Space Magic

by Levine, David D.

  The price he quoted was high. But the money Denali had won from the Duke would cover the down payment, and the balance was less than Nerissa’s empty body would bring on the black market.

  The next week the chandler came by with his delivery dirigible. He hooked chains and cables to Crocus’s corroded hull and hauled it away. Denali emptied out his secret personal cache of money and told Leona it was the proceeds of the salvage sale.

  “I thought we had sold every part worth salvaging long ago,” she said. “Surely the expense of the dirigible was more than the hull was worth?”

  “I met the chandler on my last trip to Arica, and persuaded him he owed us a favor.”

  Leona still seemed unconvinced, but she accepted the money.

  In the following weeks Nerissa’s sense that Denali was hiding something from her increased. He grew haggard, and she found he would not meet her eyes. She wanted to ask him about his troubles, to repay the concern and respect she had been shown. But her years of servitude had ingrained in her a pattern of silent obedience and she said nothing.

  For his part, Denali felt an agony of silence. He could confide neither in his mother, who would berate him for hiring the chandler with money he did not yet have, nor in Nerissa, whose beauty he planned to tear away and sell for his own profit; yet he ached for reassurance. He found himself uninterested in food, and spent long hours of the night staring at his ceiling, unable to sleep.

  On one such restless night, he watched a patch of shimmering moonlight, reflected onto his ceiling from a small pond near the house, as it passed slowly from one side of the room to the other. Suddenly, silently, it flared and danced all over the room, then returned to its previous state. Just as he was about to dismiss the phenomenon as an effect of his tired eyes, it happened again. And a third time.

  He rose from his bed and looked out the window. What he saw then captured his heart. It was Nerissa, dancing naked on the shore of the pond. He had seen the moonlight reflected from her shining metal body.

  Nerissa’s dance was a soaring, graceful thing, a poem composed of twirls and leaps and tumbles. The great strength of her legs propelled her high into the air, in defiance of her metallic weight, and brought her to landing as delicately as a faun. Her platinum skin in the moonlight shone silver on silver, black on black; she was a creature of the moonlight, a pirouetting dancing fragment of the night.

  She was even more beautiful than he had thought.

  His heart was torn in two. Part of it wanted to fly, to leap and dance with her in the night. Part of it sank to the acid pit of his stomach, as though trying to hide from the knowledge of the plan he had laid. How could he destroy this beauty and grace for mere money? But how could he sentence himself, his mother, and his father’s memory to a continued life of debt and deceit—a life that must eventually end in discovery and shame—for the sake of a machine?

  Perhaps he let out a small sound of despair. Perhaps it was the sight of his white nightshirt in the window. For whatever reason, Nerissa noticed she was being watched. Clumsily she stopped her dance and stared directly at him, her eyes two tiny stars of reflected light.

  He descended the stairs and met her in the doorway. The moonlight shining from her cheek was painfully bright, and in the silence of the night he heard the tiny sounds of her eyes as they shifted in their sockets.

  “I’m sorry I disturbed your sleep, Sir.”

  “No, no... I wasn’t asleep. You dance beautifully, M’zelle.”

  “Thank you, Sir. I do enjoy it. It is as close as I can come in this body to the joy of flight between the stars.”

  The sundered halves of Denali’s heart fused together then, for he realized then his plan for Nerissa was exactly what she wanted as well. He would restore her to her former life of sailing the currents of space, which she had described so vividly to him, and at the same time restore his own fortune.

  Nerissa saw the smile spreading across his face, and asked what he was thinking.

  “I have just thought of the most delightful surprise for you, M’zelle. A gift for you, to express my appreciation of your dance. But it will take some time to prepare, so I must ask you to be patient.” He bent and kissed the warm metal of her fingers. “Good night, M’zelle.”

  “Good night, Sir.”

  He returned to his bed and fell immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  Three days later the chandler’s dirigible returned, the refitted Crocus hanging from its gondola. The ship’s gleaming hull wore vivid stripes of red, yellow, and green, the colors of Ranson Eu’s former trading company. Denali, Leona, and Nerissa gathered together and watched as the dirigible lowered it gently to the ground. The pilot waved from the gondola as he flew away.

  “This is my surprise to you both,” Denali proclaimed. “Behold: Crocus is reborn!”

  Nerissa stared at the ship in silent rapture, but Leona turned to her son with concern. “I suspected you were hiding something from me. This is a wonderful surprise, to be sure, but I thought we had no secrets from each other.”

  “Only this one, Mother. And there was a reason. Nerissa, here is my gift to you: this new Crocus has been built especially for you. In this new bird ship you will fly the stars once more.”

  Nerissa’s reaction confused and disturbed him. She went rigid, her features drawing together and her eyes widening. “This is... a bird ship?” she said. “But where did you obtain the shipbrain?”

  “There is no shipbrain, M’zelle. That position has been reserved for your own sweet self.”

  Nerissa’s metal hands bunched into fists, held tightly against her chin. She seemed to shrink into herself. “No,” she whispered. “No, no... please, Sir and Master... I beg you...”

  Denali Eu felt his hands grow cold. “But M’zelle, when I saw you dance in the moonlight... I thought to fly the stars was your greatest joy.”

  “To fly is joy, yes... but to be cut from this body... to be severed... uprooted... the pain, Sir and Master... that pain is something I could never endure again.” She crouched, trembling, on the stones of the path. Her eyes were huge. “I would rather die, Sir and Master. I would find a way, Sir and Master. Please, Sir and Master, please... I know you are my owner, I know I must obey your wishes without question or hesitation, but I beg you... do not ask me to do this.” And she fell at his feet, her hands raised as though to ward off a blow.

  All the color ran out of Denali Eu’s world. He turned from Nerissa and Leona and marched clumsily into the woods behind the house. They did not follow.

  Some time later he found himself seated on a fallen log. The sun was low in the sky and his clothes and skin were torn from thorns and brambles.

  How could he have been so stupid? He had lied to his mother, lied to Nerissa, made unwarranted assumptions, and promised money he did not have. Soon the chandler’s bill would arrive and he had nothing with which to pay it.

  He considered his options. He could follow through with his plan—and Nerissa would find some way to end her life, or else would serve in unwilling misery. Even if he were heartless enough to force her to do this, he did not relish the idea of trusting his life to a ship he had betrayed.

  He could break up Nerissa, sell her platinum and precious stones to pay the chandler—and she would be gone completely, and he would have only a worthless hull without a drive.

  He could sell Nerissa in one piece—and it would be the same, only with more money. Nerissa would still be lost to him, and subject to the whim of some other master who might treat her still more cruelly.

  He could repudiate the chandler’s bill, declare bankruptcy—and see Nerissa sold off, along with his mother’s house, and himself sold into slavery.

  But there was one more option. Denali Eu was an educated man, and he knew the history of the bird ships. He also knew Nerissa’s story. And because of this knowledge, and despite this knowledge, he made the final, fateful decision that set a legend in motion.

  He spent a long time sitting o
n the log, his head in his hands, but he could think of no other alternative. Then he stood and walked back to his mother’s house. There, as the sun set, he told Nerissa and Leona of his decision. His mother cried and shouted and beat her hands upon the kitchen table; Nerissa sat upon a chair with her head bowed, but did not speak. Neither of them could change his mind.

  The next day Nerissa and Leona took Denali Eu for a walk in the forest. He listened to the birds and the rustling of the leaves, and he felt the cool wind brush gently against his skin. He smelled the green of the leaves and the damp of the earth, and as many flowers as they could find. In the evening they prepared for him a fine meal, with pungent spices and fresh vegetables, and succulent fruits new-gathered and sweet. Nerissa massaged his back with her strong warm fingers, and his mother cried as she brushed his cheek with pieces of silk and fur.

  On the following morning he went into the city and gave himself to the doctors. He told them what he wanted, and he swore three times that this was his will.

  And so they killed him, and they took his brain and welded it to the keel of the Crocus. For the techniques of Doctor Jay were legal, as long as the donation was voluntary and sworn to three times, and the organs of a young man in the best of health could be sold for enough money to pacify the chandler.

  The operation was every bit as painful as Nerissa had said. But Denali found sailing the stars was even more delightful than dancing in the moonlight: a symphony of colors and textures beyond his human experience. And this ship was equipped with eyes and ears and hands within its hull as well as without.

  The ship, renamed the Golden Eagle, became a hugely successful trader. Denali Eu’s knowledge and skill, combined with Nerissa Zeebnen-Fearsig’s beauty and charm, were something no seller or buyer could resist and no other trader could surpass. The ship with a human mind and a metal captain was famed in song and story, and when after many years Leona Eu died she left one of the greatest fortunes in the Consensus.

  Denali Eu and Nerissa the Silver Captain have not been seen for many, many years. Some say they sought new challenges in the Magellanic Clouds or even beyond. Some say they settled down to a contented existence on an obscure planet. But no one doubts that, wherever they are, they are together still.

  About the Author

  David D. Levine has sold over fifty science fiction and fantasy stories to all the major markets, including Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, and Realms of Fantasy. He’s won a Hugo Award, been nominated for the Nebula, and won or been shortlisted for many other awards as well as appearing in numerous Year’s Best anthologies and the revised version of Wild Cards Volume I. He is a member of Book View Café and his web page is at www.daviddlevine.com.

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  You can find other works by this author at www.bookviewcafe.com.

  About Book View Café

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  Copyright & Credits

  Space Magic

  Copyright © 2012 by David D. Levine.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.

  First Published by Wheatland Press, 2008.

  Book View Café Edition December 5, 2012

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-215-0

  These are works of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by Darin Bradley. Ebook covers designed by Dave Smeds.

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  “Wind from a Dying Star” first appeared in Bones of the World, anthology edited by Bruce Holland Rogers (August 2001, SFF Net Books).

  “Nucleon” first appeared in Interzone, magazine edited by David Pringle (Issue 174, December 2001).

  “I Hold My Father’s Paws” first appeared in Albedo One magazine (Issue 31).

  “Zauberschrift” first appeared in Apprentice Fantastic, anthology edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis (November 2002, DAW).

  “Rewind” first appeared in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume XVIII (August 2002, Galaxy Press).

  “Fear of Widths” first appeared in Land/Space, anthology edited by Candas Jane Dorsey and Judy McCrosky (February 2003, Tesseract Books).

  “Brotherhood” first appeared in Haunted Holidays, anthology edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis (October 2004, DAW).

  “Circle of Compassion” first appeared in Gateways, anthology edited by Martin H. Greenberg (June 2005, DAW).

  “Tk’Tk’Tk” first appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, magazine edited by Sheila Williams (March 2005).

  “Charlie the Purple Giraffe Was Acting Strangely” first appeared in Realms of Fantasy, magazine edited by Shawna McCarthy (June 2004).

  “Falling Off the Unicorn” first appeared in Space Magic (May 2008, Wheatland Press).

  “The Ecology of Faerie” first appeared in Realms of Fantasy, magazine edited by Shawna McCarthy (October 2005).

  “At the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting of Uncle Teco’s Homebrew Gravitics Club” first appeared in the OryCon 25 Souvenir Book, edited by John C. Bunnell (November 2003, OSFCI).

  “Love in the Balance” first appeared in All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, anthology edited by David Moles and Jay Lake (October 2004, Wheatland Press).

  “The Tale of the Golden Eagle” first appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, magazine edited by Gordon Van Gelder (June 2003).