Asimov's SF, April-May 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “She's dead! Mother is dead! And Travis. They're dead! Oh, God, they're both dead! Keith, my mother, my brother! They're dead!”

  He held her as she wept, and he wept with her.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Kate Wilhelm

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Short Story: ANOTHER COUNTRY

  by Matthew Johnson

  Matthew Johnson's story “Public Safety” (Asimov's, 2007) will be reprinted in the 2008 edition of Fantasy: the Year's Best. Matthew's new story was inspired by multicultural Canada. He tells us “there's ample funding here for classes in what are called ‘heritage languages'—languages of the countries people emigrated from. This list includes modern and ancient Greek, which led me, a former Latin student, to wonder under what circumstances Heritage Latin might be offered."

  Another Country

  Geoff squinted at the figures emerging from the fissure, his period recognition chart at the ready. Not that he needed it, in this case: he was able to fix the new arrivals as soon as he saw their tunics and trousers—late-Empire Romanized Goths, probably fleeing Attila's invasion of lands their own ancestors had invaded a few generations before.

  “Te salutem do, amici,” he said slowly, holding his hands up and palm-outward. The light was fading now, and the four prefugees were looking around apprehensively. The reception room, built around the fissure that had first opened right downtown fifteen years before, had been designed to minimize culture shock, with no modern technology or materials visible.

  The fissures had consistency but no logic: prefugees from the Mongol invasions wound up in Seattle, Aztecs in Paris, Romans in Ottawa, and so on. The only thing that was known for sure was that they always brought people from places and times that were much worse than now, periods of tremendous chaos and danger; as a result, the people that came through were wary, and some of the first encounters had not ended well.

  “What is your name?” Geoff asked in slow, careful Latin.

  The prefugees—a bearded man, a woman with her blond hair in braids, and two young boys—regarded him cautiously. The man turned back to the woman, said something in a thickly Gothic-accented dialect Geoff couldn't follow. She nodded, keeping her eyes down, and gathered the two boys to her. “Odoricus Aemilianus,” the man said. “Where have we come?”

  “This is a safe place,” Geoff went on. “It is very different from the place you left, but you are welcome.”

  “How did we arrive here?” the man said, keeping himself between his family and Geoff.

  “Good fortune,” Geoff said. It was Welcome Services’ official answer, and as good a one as anyone could give. “Please—there are many things you have to know, before we can find you a new home. If you'll come with me, my comrades will get you started.”

  The man looked back over his shoulder, whether at his family or the vanished fissure Geoff didn't know. Finally he made a grunt of assent, jerked his head to order his wife and children forward.

  Geoff released the breath he had been half-holding. Ninety percent of what the official terminology called Delayed Integrations happened in the initial encounter. Now that that was over he could do the rest on autopilot, supervising the prefugees’ processing and initial billeting. When the fissures had first opened, the people that had come through had been seen as a tremendous opportunity, a goldmine for historians and anthropologists; now, in the thousands, they were just more immigrants to be settled and assimilated. This family would probably integrate all right, he thought: the boys looked young enough to pick up English without too much of an accent, and despite the wife's public deference to her husband Gothic women were typically more independent than their Roman counterparts.

  He was still thinking about them a few hours later, as he climbed the stairs of an apartment building in Vanier on a follow-up visit to a family he'd welcomed two years ago. More than anything else in modern society, it was the difference in relations between the sexes which prefugees found the most difficult. Women and girls mostly flourished, while men and boys—deprived of the pater familias status even the poorest free Roman male could expect within his family—did less well. At least these new arrivals, unlike most prefugees, still had their father.

  Knocking at the Columellae's door, Geoff wished they'd had the same advantage. He stepped back, smiled at the fish-eye. A few moments later the door opened inwards for a few centimeters before being stopped by the security chain. “Galfridius?” a female voice said from within.

  Geoff sighed. “Ave, Fulvia,” he said. “How are you?”

  The door closed briefly, opened again once Fulvia had unlatched the chain. She was a broad, buxom woman in her late forties, pure Roman stock from about five hundred years earlier than that afternoon's arrivals. Her black-and-white streaked hair was done up in a messy bun and she was wearing a simple blue house toga, accented with a long string of fake pearls. “Please, come in.”

  “Thank you.” The small apartment was spotless, as always, but the smell of a thousand meals’ worth of anchovies and olive oil—unrelieved by windows that didn't open and a range hood that didn't work—was overpowering. Two armless Ikea couches, in some spots worn through to the stuffing, were perpendicular to the TV, on which the lares sat in a neat pile. The set was tuned to the Latin-language community channel, a Plautus play with the sound off. Between the couches, facing the TV directly, sat an unused armchair wrapped in clear plastic. “How is work?”

  “Fine,” Fulvia said, brushing a stray hair out of her face. She waved him to the chair. “Someone a maid pretending was, and stealing, so ID cards now we have to get.”

  Geoff settled uncomfortably into the chair. “Are you going to miss work?”

  “No, I'm on my own time doing it. There's a bus I can take, the picture taken to get.”

  “Good.” Geoff accepted a cup of coffee, sipped it carefully. Few Romans ever acquired a taste for coffee, and Fulvia was no exception; she only made it when he came over, and had no idea how much to use, so that it was always either near-water or Turkish-style sludge. “Any other problems?”

  A painful look flickered across Fulvia's face before being replaced by a fixed smile. “No, no problems,” she said. “A little cake would you—would you like, a little cake?”

  Geoff shook his head. His friends in the community told him Fulvia was an excellent cook, well-known for her lentils with chestnuts, but it was his misfortune to always be served prefugees’ idea of what moderns ate—an idea in which plastic wrap and microwaves figured strongly. The penalty, he supposed, for being the poster boy for integration. “No, thank you.” He took a long sip from his coffee. “How is Attius?”

  Fulvia grimaced again, showing Geoff that he had guessed right. “In school he's doing well. In Heritage Latin he has top marks in his class.”

  “Good. Is he still in ESL?” He really ought to know that—prefugees’ language status was supposed to be kept updated in Welcome Services’ records—but since most of his workload had shifted from first encounters to follow-ups like these, there were simply too many to keep track of.

  “No, regular Anglish,” Fulvia said.

  “Is he making friends?”

  Fulvia glanced away. “Some.”

  “Different kinds of people, or just other Romans?”

  “I don't know,” she said, her voice quickening. “When they're here, they just go into his room and the counter use.”

  “The computer.”

  “Yes. And when I come in they talking stop.” She sat down, perching on the edge of the couch nearest to him. “The boys outside, on the walls they write, they into fights get. Maybe in his room he's safer.”

  “Probably. It can be dangerous out there, for a boy his age.”

  “He's so sensitive, and smart,” Fulvia said. “His father a quaestor was, and a poet, did I tell you that?”

  Geoff shook his head, though of course she had. “Would you like me to talk to Attius? Make sure he's fitting in okay?”


  She looked away, then nodded. “You're not too busy?”

  “This is my job, Fulvia,” he said. “And I'm happy to do it.”

  Fulvia held a handkerchief to her face, dabbed at her nose. “Thank you,” she said. She rose, vanished into the kitchen, returned a moment later carrying two plastic-wrapped Twinkies. “Here. So you don't away hungry go.”

  * * * *

  “Do not concern yourself, Geoffrey. This boy of yours is in no trouble.” Marcus Apicius was holding court at Mello's, the restaurant that was his in all but name. On the table in front of him sat a plate crowded with fat snails; painted on the cream-yellow wall behind were the words Hold back your quarrels, if you can. If not, go home.

  “He's Fulvia Columella's,” Geoff said. “Do you know the family?”

  Marcus popped a snail into his mouth with a tiny silver fork and chewed thoughtfully. “Maybe,” he said.

  Glancing up at the quote written on the wall, Geoff bit his tongue. “How do you know he's not in trouble, then?” he asked.

  “These Columellae, they're an old family, even in my time—a good family, yes? So he's not in trouble.”

  “That doesn't necessarily follow, you know that,” Geoff said. They had both been part of the earliest wave of arrivals, but Marcus remained every inch the old Roman. That was why Geoff was meeting with him: Marcus had always been the man Roman prefugees came to when they needed help of a kind Welcome Services couldn't provide, and he stayed in touch with the community in a way Geoff couldn't hope to.

  “But it does, Geoffrey,” Marcus said. “Tell me, what do you mean by ‘trouble'? Is it running around in a gang, playing tough?”

  “I don't know. Probably, yes.”

  “Then no, he's not in trouble.” He speared another snail, dropped it in his mouth and closed his eyes. “Geoffrey, you must have one of these. Do you know we feed them on milk for six days before cooking them? You have to lure the live snails out of the shell, fatten them up until they're too big to get back in.”

  Geoff shook his head; the strong smell of garum wafting out from the kitchen had taken away his appetite. “Listen, I just want you to ask around—”

  Marcus waved a hand—waving him quiet, Geoff thought, until a waiter appeared with another tray. “Geoffrey. I will do this if it makes you happy, but let me explain,” he said. The waiter uncovered the tray, revealing a plate ringed with what looked like a dozen perfectly oval white mice.

  “Fine,” Geoffrey said. “Tell me again how I don't understand the Roman mind. I was only born on a farm on the Tiber.”

  “And came here when you were, what? Ten? You're a modern, Geoffrey. You dress like one, sound like one, smell like one.” Marcus reached into the salt cellar, pinched and sprinkled across the plate. “'Trust nobody until you have eaten much salt with him,'” he said. “Cicero, of course.”

  “That's just what I'm saying—a lot of us fit in perfectly well. We're not all determined to relive the last days of Pompeii like you are.”

  “Ha—you say Pompeii like it was something. In my day it was a fishing village; there were a thousand like it. It was just lucky to get buried alive. But listen, Geoffrey, here is what I want to say. There are two types of Romans, and they are both missing something here. The first type is the everyday sort of man, the worker, and here he cannot work. We had the same problem in my time, of course, but back then we had laws against slaves taking too much of the jobs.”

  “We don't have slaves anymore,” Geoffrey said.

  Marcus waved expansively towards the kitchen. “What are you talking about? Look in there, see how many slaves there are.”

  Geoff frowned. “Marcus—if someone is keeping slaves—”

  “No—machines, that do a man's work. Robota, it means slave, you know this; and Capek, he too was a Slav, a slave by nature, as that sheep-fucker Aristotle said. When machines cook and wash dishes and do the work of a hundred, what is an ordinary man to do? He has no money to set himself in trade, so he gets himself in trouble for want of something to occupy him.”

  “Okay—assume you're right,” Geoff said, putting up his hands. “How do you know that's not happening to Fulvia's son?”

  “Because he is the other kind of Roman—the kind who is missing his manhood. The ordinary fellow is happy with a day's work for a day's pay, but a man of good family needs leisure, time to give over to a profession. He needs to do his civic duty, contribute to his city, but where is it now? Buried and paved over, infested with Cisalpine rabble.”

  “So is that what I should tell Fulvia? That Attius can't be in trouble because he's missing his manhood?”

  “Well, maybe not like that,” Marcus said, cocking an eyebrow. “Listen, Geoffrey, this boy—he's from a good family, he knows with his father gone he has responsibilities. He'll be okay.”

  Geoff sighed, picked up one of the egg-mice and put it in his mouth. His molars cracked down on something hard and a hot, bitter taste washed through him. “I knew you were putting me on with these,” he said, his eyes watering. “Nobody ever ate this, Roman or not.”

  “Well, not the eyes,” Marcus said. “Those are cloves. What are you, a barbarian?”

  * * * *

  Geoff was starting up his car when he saw a figure by the restaurant's back door, illuminated by the headlights. Geoff rolled down his window and called his name.

  Attius turned, looked at him and bolted for the street. Geoff fumbled with the handle to get out, but by the time he had the door open the boy was gone.

  Geoff stood in the parking lot, weighing Marcus’ words against what he had just seen. Of course, running wasn't always a sign of guilt, but it didn't look good. Still, Marcus was right about one thing—the idea of a kid like Attius running around with a gang, getting into fights, just felt wrong. He remembered Attius from his earlier visits to the Columellae: a serious kid, well enough integrated, small for his age but mature—not unlike Geoff himself had been. One of his success stories, he had always thought.

  The next afternoon Geoff drove to the high school Attius attended. It was a typical mid-sixties monstrosity, modified a dozen times in response to growing and shrinking enrollment; an added ring spurred off of the original square building, with portable classroom trailers clustered around the parking lot entrance. After checking in with the office, showing his ID and passing through the metal detector—this place had as much security as the Welcome Center—he climbed up to the third floor and started counting down classrooms to 326. He knocked at the door, saw the teacher within glance up from the overhead projector and throw him a look of annoyance.

  “Sorry,” Geoff said, holding up the call slip the office had given him. The class had erupted in chatter as soon as the teacher's attention was distracted, and he felt the weight of her gaze on him. “I need to see Attius Columella.”

  “They usually phone,” the teacher said, brushing her dark hair away from her face. Geoff shrugged, and she turned back to the class. “Attius, this man needs to see you.” Then, to Geoff: “Make sure he comes right back when he's done.”

  Geoff watched the class as Attius rose, and listened: most of the chatter was in barracks Latin, half the boys in the class wearing toga tops or Not Fallen T-shirts. Attius did not share in either look: instead he wore a short-sleeved red shirt over jeans, and his hair was cut in a modern style.

  “My name's Geoff—Galfridius,” Geoff said, closing the classroom door. “I've come to see your mother a few times, check on how you and she are doing. Do you remember me?”

  Attius nodded. “Is my mother all right?” he asked.

  “That's not what I'm here about,” Geoff said. He half-crouched, looked Attius in the eye. “Why did you run last night? When I saw you at Mello's?”

  “I didn't know that was you,” Attius said after too long of a pause. He glanced back at the classroom. “I thought it was some guys who were after me.”

  “Some guys,” Geoff said. “Anything you need to tell me about?”

  “No,�
�� Attius said quickly. “It was just—you know, these jerks...”

  “Uh-huh.” Geoff stood up to his full height. “You saw me before you ran. I called your name.”

  Looking away, Attius said “I thought you were someone else.”

  “Are you working for Marcus? Mister Apicius?”

  Attius said nothing.

  “It's important you tell me, Attius. If he's got you mixed up in something—”

  “It's not like that,” Attius said, scowling.

  “Then what's it like? It might not just be you in trouble here...”

  “What are they going to do? Deport us?” Attius said, looking up at him.

  Geoff took a breath. “Not every prefugee has it as good as you and your mother do—you go to school here, you know that. You could lose the subsidy on your apartment, your mother could lose her work permit...”

  “It's not like that,” Attius said after a long silence. “He's just—some of us want better, you know?”

  “You're a smart kid, Attius. You can go anywhere in this world if you just stay focused.”

  “Yeah, in this world. What good is that? I go to college, get a job, turn into a modern like you—what good does any of that do the ones we left behind?”

  Geoff sighed. It was a common enough attitude among the prefugees, especially the young boys: to succeed in the modern world was a betrayal of their own culture and people—better to spend your days drunk on the triclinium, blasting hex-hop on the stereo and dreaming of past glory. He was surprised to hear it from Attius, though. “So what were you doing at the restaurant?” he asked. “He sells you and your friends a little wine, you reminisce about way back in the day?”

  Attius looked at him for a moment, then laughed. “No, it's nothing like that,” he said, shaking his head. “He's going to take us home.”