Asimov's Science Fiction: February 2014

by Penny Publications

  Desmond pulled Lij low when a car neared. Its headlights skimmed over them. The bush limbs above them looked like interlaced fingers. He waited a few seconds after they could no longer hear it before they continued.

  "Br'er 'Nansi was the craftiest of the animals. And he was old. He knew the true names of all the old ones, from Br'er Turtle to Old Hinge. He couldn't let his brethren tremble at the thought of the witch."

  "That doesn't sound like Br'er 'Nansi," Lij said. "He's usually greedy. Selfish."

  "Sometimes people change from one story to the next. Br'er 'Nansi went to the village of the witch, right up to her house and banged on her door. When she opened the door, he stood there holding an armful of bananas and weeping.

  "Someone has stolen my bananas, Br'er 'Nansi cried out. I don't know how many the thief took.

  "How many did you have? the witch asked.

  "I was told six, but I don't know how to count. Can you please help me?

  "There are one, two, three, four, and the one in your hand.

  "I don't know any number called 'the one in your hand,' Br'er 'Nansi said. Does it come before nine? Wait, do you mean Five? Five! What a lovely number, an even better name. Everyone should know it. Everyone should shout it, drag it from the shadows into the light where it can be known and no longer feared.

  "The witch was angry. No one enjoyed having their secrets brought to light. She chased Br'er 'Nansi all through the hills, spitting her curses and threatening to kill him as soon as she found him. 'Nansi hid in a medicine bag around the neck of an obeah woman bound on a ship heading for the New World. Even though it was against his will, he didn't mind.

  "My life is not my own, Br'er 'Nansi said. I will comfort my people wherever I find them." "His life was not his own," Lij repeated. Desmond hated the death of innocence that came with understanding life.

  Bamboo poles lined the front of a ramshackle house. White, green, and red flags fluttered from each of the poles signifying that a "science man" occupied the house.

  Burglar bars girded every window. Corrugated metal formed the roof, its ridges trailing down to large buckets that collected rain run-off.

  Country leaned his chair back against the wall, eyeing his dominoes with great suspicion. A tam covered his dreadlocks, which drew forward on his forehead every time he furrowed his brow. A lone lamp lit the porch. The other men huddled tight around the table studying his every movement. A smile crept across his face. He slapped a tile onto the table. Curse words spilled into the night. Country preened about in triumph, pausing when he glanced in Desmond's direction. They couldn't have been seen, Desmond knew this, but Country dismissed his guests. Once they had departed, he waved Desmond over.

  "Come on out, you walk foot buckra." Country's languid drawl hid a welcoming smirk. "Who's the pickney?"

  "That's... a long story. Colonel's people are looking for us."

  "You'll be fine for now." Country studied Lij. Suddenly the man knelt, stopping short of genuflecting. " When God comes, the sun will come out. Come on."

  The first time Desmond met Country, he was in myal. A spirit possessed him and he climbed a coconut tree upside down. He looked like Br'er 'Nansi himself atop a mound of eggs the way he hung from the tree. The final rite of becoming a Niyabingi was to receive the blessing of an obeah man. Country had hammered out an ancient staccato beat on goat skin during Desmond's ceremony. A Coromantee war dance rhythm, a prayer on a hand drum to bring destruction on their enemies.

  Desmond ushered Lij inside, peeking out the door for unwanted eyes one last time before shutting it. The house was little more than planks of wood hammered into place. A lizard scurried along a brightly colored relief map of Africa. A five-pointed Judaic-Rastafarian Star of David marked the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Next to the map were photographs of Haile Selassie and Marcus Garvey, a so-called Negro agitator from America. A half dozen brooms sat bundled in the corner. Sometimes Country sold them, symbols of the need to sweep out the filth of Babylon, for extra money for chiba. Otherwise, he maintained his vow of poverty. The Bobo Ashanti sect lived sparse and uncompromising lives.

  "You hungry? I'm fixing enough to make belly bust." Country fussed about in his kitchen, frying plantains and boiling green bananas to accompany the tripe with garlic.

  "Bananas? You know crop theft is punishable by flogging with a tamarind switch."

  "Eat your jokes and starve, then. What's going on?" Country poured condensed milk into his instant coffee and drank in huge gulps as Desmond relayed the colonel's plan. He issued a sideways glance at the boy, unable to hide his fear and awe.

  "You read me up?" Desmond asked when he finished his tale.

  "Do not let the science fool you. I am foundated with Christ." Country rocked back in his chair while he thought. "The boy himself doesn't matter. The idea of him does." "So you believe the colonel's story?"

  "That man is a ginnel. Utterly mendacious... a damn liard. Desperate to prove to himself that he was more than the little imp parading as a man trying to drive fear into people. Him is too hard aise, but..."

  "But what?" Desmond asked.

  "The boy is a steppin' razor. He too dangerous, like a walking blade."

  "But he's my charge now. The gift of His Imperial Majesty was to allow me to recognize myself as a person. Like him, born, prepared, and guided for a purpose. This boy would be a pawn of Malcolm, used for his own ends until he was twisted into a 'mawga dog.' He deserves something better. A chance to be the man he was meant to be."

  "Then free the boy, nuh? Don't let him be caught up in politricks."

  "Can you get us to the coast? From there we can make our way to the United States. No one will think to look for us in the heart of the beast."

  "I'll need gas money."

  "Mawfa foot Rasta."

  Desmond pressed a few nanny notes into his palm. Country flattened them on his knee, then held them to his eyelids for a moment.

  "Money is eyesight." Country winked, then slipped the bills into his pocket. "I'm feeling a mite bit murderous."

  "Good. That may come in handy."

  Desmond found himself reaching for handholds that weren't there as Country's mechanical contraption careened along the curves of the road. The engine huffed, belching steam while cylinders clattered. A hot, oily smell came from the engine. Not built for creature comforts, the van was little more than a brass shell with a seat for Country. The rest was open space designed for hauling the equipment for his passapassas. It shuddered as he tailgated the vehicle in front of them like a frothing bully, honking and jerking the wheel back and forth.

  Their clothes folded in neat piles within their knapsacks, Desmond and Lij dressed no different than any other laborer. They looked like they were on their way to one of Country's street parties except that he still toted his cane rather than a machete. Taking a back trail, they drove toward the Kingston megapolis, bypassing the Kings' houses of its outer boundaries.

  Their destination was the Port Royal citadel at the seaward end. It was largely a historical site with the remains of a burned down slave quarters largely preserved. Pirates like Captain Henry Morgan once hid there. Now, its port was a higgler's domain.

  Desmond hated the voyeurs such tourist traps attracted, but the busyness of the port worked to their advantage. They'd be able to buy passage on a waiting freight and if you had enough nanny notes, you could insure no questions were asked. The amount of people milling about also decreased the likelihood of being noticed. Even if they were, the colonel wouldn't chance so public an incident. He wouldn't want the reports of injured—or worse, killed—visitors to damage their tourist trade.

  "Big you up nice. Make you ever ready for love." Street vendors cried out, peddling "front-end lifters," obeah "science" for the passing consumer. Their culture bought and sold as trinkets in the shadow of the old slave depot. With the instinct of a fox beset by hounds, Desmond had the unmistakable sensation of being watched. He scanned the crowd for any of the colonel's g
uard or anyone who took an inordinate interest in them. He waved an all clear to Country.

  Country led them down a forgotten pathway overgrown with brush, the remains of the steps little more than a scree of pebbles. He said he knew of a back way into the port, bypassing the security check points. Desmond steadied himself as best he could, using his cane to guide his slide, for he slid more than walked, especially in his Spat boots. He slung his jacket over his other arm, to relieve his heat and sweep away intruding branches. Sweat ringed his shirt's collar and drenched his armpits.

  "You make my job all the more easy, wayward travelers."

  "Who's there?" Desmond asked. Country froze where he stood, scanning about for the source of the voice, but Lij inched to Desmond's side.

  "One brief dance in the colonel's garden and I'm so quickly forgotten?" With a queer lilting resonance to his words, a man stepped out of the shadows. His severe, pinched face, under the high arch of his eyebrows, produced an unpleasant countenance. Desmond knew the gaunt figure had deceptive strength.

  The man clutched a pistol. Energy crackled within a glass sphere where the cylinder should be. The technology was reminiscent of the colonel's dynamos.

  "I thought I'd bring a pistol to the knife fight this time." "Who is this fool-fool raasclaat? " Country demanded.

  "I'm guessing a Kabbalist agent. He was after the colonel's... method of production. We don't have anything you need here."

  "I need young squire, Lij. We have big plans, the least of which being to depriving the colonel of him. Our men watched the colonel's palace and the Cobenas'. I've been trailing you ever since you absconded with the lad. Since you've already done half of my job, I'll just relieve you of him. Give me no trouble, you'll have my thanks and your lives."

  "I am honor bound to the lad. I shall not see him harmed."

  "You do me an injustice, sir. I've no wish to harm children."

  "Can your employers make the same claim?" Desmond asked.

  "You two chat too much," Country said. "Darkness never overcome light yet and the wicked never sow no good seed what ripe yet."

  Country charged the man. The Kabbalist drew careful aim and fired into Country's path. The energy discharge erupted the earth at his feet. Country dove into the bushes for cover. Desmond and the boy skittered deeper into the depot.

  The area of the depot had long been abandoned. The Maroon loved their monuments and the abandoned fort was a massive one. Its ground was hallowed to the point that most avoided even its shadow. Its shape was that of a large, squat turret, stones cast into place of the cylinder structure. The mortar cracked and broke, freeing the occasional stone. Ruins exploded around them as they ran. Energy blasts shattered stone and board alike. Chains rattled along the wall, testimony of a bygone age. Desmond pushed Lij into an open stall. The iron door's hinges were rusted and would likely creak. He didn't want to chance closing it.

  "I'll be right back," Desmond said.

  "You promise?"

  "I... yes. I promise." He hoped that he hadn't exposed Lij to too much life this day and that there was room for fancy and hope. Desmond squeezed the child's hand and scrambled away before the agent neared enough to spy them.

  "Come out, come out wherever you are. Don't you tire of these childish games?"

  "Your first plan failed. Getting samples of the colonel's work?" Desmond hoped to wrong foot this obroni, letting him track the sound of his voice away from Lij.

  "If we couldn't have the product, perhaps we could... reverse engineer the process."

  Reverse engineering had a fatal ring to it. In the end, all of them—the colonel, the Niyabingi, the Kabbalists, Albion—wanted the same things: money and power, fueled by greed.

  The agent fired again, wildly into the dark. The perpetual knot of Desmond's belly sprang from the fear that the man might accidentally wound the boy. Desmond ducked behind a ruined stack of wall, occasionally revealing just enough of himself to keep the assassin's attention.

  Glancing over, he spied Country. He pointed to himself and made a circling motion. Country looked confused. Desmond raised ten fingers and hoped Country understood that he'd need a distraction in ten seconds. Desmond crept around, counting to himself. At "ten," Country leapt into the clearing.

  "You unbaptized bomboclaat, " Country yelled.

  The Kabbalist drew a bead on Country, this time not aiming at his feet. Desmond leapt out of the shadows and landed about the shoulders of the agent. They wrestled; the agent attempted to shrug him off. Desmond held on, his limbs flailing while the man wrenched about. Desmond gripped the man's cloak, losing purchase as it tore from him. The cloak slid to the ground, revealing the twisted body of a clockwork assassin. His right arm and both legs gleamed grey in the wan light. The fine gears of his lower torso rotated with precision. Without the muffling of the cloak, the hiss of oiled pistons and clanking gears filled Desmond's ears. Part automaton, definitely Albion in construction, Desmond had heard tell of them. But he thought the reports of them and the mechanical men whose brains floated in glass jars the stuff of children's fancy.

  Country grabbed a board and slammed it into the mechanical Kabbalist. The board splintered like so much rotted driftwood. Country struck again, but the agent's mechanical arm battered him into the next stall.

  Desmond thrust his cane into the clocklike workings of the man's torso, the gears grinding to a halt. The mechanical man cursed the air blue, firing wildly with his good hand. A blast seared Desmond's side. He fell onto his wounded side with a thud. The agent rolled atop him, clamping his hands around Desmond's throat. Desmond's eyes bulged, his breath escaping in a wet rasp. His hands scrabbled about in desperation. He found a loose stone from the depot wall and slammed it into the side of the Kabbalist's skull. The man slumped on top of him.

  Desmond untangled himself from the man's limbs, then dusted himself off. Strolling over to Country, he lowered his hand to help him up.

  "You mad?"

  "You live until you die," Country said. "And dead's dead."

  Desmond and Lij slipped through the dirigible dock's back entrance, mixing into the milling crowd without any fuss. Airship rope crews prepped the great machines for departure, scurrying about wrangling the floating craft like an errant bull. Their officers greeted their passengers.

  "Boarding pass?"

  "For two." Desmond pressed a wad of nannies into the man's hand.

  "Watch your step," the officer said.

  Thrumming engines soon filled his ears. Desmond leaned against the steel grey seat. As the ship rose, he stared out his window. The mountain tops of his island home seemed so small now. The truth of Lij would open his people's eyes and shake the foundations of who they were. He watched the boy sleep, his small hand still slid into Desmond's. In America, they would be far from the reach of Malcolm and the Rastafarians; the Niyabingi and the obeahists; and the Kabbalists would not think to look for them from within their belly. Lij would not be another innocent to be used and discarded without a say in the matter. For now, Desmond prayed for the opportunity to live their own lives for a moment.

  Whatever may come, he thought, he would comfort his people wherever he found them.

  * * *

  BALL AND CHAIN

  Maggie Shen King | 5856 words

  Maggie Shen King's first book Fortune's Fools —an account of the ethical dilemmas, larger-than-life personalities, and political intrigue encountered by a Taiwanese manufacturer in China— was a semi-finalist and Second Prize winner in the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. The author's stories have appeared in ZYZZYVA and Fourteen Hills. When she is not writing, Maggie likes to work on her golf game and her roses. She welcomes your comments at maggie.shen.king@gmail.com. Maggie's first story for us is set in the same milieu as her next novel. Sixty years after China instituted the one-child policy, the population of eligible men outnumbers women by fifty million. As he interviews with a potential wife, a forty-yearold man and his matchmaker are forced to do the math....r />
  My gaze is drawn again and again to the delicious swell of Wu May-ling's breasts. For a slender little thing, she is incongruously buxom. And not in an over-cooked or matronly sort of way either. A thrilling high-wire act, hers demand—no, command— a man's attention, his loyalty. Someone clears his throat, and I jerk up to see both my dads glaring at me.

  Dad—Mom's second husband and my Biological—says, "Our Wei-guo has impeccable health habits. He weight trains three times a week and swims and runs as well."

  He bestows a fatherly smile upon May-ling, our matchmaking lunch's guest of honor and my potential bride. "He can bench a hundred kilos. You should see his biceps."

  Sitting on my other side, Big Dad stiffens. "You're embarrassing our guests," he says to Dad with forced levity. With both hands, he offers up the ribbon-and lace-adorned tin of individually wrapped cookies Dad spent hours choosing.

  We have honored MaMa's dying wish, remaining under one roof as a family. These days, she seems to speak through Dad. My two fathers sound more and more like man and wife. They've taken to wearing the same shirts, both pouncing upon whatever happens to be clean. Even their increasingly paunched and stooped silhouettes look alike.

  May-ling beams at the gift, the twinkle in her eyes one of boisterous good humor.

  "I have a very sweet tooth. Thank you very much." Her smoky eyes and translucent silk dress could not be a more enticing blend of intrigue and class. Despite having birthed a child, her manners and air are girlish, a primed canvas awaiting defining strokes of paint.

  Her second husband, the security designer, takes the tin from her and, scrunching his nose, tosses it on the floor. If I did not know from his wrinkled shirt and uncombed grey hair that he is not in favor of Family Advancement, I do now. Ironic that a man with such disregard for social niceties should possess so cherubic a face.

  Dad continues, "Wei-guo has won three triathlons, the five-and ten-thousand-meter races more times than we can remember. He'll be thrilled to give all three of you a free assessment. Put you on a diet—" I squeeze his knee. He doesn't know when to stop.