Asimov's SF, October-November 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  He looked up, and saw Jason Write standing in the direct center of the explosion. The operative's suit was torn. Coln let the telanium dust trickle from his stunned fingers as he saw Write's eyes. Like before, they were unfocused, even unresponsive. They stared dully forward, motionless, like the eyes of ... a blind man.

  “What are you?” Coln whispered.

  Write ignored the question. “Take the girl and go,” he said, his voice calm but ominous. “This area is about to become very dangerous.”

  Coln nodded, reaching for the frightened Denise's hand. At that moment, a new voice spoke—one Coln didn't recognize.

  “Oh, come now, Mr. Write,” the voice said. “Must we stoop to such assumptions? Are we not ... civilized?”

  Write didn't turn toward the source of the sound—a speaker on the wall. “Show yourself.”

  There was silence. The sound of footsteps. Coln pushed Denise behind him, turning wary eyes on the hallway outside their rooms—the hallway that was now exposed, thanks to the strange explosion.

  A figure appeared in the hallway. He was nondescript save for a long nose and a thin body. He wore a sharp navy suit, and he smiled as he strolled forward, scuffing the layer of telanium dust.

  “Tell me who you are,” Write said, turning to face the man with his unfocused eyes.

  “Come, Jason,” the man said. “Don't you recognize me?”

  “No.”

  “I guess I shouldn't be surprised,” the man said, continuing to stroll around the room. “It has been several years, and I really wasn't all that important. Just one of your many recruits. My name was Edmund.”

  The room fell silent. “Why did you try to kill Coln?” Write finally asked.

  Edmund just smiled. “Even for a PC agent, you're an extremely secretive man, Jason. You've been hiding things from the Varvax. If they knew that you could create mindblades, they'd certainly be tempted to elevate humankind's intelligence designation.”

  Write frowned. “It was a test. You wanted to see if I could stop the bullets.”

  “And I was not disappointed,” Edmund said, stopping just in front of Write. “Mindblades are very advanced, Jason. Another few decades of study, and you might get FTL. I'm impressed.”

  The two men stood facing each other—yet neither one's eyes focused on his opponent. They remained like that for a tense few moments, and Coln frowned. He felt like something important was on the verge of happening, but it never occurred.

  What is going on?

  * * * *

  Jason fought for his life. Hundreds of mindblades whipped toward him, invisible blasts of pure thought. It was all he could do to keep them from shredding his flesh. He fought back, sending his own mindblades to block those of his opponent—an opponent he still didn't understand.

  He vaguely remembered Edmund—though he hadn't known the face well enough that he had recognized it in the cafe. Edmund had been a man with some Cytonic potential. He had run away from the PC after just a few months of training. That had only been two years ago—how had he learned so much in such a short time?

  The barrage of mindblades slackened, and Edmund stepped back. He was still smiling, but there was reservation in his eyes. He hadn't expected Jason to be as good as he was.

  Jason breathed deeply. Coln was watching from a short distance away, his face confused—he hadn't been able to see the insane battle Jason had just fought.

  “I'm impressed again, Jason,” Edmund said.

  Jason felt sweat trickle down his cheek.

  “I wouldn't have expected you to know how to block mindblades,” Edmund continued. “Few of us have even practiced that.”

  Jason stood stiffly. “I've been expecting this for some time,” he whispered. “I knew I couldn't keep it away from people like you. I knew that someday I would have to fight.”

  “You prepared well.”

  The mindblades struck again. Jason grunted, whipping out with his own blades. There was a faint ripple to his Sense when a mindblade was about to appear, and he sliced at that area with his own blade. The blasts canceled each other, wavering in his Sense like two curves of light. He blocked hundreds of them, the air around him shining like he was in the middle of an explosion.

  I can't keep this up long. Eventually, a mindblade would break through. Jason had only one card to play—he would have to make it count.

  Jason continued to fight, waiting for the right time. Edmund was better than Jason was. It shouldn't have been possible—Jason had been practicing Cyto longer than any other man. How could someone have overcome him so quickly? Jason had to find out. Otherwise, all he had worked for would be lost.

  The attack retreated again. Edmund was perspiring now—at least it was difficult for him.

  “You learned from the Varvax well,” Jason said, gambling.

  Edmund looked up with surprise. Then he laughed. “So you can't read minds after all,” he said with a smile. “That was quite the bluff.”

  I was wrong, Jason thought. But, how then ... ?

  “Goodbye, Jason Write.”

  Jason felt the air waver around him. More mindblades than he could count began to form—it was like he was being circled in a dome of pure energy. He couldn't block them all. He would die.

  Now!

  Jason focused on himself. He didn't raise any mindblades. Instead, he Sensed inward. He felt his own vibration in his Sense, a cool black-clothed creature. So different than the boy he had once been. The boy had been stupefied, made immobile, by his horror.

  Jason was no longer that boy. With a scream, he felt the mindblades descend around him, and he threw himself willingly into the darkness.

  All was still.

  The blackness enveloped him, the non-existence that had threatened him since childhood. Except this time he had come to it by choice. He suffocated for an eternal moment in its embrace.

  Then he reappeared. As he reentered normal space, he pushed the air away, lest its molecules get trapped within his appearing body. In a similar manner, he pushed Edmund's flesh away from his hand.

  The world shook, and Jason was back. He stood with arm extended directly in front of Edmund. Jason's wrist ended abruptly where it met Edmund's flesh—his hand had materialized inside of the man's chest.

  Edmund's heart, gripped in Jason's fist, thumped once. Edmund's eyes stared ahead in shock. Behind, the place where Jason had been a moment earlier exploded with mindblades.

  Jason squeezed once, and Edmund cried out in pain. The heart stopped beating. Edmund slid to his knees, and Jason pushed his hand slightly outside space and withdrew it.

  Edmund fell backward, staring with surprised, agonized eyes. He didn't fall unconscious as he died—he was far too powerful a Cytonic for that. Instead, he just whispered.

  “FTL transmission. Jason, you surprise me again. We had no idea....”

  Jason knelt beside the man. “I've had it for some time. Tell me. Tell me how you did it. Where did you learn such powers?”

  The man laughed, a pained hacking laugh. “I've studied it all my life, Jason.”

  “How?” Jason demanded.

  Somehow, Edmund met Jason's eyes. “Ah, you're such an idealist, Jason of the Phone Company. Sometime, you must ask yourself this. Why would a race such as the Varvax need to learn an ability such as Cytonic suppression?”

  Jason paused, his mind growing numb. He only knew one answer, one he had barely dared consider. “To keep prisoners.”

  “Prisoners?” Edmund coughed. “Original thinkers! Dissenters! Anyone who doesn't agree with them.”

  “You lie!”

  Edmund laughed, his back arching in pain. “And you will be our escape,” he said, his voice growing loud until he was practically screaming. “They've had their paradise long enough. You nearly went mad after spending just a few minutes without your Sense—imagine living your life in such a box! You only see the peace, you only see the perfect society.

  “You don't see the price!”

  Edmu
nd's final breath hissed out, and his body fell limp.

  “You lie,” Jason whispered. “They are a peaceful people. We are the monsters, not them....” He sat for a moment, regarding the fallen body. Coln still stood a short distance away, looking amazed—and confused.

  “Come here,” Jason said quietly. “Bring the girl.” Coln obeyed without a word. Jason put a hand on each of them, then he entered the darkness once again.

  * * * *

  Coln recognized the room immediately. He blinked once, trying to forget about the awful sense of emptiness he had just experienced. He was in a white, curved room—the operations center of PC Headquarters. The room pictured in his fuzzy holo-vid. Coln had studied its image hundreds of times, and now he was actually there.

  Except, PC Central Operations was on Earth, months away from Evensong. Coln breathed in with surprise. Write stood a short distance away, his suit tattered, blood seeping down his arms.

  “You do have FTL travel!” Coln accused.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I was right!” Coln said. “You've been keeping FTL travel from humankind!”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Coln demanded. “What are you trying to protect us from?”

  “I wasn't trying to protect us,” Write said, walking over to the side of the room. He approached the wall—the one that was supposed to house the FTL communication machinery—and pulled a lever. A small cup popped out at the bottom, followed by a stream of steaming coffee. “I was trying to protect them. And prepare us.”

  “Prepare us?” Coln asked.

  “The exchange programs,” Write said. “The outreach programs—even the skin-color fad. Anything to make us more open minded. Of course, it doesn't really matter now, does it?”

  Coln frowned, then eyed the coffee machine. “So, it's not the FTL comm unit...”

  Write shook his head, then pointed to the side. A man, the man Coln had mistaken for a security guard in the holo-vid, sat a short distance away. The man had his eyes closed, and he sat quietly in a chair.

  “His mind,” Write said. “It powers all FTL calls.”

  “But,” Coln said, “there are millions of them....”

  “All you need is one mind to provide the FTL capability,” Jason explained. “Computers can do the actual routing.”

  Coln hissed quietly in surprise.

  “Technology is limited,” Jason said, “only the mind is infinite.”

  Further questions were forestalled as a door slammed open and a red-haired woman burst into the room. She immediately ran forward and grabbed Write in a powerful embrace.

  “What happened!” she demanded, and Coln instantly recognized Lanna's voice.

  “Coln,” Write mumbled, “meet Lanna Write. My wife.”

  “What? Your wife?”

  “Unfortunately,” Write said. There was fondness in his voice.

  “But,” Coln objected. “The Bureau has bugged your communications dozens of times—you always complain when she's assigned to you!”

  “Yes, and he does the assigning,” Lanna said, checking the small wounds on his arms. “He always says that the less the Bureau knows about his personal life, the better. Besides, he can't help teasing me.” She looked up at Write. “All right, sit down and tell me what's going on. The medic is on his way.”

  Write sighed, taking another sip of his drink. “I might have been wrong, Lanna.”

  “About what?”

  “About everything,” he said, his voice haunted.

  * * * *

  Jason sat in his rooms, letting the medic bandage his arms. Lanna stood, dissatisfied, a short distance away. She was the terror of PC Central Operations—few men had the courage, or the stupidity, to incur her wrath.

  “All right, old man,” she said. “What happened?”

  Jason shook his head. Before he could reply, his holo-vid beeped. Jason punched the button, and Sonn's chitinous face appeared.

  “You have some explaining to do, Sonn,” Jason said.

  The Varvax put forward his hands in supplication. “I am at your disposal, Jason of the Phone Company.”

  Jason pushed a button, showing Sonn an image of Denise being questioned by PC operatives. “Tell me it's not true, Sonn,” Jason pled quietly. “Tell me you don't lock your discontents away.”

  “Varvax discontents?” Lanna asked with surprise.

  Sonn raised his hands, a sign of apology. “I said that you would discover the reason for Cytonic suppression eventually, Jason of the Phone Company.”

  Jason bowed his head. No. It can't be ...

  “It is the only way,” Sonn said. “The way to have peace.”

  “Peace for those who agree with you,” Jason spat.

  “It is the only way.”

  “And the others?” Jason demanded. “The Tenasi, the Hallo?”

  “The same,” Sonn said. “They have discovered the way, as you will eventually. The way to Prime Intelligence. I must apologize for the inconvenience we have given to you.”

  Jason sat, stunned. He was wrong. All of these years, over a century of work, and he was wrong. They had deceived him. Suddenly, he felt sick—sick, and angry.

  “They're going to come for you, Sonn,” Jason said, nodding thankfully to the medic as he finished the bandaging. The man was trustworthy—one of the first Cytonics Jason had recruited over a hundred years before.

  “Excuse me, Jason of the Phone Company?” Sonn asked after a short pause. His hands were pulled back in the Varvax sign of confusion.

  The medic left and Lanna sat down beside Jason. She watched Sonn with calculating eyes—she had never liked the Varvax. She said she didn't like people who could so easily falsify their body language.

  “The ambassador—the one who died,” Jason said. “He was a discontent. I have him now. I thought humans were trying to infiltrate Varvax society; I didn't realize that it was the other way around. Your dissidents are escaping, and they're hiding amongst us. They're trying to get hold of human technology. We're still uncivilized, Sonn. We have some war machines that could blast down your ships without even pausing.”

  Sonn maintained his sign of confusion, then augmented it with one of worry. Few people knew that the Tenasi ambassadorial vessel that had been shot down over Earth had been one of the most advanced, most powerful ships in the galaxy. A single human missile had destroyed it. The other species had far inferior technology.

  “This is disturbing,” Sonn admitted.

  “I know,” Jason said. Then he reached over and cut the connection. Sonn's face fuzzed and disappeared.

  Jason leaned back with a sigh, Sensing Lanna beside him. He'd known it was coming—he'd feared that he couldn't keep humankind out of space. He just hadn't expected heaven to fail him.

  “I'm sorry,” Lanna whispered.

  Jason shook his head. “You always warned me that I was too idealistic.”

  “I wanted to believe you anyway,” Lanna said. She slowly trailed her hand along his cheek. “Do you think the one who attacked you was the only one?”

  “Not a chance,” Jason said. “He was too confident.”

  “Then....”

  Jason took a deep breath. “Prepare a press release, Lanna. Tell them that the Phone Company has finally developed faster-than-light travel, and that we will release it to the public as soon as the United Governments approves our patent.”

  Lanna nodded.

  “Perhaps we can salvage something from paradise,” Jason whispered.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Brandon Sanderson

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Short Story: MONEY IS NO OBJECT

  by Leslie What

  Leslie What lives in Oregon, but would like to move to Barcelona. Her Jack Russell terrier stalks her like they're in some sort of horror movie. She teaches writing at UCLA Extension and writes stories, essays, and novels. Her newest short story collection, Crazy Love, published in July 2008 by Wordcraft of Oregon, received a Publ
ishers Weekly starred review. Visit Whatworld at www.lesliewhat.net for news and silly pictures. Her latest tale for us reveals some of the problems a person can have if...

  Her sister had laughed when the will revealed Alison had inherited the magic wallet. “So,” she'd said. “You're rich. You pay for the funeral.”

  Alison had stared at Ellen, unable to ask why her older sister had given up the wallet without a fight.

  They'd rushed off to the celebration of life, where hundreds of people had gathered, most of whom Alison could have sworn she'd never met. Everyone was drunk from the whiskey punch. A man holding an empty Tupperware bowl complained about having to wait for lunch.

  The family was in the first group lining up for the buffet table: Alison and Jeff and their boys, Ellen and her husband. She worried there wasn't enough turkey to go around, so Alison chose roast beef. She watched her sister hoard two large frosted brownies between folded napkins. When Ellen transferred the brownies into her purse to make room for a turkey club, Alison saw the silver glint from their mother's iPod. “Hey,” she said. “I was supposed to get that.” They'd all agreed on this before her mother slipped into a coma. The iPod and the twelve dollar credit on iTunes were to go to Alison. Ellen was to get the frequent flier miles. They'd agreed. Alison turned to her husband Jeff and said, “It isn't fair.”

  “What did you say?” he asked. He was concentrating on a particularly skittish pickle. He speared at it four or five times before it stuck to his fork.

  If ever she needed Jeff to multitask it was now. “It's not fair,” she said. Their mother had specialized in pitting her daughters against one another.

  Her husband reached for her hand. “There are worse things than having enough money,” he said.

  Alison stared at him and wondered where he'd been these last twenty years, that he could say such a thing and mean it. The burden of the magic wallet had defined her mother. She spent her life worrying someone would steal it. She got stuck paying the tab every time someone invited her out for drinks. Friends and family depended on it, coveted it, resented it. But you couldn't just give it away because the wallet made you feel that without it, you were nothing. Emptying the wallet was a full-time job.