Northern Stars

by Glenn Grant

  And what had he known of anthropology? An engineer, supervising road-building, bridge-building.… He had often sat on one of his river projects and watched a lone, grey-skinned shape emerge from the undergrowth, study him and his crew with curious and perplexing eyes, then fade unassumingly back into the omnipresent greenery. There was an undefined concept of laissez-faire that permeated relations between us and them.

  Jacques had said many times that he should make notes of their behaviour patterns—for those who could better interpret them.

  But that was before the mudslide.

  That was before I was left here alone.

  20–4–14

  Today I stayed at home all morning, venturing out only in the afternoon for exercise and some shopping.

  I am tired.

  I ache.

  Tomorrow I will go to the hospital to try to forget my own pains. Such irony.

  Tonight, as I sit in bed, I will read a story or two from the works of the Irish writer Liam O’Flaherty. I have worked my way through Hemingway, Faulkner, Poe, Lawrence, Joyce in the last five seasons. O’Flaherty is a concise évocateur of landscapes and emotions. His descriptions of the awesomely desolate Aran Islands of his birthplace remind me in many ways of our settlement on Juturna. There is the same mixture of beauty and ugliness.

  Juturna has yet to produce a Literature. How long does it take, I wonder? Who will capture this place for future generations?

  Perhaps we are too busy surviving as yet to afford the luxury of creating our own art. We must import it still.

  My hands are cold. I fold them one in the other as I sit here in the evening.

  20–4–15

  I must catalogue an event.

  Today, at the hospital, a Silent Child was born.

  It has never happened before in Egerton—although such creatures have been born in two of the larger cities on the Big Continent. The entire community is unsettled; word-of-mouth has spread the news like cell-division.

  I, myself, am unable to comprehend the bizarre nature of the incident. I focus on the mother. Why would she do it?

  I would have aborted.

  But then, I would never have had intercourse with a Juturnan in the first place.

  Why would she?

  Why would anybody?

  We are strange creatures, we humans. We are often as alien to one another as we are to an “alien” species.

  With whom are we to relate?

  I once read, while browsing through some old books on rhetoric at the library, something that Winston Churchill observed in a radio broadcast early in the twentieth century: “… we learn that we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

  If I could only be certain of what this duty is. Churchill seemed so sure. But then, it was the strength of his convictions, the strength of his personality, that forged for him his place in history.

  Something is definitely “going on in space and time.”

  But what duty does it describe?

  20–4–17

  The first sign, they say, occurs when the doctor pulls the child from its mother’s womb, anticipating the cry of life that should ensue. But the Silent Child does not cry out. Nor does it breathe, speak, laugh or cry as it grows.

  Yet it lives.

  It is half human, half Juturnan.

  And just as we fail to understand what it is to be human most of the time, we definitely fail to grasp what it must be to be Juturnan.

  Juturnans, as we know from rare autopsies performed upon cadavers stumbled upon through accident (or fortuitous circumstances, if you wish), are silent; they have no larynges. More importantly, they are changing rapidly, converging with Homo sapiens almost before our eyes. They have adapted fully to their wet world, surely evolving from their seas as we did from ours, but with this new evolutionary wrinkle. The only constant from generation to generation seems to be the ability to survive for long periods of time without breathing. The popular theory is that they extract oxygen through the mucous membranes of their pharynges and cloaca, and probably through their skin as well. In this, they are not unlike Terran turtles. There is another school of thought that believes Juturnans can dispense with respiration completely, deriving energy from an oxygenless breakdown of glycogen.

  Whatever. They are one of the universe’s magnificent complexities, and there is much for us to learn yet … as indicated by the fact that cross-breeding is indeed a reality, if not a pleasant one.

  But what drove this woman to such a demeaning act?

  Why would she bring such a creature into the world?

  All my reservations convince me that it would be best for all if the doctors did not allow them to live after birth. Perhaps simply tell the mother that it had been still-born.

  My curiosity is scudding along like the night-clouds. To have this happen right here in Egerton! It is astounding.

  This is a rupture in the colonial fabric which represents the casting aside of the ultimate taboo. This miscegenation has no context, other than mythology. But this is no myth—no minotaur or Pan. This is a reality. And therein lies its horror, its fascination.

  What will the mother do?

  Others, apparently, gave their Silent Children up for adoption, in all cases, and all re-emigrated, with full governmental co-operation.

  And the Children?

  Well, strange as they are, they do live and thrive; and they do breathe, but in the manner of Juturnans—that is, almost intermittently, and without concern for the process.

  They learn, and seem to understand much. Yet we do not understand them.

  20–4–19

  Today I visited the mother. My curiosity was overpowering, and I do have access as a “charitable volunteer.” The doctors thought that I might do some good.

  She is young—so young. A mere girl. Not more than fifteen or sixteen J-years old. I know now why she did not abort. She had not the sense nor the knowledge.

  She was propped in bed watching video, eating candy and combing her hair—which is dark and stringy. She is not attractive. The poor child has an acne problem and is slightly overweight. Her eyes are hazel, quick, darting and shallow. She said to call her Marie—a lovely name.

  I came prepared—for what? For disgust? For morbid voyeurism? Whatever it was that I had anticipated melted away during the course of my stay with Marie. She does not have full comprehension of either her act or its consequences. In truth, kindly put, she is not very bright.

  We chatted for a while about how she felt, and all her responses were concerned solely with her physical pains, her bodily functions. The Child, she told me quietly, and with a faraway look in her eyes, would be given up for adoption. She and her family could either re-emigrate or re-locate on the Big Continent. Her father, a farmer, apparently favoured the latter, feeling there would be sufficient anonymity for them all there.

  For their sakes, I hope that he is right.

  I asked her if she had seen it. The Child.

  She said “no,” adding that she did not want to see it either. Her eyes became distant again, then hardened like marbles. Her mouth compressed tightly.

  I dropped the subject.

  She returned to her juggling of pastimes: watching video, combing her hair, and selecting another sugar-coated pacifier.

  I said that I would visit her again, if she wished. She smiled, but did not indicate “yes” or “no.”

  “I don’t want to move away,” she said, finally. “All my friends are here. But I guess I’ll have to.”

  She was chewing nonchalantly as I left.

  20–4–22

  I went to see it today. The Child. It is a male. To my surprise, bewilderment even, he looked no different from other infants in the nursery, except for a dark, grey-green pigmentation, and his stillness.

  He was awake but silent.

  I was prepared to be repelled, frightened, sickened. I was none of these. He is ju
st a baby. As I looked upon him, I confounded myself by feeling slightly moved. This I was not prepared for.

  His gaze suddenly locked onto my own. Can he see me? I wondered. What does he know, if anything?

  For five minutes or more I let him play upon the scale of my emotions.

  Then, scarcely aware that I was doing it, I lifted him gently, held him as one would any infant, while we stared into, and perhaps through one another.

  I am a woman, and today, despite his strangeness, the Child comforted me.

  I have learned something here. Not about aliens. About myself.

  I must sort it out. Carefully.

  20–4–24

  Women: wiser than men?

  A woman understands the importance of her femininity; a man never seems to grasp his masculinity. The explosiveness of the male life-force has always struck me as so frenzied, that it must preclude any true self-evaluation. I have always entertained the wonderful conceit that my woman’s slower rhythms keep me more truly in touch with the more harmonious elements of the universe.

  Even here on Juturna, where the soil is powder-grey when dry, more often mud when wet; where the daytime skies are wildly crimson, and the nights are haunted by a midnight wind … even here, I try to place myself, however roughly, in space and time.…

  Since Jacques died, there have been others. And as much as they felt any seduction was theirs, I knew that it was mine.

  I see them, and I see myself, swirling in gaseous clouds, and I sense the tides of my planet; I become a part of it. They are always separate.

  It is true.

  I do not know why the wind blows at night here on Juturna, but I know this: the wind is a woman.

  I tended my garden today, pulling a few weeds from among the blueyes. But the more I separated the weeds from the delicate domestics, the less certain I became as to which was the intruder. My decision to groom the totality appeared suddenly presumptuous.

  I am lying in bed tonight, writing this, aware of the arbitrariness of casual living.

  Outside, it is black, and the wind is singing.

  20–4–26

  I cannot keep myself from the Child. When I should be visiting the bed-ridden, as I have promised to do, I go instead to him. I sit beside him, and allow his hand to squeeze my index finger. The contact is becoming more important than I could ever have dreamed.

  Louisa, the nurse whose hours coincide with mine, watched curiously at first; but today she could contain herself no longer.

  “You know,” she began, with no little hostility, “what that thing is—what it means.”

  We were sorting and folding linens—the white for the third floor, blue for the second.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

  “They say that those things have been modifying and transmogrifying for ages—that they are the only species here because they consume everything else.”

  “You’re talking about the Silent Child?” I knew what she was talking about.

  “I’m talking about that thing in there—that thing that’s taken your fancy.” Her tone was just shy of scorn now.

  “It’s only a baby, Louisa.”

  “From what I’ve read,” she continued, “the Juturnan sperm—or whatever it is—consumes the ovum and extracts all the genetic information from it. It’s just the opposite of human conception.”

  She straightened, folded a blue pillowcase, looked at me sternly. “It’s as if they are devouring us.” She set the pillowcase aside to add emphasis, sighed, then added: “I’m at a total loss as to how you can be at ease with that thing the way you are. I think the whole thing is creepy.”

  I did not respond. Louisa said no more, perhaps out of embarrassment. She had said what she felt needed saying.

  I am having strange thoughts of late. I am having even more trouble recording them here, since they do not flow smoothly or logically. They spring from a deep well, bubble forth for brief instants, then seep back quietly, as if into soft loam.

  Words will not carry them forth.

  They will not catalogue.

  20–4–28

  I wonder where my daughter is, what she is doing now? Is she still on Earth, or has she too, like so many others her age, lighted to the stars to seek a grail?

  I was a terrible mother to Genevieve. But then my first marriage was terrible—terrible in its brevity and futility. Pierre took Genevieve after the divorce, and I did nothing to contest it.

  Jacques … he was the ship that was leaving port, and I set sail on him. He was holed on a reef, sank rapidly, ungracefully, beneath the mud of Juturna. I am marooned.

  I did not count on this.

  On Juturna, the clouds move more swiftly than on Earth. When I sit in the afternoon and watch them race across the crimson skies, I feel a part of some frantic movement. I must breathe deeply to relax.

  My thoughts, of late, excite me as the clouds do.

  One can gaze directly at the sun here, and then contemplate the blurry outline of shadows that it casts so feebly.

  The shadows are my thoughts.

  20–4–29

  When I taught Earth history to children here on Juturna, before my arthritis demanded that I cease, my life was busy enough to prevent me from reflecting on it too deeply. These days that I have free now, and my sojourns at the hospital, have altered this. My life passes through the sieve of my mind, and that which remains is insufficient.

  The tide in my affairs is at the flood. I can ride it out, or I can remain marooned.

  The Child.

  I see him again tomorrow.

  20–4–30

  I have spoken to Dr. Van Huizen. We had a lengthy discussion. I feel that he understands.

  I will not write more today. I cannot. I must feel it first. I am on the edge.

  I think I have decided. Finally, I have something of sufficient import about which to make a decision. Perhaps I understand my Churchillian “duty” better.

  20–4–31

  At any rate, it is done.

  More tomorrow.

  I cannot write. My thoughts are swollen, like my heart.

  20–5–6

  The recent days have left me unable to either journalize or speculate articulately. I can take time now, to try. There was no problem really. In fact, they were quite happy to have the matter resolved so neatly.

  There are few who will take a Silent Child. Although I am not well, I will manage, since he will require so much less care than a normal child. The Council cannot afford to be overly fussy; we have, after all, Colony conditions of population and parochialism.

  Are the Silent Children the first generation of new Juturnans—the adaptation of Homo sapiens to the environment? Perhaps they can communicate in ways that we cannot yet grasp. The universe is, after all, large, and there is much more silence than noise, much more void than matter. Perhaps we are the aberration, not the Juturnans. These Children, in many senses, belong here; they will blend perfectly.

  As Jacques has blended. Into the powder-grey soil. Into silence.

  As I will blend.

  Even as Genevieve, my flesh, exists, tacitly, among the stars, a memory.

  The gaps exist.

  The silence drowns the wawling of birth.

  Jacques spoke of Challenge. I think I finally understand.

  I feel at peace with myself tonight as I sit here with Yves, the child, his tiny fingers clenched on my thumb. The woman who is the midnight wind is singing, and, for me alone, the planet is rotating fiercely.

  THE WINTER MARKET

  William Gibson

  William Gibson moved to Toronto in 1968 from the U.S. and in 1972 settled in Vancouver, B.C. In the late 1970’s he began to publish fiction and in such short stories as “Johnny Mnemonic” in the early 1980’s invented “cyberspace” (the concept of a space created by the worldwide network of linked computers, which humans can “jack into”). This idea was incorporated into his first novel, Neuromancer (1984), which took the
SF world by storm, winning the Philip K. Dick Award, the Nebula Award, and the Hugo Award, among others, for best SF novel of the year, and made Gibson internationally famous as the avatar of “cyberpunk.” He published two sequels to Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive; a short-story collection, Burning Chrome; a novel in collaboration with Bruce Sterling, The Difference Engine; and has become a writer of the first rank in SF and widely read outside the field. His most recent novel is Virtual Light.

  Gibson’s hip, noir atmosphere and his clear, sharp style have particularly strong associations with postmodern fiction. His models include William S. Burroughs and J. G. Ballard, and he writes to a large extent consciously in reaction against traditional SF. That he has chosen Canada as his home is a point of pride to many younger Canadian SF writers, who see his work as a potential model. One need only look to the stories by, say, John Park, Claude-Michel Prévost, Jean-Louis Trudel, and certain others in this book, to find traces of Gibson’s influence on younger Canadian writers in the last decade.

  “The Winter Market” is not only one of his finest short works, but also the most “Canadian” of his stories to date.

  * * *

  It rains a lot, up here; there are winter days when it doesn’t really get light at all, only a bright, indeterminate grey. But then there are days when it’s like they whip aside a curtain to flash you three minutes of sunlit, suspended mountain, the trademark at the start of God’s own movie. It was like that the day her agents phoned, from deep in the heart of their mirrored pyramid on Beverly Boulevard, to tell me she’d merged with the net, crossed over for good, that Kings of Sleep was going triple-platinum. I’d edited most of Kings, done the brain-map work and gone over it all with the fast-wipe module, so I was in line for a share of royalties.

  No, I said, no. Then yes, yes, and hung up on them. Got my jacket and took the stairs three at a time, straight out to the nearest bar and an eight-hour blackout that ended on a concrete ledge two metres above midnight. False Creek water. City lights, that same grey bowl of sky smaller now, illuminated by neon and mercury-vapour arcs. And it was snowing, big flakes, but not many, and when they touched black water, they were gone, no trace at all. I looked down at my feet and saw my toes clear of the edge of concrete, the water between them. I was wearing Japanese shoes, new and expensive, glove-leather Ginza monkey boots with rubber-capped toes. I stood there for a long time before I took that first step back.