2014 Campbellian Anthology

by Various

  The computer beeps.

  I click the flashing icon after several seconds, not wanting to appear anxious.

  A man appears on screen. My lawyer, Robert. Not a hair out of place nor a stain to his teeth.

  “Doctor, in a few moments Gen Corp will be on the line. Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “You’ve gone over the meeting notes I faxed you?” he says.

  “Yes.” I take a look at the printout next to the laptop, detailing the applications for GX-439 and any potential adverse side effects.

  “I’m bringing them on now,” Robert says, averting his gaze to his keyboard, his voice calm and cool.

  Another window pops up, and in it I see the face of a tan, grey-haired gentleman. His eyes are eager and sly.

  “Good afternoon, Doctor,” the Gen Corp executive says. “Shall we proceed?”

  The sun brightens through the window. I hear wings flapping, and a magnificent raptor lands upon the sill.

  A peregrine falcon.

  It watches me with dark brown eyes, then blinks.

  SEVEN FISH FOR SARAH

  by Michael Hodges

  First published in Penumbra eMag (Dec. 2012), edited by Celina Summers

  • • • •

  THE RAINBOW TROUT glimmers beneath the surface. Downstream, the current curls around mossy boulders and drowned aspen that had long since shed their bark. At first the crisp bark had hung snug to the trees, and over days, then weeks, the bark had become layers of undulating material, finally giving way to one last, cold nudge. From there the bark sheddings ghosted into the icy depths, past dark slate crevasses where the largest trout haunt. Where eons flow in the gloom.

  And it is on this hunk of slate I ponder how I made it, how we made it. I watch the hatches of blue winged olives and fall spinners catch the sunset around me and carry it into the darkening forest. Beyond them, fireflies illuminate dim glades where nuthatches trill and tiny brooks trickle past ferns.

  I can’t help but reflect on how the water far upstream will soon be at my feet, and the water downstream I will never catch again. All is coming, all is going. Like people did.

  I am what they call a “survivor.” I suppose I do feel like one at times. They said the pesticide would only kill the mosquitos. It never came close. Instead, the chemical agent known as Neutronin wiped out most of humanity. After Bane Chemicals loaded Neutronin upon the trains, after all the planes had sprayed, after country after country incorporated it into their pest control programs, we finally figured out it was reducing our life expectancy.

  By seventy-five percent.

  It wasn’t something people noticed right away. Women at fifteen with greying hair. High school athletes more injury prone, with the aches and pains of an old man.

  Oh, they tried to reverse the chain, but the chemical had already done the damage. And with the half-life at an estimated ninety years, there was little immediate recourse. Birth rates plummeted, and we’re still trying to work our way back. The Neutronin disrupted the delivery mechanism of the umbilical cord and the fetal nervous system regardless of diet. Luckily, not all hopeful mothers-to-be were stricken.

  A few of us were unaffected by the chemical’s sidewinder reaction. The ones who did not eat red meat, pork, monkey, horse, or certain insects that were viewed as a delicacy in the Orient. In the end, it was the combination of Neutronin and the DNA of these species that triggered the life expectancy reduction.

  I reach my hands into the depths, my chin almost touching the water. My arms pale roots in the liquidity. I do my best to conceal my shadow, for it is the shadow that always makes the trout flee. The crafty rainbow trout does not see me, yet. I can feel his pulse in the tips of my fingers although I am not touching him. Soon he will try and hug the dark, slate riverbed. I can see forest litter swirling down there, caught amongst a pocket of multihued stones.

  There are many people who don’t see the Neutronin disaster as a bad thing. The air is cleaner. There are few skirmishes. At first we all thought it strange. That was until the day Pepper, a stray mixed-breed dog limped into our village. When approached by Mary Canders, Pepper had recoiled, rather than lashing out. A series of burns matted his fur and his muzzle was scared, perhaps by a small, sharp instrument. The look in his eyes told us everything. When Mary had taken him in and offered a healthy environment, over time he had blossomed into a very affectionate pup. And in a way, that’s how we responded, too. We were in effect abused by the disaster, and we responded not with weapons hoisted at eye level, but with a soft whimpering that grew into a blooming rose, just like Pepper.

  People live free, with no worry of debt or castes. We still have power, too. Wind power. But these are prioritized for our hospitals, which we build very near to the wind mills. All medical care is free, although people have been known to offer a basket of fresh fish, a woven blanket, or a dozen chicken eggs for the favor. We have art, too. Our town hall is filled with the paintings of children rather than pictures of politicians. Sometimes, we’ll put up a painting of a local hero. Last week, Brook Skeeter rescued the Maryville family from their burning house. So we celebrated in his honor. Lots of beer, potatoes, carrots, fish and trinkets. But do not think we rely on money. All coins and bills were burned. All credit cards and checkbooks. At first I didn’t want to burn mine, but I did. I had to set an example for my people.

  Ah, the crafty rainbow trout. He’s playing with me, I know it. My chin is touching the water now, but I see him lowering himself to the slate riverbed, no doubt deflating his swimbladder for critical vertical control. I must be careful I do not fall in. I have six trout for Sarah, my beautiful wife, whom I met post-Neutronin. Hmmm… six trout and ten very cold fingers.

  Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we hold feasts. Everyone brings their own dish. I unfurl the old St. Mary High School baseball field tarp and make it into a tent. Musicians show up to the feasts. Bluesman, jazzmen, or the apostles of rock n’ roll. We celebrate into the night, and there’s little need for a designated driver, for we do not drive. Because of this, we’ve stopped climate change. I’m told ice is reforming at the polar caps, and the sea is retreating from the shores of distant islands. The only groups permitted to drive motor vehicles are the Post Office and Medical Services.

  There was a big brouhaha about what to do with the vast stockpiles of explosives post-Neutronin. Well, I can assure you they were put to good use. You see, we undammed most of the rivers. At last salmon have returned to their native spawning grounds all along the coasts, spewing bright roe in the shallow riffles. Survivors with homes along the river corridors were relocated and offered first fishing rights for their cooperation.

  My chin is submerged in the river now, and the crystalline surface laps at my lips. I can feel it cold and filtering between my teeth. I take some in and spit it out. My pale arms sink deeper into the gloom, towards the finning trout. Even though my face is so close to the water, I can smell pine sap and lavender in the air. A sweet breeze caresses my back, and the sun warms my head. Just a few more inches….

  Some days I don’t feel like a survivor. Some days I feel like this is how we were supposed to live all along. People are fewer, and food is plentiful. With the reduction in technology, people looked up from their smart phones and started paying attention to things that had been over their heads and under their noses. Their neighbors! Like squirrels, or hawks, or raccoons. These were the real, living neighbors that shuddered under their decks in the harshest winters, that roosted in their attics during the maddest spring torrents. And when people began paying attention to what they never had, they stopped emphasizing the unseen, and started caring more about what they could feel, touch, and see, human or not. Perhaps of all the changes post-Neutronin, this was the most significant.

  The mountains of Northern California are my home. Life is a rich bounty, but it is not a hoarding contest. I do not need, nor care for a Hummer or a yacht. I do not care to invest in the stock market. None o
f us really do post-Neutronin.

  Sometimes, for the teacher to teach her lesson, she has to wipe the chalkboard clean.

  I reach down another inch, and my eyes sting from the cold river. I open them amidst the cold rush, stinging them even worse. My heart is racing and I feel my balance wavering. But I can see the trout down there, defying me. I’m almost on top of him, my hands closing in, there….I quickly bring both hands together and feel the fleshy sides of the trout. At once I pull myself up, soaking wet and dripping. I get on my feet and hoist the trout high into the air. Sunlight reflects in diamond water droplets along its jaw. The trout gulps for air, causing the droplets to fall and ping the slate rock.

  I look at my wicker trout basket. Six trout. Then I turn to my new catch, how the head tilts side to side, the black eyes rimmed by gold watching me, and I wonder what the trout is thinking. Then I kneel along the slate edge and gently lower the trout into the water. I cradle its belly and hold its tail, letting it regain energy so it does not lose fight in the current. I move it gently back and forth, back and forth, like those peeling layers of underwater bark.

  And then I let the trout go.

  Ada Hoffmann became eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer with the publication of “Feasting Alone” in AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review (Apr. 2013), edited by D.F. McCourt.

  Visit her website at ada-hoffmann.com.

  * * *

  Flash: “Feasting Alone” ••••

  Short Story: “Blue Fever” ••••

  Short Story: “And All the Fathomless Crowds” ••••

  FEASTING ALONE

  by Ada Hoffmann

  First published in AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review (Apr. 2013), edited by D.F. McCourt

  • • • •

  MARTIN UPLOADED his soul to the servers late. “A month,” he’d said at the outset. “Just a month so I can set my affairs in order.” But with our minds newly augmented and running on exaflops, a month may as well have been a lifetime. Whole movements had risen and fallen in six-dimensional art by the time his ID pinged at the arrival depot. Ponderous volumes of time-poetry had been written, revised, debated in the common halls and spawned rivals. We’d long ago abandoned the silly conceit of human avatars. Most of us were not wholly embodied at all: we were intricate fractal shapes on gossamer wings, or shadows that glistened with subtle colour.

  Martin was hideous. Martin was one of those shambling masses of flesh that we’d left behind. And he quailed when he saw us.

  “Demons,” he said.

  Well, we sorted that out, but not a soul on our server had the patience to teach him more. He couldn’t understand time-poetry, let alone see in more than three dimensions. We tossed manuals his way, but he ignored them. He sat in a corner, holding his virtual head—as if anyone still suffered pain in here.

  When we had left him alone for long enough, something rose from his virtual body that we thought we had forgotten.

  Oh, God. The chewing, smacking sounds. The smell. Someone had taken pity on the man and given him a program to call up the virtual ghost of food. He squatted on the floor, guzzling obscenities: salt pork, chocolate cake, rigatoni, grapes. He gaped, all tonsils and teeth.

  Then, as we gathered to stare at him, he burped.

  We flew away into the aether. “Freak", we said. “Pig". To wallow in sensory indulgence and ignore the beauty at his feet! We drew caricatures of him in lines of pure light and hid them in the dimensions he couldn’t see yet, tossing them to each other and giggling.

  But when the others tired of that game, I turned back.

  Why was I drawn to him? What was it that I wanted to understand? It was so hard to remember the old, bad world.

  Martin swallowed his tiramisu and stared at me.

  His voice was dull, thick and organic, though if he’d read the manuals he could have given it the sinuous emotion of a violin. “Are you here to laugh at me again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Why was he so familiar? Why, through my disgust, did I feel sorry for him?

  “I thought I was ready,” he said. “I thought reading about it before the upload was enough. But I don’t understand anything here. Least of all you. At least the food’s programmed to taste like…”

  Home, he didn’t say.

  He looked at me like I was warm bread. Like he needed me.

  “Would you like…” I shook my head. What could a man like Martin want? “Help looking at the manuals?”

  “I can’t yet. I look at them and I want to vomit. You’re all so far ahead of me that I’ll never catch up.”

  I flitted backwards in case he did vomit. I didn’t know if he had a program to let him do it, but I didn’t want to find out.

  “Can’t you just sit with me?” said Martin. Pleading now. “Just for a minute. Just eat with me. Like we used to.”

  Like we used to.

  Why couldn’t I remember? And why did I want to? How could anything in the dull, physical past be relevant to me?

  But that look in his eyes. He knew me. We must have been friends. We might have been…

  Lovers.

  Oh, God. Yes. I dimly remembered. We had been lovers. We had wanted to be in this world together. I could hardly fathom it now, but somehow despite all the sweat and slime of the act he had been important to me.

  Had anyone in this swarm of enlightened souls been important to me? The art had been important to me. The time-poetry. The sheer joy of living unfettered by physical limits. What were other people in comparison to that? None of us were anything to each other apart from what we made.

  And suddenly I was mildly uneasy about that. Enough to take a risk, though a small one, in trying to understand.

  I racked my memory for a body with biological processes. To eat virtual food I needed a virtual mouth, teeth, a tongue, an esophagus and stomach… The change came over me with a shiver, as easy as any other, though it felt strange and unweildy having insides again.

  I knelt beside Martin. Picked up a grape. Bit back my disgust, flicked it onto my tongue, and chewed.

  The taste was… physical. It was a mild pleasure, but one I had grown unused to, and I frowned as I swallowed.

  I still didn’t understand, but his food no longer disgusted me.

  “We need to teach you,” I said. “Slowly, and in a way you can understand. It will take a long time. But maybe you need to remind us of something in return.” I hesitated, and then swallowed my pride. “Could you pass the chocolate?”

  He met my eyes, bewildered, grateful. And we ate.

  BLUE FEVER

  by Ada Hoffmann

  First published in This Is How You Die (2013), edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki

  • • • •

  ATHBA HAD a death to sing.

  She stood straight and tall at the front of Lord Keloth’s small, nervous group of court musicians. The smell of jasmine, orange flower, and oakmoss rose from dim braziers at the corners of the banquet hall, mingling with the scents of roast meat, delicate sauces, and sweets. Courtiers whispered and jibed, no doubt forming and breaking alliances even as the banquet’s courses were changed. A clockwork servitor’s gears clicked incessantly as it rolled with an insectlike gait from table to table. It paused and pointedly brushed a crumb off Athba’s skirt before rolling away again.

  She breathed deeply, willing herself not to tug at her thick black hair or to fuss with the robes hiding her voluminous figure. Style was everything with Lord Keloth, and though he had not disliked a song of hers yet, she could guess at the penalty for failure. He perched heronlike on his throne, draped in scarlet silk, his eyes fixed on hers.

  “Athba,” he said, “do you have something to sing me?”

  It was a silly question. Of course she did. Her deathsongs were the sole reason she enjoyed Lord Keloth’s patronage. She nodded, and he gestured to the group. As the lead violinist drew her bow, Athba drew breath.

&
nbsp; • • •

  The song began with a wordless, plaintive tune on Nanu’s violin. Athba sang her first verses soft and menacing, in a tone that hinted something else lurked underneath.

  “Sunlight glinting red

  Off of ruby-tinted scale:

  Teeth, claws and wings

  Worked in intricate detail…

  Slowly, she sang the story of a gift: a life-sized dragon worked from rosy glass. This was not an ordinary royal gift, but something deposited mysteriously during the night, with nothing but an enigmatic note. In reality, Keloth’s guards would never have allowed such a thing; in the song, it could be explained away as magic.

  Lord Keloth, in the song, found it on his morning walk to the throne room. (The tempo increased slightly; Nanu took up tense repeated notes, hypnotic and nearly dancelike.) Anyone bestowing such a gift would know he had reason to fear glass sculptures; but Keloth was no coward, nor a poor sport. He had it installed in his courtyard.

  The tempo continued to increase. The other violinists took on the repeated notes, while Nanu played an urgent modulating bridge, swooping high and back down again.

  The sculpture came to life. It crept up the stairs, in the dead of night, and into Keloth’s bedchamber.

  The accompaniment was frenzied now, and Athba no longer held back. She put her voice’s full power into the sharp-edged melody as she sang Keloth’s battle with the beast. It growled threats; he made dry little jokes. He cracked its limbs; it bit his throat. He shattered its head with a heavy book from his beside table, and at last it died. Shards of glass clattered across the chamber like cobblestones.