Asimov's SF, October-November 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “How the hell should I know, Gordie?"

  Fatigue washed over him, his lack of sleep catching up in a slow wave. Of course Stango didn't know.

  “Her favorite color was black,” Gordie said through a throat that suddenly ached. Her touch was velvet. Her hair was black and coarse, and felt like a dry river when I cupped her head in my hands.

  Stango said nothing.

  “You didn't love her."

  “She didn't know how to code."

  Gordie thought to ask if she had loved him, but the answer was obvious. Yulani had never known how to love anyone.

  “You're right,” Gordie said. “I'm a fucking idiot."

  “She didn't understand us."

  There, Stango was wrong. Yulani had known Gordie better than he'd known himself. When it became obvious he wasn't going to reply, Stango cleared his throat.

  “You'd best be leaving."

  Gordie nodded, defeated in every way imaginable. He had no case for the inspector—no direct evidence, no clear-cut argument. Sure, he could add one and one, but DigiCorp wouldn't play on a level table. He saw that as clearly as he had seen the gleam of Darbringer's connections.

  “DigiCorp came to my place after you signed the papers,” he said. “I know too much. They won't stop until they kill me, will they?"

  Stango gave a plaintive shrug.

  Gordie walked to the doorway. He stopped and looked at Karish on the stairs.

  “I hope you have a house full of pseudo kids."

  He left then, his shoes echoing on concrete.

  * * * *

  She appeared suddenly, filling the doorway, leaning against the wall with a welcome-home smile on her lips. The program was nearly perfect, feeding neurological activity to Gordie's brain and letting it process things that weren't really there. They were good visuals—skin dark and creased with shallow lines around her lips, her eyes glistening. She straightened and walked toward him, her movement leaving not the faintest trace of a ghost. She reached out, her hand soft like cloth against his skin.

  Ones and zeros. That's all.

  A computer knows nothing but ones and zeros.

  Gordie grinned.

  His first full neurological pseudo had been good enough to pass police inspection. Of course, a decent body temperature and occasional lifting of the chest in simulated breathing was about all that really took. But Gordie had spent time to make it move just like him, made certain it spoke with the right lilt to its phrasing.

  The inspector hadn't cared one way or the other.

  So the pseudo went to jail, projecting itself remotely through built-in processors and an interface Gordie continuously monitored over the course of his arrest.

  DigiCorp was nothing if not predictable. Their virtch came the first night. It slipped through Gordie's interface, tripping the silent wire of code he had laid, bits passed to protocols, action routines passed from Gordie's host to his pseudo. As DigiCorp's virtch commanded Gordie's brain to tear itself a small hole, he piped the command stream to his pseudo. And the pseudo expired there in its cell, complete with the expellation of a pseudo pound of feces that Gordie thought was so much more than appropriate.

  The newsclip said Gordon Rath, thirty-five years old and a suspected killer of a young woman, died of a sudden aneurysm while asleep in his cell.

  Yulani sat next to him on the couch and ran her hand over his forehead. They were in a small, unassuming living room with off-white walls and a bay window in the middle of an average neighborhood of box houses and vinyl awnings. He had moved his money around well enough that no one should be able to find it. He would be comfortable.

  “What do you want to do?” Yulani said.

  Gordie sat back and closed his eyes. He ran his hand over Yulani's denim-clad thigh. It was warm and firm and rasped with just the right sound of dry friction. She would love him, this Yulani. That much was true.

  “I don't know,” he said. “Why don't you tell me about Croatia?"

  He listened as she began to speak.

  Copyright © 2006 Ron Collins

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  * * *

  FRANKENSTEIN VS. THE FLYING SQUIRRELS

  by David Livingstone Clink

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Yeah, I know,

  it should be Frankenstein's Monster vs.

  the Flying Squirrels.

  —

  Most people call the monster

  “Frankenstein,"

  but Frankenstein was the scientist

  who created the monster.

  —

  And what was the point, anyway?

  What chance did flying squirrels have

  —

  against Frankenstein, or his monster,

  even with the element of surprise?

  —David Livingstone Clink

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Copyright © 2006 David Livingstone Clink

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  * * *

  THE SEDUCER

  by Carol Emshwiller

  Carol Emshwiller tells us, “the novel that began with World of No Return (Asimov's SF, January 2006) is finished and will come out next year from Tachyon Publications. We have to change the name since, in the novel, they do return, but we haven't yet found one.” Soon after the novel, Tachyon will also bring out another collection of Carol's short stories. In her spooky new tale for Asimov's SF, the author takes a close look at the surprising elements that go into the psychological makeup of...

  I have always been a seducer ... ever since I was a little boy. I was an ugly child and have become an ugly grown-up. Seduction was my strategy from the start. Even an ugly baby can make himself the center of attention. Old ladies cooed at my smiles. I let them pat my head, pinch my cheeks.

  But perhaps it was my sister taught me seduction even more than the old ladies. She was six years older than I. I was her object of torture. I learned to keep out of her way as much as possible and I learned never to let my pain show. That just made her worse.

  But I must have looked sad even when I wasn't with her, because grandmothers always gave me nickels to cheer me up. I suppose I looked gloomy back then, because of having to smile all the time I was around my sister.

  The fact that I've grown up with a smoldering look helps with seductions. It scares women and entices them at the same time. I have a devilish grin but at rest I must still look sad. People are inclined to ask me what's wrong even when I might be contemplating the sunset or a dazzling night sky.

  Of course now, at my age, I have become, indeed, a melancholy man. It's not a matter of loved ones having died, I never had any loved ones in the first place. But just as, approaching thirty, I could see my life dwindling away and nothing happening; now, approaching fifty, I see a lonely end.

  My sister ... she looks just like me, poor thing, which must have made her angry at me from the start, or angry in general. On a man it's not so bad having a lumpy chin, deep-set eyes, and a forehead like a Neanderthal.

  Though there are times when I completely forget my looks. I think all I have to do is smile and my inner light will shine out. Actually, I don't suppose I have much inner light. I'm still as if in the clutches of my sister.

  Nowadays I make it a point to learn interesting facts as conversation pieces. And I lead an interesting life, but only in order to talk about it. Sometimes I lie. (Well, yes, I did go to war. Yes, I was a colonel. Yes, I spent a half year on the Isle of Capri.... A truth.) But it's best to stay mysterious. Best to have secret sorrows. Which I do have, considering my life.

  Every now and then I have a dog or a cat. Stroking something in front of the ladies is always a good idea.

  I take pride in being old fashioned: opening doors, kissing hands.... (That surprises them.) But I doubt if this particular woman will be taken in by any of that.

  She will be a challenge. More so than the usual. First, though I'm by no means a short man, she's j
ust as tall as I am. And she wears high heels. Then, though I'm in good shape still and look younger than I am, I'm not as young as I used to be, and she is young. Unlike most men, I liked women with a certain patina ... a little wear and tear about them, so this is different. And I never liked wide-faced blonds. It's the small dark ones that seemed sexy to me. Is it that seducing her looks so hard to do?

  I saw her first at a local market. I was immediately put off. Big, blond, striding around with an unnecessary bounce—in running shoes—her jewelry as lumpy and awkward as herself.

  My sister had good taste. What I know of taste I learned from her. I also learned something of lace bras and silky nightgowns. I even tried them on. Even then, I was a detective of women.

  My sister escaped the family as soon as she could. Disappeared at the age of twenty. I haven't seen her since. I imagine she's changed. You can't stay a torturer all your life.

  She told me lies and told lies about me. Tried to scare me (and did) with what was under the bed or in the closet. Shrieked into my ear when I least expected it. I was a nervous wreck. I spent my life hiding from her but she knew where to look. Tops of trees. And when I was up there she'd urge me to go yet higher. She knew I'd scare myself. (I was not ... am not a particularly brave man. But I was more afraid of her than of the height.)

  For years I looked under the bed before I got in it. Shadows still take scary shapes.

  There was only one hiding place she never found. From that spot near a register, I could hear everything. I could hear my sister being a “nice girl.” She had managed her life so that she seemed like the good child and I the bad one. When she did something bad she would blame me. It always worked. You'd think I'd have given up and become what she made me out to be, but I stayed a “good boy,” always hopeful that, one of these days, they'd see. You'd have thought I'd be the one to run away as soon as possible, but I stayed. And when my parents got sick, I cared for them. They died within a year of each other. They needed their disagreements. Their fights were more surly than violent. There was a lot of silence. After they got sick, they needed each other more than ever. She gave him his shots and he helped her to bed after her dizzy spells. I learned to do those things before I was fifteen, but they never learned to trust me. Their dying words were complaints of how I had never helped them.

  So there I was, twenty-four, my parents dead, and with a big house, plenty of money, and no life whatsoever. It took a while to get a life. Years. I lived there, even hiding in my old secret place though there was no one to hide from. I startled at every noise ... every shadow. (It was a old house, full of creaks and thumps. It didn't help that squirrels were in the walls.) I saw ghosts though I didn't believe in them. And all the ghosts were like my sister, undependable, pesky, cruel. I didn't dare move out of my tiny bedroom. I barricaded the door at night just as I had when my sister was around. I kept the lights on all the time.

  Finally I realized I was about to be—my God—thirty! (in those days I considered that old) and I had done nothing but roam my house and read the old books....

  I didn't need a specific revelation, just the number thirty was enough to scare me into action. But also I had found my father's secret collection of pornography. If I was to take part in any real sex at all, I would have to do something ... go somewhere before I got any older. I sold the house, antiques, books ... all. Bought myself good clothes, good luggage, gold cufflinks, a silver-handled umbrella, a homburg.... I grew a mustache. I was straight out of the illustrations in the old books. (I thought it was important to become mysterious. An ugly man should have mystery.) I traveled. I lived in hotels.

  I had always been timorous but I told myself, be bold. I told myself women are as eager to be seduced as we men are to seduce them. My life would no longer be only in books. In fact I would not read at all, except for new bestsellers as topics of conversation.

  It all worked out exactly as I wished. I strolled parks, museums, book stores, art stores, coffee shops.... Expensive places, though I wasn't after a rich woman, I simply wanted to lead the life I could afford.

  And I do know women. Back then, I had to keep my thoughts and actions on my sister every minute. I should be grateful. After all, my whole life was anticipating what her next move might be. It's from knowing her that I know women.

  * * * *

  And here we are, my big blond and I, sitting across from each other. It was easier than I thought, though why not? We're just out for coffee. Even an ugly man can make himself pleasing when he knows how as well as I do.

  She wears a ring, a chunk of amber with a fly in it. I'm thinking: She's all of a piece. I ask to see it so as to hold her hand—my thick fingers hold her square strong ones—longer than is necessary.

  I decide to kiss her hand. She won't be taken in by that except as a joke. It works. She laughs. After that she stays grinning—as if everything I do is funny. Even my name is funny. Merton Brockenhurst. (For once I didn't say I was Edmund Merton.) What's more she says so and crosses her eyes. And then she laughs at her own name. Now it's Lena Linder, changed from Lena Linderquister.

  But Lena. What a lowbrow name ... as though to put me off from the start. But everything about her did ... does ... and doesn't. (Would Lena know Schoenberg? Kandinsky? Ponge? Lispecter? I won't ask.)

  What have I got myself into? All my smoldering looks won't amount to anything with her. I change to raised eyebrows and I match her grin. I look silly but it's what she likes.

  What could we ever do together that would please us both? She'll want to walk everywhere. I want to sit and listen to music.

  Why in the world am I so attracted? I suspect it has to do with my sister since my whole life has had to do with her ... and yet this woman is the exact opposite.

  * * * *

  The next time I see her she's in a diner—the sort of place I'd never go too. I see her in the window and go in, ask if I can sit with her. She has one of those fancy mountain backpacks next to her. Definitely not a book bag. Strings and nets all over it for strapping things on.

  Right away she says, “After our cappuccinos last time, I thought this wasn't your kind of place."

  “It isn't."

  “You're going to hate the coffee. Actually, I do, too."

  “I know I will."

  “Have tea."

  She has a giant meal in front of her, mashed potatoes, peas, pot-roast.... Well, she is a big ... not fat at all but a big woman. She polishes it all off. I watch. I wonder at myself. She has a kind of muscular grace all her own. I can't stop looking at her.

  “You're a hiker."

  “I'm going running. I have my shoes in here."

  (She's wearing her heels. She'll tower over me.)

  “...but soon. I'm going camping. Upstate."

  “I'm not that kind of man."

  “Have you ever done it? How do you know?"

  Nothing but the truth for her so I say it. “I'm a fastidious man. You may have noticed."

  “Come with me."

  “Of course not. Besides, we hardly know each other."

  “I'm not going till warmer weather ... till next month. Come on."

  Can it be that she's as attracted to me as I to her? I'm naturally strong and stocky, I just grew that way, but I've never been athletic. She may think I'm an entirely different kind of man than I am.

  “You want to. I can see it in your eyes. Have you any clothes for such a thing?"

  “Of course not. I'll look ridiculous out in nature. Nothing about me is of nature, nor have I ever wanted anything to be."

  “Get in touch with your other side—your wild side."

  “I don't think I have a wild side."

  We laugh. But then she laughs at everything. To her, the whole world's a joke. I'm glad to be part of it.

  “I'll have a hard time."

  “I'll bet you won't."

  But if I'm to seduce ... (and I want to ... more than ever before ... perhaps because she's so different) ... I'll have to do th
ings her way. And haven't I always done that with all the others? That's what they like about me. I do what they want. I anticipate, I watch, I listen. I know their hearts’ desires.

  I'll do it. I'll go with her. I'll try to pass her test. It might make me all the more appealing if she sees how hard it is for me.

  I'm tired of the life I've chosen. I want to start over. What better way than as the consort of this Amazon girl?

  And I'd like to get in touch with some new part of myself—as she said my wild side—if I have any. I rather hope I do.

  “I need to start small. I don't even have a backpack."

  * * * *

  She's the leader in all this. What to get and where.

  When I visit her apartment it's just as I suspected, all rustic furniture. Nothing of any value. I wonder what she'd think if she had visited my old home full of antiques?

  I haven't touched her. Not even held her hand except that moment when I kissed it. I know better than to scare her. Besides, when a man is as ugly as I am, it takes time to love me. Yet I savor every minute of the suspense. I never did before—I was always in a hurry—but this is different.

  * * * *

  I'll have to get used to myself in these tan and brown clothes, and clunky boots. I'm pleased, though. I fit in to this role better than I thought. And I can see she likes how I look, too.

  * * * *

  We take the train north and after that a bus. Up to nowhere. Not real mountains, just the Catskills.

  We load up ... our tent, sleeping pads, dried food ... and begin, right from the bus stop.

  I'm looking forward to the nights in the tent, though the sleeping pads look hard and the weather report said cold, but all the better for cuddling up. In my mind I see her sleeping on top of me as warmer and softer than the ground. I won't touch her. Not yet. Though if she wants to.... And if there's a full moon, who knows what will happen. Except why bring me out here? Get me off alone? Why indeed? Except the outdoors life is what she loves and she likes me enough to want to share it.

  * * * *

  As we hike, she keeps looking back at me and smiling. Her happiness makes me happy. I'm glad I'm behind so I can watch. We're wearing shorts. Her legs are sturdy yet feminine. How did I come to admire such a tall and stocky ... such a strong woman? Now I can think of no one else.