It may sound clichéd to say it, he notes, but science fiction's unique appeal comes from the way it lets us look to the future. “It gives us a head start, encouraging us to think about what lies ahead,” he says.
As for the stories, he wants to balance the scientific and conceptual side with the character and emotional side. “There seems to be a sentiment in some circles that the emphasis should be more on one than the other,” he says. But when that happens, something often gets slighted. “I try to balance it."
And of course, there's always the old sense of wonder.
After all, he's never forgotten the boy who was once enchanted by the strange airplane, flying through the night.
Copyright © 2010 Richard A. Lovett
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Probability Zero: TEN THOUSAND MONKEYS by Tocho Ligon
First off, let me say this is not about monkeys. It is about cats, as all things should be.
Much has been published about the relationship between cats and quantum mechanics over the years. Schrodinger's horrid thought experiment involving a cat in a box is probably the best-known example. Pohl had a story in these very pages a few decades back called The Coming of the Quantum Cats. Heinlein's last novel, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, featured a feline named Pixel suspected of being able to perform quantum teleportation. As usual, both science and science fiction have missed the real crux of the issue.
Meanwhile, there exists a myth called the “Infinite Monkey Theorem,” an exercise in statistics investigating the possibility of works of literature being produced by simians seated at typewriters. If you care to look this up on that great bastion of scholarly research, Wikipedia.org, you will be directed to Félix édouard Justin émile Borel's 1913 article "Mécanique Statistique et Irréversibilité" The popular version of this theorem supposes a very large number of monkeys seated at typewriters striking keys at random, for a sufficiently (just shy of infinitely) long time, and concludes they are bound to eventually reproduce, for example, Shakespeare's Hamlet.
The statistical math behind this is straightforward. What makes this a myth, an experiment that will never be attempted, is the outrageous expense involved in placing huge numbers of monkeys in the presence of sensitive electromechanical equipment. Discounting contamination from monkey poop and the destruction from simple tossing about, the keys most likely to be pressed are the bottom row, which will quickly be destroyed by chewing teeth. Monkeys are uninterested in spending an infinite amount of time in front of keyboards, but they are quite interested in chewing on anything handy. The resulting text on a modern computer keyboard will consist of spaces, zeros, and decimals, possibly interspersed with a few consonants and assorted symbols from the peripheral keys. The only vowel likely to be hit by this method is “a,” making it nearly impossible to produce anything of literary merit.
One popular author, Don Marquis, actually came closer to the truth. Starting around 1916 (almost two decades ahead of Schrodinger, and barely behind Borel), he created a pair of characters named archyand mehitabel. The lack of capitalization is significant. Archy was a cockroach, and typed poems and short articles by diving onto typewriters keys. He was incapable of simultaneously striking both a character and shift key, and so pioneered modern texting. Mehitabel was archy's best friend, an alley-cat. These stories were so popular they resulted in a Broadway musical, with Eartha Kitt playing the part of mehitabel. Feel free to look all this up in that same scholarly source.
Still, Marquis missed the obvious, probably because the design of old manual typewriters was not appropriate for the experiment.
The basic fact is this. It only takes one cat to type a masterpiece, and it does not take much time.
Why Schrodinger used a cat for his gedanken experiment is not revealed in our scholarly source. The article therein suggests he did not recommend the experiment be done physically, but wished only to explore a bizarre prediction of quantum mechanics. Cats, as we all know, are the poster-children for bizarre. However, like any macroscopic entity, quantum mechanics is only a background detail in cats. What is clear is that cats defy statistics.
Folklore holds that cats have nine lives, based on centuries of anecdotes of cats escaping deadly situations repeatedly. It is no myth that cats generally land on their feet ... NASA has even investigated the phenomenon, documenting the remarkable skill with which cats extend their limbs and swivel their bodies to rotate themselves feet-down in free fall, in an exercise in PhD-level Engineering Mechanics. One day human astronauts may master the feat in zero gee environments.
Finally, cats are fascinated by the written word. All cat people know this to be true. More precisely, cats know their people stare endlessly at the written word, and so endeavor to place themselves between their people and whatever the people are reading. Or writing.
So it was that I found myself an author. One of the people I allow to share my home, Tom, was seated at that glowy rectangle with the bumpy thing on the desk in front of it. I've been training Tom lately. When I want to be fed, I give him some attention. I recently learned he will feed me if I give him a little “lap time,” after which I have taken to climbing onto the desk for a bit of head-butting. Today, I decided to flop down on that bumpy thing on the desk that occupies so much of his attention. This is a new one, with the bumps arranged in a remarkably comfortable curve, and I could not resist a little rolling about on it. The back massage feels terrific!
So please understand, none of this involves me intentionally typing. I'm simply doing what cats do; behaviors far more likely to result in a masterpiece than anything a silly troupe of monkeys are likely to do. And like most writers, I'll leave the fine points of formatting, punctuation, and capitalization to my editor.
Copyright © 2010 Tocho Ligon
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Short Story: DR. SKENNER'S SPECIAL ANIMALS by by David A. Simons
* * * *
* * * *
Some trends can make it a lot harder to be a specialist....
It had been a routine morning at the clinic. Blessedly routine. I'd spayed two cats, grown a fresh liver for a Doberman, and disimpacted a turtle, with no sign of any new special animals. But then Rover arrived, and there was no turning back.
I was scrubbing Larry the Parrot's infected foot when I heard the truck rumble up the driveway, spraying gravel, blaring its horn. I shouted to Ellie to corral the cats, coaxed Larry back into his cage, and stepped outside to the front porch.
The truck was one of those old-fashioned U-Hauls, the kind with the rolling rear door and granny attic, big enough to move a three-bedroom apartment. It had stopped at the top of my driveway, its wheels sunk deep in the gravel.
Two men scurried down from the cab. Both were decked out, head to toe, in fireman's gear: yellow trench coats, rubber boots, gloves, and opaque welders’ helmets, the visors masking their faces. One of the men carried a long metal pole with a forked tip. A cattle prod, it appeared.
"Ready?” mumbled the other. His voice was gruff, older. His partner nodded, pointing the cattle prod at the truck's rear door.
The older man unlocked the cargo door and rolled it upward. He pulled a metal chain from the truck's bed, looped it around his wrist, then stepped backward, pulling, like a fisherman reeling a deep-sea catch.
Slowly, an enormous animal emerged. Long toothy snout, red-scaled body, leathery wings, and a thick barbed tail. I muttered in disgust, but I can't say I was surprised. It was only a matter of time before some damn fool built a dragon.
The screen door creaked open behind me, and Ellie joined me on the porch. “Oh my,” she said, watching the men struggle with their big lizard. “I don't think he'll fit in the special room."
I wondered idly how she knew it was a he.
The dragon snapped at its chain leash, casting sparks, and the tall man zapped its flank with the cattle prod. The dragon jumped, whipping its head about in the air, and blew a four-foot fireball over the head of its
assailant.
And then it yelped. A piercing, painful cry, like a dog whose tail had been stepped on. It plopped down on the gravel, whimpering, swatting at its face with clawed arms.
"Oh my,” said Ellie again.
"Send them away,” I said. “We're not treating it."
"Now doctor..."
"I mean it this time. It's too big. We can't hide it. Bogeys will find us. Or Cleansers. No more special animals."
The younger man jabbed the dragon again with the cattle prod, urging it to its feet, while his partner yanked on the chain. The dragon moaned, still rubbing its face with its wings. Aw, hell.
"I'm a legitimate veterinarian,” I said. “I specialize in horses."
"Yes, doctor, I know,” said Ellie, patting my arm. Before I could protest further, she walked down the porch steps, straight at the men and the dragon, shouting instructions. “Take him around back. We can chain him up in the horse pasture. Dr. Skenner will see you shortly."
* * * *
While Ellie escorted the dragon to my back pasture, I headed for the special room. I had twenty minutes until my one o'clock, enough time for a quick rounds.
The special room was a barn at the edge of my property, poorly hidden by a grove of young American chestnuts. When I opened my clinic, I'd planned to specialize in horses, focusing on the racing and equestrian communities of central Virginia, but my practice had taken an unfortunate turn.
I unlocked the barn door and slipped inside, and was promptly greeted by Radar.
Radar was my most confused special patient. He was supposed to be a minotaur (you know, bull's head, man's body, hangs out in caves in Crete), but his builders flubbed their calculations and wound up with a jumbled mixture of man and bull parts. He had human limbs and torso, hooves for hands and feet, a human neck, and a bull's head and horns. His brain, though, was all bull, which meant he liked cows (really liked cows), and when threatened, charged straight at the danger. But since he stood upright, the result of his charges weren't gorings, but face-first crashes into whatever stood in his way. I'd fitted him with a nose guard and a neck brace, but there wasn't much more I could do. His builders had abandoned him to me, so he roamed the special room.
Radar snorted, pawing at the floor in front of me with his hoof. Clop, scrape, clop, scrape. I put my hand under his chin and scratched. Satisfied, he sauntered away, and I began my rounds.
I stopped first at the mermaid's tank. She swam to the glass, splashing her tail.
The mermaid had been my first special patient, nearly two years ago. Brought to my clinic in an old mop bucket just after dusk by a man and woman wearing sunglasses and introducing themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Jones.
I'd read in the vet journals that some fools had begun manipulating cloning vats, mixing and matching templates to create “special animals.” Fantasy creatures. Only the builders weren't thinking through the biology any better than Hans Christian Andersen, so the animals had problems. They all had problems.
Ellie and I pulled the mermaid out of the bucket and laid her on my examining table. She was two feet long, with blond hair, green eyes, and small, water-wrinkled breasts. She curled up, moaning, blowing air out her mouth, in obvious pain.
"How old?” I asked.
"Four days,” answered Mr. Jones. “We're using a growth accelerant."
"Will you treat her?” asked Mrs. Jones.
I should have said no, of course. Sent them away, called the police. The BOGE legislation had already passed, and Cleanser gangs were forming. The last thing I needed so soon after opening my clinic was to get caught up in that.
But none of it was the mermaid's fault.
I examined her throat and torso, trying to find the source of the pain. Her belly was distended, so I suspected food poisoning or allergies. “What are you feeding her?"
The Joneses listed her foods, and I began writing up tests and prescriptions. It was Ellie, my twenty-year-old assistant, two weeks on the job, who figured out the obvious. She rolled the mermaid onto her side, poked at her fin, then looked up at me.
"So how does she poop?"
Six hours of surgery later, the mermaid had a functioning rectum and urethra. She now visits every two months for check-ups.
The mermaid spread her hand against the glass and flashed me a smile. Her intelligence was animal (human neural networks are still way beyond the vats), but her expressions were distinctly human, which I found disconcerting. I tapped the glass and continued my rounds.
Next was the centaur. The poor creature was a mess. His owners brought him in at one month old, complaining that he wouldn't gallop. He was lethargic, yellow-skinned, and bone thin. They assured me they'd mixed the templates correctly, carefully, and wondered what could possibly be wrong.
Geniuses. It shouldn't take a veterinarian, I told them, to realize that a human heart, kidneys, and liver cannot power an eight-hundred-pound horse. They left him for treatment and never returned.
I had the centaur on blood thinners to ease his circulation, light treatments for his jaundice, and regular dialysis to aid his kidneys. He was only six months old, but had the thin hair and sunken face of an old man. I doubted he'd live another six.
I checked his blood gasses, patted him gently on the flank, and moved on to the first of the three unicorns. (Every rich idiot, it seems, wants their little girl to have a unicorn. I'm constantly treating scalp infections and skull fractures.)
Before I'd finished patching the first horn, Ellie tapped her secret knock and slipped into the barn. Ah. My one o'clock horse. Normality. A paying customer.
"Ms. Clancy's horse is here?” I asked.
"No,” said Ellie. “I canceled that."
"What! Why?"
"Well, not a great day to run a horse in the pasture."
Oh yeah. There was a dragon in my back yard.
"Speaking of the pasture,” added Ellie, “our new patient needs your attention."
I rubbed antibiotics against the horn's base, scanning for fractures with my magnifier. “They can wait."
"He's ... misbehaving."
"Imagine that. A special animal misbehaving.” I glanced over at Radar, who was now seated on the floor next to me, legs spread, trying, unsuccessfully, to do something obscene with his hoofed hands. Ellie scratched his chin, distracting him.
"Fine,” I said. I handed Ellie the antibiotic gel, pointed at the horse feed. “Feed the unicorns. Two cups of oats. And a rainbow."
I kicked open the barn's rear door and trudged outside.
When my father ran the property, the back pasture had been a racetrack. I'd turned it into a grazing field. Several acres of tall grass, enclosed by a wooden fence, with a spring-fed pond in the middle.
Right now, it was on fire.
Well, not the whole thing, just a few square meters near the barn. The two firemen were dousing the flames with CO2 spray, their visors raised.
The dragon, meanwhile, was tied to a stone post thirty meters away, near the pond. He'd dipped his face into the muddy water and now lay on his stomach, licking the claws on his feet. Seemed content.
"Almost out,” said the younger man. “He tried to roast a squirrel. Your assistant got him tied up nice, now."
The men appeared to be a father-son pair. The father was in his fifties, with a stocky build and a face like an old truck grill. The son was tall and lean, with a too-perfect nose, teenager skin, gold-tinged teeth, and a stupid grin. West Virginians, no doubt.
They finished dousing the flames and turned to me.
"We hear you treat constructs,” said the father. “Will you help us?"
"Tell me your names."
"Smith,” said the father.
"Jones,” said the son.
How original. “Can he breathe fire on us from over there?” I asked.
"Not unless he's agitated,” said the father. I waited patiently for the explanation I knew he was dying to give.
"He's got two extra lungs,” said the father. “One
extracts methane from his large intestine, and the second has a special hypergolic igniter compound we developed with our chemistry partners. When his body releases adrenaline, the igniter activates and combusts the methane."
"So he breathes fire when he's mad,” chimed the son.
"Yeah,” I said. “I get it."
"Trouble is, every time he blows fire, he yelps and whines like a bitch. Can you figure out what's wrong with him?"
"We got a buyer lined up in China,” added the son. “Fix him, we'll give you an equal share.” The father glared at him. The son stopped grinning.
"How old?” I asked.
"A few months."
"How was he made?"
"It's a complex formula,” said the father, eyeing me warily. “Took a lot of resources to develop."
Bastard. “Just tell me about the brain. What's the template for the brain?"
"Dog,” he said. “Mostly."
A puppy, I thought. I could handle that.
I pulled out my magnifier and stepped toward the dragon. I surveyed his face and head, zooming in on his eyes, his mouth, his nose. Yup. Just what I thought. Poor guy.
"So,” said the son. “Is something broke, or is he just a pussy?"
"Tell me, Mr. Jones,” I said. “Have you ever stuck your face into an oven?"
"He's got scales,” said the father. “Heat-resistant to three hundred degrees."
"Scales on his eyeballs? On his lips and nostrils?"
"Oh."
Yeah, oh.
"So will you treat him?"
"Without shutting off the fire breath,” added the son. “That's one of the buyer's specs."
I held my tongue, for once. “Leave him with me for a few days,” I said. “Maybe I can help."
Analog SFF, March 2010 Page 14
