Fortunate? Impossible. He’d scanned the pod for biosign before tripping the first of the mistake sequences. It didn’t take an expert to read a display that counted hundreds.
For nothing. Not one newcomer was missing. Rumour was rampant, but unhelpful. The most popular involved some newcomer revel, doubtless exotic, gathering them all in another pod.
It made no sense— “Raekl?”
“Greetings, friend Tissop.” Curtis slipped effortlessly into the antechamber. “The family’s asleep. They stayed awake most of the night, waiting for news.” The newcomer, for once, didn’t smile. “Is there any?”
“Why are you still here?” Of course she was still here. No unauthorized movement was permitted, not yet, in the corridors. Tissop calmed himself with an effort. “My apologies, Curtis. A long shift.”
“I’m sure. Come. If you aren’t hungry, then drink with me.”
A drink would be welcome. Being invited to do so in his own home was not, but Tissop couldn’t find a reply that wasn’t churlish. “I’ll clean up.”
For no reason, Tissop checked on the litter first. Rus, Ssu, and Spel were clustered near the ceiling, their little snouts, wrinkled in sleep, poked from their sacks. He felt a sudden impulse to wake them, to be sure they were fine, but restrained it. Raekl would have had trouble enough getting them calmed to rest, being confined to their quarters all cycle with a houseguest on top of it, and wouldn’t thank him.
Drifting close, he inhaled their living breath. At least one, he noted wryly, had neglected to scrub his or her toothplates.
Leaving the children, he went to the room he shared with Raekl. It was dark and chill, the atmosphere reset to their sleep preference, but she’d tethered her sack near the iris to catch him coming home. Tissop managed to slip beneath without waking her. He stripped off the biosuit, tucking the pieces into his sleepsack, breathing deep. Raekl’s scent differed from the children’s, more complex, tainted with worry and exhaustion, yet above all comforting. He wished to stay; should stay.
Would, but for the alien in his home.
5
The light within the table was brighter than the ambient when Tissop reentered the main room, casting disturbing, unfamiliar shadows. Curtis sat at one end, having slipped her too-small feet into one of the table loops. An array of clear bulbs clung to the table surface; his entire supply, at a glance. “I didn’t know which you’d prefer,” the newcomer said blandly, as if Tissop’s belongings were hers. The play of light and shadow emphasized the strange length of her jaw and hollowed the sockets of her deep-set eyes. She smiled, teeth bizarrely white. “I like preehn liquor, myself.”
Preehn being Tissop’s favourite and hard to come by, he scowled and swept up two bulbs of common ale as he came to the table, sending one tumbling at his unwelcome host. Curtis caught it and pressed it to her mouth.
There was a bladder of something more substantial among the bulbs. Leftovers, no doubt. Warmed by the homely gesture, Tissop decided he might be hungry after all and reached for it.
“Something different, that.” Curtis chuckled. “We left supper to the little ones while we worked.” She took another swallow, a convulsion traveling down her narrow throat. “Kept them busy, but Raekl said to warn you mumpsweets were the main ingredient.”
Tissop redirected his reach to another bulb of ale. They’d worked together, in his home. His wife and this—this creature who should, by his calculation, be grieving, if not dead. He drank deeply, then ordered the ambient to normal levels, pleased to see Curtis squint.
The newcomer didn’t appear overly discomfited, taking another bulb, this of preehn, and letting her hairless head tip back. “Quite a day. Do you have a deity, friend Tissop?”
He managed not to spew. Despite the air scrubbers, Raekl would notice the smallest tinge of ale. Until the Ship had taken in strangers, only those denizens engaged in trade communicated directly with other races. They’d come on the newsfeeds to instruct the rest, warning that cultural differences could be greater than the physical, urging denizens that offense could be given without intent. Spiritual beliefs were not, under any circumstances, to be discussed by those unqualified. He found he didn’t care. “Do newcomers?” Tissop asked boldly.
“Some do, some don’t. I’m inclined to believe after what happened today.” For once, Curtis read his expression. “What—didn’t you hear the report?”
He’d been told the same as the rest: a pod sanitized by accident, disappointingly without casualties. A report given to lower-ranked sanitation engineers might not, Tissop thought uneasily, be the one granted researchers like Curtis and his wife. “The problem was isolated,” he said lamely. “An accident—”
“Then why the alert? Why—” with that rude smile “—am I still here?” Curtis held up her bulb of ale, appearing to study it. “What series of happy mistakes led to every inhabitant of that pod being assigned to other quarters on 3rd cycle? A god to thank would be convenient. Unless it was you, friend Tissop. Should we thank you?” Before Tissop could attempt to answer, the newcomer waved the bulb. “Or some faceless denizen, doing his or her duty less well or better than most. Ah! I have another notion—”
Curtis pulled herself closer to him and lowered her voice. “It was the Ship, protecting us.” She spread her arms. “Thank you, Ship!”
No, it wasn’t. The Ship was alive the way the sludge that ate denizen waste was alive. It didn’t make decisions or take actions other than those dictated by the denizens within it. Ships without denizens lodged in asteroid belts, growing aimlessly, trapping hunks of rock to digest what they needed and ignoring the rest.
All of which Tissop kept behind clenched toothplates, abruptly afraid to match wits.
“Which does make me wonder,” Curtis said next, seeming content to carry the conversation by herself. “None of us are missing. Why the alert, friend Tissop, unless—do you suppose?—some of you are?”
Fear fluttered in his gut, pushed a thick foul taste to the back of his mouth. The biosigns. Something had been in the pod. Hundreds of “somethings.” It couldn’t be…He swallowed, hard. “Nothing’s been reported.”
“There wouldn’t be, would there?”
Because there’d be fear, like his. Those who controlled the Ship couldn’t allow the thousands crowded in its pods and corridors to feel this. Denizens had lived on a world once, improbable as it seemed. Minders taught that their kind adjusted so well to life within Ships because they’d evolved from ancestors who’d tunneled in groups and stayed together and had no need for sky. That didn’t make them incapable of blind panic or riot.
What kind had newcomers been, Tissop wondered for the first time. What world, what life, could have favoured such frail bodies, such sensitive bulbous eyes, hands like an unborn child’s…
“My apologies. You’ve worked hard and need your rest,” Curtis said, words that would have been kind from Raekl or another denizen, but weren’t, not uttered through such thin, writhing lips. “I’ll tidy here, friend Tissop. Hopefully tomorrow will see good news and the end of all this.”
First frightened, then dismissed like a weary child. In his own home.
Instead of anger, Tissop felt lost and powerless. Without a word, he stuck his empty bulb to the table, unhooked his back feet, and pushed himself through the air. He’d sleep.
Tomorrow?
He’d try again. He had to.
5
The strings hummed along the corridor. Machines and newcomers slid along on the conveyors below, as many as before or more. The handful of denizens on the strings avoided looking at one another or down. 1055th Sanitation Engineer Tissop stared so intently at his snout he almost missed the decel string before the iris of his door and was forced like a fool to lunge with tail and hands to catch it in time.
He clung to the wall, loath to enter.
Afraid, was the truth.
> Oh, not of discovery. No one seemed to suspect him. But, no matter what he did, he couldn’t trap a single newcomer. Another pod, the third, would be sanitized—accidentally—at the end of this cycle and he had no greater hope for it.
He’d tried. He’d brought an extra scanner, had dared pretend to be inspecting pod-corridor connection ports to use it from every direction, even stood watching as newcomers entered and left, smiling at him as if they knew.
There’d been a new report. The Ship had budded a bad cluster, that was all. It wasn’t unheard of, though any flaws should have been caught during preparations. There’d be exhaustive tests run before the new pods were opened for habitation. Denizens were resourceful and resolute.
And missing.
If not officially admitted, the reason for the 1st priority could no longer be hidden. Denizens had failed to return to their homes. Had failed to arrive at work. Had vanished, so far as their neighbours knew, from the Ship. Three here. Two there. Heres and theres multiplied over and over until the numbers were appalling.
The restrictions on who could travel had been lifted; they had to be, denizens had to work, or crucial systems would begin to revert. The Ship must be tended.
Even if those who tended it were disappearing.
3rd divide, 7th cycle. The busiest time in a corridor. Shoulders hunched, Tissop made himself look along the homeward string. Made himself turn and look along the one heading out to the limit of the Ship.
He was alone. How could he be alone?
He made himself look down.
Newcomers looked up as they sped past in both directions. Offer our Shipmates space in your homes, the newsfeeds had urged last cycle. They’ve come forward to help in our time of need. Thank them.
What had he done?
Tissop thrust himself through the iris, desperate for the safety of home.
No dessert. The light—he blinked, wondering what was wrong, then knew. Curtis had dimmed the ambient to suit herself again.
“Raekl?” The word hung in midair, tenuous and fearful. Tissop took a deep breath then almost gagged at the smell. What was that? “Did you let the litter cook again?”
“Greetings, friend Tissop.”
Curtis—but not. This newcomer was larger, with ridges above the eyes. Male.
“Who are you?” Tissop demanded. “Where’s Raekl? My children?”
Curtis pulled herself into the antechamber, a hand on the shoulder of the male slowing her to a stop. She showed her teeth. “Don’t worry. They’ve been assigned a new home. You’ve wanted to move into a pod, haven’t you?”
A pod. “What pod? Where?” Not the one he’d—Tissop pushed himself toward the com panel to find it smothered by filaments, rebounded from that wall to the far one, grasping a string with his tail to stop. This had to stop. “You’re doing it. Why? I don’t understand!”
More newcomers joined them. Smaller than Curtis, larger. Thin and frail, but so many. His home was rife with them. All in black, living shadows with glistening eyes.
“What don’t you understand, friend Tissop?” As Curtis spoke, they all smiled, teeth strange and white. “We’re grateful, of course. You’ve saved us time and effort.” She laid a hand on the wall. “The Ship is our home now.”
It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. “I killed you!” Tissop cried.
“You tried.” Her smile widened. “One of you usually does. That’s the beauty of it. Ships don’t care what parasite infests them. We let you do the work for us, invite us in, then...take your place.”
They’d done it before. To other Ships. To other denizens. And he’d helped, hadn’t he? “Why didn’t we know about you?” he whispered. “Why weren’t we warned?”
Deep inside, he knew what she’d say before she uttered the terrible words. “Accidents happen, don’t they, friend Tissop?”
Tissop curled his limbs against his aching gut. “Don’t kill us all,” he pleaded, thinking of his family, of what he’d done. “You don’t have to.”
“Oh, but we do,” Curtis assured him. “Denizens are much too clever. Like you.”
“Go now,” the male said. “Die with the rest.”
“Unless you’d like to stay for supper, friend Tissop.” Curtis laughed. “It’s the least we can do.”
1055th Sanitation Engineer Tissop pushed himself out the iris of his home. He reached for the string that should have been there, that was always there, for denizens built well and with forethought, but the strings were of no interest to those who now called the Ship home, and had been cut. He found himself floating helplessly down the corridor, tumbling head over tail.
With every tumble, he stared down into the machineway, filled with newcomers about their business.
They looked up at him, and laughed.
When confronted with this anthology’s theme, JULIE CZERNEDA’s first thought was, no, I don’t write villains. Her second thought was, well, who’s a villain does depend on point of view. And her third and final thought was...oooh, what if? Thus “Charity” was born. It’s a familiar pattern for this biologist turned award-winning science fiction and fantasy author, whose fourteenth novel from DAW Books, A Turn of Light, will be released March 2013. Visit www.czerneda.com for more of Julie’s work, from novel excerpts to other short stories.
MADDENING SCIENCE
J.M. Frey
Bullets firing into a crowd. Children screaming. Women crying. Men crying too, not that any of them would admit it. The scent of gun powder, rotting garbage, stale motor oil, vomit, and misery. Police sirens in the distance, coming closer, making me cringe against old memories. Making me skulk into the shadows, hunch down in my hoodie, a beaten puppy.
This guy isn’t a supervillain. He isn’t even a villain, really. Just an idiot. A child with a gun. And a grudge. Or maybe a god complex. Or a revenge scheme. Who the hell cares?
In the end, it amounts to the same.
The last place I want to be is in the centre of the police’s attention, again, so I sink back into the fabric, shying from the broad helicopter searchlights that sweep in through the narrow windows of the parking garage.
If this had been before, I might have leapt into action with one of my trusty gizmos. Or, failing that, at least with a witty verbal assault that would have left the moron boy too brain-befuddled to resist when I punched him in the oesophagus.
But this isn’t before.
I keep my eyes on the sky, instead of on the gun. If the Brilliant Bitch arrives, I want to see.
No one else is looking up. It has been a long, long time since one of...us...has donned sparkling spandex and crusaded out into the night to roust the criminal element from their lairs, or to enact a plot against the establishment, to bite a glove-covered thumb at “the man.” A long time since one of us has done much more than pretend to not be one of us.
The age of the superhero petered out surprisingly quickly. The villains learnt our lessons; the heroes became obsolete.
A whizzing pop beside my left ear. I duck behind the back wheel of a sleek penis-replacement-on-wheels. The owner will be very upset when he sees the bullet gouges littering the bright red altar to his own virility.
I’ve never been shot before. I’ve been electrocuted, eye-lasered, punched by someone with the proportional strength of a spotted gecko and, memorably, tossed into the air by a breath-tornado created by a hero whose Italian lunch my schemes had clearly just interrupted.
Being shot seems fearfully mundane after all that.
Only the extraordinary die in extraordinary ways. And I am extraordinary no longer.
A normal, boring death scares me more than any other kind—especially if it’s due to a random, pointless, unpredictable accident of time and place intersecting with a stupid poser with the combination to daddy’s gun drawer and the key to mommy’s liquor cabinet. I had been on the way to the barg
ain grocery store for soymilk. It doesn’t look like I’m going to get any now.
I look skyward. Still no Crimson Cunt.
Someone screams. Someone else cries. I sit back against the wheel and refrain from whistling to pass the time. If I was on the other side of the parking garage, I could access the secret tunnel I built into the lower levels back when the concrete was poured thirty years ago. But the boy and his bullets are between us. I’ve nothing to do but wait.
The boy is using a 9mm Barretta, military issue, so probably from daddy’s day job in security at the air force base. He has used up seven bullets. The standard Barretta caries a magazine of fifteen. Eight remain, unless one had already been prepared in the chamber, which I highly doubt as no military man would be unintelligent or undisciplined enough to carry about a loaded gun aimed at his own foot. The boy is firing them at an average rate of one every ninety-three seconds—punctuated by unintelligible screaming—and so by my estimation I will be pinned by his unfriendly fire for another seven hundred and forty-four seconds, or twelve point four minutes.
However, the constabulary generally arrive on the scene between six and twenty-three minutes after an emergency call. As this garage is five and a half blocks from the 2nd Precinct, I estimate the stupid boy has another eight point seven minutes left to live before a SWAT team puts cold lead between his ribs.
Better him than me.
Except, probability states that he will kill another three bystanders before that time. I scrunch down further, determined not to be a statistic today. This brings me directly into eye-line with a corpse.
There is blood all around her left shoulder. If she didn’t die of shock upon impact, then surely she died of blood loss. Her green eyes are wide and wet.
I wonder who she used to be.
I wonder if she is leaving behind anyone who will weep and rail and attend the police inquest and accuse the system of being too slow, too corrupt, too over-burdened. I wonder if they will blame the boy’s parents or his teachers. Will they only blame themselves? Or her?
When the Villian Comes Home Page 22