by Nagle, Pati
“Come right in,” Casey said bitterly. He’d better keep the man from the future in a good humor; he was going to need whatever fee he got for Amarga’s portrait. Chances were, he wouldn’t sell anything more to Stanton after this!
∞
It had taken a week; Amarga had come for three more sittings, and now the painting was finished. They were to come for it tonight.
Casey liked it, weird as it was. Amarga had a special beauty; not a human beauty, of course, but you couldn’t have everything.
If only they liked it! Neither of them had looked at the sketch; Roald Ruill had twittered something kind about not being worthy to watch the incubation process of the creative mind, and Amarga had told him, in her shrilling coloratura, that she simply adored surprises.
It was a perfect likeness. Amarga stood, as if living, on the canvas before him. Casey felt that one minute of pure, perfect self-satisfaction, the aftermath of all the painful sweats which go into making anything, whether a picture or a piecrust. Casey looked at his picture and saw that it was good, the best thing he’d ever painted. He’d have to give it up soon enough, so right now he meant to sit and admire it for a minute or two.
The materialization process no longer scared him. When Amarga and Roald Ruill walked out of the wall, he merely greeted them with a cordial grin.
“This is a great moment in history—in future history,” Roald Ruill said pompously. “Amarga, my dear, you must have first look at the portrait.”
Casey stood back, giving way to Amarga. Roald Ruill edged behind her.
They looked at the picture for some moments in silence. Roald Ruill paled to a minty shade of palest green; then suddenly his face congested to indigo, and Amarga gave a soprano shriek. “Oh!” she cried. “Oh, it’s horrible!”
She flung up her long spidery fingers to her eyes and vanished.
“You don’t like it?” Casey asked numbly, and from nowhere, her bodiless voice wailed, “Like it!”
Roald Ruill came at him, angrily. “Is it your intention, Casey, to mock the generations who have revered your name? To insult my daughter?”
Casey stared, stunned, at the almost-breathing picture of Amarga. “Insult her?” he faltered. “Nothing could be further from my mind! I did the best—”
“You have painted her as inhuman!” Ruill thundered.
“Well,” Casey stammered, “Well, she doesn’t look . . . exactly like the . . . human women I’ve painted, but I painted her as she is, as beautifully as—”
Roald Ruill’s face went through a whole palette of greens and blues. “Would you flaunt our mutations in our faces?” he demanded. “How would you paint any woman of Earth, as other than human? Why, you wretched scrawler, if I wanted to see Amarga as she is, I would look in a mirror!” He spoke it as one speaks a disgustingly filthy epithet. “As if anyone ever painted what he saw! Have you no artistic sense of interpretation? You painted only her form—and painted it indecently—and with no psychological insight whatsoever! Where is her basic humanity? Where are her thoughts? Where are the beautiful telepathic projections of her innocent soul? This. . . this obscene scrawl—”
Casey tried to check the flow of rapid words.
“Look here, Roald Ruill, I didn’t think—in our era, it’s customary to paint a portrait so it looks like the subject—”
“Ridiculous!” Roald Ruill stabbed with an angry long finger at the pin-up nudes on the wall. “Do you look like that?”
“Well, no, but then, you see—”
“And that proves it,” Roald Ruill said triumphantly. “I don’t know why I stand arguing with an ignorant moron of the pre-space era! One school of criticism has always maintained that pre-space man had no creativity, and that his so-called art is on a level with the scrawls of a child. Now I have evidence to support this theory! You say, Casey—” he omitted the “Great” this time “—that you painted Amarga as you saw her? Then where are her sexual attributes? Why, one would never know whether she was male or female! You might at least have followed the ordinary conventions of decency! As for this . . . this—” he went an incoherent purple, touching with angry, trembling fingers the painted feathery topknot on Amarga’s skull, “even after what we said about the . . . the lewd indecency of organic substance on the body, you had the . . . the effrontery to paint her—” his face ran the whole gamut of colors, green ice to pine-cone, “with hair, and wearing . . . wearing clothing!”
Casey was angry now. “Well, she was wearing clothing,” he flung at Roald Ruill. Damn it, how could he have known about their dim-witted conventions?
Roald Ruill snorted, “Some concessions to the climate must be made—but sane and decent people do not mention them in polite society!” He flung the painting to the floor. “This . . . this daub would be of interest only to the Council on Abnormal Psychology! Believe me, when I get back to my own time, I will explode the whole Casey myth! The so-called Eternity Fragment which calls you the greatest, must be a hoax!”
Roald Ruill was gone, like a whisper of air, and Casey swore fervently, seeing his fee and a week’s work going glimmering. The room was empty; Casey wondered if he were sleepwalking, if the whole thing had been a bizarre nightmare. No, for Amarga’s portrait lay at his feet where Roald Ruill had thrown it. Casey raised his foot, ready to stamp through the useless, stupid, cheating face; then he jerked back his foot, so suddenly that he almost fell. He steadied himself on the easel, stooped, and tenderly picked up the portrait. He hunted up a piece of brown wrapping paper and a string, and twenty minutes later, went out into the street. The editorial offices of Vector Publications didn’t close till six. He could just about make it.
∞
And everybody in the science fiction world knows the rest—the gorgeous six-color cover on the first issue of Eternity Science Fiction Novels, the story written around the cover by Theodore Sturgeon, the guest editorial on “The Nonhuman in Science Fiction Art.” The original painting, auctioned off at the science fiction convention, sold for two hundred dollars.
No other of Casey’s paintings ever won quite so much fame, though he sold steadily to the science fiction magazines after that, and twice won a Hugo as “Artist of the Year.”
He was fairly well satisfied with his modest success, though his family always wondered why he should waste his talents illustrating “escapist rubbish.” His nagging maiden aunt (she of the orange polka-dotted pajamas) once asked him point-blank:
“Why don’t you paint something worthwhile, something to make a name for yourself? This here-today-and-gone-tomorrow stuff, it’s only good for waste paper! These crackpot science fiction fans may call you the greatest, but fifty years from now, none of these cheap magazines will be around—and your name will be completely forgotten!”
“Hah,” said Casey—but only to himself, for he was almost always polite to old ladies, “that’s what you think!”
About the Authors
Chaz Brenchley has been making a living as a writer since he was eighteen. Chaz is the author of nine thrillers, including Shelter, and two major fantasy series: The Books of Outremer, based on the world of the Crusades, and Selling Water by the River, set in an alternate Ottoman Istanbul. As Daniel Fox, he has published Dragon in Chains, Jade Man’s Skin and Hidden Cities, a Chinese-influenced fantasy series. As Ben Macallan, he has published the urban fantasy Desdaemona, and its sequel Pandaemonium. A winner of the British Fantasy Award, he has also published five books for children and more than 500 short stories in various genres. His time as Crimewriter-in-Residence on a sculpture project resulted in the collection Blood Waters. He was Northern Writer of the Year 2000, and now lives in California with his wife, two squabbling cats and a famous teddy bear.
Marion Zimmer Bradley is probably best known for her Darkover novels and her best-selling Arthurian novel The Mists of Avalon. In addition to her novels, Mrs. Bradley edited many magazines, amateur and professional, including Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, which she started in
1988, as well as an annual anthology, Sword and Sorceress.
Marie Brennan Marie Brennan is an anthropologist and folklorist who shamelessly pillages her academic fields for material. She most recently misapplied her professors’ hard work to the Onyx Court historical fantasy series (Midnight Never Come, In Ashes Lie, A Star Shall Fall, and With Fate Conspire). She is also the author of the doppelganger duology of Warrior and Witch, the scientific adventure A Natural History of Dragons, and more than forty short stories. When she’s not obsessing over historical details too minute for anybody but her to care about, she practices shorin-ryu karate and pretends to be other people in role-playing games (which sometimes find their way into her writing).
Jeffrey A. Carver grew up on the Lake Erie shores of Huron, Ohio, but eventually settled in the Boston area, where he lives with his family. Currently he’s writing a new volume in his popular series The Chaos Chronicles. Another of his favorite places to spin tales is his Star Rigger universe; one story in that world, Eternity’s End, was a finalist for the Nebula Award. Among his stand-alone works are The Rapture Effect, and Battlestar Galactica, a novelization of the SciFi Channel’s miniseries. By many accounts, his work is hard science fiction, but his greatest love remains character, story, and a healthy sense of wonder. As a teacher, Carver once hosted an educational TV series on the writing of SF and fantasy. In person, he’s taught at MIT, Odyssey, and the New England Young Writer’s Conference; and he is cofounder of the Ultimate SF Writing Workshop, in the Boston area.
Inspired by a lifelong love of nature, endless curiosity, and a belief in wonderful things, Amy Sterling Casil is a 2002 Nebula Award nominee and recipient of other awards and recognition for her short science fiction and fantasy, which has appeared in publications ranging from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction to Zoetrope. She is the author of 26 nonfiction books, about a hundred short stories, primarily science fiction and fantasy, two fiction and poetry collections, and three novels. She lives in Aliso Viejo, California, with her daughter Meredith and a Jack Russell Terrier named Gambit. Amy is a business consultant and teaches writing and composition at Saddleback College, after receiving her MFA from Chapman University in 1999.
Brenda W. Clough spent much of her childhood overseas, courtesy of the US government. Her first fantasy novel, The Crystal Crown, was published by DAW in 1984. She has also written The Dragon of Mishbil (1985), The Realm Beneath (1986), and The Name of the Sun (1988). Her children’s novel, An Impossumble Summer (1992), is set in her own house in Virginia, where she lives in a cottage at the edge of a forest. Her novel, How Like a God, was published by Tor Books in 1997, and a sequel, Doors of Death and Life, was published in May 2000.
Doranna Durgin’s quirkiness of spirit has led to an eclectic publishing journey since her first award-winning novel, spanning genres over 40 published novels to include mystery, SF/F, action-romance, paranormal, franchise, and a slew of essays and short stories, and now combining those ongoing releases with joyful new indie efforts. Beyond that, mostly she still prefers to hang around outside her New Mexico mountain home with the animals, riding dressage on her Lipizzan and training for performance sports with the dogs. She doesn’t believe so much in mastering the beast within, but in channeling its power. For good or bad has yet to be decided . . .
Sylvia Kelso lives in North Queensland, Australia, and writes mostly novels, in fantasy, SF and mystery/time-travel genres, with alternate North Queensland or analogue Australian settings. Two of her novels have been finalists for best fantasy novel in the Aurealis Australian genre fiction awards.
Katharine Kerr spent her childhood in a Great Lakes industrial city and her adolescence in Southern California, whence she fled to the San Francisco Bay Area just in time to join a number of the Revolutions then in progress. After fleeing those in turn, she became a professional storyteller and an amateur skeptic, who regards all True Believers with a jaundiced eye, even those who true-believe in Science. An inveterate loafer, baseball addict, and rock and roll fan, she begrudgingly spares time to write novels, including the Deverry series of historical fantasies or fantastical histories, depending on your point of view. She lives near San Francisco with her husband of many years and some cats.
Katharine Eliska Kimbriel reinvents herself every decade or so. It’s not on purpose, mind you—it seems her path involves overturning the apple cart, collecting new information & varieties of apple seed, and moving on. The one constant she has reached for in life is telling stories.
Mindy Klasky learned to read when her parents shoved a book in her hands and told her she could travel anywhere in the world through stories. She never forgot that advice. Her travels took her through multiple careers—from litigator to librarian to full-time writer. Her travels have also taken her through various literary genres for readers of all ages—from traditional fantasy to paranormal chick-lit to category romance, from middle-grade to young adult to adult. In her spare time, she knits, quilts, and tries to tame her endless to-be-read shelf. Her husband and cats do their best to fill the left-over minutes.
Sue Lange is your typical multi-tasking author. She tweets, facebooks, and blogs so much she has no time to write. The minute she sits down to do so, somebody somewhere posts another cute cat photo, or an update on the fertility rites of the Royal Family. You know, something that simply must be investigated. Somehow in the distant past before humanity discovered the Internet, she did write.
Ursula K. Le Guin is a founding member of Book View Café. She has published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls, and Finding My Elegy, New and Selected Poems. Small Beer Press published her two-volume story collection, The Real and the Unreal, in 2013. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
David D. Levine’s short stories have appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, Analog, Realms of Fantasy, and numerous other magazines, websites, and anthologies, including four Year’s Best volumes (two SF, two Fantasy). He’s won a Hugo (Best Short Story, for “Tk’Tk’Tk”) and has received many other awards and nominations. He likes to think of himself as a writer who takes the classic ideas of Golden Age SF and gives them a fresh, up-to-date presentation… the SF equivalent of a New Beetle or Mini Cooper. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he’s spent more than half his life, and is now happily retired after working for 24 years at Tektronix, Intel, and McAfee. He co-edits the fanzine Bento with his wife, Kate Yule.
Vonda N. McIntyre writes science fiction.
Mary Anne Mohanraj is author of Bodies in Motion (HarperCollins) and nine other titles. Bodies in Motion was a finalist for the Asian American Book Awards, a USA Today Notable Book, and has been translated into six languages. Mohanraj founded the World Fantasy Award-winning and Hugo-nominated magazine, Strange Horizons. She was Guest of Honor at WisCon 2010, received a Breaking Barriers Award from the Chicago Foundation for Women for her work in Asian American arts organizing, and won an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Prose. Mohanraj has taught at the Clarion SF/F workshop, and is now Clinical Assistant Professor of fiction and literature and Associate Coordinator of Asian and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She serves as Executive Director of both DesiLit (www.desilit.org) and the Speculative Literature Foundation (www.speclit.org). Recent publications include Without a Map, Aqueduct Press, co-authored with Nnedi Okorafor. She lives in a creaky old Victorian in Oak Park, just outside Chicago, with her partner, Kevin, two small children, and a sweet dog.
Nancy Jane Moore is a founding member of Book View Café. Her books Ardent Forest, Changeling (first published by Aqueduct Press), Conscientious Inconsistencies (first published by PS Publishing), and Flashes of Illumination are all available from the Book View Café bookstore. Her fiction has appeared in a variety of
anthologies and in magazines ranging from Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet to the National Law Journal. She divides her time between Austin, Texas, and Oakland, California.
Pati Nagle is a native of northern New Mexico. An avid student of music, history, and humans in general, she has a special love of the outdoors, particularly New Mexico’s mountains, which inspire many of her stories. Her short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Cricket, Cicada, and in anthologies honoring New Mexico writers Jack Williamson and Roger Zelazny. Her two fantasy series, Immortal and Blood of the Kindred, were inspired by her love of Tolkein. She has also written a series of historical novels as P.G. Nagle and writes mysteries as Patrice Greenwood. She is a founding member of Book View Café.
Shannon Page was born on Halloween night and spent her early years on a back-to-the-land commune in northern California. A childhood without television gave her a great love of books and the worlds she found in them. At seven, she wrote her first book, an illustrated adventure starring her cat. Sadly, that story is out of print, but her work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Interzone, Fantasy, Black Static, Tor.com, and many anthologies, including the Australian Shadows Award-winning Grants Pass. Her debut collection, Eastlick and Other Stories, appeared in October 2013 at Book View Café, and she has two novels following soon: Eel River, a hippie horror tale, from Morrigan Books; and The Queen and The Tower, first book in The Nightcraft Quartet, from Per Aspera Press. Her editorial work can be seen in the anthology Witches, Stitches & Bitches, from Evil Girlfriend Media. She is a longtime yoga practitioner, has no tattoos, and is an avid gardener at home with her partner Mark Ferrari in Portland, Oregon.
