Emperor of Gondwanaland

by Paul Di Filippo

  But at the height of his joy, a transformation began. Half of Earth began to ice over. The other hemisphere began to burn. Ice and flame raced to meet at the terminator. Frost seemed to hear the dying screams of all creation, as billions of entities crisped or shattered.

  When the opposing forces met, Earth instantly vanished, as did the attendant stars.

  Now Frost was left in some featureless desert place, a zone with no expression and nothing to express. He could hardly grasp the death of Earth he had just witnessed, so blank was this new environment. It was as if all the beauty he had been savoring had been just a painting on the stretched skin of a balloon that, once pricked, became less than nothing.

  Time trickled by. Or did not. But there came a moment when Frost reached a new understanding.

  This desert place was inside him. He was viewing the emptiness within himself, the emptiness that had been incipient in him, but only fully born the night he lost everything he loved in flames.

  Frost began to weep. What a cruel fate, to carry around such a vacuum. Why could he not be populated with sustaining hopes and dreams and beacons of affection as other men were? Were such helpful bastions of mortal existence any more false or inaccurate than this ghastly nothingness?

  Even before the thought was completed, the voice of the Nevernaught returned.

  Men dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret sits in the middle and knows!

  Now Frost’s inner desert began to change.

  Flowers thrust out of the featureless medium. Tulips and daffodils …

  Frost lay upon his back on the abnormally warm ground of the island, flowers nodding around his body. Hazel bent over him, soothing his brow.

  Frost found her hand and clutched it. Even as he spoke, his vision of the Nevernaught and what it had showed him was fading. But what remained behind was a certainty of purpose and a calmness of heart he had not felt in a dozen years.

  “Hazel, I had a glimpse, a glimpse of something wonderful—”

  Hazel’s smile held both sadness and delight. “Yes, Robert, that’s the most any of us ever have.”

  Frost was on the point of leaving his room to meet Hazel. The month was June, the year 1925, and they were heading to New York by train. Frost gathered up his luggage, which included a string-wrapped manuscript bearing the tide A Boy’s Will.

  On the doorstep, Frost encountered the mailman.

  “Mr. Frost, just one for you today.”

  Frost accepted the envelope. It bore the return address for Weird Tales.

  Dear Grampa Jack,

  Weh-hell, I swan! Such a startling career turnaround Uncle Theobald has never seen in all his advanced years! From spinner of supernatural shiver-makers to a certified poetaster! The imminent publication of your debut volume of verses is an occasion much to be celebrated, save by all those devotees of the occult yarn, who are losing one of the finest talents ever to grace our small field. I suppose I’ll just have to fill my empty pages with more stories from old Cliffy. Providencians forever! But don’t let all the attention from those Eastern literary nabobs get your head in a whirl! It’s as easy to go down as to rise up, and such fawning litterateurs can be damn fickle. But Grampa Jack has a firm head on his shoulders, and certainly knows that he has a home to return to in the pages of Weird Tales, should fortune ever turn his feet our way again.

  But even this news pales in the light of your upcoming wedding to the inestimable Miss Heald! Please give all my regards to your talented fiancée. If half the hints about her character which you’ve dropped are true, then she’s some catch! A veritable daughter of Endor. I know that married life will shore you up in any future moments of trial, just as it has yours truly. Why, my ol’ battle wagon even has her Uncle Theobald making regular visits to a general practitioner now! I’ll attain Methuselah’s years with such healthy ways!

  Please endeavor to remain in touch with your sincere friend,

  Howard P. Lovecraft

  Frost smiled, and tucked the letter into the pocket of his jacket. Hazel would appreciate reading it. Leaving stoop for sidewalk, he began to whistle.

  Halfway to the train station, a couplet occurred to him, and he stopped to jot it down in his notebook:

  Love has earth to which she clings,

  But thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

  VI

  Gonzo Science

  I love science. I have no training in any of the sciences, but I try to read widely in popular accounts of various fields to stay current and informed. Science is inspirational and beautiful. But so far as I can see, most real scientific work involves a lot of drudgery, a plodding hegira across vast fields of repetitiveness and heartbreak. Who would want to read fiction about that? The science fiction writer’s job is to peddle the glamour—or the weirdness. Some science fiction writers are like popes, arraying themselves in gold-threaded cosmological vestments and pontificating. It’s impressive, but a little dull. Other SF writers are like Sufi dervishes or Hindu holy men or Zen masters, conjuring nth-dimensional entities out of the air and delivering illuminating clouts upside your head. In this segment of the book, you’ll find three stories definitely in the dervish mode.

  Forecasting a future of falling prices and rising prosperity, as opposed to the consensus scenario too often seen, one of poverty and scarcity, really appealed to me. Could radical changes in the infrastructure of the global economy actually bring about a near Utopia, without the advent of any new miracle science such as nanotech? Hard to say, especially for an economic ignoramus such as me. But it seems undeniable that many of our current troubles stem not from a lack of resources but from malfeasance, blindness, traditionalism, and limited intelligence.

  If only the Blue Fairy would descend, touch us, and turn us all into real people!

  Bare Market

  The price of gasoline had fallen to twenty-five cents a gallon, and a pair of low-end Nikedidas would set you back only ten dollars. You could enjoy a three-course meal plus dessert at many of New York’s better restaurants for a prix fixe of fifteen dollars, and get change back from a fifty when purchasing a top-of-the-line Palm Pilot XXII, complete with video-conferencing features. The nation’s trade deficit had been wiped out, and the global economy had just posted its sixth consecutive quarter of 5 percent annual growth. The entire continent of Africa resembled California during the Gold Rush. New millionaires were being minted in nearly every country faster than a Martian settler could duck underground at the news of a solar flare.

  We were living in boom times such as the most bullish speculator of no other era had ever dared dream of, even after consumption of a fifth consecutive bottle of Veuve Clicquot, and we owed it all to the Market.

  The Market’s name was Adamina Smythe. She was nineteen years old, utterly untouchable, and she was sitting across from me.

  Built like the ultimate offspring of some clandestine supermodel-breeding program, the Market wore a red dress that was more suggestion than fabric. Her long thick platinum hair was pinned up by a couple of delicate and tasteful tortoise-shell clips, with a few stray tendrils wisping her brow. Her face, all subtly intersecting planes and arcs, evoked both madonnas and starlets. Her complexion conjured up comparisons to exotic orchids, snow-tinged by a sunset and milk-tinted with cherry juice. As we waited for the arrival of our meals, the Market’s delicate hands cradled her drink—straight sparkling water in a champagne flute—so sensually that I thought I might climax just from contemplating her fingers.

  All I had to do tonight and over the next several days was to interview the closest thing to an actual, breathing goddess the world of 2022 boasted, for a profile in Nuevo Vanity Fair. And so far I had barely managed to stutter out my name, shake her warm, soft hand, and croak out my dinner order. Not an auspicious start.

  I tried to recapture my experienced journalistic demeanor. But my voice still quavered as I attempted to look steadily into the Market’s grass-green eyes.

  “Uh, Miz Smythe—”<
br />
  “Please, Glen, call me Adamina.”

  The Market’s voice matched the rest of her, resonant as church bells and sexy as black coffee in bed. I caught a whiff of her perfume, a subtle floral scent.

  “Adamina, I really look forward to, um, working with you on this feature. But are you sure my intrusions won’t interfere with your other duties?”

  She smiled broadly, and I had a chance to fall in love all over again with her perfect teeth. “Of course not. Face-to-face interaction utilizes only the smallest fraction of my processing power.”

  “So right now—”

  “Right now I’m overseeing approximately one point seven nine to the twelfth power simple stock transactions around the globe, and arbitrating more than one million buyouts, splits, IPO’s and other equally complex procedures. Not to mention mediating billions of eBay deals. And having no problem conversing with you.”

  “Incredible. And when you sleep—?”

  “A partial software persona based on me runs the show.”

  What could I say in the face of this nearly unbelievable declaration of stone cold fact? Flowing through the gorgeous woman within arm’s reach (and how I suddenly wanted to reach out and touch her, as if to partake of her immense and regal charisma) ran the entire planetary digital economy, without causing her any visible sign of strain or effort. No wonder talking with me took less of her resources than breathing.

  All I could do was pick up my glass of wine and swallow a hefty slug. “You’re sure you won’t share some of this bottle? It’s quite good.”

  The Market’s manners matched her beauty. “I’m so sorry, Glen, but I simply can’t indulge in alcohol or any other artificial stimulants. The perturbations in my brain chemistry—”

  “Oh, right, of course. ‘One little depressant—’”

  “‘—could trigger a Depression.’ Yes, that’s a familiar quip.”

  I felt like an idiot. How often must she have heard that lame joke, and a million like it? Even given the protective and exclusionary elite social bubble she existed in, I was certain that she must have overheard more than her share of comments treating her like some sort of freak. Along with feelings of awe and adoration, the Market had to contend with the hatred, envy, and fear of the masses.

  But if any such thoughtless barbs had ever hurt her, she failed to exhibit any scars or bitterness. Serene, compassionate, she apparently took no offense at my gaucherie, and the awkward moment was dispelled by the waiter’s stealthy delivery of our salads.

  After we fussed a bit with napkins and salt and pepper shakers, I took the opportunity of asking, “Would you mind if I started recording our conversation now?”

  “Of course not. I’m eager to respond to any questions you have for me.”

  Eager to respond. I forced my mind away from an extremely vivid but highly unprofessional line of thinking. If the Market had ever been allowed to have a boyfriend, I knew the lucky bastard would have worn a perpetual grin. I placed my PDA midway between us, and began.

  “Let’s talk about your amazing childhood.”

  The Market’s self-deprecatory laughter sent small creatures racing up and down my spine. “Oh, that hoary old media sensation! I’m certain no one even remembers it or has any interest in such old news anymore.”

  “Are you kidding? A two-year-old found adrift on a scrap of wreckage in the mid-Atlantic by a cruise ship. And then the controversy over your upbringing—”

  “Well, I suppose my early years were somewhat unusual.”

  “Please, Adamina, tell me your impressions of them.”

  The Market thoughtfully chewed a mouthful of salad, then said, “As you described, I first came to the world’s attention as a castaway. Of course, from this part of my own life I have only a few nebulous personal memories, having been too young at the time to retain much. So what I’m recounting is based on my later reading and viewing of news items. One of the smaller cruise ships, en route from Bermuda to Liverpool, happened to spot a fragment of an unknown vessel floating helplessly. Onboard the makeshift raft was a single survivor of whatever grim fate had overtaken the vessel. A two-year-old girl, horribly sunburned and dehydrated. Me.

  “Once rescued, I quickly regained my health after some common treatments for malnutrition and overexposure. Apparently I was in good spirits as well, regaling the ship’s passengers with lots of eager childish chatter in some kind of weird pidgin tongue. But as to my name or parentage or the cause of my being adrift, I could offer no information. And no hint of my vessel’s name or port of origin was ever found.

  “When we docked in Liverpool, the media were waiting in droves. Authorities from the British government took me into custody and regulated all my contact with the public.”

  “This was when you acquired your name as well, correct?”

  “Yes. At first the media tried out a dozen different tags on me. ‘Waterbaby.’ ‘Little Mermaid.’ ‘Baby X.’ ‘Miracle Kid.’ But eventually I ended up taking the family name of the official nanny they had assigned to me, a policewoman named Joan Smythe. Joan had had a son named Adam, who had died young, and so she dubbed me Adamina.”

  “A neat serendipity, given your future career.”

  The Market looked winsomely solemn. “Who knows how these earliest childhood incidents influence anyone? But even though I have only a vague recollection of her presence, I’m very grateful to Joan for being a bastion of calm and affection during this period, and I still see her regularly.”

  “I take it any peaceful eye of the storm did not last long.”

  “No. As my story spread around the world, things quickly became complicated. A lot of meanness and greed surfaced.

  “What country did I belong to? Almost immediately, thousands of people from scores of nations claimed I was their missing daughter, offering more or less plausible stories to account for my mid-ocean abandonment. But DNA tests disproved all their claims, and my origin remained utterly unknown. Then various governments began to put their oars in, demanding that I, the ‘miracle girl of the new millennium,’ be ‘repatriated’ to their nation rather than to another. Their claims were all equally valid or invalid, and no decision seemed possible.

  “That was when the United Nations stepped in.

  “By resolution of the Security Council, I was adopted by the United Nations. Every country in the world would be my parent. I received the very first Universal Passport. And I was to be raised at the U.N. headquarters in Geneva.

  “That’s where my actual memories begin.”

  The waiter had cleared our salad plates away earlier, and now brought us our dinners. My steak looked like some caveman’s butchery next to the Market’s abstemious scatter of shrimp, and I felt awkward once again. But the Market smiled down at my choice, saying, “That looks delicious,” and my brutish red-meat tastes were instantly sanctified.

  I resumed our conversation after a few moments. “It must have been odd, being the only child in such a setting.”

  “Oh, but I wasn’t. The U.N. had a daycare center for the children of employees and delegates, so I spent a good portion of my day with kids my own age. The only difference was that they went home, and I didn’t. The Palais des Nations was my private castle. Whenever I could, I slipped away from my minders to roam the grounds and buildings. Did you know that after visitors are gone, the marble floors in the Salle des Pas Perdus offers excellent sliding when you’re wearing socks?”

  I laughed, picturing the Market as a young high-spirited girl cutting loose amid such reverential splendor. “No, I can’t say I ever appreciated their utility for that sport. So I take it you had a happy childhood.”

  “Absolutely. Although I sometimes feel it ended too abruptly.”

  “You’re referring to your precocious intellectual development.”

  The Market sighed like a gentle Alpine zephyr. “Yes. I was reading at a ten-year-old’s level by age three. By five I spoke French, English, Spanish, and Russian. German and Chinese
took me a little longer to pick up. My guardians responded by accelerating my schooling so that I graduated with the equivalent of an American high school diploma at age eleven. I enrolled in the London School of Economics and got my Ph.D. four years later.”

  “And the Nobel in economics?”

  “I didn’t receive that honor until 2020.”

  “At age seventeen.”

  “Correct.”

  The Market had recounted these accomplishments without false modesty or boastfulness, as if she had been reciting a list of the streets of Geneva. Yet I did not get the impression that she was emotionally stunted. Far from it. Her words seemed to float on a deep reservoir of humility, wisdom, empathy for others, and appreciation for her own life.

  “It’s hard for me to imagine,” I confessed, “how you must have felt to reach such a pinnacle of success at so early an age.”

  The Market’s coral lips left a smudge on her champagne flute. “A little frustrated, actually. There seemed to be no future goals for me to aspire to in my chosen field.”

  “Which is why you offered yourself as the first human subject for the MIT-Caltech wetware implant.”

  “Indeed. It was something no one else had ever done before. And it presented interesting, ah, possibilities.”

  “Recovery from the operation was fairly swift, I know. You were out of the hospital within a month. But mastering the biological- cybernetic interface took a bit longer, I imagine.”

  “Yes. It was a whole eight weeks before I felt confident in my abilities to surf cyberspace mentally. The operating system in the implant had a few glitches that I helped to fix.”

  “But how did it come about that you began to focus exclusively on rationalizing the world’s financial markets?”