Spaceships & Brass Knuckles:
A Collection of Short Science Fiction and Mystery/Suspense Stories
by
A. C. Ellis
This e-book edition Copyright 2009 by A. C. Ellis.
If you enjoyed this book, you can find others by the same author at http://www.acellis.net
For Janet
Introduction
The Science Fiction Stories
The Chanter -- 5,050 words -- first published in SpaceWays Weekly, Feb. 2000
Fire In the Sky -- 1,290 words -- first published in Vertex Magazine, Volume 2 Number 5, Dec. 1974
Ghosts -- 7,375 words -- never before published
Greene Cheese -- 1,275 words -- never before published
Happy Three Hundredth -- 1,280 words -- first published in The Periodical Lungfish, #7, Summer 1985
Holes -- 3,600 words -- first published in Vertex Magazine, Volume 3 Number 3, July 1975
How Earth Conquered the Universe -- 580 words -- first published in From the Asylum, Aug. 2006
Lucky -- 3,340 words -- first published in Midnight Zoo, Volume. 3, Issue 1, 1993
The Navigator -- 2,830 words -- first published as an Amazon Short on Amazon.com
The Soccer Mom Variations -- 870 words -- never before published
Strolling the Road -- 4,800 words -- first published as an Amazon Short on Amazon.com
Termination Orbit -- 1,500 words -- first published in Vertex Magazine, Volume 3 Number 2, June 1975
The Mystery/Suspense Stories
Cold Weather Soup -- 740 words -- never before published
The Idea -- 960 words -- never before published
Juice -- 1,660 words -- first published in The Writer's E-Zine, March 2006
The Little Things -- 1,775 words
Worth the Chance -- 1,200 words -- first published in Shred of Evidence, Feb. 2006
The Mainstream Story
The Blue Agave Bottle -- 625 words -- never before published
Introduction
Welcome!
This collection represents a good sampling of the short work produced during my fiction-writing career. All in all, I like what I have accomplished over my twenty-five plus years of writing.
Some of these stories have been published before, and some of them have not. All rights to these stories have reverted to me. And quality does not in any was depend on which of them has a publishing track record--some of my favorites have never before been published until now.
There are more science fiction stories here than there are mystery/suspense stories. The reason for this is simple: I only started writing mystery/suspense--both short stories and novels--fairly recently. And there is only one mainstream piece here, because I've never felt comfortable writing mainstream work. I much prefer the unreal worlds of science fiction and the hard and gritty worlds of mystery and suspense.
You will find no true fantasy stories here. I do not like reading them. And if you can't read a particular genre, you really shouldn't try to write in it.
So, here are my stories. I hope you enjoy them.
The Science Fiction Stories
The Chanter
Roger’s steps echoed loudly as he entered the throne room, his heels pounding against the clear crystal floor in an ineffectual display of rage and contempt. His hands were balled into fists at his sides.
He hated this room--its largeness and brightness, its immaculate cleanliness. And he resented having to come here. He had ignored Diane's call as long as possible, continuing to work until just before she would have sent her machines to fetch him.
Then he saw her: Diane of Adamas, the Silver Queen, ruler of the crystal city and its race of immortals. She sat straight and tall in saffron robes, her silver body bracketed by the fluted fan of her alabaster throne, points of light dancing in her long black hair. She smothered a yawn with the back of her hand.
Names from the ancient texts blossomed in his mind, names filled with magic, power, and beauty: Venus, Aphrodite, Helen, Cleopatra. A bit of verse he had translated years ago entered his thoughts.
Albeit fairness in the creature shall
often co-exist with excellence,
Yet hath many an angel shape
been tenanted by fiends.
He found it amusing that those words, penned thousands of years ago by a nineteenth century philosopher, could apply so perfectly to Diane. It was as if Martin Tupper had somehow seen the Silver Queen.
His brows came together in a frown. With the passage of time, most people discovered certain truths that allowed them to live in harmony with others, but not Diane. She was more than three thousand years old, yet in many respects still a child. Everything she wanted, she got. Everything went her way.
His pace slowed as he neared the throne. His shoulders slumped and his fists uncurled. He stopped the precise distance from the throne proscribed by protocol, then bowed.
"You took your time," Diane said, her voice cold as ice. "One day I will lose my temper with you, Roger."
Behind his back his hands again knotted into gnarled fists.
"You may approach," she said indifferently. As he drew near, she sniffed the air and her nose wrinkled in disgust. "I smell mildew and dust. You have disconnected the servo-cleaners in your apartment again."
Roger did not reply; Diane had known the instant he had rendered the mechanical cleaners inoperative. But at least not before. Her machines read no mind but her own--not yet.
She glowered down on him from her throne, her gaze brushing his soiled robes. Her silver hand swept the length of his body without touching.
"You've been pawing through your books again," she said. "You're filthy with their dirt, and I can't begin to imagine what your apartment looks like."
"I've been translating," he said, putting as much defiance into his voice as he dared. He looked up to meet Diane's gaze. Her eyes were glacier blue.
"Watch your tone, Roger. You don't want me to misinterpret you." He did not respond, and she continued. "No, of course you don't. But why do you do it? Who do you think you're translating for? The short-spans don't care; they're too busy trying to stay alive. And we immortals don't need your translations. We have the synthedream.”
He knew it would do no good to tell her he was doing it for a future age. She would never understand that the rule of the immortals was coming to an end, running down like a forgotten wind-up toy. She may have noticed there had been no applicants for immortality in the last six and a half centuries, and she couldn't help but observe more than a dozen immortals had opted for death in the past fifty years. But these things probably constituted no more than a vague itch at the back of her mind.
Yet, even if she could realize all this, she would reject it. She would cling to the old ways, knowing only in them could her power remain intact.
And she certainly wouldn't understand that the only way he could repair her precious machines was by studying the ancient manuals and texts.
He said simply, "For myself."
"For yourself?" She leaned a bit forward, her eyes reflecting cold, sadistic light. "If you wish entertainment, you can plug into the synthedream with the rest of us."
Roger laughed, a humorless exhalation through his nose. "There's nothing to your dreams," he said. "No matter who seems to be in control, it is always in reality you directing them. They've become so locked in that they are the same sado-masochistic fantasy played over and over, with no real content."
A frown creased Diane's silver forehead. "I know," she said, "they are getting dull. That's why I called you. I want something new, something different and exciting."
"Another dream."
"I don't think so. You're right, the synthedream is locked on one pattern. Unless you can branch out its channels, give it more potential. . . ."
"That would mean a complete overhaul of its programs. I doubt I can do anything with it." He didn't tell her the synthedream's only limitations were imposed by the limited mind controlling it. He didn't dare.
"I was afraid of that." Diane sat back on her throne. "No, this new experience must be taken from reality. It should be something I can't control so easily. There should be a threat of danger--but only a threat--and options for action. And there should be--"
She stopped, thought a moment. Then she said, "Help me, Roger. It's an old word, an ancient concept. I can't quite remember what it is or how to vocalize it. It encompasses everything I've been talking about, but with a restlessness, a feeling of things not too easy."
"Challenge?" Roger offered.
"Yes, that's it! There should be challenge!"
Roger lowered himself to the floor. He sat cross-legged on the bright crystal step beneath Diane's throne.
Again
ice hardened her voice. "You may sit, Roger," she said.
After a while, in a softer tone, she asked, "Any ideas?"
"Collect half a dozen short-spans and--"
She shook her head. "My computers can find nothing new in that area. Besides, it no longer amuses me; there is no. . . challenge."
So, she had become bored with even that. She used to enjoy watching the short-spans kick and scream in agony while her machines put them slowly to death, feeding their raw terror into the synthedream's memory circuits. Occasionally, she had even taken an active part in the torture. But there were only so many ways for a short-span to die, and over the millennia of her existence she had explored them all.
"I can think of nothing," Roger said.
"Give it more thought. I command you to come up with something entertaining." Again she yawned. "And remember, there must be challenge."
Without a word, Roger got to his feet and backed away from the throne, again assuming a submissive stance.
"You are dismissed," Diane said.
* * *
When Roger returned to his quarters, he found the mechanical rats again at work; his carefully concealed bypass circuit had been ferreted out and removed. Twenty crystal servo-cleaners, about the size and shape of his fist, scurried through his rooms, indiscriminately devouring dust and the old glue that held his books together.
He lifted a paperweight from his desk--a gold ingot given to him centuries ago by an archeologist friend--and threw it at the nearest rat. The impact sent the mechanical creature skidding several feet. It stopped against a stack of twentieth century history texts and mindlessly began to eat their bindings.
Roger cursed loudly. Short of replacing the bypass circuit, he could not stop the servo-cleaners; they were indestructible. And there was little point in replacing the circuit; it would take several hours of close work, and as soon as he left his rooms Diane's machines would again eliminate it.
He got undressed and stretched out on his gravbed, staring up at the ceiling. He thought again about Diane. She alone occupied the throne of power, her every thought detected by the electronics hidden in the base of her throne and transformed into action by her machines. Her whims were law: a casual wave of her hand signaled instant death or granted everlasting life. And her machines performed their tasks without remorse. They were incapable of feeling remorse, as was Diane herself.
She had been the first, made immortal before the process was fully perfected. Hers was the only silver skin, and she became a symbol of the immortality movement in the early years, when such a symbol was necessary. But that time was long past. Without the throne, without her machines, her power could not exist. She was nothing more than a three thousand year old spoiled child, but a child possessing unbelievable power.
The irony was not lost on Roger. He had spent his entire life searching for beauty in literature, music, sculpture, and painting. Diane was the most beautiful woman who had ever lived. Yet, he hated her.
He would devise his queen's entertainment, but it would be something to serve his purpose as well. He still could not think of what it might be; his mind was too filled with hate and rage, making rational thought impossible.
* * *
The idea came in the middle of the night, in a dream. He got up and got dressed, then went to the computer terminal on the far side of the room and began programming. He stopped only to relieve himself and to search for an occasional fragment of information in one of the myriad books scattered about his rooms. To prevent the program's discovery, he wrote it entirely as addenda to hundreds of repair programs inhabiting the computer's memory, then linked them with the code name Ahasuerus.
Finally, he was finished. His chronometer informed him he had been at it for nearly forty-eight hours. He undressed, showered, and went to bed.
He slept more than twelve hours.
* * *
Again he stood before Diane in the throne room. Somehow, it did not seem quite as bright as it had before. Or was that simply his imagination? Was he anticipating?
"The Chanter?" the Silver Queen asked, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand.
Roger nodded. "The only natural immortal ever documented. He appears in many of the ancient books. Surely you have heard of him."
"I can't remember. Tell me more about him."
Roger took a deep breath, then began: "In the old texts he was credited with visiting all the major cities of an area once known as Europe, and there are many more recent references to him as well. He is said to shun populated areas, living off the land and killing his food with his bare hands."
"Yes," Diane said, "I think I remember hearing something about this Chanter. But long ago, very long ago. It's all just a myth, isn't it?"
"Legend would be a more precise term. Of course, many unexplainable occurrences have been attributed to the Chanter--one of the mechanisms of legend--and it's difficult to tell which portions of the legend are fact and which fabrication. But my research shows he did exist as recently as two hundred years ago. In fact, he may still be alive."
"Didn't he possess some control over life and death? I remember hearing something to that effect."
"Only death," Roger said. "It has been said that he can bring death by chanting your life--but only if you don't bring him something new."
"Then I will bring him gifts--gadgets and trinkets he could never have dreamed of. I'll have my machines start on them right away.
"No," Roger said, shaking his head. "The Chanter is not interested in the material world. He weighs thought, and ways of thinking."
"This Chanter interests me. I command you to find him."
Roger bowed to his queen. "I will try," he said.
"No, don't try. Do it!"
As Roger left the throne room the corners of his mouth turned up in a crooked smile.
* * *
He sat before the computer terminal in his rooms and again thought about the Chanter. Everything he had told Diane was true. The Chanter did exist. Roger found references to him in the old literature, under the names Joseph Cartaphilus and Ahasuerus. Several times he was referred to as The Wandering Jew. Now, however, he was merely the Chanter.
And now the Chanter's past and potential future were stored in the computer's memory, still only random additions to hundreds of repair programs. It was what he had not told her that was the key to his plan.
His palms were sweating as he stretched his hands out over the terminal's keyboard--an ancient and obsolete interface, but one he had become quite fond of. He waited a moment, uncertain. What he was about to do would bring an end to the world as he knew it. Did he have the right to take such action?
He heard a noise on the far side of the room and turned. A servo-cleaner was eating into a late twentieth century art book, one of his most valuable finds.
Cursing, he brought his hands down on the keyboard and his fingers flashed over the keys, calling up bits of program and linking them together. Then he tied the main computer into the synthedream and another circuit of his own design, and typed out his command: OVERRIDE AND RELEASE, CODE AHASUERUS. BEGIN NON-SCAN ADDENDUM TO REPAIR PROGRAM 2498/2. . . .
* * *
A solitary figure sits half way up the hill--large, with long blond hair, dressed in a simple garment of animal skins. His tanned face shows youth; his dark eyes display millennia.
Fifteen feet behind his left shoulder stands a crude wooden shack from which he had emerged an hour before. The sun warms his broad back and shoulders, slowly baking out the cold night's stiffness. Beside his right knee grows a bush of wild roses, red blossoms just beginning to open to the new day.
He stretches, tightening bands of muscle across his chest and in his arms, then relaxing them, and looks out across the plain. A village rests in its own shadows half a mile from the hill, a patchwork of gray and soft pastels. Beyond, nearly on the horizon, a spire of sparkling crystal stands poised, as if about to lance into the sky. The land between the village and the spire is a swaying sea of yellow grain.
Soon the man on the hill sees white smoke curling into the early morning sky from half a dozen chimneys in the village. He notices movement below among the houses; the small settlement is awakening, its inhabitants beginning their daily chores.
Time passes.
An old woman dressed in soiled rags, pushing a handcart before her, hobbles past on the dirt road skirting the base of the hill. She pays no attention to the man on the hill. Several minutes elapse before an ox-drawn wagon goes by, its uneven wooden wheels throwing it from side to side as it hugs the far edge of the road. The middle-aged man on the wagon's seat does not look up the hill.
The man on the hill seems to remember that once they did notice him, the people of the village. Once they were his friends, and they welcomed him into their homes. He drank sweet mead with them on long autumn nights and played with their children. Once, he was one of them.
But that time is past, and he is not entirely sure it had ever really happened. He cannot even remember clearly what he did the day before. His thoughts are clouded, his entire past unclear. Too many life-lines flow through his mind, weaving like snakes, intersecting and overlapping. His existence melts into one indistinct blur--a long, undefined smudge across time. He can remember nothing in particular, because there is simply nothing memorable.
Several more villagers pass by the hill, and dust rises from the road to fill the now hot air. The sweet scent of roses mingles with the dust, briefly reminding him of mead and long nights of conversation. But soon the smell becomes heavy, and the memories fade.
The man does not move until the sun has set. Then he merely retires to the shack. He has nowhere else to go.
* * *
Roger stood and walked to his desk. With a sigh he sank into the padded chair. He took a book from the top of one of the stacks, then opened it and read.
He translated the words of men long dead, wishing he could produce such work. He had tried many times, hundreds of years ago, but his attempts always fell horribly short. He marveled that these men had lived such short lives, yet had attained such tremendous insight and skill. That, he thought, said something about the quality of their lives. Or the lack of quality in his own.
Soon he came to these lines, by a man named La Rochefoucauld:
All the passions make us commit faults
love makes us commit the most ridiculous ones.
Laughing, Roger slammed the book closed. No, he thought, it's not love that makes me commit this fault, if it is indeed a fault. Necessity drove him to this. If any emotion was involved, it was hate.
* * *
The old man shakes his wife awake before sunrise, then arises from their sleeping mat and gets dressed in the dark. The packed-earth floor bites like ice through his brogans, and he shivers as he works over green sticks to start a fire on the hearth. Soon, a white twist of smoke drifts up the flue. The one room adobe house slowly warms.
He stands and crosses to the wooden table in the center of the room. Around it are arranged three chairs. Sitting in one, he folds his large hands on the table before him and massages his callused, wind-cracked fingers.
After several minutes he glances into a dark corner of the room. Another sleeping mat rests on the floor there, lost in the deep shifting shadows. The sleeping mat is empty, and soon he looks away.
Three days ago, he thinks as he watches his wife prepare breakfast. His son left three days ago. In twenty-two years the boy had never once spent the night away from home. Now he sleeps in a shack on a hillside beyond the village. He is needed to help with the flock, the old man thinks, but he wastes his days sitting on that hill. He is a disgrace to his mother--and to me.
The old woman serves a coarse corn mush, and the old man wonders what it would taste like if made from the wheat growing beyond the village. It would taste good, he thinks. But he realizes he will never know. The mechanical attendants allow no villager near. That wheat belongs to the crystal city, and to those who dwelt there.
The couple eat in silence, lost in their individual thoughts, only occasionally looking at each other.
After the meal, the old woman wraps a lunch for her husband--cold mutton and a piece of cornbread. The old man puts on his heavy sheepskin coat and leaves the house without a word. It is light now, but the breeze is still cold. He pulls his coat up around his ears as a dog comes running from the sheep pen. The dog romps about his legs, nipping at his heels.
He stoops, scratches the dog behind the ears. Then together they proceed to the fenced enclosure and begin working the sheep, the old man driving the animals from the pen while the dog darts along the flock's perimeter, biting at the sheeps' legs to keep them bunched together.
We will have to go deeper into the hills today, the old man thinks as he drives the sheep toward the road. His animals are thin and undernourished. He turns, gazes out across the cultivated field, wishing he could let his sheep graze there for just one day. But he knows it is out of the question. Even now the robot attendants--huge, gray machines that float as if by magic just above the wheat--approach the road, assuring that no sheep strayed into the field.
He becomes aware of his son's presence as he passes the hill. He knows the boy watches him; he feels the other's eyes on him. But the old man does not look up. His face burns with shame as he keeps his own gaze on the dusty road before him.
His son does not call to him.
* * *
One instant Roger was in the throne room, squatting on a narrow ledge projecting from the base of the throne while Diane sat tall and proud above him. A nano-second later they were on the side of a small hill overlooking a golden carpet of wheat. Adamas, the crystal city, stood on the horizon, sunlight glinting on its soaring spire.
The city seemed so out of place; it did not belong. It clashed with its surroundings, a beautiful yet deadly cancer on the land.
Nearer the hill, the village seemed part of its surroundings. Its random shapes and soft colors were taken from the land.
A large man sat a few feet down hill, his back to them. His shoulder-length blond hair blew softly in the wind. His body was well muscled beneath a simple tunic of animal pelts that would have reached to his knees had he been standing. Beside his right knee grew a bush of wild roses, its blossoms large and blood red.
Roger smelled the roses' heady fragrance from where he crouched. It was almost overpowering, bringing a dizziness that made everything seem dream-like.
The large man appeared to be unaware of their presence, but Roger knew better. Nothing would escape this one. He belongs, Roger thought. Through Roger's programs, he had lived on and by the land so long he had somehow become it.
"Chanter," Diane called, her voice hard, cutting through the heavy, quiet air like a crystal edge. "I will speak with you."
The large man leaned back on one arm, turning his head to gaze up the hill. His face was not handsome, yet it was pleasant in an unexplainably natural sense. Roger was surprised how young it looked--not much older than twenty. But his brown eyes were those of an immortal, possessing the vacant stare of one who has seen everything there is to
see--one for whom life no longer offered surprises.
And there was something more. Behind the Chanter's soft brown eyes Roger saw a predator.
"He's perfect!" Roger whispered.
"What?" Diane asked, turning from the Chanter. "What did you say?"
"Nothing," he lied.
Diane was about to challenge him--he saw it in her eyes--but the Chanter saved him. Moving lithely, like a cat, the large man got to his feet and walked to the throne, stopping inches from Diane. He stood mute, his hands hanging limp at his sides.
Roger saw a quiet, natural strength in that stance. The strength of a mountain stream, or a storm at sea. Those large hands had torn life from animals to feed this man. They had killed.
The man dismissed Roger with a glance, and Roger got up from his perch at the base of Diane's throne and stepped back several paces. It was not Roger who had come to confront him. It was the other, the silver-skinned woman.
As the Chanter stared into Diane's eyes, Roger realized he was searching for the faintest flicker of light, the dimmest glow of originality--something he knew the Chanter would not find. Any hint of original thought Diane might have once possessed had been leeched from her mind centuries ago.
Roger's pulse quickened as the Chanter started singing soft and slow, his words nearly inaudible. The sound of bees on a warm summer afternoon, Roger thought.
Both volume and tempo increased gradually, nearly imperceptibly. Slowly, the Chanter took Diane through her childhood, through the preparations that had made her the first candidate for immortality. He wove the story of her changing body and emotions, of her becoming hard and cruel. And through it all Diane sat silent on her throne, unmoving except for the slight rise and fall of her breasts beneath her robes. Her gaze remained locked on the Chanter's eyes, her face displaying not the slightest emotion.
He chanted of the beauty and wealth that had won her the honor and the risk of being the first. Diane's father had been one of the richest men in the world, but by the time the immortality process had been developed, he was already too old.
Yet, he still craved an ultimate victory over death. He thought he might have that victory through his daughter.
The Chanter's voice was clear and strong as it wove through the slight miscalculation in the initial process and the change in Diane's skin from a beautiful unblemished white to an equally beautiful and unblemished sliver. He sang first of her anger, then of her pride in her unique new skin. His chant told how it eventually became an outward sign of her status as the first immortal. He sang of her climb to power and the cruelty of her rule. And finally, he sang of her death on the side of a hill.
The Chanter's song stopped.
Diane sat as before, her eyes locked on the Chanter's. But now they were fixed in the soft, unfocused gaze of death, their glacial ice melted. She no longer breathed.
Roger turned, looked down the hill. Nearly fifty villagers were gathered in the road below. Wide-eyed and silent, they stared up in his direction.
The Chanter took him by the arm and turned him gently. Roger saw sorrow in the large man's gaze. He held a rose, its blossom large and full, the thorns menacing on its long stem. He placed the rose carefully in Roger's hand, then released him.
His mind numb, his thoughts not quite focused on what he had just experienced, what he had done, Roger started down the hill. The crowd parted to let him pass, and he walked through the deserted village and out across the wheat field, holding the rose carefully, his left hand cupped around its blossom, protecting it from the hot breeze.
* * *
The old man finds his wife with the other villagers, at the foot of the hill, gazing up at their son. He does not speak to her, nor does she speak to him.
In the brightness of the full moon, he watches his son. The boy sits staring out across the moon-silvered wheat field, toward the ghostly image of the crystal city on the horizon. Behind his left shoulder stands a massive white throne, and on it sits the silver-skinned queen, the one who brings pain and death. Her gaze is fixed on his son's back.
But this is no longer his son--the old man knows that now. He is different somehow, changed.
Finally, when the night air becomes too cold, the young man gets silently to his feet, turns, and walks to the shack on the hill above him. He enters the shack without a word or backward glance and closes the door. The villagers remained standing silently in the moonlight, gazing up the hill at the silver queen.
She does not move, the old man thinks. She does not drive us away or have her machines take us to death in the crystal city. And suddenly, he knows she is dead.
"She is dead," he tells his neighbors. "The silver-skinned queen is dead!"
At first they do not believe him. They dare not. Those from the crystal city cannot die. But slowly, when the silver-skinned woman still does not move, they begin to believe. Voices rise one by one and cries of joy mingle with those of rage in the crisp night air. The crowd charges up the hill.
* * *
The wind holds a biting chill as the large man steps from the shack. The sun is rising over the hill behind him, but he knows it will offer little warmth today.
He starts down the hill to his familiar resting place, passing a massive white throne. He does not remember it being there yesterday. Dried blood is smeared across it in wide brown streaks, and its base is overgrown with weeds and thistles. He vaguely remembers a silver-skinned woman sitting tall and regal on it. The image lasts only an instant, then fades, and he no longer remembers.
He walks to the rose bush and sits. Its stems are brown and brittle, its leaves the color of dried blood. The dehydrated pedals of its blossoms blow away on the cold wind, and he realizes with a corner of his mind that he will soon leave this place. He does not know where he will go, but he knows he must leave.
He looks beyond the hill. Dark clouds scud out of the north, heavy with the threat of snow. The village is alive with activity--women hanging wash, merchants vending their wares, children chasing dogs between buildings. Sheep graze on the wheat beyond the village, oblivious of the huge, rusting machines dotting the field.
The large man's gaze falls on the crystal spire sitting alone on the horizon, its surface now dull and blackened. Its top is broken off, and large pieces of its once glittering substance are gone, leaving huge holes and gaps in its structure. A thick smudge of black smoke twists from the spire into the sky, blending with the clouds overhead.
Suddenly, he notices a new life-line flowing through his thoughts, one which was not there the day before. Or has it been present for some time? It does not matter; he is just now becoming aware of it.
It is the life line of an immortal, one of those from the crystal city. The name that goes with the new life-line is Diane.
Tale of the Tale
This story started as a workshop writing exercise: Combine the titles of any two songs for inspiration. In this case, the songs were Killing Me Softly With His Song and The Fool On The Hill.
Fire in the Sky
During the six months just before the collapse I kept having the same nightmare, night after night.
King Kong--that big, beautiful, stupid savage--climbs laboriously to the top of the Empire State building, a half naked and struggling Fay Wray clutched in his hairy fingers. The choral variations of Beethoven's Fantasy in C Minor blare out in all their majestic power, in German.
At the top, mechanical mosquitoes buzz about Kong's massive head, stinging with automatic weapons. The sky behind him burns with reds, oranges and purples--a sunset of dazzling yet fearful beauty. Kong carefully places Miss Wray on the building top, then tumbles end over end, the sharp corners of the building tearing skin, crushing bone. He crashes like a dusty sack of cement on the sidewalk.
I usually woke screaming.
Many things contributed to the collapse; the shaky state of the economy with the resulting continual devaluation of the dollar, an administration the public could neither believe nor trust, the seemingly over-night shortage of natural resources and the policy crisis which brought it about, the lemming-like uneasiness of over-population. But only one incident was responsible for my nightmares.
A Sunday in late June--unseasonably hot. I am staying at my parents' house for the weekend. I usually didn't attend the summer quarter at Metropolitan State College--I couldn't afford it. So I worked summers. Occasionally, after weeks of swing shift insomnia, it was nice to see the family again, to strengthen the old ties.
I am reading inside, in the living room, only because it's slightly cooler indoors than out. Across the cluttered coffee table Mom sits reading the paper. Her slightly plump legs terminate in bony, bare feet. She is wearing a pair of faded blue shorts and one of Dad's prematurely discarded short-sleeved shirts.
A few birds sing outside--weakly, as if the heat is sapping even them of their almost limitless energy. Hushed mumbles drift from the porch; my brother and his girl. They sound like bees, buzzing lazily in the sun. In the distance a string of early firecrackers goes off, its staccato explosions punctuating the heat.
Beethoven's Fantasy begins in my head. I translate from
German, unconsciously:
Soft and sweet through ether winging
sound the harmonies of life,...
Then silence.
The sudden quiet disturbs my reading. I become restless. I slam the book shut in my lap, noisily, breaking the dense silence.
Mom looks up as I wipe a mist of perspiration from my forehead with the back of my hand. She smiles.
"Hot," I say, too uncomfortably lazy to put emphasis on the word.
"There's pop in the refrigerator."
"Sounds good. Want one?" She shakes her head and returns to the paper. I get a bottle and go out to the front porch.
It is even hotter out here, but a breeze moves the air around a bit. The dog is rolling on the grass, trying to bury his face in its cool roots. Mark--his blond hair in disarray--sits on the edge of the porch, his bare back to me, wiping packing grease from his new gun. It's a pre-WWII twelve gauge shotgun. With each movement the large muscles in his back work beneath dark-tanned skin.
I step gingerly around minute parts laid out on newspaper. The dog sees me approaching, flops over on his back, exposing his stomach. I squat and rub vigorously, and he enjoys. Musty dog smells drift up.
Again a snatch of the Fantasy enters my mind, unbidden.
What for mastery contended,
Learns to yeld and obey....
Then it is gone again.
I glance up at Suzy sitting on the grass beside the porch. A pink halter-top, white Levi bells. Her knees are pulled up to her chin, strawberry-blonde hair cascading over her tanned shoulders.
"Hi, Suzy."
"Hi, Phil." She pulls her hair back, off her shoulders. "Like the job?"
"Swing's a good shift, if you have to work." She smiles and nods lazily. I continue to scratch the dog for a few minutes, watch Mark clean the gun.
No one in the family ever voiced it, but it was well established that the dog was Mark's. Mark took him running and hunting. Mark fed him. No one else seemed to have the time.
I stand and take the small available space on the porch. The dog gives me a hurt look and I hold up the bottle of 7-Up, say, "There's some in the icebox.
Mark looks at Suzy. "I'll get it," she says, and disappears into the house.
There is a hot silence as Mark cleans the trigger mechanism. I just sit, watching. Finally, I break it.
"Did you ever get that muzzle-loading pistol you were talking about a few weeks ago?"
"It's downstairs." He puts down the part and wipes his hands on cut-off jeans. "I'll show you after I'm through here. Grip's not right, doesn't feel right. I'll have to make one."
I nod. Mark always did make things for himself, rather than buy them. Like the grip for his pistol. If he bought one, it still wouldn't feel just the way he wanted it. He was fussy that way, especially with his guns.
"Look at this." He picks up the trigger mechanism, leans toward me with it cradled in his palm. "All hand filed. The deeper I get into this gun, the more I like it."
I see tiny file marks on the blue metal, smell the thick, slightly acid smell of packing grease.
"Nice," I say, although it really doesn't mean anything to me. "Why do you collect guns?"
"Why? Why do you collect old radio shows--Suspense, Escape, Lights Out, Inner Sanctum?"
I nod. "But I listen to the old shows, continually. You buy a gun, use it two or three times, then it just sits in a rack in your room."
He looks up. There is a strangely savage gleam in his eyes and my uneasiness suddenly grows. "I'll use them. All of them. Soon."
I can't face that look. I glance away, to the dog. And think.
I think that several people I know collect guns. Not just old weapons, but new ones too. Like Mark, they use them two or three times, then put them on a wall. And, like Mark, they are all outdoor types. They all have dogs. All seemingly unimportant separately, but....
The Fantasy returns, intruding on my thoughts:
Calm without and joy within us
is the bliss for which we long....
The dog gets up, stretches, stares back at me. His eyes pierce through me, as if he knows what I am thinking. The ancient hunter still stalks behind those strong eyes.
A fly buzzes lazily around the dog's head. He snaps at it, his jaws making a solid chunk in the hot silence. The fly disappears.
I remember a professor, just before summer break. He had said we were heading for a depression, or worse. I didn't know then what he meant by "worse". Both my parents had been raised during the depression. Since childhood I was lectured that there could be nothing worse. No, not quite lectured. But they did make it clear that a depression was the worst possible human condition.
Now I began to understand that there might be something worse. And I see a connection between the professor's prophesy--he had given us six to eight months--and people like Mark, the instinctive survivalists.
...There immortal flowers springing
when the soul is freed from strife....
That night the sun set like fire, and I had my first King Kong nightmare.
Six months later, the bottom fell out of the world.
When in love and strength united,
man earns the gods' approving smile.
Ghosts
Captain Susan Taylor disconnected from the computer with a thought, then opened her eyes as the airlock went from cycling to clear. The inner hatch swung open and ship's physician Gerald Harrington staggered from the airlock, out onto the Federation Fleet research vessel Photon’s small bridge. Behind his helmet's visor his usually clear eyes were glazed and unfocused, and his rugged features seemed softened, almost doughy. His arms hung limply at his sides.
Susan pulled her LIN/C from its slot in the instrument panel before her, then clipped it to a loop at her waist. She struggled from her acceleration couch in Cinder's 1.36 standard gravity and shuffled to Harrington.
"It's Frank," Harrington said, his voice high and hoarse with hysteria.
I know." Grasping him by the shoulders, she guided him across the bridge and down the short corridor to the sleeping quarters. He tried to focus on her face while she removed his life-support suit, but he couldn't. His eyes rolled uncontrollably in their sockets.
Susan hung the suit in Harrington's locker, then stretched him out on a cot. She squatted beside him and reached across his trembling body to strap him in.
"Easy, now--everything will be fine." She pronounced each word carefully, trying to calm him. Trying, as well, to keep the rising panic from her own voice.
"You don't understand," Harrington screamed. "It really is Frank out there. But it can't be. Frank's dead!"
Again Susan said, "I know," as she stood and went to the medical locker. She withdrew a pre-measured hypo, then returned to Harrington and administered it.
"It's Frank, but it isn't," he said. "It's... bubbles." Mercifully, the drug took effect, and his eyelids sagged shut. His body went limp.
The image of the two bodies resting in Photon's cold storage unit a deck below entered Susan's thoughts, their flesh white with frost, their death-glazed eyes staring blindly. Jim Rohmer, mission geophysicist, had died mysteriously, without a mark on his body, less than eight hours after the ship set down on Cinder. Systems technician Frank Rafferty had died nearly four hours later, under equally mysterious circumstances.
And now, Harrington....
At least he wasn't dead. Not yet, Susan thought.
Fighting back tears, she stood and went to Harrington's locker. She looked through his gear. His LIN/C should have been there, clipped to his life-support suit's utility belt, but it wasn't.
She hadn't expected to find it. Both Rafferty's and Rohmer's LIN/Cs had been missing when they were brought in from the planet's surface.
Susan's body suddenly felt much heavier than could be accounted for by Cinder's excessive gravity as she dragged herself back to the bridge. She lowered herself into her acceleration couch.
Bubbles, Harrington had said. She knew he'd meant ghosts. The storms were scrambling his thought processes, as they had everyone's since Photon landed.
The mission had gone wrong from the start. From the moment Susan had set the ship down on the charred remnant of a planet at the heart of the Crab Nebula, its computer and life-support systems had begun to malfunction. She knew the cause of those equipment failures: the electromagnetic storms continually raging within the nebula, and the planet's own powerful magnetic field. The Fleet techs back in Sol system had anticipated the magnetic fields. They had developed force field generators to shield not only the ship's computer but also its crew. But they had not predicted anything near the intensity encountered.
Then, there were the ghosts.
Could those same magnetic fields and electromagnetic storms somehow be responsible for the ghosts, as well? She did not know.
She unclipped her LIN/C from her waist and pressed it into the slot before her, then closed her eyes and formed the command thought that tied her to the ship's computer. With another thought she connected to the exterior sensors located on the side of the ship facing roughly magnetic north.
Data from those sensors flowed through the computer and into her LIN/C. The LIN/C--Log and Interface Neuro/Computer--broadcast the data to a tiny transceiver embedded in her cerebral cortex.
A confused mélange representing the entire electromagnetic environment beyond the ship bombarded her mind. She formed another thought, and the computer selectively edited what it allowed through to her LIN/C, eliminating all readings but those within visible wavelengths.
Beyond Cinder's too-near surface the sky blazed with color--every hue she had ever seen, and more than a few she never had. Mixing, separating, diffused yet brilliant. Those colors were generated, she knew, by non-thermal synchrotron radiation. Scattered throughout the continually shifting soup of color were several dozen pinpoints of still brighter, white light--stars forever trapped within the nearly eight light-year radius of the crab's expanding envelope of gas.
She brought the view down and scanned Cinder's flat-black surface. The planet was nearly as large as Earth's moon. It, too, lacked an atmosphere, but that was where the resemblance ended. Cinder's gravity was eight times that of Earth's moon, stronger even than Earth's own gravity. And, unlike the moon's cratered and dusted surface, Cinder's surface was entirely smooth, lacking both geological features and debris. Little wonder, considering the thorough sweeping the system had received when its primary went nova.
Movement near the top left corner of the view caught her attention and she adjusted the field, centering it and boosting magnification. A pressure-suited figure blossomed in her mind, working clumsily in the planet's excessive gravity.
It was Lieutenant Commander John Bryant, the mission astrophysicist. He was re-adjusting the dipoles of a radio telescope on the planet's surface. One of Photon's two open crawlers stood a few meters outside the array of wire and short posts.
Susan fired a command thought at the computer, initiating emergency recall, and instantly a fan of intense white light lanced out from atop the ship to sweep the planet's dark surface in five-second revolutions. Emergency recall was her only means of contact with Bryant; ship-to-suit or even ship-to-ship radio communication was impossible within the nebula because of the raging electromagnetic storms.
Bryant turned toward the ship to wave acknowledgement, then shuffled to the crawler. Hopefully, he had already received sufficient data from his instruments. Although Photon had been on station less than forty-eight hours out of a scheduled fifteen days, Susan had decided they would lift as soon as Bryant returned to the ship. She knew he wouldn't like it, but that didn't matter; she had already made up her mind. A single lost command was more than enough for one career.
She wanted to give the command thought that would start the ship's engines immediately, bringing them up to power so they could lift as soon as Bryant arrived, but she couldn't do that. Although the nebula already bathed the planet's surface in radiation, that generated by Photon's engines would be too much. In spite of his suit's shielding, it would kill Bryant instantly, even from the distance at which he had been working.
For now, she had done what she could.
Again she adjusted the field of view, lifting it to the pyrotechnic display above the planet's horizon. She scanned the sky, searching for the system's primary. She knew where to find it--exactly thirteen degrees above the too-near horizon. When she had its general location centered in her view, she increased magnification.
The small, dull-red dot was nearly lost against the brilliant chaos of color, but it became a glowing orb as she boosted magnification further. It pulsed like a dying ember, or the eye of some improbable beast. The small star appeared perfectly spherical, yet she knew that was a deceit. The tremendous velocity of its rotation hid a gross deformity.
She formed another command thought and the computer hesitated, as it so often had since Photon dropped out of hyperspace two days before. Then, suddenly, a readout entered her mind, superimposed over the maelstrom of color:
1) OBJECT CLASSIFICATION: PULSAR (ROTATING NEUTRON STAR)
2) OBJECT DENSITY: 3x1015 g/cm
3) OBJECT MASS: 1.9546 SOLAR
4) PULSE RATE: 27/sec.
5) PULSE DURATION: 33 milliseconds
6) MEAN TEMP. (INTERNAL): 700o K
7) MEAN RADIUS: 18.6310 km
8) MAGNETIC FIELD STRENGTH: 1012 gauss
9) PERCENTAGE OF MASS CONTAINED IN DEFORMATION: 0.0017
10) GRAVITATIONAL RADIATION PRODUCED BY DEFORMATION (WITH ASSOCIATED INCREASE IN MAGNETIC FIELD STRENGTH): 1038 ergs/sec
11) ESTIMATED TOTAL RADIATION (BOTH VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE) OF SUPERNOVA EVENT: 3.78x1049 ergs/sec.
12) OBJECT COMPOSITION (FROM CENTER OUT): NEUTRONIUM, DEGENERATED MATTER, AND ORDINARY MATTER (1:.05:.000001)
The pulsar had something to do with the ghosts. Although she had no proof, she was sure of that.
She wiped the readout from her thoughts, then disconnected from the sensors. Linking with those on the other side of the ship, she panned south, until she detected a glowing spot nearly on the horizon, in the same general area where Harrington had been working less than half an hour before. She stopped her pan and increased magnification.
It was a ghost. Pressure-suited and cloaked in a green aura, it stood between the core sample drill and Photon's other crawler, its back to the sensors so Susan could not tell who's ghost it was. It seemed to be doing something to the crawler.
Although she knew it would do no good, she instinctively linked with the ship's twin laser cannons. Photon's computer had already trained both weapons on the apparition, just as it had from the very beginning each time a ghost appeared. Somehow, the computer recognized the ghosts as a threat.
She fired the weapons, but they had no affect on the ghost. As had happened each time before, the ghost continued about its business--whatever that might be--seemingly not even bothered by Photon's lasers.
With a thought she disconnected from the computer, but kept her eyes closed. She felt so tired, drained both physically and emotionally. Soon, she told herself, it will all be over.
* * *
The nightmare, almost entirely a memory, came as it had nearly every sleep period for the past thirteen years--sharp and clear, as if played directly into her mind through her LIN/C. She was again a lieutenant commander, and Executive Officer onboard the Federation cruiser Defiant. Gerald Harrington was ship's medical officer, a lieutenant, stuck in a designator group that advanced at a slower rate than many others.
They were on station outside Aldebaran system. There was an Earth colony on the second planet out from the primary, attempting to maintain existence under extremely hazardous and primitive conditions. It depended on ships from Earth for certain necessities: power weapons, heavy terra-forming equipment, medical supplies. The system's natives, a nearly humanoid race inhabiting the third planet out, had decided without offering explanation that they no longer wished an Earth colony in their system. This after five years of hard negotiation to secure the colony's legal right to exist.
The Aldebarans had begun to set up a blockade, positioning ships around the system in an attempt to cut the colony off from its sorely needed supplies. Their technology was advanced nearly to Earth's own; they might be strong enough to make the blockade work, but only if they were given the time necessary to get a sufficient number of ships into space and positioned around the system.
Defiant's captain had been killed in the first skirmish as the ship had entered the system. At that time a call for assistance had been sent out by hyperspace radio.
Now Susan was in command, and the decisions were solely hers. Should she give the order to go in before the Aldebarans could complete their blockade and close the system off entirely, running the blockade alone and risking the lives of Defiant's three hundred plus crew? Or should she wait for the Federation Fleet ships she knew were even now making their twisted way through hyperspace to bring aid--perhaps too late?
She decided not to wait. She decided to take Defiant in alone, without the Fleet. When she told Harrington of her decision, he tried to dissuade her.
They were in her cabin, lying together on her cramped bunk, trying to snatch a few private moments before beginning the battle to which she had already committed them. They had just made love, and that wonderful warm glow was still with her.
"I think you're making a horrible mistake," Harrington said, holding her close.
"Are you speaking now as ship's physician?"
"No," he said, "nothing quite so official."
"But something has to be done," she replied, and kissed him tenderly on the neck. She breathed in his heady man-smell. "And there's no one else out here to do it."
He pushed away from her, holding her at arms length. "It's an insane gamble. This is a new, untried crew, made up of little more than kids. You'll be sending most of them to certain death."
"Then you think I should wait? That I should allow the Aldebarans the time they need to finish their blockade?"
"You've called for help. Fleet will be in-system soon enough."
"I'm sorry, Gerald," she said, "I can't wait. It will be too late by the time Fleet arrives. There's a colony in that system--a colony that needs help now."
"Then it'll be on your head." He released her, got up and silently got dressed hanging in zero-g beside her bunk. Without another word he floated from her cabin.
After a few minutes Susan got up and dressed as well. She went into battle with Harrington's words burning in her mind.
The charred and twisted bodies of nearly three hundred dead hung before her eyes....
* * *
The airlock alarm chimed its soft call and Susan opened her eyes. She hadn't meant to sleep, but she had been so terribly exhausted. And the nightmare had come again, as she had known it would, plunging her into a past inhabited by ghosts far different from those they had found on Cinder.
The inner hatch swung open and Bryant stepped out onto the bridge. He was a large man, with a shock of red hair showing through his helmet visor. His face wore a look of puzzled concern as he removed his helmet and placed it on an empty acceleration couch.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"It's Gerald." Susan blinked, trying to clear the remnants of the nightmare from her thoughts.
"Where is he?"
"In his bunk."
"Alive?"
"Yes, but he's in bad shape."
"The ghosts."
Susan nodded, and Bryant stared past her, toward the crew's quarters. Reaching out, she took him by the arm. "You can't do anything," she said. "I gave him something to make him sleep. He'll be out for several hours."
Bryant pulled away, then nodded. "Wasn't he supposed to be working on the computer and the communications gear?"
"He'd done all he could. I doubt even Rafferty could have done much with these magnetic storms."
"He was doing Jim's work, then?"
Susan nodded. "Core and soil samples, several instrument readings."
Bryant didn't respond. It was the same thing he would have been doing if he'd had a few spare hours. All three had pulled their share of both Rohmer's and Rafferty's work.
"Have you noticed that the ghosts seem to appear only in that small area south of the ship?" he finally said, unzipping his life-support suit.
"I noticed."
Bryant shrugged out of the suit, then retrieved his helmet from the acceleration couch and carried them into the crew's quarters.
"Jim insisted we land here," Susan said.
"I know," Bryant called. After less than a minute he returned to the bridge and sat down in the empty acceleration couch.
"There doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary in that area," Susan said.
"Nothing that shows."
"What do you mean?"
"Just that." Bryant placed his LIN/C in the appropriate slot in the panel before him, then leaned back in his couch and closed his eyes.
Susan closed her own eyes and initiated the command thought linking her to the computer. Instantly she felt Bryant's command thought as he activated the exterior sensors.
The area in question appeared before her--flat, cold, airless and dark, its backdrop of color blazing brilliantly. There was nothing to distinguish it from any other spot on the planet's surface. And the ghost was no longer in sight.
"Maybe there's something out there," Bryant said.
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Something that only showed up on Jim's instruments. There has to be some reason why he wanted to land here."
"He would have told us," Susan said, and instantly she knew better. Rohmer never talked about unfinished work. He had all the answers before he said anything; he was just that way. But on a mission like this one--when the smallest bit of information could mean the difference between success and failure, between life and death--would he still withhold information?
She knew the answer to that, as well. He never really knew anything until he had all available data. Until every scrap of information was at his disposal, it was simply theory--maybe not even that.
"What could he have discovered out there?" she asked, again studying the planet's featureless surface.
"We'll probably never know, unless he dumped the data from his LIN/C into the computer before he died."
Again she felt Bryant's command thought, and she disconnected from the computer with a thought of her own. She opened her eyes and watched Bryant's face twitch uncontrollably as he searched the computer's memory core.
"Nothing," he said after a few seconds, then he too opened his eyes.
"That means the answers, if Jim had them at all, are still in his LIN/C," Susan said.
Bryant nodded. "And his LIN/C is out on the planet's surface."
"There's something strange about that," Susan said, "something that's been bothering me. I couldn't find Frank's LIN/C when I brought his body in, either. And when I checked Gerald, his was missing as well."
"All three LIN/Cs gone? That's stretching the odds a bit."
"I thought so." She closed her eyes and formed a command thought. Again the area where the ghosts had appeared unfolded in her mind. It remained the same as before.
"Those three missing LIN/Cs are still out there, somewhere," Bryant said, "and I have a feeling the key to this whole thing is in one of them."
"Probably," Susan said, "but it really doesn't matter. We're lifting immediately."
"Good."
"You agree?"