The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Vol. 1

by George Mann

  Chapelhow frowned.

  “I... Chapelhow,” Chapelhow blinked, rubbed his forehead. “...Chapelhow started to write this before the drug could properly take effect...”

  Reed took the piece of paper from him and began to read out loud.

  ‘“You are Andy Chapelhow. This paper is kept in Andy Chapelhow’s pocket. I am Andy Chapelhow. But already I feel like Andy Chapelhow is someone else. I must remember, you must remember who you are. It’s like a story, Andy. You’ve got to see that all stories are told from one point of view. That point of view, the narrator, he’s you. You’ve got to look out for the narrator. Find him and you find yourself. Don’t lose your identity. You are Andy Chapelhow. Say it now. I am Andy Chapelhow.’”

  “‘I am Andy Chapelhow’,” repeated Reed. “I don’t think that’s right. What does it mean when it says ‘find the narrator’?”

  “I think its talking about point of view,” said Chapelhow. “Like a story written in the third person. One of the characters will have the point of view, the reader will see what they see, they will empathize with them, but they won’t really believe that they are there.”

  Reed looked puzzled. She shook her head.

  “Nah. I don’t get it.”

  The bus halted. Four well-dressed women got on. Permed hair and smart leather handbags. They dropped a handful of euros in the tray and made their way to the back of the bus.

  The driver gunned the engine and they set off. They had left the town behind, driving into the full glare of the Spanish afternoon, riding along a smooth gray road that was climbing into the distant hills.

  Chapelhow felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “Hey, how did you pay for the meal, Chapelhow?”

  “With my card, Sarge, how else?”

  The sergeant’s face flushed red and he swore. The well-dressed ladies in the seat opposite pursed their lips. Now that Chapelhow came to think about it, they looked just like the four women who had just boarded the bus.

  The sergeant interrupted his thoughts.

  “I thought you said you had money!”

  “That was Singh. I only had twenty euros!”

  “Damn. Look at this!”

  He held up Chapelhow’s mobile, confiscated from him when Chapelhow had been pressed. There was a text message displayed.

  Hello there, Sergeant Clausen. Chapelhow’s bank is part-owned by the SEA, didn’t you know? Nice of you to pinpoint yourself like that.

  We have a proposition for you. Just leave the package on the bus, get off at the next stop, and we’ll let you go unharmed. Wewon’t even track you to your rendezvous point.

  Do we have a deal?

  “It sounds like a good deal to me, sarge,” said Reed.

  “Like you have a say in things. I’ve punched for an emergency extraction. It will cost a fortune, it will risk the lives of the extraction team, but we need to do it. Get ready to move. Shit.”

  Chapelhow turned to follow his gaze.

  Four more well-dressed ladies stood by the side of the road. There was a bus stop there, right in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but scrubby land could be seen, baking in the hot sun. The driver was already decelerating.

  “All that permed hair,” muttered the sergeant in disbelief. “Did they conscript a Spanish townswomen’s guild or something?” He pulled a grenade from his pocket.

  “There are greenhouses over there, sarge,” said Reed. She pointed to the low, steamy plastic shapes that glinted oddly in the distance. “They could be workers from those?”

  “Dressed like that?” said the sergeant. He clicked a thumb down on the button and called out to the driver.

  “Hey, Pedro. You stop this bus and I let go of the button, got it?”

  The bus driver let off a rapid stream of angry Spanish. Chapelhow’s headset translated. “You threaten me, señor, and I’ll sue your ass off.”

  “This isn’t a threat,” said the Sergeant easily. “It’s a suicide attempt. I just can’t bear the thought of you stopping here. You compendre?”

  Reed giggled.

  “Sarge, what’s the use of speaking in Spanish when your headset’s translating everything?”

  The driver stamped down on the accelerator, causing the bus to jerk violently and the sergeant to nearly lose his balance. The women by the bus stop pulled pistols from their handbags and took aim. They didn’t fire. There were too many civilians on the bus. Chapelhow held the gaze of one of them as they drove past. She smiled at him and shrugged.

  “Who did that?” asked Reed. She was pointing across the aisle. The two well-dressed women opposite were slumped forward in their seats, their eyes closed.

  “Mitchell and Prentice shot them while you were distracted,” said the sergeant. “I tell you, that girl shows promise. It’s a shame she didn’t enlist voluntarily. Now, watch the road, you two. See if you can do as well as Prentice and spot any other spies before they pull their guns.” He turned to the driver. “Pedro, open the bus door.”

  “Stop calling me Pedro.”

  The driver opened the door anyway. The sergeant took hold of the nearest of the dead women by the collar of her silk blouse. He rolled her out of her seat and through the door, then sat in her place. Chapelhow turned to watch the body tumbling along the road, limbs flailing like a rag doll. There was a shout of indignation from further up the bus.

  “Do you mind? We have children with us!” Chapelhow’s headset spoke with a German accent.

  “Something behind us, sarge!” That was Singh’s voice. “Long green thing. Coming up fast.”

  “Troop car,” said Mitchell. “Get down fast, Singh. It will have a laser targeting turret...”

  There was a tinkle of glass and sudden burst of static that was quickly killed.

  “They got Singh,” said Mitchell. “How much longer, sarge?”

  “Pickup craft is coming in now,” said the sergeant. “Approaching from the right-hand side of the bus, the side with the door.”

  Reed and Chapelhow were calm.

  “Think we’re going to make it, Chapelhow?”

  “I don’t know. Does it matter? The mission is the important thing. As long as we get the package on the pickup...”

  A low rumble sounded, followed by a supersonic boom off to their right. Then another one, then another.

  “Stop here, Pedro,” shouted the sergeant.

  A roar of diesel and they were all thrown backward as the driver accelerated again. There was a popping noise and the driver began to scream. Red blood was spurting from his right hand.

  “I’ll sue you, you and your fucking army, señor!”

  “Sue us for a million. We’ll pay. This is more important.” He swung his gun to the driver’s head. “Now, are you going to stop the bus?”

  There was a squeal of brakes and they were all thrown forward. A child started to cry. There was a series of popping sounds as the sergeant fired his gun in the air. Lines of sunlight shafted down from the roof, one after the other. He spoke, his headset translating into Spanish.

  “Okay, my name is Sergeant David Clausen. I am part of the Naghani Associates regiment of the UK army. Any claims for compensation should be made to Naghani Associates in the first instance. Listen up now. This is a grenade.” He held a dark egg shape up in the air. “I have set a motion sensor on it. If you remove it from its place here on the luggage rack it will explode.” Carefully he placed the grenade on the rack. “Further,” he added, “I have set the timer for ten minutes. More than enough time for us to get safely off this bus.”

  His words were repeated in German and English.

  There was a low rumble of indignation, but already the passengers were moving from their seats.

  “Chapelhow, Reed. Wait for three people to get off, and then you follow them out. I’ll send out Prentice in the middle of the crowd, then me. Fern and Mitchell can bring up the rear. The civilians should provide us with enough cover. Okay, go!”

  Chapelhow and Reed waited for three yo
ung men in shorts to climb off the bus. They smelled of old aftershave and alcohol and seemed quite excited by their adventure. They were pointing to a rapidly growing dot on the horizon.

  “That must be the pickup,” said Reed. “It doesn’t look that big. Do you think we can all get on board?”

  “Probably not,” said Chapelhow. “Probably just enough space for the sergeant and Mitchell.”

  “Maybe he’ll try and squeeze Prentice on too,” said Reed. Behind her the driver was whimpering as he stared at his hand. “Okay,” said Reed. “Our turn.”

  They both got off the bus, rifles held at the ready. The afternoon sun beat down on their heads. Chapelhow felt the uneven ground through the thin soles of his shoes.

  “Keep moving, Reed,” he said. “Come away from the door.”

  A dusty wind blew up. The pickup ship was descending. Not much bigger than a large car, it was little more than a silver wing with a large transparent canopy on top. Chapelhow saw the pilot scanning the skies through a large pair of dark goggles as she descended.

  More passengers were spilling out into the sun. Three wheels dropped down from the pickup just as it was about to hit the ground. It bounced once on its undercarriage. The pilot slid back the canopy with a whirr.

  “Come on,” she called. “Get on board.”

  The sergeant was pushing his way forward.

  “Out of my way,” he called. Mitchell and Prentice followed behind. “Prentice on first,” shouted the sergeant, handing her the package.

  “Told you,” said Reed. “There’s not enough seats for all of us. I wonder what will happen when that thing takes off? Who is carrying the point of view for this story?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Chapelhow.

  “Like it said on that sheet of paper in your pocket. Who has the point of view? You, or me, or the sergeant? Will the story follow the pickup, or stay here on the ground?”

  But Chapelhow didn’t answer. An olive-colored arrow had slid to a halt on the road behind the bus. A hatch opened in its side and soldiers came tumbling out. Real soldiers, dressed in the green of the SEA and carrying state-of-the-art, limited radius weapons. The sort that were safe to use when civilians were around. One swung a tube in the direction of the sergeant.

  “You’re closest,” said Reed to Chapelhow. Something was fired from the tube. Steam bomb. Lazily it flew through the air toward the sergeant, about to follow Prentice on board the pickup craft. Chapelhow flung himself forward into its path and

  The Farewell Party

  Eric Brown

  GREGORY MERRALL HAD been part of our group for just three months by the time of the Farewell Party, though it seemed that we had never been without his quiet, patriarchal presence. He was a constant among the friendly faces who met at the Fleece every Tuesday evening, our confidant and king, some might even say our conscience.

  I remember his arrival among us. It was a bitter cold night in early November and the village had been cut off for two days due to a severe fall of snow. When I saw him stride into the snug— an anachronistic figure in Harris tweeds and plus-fours—I assumed he was a stranded traveler.

  He buttressed the bar and drank two or three pints of Landlord.

  There were nine of us gathered about the inglenook that night, and as each of us in turn went to the bar to buy our round, the stranger made a point of engaging us in conversation.

  “There are worse places to be stranded in West Yorkshire,” I said when it was my round. “The Fleece is the best pub for miles around.”

  He smiled. “I’m not stranded—well, not in that sense,” he said, offering his hand. “Merrall, Gregory Merrall.”

  “Khalid Azzam,” I told him. “You’ve moved to Oxenworth?”

  “Bought the old Simpson farm on the hill.”

  I knew immediately—and I often look back and wonder quite how I knew—that Merrall would become part of our group. There was something about him that inspired trust. He was socially confident without being brash, and emanated an avuncular friendliness that was endearing and comforting.

  I noticed that he was nearing the end of his pint. “It’s my round,” I said. “Would you like to join us?”

  “Well, that’s very kind. I don’t mind if I do.”

  So I introduced him to the group and he slipped into the conversation as if the niche had been awaiting him—the niche, I mean, of the quiet wise man, the patriarchal figure whose experience, and whose contemplation of that experience, he brought to bear on our varied conversations that evening.

  IT WAS A couple of weeks later, and I’d arrived early. Richard Lincoln and Andy Souter were at the bar, nursing their first pints. Richard was in his early sixties and for a second I mistook him for Gregory.

  He frowned at my double-take as he bought me a pint.

  “Thought for a second you were Merrall,” I explained.

  “The tweeds,” he said. “Bit out of fashion.”

  Richard was a ferryman and I’d always thought it paradoxical that someone who worked so closely with the Kethani regime should adopt so conservative a mode of dress.

  We commandeered our table by the fire and Andy stowed his trumpet case under his stool. Andy was a professional musician, a quiet man in his late thirties with a trumpeter’s pinched top lip. He conducted the local brass band and taught various instruments at the college in Bradley. He was the newest recruit—discounting Merrall—to our Tuesday night sessions. He ran a hand through his ginger mop and said, “So, what do you think of our Gregory?”

  “I like him a lot,” I said. “He’s one of us.”

  Richard said, “Strange, isn’t it, how some people just fit in? Odd thing is, for all he’s said a lot, I don’t know that much about him.”

  That gave me pause. “Come to think of it, you’re right.” All I knew was that he was from London and that he’d bought the old farmhouse on the hill.

  Andy nodded. “The mysterious stranger...”

  “He’s obviously well traveled,” Richard said.

  That was another thing I knew about him from his stories of India and the Far East. I said, “Isn’t it odd that although he’s said next to nothing about himself, I feel I know him better than I do some people who talk about themselves nonstop.”

  For the next hour, as our friends hurried in from the snow in ones and twos, conversation centered around the enigmatic Mr. Merrall. It turned out that no one knew much more than Richard, Andy, and me.

  “Very well, then,” said Doug Standish, our friendly police officer, “let’s make it our objective tonight to find out a bit more about Gregory, shall we?”

  Five minutes later, at nine o’clock on the dot— as was his habit—Gregory breezed in, shaking off the snow like a big Saint Bernard.

  He joined us by the fire and seconds later was telling us about a conversation he’d had with his bank manager that morning. That provoked a round of similar stories, and soon our collective objective of learning more about our newfound friend was forgotten in the to and fro of bonhomie and good beer.

  Only as I was wending my way home, with Richard by my side, did it occur to me that we had failed abjectly to learn anything more about Gregory than we knew already.

  I said as much to the ferryman.

  He was staring at the rearing crystal pinnacle of the Onward Station, perched miles away on the crest of the moors.

  “Greg’s so friendly, it seems rude to pry,” he said.

  A week later I accidentally found out more about Gregory Merrall and, I thought, the reason for his insularity.

  I ARRIVED AT the Fleece just after nine, tired from a hard day on the implant ward, but eager to tell what I’d discovered. The group was ensconced before the blazing fire.

  Ben and Elisabeth—in their fifties now and still holding hands—both looked at the book I was holding. Ben said, “Tired of our conversation, Khalid?”

  Andy Souter laughed, “If we’re all doing our own thing, then I’ll get my bugle out and practise.�
�

  I smiled. Everyone turned my way as I held up the novel, my hand concealing the name of the author.

  “A Question of Trust,” Samantha Kingsley said. “I didn’t know you were a great reader, Khalid.”

  “I’m not. I was in Bradley today, and this was in the window of the bookshop.”

  “So,” Richard said. “Who’s it by?”

  “Three guesses,” I said.

  “You,” Stuart Kingsley said. “You’ve retired from the implant ward and started writing?”

  “Not me, Stuart. But you do know him.”

  Sam cheated. She was sitting next to me, and she tipped her stool and peeked at the author’s photo on the back of the jacket.

  “Aha!” she said. “Mystery solved.”

  I removed my hand from the byline.

  Richard exclaimed, “Gregory!”

  “This explains a few things,” I said. “His experience, his reluctance to talk about himself—some writers don’t like it known that they write.” I opened the book and read the mini-biography inside the back flap. “‘Gregory Merrall was born in 1965 in London. He has been a full-time freelance writer for more than thirty years, with novels, collections, and volumes of poetry to his name.’”

  Five minutes later Gregory hurried in, hugging himself against the bone-aching cold. He crossed to the fire and roasted his outstretched hands before the flames.

  He saw the book, which I’d placed on the table before me, and laughed. “So... my secret’s out.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Richard said, returning from the bar with a pint for our resident writer.

  Gregory took a long draft. “It’s something I don’t much like talking about,” he said. “People assume a number of things when you mention you’re a scribbler. They either think you’re bragging, that you’re incredibly well off—would that that were so—that you’re some kind of intellectual heavyweight, or that you’ll immediately start regaling them with fabulous stories.”

  “Well,” Sam said, “you have told us some fascinating tales.”