Asimov's SF, January 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  * * * *

  Maury cashed all his investments—there weren't that many—and started going back to the Emporium every few days, sometimes with me, sometimes alone when I just couldn't face another day of his idolizing Baffle. He started taking long vigorous walks at night, and doing push-ups and sit-ups in the morning. It used to be when we'd try to assemble our all-time greatest Bears team he'd forget that Gale Sayers and Walter Payton played the same position, or he'd think Sid Luckman had been Lucky Sid Somebody-or-other—but now he was sharp as a tack. How many states did Harry Truman win in 1948? Michael Jordan's scoring average during the first championship season? Rosemary Clooney's first gold record? He knew them all.

  Alastair Baffle never offered to sell me a trick, and I never offered to buy one. Maury kept urging me to, but I figured I'd spent more than ninety years picking up all these aches and pains, and I'd earned them. But it was difficult, seeing Maury grow stronger and healthier each day. I was always the bigger and stronger one, and now for the first time in my life I wasn't able to keep up with him. I mean, hell, even his hair got thicker. The first time someone asked if he was my son it was everything I could do not to club both of them with my cane.

  And then one day he was gone. I knew he'd left to visit Baffle—it was the only place he ever went—but that night he didn't come home. He didn't call, and the next morning the home reported him missing to the police. Didn't do a bit of good. No one could turn up any trace of him.

  But I knew where he was. After two more days, I went out the back way, made it to the corner like all the other times, and hailed a cab. Ten minutes later it dropped me off on State Street in front of the Emporium of Wonders. The door was locked, the windows were empty, and there was a sign on the door: Moved to a New Location. But it didn't say where the location was.

  I tried the yellow pages. No luck. I tried the white pages too. Hell, if there'd have been mauve or puce pages, I'd have tried them too. I spent the next two weeks wandering the area, asking every person I saw if they knew what had become of Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders. They were polite at first, but pretty soon they started looking at me like I was the local nut case, and they turned and began walking away whenever they saw me approaching.

  I stayed in the Hector McPherson Retirement Home for seven more months. Since I had a two-bedroom apartment they kept trying to give me a new roommate, but Gold and Silver had been a team since before any of them were born and I wasn't about to adjust to a new partner.

  Then came the day I'd known was coming. The doctor hemmed and hawed, and then laid it on me: the cancer had reappeared in my one remaining lung. I asked how long I had. He tiptoed around it for a few minutes, then said anywhere from three weeks to three months. I wasn't even sorry; nine decades is a long time, longer than most have, and life hadn't been much fun since Maury had left.

  It was getting harder to breathe, harder to get around. Then I read in the paper that they were bringing Casablanca back to a small theatre in what used to be Old Town, the beatnik/then-hippie/then-yuppie area a couple of miles north of the Loop. It had played on TV a couple of trillion times, but this would be its first commercial showing on a big screen in almost forty years, and I thought to myself: where better to die than watching Bogey and Claude Rains go off into the unknown to cement their friendship and fight the Bad Guys, just the way Maury and I daydreamed when we were kids?

  I became obsessed with the notion that that was how and where I wanted to die. I waited a few more days, until I barely had the strength to climb down the stairs. Then, when the nurses and attendants were all performing their various duties, I walked out the front door, and waited for the cab I'd phoned. (I wasn't sure I'd have the strength to stand out there in the cold and flag one down.)

  I gave the cabbie the address of the theatre, and he dropped me off there fifteen minutes later. I gave him a twenty, stuffed a ten for the movie and another twenty (just in case I didn't die and needed a ride home) in my shirt pocket, and walked to the ticket window. When I got there I stopped and turned around, to take one last look at the world—

  —And that's when I saw it, nestled between an old-fashioned greengrocer and a little hardware shop: Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders. I walked across the street and peered in the window. It looked exactly like the last shop. I studied the door for a long moment, then finally opened it and walked in.

  “Master Silver,” said Baffle, looking totally unsurprised as I entered the place. “What kept you?"

  “Life,” I wheezed.

  “It does slow people down,” he agreed, and he sounded sympathetic rather than intimidating. “Well, come in out of the cold. Someone's been waiting for you."

  “Maury?"

  He nodded. “I had my doubts, but he assured me that sooner or later you'd show up."

  A young boy who looked oddly familiar entered from the back of the shop. He smiled at me, and I knew I'd seen that smile a million times before.

  “Maury?” I said, half amazed, half frightened.

  “Hi, Nate,” he said. “I knew you'd come."

  “What happened to you?"

  “I'm working here now,” he said. “Full time."

  “But you're an old man!"

  “You know what they say,” he replied. “You're only as old as you feel. And me, I feel like I'm twelve years, three months, and twenty-two days old.” He smiled again. “That's how old I was the day we met. And now we're meeting again."

  “Just briefly,” I said, getting ready to tell him about the cancer. “I got the bad news last week."

  “Then it's last week's news, and nothing is older than that,” said Maury with no show of concern.

  “I must feed the Denebian Spider-Cats,” announced Baffle. “I'll leave you two friends to visit in private for a few moments."

  I stared at Maury. “Didn't you understand what I said? The cancer's in the other lung. They've given me three months, tops."

  “Why don't you ask Alastair what he can give you?"

  “What are you talking about?"

  “Look at me, Nate,” he said. “I'm not an illusion. I'm twelve years old. He did it for me. He can do it for you, too. I've asked him to hold a job open for you."

  “A job?” I repeated, frowning.

  “A lifetime job,” he said meaningfully. “And around here, there's no telling how long that can be. Look at him. You know he once saw George Washington ride by?"

  “You better hope he was lying, Maury,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, confused.

  “Don't you understand just how long you have to serve him?"

  “You make it sound like I'm a slave,” he complained. “I love working here. He teaches me things."

  “What kind of things?"

  “You'd call them tricks, but they're not."

  “You'd better come back with me, Maury."

  “So I can rot in my wheelchair while I'm going blind?” he said. “So I can't even pick up a pencil without my hand feeling like it's on fire? If I stay here I can be healthy forever!"

  “Do you know just how long forever is?” I shot back. “Did you just sign the contract without reading the fine print? How long will it take you to pay off your debt to him? When will you be free to leave?"

  “I don't want to leave!” he half-shouted. “What's out there besides pain and suffering?"

  “Everything's out there,” I answered. “Pain and suffering are just a small part of it. They're dues we pay to enjoy the good stuff."

  “The good stuff's over for sick old men like us,” said Maury. “You shouldn't be trying to talk me out of staying here. I should be trying to get you to join me."

  “It feels like cheating, Maury. If there's a God, I'm going to be seeing Him pretty soon, and I plan to do it with a clear conscience. We never cheated at business, I never cheated on my wives, and I'm not about to start cheating now."

  “You're looking at it all wrong,” he insisted. “If you don't stay wi
th me, you'll be cheating yourself.” He paused. “I don't know how long he'll hold the job open, Nate. I don't think he likes you very much."

  “I can live with that."

  “Damn it, Nate! You're walking around with one lung, and it's got cancer! You can't live with it! You can't live with anything. Come on while you have the chance. We can be Gold and Silver again for another lifetime!"

  “I'm not through with this lifetime,” I said. “Maybe I've only got three months. Maybe they'll come up with a new form of chemo, or some other new treatment. Life's always been a crapshoot, Maury. I've played by the rules so far; I'm not changing now."

  “So what if they cure you?” he said. “They'll give you another eight months. He can give you eight decades."

  Baffle re-entered the front of the shop just then. “I assume Master Gold has spoken to you about a position here?” he said.

  “You don't want a sick, tired old man,” I said.

  “That's true,” he replied. “I have no use for a sick, tired old man.” He paused. “But I can always use a young, healthy one."

  “I wish you luck in finding the right one,” I said. “But it's not me. And now I think I'd better be going."

  “Without your trick?” asked Baffle.

  “I'll have to take a pass on it,” I said. “I've got just enough cash with me for the movie across the street and cab fare home."

  “Then you can owe it to me.” He reached into the air and produced a single red rose, then handed it to me. “Careful of the thorns,” he cautioned.

  “I saw you do this the very first time I visited your shop,” I said.

  “No, Master Silver,” he said. “Each time is different. Smell the fragrance."

  “I can't,” I said, indicating my oxygen supply.

  He reached over before I could stop him, grabbed the oxygen away, and tossed it in a wastebasket. “We don't allow oxygen around here, Master Silver. It's too combustible."

  I was all set to grab my throat and start gasping for air, but nothing happened except that I took a deep breath. It felt good. Hell, it felt great.

  “Now how does it smell?"

  I lifted the rose to my nose. “Beautiful,” I said in wonderment.

  “You owe me a dollar the next time you visit the shop."

  “Nate,” said Maury, “are you sure you won't stay?"

  “I can't,” I said. “Are you sure you won't go?"

  He shook his head.

  I didn't know whether to shake his hand or hug him, so I just stared at him, fixing his face in my memory one last time, and then I walked out the door.

  * * * *

  I went in to start my treatment two days later. The doctors took a bunch of CATscans and X-rays, blood tests and readings, and left me sitting there for hours. Finally the head of the team came out and told me that their initial diagnosis had been mistaken, that I didn't have cancer after all.

  The next morning I took a cab to the shop to pay Baffle his dollar. There was a sign in the window: Moved to a new location.

  I keep looking. Not to take him up on his offer, just to pay him what I owed him, and maybe see Maury one more time and find out how he was doing. I heard Baffle had opened a store on Morse Avenue in the Rogers Park section of the city, but when I got there he'd moved again.

  Someone told me that a new magic shop opened down in Hyde Park, in the University area, and as soon as I'm up to it I'll go down and see for myself. It'll probably be gone by then. I don't think he wants me to find him. Maybe he's afraid I've changed my mind. As for me, I don't know what I'd say to them—the man who happily sold his soul, and the man who bought it.

  But I'd give one of my remaining months just to take one last look around Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Mike Resnick

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  * * *

  Short Story: THE WHALE'S LOVER

  by Deborah Coates

  Deb Coates lives in Ames, Iowa, and works in information technology. Recent sales include stories to Asimov's, Year's Best Fantasy, and Strange Horizons. Her third tale to appear here takes place on a distant planet and is the most straightforward science fiction story she's done for us.

  They have come to Pretoria to hunt the leviathan.

  “Prep for landing in five,” Fallon says to Tish when he finally finds her in the observation lounge where she has spent most of the out-journey to Pretoria.

  “I'm fine,” Tish says. It's what she always says when she isn't really listening.

  The beacon picks them up at three hundred and brings them in quick and easy. There are no major land masses on Pretoria. The largest island is less than two hundred fifty thousand square kilometers. The port city itself claims only twenty-five hundred semi-permanent inhabitants. There's little fertile soil; big winter storms make it impossible to live on the planet at all for seven months of a long year. Half the residents shift to an orbital. The other half take outbound cargo contracts, drifting back when it's time to drop planetside again. Pretoria is the end of the universe. No one would live here at all if they weren't hiding from something or waiting for their fortune to be made.

  Two hours after landing, Tish is back in the observation lounge. She looks down at the heat-rippled concourse and watches the rest of the crew disappear through the gates, headed for the nearest port bar and a night of drinking and other low pleasures before the real work begins.

  “Look familiar?"

  Tish turns to see Fallon standing in the doorway. She crosses her arms and leans against the curving observation panels. They are cool against her back, like water over ice. It is Tish's third trip to Pretoria, Fallon's fourth. The last two trips, Tish never left the harbor. Those times, with a different captain, they arrived too late in the season. Fallon has been on the water three times before, but never landed a leviathan. He is thin on capital; he will be ruined if this trip isn't successful. Tish hasn't asked him if he has enough set aside to take them off-world at the end. She doesn't really care.

  Fallon crosses the observation lounge and stands too close to her. Tish would like him farther away, but she doesn't want to give ground to him. She can feel without touching how desperation casts a thin layer over everything else he feels. It is to Fallon's credit, though, that it doesn't bend his thinking. He will take the risks he has to take. He will sink what must be sunk. And if he doesn't survive the leviathan, well, then, he hopes that the leviathan doesn't survive him either.

  He leans a hand against the curving panels and looks out past the port and the low slung buildings of the town to the ocean that owns nearly all of Pretoria. Gray-blue waves crash against the rocks with a pounding force that Tish can feel even onboard ship a mile or more away, like a thrumming pressure against her breastbone.

  “It won't be like you imagine,” Fallon says.

  “I don't imagine,” Tish replies.

  Fallon smiles at her. He is a square man, broad-shouldered and stocky, and looks like he spends his days on the bridge of an ancient sailing vessel, though he was born in space and has spent more hours there than on land. Tish doesn't know much about him, except she sees him in the observation lounge at odd hours, programming intricate patterns on delicate Starsian shadow boards that he erases when he is finished.

  “You should have gone with the others,” he says to her now. “We could be out for months."

  Tish shrugs. She isn't here to be social.

  Fallon looks at her for awhile without speaking, then shrugs and leaves. Tish turns her gaze back to the ocean.

  Tish is here to call the leviathan. She paid half the cash she has to sit in a dingy room on a half-populated planet three systems over and listen to a crazy woman with tangled hair and eyes that looked as if they'd been bleached white by salt and sun and ocean.

  “They are bigger than you can imagine,” the woman said. “Not just their bodies, which are big in a way that your mind can't register. The mind recoils; you can't, up close, see the whol
e of a leviathan at all. But the thing I'm talking about, what matters, what you have to be prepared for, is inside,” and she tapped the side of her head. “Inside, leviathan is the biggest thing you've ever known."

  Tish has no special psychic abilities. She tested low back in school for everything—for empathy and queuing and even simple reads. But she has been told that none of that matters. What she needs, the crazy woman says, is a willingness to lose herself in the other. Tish doesn't quite understand what that means, but she wants, more than anything, to lose herself and she hopes that this will be the way that she can do it.

  Toward the end of the day and a half session, someone asked about the mer. “Is it true some people ... is it true they stay ... they become—?"

  “No one knows,” the woman said. “Once,” she began, but then her voice trailed off. “You get lost out there,” she said, her voice suddenly rough, “so easily—so easy. And you think ... you start to think the world has been offered up to you. You think you've touched the sky. And maybe ... maybe some people do. Maybe they find something real and—and whole.” She stopped talking abruptly and turned away toward the bank of windows that looked out on dirty city streets and gray storm-banked sky. She stood like that for a long time until the members of the class began to shift in their seats and look at one another. Finally, she waved an arm at them and said, “That's all for today,” in a thick voice without turning around.

  Later that night, when Tish walked down to the riverfront looking for a place to eat, she saw her instructor again, standing on the bank, her hair even wilder, tangled by the evening wind. Tish started toward her, meaning to ask her a question about leviathan feeding habits, but as she neared, she noticed that although the woman was completely still, tears poured unrelentingly down her cheeks. Tish had nothing to offer her, no way to deflect all that pain; she turned away abruptly and when she was far enough away that she was sure the instructor wouldn't see her, she ran.

  Tish leaves the observation area and walks through the empty ship—even Fallon has disappeared somewhere. Her footsteps echo off steel walls and she's sorry now that she didn't go with the others for some late night port-side drinking. Not that they invited her. She has never quite gotten on with them.