Asimov's SF, October-November 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "You better come to the supply shed."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Now, Garland.” Cole shoved Bell into the wall. Shoved him so hard his teeth clacked.

  And the rage was there again in the blowtorch eyes. Rage like nothing else mattered. Scarred hands curled into Bell's shirt.

  "This is your last chance,” Cole said.

  Bell only smiled, feeling something shift inside him, feeling something change. He found suddenly that he was through being scared. “Fuck you,” he said.

  Bell ducked the first blow, but the second caught him upside the head, splitting his brow open. Bell spun away, throwing an elbow that missed, and then they were both off balance, taking wild swings, and Cole grabbed at him, and they were falling. They hit the ground and rolled, wrestling on the filthy floor. Cole came up on top, sitting on Bell's legs. “I fucking warned you,” he hissed, and then he rained down punches until Garland tackled him.

  After that, it was two on one, and Bell didn't feel the least bit guilty about that.

  * * * *

  The zoo super interviewed Bell for her report. They sat in her office. Behind her, against the wall, her fish swam their little circles. The superintendent leaned forward and laced her hands together on her desk.

  She didn't dig very deep. Seemed to think Cole's behavior was its own explanation. “I think you need stitches,” she said.

  Bell nodded. He touched his brow. His first zoo scar.

  "He'll be barred from the zoo, of course,” she said. “And I'll insist that his community service hours be revoked."

  "What's going to happen to him now?"

  "Charges probably."

  "I don't want to press charges."

  "Animal cruelty. The lemurs. He's going back to jail.” She paused, then added, “When they find him."

  Bell looked at the fish, swimming in the aquarium. “He said he's never going back."

  * * * *

  That evening, as he was closing up, Bell found Cole's parting gift. Found it revealed, at first, in the presence of a door ajar.

  The back room of the castle.

  Bell stared at what had been done.

  After the fight, Cole had climbed to his feet, wiped the blood from his face—and then walked off. Heading toward the gates. Even two on one, the fight had been about even, and when Cole had finally stepped back and walked away, Bell and Garland let him go. A draw. They'd assumed Cole left zoo property. But he hadn't left.

  He'd circled back around to the castle.

  And he'd poured lye into each and every terrarium.

  Several grubs were on the cement floor, ground into pulp with a boot.

  Others were desiccated husks. Only a few still moved, writhing in the white powder. Bell stepped further into the room, surveying the carnage. He should have known. He should have known this was coming.

  * * * *

  Bell's inner alarm started bothering him on his way home that night.

  Once a zookeeper developed an inner alarm, it worked everywhere.

  In this case, it was less an alarm than a sense of something out of place. It got stronger as he closed in on the trailer park. At first he thought the alarm had something to do with Cole, but when he got home, he understood. The universe had an interesting sense of timing.

  Lin was gone.

  Not like gone to the store. Gone, left. Leaving him.

  She left a note about it. The note explained. Blamed him.

  Distantly, he heard himself curse.

  All Bell could think, at first, was that she didn't seem to have taken anything. Like there was nothing about their life worth bothering with. She had written the whole thing off, it seemed. Him. Their life. A total loss.

  He made some growling noises.

  She might be back. She might change her mind.

  The stereo, after all, was really hers. She'd had it before they moved in together, and they'd never been able to afford a new one.

  Somberly, he unplugged the stereo. In something like a trance, he planted it in the sink and turned on the water. Like a zombie, he let the water run and started searching the trailer for enough change to buy beer.

  * * * *

  The next month passed in a haze.

  Word filtered down, as word always did, and it turned out Cole had skipped town. The cops were still looking.

  Not many of the grubs had survived Cole's attack. The ones that did were scarred. Cole had been very thorough, even pouring lye in the terrarium on the floor. In all, only a handful of the grubs finished their cocoons. A few from the control cage. A few from the terrarium marked “heat.” But they were twisted things, these cocoons. Damaged things. His experiment was ruined. His hope was that he'd be able to get at least a few reproducing adults, start over. If the cocoons hatched at all.

  And word had filtered down, too, that it would be bad for Cole when he was caught, because the list of charges had grown, and the warrant had sprouted teeth. Cole was facing time, real time, for what had happened. Bell knew Cole would need someone to blame.

  He would blame Bell, and he would blame the zoo.

  Several weeks later, Bell pulled into the parking lot and found there were fire trucks already in the lot. Hoses ran upward along the hill. Black smoke curled into the sky. Bell ran. He knew what he'd see before he saw it. The castle was engulfed in flame. The firefighters fought the blaze, but Bell knew it was too late. He imagined the animals inside baking. He imagined the sizzle and pop of burst skin, the soundless cries of dying snakes and lizards and frogs and bugs. He imagined his insects burning alive.

  He looked around, searching for Cole, wondering if he'd stayed long enough to watch it burn.

  When the fire was out, Bell walked through the ruins. The devastation was complete. Dead frogs and snakes and lizards. In the back room, he found the terrariums blackened and cracked. The insects inside charred and unrecognizable.

  Except for one. The terrarium on the floor.

  The terrarium with the heat sticker, now curled and blackened.

  The cocoon was charred, split wide by the heat.

  There was no grub inside.

  * * * *

  They found Cole's body later that day in the weeds behind the parking lot. Bell watched them load the body into the ambulance. Dark and swollen. It had been a bad death.

  There were burns, minor, across his hands, like he'd come too close to his creation.

  Burns and something else.

  Something like stings.

  Eyes swollen shut, anaphylactic shock.

  Not everything burned in the fire.

  Not all that burns is consumed. Cole had said that once.

  Bell stood there for a long time, listening. Listening for a buzz like an electric light, but there was no sound. Only the sound of wind in the trees.

  It was long gone, whatever it was. He just wished he could have seen what the grub had turned into. Next year it would be different.

  Next year it would be a fruit eater, or a wasp, or a beetle. It would be what it needed to be.

  It would be what the world made it.

  * * * *

  Approaching home, Bell felt his inner alarm stir again.

  The cable had been turned off again.

  Those jerks didn't know who they were dealing with. Bell had gotten drunk two nights in a row now, and he was feeling mean, feeling predatory.

  He stalked outside, nine trailers down to the cable box, opened it up with a hex wrench, and hooked his cable back up.

  Went home and surfed channels for anything resembling porn.

  After two hours of this, his thumb hurt and the battery on the remote died.

  He heard the screen door open.

  Lin?

  In the moment before the inner door opened, it occurred to him that her stereo was still soaking in the kitchen sink. He had a momentary, fearful impulse; his leg jerked. Then the beer kicked back in. He slouched back. He sneered like a sleepy lion.

  A shape in a doorwa
y.

  Seana.

  His sneer disappeared.

  She stepped inside and said nothing. Looked at him a moment, as if reading him. Slouched down beside him with a sack of takeout chicken.

  His hand, heavy and lazy, rested on her leg.

  She tugged his hand higher.

  They didn't talk. Even the TV flashed in silence.

  Outside the thin walls, the world licked itself and made hunting noises.

  Copyright © 2009 Ted Kosmatka & Michael Poore

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Short Story: WHERE THE TIME GOES by Heather Lindsley

  Heather Lindsley began writing short fiction in 2005. Since then, her stories have appeared in F&SF, Strange Horizons, and Year's Best Science Fiction #12. Her new tale is her first story for Asimov's. After growing up in Southern California and spending many years in Seattle, Heather is a little surprised to find herself living in London. She tends to lose track of time, and hopes that someday it will turn up in Transport for London's Lost Property Office.

  "I'm gonna kill you.” Chambers stalked up to Martin and dropped a crusty sock on his console. “Maybe a little death will keep you from leaving your stuff all over the ship."

  "We have a salvage run today,” Martin told her.

  She flopped into the shabby seat next to him. “Tomorrow, then. I'll kill you tomorrow."

  "Okey doke."

  "So when are we launching?"

  Martin pushed the sock aside. “15:05,” he said, but his answer was drowned out by the sudden noisy declaration that girls just wanted to have fuh-un.

  "What the hell is that?"

  "The new commtone,” Martin said. “I pulled it from the music archives in honor of today's run. What do you think?"

  "I think you should answer the comm and delete that tone,” Chambers said, adding too late, “Wait, who is it?"

  "It's Gnor."

  Gnor's malignant, toad-like smile dominated the monitors in the cabin. “Chambers! Martin!” Gnor leaned forward, swirling pale yellow eddies in his atmosphere. “How are my two favorite scum-scraping subcontractors?"

  "Blushing from all the flattery, Gnor,” Chambers said.

  "I thought you were just drinking on the job again."

  "Bite me, you frog-faced fu—"

  "What can we do for you?” Martin interrupted.

  "Ah, getting down to business, then.” Gnor blinked all six of his eyes in turn. “You owe me time."

  "No way,” Chambers said. “We paid three months in advance."

  "That was four months ago. Now you're overdue for dock rental, power, atmosphere hookup, and nine Rail trips. Plus interest. You owe me five hundred hours."

  "That's robbery and you know it,” said Chambers. “Any other Railer park would charge half that."

  "So take that scrap heap you call a ship somewhere else ... after you pay up.” He casually flicked his scaly tail at the screen. “And you might want to have a deposit ready for your new host."

  "You know we don't have the time for that, you bloated bag of—"

  "We'll get it,” Martin said.

  "You've got two days. I want five hundred hours by Friday, or I turn off the chlorine."

  "We breathe oxygen,” Martin said. Chambers stared at him in disbelief.

  "Fine,” Gnor said. “Five hundred hours by Friday, or I turn on the chlorine."

  * * * *

  At 14:45 Martin disconnected the ship from its power and atmosphere chargers. Chambers maneuvered the ship away from the dock and joined a short queue of vessels that ran perpendicular to the Rail, a hundred miles of dull metal I-beam surrounded by a thousand miles of empty space. A speedy little green sport Railster cut her off and pulled into the line.

  Chambers smacked the comm button. “Hey, that's our spot."

  "It's Gnor's nephew,” Martin said to her. “You know there's no point in scrapping with him."

  A leering face appeared in the monitors. “It's our spot now, Snippers. We've got a party to crash.” Another face pushed its way into the field and waggled various tongues, digits, and fundaments at them.

  "Power up weapons,” Chambers said.

  "We don't have any weapons."

  "Then give me something to throw."

  Martin offered her the crusty sock. Chambers sighed, wadded it into a ball, and threw it at the laughing faces in the monitor. “I hate those guys."

  "I know,” Martin said, turning off the comm.

  Martin checked over the salvage logs while Chambers plotted impractical revenge scenarios. She watched the little green ship take its place on the Rail, then accelerate and hurl itself off the end, only to vanish a few hundred miles out. Seconds later the ship reappeared, banged up and covered in obscene alien graffiti. Chambers hit the comm.

  "Rough trip, boys?"

  Gnor's nephew glared at her through a half dozen bruised eyes and stuck out his folded tongue. Chambers raised her hand and cheerfully offered her culture's equivalent before dropping the connection.

  "Hee."

  Martin shook his head. “You really should cut back on the Schadenfreude."

  "But it's my favorite Freude."

  Martin answered the trilling comm, and the Rail operator appeared in the monitor. “Alrighty, C & M Time Salvage, you're next. Where you headed?"

  "Earth,” Martin said. “36.754444 North, 119.774167 West."

  "And when?"

  "1983 107.75606796,” Martin rattled off.

  "Okay,” the operator said. “That'd be a parking lot for an apartment complex in Fresno, California, 11:08:46 am local time on April 17, 1983. Confirm?"

  "Confirmed,” Martin said.

  "And your offset is still .28?"

  "Yep."

  "Okay, just give us a minute to set that up."

  "Don't worry,” Martin said. “We've got time."

  The operator made a polite heh-heh noise, which in Chambers’ opinion was more than Martin deserved.

  "Do you have to make that joke every trip?"

  * * * *

  "April 17, 1983.28,” Martin announced. “The local time is eleven o'clock and change here in beautiful downtown Fresno. Or almost beautiful downtown Fresno,” he added, looking out the window at a shapeless gray vista. “You ready?"

  "Sure.” Chambers slung a half-full canvas duffel bag over her shoulder and handed Martin a scuffed black leather briefcase. “Let's go collect our pittance."

  "That's the spirit,” Martin said. He adjusted the ship's door for the .28 offset so it opened on a sunny spring day in 1983.00. He looked out at a yellow Datsun parked right in front of the door.

  "Oh, hell,” Chambers said.

  "Do you want to wait until they drive away?"

  "No, let's just climb over. You see anybody out there?"

  "Nope."

  Chambers peered through the rear window of the car as she brushed off her overalls. “What baby on board? I don't see any baby on board."

  "Maybe it's in the trunk.” Martin used the ship's remote to close the door and render the ship invisible. “Remember when we parked,” he said as they walked away from the ship.

  "Again: joke, every trip, necessary?"

  Martin pointed to the sign in front of the apartment complex's mass of ugly, boxy, two-story buildings. The Versailles, it claimed.

  "Do you think they've ever actually been there?” he asked.

  * * * *

  "First stop, Larry Platt, #108.” Martin set a Pauser in front of the door just before 11:30. Chambers slid a slim robotic key into the lock, then pushed the door open for Martin.

  They entered the apartment, taking the Pauser with them. A time-frozen Larry Platt was bathed in the glow of Donkey Kong. Chambers checked the handheld log for legal salvageable time. “There's a usable chunk up through 15:47:05 local."

  "So range start, 11:24:37, range stop, 15:47:05,” Martin said, entering the stop data into the Pauser. “Cued for one second increments, and ... here we go."

  All the mo
ments in the range appeared simultaneously in the apartment. The man on the couch became a fleshy millipede that looped from the couch to the kitchen and back.

  "Ten second increments,” Martin said, making adjustments to the Pauser. “Twenty, thirty..."

  Some of the Larry segments shrank until they formed thin, luminous strings. Others remained, a parade of clones connected by shining cords. On the television, the playing field was a mass of pink, blue, and orange, the digital scores layered in a perpetual 088888.

  "One minute increments, two, three..."

  Larry on the couch was a multi-armed god, simultaneously holding a joystick, reaching for chips, and picking his nose.

  "Ten minute ... twenty...” Now there were only a few Larrys, all connected by glowing threads of time.

  Chambers opened the scuffed briefcase. She and Martin each put on a pair of heavy gloves and pulled shears from the duffel bag. They started clipping strings, dropping them one by one into the briefcase until they'd salvaged most of Larry's wasted time.

  Martin calibrated the Pauser to read the range stop time only. “15:47:05,” he said.

  Martin closed the briefcase; Chambers gathered the equipment. Back in the hall Martin released the Pauser and said, “So, who's next?"

  * * * *

  "Here we are,” Chambers said. “Apartment 310. Janine Costa."

  Martin flicked the Pauser. “Start 22:16:53."

  "What a dump,” Chambers said as they entered the apartment. She stepped over a pile of dirty socks. “Are you sure we're not back on the ship?"

  "Ha ha.” Martin edged around a stack of pizza boxes, careful not to jostle them. He found a clear spot for the Pauser.

  "How much time do we have?"

  Martin checked the briefcase. “Looks like ten hours."

  "So only four hundred ninety to go.” Chambers glared at the small young woman on the couch and the crashing waves of her gelled hair. “We're gonna be in this stupid year forever."

  Martin checked the log. “This one's not bad—looks like she's gonna be up wasting time until four o'clock in the morning."

  "Ooh, six hours."

  "If you're done whining I'm ready to collect some time here."

  "Fine, let's do it."

  "So range start, 22:16:53. Range stop 04—"