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InterText Vol. 7, No. 5 / November-December 1997
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Contents
Savannah........................................Ceri Jordan
Mahogany......................................Alan San Juan
Cumberland Dreams..............................J.W. Kurilec
Christmas Carol...............................Edward Ashton
....................................................................
Editor Assistant Editor
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
jsnell@intertext.com geoff@intertext.com
....................................................................
Submissions Panelists:
Bob Bush, Joe Dudley, Peter Jones, Morten Lauritsen, Rachel
Mathis, Jason Snell
....................................................................
Send correspondence to editors@intertext.com or
intertext@intertext.com
....................................................................
InterText Vol. 7, No. 5. InterText (ISSN 1071-7676) is published
electronically every two months. Reproduction of this magazine
is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold (either by
itself or as part of a collection) and the entire text of the
issue remains unchanged. Copyright 1997 Jason Snell. All stories
Copyright 1997 by their respective authors. For more information
about InterText, send a message to info@intertext.com. For
submission guidelines, send a message to guidelines@intertext.com.
....................................................................
Savannah by Ceri Jordan
===========================
....................................................................
Life is precious -- especially when you realize you haven't even
begun to understand it.
....................................................................
The African savannah, tinder in the aftermath of the dry season.
The watering hole, churned and muddy from pre-dawn visitors, who
had also left their intermingled spoor all across the
painstakingly tended lawns, contemptuous. Meri and I, taking tea
on the terrace under the shade of her genetically altered palms,
all awkwardness and shy exasperation.
Nine days to the end of the world.
Sighing, I drained my cup and leaned back in the cane chair to
study her face. She was tanned now, of course, the lined
leathery tan of the nomad, pale sun-dazzled eyes perpetually
squinting. A little older, no wiser, and just as beautiful.
"Ghada," she said gently, smiling at me across the tea table,
"you must have known I wouldn't go back with you."
I shrugged. In deference to the heat, I'd abandoned my normal
unisex company overalls for a cotton dress and sandals, and I
felt uncomfortable in them. Vulnerable.
Out beyond the low brushwood hedges, no more than bare twigs in
this season and chewed raw by thirsty antelope, a pair of
giraffes loped past, sparing the house and its bare stony
grounds brief curious glances.
"You should get a proper fence," I said to break the silence.
Meri shrugged, undeceived. "They only injure themselves on it.
They're not used to obstructions. Going 'round something just
never occurs to them." She began fanning herself lazily with the
Bubble brochure I had brought her. "Better just to let them have
their way. It's their country, after all."
"And yours."
She smiled. "For a while."
Meri had come here just after the Fuel Wars, raw-nerved and
perpetually tearful from years of nursing napalmed teenagers in
military clinics, simply for a rest. And she'd never come home.
Things hadn't been right between us anyway. Nothing spectacular,
even definable; just the slow listless drift that sets in when
the first flush of passion dies and you discover your
irreconcilable differences are all still there. I hadn't really
expected her to come back to Saudi Arabia, to the medical
service, or to me.
But then I hadn't expected her to build an estate in the middle
of East Africa and live by painting sunsets for tourists,
either.
"Look. Meri." I caught her gaze, held it. "You've seen the
evidence. A couple of weeks, a month at most, and everything
outside the Bubbles will be dead. I know you love it here. You
appreciate your freedom. And I know you don't want to spend
years cooped up in a glorified greenhouse with me -- "
me"
She smothered a weak laugh and looked up at the overhanging
palms, vivid lime green in the peculiar afternoon light.
"But if you stay in the open, you're going to die."
I swallowed to ease my raw throat, wishing I'd left myself some
tea, too embarrassed to pour more. Now that I'd said it, it
didn't seem urgent, important, any more. As if just saying the
words had made it better.
Or as if I'd at least done my duty.
The palms shivered apprehensively in a momentary flicker of
wind. Meri slapped the brochure down on the table, and sat up,
smoothing the front of her dress in an absent fashion. It
reminded me of long afternoons in Tamrah, half-asleep on the big
cool bed, listening to piped muzak from the open market and the
thin mournful cries of children playing war games in the
adjacent yards.
"Possibly." she conceded. "But possibly not. Come on. I have
things to show you."
On the other side of the house, bolted to a wall peeling scabs
of paint in the sun, she'd set up a miniature atmospheric
monitoring station. Thrown together from government surplus and
contamination monitors abandoned by unnamed feuding militias
back when such things abruptly ceased to matter, it was a poor
excuse for a scientific project, all improvisation and rust. I
crouched to watch as she coaxed the monitors back into
intermittent life.
"The thing is -- "
The dials jerked and danced, stabilized. Sparks exploded from
the solar panels on the veranda roof, and I squinted at the
bone-dry turf where they'd fallen, waiting for potential a brush
fire that, mercifully, never started.
"I don't think the official figures are accurate."
I bit back laughter. "And yours are? This thing is more accurate
than government monitoring stations all over the world? Every
scientist on the planet says the percentage of atmospheric
oxygen is decreasing to a lethal level, but you disagree, and
therefore -- "
Meri raised tired, angry eyes to mine. "Not every scientist."
"Every competent scientist, then."
"That's nowhere near correct, Ghada, and you know it."
I leaned back on the wooden railing fencing the balcony, and
sighed. "All right. There is disagreement, but the general
consensus is we will all be far safer inside -- "
Meri snorted. "And when it's time to come out? What then?"
"I don't understand."
"You're going to be breathing doctored air. Higher oxygen
levels, lower pressure. Anyone born in those domes will find it
hard work breathing real air. Perhaps impossible. And if you're
in there a decade, two decades?" She shrugged expansively,
reprimanding a thoughtless student. "Maybe no one will ever come
out."
The heat made my head ache, and I was too tired to argue.
"So what is it, Meri?" I asked her, trying to keep the
exasperation out of my voice, only managing to sound petulant
and childish. "You don't want to spend any more time with nasty
old human beings? Feel safer in your own company? Or is it
that... I mean, do you _want_ to die?"
She glanced up suddenly, past me, hissed: "Hush. Turn 'round
very slowly, or you'll frighten them."
Shifting my weight gradually on the creaking floorboards, I
turned to look out across the lawns.
There were three of them, pale ethereal shapes: two upright,
watching the other rolling among the grass, worming its
shoulders into the turf like a boar at a mudhole. I wondered
whether they found its behavior amusing or embarrassing, but
their featureless humanoid torsos gave no clue.
I thought at first they were composed of flame, cold flame,
white and sterile, but that wasn't right. That wasn't right at
all. More like heat haze made solid. There, but not quite.
In some indefinable way, they reminded me of Meri.
"What the hell...?"
"They appeared once the oxygen level had started going down. The
locals think they're ghosts, or demons, but who's to say?" Meri
moved slowly past me, lifting her arms in a broad gesture, like
a conductor calling the orchestra to readiness for the first
note. "Whatever they are, they're beautiful."
The upright flame-creatures lifted their arms in perfect
mimicry, and Meri laughed in childish delight.
"No." she said. "I don't want to die. I'm working on adapting a
rebreather to gather additional oxygen from the air. And the
house is sealed. I'll be all right."
Shivering into thin angular columns, the three creatures lifted
slowly off the turf and began to ascend, swirling like luminous
smoke, blending with the heat haze. Shielding my eyes, I
followed them as high as I could, until the glare of the sun
swallowed them completely.
"And I want to find out what these are. It's important. To me,
anyway."
"I know," I lied. "I... really should go. I need to be back
before dark, the roads..."
Inside the house, as I collected my sunhat and long gloves from
among the trophies and cheap forged native artifacts, Meri
touched my arm lightly, tenderly, looking at me as if for the
first time. Her eyes were hollow and perfectly empty, drinking
me in, and I suppressed a shudder at her mechanical come-to-bed
smile. "Ghada, love... One last time?"
I shook my head. "I think... we're better leaving things as they
are. Aren't we?"
She bowed her head.
I drove for over twenty miles, to be certain that she couldn't
see me somehow across the empty plains and understand, before
stopping the jeep and stumbling out into its limited shade to
weep.
Blind to everything except my sense of loss, I'd pulled up
perhaps a thousand yards from a deserted settlement, a cluster
of whitewashed buildings baking in the afternoon sun. When the
tears had passed, weak on shaky legs and embarrassed even out
here alone, unready to face the few remaining hotel staff in
this state, I left the jeep and strolled over to explore.
The town was three or four centuries old, and hadn't changed
much since the first misguided Europeans traipsed in to claim it
in the name of civilization. The clock tower in the central
square, delicately carved in marble, was crumbling, the hands of
the clock rusting steadily away, time destroying time. But the
alleys of beaten earth were bare and clean still, and wandering
about, lifting the sand-scoured shutters or curtains to stare
into vacant dust-filled rooms, I half-expected to discover a
gaggle of Victorian colonists 'round any corner.
Eventually I came across the courthouse, surrounded by ominous
anthills, one wall neatly excised by energy beams, leaving a
high open-fronted space exposed to the afternoon sun. And
inside, the bodies.
There must have been at least a hundred dead, though jumbled
together in the shadow of the courthouse roof, it was impossible
to tell. All bones now, each skeleton still immaculately dressed
in faded work clothes, corduroys and pop star T-shirts splashed
with dried blood. Each skull bearing the mute testimony of a
neat round bullet hole. Adults, children. Babies, bleached
skulls shattered into fragments.
The Fuel Wars had cast their shadow here as well.
Backing off slowly, cautious, thinking of plague and
booby-traps, I wondered if Meri knew. Surely not. She would have
buried them; sorted the bones in her respectful, obsessive
fashion and scraped out dozens of neat graves in the thick red
earth. Driven here every day to water the flowers. Whatever else
you said about Meri, she respected death.
I presume that was why the ghosts were appearing to her.
Trudging back toward the jeep, I looked back only once. In the
slanting light of late afternoon, the flame-creatures were
dancing nebulous obituaries over the bones, shifting hues in a
mad outburst of psychedelia. I wondered if they resented my
presence, or celebrated it.
As with Meri, I could no longer tell.
The sun was low on the endless horizon now, and the breeze was
cool. A few antelope straggled past at a safe distance; others
rose awkwardly from the dry grass to join the procession. I
shuddered and checked the oxygen mask in the back of the jeep.
Three tanks. Several weeks.
Well. I wasn't ready to go back to Meri, not yet. Maybe not
ever. And I had no intention of staying here with the dead.
But the fuel tank was full, and the solar panels would kick in
when it failed, and I had the best part of a month to possess
the world that mankind was turning its back upon, perhaps
forever.
Revving the engine, I turned the jeep east and headed off into
the gathering night.
Ceri Jordan <dbm@aber.ac.uk>
------------------------------
Ceri Jordan has published work in a number of UK and U.S.
magazines. Her first novel, The Disaffected, will be published
by Tanjen Books in June 1998. She lives in Wales.
Mahogany by Alan San Juan
=============================
....................................................................
Sometimes the most important help is the kind we don't even
know we need.
....................................................................
I first saw the man as a swirl of dust in the distance. It was
the third year of Famine in my sun- drenched speck of a village,
and my thin, malnourished face, grown prematurely old with
hunger, lit up at the prospect of the coming of a visitor. News
from the sprinkling of other villages that ringed the
long-abandoned derelict city of Sydney had dried up as quickly
as the village crops that now lay despondently under the hot
sun. It was a time of quiet dying, both for Man and for those
creatures and plants that were under his sway.
The man noticed me by the side of the road, and veered sharply
to stand silently over this gaunt girl-child. Crouching swiftly,
he offered me a strip of dried fruit, and as I tore hungrily
into the fruit, removed the wide-brimmed hat that had covered
his face in shadows. Dark eyes peered out of surfaces like
polished mahogany, and the stranger's hands reached out from
within the dark cloak that enfolded him to grasp me firmly by
the shoulders.
The man smiled, and with that quickly took my hand in his, and
together we strolled casually towards the waiting village. From
afar, I could barely make out the inhabitants as they stood in
disordered ranks to greet the arrival of this newcomer, this
foreigner from some distant land. I was jealous of losing him.
He was my find and they had no right to take him away, but he
smiled at me again as if he understood.
His smile withered as we passed by the meager plot of land that
held the village's crop plants, whose desiccated bodies were
strewn over the hard-packed earth, promising certain death for
everyone in the starving village. The stranger sat on his heels
and gazed solemnly around him, and then with surprising
nonchalance plucked some shriveled leaves from a nearby toppled
corn plant and proceeded to devour them with barely concealed
gusto.
"There is nothing left to work with," he said to me after
chewing awhile. Pulling me close he whispered, "_Jangan kuatir_,
little one, there is nothing to be worried about. But be sure to
plant the seed with the lurid red stripes away from the village,
where it cannot easily be discovered."
With those mysterious words he was pulled away from me, and into
the arms of the waiting Elders, who ushered him hastily into the
village meeting hall. I was left outside in the deepening
twilight, along with the other children. Rising voices came from
the house, the excited babble of the adults as they questioned
the stranger. I jostled through the throng of children that had
quickly coated the two open windows to catch a glimpse of our
visitor. In the center of the room stood the stranger, his
sinewy arms tracing odd figures in the air as he answered their
questions in a soft, melodious voice that easily reached our
straining ears. He frequently lapsed into his native tongue, a
curiously soothing language that fit incongruously with the
harsher sounds of our own jargon, but he spoke enough English
for us to understand what he had to say.
He had come in search of villages like ours, pockets of humanity
that escaped the swath of death that had laid waste to human
civilization. In lilting speech he gave us news from the far
north: countless empty villages, silent and forbidding; mass
graves filled with tangled skeletons, hunger etched in their
contortions; highways clogged with the metal carcasses of
rotting automobiles and trucks, mute testimony to the final
desperate rush to escape the dying cities; and everywhere, the
silence of the desert, the absence of life. He had traveled even
farther north than anyone had thought possible, and in the
growing lines and shadows of his face we saw reflected glimpses
of the Hell that he had witnessed: the impenetrable icy wastes
of Mongolia and the Russian far east, whose inhabitants now lay
preserved within vast snow catacombs; the desolation of eastern
China, and the beggar armies that swarmed amidst the radioactive
rubble in search of food; the surging ocean where once had
basked the islands of Japan. When the stranger spoke of his
homeland, deep in the rain forests of Irian Jaya, a growing
restlessness seemed to fill the crowd, and they edged closer.
With tears in his dark eyes, he cried for the teeming multitudes
in crowded Java and Sumatra, as the radioactive winds edged ever
closer from devastated Taiwan and Guangzhou; with a hoarseness
in his voice, he sketched the final desperate plan of their
besieged leaders and innovators, a mass migration of
unprecedented proportions away from the radioactive inferno that
raged in the North and into the vast and empty spaces of
Southern Australia.
"I am the way," the stranger told them calmly, as growls of
anger and resentment bubbled from the assembled crowd, their
age-old fears of northern invasion confirmed. "Within me are the
seeds of a future prosperity: retroviruses to tailor your crops
and ensure bountiful harvests; micro-organisms to rapidly decay
and remove the toxic wastes and harmful legacies of times past;
nanomachines that will turn your desert world into a paradise
for your people and mine."
"I am a library," he cried, as the enraged crowd surged forward
and back again -- laser lights reflected from a wavy-edged keris
that the stranger had swiftly drawn from nowhere, pools of blood
forming around the still forms of two of the villagers -- then
forward one last time to tear the cloaked invader apart.
Silence.
They buried him in the corn patch, away from the communal burial
plot. Guilt bent them at the waist, and they cast frequent
furtive glances at the mound of earth that marked his passing.
In a week they found a small sprout where only heaped dirt used
to be, its unfurled green leaves solemnly tracking the sun. In
two weeks, the plant had transformed itself into a man-high
tree, and around it tiny blades of grass poked out shyly as if
reluctant to mar the desert scenery. In three weeks, the tree
had given rise to a towering colossus, and from its flowers had
borne sweet, delicious, life-giving red fruits.
The village rejoiced, and planted the glossy black seeds that
riddled the red fruits, and watched as new trees grew to
encircle the tiny village. The memory of the stranger slowly
faded in these bountiful and heady times, and I sometimes
wondered as I sat beneath the shadow of a fruit-laden tree
whether I had simply imagined his coming. I became content and
settled into the daily routines of village life, until I found a
marble-sized seed tucked away securely within the fleshy
confines of a fruit that I had been eating -- a seed whose
glossy black coat was interrupted by fiery streaks of red.
I carefully planted this one seed far away from the growing
village, on the banks of one of the many streams that had
suddenly and mysteriously sprung up from the desert soil. I
tended to its needs and watched as it germinated and produced a
beautiful and vigorous sapling, its smooth and rounded trunk
ebony dark and polished as the seed from which it had come. I
took long afternoon naps under its canopy of silver-tinged
leaves, and climbed the highest branches to spy on the other
village children as they played in the distance.
It was while clambering toward the upper reaches of the tree one
sunny afternoon that I felt a slight tremor. I quickly dropped
to the ground and watched in amazement as a widening vertical
crack wound its way from the ground and up the side of the
now-massive trunk. Hollow knocking sounds grew in volume from
deep within the tree, and a series of agonized shudders wracked
the ailing plant as its trunk was neatly split in half. Whereas
a normal tree would contain solid heartwood, this plant of mine
had none, and from the dimly lit recesses of its interior
emerged a pair of dark eyes set in surfaces of polished
mahogany.
The stranger stepped out into the sunlight, a faint smile
lighting the shadowed contours of a face hidden beneath a
wide-brimmed hat. Hands reached out from within the dark cloak
that enfolded him to grasp me firmly by the shoulders. Lips
moved in the canyons of his face and a slight breeze carried his
whisperings and told me of things to come.
"I am finished here," he sang to me, and I wept silently that
something which I had lost, then found, was soon to leave me
behind once again. "_Jangan kuatir_, little one. My people will
soon come. I have other villages to visit, other miracles to
perform."
"I will give you a gift," he said, and kissed me softly, his
tongue lingering on mine, nanoware bridging the chasm and
infiltrating me. A last murmur and he turned his back to me, his
cloak a refuge from prying eyes, his hat shelter from the
sweltering desert sun. I saw him last as a swirl of dust in the
distance. "_Sampai bertemu lagi_," he had murmured in his native
tongue, and I had understood.
I tell this to you now, my daughter, just as my mother had told
me then, and _her_ mother before that. The exact history of
Man's Second Flowering has been lost forever in the dim
corridors of time, but our family's sacred duty as Mediators
between the natives of this region and the people from the
archipelago has survived the passing decades. We cannot fail in
our mission if we hope to avoid a second -- and final -- nuclear
holocaust.
I remember him clearly, my daughter, just as my mother did, and
_her_ mother before that. He is encrypted in our genetic code, a
resident in the neural nets of our brains. I look in a mirror,
and see glimmers of his dark eyes. I see you, and glimpse cut
surfaces of polished mahogany.
Alan San Juan <kalim@erols.com>
---------------------------------
Alan San Juan is currently finishing his MBA at Seton Hall
University in New Jersey. He puts his previous training in
molecular biology to good use by wantonly splicing together
genetic material from his geranium and various brands of yogurt
in the hope of someday creating the world's first slimmed-down
potted plant.
Cumberland Dreams by J.W. Kurilec
=====================================
....................................................................
There are a number of ways to end a distinguished career.
One of them is not to end it.
....................................................................
I slept.
For four hundred and ninety-two days, I had explored the worlds
I spent my whole life to discover. Such vast riches of culture,
worlds of vibrancy, furry, and divine serenity. Oh, to lose
oneself to the symphony of the galaxy, vast and complex, yet
simple and wonderful.
Then it was gone, pierced by a high-pitched squeal and catalytic
gases being pumped into my capsule by the navigation computers.
After the air inside the capsule matched the air outside, it
opened, and I slid my stiffened legs over the edge. I would've
been annoyed by the rude intrusion into my new-found worlds if
my head were clear.
Thirty four years of deep space service and I still suffer from
hibernation hangovers.
I slowly walked the length of my cabin. Spacious the Captain's
quarters are not, but compared to my junior officer days, they
were most welcome. In front of my observation window was a large
wooden ship's wheel. A present when I first took command, it was
the wheel of my ship's namesake, the Cumberland. Many were the
days I just stood, my hands holding on with determination,
wondering if my Cumberland would fare better when it met the
future, or if it would join its predecessor at the bottom.
As my mind readjusted I quickly traded my bright orange
hibernation suit for the light blue jump suit that was the day
uniform. Even in the 2090s, extensive space travel has a way of
sapping your strength, the human body slowly deteriorating with
each pseudo-gravitational minute. Yet even after thirty-four
years, everything I did seemed a step faster. With just one
month left on my final tour of duty, I, Captain William Carney,
received the orders I had waited for my whole career.
My immediate duties were to revive the crew. After checking for
anomalies in the ship's three main computers and finding none, I
began the deactivation process for the remaining sixteen
capsules. As captain, I'm the first to wake and the last to
sleep. And I've often felt responsible when a crew member is
lost in their capsule. While the activation/deactivation process
is foolproof, and capsule failures are only at one percent, I'm
still the one who must actually initiate the procedure.
When the computer showed sixteen nominal deactivations, I made
my way to the ships dining-and-briefing area. Every square foot
was a commodity in space.
I sat at the head of the small table and watched my officers as
they staggered in. Each of their faces dropped when they found a
table setting of datascreens instead of the five-course meal
(even if it was only rations) that traditionally accompanied
awakening from hibernation.
Dr. Orlowski was the first to speak.
"Just what I ordered -- a nice square meal of superconductors
and liquid crystals." The ship's medical officer was not fond of
hibernation and even less of briefings. "I had a feeling," he
said, pulling a ration out of his pocket. "If you don't mind."
"No, and that goes for everyone. As you are all aware, it's been
an extremely long hibernation and we're not following usual
procedures. To start with, let me answer the question you're all
wondering about: Where are we, and why was our destination
concealed from you before hibernation?
"Our destination and our present position have been classified."
My navigation officer, Lieutenant Holt, was the first person to
respond.
"Sir, to what extent will this information be classified?"
"Only the main computer and I will know our position and
destination. You will chart off of a stationary beacon I will
launch."
"What the hell's going on, Will?" Dr. Orlowski asked with
concern.
"We've been sent to investigate a series of peculiar Earthbound
radio signals. Since the Cumberland has now traveled deeper into
space then any human has ever been, congratulations to everyone.
We're in the record books. Though the signal is still inbound,
it _has_ been determined to be alien in origin."
"Was there a message?" asked Lieutenant Lee. "Can we decipher
it? What form of language did they use?"
"The signal was at best extremely choppy. Only a very few
intervals were distinguishable, not enough to make out a
message. It's definitely binary, and a lot like the ones we sent
out a hundred years ago."
The briefing lasted the better part of the hour. Most of it
dealt with routine system questions that follow hibernation.
Here and there, mention was made of the possibilities of our
mission. The meeting could have lasted days if we explored the
questions we all had. But I have been blessed with a fine crew,
a professional collection of men and women who realize the
answers to their questions lay ahead, with a ship that is ready
to meet them.
Within a day, Lee picked up a bogey on the ship's long-range
sensor. I was standing in the middle of the hub that was the
Cumberland's bridge. I had long since given up the captain's
work station situated along the circular wall. Perhaps it's the
romantic in me, perhaps it's hubris, but I have always felt a
need to be at the center of the bridge. As if I had my hand on
the tiller as the crew trimmed the mainsail on my word.
"Its bearing?"
"It appears to be on a direct intercept with us, sir."
"Distance and speed Lieutenant?"
"Bogey matching us at .4 light, 12 AUs."
I peered over the Lieutenant's shoulder, watching the pixel of
light that represented the alien vessel. I watched with such
intensity that I nearly blocked out Lieutenant Holt.
"Captain, I'm reading a small planetoid directly between
ourselves and the inbound."
"Very good."
"Sir?"
"I wonder what shape the table will be?"
"Sir?"
"Lieutenant, it can't be a coincidence that the planetoid's
there. Our two species, our two peoples must meet somewhere for
the first time. You can't expect them to invite us directly to
their homeworld. That would be quite a risk. This is a logical
first step.
"What do you think, Lee? If it's rectangular, well, that's
somewhat adversarial. A round table -- now that has more of a
sense of unity."
"Perhaps it will be hexagonal," Lee said, deadpan.
"Indeed." I laughed.
"Sir, what if the bogey's an echo, a reflection?" said Holt,
deflating a little of our elation.
"A reflection?"
"Aye, sir. The bogey is matching us perfectly in speed and in
distance from the planetoid. The planetoid could be the
reflection point."
I clenched my fist, but it wasn't Holt I was angry with -- it
was myself. I have always expected my officers to present all
possibilities. To lose my objectivity so quickly was
unforgivable.
"Well, let's test Mr. Holt's theory. Change course five degrees
true starboard."
"Changing course," Lee said. Then, a moment later: "The bogey is
matching five degrees."
"Damn." Of course, I thought, they might match us so as not to
appear aggressive. It's what I might do.
"Holt, bring up a full spectral survey on the planetoid."
"The spectral readings are very confusing," Holt said after a
few moments of analysis. "The planetoid is made up of entirely
of an unknown substance. The computer is designating it unknown
4296, no matches on any properties in the geodatabase."
In two hours it would or would not be visible. Our bogey would
be an alien vessel unlocking an entire new realm to the
universe, or it would be a reflection unlocking an entire new
realm of exotic rock. Those two hours would stretch out like a
childhood Christmas Eve.
Silence fell over the bridge in the final minutes. Each crewman
had his eyes affixed to the various video monitors. The screen
was dominated by the small planetoid we now called Echo. I'm not
sure who spotted the vessel first. I heard a crewman yell out
"There!" and then I saw it. It was a small craft no larger then
our own, and it grew closer and larger every second.
Then, as if it was his mission to break my fondest moments, I
heard Holt's voice.
"Sir, I'm reading a ship identification code."
"How's that possible?"
"It reads..." he hesitated. "It reads Cumberland, sir."
"Cumberland?"
"Sir, it could be a another sensor reflection," Holt said,
stating the obvious.
"Mr. Holt, is there or isn't there another ship within a few
million klicks of us?"
"Sir, It's possible we're picking up a reflection on the video
monitors. We don't understand the makeup of Echo. It could
be..."
"It could be a reflection! I know."
I don't ever remember interrupting a member of my crew that way.
"Somebody go up to the observation port, get on a damn telescope
and tell me if there is a ship out there."
Lt. Lee quickly made her way to the rarely-used telescope.
Within minutes she shouted down, "Sir, there _is_ a vessel out
there. But it's us, sir. It's the Cumberland."
"Are you sure?"
"I can read the markings on her hull, right down to our
missing 'd.'"
"That damned planetoid! Lee, Holt were going down there." I
brought the ship three hundred and sixty degrees around Echo,
and of course our shadow did exactly the same.
The Cumberland assumed a polar orbit around Echo. As I guided
the landing craft out of the Cumberland's bay I could see it.
There, set against the panoramic backdrop of space, was another
Cumberland. Coming out of its bay was a landing craft, following
the same speed and course as I did.
My landing craft came to a rest twenty meters off of from Echo's
northern pole. Our readings showed no atmosphere, but a
peculiarly strong gravitational pull. Holt and I would go out,
while Lee would remain in the landing craft, per standard
procedure. We donned our pressure suits and made our way through
the air locks. I was the first to set foot on the soft gray
powder of Echo.
The landscape was almost featureless. It consisted entirely of
soft rolling mounds, none higher than a meter.
Forty meters from our position was a sight that chilled both of
us. There was no mirror and no a calm pond, yet we still saw our
reflections.
I ordered Holt to take samples of Echo's surface, and made my
way toward the one person I have known for all my life.
I walked up to the aging face that bore the lines of the too
many years of space. I looked into his eyes, searching for what
he was doing here. His eyes told me he had to come. He had to
try one last time to find what he always dreamed he might. But
now it was time to leave, to leave his career, his dream, and
this bizarre place.
Not knowing quite why, I stretched my hand out to this weary
traveler.
_He shook it._
My stomach fell. My blood pressure rose. I could feel the
pressure of his grip. My first impulse was to turn back to Holt,
and to the ship. But Holt was busy with his samples -- he hadn't
even noticed what I was doing.
My mind raced. I looked back into his eyes, eyes that were so
real. Was I losing my mind? I had to be.
All my career I have been able to deal with the most complicated
situations. But in this, I was lost.
When I returned to the landing craft, Holt asked me about the
reflection. I lied. Why didn't I tell him? I don't know.
The three of us returned to the Cumberland. It was routine
procedure after a landing party returned to hold a briefing.
"Preliminary samples of Echo's soil have revealed very little,"
reported Holt. "My first impression was that it resembles
quartz, but once I had finished the simplest analysis, I could
tell that it's vastly different. I'm not quite sure what it is,
but it's certainly the most logical explanation for the
reflection phenomena we are experiencing."
Holt looked at me. I suppose he expected me to oppose his theory
again.
I said nothing.
"What's the next step, sir?" Lee asked.
"Holt informs me we are closing in on a return window. Our time
here has been brief, but that was to be expected, considering
the distance we've traveled. We've retrieved an ample supply of
soil samples and compiled an extensive visual record of the
reflection. Though we are capable of staying another eight
hours, I see no compelling reason to delay our departure.
"Each one of you has performed your duties exceptionally. You
have been a fine crew and I have been proud to serve with each
you."
The next two hours were filled with pre-hibernation activities.
I saw little of the crew at this time, since my primary task was
to program the navigation computers to fly us home myself.
Our location's classification would surely be dropped on our
return. After all, there's no need to hide the knowledge of a
reflection.
Of course, this wasn't a reflection. It had dimension, mass,
and... it had life. I was sure of it.
But they wouldn't know that. It wouldn't be in any report.
I suppose there was no logical reason to hide what I had seen.
So what if they thought me crazy? Twenty-four hours after
arrival, I would be a civilian either way. But still, something
stopped me, and I don't know what.
By early evening we were ready to begin the five-hundred-day
journey that would end in Earth orbit. I made a final tour of
the ship, stopping by my senior officers' hibernation capsules.
Orlowski was in one of his moods. "Well, Leopold," I said, "this
is the last one. Chances are, it's yours, too."
"If we get back in one piece. Just imagine -- slowing our bodies
down to the edge of death, and hurling them through the void of
space. It's a wonder we've lasted long enough to retire."
"Sleep well, friend."
Holt was next. "We had our differences this time around, Henry.
But you kept perspective. You're going to make a fine captain. I
hope you get the Cumberland -- she deserves a man like you."
"Thank you, sir."
And finally I saw Lee.
"Disappointing," she said. "I thought for a moment, just
maybe..."
"So did I."
"It _is_ out there, sir. I know it. We'll find it someday,
whatever it may be."
As she spoke I looked into her soft brown eyes. So much like me,
with the single exception of time.
At 17:39 hours I activated the hibernation sequence for the
crew. By 17:43 the computers read all nominal, all capsules in
full hibernation, and I was alone. I returned to my quarters.
All that was left to do was enter my capsule. I slipped out of
my day uniform and into the bright orange hibernation suit.
For some reason, I walked over to the old ship's wheel by the
porthole and placed my hands upon her once more. I looked out
across space at the strange ship I knew so well.
Then I knew. For the first time since I felt the pressure of his
hand I knew what I should do.
Within five minutes I had the landing craft fired up and was
leaving the Cumberland's bay. I flew directly toward my sister
ship above Echo. At the halfway point, I passed my counterpart
doing the same.
"Treat her well!" I shouted.
I brought my craft alongside the new ship. I inspected her as if
she were my own and then landed my craft inside her bay. To my
relief, the floor held. It was solid.
I quickly made my way through the ship. Her insides were
identical. I ran through her like a kid exploring some fantastic
new place he and he alone had found. I passed by Leopold and
Lieutenant Holt in their capsules sleeping the sleep of
children. Then there was Lee.
"Forgive me for not sharing," I said to her through the capsule
glass.
Finally, I came to my cabin. I walked straight to the wheel and
the window. He was looking back. I could feel it. I stood and
pondered what might be.
If I was wrong, my ship and my crew would be fine. Part of me
feels shame for leaving them, but the computer will handle
everything, I know in my heart they would understand. If I am
right, they will never know I left.
As I enter hibernation, I can not help but wonder what
awaits me.
Yet, at the same time, I know every detail.
John W. Kurilec <johnwkurilec@bigfoot.com>
--------------------------------------------
John W. Kurilec is a 30-year-old Connecticut Yankee and an
aspiring screenwriter and children's author. Cumberland Dreams
is his first published story.
Christmas Carol by Edward Ashton
====================================
....................................................................
Sure, people get depressed during the holidays.
But maybe, for some, it's their own damned fault.
....................................................................
Elaine calls me at ten past seven on a Friday night, the night
before Christmas Eve. "Come over," she says, like she knows I
have nothing better to do. "I've got a bottle and a couple of
videos. We'll have fun."
My first impulse is to tell her I've made plans, but there's
nothing more depressing than hanging around watching cable by
yourself on a weekend night, especially during the holidays. So
I say yeah, sure, why not, and she says terrific, and the line
falls dead.
I pick up the remote and shut off the TV. I'd been watching
"It's a Wonderful Life" for the tenth time this season, half
hoping that this time the angel won't show and George will just
kill himself and get it over with. Elaine says she can't
understand how somebody could jump out a window on Christmas Eve
like that guy up in Winslow did the year before last, but I can
see it. I can understand how that happens. You're off from work,
you've got nothing to do, you're moping around the house by
yourself and every time you turn on the TV you see people with
families and people in love. I mean, it gets to me after a
while, and my life's really not that bad. At least I've got
Elaine.
I guess I should say right now that Elaine and I are not a
couple. We have never been a couple, and we are never going to
be one. She's a nice enough person, I guess, but there's
something that's just not there. The subject has only come up
once, about a year ago, a month or so after we started hanging
out. She was very up front, said she was interested and asked if
I might be too. I said no, and that was that.
That's not to say we haven't slept together, because we have.
But it's always been strictly a one-time thing.
Elaine lives a couple miles out of town, in a fifty-unit complex
called Fox Run Apartments. I've never seen a fox there, which is
not surprising considering that the only woods within ten miles
of the place are on the golf course across Route 22. There are
five buildings with ten apartments each, arranged around a
horseshoe loop of road called Fox Run. That's not an excuse for
the name, though, because I'm pretty sure the complex was there
before the road was ever built.
On the drive out I count four-way stops and Slow Children signs
-- eleven of each. Forty-seven two-story bungalows, thirty-eight
minivans, seven trees with tire swings. The last time I visited
my brother, his wife was eight months pregnant with their second
child. He doesn't drive a minivan yet, but it's probably even
money he's shopping for one.
When I get to Elaine's there's a note on the door that says
"it's open" and another that says "homicidal maniacs, please
ignore." Elaine is the patron saint of Post-Its. She leaves a
trail of them stuck to doors and walls and windows wherever she
goes, until I sometimes feel like some kind of post-modern dung
beetle, creeping along behind her, my pockets bulging with her
wadded-up waste. These ones, though, I leave as they are. If she
wants to cover her house in paper scraps I guess it's nobody's
business but her own.
Inside, Elaine's sprawled out on her fat, black, flower-print
couch, with a glass of something in one hand and a remote
control in the other. She looks up and says, "Didn't you see the
second note?"
I shrug out of my jacket. Elaine sounds like she's already
buzzed. As I step into the living room she sits up, finishes her
drink and asks if I want anything. I say I'll have whatever
she's having, and she gets up and goes out to the kitchen to mix
up two more of whatever that is.
You're probably thinking that the reason I'm not with Elaine is
that she's not pretty enough, but that's not it at all. She's
tall and big shouldered, thin at the waist and hips, with short
brown hair and deep-set blue eyes and a way of looking at you
that makes you feel like a field mouse, scrambling for cover
under the eyes of a circling hawk.
Elaine brings me my drink. It's yellowish-green and sugary. She
calls it a parrot. I down half of it in one long swallow. Elaine
says, "Careful, Jon. That stuff is stronger than it tastes."
I take another drink. "If I get drunk enough, maybe I'll let you
take advantage of me."
She shakes her head. "I don't think so."
Elaine sips from her parrot. I sip from mine.
"You know," she says, "I had a dream about you last night."
"Really?" I say. "What happened?"
"Nothing much. It was a little strange. We were in school
together, and you were sitting behind me and poking me in the
back of the head. I kept whispering for you to quit it but you
wouldn't stop. Finally I turned all the way around and punched
you, and the teacher came and grabbed me by the arm and dragged
me up to the front of the class. You were laughing, and you
reached up and pulled off your face -- you were wearing one of
those rubber masks like in the movies -- and underneath you were
actually Richard Nixon. That's when I woke up."
There's a long moment of silence before I realize she expects me
to say something.
"Wow," I say. "So what do you think it means?"
"I don't know," she says. "Now that I look at you, though, you
are getting a little jowly."
We finish our drinks. I put in the first video. Elaine goes to
the kitchen for refills. When she comes back I say, "What do you
think about kids?"
"I love kids," she says. "But I could never finish a whole one."
"Very good," I say. "Really, do you want one?"
"What, you mean now?"
The movie is starting. It's an old one, something about Martians
who come to Earth to kidnap Santa. It reminds me of a preacher
we had when I was in grade school who started every Christmas
Eve sermon by reminding us that you only had to move one letter
in Santa to get Satan.
"No," I say, "I don't mean now. Eventually."
"Sure. Yeah, I guess so." She sips from her drink, curls her
feet up beneath her and turns to the screen.
Later, while a couple of kids in the movie are being chased by a
guy in a bear suit, I say, "So what about now? I mean, you're
thirty, right? If you're going to do it, you have to do it
pretty soon."
"Yeah well, I'm kind of missing something, aren't I? Anyway,
thirty isn't that old. Plenty of women have babies in their
forties."
"Maybe. But you don't want to be sixty and just sending your kid
to college, do you?"
She pauses the video, picks up our empty glasses and takes them
out to the kitchen.
"Look, Jon," she says. "If you're trying to get over on me
tonight, you can forget it. I'm not doing the weekend play-toy
thing any more."
"Give me some credit," I say. "I am not trying to get over on
you."
"Good," she says, but she doesn't sound convinced. She comes
back with two different drinks, these ones thick and syrupy and
purplish red. I take mine and sip. It tastes almost exactly the
same as the others.
Elaine starts up the movie again. Santa's on a spaceship to
Mars.
"Anyway," I say, "I don't see what's so bad about playing when
neither one of us is with someone real."
There's a short silence, and it's like I can see my words
floating in front of me. Too late to take them back.
"Real?" she says, very quiet, very calm. "What does that mean?"
She has that hawkish look now, eyes narrowed and features taut,
and I realize I may have crossed over some line. "Has it ever
occurred to you that we'd probably have an easier time finding
someone real if we didn't waste so much time hanging around with
each other?"
We stare each other down through a long, awkward pause. The
children and Santa are planning their escape. "You're right," I
say finally. "You're totally right." She picks up the remote and
turns up the volume as I stand, pull on my jacket and walk out
the door.
Real. Here's a real story for you: My last girlfriend was
Catholic. I don't mean Christmas-and-Easter Catholic, I mean
church-going, God-fearing, no-sex-before-marriage-and-I-mean-it
Catholic. I put up with that for about six months before I
realized she was serious and broke it off. I told her it just
wasn't working out. She smiled and shook her head and said, "Do
I look stupid? Your cock is hot, and you're looking for someone
to stick it into. And you know what? When you find her, I hope
she turns around and sticks it right back into you."
If there's one thing more depressing than sitting around by
yourself on the night before Christmas Eve, it's driving around
by yourself on the night before Christmas Eve. It's colder now,
and snowing a little -- wispy white flakes that reflect back my
headlights and stick to the windshield until I have to drag my
wipers across the almost-dry glass. I drive once past my
building, turn around and pass by again. Every window in the
place is dark. I keep going. There's a song playing on the
radio. It's something soft and sappy, and after a couple of
minutes I turn it off. I take a left on Route 17, and a half
mile later I pull into the almost-full parking lot of a club
called The Shark Tank.
I've been here before and it's always been pretty crowded, but I
didn't expect many people to be here on the night before
Christmas Eve. There's a two-dollar cover. A live band is
playing. When I ask who they are, the bouncer yells something
back at me that sounds like Cult of Crud. I nod and keep moving.
The area back by the bar is pretty empty. Almost everybody in
the club is either down in the pit or hanging around the
fringes. I'm talking to the bartender, telling him to bring me a
beer -- a bottle, not a draft -- when Colonel Klink sits down
beside me and says, "This round's on me."
I lean back, look over. He's older, tall, thin and bald, wearing
black shiny boots and a long gray overcoat and a monocle, for
Christ's sake. All he needs are black leather gloves and a
swagger stick.
"Hi," he says. "I'm Wilhelm." He offers his hand.
"Jon," I say. We shake. The bartender brings us our beers.
Wilhelm hands him a twenty and tells him to keep a tab. I take a
long pull from my drink and look over at the stage. The band
doesn't seem to know much about their instruments, but the
drummer is steady and the singer is loud and as I watch a guy
comes up out of the crowd and onto the stage, takes a run across
the front and dives out onto a sea of hands. They catch him,
pass him around for a while and put him down.
"That's insane," I say.
"Not really," says Wilhelm. "As long as the floor's packed it's
actually pretty safe."
I shake my head and take another drink. The band finishes
playing, and the singer says thanks, you guys are the greatest,
we're taking a break. The club's sound system starts playing
something by New Order as the crowd breaks up and heads back
toward the bar.
"So," I say. "You're Colonel Klink, right?"
"Right!" he says. "I'm glad you noticed. A lot of the kids I
meet in this place are too young to recognize me."
"Why?"
"Well, the show's been off the air for a while..."
"No, I mean why Colonel Klink?"
He shrugs. "Look at me. I don't really have much choice, you
know?"
"Yeah," I say. "I guess I see your point."
A girl, maybe nineteen or twenty, slides up on the bar stool
next to me, flushed and panting and dripping sweat. "Hi," she
says. "Is Willy getting you drunk?"
"Absolutely," Klink says. "Carrie, this is Jon." Carrie smiles
and shakes my hand. "It's very nice to meet you," she says.
She's thin and dark-haired and pretty, and I hold her hand just
a little longer than I have to.
"So what are you doing here?" Carrie says. I look over at
Wilhelm, but she's talking to me.
"I don't know," I say finally. "Is there somewhere else I should
be?"
She shrugs. "You look like the home-with-the-family type."
"I guess looks can be deceiving, right?"
"Sure," she says. "But they're usually not."
The bartender comes by. Wilhelm orders three more beers. I
finish my old one in one long, lukewarm pull.
"So," I say to Carrie, "what are you doing here?"
"I never miss these guys," she says. "I'm sleeping with the
drummer."
I'm not sure what to say to that. The bartender brings our
beers. Carrie takes hers, hops down off the barstool and walks
around behind me. "Thanks, Daddy," she says, and kisses Wilhelm
on the cheek. He smiles and nods, and she disappears back into
the crowd.
After another beer I say, "So that was your daughter, huh?"
"Yeah," he says. "She's a beautiful girl, isn't she?" And what I
want to say is what do you think it does to a kid's psyche to
have her dad dress up like Colonel Klink and hang out with her
in a bar on the night before Christmas Eve, but instead I say
yes, she is, and leave it at that.
We drink some more. Wilhelm says, "You're here alone."
I shrug. "I don't have a daughter to hang out with."
He laughs. "What about a wife?"
I shake my head.
"Girlfriend?"
"Well," I say, "I've got a friend who's a girl, but it's really
not the same."
"I hear you," he says. He's looking right at me now, not down at
his beer like guys usually do. I was going to say something
about Elaine, maybe tell him about the time in this very same
bar that she said she thought I'd make a great father and I just
sat there and stared at her until she said don't flatter
yourself, I was just making conversation, but instead I shrug
again and say, "yeah, well."
Klink takes another drink, then leans in closer and says, "Are
you looking for some company?" Understand that at this point I'm
feeling a little drunk and a little lonely and I'm assuming that
he's talking about Carrie. And even though I think it's kind of
sick for Colonel Klink to be pimping his daughter I turn to him
and say, "Why do you ask?"
And then he kisses me. He pulls back and I say, "But..." and he
does it again, and it suddenly strikes me that I'm thirty-one
years old and it's the night before Christmas Eve and I'm
sitting on a barstool making out with Colonel Klink. I can't
help it. I start laughing. Klink takes his hands off of me and I
get up and start for the door and I don't make it two steps
before I'm doubled over, tears running out of my eyes. Klink
asks where I'm going and I say home and he says you're drunk,
let me drive you, but I wave him off and keep moving.
By the time I get outside I'm almost under control. I stop half
way to my car, wipe my eyes and rub my face and breathe the cold
night air. There are three or four inches of snow on the ground,
but the sky is clear and dark and starry, and I'm feeling
better, almost ready to go home, when I feel a tap on my
shoulder. I turn. The bouncer's standing behind me. He says one
word, _faggot_, and hits me in the face.
It's an arm punch, no weight behind it, and as I stagger back a
half-step and he swings again, part of me is thinking that even
drunk I could take this guy, that considering he's a bouncer he
really can't fight, but instead of getting my fists up I'm
saying wait, I'm not gay, he kissed me, and he catches me with a
roundhouse and down I go.
"Stay home next time," he says, kicks me once in the belly and
goes back inside.
It's a little later and I'm still lying there, almost
comfortable in the snow, looking up at the stars and wishing
someone would run me over when Carrie leans over me and says,
"Hi. How's it going?"
"Pretty well," I say. "What brings you out here?"
"Daddy saw the bouncer follow you outside. He wanted me to find
out what he did to you."
"I see."
I close my eyes, and after a while I hear the bar door open and
slam closed. There is silence for a while, and then the rumble
of a car out on 17, coming closer, gearing down, skidding a
little on the gravel as it turns into the lot. I feel headlights
sweep across me and I think well, this is it, either get up or
don't, but the car stops before I have to make a decision. The
door swings open and I hear Elaine's voice. "Jon? Jesus, is that
you?"
"Yeah," I say. "Come on over. Have a seat."
I open my eyes. Elaine cuts the engine, cuts the lights. A man
comes out of the club. He glances over at me and hurries off in
the other direction. Elaine's boots squeak in the cold new snow.
She stands looking down at me for a while, then shakes her head
and sits down next to me. She looks a little like Carrie in the
starlight -- softer and smaller, and a little hazy around the
edges.
"Are you hurt?" she says.
"No," I say.
"I didn't think so."
A black cloud is pushing across the middle of the sky. I sit up,
touch my hand to my face. It isn't even swollen much. The cold
probably helped.
"You're not going to tell me why you were lying in the snow in
the middle of a parking lot."
I shake my head. "I don't think so."
"That's good. You'd probably lose my respect." The wind is
picking up now, whistling past the building, and the snow is
coming down again in fat, wet flakes. Elaine hugs herself and
shivers. Her shoulder touches mine.
"So anyway," she says.
"Right." I climb to my feet. I offer her my hand, but she gets
up by herself, brushes the snow off her pants and says, "Look,
I'm sorry about what I said before..."
"Whatever," I say. She smiles, touches my hand, asks if I need a
ride. I shake my head. She turns and gets back in her car, and I
stand there and watch her in the falling snow. After the door
bangs shut and before she starts the engine I hear a song in my
head, an old Christmas carol I can almost remember, and at first
I'm thinking concussion, but when I hold my breath it's even
clearer -- a gentle, muffled chiming, ringing in Christmas Eve.
Edward Ashton <ashton@recce.nrl.navy.mil>
-------------------------------------------
Edward Ashton is a research engineer by necessity and a fiction
writer by choice. His work has appeared in a number of online
and print magazines, including Blue Penny Quarterly, Painted
Hills Review, Brownstone Quarterly, and The Pearl.
FYI
=====
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....................................................................
At some point almost everyone looks up to make sure water buffalo aren't
falling from the sky.
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