Nebula Awards Showcase 2017

by Julie E. Czerneda

  It is my car, his gift to buy my silence,

  to make up for the bruises real and otherwise;

  never marry a politician who has no use

  for literature, has no use for a wife that does.

  Eagles have left their nests to vultures

  the barren palm trees whimper for their loss

  there are ceaseless storms, mud is everywhere

  while two legged insects multiply unchecked

  The car radio plays Ibsen, bassoons herald the trolls.

  I roll down the window, taking a deep breath

  outside of Pyr Gynt’s Hall of the Mountain King,

  foreboding notes of the oboe, a palpable stench of fear.

  Am I leaving that, or taking it with me . . .

  DWARF STARS AWARD WINNER

  ABANDONED NURSING HOME

  GREG SCHWARTZ

  Greg Schwartz writes speculative fiction and poetry. In addition to being lucky enough to win a Dwarf Stars Award, some of his poems have appeared in Writers’ Journal, Horror Carousel, Star*Line, and The Magazine of Speculative Poetry. His chapbook of short horror poems, Bits and Pieces, was published in 2007 by Spec House of Poetry. He spent some time reviewing stories for Whispers of ­Wickedness and drawing cartoons for SP Quill Magazine, but now all that time is gobbled up by his two children.

  abandoned nursing home

  the mahjong tiles

  still move

  NEBULA AWARD WINNER

  BEST NOVELETTE

  OUR LADY OF THE OPEN ROAD

  SARAH PINSKER

  Sarah Pinsker’s novelette “In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind” was the 2014 Sturgeon Award winner and a 2013 Nebula finalist. Her fiction has been published in magazines including Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Uncanny, among others, and numerous anthologies. Her stories have been translated into Chinese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Galician. She is also a singer/songwriter with three albums on various independent labels and a fourth forthcoming. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with her wife and dog. She can be found online at sarahpinsker.com and twitter.com/sarahpinsker.

  FROM THE AUTHOR

  I wrote the first eight thousand words in one epic drafting session at the Red Canoe, my writing bookstore/cafe of choice. I got home that evening and kept trying to do other things but getting pulled back in. One more scene. One more scene. I think I wrote fourteen thousand words in two days, which is not my usual pace. Some of the smaller details of touring life, like how to make sure you have a fresh towel, were drawn from my own experience, though this band is not based on my own. The main thing I had to research was the bio-diesel van. Sheila Williams at Asimov’s was the first person I sent it to, so it found a home on its first outing. It felt like an Asimov’s story to me; I was very happy Sheila agreed.

  The needle on the veggie oil tank read flat empty by the time we came to China Grove. A giant pink and purple fiberglass dragon loomed over the entrance, refugee from some shuttered local amusement park, no doubt; it looked more medieval than Chinese. The parking lot held a mix of Chauffeurs and manual farm trucks, but I didn’t spot any other greasers, so I pulled in.

  “Cutting it close, Luce?” Silva put down his book and leaned over to peer at the gauge.

  “There hasn’t been anything but farms for the last fifty miles. Serves me right for trying a road we haven’t been down before.”

  “Where are we?” asked Jacky from the bed in the back of the van. I glanced in the rearview. He caught my eye and gave an enthusiastic wave. His microbraids spilled forward from whatever he’d been using to tether them, and he gathered them back into a thick ponytail.

  Silva answered before I could. “Nowhere, Indiana. Go back to sleep.”

  “Will do.” Without music or engine to drown him out, Jacky’s snores filled the van again a second later. He’d been touring with us for a year now, so we’d gotten used to the snores. To be honest, I envied him his ability to fall asleep that fast.

  I glanced at Silva. “You want to do the asking for once?”

  He grinned and held up both forearms, tattooed every inch. “You know it’s not me.”

  “There’s such thing as sleeves, you know.” I pulled my windbreaker off the back of my seat and flapped it at him, even though I knew he was right. In the Midwest, approaching a new restaurant for the first time, it was never him, between the tattoos and the spiky blue hair. Never Jacky for the pox scars on his cheeks, even though they were clearly long healed. That left me.

  My bad knee buckled as I swung from the driver’s seat. I bent to clutch it and my lower back spasmed just to the right of my spine, that momentary pain that told me to rethink all my life’s choices.

  “What are you doing?” Silva asked through the open door.

  “Tying my shoe.” There was no need to lie, but I did it anyway. Pride or vanity or something akin. He was only two years younger than me, and neither of us jumped off our amps much anymore. If I ached from the drive, he probably ached, too.

  The backs of my thighs were all pins and needles, and my shirt was damp with sweat. I took a moment to lean against Daisy the Diesel and stretch in the hot air. I smelled myself: not great after four days with no shower, but not unbearable.

  The doors opened into a foyer, red and gold and black. I didn’t even notice the blond hostess in her red qipao until she stepped away from the wallpaper.

  “Dining alone?” she asked. Beyond her, a roomful of faces turned in my direction. This wasn’t really the kind of place that attracted tourists, especially not these days, this far off the interstate.

  “No, um, actually, I was wondering if I could speak to the chef or the owner? It’ll only take a minute.” I was pretty sure I had timed our stop for after their dinner rush. Most of the diners looked to be eating or pushing their plates aside.

  The owner and chef were the same person. I’d been expecting another blonde Midwesterner, but he was legit Chinese. He had never heard of a van that ran on grease. I did the not-quite-pleading thing. On stage I aimed for fierce, but in jeans and runners and a ponytail, I could fake a down-on-her-luck Midwest momma. The trick was not to push it.

  He looked a little confused by my request, but at least he was willing to consider it. “Come to the kitchen door after we close and show me. Ten, ten thirty.”

  It was nine; not too bad. I walked back to the van. Silva was still in the passenger seat, but reading a trifold menu. He must have ducked in behind me to grab it. “They serve a bread basket with lo mein. And spaghetti and meatballs. Where are we?”

  “Nowhere, Indiana.” I echoed back at him.

  We sat in the dark van and watched the customers trickle out. I could mostly guess from their looks which ones would be getting into the trucks and which into the Chauffeurs. Every once in a while, a big guy in work boots and a trucker cap surprised me by squeezing himself into some little self-driving thing. The game passed the time, in any case.

  A middle-aged cowboy wandered over to stare at our van. I pegged him for a legit rancher from a distance, but as he came closer I noticed a clerical collar beneath the embroidered shirt. His boots shone and he had a paunch falling over an old rodeo belt; the incongruous image of a bull-riding minister made me laugh. He startled when he realized I was watching him.

  He made a motion for me to lower my window.

  “Maryland plates!” he said. “I used to live in Hagerstown.”

  I smiled, though I’d only ever passed through Hagerstown.

  “Used to drive a church van that looked kinda like yours, too, just out of high school. Less duct tape, though. Whatcha doing out here?”

  “Touring. Band.”

  “No kidding! You look familiar. Have I heard of you?”

  “Cassis Fire,” I said, taking the question as a prompt for a name. “We had it painted on the side for a while, but then we figured out we got pulled over less when we were incognito.”

  “Don’t think I know the name.
I used to have a band, back before . . .” His voice trailed off, and neither of us needed him to finish his sentence. There were several “back befores” he could be referring to, but they all amounted to the same thing. Back before StageHolo and SportsHolo made it easier to stay home. Back before most people got scared out of congregating anywhere they didn’t know everybody.

  “You’re not playing around here, are you?”

  I shook my head. “Columbus, Ohio. Tomorrow night.”

  “I figured. Couldn’t think of a place you’d play nearby.”

  “Not our kind of music, anyway,” I agreed. I didn’t know what music he liked, but this was a safe bet.

  “Not any kind. Oh well. Nice chatting with you. I’ll look you up on StageHolo.”

  He turned away.

  “We’re not on StageHolo,” I called to his back, though maybe not loud enough for him to hear. He waved as his Chauffeur drove him off the lot.

  “Luce, you’re a terrible sales person,” Silva said to me.

  “What?” I hadn’t realized he’d been paying attention.

  “You know he recognized you. All you had to do was say your name instead of the band’s. Or ‘Blood and Diamonds.’ He’d have paid for dinner for all of us, then bought every t-shirt and download code we have.”

  “And then he’d listen to them and realize the music we make now is nothing like the music we made then. And even if he liked it, he’d never go to a show. At best he’d send a message saying how much he wished we were on StageHolo.”

  “Which we could be . . .”

  “Which we won’t be.” He knew better than to argue with me on that one. It was our only real source of disagreement.

  The neon “open” sign in the restaurant’s window blinked out, and I took the cue to put the key back in the ignition. The glowplug light came on, and I started the van back up.

  My movement roused Jacky again. “Where are we now?”

  I didn’t bother answering.

  As I had guessed, the owner hadn’t quite understood what I was asking for. I gave him the engine tour, showing him the custom oil filter and the dual tanks. “We still need regular diesel to start, then switch to the veggie oil tank. Not too much more to it than that.”

  “It’s legal?”

  Legal enough. There was a gray area wherein perhaps technically we were skirting the fuel tax. By our reasoning, though, we were also skirting the reasons for the fuel tax. We’d be the ones who got in trouble, anyway. Not him.

  “Of course,” I said, then changed the subject. “And the best part is that it makes the van smell like egg rolls.”

  He smiled. We got a whole tankful out of him, and a bag full of food he’d have otherwise chucked out, as well.

  The guys were over the moon about the food. Dumpster diving behind a restaurant or Superwally would have been our next order of business, so anything that hadn’t made a stop in a garbage can on its way to us was haute cuisine as far as we were concerned. Silva took the lo mein—no complimentary bread—, screwed together his travel chopsticks, and handed mine to me from the glove compartment. I grabbed some kind of moo shu without the pancakes, and Jacky woke again to snag the third container.

  “Can we go someplace?” Silva asked, waving chopsticks at the window.

  “Got anything in mind on a Tuesday night in the boonies?”

  Jacky was up for something, too. “Laser tag? Laser bowling?”

  Sometimes the age gap was a chasm. I turned in my seat to side-eye the kid. “One vote for lasers.”

  “I dunno,” said Silva. “Just a bar? If I have to spend another hour in this van I’m going to scream.”

  I took a few bites while I considered. We wouldn’t be too welcome anywhere around here, between our odor and our look, not to mention the simple fact that we were strangers. On the other hand, the more outlets I gave these guys for legit fun, the less likely they were to come up with something that would get us in trouble. “If we see a bar or a bowling joint before someplace to sleep, sure.”

  “I can look it up,” said Jacky.

  “Nope,” I said. “Leave it to fate.”

  After two thirds of the moo shu, I gave up and closed the container. I hated wasting food, but it was too big for me to finish. I wiped my chopsticks on my jeans and put them back in their case.

  Two miles down the road from the restaurant, we came to Starker’s, which I hoped from the apostrophe was only a bar, not a strip club. Their expansive parking lot was empty except for eight Chauffeurs, all lined up like pigs at a trough. At least that meant we didn’t have to worry about some drunk crashing into our van on his way out.

  I backed into the closest spot to the door. It was the best lit, so I could worry less about our gear getting lifted. Close was also good if the locals decided they didn’t like our looks.

  We got the long stare as we walked in, the one from old Westerns, where all the heads swivel our way and the piano player stops playing. Except of course, these days the piano player didn’t stop, because the piano player had no idea we’d arrived. The part of the pianist in this scenario was played by Roy Bittan, alongside the whole E Street Band, loud as a stadium and projected in StageHolo 3D.

  “Do you want to leave?” Jacky whispered to me.

  “No, it’s okay. We’re here now. Might as well have a drink.”

  “At least it’s Bruce. I can get behind Bruce.” Silva edged past me toward the bar.

  A few at leasts: at least it was Bruce, not some cut-rate imitation. Bruce breathed punk as far as I was concerned, insisting on recording new music and legit live shows all the way into his eighties. At least it was StageHolo and not StageHoloLive, in which case there’d be a cover charge. I was willing to stand in the same room as the technology that was trying to make me obsolete, but I’d be damned if I paid them for the privilege. Of course, it wouldn’t be Bruce on StageHoloLive either; he’d been gone a couple years now, and this Bruce looked to be only in his sixties, anyway. A little flat, too, which suggested this was a retrofitted older show, not one recorded using StageHolo’s tech.

  Silva pressed a cold can into my hand, and I took a sip, not even bothering to look at what I was drinking. Knowing him, knowing us, he’d snagged whatever had been cheapest. Pisswater, but cold pisswater. Perfect for washing down the greasy takeout food aftertaste.

  I slipped into a booth, hoping the guys had followed me. Jacky did, carrying an identical can to mine in one hand, and something the color of windshield wiper fluid in a plastic shot glass in the other.

  “You want one?” he asked me, nudging the windshield wiper fluid. “Bartender said it was the house special.”

  I pushed it back in his direction. “I don’t drink anything blue. It never ends well.”

  “Suit yourself.” He tossed it back, then grinned.

  “Your teeth are blue now. You look like you ate a Smurf.”

  “What’s a Smurf?”

  Sometimes I forgot how young he was. Half my age. A lifetime in this business. “Little blue characters? A village with one chick, one old man, and a bunch of young guys?”

  “Like our band?” He shook his head. “Sorry. Bad joke. Anyway, I have no idea what was in that food, but it might have been Smurf, if they’re blue and taste like pork butt. How’s your dinner sitting?”

  I swatted him lightly, backhand. “Fine, as long as I don’t drink anything blue.”

  He downed his beer in one long chug, then got up to get another. He looked at mine and raised his eyebrows.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’ll stick with one. I get the feeling this is a zero tolerance town.”

  If twenty-odd years of this had taught me one thing, it was to stay clear of local police. Every car in the parking lot was self-driving, which suggested there was somebody out on the roads ready to come down hard on us. Having spent a lot of time in my youth leaving clubs at closing time and dodging drunk drivers, I approved this effort. One of the few aspects of our brave new world I could fully en
dorse.

  I looked around. Silva sat on a stool at the bar. Jacky stood behind him, a hand on Silva’s shoulder, tapping his foot to the Bo Diddley beat of “She’s the One.” The rest of the bar stools were filled with people who looked too comfortable to be anything but regulars. A couple of them had the cocked-head posture of cheap neural overlays. The others played games on the slick touchscreen bar, or tapped on the Bracertabs strapped to their arms, the latest tech fad. Nobody talking to anybody.

  Down at the other end, two blond women stood facing the Bruce holo, singing along and swaying. He pointed in their general direction, and one giggled and clutched her friend’s arm as if he had singled her out personally. Two guys sat on stools near the stage, one playing air drums, the other watching the women. The women only had eyes for Bruce.

  I got where they were coming from. I knew people who didn’t like his voice or his songs, but I didn’t know anybody, especially any musician, who couldn’t appreciate his stage presence. Even here, even now, knowing decades separated me from the night this had been recorded, and decades separated the young man who had first written the song from the older man who sang it, even from across a scuzzy too-bright barroom, drinking pisswater beer with strangers and my own smelly band, I believed him when he sang that she was the one. I hated the StageHolo company even more for the fact I was enjoying it.

  Somebody slid into the booth next to me. I turned, expecting one of my bandmates, but a stranger had sat down, closer than I cared for.

  “Passing through?” he asked, looking at me with intense, bloodshot eyes. He brushed a thick sweep of hair from his forehead, a style I could only assume he had stuck with through the decades since it had been popular. He had dimples and a smile that had clearly been his greatest asset in his youth. He probably hadn’t quite realized drinking had caught up with him, that he was puffy and red-nosed. Or that he slurred a bit, even on those two words.

  “Passing through.” I gave him a brief “not interested” smile and turned my whole body back toward the stage.