'1\ Lively Literary

Marl{et pi ace"

Dell
MAGAZINES
invites you to take
a peek into
the publishing world.

Join us at
BROOKlyN
BOO KFESTIVAl

NYC's largest free literary

event, for author signings,
giveaways, subscription deals,
writers' guidelines, and more.

Sunday
September 23,2012
Brooklyn Borough Hall & Plaza

www.brooklynbookfestival.org
 SCIINCI fiCTION AND fACT
Vol. CXXXII No.9 Next Issue on Sale
September 2012 July 24, 2012

42 81

NOVELETTES
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE, Brad Aiken. _______ 6
ELMIRA, 1895, Michael F, F lynn 42
THE VOICES, Alec Nevala-Lee 53
RENT IN SPACE, Susan Forest 68

SHORT STORIES
MY THUNDERSTANDING, Carl Frederick _______ 81
THE LONG VIEW, Jerry Oltion 92

SCIENCE FACT
SIGMA: SUMMING U P SPECULATION, Arlan Andrews, Sr, _______ 36

READER'S DEPARTMENTS
THE EDITOR'S PAGE ______ 2

IN TIMES TO COME 35
THE ALTERNATE VIEW, Jeffery D, Kooistra ______ 65
THE REFERENCE LIBRARY, Don Sakers 100
BRASS TACKS 105
U PCOMING EVENTS, Anthony Lewis 108

Stanley Schmidt Edilor Trevor Quachri Managing Editor

Cover design by Victoria Green Cover Art by Donato Giancola
Indicia on Page 3
EDITORIAL Stanley Schmidt
IS LEARNING OBSOLETE?
I
n December 2011, The New York Times
did an experiment whose gist, if not its
methodology, would be quite familiar to
most science fiction readers. In conjunc­
tion with a special "Future of Computing" edi­
tion of the Thesday "Science Times," readers
were asked to participate in constructing an
interactive, crowd-sourced timeline of possi­
ble future technological developments and
when they might occur. Starting with some
predictions tossed out by a diverse group of
experts chosen by Times editors, anybody
who cared to could add new ideas or modifi­
cations of the ones already there, such as
changing the date when an event was expect­
ed to occur. The idea (which will remind
many of Wikipedia) is that by throwing it
open to aU, readers' areas of expertise would
complement each other and lead to progres­
sive refinement of the ideas-and eventually,
perhaps, some degree of consensus.
You can read a fuller description of what,
why, and how it was done, and sixteen of the
results that emerged from it, in the "Science
Times" for December 13.'
self, however, is not my primary concern
here.I've described it to this extent only by
way of introduction, to establish a context for
the one prediction on which I do want to
comment.
It happens to be the last one, identified as
"Collective Learning," forecast for 2259, and
described thus in words attributed to "Red
Dog of Florida":
'''Old knowledge will not have to be
learned; only new knowledge will need to be
created. Learning will become obsolete. All
known knowledge will be contained on a su­
percomputer. Individuals can download all
known knowledge pertaining to any subject
directly to the brain.'"
Part of that I can accept as quite plaUSible, if
1 "Imagining 2076: Connecting Your Brain to the Internet,
2
a bit improbable-but I also think it misses
some profoundly important points.
Before tackling the profoundly important,
let's consider some of the more obvious quib­
bles that might need to be raised. First of all,
for at least some of history, there's an impor­
tant distinction between public and private
knowledge. Taken literally, the prognosticator
in the Times seems to be saying that on that
glorious day all knowledge will be public.
Maybe that will be tme of all new knowledge,
if his supernet-to-every-brain linkage works
both ways and everything that goes on in
every individual's brain is instantly added to
the common pool. Under those conditions,
not only will everybody have instant access to
everything in that pool, but everybody else
will have instant access to everything he or
she might have available for addition to it
(whether he wants them to or not).
But that will not be tme of all knowledge
discovered or created in the past. Only a hand­
ful of other people have ever known (and very
few would care) that one evening in the 1960s
I saw a triple rainbow over Central Parkway in
Cincinnati. I'm not sure I've ever mentioned it
in writing before, but if I hadn't done it now, I
find it hard to imagine how it could find its
way into that hypothetical future supercom­
puter. What you or I had for breakfast last
Thursday is even less likely to be recorded for
posterity, or to have any Significance to any­
body in 2259-but any science fiction writer
could easily imagine a way it could hold the
key to some great mystery.
Okay, okay, I know that's not what the
writer meant-but it is, strictly speaking, in­
cluded in what he said. We could also pick at
what is meant by "known knowledge." Some
people claim to know that the world was cre­
ated abruptly in 4004 BC; others claim to
know that it was much earlier than that (and
" by Thomas Lin and Jonathan Huang.
 SEPTEMBER 201 2

the process was quite different). Which, if ei­ that, too, but you still face the question of
ther, of those statements-or the many other which pieces of it are worth your time and
opinions that various individuals may hold on thought.
the subject-should we consider "knowl­ And with that we come finally to the central
edge'" Presumably they'll all be in that super­ problem with this whole idea that learning
computer, available to all and sundry. But how will be obsolete: Given easy access to an
is a person trying to use that information to ocean of information, how do you know
decide which parts of it are reliable? which droplets of it might actually be relevant
It's what might be called "the Wikipedia to something you want to do' How will you
problem," and those who foresee this vast even know what you want to do?
community pool of information apparently as­ The problem is analogous to what users of
sume that it will generate its own more re­ the internet already face, but on a much larger
fined version of a "Wikipedia solution." That scale and with greater personal immediacy.
is, anybody can add anything to the aggregate, With this computer on my lap (how would
but if somebody adds a bit of nonsense, it will that sentence sound to a reader of this maga­
be drowned out by a chorus of corrections zine seventy years ago?), a few keystrokes can
from others who know better. take me in a figurative f lash to a vast array of
Well, maybe; it's a valiant hope, anyway. But information and misinformation on just about
the fact is that people can be quite stubborn any subject. Not everything; nobody has yet
about clinging to beliefs once their minds are scanned in every written document every
made up, and I suspect the supercomputer published, much less the huge numbers of un­
that we're told will make learning obsolete published letters, diaries, rejected stories, and
will harbor lots of clumps of more or less self­ shopping lists languishing in attics and long­
consistent but mutually contradictory asser­ untouched desk drawers. The Times forecast­
tions on any number of subjects. My example ers, if taken literally, evidently believe that
shows that that's fully possible, even easy, eventually that will happen. But the main dif­
even on subjects that lend themselves to rig­ ference they foresee is that instead of bother­
orOlIS scientific analysis. The situation is far ing with keystrokes at all, all that stored infor­
worse in such largely subjective areas as liter­ mation will be right at the mental fingertips of
ary and artistic criticism, in which a dozen anyone who wants it.
learned men can pontificate impressively on But in general, you'll only know that you
the same subject while expressing such differ­ want it if you can see how it might relate to
ent opinions about it that it's hard to believe something else that you already knOw.
they're talking about the same thing. Which means that you have to already
Not a problem, you may say; in such a case know something.
we are talking not only about the object in This is especially true of creative work.Peo­
question-say, a painting or a play-but about ple who haven't done much of it sometimes
the opinions of various scholars about the ob­ imagine that creation is something that
ject, and it's instructive to compare and con­ springs full-blown and without antecedents
trast those. There's probably some truth in from the minds of Creative People. In fact, the
Analog Science Fiction and Fact (Astounding), Vol. CXXXII, No.9, September 2012.ISSN 1059-2113, USPS 488-910, G8T#123054108. Published month­
ly except for combined January/February and July/August dooble issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Pubhcations. One-year subscription
$55.90 in the United States and possessions, in all other countries $65.90 (G8T included in Canada). payable in advance in U.S. funds. First copy of new
subSCription will be mailed within eight weeks of receipt of order.When reporting change of address allow 6 to 8 weeks and give nev-.< address as well as the
old address as it appears 00 the last label. Periodical postage paH:J at NoIwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. canadian postage paid at Mootreal, Quebec,
Canada Post International Pul:Jjications Mail, ProdllCt Sales Agreement No.40012480. (c) 2012 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Pul:Jjications, all
rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. Protection secured under the Universal Copy'right Convention. Reproduction or use
of editorial Of pictorial content in any manner without express permission is prohibited.All stories in this magazine are fictioo.No actual persons are desig­
nated by name or character. Any similarity is coiocidentaJ.All submissions must be accompanied by a stamped self-addressed envelope, the pul:Jjisher
assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts Of artwork.

POSTMASTER: Send change of address to: ANALOG SCIENCE FICTION AND FACT
6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855.

IN CANADA RETURN TO: Quad/Graphics Joncas, 4380 Garand, Saint-Laurent, Quebec H4R 2 A 3
Executive Office: Penny Press, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855
Editorial: Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 267 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10007
Advertising and Subscriptions: Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855.
Printed by Quad/Graphics, Taunton, MA U.S.A. (5/28/12)

Is LEARNING OBSOLETE? 3
ANALOG

vast majority of creation depends at least part­
ly on looking at two or more things that al­
ready exist, and that may appear unrelated,
and seeing a new way they might fit together
to generate something new.
If that seems vague, consider some exam­
ples. Everybody has heard the tale of how
Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation was in­
spired by watching a falling apple and think­
ing about whether its motion and that of the
Moon might be governed by the same force.
The story is often laughingly dismissed as a
cute myth , but (at least according to Isaac Asi­
mov) Newton himself claimed it was true­
and I've seen enough similar examples to find
it eminently credible. The important paint
here is that to make his historic leap, he had
to know about the apple and he had to know
about the Moon, before it could occur to him
that there might be a connection between
them.
A more recent scientific exanlple is Donald
Glaser's 1952 invention of the bubble cham­
ber, for which he received a Nobel prize in
1960 and which became a major tool for ex­
perimental research in high-energy particle
physics. He thought of it as a variation on the
principle of C. T. R. Wilson's earlier cloud
chamber, and he got the idea while watching
the bubbles in a glass of beer. To make the
connection, he had to know about the cloud
chamber, and he had to know about beer. He
couldn't rely on a supercomputer to do his
drinking for him.
I've experienced other examples myself. My
novels The Sins of the Fathers and Lifehoat
Earth grew in part out of a couple of seeming­
ly unrelated bits of information 1 had run
across in my reading. One was somebody's ob­
servation that if a supernova that was seen
from Earth in 1885 had occurred just a few
years later, or if astronomical instrufllentation
had been a few years more advanced, we
would know a lot more about supernovas
than we did. The other was the fact that galax­
ies sometimes experience massive core explo­
sions. What do those have to do with each
other' I modestly suggest that you read the
books' to find out, but for the time being the
important point is that the germ of the books
might never have occurred to me if I hadn't
known about the supernova remark when I
read about galactic core explosions, or vice
versa.
Another example, which you'd find harder
to get your hands on but perhaps an even bet­
ter illustration, is a little piece of music I wrote
which has been played by a brass quintet I be­
long to, but which I've never bothered to pub­
lish. Its idea (for better or worse) hit me on a

2 Which, by the way, are currently available from FoxAcre Press in both print and e-book editions.

STANLEY SCHMIDT ...................................... Editor

PETER KANTER
TREVOR QUACHRI .......................... Managing Editor
Publisher
MARY GRANT ................................ Editorial Assistant
EMILY HOCKADAY ............... Editorial Admin Assistant BRUCE SHERBOW
JAYNE KEISER ............................ Typesetting Director Senior Vice President
SUZANNE LEMKE ......... Assistant Typesetting Manager Sales, Marketing, and IT

KEVIN DORIS .................................. Senior Typesetter

CHRISTINE BEGLEY
VICTORIA GREEN ........................ Senior Art Director
Vice President,
CINDY TIBERI .................................. Production Artist Editorial and Product Development
LAURA TULLEY ................ Senior Production Manager
SUSAN MANGAN
JENNIFER CONE ....................... Production Associate
Vice President,
ABIGAIL BROWNING ................................ Manager, Design and Production
Subsidiary Rights and Marketing
TERRIE POLY ..................... Digital Publishing Manager Published since 1930
First issue of Astounding
SANDY MARLOWE ...................... Circulation Services January 1930 ©

ADVERTISING SALES DEPARTMENT

Tel: (203) 866-6688 ex1.442. Fax: (203) 854-5962 • prin1adver1ising@dellmagazines.com
Subscriber Services: 203-866-6688 Option #2

EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE ONLY analog@delimagazines.com

4 STANLEY SCHMIDT

long-ago backpacking trip on which two
friends, my wife, and I were living largely on
freshly caught cutthroat trout. "Hmm," the
imp within me thought, "Franz Schubert
wrote the 'Trout Quintet.' I have a quintet at
my disposal. . . . " So I wrote the "Cutthroat
Quintet," which starts out as a straightforward
transcription of Schubert's piece-but when
the eponymous theme is repeated at the be­
ginning, "Mack the Knife" starts sneaking in
on the tuba and tries to take over.
It would never have occurred to me to con­
coct such an esoteric joke if! hadn't known
something about cutthroat trout, Schubert's
quintet, and "Mack the Knife." And nobody in
the audience would get the joke unless they
had that knowledge. The reason I say that this
may be a better illustration of my central point
is that not only the creation of the piece, but
also its understanding b y the audience de­
pends on both creator and listener having cer­
tain knowledge. Knowing only that all that in­
formation was available on a supercomputer
would do nothing to make the joke work.
Actually, much of art and literature, not only
comedic but serious, relies on audiences
knowing enough to recognize allusions of var­
ious sorts. Through much of history writers
have freely used references to classical litera­
ture, which worked only because educated
readers were expected to-and did-recog­
nize them. In contemporary A nalog's pages,
writers (H. G. Stratmann in particular comes
to mind) sometimes use sly allusions to earlier
literary, artistic, or musical works. You can en­
joy such a story even if you don't recognize
them, but you'll get more out of it if you do.
Several of the humorous "P. D. Q. Bach" com­
positions of Peter Schickele depend for their
effect on listeners' recognizing numerous
themes he � borrowed from other com­
posers.
It isn't just knowledge of earlier art that can
enhance your understanding and appreciation
of the piece you're looking at; it's knowledge
Is LEARNING OBSOLETE?
SEPTEMBER 201 2
of the world you live in. Suppose you read in a
story that the heroine "stepped out of the
woods into a field of tall grass surrounded by
rhododendron and flame azalea in full bloom,
and heard a red-tailed hawk scream as it
passed over." You get a much more vivid men­
tal picture and feeling of being there if you
know what rhododendron and f lame azalea
look like, and what a red-tailed hawk sounds
like, than if you don't.Without that knowl­
edge, the writer might as well have just said
"flowering bushes and a nob)' bird."
Finally, there are important differences be­
tween learning facts, developing insights into
their relationships, and learning skills. Yes,
you can easily imagine a worldwide shared
database in which you can instantly look up
the meaning of any Portuguese word or the
fingering of any note on an English horn. But
if you want to actually speak Portuguese, or
play an English horn, that's not enough. You
must engrave a goodly supply of Portuguese
words, along with the ways their meanings
take different shades in different contexts and
the ways they combine into sentences, direct­
ly into your nervous system, so that when you
want to have a conversation, your thoughts
emerge as good Portuguese sentences with­
out having to look up words and granlmatical
mles.
In other words, you must learn the lan­
guage. That database envisioned by the Times
survey participants could be a very useful aid
if you found yourself suddenly needing to say
something that you'd never had occasion to
say in Portuguese before, but it's not a substi­
tute for knowing the language itself.
In short, a worldwide database into which
anybody can dip at will, without dependence
on external interfacing devices, would be a
very useful tool for learning, and supplement
to learning-but it will never be a substitute
for learning .•
Copyright © 2012 Stanley Schmidt
5
 There
Brad Aiken
It's tough to solve a murder when you' re a
quarter of a million miles from the crime
scene, but when the murderer comes
looking for you, there's not much choice.
I
'd cleared my schedule for the rest of the af­
ternoon; didn't want the distraction of pa­
tients waiting for me while my interview
with that annoying little dweeb of a re­
porter dragged on past the scheduled time, as
it undoubtedly would. The office door was
ajar as I signed off on some of the endless
charts backlogged on my system while I wait­
ed for him to show. It was a welcome relief
when my secretary, Doris, poked her head in.
"Mr.Green is here, Dr. Bennett." She gave
me a knowing wink with those familiar green
eyes that used to drive me wild, but now only
kindled the comfort of familiarity. Still, she
carried her fifty-six years much better than I
carried mine, and her youthful vigor helped
me deceive myself as long as there were no
mirrors around.
I tapped on the pad in front of me, and the
image suspended over my desk disappeared
back into whatever genie-box the IT guys had
it programmed to pop out of. "Show hinl in."
6
She cleared her throat and motioned to­
ward her neck as if she was straightening an
imaginary tie.
"Ah, right." I buttoned my top shirt button,
snugged up the brown and blue paisley tie
that had been hanging loosely around my
neck, and pulled down on the lapels of my
white lab coat.
She gave me a nod of approval, then disap­
peared behind the door. A few seconds later a
tall stick of a man, forty-something with short­
cropped wavy red hair, came bounding into
my office, then paused just inside the door.
"Sorry I'm late." The apology came from a
face full of freckles and the kind of milky
white skin you can never expose to the sun
for very long. He waited an awkward moment
for acceptance that never came, then hurried
over to my desk and extended his right hand.
"Tarin Green."
I curled the edges of my lips as far down my
chin as I could force them; didn't reach out for

his hand just yet. "Who the hell are you?"
A brighter red f illed the spaces between his
ruddy freckles. "I . . .uh . . . we .. . have a
meeting, an interview. Don't we?"
I've had half a dozen interviews with promi­
nent reporters over my career and it's not easy
to make them sweat, but I seem to have suc­
ceeded rather quickly this time. The glow of
his cheeks brightened as I enjoyed the mo­
ment.
He stammered, "My, uh, secretary said
you'd agreed to . . . "
My laughter broke the mold of the scowl I
had been trying so hard to maintain. I stood
and reached out to shake his hand. "That I did.
And we do. Though for the life of me, I can't
imagine why. '
He stared blankly at my hand for a long in­
stant, then took it. His grip was cold and clam­
my, but his handshake was vigorous.
"You're a hero, doctor. A genuine hero. "
"Uh, thanks. "
I pried my hand loose and relaxed into the
high-back swivel chair that made doing all my
e-charting somewhat less intolerable. I
couldn't help but notice Green rubbing his
hands along the sides of his pants legs, right
index f inger oddly extended, as he took a seat
in one of the plaid c1oth-covered chairs across
the desk from me, then patted at the right
chest pocket of his beige tweed jacket. Awful­
ly jittery for a man that had no doubt been ex­
posed to far worse than the meager prank I'd
just pulled."You okay?"
His head jolted up. "Hmm? Oh . . . yeah,
fine. It's just, well, I've been looking forward
to meeting you so much. To actually interview
someone involved with the Moon Base pro­
gram . . . "
I looked him straight in the eye-the right
one, if you must know; always had a prefer­
ence for the right one for some reason I refuse
to analyze. "You do realize, Mr. Green, that I
have never actually been on the Moon. "
"Well, yes. But, well, it's really just a matter
of semantiCS, isn't it? I mean, it was you who
performed the first major surgery there. "
"Sitting in there," I pointed to a walnut door
to my right, "strapped into the VR chair that
controls the surgical robot bolted into the
f loor of the operating theater on MBA. "
"Just the same, you were the one who had
the guts to tinker around in somebody's brain
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
from 240,000 miles away. "
What I had done was no great secret. It had
garnered far more press than any robotic
surgery procedure should have warranted. It
wasn't really any different than the remote
surgery we do for cruise ship passengers, Arc­
tic explorers, and those who choose to live
their lives in the solitude of remote locations
aU over Earth. But the media had made me out
to be some kind of hero: the man who con­
vinced everyone that they could safely venture
to the Moon. As if the lack of a surgeon was
the only danger. But after those stories were
plastered all over the Net, NASA had no trou­
ble getting workers to sign up to go to the
Moon and start constmction on Moon Base Al­
pha.
When I'd performed that first operation,
there were twelve hearty souls paving the
way, living out of a dome no bigger than my
apartment. Since then, MBA had grown to one
hundred and twenty-three residents-a di­
verse group that was beginning to resemble a
small town, though still housed in one large
central complex.
Green swayed subtly in his chair, a motion
no doubt caused by the habitual twitch of one
leg crossed over the other, the sight of which I
was mercifully spared by the desk between us.
It seemed an odd habit for such a seasoned re­
porter.
"My readers want to hear about that f irst
operation. What was it like?"
As I was about to answer his question, I
couldn't help but notice something was miss­
ing. "Aren't you going to record any of this?"
"Oh . . . uh . . . " He reached into his pocket
and pulled out a flash recorder. "Right.
Thanks. " A quick laugh forced its way through
his rigid lips. "You'd think I'd never done this
before. " He tapped the recorder on, then gave
me a nod. "So what was it like, that f irst oper­
ation you performed on a patient on the
Moon?"
I took a deep breath. I hadn't asked to be
the center of attention. I could do just f ine
without the fame, thank you. But as much as I
wanted to kick this freckle-faced nerd out of
my office, I knew that the only thing worse
than the notoriety he was offering me was the
venomous infamy I'd receive from his substan­
tial group of fans if I treated him like the pest
he was.
7
ANALOG
"Pretty much like what I do any other day of
the week," I said. "I'm a neurosurgeon. Tin­
kering around in people's brains is what I do.
We use robotic surgical assistants in the oper­
ating room all the time; that gadget in the oth­
er room isn't too much different. The only real
difference is that if something goes wrong,
you can't jump out of the VR chair and f inish
the job the old-fashioned way."
"No room for error, huh?"
"Well,we do have the MBA doctor up there
to assist, but he's not a neurosurgeon."
"And how about the time delay'Even with
the haptic receptors that give you the sensa­
tion of touching what the VR robot is touch­
ing, it's still not the same as being there, is it'"
" S urprisingly close." I found myself nod­
ding. It was amazing how real the VR unit
made it feel. " We've been doing robotic
surgery over remote data connections since
the late twentieth century,and the equipment
has gotten better and better. Don't ask me
how it all works, but the feel is pretty damn
close to the real thing, and the time delay ...
welJ,there is none, at least not enough of one
for me to notice. I'm still not sure how they
pulled that off."
"Atomic wormhole generator," Green said
matter-of-factly.
Green was only about ten or f ifteen years
younger than me, but still closer to this new
generation that takes for granted technology
that was only science f iction when I was a
kid.I'd heard about wormholes,of course.But
I h a d n ' t the foggiest h o w t h e y actually
worked.
"They've had it up and running for a few
years now,"
"W hatever." I shrugged. "Anyway, it's the
same as sitting in a room next to the patient,
once I ' m in that chair. Like I said, nothing
heroic."
Green seemed to be paying more attention
to my body language than my words,his gaze
darting between my eyes and my hands, with
frequent breaks to glance at the old-fashioned
analog clock sitting on the side of my desk.
"Uh-huh, uh-huh.And how many times have
you used it?"
His tics were getting hard to ignore and I
found myself wondering how he'd advanced
this far in such a public career. I tried to po­
litely ignore it. "For an actual operation, just
B BRAD AIKEN
the once. We train on it for an hour a week to
keep up to speed."
"We?"
I nodded. "They picked ten of us at start-up:
me and my partner, Doug Wiley, along with
two each from vascular surgery, cardiotho­
racic surgery, general surgery, and orthope­
dics. They figured the MBA doctor could
handle anything else.As far as I know, I'm the
only one who's actually used the damn thing.
Not very cost effective."
He wiped a bead of sweat off his temple
with the back of his hand. "Doctor Baker
probably wouldn't have agreed with you on
that one."
Sue Baker,the geological engineer I'd oper­
ated on, had served just two weeks at Moon
Base Alpha when they rolled her into the MBA
operating theater under my robot counter­
part. A CT scan co n f irmed the subdural
hematoma that was compressing her brain,
and an hour later I was fusing the cranium
shut with a laser bone-welder after draining
the offending pool of blood.
I smiled. "I suppose you're right. Wonder if
she's still up there?" I'd released her for duty
about three weeks after the surgery. Follow-up
scans and neuropsych testing were normal,
except for the brief period of pre- and post­
traumatic amnesia that never cleared enough
for her to remember what had happened.
"Didn't you hear'" Green's expression
turned somber.
"What?"
"She died last week," he said,stone-faced.
I felt a twinge in my gut. No matter how
hard you try to maintain objectivity in dealing
with your patients, you still become emotion­
ally attached to them at some level. "So that's
why you're here."
Another glance at the clock. "Well, yes, but
only because it's stirred up interest in the ro­
bot again; made people think about the re­
markable thing you did."
My feet were starting to go to sleep. I shift­
ed in my chair."How'd she die?"
"Air-lock failure. She was out at the Geo-Sur­
vey Station."
"Her partner,too?"
Green shook his head. "According to the
wire report that came into my office, he was
out collecting samples when the airlock
failed. "

"Don't they have like a million fail-safes for
that system?"
"Supposed to. I guess they didn't work.
They said it was a meteorite storm; one of
them penetrated the hull of the building or
something. "
The numbness was creeping up my legs and
I shifted again, with difficulty,my f ingers now
feeling the same burning tingle that had been
plaguing my legs.
Green's ruby complexion had washed out
and he was fidgeting with his collar, awk­
wardly trying to spread it with his left hand,
get some air. " You feel it, don't you?"
I squinted up at him, studied the pained ex­
pression on his face. No wonder the son­
afabitch had been so damn nervous. I reached
into the pen holder on my desk and pulled out
a brushed stainless steel pen, longer and flat­
ter than the others; started to fumble with it as
I tried to make some sense of all this.
He watched my hands as 1 twisted the pen
clumsily between my fingers. "I am so sorry.I
wish there had been another way.1 ...1 really
do. "
The bastard actually sounded sincere, but
my jaw clenched tighter with every word he
spewed, and 1 had to f ight to keep my focus.
"What the hell did you do to me'"
He pressed his teeth against his lower lip.
"It's a neurotoxin. See, when you shook my
hand .. . " He carefully peeled a clear form-fit­
ting liner off his right index finger, turned it
inside out, then dangled it gingerly in front of
me. "They said it would work quickly." He
dropped the contaminated liner into a plastic
bag he'd pulled out of his jacket pocket, and
sealed it in."How long ago did you start to feel
it?"
'Just a few minutes." I went back to fidget­
ing with the pen.
"Look, you've only got about another twen­
ty minutes or so before all your muscles freeze
up. Your lungs will stop working a few min­
utes after that." He paused and took a deep
breath."Unless ..." He pulled a syringe out of
his pocket. It was f illed with a dark orange liq­
uid. "We get this antidote into you."
"Then do it, " I snarled.
He hesitated brief ly. "No. 1 didn't come this
far just to wimp out."
"What do you want from me?"
"I need access to those f iles, the records of
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
your operation on Susan Baker. And the back­
ups, of course. Once I erase them, you can
have this." He waved the syringe in front of
me.His hair was danlp with sweat, but his re­
solve was undeniable.
1 wasn't ready to die. Not yet. "Computer:
On screen. "
The inlage popped up in front of me again.1
gave it my access code and called up the f ile.
"Dual image, " I barked at the machine. A du­
plicate view came up facing Green. "Allow
secondary access."
Green puffed out a wisp of air. " S mart
man. " He reached for the screen and entered
the sequence of commands needed to wipe
the files; he did it with the alacrity of someone
who knew his way around computer code.
"And the back-ups'"
1 could feel my breaths getting shallower,
and the muscles in my arms seemed to be
weighing down my hands rather than guiding
them. 1 accessed the automated back-up sys­
tem,the one that copied active records to the
patient's permanent medical record file, as
quickly as possible and turned control over to
Green.He was remarkably adept at his job, at
least the computer part of it. He seemed con­
Siderably less comfortable with the hit-man
part.
"Done," he announced."Screen off."
1 mimicked his command and the image
vanished from over the desk.
"QUickly, " 1 said, motioning toward the
jacket pocket where he'd stashed the syringe.
"I don't ...have ...much tinle." The breaths
were coming faster now.
Green pulled the syringe out slowly with
one hand and mopped his brow with the oth­
er. "I don't know, " he said, eyes fixed on the
orange liquid.
"You got ... what you came for.You really
. .. want a murder rap ... on your hands." 1
laboriously stretched a hand toward his.
He pulled back. 1 could feel his sense of hu­
manity giving way to self-preservation. As he
started to draw his hand back, 1 swung my
arm up as straight as possible while activating
the beam on the laser scalpel pen I'd been f id­
dling with. I'd already adjusted it to maximum
strength, but I'd still have to get close; this
thing was made for small depth cuts.
Firing up the laser required only a flick of
the activating switch, a task 1 wasn't sure my
s
ANALOG
f ingers could manage in their current state,
but they f l uidly completed the pattern of
movement that had been ingrained by years of
repetition. The cutting beam tracked across
the back of his wrist, searing down to the
bone and detaching the muscles that had been
keeping his wrist extended.
The syringe dropped from his weakened
grip, landing on my desk pad with a sound
that was overwhelmed by an agonizing
scream. He grabbed at the wound with his un­
blemished l e f t hand as he recoiled back
against his chair, then threw himself forward,
writhing in pain from the searing f lesh.
I had known how he would respond, and
prepared myself to strike. Every f iber of mus­
cle that remained at my disposal contracted in
agony as I lunged at him, thrusting the laser
blade forward as high as my hand would take
it. The poorly controlled motion made contact
as it arced over his neck, striking a direct slice
across the carotid artery. I fell against the desk
just before his blood splattered across the pol­
ished dark oak surface in front of me.
His body writhed violently, but only for a
few more seconds before he fell lifelessly into
his chair., mustered the strength to pull my­
self back just enough to clear the emanation
point for my computer screen, so, could call
for help. But before I could even activate it,
Doris had burst into the room and a new
round of screams began.
, couldn't lift my head. "Shut up ... and give
me . .. the damn shot," , said, motioning to
the syringe with my eyes.
"Oh, God. Oh, God." Doris was a retired
O.R. nurse who'd been working my front desk
for the past few years. She was accustomed to
blood and not easily rattled, but this was too
much even for her. , wasn't sure she'd heard
me between her screams.
She grabbed the syringe and palpated for a
vein, unsuccessfully., guess' looked even
worse than I felt, and I felt like death warmed
over. She plunged the needle directly into my
carotid artery.
The morning sun warmed my eyelids, but
the light was painful as I sqUinted, struggling
to interpret the foreign environment that sur­
rounded me.
"Well, good morning, sleepyhead. " I knew
it was Doris before I turned toward the raspy
10
but comforting voice. She was the closest
thing I had left to family.
"Where the hell am J?"
"You're welcome," she huffed.
Obviously, , should have been thanking her,
but for the life of me I couldn't remember
why.
She scowled.
'looked into her eyes and it started to come
back to me. "The antidote?"
"Right in the carotid." She made a stabbing
motion. "I always wanted to do that."
"In general?Or just to me?"
That got a laugh. I loved her laugh. Hadn't
h e a r d it much these past few y e a r s . She
missed the excitement of the operating room,
but the days of grinding out long hours on her
feet had passed her by, with the help of a back
injury that had almost made her my patient.
"Thanks," I said.
"Youlre welcome.1l
The door swung open and Josh Coggins, a
close neurologist friend of mine, strolled in.
"Well, look who's up."
"You make it sound like I've been in a coma,
or something."
He looked toward Doris, then back at me.
"Something." He studied the chart in his hand
brief ly. "You were damn near dead.If it wasn't
for Doris here ..."
"She's already told me how heroic she was."
She was close enough to give me a smack
on the arm.
"Yeah, well, she was. Still haven't f igured
out exactly what that toxin was, but it was
nasty. You were barely breathing when the
Code Blue team got there. Good thing your of­
fice is in the hospital. If we hadn't gotten you
intubated and on the vent ..."
"Intubated!" It hadn't occurred to me that
I'd been through anything more than an un­
usually sound night's sleep. " How long?"
"We kept you sedated for a day or so,on the
vent; decannulated you last night. You don't
remember?"
Not a clue.
"I guess all the drugs haven't worn off yet.
Probably still a bit foggy."
I was.
"Let's see how you're doing." He ran me
through a quick neurological exam: cognition,
cranial nerves, strength, ref lexes, sensation.
"Damn near back to normal."
BRAD AIKEN

"Good," I said.
1 popped up out of bed and the room start­
ed spinning.Josh and Doris each grabbed an
arm and laid me back down.
"Damn near, I said. It's going to take a little
time, even for a neurosurgeon," Josh said with
a snicker. "We'll get you some physical thera­
py today.My guess is you'll be out of here in a
day or two."
I wanted to argue, but my body told me he
was right. "Thanks,Josh."
He nodded and left the room.
1 turned to Doris. "That asshole,Green .. . 1
killed him, didn't I?" It made me sick to my
stomach to realize that I was actually capable
of doing something like that.
Her face f lushed and she looked at the
f loor. "Better him than you, " she muttered.
"The cops aren't pressing charges, but they
want to talk to you as soon as you're up to it.
Do you know why he did that to you?"
" Yeah."
She waited for me to elaborate. 1 wasn't
sure if telling her more would help protect her
or just get her in deeper. Before 1 could an­
swer, she spoke again.
"Strangest thing-not two hours after the
paramedics left, I got a call from administra­
tion saying the MBA medical office was re­
questing the files on Susan Baker. That's what
Green was there to interview y o u about,
right?"
" Yeah."
"I wasn't sure what to do, but when the
boss calls ... I tried to forward the f iles to
them, but the records were gone, wiped
clean."
1 let out a bated breath. "You did the right
thing, Doris. " At least Green's men had confir­
mation that he'd completed his job before 1
killed him. They'd leave us alone now.Unless
they thought Doris was covering up.Unless
they thought 1 knew something that 1 did not.
"Doris, call Jimmy Valenti for me, would
you' Tell him 1 need to speak to him ASAP. "
I'd first met Jimmy when he was a patient of
mine-dug a bullet out of his back that had
lodged a few millimeters from the spine. He
was a beat cop back then,but had worked his
way up the ladder to homicide detective. He
always had some great stories; 1 never thought
I'd be one of them.
"No need.He's outside the room, waiting. I
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
told him I'd call when you were up to talking,
but he said he didn't want you wandering off
before he had a chance to see you, and that if
he knew you, you'd be out of here as soon as
your eyes opened."
That brought a smile to my face. "Would
have,if my feet had let me. "
"You want me to go get him?"
1 nodded. "And wait outside for me, would
you? Don't go back to the office, don't go
home."
She studied my face. "What the hell's going
on, Roger?"
"I just want you here with me tonight."
She laughed. "Right."
"Just do it,Doris," 1 said.
She looked at me and stopped laughing,
then nodded and went out to get Valenti.
Jimmy Valenti looked more like a mob boss
than your t ypical cop: a full head of dark
slicked-back hair streaked with just enough
gray to exude an air of authority,strongly chis­
eled facial features marred only by a barely
perceptible angle where the bridge of his nose
had been broken, and dark brown eyes that
seemed to never blink. His nails were always
manicured and I'd never seen him in anything
but a fine silk suit accented with a custom tai­
lored art-deco tie tucked under a perfect v­
point collar. A bulge under his left breast
pocket completed the persona.
He walked in and stopped at the foot of my
bed. " You look like hell. "
"Thanks, " I said. "You look like a male mod­
el."
He turned his arms out to the sides and
struck a pose.
I couldn't help a wisp of a laugh from sneak­
ing past my lips. "Take a seat. You make me
feel like I'm a patient or something."
Valenti pulled a chair up beside me and sat.
"What the hell happened?"
I told him every detail I could remember.
"All that just to wipe out the Baker files?
Did he make a f lash copy?"
"That's the weird thing.He didn't even look
at them or ask me anything about them, ex­
cept how to access them. Then he wiped the
primary and the back-up."
"Only one back-up?"
"It's a hospital, not the Securities and Ex­
change Commission. Memory is money. Be-
1 1
ANALOG
sides,the more copies you make, the harder it
is to stay in compliance with all the health­
care privacy laws.One active file, one in the
permanent medical record-that's the stan­
dard."
"What kind of reporter wipes the files be­
fore he even looks at them?"
"Obviously, he was after something besides
the story," I said.
" You think?" Jimmy fired back.
I glared.
"Question is," he said, "what was he really
after, and who was he after it for' Reporters
don't usually go around killing their sources."
"Not to mention the fact that you don't just
pop into your local pharmacy to pick up an
exotic neurotoxin, and I doubt it was some­
thing he'd whipped up in his kitchen. "
Valenti arched an eyebrow. " S omebody's
got something on him; used him because they
knew he could get access to you without rais­
ing any red f lags. Only he was so sloppy that
he not only raised one, he ran it up the f lag
pole where it could f lap in the breeze."
"Makes sense," J said. " He was more ner­
vous than 1 was in there. "
" That's why they call me a detective." Valen­
ti gave me a pat on the arm and stood. "I'll see
what I can dig up on him.I'll mn his financials
first. It's almost always about money."
"Thanks,Jimmy."
He gave me a nod. "In the meantime, I'll as­
sign a couple of guys to keep an eye on you
and Doris."
" You think that's really necessary? Once the
word's out that the files are gone, they won't
have any reason to bother with me." I had my
own doubts, but hoped Jimmy would quell
them, assure me there was no way in hell
they'd come after me again.
"Probably right, but it can't hurt. Indulge
me.At least till we f igure out what's going on
here."
"Let me know what you find."
" You'll be the first," he said, then walked
out the door.
I talked my way out of the hospital that af­
ternoon, with Doris's help. She assured Josh
she'd keep me out of trouble.
My condo was on the eleventh f loor of
Stolle Towers, just a stone's throw from the
hospital. I'd been in the same place for nearly
12
thirty years. It gave me easy access to the hos­
pital when I was on call, and the spectacular
view of the city, with the sun setting behind
the rolling mountains in the distance, made it
a great bachelor pad, in its day.In my day.
Doris, only a few months my junior, had
been one of my early conquests. Not the best
idea when you have to work together.The re­
lationship had been steamy but short, fol­
lowed by over a decade of days in the surgical
suite without having her assigned to any of my
cases. And she was the best danm O.R. nurse
in the hospital.
In time, the ice between us thawed, and
whatever it was that had drawn us together in
the first place turned out to be more than her
smoking-hot body and my prestigious posi­
tion. Once we could see each other without
throwing verbal daggers, we realized that we
still enjoyed each other's company. We didn't
let it happen too often.
A few years back, Doris opted for retire­
ment, but the boredom was eating away at
her. She called one day to ask if I knew of any­
thing that could keep her busy around the
hospital, without having to put her arthritic
back through long O.R. shifts.Fate: My secre­
tary had just gone on maternity leave. That
was seven years ago.
Valenti's men drove us home, with a short
stop at Doris's place to pick up some clothes
and whatever else it is that a woman has to
pick up to survive a couple of nights at a bach­
elor pad. Or in this case, a safe house. One of
them led us in after I deactivated the door
lock, the other trailed behind with the suit­
case.
"W here would you like this,ma'am' "
Doris looked at me.
" Second door on the right. " I pointed down
the hallway.
Her left eyebrow crept up as she cocked
her head without diverting her gaze from me.
I turned my hands out, pleading innocence.
"It's the guest room."
She kept me f i xed with her dark green eyes
and said with a tone of disappointment, "I re­
member."
A tingle crawled up my spine." Really?"
She grinned. "Just pulling your chain." Then
to the cop with the suitcase, who'd been
watching our exchange, she repeated my di­
rections: " Second door on the right. "
BRAD AIKEN

like [ really needed this right now.
I watched the burly man in blue toting her
bag down the hall like it was filled with feath­
ers, and sighed. "Quite the pair, huh? Between
your back and my pathetic muscles ..." [ re­
membered feeling a little different the last
time Doris was here. Twenty-seven years . . .
Man.
She took my arm. "Not so pathetic before
that jerk got to you." Her hand gave my f lop­
py biceps a gentle squeeze. " You'll be back to
yourself in no time,glad to see me go."
I wouldn't, I realized to my surprise.Be glad
to see her go,that is.
The guard had returned. "We'll be taking
shifts.One of us will be right outside the door
if you need us."
"Thanks. "
When the door closed, Doris and [ were
alone in what should have been awkward si­
Ience. But it wasn't awkward, at least not for
me. From the gentle grasp that caressed my
arm, not for her either. Working closely in the
office, we'd been alone many times in recent
years, but not like this. If this all had hap­
pened a few years ago, maybe even a few
months ago, I was sure I would have felt dif­
ferently.
She helped me onto the sofa.
"Can [ get you something to drink?"
I nodded. "S ome iced water would be
great. "
I heard the tap go on.
"From the cooler," I called out. "Next to the
fridge."
" That's new.A little elitist,don't you think'"
"[ couldn't stand the metallic tap water in
this place anymore. I finally gave in a couple
y e a r s ago and arranged to have Celestial
Springs deliver a fresh five-gallon container
every week."
Doris started to hum,then sang: "Ooh, ahh,
nectar of the Moon and the brightest stars," to
the tune of the company's jingle, one of those
irritating little ditties you can't get out of your
head for hours.
She knew where the glasses were. Men
don't rearrange their kitchens too often. She
returned with two glasses of water and sat.
"You really think they'll come after us?"
"Nah. They got what they want. " I wasn't
very convincing.
"Then why that look?" She knew me too
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
well.
I let out a huff. "Why now? Why, after all
these years, do they want those f iles erased so
desperately that they're willing to kill for it,
willing to risk a high-profile murder'"
"Sorry to break it to you, Roger, but you're
only famous in your own mind." She tried not
to laugh.
"Not me." There was a time I'd have shot
daggers at her with my eyes for that one,but I
guess I'd asked for it. [ let the opportunity
slide. "Green. He may not have been the host
of Good Morning A merica, but he w a s
enough o f a celebrity that they had t o know
that stunt of his would draw a lot of press if it
didn't go perfectly. Why would they risk that?"
"They must have thought it was their best
shot of wiping out those files."
"And me," I had to admit, no matter how
much I'd tried to convince myself otherwise.
"They don't want to take the chance that I've
seen whatever it is they don't want anyone to
know about. "
"Oh,God, Roger."
"Yeah. " I tried to stand, but f lopped right
back into the deep sofa cushion. "Crap. Help
me up,would you?"
She started to reach out for me.
"No. Wait. [ don't want you to hurt your
back.Just bring my Net-pad.It's on my night­
stand."
She stood.
"And . ..ah, what the hell. In my closet, be­
hind the underwear drawer, there's a dead­
panel."
"A what?"
"A dead-panel: a piece of plywood covering
a hidden compartment.Just press both bot­
tom corners at the same time and the panel
will pop out. There's a blue bubble-chip in
there.Bring it to me, would you'"
" Your underwear drawer?"
I nodded.
"Good spot. Who the hell would go near
that?" I didn't need to see her face to know
what that smug grin looked like as she headed
for the bedroom.
"Just the blue chip. Don't touch anything
else."
"Yes, doctor," she called back with a salute.
[ admired the lilt in her step as she walked
away. Doris was one of those rare women
whose looks only changed for the better as
13
ANALOG
the years went by. She'd let the gray sneak
gracefully into her auburn tresses, but never
let her body lose its tone.I hadn't been in this
apartment with a woman my age since ...
well, since I wasn't anywhere near this age.
She returned with the chip and my Net-pad.
I pushed a button between my seat cushion
and right armrest, and a tray table popped up
from the arm of the sofa.I f lipped it down in
front of me and set the pad on it,then pushed
the power button.A fourteen-inch viewscreen
appeared over the pad. I inserted the bubble­
chip into the port of the pad, and with a few
swipes of my very tired f inger, found the file I
wanted.
Doris had sat back down next to me, watch­
ing the proceedings. " You copied it? Jesus,
Roger. If anybody found out about that, you
could lose your license."
"Better than my life.Besides, you're not go­
ing to tell anybody, are you?" I didn't need to
wait for an answer."So who's going to know?"
" You do this with aU your f iles'"
"Hell, no.But this one ...it was the first ro­
botic surgery case on the Moon, for God's
sake. And 1 did it.How cool is that?"
" S o how many times have you massaged
your ego looking at this thing?"
"Including now? Once. Who the hell wants
to watch themselves operate? I just wanted to
know that I had it.'
For the next hour, I reviewed the data, stud­
i e d the scans o f t h e surgical area, even
watched the surgery itself. Routine case from
start to f inish.Except for the circumstances.
T h e phone chimed softly, innocuous
enough to almost ignore at f irst, but the
sound went on endlessly until I f inally acqui­
esced and tapped the receiver on."Bennett, " I
forced out through my parched throat.
" Roger?" It was Valenti's voice. "That you,
Roger?"
"Jesus, Jimmy. You realize what tinle it is?"
" Yeah. Do you?"
I glanced over at the clock on my night­
stand: 9:20 AM. "God, it feels like the middle of
the night. I haven't slept this late in ... well, I
can't remember when."
" Yesterday," Valenti said. "In the hospital.
There's a reason they told you to stay there. "
I tried to shake the cobwebs out of m y
head. "I'm f ine."
14
" Yeah, well, don't plan any big outings.
Look, I ran the search on Green. The guy's
squeaky clean, a friggin' boy scout. Literally.
He was an Eagle Scout during high school,
graduated from MIT with a degree in comput­
er science .. . "
"Guess that explains how he found his way
around my office file system so easily.'
"Which somebody was obviously counting
on. Only we'll never f igure out who, from
these records. '
"MIT seems like an odd choice of schools
for someone who wanted to get into the
broadcast news industr y."
"Sounds like he fell into it-started video
blogging the local news in Boston as a school
project during his senior year and was so
damn good at it that NetNet News offered him
a job out here right after graduation."
"Great. So why the hell was he willing to
risk it all to come after me?"
"No idea. I ran his financials.Whoever was
pulling his strings wasn't doing it with money,
at least not that I can f ind, but there's got to
be something. It just doesn't make any sense.
I'm going to do a little more digging. Mean­
while,you and Doris sit tight. I don't like the
way mis is shaking out.'
I scratched my head and yawned. " Right."
"Good, I'll ..."
" Say, Jimmy. What do you know about that
accident at MBA last week?The one Baker got
killed in. I ran a Web search, and there's some
talk about a freak meteor shower that punc­
tured the mobile lab she was working in, but
the timing seems a little too coincidental,
don't you think?"
"Baker' Susan Baker? The one whose file
Green was after?"
"One and the same. '
" S hit. I don't usually pay any attention to
what goes on up there, but I guarantee you
that ain't no coincidence. I've got a buddy
down at NASA who might be able to get me
some details. I'll give him a buzz.'
No sooner had he hung up than I heard a
gentle tap on my door.
" S'open," I yelled.
The door swung slowly into the room, and
Doris's face edged out from around the other
side. " You decent?"
"I try to be.'
She didn't laugh, but by then she'd seen
BRAD AIKEN

that I was saIely under the covers. She walked
in and sat on the side of my bed.
"How did you sleep?"
"Too well."
"I didn't want to wake you.Coffee's up and
I scrambled some eggs. You still like them
scrambled?"
"My arteries don't, but I do." I looked for­
ward to a real breakfast.I never bothered mak­
ing one for myself. "I'll be there in a minute."
She got up and turned to go.
"Thanks," I said.
She looked back over her shoulder and
smiled. "Can you manage okay?"
"No problem." I hoped. But either way, I
wasn't about to ask her to dress me, for God's
sake.
"Don't be a hero. I don't want to be picking
your broken ass up off the f loor."
"I'm okay."
She walked out and closed the door.
I sat up on the side of the bed and waited a
good minute or so before the room stopped
spinning. After that I really was okay, I was
pleased and somewhat surprised to find out. I
felt much stronger than I had yesterday. I treat­
ed myself to a quick shower, then headed out
to the kitchen following the aroma of freshly
brewed hazelnut coffee.
"Damn, that smells good." I started to reach
out to pour myself a cup, but Doris blocked
my hand.
"Just sit, " she said. "A little bit of half-and­
half,no sugar. Right'"
I gave her a nod. "Thanks."
She brought over a mug of steaming hot
coffee and a plate of eggs with some toast.
"Where did you get ... "
"I sent one of the boys to the market down­
stairs."
"The boys?"
"It was change of shift for our personal
body guard out there." She motioned toward
the door. " I figured since his relief was here,I
could send him down for supplies. "
"I'm sure he loved that."
"He's trained not to complain. Too bad I
can't teach you that."
I started to protest, then realized if I did
complain I'd already lost that argument. I blew
some of the rising steam off the top of the
mug and took a sip. "Umm, that's perfect.
Thanks."
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
" So was that Valenti on the phone?"
I had a mouthful of eggs, so I responded
with a nod.
" W hat did he find out?"
I swallowed and cleared my throat. "Not
much. Seems Green was a perfect little angel."
"Until he tried to kill you. "
" Yeah.Til that."
" So Valenti still has no idea why he came af­
ter you? Why he wanted those f iles?"
I took a long draw from my mug, holding it
with both hands,then set it down. "Nope,not
a clue.I asked him to dig up what he could on
that accident up at MBA last week.Maybe he'll
f ind something there."
"I tried to read about it on the news threads
this morning," Doris said, "but there's practi­
cally nothing."
" Yeah, me too. I poked around the Web last
night before I turned in. They want everyone
down here to think it's like Disney World up
there so their funding doesn't get slashed, but
Jimmy will find out what happened. Mean­
while," I started looking around for my Net­
pad, "have you seen my- "
"Under the paper.Figured you might want
it. Didn't notice when you tossed the newspa­
per down, huh?"
I hadn't.I treasured a real paper to keep me
company at breakfast. Enough people still did
that they'd kept up home delivery for the Sun­
day Times, and I had a system for nursing it
through the week, one section at a time. To­
day it was Sports, which I'd carried in from
the hallway accent table on my way from the
bedroom. I lifted the crinkly pages and my
Net-pad was right where she said it would be.
I powered it up and started a Web search on
Green. No point in checking for f inancials,
business links-that sort of thing. If Jimmy
couldn't f ind any dirt through police chan­
nels, I certainly wouldn't f ind anything on the
Web.But 1 f igured I might be able to learn a
little about him through his past.There had to
be something to connect him to Susan Baker
or NASA. Maybe one of his MIT classmates.
An hour of dickering with my Net-pad ac­
complished nothing but taxing my meager en­
durance.I logged off, poured myself another
cup of coffee while Doris showered, and set­
tled for some not-quite-up-to-the-minute sto­
ries in the Times' Sports pages.
. . .
15
ANALOG
It was barely noon, but Doris and [ had al­
ready started to go stir-crazy, something that
happens ridiculously fast as soon as you know
you can't wander out of whatever place you're
in, no matter how cozy or how good the com­
pany. The ring tone announcing Jimmy's call
couldn't have come soon enough.
[ grabbed for the phone. "Jimmy?"
"You're not going to believe this,man."
Ten minutes later, he was in my living room,
sitting on the taupe leather chair across from
me and Doris. "The guy who called in Baker's
,
'accident," he air-mimed the quote marks,
"was the same clown who pulled her to safety
after the first 'accident' a few years back."
"Is that really so strange?" Doris asked. "I
mean, there aren't all that many people up
there, are there?"
"[ guess not, especially since they were the
team assigned to GSS2 on both occasions, but
still ... "
"GSS2?"
"Oh,yeah.Sorr y." Jimmy placed his Net-pad
on the coffee table between us and activated
it.A screen popped up,with matching images
visible from either side.
"Computer, " Jimmy barked, "expand dis-
play to twenty inches."
The computer complied.
"Access f ile: MBA base map."
A map of the nascent MBA village came up,
showing an overhead of the original dome in
the center of the complex, and a series of
buildings that looked to be haphazardly
arranged around it.
"Zoom out."
The size of the village slowly shrank as the
Moonscape came into view. It had shrunk to
no more than a couple of centimeters in size
by the time some of the far side of the Moon
began to appear on the left side of the screen.
Jimmy let it pan out a few more seconds,
then called out, "Stop zoom. Highlight geo­
survey plan."
A rectangular grid appeared over a portion
of the shadowy far side of the Moon just past
the border of light, forming a row of four
equal-sized squares, each grid-marked in a dif­
ferent color: white, green,blue, and red.Judg­
ing from the minuscule size the village now
appeared, I figured the area had to be hun­
dreds of miles across.
Jimmy motioned toward the image."This is
16
the most recent schematic available for the
Geological Survey Project of the MBA facility.
They laid out a standard grid pattern to begin
surveying for minerals, ores ... anything that
might prove to be of use or interest on the far
side where we've never been able to get much
information before. Each color represents a
ten-thousand-square-mile geosurvey area.
"Computer: Zoom to Geo-Survey Area 2;
factor of three."
The image closed in on the green area, re­
vealing a ten-by-ten box grid.
"Each geosurvey area is divided into a hun­
dred segments,and each segment is ten by ten
miles.Since the original colony only consisted
of twelve people, they'd only brought two ge­
ologists along, Sue Baker and David Parsons.
The green area was the closest to MBA, so
they started there-Geo-Survey Area Two,
and worked out of a mobile laboratory they
call a Geo-Survey Station."
"GSS 2," [ said. "Where Baker was injured."
"And later killed," Jinuuy added. "They have
a lab set up on site so they don't have to waste
time and resources traveling back and forth to
the main base. But calling it mobile . .. well,
that's a bit generous. It moves about a half a
mile per day at top speed. They work one
square at a time, going out on surveys during
the day and returning to the GSS lab to analyze
the samples each evening. They sleep there,
then start over the next day, covering each
ten-mile segment in about a month. '
"At that rate," J calculated, "it'll take about
eight years to cover each Geo-Survey Area."
"They've been gradually adding more units.
They have four teams operating up there
now. "
"So the two people on each team are ma­
rooned out there for months at a time' " Doris
asked. "I think J would have killed her myself
after being cooped up all that time in such
close quarters. "
Jinuuy laughed."Careful, Roger.Sounds like
I'd better get at least one of you out of this
apartment soon."
J eyed Doris over. "J think J can take her. "
She sneered back. "Just keep thinking that."
Jimmy cleared his throat."Anyhow,the way
I understand it, they shut the lab down for
two days every week so the team can return
to base for some R&R. They have a hopper
that can get them back in a couple of hours."
BRAD AIKEN

"Okay," Doris said. "So he had the opportu­
nity and the means to kill her, but other than
generally getting on each other's nerves, what
motive?"
I smiled. "All that TV is finally paying off. "
She answered me with an elbow.
"She's right, actually, " Jinmly said. "I mean,
that first crew was hard-core NASA-the kind
who can put up with misery that would break
any of us in the first hour. And if this was mur­
der, it was no crime of passion. It was well­
planned, calculated."
I looked up from the screen I'd been staring
at. "You got some details?"
"Oh, yeall. From the official report, it seems
Parsons came back from a day of collecting
core sanlples to find that the GSS had depres­
surized. He'd last checked in with Baker twen­
ty-five minutes earlier-standard thirty-minute
checkpoint contact-and she'd just gotten
back to the lab to run her samples. He didn't
realize anything was wrong until he entered
the pressure hatch and tried to equalize.
That's when he found out there was nothing
to equalize; the air was gone. "
"Sure," I muttered. "And if you believe that
I've got some waterfront property in the Mo­
jave to sell you. "
"That's what's in the report, " Jimmy said.
"And whatever caused the GSS to depressur­
ize must have happened pretty quickly. Baker
didn't even have tinle to get back into her suit.
She was sprawled out on the floor when Par­
sons found her; ugly Sight, from the report. I'll
spare you the details."
"Thanks, " Doris said. "I've had enough of
the blood and guts stuff for a while. "
"He sealed the place up, and they sent a
team to investigate. They found a couple
dozen holes in the hull, each about a centime­
ter across; figured it must have been a mete­
orite shower. "
"Parsons have a gun with hin,'" I asked.
"A better question," Doris said, "is why did
Baker just sit there waiting to die? I mean,
even with all those holes in the wall, you'd
think she would have had enough time to get
to the hatch and try to get into her suit. "
"Guess she was trying to seal the leaks. "
"That's something a man with a hero com­
plex would do. A smart woman like her would
get the suit on first, and then seal the holes."
"Maybe the airlock was breached or just not
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
working. "
" O r maybe , " I said, "just conveniently
jammed shut . "
" Something I doubt we'll ever know, " Jim­
my said.
He shut off the Net-pad.
The three of us sat there numbly, trying to
figure out how aU this was connected. At least
that's what I was thinking. Baker's head injury
a few years back, Green's attack in my office,
the so-called meteorite accident-it had to all
tie together somehow. But Sitting there rumi­
nating on it wasn ' t helping. The more I
thought, the less it made sense.
I looked up at Jimmy. " S till nothing on
Green?"
He shook his head in disgust. " Squeaky
clean. The sonofabitch doesn't even cheat on
his taxes. No payola, no reason for hinl to try
and turn you into dog food, as far as I can tell.
Did you ever date his sister?"
I glared. "Cute, Jimmy. "
He shrugged. "If the condom fits . . . "
Doris laughed. "I guess he does know you
pretty well, Roger. "
"He'sjoking. I'm not that guy anymore. Tell
her you're joking, Jimmy. "
He paused, right eyebrow creeping slowly
up his forehead.
"Jimmy!"
He broke into laughter. "If he ever was like
that, I'd love to have seen him in action, but . . . "
"No," Doris interrupted. "You wouldn't
have. It was not a pretty sight. "
Jimmy shrugged. "Anyhow, the Roger I
know is anything hut a lady's man."
"You're not helping here, Jinlmy. "
"Well, compared to the crowd I hang out
with, you're vanilla, man."
I couldn't argue. I'd seen his crowd. "How
about Parsons? Any leads there?"
Jimmy's face soured. "Got my boys working
on it. I'll let you knOw." He picked up his Net­
pad and slipped it into his pocket as he got up
to leave. "Well, I'll leave you two to . . . what­
ever it is you do." He gave us a wink.
"We talk," Doris said. "OccaSionally. "
He raised his eyebrows at me. "Good luck
with that."
"I'll walk you out." I came up next to him
and gave him a pat on the back. "Thanks for
all this, Jimmy. "
"You bet. "
17
ANALOG
[ opened the door and held it for him. The
uniformed cop he'd stationed in the hallway
stood vigilantly as Jimmy headed for the eleva­
tor. 1 watched it close and went back inside.
As [ looked at Doris, a thought occurred to
me. "Didn't your college roommate have some
highfalutin' position over at NNN?" NetNet
News had become the leading source of news
for most major cities, carrying local streams in
each city, followed by national and then inter­
national streams later each evening.
"Sherry Stein? Yeah. Director of Personnel,
last 1 heard. God, 1 haven 't talked to her in
ages."
"No time like the present to renew an old
friendShip. "
She crossed her arms over her chest.
"Green' You really think she's going to risk
her job to give me anything wrapped so tight
that even Valenti can't get to it?"
"Don't ask her for that stuff. Just see if you
can find out who he hung out with, maybe
somebody we can talk to. 1 can't just keep sit­
ting on my hands all day. "
It took her a while to track Sherry down,
but once she got her on the horn, she was
talking so fast 1 felt like my head was spinning.
She worked the conversation until [ finally
heard something of interest.
"Heard about it? [ was there . . . . Yeah, my
boss." She rolled her eyes. "Uh-huh, the same
Roger Bennett . . . . [ know. Can you believe it?
. . . That was a long time ago . . . . Oh, [ re­
member.' She tilted her head in my direction
and [ glanced away. "[ didn't think [ knew
those kinds of words either. . . . No, I ' m not
dating him! [ told you, he's my boss."
1 felt my teeth clenching as the conversation
wore on.
"I know. He tried to kill Roger. Was he on
drugs or something? . . . Really?" Her face
squinched. "A puppy? Well, you'd never know
it from the way he acted in our office . " Her
eyes widened. "You didn't. And [ thought my
taste in men was bad . . . . Well, at least you cut
it off before the real Tarin Green came out in
him. What a lunatic. " Then her shoulders
dropped and the tone of her voice softened:
'Just the same, it's really sad he had to die so
young. Did he have any family?" . . . "Really!"
Her back arched. "God, what a jerk! So, 1
guess he never told you much about her, then,
huh? . . . A daughter up at Moon Base?" Doris
18
gave me a nod. "That is a lot to be proud of.
She still up there? . . . Too bad. It's sad there's
nobody here to go to his funeral. 1 mean, fami­
ly, you know. . . . Well, co-workers aren't quite
the same thing, but 1 know what you mean. At
the hospital, we're all kind of like family too . "
She turned away, but only after I'd noticed the
serene smile on her face as she said it. "No
problem. 1 know you must be busy. . . . TIlat'd
be great. Maybe we can catch up over coffee,
sometime. Give me a call when things settle
down . . . . You too. Bye."
She disconnected, then crossed her arms
and gave me a smug stare.
All [ could say was, "What kina of words?"
"Huh?"
"Oh, never mind. [ probably deserved it,
back then."
"Yes. You did. "
"So what's this about a daughter'"
"Turns out Green had a daughter he didn't
even know existed lUltil a few years ago. She
showed up at his office one day and just
sprung it on him. Apparently, her mother nev­
er wanted her to know who he was, but she
eventually figured it out and wanted to meet
him."
"Surprised Jimmy didn't find out about
that. "
"Sherry said Green kept it on the QT; made
her promise to not tell anybody. He was afraid
it might damage his public image."
"And she kept all this from the cops? For
that weasel'"
"Nah. They haven't even talked to her, and
unless they're going to check out all his old
girlfriends, [ doubt they ever will. She was
transferred to the Seattle office six months
ago; hadn't talked to Green since they broke
up last year. "
"She actually dated that guy? What was
he-forty, forty-five, maybe?"
"Must have been older than he looked. He
had a daughter in NASA, didn't he?"
''Yeah, but still . . . "
"And you're implying . . . what?"
"He just seemed kind of young for someone
Sherry's age . " 1 knew I'd made a mistake as
soon as the words escaped my lips, knowl­
edge confirmed by the glare coming my way.
"Not to say that Sherry's . . . that you . . . ah,
hell, you know what 1 mean . "
Her frown cracked.
BRAD AIKEN

"You enjoyed that, didn't you?"
"More than you know. I know how old I
am, Roger. I ' m comfortable in my skin. Can
you say the same?"
I couldn't.
"Anyhow, " she said, "the reason his daugh­
ter had chosen then to come see him was that
she was getting ready to ship out to join the
survey team at MBA; wanted to meet him be­
fore she left, in case . . . well, you knOw. "
I did. And then it hit me. "Oh, shit."
"As in 'Oh shit, Doris. You're good. '"
"Yeah. And as in 'Oh shit, I know what hap­
pened. ' "
Doris stared for a few seconds, then threw
her hands out to her sides. "Well?"
"Leverage, " I said. "Green may have been
the perfect guy to send after my files-his
computer background, a good cover story to
get me alone in the office-but a guy like
Green doesn't agree to do something like he
did unless somebody's got some leverage to
make him do it. Usually, it's money or some
dirt-an affair or something, but]immy didn't
find any of that. Because it was the daughter. "
Doris stood motionless for a brief second
before it sunk in. "Of course. They threatened
to kill the daughter if he didn't do it. That's
why he was so freaked out about Baker's
death. He knew they'd really do it if he didn't
destroy those files. "
"And getting rid of me was obviously part of
the package. This guy was no natural-born
killer, he was almost as terrified as I was. They
must have made getting rid of me part of the
deal to save his daughter. A few more minutes
and he'd have succeeded, too. He'd have
come running out of the office calling for you
to get help. It would have looked like I had a
heart attack. Nobody would have thought to
check me for some exotic toxin. "
Doris looked a little ashen, obviously think­
ing back to the bloody sight she'd walked in
on. She refocused with a subtle head shake.
"So what the hell was in those files that they
were willing to kill for?"
"You mean, what did they think was in
those files. I stared at those things until I was
ready to pass out. There's nothing there . "
S o we were back where we started. Almost.
We knew why Green was willing to come af­
ter me, but we still had no idea why they
wanted the files, and what it all had to do
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
with Baker's death.
I was going to have dinner delivered from
the Italian joint down the street, but Doris in­
sisted on cooking, saying it would relax her. I
opened a bottle of Beaujolais, poured myself a
glass, and settled into the living room with the
current edition ofAnalog Science Fiction and
Fact, picking up in the middle of a novelette
I'd already started.
Periodically pausing to give my glass a ;wirl
until the last swig of wine was gone, I worked
my way through a story about a Mars colony
that gets established after an exploratory mis­
sion finds a water supply large enough to
make a thing like that work. The twist was
that support from Earth gets cut off due to
budget constraints at NASA, and by the time
trade is re-established many years later, the
Martians have developed such a different set
of morals that they don't want anyone from
Earth coming to interfere with their lifestyle.
Yeah, right-Martians.
As I ruminated on the thought, Doris an­
nounced that dinner was ready. The smell of
French bread, just out of the oven, drew me
into the room.
She'd dug out some fine china I'd forgotten
that I'd inherited from my grandparents,
dimmed the lights, and put on a playlist of my
favorite classical music that started with Rav­
el's "Bolero". A freshly poured glass of wine
was in front of each setting, mixed greens dec­
orated the salad plates, and a porcelain bowl
of steaming beef stroganoff was placed in the
center.
"Wow. "
"Glad you approve. Now sit down before it
all gets cold. "
I hadn't realized that I'd been standing
frozen in my tracks, staring at the table. "Oh,
uh . . . " I looked over at her. She'd let down the
fine auburn hair tl1at I was accustomed to see­
ing tied up in a bun, and had obviously picked
up some make-up when we'd stopped to get
some of her things. It was hard to believe this
was the same woman I'd barely noticed wan­
dering around my office every day.
"Everything's lovely," I said, staring into her
eyes.
"It's how it tastes that counts."
I leaned into her, put my hand behind her
head, and pressed my lips against the red gloss
that covered hers.
19
ANALOG
It felt so right. To both of us. I could tell.
We separated slowly, and she cleared her
throat. "Sit," she said. She brushed a strand of
hair from her face. ''I'll get some water. "
She turned and went into the kitchen, re­
turning a few seconds later with a small crys­
tal pitcher in her hands. There was an
awkward moment of silence as she poured a
glass for each of us, then took her place across
the table from me.
"Wanna talk about it?" I said.
She shook her head. 'Just eat." She handed
me the bread basket, then started in on her
salad.
"It felt right, Doris. "
"It did the last time, too. "
I hadn't realized I'd hurt her so much when
I'd broken it off those many years ago. It had
been just another in a line of trysts for me. I
wondered how many other women had taken
my actions for something more than they
were meant to be. "You know I ' m not that
man anymore. "
"Let's not spoil tonight, Roger. "
I was surprised to discover that I had these
feelings for the woman I'd worked with every
day for the last few years. Maybe I didn't.
Maybe it was just the circumstances. I decided
she was right and changed the subject. "So
you like Classical, too?"
"I do. Intricate, complex, and infused with
feeling, yet so much less distracting than the
stuff you hear on the satellite stations these
days. It relaxes me."
"Mozart's still my favorite, all in all. But
there'S nothing like the 'Bolero. '" As I said it, I
had no problem blaming Ravel for that kiss.
Mercifully, the song ended, and the brilliance
of a Vivaldi trumpet concerto changed the
tide of the conversation.
She took a sip of wine, then put down her
glass. "So, you're feeling better today?"
"Incredibly, yes. I guess it's true that a near­
death experience heightens your senses. It
hasn't felt this good to be alive in a long time."
I scooped out a few serving spoons full of the
stroganoff and took a bite. "Oh. Wow. This is
awesome," I sputtered as I chewed.
Doris laughed. "No manners, but thanks."
With the tension having simmered away
and the after-effects of wine helping free us
from the worries of this bizarre set of circum­
stances that had quarantined us together un-
20
der armed guard, we escaped into each oth­
er's company for the evening.
Under the mantle in the living room, a laser
light show meant to pass for a fire served as a
weak substitute for the real thing I'd experi­
enced at my boyhood home in Vermont, but
was soothing nonetheless. We settled onto the
sofa across from the fireplace, maintaining a
safe distance from one another, and popped
up the leg rests. With a tap of the remote by
my right hand, the four-and-a-half-by-eight-foot
picture of Monet's Water Lillies on the facing
wall faded away, replaced by the all too famil­
iar eagle logo of the Randall Corporation
against a bright blue background, the iconic
image that adorned the boot-up screen of
nearly every home-theater media streamer in
the country. Another tap brought up a menu
of movies.
We studied the list together, glossing past
romantic comedies that were sure to create
awkward moments, and murder mysteries too
close to our present reality, finally settling on
a light-hearted fantasy, one of those sword­
and-sorcery things set in the Middle Ages. It
had its desired effect of mindless escapism
that I hoped would allow me the luxury of a
sound night's sleep.
We said our casual good-nights, but knew
casual was not in our hlture.
Jimmy was over bright and early the next
morning, sitting across the breakfast table
from us. We stared impatiently at the air over
his Net-pad for a few seconds before the six­
teen-by-nine-inch screen image finally ap­
peared, hovering just above the table.
He swiped a finger over some icons to pull
up the file. "Ah, there it is. David Lionel Par­
sons. Born April 1 5 . . . yada, yada, yada. Let's
get to the good stuff. " His eyes scanned the
page. "There," he pointed. "Graduated from
the University of Colorado School of Geologi­
cal Studies with his doctorate. No big surprise
in that, but look how he got there: two years
at Emory School of Medicine, one of the top
students in his class, then dropped out when
he got a hIll scholarship to attend UC's geolo­
gy program."
I'd been playing with my coffee mug, nudg­
ing it around by its handle as Jimmy talked,
but that struck a chord. "Why the hell would
he drop out of medical school to study rocks?
BRAD AIKEN

He must have worked his ass off to get into
Emory. It's hard to imagine giving that up for a
little scholarship money."
"Maybe he couldn't hack it, " Doris offered.
"Maybe, " I said. Then, in my best raspy Don
Corleone voice, added, "or maybe somebody
made him an offer he couldn't refuse."
That got a weak chuckle out of Jimmy.
Doris just glared. "You did not just say that."
I shrugged. "And yet, oddly enough, I
meant it." I looked at Jinuny. "Where did that
scholarship come from?"
He ran a f i nger down the screen, then
stopped, tapping a finger in the air in front of
the image. "The Randall Corporation."
"Randall? What the hell is a media company
doing doling out college scholarships to geol­
ogy students?"
"Actually, that part's not so strange, " Doris
said. "I saw a piece about Richard Randall on
the Biography Channel a few months back. He
may be a cutthroat businessman who clawed
his way to the top of the entertainment indus­
try, but he's got a philanthropic side too.He's
an ardent supporter of the arts and education.
T h e y said he's put over a t h o u s a n d kids
through school with his scholarship pro­
gram."
"And Parsons was one of the chosen ones,
huh?"
"Apparently so."
"Which brings us back to: W h y Parsons,
and why geology'"
Jinuny looked up from the screen. "I think
you're reading too much into this."
I pointed to the screen. "What else does it
say about hinl?"
Jimmy looked back at the screen. "He had
been working his way through med school as
a research assistant with a Dr.Jeffrey Horsten
...something."
"Horstengieifer?" I asked.
"Yeah,I guess that's how you pronounce it.
You've heard of him?"
I had. "He did some of the foundation work
on deep brain stinmlation."
" Yeah," Jimmy was still looking at the file.
"It's right here. Parsons got his name on a
study they published in the New England
Journal ofMedicine: ' The Effect of Deep Brain
Stimulation of the Hippocampus in Primates.'
Sounds thrilling."
"I'll be danmed," I muttered.
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
Doris and Jimmy looked at me.
" What'" Jimmy asked. "What does frying
monkey brains have to do with anything?"
"The hippocampus-it's where short-term
memory is processed." I looked at Doris.
"Hnun ...Now, where did I put that bubbJe­
chip we were using yesterday'"
"Cute, Roger."
I smiled. "Would you mind digging it out for
me again?"
"From your underwear drawer? Oh, I was
so hoping you would ask."
I ignored her smirk and reached for my Net­
pad, still sitting on the kitchen table. Jimmy's
wouldn't have tile software to rtm my medical
f iles.
Doris was back in a few minutes with the
chip. I put it in and pulled up the Baker file.
"Holy shit, Roger. Is that what I think it is?"
I nodded.
"You copied a patient file and brought it
home? Isn't that illegal?"
I shmgged.
"You do realize I'm a cop, right?"
"What are you going to do, arrest me'"
"Arrest you? I could kiss you."
"That would be very bad for our friend­
ship."
I pulled up the high-resolution CAT scan of
Sue Baker's brain, rotated it until I got to the
back of her head, and zoomed in on the oc­
Cipital protuberance, that little bony lump in
the back of the skull that nobody realizes
they've got until they bang the back of their
head on something, then swear that the lump
they're feeling was never there before.
"Son of a bitch, " I said. "All this time, I've
been looking in the wrong place." I pointed to
a minuscule black dot on the skull, only visible
at high magnification. "It's a screw hole,
about two millimeters in diameter." I rotated
to the front of the skull and found two similar
holes, one above each eye in the supraorbital
ridge. A little more searching revealed the
fourth and fifth marks on either side of the
skull,just behind the ears. "The five anchor
points for a stereotactic frame."
"I hate it when he gets like this," Doris said.
"Speak English, Roger. I think I know what
you're getting at,but Jimmy's eyes are starting
to glaze over. "
"Oh,uh . . . sorry. A stereotactic frame-it's
sort of like a helmet, but just the framework.
21
ANALOG
An oval titanium strip that's screwed into the
skull at those five points, with a semicircular
strip attached to it that goes over the top of
the head from the nose to that occipital bump
I showed you. The last piece is another semi­
circle of titanium attached by joints to the
oval, just over the ears. It pivots 180 degrees
from the front of the head to the back." I illus­
trated the motion with my hands around my
head.
"It's computer-guided , " Doris added, "so
that it creates a template to localize any pre­
cise point in the brain. They use it to focus ra­
diation treatments. "
"And, " I added, "to guide the nanowires
used for deep brain stimulation. Parsons could
have used it to wipe Baker's memory; make
her forget something she had recently seen. "
"Then why whack her over the head?"
Valenti asked. "Isn't that what you operated
on her for?"
"Yeah. A subdural hematoma caused by a
blow to the head. But think about it: if she just
showed up at the base with sudden severe
memory loss and no trauma to blame it on, it
would have raised a few eyebrows. Parsons
had to come up with a plausible reason. A
blow to the head was the perfect c over,
though I've got to admit, I always wondered
why her memory loss was so severe. I mean,
you never know with a head injury, but it sure
seemed out of proportion to the trauma . " I
shook my head. "No wonder. '
Doris bit her lip in thought. "But wouldn't
he have needed a scanner to do what he did?"
"Nah. I mean, sure, you need it for precise
localization of the nanowire in the brain, but
all he had to do was get close to the hip­
pocanlpus and give it a good jolt. It didn't real­
ly matter if he created a little havoc in the
surrounding brain tissue. He knew he'd be
able to blame it on tI1e concussion."
"The real question, " Valenti broke in, "is
why did he go to all that trouble three years
ago, and then just kill her this time'"
"Good question. Whatever it was he made
her forget the first tinle, she must have found
it again. It would have been too obvious to
keep smacking her in the head and then wip­
ing her memory each time she rediscovered
whatever it was he was trying to keep secret,
so he needed a more permanent solution. "
"Well, all I can say is it must have been pret-
22
ty rare," Doris said, "since it took three years
to find it again."
"Not that rare . " Jinlmy ran a hand through
his perfect hair. "Remember, they cover one
block of that ten-by-ten grid each month. So
going back and forth across that grid, they'd
have been about forty miles away from the
first spot when he killed her. "
I looked at him. "Somebody's been thinking
too much."
"Guilty, " Jimmy said. "I haven't been able to
stop thinking about it."
Doris waved a hand. "Wait a minute. What
if they search the grid in a spiral pattern? Nine
blocks over, nine blocks up, nine blocks to the
left, then nine more back down. " She tracked
the pattern through the air witl1 her finger.
''I'll be damned , " Jinuny said. "Back where
they started in thirty-six montl1s. "
I t seemed Doris had been doing a little
thinking too. I gave her a smile. "Okay. So the
timeline makes sense, but what could she
have found that he'd have been willing to kill
her for?"
"Who the hell knows' All their data is classi­
fied, and it's a little tough to interrogate some­
one 240,000 miles away. Even tougher to go
check out the spot they were surveying."
"If you can convince them to search his
stuff, find that stereotactic frame, then maybe
they'll give you access to their data. Or at least
let you question him."
"I don't know. They're a pretty close-knit
bunch up there. They'd have to be to survive
what they're going through. I ' m not sure
they'll be willing to help us pin a murder rap
on him, even with that CAT scan evidence.
There's no proof he's the one who put those
holes in her head. Now, if we can establish
some kind of motive . . . "
"And I suppose his financials were clean
too? Nothing that could pass for a payoff, a
murder-for-hire kind of thing?"
"Nah. The only odd thing was that he was
getting a monthly direct deposit into his ac­
count from Randall Corp."
That got my attention. "Interesting. So why
did Randall Corp keep him on the payroll after
he started working for NASA? Do you think
the space agency knew about it'"
"It turns out they did. NASA let Parsons sign
an agreement with Randall giving them an ex­
clusive to his story and any footage he shoots
BRAD AIKEN

on the far side of the Moon. In exchange,
NASA gets a hefty sum for anything Randall de­
cides to use. It's a pretty sweet deal for the
agency. I suspect they encourage all their lu­
nar geologists to sign up, because every one of
them has the same deal with Randall, even Su­
san Baker. Or she did, anyway."
Doris went into the kitchen to make some
more coffee. She poured some water from the
cooler into the coffee maker, and came back
humming that damn jingle.
"Jesus, Doris. Not again. "
"Huh?"
"That damn jingle's going to be bouncing
around inside my skull all day. "
"Sorry. I didn't even realize. "
Jimmy laughed. "You two might as well get
married if you're going to fight all the time."
Doris gave him the death stare. "Not funny. "
He cleared his throat. "Anyway . . . I'm going
to head back to the station, see if I can push
my way up through the chain of command to
put some pressure on NASA and get them to
search Parsons' stuff. "
"Let me know . . . "
"You'll be the first, " Jimmy called back just
before he closed the door behind him.
Doris watched the door shut, then turned
to me. "I'm going to go take a shower. "
"\'\fait, " I said. "There's something I need to
say. "
She stood, waiting.
"Please . " I motioned to the empty seat
across from me, and she sat. "I've been think­
ing a lot about this. Maybe we should give it
another try. It just feels right being with you. "
She fidgeted i n her chair. "Those feelings
aren't real, Roger. You haven't been your usual
all-controlling self the past couple days. You
actually needed somebody else's help for a
change, and I happen to have been the some­
body. People get emotionally attached to their
nurses all the tinle. "
"Come on. It's more than that. You feel it
too."
"Either way, this is not the time. "
"What better time? We've got nowhere else
to go, nothing else to do."
"That's exactly the point. We shouldn't be
making decisions like this at a time when our
emotions are wrapped around what we've just
gone through, what we're still going
through. "
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
The doorbell sounded-someone down at
the lobby. I hesitated, then called out, "Open
intercom. "
The blue light around the intercom speaker
next to the door began to glow.
"Who's there?"
"It's Danny, Dr. Bennett. That time of the
week."
I'd forgotten. The Celestial Springs guy al­
ways came by with my water delivery on Sat­
urday mornings, but with all the commotion,
it wasn't exactly at the top of my list of things
to remember.
"Right. Hang on a second. " I buzzed him in.
Doris stood. "We'll talk about this later. "
I nodded and watched her walk down the
hallway, then cracked the door open to tell
Valenti's guy Danny would be coming up.
As I poured myself another cup of coffee,
the phone rang. It was Jimmy.
"Miss me already?"
"Actually, I've seen so much of you the past
two days I don't know how much more I can
take."
"What's up?"
"Well, as I started to drive away, I found my­
self humming that jingle Doris had been hum­
ming. "
"Yeah. Annoying, isn't it?"
"Let's just say it serves its purpose, but it
didn't hit me what it was until I heard the
commercial on my car radio. ' Nectar of the
Moon and the brightest stars, '" Jimmy started
to sing.
"No. Not you too."
"It got me thinking, " Jimmy said. "Remem­
ber all that hullaballoo about ten, fifteen years
ago when Bucky Dumont bought the space
station, the old one NASA was going to junk?"
"Yeah. Nice to have so much money you
can start your own space program, huh?" Du­
mont had made a killing selling spring water;
he'd finagled exclusive contracts to supply
every major Hollywood studio and their
"brightest stars . " His company, Celestial
Springs, became a household nanle with their
"Nectar to the Stars" campaign. Hell, even I
had signed up to get the stuff.
"You remember what he was going to do
with it? What he did do with it?"
"Sure." Being the science fiction aficionado
I was, I remembered it well. Dumont's fortune
had given him the means to fuel his passion
23
ANALOG
for life-on-the-edge adventure. He'd bought the
old space station and turned it into a hotel for
celebrities, the rich and famous who could af­
ford a week up in space. Probably not much
fun when you think about it, but definitely a
means to bragging rights. "That hotel-I hear
it's booked-up for years."
"Yeah, in fact, 1 was flipping through the
channels the other night and Lifestyles of the
Filthy Rich was doing a show about Dumont.
He's been shuttling these prima donnas up
there every week for the past decade, and
every trip up, he takes hundreds of gallons of
water. He's been stashing it in these huge stor­
age tanks. Apparently, he'd originally planned
to turn it into some kind of cosmic service sta­
tion; figured everyone would eventually be
flying around the solar system, and when they
did, he'd be there to provide water and sup­
plies-for the right price, of course. Last se,�
vice station fot' one hundt'ed lightyears kind
of thing. "
I couldn't suppress the snicker. "Yeah. That
worked out. And this guy's richer than the
Pope?"
There was a soft knocking from the entry­
way. I looked up and saw Danny peering at
me from around the partially opened door and
motioned him in without breaking from my
conversation.
Jinuny cleared his throat. "Well, for a while
there, he sure wasn't. Between starting up his
own shuttle and refitting the space station, he
burned through money faster than Congress;
only he couldn't print more when he needed
it. By the time he was ready to open his hotel,
the well had run dry. And this is where it gets
interesting: he went groveling to an old col­
lege buddy for a bailout. I'll give you three
guesses who it was. "
"Not a clue. "
"Richard Randall."
"No shit. Randall' Guess it makes sense,
with his interest in the Moon base and all."
"Randall bailed out Dumont for a 5 1 per­
cent stake in the company, but kept his part­
nership silent and let Dumont stay on as the
head of Celestial. With Randall's money, they
were able to run the hotel at a break-even, and
add a whole new marketing twist to their
'Nectar to the Stars' campaign."
"Hardly seems like that would bring in
enough cash to be worth a multibillion dollar
24
investment. "
"Remember who you're talking about
here," Jimmy said. Randall's name was synony­
mOllS with investment savvy. "See, when
NASA built MBA, they needed a way to get wa­
ter there, and Randall was sitting on this huge
stash of it stored in the tanks outside his orbit­
ing hotel. It was cheaper for NASA to buy
what they needed from him rather than haul­
ing it up from Earth. It was still expensive­
very expensive-but cheaper than the
alternative. Randall made a fortune. Still does,
apparently, since they resupply MBA from his
tanks. "
"And the rich keep getting richer. "
"Right. But what would happen if one of
those geologists up on MBA found a subter­
ranean supply of water on the far side'"
"Randall would stand to lose a bundle. " 1
felt Doris's nails digging into the flesh of my
upper arm, looked up, and followed her gaze
to where Danny was sitting on a kitchen stool
with an energy-pulse pistol aimed at us. "Oh,
shi!."
"The moment of realization, huh'" Jimmy
sounded proud of himself for leading me to
the obvious conclusion that had come to me
much too late.
"No. TIle moment of, 'Oh shit, 1 just buzzed
the Celestial Springs guy into my apartment. '"
Danny waved the gun. "Hang it up, doc."
I heard Jimmy's voice on the other end, but
whatever he was saying didn't register. 1
tapped off the phone and put it down.
1 pried Doris's hand off my arm and held it
in my own.
"You don't have to do this, Danny. "
He used his left hand to help steady the
gun. "They got my wife, doc . "
"Jesus. Who are these guys' " I t was Tarin
Green all over again.
"I don't know, man." His voice trembled. "I
got home yesterday and she was gone. They
called and showed her to me-tied to a chair
and gagged. " He choked back the tears. "Told
me where to find the gun they'd left at my
house. It's either you," he waved the gun at
me, "or her, they said. "
My grip on Doris's hand slipped from cold
sweat, but my demeanor remained constant
and my voice didn't waver, a trick that comes
from a lifetime of dealing with high-pressure
situations. "You don't have to kill anybody,
BRAD AIKEN

Danny. "
"I'm not going to lose her, " he snapped.
I held up a hand to try and calm h i m .
'There's another way, Danny. Just listen to me.
Those guys who put you up to this, they think
I have some evidence the cops need to nail
them. But the cops already have it. Killing me
won't accomplish a thing . "
"It'll save my wife. "
"You don't know that. What if she's seen
them? You think they'll just let her go'"
His jaw clenched as he searched his mind
for a solution that wasn't there. "Then what
the hell am I supposed to do?"
"First, put the gun down, Danny. I've got
friends in the Police Department. They'll
know what to do."
His left hand dropped away and he slumped
forward, eyeing the floor in front of him, then
jerked himself upright and extended the gun
in our direction. "Uh-uh. No! If I let you go,
she's dead. If I do what they say, at least
there's a chance."
I waved my hands at him. "Think about it,
Danny. If you shoot us, she's already dead.
They've got no reason to let her go and risk
getting caught. She'll be gone and all they
have to do to get rid of you is to wait until the
cops nail you for my murder, which they will.
Have you noticed all the security cameras
around this place?"
His eyes darted wildly around the room.
"Then what?"
"I've got an idea, but we'll need to buy a lit­
tle time. Did they give you a contact number?"
He nodded. "They told me to call when the
job was done; send them a picture of your
body. "
"Good. Call them. Tell them I refused the
water delivery today and rescheduled for Mon­
day. That'll give us forty-eight hours. "
"She's got to stay with that animal for two
more days? Are you nuts?"
"There's not much choice here, Danny.
Think about it. If you don't do this, we're all as
good as dead whether you shoot or not. But as
long as they know I'm alive and you can still
get to me, they need you, they need your
wife. They won't hurt her. "
Danny sat silently for a moment, then
flipped the gun around so he was holding it
by the barrel and held it out to me. "Just take
this goddamn thing, would you?"
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
Doris slumped back into the sofa and closed
her eyes. I patted her on the thigh then went
over to get the gun and stuffed it into my
pocket.
"Better make that call out by the window in
the hallway. It's not going to be very convinc­
ing if he sees you're in my apartment. " I gave
him a pat on the back and walked him to the
door.
The hall was deserted except for Valenti's
watchman, slumped back in his chair.
"Nice touch, " I said, motioning to the base­
ball cap that sloped down to cover half his
face.
Danny paused and looked at him. "He'll be
okay in an hour or two . "
I leaned o n the door jamb and watched as
he made his way down the walnut-trimmed
corridor, footsteps muffled by the tightly wo­
ven mauve carpet that paved the way. "Save
the conversation," I called after him. "We
need a recording of his voice. "
He waved an arm without turning back.
Doris came up along side of me. "Aren't you
going to stay with him'"
"He's got nowhere else to go. "
He turned to face us, so the glare of light
from the window obscured any background
that might appear on the screen at the receiv­
ing end of the call. We ducked back inside to
avoid any pOSSibility of being seen in case he
moved around.
Within a few minutes, he was back, rubbing
the moisture out of his eyes.
"She okay?" Doris asked softly.
"Depends what you call okay. "
I gritted my teeth. "We'll get her, Danny. "
The despair in his eyes spoke volumes.
"You've got your forty-eight hours. "
As I sat across from Danny and Doris, who
were waiting to hear the brilliant plan I hadn't
yet concocted, a ring tone sounded from the
hallway and I went to have a look. It was com­
ing from the jacket pocket of our snoozing
guardian.
I fished it out without waking him. "Hello'"
"Roger? That you?" It was Jimmy's voice.
"Yup . "
"Jesus. I was about to storm your apart­
ment. What the hell happened?"
I updated him and sent him a copy of Dan­
ny's phone call.
25
ANALOG
"A scumbag like that probably has a record.
Shouldn't be hard to put a name and face to
that voice. Good work."
I bounced a few thoughts off him, then
went back inside with a little better idea of
how we might all survive this.
"You've got to get going, Danny. "
"No way. Whatever's going down, I want in
on it. I want to tear that bastard apart with my
bare hands."
"For this to work, they'll need to think that
everything is okay; that you were never in
here today; that you just made your other de­
liveries in the building, and then continued on
with your route. '
He stood. "You just let me know the second
you've got that sonofabitch, the second my
wife's free. "
"Of course."
He grabbed the dolly he'd brought the wa­
ter in on and headed out the door.
I turned to Doris. "Get your stuff together.
We've got to get up to the roof. "
"ExclIse me?"
"Jimmy's sending a chopper for us. "
"Great. So now I'm a Bond girl . "
"You can call m e James, if i t makes you hap­
py. "
"It's not all in the name, James." She gave
my sagging belly a pat, then went back to grab
her bag from the bedroom.
We stepped out into the brisk autumn
breeze that whipped across the rooftops of
the city's highest skyscrapers and erased the
defining odors of the streets below. It took a
minute to adjust to the brightness of the crisp
blue sky, which was marred only by an occa­
sional wisp of cloud. By the time we had, the
distinctive whir of a helicopter was coming in
from the south. I waved both arms and squint­
ed through the glare reflecting off the cockpit
window, trying to see who was inside.
As the chopper approached, it started to list
from side to side. I couldn't tell who the pilot
was, but the other face was Jimmy's; he waved
frantically for me to get out of the way as the
helicopter began to jerk more violently. It
cleared the edge of the building and went into
a spin. ! grabbed Doris by the hand as it dove
toward us, and pulled her into the stairwell. A
few seconds later, the sound of metal grinding
against cement confinned the worst. We wait-
26
ed for the engine to die, then hurried out to
check on Jimmy.
He'd been thrown clear of the wreck and
was screanling in pain as he tried to distance
himself from the imminent explosion. It only
took a glance to see that the pilot was beyond
help. Doris and I dragged Jimmy to the relative
safety of the concrete pillar surrounding the
stairwell. I tucked my jacket under his head.
He could barely keep his eyes open as he
struggled to pull his clenched hand out of his
pants pocket. He let out a guttural, "Here," as
he thrust the Net-pad at me, then passed out.
When you call 9! 1 with an "Officer Down"
report, it gets attention. Within five minutes, a
medevac helicopter was there to whisk Jimmy
off to the hospital. As the deafening roar gave
way to the stillness of the day, I realized that I
was still clutching Doris close by my side, star­
ing into the space where the helicopter had
recently vanished.
"You can let go now, " she said softly.
"Oh. Uh . . . sorry. "
"No need to be." She touched my cheek.
The warmth of her hand calmed me for
only the briefest of moments. "Oh. Shit." !
pulled the Net-pad out of the pocket I'd
shoved it into as ! watched over Jimmy.
! powered it up and it opened to a picture
of a middle-aged man with thinning brown
hair and a pock-marked complexion. "Charles
Turner, " I read the caption aloud, " 1 433 East
Rutherford Place. '
Doris strained to see the picture on the tiny
screen against the brightness of the day. "That
the guy?"
"Got to be."
"So what now? Does Jimmy have a partner
we can call?"
I shook my head. "How do we know who
did that?" I motioned to the smoldering wreck
of the police chopper. "We do this ourselves."
"Maybe we should caU Danny. We need aU
the help we can get."
"No. He's liable to bring more trouble than
help. They've got to be following him."
"Jesus, Roger. How are you and I supposed
to go after creeps like that!"
"We've got no choice. Either we get them,
or they get us."
"You've got to be kidding. Look at us."
"Ah, come on. It'll be fun. " I sounded even
less convincing than ! felt.
BRAD AIKEN

She looked me in the eye. "You're an idiot."
I shrugged.
She grabbed my hand and led me back into
the building. We stopped by the apartment,
where we did our best to change our appear­
ances: a baseball cap for me, a shawl for Doris,
and a couple of pairs of dark sunglasses. Not
likely to fool anyone really paying attention,
but it was the best we could do under the cir­
cumstances. I grabbed Danny's gun, then led
Doris out through the sub-basement corridors
that connected three of the high-rises on my
block.
We hailed a cab to take us to Rutherford
Place, not the kind of place cabbies tend to
frequent.
Charles Thcker's rap sheet had been spelled
out on Jimmy's Net-pad: petty theft, car-jack­
ings, small-time drug busts, stolen-goods deals;
you nanle it. Not the kind of guy you want to
call a friend, but not the kind who master­
minds a major corporate operation either. He
appeared to be in unfamiliar territory with kid­
napping, as far as I could tell. That was some­
thing that could work to our advantage. On
the other hand, it must just make him all the
more jittery and liable to shoot without asking
questions.
The Deekin Park section of town had once
been a middle-class Mecca, but over the
decades it had fallen into the hands of families
too tired from struggling for survival to care
about whether men like Thcker moved in
next door.
We had the cabbie drop us off a half block
from Tucker's place, a small row-house with
dirty green paint peeling off aluminum siding,
hiding amidst a long line of similar structures
crowded along the tree-lined hiU. We kept our
hands in our pockets as we made our way up
a cracked concrete walkway, watching, but
not stopping as we passed Thcker's house. At
the top of the hili, we turned right and circled
back around behind the homes through a dirt
alleyway.
The small yard behind Tucker'S house was
half driveway, half overgrown weeds where
there used to be a lawn. A one-car garage sat
back from the house, and a set of warped
wooden steps led up to a small porch behind
the back door.
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
We kneeled behind a row of weed-threaded
azaleas, which were flourishing despite obvi­
ous neglect, and peered through a dirty win­
dow into the basement. Someone was in a
chair in front of a small table, with a second
person standing over him or her. It was hard
to make out any details.
I waved toward the stairs and Doris nod­
ded. The first step let out a creak that echoed
through my bones. I froze. Doris motioned for
me to stop, then made her way up the stairs,
keeping her weight balanced near the edge of
the stairway over the underlying support
beams. I lowered my weight onto my back
foot, then followed her path up to the back
door and dug the gun out of my pocket, trying
to steady it in both hands.
"The safety," she whispered.
I tapped the OLEO display on the side of the
handle, but my shaky finger couldn't seem to
find its way through the menu to unlock the
safety. Doris took it from me, deftly tapped the
screen twice, then slid the manual safety-lock
down and studied the readout. "Power's down
to ten percent," she said.
I wasn't sure how many shots that translat­
ed into, but it couldn't be good.
Doris tapped at the menu again, pushed a
button on the handle, and the battery pack
slid out the bottom. She shook it vigorously
for about ten seconds, dlen slid it back in and
gave it a smack with her palm to click it into
place. She rechecked the meter, then showed
it to me: 23 percent.
She held the gun out in my direction, han­
dle first.
"You keep it," I said. It was obviously in bet­
ter hands. "Anything else I don't know about
you?"
Her eyes said, Maybe ifyou 'd ever taken
tbe time to ask.
An unlocked door would have been too
much to hope for. She winced as her attempt
to turn the handle failed.
"My turn . " I reached into my pocket and
pulled out a black plastic key fob with a silver
loop dangling from one corner. "I borrowed it
from Jimmy's belt before they whisked him
away. "
I pressed a little button on the edge of the
gadget, slid it down, and a screen lit up. I stud­
ied it for a second, then tapped the activation
icon. A metallic rod about the thickness of a
27
ANALOG
pen-tip slipped out from the center of one
side. I inserted it into the lock and tapped on
the screen again. A red light started to blink at
me, and a very long ten seconds later the
flashing signal mercifully turned solid green. I
smiled and gave the fob a twist. The lock
opened with a satisfying click.
We crouched on either side of the door and
pushed it open slowly, then froze, listening to
the silence. Doris led the way into the small
cluttered kitchen, gun first.
We had a clear view of the door ro the base­
ment, which was partially ajar. Apart from the
muffled sound of rwo voices-one male, one
female-wafting through that opening, there
was no indication of anyone else in the house,
as far as we could tell. Tucker hardly seemed
like the domestic type and I was pretty sure
no woman had set foot in this place voluntari­
ly in a very long time.
Doris motioned toward the coffee table in
the living room across from the basement
door. A tattered brown and mustard-yellow
checkered sofa with matching loveseat
formed an "L" facing us and surrounded a mul­
ticolored berber rug so marred by overlapping
stains that it was impossible to tell what it had
actually looked like when it was chosen to
grace the hardwood floor it now protected.
An old-fashioned LED 1V suspended from the
wall across from the sofa featured some day­
time 1V talk show featuring losers that were
almost as pathetic as Tucker. He must have
been interrupted by a cry from his hostage in
the basement; a half-eaten sandwich sat on a
paper plate at the edge of the coffee table, and
next to that, his cell phone.
Doris leaned in to me. "Call it. "
I pulled out Jimmy's Net-pad and tapped on
the number. The cell phone on the coffee
table rang with the traditional default ringer
used by technophobes who never bother re­
programming their phones. A few seconds lat­
er, we heard footsteps lumbering up the stairs
from the basement and my heart began to
race.
I slunk back out of Doris's way, kneeling be­
hind her. She seemed oblivious to the pres­
sure, standing poised with her gun leveled in
the direction of the door as it creaked open.
There were things we needed to talk about
when this was all done. The footsteps were
louder now, more crisp; before the sound of
28
the third stride echoed our way, a single pulse
flashed from the handgun, followed by a loud
shriek and a dull thud.
Doris watched vigilantly. She didn't move a
muscle.
After several long seconds, I nudged her
and gave her a Well? look.
She nodded and stood, put a finger to her
mouth, and motioned at the stairs. "Stay with
him . " She made her way up to the second
floor, pausing slightly at each step, gun stead­
ied in both hands.
After watching, dumbfounded, until she
was halfway up, I looked at Tucker, then sur­
veyed the room. A baseball bat was propped
against the wall in one corner. I grabbed it and
stood vigil, glancing up the stairs every few
seconds.
Doris completed her search, then reap­
peared at the top of the stairwell. "Clear. "
I gave her a nod, then looked back at Tuck­
er, still out cold.
She made her way back down to me and
grabbed my arm. "You okay?"
''Yeah. But how in the hell did you-"
"Later. " She went down to the basement
and emerged a couple minutes later with Dan­
ny's wife, who was still rubbing the sting out
of the rope burns that marked her wrists.
I looked through the strands of long black
hair at eyes still swollen from fighting back
tears for the better part of the past rwenty-four
hours. The poor thing couldn't have been
more than twenty-five or twenty-six, but the
ravages of stress had taken their toll on her
youthful Vitality.
"You okay?"
She bit back her lip; didn't say a word.
"I'm Roger Bennett. "
She muttered softly, "Jennifer, " with a face
so devoid of expression she could have nearly
passed for a mannequin.
Doris tossed me a roll of duct tape she'd
found in the basement, then helped Jennifer
over to the sofa and sat down beside her. Jen­
nifer slowly pulled her hair back off the white
floral blouse that came just shy of meeting a
pair of deSigner jeans snugged up around her
hips, and mechanically twirled the silky tress­
es into a makeshift ponytail, bringing i t
around i n front of her left shoulder.
"Thank you , " she whispered, staring
blankly into the space in front of her.
BRAD AIKEN

"Danny sent us," I said.
She turned to me and her eyes welled up
with tears.
Doris took her hand, and Jennifer buried
her head in the shelter of the black rayon
turtleneck that hugged Doris's body.
I finished the job on Thcker, wrapping the
tape tightly around his ankles, and pulled his
hands behind his back. I left hinl lying on his
side facing the sofa. A can of soda sat on me
coffee table next to the sandwich. I picked it
up and spilled what was left onto his face,
then poked at him with the tip of my black
leather sneaker until he started to wake.
"\VIlo hired you, asshole?"
He forced one eyelid open and looked at
me. "Who me hell are you?"
"The one asking the questions. Who do you
work for?"
"Aren't you going to read me my rights'"
Jennifer stood, walked over, and gave hinl a
nasty kick in me right thigh. "Yeall. You have
the right to answer our questions or the next
kick'lI be about eight inches higher, aickwad."
He winced and let out a muffled yelp, then
looked up at me. "Jesus Christ. Do your job,
would you'"
"What, you think we're cops?"
She drew back her foot.
"Okay. Okay. Just stop mat crazy bitch. "
"Who you calling bitch?" She swung her
foot at the same spot, harder this time, and
was answered with a satisfying shriek.
"AII right, all right. Look, it was nothing per­
sonal. Just trying to make a living, you know?"
I held an arm out in front of Jennifer, kept
my focus on the pock-faced man writhing on
the ground. "So who was it'"
"Christ, man. He's going to kill me."
"Probably. And if you don't tell me who he
is, then when I find hinl-and I will find hinl,
sooner or later-I'll make sure he thinks
you're the one who led us to him . "
"If you're s o damn sure you can find him,
then what do you need me for'"
"I don't. But it'll make my life a whole lot
easier. Just give me a name, a number . . .
something we can find him with and I'll let
you go, give you a fighting chance to get
away. "
"What'" Jennifer got ready to swing her foot
again. "After what he did to me?"
I stopped her, took her by the hand and
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
walked her into the kitchen. "Look. We need
to get whoever it was that wanted you taken.
After we're done, if Danny and you want to go
after hinl, I doubt this dimwit will be too hard
to find. "
She bit back her lip, seething, but eventual­
ly acquiesced. We went back into the room.
"50 what do you say? Going to give me that
name, or do I let the little lady here warm up
her kicking leg'"
He motioned toward the coffee table. "The
phone. It's in there. The guy's name is Bud
Zielke. "
"He gave you his name?"
"Not exactly, but with his number and
vOiceprint, it wasn't too hard to check him
out. I just Swaggled him on the Net. Can't be
too careful these days. Always good to know
who you're working for in my business."
"And yet, here you are."
"Yeah, well, he was good for the money,
anyway. He runs security for Randall Corp.
That's about as respectable as anyone who
hires a guy like me ever gets. Kidnapping's not
my thing, but I figured a guy like him . . . "
"You figured wrong. "
"No shit. "
I looked at the ladies. "Come on. '
"You just going to leave me here like mis?"
Tucker'S voice had jumped an octave.
There was a knife on me kitchen counter. I
grabbed it and tossed it on the floor across the
room from Tucker. "We'll call the cops in
about an hour in case you need help getting
up."
Jennifer still had venom in her eyes.
"Ready?" I asked.
"Let's get the hell out of here. " She started
toward the door, hesitated, then walked over
to Tucker and gave him the groin kick she'd
promised, answered by a shriek from his
writhing body. The sealed-lips expression on
her face didn't change. "Now I'm ready. " She
led the way out the front door and down the
peeling painted-wood steps with a limp I
hadn't noticed before.
I hurried after her into the warmth of the
midday sun. "You okay to walk?"
"As long as it's away from here."
Doris pulled out her phone. ''I'll call a cab. "
"It'll be quicker to take the light-rail. We
passed a stop about two blocks from here on
the way in. " I looked at Jennifer. "Can you
29
ANALOG
make it okay?"
She nodded. "Lead the way. "
As 1 walked, 1 pulled out my phone to make
a call, then hesitated. "50 , " 1 said to Doris,
"you never mentioned that you had such an
affinity for firearms. "
"Things like that only tend to get mentioned
when there are actual conversations."
Ouch. 1 never really stopped to consider
that I knew virtually nothing about Doris, out­
side of work. Even when we had dated those
many years ago, my conversations with her
were primarily aimed at the quickest way to
separate her from her panties. "50 can we
have one?"
She shrugged. "1 was an Army brat. My dad
was an ordnance expert. He taught me to re­
spect guns from the time I was old enough to
understand what they were. When I was big
enough to handle them, he took me shooting
twice a week. Even years after he retired, we
still went to the range every Sunday after­
noon."
"He still alive?"
She shook her head gently. "But I still try
and go out there every week. It gives me com­
fort. " She laughed. "Comfort in gunfire. Kind
of sick, isn't it?"
"Not when you put it like that , " 1 said.
"Thanks. "
"For shooting that jerk' It was my pleasure,
believe me."
"No. Well, yeah, for that too. But I meant
thanks for sharing that."
She smiled and tucked her hands in her
pants pockets.
I dialed the number for Bud Zielke that I
had copied off Tucker's phone. There were
two rings before he answered. "Well , " the
voice said, "speak of the devil."
"Now if that ain't the pot calling the kettle
black."
A wry laugh. "So tell me, to what do 1 owe
the pleasure of talking to the famous Doctor
Bennett?"
"Well, if you wanted to talk to me so badly,
maybe you should have come yourself instead
of sending a bunch of inept messenger boys. "
" 1 don't knOw. It seems bad things happen
to those who seek you out, doctor. "
"Well, if you want some advice, you've been
going about this thing all wrong. Instead of
trying to kill me, you should be trying to re-
30
cruit me. The cops already have all the evi­
dence they need to fry you with the records
from my office, and I'm the only one who can
refute it. "
There was a long pause. " Hang on . " A
longer pause, then he came back on. "The
boss wants to meet with you. "
"When and where?"
"Randall Towers. One hour. The guard in
the lobby will tell you where to go."
I stuck the phone in my pocket.
"Well?" Doris said.
I told her and Jennifer about the meet-up.
"Are you nuts? This guy's already tried to kill
you twice and you're going to his office?
Alone?"
"They've got no reason to kill me anymore.
They got to Jimmy too late; the evidence is out
there."
"Then why meet with him'"
"Because I need to make sure this all stops
here, that Randall's lackeys don't try and kill
all of us just to tie up loose ends. I need to give
them a reason to keep us alive."
"And that reason is?"
"I'm working on it. "
Randall Plaza is one of the most frequented
spots in the city, bustling with the business
crowd during the week and tourists all week­
end long. It was starting to get late, but the
shops and restaurants lining the lobby level
were still full of pedestrians. We ducked into a
coffee shop across the plaza from Randall
Towers and took a booth by the window.
The ladies got in line to get some iced cap­
puccino while I studied the entrance to the
building. Doris came back with her drink and
a wad of brown paper napkins and slid in next
to me, while Jenifer sat across the table, silent,
introspective. I wanted to say something to
make her feel better, to erase the pain of the
ordeal, but nothing could do that, not this
soon after.
1 felt a tugging at my jacket and reached
down. Doris had stuffed the pistol, now
wadded up in napkins, back into my pocket. 1
pulled it out, kept it tucked between our bod­
ies, and pushed it back toward her. "No, you
keep it."
"You can't go in there unarmed. "
"How am I going to get that thing past secu­
rity?"
BRAD AIKEN

"It's an office building," Doris said, "not an
airport. "
"Maybe so, but Randall's goons still aren't
going to let me anywhere near him with that.
Besides, I'm more likely to get myself killed if I
actually try and use it. I'll just have to rely on
my keen wit, boyish charm, and devilishly
handsome looks to protect me."
"let's hope that wit's firing on all cylin­
ders. " She stuffed the gun back into her purse,
then stood to let me out.
"Don't sit here too long. Keep moving, stay
in the middle of the crowds and blend in. If
you don't hear from me by the time it starts to
get dark, go over to the Royal Arms and ask for
the manager, Ed Traschel. He's an old buddy of
mine. He'll check you in under a false name.
I'll find you there.
As I turned to go, Doris took my hand.
I looked into her eyes. "I'll be fine. "
I hoped I was right.
A guard perched at the concierge desk just
inside the Randall Towers entrance directed
me to an elevator at the far end of the lobby,
around the corner from the main bank of ele­
vators. The security eye recognized me and
opened the door. "Good afternoon, Dr. Ben­
nett , " it greeted me with the pleasing drawl of
a southern belle.
"Hi there." Stupid, I know. But these damn
things were always so polite, I felt obliged to
respond.
T entered and the door closed behind me.
There was no perceptible motion for five or
six seconds as a dull hum crept up the wall
from floor to ceiling-the unmistakable sound
of a scanner. I'd heard it in the airport screen­
ing booth a hundred times before, but never
in an office building. I'd made the right choice
leaving that gun behind.
A few seconds after the hum stopped, the
car started its swift ascent without inquiring
which floor I wanted to go t o . The door
opened into the private penthouse office of
the world's richest man. Plush rose carpet
blanketed the expansive oval anteroom. Two
enormous picture windows following the
curve of the wall in front of me separated us
from the city outside, the view disrupted only
by a solid section of wall between them, dec­
orated with textured wallpaper and the giant
eagle logo of the Randall Corporation, carved
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
in multicolored woods. Just in front of that
wall and matching the shape of the room, an
oversized desk of rich dark oak overwhelmed
the statuesque woman who sat behind it, not
such an easy task considering that she'd obvi­
ously been hired for her physical attributes.
After briefly freezing at the enormity of it
all, I exited the confines of the lift.
"Have a nice day," the elevator said.
T paused and looked back over my shoulder.
"You too."
That got a smile from the elegant blond be­
hind the desk. "Dr. Bennett?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Randall is waiting for you." She stood
and walked to her right, coming out from be­
hind the massive piece of furniture. "Follow
Ole , "
I complied, trying not t o focus on legs that
begged to be focused upon. She knocked on a
large oak door curved to match the wall it was
set into at one of the narrow ends of the oval
room. I guess she was tuned into the voice
coming from the other side, because I didn't
hear a thing. She pushed the heavy door open
with ease and motioned me in.
I instinctively patted my jacket over the
shirt pocket where I'd tucked my laser-knife
pen, then walked in.
Standing there, faCing a man you've seen all
over TV and magazines covers for much of
your adult life, can be a bit overwhelming. I
must have looked as stupid as I felt, a look
Richard Randall was obviously used to seeing.
I was so star-struck that I didn't even notice
the voluptuous model who guided me in here
making her exit.
He walked out from behind his desk and ex­
tended a hand. "Richard Randall."
"I thought that might be you . " I forced a
smile, gave his hand a firm shake.
He laughed politely. "It's a pleasure to meet
you. Bud's been telling me all about you."
I tensed as Bud Zielke stood from the cover
of one of the high-back chairs facing Randall's
desk, and turned to greet me. He looked very
much like his picture on the Net, only a few
years older and very much bigger-my image
of an ex-marine, now twenty pounds over­
weight but still with a physique that mere
mortals like myself wouldn't want to mess
with.
"Doctor. " He walked over and started to
31
ANALOG
frisk me.
Randall grabbed his arm. "Whoa, whoa.
Bud, what is this? Dr. Bennett is a guest here. "
"Indulge me," Zielke said. He shook off Ran­
dall's grip, then continued what he'd started.
A smug grin broke across his face as he
opened my windbreaker and spotted the
brushed metal pen in my shirt pocket.
He pulled it out and waved it in front of
Randall. "This is what he used to kill that re­
porter, Tarin Green. "
Randall cocked his head. "A pen?"
Zielke activated the laser, set to maximum,
and the beam danced along the ceiling.
Randall smiled. "Looks like my presentation
pointer, Bud. What's he going to do, bore us
to death with a PowerPoint presentation?"
Zielke took Randall's zebrawood business
card holder off the desk, dumped the cards,
and ran the laser scalpel along the base, a few
millimeters from the surface. The end Zielke
was not holding fell to the floor. A clean cut.
Randall'S jaw clenched.
"Sorry, " I said. "Been carrying that thing
since someone tried to kill me for the second
time this week."
"Disgruntled patient?" Zielke's eyebrow
rose with pride from his attempt at wit, and
he stuffed the scalpel in his pocket.
I glared.
Randall's forehead filled with wrinkles.
"Who the hell would want to kill you? You're
a hero . "
1 didn't know how to an;wer that. The guy
actually looked serious.
"Doesn't nutter, " Zielke barked. "Shouldn't
have brought it in here . " We stared stone­
faced at each other.
Randall cleared his throat. "You're right, of
course. " He turned to me. "Look, Doctor, 1
can only imagine what you must be going
through, but you shouldn't have brought that
thing into my office. "
"My apologies. "
Randall took a deep breath. "Let's try this
again, shall we?" He stared down Zielke, who
took an obedient step back. "Doctor, " Randall
motioned toward the chair adjacent to the one
Zielke had been Sitting in. "Please. " 1 took a
seat while Randall made his way back to his
position of power behind the desk. Zielke re­
mained standing vigil over the proceedings.
"So," Randall said, shifting gears and Iight-
32
ing up his best boardroom smile. "I was so ex­
cited when Bud told me you were coming.
The man who performed the first operation
on the Moon. Right here in my office. Incredi­
ble."
I met his enthusiasm with silence . H e
seemed awfully amiable for someone who was
about to lose the empire he'd spent his entire
life building, and in large part because of what
1 had discovered.
He waved a hand. "You'll have to forgive
me. I'm such a geek. How did it feel to actual­
ly operate on somebody on the Moon?"
Here we go again.
"No different than if she was across the
room from me in the robotic surgery suite at
the hospital. "
"Oh, but it was different, Doctor. Very dif­
ferent. Man, I'd love to see that surgical robot
in action, "
" I , uh . . . " I looked over at Zielke, who
would have been a hell of a poker player, then
back to Randall again.
"For God's sake, Bud , " Randall said, "sit
down, would you? You're even making me
nervous." He let out a restrained chuckle.
Zielke kept his gaze on me, didn't move for
a long moment, then sat.
"Good, then. Go on, Doctor. You were say­
ing?"
"I'm SlIre we can arrange it."
"Great. " He rubbed his eyes with a thumb
and forefinger, then shook his head as if he
was having trouble focusing.
"Late night?"
"Nah. Just too much wine at IlUlch, I guess.
The revolving restaurant here is awesome.
You should give it a try. Just flew a new chef
over from Paris and he was worth every pen­
ny it took to steal him away. "
1 studied his face. " M r. Randall, you do
know why I'm here?"
Zielke bolted up out of his chair. "Oh, for
Christ's sake. "
1 looked up to see his gun pointed at me.
"Shit," I yelped. "Are you nuts? I ' m your
only chance here."
Zielke snarled. "I knOw. " He turned toward
Randall, who'd started to stand, and fired a
silent pulse. Randall collapsed instantly,
smacking his head against the desk with a
sickening thud.
I was still frozen in my seat when Zielke
BRAD AIKEN

spun a n d t u r n e d the g u n back on me.
"Enough of this God damn charade."
"Look, look," I waved frantically with both
arms, "I can get you out of this mess."
"That's the only reason you're not dead yet,
doc"
"Then why kill Randall?"
"Oh, he's not dead.Not yet."
I studied his face as it broke into a grin.
"Somebody's got to take the fail for this and it
ain't going to be me."
" S o he ordered you to do all this?" I mo­
tioned toward Randall.
"Nobody orders me to do anything. Hell,
that self-righteous asshole was so squeaky
clean,he never would have done what had to
be done to make that buy-out of the space sta­
tion pay off. It was just a new toy to him."
"Why the hell would you care? Not really
your end of the business, is it?"
"When that sonofabitch bought Celestial, I
put every penny I had into it. I f igured if the
great Richard Randall was buying it, it was a
sure thing. I wasn't going to let anybody bring
it down. Not him, " he motioned toward Ran­
dall, "not you."
" So you were behind Baker's murder." As
the words escaped my lips, I realized that
wasn't the brightest thing to say under the cir­
ClUllstances.
"Hell no. That jackass, Parsons, did that.
When he wiped her memory three years ago,
that was my idea.After that, I told everyone to
back off. It would have been too obvious if
things kept happening up there. We'd already
made a bundle."
"So why did Parsons kill her?"
Zielke started stretching his left hand and
clenching it,rhythmically. I tried not to notice.
"Why else' He got greedy."
"But we checked his financials, " I said. "He
doesn't own any stock."
Zielke grinned. " That you could f ind.Guess
he wasn't a total idiot.'
"And you couldn't turn him in because it
would have inlplicated you."
"Nah, far as he knew, everything was com­
ing directly from Randall. But once an investi­
gation gets going, who the hell knows?"
"W hich is why you sent Green over to wipe
my files. "
"Putz." His eyebrow lifted with the inf lec­
tion. "Only stirred things up. Killing you
DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE
SEPTEMBER 2012
wasn't high on my agenda, not unless you fig­
ured out what happened."
I fixed on his eyes, gritted my teeth.
"Don't sweat it, doc. I didn't bring you here
to kill you, not unless you force my hand." As
he spoke, he rubbed at the back of his neck,
craning awkwardly. "See, the evidence trail
may all point to Randall,but Randall will point
to me, eventually. The only way I stay out of
the line of fire is if he's dead. But if they find
me in here alone with his dead body, how
much chance do you think I'll have of talking
my way out of that one? With you here, I've
got options. "
"Options?"
"Two of them. Your choice, doc.First one,
I do kill you, then put the gun in your hands
and fire the fatal shot at Randall from where
you're sitting.I'll get a friggin' medal for taking
out the man who murdered the great Richard
Randall. "
"And they're going to believe that I man­
aged to wrestle a gun away from you?"
He laughed. "Hell no. You looked at your­
self in the mirror lately'" He pulled a second
gun out of his pocket. "The kill shot'll come
from this one. Your gun, your f ingerprints. "
He stuffed it back into his pocket.
"My gun? I don't own a gun."
"Sure you do, doc. You bought it a couple
weeks ago.Check your credit statement."
This guy was smarter than he looked.
"So what's option number two?"
"I don't kill you. I put the gun in Randall's
hands and shoot him point blank. You back
me up when I tell the cops he committed sui­
cide after we f igured out he was behind Bak­
er's murder."
"And why would you do that?"
His eyes started to glaze over and he quickly
shook it off. "Being alone in here with two
dead bodies is going to lead to a crapload of
questions. U it's just him, and I've got you to
back me up, it'll go a whole lot easier.'
An uncharacteristic wobble disrupted his
staid military stance and his smug demeanor
slowly morphed into the intense glare of real­
ization. "What the hell did you do to me'"
It was my turn to grin. "I gave you another
option."
He leaned against the desk,fought to steady
the gun with a two-handed grip.
"You get to live if you hand me that pistol
33
ANALOG
and let me call 9 1 1 . " I held up my right hand,
carefully peeled a Band-Aid off my index fin­
ger. "Didn't have anything as sophisticated as
that delivery system you gave Green to kill me
with, but hey, you learn to improvise. I
mbbed some Xetaphol on this before I came
up here, something we use to put patients un­
der for surgery. It's pretty harmless when an
anesthesiologist is around to make sure you
don't stop breathing." I glanced around the
room. "Don't suppose you have one of those
around here, do you?"
Zielke's eyes narrowed to two slits. "You
son ofa . . . "
"Save your breath. You're going to need it."
"But I never touched your damn hand."
"Nah, I had a feeling you might not be too
sociable, so I also smeared some of it on that
laser scalpel you pulled out of my pocket; fig­
ured I'd only get myself killed if I tried to use
the damn thing anyway. " I motioned towards
Randall. "You d i d n ' t need to shoot him,
though. With that firm grip he gave me . . . he
wouldn't have lasted much longer. "
Zielke staggered, hesitated.
"And if you're thinking of shooting me just
for spite, remember, I'm the only one who can
keep you alive until the paramedics get here. "
He snarled, dropped the gun on the desk,
and threw himself into a chair.
I stood and went over to push the gun out
of his reach. His arm shot out and grabbed me
by the wrist. Even half-asleep, the bastard was
strong as hell.
"This ain't over, doc . "
I took the gun by the barrel and with a sin­
gle motion, brought it down sharply on his
forearm. His weakened grip gave way with a
satisfying crack. "Yeah. It is."
As Zielke lingered between consciousness
and sleep, I hurried over to try and wake Ran­
dall. The Xetaphol dose I'd given each of them
would make them pretty groggy, but that's
about it. When I'd hatched this plan, I knew I
wouldn't need to actually kill them, just make
sure they believed they were going to die. I al­
ways prefer not killing people; it kind of goes
against the Hippocratic Oath.
Waking Randall wasn't easy. Between the
dmg I'd slipped him and the stun shot he'd
taken from Zielke, he was going to be pretty
wobbly for a while, but he'd be okay.
I tapped the intercom on Randall's desk and
34
yelled for security as I tried to rouse him. Just
as he started to moan, three uniformed guards
burst through the door and tackled me; made
sense since I was standing over their two
semiconscious bosses.
Fortunately, Randall came to a few seconds
later and remembered who'd shot him.
Starlight danced over the city, reflecting off
the Merriweather River as it meandered
through neighborhoods rendered indistin­
guishable from the height of the revolving
restaurant atop Randall Towers. But as inspir­
ing as the view was, I couldn't keep my eyes
off Doris.
I barely recognized the stunning woman sit­
ting across from me as the same one who ran
my office every day. Some of it was no doubt
the deftly applied make-up and simple black
gown that accentuated her finer features, but
most of it was the gleam in her eyes and sultry
tone of a voice that had never made its way
into the hospital. I'd seen her outside of work
before, even in recent years, but this was
more than work versus leisure. She radiated a
warmth I'd never felt before, not from anyone.
TIle glistening city lights only enhanced the
romantic atmosphere permeating the chic
restaurant. I caught Doris stealing a glimpse of
the gilded dome of the Gates bUilding as it
came into view. "Isn't this view anlazing?"
"That it is. J must admit, J didn't fully appre­
ciate it when J was standing in Randall's of­
fice."
"Don't even joke about that . " She glanced
up at the ceiling that separated us from Ran­
dall's penthouse suite. "It still gives me chills
every time J think about you being stuck in
that room with Zielke. Your whole plan
hinged on that lunatic believing that you-a
doctor, of all people-were willing to commit
murder. If he didn't fall for your bluff, he could
have just killed you and pinned Randall's mur­
der on you. How could you take a chance like
that?"
"Who says I was bluffing? You don't know
how tempted J was to finish the job, once J
had that gun in my hand. The son of a bitch
did try to kill me-twice."
"Oh, come on, Roger. You're no murderer. "
"Hey, I killed Green, didn't J?"
"That was different; it was self-defense."
J still had the inlage of Green's blood-soaked
BRAD AIKEN
 SEPTEMBER 2012

body etched into my brain. "Not so different. "
"And you're okay with that'"
I took a deep breath and stared blindly down
at the table setting in front of me. "It hasn't
stopped haunting me; not for a minute. "
She reached out and put her hand over
mine.
As I looked up, we were interrupted by a
waiter balancing two crystal champagne glass­
es and a bottle of Dam Perignon on an en­
graved silver tray.
"From the gentleman, " he said ntotioning
across the room.
I looked over and saw the smiling face of
Richard Randall acknowledge me with a sub­
tle nod. I returned the gesture as the cham­
pagne was poured, then lifted a glass toward
Doris.
As we gently tapped glasses, the regal
sound of fine crystal sent a scintillating chill
down my spine, a harbinger of unknown pas­
sions.
It was a toast twenty-seven years in the mak­
ing, but one which could have never been
made until that very moment. One that need­
ed no words . •
Copyright © 2012 Brad Aiken

IN TIMES TO COME

O
ur October issue features a special cover by Michael
Whelan for "The Liars," the latest of Juliette Wade's explo­
rations of truly alien cultures. By now you've probably
noticed that she has an exceptional knack for getting inside such
cultures and drawing you into them too. This story is no exception,
and these particular aliens also inhabit an uncommonly colorful
world . And, incomprehensible though their ways may at first seem
to an outsider, you'll soon find that they do make a disquieting sort
of sense, once you understand their premises and the di lemmas
they consequently face_ . . _

Our fact article is by a newcomer to our pages, Alan

Plummer, and deals with the i mportant contributions to professional
science made by amateur observers, particularly in certain areas of
astronomy and astrophysics. Rounding out the issue wil l be a decid­
edly diverse collection of stories by such writers as Michael F. Flynn,
Carl Frederick, Linda Nagata, Larry Niven, and a couple of promising
new talents.

DONE THAT, NEVER BEEN THERE 35

 Summing up
Speculation
Arlan Andrews, Sr.
In a fast changing world, who's best qualified
to anticipate future problems - and solutions?
W
hen I wrote the first draft of this ar­
ticle in mid-201 1 , a peaceful revolu­
tion had occurred in Egypt,
following closely on the heels of the
one in Tunisia that inspired it. Crowds of Egyp­
tians, the "Tahrir Twitterati" I called them,
learned to communicate with each other out­
side the state-controlled media. Twitter and
Facebook enabled these revolutions; other dic­
tatorships became nervous: there are more op­
pressed than oppressors in many nations, and
technology enables them to act collectively.
We are in for interesting times.
I was not surprised at these rapid revolu­
tions. Though focusing primarily on China, I
had predicted such events three years earlier.
As a science fiction writer speaking to U.S.
government authorities at meetings in 2008
and 2009, I had said that dictatorships would
fall when people had cell phones and texting
and other communications devices: "Think of
revolutionary social change, spreading around
the world at the speed of light. " I used the
36
term "flash mobs" back in those ancient days.
As founder of the science fiction think tank
SIGMA, making such forecasts is one of the
things I am privileged to do. My forty SIGMA
colleagues, science fiction writers all, do the
sanle thing,
"Let's take the Patriot Act," noted author Jer­
ry Pournelle asked a Deputy Director of Home­
land Security's Science and Technology
Division. "If you had had the time to carefully
consider all the ranlifications of that piece of
legislation, if you hadn't been under intense
pressure and fearful of the next attack,
wouldn't it have come out quite different from
what it is?" The Deputy said that of course it
would have.
" Okay then, " Pournelle continued, "let's
think of a future incident, an attack or natural
disaster, where there are absolutely no com­
munications left in the United States. No satel­
lites, no phones, no cables. Assume that
twenty of our largest cities are destroyed." He

let that thought sink in as the Deputy's face
paled. "Now then, what kind of response do
you want the surviving parts of the country to
undertake? What kind of legislation do you
want them to have in place when that hap­
pens? Assume we have plenty of time to think
about it, plenty of time to figure out what to
do. But for God's sake, don't try to do it then, it
will be too late. Do it now!"
The scene was in the lower level of the
Ronald Reagan International Trade Center; the
time was late May 2007, where the Depart­
ment of Homeland Security was having its first
session with SIGMA, the science fiction think
tank.
I was smiling because this is what I wanted
SIGMA to be doing, since founding the group
back in 1992, with the intent of driving this
very event: having science fiction writers
speak unspeakable tmth to power. And having
the government listen.
Actually, I started SIGMA because I was
pissed.
In late 1992, I'd been a White House Fellow
of the American Society of Mechanical Engi­
neers (ASME) for almost a year, acting as a
staffer in the Office of Science and Technology
Policy (OSTP), also known as the White House
Science Office, following a previous ten­
month Fellowship at the U.S. Department of
Commerce's Technology Administration. As I
had done at Commerce, I was performing staff
research on government policy on advanced
technology and manufacturing, this time for
the OSTP Assistant Director, Dr. Eugene Wong.
For a politically motivated engineer who
wrote science fiction, the OSTP atmosphere
was heady. I was situated in the Old Executive
Office Building, immediately across a narrow
alleyway from the White House itself, occa­
sionally seeing President George H. W. Bush,
walking the hallway with his retinue of Secret
Service agents and a coterie of advisors, some­
times accompanied by Millie, the First Dog.
When the President of the United States waves
at you and says, "Hello, " it is always a bracing
experience. Attending Congressional and Sen­
ate hearings on technology, hearing the latest
briefings on advanced civilian and military
technologies, going to conferences, summariz­
ing these for higher-ups, all this was exciting
and productive. So overall it was fun for an en-
SIGMA: SUMMING UP SPECULATION
SEPTEMBER 201 2
gineer, but this one afternoon I was tmly and
totally pissed off at the Washington science
and technology establishment.
I had just come back from a meeting in the
Roosevelt Room in the West Wing, acting as an
observer with Dr. Alan Bromley, who, as Di­
rector of OSTP, was President Bush's Science
Advisor. During a discussion on possibly im­
portant future developments in technology,
Dr. Bromley ventured that virtual reality might
become an important feature in future com­
puting systems. The room broke out in laugh­
ter, led by an official of the National Science
Foundation (NSF), who said, "Okay, Alan, we'll
put your video games on the list of really im­
portant hlnlre technologieS. " Dr. Bromley kept
his silence, as the True Science Insiders went
on to discussed Important Issues such as elec­
trical transmission lines. I was astonished at
the brushoff and the humiliation, and dis­
turbed at the behavior and an attitude I had ex­
perienced before from the same people.
What had set me off was that just weeks be­
fore, this same NSF official had shot down yet
another hlturistic but reasonable technology
suggestion. At a meeting of the Critical Tech­
nologies Institute (CT!), nUl by the Rand Cor­
poration by Congressional mandate to look at
critical hmlre technologies, Dr. Joe Bordogna,
the Deputy Director of NSF for Engineering
with a research interest in MEMS (Micro­
ElectroMechanical Systems), volunteered to
the en discussion group that, "I think micro­
machines and nanotechnology will become
very important in the next ten years. " Dr. Bor­
dogna was famous for his widely-published mi­
crophotograph of a tiny gear draped over the
antenna of an ant, the insect's head many times
the size of the metal part. The same NSF exec­
utive replied with the same sarcastic laugh,
"Okay, Joe, we'll make a footnote here about
your little robots. " And went off into another
mundane field with absolutely no imaginative
value.
Twice was enough, so I went back to the of­
fice and wrote up a manifesto. "The Future is
too important to be left to the hlturists," it be­
gan. "I have heard more appropriate and realis­
tic forecasts of technology and the future at
any given science fiction convention than in all
of the forecasting meetings I have attended
here in Washington, D.C." I hlrther proposed
that since "we science fiction writers have
37
ANALOG
spent our literary careers exploring the future,
we owe it to the rest of humanity to come
back and report on what's out there. "
I wanted to provide this new service to gov­
ernment bureaucrats who never had the op­
portunity or the mindset to appreciate science
fictional ways of thinking. Too busy worrying
about their funding and dle political aspects of
their decisions, they seldom ventured far from
dle straight and narrow. Never did I hear any of
them discuss dismptive technologies, destmc­
tive political events, or widespread natural
calamities. Linear thinkers, all.
So I formed a group called SIGMA, meaning
summation, which would comprise Ph.D.-lev­
el scientists and engineers who were also sci­
ence fiction writers. The Ph.D.s would help us
get past the Beltway's "giggle factor" by pre­
senting solid technical credentials, but the SF
authorship would be the unique membership
requirement. The goal of SIGMA would be to
provide SFnal kinds of funlrism to government
decision makers, to get the best ideas from the
best minds-the SIGMA "summation" -into
the thinking and decisions of those who fund
and develop government technology pro­
grams. We would offer our minds and our
imaginative services pro bono, so d,at budgets
would not be a limiting factor in seeking our
lUlique kind of help.
The colleague whose desk abutted mine in
our OSTP office was Air Force Lt. Colonel
Doug Beason, a fellow New Mexican and Ana­
log author, who held a Ph.D. in astrophysics.
He was my first recruit. Within days SIGMA
had nine SF authors as members-myself,
Doug, Dr. Charles Sheffield, Dr. David Brin, Dr.
Geoff Landis, Dr. Robert Forward, NASA astro­
physicist Dr. Yoji Kondo ("Eric Kotani"), Dr.
Stanley Schmidt of Analog, and Dr. Gregory
Benford.
Although SIGMA has never had (and never
will have) any political litmus test, I realized
that many of the charter members were proba­
bly conservative or libertarian. With the newly­
elected Clinton Administration due to take
power in a few months, I figured that we
would need at least one well-known SF author
who was publicly liberal. Greg Bear was at­
tending the nearby Balticon SF convention,
and so I asked him to join, which he did.
The first test of the SIGMA idea came at the
end of March 1993, when I was departing the
38
White House Science Office to return to Albu­
querque, and had the opportunity to speak pri­
vately with President Clinton's Science Advisor
and my new boss, Dr. Jack Gibbons. I ex­
plained the goals and organization ofthe group
to Dr. Gibbons. He replied that the new Ad­
ministration had plenty of smart and educated
people, many of them forward-looking, and
that he did not see any place where SIGMA
could be used. A few months later when Doug
Beason left OSTP and made the sanle pitch, he
got the same response. The message was clear:
the government was going to continue to do
business in its way, and SF writers need not ap­
ply.
Over the intervening years, though not act­
ing as a group, individual SIGMA members
were called upon to participate in government
projects, some brainstorming for DARPA on
new technologies for education; other mem­
bers maintained paid consulting arrangement
widl odler agencies. I even lobbied lUlofficially
for the Air Force's DC-X Single Stage To Orbit
(SSTO) project in the White House, bringing in
Air Force officers to brief the new Administra­
tion on it, and continued that effort for several
more years. (For more details on the project,
see my article "Single Stage To Infinity! " in the
June 1993 issue of Analog.) While at OSTP, I
also wrote the first White House endorsement
of molecular nanotechnology, published in
The President's Report to Congress on Science
and Technology in April 1993. And in 1995 I
brought SIGMA member Dr. David Brin in to
lecture at Sandia National Laboratories in Albu­
querque, where he had a standing-room-only
audience (in contrast to a Nobel Prize winner
the week before, whose audience was embar­
rassingly small).
Finally in late 1999, after I had retired as a
Manager from Sandia, I was able to arrange the
first full SIGMA event with that Laboratory's
Advanced Concepts Group. We met for a day
and a half on the topic of "Future National
Threats." Although the discussions were lively
and occasionally outrageous, none of us back
then considered using airplanes as terrorist
weapons. Even if we had, Tom Clancy had al­
ready done that in 1992's Debt of Honor,
where a Japanese pilot set on revenge crashes
his 747 cargo jet into the Capitol Building,
killing the President and most of Congress.
SIGMA's contribution to Sandia's future sce-
ARLAN ANDREWS, SR.

nario plans were somewhat diluted by having
some argumentative (and not very knowledge­
able) local college professors present. It was
obvious that they weren't any happier having
SF writers critique their inputs than we were
with theirs.
So SIGMA sat idle for a while as life went on.
All of us knew each other and saw each other
at SF conventions; some were personal friends.
We all kept writing and some had other scien­
tific, engineering or financial pursuits. The
loose coalition held together over the years un­
til areal opportunity arose in 2006, when the
political world finally discovered real needs
that only science fiction authors could pro­
vide.
US Navy Captain (Retired) Chris Christo­
pher, then Director of Corporate Communica­
tions for the Science and Technology Division
of the nascent Department of Homeland Secu­
rity (DHS), was a long-time SF fan. Coming to
the same conclusion about the bureaucratic
state of technology in his own department as I
had years before about Washington in general,
he made an outreach to the science fiction
community. Bud Sparhawk put us in touch and
I replied, offering SIGMA's help. The effort cul­
minated in DHS bringing six SIGMA members
to Washington, D.C., in May 2007 to attend the
DHS S&T East Coast Stakeholder's Conference,
where we put on a public panel and held pri­
vate discussions with interested DHS officials.
Jerry Pournelle made the post-apocalyptic
political pitch in the first of these DHS ses­
sions. Quoting Herman Kahn, Pournelle said
that, like Kahn, SF writers often "thought the
unthinkable" when considering possible fu­
ture events. A month later I repeated Jerry's
proposal during an NPR radio interview. "I
never thought of such as thing," the hostess
said. "You have scared the hell out of me! "
Thus the power of SIGMA's speculations.
We made other suggestions to DHS, many
along low-tech lines, items that would help
first responders in emergencies, ideas for bor­
der security, comments about how the chemi­
cal/biological detectors in cell phones that
DHS was proposing should be utilized. The
ideas and comments were technical, social,
cultural, and political. "Don't censor your­
selves, give us everything," they said. Strangely
enough, they kept inviting us back. These
were not your father's bureaucrats!
SIGMA: SUMMING UP SPECULATION
SEPTEMBER 201 2
I had purposely kept SIGMA low-key and se­
cretive during its first years, both to protect
potential government "clients" and the mem­
bers themselves. But at the 2007 DHS confer­
ence, the members present voted to allow an
interview with UM Today After that newspa­
per appearance, worldwide publicity ensued
and I received many more requests for SIG­
MA's help. Knowing that society was much
more open to science-fictional ideas than in
the 1990s, I felt that the Ph.D. requirement
was not as necessary as before, so I asked oth­
er SF writers to join. 1\vo of the original found­
ing members, Drs. Sheffield and Forward, had
died in the interim. Most writers accepted my
invitations-a few didn't, Citing the press of
professional writing deadlines or other con­
cerns-and at present there are about forty
SIGMA members, including most of the found­
ing members, plus many other luminaries in
the science fiction field, including superstars
Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. The SIGMA
website, www.SigmaForum. org, presents
members' bios, some editorials, and other in­
formation. Over the intervening years, new
members have come aboard by invitation and
recommendation; others have left for various
reasons. (Internally, SIGMA members do love
to argue!)
After the initial spate of publicity hit the me­
dia and the internet, reactions were mixed. In­
terestingly enough, as Captain Christopher
noted, "It was the Establishment that approved
of SF writers giving ideas to the government­
Congressional staffers thought it a great step
forward, and most of the mainstream newspa­
pers approved. The majority of criticism came
from an unexpected source-the 'blogos­
phere. ' " Fueled probably by paranoia (and
some jealousy, in my opinion), bloggers virtu­
ally crucified SIGMA and our evil intentions,
especially our cooperation with the Depart­
ment of Homeland Security.
I thought that last accusation somewhat
amusing, because SIGMA members are con­
cerned citizens as well as science fiction writ­
ers, and do not hesitate to express ourselves.
We bring wildly varying political opinions and
social attitudes as well as ideas. For example,
one of our members gave Cory Doctorow's
book, Little Brother, a novel of a hacker who
brings down DHS, to a DHS scientist who had
wondered how the mind of the "opposition"
39
ANALOG
worked. No way that could happen without a
group like SIGMA having access to the Feds.
And as SIGMA founder and coordinator, I was
a person who could tell a high-ranking DHS of­
ficial that his department had an undeservedly
bad reputation in the creative media. "Because
of your name, 'Homelan d , ' the books, the
movies, all present you as some k i n d of
Gestapo with a 'Fatherland' connotation. You
have to make an effort if you want to change
that image. ' He was shocked that his work was
being perceived that way, since he was only
trying to protect his fellow citizens. But can
you imagine getting to say that to a Fed? And
having dlem listen?
On a more serious note, when a leftist ac­
quaintance of mine told me he was disgusted
that SIGMA would help Homeland Security, I
reminded him that DHS comprises twenty-two
agencies. "Which ones don't you want us to
help? The Coast Guard? You don't want them
to do search and rescue? Or TSA, the ones
who search your luggage and your shoes'
Wouldn't you like to help them do that faster
and better, less obtruSively? Or could it be
FEMA?" His eyes lit up at my mention of the
hete noir of both Left and Right. I went on.
"Who wouldn't like the chance to help FEMA
do a better job' David Brin and others have
shown we could generate cell phone-to-cell
phone peer-to-peer conununications and save
lives in Katrina-like situations." (And most re­
cently, sadly, in Japan, where cell phone ser­
vice went out during the earthquake and
tSlmami double disaster.) "We get to have input
to save lives and protect ourselves and even
you critics. What's not to like?" My accuser just
grumbled and walked away.
Since 2007, SIGMA has participated in five
official conferences and several other meet­
ings with Homeland Security, on both coasts.
At the 2008 Stakeholders' Conference in D.C,
the SIGMA panel was voted "Best Panel" by the
attendees. Other government agencies, some
that prefer not to be named or even men­
tioned, have called on SIGMA to brainstorm on
future developments in communications, com­
puter applications, politics, sociology, demo­
graphics, and culture. Sometimes the clients
are surprised: in 2008 SIGMAns Walter Jon
Williams, MMOG writer/manager Mark 0'­
Green, and author/professor Charles Gannon
were the first to introduce NATO planners to
40
the concepts and importance of social net­
working and " 1 337" ("leet") texting. (I often
wonder if those same NATO planners now feel
the resonance of that portentous meeting as
they watch the social-media-facilitated street
demonstrations and civil wars all over the Mid­
dle East today.)
It was also in 2008 that I told an interviewer
and clients about the potential for drastic
overnight, overwhelming social change, facili­
tated by handheld devices in the hands of dis­
satisfied or revolutionary "flash mobs" as we
witnessed in Tahrir Square, Cairo. (1 had reck­
oned the first revolts to be in China, but it ain't
over yet . . .)
Among those conferences and meetings that
can be referenced-not all of them can be­
SIGMA or individual members participated in
the US Army's "Mad Scientist" conference,
Tech 2025, the Joint Services Small Arms Pro­
gram aSSAP), the NATO 2030 meeting already
mentioned, a rapid-fire media presentation at a
Pecha Kucha event at the Swedish Embassy in
DC, shott-story-scenario-building conferences,
and a future transportation brainstorm-cum­
short story workshop with DHS. At the 2009
S&T meeting in D.C, SIGMA member and best­
selling author Greg Bear was invited to be Mas­
ter of Ceremonies. Later that week, SIGMAns
Bud Sparhawk, Tom Purdom, Tom Ligon, John
Hemry ("Jack Campbell"), Charles Gannon,
Nebula Award winner Catherine Asaro, and I
put on a panel and then signed autographs at a
local scientific bookstore. The Washington
Post wrote a fuvorable, photo-illustrated article
on SIGMA after the conference and bookstore
panel, quoting DHS officials who said that SF
authors were "showing us another way of
thinking about the impact of technology."
Besides Jerry Pournelle's bleak survival polit­
ical plea, what other kinds of predictions or
forecasts do we provide government agencies?
Michael Swanwick, best known (in his own
words) "for writing about dragons and fairies
and trolls, not technology," showed a different
way of thinking when he wrote an invited arti­
cle for Homeland Security, based on his panel
presentation in 2008. "What constitutes suc­
cess in wilUling the War on Terror?" he asked.
"What would airports look like in that wonder­
ful future?" He goes on to envision going
through an airport ten to fifteen years from
now, and never having to go through a metal
ARLAN ANDREWS, SR.

detector or take off your shoes. (roday I would
include "intrusive pat-downs and naked X-ray
photos. " ) In his editorial on the SIGMA web­
site, Swanwick says, "little robots scurry
around, like in Star Wars, sniffing your ankles;
pretty flowers contain sensors that check
everything; spy cameras check out all possible
bad guys. Some of them are even phony, but
the whole system works. You don't feel violat­
ed or delayed. All is good . " CNN News liked
the concept so much that they proposed to fol­
low Michael through the Philadelphia airport
to demonstrate what his success story would
look like. Interestingly enough, a grouchy TSA
refused to participate!
So what has been the impact, if any, of SIG­
MA so far? From testimony in the media and
told to me in person by Feds, I believe that we
are beginning to affect the thinking patterns of
those we have worked with. This influence on
government bureaucrats and others would
never have happened without SIGMA and our
science-fictional inputs. I can further testify
that many people in the government are re­
ceptive, are now trying to "think outside the
box." (To which SF writers usually ask, " What
box?") The fact that SIGMA has no govern­
ment affiliation, funding or other stake in the
Beltway ecosphere means that we are a neutral
resource any agency can tap without having to
consider the political implications.
Government decision makers are already be­
ing affected by science-fictional thinking, cul­
tural tropes, even if they deny it. At an Army
brainstorming session a keynoter said that he
wanted advanced thinking, but "no science fic­
tion ideas." In the public questioning session af­
terwards, when I publicly objected to that
statement, he countered that after 9tl l they
had brought in SF writers who didn't have a
thing to contribute. "In tact, we taught them,"
he sniffed. Then he continued on, and during
the remainder of his an;wers talked about fu­
ture societies "that we don't want, like Blade
Runner or Soylent Green," and those we do
strive toward "like Star Trek. " He was totally
unaware that science fiction paradigms had al­
ready permeated his worldview. Several mem­
bers of the audience later apologized to me for
the strange attitude and evident contradictions.
But there is still far, far to go. At yet another
conference, I listened as the government and
SIGMA: SUMMING UP SPECULATION
SEPTEMBER 201 2
industry participants listed all their predictions
for the year 2025 on flip charts. At the end I
stood up and said, "As the sole SIGMA partici­
pant here, representing the science fiction
community, I want to say that everything you
have written up here is futuristic and thought­
ful and sometimes amusing. But there is not
one idea here that was not first talked about in
science fiction stories at least twenty years
ago-some of which I wrote myself!"
POSTSCRIPT: Since the first draft of this ar­
ticle, the Twitter-Facebook revolutionaries
have spread to Yemen, Bahrain, Algeria, Ubya,
Syria, and even Saudi Arabia.
From the viewpoint of a science fiction
writer and SIGMA consultant, let me draw at­
tention to the possibility of other applications
of advanced technologies among the op­
pressed of the world. In another article, "Man­
ufacturing Magic" (Analog, September 1992),
I proposed that the 1990s technologies of
rapid prototyping- stereolilthography and
other additive processes-would someday
produce "rapid manufacturing , " resulting in
"Mr. Factory" manufacturing appliances in
every home. Consumers would order products
online, and "download" them as physical ob­
jects, straight from purchased computer files.
A box in their utility room would fabricate any
object, using lasers, powders, liquids and gas­
es. This technology promised to bring back
manufucturing into the home, with unforeseen
social and financial consequences.
In a September 1995 interview with Wired
Magazine ("Gear From Goop") about Sandia
programs I was involved with, I speculated
about a rapid manufacturing application that
may yet impact those protesting Middle East­
ern societies with access to high-tech conmlU­
nications and equipment. Speaking about
young people and the new age of rapid manu­
facturing, I said, "1 hope they don't use it to
make zip guns."
But now, maybe I do.
POST-POSTSCRIPT
Five SIGMA members were invited to pre­
sent a panel at the 20 1 2 Global Competitive­
ness Forum, to be held in January 201 2-in
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. •
Copyright © 2012 Arlan Andrews, Sr.
41
 I l lustrated by Beryl Bush

E l m ira ,
1 895
Michael F. F lynn

Writers get inspiration from experience ­

but how much of it can they use?

H
e came with the night mail on the West
Shore Line at just that moment when
the world teetered between one day
and the next. Midnight is a magic time,
the single instant when there is no present:
only a receding past and an unrealized future.
He stood alone on the plarform with his great­
coat and valise and watched the red lanterns
of the caboose vanish into the night.
The breezes whipped up by the train's pass-

42

ing died, and with them the fading c/ackety­
clack of wheels on rails. The flurry of activity
that had greeted the mail's arrival-station­
master, post-master, Negro porters, conduc­
tor-had evaporated like ghosts. The stars
looked down on the empty platform through
a cloudless sky, unreachable and yet at the
same time unbearably close. On nights like
this, the stars alone could cast shadows, and
would have done so had the gas lamps lining
the platform not overwhelmed them. Their
guttering flames peopled the station with
silent, capering shadows.
A gentle rain of soot and cinders feU in the
locomotive's wake and the man brushed ab­
sently at his sleeves and shoulders. It was a
warm night, and damp with the recent rains.
A wretched hour to arrive anywhere, but Elmi­
ra was as remote as Khatmandhu so far as rail­
roads were concerned and midnight it was,
"unless the gentleman would care to wait until
tomorrow. "
The gentleman would not, and so the night
mail it had been. He looked around to get his
bearings and, hefting his valise in one hand
and draping his greatcoat over the other arm,
he strode briskly to the stairs at the end of the
platform. The worried glance he spared just
before stepping off was aimed not at the lights
of the departed train, but at the glimmering
stars overhead -as if he expected that at any
moment one would drop and strike him upon
the head.
The frowsy hotel was just as he remem­
bered it, though five years had gone since he
had last stayed there. The night clerk was a
shrunken and wrinkled old man, aged in a
pickle vat. He looked up when the bell rang,
but gave no sign of recognition, and made no
comment while the stranger signed the regis­
ter. He did, however, drop the double-eagle on
the countertop to hear its ring before placing
it in the strongbox. "You must receive a fine
class of boarder these clays, " the stranger com­
mented dryly. But the clerk simply
shrugged -a comment as eloquent as a thou­
sand words from lesser lips. He handed over a
heavy brass key Witll the number 28 stamped
into it in uneven numerals. The stranger heft­
ed his valise. "I was told Mr. Clemens was in
town, » he said.
"Couldn't say, " the clerk answered. Then, as
ELMIRA, 1 895
SEPTEMBER 2 0 1 2
if words cost four bits apiece, "Hear tell, he's
down Ha'tford way. "
The stranger shook his head. "I've just come
by way of Hartford. They told me that he had
come here."
The clerk chuckled. "That man Clemens is
full of comin's and goin's, Mr. . . . " His eyes
dropped to the register, reading it upside
down. "Mr. Kipling. Don't clear his travels
with me, anyways. "
Kipling smiled briefly and settled his thick
eyeglasses more firmly on his nose. He was
chasing all over the northeast on a fool's er­
rand. A few off-hand references in letters writ­
ten by a man distracted-and a man who
spun fancies for his life's work, at that. He
should have stayed in Brattleboro, tucked
comfortably into the Vermont hills. But there
was no way out of Elmira now until the next
morning's milk run, so he would be sleeping
here tonight, whether Sam were in town or
no.
In his room, Kipling pulled a nightshirt
from his valise and laid his kit out on the dress­
er in an orderly row. To one side, he placed a
copy of Frank Reade's Library. Its garish cov­
er bore an imaginative vision of a dirigible air­
ship. A rigid balloon with airscrews, it could
float wherever its crew directed it and not
drift with the winds as more quotidian bal­
loons did. Such ships were possible; the ex­
perts were all agreed on that. Rumor had it
that William Paul would test his experimental
Albatross some time next year. And Dr. Lang­
ley in Washington was said to be testing scale
models of a different sort of craft altogether­
an aerodyne rather than an aerostat, some­
thing making no use of balloons, though how
such a craft might stay in the air was a puzzle.
Kipling flipped through a few pages of the
weekly pulp magazine. All the issues were like
that. Air ships. Sub-marine ships. Mechanical
servants. Might an imagination vivid enough
create its own reality? Might the young boys
who read these lurid stories grow into the
men who would someday build them? What
wonders might the 1920s bring'
He undressed and tugged the nightshirt
over his head, thinking he might snatch a few
hours of sleep before making the trek up East
Hill. If Sam were in town; ifhe were of a mind
to receive unexpected visitors. Debt had a
way of narrowing one's interests. Sam had
43
ANALOG
been lecturing in Europe, raising money to
pay off his monstrous liabilities, and planned,
according to his letters, only a brief rest here
before resuming the tour. It was catch him
now or-by Jingo!-chase him clear to Seattle
or Australia. Or India.
Though it might be nice to see India once
more. Kipling gazed into the distance, hearing
the faint tinkle of caravan bells, seeing the bus­
tle and color of the sarai and the dusty slopes
of those Kotgarh Hills, "where the young
women grew so lovely that a man would travel
fifty miles over bad ground just to gaze at
one." He smiled a little and sighed, remember­
ing that he was many years and a great many
more miles from his birthplace.
He took two newspapers from his valise
and set them beside Frank Reade.
AIRsHIP SIGHTED OVER OAKLAND!!! the San
Francisco Call declared.
ATI'EMPl'ED CROSSING TO NEW YORK CITY!!
UNKNOWN INVENTOR!
The third head rated only a single exclama­
tion point; but if the airship's inventor were
unknown, how could his destination be trum­
peted? Or did Americans simply assume that
all roads-even aerial ones-led to the Hud­
son? TIle accompanying woodcut portrayed a
figure rather like two saucers set face-to-face
floating in the air over a clutch of houses and
probing the ground below with a searchlight.
Giant airscrews were mounted on all four
sides.
The second paper, the Chicago Tribune,
featured a photograph of people along a rail
road track gazing skyward at a black, cigar­
shaped silhouette. Kipling studied the picture
a long moment, though he had pondered it all
during the train ride. A woodcut might be linl­
ited only by the imagination of the engraver;
but surely a camera could capture only what
was presented to its lens.
He glanced again at the little map in his
pocket almanac. The San Francisco paper was
dated November; the Chicago sheet, April. It
was July now, in Elmira, New York. Kipling
spent a restless night graced by very little
sleep.
Morning revealed Elmira in all its splendor.
It was a modest town, given over to the manu­
facture of such homey items as window sash­
es and door frames, and surrounded by pleas-
44
ant, fat little hills. Farnlers had cleared the hill­
tops for farming, leaving the steeper, lower
slopes shrouded in timber and giving the hills
an odd, monkish appearance. The Chemung
River, a churning, brown stream partaking
something of the nature of both water and
mud, meandered past the town and, from ap­
pearances, had recently meandered directly
through it. The packed dirt streets had soft­
ened into a sticky morass that sucked at the
boots of the men and the wheels of the carts.
The view was little different from what he re­
membered of his previous visit. The town was
perhaps a little larger, a little busier. The ef­
fects of the Panic, much like those of the
Chemung, seemed to have receded.
Kipling made his way along the boardwalk
to the livery stable where he found a young
man with grease-stained hands, working on a
Duryea self-propelled car. New things, me­
chanical things, fascinated Kipling, and he
studied the car with interest. It was a queer
item. The teamster's bench was set rather far
back, and the lack of a tongue gave tlle wagon
an odd, foreshortened appearance. The motor
sat on a little platform at the back. The Lang­
dons had purchased two Duryeas, the hackey
told him-one for themselves and one for
hire. The young man enthused over the "auto­
mobile." Some day, he assured Kipling, every
town would have one. The claim seemed a tri­
fle extravagant and Kipling thought the hack­
ey had read too many issues of Frank Reade's
Library
However, the notion of riding up to Quarry
Farm in a horseless carriage was just too de­
lightful, so Kipling engaged the Duryea on the
spot and hired the hackey to act as teamster.
Teamster? With no team of horses to drive,
a new name seemed called for. A duryeaist,
perhaps' Kipling played with the possibilities
during tlle ride. TIlere ought to be a story in it;
if not for mature readers, then perhaps for
young boys. Like Sam, he had written his
share of fancies; but a story of this sort fell
somewhere in between the ordinary and the
outright fantastic and, like the "teamster" of a
horseless carriage, would surely need a new
name to describe it.
A technological romance? Mr. Wells had
published an adventure of travel in tinle only a
few months before, but Kipling regarded it as
too fantastic. It was not something one could
MiCHAEL F. FLYNN

imagine happening.
Perhaps an airship story. Delivering the
night mail.
"Farewell, Romance," he announced as he
planted himself on the bench. The hackey
said, "What'" but Kipling did not elaborate.
The romantic was what you made it. Today's
humdrum became tomorrow's misty-eyed
nostalgia.
The hackey avoided the muddied streets
along the river bank, explaining that the mo­
tor lacked sufficient "horse power" to pull it
through the thick mud. Roads for motor car­
riages, he claimed, ought to have hard sur­
faces. Graveled, at least. A plank road would
be better. MacAdam's tar mixture, best of all.
Kipling remained skeptical. The United States
had thousands of miles of roads. The notion of
packing them all with gravel, let alone tar­
macadamizing them, was too absurd to con­
template. Still . . . Who had ever imagined that
the tall, graceful clipper ships of his youth
would give way to steamers so quickly? If he
had learned anything in these past hectic
years of change it was not to copper the fu­
ture.
The road up East Hill wound among bloom­
ing sunflowers and waving fields of grain.
"Harper's MagaZine cows"-so he had once
described them-stood knee-deep in clover
"in elegant and commanding attitudes, all
ready to be transferred ro photogravure. " On
that earlier visit, he had fancied that Sam had
fled to this mountaintop for refuge from the
importunate-including escaped lunatics
from India, be they never so full of admiration,
who had come only to shake his hand.
The young driver seemed to have difficulty
negotiating some of the steeper rises in the
road, and at one point he even asked Kipling
to get out and push, confirming Kipling's no­
tion that the horseless carriage had but a limit­
ed hlture. "Most of the city hacks don't take
this drive," the hackey told him when he re­
sumed his seat on the bench, '''specially if
they know aforehand they're coming out this
way. " Kipling wasn't sure whether this was a
rebuke or not and made no response.
'''Course,'' the youth continued, "that man
Clemens is a 'big bug,' and that sort can take a
notion to live wherever they choose, any­
ways. " Even on top of a damn hill.
Quarry Farm, clothed in ivy, sat in a broad
ELMIRA, 1 895
SEPTEMBER 201 2
compound. The trellis-work of creepers roof­
ing the verandah sieved the sunlight and cast
twinkling lights on the boards below. An ideal
place for a writer to work, Kipling thought, if
a man could work at all reclining in a ham­
mock amid these soft airs.
Kipling knocked on the door and waited.
Nothing moved behind the leaded glass panels
and he knocked again. Clemens had already
gone. The trip had been in vain after all. He
was about to turn away when the door swung
wide and there was Livy, as lovely as ever,
with her broad forehead and hauntingly dark
eyes. Nearly fifty now, she was, but age had
hardly touched her.
She squinted myopically, a gesture that al­
ways gave her a wise appearance, and spoke
brusquely. "Sam has gone to my brother'S
place in town. " But then, before Kipling could
do more than open his mouth for a disap­
pointed reply, she peered at him more closely
and her face split into one of her gleaming
smiles. "Why, Ruddy! How wonderful to see
you! Oh, you should have told us you were
coming. "
Kipling made a gesture toward the auto-mo­
bile. "I can't stay, Livy. I really need to speak
with Sam . "
"Oh, don't pay mind to what I said. I tell
everyone that Sam has gone to town. And
Brother tells them that Sanl has come up here.
Friends in town will say as we've returned to
Hartford. The Little Man thinks it's all vast fun,
but you know how he is."
"It very nearly sent me off. "
She drew him in and led him toward the
rear of the house. "There's so much to get
ready and so little time to do it. We can't afford
to entertain every traveling salesman who
comes around. Most of them think my hus­
band is a soft touch for whatever line they're
dnunming. Brnshes. Lightning rods. And he is,
of course. But he should have been very upset
if you'd been taken in by our charade. He's out
in his study. It's the only way the dear could
get any privacy for writing. " Not a word spo­
ken about the bankrnptcy. It was hard to inlag­
ine Livy as unhappy. Her affections were al­
ways genuine. If the recent financial debacle
troubled her, it did not, and would not, show
in her demeanor. But that was as it should be.
One shouldered one's burdens.
They negotiated steamer trnnks and boxes
45
ANALOG
and piles of clothing over which a platoon of
maids fussed and folded and packed in as fine
a simulation of productive activity as Kipling
had ever seen. Kipling had grown up in a
more austere world and packed with a sol­
dier's precision. He admired the soldier's no­
nonsense, spartan approach to things. Had his
eyesight not been so poor, things might have
fallen out differently. He might have taken the
King's shilling and lived the adventures he
only wrote of.
Sam Clemens' study was a single room, oc­
tagonal in shape, perched atop a hill a hun­
dred yards behind the farmhouse, from which
one perceived an astonishing vista of the en­
tire countryside. To one side, nestled the city
of Elmira; to the other, deep valleys rippled
green with sunmler fir. In the distance, where
the pine haze turned the hills a pale, peculiar
blue, lightning played on the bare hilltops.
The gray blur of rain struggled down one of
the valleys like a stalking beast. Dear Lord,
Kipling tll0ught, a man might have all the pri­
vacy in the world up here, and Nature would
still strike the pen dumb.
Six sides of the structure were large win­
dows, so that the view intruded even inside.
Since four of the windows were propped
open, the view did more than intrude. It strut­
ted inside and capered about like a lunatic.
The papers on the large, round writing table
fluttered under the bits of brick-bat that held
them down. There were a couple of comfort­
able chairs, a bookcase, a portfolio stuffed
with papers, and a sofa on which Sam
Clemens lay sleeping.
Kipling hesitated only a moment before he
went to tl1e door and rapped upon it. He had
not come all this way to let a nap stand in the
way of his business.
"It's been too long, Ruddy, " Clemens said af­
ter admitting his visitor to his sanctum. The
two men shook hands and Clemens led
Kipling to the stuffed chair. "Can I send down
for anyth i n g ' " he asked. " A tea. A sweet
drink?" Kipling demurred and Clemens smiled
and opened a desk drawer. "Good. Bourbon
whisky. Just what I would have suggested. ' He
poured two fingers of bright amber into a pair
of whisky glasses kept in the drawer. Clemens
winked. "Don't tell Livy. She's always after me
46
to take the Pledge, and I do now and tl1en, just
to make her happy. "
Kipling assured him that he would never
tattle on a lodge brotl1er. They saluted one an­
other and drank in companionable silence.
The older man took a seat on tl1e divan.
Clemens wore a brocaded dressing gown
and a fez with a tassel hanging to one side. His
mane of white hair surrounded a head that
seemed too large for his body. Like a child,
Kipling thought. His hands were delicate,
with long, tapering fingers that quivered
slightly when they were at rest. His mouth
was as delicate as a woman's; and indeed, Sam
might have made a most attractive woman. He
had the fastidiousness and sensitivity of the
fair sex; and, unlike most Anlericans-and as­
tonishingly so for a Westerner born and
bred-he disliked backslapping and arm
squeezing.
"Married life agrees with you, Ruddy, "
Clemens said, interrupting his tl1oughts. "Car­
oline is fattening you up nicely. How do you
find Vernlont?"
"Agreeable enough , " Kipling told him.
"Save for Caroline's brother. He's been crack­
ing on against Britain recently, over this
Venezuela business. "
"Brothers-in-law, " said Clemens, "are the
Deity's way of limiting our marital bliss."
"Why don't you have one of Mr. Bell's tele­
phonic lines run in here' Then you could call
down to the house whenever you needed any­
thing. No need for shouting out the window. "
Clemens made a face. "I come up here to
get away from the house. The world has too
many consarn gadgets as it is." He looked un­
comfortable and shifted in his seat.
"Speaking of gadgets, I hired your fatl1er-in­
law's horseless carriage for the trip up here.
Have you ever ridden one? Fascinating device.
I'm determined to buy one, once the price has
come down. "
Clemens shook his head. "Another gadget,"
he said under lowering brows.
Kipling chuckled. "At least you won't have
to clean up the waste. You can hardly see the
cobblestones for the road apples in cities like
Boston or Brooklyn or New York. "
The whiskey swirled i n its glass while
Clemens frowned over it. "Might be," he said
at last, "we're better off with the devils we
know. "
MiCHAEL F. FLYNN

Kipling had been steering the conversation
toward gadgetry, but here was a deadfall di­
rectly in his path. "That doesn't sound like
you, Sam. Why, in Connecticut Yankee . . .."
"Ruddy, a man can change his mind. In fact,
he ought to change it now and then, just to
prove he has one. Sure, that's the way Con­
necticut Yankee started. King Arthur and that
crew lording it over their serfs . . . I knew 'em
from before the War. They were the South.
And 'The Boss,' he was the North. An effi­
cient, can<lo mechanic. He's not very dashing
or chivalrous, but he gets the job done. The
new age of machines and progress. " He fin­
ished the whiskey. "Maybe I was wrong. "
O r maybe the business with the linotype
had soured him on all invention. Kipling
probed for a delicate way to skirt the issue. "J
like your study, " he said. "Odd shape. "
Clemens smiled. "It's laid out like a pilot's
house on a Mississippi riverboat. " His eyes
danced as he took in his surroundings. "It
takes me back, it surely does. Why, there's
nothing quite so close to God on Earth as the
pilot of a Mississippi riverboat. Works mira­
cles, too."
"Parting the waters?" Kipling ventured.
'Just not running the poor boat agrolUld. If
you knew the river, you'd understand what a
miracle that is."
"J suppose there are not too many of those
old paddle-wheelers still running."
It was the wrong thing to say. Clemens'
smile drifted away from his face. "Damn fool­
ishness. Any carpenter with a saw and a ham­
mer and a bucket of bolts can repair a paddle
wheel; but a screw propeller wants a machine
shop and a dry dock to fix ie."
"Yet, the future will be different," Kipling
ventured, "whether we like it or no."
Clemens shuddered. "Then we ought to
make sure it's one we like . " He was quiet for a
moment, looking upon some inner trouble.
Then his eyes lit with a false light. "Did you
know that J once wrote Livy a letter and dated
it sixty years in the future ? " He chuckled
heartily, ending in a series of coughs. "We'd
been married four-no, nearer five years, J
think. That's right. J was on the lecture circuie.
I wrote it in 187;, but dated it 193; and de­
scribed aU the marvelous things J was seeing.
Poor Livy was positively frightened. She is so
serious and takes everything she reads as com-
ELMIRA, 1 895
SEPTEMBER 201 2
pletely literal. I have to annotate her books for
her, pointing out which are the jokes. " He
paused. "Of course, she returns the favor by
pointing out which are the blasphemies. "
"You wrote me a few months ago from Eu­
rope," Kipling said, "about a new novel you
had written . . . "
"No time for writing these days. Travel and
lecture, like a damned trained monkey. "
"It was the novel about mental telegraphy,"
Kipling pressed him.
"Oh, that. J burned it." As if to illustrate the
point, Clemens struck a lucifer and relit his
cigar.
Kipling slumped in his chair. "That is too
bad. J had looked forward to reading it."
Clemens removed his cigar. "Don't you tell
me that you came all the way around from
Vermont just to read my scrap paper! Well . . . "
He replaced the stogie and resumed the ritual
of lighting. "I shouldn't worry. It was too mad,
that's what it was. But I proved that mental
telegraphy exists. "
The visitor sat straighter. "Really! How?"
Clemens tapped his snowy hair with one of
his long, delicate fingers. "Because I received
a mental telegram from my editor saying he
would reject any manuscript so fantastic. So I
saved him the trouble and me the postage by
burning it." He saw that his cigar had gone out
again while he was speaking, and struck an­
other lucifer.
"In your letter, " Kipling ventured, "you
mentioned monkey-like creatures who come
in an airship . . . . "
Clemens paused with the flame hovering
before the tip of his cigar. "Did I? I'd forgotten
that part. Ah, who would take such fantasies
seriously?"
"I might."
Clemens stared at him for a moment as if re­
ceiving another mental telegram. Then he
puffed his cigar alight and exhaled a cloud of
bluish smoke that half-concealed his face.
"You would. Why'"
Kipling turned the glass in his hand, study­
ing the amber remains within. He himself was
not sure why; yet here he was a long crooked
way from Vermont-by way of Hartford­
miles of rattling rail cars, of smoke and soot
and Cinders, and a poor night's sleep. He fin­
ished his drink and set the glass down on the
desk. "There are old temple carvings outside
47
ANALOG
Lahore . . . But tell me why you believe i n
'mental telegraphy' and I will tell you why I've
come."
Clemens pursed his l i p s . " Most folks
thought I was joking when I wrote that article
for Hatper's. I'm a humorist, so they think I
write nothing serious. I tried to publish it
anonymously in the North American Review,
but Mr. Metcalf was too wary for me. He said
that the Review couldn't treat 'mere coinci­
dences' seriously. But I have had a number of
experiences . . . " He fell silent and stared into
the distance. Kipling waited patiently.
"One night," Clemens said, "years ago, this
was-It was around midnight in New York
City, I stepped into a cigar shop far up the av­
enue where I was living, and remained there
fifteen minutes, listening to a couple of bum­
mers discussing national politics. Suddenly, I
said to myself, 'I will go out this door, turn to
the left, walk ten steps, and meet Mr. O-face
to face. ' I had heard that he was in town, but I
did not know where he was staying. And I did
it, too! I walked about five steps to the door,
opened it, closed it after me, walked down a
flight of three steps to the sidewalk, then
turned to the left and walked four or five
more, and found my man. I could not see his
face, because he had an umbrella before it,
and it was pretty dark anyhow, but he inter­
rupted the man he was walking with and I rec­
ognized his voice. That I should step out there
and stumble upon my friend was nothing­
that happens all the time-but to know it
would happen beforehand. Wasn't that really
curious?"
Kipling rugged a little on his moustache.
"We have all had such experiences. How often
have you thought you would encounter some­
one and-you did not? Misfires like that never
occupy one's memory the way the hits do."
"Ten steps," said Clemens. "1\lrn left? I tell
you, Ruddy, it was that specific, not some
vague notion that I might run into him. And
there were other occasions. About five years
ago, I believe-it was the 2"d of March-a red­
hot new idea suddenJy came whistling down
and exploded with such comprehensive effec­
tiveness as to ,weep the vicinity clean of rub­
bishy reflections and fill the air with their dust
and flying fragments. "
Kipling chuckled. He had had that experi­
ence more than once. Sometimes, an idea
48
strikes you like a meteorite.
"This idea was that the market was ready for
a book about the Nevada silver mines. The
'Great Bonanza' was a new wonder then, and
everybody was a-talking about it. Now, it
seemed to me the person best qualified to
write it was Bill Wright, a journalist by whose
side I had scribbled many a month when I was
a reporter, and I wrote hinl inlmediately. I be­
gan by modestly suggesting he write such a
book, but my interest grew as I went on, and I
ventured to set out the plan of the work. I
even dealt with details and suggested the or­
der and sequence which they should follow."
Clemens' cigar had gone out again, and a few
moments passed in the re-lighting of it. "It
sounds presumptuous, I know, but Bill and I
were old friends, and I knew he would not
mind. But I delayed sending the letter, think­
ing I should sound out a publisher I had in
mind. As it happened the publisher was out of
town, and after three or four days the whole
matter had passed out of my mind. Then, on
"
the 9' of March, the postman brought a thick
letter whose superscription was in Bill's hand.
In a flash, I knew. Before I had even opened
it, I told a visiting relative that Mr. Wright pro­
posed to write a book about the silver mines
and the Great Bonanza, and wanted to know
what I thought of the idea. He said his sub­
jects are to be such and such, and their order
and sequence were to be so and so. Ruddy, it
was precisely the same plan, written on the
same date as my own. But mine still lay in its
pigeon-hole. Chance might have duplicated
one or two of the details of the book, Ruddy,
but she would have broken down on the rest.
I cannot doubt-there is no tenable reason for
doubting-that Mr. Wright's mind and mine
had been in close and crystal-clear communi­
cation with each other across three thousand
miles of mountain and desert on the morning
d
of the 2" of March. '
"Like a telegraph without wires, " Kipling
commented. There might be a story in that,
too, he thought. Hadn't he read of an Italian
lad who had rigged a bell to ring whenever
there was lightning in his neighborhood? Mac­
aroni, or something like that. "Do you think it
might work through time?" he asked Clemens.
"Your first premonition was of something that
would happen, shortly; your experience with
Wright seems to have been simultaneous. "
MiCHAEL F. FLYNN

"You mean, might someone in the future be
reading our minds right now?" Clemens tilted
his head back and gave the matter somber
consideration. "Then you ought to take care
what thoughts you entertain. Wives, I think,
already possess that power. "
Kipling reached inside his jacket and pulled
out the two newspapers, which he laid out
and flattened on the table. "Some friends of
mine who know of my interest in airships sent
me these. J had wondered what you should
make of them. "
Clemens favored him with a careful look.
"And so we come at last to your reason for vis­
iting. " He picked up the Chicago paper, and
when he saw the photograph he started visi­
bly.
"You've seen one of those before'" Kipling
asked quietly.
"When was this?" Clemens finger touched
the newspaper gently.
"April." Then before Clemens could ask, he
added. "Before that, November, over San Fran­
cisco. "
But Clemens had gone to his globe, where
he laid a string across rwo points. "Along this
line, I suppose. They've taken a bearing."
"Who has, Sam? Who has taken a bearing?"
The older man heaved a sigh, then returned
to the couch and poured himself another
bourbon. "Here, you may want a second for
yourself. "
"Monkey-men and mental telegraphy," said
Kipling. He did not refuse the additional drink.
"As a piece of fiction , " Clemens said, "that
pours a greater measure than what most read­
ers are normally prepared to swallow. Unless
he has swallowed some bourbon first. "
"When I was ill, " said Kipling, "when I was
just coming out of being ill, I read Tom
Sawyer a couple of times. Again and again;
and J tell you, Sanl. J would rather have been
the author of that book than any other that has
been published in my lifetime. '
"You're young, Ruddy. Most of your lifetime
lies ahead, so while I'm flattered, send me a
mental telegram from your old age and tell me
it is still the finest thing you've ever read. J
could have chosen better, though. J would
have chosen TheJungle Books." He looked
into his bourbon glass and swirled it around,
as if it had been brandy. "Talking animals. I've
never taken a hand to that theme. Maybe you
ELMIRA, 1 895
SEPTEMBER 201 2
should write about these fantastical monkey­
men and their flying cigars . . . " He pursed his
lips and looked out the windows of the study
over the wild, forested valleys beyond the
town.
"Rail road trains," he said, "telegraphs, tele­
phones, now these horseless carriages. Soon
enough, dirigible airships, maybe even that
wireless telegraphy you mentioned, that Mac­
aroni lad. Have you ever wondered where it
might lead?"
"To an age of marvels, " Kipling allowed.
"For white men. "
Kipling shrugged. "Someone leads the way.
But others follow. Sullen, half-caught at first,
perhaps. Half-devil and half-child. But we'll
teach 'em. There were no railroads in India be­
fore the Raj. No telegraphs. Now there are.
And all the while, they are weighing us, judg­
ing us. Someday, with their dear-bought wis­
dom, they will judge us as our peers."
Clemens had allowed his cigar to go out,
and now he made no move to relight it. "You
really believe all that?"
"Sam, I was born in India. My milk tongue
was Hindustani. Until my parents sent me to
that awful boarding school in England. "
Clemens sqUinted. "That still bothers you,"
he observed. "Maybe it's not always a good
thing to be under the instruction of strangers.
Ruddy, have you ever seen an Indian reserva­
tion' Our Indians, not yours. They were a
proud people once. Now they're cowed and
beaten. All of these new-fangled inventions . . .
They overawe the heathen. They break his
spirit. I don't approve of it. Not one little bit."
He rose from the couch and shook out his
trousers. "Do you want to see where it would
all lead?" He exchanged his fez for a broad­
brimmed white hat, and his slippers for stout
walking shoes. He donned a walking jacket.
"Follow me. "
Kipling rose, but before he left the "pilot
house" he glanced again at the newspapers
and at the globe where Clemens had marked
the track. Elmira next, he thought.
Clemens led him around the back side of
the mountain, over a trail that was tricky in
spots, past abrupt plummets, through close­
grown pines, across a meadow thick with an­
cient dried needles and rotted leaves. Breezes
wriggled through the trees, bearing scents of
49
ANALOG
flowers and milkweed and incipient rain.
Kipling marveled at the old man's vigor. New
York City's new police commissioner advocat­
ed what he called "the strenuous life" but, by
Jingo, this was it!
They came at last, a little muddy and grass­
stained, to a place on the back side of the
mOlUltain where a meadow opened on a won­
derful view of the river valley, and trees had
snapped and fallen. From here, no other farm­
steads were visible. The rain he had noticed
earlier was now much advanced, and Kipling
hoped they would find their way back to
Quarry Farm before the storm struck.
" I saw this last year from my s t u dy, "
Clemens announced, "It was drifting down
the valley, floating in the air like a brother-in­
law-without any visible means of support.
No balloons or wings, I mean."
This was a twisted and crumpled mass of
metal, shaped on the whole like a flattened
cigar that had been stubbed out. It was just
over a rod in width, wider toward one end
than the other, and perhaps a little less in
height. The length was hard to judge, due to
the crumpling; but Kipling judged it nearer
four rods than three. In color, it was a reflec­
tive silver, and running around its perimeter
were a number of protuberances of unknown
purpose. Several of these dome-like bulges
seemed to have burst like pustules. An effect
of the smash-up-or a cause of it?
"I supposed it was an aeronaut when I saw
it," Clemens continued, "and that I was to be
dle accidental witness of the first directed aer­
ial flight. Yankee ingenuity wins again. But
then suddenly it banked-and I could see that
the undercarriage or keel, or whatever we
must call the hull of such things, was the color
of the sky above. I suppose that is why so few
on the ground have seen it, and I was privi­
leged only because of my perch atop the hill,
looking down. There was a flash along its star­
board side and that portion of the aerostat
dipped, and it banked, as I said, and swerved
into the hillside."
"Whatever was holding it aloft , " Kipling
suggested, "failed on one side and the engi­
neer was unable to compensate in tinle. "
"Well, between the camouflage and the lo­
cation, no one else could have seen it. If any­
one heard the sound, he would have dis­
missed it as coming from the rail yard or the
50
factories. So I hiked my way to it, thinking the
aeronaut might need assistance. " Clemens
searched in the pocket of the jacket he had
thrown on and emerged triumphantly with a
fresh cigar, which he clamped unlit between
his teeth. "Took me most of the day, but I fi­
nally found . . . this."
Kipling ventured closer and saw that the
crumpled end of the airship was crowned by
a canopy of glass-or of a material as like glass
in transparency as it was unlike it in frangibili­
ty, for i t was fully intact. He pulled out his
handkerchief and brushed at the detritus that
had fallen on it.
And stepped back in sudden alarm.
"So," he said, pretending to a calm he did
not feel, "this is where you found your idea of
a monkey-man." He took a cautious step for­
ward and peered through the canopy. The
creature had not moved.
There was something in its puckered visage
that suggested something very like a monkey,
but Kipling had seen monkeys enough in In­
dia to know that this was not of that fraternity.
It was as dark as a Bengali, and wore a tight
garment that revealed unfamiliar musculature.
There were two eyes, set curiously Iow an the
face, but nothing like a nose or mouth was ev­
ident. If there were ears, they were hidden be­
neath a helmet that enclosed most of the skull.
No neck was evident-the head emerged
directly from the shoulders-and the arms
ended not in fingers, but in short, stubby ten­
tacles. Kipling wondered, wildly, how such a
creature might operate a typewriting ma­
chine.
"Go ahead, " Clemens said. "Ask me how I
imagined that such a creature might use men­
tal telegraphy. " Kipling looked up sharply
from his perusal of the . . . teamster' The dri­
ver? Clemens' face had gone as pale as his
suits. "Go allead and ask," he said again.
Kipling ;wallowed. "What . . . was it like?"
"Are you certain you want to know?"
"Very much. I've never seen this game. Can
you imagine if everyone had the trick?"
"Is this what you people call 'stiff upper
lip'? Ruddy, it would be like hell on Earth,"
Clemens assured him. "Everyone knowing
one another's thoughts? There would be mur­
der and mayhem from dawn to dusk. Yes, bit­
ter cold, isn't it? The skin of that thing. "
Kipling had touched the frame and pulled
MiCHAEL F. FLYNN

his fingers away in haste. "Freezing hard," he
said; then he bent close without contact. "Cu­
rious. "
"It's the wind, I think, " Clemens said. "It fair
cuts a man to pieces up here . " He coughed
hard, and wiped his mouth with his handker­
chief. "Even in July. You would think the sun­
light would warm the metal, but no. I near
burnt my fingers on the cold of it."
There was an odd, unpleasant odor, too,
into which Kipling was reluctant to inquire.
"How did you know . . . I mean . . . When you
were mentally telegraphing with Wright, you
had no idea that his thoughts were coming
into you. So how . . . "
" I t may be I was the sender and not
Wright, " Clemens admitted. "But I know it
when some outlandish notion pops into my
head from nowhere. '
"We're writers, Sam," Kipling said from his
crouch. "Outlandish notions pop into our
heads all the time." He rose and bnlshed at his
knees.
"But not of sky-topped cities black and sil­
ver against the sun." Clemens eyes had be­
come distant and he looked right through
Kipling. "Out of reach now, out of reach. Et­
sho ebbimorrig kawn telko."
"What was that last''' Kipling asked, but
Clemens made no sign that he saw or heard.
The older man's lips worked and his cigar fell
to the ground. "So very cold," he said and shiv­
ered in the late July afternoon. "Patience. Pa­
tience. Beacon intermittent, but . . . They will
come."
Clemens looked about at the stands of birch
and pine about them. He stared up into the
sky. "Soon, pray Existence, before it fails. "
Kipling heard the crackling of the dead
leaves and needles underfoot. He felt a crack­
ling in his mind, too. Unless it was his back­
hair standing erect. A wave of intense loneli­
ness, of tenuous hope, of dogged
determination swept over hinl. He saw gleam­
ing, cloud-piercing spires joined by gossamer
threads. Briefly, a small room with unintelligi­
ble furnishings. He had a sudden image of the
river valley, but shaded into odd colors. The
sky was nearly violet, and the trees tinted in
cyan. Then something flashed on the panel
before him and the view tilted and spun. A
wash of icy panic swept over him, followed by
an equally icy calm. He felt an urgency to com-
ELMIRA, 1 895
SEPTEMBER 201 2
pensate.
But compensate for what, and how'
Then a dull orange blotted out his vision.
"But I alone have seen it!" he cried "I have
touched the hem of heaven. "
Clemens was shaking his shoulder violently
and Kipling heard him say, "Snap out of it,
Ruddy! Remember who you are!"
Kipling focused hard and resettled his glass­
es on his nose. "What . . . happened?"
Seeing this, Clemens pulled his hand back
and stepped away. "Not so much fun receiving
a mental telegram, is it? Especially in another
language . "
Kipling looked around and saw that they
were well away from the meadow, on the trail
back to the farm . They stood near the spot
where the ground fell off abruptly toward the
river. "How did we get here?"
"I don't think he wants us aroun d , " said
Clemens. "Not a very gracious host. '
"That creature? But he's dead. He never
moved an eyelash . "
"Is he? Then whose thoughts were we re­
ceiving' Unless there really i s a life after
death. " A distant nimble in the skies prophe­
sied the coming storm. "When I saw him the
first time," Clemens added, "he was more ani­
mated. So was I, as I recollect. I ran. "
Kipling started. "You left him here to die'"
" I had as little say in the matter as you did
just now. That thing, there, looked straight at
me, and his thoughts flooded into my mind
and I ran until I was . . . out of range, I sup­
pose. Or maybe just out of breath. I ran all the
way to Europe. But after a while, curiosity
drew me back and . . . He was still here. His
friends had not found him yet. It's a big world,
and while they know the direction, they do
not know the precise locatio n . " Clemens
peered nervously at the gathering gloom in
the sky. "Lightning. We'd best remove our­
selves. "
"He is expecting help. Help is coming. "
" I know. Another reason to remove our­
selves. "
Kipling took dinner with Sam and Livy at
Quarry Farm that evening. It was a cozy affair
with a fire roaring in the hearth and a decent
vintage on the table. The meat was roast pork
with summer squash and new potatoes. And
despite the anxious mood of both men, Livy
51
ANALOG
kept the conversations up.
She had earlier sent the hackey back down
to Elmira with a promise for his return in the
morning, and so there was nothing for it but
that Ruddy would spend the night with the
Clemens.
The rain began with the sherry and Kipling
drifted to the window to look out the wind­
rattled panes into the downpour. "The road
will turn to mud, " he predicted. "TIle Duryea
would get bogged up, so the boy will have to
fetch me i n a horse cart . " He turned and
looked at Sam. "In a horse cart," he said again,
stressing the words.
Clemens understood his meaning. He
plucked his cigar from his lips and j oined
Kipling at the window. "I try not to dwell on
it. Whenever it crosses my mind, that haIf-dead
thing somehow knows. I can't say why I think
so, but I'm as certain as can be." The cigar re­
turned to its place, and a ring of smoke float­
ed over the room. "The thoughts of the . . . the
" "On what?"
"The pilot , " Kipling suggested. "That must
have been a small pilot house he was sitting
in."
"Yes. His thoughts don't sit proper in our
minds. They make no sense at all unless you
stand close by; and even then, it's mostly
sights and emotions that come through. If one
of your Andaman Islanders could read our
thoughts, what on Earth could he possibly
make of them?"
"He is reliving the crash, the pilot is. He
wonders what he might have done differently.
Sometimes, he thinks of . . . It must be his
home. The pilot is lonely, and frightened . . .
and hopeful. Despite the oddness of his vi­
sions, I think he must be very much like us."
"I'm sorry I left him to die. But what could I
have done?"
"Nothing. Made matters worse, most likely.
He had equipment in his boat."
"Equipment. "
"The cold. We preserve meat in ice houses,
do we not? Perhaps he is not dead, but only in
a sort of frozen state. That may be why his
thoughts were so off. They were dreams, irra­
tional. Frozen sleep . . . By Jingo, that would be
52
a medicine worth learning! Sanl, there are Ra­
jputs and Bengalis and Sikhs in India building
railroads, stringing telegraph wires, surveying
land, clerking for the government.Think of
what we could learn from these others! They
must have devices that make our dreams of
airships and wireless seem childish. "
"Exactly. " Clemens finished his sherry in
one convulsive swallow. "Ruddy, you're a
damn fool. What makes you think we could
learn their magic any more than a Pawnee
could learn electrical engineering? All our
hopes and dreams would be crushed. Nothing
would be worth striving for, because it has all
been done better by them. Why do you think I
went on the lecture circuit after I saw it crash'
Why do you think I'm heading out west and
across the Pacific? If that thing out there is a
boat, I don't want to see the ship. I'd rather
not end my days as a drunk on a reservation
on some nasty patch of unwanted land. "
"That would depend, would it not?"
"On whether we are your Indians or mine. "
Thunder crashed again and the monsoon
without was lit by a bright flash.
"Close," said Clemens.
But Kipling held up a hand and hushed hinl.
In the momentary brilliance of the Iightl1ing,
he had seen the stars occluded. It might have
been the rainclouds, but it might have been
something huge and black drifting against the
night. In the silence he could hear the hiss and
patter of the rain, the fading rumble of the
thunder. And, maybe, maybe another sound,
like the bow drawn across a bass viol. It
hummed low and uncertain.
Clemens gave him a curious look, but he
did not ask the reason for the silence-or per­
haps he heard the same bass thrumming. He
drew again on his cigar, blew another smoke
ring. All in silence.
When that silence had stretched on, tight as
a bowstring, Kipling asked the question in
both their minds.
"How long do you suppose we have before
we find out'" •
Copyright © 2012 Michael F. Flynn
MiCHAEL F. FLYNN
 Alec Nevala- Lee
In research, you never know what
you' ll find - and you may not recognize
it when you do.
I.
O
pening her purse, January fished out a
lighter and a pack of American Spirits.
"Mind ifI smoke?"
"Not at all," Dr. Iyer said, his soft eyes
watchful on her face. "You smoke much'"
January lit a cigarette, then exhaled. "A pack
a day. Or maybe less. It helps. But you knew
this already. "
The neurologist only gave her a neutral
smile. As January regarded him warily, she re­
alized that he had brought her outside ex­
pressly to allow her to smoke. They were
seated on the balcony of his office, which of­
fered a fine view of the campus below. TIle af­
ternoon was overcast but warm) and from
here, she could make out cheerful tufts of fall
foliage all the way to the Armitage Library.
Taking another pull of smoke, she exanlined
the man across from her. They made a peculiar
pair. Through the neurologist's eyes, January
could see herself for exactly what she was:
thirty, tan, and long of limb, an attractive farm­
girl in a denim dress. Dr. Iyer, by contrast, was
small and neat, dressed in a leather jacket and
black polo shirt. He was obviously intelligent,
but at the moment he seemed frustratingly in­
tent on small talk. "How was the drive?"
"I made it here in an hour. I hear that's pret­
ty good. " January fixed him with what she
hoped was a challenging gaze. "Shall we get
started? I assume you want to hear about the
voices. "
"Yes, if you like," Dr. Iyer said, i n the im­
placably calm tone she had already noticed.
"What can you tell me about them'"
"It depends on how far back you want to
go, " January replied. "It isn't just me, you
know. There's a history of it in my family.
Which I believe is what you'd call a significant
risk factor. "
Even as she spoke, she reflected that much
of what she was saying was in her patient file,
which meant that he knew it already. If this
was old news, however, he was too polite to
say so. "Just tell me as much as you like. '
January studied the end of her cigarette. "I
guess I should start with my grandmother,
then. She heard voices whenever she walked
in the woods. My mother says our neighbors
used to call her a witch, although I'm not sure
I really believe that. I remember her walking
under the trees, barefoot, her hair down. AI-
53
ANALOG
though I'm told that this might be a false mem­
ory. Isn't that right'"
"It's possible," Dr. Iyer said noncommittally.
"How old were you when she died?"
"Five, I think. She filled her pockets with
stones and drowned herself in the pond near
our farm. Just like Virginia Woolf. "
"I see." Dr. Iyer wrote something down in
her file. "And when did you begin hearing the
voices?"
"When I was ten. I was hiking along the
pond when I heard them for the first time. At
first, I thought someone was walking behind
me, but when I looked around, nobody was
dlere. To be honest, I didn't think much of it. I
assumed that everyone heard voices like this,
but didn't bother to talk about them."
Dr. Iyer made a note of this as well. "And
what did these voices say to you?"
January lit a fresh cigarette from the end of
her expiring one. "Oh, they'd just make con­
versation. They said they remembered my
grandmother. Sometimes they'd give me advice
about problems at school, boy trouble, that
sort of thing. After a while, I got the feeling
that they were preparing me for something,
shaping my life in certain ways, but I never
knew for what, exactly. "
Looking across the balcony, she tried to
guess what the neurologist was thinking. She
wasn't sure if he saw her directness as ad­
mirable objectivity or as a sign of disassocia­
tion. "Did the voices ever tell you to hurt
yourself?"
"No," January answered at once. "And be­
fore you ask, they've never told me to hurt any­
one else. As far as I know, they're harmless. "
Dr. Iyer only nodded thoughtfully a t this.
"And are you hearing the voices now?"
"No. In fact, they've been strangely quiet to­
day. As if they know why I'm here."
January smiled to show that she was joking,
but the neurologist didn't seem to notice. "Any
visual hallucinations?"
"Not that I can remember, " January said.
"Sometinles I get the sense that they're lurking
just out of Sight, in the shadows, or out of the
corner of my eye. But I've never seen them di­
rectly."
"That's good, " Dr. Iyer said, with a note of
peculiar satisfaction. "And medication'"
"It doesn't help. And I've been on just about
everything. Risperidone, most recently. It
54
didn't stop the voices. Mostly it made me
sleepy. " January paused. "As for your next
question, pot helps, but I haven't smoked up
in a long time. I've done coke once or twice,
but that's it."
She had expected the neurologist to write
this down, but he did not. "And drinking'"
"Sure, ' January replied. "But everyone in my
hometown drinks. There isn't a lot else to do
around there."
"Yes, I can imagine. " He glanced at her file.
"You still live on your family's farm?"
"Not really a farm these days," January said.
"It's just land. About two hundred acres. We
don't grow much of anything. My parents are
retired. They leave me alone. I used to tutor lo­
cal kids in Latin, but not so much anymore. "
"You did quite well in school, I see," Dr. Iyer
said. "As for your personal situation-"
"Unmarried, obviously. I don't date much. "
She began to feel irritated. "Look, you already
know all this. So what do you really think?"
"About your case?" Dr. Iyer closed the file. "I
was told that you were a strong candidate for
this study, and at the moment, I'm inclined to
agree. You hear voices, with no hiStory of visu­
al hallucinations, and are resistant to conven­
tional treatment. Moreover, you're articulate
and intelligent, and seem willing to seek help. "
He hesitated. " Before we go any further,
though, I need to ask you something, and I
want an honest answer. Do you believe that
the voices are real?"
January gave him a smile. "I believe that I
have moderate to severe schizophrenia."
Dr. Iyer blinked at this, then got up from his
chair. "I see. In that case, if you're still interest­
ed, I can show you the lab. '
January ground out her Cigarette and rose as
well. "Yes. I'd like that very much."
Drawing back the sliding door, Dr. Iyer led
her back into his office, its shelves lined with
fossils and seashells. They went out to the cor­
ridor, then took an elevator to the floor above.
As they went up, January dimly began to sense
that someone besides the doctor was watching
her, as if something small and inquisitive were
lurking just outside her field of vision.
When they arrived on the next floor, they
headed down another hallway, at the end of
which stood a metal door. Dr. Iyer unlocked
the door and swung it open, revealing a sec­
ond door inside. He had to strain a bit to move
ALEC NEVALA-LEE

it. The doors, January recalled, were made of
ferromagnetic alloy and, altogether, weighed
over four hundred pounds. "Need a hand?"
"No, thank you," Dr. Iyer said, gnmting as he
pulled back the second door, disclosing a third.
"I should be used to it by now. Earth's magnet­
ism is all around us, you see, and if we let it in,
it'll upset what we're trying to do."
Opening the final door, he led her into the
room beyond, which nlrned out to be the size
of an ample closet, its walls paneled in beige.
At the center of the room stood an apparatus
about six feet tall. Its lower half consisted of a
chair, like a salon hair dryer, set before a
flatscreen monitor. Above the chair, dlere was
a helmet that resembled an inverted toilet
bowl, surmowlled by a large white appliance
like a washing machine. It was smaller than
January had expected, based on the pictures
that she had studied. "This is what you call a
magnetoencephalograph?"
Dr. Iyer chuckled. "Well, only if we have
plenty of time. Normally, we just call it the
scanner. Here, let me show you. "
They approached the machine, where he
pointed to the helmet. "You see, it has three
hundred sensors set up to detect magnetic
fields produced by the brain. A detailed pic­
ture of neural activity in real time. "
January halted a few steps away, her arms
folded. "So you're saying it reads minds. "
"Not exactly, " Dr. Iyer said. "It began, as you
probably know, as a military project. The army
wanted to develop a way for soldiers to com­
municate i n battle without speaking. A
thought helmet would detect signals from
parts of the brain associated with imagined
speech, then translate the signals into sounds
that could be heard by another user. Synthetic
telepathy, they called it. "
The neurologist smiled faintly. "A ridiculous
premise, of course, and highly impractical. A
single random thought would throw every­
thing off, and its accuracy was never more
than fair. It was never going to work on the bat­
tlefield. Almost inCidentally, though, it gave us
a powerhd diagnostic tool." He indicated the
chair. "Would you like to sit down? I won't nlrn
it on."
After a moment's hesitation, January came
forward and settled herself in the seat. It was
the wrong height for her, but adjustable, like a
dentist's chair. "I'm still not sure how it's sup-
THE VOICES
SEPTEMBER 2012
posed to work. "
" It's quite simple, " Dr. Iyer said. "Auditory
hallucinations create identifiable patterns in
the brain. When you hear a word, or think you
hear one, your auditory cortex lights up in
characteristic ways. The same is true when you
imagine yourself talking. Your brain creates an
efference copy, a sort of mental echo, that the
scanner can learn to isolate from surrounding
neural activity. In time, with the proper cali­
bration, it can even recognize specific sowlds
and words. And instead of turning these
sounds into spoken phrases, we simply save
them as raw text. "
January saw that his usual dispassionate air
had given way to a boyish enthusiasm, like that
of a child showing off an expensive toy. "I un­
derstand that. What I still don't see is what this
has to do with the treatment. "
"Oh, but it's essential. " Going to the wall, Dr.
Iyer brought over a device the size of a desk
lamp, shaped like a plastic figure eight, mOlUlt­
ed on a movable gantry. "This is the second
component. As we track your inner voices,
we'll also be treating you with transcranial
magnetic stimulation. In your case, we'll be
stimulating the left temporoparietal junction of
the brain. It's a course of therapy that has suc­
cessfully treated auditory hallucinations in the
past. "
He gently moved the coil closer, until it was
poised above her forehead. "The trouble is that
it's hard to track the results. This is where the
scanner comes in. It gives us feedback in real
tinle, factoring out the field generated by the
coil and telling us how neural activity is chang­
ing. And because we're effectively eavesdrop­
ping on the voices themselves, we can monitor
not orIly their severity, but their content. We're
essentially hearing what the voices are saying,
which obviously affects the patient a great
deal. It brings objectivity to the process for the
first time."
Dr. Iyer moved the gantry back to its original
position. "Historically, the treatment of your
condition has been based on observed behav­
ior or reported experiences. It was an inexact
science. This scanner is a much finer instru­
ment. That's why we're focusing on auditory
hallucinations. Voices are discrete, unambigu­
ous. We can track them, analyze their content,
and adjust the therapy accordingly. And we
hope that the brain will eventually learn to re-
55
ANALOG
organize itself. "
"So let me see if I understand, " January said,
still in the chair. "As part of this therapy, you're
tracking my hallucinations, making a transcript
of inner voices. A record of my most secret
thoughts. Am I right'"
Dr. Iyer only laughed. "Yes, well, it's possible
to think of i t that way. My colleague, Dr.
Nathan, might even agree. But we don't intend
to do anything with the data beyond the para­
meters of the treatment itself. And I can assure
you that we've taken measures to protect the
privacy of all our patients."
"I'm sure you have, " January said. Looking at
the neurologist, however, with his small, tidy
features, she sensed there was something he
wasn't telling her. When he mentioned his col­
league, a secretiveness appeared in his eyes
that hadn't been there before, and it gave her
pause.
All the same, however, she knew that she
was running out of options. At this point, she
had tried nearly everything else, and the treat­
ment he was offering was the most promising
she had seen in years. And even if she had
doubts about his methods, in the end, she told
herself, she really had nothing to lose.
January climbed out of the chair. For a sec­
ond, the sense that she was being watched
grew stronger, but as she looked around the
room's bright interior, she knew that there was
no one here except the neurologist and her­
self. "All right. If you'll have me, I'll volunteer. "
"Good," Dr. Iyer said, visibly pleased. "If
you'll come with me, then, we can discllss the
rest. "
The paperwork did not take long. Half an
hour later, January descended the steps of the
teaching hospital and headed for her car. As
she crossed the leafy campus, she sensed that
she had made an irrevocable decision, al­
though she wasn't yet sure what the conse­
quences would be.
Passing through the brick archway of the
quadrangle, she emerged on Garrison Street,
where her hatchback was parked halfway up
the block. Going to the car, she unlocked it
and got behind the wheel.
January was about to insert the key into the
ignition when, instead, she leaned back in the
seat and closed her eyes. Even before her visi­
tor spoke, she knew he was there. "What is it,
Elfric?"
56
The voice came softly from behind her, as if
it were just over her left shoulder. "What do
you think you're doing?"
This was the conversation she had been
dreading. She started the engine. "You know
exactly why I'm here. And you?"
As she pulled into the street, Elfric contin­
ued to speak, his familiar voice soft and rea­
sonable. Although it sounded as if he were
seated right behind her, she knew that if she
turned her head, there would be nothing
there. "I came to see this doctor you've told us
so much about, as well as his ridiculous ma­
chine. It seems to me that he's hiding some­
thing. Do you trust him?"
''I'm willing to take a chance," January said.
"I've tried just about everything else. "
"I see." Elfric paused. "You're obviously wel­
come to do as you wish. We've never stood in
your way. And yet we find it strange that even
after aU this time, you still refuse to believe. Do
you want to be rid of us so badly?"
January felt tears fill her eyes. Reaching out,
she switched on the radio and turned up the
volume, hoping that the music would drown
out the voice. For a long time, however, Elfric
continued to speak, in his quiet, sensible way,
and the last thing he said, before he finally
lapsed into silence, haunted her all the way
home: "You won't get rid of us so easily, you
know-"
II.
Later that night, she was awakened by the
voices. At first, as she lay in bed, somewhere
between consciousness and dreaming, the
voices seemed inseparable from her own drift­
ing thoughts. Gradually, though, as they rose in
intensity, it became clear that they were some­
thing more, and around three in the morning,
the last tether of sleep broke, and January
opened her eyes.
She looked up at the darkened ceiling. The
whispers were coming from her left, outside
the bedroom. Sitting up, the sheets sliding
smoothly away, she looked at the door, which
was open. She couldn't make out what the
voices were saying, but already knew where
they wanted her to go.
At last, she got out of bed. It was still early
aunmll, so she wore only a nightdress. Glanc­
ing at the clock, its hands barely visible in the
ALEC NEVALA-LEE

moonlight, she saw the time and sighed. They
weren't going to leave her alone. Before she
went out, though, she opened the drawer of
the nightstand and removed an electric lamp.
She knew that they didn't like it, but wasn't in­
clined to humor them tonight.
Going into the hallway, she moved through
the cabin, the floor creaking beneath her feet.
The house was small but comfortable. For the
most part, she had built it herself, carrying the
beams one by one across the field. The land on
which it stood had been in her family for gen­
erations, and her parents had said she was wel­
come to build it anywhere she liked, but it was
the voices, ultimately, d1at had told her where
to go. She wasn't sure why they had picked
this particular spot, but she had her suspicions.
For one thing, it was close to the woods. And
the pond.
As she crept quietly through the house, the
lamp's pale circle of light revealed row after
row of bookshelves. Nearly every wall was
lined with books from floor to ceiling. Some
were titles that the voices had told her to buy,
dusty secondhand volumes of literature, poet­
ry, folklore. Others were books that she had
bought herself, without asking the voices for
their opinion. These were the books on psy­
chology, neurology, and mental illness.
When she entered the kitchen, playing the
light before her, a shadow appeared on the
wall, the outline of something small, stealthy,
and alive. January caught her breath for a mo­
ment, then saw it was only her cat, Crowley,
slinking across the floor, perhaps returning
from a hunt in the surrounding fields.
Now the voices were coming from outside.
From time to time, through the curtain of
sound, she could make out a single word: 'Jan­
uary-"
Inside the cabin's front door was a mud­
room area, with a jumble of bags, shoes, and
coats. Pulling on a pair of boots, she opened
the door, her lamp still raised. Outside, it was
cool but pleasant, the wind gentle on her skin.
The voices, she found, were coming from the
trees.
She moved forward, a very solid specter in
her nightgown and boots, and headed into the
woods. There was technically a path here, but
she had been bad about mowing it, and now
the grass was at the height of her knees. On
the other side of the path stood a snug out-
THE VOICES
SEPTEMBER 2012
house, its scoop and bag of sawdust just inside
the door. Sometimes the voices liked to talk to
her there, for reasons she didn't really under­
stand, but tonight, they clearly wanted her
somewhere else.
January passed into the trees. Aside from the
low murmur of voices, which seemed to be
coming from somewhere up ahead, all was
silent. Beyond the circle of the lamp, the
woods were in darkness. This country might
be young, she thought, but the woods were
very old. A few centuries weren't nearly long
enough to explore them properly. And while
only a few pockets of forest had been left un­
touched by progress, it was in these places,
outside the town, that the voices were
strongest.
At last, January passed through a gap in the
trees and found herself at the pond . She
switched off the lamp, making her way for­
ward by the light of the moon. As the lamp
grew dark, the voices ceased as well.
She looked around the clearing, giving her
eyes time to adjust. The pond where her grand­
mother died wasn't much to look at, just a
mud hole with reeds growing along the edge,
but it had always felt like a place of power, es­
pecially at night, and she knew that she had
been brought here for a reason.
Near the pond, there was a stone bench,
erected by unknown hands, overgrown with
moss and creepers. January went up to it, step­
ping carefully through the tall grass, and sat
down so she was facing the water.
After a moment, a quiet voice spoke at her
side. "We didn't think you would come."
January did not turn away from the water.
She knew that if she looked at the bench be­
side her, nothing would be there. "It's late. I
have a busy day tomorrow. What do you
want?"
"We're concerned about you, " Elfric said. As
usual, he spoke of himself and the others in
the first person plural, although his was the
only voice that had ever broken through the
whispers to give itself a name. "We've been
talking about this doctor of yours, and are
afraid he may be misleading you."
January had to smile at this. "So now you're
suddenly experts in neurobiology. "
"No. But we're experts, unfortunately, in
men. We've been watching men like this for a
long tin1e. They believe themselves wise, but
57
ANALOG
they are only infants. They think they under­
stand the world, but see only a fraction of what
exists. And the little they do see, they destroy. "
January shook her head slowly. She had
been given this lecture before. "Look, if there's
something you want to tell me, just say it.
You've always had trouble getting t o the
point."
"Then I'll make myself clear. " Elfric's voice
grew cold. "We've never stood in your way be­
fore, but now, you're doing something very
rash. You're betraying a confidence to a man
you hardly know. We didn't spend all this time
preparing you, over so many years, only to
have you trade our secrets away as if they were
nothing. We've been good to you, haven't we?"
January did not reply. Looking out at the
darkened pond, she thought of all she had giv­
en up, and how little the voices really under­
stood of this. Yet she had also been given a
great deal, even if the burden had finally be­
come too much to bear. "Yes. You've been
good to me, in your own way. "
"Then you need to trust us now, " Elfric said.
"You don't see the full picnlre. I know it seems
difficult, but all will come clear soon. Every­
thing we've done has been for a reason-"
Hearing these soothing words, January felt a
sudden rush of anger. "Is that what you said to
my grandmother?"
The voice at her side fell silent. January
sensed hesitation there, even a kind of shame,
and it gave her the courage to continue: "I've
thought it over for a long time, and there's only
one conclusion. You're all in my head. I'm go­
ing to fix things now, before it's too late. Please
don't bring me out here again."
Without another word, January rose and
turned away from the pond, picking her way
through the grass. From behind her, the voice
came flintly: "If you won't let us in, we'll find
another way-"
She did not respond. Switching on the lamp,
she made her way back to the cabin. For the
rest of the night, the voices did not speak
again.
The following day, she began the first of her
sessions at the hospital. Dr. Iyer had settled on
a schedule of three sessions each week, com­
bined with a regimen of drugs, which he ex­
p l ained would help with the voices.
"Schizophrenia is a disease with many fletors,"
dle neurologist said. "In order to treat it, it's of-
58
ten necessary to take more than one course of
action, "
Over the next few weeks, her sessions be­
gan to setde into a routine. At the beginning of
each visit, she would sit in the chair, her head
in the white helmet, and read off a standard
calibration list of words and syllables, which
would allow the scanner to begin recognizing
the corresponding patterns in her mind. TIlen
came an hour of the therapy itself, followed by
a closing interview with Dr. Iyer.
At first, she had been afraid that the voices
would refuse to speak, but sooner or later, they
always did. When Elfric spoke to her at the
hospital, he said that he had followed her
there, slipping past the doors just before they
SWWlg shut. His voice always seemed to come
from the same corner of the room, directly
across from the scanner, as if he had tucked
himself there invisibly to watch.
Elfric also seemed curious, despite hinlself,
about the nanlre of the treatment. She sensed
him studying Dr. Iyer, keeping a close eye on
what he was doing, though his initial mistrust
of the neurologist had not decreased. If any­
thing, it had grown stronger, and his voice did
not cease to warn her, reasonably and inces­
santly, that she was making a grave mistake.
But dlen, gradually, something extraordinary
happened. The treatment began to work.
The first thing she noticed was that the voic­
es had grown softer. They had always faded
slighdy in the faU and winter, as if their power
waxed and waned with the seasons, but now
they were faltering more than usual. Elfric
seemed to sense this too, and as if in response,
his tone grew more urgent, trying to persuade
her, from the same corner of the room, to
leave before it was too late.
And yet the voices continued to weaken. By
the end of the second week, aside from Elfric's
increasingly fragile voice, they had been re­
duced to a muffled hiSSing, like that of a den of
snakes. Elfric alone remained coherent, but
even his voice seemed diminished, as if he
were pulling away.
Then, one morning, as if a switch had been
turned off, the voices stopped entirely.
At first, January didn't believe it. There had
been times in the past when the voices had
ceased, sometimes for a few hours, occasional­
ly for longer, as if they had business elsewhere.
It was only after several days had passed that
ALEC NEVALA-LEE

she began to suspect that they were gone for
good. The treatment had succeeded. All this
time, it seemed, the voices had been nothing
but her imagination.
Her first reaction, unexpectedly, was sor­
row. Faced with this unaccustomed silence,
she was strangely disappointed to realize that
the voices had been hallucinations after all. Dr.
Iyer explained that this was a common reac­
tion among patients who responded positively
to treatment: "It's hard to give up something
that has been a part of your life for so long. Dr.
Nathan and I have seen it before. The impor­
tant thing is to get on with your life, and to
prove that you're special in other ways."
Initially, she had dismissed the neurologist's
advice, still hurting from the absence of the
voices, but in time, she had seen its wisdom.
Slowly, painfully, she began to heal. She spent
more time with her parents, who lived in the
farmhouse across the field, and who said she
looked happier than she had seemed in a long
time. On her own, she made plans to take on a
few new students, after a long absence from
tutoring, and packed up a box of the books the
voices had told her to buy, as if clearing out her
life at last. She even threw away her cigarettes.
All the same, her sense of loss persisted, and
there were days when she found herself alone
by the pond, hoping that the voices would
speak again. U they were there at aU, they re­
mained silent. As relieved as she was, she was
also saddened. Now that the voices were gone,
she wasn't sure what she had been hoping.
Perhaps, she thought, she had simply wanted
it all to be tme.
Then one day, two weeks after the voices
ended, she met Dr. Nathan for the first time.
She was seated in the hallway outside the neu­
rologist's office, paging through a magazine,
when she happened to glance up. Through the
office door, which was open halfway, she saw
a young doctor seated across from her, going
over what looked like some patient files. He
was tan and attractive, with long hair, but she
only saw him for a second before the door
closed from the inside.
Her session went smoothly, with no sign of
the voices, and she did not think of the young
doctor again. As she was leaving the hospital,
however, she noticed him coming up the brick
path, heading straight in her direction. She
didn't feel like talking to him, and suspected
THE VOICES
SEPTEMBER 2012
that it might violate the conditions of the study,
so she turned aside, heading along the path to
her right.
A second later, she noticed that he was wan­
dering the same way, apparently looking for a
spot under the trees. Staring at him, she felt
her feet carry her in his direction, until they
were abmptly face to face. "Dr. Nathan?"
He halted, surprised. For a second, she saw
something wary in his eyes. "Yes'"
She extended a hand. "Hi. I'm January. Dr.
Iyer has told me a lot about you-"
After a beat, he shook her hand, smiling for
the first time. "I hope he's been telling you
good things. Are you one of his students?"
January hesitated. A number of thoughts ran
through her head very quickly. She realized
that he hadn't noticed her at the lab that morn­
ing, and that she no longer resembled anyone's
idea of a mental patient.
It took her only a second to make her deci­
sion. "Yes," January lied. "He often mentions
you in class. We've been following your work
with interest. I'd love to talk to you about it
sometinle. "
He grinned and raised the paper bag he was
holding. "Well, if you like, I was about to eat
lunch. Care to join me?"
January managed to return the smile. "Why,
that would be lovely, Dr. Nathan."
"You can call me Aubrey, if you like." He ges­
tured at the leafy campus around them .
"Where shall we go, then?"
In the end, they ended up beneath the trees
in a quiet corner of the quadrangle. As the doc­
tor dug cheerfully into his sandwich, January
began to relax. Aubrey was charming and
rather handsome, and every now and then, she
would spot passing college girls casting appre­
ciative looks in their direction.
They began, inevitably, by talking about
their only mutual acquaintance. "Dr. Iyer is
quite a character, " Aubrey said. "One of the
most brilliant men I've ever encountered, but
he can't even remember where his car is
parked. Still, I'm glad he called me in. It's been
quite the opportunity-"
January smoothed out her skirt, her legs
tucked beneath her on the grass. "What kind of
opportunity do you mean?"
"1 don't know how much he's told you, but
it's the chance of a lifetime. " Aubrey took a sip
of soda. " I ' m not a neurologist, you under-
59
ANALOG
stand. I have a doctorate, but it's in Victorian
literature. Most scientists aren't inclined to
trust people from the humanities, but Dr.Iyer
knew precisely what I had in mind."
Something in his words was beginning to
trouble her. "Which was what, exactly?"
"A new kind of scientif ic study." Aubrey
tucked the remains of his sandwich into the pa­
per bag. "You see, my own field is rapidly
changing.111ese days, with all the texts of the
Victorian era available online, you can subject
vast amounts of material to statistical analysis.
In the past,you'd draw conclusions about a lit­
erary period by reading three novels, or thirty,
or three hundred. Now we can look for pat­
terns in hundreds of thousands of books. It's
called nonconsumptive research- "
"I know, " January said sharply. "Or digital
humanities. I've heard of it. But what does this
have to do with Dr. Iyer' "
"Well,thanks to his work,we can apply the
same principles to the human brain. I like to
think of it in terms of the brain bank at Stanley
Medical Research Institute. Ever been there?
It's the world's largest library of schizophrenic
and bipolar brains, six hundred in all, half of
each brain frozen, the other kept in formalde­
hyde. It's a gold mine for research into mental
disorders. What Dr.Iyer is doing is providing a
similar resource for the hallucinations them­
selves. "
As she began to sense where he was going,
her uneasiness continued to grow. "From the
transcripts, you mean."
He nodded. "It's really quite brilliant. As a
byproduct of this study,we have access to hun­
dreds of hours of unfiltered auditory hallucina­
tions, transcribed by the scanner and saved in
text form. A library of inner voices. And we
can subject them to the same kind of analysis
as any other body of literature. I've done sinli­
lar work with schizophrenic writing. Schizo­
phrenics have trouble writing about tinle and
place, for example, or anytiling outside of the
first person. And if we can learn so much from
their writing,imagine what their inner voices
will say."
A hot blush began to spread across her face.
"So what have you fmmd so far?"
"Not much," Aubrey said. "I'm just starting
to dig into the data. But you can slice it in all
kinds of ways. I'd be happy to show you some­
time, if you Iike- " He broke off. "Where are
60
you going?"
January had risen from the grass.Anger was
f lowing warmly through her body, but she
managed to keep herself under control long
enough to give him a nod. "I'm sorry, but I
need to go. It was nice talking to you."
Before he could respond, she turned and
walked rapidly across the grass, heading for the
nearest path.Although she did not look back at
Aubrey, she could sense hinl staring after her
as she f led.
She headed for her car, feeling furious and
betrayed. Dr. Iyer, she realized, had lied to her
from the beginning. The study had violated her
privacy in all the ways she had feared,listening
in on her deepest secrets. Real or not,the voic­
es had been right. And now, she thought mis­
erably, they were gone.
Two days later, at her next session, she did
not bring up her encounter with Aubrey,
whom she did not see at the hospital again.
During the clinical interview, in which she
only gave the bare minimum of information in
response to his questions, Dr. Iyer seemed to
sense that she had something on her mind,but
did not ask what it was, and she was certainly
in no mood to tell him.
That night, she was out on her porch, crav­
ing a cigarette, when she heard footsteps com­
ing up the overgrown path. Rising,she looked
into the darkness. Someone was heading her
way. She took a few steps forward,then saw a
shadow y figure approaching the cabin. "Who's
there?"
As she halted, the figure did as well. A voice
came out of the night: "It's Dr.Nathan."
"Aubrey?" January looked out at the dark­
ened field."What are you doing here?"
"I spoke to your parents, " Aubrey said, re­
maining where he was. "They pointed me
here.I need to talk to you."
January felt another throb of anger. "Please
go away. We have nothing to discuss."
Aubrey did not move. "I only need a mo­
ment. I promise not to keep you for long. "
After a beat,January took a step forward.As
she did, Aubrey came closer, unti l she could
make out his face at last. She regarded him
coldly. "1 assume you learned that I'm not one
of Dr.Iyer's students."
"Yes, I know that now, " Aubrey said. "That's
what I wanted to talk to you about."
Looking into his eyes,January saw for the
ALEC NEVALA-LEE

first time that he seemed nervous, even fright­
ened. "What is it?"
"January, I don't understand hoW; but I was
told to come here. It seems crazy, but - "
Aubrey hesitated. Then, even as her own heart
began to pound, he forced out the words he
had been reluctant to say: "I'm here for a rea­
son. There's something I'm supposed to tell
you. A message from someone named Elfric-"
ill,
January sat Aubrey down at the kitchen
table, then took two glasses and a bottle from
the cupboard. She poured him a drink, which
he accepted gladly. "All right, then," January
said. "Start from the beginning."
Instead of responding, Aubrey downed his
glass. January refilled it, watching him all the
while. An intense excitement was gathering in
her body, but she fought to keep it at bay,
knowing that she had to be wary of hope. All
the same, as she poured, she noticed that her
own hands were trembling.
At last, Aubrey set down his glass, coughed,
and began speaking without preamble. "50 I've
been looking into the data we obtained from
the study. Fifty patients were enrolled a1togedl­
er, half of them in the control group, and the
initial results were just what you'd expect. The
transcripts were a jumble of words and images,
most of it paranoid and hostile, sinlilar to schiz­
ophrenic writing and speech . " H e paused.
"Gradually, though, the data began to change.
Subtle patterns emerged. Too subtle, in fact,
for any human reader to see."
January finished most of her own drink. She
found that she knew exactly what he was go­
ing to say next. "But not a computer. "
Aubrey began to stroke the head of the cat,
which had blithely jumped into his lap, as if
claiming the chair for its own. "That's right.
Over time, we can apply machine learning to
the analysis of the material, training the com­
puter, as it were, to spot statistical anomalies.
At some point, it began to notice that certain
words and phrases were recurring more often
than simple chance would predict. It's some­
thing like identifying an author based on the
peculiarities of his style. But here-"
He trailed off briefly, looking down at the
cat, which had curled up and fallen asleep.
"But here, the more I looked, the more I
THE VOICES
SEPTEMBER 2012
seemed to see a single voice. The transcripts
were converging. Something was being over­
laid on the raw hallucinations, as if someone
were speaking through these subjects. The
voice, whatever it was, did not seem typical of
schizophrenic speech. And it only appeared in
members of the control group living within a
specific geographical region. An area that is
centered, I've come to believe, on this very
!arm. "
January found d,at her mouth had gone dry.
"And when did this start to happen'"
"About two weeks ago , " Aubrey replied.
"Around the same time, according to your file,
that you stopped hearing the voices."
January refilled the glasses, spilling them
only slightly. "So what does the voice seem to
be saying'"
"Your name," Aubrey said simply. "Among
other things. At first, I thought it was a refer­
ence to the month of January, but schizo­
phrenics, as I've mentioned before, aren't very
good with time. I was wondering, in fact,
where your name came from. Is it because of
your birthday?"
"Yes. The last day ofJanuary. " She gave him
a shaky smile. "My parents say I was lucky I
wasn't born a day later. Is it important?"
"It could be." He scratched the sleeping cat's
ears. "You're probably familiar with the birth
month effect, which says that people born in
winter months are more likely to be diagnosed
with schizophrenia-"
"I've heard of it," January said. "I'm told it's
because of the higher rate of infections, like in­
fluenza, that can danlage dle brain. "
"That's one theory. But I'm starting to won­
der if something else might be at work. In one
of your interviews with Dr. Iyer, you men­
tioned that the voices tend to become softer in
the fall and winter. Is that tme?"
"Yes. And they increase in the summer.
When I was younger, I used to think that the
voices, whatever they were, fell asleep in the
winter, and that they grew strong later in the
year. Like the woods. "
"And if that's tme, then it could explain the
birth month effect," Aubrey said. "I've been
thinking about this all day. The rate of infant
brain growth is highest during the first six
months of life, meaning that for winter babies,
it peaks at the same time these voices are at
their strongest. Which makes me wonder if
61
ANALOG
children born in winter are sinlply more sensi­
tive to something in the air. It's all around us,
and can even penetrate the magnetically
shielded room at the hospital, but it's still
something that only a few special people can
hear. "
She remembered that there was something
he had not yet shared. "And the message?"
Aubrey glanced away. "It's very simple. So
far, it seems to recur, in various fonns, in nearly
all the control subjects from this areaJanuary,
come back. The time is near." He turned back
to her. "And there's one more I found today. E/­
fric says your grandmother is here."
January closed her eyes. Around her, instead
of the voices, she heard only the sound of the
wind outside. When she asked herself how she
felt, she found nothing but a foolish relief, as
well as a sense of inevitability, as if she had
known ali along how this story would end.
When she opened her eyes again, she no­
ticed that a few beads of sweat had gathered
on Aubrey's forehead. He seemed even more
frightened than before. "January, tell me. Who
are they'"
She considered her reply carefully. This was
a question she had pondered for most of her
life, but even when she asked the voices them­
selves, she had rarely obtained a straight an­
swer.
"They're what you might call the dark spirits
of nature , " January said at last. "It sounds
ridiculous, I know, but it's the best I can do.
They aren't angels or fairies. Maybe they're
closest to what we used to call elves. They
aren't supernatural, but a part of the natural
world, and they've always been here."
Aubrey nodded slowly, as if his own suspi­
cions were being confirmed. It occurred to
her that his literary background might have left
him relatively open to such possibilities. "And
what do they want?"
"Nothing, really. They mean no good to us.
But they don't mean any harnl, either. At most,
they want their voices to be heard. In the old
days, I think, everyone heard these voices, but
they've been splintered and lost. But now
you've given us a way to hear them again."
She reached out hesitantly and took his
hand. "IT you can, I'd like to see the rest of the
transcripts. I need to know more. If you're
right about this, there may be a message there
d,at only I can see. '
62
"Yes. You may be right . " Aubrey freed his
hand from hers, then glanced at his watch. "It's
late. I'd better get going. But I'll do what I can
to get the transcripts to you. Thanks again for
seeing me. "
"Of course." January watched as Aubrey
rose, managing not to displace the cat, and
headed for the cabin door, which she had left
open to the night air. At the door, he paused
for a moment, looking back, as if he wanted to
say something else. Then, turning away, he
was gone.
January went to the doorway, watching as
he walked down the path. As soon as he was
out of sight, she slowly pulled on her own
boots, picked up the electric lamp, and left the
cabin herself, going in dle opposite direction.
A few minutes later, she was out by the
pond. Going to the edge, she slipped off her
boots, feeling the mud between her toes. Then
she set the lamp down and waded into the wa­
ter until she was up to her knees.
January closed her eyes, shivering slightly,
her feet and calves growing numb. It would be
easy, she thought, to drown herself. Easier, per­
haps, than the choice that confronted her now.
Lifting her hands, she covered her face, hop­
ing that the voices would tell her what to do.
As before, there was nothing but silence, but
as she listened to the sound of the woods at
night, she sensed them out there somewhere,
trying to reach her, their voices obscured by
the wind.
All these years, she thought, the voices had
been preparing her for something. It was only
now, as she remembered the look of fear on
Aubrey's face, that she understood what it real­
lywas.
The world would be changed forever. After
centuries of legend and superstition, the first
real evidence had been obtained, using statisti­
cal analysis, that even in its own mind, human­
ity was not alone. And while she had been
living with these voices long enough to accept
them with a ready, if trembling, heart, for oth­
ers, it would be the greatest shock in human
history.
January opened her eyes, looking across the
pond at the dark line of trees in the distance.
What was needed, she saw clearly, was some­
one who could move between the two worlds.
An emissary, perhaps, one who could hear the
voices without any need of technological me-
ALEC NEVALA-LEE

diation. Someone who knew them, was
known by them, and could prepare the world
for their arrival.
Looking down at the black water, she re­
garded her own distorted reflection, joined to
her body by the knees. Then she turned back
to land, her flesh pebbled with goosebumps. It
would be a hard road, but she was ready. And
as she emerged from the pond, she found that
she was reconciled to the part she had to play.
Her boots and lamp were lying among the
reeds. As she pulled on her boots and took up
the lamp again, she halted. Something was
standing there, in the grass under the trees,
something shadowy and silent.
"Elfric?" The sOlmd of her own voice startled
her. For a moment after she spoke, the word
seemed to hang in the air, the hair on her arms
standing on end. There was no answer. Then
the wind changed, the grass shifted, and the
shadow, if it had been there at all, was gone.
By the following morning, after a sleepless
night, she had reached a munber of decisions.
It would be necessary, first of all, to end her
therapy. The treatment was blocking out the
voices and their messages at the very moment
when she needed to hear them most. She had
to stop now. And the best way of doing this,
she concluded, was to tell Dr. Iyer to his face.
She did not have an appointment scheduled,
but this did not prevent her from driving out to
the hospital. Upon her arrival, she went
straight to the neurologist's office, the door of
which was partway open. She knocked. "Dr.
Iyer?"
January pushed open the door. Inside, Dr.
Iyer looked up from his desk in surprise. "Janu­
ary. What are you doing here'"
"I need to see you. " She closed the door be­
hind her. "I know we don't have a session to­
day, but we need to talk."
After an almost imperceptible pause, Dr. Iyer
indicated the chair before him. "Yes, please, sit
down. There's something important I need to
tell you. Or would you prefer to talk on the bal­
cony?"
"I quit smoking," January said flatly, taking a
seat. "What was it you wanted to say?"
Dr. Iyer smiled apologetically. "I'm afraid I
have some bad news. We're ending rhe study. "
111is was the last thing she had expected to
hear. She was surprised by this, but qUietly en­
couraged, as if the pieces were falling into
THE VOICES
SEPTEMBER 2012
place without any effort on her part. "What
happened'"
"It's rather hard to explain." The neurologist
paused, as if gathering his thoughts. "As far as
we can tell, the treatment works. It causes the
voices to stop. There's no doubt of that. Unfor­
tunately, it seems to have some unexpected side
effects. I was aware that this might be an issue,
but until recently, I thought we could overcome
it. This turned out not to be the case. "
January saw that he was stalling on purpose,
as if afraid to get to the point. "Tell me."
A seashell stood on the neurologist's desk.
Picking it up, he began to toy with it nervously.
"The treatment, as you know, was based on
magnetic stimulation of the left temporopari­
etal junction. The function of this area is still
being studied, but we believe it has something
to do with the brain's sense of self. This is why
the therapy helps with auditory hallucinations,
which arise from a confusion between exter­
nal voices and tlle mind's own thoughts. But it
can also cause other delusions. "
He set down the shell. "One case, of partic­
ular interest, was written up in the literature a
few years ago. A patient with epilepsy was re­
ceiving magnetic stimulation of the tem­
poroparietal cortex, much like the patients in
our study, but in her case, it had an unusual
consequence. It caused her to perceive what
she saw as a foreign presence nearby. What we
might call a doppelganger. "
January began to feel uneasy. For a second,
she had the urge to get up and leave at once,
but forced herself to remain seated. "A doppel­
ganger. What do you mean? A double?"
"Yes. According to the report, she saw an­
other person in the room. The figure was
around her own age, of indeterminate sex,
with a similar build and bodily characteristics.
At first, it mirrored her position and move­
ments. She was convinced that it was real,
even after her doctors said that nobody was
there. And I'm afraid we're seeing sinlilar delu­
sions in our own patients. The temporoparietal
cortex is rebuilding itself, as we hoped, but
only by replacing the auditory hallucinations
with visual ones. Have you experienced any­
thing like this?"
After a tense pause, January shook her head.
"No, I haven't. Nothing of the sort. "
"I'm glad to hear it," Dr. Iyer said. "I've been
concerned about you. I was especially worried
63
ANALOG
when you mentioned, just now, that you'd giv­
en up smoking. Nicotine, as you're probably
aware, eases some of the 'J'mptoms of schizo­
phrenia, which is why so many schizophrenics
are heavy smokers. Patients who stop smoking
may experience a return of delusions, even in
forms they haven't encountered before. U any­
tiling like this happens, you need to tell me. "
January began to feel sick. An unpleasant re­
alization was gathering at the back of her
mind, but before it could take its final shape,
she heard herself speak: "First I need to see the
transcripts. "
Dr. Iyer seemed mystified by her request.
"TIle transcripts? What do you mean?"
"The records of the voices , " January said
calmly. "The ones you've been keeping for
analysis. "
"I'm sorry, but I don't think I understand, "
Dr. Iyer said. "As I've told you before, we take
patient confidentiality very seriously. Any data
regarding the voices were used only to cali­
brate the scanner, and nothing more."
January felt a headache growing behind her
eyes. "But I know you've been looking at the
voices. You're storing them, recording them,
like a brain bank Dr. Nathan told me this-"
"Really?" Dr. Iyer turned to a door by his
desk, which led to an adjoining office. "Dr.
Nathan, could you come in here, please?"
January turned as someone rose from a chair
in the next room and came to the door. For a
moment, she could only stare. Standing in the
doorway was a heavy woman in her fifties, her
graying hair tied back in a bun. The woman
looked between the two of them. "Yes?"
"I was hoping you could clear something
up. " Dr. Iyer said, indicating January. "This is a
patient of ours. According to her-"
Before he could finish, January rose from
her chair. Around her, the room seemed to
sway, and it was only with a considerable effort
that she managed to turn and head for the
door. Behind her, she heard the neurologist
calling for her to come back, but she did not
stop until she had reached the elevator.
Leaving the hospital, January moved across
the campus to where she was parked, walking
quickly at first, then breaking into a nm. When
she arrived at her car, she got behind the
wheel, then peeled off at once.
The drive home gave her plenty of time to
think. First she remembered Aubrey's face,
64
with his long hair and tan complexion, so
much like her own. She remembered how he
had been seated in a chair, directly across from
her, the first time she had seen hinl in Dr. Iyer's
office, and how whenever she encountered
him again, he initially seemed to approach
when she did, and halt when she halted.
Finally, she remembered sitting with hinl un­
der the trees in the quadrangle, on the day they
had first met, and noticing that the passing stu­
dents were watching them. She had thought
that the girls were eyeing her enviously, but
now realized that they had been staring at a
woman who was talking to nothing.
When she got home, she crossed the over­
grown field to her cabin, then looked around
the interior. On the kitchen table, untouched
from last night, was the bottle. Next to it was a
solitary glass.
Looking at the glass, she remembered how
the cat had fallen asleep on the chair, lying on
Aubrey's lap, as if no one else was there. Then
she turned and went down the hall to the bed­
room.
Inside the closet, there was a cardboard box,
only recently packed, full of the books that the
voices had told her to buy. The one she want­
ed was near the top. She took it out, then head­
ed for the woods.
Hours later, as night fell, she was still seated
on the bench by the pond, the book open in
her hands. The tears on her face had dried. Al­
though she heard nothing but the wind in the
trees, she knew, with perfect assurance, that
he would come. It was only a matter of tinle.
At last, she raised her eyes. Directly across
from her, seated under the trees on the far side
of the pond, was a darkened figure.
January rose. The man in the shadows did
the same. When she took a step forward, he
did as well. And as she moved in his direction,
matching him step for step as they neared the
pond, the book she was holding fell to the
ground, open to the same page as before. It
said:
Aubrey. French. Derived from the Ger­
man given name Alberic and the Anglo­
Saxon iElfric, or Elfric. Literally, "Fair
mler of the little people," or, alternative­
ly, "King of the Elves. •
'
Copyright © 2012 Alec Nevala-Lee
ALEC NEVALA-LEE
THE ALTERNATE VI EW Jeffery D. Kooistra
THE ALTERNATE VIEW GOES
TO THE MOVIES
I
watched the movie True Lies the other
night. It's a wonderful action-adventure
comedy starring Arnold Schwarzenegger
and Jamie Lee Curtis, directed by James
Cameron. I saw it the first time when it came
out in the '90s. For a movie buff like me, it's
entertaining in its own right to reflect on the
biographies of the actors. This was Arnold af­
ter his first two successes in Terminator
movies, but well before his time serving as
"the Governator" of California. Jamie Lee Cur­
tis has one of the solidest Hollywood pedi­
grees out there, being the daughter of Tony
Curtis and Janet Leigh, and it shows both in
her acting and her exceptional beauty.
Schwarzenegger of course has appeared in
a many SF related movies. In addition to the
Terminator franchise, he starred in Predator,
The Running Man, and Total Recall (based
on the Philip K. Dick story "We Can Remem­
ber It For You Wholesale"). Even True Lies is
on the borderline between straight action-ad­
venture and science fiction. Jamie Lee Curtis is
better known for her horror movies (that is,
among her genre credits) than for her SF out­
ings, although she was in the movie Forever
Young with Mel Gibson, which was a pleasant
SF love story. With The Terminator, The
Abyss, Aliens, and Avatar, James Cameron is
as recognized in the realm of science fiction
cinema as George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
But the reason I wanted to watch True Lies
that night was because I had just finished read­
ing In The Arena, the autobiography of Charl­
ton Heston (ISBN 0-684-80394-1), and Heston
has a small but vital role in the film that no
other actor could flIl.
If you're unfamiliar with True Lies, here's a
bit of background. Schwarzenegger plays a se­
cret agent for a CIA-like agency. His cover is
that of a computer company sales executive.
Even his dear and long suffering wife Jamie
Lee and his daughter (played by a young Eliza
Dushku, well known for her later work in
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other some­
what-SF TV series) have no idea what hubby
does when he goes off to work. At home
Arnold is a tedious nerd, with (apparently) no
life apart from his job, which he (apparently)
really loves. I won't go any deeper into the
plot, but for Arnold to portray this character
in this kind of film, he can't be the kind of
loose cannon, action hero, Terminatoresque
sort of guy we have all come to know from
most of his other movies. For one thing, such
a man could never convincingly be boring and
uninteresting at home; he wouldn't even have
that kind of cover, let alone be able to hide his
job from his friends and family.
For director Cameron to maintain the essen­
tial "suspension of disbelief" and keep his ftIm
from becoming just another silly special ef­
fects spectacular, he needed an anchor to hold
the whole shebang in reality. Going with the
metaphor, Schwarzenegger is an aircraft carri­
er of an actor, so Cameron had to cast an enor­
mous anchor to keep him in place.
He chose Moses.
This makes sense. An actor's onscreen per­
sona is as much shaped by his previous roles
as it is by his acting ability. Heston was one of
the last of the true Movie Stars, and also a fine
actor. He had bested an army of gorillas in
Planet of the Apes, defeated his Roman antag­
onist in a chariot race (perhaps the most icon­
ic set piece ever!), and parted the Red Sea. He
was more than a match for a body builder
with an Austrian accent, best known for play­
ing an emotionless machine. As Heston relates
it, Cameron told hinl, "I need you because you
65
ANALOG
can plausibly intimidate Arnold. "
Heston did not consider his role as intimi­
dating boss man Spencer Trilby to be anything
more than a cameo. He only appears in a few
short scenes, and these are just meetings be­
tween him and Schwarzenegger's team. Hes­
ton only brings up the matter in the context of
explaining why he played Cardinal Richelieu
straight in the romantic ,washbuckling 1973
remake of The Three Musketeers. Director
Richard Lester had told him he needed to be
the "solid center" of the movie. Farcical as that
film was, the Cardinal was not joking.
Cameo or not, when Heston is o n the
screen, even with Schwarzenegger i n the
room, there is no doubt who is in charge, why
he is in charge, and what will happen to you
if you forget it. Then in his early seventies, He­
ston is ramrod straight and still moving like an
athlete. His character has close-cropped gray
hair and he wears an eye patch. Speaking with
intimidating assurance, he minces no words
and engages in no friendly banter.
Yes, Arnold looked intimidated. He proba­
bly wasn't even acting.
I wanted to write about Charlton Heston
because while reading his autobiography I dis­
covered that he had not just acted in several
seminal SF movies, but that he had been, as
much as anyone, responsible for them as well.
And for that we owe it all to Ben Hur.
Ben Hur was a phenomenally successful
movie, setting the benchmark for future epics
for many years to come (a new benchmark
was set by The Lord of the Rings). It stayed in
theaters worldwide for over a year in some
places and made enough money to save MGM
studios. Nominated for 12 Academy awards,
winning 1 1 of them (including best actor for
Heston), it was a feat not repeated until James
Cameron's Titanic did it in 1998 and The Lord
of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2004.
As alluded to above, the chariot race is per­
haps the single most memorable action se­
quence in any movie in the entire history of
cinema. Though Ben Hur came out the year I
was born, I only saw it for the first time when
it came on TV in 1971. I still remember the
buzz among the boys in my elementary school
about that cool chariot race. Though Heston
was not the only actor considered for the lead
role, today it is hard to imagine anyone else
66
occupying it.
On page 236 Heston has this to say: "After
Ben Hur won aU the Oscars, I did understand
that my situation had altered, radically. I could
now not only pick my shots, to a large extent I
could control them . " When I said Heston was
responsible for some SF movies, I did not of
course mean that these movies would not
have existed at all in some form if not for him.
We may or may not have had Planet of the
Apes. We may or may not have had Solyent
Green. But without Heston, we would have
had significantly different movies, much dif­
ferent than just having another actor in his
role.
Planet of the APes, for instance, was being
strongly pushed for by producer Arthur Ja­
cobs. When Heston first saw the idea, as he
says on page 373: "The novel was singularly
unci nematic; there wasn't even a treatment
outlining an effective script. Still, I smelled a
good film in it." Jacobs had come up to Hes­
ton's house with a portfolio of paintings for
possible scenes and made his pitch. "When
Frank Schaffner came by, he liked it enough to
commit as director, but Arthur was a long way
from persuading a studio to put up any actual
money to make the movie. " But what Jacobs
did have was Charlton Heston willing to play
the astronaut, and Schaffer willing to direct.
Eventually 20'h Century Fox agreed to make
the movie. The rest is history. Multiple se­
quels, a TV series, a remake, and a recent re­
boot testify to the power of the idea behind
the original. Heston had indeed smelled a
good film. He discusses the making of the
movie over several pages; it's quite illuminat­
ing. On a personal note, a few years ago my
daughter Ashley, then 14, wanted to see the
movie. She watched it on DVD. I wondered
how she'd react when she got to the end and
saw that powerful image of the Statue of Ub­
erty rising out of the sand. Ashley was angry!
"It was Earth the whole time!" I'm actually
glad she felt that way. It means the specter of
nuclear war and human self-annihilation, by
that means at least, does not haunt the minds
of her generation. Maybe we did a few things
right since 196B.
Of the wildly dystopian movie Solyent
Green, based on the book Make Room! Make
Room! by Harry Harrison, Heston says (page
476) he had wanted to make it for a long time.
JEFFERY O. KOOISTRA

Sounding rather like an Analog editorial, he
adds: "Since I strongly believe that overpopu­
lation is by far the greatest problem the world
faces, this would be my only message movie. "
The movie was a big success but Heston
thought his most important contribution to
the film was his decision to cast Edward G.
Robinson as "Sol," the aging "book," one of
the few people in that fictional New York City
of 2022 still able to read and use the library.
Robinson had been famous since the '30s, and
had worked with Heston in The Ten Com­
mandments. They were very good friends.
There comes a point in the movie where Sol
has had enough of his overpopulated, over­
heated world and is determined to "go home."
He enters a facility where he is gently eutha­
nized while video plays all around him of how
beautiful the world used to be.
Heston describes with quiet poignancy the
tale beyond the ftIm moment. Robinson knew
he was dying when he took the roIe, though
no one else did. That death scene was the
very last scene he ever filmed. "For Eddie, he
was finishing as an actor, standing for the last
time on a sound stage, where he'd lived so
richly, for so much of his life. Twelve days lat­
er he was dead. No actor could ask for a better
way to go."
One of the other reasons I chose to write
about the movies for this particular column is
because this is an election year. I didn't want
to fan the flames of political controversy in
THE ALTERNATE VIEW GOES TO THE MOVIES
SEPTEMBER 201 2
the pages of Analog in what is shaping up to
be a fiery campaign season. In the Arena is an
exceptional autobiography written by an ex­
ceptionally successful actor who knows
enough to stick primarily with that which
made him famous. Though Heston became a
conservative icon in his later days, the book
was published before his leadership days at
the NRA. He spends a little bit of time explain­
ing some of his views in the last chapter, but
he doesn't preach (except once, see below),
nor does he dish any dirt. If ever an autobiog­
raphy took to heart the admonition "If you
can't say anything nice . . . " Heston's is it.
With respect to political views and affilia­
tions in the arts, I'd like to leave you with this.
Starting on page 537, Heston discusses filming
A Man For All Seasons for Ted Turner. Among
his costars was Vanessa Redgrave, and upon
her he lavishes praise, explaining why he
thinks she is the greatest actress alive. He adds
this paragraph: "Politically, Vanessa and I
could hardly be farther apart. I'm a conserva­
tive; her radical beliefs make Jane Fonda
sound like Herbert Hoover. I refuse to believe
that I've lost parts because of my politics;
Vanessa is openly blacklisted because of her
anti-Zionist convictions. The film and theater
communities should be ashamed of them­
selves. "
Amen to that . •
Copyright © 2012 Jeffery D. Kooistra
67
 Su san Forest
The biggest problems in dealing with a
chance discovery may not be technical. . . .
I
t wasn't a migraine aura, because it stayed
put, just above Willy's coffee table. It
wasn't Moses' burning bush in reverse-a
shimmering void rather than a shimmering
fire-because it didn't speak. It wasn't a hallu­
cination because Willy didn't do drugs.
So-what was it'
Enough to make Willy's jaw drop when he
walked into his apartment at 1 1 :30 Wednesday
night, sweating in the July heat. Enough to
snap him out of the funk he was in, after Eve­
lyn dumped him as a loser. Enough to distract
him from the kick in the head of being laid
off-and all the resulting despair of a career in
shambles and financial woes-that was suck­
ing him into a vortex of depression. That was
something.
He walked around it.
Spherical. Ish. Opaque, if that was a word
that cOl�d be used for something that did not
seem to exist as a solid object. Maybe a foot in
diameter? It was hard to look at, hard to judge.
He wafted air toward his nose. No smell. No
heat. It exuded nothing. It neither wavered
nor moved when he opened the window and
turned on the fan.
He picked up a cushion from the couch and
68
stretched out his arm, dangling one tassel over
it. Nothing.
No-wait. A corner of the cushion sheared
off, and stuffing fell on the coffee table. The
tassel-
Willy hugged the cushion to his stomach
and walked around the thing again, checked
the floor. The tassel was not just sheared, but
missing. No hiss, as though it had gone up in
flames, no smell of burning. The whole corner
of the cushion was-gone. The thing, whatev­
er it was, had not grown to encompass an in­
creased mass.
Hmm.
There was a ruler in the second bedroom.
Willy fetched it from his desk drawer, loosened
his tie, rolled up his sleeves and knelt in front
of the-whatever. It floated-not the right
word-it existed above the coffee table, as
though it had no weight. Willy extended the
ruler toward the-not object-until it-not
touched . . . was consLUned? No.
Disappeared.
Two inches. Yet, Willy was sure he hadn't
inserted the nder to full depth. He pushed fur­
ther. Six inches, ten inches-he dropped the
ruler. No way he was putting his fingers into

that thing.
Shit. What was it?
He pounded the internet. Nothing came
close.
At least the search-and the thing-distract­
ed him from his woes until, with a few shots of
bourbon, he fell into a kind of sleep on the
couch. Well, a fitful doze, ,mtil 5:30 AM, when
he could no longer ignore Evelyn's words mn­
ning in circles in his head. He decided he
didn't miss Evelyn, as much as he was haunted
by what she called him. Loser.
He wasn't a loser. He had a Ph.D. in chem­
istry, for pity's sake. Said so, on his EcoPower
business cards. Even if his mom called him
smart-stupid. And, he'd invented bonded hy­
drogen plasma pellets, and they worked, God
damn it. He was no loser. Reliable, concentrat­
ed fuel, safe enough to be handled, small
enough to be portable, powerful enough to
make mankind's energy woes go the way of
the dodo. Tightly bonded, o r the pellets
wouldn't have been safe, but otherwise-a
plasma of pure hydrogen as simple as anything
that existed during the big bang. And the only
pollution they created on combustion, was dis­
tilled water.
So it took three times more energy to make
them than they produced. A glitch!
But now EcoPower was folding, and every­
one in the company was out of work. And
where did a Ph.D. in chemistry get a job in this
research-funding-poor environment?
. . . like the old joke said. Driving a cab. Willy
flung himself off the couch in disgust.
Okay, maybe he was a failure. Mom made it
clear she wouldn't have anything to do with
him until he repaid his student loans. Like she
needed the money. But moms knew-didn't
they'-when their sons were failures'
Maybe he should change his name to
William.
He watched the void shimmer blackness as
the sun came up. He closed the curtains
against the day's promise of heat.
But what was it?
Willy sent off a flurry of emails and phone
calls. He needed to talk to a physicist, but all
the physicists at EcoPower had moved on. He
tried his previous contacts. He tried a bunch of
universities. But everyone was on sabbatical,
or moved to a different position, or on summer
holiday, or had gone home for funerals, or to
RENT IN SPACE
SEPTEMBER 2012
take care of their sister-in-law with breast can­
cer. How in hell did university physics depart­
ments operate in the summer?
Willy sat in his arm chair, staring at the thing,
trying to eat an English muffin that sucked up
all his saliva.
Screw this. He needed to look for a job.
Three weeks. Shit.
In some ways, driving a cab wasn't so bad.
Not enough income to repay his widowed
mother-who couldn't care less, by the way­
but he was amazed at how much money he
saved by not dating Evelyn. Who, like his cush­
ion, his mler, his Scrabble tile holder, and his
model of the USS Enterprise, seemed to have
vanished from the face of the earth.
When the annoying cat the old bachelor in
the apartment down the hall could never keep
track of leapt onto the back of his couch, lost a
paw, and fell into it before Willy could grab
him, Willy was left with half a carcass and
blood all over his living room. He felt really
bad, but what could he do? He fed the rest of
the dead cat into the anomaly, then fenced the
void with chairs to be sure he didn't acciden­
tally fall into it, too.
He didn't even try to move it.
Willy cleaned up the cat blood and went
back to his job search. No research grants. No
one was hiring-academia, industry, or gov­
ernment.
And there was no one who could tell him
about this black hole, ifthat's what it was. The
photo Willy sent out on the internet appeared
on page thirty-eight of the National Inquirer
within twenty-four hours, but generated no re­
sponse. The Oak Ridge Sanitation Department,
the Atomic Research Council, National De­
fense and Homeland Security all gave him
numbered recordings and computers to talk
to, then put him on hold, had no email ad­
dresses, and sent him to circular websites. He
worked into the evening, filling out email
forms.
The one guy who would talk to him was a
geek on late night radio who rotated every four
weeks on Tuesdays at 1 1 :30 PM with "Ask a Fi­
nancial Advisor, " "Ask a Lovelorn Columnist"
and "Ask a Car Mechanic. "
" Good evening welcome to 'Ask a Rocket
Scientist' the program that answers your ques­
tions about everything from quarks to spiral
as
ANALOG
galaxies you're on the air?" the guy spieled.
"Hi, I think I have a black hole in my living
room. "
"So do I . It's my mother-in-law. Next ques­
tion . "
What' "No, I mean, really." Willy regrouped.
"It's about . . . a foot in diameter. " Did the radio
guy sound familiar? "It has no energy of any
sort coming from it that I can tell, and every­
dling I insert into it vanishes."
"Well, I'll tell you one thing, Bud," the rock­
et scientist said. "It isn't a black hole. A black
hole compresses a tremendous mass into an in­
conceivably small space. A black hole a foot in
diameter would have the gravitational pull of
Jupiter, would suck up everything around it,
you'd be dead, and the earth would probably
be gone. "
"Wait a minute- " Was this guy for real? "I
thought it was a misconception that a black
hole sucks up everything around it. "
"Bud, if you had a black hole with the mass
ofJupiter in your living room, you'd fall into ir.
Believe me. "
"Okay . . . so it's not a black hole-"
"What you have there is a rent in space. "
"Oh-"
"Like a tear. Like a place where the space­
time continuum is broken. " The voice niggled.
How did Willy know him?
"Are they common?"
"Nope. Never heard of one before. And
now, folks, stay tuned for these messages, and
we'll be right back with 'Ask a Rocket Scien-
tist!'"
Willy hung up and slumped back from his
desk. Shit. Even the phony doctor on the radio
blew him off. Rent in space. No such thing.
Gah!
He swiveled his chair and looked with mild
disgust at the void or anomaly or black hole, its
shimmer visible through the office door above
the wall of hlrniture stacked around it. God­
damn it, a mini black hole, or a rent in space,
or whatever it was, had to be earth-shattering.
Earth shattering!
The phone rang.
Midnight'
-Evelyn. Calling to say she got his last fif­
teen messages. Or mom, saying all was forgiv­
en-ha.
He picked up. "Hello?"
"Willy Kavenaugh?"
70
"Yes . . . " That voice-
"This is Bernard Bester. Ask a Rocket Scien­
tist, CKZX? You called me earlier. "
"Yes-"
"The anomaly you described on the show
tonight piqued my interest. "
Finally. Willy leaned his elbows on the desk.
"When I'm not moonlighting as a radio ex­
pert, I actually have a Ph.D. in physics. I work
for Rada-Rid. I would be very interested in see­
ing this object. "
"It's not actually an object-"
"Yes, yes, I understand," Bernard said over
hinl. "Could I get your address, and come by to
see it?"
"Absolutely!"
W'illy gave Bernard the details and hung up
the phone. He sat back in his chair.
Maybe-at last-his luck changing.
"Willy Kavenaugh?" The tall man standing in
the corridor in casually impeccable business at­
tire was effortlessly handsome. Not what Willy
had imagined in a late night radio show host.
And-
The lanky man thrust out a hand. "Call me
Bernard. "
Willy extended his. "Yes. You're early. I'm
sorry, the apartment-"
"Right, I couldn't wait to see it. May I ? "
Bernard stepped past Willy a n d down the
short hallway to the living room.
Willy's second year at Harvard. Introductory
physics. That's where Willy had known him.
Bernard Bester. Brilliant and charming. And
something else, something bigger . . . was
hauled up to the Dean's office for some rea­
son. Left school shortly afterward.
Willy followed Bernard into the living room
where the guy was staring at the blood stains
on the carpet. He eyed Willy, then bent over
the stack of hlrniture, peering into the jittering
blackness.
"You say you work for Rada-Rid?" Willy
asked.
"That's right. I don't tell Rada-Rid about
CKZX. They might not understand. " He
flashed a Hollywood smile and gave Willy his
card. "World's largest nuclear waste disposal
company. Offices in Japan, China, India, and
all through the Middle East and Europe. "
"I've heard of it. "
"We have offices right here in Oak Ridge.
SUSAN FOREST

Working with the nuclear power generating
station. " Bernard patted his pockets. "Do you
have a pencil?"
Willy gave him the pen on the coffee table.
Bernard seemed to have come out well from
whatever cloud he was under ten years ago.
"Watch out," Willy warned. "It can be danger­
OllS. "
" I f it is what 1 think it is, you're right. "
Bernard slid the pen into the hovering void. Bit
by bit, the end disappeared. When Bernard
pulled it out, the tip was missing, and ink
dripped onto Willy's chair. "Fascinating. "
Bernard straightened. "How long has it been
here?"
"Three weeks. It's a problem."
"\Vilo have you told?"
"Everyone." Willy rattled off his list. "Can't
get past the bureaucrats. '
Bernard nodded thoughtfully. " G o o d .
Good . " He looked at t h e p e n in h i s hand,
shoved the remainder into the anomaly and
cleaned the ink from his fingers on a handker­
chief. "In actual fact, Willy, if I may call you
that, this is not a problem at all."
"You know what it is?"
"I can't confirm anything on the basis of one
observation, but Gunther and Higman, 2019,
and Gunther, Higman, and Smyles, unpub­
lished, have postulated the existence of space­
time discontinuities. They are waiting for
access to the Large Hadron Collider right now,
to test their theories. "
"You know them'"
"} can get in touch."
In spite ofhirnse\f, WIlly pulled up a kitchen
chair and gestured to the couch for Bernard.
"Holes. In the space-time continuum. Wouldn't
that blast the universe apart?"
"You'd think so. But-theoretically-on
their own, they are quite benign. " Bernard
fished anodler pen from the papers on W'illy's
coffee table and clicked it, looking up expec­
tantly. Oh. Willy brought him a pad of paper
from the office. "Imagine a universe of only
one dimension: length . " Bernard drew a
straight line along one edge of the paper.
"What would happen if it was torn'" He made
a small rip in the paper, bisecting the line.
"An object on one side would have no con­
nection or communication with the other
side," Willy said.
"Good." Bernard held the paper between
RENT IN SPACE
SEPTEMBER 2012
the two of them. "A universe of two dimen­
sions, length and width. " He poked the pen
through the paper. "An object within that uni­
verse could move at will around the hole in
two dimensions, but in the third dimension,
depth, the hole goes all the way through. "
Willy nodded. "So a discontinuity in a three­
dimensional space you could walk around-"
"But in the fourth dimension, time, it would
be permanent. We wouldn't even know it was
there, because the absence it represents would
have been there from the beginning of time,
and would remain until the end of time. "
Willy leaned forward. "So i n our universe,
widl more than four dimensions, the hole will
have limits in the time dimension. It ap­
peared-"
"And it will disappear, " Bernard confirmed.
"But in the meantime, it could be useful."
Why did WIlly have a bad feeling about this'
Bernard put the pen in his pocket. "I am
sure Rada-Rid will be more than willing to talk
to you further about an association. "
Rada-Rid. Nuclear waste disposal. Willy's
stomach soured. "That sounds-"
"Don't make up your mind without all the
facts. '
"But we're talking nuclear waste. You want
to dump it in my apartment?"
Bernard raised a brow and shoved Willy's
pad of paper into the rent with finality.
Gone. Nothing.
He had a point.
"In the past three weeks, how much stuff
have you put into it?" Bernard asked.
An old tennis racket. Banana peels. The
stack of newspapers he was planning on tak­
ing to the recycling depot. Okay, Willy had to
admit he had been cleaning up around the
apartment.
"And it hasn't got any bigger'"
"No . . . "
"That fits the theory. "
Willy sat back in his chair. "But what about
the first law of thermodynamics?"
"Energy is neither created, nor destroyed. '
"According to E=MC', matter is only a struc­
tured form of energy. If I put this paper clip
into that rent in space, isn't it leaving our uni­
verse? And if so, doesn't that represent the de­
stnlction of energy, in our universe?"
"But suppose it hasn't left our universe. Sup­
pose it has simply become dimensionless."
71
ANALOG
"I don't follow. "
"That paper clip may exist, but without
length, width, height-or time."
"But you said the rent in space will end.
Won't all the junk that went into it, suddenly
reappear?"
"The rent in space won't end. Our time
stream will just flow around and past it. What­
ever is caught in the rent will remain in a time
dlat has no dimension. Timeless, if you will."
Willy thrust a tongue into his cheek. This
didn't feel right. "You're sure?"
"Would you like to meet Gunther, Higman,
and Smyles?"
"} think so, yes."
"I am certain they will want to meet you. I'll
set up the contacts." Bernard stood. "But in
the meantime, can we do one test?"
"What?" Willy got to his feet.
"A small pellet of radium. We put it in, we
test wim a scintillation counter. No radiation­
no problem. "
Willy recoiled.
"And if we're successful-which we will
be-all the credit will go to you, of course. As
the rent's discoverer. " Bernard lowered his
voice as though embarrassed. "I . . . took the
liberty of Googling you. I know that EcoPower
has folded. That Evelyn posted- "
" } still-"
"Top chairs at all the universities, Willy. Re­
search grants. Dare I say . . . Nobel?"
Willy's heart began to pound. "You said, one
test?"
The next day, Bernard appeared at Willy's
door pulling a block of concrete on a dolly. "I
had this specially made," he said as he rested
me dolly on Willy's living room floor.
"That was quick. " Willy's shift with the cab
company was done at noon and he already
missed the air conditioning in the car.
Bernard unpacked the scintillation counter.
"I know an engineer in Warehousing Security. "
He winked. "And she knows me. "
"Isn't it against Rada-Rid policy to remove
nuclear wastes without authorization'" Willy
moved a chair out of the pile of furniture
around the rent in space, to give Bernard ac­
cess. "Like, isn't it all accounted for?"
"Warehousing Security authorized the trans­
fer." Bernard switched on the scintillation
cOlUlter, and it registered normal background
72
radiation. He pointed to the concrete block.
"The pellet I brought is a quarter-inch in length
and it is encased in steel and concrete. " He
held the wand next to the casing. " Now,
watch, because I ' m only going to do this
once."
Suspiciously, Willy crouched by the con­
crete case.
Bernard flicked a lever, slid two parts of the
concrete case apart and the digits on the scin­
tillation counter went wild. He slipped the
concrete case closed. "Satisfied' It's the real
thing. Normally we don't make cases mat open
like that, but for you, I was able to pull strings.
Don't tell anyone. "
"Like who'"
"Like Estelle in Accounting. I swear, she's
out to get me. "
Accounting? Bernard had Warehousing Se­
curity under his spell, but Accounting was sus­
picious? On the other han d - n a h .
Accountants were paid to be suspicious.
"A witch with a 'b. ", Bernard nodded to
Willy and the two of mem hefted the concrete
case unevenly to the height of the rent in
space, the weight of the box shifting agoniz­
ingly onto Willy's shorter frame. "A driven ca­
reer woman with no personal life, no family.
And short hair. " They fed the block into the
rent. "I tried to be nice. I asked her out to din­
ner. She wouldn't go. I hold me door for her.
She holds it for me with a smirk on her face. I
give her clear instructions on how I like my
coffee and she tells me to get my own. I tell
you-and I've told everyone in R&D-she is
out to get my career. Maybe my life. " He tossed
the remaining fragments of concrete into the
rent.
"She can't be that bad."
"And-" Bernard cleaned his fingers on his
handkerchief. "She bugs me!"
"I'm sure you bug her right back. "
"No! That's the thing, I don't-" A thought­
ful expression smacked Bernard in the face.
"But I could."
Willy found a brush and swept up the con­
crete dust. "Probably not a good idea, though.
To bug her. "
Bernard's gaze snapped on him as though
hearing his words a moment late. " N o . Of
course not. You're right." He switched on me
scintillation counter and swung the wand gen­
tly around the room and over the rent. "So.
SUSAN FOREST

We're agreed. Only background radiation. !t's
gone."
Willy had to agree. "It is . . . gone. "
Bernard put an arm o n Willy's shoulder.
"This is a solution to one of humanity's greatest
problems, Willy. With safe, permanent storage
of nuclear wastes-hell, toxic wastes, bio­
wastes, any kind of wastes-"
Willy trembled at the thought.
"And, " Bernard whispered i n his ear,
"through private industry, rather than govern­
ment, there is money to be made. Substantial
money. Good thing we're associated with
Rada-Rid. "
Willy stared up at him. Money.
Bernard released him and packed up his
scintillation counter.
How much money?
"There's just one thing. "
By God, Bernard was not talking peanuts.
"Willy, you live in a residential neighbor-
hood . "
Millions' Hell, at the very least.
"I was able to bring this small pellet today
with no one noticing, but-"
Billions? The thought made Willy sit on the
edge of the couch.
Bernard's tote clicked closed. "We're going
to need clearances. Now, I can take care of the
paperwork . . . "
"Bribes'" The word popped out of Willy's
mouth.
Bernard was horrified. "Bribes! Willy, where
do you get that from?" The physicist shook his
head. "We are doing everything by the book.
Legal and lawful. We're in this for the long
term and we don't want any investigations bit­
ing us in the ass later. "
"Oh." Willy felt himself redden. "Of course.
For as long as the rent stays open. "
"Right. " Bernard extended the tote handle
to its fullest length and pulled it to the door.
"So, I'm going to need your Citizen card. "
Willy frowned. His citizen card had all his
biometrics. "Why?"
"This is your apartment," Bernard explained,
as though to a child. "The cases need to be de­
livered here. We need permissions to move
them through this residential area of Oak
Ridge."
"Oh."
Bernard waited patiently.
"Right. " Willy went to his office and fetched
RENT IN SPACE
SEPTEMBER 2012
his wallet. He pulled out the card. "I need it
back."
"Of course. I'll expedite things this after­
noon." Bernard flipped out his phone, then
flicked it closed. "Stop by Rada-Rid tomorrow.
1 should have everything taken care of by one
o'clock."
Willy nodded dumbly as Bernard left the
apartment.
Millions. He could pay his mom back. And
He didn't really care if he ever saw Evelyn
again.
The Rada-Rid receptionist muted her phone.
"Sorry. We didn't caU for a cab."
"Oh, I'm not-"
The receptionist's attention was called back
to her client, and Willy waited.
The Rada-Rid office in Oak Ridge took up
three floors of a downtown skyscraper and its
appointments were professional and luxuri­
ous. And it was blessedly cool. To the recep­
tionist's right, a double door labeled R&D stood
closed, but to her left, the doors stood open.
Accounting.
Just within, a secretary typed madly, and be­
yond her, through a second door, a black
woman spoke on the phone, gesturing madly.
The receptionist gave Willy a "just a few
more minutes" gesture and Willy shifted a little
to read the name plate on the black woman's
door. ESTEl.l£ BAIN. SO this was the infamous Es­
telle. She didn't look like a witch. Petite and
fiery were the words that sprang to Willy's
mind.
"You had an appointment?" The receptionist
closed her phone.
"No. Sorry. I've been calling for a week and
haven't been able to connect. "
"We put through all calls. "
Willy shmgged.
"You have identification? Sorry, it's compa­
ny policy. "
Bernard still had Willy's Citizen card. Willy
gave the young woman his drivers' license and
a business card from EcoPower. The recep­
tionist's features shifted when she noted the
"Ph.D." on the card. She tapped on her com­
puter. "Dr. Bester will see you. "
Bernard closed his screen and rose o n long
legs as Willy walked in. "Willy!" he shook his
hand. "Sorry we couldn't connect last week. "
73
ANALOG
"I got your text-"
"Bureaucrats. Couldn't complete everything
as quickly as I'd hoped. Here's your card, by
the way. " He tucked Willy's Citizen card into
his uniform pocket and stood by the door as if
he expected Willy to leave.
"That's not all," Willy said. "I've had three
deliveries this week, Bernard, and the woman
you send over is a little brusque with me if I'm
not home on time. I have a job-"
Bernard closed the office door. "Sinthia. Cor­
porate Security. Isn't she a gorgeous woman?
She's under a little stress right now. Dealing
with an insanely jealous husband."
Willy was determined to speak. "I'm glad
you got the paperwork through so quickly,
but-"
"That rent could close any time, " Bernard
warned good-naturedly. " Gunther, Higman,
and Smyles have conflicting theories on that."
"Yes, but the concrete containers your Cor­
porate Security is bringing are too big-"
"Sinthia told me they fit through your door. "
"It's not that, Bernard. They're too big for
the rent. "
"Nothing's too big for the rent, Willy. "
"The rent shears off the tops of the boxes
and we have to feed them in several times. And
my apartment is exposed to radiation as soon
as the concrete is breached. "
"Only momentarily," Bernard reassured him,
long fingers on the door knob. "I'm working
on getting an infrastructure built to take care of
it. "
Willy held his ground. "Then you need to
hold off on the deliveries until then. "
"But we don't know how long the rent will
be open. Willy. We need to rid this planet of as
much nuclear waste as we can before it clos­
es."
"Bernard, if this is a legitimate operation,
where are the installations and personnel?"
"Now, Willy, these things take time. Believe
me, I have it all under control. ' He put an ann
on Willy's shoulder and opened the office
door. "Listen. My two-o'clock will be here any
minute. " He guided Willy to Reception. "Keep
in touch." He closed the door.
"But you don't rerurn my calls!" Willy cried,
furious.
"Excuse me! Wait!" The receptionist flipped
her phone closed and darted out from behind
74
her desk.
"What!" Willy snapped, then immediately re­
gretted it. This poor ymmg woman was not the
object of his frustration.
''I'm sorry, sir. " The receptionist gestured to­
ward the double doors on her left. "Ms. Bain
was wondering if you had a minute for her. "
Willy followed the receptionist's gesture and
saw the petite woman march past her secre­
tary toward the outer office. AU angles and en­
ergy. Estelle.
Who was out to get Bernard.
"Yes. I have tinle. "
Estelle strode forward, hand extended. "Dr.
Kavenaugh?"
Willy frowned pleasantly at her welcome
and shook her hand. "Have we met?"
"No, no," she laughed. "I've been on the
phone all morning trying to find someone
with your qualifications. My receptionist, Sam,
here, happened to mention she'd seen your
card, and-well, I've just been so frustrated
trying to get through to anyone . . . " She dim­
pled a grin. "It's month-end and we're up to
our ass in alligators. "
He returned her smile. It had been a while
since anyone wanted him for his qualifica­
tions. "How can I help you?"
She led him past her secretary to her inner
office. "The strangest thing has appeared in
my close t . " She opened a desk drawer and
passed him a paper clip box.
He tilted his head in puzzlement. He opened
the box.
Within lay a translucent spherical pellet, ap­
proximately a quarter of an inch in dianleter. It
couldn't be-
He looked up sharply. "Where did you get
this?" He could swear it was a bonded hydro­
gen plasma pellet.
"That's the odd thing." She closed her office
door, pulled a chair in front of it and gestured
for him to climb up. "Look in the cupboard. "
Bewildered, h e followed her instructions. In
the cupboard over the closet behind the office
door was a rent in space. A pile of, maybe, fif­
teen translucent pellets lay under it. Fifteenl A
fortune.
"Are there more again?" she asked.
"Yes." He looked down at her. "Did you no­
tice the black, shinlmery thing?"
"Yes. Like I said. That's the odd thing." She
produced a glue stick box and a pencil. "You
SUSAN FOREST

can knock the pellets into the box with this.
But be careful. I don't know what that black
thing is."
Stunned, Willy did as he was told. The glue
stick box already held a dozen pellets.
"I've been on the phone and on the comput­
er for a month, trying to get through to the
Sanitation Department, the Atomic Research
Council, National Defense, Homeland Security,
about six universities . . . " She threw her hands
up in the air. "When I found out you were a sci­
entist for EcoPower, I thought I'd try you. " She
looked at his unifonm and frowned.
"Was a scientist for EcoPower. They've fold­
ed. But I still know a couple of lab guys there,
winding things down. I could . . . " he
shrugged. "See if anyone there can identify
your pellet s . " If he was right, if the tiny
spheres were pure bonded hydrogen plasma­
all his troubles would be over.
"If you would, that'd be one mystery solved.
I'm a little scared. "
Dragon lady? Scared? Still, having a rent in
space in one's apartment-or office-was un­
nerving, to say the least. Willy put the paper­
clip box in his pocket and gestured to the
cupboard over the closet where the rent hov­
ered. "But for that, I think you need a physi­
cist. "
"Believe me, I've been trying."
"But you have one across the hall. Bernard. I
mean, Dr. Bester. "
Her eyes became guarded. "You know him
. . . on a first-name basis'"
Willy flustered. "No, not really. I mean . . . "
Should he explain about meeting over the ra­
dio? "I went to school with him. About ten
years ago. Briefly. "
"Oh."
"What I mean is .
She waited.
"I nlean . . . "
"What brings you to see hinl today?"
Estelle. Out to get Bernard. Not that he
didn't sympathize, but . . . "We're . . . working
on a project together. "
She smiled and put the chair back by the
table. She gestured for him to sit. "Tell me
more."
No way Willy wanted to get caught up in of­
fice politics.
"Something to do with . . . radiation?"
He startled.
RENT IN SPACE
SEPTEMBER 2012
"That is Rada-Rid's business."
Willy set the glue box full of pellets on her
table. "I'll . . . I'll get in touch when I know
"
more for YOll. He shook her hand and got the
hell out of there.
Shit. A second rent in space. And Bernard,
the rocket SCientist, said they were uncom­
mon.
Willy tried to keep his speed down as he
drove from EcoPower to Rada-Rid. The heat
had let up a little after last week's rain, but the
humidity and smog made the drive choking
and stiCky. At least the cab had air.
So, how many rents in space were there?
And why had no one heard of them? Well, as
to why no one had heard of them, Willy could
guess. Only astrophysicists could discover new
phenomena, it seemed. In laboratories. Not
laymen in their apartments.
He parked his cab and had to hold himself
back from running down the street to the tow­
er's glass doors.
And-bonded hydrogen plasma pellets! A
shitload of them. Enough to push nuclear fuel,
biofuels, wind and solar power off the map for
years to come. Who knew? Forever, maybe, if
the pellets kept appearing in Estelle's office.
He botmced on his toes impatiently at the el­
evator, grinning at the office workers. It was al­
most nine o'clock-Estelle mllst be in her
office by now. He hoped. The news from his
meeting with Jason at EcoPower this morning
couldn't wait.
He'd tossed and turned all night for the past
week, waiting for Jason to confirm what Willy
already knew: these pellets were the real thing.
A simplified form of hydrogen plasma created
just after the big bang, and recreated, briefly,
at EcoPower. Bonded, and safe.
The elevator doors opened and he joined
the rush of office workers going lip.
The question of where the pellets had come
from had, of course, nagged Willy, but he'd
convinced himself that Estelle's rent in space
and his own must be connected. From the lit­
tle he knew of physics, pairs of particles often
appeared-and disappeared-together. Elec­
trons and positrons. Matter and antimatter.
Willy's reading of Gunther, Higman, and
Smyles suggested that-theoretically-the pair
of rents would remain stable until matter was
sent in the reverse direction. Which could be
75
ANALOG
as long as Rada-Rid and EcoPower wanted.
The elevator pinged at the eleventh floor.
Rada-Rid.
And Willy had thought of a test to see if the
two rents were joined. Sinthia had brought
three more deliveries of nuclear waste this
week. Estelle would know if-and when­
more pellets appeared.
He stopped at reception. The same young
woman was on duty. "] called earlier. ] am here
to see Estelle Bain. "
The first law of thermodynamics could not
be denied. All that radioactive waste had not
simply become dimensionless. It had left the
space-time continuum. In order for energy to
be conserved, an equivalent amount of energy
had to be "created" somewhere else. But that
it had appeared in the form of big-bang hydro­
gen plasma was . . . was . . . anti-entropic!
"Dr. Kavenaugh. " Estelle smiled with her
eyes, pert, petite, and pretty.
"Ms. Bain. " He wanted to hug her off her
feet.
"Please, come in." She seemed happy to see
him.
Willy followed her into her office and closed
the door behind him. She gestured to her table
and they both took a seat.
" I have good news. " He leaned forward,
barely able to contain his excitement.
"EcoPower has confiroled that your pellets are
bonded hydrogen plasma. It is an amazing
find. "
"What's 'bonded . . . hydrogen . . . >", She
leaned forward as well.
"An extremely rare and valuable form of
clean energy. EcoPower is very interested. "
God, he sounded like Bernard.
"Really?" She blinked.
" EcoPower is low on manpower right
now-" it was all but closed down-"but as
soon as pOSSible, they want their lawyers and
Rada-Rid's lawyers to hammer out an agree­
ment. ] . . . " he let his palm drift toward her
hand. "] hope Rada-Rid will recognize your un­
portance in this find."
Estelle laughed and gripped his fingers. "Fi­
nally. We're getting to the bottom of these
weird things." She frowned and let go of his
hand. "But I have a question. "
"Shoot." The sensation of her touch tingled
his fingertips.
"Why did this black thing and the pellets
76
wind up in my office?"
"I don't know. "
She tilted her head. Her puzzlement was so
engaging.
"It's a random event. I'm guessing."
"Still-weird. "
He had to agree. "I don't know much about
it. ] don't know how common space-tinle dis­
continuities are. "
"A . . . discontinuation-a tear-in the fabric
of space?" She frowned, trying to get her mind
around the idea. "Wouldn't you find them in
outer space? Like, near a sun or something?"
"Maybe. " He was hesitant to reveal too
much about his association with Bernard and
his own rent in space. She might think Willy
was just as much a slimeball as Bernard. "] sup­
pose one could appear on the surface of a
planet just as easily. "
"Like, in my office . " She pushed her hair
back in the most distracting way. "But, why
me? \Vhy am ] special?"
"You're thinking of Creationism. "
"What do you mean?"
"That some great mind out there picked you
specifically to be the recipient of this-what­
ever it is," Willy said. " Most scientists would
say it's not like that. It's just random. No reason
given. "
She pondered. "All right . . . "
"But?"
She seemed overwhelmed, yet she persist­
ed. "Why is this-thing-staying in my office?
Shouldn't it be ripping though the earth caus­
ing havoc everywhere?"
"Well, no. Whatever forces are acting on
your office on this earth in this galaxy in this
universe-relative to all the other galaxies in
this universe-are the same forces acting on
the anomaly. So if your office is moving rela­
tive to the rest of the universe in a certain di­
rection at a certain speed, then so is the
anomaly. That's why it is staying in your of­
fice."
"For how long?"
He shrugged. "Physicists think until the di­
rection of matter flow reverses. But they don't
knOw. "
"Right. " She nodded slowly. " Okay. " She
took his hand again. "This is so very confus­
ing. " She lifted dancing eyes. "But exciting. "
He gripped her fingers back. He had to
agree.
SUSAN FOREST

. . .
"Willy!"
Willy stopped at the elevator, his euphoria
faltering at the sound of Bernard's voice. He
turned.
Bernard strode past the receptionist, tension
beneath his Hollywood smile.
"The crates are the same size, Bernard."
Bernard flicked a glance at the office boy
stepping from the elevator. "Come on in, Willy.
My office is a more comfortable place to talk. '
Willy let out a breath of frustration, but fol-
lowed Bernard's tall frame.
Bernard closed the office door. "Friends
with Estelle?"
The comment riled Willy. "At least she
makes time to see me."
Bernard's eyes narrowed fractionally in cal­
culation. Then he relaxed. "Sorry about the
size of the containers, Willy. 1 told Sinthia,
but-"
Yeah, right. "I knOw. She's wlder stress. Jeal-
ous husband. '
Bernard lifted a brow in surprise.
"You told me."
He laughed. "That's right."
"And there have been seven deliveries, now,
Bernard. No protection, no containment, no
infrastructure. I ' m wondering if anyone at
Rada-Rid knows about this money-making ven­
ture except you and Sinthia."
Disappointment tinged Bernard's face. "lis­
ten, all 1 can do is apologize-"
"These things take time," Willy supplied for
him. The creep.
Bernard went to his desk and pulled a busi­
ness card out of his drawer. "Willy, this won't
happen again. 1 promise. If there is anything­
anything-" He put the business card in the
breast pocket of Willy's uniform. "Call me.
That's my direct line and my home number. "
He opened the door to the reception area.
"And, 1 guess it is too early to talk money, "
Willy said.
TIle receptionist lifted her head.
Bernard stopped dead in the doorway. "I'm
stunned, Dr. Kavenaugh!"
Willy spun in surprise. What the hell did
Bernard-
"You and Estelle. The two of you , " he
fumed. "What are you trying to pull?"
Hot fury flashed through Willy's chest and
spilled up his neck. How dare he-
RENT IN SPACE
SEPTEMBER 2012
How dare he-
Words fled Willy's tongue. His body turned
rigid and heat funned his face.
Bernard glared from the doorway. The re­
ceptionist had turned red and seemed to be
trying to sink behind her desk. Two people­
secretaries? Clients? Researchers'-lifted their
heads, their conversation halted.
Mouth clamped closed, Willy turned on his
heel and marched for the elevator.
His cell rang before he reached the cab. 865
exchange. Could be Rada-Rid. Bernard? He al­
most didn't answer.
He punched a button. "Yeah?" he snapped,
pulling the keys to the cab from his pocket.
"Willy?" Estelle.
He slowed to a stop beside his cab. "Sorry, "
he said. "I just-"
"I know. Everyone in the office knows."
"Knows what?"
She hesitated. "Depends on who you talk to.
That Bernard is an asshole, mostly. "
"And the rest?"
"That you and 1 are embroiled in something
big."
"Shit. "
"Meet me for lunch. '
Willy leaned a stiff arm against the cab,
studying his feet, and let out a long breath.
"Yeah. Good. Okay. Where?"
"Where we can't be seen together. "
"Sure. Yeah. Where?"
"My apartment. It's not far. " She gave him
the address.
"Okay. Listen. I have something to tell you. "
Estelle spoke in a low voice and leaned close
to him at the kitchen table as if her walls had
ears.
A beer with lunch-just one-had calmed
Willy slightly. He'd finished with his you-know­
what-l-should-have-saitls. For now.
"I'm not an accountant."
Willy blinked. "Hey, 1 don't . . . mind." Was
she coming on to hinl? Confessing her person­
al little white lie so their relationship could
continue on a basis of trust? "I'm not really a
cab driver. " He shook his head in pleased puz­
zlement. "Well, not really. "
"I'm an undercover agent from Rada-Rid's fi­
nance department."
" A n - " This was the second time today
77
ANALOG
Willy was speechless. Rada-Rid had undercov­
er agents in their finance department? And
what did that have to do with-
"I'm investigating Dr. Bester. "
The pieces tumbled into place.
"Misappropriation of company funds. And
recently, shady dealings with foreign nuclear
waste suppliers that we can't quite pin down. "
Slowly, Willy nodded.
"I bugged his office. I heard everything you
said to him."
Caution stilled Willy's heart. What had he
said . . .
"I know you and Bernard are in on a money­
making scheme together. You've accepted sev­
en deliveries. You complained about the
radiation." Her dark eyes pleaded hopelessly
with him to deny everything. "It sounded like
you call all the shots. "
"What'" Willy jostled the table, almost leap­
ing to his feet.
"Bernard opened a bank aCCOlmt in the Cay-
man Islands in your name. It's worth millions. "
"\VIlat?"
"Keep your voice down. "
His skin clawed to get out of the kitchen, es­
cape. His fingers ached to strangle Bernard's
skinny neck-
"Well? Turning green is no response. "
"I knew it!" His hands balled into fists. "I
knew it! I knew he was a scheming, lying bas­
tard! God, why did 1- "
"Dramatics are no defense. "
He pushed his hands through his hair.
"What can I say? You're wrong. The whole
thing was Bernard's idea, he said he'd take care
of the paperwork, it would all be legal-"
"What thing?"
He riveted his gaze on her. "You're not the
only one with a rent in space. I have one as
well. I think-they come in pairs."
She squinted at him and shook her head.
"Rent-"
"We've been feeding nuclear waste into the
one in my apartment. I think it is coming out
of yours as hydrogen fuel."
She shook her head in amazement. "Good
scheme. Money on both ends. "
"Bernard doesn't know about the hydrogen
fuel. '
She blew out a puff of air in relief. "I'd like to
believe you. This isn't the first scam Bernard's
tried to pull. I was investigating him for a dif-
78
ferent one before you showed up. He's smart. "
Willy took a breath to calm himself.
"But 1 have to ask. The bank account."
God. Where had that come from? "I don't
knOw. This is the first I've heard of it."
She lifted her head in warning.
"I swear. "
"You're saying Bernard set it up without you
knowing' And gave you all the money?"
Willy lifted his shoulders. "I . . . 1 don't know
what to say. And-why would he do that?"
''I'm guessing, to transfer his privately-bro­
kered millions-from dumping foreign nuclear
wastes-into a fake account in your name until
he can get to Cayman and move it to his own
account. A double-blind, with you as the fall
guy in case sometlling goes wrong. But what I
don't know is, how could he get around the
bureaucracy? The biometrics?"
Willy started to shake his head-then it
Came to him. "My Citizen card." He turned to
her. "He borrowed my Citizen card. "
"You gave Bernard -"
"He said he needed it. To set up the paper­
work to allow the delivery of nuclear wastes to
my apartment . . . "
"He's copied all your biometrics by now. "
"You can't copy biometrics! That's why-"
His voice faltered under her gaze of amaze­
ment. "Can you?"
She shook her head. "Willy. In this day and
age? Do you know how stupid that sounds' La­
tex fingerprints, precision interference contact
lenses-"
His stomach churned. "Oh, God. No one
will believe me. No one will ever-"
"You've got that right. "
He felt sick. "I never saw a penny. Not a pen­
ny. " Nobel prize. Professorships. Research
grants. How could he have faUen-
"Bernard never cleared anything with any­
one," she said gently but firnlly.
Loser. Evelyn had been right. His mother had
been right. Smart-stupid.
"Think, Willy. How could even Rada-Rid­
and it's a big corporation-get pernlissions to
transport nuclear waste into a residential
neighborhood?"
"I am so dtuub. "
"Well, 1 don't think that. " She put her hand
on his. "A little na;'ve, maybe. And wanting
something too much. They play on that."
"Con men." He knew it.
SUSAN FOREST

"Right. "
Willy nodded a little, defeated. "All 1 can say
is, it's a good thing Bernard doesn't know
about the rent in your office. Right across the
hall from him."
She chuckled sadly.
Willy snorted, the humor bizarre. "All he'd
have to do is push you into it-"
She gave him a look of fright.
"-sorry. "
"No. You said . . . you said earlier. He doesn't
know about the hydrogen fuel pellets? They're
worth even more than the nuclear-waste-dis­
posal scam, right?"
"Right. But, no-I never told him."
"Good. " She bit her lip. "Good. "
Sounds of traffic from the street below drift­
ed in through the window.
Willy searched his memory. "You never
overheard me say anything to him about the
pellets, did you? When you bugged his office?"
"No. No, definitely not. "
"And . . . " Willy's mind leapt ahead. "He
hasn't bugged your office? Because we did talk
about them there. "
"I sweep my office every day. " Her eyes nar­
rowed. "But surveillance technology is very so­
phisticated. A cyborg bumblebee . . . " She bit
her lip. "Has he given you anything recently?"
"Bernard? Nothing but headaches." ll1en he
remembered. He pulled Bernard's business
card from his breast pocket.
Estelle's dark complexion turned ashen. "Oh
my God."
They raced back to the office.
Two PM.
Estelle's secretary was not at her station. Es­
telle paused in the doorway and looked back at
the receptionist. "Sam? Where's Janice?"
"Dr. Bester asked her to run an errand." Did
Sam's voice sound cool? "She was bu;l', but he
insisted. "
ll1is was bad.
Estelle's gaze flicked to his momentarily.
"How long has she been gone?"
"About half an hour. Just before my coffee."
"Your coffee? Who covered the office?"
"Dr. Bester. He said it would be fine."
About the time they were hurrying from Es­
telle'S apartment.
"Thanks, Sam." She unlocked her office
door, but it bumped something solid. The two
RENT IN SPACE
SEPTEMBER 2012
of them had to push to squeeze in.
Blood spattered the walls and soaked the
carpet. Bernard lay !ace down by the door.
"Shut the door. " Estelle gripped Willy's arnl
as though she'd lost her balance.
The room reeked of blood. Willy's gorge
rose, but he closed the door. Slimy. "My God,"
he whispered. "What happened?"
"Don't touch anything." She stepped over
the body.
"Too late. " He held up red hands. Gore cov­
ered the doorknob, the inside of the door and
the wall around it, smeared down to the floor.
They surveyed the room. Trashed. The
drawers had been taken from Estelle's desk.
Her table was overturned. The blinds hung at
an angle from their brackets.
"He was looking for something. " The glue
stick box, Willy noted, lay on the floor next to
a drawer. Unopened.
"He found it." Estelle pointed to Bernard's
prone body.
The physicist's hands had been sheared off.
"The rent in space was at the back of the top
shelf, " Estelle said flatly. "I had to stand on a
chair to reach up there, so 1 saw it. So did you. "
Estelle's side chairs were both overturned,
next to the table. "Bernard was taU." Willy nod­
ded. "He was frustrated after a fruitless search.
He just reached up."
Estelle turned like a stunned person to the
bloody door.
"He would have locked the door while he
trashed the room," Willy said.
"And without hands . . . "
"He cOl�dn't ur�ock it."
She covered her mouth with a hand. "He
bled to death."
Willy took a deep breath. "We better call the
police."
Estelle tilted her head and looked at him as
though she didn't understand. "That will take
some explanation."
He straightened. "What do you mean? He
was trying to rob you. He put his hands in the
rent -" He gestured toward the cupboard.
Her eyes widened in alarm. "He put his
hands into-"
"He-" The implication struck Willy with al­
most physical force. Gunther, Higman, and
Smyles. The direction of matter/energy flow.
Bernard's hands-
"Check."
79
ANALOG
Willy righted a chair and looked into the
cupboard.
His stomach dove sickeningly through his
gut. "It's gone," he choked. Bernard's hands . . .
fed into the rent . . . reversed the energy flow.
Closed both of them, Estelle's and his.
Estelle took a deep breath and put her hands
against her forehead, staring at the floor
through their blinders. "We're standing over a
dead body. Your hands are covered in blood.
You have a bank account in the Cayman Is­
lands worth millions and there are recordings
of your scam with Bernard. Bernard publicly
accused both of us of plotting against him, and
I actually am. You were seen to be so angry
with him you couldn't speak . " She lifted her
head. "Just because we caught him in the act
of robbing me, doesn't mean we didn't kill
him. And there is no rent in space to explain it.
Not mine, not yours. "
"The hydrogen pellets-we still have those. "
Willy picked the glue stick box from the floor
and checked inside. He waved it at her.
"EcoPower manufactures them. " Estelle's
voice was dead.
"We-we were out of the office at the time
of death," he argued.
"In my apartment. With each other. No wit­
nesses. "
"Your secretary. Your secretary would've
seen-"
"It's month-end. She's been photocopying fi­
nancial reports all day. She didn't see me leave
the office. "
Willy was beginning to sweat. "The recep­
tionist-she saw us come in here. "
"She wouldn't know if our return was a ruse
to establish alibi. She's Bernard's creature. Be­
sides, we've been standing here long enough to
have done it just now. No coroner could swear
the time of death was fifteen minutes ago."
"Sure, they can . . . " But WIlly felt as though
he was going to throw up.
"You want to chance it?" Estelle's hands
trembled as she found a water bottle in one of
the tossed drawers. "Wash your hands. "
Numbly, Willy did as he was told.
"Let's just . . . let's just . . . get out of here.
Where we can think. "
"And leave the scene of the crime?"
"There's no crime! " she shrilled.
They had to keep cool. "Hey, " he soothed,
taking her into his arms. "Shh. We're innocent.
BO
We'll get through this. "
She shook with fear. "I'm sorry. Sorry. It
won't happen again." She held him for a mo­
ment more, then withdrew and dabbed her
eyes. She gave him a brittle smile.
He nodded reassurance he didn't feel and
took her hand.
They eased themselves out of the office and
locked it. Sam was gone and the reception area
was empty. One stroke of luck.
Estelle smoothed her skirt and walked calm­
ly to the elevator. There was a drop of blood
on her hem.
"Estelle!" Willy hissed.
She pushed the button. She turned coolly,
though fright filled her eyes.
\Villy joined her by the elevator. "Your skirt."
The elevator doors opened.
Janice, her secretary, stepped out with an
envelope. "Oh!" she cried in surprise.
"Hello, Janice." Estelle's voice seemed high
pitched.
"You're leaving?"
"Just for a few minutes, " Estelle said, voice
steadier.
Janice eyed Willy, then turned to the office.
"Rats. Before you go, do you know where Dr.
Bester is?"
WIlly's throat clamped shut.
"Why?" Estelle asked.
"I have his airline tickets to Grand Cayman.
He was in a rush for them and the plane leaves
at six o'clock. He'll only just make it."
Estelle looked at her secretary blankly.
"Airline tickets?" Willy managed. "You can
download those on line . " Why was his mind
focused on such an absurd detail?
"Oh, no. These are diplomatic passes. No
names or passports reqUired, only Citizen
cards. They have to be picked up in person. All
the clearances are pre-arranged. "
Estelle tilted wide eyes at Bernard. "That's
okay. You can give them to me," she said. "I
know you have a lot of photocopying. "
"Great! Thanks! " Janice said and giving her
the envelope, disappeared back to her station.
Estelle looked into the envelope. "Two'"
"Sinthia," Willy explained. "Jealous hus­
band. "
Estelle smiled, eyes wide with giddiness,
and she and Willy stepped into the elevator. •
Copyright © 2012 Susan Forest
SUSAN FOREST

Myth u nd e rstand i ng
Carl Frederick
Sometimes three dimensions
aren't enough . . . .
oger, his job having shuttled him to one
R
exotic planet after another, decided to
take his vacation in the least exotic place
he knew.
Sitting now at a table in the hotel restaurant
in his Ohio home town, he looked furtively
arOlmd before dipping the active comer of his
Omni-pod into his scrambled eggs.
Like most of the others at the restaurant,
probably tourists like himself, Roger had an
Omni strung around his neck. He doubted
though, if the odler diners had the Chef-master
Illustrated by Mark Evans
Micro-taster module installed. As an agent of the
Angloterran Unified Trade Agency, he could
hardly live without it. He smiled, remembering
how often the Micro-taster had saved him from
well-meaning albeit poisonous cuisine.
He examined the screen. Only a trace of sal­
monella and pesticides, but no E4x-coli, mer­
cury, lead, or even the more exotics like osmi­
um. Too bad The agen0' could make afortune
if Jfound a source of osmium. He grimaced.
I've got to stop thinking of myjob. This is a va­
cation.
81
ANALOG
Roger switched the screen to the tourist
brochure and dug into his eggs. Initially, he'd
liked the notion of a cultural liaison studying his
own Cl�nl1-e-and in the town he'd not been in
since he was eight. But after barely a day, he
was bored out of his skull. [ guess you really
can't go home again. There was only one
tourist attraction, and now he was about to go
off and visit it: The World Headquarters of the
Interstellar Appelonian Society. Whatever the
heck that is.
On the tour bus to the Society, Roger peered
out the window onto the drab countryside.
"Coming up on the left," droned the driver in a
running commentary, "is the home of Wilber
Danby, the inventor of the electric pogo stick
with seed-planting attachment. Designed for
planting apple trees. He was an Appelonian, of
course." Roger thudded his head against the
window. Trapped! I'm trapped here.
"And here we are . " The bus braked and
Roger's head slid forward on the glass, rousing
him from a trance-like doze. "The Master Trans-
stellar Appelonian Monastery . . . " The bus
stopped and the door opened. " . . . and The
Grand Museum. "
Alert now, Roger glanced out the window as
he slid to the aisle. The bright green of a forest
of trees, apple trees, contrasted against a sky of
rich azure and the red of apples and the car­
nelian robes and cowls of scores of people
strolling about in monkish serenity. On each
robe, where a breast pocket would be, was a
symbol: a white circle surrounding a red apple.
A small clump of monks waited at the door
of the bus. As each fourth passenger disem­
barked, one of the monks greeted the group of
four and shepherded them away, presumably
on a tOUf.
As Roger, bringing up the rear, waited to get
off, the driver nodded his head toward one of
the monks, one whose white circle symbol
held a golden apple. Roger twisted his head to
read the motto on the inner circumference.
Serving Humanity inAll its Forms.
"Algernon Throop, " said the driver in an awe­
filled whisper. "The Deputy Magnum Malum,
himself." He glanced at Roger. "Looks like he's
waiting for you. You must be someone impor­
tant. "
Roger chuckled. "I'm not. But anyway, how
B2
would he know?"
"The Malum knows everything," said the dri­
ver as Roger started down the steps.
"Welcome, Roger," said the Malum as Roger
stepped to the ground.
Roger tensed at the familiarity and especially
at the idea that the Magnum knew his name.
The Malum spread his arms. "It is good to see
that the Angloterran Trade Agency is finally be­
ginning to take us seriously. " He pulled Roger
away and guided him off toward the monastery
entrance.
Two can play this game. "I'm not here repre­
senting the Agency, Algernon." Roger noticed a
momentary hiccup in the Malum's easy pace.
''I'm a mere junior culntral liaison."
"Indeed. " The Malum gave a hint of a nod, as
ifto himself. "Indeed, " he said, again. As if tak­
en with a sudden idea, the Malum reached into
the pocket of his robe. "My card," he said, with­
drawing the business card and handing it to
Roger.
"Um. Thank you."
The Malum nodded, seemingly disappointed
that Roger didn't reciprocate with a card of his
own.
They walked then in silence and Roger
feared that because of his attempt at one-up­
manship, the Malum was convinced the visit
was official.
In the absence of conversation, Roger was
free to observe. Apple trees were everywhere,
with apples easily reachable on the lower
branches. He smiled at a sign at the base of a
tree. PLEASE PICK AND ENJOY. Looming ahead, look­
ing like a theme-park castle but with the solem­
nity and size of a cathedral, stood the
monastery.
"Recognition by the Unified Terran Agency, "
said the Malum, breaking in on Roger's silent
sightseeing, "wot�d give us access to additional
ftmds that wOl�d allow us to expand our great
mission."
"Which is?"
The Malum gave a smile that looked strained.
" I ' m sure I ' m telling you what you already
knOw. But we Appelonians are sworn to contin­
ue the holy tradition of St. John Appleseed of
the New Church. "
"I understand," Roger lied. Apparently the
Appelonians create their own Saints.
"We regard the apple as sacred and our mis­
sionaries plant apple trees on all the inhabited
CARL FREDERICK

planets where they will grow. "
"I thought it was a forbidden frui t , " said
Roger.
"Only in one instance." As they reached the
entrance, the Malum paused and drew himself
to his full height. "In the beginning was the
word," he intoned. "And Proverbs 25-11 states,
'A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in set­
tings of silver. '"
The Malum stepped from the light of day to a
long, candle-lit, barrel-arched antechamber
heavy with incense smelling like spiced apples.
As they walked, Roger saw a chapel branching
off to the left. The Malum paused in front of it.
"Take unto thee, the body, " came a voice
from an altar at the fur end. Roger saw a robed
monk offering something to a person kneeling
in front. A wafer? Then Roger noticed a circle
of red. No.A thin apple slice. "Take unto thee,
the blood," the monk continued, picking up a
chalice. Pmhahly applejuice.
Roger fidgeted, fearing that he was about to
be subjected to a religiOUS service. But then the
Maltun continued walking down the chamber,
stopping when he'd come to another opening,
this time on the right.
The Malum stepped aside to let Roger walk
in first. "The Hall of Distant Worlds."
A dark, narrow nave stretched almost to the
limits of vision. From high, uncountable bril­
liant, white, star-like pinpoints of light illumi­
nated the nave and a vast number of grottoes
on either side. Above each grotto, a globe pro­
vided more light, shining down upon what ap­
peared to be a small oasis containing low-cut
green vegetation and a single apple tree. Some
grottoes had neither tree nor grass and ap­
peared more like gravesites than oases. The
globes, though predominantly yellow, ranged in
color from yellowish with a tinge of green
through orange to a dull red. But over the tree­
less grottoes, tlle globes were dark.
Roger, standing stunned, attempted to take
in the enormity of the scene.
"The inhabited planets that our missionaries
have visited," came the Malum's voice from be­
hind. "Those with conditions close enough to
Earth-normal that we only need class-B explo­
ration suits. "
Roger spun around. "My gosh. You guys have
visited more stellar systems than we have."
He swiveled forward again and began walk­
ing, glancing from side to side at the planet-
MYTHUNOERSTANOING
SEPTEMBER 201 2
grottoes, gawking like a tourist. In a daze he
proceeded, examining apple trees in alien soils
with imitation alien suns illuminating them. Oc­
casional water misting from the walls of the
grottoes gave rise to a multitude of localized
rainbows.
At the rear of each grotto, a holoflik showed
the dominant life form. Roger noticed a big S
over one of the fliks and looked quizzically
back at the Malum.
" s indicates a sentient species," said the
Malum. "Whenever we find sentience, we
build a monastery, train monks, plant apple
trees, and teach the natives liturgical Angloter-
ran."
"Angloterran?"
"If Angloterran was good enough for our
Lord, it's good enough for us. "
Roger suppressed a smile. "Not exactly An­
gloterran, surely. "
"An older form of Angloterran, of course. "
The Malum threw a glance back at the en­
trance. "!fyou have seen enough here, perhaps
we might continue ollr discllssion in my of­
fice."
'Just a little longer, please." Roger, fearful that
the Malum would rein him in, pressed ahead.
He stopped, abruptly, at a grotto with a dark
sun and no apple tree. But there was an S over
the holoflik. The aliens were vaguely hu­
manoid: bilaterally symmetric, two sets of
limbs, walked upright and had a relatively large
head with enormous eyes, and were complete­
ly covered in fur. Their bodies were thin, as if
built for speed, but Roger couldn't tell more
since the aliens were clad in red robes. Behind
the creatures were structures of rough-hewn
stone, giving the look of a surreal painter's im­
pression of seventeenth century Europe.
Roger stared down at the grave-like mound,
and then at the Malum. "What happened here?"
"Forsaken by God , " said the Malum. "Apple
trees won't grow in their soil."
"What?"
The Malum glanced at a description plate un­
der the holoflik. "The planet is called Thirsh,
point seven Earth gravity, and the people are
called Thirshk. The flik shows Kamgry, the cap­
ital city of their only country. "
"I mean, why is their sun-globe dark?"
"I told you, " said the Malum, turning from
the description plate to Roger. "Unless apples
can grow on a planet, we consider the place
83
ANALOG
unholy.
"But you can't know that apple trees won't
grow somewhere. "
"Actually, we can," said the Malum, smugly,
"While the monastery was being established,
the entire planet was surveyed for fertility." He
stared up at the dark globe with a look of piety.
"Our missionaries visited Thirsh a century ago.
But when we found that their soil could not
support apples, we deduced the 111irshk were
not favored by God. And so, we left." He looked
from the globe to the mound. "We took back a
load of their soil for the museum, for religious
study-a physical manifestation of unholy
places."
Roger leaned down and as he ran his hand
over the soil, the Omni slung around his neck
flopped forward. "Ah," he said, grasping the
Onmi. "Maybe we can find out why the trees
wouldn't grow. " He called up the Micro-taster
module and pushed the comer of the pod into
dle Thirshk soil.
"Oh, my gosh!" said Roger as he read the re­
sults. "A superabtmdance of osmium tetroxide
in the soil. That explains why apples don't
grow. " He remembered the prospector module
on the Omni, called it up, and re-sampled the
soil. "Here, at any rate, " he said under his
breath, "is a megafortune in osmium."
He returned his attention to the Malum.
"Could you perhaps show me the reports of
your visit there?"
"I. 1 will need to get permission to show
. .
you the reports, " said the Malum in a distant
voice. He paused for a few seconds, dlen asked,
"Are you sure it's a mega-fortune?"
"Yeah. Super-mega." Roger saw a purely sec­
ular light shining in the man's eyes. Then, sud­
denly understanding the situation and wishing
he'd kept his mouth shut, Roger glanced at the
plaque and made mental note of the star's galac­
tic coordinates.
The disk of the planet 111irsh grew ever larg­
er in the viewscreen until Roger could just
make out the white, circular landing pad in the
center of Kamgry.
"Uh-oh," said Duncan, Roger's boss, at the
controls of the Agency scout ship. "Looks like
another ship's gotten here before us. "
"I hope it's not the Appelonians" -Roger
squinted at the screen-"looking to contract for
osmiUfll. "
84
"It fits their profile." Duncan cranked up the
magnification. "As rich as they are, they're al­
ways looking for more money. "
"Gosh, 1 can't believe I'd never heard of them
before. " Roger peered at the ship and detected
the Appelonian white circle symbol on its
hatch. Damn that Malum. On the ground,
next to the ship, Roger saw a slender figure.
"Red robes, " he said through clenched teeth.
"Must be an Appelonian."
Again , Duncan increased the magnification.
"That's no Terran," he said, softly.
The creature was built rougilly to the human
model: bilaterally symmetric, a pair each of legs
and arms, and it stood upright. The creature
was thin, even spindly, with a relatively huge
head, a somewhat doglike mouth and fox-like
ears-if indeed they were ears. From his bear­
ing, the creature seemed to be guarding the
ship.
"Look at that head," said Duncan. "These
111irshk must have enormous brains."
Roger nodded, his eyes locked on the
viewscreen. "It'll be a nice experience commu­
nicating with a species more intelligent than we
are. Maybe he'll take the lead here."
Duncan blew out a breath. "Hopefully
they're smart enough not to sign a contract
without entertaining a second offer. " Duncan
seized the controls. "Let's get down there. And
fast."
"He's wearing Appelonian robes," said Roger,
thinking aloud, "so maybe he speaks some An­
gloterran. "
"!fno! . . . " Duncan shrugged. "It's your job to
learn languages." He brought the ship into dle
atmosphere. "And I expect you'll do your job."
Yeah. Right.
While Duncan brought in the ship close to
the Appelonian vessel, Roger rechecked the in­
struments. "Air very breathable. No serious
pathogens. Cold, but not too cold. Weak ionos­
phere so our radios will only work line-of-sigllt."
Duncan landed, then pulled on and connect­
ed his jumpsuit gloves, and set his suit weather
control to automatic. Roger did the same.
"Okay, " said Duncan, his finger on the hatch
control. "Ready?"
"Ready. "
"Then let's go do some negotiating." Duncan
switched open the hatch.
Roger felt a short blast of arctic-like air before
CARL FREDERICK

his suit responded by blowing a stream of
warm air up from his jumpsuit collar.
Quickly, they disembarked and strode up to
the red-robed Thirshk.
Roger stood in front of the creature and wait­
ed, hoping that the Thirshk would try to en­
gage in conununication.
The 1llirshk stood there and stared.
After a quarter minute or so, just to do some­
thing, Roger first pointed at his ship and then
slapped his hand to his chest. He really didn't
know what he was trying to achieve with his
sign language-impress Duncan, perhaps.
The Thirshk, with slow, laborious move­
ments, echoed Roger's signing and kept staring.
"Doesn't seem particularly intelligent," Dun­
can whispered out of the side of his mouth.
"Does he?"
"I am very intelligent , " said the Thirshk,
thrusting his ears forward, "in the time." His
voice was husky and his words sounded awk­
ward and came from a mouth that didn't look
very mobile.
"You . . . you speak Angloterran," said Roger.
The Thirshk didn't reply, but just kept star­
ing.
"Um," said Roger, trying to start a conversa­
tion. "Who taught you Angloterran?"
The Thirshk glanced up at the Appelonian
white circle emblem on the ship. "They did.
The Appelonianz."
Roger waited for more, but no more canle. lt
seems he only responds to direct questions.
"Why are you guarding the ship?"
"I don't know. "
That helps lots. Roger forced a smile. "Who
told you to?"
"An Appelonian."
"Why?"
"I don't know. " The Thirshk abmptly, if not
quickly, reached into the pocket of his robe,
withdrew a slip of paper and handed it forward
to Roger. "My card. "
"What?" Roger took it. "Oh, thanks . " He
looked at the incomprehensible printing and
laughed. "I'm sorry. I can't read your language. '
"I cannot, either, " said the Thirshk, "yet."
"Then why did you give me your card'"
"I don't know, " said the Thirshk. "The Ap­
pelonianz do that. '
Roger handed it back.
"They've advanced to the printing press, at
least," said Dlmcan. "But I don't see how. "
MYTHUNOERSTANOING
SEPTEMBER 201 2
Even though Roger had taken the full com­
plement of cultural sensitivity training courses,
it was hard not to think that the Thirshk were
simply a slow-moving and slow thinking peo­
ple. But mayhe we can get the lay of the land
by talking to the Appelonians. At least they're
fellow Ten-ans. "Where can I find the Appeloni­
ans?"
The Thirshk pointed to a break between two
of the buildings, to a path that ascended a high
hill behind them. "Path tllrough that gate and
walk."
"How far?"
"Until you come to the Appelonian thinlble. "
"Thimble?"
"There will be thmnb people there. "
"Um, Thtunb people?" Roger felt the conver­
sation getting away from him.
"When you get there," said the Thirshk with
more animation than he'd shown until then,
"do not intermpt the Appelonian math. They
do not like tllat."
Math? "You . . . you admire the Appelonians,"
said Roger, striving for comprehension. "Don't
you?"
"They provided a theorem when we needed
it."
"You needed a theorem?" From the corner of
his eye, Roger saw that Duncan appeared baf­
fled. Welcome to the club, Duncan.
"Long, we had thought it," the Thirshk con­
tinued. "And without it, the Thirshk wraith
might have died."
Roger canted his head. He could make noth-
ing of all this.
"You have an odd faith," said the 1lIirshk.
"Because we're not Appeionians?"
The Thirshk seemed surprised. "You mean,
you're not?"
"I think, " said Duncan softly, "we'd best go
off and find that . . . that thimble."
"Not Appelonianz?"
"We'll go now, " said Duncan, firmly. "Good­
bye."
The Thirshk nodded his head, almost in the
way of a bow. "Thick no more," he said to Dun­
can. He turned then to Roger. "Thin no more."
"Yeah. Right, " said Roger. "Thin no more . "
He and Duncan started away-loping easily in
Thirsh's low gravity.
"Why didn't you try talking to him in An­
gloterran first'" said Duncan, "Instead of that
Indian sign language routine. "
8S
ANALOG
"I didn't think of it."
When they'd walked a ways in the direction
the Thirshk indicated, Dlmcan let out a breath,
almost inaudible over the msh of warm air from
his collar. "How could creatures with such large
heads be so dumb?" He kicked at a pebble in
the rough path. "Those heads might as well be
filled with oatmeal. "
They soon reached a plateau. One side over­
looked Kamgry and agricultural fields beyond,
while ahead, Roger saw what looked to be a
reasonable but smaller facsimile of the Ap­
pelonian monastery in Ohio. This isn'tgood.Ad­
vantageAppelonians.
In disgust, Roger looked away-and down
onto the city of Kamgry. "Pretty," he said, softly,
pulling up his Omni and invoking the field­
glasses mode.
"The center of government's probably down
there . " Duncan sighed and threw a glance at
the monastery. "BlIt we've got to get someone
up there as an intetpreter. "
Roger nodded, but had his doubts. An Ap­
pelonian Thirshk helping us negotiate against
theAppelonians. Not likely.
Duncan gazed back down onto Kamgry.
"How could such a low-IQ people have made
dl0se buildings?"
"A less advanced society doesn't necessarily
mean the individuals are less intelligent."
"No," said Duncan, "but you've got to admit
the Thirshk are pretty dumb. At least the one
we met was."
"They must have a high societaI IQ. " Roger
shook his head, sadly. "Or d,ere's been a drastic
decline over the last century-lead in the water
or something. Maybe osmium tetroxide. And
they're now too dumb to notice. Then again,
maybe they just evolved downward. "
"Evolution takes time. " Duncan shook his
head. "And it's survival of the fittest. How is
dumber more fit?"
Roger shmgged. "Brains take a lot of energy. "
He shifted his gaze further, to the fields where
many TIlirshk seemed to be harvesting a crop.
They wore close-fitting garments which
showed just how thin they were.
"Looks like a meager harvest," said Duncan,
following Roger's gaze.
Roger nodded, then bent and pressed the
corner of his Omni into some sand at his feet.
"Yup," he said, reading the screen as he stood
erect. "Osmium. And also osmium tetroxide. "
B6
He raised his gaze to Duncan. "It's probably poi­
soning their soil. If it were removed, their soil
would probably be very fertile."
Duncan smiled. "You are the wizard of osmi­
um, aren't you?"
"A couple of ARMs," said Roger, "Au­
tonomous Robot Miners, and we get osmium
and they get a productive soil."
"Fine. " Duncan looked from the valley to the
Appelonian stmcture. "Well, come on. Let's see
if we can find anyone bright enough to negoti­
ate with. "
They walked on, stopping a t a gate over
which flew a red flag emblazoned with the Ap­
pelonian white circle symbol.
"Serving humanity, " said Duncan, absently,
reading the circle motto, "in all its fornls. "
"Appelonian symbol!" Roger exclaimed. Dun­
can regarded him quizzically.
"The Thirshk back there, " Roger gave a ner­
vous laugh. "He was speaking with a lisp." He
thought back to his conversation. "It almost
makes sense that way. "
"You mean, " said DWlcan, "that his goodbye
was really 'Sick no more. Sin no more?' "
''Yeall. Probably. "
"Still doesn't make sense. "
Roger thought for a few seconds. "The 'sin
no more' is probably the Appelonian influence.
And as to the 'sick no more'" -he thought of
the emaciated looking Thirshk and the meager
harvest-"maybe the Thirshk are in a petpetu­
al state of near-funline. '
"So they need food," said Duncan, distantly.
"Sad. BlIt it gives us a basis for negotiation. " He
stepped forward through the gate. Roger fol­
lowed.
"Where is everyone?" said Duncan. "Or any­
one?"
Roger saw no signs of life on the monastery
grounds. No Thirshk and not even any vegeta­
tion, no chirps of birds-if there even were
birds on Thirsh. As Roger drew near to the en­
trance though, he heard chanting in a guttural
language and what might pOSSibly be consid­
ered singing. Roger smiled. "This must be the
Appelonian math the Thirshk told us not to in­
temlpt."
"Mutht be. " Duncan, with an energy born of
low gravity, bmmded up the stone steps.
Inside, Roger and Duncan paused.
"Dark in here , " said Duncan. "You'd think
there'd at least be candles."
CARL FREDERICK

"Considering the size of Thirshk eyes, " said
Roger, "it's probably not clark to them."
"Hm. Well, let's press on."
They trod with light, quiet steps to the back
of what appeared to be a chapel. About sixty
Thirshk, uniformly clad in red robes, sat in
pews. A further fourteen of them were stand­
ing-queued to approach a Thirshk whose
white circle emblem was emblazoned with a sil­
ver apple.
"I wonder," Roger whispered, "if he even
knows what an apple is."
The Thirshk, on a dais framed by stone rep­
resentations of trees, solemnly handed what
looked like a cookie to the first individual in the
queue. Over the course of ten minutes or so
and accompanied by chanting, repeated kneel­
ing and rising, and hand gestures from the con­
gregation, the individual slowly ate the cookie,
seemingly cmmb by cmmb. He then placed his
forefinger into a bowl of liquid. When he
pulled it out, the finger was a bright yellow. He
held it up to view, stepped briskly down from
the dais and went to sit in a pew.
Roger suppressed a sigh. If only they'd move
b,tskly all the time.
As the next in the queue approached the
Thirshk of the silver apple, Duncan whispered.
"Roger. This will take hours . " He gave a soft
sigh. "But we'll have to wait it out."
Roger nodded. "The Thirshk are slow, but 1
didn't expect them to be this slow. " Furtively,
he glanced back at the entrance and felt its invi­
tation to freedom. "I think," he whispered, "I
think I should go back and talk to the Thirshk
guarding the ship."
"What?" Duncan swiveled to stare at him.
"Why?"
"Look at this place. It is not the work of a
backward people. Societal l.Q. Collective intel­
ligence must be the an;wer. "
"So?"
"A solitary Thirshk is probably . . . well,
dumb. Too dumb to lie. I think I can learn
somethin g . " Before Duncan could answer,
Roger added, "It's probably the best use of our
time. Multitasking. And . . . "-Roger recalled
that Duncan liked to negotiate one on one­
"and it might give you an advantage if you find
you can negotiate here."
Duncan pursed his lips and nodded. "Fine.
No sense in both of us being bored silly. " He
glanced back at the ceremony. "Be back in . . .
MYTHUNOERSTANOING
SEPTEMBER 201 2
an hour, hour and a half max. This should be al­
most over by then. "
"Right. " Roger turned and escaped.
But as he reached the entrance, a Thirshk
he'd not noticed before stepped out from an al­
cove and blocked his way. After glanCing at
Roger's left hand, the Thirshk said, "Do you
want your cookie?"
"What'" Roger braked to a halt. "Yes. A cook­
ie. Fine. "
The ll1irshk took a thin-necked bottle from
his pouch, uncorked it, and held it forward.
"Dip your finger. "
Roger remembering the bowl of liqUid and
not wanting to make a culnlral misstep, stuck
his forefinger into the bottle. As expected, it
was stained yellow when he pulled it back out.
From a bag slung round his shoulder, the
11Urshk extracted a cookie and extended it to­
ward Roger. "Thin no more."
"What? Urn. Thanks." Roger took the cookie
and completed his escape.
OutSide, Roger dropped the cookie into a
pocket of his jumpsuit and jogged down the hill
toward the ships.
"Hello, agai n , " said Roger to the Thirshk
guard.
"Hello. "
As they had done at their previous meeting,
the two silently stared at each other.
Nervously, Roger slid his hand into his jump­
suit pocket-and his fingers encountered the
rough form of the cookie. On impulse, he with­
drew the cookie and held it forward. "Would
you care for a cookie?"
The 111irshk's eyes widened. "Are you really
offering me your honor cookie?"
"Urn. Yes."
"Thank you, kind benefactor. " The Thirshk
took the cookie with both hands, closed his
eyes, and devoured it with small bites as if it
were the most precious of caviar. When he
opened his eyes, Roger detected that they ap­
peared slightly less dull than they'd been mo­
ments before. And the Thirshk seemed to move
less sluggishly.
Roger felt baffled. "What was in that cookie'"
"You mean who," said the ll1irshk.
"What?"
"Didn't you attend the math?"
"A little of it," said Roger, defenSively.
"Then you thould know that the math is to
87
ANALOG
honor those Thirshk that have died in the patht
year. It happenth right before the harvetht. "
Roger didn't quite understand, but he had a
bad feeling. "How . . . How do you honor your
dead?"
"We eat them. "
Roger fought down a pang of revulsion.
"And," the Thirshk went on, "we grind up
the bonez and the grithJe and make cookieth."
"Honor cookies?" said Roger in a small voice.
"Yeth. " The Thirshk made a sound that
might have been a laugh. '''Wathte not, want
not, ' ath the Appe!onians thay."
Roger tried to keep the mood light. "You
seem a lot more talkative now, somehow. " And
sn'larter, too.
"Of courth I am. I jutht ate an honor cookie."
"Oh'" Roger realized he really knew nothing
about the Thirshk society.
"I was thuppozed to get mine at the church
tea after the math. "
Oh my gosh. I'd better get back before Dun­
can eats one. He'd be unspeakably hOrrified.
Nauseated-especially as he's recently become
a devout vegetarian. Roger snuck a look at his
Omni. But 1 still have some time. He was here
to learn about Thirshk society. And 1 might as
well start now. He bit his lip. "How . . . " -he
gestured off into the distance-"How did you
Thirshk build such magnificent buildings?"
The Thirshk seemed confused by the ques­
tion. After a few seconds, he said. "Athk me
tonight after the harvetht fethtival."
"The harvest festival." That sounded cultural­
ly significant. "Where is the festival?"
"Here," said the Thirshk. "At the great white
thircle, when the three moonth are high in the
sky. "
White circle? We thought it was just a large
landing pad. "What do you do at the festival'''
"Eat."
A childish answe� Maybe rtl still have to
treat him as . . . as a child. "Tell me a story about
. . . how Thirsh and its people came to be."
Maybe J can understand the (Ulture through
its myths.
The Thirshk drew himself up to his full
height. "The bible tellz uth that-"
"No! A myth. "
Again, the Thirshk seemed confused. "Noth­
ing iz amyth."
"What? No. I mean tell me a . . . a thtory."
"The Appleonianz don't want uth to tell the
aa
old thtoriez."
"Please. "
The Thirshk looked off into the distance.
"Long, long ago, " he began in a soft voice that
might have been a whisper, "there wath only it
who hath no form.
"In the quiet, it who hath no form combined
the motion of the water and the inunobility of
thand. And from the mud, crafted all creatureth
from the tiny Khwen to the Thirshk. But they
were without will other than the will of it with­
out form."
Roger, fascinated, listened attentively. The
Thirshk creation myth was so similar to those
he'd heard on many other planets.
"Tho," the Thirshk continued, "from thpark­
th of the hungry thun, the ithe of the moonz
and the theedz of the roof-tree, it who haz no
form made kernelth. The tinyetht kernel, from
the ithe of the lethargiC moon, did it who haz
no form put into the thkull of the Khwen, and
the larger kernelth into the thkullz of the
greater creaturez. When it did come to the Thir­
shk, the greatetht of all creatureth, it had no
more kernelz. Tho, into the thkull of the Thir­
shk, did it put the kernel of the clever hot­
blooded Vansh. But az the kernel did not fill the
thkull, it put the kernel of the !the-bear az
wel1. "
Roger narrowed his eyes. Now this is some­
thing different.
"Under the fiery thun the Thirshk ith ath the
Vansh but otherwithe, in hunger and cold, the
Thirshk is az the bear. "
The Thirshk raised its forefinger, pointing it
toward the SW1. "111at ith dle thtory. "
"Ah , " said Roger, raising his own yellow­
stained finger skyward. "I get it. The yellow rep­
resents the Sun and how its warming rays go
into our bodies and give us life. Yes?"
"No. It ith just tho no one can go through the
line again for another cookie. "
Roger ran , rather than jogged, back up the
hill to the monastery. He'd spent more time
than he'd planned with the Thirshk and now
worried that he'd not get back in time to stop
Duncan from eating his honor cookie. But he
was beginning to get an idea about how the
Thirshk society worked. He stopped for a mo­
ment to consult the Pancyclopedia in his Onmi.
He nodded, then continued running-faster
now, as he had a genuine theory to relate to
CARL FREDERICK

Duncan.
As he dashed in through the monastery en­
trance, Roger heard crowd noises. Clearly the
mass had ended. He followed the source of the
sounds to a large haJJ where Thirshk milled
around, the concentration greatest near a table
where a monk disttibuted cookies and dunked
fingers.
Roger jerked to a stop as he saw the Ohio
Deputy Magnum Malum with two of his
monks. And the Magnum was speaking with
Duncan.
Roger rushed toward the four human faces in
a sea of Thirshk. He stopped again for an instant
as he saw Duncan brushing crumbs off his fin­
gers. UIJ.oh. Too late.
Again, he pressed forward, dodging the in­
tervening Thirshk.
As Roger came to Duncan's side, the Malum
favored him with a tight smile filled with con­
descension. "Ah, my young friend," said the
Malum in a voice far from mendly. "You've led
us on something of a wild goose chase, so to
speak, haven't you'"
Roger bristled. "I hadn't expected you to try
to . . . jump my claim, so to speak."
" Your claim," the monk to the Maltun's right
spat out. "Here, you visit our monastery and
then have the gall to-"
"And what do you mean," said Roger, "wild
goose chase?"
" I think we can discuss this calmly," said
Duncan, the clear voice of reason. "I'm sure we
can-"
"There is no way, " said the Malum, spitting
out his word at a loud whisper, "that the Terran
Trade Authority would ever sanction a contract
with such an unintelligent people."
"The Authority would say we were taking ad­
vantage of them," said the Malum's right-hand
monk.
"No oneforced you to come here , " said
Roger, ignoring the monk and glaring at the
Malum.
"And you, " growled the Magnum, "should
have had the good grace to not use what you
learned from us for your gain. " He looked dis­
dainfully at the nearby Thirshk. "They're like
slow-moving ten-year-olds. "
Duncan made calming motions. " O h , I
wouldn't be so quick to so characterize an alien
culture. "
MYTHUNOERSTANOING
SEPTEMBER 201 2
The Malum had spoken softly, but to Roger, it
was not softly enough. Roger felt acutely em­
barrassed, and angry, that the Malum didn't
know how keen Thirshk hearing was-or
didn't seem to care.
"We tried to raise them up," said the left-hand
monk. "We tried to bring order to these primi­
tive, superstitious-"
"I'm not sure you could call their traditional
beliefs superstition," said Roger, with nose
slightly elevated, "unless we can call your be­
liefs superstition as well. "
"Now really ! " said the Malum, no longer
keeping his voice down.
Duncan threw an 'I ttied' glance to tile ceil­
ing.
Roger caught the glance and tried not to
smile. "And don't you think," he said, looking
from the Malum to the monks and to the
Malum again, "that it might be a bit arrogant of
you to impose your superstitions on these peo­
ple?"
"There is no need to waste any more of our
time here," said the Malum, evenly. "We are go­
ing home . " He threw a glance to either side.
"Now!"
With his two monks following, the Deputy
Magnum Malum stormed out of the hall.
Roger smiled slyly as he watched them go.
"Was it something I said'"
Duncan blew out a breatll. "Roger, my boy,
you'll never make a diplomat. " He looked with
an ingenuous smile at the nearby Thirshk who
were staring at them with what might be inter­
preted as hostility. "Perhaps we should go out
for some fresh air, " he said, nudging Roger to­
ward the door.
Outside, day had given way to twilight, and it
had gotten colder. By unspoken agreement,
Roger and Duncan began walking back down
toward their ship.
"I'm afraid the Malum was right," said Dun­
can, softly. "The Thirshk are, well, unintelli­
gent."
"Perhaps not pernlanently so."
Duncan laughed. "Pernlanentiy enough. And
as for our negotiating, I fear the Malum is right.
It isn't right to take advantage of them-even if
we could get the contract sanctioned by the
trade commission." He sighed. "And the Thir­
shk seem to be a ritualistically religious people.
It is not easy to deal rationally with such peo­
ple."
as
ANALOG
"Maybe they're not so very religious. Maybe
it's just the language."
"Oh?"
"Could be that the Appelonians taught them
religion in the guise of language. Like ' sin no
more' might just be their way they say good-bye
in Angloterran. " Roger shrugged. "And anyway,
dlis is the Appelonian monastery. You'd expect
ritual here."
Duncan picked up the pace. "In any case,
there's nothing for us here. In the words of our
Malum friend, we are going home."
Roger took a silent big breath. He'd been re­
luctant to reveal his theory for fear of his boss's
ridicule. He's always scoffing at my ideas. But
it was now or never. "I . . . 1 think we should
stay on Thirsh a litde longer."
"What?"
"I really think we should stay. "
Duncan stopped walking, then narrowed his
eyes. "Why?"
"Because . . . Well, because the Pancyclope­
dia says that in humans, the brain makes up two
percent of a person's weight but consumes
twenty percent of the body's energy. "
Duncan mouthed a silent "what?" and stared
ham at Roger.
Roger felt himself wilt. "I believe the Thirshk
have . . . Well, 1 think they have two brains. "
Duncan wrinkled his nose. "You mean like
dinosaurs?"
"Well, yeah. Sort of. "
Duncan, shaking his head, seemed uncon­
vinced.
"I mean , " Roger went on, "maybe not two
actual brains. Maybe more like a two-level
brain."
"Intelligence on demand. "
"Well, yeah. Sort of. These Thirshk have big
heads. Their brains might use a lot more energy
than ours do." Roger mshed to get the words
out. "And maybe to save energy they can turn
off a brain. And when the harvest comes in,
they eat and get the energy to turn on their sec­
ond, or primary, brain. "
"That , " said Duncan, "is the weirdest idea
you have ever come up with. "
"But 1 really believe that the-"
"Would you mind telling me where you got
this idea?"
"From . . . from analyzing a Thirshk creation
myth. "
Duncan stared intendy and Roger felt sweat
90
trickle down his fuce.
After perhaps fifteen silent seconds, Duncan
said, "How long'"
"What?"
"How long do you propose we stay here'"
"I don't knOw. At least until after the Harvest
Festival tonight." Again, Roger talked on, hop­
ing perhaps to persuade by sheer quantity of
words. "I understand the main, maybe the
only, activity at the festival is eating. That might
make them smart enough to negotiate widl us.
And . . . and you saw the Thirshk at the church
tea. The cookies were important to them­
maybe more inlportant than the mass. "
"Okay, okay. " Duncan made a hand motion,
as if patting a child on the head-the "please
stop talking" gesture widl whim Roger had had
much experience.
"Where exactly, " said Duncan "is this festi­
val?"
"Our ship is pretty much in the nliddle of it.
It starts when the moons are high . " Roger
pointed to the sky. "They're up pretty high al­
ready so the festival should start soon. And I
don't think it'll last long because-"
"Fine, " Duncan repeated the "be quiet" ges­
ture. "On the off chance that you're right, we'll
stay for the festival-some of it, anyway. "
At an overlook, they paused to take in the
view of Kamgry city. On the white circular area
they'd taken to be a landing pad, the two space­
craft now towered over a multitude of long ta­
bles. Sitting at the tables, shoulder to shoulder,
the Thirshk busied themselves with eating.
Threading themselves between the tables, the
Malum and his monks worked their way towarcl
their ship.
Roger peered through his ersatz field glasses.
"There's no way their ship can take off with all
the Thirshk there . " He scanned the tables.
"Boy, look at those guys eat."
"Well," said Duncan, setting off at a casual
stroll, "let's get down there and perhaps test
your theory. "
By the time they'd reached the white circle,
the tables had been removed and clusters of
Thirshk milled about, talking with great aninla­
tion.
"Gosh," said Roger. "They're like a different
species. "
"Indeed, , said Duncan. "Let's see ifwe might
CARL FREDERICK

find someone who has the brains to negotiate a
trade agreement."
A Thirshk darted up to them and Roger was
surprised that he was able to recognize him as
the Thirshk he'd conversed with earlier. The
Thirshk repeated the Indian signing Roger had
used at their first encounter.
"Hello, again," said Roger, feeling sheepish.
"I can athemble a khendre, a team, and ne-
gotiate. "
"You?"
"Why not me?"
"I'm sorry, " said Roger, "I thought . . . I
thought that because you moved so sluggishly,
that you were . . . "
"I would have moved a little fathter if it
weren't tho hot."
"Hot' It's freezing here. "
"Urn." Duncan stepped forward. "We have a
trade proposal that will benefit both our peo­
ples. Can you really negotiate for the Thirshk?"
"Thertainly. " The Thirshk once again pro­
duced a business card and handed it to Dlmcan.
"You can't read it, of courth, but you can show
it to other Thirshk."
As Duncan stared at the card, the Thirshk
traced his fingers along the writing. "Here iz my
name, which I doubt if you can pronotmth, and
here iz my title: Thub-director for Off-planet Ac­
tivitiez-which is why I was monitoring the Ap­
pelonian craft, even when I wasn't thmart."
"This is great!" Roger exclaimed.
TIle TIlirshk turned to him. "If you will jutht
wait here until I collect the khendre. "
"Urn. . . . Right. Of course."
The Thirshk pointed to Roger's Omni. "It will
take until your devithe readth two zero one
four. "
"You can read Terran numbers," said Roger,
his eyes wide. "And you can interpret our units
of time?"
" I have been watching your devithe and
MYTHUNOERSTANOING
SEPTEMBER 201 2
obtherving the progression of the numberth. I
deduthed it waz measuring time. "
" M y gosh," said Roger. " I c a n hardly be-
lieve-"
"We will wait," said Duncan.
"ExtheUent. " The Thirshk loped away.
Duncan looked over at Roger. "I've got to ad-
mit your theory might possibly have some mer­
it-this time."
"Thank you. " From long experience, Roger
knew his boss had just given him a rare high
complement. But still, the reluctant, backhand­
ed way it was given galled him.
Abruptly, landing lights flared white from un­
der the Appelonian ship.
Idly, Duncan gazed over at the vessel. "By the
way, Roger. Are you plaJUling to complete your
vacation in Ohio?"
"No. "
Duncan smiled. "I don't suspect you'd be par­
ticularly welcome at the Appelonian World
Headquarters. "
"I expect not. "
The ship shuddered aJld its directed energy
beam engine came to life.
Duncan stared at the Appelonian craft as it
slowly ascended. "Serving humanity in all its
forms," he said with a smile, his eyes on the
white circle emblem. "Apparently except for
the Thirshk."
" Serving humanity. " Roger smiled and
hoped it didn't look too malicious. "Speaking
of which, Duncan, about that cookie you ate
." .
(Editor's Note: Roger and Duncan have afr
peared previously in 'ft Sound Basis for Mis­
understanding"[April 201 OJ, 'fI Higher Level of
Misunderstanding" [May 2007J, and "Misun­
derstanding Twelve"[April 2004].)
Copyright © 2012 Carl Frederick
91
 Jerry O ltion
There's long, and then there's long . . . .
D
avid overshot the landing site by about
three miles. Not bad for an amateur, es­
pecially on his first attempt outside a
simulator. Still, it meant extra walking,
so he would arrive at the base of Tycho
Crater's central peak already tired. He didn't
have a rover like the Apollo astronauts had.
His lander held fuel for a short hover, not
enough to take him a significant portion of the
way back to the base of the mountain, so as his
forward velocity slowed to zero, he looked for
the flattest spot he could find and set it down,
its rocket engine blowing the fine-grained re­
golith away as he drew near. The legs' six-foot
feelers touched first, lighting up first one, then
another of the contact lights in the instmment
cluster in front of him.
\Vhen all three lights were glowing green,
he shut down the fuel pumps and let the lan­
der fall the last few feet. It took exactly the two
seconds he had expected, but the impact was
softer. The simulator could duplicate the ef­
fects of Lunar gravity, but not the feel of it.
He watched the fuel tank levels for any sign
of trouble. Likewise the air tanks and the elec­
trical cells and the myriad other critical sys­
tems. He wanted to be absolutely sure
everything was in good condition before he
put the lander in standby mode. Bad as condi-
92
tions were on Earth, he wasn't ready to spend
the rest of his life-which would be very short
if he were stranded here-on the Moon.
When he was satisfied that his ride would
be ready when he was, he let out the breath
he'd been holding and said, "Tycho base here.
The Chronos has landed. "
About five seconds later, the response from
his ground controller and wife, Tania, came in:
"Copy that, Dave." About half that time must
have been her finding her own breath. It only
took two and a half seconds for radio waves to
go to the Earth and back.
"I overshot it a bit," he said. "I'll have some
walking to do."
"Copy that. The exercise will be good for
you. "
She had to be kidding. The last six months
had been nothing but exercise, reducing the
body of a man who had "prospered," as Dave
liked to call it, from 220 pounds down to the
160 that his engineers could safely deliver to
the Moon. Then again, the last three days had
been nothing but drifting in zero-gee as his Lu­
nar transfer module coasted to the Moon. The
exercise probably would do him some good.
"No sense letting moss grow, " he said, un­
hooking the bungees that held him in position
before the landing controls. He had been

standing duting the descent, just like the Apol­
lo astronauts had. It saved the weight of a chair.
His lander looked a lot like the LEM. His de­
sign team had copied what worked before and
modified it to fit a budget. David was rich, but
even he couldn't afford to give his private
space effort carte blanche. He'd spent three­
quarters of his billions to get here; he wanted
enough left for a comfortable retirement when
he got home.
Media rights would recover some of what
he'd spent. Maybe a quarter of the world was
listening to him now, and watching through
the cameras installed in the lander and on his
suit helmet. They could see better than he
could, actually; they got the view behind him
as well as to the front and sides. They also ex­
pected a running commentary, but after the
first hour or so of the flight Dave had come to
understand why most astronaut chatter sound­
ed so inane. Space flight was like any flight:
hours of boredom punctuated by moments of
terror, and when something exciting hap­
pened you were concentrating on surviving it,
not talking about it.
He did at least say, "Checking my pressure
suit," while he snugged the seals at wrists and
neck and double-checked the big zipper run­
ning from neck to crotch. That one scared him
more than any other. Leaving your zipper
down here would be the faux-pas of a lifetime,
three billion people watching or none. When
he was satisfied that he was tight, he opened
the valve that let the cabin's air out. He
couldn't hear any hiss. Spacesuits transmitted
sound about as well as a pillow, and there was
no reason to put an external microphone on
one during a solo flight. Leaving it off had
saved an ounce at least.
He could feel the suit expanding a little as
the outside pressure dropped. It grew more
rigid, harder to flex his arms and fingers.
"Heading out the hatch," he said. All of his
equipment was stowed outside, so he didn't
need to wrangle anything out through the
doorway except himself. That was hard
enough. The opening had been designed to al­
low him to crawl through on hands and knees,
because anything bigger would have compro­
mised the strength of the cabin.
His life support unit weighed two hundred
pounds on Earth. Here it was only thirty-three,
but it still stuck out ten inches from his back
THE LONG VIEW
SEPTEMBER 2012
and stretched from the top of his helmet to his
butt. Getting it out the door was awkward and
frustrating. He was glad the engineers had in­
cluded the extra weight for some padding, be­
cause he banged it on the hatch frame three or
four times before he managed to wedge him­
self through. Some of the more conservative
countries were probably muting his audio feed
by the time he was done.
"Deep breaths, honey," Tania said.
"I'm already panting. "
H e straightened up on the threshold, look­
ing out over the gray surface of the Moon. "Oh,
wow," he said.
Tycho Crater's floor was littered with boul­
ders, each casting a long shadow in the morn­
ing sun. The west rim glowed almost white
under the direct rays. It was three miles high,
but it didn't look it. Tycho was big enough­
fifty miles in diameter-that the curvature of
the Moon put part of it below the horizon. It
did look jagged, unlike most of the other crater
rims on the moon. At only a hundred million
years old, Tycho was a recent enough impact
that it hadn't weathered significantly under the
onslaught of lesser meteors. Nearby he could
see that everything was pitted and rounded,
but on the large scale it looked as rugged as the
day it was blasted out of the lunar highlands.
"I've got to walk through that?" he said. "I
should have brought a better set of boots. "
He turned around and put his left foot on
the top rung of the ladder. " Starting down
now. " He couldn't feel the nmg nearly as well
as in the simulator on Earth, so he had to look
under his arm to make sure he was actually on
it before moving his right foot to the next one,
and so on until he was on the last nmg.
He ran his rehearsed speech through his
mind a couple of times to make sure he re­
membered it. No forgetting the "a" in "one
small step for a man" for him! He took a deep
breath, then stepped out with both feet and let
himself drop to the surface. He was still on the
landing pad, so he took another step off that
onto the actual dusty soil of the Moon and re­
cited: "Today humanity returns to the Moon,
bearing a witness to our species that will long
outlast us, whether we prosper or perish in tlle
rough years ahead. May we survive to open it
ourselves when better fortune brings us here
again."
"Amen to that," Tania said.
93
ANALOG
Dave wondered what the stock market was
doing at the moment. He'd had supposed ex­
perts tell him that his "stunt" would do every­
thing from stimulate the economy to destroy
the last vestige of human spirit left in an over­
heating, overpopulated world. He'd made a
pact with the thirty or so wealthiest people he
knew for them to buy stocks all across the
board the moment he landed in an effort to
nudge the market upward and start a wave of
confidence, but even thirty billionaires
couldn't move the world if the world didn't
want to move. And it sure looked to Dave as if
the world didn't want to go anywhere but
down the toilet. Which was the real reason for
his mission-besides simply wanting to go to
the Moon, of course.
The time capsule was stowed in a cargo bay
on the side of the descent module. Dave pulled
the release handle and tugged hard on the
spring-loaded arm that swung it out and down.
It was a mirror-bright cube about three feet on
a side, with angular pockets on the top four
corners that would reflect anything from radar
beams to searchlights straight back at the
sender. It had no active beacons; over the time
span Dave expected it to lie in wait before its
discovery, any electronic system would deteri­
orate to uselessness. Dave had his doubts if the
laser-etched data disks inside would even sur­
vive, but the foil books would. Humanity
wouldn't be forgotten completely.
The time capsule rested in a low, wide
framework with wire mesh wheels on all four
corners to make it easy to drag up the moun­
tain. Spare oxygen tanks rode behind it. Spare
water as well, and nutrient syrup in bottles that
screwed onto a nipple in the suit. There was
no solid food in the cart; what little he carried
was stored inside the suit where he could get
to it.
"Well, let's get this show on the road," he
said, taking hold of the handle and giving it a
tug.
The cart resisted as if it were stuck in a hole,
then it slowly moved forward. It weighed only
forty pounds, but it massed over a hundred ki­
los: two hundred fifty pounds on Earth. It took
energy to get it moving.
Fortunately it didn't take so much to keep it
going. Just a little tug with each step, about like
pulling a grandchild in a wagon along a side­
walk. Only this sidewalk was bumpy as a con-
94
struction site. It took careful attention to find
an even remotely smooth path and to avoid
getting boxed in by boulders. He was forever
pulling one wheel or another over basketball­
sized rocks, an operation that took serious ef­
fort and tipped the cart alarmingly. He had to
back up a few times and find better routes.
"At least I can see where I'm going, " he said.
The mountain loomed up ahead of him, starkly
lit by the morning sun. He'd arrived a day past
dawn in Tycho, giving himself maximum con­
trast on the ground for chOOSing a landing site
and giving him thirteen days of sunlight in case
anything went wrong and he needed the time
to make repairs. He'd overshot to the east, so
the sun was at his back; a small favor. He head­
ed to the left, toward the mountain's soutlleast
flank, where old NASA and JAXA photos had
shown the smoothest, gentlest climb to the
peak.
If he ever reached the peak. After half an
hour of sweaty hauling, in which he'd maybe
traveled half a mile, he said, "I'm beginning to
agree with the people who said I could just
leave this thing next to the lander. " At the time
he'd argued that even at its best, humanity
wouldn't be able to find it if they weren't look­
ing specifically for it, so he needed to put it
somewhere special. The top of the mountain
in the center of the most prominent crater on
the Moon seemed like the best place. It still
did. Plus, he reminded himself, the extra effort
would make him look even more heroic. That
and ten bucks would get him a cup of coffee,
but it was still worth something.
He tried to keep up a running commentary
for the audience back home, but he soon ran
out of words to describe the stark, contrasty
desolation around him. He was panting too
hard for words anyway. Sweat collected faster
than the air recycler could handle, and started
pooling at his feet. He squelched with each
step, as if he were slogging through a swamp
instead of the driest landscape ever traversed.
He collected samples from the more inter­
esting rocks he saw along the way. Those
could help pay for the trip, too. Mostly he
zoned out and pulled the cart. One foot in
front of the other. He couldn't use the rabbit­
hop that the Apollo astronauts used to get
around. Not with the cart anchoring him to the
ground.
He nearly wept when he came to a long,
JERRY OLTION

deep channel cutting directly across his path.It
was a fault line, too steep to descend and too
steep to climb back out of even i f he could.
Then he recalled the photos he'd studied for
long weeks as he planned his route up the
mountain and realized he was nearly there.
The fault ran along the base of the mountain,
and it would peter out if he just followed it to­
ward the southeast, more or less in the direc­
tion he wanted to go anyway.He slogged on,
squelch,squelch,squelch. His spacesuit chafed
at the shoulders and crotch. It didn't feel like a
body-shaped suit anymore; it was more of a bal­
loon with sandpaper in all the wrong spots.
Half an hour or so later, Tania said, "Sched­
ule says it's time for a rest."
"Thank god." Dave didn't hesitate.He just
dropped the cart handle and slumped over the
top face of the time capsule.The weight of the
backpack pressed into him so he rolled onto
his side. "Oh, blessed horizontal," he panted.
"Are you all right?" Tania's voice carried
more than her usual concern.
"Fine.Just tired. Give me a second." He
closed his eyes.
The alarm brought him out of it. He jerked
upright, or tried to, but the suit's mass was hav­
ing none of that. He smacked his head into the
side of his helmet. "Ow! What? What's going
on?"
"Dave! Dave,answer me, Dave-oh. Dave.
You fell asleep. "
"Yeah, I guess I did. How long was l out'" He
pushed himself upright more slowly.
"Just a few minutes. I'm sorry. I-I pan­
icked."
"Understandable. I could have been in seri­
ous trouble." He took a sip from his water nip­
ple, then decided to screw one of the syrup
canisters on and have a little nourishment. He
drank it greedily, and felt much better after­
ward.
"Okay, time for round two," he said. He
stood up and gave the wagon a tug, and with
the ponderous sluggishness of a freight train
leaving the yard,he resumed his trek.
He tipped the cart over a half a mile or so lat­
er, spilling oxygen tanks and water bottles
across the gray powdery ground and learning
how hard it is to bend over and pick up some­
thing slick in a spacesuit that wasn't designed
for it. He was more careful after that, and ar­
rived at the base of the ridge he needed to
THE LONG VIEW
SEPTEMBER 2012
climb an hour or so later without further inci­
dent.
Then the work began.U he thought hauling
a wagon across rocky ground was tough, haul­
ing it up a rocky incline was torture.The slope
had looked smooth in the photos, but those
photos had a resolution of four or five feet at
best, which left room for the possibility that
the mountainside was jagged as a Mayan pyra­
mid. It wasn't quite that bad, but it wasn't the
gravelly knoll he'd hoped for,either.It was like
walking up stairs, which gave him purchase for
his feet, but required a bump of the wheels
and a tug for every step.
"The world damn well better appreciate my
effort to memorialize it," he said at one point,
not caring who was listening or what they
thought.
"Of course they do," Tania reassured him.
"We're all incredibly grateful."
"Not bloody likely, " he said. "Half the planet
thinks I'm wasting money on self-gratification.
O f course those are the same bastards that
have pretty much ruined the place for their
own self-gratification, so they can go fuck
themselves. Oops, we just lost Saudi Arabia,
didn't we?"
Tania giggled,which probably cost them an­
other country or two. At that point Dave
couldn't have cared less.
Anger was better fuel than nutrient syrup.
Dave yanked the cart up the mountain like a
Sherpa hauling an obnoxious tourist's gear up
Everest,and before he knew it he had run out
of mountain. He stood on a high ridge over­
looking a central depreSSion,in which a single
boulder the size of an aparttnent building rest­
ed.
"Man, the air is thin up here, " he said.
"No shit, Sherlock."
He looked at the downward slope before
him. "I'm tempted to climb on top of this cart
and ride it down," he said.
"Negative on that. Momentum is momen-
tum,and that's a good tenth of a mile down."
" Yeah, you're right.As usual."
"Holy crap, and I've got that recorded! "
He smiled, envisioning her in the control
room there at Houston, rented from NASA,
who had no use for it anymore.He wished he
could hold her in his arms and bury his nose in
her hair. For the first time since he'd landed, he
really felt the quarter million miles between
95
ANALOG
them.
"All right," he said softly. "Let's get this done
so I can go home. "
He turned the cart around and pushed it
ahead of him, figuring he would rather snub its
motion from above rather than have it con­
stantly bumping into his legs. What he didn't
expect was that the cart would hit a bump just
as he was taking a step, pulling hinl off balance
and tipping him face-first toward the grolUld.
He let go to catch himself-a simple move in
the low gravity, accomplished with just his fin­
gertips on the ground-then couldn't reach
the cart handle before it moved out of range.
He watched, horrified, as the whole purpose
behind his trip, plus his oxygen and water re­
serve, picked up speed down the slope.
It happened in slow motion, like a train
wreck underwater, but it was just as relentless.
The cart bounced over rocks, spewing oxygen
tanks behind it but not tipping over until it had
picked up sufficient speed for that not to mat­
ter anymore. When it finally did tip, it merely
began tumbling, making long, spectacular
bounces and crashing back down upside-down
and Sideways as often as right-side-up. It threw
big gouts of dust outward in fan-shaped sprays
when it hit, all of it falling back to tlle ground
at the same tinle rather than lingering in clouds
the way it would on Earth. No air to support
dust. Nor to transmit the sound.
Dave made plenty of sound to make up for
it. His initial "Damn it" was nothing compared
to the tirade of profanity he unleashed as he
watched his life's work, and very likely his life
itself, self-destmct before hinl. By the time the
capsule broke free of the cart and tumbled di­
rectly into the huge rock at the base of the
slope, shaking the rock hard enough to knock
showers of dust off it from all sides, he was re­
duced to monosyllabic grunts of pain.
When everything had come to a stop save
his pounding heart, he recovered his compo­
sure and said sinlply, "Well, looks like it's tinle
for plan 8"
He passed most of his supplies in the dirt on
his way down. He left them there, figuring he
would pick them up on his way back, if he
came back. If the cart was ruined, there was
no point in trying. He couldn't carry enough
oxygen tanks in his arms, and there was no
point dying halfway down the mountain when
he could do it right there on tlle peak. At least
96
that way his body might be found if anyone
ever made it back to the Moon.
"Who'm I fooling'" he muttered. "It'll be
cockroaches, if anything."
"Say again, Dave?" Tania said.
"Nothing. Sorry. Woolgathering."
He reached the cart not long after the
ground leveled out. It was bent up pretty bad,
and as empty as a politiCian's promise, but
when he tipped it onto its wheels and gave it a
tug, it rolled along obediently behind him.
" Give the guy who deSigned this thing a
bonus," he said.
He pulled it along behind hinl to the side of
the big boulder. That had amazingly smooth
sides for something that had either tumbled
down from above or been blown up from be­
low in another crater-forming impact, but he
didn't stop to examine it. His eyes were on the
time capsule, his memorial of humanity. An en­
tire civilization of art and music and literature
preserved for posterity, even if that posterity
was the descendants of cockroaches. At least
someone, at some point in the future, would
open it and see that humanity had once been
here, had once amounted to something before
it wiped itself out in a monumental orgy of self­
ishness and stupidity.
Tania said sometl1ing, but he missed it, and
didn't feel like asking her to repeat. He needed
a moment alone here.
The surface of the time capsule had been
polished shiny and perfect to stand out amid
the Lunar desolation; now it was battered like
a tin foil ball after the eat's done playing with it.
The corner reflectors were filled with dirt.
"Regolith," Dave reminded hinlself. There was
no dirt on the Moon. He dug it out as best he
could with his gloved fingers. Tania said some­
thing again, but he just caught the word "be­
hind." Of course he was behind; the whole
damn mission was not only behind schedule, it
was screwed.
He couldn't open the lid to see how the con­
tents had fared. It was stuck tight. Just as well;
he didn't think he could stand to see how bad­
ly damaged it was inside.
His original plan had been to set the cube on
top of the boulder, if there was any way up
there. He turned around to examine the boul­
der for possibilities and realized what Tania
had been trying to tell him, what she and
everyone else on Earth had all been seeing
JERRY OLTION

through his helmet cameras while he was fac­
ing away.
The "boulder" was artificial. Its sides were
smooth and curved, like the sides of an egg.
They had been, anyway, when they were new.
Now they were battered by countless meteor
strikes, dented and holed and in places ripped
open in long streaks.
It took him a moment to find his voice.
When he did, he said, "This has been here a
long time." Despite its appearance, no partinl­
lar spot on the Moon got hit by a meteor very
often. An object this size might get hit once
every hundred thousand years. And this had
taken hWldreds of hits. It was millions of years
old.
He looked in through a gash in the wall.
The Sun was to his right; he couldn't see a
thing in the dark interior. He flipped on his
spotlight, half expecting to see an alien mon­
ster about to bite off his head, seeing instead
another wall at an angle to the outer wall, this
one with flat oval panels attached to it. Video
screens? Or . . .
"Artwork'" He stuck his head farther inside.
"Careful, Dave. Those edges look sharp. "
He backed out and took a close look. "They
are n ' t , actually. Micrometeorites have
smoothed them. But let me look for a better
way inside. Whoever put this here must have
made one."
They had. It was a door about fifteen feet
high and ten wide and battered as badly as the
rest of the structure, but he was able to wedge
an oxygen tank into the crack and pry it open
far enough to fit inside.
The place looked like a museum. Big, roomy
corridors, artwork on the walls, display cases
filled with artifacts, and little placards no
doubt describing what each one was if you
could read whatever language they were writ­
ten in. Dave didn't recognize the scribbles as
any language he'd ever seen, but that didn't
mean much.
"Does anybody recognize any of this?" he
asked.
He waited for the three second speed-of-
light lag, then a few more seconds.
"Tania?"
No response.
He stepped back outside. "Testing, testing,
testing. Can you hear me now?"
"Loud and clear. What happened?"
THE LONG VIEW
SEPTEMBER 2012
"The metal walls must be blocking my sig­
nal. It looks like I've found someone else's time
capsule, and they had a bigger budget than we
did. I'm going back inside and having a longer
look. Don't panic. "
"Take pictures!" Tania said. "Your video's not
making it through, either. '
"I will . "
H e stepped back inside, and into the past.
The distant past. There were maps of the
Earth, but the continents weren't where they
were now. The Atlantic Ocean was just a nar­
row strip between the Americas and Africa,
and Asia was tilted to the side. North America
was two pieces, separated by a long sea where
the Rocky Mountains would someday be.
He found photos of dinosaurs. The photos
were made of some ceramic-like material, and
were in color. Their subjects looked like di­
nosaurs in some of the more recent paleontol­
ogy books, with vivid purple and green
markings and spiky mohawks of scales or feath­
ers. It was hard to judge scale, but they looked
big. Some were standing up to their knees in
water, others in thick jungle foliage, or out in
the grassy plains. Most were eating: some grass,
some big chunks of meat torn out of the car­
casses of more dinosaurs. Dave thought it odd
that they would show scenes like that, rather
than their cities and major accomplishments.
There were three-dimensional displays, too.
Dioramas, models, even actual samples of
plants and aninlals, though most of those were
piles of dust in the bottoms of their display cas­
es. Dave had to stretch to see the tops of the
taller exhibits. The wide, high corridor would
have echoed if there had been air to carry
sound.
The museum was designed to tell a story,
leading a visitor through from scene to scene.
Dave followed the winding path into the interi­
or and slowly realized what he was seeing.
This was a snapshot of the Earth as it was at the
tinle, not a memorial of any particular species.
The dinosaurs didn't put this here, because the
dinosaurs were still just savage beasts.
So who had' Dave rushed forward, his spot­
light casting eerie shadows as he swept it from
exhibit to exhibit, until at last he found what
he was looking for: a photo with a clothed, ob­
viously civilized being in it.
It wasn't human. He wasn't expecting it to
be, not from so far back in the past. Even so, he
97
ANALOG
reacted the way he reacted to pictures of cats
wearing hats, or to dogs in sweaters. A mo­
ment of revulsion, a sense that something was
wrong.
These guys looked like mushrooms. The tall,
narrow kind with the cap that sweeps outward
at the bottom to end in little wispy fronds.
Only these fronds were thick as ropes-no
doubt what passed for arms-and the cap was
clearly a head. The head blended smoothly into
the body, with wrinkles where it could twist a
little. The stalk below the mushroom cap split
into three legs, covered with shimmery cloth
of some sort. These were mushrooms with
pants.
There were photos of mushrooms in space­
suits, standing beside their landing craft on a
wide open plain with herds of triceratops or
something like them off in the distance.
There was a star map, with an arrow point­
ing to one of the stars. Dave didn ' t recognize
any constellations. After a hundred million
years, the sky would be completely different.
He wondered if anyone would be able to fig­
ure out which star that arrow pointed to.
He went back outside and told Tania and the
world what he had fmmd.
Tania was bouncing off the walls in tlle con­
trol room. He imagined half of humanity was
doing the same wherever they happened to
be. Even the countries that had tuned out
when he'd started swearing were probably
back online now.
"What about the aliens'" Tania asked. "You
haven't said much about them."
"That's because there's not much to say.
They didn't leave much information about
themselves. Just enough to show that they
came to Earth, and this is what they found .
They seemed more interested i n preserving a
picture of what the Earth was like during their
visit than in telling anyone about themselves."
"Like a sign at a zoo," Tania said.
"No," Dave said. "Not like that. [ don't get
that feeling from it at all. And they wouldn't
bother with photos of the continents if they
were explaining what's there to somebody
they expected to be looking at it soon. This is
definitely a time capsule, but it looks like it's
meant to show whoever came along afterward
their own past, rather than anything about the
aliens'. "
He looked up at Earth, a glittering blue and
98
white crescent in the blackness of space. So dif­
ferent than the Moon or other planets in the so­
lar system. So full of life. Even now, with
humanity hell bent on polluting and populating
itself to death, the place glowed with potential.
Dave had expected the descendants of raccoons
or octopuses or something to eventually find his
time capsule. The aliens had probably expected
dinosaurs of one sort or another. The size of
their time capsule certainly suggested il. But an
asteroid had come along and wiped out Earth's
most promising species long after the aliens
were gone, leaving manunals to do the job.
"Well, here we are," he said. "A day late and
a dollar short, but we made it." He looked at
the ragged lunar landscape around him, and at
the walls of the alien artifact that had waited
patiently for mice to evolve far enough to reach
il. He took a deep breath, feeling the weight of
time stretching away behind him-and into
the future.
"We made it," he said again. "And by God,
this isn't the last time, either. You hear me,
Earth? We're not going down without a fight.
We're going to clean up our act and come back
here for good. We're going to expand into
space so we're not keeping all our eggs in one
basket anymore. We're going to survive, and
someday we're going to meet the descendants
of whoever left thiS, and we're going to thank
them for tlleir gift. The gift of confidence that
life would persevere and evolve intelligence."
He walked over to the tinle capsule he had
lugged all the way up the mountain and gave it
a kick. "What a pile of garbage this is in com­
parison. It's all about us. Hell, [ might as well
be honest here: it's all about me. [ wanted to
be the person who saved our culture for eons
to come. [ wanted the glory. [ wanted to go
home smug in the knowledge that I, at least,
would be remembered long after the rest of
you were dust . " He looked up at the Earth
again. "But now I see what philanthropy really
looks like. And [ see what hope and confi­
dence look like. This is a gift to the future. "
Tania said, " [ couldn't agree more. Now it's
time to come home."
"Right." Dave began gathering up his gear.
He went back inside the alien time capsule to
photograph everything he'd missed the first
time, but there was no way he could capture
everything there was to learn in the short time
he had left. And that was a good thing. It
JERRY OLTION

would provide more incentive for someone
else to follow him here and do it right. Who
knows; maybe it would be him again, better
prepared next time.
He left his own time capsule near the an­
cient alien one, tilted so Earth would have its
best shot at the corner reflectors. You never
knew; it could be the descendants of raccoons
who eventually made it back. But not if Dave
had anything to do with it.
A year later he had the distinct pleasure of
pushing the button that sent a signal off into
deep space. Not to the home planet of the
aliens who had left the time capsule on the
Moon; that message had already been sent,
though it was anybody's guess if anyone was
still there to receive it. This was a different sort
of message, a symbolic one more than any­
thing, although a real gift for anyone who
might receive it in two million years.
It was a photo of the Andromeda Galaxy, a
mosaic taken by the Hubble Space Telescope
THE LONG VIEW
SEPTEMBER 2012
before it had died, and it was being sent to the
Andromeda Galaxy. The people-or mush­
rooms, or raccoons, or octopi, or cockroaches,
or whatever-who lived dlere would never be
able to see their own galaxy from the outSide,
but humanity had a great view. Why not send
them a shot of it' Who knew, maybe someone
over there would decode the message and see
what it was and send a shot of the Milky Way
back to renlrn the favor.
Dave would be long gone when that hap­
pened. Humanity itself might be a distant mem­
ory in a battered metal box on the Moon,
although the discovery of the alien artifact had
jarred people into reconsidering their selfish
approach to life and to their planet. But even if
humanity continued on its path to ruin, some­
one, somewhere in the galaxy, would pick up
that signal from Andromeda, and smile. Dave
was sure of it. •
Copyright © 2012 Jerry Oltion
99
THE REFERENCE LI BRARY Don Sakers
E
ven before the word "genetics" existed,
science fiction writers were speculating
and writing stories about the subject. Al­
though Gregor Mendel's work was first
published in the 186Os, his ideas didn't pene­
trate the scientific mainstream until William
Bateson rediscovered his results in 1905 (and
coined the word "genetics") and publicized
them. Meanwhile, in 1896 H. G. Wells pub­
lished The Island ofDoctor Moreau, arguably
the first important novel of genetic engineer­
ing. (To be sure, Wells calls Dr. Moreau's tech­
niques "vivisection," but the results look an
awful lot like genetic engineering.)
Before actual genetic engineering emerged,
science fiction interpreted the concept
through several different lenses. The primary
method was good old selective breeding,
sometimes called "eugenics . " Biological
change came to the human race across many
generations, usually according to some master
plan.
Thus, in Olaf Stapeldon's Last and First
Men (1930), we follow the development of
eighteen successive species of humanity into a
far-distant future. E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman
series (beginning in Astounding with Galactic
Patrol in 1 937-38) involves millennia-long
bloodlines, both human and alien, controlled
by the benevolent Arisians. In Robert A. Hein­
lein's Howard Families series (starting with
Methuselah's Children in Astounding, 1941),
the Howards are bred for their longevity, be­
coming a race of near-immortals. Heinlein's
Beyond This Horizon (Astounding, 1 942)
told of a world in which selective breeding
had created a near-utopia. Frank Herbert's
Dune series (serialized in A nalog starting in
1963) gives us the ten-thousand-year blood­
lines supervised by the Bene Gesserit Sister­
hood.
Selective breeding involves large popula­
tions and long time frames. Another way to
1 00
view genetic engineering was more focused
on small populations or individuals, using a va­
riety of unspecified chemical and biological
methods to alter germ plasm and create new
forms of life. We're all familiar widl the various
biological castes depicted by Aldous Huxley in
Brave New World (1932). The first great SF
practitioner of this method, James Blish, gave
it the name "pantropy. " Several of his
pantropy stories (including "Sunken Uni­
verse , " 1942, and the classic " Surface Ten­
sion, " 1952) were published in one volume as
The Seedling Stars (1956). In c.L. Moore's
"Promised Land" (Astounding, 1 9 50),
pantropy is used to adapt colonists to life on
Ganymede. "Between the Dark and the Day­
light" by Algis Budrys (1958) settlers on a hos­
tile planet develop adaptations such as claws
and armored hides, and eventually overrun
the unmodified humans. Pantropy allows hu­
mans to live lUlderwater and even in space in
A. E. van Vogt's The Silkie (1964).
A third take on genetic engineering follows
in the steps of Doctor Moreau by breeding or
mutating aninlais to give them more human­
like aspects. Robert A. Heinlein's "Jerry Is a
Man" (1947, later appearing in book form as
"Jerry Was a Man") was a prescient early ex­
ample of this approach, in which an intelli­
gent ape stands trial to determine his humani­
ty. In Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of
Mankind series (notably "Alpha Ralpha Boule­
vard," 1961, "The Ballad ofLost C'Mell," 1962,
"Under Old Earth, " 1966, and Norstrilia,
1975), a host of half-animal Underpeople are
the true heirs of humanity. Curt Siodmak's
Hauser's Memory (1 969) explores using ge­
netics to transfer human memories and even
personalities to animals. More recendy, David
Brin has used a variation on the theme of se­
lective breeding in his Uplift stories (com­
mencing with Startide Rising, some parts ap­
peared in A nalog starting in 1981), in which

sapient patron races "uplift" non-sapient ani­
mals to intelligence.
Once science discovered DNA, it was able
to catch up to SF and give us the language and
techniques of true genetic engineering. Start­
ing about the 1970s, genetic engineering be­
came a common theme in science fiction. In
Time Enough For Love (1973), Robert A .
Heinlein picked up the Howard Families series
and took genetic engineering far beyond sim­
ple controlled breeding. Kate Wilhelm's
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976) gives
us a world in which cloning replaces sexual
reproduction. Cloning and genetic engineer­
ing also figure heavily in Arthur C. Clarke's Im­
perial Earth (1976).
Geoff Ryman's The Child Garden ( 1 989)
presents a world in which genetic engineering
results in living beings that serve as houses, ve­
hicles, and machines. Nancy Kress has made a
name for herself with genetic engineering sto­
ries like the Sleepers series (starting with Beg­
gars in Spain, 1993)-in which a new breed
of immortals result from attempts to engineer
away the need for sleep-and this year's col­
lection Future Perfect: Six Stories of Genetic
Engineering.
Many SF movies and television shows in­
clude elements of genetic engineering (usually
laughable ones), but one standout is the ex­
cellent 1997 movie Gattaca.
This issue, I have several recent exanlples of
genetic engineering in science fiction. As you
might expect, they're a pretty diverse lot.
Body, Inc.
Alan Dean Foster
Del Rey, 290 pages, $ 1 3 .00 (trade paperback)
iSooks, Kindle, Nook: $9.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-345-5 1 199-7
Series: Human Blend 2
Genre: Advennlre SF, Biological SF,
Man & Machine
Centuries from now, with the world an en­
vironmental fuin, personal genetic enhance­
ment and nanotech implants are everywhere.
In The Human Blend (reviewed in the May
201 1 issue) we met wraith-thin lovable rogue
Whispr and his friend, Dr. Ingrid Seastrom.
Whispr accidentally acquired a silver data­
thread that bears information about a power­
ful new technology, and Ingrid became his
THE REFERENCE LIBRARY
SEPTEMBER 201 2
protector when dastardly forces pursued
them.
Now Whispr and Ingrid are in Africa, in the
territory of the South African Economic Com­
bine (known offiCially as SAEC and colloquial­
ly as SICK). SICK, apparently the source of the
data-thread, is the kind of evil corporate em­
pire that we aU love to hate. Whispr and Ingrid
feel that they are close to the answers they
seek.
Unfortunately, SICK's ultra-enhanced sadis­
tic assassin, Napul Mole, is on their trail. By es­
caping him in the last book, Whispr and In­
grid showed Mole u p , and now he's
determined not just to catch them, but also to
make them suffer.
It's all great adventure, with sympathetic
characters and solid speculative science.
Uglies: Shay's Story
Scott Westerfeld
Del Rey, 208 pages, $ 1 0.99
(paperback graphic novel)
iBooks, Nook: $9.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-345-52722-6
Series: Uglies
Genre: Biological SF, Graphic Novels
In 2005 Scott Westerfeld introduced us to
the world of Uglies. In this future world, at
age 16 all adults have an operation that turns
them "Pretty" -eliminating individual differ­
ences and making everyone a perfect physical
specimen-after which they enter the shal­
low, hedonistic adult world. Children under
1 6 are "Uglies, " humiliated and embarrassed
by their trivial imperfections. Most children
dream of the day they will become Pretty . . .
except for Tally Youngblood's friend Shay.
Shay, the rebel, runs away rather than become
Pretty . . . and Tally follows her. At first Tally
comes as a spy, to retrieve Shay from her fel­
low rebels and bring them all back. Tally's
slow conversion to rebel and her subsequent
adventures make up the four books of the
Uglies series.
Uglies: Shay's Story goes back to the begin­
ning and tells things from Shay's viewpoint . . .
and does so in a very accessible graphic novel
format. David Cummings's black-and-white il­
lustrations dovetail perfectly with script by
Scott Westerfeld and Devin Grayson. Readers
familiar with the Uglies series will definitely
1 01
ANALOG
want this one, and those who haven't yet read
Uglies will find it a perfect introduction to the
series.
This would be a perfect gift for a bright teen
or pre-teen, but adults can certainly enjoy the
story as well.
Exogene
T. C. McCarthy
Orbit, 384 pages, $7.99 (mass market)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $7.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-316-12815-5
Series: Subterrene War 2
Genre: Biological SF, Military SF,
Psychological/Sociological SF
Genetically enhanced soldiers are an obvi­
ous concept, and many authors have written
about them. In the Subterrene War series, T.
C . McCarthy is presenting the kind of full­
bore, total-immersion exploration of the con­
cept at which science fiction excels.
In this somewhat-near h.ture, wealth is mea­
sured in rare metals so precious and so impor­
tant to industry that the world is convulsed in
war to control the remaining deposits. The
key weapon in these wars is the germline sol­
dier: genetically enhanced, grown in vats, to­
tally expendable. The first book, Germline,
showed the war from the viewpoint of a jour­
nalist embedded with a U.S. military unit in
Kazakhstan.
Now Exogene introduces us to Catherine,
one of the germline soldiers. Catherine and her
compatriot Megan are perfect weapons in the
enhanced bodies of teenage girls, and they're
good at what they do. There's one hitch: after
two years on the battlefield (if they survive),
they will begin to "spoW-their minds and
bodies will start to unravel, and they'll be de­
commissioned (executed). Catherine used to
think she was ready for this fate; she was cer­
tainly taught that it was God's will.
But then she hears rumors of a place in
Thailand, a place where spoiled gennline sol­
diers go to live in freedom. And she's deter­
mined to get there.
U you don't care for military SF, at least give
McCarthy a try. These books don't center on
weapons and tactiCS, they're about people fac­
ing the ultimate challenges of war. A third
book, from yet another viewpoint, is sched­
uled for August publication to complete the
1 02
trilogy.
Tbe Games
Ted Kosmatka
Del Rey, 368 pages, $25.00 (hardcover)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $ 12.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978.()-345-52661-8
Genre: Biological SF, SF/Horror
During the Cold War, the Olympic Games
became a surrogate for geopolitical rivalries,
with each medal won a victory for one side or
the other. In the near-future world of The
Games, the OlympiCS are replaced by an in­
ternational competition of genetic engineer­
ing. Nations design animal-derived killers and
deploy them in gladiatorial games, with gold
medals and enormous prestige going to the
nation whose creation defeats all others. The
one limitation is that no creature can contain
any human-derived DNA.
The designs of genius geneticist Silas
Williams have won the United States numer­
ous gold medals . . . but competitors are get­
ting closer. At the end of his rope, Silas turns
to an experinlental supercomputer, allowing it
to design the genetic template for the perfect
killer.
The result is so complex and unfamiliar that
Silas can't begin to understand it. He enlists
the help ofVidonia]oa, xenobiologist extraor­
dinaire.
Too soon, Silas and Vidonia learn how the
supercomputer has done its magic . . . for it
turns out that the new organism isn't just the
most efficient killer ever to walk the earth, it's
also intelligent. And in the manner of all the
best intelligent killing machines, it soon turns
on its creators. . . .
The Games is being marketed to appeal to
the pop-sci Michael Crichton/Robin Cook
crowd, but the science is a tad too authenti­
cally detailed, the future worldbuilding a bit
too well done, the writing not quite breathless
enough. Kosmatka, after all, is a Nebula Award
nominee. If you are in the mood for an SF
thrill ride with some very convincing mon­
sters, this is the book for you.
Unfriendly Persuasion
Steven H. Wilson
Firebringer, 426 pages, $20.00
(trade paperback)
DON SAKERS

Kindle: $2.99 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-9773851-3-3
Series: Arbiter Chronicles 2
Genre: Humorous SF, Military SF
For ten years and a vast number of episodes,
Steven H. Wilson and the crew at Prometheus
Radio Theatre (prometheusradiotheatre.
com) have dramatized the madcap adventures
of the Confederate Navy Starship Titan and
her misfit crew. Unfriendly Persuasion is Wil­
son's second book featuring Rigellian Arbiter­
Captain Jan Atal; his genetically enhanced
daughter Kaya; enigmatic alien telepath Cer­
naq; and poor Terry Metcalfe and Kevin Car­
son, the first Terrans to qualify for the Confed­
erate Navy.
Metcalfe, hero of a recent battle with the
Qraitian Empire, is disenchanted with his po­
sition and senses that there should be more to
life than his military service. He gradually falls
under the spell of a religious sect from the
planet Eleusis-a sect that believes God lives
within their planet.
So Metcalfe sets out for Eleusis, where he
discovers that something is indeed living be­
neath the surface, a powerful alien intelli­
gence that's prepared to grant him everything
he desires. But what Metcalfe sees as God
might instead be a malevolent creature intent
on destroying everything he and his friends
have fought for.
The story of Metcalfe'S wayward adven­
tures, and the stmggle of his friends and crew­
mates to save him in spite of himself, makes
for a light and enjoyable tale. Like a cross be­
tween the funniest episodes of the original
Star Trek and Monty Python, Unfriendly Per­
suasion is a fun romp, and a bargain at $2.99
for the e-book. If you like the book, be sure to
visit the website and listen to some episodes.
Claws & Saucers: Science Fiction, Horror, and
Fantasy Film 1902-1982
David Elroy Goldweber
Lulu, 682 pages, $47.95 (paperback)
iBooks, Kindle, Nook: $8.95 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-105-04350-5
Genre: Nonfiction
In this age of handheld, always-connected
devices and multiple billions of websites,
when the assembled knowledge and wisdom
THE REFERENCE LIBRARY
SEPTEMBER 201 2
of the human race is only a few clicks or taps
away, one might think that the age of enor­
mous, encyclopedic directories is over.
One would be wrong.
Eighty years of SF, horror, and fantasy
movies make for a gargantuan amount of in­
formation. David Elroy Goldweber has boiled
it all down to the essentials that matter to
those of us who watch these films for fun.
You'd have to comb dozens of websites to get
the kind of valuable stuff he packs into one en­
try for a single ftlm.
From Abbot and Costello Go to Mars all the
way to ZPG. , here's what you get. There's the
standard filmographic info: title, producer, nUl
time, format, date. What's Happening: a one­
line blurb. Famous For: the distinguishing
characteristics that fans care about (popular
cult classic, notable performances, same di­
rector as a more famous film, etc.)
But wait, there's more. A detailed discus­
sion, ranging from one paragraph to several,
tells you exactly what your most knowledge­
able friend would want you to know about
the film. These discussions are the meat of the
book, and make for fascinating and fun read­
ing. Ever since this book showed up in the
mailbox, I've been dipping into it at random
and enjoying essays on films I have no inten­
tion of ever watching. It's that kind of guide.
Goldweber goes on to rate each movie on a
scale of 1 to l O on five dimensions: Action,
Gore, Sex, Quality, and Camp. In addition, he
has a "Don't miss" line to highlight one special
moment from each movie, and also a cleverly
titled quote from each.
If you have any interest in genre films, if you
want to impress and amuse your friends on
movie night, or if you just enjoy compellingly
written trivia, you want this book. The paper
version is about the size of a phone book but
has better paper and much more readable
type; it's pricey but would make a great pre­
sent for your favorite genre film buff. The
much-more-affordable e-book is a must for any­
one who likes genre movies.
And with that, I'm afraid I've engineered
myself out of space. In the spirit of genetic en­
gineers everywhere, go out and make some
new friends . •
Copyright © 2012 Don Sakers
1 03
VINVll
;) Canvas Posters
SHOP NOW!
BRASS TACKS
S
tan,
In your March 2 0 1 2 editorial, you
give the example of someone building
railroad cars wider for greater capacity,
although they could not run on existing (4'-8-
1/2") tracks. This actually happened.
When George Stephenson built the Stock­
ton and Darlington Railway, he used the gauge
of the existing colliery tramways, but added
1/2" to make i t easier to go around sharp
curves. He used the same gauge when he built
the Liverpool and Manchester. Others copied
him for their railways. Isambard Brunel, who
was building the Great Western Railway, de­
cided that a wider track was more stable and
used 7-0-1/4" for his trains. The railways that
connected with the GWR also used the wide
track. As the railways expanded, the two sys­
tems met but could not interchange because
of the difference in gauge. Passengers and
freight had to unload and reload to go from
one system to the other. Parliament had an in­
vestigation and decided that Stephenson's
gauge should be the standard. BruneI had to
add a third rail to his tracks so that standard
gauge trains could run on his system. In the
end the GWR had to remove the outer rail, cut
off the excess length of the ties, and scrap all
of the wide gauge locomotives and equip­
ment.
This also happened on the Erie Railroad in
the US. It was built to a six-foot gauge and had
to be narrowed to connect with other rail­
roads. In Australia, there are three different
gauges. Depending on which state you are in,
it could be standard gauge, 3'-6" or 5'-3 " .
Come to the boundary with the next state and
you have to get out and get into a train run­
ning on a different gauge.
Brian Cary
Seattle, WA
Dear Dr. Schmidt,
I was a bit surprised, in reading Richard
Lovett's April 2012 Science Fact article con­
cerning Kuiper Belt objects, that he didn't of­
fer what I consider to be a fairly obvious ex­
planation for the "hot" (orbiting out of the
ecliptic) planetoids that appear to make up
about half of the Kuiper belt objects, especial­
ly given that he cites the recent discovery of
Jupiter-sized rogue planets-planets apparent­
ly ejected from their native orbits about other
stars due to gravitational interactions.
I propose that the "hot" Kuiper objects are
formerly rogue planetoids captured from in­
terplanetary space by our Sun. Captured how?
Perhaps by drag produced when they encoun­
tered our Sun's protoplanetary disc-the dust
and gas from which the Sun's planets formed.
Or perhaps by gravitational interaction with
the coalesced planets and asteroids later on.
If there are as many or more rogue Jupiters
as stars, as estimated by their discoverers,
then I'd say it is very likely that smaller rogue
objects are far more munerous, since small ob­
jects are much more likely to be the losers in a
gravitational dust-up. I would think interstellar
space should be populous with small refugee
bodies and that, over billions of years, any star
would acquire a large collection of loosely­
bound former rogues.
It may turn out that many of the recently
discovered "hot" Kuiper objects are not cap­
tured at all, but merely passing through. They
are far enough away and moving slowly
enough relative to the Sun that their orbits
may very well be open hyperbolas, not the
closed parabolas [sic] we have assumed. It
may take years or decades of observations to
determine the truth.
It would be extraordinary if the New Hori­
zons spacecraft, currently en route to Pluto,
1 05
ANALOG
were to discover it is a fonner rogue that had
formed around another star!
Best,
Ed Bianchi
The author replies . . .
This is an interesting idea. It's also timely be­
cause a February 2012 study concluded that
rogue planets are 100,000 times more plenti­
ful than stars. I wouldn't put a lot of faith in
that number, but it does appear that there are
a lot of those things out there.
That said, I find them to be an unlikely
source of Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs). To be­
gin with, I suspect that capture would be diffi­
cult. That would mean that to get a few hun­
dred hot KBOs, we might have had thousands
or hundreds of thousands of rogue planets
pass through the Solar System.
Gas drag in the protoplanetary disk proba­
bly wouldn't work as a way around this be­
cause an object coming in from interstellar
space would only get one pass through the
disk before looping around the Sun and off
again into interstellar space. I don't think drag
works that quickly.
As for some KBOs being visitors on unrec­
ognized hyperbolic orbits, I think orbits can
be well enough calculated today to rule out
hyperbolic orbits fairly quickly. I'm sure that if
someone found a KBO on a hyperbolic orbit,
it would be big news.
Still, this is a rapidly advancing field. And if
rogue planets turn out to really be as common
as the new study claims, then it doesn't seem
impossible that lurking somewhere out in the
outer solar system might be an alien worldlet
or two. Maybe passing rogue planets are what
disturb objects in the Oort Cloud, sending
some of them slowly falling into the inner so­
lar system to become comets.
One thing that would make a good story
would be what would happen if we detected
something big (as in Jupiter-sized or larger)
heading our way. That could mess up a lot of
things in the Solar System as we know it today.
Richard A. Lovett
Dear Stan:
Your editorial in the April issue told of a
case of carding people who buy beer and how
it applied to everyone, not just those who
might be borderline. Some years ago, I was at
1 06
Chicago's O'Hare airport and ordered a beer at
an eating spot. I was asked to show my identi­
fication, and I asked why. I've been drawing
Social Security for some time and my hair is a
losing race between white and gone. The ex­
planation floored me. The waiter said that
someone had brought a lawsuit alleging dis­
crimination against younger people who
would be asked, so it was now "policy" that
everyone had to be asked, regardless of obvi­
ous age. Judgment was not allowed to play any
part in the process.
Robert P. Odenweller
Bernardsville, NJ
Dear Stan,
My latest gripe is prejudice towards seniors.
It burns my grits to read stories in which the
older parent or grandparent is portrayed as a
mossback with totally outmoded views, a big­
ot in most things and stupid in everything
else. \Vhen I was a kid, black people in stories
were either shuffling Uncle Toms or criminal
rapists intent on white women. Women were
portrayed as weak and lacking decision-mak­
ing skills; never mind what was said about oth­
er minorities and commies. Over the last fifty
years, most writers slowly realized that these
stereotypes were politically incorrect and to­
day they steer away from such things, even
when they feel otherwise. So how come the
literary conmmnity still thinks it's open season
on seniors? I can hardly pick up a book of fic­
tion that doesn't have an addled elder in it.
Older people are assumed to be racially and
religiously bigoted. I wonder how many of
these young writers ever sat in the back of a
bus or demonstrated for civil rights in the face
of police clubs and fire hoses. What genera­
tion is willing to kill the people of another re­
ligion out of fear and hate? Not mine. For the
record, people have about a one in thirty
chance of even getting an Alzheimer type dis­
ease (if they live long enough) and a one out
of two chance of getting cancer, of which one
out of four of us will die. Isn't it about time to
make the senior stereotype politically incor­
rect along with aU the rest?
I refer of course to the story by Jerry Oltion
["An Ounce of Prevention, " June 2012] but he
is only an example of a widespread trend. One
can hardly have a conversation without hear­
ing about senility or Alzheimer's and writers
BRASS TACKS

use it constantly as device to show the intelli­
gence and open-mindedness of the current
generation. I can't remember when I last read
a story in which the younger person was the
bigot. These writers may believe they are just
telling a story about individuals, but the preva­
lence of the stereotype reminds me very much
the racism of the '40s and '50s.
R. K. Glover
Cookeville, 1N
The author replies . . .
It's tempting to say "Oh, come on now, this
story is just about one character, not about old
people in general, " but that would be dodging
the issue. The fact is, I did choose the grandfa­
ther to represent an entire class of people. Not
old people in particular, but he represents the
people who are so damaged by their upbring­
ing and their environment that they have no
hope of overcoming their ingrained behav­
ior-nor of shielding their offspring from it.
To tell the story I wanted to tell, I needed
three generations so I could show the effect
on each: the one that couldn't escape, the one
that escaped but with memories she'll have to
deal with forever, and the one who might, if
she's lucky, escape completely. I don't see
how I could have told that story without a
grandfather (or grandmother). More to the
point, I don't see why I shouldn't have told
the one I did.
Stereotypes exist because people fit the
stereotypes. Not all people, of course, but
enough to make a noticeable cluster in the
population. There are an awful lot of bigots in
BRASS TACKS
SEPTEMBER 201 2
the world, old and young-and this is the key
point the young ones learn it at the feet of the
old ones. So I wrote about a stereotypical big­
ot, a stereotypical bigot's daughter deter­
mined to break the cycle, and the not-so­
stereotypical granddaughter who results. All
were taken directly from my observations of
the world around me. (I didn't say it directly in
the story, but you can guess the bigot's politi­
cal affiliation, too, because that stereotype is
just as prevalent as bigotry itself.) I don't think
this is an "Uncle Tom" stereotype. I think this
one is real, persistent, and scary. The world is
full of these people: mentally damaged and
busy damaging their children and grandchil­
dren as well. I make no apology for writing
about them. If I make even one child of a bigot
recognize that they could stop the cycle, then
I'll rest happy. (On the other hand, I expect
parents to be horrified, as I was when I wrote
this story, that it might take fleeing to the
Moon and a Versed-like dmg to accomplish it.
I was using hyperbole there. I hope.)
Jerry Oltion
Dear Stan,
Excellent editorial aune 201 2) on "green"
cities. When I read that issue, I shared many of
the same feelings that you have expressed.
Perhaps the concentration of people in the
cities will solve the population ("populution")
problem. When -not if-a real disaster
strikes, most of the city dwellers will not sur-
vive.
Ken Young
Petrolia, CA •
1 07
UPCOMING EVENTS Anthony Lewis
NOTE: Membership rates often change after
we have gone to press. Check the websites for
the most recent information.
5-7 October 2012
GAYLAXICON 2012 (LGBT-oriented SF confer­
ence) at Doubletree Hotel, Minneapolis, MN.
Guests of Honor: Gary Russell, Wendy Pini,
Lyda Morehouse, Kyell Gold. Membership:
$80 until 20 September 2012, $90 at the door;
supporting $35. Info: www.gaylaxicon2012.
org; Gaylaxicon 2012, ;;41 Clinton, Avenue,
Minneapolis, MN 55419.
12-14 October 2012
CAPClAVE 2012 (District of Columbia area SF
conference) at Hilton Washington DC/North
Gaithersburg, Gaithersburg, Maryland. Author
Guest of Honor: John Scalzi; Editor Guest of
Honor: Nick Mamatas. Membership: $50 until
3 1 July 2012, $55 until 30 September 2012,
$60 thereafter; $25 (students and military).
Info: www.capclave.org; Capclave 2012 Regis­
tration, c/o Barry Newton, P.O. Box 53, Ash­
ton MD 2086 1 .
18-21 October 2012
ALBACON 2012 (Albany area SF conference)
at Best Western Sovereign Hotel, Albany, NY.
Artist Guest of Honor: Jody A. Lee; Educator
Guest of Honor: Julie E. Czerneda; Fan Guest
of Honor: Erwin S. Strauss; Media Guest of
Honor: Keith R. A. DeCandido; Filk Guest of
Honor: Roberta Rogow. Membewrship: $40
until 20 September 20 1 2 , $60 at the door.
Info: www.albacon.org; chair@albacon.org;
P.O. Box 2085, Albany NY 12220'()085.
1-4 November 2012
WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION at Sheraton
Parkway Toronto North, Hotel Suites & Con­
ference Centre. Themes: Northern Gothic
Fantasy and Urban Fantasy. Writer Guest of
Honor: Elizabeth Hand; Encyclopaedist Guest
1 08
of Honor: John Clute; Artist Guest of Honor:
Richard A. Kirk; TM: Gary K. Wolfe; Special
Guest: Tanya Huff; Special Guest: Charles de
Lint. Membership: until 30 June 2012; CAD
2 2 ; attending, CAD ;0 supporting. Info:
www.wfc2012.org; WFC 2012 2 Farm Green­
way, Toronto, ON Canada M3A 3M2.
29 August-2 September 2013
LONESTARCON 3 (71 st World Science Fiction
Convention) at Henry B. Gonzalez Convention
Center, San Antonio, Texas. Author Guests of
Honor: James Gunn & Norman Spinrad; Editor
Guest of Honor: Ellen Datlow; Artist Guest of
Honor: Darrell K. Sweet; Fan Guest of Honor:
Willie Siros; TM: Paul Cornell; Special Guests:
Leslie Fish &Joe R. Lansdale. Membership: un­
til 30 June 2012. Attending $ 1 60 (adult), $ 1 10
(young adult 17-21), $75 child (to 16), family
$440; supporting $60. This is the SF ,miverse's
annual get-together. Professionals and readers
from all over the world will be in attendance.
Talks, panels, films, fancy dress competition­
the works. Nominate and vote for the Hugos.
lonestarcon3.org; info@lonestarcon3.org; PO
Box 27277, Austill, TX 78755-2277.
Running a convention? Ifyour convention
has a telephone or fax number, e-mail ad­
dress, or web page, please let us know so that
we can publish this information. We must
have your information in hand SIX months
before the date ofyour convention.
Attending a convention? When calling con­
ventions for information, do not call collect
and do not call too late in the evening. It is
best to include a S.A.s.E. when requesting in­
formation; include an International Reply
Coupon if the convention is in a different
country. •
Copyright © 2012 Anthony Lewis
 7
5
9
15 J
11
�� ���;..s-....� ""
0
D
�

..

t 5

g .

puzzlenation.com
\",�\Ofe the Universe,!
Visit www.analogsf.com
& •

www.aslmovs.com

Home of the world's leading

5ciem:e Fiction magazines

Log on and enjoy:

Award-nominated stories
from the genre's leading authors
*
Readers' Forum
*
Excerpts of current stories
*
SF news and events
*
Book reviews

Asim ovs A n A l 0 � SCIINCI IICIIDH AND IACI