Asimov's SF, October-November 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Clearly, Deirdre Islay did not look forward to spending another zode-and-a-half in the bush, not with some strange Huron. She told him earnestly, “Get me back to my husband, and I will see you well rewarded."

  Not likely. Her husband was in an autodoc. Scratched, bruised, and hiding under a bush in a borrowed leather jacket, Silver-wig was now the outworlder-in-chief. SinBad just did not have the heart, or the need, to tell her. Not yet.

  He had way bigger worries. Thuria was rising, spreading enhanced moonshine over the landscape. Then came the boom of an orbital shuttle breaking atmosphere. Slavers were on their way. He unshipped his crossbow, for all the good that would do.

  "What's the matter?” Silver-wig asked.

  "Slavers.” Unless it was another boatload of tourists, coming for a wild moropus nightride, or something equally useful.

  Tals ticked away. Then without warning a shadow fell over them, blocking out the Thuria light, then moving on. Silver-wig whispered, “What's that? Slavers?"

  Smelling a familiar cat box odor, Sinbad slid over and silenced her with his hand, mouthing a single word, “Ba'ath."

  Silver-wig's eyes went wide. Another silent shadow passed, then another. One by one, more ba'aths came padding up, an entire pride, settling into the brush around them. Soon they were surrounded by the cat odor, and the soft regular breathing of a dozen sleeping ba'aths.

  SinBad set aside his crossbow. He did not have enough bolts to do more than make them mad. Silver-wig whispered, “Can they hear us?"

  Sure, if she did not shut up. He whispered back, “They do not need to. They can smell us."

  "So, why don't they attack?"

  "Maybe they're not hungry. Or just too sleepy. Ba'aths do not kill for the fun of it.” Like offworlders do.

  She stroked his cheek. “I am sorry."

  "For what?"

  "Everything,” Silver-wig sighed.

  He smiled at that thought. “Not your fault."

  Happy to hear that, she relaxed alongside him. Soon she was asleep, putting an end to a harrowing day. He closed his eyes as well, no longer worried by their heat signature. So long as they lay close together no one would spot them amid the ba'aths.

  Lying with eyes shut, listening to blond breathing, he suddenly heard the whoosh of a ship taking off. Looking up, he saw a flash in the night sky, half hidden by the thorn brush. Someone was lifting into orbit.

  He relaxed again. Thuria set, then first light showed in the east. Slavers had let sleeping ba'aths lie. SinBad decided to do the same, waking Silver-wig, whispering, “Let's get going before they do."

  She saw the sense in that, getting up and silently following him out of the brush into the long grass, leaving the ba'aths behind. As they neared the mouth of the canyon, SinBad told the offworlder to wait while he wormed his way forward.

  Just as he thought, Islay's yacht was gone. All that remained was a circular dent in the grass, empty as a crop circle. He slithered back to inform his companion, who told him, “Give me your communicator, and I will call my husband."

  "Let me make the call,” SinBad suggested. “They do not know you are alive.” Yet.

  "So? My husband will be happy to know."

  Now he had to give her the bad news. “Your husband is in an autodoc. Trampled by a wild moropus."

  Lady Islay looked aghast. “Will he live?"

  "Maybe.” If the Slavers aimed to hold him for ransom. “Just let me make the call."

  He did. A chirpy computer voice informed him the yacht was in low orbit, while the owners were with their “hunting party” on the surface. Call them there.

  No need to do that; the Islay still on the surface was crouching next to him in the tall grass, wearing his buckskin jacket and not much else. Hearing what the yacht had to say, she told him, “Give me the communicator. That ship is voice-coded to me and my husband. I can shut down its drive, then trigger a distress call."

  "No, you won't.” The voice came from behind them, and had that SuperCat lisp caused by talking around saber-tooth canines.

  SinBad turned to see Simba standing in the grass, with a silver communicator clipped to his ear and a laser rifle leveled at him. The bioconstruct had stayed behind, waiting for them to break cover and open a channel. The only real question was why didn't Simba pull the trigger? SinBad's own bow was at his side, cocked and ready, but he dared not raise it. The SuperCat had super reflexes.

  Only Deirdre Islay did not get it, saying, “Simba, what are you doing?"

  Her hunting guide grinned. “I was looking for that pretty young Crow. But you will do. Please, stand aside."

  Simba wanted a clear shot.

  Deirdre stood up, stepping squarely into the line of fire. Flourishing the communicator, she warned the SuperCat, “You shoot, and I will punch MAYDAY, disabling the yacht."

  Simba snorted. “This rifle can shoot right through you, and him."

  Sliver-wig shrugged. “Then you lose everything. You will never get that yacht outsystem, not with me dead and my husband in an autodoc."

  There was a Navy ship insystem, the suburb-class corvette Tarzana. Any attempt to alter the yacht's registered flight plan would arouse suspicion. If Deirdre punched MAYDAY, Simba could shoot them, but he would lose his prize. And the Slavers aboard the yacht would be prisoners. Stalemate.

  For the moment. Simba kept the laser rifle leveled. Thuria would be up soon, then Slavers would swarm over them, jamming the communicator and firing sleep gas, eager to have Deidre Islay and her husband's starship. Deirdre stood clutching the communicator while Simba cradled the rifle, waiting.

  Slowly, a big black-maned ba'ath ambled nonchalantly up, not even looking at them, followed by another, then another. Simba's grin turned grim, as the pride gathered around them, crouched and waiting. Riding atop the biggest ba'ath, a great sable-headed male, was Pretty Bottom. No wonder her parents called her Beast.

  "Kaor,” the young Crow called out, holding tight to the black mane.

  "Kaor,” SinBad replied, never happier to see her, or a pride of ba'aths.

  "What do you want?” Simba demanded, eyeing the ba'aths warily.

  "That Huron,” Pretty Bottom pointed at SinBad. “And the offworld woman."

  Simba shook his head. “Get any closer, and I will kill both of them. Then you.” He still had them, if he could stall until Thuria was up.

  "You are the one who will die,” Pretty Bottom warned.

  "Maybe.” Simba was counting on his superhuman reflexes and self-correcting sights. He could do a lot of damage before the ba'aths got him.

  "Certainly,” Our Lady of the Ba'aths replied, raising her slim hand.

  "Don't!” Simba aimed the rifle at her, a curved claw on the trigger.

  Pretty Bottom froze, hand held high. Ba'aths snarled at the SuperCat, but did not spring, waiting to see what the Crow woman would do. This was not their fight. SinBad weighed the odds, trying to decide if he could aim and shoot before Simba fired. Not likely.

  He did not have to. An arrow streaked from downwind, hitting Simba in the neck, slicing through the cat's jugular. The SuperCat fell forward, dead before he hit the ground.

  SinBad exhaled softly, barely believing his eyes. Another arrow thudded into the fallen SuperCat, ensuring he was dead. Simba did not twitch.

  Deirdre was on the communicator at once, calling the Navy and shutting down her ship.

  Looking to see where the arrows had come from, SinBad saw a Crow warrior emerge from the thorn trees, his feathered bow in hand, riding a dark red moropus. He wore a scout's wolfskin, and hail-spot body paint, making him as deadly as an ice storm on a sunny day.

  Pretty Bottom grinned. Ignoring her and the ba'aths, the Crow scout dismounted, keeping a tight hold on his rope reins, saying, “Kaor, Huron."

  SinBad returned the Crow's greeting, asking, “To whom do I owe my life?"

  "Her.” The Crow casually pointed his bow tip at Pretty Bottom. “She is the one I came to get."

  This
was Wife Stealing Time. But the Crow was not going to get what he wanted, not amid a pride of ba'aths, who were plainly doing Pretty Bottom's bidding. Being practical, the scout drew his knife instead, then bent over and deftly skinned the dead SuperCat as if it was a tawny fur coat. He took the head as well, not wanting to leave the great grinning saber-teeth.

  Rolling up the bloody hide, the Crow tied it to the back of his white-tusked moropus, then remounted. With a wave to the women, the warrior was gone.

  Ba'aths began to feed on the Slaver's skinned and bloody body. SinBad turned back to the pregnant Crow. “Was that Goes Ahead?"

  "Of course.” How many boyfriends could she have? Sliding down off the ba'ath, she gave him a hug. “That is my baby's daddy. I am glad you met him."

  "Me too.” As SinBad said it, a boom sounded overhead.

  Pretty Bottom looked up. “Slavers?” Thuria was still down.

  Deirdre Islay shook her head. “No, a Navy gig."

  Sure enough, a small silver ship landed in the long grass, guided down by Deirdre's MAYDAY call. Navy crewmen in battle armor tumbled out, scattering the snarling ba'aths.

  "Don't hurt them,” Pretty Bottom shouted. She turned anxiously to Deirdre. “Tell them they saved you."

  She did, and the Navy held its fire. Before they hustled her aboard the gig, Deirdre Islay asked, “How can I repay you?"

  "Give me your wig,” Pretty Bottom replied.

  "My wig?"

  Pretty Bottom nodded eagerly, so Deirdre handed it over. Giving a war whoop, the Crow waved her silver trophy, like it was a fresh scalp.

  Later, when Thuria had set again, Pretty Bottom insisted on making love in the tall grass, wearing only her new hair. But that just made SinBad think of Silver-wig, and he never saw her again.

  Copyright © 2009 R. Garcia y Robertson

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Poetry: DERIVATIVE WORK by Elissa Malcohn

  * * * *

  * * * *

  They once pursued you with pitchforks and torches.

  Now patent filings jab your mended flesh

  until you are nothing more

  than nucleotides ripe for profit.

  —

  You're their De minimis Man.

  Everyone still wants a piece of you.

  —

  You remember?

  His sweet, triumphant shout,

  cry of manic confidence squelching utter disbelief

  that you were alive.

  —

  He stitched you together

  in a crazy quilt of proteins,

  his grave-robbing the least of your problems

  in a world where infringement means damnation.

  —

  Now the ghosts cobbling your soul

  haunt you by proxy

  for strands and snips,

  wishing you the death of a thousand splices

  for what your creator took from them.

  —

  Their affidavits knife you

  back into the pieces you are:

  This one's pharmaceutical.

  That one's forensic grail.

  —

  You thought you were your own man.

  You're just a collage

  reduced to proprietary nightmare.

  —

  Filched compositions of matter and

  scribbles of R&D bottom lines.

  And an army of Doctor Frankensteins

  can never repay

  your father's debt to science.

  —

  —Elissa Malcohn

  Copyright © 2009 Elissa Malcohn

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Novelette: FLOWERS OF ASPHODEL by Damien Broderick

  A number of Damien Broderick's novels from the last thirty years are being released in 2009 by SF publisher Warren Lapine's new Fantastic Books. The first two are The Dreaming, an updated revision of his award-winning 1980 novel The Dreaming Dragons, and The Judas Mandala, where “virtual reality” and “virtual matrix” were coined. Two new collections cover an even longer span. The first, in summer of 2009, was Uncle Bones. Its title story is from this magazine; three other novellas and novelettes, revised or extended, reach back to 1964. In late 2009 and 2010, several more Broderick novels will appear from the same publisher, as will a “Best Of” short story collection titled (also from Asimov's) The Qualia Engine. “The Flowers of Asphodel,” which is written, in part, as a homage to Roger Zelazny, will also be reprinted in that collection. Meanwhile, E-Reads has released a trade paperback edition of Quipu, a drastic reimagining of his 1984 mainstream novel Transmitters.

  I was pulled up out of the Big Sleep well before my due date, so I ached everywhere, pretty much exactly the opposite of the way you're supposed to feel at the end of your sentence of Redemption.

  "God awmighty,” I said, chewing at my dry tongue with partly regrown teeth and blapping at my parched palate, “this is cruel and unusual punishment.” I blurrily glossed elapsed time: less than six years in the rejuvenation tank, traversed by dreams and nightmare, myth and remembrance.

  Apologetic machines of loving grace hugged around me, breathing warmth and sweet perfumes, avatars of a Singularity that apparently was still stalled out. Blame the slimy Bugs, the Old Ones, the Archaea at the heart of world. I always do. “We're so sorry. The res publica's need is great. We must find her, and you are our only lead."

  "Europa?” The roots of my irradiated new teeth ached, along with my sinuses, and my esophagus burned with gastritis, and deep in my groin something ached horribly, as if I desperately needed to take a piss and couldn't, so it was my damned prostate, probably. I moaned and groaned and didn't care who heard me. “I haven't got a clue where she is now. Somewhere in infinity. Get away from me. Put me back. I have a right to my full Redemption, you callous bastards."

  "Politesse is advised, Asterion. Recall your cause for protraction."

  So they still blamed me for her absence, her apostasy. I sat up on the bed and tried to get my bearings. No walls, which was pretty funny under my jailed circumstances, but we weren't outdoors because I could not find any trees or brooks or birdies swooping in an Arcadian sky, nor bellowing gales of industrial soot, whichever it was out there by now. Just wavery sheets of light, like some goddamn sci-fi flick from my childhood. Or earlier: Dr. Spock in Star Wars against a blurry back projection, or however they did it a century or more ago. My memory for the period is not what it used to be. Except for the occasional harsh incident I can't get shut of, la la. I rubbed my own ears, which were appropriately rounded rather than pointed, and said, “My name is not Asterion, you mechanical buffoons. I am Isaac Hersch, a human, not a god."

  "You are both, of course. But please accept our apologies, Mr. Hersch."

  "If you're going to stand on ceremony, that's Doctor Hersch. But call me Isaac, for god's sake.” God's sake, I thought, the phrase echoing with bitter irony in my own ears. I'd ached through more than half a century of unprevented aging—my punishment, my protraction—with the god-ruined, endlessly youthful gullibles of Earth calling me by the ancient Cretan name of Europa's mythic spouse: Asterion, Zeus-cuckolded father of Radamanthus, Minos, and Sarpedon. Labyrinthine foolishness.

  But the machines were doing their favorite thing again, instructing me.

  ” 'Stand on—’ An intriguing phrase, Isaac. It has been deleted from general usage, as has the honorific."

  "On the Index Expurgatorious, eh?” I climbed down and tottered about a bit, finding my legs. My voice sounded silly, and my small teeth felt ridiculous. I had a bit of a check around; my old appendix scar was gone, and my penis and sack were full size and kosher, so this wasn't part of the punishment.

  The machines were saying in their neutral tones, “Nothing is forbidden, Isaac, and nothing is obligatory. We decree no Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Courtesy is all. Formal titles are avoided now. They are often redundant and always offensive."

  Nothing had changed, then. Or maybe
everything had changed. I sat down on the bed's edge again and waved them away.

  "Go somewhere else. I need some time."

  "Of course you do, Isaac. If you feel hungry or thirsty, just ask. We're just a call away."

  Of course you are, I thought.

  It paused a beat. “Yes, it's Europa."

  "She hasn't returned, I take it?"

  "You sent her away, Isaac."

  "That was never proved,” I said. My lips felt all wrong. “And besides, the pictures were faked. What the hell do you want? Put me back in the tank."

  "We need your advice. The probability approaches certainty that your wife intends an iterated Banach-Tarski decomposition on the cosmos."

  Huh? Yeah, I didn't have a clue what they were blathering about, either. I hit the glosses, found something that might be relevant, didn't understand it even after a download straight to the cortex. Maybe my half-rejuvenated grayware wasn't up to it yet. Surely nonsense, yet two math guys had come up with this back in the early twentieth century and apparently nobody had shot it down yet. You could pull a sphere apart, chop it down to points, and put the parts back into two perfect replica balls exactly the same size as the original. Rinse, repeat, as many times as you liked. I guessed that Europa planned the same trick with the universe. Being inside the infinite corridors of the Asterion probably made it doable. I shrugged. If anyone could, it was my wife, the Goddess of the dead and the improbable. “So?"

  "You will find her. You will prevent her. You will bring her back. Bon soir.” The machines withdrew into pale aurora.

  Night time, eh. (Not really, as it turned out. Not quite, if I proved nimble.) After a while I stumbled in their wake, arms outstretched. No need; the waves of pastel glow receded and closed behind me, like mist on a crisp morning. It wasn't cold. A jolly twenty-two Celsius, I guessed. No walls or door or windows. And here's why that'd caused me to chuckle—

  * * * *

  One day I'd gone to San Antonio's Central Library, Ricardo Legorreta's kiln-red marvel half as gold as Enchilada—this was back near the beginning of the twenty-first century—and fought the computer catalogue for a while before I gave up in disgust. Short attention span, even shorter patience limit. Crossed to the Assistance desk, where a young woman fairly quickly offered me her attention. She was Hispanic-Aztec, I judged, with a broad brown face, what looked like a cold sore on her lower lip, and rather good freckled boobs considerably on display from a boldly patterned Mexican blouse.