Across the Spectrum

by Nagle, Pati

Halima came up level with his knee, and made as if to nip at it. He slapped her impudence away—then paused in a kind of horror. By the bargain he had made, she was his lady now, and the ruler of his life and honor.

  She did not seem terribly offended. She continued beside her sire, but more decorously now, as he cantered out of the valley of the ladies onto the plain of Narbonne.

  ∞

  The wind was still blowing. The king’s tent was back in its place, battened down at every point. The king’s council was still bickering over what to do, and he was in an even fouler mood than he had been when his horse was stolen.

  When a messenger came running with word of a strange new riding, Carl was more than glad to abandon his council. So, as it happened, were most of the rest of his councillors. They streamed after him out of the tent, into the wind and the evening light.

  It was as the messenger had said: there was the page Aymery, whom the king had missed at dinner, riding the stallion Tencendur and leading a small and very fine herd of mares. The boy rode with neither bridle nor saddle, and the mares were likewise free of all restraint.

  Tencendur halted in front of the king. Carl reached out almost blindly and took the stallion’s head in his arms. It came to rest against him.

  He sighed, and so did the horse. This was a homecoming, for both of them.

  ∞

  “I should like to meet your mother,” Halima said.

  Aymery was a man of consequence now. He had a tent—minuscule but all his own—and if the manservant who came with it was a lazy lout with a mouth on him like a Tiber bargeman, still he was a servant, and Aymery was acutely conscious of the honor.

  The tale had told itself. Most of it was even true: how Aymery had tracked the stallion to the farmstead where he was bred, and found him among his harem, and stolen him back for the king’s sake. No one knew about the ladies, nor was Aymery about to mention that five of them were now enjoying the admiration of every horseman in the army.

  The king had been greatly moved, and would have given Aymery more than a tent and a servant and a horse and a set of Saracen armor complete with sword and bow and collection of lances, but Aymery had professed himself quite unready for the noble bride and the estate on the Saxon border. The bride’s father was visibly relieved: he had his eye on a greater eminence than a very young and rather minor lordling from Armorica.

  So that was settled, and Aymery had been thinking he might manage a good night’s sleep. But when he came to his bed, he found Halima in it—fully and decorously clothed, and bubbling over with questions about the army and the camp and the court and the king.

  And about his family, his sisters and his mother. “I should like to meet them all,” she said. “May we do that? Soon?”

  “That depends on the king’s pleasure,” Aymery said, before he remembered; then he added, “And yours. I suppose I can get leave. If that’s your will.”

  “It might be,” she said. She propped herself on her elbow, eyes dark in the lamplight. “I like your king. He’d make a fine stallion.”

  Somewhat to Aymery’s surprise, his heart twisted. “I’m superseded already, then?”

  “No. He has too much of the world to carry.”

  “And all I have is you.”

  “And your mother. And your sisters.” Her brows knit in reflection. “You know how to be what we need you to be. It’s bred in you. As if you were of our blood, almost.”

  “Old blood. Though not as old as yours.”

  “Nothing is as old as ours.”

  He drew a breath. He had not been going to say it, but after all he had to. “Why did you let me go? Why did you go? Wouldn’t we all have been safer where we were?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “And maybe it was time for us to walk in the world again. We’re much less likely to be troubled by thieves and sorcerers if we seem to belong to a king—and this king will live to a great age. Eldest Grandmother saw it, and she always sees true.”

  That was a great good thing. But there was still that other question. “What I bargained for—if you’re here, and Tencendur is here, then what do you need me for?”

  “I need you,” she said, “and you have much to learn, some of which my sire can teach. You can be your king’s for as long as it suits us; but you’re ours always. That, we’ll bind you to.”

  Aymery let out a long sigh. “So I’m a slave of sorts. A vassal. A servant.”

  “You did choose it,” she reminded him.

  “I did,” he said. “I’m not sorry. Amazed, somewhat. Baffled. A little scared.”

  “You should be,” said Halima. But she smiled.

  He smiled back. He caught himself wondering—did he dare? Would she—?

  She answered before he could say a word: she caught his face in her hands and pulled him to her, and kissed him until the whole world went away.

  Then he knew he had chosen rightly. And so, he thought, looking into her eyes that were the same whether she walked as woman or mare, did she.

  Handing on the Goggles

  Brenda W. Clough

  I’m an alumna of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. At this fine institution the frat boys used to use gazorchers to wage water-balloon combats across the quad. The minute I learned of this I knew that a story could be written. To put a feminist twist on weapons made out of women’s undergarments, what could be better?

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The problem with my daughter is that she has too much energy. Way too much energy! Rollerblading, karate, managing the metal club, marching in pro-choice demonstrations—and today she still found time to come over and harass me.

  “This house is too much for you, Pop,” Cath said. As she moved down the sofa, plumping each pillow in turn, her chains jingled and swayed. “You ought to move to a condo.”

  “Your mother loved this house,” I protested.

  The dangling silver skulls in her ears clanked as she whirled to glare at me. “Mom passed away in 1989, Pops! And look at all this mess.” She pulled three Iron City beer cans, a used plate, and a cloudy glass from under the end table. “While you’re away I’m definitely going to spring-clean.”

  “Don’t bother, Cath—you’re so busy all the time.” Actually I didn’t want her messing with my stuff. “I’ll have someone come in and clean when I get back from the reunion.”

  “Men are another species,” Cath grumbled. She whizzed over to the bookcase and began straightening books. “Visiting battlefields? Looking up the people you tried to kill?”

  “We were all fighting the Axis together—the Greeks understood that.” It was scary, like watching a tornado. I sat tight, not daring to recline my chair back. There was more crockery, I knew, under the Barcalounger.

  Suddenly she hauled a book off the bottom shelf. Dust rose in clouds, showing white on her black leather jacket. “Now you could easily toss these—”

  “No!” I yelped. “Cath, those are mine!”

  “Pop, you don’t even read them,” she said patiently, the way you’d talk to a baby. “Look at the dust.” She let the volume fall open on her mini-skirted lap. “This one’s nothing but a scrap book. ‘The Gazorcher Saves Tot from Ledge.’ It’s so juvenile, to adore superheroes these days.”

  “That does it.” Creaking, I stood up. My own daughter the punkette, calling me juvenile! I felt in my pants pocket for the ring. “Watch this, Cath.”

  Too late I remembered why my costume had goggles. The air swooshed past, buffeting my face and bringing the water to my eyes. Stopping was always the devil, too. I missed the TV by a whisker and skidded painfully into the paneling.

  “Jesus! Pop, what the hell?”

  I took a hanky from my sweater sleeve and blotted my eyes. “I wish you wouldn’t swear, Cath. Indulge an old superhero, okay?”

  “You? Pop, you were the Gazorcher?”

  “Yep, that’s me.” I hobbled back to the Barcalounger and sat down to nurse my bruises. “The master of line-of-sight teleportation himsel
f. Pittsburgh’s own superhero.”

  “Ohmigod!” If she laughed, I promised myself I’d rewrite my will. But she just sat on the linoleum by the bookcase, flabbergasted into immobility. “Pop, how is it done?”

  I showed her the ring: an old, old bronze signet, the design almost worn away. “I got it in Heraklion.”

  She leaned to look, her unpleasant jewelry jingling. “A guy in a toga appeared in a puff of smoke, and told you to fight the Nazis with it,” she guessed.

  “No, I think that was Captain America. I bought this in a junk shop. Some Cretan must have dug it up. The past few years I’ve read up on it. This is Minoan work.”

  Cath stared around at the bookcases which lined the rec room. “All your books about ancient Greece.”

  I nodded. “This is the lost ring of King Minos, Cath. He ruled a naval empire back then. Bet gazorching was really helpful to him.”

  “And—wait a minute, Pop! And you’re taking it back to Greece next week?”

  “Well, you know, Cath, it might be a really significant artifact. The archaeologists would like to see it, I bet. I thought, when we do the tour of the air base outside Heraklion, I’d pretend I just found it, in the grass or something. It’s not like I had a sidekick, to hand it down to—”

  I could tell from Cath’s sudden blowtorch glare that I’d said something sexist again. “What about me?” she demanded. “Why can’t a woman be the Gazorcher?”

  “Uh, there are reasons, Cath.” I could feel myself going pink with embarrassment. “You know what a gazorcher is?”

  “It’s a gigantic slingshot arrangement, right?”

  “Fraternity guys at Carnegie-Mellon use them to lob water balloons. In my day the Pi Lambs made ’em out of bicycle inner tubes. But in the beginning, when the frat first invented them, we used, uh, women’s undergarments.”

  Cath looked at me as if I were stuck to the bottom of her shoe. “You used bras. Great. I always knew frat men were adolescent swine, and this proves it.”

  “You could use another name,” I suggested. “How about the Feminist Avenger? Nail rapists. Embarrass dirty old men. Testify at Supreme Court confirmation hearings.”

  That made her laugh. “Are you serious, Pop? Would you let me inherit the superhero job?”

  I looked at her, so competent, so full of bouncy energy, and had to say, “You’ve already inherited everything you need, Cath.” Besides, she wouldn’t need a cape or anything. The spiked leather bustiers and the green streak in her hair were terrifying enough. Batman had nothing on her. I put the ring into her hand.

  She closed her fingers slowly around it. “This is amazing. I can’t believe it. My father, the costumed crime fighter. Would you, you know, teach me how to use it?”

  “You bet!” The last time Cath wanted me to teach her anything, it was how to ride a two-wheel bike. All of a sudden I felt great. There’s life in the old boy yet!

  Suddenly she seemed to have second thoughts. “One more question, Pop. Why’d you quit? How come the Gazorcher retired?”

  That’s Cath all over, examining the drawbacks before committing herself—exactly what a teleporter should be! “Look it up in the scrap books,” I said. “The Gazorcher’s last case was in October 1977. And you were born—”

  “November second. Oh Pop, you’re kidding! It was my fault?”

  “It wasn’t anybody’s fault,” I corrected her. “Your mother was ill, in the hospital for six weeks. What was I going to do—leave you alone, a newborn baby? It was easier to just hang up the goggles.”

  “Child care pressures did you in.” For the first time today Cath stared at me with not astonishment but respect. “I’m gonna tell my women’s action group. They’ll award you an Honorary Ovary. It’s a pin—you can wear it on your lapel.”

  “Uh, thanks. Oh, the goggles! Now those are essential. You’ll see what I mean. Let me look upstairs and see if I still have mine.” Come to think of it, the Gazorcher’s goggles were black leather too. Obviously it was meant to be.

  Litany of Hope

  Irene Radford

  The editor is why I love this story. She pushed, and pushed, and pushed until I stretched way beyond what I thought enough to come up with a story that not only means a lot to me but is one of the best things I ever wrote. I started it for the Breaking Waves anthology but just did not have time to finish and polish it. Now I’m glad I waited.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  My life has evolved in ways I never could imagine. Now I must live the life of a fugitive . . . This is the first day of my new life. But wait, it did not begin today. It began . . . it began half a lifetime ago. Half of my lifetime anyway.

  ∞

  “Hope Sally Henderson, must you walk like an elephant?” Mama didn’t turn away from her dishwashing or watching the morning news on her laptop beside her on the kitchen counter.

  I paused one foot halfway into the kitchen. I was in a hurry on my way to grabbing breakfast and not paying attention to manners or walking “ladylike.” My birthday breakfast and maybe . . . just maybe I’d have a surprise awaiting me.

  Only reason Mom would notice I walked heavily was if she had a cake in the oven.

  I peeked to make sure the big cake mixing bowl was among the dirty dishes. At twelve, while too sophisticated to demand a birthday cake, I still wanted one. The special one, three layers of white cake with boiled icing topped with coconut and nests of jelly beans. That was my cake.

  More cake than just she and I could eat. I looked for evidence that Daddy had come home. The only present I really wanted.

  His ship captain’s hat wasn’t hanging on the rack in the mud room off the kitchen. My stomach plummeted at yet another birthday spent without him. Three years in a row now.

  “Are you remembering today, Daddy?” I asked the air, hoping he’d hear my thoughts on his oil skimmer ship in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. “Please, Daddy, have a weekend off soon.”

  At least he was in the Chesapeake, close enough to come home to Virginia Beach on his days off. If he ever got another one. That damned oil spill kept him and every other skimmer crew busy every damn day, day in, day out. They only made port to take on supplies or send an injured crewman to hospital.

  “Sorry, Mom,” I grumbled to the only parent in residence. If I couldn’t have Dad, at least I got my cake.

  I let my netbook drop onto the kitchen table, while I fished for my flash drive in my backpack. The tiny thing always slipped out of its pocket and nestled in the bottom, beneath all my other junk.

  Mom rounded on me with a glare. “You will never be a lady, clunking and thunking about.” She snapped a lot when Dad was gone. Not that she was home much either.

  I wondered if the news held information that would send her off on another job analyzing fish and water and seabed samples for UNOMA, the UN Oceans Monitoring Agency. I thought her PhD in marine biology was wasted collecting samples all over the world and then writing reports in her office. She could be doing so much more to aid the containment since the Big Spill. She should be working on a way to stop the new pollution disasters that cropped up every day.

  I shrugged her off. Again. She never listened to me anyway. “What’s for breakfast? I’ve got to turn in my biology paper first period, so I can’t be late.” I pulled up the paper on the netbook and did a final spell check, then saved it to the biology flash drive to turn in. The computer groaned and growled as it slowly transferred the data along with a multitude of graphs and photos. The drive was overloaded to begin with. Only ten gigs. Sheesh, I needed a terabyte or four at least for all my research and really cool stuff coming out of the Center for Disease Control. The CDC often had more information on the ramifications of the Big Spill than anyone else.

  “Hot water’s in the microwave, hit start.” Mama gestured to a packet of instant oatmeal on the table. She dried her hands and turned her attention back to the morning news on her laptop.

  Pictures flipped by. Oil spills, drilling, dumping, eco-terrori
sts, fish kills. More about the Big Spill. That story had been top of the screen for years. Cap the well, it springs a leak a mile away. Cement that, and something else blows, or a grounded tug scrapes off the cap on an abandoned well. Or terrorists blew up a tanker. And we faced illegal toxic waste dumps into the Mariana Trench. The intense pressure of the depths crushed the containers and . . . well, you get the picture. I think the entire world was tired of hearing about it.

  I listened to every word in horrified fascination. I needed to be out there doing something to stop people from killing the oceans, killing the planet, not writing biology papers. We’d gone beyond breaking the oceans. Now we were murdering them.

  And no one seemed to care but me.

  Smoke in the air from burning off the crude, closed beaches, volunteer weekends on clean up duty—I had my own stretch of the Chesapeake Bay that I patrolled every Saturday morning trying to catch a glimpse of Dad’s ship—and a diet devoid of seafood; we were tired of it all. What hurt most were the daily lists of mass kills: birds, fish, and the occasional whale. Those broke my heart more than any of the other inconveniences.

  Someday I was going to find a way to save those creatures.

  “Oh, my god, that crazy Czech did it. He really did it,” Mom gasped.

  “What crazy Czech?” I asked.

  “UNOMA’s been monitoring Rudi Czerna,” she said, nearly bouncing in place, eyes still glued to the computer—no longer the news. This looked like a private UNOMA site. “He’s engineered bacteria that will eat oil pollution. UNOMA announced the first visible clearing of the mid-Atlantic. We’re seeing an end to this disaster.”

  My gaze landed on my AP biology bibliography highlighted on my screen. “Um . . . Mom?” Something sounded fishy about this wonderful news. I didn’t want to crush the hope in my heart that we could end this. That Daddy could come home.

  “What, honey?” she replied, distracted.

  “Bacteria need food for mitosis.” I tapped the flash drive with my AP biology report. “The more they eat the more often they split. Pretty soon there’s going to be a ton more of them and they’ll run out of oil in the ocean to eat.”