Asimov's SF, July 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Lustre stood straight and didn't answer.

  “Say what you have to say to cut yourself off,” said Hamilton. “Say it now.”

  But, to his fury and horror, she maintained the same expression, and just looked quickly between them.

  “For God's sake—!” he cried out.

  Pollux pressed gently with his foot, and Hamilton tensed at the feel of the fold grabbing his body. It made him recall, horribly, moments with Lustre, and, even worse, moments with Annie. He didn't want that association, so he killed it in his mind. There could be no thoughts of her as he died. It would be like dragging a part of her through this with him. There was no pain, not yet. He reserved his shouts for when there would be. He would use his training, go cursing them, as loud as he could, thus controlling the only thing he could. He was proud to have the chance to manage his death and die for king, country, and balance.

  Pollux looked again at Lustre, then pressed slightly more. Now there was pain. Hamilton drew in a breath to begin telling this classless bastard what he thought of him—

  —when suddenly there came a sound.

  Something had crunched against something, far away.

  The twins both looked suddenly in the same direction, startled.

  Hamilton let out a choked laugh. Whatever this was—

  And that had been an explosion!

  A projection of a uniformed man flew up onto the wall. “Somehow there are three carriages—!”

  “The church bells!” said Hamilton, realizing.

  Castor ran for the door, joining a great outflowing of guards as they grabbed arms from the walls, but Pollux stayed where he was, a dangerous expression on his face, his foot poised on the pedal. One guard had stayed beside Lustre also, his rifle covering her. “What?!”

  “The bells of Saint Mary's in Copenhagen. Ten o'clock.” He was panting at the pain and the pressure. “You said the city became a British possession at 9:59. While we were falling.” He swore at the man who was about to maim him, triumphant. “They must have put a fold in me with a tracker inside, as we fell! Didn't harm the balance if we landed in Britain!”

  Pollux snarled and slammed his foot down on the pedal.

  Hamilton didn't see what happened in the next few seconds. His vision distorted with the pain, which reached up into his jaw and to the roots of his teeth.

  But the next thing he knew, Lustre had slammed a palm against the wall, and his shackles had disappeared. There was a shout of astonishment. The pressure cut off and the pain receded. He was aware of a guard somewhere over there in a pool of blood. Reflexively, he grabbed the rifle Lustre held. She tried to hold onto it, as if uncertain he could use it better than she could. They each scrabbled at it, they only had seconds—!

  He was aware of regimental cries converging on the room, bursting through the doors.

  He saw, as if down a tunnel, that Pollux was desperately stamping at the pedal, and light had suddenly blazed across his foot again.

  Pollux raised his foot, about to slam it down, to use the fold in the center of the room, opened to its fullest extent, to rip apart Hamilton and everyone else.

  Hamilton shoved Lustre aside and in one motion fired.

  The top of Pollux's head vanished. His foot spasmed downward.

  It seemed to be moving slowly, to Hamilton's pain-dulled eyes.

  The sole of the man's shoe connected with the control.

  For a moment it looked like it had done so with enough force that Pollux Ransom would not die alone.

  But it must have landed too softly. By some minuscule amount.

  The corpse fell aside. Its tormented soul had, a moment before, vanished from the universe.

  “That'll be a weight off his mind,” said Hamilton.

  And then he passed out.

  * * * *

  Six weeks later, following some forced healing and forced leave, Hamilton stood once again in front of Turpin. He had been called straight in, rather than returned to his regiment. He hadn't seen Lustre since the assault on the mansion. He'd been told that she had been interviewed at length and then returned to the bosom of the diplomatic corps. He assumed that she'd told Turpin's people everything, and that, thus, at the very least, he was out of a job. At the worst, he could find himself at the end of the traitor's noose, struggling in the air above Parliament Square.

  He found he couldn't square himself to that. He was full of concerns and impertinent queries. The lack of official reaction so far had been trying his nerves.

  But as Turpin had run down what had happened to the various individuals in the mansion, how Castor was now in the cells far beneath this building, and what the origins and fates of the toy soldiers had been, how various out of uniform officers were busy unraveling the threads of the twins’ conceits, all over the world, Hamilton gradually began to hope. Surely the blow would have landed before now? King Frederik had been found, hiding or pretending to hide, and had been delighted, once the situation had been starkly explained to him, to have the British return him to his throne. Denmark remained a British protectorate while His Majesty's forces rooted out the last of the conspirators in the pay of the Ransoms. And, since a faction in that court had been found and encouraged that sought to intermarry and unify the kingdoms, perhaps this would remain the case for some considerable while.

  “Of course,” said Turpin, “they weren't really twins.”

  Hamilton allowed the surprise to show on his face. “Sir?”

  “We've found family trees that suggest they're actually cousins, similar in appearance, with a decade or so between them. We've got carriages on the way to what we're going to call George's Star, and people examining that projection. We don't expect to find anything beyond a single automatic in orbit.”

  “So . . . the girl—” He took a chance on referring to her as if he didn't know her, hoping desperately that she'd kept the secret of what he hadn't reported, all those years ago.

  “We kept an eye on her after the interviews. She told us she'd learned the access codes for Ransom's embroidery from when she was on that enormous carriage she mentioned. Another thing we tellingly haven't found, by the way, along with any high performance carriages in the Ransom garages. But she hadn't quite got enough detail on the earliest years of Lustre Saint Clair's life. A brilliant cover, a brilliant grown flesh job, but not quite good enough. She faltered a little when we put it to her that, struggling over that gun with you, she was actually trying to save Pollux Ransom's life. We decided to let her out of the coop and see where she led us. As we expected, she realized we were on to her and vanished. Almost certainly into the Russian embassy. Certainly enough that we may find ourselves able to threaten the Czar with some embarrassment. You must have wondered yourself, considering the ease of your escape from the embassy, her reluctance to take the observer machine. . . .” He raised an eyebrow at Hamilton. “Didn't you?”

  Hamilton felt dizzy, as if the walls of his world had once more vibrated under an impact. “What were they after?”

  “Easy enough to imagine. The Russians would love to see us move forces out of the inner Solar System in order to secure an otherwise meaningless territory in the hope that these fictitious foreigners might return. And just in the week or so while we were interviewing her, you should have seen the havoc this story caused at court. The hawks who want to ‘win the balance’ were all for sending the fleet out there immediately. The doves were at their throats. The Queen Mother had to order everyone to stop discussing it. But fortunately, we soon had an answer for them, confirmed by what we got out of Castor. An elegant fable, wasn't it? The sort of thing Stichen would put together out of the White Court. I'll bet it was one of his. You know, the strange-looking wounds, red birds, booming sounds, fine fly detail like that. If we hadn't planted that tracker on you, the girl would have had to find some way to signal us herself. Or, less wasteful, you'd have been allowed to escape. Of course, the Ransoms’ worldwide network isn't quite the size they made it out to be, not when y
ou subtract all the rubles that are vanishing back to Moscow. But even so, clearing all that out makes the balance a bit safer tonight.”

  Hamilton didn't know what to say. He stood there on the grown polished wood timbers and looked down at the whorls within whorls. An odd thought struck him. A connection back to the last certainty he recalled feeling. When his world had been set on sturdier foundations. “Ambassador Bayoumi,” he said. “Did he make it out?”

  “I've no idea. Why do you ask?”

  Hamilton found he had no reason in his head, just a great blankness that felt half merciful and half something lost. “I don't know,” he said finally. “He seemed kind.”

  Turpin made a small grunt of a laugh, and looked back to his papers. Hamilton realized that he'd been dismissed. And that the burdens he'd brought with him into the room would not be ended by a noose or a pardon.

  As he made his way to the door, Turpin seemed to realize that he hadn't been particularly polite. He looked up again. “I heard the record of what you said to him,” he said. “You said nobody would care if she killed you. It's not true, you know.”

  Hamilton stopped, and tried to read the scarred and stitched face of the man.

  “You're greatly valued, Jonathan,” said Turpin. “If you weren't, you wouldn't still be here.”

  * * * *

  A year or so later, Hamilton was woken in the early hours by an urgent tug on the embroidery, a voice that seemed familiar, trying to tell him something, sobbing and yelling in the few seconds before it was cut off.

  But he couldn't understand a word it said.

  The next morning, there was no record of the exchange.

  In the end, Hamilton decided that it must have been a dream.

  Copyright © 2011 Paul Cornell

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Department: ON BOOKS

  by Paul Di Filippo

  Gaughn But Not Forgotten

  The very first issue of any professional SF magazine I ever encountered—when I was that ideally impressionable age, twelve going on thirteen—was the July 1967 issue of F&SF.

  That issue featured a cover by Jack Gaughan, for a Keith Laumer story. Nowadays you can of course instantly see Gaughan's painting online, thanks to the great website maintained by Phil Stephensen-Payne, at www.philsp.com/data/images/f/fantasy andsciencefiction196707.jpg. The adolescent Paul loved the cover (not to mention the contents of that issue), and it crystallized my recognition of the artist and his unique little ideogram of a signature, interlocked initials. I realized I had, all unknowingly, already been admiring Jack Gaughan's work on a variety of paperbacks, and I resolved to watch for it thereafter. Finding more art by Gaughan was easy enough in that period, as he seemed to be everywhere, turning out fabulous stuff for prozines and book publishers alike. He became and remained one of my favorite illustrators. You might say he marked the dawn of my acknowledgment of the individuality of artists.

  Leap forward about twenty years, to the mid-eighties. By chance, I became friends with Jack Gaughan's daughter, Norah, shortly after her father had passed away. I had never been lucky enough to meet Jack at a convention, and now, despite an even closer connection, it was too late. A sad fact, but I was grateful to have Norah Gaughan as a pal.

  Jump ahead another twenty years, to the middle of our current decade. Luis Ortiz, publisher of NonStop Press and author of two seminal biographical/critical books on Lee Brown Coye and Ed Emshwiller, was casting about for his next artist subject, and he became inspired by a blog post of mine on Gaughan. Soon, I had put him in touch with Norah Gaughan and her mother, Jack's widow, Phoebe.

  You can purchase the splendid, essential outcome of that forty-five-year chain of influences and admiration: Outermost: The Life & Art of Jack Gaughan (NonStop, hardcover, $39.95, 176 pages, ISBN 978-1-933065-16-8). Holding this book in my hands feels as if I'm having the meeting with Jack I never enjoyed.

  Ortiz is a master at assembling rock-solid facts, elucidating informed critical appraisals, and welding the two streams of discourse into a very readable narrative with the allure of a novel. The text in Outermost limns a life, a scene, a profession with clarity, understanding, and empathy. Gaughan's mature character and talents, and the youthful sources thereof, are laid out with anatomical precision. Both his shortcomings and genius are dealt with frankly.

  Yet certainly, as a modestly sized but aspiring coffee-table art book, the book must please the visual taste buds as well, and that the gorgeous tome does immensely well. Ortiz has perfectly balanced well-known Gaughan works with lesser known professional ones, then supplemented those treasures with tons of sketches and plenty of fannish work. (You'll see some of Gaughan's work for early issues of this very magazine, in fact!) The color reproduction on high-quality paper is savory as well. You will spend hours of pleasure on this feast.

  At the end, what can be said of Gaughan's career and his accomplishments? His best work—and that was a huge amount and percentage—possessed joy, movement, wit, and zest. He never stopped experimenting and growing. He inhabited his era fully, yet emerged eternal. He became a bit too obsessive about commercial accounts, hooked on taking any and all assignments in order to make a living. But such is always the trap awaiting any freelancer. Despite overwork, he never gave less than all he had available at the moment. His life and career remain exemplary, and live on in the hearts and minds of countless readers such as myself.

  * * * *

  The Life of Mr. Wheatblossom

  Last year saw not just the handsome and welcome Gaughan biography, but also an even more impressive one, in terms of scholarship, reach and authority. I refer to Mark Rich's C.M. Kornbluth: The Life and Work of a Science Fiction Visionary (McFarland, trade paper, $39.95, 451 pages, ISBN 978-0-7864-4393-2). You might have noted that over recent years fiction from Mr. Rich, a talented storyteller himself, has been sparse on the ground. No doubt unceasing diligent work on this volume explains why. I miss Mark's stories, but getting this massive, exhaustive and illuminating Kornbluth bio makes the sacrifice worth it, to a large degree!

  Because homeboy Rich knows the SF community inside-out, you would expect that he would be primed to capture and recreate all the intimacy of our storied history, from fannish milieus to professional writing territory. And at this he does indeed succeed admirably. Reading this book is like being immersed in a vivid, impassioned, meticulously researched historical novel. It's Sam Moskowitz meets Harry Warner, Jr., but filtered through Anthony Powell and David Halberstam.

  Rich exuberantly evokes the laughter and tears, rage and joy of the SF world and its motley inhabitants (and also that smaller, less consequential world known as mundania) over the span of Kornbluth's lifetime (1923-1958). This seminal period gave birth to so much of what we take for granted in the genre today, and to so many classic works. Rich gets it all down on the page. He understands market forces, historical trends, and all the million and one factors that determined the course of this slice of literary history.

  But all of that is merely the supportive matrix surrounding the man at the center, Kornbluth (whose name could literally be translated as “wheat blossom"). CMK is the whole reason for building this shrine, and Rich beautifully honors the man, not by sycophantic praise, but by honesty, accuracy, and critical insights. He builds a living portrait of Kornbluth in all his complexities, rewarding and infuriating. He charts Kornbluth's life on an almost daily basis, relying stringently on impeccable primary and secondary sources melded into a smoothly readable narrative. Here, for instance, is a description of Cyril and Mary Kornbluth's living quarters:

  “They owned little in the way of furnishings, after the move halfway across the continent from Chicago. On the ground floor they had a large coffee table stained in dark mahogany. On the walls around it was their library, on improvised brick-and-plank shelving. For his office in the attic, Kornbluth set up a desk, chair, floor lamp, and standard typewriter. Mary's ceramic study went into the cellar.”
<
br />   This is more time-travel than mere scholarship!

  Thanks to Rich's empathy and unrelenting accumulation of facts, we see Kornbluth grow, change, mature—and perish too soon. Along the way, Rich also delivers synopses of the major works, with deep assessments.

  The ancillary and essential figures orbiting Kornbluth's star—many of them major personalities according to their own lights and also by consensus history —are developed with similar high-resolution profiles. Rich attempts to do justice to various friends and enemies, roadblockers and supporters (sometimes the same person filled both roles at different times!). He reports the facts, but is also unhesitant about drawing conclusions about behaviors and motives.

  The arc of CMK's always troubled life—from teen prodigy through exuberant young manhood to exhausted and disappointed maturity and last-minute reawakening—might read as a tragedy, if given only journalistic coverage. But in the capable, molding hands of Mark Rich, Kornbluth's life emerges as perfect and right and satisfying, still as relevant today as ever, even acknowledging the aborted fulfillment of his enormous talent and potential.

  * * * *

  Four Fabulous French Volumes Can't Go Wrong

  This past September I had the pleasure of attending a convention in Germany with Brian Stableford, our first meeting in the flesh. I found him, as you might suspect from reading his many stories in these very pages, erudite, witty, and charming. At one point, a small party of dinnergoers began playing a game: “If you had a time machine, what single era would you most like to visit?” Brian's choice? Late-nineteenth-century Paris, for its unparalleled artistic and literary scene.

  Well, lacking an actual time machine, M. Stableford has yet done all within his powers to mentally inhabit that milieu—and to share the results of his creative sympathies with us. He has been translating a wealth of French fantastika for some years now, bringing to light undiscovered treasures so important in charting the true global history of our literature. Most of these works have appeared from Jean-Marc Lofficier's splendid Black Coat Press, which specializes in such items. And now Stableford and Black Coat have outdone themselves with two new projects: six volumes of the work of J-H Rosny Aine (1856-1940), and five volumes from the oeuvre of Maurice Renard (1875-1939). Today, I'll consider four of the eleven volumes, as a sample of the wealth.