Analog SFF, May 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “And what could I do with the result if I did succeed? It would leave most of my fans bewildered. Goldie would have a heart attack if she knew I was doing this.”

  Shinichi looked at Jose. “We are good at keeping secrets.”

  “How much time do we have?” Jose asked.

  “I am up for the next two months, then asleep for three months. A month after that, Peter will be home.”

  “Six months,” Jose said, “but only three with you. We must get to work.”

  * * * *

  December 29, 2062

  “I need a favor,” Peter said. “A couple of favors, actually.”

  Dr. Beard frowned. “There is little that I can do for you. You were warned repeatedly that two hours of intense exercise every day were required to maintain minimal fitness levels, and that three or four hours were preferable for anyone wanting to minimize difficulties on returning to Earth.

  “On the way out, your discipline was exemplary.” This was said in the tone of a disappointed teacher. “While in the Saturnian system, however, not only did I have to put you on report repeatedly for falling below the two hour minimum, but much of the time you were in free fall on your collecting expeditions. Under such conditions, muscle atrophy and bone loss were inevitable.

  “Realizing this two weeks ago, and also realizing that we would soon be back home, you then did one of the few things that could have made things worse. You began to overexercise and pulled a hamstring.”

  Peter grimaced. There was nothing to say in his defense because everything Beard said was true. While in orbit about Saturn, he had wanted to use every waking moment either studying Enceladans in their natural habitat or analyzing their remains in the Roc. There simply had not been enough hours in the day. The trip home should have given him plenty of time for the lab work, but then he had to deal with hibernation every three months.

  “All very stupid of me,” Peter agreed. “Tomorrow we enter Earth orbit. We are supposed to undergo extensive medical checks, taking up to a week, before being allowed to shuttle to the surface. The problem is, the day after tomorrow, a friend of mine will be premiering a composition for voice and jazz orchestra. I want to surprise her by being there. I need you to help me do that.”

  Beard stared at him. Peter stared back patiently.

  “She is very beautiful,” Beard said unexpectedly. “Was that, with her other qualities, worth throwing away your career?”

  “I threw away nothing,” Peter said. “My career seems pretty much assured.”

  “Now, yes,” Beard said. “But when you ... made a certain enemy, that was not the case. Will you answer my question?”

  “What? Oh yes, absolutely.”

  Beard smiled. The effect was almost shocking, like morning sunlight illuminating the depths of a cave. “I will have to pull strings with my colleagues in HEO Medical. But yes, I think I can help you. And there is one specific procedure you will need.”

  “Ah, yes,” Peter said.

  * * * *

  The cab set down gently on the Kennedy Center's newly refurbished landing pad.

  “You may debark now,” the cab told Peter. “Please indicate if you need extra assistance.” Cab sensors had somehow registered the exo-skeleton with which Beard had fitted him, though it was mostly concealed beneath his recreation suit, and decided he was an injured war veteran.

  “I'm fine, thank you.” And, indeed, the almost silent motors in the exoskeleton augmented his muscles sufficiently for him to swing out of the cab, stand on the tarmac, and walk with something like his normal stride toward the roof entryway. He stopped as he reached it and turned to survey the Potomac below and the city beyond it. The January air was crisp. Now and then, snowflakes stung his cheeks. If the front came through as expected, he would have to take ground transportation back to his apartment. He inhaled deeply, savoring dozens of subtle scents he had forgotten while on the Roc. Then he turned and took the escalator down to the box office.

  He had been hoping to slip into the audience unrecognized, but his luck ran out as he picked up his ticket. The face of the girl handing to it to him lit up with astonishment.

  “Dr. Frondelli! I saw the name but told myself it couldn't be you. The crew isn't due down for a week.”

  “This is a surprise for Miss Lamont,” Peter said, “or at least it was supposed to be. I see that I'm already late.”

  “Just by a few minutes,” the girl said. “Don't worry. I'll get you a chair backstage.

  “Oh, I can't wait to tell my boyfriend. This is all so romantic, and I get to be here at the end.”

  “That is not why we did it,” Peter said, a bit more stiffly than he intended.

  “I know,” the girl said solemnly. “That's what makes it all so sweet.”

  * * * *

  Peter sank gratefully into the chair. Despite padding, the exoskeleton was chafing in spots. Beard had programmed it to assist him, but not to do all the work. Making Peter provide a proportion of the muscle power that increased every day would make him stronger and eventually complete his adjustment to one gee. Right now, it made him exhausted.

  He sat in darkness, the only light being that which spilled over from the stage. Standing where she was, Angee would not be able to see beyond the first two rows. It was one reason she preferred playing clubs. There you could see your audience, make contact with them, feel the electricity of a good performance build. Here she would be half dazzled by the footlights.

  Peter stared at her, wondering if she looked different than the last time he had seen her. Happier, certainly. Older? Hard to say. For all the time they had spent in hibernation, it had still been five years.

  Maybe there was just additional confidence, a deeper maturity. He could hardly imagine that the woman he had known when he left would have performed, much less composed, the work unfolding before him. As much as they had stayed in contact through e-mail, it would take some time until they really knew each other again. If they had ever really known each other in the first place.

  There was a screen behind her, just barely visible from this angle. Dots winked into being, extended into lines that curved, then connected into a series of semi-abstracts ... a fish, jumping from the waves, morphing into a bird, surrounded by stars, a man (floating in free fall?), an Enceladan, then the two of them revolving in a microgravity pas de deux, until they came together and merged....

  * * * *

  Warm lips pressing his. The trace of a scent that had once been so familiar and which he had missed for so long. Strands of hair brushing across his forehead so lightly that they almost tickled. A sigh.

  “You fall asleep during my most important performance. I should feel insulted. I suppose I'm lucky you're not a critic.”

  Peter opened his eyes. Angee's smile filled the world. “My apologies. It has been a tough ... five years.”

  Angee's eyes dropped and saw the exo-skeleton poking out from a sleeve. Her expression sobered. “Yes, it has. Sometimes, when I slept, I would dream of you and cry when I woke. Kiss me again, so I can feel how good it is to be awake.”

  Copyright © 2009 Robert R. Chase

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Reader's Department: GUEST REFERENCE LIBRARY

  by Don D'Ammassa

  The Last Theorem, Arthur C. Clarke & Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, $27, 299 pp. (ISBN 978-0-345-47021-8)

  Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams, Night Shade, $24.95, 265 pp. (ISBN 978-1-59780-125-6

  The January Dancer by Michael Flynn, Tor, $24.95, 350 pp. (ISBN 978-0-7653-1817-6)

  When Duty Calls by William C. Dietz, Ace, 24.95, 356 pp. (ISBN 978-0-441-01632-7)

  Quofum by Alan Dean Foster, Del Rey, $25.00, 286 pp. (ISBN 978-0-345-48507-6)

  The Quiet War by Paul J. McAuley, Gollancz, (British pounds) 18.99, 462 pp. (ISBN 978-0-575-07933-5)

  * * * *

  Like any other living thing, the science fiction field is constantly changing. Popular themes and pr
eoccupations from one decade fall out of favor in the next, perhaps to return a generation later. Alien invasions, telepathy, and robot fiction have become novelties in recent years, but space opera and first contact stories are enjoying fresh popularity. One of the classic genre novels of the 1950s was Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke, in which the human race is transformed by its encounter with a greater galactic civilization. The Last Theorem—a posthumous collaboration with Frederik Pohl, an author of equally memorable work—resurrects and reworks that theme. The passage of half a century has left its mark, however, not just on the authors but also on the field itself. During the 1950s, science fiction was primarily focused on macro issues. Humanity would be confronted by some event—a new scientific discovery, an unprecedented disaster, contact with another intelligence—and the author described its impact on our world as a whole. That focus has changed to the micro in recent years and The Last Theorem focuses primarily on the adult life of one individual who lives through a period of astonishing revelations and changes.

  That man is Ranjit Subramanian, whom we first see as a Sri Lankan college student obsessed with proving Fermat's last theorem. Dissatisfied with a complex, theoretical proof provided by a computer analysis during the 1990s, Ranjit is determined to discover Fermat's proof, which must have been much simpler. Ranjit lives in our near future, a future in which brushfire wars have become even more prevalent than they are today despite hints of growing cooperation among the three major powers. The world has become an increasingly dangerous place filled with bellicose states squabbling over dwindling resources and old enmities. Unfortunately, the use of increasingly destructive weapons has attracted the attention of the Grand Galactics, an ethereal race that effectively rules the galaxy. Their agents are monitoring Earth closely and a preliminary order has been given for one of their subject races, the One Point Fives, to exterminate the troublesome upstarts. A massive fleet has been dispatched to accomplish that comparatively minor task during Ranjit's lifetime. Fortunately, there are signs on Earth that a group of influential people has recognized the serious nature of conflict on Earth and is about to employ a new technology to impose some relatively benevolent control over rogue states.

  One of the difficulties with classic Utopian fiction is that the reader is presented with a mature society rather than shown the intervening steps that would demonstrate how such a new civilization might evolve. The authors in this case address that problem, although in the real world the situation would certainly be far more complex and imperfect. The story is also far less melodramatic than it might have been if published during the 1950s. Included are brief discussions of mathematical and other scientific problems that evoke a kind of old-fashioned sense of wonder about the universe without disrupting the flow of the story. It is on the whole a remarkably intelligent reworking of a familiar genre theme.

  * * * *

  The opening sequence of Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams is slightly misleading, because it takes place in a world of orcs and trolls and beleaguered caravans crossing a desert filled with bandits. Rather than fantasy, however, it is a variation of traditional space opera. In the distant future, the human race has created thirteen immense artificial intelligences which orbit the Earth and which facilitate the creation of pocket universes in each of which the laws of nature can be altered to suit the inclinations of the designers. The protagonist, who has many names but is most commonly called Aristide, was one of the original designers, now virtually immortal since personalities can be backed up and downloaded into new bodies in the event of the death of the original. Aristide is interested in the implied spaces of these artificial environments, that is, the small details that evolve as a consequence of the design rather than by the conscious choice of the designers.

  His sojourn in this primitive world leads to an unexpected discovery, however. Several artificially constructed priests have been causing people to briefly disappear, and then reappear with slightly altered personalities. Aristide returns to the external universe and learns that similar disappearances have been occurring elsewhere, and that the returnees are part of a mysterious and wide-ranging conspiracy. The most troublesome aspect is that this conspiracy could only be undertaken if one of the thirteen artificial intelligences were being suborned or somehow freed itself from its programming restraints. Once the existence of the conspiracy is revealed, the secret campaign is transformed into an open battle with a mysterious individual who has learned that the “original universe” is also just a construct of some larger meta-reality and who plans to forcibly unite all of humanity in a quest to confront their creators.

  Williams is perfectly at ease with either swordplay or superscience, and he has a bit of fun while describing the two sides as quite literally throwing universes at one another. The interplay between Aristide and Bitsy, an artificial cat that is actually an avatar of one of the AIs, is crisp and amusing. There is a strong cast of supporting characters, a handful of entertaining and unexpected reversals, and some rewarding surprises, particularly in the latter parts of the novel.

  * * * *

  Space opera has enjoyed a particularly fruitful resurgence in popularity during the past few years, with major works in that form from Alastair Reynolds, Iain Banks, and Peter Hamilton, among others. Michael Flynn helps prove that this isn't just a British phenomenon with his newest, The January Dancer, a complex, panoramic story that incorporates a wide variety of traditional and more contemporary plot devices. Captain January and his crew are performing routine repairs on their ship on an uncharted world when they uncover the Dancer, a mysterious alien artifact whose function is unclear. He promptly cedes possession to a local commercial official, but only after his crew has proven to be remarkably obedient, a quality they had not previously demonstrated. Eventually the artifact's potential attracts the attention of a variety of searchers, some of whom wish to claim it for themselves, others hoping simply to deny it to those who might take unfair advantage of its powers of persuasion. From these disparate threads, Flynn weaves an interesting tapestry in a civilization that uses technology that verges on the magic but which no longer pursues science at all. There have been no new discoveries or inventions in countless ages. The backdrop is a richly implied civilization that features an uncomfortable truce among the two main powers and ongoing efforts by dislocated Terrans to secure the liberation of a now occupied Earth.

  The cast of characters who are caught up in the chase is rich and colorful enough to populate a shelf of books. Many of them manage to be larger than life without losing their humanity. In fact, there are so many plots and counterplots, betrayals and secret alliances, that readers are cautioned not to let their attention stray or they'll find themselves paging back to discover the roots of an entirely new subplot. Some of the characters are working for government agencies, some for themselves, and others serve causes that transcend the individual. Included are politicians, heroes, investigators, interplanetary agents, criminals, spaceship captains, conspirators, and bards, some of them admirable, others less so.

  The novel is crammed full of plot twists and embellishments. There are space pirates and missing starships, assassinations and seductions, wormholes providing secret routes through space, concealed identities and surprise revelations, enigmatic alien artifacts, an extinct intelligent race, a mutiny, and a planetary civil war, to name a few. There are in fact so many elements in the story that they might have added up to incomprehensible confusion in the hands of a less able writer. Flynn, however, not only manages to hold them all in check but also employs each for a specific function in the story. The diverse strands are all drawn together in the closing chapters. This is the author's most complex and rewarding novel to date.

  * * * *

  Military science fiction tends to fall into two major categories: space-based, which is generally more about strategy; and planetary combat, which usually involves tactical and political problems. The latest from William C. Dietz, eighth in the Legion of the Damne
d series, falls into the latter category. The legion in question consists of cyborg soldiers, oversized humanoid war machines directed by human brains, commanded by Captain Antonio Santana, who is acutely aware that those under his command are not just expendable assets. His efforts are hampered to a degree by his new commanding officer, Liam Quinlan, who is more interested in his own career than in the welfare of his troops. A minor plot complication is the existence of the Clone Hegemony, an offshoot human civilization that doesn't believe in using natural reproduction, preferring a more rigid caste system.

  The human-dominated Confederacy is locked in a battle with the insect-like Ramanthians, and portions of the novel read like a cross between Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers and accounts of the Japanese army's resistance during World War II. These are useful shortcuts because military SF almost always places the emphasis on the military side of things, and its readers are less interested in lengthy descriptions of an alien culture or other peripheral matters. Several of the standard elements emerge—the small band of defiant guerilla fighters on one of the occupied Clone worlds, the contingent of troops cut off from support on a largely hostile planet, the conflict between a savvy front-line soldier and his inexperienced and thoughtless superior, and difficulties with supply protocol that deny the front line troops the readily available equipment they require. Dietz selects his puzzle pieces so that they complement each other and fits them together to emphasize action and excitement.

  One of the puzzle pieces is the political component. A delegation from the human worlds hopes to take advantage of the Ramanthian attack on the Clone Hegemony to forge a permanent alliance. Unfortunately, this means making major political concessions that don't sit well with their own senior military officers. This is particularly problematic because there are signs that internal dissensions among the clones may be almost as serious as the invasion itself. Those dissensions, and the essential differences in culture between the two strains of humanity, will prove to be major factors as the battle unfolds.