IGMS Issue 14

by IGMS

  It was a victory, but not much of one. The water wasn't even a meter deep yet, and the current wasn't yet strong enough to have carried away his wheelchair. But it was enough to kill him, if he hadn't come this far. Still, what was he really accomplishing? In storms like this, the water came up near the top; he'd have been dead for an hour before the water began to come down again.

  He could hear, in the distance, a vehicle approaching on the road. Had they come back to watch him die? They couldn't be that stupid. How far was this wash from the highway? Not far -- they hadn't driven that long on the rough ground to get here. But it meant nothing. No one would see him, or even the computer that lay among the tumbleweeds and sagebrush at the arroyo's edge.

  They might hear him. It was possible. If their window was open -- in a rainstorm? If their engine was quiet -- but loud enough that he could hear them? Impossible, impossible. And it might be the boys again, come to hear him scream and whine for life; I'm not going to cry out now, after so many years of silence --

  But the will to live, he discovered, was stronger than shame; his voice came unbidden to his throat. His lips and tongue and teeth that in childhood had so painstakingly practiced words that only his family could ever understand now formed a word again: "Help!" It was a difficult word; it almost closed his mouth, it made him too quiet to hear. So at last he simply howled, saying nothing except the terrible sound of his voice.

  The brake squealed, long and loud, and the vehicle rattled to a stop. The engine died. Carpenter howled. Car doors slammed.

  "I tell you it's just a dog somewhere, somebody's old dog --"

  Carpenter howled again.

  "Dog or not, it's alive, isn't it?"

  They ran along the edge of the arroyo, and someone saw him.

  "A little kid!"

  "What's he doing down there!"

  "Come on, kid, you can climb up from there!"

  I nearly killed myself climbing this far, you fool, if I could climb, don't you think I would have? Help me! He cried out again.

  "It's not a little boy. He's got a beard --"

  "Come on, hold on, we're coming down!"

  "There's a wheelchair in the water --"

  "He must be a cripple."

  There were several voices, some of them women, but it was two strong men who reached him, splashing their feet in the water. They hooked him under the arms and carried him to the top.

  "Can you stand up? Are you all right? Can you stand?"

  Carpenter strained to squeeze out the word: "No."

  The older woman took command. "He's got palsy, as any fool can see. Go back down there and get his wheelchair, Tom, no sense in making him wait till they can get him another one, go on down! It's not that bad down there, the flood isn't here yet!" Her voice was crisp and clear, perfect speech, almost foreign it was so precise. She and the young woman carried him to the truck. It was a big old flatbed truck from the old days, and on its back was a canvas-covered heap of odd shapes. On the canvas Carpenter read the words SWEETWATER'S MIRACLE PAGEANT. Traveling show people, then, racing for town to get out of the rain, and through some miracle they had heard his call.

  "Your poor arms," said the young woman, wiping off grit and sand that had sliced his elbow. "Did you climb that far out of there with just your arms."

  The young man came out of the arroyo muddy and cursing, but they had the wheelchair. They tied it quickly to the back of the truck; one of the men found the computer, too, and took it inside the cab. It was designed to be rugged, and to Carpenter's relief it still worked.

  "Thank you," said his mechanical voice.

  "I told them I heard something and they said I was crazy," said the old woman. "You live in Reefrock?"

  "Yes," said his voice.

  "Amazing what those old machines can still do, even after being dumped there in the rain," said the old woman. "Well, you came close to death, there, but you're all right, it's the best we can ask for. We'll take you to the doctor."

  "Just take me home, please."

  So they did, but insisted on helping him bathe and fixing him dinner. The rain was coming down in sheets when they were done. "All I have is a floor," he said, "but you can stay."

  "Better than trying to pitch tents in this." So they stayed the night.

  Carpenter's arms ached too badly for him to sleep, even though he was exhausted. He lay awake thinking of the current pulling him, imagining what would have happened to him, how far he might have gone downstream before drowning, where his body might have ended up. Caught in a snag somewhere, dangling on some branch or rock as the water went down and left his slack body to dry in the sun. Far out in the desert somewhere, maybe. Or perhaps the floodwater might have carried him all the way to the Colorado and tumbled him head over heels down the rapids, through canyons, past the ruins of the old dams, and finally into the Gulf of California. He'd pass through Navaho territory then, and the Hopi Protectorate, and into areas that Chihuahua claimed and threatened to go to war to keep. He'd see more of the world than he had seen in his life.

  I saw more of the world tonight, he thought, than I ever thought to see. I saw death and how much I feared it.

  And he looked unto himself, wondering how much he had changed.

  Late in the morning, when he finally awoke, the pageant people were gone. They had a show, of course, and had to do some kind of parade to let people know. School would let out early so they could put on a show without having to waste power on lights. There'd be no school this afternoon. But what about his morning classes? There must have been some question when he didn't show up; someone would have called, and if he didn't answer the phone someone would have come by. Maybe the show people had still been there when they came. The word would have spread through school that he was still alive.

  He tried to imagine LaVon and Kippie and Pope hearing that Mr. Machine, Mr. Bug, Mr. Carpenter was still alive. They'd be afraid, of course. Maybe defiant. Maybe they had even confessed. No, not that. LaVon would keep them quiet. Try to think of a way out. Maybe even plan an escape, though finding a place to go that wasn't under Utah authority would be a problem.

  What am I doing? Trying to plan how my enemies can escape retribution? I should call the marshals again, tell them what happened. If someone hasn't called them already.

  His wheelchair waited by his bed. The show people had shined it up for him, got rid of all that muck. Even straightened the computer mounts and tied it on, jury-rigged it but it would do. Would the motor run, after being under water? He saw that they had even changed batteries and had the old one set aside. They were good people. Not at all what the stories said about show gypsies. Though there was no natural law that people who help cripples can't also seduce all the young girls in the village.

  His arms hurt and his left arm was weak and trembly, but he managed to get into the chair. The pain brought back yesterday. I'm alive today, and yet today doesn't feel any different from last week, when I was also alive. Being on the brink of death wasn't enough; the only transformation is to die.

  He ate lunch because it was nearly noon. Eldon Finch came by to see him, along with the sheriff. "I'm the new bishop," said Eldon.

  "Didn't waste any time," said Carpenter.

  "I gotta tell you, Brother Carpenter, things are in a tizzy today. Yesterday, too, of course, what with avenging angels dropping out of the sky and taking away people we all trusted. There's some says you shouldn't've told, and some says you did right, and some ain't sayin nothin cause they're afraid somethin'll get told on them. Ugly times, ugly times, when folks steal from their neighbors."

  Sheriff Budd finally spoke up. "Almost as ugly as tryin to drownd em."

  The bishop nodded. "Course you know the reason we come, Sheriff Budd and me, we come to find out who done it."

  "Done what?"

  "Plunked you down that wash? You aren't gonna tell me you drove that little wheelie chair of yours out there past the fringe. What, was you speedin so fast you lost control and s
pun out? Give me peace of heart, Brother Carpenter, give me trust." The bishop and the sheriff both laughed at that. Quite a joke.

  Now's the time, thought Carpenter. Name the names. The motive will be clear, justice will be done. They put you through the worst hell of your life, they made you cry out for help, they taught you the taste of death. Now even things up.

  But he didn't key their names into the computer. He thought of Kippie's mother crying at the door. When the crying stopped, there'd be years ahead. They were a long way from proving out their land. Kippie was through with school, he'd never go on, never get out. The adult burden was on those boys now, years too young. Should their families suffer even more, with another generation gone to prison? Carpenter had nothing to gain, and many who were guiltless stood to lose too much.

  "Brother Carpenter," said Sheriff Budd. "Who was it?"

  He keyed in his answer. "I didn't get a look at them."

  "Their voices, didn't you know them?"

  "No."

  The bishop looked steadily at him. "They tried to kill you, Brother Carpenter. That's no joke. You like to died, if those show people hadn't happened by. And I have my own ideas who it was, seein who had reason to hate you unto death yesterday."

  "As you said, a lot of people think an outsider like me should have kept his nose out of Reefrock's business."

  The bishop frowned at him. "You scared they'll try again?"

  "No."

  "Nothin I can do," said the sheriff. "I think you're a damn fool, Brother Carpenter, but nothin I can do if you don't even care."

  "Thanks for coming by."

  He didn't go to church Sunday. But on Monday he went to school, same time as usual. And there were LaVon and Kippie and Pope, right in their places. But not the same as usual. The wisecracks were over. When he called on them, they answered if they could and didn't if they couldn't. When he looked at them, they looked away.

  He didn't know if it was shame or fear that he might someday tell; he didn't care. The mark was on them. They would marry someday, go out into even newer lands just behind the ever-advancing fringe, have babies, work until their bodies were exhausted, and then drop into a grave. But they'd remember that one day they left a cripple to die. He had no idea what it would mean to them, but they would remember.

  Within a few weeks, LaVon and Kippie were out of school; with their fathers gone, there was too much fieldwork and school was a luxury their families couldn't afford for them. Pope had an older brother still at home, so he stayed out the year.

  One time Pope almost talked to him. It was a windy day that spattered sand against the classroom window, and the storm coming out of the south looked to be a nasty one. When class was over, most of the kids ducked their heads and rushed outside, hurrying to get home before the downpour began. A few stayed, though, to talk with Carpenter about this and that. When the last one left, Carpenter saw that Pope was still there. His pencil was hovering over a piece of paper. He looked up at Carpenter, then set the pencil down, picked up his books, started for the door. He paused for a moment with his hand on the doorknob. Carpenter waited for him to speak. But the boy only opened the door and went on out.

  Carpenter rolled over to the door and watched him as he walked away. The wind caught at his jacket. Like a kite, thought Carpenter, it's lifting him along.

  But it wasn't true. The boy didn't rise and fly. And now Carpenter saw the wind like a current down the village street, sweeping Pope away. All the bodies in the world, caught in that same current, that same wind, blown down the same rivers, the same streets, and finally coming to rest on some snag, through some door, in some grave, God knows where or why.

  Special thanks to Tor for giving permission for IGMS to reprint The Folk of the Fringe which is still in print.

  InterGalactic Interview With Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

  by Darrell Schweitzer

  * * *

  SCHWEITZER: Hello. I am Darrell Schweitzer and I will be the interviewer tonight. Tonight we are here to talk about The Winds of Dune and our guests are Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. Brian Herbert is the son of Frank Herbert, the creator of Dune. Brian is the author of numerous books that have nothing to do with Dune. He had quite a career on his own before became involved in continuing the Dune series. His credits include Sidney's Comet (1983), The Garbage Chronicles (1985), Sudanna, Sudanna (1985), Man of Two Worlds (a collaboration with his father, 1986), Prisoners of Arion (1987), Race for God (1990), and then numerous Dune books which we will be discussing. He also edited The Notebooks of Frank Herbert's Dune in 1988.

  Kevin Anderson published his first story in 1982 in Space and Time magazine. He is the author of Resurrection Incorporated, the Game Earth trilogy, Lifeline, The Trinity Paradox, the Saga of the Seven Suns series, and many more, so he is indeed eminently qualified to collaborate with Brian Herbert on further extensions of the Dune series, of which The Winds of Dune is the latest volume.

  SCHWEITZER: We are here to talk about the latest book. How many have there been in the series now?

  HERBERT: It's the 11th, and also our second sequel to Frank Herbert's Dune Messiah.

  SCHWEITZER: Brian, I checked the chronology, and as you were born in 1947, that means you would have been about sixteen when Dune started to appear serially in Analog. You were presumably about fourteen or fifteen when your father was writing it. So, did you grow up with Dune? Did your father take you aside and say, "Hey, look at this," and show you new chapters?

  HERBERT: Paul Atreides was fifteen at the beginning of Dune, but that's about the only comparison with me. I did grow up with it. My dad would read chapters of it to my mother. My mother had been a creative writer and she had given up her writing career to support our family. So she gave him professional advice. She was his intellectual equal.

  That's the short version of that answer, but I can go a lot longer.

  SCHWEITZER: Go ahead.

  HERBERT: Actually, my mom got terminal lung cancer when I was in my early twenties. Prior to that I didn't think I liked my father at all, but Dad went into another gear. He became her maid, her cook, her nurse. He built an incredible house for her at Hana on the Island of Maui, where she could breathe easier with lung cancer. She was a miracle survivor. Instead of six months, she lived for ten more years. Dad and I became absolute best friends on the planet. So, from a really rocky beginning with my father, I am really pleased that we had the time to get close.

  ANDERSON: Let me add something, because he's not going to gush over his own stuff much, but Brian spent years writing this wonderful biography called Dreamer of Dune, and he went through this whole span of Frank Herbert's life, and it's really the story of Brian growing up in the household with this incredible dynamo of a guy. He sent me a copy of the manuscript when he had finished writing it, and because he is my friend I've got to read it and tell him it's a great book, but I'm not really a big biography guy. I like things with a plot, and people's lives do not usually follow the standard story structure.

  But I read this biography that he wrote, and it's incredibly captivating, the best biography that I have ever read. It was nominated for the Hugo the year it came out. For any of you who are Dune fans, and I am assuming there are a couple of you in the audience, you really will understand a lot more, not just about Frank Herbert, but also about Brian, too. It's a really excellent book.

  HERBERT: Thank you. It's a love story between my parents too, and about what they sacrificed for each other.

  SCHWEITZER: Brian, were you led to being a science fiction writer by having it in your genes, or having it in the air?

  HERBERT: My wife noticed that I was writing really good letters. I would write complaint letters and I would defeat attorneys for big corporations, and I would get rebates on products and small-sized settlements. So she said, "Why don't you go to your father and he'll help you with your writing. You are basically a good writer," she said, "but he can help you put stories together." Just about that time he and I we
re getting close. So I am only writing because my wife encouraged me to do it.

  SCHWEITZER: At what point did you decide to extend the Dune series?

  HERBERT: When Dad died in 1986, he had just been beginning Dune 7. I saw him use a yellow highlighter on Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune, but I didn't know there were any notes. My mom died while that book was being written, and she titled the book. That is her title, Chapterhouse Dune. There is a three-page tribute to her at the end of the book. I felt emotionally that that was where the series should end, but I knew on the logical side of my brain that there were more stories to be told. Dad had tried to publish mystery stories in the 1950's, and they were all rejected, but he left his series on the edge of this cliffhanger, this huge mystery. It was up to Kevin to convince me. Other writers had approached me, well-known writers. I had turned them down. I do manage my father's business, the estate and I felt it should end. But Kevin convinced me otherwise. He and I have had like a ten-minute argument in eleven years and one of us apologized, and we went on from there.

  ANDERSON: I can be persistent sometimes.

  SCHWEITZER: Kevin, where did you enter into all this? How did you become the Collaborator of Dune?

  ANDERSON: Let me back up a little bit. I was a Dune fan since I was about eleven years old. That was where I first read the original Dune. I loved it. It was this big adventure story on a science-fiction planet with this young hero banding with desert rebels against the big empire and riding giant sandworms. It was this great story. Then I read it again when I was in college and got all these other layers. I didn't notice them at all the first time I read it, the politics, the economics, the religion, and all kinds of interest, deep layers that are in Dune. I just fell in love with it and I started reading all of Frank Herbert's other books. Not just his Dune books, but Hellstrom's Hive and The Dosadi Experiment and The White Plague and The Eyes of Heisenberg and everything. I really studied how Frank Herbert wrote, because I admired what he did so much, and I learned vicariously how to be a writer from how Frank Herbert did it, because I didn't think anybody could do better than Dune. I wrote stories and published them in small presses. I sent them to various places. Darrell Schweitzer rejected a bunch of them.