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Jim Baen’s Universe Page 1

by Edited by Eric Flint




  Jim Baen’s Universe

  Edited by Eric Flint

  Vol. 1 Number 1, June 2006

  CONTENTS

  SF

  Chilling

  BOW SHOCK

  Pimpf

  What Wo­uld Sam Spa­de Do?

  Brieanna’s Con­s­tant

  Bob’s Ye­ti Prob­lem

  Slanted Jack

  Candy-Blossom

  The Dar­k­ness

  Fan­tasy

  The Cold Blac­k­s­mith

  Poga

  Build-a-Bear

  The Op­po­si­te of Po­meg­ra­na­tes

  'Ware the Sle­eper

  The Thi­ef of Sto­nes

  Clas­sic Sto­ri­es

  Light of Ot­her Days

  The Facts Con­cer­ning the Re­cent Car­ni­val of Cri­me in Con­nec­ti­cut

  Se­ri­als

  The An­ci­ent Ones

  Travails With Mom­ma

  Fish Story, Part 1

  In­t­ro­du­cing New Aut­hors

  Fancy Far­mer

  The Puz­zle of the Pe­reg­ri­na­ting Co­ach

  Astromonkeys

  Giving it 14%

  Local Boy Ma­kes Go­od

  Non Fiction

  Gods and Mon­s­ters In Hol­y­wo­od

  Back to the Mo­on!

  Columns

  Publisher’s Po­di­um

  The Edi­tor's Pa­ge

  Salvos Aga­inst Big Brot­her

  A SPE­ECH DE­LI­VE­RED IN THE HO­USE OF COM­MONS ON THE 5TH OF FEB­RU­ARY 1841

  A SPE­ECH DE­LI­VE­RED IN A COM­MIT­TEE OF THE HO­USE OF COM­MONS ON THE 6TH OF AP­RIL 1842.

  Singularity Watch

  The Gu­ten­berg Co­lumn

  June 1, 2006

  Table of Contents

  Science Fic­ti­on Sto­ri­es

  · Chil­ling by Alan De­an Fos­ter

  · Bow Shock by Gre­gory Ben­ford

  · Pimpf by Char­lie Stross

  · What Wo­uld Sam Spa­de Do? by Jo Wal­ton

  · Bri­e­an­na's Con­s­tant by Eric Wit­c­hey

  · Bob's Ye­ti Prob­lem by Law­ren­ce Per­son

  · Slan­ted Jack by Mark L. Van Na­me

  · Candy- Blossom by Da­ve Fre­er

  · The Dar­k­ness by Da­vid Dra­ke

  Fantasy Sto­ri­es

  · The Cold Blac­k­s­mith by Eli­za­beth Be­ar

  · Po­ga by John Bar­nes

  · Build- A-Bear by Ge­ne Wol­fe

  · The Op­po­si­te of Po­meg­ra­na­tes by Ma­ris­sa Lin­gen

  · ‘Wa­re the Sle­eper by Julie Czer­ne­da

  · The Thi­ef of Sto­nes by Sa­rah Zet­tel

  Classic

  · Light of Ot­her Days by Bob Shaw

  · The Facts Con­cer­ning The Re­cent Car­ni­val Of Cri­me In Con­nec­ti­cut by Mark Twa­in

  Serials - parts and parts

  · The An­ci­ent Ones Part 1 by Da­vid Brin

  · Tra­va­ils with Mom­ma by John Rin­go

  · Fish Story, Epi­so­de 1 by An­d­rew Den­nis, Eric Flint and Da­ve Fre­er

  Introducing: Sto­ri­es by new aut­hors

  · Fancy Far­mer by Pa­me­la Up­hoff

  · The Puz­zle of the Pe­reg­ri­na­ting Co­ach by Ge­or­ge Phil­li­es

  · As­t­ro­mon­keys! by Tony Fra­zi­er

  · Gi­ving it 14 Per­cent by Ani Fox

  · Lo­cal Boy Ma­kes Go­od by Ray Tab­ler

  NonFiction ar­tic­les

  · Gods and Mon­s­ters in Hol­lywo­od by Gre­gory Ben­ford

  · Back to the Mo­on by Tra­vis Tay­lor

  Columns

  · Why Die? by Jim Ba­en

  · The Edi­tor's Pa­ge by Eric Flint

  · Sal­vos Aga­inst Big Brot­her by Eric Flint

  · Sin­gu­la­rity Watch by Mark L. Van Na­me

  · The Gu­ten­berg Co­lumn by Mic­ha­el Hart

  Jim Ba­en's Uni­ver­se is cop­y­right 2006, Ba­en Pub­lis­hing En­ter­p­ri­ses.

  Individual sto­ri­es are cop­y­right 2006 by the­ir aut­hors.

  Science Fiction Stories

  Chilling

  Alan Dean Foster

  You stu­pid idi­ot, you’ve kil­led us!”

  Arik lo­oked over at his new wi­fe. “I lo­ve you too.”

  They sat on op­po­si­te si­des of the ca­ve. It was not much of a ca­ve. At its hig­hest the ce­iling ba­rely al­lo­wed him eno­ugh ro­om to stand, and it co­uld not ha­ve be­en mo­re than six or se­ven me­ters wi­de. But com­pa­red to the fro­zen, how­ling wil­der­ness out­si­de it might as well ha­ve be­en the Gar­den of Eden. Stran­ge fun­gal growths car­pe­ted the sur­fa­ce of the in­te­ri­or with a sub­du­ed ce­ru­le­an ra­di­an­ce whi­le co­iled flo­wer­less scrubs no hig­her than a man’s knee clus­te­red as clo­se to the bub­bling cen­t­ral po­ol as pos­sib­le. Twit­c­hing yel­low-brown ten­d­rils hung from the ce­iling, re­ac­hing to­ward the he­at. Whi­le in­di­vi­du­al spe­ci­mens oc­ca­si­onal­ly emit­ted a soft whis­t­le, wit­ho­ut pul­ling one free from its perch and ta­king it apart Arik was unab­le to tell if they we­re plant or ani­mal. Jen re­fu­sed to to­uch them.

  One of se­ve­ral ther­mal springs that dot­ted the tiny is­land on which the ca­ve was lo­ca­ted, the hot po­ol was what was ke­eping the two hu­mans as well as the exo­tic flo­ra ali­ve. Whi­le cer­ta­in spe­ci­ali­zed growths li­ke pi­ka-pi­na and the much lar­ger pi­ka-pe­dan flo­uris­hed out on the ba­re fro­zen oce­ans of Tran-ky-ky, ra­rer flo­ra li­ke the oran­ge fi­esin we­re res­t­ric­ted to lo­ca­les whe­re the ice world’s in­ter­nal he­at re­ac­hed the sur­fa­ce. The clo­ud of ste­am ge­ne­ra­ted by one such ther­mal vent was what had ini­ti­al­ly drawn him and Jen to the is­land. A sis­ter spring was al­so the ca­use of the­ir pre­sent pre­di­ca­ment.

  Sitting back aga­inst the wall of the ca­ve with his kne­es drawn up to his chest and his ba­re hands ex­ten­ded to­ward the li­fe-pre­ser­ving warmth of the bub­bling spring, Arik ref­lec­ted that the­ir pre­sent des­pe­ra­te si­tu­ati­on was not wholly his fa­ult. The Tran who had ren­ted them the small na­ti­ve ice­bo­at sho­uld ha­ve pro­vi­ded mo­re de­ta­iled ad­vi­ce abo­ut the pos­sib­le dan­gers to be en­co­un­te­red out on the fro­zen oce­an. Or per­haps he had, and Arik’s tran­s­la­tor had fa­iled to in­ter­p­ret ever­y­t­hing. The lat­ter was not an im­pos­si­bi­lity. Not on a world that had only re­cently ap­pli­ed for as­so­ci­ate Com­mon­we­alth mem­ber­s­hip, whe­re the sa­le and use of ad­van­ced tec­h­no­logy was still for­bid­den to the lo­cal sen­ti­ents, and whe­re along with so much el­se the study of the strongly gut­tu­ral na­ti­ve lan­gu­age was still in its in­fancy.

  Jen lo­oked ac­ross at him. Ha­ving slip­ped out of the che­ap day­su­it, she was sit­ting ne­arly na­ked next to the po­ol. She wo­uld gladly ha­ve im­mer­sed her­self if not for the fact that even at the ed­ges its sur­fa­ce tem­pe­ra­tu­re was clo­se to bo­iling.

  Some cho­ice they had, he mu­sed. Po­ach in the po­ol in­si­de the ca­ve or fre­eze in the air out­si­de it.

  “We’re not de­ad yet.” He tri­ed to re­as­su­re her.

  “Might as well be.” She was che­wing on a fin­ger­na­il. Be­ca­use of the hot spring the air in­si­de the ca­ve was warm eno­ugh for them to re­mo­ve the­ir pro­tec­ti­ve day­su­its. Out­si­de - out­si­de was anot­her mat­ter en­ti­rely. Anot­her world, in every sen­se of the word. Tran-ky-ky’s vast oce­ans we­re fro­zen so­lid to var­ying but usu­al­ly con­si­de­rab­le depths, e
x­po­sed earth crac­k­led and snap­ped be­ne­ath one’s bo­ots, a gust of wind sent sharp pa­in ra­cing thro­ugh ex­po­sed eyes, and on a mo­re in­ti­ma­te no­te the mo­is­tu­re in a per­son’s no­se ca­used the ha­irs to fre­eze al­most in­s­tantly on con­tact with the air.

  They had ar­ri­ved as pas­sen­gers on a wi­de-ran­ging in­ter­s­tel­lar tran­s­port, in­ten­ding to vi­sit this new out­post of the Com­mon­we­alth only for the co­up­le of days the KK-dri­ve craft spent off-lo­ading car­go. When it re­en­te­red spa­ce plus on its way to the next system, they wo­uld go with it. It was a jo­ur­ney as unor­t­ho­dox as it was costly. In­ter­s­tel­lar tra­vel was too ex­pen­si­ve and ti­me-con­su­ming to al­low pe­op­le to jo­ur­ney la­zily from system to system. Ci­ti­zens tra­ve­led from po­int to po­int with very de­fi­ni­te des­ti­na­ti­ons in mind.

  The at­y­pi­cal pos­t­wed­ding jo­ur­ney was a pre­sent from the­ir res­pec­ti­ve fa­mi­li­es, each of whom hap­pe­ned to be qu­ite we­althy. All the cre­dit in the Com­mon­we­alth, ho­we­ver, had not pre­ven­ted the new co­up­le’s ren­ted ice­bo­at from sin­king.

  How was he to ha­ve known that a sub­sur­fa­ce fu­ma­ro­le had mel­ted and we­ake­ned the ice clo­se to the is­land whe­re they had de­ci­ded to co­me as­ho­re? Or that an­y­t­hing cal­led a “bo­at” wo­uld promptly sink when ex­po­sed to open wa­ter? In ret­ros­pect, of co­ur­se, it all ma­de per­fect if dis­he­ar­te­ning sen­se. De­sig­ned to skim ac­ross the fro­zen sea on run­ners chi­se­led from so­lid mar­b­le­li­ke sto­ne, the craft had be­en bu­ilt to ska­te, not to flo­at. Why wo­uld an­yo­ne on Tran-ky-ky bu­ild so­met­hing ca­pab­le of flo­ating when the­re was no open wa­ter for it to flo­at upon? It was so­lid ice ever­y­w­he­re, so­lid ice all the ti­me. Even if the ma­te­ri­al of which the ice­bo­at had be­en fas­hi­oned had be­en suf­fi­ci­ently bu­oyant, the craft still wo­uld ha­ve be­en drag­ged down by the we­ight of its sto­ne run­ners.

  They had set out for the day trip from the out­post of Brass Mon­key. Lo­ca­ted not far north of the pla­ne­tary equ­ator, it was the he­ad­qu­ar­ters of the so­le hu­manx set­tle­ment on the pla­net. Jo­ur­ney far­t­her north, they had be­en told, and the cli­ma­te ma­de fun­c­ti­oning dif­fi­cult for even tho­se hu­mans equ­ip­ped with mo­dern ar­c­tic ge­ar. Far to the east lay the enor­mo­us vol­ca­no who­se Tran na­me tran­s­la­ted as The-Pla­ce-Whe­re-the-Ear­th’s-Blo­od-Burns. Ac­cor­ding to the small but ste­adily ex­pan­ding in­for­ma­ti­on fi­le on Tran-ky-ky, bet­we­en the vol­ca­no and the mo­un­ta­ino­us lands of Ar­su­dun whe­re Brass Mon­key was lo­ca­ted lay a mul­ti­tu­de of small is­lands. So­me of the­se we­re ho­me to dis­tin­c­ti­ve bi­olo­gi­cal en­vi­ron­ments abo­un­ding with en­de­mic spe­ci­es, many of which had yet to be iden­ti­fi­ed and sci­en­ti­fi­cal­ly des­c­ri­bed. The is­land on which they cur­rently fo­und them­sel­ves ma­ro­oned was one such out­post of uni­que in­di­ge­no­us bi­olo­gi­cal di­ver­sity.

  He es­ti­ma­ted that it was just past no­on lo­cal ti­me. He had to es­ti­ma­te be­ca­use the­ir com­mu­ni­ca­tors had go­ne down with the ice­bo­at. He cho­se not to try to gu­ess the tem­pe­ra­tu­re out­si­de the ca­ve. When they had ar­ri­ved at the is­land his com­mu­ni­ca­tor had dec­la­red that the tem­pe­ra­tu­re was mi­nus twen­ty-one cen­tig­ra­de with a wind chill do­ub­le, pos­sibly trip­le that. Cold eno­ugh to kill. To­night it wo­uld drop to that po­int. To­mor­row mor­ning - to­mor­row it might not mat­ter. Li­ke ever­y­t­hing el­se they had bro­ught with them, the­ir self-he­ating me­als had go­ne down with the ice­bo­at. Ha­ving be­en ra­ised in a pri­vi­le­ged fa­mily whe­re only the qu­ality and ne­ver the qu­an­tity of the fo­od he had eaten had ever be­en in qu­es­ti­on he had no idea how long a per­son co­uld sur­vi­ve sans no­uris­h­ment. Even in the se­mip­ro­tec­ted en­vi­ron­ment of the ca­ve.

  Of co­ur­se, if the spring that sup­pli­ed the hot po­ol tur­ned out to be in­con­sis­tent and cho­se to stop bub­bling for aw­hi­le, the he­at it pro­vi­ded wo­uld be qu­ickly suc­ked from the small ca­vern. They wo­uld die swiftly and wit­ho­ut ha­ving to worry abo­ut fo­od.

  “Visit so­me of the Com­mon­we­alth’s most exo­tic lo­ca­ti­ons be­fo­re we set­tle down on Earth, you sa­id. Ex­pe­ri­en­ce the hard-to-see worlds whi­le we’re still yo­ung eno­ugh to do so in com­fort, you sa­id.”

  Muttering un­der her bre­ath, Jen mo­ved her fe­et clo­ser to the bub­bling po­ol. She wis­hed she co­uld ease her legs in­to the bo­iling wa­ter. Arik felt it was too risky. Re­luc­tantly, she ag­re­ed with him. If the tem­pe­ra­tu­re ro­se sud­denly she ran a re­al risk of be­ing scal­ded. She had to set­tle for sco­oping her hands qu­ickly in and out of the wa­ter and splas­hing her fa­ce and body.

  “I didn’t he­ar any vi­olent obj­ec­ti­ons from you when the trip was be­ing or­ga­ni­zed,” he shot back.

  “I had this, in ret­ros­pect, un­re­aso­nab­le ex­pec­ta­ti­on that you might know what you we­re do­ing.” One hand ges­tu­red in the di­rec­ti­on of the ca­ve ope­ning. Out­si­de, the wind sang sub­ze­ro. “You co­uld at le­ast ha­ve had the sen­se to bring along our ge­ar pack when we got off the bo­at.”

  Said ge­ar pack, which held all the­ir fo­od, drinks, che­mi­cal re­ac­ti­on spa­ce he­ater, and most im­por­tant of all any me­ans of com­mu­ni­ca­ting with ci­vi­li­za­ti­on, had go­ne down with the ice­bo­at when it had fal­len thro­ugh the thin pa­ne of ice that had be­en un­der­mi­ned by the hid­den fu­ma­ro­le. At le­ast they had wa­ter, tho­ugh they da­red not drink di­rectly from the ef­fer­ves­cent po­ol. It re­eked of sul­fur and ot­her mi­ne­rals. For all they knew, it was rich in dis­sol­ved ar­se­nic. So they grab­bed snow from out­si­de the ca­ve en­t­ran­ce and held it in the­ir hands just abo­ve the hot mi­ne­ral wa­ter un­til it mel­ted.

  They did not even ha­ve a cup, he ref­lec­ted mo­ro­sely.

  “I didn’t see you car­rying an­y­t­hing off the bo­at when we ca­me as­ho­re,” he re­min­ded her ac­cu­singly.

  “I didn’t think we’d be he­re mo­re than ten or fif­te­en mi­nu­tes,” she co­un­te­red un­hap­pily. “Half an ho­ur at most.”

  He saw no po­int in ar­gu­ing fur­t­her. Mu­tu­al ac­cu­sa­ti­ons ac­com­p­lis­hed not­hing. Half an ho­ur ma­xi­mum. That had be­en the plan. It was no one’s fa­ult, cer­ta­inly not his, that the sub­he­ated ice had gi­ven way be­ne­ath the mo­dest we­ight of the­ir ice­bo­at. If they had be­en tra­ve­ling air­bor­ne, now, in a pro­per skim­mer… But the use of such ad­van­ced tec­h­no­logy out­si­de the bo­un­da­ri­es of the sta­ti­on was for­bid­den.

  He’d had no tro­ub­le na­vi­ga­ting the sim­p­le sin­g­le-sa­il ice­bo­at. An ex­pe­ri­en­ced open-wa­ter sa­ilor, he had fo­und the na­ti­ve rig­ging not so very dif­fe­rent from that of a small sa­iling ves­sel back ho­me. The na­ti­ve Tran had be­en using mul­tip­le per­mu­ta­ti­ons of such craft for cen­tu­ri­es. He and Jen had even had the op­por­tu­nity to ta­ke a to­ur of its most re­cent ela­bo­ra­ti­on, the mas­si­ve ice­rig­ger Slan­der­s­c­ree that had be­en ti­ed up in the har­bor.

  “Someone will find us,” he as­su­red her mo­re gently. “We we­re sup­po­sed to ha­ve be­en back la­te yes­ter­day af­ter­no­on. The na­ti­ve who ren­ted us the ice­bo­at will ha­ve in­for­med the pro­per aut­ho­ri­ti­es.”

  Using spre­ad fin­gers, she brus­hed out her sho­ul­der-length blon­de ha­ir. Rich and be­a­uti­ful, he tho­ught as he lo­oked at her. If so­me­one did not find them to­day, by to­mor­row she might be rich and de­ad. She wo­uld cer­ta­inly ma­ke the mo­re at­trac­ti­ve cor­p­se of the two.

  “It’s one
thing for the pe­op­le at the sta­ti­on to be in­for­med that we’re mis­sing,” she mut­te­red un­hap­pily. “It’s anot­her for so­me­one to find us.”

  Rising, he wal­ked aro­und the small po­ol and sat down clo­se to her. Her an­ger had mo­de­ra­ted suf­fi­ci­ently so that this ti­me she did not obj­ect. “Emer­gency po­si­ti­on lo­ca­tors are de­sig­ned to ke­ep ope­ra­ting un­der se­ve­re con­di­ti­ons. Even sub­mer­ged in ice wa­ter it co­uld still be fun­c­ti­oning.”

  “Unless harsh che­mi­cals from the hot vent cor­ro­ded it as so­on as it sank.”

  Now why did she ha­ve to go and po­int that out, he as­ked him­self? If the­ir per­so­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tors and the lo­ca­tor that had be­en on the ice­bo­at had fa­iled, then no one wo­uld know whe­re they we­re. Whi­le they had not tra­ve­led all that many ki­lo­me­ters from Brass Mon­key, they had not sa­iled in a stra­ight li­ne. As to­urists, they had ta­ken the­ir ti­me and wan­de­red aro­und. They wo­uld be dif­fi­cult to track even if the ori­gi­nal an­g­le of the­ir de­par­tu­re had be­en ob­ser­ved and no­ted.

  Unlike Jen, he had sta­yed dres­sed. Lo­oking down, he chec­ked the we­at­her se­als at wrists and an­k­les. The day­su­it was de­sig­ned to ke­ep an in­di­vi­du­al com­for­tab­le whi­le out­si­de even in Tran-ky-ky’s cli­ma­te. But the che­mi­cals in the fab­ric that com­bi­ned to ge­ne­ra­te he­at when the su­it was put on we­re in­ten­ded to last no mo­re than a co­up­le of days. In con­t­rast, a fully po­we­red cold cli­ma­te sur­vi­val su­it of the type worn by the sci­en­tists at the out­post wo­uld use a com­bi­na­ti­on of so­lar, che­mi­cal, cell, and the body’s own in­ter­nal he­at to ke­ep a tra­ve­ler warm in­de­fi­ni­tely.

 

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