Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors
Page 243
Foxx also learned with regret that once he observed a scene, he could not go back and observe it again. So it was. But with all of history at his disposal, he never seemed to run out of material. And so he adopted Rome as his own even as the city, and the rest of the Italian peninsula, grew restless. There were rumors of revolution, that the great patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi might even return from South America to lead the fight to unify Italy’s various kingdoms into a single state.
Meanwhile his money dwindled. In March Foxx had sent a short letter to the Earl in London, politely reminding him of their meeting, and informing him that during the coming tourist season Foxx would be doing sketches daily at the Colosseum, in the Forum, in front of St. Peters, and elsewhere around Rome. Foxx included his address, hoped for the best, and eventually forgot about the letter until late May, when a small package arrived.
It was a copy of Murray’s Hand-Book for Travelers in Italy, 1846—a small red book, sized to fit in a coat pocket, freshly printed. A white card was inserted near the middle, and when Foxx opened it to that page he found a section of text had been circled in thick, black ink.
…As to souvenirs of Rome, the Earl of Lowestoft reports that a certain expatriate sketch artist, by the name of Foxx, does remarkable drawings with his camera lucida in which tourists are inserted into imagined recreations of past events. We have observed a drawing that this Mr. Foxx has done of the Honourable Oscar Rotham, the Earl’s son, and it is truly remarkable, casting the boy in the likeness of a gladiator engaged in combat within the Colosseum itself! Such fanciful historical sketches would make wonderful souvenirs for the traveler who already has enough of the olive-wood carvings and leaded-glass religious baubles that constitute the usual Roman momentos. Mr. Foxx can be found sketching in the vicinity of the major attractions of Rome, or can be hired for commissions directly at his studio near the Pantheon…
The bookmark was another of the Earl’s calling cards. On the back was a short message:
Good luck, Mr. Foxx!—C. Rotham
He smiled. June was just around the corner. The days were lengthening, and already the first English accents could be heard calling through the streets of Rome.
Foxx hurried out to buy more paper.
***
November, 1851
Mayfair, London
Foxx’s Historical Artworks was a small place on Cork Street, just north of the Burlington Arcade and a two-minute walk from the Royal Academy of Art. It had a small shop in front, where light from tall windows fell upon display tables stacked with books and woodcuts, and a private studio in the back. The little bell on the front door chimed as someone stepped in off the sidewalk.
Foxx’s assistant, George, stood to greet the customer while Foxx himself, back in the studio, finished inscribing copies of his latest folio book, Historical Sketches, Vol. 18: The Late Italian Renaissance Reimagined.
When the London publishers saw samples of his work coming up out of Italy in 1846, and learned of his growing popularity among wealthy vacationing nobles, they outbid each other for themed volumes of his sketches, which Foxx sent to London from his studio in Rome. Renaissance Italy Revealed was an instant bestseller, and was followed by other wildly popular works, some now into their fourth or fifth printing: Florence Through the Ages, Rome During the Time of the Apostles, and Leonardo in his Studio. And although no one was willing to admit it openly, Foxx’s Techniques of Michelangelo, though never an official part of the curriculum of the Royal Academy, was secretly read and reread by the faculty and students alike.
By the end of his first summer doing souvenir sketches in Rome, he was as much a tourist attraction as were the Trevi Fountain or the Spanish Steps. But in June of that year Rome had a new Pope, Pius IX, whom Italian patriots believed would support their unification efforts. Tensions heightened all over Italy and by the following summer of 1847 the tourists were far fewer. Foxx read the writing on the wall; before the revolutions broke out in January, 1848, he left Italy and took his camera lucida north of the Alps.
Other bestsellers soon followed: The Construction of Chartres Cathedral, Paris and the Court of Louis XIV, and Famous Battles of the Thirty Years War. Even as the revolutions of 1848 spread out of Italy and engulfed Europe, Foxx traveled and sketched, careful to avoid the areas where the uprisings were most destructive. He eventually returned to London in 1851.
Thus six years passed and Foxx became a minor celebrity. His display in the Fine Art Courts of the Crystal Palace at London’s Great Exhibition that year was constantly filled with visitors. Prince Albert came through and shook his hand, and after that every English family with a claim to noble blood wanted a Foxx historical portrait—showing them triumphant on the fields of Agincourt, or looking grave and solemn at the signing of the Magna Carta. Those who could not afford a private sitting gladly settled for one of his limited-edition “historical recreations”—Wellington at Waterloo, Nelson at Trafalgar. Military victories were perennial favorites. But the gruesome posthumous beheading of Oliver Cromwell’s corpse was, somewhat disturbingly, far and away his best seller.
Money, in short, was no longer an issue. If only Harriet were with him now. She would be so pleased. But Foxx had been discouraged as of late, spending all his time satisfying London’s desire for fanciful historical “reimaginings,” while neglecting his own desire to paint.
He looked around his studio, saw the blank canvases he had purchased and the many tubes of paint sitting unopened on shelves.
Do not complain, he reminded himself. He had been given a great gift: enough wealth to be comfortable along with fame for his masterful, if “fanciful,” artistic skill.
Yet even now, his work with the camera lucida was not coming along as readily as before. It was as if the clarity and intensity of the historical scenes themselves were fading with his lack of interest.
“Mr. Foxx?” It was George, appearing from the front of the shop. “There is a woman here to see you. She claims to have met you many years ago. A Madame Magnin? Funny old bird.”
Foxx started. “Yes, of course. Please, send her back.”
A minute later the old woman shuffled into the studio slowly, flicking a cane ahead of her with each step, tik-tik-tik.
“Ah, Mr. Foxx,” she said, looking around. “This is a nice place, quite fancy.”
“Thank you.” Foxx motioned for her to sit down on the cushioned chair next to his, but she shook her head.
“It has been many years, Madame. How can I help you?”
“I have a message, Mr. Foxx.”
“From whom?”
“Your Harriet.”
Foxx paled.
“She visited me. She said you have been harder to see lately. Distant. She said I was to speak to you. I’ve come across London. It is a long walk from Whitechapel to Mayfair, Mr. Foxx.”
“What…what is the message?”
“You must leave the past behind now. It is time for your future. That thing,” she pointed to the camera lucida, “has served its purpose. Now you must paint.”
She turned and began to shuffle out again.
“Wait!” said Fox, chasing her. “That’s the message? Just…paint?”
“Yes.”
It felt incomplete, anticlimactic. Foxx tried to stall her. “But…Harriet! She is well? She is happy? She is…with the Lord?”
Magnin smiled, still shuffling forward, tik-tik-tik. “Ah! That’s usually the first question, you know.”
When her hand was on the doorknob at the front of the shop, Foxx remembered his manners and pulled a crown from his pocket, offering it to her. She shook her head.
“Please,” protested Foxx. “For your troubles.”
“The messages are not troubles,” she said, pushing his hand away. “They are gifts.”
Then she walked out the door and disappeared into the crowds on Burlington Arcade.
Suddenly, from the studio, there was a shout and the sound of something breaking. A distraught George appeared,
a bent brass rod and broken prism in his hand.
“I’m…I’m sorry, Mr. Foxx! I bumped the table when I was moving the books you signed. It must have fallen off!” He looked desperate. “Please, take it out of my wages!”
Foxx took the broken pieces of the camera lucida and stared at them for a moment. Then he patted George on the shoulder.
“A simple accident, George. Don’t upset yourself. This day is nearly over anyway. Why don’t you lock up and go home. I’d like to spend a little time alone.” Foxx eyed the stack of large, empty canvases in the corner of the studio. “Although perhaps, before you go, you can help me lift one of those onto an easel?”
“Of course, Mr. Foxx,” said George eagerly. “Anything you say, sir!”
When George had gone, Foxx set the pieces of the camera lucida on a shelf and began to open tubes of paint, one by one.
KB Rylander
http://www.kbrylander.com/
We Fly(Short story)
by KB Rylander
Originally published by Baen
At 18:27 input received.
Get me out. Let me breathe.
The carbon-steel hull lies a scant half-centimeter from my face, but I can't dwell on that. It's what started me into panic in the first place.
***
I crawled to my spot next to Matthew James in the back of Dad's two-door classic Chevy, trying to keep my bare legs from burning on the peeling vinyl. Dad rolled down the window in an attempt to cool things off, but I resigned myself to sucking it up and breathing the soupy hot air. As the engine puttered to life and the radio blared "Summer in the City," I scowled at Mom and Dad's delight in the ancient song. In the rear-view mirror Dad's bushy eyebrows crinkled as he laughed.
He tossed back a hard candy. "Hang in there, Natasha."
***
In deep orbit around Alpha Centauri AB.4, encapsulated in a coffin-sized hunk of metal, I'm surrounded by nothingness—silence and cold and dark. The ship pings, announcing the return of the first Little Guy probe. Cool peppermint lingers on my phantom lips from the memory.
My robotic eyes open, but see only darkness. The metal shell around me clunks and there's a mechanical whine as the beach ball-sized Little Guy docks with the ship and silence again while its data uploads. Please let the planet be habitable. I came all this way, give me something.
While I wait, I check with the comm-bots on the Beacon construction and try to ignore the itching. My skin is a synthetic polymer covered in forty-two thousand sensors that were overkill in training, but now, inside the capsule, they're worse than useless. They pick up every tiny dust particle. My mind-construct interprets these as itches and somewhere during my malfunctions I've lost the ability to turn the sensors off.
My biggest complaint is the choking. I know I'm not actually choking. I'm not crazy. But it's the same sensation, a tightening as if a hand grips my non-existent throat.
I think back, trying to figure where I went wrong. It makes no sense. Everything was normal before I shut down for the journey—months of training, psychological assessments, and self-diagnostics came back with flying colors. Upon arrival three days ago I awoke to panic and malfunctions. Sure, fifty-two years passed back home but it felt like a blink of an eye for me. I remember with perfect clarity the day they mapped my brain and uploaded me into the probe, how afterward I said goodbye to my old self, that human Natasha, and watched her go on her way.
The data from the Little Guy finishes uploading. This is it. I can't get the files open fast enough.
The first several photos show a dense atmosphere of swirling browns. A few manipulations give me access to surface images of a gray crust filled with rocky gullies like the wrinkles of a massive elephant.
As the rest of the Little Guys return and fill me in on the data they've collected, the choking in my throat gets worse.
Alpha Centauri AB.4 is a lump of rock. Six thousand kilometers in radius, dense carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. No chance of sustaining life. In other words, Venus but warmer. All of this, my life's work and traveling 4.3 light years to find the twin of our nearest neighbor.
***
The rain pattered against the windows as Grandma pulled chocolate chip cookies out of the oven and I watched from the kid-safe distance of the kitchen table. Grandma hummed absently and I took a deep, cookie-scented breath. Warmth filled me all the way to my toes. Just as my mouth started watering, shadows fall over the memory, swallowing Grandma and her kitchen, and I resist a tug pulling me into the darkness.
Vivid, perfect memory is one of the perks of upload technology, but with my malfunctions I can't even get those right.
I jerk free of the shadows and end up on the road beside the airfield. This isn't a memory I'd choose. When I was thirteen, not long after Sophia died, my parents took me all sorts of places trying to cheer me up. During one of those attempts we stopped at Luke Air Force Base. Mom, Dad, Matthew James, and I stood beside the chain-link fence with the Arizona sun beating down on us as it leached the sky a dull blue. The air smelled of rain without a cloud in sight. The necklace I wore that day feels too tight now and I want nothing more than to take it off, but the memory doesn't work that way. Mom and Dad stood close to me, but all I could think about was the terrible inside-twisty feeling of everything being so wrong.
Sophia would never grow up and fly. She'd never even get to see a plane.
My eyes prickled as a jet engine roared, the ground beneath our feet rumbling. Matthew James, ten years old at the time, let out a whoop and jumped against the chain-link fence. "This is more like it!" he yelled. The rest of his words were swallowed by the roar of the plane.
A whoosh of adrenaline surged through me as the jet zoomed off—a child-like excitement I don't remember having felt. Some of the pressure lifts from my chest.
Dad sighed and squeezed my shoulder. "We can take you someplace else if you'd rather?"
I don’t mind watching a few more, but I said, "Yes, please."
Matthew James scowled.
***
The files from Earth include forty-eight years of updates sent to me at the speed of light while I slept. In those files was the discovery of another rocky planet, AB.6—this one looking even less promising than AB.4, so they didn't send me there right away.
It's taken me two months at my reduced speeds, but AB.6 is within spitting distance. During that time I've been awake, malfunctioning, and staving off panic by reliving memories and avoiding shadows. I can watch my video library thousands of times per hour, but somehow memories take longer.
Once again the ship's cameras fail to respond, so I'm blind as the ship settles into high orbit around the planet. Metal clunks within the capsule as the bay doors open to release the five Little Guys that will take pictures and run analysis of the planet below.
I reboot and run another self-diagnostic that tells me the same thing as the others:
Great. As if I didn't know that before running the tests. The least it could do is give me an idea of where my processing went haywire.
Only seconds after the bay doors close the comm-bots ping me. The Beacon relay ship beat me here by weeks.
The "Beacon" is a misnomer really. It's not setting up an actual beacon so much as connecting two points in space, allowing instant transfer of data four light-years away. It's revolutionized our ability to work with the Mars teams, but this beacon is the farthest out by far. Some of the pressure on my chest lets up with anticipation of communication with Earth.
Another ping, call it a virtual knock on the door, this time from a human-controlled computer back on Earth.
The Beacon works.
As the systems connect—thank God they connect—I pull up my avatar file, look it over, and decide my face doesn't look quite right. I sharpen the features and add a different hairstyle. I remove my once-beautiful braids and gi
ve avatar-Natasha short hair.
I'm done in nanoseconds and wait a few more before the channel opens and two video feeds of Mission Control come into view, one an overview of the room, the other near ground level.
In fifty-two years Mission Control's design has changed little. A redesign with dark wood paneling and comfortable-looking leather desk chairs gives the room a warmth it never had before. Three rows of desks have given way to a more spacious two and the room is packed with people smiling at the camera in anticipation. In a couple of seconds their visual feed kicks in and they break out in applause and cheers and clinking champagne glasses.
I send a smile to my avatar face and their cheers grow louder. Don't act crazy, don't act crazy.
"Can you hear us, Natasha?" says a man's voice.
They all laugh in delight even though it wasn't funny and I search the crowd for familiar faces, albeit much older ones. Three individuals stand in front of the up-close camera: a man and woman in lime-green uniforms with United American Space Agency splashed garishly across the front in neon orange and a young woman in a tan business suit. It looks like something my mother would have worn.
"I'm Commander John Cook," the man in the garish uniform says. He reads from the palm of his hand and clears his throat. "I see you're sending us your data already, that's excellent. Have you already reached AB.4?"
"Yes sir, but I'm afraid the news isn't as we hoped."
Cook looks at his companion. The crowd murmurs.
Halfway through briefing them on AB.4 and AB.6 there's a hiccup in my processors so I restart and reconnect.
When the cameras come back online Cook stands frowning at me, his arms folded. "Did you go offline for a second?"
So much for hoping they wouldn't notice. I feel remarkably like a child standing in front of the class. "I'm back now," I say, sending a toothy grin to avatar-Natasha.