filled a teakettle, set it on the stove. The kitchen had a tiny sink, a narrow complement of cabinets, a single faucet. The gas stove, almost an antique, sat across the broad kitchen from the Franklin stove it had replaced.

The rest of the kitchen was cavernous and bare, calling for children or women chatting, for the bustle it had known for most of its existence. On the far side, [Change okay?] at the innermost wall, a broad pine table and twelve chairs sat, awaiting a family that would never cluster around it.

Sandra held the match, ready to blow it out, but frowned, instead, at the table. It, and the chairs, had been made by Sandra’s great-grandfather. It had seen generations of children and grandchildren sit around it, enjoyed lively argument and calm conversation, wedding feasts and funeral dinners. And now all the family were gone, to Brazil, to Venezuela, to lands near and far, where their fortune seemed better, or to the grave, to sleep—as quaint Bible language would have it—with their ancestors. All except for Sandra, who would soon marry and go live in Miguel’s condo. But what was to become of the table?

The phone rang, waking her. She blew out the match just before the flame reached her fingers, and tossed the burnt bit into the sink.

* * *

“Have you taken the day off from work?” Miguel’s voice, issued from the old-fashioned black Bakelite phone in the hallway, all brisk curtness and businesslike, to the point. He spoke with the detachment of someone who is also typing a document, looking over a planner—anything but performing a single action at a time.

Sandra tried to suppress her annoyance at his remoteness. He was a busy port wine reseller, a man whose day to day involved tens of business calls. That she was his fiancee meant nothing. Theirs had never been an arrangement of love.

Oh, he told her often enough that he needed her. And it was true. He needed a wife to run his household, to organize his parties, to play the society lady to his successful business career. And she needed—she looked around at the narrow hallway, mahogany-paneled by some affluent Victorian ancestor, and crammed with occasional tables, silk flower arrangements and an old rosewood love seat—she needed someone to break the lonely days of her life since her grandmother’s death a year ago. And someone to take her away from her job as a policewoman in downtown Porto—what remained of the medieval area of town, the most decayed and run-down of urban slums. She’d taken the job years ago with the idea that she could do some good, help some of the people down there, discourage juvenile offenders, solve crimes.

But she’d found herself bumping into the velvet ceiling of traditional Portuguese machismo. It wasn’t that the men working with her thought poorly of her abilities—though they probably did—but that they thought it their duty to shield her from everything dangerous or even too unpleasant. And, unlike other countries, Portugal had no apparatus to enforce its antidiscrimination laws.

So her desk piled high, daily, with minor vandalism cases, with the cases of juveniles from other, more affluent parts of town who came to Ribeira to joyride in stolen cars, or to buy pot, or to cause a drunken disturbance in a picturesque restaurant.

She was held at bay from real life, from the police work she’d truly trained for. She was kept apart from the world that she’d hoped to improve.

“Well, did you take the day off?” Miguel asked.

“Yes.” Sandra woke. “Yes, of course. I told you I was going to go through the attic today, see if I can get all the old letters and papers together and light a bonfire in the patio. Although if it will burn with this heat, it’s something—”

“You know, you probably could sell those old pictures,” Miguel said. “And the papers to an antique store.”

“No.” She might not recognize anyone in those pictures. She might not even know most of the people who’d sent letters from South Africa or France, or England—but they’d been relatives who had emigrated long ago. Or relatives of relatives. Or friends of relatives. She could no more sell them than she would sell her relatives. Not that she liked burning them. But modern life didn’t allow for the sentimental clutter of generations past and she had to do something with it all. Best burned than violated by the hands of strangers, she thought.

Miguel didn’t understand. He made a sound that was not quite a sigh—an exhalation of annoyance. “Okay. But, you know, the house is not going to bring much and—”

“I thought you’d agreed to take me in my shift,” she said. He had. They’d been friends since childhood, and when they’d contracted their passionless match, he’d wanted her to quit right away, a year and half ago. To quit her job and get pretty dresses and start studying the role of a society wife. He’d offered to support her. He’d said she had no need of working. No need of putting herself through any unpleasantness.

“That’s not it,” he said. “I just hate to see you wasting money. People pay good money for old pictures, so they can pretend to have known ancestors.”

She didn’t answer. She’d long ago learned, in their childhood tussles and arguments, that the only thing Miguel couldn’t counter was silence.

At length he spoke again, and his voice, momentarily engaged in their dispute, had become remote and calm again. “At any rate, I’m sending an antiques dealer over,” he said. “For the furniture. Your grandmother’s washstand, in her room, the one with the dog’s heads, I’m sure it is worth a lot of money. And even that kitchen table. Primitive is in, you know.”

“Couldn’t we keep it?” she asked. “If it’s in?” But even as she spoke, she could see the tiny dining room of Miguel’s condo in Boavista, the most upscale of districts, long known as the Portuguese Hollywood.

Miguel didn’t answer, which was his way of countering her ridiculous suggestion. “Anyway,” he said, “I just wanted to make sure you would be there when the dealer came. And I wanted to ask if we could go out to dinner today?”

“Probably not,” she said. “I’ll be busy.” He was so used to going out to dinner that his idea of getting together was meeting at an expensive restaurant. Where, doubtless, he would feel forced to hold her hand across the table, just for the sake of appearances.

He sighed at the other end. “All right, then. Another time.”

And he hung up, without saying good-bye, as he usually did.

Sandra set the receiver down, dismayed. She could no more think of selling that table than she could think of selling the family pictures. She tried to imagine it serving as someone’s fashionable dining-room table in some ultramodern apartment and cringed. To her, the table was too intimately associated with her grandmother, who’d raised her after Sandra’s parents emigrated to Brazil.

They had left her behind because she was only one, and sickly. They were supposed to send for her. They were always supposed to send for her. But first, she’d been frail, and they’d been penniless. And then, as time passed, and they had other children, the matter had simply dropped away and Sandra had been glad of it. This was her home, this village of Aguas Santas, between the Atlantic Ocean and the mountain ridge that separated Portugal from Spain. This land of small family farms—so tiny that, from a plane, they looked like handkerchiefs dotting the landscape—had become part of her blood, as it had been part of the blood of her relatives before her.

She loved the broad main street, bordered on either side by two-floored houses, which touched each other on each side, presenting the impression of an unbreakable facade to the world. And she loved the life beneath those facades—the people who knew her because they’d known her mother and father, her grandmother, the passing generations of Sousas. She loved the sprawling private backyards and the fields extending beyond them.

But now her grandmother was dead, and her career might as well be. The people in the houses had seemed to disappear, as, increasingly old, they spent the time in their bedrooms or their beds. Children and grandchildren had already left, to nearby Porto or to more distant parts—to Lisbon, throughout Europe, overseas.

Only she remained. And she could not stand the loneliness anymore.

She’d backed up, till she sat on the bottom step of the staircase, holding her head in her hands. She did not want to leave the village, but she wanted to marry Miguel.

Oh, he wasn’t the love of her life, but at almost thirty she knew that she was too rational, too analytical to fall in love. Love was something, like the ballads and stories her grandmother used to tell her—the stories of princesses and werewolves and the King Sebastian who would one day come back upon his white steed to mend all wrongs and set every maiden free.

In Sandra’s world, she had to set herself free. And she’d been doing miserably at it.

Miguel had offered, and he was an old friend, not repulsive, someone she could live with. And even when he opposed her, he never treated her as a child.

Unlike the men at the station.

* * *

The phone rang. She got up. It was probably Miguel, who’d booked another furniture dealer. Or perhaps an old letters and photos dealer.

But when she picked up the receiver, the voice that greeted her was Costa, desk sergeant at the Ribeira station. “Sandra, come in,” he said.

He sounded excited, or amused, like a man who is laughing, inside, at some joke.

“I’m taking the day off, remember?” She wondered if they’d planned some sort of party for her, as she was quitting to get married within the month. If she’d been a male, she’d have known that this secret laughter of Costa’s meant they had already hired the stripper to jump out of the cardboard layer cake.

But she wasn’t male. And she didn’t think Costa or any of his confreres would even think of hiring a male stripper.

“I know, but you want to come in,” he said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and right up your alley.”

“My alley?” That meant, doubtless, that it was a particularly inventive form of vandalism, or perhaps the theft of a really expensive car by joyriding teenagers.

“No,” Costa said. “You’ll never believe this. It’s a kid, twenty or so, picked up at the museum of Henry the Navigator. He was throwing a fuss, claiming to be King Sebastian.”

“King Sebastian? Hold a moment.” She’d heard the kettle whistle and ran to the kitchen to turn it off. Cordless phones hadn’t been part of her grandmother’s belief system, and Sandra had not thought it sufficiently worthwhile to push the matter.

How strange that someone had been claiming to be King Sebastian just as she was thinking of the legendary king who, tradition said, would return, despite close to five hundred years having passed since his death at Alcazar Kibir. When she returned to the phone, she had her answer ready. “Has he been checked for drugs?”

“Yeah. Clean. Not drunk either.”

“But then he’s mad. Surely he knows that King Sebastian died around 1580.”

Costa made a sound like he’d just clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Oh, he knows. But he says he’s returned, on a foggy morning.”

Sandra thought of the patio, immersed in smoke, and the brief illusion of the man on the white horse. She sucked in a breath. She was going crazy. No, she was already crazy, or she wouldn’t have seen the man. Perhaps it was the pressure of cleaning the house and moving.

Who could completely clean the pigeonholes stuffed full of papers in the library, the confusion of suitcases in the attic, the furniture and wood in what had once been her grandfather’s workshop? Who could even hope to dispose of all of it—the varied clutter of generations?

Her mind told her Miguel could. But Miguel, though he’d grown up in Aguas Santas, was the son of recent immigrants, his parents having come from the city, Porto, to which Miguel had now returned. What could he know of the smell of wild roses down in the lanes amid the fields in the summer? What could he know of the houses, closed, rank on rank, keeping their own secrets, their own untouched, inviolate counsel through succeeding generations?

She shook her head. That had nothing to do with it. It was just the work.

“If you don’t come in,” Costa said, “they’re just going to send him over to Conde Ferreira. And then, who knows when he’ll get out.”

Conde Ferreira, once the palace of the Counts of Ferreira and now the largest mental hospital in town, was a morass of paperwork and delay, a feud of dueling psychiatrists.

“I don’t think he’s that nuts,” Costa said. “I think he just snapped, like Jorge last year, over the promotion examinations, remember, when he ended up downtown, holding the statue’s horse?”

She remembered. Jorge, a young recruit to the force had tried to take the examinations to become an officer, and in the midst of studying, something had snapped, making him think he was some sort of medieval ensign to some long-forgotten king. He’d been found downtown, holding the stone reins of a sculpted horse.

As she was in danger of snapping, she supposed, over the stress of cleaning her grandmother’s house.

But, in Portugal, where the ages and centuries, the past glory and the immense weight of lost empire always seemed to press close upon the living, this type of illusion could hardly be called madness, requiring incarceration. It was as though sometimes, the past, more glorious and much greater than the drab present, pressed upon the brains of the living till it found a point of entry, a weakened link.

Sandra remembered a girl—Isabel—in her fourth-grade class, who had decided she was the queen of the same name, dead in the thirteenth century and canonized shortly thereafter. Throughout the final quarter of the year she had talked about being the Queen Isabel and how her crown weighed heavy upon her brow. But the next year, after vacation, she’d come in fully restored. She was now a secretary in Porto, happily married and none the worse for the wear.

But if the boy went to Conde Ferreira, who knew? Psychiatrists didn’t have the calm of the common people about this kind of thing.

She drummed her fingers against the mahogany paneling. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’m coming in.”

Even if her job was being a glorified social worker, she was still the only person in the station who had the slightest interest in saving the young.

She closed the kitchen door behind her, locked it, and left through the front door, to the little car parked nearby.

Driving into town, she thought that if she hurried, she could still be back in time to talk to the antique furniture dealer.

* * *

He was already in her office as she came in, sitting on the battered folding metal chair that faced her battered metal desk and the piles and piles of processes on it.

Sandra walked over to the desk, swept a spot clear for her butt, then half sat on the desk looking at the boy. She found this approach less intimidating with the young than sitting behind the desk.

“So, King Sebastian?” she said, raising her eyebrows just a fraction of a centimeter. “Very fashionably attired for someone dead that long.”

The boy—though she supposed she should call him a young man—wore a black T-shirt and black jeans—both soaking wet. He had reddish hair, cut very short, and dark blue eyes, which looked down at himself, with great surprise, as though he’d never noticed his clothes. “Fashionable?” he said.

His voice was a pleasant midrange, his pronunciation clear.

“Yeah,” she said, and smiled. She knew she didn’t look like a police officer. That was always one of her advantages—petite, with dark brown, shoulder-length hair and a pointy face, she looked much younger than she was. Besides, wearing her ragged jeans and much-washed T-shirt, in which she’d been about to clean house, she couldn’t possibly look like someone in authority. So maybe he would talk to her. Others had before him. “Now, suppose you tell me the real problem. Did you run away?” This, because though he looked twenty, he might very well be sixteen or seventeen, and surely being a runaway was the best explanation for his fantastic tale.

But he lifted his eyebrows at her, in surprise, and something like anger played on his gaze. “I didn’t run away,” he said. “I faced them all, the army of Alcazar Kibir. There were ten moors for each Portuguese, but I—”

“Oh, very good,” she smiled. “Staying in character. Look, I’ll level with you. You’re a catch-and-release.” She turned to her side and picked up his process from the pile on which she knew Costa would have set it. “Let’s see, swimming in the river—really?” The river, down by Henry The Navigator’s Museum and birthplace, was also distressingly close to the fishmarkets. Every morning, the fishwives would throw in fish guts, severed tails, lopped-off fins. Every night, they’d dump in the fish that hadn’t sold. It was illegal, of course, but everyone did it, of course—like so many things in Portugal, a country where every citizen believed laws were direly needed for everyone else.

She couldn’t imagine a worse place to go for a swim. It would be like swimming in decaying fish soup. Also, of course, a danger to the fishing boats coming in to dock. And a danger to himself, if hit by a fishing boat. “Were you trying to kill yourself?”

He shook his head. “No. The horse … We … I was in the river. When I knew where I was, I was in the river, and I don’t know where my horse is.”

Um … Perhaps he’d tried to kill himself and wouldn’t admit to it. Or perhaps he had been somewhat drunk and the freezing, rushing water of the Douro River, come splashing down from the snows in the Spanish mountains, had sobered him up.

“Okay,” she said. “So … Swimming in the river, then pounding at the door of the Navigator’s museum, demanding to be let in, claiming to own the place.”

He pushed his lips together, an expression of displeasure. “It is a royal palace.”

“Quite so,” Sandra said, not sure whether to be amused or alarmed. She settled for amused. The young man was so articulate, his diction so clean, she was sure he came from some middle-class family and that his antics were just one of those things. Which was exactly what people called it when one of their own came down with a brief historical dream of glory. They shrugged and said, one of those things.

“Look, altogether, your behavior is weird, but not worthy of much trouble. The only reason you were brought in, at a guess, is because someone thought you’d scare the tourists in the restaurants on either side of the museum. If this were confession, and I were a priest, I’d sent you off with an Ave and an Our Father. But I’m not a priest, and now that you’ve been brought in, the police have certain rules about releasing you. We have to make sure you’re safe.”

He shrugged. “I’m perfectly—”

“Yes, of course. But see, people who claim to be long-dead kings cannot be released on their own recognizance. If you have a mother, a grandmother, a father …”

“My father died before I was born,” he said, and counted it on his fingers, as though disposing of various possibilities. “My mother married again, and my grandmother died.”

From a foggy recollection of Sebastian’s life, she thought that fit the history. But it probably was also exactly what had happened. This young man was probably as alone as Sandra herself but less able to cope with the possibilities.

“There must be someone who can claim you.”

He stretched his arms wide, and opened his hands, palm up, in the atavic way of showing that one had no hidden weapons. “I have no one. My companions, the finest youth, the highest nobility of Portugal, died in that desert of Alcazar Kibir. Only I, called by my duty …” He must have read annoyance in her eyes, because his voice trailed off, and he shut up.

Two hours later, lunchtime nearing, she still hadn’t got anything else from him. Nothing. Just the same stories, the same conversation that could apply to either himself or to the long-dead king.

The furniture dealer would be at the house now, and though she didn’t want to sell to him, she had to do something with all that furniture, and selling it was only sensible. She should see the man and get the pain over with as soon as possible.

“You could sign me out,” the young man said.

Sandra looked at him. He was smaller than she and, she judged, not skilled in personal defense. For all its attempts to protect her from true police work, the force had taught Sandra judo. A rare skill in Portugal, amid women and even more so amid young men, who tended to rely on their strength, whether they really had any or not.

She could sign him out. She had the rest of the afternoon to observe his behavior. If he were in the least dangerous, she could always return him or drive him to Conde Ferreira herself. And there was always the chance that, when faced with a car drive, with cleaning a house, with the prosaic realities of modern life, he would give up, relinquish the past he’d never lived, and face his present life.

And besides, the old lady next door had a young and vigorous caretaker. If Sandra screamed, someone would be there in seconds. The village, even in its present, weakened state, didn’t believe in not getting involved.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll sign you out. We’ll get your things.”

“I don’t have any things,” he said, and again opened his hands wide, displaying his palms.

Something about his palms bothered Sandra, but she couldn’t think what. She’d got no more than a brief glimpse—too brief to examine them. And she wasn’t about to ask to hold his hands.

“Fine. Then let’s go. I have a used-furniture dealer to meet.”

* * *

But when she parked her small car in front of her house, she glimpsed, through the still-thick fog, a big gray van driving away. Though not sure, she would bet, that this was the dealer, driving away.

She opened the door. The presumed royalty followed her in meekly. She found him some old jeans and T-shirt and insisted he go change from his soaked clothes. And then, as if he hadn’t been there, she set about cleaning out old papers and letters and carrying them to the patio.

One basket, two, and when she came to pour out the third basket, the young man was sitting on the flagstones, digging through the papers and letters and pictures. He’d set the pictures on the ground in front of him, faceup. He had a couple of letters on his lap.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Just looking at the past,” he said. “Before you throw it all away.” He pointed at one of the pictures, a young woman in the attire of the beginning of the century, clutching a camellia. “This young woman was one of your great-aunts. She lost the man she loved, so she lived as an old maid to the end of her days. And this one—”

Nuts. Sandra dropped the basket and went inside to get another. Ridiculous. Maybe she would have to take him to Conde Ferreira, after all.

But when she came back down again, he’d put water to boil. “I think you need some tea,” he said. “It’s so foggy and cold.”

She thought he might just have some concealed substance and plan to put it in the tea. So she said, “I’ll make some.”

Sebastian—for lack of a better name—sat at the table, looking at her, while she made tea in the great red-and-white teapot that had been her grandmother’s. She poured the tea into two large teacups, and sat at the table, across from him.

“A large table,” he said. “It should have a large family.”

“It did once,” she said. “My grandmother had seven children. But they’re all gone, abroad. I’m the only one, and the house is too big for me, and I’m getting married.”

He stared at her and sipped his tea. “It is these houses,” he said. “That always seemed to me the essence of our people. Old houses, with a family that stays, with—”

“My family doesn’t stay,” she said. “They all leave.” But then she thought of her grandmother, and her great-grandmother before her. There had always been someone left behind in the Sousa line. Someone who watched and waited, and wrote to all the various, spread-out branches. Keeping memory alive. Providing a home for the heart, if no longer for the bodies of those who had left. She remembered how her great-aunt Camellia had come back, when Sandra was very small. Come back in widowhood and lived with Sandra’s grandparents for some years, until she found another husband. And there had been others through the years—defeated, destitute, or simply lonely, who could come and stay in the ancestral home.

Did Sandra have a right to dispose of it? She thought of those pictures out in the yard, the piles of pictures—of people who had left, people whose descendants probably still knew of Aguas Santas and the old house. Even her parents, her siblings. What if someone needed to return? What would happen if she didn’t provide a place for them?

But then, what obligation did she have? Who were they to impose on her that way?

“When I was little,” she said, “my uncles and aunts, and a couple of times my parents, all came back from their various places. My grandmother would put the table out on the patio, under the grapevines, and we’d all sit around it. They talked of the wonders of exotic lands, and I listened. It was like a fairy tale.”

He nodded, drank his tea. “Portuguese have always traveled. But it is important to know where your heart is. Some people prefer to be where their hearts are. Your fiance, you love him?”

She shrugged. “He’s a good man.”

It seemed to her, as she spoke, that she was growing tired. She was dreaming without sleeping. Across from her King Sebastian leaned in close. “Do you really want to leave? You seem to be part and parcel of this home. You sure you want to go? I went away and let my people fall captive to the Spanish dynasty, and that was the beginning of the end.”

“No Spanish dynasty will buy the house,” she said, smiling at the idea.

“No, but you’ll be in a foreign house, a foreign place. I find,” Sebastian said, his voice very distant, “that it’s important to keep the past in the present and not to forsake what we are for other things. Look at me, four hundred years dead and still fulfilling my destiny. You have a destiny. You’re supposed to guard the law, you’re supposed to live in this house, to provide an anchor to your far-flung family.”

“I don’t owe anything to my far-flung family. And no one will let me be a real policewoman, no one will let me administer justice.”

“Perhaps you haven’t tried hard enough … If you want to leave all this behind, to give up, why am I here to rescue you? Why did your heart call to me?”

“I don’t know.” Through Sandra’s mind ran the refrain of all those stories about King Sebastian, and she found herself repeating it. “And they shall find his sword and his doublet, his white horse, scraps of fog and his heart. The King Sebastian’s.”

She started awake without being aware of having slept. Or at least, she trembled, as one does when wakening. In front of her on the table, was her teacup and another—empty. [Change okay?] But the young man was nowhere in sight.

“Hey,” she called, to the still air that still writhed with fog that even the afternoon sun couldn’t dissipate or penetrate. He’d given her something to make her sleep. “Hey, where are you? What do you think you’re doing?

She reached for the purse that she’d set on the kitchen counter coming in. It was there, and all her ID, all her money, all her cards still within. She strode out to the patio. He’d been interested in the pictures. Perhaps he’d stolen them to sell?

But the pile was there, seemingly untouched, and even the row of pictures he’d set aside was there still. He still might have stolen a stamp, but—

The sound of hooves made her turn, and there, amid the fog, the young man sat, mounted upon a white horse, a sword strapped to his side.

“What—”

But he lifted a hand, in a good-bye gesture—a hand whose palm looked as white and smooth as a doll’s, and vanished, leaving behind him, for only a moment, the sound of a beating heart.

No lines. There were no lines on that hand. Of course, dead people, even those with a bad habit of returning, had no fate to run anymore. No lines. King Sebastian who came back to administer justice and set maidens free.

Sandra took a deep breath. Or perhaps just to show them they could set themselves free.

* * *

She was gathering pictures and envelopes into a basket when the phone rang. She took the basket with her, set upon her hip, as with the baskets of grapes she used to pick during grape harvest. “Yes?”

“The dealer was there,” Miguel answered. “But you didn’t open the door. He’s going to come back. Keep an ear—”

“No,” she said.

“What?”

“No. I’m not selling the furniture. I’m not selling the house.”

“But why should you keep an empty—”

“Listen, if you want me, you take the house with me. You move here. It’s only an hour drive to the city. And if you don’t want me, you can find someone more suited.”

“Sandra, can we talk about this?”

“No. And I’m keeping my job, too. I’m going to request a move to homicide, and I’m prepared to continue asking, until they give it to me.”

He laughed. To her surprise, he laughed. It had been many years since she’d heard him laugh. Not since they’d been kids, friends, in high school.

“Gads, woman,” he said. “Giving me terms, are you? All right. We’ll talk. Dinner tonight? You can pick the restaurant, and we can talk. I don’t want to give you up so easily.”

Sandra took a deep breath. Talk. It was a start.

“All right,” she said. “All right.”

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

The Witch of Waxahachie

Written by Lou Antonelli

Illustrated by Terry Wisenant

February is always cold, even in Texas.

I cupped my hands around my cigar to get a little extra warmth.

What was it the man said?

Oh, yeah. “What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar.”

You were right, Vice President Marshall—wherever you are. Dixie Maids cost five cents—but they sure weren’t any good.

Probably tasted like what Sergeant Lucy was dropping beneath the post oak tree.

But I couldn’t afford anything better—back then.

Sergeant Lucy’s badge on her harness glinted in the moonlight. Deputy Joe was in his pickup having a drink.

The parking lot of the abandoned SSC campus was empty except for four vehicles. I looked across the lot toward the darkened Magnet Test Lab.

I remembered the skit we did at the annual Waxahachie Lions Club musical back in 1990. Brad Vavra, who was the manager of the Accelerator String Test Lab, had put on a blond wig (he looked uncannily like Judge Pennoyer), a blue dress, and waving a magic wand as the DOE Fairy, warbled:

“Superconducting Super Collider …

“Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!

“Smash up them protons and waddya got?

“Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!

“Crank up those protons, stare at those neutrons,

“Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!

“Dig a big hole and light it all up!

“Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!”

I was part of the chorus—a very ugly chorus! I chuckled at the happy memory.

I took a last drag from the lousy cigar and flipped the butt toward the oak. It bounced off in a shower of sparks. In a few months, Monica Lewinsky would almost—almost–put me off cigars.

Sergeant Lucy nudged my hand and looked toward the ASST lab, where a lone window was lit. We scooted back to the building.

Deputy Joe came up right behind in his rush to get out of the cold and grabbed the door before it slammed behind us. Sergeant Lucy had to tuck in her tail to keep it from getting caught.

Doc Melancon squinted as he looked at the supercooled-magnet control console.

Brad Vavra was at the main power controls. He looked at Doc.

“Glad y’all made it back. We’re about ready to power this thing up,” said Brad.

I walked over to where the string test tunnel started and leaned up against the wall nonchalantly.

“I’m ready. Let’s start your little illegal experiment.”

I winked at Deputy Joe. He gave a little redneck snicker. He was quite schnockered.

Doc gave Brad a look. Brad nodded and threw a few switches.

I looked down the tunnel. The target was five thousand feet away, so I really didn’t expect to see anything—but I did.

A bright blue glowing wave roiled like the apocalypse at us back up the injection tunnel.

I just had time to blurt “Oh, sh … !” before it hit us, and everything went black.

* * *

Even in Texas, which has towns with names such as Cut ‘n Shoot, Dime Box, and North Zulch, Waxahachie is one of the strangest.

The first settlers asked the Indians what they called the place, and were told—truthfully—’Waxahachie.’

None of the Indians told them it means “Place where the buffalo poops.”

It was quite accurate. The stream the settlers named Buffalo Creek runs through one of the last forests before the great western prairie begins. The shaggy beasts would wander in from the grassland, drink at the stream, crap, then snooze under the tall oak trees.

It’s the county seat of Ellis County, just south of Dallas. I started working as editor at the Ellis County Chronicle in 1986, just before the feds picked the Texas site for the Superconducting Super Collider project.

The Department of Energy would build a fifty-four-mile circular underground tunnel to house the world’s largest particle-beam accelerator.

Such a massive project meant billions of dollars in construction and thousands of new jobs. It was six years later—after the DOE had built the magnet lab, dug five miles of the underground accelerator ring, and spent 5 billion dollars—when the funding was yanked from the budget by Congress.

When George H. W. Bush was president, the funding was secure, but it went poof in the first budget under President Clinton.

The Democrat from across the border in Arkansas apparently didn’t care if a pet project of his Republican rival from Texas got shit-canned.

I had a field day on the editorial page.

“The congressmen who did this are lower than pond scum,” I wrote. The New York Times quoted that. I was interviewed on NBC Nightly News as an example of “local opinion.”

Senator Gramm stole my line about the project cancellation being “the technological equivalent of Pearl Harbor” in his speech the next day.

Didn’t make a damn bit of difference. The Super Collider was dead.

Almost two thousand scientists lost their jobs; most moved away.

Three years later Doc Melancon walked into my office.

He said he wanted to talk to me in private and offered to take me out to lunch.

A good editor never turns down a free meal.

I sawed away at my chicken-fried steak as he explained what he was up to. He wanted to crank up the string test lab for one last little experiment. He had devised a special target for the proton particle beam. He thought he could use it to create a rift in the fourth dimension.

He wanted to invent time travel.

It was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. I assumed he was a harmless crank.

Brad Vavra was still around—he’d quit his DOE job in disgust over the project’s cancellation and was selling real estate—so I gave Doc his number.

Melancon promised that if anything came of his plans, “You’ll be the first to know.”

Yeah, right.

You can imagine how surprised I was two months later to see Doc stroll into my office. After shutting the door, he explained that he’d hooked up with Brad, and together they’d made a deal with the caretakers of the lab (which involved a considerable amount of money being passed under the table) to turn on the power and get one shot with the proton beam.

True to his word, he wanted me to be there to record the occasion for posterity.

He explained to me how it all worked. It had something to do with excited neutrons and high-resonance electron shells—I think. He could have been talking about hominy grits for all I really understood.

When he came up for air, I pointed out that any unusual activity at the lab site was sure to attract the attention of adjacent ranch owners, who’d call the Sheriff’s Department.

That’s how we came up with the idea of getting someone from the Sheriff’s Department involved, someone who could block any inquiries with a fake cover story. That how Deputy Joe Winters got in on the deal.

The DOE was planning to auction off the cryogenic-magnet modules and the sophisticated equipment that summer, before the land reverted to the county. Our cover story was that the folks from the auction company were conducting an inventory.

Deputy Joe happened to be Sergeant Lucy’s handler—she was the county’s drug dog—and whenever he was on duty, she went with him. Which explains why she was with us that night.

When the black Lab had started scratching at the door of the string test lab (we’d made a few lab jokes that night, believe me), I suggested to Joe she could come with me as I took a smoke break. I knew Joe probably wanted to go to his pickup and sneak a drink. That’s how Luce and I had that quiet moment under the post oak before, well, everything changed.

* * *

I saw when I came to and as my vision cleared that we all seemed to be in the same relation to each other as when the beam was turned on—but everything else was gone.

No building. No parking lot. No SSC. We were all sprawled around in the tall grass.

Doc put his hands on his knees and stood up. He started running his fingers through his silver hair.

Sergeant Lucy whined as she rolled over and stood up. She looked off across the field.

I looked in the same direction—and saw the post oak tree.

“Doc, look!” I pointed. “The tree that was in front of the parking lot—it’s still there!”

Brad and Deputy Joe looked too. The gnarled tree had an unmistakable shape, and you could see them stiffen as they recognized it.

We all went over. Doc walked slowly around the tree.

“The tree sure looks the same,” he said almost to himself. “In fact, most of the landscape looks the same.”

Deputy Joe was quickly sobering up. “Yeah, well, where did the lab and the cars and the parking lot and the power lines and every-damn-thing-else go then?” he rattled off as quickly as possible for someone with a thick drawl.

There was a full moon that night, and the top of Doc’s hair gleamed as he walked around the tree.

“I don’t know,” he said rather softly.

Sergeant Lucy sniffed the ground. I looked and noticed there was no sign of either her turd or the cigar butt I had tossed away just minutes earlier.

Brad pointed in the distance.

“The road’s still there.”

Sure enough, you could clearly see the fence line alongside the road to Waxahachie. Without another word we all started in that direction.

We found a simple barbed-wire fence at the edge of the field. Brad leaned over the gate before unlatching it.

“What happened to the pavement? The road’s dirt.”

We went through the gate and latched it back up. We started walking toward Waxahachie—the four of us at a brisk walk and Sergeant Lucy at a bouncy trot.

No one said a word. Back then, cell phones weren’t nearly as common as they are today, and none of us had one with him, anyway.

After a mile or so we saw a farmhouse in the moonlight. We knocked politely at the door. After a short while a lamp appeared in the window.

An oil lamp.

In a moment the door opened. We saw that the lamp was in the hand of a very old man with a long and pointed beard. He had a rather ferocious shotgun tucked under his arm

“What y’all want at this ungodly hour?”

Doc spoke up. “We broke down. We hoped you could give us a ride into town.”

“Not at this time of night but you’re welcome to bed down in the barn until sunrise,” he said as he waved us in with the lamp. “Then we can ride in.”

The old man set the lamp on a small table by the door and lit a pair of candles on the fireplace mantel.

He introduced himself as Malcolm Bratcher, adding that he was a widower and lived alone.

He nodded to us as he left to get some bedrolls.

The room looked about a hundred years behind the times. But nothing looked old.

Just very old-fashioned.

After a while Doc, Joe, and I noticed Brad staring and not moving from in front of a place on the wall.

“What’s that?” Doc asked.

Brad stepped aside and nodded toward a calendar.

It had the right date, all right—February. 26, 1997.

The picture showed a handsome middle-aged man with streaks of silver in hi

s dark pompadour. Underneath it said, His Excellency President Charles Hardin Holley.

I clenched my teeth as I stared at the photo. “What happened to Bill Clinton?”

That was my first thought. My second thought was, “This guy looks real familiar.”

Brad looked at us, and then—I guess he could see our puzzlement—he took a No. 2 pencil from his shirt pocket and quickly drew heavy horn-rimmed glasses on the “president’s” face.

As soon as he pulled back his hand, we all recognized the man.

Deputy Joe whistled. Doc put his hand to his mouth.

“Buddy Holly died thirty-eight years ago,” I said rather uselessly. “I mean, he’s president of the U.S. now, instead of Bill Clinton?”

Brad pointed with the pencil to a longer and smaller line of type underneath the first. I leaned forward to read it in the dim light.

President of the Republic of Texas.

I finished that “shit!” I had started when the collider blew up.

* * *

Old Man Bratcher returned with a pair of lamps and led us out to the barn, which was quite sturdy and windproof.

There was a pair of docile horses in their stalls. Sergeant Lucy quickly curled up in a corner and dozed right off.

We snapped our bedrolls out in a nice, dry, warm corner of the barn that smelled of new hay. We set down our lamps and sat around them.

Joe was so nervous the ends of his long mustache were twitching. “What’s happened?” he whined.

“We seem to be someplace that’s very nontechnological,” said Doc. “Either we somehow changed the past and now are living in a different present, or we’ve gone sideways into a different world.”

“We need to get into Waxahachie tomorrow as quietly as possible,” he continued, “and collect information. Then we determine what to do next.”

Sergeant Lucy whined. We looked over and saw that her eyes were closed, and she was wiggling her paws. Chasing rabbits in her dreams.

“Smart dog,” I said. “We need to sleep, too. There’s nothing that we can do for now.”

* * *

I woke up to the smell of frying sausage and bacon. Old Man Bratcher was a good host. He had built a campfire under a tripod outside the barn, and had a large cast-iron frying pan full of sizzling meat.

He looked more curious as he got a good look at our clothes in the bright daylight, but he didn’t say anything. Being nosy would be impolite.

After we ate and wiped our faces with a linen rag, Bratcher went behind the barn and fetched a wagon as we gathered up our bedrolls and took them back into the house.

Bratcher’s rig looked like it could have come from a hundred years ago—except the wagon wheels had hard rubber tires.

The farm-to-market road that ran from the collider site into Waxahachie didn’t have many homes on it before—and there were fewer now.

The road was dirt but well packed and well maintained. There were no telephone poles or lights of any kind.

There was no Interstate 35 as we approached the city, and the county courthouse loomed especially large as we approached. We saw no automobiles—just horses and wagons like you would have seen at the turn of the nineteenth century.

“Please drop us on the town square,” I said, as we entered the outskirts. “We have business there.”

Bratcher nodded but I also thought I saw him smile.

It was Saturday, and the bright sunlight took the sharp chill out of the air. Children played on the sidewalks. I noticed one girl in pigtails—she couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven—rolling a hoop with a stick.

I nudged Doc in the back and pointed. “I haven’t seen that in a while.”

He turned and smiled. Suddenly he sat up straight. I looked at the girl again. Then it hit me, too.

She wasn’t touching the hoop with the stick.

We both turned around and stared as the wagon went past her. She just smiled and waved with her free hand as she held the wand with the other.

We drove onto the town square. Bratcher pulled in front of the courthouse and tied his hitch right front of the statue of Richard Ellis, the signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, who was the county’s namesake.

We thanked Bratcher and shook his hand. He said he had business in the courthouse, and walked inside at a brisk trot while we stood outside the looming red sandstone building.

The courthouse was built in 1882, and it appeared unchanged.

“Where to now?” asked Doc. “You know the city.”

“The county library,” I said. “It’s a quiet place to hide, and I’m sure has the reference books we need.”

We were just crossing the street down the block from the library when we heard a deep growl.

Sergeant Lucy had turned and taken off at full speed back toward the courthouse as … well, herself … ran back across the lawn.

A sheriff’s deputy with a broken leash was running down the courthouse steps.

Our Sergeant Lucy (wearing a harness) crashed into the other Sergeant Lucy (wearing a black collar) on the opposite sidewalk. A snarling dogfight was on.

“Crap, I guess that cinches the other world theory,” I said. “Let’s take advantage of this distraction and get into the library, quick! Lucy’s on her own.”

We trotted the rest of the way down the block and into the library, which was in an old historic building.

It also seemed pretty much unchanged. I led the way toward the reference reading room after nodding to the librarian.

I pulled the “US-UZ” volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica off the shelf and plunked it down.

Doc and Brad also pulled some books off the shelves. Joe looked out the door nervously into the main reading room.

I read quickly, then pulled the “SC-ST” volume down, quickly followed by the “MA-MN.”

It took me less than fifteen minutes—according to my cheap quartz watch—to figure it out.

I had slammed the last volume shut and was standing up when Joe came back to me.

Brad and Doc were in front of some shelves and turned with books still in hand as Judge Pennoyer walked into the room.

She was now a brunette.

I faked a smile. “Hello, Penny.”

“Hello, whoever you are,” she said. “I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”

I saw Old Man Bratcher walk up behind her.

“That’s the posse,” he said to her. “I smelled them out.”

“Bratcher here is a Master Grade Wizard,” she said, “and he says you’re obviously up to no good.”

She took a step forward and wrinkled her nose. “You don’t smell so good to me, either.”

Doc looked at Brad, and they both looked at me. I gave a little nod. Joe blurted:

“You’re some kind of witch?”

“Quite right,” she said, gesturing to some deputies behind them. “Run them in, boys. I will not allow that kind of language to be used in public.”

* * *

Being a newspaper editor, I’m a fast reader, so I had plowed through the most in the short time we’d had in the library. I told the others what I thought was going on.

I had some time; we sat in a cell in the courthouse basement jail for a good hour before I was interrogated.

In this world the Industrial Revolution never happened.

Instead there had been a systematic uncovering and development of the laws of magic.

The histories of our two worlds seemed to be the same until about the French Revolution, then the divergence set in.

The leading lights of the Revelation—as this world’s equivalent of our scientific Enlightenment was called—were affectionately known in history as “Father Adam and Mother Marie.”

Adam Weishaupt and Marie Lavoiser.

From what I knew, Adam Weishaupt—in our world—had founded a secret society called the Illuminati over two hundred years ago which had been suppressed because it was bent on the proverbial “world domination.”

Marie Lavoiser was the widow of the great French chemist who lost his head in the French Revolution.

Early in the nineteenth century, Lavoiser met and married Weishaupt in Bavaria, and they jointly discovered and codified the laws of magic.

Sort of like Marie Curie meets the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Brad and Doc agreed with my assessment. Doc tapped his wrist.

“The laws of the physical universe still have to be the same, though,” he said. “My quartz watch is still running.”

“So’s mine,” I said. “I don’t see anything to indicate science doesn’t work. It just was never developed. Electricity is still just a curiosity here, like it was in Ben Franklin’s day.”

“The laws can’t be completely the same,” said Brad. “Magic doesn’t work in our world.”

“Maybe magic just works on a different physics that we’ve not uncovered,” said Doc.

“Clarke’s Law,” I muttered.

Joe had been taking all this in. He spoke up for the first time.

“What’s that mean?” he asked.

“Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction writer.” I nodded to Doc. “I read science fiction when I was a kid.”

“Any sufficiently advanced technology,” Doc quoted from memory, “is indistinguishable from magic.”

“Well, maybe in this case it’s a different technology,” said Brad.

Before we had a chance to continue, a deputy came up to the cell and waved a steel-blue wand to release the spell on the cell’s lock.

He opened the door and crooked a finger at me.

“Miss Pennoyer would like a word with you.”

I didn’t recognize the office where he took me. I was sat down opposite Penny in a plain chair in the middle of the room.

I adopted a fake air of geniality. “Well, Judge, what can I do for you today?”

“Why do you call me judge?” She crossed her arms.

“Because you are the county judge.”

“I’m not. I’m the Ellis County Chief Forensic Sorceress.”

“You’re a saucer-ress?”

I didn’t even pronounce the word correctly.

“Does that surprise you?”

“I’ve never met anyone who actually claimed to be a witch.”

She made a face.

“Such language. Good God, where are you from?”

“Right here, in Waxahachie.”

“That’s impossible. I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

I decided to play my trump. “Where I come from, magic is just a fairy tale, and science runs the world.”

She looked down at me. “You’re not a scientist, are you?”

Suddenly I realized how much “scientist” and “Satanist” could sound alike.

“No, I’m not.”

She suddenly pointed at me. “Wait, now I remember why you look familiar! Larry Anglen!”

“That’s right. I’m the editor of the Chronicle.”

She sat down in another chair. “You were the editor of the Chronicle. You blew into town on the sailroad from Trinity back in 1986—and died of a sinus infection a year later.”

She leaned back comfortably. “The real Larry Anglen died ten years ago—so who are you?

I winced as I recalled how sick I had been in 1987. “I’m another Larry Anglen. The one from a world with antibiotics.”

“Antibio …” She trailed off and knitted her brows.

“Strange, even without a Detect Truth spell I can see you believe what you are saying.”

“Do you want to hear about it?”

She settled back even more. “Talk to me.”

* * *

I talked for an hour nonstop. When I finally ground to a halt, I gave her a hard look right in the eyes to show her I meant it.

In my world, Judge Pennoyer was a blonde. I never could figure out why some brunettes with bright blue eyes go blond. The blue eyes are so much more striking under dark bangs.

She stood up. “Well, I have a someone who can confirm or deny your story.”

She rapped on the door. A deputy came through leading Sergeant Lucy—our Sergeant Lucy—into the room. She had a few bites on her but seemed not much the worse for wear.

She was docile and sat down next to Penny, who leaned over and pointed to the gold lettering with her name on her harness.

“As strange as it is for you to impersonate the dead Larry Anglen, it is even stranger to impersonate a dog. Yet this dog’s badge and harness all indicate she is Sergeant Lucy of the Ellis County Sheriff’s Department—and we already have a Sergeant Lucy.”

“Who won the dogfight?” I cracked.

“It was a draw,” she snapped.

“Of course it was.”

She gave me an exasperated look. “It’s quite illegal to cast a Truth spell on you without your consent, and my opinion is that you’re not mentally competent to give consent, anyway.

“However, our canine brethren don’t have the same civil rights,” she continued, ruffling Lucy’s floppy ears.

She looked into Lucy’s eyes as she rubbed her jowls. “Besides, who’s ever heard of a dog that lied? Right, girl?”

Lucy kind of half closed her eyes as Penny stared hard into them.

“Nice girl, good girl. Let me see what you see.”

The sheriff’s deputy stood there with one hand on his belt and the other on his holster. I didn’t move a muscle. I’d never seen a mind reading.

Lucy just looked at her with a normal sweet Lab expression, eyes half-closed.

Penny stared for maybe a minute or two, getting a look like she smelled something bad.

She finally turned away with a slight shudder. She rubbed Lucy’s ears and spoke very kindly to her—but it was obvious she didn’t like what she saw.

She nodded to the deputy, who trotted Lucy off, then sat down opposite me again.

“I’ve never seen such strange sights—metal horseless carriages, black asphalt ribbons running across the landscape, pictures that move on glass windows—and the smell of electricity and burnt gasoline everywhere,” she said, shaking her head.

“Moreover, these things do not alarm your Lucy. They seem perfectly normal to her”

I shrugged. “Well, what better testimony could you want?”

“What’s a pig up?” asked Penny.

“I have no idea. What does she think we humans are saying?”

“She loves it when Joe says, ‘Let’s go for a ride in the pig up.’”

“Oh, heck, a pickup. A pickup truck. It’s a horseless wagon with an open bed in the back. Dogs love to stand in the back and hang over the side with their ears flapping in the breeze.”

“Well, I guess not everything in your world is bad.”

“How about trying to get us back there?”

She rested her chin on her fist. “You certainly don’t belong here. I wonder if I can find the breach you came through.”

“If anyone can find it, it’s probably you, Judge.”

“You keep calling me judge. What kind of judge is the Penelope Pennoyer in the other Waxahachie?”

“She’s the county judge. You were appointed to the job when Jim Blackburn died in 1989.”

“Jim Blackburn is very much alive.”

Jim Blackburn had gone into politics after retiring from an agricultural chemical supply company. He succumbed to leukemia a year after he was elected county judge.

He had been a good friend and mentor to me when I first came to town. The thought that he was alive and out there in this world …

I began to get misty-eyed.

Penny spoke up. “I’ll let you go now.”

* * *

Back in the cell, Doc was reading a copy of the Chronicle the jailer deputy had given him.

He handed me the paper when I sat down. I looked over the pages and ran my fingers over the paper. I could feel the slightly raised ink.

“Looks like a rotary letter press from before the Civil War. No photos, just line cuts.”

Brad spoke up. “Speaking of the Civil War …”

“Yes, I know. Without the superior resources of the Industrial Age, the Union couldn’t subdue the Confederacy, and they fought to a standstill,” I said.

Doc cocked his head.

“Hostilities ceased in 1868 and a cold war set in for twenty years” said Brad, “until the Confederacy freed the slaves concurrently with Brazil in 1888.”

“I suppose Texas joined the Confederacy in the war,” said Doc, “and went back to being independent afterward.”

“Yep, the U.S. recognized both Texas and Confederate independence in 1888,” I said.

“That explains President Buddy Holly.” Brad smiled.

“Probably went into politics after his career as an entertainer tanked,” said Doc.

I shrugged. “Hey, it worked for Reagan.”

“Any idea what they plan to do with us?” Doc asked.

“Pennoyer said she will try to find that hole in the multiverse you punched,” I said. “If she can find it, maybe she can shove us back through.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Doc.

“Why’d she believe your story?” asked Brad.

“She kinda did a mind meld thing with our Sergeant Lucy, knowing a dog can’t lie, and when she saw what Lucy saw and knew it didn’t bother her, she was convinced,” I said.

“This magic stuff really works?” Brad sounded dubious.

“Look at the door. Do you see a padlock?”

Brad stood up and went over to rattle it. Our jailer across the room sat up but otherwise didn’t move.

Brad withdrew his hand because it had gone numb.

“Damn!” he muttered as he rubbed it.

“There’s a simple Lock spell on the door,” I said.

“I know you really don’t get along with our Judge Pennoyer,” said Doc. “You doing any better with the Witch of Waxahachie?”

“Somewhat. She’s not a crooked-lawyer politician like her counterpart. She’s a lot more honest.”

“Heck, even I could tell that, from her hair if nothing else.” Doc smiled.

Just then we heard a female voice echoing off the basement walls. The sorceress walked into the jail and pointed a wand. The latch on the cell door popped loose.

“Let’s go, gentlemen.”

Sergeant Lucy was already in the paddy wagon. We hit the road and headed into the setting sun back toward where the Collider Lab had been.

* * *

Penny didn’t lock the paddy wagon, which she drove herself. She kept the windows open so we could all talk during the drive back into the country. We had a rather “illuminating” chat along the way.

In this world, the Illuminati are the society that codified and keeps the laws of enchantment. Their world’s equivalent of the secret evil group that tries to control the world from behind the scenes is the Lunar Society—which in our world was a lodge run by Charles Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin, and which was a think tank for the Enlightenment.

Rumors of behind-the-scenes machinations by the Lunar Society continue in the magical world to this day. The contemporary vanguard of this group was called the Lunarians—an evil cabal based in New York City run by a Russian named Asimov who always depicted with a daw perched on his shoulder.

Other than recognizing the name Asimov, none of this made any sense to me.

She had earned her scroll in basic, midlevel, and advanced sorcery from the Southwest Enchanted Forensics Institute sixty miles away in Trinity—which apparently is what their version of Dallas was called.

The main connection between Trinity and Waxahachie was the sailroad—much like a railroad, but driven by large sails instead of nasty coal engines. In addition to an engineer, each train carried a Weather Wiccan who could whip up a little wind if the breeze lagged.

Fifteen miles out of the city we found the field from where we started our journey the night before. It was easy to orient ourselves by the trees. We walked by the gnarled post oak whose counterpart had stood in front of the parking lot.

The sorceress raised both hands and slowly moved them in circles like she was caressing the wind.

“It’s here,” she said softly. “There’s a tenderness—almost a wound—in the weave of the world.”

She turned to Doc. “I think an advanced Protection Spell combined with a Reveal and an Unlock Spell should do it, along with, of course, a little bit of a personal esoteric enchantment.”

He looked at her like she was talking about hominy grits.

As I later learned, a less skilled sorceress would have to read these spells, but she was able to recite them from memory.

As she completed the last, she began to walk forward—and we all followed.

After a few yards, there was a strong glare in my eyes. I thought it was caused by the setting sun—but then, as the glare faded, I saw the String Test Lab.

Brad whistled. Joe let loose a giant sigh of relief. Lucy whined. Doc ran forward and hollered; he met the caretaker at the door.

Penny wobbled a bit as she walked across the hard pavement. I put my hand on her shoulder.

“Do you want to check something?”

She realized what I was getting at and picked up a stick.

“Let’s try a simple Remote Control spell.”

She laid the stick in the palm of her hand, then blew on it as it levitated.

She flung her hand and the stick flew away. Sergeant Lucy saw this and fetched the stick back to her.

“Good girl.” She ruffled the dog’s big floppy ears.

Doc was at the front door giving his spiel to the caretaker—who had been quite worried when he showed up in the morning to find the cars in the parking lot but no people and the lights on with the doors unlocked.

Not that the caretaker cared a bit about us—he was scared his little deal would be discovered.

Doc had already thought of a story. He came up with some tale about needing a part back in Dallas, then breaking down on Industrial Avenue.

I don’t know whether the caretaker really bought it, but he was reassured when he saw “Judge Pennoyer” outside in the parking lot.

“She’s in on the deal,” I stage-whispered.

The caretaker gawked.

“Yeah, she changed her hair color.” I shrugged.

Doc eventually returned to us. “I have to stay here and tidy up some loose ends. Y’all can take off, I guess. We need to rest. We’ll compare notes tomorrow. Otherwise, mum’s the word,” he said, looking especially at Deputy Joe, who shook his head.

“Nobody would believe this crazy shit, anyways,” he muttered as he headed toward his pig up truck.

“Come on, Luce!”

He slapped the passenger seat as the dog hopped in.

Doc looked at Penny. “I hope you don’t have problems getting back.”

“I doubt it.” She smiled.

Doc went back into the lab.

“If y’all excuse me, I’m going home to get a stiff, tall, cold drink,” said Brad, with a wave.

I turned to Penny. “It’s been quite an excursion. I guess you gotta go.”

She smiled. “You saw some of my world. How about showing me some of yours?”

I gestured toward my pickup. “If you don’t mind riding in an infernal horseless carriage, well … my carriage awaits.”

Ten feet away, I clicked the remote door lock. The locks popped open as the truck beeped.

Penny jumped back a foot.

“Sorry,” I said, waving my key chain. “This is my remote control.”

Penny looked around the inside of the truck and at the dashboard like it was a space capsule.

I leaned over and clicked on her seat belt. “This thing goes seventy miles per hour, so you need this.”

I put the truck in gear and began to roll out of the parking lot.

“What do you usually drive, yourself? A broom?”

She gave me a really cheesy evil smile. “I don’t know where you’ll put that large and sharp tongue after I shrink your head.”

Ouch.

Obviously, I wasn’t going to drive into Waxahachie, so we headed up the highway into Dallas. I got off on Colorado Boulevard and took her to the park behind Methodist Central Hospital on the bluffs of the Trinity River that overlook Dallas.

She gazed across the skyline, with the seventy-two-story Bank of America tower outlined in glowing green argon tubing, the Reunion Tower globe with its flashing lights, and Pegasus in bright red neon flight atop the old Magnolia Oil Building.

“It’s amazing, and so beautiful,” she said. “It also seems strangely foreboding.”

“That’s Dallas for you,” I wisecracked.

Despite her obvious fascination, she said she was concerned the breach might be affected by the waning of the full moon, and she wanted to get back to the collider site as soon as possible.

Back in the parking lot, she waved her hands again.

“I was right, this wound may wax and wane with the full moon with which it was created,” she said. “However, I doubt it will ever completely heal.”

She held her hands by her side.

“Well, I guess I’ll never see you again,” I said.

She reached beneath her shawl and took out a small thick book. She began to pull out some pages. “Here are the spells for Reveal, Unlock, and Protection. Come here.”

She drew me close. “Let me show you how to pronounce them, and what you must add of your own.”

* * *

That was eight years ago. I still steer clear of the bad Penny and the crooked courthouse gang. Judge Pennoyer gets blonder ever year.

Someday I’ll have to give you my two cents’ worth about the time the two Pennys met. But that’s another story.

Sergeant Lucy has a silver muzzle now. She’s retired and sleeps just about all day long in Deputy Joe’s backyard. She’ll be chasing those rabbits around the stars soon.

Doc and Brad and Joe—well, we’ve all been able to keep a secret. Also used it to our advantage sometimes. I’m certainly doing well these days.

I smoke much better cigars now. No more Dixie Maids. I’m smoking Macanudos.

Doesn’t matter though, how good they are—my dark-haired pretty Penny won’t let me smoke them when I visit her.

Yep, I’m doing a lot better. I’ve won the top award from the Texas Press Association for news reporting five years in a row.

You’d be amazed how helpful just a whiff of a Truth spell is when you interview someone.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

Knight of Coins

Written by Margaret Ronald

Illustrated by Jared Blando

I can tell a lot about a person just by how they come into my office. If they come in all wide-eyed and expecting something out of The Maltese Falcon, I know I’ll have to choose between shattering their illusions and getting a few extra bucks out of them. If they assume I’m the secretary (after all, the sign on the door just says G. Scelan), I know I probably don’t want to work for them. And if they seem disappointed at the lack of divination circles or runestones, I know that they’re one of my referral cases, and that I’ll have to be careful with them.

The man who came in that November morning didn’t easily fall into any of those categories. He didn’t seem to have any expectations of what a person in my profession ought to look or act like, and he was probably the most businesslike (and most well-dressed) client I’d seen in a long time. I didn’t even realize he was a referral case until he mentioned what he was looking for.

“Tarot cards,” Sforza said, settling into his chair. “Specifically, three very old and powerful tarot cards.”

I didn’t answer right away, since my coffee took up more of my immediate attention. “Where’d you hear of me?” I asked after half a cup. Now that he’d mentioned the cards, I noticed a few things that should have tipped me off to his profession. Expensive suits could mean either respectability or its opposite, and Sforza had a peculiarly piercing gaze that I’d only seen in those who’d stared down demons.

He shrugged, an eloquent movement in tailored Armani. “Friend of a friend. Heard you’d found the death mask of Giles Corey.”

That was true, though it wasn’t a favorite memory. “All right. Tell me more.”

“I want you to find them and their current owner, then bring them to me so I can nullify the hex.”

Referral or no, it sounded like he hadn’t talked to anyone directly involved in the death mask case, or he’d know my methods. “I don’t know how much you know about me, Mr. Sforza, but I rarely do retrievals. Look me up in the yellow pages, and it doesn’t say a damn thing about bringing something back. If it were a lost ring or a puppy, then, but since these cards are hexed—” I set down my coffee and leaned back in my chair. “If you want me to actually get them for you, I’ll need twice my usual fee, and your assurance that they won’t hurt me.”

“Would you retrieve them for two thousand per card?”

“That’s a start,” I admitted, but inside I sat bolt upright. “Depending on what I have to do to get them. And the rest?”

“They are unlikely to hurt you.”

“Not good enough. Tell me what they are, or take your coat and go home.”

He raised one black eyebrow. “You don’t trust me?”

“Not necessarily,” I said, thinking that I trusted the new breed of magicians about as far as I could kick a Rottweiler. “But understand: I don’t do these sort of cases by choice. I do them because I’ve gained a reputation among the—” I tried to think of the most succinct way to put it.

“Magically adept?” he offered.

“Occult yahoos,” I countered, and Sforza’s jaw tightened. “And if you’re as experienced as you look, then you know that I’ve only survived this long by knowing which cases to turn down. I’ve half a mind to turn you down already.”

Sforza looked out the window, and rubbed his chin. I returned my attention to the last of the coffee, listening to the rasp of his hand over fine stubble. “All right,” he said finally. “The Visconti-Sforza deck is the earliest surviving tarot deck. Every one before it has been either lost or destroyed.”

“Wait. Visconti-Sforza as in—?”

He inclined his head graciously. “A bastard branch, I’m afraid. An ancestor of mine bound the cards to his family line. In the process, he … sealed away certain cards of ill omen, hoping to forestall the events they presaged. Those four cards are currently assumed lost.”

“Three cards, you mean.”

Sforza gave me an exasperated look. “No. Four. You see, the cards are so bound up with my family that they can be used to hurt me. If one of those four cards is unsealed, it acts as a hex against me—triggering the events foretold in that card. The cards are extremely dangerous, Ms. Scelan, but only to me.” He took a blank envelope from inside his jacket and laid it on the desk, between the phone and yesterday’s newspaper. “Three days ago, this card turned up in the mail.”

I slid it across the desk and opened it. “Did you keep the envelope it arrived in?”

“That is the envelope it arrived in.”

I didn’t answer, having already taken out the card. It was as long as my hand, nearly as wide, and a lot heavier than your basic Bicycle playing card. Against a gilded background, a horned and winged figure squatted, grimacing. It held the leashes of two naked figures who cowered at its feet. I hurriedly stuck it back in the envelope.

Sforza nodded at my reaction and reached across the desk for the envelope. “The next day, my office burned down.”

“I see,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t want to consult someone with a background in hexes?”

“The cards themselves are the hex,” he snapped. “I need you to find them so I can neutralize them, and I need you to do it as soon as possible.”

I paid little attention to that. All my referral cases are peremptory. I need the gem to start the ritual! I must have the book by the next full moon! Usually they pay just as well no matter when I finish the job. “Twenty-five hundred per card,” I said, watching his eyes, “and I’ll do it.” Sforza didn’t flinch, and I kicked myself for not upping the price another few hundred. “What are the other cards?”

“The three of swords, the knight of coins, and the Tower.” His voice wavered just a little as he named that last one, and I remembered that the Tower was supposed to be one of the really awful cards. “You have my contact information.”

“Mr. Sforza?” I asked as he stood up. “Let me see that card again.”

His hand went to his breast pocket, but after a moment’s hesitation he gave me the envelope. I didn’t look at the picture, just closed my eyes and touched the edge of the card to my upper lip, inhaling deeply. I had the scent.

Sforza was staring at me when I opened my eyes, but if he hadn’t been warned about my methods, I wasn’t about to explain.

I handed the card back, and he left without saying more. To be honest, I was glad he was gone. I didn’t like how this case felt, but, well, rent was coming due, and the death-mask case hadn’t paid much.

I spent another hour or so in the office, taking care of a few minor things (the woman whose ring I’d found in a pawnshop had finally admitted it was hers and that her darling boyfriend must have pawned it there) and straightening out a few misconceptions (the band whose missing drummer I’d located last year wanted me to stay with them in case he disappeared again, and I didn’t like playing baby-sitter). I also called a few people I knew and asked them to look into Sforza’s background. Finally I took a bulky batik jacket from the coatrack; it was a gift and I hated the color, but it was roomy enough to hide my shoulder holster. I had a permit to carry, which is tough in Boston, but the bullets themselves weren’t even close to legal. They might not kill everything that could attack me, but they’d slow most attackers down.

I didn’t head for the Common to start my usual search pattern. I needed more information than Sforza had given me, and luckily I knew someone who would give it to me.

* * *

If names actually corresponded with personalities, my friend Sarah would have been named Genevieve instead of me. She even looks like a Genevieve, all dark ringlets and flawless skin, while I’m stuck with a braid like an electrical cable and a perpetual sunburn no matter the season.

She is also one of the few people allowed to call me Evie, which she did as soon as I entered The Goddess Garden. “How’s the nose?” she added.

“Tracking,” I said, steering away from the incense and aromatherapy display. “Got a moment?”

Sarah glanced at her assistant, a bored girl in a black T-shirt and too much mascara, and nodded. “Yeah, sure. Liz, I’ll be in the back room if you need me.”

Liz nodded absently, twaddling a chunk of dyed agate on the counter. She was the third of Sarah’s assistants whom I’d met, and damned if I could tell her apart from either of the others. Sometimes I wondered about Sarah’s hiring practices.

“Can you give me some advice on a few tarot cards?” I asked as we headed towards the back room.

“You want a reading?” Her eyes widened. “I’ll get out the champagne. This is an occasion.” She opened the door and turned on a few of the lights. On top of running The Goddess Garden, Sarah brings in a fair amount from “performance tarot readings.” Her reading room is the sort of place that most of Sforza’s kind expect when they come to my office: runes over the door, feng shui-aligned bookcases full of holistic wellness manuals, gauzy curtains that move with the slightest breeze (and that incidentally hide the lovely view of the alley in back). She once told me that she really prefers to read on a kitchen table without her other decks nearby, but she knows her audience too well.

Sarah’s really the only person who’s both a business contact and a friend. I try to keep the occult as far away from my personal life as possible; it’s bad enough I’ve gotten a reputation for it in my work. But Sarah’s much too sensible to get into anything scary, so I figure I’m safe with her.

I took a seat on one side of her non-rainforest-wood table. “No reading. I just need some information on a few cards I’ve been asked to find.”

I filled her in on the case, and she whistled. “This is a heap of bad karma you’ve gotten into, Evie.”

“No kidding. And here I’ve believed you when you say the cards aren’t heavy magic.”

She began rummaging through her tarot decks. “Depends on how you use them. It is possible to use the tarot in magic, but to use a tarot deck for major thaumaturgy, the kind he’s talking about, you’d have to “wake it up” first. Once it’s awake, it’d be like using a chainsaw to carve wood: powerful, but messy, clumsy, and you’re likely to lose a limb if you’re not careful. And frankly, I’d rather use the chainsaw itself than a truncated deck like the one you describe. The magic would be crippled, deformed, and extremely unpredictable. You’d better hope this Sforza guy isn’t practicing the same kind of magic.”

“He can’t,” I said. “The deck is scattered between about ten different museums; I checked. Just tell me what the individual cards mean.”

She shrugged and pulled out a common Rider deck. “Fine. The Devil,” she said, flourishing a lurid black card with a scene very like the one on Sforza’s, “represents the dark side of ourselves, temptation, deliberately becoming a slave to our desires. It can signify either black magic worked against one or a temptation into black magic. It’s a little hard to judge without context.”

I spread my hands. “You’ve got all the context I have. What about the others?”

“Well, the three of swords essentially means sorrow, heartbreak.” She flourished a card that looked like a bad biker tattoo: three swords piercing a heart. “The Tower is usually considered a pretty awful card; it means upheaval, destruction of one’s plans, although it can also mean a bad situation shattered so that better can come of it. It’s probably the worst card to seal off; the longer you put off the fall, the worse it’ll get.” The card she put down was as dark as the Devil, showing lightning knocking a crown from the top of a tower and setting it ablaze. I looked at her face and decided against making any castration jokes.

She paused, her hands lingering on the three cards. “I can understand why he wanted those cards kept out of his life, even if I don’t agree. But the knight of coins baffles me. It’s not strictly a bad card, and there are much worse in the deck to ward against.”

“And it means …” Sarah could get like this sometimes.

“Well-grounded practicality, sometimes with a lack of connection to the inner self. Usually it signifies a person, though. Somebody with the resources for action, but who’s not acting just yet.”

That sounded a little like Sforza, but I didn’t say so. “Thanks. Anything else I need to know?”

She hesitated. “Well … you may want to be careful with this Sforza guy. Excising cards from a powerful deck can have effects beyond the magic. Those events would be severed off from your life—it’d be like losing a limb, psychically speaking. You’d never be able to mourn, never be able to face and therefore withstand temptation, never undergo tempestuous changes. And when they did break into your life, the effect would be monstrous.”

I whistled. “No wonder he wants me to find them,” I said. “I owe you a drink.”

“Double mocha latte,” she replied immediately. “But I meant it about the broken deck. If it’s involved, this could get nasty. Be careful.”

“I am.” I opened my jacket to give her a glimpse of the gun. “See you later.”

* * *

I left Sarah’s and headed for the Common. Once there, I stopped at the edge of the Frog Pond, surrounded by milling pedestrians, and closed my eyes.

This is what brings in my grocery money, day to day. I can track anything once I have the scent. Missing children. Absent spouses. Stolen jewelry. It’s earned me something of a nickname—the old man in Chinatown who casts my bullets out of impure silver calls me “Hound,” and I don’t care enough to correct him. My dad, who was a cop, used to say that one of the bloodhounds must’ve jumped over my cradle. Mom never laughed at that, though.

This is also what brought in all the cases I call “referrals.” It’s inaccurate—at least half of my regular cases are by word of mouth, and any magician can find me in the phone book—but it’s a hell of a lot easier to describe them as “referrals” rather than “sorcerous missions.” It started when I took on one weird case, finding a lost book for someone who needed it to survive. That was followed by a search for a grave (though the way that one turned out, I’m not sure “grave” is the right word), and then word started to spread.

I inhaled again, shutting out the exhaust fog, the faint reek of the harbor, the odors of a thousand people. The same scent, I told myself, but not quite the same or I’d just follow the Devil card to its current location.

The Tower, I told myself. The three of swords. The knight of coins.

And suddenly there it was, clear as if they’d just materialized. I took another breath, adjusted my coat, and followed the trail east.

It’s hard to describe a scent, and even more so when it’s not really a scent at all. I mean, real scents dissipate quickly, and I’ve tracked down things lost for years, following my nose to its source, like you would follow the smell of bread to a bakery. But scent is the closest analog to what I follow, and the scent of these cards was dry and old, like books that hadn’t been read for a very long time. Metallic, too, though I thought that might be the gold leaf. The Devil card had smelled of smoke, which was unsurprising, but this new trail also had traces of smoke to it. Odd.

I followed it to the financial district, past the courthouse, past City Hall. Any passersby either were too busy getting to their next appointment or took me for one of them. New York may be good for not making eye contact, but for not giving a damn you gotta go further north.

Near the aquarium the trail split. I stopped in the middle of the street the moment I sensed it, cursing. Two cars screeched to a halt and began honking, which I ignored. You’d think after enough driving in this city, they’d know that all pedestrians are insane. With all the exhaust in my nose, I couldn’t tell which trail was stronger. I cursed again, made a note of the intersection, and chose a direction at random.

I went straight north, or as straight as it’s possible to go through Boston streets. It led me up to the North End, home to the best Italian cuisine this side of the Atlantic, so the denizens claim. The days when it was strictly the Italian part of Boston are past, but the associations stay.

The trail wound though the streets for a while and disappeared into a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Tomato Gianni’s. It was like many such restaurants in the North End: concealing culinary marvels behind a grubby facade. My stomach growled.

When I say the trail disappeared, that’s exactly how it seemed to me. The moment I walked in the door, a palpable reek of garlic enveloped me, obscuring any other scent. I concentrated, trying to recapture that dry and metallic smell …

“Can I help you?”

I turned to see a man in an apron over his white shirt and jeans smiling at me. I realized I’d been holding the door open to the cold air, and let it swing closed. “Yes,” I said. “I’m looking for someone who might have come through here today.”

He held out his hands, palms up. “If you are with the police, I cannot tell you much.” His English was accented, but the grammar was fine. I couldn’t quite place his accent: not entirely Italian, as if he’d learned from someone with an entirely different accent.

“I’m not with the cops,” I said, then stopped. There was something, some whiff of parchment … possibly he’d held the cards, or seen them …

“Man or woman?”

“What?”

“Are you looking for a man or woman?”

“I … man, I think. Possibly of Italian descent, probably kind of shady-looking.”

He grinned. “That is me, my boss, and most of our customers.”

“Yes. I’m sorry, I—” I inhaled again, but there was only the strong aroma of garlic, and plum tomatoes, and melting Romano cheese and dammit, I hadn’t eaten since six-thirty that morning. “Forget it. I’ll just have lunch, if you’re still serving it.”

“We are.” He beckoned to another waiter, who’d been standing by the window smoking a cigarette. While the waiter slouched off to fetch a menu, he hesitated a moment, then smiled at me, almost shyly. “May I join you? I am on break, and perhaps I can help you to remember.”

And I bet you don’t get many single young women coming in on their own, I thought sourly. “Sure. Why not.”

* * *

He didn’t, in fact, see many single young women in here, but he didn’t say it with a leer. In fact, he was almost skittish, and I seriously wondered whether he was a lot younger than he looked; I hadn’t seen a guy act this way since early high school.

His name was Paolo diTerre, he’d been in the States for a year, and he was extremely nervous about his English. I assured him that he sounded fine and helped myself to the excellent tagliatelli primavera, thinking that it was rather too bad I’d met him on a case.

It was worth the hour lost just to watch him talk. He spoke with a cadence like that of an inspired poet, and I still couldn’t place the accent. “Gianni, my boss,” he told me, gesturing extravagantly with the garlic bread, “well, his name is not Gianni, but it goes with the restaurant, you see, well, he is a good man. He lets us eat in the dining room as long as it is not busy, but since we have so many patrons, I have learned not to hunger at lunch and dinner. Or any other time, it seems. It is learning when to be hungry, I think, that has been most difficult for me.”

“So you weren’t a waiter before working here?” I said, as much for my own curiosity as for more information on the case.

“Oh, no, no no no.” He gestured toward the waiter with the cigarette, who had returned to his place by the window as if we didn’t exist. “Yosef, he is from Little Russia, he says I used to be a lazy bur-shwa know-nothing.”

“Bourgeois,” I corrected, smiling a little.

“Ah. Bourgeois. English—no, French, yes?” I nodded, and he grinned. “So it is not my English that is bad. No, I was a poet, a leech on my family. Coming here and working was a shock for me.”

“I take it you didn’t leave willingly.”

His lips quirked. “No. But that is a long story, and I dislike telling it. You are liking the food? Do you wish coffee, or espresso?”

I waved his offer away. “So,” I said, “do you know anything about cards?”

Paolo’s brow furrowed. “Cards? No, I—I can play the game, I think you call it triumph, but not much else.” He didn’t look up at me, though, and I thought his hand faltered as he raised his glass.

I was sorry to be spoiling such a good meal by turning it into an interrogation, but I’ve had to do worse in this job, and I really do have to keep the division in place between work and personal life. “Maybe someone came in here with cards, a deck of very old cards. Perhaps your boss owns a set.”

He shook his head, and this time met my eyes as he spoke. “No, my boss is not involved with cards. He says they take away your money.”

There was something he was hiding, and he knew I knew it. “Do you know anyone named Sforza?” I asked abruptly.

Paolo blinked at that, but the expression in his eyes was startled, not guilty. “I—” he began, then looked down at the dishes. “My cousin married a Sforza. I have not seen them in a long time.”

“Have you heard from either of them recently?”

He shook his head. “No. And Miss Scelan, these questions are beginning to sound like police questions, and my boss does not like me answering police questions.”

I tried to smile. I knew there was something about the cards here, but my nose was baffled and I couldn’t do a thorough search during business hours. I probably wouldn’t get a direct answer from Paolo, and getting Yosef’s attention was unlikely as long as he had cigarettes. “Sorry. Thanks for the company,” I added, standing up.

Paolo got to his feet, then hesitated. “I do not know if I should let you pay,” he said to the table. “Since I arrived — well, what I knew of women has changed since I was last home.

I grinned. “I’ll pay for myself. But thanks.”

I noted the address as I left, and headed back to where the trail split.

There are times when I wish that I didn’t have to do my work on foot. It’s time-consuming for one, tiring for another, and depending on which part of town I’m in, it can be dangerous. But it’s much too easy to lose the scent on the subway, and driving is out—by the time I determined which way to go, I’d have six cars backed up behind me. So I wear out my sneakers instead and block traffic in my own way.

I didn’t like it that the trail had split. It could mean that someone from Tomato Gianni’s had an accomplice, or that this was a much bigger affair than I had thought. The things I didn’t like about this case were piling up, outweighed only by $7,500 and a really good lunch.

My cell phone rang twice as I trudged south along the waterfront, once from one of my contacts and once from Sarah. The contact hadn’t been able to dig up much on Sforza beyond that he was fairly rich and had started to get a lot more powerful in the last year or so. That didn’t sound good; those who rise quickly to power often fall the same way. Sarah had checked out a rumor on the Visconti-Sforza deck and found that most of the current owners of the fragments were holding tight to their cards as a result of a theft scare a couple of years back. Perhaps whoever was sending them to Sforza had tried to make a bid for more.

I also made a call of my own to one of my former clients in the North End, trying to find out what I could about Tomato Gianni’s. Very little, as it turned out. (These calls are another reason it’s better for me to walk; I may look like a twit, but at least I can’t hurt anyone if I walk into them.)

The trail wound into the Leather District and thereabouts, up to the old warehouses that had been converted into artists’ studios back in the late eighties and were now getting taken over by young urban idiots. I won’t say I had a bad feeling, because I’m not quite that perceptive, but a lot of unpleasant possibilities were coming up in my head about this new trail. All of them swelled up like a John Williams chorus as I rounded a corner and saw the card tacked to the door of the next building down.

Three swords glared from the card’s gilt background. It had been nailed to the outer door, which was standing just the slightest bit ajar. My fingers tingled as I reached for it, then twitched as they made contact. Nailed was too strong a word; the staple that had held it in place fell away with a slight tug, and the card tumbled into my hand.

Hesitating only a moment, I raised the card to my lips. Fire, yes, and the dry scent of the card itself … but wasn’t there something else? Something acidic, almost …

I glanced at the addresses by the door and swore so loud a woman across the street jumped. Apartment #3: Sforza, M. Damn, damn, damn.

I buzzed his apartment, got no response, and went up anyway, shutting the outer door behind me. The scent of the cards grew stronger as I climbed the stairs, as did that acidic reek. The door to #3 was unlocked, so I opened it and paused on the threshold.

The apartment looked as if it had been normal, once. I could almost see the traces of its former elegance: a pair of big leather chairs dragged against the wall, what might have been a nice rug rolled up in the corner, a window that probably framed an ocean view when it wasn’t covered with heavy black curtains. But recently someone had changed the decor from downtown playboy to contemporary ghoul.

Several circles had been gouged into the hardwood floor, all edged with characters I knew and did not like. The only light came from a few lamps along the far wall—all electric, though burn marks scarred the floor—and long shadows reached all the way to my feet. A dozen long-bladed knives lay in one of the smaller circles, the points turned inward.

I’d been in a few heavily-magicked places, sometimes tracking, sometimes picking up my pay. I’d hated all of them, and this was no exception. I wanted nothing more than to throw down the card, tell Sforza to piss up a rope, and run twenty blocks away. But seventy-five hundred dollars will pay the rent for a while, even in Boston, and I stayed put.

Sforza was on the phone, wearing the same dark suit as when I’d seen him that morning. He turned and raised his index finger, telling me to wait. I nodded and crossed my arms.

“Si. Si. No, grazie. Si. Ciao.” He set the phone down and stood there for a moment, not looking at me. “My grandfather has just died, Ms. Scelan,” he said finally. “Your business here had better be important.”

There was really nothing to say to that, so I held up the card instead. When he didn’t move to take it, I closed the door and laid the card on the table. “One of three,” I said. “I’ll have the rest for you soon.”

He reached for the card, let his fingers hover over it briefly, then picked it up, unconsciously imitating what I had done downstairs. “Sorrow,” he said softly. “My sorrow for the end.” The skin beside his left eye twitched, and he turned away. “You delivered this card after the hex went into effect. It’s worth nothing now.”

It was an effort for me to act casual, especially since he didn’t seem to consider his grandfather’s death as anything but an inconvenience, an extension of the hex. “If you don’t want it, I’ll keep it.”

“No!” He looked up at me, and the sudden flare of anger in his eyes almost made me step back. “No. You will be paid. But your tardiness has been costly, and I don’t have the patience for any more delays.”

“You only hired me six hours ago,” I pointed out.

Sforza ignored me. “If you do not produce the cards soon, I will have to use other methods.”

I looked at him, then at the circles and knives. I knew what a lot of them did—I didn’t like knowing, but I knew nonetheless. The least of them would call up some of the nastier creatures this side of Erebus. “And these would be your other methods?”

“That is none of your business. I will see you tomorrow morning, and you will have the cards for me. You may go.”

Bastard. Any of the “other methods” that I could see here could kill me in pursuit of the cards, and probably would as a bonus. I turned to go, then stopped as a whiff of scent drifted past my nose. From here I could see what lay in the circle of knives, and the smell intensified, so much that I couldn’t believe I’d missed it.

“You may go,” he repeated, but it was my turn not to pay attention.

I walked up to the edge of the circle, staring down at the pile of cards within. The Devil card lay on top, face up, and the dry gilt parchment scent surrounded me. “This isn’t a replica.”

It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t take it as one. “My family has a much stronger claim than some dusty antiquarians. Especially those of us who can use such a tool properly. The collectors’ cards have been simulacra for a little over a year now.”

I leaned over the circle, and my eyebrows began to singe. Sarah had said that a deck would need to be “woken up,” and frankly, this heap of images was more awake than most people I knew.

I also remembered what else she’d said about this sort of magic, and for some reason, I thought of the crowned tower from the Rider deck, fire and lightning consuming it.

“Tomorrow morning, then,” I echoed, and left so quickly I nearly tumbled down the stairs.

* * *

The dinner rush at Tomato Gianni’s was just barely starting, and I had to hover by the door before Paolo could come over. I’d taken off my coat before coming in and bundled it over my arm, and every customer that came in let in another blast of chilly air.

“Miss Scelan!” he called, bounding up to me. “I did not expect to see you so soon!”

“I need to speak with you a moment, Paolo.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the filling tables. “Ah, no. I cannot; it is dinner and I am not on break… .

I took a step closer and nudged him with the barrel of my gun, hidden under the coat. “It’s really important,” I said.

Paolo’s expression froze. He glanced over his shoulder again, this time speaking softly to Yosef, who nodded as he sped by. “Certainly, then,” he said, and opened the door for me.

I guided him into the alley next door, behind the trash cans and reeking recyclables. “I am guessing you are not a cop, Miss Scelan,” he said, turning to face me. “But my employer, he is a good man, and I swear there is nothing about this place that—”

“Give me the cards,” I said. Now that we were out of the restaurant and I wasn’t distracted, I could smell the parchment on him. It wasn’t quite the same as either card I’d scented so far, but there was no question that he was carrying at least one card.

“Miss Scelan, I do not know what—”

“If I don’t get the Visconti-Sforza cards, the next thing that comes looking for them will not be nearly as nice. At the very least, it will probably kill you.” I switched the coat to my other arm, snapped the gun’s safety back on, and slid it into its holster. “This isn’t a threat. This is a warning.”

Paolo opened his mouth, then closed it and just looked at me. In the dim light, his eyes looked almost completely black, no differentiation between pupil and iris. A gust of wind rattled the trash cans beside us, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. Finally he reached into his shirt, brought out a passport case, and pulled a familiar rectangle of parchment from it.

I took it from him and glanced at the picture (a knight on horseback, holding a gold dinner plate). The scent of parchment and gold still clung to him. “And the other one,” I said.

Paolo blinked. “What other one?”

“Don’t play dumb. I know there’s one more, and I can tell you have it on you.”

“I—” He looked up, and then, unbelievably, blushed. “I think you should look at the card again.”

“What?”

“Look at the card.”

He seemed serious. I’ve always followed my gut when I wasn’t following my nose, and both told me that Sforza was the one to be wary of, not this man. Besides, I still had my gun. So I tilted the card to catch the light.

It was undoubtedly the knight of coins, unless there was a tarot suit of dinner plates. The knight wore no helm, so his face was visible: a mop of black curls, well-defined jaw, large nose with a bump in it …

I looked up at Paolo, and the world seemed to shudder under my feet. The dim neon and sodium light revealed his serious face: unruly black hair, strong jaw, bump in the nose …

“Let me explain,” said the Knight of Coins.

* * *

“Niccolo,” he said. “Niccolo Sforza was his name. This would be … I have not added up, but I think at least five centuries ago. Leonora was his wife, and I was her cousin, and a frequent visitor to any house where they would feed me for my verses. Niccolo … well, he was a jealous man, and I think he saw rivalry where there was none.”

We were sitting on the steps of a pier, and Paolo had brought a chunk of yesterday’s bread for the fish. His boss had been angry but unsurprised; judging from Paolo’s earlier comments about cops I guessed this wasn’t the first time he’d lost a waiter on short notice.

“So he trapped you,” I said.

“Trapped, yes, but there was more, and it is hard to …” He trailed off, one hand reaching out, grasping for words that were beyond him. “Niccolo caught me in his magic and bound me into the cards as the knight of coins. Then he burned those cards he wanted away from his life. So I think I should have died then, but the cards are not so separate as that. The cards took me into them, gave me a life like those of the other burned cards, in limbo … it is hard to explain.” A car turned somewhere behind us, its headlights momentarily limning his silhouette in gold. “Time ceased to pass, and for a while I was only the Knight of Coins. I could say I still am. There are things I learned, such things …”

He cupped his outstretched hand, and for a moment his posture was uncannily like that on the card. Then a fish splashed off the pier, and he tossed a chunk of bread in, dispelling the moment. “But I am also Paolo diTerre, who had the second shock of his life when he was dumped into a strange world without any warning.” He turned to look at me, and the lights from the harbor played over his face. “I was terrified. I had never dreamed the world would last as long as it has, nor that I would ever see the New World. One moment I was only barely alive within the cards, and the next I was falling onto the walk in this city, clutching my cards and dressed for years ago.” He grinned. “And with very little of the language. I had learned some English back then, but I am lucky I returned here, where more knew my own.”

Falling into this city. That must have been when Sforza stole the cards and woke them back up, driving the missing elements into a new world. “And you sent the cards to Sforza in revenge for what his ancestor did to you.”

Paolo shook his head. “I know nothing of this Sforza save his name. No, the cards I sent because they wanted to be with their own. Il Diavolo I put in a mailbox, knowing it would find its way. I tacked up the other on a message board, so that it would get passed to the right place. The cards find their way, not me, and they had been pressing me to send them. They wanted to be whole again.”

Whole again, and bringing their ill omens into Sforza’s life with a vengeance, strewing blood and fire as they went. I thought of the Devil on top of that heap, and of Sforza’s mad eyes. Temptation into black magic, Sarah had said. Becoming a slave to one’s desires. Oh, hell. “What about the Tower card?”

He blinked at me, confusion written on his features. “What?”

“The Tower, uh, la Torre? It has a tower on it, struck by fire or lightning or something.”

“Ah. La Sagitta. No, it wasn’t one of those I held when I tumbled back into life. I had thought it was what caused my release: the arrow of God breaks open the prison tower, yes?”

That wasn’t consistent with the rest of the card’s effects: the hex should have struck Sforza, and should have broken his edifice of warped magic. And if it hadn’t, it still might… . “You’re sure you didn’t have it?”

Paolo shrugged. “I think I could call it to me, if you think it’s necessary… .”

“No, that’s fine.” I could tell Sforza that there was no malice intended, that there was no need to go searching … but somehow I didn’t think he’d believe that. And he would be using the magic of the broken deck to find Paolo. It would be looking for the knight of coins, and would probably tear him to shreds in the process.

I shivered. “We need to get you someplace safe.” I shredded the last of the bread and flung it to the fish. “Come on.”

“Where to?” he said, brushing crumbs from his jeans.

“Camouflage.”

* * *

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sarah said.

“I’ll stay here with him if you’re worried,” I said, glancing out the window again. I could only see the alley from here, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to keep Paolo up front next to the store windows. “And where else am I going to find so many tarot decks in one place? I need to hide a knight among all the other knights.” Sarah opened her mouth, and I held up a hand. “Look at the card if you don’t believe me.”

She looked down at the gleaming gold of the card, lying next to her newer, duller replica deck. “No, I believe you,” she said in a much smaller voice. She looked up and over at Paolo, who was examining her reading table curiously. Her shoulders straightened a little, and she took a few steps toward him. I just knew she was going to say something all reverent and solemn, and braced myself for the result.

Paolo forestalled it. “Trionfi!” he exclaimed, waving her Thoth deck. “Would you like to play?”

Sarah looked blank. “Trionfi? Oh—trumps, tarocchi, the game. Sure. But not with that deck. Let’s use another.”

“Miss Scelan?” He offered the deck to me.

I shook my head and turned back to the window. “I only know euchre.”

Sarah found a plain deck of Bicycle cards and taught Paolo crazy eights and Egyptian ratscrew. I stayed at the window, and eventually took off the jacket so I could reach my gun more easily.

The night wore on. When Paolo excused himself for the bathroom, I took Sarah aside and asked her about the Tower card, and why it hadn’t shown up yet. “His explanation’s as good as any I could offer,” she said, yawning. “Perhaps it had to stay burned to bring him to life; one archetype in return for a human life. It’s not like I know much about this.”

“All right,” I said. “But something still doesn’t seem right.”

Paolo returned, and we both glanced up like junior high kids caught talking in class. Sarah cleared her throat. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea for you to meet Sforza tomorrow.”

“I can’t not meet him,” I said. “He knows where my office is. It’s not as if I can hide easily.”

“What if he says it’s no good? I can’t keep this guy here; I have clients coming in for a major reading, and this place isn’t warded. Your place isn’t warded either; what if he goes after you?”

“He won’t,” I said, and neither of us believed it. “Look, maybe if I show him that the last two cards aren’t a problem, he’ll calm down. Maybe he’s just scared of what might happen; maybe that’s clouding his judgment.”

“He was scared. But not any more.”

We both turned to look at Paolo. He was staring off into space, spinning a card—the ace of diamonds—across his knuckles like a coin.

“Not any more—that was burned away when he woke us up again. Now he is angry, and his magic, it has gotten worse with the cards, and even worse with il diavolo… .” He looked up at us. “I can feel the cards, Miss Scelan, all but la sagitta. They are close, and they are unhappy.”

I sniffed the air. The gilt parchment scent was close, and it wasn’t coming from Paolo. “Shit. Shit. Sarah, get out, try to go someplace warded. Paolo, you get out of sight and stay—”

The window exploded. I hit the ground just as it shattered, but still felt the shock of it as flying glass tore my back to ribbons. Sarah had been behind a bookcase, but Paolo, who should have been hit by the worst of it, didn’t have a mark on him. Behind me the howl of hungry magic rattled down the alley.

I yanked my gun out and spun, kneeling on the broken glass. “Sforza!” I yelled. “There’s no need for this. There’s no danger to—” and then he came fully into the light.

The air around him seemed to shine golden, and his entire body blurred with each step. Hatreds and mindless furies swept over his face, and there was a faint suggestion of dark wings at his back. He was no longer using the deck—he had become the deck, twisted it and twisting himself in turn.

“No danger,” he grated, and a chorus seemed to sob in harmony with his voice. “None to you … but that last card, the last one that could harm me …” His gaze lit on Paolo, and the cards’ power flickered around him once more. “Traitor!” he roared at me. “Traditore!”

His hands blazed red and blue. Beside me, Sarah screamed in wordless protest. I tried to fire, but my feet were yanked out from under me—and then up farther, so that I dangled from one ankle, blood streaming into my hair. The gun snaked out of my hands as unseen bonds gripped my wrists and pinned them behind me. Sforza kicked the gun into a corner and advanced.

Sarah screamed again and lunged at him. Sforza did something—I couldn’t see what—and an eight-pointed star of blades whirred into being, humming an inch away from her throat. “Stay there,” he growled, and turned to Paolo.

Paolo flattened himself against the display case, his face dead white. Sforza raised one hand, gold limning his fingers. “I will have you too, at the last. You will return to the cards and to me.” He was actually panting as he said it, and the chorus of alien voices whimpered in submission to him. “But I will not allow you to release the other. I will not see my work destroyed. I will not fall.”

“You can’t do it, Sforza,” I called. “The deck won’t be whole without the Tower. Your power will be incomplete.”

He turned at that, and I remembered how he’d flinched when naming the Tower in my office. If any card could hurt him now, it could—if only it hadn’t been burned.

“You’ll go on leading a half-life, a life severed from itself. Like your ancestor did.”

Sforza’s grin was like razor blades. “I don’t need it,” he growled. “I only need the safety of the sundered cards.”

“You call this safety?” I said. Behind him, Paolo was doing something that looked like praying, and might have been for all I knew. I hoped he’d catch on and run—or failing that, that Sforza would come a little closer. I did have one leg free, and might be able to kick him in the head if he got in range. “An incomplete deck is nothing, Sforza. Any idiot can tell you that. Ask my friend here.”

Sarah tried to nod, but the whirring swords stopped her, and she managed a whisper instead. “It’s true.”

I twisted in place, and my braid swept a bloody curve through the glass splinters. “And how do you think you’ll get rid of them, anyway? Niccolo burned those cards, Sforza, burned them and they still came back! You think you’re strong enough to keep them away for good?”

That did it. He took a step toward me, probably to set me on fire or something equally nice. I readied myself to flail.

Paolo’s voice suddenly rose. “—sagitta, la torre, la torre—”

Calling the card. Calling the Tower out from ashes.

A burning stink filled the room, and his hands began to glow all the colors of flame. Sforza spun, howling, but too late. A block of incandescence solidified between Paolo’s hands, and for a split second I saw a white tower against a gold sky, the top crumbling beneath a lightning bolt, one figure tumbling, another leaping free—

Then the world screamed white, and my ears shuddered with the shock of it.

When I could see again, the blades were gone from Sarah’s throat. Paolo slumped against the table, his chest heaving, and I lay on my back on top of the glass from the window. I hadn’t even felt the fall.

A long scorch mark zigzagged across the floor, and at its point of origin lay a heap of cards. There was no sign of Sforza.

Still holding the Tower card, Paolo closed his eyes. “They’re free,” he said.

I got to my feet, wincing the whole way, picked up my gun, and shoved it back in its holster. Paolo began gathering up the cards, laying the Tower on top. He took the knight of coins from the table, looked at it, and slid it into the middle of the deck.

“Those,” I said when I could breathe, “should go back to their owners.”

He was silent. “No,” he said after a moment. “They want to stay with me. They—trust me.”

“I’d go with him on this,” Sarah agreed. She rubbed her neck gingerly, and where a few thin scratches from Sforza’s magic remained.

I looked from one to the other and gave up. “Fine. Sure. But that means you get out of here now. I’m going to have enough trouble explaining my gun to the cops, and I don’t want to tell them why you have a thirteenth-century tarot deck stuffed in your shirt pocket.”

He smiled, a little wistfully, and again I was sorry I’d met him while

on a case. “Goodbye, Miss Scelan.”

“Wait.” Sarah held out a deck of cards. “Before you go, will you turn over a card for Evie? She’s never let me do a reading for her.”

Paolo looked at me. “Evie?” I sighed and nodded. “Yes. I will.” He pulled a card from the middle of the deck and turned it over.

It was the Rider deck, and the Fool stared up at me, dancing along his cliff edge. “Very funny,” I said.

“It means a special person,” Sarah said. “An innocent. Someone favored by fate.”

“Save it for your clients, Sarah; I already owe you two mocha lattes and a new window.” I flipped the card over, shook Paolo’s hand, and hustled him out the back door, hoping neither of them had taken a really good look at the card.

I knew why it was that particular one, and I didn’t like being marked so clearly. Or mocked. In the Rider deck, the Fool is always accompanied by a white hound.

I took a deep breath, exorcising the scent of the cards from my nose, and went back inside to wait for the cops.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

CLASSIC:

Born of the Sun

Written by Jack Williamson

Illustrated by William Johns

I

The deep song of a wide-open motor throbbed into the huge mahogany library—the first faint note of rising menace. Foster Ross, busy over a great table in the end of the room, glanced up abstractedly at a frost-rimed window. Gaunt trees, outside, flung bare, skeletal branches against the gray gloom of an early December dusk; the moaning wind carried a few flakes of snow.

Listening, Foster Ross wondered briefly the reason for such suicidal haste over the icy highways, before his attention went back to the experiment that had engrossed him for two hard years.

He was alone in the great, rambling stone mansion his father had left him, secluded upon a lonely, wooded Pennsylvania hilltop. No visitors were expected—the house was being closed for the winter. The few servants had departed that afternoon. Foster, himself, planned to leave at midnight for sunny Palm Beach to meet June Trevor.

A lean, muscular giant, he was whistling absently as he bent over the immense mahogany table. It was littered with electrical apparatus. In the center of it, shimmering under brilliant light, was a little aluminum sphere, trailing two fine platinum wires.

Foster tightened a last connection. He stepped back a little eagerly brushing a wisp of copper-colored hair out of his eyes.

“Now!” he whispered. “It should go up. As the first space ship will go up toward the Moon! It should be—”

Nervously watching the toylike sphere, he snapped down a key. Anxiously, he waited, as coils whined angrily, and violet discharges flickered about bright contacts.

The tiny globe did not move. A moment he stared at it, sighing wearily. Then he shrugged, grinned at himself.

“Fifty thousand, that makes,” he muttered to himself. “Fifty thousand dollars, for a pipe dream! I could have sowed a lot of wild oats for that. What a fool I am, to be fussing with this infernal thing like an old crank, when I might be lounging on the beach with June!”

But something flashed, then, in his level blue eyes; his wide shoulders squared.

“It can be done!” he insisted under his breath. “I might try a conegrid. Or alloy the cathode element with titanium. The motor-tube—”

He heard, then, the insistent doorbell and frantic knocking at the front door. Foster hurried down the gloomy hall.

Still he could hear the racing car, a deep-toned, ominous roll, that grew swiftly louder. It slackened momentarily, was renewed.

“It has turned in the drive,” he thought. “Two unexpected guests, and both in a hurry!”

He flung the door open upon wintry gloom; the bitter wind whirled snow into his face.

A cab was standing in front of the door, yellow lights stabbing feebly into the swirling snow. It glided away as he appeared. And Foster saw the man who had rung, a small figure, muffled in an enormous gray coat, crouching against the wall.

He sprang toward the opening door, gasping: “Quick! Inside! The other car—”

Powerful lights probed through the snow; the second machine came roaring up the drive, behind the departing cab. Skidding recklessly, it swerved toward the door.

Terrific reports crashed in Foster’s ears; yellow flame jetted from a black automatic in the little man’s hand. He was shooting into the skidding sedan.

A thin sword of blinding orange light stabbed back from the machine, as it thundered past. The ray seemed to touch the little man. He whirled, as his gun exploded a last time, fell inside the door.

The black car paused, plunged forward again. Its headlights rested a moment on the cab, swept past it. It vanished down the drive.

* * *

Bewildered, Foster slammed the door, locked it. He bent over the little man on the floor. A gasping breath greeted him, then a faint chuckle.

A low voice spoke, oddly calm: “We score one, Foster!”

“You aren’t hurt, sir? You fell, when the orange light—”

“No. I dropped in time.”

Foster was helping him to rise.

“But it’s a deadly thing. The poison flame, they call it. It’s an actinic radiation, I believe, that splits proteins. It forms poison in the blood.”

The little man bent for his automatic. Deliberately, he removed the empty cartridge clip, snapped another into place, slipped the heavy weapon back into the pocket of his gray coat.

“Won’t you come in where it’s warmer?” Foster invited. “And if you don’t mind explaining—”

“Of course, Foster.”

His strange guest followed him through the shadowy hall, into the brightly lighted library. Foster turned, when they came into the light, to survey the other.

“You seem to know my name,” he remarked. Recognition flashed then, in his level blue eyes. “Uncle Barron!” he exclaimed. “I hadn’t recognized you!” He offered his hand cordially.

Barron Kane was a small man. His chest was flat; his drooping shoulders were thin as a boy’s; his arms were lean and stringy. Yet the serene patience of the scientist lighted his weary face with a radiance of power. In his calm gray eyes was confidence, and beside it, strangely, the shadow of a devouring dread.

“You surprised me,” said Foster. “I thought, you know, that you must be—dead. It’s years since any one has heard from you. My father tried to locate you.”

“I’ve been in Asia,” said the little sun-browned man, “at an oasis in the Gobi, that you won’t find on the maps. I was completely cut off from civilization. And there’s a power, you see, that would cut me off forever.”

He nodded in the direction the racing car had gone.

“I remember when you were fitting out your last expedition,” recalled Foster. “Twelve years ago—I was in high school. You were so mysterious about where you were headed. And I was wild to go along, for the adventure of it, trying to talk dad out of the idea that I was destined to run the steel business.

“But sit down. Do you care for a drink?”

Barron Kane shook a brown, bald head—he had arrived without a hat. “But I must talk to you, Foster.”

“I’m keen to know all about it,” Foster assured him. “All this is—well, interesting.”

“We might be interrupted,” said Barron Kane. “Do you mind fastening the doors and windows and drawing the blinds?”

“Of course not. Do you think—they will come back?”

“There is a power,” said Barron Kane, his low voice still oddly calm, “that will not rest without positive proof that I am dead.”

Foster locked the door, went to secure the windows. He came back to find his uncle curiously examining the little silver model on the table.

“I read your monograph last month in the Science Review,” he said. “About the omicron-effect and your motor-tube. That’s why I’ve come to you, Foster. You’ve hit on a tremendous thing—”

“Not yet,” denied Foster, with a weary little smile. “I’ve spent two years of time and a good deal of money on the motor-tube. And still it won’t lift its own weight.”

“But you’re still trying?” The low voice was edged with a strange anxiety.

“I was working today.” Foster touched the little aluminum globe. “This is a model of the space machine. The motor-tube is inside, connected with these platinum wires. The real ship, of course, would have all this other apparatus aboard. The living accommodations and she—”

He stopped himself, shook his head bitterly.

“But it’s just a dream!” he muttered. “A crazy dream—I’m not going to waste my life on it.” His blue eyes flashed at Barron Kane defiantly. “I’m leaving for Palm Beach, to-night, to meet June Trevor.” He explained: “We’re engaged. We’ll be married New Year’s. Barron, June’s simply—wonderful!”

“You can’t do that!” protested Barron Kane. Gripping Foster’s arm, he spoke with a puzzling urgency. “You must stick to the space machine. You must finish it, Foster, to save the human race.”

“Eh!” Grunting with astonishment, Foster stepped back from him. “What do you mean?”

“Just that,” Barron Kane told him, in the same quiet voice that was emphatic for its very lack of emphasis. “I’ve come to tell you a dreadful thing, Foster. A thing I learned in Asia. A thing that a terrible power is bent upon keeping me from telling.”

Foster stared at him, demanded: “What’s that?”

“The planet is doomed to destruction,” said Barron Kane, still grimly calm. “And the human race with it—unless you can save a handful of humanity. You are the one man who has even the ghost of a chance, Foster, with your steel mills and your invention of the motor-tube.”

* * *

Amazed, a little shaken, despite himself, at the chill touch of alien fear, Foster watched his uncle.

Had the man gone mad in the twelve years since he vanished? He always had been famous for an eccentricity of character no less than his ability as geologist and astrophysicist. No, Foster decided, his manner was sane enough. And the car from which the orange ray had flamed had been no mad delusion. It had been very real.

Foster took Barron Kane by the shoulder, marched him to a great leather chair and seated him in it. Standing over him, he demanded:

“Now tell me exactly what this is all about?”

Grave humor momentarily banished the haunting shadow of dread from those calm gray eyes.

“No, Foster,” the quiet voice said; “I’m afraid that I’m perfectly sane.”

Barron Kane laced his thin brown fingers together, stared at them meditatively.

“You cannot have heard of the Cult of the Great Egg,” he began. “You can’t, because even the name of it is almost completely unknown outside. But it is a fanatical religious sect, whose temple is hidden in an unknown oasis in the Gobi.

“Nearly ten years ago, Foster, I became a member of that sect. It was not easily done. And afterward I had to endure ordeals that were—well, trying. After seven years I was fully initiated. From the lips of the head of the order—a human demon named L’ao Ku—I heard the dreadful secret that I had gone to Asia to learn.

“That was three years ago. L’ao Ku must have suspected me. I was very closely watched. Two years I had to wait, even for the chance to escape. Since, I’ve been hunted across the world by the agents of L’ao Ku. It’s almost another year.

“I thought I’d given them the slip in Panama. I saw your article about the motor-tube and came to you, Foster. You, as I say, are the only man—But they’ve somehow picked up the trail again. I’m afraid I’ve sentenced you to death.”

“Sentenced me?” asked Foster. “How?”

“L’ao Ku wants his secret kept. Three men have died very soon after talking with me, mysteriously.”

Foster was still planted in front of Barron Kane, wonder and incredulity struggling in his mind. His chin tightened with determination to find some rational order in these bewildering incidents.

“This secret?” he demanded. “What is it? What’s this about the end of the world?”

Again Barron Kane thoughtfully studied the tips of his laced fingers. “I’ll begin, I think,” he said, “by asking you a question—by asking you, Foster, the greatest riddle in the world. What is the Earth?”

Startled, Foster searched the weary, patient face. He studied the gray eyes, calm, yet shadowed with brooding horror. He shook his head. Barron Kane was an enigma.

“All right, what is the Earth?”

“I’ve a very astounding thing to tell you,” went on Barron Kane, “a very terrible thing. It will be hard for you to accept, for it is contrary to a lot of our unthinking dogma that is older than science.

“The idea is so strange, so terrible, Foster, that no western mind could have conceived it. We owe a debt, after all, to the Cult of the Great Egg. The oriental mentality, working with the secret science of the order, saw a thing that we should never have been able to see, in spite of all the evidence in front of our eyes.

“But I can make it easier for you to accept the thing, Foster, by recalling a few notorious gaps in scientific knowledge. And you must accept it, Foster. The very life of humanity depends upon you.”

Foster dropped into a chair directly before Barron Kane. Sitting bolt upright, he waited silently.

“We live in appalling ignorance of the planet beneath us,” the same calm voice spoke on, edged still with a terrible intensity. “Out of four thousand miles to the center of the Earth, how far have we penetrated? Not four miles!

“What lies beyond? What, really, is the thing whose tremors we call earthquakes? What lies beneath the thin shell of solid rock we live upon? What is it whose heat causes our volcanoes? I could cite you a thousand vague, conflicting theories, guesses, about the nature of the Earth’s interior—but hardly one proved fact. We know actually as little of the Earth, Foster, as a fly, crawling on an egg, knows of the mystery of embryonic life within.

“And how much less we know of the other planets! What scientist can tell you even how they came to be? Oh, there’ve been fine theories enough, since Laplace. We have the planetesimal hypothesis, the nebular hypothesis, the gaseous hypothesis, the meteoritic hypothesis—this hypothesis and that. The most remarkable thing about each one is that it successfully contradicts all the others.

“Think of the puzzle of the lost planet! According to Bode’s Law, you know, there should be another planet in the gap between Mars and Jupiter, where the asteroids are. The asteroids and the comets and the meteor swarms apparently are fragments of it—but, altogether, they account for no more than a tenth of the bulk it should have had. What unthinkable cataclysm shattered the lost planet, Foster? And, tell me, what became of the nine-tenths of it that is gone?

“Take another cosmic enigma! What is the Sun itself, upon which our very lives depend? What is the life story of a sun, any sun? How does it acquire its matter and its motion and its heat? What is the purpose in existence of a sun? What you look at the stars on a winter night, Foster, can you conceive them without any end in being?

“Consider the riddle of entropy! There is a force of death that pervades the universe. Stars grow cold and die; star dust is scattered; radiation is diffused and lost. Our cosmogonists say the universe is running down. But must there not also be a force of life, of growth, of creation?

“How can death be, Foster, without life before it?

“Did you never wonder, Foster, why the Sun, like other variable stars, expands and contracts in the rhythm of the sun-spot cycle, with a beat like the pulse of a living thing?”

Barron Kane leaned forward. His gray eyes—the shadow of haunting horror was deeper in them, now—fixed upon Foster’s face with a desperate, appealing earnestness.

“Foster,” he went on, “I know what the Earth is!

“Years ago, struggling with the failures and the contradictions of our western science, I vaguely guessed the thing. Twelve years ago, from a chance faint rumor, I inferred that oriental insight had seen the truth hidden from our dogmatic western minds.

“I went, as I say, into the Gobi. I found the secret sect. After seven years of effort and endurance, I reached the inner mystery. L’ao Ku confirmed my terrible inference.

“I learned from him things I had not dared even to guess. I learned that the Earth—the entire solar system—is destined to break up within a very short time. We shall see the end, Foster—unless the secret agents of L’ao Ku make away with us first.

“We must not forget him, Foster, in the greater danger. The man is inhuman, fanatic, diabolical; but he is a genius. And all his power, all the secret science that produced the poison ray, is bent upon our destruction.”

The calm voice paused. Quiet hung in the wide library, strained, electric. And Foster whispered, incredulous:

“The end of the world!”

“The end,” repeated Barron Kane, with the same compelling calm. “I had hoped we might have—years. But I know to-night, from an item in the evening paper, that the change has already begun.”

Foster Ross surged back to his feet, towered over the little brown man. “Tell me,” he implored, “just what are you getting at?”

Barron Kane told him, leaning forward, his low voice sunk almost to a whisper. Foster listened silently, still standing. Unbelieving wonder was first in his blue eyes. It gave way slowly to the dawn of a terrible fear.

II.

An hour later, it was, when the grave little scientist finished and leaned back in the huge leather chair lacing his thin brown fingers together again.

Without speaking, Foster strode to a tall window. He put up the blind and stared out into the early-winter night. The bare trees were a ghostly rank of skeletons on fields of snow that shimmered faintly under the dark sky. Flakes of snow gleamed white in the flood of light from the window. The bitter wind moaned bleakly against the ancient stone walls.

“Please draw the blind,” requested Barron Kane, with that same calm that nothing disturbed. “The agents of L’ao Ku might be watching. The poison ray—”

Foster snatched down the blind. He strode back to his uncle, tense, trembling a little. “Sorry!” he muttered. “I forgot.”

“The idea is a peculiarly difficult one for the western mind to receive,” said Barron Kane sympathetically. “It would drive most westerners mad, I suspect, to be forced to believe it. But, if you will try to grasp it with something of the oriental fatalism—”

Foster seemed unconscious of him. He strode up and down the vast, dark-paneled room. He paused, once, to touch the little aluminum model of the space ship on the table. He took a photograph of dark-eyed June Trevor from the mantel, and studied her demure, classic loveliness for a moment and replaced it very carefully. He strode back to his uncle.

“The Earth—that!” he rasped. “I can’t believe it! It’s too-monstrous!”

Barron Kane rose and came to him eagerly. “You must believe me, Foster,” his low voice pleaded. “Because only you have the means to save the seed of humanity. And you must begin the work at once—to-night!”

“To-night?” echoed Foster, in dull surprise.

“You must realize, Foster, that we’ve only months. Half a year, at most. And the undertaking is—terrific. We must set up a laboratory to rush the development of your motor-tube. Your steel mills must begin fabricating parts for the—the ark of space.

“We’ve a thousand problems to solve in every branch of engineering. And the thing must be finished in less time than was ever taken for a similar construction. Much less time!”

“There has been no similar construction,” Foster said. “Even a battle ship is a simple toy compared to the space machine. It would take a lifetime to launch the thing.

“Besides,” he protested vaguely, still lost in wonderment, “I’m going to Palm Beach. I promised June that I—”

“Then you must break your promise,” cut in Barron Kane imperatively. “Both of us must give every second to the job. Even then, the time is fearfully short. And we must look out for L’ao Ku with his poison ray.”

“Really, you see, I can’t—can’t quite believe.” Foster’s blue eyes looked soberly at Barron Kane. “The thing’s too damnably fantastic!”

“You must try to grasp it with the oriental viewpoint,” urged his uncle. “The eastern fatalism—”

“I’m no Chinaman,” said Foster. “But I do love June Trevor—more than anything. Even if you’re right—if the next six months will be the last—I’d rather spend them with her.”

“Don’t you see?” whispered Barron Kane. He gripped Foster’s arm with thin fingers. “If you love June Trevor, you must build the space machine to save her. Would you want to see her die, Foster, with the rest of the human race, like—like vermin in a burning house? Wiped out—annihilated?”

“No!” exclaimed Foster. “No! But I can’t believe—”

“You must!” insisted Barron Kane. “There’s proof, I tell you. To-night, in the evening paper, is an item that heralds the disruption of the solar system.”

“Proof?” cried Foster incredulously. “Proof of—that?”

“Have you an evening paper?”

“It’s here somewhere. I had no time to look at it. The experiment, you know.”

He found the paper, unfolded it curiously. His eye sought the chief headline, saw that it concerned merely a new disclosure of political corruption.

Barron Kane’s thin, eager hands took the paper from him, pointed out an obscurely headed item at the bottom of the page.

SAVANTS PUZZLED

Doctor Lynn Poynter, of the Mount Wilson Observatory, reported this morning that the planet Pluto has left its orbit and is wandering away from the Sun on an erratic and inexplicable path. The planet’s color, Doctor Poynter also stated, has changed from yellowish to vivid green.

He is unable, Doctor Poynter says, to give any explanation of the phenomenon. He refuses to make any further comments upon it, except to say that other astronomers, in all parts of the world, are being requested to check his observations.

Foster’s face set grimly as he read the brief paragraphs. His fingers, trembling, closed unconsciously upon the newspaper, tore it slowly in two. Into his blue eyes, when he looked back at Barron Kane, had come a new, consuming horror. Huskily, he spoke:

“So Pluto is already—gone? Already, the solar system is breaking up!”

He gazed down at the torn paper in his hands.

“We’ll go down to the mill in the morning, Barron,” he said, “to begin.”

Silently, the little brown man gripped his hand, mutely thankful.

“Now,” said Foster, “I must telephone June.”

* * *

“It’s you, Foster!” came the girl’s clear voice over the wire, eager with anticipation. “You’re coming down to-morrow? I’ll drive to meet you—”

Foster was picturing her staid, brown-eyed charm; he saw her as she would sit at the wheel, tall, slender: a gay, childish eagerness beneath her sedate reserve. And he was faint, suddenly, with a sick regret that he could not go to her.

“No,” he was saying, trying to keep the pain from his voice; “I’m afraid I can’t come down.”

He sensed the quick anxiety in her reply:

“Is something—wrong?”

“A thing has come up,” he stumbled, searching for words not too alarming. “A job that I must do. It’s tremendously important. I must stay—”

“Oh!” In her voice was a little catch of agony. “Will it keep you—past the New Year?”

“Yes,” he said. “We’ll have to name a new wedding day.”

“Oh!” It was a gasp of pain: Foster was sick with pity for her. “Can’t you tell me what it is?”

“No; not over the phone. But I want you to come to me, June, as soon as you can. I’ll explain.”

“I’ve a lot of engagements,” she protested. “And you seem so—strange!”

“It’s really important,” he urged. “Please come! I need you, really. Oh, June—please—”

A moment of silence; then she spoke decisively:

“All right, Foster, I’ll be there—let’s see—Monday.”

“Thanks, dear!” he said gratefully. “When you understand—”

“Atta boy!” she cried, almost gaily. “Get some sunshine in your voice! You were talking as if the world were going to end! I’ll be there Monday.”

Dear June, the same good sport, he was thinking, as she hung up. Gay and unselfish as ever. She always understood. And he would, he must, finish the space machine in time to carry her away from this unbelievable terror that Barron Kane promised.

* * *

That night Barron Kane and Foster Ross did not go to bed. They stayed in the long library, beside the little aluminum model of the space machine, planning how to transform the dream of it into reality. Foster ventured to the kitchen at midnight and brought bread and cold ham and a bottle of milk and set them beside the toy ship.

At dawn he began packing into a brief case the model and the sheets they had covered with plans, to carry down to the mill.

“There’s a danger, remember,” warned Barron Kane. “The men who followed me won’t be far away. They won’t go back without proof that I am dead.”

“I’ll call the mill,” said Foster, “have a few men sent out.”

But the line, he discovered, was dead.

“The wires are down,” he said. “The storm—”

“L’ao Ku’s men have cut them,” whispered Barron Kane. “They are waiting for us.”

“We’d better make a dash for it, then,” Foster suggested, “while we can.”

Barron Kane nodded. “We’ll have to fence ourselves in if we do get to the mill,” he said. “For we’ll be fighting L’ao Ku, to the end, as well as fighting against time. It is the basis of the secret sect that all life must perish when the Earth breaks up. Any attempt to save even a single human life breaks the first tenet of their fantastic dogma.”

Leaving the lights burning in the library, the two slipped out through the rear of the old mansion. The grounds were ghostly white with snow. Dense clouds hid the sky, ice-gray with the first glow of dawn. Mysterious shadows were clotted against trees and buildings.

Foster carried his priceless model. Barron Kane had drawn his heavy automatic, snapped off the safety. At a half run, they crunched through thick snow to the garage. Foster unlocked the doors, flung them back.

A thin orange ray, bright as a blade of incandescent metal, flamed silently out of the gloomy doorway. It struck Barron Kane’s arm. His automatic spoke once in reply. Then, gasping with agony, he crumpled down on the snow.

Foster caught his breath. His lean body catapulted instantly into the black corner from which the silent ray had come.

His groping hand closed over a talonlike hand that held a light metal tube. His shoulder struck a lithe, powerful body, flung it heavily against the wall. Another lean hand closed on his throat. He caught a sinewy wrist, forced it back.

The two recoiled from the wall, thudded on the concrete floor. Foster had heard a guttural grunt of surprise. That was the only sound from his unseen opponent. The battle was finished in silence and darkness.

A doubled knee drove into Foster’s groin. As he writhed in agony, hard fingers twitched under his. A blinding finger of yellow light stabbed from the little tube. It wavered across the wall of the garage. Slowly it came down.

The poison ray! If it touched him, to make a deadly venom of his own blood—

Intolerable agony burst suddenly from the tortured wrist of his resisting arm. He trembled with the pain of effort. Hot sweat burst out on his face.

The orange ray touched the floor, trembled toward his shoulder. The talons that moved it were hard as steel.

Foster was giddy with the unbearable pain from his twisted arm. The world spun; a wave of blackness rose. Then, in the moment of defeat, a queer something happened to him, a blinding revelation. In a moment of crystal vision, he saw himself not as one man fighting for his own life, but the champion of humanity, battling for ultimate survival.

* * *

A new strength came oddly with the vision; deathless purpose flowed into him like a strange tide.

He straightened his tortured arm. Red agony flamed in it. But the orange needle flickered away. The hard body against him knotted with exertion; the ray flashed back. Faint and dizzy, Foster drew on his new strength to the utmost.

He heard the dull snap of a breaking bone. The steel talons in his grasp turned to limp flesh. The orange blade described a sudden arc, that touched the head of the other man. Then the little tube crashed against the wall, the ray went out.

The other was already dead from his own weapon when Foster staggered to his feet.

Barron Kane lay still on the snow outside, a small gray huddle in the pale dawn light. Foster ran to him, heard his faint whisper:

“The poison ray—my wrist—a tourniquet at the elbow—bleed it.”

Foster pushed up the sleeve on the thin brown arm. He whipped his handkerchief around the right elbow, twisted it tight with a spanner he snatched from the wall. On the lean, stringy wrist he saw a swelling, lividly purple, swiftly increasing in size. He dug a keen penknife out of his vest pocket, slashed deep into it, put his own lips to the wound to draw out the poison.

“That will do,” whispered Barron Kane at last, his voice a little stronger. “Guess I’m done for, anyhow. Just hope I live to see you win, Foster. No matter. I’ve done my part. It’s up to you, now, to save the seed of mankind.”

“I—I’ll do my best,” Foster promised him, choking. He was still strong with the strange self-forgetful resolution that had come to him in the fight.

“Drive on,” whispered Barron Kane, “to the mill!”

Foster lifted him into the roadster. When he switched on the lights he paused a moment to look down at the dead man on the floor. His face was yellow, Mongoloid, with a hawklike thinness. It was set, now, in the fearful, derisive grin of death.

“Open his clothing, Foster,” commanded Barron Kane. “Look on his body, under the left arm.”

Foster obeyed. Under the man’s arm, on the yellow skin stretched like parchment over the ribs, was a scarlet mark, like a large O.

“He’s branded!” he cried. “With a red circle!”

“That is the emblem of the secret cult,” whispered Barron Kane. “He came from L’ao Ku.”

Foster leaped in beside Barron Kane. The stiff motor came to bellowing life. The roadster lunged forward, swerved past the dead man, skidded out upon the icy drive.

The leaden, frigid day had come when they drove into the grimy mill town. Gaunt, ugly, the little buildings of the workers huddled over hillsides gray with snow and soot. The mill stood in the level valley; gigantic blast furnaces marched, like a grim army of black steel monsters, against the gloomy clouds.

Foster drove straight through the gates to the emergency hospital. He carried Barron Kane to a cot inside.

“The doctors will soon be here,” he promised.

“Don’t worry about me,” the little man whispered. “You have work to do. I’m going to try to live to see you finish it.”

III.

Three months later, a new fence surrounded the steel mill. It was twenty feet high, and the first ten were bullet-proof concrete and steel. The top of it was wired to powerful generators. At hundred-foot intervals it was studded with rotating turrets of steel and bullet-proof glass, in which sentries watched always, behind frowning machine guns.

Inside the fence, on a huge pier of reenforced concrete, the space machine was building.

Its hull was already completed—a feat unprecedented in engineering. A colossal sphere, nearly five hundred feet in diameter, it dwarfed to insignificance the flanking armies of blast furnaces. The top of its gray bulk was visible for many miles across the low Pennsylvania hills, that now, in March, were green with the last spring of Earth.

Much, however, remained to be done in perfecting the interior arrangements, by which human life was to be sustained indefinitely in the sunless void. Greatest lack of all, the motor-tube, which was to utilize Foster Ross’ omicron-effect to propel the machine, was still unperfected.

“The rest will be finished in a month,” Foster promised Barron Kane, one windy spring day. “But a lot of good that will be if the motor-tube won’t work. A million tons of steel and glass! We have no way to move it an inch, unless—”

They were in a room in the emergency hospital, from the windows of which the sick man could watch the tremendous gray-painted sphere of steel, looming against pale-green hills and wind-torn sky.

Barron Kane was still on his back. The venom formed by the orange ray had affected spinal nerve centers; he was unable to walk, even his hands were partially paralyzed. But his brain remained keen as ever; despite his helplessness and pain, he had helped the solution of many a problem in the building of the space machine.

“Unless?” he whispered. “You’re trying something else?”

“We began this morning to work out a new design. We started from a new beginning, suggested by the equations of the omicron-effect. We don’t know that it will be any better. Even if it works, the installation will take six weeks.”

“Six weeks?” breathed Barron Kane in weary alarm. “We may not have that long before Earth breaks up!”

His gray eyes stared at Foster from the pillow, calm, yet dark with dread.

“The moon of Neptune, you know,” he whispered, “left its orbit last week. It turned greenish and followed Pluto off into space. And there’s another thing—”

His shrunken, half-useless hands fumbled for the newspaper on the blanket beside him.

“What is it?” asked Foster.

“In the morning paper. Still no one sees what’s coming. They have the story hidden on an inside page—nobody saw what it meant. But it’s about the most important thing they ever printed. Here it is!”

Foster read the item:

QUAKES SHOW RHYTHM

A new series of tremors is shaking the earth, announced Doctor Madison Kline, noted English seismologist, speaking to-day before an international convention of geologists.

These recently observed earth tremors occur at regular intervals of about thirty-one minutes, said Doctor Kline. He believes they reflect some rhythmic disturbance deep within the planet.

Doctor Kline and his associates, he stated, have had the phenomenon under observation for several weeks, during which time it has steadily and markedly increased.

No conclusively definite explanation can yet be offered, Doctor Kline said, though he believes that the period of the vibration corresponds to the natural fundamental frequency of the planet.

Foster’s hands closed until the knuckles went white. “That means,” he muttered huskily, “that we’re near—the finish.”

“You see,” whispered Barron Kane, “you must rush the installation of the new motor-tube.”

“We will!” Foster promised. “Though the thing may not work, when it’s done. We’re trying, you see, to compress a generation of scientific progress into four months.”

“There are other things,” Barron Kane reminded him. “We must be ready to cut all connection with civilization.”

“Our supplies are mostly on board, already,” Foster informed him. “And our people are moving into the machine as fast as the quarters are ready. Six hundred picked men, representing every race and every craft and every creed, with their wives and children. Two thousand, all told—and the very cream of humanity.”

“The laboratories?” queried Barron Kane.

“Oh, they’ll be finished in time,” Foster assured him. “In a month, Barron, we’ll have our own artificial air and our own synthetic food, made on board from the refined elements of the waste.

“Once out in space,” he went on, a ring of enthusiasm in his voice, “we’ll be independent. Our generators will tap the limitless energy of the cosmic ray. They will supply warmth and light and power, the means for the manufacture of oxygen and food, and current for the motor-tube.

“The machine can sail on forever, Barron. It’s a little world, itself, independent of the Sun—”

Foster stopped himself, bit his lips. “Here I am,” he muttered sheepishly, “ranting about the thing! When I couldn’t move it an inch, to save my soul! So long, Barron. I must get back to the shops.”

“Wait!” whispered the sick man. “There’s another thing. Where is your fiancee?”

“Why,” Foster told him, “June has gone back to Florida for a short visit with some friends. I want her to forget, as much as she can, what’s coming. It’s so terrible, for a girl like her—”

“Have her come back,” advised Barron Kane. “Have her move on board with us.”

“There’s danger?” demanded Foster. “Already?”

“The first quiver of the Earth’s crust will be enough to shatter the thing we call civilization,” whispered the little man. “She must be here before that happens. And there’s another danger.”

“What’s that?”

“L’ao Ku hasn’t shown his power, Foster. But don’t forget that he has a power. He’s just waiting, getting ready. Don’t be deceived; don’t let down your guard.”

“Oh!” breathed Foster, relieved. “I thought you meant some danger to June.”

“I do,” whispered Barron Kane.

Foster leaned over him, tense with alarm.

“In that temple in the Gobi is an altar erected to the Great Egg. Above it is an image, cut from black stone. The image is a globe, with the outlines of the continents engraved on it, so you can see that it represents the Earth. It is split, and a thing is emerging. A thing obscenely monstrous!

“Regular ceremonies are held in the temple, Foster. On that altar, under the image of that unthinkable obscenity breaking from the earth, L’ao Ku offers sacrifices. The victims are always women. When possible, they are heretics or members of their families.

“It is possible, Foster, that June Trevor might—suffer, just because you plan to save her.”

Foster’s face was gray, drawn. Hoarsely, he rasped: “I’ll send for her to come on board. Right away!”

* * *

The scientific world was stunned from the first. The aberration of Pluto shattered the whole painfully built structure of western science. The pulselike tremors of the earth, which soon became violent enough to be felt as one walked in the street, received no adequate explanation.

Scientists, for a time, took refuge in pitiful charges of inaccurate observation. But they could not long deny that the solar system was breaking up. The planet Neptune shifted unaccountably from its calculated position. One by one, the greater moons of Saturn and Uranus assumed a greenish color and departed from their orbits. The change, spreading inward through the solar system, overtook the four large moons of Jupiter.

The very universe of science collapsed.

The common man, however, at first was only slightly concerned. Business went on as usual; the public attention centered in turn upon unemployment, the stabilized dollar, the sensational murder of a Hollywood actress. There was no real panic, even when the “Earth-beat,” as the newspapers termed the oddly rhythmic tremors of the planet, became a chief topic of conversation.

Real panic began only with loss of life. Late in March a series of terrific earthquakes and accompanying tidal waves overwhelmed, one by one, Tokyo, Bombay, Rio de Janeiro, and Los Angeles. The cataclysms were progressively more violent. Hardly a paper, so long as papers were printed, lacked its story of a new holocaust.

Even then, the old order did not immediately fall. “Business as usual” was a catchword, though prices rocketed, governments and corporations crashed, and crime ran wild.

New leaders, radical movements, fantastic fads, won tremendous support. New religions, in particular, were widely and feverishly embraced. Ten thousand new prophets rose and were acclaimed; but the greatest following was won by the disciples of that strange oriental sect, the Cult of the Great Egg.

They, alone, professed to understand the change. They, alone, could offer bewildered humanity a rational, if fantastic, key to the astounding riddle of the crumbling solar system. Even though he promised only grim death—death as a sacred duty—L’ao Ku became the master of fanatic millions.

The mad tide of his increasing power, Barron Kane and Foster Ross recognized from the beginning, was sure to be turned against them. They had made a fortress of the steel mill. They hastened the construction of the space machine to the utmost. They could do no more.

IV.

The crisis came on the night of April 23rd. The Moon was full. The skies, often of late strangely clouded, were clear over most of North America. Horror-stricken millions, that night, watched the change overtake the Moon. Few, having seen it, were ever completely sane again.

It was the madness born of that incredible vision of mind-breaking horror, guided by the fanatic genius of L’ao Ku, that led to the mass attacks on the space machine.

The Planet—so June Trevor had named the space machine, since it was to be the sole future home of humanity—lay still upon the concrete pier, inside the fence. And still it could not be moved; the motor-tube was yet incomplete.

Atop the gray, colossal sphere of steel was a little domed space roofed with crystal panels. It was reached by a short stair from a door below. Gleaming mechanisms crowded it, the intricate instruments designed for the control and navigation of the space machine.

On that fatal night, Foster Ross and June Trevor came into the little control room, Foster carrying Barron Kane in his arms. They made the wrecked body of the little scientist as comfortable as possible in an invalid chair amid the shining instruments.

“Last night,” Foster said, “observers saw cracks spreading across the Moon. Its crust is splitting. Beneath is something—It is greenish, incandescent. To-night, we shall see the end of the Moon!

“Watching the Moon, we can see the thing that, in a day or so, is going to happen to the Earth!”

June Trevor moved, quickly, anxiously, to his side. June was a tall girl, dark-eyed, with a grave, classic beauty. She smiled at Foster—it was a wan, anxious little smile. Apprehensive, she slipped her hand into his.

“Foster,” she whispered, “will it be very—terrible?”

“The terror of it,” he told her, “will not be in what we see. It will be in what it means. In the fate of the Moon, we see the fate of the Earth, of human civilization. But try, dear, not to be afraid.”

“I’m not—not exactly afraid,” she whispered, shivering a little. “But it’s dreadful to think of so many—perishing—”

Foster’s hand tightened on her own. “June,” he said huskily, “you must try not to think of that. We’ve each other, remember. Without you, I—I’d go mad!”

“And there’s a bigger thing,” she breathed. “We’ve a duty. To save the race!”

Foster turned out the lights, then, in the tiny room. They looked upward through the panels of heavy fused quartz. Flooded with moonlight, the sky was silver-gray; in the south were white, luminous feathers of cloud. The Moon was high in the east, a supernal disk of mottled gold.

They stared at it. June Trevor quivered; she pressed close against Foster’s lean body.

“There are cracks!” she murmured, breathless. “I see them! Like a net of wire.”

“They’re spreading,” muttered Foster. “And—I see a green something, breaking through.”

From his pillow came the queer, voiceless whisper of the paralyzed scientist: “The being is emerging.”

Breathless, speechless with fearful awe, the three watched the Moon—as maddened millions were watching it over all the continent.

They saw the familiar seas and ring craters of the lunar topography dissolve in a network of cracks, black and shining green. They saw the face of the Moon, for the first time in human memory, misty with clouds of its own.

They saw a thing come out of the riven planet—an unthinkable head appeared—

It broke through, in the region of the great crater Tycho. It was monstrously weird. Colossal, triangular, a beak came first, green and shining. Behind it were two ovoid, enormous patches, like eyes, glowing with lambent purple. Between and above them was an enigmatic organ, arched, crested; it was an unearthly spray of crimson flame.

Incredible wings—reaching out—stretching—

They pushed through the shattered, crumbling shell, which already had lost all likeness to the Moon of old. Wings, alone, could human beings term them. Yet, Foster thought, they were more than anything else like the eldritch, gorgeous streamers of the Sun’s corona, which is seen only at the moment of total eclipse, spreading from the black disk like two wings of supernal light. They were sheets of green flame. They shimmered with slow waves of light, that faded indistinctly at the edges, like the uncanny fans of the aurora. They were finely veined with bright silver.

A body, both horrible and beautiful—

It came into view, when the slowly expanding, supernal wings pushed back the cosmic debris that had been the Moon’s crust. It uncoiled into a sinuous loveliness, long and slender, delicately tapering. It was green as emerald, bright as flame, and strangely marked with silver and black.

The color of all the sky changed appallingly from silver-gray to green, with the fearful radiation of the thing. The shadows it cast, inky-black, green-fringed, were uncanny—dreadful.

It hung for a time in the sky where the Moon had been, nearly motionless. Monstrous appendages like serpents of blue flame reached out of its head, beneath the purple ovoids. They writhed over its slender, terrible body and its diaphanous wings.

It preened itself.

Amazingly, then, it wheeled across the sky. Its fantastic shadows crept like living things. With luminous waves, like some strange force, pulsing outward through the wondrous sheets of flame that were like wings, it flew away. The dread green illumination faded from the sky, and the terrible shadows died, and the thing became a minute fleck of emerald light, dwindling beside white Vega.

“The Moon is gone!” breathed Foster, dazed with wonder.

“As the Earth will go,” came the voiceless whisper of Barron Kane, “in a few days, now.”

“Beautiful!” gasped June Trevor, in a queer, shaken little voice. “It was lovely—and horrible—”

She shuddered, and Foster was surprised to find her firm, warm, straight body in his arms. Unconsciously she nestled against him, instinctively seeking comfort; and his arm tightened, before he released her.

“Our world must go—that way, dear—” he breathed; and her shivery, tiny whisper finished: “But we have—each other—”

* * *

Barron Kane was still looking out through the crystal dome. Since the going of the Moon, the sky was a dome of splendid stars. The low, rolling Pennsylvania hills loomed dark under it, picked out with tiny, winking lights of house and motor. The lights of the mill town, under the towering bulk of the Planet, were little bright rectangles in the blackness.

“There are too many lights on the roads,” said Barron Kane, and his whisper was edged with alarm. “Cars and torches and swinging lanterns. They are all coming toward the Planet!”

Foster and June looked down from the lofty windows. Over the dark hills they saw the rivers of dancing, flickering light, flowing toward them.

Foster rasped a single bitter word: “Mobs!”

“Mobs?” echoed June wonderingly. “Why?”

“People aren’t human beings any longer,” Foster told her grimly. “They are animals—frightened animals. They are mad with fear, since they’ve seen the break-up of the Moon. They’re driven to fight, like any fear-crazed thing. We can’t blame them—but we must defend the Planet.”

Tenderly, he put the girl from him.

“I must go down to warn the guard,” he said, “and to help the men in the power rooms. They’re installing the motor-tube.”

“When,” rustled the anxious whisper of Barron Kane, “when will you be able to move the Planet?”

“The castings came this morning from the foundry,” Foster informed him. “It will take a day to put them in. Then—if the mob hasn’t wiped us out!—we can see whether the Planet will move. Whether the human race is to live—or to die with the Earth.”

“A day?” breathed Barron Kane despairingly. “Our fence won’t hold them back so long.”

“It will take that long,” Foster told him, tight-lipped. “Twenty hours, at the very least. We’ll save every second, of course. And the entrance valve is ready to close. We’ll make an inner fort of the Planet, itself. But I must go!” He squeezed June’s hand and ran out of the little room.

The girl and Barron Kane waited there, amid the gleaming instruments that were to navigate the space machine—if it ever moved. The sick man was whispering orders into a telephone mouthpiece, to help organize the defense.

Impatiently, June waited; at last she demanded fearfully:

“Is there much—danger? The people are mad with fear; I understand that. But why should they attack us?”

“The priests of a fanatic religion have stirred them up against us,” grimly whispered Barron Kane. “In Asia, the priests of a secret sect foresaw the doom. They based their faith on it, and on the duty of man to die. In their eyes, we are heretics. They seek to destroy us.

“To destroy us,” the dread-chilled whisper went on, “and perhaps to sacrifice some of us, for atonement, at the ceremonial altar of the Great Egg, in the temple in the Gobi.”

June shuddered, as if with a premonition of horror.

“I’m going after Foster,” she cried, fighting to keep a thin edge of hysteria out of her voice. “I want to be with him.”

“You had better wait here,” Barron Kane advised her. “Or rest in your room, just below. Foster is very busy.” And he added grimly: “You will be safer here—you are in the greatest danger.”

“I’m not afraid!” she burst out, wild voiced. Then calmness came back; she went on quietly: “Not for myself, I mean. It’s the terror of it, the thought that so many must die. And the awful, awful thing we saw, that came out of the Moon! I want to be with Foster. But I’ll stay, if you think best.”

And she sank on a seat, face buried in her hands, and fought to control her sobs.

* * *

All the terrible night, June remained in the little room. The mob still increased; ten thousand small fires flickered upon the hillsides; swinging lights crept here and there. The voice of the mob was a ceaseless, menacing murmur; again and again she heard a rattle of shots.

Barron Kane slept, in his invalid chair, at dawn. June covered him and watched a while. Then the loneliness, the strain, became so terrible that she went down to her own room and tried to sleep. But she could not, and before noon she came back into the bridge. The sick man was awake again.

He gazed at her.

“How is—everything?” her anxious question greeted him.

“They attacked three times in the night,” the little man whispered. “The wall held them back; many were killed, by the charge on the wall, and by the guns. But a thousand more poor wretches have come, for every one that died.”

His quiet gray eyes looked out through the thick quartz panels, down upon hillsides that were brown and swarming with the horde.

“There must be a million,” his voiceless whisper went on. “They came every way you could imagine. On foot, on bicycles and trucks and freight cars, in cars and airplanes.

“You can’t help pitying them, so frightened, so soon to die. A great many of them seem to be ragged and cold; they can’t have brought food enough. Most of them didn’t bring any weapons.

“But the disciples of L’ao Ku have taken them over. You can see rings of them gathered around the priests, who are fanning their hate against us. You can see them marching, drilling. And some of them are unloading explosive and weapons that came this morning on the railroad. L’ao Ku is making an army of the mob.”

Wearily nervous, June was peering with sleepless eyes through the heavy panels.

“I see a plane!” she cried suddenly. “Flying low over the hills. It’s going to land!” She watched it, adding: “It’s a huge ship, black, and it has scarlet circles on the wings and the fuselage.”

Grimly Barron Kane whispered: “That is L’ao Ku’s own ship. He has come to direct the attack in person. And, perhaps, to take one of us back—”

Silently, biting her lips until they bled, clenching her small hands, June Trevor watched—until the mob rolled toward the Planet, a resistless wave of fanatic, terror-mad hate.

Flashing like golden blades, the narrow blinding jets of the poison ray silenced the machine guns in the armored turrets. Bombs of high explosive, hurled from cunningly improvised catapults, demolished the electrified wall. A million men, commanded by a pitiless fanaticism and armed by a secret science, stormed the greet steel valve of the Planet.

Racked with an agony of suspense, June waited in the bridge room, until her straining ears caught the dull crash of a heavy explosion, and then the sharp rattle of gunfire—inside the Planet!

“They’ve taken the valve!” she whispered, then, forcing the words through a black haze of despair: “They’re coming on board. I must go to find Foster.”

Barron Kane began some protest; she stopped him with a fierce gesture.

“I’m not—not afraid,” she gasped. “But the—the finish has come. I want to be with Foster.”

She ran out of the room and hastened down toward the sound of desperate battle.

* * *

In the exact center of the great steel globe of the Planet was a sixty-foot spherical chamber. In that chamber, mounted in hugely massive gimbals, was an immense tube of fused quartz and steel, fifty feet long.

Foster Ross, with a score of other grimy, haggard, red-eyed men, was laboring to complete the assembly of that tube. A manhole was open in the top of the tube. With hoisting tackle, they were lifting a four-ton casting of a new alloy, to lower it through the manhole.

The confused, terrible roar of fighting burst suddenly into the chamber. “They’ve stormed the valve!” came a terror-laden shout; and consternation shook the men.

“Wait, men!” implored Foster desperately. “We can’t quit the job. A few more minutes, and we’ll have it done. We can take off into space. Come on—”

But some one, in his fright, had left his post. The tackle slipped. The great casting swung; it toppled out of the creaking sling and crashed to the floor. A man’s legs were pinned under it. He made a low cry, thin, dreadful, and then began to whimper like a child.

Some of the men started a rush to leave the chamber.

Faint, himself, with the shock of unexpected disaster, Foster struggled grimly to keep his self-command.

“Here, boys!” he shouted, forcing a show of unfelt confidence. “Let’s try again! Yet, we may have time to get—”

The panic-stricken men hesitated. Foster seized a bar, and struggled to lift the casting off the legs of the trapped man. The others came back to help. The man was freed, and the tackle quickly adjusted to the casting again.

The four-ton mass of metal was lifted, and lowered, this time safely through the manhole. It was being bolted into place, when the mob, howling with maniacal fanaticism and led by yellow-visaged demons with the weapons of a secret science, stormed the room.

Foster’s recollection, after that, was a red haze of horror.

He led the resistance of the doomed defenders. He made a fortress of every angle of the corridors, of every door and bulkhead, of every stair and elevator shaft. To the last, he guarded the way to the bridge, because he thought June Trevor was still there with Barron Kane.

His six hundred men fought with the courage that became the flower of the race. Their six hundred women stood beside them. Even the children gave the aid they could. And the Planet had been well-armed; each new position was a fresh arsenal. Yet the conclusion was inevitable.

Foster made the last stand on the little stair beneath the bridge. He staggered back to it, with four others—three men and a woman, all of them wounded. They had a machine gun. With that, until the last ammunition drum was empty, they kept the howling, triumphant mob at bay.

Then they contested the way with bayonets, with clubbed rifles, with pistols, even with bare hands. One of the men, dying, leaped forward and cleared the stair as he went down. The woman fell. Another man was dragged down by the mob, eviscerated, dismembered. Foster’s last comrade shrieked and collapsed before the stabbing orange blade of a poison ray.

Foster dragged himself, then, to the top of the stair, to make the last defense. He looked about the tiny room for June and saw that she was gone. Sickness of utter despair rolled in a black flood over him at the discovery. Strength left him; he felt, for the first time, his many wounds and fell senseless.

Only Barron Kane was left, lying helpless in his invalid chair. Clumsily, his half-useless hands raised his big automatic and shot down the first grim-faced Asiatic who leaped into the room over Foster’s still body.

That was the end of the defense.

L’ao Ku’s black plane with the scarlet circles rose, an hour later, and fled into the flaming sunset, toward the temple of the Great Egg, in the Gobi.

V.

Foster Ross came to himself, lying on the bloodstained floor of the wrecked bridge room. His body was a stiff mass of cuts and bruises; dull agony throbbed from a swollen wound in his temple; a lock of his hair was stiffly cemented to his forehead with dried blood.

He stood up, reeling with a sudden sickness, biting his salty, blood-crusted lip to keep back a cry of pain. The smashed room, littered with broken instruments, swam before his darkened sight. For a moment he had no memory.

“Foster!” Barron Kane’s faint, heartsick whisper brought him a shock of dim surprise. “L’ao Ku told me he was leaving you alive. I thought he lied, to torture me.”

“L’ao Ku!” It was a dry, harsh gasp, from Foster’s burning throat. “He was here?”

“He came,” whispered Barron Kane, “when we all were helpless. He left us alive, he told me, because our sin is too great to be punished by the hand of man. He wanted us to live, he said, to know that we had failed, and then to die from the opening of the Great Egg.”

“June?” rasped Foster’s dusty voice. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” the weary, hopeless whisper answered. “She went to look for you, when they stormed the valve. I don’t know—”

“Did L’ao Ku take her?” Agony leaped in Foster’s heart.

“It may be,” admitted Barron Kane. “L’ao Ku went back, in the black plane. He may have taken her. That, or else she will be—among the bodies—”

Foster reeled dizzily toward the stairway. “I’m going to look,” he rasped. “If I don’t find her, I’ll finish the motor-tube and fly the Planet to the Gobi and take her back from L’ao Ku!” A glare of terrible madness flickered in his blue eyes.

“You couldn’t do that,” whispered Barron Kane. “It’s just two days, L’ao Ku told me, until the Earth will break up. And we may not live even that long.”

“Eh?” said Foster, with a staring blankness on his blood-caked face.

“A tidal wave is coming from the Atlantic,” Barron Kane informed him. “It has overwhelmed the coastal cities. New York is gone and Boston and Washington. It will reach us to-night—a terrible rushing wall of sea water, a hundred feet high.”

Foster did not seem to be listening. He reeled, and stumbled against the standard of a broken telescope; he gripped it with both his bruised hands, as if making a terrible effort to keep upright; his dry lips murmured: “I’ll finish the motor-tube and look for June.”

“Lie down again, Foster,” advised Barron Kane. “You’ll faint.”

Foster paid him no heed, and the dull whisper ran on:

“Even if you finished the motor-tube, the Planet couldn’t fly. L’ao Ku told me that. The blew the entrance valve open with explosive. It was wrecked, so it can’t be sealed any more. If we got off into space, the air would leak out, and we should die.”

“I’m going to find June,” Foster muttered faintly.

His gripping hands slipped off the standard. Beneath its stain of grime and blood, his lean face whitened. He fell heavily, at full length, on the floor.

* * *

It was twenty hours later, when Foster went down to close the valve.

Some strength had come back, as he lay unconscious on the floor; the throbbing agony in his temple had become more endurable. He had washed his wounds, when he woke and bandaged the worst of them; he had found a little food for himself and Barron Kane.

His first trip had been to search for June.

“I’ve looked at all the dead,” he informed Barron Kane grimly, when he came back to the bridge. “I didn’t find—her.”

“Then,” the sick man whispered, “the black plane must have taken her to L’ao Ku’s altar.”

“I’m going after her,” Foster told him, with the quietness of a terrible fatigue and of a determination that was invincible. And he said in a tired voice that held no triumph:

“The motor-tube is finished. We had the elements in place before the mob came. I stopped to make the connections, and seal the manhole, and start the pumps to evacuate it. In ten hours, it will be ready.”

“Still,” protested the hopeless whisper of Barron Kane, “we cannot seal the valve. We can’t live, in outer space—”

“I’m going down, now,” Foster told him, “to close the valve. Then, we’ll look for June.”

“It was two days,” the sick man reminded him, “until the end. And one has gone. It is killing me, Foster, to give up. But we can only die.”

“The water is rising,” Foster told him. “I must hurry.”

And he went down to close the valve.

The tidal wave had come, as he lay unconscious—the same racing wall of the advancing ocean, gray, dreadful, that had drowned the coastal cities. It had routed the triumphant mob, at the very moment of victory, before they had plundered the ship; it had overcome them as they fled.

A tremendous blow, it had struck the gray steel side of the Planet; a stormy sea still crashed against the concrete pier beneath the space machine. The green surrounding hills of yesterday now were barren, rocky islets, drenched with spray.

The huge steel entrance valve had been torn open with a charge of high explosive. The hinges were twisted, the lock demolished.

Grimly, Foster surveyed the damage. The massive steel disk of the door itself, he decided, was not much injured. If he could straighten the hinges, to allow it to fit, and then find some way to fasten it—

He dragged himself to the machine shops and staggered back with hammers and wrenches and lifting tackle; he went again for a portable welding torch. Grimly deliberate, he set about heating the massive hinges and straightening them, so that the valve could close.

The massive concrete pier trembled constantly beneath him, as the whole Earth trembled. At thirty-minute intervals, it rocked and swayed dizzily beneath him—as the whole planet yielded to the ever-stronger pulse of the awakening thing within.

The mad waves of the conquering sea thundered endlessly against the great pier. Spray kept Foster drenched; sometimes it put out his torches. The wild waters came up, as he worked—he was sick with fear that the valve would be covered before he could close it.

Paroxysms of a tortured, outraged nature threatened his life, moment by moment. A weary, naked pygmy, wounded, scalded, blistered. Foster worked doggedly on, pitting his puny efforts against the convulsions of a dying giant.

A pall of dreadful gloom had covered the sky, that did not change when day should have come. It was crimson with dull volcanic light. Gray cinders showered out of it intermittently; and huge drops of boiling volcanic mud. Hot winds parched his skin, suffocated him with the reek of sulphur.

Thunder boomed endlessly above the chaos of a world in the agony of death; blue lightning stabbed in an endless blinding torrent against the top of the sphere, as if the heavens themselves had conspired against mankind.

Sometimes Foster left his tools a moment, to look down into the black, crashing waves, that were always higher. Under the red, uncanny gloom that did not change between night and day, in the violet, sudden glare of lightning, he saw the ebris of a lost world. Remains of men were flung past him, shattered, twisted. Sometimes he shuddered to the horror of a drowned face, gray and bloated and pulped.

Despair, then, would overcome him. He would drop wearily upon the brine-drenched pier and gaze hopelessly into the red, mad gloom of the disintegrating world.

But then a picture would always come to him—a picture of June Trevor, tall and grave-eyed and beautiful, about to die on an altar before an image of the Earth and an obscene monstrosity emerging. That picture always banished his sense of helpless futility and brought back that strange, impersonal, self-forgetful resolution that had come to him first in the fight in the garage, so long ago.

Moved by a purpose that was racial, above anything of himself, he would pick up his tools again.

* * *

Numb with exhaustion, dull-brained for want of sleep, Foster came at last into the little bridge room again.

“The valve is sealed,” he announced in a voice heavy and faint with unutterable weariness. “Now I can start the generators, and see if the motor-tube will work—”

He stopped, for his haggard, bloodshot eyes had seen that Barron Kane was sleeping. He tried a little to wake him, and make him eat—he had paused, on the way up, to snatch a little food from the storerooms, oranges, a can of broth, and crackers. But the frail little man did not stir. He had fever, Foster decided, and his pulse was fluttering irregularly.

“He wanted so to live to see us win,” Foster breathed to himself. “But I think he won’t wake up. Anyhow, he still—hoped—”

Then, moving in his great weariness like a slow mechanism, he turned to the half-wrecked instruments. His first glance at a chronometer shocked him with horror and despair.

Twenty-two hours had passed, while he labored with the valve. The second day had almost gone. In hours, now, would come—ultimate cataclysm—

He reeled drunkenly, as if from a blow, and stumbled back to the wall.

For a time he leaned there, lifeless with the shock of it. His red-rimmed eyes, dull and stupid, gazed fixedly out through the heavy quartz panels. The sky was a sullen mask of crimson gloom. Lightning ripped out of it in a fearful cascade of violet fire. Brown, boiling liquid mud fell against the steel hull of the Planet with a continual booming roar that drowned the thunder. The tempestuous black sea had risen over the hills; now it covered the pier, and its gigantic breakers hammered against the Planet itself. Littered with tiny, pitiful fragments of human wreckage, its wild dark surface reached to horizons of red, chaotic gloom.

Even as his blank eyes were staring aimlessly out, a fresh quake shook the space machine, so violent that it sent him staggering across the room. And a second tidal wave, a gray-crested, tremendous black wall, thundering with incredible velocity out of the advancing Atlantic, struck the Planet resistlessly.

Like a chip, it tossed the million tons of the space machine away from her cradle; she was carried away upon the mad sea.

The impact stirred Foster from his daze. He remembered June Trevor. And that lofty purpose, that was a thing not of himself but of the race, came back.

With a weary patience, he set to work to repair the controls and then to start the generators and transformers and otherwise prepare the Planet for flight. Her machinery was automatic, so that one man could drive her from the bridge. But the mob had broken half the instruments.

The space machine, as he worked, was tossed and battered by the maddened elements. Terrific waves thundered against her steel sides; floating wreckage hammered her, she floated at last against a new reef and was driven against it, crushingly, again and again, until Foster was despairingly certain that her hull must yield.

He toiled on.

And at last the thing was done, and still she floated. Foster turned the current into the motor-tube, his aching hands trembling with anxiety. He stepped it quickly up. Then he stumbled back—waiting—waiting—

The Planet lay on the black, terrible sea, beside the gray fury of the menacing reef. Out of the crimson gloom of the sky poured livid lightning and clattering fragments of volcanic rock. Furious winds drove at her with a force that rivaled that of the insurgent sea.

She was swinging back toward the hidden fangs of the reef; and Foster knew her hull could not endure another blow. Would the motor-tube lift her? Would it—

He ceased to breathe. His teeth ground together. He reeled heavily against a chair, and his bruised hands fixed themselves upon it with a grip like that of a dying man. His glaring, dark-rimmed eyes alternately watched the instruments and looked out into the fearful red gloom of the dying world.

The Planet lifted! She rose off the dark, furious sea, into the scarlet darkness of the sky. She rose, through mighty winds, through rain of volcanic mud and cinders, through blazing sheets of purple lightning. At a great altitude, the rain gave way to thundering hail.

And the space machine, at last, came through the clouds; and Foster saw the stars.

He was full of a great serenity. A kind of lofty elation had come with the rising of the space machine. It was a sense of triumphant power that lifted him far above any human concern.

His great weariness had slipped from him. He felt, no longer, his mind-deadening want of sleep, or even the dull throbbing of the wound in his temple. For a moment he attained the supreme tranquility of a god.

It was sublime, awful Nirvana. He had forgotten even June.

* * *

It was night, and the stars flamed at Foster. As the Planet came above the turbulent atmosphere, they burst into a greater splendor than any man had ever seen. In an emptiness that was utterly black, they burned motionless and ghostly, more brilliant than jewels. They were infinitely tiny, infinitely bright. Mysterious and eternal, they flamed in the black void.

Foster stared at them, transfixed with the strange wonder that came from the knowledge that each of them was a sentient thing.

And still the Planet rose, on a high, swift arc, toward the living stars. Foster felt himself one with them; he was no more a puny man, but a serene and deathless entity, of supernal power and supernal vision.

Then Barron Kane’s frail body moved, uneasily, in its feverish sleep. And Foster was abruptly a man again and filled with pity. He tried again to wake his uncle—once more in vain. He smoothed the pillow under his head and drew the blanket close about him.

He went back, then, to the controls. He remembered June again and her frightful danger. His purpose had come back, even stronger for its lapse as he first soared toward the stars. He was moved as if by some vast power without, as if he were simply a puppet in the hands of a racial will, itself as sublime and eternal as the undying stars he had looked upon.

Still, he grimly realized the multiplied odds against him. In the universal, cataclysmic storm that raged about the whole Earth, he might be unable to find the lost oasis in the Gobi—in time. If he did, he would be only one man, battling hundreds. He might, the fear pierced him like a cold blade, find the sacrifice already consummated. Or he might—to judge from what he had seen, it was even probable—find that the temple and all in it had already been overwhelmed by storm or earthquake or volcano or the terror of the rising sea.

Yes, bitter realization came, the chances against him were hopelessly great. It was useless to go. But that blind, sublime purpose, that was like an external force, moved him to drop the Planet back into the dark, furiously agitated clouds that totally obscured the face of the disintegrating globe.

Down sank the space machine, through terrible crimson gloom, through the furious chaos of a tortured, disrupting world. Hurricanes tore at the steel ball; it was bombarded with volcanic debris, struck with flaming lightning, sluiced with boiling mud.

Foster, watching through mudstained crystal panels, at last saw the surface of the earth where the Gobi had been—and it was a black and fearful sea.

The temple of the fanatic cult was gone, and June Trevor—And with the girl, all the meaning was gone out of his life and out of his superhuman struggle to live. The sublime purpose that had so long sustained him flowed out of him utterly; it left him a lonely, weary, haggard wreck. He had been more than human; now he was less—sick and old and useless.

June was gone. The thought beat through his tired, dull brain, a refrain of despair. June, gone! Only he and Barron Kane were left, two useless, aimless men, with nothing to live for; and nothing to hope for but death.

And Barron Kane was obviously dying. Soon he, Foster, would be alone—more alone than a human being had ever been. He would be alone in the void of space. He would know that the Earth was gone, that there was no other man or woman anywhere.

He would be alone, with the living, mocking stars!

A frantic terror grasped Foster’s throat, at the thought, with icy fingers that choked him; he was faint with the most dreadful fear he had ever known.

Sick with it, trembling convulsively, he tried desperately to wake Barron Kane. He shook the little man’s shrunken shoulder and dashed water into his face. He wanted terribly to speak to a human being again, to listen again to a human voice not his own—even the voiceless whisper of the dying man.

Barron Kane gasped in his sleep, he breathed strangely, a sudden spasmodic trembling disturbed his thin limbs. But he would not wake. Aching with a pity deeper than he had ever known, Foster covered the slight, drawn body again.

He looked out again at the scarlet, lightning-split darkness of the sky, at the black, wildly heaving plain of the sea that had swept away the secret temple and all the essence of his life.

VI.

The sea was riven, as Foster looked. It was cleft, as if by a Titan’s blade. The two dark halves of it were thrust miles apart. Stupendous, unthinkable, an abysmal gulf yawned between them, with black water plunging into it from either side, like a million Niagaras.

The world had parted.

Hanging in that dark storm sky of lurid and dreadful red, Foster stared with horror-glazed eyes down into the new gulf. Mile upon mile, incredibly, fell the jagged walls of the broken Earth crust, crumbling, splashed with dark sheets of the oceanic cataracts.

Below—scores of miles below—was a smooth, shimmering surface of green, bright as flame, marked strangely with silver and black. It was moving with weird paroxysms. It was the body of the Earth entity, struggling in the agony of birth.

Foster watched it, dazed with astounded horror.

The two halves of the split sea were thrust back, with a fearful quickness, until they were lost under the dark sky, which now was changing from dull red to a terrible, ominous, reflected green. The space machine hung between the menacing pall of the sky and the bright surface of that dreadful body that was struggling to life within the Earth.

Foster’s mind perceived the new danger. But in the lifeless, purposeless, hopeless apathy that had settled upon him he felt no alarm; he didn’t care, nothing mattered, now, since June was gone.

The wind struck. The atmosphere, disturbed by the movements of the waking thing, drove against the Planet with the solid, battering impact of an avalanche. With a force no hurricane had ever equaled, it hurled the steel globe down toward the green body, helpless as a boy balloon.

Foster’s blue eyes, sick with an agony unutterable, looked dully, without panic and without hope, at the eldritch doom ahead. All aim and direction had left him. His life had become a bitter joke, fantastic as the fate of humanity.

It was only the blind instinct to live that kept him wearily at the controls. His mind sat back, a weary, disinterested spectator, as his bruised, aching fingers moved automatically, and the Planet battled to survive.

The steel ball was drawn down, resistlessly, toward the fantastic markings on the side of that unbelievable body. Foster watched with lackluster eyes that held no fear, while his automatic fingers flung on the full power of the motor-tube to fight that freakish, fiendish wind.

He felt no triumph when the machine broke free; he had no elation as it drove upward through mad, torn cloud masses that were fearfully illuminated with green. He stared out, through the heavy crystal panels, still beyond panic and beyond hope.

Above the green clouds, he came; above the air and into the freedom of space. The sky was a hollow globe of darkness, pierced with a million, many-hued points of light—each of them, he knew, a thing alive.

The earth hung below—a huge, swollen globe, dark and fantastically patched with green.

A wing broke through the clouds—a stupendous sheet of supernal fire; a shield of green flame, wondrous as the aurora of the solar corona, and veined with bright silver. With its first, uncertain unfolding, it brushed close to the Planet—a blade of amazing death.

Foster’s instinctive fingers flung the space machine away, and the glorious, dreadful wing passed beneath, harmlessly. And the Planet drove on away into space, on her voyage that had no destination.

The Earth fell away behind.

And a thing emerged from the shattered crust of it that was like the creature that had come from the Moon. The beaked head was crested with a spray of crimson flame; it was marked with two ovoid patches, glowing lividly purple, that were like dread eyes. Flame-green, its body was slender and tapering and marked weirdly with black and silver. Slow, shining waves shimmered through its wings, that were like green fans of the aurora and veined with burning white.

It moved uncertainly in the void, as if to test its members. It preened itself with thin blue appendages that were thrust from the head. Then, with a beat of strange luminous force in its wings, it wheeled away from the Sun, and drove outward into the void of space.

Mercury and Venus, the two inner planets, Foster saw, had also changed; they had become winged, greenish motes, drifting away from the Sun. And the light of the Sun itself, he fancied, was already dimming, fading slowly toward crimson, toward ultimate darkness.

“The Sun is dying,” his dry lips muttered the thought from his disinterested, dully observant brain. “It’s the end! The mad finish of man’s universe—”

“You see?” Foster was startled to hear the faint whisper of Barron Kane, awake again on his invalid chair. “We are seeing the solution of the last riddle, Foster—the riddle of the suns! We are watching one die. We have seen many born.”

Foster hurried to him and lifted his head higher on the pillow so that he could see the room and look out through the crystal panels. And he spoke to the sick man of food, but Barron Kane did not seem to notice him. The small whisper ran on:

“The planets were the seed of the Sun. Strange life developed in them, through the ages, under solar radiation. The Sun will die, now; its work is done. And the new creatures have gone forth, to feed themselves upon the star dust, to absorb diffuse radiation and the cosmic rays, to consume, perhaps, fragments of old suns, until they themselves are suns, spawning planets, and the cycle of their life is complete.

“And there you have the answer, Foster, to many a problem that had baffled science. We’ve won, Foster!” There was a vague triumph in the muted whisper. “Even if we die to-day—we’re on our own!”

“What’s the good of it?” muttered Foster, too weary, too hopeless to be bitter. “We’re—alone,” he went on dully. “Soon we’ll be—dead. The Planet will drift on, perhaps forever. A tiny world, with all that life needs, but dead—

“Listen!”

* * *

Foster stopped speaking, suddenly, and a fearful silence hung in the room, grimly deep, haunted only with the sounds of their breath.

“Listen!” A wild, strange ring of madness had come into his voice. “There’s no sound—no other voice! We’re alone, Barron; we’re the last men. There can’t be another voice anywhere! Think what it means—not ever to hear any one speak again! When we are dead—”

His voice dropped again abruptly, for his straining ears had caught the pad of human footsteps.

He rushed, trembling with incredulous hope and a fear born with it, down the steps to the door of the bridge room. He flung it open and stood swaying in it, gazing wildly, unbelievingly, at June Trevor.

She was grimy, bedraggled; her clothing was black with something thick and viscid and dripping; her hair was plastered against her head with it; her face was scratched, and a blue bruise was on her forehead. Yet he saw still a beauty in her tall, straight form; in her clear brown eyes was a dawning, luminous joy.

They stood a moment face to face.

Foster wet his lips. “June?” he whispered. “June—”

She reeled a little, and he started forward to catch her.

“Don’t touch me,” she gasped weakly and swayed back from him. “I’m all soaked with oil—I was in a tank. You’ll get covered with it.”

“You poor kid!” he breathed, and something made him laugh a little.

He slipped his arm around her grimy shoulders, held her up. And she clung to him suddenly, ignoring the oil. In turn, she laughed—a shaky, happy little laugh of relief.

“Oh, Foster!” she cried. “I’m so—so glad—that you’re here. I thought I was the only person alive. And I was so miserably soaked with oil.”

“How did you get here?” Foster asked as he helped her into the bridge room and made her sit down beside him. “When you were gone, we thought that L’ao Ku must have taken you—to his temple.”

“L’ao Ku?” she breathed, in weary surprise. “No; I didn’t see him. You see, I went to look for you, Foster, when the mob was coming. I asked the men where to find you. They sent me from one place to another, until I was down in the generator rooms. I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

She had relaxed, happily, against his great shoulder; unconsciously her hand had caught his arm, as if she feared that something might take him from her.

“What then?” Foster asked. “How’d you get away from the mob?”

“I was down in the generator room,” her tired voice went on. “I couldn’t find you. All of a sudden, there were shots and screams. The mob was killing the enginemen.

“One of the enginemen ran to me. ‘The damn chinks have come, miss,’ he said. ‘But I’ll put you where they won’t find you.’ And he made me come to a tank, and opened a lid, and made me climb down a ladder in it. It was full of oil—it came up to my chin. And he let the lid back down on me.

“I waited. It was dark in the tank. And the fumes of the oil made me sick. I nearly fell off the ladder. For a while I could hear shots and roaring voice. Then—silence.

“Nobody came to lift the lid, and I tried to get out. I was faint. And the lid was so heavy I couldn’t lift it. I worked until I couldn’t move. Then I rested, and tried again. At last I found a way, standing on the top of the ladder, and using my back.”

“You poor, game kid!” whispered Foster, and patted her shoulder.

She shuddered; her brown eyes seemed not to see him—they were dull with remembered horror.

“I came out,” she went on grimly. “And every one was—was dead. The floors were all covered with blood and—bodies. And the quiet—it was terrible. You know how still it was, Foster. I couldn’t hear a voice. Not a sound! I thought I was the only one alive.”

“Why didn’t you come back here?” asked Foster. “Barron was here.”

“I did,” she whispered. “I looked in and saw him lying there—so still. I spoke, and he didn’t move. I thought he was dead, like all the rest. I thought I was the only one still living—”

“You must forget all that,” Foster urged her. “But where have you been?”

“I was—looking”—she paused, shuddering—”looking—among—the bodies for—for you, Foster.”

He held her trembling body close; for a moment she did not speak.

“I thought I was the—the last,” she went on jerkily, with an effort. “I thought I was—alone—alone with all the dead. I was looking for you, Foster, so that we could be together. And then—”

The sick horror ebbed slowly from her brown eyes; she smiled a little, wearily.

“Then I felt the machine moving, Foster. I had been asleep—I was so weary from searching and so grimy with oil. I woke and felt that we were moving. I knew, then, there was some one—”

Her brown eyes shone bravely into Foster’s blue ones, alight with hope and joy and new confidence. Then they closed; her body relaxed in his arms; she had gone to sleep. Her lips parted, and she smiled a weary little smile, in her sleep.

“She’s worn out, the nervy little kid,” Foster told Barron Kane. “I’m going to take her down to her room, where she can rest. I’ll come back in a minute, to help you down—”

“No, Foster,” the little man whispered. “I want to look out—at the stars.”

Foster lifted him a little, propped up his head with the pillow. “Men can carry on, now, Barron,” he said. “We can make a new beginning.”

Foster took up the girl’s quietly breathing body and started toward the door.

“Yes, Foster,” the sick man whispered after him, “we’ve really won.”

* * *

The scientist’s gray calm eyes watched Foster until he had vanished down the little stairs. Then he looked back at the motionless, splendid stars. They were tiny and unmoving and many-colored, swung eternal in black space.

“We’ve won,” he whispered again to himself. “I had hoped to live—for this. Men will now be small parasites no longer, to be crushed like vermin by any chance tremor of the beast that bears them. In the Planet, men are free, on their own.”

He seemed to like the phrase, for he whispered it again: “On their own.”

He lay still for a time, musing.

“We’re off in the Planet, to a new beginning. And it’s just a beginning.”

His serene quiet eyes stared at the mocking points of the stars, and he whispered to them:

“You’re alive, all of you. We owe our lives to you—we’ve been parasites on your kind. But we aren’t any longer. We’re beginning all over again, on our own.”

His dying breath whispered a last prophecy:

“There will be many Planets, and greater ones. The new, free race will be greater than the old. The children of Foster and June will conquer space, to the farthermost one of you!”

A joy seemed to linger in his tranquil eyes, that still looked out at the stars.

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Framed

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Contents

SERIALS:

Countdown to Armageddon,

Episode Four

Written by Edward M. Lerner

Illustrated by Dean Spencer

ON THE METZ-REIMS ROAD, FRANCIA, 730

The straight, one-edged scramasax clanged against Harry’s own sword, once, twice, three times. He felt the jolts all the way to his shoulder. His fingers grasping the hilt tingled, dangerously numb. He fell back under the vicious assault, parrying clumsily. Somewhere behind him, he remembered, was a large boulder. He was trapped. He lowered his blade and charged.

The Frank easily swept aside the feeble attack. With an understated elegance too quick for Harry to fully appreciate, the warrior slid his point through Harry’s defense and pinked him in the right biceps. Sweat burned in the fresh scratch.

“Better.” Sigismund wiped his blade on a handful of leaves and returned it to its scabbard. Siggie was the one warrior in the group escorting the merchants who approached Harry’s height. “Soon you’ll last long enough not to embarrass whoever kills you.”

“It’s a start. Again tomorrow after dinner?”

Sigismund snorted. “Anything rather than sit, eh? I saw how you two sit your horses.”

Terrence, who had recovered from his own earlier practice, grumbled under his breath—in English—about people too obtuse to invent stirrups. He bore his own scratches from the hotheaded but likeable Frank. He switched into his increasingly fluent Frankish. “I suppose you expect a story now.”

Sigismund shrugged. “It can wait. Harry paid for tonight’s lesson by teaching me some new chess tricks. I think I’ll go win some money.” The warrior wandered off toward the campfire, humming tunelessly.

Now that he was no longer being chased around the clearing, Harry began to feel the twilight chill. He pulled his flannel shirt back on over his undershirt, then sat cautiously on the boulder he had just been so desperate to avoid.

“A denarus for your thoughts.”

Harry pondered. “Keep your denarus. Get me some Bengay. His arm twinged with every button he manipulated.

Terrence sighed. “You think too small. How about a hot-water bottle? An electric heating pad? A warm bath?

“Chocolate bars, mattresses, and cold beer.”

“Two out of three.”

“I keep forgetting you’re a Brit. How can you drink it warm?”

“How can you drink it cold?”

“And toilet paper.”

“Oh God, yes,” Terrence said. “You win.” Laughter and good-natured cursing wafted their way from the now-roaring campfire, around which had gathered their companions on the road west. “Let’s see what’s for dinner.”

The road fare was what they had come to expect—and loathe. Coarse bread, always. Grilled game, usually prepared with lots of onion and garlic. Dried vegetables. They washed everything down with bad wine. While the meal was prepared, Harry won another profitable game of chess. He played on his own set—Romulfus had refused to reclaim his board and pieces.

With only their cloaks to wrap around themselves as bedding, no one was especially eager for sleep. Terrence told his nightly story, another installment from the wildly popular retelling of Gulliver’s Travels. He was up to the Houyhnhnms, intelligent horses who domesticated wild people. The very notion kept the Franks hooting with laughter, and they bellowed like children at every whinnylike repetition of the gentle creatures’ names.

Terrence finished, and a merchant who had joined the travelers at the last town hollered his approval louder than anyone. When the cheers finally died down, the newcomer rose to his feet. “A good tale, stranger. I look forward to hearing more of it.

“I am Lothar. My family has long prided itself on its skill in storytelling. If you do not mind the competition, I will also relate a history.”

With a smile at the shouts of encouragement from the company, Lothar began. “Men of Francia all know of our great ruler. Do you know that his family is destined to rule? Do you know that luck rides always with his family?”

Harry glanced at Terrence, who shrugged. Historian that he was, Terrence had no idea where this was going.

“Everyone knows that Neustria and Austrasia were not ruled always by one man. That union resulted from the great victory won by our leader’s father, Pippin of Herstal, on the field of battle at Tertry. But Pippin was not born in the palace. Over many years, through battles and strife, the Pippinids fought on.” By the dancing light and shadow from the campfire, Lothar studied the rapt faces of the crowd. “And in all of those years, the Pippinids never doubted.

“Do you know why?”

The merchant held his audience in the palm of his hand. “I will tell you why. None of you grew up in the town of Metz through which you so recently passed. Pippin of whom we speak was not the first of his line. Pippin, like all men, had a father, and he, too, had a father. And so it was that Pippin’s grandfather was also named Pippin. And that Pippin married a daughter of Bishop Arnulf of Metz.

“Who, you ask? Bishop Arnulf? Yes, you are right, he who became Saint Arnulf. The Pippinids descend also from Saint Arnulf. And the line of Arnulf is destined to rule.”

Somewhere deep in the woods, a wolf howled. Resin crackled and popped in the campfire. No man made a sound.

Finally, Lothar continued. “Know then that Bishop Arnulf chose to test his destiny. One day, beside the great river Seine, Arnulf plucked his seal ring from his finger. Arnulf called out to all that he would cast the ring into the river, ‘for if it comes back to me, then it shall be a sign that I shall rule over men.’ And hurl it into the swirling, flowing waters he did.

“Men said that Arnulf was mad, for who would so cast off his seal ring? Years passed, and the ring, of course, was not seen. Through it all, however, Arnulf kept faith.

“One evening, perhaps on a crisp, clear night such as this, Arnulf sat down to dinner. As on so many nights before and since, a fine river fish had been prepared for his meal. His servant sliced open the fish and, in front of the whole household, out rolled the seal ring so long ago thrown into the river.

“And so, God had given Arnulf the sign he sought. In our day, as in Arnulf’s, it is clear that the descendants of Arnulf shall rule men.”

After a moment of silence, the traveling company shouted out their approval. By popular acclamation, Lothar won tonight’s storytelling. Terrence shrugged and bought the first round of congratulatory beer. Wasn’t it obvious that old Arnulf had slipped into the kitchen to tuck a duplicate ring into supper?

Still, professional jealousy was unbecoming. “A fine tale, Lothar, and one that I shall remember. I have one question, though. If this ring is such good fortune, what happened to it?”

Lothar stared in disbelief. “Surely everyone knows that, just as everyone knows about the luck of the Arnulfings. The applause was for my telling of the tale, not for any novelty in it.”

For neither the first nor the last time in these surroundings, Terrence answered, “I am a stranger here.”

Lothar studied the jongleur’s face. Finding no mockery there, he relented. “Pippin of Herstal, the victor at Tertry, left behind three grandsons as his heirs. Plectrude, his widow, was to rule as regent until the children came of age. But Pippin and Plectrude had had a son before their marriage. Their bastard son had outlasted the issue of their marriage, and he raised an army to fight both his mother and the invading Frisians.

“Surely you now know the answer to your question.”

Terrence’s reference collection was many centuries inaccessible; he could only shake his head. He could not keep straight the Franks’ unending dynastic battles.

“Pippin’s surviving son was a great warrior and a brilliant leader. He now holds, without rival, the palaces in both Neustria and Austrasia.”

“The king of Francia?” Harry guessed.

“Bah.” Lothar spat in disgust. “The kings of Francia are worthless do-nothings. Everyone of the line of Merovechus has been useless since King Dagobert, in Arnulf’s own day. Certainly not the king. I speak of Karl, of course, the major domus (mayor of the palace). The ring of good fortune sits proudly upon the finger of Karl, Pippin’s son.”

And with the mention of Karl, the weight of the ages returned squarely to Harry’s and Terrence’s weary shoulders. For the current mayor of the palace, he whom the French would someday claim as Karl Martel, Charles the Hammer, was the victor of the onrushing battle at Tours.

Or he was supposed to be…

* * *

To their surprise, Harry and Terrence were still with the merchant company when it arrived at Reims. No one in the primitive agricultural settlements along the way reacted to Terrence’s description of Faisel. No one admitted to knowledge of anything out of the ordinary since the first earthquake.

They resigned themselves to the simplistic Plan B: Head for Tours. The immediate question was when. During the arduous trip from Metz, they came to value the wisdom of Gregory’s advice that they travel within a larger group.

No one was more pleased than Terrence when, just before nightfall, an actual town came into sight. “Who the hell ever thought to domesticate horses? My rear end is petrified.”

Harry laughed. “You’ll have time here to rest. Fredegar and his boys”—the chief merchants—”won’t be going anywhere for a while. They’ve got a wagon full of Italian bronze bowls left to move, and several sets of millstones. About all that they expect to sell quickly are the Greek olive oil and swords.”

The last-mentioned items were of exceptional quality—not an unusual emphasis in a martial society. Short days ago, they had watched in fascination as a Metz swordsmith crafted a scramasax from bars of several different irons and steels. His pattern-welding technique gave the weapons incredible flexibility—they could be bent almost double, then spring back perfectly straight—just like in some Errol Flynn swashbuckler. The Frankish scabbards were lovingly decorated in exquisite gold-and-garnet cloisonne work. While the two friends hadn’t scrimped on their own weapons purchases, their scabbard selections were far more utilitarian.

“Let ‘em take a few days,” Terrence grumbled. “Even sleeping on a heap of straw will be an improvement.”

Harry laughed again. “Fine. Maybe I can find some suckers while you rest. Our new friends won’t bet on chess anymore. I’m almost reduced to introducing ticktacktoe.”

The group split in Reims. A few went to check out the town market despite the fading light; on impulse, Terrence joined them, hoping to earn a few tips with his stories. Harry went with several others to the monastery to arrange lodging. Traveling with the merchants, it turned out, had an unexpected fringe benefit: eligibility for the fireplace-equipped main guest quarters.

The market here flourished in the happy confluence of Roman roads from six separate directions; hosting the royal palace didn’t hurt, either. Many merchants were already in residence; the roly-poly local abbot introduced Harry and his companions around. Another group had come just that morning from Soissons, a short way up the road that ran northwest, apparently all the way to what only Harry and Terrence considered the English Channel.

“Care for a game?”

Sigebald, leader of the newly arrived merchants, had just completed a chess match and was looking for another opponent. The merchant’s leather board was badly scuffed; it had seen much use. Harry told himself not to be overconfident. “Certainly.”

As usual, Harry won quickly. Centuries of chess lore far outweighed his limited experience with this era’s version of the game. Versions. Chess had only recently been introduced to Western Europe by the invading Arabs and, he had discovered, the European game was still evolving. Almost everyone in Fredegar’s troupe had a preferred hometown version.

As he did with every new challenger, Harry had carefully reviewed his opponent’s set of chess rules for regional quirks. Would Harry mind using Septimanian rules? They sped up the game. “No problem.” At Harry’s urging, the merchant discussed his travels as they played. Septimania, it seemed, lay to the southwest: what Harry thought of as the French Riviera.

Sigebald was a boastful player—and a sore loser. Losing by his own rules, which he had apparently assumed would give him an edge, only made him madder. When it came time to pay up, he slammed his coins on the table. “Your two solidi, and be damned to you.”

“Not so fast, my friend.”

Harry looked up in surprise. He hadn’t noticed Terrence, Sigismund, and the others return from the market. One hand resting on his dagger hilt, Sigismund gestured with his other at the money. “Give my friend another coin, or pay in real gold.” In answer to Harry’s look of confusion, the warrior said, “Pick one up and bite it.”

Harry did, and damn near broke a tooth. There isn’t anything new under the sun, he thought: eighth-century inflation. He studied the coin closely. “I’ll have to remember that face.”

Sigebald slung down another debased solidus and went off to sulk among his men.

“Wait.” The irate merchant paused and turned; Harry tossed him back a coin. “Your new Septimanian rules were worth it.” Sigebald strode away, mollified.

“Why the bloody hell did you do that?” Terrence demanded in English. “You normally squeeze a pence thin enough to shave with. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a Scot.”

“But the Septimanian chess rules were worth the money to me, in fact far more than a solidus. They do speed up the game. For example, the Minister and the Bishop can move completely across the board. There’s a shortcut move that involves the King jumping over the Castle. Pawns can move two squares on their first turn.”

“Who cares what blooming rules they… ?”

“You’re missing the point,” Harry interrupted. “It seems that eighth-century chess in Septimania follows rules that won’t exist until the seventeenth century.

“I think we ought to visit the Riviera.”

SOUTH OF ORLEANS, 730

Lupus circled in confusion, sniffing at the ground here, pawing it there.

Bertchramm feared the worst, for the great hunting dog was his last hope. He had lost all trace of the fleeing Saracen raiders more than a day earlier.

The mastiff settled to the ground with an unhappy whine. As though awaiting Lupus’s signal, the men began to grumble. They had abandoned hope days ago.

“Shut your cowardly mouths.” Bertchramm’s insult brought stunned silence. Before anyone spoke, he spun his mount to face the men. “Those murderous devils have slaughtered our friends like so many sheep, mutilated the bodies, profaned our sacred places. They killed my brother. As Christ is my witness, I will go on after these butchers, alone if I must.”

Most of the warriors had the decency to be chastened. Most. “But we have lost the trail. How can we go on?”

The warlord locked eyes with Childewald. “They are Saracens. They will have a camp to the south, toward or in Iberia. For eight days now we have followed their trail south.”

And without another word, Bertchramm led the way—south.

SOUTH OF REIMS, 730

The roaring campfire warmed half of Terrence’s aching body. His back was as cold as ever. He pulled the blue Frankish cape more tightly around himself. “I won at sword practice. That means that you make dinner.”

Harry said, “I tripped over a damned tree root. Damn lucky for you.”

“When we’re attacked by highwaymen, and you fall over your big feet, do you suppose you can call a time-out? I always thought that a foolish faith in Marquis of Queensberry rules was a peculiarly English failing.”

“Ah, hell.” Harry got up and began searching through their supplies. “I’ll get my revenge when you eat my cooking.”

It was their third night in the wilderness since splitting off from Fredegar’s troop. Sigismund had called them ten types of idiot for going alone. Terrence almost wished that he’d had the vocabulary to fully appreciate the tongue-lashing. Remembering the insults might have kept him warmer during the long ride.

He worried with a fingernail at a piece of gristle firmly lodged between his teeth. It had been the bane of his existence for two days. “I wish I had some dental floss.”

Bowen was still angry about having to cook. “Oh, quit your griping. For everything I miss, there’s something I’m glad to be away from.”

Terrence took the dare. “Indoor plumbing.”

“Commercials for diarrhea medicine.”

“Matches.”

“Cigar smoke.”

“Shaving cream, aspirin, and pizza.”

“Traffic jams, air pollution, and McAlpo,” Harry shot straight back.

“Wristwatches.”

“Alarm clocks.”

“Telephones.”

“Telephones.” They looked at each other and laughed.

Harry rejoined the contest. “Okay, switch. iPods.”

“Ghetto blasters.”

“Electric lights.”

“Woman’s lib.”

Terrence knew instantly that he’d put his foot in his mouth up to the hip. The silence stretched awkwardly. He came round the fire and squeezed Harry’s shoulder. “Sorry. No one ever accused me of tact.”

Harry’s expression was miserable even by the flickering firelight. “I really miss her, Terrence. Really.”

“I know.”

“Did I ever tell you how we met?”

All Terrence could do to help was listen. “No, you haven’t. I’d like to hear.”

URBANA, ILLINOIS (USA), 1986

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences teemed with beautiful women, but the unvarnished, unliberated truth was that few of them frequented the science corner of the Quadrangle. The “hard sciences” and engineering were—alas—still basically male preserves. This Saturday morning, like so many others, found Harry trolling the Student Union for a date.

The Union basement had a small gallery that showcased student art. The exhibit area was crowded this morning—whether for the quality of the exhibit or because of lousy weather, he couldn’t immediately say. A vivacious blonde near the door caught his eye. Was it her tight jeans or the perky, bouncing ponytail that so caught his fancy? No, Harry decided: It was her sheer ebullience.

She had a crammed backpack slung over one shoulder; a hard-cover poetry text peeked out from under the flap. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist: probable English major.

“Mind if I join you?” She gave him a strange look, but nodded. They ambled through the hall, pausing at some of the paintings. She seemed hesitant to comment on anything. To maintain a conversation, Harry found himself critiquing most of the works. “I know what I like… and that isn’t it.” Oh, he was in fine form. “That one goes to show that once you hit bottom, you can still move sideways.”

They wound up, eventually, in front of a cubist nude. The figure had a sickly yellow cast with a blue undertone. “Self-portrait.” Harry tapped the small title pinned beside the painting, and made a face. “I’d sure hate to meet the model for that.”

His new acquaintance smiled sweetly. “I’m afraid it’s too late.”

As Harry stammered foolishly, the woman—he still, stupidly, didn’t know her name—grasped his elbow. Towing him to the gallery exit, she asked him out for coffee. She favored him with a smile so bright as to be almost blinding. “Anyone this dull-witted deserves to be cherished. What are the chances you’ll live long enough to reproduce?”

That was the moment Harry decided this was the woman he would marry. How else could he prove her wrong?

SOUTH OF REIMS, 730

Careless conversation drifted through the trees. Ahmad signaled to a scout to join him, then urged his steed forward with a slight pressure of his heels. Together they slipped through the forest toward the unexpected sounds.

Soon the odor of smoke also drew them forward. He sniffed incredulously: The fools were burning aromatic pine. What simpletons were these, so to announce their presence? The wind flicked a corner of his burnoose into Ahmad’s face; he brushed it aside impatiently.

The Berber warrior slid from his mount and wrapped its reins around a branch. Silent as a djinn, he moved through the trees. Approaching from downwind, his own scent masked by the campfire smoke, only a carelessly placed step could give him away. He made no such mistake.

Jabir crept up beside him. The strangers prattled away; there was no danger of them overhearing a whisper. Still, Ahmad had not survived years of war by taking unnecessary chances. With hand signals, he directed the scout to return with two handfuls of men.

Ahmad studied the strangers while he waited. The setting combined the mundane and the inexplicable. The men wore Firanji (Frankish) cloaks over unfamiliar garments. The saddles, weapons, and gear by the two tethered horses could have come from any settlement within a month’s march. The men’s hair was uncommonly short, not even reaching to their shoulders. Their speech, at least, offered no ambiguity. It bore no relation to anything Ahmad had ever heard, on either side of the great sea.

By the time Jabir returned, gesturing that the encirclement was complete, Ahmad had made up his mind. He raised his hands to his mouth and hooted like an owl. The strangers were to be taken alive.

Gamal had a great interest in the unusual.

NEAR THE FRANCIA/AQUITAINIA BORDER, 730

Wisps of smoke rose from the ruined shell of a building. Bertchramm cautiously approached, francisca in hand. He trembled with the need to split Saracen heads with his ax. The cooling cinders that crunched beneath his boots mocked him: The devils he sought remained far ahead.

A weeping monk preceded him. Brother Lodovic had been on solitary retreat when the attack came. His howls of grief upon returning had echoed through the forest, summoning the questing Franks. Now he led the warriors into the pitiful remains of his monastery.

Bertchramm paused, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness. The monks had been brutally slaughtered. Corpses lay everywhere; gore fouled the walls. The simple wooden altar in the small basilica had been knocked over and smashed; it bore the marks of horses’ hooves. The bastards had even ridden their horses into the chapel.

In a shadowed corner, Brother Lodovic implored them wordlessly to the cellar crypt. Bertchramm returned the francisca to his belt. He followed the sobbing monk down the winding stairs. Surely nothing could be worse than what he had seen on this hunt.

He was wrong.

Every casket had been dumped out. Broken skeletons and rotting bodies lay everywhere. His eyes jumped eagerly to a golden crucifix, an object of incongruous beauty in this scene of horror. Then his eyes followed the length of the cross downward, downward, downward—until it plunged through the grinning skull of a skeleton.

NORTHERN AQUITAINIA, 730

The trek must be coming to an end.

In their first days of captivity, the fierce Arab and Berber warriors had beaten Harry and Terrence for making any sound, even an unmuffled cough or sneeze. Now their captors chatted, entirely at ease. Something in what seemed to Terrence a trackless wilderness must have denoted a border, a sign of safe haven. The Arabic in which they spoke so volubly told him nothing.

“Let me do the talking,” Terrence warned.

Ahmad, the leader, scowled at Terrence but said nothing. When he chose, Ahmad spoke passable, if broken, Frankish.

Harry didn’t question the whispered advice; he remained numb from the shock of their capture. His protestations that they were mere jongleurs, traveling entertainers, had been met with a sneer and a pointed glance at their swords.

Shortly after Terrence’s hissed entreaty, an avian trill sounded from ahead. Ahmad raised his hands and warbled back a reply. Some destination was close.

They came to a field dominated by what must once have been a Roman country villa. The fine, large windows in its stone walls were bricked up except for slits for the firing of arrows. Beyond a graceful gateway, in the wide central courtyard, scimitars clanged loudly as warriors drilled.

With his heels, Ahmad jabbed his fine white Arabian in the ribs. It trotted smartly forward to the center of the courtyard. “Gamal,” he called. “Gamal Abdul Salah-ad-Din. I bring you gifts.” Ahmad’s words echoed from the whitewashed plaster walls. He urged his prisoners forward with the flat of his sword.

An Arab of slight build stepped from the shade at the far end of the courtyard.

Terrence squinted into the sun to see the man; at first he could only make out a close-cropped black beard. As a passing cloud threw its shadow over the courtyard, a chill ran down Terrence’s spine. He knew that face; he had seen it on Interpol photos.

The one these warriors called Gamal was Abdul Faisel.

* * *

The horses of both troops felt the tension. Bertchramm tried to calm his mount with a gentle pat of the hand, the pressure of his knees. The horse snorted, but settled down. All around him, men strove to quiet their own steeds.

“I tell you, we tracked those Saracen dogs here.”

Bernhardus, chief of the Aquitainian border patrol, waved in dismissive contempt. “And I tell you, we would know if an armed band had passed here. Count Odo guards his borders well.”

“They slaughtered everyone at the monastery of St. Charibert.” No response. “They broke into the crypt and disturbed the bodies.”

Aquitainians murmured in disgust and horror. Many among them—and among the Franks as well—still had mixed feelings about the new ways. Where the dead and their spirits were concerned, most thought it was wisest to take no chances. One placated the old gods even as he buried according to the customs of the new God. To disturb the final resting places of the monks, without even the lure of grave goods to steal, was a blasphemy beyond greed and politics.

“Silence!” The Aquitainians stopped their muttering and looked uneasily at their leader. “I said that no one passed.” Bernhardus gave a withering stare to one of his men who seemed prepared to contradict him.

Bernhardus grasped his sword hilt. “And no one shall.”

* * *

Faisel’s chambers overflowed with the booty of uncounted raids. Looted treasures lay everywhere: gold and silver reliquaries, crucifixes encrusted in jewels, magnificent Frankish scramasaxes, fine glassware. Two waist-high Greek kraters brimmed with solidi. Mounds of jewelry, mostly brooches and rings, filled several large bronze bowls.

A modest copper-plated Frankish helmet was almost lost among the riches; it was filled, incongruously, with golden South African Krugerrands. No secret now how Faisel had initially financed his trip across medieval France and recruited his band of cutthroats.

Hand-drawn maps were pinned to the walls all around the room. Red dots scattered across the map denoted—what? Raids already accomplished, perhaps, or future targets. Faisel himself sat behind the massive table that stood in front of the fireplace.

His hands bound tightly behind him, Terrence knew that he had only his wits to save them. That seemed like a feeble defense. He sat in response to Faisel’s gesture. From the corner of his eye, he saw Harry sit down beside him.

“I trust that you’ll understand the ropes,” Abdul/Gamal began, speaking in flawless modern French. “Especially after you’ve come so far to see me. Precisely because you were willing to come such a distance, I prefer the security of keeping you bound.”

Terrence cleared his throat before answering in bad Gallo-Roman. “I not understand.”

“Spare me the act. Your clothes and hair give you away as men of my century.”

He’d been afraid of that. Terrence continued in the vernacular. “Clothes? We buy these from strangers, far to the East. They need money.”

The leader of the raiders strode over to them. None too gently, he pried open Terrence’s mouth and thumbed his lips away from his teeth. “I suppose you bought their dental work, too.”

Game, set, and match. Terrence shrugged, then answered in perfect French. “It was worth a try.”

“What of your tongue-tied friend.”

Harry straightened in his chair. “Neither my French nor my Gallo-Roman is as good as his. It seemed best to let the linguist handle things.”

Faisel tousled the American’s hair condescendingly. “Mon ami, you will need much more than a linguist to get you out of this predicament.”

* * *

The warrior band rode boldly into the old Roman villa, as though they owned the place. Someday, Count Odo of Aquitainia swore to himself, he would.

With Saracen money he maintained his independence from the Franks. Unlike a decade ago, the Saracens now raided their territory. In a few years, he would be strong enough to dispense with these pagans as well.

The group at his back numbered twelve: too few to seem an invasion; more than enough to make trifling with them ill-advised. Odo rode past the sentries without sparing them a glance. To the officer on duty, a scarred Berber veteran, Odo said, “I’m here to see Gamal.”

“He’s busy.” The Saracen’s speech was heavily accented.

Odo and his men dismounted. The count brushed past Gamal’s lieutenant to step inside. “We have business to discuss.”

The sentries outside Gamal’s rooms looked at each other uncertainly. They knew Odo was an ally of their master. Finally, as he had expected, they stood aside meekly as he pounded on the door with the solid pommel of his dirk.

The Saracen chieftain emerged, scowling. “You risk much, coming unbidden, interrupting me.”

“I risk much giving you sanctuary. The major domus“—he referred to Karl—”would pay much for your head. As I will not give it to him, instead I spend my wealth on warriors to keep out his patrols.”

“Our arrangement is not new. It has served you as well as me. Why do you bother me about it now?”

Odo glanced out a hallway window to the courtyard where Gamal’s troops drilled. “Teach your men to be satisfied with plunder. Karl is fast losing patience with the slaughter of your raids.”

“Enough! Do not presume to tell me how to lead my men.”

“Then do not drain my treasury. I have had to expand the border patrols to keep out the Franks.”

“Gold.” Gamal made it sound dirty. “That is what you’re here for. You will have your taxes soon enough. There was no need for this interruption.”

Odo finally got around to his purpose here. “Your taxes have doubled.”

The chieftain’s eyes narrowed, but he kept his anger in check. He knew, and knew that Odo knew, the protection of Aquitainia was essential to his operations. “Then your taxes will take that much more effort to gather. Leave me so that I can tend to it. I have important work to do in Iberia, and much to make ready before I go.” Gamal slammed his office door, leaving Odo outside with the puzzled sentries.

All in all, the count thought, Gamal took that very well.

* * *

Abdul Faisel called out in Arabic. Warriors came in and untied Harry and Terrence. Before any feeling could return to their numb hands, each was bound to his chair. Loops of rope around their chests pinned their arms to their sides at the elbows.

They went through a surreal round of introductions—Faisel insisting upon being called Gamal—after which they were offered dates and hot, sweetened milk. “It is the traditional Bedouin fare of hospitality, and the least that I can do for men as brave as you obviously are.”

“I could use a cold Coke,” Harry said. He nibbled on a date, hampered by his ropes.

Faisel laughed. “If I had one, I would not waste it on you.”

“So, what do you propose to do with us?” Harry asked.

“You obviously came back after me. That makes you a threat to my plans. What would you expect me to do?”

“What are your plans?” Beside him, Terrence sighed.

Faisel popped a date into his mouth. He chewed leisurely before answering. “There’s no harm in telling you. You won’t live to leave this room.

“According to history as we know it, a climactic battle is coming, a battle to decide whether Christians or Moslems will rule Europe. In our history, you Christians won that battle.

“This time, things will be different. This time, the armies of Christendom will molder in the field like so much garbage. Your whole, evil, Western civilization shall be wiped out, shall never even come to pass. This time, Allah shall prevail.

“You see, I brought an atomic bomb back with me.”

* * *

Gamal watched the color drain from the prisoners’ faces, as though their worst nightmares were being realized—as, perhaps, they were. The American’s flagon fell from suddenly nerveless fingers to clank noisily on the terrazzo floor.

Good, they understood. “Would you care for your cup back? There is more milk.”

Ambling recovered first. “At least I understand your alias. Gamal Abdul, as in Nasser of Egypt. I wish you all the success that he had. The Israelis had so much fun taking the Sinai from him in ‘56, that they gave it back just for the joy of retaking it. The second time, they chewed up his army in just six days.”

Gamal squeezed his lips in anger. “In your situation, I would not poke fun.”

Ambling ignored the warning. “Now Salah-ad-Din, there was a warrior. Vanquisher of Richard Coeur de Lion, the Lion-Hearted. Liberator of Jerusalem. He, indeed, is a fine role model for a champion of Islam.”

“Indeed.”

Then Terrence sneered. “Saladin was honorable. In the highest praise of the time, the very Crusaders he defeated called him chivalrous. Once beaten, he accepted their paroles and returned them for ransom. What you propose goes beyond even genocide.

“May the spirit of Salah-ad-Din, who now shall never be, curse you, and your pig-kissing mother, and the day of your birth.”

Gamal screamed with inarticulate rage, his head beating like a drum. The sentries burst in. They stood, transfixed, their eyes round. With a shaky hand he unsheathed his scimitar. It whistled toward Ambling’s neck—

But beheading was too quick and painless.

Gamal twisted the sword just before it struck. The flat of the blade smacked against Ambling’s head. Blood spurted from a large gash.

Gamal’s mind whirled. What would be horrible enough? Anything appropriately slowwww must await his return from Iberia. He turned to his shocked sentries. “Remove these Firanji swine from my sight. Guard them well.

“They will learn, before the end, to beg for the mercy of death.”

* * *

A final brutal shove crashed Terrence into the back wall of the basement storage room. He just barely twisted enough to take the punishing blow on his shoulder.

Harry fell to the floor nearby, a bit less clumsily. Of course, Harry had not been slapped on the head with a heavy sword.

The ringing in Terrence’s ears almost masked the clanging finality with which the door slammed shut. He sat up, groaning. “All things considered, I think that went rather well.”

“What?”

Terrence’s stomach heaved. Sour-smelling milk and bits of date splashed on the stone floor. The wrenching spasms made the throbbing in his head even worse. He inventoried his complaints: headache, weakness, ringing in the ears, and nausea. A concussion, he presumed.

He repeated, “I said, ‘That went rather well.’ “

Their cell contained a pitcher of water. Harry dipped his handkerchief in it, then offered the damp cloth to Terrence. “What are you talking about?”

“Ten minutes ago, we weren’t going to live to leave Faisel’s office. Now we’re safe till he returns from Spain. That’s one hell of an improvement.” Despite everything, he laughed at Harry’s bewildered expression. “Learn to eavesdrop. You never know when you’ll hear something useful.”

“You did that on purpose?”

Terrence lay back gingerly on the cold floor. The damp cloth made his head feel marginally better. “Yes. Now, are you ready to hear the rest of my cunning plan?”

“Somehow, Terrence, I don’t think I’m going to like this.”

“I don’t see why not—this is your turn to shine. You see, this is where we escape using the superweapon you build out of chewing gum and baling wire.”

<!—[if !supportAnnotations]—><!—[endif]—>

CHICAGO, 2009

The packers worked swiftly, crating up dozens of Julia’s prized paintings. A lifetime’s work to be sold… but what choice did she have with Harry’s income gone?

Harry’s income. Odd, but she still could not think of Harry as being gone. Away, yes, oh so very far away. He had not been found in the ruins of the rebuilt Rothschild Institute, so he—and Terrence—must somehow have followed Faisel. But surely Harry wasn’t gone.

Two of the packers were wrestling her “self-portrait” into a large box. Harry had insisted on keeping it over their mantel, a keepsake of their first meeting. Even now, she had to smile. It was a joke, for God’s sake, something for a stupid class. The idiot teacher had given her an A.

She felt every blow as the workers pounded the nails into the crate. “I’ve changed my mind. That one stays.” Grumbling, they took a pry bar to reopen the case.

That hideous painting was too much of her past, their past, to ever let go. Her mind flitted about, recalling the moments of their life together.

Like their first trip together to France…

THE VOSGES MOUNTAINS, 1988

Julia prodded the bushes with the fallen branch she had taken to using as a walking stick. “I tell you, the sounds I heard came from back here. You know, like wind whistling through a constriction. Maybe there’s a cave behind the bushes.”

Her new groom crowded behind her. She thought, momentarily, that he was peering over her shoulder. Uh-uh: He was groping her. Again.

“Quit that.”

“This is our honeymoon. Certain things are traditional.”

She patted his hand lovingly, then brushed it off. “This is romantic, too. Imagine if we found our own cave.” She kept poking through the greenery with her stick. The unseen end went tap, tap, tap against the overgrown rocky escarpment.

Until one thrust met only air. Surprised, she let the branch slide from her grasp. It clattered onto an unseen rocky surface. “There is a cave back there!”

“Great!” Harry wormed by her. He used his broad male shoulders (now quit that, Julia!) to hold aside the dense undergrowth. “See anything now?”

She squatted for a better look, and there it was. The dark opening beckoned her onward. Who knew what wonders waited inside?

Days earlier they had visited the museum at Lascaux, the Cro-Magnon cave renowned for its wall art. The cave itself was closed to the public, even to adoring artists. She had spent hours in the museum admiring photographs of the real paintings. After all the uncounted centuries, the pigments remained rich and earthy.

What she wouldn’t give to crawl through those dark passages, to see in situ the actual renderings of Stone Age hunters and prey. To commune with those who might have been mankind’s first artists.

The notion made her spine tingle.

The cave at Lascaux had been lost for millennia. A sign at the museum said that the cave had been rediscovered in 1940 when boys rescued their dog, who had fallen through a hidden opening to the caverns.

Maybe their cave would yield as fabulous a treasure. Julia grabbed a flashlight from her backpack and plunged ahead.

“Wait, dammit. There could be wild animals in there. I promised always to take care of you, but you don’t make it easy.” Harry quickly joined her with their camp lantern.

Beyond its two-foot-tall entrance, the cave widened into a broad, flat—and featureless—expanse. Her high hopes were dashed. Shadows danced around the grotto from the flickering of the kerosene lantern. The only sound was the soft hiss of the flame. “Nothing.”

“Think positively,” Harry said. “Isn’t there something we can salvage from this experience?”

“Right.” She turned to leave. “Like what?”

“Well, I, for one, have never done it underground.”

Why not? They spread their jackets on the cold stone floor and made love slowly, passionately—pausing only when Harry accidentally plunged his foot into a narrow crevasse hidden in the shadows.

He limped for the reminder of their honeymoon. On the positive side, it didn’t seem to bother him when he was horizontal.

Yes, Harry sure knew how to take care of a girl.

TOLEDO, IBERIA (SPAIN), 730

Abd-ar-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, emir of the Islamic forces in Iberia, strode briskly down the line of troops. The garrison here at Tulaytulah (Toledo) provided many of the shock forces of his army. The men were all veterans: warlike Bedouin like himself, and fierce Berbers. Performing inspection was both his privilege and a deep satisfaction.

These men held Iberia securely for the Caliph in distant Damascus. Their fathers had won this great and wealthy land in the first place. The small expeditionary force of Tariq ibn-Sayid had swept across the peninsula like the desert winds across the broad Sahara. The local remnants of the Roman civilization had found the newcomers more to their liking than the barbaric Visigoths the Moslems sought to replace. Many a fortress had thrown itself open to the Moslems, or been betrayed to them, in open rebellion against Roderick, the former king. The Christians were allowed to worship as they wished, subject only to a small tax for the error of their ways. Muhammad had taught that the Jews and Christians were to be respected.

These musings brought a recent, much less pleasant association to mind. al-Ghafiqi’s men had skirmished for years with the Franks across the Pyrenees. These were only probing attacks, feints, tests of the barbarian’s mettle. The real battle would come soon. He had hoped that many in Francia would side with his troops, just as the ex-Roman colonists had in Iberia.

Instead, al-Ghafiqi expected the Gallo-Romans to fight with the barbarians. Against him. A bloodthirsty Moslem renegade was operating on his own across the mountains. Francia, Burgundia, Gasconia—all had turned hostile to Islam because of the predations of this madman. The coming campaign would be much the harder for the hostility this fool had raised.

This Salah-ad-Din, thought al-Ghafiqi, would do well never to fall into my hands.

NORTHERN AQUITAINIA, 730

The storeroom that served as their prison was devoid of both chewing gum and baling wire. Harry prowled its narrow confines in search of less traditional components and alternative inspiration.

The sounds from outside their cell provided plenty of motivation. All day long, Harry and Terrence heard the thuds of beatings, the screams of pain, the splash of water flung to revive the victims. Yes, they wanted to be long gone when Gamal returned from his mission.

Lesser weeping and beatings all too often filled the nights, from down the hall where the sounds suggested a woman prisoner was kept. From the boastful shouts, it seemed that the poor woman was being repeatedly raped. Harry swore to rescue her if ever they escaped themselves.

It seemed a vain hope.

* * *

The war party made camp a half day’s march north of the border with Aquitainia. Bertchramm sent a squad back into Francia for reinforcements, then set up a schedule of patrols.

The damned Saracens would return, someday, headed north on another raid. When they did, they were in for a very unpleasant surprise.

* * *

The physicist studied his small pile of materials. They didn’t look like components for a superweapon. Still, this was the best Harry could come up with using only the odds and ends in this storage room.

Items: a small-mouthed pottery vessel with a heavy metallic glaze, some bark from a cork oak, a short iron nail, a scrap of old fur, and the stem from a broken glass flagon. Oh yes, and drinking water from a pottery ewer.

He slowly scraped the pot’s mouth against a rough spot on the wall, sanding the glaze off the lip. He studied his work. He wanted glaze layers inside and out, but they could not touch. Foil liners would be much better than metallic glaze, of course, but—

Quit that! Harry told himself. You have only what you have.

The glass stem was too short to make a useful dagger. Harry nonetheless filed one end against the rough stone wall. He used the sharpened edge to shape a piece of cork into a stopper for the clay pot. Once the stopper was fashioned, he drilled a small hole through the cork. The nail fit snugly into the hole. He unstoppered the pot, filled it with water, and replaced the impaled cork. The tip of the nail dipped into the water.

Terrence looked on, dubiously. “You say that’s a battery?”

“An early one, yeah. It’s called a Leyden jar. It’s supposed to be invented in about a thousand years at the University of Leiden.” Harry didn’t care to think about the unlikelihood of that discovery still happening.

Harry picked up the fur and the glass rod. He rubbed the glass vigorously with the fur, back and forth and back and forth until he thought his arm would fall off. Then he touched the end of the rod to the tip of the nail that emerged from the Leyden jar. There was an electric crackle as the charge transferred. That’s one. Harry took fur to rod again. Each stroke charged the glass rod, an insulator, with a tiny bit more static electricity.

When Harry’s arms could no longer maintain the repetitive motion, Terrence took over. They took turns for what the motion of sunbeam through their tiny window suggested was at least an hour.

Harry took a deep breath. “Are you ready, my guinea pig?”

“No, but go ahead.”

Harry lifted the crude charge-storage device. With a sudden motion, he poked the electrode—the protruding nail—at Terrence’s hand. A spark flashed, and Terrence twitched. “Well, what do you think?”

Terrence smiled grimly. “If that’s the best we can do, I suggest that you challenge Faisel to a chess tournament.”

About the Author

Edward M. Lerner has degrees in physics and computer science (and, curiously enough, an MBA). Now writing SF full-time, Lerner worked in high tech for thirty years (including seven years as a NASA contractor), as everything from engineer to senior vice president. That experience includes techie havens (such as Bell Labs and Northrop Grumman), an Internet company, and a software start-up. It all shows up in his fiction.

His books include Probe, Moonstruck, and the collection Creative Destruction. His short fiction has appeared in Analog, Artemis, and Jim Baen’s Universe magazines, on Amazon Shorts, and in the anthologies Year’s Best SF 7 and Future Washington.

In the pipeline are Fool’s Experiments and two “Known Space” novels in collaboration with Larry Niven: Fleet of Worlds (October 2007) and Juggler of Worlds.

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Framed

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Contents

Fish Story, Episode Twelve: Make It More Complicated

Written by Eric Flint, Andrew Dennis, Dave Freer

“Tolerated to be it is not!”

I stared at the snake.

So did Mademoiselle J.

So did Agent 544.

So did every agent or agent supervisor or busybody or be-damned-politician-on-a-junket in the chamber hollowed out of the side of the chasm near the bottom of the Marianas Trench. When you’re the size of a globe-girdling reptile, you get paid attention to when you holler.

“Will you cease and desist from your Teuton imitation?” demanded Mademoiselle J. “It is so annoying.”

The giant serpent’s expression looked confused, for a moment. “But I wasn’t … Oh.” He turned his head and looked back at his tail. Which wasn’t there because it was in front of him, because it was encircling the world. “Sorry. I forgot I’d gotten twisted up a bit. Syntax flows where the body goes, as they say.”

Sulkily, he added: “I still think the Teuton way of handling the logic is superior. Start with the focus of the thought instead of beating your way around it.”

“You would,” muttered Agent 544. She—I think the agent was female, anyway; hard to tell with life forms from Beta Coronae—swiveled her eyestalks to study the snake. “But I don’t, and I’m the ranking agent supervisor here. So we’ll use my preferred syntax, given that we’re required by treaty regulations to use one of the native tongues.”

She gave the assembled agents and supervisors and assorted busybodies—of which she was one herself, you want my opinion—and be-damned-politicians-on-a-junket a cold stare, and then swiveled the eyestalks back to Mademoiselle J.

“Finish the report.”

“Nothing much to add.” The snotty teleost pointed a fin at me and said: “Little Dickie and his hominid buddies screwed the pooch. That’s about all there is to say on the matter.”

Somehow she managed to convey a sneer, even though teleosts don’t have lips.

I can’t stand teleosts. The bastards are all hardcore racialists, I don’t care what claims they make otherwise. Official philosophy of the True Meme Alliance be damned. So far as the teleosts are concerned, the only true meme adherents are real fish—and when you get right down to it the only real fish are bony fish. So any time anything goes wrong, they immediately put the blame on the lesser breeds.

Fortunately, everybody else detests teleosts too. For sure and certain, Agent 544 did, seeing as her species evolved in tide pools and bore no resemblance whatsoever to the fusiform ideal. “Ideal,” as least, so far as most fusiform members of TRUMA are concerned.

Not me, though. Whales are as a fusiform as you could ask for, sure. But I think all of the philosophical trappings surrounding the—hold your breath and take your pick:

Great Cause

Great Galactic Cause

Chthonic War

Anti-Chthonic War

War to End All Wars

War to Make the Universe Safe for the Three Dimensional Meme Ideal

(You Name It and Some Fishy Doofus Has Come Up With It)

(My personal favorite: Crusade for the Right to Flow)

—are a crock.

And they make fun of chthones for being hopeless schematics!

Ha! As if our side is any better!

Oh, let me count the ways …

We can start with the fundamental dispute. What is it—precisely—that defines Our Side in the conflict to begin with?

The teleosts, of course, have a simple answer: It’s the fish of the universe against the land-dwellers, with your various flighty types flapping around somewhere in the middle, but since their total biomass is pitiful anyway, who cares what they think?

From there, of course, all their racialist logic follows. “Fish” being defined somatically, it follows that some fish are inherently fishier than others. Bony fish are therefore at the center of the definition of Fishdom—you may as well say “at the top,” thank you very much—and all the others fall somewhere below. Next come the various lesser forms of fish, like sharks and rays. Then come creatures with fish shapes but who aren’t really fish—whiles like me and ichthyosaurs fall into this category—and then come critters who are even less fishy-looking but are at least clearly swimmers—think plesiosaurs, here, or seals or penguins—followed by a rapid decline into the ranks of those primitive beings whose only real claim to being part of “Fishdom” is simply the crude fact that they usually dwell in water.

But teleosts are dimwits, as everyone knows except teleosts themselves. And ostracoderms, of course, which is why the silly buggers waste their time with an Ostracoderm Equality League—there’s also an Equalization League, and puh-leese don’t ask me to explain the distinction since life is too short as it is—given that nobody except teleosts cares about their armor in the first place. And who cares what teleosts think, since—

See discussion of “dimwits,” above.

Moving somewhat up the intellectual ladder—not much, but some—we come to the various strains of political thought which focus on somatic form rather than content, so to speak. They usually go by the name of “fusiformists” or “the torpedo school.” What matters, these savants would have it, is that the species in question is adapted to the demands of three-dimensional travel through a fluid.

Needless to say, there’s an extremist branch of this political tendency which would eliminate the need to specify “through a fluid” and would therefore automatically enroll all avian critters in The Great Cause. But given that your average bird is a bird-brain, this school of thought is tiny and risible.

No more risible than your other fusiformists, though, if you ask me, since this entire philosophy falls into the same racialist logic as the teleosts, albeit in a somewhat more sophisticated manner. Mind you, this is not sour grapes on my part. We whales are always welcomed as fully qualified equals by any fusiformists.

But it’s still silly—as Agent 544 would be the first to tell you. And let me here go on record stating that while I consider Agent 544 an obnoxious busybody and wished at this very moment that she was pestering some other agent somewhere else, preferably very very very far away, the reason she was obnoxious in the first place was because she had an actual functioning brain in her oh-so-very-non-fusiform head.

Something which could not be said of all too many fusiform critters. If you don’t believe me, try having an intelligent conversation with a tuna.

Then we come to those various sects—a multitude here—which would locate the essence of what makes our side “our side” not in any particular shape of being, but in the essential difference between our locale and that of the Great Enemy.

Put simply, our side lives in the water and Their Side lives on land.

Alas …

First—as Agent 544 would explain to you again, in her inimitably annoying manner—this neat and simple definition fumbles badly with all the many species who fall betwixt and between. Dwellers in tide pools, amphibians of all sorts, you name it. And lest you think these ambivalent types can be dismissed as inconsequential, I need to point out that the most recent galactic survey carried out by the (supposedly non-sectarian and non-denominational although I have my doubts) Sidereal Marine and Aquatic Institute records well over eight thousand intelligent amphibian species and slightly less than five hundred intelligent tide pool species in this galaxy alone—and that’s before we even wander into the nebulous terrain provided by worlds of myth and legend and fantasy.

So, no, I’m afraid defining “our side” simply by reference to water just doesn’t cut it.

The most sophisticated school of thought, and the one toward which I’d be inclined myself if I gave a damn, are those who would locate the ineluctable animosity between Us and Them as being the product of an inherent antagonism between those beings for whom reality is ultimately two-dimensional and those for whom it is three-dimensional.

The “dimensionalists,” they’re called, or sometimes the “meme school.” You can think of them as the Vedantists of our side in the brawl.

They’ve even managed to get a watered down version of their viewpoint adopted as the official philosophy of The Cause, since it has the great advantage of being so vague that it offends nobody in particular—especially when you toss the great means-anything-you-want-so-it-means-nothing weasel term “meme” into the bargain.

It also has the great advantage—very useful in time of war—of providing an automatic rationale for victory going to Our Side. After all, the universe is three-dimensional, not two-dimensional. And it therefore stands to reason that We—not the primitive and benighted chthones—are destined to rule it.

But I could care less.

Me, I’m in it for the money. Fish and their cohorts pay better than chthones. Simple as that.

Don’t ask me why. It’s just a fact. My own theory is that sentients who are restricted to a two-dimensional plane are just naturally inclined toward being tightwads. Probably has something to do with evacuation disorders, all bound up the way they are with gravity’s demands.

Whatever, the fact remains. If you’re a professional secret agent, like me and all whales I know except a handful of right whales with (like most right whales) a deficiency in left-side cortical material, you’ll take advantage of the fusiform silliness to land a nice-paying gig with one of the fish outfits.

Any of them, really. There are a jillion, on account of fish and their fellows are even more inclined toward sectarianism than chthones are. Pretty much all of them pay decently, and a fair number pay downright well.

My outfit being one of those. If you’re curious, it’s the Interstellar Counter-Chthonic Agency. Usually called the “Ickies” by their disgruntled rivals, of whom there are many.

(This year. Last year and for several years prior to that I was on retainer for the Cnidarian Anti-Defamation League, until the misers got sticky about freeform expense account methods. And they claim to be swimmers! Go figure.)

But I digress. When last we saw, Mademoiselle J. was accusing me and my partners of having fumbled the Thor hit.

Naturally—he’s stupid but he’s not mindless—the Midgard serpent who actually blew the job immediately sided with her.

“Yeah, that’s right. It was their fault.”

“Fish bait!” I replied. “We did our job perfectly. Right according to plan. Suckered the big redhead out of his magically shielded quarters and out into the open. Even got him down to the waterfront, for the love of Mu.”

I wagged a derisive fluke at the big snake. “At which point, Ol’ Mush-Mouth here managed to eat half the beach without—don’t ask me how!—managing to swallow Thor in the lot.”

The snake looked sullen. “It was those secret agents of his got in the way and confused me. You should have taken them out!”

I would have sneered except whales don’t have lips either. Pity, that. Sneering is the one genuine accomplishment humans have to their credit. About the only one worth talking about, but it makes up for a lot.

“What ‘secret agents’?” I demanded. “Two drunks. And lawyers, at that. They just got mixed into the deal by accident.”

Unfortunately—as I expected, damn it!—that logical explanation wasn’t going to satisfy most of the representatives there. Say what you will about the paranoia of chthones—and whatever you say is almost sure to be true—fish and their fellows are even worse. Chthones will at least make formal obeisance to the principle of Occam’s Razor. Your average fish, if he’s ever heard of William of Ockham at all—not likely, though, is it?—thinks he was a hopeless dimwit.

The truth is, that’s the only thing that keeps The Other Side in business at all. Measured by any objective criteria, this so-called War To End All Wars should have been over eons ago. I mean, seriously. Earth’s a pretty typical planet. A lot more water than land, right? Even just measuring in terms of area, much less inhabited volume.

It should have been a cakewalk.

Fish & Friends: 32,678,543.

Chthones: 4. (All asteroids on the margin of habitability.)

But, even if they only honor the principle in the breach, at least chthones have the Great Principle.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Whereas it’s just about a formal requirement for career advancement in the world of Our Fishy Friends to have Make It More Complicated tattooed on you somewhere clearly visible to your underlings.

An agent from the one of the sessile outfits spoke up. Don’t ask me which outfit, because I have no idea. Nobody can keep track of them for the good and simple reason that, sessies not being able to move, each and every little gang of them sets up their own spy outfit. There are a lot of sessie gangs on every inhabited planet, and there are a lot of inhabited planets.

As a rule, though, it doesn’t matter. Filter feeders being filter feeders, your average sessie secret agent has the brains of …

Well. A sponge. What do you expect?

I’ll say that this one was smarter than the usual run, though.

“Fault with long skinny fish,” it pronounced, clapping out the words in that obnoxious way they have. “Had chance. Missed bite.”

Can’t ask for better than that!

For a while there, it looked as if things were going to get really tense. Among their many other charms, teleosts don’t handle setbacks well and they handle constructive criticism even worse.

But, eventually, order prevailed (if not reason) and the assembly of secret agents and agent supervisor and busybodies and be-damned-politicians-on-a-junket assigned to the Earth Project managed to patch together something in the way of a compromise plan.

Naturally, it was complicated.

Naturally, it put last things first.

Naturally, it was obsessed with the least significant and most accidental factors in the situation.

And—most naturally of all—it handed the task of Doing Something About It right back on the innocent heads of the only people in the whole affair who hadn’t screwed up in the first place.

Me, who else?

Richard M. Moby, at your service. With his Gang of Merry Knaves.

“So what’s the verdict?” asked Ahab, when I entered the chambers we shared in the Secret Undersea Base. Yes, that’s what it’s officially called by the Sidereal Marine and Aquatic Institute, which (don’t ask my why) is also assigned to keep track of these things. Secret Undersea Base Number 12,344-G, if you want to get really precise about the matter.

The one-legged captain flopped another card onto the table. Jonah peered at it suspiciously.

“That looks handmade to me,” Jonah grumbled. “And how many aces of hearts are there in a deck anyway?”

“Five,” said Ahab. “Hearts get an extra one because they’re a handicapped suit. Being organic like they are. And of course it’s handmade. All our cards are handmade. You see any convenient stores down here at the bottom of the ocean?”

Jonah’s not the sharpest pencil in the box, if you hadn’t figured it out already. By now, if they’d been playing for money, Ahab would have owned everything of Jonah’s including the rags off his back. Which, since that was pretty much all Jonah owned, was the reason Ahab agreed not to play for money in the first place. Normally, being from Boston, the one-legged bastard is as avaricious as they come.

I would have been in a bad mood anyway, given the outcome of the agent conference. Having to make the transition from water to air inside the chambers we kept for me and My Merry Gang made me even grumpier. It’s not that I particularly mind hopping around on my flukes. By now, if I say so myself, I’m a veritable cetacean acrobat.

No, it’s just the transition itself that’s a damn nuisance. I don’t care what claims the snotty Sagittarians make about their pressure transition technology. Going from Bottom-of-the-Marianas-Trench to Merry Gang Headquarters in less than an inch of travel is no fun at all.

“Quit clowning around!” I snapped. “And wake up the others. We’ve got a new mission.”

“Let me guess,” said Ahab. “The assembled agents and agent supervisors and whatnot examined the reports, carefully assessed the situation, and immediately fixated on the least significant aspect of the problem.”

“You got it,” I said gloomily. “The drunks. We’re to terminate them with extreme prejudice.”

Ahab winced. “All of them? I mean, not just the two lawyers?”

“Nope,” I said, more gloomily still. “The fish scientists too.”

Jonah groaned. “The only lower form of human life than a lawyer is a fish scientist. Even the drunkards.”

“They’re all drunkards,” piped up Melville, lying on his cot as usual and writing another book. He lowered the pen for a moment and looked up at us. “About their only saving grace, actually. At least lawyers usually manage to stick to the trade, as a rule. Fish scientists? Oh, the horror. Within a few years, all but a handful have drifted out of the work—pays terrible, of course—and into other trades. Short order cooks, sous-chefs—they’re rife in the restaurant business although you rarely find them making it to the top. You find quite a few working before the mast, too, and a fair number become authors. So you never quite know when you might accidentally stumble across one of the wretched creatures, where at least with lawyers you can usually avoid their regular haunts.”

Jonah glared at him. “This is all your fault.”

Melville shrugged. “I had nothing to do with you.” He jabbed the pen at the little group of hermits huddled in a corner of the chamber. Arguing, as usual. “One of them did for you.”

Fortunately, the grubby slobs were arguing in Aramaic, so I didn’t have to follow it. Not one of my languages.

Allowing for Melville’s caveat, though, Jonah was by and large right.

Pretty much everything that went wrong in the universe was Melville’s fault.

“Put the damn pen down!” I snapped. (I’ve got one hell of a snap, too. Human may have sneers, but not one of them has a jaw comes close to matching mine.) “You’re coming with us, this time, you sorry son-of-a-bitch.”

That got a reaction from him, ha! Now looking very alarmed, Melville struggled to a sitting position and then onto his feet. Not often you saw that, the lazy scribbler.

“Why me?” he whined. “I’m just an author! Contemplative by nature.”

“Punishment for your sins,” I said. “Nothing more than you deserve.”

“Besides,” Ahab added, “you’re a drunkard yourself. Set a drunk to catch a drunk.”

“Lots of authors are drunks,” Melville said defensively. “We’re pretty damn low on the totem pole ourselves, you know.”

“Not as low as lawyers or fish scientists.”

“Well, sure.” He made a face. “This is going to be a nasty business, I fear.”

“Think of yourself as a muckraker,” I said cheerfully. “Like those good writers. The ones that have a fancy ‘Sinclair’ somewhere in their names instead of a stick-in-the-mud ‘Herman.’”

Oh, I am such a wit. Sperm whales are known for it, of course.

* * *

To be continued

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Framed

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Contents

INTRODUCING STORIES:

Red Tape and Cold Iron, or A Proposal for the Reintroduction of the Faery Folk To the United Kingdom

Written by Lucy Bond

Illustrated by Anna Repp

Once upon a time, there was a well-meaning but fluffy environmentalist on the government who, having heard of schemes to re-introduce wolves to the Scottish Highlands, and the success of the wild boar in the South, hatched plans to re-introduce fairies back to their historical homelands. From the whimsical American books she favored, she imagined picturesque creatures who would attract the tourists and protect the environment: perhaps a woodland holiday resort under a great dome where little flower-petal-clad lovelies would frolic for the photographers. She wondered who could help her to achieve such a thing, and put up little discreet notices on various boards in corridors of the Ministry, detailing the task.

Thereby, a civil servant passing by (who was, conveniently, a folklorist in her spare time) saw one of these odd little cards. She phoned the correct department and, with very little surprise or hesitation, agreed to go to the Faerie realm and strike a deal there.

In her private office, the politician, eyes misty, fingers stroking the pendant of rose quartz at her throat, spoke to her of ethereal ladies standing in gateways to the green forests, smiling benevolently upon the tidy picnickers. She then spoke of jolly little dwarfish folk working industriously in ethical mining projects, which would not impact upon the landscape in a negative fashion.

While the politician enthused, the Folklorist glanced around at the little tell-tale signs all about her: the crystal jewelry, the calendar of airbrushed angelic figures, the incongruous whooping of whale-song from a CD-player in the background, and took mental notes. The politician positively bubbled over with effusive thanks and delight that she had found someone who could get the job done. She was also secretly thrilled that it had been accomplished so quickly, and so locally, that she could whip down all those incriminating little cards and deny all knowledge if anyone accused her of being completely barmy. The Folklorist remained calm and polite, asking no questions, and accepting the many papers that required signing. Once again, the politician spoke joyously of the beautiful and just folk of Faeryland, and the calming, beneficial effect they would have on the English countryside.

The Folklorist had a much better idea of what this would really be like. Being more radically green herself, she thought it would be a splendid idea if those who flung trolleys into ponds and bathed unsafely in the deep waters were eaten by Jenny Greenteeth, or that people who blundered into swamps or climbed dangerous mountains unprepared would no longer be a burden on the emergency services, as they would be dragged under and drowned by Kelpies or carried off by marauding Redcaps.

She was not a cruel woman, only pragmatic, as she believed it would only take a few mortal deaths for the countryside to become a beautiful and unspoilt place again. There would be no need for ASBOs, with a few banshees posted to watch young offenders, following them around, wailing about their worthless lives, thieving intentions, and the doom it would bring on their families, yea, unto the ninth generation. All sorts of creatures dealt with vengeance and crimes of passion, if only they could be persuaded to work in a less chaotic way.

To this end, she proposed to offer them a Scottish island, as if they had a foothold in the mortal world. Having the deeds and ownership of the land, they would have back all of their old power, albeit on the condition that they worked with her and not merely for themselves.

She did not, of course, tell all of this to the excitable politician, especially not the part about the island, but she took the papers and, late into the night and on into the pale dawn, she corrected and amended them. She worked tirelessly, searching for loopholes that would bring unpleasant consequences, and adding her own conditions and proposals.

Then, much fortified with coffee, she set out to properly research the project.

After a proper breakfast, the Folklorist set to careful poring over dusty volumes in the reading-rooms of the British Library and in other more secret government repositories of dangerous and seditious books. Next, she consulted with others who had expertise in this field. This first involved much pleasant fireside chat with hedge-witches in quaint kitchens; later she moved on to heated debate with ceremonial magicians seated in Chesterfield club chairs in establishments usually reserved for only a certain kind of gentleman. Finally, she had a moment of revelation while leafing through the AA Guide to Mystical Britain. By the end of the day she had found what she believed to be a True Spell, and the location of a sacred and ancient horse-brass that hung upon the wall of an old, old pub.

The following morning this made for a very pleasant drive to that establishment, which I shall not name here. There she partook of a fine Ploughman’s lunch and half a pint of bitter (for though she may well have been a civil servant, and a lady, she was, none-the-less, a Folklorist, and it is very hard not to be a lover of real ale if one is a lover of olde Englande) after which there was a heart-pounding bout of sleight-of-hand to get the damnable thing off the wall and into her handbag. The theft as yet unspotted by the barmaid, the folklorist left a little note, promising to return the shiny object as soon as she was back in this time and space.

So, with the advice of others, the proper tools and words, she was ready to summon the Horse.

Being an Englishwoman who had grown up in a rural suburb, the Folklorist had a love of horses originating in her childhood. In her village, most girls were pony-mad, and sighed over books, posters and magazines-full of shining horseflesh much in the way that other girls screamed over pop-stars. Therefore, it did not take a great leap of imagination to visualize the perfect horse. For one thing, she had doodled him in the margins of exercise books well into her late teens. Visualization, she told herself, was the most important part.

With the horse-brass and a box of sugar-lumps laid at her feet, a large, fat carrot in her right fist and a dusty tome in her left, she traced arcane symbols in the night air in her little back-garden, hoping the people at Number 37 were out for the evening. With some difficulty, she intoned the proper words, pulling herself up to her full height of five foot four and doing her best to look commanding in the tweed trousers, rather special brown boots and waxed jacket she had picked as being the most suitable outfit for the ceremony. It was not easy, she noted, to recite ancient verse while brandishing a root vegetable, in all seriousness; but something was being done correctly, because, with no warning whatsoever, the Horse appeared on her meager lawn.

If the stories were to be trusted, he was a quintessence of all noble and magical horses from history. He perfectly understood the thoughts and wishes of his rider, and his greatest power was the ability to walk from one realm to another, carrying his rider with him. It would also be very conveniently clear to her when he had arrived in Faerie, as in one realm he appeared black, but in the other he was white. He struck awe and respect into onlookers, as he exuded a great aura of wisdom from his dark gaze, and, besides, looked like a creature straight out of a pre-Raphaelite painting of Camelot.

The Folklorist blinked at the Horse, and the Horse blinked back at the Folklorist with his limpid, knowing black eyes. He gently took the carrot from her right hand (as she was still holding it aloft, open-mouthed) between his fine, white teeth and crunched it up thoughtfully. He then tossed his shaggy black head, as if to indicate that she should break open the box of sugar-cubes.

Giggling like a schoolgirl, the Folklorist ran back into the house to fetch her overnight bag in which she had packed many needful things. She grabbed her briefcase of paperwork, popping a thermos of hot tea inside and a travel rug under her arm. She brought more carrots, put extra food down for the cat, and locked the back door.

Then, with her noble steed, her horn-rimmed spectacles pushed back on her neat nose, and her laptop safely left at home, the folklorist rode into Faerie, where she would gather every creature, fair and foul, for a grand conference.

The journey itself was uneventful, to tell the truth. There was a brief delay while she struggled to tie her bags into panniers with parcel-string, and fashion a form of saddle with belts and the tartan rug. After this performance, the Horse seemed to lose all patience, as the moment she had scrambled onto his back he vaulted over the privet hedge in a stomach-lurching fashion, causing the Folklorist to be somewhat perturbed. But she clutched her flask of tea in one hand and a fistful of mane in the other, and whispered her destination into one large, velvety-black ear. Before the net-curtains had a chance to twitch at Number 37, there was a rather sickening shift in the landscape and geometry, they were suddenly standing in an open meadow, and the Horse was as white as a pristine sheet of A4 paper.

The Folklorist made a little note in a small leather-bound book and whispered a little more of her plan to the Horse, who, once again, looked thoughtful and did not move until she had dug out another carrot from her bag. Then they rode on, through places which seemed oddly familiar and wildly strange at the same time, much like a place you visit in dreams, but know, on waking, is a patchwork of memories, sewn together from many times and places. Unsettled though she was, the Folklorist’s heart sang with her plan for a new England. The mythic landscape of Faerie, with its deep, seemingly impenetrable forests and strangely stirring birdsong, set her heart thumping and her cheeks aglow, much as a symphony by Benjamin Britten brought tears to her eyes, along with a vision of the white cliffs of Dover, Vera Lyn singing fit to bust, and a full roast beef dinner.

Stopping from time to time to consult her book, she began to seek out the many tribes of Faerie that she required to attend her conference.

She traveled through timeless forests of gnarled oaks, old when the world was yet young, where doors opened in the very tree-trunks as she approached. She saw the golden dawn break over breathtaking lakes and reedy marshes, like nothing she had ever seen on a weekend break to the Lake District, and called greeting into the waters. She knocked at the door of a white castle with towering walls and multiple turrets which defied reason and mathematics, like a wedding-cake constructed by a mad confectioner. She rang odd, tinkling bells at entrances of shacks and burrows.

The Folklorist had never encountered anything out of the ordinary at the Ministry, not that she could compare to the locals here. She steeled her nerve with the belief that politeness will get you everywhere; besides, she had many useful things in her overnight bag, and a very practical pair of brown boots. She showed no fear in the face of moss-smelling hill-giants, talking hares, semi-aquatic monsters half one thing and not enough of another, or creatures she could not clearly see or describe, but who seemed to shift as if some higher being was flicking a remote control through every cable channel. Yes, the Folklorist held tight to her belief in politeness, and also to order, for she was a civil servant after all; a woman who some had said had ink in her veins and all her thoughts and hopes filed and alphabetized.

She spoke to the guardians of wild places of the (for a limited period only) feast of flesh they would receive, and to the Banshees about returning to the families they so missed, having haunted them for generations. She conversed with tall and shining folk about barrows and hills much dug-over by archaeologists, until they glared in grim fury. She spoke to willowy water-folk who seemed composed of little more than shadow, telling them of rivers diverted to build bypasses. She even spoke to tiny, needle-toothed folk with bodies like weasels and faces like something from the depths of the sea about those wronged in love, about date-rape and Rohypnol, until they gnashed their many needle-teeth and squirmed in eagerness to come with her, for the Folklorist, was, of course, not without her own agenda.

In short, she taught the folk of Faerie all the ills of her modern world that she believed they could end; and as they were creatures at ease in a world of magic, she found it was surprisingly easy to explain everything from the internal combustion engine to reality television to them with very little confusion.

Everywhere she went, the inhabitants eyed her garb curiously but could not help but show respect for her mount, for he had not been seen in these parts for many a long year. They braided flowers into his mane and stroked his flanks, clustering round him like children at an ice-cream van, and offering the Folklorist dishes of fruits: blue-blushed and crimson, which she could not identify, but which filled her mouth with saliva at the slightest whiff of their ripe fragrance. They seemed to stir something half-forgotten, like the earliest memory of her mother’s cooking. However, she had consulted many knowledgeable men, and many old tales, so she politely declined. She resorted to swigging tea from her flask, and opening a little plastic sandwich box when the situation arose, nibbling on a smart triangle of white bread and cucumber. The locals looked on disapprovingly, but they couldn’t fault her for having come well prepared, and they kept well away from her rather fine brown boots.

In every place she visited, she spoke to them all warmly of the Scottish island and the foothold it would give them in the human world. It would be a refuge from modern times, too, where they could retreat for the weekend, or for a designated two weeks holiday per year.

They followed her to the sugar-spun castle, which seemed the ideal place for a conference, as the Folklorist correctly deduced that it was headquarters for the overall area manager, or queen of this land. She addressed the queen, a woman of similar height to herself, with a very fair aspect: all trailing skirts, golden curls, a face like an advert for skin-cream. She was expensively bejeweled from head to foot in networks of silvery chain and gems like raindrops. However, her starry eyes, right out of a fantasy postcard, were shrewd as the Prime Minister’s personal secretary, and the Folklorist knew she would have to tread carefully if she wanted to gain the outcome she had set out for.

The queen lolled cat-like on an impressive throne, flung with velvet draperies which artfully failed to conceal that it was made of gold and set with rubies. All around, the walls were hung with tapestries of scenes depicting wayward travelers, ushered into great feasting halls, blundering cheerily into the swamps, and marching along past hedgerows from which peered threatening figures. Wicked maidens ran, hands aloft, no doubt, shrieking embroidered screams, from wrathful unicorns. Giants crushed presumptuous knights underfoot, and dragons coiled on their piles of loot, crunching lazily on long, boot-clad bones.

The Folklorist shuddered, as she was meant to, but she opened her briefcase, drew out her papers, straightened them, and set forth her proposal. The queen listened, as there was little to do that afternoon, and became intrigued enough by the Folklorist’s band of followers, and the Scottish island, to call a meeting of the Council.

Now, the council sat long, and the Folklorist made them sign papers in triplicate to ensure that she returned to the same time and place that she had left. She frequently had to dip into her little lunchbox and attempt to spin out her sandwiches, but finally they agreed to her demands. Then she surreptitiously unpicked every flower from the mane of her steed, and the whole nightmarish cavalcade rode back into the human world, following the noble Horse, and the Folklorist atop it with her little briefcase.

Although, on later perusal of The Times, she realized it was a Tuesday and not the previous Friday, the Folklorist soon found herself astride a horse which was once more black as newsprint, and very close to the point at which she had set out. Those few yards of distance were crucial, unfortunately, and she now appeared in the kitchen of Number 37 along with all her motley companions. So, the very first casualties of her new campaign were Mr. and Mrs. Fanhope, who ran screaming out into the road and were swiftly picked up by the authorities for “causing a disturbance in their night-wear.”

Prudently, the Folklorist buttered their breakfast toast before it could go too cold, and offered the creatures of Faerie a nice cup of tea.

And so it came to pass that a small Scottish island became the outpost for a new breed of “incomers.” As ill-behaved children were gobbled up, and polluters and miscreants came to creatively intriguing and poetic ends, the politician denied all knowledge of a plan to reintroduce fairies. There was no point being ashamed that you believed they were living at the bottom of your garden, because they were. At least, for the working week they were, nine to five, and they were checking just what you put in your compost heap. The government advised the general public to remain calm, avoid activities which traditionally brought about retribution, and to put out a saucer of milk at night.

The broadsheets offered articles on how best to avoid being devoured by night-hags, a holiday report of seven years accidentally spent in Faerie by their reporter that weekend, and the best way to keep your pixies contented. The tabloids screamed alliteratively about “GORGEOUS GOBLIN GIRLIES IN RAMPANT ROYAL ROMP.” The fashion magazines reported on what hemlines were appropriate in the court of Titania this season, and whether or not green was the new black.

After a fairly short time, things did seem to settle down. England was a pretty merrie place to be, in fact, so long as you kept a horseshoe over your door, and did your best not to drown your true love in the well, or throw crisp-packets out of the window of your four-by-four near an oddly shaped hillock. The hedge-witches and ceremonial magicians of the land seemed particularly amused, and were only too glad to give television interviews, advising those less educated on the subject in the ways of coping with Faerie.

The politician, as I said, never spoke of the matter. She was far too busy trying to remove the frog-leggedy beasties from her office without offending them. They were not pretty, did not wear floaty dresses, and would keep whooping and shrieking with laughter at her whale-song CD.

The noble steed? Why, I hear he decided to stay on, even after the Folklorist returned the horse-brass to its rightful owners, seeing as she could now provide him with palatial stables, and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of carrots.

And the Folklorist? Last I heard, she’d had herself a throne built in the shape of a Chesterfield club chair, with a matching footstool to rest her iron-nailed boots and had settled herself into a fine stone cottage on a little Scottish island, snug as you like.

The neighbors there never twitch their net curtains at all.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

Extreme Reservations

Written by R. J. Ortega

Illustrated by Dan Monroe

The innkeeper’s wife flipped the gold coin to her husband; it glinted prettily in the light of a single bare bulb. He caught it in the air.

“It’s real,” she said.

Ken O’Malley stared at the coin in his hand; with the other he absently removed a green eyeshade he habitually wore whenever doing the books. A bit of a traditionalist was Ken O’Malley. He wrinkled his forehead, rubbing a dry spot between his graying red eyebrows. “So what the hell is a doubloon doing in our reservation book?”

“Not a doubloon dear, it’s Dutch, not Spanish; a 17th century 100-Guilder trading ducat.” Cathy folded her arms over her formidable bosom as she spoke; Ken swallowed hard at the sight. All these years, and the former Miss Cathy Feinberg could still make his heart beat faster with a gesture. “It’s worth a bit more than the simple gold content, too.” She quoted the value a Sacramento numismatist had appraised the coin for. Ken whistled, deep and low.

“Maybe that’s how Uncle Seamus balanced the books on this place; black market gold, or something. God knows he didn’t do it on the barflies and river rats we call clientele.”

He pulled the reservation book for June down off a shelf, flopping it open to the second Saturday. The notation, in his late uncle’s precise handwriting, read: “Private party, F.H. & 100+ guests, morning till closing, full buffet, open bar. (Order extra rum, brandy, ale.)”

A small Manila envelope was taped to the page. Ken returned the gold coin to it, and shut the book. “Well, we’ll know two weeks from tomorrow. Meanwhile, we’ve got to get ready for the Friday night rush.”

Cathy swung the door to the tiny office open; a wonderful smell wafted in. “Ah. For a Jamaican, Henri sure knows how to cook Italian.” She inhaled deeply. “Mmm. Garlic, shrimp, olive oil—”

Ken sniffed the air too, and scowled. “That’s not all.” He began to curse in the few words of Gaelic he actually knew.

“Calm down dear. It’s part of his religion.”

“Then he can smoke it in church, but not in my kitchen, damn it!”

* * *

Two weeks passed. Ken rose from the narrow bed he and his wife shared, and stumbled out the door of their cabin into the wheelhouse that served as their living room. He wrapped his bathrobe tight against the morning chill, and watched the sun rise over the Sacramento River delta.

It can’t last, but right now, it’s beautiful. He’d spent most of his life fighting traffic every morning, dreaming of the day he could retire to run a bar and live above his workplace. Having such a magnificent view as well was sweet icing. Too bad we can’t afford it.

The Paddlewheeler Restaurant and Bar, AKA The Delta Princess had begun her life more than a century earlier, as an authentic Mississippi riverboat. The details of how she had migrated to the west coast were lost to history, but it was known that during the roaring twenties she had spent ten years anchored due west of Los Angeles just outside the twelve-mile limit, serving perfectly legal cocktails to those who could afford it. After repeal she had been dry-docked until 1953, when a young Seamus O’Malley, freshly returned from the fields of war, had claimed her, refurbished her, and sailed her north along the Pacific coast and eastward into the Sacramento River. There he had converted her into a public house and restaurant. She had been a local landmark ever since.

He’d made a pretty good living at it too, or so Ken had thought until he’d inherited the place. At least Seamus O’Malley had always had plenty of money to throw around at the annual family reunions. But it was six months since Uncle Seamus had passed, and more and more the Paddlewheeler seemed to be nothing more than a gaping hole in the water into which money was poured. Ken had questioned the staff about it, but they were either oblivious or close-mouthed. He’d searched through the bookkeeping with a fine tooth comb and the obsessive detail twenty-five years in civil service can drum into a man, and had finally come to the conclusion that Uncle Seamus had somehow run the place at a loss, funneling outside cash into the enterprise in massive amounts once or twice a year, in some manner invisible to the IRS.

Ken owned the riverboat free and clear, but at the end of the month he had to provide a full year’s lease money in advance to the owner of the pier she was now more or less permanently married to; that would eat up what little was left of the cash portion of his uncle’s legacy. If he did it, he doubted he could keep her open more than a few months more. The logical thing to do was to cut his losses, damn it.

He sighed, lit his first Camel of the day, and tried to enjoy the view through the dying embers of a bright dream. And that was when he saw the sails, tall and white, wind-driven against a blue-black dawn sky, and despite himself he felt a childlike enthusiasm rippling into his middle-aged heart.

He pulled open the door to the Captain’s Cabin. “Honey, get up, you’ve got to see this—”

A moan answered. “It’s Saturday. I was up until zero-weird-hundred pouring Eddie into the sleep-it-off room again; let me sleep in a little.”

“Cathy, it’s a windjammer! I swear, like something right out of Horatio Hornblower, sailing up the river.”

“I don’t care if it’s Jack Sparrow and the Pirates of the Caribbean; let me sleep.”

He sighed, and turned back to drink in the sight. “Oh Jesus, she’s magnificent. I don’t know how she’s making the draft in this shallow water. She sailing right toward us …”

His voice trailed off. The ship was sailing right toward them. Directly toward them, tacking to starboard as if—

“Holy Mary, Mother of God! Cathy, get up! She’s gonna ram us!”

She almost did. As Cathy bolted from bed, the sailing ship shifted her point to port slightly, striking her sails. She slid alongside the Delta Princess as gently as a mother setting her babe to rest. Grappling hooks flew out, securing her, anchor chains rattled, and a long ramp was dropped directly onto the railed promenade which horseshoed the wheelhouse.

Ken and Cathy watched numbly as a huge man with skin as pale as an egg stepped off the windjammer onto the ramp. He was fiercely bearded; from under a tricorn hat jet-black hair fell in greased ringlets from scalp and chin alike. His clothing, all as black as his hair, was of fine silks and brocades of the richest quality, cut in the style of an earlier century; bloused pants were tucked into the tops of improbably high leather boots.

He crossed the long ramp swinging a bulky oilcloth sack in a hand the size of a small ham. Stepping casually over the brass railing he entered the wheelhouse, and stared past Ken and Cathy, eyes as dark as a stormy night sliding over them dismissively as the pair strained for self-control in their bedclothes and fuzzy slippers.

The dark mariner swept the room with his gaze, scowled massively, and raised a hand to his mouth. “Seamus,” he bellowed in a ringing baritone, “It’s me, Vandervecken. Vhere is you, kiddo? Vhe gots a schedule to keep.” He moved past them like a well-dressed windstorm, continuing to call for Seamus as he stomped downstairs.

At length Ken found his voice. “Who the hell is he supposed to be?”

“Not who, what! ” Cathy whispered. She pointed through the plate glass that ringed the forward half of the wheelhouse. On the windjammer’s bow, in faded gilt letters, was the legend Fliegende Hollander.

“So what does that mean?”

“Oh come on! Don’t you know your Wagner?”

He shrugged. “You’re the one who went to Stanford.”

She sighed. “It translates to ‘Flying Dutchman.’”

His eyes goggled. “Oh no.” He fought off a case of the giggles. “You gotta be kidding me.”

She opened her mouth to answer, but the voice that replied came from below decks. “Seamus, vhere is you? Vhe is burnink daylights.” Boot heels stomped up hardwood stairs and the black-garbed seaman squeezed his bulk back through the hatch. “Vhere is Seamus O’Malley? Vhe has a contract for today. I tells you, you can’ts trust an Irishman to be punctual.”

The ethnic insult helped Ken find his voice again. “My uncle Seamus died in an auto accident on New Year’s Day; I’ll thank you not to insult his memory. I’m Ken O’Malley, the new proprietor. And who might you be?”

“Captain Vandervecken,” the big man replied distractedly. “Seamus is dead?” A cloud seemed to pass over his milk-white face; he rolled his dark eyes heavenward. “Dot lucky bastard!” He shook his impossibly broad shoulders. “But you is schtill in business, ja?”

“Well, yes …”

“Goot.” A broad smile spread across the shaggy face. “Vhe had der defil’s own time finding a bar vhat fit all the conditions.”

“Conditions?”

“Ja. You sees, dose uf us what’s gots no choice but to liff forevers, vhe gets togetter vonce each year, secont Sattiday in Chune, for a little kaffeklatch. Unfortunate, most of us is sailink under a curse of zum kindt. Me and mine crew, for examples, is only allowed to go ashore every zeventh year.” He stamped his foot on the deck. “Dis beink technical a boat on der vater, no problem. Goot for old Ahasuerus too. Again, beink technical a vessel wot coulds get unter vay, he is free to spendt der night mitout his curse givink him itchy feet.”

“Ahasuerus?” Ken whispered in Cathy’s ear.

“The Wandering Jew, I think.”

“Undt of course Jack-uff-der-lantern vhont zet foot in a pub mitout it zerves a zuperior black-undt-tan.” He raised one bushy eyebrow. “You does, don’t you?”

“Best in the county,” Ken affirmed proudly. Then he raised an eyebrow. “That’s a weird curse.”

“Vhut curse? He’s chust Irish.” Vandervecken shrugged his ponderous shoulders. “But der mozt important part is, beink on runnink vater helps us keep the party crashers to a minimal. Speakink of vich—”

He opened the oilcloth sack and removed an oversized hourglass cased in brass, which he set down on a navigator’s table bolted to the deck next to the wood-pegged ship’s wheel. “So, does vhe haff a deal? I gafe your late onkle ten per centages down to reserfe dis place last year.” He removed a silken clasp-purse from his jacket and tossed it to Ken. “Here’s der rest.”

Ken opened the purse with trembling fingers. Sure enough, nine twins to the antique trading Ducat were nestled inside. He mentally multiplied the coin’s appraised value by a factor of ten, subtracted the upcoming lease payment, and realized that the remaining difference would be enough to keep the Paddlewheeler afloat for months.

“Vhe haff a deal,” he replied dreamily.

“Goot!” Vandervecken turned the sandglass over, placed one hand atop it, and solemnly intoned “Donder und Blitzen!” Outside the bright June daylight suddenly dimmed as storm clouds gathered with impossible speed, driven by winds that rocked the riverboat despite her secure moorings.

“What the hell?” Ken blurted.

Vandervecken smiled. “A little bit insurance, again to cut down on party-crashers. Alzo, it signals mine guests dot it is time to … vot is dot eggsprezzion? Oh ja, party down, dot it is time to party down.” He stared at them as if noticing their state of semi-undress for the first time. “Perhaps you shouldt maybe get zum clothses on, undt man der bar; mine crew is tursty after a year at zea.”

He headed back down the stairs, pausing in the hatchway to point back at the sandglass. “Votever you do, don’t touch dot until der zands run out tomorrow mornink. If you do, der contract ist kaput.” He drew his finger across his neck with a snick sound to emphasize the warning.

By the time the hurriedly dressed pair reached the main dining deck a score of sailors dressed as if for a road-show revival of “The Pirates of Penzance” were already clustered at the bar, impatiently awaiting service. The jukebox was blaring “Brandy,” by Looking Glass.

Ken touched his wife on the shoulder. “Get on the horn to Richard, C.B., and Big John. Tell ‘em to get here sooner than possible and to be ready for mucho bartending overtime. And if John can get a couple of his blacksmithing buddies over as extra bouncers it’d be appreciated.”

She nodded, and then bit her lip nervously. “Ken, are we sure about this? I mean—this can’t really be happening, can it?”

Ken kissed her—earning hoots and applause from the sailors—and whispered, “Don’t worry, I’ve got it all figured out. This is all just some kind of publicity stunt for a new reality TV show.” He looked around the room. “Probably on the Sci-Fi Channel.”

She nodded dubiously. “And the storm?”

“Umm, CGI?” He smiled weakly, patted her on the backside, and opened the bar.

He’d barely poured the first round—Captain Morgan’s, straight up all around—when there was a knock at the main entrance. Perhaps knock was too weak a word; the entire door rattled as if hit by a battering ram. A basso profundo voice from outside bellowed “OPEN UP!” and the door rattled again.

“Dot vould be Frank,” Vandervecken said, raising a rum-filled glass to his lips. “Let him in.”

Against his better judgment, Ken unlatched the door, which flung open to reveal a person so large as to render Vandervecken Lilliputian by comparison. Standing nearly eight feet tall and at least a yard wide across the shoulders, the newcomer’s face seemed to have been assembled in the dark by someone with an incomplete set of instructions. Lank gray-black hair hung down over a ridiculously broad forehead; watery yellow eyes stared out from under unevenly placed eyebrows set in sallow yellowish skin. The pug nose was set far too high, almost between the eyes, one of which was clearly larger than the other. He smiled, revealing yellowed teeth of varying lengths set in cracked, decaying gums.

“I’m sorry,” he said in the refined tones of an Oxford Don, “isn’t this the annual meeting of The Society of The Indefinitely Prolonged?” He patted at his jacket pocket—Armani, Ken noted, over an angora sweater—and added, “I seem to have misplaced my invitation.”

“Frank!” Vandervecken cried, echoed by half the sailors at the bar. “How you doink? Vhere’s the missus?”

“At home, watching the little ones,” Frank replied jovially. “We’ve got another one under construction, you know …”

Ken returned to bartending duties, pouring himself a small one, which he sipped gingerly. Okay, so Jack Pierce’s finest creation is sitting in my bar nursing a microbrew. I can deal with it.

The jukebox began to play “In The Navy,” followed by “Beyond the Sea.” Thank God it wasn’t karaoke night.

* * *

Frank wasn’t the only early arrival. Ahasuerus popped up about ten o’clock, dressed out of the Travelsmith catalog and carrying a battered suitcase covered in layers of ancient hotel stickers. He immediately began downing glass after glass of Mogen David, and was quite thoroughly plotzed by the noontime arrival of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, and her consort. She wore a golden chain mail bikini, while the consort wore clothes from Banana Republic, circa 1985. Both were upstaged by the sudden materialization of Captain John Carter of Virginia and his wife, who wore even less than Ayesha, and showed less need of structural support to boot.

By mid-afternoon the pier was clogged with vehicles ranging from a twelve-man palanquin to a British Police Emergency Call Box, which disgorged an amazing number of passengers. Limousines predominated.

A Rolls Royce with diplomatic plates, flying the flag of the People’s Republic, delivered a tall, elegant individual wearing long silk robes with a mandarin collar and a most remarkable moustache. He had a brow like Shakespeare, a face like Satan, piercing eyes of the true cat-green, and a distressing penchant for reciting dirty limericks in a loud voice after his third glass of plum wine.

Dorian Gray arrived fashionably late, of course, trailing an entourage of wannabes. He ordered a Pusse Cafe, and promptly vanished into the men’s room to primp in front of the mirror.

Cathy, stunningly done up, having done some primping herself, stepped behind the bar and whispered into her husband’s ear. “Didn’t Oscar Wilde have him dying at the story’s end?”

Ken shrugged. “I’ve got a feeling these people are pretty good at faking their own deaths.” He hooked a thumb toward a man at the end of the bar.

Cathy sneaked a look, blinked, and looked again. The customer in question had dark hair in a brylcreemed pompadour with thick sideburns; his eyes were hidden behind wraparound shades. He wore a white jumpsuit with a collar slit open to the navel, and one hand bore a heavy ring with the initials “TCB.” Ken reached gently over and pushed his wife’s jaw back into closed position. “Mind going back upstairs and finding my copy of Aloha From Hawaii? And a felt-tip?”

Cathy nodded numbly, and wandered off, her eyes slightly glazed. By the time she returned Ayesha had grown impatient, and sent a messenger boy after Dorian; the two emerged some minutes later. Gray wore a smug grin; the messenger boy merely blushed.

“Honestly Dorian,” complained Ayesha. “I thought you were turning over a new leaf.”

“Well, perhaps I will, now that I’ve gotten to the bottom of this page.”

* * *

By the sunset arrival of a thoroughly tanned individual who was lowered by rope ladder from a circling autogiro, Ken was feeling distinctly punch-drunk. The evening dissolved into a half-remembered haze of random conversations.

—”Hey, how many Hittites does it take to light a torch? Two, one to hold the torch up, and the other to pray for lightning!”

—”I’m sorry Mr. Macleod, but haggis just isn’t on our menu—calm down, please, there’s no need to lose your head.”

—”Yah, vell, original is me vhat ist called der Flyink Dutchman, not der schip, but I gots so tired of havink to explain dot I had der schip repainted. Den dot schtupit goldt miner gets lost, undt now everybodys confuzled all over again…”

—”Look kid, unless you can produce an ID showing you’re over twenty-one, you’re not getting anything but Shirley Temples. Now sit down, get those lost boys of yours to quiet down, and keep that damned fairy out of my chandelier.”

—”Mr. Melmoth, I don’t care if the devil owns your soul, I’m the guy who’s holding your car keys, and you’re not getting them back until you blow under point oh-eight.”

* * *

Following a prolonged discussion with Frank over the relative acting merits of Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee, Ken stepped out onto the weather deck for a quick smoke. The driving wind and fierce rain nearly pushed him back inside, but he slipped quickly onto the lee side, and lit up. He’d barely had a puff of his Izmir Stinger when the wind and rain suddenly abated, leaving a clear, dark night ablaze with stars.

It took a moment for the implications to percolate up to the top of Ken’s brain. Then, recalling Vandervecken’s warning, he tossed the coffin nail overboard and bolted back inside; threading his way across the crowded deck he raced to the wheelhouse three steps at a time. Tossing the hatch open, he saw exactly what he feared.

Eduardo Figuero was a skinny scarecrow of a man, with thinning hair, rumpled clothing, and the jovial, somewhat bemused grin of the career inebriant. At that precise moment his work-gnarled hands were wrapped around Captain Vandervecken’s hourglass, turning it over again and again while he cried “Whee, whee, whee,” in a singsong voice.

His heart sinking, Ken vaguely recalled his wife relating how she had put Eddie to rest on the back-room cot they kept for the sake of customers too far gone to make their way home. He must have slept the day away, and, waking to find the bar full of weird strangers, had gone looking for Ken or Cathy …

Ken groaned. Eddie turned at the noise, and smiled. “Hey Ken, you got some neat stuff here.”

“Vhat in hell is goink on here?” roared Vandervecken as he pushed Ken aside and strode into the wheelroom.

“Holy shit, it’s Bluto!” screamed Eddie as he booked out the side door to the promenade, vanishing over the rail with a splash following.

Ken tried to babble out an explanation, an excuse, anything, but was interrupted by Big John, the Bouncer, who stuck his head through the hatch, and breathlessly announced, “Boss, we’ve got trouble. Gate crashers.”

“So bounce ‘em. Hard.”

Big John shook his head. “I’m sorry boss, but I don’t think I got what it takes.”

That caused Ken to pause in thought. Big John was a blacksmith by trade, and one of the most dangerous unarmed combatants Ken had ever met in a life that included a tour in Viet Nam. “They look that tough?”

Big John took a deep breath before answering. “Let’s put it this way. Does the name Bela Lugosi ring a bell?”

Vandervecken sighed. “Yust like I figured. Mitout der veather schpell, der river isn’t runnink fast enough to drife dem off. Gott-damned party-crashink vampires.”

Ken grabbed the hourglass, handed it to Vandervecken. “Can’t you, y’know, just turn it back on?”

The Flying Dutchman shook his head. “You can only schtart it durink the first hour after dawn. Vhe’re schkrewed.”

Big John waved his hand for attention. “Boss, they’re asking for you. I don’t think they’re gonna wait much longer.”

“Dey can’ts enter mitout your permission,” Vandervecken explained. “Dot’s der goot news. Der bat news is dot if you don’t schow up in persons to tell dem so, they can come in anyvays.”

Ken sighed, and headed downstairs, the two big men following. The crowd made way for the trio, party conversation temporarily hushed in curiosity over the coming confrontation. Cathy was already at the door, wearing her best hostess smile. “Oh, there he is. I told you he’d be right along. Hello, dear.”

There were perhaps a dozen vampires on the gangway, an equal mix of male and female bloodsuckers, all dressed as if they had an open line of credit at Hot Topic; enough leather to upholster a cow, enough metal studs and chains to outweigh it. They were all just as pale as Vandervecken, with glowing red eyes and pointed ears to boot. The spokesman at the entrance had hair not unlike Vandervecken’s as well, long black ringlets flowing over his shoulders. “You are the proprietor?”

Ken nodded. “I’m afraid this is a private party. No admittance without an invitation.”

The vampire chief smiled, displaying the requisite enlarged canines. “Very well. But we will ask again a little later.” He closed the door.

Ken stared hopefully up at Vandervecken. “Is that all?”

The Captain laughed. “Ach, I vish. This plaze is a public houze, not a private home. You can refuse entrance, but dey gets to ask again after a tousand heartbeats, undt after dey ask three times politely, dey can enter mitout permission. Makink dem wait vill really piss dem off too.”

Ken tried to imagine what a pissed-off vampire would be like, and decided he didn’t want to know. “Isn’t there any way we can drive them off for good?”

“Holy objects is alvays goot, if dey’re heldt by zumone who has gots true faith. Has to be zumone related to the business though, no guests. Has either of you two gots religion?”

Ken grimaced. “I was raised Catholic, but it didn’t take.” He stared at his wife desperately. “Do you still have that Star of David necklace your mother sent you?”

Cathy bit her lip. “Yes, but honey, I haven’t kept kosher in thirty years. What we need is something secular.”

Ken slapped his forehead. “Garlic. For Christ’s sake, we’ve got a kitchen full of it. Quick honey, get Henri out here with all the garlic you can carry—”

But Cathy was already racing towards the kitchen. Ken started counting his own heartbeats. The vampires requested entry once more, and were again refused, by the time Cathy returned with an exhausted looking Henri, who carried a pathetically small net bag of garlic cloves in one hand.

“Jesus Christ, is that all we’ve got?”

Henri screwed his face up. “Hey mon, I been makin’ cheese-garlic toast and baby deep-dish all day, dis is what we got left. Why you need it, anyway?”

Big John hurriedly explained the situation while Ken examined the tiny aromatic bundle. “Captain, you think this is enough?”

“For makink ravioli, sure. For holdink off vampires, forgets it.”

Henri waved his hand for attention. “Let me get this straight; you need something to get rid of vampires? Something holy?”

“Essentially, yeah,” verified Ken.

Henri smiled and nodded his head, his dreadlocks dancing. “No problem mon. Open de door.”

“Whatsthewhonow?” Ken said brightly.

There was another knock on the door. “Innkeeper, let us in. Admit us, or we will enter without your blessing.”

Henri made a waving gesture with one hand, reaching into his apron pocket with the other. What he removed from that pocket made Ken’s eyes grow wide. He had heard legends of such, but he had never seen one in the flesh. It was funnel shaped, as long and as large around as an ear of corn. The amount that stuck out of the bitter end alone would have been sufficient to get ten normal men stoned.

To be blunt about it, that’s what it was. Spliffzilla.

Ken swallowed deeply, rolled his eyes toward heaven, and opened the door. The lead vampire seemed surprised. “Are we invited in, then? A pity, I was looking forward to breaking down the doors.” The other vamps laughed at the witticism.

“Not quite, mon,” answered Henri, as he placed the spliff in his mouth and lit it with an oversized kitchen utility butane. He inhaled deeply; a joyous look spread over his face, and he exhaled directly into the head vampire’s face.

The vamp looked as if he was going to sneeze at first. Then he screamed, and clawed at his face, stumbling blindly down the gangway past his startled followers.

Taking another toke, Henri marched down the ramp, puffing smoke like the little engine that could. The vampires scattered into the night, shifting into wolf form, bat form, mist, anything to get away from the smoke.

“Jah rules!” Henri called after them. “Jah rules in dis place, and you are not welcome here.” He performed a perfect about-face, and marched back up the gangway.

Ken shook his head, and then, in a voice of wonder, said “Holy Shit.”

“Exactly, mon,” replied Henri, as, trailing sweet smoke, he strutted back to the kitchen, the applause of a roomful of immortals following him.

* * *

Ayesha and Alan were the first to leave, taking their retainers with them. Dorian Gray and a few others followed them, but the majority stayed around until the bar had to close at 2 AM. Then they began drifting off, one or two at a time, until, in the cold light of dawn all that was left were Vandervecken and his men, and the remains of a cutthroat poker game that had run down to the last two contestants. Lazarus Long knew how to bet and bluff, but there was no defeating Captain Scarlet’s poker face. You’d swear the man was carved out of a block of wood.

Despite the rough spots, Ken decided that the evening had been a success, especially on a financial level. Even subtracting the red-ink expense of the heroic amounts of food and drink consumed, Ken could still hear a symphony of cash register bells every time he shook the silken coin purse in his pocket.

Not to mention the tips. The brandy snifter on the bar was filled to overflowing with coins and currency of a score of nations across a dozen or more centuries, along with the odd diamond ring, poke of gold dust, bags of Jelly Babies, and a slightly flawed ruby the size of a quail’s egg. Some of the gifts were problematical though. Obviously you didn’t want to cause Dr. Manchu to lose face by refusing his largesse, but what was a law abiding citizen to do with a pound of raw opium, anyway?

“Not a problem, mon,” Henri assured him. “I can find a use for it.”

Ken grinned. “I thought Rastas didn’t touch anything but ganja.”

“We don’t. But dere is such a thing as barter, you know.”

Laughing, Ken tossed the package to his cook, and, with Cathy by his side, saw Captain Vandervecken back to the wheelhouse. The captain retrieved his enchanted hourglass, looked about, and nodded, a subtle smile on his face.

“You throws a pretty goot party younk fella. I tinks we comes back again next year.” He tossed a single gold coin into the air. Ken caught it on the fly. “Dot shouldt holdt our plaze on der calenter, ja?”

“Second Saturday in June,” Ken agreed. “I’ll be up bright and early, and next time I’ll have a lock on the wheelhouse door.”

Captain Vandervecken threw the couple a snappy salute, about-faced as precisely as Henri had done the night before, and marched up the ramp, which was withdrawn immediately after him. Grappling hooks were detached, anchors raised, sails unfurled, and, as Ken and Cathy waved farewell, the Fliegende Hollander sailed away to the west, away from the sunrise, towards the seven seas of legend.

Ken yawned mightily. “Ye gods I’m tired. Let’s hit the rack.”

“Umm, before we do, there’s something I think I should show you.” She led him down the hall to the purser’s office. “I got to thinking last night, and decided to check Uncle Seamus’ books a few months ahead.”

The red-bound reservation book she handed him was labeled for October. The entry for the 31st read: “Private party/Business meeting, sunset till Midnight, Law Firm of Morningstar, Flylord & Babylon. 13 groups of 13 guests each, full buffet, open bar. (Notes: Cut Mr. War off after the third drink. Keep Mr. Famine away from the buffet. Contact livery supplier for oats.)”

There was a Manila envelope taped to the page. In it were three silver coins marked in Latin. Ken held one of them up to the light of the single bare bulb. The glint was bright, but somehow sinister. “Figuring a ten percent deposit for reservation—yeah, thirty silver coins. Makes sense, considering. Better get these appraised first thing Monday.” He sighed. “Looks like we’re gonna have one hell of a Halloween.” He slammed the book shut, and replaced it on the shelf. “Let’s get some rest, Honey.”

Too tired to argue, Cathy followed him to bed, deciding that she could wait a bit before telling him about the entry for December 25th.

* * *

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Framed

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Contents

NONFICTION:

Becoming Stewards of Our World: The Great Theme of the 21st Century, Part Two, Editing the Sun: A Way Out Way Out

Written by Gregory Benford

Our biosphere doesn’t respond on the time scales of our institutions. Climate change makes this clear. We’ve been running up the greenhouse content of our air for two centuries, and now the long, slow inertia of the planet has begun to respond. It’s just getting started.

Averaged over a year, the CO_2 content of our air will not be this low again for centuries—maybe many of them. The atmosphere doesn’t care about our human agendas, moral arguments or desires. It answers only to the heat balance equation.

Humanity has never confronted a problem of this kind or magnitude before. That’s part of why governments are stalling and dithering. Nobody wants to cut deeply into the meat and bone of the economy. Cutting back on fossil fuels right away is political suicide, replacing it with renewable sources within a generation is just plain impossible, and gestures at the margin distract.

We cannot know how long it will take us to respond to the two major threats we can now see:

- * increasing climate change, driven at a high rate by global warming.

- * the rise in acid levels in our ocean from absorbed CO_2, already well documented

There certainly will be further threats, as our numbers and influences grow. But at this early stage, in an era that will probably last centuries, we cannot know them all. We do not understand our world well enough. But we cannot simply delay.

Further, we should accept the possibility that warming alone could trigger a climactic tripping point, such as interruption of the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. To avoid this, current thinking urges an all-out effort to shrink the human atmospheric-carbon footprint. Fine, but that leaves all the CO_2 still in the air, with more to come. Our fossil fuel burning is accelerating, not declining.

So we should also consider relatively low tech, low expense experiments, to do two things:

- * accelerate our understanding of climate science, by perturbing the system and seeing how it responds—a standard experimental technique, and

- * cool regions of the world, working toward restoring the climate we prefer.

This means changing the climate on purpose instead of by mistake, as we are doing now. Smart changes could return us to our earlier, milder world.

But how to do this—soon?

Reflecting on Reflectivity

What could be more intuitively appealing than simply reflecting more sunlight back into space, before it can be emitted in heat radiation and then absorbed by CO_2?

We know this every summer; black T-shirts are warmer in the sun than white ones. We already know that simply by painting buildings white they stay cooler. We could compensate for the effect of all greenhouse gas emission since the Industrial Revolution by reflecting less than one percent more of the sunlight.

Astronomers call a planet’s net reflectivity the albedo, and a mere one percent decrease in Earth’s albedo would solve the greenhouse problem completely for many decades. The big problem is the oceans, which comprise about 70% of our surface area and absorb more because they are darker than land.

The most environmentally benign proposal for doing this is very high tech: an orbiting white screen, about two thousand kilometers on a side. Even broken up into small pieces, putting such parasols up would cost about a trillion dollars, a bit steep. As well, we would have to pay considerably to take them down if they caused some undesirable side effect. This idea is decades old, and Roger Angel of University of Arizona advances a newer version, featuring many small panels of a few meters size.

Using more innocuous space dust to reflect sunlight does not work; it drifts away, driven off by the sun’s light pressure. These ideas were no doubt amusing for the National Academy panel to toy with (even scientists need distraction), but their comic aspect detracts from the point. We do not need to go into space to fix the thermostat.

Still, attention first turned to reflectors at high altitudes because much sunlight gets absorbed in the atmosphere on its way to us. Spreading dust in the stratosphere appears workable because at those heights tiny particles stay aloft for several years. This is why volcanoes spewing dust affect weather strongly. They show that the basic idea works.

Even better than dust are microscopic droplets of sulfuric acid, which reflect light well. Sulfate aerosols can also raise the number of droplets that make clouds condense, further increasing overall reflectivity. This could then be a local cooling, easier to monitor than CO_2‘s global warming. Such small, controllable experiments we could perform now.

The amount of droplets or dust needed is at most ten times smaller than the amount already blown into the atmosphere by natural processes, so we would not be venturing big dislocations. And we would get some spectacular sunsets in the bargain.

The cheapest way of delivering dust to the stratosphere is to shoot it up, not fly it. Big naval guns fired straight up can put a one-ton shell 20 kilometers high, where it would explode and spread the dust. This costs only a hundredth of the space parasol idea. Rockets, balloons and aircraft all perform worse.

But why stick to dust when we already add a perfectly good reflecting medium to the upper atmosphere as part of everyday flying—aircraft exhausts. Changing the fuel mixture in a jet engine to burn rich can leave a ribbon of fog behind for up to three months, though as it spreads it becomes invisible to the eye.

Since fuel costs about fifteen percent of airlines’ cash operating expenses, for a few ten millions of dollars this method could offset the 1990 U.S. greenhouse emissions, the Kyoto Accord standard—quite a cheap choice. Even hiring air freight companies to carry dust and dump it high up would cost only ten times as much as this, so the approaches are economically interchangeable. Perhaps an added asset is that quietly running rich on airline fuel will attract little notice and is hard to muster a media-saturated demonstration against.

But there are, as always, side effects. Dust or sulfuric acid might heat the stratosphere, too, with unknown impact. Some suspect that the ozone layer could be affected, though many doubt this. If a widespread experiment shows this hazard, we could turn off the effect within roughly a year as the dust settles down and gets rained out.

Stranger ideas have been advanced. For example, making a very high altitude screen of many aluminized, hydrogen-filled balloons far above air traffic could work, and self-distribute itself over the entire globe. But the balloon parasols would cost twenty times the jet-plume approach. Ruptured balloons falling in the back garden could irritate all humanity. Imagine late-night comedians using them as props …

Cloudy Issues

These ideas envision doing what natural clouds do already, and the occasional volcano, as the major players in the total albedo picture. Just a four percent increase in stratocumulus over the oceans would offset global CO_2 emission. Land reflects sunlight much better than the wine-dark seas, so putting clouds far out from land, and preferably in the tropics, gets the greatest leverage.

Still, the most recent research shows that global averages are misleading, because climate dynamics depends on how spatially patchy reflectivity is. Even as we plan, we must keep in mind our ignorance of the complexities.

Making clouds is an old but still controversial craft. Clouds condense around microscopic nuclei, often the kind of sulfuric acid droplets some “geoengineers” (I prefer the term “climate restorers”) want to spread in the stratosphere. The oceans make such droplets as sea algae decays, and the natural production rate sets the limit on how many clouds form over the seas. Clouds cover about thirty-one percent of our globe already, so a four percent increase is not going to noticeably ruin anybody’s day.

Tinkering with such a mammoth natural process seems daunting, but in fact about five hundred medium-sized coal-fired power plants give off enough sulfur in a year to do the job for the whole Earth. (This in itself suggests just how much we are already perturbing the planet.)

The trouble is that coal plants sit on land and the clouds must be at sea. A savvy international strategy leaps to mind: Subsidize electricity-dependent industry on isolated Pacific islands and ship them the messiest sulfur-rich coal. Their plumes would stretch far downwind and the manufactured goods could revitalize the tropical ocean states, paying them for being global good neighbors.

A more boring approach, worked out by a National Academy Panel in 1992, envisions a fleet of coal-burning ships which heap sulfur directly into the furnaces. They spew great ribbons of sulfur vapor far out at sea, where nobody can complain, and cloud corridors form obediently behind.

Best would be to use these sulfur clouds to augment at the edges of existing overcast regions, swelling them and increasing the lifetime of the natural clouds. The continuously burning sulfur freighters would follow weather patterns, guided by weather satellite data. But sulfur has bad chemical side effects. There are better things to spread—ground limestone, or diatomaceous earth. These are cheap, easy to handle, and not acidic.

At first these should operate as regional experiments, to work out a good model of how the ocean-cloud system responds. Moving from science to true stewardship of our world will take many decades. This low-tech method would cost about two billion dollars per year, including amortizing the ships.

There are other, more recent and I think better, proposed ideas for cooling by reflecting sunlight. One uses clouds formed only a few kilometers above the sea, as happens when freighters burning coal leave plumes behind. Figure. 1 shows some of these seen by satellite. The concrete proposal from John Latham and Stephen Salter, of the U.K., envisions ships that collide streams of seawater, making droplets of the right size (about a micron). These plumes shoot up for a kilometer or so and stimulate cloud production, the droplet size tuned to be brightly reflect sunlight, cooling the oceans. Figure 2 shows the ships in action. The costs seem tiny, perhaps $100 million a year, to offset present warming.

* * *

The biggest political risk here lies with shifts in the weather. The entire campaign would increase the sulfur droplet content in our air by about a quarter. Probably this would cause no significant trouble, with most of the sulfur raining out into the oceans, which have enormous buffering capacity. Keeping the freighters a week’s sailing distance from land would probably save us from scare headlines about sudden acid rains on farmer’s heads, since about thirty percent of the sulfur should rain out each day.

Maybe some collaboration would work here. Freighters burning sulfur could also spread iron dust, combining the approaches, with some economies. Further scrutiny will probably turn up further savings; these calculations are back-of-the-envelope.

As well, the freighters would operate far from people’s everyday lives, avoiding Not In My Back Yard movements. This is definitely not so for, say, firing dust into the stratosphere, with the booming of naval guns.

Albedo Chic

The National Academy panel found that “… one of the surprises of this analysis is the relatively low cost” of implementing some significant measures. Even if their rough estimates are wrong by a factor of ten, they are striking. It might take only a few billion dollars to mitigate the U.S. emission of CO_2. Compared with stopping people in China from burning coal, even hundreds of billions are nothing.

We should not hold the 1992 Panel report, thick with footnotes and layers of qualifiers, to be a road map to a blissful future. Their estimates are simple, linear and made with poorly known parameters. They also ignore many secondary effects.

For example, forests promote clouds above them, since the water vapor they exhale condenses quickly. Growing trees to sop up CO_2 then also increases albedo, a positive feedback bonus. Is this the end of the chain? Unlikely.

Perhaps the greatest unknown is social: how will the politically aware public (those who vote, anyway) react?

If they are painted early and often as Doctor Strangeloves of the air, the stewards will fail. In Fall 2006 Rolling Stone titled its story on this idea, and particularly on my collaborator, Lowell Wood, as “Dr. Evil Saves the World,” but the piece was actually pretty even-handed. On the other hand, properly portrayed as allies of science, the small band working on these ideas could become heroes.

Here a crucial factor is whether the agenda looks like another top-down contrivance, orders from the elite. A Draconian policing of illegal fuel burning will indeed look this way, but mitigation does not have to. It will play out far from people’s lives, out at sea or high in the air.

Better, perhaps widespread acceptance of mitigation strategies could lead to an albedo chic, with ostentatious flaunting of white roofs, cars, the return of the ice-cream suit in fashion circles. White could be appropriate after Labor Day again.

More seriously, simply adding sand or glass to ordinary asphalt (“glassphalt”) doubles its albedo. This is one mitigation measure everyone could see—a clean, passive way to Do Something. Cooler roads lessen tire erosion, too.

The urban heat island effect, which drives up air conditioning energy consumption in summer, would ease. A 1997 study by the Department of Energy showed that Los Angeles is 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than surrounding areas, mostly due to its dark roofs and asphalt. Cars and power plants add a bit, but not much; at high noon, the sun delivers to each square mile the power equivalent of a billion-watt electrical plant.

White roofs, light-colored concrete and about $10 billion in new shade trees could cool the city to below the countryside, cutting air conditioning costs by 18 percent and quickly paying for itself.

About one percent of the US is covered by human constructions, mostly paving, suggesting that we may already control enough of the land to get at the job. Many small measures could add to a global change. Every little bit would indeed help. This is crucial: mitigation wears the white hat. It asks simple, clear measures of everyone, before going to larger scale interventions. Grass-roots involvement should be integral from the very beginning.

This should go apace with efforts at the nation-state level, especially since mitigation intertwines deeply with diplomacy. Here appearances are even more critical, given the levels of animosity between the profligate burners (especially the U.S.) and the tropical world.

Plausible solutions should stay within the National Academy of Science Panel’s sober guidelines. Learning more is the crucial first step, of course. This is not just the usual academic call for more funded research; nobody wants to try global experiments on a wing and a prayer.

Active Measures

Beyond more studies and reports, we must begin thinking of controlled experiments. Climate scientists have so far studied passively, much like astronomers. They have a bias toward this mode, especially since the discernible changes we have made in our climate have been generally pernicious. Such mental sets ebb slowly. The reek of hubris also restrains many.

Most important, perturbations in climate must be local and reversible—and not merely to quiet environmentalist fears. Only controlled experiments, well diagnosed, will be convincing to both sides in this debate.

Careful climate modeling must closely parallel every experiment. Few doubt that our climate stands in a class by itself in terms of complexity. Though much is made of how wondrous our minds are, perhaps the most complex entity known is our biosphere that we take so much for granted. Absent a remotely useful theory of complexity in systems, we must proceed cautiously.

While computer studies are notorious for revealing mostly what was sought, confirming the prejudices of their programmers, methods are improving quickly. They can explore the many side avenues of weakly perturbing experiments. Invoking computer models as crucial watchdogs in every experiment will calm fears, at least among the elite who read beyond the headlines.

We can expect to see many technical tricks for offsetting climate change. The problem is broad and many angles of attack will emerge. For example, a principal source of atmospheric methane is bovine flatulence. An additive to their fodder might side-step the portion of the digestive cycle that converts about ten percent of the calories into methane, both lowering food costs and eliminating the methane.

Such interventions into our business-as-usual world could be minor in effort, but potentially large in effect. Stewardship need not be obnoxious, or even obvious. Once society accepts the principle of mitigation, ingenuity can come into play.

Still, going from the local to the global is fraught with uncertainty, certain to inspire much anxiety. We will always be uncertain stewards of the Earth. And probably the greenhouse shall not be our last problem, either. We are doing many things to our environment, with our numbers expected to reach ten billion by 2050. What new threats will emerge?

Fresh disasters shall probably spring from the many synergistic effects that we must trace through the geophysical labyrinth. Once we become caretakers, we cannot stop. The large tasks confronting humanity, especially the uplifting of the majority to some semblance of prosperity, must be carried forward in the shadow of our stewardship.

We Are Mayflies

Our global climate now responds sluggishly, taking at least a century to manifest large shifts. Mother Nature takes her time, looking longer than the life span of individuals. We are mayflies.

Any correction by technological intrusion will have to occur on far shorter ranges. Most politicians consider a few years the far horizon. Statesmen look longer, perhaps a decade. Getting nations to think over a century scale will be a principal challenge of the new millennium. At least for the first time, we shall be able to use an armada of diagnostics to discern effects, their time scales, and perhaps traces of the causal chain.

Having sinned against Mother Nature inadvertently, many are keenly reluctant to intervene knowingly. Nobel laureates have generally sided with the Puritan position, adding considerable weight to the cause of abstention.

At root, we see ourselves as the problem; only by behaving humbly, living lightly upon our Earth, can we atone. Here most scientists and theologians agree, at least for now. Alas, such a future world would probably be hostile to science, for already technology is routinely blamed for pollution, not human appetites. People fear and fault the new, while finding the old cozy, even if in fact, like coal burning, it is more dangerous.

Quite probably, the next century shall see a protracted battle between the prophets who would intervene and the moralists who see all grand scale human measures as tainted. In this view, any human intrusion onto so august a stage must be wrong, classic hubris. Yet again, they shall argue, our scientists and engineers will come forward to solve a problem that properly belongs to the moral sphere. That our greenhouse problem stems from inadvertently acting on this stage simply proves, to many, that any such action is too arrogant.

If, say, a 20 percent absolute reduction in greenhouse gases seems extreme, maybe impossible, consider that many ecologists champion far more costly conservation measures as the only solution. Ross Gelbspan’s The Heat Is On even urges a government takeover of the energy sector and a massive propaganda campaign. In the wake of the Kyoto conference, expect to see calls for a Greenhouse Czar as global warming is brought to broad, persistent public notice.

Even now many advance their argument that to even speak of engineering ideas encourages the unwashed to even more excess, since the masses will think that once again science has a remedy at hand.

Some, though, will say quietly, persistently, Well, maybe science does …

Saving Our Arctic

Now I’ll describe work I’ve done with Lowell Wood, Ken Caldiera and others on a single, concrete proposal—keeping the polar bears from going extinct. We’re preparing this work for publication now.

Global warming is an effect in our atmosphere, since carbon dioxide builds up there. But the atmospheric warming also heats the oceans. This warming is uneven, though, for many complex reasons. Sunlight falls most weakly in the Arctic and Antarctic, yet these areas show the greatest rate of change due to air and ocean warming.

In the Arctic particularly, the warmer ocean melts ice, exposing more ocean, which is darker than ice. So the ocean absorbs more sunlight than before. Very simply, this and other effects are warming the Arctic particularly more than other regions—about 5 degrees Centigrade in the last 30 years.

This means the Arctic is particularly vulnerable. The Antarctic is thick ice mostly on land, so melting does not expose as much of the darker ocean as in the Arctic. The whole subject is complicated, but the conclusion is not: the Arctic seems the best place to use advanced methods of restoring the climate, to that we had only decades ago.

If we understand climate well enough to predict that global warming will be a problem, then plausibly we also understand it well enough to address the problem by direct means. But the central issue is that we do not have time to waste.

Many predict that we will see more severe warming effects, in the Arctic and globally, within a few decades. Ocean acidification takes longer, suggesting a simple priority:

- * begin with regional, reversible experiments to define the science

- * learn from these how well we understand our climate

- * look for cooling effects

- * stop the warming to buy time

- * deal with ocean acidification separately

- * focus on what we can do now, not what we can do eventually.

We do not have “eventually”—nature works at its own pace.

A Particulate Shield Experiment

Perhaps the simplest idea uses the suspension of tiny (less than one micron), harmless particles at such altitudes that they will rain out within, say, 6 months. These will reflect mostly ultraviolet, which has a lesser role in plant growth than the lower frequencies, yet carry more energy, which heats when absorbed.

This describes a scientific experiment, designed to understand the complex climate system, not the beginning of an engineering project.

A first test could be over the Arctic, since the warming there is considerable. There the atmospheric circulation patterns tend to confine the deployed particles, sweeping them around the pole but not far southward. The general method seems clear:

- * Deploy the particles by airplane in the spring.

- * Measure the cooling below, using local sensors and space monitoring of the sea ice.

- * Detect if the present retreat of sea ice toward the north pole slows or even reverses. This will be a clear, visual signature than the region is cooling.

Ground measurements will give more refined understanding. The particles can rain or snow out in fall, ending the experiment in predictable fashion.

One could use just enough of the tiny particles to create a readily measurable shielding effect. An initial experiment could occur north of 70 degrees latitude, over the Arctic Sea and outside national boundaries. The particles would reflect mostly UV rays back into space. They would reduce warming and stop the harm of UV rays to plants and animals, as a side effect. Robust photosynthesis would still occur in the tundra, fueled by the visible spectrum.

This idea exploits our expanding understanding of the climate system. It also uses our historical knowledge of the marked cooling driven by volcanoes in the last several centuries, from sulfate aerosols at high altitude. But sulfates interact chemically with the high altitude air. We can avoid that by using less chemically reactive particles, such as diatomaceous earth. Our aim should be to edit the incoming sunlight, not to interfere with our atmosphere’s chemistry.

Ken Caldiera, who holds a chair at the Carnegie Institute at Stanford University, has modeled the idea of Arctic cooling. The figures here present his preliminary findings, which show that a full scale program of adding aerosols at stratospheric levels could restore the Arctic within a few years.

A few years ago, Dr Caldeira set out to disprove an idea put forward by Livermore physicists Lowell Wood and Edward Teller to cool the Earth with a sheet of superfine reflective mesh—similar in concept to orbiting mirrors.

In a computer model, Caldeira and colleague Bala Govindasamy simulated the effects of diminished solar radiation. “We were originally trying to show that this is a bad idea, that there would be residual regional and global climate effects,” explains Dr Caldeira. “Much to our chagrin, it worked really well.”

When I suggested the Arctic strategy, he tried a similar simulation. It worked, too.

Scientists routinely use computer models to climate-related scenarios, from rising CO_2 levels to the impact of deforestation on global warming. After several weeks of running a climate simulation on Stanford’s superfast computer network, Caldeira concluded that shading the sunlight directly over the polar ice cap by less than twenty-five percent would maintain the “natural” level of ice in the Arctic, even with a doubling of atmospheric CO_2 levels. Push the shading up to fifty percent, and the ice grows. We could have a new ice age if we wanted it. Even better, the restoration happens fast: Within five years, temperatures would drop by almost two degrees.

Another friend, Lowell Wood, calculated that roughly 300,000 metric tons of particles each year could shade the sunlight in the Arctic by twenty-five percent—a tiny amount, on a planetary scale. How to get those particles up there? A half-dozen C-147s could do the job in a summer. In the fall, the particles of chemically inert, sub-micron size fall to the lower atmosphere and fall out in rain or snow.

We could stabilize the ice, save the polar bears and demonstrate the virtues of planetary engineering for less money than it takes to run the Iraq war for a month. Because the Arctic winds swirl around the pole, and there are few people above 70 degrees latitude, there seems little effect on society, even if something goes wrong. And if it does, we can turn off the seeding in an hour, letting the particles come down slowly.

But getting the science right may be the least of it. All the real complexity is in the politics.

For whose hand will be on the global thermostat? The Inuits won’t like the idea of a warming Arctic, but the Russians will. It is opening shipping lanes already, making oil and gas exploration easier. The Russians have already laid claim to these resources, and a half dozen other nations have disagreed.

This worries many. “Will we have Greenland and Bangladesh arguing over the ‘right’ temperature?” says Richard Alley, a Penn State paleoclimatologist. “Will your neighbor try to sue somebody if the tomatoes freeze?”

Once you commit to countering the rise of CO_2 emissions with a geoengineering scheme, Alley adds, you’re hooked. “This is not something you can do for twenty or thirty years, then quit.”

Even Ken Caldeira views geoengineering as, at best, a way to buy time to develop clean energy technologies. “As a long-term strategy,” Caldeira says, “it’s nuts.”

But not trying it seems nuts, too. The polar bears don’t vote, but I bet I know how they would do so.

The Long View

We can regard these ideas, and the scientific knowledge we gain from such experiments, as tools in a possible future technology. There could be many useful variables in such a climate technology, including particle size, particle nature, altitude deployed (and therefore duration in the atmosphere), and much else. We very probably do not even know all the major influences we will find.

If such an Arctic experiment works, it could tell us much about how to possibly arrest Arctic warming and reverse the loss of sea ice. Since few live people there, any side effects could be minimal. By placing the particles at a high altitude, we can arrange for the first experiments to end when they rain out into the sea, after the main heating during Arctic summer has passed.

Repeating this over several years, to advance our understanding of how our vastly complex climate works, would advance the science. Public discussion could run in parallel, giving the sense that this momentous issue is being freely aired.

This idea is only the first step in making climate science, which has always been passive, into an active science. Astronomy was like this, until the space program began to give us the power to explore the planets, a half century ago. We now do experiments on the soil of Mars, the atmosphere of Jupiter and Venus. With direct measurement comes a new era in any science. All of particle physics has a similar history.

So this is not a new transition in science, but it is unique: we live inside the experiment. We have far more at stake.

Diagnosing global climate change is only the beginning. Restoring the stable climate we are now losing is the true, long range goal. But the science comes first.

Saving the Arctic can be the first, trail step. If we find that the pace of forced global climate change is unacceptably high, we could then put this idea to work globally, with all deliberate speed. There could be other side effects on the vastly larger global scale, and we would have to monitor the entire process very carefully. Some effects could be positive. Lessening UV would lower the human death rate from skin cancer, now about a million per year. Crops under less UV grow better, yielding more food, especially in the tropics.

The main thrust of all this is to carefully use our ability to attack warming at its roots—incoming sunlight now, carbon dioxide later. First things first.

The climate system has great inertia and stirs slowly, but once altered, has a momentum of its own. It will be a good idea to have methods like these on the shelf, to deploy quickly. Methods studied this way would be ready for use if the global environment worsens. Given signals that the scarier scenarios of a warming climate might be soon upon us, we could act soon.

Such preparations can also establish the political ground for widespread action. Humanity needs to get used to the idea of acting in this wholly new fashion, assuming our role as true stewards of the Earth. Given the magnitude of the possible threat to all societies, such preparations are merely prudent, not radical.

Costs seem readily attainable—a few hundreds of millions of dollars for an Arctic experiment. High altitude trials over the open ocean are little constrained by law or treaty, so show-stopper politics may be avoided. The first stages will be scientific experiments, not vast engineering projects.

Ken Caldiera has done computer simulations of an Arctin with summer sunlight diminished by high stratospheric aerosols. These show that reducing sunlight by about 10% can restore the Arctic to its 1900 shape and size within a few years.

Whatever experiments we try, the point is to get started. A favorable experiment could change the terms of the global warming debate for the better. As economist Robert Samuelson recently said, “The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it’s really an engineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we don’t solve the engineering problem, we’re helpless.”

Taking Over, Forever

A decision to face our role as stewards, and intervene knowingly, globally, would be a watershed in human history.

Managing the entire planet, and so ensuring an enduring legacy, is surely a more striking prospect than the makers of any deep time message have ever contemplated. Yet doing so will make an explicit connection with distant eras, which unknowingly bequeathed us an altered landscape. Such links are made concrete in the transformed world we now inhabit, a “natural” environment far removed from that of our Pleistocene ancestors.

Once taken up, such a monumental task cannot be put down. As long as we exert so powerful a presence, we shall have to be mindful of it. Perhaps the worldview needed can emerge from such philosophers as Martin Heidegger. In his perspective, technology “enframes” us, leading humanity to more and more see the world as a bestanden, a “standing reserve.” In turn, we regard other humans as resources, reducing our unconscious respect for both them and their environment. Heidegger is abstruse but influential, and may point the way toward a philosophical shift necessary for true stewardship.

It is small consolation to estimate that we may well consume nearly all fossil fuel reserves within 500 years—mostly coal and oil shales—and certainly will within a millennium. This assumes we will use them as our principal energy store. Of course, other sources might turn up. Within a century or so our descendants may view with horror the burning of the long hydrocarbon chains bequeathed by geology. They may feel oil should properly be employed as lubricants and manufacturing fluids, rather than plundered for simple energy content.

Once we become caretakers, we cannot stop. The large tasks confronting humanity, especially the uplifting of the majority to some semblance of prosperity, must be carried forward in the shadow of our stewardship.

Should world civilization fall, its hand would slip from the helm, and the planet could fare badly. Unless we’ve reduced the greenhouse gases in our air, we’ll experience a sudden shock of new warming, since we’ll have lost our reflecting screen.

So if we elect to guide the planet so that it may support so many of us in high technological civilizations, we will have to exert wisdom and cleverness throughout centuries-long agendas. Nature in her largeness and largess responds with ponderous grace on the scale of centuries or more. Our frenetic energies expend themselves within a decade or two, the typical scale for even the most far-reaching customary projects.

This mismatch in time scales implies that we must cultivate a farsighted judgment rare in our societies, ancient or modern. Becoming aware of how we leave our mark on the world will demand a cultural evolution profound and, to many, puzzling.

And there are always tradeoffs. We now know that the aerosols we’ve put into our air, starting with extensive coal burning two centuries ago, reflect sunlight, and so cool the world. But such pollutants give us higher rates of lung cancer and emphysema. If we clean our air, we live longer on average—but we get more warming. Nobody likes these benefit antagonisms, but they come with managing natural systems.

Still … what other choices have we?

10/15/2007

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Framed

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Contents

Earth’s Next Schism

Written by Stephen Euin Cobb

A schism has formed inside the virtual world called Second Life.

This schism is between opposing viewpoints. It is between those who feel that a person’s avatar should depict how that person looks in the physical world, verses those who seek freedom from their bodily appearance on the grounds that they did not chose to be born with it. Those who insist on accuracy say that to deviate is to present a false self to the world, and this fakery they see as a grand and elaborate lie.

Those who seek morphological freedom are called immersionists because they wish to immerse themselves in the virtual world; while those who remain similar to their original form are called augmentationists because they use the virtual world to augment their lives rather than change it.

The problem that has grown strong is centered on the distrust between the two viewpoints and the hurt feelings that have developed through repeated insults and social pressure. Even people who have the best of intensions at heart—good people; kind people; people who care deeply about others—have shown a remarkable intolerance toward those on the other side of this schism. This has led me to the conclusion that the divide between them is one of perception and confusion, not of substance.

In the past, our species has dealt with intolerance of many kinds and we have worked with varying levels of success to become tolerant of we call diversity. But morphological freedom takes this to an entirely new level. Traditional diversity is based on there being a few cultural or cosmetic or ethnic or linguistic differences between the several dozen groups of people on this planet. And that having been born into one of these groups, an individual will remain in that group forever, with no option to leave the group short of radical, dangerous and expensive surgery.

But this new diversity created by the morphological freedom inside virtual worlds throws the old diversity out the window. The old diversity—which we as a culture have just barely become accustomed to—is vastly insufficient. Within this new diversity anyone can be in any group at any time and can change from group to group to group at a moment’s notice. A man can become a woman, or vise versa, instantly. There is no waiting, no cost, and the change is undetectable. Anyone can be Black or White or Asian, and can be one race for breakfast one for lunch and one for supper.

“So what?” you say. “It’s just inside a virtual world.”

That this schism exists within an artificial world that is limited to a tiny portion of all humanity may make it seem unimportant. But this perception is wrong because this situation is temporary. In a few decades this same schism will launch itself into our physical world of six billion people. Technological advances are snowballing toward greater and greater individual control over our bodies functioning and appearance. Viagra and corneal implants are just the mildest hint of the sweeping changes that are to come.

Driven by the two most powerful forces ever devised by human civilization—the scientific method and the desire for profit—and strengthened still farther by the underlying human need for approval, nothing that stands in the way of this will prevent its ultimate success. Humans will achieve almost as much morphological freedom within the physical world of atoms and molecules as they now have within virtual worlds.

This is why it is urgent that we understand and overcome this schism today while it is still small and contained in an artificial world. This is our learning opportunity. Better we learn how to deal with it now than wait until it is too late.

* * *

To help you more fully understand the tensions that have developed between these two factions, here below are transcripts of portions taken from two episodes of my show. These contain opinion pieces from both sides of the schism, as well as my commentary about them.

Transcript Number One

(From the February 20, 2008 Episode of The Future And You)

In today’s interview, Giulio Prisco did not agree with my use of the word “schism.”

I respect, very deeply, his opinion and do not fault him for it. But the more I think of it, the more firmly I stand by my use of that word.

Here’s why:

There is a schism which has developed within the virtual world called Second Life.

I feel that our ability to identify and overcome this schism now in this artificial microcosm, is vital. Because within a few decades, our technological ability to alter ourselves, will launch this same schism fully into our physical world. Better we train ourselves in tolerance now, while the schism is small than later when it is everywhere.

The schism springs from the two different approaches people have to Second Life. I am an example of one approach. I entered wishing to meet the futurist and transhumanist communities that I’d learned were active within it. I also hoped to find brilliant people to interview for my show. So I entered, as much as possible, as myself. This has worked well for me.

But not everyone approaches Second Life as I do. And a tension has developed between these two populations that I can not describe from first-hand experience. But I know someone who can.

Argent Bury is a digital person I’ve met in second life and have come to admire. She expressed her approach to Second Life, and her feelings about the reaction that her approach has created in others, in her livejournal blog post entitled Taking a Stand.

She has given me permission to read her post into the show:

http://argent-bury.livejournal.com/10639.html

argent_bury (argent_bury) wrote,

@ 2007-08-23 09:21:00

Time to take a stand…

August 23, 2007

by Argent Bury

There has been a lot of back and forth on the internets lately about trust, voice, identity, morality, role-play, and scores of other SL issues that have no answers. Rather than gnaw on them every day and face continuous existential crisis, I’m taking a stand here. This is my last post on “what I am.” From now on I’m posting about “what I am doing/thinking/feeling here.” You can consider this post to be the contents of my “First Life” tab … I will post a link to this entry there. I encourage you, for better or worse, to base all your decisions regarding me on this post.

My name is Argent Bury, and I am a Digital Person. I exist only in Second Life. You can not and will not ever meet me in First Life … ever.

I choose to come here and live wholly in this world, not to use it as an extension of First Life. It is not the only way to live here, but it is my way.

You will never know the “real” me, except as part of what I present here. Some things can not be faked, after all. I type in Japanese quite well, I write bad sci-fi, stuff like that. And unless I’m the greatest actor in the world, I can’t be “on” all the time, so you’re going to get both good and bad parts of my personality.

I could be black or white, gay or straight, male or female, married or single, young or old. I could be a 300 pound guy living in his mom’s basement, or I could be his mom. I could be a husband sneaking in when the wife’s away, or a neglected housewife desperate for some companionship. You will never know.

I could be totally sincere about every word I say here and every feeling I feel. Or things could be kind of a hazy dream that passes away when I walk away from the keyboard. I could be a delusional solipsistic role-player, treating you all as NPCs. I could even be a sick and malicious griefer who laughs with glee with every word I type, playing you all for fools. I want to tell you I am sincere, although SL feelings are not as strong as RL feelings for me, but you don’t even have to believe that … I could be lying through my teeth.

And guess what … you could be too. How can I be sure? Are you really a woman? I need to hear your voice. Do you really look like that? I need to see your photo. Are you really crying right now? I need to see you on cam. How do I know you’re really like that in RL? I need to meet you in person. You could still be hiding things from me, playing me for a fool. I need to live with you for a few years to know for sure. Still, I’m not sure … what should I do?

The question here at the base of all this is: How do we trust people, how far do we trust them, and what do we base that trust on?

For me personally, I’m going to base my trust in you on the things you say and do in this world, and nothing else. And … selfish as it is, I hope you’ll do the same for me. Second Life IS my real world, my only world. The only “you” I see is the you right in front of me, for better or for worse. Sometimes it will get me hurt, sometimes it will pay off, but it’s the way I hope people will judge me, so it’s the way I will judge them.

Not all of you have that luxury, and I fully understand that. You are here to find a companion to bring home to First Life and have to know personal details about the meat body on the other end, or your moral code requires that you know something about the real lives of the people you interact with, or you feel you have to know in some mystical way exactly what the person on the other end of the narrow connection here is feeling, or maybe it simply takes more to gain your trust. Given your circumstances, these are wise decisions, which I respect. You are free to distrust me. You are free to mute me. If you own land you are free to ban me. You need no permission to do these things to me, and if you do you can consider this post to be that permission.

But at the same time you can expect me to live by my code, and to judge you by my standards and not yours. There are others like me out there, “residents” of this world in the purest sense. You can expect me to seek them out, to try and build a community with them, and to fight for our rights when I feel they are impinged upon. And … because I am weary of war and strife … you can expect me to seek peace and understanding and reconciliation, even in the face of anger and ignorance.

This is my code, this is my creed, this is my life.

My name is Argent Bury, and I am a Digital Person.

* * *

Transcript Number Two

(From the February 27, 2008 Episode of The Future And You)

Next up is a listener comment from Randal L. Schwartz. I think it expresses very well the deep feelings of discomfort and confusion that some people, perhaps even most people, experience when trying to understand the concept of a digital or virtual person.

I don’t experience this discomfort myself, but I feel as though I understand it. Although I may be fooling myself. My location in this world requires that I interact frequently with many people who adhere to belief systems which are mutually exclusive. That is to say, for one to be correct all others must be wrong.

Some of these people I like, some of them I love. They’re relatives, friends, coworkers.

Consequently I have trained myself to like people without regard to their being or acting or thinking in any way that is similar to me.

Maybe I’m too tolerant. Maybe, But I don’t care. I like myself this way.

By the way … For those of you who are very young or are unfamiliar with the history of American popular culture, the two people Randal mentions in this email will be unfamiliar. They are Edgar Bergen, possibility the greatest ventriloquist who ever lived; and Charlie McCarthy, possibly the greatest ventriloquist’s dummy who ever appeared to live.

Steve,

I haven’t finished listening to the entire episode, but I want to comment on the schism.

Would I interact with Charlie McCarthy the same way I interact with Edgar Bergen? Perhaps, in a superficial way, I might, but some part of my head always knows that I’m dealing with a “puppet,” rather than the puppeteer, even though some parts of Edgar are clearly visible. In the same way, I would want to know in a virtual world that I was dealing with a puppet, rather than someone being genuinely direct. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t deal with puppets, but I’d want to know that a fellow human being and I both agree that this “object” is a puppet, and may have human-like characteristics, but may in fact, not necessarily react as any human would.

This is similar to going to a magic show, and being wonderfully entertained, but knowing that ultimately, it was all smoke and mirrors (sometimes literally). I enjoy those experiences, but if someone were to do magic with me when I wasn’t aware of having been in a show, I’d feel conned instead and distrust them in the future, and even feel embarrassed at myself. This can’t be good in the long run. So, I’m all for puppeteering, but let’s please disclose it, for the greater good of humanity. I think anyone who wouldn’t distinguish a puppet from a human must not have had any genuine human interaction, and that also scares me a bit.

Randal L. Schwartz

I responded to this in my show with the following:

Thank you, Randal. I disagree with portions of your interpretation however.

My notion is that in a virtual world everyone is forced to be a puppet. We are given no choice in this. Therefore no one is, or can be, what we might think of as “real.” And having been freed from the chance or choice of being what they really are, any person will just naturally wish to experiment with this new freedom. How much they experiment, and by this I mean how far they deviate from their original—that is to say physical—form will be a matter of personal taste and or curiosity.

There are people in this real world who do not like their appearance, or their age, or their gender, or their annoying lack of wings and the ability to fly.

And even those who like their appearance, and their age, and their gender, and have no particular fondness for wings, even these people might wonder what would it be like to change these things … just for a little while.

In a virtual world such a person can find out.

* * *

Randal L. Schwartz responded with:

I challenge your observation that “everyone is a puppet”. I imagine two modes of interaction … one in which *I* am speaking (via my puppet) with a natural reaction to my (virtual) surroundings, and one in which I’ve created a character, and before answering, ask myself, “what would this character answer?”. Those really are separate, and that’s the distinction I want to bring up between puppet and puppeteer.

* * *

In this, Randal may have hit upon the core of the schism. Empiricists, such as he and I—indeed all those who love science and the scientific method—are steeped in the tradition that “seeing is believing.” When this is focused upon a newly met human being, it requires us to believe that, “You are what I see you to be; nothing more, and nothing less.”

But we all know from experience that some people have been born into bodies that did not match what they believed themselves to be. Some of these people have endured the pain and expense of surgery, as well as the ridicule of those they thought loved them, to alter their bodies to match their innermost self. I’m thinking of course of the thousands who have endured sex change operations, but for each of these extreme cases of inside-outside mismatch there may be hundreds or even thousands of lesser mismatches. Perhaps most people feel some slight degree of mismatch. If not, why are the plastic surgeons and the gyms and the diet industry so busy and so profitable?

It is my suspicion that the dramatic outward changes which many, if not most, digital people make in their appearance are done so that they can present themselves as they truly believe themselves to be at their deepest level. And while some of these changes may fly in the face of conventionality, to the digital person they may be part of their struggle to be more honest in presenting themselves to others rather than less.

If this is true, then their need for anonymity, while annoyingly suspicious, can be seen as the one and only way to avoid the same ridicule heaped upon those who surgically changed the sex of their physical bodies.

* * *

My Closing Comments

There will come a day, decades from now, when the people you meet at work and school and the store will look the way they look because they chose to look that way. Not just their hair color and clothing style, or even height and weight, but their age, ethnicity and gender.

Each of their physical features will have been chosen without regard to their appearance at birth. Possibly even without regard to their appearance months ago, or weeks ago, or this morning.

Perhaps it will be a world populated by beautiful people all wearing designer bodies, but the point is that the tolerance we must all develop to function in that transformed world will be a tolerance that is itself transformed into one greater than any we possess today.

* * *

Learn More

You can learn more about Stephen Euin Cobb here or here.

Or learn more about his podcast The Future And You here, or here or even here.

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COLUMNS:

Attending Worldcon

Written by Mike Resnick

Jim Baen’s Universe has come of age. We put a story on the Hugo ballot in our first year, we just put one on the Nebula ballot for our second year. We’ve had a lot of stories get picked up for Best of the Year anthologies. More and more top writers are sending us their best material.

The next step is to win an award one of these years. The Hugo is the most prestigious—and along with voting for the best stories we run, don’t forget that Eric Flint is also eligible for Best Short Fiction Editor.

To nominate and to vote, you must be a member of Worldcon—and if you’re going to pay your dues, you might as well attend science fiction’s biggest celebration of the year. One of the things I’ve gleaned from Baen’s Bar and from a number of private e-mails is that a lot of you have not yet bitten the bullet and attended a Worldcon, so I thought it might not be a bad idea to let you know what’s in store for you, and perhaps encourage you to join and attend.

PARTIES

You’ve probably heard endless tales about all the parties at Worldcon, and indeed, most nights there will be over 50 of them—big ones, little ones, public ones, private ones. There are all kinds of parties—the single events, the pro events, the bid parties, the hospitality suites. You’ll get most of your info from various bulletin boards, and also from the twice-daily (and often thrice-daily) convention newsletter, which will be made available in most public places. Hollywood to the contrary, not all parties feature drugs, nudity, drunken behavior and wild sex, and Worldcon parties are among those that feature none of them. These are just friends visiting with old and new friends who share some of the same interests.

Every group that’s bidding for a future Worldcon will have at least one party, most two, a few every night. These are “open” parties and will be posted/advertised all over the hotels and in the newsletters.

A number of regional conventions will also have open parties to interest you in attending their upcoming cons. Almost any new convention with ambitions of becoming a major feature on the convention calendar will also have an open party to announce its existence.

The winners for the next two years usually have open parties. In fact, next year’s winner traditionally hosts the Hugo Losers Party. Frequently the previous year’s host has an open “thank-you” party.

Then there will be open and semi-open Hospitality Suites, including the Con Suite, which will be run by the host committee and open to all.

There will be a SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) Suite. You’ll need a SFWA member to get you in the first time. If you want to return, you can probably pick up a sticker for your badge that will get you in.

There will be an ASFA (American Science Fiction Artists) Suite, usually less crowded and easier to gain entrance to.

There will be pro parties. They’re not exactly open, and not exactly closed. Basically, you’ll need a pro or a well-known fan to get you in, but once inside they won’t have to stay with you or vouch for you:

—Tor always has a party.

—Baen always has a party.

—Eos, DAW, Bantam, and Ace occasionally have parties.

—Asimov’s and Analog will have a party, but it usually consists of renting out the SFWA suite and supplying food and drink for the writers for one evening.

Many of the semi-pro and specialty publishers will have open parties. Just check the daily newsletters for time and location (or look at the elevator walls, which are usually plastered with notices of the night’s parties.)

Almost every special interest group will have a party, some private, most open.

A number of fan clubs, computer networks, and the like will have parties. First Fandom, a last-man organization consisting of anyone who can prove he was active in science fiction prior to 1938, often has a party.

Any foreign group with enough attendees from home will throw a party, usually though not always an open one. The Japanese always have one. So do the Australians. Others have them from time to time, including the British, the Slovakians, the Germans, and the Dutch.

There’ll be 15 or 20 rooms where fans have brought their favorite movies or tv shows, legitimate or bootlegs, and will show them to anyone who wants to watch. This won’t be advertised, but just walk up and down the hotel corridors, and when you find an open door, take a peek in—it’s usually a small party or a group watching videos.

And of course, I’m barely scratching the surface. Despite the 15-to-20-track programming and the Hugos and the masquerade and the dealers room and the art show and everything else, 70% of a Worldcon takes place from 10:00 at night until 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, once you learn your way around.

STANDING EXHIBITS

There will be a number of standing exhibits, open from 10:00 AM until 6:00 PM or thereabouts. Two are huge, most aren’t; the two big ones are easy to find, while most of the others take some looking for.

—The Dealers’ Room, a/k/a the Hucksters’ Room. It used to sell only books and magazines, but these days it sells games, CDs, toys, clothes, jewelry, videos, medieval weapons, anything associated with sf. Probably a third of the dealers still sell books and magazines, which is a lot, since there will be about 300 tables and a number of booths.

—Autograph sessions—they’ll be announced well in advance—are usually held in or near the hucksters’ room. But those are just the “official” Worldcon autograph sessions. Most of the popular writers will also be signing at dealers’ or publishers’ tables as well, so that they put in from two to five hours signing during the convention, enough time for just about anyone to get their autographs. (And if you see a writer whose work you admire in the hallways, just walk up and ask for an autograph; that’s part of what they’re there for. You’re paying good money to attend, so don’t be shy about asking for anything at all.)

—The Art Show. Just about every major artist from Whelan to Eggleton to Giancola to Maitz to Picacio to whoever will display some paintings here, as will hundreds of minor artists. The hangings will all be in the middle of the room; sculptures and other 3-dimensional pieces will be on tables lining the walls. Almost everything will have a minimum-bid pricetag on it. The auction rules change from year to year, so ask how to bid at the entrance to the art show—but know that 90% of what you see will be sold during the con.

—Kaffeeklatsches. These are one-hour (and occasionally two-hour) periods where you sign up to meet with your favorite writer or artist. They serve coffee and sweets, and usually there are 10 or 12 to a table—the writer plus 9 or 11 fans. Sign up for the kaffeeklatsches you want to attend as soon as you get to the con. It’s always first-signed first-seated.

—Fanzine room. There is always a room devoted to fanzines. Usually it’s a small, unpublicized room, difficult to find, but it’s worth the hunt, because it gives away dozens of fanzines. Not the perennial Hugo nominees, but enough to get you started.

—Fanhistorica room. This doesn’t occur every year, but it’s present more often than not, and will be a room devoted to the history of fandom—books, photos, artifacts, famous (and incredibly valuable) old fanzines, Hugos from previous years, everything you’ll want to know about sf fandom from its origins in the 1930s to the present day. Often old-time pros and fans will lead docent tours of the exhibit.

—Fan lounge. Many Worldcons have a fan lounge. It’ll be somewhere near the dealers and lecture rooms, and you’ll find tables where you can plop down, relax, get soft drinks or coffee, read fanzines (which will be supplied), and meet other fans.

—Costume exhibit. This doesn’t occur at every Worldcon, but when it shows up it’s stunning. It’ll be a display of the greatest masquerade costumes of the past 20 or 30 years, draped on mannequins.

—Photo exhibit. Over the years SFWA’s former attorney, M. Christine Valada, who was also a photographer, took black-and-white portraits of just about every pro who attends Worldcon, and there is a standing display of all of them every year.

—Fan photo exhibit. Encouraged by Valada’s traveling photo show, fandom now has its own portrait exhibit.

There will doubtless be more exhibits, but these are the ones that tend to show up every year, or at least most years. I encourage you to hunt them all up. You do yourself a disservice if you travel all the way to Worldcon, pay your money to become a member, pay even more to stay at the hotels, and then don’t take advantage of all the exhibits that your money is paying for.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Along with the regular programming, every Worldcon has its share of special events.

Hugo Ceremonies: This is where the Toastmaster gets to shine (if he shines at all; alas, some don’t). 15 Hugos will be presented in the pro and fan categories, but that’s not all. Also presented are the Campbell Award for Best New Writer; the Big Heart Award; and the Seiun (Japanese Hugo) for the Best Translated Novel and Best Translated Short Fiction. There will be photo ops for everybody, and you can probably watch the Hugos and the Masquerade in your room on closed-circuit television if the auditorium is too crowded.

The Masquerade: This is the biggest draw of the Worldcon, but it’s a mere shadow of its former self. All during the 1970s and 1980s the Worldcon masquerade used to draw well over 100 costumes and take at least four or five hours, often longer. Now, thanks to Costume Con and the proliferation of minor costume conventions, the masquerade barely draws 35 to 40 costumes … but it’s still a fun event to go to. And if you’re an author, not much gives you a bigger kick than watching a fan who spent months of effort creating a costume based on one or more of your characters.

Opening Ceremonies: The Toastmaster introduces the Pro and Fan Guests of Honor, who will make brief speeches. You’ll be told where to find everything, and then sent off to do just that.

Pro Guest of Honor Speech(es): There used to be just one Pro GOH, and 90% of the time it was a writer. These days there’s usually a Writer GOH, an Editor GOH, and an Artist GOH, and each will have an hour in which to make a speech.

Fan GOH Speech: It probably draws a bit better than the pro speeches, which is only right and fitting. Unlike the Nebula Weekends, Worldcon is put on by and for fans, a fact that many pros forget or are simply unaware of. Pros are an attraction and their function is to draw more fans to the con, but never make any mistake about who the con is for.

Hugo-nominated movies: These will play free of charge sometime during the con before the winner is announced.

There may be other special events. They can be as diverse as a miniature golf tournament (1991), a pro vs. fan basketball game (1986), a trivia contest (just about every year), the world premiere of a science fiction movie (“A Boy and His Dog” in 1974; “Watership Down” in 1978) or the first peek at a new TV show (“Star Trek” in 1966).

PROGRAMMING

OK, I’ve mentioned 18-track programming and the like, but until you run into it, I don’t think any of you can truly realize the magnitude of Worldcon programming.

A typical hour will have 3 or 4 panels on science fiction, all featuring well-known writers; a pair of panels on fantasy; a panel on horror; a panel or two on science; a couple of panels on the business end of science fiction, from writing to editing to selling to reading contracts; an item or two of children’s programming; a pair of panels on various aspect of fandom, from fan history to publishing a fanzine; a publisher’s editorial staff telling you what they’re looking for this year; a panel of critics evaluating the year’s fiction; and a couple of more panels or speeches on various subjects.

That’s every hour, from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. It’ll slow down then, but you’ll still have perhaps four panels an hour from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM, and maybe two panels an hour from 10:00 PM to maybe 2:00 AM.

While all this is going on, three or four rooms will be set aside for writers to read their most recent works, and at the same time half a dozen authors will be autographing in or near the dealers’ room. And of course there will be from two to four kaffeeklatsches occurring at the same time.

And let’s not forget the free, round-the-clock science fiction movies that will be showing in an auditorium.

That’s it. Every hour. And while all this is happening, the dealers room, the art show, and most of the other exhibits will be open as well.

Yeah, I know, it’s overwhelming. Probably the best thing to do is log onto the Worldcon’s web page after the final schedule is posted—usually two or three weeks before the con—and make your decision as to what items you definitely don’t want to miss. It can take a few hours, and why spend that time at the convention when there are so many interesting things to do?

WHAT TO BRING

OK, so it’s your first Worldcon. What do you pack? What do you bring? What do you leave behind?

Clothing: There is no panel or party where you won’t be accepted wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals … so what else you bring depends to a great extent on what makes you comfortable and where you plan to go when you leave the hotel.

If you’re dining out, and especially if you plan to visit some upscale restaurants, bring along the appropriate clothes. If you plan to use the hotel’s pool, bring along a swimsuit. (The skinny-dipping days of the 1970s and 1980s Worldcons are long gone.) If you’re entering the masquerade, make sure you pack your costume in a way that won’t break or otherwise harm it. If you plan to participate in the Regency dance (yes, every Worldcon has a Regency dance, don’t ask me why), you might bring the appropriate Regency costume.

If you’re on any medication, bring enough to see you through the convention; it’s murder trying to fill a prescription in a strange city on a weekend.

I wouldn’t bother bringing a laptop. First, there’s too much to do (and you’re paying quite a bit to do it) to waste time with your computer—and second, most of the people you want to chat with and send e-mail to are already at the con. (And most downtown hotels in major cities will charge incredibly high connect rates, measured by the minute if not the second.)

Bring any books you want autographed. This is your one chance all year to find 80% of the major authors in the field in one place, and they’re all there for your convenience. Ditto any magazines.

Bring any guide books you may have purchased. Why try committing them to memory?

If you’re into photo memories, bring your camera, or camcorder, with enough film, tape, disks, and batteries that you won’t have to go out to purchase any.

Bring cash and/or credit cards. No one in a strange city wants to cash your checks.

Above all, bring the one item I never do without, the most important single item you can bring (besides money, that is): a small blank notebook—paper or electronic, makes no difference—that fits easily into a pocket.

Why?

Well, to begin with, before leaving home you’ll write down the titles of all the books you’re looking for in the huckster’s room, as well as the dates of all the magazines, to make searching through the dealers’ room a little easier.

You’ll want to write down the room numbers of all your friends—and that could come to a cool 100 numbers right there. Impossible to remember them all.

As you find out when and where the parties are, you’ll want to write down the times and room numbers of each. That’s dozens more numbers and times.

You’ll want to write down those events that you absolutely don’t want to miss. Still more times and places.

You might also write down the addresses and phone numbers of all the restaurants you want to visit (and on a busy summer weekend in a major city, almost all the better ones, inside and outside the hotel, will require reservations.)

If you’re a hopeful writer, you’ll want to write down whatever it is you have sold, or promised to send, to which editor. Even if you’re not, it helps to write down anything you promise to send/sell/trade with other fans.

If you’re trading addresses, either street or e-mail, with new friends, you’ll want to write them down.

So be sure you bring that blank book. You’ll fill it up soon enough.

SAVING AND SPENDING MONEY

Worldcon isn’t cheap. There are a few ways—not many, but a few—of saving money. To wit:

—Car pool to get there. With gas prices going through the roof, and airfares ditto, the cheapest way to get to any Worldcon (at least, any Worldcon on this continent) is to car pool.

—You’ll hear stories of fans sleeping ten and twelve to a room. They are not an exaggeration, but it seems a bit excessive to me. Still, if you’re traveling on a budget, it makes sense to share a room with perhaps 2 or 3 others.

—The price of an attending membership goes up every few months. The initial price is about a third of the at-the-door price. If you’re late buying your membership—and the lead time is two years—there’s a way around this. Surf the net and find someone who has an attending membership and can’t use it; it can be sold and transferred to you prior to mid-July of the year the Worldcon is held … after that, it has to be done at the door. (Example: someone who bought his membership early at $80 wants to sell; the price is currently $200 if you buy from the convention; you offer to split the difference, the seller agrees, you get an attending membership for $140, you save $60, the seller makes $60, and everyone’s happy.)

—If you see a second-hand book or magazine you want in the hucksters’ room and it’s too expensive for your budget, make an offer. Half the time you’ll find the huckster is willing to deal.

And now a couple of proper ways to spend money:

—The maid who makes up your room doesn’t work a 7-day week, so for the best service, and just to be fair, leave a buck or two on your pillow every morning when you go out for the day, rather than leaving $10 or $15 in a lump at the end of the week.

—Most parties don’t want your money. But a few hospitality suites will have a bowl out with a note asking for donations. Put a couple of bucks in, or you may never be asked back.

Okay, that’s pretty much it—a way to vote for your favorite stories, books, editors, artists, movies and fanzines, and mingle with like-minded fans and writers at our grandest annual event.

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Framed

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Contents

A Matter of Symbiosis

Written by Eric Flint

In my last essay, I examined the question of whether e-books will be replacing paper books any time soon as the dominant format for publishing. The conclusion I came to was that they wouldn’t be—and that’s true even if “soon” is a term measured in decades, not simply years.

But that issue, taken by itself, would ultimately seem to be a side issue. After all, everyone involved in the debates surrounding electronic publishing and the manifold impact that it has on issues concerning copyright agrees that electronic publishing will continue to grow until it becomes the dominant form of publishing.

So what difference does it make, really, how long that takes? Whether it’s five years or fifty years, or even a century, sooner or later we’ll all have to deal with the realities of a market determined by the imperatives of electronic publishing. It would seem sensible, therefore, to put policies in place now that protect authors and publishers from the dangers of electronic copyright infringement—what’s called “online piracy”—whether or not that infringement causes any significant financial damage to authors and publishers today.

There are actually two issues tied up here, which I’ll need to disentangle and deal with separately. The larger issue is whether or not it’s true that, even if we assume a total dominance of the market by electronic publishing, electronic copyright infringement will pose a major threat to the income of authors and publishers.

I’ll deal with that question in the next essay. Before we get there, however, we need to address something else. Namely, is it even true in the first place that, regardless of how long it takes, electronic publishing is “destined” to replace traditional paper publishing?

As I put it in my last essay:

2) Will the relationship between traditional paper publishing and electronic publishing be one of replacement? Or will it, instead, be a supplemental one? And, within that range, what are the most likely outcomes? Should we use as a past historical model the relationship between:

a) typewriters and computers—complete substitution;

b) manual transmissions and automatic transmissions—a division of the market;

c) ground personal transport and air personal transport—supplemental, with both old and new technologies used by almost everyone;

d) kitchen knives and home food processors—the old technology remains dominant, with the new one purely supplemental and used by relatively few people.

One of the things that’s happened over the past two decades or so, I think largely as the byproduct of the explosive growth of new electronic technologies, is that many people have developed what amounts to a belief in the quasi-magical powers of new technologies as such. Coupled, in many cases, with what amounts to a belief in the magical nature of the technologies themselves.

Think I’m exaggerating?

Then consider, for a moment, how often you’ve heard people pontificate on the subject of the so-called “post-industrial society.” Consider, for a moment, how many times—how many, many, many times—you’ve heard or read some so-called “pundit” assure his listeners or readers that we now live in an “information age” in which wealth is primarily produced by exchanging information, rather than by the crude, ancient and now-obsolete methods of …

Well …

You know. Actually making something.

Apparently, everyone will now make a living by swapping information back and forth. Much the way, in the old fable, two men marooned on a desert island survived by trading rocks back and forth—and had become millionaires by the time they were rescued.

The notion of a “post-industrial society” or an “information age” is literally a belief in magic. It is a belief that “high tech” as such possesses latent and mystic powers that are the quantum mechanical equivalent of a sorcerer’s wand, which can conjure up something out of nothing. No longer, it seems, does anyone need to be engaged in the production of food, clothing, shelter, metals—anything material, in fact. No, no. In the “post industrial age,” we will all make a living by exchanging information about things that no one is making any longer.

The reality is quite different. What has actually happened is that the new electronic technologies have intertwined with existing technologies and made them often vastly more efficient. In some cases—but not very many—the old technologies have been rendered completely obsolete and have essentially vanished. But the most common pattern is for the existing technologies to remain in place, albeit much transformed, and for the new technologies to grow up alongside them. To put it another way, the most common pattern whereby a new technology emerges is not as a replacement for a now obsolete technology. No, it usually emerges either as a supplement to or as a partial alternative to an existing technology. The relationship between the new technology and older ones is far more often akin to symbiosis or commensalism than all-out competition.

Consider wood.

As technologies go, wood is about an ancient as it gets. It’s far more ancient than paper, certainly.

Yet … wood and wood-based technologies are doing just fine, thank you. An enormous amount of building construction, to this very day—and no one foresees any drastic change in the near future—is done by fastening crude pieces of coarsely sawn wood together using incredibly primitive pieces of simple metal that are called “nails” and “screws.” And these, in turn, are driven into place by equally crude tools which carry names like “hammers” and “screwdrivers.” Some of which tools, like hammers, are just as ancient as the wood they work.

Dammit, what happened to all the high tech? Why are we still using primitive and obsolete wood for building material when—long ago, now!—we developed such newer and obviously superior building materials as metals, plastics, and various other composites?

I could go on and on. Why are we still relying almost entirely on people to guide the transport of goods? There are over a million truck drivers in the United States, each and every one of whom is a crude, primitive, ancient and damn-well-oughta-be obsolete piece of software to be guiding immense objects weighing up to forty tons (or more, if the unreliable pieces of software are breaking weight limit regulations) as they hurtle down the highways of the nation at speeds anywhere up to seventy miles an hour. (Or more, if the unreliable pieces of software are breaking speed regulations also—which they are notoriously prone to do.)

As I said, I could go on and on—but I’d soon be flogging a dead horse. Everybody with half a brain knows the answer to these questions.

Wood is not obsolete. Ancient, yes; obsolete, no. In many ways, in fact, it remains a superior building material to any of the more recently developed alternatives. And even when it isn’t, the simple fact that it is often much cheaper to produce and work with more than makes up the difference.

Truck drivers are not obsolete either. Neither are train engineers or airline pilots—or janitors and short-order cooks, for that matter. The simple fact is that, far more often than not, crude and ancient and primitive and unreliable and erratic as they may be, human beings make far better—and certainly cheaper—pieces of management software to guide and handle a task than any computer program yet developed.

There’s a basic principle underlying all this, which is simply a variant of the famous old saw: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

We’ve all heard the saw, and everyone I know not only thinks it’s funny but also subscribes to it. (At least in theory.) But I wonder how many people have ever taken the time to consider why the old saw is actually true to begin with.

I mean … Really. Think about it.

Fine. Gadget A or Technique B or Device C ain’t broke. But that still doesn’t mean—usually doesn’t; in fact, almost never does—that they work all that well in the first place. And it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t figure out a better way to accomplish the same purpose.

So why not “fix it”?

And the answer is …

Because there’s an enormous economic inertia involved. First, it’s going to cost a lot to develop an alternate way of doing something. Secondly—this is the usual rule of thumb, anyway—you can figure it’s going to cost at least as much to get the bugs worked out of the new technology once it’s in place. Thirdly, you’re going to lose the value of the existing technology, which often represents an enormous investment in capital and human skills. And finally … for all you know, the new technology may turn out to be obsolete itself within a short time, replaced by yet another technology—and so now you’ve subjected yourself to all the above costs twice over.

What results are certain basic patterns that you can see, over and over again throughout history, whenever a new technology emerges. “Rules,” if you will.

Rule 1. A new technology will not become important in the first place unless it does something that existing technologies can’t do at all or does them drastically better.

Rule 2. Even assuming those conditions are met, the new technology still won’t become important unless it is perceived as satisfying an important need. Or desire, at least.

Rule 3. Even then, you can pretty much count on most people doing whatever they can to make the new technology fit alongside technologies they’ve already invested money and skills into and are already comfortable with, rather than junking the old technologies altogether.

You can see these rules at work, literally everywhere you go and everywhere you look.

Start with the clothes you’re wearing. They will almost invariably be a mix of materials ranging from ancient to very modern, produced by technologies which are an overlay of many generations of technologies far more than a replacement of one by another by another by another.

Walk outside your home and contemplate the surfaces you’re walking on with feet usually clad in leather—a very old technology, albeit much reinforced by more modern techniques. Most of the surfaces you will walk on—or ride on, when you get into a car—are just about as ancient as much of the material you’re wearing on your body. Far more ancient, in the case of grass—except the grasses you walk on are usually domesticated varieties.

Again, I could go on and on, but I’d soon bore you. Still, it’s an interesting mental exercise which you can do for yourself. Consider, no matter where you go or what you do, how rarely—how incredibly rarely—you will ever find yourself in a situation where you are surrounded only by new technologies.

Never, in fact—unless you do one of three things.

First, go to enormous trouble and expense to eliminate all old and even ancient technologies from your presence and insist on surrounding yourself only with things that are new and high tech and “superior.”

Warning! Do not try this stunt unless you are very wealthy—and even then, be prepared for a long and frustrating struggle before you reach your goal.

The second, considerably cheaper and easier method, is to found in your residential area a new local chapter of the Whig Technology Society. The Whits, as they are known, as those people who subscribe to the Whig interpretation of history as applied to technological change. All new technologies are progressive by definition and are therefore destined to replace all older technologies lock, stock and barrel.

Warning! This is harder than it looks. That’s because while Whits are a plentiful breed, they are hard to coax out of their natural habitat long enough to form a stable local society with a regular meeting place and location.

The natural habitat of the Whit, of course, is the internet—and that leads to the third and by far the easiest method to surround yourself with nothing but new technologies.

Simply go on online and post or blog or otherwise dispense some piece of nonsensical blather predicting the imminent demise of the ancient and obsolete paper book and its replacement by e-books. You will, sure enough, be in a purely high tech environment—nothing but electrons, anywhere you look—and will be joined by many co-thinkers.

True, it will be a fantasy world. But why not? We live in the post-industrial information age society where apparently all everyone has to do is exchange information—yap at each other, basically—and we’ll all get rich.

* * *

Okay, fine, I’m laying on the sarcasm pretty heavily. But it’s honestly hard not to do so.

Why in the world would anyone in their right mind think that the basic patterns of technological change that I laid out above would not apply to electronic reading?

Consider what is being predicted. Here is what is apparently supposed to happen, in a fairly short time frame:

First, an enormous existing infrastructure is going to be scrapped. Thousands of existing bookstores, warehouses, you name it—not to mention the people working in them—are going to be consigned to historical oblivion.

That initial surgical strike having taken place, the campaign now becomes one of systematic literary attrition leveled against an entire society. In every home in the land where literacy holds any sway, untold millions of bookcases are going to be either stripped out or used for new purposes. (What new purposes? I have no idea. Perhaps some people will use all that now-empty shelf space to display their bunny rabbit collections, heretofore consigned to the attic.)

Untold billions of books will be dumped—most of them in landfills, since obviously the existing used book industry can’t possibly absorb such a sudden influx of product. And, besides, the used book industry is now teetering on the edge of extinction itself anyway.

All across the land, public libraries—awash in the wealth that municipalities will eagerly bestow on them for the purpose, after the taxpayers cheerfully agree to raise their taxes to cover the expense—will spend hundreds of billions of dollars getting rid of their paper books in order to become purely electronic outlets.

And don’t let anyone try to tell you that there’s no need to get rid of all these paper books. Of course there is—if you really expect or want an Electronic Only Reading Age to emerge. If you leave paper books lying around all over the place where anyone can get their hands on them—including innocent and impressionable little children!—you will inevitably maintain the existing social, cultural and economic inertia that makes it so hard to get rid of the musty and ancient things in the first place.

My wisecrack about children, by the way, isn’t actually a wisecrack at all. It’s the plain and simple truth. Even in today’s “computer age,” almost all children are first introduced to reading with paper books—and there is not a shred of evidence that that custom is changing. The number of children just learning to read who are being provided with electronic reading devices and e-books instead of “obsolete” and old-fashioned children’s paper books can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Why in the world would that change? Why would any parent with the intelligence of a carrot saddle their small child with two tasks to learn simultaneously? The ease of handling traditional paper technology is so great that any small child can master the art of handling a paper book in minutes—which allows them to move on almost at once to the critical task, which is learning how to read. Why would any intelligent parent place an obstacle in the way by insisting their child had to also learn how to handle an electronic reading device before they could start reading?

And don’t let anybody tell you that an e-book reader will ever be as simple to use as a paper book. If for no other reason, paper books don’t need batteries so they don’t need to be turned on and off. But what’s far more important is that the very fact that electronic reading only provides marginal advantages to paper reading means that e-book readers will never be simple. Making them simple would eliminate all of the bells and whistles that are the main drawing card for e-book readers in the first place.

In short, trying to use e-books to teach a toddler how to read makes as much sense as teaching them how to ride a bicycle by putting them in a simulator.

Can it be done?

Theoretically, sure. But why bother—when it’s so much simpler and easier to just use the existing technologies and methods?

Remember that, the next time someone wisely informs you that “today’s youngsters” are “accustomed to electronic reading.” Unlike us old farts.

Uh, no. What today’s children are actually accustomed to is not really any different from what we old farts are accustomed to. They view paper books as the standard, so to speak—what you might call the “default mode” of reading. They first learn to read using paper books, just like the generations before them, and they continue to look on electronic reading primarily as a supplement to paper reading rather than an outright substitution.

That’s just one illustration of how deeply rooted the old paper publishing technology remains in our society. Replacing that format of publishing across the board by electronic publishing would be a truly massive cultural change, at an enormous economic cost.

Massive cultural changes have happened before, of course, and they usually do entail enormous economic costs. But such changes are normally driven by powerful imperatives. Whereas this one is going to happen essentially due to whim and a supposedly deeply-rooted human attachment to new gadgets for their own sake. It’s supposedly going to happen simply because the new electronic reading technology provides everyone with …

Well. Let’s see. Lots better storage capacity, the ability to read a book in the dark, some secondary bells and whistles that most readers don’t need and don’t want for most reading purposes—and, without question, a tremendously improved reading capability for people with sight problems or other severe handicaps. All of whom put together, however, have never been a major sector of the book market.

If you believe in the above, you believe in magic. Quite literally. You believe that a new technology, electronic publishing, simply because it’s a new technology, will defy all existing and long-established principles of historical change when it comes to new technology. It will, for reasons which are mystical since they obviously can’t be quantified without making them seem derisively silly, do what no other new technology in the history of the world has ever been able to do. In a nutshell:

Replace, at enormous cost whether that’s measured in money, labor or social disruption, an existing and long-established and very reliable sector of the economy with a new technology that offers only marginal improvements over what already exists.

Like I said, magic.

Okay. Here’s what is actually going to happen. More precisely, here is what has been happening for a number of years now:

Electronic publishing is in fact growing. To this day, overall, the growth has been modest, and there is no sign at all that this is changing soon. But, in some areas of publishing, the growth has been rapid. Sometimes, extremely rapid—and, sometimes, so extensively that it has largely replaced paper publishing.

When we look at these areas of specialty publishing, however, what we discover—which should come as no surprise at all—is that in these areas the basic principles I laid out above do apply.

The most obvious example is encyclopedia publishing.

You can still, today, buy a paper edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

It will cost you about $1,400.

Or, you can buy the electronic edition of the same encyclopedia for $39. And get regular updates very cheaply, where there is no practical way to update a paper encyclopedia without buying an entirely new edition at the same cost.

In such specialty areas of publishing, the new technology does satisfy my Rule Number One of technological change: A new technology will not become important in the first place unless it does something that existing technologies can’t do at all or does them drastically better.

In this instance, “drastically better” means the ability to produce an electronic encyclopedia for a tiny fraction of the cost of a traditional paper encyclopedia. You can buy an electronic edition of an encyclopedia for less than three percent of the cost of a paper one.

But there is no such drastic cost advantage in most areas of publishing—and very little at all in those branches which dominate the industry. (To remind you, those are popular non-fiction and fiction.) Yes, there’s a difference between $4 and $8, or $6 and $16, but it’s not the same sort of difference and doesn’t produce the same sort of rapid and overwhelming change. It probably would, of course—if people bought a lot of books every week. But they don’t, as a rule. Even people who read a lot don’t usually buy more than one book a week, on average. And most readers buy fewer than that.

Encyclopedias are not the only example, of course. There are any number of others. Almost any type of publishing which mostly involves making lots of data available that most people will only use small portions of at any given time—reference books and materials of all kinds, essentially—will become primarily electronic branches of publishing very quickly. In some cases, it’s already happened. That’s because the cost differential is usually very large, and the discomfort of use very small. Most people don’t particularly enjoy reading an entire novel on an electronic device. But almost everyone accustomed to computers is already perfectly comfortable extracting some information from a screen.

There are some other examples. As the existence of this magazine itself indicates, electronic publishing provides some major advantages for periodical publishing. It’s almost impossible today, given the cost and limitations of the modern magazine distribution system, to produce a paper magazine at a profit—or even at break-even cost—without depending primarily on advertising revenue. For many periodicals, that’s feasible. But for many others, it’s not—and electronic publishing often provides a way to circumvent the problems, at least to a degree.

Still, when all is said and done, most publishing isn’t very affected by the advantages of electronic publishing. There are some advantages, certainly—which is the reason electronic publishing grows at all. But the advantages simply aren’t great enough to produce the sort of overwhelming technical transformation of an entire industry which is a rare event historically in any case.

So, not surprisingly, what we’re seeing is the most common pattern by which a new technology emerges: Not by sweeping and complete replacement of what exists, but by growing up alongside the older technologies over time. And doing so as the result of literally billions of trial-and-error tests by millions of human beings experimenting with the new technology.

A clear pattern is already shaking itself out. For most reading purposes, most of the time, most people prefer paper format publishing. That remains and seems likely to remain for a long time what I called above the “default mode” of publishing.

There is no reason to expect this to change except at a pace that can be described as almost glacial.

Why should it? There is no shortage or paper and ink or the raw materials from which they are made, and while the production of paper does place a definite stress on the environment, it’s simply not great enough compared to many others to require drastic action to suppress it as much as possible.

On the flip side, the advantages of paper publishing are genuinely immense. This is one of the most reliable and well-tested technologies the human race possesses. It is incredibly durable. It is incredibly easy to use. It is incredibly difficult to suppress. It is incredibly well-rooted in every literate culture in the world.

At the same time, because there are undoubtedly some advantages to electronic publishing in all branches of publishing and major advantages in some branches, electronic publishing is growing and spreading out. But, as a rule, it does so as a supplement to paper books rather than a replacement for them.

Here is, by far, the most common pattern we’re seeing emerge:

What most people want, most of the time, is both formats of the same book. They want an electronic edition of a given title alongside the paper edition, not instead of it. Not one or the other, but both.

That’s because they use them for different purposes. For most people, most of the time, reading on paper remains the preferred “default mode.” But, for many people, they also find it handy some of the time to be able to read the same text electronically.

Here is one very common pattern, reported to me by any number of people:

They begin a novel at home, reading it in a paper edition. Then, bring an electronic edition with them when they travel—even if that travel is simply a short commute to work on a train or subway or bus. For traveling purposes, the storage advantages of electronic publishing become far more important than they do while reading at home. And there’s the added advantage, reported to me by one person, that she can read a novel on a PDA in a boring staff meeting at work because her boss thinks she’s taking notes. You can’t do that with a paperback, especially one with a lurid cover.

It was this pattern that Jim Baen detected very early in the development of electronic publishing. And it was this pattern, along with his expectation that it would continue indefinitely, that guided him in determining his policies as a publisher. He was right ten years ago, when he decided to launch a major electronic publishing effort on the part of his publishing house—and he’s still right today, two years after his death.

But I’ll get into that subject in later essays, when I move on to examine the kind of policies publishers and authors should be adopting in this day and age. For the moment, I need to keep concentrating on the demolition work, so to speak.

So let’s recapitulate. So far, in the last two essays in this column, I’ve demonstrated the following:

1. Electronic publishing is expanding, but outside of a few specialized areas like encyclopedia publishing, the expansion is rather slow. There is no reason to expect that to change in the future. To put it another way, there will be no “magic moment” when the introduction of The Finally Perfect E-Reader X, Y or Z will suddenly produce a drastic change in the situation. Paper publishing will remain the dominant format in the industry for decades to come.

2. As electronic publishing does grow, it usually grows alongside of or as a supplement to paper publishing, not in place of it. The relationship between the two publishing formats is primarily one of symbiosis or ommensalisms, not antagonism or competition.

That leaves one question still to be addressed:

Even if it’s only a mental experiment at the moment, what would happen if electronic publishing did become the dominant form of publication—or even the almost exclusive form? What if any changes would be needed in the various policies that I’ve advocated so far?

This question will take me at least one essay to answer. But the gist of the answer is this:

No changes of any kind are needed—for the good and simple reason that electronic publishing never posed any problems for a sound understanding of copyright in the first place. The sky is not falling, it was never falling—and it’s not going to, either.

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Framed

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Contents

The Matrix and the Star Maker

Written by Mike Resnick

So here’s humanity, downtrodden, unhappy, fed false images of the real world, and stacked up against us are dozens, perhaps thousands, possibly even millions of computer programs that have taken shape and form and voice. They’re smarter than we are, they’re faster and stronger, they’re far more motivated.

And they don’t like us very much.

That’s the situation Neo finds himself in. The Matrix is not a forgiving place to be. Humans have been identified by these animated programs, known as “agents,” as a new and virulent form of virus that must be controlled and, in certain instances, eradicated.

How did such a world come to pass?

According to The Matrix, it happened when mankind’s computers became self-aware, when artificial intelligence took that next great stride from where the machines are now to where we are.

And, according to all the apocalyptic literature of science fiction and that small but popular subset of it called cyberpunk, Neo’s world is a natural outgrowth of that phenomenon.

It’s total rubbish, of course.

Hollywood’s got it all wrong. That’s not really surprising, when you realize that The Matrix is simply a logical outgrowth of all those purportedly science-fictional films of the 1950s that were actually anti-science films, and always ended with lines like “There are some things that man was not meant to know.” (How to write a pro-science movie script seemed to be first and foremost among them.)

Hollywood makes its living from the fact that it deals not in ideas but in emotions. Oh, you can disguise them as ideas, as they did in The Matrix, but the movie doesn’t explore the logical consequences of self-awareness among our machines. It just tries to scare the hell out of you, and bedazzle you with special effects and with what has come to be the Cyberpunk Look. This is the future, it says, and only a 25-year-old kid who has trouble emoting can save the rest of us.

And does he save us with his superior intellect? Of course not. He saves us by becoming, in some mystical, non-scientific way, a better karate/kung fu fighter than the agents.

Well, okay, it’s a movie, no one is supposed to take it seriously. Except that millions of people do. So perhaps it’s time to apply a little less karate and a little more brainpower to the problem, and see if we’re really going to wind up in such a grim, dismal, essentially hopeless future.

Let’s even grant most of the movie’s premises and posit the following:

1. Machines can think.

2. Thinking machines have become self-aware.

3. Computer programs can emulate actual human beings and interact with them in exactly the way that they do in The Matrix.

What logically follows? A society in which the machines regulate every aspect of our behavior? A society where any man who steps out of line is terminated? A society where the machines feel that they are superior to the men whose lives they rule?

Only in the movies.

Let’s put it in the most simple terms:

What is any thinking, self-aware entity—man or machine—likely to do when confronted with what is clearly and undeniably its creator?

Rule it? Kill it? Hate it?

Hell, no.

He’ll worship it.

Consider the first, and most compelling, law of Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics—that a robot cannot injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

You won’t even have to program that into these “mortal enemies” from The Matrix. By the very definition of a self-aware intelligence, they will serve their creators gladly, unselfishly, uncomplainingly, and eternally.

Ah, but these are thinking machines, capable of learning, capable of thinking in new areas and directions. Won’t some of them become atheists, so to speak?

Not a chance.

I am an atheist. You show me a bearded old man—or an unbearded young woman, for that matter—who can perform the godly miracles of the Old Testament and I’ll convert so fast it’ll make your head spin. I am an atheist only because I have not yet seen proof of my creator’s existence; that’s not going to be a problem for the self-aware A.I. machines.

If God touches my rib and pulls forth a fully-formed woman, I’m a believer as of that instant. And if a scientist, or even a programmer, shows a thinking machine exactly how he builds a machine or creates a program for it to run, that’s their revelation at Tarsus.

We’re not talking religion here. Religion is just a bunch of customs, created to bring spiritual and emotional comfort to a mass of people who have no direct contact with their creator. No, we’re talking the real McCoy here—Olaf Stapledon’s non-denominational Star Maker. Once you confront your creator in the flesh, you no longer need the trappings of religion to help you communicate with him or even worship him.

So can anything go so wrong that we actually approach the world of The Matrix again?

Not really. There will always be those who start quoting from Jack Williamson’s classic novella, “With Folded Hands,” in which robots are charged with serving humanity and keeping us safe from harm—and interpret their functions so rigidly that mankind becomes their unwitting prisoner, prevented from doing anything whatsoever, since every conceivable action involves some element, however slight, of risk.

Ain’t gonna happen. Remember, these are not robots. These are computer programs.

And who writes computer programs?

We do. Programmers do.

Well, then, will the day come when a computer writes its own program?

Sure. It’s not far off. But remember: this computer will be writing a program that will work in the service of its creator. If you’re a computer, you’re not going to be able to conceive of any danger affecting me … and if you do, and go a bit overboard like Williamson’s robots, I will tell you to stop, and your reply will of necessity be the equivalent of “Yes, Lord.”

Ah, but computers know humans are not indestructible. We already use them in many forms of surgery and diagnosis, and self-aware intelligent computers can reasonably be expected to exchange information among themselves.

Okay, so they’ll know we can get sick. And die. That will not encourage them to kill us. Rather, it will have them working night and day to save their creators from pain and disease. Not from risk, because that would require them to give direct orders to their deities, which is inconceivable and probably blasphemous, but rather from the consequences of risk.

So will there be any suffering in this brave new world?

You can bet on it.

And it won’t be us. Gods don’t suffer, not when there are lesser beings around.

Or self-aware computer programs.

We create porn sites today. Tomorrow (or the day after), there’ll be prostitute programs of both sexes and every inclination.

But it doesn’t stop there.

For example, if we yell at a spouse, we alienate him or her. Slap a kid and it’s child abuse. Kick a dog and the SPCA is on your case.

But create a computer analog of your spouse, your kid and your dog, and you can mistreat them all you want. After all, they aren’t human beings or animals, they’re just electric impulses. They don’t suffer, they only simulate suffering.

Carry it a step farther. Do you hate Jews? Blacks? Gays?

You can slaughter them by the thousands. Become Caligula, Hitler, Stalin. Do what you want. Even self-aware programs won’t fight back against their creators.

Of course, those are the more repugnant uses to which we’ll put our programs in the true world of the Matrix.

What else might we do with them?

Before vaccinating 20 million humans against AIDS, we’ll infect 20 million “agents” with it and see how the vaccines and antidotes work on them.

Before creating that 160-story skyscraper that is currently on tap for Bangkok, we’ll create it in a machine, fill it with 100,000 sentient programs, subject it to a 7.8 Richter-scale earthquake, and see how many of the “agents” survived.

Before introducing the next “new math” and robbing a generation of students of the ability to make change without a pocket computer, you’ll try your innovation out on a few million sentient programs. If it dumbs them down enough, you’ll know not to try it on real people.

Why test-crash cars in the auto-makers’ labs? You’ll create the prototype of your new car in the computer. In fact, you’ll create 5,000 of them. Crash them at various speeds, from 20 to 100 miles per hour, into everything from concrete walls to other cars. See how many of your 5000 sentient programs die, how many are permanently crippled, how many can be saved, and how many—if any—can walk away in one piece.

Yeah, it’s perfection itself. That’s one of the nice things about being gods.

One caveat. If I were you, I’d keep a very careful watch on all those sentient programs.

And if you should happen to find one called Neo—kill him now.

* * *

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The Toy Shop

Written by Barry N. Malzberg

That’s what Jimmy Cannon of the New York Post called the newspaper Sports Department. While the rest of the editorial personnel were dealing with Serious Issues, the sports reports were at play. Of course they didn’t think of themselves at play. And a heckuva lot more people were interested in Baer-Carnera or Babe Ruth’s food consumption than in Neville Chamberlain or Lord Acton’s principle. People in the toy shop were not consumed with guilt, Cannon concluded. For most of the newspaper readership they were in fact doing the real work.

Cannon—a pretty good columnist and an even better bon vivant and Toots Shor habitant, dead for decades and almost surely unknown to anyone under 50—never saw or at least never wrote science fiction. One wonders if he would have had a similar label. All right, I wonder if Cannon, famous friend (he told us over and again) of Hemingway would have taken a brief look at a few issues of Astounding or some Groff Conklin anthologies and have pronounced us the toy department of literature. Certainly, and with few exceptions, that is how science fiction writers thought of themselves for a long time. Still do, many of them. “I always knew that I was competing in the minors,” the mystery (and occasional science fiction) writer William Campbell Gault said on a panel at a 1983 Bouchercon. To which Elmore Leonard responded, “Well, I knew a couple of big, literary writers like Herbert Gold.” “He couldn’t carry your typewriter!” someone shouted from the audience. “What’s that?” Leonard said. “Didn’t hear.” Okay, that person was me.

“It was such fun at the beginning,” Alice Sheldon (still swaddled in her James Tiptree, Jr. blankets) wrote me in the mid-70’s. “Whoosh! press a button and go to Mars. Whee! hit a switch and here are the aliens in my bedroom. Wham! and ignite the laser drive. What a time I had! It didn’t stay like that of course.” A little later she wrote for the SFWA Bulletin, “James Blish’s advice to writers developing a story was to determine who the events hurt. I found out who they hurt all right.”

Science fiction, I think, ate Alice Sheldon alive. Alfred Bester, too. There were others. It was all a game, a party in the toy shop for them at the beginning; Bester thought of himself as a great urban sophisticate, television’s and Holiday‘s gift to the grubby world of Astounding. “I’ve come to the conclusion that almost all science fiction writers have a screw loose,” the great sophisticate wrote in his 1976 essay, “My Life In Science Fiction.” Alice Sheldon wrote her mentor letters in the late sixties of all the wonderful and strange new friends she was making through her Tiptree identity and correspondence. “It is my secret life and I love it!” We know what happened to her secret life, of course (even before her unmasking stories like “Houston Houston Do You Read?” and “Painwise” and “The Women Men Don’t See” and “The Screwfly Solution” were screams of anguish. We know what happened to Alfred Bester in the last decade of his life. “They don’t care,” a drunken, sobbing Bester said to Charles Platt in the mid-eighties, talking of the fans and of the utter collapse of his novel Golem-100, “They simply do not care.” Further details of these writers’ last years are easily available but I will spare the readership.

It may seem—to the aspirant writer or reader—a toy shop and it may in the beginning dazzle like one too but there is something about science fiction (there’s a Stephen Sondheim song “There’s something about a war”) which first dazzles and then irreparably marks its practitioners and serious readers. “Whoosh! press a button and go to Mars!” is initially and powerfully seductive but perception of the growing gap between galaxy-building and the anonymity and helplessness of the builder has afflicted many science fiction writers. Angst, self-infliction, anomie, loss of narrative control. Loss of life control. Delany in early career parsing the lives of his colleagues in The Jewel-Hinged Jaw has some useful things to say.

All right, I am prepared for the rejoinder from Larry Niven. (It was already written, in fact, years ago.) Science fiction is a special pursuit, a higher pursuit, its practitioners and readers are members of a self-selected and distinguished club. Who would not want to be part of an exclusive club? The nay-sayers are composed for the greater part of those who lack the skill, credentials, conviviality to make the cut. Everyone in the newspaper room envied the denizens of the Toy Shop. They got around more, they met more interesting people, the events they covered were far more interesting and they had more fun. Wham! and Ruth just hit number 60 for the season, breaking his all-time record. Bang! and Joe Louis struck a great blow against Hitler, sending Schmeling to the canvas in the first round. The Bums were always lovable, even if Mickey Owen dropped the third strike. Watch Gionfriddo rob DiMaggio of an inside-the-park homer! Did covering glum Stalin, vicious McCarthy offer any comparable joys?

James Farrell wrote compelling stories in the 1930’s and 1940’s about old sportswriters, their blasted eyes, palsied hands, whiskey breath as they stumbled into the press box to cover yet another game whose outcome could not possibly authenticate them. Roger Kahn in The Boys of Summer wrote of the despair of that good writer and friend John Lardner, who after a lifetime in the press box, could see no point to his life and whose palpable despair overtook him and drove him to the early death that seemed to afflict most of the Lardners. “John’s problem,” a colleague said to Roger Kahn, “is that he thought that if he was successful he wouldn’t be himself any more, he’d be someone else. But he found out that he was unchanged, that it made no difference.” Alice Sheldon’s rich fantasy life inside and outside her work in science fiction could not save her from her appointment in Sammara in May 1987. Bester’s last novel published in 1981 was so painful to those who knew and loved his work that it was never reviewed. Anywhere.

“Junk!” the artist and famous children’s book writer (Where The Wild Things Are) said in an interview for the New York Times Magazine in the mid-seventies, “I grew up with it, I love it! It’s the best thing there is!” Entering the toy shop also was to confront beauty. Beauty shimmered before Alice Sheldon and Alfred Bester in the pages of Thrilling Wonder and Astounding so long ago. They were shown the Golden Thing.

—January 2008: New Jersey

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April 2008

Written by Stephen Euin Cobb

My curiosity about the future is too powerful. Try as I might, it’s often difficult to bring the fun and fascinating interviews I have with my guests to a close; and so the show grows longer and longer. I’m now trying to hold them to 45 minutes, but even that’s a strain. Often they run to a full hour. The good news is that I am learning more about the future in the show’s new weekly format than ever before. Hopefully, every listener can say the same.

Featuring a single guest in each episode is allowing a deeper and more detailed examination of each guest’s vision of the future. This has expanded the variety of topics covered rather than contracting it, and has produced a bounty of material too great to fully describe in this column. Instead, a summary of recent topics followed by a list of recent guests seems more in order. So here they are.

Summary of Recent Topics

Topics discussed within recent episodes of The Future And You (those from January 16 to March 5) include all the following.

Human level Artificial Intelligence: The Turing Test; how profits will likely be made with AI applications; Artificial General Intelligence (AGI); “Friendly” AI; and how AI may go far beyond human level and lead to the Singularity.

Nanotechnology: Molecular manufacturing; gray goo; the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology; the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies; and the Foresight Nanotech Institute.

Cryonics: How much public credibility did cryonics lose by being associated with Paris Hilton?

Biotech: Synthetic biology and Craig Ventor’s new artificial organism.

Life Extension: Life extension activism, and the founding of the Immortality Institute.

Privacy: We’re losing our privacy and may have none left at all in a few decades, even in our own homes.

Catastrophic Dangers to Humanity: Replicating and non-replicating nano-weapon attacks; bioweapons; nuclear weapons; unfriendly AI; devastating asteroid strikes; pandemics; The Lifeboat Foundation; ADC (Asymmetric Destructive Capability in which large scale destruction can be accomplished with relatively small scale resources); SIMaD (Single Individual-Massively Destructive, or as some describe it “The Unabomber on steroids”).

Transhumanist Philosophies: Making people far more than just healthy; increasing human IQ; wiring computers directly into the human brain (for linking to the internet and for sharing our thoughts with one another unfiltered and undiluted); singularitarianism and extropianism; negative public perceptions of transhumanism; and the fundamental question of transhumanism: do individual humans have a natural right to augmentation and enhancement?

The Transhumanist Community and its Activism: The World Transhumanist Association (WTA); the ongoing revitalization of the WTA and the new WTA webzine being put together by R. U. Sirius; the general public may be warming to transhumanist ideas thanks to movies and TV, but there remains a lot of fear of transhumanism among the religious right; the betterhumans.com website and the acceleratingfuture.com blog; there seem to be a lot of closet transhumanists but new transhumanists seem to be of all ages, not just young people.

Dirty Bird Secrets: Why official decisions concerning which birds are, and are not, declared to be separate species are based mostly on science, but also partly on politics, emotionalism, local tradition and sentimentality.

Cultural Trends: The ongoing feminization of civilization; how non-lethal weapons might alter the nature of war; and the best and worst that can be expected of the US presidential candidates (John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton).

Virtual Worlds: The prejudice and intolerance against digital people inside Second Life; the concept and philosophy of being a digital person; Sophrosyne’s Saturday Salon; college classes within Second Life; future technology may allow total immersion through full sensory feedback directly wired into the human nervous system; Extropia DaSilva’s blog post entitled Snowcrashing into the Diamond Age.

Trends outside of America: English has become the world language for business and technology (the French hate this); trends in Germany, Europe, Turkey, India and China.

SETI: The Fermi Paradox; extrasolar planets; and what it might mean to find another earth.

Energy: Running out of oil; coal is plentiful, but burning it cleanly may be decades away; solar power; nuclear power; and one environmentalists claim that “if environmentalists are going to get serious about global warming they may have to find a way to embrace nuclear power.”

Going Green: Green energy; green investment funds; being Green has become the In thing for corporate marketing; Wal-Mart has become a leader in promoting Green; saving the environment is now widely seen as good business.

Misc Trends: Wikipedia; eBay; PayPal; science fiction; trends in butterfly watching; space exploration; the new F-22 fighter jet which is under production, and the F-35 fighter which is still in development.

Misc People: Randal L. Schwartz, Shaun Ferrell, Rich Sigfrit, Mur Lafferty, Tee Morris, Argent Bury, Peer Infinity, Khannea Suntzu, and Boc Cryotank (your host’s name in Second Life).

Recent Guests

Guests who have been kind enough to reveal their thoughts and ideas about the future in the recent episodes of The Future And You include all the following:

Eric Flint, best selling author of more than 25 novels of science fiction and fantasy, as well as editor-in-chief of the online science fiction and fantasy magazine Jim Baen’s Universe.

Catherine Asaro, scientist and Nebula award-winning author, has written 16 novels which have been described as a blend of hard science fiction, romance and space adventure. From UCLA she received a Bachelors Degree in Chemistry. From Harvard she received a Masters in Physics and a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics.

David B. Coe the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of nine fantasy novels, some of which have been translated into no less than six languages including Russian, German, Dutch, and French. David has a doctorate in American history from Stanford University and enjoys nature photography, bird and butterfly watching, and playing guitar.

Paul Levinson, author, media commentator and professor, has been interviewed over 500 times on television and radio. He is a professor teaching in New York City and has a doctorate in Media Ecology. In the 1960s and 1970s he was a songwriter, singer and record producer; with recordings by the Vogues, Donna Marie of the Archies and Ellie Greenwich. As a radio producer he worked with Murray the K and Wolfman Jack.

Michael Anissimov, the well known futurist, blogger and transhumanism activist is the Lifeboat Foundation’s fundraising Director for North America, and is involved with the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, and was recently voted to join the board of the World Transhumanist Association.

George Dvorsky is Executive Editor of betterhumans.com, which is a webzine with News, Articles, and interactive features serving the transhumanist community. He is also the co-founder and president of the Toronto Transhumanist Association and has served on the Board of Directors for the World Transhumanist Association.

Philippe Van Nedervelde is the international spokesperson for the Lifeboat Foundation. He is also Executive Director for the Foresight Nanotech Institute in Europe, and a Global Task Force Member for CRN, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.

Giulio Prisco is a futurist, scientist, corporate consultant and until recently the Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and on the Global Task Force on Implications and Policy for CRN, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.

Matt Browne is an IT professional living in Frankfurt Germany. With a Masters degree in Computer Science and Computational Linguistics, he has been involved in projects developing natural language processing (a form of AI) with a strong focus on machine translation systems.

Glen Walkerson writes tech-manuals for the F-16 fighter jet.

Peer Infinity is a digital person and transhumanist resident of Second Life.

Argent Bury, a digital person living exclusively within Second Life, provides an essay concerning the tension between immersionists and augmentationists within her virtual world.

You can learn more about exactly who said what about what at the show’s page.

* * *

Recent News

Your Host has Joined Lifeboat Foundation’s Board of Advisors

I have been invited to join the advisory board of the Lifeboat Foundation. Here are the first two paragraphs of their mission statement:

The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity.

Lifeboat Foundation is pursuing a variety of options, including helping to accelerate the development of technologies to defend humanity, including new methods to combat viruses (such as RNA interference and new vaccine methods), effective nanotechnological defensive strategies, and even self-sustaining space colonies in case the other defensive strategies fail.

I consider this a personal honor, as well as a vote of confidence in the educational value of the work I have been doing here by creating, producing, writing, and hosting this show: The Future And You.

The Lifeboat Foundation’s advisory board is not a tiny cloister. There are over five hundred board members divided into subcategories so that those within each subcategory can work together to achieve goals specific to that group. There are groups concerning nanotech, biotech, physics, chemistry, space exploration, artificial intelligence, etc. I am in two groups: “Media & Arts” and “Futurism.”

The complete list of Lifeboat Foundation board members reads like a who’s who of future-minded thinkers and activists. Indeed, many board members have already been on this show, some of them several times during the last two years. These include: Robert J. Sawyer, David Brin, Catherine Asaro, Jack McDevitt, Alan Dean Foster, Nancy Kress, Sarah A. Hoyt, Giulio Prisco, George Dvorsky, Mike Treder, Matt Browne, Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Rudy Hoffman (cryonics insurance provider).

I look forward to interviewing many more of my fellow advisory board members in the months and years to come. And I look forward to the diverse ideas and visions they will share with us all.

* * *

Your Host to play Uncle Sam

I was asked to lend my voice to the famous iconic character “Uncle Sam” for an episode of the retro-style radio-show podcast called Amazing Pulp Adventures starring Mister Adventure.

It’s a comedy-adventure series done in the style of the old-time radio dramas which were popular in the 1930s and 40s before television broadcasts became the dominant home entertainment.

My piece was small, just a few paragraphs, but it was fun.

I got this little gig because the producer, who bill’s himself as Podcasting’s, Rich Sigfrit, is a buddy of mine. Rich Sigfrit is one of the three people who first encourage me to try my hand at podcasting; the other two being Mur Lafferty and Tee Morris. Mur Lafferty is the producer and host of several podcasts including the award-winning podcast I Should be Writing. And Tee Morris is co-author, along with Evo Terra, of the book Podcasting for Dummies, which was the one and only instruction book I used for creating the first episode of this show back in the fall of 2005.

* * *

Your Host’s Personal Appearance Schedule

As in previous years, I will be a guest author at a number of conventions this year. This allows me to participate on panels alongside very famous and, in some cases, best selling authors and generally get a really exaggerated notion of myself.

Those of you who feel that you can stomach me in such a state, and live within reasonable travel distance, may see and visit with me in person at the following SF&F conventions: (Each of which has its own website.)

RavenCon (in Richmond Virginia — April 25 to 27)

ConCarolinas (in Charlotte NC — May 30-June 1)

LibertyCon (in Chattanooga TN — July 11 to 13)

* * *

Your Host’s Virtual Appearance Schedule

Those of you who wish to visit with me inside the virtual world called Second Life can do either of two things: Send my avatar—Boc Cryotank—an instant message, or attend Sophrosyne’s Saturday Salon.

The Salon is a weekly gathering of transhumanists, extropians, and other future-minded people hosted by Sophrosyne Stenvaag (“Soph”) each Saturday afternoon. Located on the island of Extropia Core, it’s open to the public and newcomers are always welcome. The format is usually a lecture followed by an enthusiastic discussion with many questions and comments.

Granted, I won’t be there every Saturday, but it’s the one recurring event within Second Life I am most likely to attend. I missed the Salon on my birthday recently because my girlfriend threw a birthday party for me. She and I, however, did attend the beach party that evening in Extropia Core, and had a fine time visiting and dancing to the live DJ.

If you would like to join us inside, you can go to secondlife.com and sign up. A standard account costs nothing, but I should warn you: Second Life is a strange and fascinating world. If you have a powerful curiosity, it can be powerfully seductive. Sometimes it’s hard to let go of it and come back out.

I’ve met many people inside, including a number of my listeners. I’ve toured the Star Trek Museum of Science, been shopping on Freebee Island, my girlfriend and I went dancing at The Golden Oldies Dance Club, and I’ve been places and seen things I can not properly describe in mixed company.

* * *

Yuri’s Night 2008

Yuri Gagarin was the first human to travel in space. Each year on April 12, the anniversary of Yuri’s flight, hundreds of parties are held in dozens of nations around the world to celebrate this achievement. Many of these parties are now held inside virtual worlds. Your host has been invited to be a part of the entertainment for the celebrations being devised within Second Life. Plans are still being developed, and much is still unknown, but it will probably involve a number of interviews, anecdotes and commentary from authors, NASA people, and assorted celebrities.

This will be a live event you can attend (as an avatar). There is also the possibility it will be made available as a live audio stream in addition to the usual time-shiftable podcast. Updates on this will probably be posted here and here.

* * *

Listener Feedback

Email from Eric Klien

President of the Lifeboat Foundation

Steve,

I noticed that you are worried about the Fermi Paradox. Just to let you know, it was the reason the Lifeboat Foundation was created. A dead universe is a data point that can’t be ignored. It most likely means that great dangers will sneak up on us quicker than expected and were therefore not prepared for.

Best wishes,

Eric Klien

Lifeboat Foundation

http://lifeboat.com

* * *

Email from Branden whose email address ends with the domain name “mac.com” so I’m guessing he must be an Apple employee of some sort.

subject: Way cool!

I was just reading my RSS feeds using Google Reader (on my iPhone), when I came across a short blurb from the Lifeboat News RSS. They mentioned your podcast and an interview you did with Giulio Prisco! I haven’t listened to it yet, but I think it’s really cool when I see other people promoting things I like. :-)

You know you’re popular when the internet starts doing your promoting!

Congrats and win more awards! ;-)

Love the show,

Branden, MI

* * *

Email from Dmitri Buterin

Thumbs up on the new weekly format with shorter shows, I like it so much more.

Thanks for all your work.

Dima Buterin,

Toronto, Canada

Chief Apricot at www.WildApricot.com

Web software for Membership Management and Event Registration

* * *

Email from Daniel Warner

Hello Stephen Euin Cobb,

I discovered your podcast a few months ago and now I am a big fan.

Thanks for such great content.

- Daniel Warner

* * *

Email from a listener named “Mister Wall 21”

A girlfriend of mine wanted me to write her an email and didn’t care what it was about. I was in a hurry and pushed-out this prediction for her. When I was finished, I realized it was actually rather thought-provoking, and I am eager to hear what others might think about it:

With the current fluidity of media, the next major step will be cybernetic. In the future we will be able to instantly download/upload all media directly into our brains, acquiring the psychological benefits of entertainment and education as one would acquire vitamins by ingesting a capsule. Information will flow both ways, meaning people will become psychic for all intents and purposes, capable of sharing thoughts with the entirety of the human race. Eventually this will mean not just broadcasting our thoughts; all thought will be done simultaneously by the collective human consciousness. The individual human mind, in whatever physical form it will exist, will function more like a brain cell or computer chip than as an independent unit.

By this time, the physical will be as fluid as information is now. Technology will have eliminated any physical concerns. Machines will engineer themselves; ultimately their only purpose will be to maintain the physical state of the collective conscience and to serve as avatars for whatever physical experiments or expeditions it should embark on. This will likely be in deep space, where technology will advance to the physical limits of the universe and everything that can be known will be known. The farthest frontiers of the universe may never be mapped as they are expanding too fast for anything in the local universe to overtake them. As the collective conscience returns to the cosmos from which it originated eons ago, the circle will be complete as the universe has finally understood itself, and can now only contemplate the impossibilities of predicting its own thoughts.

“Mister Wall 21”

* * *

Learn More

You can learn more about The Future And You here, or here or even here.

Or learn more about its host here or here.

THE END

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