Asimov's SF, October-November 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The woman nodded graciously, like a queen. Then the two of them turned, and Signy saw a great, dark splotch across the back of the man's shirt. “What is that?” she asked.

  “I don't know for certain,” Hrauna said. “But I think it's blood from his death blow. He must have been struck from behind, maybe by someone he trusted.”

  The couple were moving away, heading inland. The woman looked unharmed, but she had died young.

  “Who are they? What is their story?”

  “Dead people from long ago,” said Hrauna. “I don't know otherwise.”

  The departure continued: trolls and elves and ghosts. More clouds covering the sky. The moonlight became a dim erratic glimmer, and Signy found it more and more difficult to see anything.

  At last, Hrauna said, “I must go now. The queen wants you to describe this. It may not seem important to humans, but to us leaving a place where we have lived for so long matters.”

  “I will do it,” Signy said.

  Hrauna walked away along the canyon's rim, following the two ghosts.

  Only a few figures still climbed the canyon's walls. Signy exhaled. She was not sure what she was feeling, but it was something profound.

  “That was a sight,” a voice said behind her,

  She started. A hand grabbed her arm. “Careful, or you will fall in the canyon.”

  She turned. It was Hrafn, dressed in casual clothing, with binoculars around his neck.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I followed you from your house with my lights out, then parked and crept as close as I dared. I didn't want to attract the troll's attention.

  “I've been watching you when I have the time. Something was obviously going on. Either it had to do with the demonstrations, though I thought that was unlikely, or it had to do with trolls. That was the only reason I could imagine for the full spectrum lights on the front of your house, and that was the only explanation I could think of for your new boulder.”

  He grinned, looking happy. “It's lucky that I was near when you drove out tonight. I would have hated to miss this.”

  “What are you going to do?” Signy asked.

  “Nothing. It's not illegal to consort with trolls.”

  “They are leaving. We have driven them out with the project.”

  “I realize that.” He glanced at the canyon. As far as Signy could tell, it was empty now. “I have read your articles. I know you don't like the project.”

  “Do you?”

  “I haven't decided. It may prove to be too expensive. One of my cousins is an economist, and he worries about that. Iceland's economy is always fragile, Ingolfur says, and we have to be careful how we spend our money. Another cousin is a geologist, and he isn't sure the land here is entirely stable. What happens if there are earthquakes or volcanic activity? Will the dams and tunnels hold?

  “But I grew up here, and I always wanted to return. I was lucky enough to find the job I have. But most of the people I grew up with are in Reykjavik. If the project brings work here, that is good, and if it helps the national economy, that also is good. So I haven't made up my mind.

  “Why don't you drive home? I'll follow with my lights on and make sure you are safe.”

  She could think of no argument. So she drove back to her summer house, the headlights of his car behind her.

  After they had both stopped, he got out and walked to her car. “There's a new restaurant in Reydarfjord that isn't bad. One of my cousins is a partner.”

  “The one who works in the market?” Signy asked.

  “No. The economist. He isn't sure Karahnjukar is a good idea, but he thinks it will keep his restaurant in business. Would you join me for dinner there sometime? I owe you at least one dinner in return for the swan and the cod.”

  He was far more clever than she had thought at first, and he was the only person certain to believe her when she talked about trolls. She wanted to know how he'd kept track of her. Had he simply been watching with binoculars, or was he using some kind of electronic device? She'd like to know the answer to that question, and it might lead to an article. Are the Icelandic police like the F.B.I.? Has 9/11 led to the erosion of Icelandic liberty?

  It was also true that she found him attractive. If he didn't turn out be a spy or criminal, like the police in America, she would like to get to know him better.

  So she told him, “Yes.”

  He smiled and nodded, told her “good night,” and left.

  She unlocked her door and went in, turning on the lights. Her little summer house looked strange and unfamiliar, after the sight of the trolls leaving the Dark Canyon. Who was she? And what was this land that she had thought she knew? She would have to rethink her novel, though she wasn't sure she wanted to include trolls. The ghosts, maybe.

  Signy made coffee and set out some cookies. The troll children wouldn't be coming back to ask for them. She would have to eat them herself.

  Then she sat down and opened a notebook.

  And that was that.

  Copyright © 2011 by Eleanor Arnason

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  * * *

  Short Story: TO LIVE AND DIE IN GIBBONTOWN

  by Derek Kunsken

  Derek Kunsken is a writer living in Gatineau, Québec. His fiction has sold to On Spec, Black Gate, sub-Terrain, and Esli. Although he trained as a molecular biologist, he left science to work with street children in Latin America, and eventually found a career in refugee issues. When not writing, he is invariably to be found with his six-year old son, playing with action figures, building forts, and reading comic books. His second story for Asimov's is a social satire about murderous monkeys and apes who tenuously co-exist in an outrageous, post-human world.

  Murray slips the cool steel of the silencer into my palm. My hearing, augmented with somatic genetic modifications from bats, picks up the scrape of machined metal against thickened skin. I screw the silencer onto the muzzle, using my palm to muffle the rasp.

  I'm Reggie and I'm a businessman.

  Murray gives me the scope. I do a quick sighting, and then slide it onto the rifle.

  I'm really good at what I do.

  Murray passes me a clip of ceramic 7.62 rounds. I don't care how thick your force field is. It ain't stoppin’ these puppies.

  What I do isn't exactly tea conversation. I kill old people. The older, richer, and droolier the better.

  Me and Murray have swung high into a tree in the park overlooking the official residence of the Bonobo Embassy. Through the scope, I see my target. An ancient bonobo female, lanky, tangled hair hanging in patches around cheeks and chin. Gray tits sagging flat and wrinkly like broken balloons. The stained, white padding around her waist doesn't seem to be doing its job of holding in what needs holding, and flies buzz. She wheezes, staring out of the compound, searching the trees, looking for danger.

  Sorry, old hag, but I've got you this time. I don't care whose mother you are. I'm the angel of death and I bring—

  Something loud snaps behind me. Murray, and all my equipment, knock against my back. I hold onto the branch and don't make a sound, but dumb-ass, butterfingers Murray drops my GPS and a set of small screwdrivers. They tinkle down, hitting every goddamn branch. His furry orange face stares at me, lips forming a big O.

  Alexandra the Bonobo, the ambassador's mother, jolts from her seat and stands straight. Her diaper gives out at the same time, and plops between her feet with a hypnotically sickening splash. The old hag points at me.

  “You're a failure, you no-assed macaque afterbirth!” she shrieks. “You couldn't kill a blind, one-armed, no-legged spider-monkey! Go back to eating fruit, you mouth-breathing loser!”

  That's a bit harsh. I like fruit. She follows it with a stream of racist epithets and froths at the mouth by the time she gets to “The only thing I hate worse than macaques are gibbons!” Racist bitch. I hate bonobos.

  I'd love to yell back, but embassy security pours into the yard. They're carr
ying pistols with metal rounds. Won't get through their own force field, but I don't want to be here when their marksmen come out, or the Gibbon police get here. My visa status is dodgy enough as it is.

  “Dumb-ass!” I yell. I smack Murray. I regret it immediately. I hit him hard enough to hurt myself on the carbon-nanotube-reinforced skin under his brown fur. I did the job myself and did it pretty good. Flexible enough to keep his skin looking real, but still hard enough to be damn near bulletproof. Problem is, my sidekick is clumsy and follows instructions like a Guatemalan pack burro. My hand still stings and security guys are pulling their binoculars. Alexandra the Bonobo fills the air with obscenities that would make a hooker blush.

  “Murray, you dumb chimp! What kind of an operation are we running here? What happened to professionals, huh? What do I pay you for?” I stab a finger downward. “Carry the damn equipment down and pick up my tools!”

  Murray scrambles down the tree with a harried look. I scamper down the other side where Embassy security won't get a good look at me. At the bottom of the tree, we're shielded from view. Murray is fumbling my screwdrivers out of the grass of the park like he's preening the lawn. Sirens whine in the distance.

  “All right! All right! Come on! Forget the screwdrivers! Get in the car!”

  We high tail it (no pun intended) to my Renault 4L, the finest car produced in its price range in France, Colombia, and Slovenia in the early seventies. As far as I know, there are no other cars in this price range. I won it in a drunken contest of strength from a big, ham-handed gorilla who got deported a few weeks ago.

  Those two events are entirely unrelated, by the way.

  He was pissed when he found out about my myofibril-augments, but like they say, you shouldn't hustle people strange to you.

  The little red box of a car leans heavily to the passenger side as Murray gets in. I'm too light to balance it when I get behind the wheel. I'd love to squeal the tires to make our getaway, but I'm still learning the clutch, and it doesn't have nearly as many horses under the hood as . . . well, anything. Still, I get it up to thirty-five. We're on the main road and into thick traffic long before the flashing lights come into view.

  “Damn it, Murray! Do you know how much money you just blew us?”

  “Sorry, boss,” he says. Murray's got a strong, slow accent from the Chimpanzee townships to the south.

  “This business is all about reputation! Do you think anyone is going to hire me, hire us, if we can't grease an old bonobo in a diaper?”

  “Sorry, boss.”

  “And Murray, I can't stress this enough. If I'd have killed her, I wouldn't have had to have seen her diaper fall down.”

  “I won't do it again, boss.”

  * * * *

  Last week was so much more promising. Gibbons and Bonobos are pretty stuck up about jobs having to do with death. They don't do them. It's beneath them. You can't pay most Gibbons love or money to euthanize the decaying elderly. I was running out of time on my visa pretty fast and staring at deportation to macaque territory if I didn't find a scam soon. That's when I fell into the euthanasia business. I acquired a failing company from a low status Gibbon with a gambling problem. How hard can euthanasia be? The clients want to die, right?

  That business deal got me an extension on my visa. All I had to do was turn a profit and I could do that any time I wanted, just so long as it was within ninety days. Problem was, the bigger whack shops, made up mostly of hulking gorillas, had cornered the euthanasia market. Also, I knew nothing about needles, dosages, or the sterile technique.

  That's when I got my great idea. Imagine this ad on late-night TV: “Is your time up? Die with excitement and adventure! Struggle to the very end! Hire an international assassin to finish the job that nature started! If you see it coming, you get your money back!”

  It doesn't matter that I'm not really an assassin. Most of business is image and branding, right? I'm exotic. I'm international. That's why Gibbon Immigration wants to deport me back to my shit-hole country where military coups come more often than Christmas.

  Gibbon country has great euthanasia laws. They don't specify how it has to be done. And their weapon laws favor the rugged individualist in each of us. There are plenty of places in this town I wouldn't walk without a high-powered rifle and a bulletproof chimpanzee. So International Hit Squad was born. I even got six column-inches on page twelve of the Gibbontown Shopper, the third-most-read free paper in the capital, right under the story about the debate on zoning changes. You can't pay for that kind of publicity.

  Clients were slower to react than the press corps. It took two weeks for the first one. Unfortunately it was Alexandra, the harpy they use to scare little Bonobo children at night. A bodyguard wheeled the saggy bitch into my office. I'd put on my best business face.

  “Fucking macaque!” she said when she saw me. Then she spit on my floor. I shit you not. She spit on my floor. Who spits on a floor?

  “How can I help you, ma'am?” I held a clipboard to give myself an air of efficiency.

  “Your operation is bullshit!” she yelled. She yelled everything. Her bodyguard, a biggish Bonobo with a heavy pistol on his hip, rolled his eyes.

  “I beg your pardon, ma'am?” I asked.

  “I read your ad,” she said. “This is a big scam! You can't deliver shit in a pot, much less give me an exciting death!”

  “You'll never know when I strike, ma'am. You'll never see me coming.” I smiled my confidence-inspiring, businessman smile.

  The bitch spit on my floor again.

  “I was a sergeant in the Bonobo Marines!” she said. “I worked close protection for the Bonobo Secret Service and kept a senator alive during the Gibbon invasion. No one can sneak up on me, least of all a goddamn poseur of a macaque!”

  I shrugged. “My guarantee is there, ma'am. If you see me coming, you get your money back.”

  “It's a scam.”

  “Try me out,” I said. “Unless you're yellow.”

  She slapped her wrinkly hand on the armrest of her wheelchair. She looked like she was having an aneurysm, foaming and sputtering. I didn't want her to die. She hadn't signed the contract yet.

  “Bring it on, little man.”

  My eyes narrowed and I felt my augmented muscles debating whether to choke the bitch right here. Sure, there are lots of smaller primates, and macaques aren't very big, but everyone, and I mean everyone, knows we hate being called little. Racist bitch. Macaques just have delicate bones.

  I snapped a contract onto the clipboard and shoved it at her. “You'll never see me coming, ma'am. Whatever you think you knew way back when has been made obsolete, just like you.”

  Little veins on her neck thumped under papery, dark skin. White spit collected at the points of her mouth.

  She scrawled her name across the bottom of the sheet and threw it back at me.

  “It's on!” she yelled.

  “Not yet!” I yelled over her.

  She'd signed in the wrong spot. As a businessman, I'm a stickler for detail. I handed her a fresh contract and put an X where she had to sign. “Do it right, this time!”

  Her long, old fingers flexed and released, like she wanted to slap me. Then she filled out the whole form. Then, she signed in neat little letters and handed it back to me. I looked at it.

  Oh shit.

  Listed next of kin was the Bonobo ambassador. Address, the ambassador's residence. That place was crawling with security.

  She cackled when she saw my expression change. “And I've got augments, little man,” she said, pointing at her eyes. “I can see farther than a hawk and I've got nothing to do all day but watch for you.” She cackled louder and signaled for her bodyguard to wheel her out.

  Damn.

  * * * *

  After being chased out of a tree on my first attempt to off the hag, I hire a Gibbon to do some surveillance work. She's an aging street vendor with long arms and pale, thick fur. She trundles a soup cart around, and with my encouragement, se
ts herself up close to the Bonobo ambassador's official residence. The Bonobos don't go near her, but the Gibbon diplomatic police, tall, black-eyed, with white belts and holsters, take their cigarette breaks beside her cart, nursing cups of soup, and sometimes something harder. Good girl.

  At the end of the third day, she tells me that one of the diplomatic cops said that the ambassador's mother is going shopping on Saturday at the crafts market. Sweet. The crafts market has lots of cover and is crawling with Gibbons and foreigners. Murray and I can blend in.

  Early on Saturday, Murray, loaded with my gear, follows me in. It rained yesterday and the market stinks of wet fur and fine mud overlaying older paving stones. The stalls, framed in wood, are covered by woven tarps of so many colors that it looks like a rainbow barfed on the whole sprawling hippie-fest. The stalls creak under the worthless weight of woven grass baskets, wooden masks, carved salad spoons, and hemp blankets. Nothing here couldn't have been made better and cheaper by a good, solid, greenhouse-gas-producing machine.

  The market had congealed a long time ago around an old cathedral tower. The rest of the cathedral had burnt down or been knocked down or something, but the old tower is still there. I bribe some janitorial type and he lets us in. We wind our way up the damp, rotting stairwell and I set myself up on the fourth floor, where the absent old bell has left a space for a marksman with a rifle to cover most of the place. I leave my dumb-ass sidekick on the landing and he's only too happy to not be involved.

  Don't get me wrong. Murray's good at some stuff. I just haven't found what it is yet. He's loyal though, like a stupid dog. If he hadn't married my sister, I would have booted his ass a long time ago.

  I can see the parking lot and it doesn't take me long before I see a dark Ford Bronco with tinted windows and diplomatic plates driving in. I watch through the scope. I recognize Alexandra's Bonobo bodyguard by the balding head and the long vertical wrinkles around his lips. He and the driver help the witch out and put her into the wheelchair. She looks positively delighted today. Although, to be honest, the Bonobo bitch could have gas for all I can figure out of their expressions sometimes. Still, there's something.