Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #221

by TTA Press Authors

  After that they gave Father the quiet time he needed, and he inspected every detail of the house, squinting at the colors of paint on the walls, running his fingertips over the weave in the cloth backs of chairs, working the doors until they made just the squeak he recalled, and tilting his head to watch the shadows that his birch trees cast through the broad windows across the kitchen floor. It was a very nice house, and Father loved it.

  Julia came up silently behind him. When he noticed her, he smiled and asked, “How'd I do, kiddo?” He always asked that when he returned.

  "Pretty good, I guess,” which was what she always said. “Except for the pears."

  "What pears?” His smile was gone.

  "I was taking a pear from your basket, but then all it had were plum grapes. It's how I knew."

  "Well,” he said. “Let's hope that was the only thing."

  "I'm sure it was.” She believed in Father, and it was important he knew it.

  He lifted her onto his lap and said, “Tell me everything you did while I was gone."

  This was also part of their ritual, so she recounted everything she could remember, to help him envision what she had thought and felt during his absence: the picnic she and Elleen had made (what they laughed about and what they ate, and the crumbs they had thrown the ants as an offering so that they'd leave them in peace); and the warm praise her math teacher had given her in front of the class; and which of her friends were not always as kind as they pretended to be to her face. Finally, she told Father about the science fair, and how her partner had gotten the flu at the last minute so she stayed up all night and did the whole project herself, and won first place.

  When she finished, he said, “No secrets?"

  "No secrets,” she promised, and she smiled, even though the pit of her stomach roiled a bit. If she held anything back, it was because she wasn't such a little girl any more, and she knew some things were meant to be all her own.

  "I'm so proud of you,” he said, and squeezed her. “You're achieving so much, and you're at the best age now, and I'd keep you just like this forever if I could. You'll start high school soon, and high school girls think about silly things like boys and clothes. Keep your mind on math and science, the way I did, and there'll be nothing you can't do."

  Elleen heard their voices and came running to them. She held her wrist against Julia's, and their bracelets twined together, looping both their arms in a shimmering figure-eight. The loop stretched but made no resistance when Julia pulled on it, and then without transition was two separate bands again. Julia laughed, and then Elleen did too, because Elleen's jewel was around Julia's wrist, and Julia's was around Elleen's.

  "Mine's the red!” Elleen insisted. So they touched and pulled apart again, and now the red was on Elleen, and the purple was back on Julia.

  "I bet you can sell these anywhere,” Julia told Father.

  "Even Earth!” said Elleen.

  "No, you silly,” Julia said. “Of course not Earth. Father tells us all the time that he can't go to Earth."

  "That's true, honey,” Father said more gently. “Thought-ships aren't allowed there."

  No one even knew how far away Earth was. The only way to reach it was with a thought-ship, but they were outlawed in the core systems. A thought-ship could take you anywhere, in no time at all. They worked by stepping outside reality into a place that was nowhere, surrounded by nothing. Then they jumped back into the real world—or perhaps summoned the world back into being. Only a skilled pilot like Father, his mind linked tightly to all the systems of his vessel, could guide his ship and the universe to meet at the right point. Good pilots were rare and very valuable, and they could have the best of everything.

  "The people in the core systems are afraid, aren't they?” Julia said.

  "Well, those places are very crowded and rich, so they don't think it's worth the risk,” Father explained. “They didn't like thinking that a ship could jump into the wrong place ... or maybe make changes as it came in."

  Elleen listened without comprehending, but Julia asked, “How come you always come back just right?"

  Father hugged them both and said, “Because of you!"

  "Us?"

  "Because I love you so much. You two, and your mother. When my ship jumps out of the world, and I'm alone and adrift in all that blankness, I have to build my destination in my mind, and when I put enough details in, just like that, we're back. No one really understands it. Like when you stand at the edge of the pool, and you tip over a little bit, a little bit more, and the next thing you know you've fallen over into the water? That's how it feels when I come home."

  "Only you're not swimming, you're flying,” said Elleen.

  He nodded. “Every pilot needs to have people and things waiting for him at the other side. It's a regulation. You are the touchstones I use to establish my reality. Once I get those parts right, the rest of it falls into perfect order."

  "Mostly perfect order,” teased Julia, remembering the pears.

  "Mostly perfect,” Father conceded gravely. “But the colonies don't mind so much, because we need the resources and the trade the thought-ships bring. And as long as I can come back to the people I love, I don't mind either."

  "So when your ship returns—” Julia strove to fit words to the concept “—is it like when you dive into the pool and make ripples? Or does it re-create the world around you?"

  Father beamed at her with real pride. “That doesn't matter, as long as you're just how I remember you."

  Julia wore Father's gift until after dinner. Then she ran into her bedroom, and from the back of the closet slid out her box of treasures, where she hid the things she needed to protect from Elleen or which were too special to share with anyone. She wrapped the jewel carefully in tissue paper and tucked it inside. Just before she replaced the lid she noticed a flash of color at the bottom and tugged it out—it was a fancy purple dress like someone would wear to a high school dance.

  Julia was nonplussed; the dress was too frilly for her, and obviously cut for an older girl. She wondered if maybe Father had gotten confused and this was a gift he had intended for his other family waiting for him on Arkilla. Then she noticed that the ruffle at the hem had been pulled away, as if by the misstep of a clumsy dance partner. Perhaps it was hers, and for some reason she had neglected to tell him about it. But she couldn't imagine why she would leave out a thing like that.

  Then she thought about how much she loved him and how important it was that they all be happy, and she ran out to the living room where everyone was sitting together.

  Copyright © 2009 Paul M. Berger

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  BLACK SWAN—Bruce Sterling

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  * * * *

  Illustrated by Paul Drummond

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  An interview with Bruce Sterling follows the story in our Book Zone feature

  * * * *

  The ethical journalist protects a confidential source. So I protected ‘Massimo Montaldo', although I knew that wasn't his name.

  * * * *

  Massimo shambled through the tall glass doors, dropped his valise with a thump, and sat across the table. We were meeting where we always met: inside the Caffe Elena, a dark and cozy spot that fronts on the biggest plaza in Europe.

  The Elena has two rooms as narrow and dignified as mahogany coffins, with lofty red ceilings. The little place has seen its share of stricken wanderers. Massimo never confided his personal troubles to me, but they were obvious, as if he'd smuggled monkeys into the cafe and hidden them under his clothes.

  Like every other hacker in the world, Massimo Montaldo was bright. Being Italian, he struggled to look suave. Massimo wore stain-proof, wrinkle-proof travel gear: a black merino wool jacket, an American black denim shirt, and black cargo pants. Massimo also sported black athletic trainers, not any brand I could recognize, with eerie bubble-filled soles.

  These skeletal shoes of his were half-ruined. They w
ere strapped together with rawhide boot-laces.

  To judge by his Swiss-Italian accent, Massimo had spent a lot of time in Geneva. Four times he'd leaked chip secrets to me—crisp engineering graphics, apparently snipped right out of Swiss patent applications. However, the various bureaus in Geneva had no records of these patents. They had no records of any ‘Massimo Montaldo', either.

  Each time I'd made use of Massimo's indiscretions, the traffic to my weblog had doubled.

  I knew that Massimo's commercial sponsor, or more likely his spymaster, was using me to manipulate the industry I covered. Big bets were going down in the markets somewhere. Somebody was cashing in like a bandit.

  That profiteer wasn't me, and I had to doubt that it was him. I never financially speculate in the companies I cover as a journalist, because that is the road to hell. As for young Massimo, his road to hell was already well-trampled.

  Massimo twirled the frail stem of his glass of Barolo. His shoes were wrecked, his hair was unwashed, and he looked like he'd shaved in an airplane toilet. He handled the best wine in Europe like a scorpion poised to sting his liver. Then he gulped it down.

  Unasked, the waiter poured him another. They know me at the Elena.

  Massimo and I had a certain understanding. As we chatted about Italian tech companies—he knew them from Alessi to Zanotti—I discreetly passed him useful favors. A cellphone chip—bought in another man's name. A plastic hotel pass key for a local hotel room, rented by a third party. Massimo could use these without ever showing a passport or any identification.

  There were eight ‘Massimo Montaldos’ on Google and none of them were him. Massimo flew in from places unknown, he laid his eggs of golden information, then he paddled off into dark waters. I was protecting him by giving him those favors. Surely there were other people very curious about him, besides myself.

  The second glass of Barolo eased that ugly crease in his brow. He rubbed his beak of a nose, and smoothed his unruly black hair, and leaned onto the thick stone table with both of his black woolen elbows.

  "Luca, I brought something special for you this time. Are you ready for that? Something you can't even imagine."

  "I suppose,” I said.

  Massimo reached into his battered leather valise and brought out a no-name PC laptop. This much-worn machine, its corners bumped with use and its keyboard dingy, had one of those thick super-batteries clamped onto its base. All that extra power must have tripled the computer's weight. Small wonder that Massimo never carried spare shoes.

  He busied himself with his grimy screen, fixated by his private world there.

  The Elena is not a celebrity bar, which is why celebrities like it. A blonde television presenter swayed into the place. Massimo, who was now deep into his third glass, whipped his intense gaze from his laptop screen. He closely studied her curves, which were upholstered in Gucci.

  An Italian television presenter bears the relationship to news that American fast food bears to food. So I couldn't feel sorry for her—yet I didn't like the way he sized her up. Genius gears were turning visibly in Massimo's brilliant geek head. That woman had all the raw, compelling appeal to him of some difficult math problem.

  Left alone with her, he would chew on that problem until something clicked loose and fell into his hands, and, to do her credit, she could feel that. She opened her dainty crocodile purse and slipped on a big pair of sunglasses.

  "Signor Montaldo,” I said.

  He was rapt.

  "Massimo?"

  This woke him from his lustful reverie. He twisted the computer and exhibited his screen to me.

  I don't design chips, but I've seen the programs used for that purpose. Back in the 1980s, there were thirty different chip-design programs. Nowadays there are only three survivors. None of them are nativized in the Italian language, because every chip geek in the world speaks English.

  This program was in Italian. It looked elegant. It looked like a very stylish way to design computer chips. Computer chip engineers are not stylish people. Not in this world, anyway.

  Massimo tapped at his weird screen with a gnawed fingernail. “This is just a cheap, 24-k embed. But do you see these?"

  "Yes I do. What are they?"

  "These are memristors."

  In heartfelt alarm, I stared around the cafe, but nobody in the Elena knew or cared in the least about Massimo's stunning revelation. He could have thrown memristors onto their tables in heaps. They'd never realize that he was tossing them the keys to riches.

  I could explain now, in gruelling detail, exactly what memristors are, and how different they are from any standard electronic component. Suffice to understand that, in electronic engineering, memristors did not exist. Not at all. They were technically possible—we'd known that for thirty years, since the 1980s—but nobody had ever manufactured one.

  A chip with memristors was like a racetrack where the jockeys rode unicorns.

  I sipped the Barolo so I could find my voice again. “You brought me schematics for memristors? What happened, did your UFO crash?"

  "That's very witty, Luca."

  "You can't hand me something like that! What on Earth do you expect me to do with that?"

  "I am not giving these memristor plans to you. I have decided to give them to Olivetti. I will tell you what to do: you make one confidential call to your good friend, the Olivetti Chief Technical Officer. You tell him to look hard in his junk folder where he keeps the spam with no return address. Interesting things will happen, then. He'll be grateful to you."

  "Olivetti is a fine company,” I said. “But they're not the outfit to handle a monster like that. A memristor is strictly for the big boys—Intel, Samsung, Fujitsu."

  Massimo laced his hands together on the table—he might have been at prayer—and stared at me with weary sarcasm. “Luca,” he said, “don't you ever get tired of seeing Italian genius repressed?"

  The Italian chip business is rather modest. It can't always make its ends meet. I spent fifteen years covering chip tech in Route 128 in Boston. When the almighty dollar ruled the tech world, I was glad that I'd made those connections.

  But times do change. Nations change, industries change. Industries change the times.

  Massimo had just shown me something that changes industries. A disruptive innovation. A breaker of the rules.

  "This matter is serious,” I said. “Yes, Olivetti's people do read my weblog—they even comment there. But that doesn't mean that I can leak some breakthrough that deserves a Nobel Prize. Olivetti would want to know, they would have to know, the source of that."

  He shook his head. “They don't want to know, and neither do you."

  "Oh yes, I most definitely do want to know."

  "No, you don't. Trust me."

  "Massimo, I'm a journalist. That means that I always want to know, and I never trust anybody."

  He slapped the table. “Maybe you were a ‘journalist’ when they still printed paper ‘journals'. But your dot-com journals are all dead. Nowadays you're a blogger. You're an influence peddler and you spread rumors for a living.” Massimo shrugged, because he didn't think he was insulting me. “So: shut up! Just do what you always do! That's all I'm asking."

  That might be all that he was asking, but my whole business was in asking. “Who created that chip?” I asked him. “I know it wasn't you. You know a lot about tech investment, but you're not Leonardo da Vinci."

  "No, I'm not Leonardo.” He emptied his glass.

  "Look, I know that you're not even ‘Massimo Montaldo'—whoever that is. I'll do a lot to get news out on my blog. But I'm not going to act as your cut-out in a scheme like this! That's totally unethical! Where did you steal that chip? Who made it? What are they, Chinese super-engineers in some bunker under Beijing?"

  Massimo was struggling not to laugh at me. “I can't reveal that. Could we have another round? Maybe a sandwich? I need a nice toasty pancetta."

  I got the waiter's attention. I noted that the TV star's boy
friend had shown up. Her boyfriend was not her husband. Unfortunately, I was not in the celebrity tabloid business. It wasn't the first time I'd missed a good bet by consorting with computer geeks.

  "So you're an industrial spy,” I told him. “And you must be Italian to boot, because you're always such a patriot about it. Okay: so you stole those plans somewhere. I won't ask you how or why. But let me give you some good advice: no sane man would leak that to Olivetti. Olivetti's a consumer outfit. They make pretty toys for cute secretaries. A memristor chip is dynamite."

  Massimo was staring raptly at the TV blonde as he awaited his sandwich.

  "Massimo, pay attention. If you leak something that advanced, that radical ... a chip like that could change the world's military balance of power. Never mind Olivetti. Big American spy agencies with three letters in their names will come calling."

  Massimo scratched his dirty scalp and rolled his eyes in derision. “Are you so terrorized by the CIA? They don't read your sorry little one-man tech blog."

  This crass remark irritated me keenly. “Listen to me, boy genius: do you know what the CIA does here in Italy? We're their ‘rendition’ playground. People vanish off the streets."

  "Anybody can ‘vanish off the streets'. I do that all the time."

  I took out my Moleskin notebook and my shiny Rotring technical pen. I placed them both on the Elena's neat little marble table. Then I slipped them both back inside my jacket. “Massimo, I'm trying hard to be sensible about this. Your snotty attitude is not helping your case with me."

  With an effort, my source composed himself. “It's all very simple,” he lied. “I've been here a while, and now I'm tired of this place. So I'm leaving. I want to hand the future of electronics to an Italian company. With no questions asked and no strings attached. You won't help me do that simple thing?"

  "No, of course I won't! Not under conditions like these. I don't know where you got that data, what, how, when, whom, or why ... I don't even know who you are! Do I look like that kind of idiot? Unless you tell me your story, I can't trust you."

  He made that evil gesture: I had no balls. Twenty years ago—well, twenty-five—and we would have stepped outside the bar. Of course I was angry with him—but I also knew he was about to crack. My source was drunk and he was clearly in trouble. He didn't need a fist-fight with a journalist. He needed confession.