Smith's Monthly #12

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  With that, he ducked back through the hatch toward the stairs and slammed the hatch closed.

  Thirty seconds later, they were all on top of different crates and had their gear stored on the bulkhead side.

  Up that high in the cargo hold, the temperature was higher than it had been outside on the deck. Danny didn’t much like the idea of them being trapped down here, but again, he could see no choice.

  On the crate beside Danny, Craig stretched out staring at the deck over him, his head resting on a folded up shirt.

  “How much did you say you paid for these tickets?”

  All Danny could think to say was Hopefully not with our lives. So instead, he said nothing.

  Continued next issue…

  When Buckey the Space Pirate decides to take a creative writing course, of course he turns for help to his best friend, Fred the talking oak tree.

  Fred knows the English language better than any human alive. But Fred is still an oak tree, and oak trees do have their quirks when it comes to writing.

  THE WAITING OF THE WIND

  A Buckey the Space Pirate Story

  FIRST ATTEMPT

  “I knew the wind was waiting for me. The wind always did. It was my fault for falling in love with the wind. For letting the wind fall in love with me. If I had just worn panties that breezy day in April, this never would have happened. Or jeans instead of that light cotton dress. But it was such a beautiful spring day, the kind of day that makes a person want to feel free, and I wanted to feel completely free.

  “And the wind noticed.”

  “WHAT DO YOU think? Nifty opening to the story, huh?”

  Fred, the fifteen-foot oak tree, said, “You write well for a space pirate, Buckey.”

  Oh, oh, not a good sign when an oak tree damns with faint praise.

  I could feel the sweat dripping down my back from the heat. I was wearing cutoffs and a tee-shirt to stay cool against the eighty-five degree afternoon temperature and was using what little shade the oak tree gave me as well. But Fred was so darned skinny, I had to move the lawn chair and glass of lemonade every fifteen minutes just to try to stay in his shadow.

  And now he clearly didn’t like the story I was working on for class.

  I had had on my Buckey the Space Pirate science fiction convention costume (sword, plumed hat, and black tights) the first time Fred talked to me.. Or at least the last incarnation of Fred talked to me. So he still called me a space pirate and Buckey, even though that wasn’t my name and he knew it.

  Fred is a talking oak tree and I’m sort of his dad. But since Fred can travel back along the lines of oak trees in his family for millions of years, I mostly feel like a kid in front of my own kid.

  A time-traveling and talking oak tree can make a person feel very small if he wants to.

  The previous Fred (who stood in the old park downtown and was cut down because they needed to widen the road) told me how he came to be able to actually talk to humans. On the night before his death he suggested I do the same thing to save him and give him the skill to once again talk to humans. It seemed he was the only oak tree in all of creation that could and if I didn’t help him, the skill would die with the chain saws.

  So after I was convinced that it just wasn’t someone playing a practical joke on me, I used a prophylactic for what it was supposed to be used for, then put a seed from the first Fred in the rubber and planted everything in my mother’s backyard.

  The new little Fred started talking about a year later and we’ve been best friends ever since. Which is why I spend so much time in my mother’s backyard. I know, weird for a college kid, but at least I don’t live in her basement anymore. And since I can’t seem to find a girlfriend at the moment, I don’t have much else to do.

  I took a drink from the lemonade my mom had made for me and glanced back at her house. I had told my mom that I needed to work on a summer school writing project for my creative writing class I was taking, so I might be talking out loud some. The creative writing class in the summer sounded like an easy way to get some credits and get part of the English credits I needed for my degree in history out of my way.

  And besides, with what I could learn about history from Fred, I was going to need to learn how to do the books I was going to get rich writing about little-known facts in history. Fred actually showing me history, real history, was why after three years I had switched my major to history from political science.

  Today Mom had just shrugged when I said I would be out back. She was getting used to me being in the back yard at all times of the year talking to a tree. I know she worried about me, but at least I wasn’t in jail, and as far as she was concerned, that was a victory in its own right.

  “Come, on Fred,” I said to the oak tree. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “For a space pirate, I suppose not,” Fred said again, his voice sort of surrounding me as it always did. His voice was growing deeper with each month of growth. Pretty soon he would be back to the old depth of voice from the first Fred I met.

  I glanced at the spiral notebook in my hand. That first paragraph I had read to him wasn’t so bad. I was sort of proud of it to be honest.

  “So what’s wrong with it?”

  “I could illustrate with a limerick,” Fred said.

  “No limericks,” I said, being firm. “Just tell me what’s wrong.”

  Fred loved limericks and most of the time they were just flat rude. Over the last few years I had come to hate them, although I had to admit some of the ones Fred made up stayed with you. And if I let Fred get going on limericks, any real thought of conversation would end completely.

  “Besides the anthropomorphism of the wind and the overuse of passive voice, nothing.”

  “Coming from a talking baby oak tree,” I said, “that’s an amazing criticism.”

  “Everyone knows the wind can’t talk,” Fred said.

  “Everyone knows oak trees can’t talk either,” I said.

  But looking at the paper, I knew he had a point about the passive structure. My professor had spent an hour of her time talking on just that alone.

  So I turned the page and tried again.

  SECOND ATTEMPT

  I knew the wind waited for me. The wind always did. My fault for falling in love with the wind and for letting the wind fall in love with me. I decided against wearing panties under my light dress that breezy day in April. A mistake. But the beautiful spring day opened my mind, made me mad for the desire to be free in all ways. I wanted to feel completely open to everything.

  And the wind noticed.

  I LOOKED UP at the tender green leaves of the young oak tree shading me from the hot afternoon sun. “Well?”

  Fred said nothing.

  “You have to admit, no passive verbs in that one. And it’s shorter as well.”

  “Less pain on the reader,” Fred said. “Always a good thing.”

  I knew this conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere. Fred seemed to know more about the human language than any human I had ever met. I had no idea why I thought I could write to meet his tastes. After all, I was just a beginner.

  But being a sucker for punishment I went on. “So, what’s wrong?”

  “Setting would be nice,” Fred said. “Right now you just have some woman jabbering about getting goosed by a gust of wind. Boring pretty much describes it. But I do have a limerick that might spice up the piece.”

  “No limericks,” I said. “I need to finish this for a grade in this writing class.”

  “You would be better served to spend your days in your Buckey the Space Pirate costume taking gratuities for saving young damsels in distress. But since you are not likely to take up such a noble occupation, try to write it again and I will listen again.”

  I nodded and went back to work on the third rewrite of the opening of my story.

  THIRD ATTEMPT

  From the top of the rocky cliff of Lover’s Leap, I could see out over the green, deep valley below and the
river that gave it life. I knew the wind waited for me. The wind always did. My fault for falling in love with the wind, for letting the wind fall in love with me. I decided against wearing panties under my light cotton dress that breezy day in April. A mistake. But the beautiful spring day opened my mind, made me mad for the desire to be free in all ways. I wanted to feel completely open.

  And the wind noticed.

  Now I stood naked waiting for the wind to take me to the sky so we could be together, drifting over the beautiful green valley and the winding blue river..

  “Brooke, no!” Rich shouted from behind me as he climbed the dusty trail toward me.

  I READ IT to him again.

  “Wow, characters, conflict, and a setting,” the little oak tree said. “I’m impressed.”

  I knew for a fact he wasn’t. Oak trees have a level of sarcasm that has few matches in the human race. I suppose that comes from standing in the same place for hundreds of years and letting their minds roam through time. If I had to do that I’d be sarcastic as well.

  And completely crazy.

  “Come on, Fred. Honestly, I need a grade here. Help me out.”

  “All right. First, how about better names. In all the fantastic names humans have taken through time, you pick an English woman’s name that means stream and a male’s name that implies money. Dull. Find names that add layered meaning to your story.”

  “Says a tree named Fred.”

  “Short for Friedrich, which means peaceful ruler.”

  I looked up at the young oak tree. “Why did you shorten it?”

  “There was a time in my early years in the downtown park when a German-sounding name was not a welcome thing, so I decided to change it.”

  “Oh, that’s right, you were around in the park for World War Two,” I said.

  “And The Great War,” Fred said. “Besides, would you have listened to me if I said my name was Friedrich?”

  “If I remember right, I couldn’t shut you up that first time we met.”

  “I was just trying to entertain your date in my last days.”

  “By calling one of her body parts, a part I was very interested in exploring, larger than a punt? You call that entertaining?”

  I was still mad at him for that.

  “I was enjoying myself,” the little oak tree said.

  The sun seemed to get hotter even through the thin shade from Fred’s leaves.

  I took a long drink from my lemonade. Most of the ice had melted, which meant I had been out here in the sun more than long enough.

  “So if I change the character names, will it pass?”

  “Oh, I would think so,” Fred said.

  “Thank you,” I said, closing my notebook and climbing out of my lawn chair.

  “But a nice limerick would help you so much more.”

  “I have to learn how to write on my own,” I said. “Not copy down your words. That won’t help me at all.”

  “A Space Pirate with morals,” Fred said. “Who would have known? I tell you, saving the fair damsels in distress would be a calling for you.”

  “Getting a degree in history and getting into a good graduate school is the only calling I care about at the moment.”

  “Suit yourself,” Fred said.

  “See you later.” I turned for the house.

  “Do come back and read me your finished story,” Fred said. “I so want to learn how the woman with no underwear used her private regions to fly with the wind like Dumbo. My kind of story.”

  I just shook my head. As I said, oak trees can be very, very sarcastic.

  Then behind me Fred started into a limerick.

  “There was a woman of Kings

  Who ate all three meals of beans…”

  “Don’t go there!” I said as I walked away. “I can still hear you.”

  For a moment the little oak tree remained silent. Then as I had almost reached the house, he started into a new limerick.

  “There was a woman quite stewed,

  whose clothing was found very strewed,

  and if I’m not mistaken,

  the wind did the takin’

  and left her on the rocks most screwed.”

  As I reached the back porch I shouted back at the young oak tree, “Passive construction, no characters, and setting would be nice.”

  For the first time in two years, I got the last word on the oak tree.

  The Titanic oceanliner barely escapes disaster when it rams an iceberg on its maiden voyage. Sherlock Holmes and Watson know that. The news covered it.

  Then two strangers appear to ask Sherlock Holmes an impossible question: Why didn’t the great ocean liner sink?

  First published in Sherlock Holmes in Orbit from DAW Books, edited by Mike Resnick and Martin H. Greenberg, and written with permission of the Doyle estate.

  TWO ROADS, NO CHOICES

  ONE

  THE HAND ON my shoulder seemed rough, brusque in its rush to wake me. As I roused myself from the warm comfort of my quilts and rolled to focus on the worried face of Holmes, he said “Dress quickly. And for extreme cold. We have visitors here, possibly to take us for a voyage.”

  Before my sleep-fogged mind could muster a response, or even a simple question as to where we would be traveling, he turned and left me to the quiet of the late-night hour.

  I finished with my toilet and dressed as quickly as I could, for such awakening by Holmes had portrayed in the past a need for haste on a new case. And since my friend had taken very few cases as of late, this new adventure must be extraordinary in nature. That thought had my hands shaking with such excitement that I took two attempts to fasten my vest.

  As I emerged into the main room, I found Holmes in his favorite armchair, his fingers in a steeple as was his habit when waiting patiently. He had started a robust fire to take the chill from the room and the orange light flickered across his features.

  Across from him sat two strangers and immediately I was struck by their strange dress, the cut of their jackets, and the look of their hair. The one on Holme’s left and closest to the door had strikingly blonde hair, green eyes, and a handsome face that showed no scars. He was also clearly the taller of the two, even though they were both sitting. At his feet was a large brown case that had the appearance of being very heavy.

  His companion had long, almost shoulder-length brown hair and wore an outer coat that he had opened to the warmth of the fire, revealing on the edges of the coat a form of metal fastener with small teeth running along both sides of the opening. I had read of such a fastener before, but never seen one in use. The man had a dark complexion and seemed to be of Italian or Eastern decent.

  I was shocked that Holmes had offered neither of them tea or coffee and was about to correct the oversight when Holmes said, “Oh, good, Watson. Now we can start.” He indicated that I should take a chair near the hearth and I did as he instructed.

  He turned to the gentlemen as I sat and nodded. “Okay, please explain who you are, why you are here, where you are from, and what you want from me.”

  Both of the men had been staring at me in a seemingly nervous fashion, as if I were someone they had known for a long time, yet were embarrassed to greet. I knew from what Holmes had said that he had kept them from telling their story, even so much as their names, until I was present. He did that on occasion when he felt the need of a second pair of eyes and ears. Somehow, in a standard Holmes fashion, he must have deduced that they had wanted us to go on a trip and that it would be to a cold climate. Even though I had no idea how he came to such a conclusion, I would wait until later to ask him how he knew such details.

  Holmes leaned forward in anticipation and for some odd reason I found myself just able to contain my own excitement.

  The short, dark-haired man cleared his throat, glanced at me and then looked directly back at Holmes. “My name is Carl. Doctor Carl Frederick. This is Doctor Henry Serling.” He indicated the blonde man, who in turn nodded at both of us.

&nb
sp; Doctor Frederick’s accent seemed to be American, yet of no region that I was familiar. I would have to ask Holmes later if he knew the regional source.

  Doctor Frederick went on. “Slightly over two months ago a new White Star Liner left port from Southampton.”

  Holmes nodded. “Yes, the RMS. Titanic.”

  Doctor Frederick nodded. “I’m glad you are familiar with it.”

  “It would be hard not to be, considering the coverage it received. It seems to be one very magnificent ship. Exceptionally lucky that it did not meet a tragic fate on that first voyage. Even an unsinkable ship meeting an iceberg can sometimes lose the battle.”

  Doctor Frederick glanced nervously at his companion and then said, “I don’t think luck had anything to do with it.”

  Holmes gave him a very sharp look. “I’m afraid, Doctor, that I do not understand your comment.”

  Both of our guests seemed almost embarrassed, as if what they were about to say would seen so outrageous, so disgusting that Holmes would toss them into the street. I had seen that look a number of times when a person was about to confess something to Holmes. This time both men stared at their hands, then at the floor, then back at their hands.

  The fire crackled and what seemed like a long time passed until finally the blonde Doctor Serling took a deep breath. “Carl, we agreed.” His voice was also clearly American, but again very odd.

  Doctor Frederick nodded slowly, clearly making a decision. He looked Holmes squarely in the eyes. “The Titanic was supposed to have sunk. Slightly over fifteen hundred lives were lost when it did.”

  I thought that someone had punched me below the ribs at that moment and I suddenly knew the taste of disgust. It never occurred to me to question that the men were crazy, but their words instantly proved them so and suddenly I felt worried for the safety of Holmes and myself.