“Well, damn. What the hell am I gonna do now?” He sat forward and put his head in his hands. There was too much to take in, too much to think about. He was ... tired. Tired, old, and full of the pains that tired and old bring.
“You don't have to give him an answer right away, you know,” came Mike's voice from the other room. “Everybody knows what your situation is."
Bubba raised his head. "Everybody?"
“Well, the ones who needed to know. You were a unanimous choice, by the way, especially after Hoss and his family weighed in.” Mike rolled into the room, gripping a piece of paper in his claw. “Don't let me influence you, but I think you could do a lot of good out there. And it would solve our other problem as well."
Bubba sighed, long and deep. “I'm gonna need some time, Mike. I got to think.” He sat back, hands against the overstuffed chair arms. He began picking at the frays. “What are my options?"
“Options? Well, one is to turn them down, live out the rest of your life here, and hope for the occasional visitation. You'll probably get a few. Another is to take the opportunity and run with it. You'll live a lot longer, you'll make a difference, and you'll work with races and species you've never dreamed existed. Or,” he continued, “you could go hide somewhere and pretend this never happened. I think that about covers the options."
Bubba tapped his fist lightly against the chair arm. “This has always been enough for me, Mike. This right here, in this beautiful state and among these good people. Why would I want anything else?"
“Do you want me to run through your options again? Bubba, I like it here too. There really isn't anything else quite like it anywhere. But that's true of all the places, too. There is beauty, some of it just as comfortable and some of it terrible and frightening. There are good people out there, too, even if, in many cases, you can't say their names. But think about this: you've been to the Moon, you've been to another planet. You've shaken hands with aliens and helped them in times of crisis. You've been adopted into a proud and noble clan, one that can and will do everything in their considerable power to help you adjust. Can you ever be really content with King William County after all that, knowing what's waiting for you up there?"
“'How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree ... ‘” the Earthman muttered under his breath. He pointed a finger at Mike. “I'm not Roy Neary, Mike, makin’ a mountain out of mashed potatoes. I know there's life out there, I've seen it and got drunk with it. What they're asking ... what you're asking ... is that I give Earth up like Pieter did.” He shook his head emphatically. “I don't know if I can do that."
“You'll live, effectively, forever."
“But it won't be here, Mike!"
“What was all that you said to me on the way back about ‘wonder,’ Bubba? You have a chance to study, to associate, to work with the best minds in the Galaxy. How can that not be wonderful for you?"
“Oh, it is, it is, Mike.” Bubba sagged. “I just ... I just can't think about all this right now. I need rest.” Wearily, he pushed himself out of his chair. Mike extended his arm, showing him the piece of paper he was holding. “What's that?"
“A phone number for Five Willows Retirement Community."
“And I want this because...?"
“It's where your father lives.” Mike managed to shrug with robotic arms. “Whatever you decide, I thought you might..."
“Yeah. Thanks,” Bubba interrupted. “Great. One more thing to think about.” He trudged toward the stairs and climbed them slowly.
Mike placed the paper on the table next to the little square. “Sleep well, Bubba."
“Ain't no other way, Mikey,” his friend called down. But sleep didn't come easily that night, and when it did, it was disturbed by dreams he couldn't recall upon awakening. He rose twelve hours later, largely unrested, and full of indecision.
Dressed and breakfasted, he put off the inevitable and went into the living room. The phone number was where Mike had left it the night before. He picked it up and started to wad it up into a ball, but stopped. His hand was trembling, his heart was beating hard in his chest. He sat heavily in his armchair. The slip of paper felt rough against his fingers, and as he held it, the almost imperceptible rustle it made burned in his ears.
Bubba laid it on the table in front of him and stared at it. It was a Virginia area code, but he didn't recognize the exchange. He flicked it with a finger, and it spun lazily in place. “Damn. Damn, damn, damn." Finally, he took the paper in one hand, holding it gingerly, and picked up the phone with the other. He dialed the number, then sat back, listening to the ring. He thought for a moment that there would be no answer, but just as he was ready to hang up, the line clicked. A voice, thin and a little shaky but clear, answered.
Bubba cleared his throat. “H'lo, Pop?"
There was a silence at the other end, then his father said, “Allan! Is that you? It's been so ... so long, son."
“Yeah, Pop, it's me."
“It's so good to hear your voice, Allan. I've missed you."
“Me, too, Pop. Both of that.” Bubba wiped his hand across his brow; he'd always been tongue-tied around his father, and even his age didn't make a difference. “Pop, I'm ... I'm sorry. So sorry."
There was another silence. “What for, Allan?"
Bubba's hand was shaking now, and he placed it palm down on the table. “For everything. For not being what you wanted me to be, for leaving you and Mom, for fighting with you all those years ago. I'm sorry that I don't call you, don't come to see you. I'm sorry that I let all that silly shit get between us and keep us apart for almost fifty years.” His voice was close to breaking, but the words poured out in spite of the constriction in his throat.
“I'm sorry, so very sorry, about Alice, Pop. I'm sorry I let her die."
“No.” His father's voice was steady now, and forceful. “Allan, what happened was an accident, plain and simple. You did nothing to be sorry for, aside from calling me a few names I probably deserved to be called. I was a damn fool of a father, and I drove you away just as sure as if I'd done it with a whip.” The old man chuckled. “Lord knows your mother told me so often enough."
“Can you ... can you forgive me, Pop?” Bubba said, his cheeks wet.
“If you can forgive me, son."
Bubba nodded to himself. “We can talk more, Pop, but not on the phone. I can come out there, and we can sit down and talk, and catch up. I can be there in just a few hours—hell, I can be there in five point eight seconds, but I guess I'd better drive.” He knew he was babbling, but he couldn't help it; he was so full of emotions that he couldn't tell one from another. “Would that be okay, Pop?"
“I'd really like that, Allan. Take your time, don't rush. We've got all the time in the world. We'll have something to eat, although I'm not the cook your mother was.” He paused. “It'll be good to see you, son."
Bubba closed his eyes and let out his breath. The tightness in his chest and throat had eased. “Good, Pop. That'll be really good. See, I got this job offer, sort of a career change, and I need your advice..."
Copyright (c) 2007 Bud Webster
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
THE REFERENCE LIBRARY
by Tom Easton
Time's Child, Rebecca Ore, EOS, $14.95, 327 pp. (ISBN: 0-380-79252-4).
Empire, Orson Scott Card, Tor, $24.95, 351 pp. (ISBN: 0-765-31611-0).
Emperor, Stephen Baxter, Ace, $24.95, 302 pp. (ISBN: 0-441-01466-6).
Unity, Steven Harper, Tor, $25.95, 319 pp. (ISBN: 0-765-31606-4).
The Secret City, Carol Emshwiller, Tachyon, $14.95, 217 pp. (ISBN: 1-892391-44-9).
From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain, Minister Faust, Del Rey, $13.95, 392 pp. (ISBN: 978-0-345-46637-2).
Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge, Lou Anders, ed., Pyr, $15.00, 409 pp. (ISBN: 978-1-59102-486-6).
Things Will Never Be the Same, Howard Waldrop, Old Earth Books, 312 + xii pp., tp $15.00 (ISB
N: 978-1-882968-36-7), hb (300 copies only) $45 (ISBN: 978—he last book by Rebecca Ore was The Outlaw School (reviewed here in May 2001), so we have been without her unique view and considerable talents for too many years. But here at last is Time's Child for your delectation.
* * * *
The time is 2308. Earth has been ravaged by plagues that have left cities depopulated, nations fragmented into rival city-states, and the survivors wary of travel and travelers. But the Philadelphia National Archive has been given a time scoop by someone (or ones) in the future. They find that they can remove people from the distant past, but only if they disappeared in a battle or natural disaster or just went missing. Benedetta, a young woman in a Milanese artillery crew who knew Leonardo da Vinci well enough to borrow his gadgets to make toys for her young son, is scooped from a battle just after watching her husband die. Confronted with figures that claim to be angels, she won't have it. After all, who ever heard of an angel with a scab on a knuckle? Soon she knows the truth: The archivists want to pump her about the past and then keep her in a genteel captivity that is nonetheless captivity. Again, she won't have it. She'll take her chances with the vaccines and remnant diseases outside, thank you, and when Jonah—a twenty-first century hacker and troll who stepped outdoors in a blizzard and now claims he thinks he's been revived as a character in a computer game—offers to help her escape the Archive, she grabs the chance. Thanks to knowing someone in her own time who dreamed of the future, she catches on fast. It helps that the political situation—rival city-states—is familiar from her original time, as well.
Ivar is a young Viking scooped from the sea off Iceland. He too catches on fast, and before long he and Benedetta are copying the time machine (with help, of course), listening to conflicting advice from future heads that pop out of windows of blue haze ("Don't bring back the Templars!” “Oh, do, do!"), and concluding that what they do will determine which future becomes actual. Which hazy head should they listen to? Never mind, for Benedetta has a pretty firm idea that there are a great many past people that deserve another chance, and she and Ivar (and others) start bringing them up. The result is a larger population, cultural and genetic diversity galore, and a forming culture that is actually quite interesting.
Where will it all go? Ore doesn't say, but she doesn't have to. What she does say is enough, for her point seems to be that when people escape dire straits (as do those scooped from the past), they are very appreciative of the second chance, especially when it comes with modern conveniences. There are tensions between old and new, but overall there is a remarkable amount of good will. Old enmities are set aside, new friends are made, and it's time to enjoy life.
If we must speculate on the future of Ore's future, we might reflect on how well people forget. Perhaps it will be less than a generation before those old enmities are remembered, or new ones discovered. And at that point, well, some of these folks from the past are pretty bloody-minded. Or perhaps Ore set her tale in Philadelphia for another reason than the fact that that is where she currently lives. It is after all the City of Brotherly Love.
I think you'll enjoy it.
* * * *
I don't seem to live in the same world as Orson Scott Card. As he explains the genesis of Empire in his Afterword, he was asked to create a novel that would become the storyline of a video game centered on a near-future American civil war. Since he sees a great polarization in America, along the blue state-red state lines the media made familiar in the last election, he then found it fairly easy to imagine how such a civil war might develop. Where do his world and mine differ? I see the polarization, but I don't see it as so dramatic a thing. The difference may be because I live in a part of the country that often seems (at least to me) more reasonable than others. We have Olympia Snowe for a Senator, after all! Or it could be that Card has been bashed by both Left and Right and thereby felt the polarization in a very personal way.
But it doesn't really matter whether Card and I live in the same world. Empire is a cracking good read. It opens with a demonstration of Captain Reuben Malich as an honorable soldier. He does well in a difficult mission, is promoted to Major, and is sent to Princeton to hone his intellect. There one of his professors, Averell Torrent, talks a lot about how Rome achieved its true greatness when the Republic gave way to the Empire at a time when civil war loomed and a strong man could bring order out of chaos. Before Malich leaves, Torrent feels him out about his willingness to accept “a covert assignment to help hold this country together."
Before long, Malich is working out of the Pentagon, carrying out missions apparently ordered by someone in the White House. One of those missions involves studying Washington and figuring out just how terrorists could successfully assassinate the President. He assumes the idea is to find holes and promptly plug them, does his usual good job, and hands in his report.
Coleman is assigned to Malich's office as an aide, but finds that Malich is never around. When they finally make contact, it is on an overlook by the Potomac, just in time to spot Malich's plan under way. They do their best, but though they interfere with the plan, it is successful enough to kill the President and others. They are heroes, though Malich expects to be attacked—blamed!—as soon as they find out the assassination plan was his. Before long, Coleman is being invited to join a military coup. He refuses, but it is looking more and more like pre-Empire chaos is setting in. Indeed, a force of Progressive Restorationists, armed with some quite science-fictional weaponry, is now taking over New York City, killing anyone in uniform (cops and firefighters and doormen), and liberal enclaves around the country are rushing to recognize the Progressives as the true U.S. government.
Civil war, anyone? And where's Torrent? He's getting the position of vice-president and looking very presidential as he coordinates the battle of the elected government against the Progressives. He's using Malich and Coleman, sending them out to stymie the foe and eventually announcing that he has tracked down the Progressive headquarters, where the evil mastermind must be hiding. Except that there are signs that the Progressives and the assassins are not the same group.
Meanwhile Malich's wife Cecily is getting very suspicious, for that mastermind as well as far too many other foe figures turn out to have been students of Torrent's.
Is Torrent some sort of master conspirator? That is never clear in the novel, and I have no idea whether the game ever resolves the question. But it doesn't really matter. Card has constructed a very nice conspiracy thriller that is satisfying in its philosophical-historical rationale, the technical ingenuity of the Progressive technology, and its level of derring-do and heroism. In some ways it follows the standard pattern; in at least one way it does not, for a very important character gets killed long before the climax. If you like good characterization, you'll love Card's treatment of Malich, Coleman, and Cecily. Secondary characters are less well developed, but that's pretty standard. Overall, you're gonna love this one.
* * * *
With Emperor, Stephen Baxter begins the “Time's Tapestry” alternate history epic. The tale begins in Britain, 4 B.C., when a babe is struggling to be born and his mother suddenly begins babbling in Latin. Fortunately, one on hand is able to write the words down, and they are clearly a prophecy of events to come as the Romans invade and emperors come and go. However, the last few lines, though they are blatantly familiar to the reader, are mysterious to the characters, for they talk of self-evident truths and human rights.
The babe, one Nectovelin, is full-grown when Claudius invades and shatters what the locals thought was might. His cousin Agrippina winds up going to Rome and her descendants carry the prophecy forward through the centuries as Hadrian's Wall is built and, later, as Constantine tours the western provinces, comes near death, and another babe labors to be born.
So the book is a tour of ancient British history, and as such quite well done. The reader smells the stink and dust and sees the towns and walls and camps when they were new, not ruins. But the prophecy is a
mystery that demands explanation. It refers to time's tapestry, thereby inviting the recipients of the prophecy to call the source the “Weaver,” and wonder who that man or woman, and what their motives, might be. Is the aim to change history? In what way? Baxter has his characters speculate, but strangely he ignores the prophecy's last line, “O child! Thou tapestried in time, strike home! Strike at the root!"
Nor does he call Nectovelin the Anti-Christ, though the coincidence of timing of his birth, and his location at the opposite end of the known world of the time, could easily warrant that. Instead the characters focus on the birth and development of Christianity, which this volume takes up to about the time of Augustine and the setting of the authoritarian pattern that persists today. But is it this whose root the prophecy calls for striking? Is the change the Weaver seeks religious, or political, or philosophical? Indeed, what would the world be like today if the ideals of the American Declaration of Independence had become established a thousand years ahead of time?
We'll have to wait to see what Baxter's up to, but so far the signs are good.
* * * *
Now I know why I don't like Battlestar Galactica. The premise never convinced me, and the details—machine people that can get pregnant from humans? C'mon!—actively offended my sense of reality. But I picked up Steven Harper's Unity anyway.
I wish I hadn't. The very first line—"A trio of Cylon raiders dipped and swooped through space like silent bats on razor wings"—is one of the oldest gaffes of space opera. Not that I need to tell Analog readers, but you don't swoop in a vacuum! A bit later on (p. 100), it became clear why the Galacticans are having such a tough time licking the Cylons: They proudly admire repairs on the wings of their fighters—repairs made with solder. You don't solder things that have to stand up to strain! Solder is weak. Welding works much, much better, and I am not inclined ever again to pick up a book in this series.
Analog SFF, July-August 2007 Page 41
