The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Vol. 2

by George Mann

For ten years South Park has tackled America’s idiocies through violence, swearing, and song. But two academic studies miss the joke.

  -New Statesman, 25 June 2007

  Banning behind him, Mo put the Humvee in gear and set off across a desert which reminded him of Marilyn Monroe, Charles Manson, and Clark Gable. Tumbleweed, red dust, the occasional cactus, yucca, jasper trees. He was heading west and south, trying to avoid the highways. Eventually he saw mountains.

  A couple of days later, he woke Jerry, who had been asleep in the back since Banning.

  “Here we are, Mr. C.”

  Jerry stretched out on the old rug covering the floor of the vehicle. “Christmas should be Christmas now we’ve presents,” he blinked out of the window at a butte. There were faces in every rock. This was the South West as he preferred it. Mo was dragging his gun behind him as he squeezed into a narrow fissure, one of several in the massive rock-face. According to legend, some hunted Indian army had made this their last retreat. Somewhere within, there was water, grass, even corn. The countless variegated shades of red and brown offered some hint of logic, at least symmetry, swirling across the outcrops and natural walls as if painted by a New York expressionist. They reminded Jerry of the Martian dead sea bottoms he had loved in his youth. He had been born in London, but he had been raised on Mars. He could imagine the steady movement of waves overhead. He looked up.

  Zuni knifewings had been carved at intervals around the entrance of the canyon; between each one was a swastika.

  “I wonder what they had against the Jews,” said Mo. He paused to take a swig from his canteen.

  Jerry shrugged. “You’d have thought there was a lot in common.”

  Now Mo disappeared into the fissure. His voice echoed. “It’s huge in here. Amazing. I’ll start placing the charges, shall I?”

  Jerry began to have second thoughts. “This doesn’t feel like Christmas any more.”

  Behind them, on the horizon, a Dine or Apache warband sat on ponies so still they might have been carved from the same ancient rock.

  Jerry sighed. “Or bloody Kansas!” He started to set up his Banning.

  8. A CITY SLICKER EMAILED IN THE STICKS

  Tony Blair claims that one of his many achievements in office was not to repeal the employment laws passed by Margaret Thatcher’s government to weaken trade union power. But Blair, as a young and politically ambitious barrister, was a staunch supporter of trade union rights.

  -New Statesman, 25 June 2007

  “I know where you’re coming from, Jerry.” Bunny Burroughs closed his laptop. Of course he didn’t. He had only the vaguest idea. Jerry didn’t even bother to tell him about The Magnet, Sexton Blake, or George Formby. They certainly had some memories in common, but even those were filtered through such a mix of singular cultural references they changed the simplest meaning. Bunny’s baseball and Cornelius’s cricket: the list was endless. Yet somehow exile brought out the best in them. They would always have Paris.

  Jerry sniffed. “Are you still selling that stuff?”

  “Virtual vapour? It’s very popular. While thousands die in Rwanda, millions watch TV and concern themselves with the fate of the mountain gorilla whose time in the world is actually less limited. Assuming zoos continue to do their stuff.” He held up a can. “Want a sniff?” He peered round at the others. “Anybody?”

  “If I had a shilling for every year I’ve thought about the future, I’d be a rich man today.” Bishop Beesley hesitated before slipping a Heath Bar between his lips and breathing in the soft scent of chocolate and burned sugar. “Sweet!” He let a sentimental smile drift across his lips. “I know it’s a weakness, but which of us isn’t weak somewhere? I live to forget. I mean forgive. I’ve a parish in South London now. Did you know?”

  “I think you told me.”

  “No,” said Bill.

  “No? It’s only across the river. We could.”

  “No.” Jerry continued to look for a channel. “I don’t cross running water if I can help it. And I don’t do snow.”

  “It’s really not as cold as people say it is. Even Norbury’s warmer than you’d guess. Kingsley Amis grew up there. And Edwy Searles Brooks. Brooks was the most famous person to come from Nor-bury. St. Franks? Waldo the Wonderman?”

  Jerry shuddered. He’d be hearing about the wonders of Wimbledon next. Tactfully he asked if Beesley knew a second-hand tyre shop easily reached.

  “There’s even a beach of sorts.” The bishop breathed impatience. “Where Tooting Common used to be. Though they haven’t axed the chestnut trees.”

  “They must be borders,” suggested Bill.

  “Still plenty for the little ‘uns.”

  “Plenty?”

  “Conkers.” The bishop put a knowing hand on Jerry’s arm. “Don’t worry. No ward of mine has ever come to harm.”

  “Conkers? No, you’re barmy. Bonkers.” Jerry shook him off, swiftly walking to the outside door.

  “Pop in. Any time. You’ve not forgotten how to pray?”

  The bishop’s voice was muffled, full of half-masticated Mars.

  Jerry paused, trying to think of a retort.

  Bunny Burroughs stood up, his thin body awkward beneath the cloth of his loose, charcoal gray suit. “I am a gloomy man, Mr. Cornelius. I have a vision. Follow me. Of the appalling filth of this world, I am frequently unobservant. Once I revelled in it, you could fairly say. Now it disgusts me. I am no longer a lover of shit. I came on the streetcar. That’s what I like about Europe. Are the streetcars. Environment friendly and everything. They have a narrative value you don’t run into much any more. Certainly not in America. My mother was German. Studied eugenics, I think. On the evidence. But I’m English on my father’s side. I fought on my father’s side.”

  He turned to look out of the window. “The slave-ships threw over the dead and dying. Typhoon coming on.” He picked up the laptop. “Trained octopi drove those trams, they say.”

  Jerry said. “OK. I give up. When can you get me connected?”

  “It depends.” Burroughs frowned, either making a calculation or pretending to make one. “It depends how much memory you want. Four to seven days?” His long, sad face contemplated some invisible chart. His thin fingers played air computer. “Any options?”

  Jerry had become impatient. “Only connect,” he said. God, how he yearned for a taste of the real world. The world he had been sure he knew. Even Norbury.

  9. THE MOST FUEL EFFICIENT AUTO COMPANY IN AMERICA

  Britain’s got talent, Simon Cowell has tried to prove over the past few weeks, but is it really in the stick-twirling, octogenerian tap-dancing toddler music hall turns, or transvestite singing acts we’ve seen on TV.

  -New Statesman, 25 June 2007

  “What I can’t understand about you, Mr. Cornelius,” Miss Brunner opened a cornflower blue sunshade only slightly wider than her royal blue Gainsborough hat, “is why so many of your mentors are gay. Or Catholic. Or both.”

  “Or Jewish,” said Jerry. “You can’t forget the Jews. It’s probably the guilt.”

  “You? Guilt? Have you ever felt guilt?”

  “That’s not the point.” He found himself thinking again of Alexander, his unborn son. Invisibly, he collected himself. “I reflect it.”

  “That’s gilt. Not guilt.”

  “Oh, believe me. They’re often the same thing.”

  From somewhere beyond the crowd a gun cracked.

  She brightened, quickening her high-heeled trot. “They’re off!”

  Jerry tripped behind her. There was something about Surrey he was never going to like.

  10. THE SLEEP YOU’VE BEEN DREAMING OF

  Swaths of regulation on an industry of “feat entrepreneurs” have fuelled a climate of timidity about the dangers of every day life. If lawsuits replace the concept of a simple no-fault accident, this will damage not only our national resilience, but also the economy.

  -New Statesman, 30 July 2007

  Back in Islam
abad, Jerry read the news from New Orleans. He wondered if the French were going to regret their decision to buy it back. Of course, it did give them the refineries and a means of getting their tankers up to Memphis, but how would the American public take to the reintroduction of the minstrels on the showboats?

  “People who are free, who live in a real republic, are never offended, Jerry. At best they are a little irritated. They should be able to take a joke by now. In context.”

  “Wait till they burn your bloody car.” Jerry was still upset about what had happened in Marseilles.

  “They are citizens. They have the same rights and responsibilities as me.” Max Pardon swung his legs on his stool. He had rewaxed his moustache. Possibly with cocoa butter.

  Jerry lit a long, black Sherman. “At least you’ve brought back smoking.”

  “That’s the Republic, Jerry.”

  Max Pardon raised his hat to a passing Bedouin. “God bless the man who discovered sand-power.” Overhead the last of the great aerial steamers made its stately way into the sunrise just as the muezzin began to call the faithful to prayer. Monsieur Pardon unrolled his mat and kneeled. “If you’ll forgive me.”

  11. WHY I LOVE METAL

  It’s what you’ve been craving. Peaceful sleep without a struggle. That’s what LUNESTA© is all about: helping most people fall asleep quickly, and stay asleep all through the night. It’s not only nonnarcotic; it’s approved for long-term use.

  -Ad for eszopiclone in Time Magazine,

  6 August 2007

  “I AM sick of people who can’t distinguish the taste of sugar from the taste of fruit, who can’t tell salt from cheese, who think watching CNN makes them into intellectuals and believe that Big Brother and The Batchelor is real life. The richest, most powerful country in the world is about as removed from reality as Oz is from Kansas or Kansas is from Kabul.” Major Nye was in a rare mood as he leaned over the rail of The Empress of India searching with his binoculars for his old station.

  From somewhere among the bleak, rolling downs puffs of smoke showed the positions of the Pashtoon.

  “I remember all the times the British tried to invade and hold Afghanistan. What surprises me is why these Yanks think they are somehow better at it, when they’ve never won a war by themselves since the Mexicans decided to let them have California. Every few years they start another bloody campaign and refuse to listen to their own military chaps and go swaggering in to get their bottoms kicked for the umpteenth time. They learned an unfortunate lesson from their successes against the Indians, such as they were. If you ask me they would have done better to have taken a leaf from Custer’s book.”

  “Education’s never been their strength.” Holding her hat with her left hand, Miss Brunner waved and smiled at someone in the observation gallery. “It’s windy out here, don’t you think?”

  “Better than that fug in there.” Major Nye indicated the Smoking Room. With a gesture close to impatience, he threw his cigarette over the side.

  As if in answer, another rifle spoke from below.

  Miss Brunner looked down disapprovingly. “There should be more school shootings, if you ask me. They should just be more selective.” She looked up, directing a frigid smile at Mitzi Beesley, who came out to join them. Mitzi was wearing a borrowed flying helmet, a short, pink divided skirt, a flounced white blouse, a knitted bolero jacket.

  Jerry remembered her closing the gate of her Hampstead Garden Village bijou cottage, as she left him in charge for a week. That had been the last time they had met. She was no longer speaking to him. He went back into the bar and closed the door. It seemed almost silent here; just the soft hum of the giant electric motors. He accepted a pint of Black Velvet. He had a rat buttoned inside his coat. Its nose tickled his chest and he gave an involuntary twitch. Mitzi still didn’t know he had rescued “Sweety” from the fire. He had grown attached to the little animal and felt Mitzi was an imperfect owner. The Bengali barman polished a glass. “Life’s a bloody tragedy, isn’t it sir? Same again?”

  Outside, the rain began to drum on the canopy. Major Nye and the women came running in. “I for one will be glad to get back to Casablanca,” said Miss Brunner.

  12. WILL BROWN BE BUSH’S NEW POODLE?

  Until recently, criticisms of the BBC were helpful, and attacks upon it harmless; indeed it provided, among other blessings, a happy grumbling ground for the sedentary, where they could release their superfluous force… and if not much good was done there was anyhow no harm… Unfortunately, [the BBC’s] dignity is only superficial. It does yield to criticism, and to bad criticism, and it yields in advance-the most pernicious of surrenders.

  -E.M. Forster New Statesman,

  4 April 1931

  Jerry had showered and was getting into his regular clothes when Professor Hira came into the changing rooms.

  “You were superb today, Mr. Cornelius. Especially under the circumstances.

  Jerry accepted his handshake. “Oh, you know, it’s not as if they got the whole of London.”

  “Hampstead, Islington, Camden! The Heath is a pit of ash. We saw the cloud on TV. Red and black. The blood! The smoke. Of course, we know that our bombs, for instance, are much more powerful. But Hampstead Garden Village! My home was there for over four years. The Beesley’s, too. And so many other dear neighbours.”

  “You think it was their target?”

  “No doubt about it. And next time it will be Hyde Park or Wimbledon Common. Even Victoria Park. They are easy to home in on, you see.”

  “Another park is where they’ll strike next?”

  “Or, heaven forbid, Lords. Or the Oval.”

  “Good god. They’ll keep the ashes forever!”

  “Our fear exactly.” Professor Hira took Jerry’s other hand. “You plan, I hope, to stay in Mombai for a bit? We could do with a good all-rounder.”

  Jerry considered this. It was quite a while since he’d been to the pictures. “It depends what’s on, I suppose.” He bent and picked up his cricket bag. “And I’m sure it’s still possible to get a game or two in before things become too hot.”

  “Oh, at least. And, Mr. Cornelius, it will never be too hot for you in India. Pakistan has far too many distractions, what with the Americans and their own religeuses.”

  Jerry scratched his head. Reluctant as he was to leave, he thought it was time he got back home again.

  13. BETRAYAL IN IRAQ

  MEN LOVE POWER. Why? Ever see what happens when something gets in the way of a tornado? Exactly. That’s the thinking behind the Chevy Vortec™ Max powertrain-create a ferocious vortex inside the combustion chamber, along with a high compression ratio, to generate formidable power. And the 345-hp Vortec™ Max, available on the 2006 Silverado, is no exception… CHEVY SILVERADO: AN AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

  -Chevrolet Ad, Texas Monthly,

  December 2005

  Christmas 1962, snow still falling just after dawn when Jerry sprung the gate into Ladbroke Grove/Elgin Gardens and walked onto the path leaving black pointed prints and tiny heel marks. He had never made a cooler trail. Slipping between the gaps in the netting, he crossed the tennis court and stopped to look back. The marks might have been those of an exotic animal. Nobody coming behind him would know a human had made them. Yet they were already filling up again.

  He would never be sure he had deceived anyone. He darted into the nearest back garden. From the French windows came the sound of a Schoenberg piano roll. The snow was a foot deep on the brick wall, on the small lawn. Yellow light fell from the window above. He heard a woman’s voice not unlike his mother’s. “Go back to bed, love. It’s not time yet.” He recognized Mrs. Pash. Her grandchildren were up early, pedalling the piano. He caught a glimpse of the tree through the half-drawn curtains.

  Jerry stepped softly out of the little garden. A blind moved on the first floor in the corner house. The colonel and his wife were looking at him. Another minute and they’d call the police. Their hangovers always made them doubly suspi
cious. He bowed and returned the way he had come, back into Ladbroke Grove, back across to Blenheim Crescent, past the Convent of the Poor Clares, on his left, to 51, where his mother still lived.

  Humming to himself, Jerry went down the slippery area steps to let himself in with his key. Nobody was up. He unshipped the sack from his shoulder and checked out the row of stockings hanging over the black, greasy kitchen range from which a few whisps of smoke escaped. He opened the stove’s top and shovelled in more coke. His mum had put the turkey in to cook overnight. There wasn’t a tastier smell in the whole world. Then, carefully, he began to fill the stockings from his sack.

  Upstairs, he thought he heard someone stirring. He could imagine what the tree looked like, how delighted Catherine and Frank would be when they came down to see their presents.

  Outside, the snow still fell, softening the morning. He found the radio set and turned it on. Christmas carols began to sound. The noises upstairs grew louder.

  Travel certainly made you appreciate the simple things of life, he thought. His eyes filled with happy tears. He went to the kitchen cupboard and took out the bottle of Heine he had put there the night before. Frank hadn’t found it. The seal was unbroken. Jerry helped himself to a little nip.

  Mrs. Cornelius came thumping downstairs in her old carpet slippers. She wore a bright red and green dressing gown, her hair still in curlers, last night’s make-up still smeared across her face. She rubbed her eyes, staring with approval at the lumpy stockings hanging over the stove.

  “Cor,” she said. “Merry Christmas, love.”

  “Merry Christmas, mum.” He leaned to kiss her. “God bless us, every one.”