IGMS Issue 31

by IGMS

  When adults asked you a question like that, it wasn't a real question. They laughed no matter what you said. But Anna didn't sound like an adult.

  "Yes," I said.

  "Good."

  I drove Jenny out to the park by the beach. It was closed after sundown, but you could always lift the barricade yourself. The parking lot was empty.

  When both of you had parents who stayed home in the evenings, you had to be creative about finding places.

  Afterwards we lay together on the picnic blanket, looking up at the stars slowly spinning overhead. The air was warm and the bug spray did its job of keeping the mosquitoes away.

  "That was pretty good," Anna said. "You did much better than with that sophomore."

  I swore.

  "What?" a startled Jenny asked, leaning up on her side to look at me.

  I had long since learned to be careful about revealing Anna to people. My parents had sent me to doctors who asked me strange questions and gave me pills until I learned to lie and told them that I was no longer hearing voices.

  But in the afterglow, I was feeling extra trusting of Jenny. "Do you ever hear voices?" I asked.

  "What if she says yes?" Anna asked. "Wouldn't it be fun if she has a boy in her head? We can go on double dates and have a foursome."

  I resisted the urge to hit myself on the back of the head -- I would have looked crazy and it wouldn't have worked anyway.

  "What do you mean?" Jenny asked, her tone leery.

  "Sometimes I hear this girl." I decided that Anna had annoyed me enough tonight that I wasn't going to hide her anymore.

  Jenny smiled. "Tell me about her." Her tone told me that she thought this was some weird attempt at sexy banter on my part.

  "She's quirky and very sure of her opinions," I said. "She never shuts up."

  "Ouch," Anna said. "That hurt."

  "Oh," I added, "She's always going on about how I have to be an astronaut."

  "When I found you, you were already working on a rocket," Anna said. "Don't blame me for your high-pressure dreams."

  "That is . . . quite a portrayal of your dream girl." Jenny laughed. Then her face turned quizzical. "I don't get it. You want me to tell you to be an astronaut?"

  "No, I'm telling you that she lives in my head."

  "Literally?"

  "Yes. I wish she would go away and leave me alone."

  For once, Anna said nothing.

  Jenny gazed intently at my face. "You're serious?"

  I nodded.

  "I don't think you want her to go away."

  I was surprised that she was so calm. Maybe she didn't believe me. "Why not?"

  "If she talks to you in your head, you must have spent more time with her than anyone else and she must know everything about you. If she hasn't left you yet, you must be best friends."

  I paused. Sometimes we're blind to the most obvious things.

  "No one else can cheer me up like she can," I said. "And she sings beautifully. This doesn't freak you out?"

  "When I was little, I heard a voice in my head, too," Jenny said. "I got embarrassed when I was older and told him to leave. I miss him."

  "Oh." I didn't know what else to say.

  "We had fun just now. But you know she'll always be there for you."

  I knew she was right.

  "For the record," Anna said, "I only came back because I don't like to let you have the last word."

  And the three of us sat under the stars and talked and laughed. I wanted the night to last forever, knowing it wouldn't.

  I've been chasing this bit of trash all day.

  It isn't too big, just a couple cubic meters. But it has a weird orbit and it takes me a while to shift into it. The computer guesses it's a piece of an old Russian satellite.

  I accelerate, the great blue-and-white-and-tan Earth spinning slowly under me. The target grows bigger in the lens.

  It's silvery and very bright, like a squashed football.

  Pincers reach out, capture it, and bring it inside.

  "You made it," she says.

  I haven't heard Anna's voice in a very long time.

  "We can't live in your gravity," she says. "So we stay up here and beam our voices down into the heads of humans that interest us."

  "Oh." I don't know what else to say.

  "When you got older, it was too hard to reach you. It was like your skull got too thick. How is Jenny, by the way?"

  "We got married," I say. "Then we fell out of love. We both knew you'd come back."

  "I'm here for you."

  The top of the silvery football spins slowly. I wait to see what will emerge.

  The Postman

  by Ken Liu

  Artwork by Dean Spencer

  * * *

  I caught up to the Mayflower, a tiny thing hanging by a thin thread onto a giant parachute made of solar sails, now slack and useless with its distance from the sun. It was coasting along on momentum, and it would still be centuries more before it reached the star it aimed for.

  Alas, even if it arrived, there would be no virgin soil to settle. We had long since filled that star system. The Mayflower was obsolete, a ship without a purpose.

  And it was my job to deliver the bad news. I was the postman.

  I maneuvered closer and latched onto the ship's habitat module with my six feet. The nanostructures along my soles meshed into the metal of the hull and held on, as securely as if I had been welded to it. Then I crawled along the surface until I came to an access panel, where I inserted my thin and flexible proboscis to interface with the ship's communications network so I could talk to its primitive computer.

  I could see through the lenses of the cameras inside the ship's halls and hear through the microphones embedded in its intercom panels.

  "Is there no other way then?" the young woman asked.

  "Do not ask questions to which you already know the answer," the old man said. "Your mother and I taught you better than that."

  Their speech sounded quaint, like the ancient dramas that we sometimes dug out of the archives from curiosity. But there was a gentleness in the old man's voice that intrigued me. I wanted to hear more.

  The young woman came and hugged him, and they stood still, holding onto each other tightly. When they pulled apart, I saw that tears were on both their faces.

  "Speak to the children before you go," the young woman said.

  The old man hesitated. "Do you think it's a good idea? Perhaps they're too young."

  "Do not ask questions to which you already know the answer," the young woman said. Her face was caught between smiling and crying. "You taught me better than that."

  I queried the computer. The old man was healthy. He should be able to live for many years yet.

  So I examined the ship's records. A while ago, the ship's fatigued hull had suffered a leak. Some air and water had escaped into space before the leak was patched.

  The Mayflower was designed within strict limits. Every gram of matter aboard had to be accounted for, to be useful. To support a certain population at any time, the ship needed a certain amount of air, water, supplies to recycle. The leak would doom them all.

  I marveled again at the contrast between the Mayflower and myself. It was impossible to imagine myself in such a predicament. With my composite alloy body, my graphene-etched brain, my anti-matter annihilation engine, I could make space my home for an eternity.

  How could creatures who would die within seconds of being exposed to space think that such a delicate bubble, balanced precariously on the brink of extinction, was a viable means to travel among the stars?

  "When the water in my body has joined the water that flows through this ship, when the atoms of my flesh have strengthened the balance of this closed system, do not mourn me, but remember."

  The roomful of children listened, quiet and solemn.

  "The old have always made sacrifices for the young. Someday, if the need arises, I'm certain you will do the same for your chil
dren and your children's children."

  I was not sure if the children really understood. I was not sure I understood.

  "The universe may be dark and cold," the old man said, "but in here there is warmth and hope and the faith in love that is eternal. Remember me, and we will celebrate together on the day our descendants once again walk upon a new world to proclaim the triumph of the human race."

  With that he turned and walked into the reclamation center.

  I have been hanging onto this ship for a long time. Generations.

  Sometimes I think about what it is like back on Earth, on the many planets and floating habitats where my brethren take care of the remnants of the human race, the docile, gentle creatures who accept everything from us and dream of nothing but their next meal.

  We were created by them, and we surpassed them. We inherited their world.

  The message I carry will inform the crew of the Mayflower that all their actions will have turned out to be meaningless, without purpose. They cannot match us in intelligence, in strength, in our capacity to dominate the forces of nature. They will have to live as our wards, like all the other humans.

  I am supposed to show them the beautiful habitats we have built for them, gilded cradles in which they will live out the rest of their lives and have no want, no lack, no unfulfilled physical needs. And I am supposed to ask them which of these golden cages -- coffins -- they'd prefer and transport them there.

  Then I remember the old man, and the way his voice was both gentle and strong. I think about all the other old ships out there like the Mayflower, still striving into the void. I am charged with delivering the same message to all of them.

  But I know better than to ask questions to which I already know the answer.

  And so I cling to the Mayflower, holding onto my message. I peer into the ship, at their ancient, barbaric splendor, marveling at their naked grace, which glows brightly against the dark emptiness of the universe.

  [Author's Note: This story is inspired by Karl Bunker's "Overtaken" in the September/October 2011 issue of F&SF.]

  Flying Children - Part 2

  by Orson Scott Card

  * * *

  [Continued from issue 30]

  4

  By the time Danny got to the farm in Yellow Springs, Marion had already suspended a rope over the central beam of the cowbarn. "Ladder work?" asked Danny.

  "I'm a cobblefriend," said Marion. "I can't fly, nor can my clants, such as they are."

  "Then why didn't you wait for me to make a gate and carry the rope up there?" asked Danny.

  "Hard for you to believe, I know, Danny, but before you ever came to this farm, I was able to wipe my butt all by myself."

  Danny grinned. "Are you suggesting that you want me to install a rectal gate? Outbound only, I promise."

  Marion made as if to smack Danny, though he never had and never would. But then he stopped. "Could you?" he asked. "Not rectal, but a gate that's attached to a person instead of to a place?"

  "When Hermia gets here," said Danny.

  "Hermia. Veevee. They'll only know what's in books."

  "And I only know what I've tried," said Danny. "All those years I tried to figure out how to lock gates and how to take them back inside myself, and I couldn't figure any of it out until I saw it done."

  "Somebody had to be the first gatemage," said Marion. "And from what Hermia says -- if you can trust a Greek --"

  "It's only a problem if they're bearing gifts," said Danny. "And she's Pelasgian."

  "From what she says you may be the most extravagantly gifted gatemage ever. So you're going to have to break new ground to reach your potential."

  "Parents always think they're children have more potential than they actually have," said Danny.

  "What about gatemage surgery?" asked Marion. "Those tracking devices inside Hermia -- can't you gate them out of her?"

  "I have a map in my head of all the gates I've made," said Danny. "But I can't map the inside of a person's body. Going through a gate heals people of any injuries or dysfunctions, but if I start making gates to remove bits of Hermia, it would only be by chance if I found the tracking devices her family installed in her."

  "At least now I understand why you want to gate up to the roofbeam to hang a rope -- it's something you know you can do."

  "Don't you mostly do things you know you can do?" asked Danny, a little resentful now.

  "Yes," said Marion. "Tell me. If you took one end of the rope down here, then gated to the roofbeam, would the rope just follow you and string out from here to there, or would it get cut off where the gate began?"

  "It would look cut off," said Danny. "But it would still be connected. It would go up to the mouth of the gate down here, and the very next inch of rope would then emerge from the gate up there."

  Marion shook his head. "Stonemages like me believe in solid connections. Not sudden leaps through spacetime."

  "Where's Mom?" asked Danny.

  "Out scouting for anybody's clant or heartbeast. You're making a Great Gate again, which is exactly what all the Families want, not to mention rogue Orphans we might not even know about."

  "I can't believe that passing through a Great Gate allowed her to sense anybody's outself within a couple of miles," said Danny.

  "And I can feel all the disturbances in the rock, not to mention the flow patterns, for a hundred miles in every direction. There's a reason why people had to go through Great Gates before the drowthers deigned to call them gods."

  "So that's what you and Mom are now?" asked Danny. "Gods?"

  "If I had already been a stonefather, and then went through a Great Gate, then yes, I think I could put on a show that would make drowthers feel a strong desire to let me have my way. But as a cobblefriend? Let's just say that my affinity is much more useful. I have more to give the stone, and so the stone replies with greater strength. That's all."

  Danny stood there, looking at the ground, thinking of how Marion had opened up the earth near Perry McCluer High School and swallowed a pickup truck. Thinking: What will I be able to do, after I go through a Great Gate? And Veevee and Hermia? What does it do to a gatemage?

  Wasn't that what they were making this Great Gate to find out? With no Gate Thief left to threaten him, and with Marion and Leslie primed to keep all danger at bay, Danny could experiment a little. He could stay a minute or two on Westil. Not very long -- not long enough to be in danger. But long enough to see the place where Marion and Leslie had lingered for only a fraction of a second. "We blinked and then came back," Marion explained at the time. "It was daylight and there were rocks and grass, that's all I know."

  "And he only knows about the grass because I told him," Leslie had said. "Stonemages don't care about grass, but cowsisters have a real eye for it."

  Danny put a little weight on the rope that Marion had suspended. He was so hungry to make a Great Gate that he almost couldn't wait until the others arrived.

  No, that wasn't true. Danny wasn't hungry for it. What he was feeling as a powerful yearning was coming from many of the outselves trapped inside him. The Gate Thief's old prisoners, not the Gate Thief himself -- his gates were all about blocking Great Gates, stealing them, not using them, and certainly not building them.

  Could Danny use some of the captive outselves in making a Great Gate, as if they were his own? Hermia had told him that in the old days, mere pathbrothers would sometimes contribute to a gatefather their three or four or dozen gates to help reach the critical mass to make a Great Gate. Could he use these captive gates the same way?

  Danny tried to use one on an ordinary gate. That is, he did the inward thing that felt like gatemaking, only tried to access one of the captives to do it. The result was almost a physical pain, the rebuff was so sharp and strong.

  No!

  It felt like a shout from somewhere deep inside him. Not the word no, but the meaning of it, the idea of utter rejection.

  It made sense. Danny could not force ano
ther mage's gate. In Hermia's account, the pathbrothers would donate their gates willingly. These gates had all been stolen, from gatemages who most assuredly would not want their captor using their long-lost outselves to make his gates.

  It would have been interesting to see the result of a Great Gate made out of so many different mages' gates at once. But if they wouldn't let him, the question was moot.

  It made sense. If gatefathers could make use of stolen gates, then they'd have done it all the time. The Gate Thief wasn't taking gates in order to use them, he was taking them in order to prevent their being used.

  And again he wondered why. Something about the semitic gods. Something about Bel, the ancient Carthaginian deity.

  I won a battle when I beat the Gate Thief, but I didn't even know what war I was fighting in. For all I know I just intervened in the American Revolution on the side of the British. I have no idea who the good guys are. There are so many enemies; but what if my enemies are right to want to destroy me? What if my defeating the Gate Thief was the worst thing that ever happened in history?

  "Stop brooding, Danny, it makes your mouth turn sour," said Veevee.

  So she had taken the gate from Naples, Florida. She was almost quivering with excitement. This Great Gate was more for her than anyone. After all her years of not knowing whether she was a gatemage or not, her complete vindication upon finding Danny's gates and realizing she could unlock them had been the greatest joy of her life. But then came the frustration of not being able to do anything but unlock gates -- that and teach Danny all the gatelore she had learned in a lifetime of study.

  Now she had hope, however meager, that by passing through a Great Gate she might have her power augmented in some interesting way. It was all she had talked about, whenever there was nothing else to talk about, so that Danny knew that it was where her thoughts always turned in moments of idleness. She hadn't nagged him, but he felt the pressure of her yearning all the same.