I assured her with every oath I could remember that with her beside me I would cross the continent on foot if need be.
“I told you about my father. I said that he sells the maps and records they bring him. What I did not tell you is that he reads them first. He has never given up, you see, in his heart.”
“He has made a discovery?” I asked.
“He’s made many—hundreds. Bobby and I have used them. You remember those men in the restaurant? Bobby went to each of them with a map and some of the old letters. He’s persuaded them to help finance an expedition into the interior, and made each of them believe that we’ll help him cheat the other—that keeps them from combining to cheat us, you see.”
“And you want me to go with you?” I was beside myself with joy.
“We weren’t going to go at all—Bobby was going to take the money, and go to Baghdad or Marrakesh, and take me with him. But, Nadan”—here she leaned forward, I remember, and took my hands in hers—“there really is a secret. There are many, but one better—more likely to be true, more likely to yield truly immense wealth than all the others. I know you would share fairly with me. We’ll divide everything, and I’ll go back to Tehran with you.”
I know that I have never been more happy in my life than I was then, in that silly boat. We sat together in the stern, nearly sinking it, under the combined shade of the tiny sail and Ardis’s big straw hat, and kissed and stroked one another until we would have been pilloried a dozen times in Iran.
At last, when I could bear no more unconsummated love, we ate the sandwiches Ardis had brought, and drank some warmish, fruit-flavored beverage, and returned to shore.
When I took her home a few minutes ago, I very strongly urged her to let me come upstairs with her; I was on fire for her, sick to impale her upon my own flesh and pour myself into her as some mad god before the coming of the Prophet might have poured his golden blood into the sea. She would not permit it—I think because she feared that her apartment could not be darkened enough to suit her modesty. I am determined that I will yet see her.
* * * *
I have bathed and shaved to be ready for the party, and as there is still time I will insert here a description of the procession we passed on the way back from the lake. As you see, I have not yet completely abandoned the thought of a book of travels.
A very old man—I suppose a priest—carried a cross on a long pole, using it as a staff, and almost as a crutch. A much younger one, fat and sweating, walked backward before him swinging a smoking censer. Two robed boys carrying large candles preceded them, and they were followed by more robed children, singing, who fought with nudges and pinches when they felt the fat man was not watching them.
Like everyone else, I have seen this kind of thing done much better in Rome; but I was more affected by what I saw here. When the old priest was born, the greatness of America must have been a thing of such recent memory that few could have realized it had passed forever; and the entire procession—from the flickering candles in clear sunshine, to the dead leader lifted up, to his inattentive, bickering followers behind—seemed to me to incarnate the philosophy and the dilemma of these people. So I felt, at least, until I saw that they watched it as uncomprehendingly as they might if they themselves were only travelers abroad, and I realized that its ritualized plea for life renewed was more foreign to them than to me.
* * * *
It is very late—three, my watch says. I resolved again not to write in this book. To burn it or tear it to pieces, or to give it to some beggar; but now I am writing once again because I cannot sleep. The room reeks of my vomit, though I have thrown open the shutters and let in the night.
How could I have loved that? (And yet a few moments ago, when I tried to sleep, visions of Ellen pursued me back to wakefulness.)
The party was a masque, and Ardis had obtained a costume for me—a fantastic gilded armor from the wardrobe of the theater. She wore the robes of an Egyptian princess, and a domino. At midnight we lifted our masks and kissed, and in my heart I swore that tonight the mask of darkness would be lifted too.
When we left, I carried with me the bottle we had brought, still nearly half-full, and before she pinched out the candle I persuaded her to pour out a final drink for us to share when the first frenzy of our desire was past. She—it—did as I asked, and set it on the little table near the bed. A long time afterward, when we lay gasping side by side, I found my pistol with one groping hand and fired the beam into the wide-bellied glass. Instantly it filled with blue fire from the burning alcohol. Ardis screamed, and sprang up.
* * * *
I ask myself now how I could have loved; but then, how could I in one week have come so near to loving this corpse-country? Its eagle is dead—Ardis is the proper symbol of its rule.
One hope, one very small hope, remains. It is possible that what I saw tonight was only an illusion, induced by the egg. I know now that the thing I killed before Ardis’s father’s house was real, and between this paragraph and the last I have eaten the last egg. If hallucinations now begin, I will know that what I saw by the light of the blazing arrack was in truth a thing with which I have lain, and in one way or another will see to it that I never return to corrupt the clean wombs of the women of our enduring race. I might seek to claim the miniatures of our heritage after all, and allow the guards to kill me—but what if I were to succeed? I am not fit to touch them. Perhaps the best end for me would be to travel alone into this maggot-riddled continent; in that way I will die at fit hands.
* * * *
Later, Kreton is walking in the hall outside my door, and the tread of his twisted black shoes jars the building like an earthquake. I heard the word police as though it were thunder. My dead Ardis, very small and bright, has stepped out of the candle flame, and there is a hairy face coming through the window.
* * * *
The old woman closed the notebook. The younger woman, who had been reading over her shoulder, moved to the other side of the small table and seated herself on a cushion, her feet politely positioned so that the soles could not be seen. “He is alive then,” she said.
The older woman remained silent, her gray head bowed over the notebook, which she held in both hands.
“He is certainly imprisoned, or ill; otherwise he would have been in touch with us.” The younger woman paused, smoothing the fabric of her chador with her right hand, while the left toyed with the gem simulator she wore on a thin chain. “It is possible that he has already tried, but his letters have miscarried.”
“You think this is his writing?” the older woman asked, opening the notebook at random. When the younger did not answer she added, “Perhaps. Perhaps.”
Afterword
Have you read The last camel died at noon? It’s a mystery by Elizabeth Peters, and stars a young and attractive Egyptologist named Amelia Peabody. (Do you think there are no attractive young Egyptologists? I know one.) I love those books, and I love the Victorians who probed Africa when almost nothing was known about it. Sir Samuel Baker, that hero of boys’ stories come to life, the wellborn Englishman who bought his wife at a slave auction, is a hero of mine and always will be.
What about us? Who will probe our ruins? Who will come to Washington as we come to Athens? There are myriad ways to answer these questions. The story you have just read is only one of them.
THE COMPUTER ITERATES THE GREATER TRUMPS, by Gene Wolfe
First published in Speculative Poetry Review #2, 1977
DEMENSION Trumps (21)
Do 1969 1 = 1,22
N = 22-1
Trump (N)
Trump (21)
The Universe includes by definition all,
That Man has seen since the great fall.
God’s calling card this, upon our silver Disch
On what table? In what house? In what hall?
Trump (20)
The L6a6s6t Judgement, and my creed betrays,
Unlearnt foreknowledge of those comin
g days.
The angels come to smite the sea and land,
The anti-Christ for us—and slays.
Trump (19)
The Sun the dancing children love,
Casts down this radiance from above.
Fusion, fission, no remission;
So small a house, so large a stove.
Trump (18)
The Moon, stillborn sister of our Earth Pale
Faced observes the living birth.
Soon, soon, the sister’s children come,
to plow and plant that stoney turf.
Trump (17)
The Star, sky-ruler by default,
Pours out two waters: fresh, and salt.
Naked, bare breasted girl, and (whisper)
Magna Mater of the Old Cult.
Trump (16)
The Falling Tower smote by God,
Thunders in ruins to the sod.
Master, it needs no wit to read this card.
Master, you must wait his rod.
Trump (15)
The Devil straddles his searing throne,
With power in his hands alone!
He says,
We have been shown; we have been shown; we have been shown.
Trump (14)
Death in this deck’s no gibb’ring shade;
But naked peasant with a blade;
Think on that, thou unfought people! and,
Remember whence these cards were made.
Trump (13)
The Hanged Man hangs by his feet,
Knew you that? His face, so sweet,
Almost a boy’s.
He hangs to bleed. Who waits to eat?
Trump (12)
The Wheel of Fortune; cause and effect;
God will save his own elect;
The wheel turns until it stops—
The bitch within runs ’til she drops.
Trump (11)
Sworded Justice weighs us men,
Then, sordid weighs us up again.
Were’t not more justice just to slay?
Slaying sans guilt to slay again?
Trump (10)
Fortitude with hands like laws,
Clamps shut the writhing lion’s jaw;
Ignoring his beseeching eye.
Ignoring his imploring paws.
Trump (9)
Taking two hands in the Tarot game,
Temperance, with Time her other name.
Pouring light into a golden cup.
Watering our wine. Drowning our fame.
Trump (8)
The Hermit with his lamp and staff,
Treads all alone his lonely path.
He who hath no one,
Know you who he hath?
Trump (7)
The Lovers mean birth as well as lust,
Read ye that riddle as ye must;
Men from semen, O ye people!
Dust from dust from dust from dust.
Trump (6)
The Chariot’s a Gypsie car,
And we the happy drivers are,
with whip and reins and endless pains,
So far, so far, so far.
Trump (5)
The Emperor for worldly power,
To shake and scream a fleeting hour;
To this a bribe, to that a bullet—
Remember, Mater, the Falling Tower?
Trump (4)
The Hierophant, The Pope, The Priest;
Today we fast, tomorrow feast.
The bridegroom was with us yesterday;
The Hierophant remains, at least.
Trump (3)
The Lady Hierophant, good Pope Joan,
Who will not let the truth alone;
A scholar killed her yestereve,
Today she’s sidling towards the throne.
Trump (2)
The Empress, Nature, loving and cruel,
Grim mistress of the one hard school,
Mistress of microbes,
Breaking each tool.
Trump (1)
The Juggler points both down and up, in mastery of confusion;
First in all the deck stands he, creator of illusion.
Sword, coin, and cup before him lie,
And on his face derision.
Trump (0)
*******FOOL*******
errorerrorerrorerror
232323232323232323
* * * *
“Seven American Nights” Copyright © 1978 by Gene Wolfe; first appeared in Orbit 20; from THE BEST OF GENE WOLFE; reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.
“The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps” Copyright © 1977, 2005 by Gene Wolfe; first appreared in Speculative Poetry Review #2.; from FOR ROSEMARY; reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.
PART 7: Science Fiction in the Age of Consolidation
(1990– )
Big publishers continued to absorb small and medium publishers in the 1990s. Eventually, when nearly all the smaller publishers were gone, the big publishers began to eat each other, until a few massive global publishing conglomerates owned most of the industry. This consolidation caused some painful contractions among SF publishers, such as when Ace, DAW, and Roc Books all ended up owned by the same publisher, leading to inevitable cutbacks.
Oddly, despite declining sales numbers and smaller incomes for genre writers, the writing quality remained as high as it had ever been. To a certain extent small press publishers began filling in gaps left by the big publishers. More science fiction was being published than ever, by a more diverse talent pool than ever. And even if individual book sales were far lower than they had been a generation before, total sales of SF books continued to grow.
Superstores grew to dominate bookselling, nearly wiping out independent booksellers, only to find themselves becoming increasingly obsolete in the internet age. After a number of fits and starts online bookselling became a major part of the market. Bookstore chains were badly hurt by big box stores undercutting them on best-sellers as well, but that didn’t impact the SF market directly. What did have a major impact on genre fiction was the rise of print-on-demand publishing and electronic publishing, both of them significant benefits to authors with fan followings that weren’t quite big enough to be worth a large publisher’s time.
In a field full of early adopters, science fiction writers and fandom took to the internet in a dramatic way. Almost every SF writer with internet access found their way to the popular GEnie Science Fiction RoundTable of the late 1980s and early 1990s (moderated by writer James D. Macdonald). As the internet grew (and GEnie collapsed amid corporate neglect) SF writers and fans found new homes on the web. From SFF.net to the open source writing of Cory Doctorow to the early embrace of Livejournal and blogging as a marketing and social tool to the way dying magazines migrated online (which mostly didn’t work) and were replaced by online fiction outlets that did, the internet continues to shape genre fiction. Many of my initial conversations with authors for this book took place on FaceBook.
At a time of rapid changes in how books are sold, and a time when even the idea of what a book is seems to be changing, science fiction is both at the forefront of those changes while remaining, paradoxically, very much a genre outside the mainstream.
AYANA R. ABDALLAH
(1952– )
Somehow, Ayana Abdallah and I have never met face to face. She grew up in Connecticut, but left before I moved there. She got one of her MAs at Temple University, but left just before I arrived. After that she earned a PhD at the University of Iowa and took up the semi-nomadic life of a poet and scholar in African Diaspora literature. Beyond her genre-infused poetry, she made several contributions to this book, including introducing me to Andrea Hairston, writing on black women’s SF, and several long, wonderful conversations about SF and teaching.
In addition to her poetry (which has been collected in Feeling Fey) much of Ayana’s recent
writing is focused on Octavia Butler’s SF, as in Africentric Transgressive Creativity: A Reader’s Meditation on Octavia Butler.
“Shadow Catcher” appears here for the first time. It responds to the novel Free Enterprise, a lyrical but sometimes despairing account of the life, work, and relationships of black women involved in the slave abolition movement.
SHADOW CATCHER, by Ayana R. Abdallah
(response to Michelle Cliff’s Free Enterprise)
you
shadow catcher
apologize for no desire to remain here
eloquent
but
why
confuse lovely meditations
hopeful ruminations
picturesque imagery a dark universe
riddled with pockets of light, ostensibly
gaseous planets, stars, mere radiating disks in space?
you dream of a universe traveling infinite light spheres
travel back to darkness mind numbing blackness
a shadow catcher
obsessed with your body
feelings of inadequacy, fear, hopelessness
yearning for nothingness
that firm grasp on reality
your own inexorable realness thriving
inexplicably at the heart of galactic infinity
you (unwilling to greet another day)
forget Earth
living is painful stretched beyond a care
remember home
return a shadow among infinite shadows
floating aimlessly above oceanic waves of potassium cyanide
Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction Page 498