Asimov's SF, December 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “We're in Turkey,” I said.

  “Dude, chill,” Vlad said.

  The fluorescent ceiling lights were dark and few lamps shone above the headboards of patients, but the green and red and blue holiday glow from the dying provided light bright enough to read by.

  “Where's the BBC tonight?” I asked.

  “The camera crew fell sick,” Dr. Ahmet said. “And the correspondent is now in a coma. The new strain of fungus appears to sometimes grow from the sinuses and then into the brain. We do not have facilities for neurosurgery. She will die unless the BBC can fly her to Athens or Tel Aviv.”

  I felt dirty for having asked a snarky question.

  “And Rickie?” Shayla asked.

  “His brain is clear.”

  We passed a man in hazmat attire who was carefully clipping the petals that were growing from a young man's chest.

  Then we came to Rick.

  No one was attending him.

  He lay on his back, smiling softly, eyes open; alert but in an oxygen tent, like an infant apparently happy in his incubator.

  A tube emerged from each of his sides just below his ribcage, pumping out a pinkish fluid the same color as his ponytail.

  The blue and green growths around his mouth had been trimmed and covered with surgical tape. But there grew from his eyebrow an orange thing like a California poppy.

  “Why don't they cut that?” I asked.

  “It does not interfere with his breathing.”

  “And that!” I saw a green tendril just appearing from his right nostril.

  Dr. Ahmet shrugged. “It is not yet blocking his airway.”

  “Not yet!” The monitor showed how slowly his heart beat. “You're letting him die!”

  “Dennis, chill, dude,” Vlad said, and he touched my arm. I flinched.

  “Dennis, man, remember the Buddha.” Rick's voice, weak, steady, not giggly. He looked at me. His pupils were huge. Then he looked up at the water-stained third-world ceiling tiles. “It's cool, Dennis. It rocks. I see Kurt, man. I see Keith Moon. I see John Bonham. I see Nigel Preston.” Rick coughed blood. His eyes were not focused on the stained tiles but were instead tracking visions only he could see. “It's a big show in the sky, man, it's a big fucking jam session and we're all tight, man, the songs they're cool the crowd it's cool the chicks are hot, can't you feel the beat?” His heart was racing and the man in the hazmat came over and injected something into his saline drip. His heartbeat slowed. “It's cool, Dennis.” His voice was dull. “We're getting ready ... for an encore.”

  His eyes half-closed.

  “No, Rickie!” Shayla cried. She pushed past the hazmat, then pulled up the edge of the oxygen tent and climbed partly in. She kissed him, planted her lips on his, but then I pulled her away. “You fucking bitch, you already made him sick.” She reached out and pulled at my mask and screamed something, something in Greek or in Turkish or in some evil incoherent amalgam of the two.

  Then Vlad and the hazmat pulled me away from her as Dr. Ahmet grabbed her.

  * * * *

  Vlad and I descended together in the elevator with a security guard. Vlad, cool Vlad, level-headed Vlad, was trembling. “What shit was that, Dennis?”

  “She did it. She gave it to him.”

  “It could have come from anywhere. Rick fucked his immune system, big time, with all the junk you were giving him.”

  “And he'll go into withdrawal now,” I said.

  “Zen, Dennis. You're hysterical.”

  * * * *

  I tried breathing mindfully. I could not picture my koi pond, only the poppy emerging from Rick's eyebrow. We stepped into the lobby. The security guard had his hand on my elbow. He pushed us toward the exit. But Ataturk finished a cell phone conversation, then waved at the guard to halt. “Where are you taking him?”

  “We are removing him from the hospital, for the safety of our patients.”

  Ataturk looked pained. “He was afraid of my daughter. She has the spore as well.”

  Ali, beside him, smirked, but his smirk turned into a cough.

  “Then wait out in my SUV. And you go with him, Ali. Vlad, you stay here, because your friend may need you at the end.”

  “As you wish,” Ali said. “But tell me—will Shayla be coming back down?”

  “I think they put her in one of the beds,” Vlad said.

  Ataturk nodded. He turned pale, but would not speak of his fears. “Wait in the SUV, and we shall leave in an hour for Larnaca.”

  * * * *

  The streets were brighter now. The NATO soldiers had cordoned off the staircase completely so that none might enter. We smelled tear gas, and the rotten sweetness from the bodies that lay glowing in piles to each side of the staircase. We found the SUV but we had to push a dying man off it who had gripped the hood as though to find his cure in the dull warmth of the engine.

  We climbed inside, and in proximity to Ali I could smell his whiskey but also the faint sweetness of Amanita.

  “You have it too.”

  “You are brilliant,” Ali said. He had another whiskey flask. “Drink. Drink, my friend.”

  “I don't want to be sick.”

  “Sick! How much of a fool are you? Alcohol retards the spores! Why do you think Shayla, not I, is the one to die tonight?”

  “Shayla gave you the spore, too?”

  “No! You are the fool! I gave the spore to Shayla!”

  I remembered the kiss at the house.

  “Why? Why do you hate her?”

  “She is a whore! She is an insult to Islam!”

  “Fuck you, Ali,” I said. “You killed Rick.”

  * * * *

  I left the SUV. And I ran. The streets are a garden of breathtaking beauty, the green petals, the golden flowers like marigolds or poppies, the gentle purple spikes that smell sweet as honey, the green and blue tendrils delicately flowered that wrap their human hosts like the webs of a gentle and aesthetic spider. Only sometimes do I see the horrors, the gaping mouths from which branches emerge, the beflowered eyestalks that rise as if to give insectile vision to the dead, the hands in rigor mortis that raise their growths like bouquets. Petals soft as velvet cushion my steps. In the distance is gunfire and the sound of heavy trucks, but these are muffled, enervated, the last voices of violence and the mechanical before Amanita can claim them too.

  I try to call Martha but there is no cell service and I fling my phone into a bush bright red as arterial blood.

  The sky is dark but the streets are bright, rich with petals, choked with leaves.

  Amanita knows no boundaries.

  Tonight, East and West are united.

  Copyright (c) 2008 David Ira Cleary

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Department: ON BOOKS

  by Peter Heck

  IMPLIED SPACES

  by Walter Jon Williams

  Night Shade, $24.95 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-1-59780-125-6

  illiams, who has written everything from sea-going historicals to far-future space opera, turns his hand to a genre-stretching adventure. The story is set in a future in which the human race has decided to take full advantage of the ability to carry on a virtual—and all but immortal—existence. The trouble begins, predictably enough, when someone decides to subvert the status quo.

  The novel starts with the protagonist, Aristide, wandering across a desert world, accompanied by his faithful talking feline companion Bitsy. Soon they enter a caravan-serai, where several caravans are stalled by news of a powerful bandit coalition preying on anyone who ventures forth. With a few clever words and suggestions, Aristide convinces the assembled merchants and their guards that safety lies in numbers, and they set out in a well-armed group. They meet and defeat the bandits and their masters—strange “priests” who cause their victims to disappear from the world.

  By that point, several things have gradually become clear: the world on which the story so far has unfolded is a sort of role-
playing game scenario. Aristide has powers beyond what anyone else on the world can control. The “priests” are agents of some outside power that has designs on the entire larger civilization of which this world is one small enclave. Bitsy is Aristide's personal link to a giant supercomputer. In short, instead of a medieval fantasy world, we are in a post-singularity world, and its very existence is about to be put to the test.

  Aristide returns to his home base, a megalopolis that is the center of Earth's government. Here we begin to learn the real dimensions of the problem—and of the universe in which it is set. The “priests” are sending their victims into a pocket universe with the help of tiny wormholes, a feat only possible if they are being backed by one of the ten Jupiter-sized super-AIs that orbit the sun. Aristide recruits help, including Daljit, a woman who knew him under his former name Pablo.

  Aristide and Daljit devise one method after another to take on the mysterious villain who has taken over the AI—only to find their every move countered. The enemy strategies include everything from a plague of zombies to an insidious scheme to reprogram everyone upon their rejuvenation following an accidental death.

  Eventually the conflict breaks into all-out superscience warfare, on a scale that would've made an oldtimer like Edmond Hamilton proud. With the solar system expanded to many times its present size by the addition of pocket universes maintained by the controlling AIs, the scope of action is impressive—as are the weapons deployed by the two sides. At the same time, Aristide and the villain carry out their conflict on a one-on-one level, with genuine ferocity.

  In short, Williams plays with the possibilities of a post-Singularity society and shows it can reproduce almost all the favorite tropes of SF and fantasy, from RPG fantasy to space opera to monster movie. Add on a healthy dose of irony, often in the form of Bitsy's comments, and a critique of the joys of virtual living from the mouth of the villain, and you have not just a rip-roaring adventure, but a thoughtful look at larger issues.

  All in all, the author is clearly having fun. So, I suspect, will most readers.

  * * * *

  THE COMMONS

  by Matthew Hughes

  Robert J. Sawyer Books,

  $24.95 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-0-88995-389-5

  Hughes, whose sophisticated adventures remind many readers of Jack Vance, here turns his hand to an original idea: a group of researchers who enter and explore the collective unconscious, known as “the Commons.”

  We first meet Guth Bandar as a student on a research project with his faculty advisor. The two of them travel to a distant planet where, according to reports, a tourist attraction has sprung up around the Bololos, quasi-bovine natives who can apparently be made to act out tales from the human Commons. This is more than a curiosity to the Institute scholars; it may be the first example of the archetypes of one species being transferred to the minds of another.

  At first, this is amusing—the tourists come flocking. Then the Bololos take on the nature of conquering hordes from human legend, and begin to attack the spectators. Bandar manages to avert the attack, but at the cost of leaving his mentor a gibbering idiot. Bandar returns to the Institute, attempting to tell the professors of his discoveries, but his data goes against all doctrine. Instead of being promoted, he is sent away for a year while things quiet down.

  Upon his return, he locks horns with an archrival, Didrick Gabris, who manages to curry favor with the orthodox professors while cheating at every turn and working full time to undermine Bandar. The following chapters find them competing over and over again, with Bandar struggling against the odds to complete assignments and Gabris conniving to put obstacles in his way. Almost every adventure ends with Bandar somehow muddling through, only to find his latest discoveries rejected by the Institute. His only consolation is that Gabris is usually shot down along with him, but the two are destined to keep knocking heads.

  Hughes sends Bandar through a series of adventures that show the Commons in all its complexities, from minimal settings where nothing is ever expected to happen to rich tapestries of action and meaning. But as Bandar continues to visit the worlds of the unconscious, he finds himself interacting more and more with the denizens of that world. One telling episode is his venture into the world of the three pigs—where he inadvertently shows the wolf a way out of the endless circle of the constantly retold story, and learns that the consequences reach far beyond this simple archetypal tale.

  Eventually, Bandar's troubles reach the point where he drops out of the Institute and takes a job as a shop assistant. To his dismay, the Commons is not done with him—he finds himself dragged into a scenario where he is clearly cast as the Hero's helper. Knowing the likely fate of such, he bails out of the scenario—by the skin of his teeth.

  But more adventures await Bandar when he takes a space journey to the scene of a long-ago battle against ruthless aliens. Suddenly he finds himself being drawn into the Commons yet again, very much against his will. And this time the stakes are a good bit larger.

  Hughes has taken what in other hands might have been just a cute idea and turned it into something considerably richer. His exploration of the various archetypes of the collective unconscious is thought provoking as well as amusing. And Hughes has shown in previous novels that he has a firm grasp of nuanced, witty prose.

  The individual episodes of which the novel is made up appeared as short magazine pieces. The concluding episode, “The Helper and his Hero,” was nominated by the members of SFWA for a Nebula for 2007 in the Novella category. Nebula or not—the winners aren't yet known as this column is being written—Hughes has certainly earned recognition as one of our most accomplished writers.

  * * * *

  FALLEN

  by Tim Lebbon

  Bantam Spectra, $12.00 (tp)

  ISBN: 978-0-553-38467-3

  This one's a fantasy quest adventure that eschews the pseudo-medieval setting for a more primitive world that carries much of the feeling of alien-planet SF. It also carries a hard edge reminiscent more of horror than most epic fantasy.

  Ramus Rheel and Nomi Hyden, are adventurers—explorers of the unsettled parts of their world, Noreela. One of them has learned of a map showing what, to the best of their knowledge, is the end of the world: a giant cliff that rises at the south end of their planet's single continent, blocking access to anything beyond. It is rumored that the gods live atop the Great Divide, as it is called. Determined to explore this anomaly, they join forces, acquiring the map, gathering a company of guards, and set off to the south.

  At first, the story unfolds like a conventional fantasy quest. The guards, from a rugged hunter-warrior culture, lead the two adventurers through the landscape, pointing out dangers, telling their stories around the campfire at night. But everything falls apart one night when the cook for the night makes a hallucinogenic dessert, and suddenly everyone's inhibitions are gone. Nomi makes love to the leader of their guard company, a charismatic man named Beko. This sends Ramus into a jealous rage that results in a vicious fight that escalates to where it is impossible for the group to remain together. Ramus and a woman of the guards, Lulah, leave the group, planning to make their way to the destination by themselves.

  What they will find at their destination remains a puzzle. Ramus has interpreted one image from the map as a “Fallen God,” although he is not entirely certain what to make of that. But Lulah lets him know she is deeply afraid of such a being. None-theless, she will continue on the journey.

  Separately, the two parties travel toward the huge cliffs, dodging strange, often deadly flora and fauna. They encounter occasional evidence that other humans have preceded them, although it is clear that none have thought it worthwhile to settle in these lands. It is what lies ahead that draws them forward: the challenge of the cliffs, and what they may find at the top.

  The ascent of the cliffs takes a harsh toll on the climbers, who still travel in two separate groups. But the climactic scenes come after the protagonists reach
the top, where they face their ultimate tests. The fallen god is there, of course; but a more immediate threat is the god's followers, including one that Ramus is quite surprised to find there.

  Interesting world-building (even if the exact parameters of the geography don't bear close examination), non-conventional characters, and interesting twists on the conventions of the quest fantasy. Worth staying with.

  * * * *

  THE QUEEN'S BASTARD

  by C.E. Murphy

  Del Rey, $14.00 (tp)

  ISBN: 978-0-345-49464-1

  A fantasy set in an alternate world that bears a passing resemblance to Elizabethan England—right down to Queen Lorraine's red hair.

  The plot begins with a royal marriage—which in this world, as in our own history, is motivated by political concerns rather than romantic foolishness. Sandalia, the sister of the king of Essandia, marries the king of Lanyarch, where the true faith prevails despite the efforts of the neighboring kingdom of Aulun to impose Protestantism upon them. When the king dies without begetting an heir, she is married again—this time to the king of Lutetia, who goes off to war after impregnating her. Luck is against her again: he is killed in war, and she miscarries. The only thing to do is find a substitute child—which she does. And this is just the prologue.

  Jump years ahead to Aulun, where a young girl named Belinda Primrose is growing up in an isolated castle, motherless. Her father—a powerful man whose role in the kingdom keeps him away much of the time—has her brought up by servants, and sees to it that she learns unusual skills for a young woman—swordsmanship and reading. The point behind her training becomes clear when her father takes her to court, where she meets the queen—and assassinates a foreign agent her father has pointed out to her.

  She also learns her own role in the world—and her father's great secret. After that, she is sent on several missions; we pick her up at a Khazarian palace, where she is playing the role of a servant. Her mission is to eliminate Count Grigori, a vicious, dissipated man who somehow threatens the interests of Aulun. She pulls off the assassination, and escapes hurriedly after one of the other servants accuses her of witchcraft. She is in enough of a hurry that she leaves her Khazarian lover, one of the guards, alive instead of eliminating him as a possible witness. After all, she is unlikely to be in this part of the world again.