The Big Book of Science Fiction

by The Big Book of Science Fiction (retail) (epub)

  Nogha’s short fiction (and poetry) appeared in some of the best independent magazines of the 1980s and 1990s, including Back Brain Recluse, Factsheet Five, and Ice River. Her brilliant story “Stone Badger” was showcased in the Looking Glass Anthology of Native American Writers, while “Chippoke Na Gomi” appeared in the Witness Anthology of Experimental Fiction (1989) and The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction (2010). Her nonfiction appeared in the iconic (and New Wave–influenced) Science Fiction Eye magazine and she served as a fiction editor for the influential speculative magazine New Pathways.

  Red Spider White Web, excerpted here, describes a dystopian future congested, cyberpunkish America, dominated by Japan and afflicted by climate change, where artists try to avoid sanctuaries called “Mickey-Sans,” which shelter their inhabitants from the excremental waste and pollution outside but also sanitize creativity. Into this milieu steps a dedicated Native American artist who has been gengineered into a being half human and half wolverine, and on her mission falls afoul of surreal figures and dangers. The style is often phantasmagorical and full of dark menace, but the darkness is balanced by the main character Kumo’s pursuit of her hologram art.

  The 1999 Wordcraft of Oregon edition of the novel acknowledges Nogha as having been a sui generis example of and influence on cyberpunk. It features an impressive triumvirate of advocates, with an introduction by John Shirley, a foreword by Brian Aldiss, and a postscript by James P. Blaylock. Shirley, who made Time’s list of the “seminal cyberpunk writers,” avows that Nogha transcends the subgenre, also citing the example of slipstream fiction published in literary magazines. Shirley calls Nogha’s novel “the radical convergence of metaphysical, psychological, tribal and techno-logical.” Aldiss points to the “hard, dirty, challenging” aspects of Red Spider White Web.

  Blaylock, meanwhile, zeroes in on the climate-change aspects and offers up an anecdote of an apocalyptic vision he had while driving, of a blasted landscape and food made out of plastic. Unlike much cyberpunk fiction, which seems to fetishize or render beautiful artificial landscapes—to, in effect, celebrate the disconnection of modern technology—Nogha, much more in sympathy with Philip K. Dick, mourns the loss of the real or natural world and interrogates our disconnection. Her depictions of the “underground real” conjure up sympathetic echoes of the work of Cordwainer Smith.

  In this excerpt, “Death Is Static Death Is Movement,” the artist Kumo is on the move after a disconcerting conversation with her friend JuJube. Dern Motler, a fellow artist turned enemy (and turned violent), is after her, and Kumo is unsure whom to trust. The excerpt features an encounter with Tommy, a potentially dangerous friend who is worshipped as a god in the Mickey-San. The “Pinkies,” or “Pink Flies,” mentioned are misogynistic neo-Nazis: rich male teenagers (“scrubbed clean”) who go slumming and with whom Kumo has had run-ins.

  DEATH IS STATIC DEATH IS MOVEMENT

  (Excerpt from Red Spider White Web)

  Misha Nogha

  Flowing from shadow to shadow, like spilled ink, Kumo was glad to be in the air again. In the clone skin she was free to move. Her mind flashed in many directions, like a jar of released fireflies—each thought having its own reason and purpose. It was already cold, below freezing by many degrees. The scent of the river was chilling into the air, and dropping. Kumo followed it toward the charter house. JuJube didn’t think she had noticed where they were going that day—the day he borrowed the solar car to bring her here. But she did. Kumo noticed everything.

  The part of her mind that was ticking so ominously made her wonder about JuJube again. What was it? Everything was all wrong. She kept thinking about the daruma doll. The one she had hung on the door handle of the closet. Then her mind flashed to the shrunken heads, veered away from the thought, and circled back. She pulled it out again. Yeah, there it was. Dammit all to hell. There was something about that one shrunken head that faced the others. She stood in the alley a second, waiting a moment before crossing a path lit by solar-powered lights. It was late. A nasty feeling stung her in the spine. What was it? Shit. Her heart beat fast from fear and from outrage. The head was David’s. Well wasn’t it? She wasn’t sure. She’d have to find that out though, later.

  And Motler nothing more than a Navvy data retriever. She wondered why, as she trotted across a filth-filled alley. She pulled her thoughts away from Motler, from JuJube, like she pulled dead skin away from a blister.

  The Pinkies. She had her skull juggler’s plan. Was it only in the circus that leopards and clowns met? She had sparking rosettes of hate etched on her soul. The Pinkies represented everything she hated about men—all men. The male animal with a sharp rump and no memories. She was female—and not even a fashalt at that. To her world, she was only a varmint with sex organs. Welcome as a rabid badger. How many rough blows had she suffered? How many times had she been an unwilling step for the selfish souls of her fellow opposite gender? And the Pinkies, so white and so male, were like living stiff boots of conquerors. A flame of desire warmed her murderous expectation. It paced from eye to eye.

  The snow came quickly, white hornets stinging in the thin atmospheric night. It stopped as suddenly as it fell. Cut out of the sky with huge shears of cold air.

  Kumo picked up her pace, her soft boots like paw pads in the squeaky, grey snow. She hesitated, listening with her inner instincts more than with her ears—and then she dashed off to the right. She was used to the gnawing cold—a night wanderer—but she knew when to burrow in for the evening. She wasn’t actually warm in the clone suit—even though the Mikan thermals had been chemically altered with Vigowear polytherm, but she could function well enough until she was able to dig into some polytherm packing straw. She felt naked without the jacket Pink Fly had ruined. One woman naked under God.

  “God?” she whispered.

  Rituals ran the streets like stray dogs. The full Eucharist moon passed between her lips, fell on her tongue. She didn’t chew—but felt its fossil weight on her mind. Its ancient bone bread filled her whole being. The stars were still in the sky, steely snipers waiting for their chance to get in a clear shot.

  Kumo stopped in her tracks and then sank to the ground in a sheet of moonlight. Kneeling there, head bowed, she welcomed that familiar feeling. Some old wyekan—wandering and searching for a willing host—pounced on her and snarled. Kumo growled with intention. A vision of the method washed over her mind and a laugh crept up her throat. The Pinkies would meet their justice. Call in the bears, she thought, the little bastards will mock no more.

  She spat at the image and the spit froze almost before it hit the ground.

  “Oh no,” she said aloud. She was certain she wasn’t going to make it before the cold quick-froze her—but she ran anyway—lungs bursting and legs already cramping. Instead of running down to the river, she ran back along the tracks towards Tommy’s tank.

  In only a few blocks she began to slow. The coughs were beginning, shaking her and racking up flecks of blood that fell as black diamonds in the snow. The ice had formed a glassine mask over her leather one. Her goggles and suit were frosting with rime. Her limbs were wood and her lungs refused to accept the frigid air—they hurt. Her nostrils stung. She stopped, bent over, and began beating her hands against her shoulders. Suddenly Kumo stood bolt upright. She cupped her hands to her mouth and began to yell.

  “Tommy! Toooommmmmmmyyyyy!”

  Uchida, deep in the warmth of his reconstructed chemical tank, head bent low over the worktable, hands full of tiny instruments, and with circuits, vacuum tubes, wires all spread out before him, cocked his head. Someone needs me, he thought. Then he shrugged. They all need me. He decided to ignore the call—but then again, he pricked up his ears and listened to the tiny, gnatlike voice whispering in his enhanced ear.

  There was something remarkable and irresistible about the timbre of the voice.

  Tommy jumped up, knocking over pieces of metal and delicate components. He hurried on his Vigowear and grabbed a hot snap
blanket. In a second or two he was out the door. His arti legs pumping faster than those of a normal human. His arti lungs unaffected by the cold. In a few minutes he stood by the trembling Kumo, who was laughing uncontrollably, coughing blood, complaining of being hot, and attempting to take off her suit.

  The first stages of hypothermia had already set in. Tommy rushed her into the hot pack and locked it up—then proceeded to carry her the full quarter mile back to his chemical tank. Tommy was shaking his head at her and gesturing for her to sit down again and drink up. He loved using the signing, his hands singing in the air.

  His graceful gestures had a nostalgic, calming effect on Kumo. She was mesmerized by his movements and understood the signing well enough.

  Finally, she sighed and buried her face in the warm blankets. Tommy could barely stand the velvety feel of her muffled sentences.

  “Those insect collectors torment me for fun. Every day I have to burrow into pain. Those handicapped dogs shove muzzles in shit piles. I am a free predator! I don’t want their petty domestics. To hell with their pus-filled pastimes. Why don’t they get sick and die? Putrid dogs. No better than old people, wiggers put out to die by stingy relatives. I only want to be left alone.”

  Kumo jerked an arm toward the wiredog screens. Tommy’s head slumped onto his chest and he sniggered.

  Tommy made the sign for a Pink Fly and then ran a quick gesture across his neck.

  “I’ve had it. Here, look at this mess, Tommy.” She stood up and turned her back and dropped the blanket so that he could see.

  Tommy stared at her for a long time. His masks were off, showing his beautiful and smooth face. His heavy black eyebrows shot up. Droplets of sweat ran down his face. He signed for a fly again.

  “ ‘Endgame,’ says the spider to the fly.” She made a sound like two wet stones clacking together.

  Tommy nodded.

  “And, Tommy…” She gave a great cough and crumpled back into the polytherm. “…I’m going to need your help.”

  An inscrutable smile crept across Tommy’s features.

  “To make Kumonosu.”

  Tommy laughed a low, sinister laugh.

  “You’re smarter than I thought, Tommy. Smarter than anyone thought.”

  Kumo coughed again, her arms cramped with a tremendous charley horse, but she said nothing. They hurt, but she was used to these cramps now. Nothing had been the same since her time in the crane.

  She lay back on the sleeping platform and looked at Tommy’s tank. The stray junk was gone and replaced with boxes and crates and cartons of spare parts and wire. The walls were covered with high-tech panels, patch cords, monitors at every angle, components with the guts ripped out, blinking digital lights, whirring reels, laser discs, transformers, sparking cables, and digital UV meters. Kumo let her eye rove around the tank until it settled on Tommy’s old stained and tattered motorcycle jacket.

  “Can I have that old jacket, Tommy?”

  He shrugged. “Help yourself. It’s my fishing jacket.”

  Kumo made a face, but she still wanted it. She got up stiffly and went over to it. She lifted it off the hook. It smelled more like clone leather than fish. As she was about to put it on, one of the fishhooks sewn under the lapel snagged her finger. She pulled back the barb and lifted it out, smiling.

  Kumo was confused by the tank. It contained at least two million credits’ worth of equipment. An electrical chemical smell tainted her lungs. She approached the walls. Sixteen monitors registered her. The rest recorded some distant scene she didn’t recognize. A nasty schemer had siphoned all this stuff off and plopped it right into Tommy’s tank. A “master plan.” Probably the whim of some rich Japanese. Some government KGIs?

  KGI. Cagey Eye. “I wish I was rich,” she said aloud. She brought the jacket back to the bed and set it beside her.

  This time Tommy laughed and was verbal. “What would you do if you were rich, Kumo?”

  “I’d buy one of your best Karakuri market pairs. I’d move out into the country with plenty of holo material and solar packs and food and jugs of scotch.”

  “The country! There’s nothing out there but those closed-down genetic reservations, frozen deserts, and howling winds.”

  “I’d burrow into the ground like a badger. Every night I’d sit on the mound and wait.”

  “Wait! What would you wait for?”

  “For the coyotes to come.”

  Tommy laughed again, howled like a wolf, and sniggered.

  “Not like that. Coyotes yippiteroooo. They have a lot to say. You know who I mean, the genetic tribes on all those old Nature Conservancy lands.”

  “They have hunters there all the time now, running missiles with joy-sticks to kill the genetic trophies. You’d die out there pretty fast I expect.” Tommy was grim again.

  “I’ll die in here pretty fast too.”

  “No, don’t worry about it. We’ll fix those Pinkies.”

  “Yes, I’ll fix those Pinkies. But there are always the Hoodoos and their zombie minions, and Mikans, and people who act like friends, but only want to break you apart and suck the marrow from your bones.”

  “You can’t expect the tribes to take you in. Out there you would be alone. You’ll be one of the people, but a tribe of one.”

  Kumo nodded. “Yes, that’s the biggest luxury of all—isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think they made many WIs. I think that was some twisted joke. They don’t want intelligent animals like you out there, scheming like wolverines to smash their caches.”

  Kumo shrugged. “There might be a Ba tribe.” Kumo had been thinking of it.

  “Genetics were a waste of everyone’s time. All you got were creatures who were too smart to be animals and too vicious to be humans.”

  Kumo grunted. “But hardier than both, Tommy. There’s a lot to be said for the integrity of mixed genes. A sort of mongrel vigor.”

  “Can’t see leaving the Earth peopled with savages.”

  “It’s how we started. Anyway, which do you prefer, enhanced psychopathic tin men like yourself to lead the masses?”

  “Lead the masses. Is that how you see it?”

  “Isn’t that what you’re planning? Set yourself up as some kinda messiah and then have the flock follow you. Fools. Where are you gonna lead those people?”

  “Just where they always wanted to go.”

  Kumo looked at him from the side of her wide eyes as he came slowly down the ladder. “Where’s that?”

  “To hell,” Tommy whispered.

  Kumo stood up and walked toward him. “I thought you were a man-god, Tommy. Just what are you and the Mikans doing?”

  She moved further into the camera angle. There was a brief hesitation and then a chorus of voice-print perfections in sixteen different languages shouted her words back at her. Kumo let her jaw drop open. Sixteen computer-altered holo images of her dropped their jaws. She saw herself as Asian, black, white, Indian, blond, and even as a bipedal badger with a short muzzle and a black mask. Kumo pointed to that one and Tommy laughed long and hard.

  “You’re a fucking revolutionist. Sonuvabitch.” Kumo looked at him in fear and distrust. “How can you be a revolutionist in this nest of fascism?”

  “I have many—friends.”

  “Do you?” Kumo sniffed suspiciously. “I never saw any.”

  “These are powerful friends.”

  Kumo grunted. “Revolutionary fascists I suppose. The worst kind of madness.”

  The holos kept talking back to her in their own languages.

  She grimaced. “This place is like some ETS self-monitoring shuttle.” Something crackled and showered them with sparks. Tommy swore, and then moved his squeaking scaffolding and climbed back up to do repairs.

  “It’s a special project.” He called down to her. “You’ll know all about it in a few days. Everyone will.”

  Kumo sensed a very disagreeable feeling about the “everyone will,” but she just stared at Tommy amidst the chaos of wir
es with dumb awe. He worked skillfully and adeptly as a spider mending its complex webwork. He was so far ahead of her that while she’d been peering in the mist he came up behind her to pass again.

  “I already guessed, Tommy. You and those Mikans. Nobody’s really going to China are they? Where are they going?”

  Tommy laughed then, guffawed so that flakes of rust fell down on the boxes.

  “You know everything, my tupu friend.”

  Kumo frowned. “Let me use some of this shit, Tommy. I’ve got parasites. I need a CPU with a skinhead’s K of bubble.”

  He waved at her. “You work over there.” He pointed at a cam CPU and an empty box table. “Tommy finishes up here. Don’t talk anymore okay? You’re annoying.”

  “Yeah? Well fuck you too, brother.” Kumo jerked her chin at him, but immediately forgot him as she conferred with the system. She booted up the appropriate software, and remote-accessed her files in the locker. One by one she digitally fed the images into the memory.

  —

  This was going to be a good flytrap. Prayers of steel. Hopes of steel. Ruins of steel. Stainless steel death.

  When she looked up, the high-res shots on Tommy’s monitors had zoomed into somebody’s private Mickey dwelling. Straight satellite work. He’d tied into that too.

  She looked up at him, saw his stern face.

  “I won’t,” she replied, and went back to work. About four hours later Tommy interrupted her with coffee and some glo-nuts.

  “I hate sanpuru. It’s like eating soft wax.”

  Kumo popped one of the bite-sized glo-nuts in her mouth. “Those Mikans are pure, crazy, fanatical shit, man.”

  “You prefer Hoodoo hamburgers?” Tommy asked dryly.

  “I prefer a private, personal God with manna made out of real food.”

  “No such deity.”

  “No?” Kumo asked. “You don’t know anything about a God, Tommy. You’re just a karakuri ningyo.”