Asimov's SF, February 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  They hadn't decided what to do about Moser yet. NASA hadn't even gone public about his whole scheme yet, but he wasn't so sure this was a good thing. The ISS commander said he would be tried and hanged for treason, terrorism, and even piracy if he ever made it back to Earth. But if they chose instead to sweep him under the rug, well, the rug was the airlock.

  The cryptic advertisements Moser had asked Aaron to submit to the Times and the science journals might not be accepted at any price, and, if they were, they were likely to be dismissed as the ramblings of a crackpot, especially if NASA denied all knowledge and Moser's body burned up in orbit.

  In the meantime, the poet seemed to spend a lot of time on Moser's ship. She said it was quiet in there, as private a place as she could find in orbit. She asked him for ways to add a small pressure-impact device to his ship's chair. The device simulated Earth gravity's effect on bone density and she had to spend at least a few minutes with it daily, probably to prevent osteoporosis. Bone mineral loss was a problem for men, too, in space, but it was an area he had deliberately sacrificed to the weight gods to get his ship off the ground.

  The poet said that, if she had her way, she'd spend all her time on Moser's ship, which was an interesting attitude to have about a former prison cell. She'd even asked Moser about his mission, and about how much less Moser would have had to weigh to succeed with the fuel he had.

  "I don't know,” Moser said in dismissal. He had been over it too many times in his head. He'd tried. He'd failed. That was all there was to it. “A hundred pounds? Probably closer to ninety."

  "Really?” she asked. She said something about it being time to check her vitals and pushed off away from him.

  * * * *

  ONE: AMBASSADOR

  The only thing Tara knew about Cherrygale was something she'd accidentally stumbled across doing unrelated research: that someone came up with the cherry-sweetened soft drink in the South during the World War I sugar shortage. Tara didn't know why or how she remembered this (having never tasted the drink—it wasn't available in the North) or even whether the story was true. But it had stuck in her mind.

  So when Moser told her, “Godspeed, Cherrygale,” between strapping her into his rocket ship and launching her into orbit around the Sun, Tara took it as a term of endearment.

  She came to it with a poet's mind and decided that Moser was sugar and Tara was cherry. When sugar was incapable of orbiting the Sun, cherry became an acceptable substitute. Either that or it meant that Moser thought every African American had a soft spot for fruit flavored soft drinks.

  Later, over Tara's regular check-ins on the radio—an hour, twice per day, no more—Moser shattered the analogy by telling her about a childhood experiment of launching a can of Cherrygale into orbit and losing it forever. Tara found this story much less endearing.

  Moser also said the story about cherries probably wasn't true. “They sweeten everything with corn syrup these days anyway."

  "That's nice,” Tara said.

  At first, Pia seemed mortified by Tara's desertion and Moser's participation in it, but, surprisingly, she quickly warmed up to the idea. Maybe she realized how great this could be for the space program or maybe Mission Control ordered her to play nice so they could take credit for the adventure. Tara figured it was more likely that Pia was just glad to be rid of her dead-weight tourist.

  Or perhaps Pia was actually a Buddhist, practiced in the art of letting go, and Tara should have tried harder to like her. Seriously, would it have killed Tara to purr once in a while? Or at least do some actual research about Buddhism? NASA, for its part, seemed thankful that they hadn't gone public and vilified Moser yet, because they still needed him around in case something went wrong with a rocket ship only he understood.

  And, for a good three weeks, Tara enjoyed her retreat. She wrote and read, and at times just stared out into space. Moser's ship rotated completely about once every eight hours, and the short, wide window viewing area was limited to not quite 180 degrees at any given time. Somehow in this smaller, more fragile vessel, she finally felt close enough to observe the universe around her, especially during those hours when Earth was out of view completely. Sure, at times she felt lonely, but it was usually a specific loneliness: an ache for her books, for more room to stretch, for Bhuvana, for effleurage, for chocolate, for music, for sex.

  Her tablet's limited wireless communication ability was beyond Earth's reach within a week, so she read whatever she wanted to read as freely and anonymously as she would in a library. This privacy perk more than made up for her inability to receive title refreshes from Mission Control. Still, she preferred to write her rough ideas on paper, and then recite the final drafts of poems and other observations into the ship's more powerful radio at what she called her “Extroverted Hour."

  Then Tara saw something new. Earth didn't look quite like Earth. It was suddenly much farther away and whiter than she'd remembered. It seemed to be setting deeply behind the Sun. There was something else surreal about it that made Tara think she was only dreaming, but she could not quite pinpoint what it was that gave her that feeling.

  Perhaps it was just a cloudy afternoon for this particular hemisphere. The world was milky, she thought, and she wrote down how she wasn't sure whether she'd lost her marbles or finally found her favorite one. She decided not to report her observation just yet.

  This different-looking Earth disappeared from her field of vision, and then reappeared as normal-looking Earth (at the proper apparent distance) less than an hour later. She wondered if it was just an optical illusion or a hallucination she had seen. Had the rotations of Moser's ship increased? Was she spinning on a new axis? That would mean an engine misfired, wouldn't it?

  And then she realized what was really wrong with the different, milky Earth: it was on the wrong side of the Sun.

  Maybe it was some sort of reflection. That could account for the discoloration, too. She should report it immediately, she thought. It could be an eye problem, a vitamin deficiency, or a sign of oxygen deprivation.

  Or it could be a great big space mirror on the other side of the Sun. She tried to think like a scientist. But she still didn't want to contact NASA with questions and no answers.

  Four hours later, Tara was thankful they no longer monitored her heartbeat. She was going to be the most famous poet in the history of the world, and then some.

  She debated how to tell NASA about it. She realized that whatever she said, those words might last forever. She was late for her Extroverted Hour, but she wanted to get it right. She felt the eyes of the world over her shoulder, even as she wrote in absolute isolation.

  Oh what the hell, she thought. Shakespeare wrote his name into a psalm. The world would forgive her if she put hers in a haiku with much less subtlety. She wrote,

  Other side of Sun:

  Second earth in same orbit.

  Not kidding! Tara.

  It wasn't exactly poetry, but that was all right. Tara was an astronaut now.

  * * * *

  Christopher Columbus had planned on going all the way around the world. Moser had planned on going all the way around the Sun. He should have suspected that history could repeat itself, that it could both disappoint and surprise. He should have considered the possibility that, however unlikely, another planet could be 182.6205 days behind the Earth, in equal rotation around the Sun, always hidden from Earth by the biggest barrier in the Solar System.

  Or some astronomer should have detected the slight gravitational pull a second Earth half a year behind them would have on the Sun. Surely an astronomer with cursory understanding of physics should have detected an equal and opposite reaction, no matter how minute, such a mass would have on the other masses they did know about. Or one of the probes NASA launched further out into the Solar System should have caught it in a photo. Perhaps one did, Moser thought. And perhaps it was dismissed as a trick of light or a photographic negative accidentally reversed.

  But there it was. Proo
f that coincidences did happen. Or that God was playing peekaboo. So what if it took a poet to find it. If Moser had been a poet, perhaps he wouldn't have needed Tara.

  Tara was two months away from reaching the new planet, her journey cut short from six months to three. But Moser could not help but feel the urgency of the situation. He had built a parachute into his ship for his own return to Earth. But, in truth, he had hoped to motivate NASA or another excited space program into rendezvousing with him before he hit Earth's atmosphere. And even if the clouds on this second Earth meant the atmosphere was thick enough to catch Tara's chute, what were the chances of the atmosphere also being breathable and nontoxic?

  Best case scenario, if Tara survived the impact, would be her sitting there grounded in Moser's ship until she suffocated or starved. And they wouldn't even know what happened to her, since they wouldn't be able to pick up radio signals all the way on the other side of the Sun. Sure, she said she loved her isolation. But that didn't mean she wanted or deserved to die alone.

  "Very funny, Moser,” Tara said suddenly over the radio. He had long given up trying to get her to address the ISS as “Alpha."

  It was now a few weeks after Tara's universe-changing observation that Earth wasn't the only Earth in the Solar System. She was early for her Extroverted Hour but generally Moser or Alistair monitored the radio in case of emergency. It was especially important now, as the radio signal became fainter, and its delay longer, the further away she flew.

  "Come again, Tara?” Moser said and waited.

  "I'd send you a postcard if I could,” Tara said. “How long have you been able to monitor it?"

  "Monitor what?"

  "My tablet. You guys boosted the signal or something?"

  "What are you talking about, Tara? We haven't been able to ping your tablet for a month."

  "Don't be an ass. I saw the new file. ‘If found, please return to Christopher Moser.’ Is that really your address? I used to date someone from North Carolina."

  "Please return?” Moser said back to her. He didn't know what else to say. That Tara's Extroverted Hour was about to get a whole lot longer? For as long as he could remember, Moser had wanted to be a scientist, an astronaut, an explorer. He had wondered what happened to his Cherrygale can ever since he was thirteen. He'd dreamt that it had gotten swept out of trajectory by random wind, or that, at best, it had melted in the fires of the Sun. But never in his life had he considered that anyone anywhere could have found it, or that there would have been enough discernible text on that Cherrygale can—or on the note etched on the inside of its makeshift engine—to teach a new civilization the Roman alphabet. The note had been his mother's idea.

  Now that Tara's survival depended less on his own invention and more on the know-how of an alien civilization at least advanced enough to communicate in binary, Moser's thoughts turned to his own fleeting legacy. Who would remember the man in Tara's wake, the man too heavy for his own carefully planned mission?

  "Please return,” Moser mumbled again, and perhaps he even meant it. Because turning the ship around, as difficult as that might be, suddenly felt infinitely easier than telling an introvert she had just made first contact. Moser was never that good with people.

  Copyright (c) 2006 Alex Wilson

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  COLD FIRE by Tanith Lee

  2006 saw publication of Here in Cold Hell, the second volume in the author's Lionwolf Trilogy (Tor Macmillan), Piratica 2: Return to Parrot Island, the second book in a female pirate saga (Dutton), as well as L'Amber from Egerton House. Egerton House has just released two more novels, Greyglass and To Indigo, while the last Lionwolf novel, No Flame But Mine, and the third Piratica book are due out later this year. Ms. Lee has recently sold short stories to Weird Tales and Realms of Fantasy and novellas to Firebird and the SF Book Club. In her latest short story for us, you'll find there's no warmth to be had from sitting by Ms. Lee's ancient and eerie...

  We was ten mile out from Chalsapila, and it's a raw night. The sea mist brewing thick as wool. Then little tramp ship come alongside. I on the bridge with Cap'n. He my brother. Kinda. Jehosalee Corgen. Well. But sudden the tramper puts up her lights. She's gotten a lot of sail on for what she's at, maybee tracking tobaccer or hard liquor up and down. They take a need of that, in the little ports along Great Whale Sound.

  —Fuckendam, say Corgen. —What this bitch go to want?

  I shrug, don't I. How the hell I know. I amn't no sailor, I. He picks me up drunken at Chalsa, tooken me aboard. I can trim bit of sails, take a watch, that kinda stuff.

  Now the tramper swim in close, making signal.

  Across the black night water, Corgen and her cap'n speak.

  Sounds threat-like ta me.

  —What he say? ask Beau, the mate.

  Afore I can offer, he goes up ter see.

  Then so does I.

  We stand there on the poop, with the great wing of foresails over, and lanterns flash, and I hear other cap'n tells Corgen —Hey, this good for ye and yor crew. Make lotta dolla.

  —Don't need no more cargo, say Corgen.

  —Nar, yer take this, no cargo, just tow. Like horse with wagon.

  —This gurl ain't no horse, say Corgen.

  —Hey hey, she a good ship. Has the weight ta do it.

  I think the guy on tramper he sound like a Rus. Looks too, big, goodlooken guy, and beard.

  He say, —All ye do, tow dammen thing outa back and up. Get maybee nine hundred dolla. We given ye wodka too.

  Shooting star is went over, like a silver angel spit.

  Seems to me maybee guy on tramper is eying me real much. I go off. Then Beau come back aways. —Govment, say Beau from mouth corner. —Seems we havta.

  Corgen's busyness on sea never much legal. But govment boats turn a blind ey, ifn you make nice. So we'll do this, what so this is.

  In a bit, tramper boys bring some stuff aboard, boxes, a crate, wodka in big cans like for kerosene. They gives ta Corgen where to go to pick up thing wants the towing, and he writes down careful. He sign a paper too. The tramper turns off up the side of the night.

  Boxes, stuff, full of food.

  I hear Beau ask Corgen soon what the fuckdam we be go to carry.

  —Chunk bludy ice, Corgen say. —Chunka ice and tow her up into bludy Artic.

  —So high?

  —Higher maybee. High as she go.

  —For why in Christ's name?

  Corgen shrug. —For nine hundred dolla.

  * * * *

  Weather is clear, sea nearly smooth. Now we was sailing norard easterly, where the tramper say go. And all that pass us is fisher boats for the codfish, and the faint shadow that come and go of the land. First night ends and then a day, and when the sun low, making the sky red, Hammer up in look-out call he can see something new on the water. Men went go up rigging, to see, and so do I. Hanging there I can make out a kinda island, but it all put together of boats and rafts, with nets drifting, and there torchlights burn, so's as the red sea and sky getten black, this island what is no island, she go red.

  —What there behind?

  We crane forard like birds, stretch our necks. Behind the torch smokings stand something pale, like it was a misty pane of glass, so the darkness show through.

  —A berg what that is.

  —Nar. None of they here.

  —A berg, I tells you. They come down this far, from Grenland. A great narrer one.

  Like a piece of glass, like I say, so it is. A piece of great ice, chipped offn sailing free, as the icebergs do.

  Then come another ship, a big one she is, with no colors but with guns, and men on her deck all armed, officers and soldiers, only they ain't wearing any uniform, but you can see they are, the ways they's stood.

  Corgen and Beau and Bacherly, they get rowed offn away.

  We set ta wait. Don't go no closer.

  Over on the island of boats men move around in the light and shadow, can't see what they do, that's all.
The berg, if it a berg, none of us sure, goes fainter in the smokes.

  Along of midnight, Corgen and the others they bring back.

  Corgen has face like dried white fish. Other two ain't much pinker. They come aboard. Corgen grabs me. —Pete O Pete, say Corgen. —Christ. I never shoulda took this on. Thin luck, the days we leaves Chalsapila.

  Then he puts his head down on my shoulder, like as when we was childa and ma was raw ter him.

  The six other men on Corgen's bucket, they clusters around, and the over us sails nod, cos the wind's getting up from the south.

  —Cap'n, what's to do?

  He lifts his head. He look scared and sick.

  —Never word'll come outa me, he say. —Shitten govment say we must, so we do. I can't tell you. You'll be to see it, morning come.

  We stand round him, and his boys look like they have mutiny running in the back of their eyes. Then Corgen rechanges to his own self. He reach out and grip Hammer and Bacherly and shake pair of them so as the bones rattle under their clothes. —We got no choosing. Like birth and dying. No choosen. So we take it. Bruk the wodka out, Beau. We've a long haul to the North fuckdam Pole.

  * * * *

  Second night on the new course, two of Corgen's men jump over. You can see the land, can reach it if swim strong, and though that sea cold, men have their reasons.

  Another man, Bacherly, he go over next night and not so lucky. Struck the side and stunned him. He's drunken, I guess. We pull him back aboard and empty him of water, but then he lie raving and shaken till Corgen speak to him. —I tell him, bite yer tongue or I'll throw ye back down.

  Sight of land is gone by then. Bacherly is quiet, but sometimes he puke, or he cries.

  The others is make to be brave. A coupla of them make pretend we don't tow no thing at all. Ando cusses a lot. He anyway allays do that.

  None of them much goes aft to look. It doesn't matter if they looks, it amn't a danger—no moren towing it. They did tell us, when they brung it, and all the cables and chain was fixed and the hooks to hold all, they do tell us then, the ice on the berg is old and set so hard, thick as stone wall, the officer say, ten feet —forget it —this more twenty feet thick of ice. Can't stir. Can't break. This why it must be took to go upways north, to the Pole, this why. Though it came, officer believe, from the Southron Pole below, all the wide mile down at the earth's end. From there. And all this time, the ice held. So now, cold as we go, now it shall never give way. He swears that too, on the Bible.