Asimov's SF, October-November 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  * * * *

  Daniel woke out of fitful sleep. His nose was completely plugged, and his eyes felt gritty. When he tried to sit up, Mo was right there, practically smothering his face.

  “Gah.” Daniel pushed the cat roughly away, off the bed. It landed solidly on all fours. “Why don't you go take a shit somewhere,” Daniel said.

  Later, after he'd splashed cold water on his face and woken up sufficiently, he felt bad. He called Mo but the cat didn't appear. There was plenty of junk in the apartment, plenty of hidey places.

  “Come on, Mo.”

  He began to panic. He searched more vigorously, shoving boxes aside, crawling on hands and knees to peer behind bookcases, kitchen appliances, under furniture. Finally he gave up. Standing in the bathroom, hugging himself against the cold damp, he said, in a voice choked with tears: “Goddamn it, Mo. Fuck you, then. Who needs you.”

  * * * *

  Two lightbulbs burned out, one in the kitchen and one in the hall. He'd kept every light burning continuously and had no replacements. The apartment became gloomy. Daniel dreaded the dark. He stayed in bed, watching TV. He was always cold and he huddled under the covers, a scrofulous skin-and-bone man.

  The television reception became worse. Ghosts overlapping ghosts, overlapping ghosts, and everybody with a mouthful of static. Daniel felt sick with isolation. But he didn't think about Nancy or anybody else, particularly. He was long past thinking about Frankie, for instance. Or his parents. But the cat was a fresh wound. He missed Mojo, the uncomplicated companionship.

  * * * *

  Dampness seeped through the walls. The ceiling was fuzzed with mold. The plaster appeared soft, mealy. Daniel was almost not there. He stared at the Andy Griffith Show. Endless television buoyed him on a sea of alpha waves.

  A lightbulb directly above him burned out with a thin glassy pop. Daniel stiffened.

  The Sleeve beckoned. A slaughterhouse draft breathed through his covers, shivering him. It was time. His isolated heart had extended an invitation to the vampire. He threw the covers back and swung his feet to the floor, pulled on a pair of pants and cinched the belt to the last notch to keep them from sliding off his skinny hips.

  Daniel started down the hall, fatalistically drawn to the Sleeve. Wind whumped the loose kitchen window. He glanced over. Mo was out there in the blowing rain, clinging pathetically to a branch, his fur matted and streaming. Daniel experienced a pang of guilt and deep yearning loneliness.

  And then stopped.

  Because it was impossible for Mo to be out there in the rain. Flat impossible. All the windows were shut tight and the door firmly closed and locked.

  That was Nancy's cat.

  And the illusion began to collapse around him.

  The light dimmed, flickered. The familiar clutter vanished, replaced by stark emptiness, brown walls, broken lathe and plaster gritty underfoot. In the kitchen an ancient electric stove was pulled away from the wall, the front gaping like an idiot mouth. He'd been alone all this time. He'd conjured Frankie up out of memory and imagination and desperation.

  They mess with your mind.

  And his mind messed back. He blundered backward down the hall. Glancing into the bathroom, he caught his haggard reflection in the cracked and spotted mirror—the face that talked to him. He backed up to the apartment door, cranked the knob behind him, pulled it open and fell into the hall. Nancy's cat. And Frankie was maryslamb, that dumb phrase she used to type about the web of human connection, referring to the net. Daniel rolled onto his knees, looked up. The hallway was a ruin. Light fixtures dangled by wires from the ceiling. An overlapping occurred. The broken window at the end of the hall was momentarily restored, then crashed out and haphazardly boarded over, then restored.

  He staggered to his feet, fighting dark/light visions, flung open the door to the rear, outside stairs. He staggered down to the alley behind the building. Rain pounded deafeningly on the sheet metal lids of the garbage dumpsters. A dark brick ruin loomed over him. Swinging drunkenly around the side of the building, he saw Mojo huddled at the base of the tree, the rain having beaten him to a yellow rag of matted fur. Not Mo. Fritz. That was Nancy's cat: Fritz. Frankie (maryslamb) had a cat named Mo but he never saw it, because he never saw her. They had messed with his mind, and his mind had fought back, conjuring companions, unraveling.

  Whatever its name was, the cat reacted to the sight of Daniel, darting around to the front of the apartment building.

  There is no fucking cat, Daniel thought wildly.

  He started to follow Mo anyway but made it only as far as the tree. He fell against it, the rough bark digging into his cheek. The rain was drowning him. He thought of his good bed, the covers pulled up, the television soothing with the familiar ghosts of his past. Up there is where he belonged. He raised his head. On the second floor a dim figure stepped back from the window.

  Follow the cat.

  He lurched away from the tree, came around the front of the building. Mo/Fritz was gone. Beyond the dark veil of rain a vague, muted light persisted. Daniel stepped toward the light ... and encountered a fence. Chain-link. Summoning reserves of strength he hoisted himself up and over, ripping his shirt on a sharp twist of metal. He fell to the other side, rolled and stood up, and first the rain and then even the sound of rain fell away. He held his hand up, palm outward against the brilliant August sun. Time dilation, he thought, remembering some science fiction movie. A sign attached to the fence announced the building's future demolition. It wasn't his building. Little wet paw prints tracked away on the white sidewalk. Daniel began to follow them, bare feet slapping the hot paving. And then the prints vanished before his eyes, and his clothes were dry, and he was just a raggedy man staggering along, voices mumbling in his head.

  * * * *

  He lived on First Avenue. His home was a broken down cardboard box that had once held a forty-six-inch plasma television set. He sat on the box and waited for people to drop coins in the old Starbucks cup. A certain number of passersby did so, and they were his tenuous web of human connection. Most people ignored him, though. And even those who paused, because he looked as though he had once been a normal person, a nice man, a down on his luck man, were eventually repelled when he told them about his cat and the saucer people.

  “Thank you, thank you,” he said, when coins rattled into his little cup. “I have a cat to feed, you know.”

  There was no cat. Daniel knew he was crazy, and he wished someone would lead him back to his senses.

  * * * *

  Twilight was upon the world, and he was afraid. He dragged his cardboard into the recessed doorway of an Army-Navy surplus store. Nights were bad. Wherever he huddled he was alone and could feel the slaughterhouse draft, the opening of the Sleeve, the dreadful invitation formulating in his mind.

  “Dan Porter, is that you?”

  Daniel looked up. A tall, wide man in a sport coat a size too small stood above him. He had a potato nose.

  “Jimmy Bair,” Daniel said.

  Bair crouched beside him. “My God. Flynn told me he saw you. I told him he was out of his fucking mind. Look at you.”

  “You were right,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah? What about?”

  “The alien satellites and their invisible Hate Rays, for one thing. Only they're Lonely rays, too. Jesus Christ, Jimmy, they're ruining the world. They're replacing us.”

  Jimmy Bair nodded but he looked sad.

  “Sure, and don't I know it,” he said.

  “You're the one who warned me.”

  “Yeah.”

  Jimmy reached out and touched Daniel's hand. Daniel pulled the hand away.

  “I—I don't like to be touched,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “It's part of it. They mess with our minds. They want us to be isolated, so we'll go and they can take over.”

  “If you say so, Danny.”

  Tears welled up in Daniel's eyes. None of it was true. He wanted to get better. “Tha
nk God you're here, Jimmy. You don't really believe it all, do you?”

  “I do.” Jimmy Bair smiled. Then he poked at Daniel with his fingers, not touching him, but almost touching him, and when Daniel cowered back, whimpering, Jimmy Bair's smile got wider.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Jack Skillingstead

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Poetry: A CRISIS OF FOREST

  by Sandra Lindow

  In the forest center at the world's center

  in a bower of flowers Stagman sleeps,

  spirit of the wild green, nature's protector.

  —

  For eons brown hands nurtured spring beauty,

  writ wild green sermons Jack Pulpit preached

  in the forest center at the world's center.

  —

  He called to the wolves, ran with the deer,

  sang windsongs to souls of fallen fledglings,

  protector of the wild green spirit of nature.

  —

  On the edge of the forest, asphalt creeps.

  Traffic exhaust filters through sleep

  in the forest center at the world's center.

  —

  His antlers once spanned centuries turning;

  In his circle of oaks, Stagman stirs restlessly,

  protector of the wild, green spirit of nature.

  —

  Bulldozers roar; chainsaws shriek.

  Beneath falling oak leaves, Stagman wakes

  in the forest center at the world's center.

  —

  His flowery bower's razed for McNuggold's;

  Stagman escapes, his antlers nicked,

  spirit's wild green, nature's protector.

  —

  Beneath golden arches, salads are crisp

  but fries turn green; milkshakes go fey

  in the forest center at the world's center.

  —

  Customers shed clothes, sex steams the aisles.

  Behind empty cash drawers, Stagman smiles—

  spirit's wild greening, nature's protector;

  forests returning center the world.

  —Sandra Lindow

  Copyright (c) 2008 Sandra Lindow

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Novella: TRUTH

  by Robert Reed

  The author tells us “'Truth’ is a companion piece to ‘Veritas’ (July 2002). When I started working on it, I assumed that it would neatly parallel the first story's plot—a small group of invaders from the future hellbent on conquering a more primitive world—but that vision was soon thrown under the bus. And, as so often happens when I am enjoying a project, stuff happens that is as surprising to me as I hope it is to my audience. This is also the first story I've written while linked to Wikipedia. My research there and elsewhere on the Internet has probably been noticed by government software."

  * * * *

  1

  Three days later, I still hadn't met our prisoner. But I had invested nearly sixty hours watching what seemed to be a gentle life that revolved around old novels and classic movies. I took note of his postures and motions, and I tried gauging his reactions to what he was seeing on the page and screen. But most interesting to me were those occasional moments when he did nothing but stare off in some empty direction. I wouldn't let myself guess what he was thinking. But the black eyes would open wide, and the handsome features would quickly change their expression. Smiles lasted longer than frowns, I noticed. I saw flashes of pity and scorn, mild embarrassment and tight-lipped defiance. A few staff members volunteered opinions about the prisoner's mind. He was reflecting on his childhood, some offered. Others claimed he was gazing into our shared past or the looming future. But what I focused on was an appealing and graceful face that moved effortlessly between emotions—the well-honed tools of the consummate actor.

  Twice each day, the prisoner was ushered into a long exercise yard built specifically for him. His gait was always relaxed, long arms swinging with a metronome's precision and the elegant hands holding five-pound weights, shaped like dog bones and covered with soft red rubber. I thought of an aging fashion model marching on the runway, except he lacked a model's wasted prettiness or the vacuous gaze. He was endlessly pleasant to whichever guard was standing at the locked door. I paid close attention to his attempts at conversation, his words less important than his charming tone and the effortless, beguiling smiles. Most of the staff was under orders to never speak with the man, which made for intriguing games of will. Somehow he had learned each guard's first name, and he wasn't shy about using what he knew. “How's this day of ours, Jim?” he might ask. “Is it the best day ever? Or is just me who thinks this way? Feel the sunshine. Listen to these birds singing. Doesn't this kind of morning make you happy to your bones, Jim?”

  There was no sun underground, and there were no birds to hear. But after twelve years and five months of captivity, one man seemed to be absolutely thriving.

  I watched the five daily prayers, the salat. But I didn't intrude when the prisoner used the bathroom or shower. (Let others record what he washed and wiped. I could check the database later, if I found reason.) While he slept, I sipped coffee and kept passing tabs on his snoring and the busy dreaming brain. Delicate instruments buried inside his Tempur-pedic mattress tried to convince me that they provided a window into that unknowable soul. But there were no insights, of course. That's why those nights were opportune times to pick my way through an endless array of summaries and reports, clinical data and highly intelligent, utterly useless speculation.

  A favorite teacher once told me that our bodies are epics full of treachery and important residues. That's why I turned again and again to the medical data. Samples of the prisoner's fluids and flesh and his thick black hair had been digested and analyzed by a laboratory built for no other purpose. Three thousand years of medical science struggling to turn meat and bone into a narrative that I could understand. But in most cases, my subject's DNA was remarkably unremarkable—save for a few dozen novel genes tucked into the first and fifth and nineteenth chromosomes, that is. The dental evidence was unusual, but not remarkably so. The first x-rays had revealed an old break in the right wrist that never healed properly. Later, more intrusive examinations had found an assortment of microscopic features that might mean much, unless they were meant to mislead. Only a handful of qualified experts had been allowed to examine that body in full; yet even those few voices managed to produce a chorus of contradictory opinions about the man's nature and origins. Was our prisoner telling the truth about his birth and life? And if not, from where did he come and what could he possibly represent?

  Of course those medical masters were shown only a nameless patient and a carefully trimmed, strategically incomplete biography.

  In a dozen years, only nine people had been given full access to every transcript, test result, and digital image. I was one of the nine, or so I had been promised. One can never feel too certain about a government's confidences, particularly when it involves its deepest, most cherished secret.

  The prisoner was known as Lemonade-7.

  That designation was entirely random. But the copious records showed that yes, he was given that drink once, and after two sips he said, “Too sour,” and ordered that it was never to be brought to him again.

  “Ramiro” was the name he went by. And for reasons that might or might not be significant, he had never offered any surname.

  “So what about Ramiro?” Jefferson asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When will you actually get to work on him?”

  “That's what I'm doing,” I replied.

  Jefferson was the prison's CIA administrator. This had been his post from the beginning, which was remarkable. In any normal operation, he would have been replaced by a sequence of ambitious, usually younger types. New guards and fresh staff would have come and spent their allotted time and then gone away again. But that would have swol
len the pool of individuals who knew too much about matters that didn't exist, and what the public had never suspected would have soon leaked out into the world.

  “I realize you're doing work,” Jefferson said. “But are you ever going to talk to Ramiro?”

  “Actually, I'm speaking to him now.”

  Jefferson was a short, squat fellow with thinning brown hair and a close-cut beard that turned to snow years ago. His files gave the portrait of an officer who had been a success at every stage of his professional life. Running this prison was an enormous responsibility, but until last week, he seemed to be in complete control. Then events took a bad, unexpected turn, and maybe more than one turn, and the stress showed in his impatient voice and the irritability that seeped out in conversation and during his own prolonged silences.

  Jefferson glared at me, then looked back at the monitors.

  “Okay,” he whispered. “You're speaking to him now.”

  “In my head,” I said. Looking at Jefferson, I used my most ingratiating smile. “I'm practicing. Before I actually go in there, I want to feel ready.”

  “You've had five days to prepare,” he reminded me.

  Circumstances put a timetable on everything. Two days had been allotted to a full briefing, and then I was brought here, and for three days I had enjoyed the freedoms and pressures of this ultra-secure compound.

  “Collins went straight in,” said Jefferson.

  Collins was a certified legend in my little business.

  “Right into Ramiro's cell and started talking with him.” That was twelve years ago, but Jefferson still had to admire what my colleague had accomplished.

  “He also stopped the torture,” I mentioned.

  Jefferson shook his head. “He liked claiming that, I know. But everything about the interrogation was my call. I'm the one who put an end to the cold rooms and sleep deprivation.”

  I offered a less-than-convinced nod.

  “And by the way,” he continued, “I was responsible for bringing Collins in from the Bureau.”