Asimov's SF, July 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “This is useless,” Haron said.

  Edeo was bent over the back of the snail, rasping. The snail was sniffing at Haron's pocket for the ball he had hidden there. He giggled as the tendril plunged in and pulled it out. The snail was far better than a dog.

  “Is not."

  “Snail won't eat anything but curdleberries today. We'll have to go get some more."

  Edeo looked up. “Not even the lillweed roots? He loved those before."

  “Naw. Balls and curdleberries is all he's eating.” Haron looked around. “And a kilo of copper wiring."

  “Sheesh."

  Haron's head tilted. “What was that?"

  They pushed the snail back into its cave.

  “It's way early for Fruge.” After a week they had his comings and goings down: every other day to feed the snail and check for new jewels. And sometimes he brought a second load of metal, so they had to be careful.

  Just as Haron was going for the rope, it jerked up into the air.

  Someone laughed above them.

  “Gremon,” Edeo whispered fiercely.

  “What you little boys doing in the basement all alone? Comparing sizes?” His head appeared over the edge.

  “None of your business,” Edeo said.

  “Yeah? You think?” He slid down the rope, one hand out raised. “Let's see what you're doing down here."

  Edeo moved to stand in front of the gate, casually with one hand on the wall. Gremon looked around the basement, smiled once at Edeo. “What's behind the door?"

  He pushed Edeo out of the way, pulled the door open.

  “Marbles? Dirty pictures? Rock co—” His voice shriveled inside him, as he backed away. He pushed Edeo in front of him. “What!” He tripped over his own feet as the snail slid forward waving its antennae. A weird trilling sound came from the snail, one that Haron and Edeo had never heard before.

  Gremon ran up the steps, his face white, his pants wet. He slammed against the locked door, turned the lock with fumbling hands, and disappeared into the street.

  The snail's trilling turned to a heavy chuff.

  “I think he's laughing,” Haron said, rubbing under the snail's mouth.

  Edeo watched the door swing shut. “Huh,” he said.

  * * * *

  “You know what you got there?” Gremon was hanging over the top bunkbed, his head dark against the grey ceiling.

  “No."

  “Hell! It's a snail, Edeo. A snail! You know what that means?"

  “No. What?"

  “Snails grow gems on their backs if you feed it the right crap. You hear me? Gems."

  “I know."

  “You feed it iron, it grows emerald. You feed it copper, it grows diamonds. You feed it—"

  “They're not really diamonds and emeralds,” Edeo replied. What the snails grew weren't found naturally.

  “We could be rich."

  “We?"

  “Yeah, we, little boy."

  Edeo stared up at his brother. “You breathe a word, little boy,” he said softly, “and Nelli Ione learns you pissed your pants."

  Gremon was silent. This was all Edeo had over him. He hoped it would work.

  A dark shape dropped from the top bunk. Pain shot up Edeo's arm, and he stifled a gasp.

  “This isn't yours to keep, stupid. It's to use."

  Then Gremon climbed back up into his bunk.

  * * * *

  The next day, the snail thrashed around in its cave when they came to see it.

  “Is it sick?” Haron asked.

  “I dunno,” Edeo said. He was still concerned about what Gremon would do. Perhaps he'd try to take the snail for himself.

  The snail slammed its carapace against the stone walls of the alcove, again and again.

  “What's wrong with it?” They dared not go near the thing. It weighed twice as much as they did together, and its shell was hard. They'd be smashed.

  Finally it stopped and something tinkled inside its grotto.

  “What was that?” Edeo asked.

  The snail slid forward and Edeo leaned into the darkness. Something sparkled on the floor. He reached for it, but jerked his hand back.

  He stuck his bleeding finger in his mouth.

  Haron shined the flashlight. “It's a gem."

  This was the first gem they'd seen the snail grow since they'd started feeding it a week earlier.

  “It's sharp."

  Edeo reached for it again, carefully. It was metallic, not a gem stone at all. It was heavy, like lead. One edge was rounded and had indentations in it. The other edge was sharp. It looked like a clamming knife the divers at the ocean used to open crustaceans.

  The snail shook itself and its chain jingled.

  Edeo and Haron shared a look. Edeo then bent down and started sawing at the chain with the stone. In the light of Haron's flashlight, they saw the stone had chipped the metal. The stone was cutting the chain.

  “It grew a saw!” Haron said.

  Edeo worked until his arm was too sore to continue, then Haron took a turn. By noon they were halfway through the link, and so engrossed in the process they failed to hear Fruge's arrival until he flung open the door.

  “What do you think you're doing?"

  Edeo and Haron backed away from the snail. Haron eyed the rope, then the gun in Fruge's hand. No way he'd make it.

  Fruge took the steps, his eyes riveted on the two kids.

  “This explains what happened to my supply of gems. You two have been feeding my snail the wrong stuff.” He kicked at the pile of curdleberry leaves. “Do you know what you've cost me?"

  “You can't do this to a snail,” Edeo said, his voice cracking halfway through.

  “Just shut up,” Fruge said. “I can do whatever I want with my snail. And that includes feeding you to it."

  The snail charged at Fruge, coming up just short on the end of the chain.

  “Look what you did!” Fruge yelled. “You made it crazy!"

  The snail lurched again, pulling the chain tight.

  “If I have to get a new snail because of you,” Fruge said, “I'm going to chain you both to the wall and feed you iron scrap."

  The snail backed up into its cave.

  “That's right. Back in your cave."

  But the snail wasn't submitting, it was getting some distance.

  It charged.

  For a moment, Edeo was certain the chain would hold, but the weakened link gave way with a snap and the snail was on top of Fruge.

  “He's going to eat him,” Haron said, with some amount of relish.

  Fruge screamed and the gun flew from his hand as he tried to fight off the snail. The snail rolled right over him, covering his head, then backed up so it could roll over him again with its giant foot.

  “He's not going to eat him,” Edeo said. “That's not his mouth down there; it's his foot."

  “He's sliming him,” Haron said, which was better.

  The snail rolled off Fruge, found his gun and stowed it in its gullet with a slurp.

  Fruge stood, his body dripping snail slime in huge dollops. He coughed.

  “I'm going to kill you with my bare hands."

  The snail lunged at him then, and Fruge backed up. Fruge tried to move around it, but the snail was far faster than he. Fruge backed into the cave.

  Edeo slammed the door shut and Haron threw the bolt.

  “That'll never hold him."

  But the snail had apparently realized that and was pushing barrels in front of it, as well as crates and other bits of junk that lined the walls of the basement.

  Surveying Fruge's cage, Edeo said, “Let's get out of here."

  Haron looked at the snail. “What about him?"

  Edeo looked up at the rope, wondering if they could haul the snail out, but he need not have worried. The snail slithered up the steps, its flexible foot molding itself to the stairs. It was up to the landing in seconds, pushing open the door.

  It hesitated there, its antennae waving
around.

  “It's probably never been outside,” Haron said.

  “It's scared."

  Edeo and Haron walked around it and stood out in the middle of the street, waving it on.

  Finally the snail scooted out of the building and into the open.

  Edeo grinned. “We'll take it to my house. It can live in my room. Then Gremon can't bully me anymore. It can make me gems whenever I want. We'll be rich...."

  Haron looked at Edeo, his eyebrows raised.

  Edeo caught his friend's look.

  “I mean—"

  “We'd be no better than that wagger,” Haron said with a nod toward the building. Edeo paused, sipping at his dream one last time.

  “No,” Edeo said. “I guess not. Then where?"

  “He likes curdleberries.” He pointed to the spaceport, where the tarmacs were surrounded with native flora. “Of course, we could take the long way."

  By the time they reached their street, they had quite a parade: dozens of children, the mailman, shop clerks, a team of street cleaners, even Gremon followed.

  The snail slid happily along, unperturbed by it all, as if it was expecting a parade.

  A magistrate caught up to them on Jury Street.

  “What is this? Where did this snail come from?"

  Edeo was brave enough to answer.

  “Fruge had him chained in a vacant building by the spaceport.” He showed the magistrate the soldered end of the chain. “We're taking him to the spaceport so he can eat."

  “Fruge,” the magistrate said, with undisguised venom. He sent a muni to the vacant building, then accompanied the parade to the spaceport where he had one of the bumbling maintenance men open the gate so that the snail could crawl into the fields of lillweed and curdleberry bushes. In the distance, on the far side of the spaceport, a rocket roared into the sky. The snail cocked one antenna at it as it munched contentedly on a tuft of vegetation.

  It chuffed once at Edeo and Haron, then ambled off into the prairie.

  Copyright 2006 Paul Melko

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  FIREFLIES

  by Kathe Koja

  Kathe Koja's new novel, Going Under, will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in September. She lives in the Detroit area with her husband, artist Rick Lieder. In her first story for us since November 1992, she takes a look at more than one dark side of the universe.

  Look, he said. Look at all the stars.

  Steep back steps, less porch than stoop, rusting wrought-iron railing and barely room enough for two, but they had once been lovers and so it was easy to sit touching, hip to thigh. His head back against the screen door mesh, looking up; on her right arm a fresh bandage, white and still, like a large moth waiting with folded wings.

  They look like fireflies, she said. Awkward, left-handed, she lit a cigarette; without being asked, the man opened her bottle of beer, an Egyptian beer called Stella, star. He had just come back from Cairo; she was going somewhere else.

  Fireflies? he said. He had a kind of accent, not foreign but not native either: unplaceable long vowels, sentences that curled up at the ends, like genie's slippers, like the way they talk down south. One big backyard, to have fireflies that size?

  Think of the grasshoppers, she said, and laughed, winced, dragged on her cigarette. The smoke rose in the darkness; it was very late. Or the dragonflies.

  Or the June bugs, he said. His own beer was almost empty. What'd the doctor say?

  She did not answer. The cement of the steps was damp, clammy against the backs of their legs; like a slab, a tomb, tombstone and Esperson called, she said. He told me they were taking my paper.

  The, the vacuum one? Oh honey that's great! He pressed her leg, the bare skin below the edge of her cut-offs; his hand was warm, with long strong workman's fingers, small hard spots like rivets on the palm, his skin a topographic map of his days: cut wood, carry water, name and number and know all the plants in the world. Sometimes she imagined him out there in the green aether of the woods, any woods: mending a split sapling, digging arbutus, testing the soil. He the earth, she the void and When does it come out? he asked. When will you—

  When do you leave again? she asked. Where are you going?

  Montreal, he said, but not till December? or maybe the new year, I'm not sure. It depends on—It depends. When did Esperson say—

  Look, she said, one hand out, her left hand with its tubed coal of cigarette. Fireflies; look. Above the dark drenched grass a ballet of on and off, little lights delicate, sturdy, irregular. From the porch they watched together in silence, a long wondering silence; he put his hand on her leg again, and squeezed, but absently; he sees this all the time, she thought. In the woods.

  Your paper, he said. Tell me what it's about. In layman's terms?

  Shifting a little on the steps, trying not to move her right arm. Basically, she said, it's about how most of what's out there, most of what's here—tapping her chest—is vacuum energy. The cosmos is one-third visible and dark matter, two-thirds vacuum energy.

  He flicked away an insect, a mosquito, some tiny night-borne pest. I thought nature abhors a vacuum?

  This kind keeps the universe expanding, she said. It resists the gravitational pull of the galaxies, and so—

  And what?

  She said nothing.

  What's—hey, are you okay? Are you—

  She did not answer; he looked into her face, peered through the darkness then at once looked away, his own mouth twisting down one-sided, like a stroke victim's, its curve the felt echo of her pain and You wan’ go in? he asked, voice soft with alarm, his accent more pronounced. You wan’ lie down, or—

  No, harsh, fighting it, fighting herself; the hand with the cigarette trembled, its light like a firefly trapped in a jar until The doctor, he said at last, when she had finally calmed. He called me.... I'm still the emergency contact, you know?

  She did not answer.

  He said—

  I know what he said. She took a last drag on the cigarette, let it drop and roll down the porch steps to the grass, dying red in a sea of silent green. We had a nice long talk.

  There are things you can do. There are still things that you—

  I'm not doing anything, she said. While you were in Cairo I was doing things, and what the fuck good did any of them do me? I'm sick of all that. She reached for the pack of cigarettes, but her grasp was unsteady and in her lurching motion her right side, right arm struck the black iron rail and she cried out, a brief excruciating cry; and he moaned, low and helpless, a noise unwilled as he tried to right her but No, she said through her teeth, no don't touch me, don't.

  Silence: night sounds: when her gaze had cleared she saw that he was weeping and Don't, she said, unsteady, and put her left hand on his arm, just above the elbow, the way she always had. It's okay, it's all right—but still he wept, face up toward the night, the wet fierce glottals of a child until Don't make it worse, she said, to make him stop and he did, slowly, sucking in his breath and Get us another beer, she said, to help him.

  When he had gone into the house again she laboriously lit another cigarette, sat smoking in the faint noises from inside: water running, the glass clink of bottles. The fireflies were back, as if her pain and his had scattered them like the shadow of some dark beast, but now in the beast's departure they were free again, to play, to go about their amatory errands and It's the males who light up, he said, back on the porch stoop, handing her a fresh beer. They do it for the girls? To get them to notice?

  It must work, she said, or there wouldn't be fireflies.

  Wonder if it's the same up there? pointing with his own beer into the starlit sky. Light matter and dark matter, you said? Like blinking on and off?

  No, she said.

  And the, the vacuum, it's what keeps them going, right? Keeps everything going?

  Expanding, she said. It increases the rate of expansion.

  Like this? he said, and touched n
ot the bandage but the skin above it, so lightly it was almost no touch at all: and she stared at him through the dark, breath gathered in astounded and furious hurt but before she could speak You're expanding, he said, aren't you? Getting ... more diffuse. Like a plant does, with seeds? Like these trees right here, poplars—when their pods split open, and all the seeds float away everywhere? That's you. With your work, and your articles, and, and who you are.... It just goes on. You go on. Resisting the pull, right?—But like poplars out there, pointing at the darkness. With the big fireflies?

  She said nothing. Her throat felt full and tight, like a seed pod, ready to burst.

  Big poplars, he said. Big seeds.

  Neither spoke; her left hand took his right; their fingers linked. Finally: Read my paper, she said. When it comes out. Okay? Read it for me.

  He squeezed her hand, squeezed it slow and twice and Yes, he said, I will. But I won't understand it.

  You understand plenty, she said.

  A breeze touched the leaves of the poplars. Past them, past the porch the fireflies moved, in the stars and the breathing night.

  Copyright 2006 Kathe Koja

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  THE DJINN'S WIFE

  by Ian McDonald

  "The Djinn's Wife” shares the same background of near-future India as Ian's last Asimov's story, “The Little Goddess” (June 2005), and his most recent novel, the 2005 Hugo-nominee River of Gods (Pyr). The author's current book-in-progress is Brasyl. Ian works in television program development, and lives just outside Belfast in Northern Ireland with the hills behind him and the sea before.

  Once there was a woman in Delhi who married a djinn. Before the water war, that was not so strange a thing: Delhi, split in two like a brain, has been the city of djinns from time before time. The sufis tell that God made two creations, one of clay and one of fire. That of clay became man; that of fire, the djinni. As creatures of fire they have always been drawn to Delhi, seven times reduced to ashes by invading empires, seven times reincarnating itself. Each turn of the chakra, the djinns have drawn strength from the flames, multiplying and dividing. Great dervishes and brahmins are able to see them, but, on any street, at any time, anyone may catch the whisper and momentary wafting warmth of a djinn passing.