Asimov's SF, July 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Aimee thinks of the foreign coins, the wood blocks, the wonderful things they bring home. “I don't know,” she says. “Why do they come back?”

  Later that night, back at the bus, Geof says, “Wherever they go, yeah, it's cool. But see, here's my theory.” He gestures to the crowded bus with its clutter of toys and tools. The two tamarins have just come in, and they're sitting on the kitchenette counter, heads close as they examine some new small thing. “They like visiting wherever it is, sure. But this is their home. Everyone likes to come home sooner or later.”

  “If they have a home,” Aimee says.

  “Everyone has a home, even if they don't believe in it,” Geof says.

  * * * *

  20.

  That night, when Geof's asleep curled up around one of the macaques, Aimee kneels by Zeb's cage. “Can you at least show me?” she asks. “Please? Before you go?”

  Zeb is an indeterminate lump under his baby-blue blanket, but he gives a little sigh and climbs slowly out of his cage. He takes her hand with his own hot leathery paw, and they walk out the door into the night.

  The back lot where all the trailers and buses are parked is quiet, only a few voices still audible from behind curtained windows. The sky is blue-black and scattered with stars. The moon shines straight down on them, shadowing Zeb's face. His eyes when he looks up seem bottomless.

  The bathtub is backstage, already on its wheeled dais waiting for the next show. The space is nearly pitch dark, lit by some red EXIT signs and a single sodium-vapor away off to one side. Zeb walks her up to the tub, lets her run her hands along its cold curves and the lions’ paws, and shows her the dimly lit interior.

  And then he heaves himself onto the dais and over the tub lip. She stands beside him, looking down. He lifts himself upright and gives a boom. And then he drops flat and the bathtub is empty.

  She saw it, him vanishing. He was there and then he was gone. But there was nothing to see, no gate, no flickering reality or soft pop as air snapped in to fill the vacated space. It still doesn't make sense, but it's the answer that Zeb has.

  He's already back at the bus when she gets there, already buried under his blanket and wheezing in his sleep.

  * * * *

  21.

  Then one day:

  Everyone is backstage. Aimee is finishing her makeup, and Geof is double-checking everything. The monkeys are sitting neatly in a circle in the dressing room, as if trying to keep their bright vests and skirts from creasing. Zeb sits in the middle, Pango beside him in her little green sequined outfit. They grunt a bit, then lean back. One after the other, the rest of the monkeys crawl forward and shake his hand, and then hers. She nods, like a small queen at a flower show.

  That night, Zeb doesn't run up the ladder. He stays on his stool and it's Pango who is the last monkey up the ladder, who climbs into the bathtub and gives a screech. Aimee has been wrong to think Zeb had to be the reason for what is happening with the monkeys, but she was so sure of it that she missed all the cues. But Geof didn't miss a thing, so when Pango screeches, he hits the flash powder. The flash, the empty bathtub.

  Zeb stands on his stool, bowing like an impresario called onstage for the curtain call. When the curtain drops for the last time, he reaches up to be lifted. Aimee cuddles him as they walk back to the bus, Geof's arm around them both.

  Zeb falls asleep with them that night, between them in the bed. When she wakes up in the morning, he's back in his cage with his favorite toy. He doesn't wake up. The monkeys cluster at the bars peeking in.

  Aimee cries all day. “It's okay,” Geof says.

  “It's not about Zeb,” she sobs.

  “I know,” he says. “It's okay. Come home, Aimee.”

  But she's already there. She just hadn't noticed.

  * * * *

  22.

  Here's the trick to the bathtub trick. There is no trick. The monkeys pour across the stage and up the ladder and into the bathtub and they settle in and then they vanish. The world is full of strange things, things that make no sense, and maybe this is one of them. Maybe the monkeys choose not to share, that's cool, who can blame them.

  Maybe this is the monkeys’ mystery, how they found other monkeys that ask questions and try things, and figured out a way to all be together to share it. Maybe Aimee and Geof are really just houseguests in the monkeys’ world: they are there for a while and then they leave.

  * * * *

  23.

  Six weeks later, a man walks up to Aimee as she and Geof kiss after a show. He's short, pale, balding. He has the shell-shocked look of a man eaten hollow from the inside. She knows the look.

  “I need to buy this,” he says.

  Aimee nods. “I know you do.”

  She sells it to him for a dollar.

  * * * *

  Three months later, Aimee and Geof get their first houseguest in their apartment in Bellingham. They hear the refrigerator close and come out to the kitchen to find Pango pouring orange juice from a carton.

  They send her home with a pinochle deck.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Ku Johnson

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Novella: THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE

  by Brian Stableford

  Although Brian Stableford has been very busy translating a series of classic French scientific romances for Black Coat Press, including books by Albert Robida, Felix Bodin, Gustave Le Rouge, and Charles Derennes, he has managed to find the time to write the third novella concerning the alternate adventures of some famous sixteenth century personalities. In his latest tale, he explores the mysteries of...

  In “The Plurality of Worlds” (Asimov's, August 2006), set in 1572 during the reign of Queen Jane, Thomas Digges piloted an ether-ship designed by John Dee into orbit around the Earth, in order to discover whether ether could sustain life as air did. In making that test, Digges’ body was invaded by a tenuous “ethereal” life-form, which appointed itself as his guide when the ship was captured by the insectile inhabitants of the moon. Its crew—including Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, John Field and Edward de Vere—were subsequently sent by hyperetheric transporter to the center of the galaxy, where they encountered the molluskan Great Fleshcores, rulers of a vast invertebrate empire. Digges was informed by a rogue endoskeletal robot, however, that the empire was not as steady as the Fleshcores claimed, and that humans would not be without allies of their own exotic kind if their unexpected discovery proved to be the turning point that would shatter its integrity.

  In “Doctor Muffet's Island” (Asimov's, March 2007), set in 1577, Francis Drake had returned to terrestrial exploration, bitterly disappointed by the fact that he was generally thought to be mad because he insisted that the adventure of the ether-ship's crew was real rather than illusory—as both Digges and Field, the only other known survivors, had publicly claimed. Having seen the geography of the globe from space, he hoped to discover new possessions for the English crown in the Pacific, but was disappointed to find that he had been preceded by Humphrey Gilbert and the Paracelsian physician Thomas Muffet—and, it transpired, Walter Raleigh, strangely transformed by a lunar encounter with a spider. According to Raleigh, arachnids, like humans, were misfits within the galactic empire, and had their own plans for the destiny of the newly complicated scheme of things.

  Meanwhile, back in England....

  * * * *

  1

  Edward Kelley staggered through the door of the inn bearing the sign of the Black Bear just as the last remnant of twilight faded away. His legs had not let him down, in spite of all the miles he had walked, but his head felt as if it might explode. It was not so much an ache as a sensation of terrible unease. The sensation was inconstant but incessant; its peaks of effect had been increasing by degrees for a fortnight, and the present one was the worst yet. He had hoped that he might obtain some release when he had given the black stone and the red powder to his wife, in order that she might take them to Mortlake by river barge,
but it seemed that the angels would not let him go, whether he had their gifts about his person or not, and that their demands would not cease once he had delivered the stone safely into John Dee's hands.

  It had been a wise decision to let Ann take the stone; he was the one for whom the searchers would be looking, and his was the unfortunately distinctive description they would have been given. Ann would be safer on her own than in his company. It appeared, however, that he was no longer capable of renouncing the stone even if he had wanted to; having entered into a rapport with its strange inhabitants, his soul was captive. He had to get to Mortlake too, come hell, high water or all the Puritan wrath in England.

  He looked around the inn's pot-room warily. The hour was not late, the equinox having only just passed, but he doubted that any further travelers would come in after him. The Black Bear was less than fifty miles from London, but the road was dangerous after dark, so honest men would have made shift to take shelter as the sun set. Kelley had only a few copper coins to steal, but footpads would not know that, and might well give him an extra tap on the head for having put them to the trouble of seizing a near-empty purse, so there was a certain relief in reaching shelter—but that very fact would expose him to new dangers.

  There were eight men foregathered in the room. Four of them, forming a party that might have been pre-arranged in Bristol or Bath, were well-dressed men of affairs, who would doubtless be sleeping in a private room. Three others had similarly gathered on a bench behind a rickety table, but Kelley judged from their body language that they had not set out to travel as a group; they had flocked together instinctively after arriving separately or meeting on the road. Their common cause, he judged—the horrid feeling in his head had not affected his fortune-teller's eye—was further compounded by their active avoidance of a short, wiry man of fifty or thereabouts, who was sitting alone.

  Kelley examined the pariah more carefully while he crossed the room to the ridiculously small servery, whose hatch was not much bigger than a loophole in a castle wall. The stranger wore a traveling-cloak, but it did not conceal the hem of his monastic habit. He had not taken off his broad-brimmed hat, but anyone, given the other circumstance, would have guessed that it concealed his tonsure.

  Kelley bought a tankard of small beer and half a loaf. The purchase removed the last of his coin from his purse, but he was hungry and thirsty as well as sick in the head, and could not think of conserving his resources. He hesitated for a moment thereafter, but only for a moment. The sight of the monk offered him a slight chance of finding shelter for the following night; Romanists had refuges of their own. Although there was evidently no safe house within striking distance of the Black Bear, tonight's pariah would probably be able to find much warmer hospitality further along the London Road. The day after next, God willing, Kelley would reach Mortlake, and his fate would be in the hands of John Dee; it would surely be worth his while to play the Catholic for a little while.

  The little man looked up at him in slight surprise as Kelley dropped his traveling-sack on the floor and took a seat on the same bench. Pale blue eyes studied the contours of Kelley's felt bonnet—which Kelley was as careful to wear indoors as the Romanist was to keep his hat on. They muttered a simultaneous formula of greeting, but the monk fell silent thereafter, obviously unprepared to say another word to a man he did not know.

  Queen Jane's parliament operated a policy of “freedom of conscience,” which meant that every man in England was entitled to follow the Roman faith if he wished, but the Archbishop of Canterbury was a fervent Puritan, and the power of zealous Protest was gaining ground with every day that passed. England had so far escaped the wars of religion that were consuming the continent, but that was because there was little possibility of organized resistance to the Puritan tide, least of all from the Catholics. Ever since Mary Tudor's assassination, shortly after she had landed in Plymouth with the alleged intention of raising an army to seize the throne, the Reformers had been cock-a-hoop; many Catholics had fled the realm. The Year of Our Lord 1582 was not a good time to be a Romanist, or even a High Churchman, in England.

  Kelley's powers of intuition were not ingenious enough, in spite of any angelic enhancement of which the nagging vertigo might be a side-effect, to tell him whether the monk might be a Dominican friar or a homeless Benedictine, but he did not think that he could be expected to know the difference even if he really were a Catholic. After a decent interval, while the conversation at the gentlemen's table was uproarious enough to drown out what he said, Kelley leaned forward and said: “Will you hear my confession, Father?”

  The little man stared at him for ten or twelve seconds before replying, as Kelley had hoped: “Not here.”

  “On the road, then,” Kelley said, “when we leave in the morning—assuming that you're London-bound.”

  The wary monk would not even confirm that he was London-bound, as yet. “What are you?” he asked, instead. He spoke with a slight accent, as if he had spent long years out of his native England.

  “My name is Edward Talbot, sir, and I'm a lettered man. I'll freely admit that I wear my cap indoors to hide the fact that I have no ears, and I won't deny the sin that cost me their excision—but that's not why I'm a fugitive now.” I'm on the side of the angels, at any rate, he thought, bitterly.

  He had taken a fancy to the stone when he had found it on Northwick Hill and gladly adopted it as a pretended skrying-glass, to aid him in his trade, before the angels first appeared within it and made it all too real. Like a fool, he had been glutted with delight when he first realized that he really did have a power—a gift, he had thought it—but he had reason now to suspect that any secrets the angels might condescend to impart to a man such as him would be as useless as they were bewildering, while the price they would demand in return was usurious. All things considered, he'd rather have thrown the stone away than attracted the attention of the Church Militant, in spite of the hints the angels had thrown out regarding the miraculous quality of the red powder, but it was too late now. Field's men were after him, and he was in desperate need of angelic help, if any were available.

  The little man glanced left and right to make sure that no one was eavesdropping, then whispered: “Is it the hounds that are after you?”

  “No,” Kelley told him, with regretful honesty, “it's the foxes.” The hounds were the Queen's men—constables, bailiffs, soldiers, and the like—while the foxes were named for John Foxe, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Church Militant was nominally responsible to him, but their immediate commander was John Field, a firebrand who saw sorcery everywhere, and would doubtless have made a fine witch-finder in Scotland or Lorraine. Although the Church Militant did not have a parliamentary license, as yet, to burn witches, let alone Catholics, there were doubtless many among them who were hoping devoutly that the day would come. The ragged little man might, if he were a Dominican friar, be a heresy-hunter himself—but this was Queen Jane's England, and circumstance had reduced Dominicans, Franciscans, Carthusians, and Benedictines alike to the status of mere beggars, dependent on the charity of the Catholic laity.

  When his deliberate pause had drawn on long enough, Kelley added: “I swear before God, Father, that I am innocent of any crime against Christ. I dare say that the Royal College of Physicians might have objections to my beliefs, but I was properly prenticed as an apothecary once, and am no charlatan.”

  “Are you a cunning man?” the friar asked.

  Cunning enough, I hope, Kelley thought—but what he was being asked was whether he used herbs as curative agents. “No,” he said. “A Paracelsian—in English terms, a follower of Tom Muffet.” It was true, in a way; such potions as he had sold as a sideline to his fortune-telling had been chemical rather than herbal, for he thought himself a thoroughly modern man, and bore a grudge against the Royal College.

  “Muffet left these shores many years ago,” the little man murmured. “According to Francis Drake, he's on the far side of the world.”
/>
  “Aye,” said Kelley, “so he is, if Drake can be believed. I believe that the captain really did sail around the world, mind, even though the other rumors credited to his testimony are hard to believe.” Except for a man who talks to angels, he carefully did not add. Rumor of the wild tales that Drake was telling in London had reached as far as the Welsh borders, and Kelley had taken more account of them than their incredulous tellers, for the angels told similar stories, to the extent that he could understand their jabbering.

  This time, the monk actually went so far as to nod his head sagely. Educated Romanists knew perfectly well that the world was a sphere. Those Englishmen who clung to stubborn faith in its flatness were far more likely to rally to the Puritan cause; the Church Militant was full of them. “My name is Cuthbert,” the little man finally conceded.

  “Named for Cuthbert Tunstall, I don't doubt,” Kelley was quick to say. “A great Englishman. What's your order?”

  “I'm a member of the Order of St. Dominic,” Brother Cuthbert told him. “I'm an Englishman born, but I've spent more than half my life in France.”

  “And wish you were there still, I'll wager,” Kelley said.

  “That's not for me to choose,” the friar said, only a trifle sadly.

  “I know something of duty myself,” Kelley muttered, wishing that he were insincere. “I have no clerical vocation, but the Lord expects obedience from us all, even when His instructions are difficult.” This affirmation did not awaken any suspicion in Brother Cuthbert, who presumably took it to mean that Kelley was steadfast in his Catholic faith, in spite of the pressures to which that faith was now subject in England.

  The friar looked around again, but no one was looking in his direction; indeed, the party of four gentlemen and the makeshift party of three might have been engaged in a tacit competition to see which could ignore him more ostentatiously. Kelley knew as well as Brother Cuthbert that ears might still be pricked to hear their conversation, but the other two groups seemed busy enough with raucous entertainment. They were obviously drinking stronger ale than Kelley was.