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exit
I gave Eileen Gunn and Ellen Datlow a peek at the first section of this column and Ellen wrote back to say that I should consider advertising as a potential business model. It's certainly clear that ads are what have made Google [google. com]the juggernaut that it is today. Has anyone figured out how to make ads pay for quality science fiction? Not yet, but ad revenue has been steadily migrating from broadcast and print media to the net ever since the turn of the century. If SF webzines can make the case that they can deliver motivated eyes to online ads, there may soon be a fourth leg to support online publishing (except I really, really hate this whole leg metaphor now and I'm sorry I brought it up in the first place).
Eileen wrote to say that, although, after the first few years, the Infinite Matrix was forced to cut payment rates, which had originally been competitive with Sci Fiction, she found that authors were actually interested in more than just the paycheck. The chance to publish edgy work without censorship, to have the work available to a large potential audience, and to see their work in a venue with other significant content, meant almost as much to them as money.
I take her point about this career choice, especially when the writer gets to work with editors like Ellen Datlow and Eileen Gunn.
Copyright (c) 2007 James Patrick Kelly
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BREEZE FROM THE STARS by Mary Rosenblum
Mary Rosenblum has published SF novels and short stories since 1990. She has been a Hugo nominee and a winner of the Compton Crook Award. Mary lives and writes on country acreage where she also trains dogs. Her novels, Horizons from Tor Books and Water Rites from Fairwood Press, were released this past year. You can find out more about her books at her website [www.maryrosenblum.com]. In her new tale for us, she shows us what it might be like to direct space traffic while experiencing the...
Everybody in the graduating class went to The Hole where the working jocks hung out, up high near the hub on the NYUp orbital to celebrate ... or gripe ... when the rock jock postings went up. Sanya and Jorges got drunk fast, they had no tolerance to anything, and were already hooting and pushing each other around in the near-micro-g of the tiny bar. They'd been posted as new members of NYUp's elite Team One. Well, they had the reflexes of rock jocks, all right. But so did he. Jeri huddled back in the shadows, nursing a beer flavored with raspberries from the hub gardens. Up this high, where no tourists wandered, the walls were curved, no corners, and if you pushed a bit, you could bounce off the ceiling in the marginal gravity. The beer seemed to rise up into his head instead of going down and he felt drunk even after just half a bag. Not giddy, just a little disconnected from reality.
He sure wasn't celebrating. Wasn't sure why the hell he'd come. Jeri sucked another mouthful of bitter raspberry brew from the bag.
"Your face says washed out.” A tall rock jock with tawny skin and a lot of fiber light tattoo-work drifted over. “But the wash-outs do their cryin’ over in the Blue Moon.” She put a decorated arm over his shoulder, breathed beer in his face. “What happened? You get posted to New Singapore and you hate Islam?"
He thought about shoving her arm off, didn't. Each tattoo meant a hit. He studied an emerald green Celtic knot, wondering what it meant. She might have taken out a piece of junk ... a floater, a danger to the orbital platforms or the traffic between. It might have been a rock coming in. Might have been a pirate raider carrying serious hardware. Rock jocks whacked whatever the dispatchers sent ‘em to.
"I could take your mind off your bad post. Hey, you'll feel better when you're out hottin’ after a rock anyway."
"Yeah.” He didn't look at her. “Only they stuck me with a dispatch dock. Why? I had the best hit record in our class."
"Dispatch?” The arm withdrew. “They don't train jocks and put ‘em on the cans to dispatch."
"Good.” He drained the last of his beer. “Go tell Delfinio that, will you?"
"Delfinio? That Dispatch.” Her tone capitalized it and made him look up, finally. She was nodding.
"When's your birthday, kid?"
"Huh?"
"Let me guess ... somewhere between November 30 and December 17, right?"
"Yeah. December 5, so what?” He stared at her, waiting for the punch line.
"You're an Ophiuchus. Like a Cancer or Aries, you know? The woo-woo zodiac thing. Only it's some weird thirteenth house."
He didn't get it, kept his face still, not gonna help her to trip him into the punch line. Stupid coming here tonight. Should have just gone to the dorm and to bed. Oh, get it over with. He sighed. “That isn't one of the Zodiac signs,” he said. “I'm a Sagittarius. As if it mattered."
"Oh, it's a sign all right. And it matters.” The jock winked at him. “To Delfinio at least. That's why he picked you. He has this thing about Ophiuchus and people who are born in that sign. But look at it this way, Delfinio is Dispatch. The crews on the platforms just play backup. You're at the center of the universe, bro. Del's got eyes all over his bod ... never misses a molecule.” Her eyes narrowed and she looked past his shoulder. “Speak of the devil.” She chuckled, slapped him on the shoulder so that he nearly flew out of the hammock seat. “Keep your pants on, honey.” And wove her way through the crowded bar with the gliding grace of a native upsider who had never set foot on Earth.
He looked where she had looked, saw people in the bar move, give space, the way you only saw it when someone big walked the hallways in the orbital platforms. This little, skinny gnome with a naked skull, a micro-g body, and the big eyes and narrow face that said he had some Gypsy genes in him walked into that space. The Gypsies weren't quite human ... so the talk said ... and the look made him old, because the Gypsies had left for the Oort in the Departure, years ago. He glided through the empty, respectful space, ignoring the murmured greetings, came right up to Jeri. Looked him straight in the face.
"Jeri Annunciato-Sontag?” His voice was high and reedy.
"Yeah.” Everyone was staring at them. “That's me."
"Let's go.” The gnome twitched one narrow shoulder. “Save the cities the cost of a shuttle lift out to your post tomorrow.” He looked at the empty beer bag in Jeri's hand. “Unless you need to get drunker first?"
Jeri spotted the rock jock with the light tattoos grinning from the edge of the crowd. Bowed in her direction. “Sure, Delfinio,” he said and sailed the empty beer bag toward the bar. “Why not? Let's get to work."
"Oh, too soon yet.” A wide grin stretched Delfinio's face. “But we can go home now. Work when you know your butt from a black hole."
Jeri followed him out of The Hole. He felt as if he pushed through an invisible skin that sealed behind him, shutting him out of the warm, close world of Sanya, Jorges, and the other jocks he'd trained with. The rock jock—he'd already forgotten her name—winked. But she was on the other side of that skin, too. He didn't return it.
* * * *
Delfinio shuttled them over to Dispatch in a slightly larger version of a jock pod, an egg with the spiderweb harness designed to keep you intact no matter what your pod was doing. Jeri had already had the navigation-interface implanted, way back when he passed into the program, so when Delfinio passworded them into the system, the hull vanished and Jeri found himself floating in vacuum, facing the blue-white disc of Earth. Even after all his training flights, the sight always brought a rush of awe clear up from his toes to choke him for an instant. The slowly spinning can that was Dragon Home caught the sunlight along the planet's far perimeter, spangled with lights and buzzing with traffic. Not far from the orbital platform, the gleaming ribbon of the Elevator shimmered like a silver thread rising up from the planet's blue surface, the terminal like a jeweled bead at the end.
I was going to spend my life out here, Jeri thought and another wave of resentment rolled through him. Now he was going to spend it inside a can, sending his former buddies out to chase rocks and pirates. So what if Delfinio was the primo dispatcher. This was still a d
ispatch job.
"You didn't intend to become Dispatch,” Delfinio agreed as the pod accelerated and the webbing tightened around Jeri's body. Like the jock, he capitalized the word. “No fun chases. No hunt and capture. No shoot ‘em up.” Delfinio cackled.
Great, a mind reader. Jeri wondered if Delfinio was a high-number empath. That's all he needed ... get shut up in a can with someone who could read his every emotional shift. But if Delfinio overheard that, he didn't say anything about it.
It didn't take long to reach Dispatch. An even larger version of the egg-shaped jock pods, its matte black hull emerged suddenly from the star-sprinkled space between cans. The pod docked like silk, not a jar as it merged with the smart-alloy hull of Dispatch. A whisper of breeze told Jeri that the atmospheres were one. He didn't need that whisper. He smelled ... well ... living space. Delfinio freed himself from his web with a single, fluid motion, kicked off, and arrowed through the port that had opened in the joined hulls. Jeri untangled himself and pushed after, feeling clumsy and slow compared to Delfinio's fluid moves.
Dispatch didn't offer much. He hung up on the port and surveyed. Curved hull walls of off-white immediately bored him. Controls and decorations would be in virtual and he didn't have the password yet. A grav-gym occupied space and he counted two privacy closets that he could just about bet on would contain a simple micro-g hammock, the kind you'd sleep in if you rode a miner out in the ‘roid belt. “There's nothing here.” He didn't try to hide his surprise. “This is central dispatch, right? I mean, if you're processing all the input, sending it out to the platform dispatchers, where are the others?"
Delfinio hovered in front of a section of curved hull without answering. Jeri recognized a kitchen wall ... drink dispensers, meal oven ... the whole works.
"You want to eat?” Delfinio didn't look at him. “Or you want more to drink? You can get plastered tonight.” He turned and bared his teeth at Jeri. “Not after tonight. But I think you will not wish to, eventually."
"I'm not hungry.” Jeri pushed off too hard, arrowed across the space, rebounded from the hull beside the kitchen wall, managed to spill his momentum with a somersault. None of this made sense. “I want to know what this is and why the hell I'm here."
"Do you believe in Hell?” Delfinio sounded genuinely curious. He pushed away from the kitchen wall, a tube of gelatinous, pale goo in his hands. He sucked from it. “Gym you saw when you came in, you sleep in this space.” He touched open one of the closets, nodded at the micro-g hammock Jeri had expected. “The rest of your question you will answer yourself. So what Hell do you believe in?” He looked expectant. Like a pet waiting for a treat.
This was Dispatch? Jeri stared at the crazy old man for a moment. Couldn't be. “What about my birthday? Does that matter?"
"Oh, he's a smart one.” Without seeming to move a muscle, Delfinio somersaulted slowly and precisely in place. “I saw Zai talking to you. She told you."
"No, she didn't.” Jeri looked around the floating closet, his mind full of stars and vacuum and the blue-white loom of Earth. Lost to him. “She just said it mattered. What the hell has my birthday got to do with my ending up here?"
"It is never wise to invoke something that you do not wish to experience.” Delfinio blinked slowly. “As to your birthday, you were born up here on NYUp platform. In the sign of Ophiuchus."
"What has that got to do with anything? And I never heard of that zodiac sign and I mean who cares, anyway?” He stared at the slack hammock. “I had the best hit record in the class."
"Anyone can hit a rock.” Delfinio somersaulted again, unmoving, violating a whole lot more laws of physics. “Seeing what is out there to hit is talent. Go to bed,” he said. “Go to sleep and dream."
"Dream of what?” Jeri said, but he muttered it under his breath and Delfinio didn't answer.
Instead, he gave Jeri a password that allowed him to decorate the Dispatch walls to his taste and to see the control fields, although Delfinio told him he was locked out until he learned how to use them.
Jeri thought about landscapes to paint on the walls of the pod. Settled for a view of Earth, with the New York Up platform visible, and the glittering thread of the Elevator. Just to remind himself of what he wasn't doing. He wondered if Delfinio knew what he had chosen, had a feeling that the old gnome did, but if so, he made no comment. Delfinio finished his goo and then floated silently in the center of the space, his eyes glazed, curled into a loose fetal position.
Checking sensors? Watching for hazards so he could send the jocks out? It sure didn't look like he was doing much of anything.
Jeri went to bed, even though the raspberry beer buzzed in his blood and he wasn't really sleepy.
* * * *
He didn't dream ... not really. But at some point he woke to the soft darkness of his hammock with the sense that he had been listening to a murmured conversation. Delfinio, he thought, talking to himself. Almost before he could think this, he slid back into slumber and didn't wake again until the light in his hammock increased slowly and the sound of music woke him.
* * * *
"Did you sleep well?” Delfinio floated near the kitchen wall, eating cubes of flavored tofu. He was upside down to Jeri's orientation, silhouetted by the Earthscape with which Jeri had decorated the hull. Jeri didn't change his position as he touched himself a squeeze of black tea from the wall. Let Delfinio change his orientation. He waited for Delfinio to ask him if he had dreamed, but instead, the old gnome simply went on eating, popping the pale cubes of soy curd into his mouth, chewing and swallowing without spilling a molecule.
Jeri sucked hot tea, sighed, and toed off the wall, torquing himself into a matching orientation with Delfinio. “I didn't dream,” he said.
"Today, you get to surf the sensors with me.” Delfinio's eyes crinkled. “You will dissolve. You will cease to exist and for a time ... it will be hard. But I will put you back together. And then you will begin to comprehend Dispatch."
Jeri drew a deep breath. “Look, I know I've been ... angry about being here. I guess I still am. And I don't understand anything. What makes this so special when all four platforms have twenty-four-seven crews watching the sensors?” He drew another breath, saw not one flicker of response in Delfinio's pale eyes. “Would you explain about the zodiac thing? If I was supposed to dream something last night ... I didn't. So maybe you have the wrong person."
Without warning, without seeming to move a muscle, Delfinio drifted suddenly close. Jeri couldn't quite control his flinch and it set him drifting slowly toward the wall. He flushed as Delfinio followed, a few centimeters separating them, so close that he felt the heat radiating from Delfinio's flesh.
"You felt it.” Delfinio drifted suddenly away, so that the space between them opened to a comfortable gap. “You are the right choice.” His smile broadened, transforming his face. His eyes sparkled and Jeri had the sudden feeling that he was looking through twin windows into the sky of another world. Then Delfinio somersaulted, caught the kitchen wall, and looked over his shoulder at Jeri with a wink. “Breakfast,” he said. “You will need it. What do you want to eat? I will tell you about the zodiac and your birth as you eat.” Without waiting for Jeri's answer, he touched a tray of fruit and a hi-protein bagel from the wall, sailed it neatly to Jeri.
"Ophiuchus is a constellation,” Delfinio began as Jeri popped the lid on the tray. “It is called the Serpent Bearer and is not part of the zodiac. You know why?” Delfinio's body seemed to rotate around his head until he was oriented at right angles to Jeri. “Back when the Babylonians invented the zodiac more than 3000 years ago, the sun passed through only twelve constellations ... the zodiac everyone knows.” He cackled, drifting gently until he faced Jeri upside down. “But the precession of the Earth makes it appear that the sun now passes through thirteen houses. And the thirteenth, the one you were born into ... is Ophiuchus."
"So what?” Jeri picked the fat green grapes from the tray, one by one. Someone had told him that
on Earth, grapes grew only the size of his thumb. Puny. “Who cares about zodiac signs? That's like magic ... fortune tellers, you know? And it's downsider stuff anyway.” He popped another grape into his mouth, swallowed. “I mean, maybe it makes a good pickup line downside, but not up here."
"It made a good pickup line for you.” Delfinio's eyes twinkled at Jeri's scowl. “But it is not about magic ... or perhaps it is, depending on how you look at it.” He snatched a grape from Jeri's tray, sucked it from his palm and swallowed. “Now ... in a small window of time in the first part of December ... an interstellar wind sweeps over us, a helium wind flowing into the solar system from the direction of Ophiuchus. The sun's gravity and spiraling magnetic field focuses the material into a cone and Earth passes through it during the first weeks of December. We're inside the cone now.” He smiled. “It flows over us ... the debris from the birth of stars.” His pale eyes bored into Jeri's. “That is why I chose you now. It is easier for you to hear its voice."
"I ... didn't hear any voice. “Jeri clutched the tray as if it might blast off. “I told you. I didn't dream."
"You heard it last night and you heard it as you evolved from fish to monkey in the ancient sea of your mother's womb.” Delfinio nodded and helped himself to another grape. “It changed you, that voice, and now you will listen to it again and learn to hear it forever. And learn to see. You will be good at this,” he said, and pivoted, drifting gently away. “Finish your breakfast. I am going to exhaust you today."
Asimov's SF, March 2007 Page 3
