Gravity Wells (Short Stories Collection)

by James Alan Gardner

  I'm not being cynical.

  12. The Tree That Bears the Hanged Man: Other trees get normal lynchings. On me, they hang the guy upside down.

  I feel ridiculous.

  The lynch mob strung him up last night. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of hysterics. No one mentioned what this guy's crimes were. If any. The mob laughed and cursed loud enough to frighten the squirrels out of my branches.

  At one point, I thought two of the vigilantes were going to get into a fight, but the others stopped them. I don't know what it was all about.

  Then they hung up this guy by his foot.

  What morons.

  It hasn't hurt him. He's humming to himself. Humming, for God's sake! He sounds quite cheerful.

  What morons.

  The elm across the road has been sniggering for the last two hours.

  It'll be the talk of the county.

  I'll never live this down.

  13. The Bishop Who Follows the Specter of Death: Some criticize me. Some say I give the murderer legitimacy.

  No. Not true.

  I have never condoned death. Nor war. Nor famine. Nor pestilence.

  I march in the parade of destruction because I have vowed to attend those who suffer misfortune. I am in the parade, but not of the parade.

  I have no vested interest in suffering. But when suffering happens, a righteous man must face the problems head-on. He must take action.

  Bless you. Bless you. Bless you.

  14. The Pool of Temperance: I'm working on a stone. Millennia ago, a lizard of a now-extinct species knocked a stone off the bank. The stone was red and sharp-edged. Quartz, I think.

  I was looking for a project at the time. Something to keep me busy. Something to occupy my mind in the dry days of summer. Something I could look at and think, "I made this. It's mine."

  The stone is my project. It's almost smooth now. A smooth, speckled red.

  It's pretty. I think so, anyway.

  The angel above me has his foot on the stone and seems to find it comfortable. My stone is clean and polished. I'm proud of that.

  I know it's not much. It's just a stone. But it's mine, it's mine, it's mine.

  I made it. Me.

  15. The Devil's Pedestal: Day 2,189,345 in Hell. Noon. Greenwich Mean Time.

  Satan lifts a claw and gores another notch in my side. Two witnesses stand by to watch, to make sure all the legal formalities are observed. This is Hell; we believe in legal formalities.

  There are now 2,189,345 notches in my side. I am zebraed with notches, tigered with notches. One notch for each day of damnation.

  I am the calendar of Hell.

  Satan lives in dread of losing track of his time here. Sometimes he forgets whether he's made the notch for the day, and he gnaws at his talons, trying to decide whether he should make another notch. But he knows if he's already made today's mark, another would throw off the count.

  He goes through this every day. Despite the rigorous routine, despite the witnesses. And he worries that sometime in the past, millennia ago or just yesterday, he really did make a mistake and now he's permanently wrong.

  I have no trouble keeping track of his notches. I know how fresh my pain is.

  If Satan clawed his own hide, he'd know too.

  16. The Sparks Shooting from the Tower: This tower stood for two hundred and fifty years.

  It resisted five enemy attacks. Those who lived in the tower praised its strength. Honored it with songs. Spread its fame through all countries.

  More than four hundred children have been born within its walls. Most grew to adulthood here, and died when their time came.

  Diplomats came here from across the sea. They complimented the strong walls, the view that commands the surrounding territory, the strategic positioning of wells and storehouses.

  This tower stood for two hundred and fifty years.

  We sparks last a second at most.

  Don't you dare feel sorry for this damned tower.

  17. The Bird Observing the Star: A woman is pouring water, some on the ground, some into a pool. Huge white stars circle around an enormous yellow one.

  Portents. Humans love portents. Humans hunger after portents.

  We birds haven't forgotten about Roman auguries. The priests slit living birds open, just to look for portents in their entrails. Entrails…humans always use the word "entrails." The truth is the priests would cut out our hearts. They cut out our livers. They cut out our intestines and scanned them inch by inch like stockbrokers examining ticker tape.

  Stockbrokers examine ticker tape for portents.

  We birds see everything, from stockbrokers to stars, but we don't see portents. Birds have no portents, not even portents of things that concern us, like winter. One fall day we find ourselves flying south, that's all.

  That's all.

  18. The Dog Who Bays at the Moon: Wolves howl at the moon.

  Dogs bay.

  Here's the difference.

  A wolf is shouting a challenge, crying defiance at the great face in the sky. A wolf is saying, "Despite hunters and hunger and sickness and snow, I'll be here again next month, same as you. You go on and I'll go on. You might be hidden by a cloud, but I'll still be here. And when I die, my children will howl for me, and the pack will howl and every pack will howl, until you slink below the horizon. We are forever."

  A dog is greeting a companion, a fellow traveler that humans revere or ignore. A dog is saying, "You and me, moon, we're the ones who know how to laugh. Whatever damned thing the human race comes up with next, it's okay with us. Dogs are no more domesticated than you are, moon; we're just easygoing. Why make a fuss? Eating is good, sniffing is good, sleeping is good. Most things are okay."

  That's what we dogs say to the moon.

  It's the only sane attitude. Wolves are too intense.

  19. The Sunflowers Beneath the Sun: Height! More height! More height!

  Height is sun and sun is height.

  The pretty-doll flowers in the garden next to us are irrational. They hug the ground. They keep their heads down. They don't compete.

  Why? Why? Why?

  It must be some mutual agreement to remain mediocre. If no one sticks her head up, no one else gets overshadowed. And they're all so spineless—they're so afraid of losing if they take a chance, they're so reluctant to seem rude—they remain prissy little runts all their lives.

  We sunflowers have more stomach. We strangle each other. We compete. More height means more sun. More sun means more height.

  The prissy little runts ask how much sun and height a flower really needs.

  More! The answer is always more!

  20. The Trumpet That Wakes the Dead for Judgment: It's no big deal. At the End of Time, the angel Gabriel will use me to blow a single note and the dead will rise from their graves. Until then, I stay silent.

  I can handle that.

  Gabriel can't. It's a big responsibility for him, and he'd like to practice. Sometimes he takes me out of the case, puts my mouthpiece to his lips, and thinks about playing. Something soft. Something so low human ears couldn't hear it. But he knows it's like biting a balloon—big bite or small, the effect is the same.

  I have this hunch about the way Heaven works. I don't think Gabriel will ever be given the signal that it's time to blow. I think someday the temptation will just grow too great and he'll crack. He may try a quiet little toot or blast a fanfare that makes the stars echo, but sooner or later he'll break. And that will be the End of Time.

  Running things this way, God doesn't have to make the big decision. He just appoints Gabriel as the scapegoat and waits for all hell to break loose.

  Me, I'm patient. It will happen or it won't.

  Gabriel polishes me every day with the vigor of a man who needs to keep his hands busy. He doesn't sleep well.

  21. The Wreath on the Card Called the World: A woman dances, holding a baton. She is clad only in a tastefully draped ribbon.

  I surround h
er, a green wreath with the silhouette of an egg.

  In the four corners of the sky, faces look at us: a lion, an eagle, an angel, and a bull.

  So. Which one of us is "the world"?

  Me? The woman? The watchers? All of us? Some mysterious whole that encompasses us?

  Or simply the ink that depicts us and the cardboard that gives the ink something to cling to?

  Philosophers may amuse themselves making arguments for each possibility. Theologians may obtain their god's version of the truth and expound it from the pulpit. Cynics may say that the designers of the Tarot didn't know what the hell the world was about, so they took the opportunity to draw another naked woman.

  Anything's possible.

  Anything's possible.

  Anything's possible.

  Shadow Album

  In the deserted city at the heart of Muta's Great Fog Bank, there is a sundial. Its face is marble, once polished, now rough and pitted with age. The metal of the central gnomon flakes with rust; it has bled a dull brown stain across the dial's gritty white face.

  The sundial no longer tells the time—the perpetual fog smears Muta's hot blue sunlight into a diffuse gray that casts no shadows, even at midday.

  I visit the sundial often; the sight of it calms me when the loneliness grows too strong. I find it comforting to think even a sundial can stop. It seems to be a promise that no responsibility lasts forever.

  Once, this city was home to a million beings. Green plants grew, animals basked at midday, the Mutan people cast shadows and shaded their eyes from the afternoon sun. Now, the only flora are lichens and fungus, and the only animals small scavengers that dart in and out of nests under the crumbled buildings. As for the Mutans, they cast their last shadows long ago.

  I carry a camera with me wherever I go, and it is full of shadows. Some are recent—photographs I've taken to pass the time, to pretend that I've chanced upon beauty or importance in a rusted tangle of metal, an oddly shaped mushroom. The recent photos occupy the reusable slots on the camera's recording diskette, shadows I discard as new ones catch my eye. But there is a set of pictures I have tagged to prevent overwriting, shadows cast before the last light left me. Now, as night falls and the ghosts struggle to wake themselves from their collective sleep, I put the diskette into the viewer in my hut and click through my little album.

  Picture 1—Exploration Team Harmony on the Plains of Expanding Accord:

  Twenty-two men and women stand in the center of a burnt field, the grass charred black by the heat of a Vac/ship's landing. The ship is gone now, back to the orbiting task force where a million colonists wait in suspended animation until Harmony Team certifies the planet safe. Our mission is considered a formality—satellites and robot probes have given Muta such a positive rating that supply caches have already been dropped at selected sites all over the planet. Even so, final approval for colonization rests entirely with our team and its superiors. We do not place blind trust in machines; it is a doctrine of our faith.

  By the time this picture was taken, all that remained to be explored was the anomalous fog bank perpetually covering a region of Muta's southern hemisphere: cause unknown, unchanged by wind and sun, impenetrable to orbital eyes. We thought our investigation would be routine and painless.

  The team members offer smiles for the camera, showing or not showing their teeth according to their chosen self-image. Most try not to squint, though the sun is in their eyes; they want to look good for the photograph.

  Behind them is the skimmer assigned to fly the team to the Great Fog Bank. On the craft's fuselage, brown letters proclaim Unity Task Force: Muta. Beneath the words are the twenty-two symbols of our totem houses, the spirits that unite our people and set us apart from other human cultures in this galactic sector. The symbols attest that the world is more than a machine, and humans more than a meaty collection of chemicals. We of the Unity are a spiritual people.

  Each symbol on the fuselage is carefully labeled: the Dancing Madman, the Ready Mage, the Blind Priestess, and so on. The Unity is relentless in labeling everything.

  In the far background, beyond the landing strip, you can see the grassland that the Unity named the Plains of Expanding Accord. Amidst the thick band of green there is a single dab of brown—some inquisitive Mutan herd animal peering at all the curious activity happening around the base.

  At first glance, the people posed in this picture may be indistinguishable. They are all uniformed in the same tan fatigues. They all look healthy and competent. But to my eyes, three people stand out from rest. They stand together on the extreme right of the picture: a woman between two men.

  The woman is Chiala, Archeology Officer, age 25. In the picture, her skin is the same glossy color as a chestnut fresh from its shell; but I remember it as dark honey, and I dream of the soft brown of her hand resting lightly on my forearm. Her smile is wide and bright. Around her throat she wears a neckerchief, white linen printed with a pattern of orange flowers. The flowers are chrysanthemums, totem flowers of my birthmonth. I nearly told her so when I helped her choose the neckerchief on our last recreation leave, but I decided to hold my tongue. It pleased me to have this secret link to her that even she did not realize.

  The man on her right is Planetology Officer MolanDif, the same age as Chiala. In the hand dangling at his side, he holds the Unity regulation manual for missions exploring Earth-like environments. Harmony Team had completed three such assignments at the time the picture was taken, but MolanDif still consulted the manual regularly…not because he wanted to enforce the rules on his juniors but rather because he wanted to be sure of the rules himself. He was a man in constant need of specific instructions, of models to imitate. (His shirt is open low enough to reveal the steaming snout of a dragon tattooed on his chest. He once confessed to me he got that tattoo when he was a teenager; he had read somewhere that teenagers were supposed to do irrevocable things on impulse.)

  The graying man on Chiala's left is Senior Orthodoxy Officer BarlDan, age 49. Me. My smile is self-conscious and clumsy—the skimmer pilot who took the picture for me ordered us to crowd together, and I was keenly aware of the solid warmth of Chiala's body pressing against my arm. (After the picture was taken, she did not move away from the contact. I was the one who withdrew to attend my duties.)

  At one time, I could have named all the others in this picture. I still remember names, remember faces…but I become confused when I try to pair them. It panics me sometimes, the thought that I was supposed to safeguard all these souls, but now can't remember which man was the ceremonial castrato, which woman wore the mask of the Riven Tower. I think I know, yet I suspect I'm mistaken, that my memory rearranges itself when I sleep. I wake sometimes to find myself shouting at people who flee from me in my dreams.

  The only other face I'm sure of is Junior Planetologist DiDeel, a young red-headed man grinning widely into the camera, his arm around the shoulder of the man beside him; and the only reason DiDeel retains a foothold in my mind is because he was the first to die. The others…dead too, officers, juniors, all dead, murdered in the fog, but I am losing them day by day and I cannot keep them with me.

  In the extreme foreground of the picture, we have lined up our spirit masks. The masks are dormant, their inhabiting spirits forced into temporary exile by the brilliant sunlight. Their eyeholes are empty; they are merely constructions of paper and plastic, feather and foil.

  Given a choice, I would have preferred not to take photographs of the masks; but some of the spirits were vain and demanded I take pictures of their mask-houses as often as possible. I complied, as I always complied with wishes of the masks. You cannot reason with a spirit.

  Picture 2—Chiala examining a Mutan statue:

  In the Mutan city within the fog, Chiala kneels at the base of a marble statue. She has arranged weak laser projectors to throw up a yellowy grid-work of cubes around the statue, each cube ten centimeters to the side. The statue is thus boxed into a phantom coordinate system
that helps her make measurements.

  The statue resembles others found all across the planet: a man-high figure that might be a lump of bread dough, surrounded by a surface that bristles with quills like those of a porcupine. The quills appear to be protrusions of internal bones, forming a type of articulated exoskeleton. The top of the body is clearly a head, with two widely spaced eyes, a cluster of nose-holes shielded by a thatch of quills, and a fully toothed mouth. No ears are visible.

  This was our image of the beings who built the Mutan cities, though we did not know how accurately the statues depicted them. Perhaps Mutan art was not representational—perhaps we were seeing some abstract style that only marginally resembled the true Mutans, or it could be that all these statues were idols of some deity whose appearance was utterly unlike the people's. Perhaps they weren't statues at all; they might be signposts, or notice boards, or equipment for a game.

  The Mutans had vanished centuries before the Unity discovered the planet. It had happened abruptly, without property damage—a plague perhaps, a radiation disaster, or maybe mass suicide. The archeologists had many theories, but no evidence…only ruins, and a fog bank like a cloud of smoke after a great burning.

  In the picture, Chiala holds a measuring tape to the pedestal that supports the statue. She has rolled up her sleeves. Some of the mist has condensed on her forearms, giving them a dark sheen, highlighting a line of sleek muscle from elbow to wrist. If I look at this picture too long, I find myself leaning forward to touch the viewer screen, to trace that line of muscle with my finger.

  Chiala's eyes are on the work, not the camera. I approached her quietly through the fog; she didn't see me watching.

  Picture 3—MolanDif's testing station on the Chastened River:

  The picture is taken from the top of the bank looking down toward the water. Eight team members are in sight. Most are on shore, fussing with electronic instruments I cannot name. DiDeel wears hip-waders and stands in the water up to his thighs; he is far enough away to be nearly lost in the fog. He holds a metal pole that stretches out into the mist and disappears. My guess would be that he is scooping a water sample from the middle of the river, but for all I know, he could be fishing.