"You'd better hope it's not a pot plantation,” Bert said. “Not unless you know how to outrun a shotgun. Pot causes paranoia—especially in people growing it."
"It looks abandoned to me,” I said.
"Don't make assumptions."
I had to assume Bert knew what he was talking about. I'd seen the scar tissue on his neck and left arm. You don't get slash marks like that falling down stairs.
We studied the camp through binoculars. Then we took telephoto pictures. Then we slid a ways back down the hill and looked at the pictures on Ernie's video player. Then we whispered back and forth for a while. Is this a pot farm or not? If it is, where were the growing fields? Well, maybe those buildings that we thought were drying sheds are actually full of sun lamps and hydroponics tanks? Look at all the wires going to that outbuilding, and the fuel tank next to it—doesn't that suggest a generator?
If it was a pot farm, then that would explain the barbed wire and the signs saying that this was a private hunting club. What a great way to keep out the curious—including the Lassen County Sheriff. And it would also explain the armed men I'd met on my previous trip through this terrain. Except—it didn't explain the green boy, unless I'd been smoking some of that pot and hadn't noticed. No, I think I would have noticed that. I'm pretty sure I haven't touched the stuff since ... I dunno, when was the last ELO concert in Anaheim? (Yes, that's the story you heard. It was six months before I found out that my so-called “friends” had actually redressed me in that outfit after I'd passed out on the couch. I was really disappointed to discover that—it brought to a screeching halt a whole personal mythos of exciting sexual fantasies and imagined playmates.)
But if it wasn't a pot farm, what else could it be? It sure didn't look like any hunting camp Bert had ever seen. Ernie had never been hunting and neither had I; so our opinions on the matter were unformed. Finally, unable to come to any kind of rational conclusion, we decided to hunker down on the hill and watch the camp for signs of life and if we didn't see anybody by tomorrow afternoon, we'd walk in on the road, pretending we were three lost and stupid campers; which wouldn't take all that much pretending, the facts being self-evident.
The only flaw in that plan was the possibility that we might be too close to a shed full of giant green pods, and that while we were sleeping our bodies would be replaced and we would wake up soulless and without emotion. Ernie said that in his case it was too late, he was already an iPod-person. Bert and I exchanged a glance. “Ernie's getting tired. That doesn't even justify violence.” I considered a remark about Ernie losing his ah-finney-tee for wordplay, but decided the reference was just too obscure for this audience. Time after time, some puns work; some don't.
Eventually, we crawled back to the top of the hill and resumed our surveillance—this struck me as possibly a good opening scene for an adventure novel, a squad of commandos looks down into a valley and sees some kind of strange alien infestation, but I couldn't figure out where to go with it from there. We bedded down on the ridge and maintained watch on and off all night. If there was anyone in the camp below, Bert's snoring should have aroused them, but the camp remained dark and silent. By morning, we were certain that the place was deserted, but we waited anyway.
Early afternoon, we scrambled back down to the road, made ourselves look like three disheveled campers who'd slept in our clothes, and plodded dutifully into the deserted camp. We started with the main building. It had been pretty well stripped. Some bunks and benches remained, a couple of chairs and two heavy wooden tables. Otherwise, the place was bare. Even the light fixtures were gone. We did find an old box of baking soda on one of the shelves. And near the door there were some tiny bits of paper, the kind of detritus you might find after someone had shredded a lot of documents. Whatever or whoever had happened here, they'd moved on and they hadn't left any evidence behind.
The same was true of the drying sheds—if that's what they were. There were some posts in one of the sheds, indicating where dividing walls might have been, if the sheds had been divided into stalls, and there were wires running the length of the ceiling. Two light fixtures remained in that same shed, and one of them still had a burned-out sun lamp in it. So they could have been drying sheds, or a hydroponics farm, but it could just as easily have been a winter resort for greenies; so that didn't prove anything one way or the other.
There was no smell of pot here, and you would think that if this had really been a pot farm that the place would reek of it. Instead, there was a strange thick cloying pineapple-apricot stink, only kind of slithery and lizard-like too. If you can imagine that. It wasn't orchids. That much I was sure of. Orchids don't smell. There were webby footprints in a couple of the empty stalls, and there were some clumps of ivy or kudzu or something at one end of one of the buildings. At the back, in a clearing we hadn't been able to see from the crest of the hill, there was a corral, fenced by more barbed wire. The sun blazed down into the corral and if I were a greenie, I bet I could spend a happy afternoon just blooming there.
The rest of our search was equally fruitless. The generator building was empty—as if the generator had been hastily removed and trucked out. We unscrewed the feed into the big fuel tank, but even though it still smelled of gasoline, when we banged on it, it resonated like the Tin Man's empty chest. We circled the camp, but didn't find anything else. The area had been fairly well policed, and except for that rotting pineapple smell, a casual observer would assume this had been a pot farm—and you could probably explain the pineapple stench as the unwelcome residue of some industrial strength cleansing detergent.
So that was pretty much it. We came, we saw, we saw nothing. We came away with blisters. We hiked back along the dirt road until it reached the main highway, and called for pickup. We didn't have to wait long. Our van driver had been sleeping in a rest stop near Red Bluff during the night; during the day, he parked about twenty miles south of our drop-off point and listened to his scanner and read Terry Pratchett novels. “I like Pratchett,” he said. “His stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end.” He gave me a dirty look when he said this; I deliberately chose not to respond. Until my dramatic license is revoked, I'll write any damn thing you pay me for.
Back north, in that town or city I'm not going to name, I stood in the hot shower and made orgasmic noises until the water finally turned cold; I thought about shaving, decided not to, and finally, luxuriously, put on soft clean clothes—don't let anyone kid you, clean underwear is a sacred right—and then hobbled downstairs to toss the rest of my stuff into the back of my camper. It was time to head home.
There's just one more thing to tell. The guy I called Bert was leaning against the camper shell, stuffing an unlit pipe with something that smelled fruity and vaguely familiar.
"So?” he asked. “You done?"
I shrugged. “Why do you care?"
He shrugged right back. “I don't really."
This whole thing was one big shrug. “I'm tired. I'm going home. There's nothing else to do, is there?"
He didn't answer. He just continued packing his pipe.
"Look, I saw a green boy on that road. I know it. Maybe I should have taken pictures, but I was rattled, I wasn't thinking clearly. But I saw what I saw."
"Yep,” said Bert. “You saw what you saw. Just like UFOs and Sasquatch and Elvis. Nobody ever gets a good picture. It's the photo-resistant morphogenic field that cryptozoological phenomena generate around themselves."
"So if you don't believe me, why'd you go on this wild goose chase?"
"I didn't say I don't believe you."
"But—?"
"But nothing.” He continued stuffing his pipe.
I stopped what I was doing, pointlessly rearranging things in the camper shell. “Is there a point to all this?"
"No. Not really."
I rolled my eyes. I'm good at rolling my eyes. Especially when I'm trying to hide how pissed I am. “I'm going home. I'm going to put on a Sibelius symphony. Maybe I'll put o
n a whole bunch of Sibelius symphonies. And maybe some Ralph Vaughn Williams too. And maybe I'll look at pornographic pictures of redheads and eat a box of Godiva chocolate. But I think I'm through with green people for a while."
"That's probably a good idea.” He straightened up, pushing himself off the camper. He looked at me very seriously. This was the punch line. “You want some free advice?” he said. “Worth exactly what you're payin’ for it?"
"I'm listening."
"If there are people out there who can buy a tract of land that big and hide what they're doing that well for that long, they can probably do just about anything else they want. You might want to keep that in mind."
"Yeah, I already had that thought. But thanks anyway.” I tossed the last duffel into the back, the one with all the dirty clothes.
"People with big secrets—people get hurt. That's not good.” Bert finally finished packing his pipe and struck a match with his thumbnail. He sucked gently, the flame bent to the tobacco, and sweet smoke curled upward. “You want to be careful."
I slammed the camper shut and faced him. “Just one thing—"
"Yeah?"
"Who are you. I mean, who are you really?"
"Me?” He smiled. The first smile I'd ever seen on his grizzled face. “I'm just like everybody else in your life. I'm exactly what you want to see. You figure it out."
"I am figuring it out. Here's what I'm figuring. What if somebody took me out in the woods and showed me exactly what they wanted me to see. What if the best way to keep a secret this big is to control the search for it?"
He blinked. “Isn't that a little paranoid?"
"Probably. But paranoia is a necessary skill, especially when you're surrounded by editors, agents, and lawyers. Now answer the question."
"Okay,” he said, surprising me with his candor. And suddenly, all the bristle of the last five days was gone and he looked like a real scientist. “Try it this way. What if your facts are accurate, but your interpretation is confused."
"That's a polite way of saying it. What are you saying?"
"You saw a sign that said private hunting club. You saw barbed wire. You saw a boy caught in a fence. You saw men with guns. You made an assumption—it fit the facts you had, but what if your assumption was wrong?"
"It wouldn't be the first time."
"You said it yourself. What if the hunting club signs were a way to keep folks away from the pot farm. Only, if there's no pot farm, and no hunting club, then what's left—and why would you need the signs?"
I thought about the sheds, the stalls, everything else—especially the installations for overhead lamps. Sun lamps. Of course—it made sense. Sort of. Oh. “It's a sanctuary, isn't it? The boy wasn't running away. He was lost. And cold. And scared. And the men I met, the ones with guns, they were really there to protect the greenies from people like me, weren't they?"
"Yeah, that's a different interpretation. How well does it fit the facts?"
My mind raced through the implications. “That's why they had to clear it out so completely. A hunting camp—no big deal. But a sanctuary, they can't risk people asking questions. The publicity would kill them. The media would go bugfuck. It'd be a bigger circus than—I dunno—but it'd be big."
"And who would get hurt the worst?"
"Oh. Yeah, I see."
"Yeah, you do."
We stood there a moment, just looking at each other, just studying each other.
"So, this is like—a Greenpeace thing, right?"
He shook his head. “It might be."
"You don't know?"
"Honestly? No, I don't.” He sucked at his pipe. “Yeah, I used to know some people. But I haven't talked to anyone in a long time. I'm not even sure where I could start looking. But whatever was there, somebody tipped them off, that's for sure. They had to know their security was breached, that's why they cleared out."
"Well, there's not a lot of people who could have told them. Just Dennis and Jay, and you and Ernie, and whoever you told—?"
He raised an eyebrow. I've always been jealous of people who can do that. I can't. “You e-mailed a story to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, didn't you?” He lowered his eyebrow.
"Oh, come on! Gordon Van Gelder as a member of The International Green People Conspiracy—? I know there's that stuff with his father, but still it's easier to believe that you had dinner with Heinlein, and I don't believe that at all."
He didn't answer immediately. Finally, he said, “Look. Remember I said you could make a lot of money in sf publishing, if you knew the right people? There used to be a—call it an office—that helped fund some of the major sf magazines. They paid the editors an extra consulting fee. There was a list and a phone number. If anybody sent in any stories on any of those topics on the list, they were supposed to phone in the info on the story. I think it started in 1944, with that Cleve Cartmill story about the atom bomb. Remember Astounding Science Fiction— John W. Campbell editor? Something of a loose cannon? Maybe it was easier to buy him out and let him feel secretly important. Maybe. I don't know for sure."
"Okay, y'know, Bert—you had me at the Sanctuary part. I really would like to believe that somewhere in northern California, or Oregon, or Idaho, or somewhere else in the northwest woods, maybe there's a secret place, or even a lot of secret places, where green people can safely stretch their palms up to the sky and soak in the warmth of the sun. That would be something I could believe in. But this? My editor?! Sorry. I can believe six impossible things before breakfast, but not that one."
"Okay, have it your way.” He took a last deep puff off his pipe, then turned and walked away from me. He climbed into his late-model Jeep, started the engine, put it in gear, and let it roll away down the hill, leaving me with a camper full of dirty clothes and unanswered questions ... and the faint smell of pineapple and apricot smoke in the air.
So, that's it, Gordon. Somebody knows what's really going on. Maybe it's Bert and Ernie. Maybe it's you. It sure as hell isn't me. Whoever wanted to muddy the issue did a really good job. I'm tired as hell. I give up. I'm going back to writing about things I do know—how we have to build Lunar colonies so we can escape the giant alien man-eating worms from outer space. I'll send you another one of those stories soon.
(signed) Your Pal,
David Gerrold
[Back to Table of Contents]
Onocentaur by Sophie M. White
No animal shelter
Will take you.
When I left you
In the country,
You always found your way back.
Those who answered my ad
Wanted a “real” centaur—
Not one with the body of an ass.
* * * *
Please find a new home!
I barely have room for my dachshund,
Let alone a critter like you.
The floors are sagging,
And your stench is in my
Curtains and couch.
You need to be in a wide pasture,
Not a downtown apartment!
[Back to Table of Contents]
Books To Look For by Charles de Lint
Un Lun Dun, by China Mie´ville, Del Rey, 2007, $17.95.
I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I certainly went into it with a positive attitude. After all, this is China Mie´ville, whose King Rat was easily one of the best debuts our field had seen in a long time. It was inventive and beautifully written, with deeply rendered characters and a plot that never quite went where you expected it to, but oh, the places it did take you.
Mie´ville followed that debut with a number of other books, each of which upped the ante and delivered.
And now we have Un Lun Dun.
Which is not a terrible book, by any means. The prose is as strong as ever, and if anything, it's his most inventive book to date. However....
It's being marketed as a YA book for all ages, but I think that the only readers who will be de
eply satisfied will be very young ones. Teens and up are going to be disappointed, which is too bad, because the good parts are as good as anything Mie´ville has given us to date.
The story follows Deeba, a young London girl whose best friend Zanna is the Chosen One who will save unLondon, a twin city in another dimension, or perhaps just a few steps sideways from the original, that grew out of all the unwanted bits of our London. But things don't work out quite the way the two would hope.
What's good?
The ideas are fabulous. Mie´ville has more fascinating ideas in every few pages than most writers do in an entire novel. And they just keep coming: whimsical, strange, even horrifying.
And then there's the way he subverts the tropes of fantasy novels. I'd tell you exactly how, but I don't want to spoil the story for you. Read the book and you'll quickly see what I mean.
What doesn't work?
Unfortunately, the characters are all flat. This is an “events” novel from start to finish, one event leading breathlessly into the next, and that's the book's other problem. It's much too busy.
Those fabulous ideas I mentioned earlier? Every time we just start to get interested in something—a character, a situation, some new odd and wonderful place—we're already moving on to the next. And often, that's the only time we see them.
Busy, busy, busy.
As I reread what I've written above, I can see that this is a confusing review. Did I, or did I not, like the book? A little of both is the only answer I can give you, and as annoyed as I was for much of the book, I still find myself wanting to recommend it to you.
I think the real problem with Un Lun Dun can be found in the interview that was in the back of the galley I read. When asked by the interviewer if this is a YA book, Mie´ville says, “Absolutely,” then goes on to add, “There's a certain kind of fairy-tale logic you can use in a YA book that you can't in an adult book, or at least not without tipping into a kind of mannered fabulism that, in adult fiction, I don't love. I couldn't use a character with a bottle of ink for a head in an adult book."
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