by Jack Dann
— Hang on here. I have to renormalise the group flow to a fixed point for the emergence from the Galilean substratum.
— Hurk Hark Hirk.
— You mean, to the point where Ohm’s quantum potential acts instantly?
— How’d you know?
— Mikey told me.
— Mikey sent me to you.
— I had this friend, when I was little, Mikey, and he used to send me messages from space, but I never told anyone about him, or I tried to, and nobody believed me.
— Arwvkk Orrkk Warrkkk, Gaynor cries to the void.
Lucille joins in. — Uh Uh Uh Urk.
— We’re talking about the same Mikey, I take it: the multitudinous integrated K-type energy ying thing?
— To me, he was just a friend called Mikey, someone who rang me up from far away, whenever Earth was pointing the right direction in the torsion field. He taught me the principles of dark energy, and that’s why I’m not as surprised as I might be at being here, now. What about you? You know Mikey too?
— We are all aspects of Mikey in the eyes of the universal observer without whom the quantum universe would not continue in existence. That is how I see it. And Mikey sent me to find you. As if he knew you’d help.
The Q-ball is a dark nutshell universe on its way through the larger-scale universe that is the universe of ordinary matter. Q-balls have existed from the beginning of the universe, their dark gravity distorting the paths of visible stars and galaxies. But a rogue and errant Q-ball, just one can hit a neutron star and blow it to pieces.
— Not that your sun is a neutron star, yet, but this Q-ball, this one from your fax machine, why, it only takes one like this to turn rogue on you and guzzle up all the protons and neutrons in the vicinity of Earth. Then before you know it, it spurts out streams of pions and muons, and the resulting Cerenkov radiation will dazzle you all to death. So, got to get to that hole before the end of your universe.
— Do we have to go all the way with you? Can’t we just wait till the torsion field flips us over to the other side. You go visit the hole by yourself.
— We’re getting close.
— We want to go home! Lula now speaks for Lucille and Gaynor, both, for the moment, totally out of it.
— There is another future, you know, in which you never left Creighton Aerospace. You want it back? Time lines diverge, there are many possibilities for many futures. We’re the creatures of an eternally existing self-reproducing multiverse, and this is not the only way for possibilities to be realised.
— We want that part of the multiverse we used to call home.
Lula knew what to do. She had to let Hitcher go. Such a pity, when she’d only just met him, and he seemed a nice enough guy, for a cosmic entity. He was cute, but dead serious, and not a whole bunch of fun, but then, you wouldn’t be, if you had an entire universe to save. But not for nothing had she learned the lessons of the torsion field. All it took was a tweak of the space-time sub-axis, and a twist of the ying co-ordinates thing, and …
In the office of Creighton Aerospace, Lula reported back to Lucille and Gaynor. ‘This is what I’ve found out about Hitcher. Seems he really was sent here to help you. He knows a bit about everything — Renaissance Man. Mate of Big Charlie. Seems Hitcher met the boss on a plane when they sat next to each other in First Class. They got talking and one thing led to another. Hitcher turned up. Did his various jobs. Now he’s gone.’
‘He was a bit of a philosopher, for a temp,’ said Lucille. ‘He was different. I liked him, even if his clothes didn’t fit, and when he spoke he crackled a bit. It’s so hard to find good help, and he was good.’
‘Didn’t something just happen to that fax machine? Some kind of fire?’
Lula’s career went from strength to strength. Her mind was truly open. How well she knows the secrets of the universe, that out there in the cosmic void there are dark matter earths and dark matter suns. There are dark matter people and plants and animals and bacteria and viruses. She and her Earth-kind are the stuff of quarks and leptons. Others beyond are the stuff of squarks and sleptons.
So it was that Lula could ask just the right questions at planning meetings to get people sparking off each other. Afterwards, they might wonder what it had been about, as they reached a consensus that was often too whacky to be reported back to the boss. The group statement that came from the meeting would be a pale shadow of the cosmic breakthrough they achieved, together with Lula, where the solution to where the company would be in the future was totally wild and far out of this world. The journey was what they remembered, not the end point, lost in some cosmic generality that was, at the time, both deeply felt and known to be a glimpse of the eternal truths, the essence of which they could never quite remember but which they knew to be the most important thing that had ever happened to them in their lives.
AFTERWORD
I’ve long been brooding about the prospect of writing a short story sequence about a futurist detective. I love the feng shui detective short stories of Nury Vittachi, whose detective, C.F. Wong, solves crimes through the logical application of the allegedly scientific principles of feng shui. I wanted to create a character who solves problems using the principles of Futures Studies. For a few years, I moved in futurist circles, and found them a diverse, whacky and congenial group of people. I wanted to write about futurists at work, just as Vittachi fleshed out the work of the geomancer. I’ve made a number of attempts at creating a story sequence, but, as I write, I find it’s either my futurist detective, or, in this case, her sidekick, who speeds towards the far edges of the galaxy on a one-way trip. Perhaps I could try a prequel.
— Rosaleen Love
<
IN FROM THE SNOW
LEE BATTERSBY
LEE BATTERSBY was born in Nottingham, United Kingdom, in 1970, and moved to Australia when he was five. He is the author of over seventy stories, which have been published in the United States, Europe, and Australia. His work has appeared in markets as diverse as Aurealis, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, and Australian Woman’s Day. A collection of his work, entitled Through Soft Air, was published in 2006. Since winning the international Writers of the Future competition in 2001, he has collected a number of awards, including the Aurealis, Ditmar, and Australian Shadows, as well as twice winning Australia’s only ongoing science fiction competition, the Katharine Susannah Prichard SF/F contest.
He was a tutor at the Clarion South writers’ workshop in 2007, and has run workshops and tutorials for the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, the Fellowship of Australian Writers, and the Queensland Writers’ Centre. He lives in Perth, Western Australia, with his wife, writer Lyn Battersby, and their three children.
Here he writes a story of family, love, necessity, and survival in the icy wastes of the future…
It is snowing outside the house. Snow is dangerous. You leave tracks, and tracks can be used to follow you. I am to stay inside. Father will not permit me outside, not until I am fully trained. The Darrington boy went out last winter and brought the weight of the gallows down upon his whole family. There are few families left. Snow is too great a risk.
Last Snow, the family acquired a cookbook. We have had a year to practise pickling, preserving, bottling. We are not so reliant upon fresh food as we were. It takes time to build up reserves, and we have always been cautious gatherers. Travellers are rare this season. Snow makes things difficult for everybody. Still, Father is out amidst the white world. Travellers are rare, but our need is great. Our need is always great, and Mother is pregnant again. I have been left to guard the house. I am the eldest male, and in the last two years I have grown large and strong. Large enough and strong enough to defend Mother and the children. Even Father eyes me warily. All I need is experience. In the meantime, I sit in the front room and watch snow forming patterns through the windows.
I pick out flakes and stalk them as they skitter across my field
of vision. They make for good tracking practice, jumping and diving like rabbits across a field. I am so caught up in my pursuit that I am taken by surprise when a shape looms out of the darkness, grey against black. Snow dies against its borders. I leap back from the window.
‘Mother! Get the children.’ I race for the door at the side of the house. Only a fool rushes toward the enemy. ‘Into the kitchen.’
The kitchen is a stone vault at the centre of the building. Everyone in the family knows how to use a knife, a pot, a kettle of boiling water. Within its confines, even babies become attackers. As I hit the door I hear Mother shouting at the children. I cast them from my thoughts, push through the door and into the cold.
The door swings shut behind me, locking into place. No entrance into the house can be opened from the outside. Either I will signal my return with the correct knock, or I will not return at all. No member of the family gives themselves up, not even our dwelling. I hit the ground and roll away at an angle, diving across a snow bank and behind the oak where it looms across the entrance. As I rise I slip the hunting knife from the sheath at my thigh. No cause to use my throwing knives: miss, and they are lost until the Thaw, and we cannot afford to lose precious edged weapons. The swirling snow gives me cover. I will get close enough to strike. Not experienced, but I do know my trade. To move quickly without being seen is at the heart of all we do.
It takes me less than a minute to gain the front of the house. The figure stands ten feet from the door, swaying as the wind buffets it. He is smaller than I first thought, and lighter in frame. He topples and falls headlong into the snow. I crouch, knife hand tucked into the angle of my hip and thigh. I have used this ruse to capture prey: fall as if weakened, then spring upon the unwary Samaritan who comes to help.
The ground is too cold to hold the ruse for long. Sooner or later, a movement will betray the supine figure. Breath stings my nostrils. I tilt my head, directing the streams of warm air towards my chest. No puff of moisture shall reveal my location. The figure on the ground does not move. Unless he moves now, the intruder will freeze to death. I wait a minute more, then sneak around the far side of the mound of whiteness building up over his body. So long without movement, there is no risk that he will be able to overcome me. Even so, I will not hurry my attack.
I approach until I am no more than two feet away, close enough to strike but out of reach of a sudden lunge from the ground. The coating of snow does not move. I tense my thigh muscles, crouch, and launch myself. The prey does not react. My knees strike the middle of his back. My knife sweeps down, and stops an inch from where the throat lies beneath the snow. Something is wrong. This is no attacker. An attacker would have moved. I lean back, use my empty hand to expose the body. It lies face down, unmoving, barely breathing. This is no man, set on usurping my home, my family. She is a woman, pale face against paler snow, dark hair shaken loose from the hood of her cloak by the fall. Her lips are turning blue. She is the first woman I have ever seen outside the family group. I waste seconds staring at the unfamiliar lines of her face, the exotic cast of her cheeks, her closed eyes, her neck. I scoop her up with a single movement, run to the door and bang out today’s knock against the wood. I wait, stamping my feet until the entrance inches open, then barge past Mother and into the kitchen.
‘Blankets,’ I order. ‘And boil the kettle.’ Mother favours me with a black expression, and I growl at her. ‘Move.’
She scurries to obey. I use the woman’s body to clear the table of obstructions, then lay her down. Some of the smaller children press close to look. I snarl at them until they back away. Mother returns, her arms full of bedding. I tear blankets from her grasp and throw them across the limp body. The kettle arrives and I pour water over a towel, fold it in quarters, and wipe her face and limbs. She groans and twists from the contact. I persist, and her protestations grow more insistent.
In less than a minute, she sits up and stares at her surroundings. The children, brave attackers all, squeak and dart behind nearby hiding spots, including Mother’s legs. I would punish them, but I cannot take my eyes from the woman. She sees me watching her, and opens her mouth to scream. I shoot a hand forward and clamp it over her mouth.
‘Don’t.’
She stares at me with wide eyes. I look away for a moment, determined not to notice how blue they are. Mother tutches. The woman’s nostrils flare as she drags in air. I push harder, mashing her lips back against her teeth. She winces. Were my hand not over her mouth her scream would be from pain. I lean close, so that my eyes fill her vision.
‘Don’t scream,’ I hiss. ‘They’ll kill you.’ Now that the children have grown used to the strange visitor they have returned from their hiding. Ragged-haired and smiling, they would frighten anybody. The woman inhales once, twice. I give her head a short shake, just enough to bring her attention back to me.
‘When I let go, you sit still. Otherwise …’ I nod towards the children, then slowly remove my hand from her mouth. She watches me, fear brightening her eyes. Only when my hand is back against my chest does she relax, though her eyes dart here and there. I straighten, allowing her a small measure of room. Mother nods in the corner of my vision, a small sign of respect.
‘Good,’ I say, and fold my arms. ‘What is your name?’
I get no response. Either she is too frightened, or I have been warning a mute. Mother speaks.
‘She’s shivering.’
‘Hmm.’ I point to little Belis. ‘Some wine.’ She runs to do my bidding. I am fond of Belis. She is obedient and sharp. Within a minute she returns and hands a mug to the woman.
‘Drink.’
She does so, eyes fixed upon me over the edge of the mug. She chokes after the second swallow. A gout of wine spills over her shirt. I watch it trickle across her chest. Mother hisses, and I shake my head.
‘Your name.’
‘Marell,’ she says, averting her eyes. I study the incline of her face, the softness of her skin. She is younger than I had at first thought, perhaps no more than sixteen or seventeen. My own age. The skin of my throat begins to itch. I take back the mug and hand it to Belis. Marell uses her sleeve to dab at the corners of her mouth.
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. Now,’ I perch on the table next to her. ‘What were you doing out during the Snow? This is no place for a solitary traveller. You’re not from a family.’
‘Family? What do you mean?’
Mother and I exchange glances. Some of the younger children gasp. Mother silences them with a stare. Such looseness will be punished later. I keep emotion from my face.
‘You’re alone?’
She pauses before answering, and I become aware of how heavily we are leaning towards her answer. I click my fingers, and the children disperse. Within seconds the sound of fake play reaches us from the surrounding rooms. I am not fooled. There are ways to listen without seeming to do so, and our children are well trained. Marell seems not to notice the falseness. She relaxes, and her voice gains some strength.
‘My caravan … we were travelling south, to Ealdwic. My father and mother, myself, and three retainers. A man, he jumped out of the snow…’ She stops, looking past me at events too fresh to be ignored. ‘He killed Mother with his teeth … Father …’
Mother and I glance at each other over the top of her head. Father hunts wild, on occasion, when the odds are in his favour, or he forgets himself.
‘What happened?’
‘He killed them. Everyone. Even after Vine shot him he just kept going. There was so much blood. So much …’ She raises her hands to cover her eyes. ‘I just ran, ran out into the storm, just to get away. Had to get away … Mother …’ Tears overcome her and she bends into herself, voice swept away by the fear and grief. I place an arm around her shoulder and make comforting noises. Mother signals Anna.
‘A warm bed for her, and a shot of the sleeping broth. Set one of the little ones to watch. Get me when she wakes.’
Anna half
-carries the weeping Marell away. The sound of her crying disappears up the stairs before Mother speaks.
‘Shot.’
I nod, eyes fixed upon the door. ‘A caravan of six.’
‘You know what we have to do?’
I nod again, and stand. ‘I don’t want her harmed.’
‘What?’ Mother turns her head, sharp as a bird. ‘And what do we — ?’
‘If Father is dead.’ I step over to her, and realise just how much bigger than her I have become, how much taller. I can look over her without lowering my chin, and she shrinks the tiniest fraction at my closeness. ‘If he is dead, then I am — ‘
‘If,’ she says, voice hard with the challenge. ‘If not…’
I shrug. ‘If not, he’ll return.’ I turn from her and make my way to my room. I am the oldest child. I have the greatest share of responsibilities. My room is the largest in the house, besides the kitchen and Mother and Father’s bedroom. What little I own fits comfortably within: my weapons and pack; what few clothes I do not already wear; a small wooden ball on a string, the only childhood toy that has not been passed on to a younger one. A single bed. It is enough. And yet, standing in the doorway, I am struck by a flash of dissatisfaction. I see Marell with me, inside the room, and realise just how small it is, how there is nothing in here for anybody, not even me. The moment passes. I grab my cloak and knife, and shrug my pack over one shoulder. I do not bother to close the door when I leave. There is nothing to take.
In the kitchen, I fill the pack with a skin of wine and enough meat to last. Mother catches up to me as I tuck the last strands inside.
‘That’s the last of it.’ She nods at the pack.
‘I don’t want her harmed.’
