The First Heroes

by Harry Turtledove

  Trent seemed untroubled that the point of entry to this technology would be through electronic games, which were being developed solely for audiences uninterested in formal innovation and poststructural différance. He expected not to retain copyright to his early work, which would be remembered only as technical exercises and crude forerunners of the GlasTome. Its form would emerge by pushing against commercial boundaries from the inside. Even product, he told Leslie, could be produced with a greater or lesser degree of artistry.

  When asked to reconcile this conviction with his love of novels, Trent replied that he also loved verse dramas. Reading the draft chapters of his biography of the great man, Leslie wondered at the wretched fellow’s dogged attempts (remorselessly documented by Trent) to traverse the swamp of commercial fiction and pull his soles free of it later. Better to emulate the great man’s own master: subordinate all to your work, let creditors and family wait upon your genius? Perhaps, as with the intervening James, fame will greet you anyway!

  Lie down in bogs, wake up with fees. Trent had ended his unhappy sojourn in the land of the games without copyright or royalties, footloose into the barrens. But we have our daughter, dear. The occasional classes he taught, the magazine articles and the tiny fellowship, offered no visible path back to the realm where word and image alike danced in the flux of Aye and Nought. But what you do is valued, and I love you. An old colleague had offered the chance to beta-test and Trent had obliged, poor hopeful fool, been sucked in and spat out. Write something about ancient Sumer. Your banishing Eden beguiles then betrays you, leaving you stunned with grief, lost to truer pleasures, deaf to your lover’s cry. It is the fracture of the unmalleable heart, the oldest story in the world.

  It is Christmas Day, “a celebration of great antiquity,” as the great man once put it. Dinner with Leslie’s sister in Riverside Heights, their first trip to Manhattan since summer. Megan balks at going (she has heard some report of a possible “terrorist attack” over the holidays), and must be reassured that Caroline lives on the other end of the island from Ground Zero. Despite Christmas carols on the car radio and a half hour of The Two Towers on tape, she is moody and withdrawn.

  “Are you still reading Odile?” Leslie asks, seeing the book resting in Trent’s lap.

  Trent picks up the book, studies a passage, then translates rapidly. “ ‘For years I have deluded myself and lived my life in complete error. I thought I was a mathematician. I now realize that I am not even an amateur. I am nothing at all: I know nothing, understand nothing. It’s terrible, but that’s how it is. And do you know what I was capable of, what I used to do? Calculation upon calculation, out of sight, out of breath, without purpose or end, and most often completely absurd. I gorged myself on figures; they capered before me until my head spun. And I took that to be mathematics!’ ”

  Leslie glances sidelong at him; she isn’t sure if this is the point where Trent had stopped reading or a passage he had marked. “So is the novel both an iliad and an odyssey?” she asks carefully.

  “Not that I can tell. I asked an old classmate, who wrote back last night: he says that the novel was written years before Queneau published that theory and that the title was likelier a play on ‘Idyll’ and ‘Odalisque.’ ”

  “Oh.” Leslie frowns. “Academics exchange e-mail on Christmas Eve?”

  “Why not? And now I can’t remember where I read that claim—probably online.”

  “Did you search for the site?”

  “Can’t find it now.”

  Leslie gets her brooding family to the apartment of her sister, whose husband speaks with zest about the coming assault on Iraq. Caroline and Megan exchange whispers about presents in the kitchen, while Trent politely declines to be baited. Kubrick’s film, sound muted, plays on the DVD; Leslie can see the second monolith tumbling in space. Sipping her whiskeyed eggnog, she thinks about 2002, the first year in a while that doesn’t sound science-fictional.

  On the third day Lugalkitun rode out to survey the damage, striding angrily through the village that had been destroyed when the battle overran its intended ground. Vultures took wing at his approach, though with insolent slowness, and a feral dog fled yelping after he shied a rock into its flank.

  Beside the fields of an outlying farm he regarded the body of a girl, sufficiently well attired to be of the owner’s family. Her clothing had been disturbed, either before or after death, and the king turned away, scowling. If the enemy had enjoyed the leisure for such diversions, they would also have paused to contaminate the wells.

  Caroline asks Trent about a news item that appeared a few days ago announcing that a quantum computer, primitive but genuine, had successfully factored a number by using switches comprising individual atoms, which could represent 0 and 1 simultaneously. Is this still digital? she wonders. Trent, who was examining his gift—a new hardcover edition of the great man’s Cities in Flight—offers a wintry smile and tells her that the spooky realm of quantum physics will make software designers feel like the last generation of engineers to devote their careers to zeppelin technology.

  They go outside, mid-November weather of the warmest Christmas in memory. Down the street a circle of older women are singing, some of them wearing choir robes. A wind off the river blows the sound away, and Megan, looking anxiously upward, does not see them.

  Near the burned house he came upon a toy cart, intact among so much rubble. Its chicken head stared as though astonished to find itself upended, and the king righted it with the tip of his boot. He had seen such contrivances before, and they vexed him. Miniature oxcarts and chariots he could understand, they were copies for children; but the wheeled chicken possessed no original—it stood for something that didn’t exist. Set one beside a proper boy’s clay chariot and you irresistibly saw both at full size, the huge head absurd in a way that somehow spilled onto the chariot.

  The toy’s wheels, amazingly, were unbroken: it rolled backward from his pettish kick. It never occurred to Lugalkitun to crush it; a shadow cast by nothing is best left undisturbed. He looked at the ruins about him, pouring smoke into and summoning beasts out of the open sky. Neither emptiness above nor crowding below concerned him; his brown gaze ranged flat about his own realm, imagining retribution in full measure, cities aflame, their people in flight across the hard playing ground of The Land.

  The wind shifts, and the last strains of melody—a gospel hymn—reach them. “Let’s go listen,” says Caroline, taking her niece by the hand. By the time they cross the intersection the choir is singing again, in a mournful, swelling contralto that courses through Leslie like vibrations from a church organ.

  There is a balm in Gilead

  To make the wounded whole;

  There is a balm in Gilead

  To heal the sin-sick soul.

  Megan begins to cry. “I don’t want a bomb,” she sniffles, pressing her face against her mother’s side.

  Leslie and Trent exchange bewildered expressions. The notes soar into the air, fading with distance. Leslie pats Megan’s shoulder, feeling wet warmth soak through her sweater. My daughter is not well, she thinks, deeply disordering words. Their wrongness reaches through her, and she furiously tells herself not to cry, that composure will calm her child. But the stone of resolve begins to crack, and two beads of moisture seep through, welling to spill free—their path will trace the surest route—and carve twin channels down her face.

  —August 2001–July 2002

  Sometime around 1160 B.C., Hekla, the most active volcano in Iceland, erupted, with dire consequences for northern Europe and beyond. Even before the cataclysm, the harsh conditions of the Orkney Islands, off the northern tip of Scotland, demanded adaptability from their human and animal habitants. The archaeological record preserves evidence that the ancient breed of Orkney sheep met those demands in a peculiar way (and continues to do so today). As Laura Frankos shows us, Hekla, having rallied the oppressive forces of Father Winter, also pushed the people of these islands to the limits of the
ir bodies and especially of their spirits.

  The Sea Mother’s Gift

  LAURA FRANKOS

  Dett stood on Western Isle’s cliff, ignoring the thousands of birds wheeling and shrieking above him, even when some spattered his deerskin cloak with their droppings. He studied the sky as the sun dipped toward the horizon, as he had done these past few months whenever the clouds lifted enough to see the sunset. That wasn’t often; the Islands usually spent the summer months wrapped in fog, and this particular summer had been especially cold. What he saw unnerved him. These colors are wrong, he thought. Too red, too orange, too yellow—like fire. I have never seen sunsets like this before, yet ever since the Day of Darkness in late spring, they have all looked this way. Why have the sunsets changed? It must mean something. But what?

  He turned his gaze upon the waves pounding the sheer cliffs below him. Guillemots, kittiwakes, and auks, unafraid of the power of the Mother of the Sea, darted in and out of the water, seeking fish and crabs. His eye was accustomed to their rapid motion, likewise, to that of the seals hunting their prey. Then, at the base of the cliffs, he spied a strange sight amidst the seafoam.

  A blood-red figure—its color much the same as the queer skies—broke through the billows and stretched a long red arm upward, grasping, but catching nothing. A powerful wave knocked it back under, but only for a moment. It surged up once more, allowing Dett a glimpse of a gigantic head with a gaping mouth, before another wave, as strong as if pushed by the Mother herself, overcame it.

  Dett watched the same spot for more than an hour, but the thing did not return. The wind that tore at his hair and clothes and chapped his lips didn’t bother him. He would have noticed it more if the wind had stopped. Gust-blowing demons continually plagued the Islands, sometimes banding together to create a terrific gale in hopes of pleasing their lord, Father Winter.

  “Dett!” A deep, resonant voice called him. He turned to see his brother Mebaw ascending the slope to join him at the cliff’s edge. Mebaw was wiry where Dett was stocky, but they both had the same oval faces and high cheekbones, the same warm brown eyes.

  “Jolpibb thought you’d be up here,” Mebaw said. A broad smile appeared in a thicket of dark brown whiskers. “What do you hope to find here, brother? Saving birdshit, of course.”

  “Answers,” said Dett. “Instead, I found another question. Perhaps it is a blessing that you are here, for you are the Mastersinger’s Second, and learned in signs and portents. Look down there, by that slanting rock with the four seals and the cluster of terns. Do you see anything? No? Let me tell you what I saw.” He described the sighting, and Mebaw’s jolly face creased into unfamiliar frowns.

  “The elders must hear of this, brother, but I fear it sounds like Klevey. This could be very serious, for there are few monsters on land or sea that can wreak destruction as Klevey.”

  Dett shuddered. “That is what I thought, too. I came up here, as I have for many weeks now, seeking the reasons why the sun has hidden its face. This is the height of summer, yet we have had as many weeks of freezing clouds as when Lord Father Winter reigns. And behold the sunset! The sky seems touched with flame as the sun goes to its rest. Do you think the reddened sky is a sign that Klevey is near? The red flesh I saw thrashing in the surf was much the same color.”

  Mebaw’s bony shoulders moved in a shrug under his sealskin cape. “Nothing in the songlore connects Klevey with oddly colored skies. He is a creature of the ocean, not the heavens.”

  “I fear that red sky means something is wrong in the heavens.”

  “Do you remember that trader who came some years ago, the one with the so-sharp metal knives? He thought the air of our Islands shimmered, and seemed different from the air of his native land in the distant south.”

  “And Grandmother Glin told him it was because the Seafolk ground pearls to sprinkle on the fishladies’ tails, and must have tossed some into the sky,” laughed Dett. “But the trader, for all his fine wares, was a fool to believe that. A shimmering! Bah! It is nothing but the sea salt in the air. You can taste it; you can see the crystals catch in your beard. But if you go far from the sea, where the trader has his home, or into a sheltered place, you cannot see any floating sparkles.”

  “Perhaps it is because the Seafolk cannot throw the pearl dust into such places,” Mebaw said with a wink. “Besides, who can go far from the sea in the Islands? No one but mad adventurers like Father and Uncle Talloc on their boats!”

  “Ah, Uncle Talloc,” said Dett with bitterness. “I am sorry he was named to the elders’ council. Not that I doubt the wisdom of his years, but I am his least-favorite nephew because I am no sailor. Father made allowances for my terrible seasickness—why couldn’t Uncle?”

  “I am fortunate the Mastersinger chose me for his Second, saving me from a life at sea. No one, not even Uncle Windbag, can argue with the Master.”

  The pair stood silent for a while, staring down at the waves. Mebaw finally spoke again, “The cliffs and rocks below are of red sandstone. Is it possible, brother, that you mistook a rock for the monster?”

  “No,” Dett said firmly. “I am not versed in lore, but my eyes are keen.”

  “Then we shall present your sighting to the elders. They meet in three days’ time, when the moon is full. For now, brother, let us go home. Your wife is waiting.”

  The two brothers turned away from the sheer red cliffs and trudged down the sloping hills. Soon they passed some of their fields of barley and wheat. “Look,” Dett pointed. “The fields do poorly because the weather has been bad ever since that day when the skies became as black as night. Our harvest will be a small one this autumn.”

  “How cheery you are today,” Mebaw said. “Can you not find something pleasant to say, such as, ‘My brother, your singing has improved of late. How many verses did you manage last night—sixteen? No, twenty!’ ”

  “Of course your singing has improved. It could hardly worsen. The auks are in better voice, or the sheep. Harken at them; they’re doing the chorus, you can chant the verse.”

  A rise, sprinkled with hundreds of small pink flowers, shielded the sheep pen from their sight, but the bleating of the lambs and the reassuring calls of the ewes penetrated the ever-present growling of the surf. They also heard a piping voice swearing amidst the other sounds.

  They crested the rise and looked down. The enclosure was protected on one side by the steep rise, and bordered on the others by stone walls with a single wooden gate. The foul words came from the direction of the gate, where a small figure in a dark cap was shoving a gray ram back inside. The boy was soaking wet and shivering. The ram’s gray fleece, recently shorn for the summer, was also damp, though the beast showed no sign of feeling a chill.

  “Trouble, son?” Dett called out. He and Mebaw walked down to the flagstone wall his great-grandfathers had built, or so said Grandmother Glin. It was a strong and sturdy wall, not unlike Glin herself, the oldest woman on Western Isle. They leaned on it, watching the lad struggle with the animal.

  “Father, this one should be named Trouble!” cried the boy. He slammed the gate shut. “He’s done it again, cursed beast! I grow tired of his games.”

  “What games, Fummirrul?” asked Mebaw. “I love to play games.”

  “Not these games.” Fummirrul heaved a shell at the ram’s backside. The animal twitched at the impact. He turned his horned head and appeared to scrutinize the young shepherd for a moment, then walked toward the small stone barn.

  “One of the other sheep was grazing next to the wall. Trouble saw her there, leaped on her back, then sprang over the wall. The other two new rams have done this trick, too, whenever another sheep goes close by the wall. Not the ewes, for which I am thankful, for there are many more of them. Two mornings ago, when I came to take the flock to pasture, all three rams were outside the pen.”

  “Ho ho!” Mebaw chuckled. “Father’s prized sheep are trying to go back to their southern homeland.”

  “Yes, Uncle Mebaw. For
they do go down to the shore.”

  Mebaw looked astonished that Fummirrul had taken his joke literally. Dett, who had heard his son complaining of the new sheep, was not surprised. He asked, “And did they do the same as before?”

  “They did. They grazed upon seaweed. Whenever I lead the flock to the farther fields, these stupid new animals keep trying to run to the shore. I spend my days chasing them and bringing them back to their more obedient cousins. But there is even worse. Today, after Trouble escaped, he saw me running after him, and the wretched creature swam out to the rocks. I do not jest or tell untruths. Father, Uncle, I swear that ram was laughing at me from his perch. I had to wade into the arms of the Mother of the Sea to drag him back to shore.” His youthful face filled with indignation. “Our old sheep do not behave like this. What am I to do with them?”

  “What any man does when faced with a dilemma: do what you think is best to cope with it. So our father told us. So I tell you.”

  Fummirrul grimaced. This bit of paternal advice was not the solution he sought. He muttered something about drowning them all the next time they went swimming.

  “Did you hear me, son?”

  “Yes, Father. You said to do what I think best.”

  “Let us go home, that you may have a hot meal and dry clothes.”

  “May I run, Father?” At Dett’s nod, he pelted down the trail, the dark cap and the pale crook bobbing with every step.

  “The new sheep are funny sheep,” Dett murmured. “And clever. To use another animal as a stepping stone!”

  “Father and Uncle Talloc said they ate seaweed on the trip home from the south, after their supply of grain ran out on the long voyage. Nor did they seem harmed by it.”