Asimov's SF, April/May 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Yes!” Andrew was still excited. “What do you have?"

  "I guarantee that you will not be disappointed."

  Arabella was uneasily conscious that Andrew would bear most of the cost of their truancy. She was leaving tomorrow. He was staying. But if he showed no sign of hesitation, who was she to introduce reality?

  "So you got out and attacked him,” Andrew said, once they were on the new line. “Just like in the picture."

  "Ah. Yes. I was full of rage. I should just have grabbed his hanger and gone off to get help. But he'd humiliated me, taken advantage of the trusting Dulcie, and was now trying to destroy all I had worked for. He saw me coming and was ready to fight. We battled on the station, balanced above the square. Even with the advantage of surprise, it wasn't easy. He was a tough opponent. I'd finally gotten the advantage and was about to knock him down. But . . . I had forgotten that we were in full view of the ball. And every waiter at that party was a telpherman. The Spider Monkeys dropped their trays and tablecloths and swarmed across the square to help their threatened leader. Everyone else followed."

  "It was magnificent. It was a disaster. The wait staff was virtually all of the telphermen in the city, and no one was going to be left out of the fun. They all joined in: Ball Court & Place Auto Da Fé, the Maidan Mainline, even Tarpeian Rock, Mt. Taygetus & Gehenna, the ash-and-bone line that carried no living passengers. It was the last hurrah of the independent lines. The station went down. Hann's entire enterprise collapsed that night as well, and he lost his business.” He leaned back. “All right, young man. We are home. Release the grip, and we'll drift in against the arresters."

  Andrew did as he was bid, and it worked smoothly this time. They moved slowly through a set of doors, and into a large open warehouse area, full of dangling telpher cars, coils of cable, and steam engine boilers. This must have been the central telpher car barn, where all the remaining cars were coming to be decommissioned, and most likely destroyed. A few men worked desultorily on the floor far below, stacking parts on pallets.

  Pardo led them up a set of stairs to a separate structure on top of the car barn, past a vast sea of fabric that looked like it had been purchased at the Balloon Market. Several workers, detached from car duty below, seemed to be rolling it up.

  Arabella half expected a luxurious aerie of some sort, with rich fabrics and artworks, but it was, instead, a functional space, like the bridge of a ship. She could see Pardo's cot, the blankets neat and tight on it. A battered enamel coffee cup and plate stood on the drain board. He seemed to be one of those men who could survive on canned fish, dry bread, and cheese, with an occasional glass of red wine to get him through the night. Whatever luxuries he had risked his career for as a young man were far from his mind now.

  But he was packing up, just as Arabella was at home. Boxes stood in a row under the windows. A thick canvas hose snaked across the floor and out through the rear somewhere, where a motor rumbled. Sometimes it got a bit louder, and people would shout outside, as they worked on something.

  "Let's see what you have.” Pardo pointed to a chart table which held engineering drawings: plans for expansion, modification, and improvement that had never come to pass. Arabella could see elaborate planetary gears, cable self-tensioners, umbrella holders, and tiny stoves to heat passengers’ feet in midwinter. Calculations in Pardo's fine hand spidered around the diagrams.

  After a moment's hesitation, Andrew unwrapped his prize and pulled the newspaper aside.

  Pardo looked down at the fat electrode and sighed, “Ah. That's it. Dulcie's long-life blend. Hann never knew what he had in that girl."

  "Where's the lamp you propose to trade?” Andrew said.

  Pardo frowned, suddenly irritated by this importunate boy. Then he took a deep breath with his eyes closed.

  "Just one more thing. I was going to slip out of town, go, I don't know, somewhere. Steamship work, like Gibbon. Inclined mountain railways. High-speed subterranean pneumo-airships. Plenty of systems needed good management help. But Dulcie found me, in the little room where I hid out. I thought at first that she was there to finally confess her love for me, that Gibbon had actually been telling the truth. But she spoke quickly, before I could really embarrass myself. In fact . . . she had a little accounting problem, needed a way of estimating a system's useful life. This may not seem like a tempting treat to you, something to make you betray your dreams. But it had always been an issue in financing the business. The lines had started out with recycled equipment, carriages, steam engines designed to run drainage pumps, mine shaft cables and wheels, kiosks from defunct theaters. It was all wearing out, and no one had been carrying replacement costs properly. Capital budgets were a mess. You know, you haven't truly solved a problem unless you know how much the solution costs.

  "I had something of a reputation right then. I'd gone face to face with Gibbon, the greatest of the telpher saboteurs. I hadn't defeated him, but I had given as good as I had gotten. The telphermen were willing to follow me, if I could reconfigure and revive the lines. And I did it. I worked and worked, and eventually kept them together. Until now."

  From this point, you could see many of the lines that had once hung like a spider web over the city. They were still now, without their scurrying cars. Soon they would come down and be forgotten.

  "And Dulcie?” Arabella said, when she could stand it no longer.

  "Ah, of course. She's who interests you. And I wish I could tell you more. I made her an offer, of course.” He smiled, not happily, at the look on Arabella's face. “Not the one you're thinking of. An engineering position. Not chief. She wasn't experienced enough yet. There was no way for her to know all the demanding tasks that have nothing to do with thinking up clever devices. But a senior position. She said no. She had other things she wanted to do.

  "It was only a while afterward that I thought that, maybe, this was what she had been after the entire time. A release from everything. She disappeared from the city and traveled the world. She finished her formal education in several engineering faculties abroad. No one expected her to do anything, there was no one she needed to marry. She was, unlike the rest of us, free.” He glanced at Andrew, who was looking irritably out of the window, not really listening to the story. “You've been patient for long enough."

  Pardo reached behind his chart table and pulled out the light. It had half a dozen multiply jointed legs with some kind of counterweighting. Pardo shook it and threw it against a support column. The legs swung wildly until their motion was obstructed by something. Then they wrapped around it, and clung like a koala. He walked over and showed how a variety of lenses could make the light spread or focus, or change its color, or even project an image on a distant building.

  Neither Andrew nor Arabella knew what to say. It was perfect.

  But it was Andrew who had to give up his electrode to get it.

  She glanced at him, but he wasn't looking at the electrode. He was looking at the engraving. “Dulcie drew this, right?"

  "Yes."

  He put his finger on the battle between the cloaked figure and Gibbon. “This seems like a poor choice. Attacking him like this. I mean, you had only one chance. Gibbon was a dangerous man."

  "And I was an office clerk?"

  "Most of us aren't actually people in stories."

  If Pardo had stuck with his version, there was no way either of them could have found any evidence that things had happened other than as he had described, but, finally, he had some odd devotion to truth. “Of course we aren't. I'm certainly not. And wasn't then. He had at least a foot of reach on me, and I'd seen him take on three opponents at once. Gribbins . . . Gibbon . . . was someone you had to have met. You don't know even the smallest part of his story. As you said, I had only the one chance. So I wrapped myself in what was left of my sheets, carried the bar cutter up behind him as he worked, and coshed him. He went right down, so I got that right, at least."

  There were more shouts outside. Whatever was happening
was part of the order of business, because Pardo just smiled a bit.

  "Dulcie knew that wouldn't get me the cooperation I needed to make the business a success, so she . . . reinterpreted it for me. And she'd really liked Gibbon. But she knew the way things worked, so she's the one who made the story. ‘The man who defeated Gibbon’ was never what I relied on. I just didn't need extra resistance as I made the decisions that needed to be made."

  "And what are you going to do now?” Andrew said, with something like concern in his voice. “Now that there are no lines?"

  "I have new work. The desert balloon ways need some business skills. I've actually been studying their problems for some time. There are ways to improve their operations. Which is interesting, because their operations really make little sense."

  "When?” Arabella said.

  "As soon as we can wind up our negotiations here. I'm looking forward to it. It's really time for a change. Of course, if you look at your life closely enough, it's always time for a change."

  * * * *

  As Andrew engaged the grip, Arabella looked back at the car barn roof where Pardo had lived for so many years. “Do you really think . . . look at that!"

  "What?” Andrew craned to see behind him.

  A gigantic shape loomed over Pardo's rooftop structure. For a moment, Arabella tried to interpret it as something far away, some weirdly symmetrical storm cloud.

  It was a balloon. She'd seen the fabric on the roof, even recognized it for what it was, but not connected it with the later noises she'd heard. The crew must have been inflating it and getting it into place the entire time she and Andrew had been listening to Pardo's story inside.

  She saw several people on the rooftop now, hauling boxes and cases into the gondola.

  The wind had risen, and the car rocked on its cables. Dark clouds rose far off to the east. Below them, the Indigo Hills glowed with the light of the setting sun. The balloon strained at the lines that held it down. Then, all at once, they released, and the balloon rose up.

  "Tell me what's going on,” Andrew said. “I have to pay attention to this."

  "Pardo's taking off in a balloon,” Arabella said. “But wait, he's not climbing much, just moving with the wind . . . he's coming this way. He's tethered to the telpher line!"

  A small gondola dangled below the gigantic, mesh-encased balloon. The line that held it to the telpher line was taut. The balloon swelled behind them, and, despite herself, Arabella crouched a little, feeling it was going to crush them under its bulk.

  But of course its bulk was negative. It was straining against the telpher cable, pulling it up in a direction it was never meant to go. It passed over them, pulling them up after it. Then it was past, and there was a sickening moment of weightlessness as they dropped. The car thumped down, then shook on the line. But the support wheels did not bounce off the static cable, and they continued to move.

  Just beyond, the balloon released the pulley that had held it down to the cable. The pulley dropped to the ground, far below, and the balloon sailed into the sky.

  "Where is he going?” Arabella said. “Now that he's unhooked he can't really control that thing."

  "He's just hoping for luck, or he's off toward the ocean . . . wait!” Andrew squinted ahead. “I think I know. There's an old tethered balloon track in the Indigo Hills. Nowadays they're only in the desert, but there was a quarry there once. He must be trying for that."

  As they watched, Pardo reeled in the line. Then, a moment later, he lowered it again. Something else dangled at its end now.

  "See?” Andrew said. “That's a balloon bogey. It's supposed to snap into the track. But he's sliding too far!"

  A gust from the left had blown the balloon sidewise. Pardo reeled the line in partway, swung it back and forth a couple of times, then released it. It bounced off the rocks and dragged behind the balloon uselessly. He pulled it up again, patiently swung it, threw it again . . . and this time it caught. Somewhere down there was a track slot that had once guided the balloons that floated slabs of rock down to the barges in the river.

  Anchored firmly to its track, the balloon swept off, putting out fins to catch the wind. They watched as it crossed the hills and dropped out of sight.

  Just as it did, there was a purple-white flash of lightning.

  The clouds were dark, but it didn't look like a storm. Another flash.

  "The light!” Andrew said. “Dulcie's light. He's installed the electrode. He must have already gotten everything together."

  It flashed irregularly a few more times, the magnetite/titanium arc a distinct purple-white. “Does he have a bad connection?” Arabella said.

  "Not at all.” Andrew was now placid. He patted the light they had acquired. “It's code. I don't even need to look it up. It's a telpher message from the old days, though usually they sent it by tapping on a cable: ‘Line up, pressure up, beer glass up.’ I wish I could signal back. Farewell, Pardo."

  As they descended to the city, the balloon disappeared behind the hills, and it was night.

  Copyright © 2011 Alexander Jablokov

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Poetry: BALLAD OF THE WARBOTS by Jack O'Brien

  * * * *

  * * * *

  I went into the power-'ouse to get a jolt o’ watts

  The publican, ‘e up an’ sez “We don't serve no warbots."

  The AI mixing drinks, it giggled fit to die.

  I clanked into the street again an’ to myself sez I:

  —

  O it's Robbie this an’ Robbie that, an'

  "Turn it off, the brute!"

  But it's “Savior of its planet,” when

  The ray-guns start to shoot.

  —

  Yes, makin’ mock o’ warbots that guard you while you're juiced

  Is cheaper than them warbots, an’ they are mass produced.

  An’ hackin’ into robots when they're off-line an’ powered down

  Is five times better business than invadin’ Martian ground.

  —

  Then it's Robbie this an’ Robbie that, an'

  Robbie do as bade,

  But it's “tin-clad line of heroes” when

  The aliens invade.

  —

  We aren't no tin-clad ‘eroes, nor we aren't no monsters too

  But appliances of honor, most remarkable like you.

  An’ if sometimes we're buggy an’ our programs get confused,

  We're not to blame for thinking that the aliens are youse.

  —

  For it's Robbie this an’ Robbie that, an'

  Don't point that thing at me.

  But afterward it's silence for as far

  As eye can see.

  —Jack O'Brien

  Copyright © 2011 Jack O'Brien

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Short Story: AN EMPTY HOUSE WITH MANY DOORS by Michael Swanwick

  If the multiverse contains all possible worlds, than perhaps some comfort can be found in . . .

  The television set is upside down. I need its company while I clean, but not its distraction. Sipping gingerly at a glass of wine, I vacuum the oriental rugs one-handed, with great care. Ah, Katherine, you'd be amazed the job I've done. The house has never been so clean.

  I put the vacuum cleaner back in the closet. Cleanup takes next to no time at all since I eliminated all the unneeded furniture.

  Rugs done, I'm about to get out the floor polish when it occurs to me that trash pickup is tomorrow. Humming, I roll up the carpets one by one, tie them with string, carry all three out to the curb. Then, since it's no longer needed, I set the vacuum cleaner beside them.

  Back in the house, the living room is all but empty, the dried and bleached bones of our life picked clean of meat and memories. One surviving chair, the television, and a collapsible tray I've used since discarding the dining room table. The oven timer goes off; the pot pies are ready. I get out the plate, knife, and fork, slide out the pies,
and throw away the foil roasting tray. I wipe the stove door with a damp rag, rinse the rag, wring it out and put it away. Pour myself another glass of wine.

  The television gibbers and shouts at me as I eat. People hang upside down, like bats. They scuttle across the ceiling, smiling insanely. The news bimbo is chatting up the latest disaster, mouth an inverted crescent. Somebody in a woodpecker suit is bashing his head into the bed of a pickup truck, over and over again. Is all this supposed to mean something? Was it ever?

  The wine in my glass is half-gone already. Making good time tonight. All of a sudden the bad feelings well up, like a gusher of misery. I squeeze my eyes shut, screwing my face tight, but somehow the tears seep through, and I'm sobbing. Crying uncontrollably, because while I'm still thinking about you, while I never do and never can stop thinking about you, it's getting harder and harder to remember what you looked like. It's going away from me. Oh Katherine, I'm losing your face!

  No self pity. I won't give in to it. I get out the mop and fill a bucket with warm water and ammonia detergent. Swabbing as hard as I can, I start to clean the floors. Until finally, it's under control. I top off my glass, take a sip, feel the wine burning in my belly. Drinking like this will kill a man, sooner or later. Which is why I work at it so hard.

  I'm teaching myself how to die.

  * * * *

  If I don't get some fresh air, I'll pass out. If I pass out, I'll drink less. Timing is all. I get my coat, walk out the door. Wibbledy-wobbledy, down the hill I go. Past the row houses and corner hoagie shops, the chocolate factory and the gas station, under the railroad bridge and along the canal, all the way down into Manayunk. The wine is buzzing in my head, but still the traitor brain dwells on you, a droning monologue on pain and loss and yearning. If only I'd kept you home that day. If only I'd only fucking only. Even I'm sick of hearing it. I lift up and above it, until conscious thought is just a drear mumble underfoot and I soar up godlike in the early evening air.

  How you loved Manayunk, its old mill buildings, tumbledown collieries, and blue-collar residences. The yuppies have gentrified Main Street, but three blocks uphill from it the people haven't changed a bit; still hardheaded, suspicious, good neighbors. I float through the narrow streets, to the strip of trendy little restaurants on Main. My head swells and balloons and my feet barely touch the ground. I pass through the happy evening crowd, attached to the earth by the most tenuous of tethers. I'd sever it if I could, and simply float away.