Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show

by Edmund R. Schubert

  “Feeling better, traitor?” the Regent said. Howlaa sat, pale and still unwell, on a hard wooden bench before the Regent’s desk.

  “A bit,” Howlaa said.

  The Regent smiled. “You didn’t think I’d let you be the questing beast forever, did you? I couldn’t risk your escape. Wisp is one line of defense against that, but I felt another was needed, so I laced the blood with poison and bound their substances together. When the poison activated, your body expelled it, along with all the questing beast’s genetic material. You’ve lost the power to take that form.”

  “I’ve never vomited up an entire shape before,” Howlaa said. “It was an unpleasant experience.”

  “The first of many, for a traitor like you.”

  “Regent,” I said, “as Howlaa’s witness, I must inform you that you are incorrect. Howlaa did not mean to harm the orphan. The fat man appeared and disappeared, and Howlaa and I were simply carried along with him. Surely there are others who can attest to that, testify that we appeared all over the city, fighting? Howlaa held on, hoping the fat man would fade and we would be taken to the world of the dreamer, but before that could happen…well. The dream engine was damaged.”

  “The orphan was killed,” the Regent said. “You expect me to believe that, by coincidence, the last place Howlaa and the killer appeared was in that room?”

  “We could hardly appear anywhere after that, Regent, since the dream engine was destroyed, dissolving the fat man in the process.” I spoke respectfully. “Had that not happened, I cannot tell you where the fat man might have traveled next.”

  “He was a lucid dreamer,” Howlaa said. “He’d learned to move around at will. He was trying to shake me off, bouncing all over the city.”

  The Regent stared at Howlaa. “That orphan was the result of decades of research, cloning, cross-breeding—the pinnacle of the bloodline. With a bit of practice, it would have been the most powerful of the orphans, and this city would have flourished as never before. We would have entered an age of dreams.”

  “It is a great loss, Regent,” Howlaa said. “And we certainly deserve no honor or glory for our work—I failed to kill the dreamer. He killed himself. But I did not kill the orphan, either. The fat man trod upon it.”

  “Wisp,” the Regent said. “You affirm, on your honor as a witness, that this is true?”

  My honor as a witness. My honor demanded that I respect Howlaa’s elegant solution, which had saved the city further murder and also destroyed the Regent’s wicked dream engine. I think the Regent misunderstood the oath he requested. “Yes,” I said.

  “Get out of here, both of you,” he said. “There will be no bonus pay for this farce. No pay at all, in fact, until I decide to reinstate you to active duty.”

  “As you say, Regent,” Howlaa and I said together, and took our leave.

  “You lied for me, Wisp,” Howlaa said that night, reclining on a heap of soft furs and coarse fabrics.

  “I provided an interpretation that fit the objectively available facts,” I said.

  “You knew I was the one dragging the killer around the city, not vice versa.”

  “So it seemed to me subjectively,” I said. “But if the Regent chose to access my memory and see things as I had seen them, there would be no such subjectivity, so it hardly seemed relevant to the discussion.”

  “I owe you one, Wisp,” Howlaa said.

  “I did what I thought best. We are partners.”

  “No, you misunderstand. I owe you one, and I want you to take it, right now.” Howlaa held out zir hand.

  After a moment, I understood. I drifted down to Howlaa’s body, and into it, taking over zir body. Howlaa did not resist, and the sensation was utterly different from the other times I had taken possession, when most of my attention went to fighting for control. I sank back in the furs and fabrics, shivering in ecstasy at the sensations on zir—on my—skin.

  “The body is yours for the night,” Howlaa said in my—our—mind. “Do with it what you will.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You had the right of it,” Howlaa said. “We are partners. Finally, and for the first time, partners.”

  I buried myself in furs, and reveled in the tactile experience until the exquisite, never-before-experienced sensation of drowsiness overtook me. I fell asleep in that body, and in sleep I dreamed my own dreams, the first dreams of my life. They were beautiful, and lush, and could not be stolen.

  Afterword by Tim Pratt

  “Dream Engine” is a hodgepodge story, combining various free-floating ideas I’ve had for years.

  I’ve always liked weird cities—from Edward Bryant’s Cinnabar to M. John Harrison’s Viriconium to China Miéville’s New Crobuzon, and I’ve long wanted to create my own bizarre urban setting. I came up with the idea of a city at the center of a multiverse, a big messy organic sprawl built on the spinning axis of the great wheel of the multiverse, with whole discrete universes whirling around it on all sides. Conceiving of such a place raised obvious questions. How would this linchpin city be populated? How would the citizens feed and shelter themselves, how would they trade, etc.? At some point, reading about the collapse of the former Soviet Union, I came across the word “kleptocracy,” to describe a state ruled by thieves. That seemed perfect. The denizens of my city, Nexington-on-Axis, are magpies of the multiverse, snatching buildings, people, animals, and even hunks of land from passing planets, planes, and dimensions. I knew I’d hit upon a great setting, one where I could do almost anything. I wanted the city to have weirdly alien rulers and a Regent with a hidden agenda, and so I created them.

  But a setting isn’t a story.

  The notion of a man who kills people in his dreams—and the question of whether he would bear a moral responsibility for those murders—has fascinated me since high school, and I made a few failed attempts at writing that story over the years. I realized how I could apply that idea to my new setting, so I decided to give it a try. At that point, I had a setting, and something that could become a plot. All I needed was a protagonist.

  I like detectives, from literary ones like C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Sam Spade to newer media detectives like Veronica Mars. (I’m also fond of bounty hunters, assassins, and secret agents.) A weird city like Nexington-on-Axis would need some kind of detective/enforcer, and who better than Howlaa Moor, a shapeshifting rogue of no fixed gender, who serves the state because the only alternative is death or imprisonment? (The no-fixed-gender thing did provide a challenge when it came to pronouns, so I chose to use one of the several invented gender-neutral sets of terms: “zim” instead of “him” or “her” “zir” instead of “his” or “hers,” etc.)

  I’m a big fan of sidekicks, so it seemed natural to give Howlaa zir own Dr. Watson, in this case, the bodiless tattletale know-it-all Wisp. They seemed like perfect foils—Howlaa can transform into virtually any living shape, while Wisp has no physical body at all, just a charged field of floating motes.

  Once I had setting, plot, and characters in mind, the story was remarkably easy to write, and it’s a world I expect to explore further. Howlaa and Wisp have a lot more adventures in them, I think.

  Hats Off

  BY DAVID LUBAR

  Freddy and I were busting our butts cleaning out his parents’ toolshed. Freddy’s father had offered us each a couple of bucks to do the work, which was fine with me. Of course, it turned out to be a lot more work than either of us counted on.

  “Man, it’s amazing how much junk you can put in one of these sheds,” I said as I collapsed on the ground next to a huge stack of tools and boxes.

  “Tell me about it,” Freddy said. He opened a small box. I remembered it since it had weighed about eight million pounds and I’d nearly busted my gut carrying it out of the shed.

  “What’s in it?” I asked.

  “Fishing magazines,” Freddy said. “Dad hasn’t fished in years. Guess it goes in the recycling pile.”

  I helped him drag it ov
er. We’d decided to sort everything into three piles: recycle, keep, and throw out. Toward the end of the cleanup, I opened a box that was filled with hats.

  “Hey, Dad!” Freddy yelled toward the house. “You want any hats?”

  “No,” his father called back through the open window. “Toss ’em.”

  “We should keep these,” I said, lifting one of the hats from the box. It looked like a baseball cap, but it didn’t have a team name. All it said over the brim was ENERGY. I put it on.

  And I felt great.

  “Hey, let’s load those recyclables into your dad’s van,” I said.

  “Hold on,” Freddy said. “I’m beat.”

  “Not me,” I said, lifting the box of magazines. “I’ve got tons of—”

  “Tons of what?” Freddy asked.

  “Weird,” I muttered. I’d been about to say “energy.”

  “What?” Freddy asked again.

  I reached into the hat box and grabbed another hat. This one promised HAPPINESS. Before Freddy could say anything, I plunked the hat on his head.

  “All right!” Freddy shouted, grinning at me. “Come on. Let’s get moving. Man, I’m glad we’re doing this.” He laughed and grabbed a box.

  That was fine with me. We loaded the van. I’d just put in the last box when I heard Freddy say, “Hey, what a great surprise. There’s Millard Thwaxton. Hey, Millard, how ya doing?”

  “Hold it,” I said, grabbing Freddy by the arm. But it was too late. Millard was the meanest kid in town—and Freddy just got his attention.

  I snatched at Freddy’s hat, figuring he was too happy for our own good. It was stuck. I reached up and tried to get mine off. It was stuck, too, like a jar lid that’s threaded on the wrong way. I thought it might come off if I worked on it, but I didn’t have the time right now. Millard was rumbling our way.

  “Keep talking,” I said, running toward the backyard. I tore through the box of hats and searched for one that might save us. I passed on ANGER and CURIOSITY. The first would get us killed and the second didn’t seem too promising, especially if it made Millard curious about the best way to cause us pain. I grabbed KINDNESS. That would do the trick, and make the world a better place.

  I got to the front yard just in time. Millard had reached Freddy and was playing that bully game where the other player always loses.

  “What did you say to me?” he asked.

  “I said hi,” Freddy told him. “And I meant it. I’m awful happy to see you.”

  “That some kind of a joke?” Millard asked.

  “Hey, have a hat,” I said, tossing the cap to Millard.

  He grabbed it and stared at me. I was afraid he’d just throw the hat away. Or throw me away. But he put it on.

  He shoved it on his head. Backwards. With the brim facing away. I wondered what that would do to the kindness.

  I found out right away.

  “I’m gonna smash both of you,” Millard said.

  Freddy and I took off. At least I had lots of energy for running. And Freddy seemed pretty happy. For the moment. But when meanness caught up with him, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  Afterword by David Lubar

  My first writing task each morning is to add something to my “what if” file. (OK—that’s a lie. My first writing task is to make coffee.) I have about fifty-five pages’ worth of ideas there. When I need inspiration, I’ll scroll through the entries and look for something that grabs me. “Hats Off” sprang from this entry: “What if kids get some hats that give them magical powers, but they wear the hats backwards and get the opposite effect?”

  The next step of the process reminds me of playing chess. (One of the many things I do just well enough to know how bad I really am at it.) A beginner has to think through each possible move. An experienced player processes a lot of factors automatically. When I’m thinking about a story idea, the same thing happens. My mind shuffles through settings, plots, and characters, discarding weak moves and dead-end paths. I liked the idea of the kids finding the hats while cleaning a shed, but I wasn’t thrilled with the simple twist of having one of them put the hat on backwards.

  I realized it would be fun for them to try to use the hat against an enemy and have the plan backfire. On a different day, with stronger coffee, the enemy could have been an ax murderer or a vampire. That day, it was a bully. You might have noticed I made another slight change to the idea. While the hats are magical, the powers they grant are mundane. I felt there was no need to double up on the magic.

  So I had everything I needed. I could have built a bigger world around the idea. The characters are admittedly slight. The reader has no reason to care what happens to them. But I strongly believe two things about stories. First, they should have plots. This isn’t a problem in the genre world, but it infects the literary world to such a degree that much of what gets printed isn’t worth reading. (See davidlubar.com/litfic.html for a parody of this.) Second, any story that relies entirely on a simple twist should be extremely short. O. Henry knew this. So did Saki. It’s fine to encounter a twist after several pages. It’s annoying to meet one after reading for an hour. Or a week.

  There you have it—an explanation nearly as long as the story itself. And no twist at all. As for the original venue of this piece, I’m thrilled that He Who Is Often Mentioned invited me to contribute two stories to each issue of his InterGalactic Medicine Show. What a joy. I’ve tried hard to give the readers a variety of stories, from light and goofy to truly twisted. For a much darker sample of my work, try “Running Out of Air” in the October 2006 issue of IGMS. I really hope it will take your breath away.

  Eviction Notice

  BY SCOTT M. ROBERTS

  Another eviction notice. Not really a notice, though—a note. Just a couple of lines scrawled out in Ernesto’s handwriting, amounting to little more than “Hey, Mr. Rick Manchester, you’re a filthy, lazy, S.O.B., get out in four days.” That’s all it was. A note and a signature, Ernesto Ruiz Montalvo. The fourth this month, counting down the days. And then, he’d have to abandon Tommy. He’d have to leave his little son here alone.

  Rick’s fingers shook as he closed the front door. He needed a drink, but last night’s bottle was half gone. If he drank it now, he’d have nothing left after he visited Tommy. Rick brushed his hands over his beard and stood and trembled at the weight of the eviction note in his hand until he let it fall to the floor. Upstairs, that’s where he had to go now. Tommy would have to see him now, wouldn’t he? Because it was all about to end. Everything was about to be torn to pieces by Ernesto Ruiz Montalvo and his damn eviction notes.

  He touched the wall reverently as he made his way up the stairs. Even though he’d put plaster over every spot, he knew right where to lay the tips of his fingers. This was where Tommy’s head hit the wall. This was where his Dukes of Hazzard watch tore into the wallpaper. This was where Rick picked his little son up by the neck and threw him down the stairs. The top step. It squeaked today just as loudly as it had fifteen years ago. In four days, he’d never be allowed to touch these walls again. Never hear the squeak of the step that warned him too late to save Tommy.

  The bedroom. He’d had his last dream here. The very last one. Sergeant Davies screaming in the rain while men were flashed into gore by Vietnamese bullets, and poor, scrawny Private Rick Manchester curled up under a bush, too scared to scream or run, and he knew it was a dream because Sergeant Davies had been killed by a grenade outside Dong Hoi, but here he was impaled on a stake, and Timmons and Rosas were trying to put their guts back in their stomachs, but in that other Vietnam, that real Vietnam, they had been crushed underneath a jeep that flipped, and all their blood was running down toward him in the rain, and it was pooling at his feet, and it hissed and something dark and cold as iron rose up from out of it, but that never happened in the real Vietnam, and this thing coming out of their blood and pain, it was worse than war and Hell, and if it touched him, Rick knew he’d spend all his soul’s days devoted to it, and then a hand
on his neck, a little hand like Charlie’s hands were, and now he screamed at last, and leaped on his attacker, strangling him like he was about to be strangled, only he realized too late the hand was soft and the fingers weren’t just little, they were tiny, and the step squeaked, and Marie screamed and Sergeant Davies screamed and little Tommy opened his mouth but didn’t make a sound just like Private Rick Manchester. But the thing in the pool of blood laughed.

  No more dreams. Not even on the lonely, angry nights in the mental hospital. Not even when they put him on suicide watch and doped him up so much he couldn’t do anything else but sleep.

  Rick crossed the room to the dumbwaiter. It had been here when he and Marie had first rented the place. When Tommy had been a baby, they’d put him on the little sliding tray, and haul him up and down, up and down…it was the only way, sometimes, to get him to sleep. It became their favorite indoor game. Five years, he’d hauled Tommy up and down. Five years, Tommy’s laughter echoed up the chute while Rick’s laughter chased him down. Then the welding accident, the morphine, the flashbacks…In one year, it was all gone. Tommy, Marie, life—gone like an echo with no one to hear it.

  The door to the dumbwaiter was about at waist level. Rick slid it open. It was barely big enough for him to fit his shoulders through. That was fine—Rick had learned he didn’t have to even put his shoulders through, just his face. Close eyes, insert head, and hold breath: a little safety drill. He waited a moment, and then opened his eyes.

  All the world spun and swirled like a million dark butterflies blown by a breeze into Rick’s face.

  He was somewhere else. It was nighttime, and the moon was big and silver in the sky, brighter than it ever was in any sky Rick had seen. He was in a wheat field, and a breeze made the stalks dance softly. There was no eviction notice here, no Ernesto Ruiz Montalvo. Just the moon, the wheat, the breeze.