by Various
It dawned on Marcus that some response was expected of him.
“It’s very nice,” he said cautiously. “But I would put it down, if I were you. It might be dangerous.” Truth be told, Marcus couldn’t have distinguished a Branded Whiptail from horse droppings unless it bit him on the ankle, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t give both a wide berth.
“Oh, it’s absolutely deadly,” the man said, wiggling his fingers so the little thing shook. “A grain or two of venom will put a man into nervous shock in less than a minute.” He watched Marcus’ carefully neutral expression and added, “Of course, this must all be old hat to you by now. I’m sorry to get so worked up right off the bat. What must you think of me?”
“It’s nothing,” Marcus said. “Listen, I’m Captain d’Ivoire, and I got a message—”
“Of course you are!” the man said. “Senior Captain Marcus d’Ivoire, of the First Battalion. I’m honored.” He extended his hand for Marcus to shake. “I’m Janus. Most pleased to meet you.”
There was a long pause. The extended hand still held the frantically struggling scorpion, which left Marcus at something of a loss. Finally Janus followed his gaze down, laughed, and spun on his heel. He walked to the edge of the path and dropped the little thing amidst the stones. Then, wiping his hand on his black robe, he returned to Marcus.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “Let me try again.” He re-offered his hand. “Janus.”
“Marcus,” Marcus said, shaking.
“If you could conduct me to the fortress, I would be most grateful,” Janus said. “I just have a few things I need to get stowed away.”
“Actually,” Marcus said, “I was hoping you could tell me where the colonel might be. He sent a message.” Marcus looked over his shoulder at Fitz for support.
Janus appeared perplexed. Then, looking down at himself, inspiration appeared to dawn. He gave a polite cough.
“I suppose I should have been clearer,” he said. “Count Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran, at your service.”
There was a long, strained silence. It felt like the moment just after you’d done something monumentally stupid—bashing your thumb with a hammer, for example—and just before the pain came flooding in. A quiet moment, in which there seemed to be all the time in the world to contemplate the destruction you’d wrought.
Marcus decided to take the bull by the horns. He stepped smartly back, coming to stiff attention, and ripped off a salute that would have made his instructors at the War College proud. His voice rose to a parade-ground bark.
“Sir! My apologies, sir!”
“No apology necessary, Captain,” Janus said mildly. “You couldn’t have known.”
“Sir! Thank you, sir!”
They matched stares for another long moment.
“We had better get the formalities over with,” Janus said. He fished in his breast pocket and produced a crisply folded page, which he handed to Marcus. “Senior Captain d’Ivoire, as ordered by the Ministry of War in the name of horses and all, I am hereby assuming command of the First Colonial Infantry Regiment.”
Marcus unbent sufficiently to take the note. It said, with the usual Ministry circumlocutions, that Count Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran was directed to assume command of the First Colonial Regiment and employ it, “as far as practicable,” to suppress the rebellion and protect the interests of the Kingdom of Vordan and her citizens. At the bottom was affixed the seal of the Ministry, sky blue wax impressed with the image of a diving eagle. He handed it stiffly back to Janus.
“Sir,” he said. “You have the command!”
Another salute, which the colonel returned. And that was it—with those few words command of the Colonials and all the attendant responsibilities were removed from Marcus’ shoulders. He took what felt like the first breath of air he’d had in the weeks since the rebellion.
“And with that done,” Janus said, tucking the paper away, “I hope you’ll do me the favor of relaxing a little. That stiff posture is bad for the spine.”
The parade-ground rigidity was already producing an ache across Marcus’ shoulders. He gratefully complied.
“Thank you, sir. Welcome to the Colonials.” He waved Fitz forward. “This is Lieutenant Fitzhugh Warus, my aide.”
Fitz saluted smartly, as comfortable with strict military decorum as Marcus was awkward with it. Janus nodded acknowledgment.
“Lieutenant,” he said. “You’re the younger brother of the late Colonel Warus, are you not?”
“Yes, sir,” Fitz said.
“My condolences on your loss, then. Your brother was a brave man.”
“Thank you, sir.”
That was fair enough, Marcus thought. Maybe not terribly bright, or honest, but brave, certainly. He was surprised Janus knew anything about him, though. For all the attention the Colonials had received from the Ministry of War before the rebellion, Khandar might as well have been on the moon. Perhaps he’s just being polite.
“If you’ll wait a moment, sir, I’ll have someone carry your things,” Marcus said. “We have rooms prepared for you inside.”
“I’ll carry them myself, if it’s all the same to you,” the colonel said. “Just show me the way.”
“As you wish. Shall I order some food brought in as well? You must be tired.”
“No need,” Janus said. “My man is accompanying the rest of my baggage, and he can handle all the arrangements of that nature. Besides, it seems incumbent on me to pay a call on His Grace as soon as possible, don’t you think?”
“His Grace?” Marcus was puzzled for a moment. “You mean the prince?” It had been so long since he’d given the exiled ruler any serious thought that he’d almost forgotten the man was with them.
“Of course. It’s for his sake I’m here, after all.”
Marcus quashed a frown. Janus was likely to be disappointed when he came face-to-face with the ruler of Khandar, but that was not for him to worry about it. All I need to do now, he reminded himself, is obey orders.
“Yes, sir. I’ll get someone to show you to his chambers.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d accompany me, Captain.” Janus flashed a smile. “I may need your expertise.”
If so, we’re in it pretty damned deep. Nevertheless, Marcus saluted. “Certainly, sir!”
John Zaharick became eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer with the publication of “Dysmorphic” in AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review (Apr. 2013), edited by D.F. McCourt.
Visit his website at www.johnzaharick.com.
* * *
Short Story: “Dysmorphic” ••••
Short Story: “Ghost Gardening” ••••
Short Story: “After the Kaiju Attack” ••••
DYSMORPHIC
by John Zaharick
First published in AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review (Apr. 2013), edited by D.F. McCourt
• • • •
THEY FORM SHAPES in the dark, the soft robots, diode constellations. Jellyfish probes pulse, squishy bells contracting with current, relaxing without.
Her awareness flickers from one remote to the next. Signals from a single jelly grow brighter while the rest dim, like putting all of her focus into a toe, but still being aware of her hands, and then shifting focus to a hand, but still knowing the toe was there.
Except this is better than toes and hands.
• • •
At age six Lisa decided she wanted to be an animal—furry and fast and able to hang upside down from the trees like the squirrels, or sink into the mud like the frogs when the other children asked why she was so quiet, or simply know what smells fascinated dogs.
That feeling never went away. When her skin grew hair she kept it there. When the other girls began presenting their bodies for attention, she only felt a small sickness bubble inside.
She can’t accentuate with clothing and makeup—her shape is just wrong. Mirrors bring disgust. She wants to be somethin
g else.
• • •
Tentacles walk over the yellow-white mounds of methane clathrate that poke through the silt. They taste the frozen gas beneath, feel the pressure and temperature of the water above, and channel numbers into .txt files that are transmitted to the router chain leading to the surface along the pipes. Barrel-thick tubes plunge into the gulf floor, delivering an injection of heat and soaking up methane and sulfur in return.
Feather-oared worms saturate the honey-combed ice hills. Lisa sees the native polychaetes from seven simultaneous angles as her foreign probes diagram the environment. She feels an affinity for the creatures, subsuming them as her sensory network covers the region.
She hasn’t been this distributed since controlling the drone swarm above Chicago, licking the ammonia, oxides, metals, and particulate matter, receiving so many new tastes at once. There she was a cloud over Lake Michigan. Here she is a school off the coast of Louisiana. Her body lies on the mining rig at the surface, but her consciousness disassociates 550 meters below, with the worms. The data from the probes pour into her brain while her own senses are blocked.
There is liberation in bouncing from robot to robot through the temperature gradients, so unlike the land where her skin feels too tight. It clings to her cheeks, stretches around her biceps and forearms, compresses her legs, like ill-fitting clothing. She must rotate her joints to reposition her outer layer, to adjust the human pressure suit.
• • •
She shaved once: her legs, armpits, scalp, eyebrows. Anything to become androgynous. It was satisfying for a time. She learned clothing and makeup can distort. She learned she could cut her fingertips open and place magnets inside, let them jangle nerves. Feeling the fields around electronics was her first experience of a new sense. It was like tasting water after living a life of dehydration. Then came more implants, deeper in the nervous system. Now she feigns normal enough to earn operator contracts.
Gas percolates from the sediment, escaped from the mining rig’s absorption. If the process grows out of control, the deposit will boil up, suck oxygen from the water column, and ignite on the surface. She watches for signs of pending disaster, ready to alert the response team. It is such delicate work to free methane from the ice lattice that traps it.
• • •
Her dysphoria isn’t something surgery and stem cell therapy can alleviate. They merely provide variations on the same outline. Pull this part in, grow this one out. She doesn’t want the part at all. Her phantom limbs are of another species. To be human is such a burden. The sight of two hands in front of her, feet leaping out as she walks, unnerves her. It is not the same as grasping with shape memory alloy arms, as seeing from a multitude of eyes.
There is relief here, among the clathrate worms.
Her mind switches perspectives, moving from synthetic jellyfish to plastic cephalopod to something surrounded by glowing monitors and a paint flecked ceiling. It takes her a few seconds to realize she is back in her body, reclining in a chair on the rig. The transition is so smooth it confuses her. Coming back is never smooth.
• • •
In the mess hall, Emmitt and the other engineers laugh. Their voices rise above the background of conversation like when cetacean calls wash over the sound of seafloor fracturing.
A company sweatshirt drapes over Lisa’s small frame like a clothes hanger as she taps each finger, one at a time, on a cup. Something has changed. She feels the bones articulate at joints, sees the tendons shift under her skin, and wonders how long these emotions have been building, only now becoming obvious.
The crew sees her as sullen. The miners are too foreign for her marginal small talk skills. She prefers the company of extremophiles, and on other occasions eagerly awaits the chance to return to the monitoring rooms. But today is different. She concentrates of the movement of her fingers, perplexed by these feelings.
The lunch chatter breaks her self-examination. “Your phone can’t hold its own in conversation,” Emmitt says to the others. “That’s not consciousness. We’re nowhere near understanding how human minds work.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she says, glancing down the metal table. The engineers don’t notice. “It doesn’t have to be like us,” she says louder. They look at her, surprised by the voice.
“Then what’s it supposed to be?” Emmitt asks.
She hesitates, everyone focused on her, then spits out, “There’s been intelligence here for hundreds of millions of years—in ant colonies and fungal networks, billions in quorum sensing bacteria.”
Emmitt raises an eyebrow. Her heart tightens and throat swells with anxiety.
“Our—our stock algorithms… automated vehicles… smart grids delivering electricity with the grace of a mycorrhizal symbiosis, they’re already minds.”
“Those are optimization processes. They’re not aware,” Emmitt says. “Fungi don’t build gas drilling platforms.”
“We’ve built an ecosystem of machines that are as conscious as any organism.”
He laughs. “You’re spending too much time in the remotes, girl. You need to come up for breath more.” Everyone chuckles, but she isn’t embarrassed. If they only knew what that time away has given her.
She extends her fingers and then runs them down her forearm. When she came back today, it didn’t feel alien. It didn’t even feel like coming back. She has become so accustomed to the invertebrate shapes, to the radial symmetry, to the robots’ points of view that her own body has ceased to be a prison.
Out of the mess hall, she focuses on each foot as she moves, balls and toes striking the ground through her boots. She wants to run. Sometimes miners jog around the helipad. They’ll stare at her, wonder at the sudden extroversion, but she’s too excited to care.
She slides her fingers through her hair and takes comfort in the sensation, for this body, her body, is just another probe to shift her mind into, just another option. For the first time, she admires it.
GHOST GARDENING
by John Zaharick
First published in Lost and Lonely: A Not One of Us Special Publication (Jan. 2013), edited by John Benson
• • • •
IWENT to the used bookstore today and ran my fingers over the vinyl records like you used to. They still didn’t have any copies of Hunky Dory. I’ll keep looking for you, but in the meantime we can call an end to our strangest book game. I found this, and you’ll never top it:
A Guide to Ghost Gardening by Thom Klock
It doesn’t have notes in the margins like your best discoveries, so I’m writing these. Hopefully they don’t end up as illegible as some of the scribbles in that mass of sci-fi, self help, new age, and popular science pulp—your intellectual barometer of our town.
Pg. 3
Starting a spectral garden is easier than it may seem, and can be a very rewarding hobby. The first step to a successful garden is to prepare the soil. Old memories make excellent fertilizer. These can be found attached to items at thrift stores, pawn shops, and the Salvation Army. Wedding and engagement rings are prime examples. Look for clothing that is guaranteed to have meaning attached to it, such as wedding and prom dresses. Mugs dedicated to grandparents, old toys, and videogames carry the unlimited potential of childhood.
I gave your stuff to the thrift store: jewelry, clothing, shoes, pillows, that table we purchased from the antique barn when we got lost trying to find the wine tasting. This page made me momentarily regret it. But just for a moment. I haven’t told anyone because I know our friends and your family will be angry. I couldn’t take seeing those things anymore. I need to get over you, but it’s so hard.
Pg. 4
Ashes from burnt down houses carry more than just potassium for the soil. Flames do an excellent job of adhering trauma to matter.
A fire would have made things simpler. Erase every possession in one blaze. Remember when you called 9-1-1 when our neighbor’s house caught fire that February? You spoke calmly to the operator, but
I could hear the panic behind your professionalism. Our friends always talked about how confident you were. I thought about that while I watched you watch the flames lap against the snowy air. You rubbed your lips over your teeth, fidgeting as simply as you could. Afterwards I barely slept as you shifted in bed all night keeping us both awake, listening for a fire alarm, sniffing the air for smoke.
The fire was arson. The daughter destroyed everything to hurt her father. In your case I don’t have anyone to blame.
Pg. 5
To charge the ground, bury a piece of wreckage stolen from an accident, or simply sprinkle glass fragments about.
When I visited your road on the one year anniversary, I noticed a piece of glass in the dirt, a shard the size of a pebble. Everything was ritual until that point. Even though I told myself the location was significant, it never felt so until I saw that glass. I doubt the piece belonged to your car. Then again, there haven’t been any other wrecks there. It could easily have sat among the stones and dirt of the shoulder for 12 months.
I took the shard. I’ll scratch this page with it to show you.
Pg. 17
Newspapers are good for creating synchronicity traps. As frozen pieces of history, they can transcend it. I find the 20-year-old horoscopes to be the most accurate.
When we got our first apartment together, we found that old Sunday paper in the kitchen cabinet, plugging up a hole where the shelf wasn’t flush with the wall. We laughed at the old the hair styles, comics, and toy ads. Aries eerily matched your day at work, but you said they’re designed that way. When I read the others to you, they didn’t fit.
Pg. 28
The aether has a memory, like a piece of carpet showing impressions of furniture and walkways. Life is like a piece of furniture that leaves indentations. An ecosystem is like a living room based on feng shui.