Science fiction often deals with the outsider, the alien. In good science fiction, aliens aren't just humans in funny costumes. They have a different view of the world—seeing it through alien eyes. Considering the mantis shrimp has made us more aware of how very different that point of view could be.
So back to the question at the beginning. “If a ripe Macintosh apple is hanging on a tree in the sun and no one is around to see it, is it still red?"
In the end, we think the answer is simple: “You call that red?"
The Exploratorium is San Francisco's museum of science, art, and human perception—where science and science fiction meet. Paul Doherty works there. Pat Murphy used to work there, but now she works at Klutz (www.klutz.com), a publisher of how-to books for kids. Pat's latest book is Invasion of the Bristlebots, which comes with two small robots that run on toothbrush bristles. To learn more about Pat Murphy's writing, visit her web site at www.brazenhussies.net/murphy. For more on Paul Doherty's work and his latest adventures, visit www.exo.net/~pauld.
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Short Story: NEVER BLOOD ENOUGH by Joe Haldeman
On very few occasions—only two that I can pinpoint right now—I've written stories that came directly from dream images. One of them (in this case a nightmare) wound up at F&SF, but it took a circuitous route. That was “Graves,” which appeared in the October 1992 issue.
It's far from my usual bailiwick, horror rather than science fiction. On an impulse I sent it off to Playboy, at the time the highest paying fiction market. To my delight, fiction editor Alice Turner accepted it. Paid well for it.
But before the story could come out, the managing editor objected. The story was “too gross” for Playboy, which I accepted as an unintended compliment. Alice said she'd hold on to it for a while, and see if she could sneak it by.
More than a year later, she tried again. The managing editor sent it back, saying “It's still too gross.” Alice magnanimously said I could keep the money, but I ought to try another market.
I sent it off to Kristine Kathryn Rusch at F&SF, and she didn't think it was offensive. She offered to print it in the anniversary issue, always a good venue.
That year it won both the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award for best short story of the year. Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that when it comes to body parts, F&SF has more cojones than Playboy.—Joe Haldeman
She looked like the work of some demented artist. Nude, lying on the bed in a relaxed posture—but she looked as if she'd been carved out of wax. The sheets underneath her were drenched in blood.
"What you think, Doc? I don't see no wound."
"I'm not that kind of a doctor.” A Ph.D. in xenobiology didn't prepare you for this. But I'd been a medic in a war, and could help with simple things. “Did you know her?"
Staring, shaking his head. “Only like everybody knows everybody here.” This was the largest outpost on the planet Runaway, but its shifting population had never reached two thousand.
That population contained only one medical doctor, and he'd been missing for two weeks, presumed dead. There was a lot of that going around. Always.
"Could it be ... you know, natural? Female thing?"
"I don't think so, not this much blood, not sudden.” I had an aunt with dysmenorrhea, who sometimes lost so much she needed transfusions. But this was catastrophic. This much blood in a war wound and you'd be looking for pieces. “Check her back. Help me out here."
Dead people seem to weigh twice as much as live ones. He tugged on her shoulder while I pushed her hip. She was still in rigor mortis. Her skin felt colder than it was.
"God. Was she shot?"
"Don't think so.” I'd seen plenty of laser and bullet wounds. Never anything like this.
She had three identical holes in her back, puckered craters about an inch and a half in diameter. One under each shoulder blade and one over the right kidney. Her back was stained dark red from the blood, but there was no “livor mortis,” discoloration of tissues from blood settling after death. She must have bled out very fast.
I pulled on a plastic glove and felt around inside the lowest wound. No projectile. I found the kidney, hard and shrunken. Maybe that was normal.
"Does look like a weapon,” I said. “Maybe something new. You know what she does for a living? Did."
"Receptionist. Down to that new hunting lodge. They found me when she didn't answer the phone.” He owned the little shack and was renting it to her.
I looked at her face in profile. I had seen her; we worked for the same people, in a sense. Everybody worked for Hartford, finally.
I looked around. The windows were closed and locked. There was no blood spatter, just the mattress. “The door was locked?"
"Yo. Not chained, though."
"Pretty girl."
"Yo. I guess.” She did look pretty horrible now.
I couldn't explain the amount of blood. Even if the renal artery had been severed. And healthy people don't lie there and bleed to death. Maybe she had been drugged or something.
Last week I'd checked the doctor's office, when he went missing, and it was sophisticated enough to have a blood chemistry machine, though whether I was sophisticated enough to get anything out of it, I didn't know.
The blood hadn't completely dried in the small of her back. I scooped some up with my gloved finger and scraped it into a plastic bag.
"What you gonna do with the body?” he asked, nervous.
It was a problem. The two people we'd buried outside the stockade fence had been dug up and eaten, we think by vulture moles.
"I'll get a couple of people up from the labor pool with a body bag. Keep her in the meat locker for the time being."
"Jesus, man."
"Or we could bury her in your backyard here. See what she attracts."
* * * *
Runaway was one of those panspermia worlds, whose creatures had DNA and may have had a common microbial ancestor with Earth. But their evolution had diverged from ours considerably around the time of the amoeba.
This part of the planet was a zoo gone wild. The island continent Vitabrevis spread three-quarters of the way around the equator, and it teemed with forms of life that were found nowhere else on the planet. Some of them were unlike anything on any other planet, and even among the large creatures, probably not ten percent had been identified and slotted into a provisional taxonomy.
Large predators are rare in most ecologies, because there is only so much food per acre, in the form of prey. Runaway, though, was blessed with a plethora of creatures my father would have called “varmints": animals ranging in size from mouse to cat, and if none were especially cute or cuddly, they were still prey. Seven legs were more common than four or two; scales more common than fur or feathers. The things that ate them were similarly exotic, and indiscriminate enough in diet to make you careful outside the settlement wall.
It made the planet a Nirvana for big-game hunters, and hunting grew into its main industry when the market price for rare earths took a nosedive about fifteen years ago. The mines shut down and the population adapted.
That involved another kind of predation. A high-priced advertising firm stepped in, and Runaway became the most sought-after rustic vacation spot this side of Arcturus. The accommodations weren't four-star, but to people wealthy enough to travel this far, the crudeness was a refreshing change. They told their friends, and their friends told their friends, and before long the support population for all these rich people reached a thousand. So the Confederación had to send an administrator.
That would be me. Travis Dobb, xenobiologist without portfolio. A small problem got out of control at the University of Chicago Mars, and I sort of lost tenure and citizenship and a wife all at once, and there was a misunderstanding with the local police, and perhaps too hastily I sought an off-planet job, and so here I came, and this I became: with a world full of exotic alien life out there, the most experienced xenobiologist on the planet h
as to push papers around being a budget manager, arbitrator, dock master—and sometimes physician's assistant, coroner, and cop. Not because I'm especially qualified. Just because there's no one else.
When the population does pass two thousand, the Confederación will send a cadre out to take care of that stuff. Until then, I'm it. What xenobiology I do has to be on my own time.
I let the landlord go and called the labor pool and told them where I thought they could find a body bag. While waiting for them to come, I searched the room for clues.
It felt voyeuristic, going through her things, the more so because I was no more qualified for it than your average xenobiologist. But there wasn't an actual criminal investigator within light-years.
If she'd been someone important, I guess the Confederación would send someone from Selva or Earth. They hadn't bothered for the other two murders I'd reported, a miner and a whore.
She had a sketchbook lying on top of the dresser, full of carefully rendered pencil drawings, mostly of herself. Mirror images, of course. I checked her face and the mole was on the wrong side. I slipped her eyelids closed and she looked less scary.
Some of the pictures were landscapes and meticulous drawings of trees and bushes, done outside the wall. I knew the spot, a picnic area that's open to the woods but protected by automatic lasers. You don't go beyond it without pre-arrangement. She probably spent some time there waiting for hunting parties to come back. Hey, cut up a mambo bird and barbecue it. Seven drumsticks, no waiting.
She was no better a housekeeper than I am. The top drawer of her dresser had a few folded outfits and a jumble of underwear; the second drawer was dirty clothes. Feeling creepy, I pulled out the blouses and checked the backs for blood, nothing.
The bottom drawer was mostly random personal stuff. Two cubes of holos that seemed to be from Earth; one showed a New York vacation. A box of seashells from someplace, not here. A sex toy and a hand laser with seventy-eight percent charge. It was a standard army-issue DKW, same as I had in my desk drawer in the office. If my job had me waiting on the other side of the wall, I'd carry one, too. No holster, but it would fit in a large purse.
Where was her bag? I found it in the bathroom, next to the toilet. Nothing odd. Wallet and passport, a little bit of money. Who would I send that to? A notebook with some scribbled notes but no audio or video. “Find Sibelius for Henri,” not an obvious murder clue.
The only window was locked, as the door had been, and the glass was not too clean. There was a film of dust on the sill. I ran my finger along the floor, and picked up some there, too. If she'd known that strangers would be pawing through her stuff, she might've cleaned up. Maybe hidden the vibrator.
I hadn't seen a dead woman since Georgia; too many of them there. A helpless old feeling washed over me and my eyes got wet and stung. I rubbed them and blew my nose. I couldn't sit on the bed so I leaned against the wall.
What had she done, the poor damned innocent thing? Who did she piss off? Some wealthy client who could tag her from light-years away, on a whim?
I checked the door and there was no sign of it having been forced. Only her thumbprint and the landlord's, and now mine, would open it. Of course any lock could be subverted.
Feeling foolish, I went back to the body and checked; both thumbs were still attached. I probably would have noticed earlier if one had been removed.
Then I checked the body inch by inch, looking for who knows what. The soles of her feet were dirty, from walking around barefoot. Naked? Why not; the window just looked out on the wall. There were no bruises on her body, though I wasn't sure what effect total exsanguination might have on that. Small abrasions on both knees. Nothing obvious under her fingernails, though I suppose a forensic scientist would be thorough there.
A forensic scientist would check for rape. I couldn't do that to her.
Well, be honest. To her it wouldn't make any difference. It was my own illogical sense of propriety. Sticking a finger into a wound was okay; a dead body's bloody wound was public property. The vagina was still private.
She hadn't been dead too long; there was no smell of that. The air-conditioning was pretty high, though. My notebook said that rigor mortis could last two days at this temperature.
I got through to her supervisor at the lodge, Simeon Touville, who invited me to come talk with her at 1700. She was upset by the news, of course, and didn't have any idea of who might have wanted to harm the woman.
Two guys came with a body bag, and I helped them wrestle her body inside. They carried her pendulous weight to the utility floater and skimmed away. I sat in the open door for a while. Feeling useless, feeling like shit.
Five hours before I had to talk to Touville. My place was on the other side of the sprawling settlement. I could've whistled up a cab and charged it to Hartford, company business, but it was a nice day and the woman was going to stay dead, so I walked.
It hadn't rained in a couple of days, and the road was firm crunchy gravel. Fast wisps of cloud sped through the golden sky, though, and that might mean rain soon. Weather comes in hammer blows here. You want to be inside.
Doc Borski's office fronted on the warehouse road. I let myself in and went back to the blood chemistry machine.
No instructions anywhere obvious. But I got the model number, Nordstrum D-67, and my notebook downloaded a manual. I skimmed it and managed to set up a sample, using a tongue depressor to scrape the drying blood out of the plastic bag.
The machine thought for one second and said SAMPLE ERROR, followed by a screen full of gibberish. I saved it under her name and again under mine, and also wrote her name on the plastic bag and put it in Doc Borski's fridge. Found a prescription pad in his desk and scribbled an explanation, and left it centered on the blotter. Walked out feeling less than useful.
Past the warehouses that ringed the landing strip there was the gaudy Main Street district, what would have been less than one long block back in Syrtis City, the Martian town I used to think was small.
Runaway did have its charms. I went by the two comfort centers—I have my own sexual solutions, thank you—but did drop in on my favorite bar, Snaggletooth Gertie's. The only casino in town, and therefore the cheapest drinks.
"Hey, Doctor Dobb.” The bartender and part-owner Roos, who was also the de facto peacekeeper and bouncer. He was from Selva, and a bit on the small side for that planet—seven and a half feet of quiet muscle. “The usual?"
"Yeah.” He tapped me a ceramic cup of dry red wine. It was a perfect hemisphere; if you didn't set it down carefully it would spill, and cost you. “Roos, you know Sara Templeton?"
"Pretty girl from the lodge? She's been in a few times; saw her at that wedding couple of weeks ago.” He shook his head. “Don't think she likes big guys. When I pinged her, she sort of cringed."
"Know anything about her, anything odd?"
He set my drink down meticulously and had a sip of his own, something amber, studying me. “What do you mean, odd?"
"I don't know what I mean.” I tasted the wine, cool and not sweet. “She died."
"Died? She was just a kid.” Selvans live long; Roos was probably eighty in Earth years, and not past his prime. “Doc Borski still gone?"
I nodded. “Unless he snuck out on the last shuttle, he's just gone."
"What she die of?"
"Murder maybe, not sure. Looks like she might have been shot in the back, but I don't know with what.” I described the wounds.
"Couldn't a’ been a laser. No burn marks?"
"And no cauterization. The wounds are open, bled out."
"You saw a lot of that, on Earth?"
"Enough, in Georgia. Nothing exactly like this, though."
"Well, God knows what kind of weapons people sneak in here."
"Or just carry in. Weapons don't always look like weapons."
He set his drink down and leaned back. “Georgia down by Tennessee and all?"
"No; on the other side of the planet, Eurasia."
"Yeah, politics. Long boring story. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ kind of thing. Or the enema of my enemy. You've never been to Earth?"
"Just Selva and here. Georgia's a big place?"
"Millions of people. More than all the Confederación, I guess. Squeezed in between Russia and Turkey, if that means anything to you."
He shook his head. “You had a bad time there."
"Not as bad as some. Glad it's over.” As if it ever would be. I took a big swallow. “No blood spatter."
"No what?"
"That woman had three really big wounds. There should be blood all over the floor, all over the walls."
"Yeah?"
"Nobody cleaned up afterwards. The floor was dusty. The furniture, the window."
"It was all on the bed?"
"That's right. But how could that be?"
His face creased in thought. He'd been a soldier, too. “Like a boobytrap or something? Like she flopped down on the bed and it went off?"
"Maybe. But you'd think something that powerful would blow on through. No exit wounds.” I took out my notebook and showed him the first picture.
He flinched. “Oh. She was ... she was pretty."
"And young and innocent. Of course you never know. But she hadn't been here three months, according to her super. Everybody liked her."
"One person didn't. Maybe he followed her here."
"That's a thought.” I drained the cup.
"Another?"
"No.... I want to go back and take another look. Can't send a report out till the morning shuttle anyhow. Can't help feeling I missed something obvious."
"Want another pair of eyes? Fish can cover the bar."
"Sure, Roos. I'd appreciate it."
He punched a cab and it was settling to the ground as we left the bar. A one-minute hop to the woman's place.
* * * *
I thumb the door open and immediately appreciate what a new pair of eyes can see. I thought I'd looked everywhere. Everywhere but up, turns out.
FSF, October-November 2009 Page 26