And this? This is what kills me. They are getting off on this.
If I wasn't safe behind this bush, I'd be dead by now.
Then I wish I was. Up front, pretend Blanca hisses in this insidious voice amped so it probably carries all the way down to the cabin where I believed they actually thought I was sleeping, “Well, Chazz, how does this make you feel?"
I can hear everybody in the hidden bleachers breathing in.
Every shred in me is shrinking, like I can fit my whole humiliated self back inside my testicles and roll away. Fat chance. The spotlight nails me right in the bushes and at that exact same moment, two camp staffers grab me from behind. Polly, the psychiatric axe murderer hits the path waving her hand mike, bringing me on like a gameshow host: “Chazz Ferguson, come on down!"
No way. I struggle but the light follows as the shrinks drag me toward the stage and if it wasn't for Bradley Simpson's fist bump as they haul me past where he is sitting, I would despair. Then I'm up, somewhere between Mom and Dad. Beyond the light that blinds me, the night is like a pit and as I whirl to escape the light I blink. At my back there are patches of red flashing behind trembling leaves.
The gray shirts make me face front. The head shrink pushes me to my knees. “Begin, Chazz."
The silence is awful. Everybody present is holding their breath.
"I said, begin!” I can't bear it much longer. Neither can she. “Now, Chazz. We want to feel your pain."
What I feel is the breeze stirring the bushes behind the platform, where unbeknownst to the audience those creepy, voracious rows of hidden shrinks are, like, licking their chops and going, in this low drone that cuts into me and splinters my backbone, shivering every nerve along the way, “We need to feel your pain."
* * * *
You've gotta hand it to Bradley Simpson, my new best friend. Who else would have thought of yanking the cable that killed the lights? Who knew where it was? I was exposed and blinded up there in the spotlight until he did it.
We are all equals now. Everything is darkness and yelling, with Dad falling over Mom and rolling in the dark and the shrink getting kicked off the platform accidentally—yay me, yay Maglite; she made a funny sound when she hit but nobody noticed because everybody was lunging here, there, as near to panic as it gets.
Everybody but Bradley Simpson, who moves really fast for a squashy guy that got too big for his clothes. “It's me,” he says, but I know before he tells me, as he closes those fat fingers on my arms like an old friend. “We have to go!"
While from wherever she's lying the shrink is going, “Wait, Chazz, wait for the light,” in that weedy, penetrating voice. “Stay where you are, and let the people feel your pain” and behind me the drone from the hidden bleachers escalates like an order, “We need to feel your pain,” when I am beginning to get that they want to eat my pain.
It is a definite fuck that shit moment, but instead of letting the bitch have it, I let Bradley Simpson help me down off the platform and lead me away in the dark. We are silent as creeping ninjas, while behind us, I hear Mom and Dad going, “I told you it was a bad idea, Jane,” and, “My bad, sweetheart, but if this works out and they let him stay here, we solve our problem for once and all!"
I am too scared and distracted to parse this because behind us, camp personnel are marshaling to, I guess, give chase, although they try to make it sound like wheedling, “Stand down, Chazz Ferguson, we're here to help you” and “Sing out, we want to help you,” and, “Where are you, Charlie, baby. Chazz? Signify."
"This way.” Bradley drags me off the path and pushes me down. We lie there trying not to breathe as the mob trots down the trail and feet go thudding by, shrinks and campers and coming up last, oh God, I recognize their ankles, my mother, followed by Dad. For a long time we hear them crunching through the underbrush; we pick up the beams of flashlights going wild, the aftermath of the sweep going on below. We hear yelling, we hear threats and promises until finally they are out of sight and out of hearing, sweeping the lodge and turning out the cabins, I suppose. Then my awesome new friend Bradley goes, “There's always another way out. Let's go."
When it's safe to breathe I ask Bradley, “How did you know?
"I didn't,” he says, “but shrinks are all about escape routes, right?"
"What do they want with us?"
The way he says it makes me shudder. “You don't want to know."
We slide down the raw backside of the hill without stopping, crashing into bushes and hurting ourselves on rocks along the way. We run into trees and double back where we have to, until finally we hit the bottom and the woods end. We come out in a place where we don't see or hear the others any more. It's a deserted beach. We drop on an empty strip of sand and lie there panting, and for the moment, at least, I think we're safe.
When I can speak I say to Bradley, “You were nice to do this."
He says, like we are kids together, “Dude, it's no big."
"You didn't have to."
"Yeah, I did. You helped when I was down."
"It was nothing."
"Like nothing it was nothing. You listened. You got me lunch. Are you okay?"
"Sure,” I tell him, “I'm always okay,” but when I try to sit up I get all weird and shaky, like my insides are all red and rough, like Dad's. “What was that back there?"
"Psychodrama,” Bradley says.
"I saw hidden bleachers."
"Observation platform.” He snaps forward to ask, “You don't know what's really going on?"
Even though it's too dark for him to see, I shake my head.
Never mind. Bradley gets it. He always gets it. “They eat this stuff up."
"Who does?” I know the answer but I need to hear him say it.
"The shrinks. They feed on it. Literally.” My friend Bradley is too upset to follow up. After a long time he says, “Your parents didn't tell you, did they."
This is so definitely not a question that I say, “You saw them. They don't tell me shit."
It's so quiet that I think I can hear their voices rising from somewhere a long way off. You bet they're after us. Sooner or later they'll give up on the cabins and start sweeping the island. Unless we can figure out how to dig our way to China, it looks like no escape. I am trying to resign myself to the whole nine yards here, writing speeches to give on the big stage at tomorrow night's Late Show, figuring out whether Mom will actually expect me to apologize.
I say what you say, when you have to get through a bad thing without dying of it. “It's okay. It's only two weeks."
"Then they really didn't tell you,” Bradley says.
But I'm trying not to hear. “Hell, I can stand on my head for two weeks."
"Not for you.” This is how Bradley brings me down. “It was never just two weeks."
"What..."
"Two weeks from now everybody goes home. Except us."
"No way!"
"I told you. The shrinks get off on this. They keep people families wan to get rid of."
"Oh crap. Ohhhh, crap!"
"They call it directed rehabilitation. It doesn't matter what they call it, we stay,” Bradley says, and that's all he says, except, “And the family gets rid of us, and the shrinks..."
"Oh, shit. And when they're done?"
"You ever heard of lemmings?"
This is too scary to think about. “They what?"
"You got it. Into the lake."
I do not say the obvious. I don't need to. My best friend that I never had before today is on his hands and knees now, digging up the beach like a dog going after a bone, clawing up gobs of sand and seaweed in those big, flat hands and throwing them behind him and digging up more like there really is China under there and it's only a matter of time.
Without knowing where this will end, I fall to and start digging too; what does he have buried here, food?
A bazooka that when they come out of the bushes or pounding along the sand and swoop down on us, shrinks, his wife, whoever
, he'll blow them all away?
Whatever it is, I'm in. I'll go with it, right up to but not including wasting Mom and Dad. The folks may not like me, but they can't help it, and I can't say whose fault it is that I'm a pain and they are this desperate. Whatever it is, it won't be an issue any more.
As soon as I get back to the house I'm cleaning out their earthquake emergency box that they don't think I know about, and getting Blanca. We'll start the backup car and drive to Albuquerque or someplace and she can take care of the apartment while I go to public school. We can make it on income from their slush fund, which I happen to know how to invest, another of those things they didn't want me learning about online. We'll be able to live our own lives someplace sunny, and Blanca's cool. Unlike the parents, I'll give her weekends, and she can take the car.
This is not as crazy as it sounds. By the time the thundering hordes come to this spot on the beach, the lakefront tide will have wiped away the hole we made, where Bradley pulled out the inflatable raft and the air pump that popped it into shape, after which he buried the pump so they wouldn't know. The raft is gonna be a tight fit but we'll make it, Bradley and me. He apologizes for us having to leave on short notice, as there wasn't time to steal food, but this is a crisis situation, so what are you gonna do? I'm not complaining.
Whatever's going on back there is worse than maybe starving for as long as it takes before we find land, and hey, Bradley's a certified grownup with a credit rating and all that this implies. Once we get to civilization, he has the power to rent and drive the getaway car, and from there? Does it matter, as long as we get away?
We don't talk. We don't need to. We wade out with the raft and when we get beyond the rocks I boost Bradley over the edge, helping him get on board, which, given how squashy he is, takes longer than it should. As soon as he can sit up without swamping the thing, he gives me a hand and I hop in. Then he picks up a paddle and I take the other paddle and I guess you would have to say we set sail.
By the time they hit the beach and the sounds of clamor and wild shouting come floating over the lake, we're so far out that they'll never know we were even there. Bradley and I are heading out, keeping our heads down, leaving behind the island and Camp Nowhere, with all the grief that this implies.
We don't have a plan, really, but right now we don't need one. It's enough to know that we've escaped.
Copyright © 2009 Kit Reed
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Poetry: FOR SALE: ONE MOONBASE, NEVER USED by Esther M. Friesner
No FPL, 3 vhcl GRG, far from schools & churches,
This mint-condition property commands
spectacular views
And is suitable as an unprepossessing starter home
—a first foothold, if you will—
for those discerning souls who know
that the reach of horizons are never circumscribed
with red ink.
These walls, these doors, this deep foundation
might as well be built on springboards to the next star
and the next
and more.
The interior design scheme's not for everyone.
You might find it to be too retro
—pun intended, embedded and embraced—
for mundane tastes.
Or perhaps you'll think it's all too daring,
too much of an assault of failed aspirations
for eyes that now take comfort in looking down and in and the other way,
for those who insist that hearts never could have been as bold
as those that gave us this,
our heritage and our reproof.
But if you've had enough of eating dust,
if you can see a slash of starlight through the clouds and whisper, “Home,"
if you pay mortgages with dreams and tears and gleaming wings and fire—
Well, then.
One quaint and charming neo-neo-Colonial fixer-upper:
Sold.
—Esther M. Friesner
Copyright © 2009 Esther M. Friesner
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Novelette: SINBAD THE SAND SAILOR by R. Garcia y Robertson
The author is currently at work on two historical fantasy romances. One is set in the time of Christ and the other during the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean. His latest science fiction story is both a jaunty homage to adventure fiction of the near and distant past and a thrilling depiction of the perils of the future.
Woman in the Dunes
* * * *
Near to noon, SinBad saw something flapping on a dune. Loose shiny fabric, with an expensive sheen, shone in the morning light. He had the wind on his port beam, and was making good time on firm red-ochre sward, bordered by sand, headed north for Hastor. Sand goggles hid half his face, showing just the hard line of his jaw, and a black spade beard. Clean, even teeth grinned at the prospect of getting something for free. Barsoom was seldom so giving.
SinBad spilled air, losing precious headway, pulling his sand sail into the wind, skidding to a stop on the sward. Starting up would not be so easy.
Leaping out of his seat, SinBad ran to see why he had stopped.
Up close, SinBad saw the sandy bundle had blond hair, and smooth bare limbs, half-hidden by a torn air hostess uniform. Her big silver badge said, “Hi! I'm Tiffany."
He instinctively looked to heaven. Thuria, the nearer moon, was rising soon. Leave her here, and Slavers would snatch her up.
Feeling a faint pulse, and a flutter of breath, he said a swift prayer to Issus, “Do not take her yet."
SinBad dashed back to his sand sail, breaking into the cargo box. Luckily, he was smuggling offworld drugs. Finding a hydrated sedative and a broad spectrum antibiotic, he injected her, then waited.
His employers would hate this. SinBad smuggled for the Aymads, the Number Ones—who did not do charity. “Watch Out for Number One,” was their motto. Whatever meds he used would come out of his end. Or else.
Pulse and breathing grew stronger, more regular. Good. Now what? He could not leave her. His sand sail was fully loaded.
"Shit.” There was just one solution. Removing his cargo box, SinBad buried it in the dune, consigning a fortune in pharmaceuticals to the sand. His employers would hate this even more. If anything happened to the cargo, he had no hope of paying back the Aymads.
Horrible thought. But he could not leave her to dire wolves and Slavers. His trip to Hastor was over.
Barsoom's .4 gravity made lifting the unconscious woman easy. Beneath the sand, sweat, and sunburn she might even be pretty. Probably was pretty, given her air hostess uniform. Silver rings shone on sandy fingers. Her badge said, “Tiffany,” but air hostesses were notorious for using assumed names, and unusual positions.
SinBad rolled his eyes. “Hope to hell you are worth it."
He strapped her to the back on the sand sail, wrapped in his sleeping furs, then turned the wind-powered tricycle about, to get the best of the southeast breeze. Sitting down in the seat, he gripped the boom controls and released the brake.
Off they went. He had been headed north, with the wind abeam. Now he went over to the opposite tack, running almost due west, with the wind on his port quarter. There was a wind wagon track ahead, and a canal a couple of hundred haads farther west—once he got the offworlder to medical care, he would work his way back upwind to retrieve the drugs.
Sward turned to grit and gravel, then to packed sand. SinBad made excellent time until the wind died. At dusk he lit a fire, and hydrated his sleeping supercargo, with a shot of superglucose. Using some precious water, he washed her face. She was air hostess pretty, with a cute turned-up nose, and fine cheekbones. Too bad she was comatose.
He doctored her scrapes and bruises as best he could. Her limbs were not broken, and her ribs felt right. Nice even. Then he covered her with furs to hide her from Thuria.
Hopefully, she had no internal injuries, since his medical skills were minimal. Pray
ing that sleeping booty would survive the night, SinBad lay down by the dying fire, watching Cluros, the further moon, drift across the starry sky until he fell asleep.
Dawn breezes woke him, light airs out of the west. Restarting the fire, he put on coffee, then checked on his fallen angel. Still asleep, but even more beautiful by daylight.
Good thing Thuria was down. Or Slavers would be dropping in for breakfast. What had she been doing in the dunes? He would have to ask, when she awoke. If she awoke. SinBad sipped thick black coffee, waiting for the wind to change.
Slowly it did, shifting around to the south. His supercargo stirred. Putting on fresh coffee, he watched her long lashes flutter. Finally her eyes opened wide, looking first at the sky, then at him, revealing a fetching shade of blue.
"Kaor.” He smiled to show he was friendly. “Are you hurting?"
"Not much,” she whispered.
A compliment to his medical care, and offworld painkillers. “It's Tuesday,” he told her. “You have been out over twenty hours."
Shaking her head in disbelief, she asked, “Who are you?"
"Your savior.” It was not too early to get on this pretty hostess’ good side.
"Thanks.” She glanced about the gravel wadi he had camped in. “Where are we?"
"South of Hastor, headed for a wagon track."
Lying back, the woman closed her eyes. “What am I doing here?"
"Hoping you would tell me."
She shrugged. “I do not remember much. Not since late Sunday night."
"How about your name?” he suggested.
"Tiffany. Tiffany Panic.” She sounded proud she remembered.
Just like on her perky badge. Now his pretty problem had a name. “Your outfit says you are an air hostess."
Tiffany looked at her torn sleeve. “So it does."
"Did you fall out of a pleasure palace?"
She sighed. “More likely pushed."
"By who?"
Tiffany shook her tangled blonde hair. “Cannot say."
Cannot or would not? Either way, it was not his business.
"It was near to morning.” Tiffany studied her silver rings, seeming shocked that they were still on her fingers. “I had gone out on a balcony, to greet the day. Something shoved me from behind. Then, I was falling. I do not remember hitting the ground."
Asimov's SF, July 2009 Page 6