Stephen stood in the back, away from the others who cheered each time there was a close-up of someone jumping overboard or slipping under the water. He pulled the scratchy woolen blanket around him and shivered. He had been on the dirigible for over twenty-four hours, and he was still chilled. A crewman had told him it was because of the injections he had received when he boarded the airship.
There was another cheer and, horrified, he saw that they were cheering for him. He watched himself being sucked into the ventilator and then blown upward to the surface. His body ached from the battering. But he had saved himself. He had survived and that had been an actual experience. It was worth it for that, but poor Esme …
“You had one of the most exciting experiences,” a woman said to him as she touched his hand. He recoiled and she shrugged, then moved on.
“I wish to register a complaint,” said a stocky man dressed in period clothing to one of the Titanic officers, who was standing beside Stephen and sipping a cocktail.
“Yes?”
“I was saved against my wishes. I specifically took this voyage that I might pit myself against the elements.”
“Did you sign one of our protection waivers?”
“I was not aware that we were required to sign any such thing.”
“All such information was provided,” the officer said, looking disinterested. “Those passengers who are truly committed to taking their chances sign, and we leave them to their own devices. Otherwise, we are responsible for every passenger’s life.”
“I might just as well have jumped into the ocean at the beginning and gotten pulled out,” the passenger said bitterly.
The officer smiled. “Most want to test themselves as long as they can. Of course, if you want to register a formal complaint…”
The passenger stomped away.
“The man’s trying to save face,” the officer said to Stephen. “We see quite a bit of that. But you seemed to have an interesting ride. You gave us quite a start; we thought you were going to take a lifeboat with the others, but you disappeared below deck. It was a bit more difficult to monitor you, but we managed – that’s the fun for us. You were never in any danger, of course. Well, maybe a little.”
Stephen was shaken. He had felt that his experiences had been authentic, that he had really saved himself. But none of that had been real. Only Esme …
And then he saw her step into the room.
“Esme?” He couldn’t believe it. “Esme!”
She walked over to him and smiled as she had the first time they’d met. She was holding a water-damaged, cedar box. “Hello, Stephen. Wasn’t it exciting?”
Stephen threw his arms around her, but she didn’t respond. She waited a proper time, then disengaged herself.
“And look,” she said, “they’ve even found Poppa.” She opened the box and held it up to him.
Poppa’s eyes fluttered open. For a moment his eyes were vague and unfocused, then they fastened on Esme and sharpened. “Esme…” Poppa said, uncertainly, and then he smiled. “Esme, I’ve had the strangest dream.” He laughed. “I dreamed I was a head in a box…”
Esme snapped the box closed. “Isn’t he marvelous?” she said. She patted the box and smiled. “He almost had me talked into going through with it this time.”
LUCIUS SHEPARD
Salvador
Lucius Shepard was perhaps the most popular and influential new writer of the ’80s, rivaled for that title only by William Gibson, Connie Willis, and Kim Stanley Robinson … and, as he is far more prolific than any of them, especially at shorter lengths, his impact on the short-fiction market of the decade was perhaps even more profound. In fact, pound for pound, Shepard may have produced the most vital and consistently excellent body of short work of the ’80s, and may come to be seen as one of the best short-fiction writers ever to enter the field.
Shepard made his first sale to Terry Carr’s Universe in 1983. That particular story attracted little notice at the time, but the floodgates were about to open, and the next seven years would see a steady stream of bizarre and powerfully compelling stories, such as the landmark novella “R&R,” “The Jaguar Hunter,” “Black Coral,” “A Spanish Lesson,” “The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule,” “Shades,” “Aymara,” “A Traveler’s Tale,” “How the Wind Spoke at Madaket,” “On the Border,” “Fire Zone Emerald,” and “The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter,” among literally dozens of others … for even Shepard’s second-rate tales are strong enough to serve as first-rate stuff for many another writer. The field had not seen such a concentrated outpouring of outstanding work from a single writer since Robert Silverberg’s most prolific days in the early ’70s.
Shepard’s work is both nightmarish and hallucinatorily beautiful, a strange and contradictory mixture of wild romance, vivid eroticism, brutal violence, intricate metaphysical structures, radical politics, and intensely concentrated Lovecraftian horror – all peopled by low-life bums and winos and junkies who also turn out to be psychologically complex and broodingly introverted characters, and who often find themselves enmeshed in a desperate quest for personal transcendence. All this is frequently set in authentically described Third World milieus, often structured by an almost Victorian concern with personal ethics and moral responsibility, and expressed in a mannered, cadenced, complexly structured, formal prose that would probably be considered old-fashioned and fustian if it wasn’t at the same time so vivid and supple.
The cyberpunks were so impressed with Shepard’s dark power and political passion that they tried to co-opt him for the Movement for a while, in spite of the fact that he almost never writes about technology in any kind of really convincing way, and spends very little time speculating on the future effect of scientific principles or hardware on our lives. His sociological speculations, on the other hand, have often been brilliant, as witness the powerful little story that follows, one that shows us that we do learn something from the experience of war – the only question is, learn what?
Since Shepard began writing in 1983, no year since has gone by without him adorning the final ballot for one major award or another, and often for several. He won the John W. Campbell Award in 1985 as the year’s Best New Writer. In 1987, he won the Nebula Award for his powerful novella “R & R,” and in 1988 he picked up a World Fantasy Award for his monumental short-story collection The Jaguar Hunter, one of the most memorable collections of the ’80s. He has had less impact at novel length, although his novels have been generally well-received. His first novel was Green Eyes, published as part of the revived Ace Specials series; his second was the bestselling Life During Wartime, which was printed as non-SF, in spite of one of its sections having won a Nebula Award … which may be an indication of which way his novelistic career will go in the future. He is at work on several new novels. Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, he now lives somewhere in the wilds of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Three weeks before they wasted Tecolutla, Dantzler had his baptism of fire. The platoon was crossing a meadow at the foot of an emerald-green volcano, and being a dreamy sort, he was idling along, swatting tall grasses with his rifle barrel and thinking how it might have been a first-grader with crayons who had devised this elementary landscape of a perfect cone rising into a cloudless sky, when cap-pistol noises sounded on the slope. Someone screamed for the medic, and Dantzler dove into the grass, fumbling for his ampules. He slipped one from the dispenser and popped it under his nose, inhaling frantically; then, to be on the safe side, he popped another – “A double helpin’ of martial arts,” as DT would say – and lay with his head down until the drugs had worked their magic. There was dirt in his mouth, and he was very afraid.
Gradually his arms and legs lost their heaviness, and his heart rate slowed. His vision sharpened to the point that he could see not only the pinpricks of fire blooming on the slope, but also the figures behind them, half-obscured by brush. A bubble of grim anger welled up in his brain, hardened to a fierce resolve, and he started
moving towards the volcano. By the time he reached the base of the cone, he was all rage and reflexes. He spent the next forty minutes spinning acrobatically through the thickets, spraying shadows with bursts of his M-18; yet part of his mind remained distant from the action, marveling at his efficiency, at the comic-strip enthusiasm he felt for the task of killing. He shouted at the men he shot, and he shot them many more times than was necessary, like a child playing soldier.
“Playin’ my ass!” DT would say. “You just actin’ natural.”
DT was a firm believer in the ampules; though the official line was that they contained tailored RNA compounds and pseudoendorphins modified to an inhalant form, he held the opinion that they opened a man up to his inner nature. He was big, black, with heavily muscled arms and crudely stamped features, and he had come to the Special Forces direct from prison, where he had done a stretch for attempted murder; the palms of his hands were covered by jail tattoos – a pentagram and a horned monster. The words DIE HIGH were painted on his helmet. This was his second tour in Salvador, and Moody – who was Dantzler’s buddy – said the drugs had addled DT’s brains, that he was crazy and gone to hell.
“He collects trophies,” Moody had said. “And not just ears like they done in ’Nam.”
When Dantzler had finally gotten a glimpse of the trophies, he had been appalled. They were kept in a tin box in DT’s pack and were nearly unrecognizable; they looked like withered brown orchids. But despite his revulsion, despite the fact that he was afraid of DT, he admired the man’s capacity for survival and had taken to heart his advice to rely on the drugs.
On the way back down the slope they discovered a live casualty, an Indian kid about Dantzler’s age, nineteen or twenty. Black hair, adobe skin, and heavy-lidded brown eyes. Dantzler, whose father was an anthropologist and had done fieldwork in Salvador, figured him for a Santa Ana tribesman; before leaving the States, Dantzler had pored over his father’s notes, hoping this would give him an edge, and had learned to identify the various regional types. The kid had a minor leg wound and was wearing fatigue pants and a faded COKE ADDS LIFE T-shirt. This T-shirt irritated DT no end.
“What the hell you know ’bout Coke?” he asked the kid as they headed for the chopper that was to carry them deeper into Morazán Province. “You think it’s funny or somethin’?” He whacked the kid in the back with his rifle butt, and when they reached the chopper, he slung him inside and had him sit by the door. He sat beside him, tapped out a joint from a pack of Kools, and asked, “Where’s Infante?”
“Dead,” said the medic.
“Shit!” DT licked the joint so it would burn evenly. “Goddamn beaner ain’t no use ’cept somebody else know Spanish.”
“I know a little,” Dantzler volunteered.
Staring at Dantzler, DT’s eyes went empty and unfocused. “Naw,” he said. “You don’t know no Spanish.”
Dantzler ducked his head to avoid DT’s stare and said nothing; he thought he understood what DT meant, but he ducked away from the understanding as well. The chopper bore them aloft, and DT lit the joint. He let the smoke out his nostrils and passed the joint to the kid, who accepted gratefully.
“Qué sabor!” he said, exhaling a billow; he smiled and nodded, wanting to be friends.
Dantzler turned his gaze to the open door. They were flying low between the hills, and looking at the deep bays of shadow in their folds acted to drain away the residue of the drugs, leaving him weary and frazzled. Sunlight poured in, dazzling the oil-smeared floor.
“Hey, Dantzler!” DT had to shout over the noise of the rotors. “Ask him whass his name!”
The kid’s eyelids were drooping from the joint, but on hearing Spanish he perked up; he shook his head, though, refusing to answer. Dantzler smiled and told him not to be afraid.
“Ricardo Quu,” said the kid.
“Kool!” said DT with false heartiness. “Thass my brand!” He offered his pack to the kid.
“Gracias, no.” The kid waved the joint and grinned.
“Dude’s named for a goddamn cigarette,” said DT disparagingly, as if this were the height of insanity.
Dantzler asked the kid if there were more soldiers nearby, and once again received no reply; but, apparently sensing in Dantzler a kindred soul, the kid leaned forward and spoke rapidly, saying that his village was Santander Jiménez, that his father was – he hesitated – a man of power. He asked where they were taking him. Dantzler returned a stony glare. He found it easy to reject the kid, and he realized later this was because he had already given up on him.
Latching his hands behind his head, DT began to sing – a wordless melody. His voice was discordant, barely audible above the rotors; but the tune had a familiar ring and Dantzler soon placed it. The theme from “Star Trek.” It brought back memories of watching TV with his sister, laughing at the low-budget aliens and Scotty’s Actors’ Equity accent. He gazed out the door again. The sun was behind the hills, and the hillsides were unfeatured blurs of dark green smoke. Oh, God, he wanted to be home, to be anywhere but Salvador! A couple of the guys joined in the singing at DT’s urging, and as the volume swelled, Dantzler’s emotion peaked. He was on the verge of tears, remembering tastes and sights, the way his girl Jeanine had smelled, so clean and fresh, not reeking of sweat and perfume like the whores around Ilopango – finding all this substance in the banal touchstone of his culture and the illusions of the hillsides rushing past. Then Moody tensed beside him, and he glanced up to learn the reason why.
In the gloom of the chopper’s belly, DT was as unfeatured as the hills – a black presence ruling them, more the leader of a coven than a platoon. The other two guys were singing their lungs out, and even the kid was getting into the spirit of things. “Música!” he said at one point, smiling at everybody, trying to fan the flame of good feeling. He swayed to the rhythm and essayed a “la-la” now and again. But no one else was responding.
The singing stopped, and Dantzler saw that the whole platoon was staring at the kid, their expressions slack and dispirited.
“Space!” shouted DT, giving the kid a little shove. “The final frontier!”
The smile had not yet left the kid’s face when he toppled out the door. DT peered after him; a few seconds later he smacked his hand against the floor and sat back, grinning. Dantzler felt like screaming, the stupid horror of the joke was so at odds with the languor of his homesickness. He looked to the others for reaction. They were sitting with their heads down, fiddling with trigger guards and pack straps, studying their bootlaces, and seeing this, he quickly imitated them.
* * *
Morazán Province was spook country. Santa Ana spooks. Flights of birds had been reported to attack patrols; animals appeared at the perimeters of campsites and vanished when you shot at them; dreams afflicted everyone who ventured there. Dantzler could not testify to the birds and animals, but he did have a recurring dream. In it the kid DT had killed was pinwheeling down through a golden fog, his T-shirt visible against the roiling back-drop, and sometimes a voice would boom out of the fog, saying, “You are killing my son.” No, no, Dantzler would reply, it wasn’t me, and besides, he’s already dead. Then he would wake covered with sweat, groping for his rifle, his heart racing.
But the dream was not an important terror, and he assigned it no significance. The land was far more terrifying. Pine-forested ridges that stood out against the sky like fringes of electrified hair; little trails winding off into thickets and petering out, as if what they led to had been magicked away; gray rock faces along which they were forced to walk, hopelessly exposed to ambush. There were innumerable booby traps set by the guerrillas, and they lost several men to rockfalls. It was the emptiest place of Dantzler’s experience. No people, no animals, just a few hawks circling the solitudes between the ridges. Once in a while they found tunnels, and these they blew with the new gas grenades; the gas ignited the rich concentrations of hydrocarbons and sent flame sweeping through the entire system. DT would praise whoever
had discovered the tunnel and would estimate in a loud voice how many beaners they had “refried.” But Dantzler knew they were traversing pure emptiness and burning empty holes. Days, under debilitating heat, they humped the mountains, traveling seven, eight, even ten klicks up trails so steep that frequently the feet of the guy ahead of you would be on a level with your face; nights, it was cold, the darkness absolute, the silence so profound that Dantzler imagined he could hear the great humming vibration of the earth. They might have been anywhere or nowhere. Their fear was nourished by the isolation, and the only remedy was “martial arts.”
Dantzler took to popping the pills without the excuse of combat. Moody cautioned him against abusing the drugs, citing rumors of bad side effects and DT’s madness; but even he was using them more and more often. During basic training, Dantzler’s DI had told the boots that the drugs were available only to the Special Forces, that their use was optional; but there had been too many instances of lackluster battlefield performance in the last war, and this was to prevent a reoccurrence.
“The chickenshit infantry take ’em,” the DI had said. “You bastards are brave already. You’re born killers, right?”
“Right, sir!” they had shouted.
“What are you?”
“Born killers, sir!”
But Dantzler was not a born killer; he was not even clear as to how he had been drafted, less clear as to how he had been manipulated into the Special Forces, and he had learned that nothing was optional in Salvador, with the possible exception of life itself.
The platoon’s mission was reconnaissance and mop-up. Along with other Special Forces platoons, they were to secure Morazán prior to the invasion of Nicaragua; specifically, they were to proceed to the village of Tecolutla, where a Sandinista patrol had recently been spotted, and following that they were to join up with the First Infantry and take part in the offensive against León, a provincial capital just across the Nicaraguan border. As Dantzler and Moody walked together, they frequently talked about the offensive, how it would be good to get down into flat country; occasionally they talked about the possibility of reporting DT, and once, after he had led them on a forced night march, they toyed with the idea of killing him. But most often they discussed the ways of the Indians and the land, since this was what had caused them to become buddies.
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