by Jack Dann
I scampered up the ladders, pursued by the acrid stench of burning. At the head of the gangway the sentry was still unconscious. I slung him over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry — he was only a small man, luckily — and got him away from immediate danger. After all, I bore no grudge against him. I bore no grudge against anybody. I was just trying to save my — our — universe. And my own skin.
That fire was spreading fast. The big windows of the stern gallery were glowing ruddily and the flames were roaring, louder and louder. There was bawling and shouting among the sentries on the wharf, a great deal of running around. I did my best to impersonate a chicken with its head cut off, reasoning that if I joined the general panic I might escape notice. Then I found cover in a narrow alley between two warehouses, stood and watched. The galleon was well ablaze by now, with lines of fire running up her rigging, spreading to the furled canvas on her spars. Somebody had organised a bucket party but by this time it was utterly ineffectual. There was only one thing to do — to get the remaining ships away and out from the wharf before the first vessel’s magazine went up. But there was nobody there to do it; those sentries must all have been soldiers, not seamen.
The fire reached the magazine.
Oh, I’ve seen, more than once, the sort of Big Bang that can be produced by modern weaponry — but that particular Big Bang still, after all these years, persists in my memory … The strangely slow flare of orange flame and a somehow leisurely boom of man-made thunder … The blazing fragments scattered in all directions and other fragments, not yet burning, black in silhouette against dreadful, ruddy light … And the fires exploding in the rigging and on the decks of the other five ships — and on the roof of the warehouse beside which I was standing.
Somebody was addressing me urgently in Japanese. It was a tall, kimono-clad man, with pistols as well as a sheathed Samurai sword thrust into his sash. He was tall, as I have said, and bearded, and the language that he was using did not sound right from his lips. There was a kimono-clad woman with him. She stared at me wide-eyed.
‘Captain!’ she gasped. ‘What are you doing here?’ What have you done?’
‘What have you been doing, Yoshi-san?’ I demanded.
Adams — it could have been none other — had one of his pistols out, was pointing it at me.
‘Who is this,’ he asked, ‘that you know him? Some Spanish dog sent to frustrate me? Who are you, man, and who employs you? Should you make truthful answer I might spare your life.’
And then, at the other end of the timeline, Sparks did what he should have done minutes before and I was standing in Sister Site’s Mannschenn Drive room, with holes burned by flying sparks in my dressing gown, my face smoke-blackened. I moved out of the circle to look at the screen. Nothing could save those ships now. As I watched two of the others exploded.
I heard the Third say to Sparks, ‘What about Yoshi?’ and Sparks, reply, ‘I’m trying.’
And he got her.
She sprawled lifeless on the deck, in a pool of her own blood. A dagger was in her right hand. And one of those scraps of useless knowledge that one accumulates floated into my mind. Japanese ladies, wiping out some real or fancied disgrace, were not expected to carry out ritual self-disembowelment.
A mere throat-cutting would suffice.
But it wasn’t all over yet. The two young men who had been Yoshi’s accomplices were taking her death very badly. Before I could stop him Sparks had snatched the laser pistol from my sash. And he took his revenge. Oh, yes, Kitty, I know that I’m still here, but he took his revenge. He turned the destructive beam of the weapon onto the machine that had sent his lady back into the Past, to when and where she had met her death. He paid particular attention to the controls that she had installed. And I did not stop him. I did not try to stop him. It was better that Yoshi’s knowledge died with her. The Present may be bad enough, but tampering with the Past would almost certainly make it worse, not better. The mere fact that we are here and now is proof that on this Time Track things have been working out not too badly.
‘Having known a few Australians, including yourself,’ said Kitty, ‘I still think that a Japonified Australia might have been an improvement.’
‘You’re entitled to your opinion,’ said Grimes stiffly.
AFTERWORD
BY PAUL COLLINS
The road to publishing ‘Grimes and the Gaijin Daimyo’ has been long and circuitous. The journey started in 1982 or thereabouts and the winding path I’ll describe below.
‘Jack’ Chandler was among a clique of well-known Australian authors who supported me in my early publishing days. We even collaborated, this group and me, on (an as yet unpublished) novel called The Morgan Pattern. I published the first edition of the last Grimes novel, The Wild Ones; and six of Jack’s stories, and bought a seventh, the one you’ve just read. Whatever anthology I had planned never eventuated, and this particular story was filed away ‘for later use’.
Skip the intervening years till about a year ago. A diehard Chandler fan called David Kelleher emailed me asking for miscellaneous Chandler material. I knew I had a manuscript ‘somewhere’, and after going to David’s site (www.bertramchandler.com) I decided I should make an effort and find that MS and send it to him. I had no idea that the story in question hadn’t been published overseas, nor that no copy other than mine existed. Meanwhile another fan, Evan Ladouceur, asked me for Chandler paraphernalia. I sent both David and Evan a copy of ‘Grimes and the Gaijin Daimyo’. I was informed that it was a rare find, an unpublished Chandler story. Yet another fan, Steve Davidson (www.rimworlds.com), began writing, and I started to realise ‘the story’ had to be published.
I believe David listed ‘Grimes and the Gaijin Daimyo’ on his site as being unpublished. Soon enough, Baen Books discovered its existence and an editor asked David for a copy because they were publishing a Kitty Kelly series e-book. At this point David asked for permission to send the story.
I thought long and hard and finally figured, no, I wanted this story’s first appearance to be here in Australia, and definitely in print form, not e-book form. The trouble was, I knew I had a contract somewhere, but did I want to search through my garage for it? And surely the twenty-six-year-old contract had expired by now. Luckily, neither David nor Evan, the only two people other than me on the planet who had copies of the story, were going to show the story to anyone without my consent.
I resisted all further calls for the story, and believe me, there were a few.
After the Baen Books enquiry it struck me that Jack Dann was editing Dreaming Again. A perfect spot for the final Grimes story had I been thinking on my feet — but the anthology was closed. With nothing to lose, I emailed Jack asking him if he’d like to read the manuscript. It’s a carbon copy (faded and in parts almost illegible) and HarperCollins would have to get it keyed in, so I wasn’t too hopeful.
Jack loved the story. But the road up ahead became murky. Joshua Bilmes, Chandler’s US agent at JABerwocky Literary Agency, informed us that Susan Chandler, Jack’s widow, who was signatory on his estate, had died recently. The Chandler estate was now in the hands of the Public Trustee NSW. Jack promptly wrote to Kim Schriever asking for permission to publish the story, and I subsequently received a letter asking for a copy of my contract.
To save a whole lot of bother on all fronts, I simply waived any rights I might have had to the story — my intention all along. And had not the Public Trustee’s office been so efficient, ‘Grimes and the Gaijin Daimyo’ would still be in my filing cabinet in the garage, and bar a mention on David Kelleher’s site, a piece of unknown Chandler history.
I hope you enjoyed the ride.
— Paul Collins
<
LURE
PAUL COLLINS
PAUL COLLINS has had over a hundred and twenty books published. He is best known for his fantasy and science fiction titles: The Jelindel Chronicles [Dragonlinks, Dragonfang, Dragonsight and Wardragon) and The Quentaris
Chronicles (Swords of Quentaris, Slaves of Quentaris, Dragonlords of Quentaris, Princess of Shadows, The Forgotten Prince, Vampires of Quentaris and The Spell of Undoing). His trilogy The Earthborn Wars (The Eorthborn, The Skyborn and The Hiveborn) was published in the United States. He has edited a dozen anthologies, including Metaworlds, Dream Weavers, Trust Me!, the Shivers series of children’s horror novels, SF aus Australien for Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag in Germany, and The Melbourne University Press Encyclopaedia of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy (with Sean McMullen and Steven Paulsen). He is currently collaborating with Danny Willis on a trilogy: The World of Grrym.
He has been shortlisted for many awards for his fiction, and has won the inaugural Peter McNamara, Aurealis, and William Atheling awards. He is also the publisher at Ford Street Publishing, an imprint of Hybrid Publishers.
In the edgy, contemporary, in-your-face story that follows, Collins extrapolates the possibilities of love, sex, adultery, and death in virtual worlds such as Second Life…
The metaverse had become a minefield.
The dossier in my hands made me want to puke. I popped a dozen ‘ludes’, the kind that fool you into thinking everything’s okay. The main question before me was whether or not it’s permissible by law to kill an avatar — a digital manifestation — and if not, can perpetrators be tried for murder?
Perhaps the pills unfogged my mind. I decided it was an indictable offence. I mentally ticked off key points leading to my conclusion.
Legislation was passed after a lovelorn celeb called Elvirat suicided because his toygirl avatar, blitzed by a beta-virus, deconstructed block by digital block before his helpless eyes.
Since then, an estimated 200 million avatars had ‘died’ and 20,000 creators with vitamin-D deficiencies had self-destructed. The Bureau was called in but so far the FFC had come up with zilch. No ‘body’, no DNA. All they could do was interview witnesses and get their meat-space contact details.
I studied the dossier for the fifteenth time since it’d been dumped on my desk. How do you catch someone who can be someplace deep in Russia killing off avatars, someone whose digital creation left a bigger footprint on the real world than their meat-space makers did? Frankly, the whole thing gave me a headache.
Not that I could talk. My own life was circling the drain, or is that the toilet? To make ends meet I’d written three crime novels whose royalties made a slight dent in the rent and scored me seats at Sisters of Crime conferences.
That’s me, a sister of crime. Only the person I aspired to be was something else …
Anok Helstrom. Paper Goddess. Or just goddess, the kind that left you dripping. Rumour had it she’d once sold her shopping list to InStyle webzine. When her latest book appeared, the world stopped.
And I adored her. We’d sat in rooms together, breathed the same air. Problem was, she didn’t know I existed.
Then one day our feet touched under the table. Her stilettoed boot tapped mine as she shared thoughts with some A-list arsehole. I almost pulled my foot away, but didn’t. The merest touch from the object of my obsession was like tantric sex.
A week went by. I could think of nothing but that tapping on my foot, like some zit-faced adolescent. Make that stupid zit-faced adolescent. For Christ’s sake, she was married. Had two kids. Happy, for all I knew.
Like me.
So I emailed her. I figured what the heck, if she didn’t reply it didn’t matter. I typed, deleted, typed some more, deleted some more. Started all over.
Hey Anok
Just touching base. Putting together a crime anthology, titled: Dark Times & Dark Crimes. The malaise of the metaverse. If you’re interested, what about meeting up next time you’re in town?
Yours
Angel Hart
I had no intention of putting together such an anthology. And less hope of her wanting to be in it. But you don’t catch a fish without bait. I clicked SEND and a truckload of tension purged itself from my shoulders.
And that’s how it started.
She replied the same day.
Dear Angel
How lovely of you to think of me. I’m off to London, back in a week. I’ll be in Melbourne the 25th to the 30th. Can we play catch-up then?
Anok
Catch-up. The word made me salivate. All over. I hit reply and pinned her down to date, time, place. Must be the detective in me.
And what a week that was. Hey, back up and defrag! I’m talking the week before we met. Emails sizzled to and fro.
Hey Anok
You’ll never guess what happened last night at work. Detected an unauthorised datastream on one of the private medical channels we scan. Discovered some dude chatting up a girl in a singles bar, having answered an ad.
Should have disconnected them and ran a viral interloper. That’s my job. But I’m on a bigger case right now and the small stuff slips through. Anyway, I dialled for sensory input. And suddenly I was ‘there’, freeloading on the orgasmic ocean till they’d exhausted themselves. Bliss. So what do you think, am I perverted?
She laughed. Said my hard-drive was in over-drive.
I met her in a café she’d suggested. In meat-space, not the metaverse, where most ‘first-dates’ usually happen. She was hidden at a corner table, camouflaged in shades and hat. She was line-editing a manuscript.
‘Don’t know how you can work in here,’ I said, sitting down, moving straight into my agenda of getting her out of there. God was on my side for once. The hubbub in the café intensified.
She wrapped her manicured satin-tipped fingers around my hand. Electricity sizzled through me. ‘What seems like chaos,’ she said, ‘is actually keeping me in a necessary state. I go to cafés when I’m not focusing well and wham, suddenly I’m concentrating ten times harder just to blank out all the noise.’
Maybe she’d rehearsed that. No matter. I’d rehearsed mine, too. ‘It’s crowded in here,’ I said. And, thank you God, it was. ‘How about we go someplace quieter?’
She looked at me, head tilting sideways in what, disbelief? The pressure on my hand loosened and she took her hand away. My heart skipped a beat.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Where did you have in mind?’
I stood before she could change her mind. I’d already made a reservation at a nearby motel. If I’d been more confident I’d have paid up front and got the discount.
‘Oh, I have to pay for my cappuccino,’ she said, slightly confused. This was fast-tracking beyond her control.
‘I’ll get it.’ I paid at the counter while she gathered her stuff. The motel I’d found was only a block away.
Within minutes I was shutting the door of our room behind us. After that, well, I don’t remember much for the next couple of hours. I do remember getting out of the shower and Anok saying, ‘I hope you’re not leading me on.’ My nipples hardened as I stood there. I think that answered her question.
I emailed her the moment I arrived back at the Bureau. Within the hour she had replied from her laptop:
Hello darling
I can still feel your hand and mouth prints on my skin.
I think of seeing you and being in your arms and my thinking rationally stops right there. It’s like my mind can’t go past that moment. It’s so necessary and so delicious. I truly can’t wait to see you again. That thrilling, dangerous encounter scared me in retrospect, but it’s an electric memory. I was so terrified of having crossed the Rubicon and started to babble and you just took a couple of strides and kissed me and all doubts went up in flames. I would love to be lying on your naked chest having this conversation but I have to settle for a cyber connection. You have to tell me more about our skin being virtual to virtual. I’m such a Luddite!
What a sweet diversion into a parallel world you are. A dangerous and intoxicating imagining … You once joked about being hard-wired into me as if I’m a hot spot you can connect to — I hope you found it as electrifying and shocking as did I.
Next time?
Yours
>
A xx
We saw one another every time she came to Melbourne over the next year. But the last time we were almost caught. Mutual friends saw us go into her motel room. Nothing odd about that, really, but it unsettled Anok. If her husband found out … she had her boys to think about … all the standard doubts shared by adulterers the world over. To give up security for the unknown is a risk many don’t wish to take.
During this time an epidemic was gaining momentum. Another 8,000 people worldwide suicided at the loss of their beloved avatars. Every major government in the world bankrolled investigations into catching the creator of the virus.
Meanwhile a shady character by the name of Jerry Anderson took avatar construction up another notch. His avatars aren’t constructed — you are them. Wireless, too — key in your biorhythm index to your reality space and you’re there. Actually are you them or are they you? They’re better than human for they never get tired and they cope with rejection. Configure yourself — your avatar — to be the woman or man that all others want, then step into the metaverse and have fun …
The interslick tech is nothing special to look at, just a neckband and headband of material that feels cold and wet when you put them on. I had a loan of a prototype set of series #1. No way could I ever be able to afford one on a detective inspector’s wage. Jerry Anderson was a scumbag who mainly dealt in hardcore dildonics until I’d busted him a year before. He’d created virtual reality snuff flicks like Private Predator and embedded them with neural-induced hypnotherapy. An REM-triggered response that reacted with the player’s amygdala creating a neural feedback on the victim’s brain like an immense emotional shock. Basically, it killed men who viewed his sordid flicks. To say actors committed bestial acts of depravity in those hack and slash flicks would be an understatement. I let Anderson off with a caution and a pat on the back. He was ridding the world of some choice acts. The killings stopped and the Bureau tucked it all away in the Cold Case file.
