Analog Science Fiction and Fact - 2014-04

by Penny Publications

  "If I could give you the kind of suggestion you're really looking for, I wouldn't be standing behind a bar."

  "I don't know. There are times when what you do has appeal. Less responsibility, some security, you immediately know if you're doing a good job or not."

  "We're not talking about me right now. Back to you: what keeps you going? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? Why do you go to work? Why did you start-five, was it?—businesses, rather than chucking it all and sitting in the park talking to squirrels?"

  "Faith in myself, I guess. The inner knowledge that I'm going to succeed."

  "Knowledge?"

  "If it were just a hope, I probably would have given up. There's some spark in me that tells me I'm going to succeed. I'm going to start a business that will grow, flourish, make people's lives better, and not coincidentally, make me wealthy and famous."

  "Now you're starting to sound a little more 'regular guy' to me. That 'wealth and fame' part, that's a bigger driver than you usually admit out loud, isn't it?"

  "Well, now that you mention it, yes, it is. But is there anything wrong with that?"

  "Nothing wrong with wanting to be famous. Tending bar these many years, it seems to me what's wrong is not admitting your own desires to yourself."

  "All right, I admit it: I want to be rich and famous. And I think the way to do it is to start a business that everyone wants to patronize, that people will admire."

  "Fair enough. Now, what if I could tell you, with absolute certainty, that you're going to die in two years. Would you do something different? Would you keep doing what you're doing? That's something I ask myself every couple of years. That question is why I left sales, and day trading, and truck driving. And it's why I've been standing behind this bar for a decade, serving drinks, talking with people, providing for my family."

  "That's a difficult question for an entrepreneur. The average start-up takes four years before we can tell if it's a success or a failure. If every entrepreneur had to work with a two-year horizon, no businesses could be started."

  "I wasn't asking that. If the death of one person dooms a company, doesn't that say the company isn't strong enough to survive very long anyway?"

  "That's a point."

  "That's what makes this a difficult question, and therefore, an important one. How many times did you, as a boss, deal with easy questions, and how often did you hire someone to handle them, so you could focus on the difficult ones?"

  "You're right. The difficult questions are the important ones."

  "So, back to my difficult question: you've got two years to live. Do you keep doing what you're doing? Or do you go off and do something else?"

  "Two years, huh?"

  "Two years. It's long enough that the proper answer can't be to drop everything and party, but not so long that you can ignore it."

  "I'm going to have to think on that. But I came in here to not think for this evening."

  "No, you didn't."

  "Contradicting me? That's not very bartenderish."

  "Sure it is. If you wanted to turn off your brain for the evening, you would have gone to the movies. But you came in here, where there's nothing to occupy your mind, because you wanted to think about things. I'm just helping you focus those thoughts."

  "All right. Give me another drink, and let me think."

  He places a full glass in front of me. "Group down the end needs another round. I'll be back."

  I hold my glass, not drinking, staring at the wonderful shapes and colors of the bottles behind the bar, just letting my vision drift until I'm not seeing much of anything.

  "I couldn't help overhearing," says a quiet voice beside me.

  I blink back into the here-now, and turn to look at... the most non-descript person I've ever seen. Well, that's not fair. He does look somewhat familiar, though I'm sure I can't place him. But there's something about him that just blends into the crowd, as if he's trying to not be noticed.

  "Sorry, I was zoning."

  "I said, 'I couldn't help overhearing you,'" he repeat-continues. "I understand your frustration. You feel like you're not getting anywhere, perhaps even backsliding, and there's no way to dig out from under it all, to get to the top of the heap."

  "Something like that," I say.

  "That bartender asked a good question, though: what if you had only a short time to live?"

  "That's what I was mulling over when you sat down."

  "So try talking it out. Short time to live, coming off a failed business—""

  I glare at him, but he waves it away.

  "You said so yourself. So what do you do now? Start the next, knowing you might not live to see it mature? Or get out of the entrepreneurship thing all together. Put on a suit and tie, print up a resume, and fall into an office job. You'd be able to draw a salary, do what you wanted on the weekends, feel the security of income and benefits."

  "Yes, but the appeal of that..."

  "Is limited. I know. Sitting at a desk, following someone else's nine-to-five, being just one among many, undistinguished, gray—""

  "You do understand." My brain clicks back into alert-mode.

  "And you know that would be kinder to your family, to your friends who worry about your future."

  "Yes, exactly. My security would ease their minds. But—"wait a minute. Do I know you?"

  "No. At least, not yet. But I'm someone who can guarantee your security."

  "What, are you offering me a desk job?"

  "No. I don't have one to offer. I have something better... and, potentially, worse."

  "Now you're talking in riddles, friend."

  "That bartender's hypothetical was closer to reality than he knew. I'm from the future... grandfather."

  I look more closely. I stare at him, hard. Yeah, maybe, kind of, maybe around the eyes, a little, he starts to look sort of familiar. No. No way. My grandson? "Grandfather? Is that a joke? I don't even have kids."

  "Yet." He stares back at me. "My grandmother is about six weeks pregnant with your son, right now."

  "We broke up a month ago."

  "I know. That's why my father never gets the chance to meet you."

  "All right. You've piqued my interest."

  "First, a philosophical question, grandfather. What would you risk for success?"

  "Nothing philosophical about it," I grump.

  "I've already done it, four, no, five times now. I risked just about everything. I've been sleeping on friends' couches when I wasn't living with my parents, working twenty-six hour days, as long as possible, to drive each company's success. And I've been strangling my own metaphorical children—those selfsame companies—when I realized it was time to let them go. I think my life has pretty much answered the question of what I would risk for success."

  "No, I'm talking bigger stakes."

  I'm starting to think he really could be related to me. "Like what?"

  "I came back to offer you comfort, love, happiness, a life of ease. You've earned it, grandfather. Five start-up and shut-down businesses. I know you've worried that it'll kill you before you find that success you've been trying for."

  "So what are you offering?"

  "Let me take you to the future with me. I have a very nice home and a happy life. You'd have security, comfort, no worries. You would be welcome, your great-grandchildren would love to meet you, and I'd like the chance to get to know you. Our medical knowledge would keep you healthy and comfortable for a long time to come."

  "And what is the price of this wonderful boon you're offering me?" I can see in his eyes that he knows more.

  "I overheard most of your conversation with the bartender."

  "You mean about my need for fame, public adulation, some kind of external recognition."

  "I had a hunch about that, even before I came here. And that's what you'd be giving up. I can keep you healthy and comfortable, and even, I think, happy, to a degree. But as an anachronism in my time, you wouldn't have any chance at achiev
ing the kind of fame you've been craving."

  "Then why are you here? What is this, some twisted Faust deal?"

  "No, no, nothing like that. I'm just trying to give you all the facts, before I explain why I think it would be a good choice for you."

  "You're saying giving up my soul to secure my body is a good choice?"

  "I think it would be. In the original time-line, your sixth attempt was a success. A massive success. Huge growth, international appeal, the company turned into a modern-day empire, and your name was known around the globe."

  "Now I'm confused."

  "That was your legacy, not your life. You... well, there's no good way to say this. You died late in the start-up phase."

  "How late?"

  "You launched the company, and started growing it, when you died suddenly, about two years after the start, and less than a month before the first big angel investor pumped in the money that drove, well, everything else. It's all your idea, and fully acknowledged. The company was renamed for you, and you found that fame beyond your wildest dreams. But you weren't around to enjoy it."

  I stare at him, my mind a whirl.

  "It did, however, provide a very comfortable life for my father, as it does for me and my children. But I never got to meet you. And my father wasn't told of his relationship to you until he was a teenager."

  "My sixth start-up, you say? My next corporate attempt?"

  "Yes."

  "So that means soon?"

  "Yes."

  "So you're here-""

  "You should have the long life you're destined for. You should enjoy your family and a life of ease, after all these years of hardship and toil and loneliness."

  I hug my grandson, this man who is, I realize, years older than I am.

  I put my still-untouched second drink on the bar, and the bartender comes back.

  "That's a lot of thought, if you haven't yet started this drink."

  "I realized I don't need a drink. I need to get a good night's sleep, because tomorrow morning I have to shut down my fifth business, and get started on my sixth."

  * * *

  Whaliens

  Lavie Tidhar | 4434 words

  Illustrated by Joshua Meehan

  1.

  "Greetings, gentlebeings!" said the alien ambassador.

  The president of the United States stood on the podium staring up into the sky. The sky was grey and woven with strands of autumn red and a strange, alien silver-grey. The huge shape of the alien ambassador hovered above the White House, easily the size of a nuclear submarine. The ambassador was a huge pulsating mass of grey matter, moving gracefully in the air as though it were swimming. It was supported by the aliens' advanced anti-grav devices.

  "As you know," the alien ambassador said, its booming voice breaking over the heads of the assembled masses, "we are a race of hyper-advanced space whales-"

  "Whaliens," the president's special advisor for extraterrestrial activities said sourly—

  "—and we have traveled many lightyears"—the whalien ambassador paused significantly— "many light-years," it said, "to come here, to Earth."

  Protesting Campbellians, across the road, were raising large banners proclaiming Humanity Uber Alles and Better Dead Than Red with the word red crossed over and the word Grey scribbled in instead.

  "We have been intercepting your television and radio signals for many years," the whalien ambassador said. Above him, high in the atmosphere, the bodies of other leviathan-like whales could be seen, swimming through high-altitude clouds. Above them all fell the shadow of the giant whalien ship, shaped like a gigantic round mushroom.

  "We are particularly interested," the whalien ambassador said, "in your dominant religion, based on the teachings of the Prophet Moroni." The ambassador paused as the president of the United States—who wasn't a Mormon, by chance—exchanged bewildered looks with his Special Advisor for Extraterrestrial Activities.

  "Bring him to us!"

  The voice boomed over Washington, shattering windows and making dogs howl at the sky. The president of the United States tapped nervously on the microphone. He leaned closer. "Bring who to you?" he said.

  "The Prophet Moroni!" the whalien said.

  The president's special advisor for extraterrestrial activities, who was Jewish and only two weeks in the job, leaned over and whispered in the president's ear. The president faced the microphone with a look of utter helplessness, like a man reading My Pet Goat to a group of preschoolers. "The Prophet Moroni is... unavailable for comment," he said.

  "Pardon me?" the whalien said.

  "Nope. Sorry."

  "Oh," the whalien said. "What about Mormon himself?"

  "Nope."

  "Joseph Smith, at least?"

  "Dead," the president said without thinking. Then, quickly backtracking, "I mean, he has risen to Heaven, Ambassador."

  "I... see."

  "You can talk to Orson Scott Card?" the president suggested hopefully.

  "Who?" the whalien said.

  There was one of those slightly uncomfortable silences.

  "Okay," the whalien ambassador said, after silently communicating with its peers by means of advanced telepathy. "Forget about the Mormons. What about Scientology?"

  [The following excerpt has been removed for legal issues.]

  "Fine!" the whalien ambassador bellowed, at last. "We have come all this way to learn from you, humans! Your religions, your deep faith! If we do not learn from you we will destroy you. You have one week to impress us." The whalien ambassador went silent, ominously.

  "Now, bring us a Jew!" he said.

  "A Jew?" the president of the United States said, shocked.

  "A Jew."

  The president of the United States turned to his special advisor for extraterrestrial activities. "Go on, then, Ari!" he said.

  "What?" Ari said, shaking his head rapidly from side to side. "No, no, no. I haven't even been to shul since my bar mitzvah!"

  "You have one week," the whalien ambassador said. Then it floated upward through the sky, away from the White House.

  "Ari!" said the president of the United States, with that panicky tone you get when you realize you'd left the chicken in the oven too long, or you were going to wash and realised you were out of clean underwear or, indeed, when you realised you had only a week to go before a bunch of hyper-advanced space whales were going to blow your planet up to bits.

  "What?" Ari said. "I wasn't even supposed to be here today!"

  "Then get me a proper Jew!" the president snapped.

  "What you need," Ari said, "is a rabbi."

  "Then find me a rabbi!"

  "I'll... speak to my cousin," Ari said.

  Above their heads, the whaliens drifted through the sky.

  2.

  "Greetings, gentlebeings!"

  Greg Feldman sat in front of his television, watching the news. His laptop was open on the worn sofa beside him. His two cats, Captain Kirk and Buffy, curled up beside him. His shelf full of trophies balanced precariously over the heater by the window. He had many awards: some shaped like rockets; some were plaques; and some were shaped like the head of a really ugly man. The rest of the apartment was practically bare. Greg's ex-wife, Hilda, had taken most of the furniture, along with what remained of Greg's self-esteem, when she left him, though not before calling him a "deadbeat," a "loser," a "sci-fi hack," and— what really stung—a "self-hating Jew."

  Now he sat there, full of self-loathing, watching the aliens on the television screen and thinking his career was ruined.

  He was a science fiction writer, darn it!

  He could get by on indifferent prose; paper-thin characterization; uncomfortably awkward sex scenes that often seemed to be written by a thirteen-year-old; he could eke out a miserable living on five cents a word.

  But one thing he could not do is continue writing about aliens when the gosh darned aliens were already here!

  "Gosh darned aliens," he said; but his heart wasn
't in it.

  He was ruined! Ruined! He picked up the phone and rang Phil Cusack.

  "Phil? It's Greg."

  A long wail came through the phone. "Ruined!" Phil Cusack—author of such timeless classics as They Came From Proxima Four, Bride Of the Mutants, and The Slitherer in the Dark —said.

  "What are we going to do?" Greg said.

  "It's each man for himself, Greg!" Phil said. He once won a Prometheus Award for being a libertarian. Greg wasn't sure what a libertarian was, exactly, but they sure sold a lot of books. "I'm heading for Appalachia. It's finally happened! Me and a bunch of the boys have a camp up in the mountains. We have books, tinned food, and semiautomatic weapons! We could hold out forever."

  "It's no good," Greg said. He was feeling even more depressed. Of course Phil had a plan. Phil always had a plan. There were rumors he had once been a member of a top-secret government think-tank that predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and helped design the Star Wars programme—not the movie, the space weaponry thing. He was getting old though. He didn't even use Facebook. "I can't go on," Greg said. "It's no use. My wife left me. My parents moved to Florida. Everyone is buying e-books and I don't even own a Kindle. What exactly is a Kindle?"

  "Isn't that a Russian gun?" Phil said.

  "Maybe," Greg said, dubiously.

  "Never trust a Russian," Phil said. "If you ask me this is all a Russian conspiracy."

  "The aliens?"

  "Kremlin-bred mutants!" Phil said.

  There was a ring at the door.

  "I have to go," Greg said. "There is a ring at the door."

  "Don't answer it!" Phil said. "It's too late. Social structures are crumbling. Anarchy is coming. Hold on, there's someone at the door."

  Greg hung up the phone. He was feeling depressed. Buffy butted her head against his arm as Captain Kirk gently farted in his sleep. At that moment Greg felt a great affection for his cats wash over him. Cats never let you down. Not like ex-wives, or science fiction, or aliens.

  The ringing at the door came again.

  "I'm coming already!" Greg grumbled. He got up, feeling lethargic. He wondered who it could be. He walked to the door.