L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 35

by L. Ron Hubbard

  Jen is first to speak. She states what must be truth, though I can scarcely believe it. “Sun’rie, you are an apprentice, as well.”

  “A talented one,” announces a man at the stair-top. He holds an exceptionally long musket, sharpshooter sights attached to the barrel. He descends the stairs and I recognize him as the gardener from the terrace. The one I remarked moved like a dancer. He is a lanky man maybe ten years my senior, and he exhibits a wry intelligence I could not appreciate from distance. His is the careful boldness of one who has overcome many trials, a confidence born of experience and streaked with gallows humor.

  “Tyressry Kaab,” Jen whispers.

  The leader of Xu pauses next to Sun’rie and touches her elbow, a tender question in his gaze. She gives a weak smile and small nod. Yes, I’m all right. He then rests his long musket across his shoulder, takes the unfired pistol from Sun’rie’s hand, and walks past me to where the Moth twitches on the ground.

  “Be glad neither of you co-trained with this sadistic hag,” he says, glaring down at the woman. “Back when I co-trained with her, she made me paint her precious fans with my very own blood. Can you believe that? Cut me to ribbons for no other reason than to watch me suffer, then amused herself as I decorated her weapons with my own lifeblood.” Tyressry Kaab waves a finger toward the young man Sun’rie shot. “Believe me, we did that poor fool a favor. She exsanguinated her last two apprentices.” He then leans over the Moth, whispers something I cannot hear, and shoots her in the face.

  Tyressry Kaab is a sharpshooter who trained with the Assyn. Now he has an apprentice of his own.

  “You are the Beetle,” I say.

  He straightens and waves gun smoke from his face. “And you are my brother-in-law. I’ll admit, I did not know how this introduction would play out, and I certainly didn’t foresee all this, but I think it is a pleasure to finally meet you Ty’rin.” He performs a flawless court bow, then turns to Jen. “And of course, the spirited apprentice to the Firefly. I was half a breath from putting a lead shot through your heart before you decided to throw that incendiary at your master. You saved me a good deal of trouble, little miss firebrand, and for that, you have my thanks.” He executes a second court bow.

  Jen answers my question before I ask it. “I didn’t know, Ty. I knew she was your sister because you told me about her hand. That’s all.”

  “Anonymity can be useful,” the Beetle says. He jerks his head at the body of the Mantis. “I’m sure that old sociopath taught you two something similar.”

  “How?” I demand. “How are you here, Sun’rie?”

  “I’m here because of you,” Sun’rie says. “Mother and father died from typhoid four years ago. I don’t know if you know that.” I didn’t. “Then, after Dorin, I couldn’t just stay in that house, alone and helpless after losing everyone. I traveled to the capitol and petitioned the Kyo’Vyar for an apprenticeship.”

  I turn to the Beetle, unbelieving. “And you took her?”

  “She had a good pedigree,” he says, “and who would think this gentle hummingbird capable of pulling a pistol? She’s perfect.” He makes an abashed grin. “Turns out, I didn’t realize how perfect.”

  “What does that mean?” Jen says.

  The Beetle lifts an amused eyebrow at her. His eyes flick to me, back to her. “You of all people should know, firebrand.”

  “You really did fall in love with her,” I say.

  The Beetle winks at Sun’rie. “Utterly forbidden, such a thing.” He rejoins my sister, and the look they share is the same one my parents shared when we attended a neighbor’s wedding. It is the same look as I saw my mother give my father when they walked through the wildflowers that lined the fields after a good rain, the same look my father gave my mother when she announced she was pregnant with Ray’fin.

  “And the child ruse?” I ask.

  “It’s not a ruse,” Sun’rie says.

  The Beetle places a hand on her belly. “He won’t join us for another three months, that’s all.”

  “She won’t join us for three months,” Sun’rie amends, and for a moment, the girl I remember is back, beaming like a clear sunrise.

  The Beetle chuckles. “We’ll see.”

  “You were waiting for Ty’rin,” Jen says, “weren’t you? You knew the Vyar would eventually send the Mantis after you, so you waited out in the open, just like me.”

  The Beetle huffs. “Until this morning, I’d no idea what you were doing here. You suddenly turned on your master and then inexplicably hung around like a bad cough. Sun insisted we wait to see what you’d do once Ty’rin arrived. A rather reckless insistence, I thought, but as usual, she made the right call.”

  I look to my sister. “And why were you waiting for me, Sun? Was it so you could kill me?”

  “Honestly,” she says, “I don’t know. Maybe. I only knew that if I went into hiding before we spoke, I might never have this chance. To shoot you or turn you, to learn the truth about Ray, I’m not certain what I expected. But I knew I needed closure.”

  I struggle to keep my voice steady. “I killed him, Sun. I put that dart in his neck while you two played in the rain. I can never take that back.”

  Sun’rie closes her eyes. “The Recruiters asked me about killing a child during my interview. Right when they asked, I knew. Not that it was you, specifically, but that you were there in Dorin that day. And I knew how I would have to answer their question in turn.” She looks at the body of the young teenager she gunned down. “I do not forgive you, Ty’rin. I will never, ever forgive you. But I do understand the choice you faced.”

  It is more than I deserve. Guilt and relief flood through me in a river, for part of me wants her condemnation. I deserve a musket ball through my own temple as much as that youth, and if she were to decide to execute me right here, I would not protest. I cannot forgive myself, either. I am beyond forgiveness, but between Jen and my sister, perhaps I can know some degree of the hope Jen feels. A hope to be something else.

  “The Vyar won’t stop,” I say. “If anything, they’ll come after you even harder. The Locust, the Spider, and the Wasp are still out there.”

  “Formidable opponents, all three,” the Beetle says. “Though Sun is rather formidable herself, and if you will permit me the boast, I did not become the Beetle simply because I am a good shot. Now, should my Assyn-trained brother-in-law and a certain dagger-throwing pyromancer join us, well … that would give even the most capable killer pause for consideration. Also, I am not the only one fond of Sun’rie. You saw how the people respond to her. She speaks words dangerous to the Vyar. Words like equality and revolution. If spoken in the right way, there are those who would join the four of us.”

  The four of us. It sounded like a family. Something I ran from nine years ago, then nearly destroyed. How I missed feeling part of a family.

  “I say four,” the Beetle continues, “but that is soon to be five. And our son—”

  “Daughter.”

  “—could use an overprotective aunt and uncle.”

  Jen takes my arm. She has already made her choice.

  Each of us climbs our own tree, following branches that twist and split and split yet again, pushing into a canopy and intertwining with those of others, none of us certain where they lead. My path forked into darkness, and much as I wish it, I cannot climb back down the tree. I can only take another fork, one pointing a different direction, knowing that down this path lie remorse, and heartache, and just maybe, should I be so fortunate, something treasured by men and unknown to golems. Something like family.

  My sister and her husband look to me, their final question implicit: Will you help protect our child?

  I answer immediately. Best of all, I mean it.

  Dark Equations of the Heart

  written by

  David Cleden

  illustrated by

 
; VYTAUTAS VASILIAUSKAS

  * * *

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  David Cleden lives in the United Kingdom with a demanding family of cats, children and wife (mostly in that order). From an early age, he immersed himself in science fiction. During weekly trips to the local library with his father, he discovered his ABCs—Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke—and all the rest of the author alphabet followed on from there. After eventually realizing that his dream job (being Isaac Asimov) was already taken, he became deeply interested in science, eventually gaining a degree in physics from Imperial College, London. It taught him a new respect for the beauty of mathematics—which sadly, isn’t shared by the rest of his family or circle of friends—but gave him the genesis of the story that follows.

  The author would like to stress that he is not a trained practitioner of arithmos and has not personally encountered the Dark Equations referenced in this story. Readers are urged not to undertake similar mathematical experiments except under strict supervision.

  David now writes business proposals and technical documents by day while actively pursuing the dream of science fiction and fantasy writing on weekends. He can’t stress enough how important it is not to muddle them up. He is the 2016 winner of the James White Award, and last year won the Aeon Award. David can be reached at www.quantum-scribe.com or on Twitter at @DavidCleden.

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  Vytautas Vasiliauskas, or Vytas, was born in 1990 in Kaunas, Lithuania.

  As a child, Vytautas was always interested in drawing and creating various card and tabletop games and comics, not surprisingly inspired by what he saw in popular culture at that time. Later he went on to get a bachelor’s degree in fine art and illustration in Coventry, United Kingdom, to gain knowledge about the art world and industry.

  Always surrounded by Japanese and American influences, Vytautas continues to study these alongside new contemporary interests. He is mostly self-taught, using his own analysis of classic masters in addition to many online tutorials. Vytautas continues to find new ways of expressing himself through his art and to push his craft in new directions to discover what truly might be his unique take. www.vytautasart.com

  Dark Equations of the Heart

  Reuben Belgrum stepped from cot to cot, lingering a few minutes at each, his voice low and intimate. The people, wealthy merchant and humble labourer alike—for there were no class barriers in this place of ill-repute—lay in the feverish darkness. The air was heavy with the stink of foul breath, sweat, and desperation. Belgrum ministered to them in turn, his eager fingers reaching for the coin placed beneath each pillow. He trod his silent path between them, an angel of mercy and a demon of despair, whispering words of beguiling beauty and power. Perhaps it would be better, he thought, to plunge a blade into each of their hearts. A swift ending at least, not this creeping infection that rots a man’s soul from the inside.

  A young man, no older than himself, turned a pale face towards Belgrum. He appeared scared. His first time, Belgrum thought. What would suit for the occasion? An elegant description of binomial theorem, perhaps? Or a pleasing proof of Euclidean geometry? But he had no paper on which to sketch and there wasn’t enough light in this cellar. The derivation of infinitesimal calculus, then? No, without a thorough grounding in mathematical fundamentals, its true meaning would be lost, the beauty unglimpsed. What then? Ah—

  “Imagine two numbers,” he whispered. “We shall call them x and y. Remarkable numbers, for the ratio of x to y is precisely the same as that of x plus y to x. Can you picture it?” Belgrum drew little lines in the air with his finger and the man caught his meaning. “The golden ratio …” he murmured.

  “Yes! Exactly!” This one never failed Belgrum. It was as though the golden ratio was hard-wired into the human mind. Perhaps we were all somehow programmed in the womb to appreciate its beauty and seek to shape the world around us in harmony.

  Belgrum began to utter a long sequence of numbers: “One point six one eight zero three, three nine eight—” On and on, his voice softly rising and falling, painting a picture with numbers directly into the brain. The sound of his voice was soporific. The man’s eyes lost focus. “Yes, yes!” A lazy smile lit up his face as he was transported somewhere far away from the fetid, gloomy cellar.

  Belgrum hurried to the next cot. Here, a Laplacian transform, described in exquisite detail, served for this regular client, a man from the city governance department, classically educated. To another, he offered up Euler’s Identity, first describing each term, the better to show the unifying beauty of that simple equation in a thunderous climax. It was a cheap, well-worn device, but no less effective for it. Another of his clients was satisfied by nothing more than a clever geometric progression. “Such miracles in the spaces between numbers,” the client muttered, and slumped back onto his cot with an ecstatic groan. Fool, Belgrum thought. There were no spaces between the numbers. Integers were infinite, and there was an infinity of irrational numbers in the gap between any two integers, so in all the universe there must exist an infinite number of infinities. The universe was packed tight with more numbers than any mind could ever know! And down such yawning chasms of wonderment, human sanity could easily fall, never to return.

  Last of all, Belgrum stepped through the low door to the backroom where Isobel waited. The air was even warmer and thicker, cloying in his nostrils and quickening his pulse. He pulled the curtain aside, hesitating. “At last,” a husky voice said.

  He crossed to the cot where she lay and bent over her. A single candle, burnt down to a stub, cast his flickering shadow across the ceiling. “There were more than I expected tonight,” he told her. “In these troubled times, business is good.” The past few weeks had indeed been troubled: a senseless, terrifying spate of murders across the city. Men and women, young and old, had been slaughtered—no pattern, no rhyme nor reason. This savagery was the talk in all the taverns, and on the streets too. Each body had been discovered cut open and mutilated in the most grisly fashion, filleted like fish on a fishmonger’s slab. But this “Fishmonger Killer” was clever and wily, and yet to be caught. Belgrum wondered what madness drove a man to such depravity? Whatever kind it was, it stalked the streets after dark and he worried for Isobel’s safety. She shouldn’t have come here alone, but still, he felt glad she had.

  Isobel stroked his arm tenderly. “Then don’t waste any more time.”

  In the candlelight, the faded scar on her neck and upper chest looked red and angry. It had been a year and a half since the operation that saved her life, and now she always wore high necklines or a scarf to keep it hidden. To Belgrum though, the marks were beguiling, adding to her beauty not detracting. A cascade of auburn hair spilled across the pillow, framing an oval face, reddened lips pursed in a half-smile. Her gaze caught his and held him steadfast until he felt a curious lightness in his chest. Perhaps one day he would find the courage to tell her of his feelings.

  He leant close until the plain, unadorned scent of her skin filled his nostrils and made him dizzy. Then he began to speak: of complex integrals, of strange numbers with real and imaginary parts, and residue theorems, and expressions that tended towards zero yet never quite touched it—like the tantalising caress of a lover drawing away. These were not the dull explanations of mathematical theory that others might administer; nothing so bland for his Isobel. Belgrum conjured up the essence of the arithmos. He described its beauty with such eloquence, talked of the perfection that existed when one elegant equation so completely captured an essential truth. With Isobel he knew which images to invoke, the exact sequence of ideas to drip into her mind—like this, and this, and this—to stir the pleasure centres of the brain. Her mind was a beautiful viola to be bowed, he the virtuoso performer.

  Isobel became so still and silent as his words fell on her, he couldn’t help but wonder if she had slipped into sleep. Then with a soft groan, her back arched and her whole body became rigid. Her head
was flung backward, mouth wide in a silent scream. He laid one final captivating equation upon her, elegant in its simplicity, transcendent in its complexity, and she subsided back onto the cot, spent.

  His mind felt weakened and skittish from the exertion. There was no air left in this room and the heat … Ye gods, the heat! Belgrum stumbled from that sinful place out into the darkened streets, scarcely aware of splashing through deep puddles where the canals had spilled over onto the sidewalks again. The cool night air on his face, the wetness soaking into his boots—neither could make him forget the terrible emptiness he felt inside. You’re a fool, Belgrum. You walk this fine line between sanity and madness. But one day soon you’ll stumble and fall on the wrong side.

  Yet what choice did he have?

  Lost in his thoughts, he heard no footsteps. Suddenly there was an arm tight around his windpipe, half choking him in the darkness. The prick of a knife was sharp against his cheek. “Cheat me of my fee, would you?” a voice breathed in his ear.

  “Pietr—”

  “Where were you runnin’ to, eh?”

  “I meant to leave your share. I forgot.”

  “Did you now? It don’t pay to forget things like that round here. Not unless you want your throat slit.” A hand thrust into Belgrum’s pocket, searching. “Call that gratitude, after I found all those clients for you? Mind on other things, was it? Like that pretty girl of yours?”

  Belgrum stayed silent. Isobel wasn’t his girl and Pietr knew it.

  “Don’t suppose that hi-falutin’ father of hers would like it if he knew, would he? Is she still filching his notebooks for you? But you gotta get your learnin’ from somewhere, eh?”