The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 15

by Gardner Dozois

  There’s a paper cup at the bum’s feet, and Phil impulsively stuffs half a dozen bills into it, bills which Emmet snatches up angrily.

  “Get lost,” he tells the bum, and starts pulling at Phil, dragging him away as if Phil is a kid entranced beyond patience at the window of a candy store. Saying, “What are you thinking?”

  “That it’s cold,” Phil says, “and someone like that – a street person – could use some hot food.”

  “He’s isn’t a person,” Emmet says. “He’s a bum – a piece of trash. And of course it’s cold. It’s March. Look at you, dressed like that. You’re shivering.”

  He is. But it isn’t because of the cold.

  March, Phil thinks now, in the antechamber to the Oval Office. The Vernal Equinox. When the world awakes. Shivering all over again even though the brightly lit anteroom, with its two desks covered, it seems, in telephones, is stiflingly hot. Emmet is schmoozing with two suits – H.R. Haldeman and Egil Krogh. Emmet is holding Haldeman’s arm as he talks, speaking into the man’s ear, something or other about management. They all know each other well, Phil thinks, and wonders what kind of business Emmet has, here in Washington, D.C.

  At last a phone rings, a secretary nods, and they go into the Oval Office, which really is oval. The President, smaller and more compact than he seems on TV, strides out from behind his desk and cracks a jowly smile, but his pouchy eyes slither sideways when he limply shakes hands with Phil.

  “That’s quite a letter you sent us,” the President says.

  “I’m not sure,” Phil starts to say, but the President doesn’t seem to hear him.

  “Quite a letter, yes. And of course we need people like you, Mr. Dick. We’re proud to have people like you, in fact. Someone who can speak to young people – well, that’s important isn’t it?” Smiling at the other men in the room as if seeking affirmation. “It’s quite a talent. You have one of your books there, I think?”

  Phil holds out the copy of Voices from the Street. It’s the Franklin Library edition, bound in green leather, his signature reproduced in gold on the cover, under the title. An aide gave it to him when he arrived, and now he hands it to the President, who takes it in a study of reverence.

  “You must sign it,” the President says, and lays it open like a sacrificial victim on the gleaming desk, by the red and white phones. “I mean, that’s the thing isn’t it? The thing that you do?”

  Phil says, “What I came to do – ”

  And Emmet steps forward and says, “Of course he’ll sign, sir. It’s an honor.”

  Emmet gives Phil a pen, and Phil signs, his hand sweating on the page. He says, “I came here, sir, to say that I want to do what I can for America. I was given an experience a day ago, and I’m beginning to understand what it meant.”

  But the President doesn’t seem to have heard him. He’s staring at Phil as if seeing him for the first time. At last, he blinks and says, “Boy, you do dress kind of wild.”

  Phil is wearing his lucky Nehru jacket over a gold shirt, purple velvet pants with flares that mostly hide his sand-colored suede desert boots. And the tie that Emmet bought him in the hotel shop, a paisley affair like the President’s, tight as a noose around his neck.

  He starts to say, “I came here, sir,” but the President says again, “You do dress kind of wild. But that I guess is the style of all writers, isn’t it? I mean, an individual style.”

  For a moment, the President’s eyes, pinched between fleshy pouches, start to anxiously search Phil’s face. It seems that there’s something trapped far down at the bottom of his mild gaze, like a prisoner looking up through the grill of an oubliette at the sky.

  “Individual style, that’s exactly it,” Phil says, seeing an opening, a way into his theme. The thing he knows now he needs to say, distilled from the scattered notes and thoughts last night. “Individualism, sir, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Even men in suits wear ties to signify that they still have this one little outlet for their individuality.” It occurs to him that his tie is exactly like the President’s, but he plunges on. “I’m beginning to understand that things are changing in America, and that’s what I want to talk about – ”

  “You wanted a badge,” Haldeman says brusquely. “A federal agent’s badge, isn’t that right? A badge to help your moral crusade?”

  Emmet and Haldeman and Krogh grinning as if sharing a private joke.

  “The badge isn’t important,” Phil says. “In fact, as I see it now, it’s just what’s wrong.”

  Haldeman says, “I certainly think we can oblige, can’t we, Mr. President? We can get him his badge. You know, as a gift.”

  The President blinks. “A badge? I don’t know if I have one, but I can look, certainly – ”

  “You don’t have one,” Haldeman says firmly.

  “I don’t?” The President has bent to pull open a drawer in the desk, and now he looks up, still blinking.

  “But we’ll order one up,” Haldeman says, and tells Emmet, “Yes, a special order.”

  Something passes between them. Phil is sure of it. The air is so hot and heavy he feels that he’s wrapped in mattress stuffing, and there’s a sharp taste to it that stings the back of his throat.

  Haldeman tells the President, “You remember the idea? The idea about the book.”

  “Yes,” the President says, “the idea about the book.”

  His eyes seem to be blinking independently, like a mechanism that’s slightly out of adjustment.

  “The neat idea,” Haldeman prompts, as if to a recalcitrant or shy child, and Phil knows then, knows with utter deep black conviction, that the President is not the President. Or he is, but he’s long ago been turned into a fake of himself, a shell thing, a mechanical puppet. That was what I was becoming, Phil thinks, until the clear white light. And it might still happen to me, unless I make things change.

  “The neat idea,” the President says, and his mouth twitches. It’s meant to be a smile, but looks like a spasm. “Yes, here’s the thing, that you could write a book for the kids, for the, you know, for the young people. On the theme of, of – ”

  “ ‘Get High on life,’ ” Haldeman says.

  “ ‘Get High on Life,’ ” the President says. “Yes, that’s, right,” and begins a spiel about affirming the conviction that true and lasting talent is the result of self-motivation and discipline; he might be one of those mechanical puppets in Disneyland, running through its patter regardless of whether or not it has an audience.

  “Well,” Haldeman says, when the President finishes or perhaps runs down, “I think we’re done here.”

  “The gifts,” the President says, and bends down and pulls open a drawer and starts rummaging in it. “No one can accuse Dick Nixon of not treating his guests well,” he says, and lays on the desk, one after the other, a glossy presigned photograph, cufflinks, an ashtray, highball glasses etched with a picture of the White House.

  Emmet steps forward and says, “Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. Dick and I are truly honored to have met you.”

  But the President doesn’t seem to hear. He’s still rummaging in his desk drawer, muttering, “There are some neat pins in here. Lapel pins, very smart.”

  Haldeman and Emmet exchange glances, and Haldeman says, “We’re about out of time here, Mr. President.”

  “Pins, that’s the thing. Like this one,” the President says, touching the lapel of his suit, “with the American flag. I did have some”

  “We’ll find them,” Haldeman says, that sharpness back in his voice, and he steers the President away from the desk, toward Phil.

  There’s an awkward minute while Egil Krogh takes photographs of the President and Phil shaking hands there on the blue carpet bordered with white stars, in front of furled flags on poles. Flashes of light that are only light from the camera flash. Phil blinks them away as Emmet leads him out, through ordinary offices and blank corridors to chill air under a gray sky where their car is waiting.

  �
��It went well,” Emmet says, after a while. He’s driving the car – the car Phil hired – back to the hotel.

  Phil says, “Who are you, exactly? What do you want?”

  “I’m your agent, Phil. I take care of you. That’s my job.”

  “And that other creature, your friend Haldeman, he takes care of the President.”

  “The President, he’s a work of art, isn’t he? He’ll win his third term, and the next one too. A man like that, he’s too useful to let go. Unlike you, Phil, he can still help us.”

  “He was beaten,” Phil says, “in 1960. By Kennedy. And in 1962 he lost the election for governor of California. Right after the results were announced, he said he would give up politics. And then something happened. He came back. Or was he brought back, is that what it was? A wooden horse,” Phil says, feeling hollow himself, as empty as a husk. “Brought by the Greeks as a gift.”

  “He won’t get beaten again,” Emmet says, “you can count on that. Not in 1976, not in 1980, not in 1984. It worked out, didn’t it – you and him?” He smiles, baring his perfect white teeth. “We should get you invited to one of the parties there. Maybe when you finish your book, it’ll be great publicity.”

  “You don’t want me to finish the book,” Phil says. He feels as if he’s choking, and wrenches at the knot of his tie. “That’s the point. Whatever I was supposed to do – you made sure I didn’t do it.”

  “Phil, Phil, Phil,” Emmet says. “Is this another of your wild conspiracy theories? What is it this time, a conspiracy of boring, staid suits, acting in concert to stifle creative guys like you? Well, listen up, buddy. There is no conspiracy. There’s nothing but a bunch of ordinary guys doing an honest day’s work, making the world a better place, the best way they know how. You think we’re dangerous? Well, take a look at yourself, Phil. You’ve got everything you ever dreamed about, and you got it all thanks to me. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be no better than a bum on the street. You’d be living in a cold-water walk-up, banging out porno novels or sci-fi trash as fast you could, just to keep the power company from switching off your lights. And moaning all the while that you could have been a contender. Get real, Phil. I gave you a good deal. The best.”

  “Like the deal that guy, the guy at the hotel, the donut guy, got? He was supposed to be a singer, and someone just like you did something to him.”

  “He could have changed popular music,” Emmet says. “Even as a donut shop operator he still has something. But would he have been any happier? I don’t think so. And that’s all I’m going to say, Phil. Don’t ever ask again. Go back to your nice house, work on your book, and don’t make trouble. Or, if you’re not careful, you might be found dead one day from vitamin poisoning, or maybe a drug overdose.”

  “Yeah, like the folk singer,” Phil says.

  “Or a car crash,” Emmet says, “like the one that killed Kerouac and Burroughs and Ginsberg in Mexico. It’s a cruel world out there, Phil, and even though you’re washed up as a writer, be thankful that you have me to look after your interests.”

  “Because you want to make sure I don’t count for anything,” Phil says, and finally opens the loop of the tie wide enough to be able to drag it over his head. He winds down the window and drops the tie into the cold gritty wind.

  “You stupid bastard,” Emmet says, quite without anger. “That cost six bucks fifty. Pure silk, a work of art.”

  “I feel sick,” Phil says, and he does feel sick, but that’s not why he says it.

  “Not in the car,” Emmet says sharply, and pulls over to the curb. Phil opens the door, and then he’s running and Emmet is shouting after him. But Phil runs on, head down in the cold wind, and doesn’t once look back.

  He has to slow to a walk after a couple of blocks, out of breath, his heart pounding, his legs aching. The cold, steely air scrapes the bottoms of his lungs. But he’s given Emmet the slip. Or perhaps Emmet doesn’t really care. After all, he’s been ruined as a writer, his gift dribbled away on dead books until nothing is left.

  Except for that one book, Phil thinks. The Man in the High Castle. The book Emmet conspired to suppress, the book he made me hate so much because it was the kind of thing I was meant to write all along. Because I would have counted for something in the end. I would have made a difference.

  He walks on, with no clear plan except to keep moving. It’s a poor neighborhood, even though it’s only a few blocks from the White House. Despite the cold, people are sitting on the steps of the shabby apartment houses, talking to each other, sharing bottles in brown paper bags. An old man with a terrific head of white hair and a tremendously bushy white moustache sits straight-backed on a kitchen chair, smoking a cheap cigar with all the relish of the king of the world. Kids in knitted caps and plaid jackets bounce a basketball against a wall, calling to each other in clear, high voices. There are Christmas decorations at most windows, and the odors of cooking in the air. A good odor, Phil thinks, a homely, human odor. A radio tuned to a country station is playing one of the old time ballads, a slow, achingly sad song about a rose and a brier twining together above a grave.

  It’s getting dark, and flakes of snow begin to flutter down, seeming to condense out of the darkening air, falling in a slanting rush. Phil feels the pinpoint kiss of every flake that touches his face.

  I’m still a writer, he thinks, as he walks through the falling snow. I still have a name. I still have a voice. I can still tell the truth. Maybe that journalist who interviewed me last month, the one who works for the Washington Post, maybe he’ll listen to me if I tell him about the conspiracy in the White House.

  A bum is standing on the corner outside the steamed window of a diner. An old, fat woman with a mottled, flushed, face, gray hair cut as short as a soldier’s. Wearing a stained and torn man’s raincoat that’s too small for her, so that the newspapers she’s wrapped around her body to keep out the cold peep out between the straining buttons. Her blue eyes are bright, watching each passerby with undiminished hope as she rattles a few pennies in a paper cup.

  Phil pushes into the diner’s steamy warmth and uses the pay phone, and then orders coffee to go. And returns to the street, and presses the warm container into his sister’s hand.

  MAY BE SOME TIME

  Brenda W. Clough

  Brenda W. Clough’s short work has appeared in Analog, Science Fiction Age, Amazing, Aboriginal SF, The Twilight Zone magazine, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, and in other markets. A prolific novelist, she’s the author of The Crystal Crown, The Dragon of Mishbil, The Realm Beneath. An Impossible Summer, The Name of the Sun, and How Like a God. Her most recent novel is The Doors of Life and Death. She lives in Reston, Virginia.

  Explorers expect to venture into unknown territory, and to risk their lives going where nobody has ever gone before – that’s part of the job description, in fact. In the engrossing, surprising story that follows, however, one explorer must face a journey of discovery much more harrowing than anything he’d bargained for, to a destination far stranger than anything he could have imagined.

  FROM SCOTT’S LAST EXPEDITION by Robert Falcon Scott:

  Friday, March 16, or Saturday, 17 1912. Lost track of dates, but think the last correct. Tragedy all down the line. At lunch, the day before yesterday, poor Titus Oates said he couldn’t go on; he proposed we should leave him in his sleeping bag. That we could not do, and we induced him to come on, on the afternoon march. In spite of its awful nature for him he struggled on and we made a few miles. At night he was worse and we knew the end had come.

  Should this be found I want these facts recorded . . . We can testify to his bravery. He has borne intense suffering for weeks without complaint, and to the very last was able and willing to discuss outside subjects. He did not – would not – give up hope till the very end . . . He slept through the night before last, hoping not to wake; but he woke in the morning – yesterday. It was blowing a blizzard. He said, “I am just going outside and may be some time.” He went o
ut into the blizzard and we have not seen him since . . . We knew that poor Oates was walking to his death, but though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman. We all hope to meet the end with a similar spirit, and assuredly the end is not far.

  It’s said that death from exposure is like slipping into warm sleep. Briefly, Titus Oates wondered what totty-headed pillock had first told that whisker. He no longer remembered what warmth was. He had endured too many futile hopes and broken dreams to look for an easy end now. Every step was like treading on razors, calling for a grim effort of will. Nevertheless without hesitating he hobbled on into the teeth of the storm. He did not look back. He knew the Polar Expedition’s tent was already invisible behind him.

  Finer than sand, the wind-driven snow scoured over his clenched eyelids, clogging nose and mouth. The cold drove ferocious spikes deep into his temples, and gnawed at the raw frostbite wounds on brow and nose and lip. Surely it was folly to continue to huddle into his threadbare windproof. What if he flung all resistance aside, and surrendered himself to the wailing Antarctic blizzard? Suddenly he yearned to dance, free of the weighty mitts and clothing. To embrace death and waltz away!

  He had left his finnesko behind. Gangrene had swollen his frozen feet to the size of melons, the ominous black streaks stealing up past the ankles nearly to the knee. Yesterday it had taken hours to coax the fur boots on. Today he had not bothered. Now his woolen sock caught on something. Excruciating pain jolted his frozen foot, suppurating from the stinking black wounds where the toes used to be. Too weak to help himself, he stumbled forward. His crippled hands, bundled in the dogskin mitts, groped to break his fall. They touched nothing. He seemed to fall and fall, a slow endless drop into blank whiteness.

  And it was true! A delicious warmth lapped him round like a blanket. Tears of relief and joy crept down his starveling cheeks and burnt in the frost fissures. He was being carried, warm and safe. Rock of Ages, cleft for me!