Stories: All-New Tales ngss-1

by Neil Gaiman

  “Somebody’s supposed to stay on the bridge.”

  “Leif. I’ll get him.”

  This time she offered no objection.

  The green food lockers were on C Deck. Brennan caught the handle of one in Aisle 10. “This is it. I’m going to level with you, sweetheart. I don’t think it’s still in here, but this is where I put it. I threw it in and locked the door.” He took the key from his pocket, a strip of plastic no larger than a paper clip.

  Ena sighed. “Walt was supposed to have those. Keep us from eating too much.”

  “Walt’s dead.”

  She nodded. “So now I can eat all I want.”

  “With three gone, it won’t matter. Don’t worry about it.”

  “So I ought to eat too much. Bored people always eat too much.”

  Watching her, Brennan nodded. “That was why Walt kept the keys.”

  “But I don’t. I don’t eat enough. I keep driving myself to eat. Or try to, anyway. All my uniforms are loose.” She paused. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  “In a minute, maybe. Boredom makes people eat-you’re right about that. Depression keeps them from eating. Get somebody depressed enough, and she’ll starve herself to death. You tried to bribe Leif with sex. I heard you.”

  Slowly Ena nodded.

  “I’m not going to say I don’t want sex. It would be a lie, and you’d know it was a lie. Every man wants sex, but that’s not the only thing I want. I want you to love me. I want you to love me the way you loved Walt. Okay, I want it for my own selfish reasons. Hell yes, I do. But I want it for your sake, too.”

  Brennan paused. “For a second there you were trying to smile. I wish you’d made it.”

  She said, “So do I.”

  “When I kissed you, up on the bridge, you kissed back.”

  She nodded.

  “So there’s hope for us.”

  “‘Hope is the thing with feathers.’” Ena waited for Brennan to speak. When he did not, she added, “That’s Emily Dickinson.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Brennan pulled himself toward the food locker. “You want me to show you the bird and quit talking about all this, because it bothers you. I’ve got it. Only it might help you, too, so I’ve got to keep it up. You think I don’t miss Barbara? You think I don’t wake up when the cabin’s dark, wondering if she’s asleep? I need you almost as much as you need me. You don’t have to believe that.”

  “What I believe doesn’t matter.”

  “The hell it doesn’t! I need you, and that’s why I’ll never quit. You’ll see, and Ena…”

  “What?”

  “We’ll get back home alive. Both of us.”

  She kissed him, and it was like-yet not quite like-their kiss on the bridge.

  “I don’t think the bird’s still in here,” Brennan said rather later. “Not really. It was too tricky for that.”

  “We didn’t think they could nest in Leif either.”

  “Yeah. What the hell are they? Devils? They can’t be angels.”

  Ena said, “I don’t think we’ve got the word. Or the concept either. We’ll have to develop them.”

  “Maybe. If we can.”

  Brennan opened the locker, and something smaller than a bee flew out.

  “It got out,” he said. “Some way it got out. Where the hell did it go?”

  “‘They get smaller as they come closer.’”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What it says, perhaps. Leif said it before you pulled him in.”

  Brennan rubbed his jaw. Rather to her surprise, Ena discovered that she enjoyed watching him rub his jaw.

  “Mine didn’t get smaller when I was chasing it.”

  Ena nodded. “It wasn’t coming closer. You were, or you were trying to.”

  They jumped.

  “Sonofabitch! Did you feel that?”

  “Yes.” She discovered that she was holding his arm, and let go. “Yes, I did. It was Leif, up on the bridge.”

  “Sure. Had to be.” Brennan glanced at his watch. “He went the minute recharge was complete.”

  She nodded. “Now we’ll have to see in which direction.”

  THEY HELD A TRIAL the next day, a kangaroo court with Leif tied into his seat. “I’m the prosecutor,” Brennan explained. Brennan no longer sounded, or looked, angry, but his voice was deadly serious. “You’re the defendant and the counsel for the defense, too. Ena’s the judge. She and I think that will be fair. What you think doesn’t matter. I’m going to put the case against you. You’ll be given an opportunity to rebut it. Ena will decide on your penalty.”

  “If any,” Ena said.

  “She’ll decide your penalty, if there is one. Do you understand?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt any of you,” Leif said. He might have been talking to himself. “I just wanted to go back. Fuel’s forty-seven percent surplus. Food’s-”

  Brennan raised his fist and looked at Ena.

  She shook her head. “We used to be friends, Leif. I’d like us to be friends again. Like us to be friends right now.”

  “All right.”

  “Good. This is a trial. I am your judge. Do you understand that?”

  “I’m not stupid. I just want to go back.”

  “I know. Brennan?”

  “He sabotaged our mission. Not by some accident. Not even by inattention. He did it deliberately. He brought his damned birds in. We don’t know how many there are, but there’s a lot. You and I will have to round them up and kill them. It may take years, and we may never catch them all.”

  Leif started to speak, but Brennan silenced him. “He negated our last jump, and he’ll be a danger to us, and to the mission, for the next fifteen years. Say that we let him live. We’ll have to lock him up and feed him, just you and me, on top of all our other duties. We’ll have to make sure he stays locked up, because we can’t trust him out for a minute. One of us will have to walk with him in the spinner, and that will have to be me, because he might jump you. If-”

  “I might jump you, too,” Leif said.

  “Sure.” Brennan grinned. “Want to try?”

  “He will try,” Ena said thoughtfully. “He might even succeed, if he catches you off guard. Now stop arguing with him.”

  She pointed to Leif. “You’re to be quiet until it’s your turn to talk. We’ll tape your mouth if we have to.”

  Brennan cleared his throat. “You’re right. I don’t think he’d succeed, but he’ll try. Sooner or later, he’ll try to jump me. If he does succeed, the mission is shot. Finished. Ruined. Six lives and billions of dollars, all wasted.”

  Ena nodded.

  “That’s not the only danger. This ship wasn’t built as a prison. No matter where we lock him up, he’ll have years to try to figure some way out. I’ve never wanted to kill anybody, and God knows I don’t want to kill Leif. We’re going to have to do it just the same. Can we keep him sedated for fifteen years? Have you got enough dope for that?”

  Ena shook her head.

  “For one year?”

  “We might keep him lightly sedated for a year or more. Not for two.”

  “How do you know lightly would be enough?”

  “I don’t,” Ena said.

  Brennan sighed. “Okay, you’ve got my case. Can he be killed, legally? I don’t know and you don’t either, but we both doubt it. So I’m not asking you to kill him or even help me to. I’ll do it alone. I’ll stick him in the airlock without a suit, and we’ll write it up in the log. Maybe they’ll try me for murder when we get home. Maybe they won’t. I’ll take my chances. Now let’s hear Leif.”

  “I didn’t endanger the mission,” Leif began. “I’ve explained that already. There’s plenty of food and plenty of fuel. The air plant’s running fine. What I tried to do would have delayed the ship’s return to earth by a few days. No more than that. You two are perfectly capable of taking the ship back. If you were to die, it’s perfectly capable of taking itself back. The six of us were put on
board to take care of emergencies, and because we’d be needed once the ship got to Beta Andromedae. We’ve done all that, or at least we’ve done it as well as three people could, taking pix, measuring the magnetic field, mapping, and all the rest of it.”

  “You finished?” Brennan asked.

  “No. You blame me for bringing the birds. If what you say were correct-it’s not, but if it were-I’d deserve a medal. Neither of you found alien life. Not a speck. Not a trace. I found it, and returned to the ship with live specimens. You won’t concede a thing, I know. But if your accusation were correct, that would be the fact and I would be a hero.”

  Ena said, “You say it’s not.”

  “I do. The birds came into me while I was suited up, out in space. I told you they were there.”

  Reluctantly, Ena nodded.

  “I didn’t want to come back onto the ship, infected as I was. Brennan forced me to. If bringing my birds onto the ship was a crime, Brennan is the criminal. Not me.”

  “You’re the one who sabotaged our mission,” Brennan said.

  Ena raised her hand. “We’ve heard the accusation and Leif’s defense. I don’t want to get into it again.”

  Leif said, “You promised me a chance to defend myself. I have one more thing to say. It will take less than a minute. May I do it?”

  She nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Brennan threatens me with death. Surely you can see that I wanted to return to Beta Andromedae so that I could die there. I’ll suit up and go out again. You need only let me do it. Put a K beside my name in the log, and note that I was a suicide. It will be true, and if either of you is accused of my murder a veriscope reading will prove your innocence.”

  Ena smiled. “Brennan?”

  “I’m willing if you are.”

  “I’m not. Not as it stands. You’ll have to do us a service first, Leif. Go through the ship and collect the birds. All of them. Get them back inside you. They went in once, and I think they’ll go in again if you approach them right. Do it, and we’ll go back as you ask and put you out.”

  HE HAD SPREAD HIMSELF like a starfish, and the birds had flown. All of them-or nearly all. Now he blew like a dry leaf in the solar wind, revolving like a cartwheel.

  His air was running out. His body would die; and that which would not die would be free at last, free to rove the universe and beyond.

  Death waited beside him, warm and dark and friendly, and Leif could hardly wait.

  IN HER CABIN, ENA smiled to herself as she shook the small brown bottle. She had caught the faint fragrance of Brennan’s aftershave when he relieved her on the bridge. He could not possibly have brought enough to last for half the voyage; thus he had hoarded some and was using it now.

  The odor haunted her, delightful and unidentifiable. What aftershave had Walt used, what cologne? She had known those things once, but they were gone and only the memory of Brennan’s faint fragrance remained. Russian leather? Spice? Neither seemed correct.

  Turning the bottle over in her hand, she reread the label she had read so often since finding the bottle in a food locker: ¬ËÊ£ÌÌË ¤ÎŸ¢ËØŸ.

  She would smell like a cookie.

  Opening the bottle, she applied the thin brown liquid it contained to five strategic spots.

  Brennan would welcome her return. They would kiss, and she would unbutton his shirt. And then-

  She interrupted the daydream to listen. A bird sang in her right wrist.

  Carolyn Parkhurst. UNWELL

  I WAS FEELING A BIT UNWELL, so I called Yvonne to come and sit with me. I believe that sisters have a responsibility to look out for one another, even though that doesn’t seem to be a popular view with everybody these days. I think that if more people would take their family responsibilities more seriously, then the world wouldn’t be in the kind of trouble…But the phone was ringing.

  “Hello,” said Yvonne.

  “Yvonne, I need you to come over this afternoon. I’m not well.”

  I heard her sigh on the other end; I don’t believe she even tried to mask it. “Is it really important, Arlette? I’ve got a million wedding things to do.”

  “Oh, the wedding. Is that coming up soon?”

  “It’s Saturday, Arlette, and you know it.”

  “Well, I hope I’ll be able to make it. I’ve been feeling weak all day, and I’m not at all sure I’ll be myself by Saturday.”

  “Arlette, please don’t start…”

  “Well, it’s hardly my fault if I’m ill. But perhaps if I had a little help…”

  There was a long silence. I could just see her on the other end, wearing that outlandish engagement ring on her finger. A woman her age. “All right,” she said. “I’ll get Arthur to do some of my errands for me. I’ll be over in half an hour.”

  We hung up, and I leaned back against my bed pillows, well pleased.

  THE FACT IS, THIS should by all rights be my wedding. Yvonne and I met Arthur at the same time, and it was clear from the beginning that I was the one he was interested in. It used to be, in biblical times, and I believe some other notable points in history, that if there were two unmarried sisters, the younger one wasn’t allowed to be married before the elder. It was illegal. If the younger sister tried to break the rules and run off and get married anyway, they’d put her to death. I should tell that to Yvonne. They’d cut her head right off. It was just the way it was.

  We met Arthur on a seniors’ cruise that Yvonne took me on in honor of my seventieth birthday. It was her idea, and not a very good one, I must say-the room was cramped, the food was terrible, and most of the other passengers were pathetic old bores. When Yvonne gave me the tickets, she had said, “Who knows? Maybe we’ll meet a couple of nice widowers,” but there were three women for every man, and what men there were were bald, toothless and demented. I actually saw one of them trying to eat soup with his fingers. So when Arthur walked into the dining room, tall and unstooped, with his full head of silver hair gleaming in the light from the nautical-themed chandeliers, all the old biddies in the room seemed to sit up a little straighter. And when he sat down next to me, I thought, Watch me. I am going to charm the pants off this man. So I started up a conversation about current events-test him, I thought, see if he’s still in possession of a fully functioning mind-and he seemed to be able to talk about something more than what kind of medication he was taking, which automatically made him a better dining companion than anyone else at the table. He and I chatted and laughed all through the meal, and Yvonne just sort of melted into the upholstery, as usual. It’s always been that way; there’s a softness to her, a sleepiness, that I can’t stand. If it weren’t for me, the world would have eaten her up long ago.

  So Yvonne sat quietly and picked her way through her prime rib-no appetite on that girl, never has been-while I began laying the groundwork for my grand seduction. Things were going quite well, and I was sure I had him in my pocket. Arthur and Arlette, my mind kept singing, Arthur and Arlette. I was ecstatic, and God knows I deserve some happiness. Yvonne knows how lonely I’ve been since my Stephen passed away. She doesn’t mind being alone; she’s used to it. But I was made to be married, and in my mind I already had the church decorated, the flowers arranged artfully on the tables.

  And then at the end of the meal, something odd happened. Arthur rose from his seat, helped me out of my chair and said, looking right at me, “Might I interest you in a walk in the moonlight, Yvonne?”

  I felt a little prick of acid in my stomach, and my whole body tightened. I saw Yvonne raise her head hopefully, but I shot her a look. “Well,” I said to Arthur tartly, “I’d be a lot more interested if you tried calling me by the right name.”

  For an instant, Arthur’s face turned cool as he flicked his eyes between me and Yvonne. Then he widened his eyes in a gentlemanly show of shock and proceeded to fall all over himself apologizing. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I must have misheard the introductions. So Yvonne is your sister?”

  “That’s ri
ght,” I said. I drew my wrap around me, closing myself up. It’d take a little more wooing to make up for a flub like that.

  “Please forgive me,” he said. And then, as if this had anything to do with anything, “You two look so much alike.”

  Well, that was a fatal misstep on his part. Our whole lives, Yvonne and I have been told we look like twins, but I don’t see it myself. I don’t see it at all. True, we’re only thirteen months apart-and oh! how often I’ve wished I could go back and recapture the glory of those precious thirteen months when it was only me! — and we have similar coloring, but my features are much more graceful. Any person who thinks that comparing me to Yvonne is a compliment has a lot to learn. And the lessons might as well begin as soon as possible.

  “Sorry,” I said, my voice as icy as the wretched frozen swan sculpture defiling the buffet. “But I’m feeling a bit tired this evening, and I think I’ll pass on your kind invitation.” And I swept off to bed, my dowdy sister in tow.

  My plan was to keep Arthur at arm’s length for another half day or so, and then gradually let him win me over again through much hard work and flattery. But at breakfast the next morning, I could see I’d made a tactical error. Arthur ignored me completely and began doting on Yvonne as if she were some rare bird he’d been hoping to spot for years. By midmorning, they were heading to the onboard casino together; by late afternoon, they’d signed up for a ballroom dancing lesson. And I was left sitting on my deck chair, stewing in my fury, watching the waves pass me by.

  TRUTH BE TOLD, THIS is not the first time Yvonne and I have found ourselves in a situation like this. When I first met my late husband Stephen-I was twenty-one at the time, and Yvonne was twenty-he was already dating Yvonne. She and I were both working in our father’s bakery, which I thought was a pleasant enough thing to do while I was waiting to find a husband. But it wasn’t enough for Yvonne, and she’d started taking classes at a local college. She wanted to become a librarian-like you need to go to school to learn how to say “shhh.” Well, none of us knew anything about it till later, but apparently there was a young man who rode the bus at the same time as Yvonne, and the two of them used to look at each other over the tops of their books as they rode. And one or the other of them would smile a little, and then they’d get all embarrassed and look away. Quite a romance, wasn’t it, all that reading and looking away-Casablanca it was not. Finally, after a year of this-yes, it took a full year for one of those ninnies to make a move-the young man moved over to sit next to Yvonne and say hello. They became inseparable after that, riding the bus together and talking about books. The young man’s name was Stephen, and he was a poet. At least, that’s what he said; the truth was, he was an accountant with ambitions to be a poet.