Tides From the New Worlds

by Tobias S. Buckell

  “Jer-ay! What’s up?” Andy grinned. He did it perpetually. Sometimes it got annoying, but this morning Jerry found himself picking up a little.

  “Nothing much.”

  “Watch out for Government,” Nathan added. “Rumor has it Mrs. Newfield’s going to lay down a pop quiz.”

  Andy looked at him wide eyed.

  “Shit. A quiz? I haven’t studied. I gotta run.” He abruptly weaved off to go and look for someone, anyone, with the appropriate notes.

  Nathan waited for a second. Then, “Did you ask your Dad?”

  “He said no. Again. At this rate I’ll probably end up a senior on the bus.” Nathan grimaced. Jerry waited expectantly.

  “Well. I told you he would. I have it with me.” As Jerry hoped. He looked at Nathan’s worn-out denim bag.

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Nathan reached into his bag. “It’s not the greatest seed, but it should be all right if you play real close attention to the growing and prune the bad sections.”

  Jerry reached for the packet, but Nathan pulled it back.

  “Money?” He asked. Jerry handed him a wad of bills. Everything he had in savings. Nathan handed it over, and Jerry flipped the small packet across his fingers. A small sub-compact with a hatchback glittered on the decal.

  “Wow,” said someone from behind. Jerry froze. Allison. He felt tunnel vision fall into place, and the usual vague sense of panic. “Is that a car-seed?”

  “Um…” Jerry began.

  “Of course it is,” Nathan said. “Jerry stepping up.” He put a proprietary arm on Jerry’s shoulder. “He already has his temps. Once he grows this car he’ll be able to take people all sorts of cool places.”

  “Yeah,” Jerry said. “I’m trying to grow a car.”

  And that was pretty much it for conversation. The three of them stood there for a minute looking for something to say.

  “Well, I’m going to go study for the Government pop quiz. See you around.” She bobbed off.

  “She wants you,” Nathan said.

  “Dude, shut up,” Jerry felt his face flush.

  “Have you asked her out to the dance?”

  “Uh… no.” Jerry played with the zipper on his bag.

  “You should. Where are you growing the car?”

  “Far enough away that Dad won’t find it.”

  “Always a good idea,” Nathan said.

  Mrs. Newfield had the pop quiz. She was an old teacher, and she never stopped regaling them all with tales of her youth. She told them about spending twenty years as a riveter during the war, and about the cars she used to drive, made of metal.

  Old adults always spoke about the war.

  Jerry breezed through the quiz. What date did the war end on? June 8th, 1985. Write an essay on the cause of the war’s end. Jerry thought about that some. He remembered that the old dictator Hitler died of cancer in 1974, and that the war with Japan lasted longer.

  Dad always tried explaining to him that people grew things because the war took all the metal for so many decades, that everyone left at home had to try and figure out other ways to get by.

  Jerry just wanted a car.

  Jerry planted the hatchback down near a pond half a mile from the house. He bought some fertilizer in a sack from a local car-farm, and made sure to carefully mix it in with the dirt and pack the seed in.

  He figured he could come and water it as he found the time to sneak away, but as the week progressed he kept sneaking away. The car was his pride. He spent what money he had remaining on high-grade fertilizer; he even put out for extra topsoil to spread around the location.

  Within the week, he could see the frame beginning to push its slender fingers out of the ground and take shape. By the second week, he was using his father’s shears to trim back parts of the frame that kept trying to grow off in wild directions.

  Keeping the car pruned wasn’t easy. It took time, and careful cutting. He really had to strain hard to trim the stray pieces, because the car parts had their breed ancestry from the tree that produced ironwood. Ironwood, Jerry’s dad said, came from the Caribbean, where it was once used to make propeller shafts and pulleys. During the war, it was used to replace cogs and axles. As the decades passed, it was no longer cut and shaped, but grown into all its uses as scientists looked for ways around the metal shortage.

  Every other day after school, Jerry went down to the pond. Sometimes the pruning didn’t quite fix it. Parts of the car just seemed… off to him. Like the hood. But anything could be fixed, or dealt with.

  The damn paneling, though. It started to come in over the right wheel-well lumpy, and refused to cover in completely. But Jerry remained confident in his green thumb despite the small voice in the back of his head telling him things weren’t quite working out as easily as he expected.

  Saturday, on his way back from returning the shears to the toolshed, he ran into his dad. Dad looked at the bag but didn’t say anything. He followed Jerry into the house.

  “You haven’t been spending much time home this week.”

  “I’ve been busy.” Jerry realized that his dad was feeling guilty about not spending enough time with him. The price of long office hours.

  “I hear there’s a dance this Friday. You have a date yet?”

  “Dad!” Jerry let the note of complaint drop. Take a hint, he thought, leave me alone. But Dad kept pushing it.

  “Isn’t there someone you’re interested in asking out? Andy was telling me about someone the last time he was over here.”

  Jerry balled his hand into fist. He was going to kill Andy for letting that one slip.

  “Yes. Allison.” He flushed. Dad held the door open for him.

  They kicked their shoes off in the middle of the foyer.

  “So have you asked her out?”

  “No, Dad, I haven’t.”

  “What are you waiting for?”

  Jerry looked at his dad. He could almost look him eye to eye now.

  “To talk to her, at school and stuff. I mean, she hardly even knows me. What if she says no?”

  “You won’t know until you call her,” Dad said.

  “Yeah, but what if she says no?”

  “Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet.”

  Jerry shook his head. “Sure Dad, whatever. Okay. Yeah.” Like Dad was the expert on women.

  “Watch your tone.”

  “I’m going upstairs,” Jerry announced.

  “Are the dishes done?”

  Jerry shrugged.

  Of course, Dad was waiting for him when he got back from school. Still skittish about Saturday’s encounter Jerry tried to push past the living room and head up the stairs.

  He got stopped.

  “Sit down.”

  The steely edge in Dad’s voice meant business. Jerry sat on the couch and set a permanent scowl in place. His stomach flip-flopped when the shears came out. Dad set them on the small coffee table.

  “What’s wrong?” Jerry asked. But he knew. He’d been caught.

  “I’m not totally unobservant, Jerry. I can put two and two together. I figured the best spot, and sure enough… you’re growing a car down by the pond. I had it towed.” Dad’s green eyes flashed, and Jerry clenched a fist. He’d towed it? His car? “Just what the hell where you thinking?” Dad continued.

  “Just what the hell was I thinking? I was thinking I need a goddamn car!”

  “Watch your language.”

  “Fuck my language.”

  “Hey!” His dad slapped the coffee table for emphasis. “I won’t stand for this. We’ve already argued it out. We agreed we were going to wait until you had your license. Until you’d driven, and definitely until you’ve wised up some.”

  “No, we never agreed. You told me.” Jerry got up. Dad stepped in his way. “Get out of my way.”

  “Not until we get some things straight.”

  “I’m leaving now,” Jerry said, notions of packing his bag and leaving entering his head.
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  “You’re going to run away.” His dad smiled. “Where are you going to eat? How are you going to eat? You spent all your money on that crappy rip-off some friend sold you.”

  That hurt.

  “Well, it shouldn’t be the first time you’ve had someone walk out one you, right, Dad?” Jerry regretted it the second he said it. His dad stepped back, shaken. They never talked about Mom.

  Jerry hardly felt the slap. He staggered back into the coffee table, falling over. The glass broke and shattered across the tile, and Jerry felt the tears rolling down his cheek. He ran out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

  The plot by the side of the pond stood empty, the earth scarred by the wide tires of some sort of truck. A blackened, lumpy piece of paneling sat alone next to a thorn bush, a dragonfly laying a clutch of eggs into a notch.

  Jerry sat by the pond until the tears stopped, and then slept there. He snuck back into the house late at night, blinking owlishly.

  His dad had cleaned all the glass up and done the dishes.

  They played at avoiding each other for a few days. Dad went to work, Jerry went to school. Once home Jerry would throw himself at homework, staying in his room, and Dad would lock himself in the study.

  The only comment was made late in the evening, when they both showed up in the kitchen for a soda.

  “Haven’t you run away yet?” His dad asked.

  Jerry ignored him.

  It was hard to stay perpetually angry. Jerry forgot all about it when the phone rang, and then his dad poked a head in through the door with the portable.

  “It’s Andy. He sounds wound up.”

  “Thanks,” Jerry said, taking the phone. They made eye contact, Jerry looked away. “Andy?”

  “Man, you are so gonna blow when you hear this!” Andy said.

  “What?”

  “Allison got asked out by some upperclassman.”

  The world got all woozy for Jerry again. Damnit. She’d smiled at him, liked him. True he hadn’t actually asked her out, but…

  It was all so confusing.

  He let Andy ramble on, then hung up and sat staring at the wall for a minute. This sucked. Everything sucked. The whole world sucked.

  “You okay?” Jerry jumped, he hadn’t realized Dad was still there.

  “Yeah, I guess,” he lied.

  “Want to talk?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay,” his dad still stood there.

  “I mean, if she kinda liked me…”

  His dad stepped into the room.

  “I hate to say ‘I told you so’, but if you don’t show initiative, you’ll be going to most of your dances with Andy and Nathan.”

  Jerry mock-shuddered.

  “Now there’s a thought.”

  His dad sat down on a spare chair, drawing it up.

  “I’ve been thinking about the car.”

  “So have I,” Jerry admitted. “I won’t try again. I just wanted a car so bad. It would have impressed my friends…” he trailed off. He wanted to grow a car so bad it ached. But Dad was right; they couldn’t afford to have a new car right now. Ever since Mom left they’d been just squeaking by with money.

  His dad cleared his throat.

  “I changed my mind,” he said.

  Jerry’s eyes widened, expecting Dad to hand him a seed packet with a gleaming new car on the front, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Dad stood up and walked over to the window. “I won’t buy you a new car. We’ll use yours. I can at least teach you the mistakes not to make.” Jerry followed him over and looked down.

  In the grass lawn sat his car, lumpy sideboards and all.

  “The sideboards are warped,” his dad said. “The frame isn’t quite up to crash standard, I can tell, but we can work on all that. I already ripped out the engine and transmission. It should take, though. It might be a few days until we see any progress. Our lawn is hardly prime area.”

  Jerry stood awkwardly next to his dad, then patted him on the back.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  Jerry stayed home from the dance. He and his dad sat on the front porch, two empty bags of fertilizer draped over the railing. Dad had come out with two beers, condensation running down the sides.

  “A hard day’s work demands a reward,” he laughed. Jerry opened his, not liking the bitter taste at all, but sipping at intervals just like his dad, letting the beads of water run down the web between his thumb and forefinger.

  They’d trimmed the dead parts of the car. The trunk, the hood, all needed to be re-trained and re-grown. The A-frame, though, was decent.

  “Not bad for a first car, son.” His dad settled into a deck chair. The ochre sunset gave the little hatchback on their lawn distended dark shadows. “Growing cars ain’t easy. They take lots of work. You make mistakes, you prune them back, then you start over again and hope for the best. All you can really do is point the growth in the right direction and pray. And every year they release cars that grow faster and faster. Hell, when I was your age it took years to grow yourself a good car.”

  Jerry nodded, sipped at the beer and tried not to make a face.

  “I’m sorry about…”

  “Yeah,” his dad said in a hurry. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have hit you like that.”

  They dropped the subject and sipped some more beer, looking at the sun dip behind the tree. Across the fence Mr. Atkinson stood up from pruning, placing one hand on the hood to steady himself, waving with the other.

  Jerry and his father waved back.

  All Her Children Fought…

  This is a lean little mood piece that has gotten me the most fan mail out of all my short stories. Originally written for a small online magazine that posed themes every week, I wrote it as an exercise just to keep the writing muscles fresh. After appearing in the small zine I got a number of emails from people who found it quite touching, and sad. It’s also a small nod to Tom Godwin’s famous story The Cold Equations. When each pound to orbit costs so much, in dire straights, it would make sense to use children as pilots.

  Colonel Hodges drew Mia aside. Medals tinkled as the massive soldier leaned down to whisper in her ear. His breath tickled her ear.

  “I wouldn’t take the kid very far away from the house, sudden noises are liable to set him off.“

  “I understand,” Mia replied. The diminutive child had already been shown into the house. Unlike any average kid he did not succumb to curiosity and explore, or even look around, the house. He stood at the door waiting for orders.

  “Maybe you do,” the colonel said. “I still do not understand why the psychologists think this is important…”

  Mia hissed between her teeth. “He’s a child.”

  The Colonel drew back from her, biceps sliding like pistons covered in cloth as he crossed his arms.

  “If you insist. I will be back in a week… and I wish you a good day, ma’am.”

  He stepped around the little waterfall and out through the gate. Mia waited until the roar of turbo-fans dwindled into the distance.

  She turned back to face the small boy.

  He really wasn’t small, just contained. He sat on the porch step looking at her with dark expressionless eyes.

  “Colonel Hodges failed to give me your name.”

  “I have a designation.”

  “And that is?”

  “Aiden. Seven two hundred-oh-four. Why am I here? I thought I was fully trained?”

  “You are ready, Aiden. But before you leave, they wanted you to rest awhile.”

  “I rest six hours a day before morning call. Isn’t that enough?”

  Mia smiled and passed him by on the porch.

  “For your body, little man, but not your soul. Now pick up your things and come inside.”

  Aiden obeyed, snapping up a crisp new duffel bag and following her into the kitchen.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “I had morning rations.”

  Mia pulled down a jar of brightly c
olored hard candy and opened it.

  “Try one of these.”

  Aiden thoughtfully sampled a piece of cherry red. He tucked the rest away in a breast pocket.

  “Thank you, ma’am. I liked it.”

  Mia wondered how much candy he got at the training base. Maybe a few pieces a week, with vitamins to balance the meal out. It was still early in the day. Mia gave him a sandwich which he also tucked away in another zippered pocket. Then Mia left him alone so he could roam around the house and investigate his new surroundings.

  The best approach to these things, she knew, was not rush it. Let whatever happens happen naturally. While Aiden explored her house Mia took a nap.

  • • •

  He woke her up.

  “I’m sorry ma’am…”

  “Call me Mia.”

  “Ma’…Mia. There is a sword in the foyer. May I look at it?”

  They always gravitated toward the sword, Mia thought. It gave them something to orient themselves to.

  “Please go ahead.”

  Mia followed Aiden through the kitchen and into the foyer. Aiden looked up at the sword, then leaped up and snatched it out off of its hooks in a single fluid movement. He landed catlike and unsheathed it.

  “Kitana.” He pirouetted around a chair, stalking some unseen enemy. He swayed with the sword in slight smooth motions. “It is beautiful.”

  He balanced it with two fingers, then set it down.

  “Am I still to train now?”

  “No. Just, enjoy yourself.”

  Mia let him practice with the sword in the garden, with the promise that he wouldn’t cut any of the plants. After dinner she saw him into his small room and let him unpack.

  The light in Aiden’s room clicked off at exactly eight.

  • • •

  Mia woke up the next morning hearing small puffs of exertion. She found Aiden in the porch doing pushups. She waited patiently until he finished.

  “Breakfast?”

  “Please Ma’am.”

  “Mia.”

  She slowly made her way up into the kitchen and made scrambled eggs. At the table Aiden dug in.

  “I like them…Mia,” he said.

  “I’m glad,” Mia beamed at him. Once done Aiden washed his own dishes and took the sword outside.