The Best of Subterranean

by William Schafer

  Make your report, then. Go on. Just get out of here. When Mandy doesn’t move, Ernest loses the last of his temper. He strides past her, opens the door with a bang.

  ERNEST (loud, furious) Here. Here’s the door. Use it.

  CLOSE ON TOBEY who’s very scared now. His father—his calm, endlessly patient father—is almost shouting. He quails. His lips move.

  TOBEY (whisper) Mama.

  BACK TO THE SCENE

  Ernest goes to the coffee table, snatches up her briefcase, tries to slam it shut, but the papers are in the way, it doesn’t close completely. He throws it out the open door.

  ERNEST

  There are your papers. Now get out.

  (shouting)

  Get out!

  MANDY KEMP Mister Ross, please don’t—

  ERNEST (screaming)

  Leave us alone!

  He PUSHES her toward the door, she stumbles backward, and Tobey bursts into tears.

  TOBEY (crying) Mama! Mama, mama, mama!

  TOBEY

  The boy looks around for his mother, but he can’t find her anywhere. Then his eyes light on the portrait Ernest dropped.

  TOBEY (more softly) Mama.

  He reaches out, picks up the picture.

  ANGLE ON ERNEST As he realizes what’s happening. He turns away from Mandy Kemp, a look of horror on his face, and takes a step toward Tobey.

  ERNEST Oh, God, no. Tobey, no!

  TOBEY Bring!

  ERNEST & MANDY react with horror to something o.s.

  CLOSE ON TOBEY who looks up, smiling with expectation, and then SCREAMS at what he sees.

  TOBEY’S POV of the chair, where his mother’s grinning, hideous, and decaying week-old corpse sits, staring at him.

  BACK TO THE SCENE

  Mandy Kemp makes a gagging sound, whirls, and flees the scene. Tobey is screaming and crying. Ernest goes to him, turns his head away from the corpse, hugs him.

  ERNEST

  No, Tobey, look away. Don’t look, Tobey. It’s not mama any more.

  CLOSE ON ERNEST as he holds Tobey in a tight embrace, rocks him reassuringly.

  ERNEST

  It’s all right, Tobey—I’ll take it away, I’ll take it away right now—it’s all going to be all right—

  We MOVE IN TIGHT on his eyes, and we can see the horror there.

  EXT.—THE BACKYARD—LATER THAT NIGHT

  Ernest shovels a spadeful of dirt on top of a freshly dug grave. His clothing is soiled and stained, and he’s exhausted by the effort. He leans on his spade, mops at his brow.

  ERNEST

  (softly, wearily)

  I’m sorry, Mary. The picture—he doesn’t understand. It was my fault. I should never have—

  (beat, dully)

  But it’s too late now.

  Far off in the night, we HEAR the distant sound of police sirens. Ernest hears them too. He turns his head, listening, then looks back at the grave.

  ERNEST

  They’re coming for him now. I have to go.

  He drops the spade, walks back into the house.

  INT.—LIVING ROOM

  Tobey is playing with a doll as Ernest reenters. He looks up happily, all innocence. He’s obviously forgotten everything. The police sirens are louder now. Ernest locks the front door, throws the chain. Then he goes to the bookcase, digs out his keys, opens the padlock. He hesitates for a beat before selecting a book. We cannot see the cover or the title. The sirens are much closer. Ernest sits next to Tobey on the floor.

  CLOSE ON TOBEY & ERNEST

  The boy looks up at him, smiles, offers him the doll.

  TOBEY Doll.

  Ernest takes it, puts it aside, smiles wanly.

  ERNEST

  (with difficulty)

  You’re a good boy, Tobey. You’ve always been a good boy.

  He ruffles Tobey’s hair, smiles, pulls him close

  ERNEST Look, Tobey. A book.

  The sirens are only a block or two away as Ernest opens the book, turns the pages. The camera PULLS BACK SLOWLY as Ernest begins to speak, holding his son very close. Tobey peers down at the book, eyes wide and fascinated, a big smile on his face.

  ERNEST

  (pointing)

  Look, Tobey. It’s pretty, isn’t it? All the colors—like a—a sunset almost—all red and yellow and orange. Isn’t it pretty?

  Ernest is crying now. The camera continues to PULL BACK as he leans closer, kisses his son gently on the cheek.

  ERNEST (softly) I love you, boy.

  EXTREME CLOSE SHOT—TOBEY’S EYES

  Bright, intense, fascinated. For a brief instant, we see the reflection of the picture he’s looking at: the fireball of some huge explosion, all the bright colors dancing in his pupil. The sirens are very loud.

  TOBEY

  Bring.

  CUT TO EXT.—ROSS HOUSE—NIGHT

  A huge explosion rends the house from within. The blast of flame lights up the night. As the building falls in upon itself and bits of flaming debris settle back to earth, the lights in the neighboring houses go on one by one, and the police car pulls up out front, its siren sounding strangely small in the aftermath of the explosion.

  FADE OUT

  The Secret History of the Lost Colony

  by John Scalzi

  To commemorate the completion of Zoe’s Tale, I thought I’d do something special here for you today and show you something you haven’t seen before: An entire excised chapter from one of my books.

  This particular excised chapter comes from an iteration of The Last Colony that I didn’t write (or more accurately, didn’t complete): the second iteration, in which I had planned to write the books in alternating chapters of first person and third person, the first person chapters featuring John Perry, the hero of Old Man’s War, and the third person chapter featuring other characters, particularly General Tarsem Gau, the leader of the Conclave. Eventually, I abandoned the idea for two reasons: it rapidly became clear it would be a structural nightmare, and also because if I wrote it this way, the book would end up in the 180,000 word range—i.e., I’d have written enough for two books, and would only be paid for one. Bad writer, no cookie.

  I ended up generally abandoning the third person chapters, and rewrote the information in first person chapters for the final version of the book. Only two chapters of this second version made it into the finished book: John Perry’s first appearance, which was chapter two, became part of the final book’s first chapter, and the chapter in which General Gau argues with a Whaidi colonist leader, which had been the first chapter, turns into Chapter Eight in the final book (and is turned into a video recording, so I could cheat my way into having a third person chapter into a first person book).

  Because this is an excised chapter, it’s not canonical—among other things, character names change between this and the final version, and General Gau’s species name also undergoes a transformation. But neither did the chapter get entirely wasted; it was abandoned not because it wasn’t good, but because mechanically it didn’t work for the book. So during the writing of the final version of the book, I ended up strip-mining this chapter for material. Folks who have read The Last Colony will see things they recognize from different contexts: The video of the Conclave attack on the Whaidi colony, an invocation of a states secret act, and an oblique discussion of Fermi’s Paradox, which got a rather more extensive discussion in this excised chapter (because I was annoyed at people who act as if Fermi’s Paradox was some sort of immutable law, that’s why).

  And as it turns out, I mined it again for part of Zoe’s Tale. You’ll have to wait to see which part and how, but the fact that I could (and did) goes to show that nothing has to be wasted. This excised chapter itself will never see the light of day as part of a larger story, but little bits and pieces can be moved around and used and recycled. Waste not, want not.

  It also served another purpose: This chapter is basically me thinking out loud about several characters in The Last Colony, and figuring out
their personalities and what makes them tick. This chapter became back story for several characters, notably Generals Rybicki and Gau; playing with them here gave me a good idea who they were when I started writing them for the final version of The Last Colony. It’s good to have that sort of grip on your characters before you start putting canonical words into their mouths.

  The lesson here for writing is that even your “failures”—the stuff that doesn’t work for your book, for whatever reason—can still have value to you as you’re wrestling with your work. This is one reason way, whenever I chop out a significant chunk of text from a book I’m writing, I don’t simply delete it: I cut it and paste it into an “excisions” document that I keep handy. That way I can go back to that material for reference, or to drop a line or an idea into the final version, perhaps in a completely different context, but where it will do some real good. This is what I do, and it’s worked for me so far.

  CHAPTER THREE (of the second iteration of The Last Colony, now deceased)

  Colonel Janice Dunn, General George Rybicki’s assistant, found the general in a conference theater. He was walking around in a massive projection of local space, stars glowing different colors to signify which races’ colonies lived around them. “General,” she began.

  “Shhh,” Rybicki said, and pointed at the stars. “Looking.”

  “Secretary Bell’s office sent a message,” Dunn said, ignoring her superior’s order to shush. “Your presence is requested for a meeting in ten minutes.”

  “She probably wants an update on Roanoke,” Rybicki said. “I’ve got colony leaders for her now.”

  “You should take a few minutes to prepare,” Dunn suggested.

  “I already have a report ready,” Rybicki said. “I’ll be fine.” We went back to staring up at the projection.

  “If you wanted to look at the stars, you could have just looked out a window,” Dunn said.

  Rybicki snorted. “Shows how often you actually look out a window,” he said. “All the stars get washed out by Phoenix. And when you’re on a part of this station that’s pointed away from the planet, all the station’s exterior lights throw up too much glare.” He pointed up at the display. “This is as good as starwatching gets around here. And anyway, I’m not actually stargazing, I’m thinking.”

  “About what?” Dunn asked.

  “Fermi’s Paradox,” Rybicki said.

  Dunn frowned. “I’m not familiar with that,” she said. “Is that some physics thing?”

  “It’s an extraterrestrial thing,” Rybicki said, and pointed again at the display. “Fermi lived before we knew about all this. He didn’t believe that intelligent life existed anywhere but on Earth. He said, ‘if they exist, why aren’t they here already?’ And no one had a good answer for that. So they speculated that maybe the aliens couldn’t travel fast enough to get to Earth, or maybe they were out there, but they were just waiting until humans were sufficiently advanced before admitting them into some federation of worlds. Crap like that. But none of them ever figured out the real reason.”

  “Which was?” Dunn asked.

  “That they were all too busy beating the Hell out of each other to bother with us,” Rybicki said. “They didn’t get to us because they occupied themselves with worlds they already knew about. Our research arm’s done some archaeology here and there, whenever we take a planet from someone else. You want to know the average lifespan of a colony—any colony, by any species? Try and guess.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Dunn said.

  “75 years,” Rybicki said. “A race finds a planet, sets up shop, has some relatively peaceful decades, gets complacent, and then some other race comes in and wipes the floor with them, and then that species colonizes the planet. The cycle starts over. Wash, rinse, repeat. Some colony planets have gone back and forth dozens of times. Just about the only planets that ever stay the same over any length of time are species home planets, because they’re usually too well-populated and defended to pry a species off of. Everything else is constantly up for grabs.”

  “And yet we have colonies that have been around for a couple of centuries,” Dunn said.

  “Yes, well, we game the system,” Rybicki said. “We’ve made Phoenix humanity’s homeworld for all intents and purposes, so that’s a colony that’s staying put. And we populate our colony worlds faster than most species, because we have a planet overflowing with extra people. Why grow a colony slowly when you can flood it with waves of surplus Pakistanis and Norwegians and Egyptians?”

  “I’m pretty sure the colonists wouldn’t appreciate being called ‘surplus,’ ” Dunn said.

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t,” Rybicki said. “Doesn’t mean they’re not. And we’re glad for it because it makes it easier to keep a foothold. The last old colony we lost was Coral, and that was because we had less than 100,000 colonists on it. We took it back quickly enough, but you see the point. Were you around for Coral?”

  “I think I was still in London at the time,” Dunn said. “Old and fat and hoping I didn’t die before I could get off the planet.”

  “Congratulations,” Rybicki said. “You made it.”

  “Thank you, general,” Dunn said.

  “You’re welcome,” Rybicki said, and with his BrainPal caused the human colony stars to shine a little brighter. “We have a lot of old colonies, but we still lose a fair number of new colonies. You’ve read the report on Everest colony.”

  “I did,” Dunn said. “But Everest wasn’t lost because of attack.”

  “No,” Rybicki agreed. “Although a colony-wide bacterial plague isn’t a much better way to die. Point is, even we conform to the 75-year rule. It’s interesting.”

  “If you say so, general,” Dunn said, and pointed at the stars. “One wonders at how the Conclave will change that average for us.”

  “Shhhhh,” Rybicki said again, sarcasm whistling out. “We’re still not supposed to admit that the Conclave exists. It’s still a state secret.”

  “It’s a very poorly-kept secret,” Dunn said. “You can go down to the promenade and hear the soldiers talking about it.”

  “State secrets are always poorly kept,” Rybicki said. “Yet they still manage to stay secrets. Officially, at least. CDF grunts can talk about the Conclave all they want. What matters is the colonies. We still haven’t explained it them. They still don’t know.”

  “Or don’t want to know,” Dunn said.

  Rybicki nodded. “Always a possibility. But then, there’s a lot we don’t know, either.” A star in the array growed more bright; the star around which the colony of Roanoke would be founded. “Everest aside, Roanoke will be our first colony after the Conclave came together. Our first test to see whether the Conclave intends to enforce its ban on colonization from non-Conclave races.”

  “You don’t seem worried,” Dunn said.

  “That’s not entirely accurate,” Rybicki said. “I’m concerned, but a lot depends on the Conclave itself. Everest was out there and they didn’t do anything about it. Was it because the Conclave was still getting itself together, or because they were simply rattling their sabers and hoping we’d be scared? We’re not the only ones who have colonized between now and then. The question now is how much of a priority we are to the Conclave. Or if we’re a priority at all.”

  * * *

  “What I want to know is when we will finally go after the humans,” said Lernin Il, once again. And once again, after a moment for the translation into a dozen languages, came the affirmative nods, bobbles, and signifying appendage movement from around the council table.

  General Gau struggled mightily not to sigh in exasperation at the Tand member of the Conclave’s executive council, and lightly tapped the table instead. “There is the small problem that the humans have no colonies founded after the Agreement, Counselor Il,” he said.

  “There’s the colony they call Everest,” Il said.

  “There was the colony they called Everest,” Gau said. “It was wiped out
by a native infection. Since then there have been no other attempts by the humans to start a new colony.”

  “The fact Everest was colonized should be enough,” said Wert Ninug, the Dward counselor, and Gau tucked away for future reference that sometime between the time he’d left on his mission to the Whaidian colony and the time he’d gotten back the Dward had somehow slipped into the pocket of the Tand. That was interesting; the two races had a hate that went back hundreds of shar. Prior to this even if Wert had agreed with Il on a policy issue, it would have rather shot off the back of its own head then to say it publicly.

  You wanted races to put away their old hates, some part of Gau’s mind said to him, and Gau had to note the comment with rueful satisfaction. He did want the members of the Conclave to get over their past enmities; he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted them to start new ones against him.

  Gau glanced down the table to see who looked surprised at a Dward offering support for a Tand. It would be the ones who didn’t look surprised that Gau would need to worry about.

  “Should it, Counselor Wert?” Gau said, presently. “The Agreement limits non-Conclave races to worlds they already have. Currently the humans are on the worlds they had prior to the agreement. Where should we attack?”

  “They did colonize after the agreement,” Wert said. “They intentionally tested the will of the Conclave. Intent should matter for something.”

  “I agree,” Gau said. “However, at the moment we have no avenue to respond. Everest was abandoned. All the other worlds the humans have we have all agreed they have a right to live on. And the Conclave is not meant to be merely an instrument of retribution or of punishment.”

  “You had no problems punishing the Whaid,” Il said.

  Gau paused a prudent moment before responding. “No, I didn’t,” he said, finally. “Nor will I the humans. When and if the humans attempt to colonize again.”

  “We could make a special case out of the humans,” said Hafte Sorvalh, the Lalan Counselor. She was not an ally of either Il or Wert, so far as Gau knew. “One could argue their past actions merit a certain level of special attention.”

  “In my experience today’s ‘special attention’ is tomorrow’s standard procedure, counselor Sorvalh,” Gau said. “And this is not a standard procedure I think the Conclave should feel comfortable having. We are so early in time of this union of ours. We should not begin its time by compromising its laws, simply out of convenience.”