Fantastic Hope

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  Renaud coughed, sputtered, moaned.

  “Renaud?” I said.

  “Jesus, that stung.”

  “You alright?”

  “I—I am.” There was a note of wonder in his voice.

  “Mind telling us what happened?”

  “I am . . . whole—” Renaud sobbed.

  “Whole?” I asked.

  “The voices are gone, Sol Boy. The song, though, remains. It’s so beautiful. Sad, but beautiful.”

  REVELATIONS

  Knowing we couldn’t just turn the relic, and the—perhaps former—Broken, over to the authorities, the others spent a moment freaking out about the potential ramifications of our discovery.

  I had no doubt that if the government learned what was up before the public, they’d likely silence everyone and start running tests until we were used up. None of us wanted that.

  Because I’m an old hand at criminal conspiracies, I managed the situation.

  First off, a seemingly completely sane and rational Renaud agreed to hide the relic via the simple expedient of digging a space in the tailings pile and fusing material over it.

  Second, Mohammed just wanted to mine, and the crew would start to grumble without one of us to settle them down, so he went over to the common bunkhouse.

  A brief discussion of quarantining Renaud followed. He sent Dumont some mathematic formula or equation that convinced her she had more to gain from speaking to him face-to-face than if she were to quarantine him and let someone else learn what he knew.

  The three of us retired to the foreman’s quarters to discuss next steps.

  What we had first, however, was an explanation:

  “The relic we pulled from AL-1517B is part of an expert system from a supermassive device meant to open a gate between stars,” Renaud said, sucking on a drink bag. “The very first time it was put in service it exploded in a cataclysm that converted most of its structure into its composite elements and drove most of those components that survived out-system. AL-1517B and SU-4222H, better shielded and equipped with station-keeping drives, remained in position, but only barely.”

  I couldn’t believe this was the same guy who couldn’t keep on a subject for more than a few phrases at a time without descending into a rant about the color of shit excreted after eating the infirmary diet.

  “The remaining parts had, disconnected from one another and from the intelligence that had created them, mourned the death of purpose.

  “Then we came. The relic, tuned to the interstices between realities, noticed our ship’s jumps, but couldn’t communicate with us. It wasn’t until the first Broken settled on Nouvelle Geneve and provided a consistent signal, as it were, that it realized communication with us might be possible.”

  “The song?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “But, why you? Why now?” Dumont asked. “There’s been Broken on Nouvelle Geneve for ages.”

  “I was a navigator. The relic was the navigator for the gate. The gate this one was to connect to was built in the system where I had my break.”

  “Lines of congruency?” Dumont guessed.

  He nodded.

  “What does it want now?”

  “It would like nothing more than to rejoin the other surviving relics.”

  “And do what?” I asked, knowing the government would really want an answer to that question.

  He shrugged. “Survive? It can’t do anything, really. It’s harmless.”

  “It healed you, didn’t it?”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  I smothered unworthy anger. “With your change in status as an example, I know the government won’t take your original answer at face value, Renaud.”

  “Then we don’t give them my example.”

  “And let other Broken remain so?”

  He frowned. “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No offense, but why do you care, Prometheus?” Dumont asked.

  I turned a stare on her that had made rough men shit themselves.

  She blanched, but gathered herself and went on. “I mean, you were sent up here for being some kind of crime boss, and you have to know there’ll be a lot of profit to be made in this . . . so why would a crime boss worry about fixing a shrinking population?”

  “High Hope of Destiny was my mother’s ship.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Yes, shit.” I swallowed my anger, said more evenly, “So you see why I might want what is Broken fixed.”

  WIDE OPEN

  Dumont revealed “her” discovery the next day. The NGU Physics Department Chair was the first to be informed that not only had his alien-crazy colleague been right all along, she’d found an answer to one of the questions humanity had been asking since the first hairy primitive looked up into the night sky and wondered if we were alone. He was sacked a few months later. She was, and remains, the toast of the intellectual community.

  I did my time and left AL-1517B. I never heard from Renaud again. Last I heard he’d gone looking for other Broken to heal. The relic remained on AL-1517B. Others were found, both in the belt and in the system Renaud told us about.

  I’m . . . happy. I do a brisk, profitable trade in alien artifacts. I like to imagine that some even find their way into the hands of the Broken.

  Healing them.

  I like to think Mother would approve.

  HEART OF CLAY

  A DAN SHAMBLE, ZOMBIE PI ADVENTURE

  KEVIN J. ANDERSON

  I.

  “It makes me feel all hollow inside, Shamble,” said officer Toby McGoohan, my best human friend, as we looked down at the mangled corpse of the golem on the grass of the overflow parking area.

  Someone had opened the clay guy’s chest from the base of his throat down to his waist, splitting him like an orange. He was completely empty inside.

  “Not a good time to joke, McGoo.” I tilted my fedora and scratched my forehead around the hard edge of the bullet-hole scar from the night I’d been killed.

  McGoo pulled out his notebook. “I always make jokes. You know that.” He wore his usual blue patrol officer’s uniform and cap from the Unnatural Quarter Police Department. At his side he carried a .38 Special police revolver and a .38 Extra Special loaded with silver bullets for troublesome monsters. His belt also had pepper spray and a squirt bottle of holy water. “These days, if I don’t think all the ghosts and goblins are funny, I might get nightmares.”

  I knelt down on stiff knees next to the dead golem. Despite lingering rigor mortis, my joints worked rather well once I got warmed up. I decided it was time to get a top-off at the embalming parlor again.

  I touched the clay of the body. It was still soft and pliable, but drying out. From the hardness of the stone, the coroner could determine the time of death. According to the three letters imprinted on his forehead, his name was Joe.

  Golems were hardworking but downtrodden, second-class citizens even among the unnaturals, fashioned by wizards and animated to do the dirty jobs that even slime demons liked to avoid. Since all golems looked alike, and because they often had trouble distinguishing themselves from one another, each golem had his name imprinted right on the forehead.

  “I wonder what he was like,” I pondered.

  “He was probably like a golem, Shamble.” McGoo used his radio to call in the report. Backup would arrive soon, but there was no emergency. Joe had been murdered out in the vacant parking ground for Dred’s Real Renaissance Faire, but the fair’s gates had been long closed for the day when Joe met his untimely end.

  As I looked at the dead gray mud of the corpse, I muttered, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” I ran my fingers along the skin, smearing a soft line. “And Play-Doh to Play-Doh.”

  “They can just scrunch up the clay again,” McGoo said. “Moisten it wit
h a little water and squish it into shape. Reanimate another golem.”

  “But it wouldn’t be Joe anymore. And you know Robin would give you one of her famous stern looks if she heard you talking like that.”

  Robin Deyer was my human lawyer partner at Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations, a firebrand attorney who fought for all the unnaturals that had returned to the world after the strange and improbable event called the Big Uneasy. Robin was a lovely and intelligent young African American woman; I thought McGoo had a crush on her, although the chances of those two opposites having a relationship were about as unlikely as . . . well, as anything else in the Unnatural Quarter.

  “Not the stern look!” McGoo cried. “Point taken. It’s a murder, plain and simple, and we better solve it.”

  I lurched back to my feet, drawing in a deep but unnecessary breath. My lungs no longer needed air, although it did make talking a lot easier. “Sounds like a job for a zombie detective.”

  McGoo looked up at the lights of the Renaissance fair camp that had taken over the empty land outside of town, saw the smoke of cook fires, watched the nocturnal monsters dwindle down to lethargy as the day grew brighter. He glanced at the dead golem again. “Whew, and this is the second one in a week.”

  II.

  The dragon was the star attraction, no doubt about it, but Dred’s Real Renaissance Faire had jousting matches, swordfights, minstrels, jesters, elaborate costumes, and souvenirs to fit any budget, so long as it was high. Food vendors served fantastical concoctions for all digestive systems, whether carnivorous, demonic, or health conscious. One pushy vendor offered me a brain gelato and didn’t want to take no for an answer.

  I’d been meaning to take Sheyenne, my ghost girlfriend, here on a date, and now I had a reason to go to the Renaissance fair because of work. Sheyenne glowed with ectoplasmic delight when I bought tickets for all of us, including my partner Robin and cute little Alvina, the ten-year-old vampire girl who was either my daughter or McGoo’s. (We weren’t sure who was the real father, since we had both been embarrassingly involved with the mother, back in the day. But based on her cuteness and intelligence, I was betting on my genetics, not his.)

  Sheyenne had altered her spectral form to look like a regal lady, with her blond hair done up in extravagant braids. Her gown came out of a Disney princess movie.

  “You look gorgeous,” I said.

  Not surprisingly, she shimmered. “Thank you, Beaux. I wanted to look the part.” I wore my usual fedora and sport jacket with the stitched-up bullet holes.

  Inside the main entry gates, Talbot & Knowles had set up a medieval-looking tavern with a wooden sign that said YE OLDE BLOOD BAR, where they filled tankards of blood for rowdy vampires, and also served coffee, iced tea, and soft drinks for their less sanguine customers. I treated Alvina to a unicorn frappé, which was more sugar and caffeine than hemoglobin, but it made the girl even cuter than usual with her pigtails and a grin that showed off pointy fangs.

  The fair was gaudy and colorful, filled with noise, delightful diversions, and expensive things at every turn. After all the mythical creatures had returned, thanks to a cosmic alignment and accidental virginal blood sacrifice, the vampires, ghosts, mummies, werewolves, zombies, ghouls, trolls, gremlins, et cetera, congregated in the Unnatural Quarter, a place where they could feel at home.

  But other mythical creatures, especially the dragon, the wizard king, enchantresses, and Jabberwocks, took their lives on the road. Dred’s Real Renaissance Faire performed around the country, and they were doing quite well on their monthlong stop here in the Unnatural Quarter.

  “Can we watch the jousting?” Alvina asked.

  “People just go there to see knights crash into each other,” I said.

  The little girl beamed. “Sounds great!”

  I looked at the program. “Next match is in half an hour.”

  As Robin walked with us, I could tell the wheels were always turning behind her dark eyes. I had told her about the murdered golems, and now we saw numerous golems hauling barrels, tightening ropes, lugging heavy sacks, emptying dumpsters, scrubbing porta potties. I was sure some of them had known the two eviscerated victims.

  The crowd around us paused and pointed into the sky. Robin glanced at her watch, and her face flashed a real smile. “Stop right here. This is a good place to watch.”

  “What is it?” I asked. “And how much does it cost?” It was an instinctive question here at the Renaissance fair.

  “Every hour on the hour, Dan,” Robin said. “The dragon!”

  At the far side of the site, beyond the crew tents, storage areas, and dumpsters, a scaly monster lurched into the sky, flapping broad wings as large as billboards. The dragon—named Alice—had a long barbed tail and a sinuous neck, as seen on all the posters. Her eyes flared scarlet fire as she swooped over the Renaissance fair and then dive-bombed, letting out a roar as she streaked over the heads of the cheering spectators.

  Alvina laughed. Sheyenne drifted close to me, and I could feel her thrumming spectral presence.

  “We’re safe,” Robin reassured us. “The dragon may be powerful, but city ordinance limits her destructive activities.”

  Alice did a cartwheel in the air to more cheers, then cocked back her neck and opened her jaws wide. I thought she was going to breathe fire, but instead she released only a series of humorous smoke rings. After a five-minute performance, the dragon glided overhead, tipping her outstretched wings as if in a bow, and circled back to her large tent the size of an aircraft hangar, where she reportedly kept her treasure hoard.

  “Can we have a dragon, Dan?” Alvina asked.

  “We don’t have the room in our apartment,” I said, though I hated to disappoint the kid.

  “Please? I’ll take care of it, I promise!”

  “It would be too big, honey,” Sheyenne explained.

  “Let’s just get a little one. Hatched from an egg. If we go to the Humane Society . . .”

  “Little dragons grow into big dragons,” Robin said.

  “Let’s start out with a salamander,” I suggested. “Maybe we can work our way up.”

  That satisfied the girl, and we went off to find the jousting field.

  As we went around back of Ye Olde Blood Bar, a golem waiter with a tray—Jim, according to the name on his forehead—was delivering dirty tankards to another golem, Don, who was wearing an apron and yellow dishwashing gloves. Standing at a large barrel of sudsy water, he sloshed the tankards in the soapy water to remove the bloodstains, then dunked them in a separate rinse barrel.

  Since we were away from the crowds, I paused to do some detective work. “Excuse me, gentlemen. Are you aware that last night another golem was found murdered in the parking area? His chest had been pulled open, and he was empty inside. His name was Joe.”

  “Oh . . . Joe,” the golem said, sounding sad. “Joe was a good guy.”

  “What about your working conditions here at the fair?” Robin asked. “Why would someone murder golems?”

  “We just do our work,” said Don, the golem with yellow dishwashing gloves. He dunked a tankard in the soapy water and swished it in the rinse barrel before setting it on a wooden drying shelf. “Whenever a master hires us, we’re just putty in his hands.”

  I remembered the hollowed-out clay corpse. “What’s inside a golem? Why would anyone want to take it?”

  Both Jim and Don answered in unison. “We have a heart of clay.” They each brought a hand up to their chests. “And Art has the heart of a lion. Art will save us all.”

  “Who’s Art?” I asked.

  Alvina tugged on my hand. “We have to get to the jousting.”

  “Just a minute, honey.”

  “Art is Art,” said the golems. “He will free us.”

  “Is Art another golem?” Robin asked. “How do we find him?”

  “You will f
ind him,” said Don and Jim.

  When Alvina kept tugging, I realized that we really did need to go or we would miss the beginning of the joust.

  Thankfully, it was a cloudy, gloomy day, so all types of unnaturals could enjoy the spectacle outside. Golem ushers herded the crowd to bleachers on the edge of the jousting field. On opposite ends, two armored knights sat on black stallions that pawed at the ground with sharp hooves. The knights wore full regalia, visored helmets, and doublets that should have borne the insignia of noble houses but instead sported corporate logos, the sponsors of the jousting teams. Each jouster held a long wooden lance.

  On a raised reviewing stand beside the bleachers stood a man with curly golden locks, wearing a jewel-studded crown and impressive black velvet robes. The black velvet was adorned with painted images of sad-eyed puppies and Elvis Presley. When the crowd was seated on the bleachers, the regal-looking man raised his hands, as if expecting roars of approval. He got a smattering of applause.

  “I am Mortimer Dred, king of the Real Renaissance Faire.” When he raised his hands higher, his ballooning black velvet sleeves dropped down to his elbows, revealing scrawny arms. “All fantasy-based unnaturals are here to perform for your entertainment, and tips are gladly accepted.” The next round of applause was markedly subdued.

  “Today’s first match is between two of our greatest jousters. Sir Anatomy of Bone!” One of the knights raised the squeaking visor of his steel helmet to reveal a skull, grinning to hear the loud whistles that greeted his name. The skeleton knight opened his metal breastplate to reveal an empty rib cage.

  “And on the other end of the field,” King Dred roared, “Sir Fangsalot of Jugular!” The second knight doffed his helmet to reveal the pallid skin, widow’s peak, and slicked-back hair of a dapper vampire. He flashed his fangs.

  “Those aren’t real names,” Alvina said. “They’re silly stage names, like in WWE.”

  The kid was smart. Very smart. Took after me.