Asimov's SF, March 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "I am sorry.” Delfinio's eyes, windows to forever, looked past him. At something Jeri couldn't see.

  "I can't do this.” Jeri spat the words through his teeth. “I won't do this. I wanted to be a rock jock. Do my part. Keep everyone safe. I didn't want...” He gulped, sucked breath. “I didn't ask to be turned into ... into..."

  "Some kind of alien?” Delfinio smiled finally, his eyes windows into vacuum. “I did not ask to be born in the wind from the stars or to hear their voices either, Jeri. Gypsies. You've heard me called that by now, eh?” Delfinio smiled thinly. “When my people, my family, left the platforms and moved out to the Oort, do you think I remained behind because of the pay?” He bared his teeth at Jeri. “How many ‘Gypsies’ have you seen on the platforms? We do not belong here and we do not live here. You are what you are. I did not make you this way. But I showed you how you can matter. How many people truly matter, child? No. You will never belong anywhere ... except here. I'm sorry and yes. I knew the price. I did not ask you if you wanted to pay it.” His eyes touched Jeri with cold. “It is a lonely job."

  Shuttle approaching, the system voice spoke up. IDed as friend, personal name Shira.

  Delfinio blinked, his eyes narrowing briefly. “I have company,” he snapped and Jeri recoiled from his sudden anger. “Perhaps you are right and you do not belong here."

  "Wait a minute.” Jeri pushed closer. “I need to understand. You said it's too late."

  "Leave now.” Delfinio's eyes blazed. “You will take the shuttle back to NYUp now. Stay there over night, think about what you are and how you wish to fit into this universe. We will talk about your future after that."

  "No.” Jeri pushed forward. “I want to sort this out now. I want to understand."

  "And I don't want to explain. You are an annoying child.” Delfinio pushed forward, so that Jeri retreated involuntarily. “Go now, child, and give me peace for my company. He has no reason to be annoyed by your problems.” He turned his back on Jeri.

  "Fine.” Stung beyond words, Jeri palmed open the lock and pulled himself back into the little shuttle. So that was it? You are what you are, too bad, and don't bother me when I'm busy? He closed his eyes, but Zai's expression appeared against the darkness of his eyelids. When you get focused, she had said. Only he never would. Jeri gave a bitter laugh, passworded in, started to push off, head for NYUp. Go find a bar where nobody knew him and get seriously, stinking drunk, he thought. If nothing else, it might hurt less. For awhile. Then he hesitated, feeling like a kid sent off to bed so the grown-ups could talk. Pushed close to the lock door, touched the tiny viewscreen to life. Who was this friend whom Jeri would annoy?

  Peeping tom, he thought. Delfinio will know.

  So what? he thought and didn't blank the screen. A silvery chime announced that a shuttle had mated to the Dispatch module. Delfinio floated where Jeri had left him, hadn't moved. The hull shimmered and thinned to form a port and a small, wiry man with a tawny Bengali face dressed in an expensive spider-silk singlet drifted in. He had gym muscles and a big smile.

  "'Finio. It has been a long time.” Shira toed off from the lock. “Bet you're surprised to see me,” he said with a Euro accent.

  "I am.” Delfinio didn't move. “I heard a few rumors about your new life."

  "They were probably correct. I am surprised that you did not delete my personal signature from your security waiver."

  "I should have done that. I suppose ... I let friendship blind me.” He didn't smile. “It was a mistake, was it not?"

  "You are getting old, ‘Finio. Once you did not make mistakes.” The Euro Bengali smiled, closing on Delfinio. “You have always believed that this talent implies ethics. That is your blind spot, old man. I sold my soul to Tai Lan the pirate. He paid me very well for it. And I am very useful to him. I find all the Security patrols for him. Only lately, someone has been finding my boss's ships and sending jocks after them. You are bad for business, ‘Finio. Why are you interfering?"

  "You are wrong about my belief,” Delfinio cackled and drifted suddenly backward. “I am less blind than you believe. And every awakened talent is my responsibility. Forever, Shira. So what is your soul worth?"

  "Your life.” The Bengali thrust himself forward and Jeri caught a flash of bright steel. Then the two men rebounded, Delfinio's back arching spasmodically, a bright, crimson galaxy of blood droplets unfolding between them.

  For a frozen moment, Jeri could only watch.

  "Get out,” Delfinio rasped, doubling over, trailing ruby beads.

  He was speaking to Jeri. The words hit him as if Delfinio had slapped him across the face.

  And Shira's head came up, eyes narrowing, searching. “You found another one, old man?” He pushed off from the hull with a toe, arrowed toward the privacy closets with a predator's intent.

  Delfinio's shoulders hunched as he curled into a fetal position. “Now, fool,” he whispered.

  Jeri thawed. “Take off,” he snapped and the shuttle quivered to life, shoving him against the hull as it pushed away from Dispatch. “NYUp dock regular space. NYUP One, contact. One! Attack on Dispatch. Get a team out here now. Weapons."

  No response. None.

  Communication is blocked, the shuttle voice told him.

  It quivered and zagged sharply. Jeri bounced off the hull, slammed back against it as acceleration flattened him.

  Evasive action, the ship said. Threat detected. Communication damper detected. Instructions?

  Shira was after him. “Status,” he yelled.

  Closing fast.

  Shira would use some sort of close-range, low energy weapon to avoid detection by the sensor net. Serious weaponry would set off all kinds of alarms and make people notice Dispatch's silence. But all Shira had to do was punch a hole in the hull. That's why you wore a v-suit as a rock jock. And this shuttle didn't have one. Think fast. Jeri's head spun. What would Shira expect him to do? Run for a can. “Head sunward,” Jeri snapped. “Full acceleration.” He wasn't webbed in and the sudden change in direction flung him across the cabin one more time. Red and black stars exploded in his vision as he slammed face-first into the hull.

  Closing fast. The shuttle's voice didn't change.

  Damn it. Nothing, nothing, nothing he could do.

  And then ... the hull vanished. It was like he had passworded into Dispatch. He could see ... everything. The matte black little ship coming up fast behind him, the huge blaze of the sun, a million million suns beyond it. For a second, Jeri relaxed. If I have to die, he thought ... A flare on the blazing surface of the sun caught his eye. He looked and his vision sharpened, as if someone had turned up the resolution. From the lazy curl of the sun's huge, fiery tongue, something like a swarm of tiny dust specks burst toward him.

  For a moment, Jeri stared, squinting, trying to understand....

  ...proton storm. He got it, suddenly. A Super-X class event. The last one like this had happened before he was born. People had died. Usually you had warning. Usually, coronal mass ejections tossed protons out slowly, predictably. Usually you had time to get everyone in behind the ice-shields and radiation skins of the platforms.

  But three times since the platforms began, they had come out fast, in a wild spray, caught in the spiraled magnetic field of the sun, and had slashed across Near Earth like a sword of God.

  I can't be seeing this, Jeri thought. No password, no hardware to plug him into the sensor net. People would die. A lot of people. “New York One,” he yelled in desperation. “Read me?"

  Yeah, Dispatch, what's up?

  Miracle! He wanted to cry. The voice was so damn normal. Either the communication damper had failed or ... Jeri glanced over his shoulder, but Shira was still on his butt. “Super X protons coming. Get everyone in,” he yelled. “Now!"

  No more time, no more time.... These little shuttles didn't have shielding, you weren't out in this kind of stuff. Which would get him first? he wondered. Protons or whatever weapon Shira was carrying?

&nbs
p; And then he saw it. A ‘roid, a rocky lump, stable in orbit, out of the traffic zones, so nobody cared as it plodded its way around the sun.

  It would stop the protons. Enough anyway.

  Got to get the timing right ... got to ... he grabbed for the webbing, got himself more or less webbed in, shifted the shuttle to manual, hands on the holoed controls that appeared. Zigged. Zagged. Evasive maneuvers, but they brought him closer to the ‘roid. Not yet, not yet ... he could feel Shira's triumph and his back twitched, expecting vacuum. With his new vision he watched the sandstorm of sun-white particles speeding toward them. If Shira had the same sight—but maybe he was focused on Jeri.

  He hoped so.

  Not yet ... not yet. Sweating, Jeri held his course. Now! He imagined he could feel the crackle of a million electron volts of cell-destroying energy around him as he doubled back, nearly sideswiping Shira's ship as he darted into the shadow of the ‘roid.

  Nothing to see, nothing you could really feel. Red icons exploded in the control holos. Beyond the shadow of the rock he was hiding under, the energies climbed ... two hundred million electron volts, two-fifty. Caught in the full sweep of the sun's fierce burst, Shira's ship wavered and began to tumble. Something had gone out. How much rem was Shira absorbing in his light, unprotected ship, Jeri wondered. Three hundred rem? Four hundred?

  In hours, he would be dead. Nothing could save him now.

  "New York One?” Jeri said.

  Communication software was permanently disabled at launch, the ship told him.

  Jeri blinked. He called up the ship's log, ran through the communications. He found his original attempt to contact NYUp One, iconed incomplete. And no others. I talked to them, Jeri thought. I warned them. Without a link?

  Not possible.

  The storm-front had passed. Jeri waited for the energy levels to fall to something he could tolerate with radiation therapy afterward, images of Delfinio bleeding to death alone at Dispatch haunting his brain. At least Dispatch was shielded. More than adequately. As soon as he dared, he headed back.

  He didn't see Shira's ship.

  Delfinio drifted in a galaxy of dark crimson droplets when Jeri burst into Dispatch. Swearing, Jeri pushed off, relief spiking through him as his hands closed around Delfinio's shoulders and his brain registered warm. Clumsy in his hurry, he barely managed to shield Delfinio from impact as he rebounded off the hull, scattering ruby beads of fresh blood.

  Delfinio grunted and his eyes fluttered. His lips twitched into an almost-smile before pain twisted them.

  "Just hang on.” Jeri palmed the emergency med closet open. The coffin-shaped créche unfolded and Jeri maneuvered Delfinio into it. Shira had stabbed him in the chest. “You die on me and I'll ... I'll kill you. Hear me?"

  Delfinio's lips twitched again and the smile glimmered in his eyes for a second. Micro-tubes snaked out of the créche, probing like blind worms, burrowing into Delfinio's jugular, carotid, into the veins on his arms and thighs as Jeri webbed him into place. “You're going to be okay,” he said, his voice catching, ignoring the red icons glimmering on the sides of the créche. “You have to be, because I want to know what's happening to me. You owe me that, hear?"

  "I hear.” Delfinio's words emerged as the faintest of whispers and pink foam bubbled at the corners of his lips. Then the drugs pumping through the micro-tubes took over and his eyes glazed.

  Panicked, Jeri scanned the icons, but Delfinio was still alive, his heartbeat uneven, more red and yellow than green visible, but ... still alive. “Contact ... NYUp One,” he said.

  Dispatch? That you, Jeri? The voice at One nearly yelled. Man, you saved our butts with that warning. We've got sick people all over, but we would've had a lot more casualties if we hadn't hit the alarm. Way to go.

  "Get a med team out here,” Jeri said. “Pirate hit Dispatch. Delfinio's in bad shape."

  On our way. One's voice sobered. Be there before you can blink twice.

  Oh, I do not think you need to worry, Delfinio's voice murmured in his head. I do not think you will be stuck on Dispatch without me.

  He couldn't be talking, not with the catheters in him. Jeri pushed across to the créche. The icons glowed a cacophony of red.

  "Damn it, you can't leave me here by myself."

  And he could have sworn that Delfinio smiled.

  Or maybe he just felt it.

  I agree, Dispatch. The whisper touched him. And the breeze will blow through others, too. You will find them. Not all will be Shira. But it is a lonely job.

  Jeri lifted his head and looked ... outward. Beyond the slow spin of the platforms to the distant dance of suns and planets like multicolored jewels. With a wrench, he brought himself back. Then he simply waited for the rock jocks to arrive, surrounded by a drifting galaxy of drying blood and crystal tears.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Mary Rosenblum

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  THE LION by Bruce McAllister

  Bruce McAllister's new short story collection from Golden Gryphon, The Girl Who Loved Animals, will feature an introduction by Harry Harrison and an afterword by Barry Malzberg. The book, which will include a few stories that first saw publication in Asimov's, will be out later this year. Its stories cover the five decades—"from teenager through guy with more than half a century under his expanding belt"—that Bruce has been writing and publishing SF.

  When the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen created the “Lion of Lucerne,” he was inspired, he told friends, by a story he had heard as a child—a story about a lion, a real lion, that had appeared miraculously in battle that terrible day in Paris in 1792 and fought so valiantly alongside the Swiss Guard, but whose body was never found. “That creature has lived inside me,” he confessed. “It has haunted my dreams."

  —Mythopoedia, “The Lion of Lucerne"

  In August of that turbulent year, as France underwent its Revolution, the insurrectionaries stormed the Palais des Tuileries where Louis XVI hid with his family; and at this very moment were killing the Swiss Guards who had sworn to protect the royal family with their lives. As the battle raged before the palace, a lion—an actual lion—wounded, blinded by its own blood—dragged itself slowly from the battlefield through the manicured gardens, collapsing in a tiny grotto hidden by hedges and carved from limestone by an artisan whose name was already forgotten.

  For an instant, shimmering like a dream, the lion became a man, a big one, the kind who might be a smithy or butcher, blinded by his own blood and dying too; but then the man was a lion again, the nostrils flaring, the mane matted with blood and the chest rattling with a growl it could not help. The change took no more than a tortured moment and was like a spasm, as if God were unsure what the lion should be this day.

  The spear that had been driven through his back had broken off, with only a piece remaining, but the pain was so great that man and lion both wondered if it would ever end.

  He could barely keep his eyes open, and his legs, heavy with the death of others, sprawled beneath him, the hair on them curled with blood. Though he tried to hold it up, his head dropped to his forepaws; and because blood filled his nostrils, bubbling at each breath he took, he had to breathe through open jaws and could no longer smell the carnage of the battlefield.

  Is it right, he wanted to ask, and, by wanting to, did, to kill if you kill for what you love?

  * * * *

  From the day he had had his first vision—of a wounded lion dying in a grotto in a beautiful garden somewhere—Alain Sabatier had become fascinated with all things leonine. He visited more than once the duke's zoo in Arles, which had two lions and was only two days’ travel from his village. In Arles's shops he also found charcoal drawings and fine etchings of lions, some anatomically correct, some not, though on a butcher's wages he could afford but the cheapest. At the cathedral in Nance—four days’ travel from Pelet—he gazed for hours at a locket made from the hair of a lion's mane which sat beside an urn bearing, so the Bishop said, ashes from the prophet Da
niel's bones. And in Limours, only a day away, he could touch an actual necklace of lion's talons, a bottle of alcohol containing a lion's spleen, the tuft from a lion's tail, and a box of lion's teeth—all in an apothecary's shop—until the owner told him to purchase something or leave.

  Against the protestations of his wife, to whom he had confessed his visions and who was frightened by them, he sold the figurines and vases they had. With this money, which could have gone to clothing for their two sons, and with the extra money he was now making working hours before dawn for his cousin, a baker, he had enough to purchase a lion's talon, strands of hair and a tooth. When his wife looked as if she might cry, he said, “I have no choice.” If he did not purchase these items, how could he make the visions cease? Did the visions not concern her as much as they did him?

  The visions did not stop with these purchases; and when, in the middle of one of them, he sliced half a finger off, he went immediately to Hameaux de Cergy to consult the priest Pére Meynen, who, upon hearing his story, stepped back, turned pale and told him he must burn all of the items he had acquired, for they were witchcraft. Sabatier burned the hair and talon, but not the lion's tooth, which was too beautiful to burn. After all, the lion came to him in his visions dying, asking that he mourn it because there was no one else to do so. How could he mourn the creature without a piece of a lion's body to hold?

  When the burning of the talon and the hair did not stop the visions either, he made plans for a longer trip. He gave his wife the money he had received that month from his cousin and also asked his cousin and his cousin's wife to watch over his family while he was gone. Then he set out on the road north to the abbey of Milly-la-Foret, where a monk lived that many considered a living saint. Here Sabatier presented his problem; and the monk, who looked at him for a long time with gentle, watery eyes, said at last, “I am sorry, petit fils de Dieu, but there is nothing I can do for you—nothing that anyone can do. Your visions are God's private words to you and to you alone."