A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  I fell into a troubled sleep, eventually dreaming of the ill-fated bobber in Riga’s song. I awoke with a start, feeling a strange sense of . . . of precognition. For I knew without a doubt that I was being set up by someone. The Companymen on 01 were trying to catch me. But who would do such a thing? And why? Kinjo was probably vindicative enough, but he didn’t know about the Steve McQueen persona. There seemed to be only one likely suspect, the person who had intentionally delayed me twice.

  Riga Maroux!

  And she did seem kind of secretive, like she was hiding something. But I just couldn’t accept her as a suspect. I didn’t believe she could bet ray me, especially after last night’s promise of intimacy. And despite everything, I knew I had to see her again.

  AFTER I PICKED UP MY MCQUEEN persona, the clerk checked on Oberon. She had not turned in her simsuit two nights ago or last night.

  I hoped she remembered the five hour limited wear.

  A little later I discovered she had not sung last night at the Rising Sun. I was indeed worried. Maybe Riga could help me locate Oberon. Or could suggest something.

  When I entered the club, the stage was dark and empty. Riga was sitting at the bar. She smiled as I slipped onto a stool.

  “I got the night off,” she said simply.

  My pulse raced.

  She stared at me directly with her metallic eyes. “I’ve rented us a room not far from here. But I need to explain something you don’t know about me, Sandoval. You see . . .” She paused, apparently at a loss for words.

  I took her hand. “It’s okay,” I said, “you don’t have to tell me now.”

  THE ROOM WAS SIMPLE AND PLAIN, THE only decoration a full-length mirror by the door.

  I moved closer and kissed her gently, wrapping my anus around her back—

  I felt the card-sized powerpack. “What’s this?” I asked, my tone a mix of confusion and anger.

  “That’s what I want to explain,” Riga said, her voice thick with melancholy. “I’m from this Level, you see, but obviously I’m not what I appear to be. I am hiding behind this persona—”

  The door to the little room crashed open, and my startled gaze was locked on the two black-clad Companymen.

  “No,” I said incredulously, shifting my gaze to Riga. She had betrayed me, I thought. She was the one all along.

  Reading my disappointed look and the accusation in my eyes, Riga shook her head, glancing at the lawmen.

  One of the Companymen announced, “You are both under arrest,” and he made a movement with his hand, adding, “and entitled to confront your accuser.” A Tattletale blinked into existence, a head shimmering in the dim light.

  It was Oberon! I had forgotten all about her after seeing Riga.

  “I’m sorry, Sandoval,” she said, as the Companymen slipped stuns over our heads. “I was caught in a roundup that first night. Apparently there really are a number of new cases of Frost on this Level. I had to give them your description, and possible whereabouts, so they could track you down.”

  I looked back at Riga. She had not turned me in.

  But then what could she be hiding? What was under her disguise? I glanced again at the shimmering hologram of Oberon, her declaration registering on my consciousness. Frost!

  Oh, no, I thought, not Riga.

  One of the Companymen was reaching behind her to deactivate her persona. I squeezed my eyes shut, afraid of what I’d see.

  But, unable to resist, I finally blinked and looked on the real countenance of Riga Maroux.

  I gasped because the face was not frosted.

  No, indeed. Riga Maroux’s features were completely healthy . . . for a man!

  I stood there almost in shock . . . then I remembered the cautionary words of Riga’s “Bobber Blues.” I was going to be judged, dyed blue, and cast out into the wasteland. Oh, not me, I thought, my heart thumping against my ribs like a bird trying to escape a cage.

  The Companyman next to me stepped close and clicked off my McQueen persona—

  “Oh, no—” Riga whispered, looking at me with round, horrified eyes, apparently unable to say more.

  What was wrong?

  I took a step toward the mirror near the door and stared at my reflection, unable to restrain a shudder and gasp of disbelief.

  Frosted, pale-bluish features stared back from the mirror!

  As the chilling recognition spread through my body, gripping my heart, my pinched nostrils were full of the scent of fresh lemon leaves . . . I heard the melodic whisper: The rules, the rules, Luis, they are made to protect us. And I didn’t need to ask: From whom?

  SWEAR NOT BY THE MOON

  Lawrence Schimel

  “Come, we burn daylight, ho!”

  —Mercutio, Act 1, Scene 4 of Romeo and Juliet

  He could not enter the house without an invitation. Waiting for her summons, he crouched among the bushes below her balcony and imagined her body before him once again: the slender waist, the sepia flush of her nipples, the curve of her neck. He thought of what would come tomorrow night, after the third bite: the years that they would share together, his loneliness finally over. He thought of how she would not age, always in the fullness of her youth like a rose in bloom sealed into a glass with wax.

  At last, a movement at the window; his heart fluttered like the curtains she parted. She leaned out into the night and called to him, “O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou, Romeo?”

  He flew to her side in an instant. “My love,” he whispered in her ear, holding her close to him. ‘The day has lived too long, that it might keep us distant. But now there is just one more night, and then eternity, never again to be parted.”

  Juliet did not say a word. She pulled the curtains shut behind him, and drew him to the bed, lest anyone should see the pair of silhouettes inside her window.

  But could she live that clandestine life, Juliet wondered, as she stared at him, his long hair spilling across her pillow, to hide her face from the sun and light of day forevermore. And the blood. Could she drink—

  No.

  She could not even bear the thought.

  Juliet turned from him, rolling over. The curve of his dagger upon the table caught her eye. She slipped from bed and grasped the handle, clutching it to her body.

  Romeo murmured as she left his side, and half-opened his eyes to watch her pale form walk to the window and stand before the curtains. She opened them.

  Romeo jerked upright. “What light through yonder window breaks?” he cried. “Art thou mad?”

  She opened the balcony doors and said, “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon that seeks to keep us from thy smiling beams.” She turned to face her lover. “I can no longer live this life of evil that thou plan’st.” She lifted the dagger to plunge into her breast.

  Romeo lunged from the bed and grabbed her arm. His face contorted in pain and anger, his fingers digging deep as Juliet tried to pull away. His teeth flashed white within his grimace, and suddenly his grip relaxed. He leaned forward and pressed his lips on hers. “Thus with a kiss I die,” he whispered, falling to the floor beneath the full force of the sun’s rays.

  Juliet looked down at where he lay, beginning to dissolve at the edges. “Thou crumbiest to dust? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust and let me die.”

  She fell upon his body, and for a moment they held each other, beneath the sun.

  Juliet’s nurse found her lying there before the open balcony, the dagger in her breast. Her screams brought both the Capulet household and the watch.

  And though they found Romeo’s clothes beside the bed and cursed the fate that let her meet that scoundrel who had killed her, they never saw the pinprick scars upon Juliet’s neck, never knew that she had let him in.

  And when they took her body away to be laid within the family tomb, the wind that blew the dust upon the balcony out into the garden and world beneath the sun seemed to whisper:

  Swear not by the moon, the inconstant moo
n,

  lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

  1995

  CHOCOLATE

  John Scalzi

  Chocolate is God’s way of reminding men how inadequate they are. I am vividly confronted with this fact every time my wife and I go out to a restaurant.

  When it gets to dessert, my wife usually orders the most chocolate-saturated dessert possible: It’s the one called “Unstoppable Double-Fudge Chocolate Mudslide Explosion” or some such thing. I always wonder why anyone would want to eat anything that promises a catastrophic natural disaster in your mouth.

  The dark brown monstrosity arrives at the table, and my wife takes the first bite. Before the fork is even removed from her mouth, a small moan escapes her lips. Her eyes, previously perfectly aligned, first cross slightly and then faze completely, pupils dilating in pure chocolate pleasure before the eyelids clamp down in ecstasy. The hand not holding the fork clenches into a fist and starts pounding the table. The silverware rattles.

  After about six minutes of this, she finally manages to swallow the bite, realign her eyes, and take the next shuttle back from whatever transcendental plane she’s been visiting. Slowly, her sphere of consciousness expands to include me, her husband, her life-long mate, her presumed partner in all things ecstatic.

  “Hey, this is pretty good,” she’ll say. “You want some?”

  No, I don’t. I want nothing to do with an object that does to my wife in one bite what I’ve worked for an entire relationship to achieve. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. Men just don’t have the same relationship with chocolate that women do. It’s not even close. I wandered around the office today and asked men—“Chocolate. Your thoughts?”—and the result was always the same. First, a confused look as to why they’re being asked about something so trivial, and then some lame, obvious statement: “Uh . . . it’s brown?”

  Ask women the same question, and you get responses like “The ONLY food group,” “ESSENTIAL to life as we know it,” and the ultimate casual swipe at every member of the Y-chromosome brigade, “better than sex.”

  Ouch. Some women will try to make up for that last one by quickly adding that chocolate is supposed to be an aphrodisiac.

  Uh-huh. Chocolate certainly increases desire; problem is the desire is usually for more chocolate. The best a guy can do is buy a box of chocolates and hope he’ll be considered somewhere between the cherry truffle and the strawberry nougat.

  Don’t get me wrong. Guys like chocolate just fine; it’s just not essential to life as we know it.

  Respiration is essential to life as we know it; chocolate is simply one of those nice little bonuses you get. We won’t usually pass it up if it’s offered, but I don’t know too many guys who would get substantially worked up if it were to suddenly disappear from the face of the earth (ironic in a way, as back in the days of the Aztecs, only men were allowed to have the stuff). When I eat a chocolate dessert, I enjoy it, yes. My world view doesn’t narrow to include only the plate that it’s on.

  Maybe we’re missing something. On the other hand, we don’t have to pick up our silverware from the floor after we’re done with our tiramisu. Life is about trade-offs like that. All I know is that come Valentine’s Day, chocolate will be among the things I offer my wife. I can’t truly appreciate it, but I can truly appreciate what it does for her. Which is close enough.

  MORTIMER GRAY’S HISTORY OF DEATH

  Brian Stableford

  1

  I was an utterly unexceptional child of the twenty-ninth century, comprehensively engineered for emortality while I was still a more-or-less inchoate blastula, and decanted from an artificial womb in Naburn Hatchery in the country of York in the Defederated States of Europe. I was raised in an aggregate family which consisted of six men and six women. I was, of course, an only child, and I received the customary superabundance of love, affection, and admiration. With the aid of excellent internal technologies, I grew up reasonable, charitable, self-controlled, and intensely serious of mind.

  It’s evident that not everyone grows up like that, but I’ve never quite been able to understand how people manage to avoid it. If conspicuous individuality—and frank perversity—aren’t programmed in the genes or rooted in early upbringing, how on earth do they spring into being with such determined irregularity? But this is my story, not the world’s, and I shouldn’t digress.

  In due course, the time came for me—as it comes to everyone—to leave my family and enter a community of my peers for my first spell at college. I elected to go to Adelaide in Australia, because I liked the name.

  Although my memories of that period are understandably hazy, I feel sure that I had begun to see the fascination of history long before the crucial event which determined my path in life. The subject seemed—in stark contrast to the disciplined coherency of mathematics or the sciences—so huge, so amazingly abundant in its data, and so charmingly disorganized. I was always a very orderly and organized person, and I needed a vocation like history to loosen me up a little. It was not, however, until I set forth on an ill-fated expedition on the sailing-ship Genesis in September 2901, that the exact form of my destiny was determined.

  I use the word “destiny” with the utmost care; it is no mere rhetorical flourish. What happened when Genesis defied the supposed limits of possibility and turned turtle was no mere incident, and the impression that it made on my fledging mind was no mere suggestion. Before that ship set sail, a thousand futures were open to me; afterward, I was beset by an irresistible compulsion. My destiny was determined the day Genesis went down; as a result of that tragedy, my fate was sealed.

  We were en route from Brisbane to tour the Creationist Islands of Micronesia, which were then regarded as artistic curiosities rather than daring experiments in continental design. I had expected to find the experience exhilarating, but almost as soon as we had left port, I was struck down by seasickness.

  Seasickness, by virtue of being psychosomatic, is one of the very few diseases with which modern internal technology is sometimes impotent to deal, and I was miserably confined to my cabin while I waited for my mind to make the necessary adaptation. I was bitterly ashamed of myself, for I alone out of half a hundred passengers had fallen prey to this strange atavistic malaise. While the others partied on deck, beneath the glorious light of the tropic stars, I lay in my bunk, half-delirious with discomfort and lack of sleep. I thought myself the unluckiest man in the world.

  When I was abruptly hurled from my bed, I thought that I had fallen—that my tossing and turning had inflicted one more ignominy upon me. When I couldn’t recover my former position after having spent long minutes fruitlessly groping about amid all kinds of mysterious debris, I assumed that I must be confused. When I couldn’t open the door of my cabin even though I had the handle in my hand, I assumed that my failure was the result of clumsiness. When I finally got out into the corridor, and found myself crawling in shallow water with the artificial bioluminescent strip beneath instead of above me, I thought I must be mad.

  When the little girl spoke to me, I thought at first that she was a delusion, and that I was lost in a nightmare. It wasn’t until she touched me, and tried to drag me upright with her tiny, frail hands, and addressed me by name—albeit incorrectly—that I was finally able to focus my thoughts.

  “You have to get up, Mr. Mortimer,” she said, “The boat’s upside down.”

  She was only eight years old, but she spoke quite calmly and reasonably.

  “That’s impossible,” I told her. “Genesis is unsinkable. There’s no way it could turn upside down.”

  “But it is upside down,” she insisted—and, as she did so, I finally realized the significance of the fact that the floor was glowing the way the ceiling should have glowed. “The water’s coming in. I think we’ll have to swim out.”

  The light put out by the ceiling-strip was as bright as ever, but the rippling water overlaying it made it seem dim and uncertain. The girl’s little face, lit fro
m below, seemed terribly serious within the frame of her dark and curly hair.

  “I can’t swim,” I said, flatly.

  She looked at me as if I were insane, or stupid, but it was true. I couldn’t swim, I’d never liked the idea, and I’d never seen any necessity. All modern ships—even sailing-ships designed to be cute and quaint for the benefit of tourists—were unsinkable.

  I scrambled to my feet, and put out both my hands to steady myself, to hold myself against the upside-down walls. The water was knee-deep. I couldn’t tell whether it was increasing or not—which told me, reassuringly, that it couldn’t be rising very quickly. The upturned boat was rocking this way and that, and I could hear the rumble of waves breaking on the outside of the hull, but I didn’t know how much of that apparent violence was in my mind.

  “My name’s Emily,” the little girl told me. “I’m frightened. All my mothers and fathers were on deck. Everyone was on deck, except for you and me. Do you think they’re all dead?”

  “They can’t be,” I said, marveling at the fact that she spoke so soberly, even when she said that she was frightened. I realized, however, that if the ship had suffered the kind of misfortune which could turn it upside down, the people on deck might indeed be dead. I tried to remember the passengers gossiping in the departure lounge, introducing themselves to one another with such fervor. The little girl had been with a party of nine, none of whose names I could remember. It occurred to me that her whole family might have been wiped out, that she might now be that rarest of all rare beings, an orphan. It was almost unimaginable. What possible catastrophe, I wondered, could have done that?

  I asked Emily what had happened. She didn’t know. Like me she had been in her bunk, sleeping the sleep of the innocent.