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Editors

Marti McKenna

Bridget McKenna

Six

R ecently, I had a vision. I stood in the science fiction section of my local Borders bookshop and imagined how it would look had the SF community had a different outlook toward fiction. If the guardians at the gate--the editors, publishers, critics, and writers--had a different attitude toward science fiction publishing.

In front of me, I suddenly saw dozens of time-travel novels, a hundred space operas, several mysteries set in space. There were alien invasion stories and lost world stories and overpopulation stories. There were rockets and raygun novels back to back with feminist SF, all beside the hard stuff that only the techies could love.

The books currently on the shelves would still be there, lovingly tucked beside the latest breathtaking adventure novel, and the kick-butt heroine science fantasy romance. SF would have the main spot in the fiction section, much like romance does now, and the media tie-ins, published in the same numbers as they are now, would hug a small corner near the wall.

That hasn't happened, and yet it should. As Kevin J. Anderson has pointed out, SF dominates the airwaves, the movies, and the video games. But the science fiction community--the literature people--discount the wide-ranging interest in our field as something beneath them, something that's been done before. (For an excellent explanation of why--which I don't have the word count to go into in this essay--see Walter Jon Williams' "The SF Village" in the June 2005 Asimov's.)

I straddle both camps. I came into science fiction the genre because I watched Star Trek. A friend pointed out that my favorite Star Trek episode, "City on the Edge of Forever," had been written by Harlan Ellison who also wrote short stories. I found one of Harlan's short stories in The Hugo Awards, edited by Isaac Asimov. I read the entire volume, liked it, looked up work by the other authors, and haven't looked back since.

I served my time in the literary/critical realm as an editor. I like the literary SF story--the story that echoes or builds upon already established genre tropes--but I like the simple stories as well. As an editor, I often complained that writers didn't write space opera or time travel or the adventure stories of my youth. I complained so long, without any effect, that I finally realized I knew a writer who would listen to me.

Me.

So I gave up editing (this wasn't the only reason or even the main reason, but it was a reason), and built on my writing. I write SF adventure. I write fantasy. I write the occasional tie-in novels. I still watch SF TV (my current favorite mirroring the country's--I adore Lost) and I'd play SF video games if I had enough time.

And when I started writing SF adventure and space opera and time travel stories, I learned why other writers didn't try. Because so many editors rejected the stories with a pithy, "It's been done before." Or, if the story (novel) got published, the critics sneered, "There's nothing new here."

Comments that, had they been directed at romance or mystery, would have killed the entire genre. A literary mystery novelist looking at class differences in London with an eye to social commentary? I'm sorry, Elizabeth George, but P.D. James has mined that territory. A love story set in Regency England? I'm so sorry, Georgette Heyer, but Jane Austen already wrote those novels--and she was living in the time period, so she clearly knew more about it than you do.

People who've read my non-fiction know I've complained about this before. But I'd never thought of the ramifications until that day in the bookstore.

Right now, the SF section in our local Borders is one-quarter the size of the tie-in section. Westerns--once considered a dying genre--has more slots in the store than SF novels. If you take fantasy out of the mix, every genre--including horror (another of those once-dying [now reviving] genres)--has more slots.

Why? Because readers like the familiar. For every reader who wants a challenging novel, there are ten who want something like the novel they've just finished. These people have busy lives, and they just want a moment of escape. They choose to escape through the pages of a book instead of a television screen or a video game. They want to pick up the novel, read three pages before going to sleep, and disappear into another world, however briefly.

They don't care if the novel answers notions first explored in Rogue Moon. They might not know that H. Beam Piper wrote a similar novel in 1960. They simply know this novel satisfies their SF jones for the next few hours.

These are the readers we're neglecting. By talking to ourselves in our tiny village, we've forced these readers to go elsewhere. They read paranormal romance and Michael Crichton and media tie-in novels. They stay away from the SF section because the books there aren't comfort food. For the most part, they're challenging--a good thing if that's what you want to read--but challenging is like a steady diet of vegetables. Sometimes you want a steak or an ice cream cone to balance out the mix.

Imagine if SF offered everything from steak to ice cream to vegetables. The SF section would be as I described above. When I wrote Star Trek novels, the editor told me that the time travel stories were the most popular stories of all of Trek. That bears out in other tie-ins as well. People love what-would-have-happened--if this or that historical event hadn't occurred. And yet, my writer friends and I--names you'd recognize--have all had time travel novels rejected because...you guessed it...it's been done before.

My favorite review of any novel I've written was a negative one. It ended with what the critic saw as an insult: It feels like a popular TV series crossed with a Spielberg film. I love that quote. It's what I was shooting for with the novel. I wanted to entertain.

A few people, deeply enmeshed in the SF Village, will say I keep returning to this topic because of sour grapes. I've had a few novels rejected, some bad reviews, and so I'm complaining.

But I've sung this song long before the reviews and the rejections. I'm singing it because of my own reading habits. The short fiction editors listen. The magazines, including this one, mix entertaining stories with challenging ones, humor with heartbreak, intellectual stories with plain old-fashioned adventure.

A handful of book editors do, as well--although it's hard to find those books, because they look like all the others in the SF section. You must be diligent, and that's tough. With book prices over seven dollars for paperback, taking a risk can take a bite out of the weekly gas budget.

So imagine if SF novels were labeled like romance novels. Look at romances some time. The spines read "Paranormal romance" "Romantic suspense" "Historical romance" and yet they're shelved side by side. Imagine if SF read "time travel" "hard SF" "literary sf" or "space opera." Imagine how easy it would be to buy the book that most satisfies your need for that day. Sometimes I want to read a disturbing book, one that will make me think for weeks. But sometimes I want to curl up with a novel that makes all my problems disappear for a few hours. Those afternoons, I read an old SF novel from my husband's collection, one that's already been vetted by decades of reviewers, or I read either a modern romance novel or a cozy mystery. SF rarely provides comfort food, and we need to.

We need to bring back the Star Trek fans and the Lost aficionados--not just through tie-ins but with great rip-roaring adventure, the kind that's easily marked, so on a difficult day, when you wander into a bookstore looking for an escape, you find it in the SF section--the way that it used to be, back when the genre was new.

If we do that--if we, the readers, clamor for that--maybe the SF section will look like it did in my vision. Maybe we'll catch up to our media partners, and remember that a large audience is a good thing.

Maybe we'll save the literary genre that we love.

Five

Love of Words, Words of Love

S o what is it about words? I think we all have to agree they're an awkward bunch, forever stumbling over themselves in their efforts to form some sort of line. They're stubborn and fractious, and few will argue that they're not the most limited form of human communication. In fact, most observers of the human condition agree that words constitute a very small percentage of our communication, quite likely less than 10% at a generous estimate. Still, we insist on giving them the lion's share of importance in our affairs, because however awkward they are, they're far more biddable than all the other ways we communicate. For that reason they are the forms of law and record, and the tools of those who would send their communication into an uncertain future.

As writers, we enter daily into conversations, discussions, arguments, and fisticuffs with words as though our lives depended on it. Because, I suppose, they do. Lacking direct brain-to-brain interface, which would probably destroy society as we know it, words are what we have, and are thereby powerful, especially in the arsenal of those who know how to use them. And the magazine you're reading is just full of stories and poems by people with that knowledge and power.

We're not denying the power of visual media; no-one loves a good movie, or that much rarer creature, a good television show, more than your fiction-lovin' Aeon editors. But getting lost in a film and getting lost in a book are two very different experiences, and although it's easy to understand how visual media can captivate a visually-oriented species, we still find it magical in the extreme that a string of words on paper or on a screen can induce what can only be called hallucinations of the most powerful kind. A story, in any rational sense, exists only as marks on a surface; everything else happens inside as a realtime collaboration between author and reader. We think that transporting readers into other realities is nothing more or less than sorcery, a black art we are happy and honored to be able to practice and present.

We live in a literate society--unfortunately not a 100% literate society--that still thinks, to some degree, in preliterate terms. When someone refers, for example, to "scripture," they are harkening to the Latin word scriptura, which means little more or less than "something written." And yet the English word "scripture" means, according to Mr. Webster's scriptura, "A sacred writing or book.... A statement regarded as authoritative." That's a preliterate idea still inexplicably kicking around in a literate world. Much as folks in 1939 tended to regard as truth anything they heard on the radio, even if it was written by H.G. Wells, people in 1450 regarded the written word and those who could produce and interpret it with superstitious awe. This unreasoning wonderment has migrated even into the present day of post-Gutenberg media to certain religious texts which are regarded by some--because they were written down in the pre-Gutenberg age when few things were--as absolute truth. We think truth is absolutely where you find it, and sometimes you can even find it in words.

As much good as our fractious little friends do, they can also be used for evil, such as promulgating one's personal beliefs about parochial desert gods as absolutely necessary to someone else's salvation, lying to people about a government's reasons for dropping bombs on someone else's country, or selling really crap beer to someone who doesn't know better than to drink it. On a less cosmic scale we misuse them daily when we snap at, nag, insult, backstab, and criticize not only others but ourselves, the people we usually treat most cruelly of all. While true words are as easily come by as false ones, they are gold when you can get them. Kind words cost no more than cruel ones, but they're infinitely to be preferred. Loving words are ten thousand times more valuable to the giver and the receiver than biting ones.

So in the spirit of the probably apochryphal Saint Valentine, it's time to load up on and fire off volleys of loving words for your near and dear, and that nearest person of all–yourself. Our Aeon Six authors have provided several thousand for you in the stories that follow, and several thousand others to tie them all together. Lavie Tidhar kicks off the issue with a tale of love unrequited but never, ever forgotten in "Midnight Folk." Richard Parks tells of us a love eternal in a land of dreams and illusion in "Another Kind of Glamour." "The Brotherhood of Trees," by Michael Jasper, lovingly encompasses many kinds and kindnesses of love. Ken Scholes relates a 'way down home tale of the very earliest days of love and marriage in "East of Eden and Just a Bit South, Being a True and Accurate Account of How Cain Found Himself a Wife." "Things We Sell to Tourists" just might include souvenirs of love and stranger things in this story by Marissa K. Lingen. And can love triumph when the body and mind mobilize formidable forces against it? You'll find out in DJ Cockburn's "Virulence." We're also offering a lover's bouquet of poetry by Greg Beatty (winner of the Rhysling Award), Campbell Award finalist Carrie Richerson, Jennifer Schwabach, Marcie Lynn Tentchoff, and Mikal Trimm. We're very proud to present an Aeon issue it's hard not to love: Aeon Six.

Midnight Folk

Lavie Tidhar

"Bukowski made me writer letters to dead people. ‘You do what you have to do', he said, ‘and I will do her'; he pointed at the heavy woman in the corner of the bar and lit a cigarette. We got drunk with Ginsberg in Paris, and passed out under stars burned out like dripping candles. ‘You do what you have to do,' Ginsberg said, ‘and I will do a little of this acid.' Burroughs was already shooting at the tourists with his shotgun. He saved the rocket launcher for special occasions, and was understandably upset when the police confiscated it. ‘Pigs', said Bukowski, smoothing down the betting slip on the table, like a bookmark for a chequered account of his life. Imaginary conversations, imaginary lives; only the deaths were real."

M Y NAME IS SAL PARADISE, and I'm a private investigator.

The skies outside my shoe-sized apartment's windows were like a dull grey numbing pain that perforated through the urban landscape like a burrowing worm, eating away at the rows upon rows of identical brick houses. It was winter, and I was alone.

I wasn't always a private investigator. I used to be on the road. I'll tell you about it later.

I arrived in London, England, one rain-drenched evening in November, looking for nothing more than a refuge, a safe-house, a place where I could be alone and where my past could be safely filed away in the great sweaty tumbling reams of paper that were left behind me in New York when I fled my old life.

I took the train to town, in turns sweating and freezing as the aftershocks of Benzedrine hit me repeatedly. I was a washed-out boxer getting pummelled on the ring of life, and the punches were coming in like a pile-up of cars on the Golden Gate bridge, fast and painful and without an end in sight. The people on the train, gentle Englishmen and delicate girls with pale, beautiful faces, looked at me in alarm but left me to my thoughts. I came to learn England is a place where the mad are--not revered, no, but allowed a quiet respect, a space around them like a shield of protection and comfort.

I'm sorry, I'm not making much sense, am I. My therapist says I'm getting better. Making progress, he says, and laughs like a big ol' Texan cowboy, stroking his great big white beard all the while. He so reminds me of Carlo Marx sometimes I want to jump up and hug him and dance around the room with him and talk about poetry.

But I don't, anymore. I'm getting off Speed, and Carlo Marx is dead and besides, this is London, not New York.

So I was sitting in my tiny apartment counting the bricks and watching soaps on the box and thinking of a drink. It was cold. When I first arrived in London I stayed with a girl I knew, an American flower transplanted without much success in this ancient metropolis, held hands and shivered like a madman and dreamed of the road, and the trip to Italy with my one true love that I've never taken and now never will, and of the secret byways of the world.

"Sal," my friend said to me one night. We were sitting on her small brown sofa without our clothes and with the ancient heater working overtime by our side, eating curry from little silver packets. I dipped a large chunk of Naan bread into my chicken Madras and bit it and felt warmth flood me for the fraction of a second like a remote gun shot.

"Yes, darling?" I was affecting a British accent in those days, the kind bad actors use in Hollywood movies, all upper-class and superior, as if one's nose is full of snot through which the words ooze out with difficulty.

"It's time you got yourself your own place," she said, her sweet voice vaporizing in the heat of the room. "And a job, too." She put her hand on mine, tenderness in her eyes like the bite of a snake. I was suddenly angry. I wanted to shout at the moon, berate the unfairness of this life I found myself in, cry for the road and for friends left behind. I got ready to stand up and leave, as I was, to step blissfully into the cold calm arms of night, naked and unbowed and unafraid.

But she was right, and I didn't.

I told you I was getting better, didn't I.

Instead, I finished my curry in silence, and in the small hours of the night made love to that strange undemanding creature for the last time. The next day I packed my bag and left and in a moment of sheer exhaustion walking around Mungo Park, which never fails to evoke in me thoughts of Old Bull Lee in Tangiers, found this place and paid for it there and then and moved in.

And found employment the next day as a private investigator.

It wasn't a bad job, really. I worked for a guy called Little Mo Cohen, a big barrel of a man, a Jew of the old East End, a former gangster with a love of black and white movies, a mountain of muscle with the heart of a child.

I did divorces, mainly.

"Para-dise!" Little Mo would shout from his office, a small cramped space in the basement of a building on Harley Street that did not officially exist and which the doctors and nurses who worked there treated with a kind of silent horror, that such an undignified thing as a private dick could so clatter such a fastidious establishment in such a dignified setting. But Little Mo didn't give a damn.

"Para-dise!" he'd call me, and when I walked in he'd thrust a hand full of papers in my face and tell me to get on with it, and oh-by-the way did I watch the Casablanca re-run last night and wasn't Ingrid Bergman wonderful? Listening to Mo, you'd easily have thought Casablanca was showing on the box every night of the week.

I don't know. Maybe, for him, it did.

The papers would almost always turn out to be names, and places, and photographs: men and women who were married to other men and women who suspected they were cheating on them, who were coming home later and later every night, who stayed at the office overnight, who had appointments with their hair-dresser at strange hours, who came back with a foreign scent on their clothes and foreign shades of lipstick on their collars.

The usual.

I'd be told where they lived and when they left, and I would follow them around, a cheap automatic camera in one coat pocket, boxes of cigarettes in the other.

It was a living.

I got used to standing in the cold, smoking cigarette after cigarette, a mound of butts gathering by my side like a tombstone for Old Bull Lee's wife, who he one day killed when they were both trippin' the light fantastic, shooting the apple on her head like he was William Tell and of course missing the apple but not her. He was a big one for guns, was Old Bull Lee. Everything that made a loud bang and could cause lots of big, noisy damage delighted him.

So I'd stand there, watching the Jills and the Johns come and go and do their stuff, and I'd photograph them in the compromising position and get the hell out of there, and hand the camera over to Mo and get my money. "Make sure you get them in the compromising position, Para-dise," Little Mo would say. I kept hoping he would take up smoking, I pictured him every day with a small cheap cigar in his mouth, chewed and chewed and never lit, but Mo was against smoking. Wouldn't even touch sweets. "Rot your teeth, they do," he'd say to me confidentially, paging through the latest Kojak paperback and scratching his own bald head with his big meaty fingers that were like five iron bars welded together. "Trust me."

I did. I worked the old beat up hopeless divorce route at night, slept in my little cell during the day, and smoked. It was a job.

It's how I met Lola.

I was hanging out at the Purple Rose, a dingy strip joint in the back of Shaftesbury Avenue, a black hole for hustlers and whores and the wrong kind of tourist, where businessmen with no business chilled to the tune of canned music and wet their pants over the angels of the night who rubbed thighs against crotches for a minor fee.

Her name was Lola and she was a dancer, sliding up and down gleaming metal poles in sweat-drenched, smoke-filled underground rooms in which the stale scent of beer and premature ejaculations intermingled with the furtive smell of Algerian hash. Pushers would stand in the broken toilets and offer you juice in a veiled language that had more signs in it than the Highway Code. They always latched on to me, smelling in their rat-like way my desperation and desire, the convulsions of my soul for the sweet ol' death they were offering so cheaply.

I'll get back to that.

So I was sitting at my apartment counting bricks and waiting for the sunset. It was business as usual. Or rather, no business, as usual.

One day Little Mo disappeared. His office was left like an insipid cocoon devoid of its occupant. I doubted Little Mo has become a butterfly, however. I made a quick search for money, found none, and got the hell out. A large corpse was found some weeks later drowned in the Thames, discovered strangled in the reeds by an old couple out for a walk. It could have been his.

I didn't care. By the time Big Ben chimed twelve for the fourth time, I was in business for myself.

Sal Paradise, Private Investigator. It sounded good. Real good. The kind of good you only get after spending a mad night in the Mexican wilderness smoking tea and whoring and drinking booze in the baking hot sun, and running amok in a whorehouse with the beautiful young girls with the dark enchanting skin and the eyes that hide the depths of the desert in them while the cops outside smile and nod and dig everything. I had a fifth in the drawer, my name on the door, and there was still hope for a flashing neon light outside the window.

I was waiting for the clock to chime, and turning in my mind the thing Lola said to me the night before.

"Friend of yours came by earlier," she shouted to me over the din of the crowd. We were at the bar of the Purple Rose. It was about three o'clock, and just as busy as if it were midday in Oxford Street. "Didn't know you had any!"

Neither did I. I'd left my old friends behind me when I left the States, and now they were either respectable or dead, and a long way away in any case.

"Did he give a name?" I had to repeat myself twice before the words travelled through the noise, like bees between lonely flowers, and settled at Lola's ear.

"No." she leaned forward and spoke directly into my ear, her breath warm and sexy on my skin. "Funny bloke, he was. Yank, like you, and fancied himself a bit of a lady's man I reckon. Gave me a right once over, I could feel his eyes slithering all over my body." But she smiled when she said it, and my heart suddenly beat with an urgency I thought I had lost forever.

"Did you see his thumb?" I asked, trying to contain my mounting excitement.

"Thumb? No, I didn't. Anyway, he said he'll be back tomorrow night." She moved away from me with a languid grace, her dark hair streaming behind her like an oil slick.

"Did he say when?" I finally thought to ask, mouthing the words silently across the room as Lola worked her expert body in the lap of an aging derelict whose eyes, rheumy and sad and full of a dying wisdom, looked up at her in hushed admiration and his fingers played a nervous staccato on the table-top surface, in time to a tune only he could hear.

"Funny thing, Sal," she said to me later. "He showed up midnight on the dot. Said you should expect him tomorrow night at the witching hour." She grimaced. "Sal knows time, he kept saying. Sal knows time." She blew me a kiss and began walking away again, unconcerned. "Fucking weirdo," were her parting words to me that night.

So I sat, and I waited, my mind thinking nervously and doing loops of excitement that fell into valleys of wonder and chasms of despair, like a roller coaster ride on Coney Island.

Could it really be him?

I gathered my coat, bouncing on the balls of my feet with a kind of uneasy excitement, and headed for the door.

Outside was cold, a wet, clammy iciness that clang to clothes and burrowed under flesh, a feeling of frosty fingers tickling numb skin, of an arctic mouth blowing fog-encrusted kisses on my disused mouth.

I lit a cigarette.

It had become dark, and as I began to follow the wet street lights along the street I thought of Dean Moriarty, the only man I'd ever truly loved, whose madness and joy inspired me and driven me and compelled me along on those wild and unruly adventures so long ago on the road, criss-crossing America and the West, high on drink and Speed and being young and immortal. Could it really be him?

I don't know why, but I unconsciously decided to avoid the Purple Rose that night. My feet led me in random directions, through unknown streets and alleyways, a strange invisible tour through the dark city. There were few people on the streets, and I was not disturbed.

I stood for a long moment on the Embankment, watching the shadowy, choppy water of the Thames flow unsteadily underneath my feet. I was deep in thought, confused and angry and delirious with happiness in turn. I didn't know what I wanted, didn't know what to do. Through the hazy cloud of my thoughts I could hear deep, bass chimes as Big Ben momentarily awoke, announcing itself to the sleeping city. It was late, and my breathing came ragged and profound in little clouds of fog that diminished around me like the fading of angels.

Big Ben struck twelve.

As the last grave notes of the ancient clock dissipated in the cold air a great bellowing horn sounded at my back and made me jump. I turned and saw two huge beams of light cutting through the darkness like the flaming wings of an angel, and the sound of a powerful motor being gunned down rushed toward me like a sonic boom, threatening to shatter my body and my mind both.

I strained against the blinding light as the most magnificent vehicle advanced towards me along the Embankment and screeched to a shuddering halt. In the sudden gloom I could make out the contours of the car, as sleek and as powerful as a jungle cat, and in its arrival I recognised what I have both dreaded and longed for for what seemed like an eternity.

A man jumped out of the car, bellowing a great whoop! of laughter as he hit the concrete with his feet. He did a little jig, there and then, spread his arms and shouted joy to the silent skies. "You know time!" he shouted. He turned around, facing me, his hands held toward me in a welcoming embrace. "You know time!" I stood there as he walked towards me, his moves like those of an aging dancer, the moves of a con-man and a teenage hustler who has never abandoned that great big insanity of being alive.

"Hi Sal," he said in a slow, quiet voice. We stood there, facing each other, unspeaking for a long moment.

"Dean?" I finally asked, my eyes all the time working rapidly over his face, his stand, his loose shirt and the belly that was, as ever, hanging out from above his trousers. I couldn't think of anything else to say. "Is that really you?"

He grinned at me and waved his hand in the air. The flesh, about half an inch, was missing under the nail of his thumb.

"I'm a class-A substance in a third-rate burg," said this glowing apparition with the utmost sincerity. "I've come to dig this crazy place you've made for yourself, this make-believe London spread in front of us like a rippled broken shattered mirror, this fantastic metamorphic fanciful dream of yours. Sal," his voice once again took on the sweet and dreamy tones of utter self-belief of this conman madman hustler lover that I knew so well and have ached for so much. "Show me your city."

There were fine lines like cobwebs at the corners of his eyes and his gaze rested on me, concerned, and I didn't understand it.

It didn't matter.

It was him. It was Dean, Dean Moriarty, my companion all those years ago, my burning angel, my unrequited love. I felt the structures of control that I have imposed on myself dissolving and melting away and my inner self being drawn like a moth to the all-consuming light that was Dean Moriarty.

"Here," he said, opening his hand like a magician and throwing me a small twisted packet of paper. "Got these for you at the Purple Rose earlier."

I opened it up. It was full of benny tubes. Maybe I could resist the pushers, but I couldn't resist Dean. Never could, and that's a fact.

I popped the pills silently, ravenously, feeling as they slid down my throat energy returning to my body, felt my soul expanding and like a stable of horses running in all directions at once, their wild and free nature guiding them across the vast expanses of the mind.

"Yee-ha!" Dean shouted with glee in his eyes when he saw me downing the tea. "You know time, Sal Paradise, you know time!"

He ran to the car, jumped inside and in seconds the mighty engine was roaring again, screaming joy at the murky waters of the Thames. Then in a flash and before I had the chance to jump in with him he was out of the car again and pointing at the river, waving and shouting and talking to me all at once. "Look at them sweet Jesus babies!" he cried. "See them little blue-bodied angels playing in the water like unruly dolphins, listen to their pure holy voices singing like a parliament of bluebottles--oh Sal, can you see the children?" He seemed to me to be burning before my eyes, a soft glow of light suffusing him, and I knew then I was giving in once more to the madness of the road, and didn't know, as I never did know, if he was man or angel sent down to Earth.

Now that he had pointed them to me, I could indeed see them. It was as if a giant magnifying glass had been laid on to the water's surface, turning it into a clear blue window into the underwater world below. There were children there, tens, maybe hundreds of children, babies with pale lips and soft bodies, toddlers and kids of indeterminable ages all swimming and playing games and chasing the tails of shiny trout who swam below and above and through them, teasing.

"Water babies," I whispered, the voice caught in my throat. "I never knew…"

Dean looked at me with an incomprehensible look on his face. "You don't let yourself know, ol' buddy," he said in a soft voice. "you let yourself loose in a dream and yet you refuse to look it in the face. Oh Sal," there was real compassion in his voice, "how did you get so lost?"

I didn't know what he was talking about. We stood and stared at the swimming babies for a long time, not speaking. Then, "where to now?" I asked.

Dean was all of a sudden in a flutter of excitement again, as if my question had reanimated him back into frenetic life. He grabbed me and we ran to the car, jumping into low leather seats, and the car roared into life and with Dean behind the wheel we spun around and shot away in a cloud of dust. "Yee-ha!"

On the horizon, the round clock face that was Big Ben had changed, now looking like a fat, pedantic moon, with a carved mouth that smiled genially down at Dean and myself as we drove like devils through the narrow streets of the city. "Dig that clock!" Dean cried, waving crazily at that venerable old timepiece, and by God if Big Ben didn't wink at us in a friendly, conspiratory fashion.

It was a wild night, a night of hallucinatory wanderings and mad holy visions as we raced around the city. In Gerard Street, Chinese dragons danced regally in the streets, oily scales glinting in the moonlight, fires bursting out of their bellies like deadly fireworks, leaving sooty stains on the pavement and the walls of buildings. There were no people there, only the dragons, large and threatening and beautiful beyond words and worlds and time, waddling on lizard's feet and spreading their big bejewelled wings, silent and dark like ancient poetry.

A street urchin, his big round eyes looking up at us with a kind of intimate sorrow, stood on a corner of the Strand and sold us an ounce from the back of cart on which melons and oranges and grapes, tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers, life and death and love lay rotting surrounded by a cold damp fog. Dean had taken his shirt off at this stage and we ditched the car, which Dean had hot-wired earlier, rolled up two massive cones and ran again, shouting joy and defiance at the sky.

"Oh Sal," Dean said to me; there was a moment of solitude between us, a moment of calm where he held me close, so close I could smell his scent, almost taste the folds of his flesh. "I want..." He looked suddenly lost. "I want you to choose, my friend," he said at last. I looked at him, not comprehending, and he sighed and the cobwebs in the corners of his eyes widened, like cracked glass. "Will you choose right, Sal Paradise?"

We wandered into Soho and Ronnie Scott's at the small hours of the night. Dawn was still some distance away, but its hand seemed to grope for dominance in the skies, leaving faint marks like fingers trailing against an icy glass. The bouncers took one look at us and decided we were obviously mad. "Now you must understand," Dean said in his most earnest voice, "that it is only at these places of worship that our souls are completely free from their earthly burden, for jazz is the word and the god is jazz!" He slammed the words at the bouncers like an expert marksman and they waved us through, thinking perhaps we were part of the show.

We got drinks, and Dean began scouring the room for girls when the light on the small dark stage was turned on and we turned in awe and astonishment to gaze upon the face of the gentleman who stood there, looking nothing less than a biblical prophet incarnated.

"It's Sweeney," I said, my voice so soft it seemed to drop to the floor at the moment of its utterance.

"It's God," Dean said reverently, as he often did when the mood took him and we sat around in a dark smoky club in the dead of night and listened to Slim Gaillard or Dizzy Gillespie or Thelonius Monk. "It's God."

It was Apeneck Sweeney, the mad poet, and as he began reciting poetry in a querulous voice Dean began to rock in his seat, scratching his belly and wiping the sweat that was pouring out of him in droves with a dotted handkerchief. "It's Carlo Marx," he whispered, not taking his eyes of the poet as he rocked back and forth, back and forth. "Look Sal. Look."

And it almost was as if Carlo Marx has appeared again before us, ranting his awesome strange compelling poetry to us in his small flat on the Lower East Side, majestic beard jiggling to a silent beat, cymbals clashing as his voice rose and fell like the tides.

The hour before dawn found us on the South Bank, swigging red wine from a shared bottle and watching the fog cling gently to the brown waters of the Thames.

"It was a wonderful night," I said to Dean, my soul swelling with the sweetness of his presence there by my side, my mind rejecting thoughts of divorce work, or Lola, or my therapist. I have seen the secret byways of this city and my love was by my side again at last, just as he was when we drove down to Mexico all those years ago on the road.

Dean turned and looked at me, his eyes searching my face mutely. He took my hand in his--and oh! how much have I longed for that moment--and in a soft, quiet, serious voice said "you're dead, you know."

"What?" I thought he wanted to enter another one of those late night philosophical discussions, like he used to with Carlo Marx back in New York when they were sleeping together.

"Wake up, Jack!" he cried suddenly, springing up from his seat in one smooth motion. He startled me. "Look at yourself. Look at this, this London you created for yourself. You're dead. I'm dead. Ginsberg is dead. Burroughs is dead. Fucking Kesey is dead. We're all dead, but you won't fucking admit it." Each emphasis was to me like a punch in the face.

I didn't know what to say. Had he gone truly crazy at last? "I never liked Kesey," I said. My voice sounded hollow in the cold air.

"That's not the point, Jack." Dean Moriarty raised me to my feet, his hands warm against my skin. In the dim light of the approaching dawn his body truly burned, and great big wings of flame unfurled from his back, blazing across my field of vision ready to soar. "You've never let yourself understand," he said. "You never acted. Only followed. And now you won't even do that." His body seemed to shimmer, become less substantial as the sky slowly grew brighter. "You think you live in a real place?" There was anger in his voice. "I showed you the underbelly of where your desolate soul lives, the ripped gashes of dreams and hallucinations that crowd your little construct of reality. Don't you understand?" His voice grew weak as his body faded with the coming of the sun. He never seemed more beautiful to me than that day, the last day I ever saw Dean Moriarty.

"Cross over, Sal Paradise," his voice whispered.

And, so faintly I may have imagined it, "Hit the road, Jack..." as the sun rose and Dean disappeared.

"Oh, Dean." Tears stung my skin. Bellow the water I could just make out the figures of three small children waving at me with angelic smiles before they, too, disappeared. Memory rose inside me, faint as the tendrils of smoke from unused chimneys, and I said, "Oh, Neal."

I got drunk.

What else can you do when everything you have ever believed in turns out to be an illusion? I got roaringly drunk, passed out shouting obscenities at the bar and woke up in a cell the next morning, feeling as if a storm had passed and left me unscathed and strong.

My name is Sal Paradise, and I'm a private investigator. I do the old beat up hopeless divorce route at night, sleep in my little apartment during the day, and smoke. It's a job.

At night, I sometimes talk to the water babies in the Thames. Sometimes I listen to Sweeney reciting poetry in small badly-lit cafés. I hang out at the Purple Rose with my girl and in the early hours of the day we make slow and dreamy love and talk.

Sometimes I even see the dragons again, flying high above the city, their scales sparkling in a multitude of rainbows.

I may have been someone called Jack once. I may be dreaming all this. I may even be dead. I've made my peace with that now, and with the ghosts that have hunted me and haunted me and would not let me rest, and I am better for it.

So in London when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down Embankment watching the foggy narrow skies over the city and feel the material of my dreams taking hold and shaping the land and the people and I know the water babies may have drowned but here they're happy and whoever says God is Pooh Bear is full of shit. The stars are strewn on the horizon like precious stones hoarded away and then scattered in small, sparing throws across the endless dark and I will never grow old and nobody really knows where we go when we die and I never did like Kesey but sometimes I sit here by the pier and I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty, the father he's never found, I think of Neal Cassady.

Seeking the Lovetrino

Greg Beatty

Neutrinos were known in theory
decades before we glimpsed them.
They should be there.
They explained so much
of the unseen underpinnings
of the universe entire.
Struck by the need to have
them be, and be real, neutrino
seekers explored dark gold
mines, deduced their existence
through effects of invisible passages,
building private pools to calm
and house these essential visitors.
So they may be seen.
So if you ask why
I take extended train trips,
hearken to the whippoorwill,
adorn myself with rose
petals, stanzas, and
home cooking, consider:
I am seeking that far
more fundamental particle:
the lovetrino, whose passage
is everywhere demanded,
but which can be captured not.

Another Kind of Glamour

Richard Parks

"Ask the writer of your choice what his or her themes are and you may get a thoughtful and reasoned answer. You're just as likely to get an expression much like that of a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Themes aren't created but rather discovered, and often the astute reader sorts it out long before we do. I was publishing for over ten years before realizing that one of my recurring themes is marriage: How it works and how it doesn't. What it's really all about. One good way to look at the subject is through the lens of an immortal union, where both the problems and the joys are magnified a thousand-fold. So it's all metaphor. Except, of course, where it isn't."

T HE FAIRY BELLFLOWER woke me out of a sound sleep. "They're at it again, Puck," Bellflower said. I didn't have to ask who. Just ‘what.'

"All right…all right!" I brushed off the vines and cobwebs, then paused a moment to commit a particularly stimulating dream to memory for later reference. "What did Oberon do this time?"

I knew better than to hope that it was Titania who'd started the row. If that had been so, Bellflower would be waking Titania's favorite, not me.

"I'm not sure," Bellflower said, her winsome little face scrunched in concentration, "but I think he told her the truth."

"Oh, hell," I said, fully awake now. This wasn't like that business with the Indian boy or a harmless bit of infidelity. This was serious. "Which truth, Bellflower? Think carefully--this is important!"

"I'm not sure," she repeated. "I wasn't there for that part, Cowslip was."

"Then why didn't Cowslip come get me?"

"Because she apparently tried to step between them at one point and got turned into stone. You know how that slows her down."

I winced. Sorting out Cowslip was going to take time, and I wasn't sure how much we had. "Where are they now?"

"One went one way and one another. Cowslip hasn't moved, so she's still in the bower near the river."

"All right, see if you can find your mistress and calm her down without getting transformed into anything inanimate."

"Are you going to find Oberon?"

"I have no doubt he'll summon me soon enough, but I think I'd better have a chat with Mistress Cowslip first."

Fortunately for Cowslip--and unfortunately for my nerves--facts weren't the essence of Fairie. It was strange to think about, but despite the glamour and illusion that made up much of the daily life and appearance of our world, the essence of Fairie was truth. I sometimes imagine that truth is just another sort of glamour since, like glamour and appearance and illusion, truth is much more malleable than fact.

I was seeing the proof of that theory now, as I stood in the middle of Queen Titania's favorite riverside bower, and regarded the remarkably lifelike white marble sculpture of the haughty Cowslip. I'd even think the sculptor had captured her dainty breasts and dear little upturned nose just perfectly if I didn't know that the figure wasn't a statue at all. The proof of that was the slowly returning color, just a tinge of pink around the cheeks and a hint of the rainbow in her wings that showed that the statue would soon enough be Cowslip once more.

While the fact was that Cowslip had been turned to stone, the truth was that Cowslip's essence was that of a fay and a simple transmutation into marble was not going to change that. Cowslip was slowly becoming a fay again. A rather annoyed fay, to be precise.

"Mrgle dob nospasrt!" was the first thing she said, once her lips could move again.

"Your tongue's still marble, luv," I said. "Speak slower."

She glared at me, now that her eyes worked well enough to glare at anything. "I saided, you' Masser is a dog's arsse!"

I tried not to smile. "Better. So, what did the dog's arse do?"

The pink was returning to the rest of Cowslip's body, albeit even more slowly than it had to her face. By my estimate she'd been stone for at least an hour, so it was about time. The evening's comfortable twilight would yield to the harsh light of day very soon and some things simply can't be mended in full light.

Cowslip didn't answer right away. First she wiggled her fingers, then her toes, then the rest of her body. She stretched like a cat and scratched a spot that clearly had been troubling her for some time.

I tried not to sound as impatient as I felt. "A bit more delicacy, Mistress Cowslip. There are gentlemen present."

"Sod that and sod you," she snapped. "Bad enough to be turned to stone and have an itch too! You try it sometime."

"Just tell me what happened. Please."

"Oberon happened. As if you didn't know!" Cowslip glared at me as if I were one and the same as my Lord.

"If I knew," I said, "I wouldn't be asking you. Bellflower said it was something about ‘telling her the truth.' Did he really do that?"

"Lot of help she was," Cowslip muttered. "Did she stay and help me? Nooo--"

"Mistress Cowslip, the foundation of our existence is shattering all around us and you're going on about trifles! You and I both know there was nothing Bellflower could do for you at that point; she was right to find me instead. Will you please come back to the matter at hand?"

Cowslip turned up her glare. If she had been the sun, I would have been roasted. "Even if that's true, why should I tell you anything? So you can muddle things up even more? You're just like him. You're all like him!"

There it was again. As if I needed reminding how uneasy and tentative the alliance between the two great circles of power in the woodland was, and how easy to disrupt, and how thoroughly and quickly discord at the top filtered down to all beneath. It was fortunate that Bellflower found me quickly, or she probably wouldn't have bothered. Or maybe I was reading too much into it and Cowslip was just cranky. Being stone for any length of time tends to irritate a person.

"Cowslip, I humbly apologize for any and all inconveniences. I really want to help, but I can't if you won't tell me what's happened."

Cowslip's glare dimmed. Just a mite, and barely noticeable, but it was something. "It's the new moon," Cowslip said.

"Yes. And?"

She looked disgusted. "Don't you know anything? This is their night! Or was. Oberon's time to be with my mistress and she with him. New beginings and such. She'd been preparing for days, don't ask me why. It's too much bother for not much reward, in my experience."

Since I was part of Cowslip's experience it was hard not to take such remarks personally, but rising to obvious bait only got one gaffed. "And?"

"And Oberon insulted my mistress's gown!"

I blinked. "That's it?"

She just stared at me for a moment in what I assume was disbelief.

"Well, I answered your question and, to be fair, you just answered mine," Cowslip said finally. "You really don't know anything, do you?" She spread her delicate wings and flew away like an indignant wasp. I half expected her to come back and sting me for good measure.

I took a good look around, but the bower was deserted. I could see the river through a leaf-framed opening on the far side; throughout the shelter of the thicket was a thick, soft layer of moss. Here and there was an indentation, left by the queen or one of her retainers, but there was no one else there now that Cowslip had resumed her flesh and made her rather stormy exit. There were no pleasure boats on the river, no songs from the trees, no voices of any kind. Even the crickets were silent. The entire wood seemed both sullen and sulky. I looked past all that, toward the boundaries of Fairie, and then beyond.

I shouldn't have been able to see beyond. There should have been that shimmer of glamour that kept anything beyond our wood lost in mists and unreality, which is the way we like it. Instead I saw lights, and they were not fairy lights. I heard the distant rumble of machines.

It's worse than I thought.

Still no summons from Oberon. Not that it mattered at this point. I had to find him, and now. When I emerged from the bower, I saw Bellflower sitting on a stone across the glade and called to her.

"Mistress Cowslip wasn't very co-operative. Have you seen Titania yet?"

"If I had I wouldn't tell you!" Bellflower said. "Go away!"

It was only then that I noticed what Bellflower was doing. She was very carefully, petal by petal, shredding a daisy. I could almost imagine that the lights beyond Fairie became closer and the hellish machine sounds became louder with each petal she tore.

"Why are you doing that?"

"Flowers are false," Bellflower said sourly. "I'm punishing this one."

"What is the poor blossom's offence?"

"Mustardseed gave it to me," she said, as if that explained everything. "Yet I know what he's really up to. It won't work. You tell him I said so when you see him."

"Ummm...of course," I said, backing away slowly. So now Bellflower was affected too. I should have known, but I'd never seen the discord spread so fast before. Well, Mustardseed was a friend of mine and normally I would have sought him out to warn him of Bellflower's humour, but right now he was on his own; I had to find the King. Immediately wouldn't be too soon, but still there was no summons, and I didn't know where he was.

Think, sprite! You've just had a row with your lady. Where do you go from there?

I did think, and then I knew, and then I was gone, faster than that proverbial Tartar's arrow ever dreamed.

Oberon and Titania were both Symbolically and Spiritually linked, and both were prisoners of this fact, slaves to their natures, as indeed we all were. As above, so below. When Titania rages, Oberon rages too. Yet the mirror of those two natures is not a perfect one. For instance, when Titania sulks, Oberon mopes and so do all the fay of his circle. I could feel the deep melancholy myself; it was only a strong sense of purpose that kept me from slinking off to find my own hidden place to pine and think sad thoughts. There was nothing at all stopping Oberon. At the moment the King of Fairie was in a mope of classic proportions, obvious even with his back turned squarely to his realm, as indeed his back was so turned at this very moment.

"Go away, Puck," he said.

King Oberon sat at his favorite spot for such activity, a rocky outcropping near the boundaries of our known world. Even for a sprite like me, it was a bit of a stroll to get there, and when I did, there was King Oberon, staring off into space. Or at least would have been, had the boundary been solidly in place, and not leaking all over. Beyond the rippling haze of glamour, there was a kaliedescope of sights, sounds, and smells.

Not one of which belonged in Fairie.

"Your Majesty, don't you see what's happening?!"

He still didn't look at me. "I already knew it was the end of the world. You think I need these strange sights and portents to convince me of that?"

"Then you know why it's happening. I wasn't able to get a coherent story out of either Bellflower or Cowslip, and I thought, perhaps, asking Queen Titania might not be the wisest course right now. If you'll tell me what happened, Majesty, perhaps I can help."

Oberson sighed, and the very trees began to drop their leaves in sympathy. "That's just it--I have no idea."

"Cowslip said that you insulted Queen Titania's new gown."

"What?" The leaves stopped dropping. Now King Oberon did turn and look at me, the area around the base of his horns blushing pink with indignation. "I did no such thing!" he said, his melancholy forgotten, at least for the moment.

I bowed. "Nor did I accuse you, Majesty. Certainly not! Yet that was what I was told. For my better understanding, perhaps you would tell me what it was you actually did say?"

Oberon frowned. "All I said was that the gown didn't suit her."

Oh. No bloody wonder Her Majesty had gone wilding. "And why did you say that, My Liege? You knew it wasn't the answer she expected…or wanted."

The king nodded. "I know. In either case I did not mean to insult her gown, and probably what I should have said was that it didn't do her justice."

"Well, certainly, now you know, but don't you think--"

Oberon was shaking his head. "You don't understand, Puck. That wasn't what she expected to hear, true. I know it now, and I knew it then, too."

I didn't say anything for several long moments. I didn't know what to say. Something like, "Oh, I see. You wanted the world to end," or somesuch seemed so inadequate. It was Oberon who broke the silence.

"Puck, don't you get the least bit tired of living in a world that is a fabric of lies? Don't you want to, every now and again, tell the plain truth? I know I should have said, ‘Your gown is stunning, My Love,' or something near to it. Yet I said what I said because it was the simple truth--that gown did not suit her. No gown could; I have seen Titania in all her bare glory and, frankly, compared to that, a gown of sunlight and moonbeams is pretty much redundant."

"Yes, well, if you had explained that--"

He brushed my words aside. "I'd still have insulted her gown and she would still be furious with me, though perhaps not quite as furious as she is now. But I'm not sorry I did it, Puck. I had to tell the truth this time, nor was I wrong to do so."

All I could do was sigh. Children. I was dealing with children. You'd think after a few millennia I'd remember this. "Majesty, with all due respect: you are mistaken."

The king stopped moping long enough to scowl. "Do not forget yourself, Puck Robin."

There was a bit of the old fire in the king's eyes. Just a bit, but enough. I could work with that.

"I forget nothing, Majesty, try as I might. You are the King of Fairie, for that is your nature and is such that you can be nothing else. Yet so I am Puck. I was Puck when the continents separated. I was Puck when the glaciers did their slow dance across the entire world, and I am Puck now that all that we are is encased in this small globe beset on all sides and shivering like a bubble of seafoam. As such I will do Puck's duty to his Liege. Look beyond where our borders shake and tell me what you see."

Oberon glared at me, but he did as I asked. "I see lights and buildings and strange chariots. I see smoke and fire and things I do not understand."

I nodded. "Precisely. What you are seeing, My Liege, are the facts."

He frowned then. "Facts?"

"Facts," I repeated. "The fact is that the world you see beyond our borders is what's real. That is a world that can be measured, counted, weighed. A world of facts. Unlike Fairie, which has none of these properties."

Oberon nodded. "A lie, then, as I said. That is what we are."

"No, Majesty. The fact is the world we see beyond our borders. The truth is that there are borders. That the writ of facts does not run here. The truth beyond our borders is whatever the humans choose to make of those facts that surround them, but here in Fairie the truth is what we collectively say it is. We are not built on a fabric of lies, Majesty, despite what glamour makes to appear real. We are built on truth. A shaky, fragile truth, I will grant you. But truth nonetheless."

"Oh," said Oberon, and that was all.

"Do you understand now, Majesty? Your truth was not dangerous because it counteracts a lie--it was dangerous because it conflicts with Titania's own truth that her gown was lovely! Whether she actually knows that or not is beside the point. All she knows is that she is justifiably furious at you. That is her truth now."

Oberon looked stunned. "But Puck…it's such a small thing."

"As a seed is small until grown, as a rock underneath a hoof is small until trodden, as a vine stretched between two alders is small, until you trip over it. When Titania's truth and your truth collided, all our truths were put in disarray. Including the one that matters most to us: the existence of Fairie. For that one truth to hold, we need peace and harmony between the rod and the spindle. I do not forget myself or my place, Majesty. I merely remind you of yours."

Oberon was still moping, but a more pensive strain of melancholy seemed to be taking hold. I knew I was getting through to him, but would it be soon enough? In a moment I thought I had my answer--the ground shook and I looked around. The leaves on the great oaks began to quiver, then rained down and swirled around us as if snatched by a cold autumn wind. "Majesty, we're running out of time!"

"I suppose," Oberon said grimly, "we will have to find the Queen. In her current mood or mine, that may not be wise."

It took me a moment to realize what he meant, but the signs were all there: his face was as red as a forge and I'd almost swear the horns on his forehead had grown an inch in the time we were talking. Oberon, King of Fairie, was furious, and nearly from one instant to the next. And here I thought Titania was mercurial.

"Majesty, what are you going to do when you see her?"

"You will leave that to me, Puck Robin. Find my Queen."

"Find? But you always know--"

"Your King commands you. Go!"

By the bond they shared, King Oberon and Queen Titania always knew where the other was. Yet for as long as Fairie had lasted or would last, Oberon was its king and a command was a command. One moment I was standing beside Oberon and the next I was gone, and a blink wouldn't have separated the distance between the two states.

"Bloody hell."

Oberon didn't need me to find Titania, so clearly he just wanted me out of his sight, and by his command there was nothing else I could do but search in vain. Well, sod me but I knew the danger. I had told my king the simple truth and that was no doubt as reckless and irresponsible as what Oberon had told Titania. Yet what else could I have done?

Frantically I searched, but Titania was nowhere to be found; it wasn't within my power to find the Fairie Queen if she didn't wish it so. I could circle the Earth in a heartbeat and it wouldn't be quick enough. I could feel the fabric of our reality tearing like a rotten veil. Soon the real world would rush in and once that happened there would be no way on heaven or earth to push it out again.

Don't you ever get the least bit weary of living in a world that is nothing but a fabric of lies?

I remembered what Oberon said. The lie part wasn't true…well, not yet anyway, but part of me understood what he meant. Perhaps it was better this way. No more careful balance, no more patching and mending the threadbare truths and keeping the mortal's reality at bay. Let the royal children rip it all to shreds in a fit of pique for all I cared. I had failed. I was tired. I wanted to rest. I picked the first soft and mossy place I came to and lay down.

"And just what do you think you're doing, sprite?"

Cowslip sat cross-legged on the branch of an oak tree a few feet above me, staring down.

"Resting," I said. "Waiting in a comfortable spot for the world to end."

"Liar. You're moping. That's what you all do at times like this. Bloody useless, the lot of you."

Was she right? Had the King's melancholy got to me? Yet the king's period of moping had apparently ended. So why wasn't I angry too? And why in blazes was Cowslip talking to me?

"A little while ago you wouldn't have spoken to me, even to be insulting."

She grinned, and I was suddenly reminded what a sweet face she had. "Insulting you is fun. Why should I give it up just because Themselves are having a row?"

Matters were worse even than I had thought. It was bad enough when all the fay shared their sovereign's moods, but when the link was broken…well, surely it was the end of Fairie. And yet…Cowslip sounded almost like herself again. I looked around. Fairie was still here; nothing at all had changed, so far as I could see. I looked to the border... and I couldn't see it beyond the mist. All was Fairie, as far as my eye could see. I had a sudden suspicion.

"Cowslip… do you know where Titania is?"

"Of course I do, and if you had any brains in that fat pan of yours, so would you." Cowslip cocked her head to one side, listening. "I must away, sprite," and she was gone.

I sat up, and then stood up. All was quiet. Whatever summons Cowslip had responded to, it wasn't meant for me. The wood around me was suddenly bathed in a gentle golden glow.

"Greetings, Puck."

The light resolved itself. It was a glow of regal glamour, and in the center of it stood King Oberon and Queen Titania, arm in arm, smiling at the world but mostly at each other. Behind them were attendants Bellflower, Cowslip, Mustardseed, and the entire host of the fay in solemn procession.

"Majesties…?"

The Queen smiled at me. "We are having a dance and revel in the middle glade, Good Robin. Will you join us there?"

I bowed low. "Of…of course, Majesty."

Later I caught Oberon alone, but barely. Titania had grandly and conspicuously retired early and it was clear Oberon would join her presently, if he--and all of us--knew what was good for him.

"What happened? And why did you send me after the Queen, My Liege?" I asked.

He smiled a little wistfully. "Because I didn't want you to witness what I had to do to make matters right, Puck Robin," he said. "Things were bad enough. Did you know that, while our world was falling apart, she still took the time to tell me exactly what she thought of me, thoroughly and at length and with great inventiveness? I'm almost sorry I sent you away for that part; you would have enjoyed it immensely, I'm sure."

"Then why are we all still here? And why were you so angry, My Liege?"

"Because I wasn't wrong."

The more I heard the less sense it made. "You were angry for being right?"

He laughed then. "No, Puck. I was angry because I was right…and yet I was still going to go apologize to my Queen."

"And you made things right between Yourself and Her Majesty, so easily?"

He laughed then. "Easily? Puck, weren't you listening? I had to apologize! It's not something I like doing, and I certainly needed no more witnesses to my shame. Yet I am king enough to realize--with a little reminder on your part--that there are more important things than being right. Fairie is one. Titania, my love, is the other."

Cowslip appeared at the edge of the wood, looking Ominous. Oberon nodded. "Tell the Queen I will join her straight away." She disappeared then, looking worried. Oberon turned back to me. "I must go now, Puck. Matters are too easily undone."

I nodded. So easily that, doubtless, they would become undone again. "This may be important later, so I have to ask, Your Majesty: what did you say to her?"

He shrugged. "I said that I loved her, that she was more important to me than all the world. That she was the world."

I frowned. "And she believed you?"

He looked at me very seriously then. "Why shouldn't she believe me, Puck? After all, it is the truth."

Oberon took his leave then, nor did I say anything more. After all, it wasn't the first time the Fairie Queen had loved an ass. Still, so were we all and truth was a risky business all around. I wasn't sure how many more wild roaming truths Fairie could stand. Yet, and despite the odds, peace had been achieved in Fairie because this time Oberon and Titania's truths were in harmony. So Oberon went to meet his Queen and I went to get some well-deserved sleep. Or at least I started to, when Cowslip appeared again looking, if anything, even more Ominous.

"And where do you think you're going, sprite?"

"That depends," I said quickly.

"On what, Puck?"

"On you."

Cowslip smiled and took my hand. So much for my sleep, but I knew the risks. Truth is a dangerous thing, as I said before, and living by it always brings consequences.

Some, fortunately, were more agreeable than others.

But You Don't Remember....

Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

Kisses stolen underneath a fairy moon,
in quiet nooks where stardust danced
with icicles of crimson flame, as
we lay, twined in eldritch trysting,
under blankets stitched from
gold-edged leaves and spider silk,
while promises and secret whispers
passed from lips to ear and soul to heart,
until at last, spent from all the passion
of our joining, we dissolved in
laughter, wine, and murmured plans,
and barely heard the baying of
the Lady's hounds, or felt the scourges
of her truest men upon our skin.
And now she keeps me at her side
as she rides out, and smiles to see
the heartache in my eyes whene'er
we pass you on your way to market,
or to church, all full of song and
careless joy, to prove your life is bright
and sweet and new, because you can't
remember.

The Brotherhood of Trees

Michael Jasper

"Just a few hundred yards from where my wife, son, and I live is a lake surrounded by land owned by the Army Corps of Engineers. The protected land around the lake is covered by dense forest that, fortunately, won't ever be razed to make room for more subdivisions. Hiking in those woods, you can forget about the mundane patter of reality for a while as you dodge freshly strung spiderwebs and kick up squirrels, birds, and the occasional deer. And if you stop and just stand in silence for a moment, you can feel the age of the trees around you. You realize that each tree is its own mini-universe: bugs and worms down below, bark and sap and more bugs in the middle, and squirrels and birds and spiders in the branches. Each tree has its own story, as well.

And sometimes, out of the corner of your eye, you may just catch sight of something more than trees there..."

E VERY MORNING THAT WINTER, just as the black night began to melt into the first red fingers of day, I went running in the forest behind our house. Fred was still snoring and twitching in his light, carpal-tunnel-induced sleep, and his eyes would be red when he woke after too much dreaming about line after line of code. Me, I'd be refreshed and sharp and focused, thanks to my new routine of jogging with the hounds.

We'd never wanted kids, Fred and me, not back in the days when our love was still athletic and young. So we got dogs instead. Not a bad tradeoff, in hindsight, due to how hard Fred worked and the long hours I'd started to keep after fifteen years at the firm. We loved our nieces and nephews, and we ignored the awkward moments as the kids adjusted to having two uncles living together in one house.

We always got the dogs in pairs--first we had greyhounds (former racers, docile and loyal), then lap dogs (Fred's choice, not mine), and even mutts (from the pound, always grateful and at our heels).

But these two, Boris and Cloris, were something else. They were beagles. Forget lethargic Snoopy lounging on top of his doghouse. When I took these two running through the frozen woods behind our house, it was all I could do to keep them from pulling my arms out of their sockets, one leashed, furry ball of energy per arm. They tore up and down the trails, baying louder than all of our previous dogs together could've mustered. God help me if they saw a squirrel or caught scent of a deer.

Boris was light brown and white, while Cloris was dark brown and spotted, and they were the ones who first saw the young boy standing next to the cave half a mile from the house I shared with Fred.

When they saw him, they didn't bark like they usually did--all throaty yowl and frenetic gasping for air. They simply turned toward him at the same time, hard, tripping me in mid-stride, and then they padded off the trail up to the pale, shirtless boy.

"You okay, son?" I asked as I clambered up the incline toward him. I was gasping for breath, sucking the frigid air into my aching lungs, and it wasn't just from my previous ten minutes of running. The young man was beautiful: porcelain skin, jet-black hair falling over heavy-lidded, light-blue eyes. His perfection was marred only by what looked like dried blood on the tips of his slender fingers.

"Son?"

Don't ask me why I kept calling him that. My voice felt raspy and hoarse, too loud in the chill, early-morning air, surrounded by the whispering of the branches above us.

The dogs kept staring at him, quivering and pawing at the cold ground. Usually they were all over people, nipping at their ankles and barking with maximum volume. But Boris and Cloris refused to get too close to the slim, silent boy. He appeared to be in his teens, not nearly as young as I'd thought at first.

Just like the dogs must have gotten earlier, I smelled his scent: wet dirt and something smoky, like aged tobacco tapped from a pipe. When he turned his scintillating blue gaze from the dogs onto me, Boris and Cloris immediately began to whimper for the return of his attention.

I wanted him to say something, but in the warm light of his gaze, I felt like any words would be meaningless. We just stood there, me hunched and huffing for air and shivering, him standing straight and patient and still as the trees all around us.

Then his gaze left me, and I knew how the dogs felt, as if a shadow had just been cast over the sun. He was peering at something deeper in the forest, close to where the trail veered off into the gray darkness still clinging to the trunks and branches like fog. Something crackled off in that direction, possibly a squirrel or a bird. Boris and Cloris never batted a canine eye.

I was about to ask the boy if he was lost, but the question stuck in my throat when I looked back at him. He was standing up now, thin arms raised to shoulder height like a crucifixion. I could see his veins through his pale skin, and they looked greenish-blue as they pulsed with life. His breath clouded the air around his head in a halo. He seemed to be waiting for me to break the silence.

What the hell, I figured. Why not?

I inhaled cold December air, felt it sting once more inside my chest, and started to talk to him.

In spite of the coldness in our house, I had no problem waking up early the next morning, or the following week of mornings. Even as snow dotted the forest floor, the boy remained outside the cave, shirtless, and waiting to hear me talk.

With Fred so busy and stressed out with his work, I found talking to the boy--who refused to even answer me when I asked his name or tried to take him to our house for shelter--much easier. And addictive.

So addictive that I never thought to ask him about how he came to live there, or why he never seemed cold. I wanted to talk to Fred the way I talked to this boy, but with our competing schedules, we never seemed to find the time. At some point we'd become more like housemates than lovers.

On top of that, the dogs were infatuated with the boy, and they didn't seem to mind missing our morning runs. I think they preferred sitting at his feet and licking the dirt from his hands and nuzzling the wounds on his fingertips until they began to fade. His fingers were not stained with blood, I discovered, but they'd been burned. Each morning the wounds would return, as if he spent his afternoons and nights abusing himself with fire.

Again, I had no luck when I asked about these things. No response other than the turning away of that achingly blue gaze. I told myself that the boy needed to keep some things to himself. God knows I'd learned that in the past fifty years.

I would sit and rub my arms and tell him about my day, my clients at the firm, and the old days with Fred and our other friends, before they broke up or settled down or moved away or--a handful of us--fell ill. I cried a couple mornings with him, bringing up these old memories, but he neither drew back from me, nor did he try to comfort me. And somehow, that felt right.

While I felt the old, unhealed wounds inside me heal, abrasions on my heart that I'd tried for so long to ignore, I realized I was getting soft in the belly again. Too many skipped runs. I wondered if Fred would notice.

The strange young boy didn't seem to notice. Though without fail, each morning, just as I was about to check my watch or glance at the rising sun, he would simply turn and wander off without a word. He headed deeper into the woods and entered a clearing of broken and burnt tree trunks bordered by leafless oaks. When he dropped to his knees, I would fill with guilt, watching him like a voyeur as he tried to push his hands into the frozen ground. I tried to breathe through my mouth so I wouldn't inhale the burnt smell filling the morning air.

I would turn and run then, hot with shame as the dogs led me back home to Fred, still tossing and turning in our cold bed. I ached to join him there, to tell him all about the boy out in the cold and alleviate my guilt. But instead I fed the dogs and drank my coffee on the back deck, watching the forest and shivering, alone.

The next week, winter hit us with a day of snowfall and wind that drifted the snow around our back deck and painted the trees white that lead into the forest. For Fred's sake, I still kept up my pretenses at running, dragging the dogs out from under their musky, chewed blankets and leading them onto the crunching layer of snow covering the dead grass and undergrowth in the forest.

The boy was there each day, always outside his cave waiting for me, always shirtless and silent. I knew of course, by that time, that he wasn't human. I figured it was a trade-off--I felt all too human with my back acting up along with the ten pounds I'd gained since first meeting him. I'd lost all interest in running, living instead for my time with the boy, aching for his undivided attention and the serenity it brought me.

I felt something begin to melt inside of me--something I'd never even known was frozen--as I told the boy about events that I thought I'd forgotten forever. From the day I tried to tell my brother about the way I felt about the other boys at school, to the long nights in the hospital with Alan in the late seventies, a good five years before I'd ever met Fred. I talked about my life's adventures, like the trips around the world, the friends I'd made who were more blood to me than my own family, the mad rush of meeting a new man whose body fit mine as we danced, kissed, and made love.

But the boy seemed most interested in the hardships. He would nod along, as if agreeing with how much it all hurt. As if he could relate, at such a young age.

One morning after talking for an hour, I tried reaching out to him, but he simply pulled away and seemed to fade into the trees around us. The following morning was even colder, and I begged him to come back to our house, not caring about all the questions Fred would ask. But the boy just shook his head at my invitation and gazed deeper into the forest, touching his blue-tinted lips with the burnt fingertips of his hand.

On New Year's Day, Fred woke in the darkness at the same time I did, even though I'd stopped using my alarm months ago. To my surprise, he rolled out of bed and began dressing. I'd even slept an hour later than usual, thanks to our late night at an old friends' place, and I was nursing the last vestiges of a hangover from their cheap champagne.

I winced, remembering how Fred had bragged to our buddies Mikey and Anderson about how I went running every morning, even on the weekends, and how proud he was of me.

"I want to go running with you and the dogs," he announced, rubbing his round belly with his old mischievous grin. He slipped on some sweats, a thin sweatshirt, and his ancient Nikes. "It's my New Year's resolution--I want to get fit, sweets. Just like you."

"It's freezing out there," I said, reverting to mother-hen mode in my desperation, afraid of getting caught. "Put more than that on, then. Another sweatshirt, at least."

"I'm good, Matthew." Fred gave me one of his old grins, all sparkling teeth and crinkled eyes, and I couldn't say no to him. "Let's go."

I struggled to think of an alternate route for our run as he followed me outside, even more excited and yippy than the dogs. But Fred had Cloris, and she took off down the packed snow leading to the forest trail that went right past the boy's cave. Betrayed by my own beagle.

I tried to comfort myself with the thought that Fred would get winded before the cave, but he was running with the enthusiasm of a beginner who's forgotten what shin splints and aching hamstrings felt like. Sweat glistened on his forehead, catching the morning sun, and he wasn't slowing down yet.

I tried sprinting ahead of him, leading Boris. Don't ask me why I didn't want Fred to find out how I'd really been spending my mornings; probably it was for the same reasons I'd never told him about the boy: partly out of a sense of shame, and partly because I wanted him all to myself. I loved the boy in a way I'd never love Fred. It was a simpler love, far less complex than dealing with someone who had needs of his own.

With a final burst of crazed barking, Boris and Cloris both slowed to a stop by the cave, and there he was, in all his pale glory, naked from the waist up, arms reaching out to either side as he stretched.

"We really should go," I began, but Fred was already wearing his patented Sherlock Holmes look, all squinty eyes and pursed lips.

"What in the hell?" He ran a hand through his wild gray hair and blew out a steamy breath of air. "What are you doing here, son?"

Fred's eyes, I noticed, were the same shade of intense blue as the boy's. Why hadn't I realized that sooner? I forgot about the cold and felt--for the first time in a long, long time--warmth fill me from my toes to my fingers to my head.

"That's a long story," I said at last, when it became obvious the boy was not going to answer.

"The kid needs help," Fred said, stepping off the path. "He's got to be cold."

I waited for the pale young man to step back and drift off into the trees in his usual manner, but he didn't flee this time. He simply let his hands drop to his sides, hitting his faded, green-tinted jeans with a tiny slap.

"Are you who my Matthew has been visiting out here?" Fred murmured. Somehow, he'd managed to approach the boy and get his arms around him, his big hands rubbing warmth into the boy's limbs. "I knew it had to be someone special."

Jealousy and guilt fought for control inside me, but I didn't even try to concoct some sort of cover story. Fred was too quick for that; he'd figured out more about the boy in just one glance than I'd ever uncovered in a month of talking to the lost young man. Fred could read the boy, just like he used to do with me, before work and the daily grind wore down us both.

"Why are you stuck here?" Fred was asking the boy. "Is it the forest? Has it got some sort of hold of you?"

The boy's gaze traveled to the same spot deeper in the woods. Now that I was free of those unnaturally bright blue eyes, I could think more clearly, and something clicked in my mind. The boy was looking at the patch of forest where, back in late October, the rangers had held their last controlled burn of the season. The burn that had gotten away from them for close to a day when the wind made a sudden shift. Close to an acre of old-growth oaks and pines had been lost in the fiasco.

"It's over there, isn't it?" Fred said, looking from the boy to me. I was still warm, and I realized the heat wasn't coming from the boy, but from Fred. That warmth had been there all along.

"My tree," the boy said. The timbre of his voice was so musical and sharp that I wanted to stick a finger in my ear to make my eardrums stop vibrating. Not even Fred's state-of-the-art sound system in his home office had such clarity.

"Your tree?" I began, needing to hear that voice again.

"Lost in...the fire," he said, his voice growing more clear, though his words came slowly. "Along with many of my brothers. So many lost...."

We moved down the snowy trail toward the lumpy patch of stumps and divots that had once held old-growth trees. The boy stopped at the edge of the patch, and I could see black cinders sticking up through the snow, as if they still retained heat enough to melt anything that came too close.

"The trees," the boy whispered, "are just like you...." He looked from me to Fred, then back again. "A brotherhood.

Fred turned toward me, eyes wide. "Why didn't you ever tell me?" he asked, and then, without giving me a chance to answer, "And why didn't you ever ask him why he was here?"

I couldn't answer either question. All I could do was think of all the bad memories from my past I'd been able to exorcise with the boy, and all the while he'd been looking for some trace of his lost tree. Whatever that meant.

"Why did you let me talk on and on," I asked him, "when you needed my help?"

"That's what this forest is for," the boy said with a shrug. "We've found our peace. We're here to help others find theirs." He paused, removing his gaze from me for a painful moment. Leaves rustled all around us. "Listening to you made me remember what it was like, to be…to be me again." He gestured at his pale, slender body with wounded hands. "Not this...rootless me."

I motioned at Fred to bring Cloris closer, as I led Boris up to the boy. The young man was already hunched over the burnt ground, hands poised to dig once more at the earth.

"Wait," I said, letting Boris and Cloris get a good sniff of the boy's earthy, smoky scent. "I think my dogs can help. They like to dig, you know."

As if spotting a hare in the brush, the dogs were suddenly alert and yowling, pulling at their leashes. I undid the clasp at each of their collars, holding them as long as I could, and then I let them loose.

Sending cold ash and dirty snow flying, the two beagles raced into the clearing where mighty oaks once stood. The dogs circled around, noses to the uneven ground, until they found a blackened spot in the middle. They began scratching in the dirt and yipping in earnest. They didn't stop until their paws had unearthed a trio of bright green acorns from the cold ground.

At the sight of the acorns, the boy let out a long sigh that was as soft as wind through the limbs of a leafless tree. He reached out for the acorns, then stopped, fingers curled once again with pain.

Fred, meanwhile, gave me a confused look with his red-rimmed eyes. I could tell he'd about suspended the last of his disbelief on this New Year's Day. I took his warm hand in mind and squeezed it as hard as I dared.

"Matthew?" the boy said, his voice tentative and soft.

"Trust me," I told them both as I picked up all three of the acorns.

I led him and the dogs up the trail back to our house, and I only looked back once. The boy followed us at first, as if unable to resist anymore. But when I paused to catch my breath up on our back deck and look back at him, he was gone. I caught a whiff of old smoke and wet earth, and with it came a pang of sadness mixed with relief.

Maybe it was all just a dream, shared by Fred, me, and the dogs.

Nevertheless, Fred and I planted all three acorns deep in the winter ground that day, right where our land met the first trees of the forest.

I never took the dogs running through the forest again that winter. Instead, Fred and I took time off work in the spring and talked about retirement and traveling to all the places on the world map in our hallway that were still missing push pins. We grew a little fatter on good food we cooked together and bottles of wine that we drank to wash it all down.

It's almost summer now, and most evenings Fred and I sit on adirondack chairs in our back yard with the dogs, talking about the future and keeping our eyes on the forest and the three tiny mounds in front of it. The beagles don't bark so much anymore, though they do watch the trees as well, gazing into the depths of the forest with what could be longing, love, or loyalty. Or all of the above.

As we sit there, chatting, something moves deep inside the forest. The dogs leap to their feet, inhaling a gust of air to prep them for a round of baying. But they are stopped in mid-breath by a miniscule rustling sound, much closer than the first.

The tiny sound comes from the edge of our lawn. As we all watch, something green pushes its way up from the mounded black earth, a shoot that is soon joined by its two brothers on either side. I take Fred's hand, and we enjoy the show as, in the background, the fading fingers of day begin to melt into night.

Tinman

Jennifer Schwabach

She spoke of triumph of the Human Heart
As if she believed he had one
Though he had told her he did not
She spoke as if he was a kind man
Not an empty shell, a witch's curse
She told him of dreams and fears
And going home to somewhere called Kansas
He agreed to help her, though in the heart
He didn't know he had, he wondered
And feared that someday the wind that
Had brought her, this strange small friend
Would take her and carry her back to Kansas
To Auntie Em and Uncle Henry, who didn't need
A little girl, not as much as he did
And he would be alone again.

East of Eden, and Just a Bit South

Being a True and Accurate Account of How Cain Found Himself a Wife

Ken Scholes

"‘East of Eden and Just a Bit South' was mostly Jay Lake's fault. We were yukking it up at Norwescon in 2003 and started talking about collaborating. Jay threw out the title ‘The Boy's Guide to Dating Outside the Gene Pool' and told me to go start a story. It intrigued me--I played with that title all day and a story sparked. I wrote half of it that night, sent it to Jay, then couldn't stop thinking about it and finished it up myself. He graciously offered me the title but it was too cool of a title to keep. (I can't wait to see what he does with it--it'll be brilliant!) And so, we have ‘East of Eden and Just a Bit South,' my first attempt at writing humor and perhaps the first true and accurate account of how Cain found himself a wife...."

I WAS IN LINE AT THE SUPERMARKET, fixing to buy me some beer, when I decided to tell my story. I'd just seen the headlines on the papers saying JFK had been successfully cloned by alien tax professionals and Elvis was living his life as a woman named Loretta Stills in New Jersey. Way I figure, a bit more truth can't hurt:

My name is Cain. The Good Book is flat-out wrong about me.

Most folks ask two questions about me. They want to know why I killed my brother. They think it was about sacrificing unto the Lord and such. My brother, Abel, with sheep; me with vegetables. Fact is, the Lord Almighty His Own Self is a meat and greens man. I should know. I had supper with him often.

No, that is not how it happened at all. And furthermore, I did not kill my brother. Not exactly anyways.

And the second question: Where did I find my wife?

Now I'm gonna tell you.

It started with supper, of course.

Ma and Pa were bitching about the good old days when the Lord banged on the trailer door. Yes, we lived in a trailer. Matter of fact, before the Big Flood, we all lived in trailers. The whole world was a bit like some parts of Mississippi.

"What's for supper?" the Lord His Own Self asked and then sneezed mightily.

"Meat," said Abel.

"Greens," said I.

"Beer," said Pa.

"Not you again," said Ma. She didn't care much for the Lord in those days on account of her menstruation and childbearing.

Me and Abel set to gathering up and putting the cats out what with the Lord being allergic and all. Yes, the Lord God is allergic to cats. Possums, kangaroos and armadillos, too, if you must know.

Pa handed the Lord a beer. He cracked it and sucked down some suds. He sighed contentedly.

"Sure is hot," he said.

"Yep." Pa gave Ma a hard look and she set another place at the table. We all sat down. The Lord sneezed again.

We ate quiet, me and Abel, listening to the grown-ups talk. I was sixteen or so then; my baby brother was fourteen I think, though we never put much truck in age back then.

The Lord helped himself to more meat and greens and smacked his lips. Ma glared. Pa just sat looking sorry. Then, the Lord spoke.

"You two need to get busy." He put down his fork for a moment to look at Ma and Pa.

"We're plenty busy now," Pa said. "What with that damn snake and you evicting us."

"That's not the kind of busy I mean. Babies. That's what I mean."

Ma looked perturbed. Pa looked hopeful. The Lord continued. "This whole world's waiting on you two. Room for a whole lot of trailers, way I see it."

Ma mumbled something, her face a bit pink.

"Now, I know," the Lord said in His Most Understanding Voice, "That this is not a simple task. But I reckon a few more ought to do it."

Ma had enough. "A few more?" Her voice rose the same way it did when Pa went past his nightly six pack. "A few more? I think not."

The Lord got real quiet and just watched.

"It mightn't be so terrible bad," Pa said. "We'd have more help around here."

She shook her head. "I think not."

Me and Abel, we saw the storm brewing. I could see in his eyes that he was thinking the same thing: Time to go outside and throw rocks at shit.

"But," Pa said and then everything else got lost as Ma banged her glass on the table, spilling Yoo-hoo every place. Yes, we had Yoo-hoo back in those days.

"I," she said in her most serious voice, "think not."

"But what about your boys?" The Lord pointed to us each. "Fine, strong boys. Almost men. They're gonna need wives soon so as they can do their part."

Ma's voice became very cultured all of a sudden. "So you are suggesting that I have more babies so my boys can marry up with their sisters?"

The Lord shrugged. "Ain't no law against it. Yet."

My stomach hurt from this. Abel looked like he was going to throw up all that good meat and greens right there in the Presence of the Lord Most High. Part of me wanted to run away. Another part was curious.

But the decision was made for us. "Why don't you two boys go throw rocks at shit or something," Pa said. So we hightailed it out of there.

Abel looked squeamishly at me while we threw rocks. "You reckon He really means it? That bit about sisters and babies?"

"I reckon He does," I said, lobbing a rock at a beer can on the fence post. I knocked it down with ease.

"Gross." Abel set the can back up.

"Yep."

He hucked his rock, missing by a long shot. "That dog won't hunt," he said. "That dog won't hunt for a damn sight."

So we decided to take matters into our own hands.

Boys is curious. They were then, they are now. I can't count how many times we asked about stuff. All the way back, I remember pointing to my belly button and then pointing to where Pa's should've been. Sometimes, if he'd past his nightly six pack, he'd talk about how it used to be.

One night when we were very young he even talked about how he met Mama. "I just went to sleep," he'd say. "Woke up and I was married." Then he'd lean in, looking around to make sure Ma wasn't near. "Stay awake, boys. Stay awake."

Of course, he had a big scar when he woke up too, but he didn't know exactly why on account of him being asleep when it happened.

Me and Abel, we started to thinking about this. Seemed a nap and a scar weren't near so bad as copulating with our yet-to-be-born sisters.

But we didn't know where to start. We did have some idea as to who we could ask. But that was tricky.

In the end, near as we could figure, all we needed was a goat's head, a fat dead rat, and a six pack.

We headed west and just a bit north. Most of you all know that the Lord put an angel and a big fiery sword in the way of the Garden. What you most likely didn't know was that the angel's name was Bubba and he was bad-ass.

He was also dumb as wood.

He was stretched out napping in the sun when we got to him.

"Hey fellas," he said with a yawn. It was a powerful hot day.

"Hey Bubba," we both said. Then we offered him the six pack. He grinned.

Then we commenced to kicking that goat's head around while Bubba drank beer.

Every so often, Abel would kick the head up and over Bubba and it would land in the Garden.

Bubba'd go fetch it for us.

After a while, though, Bubba got tired of chasing the goat's head. Finally, he waved to us. "Get it your own damn self. Just mind the sword."

So we did. We made a great show of looking about for the head, all the while watching Bubba, who settled back down to snoring.

Now that fiery sword was big and noisy. It whistled and whizzed about but mostly stayed more to the middle of the Garden. We knew what we wanted wouldn't be there.

We spent all morning turning over rocks and talking to every snake we found. Mostly, they just hissed at us.

Then, just as we were like to give up, we found a big one. It was all orange and yellow and pink and blue and it had little stubs where it used to have feet. It lay under a big rock...one that took both of us to roll.

"Hiss," the snake said in a bored voice.

"Howdy," Abel said.

"Hello," I said.

"Hiss." It moved away, looking unhappy with us disturbing its rock and its rest.

"We came to talk to you." Abel had a way with words so I let him do the talking.

"Snakes don't talk," it said.

"You just did."

I'd never seen a snake shrug before, but this one did. "Hiss."

"We need your help," Abel said. "The Lord God His Own Self wants us to mate with our sisters and fill the world with single wide trailers."

"Doesn't sound like my problem. Besides, I like trailers. They're nice for sleeping under."

"We don't mind that. It's the sister bit," I said.

"We need girls," Abel said. "Ones we ain't related to."

"I don't make girls. I just get them to eat stuff." The snake slithered towards another rock. "You boys mind that sword, you hear?"

Here is where Abel pulled out the fat dead rat. He plopped it down in front of the snake. "We'll make them our own-selves. We just need you to tell us how."

The snake sniffed at the rat. "I might could help you out." It looked at us, its beady little eyes twitching. "You might could help me out some, too."

"We gave you a rat," Abel said.

"I'm a vegetarian."

"What's that?"

"Greens."

I beamed. I grew the greens on our farm.

"Then what do you want?" Abel looked perplexed.

The snake waved its stubs around. "I miss my legs."

"We don't make legs." But just as Abel said it, I had me an idea.

"So if we make you some legs, you'll tell us how to make us some girls?"

I didn't know snakes could smile; this one grinned and extended one of its stubs. "Shake on it?"

So the snake told us what we needed to know. While it told us, I looked around for sticks that were just the right thickness while Abel pulled string from the hem of his cut-offs. In no time, we knew all about how the Good Lord made Pa out of mud and Ma out of a rib and the snake was tottering about excitedly on little wooden stilts we'd tied to its stubs. All in all, it was quite a satisfactory bargain on both sides.

"So we just need some mud?" I asked.

"Or ribs?" Abel asked.

"Not exactly," the snake said. "See that sword yonder?"

We both nodded.

"There's some trees there. One with red fruit and one with orange fruit."

We both nodded again. Bits of this sounded a little familiar. One of the stories Pa told on two six pack nights.

"Mind you don't touch the red, boys," the snake said as it practiced high jumping its former rock. "The Lord His Own Self gets rightly pissed about that one and I don't want to lose my legs again."

In the end, it just came down to who ran the fastest and who threw rocks the best.

Me, I'm slow as hell. But I'm a crackshot with a rock.

We lay in the bushes outside the clearing and watched the sword flash by like a gigantic hummingbird set on fire. The snake had told us what to do with the oranges. It hadn't told us how to get them. But again, Abel was mighty smart.

"You knock ‘em down," he said. "I'll just run out and grab us some."

So I did, and he did. That boy sure could run.

I guess Bubba wasn't the only one dumb as wood.

Abel made the run three times and after that he was tired out but we had us five oranges on account of my excellent aim. I didn't think nothing of it when he tore one in half and handed it to me. I just sucked the juice out of it and he did the same. Looking back, that was a mistake of sorts, but it saved our asses.

We figured we needed at least two more so I took aim at a branch and let loose with a rock after the sword passed. Whack. The oranges fell. Whizz. The boy flew. Oops.

Children, and you grown ups, too, listen up: When someone says to you that you oughta tie your shoelaces in the off chance that you might trip over them remember this bit.

Abel did not tie his shoelaces. No one had told him to before--wearing shoes was a bit new to us growing up in a trailer and all. We actually didn't know what those strings were for.

Abel bent over the oranges, grabbed them up, and then went ass over teakettle as he tripped. He sat up with an oh shit look on his face just as the sword lopped off his head.

His head rolled to the side and he blinked at me.

There wasn't much blood but his clothes had caught fire. I sat stunned for a second until he said something.

"Ma's gonna be pissed," his head said.

I didn't know swords could look confused; this one did. Of course, only being four of us in the entire world, it hadn't lopped anyone's head off before. But I'm sure it figured that this was not how it ought to go. I figured the same but then remembered the orange we shared. At least now we knew it really was the Tree of Life.

"Way I see it," Abel said (knowing I couldn't rightly talk without giving myself away), "We need a diversion."

I nodded to his head to show I understood. With that, his body lurched up and took off running through the trees. Even dismembered, that boy could run.

The sword gave chase and after they'd gone, I went out, scooped up the two oranges, grabbed another three just in case, and picked up my brother's head.

"Better get going," he said. "I'm pretty sure I can't outrun that sword."

"I grabbed a few extra oranges," I said. "Maybe I can make you another body."

"First things first. We still need girlfriends."

And so we escaped the Garden of Eden. The snake watched us zip past Bubba's sleeping form and waved its little stick leg at us.

"Way to go, boys," it said.

I waved because Abel could not and I did not stop running until we reached the river. There, I propped my brother's head up against a log and commenced to dig in the mud.

I decided to make Abel's girl first since he'd been cut up. I didn't know how exactly she should look so I kinda thought about Ma and all her curves. And I wasn't sure how the Lord God His Own Self had come up with hair so I just took some grass and shoved it into the right places. All the while, Abel gave me pointers.

After a bit, I tore some oranges and squeezed the juice all over the mud girl. The snake had thought this would do the trick even though the Lord had just breathed on his creations to bring them to life.

It did not work at all.

About this time, I was feeling a might angry and sad all at once. I think Abel must've been feeling the same way because he started to cry.

"You're going to be in so much trouble," he said between sniffs.

"Me?" I asked. "What about you?"

"Ma will say you're the oldest and should've known better. Besides, I ain't got no body. That's punishment enough."

I thought about this. "Can't do chores with no body."

He brightened up somewhat at this. "I hadn't thought about that."

"Besides," I said, "If we get this to work, I done told you I'd make you another body."

Funny we was talking about bodies because at that moment, a loud sucking noise made us look over yonder. There, dragging itself through the mud and marsh grass, was Abel's body. Or what was left of it.

Now it was more like half of a torso and an arm. The rest had been cut clean away.

An idea struck me. My brother wasn't the only one with brains. "Hey," I said. "Maybe we do need a rib after all."

Suffice it to say that the rib did not work by a long shot. It was a disappointing setback given just how long it takes to cut out a rib with a pocketknife. And I broke the pocketknife all to shit, too.

So we just sat there, me and Abel's head, and stewed.

"We need us some help," I said to my brother.

"We had us some help," he said back. "It did not work."

I looked at his head, then at his cut up torso and at the bloody rib poking out of the mud girl. "No," I said. "It did not."

"Pa is going to kill us."

"Naw. He can't on account of the oranges."

We were quiet again. An old crow settled down and commenced to peck at my brother's eyes. I swatted it away.

"We need help," I said again.

"Maybe the Lord God His Own Self will help us," Abel said. And just as he said it, a big bug flew right up his nose and he sneezed mightily.

That gave me another bright idea.

In the end, near as we could figure, all we needed was a dead possum, Pa's razor, and one of Ma's old sheets.

I propped Abel's head up in the fork of a tree so as not to alarm our folks and headed back East of Eden and just a bit south.

"Don't be gone long," he said, looking out for other crows.

I found the dead possum right away. It was half squashed in the middle of the trail. For those of you who study such things, possums have been getting squashed in the middle of thoroughfares since the very beginning. I do not know why but I am glad because it saved my ass...sorta.

I helped myself to one of Ma's sheets, hanging on the line, and wrapped the possum up in it. I did not need to hide it though, or hide that I was covered in my brother's blood, because she and Pa were otherwise engaged when I snuck into the trailer. They had taken the Lord at his word it seemed and were making all kinds of hooting and hollering noises when I passed by their bedroom.

My stomach turned as I thought about the sisters to come.

I took pa's razor and ran back to the river just in time to scare off another bird.

First, I hid my brother's torso under a pile of brush. Then, I shaved that damn possum bald and tossed it into the river. It floated a bit and then sank.

I put all that possum hair into my ball cap, set it aside, and commenced to digging in the mud some more. This time I built me a mud man (without his head of course.) Abel gave me some pointers, having felt his former body was deficient in some areas below the belt.

"This works," I told Abel, "And we can share the girl."

He would have shrugged but could not. "I reckon we done shared everything else. And it's better than a sister."

So, I put his head in the mud and covered over the two mud bodies with Ma's sheet. Then I stood back and admired my handiwork.

"Now I'm going to fetch the Lord."

Abel grinned up at me. "You sure are smart, Cain."

"Thank you." I grinned back. Then I went to see Bubba.

"Bubba," I said. "I need to call upon the Lord."

Bubba looked abashed. "He was just here and he was pissed."

Bubba then told me the tale. Seems someone had hit him on the head, stolen some fruit, tied legs onto the serpent, and left a goat's head calling card. He told the Lord it was most likely Beelzebub helping his boss out and winked at me as he said it. Somehow Bubba had hid those beer cans. Maybe, I thought, he wasn't quite dumb as wood after all.

"Well," I said, "I still need to see him."

"He's looking over the tree. I'll send him by."

So I thanked Bubba and went back to the river.

The Lord God His Own Self strolled by a bit later.

"Hey boys, you seen a big demon ‘round here goes by the name of Beelzebub?"

"No," we both said.

"We ain't seen nothing," Abel said.

The Lord scratched his head. "What in tarnation are you two doing?"

"We're playing Genesis," I said.

"I'm Pa," Abel said and rolled his eyes towards the mud girl. "That's Ma there."

"And I'm playing you," I said, trying to look all humble.

The Lord looked rightly pleased.

"Maybe you could help us out," I said.

Now he looked even more pleased. More tickled than a girl on prom night.

"Way I figure it," I said, "This game is a way for us to tell our story to the generations to come after. We want to be historically accurate and shit."

The Lord nodded. "I like this."

I pointed to the mud girl. "Is this how you did the hair?"

The Lord came over, stooped down and looked real close at the mud girl's hair. This was my cue. I up-ended my ball-cap onto the Lord's Own Head and all that possum fur and dander cascaded down.

For a moment, the Lord looked quite surprised. Then he sneezed mightily three times and ropy wads of snot shot onto Abel and the mud girl.

That mud girl started coughing and sputtering and the Lord His Own Self whipped back the sheet. Sure enough, it was a real girl, though her hair never was quite right on account of the grass I used. Sadly, Abel was still just a head. The body was just mud. I reckon him already being technically alive messed up our plan somewhat.

The Lord, he chuckled. "You boys done good."

That, of course, was a relative statement given my brother's predicament.

The girl sat up looking truly bewildered. She was the prettiest thing I ever seen and I named her Jenny right on the spot.

We all sat there a bit and just looked at each other.

"Ma's still gonna be pissed," Abel finally said.

The Lord looked at the brush where Abel's hand poked out. "I reckon she is," he said.

"What do we do now?" I asked.

"Way I see it," the Lord said, "There's this place called Nod out yonder. Room for a bunch of trailers there."

"What about Ma and Pa?" I asked.

The Lord looked very thoughtful. "You just hightail it and leave that to me. I'll think of something to tell them." And he did. Though it was not historically accurate.

So Jenny and me and Abel thanked the Lord kindly and I scooped up my brother's head. Then we left.

I started this out talking about two questions but there is a third that has made me famous. Am I my brother's keeper? I reckon I am because of his peculiar condition.

Me and Jenny and Abel, we had ourselves a long life on account of them oranges and shit. We experienced a lot of fine adventures, what with the Big Flood and the Ten Plagues and that one time when God's Own Son Himself hung out with us in the Orient for a spell. But those are all other stories.

Jenny is saying it's time for supper. Sometimes I miss supper with Ma and Pa and the Lord. At least there are still trailers.

"What are we having?" I ask her before I wrap this up.

"Meat," she says.

"And greens," my brother says.

"I'll grab us some beer," I say.

Emergence and Singularity

I f you were prepared to carry a lawn chair and a very large ice chest up to a farm pond and wait a few thousand years, you'd see inevitable changes following predictable pathways. These waters, filled with hovering bass below and patrolling dragonflies above, are destined to change.

Left alone, the edges of the pond will creep in toward the center, buttressed by emergent reeds and grasses. Once the shoreline encroachment lifts ground level enough and dries out the soil, new plants will take up residence: plants that don't like their roots in standing water. These serve to further change the local conditions until other plants are able to compete here for resources made available by the mere presence of previous plant communities. For our patient observer, the pond will change from open water to marsh, from marsh to grass and scrub, to pine stands and then ultimately, though not inevitably in all cases, our pond will end as climax hardwood forest.

The scenario described above is known as "ecological succession." Community assembly--the order and makeup of subsequent communities--is triggered by the conditions which are determined by the species present. A feedback mechanism exists whereby the conditions that make an area suitable for a given species are changed by the very species that take advantage of those conditions. When enough changes have accumulated, different species are better able to take advantage of the conditions, and the previous occupants are outcompeted. Community assembly is a stochastic process that nevertheless follows these general rules. Conditions change in predictable directions; exact species that comprise the individual communities along the way do not. Emergence of properties from preceding conditions is the hallmark of the process.

The progression of ecological succession is well understood in ecology. This series of thresholds with unknown subsequent conditions might be termed ecological singularities: undefined periods of change where our ability to look forward falters. Because the process is subject to chance, an intelligent pond-dweller could not look ahead and see the trees for the forest, or at any rate, could not see which tree will create the singularity at which "trees" tips over into "forest."

The pond is a microcosm of universal change, a stepwise progression of conditions allowing for new parameters. Emergent properties will establish states that in turn allow for further changes to take place. Change drives conditions at all scales. This is true not just everywhere, but everywhen.

Change is the only thing that remains constant in a universe not bound to motionlessness by absolute zero. Motion is a characteristic of matter, and the degree of randomness involved in the universal motion creates general and localized conditions. Since preceding conditions dictate developing ones, the entire history of the universe and all its corners can be regarded through the concept of emergence.

By turning our attention toward the past, we can overshoot each singularity in the complexification of everything, until the first. Beyond the Big Bang singularity we cannot see, our physics don't work; all is conjecture. Everything was 10^-43 seconds old before gravity separated away and the nature of the Universe became recognizable to our science. When the Universe was 32 orders of magnitude older, at 10^-11 seconds, the strong force had already separated while weak and electromagnetic forces were just splitting. The moment a force separated, conditions were set, opening doors and reducing possibilities. The temperature of the Universe at 10^-11 seconds was 100 GeV, where each GeV is 1.2 x 1013 Kelvins. That's two thousand trillion degrees Fahrenheit. The whole expanding enchilada was filled with a high energy plasma--no matter, not anywhere.

Temperatures fell with the expansion rate. Matter and energy are two interchangeable forms and their relationship was determined early on by the timing and order of the separation of forces. Once cool enough, matter froze out of the energy and coalesced into a free-speeding zoo of unattached particles too numerous to name. Cooling further, the particles drew together into atoms. The speed of the expansion determined the ratios of atoms. Hydrogen took up about 75% of the normal matter, helium around 25% with a smidge of lithium thrown in before the Universe's volume got too great for larger, more complex atoms to form in the initial process of Big Bang nucelosynthesis.

The stage was set for the age of stars. The composition and structure of the universe allowed for gravitational attraction between individual atoms to form collapsing clouds. These clouds contained mostly hydrogen, as would be expected, and once ignited, stars got busy producing heavier elements through the fusion process. Hydrogen leaves a helium ash that sinks to the gravitational center of the star. If the star is massive enough, the quantity of helium will reach a critical mass and ignite in a new round of fusion. Burning helium in turn leaves behind its own ash of heavier elements. This process of stellar nucleosynthesis is what creates the elements heavier than helium. If the star burning is massive enough, the elements produced go from carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen (the elements that, along with hydrogen, are necessary for life) to iron.

Of all the elements produced through this process, only iron absorbs energy when it fuses. Since energy is required to fuse iron, a massive star will build up an iron core until the iron degenerates. Gravity acting on iron will force the electrons to collapse into the nucleus and fuse with the protons, turning the iron core into a ball of nutronium, a single huge nucleus of neutrons. The volume of nutronium is much less than the iron that had been supporting the rest of the star's matter, causing the material to collapse. The matter falls downward and crushes itself inward, rebounding in a massive explosion. In the moments of collapse, during the cataclysmic explosion which results, the rest of the periodic table is created and spewed through space in all directions. This is a supernova.

Passing this singularity permitted the emergence of a new kind of body: rocky planets. Newly built elements spread away from the supernova to eventually encounter other clouds. Nebulae&emdash;interstellar gas clouds&emdashspin into collapse with the explosive seeding from the supernova's final process of nucelosynthesis. New stars form with families of planets; new elements added to the mix allowed for chemical reactions to take place on the surfaces of fledgling worlds. And water.

Water worlds, like the Earth, formed with the perfect solvent in place, even though there was no life anywhere in the Universe at that time. The Earth itself formed about 9 billion years after the Big Bang. A billion years passed, chemical evolution progressed, molecules formed and disintegrated in the harsh conditions of heat, ultra violet radiation, and electrical storms. Once achieved, the complexification of the Universe could proceed another step.

Chemical evolution and the emerging environmental conditions gave way. Biological evolution crawled from the soup of water and chemistry. RNA molecules with the ability to self-replicate floated through a suspension of much simpler molecules to build from. Random encounters in a chemically rich world-ocean filled with organic molecules were enough for some time. Competition directed traits of the living molecules, but it wasn't until biology discovered a certain invention that another hurdle was crossed.

Predation changed everything. Up until then, individuals floated through their chemical food supply. But then evolution found that it was better not to wait for resources, but to take the concentrated resources that others had already amassed. Dividing the world into predators and prey, the evolutionary arms race began. Finding a better way to consume your neighbor resulted in neighbors working on better escape routes. The Cambrian Explosion is probably the result of this discovery, with all the major taxonomic groups present today arriving on the scene just over a half billion years ago.

A small fossilized animal found in the Burgess shale tells an interesting tale. Pikaia was a chordate about 40 mm long. Living among the predatory heavy-hitters of the day, it could not have been easy for Pikaia. Arthropods ruled the warm Cambrian seas and snapped up the tiny chordate, whose only defense against the armored predators was hiding in the bottom muck. The low numbers of Pikaia fossils imply the animal was rare, perhaps endangered. The chordates lived on the brink of extinction, preyed on by arthropods and giant mollusks.

Pikaia survived. Pikaia evolved. While it's important to remember that all living things trace their ancestery back to a single event of biological evolution, we, humans and all chordates, are directly descended from Pikaia. If the last had been devoured by ravenous cephalopods or hungry Opabinia, we would not be here at all. But the internal support structure of chordate anatomy gave us an advantage on the new open territory of dry land.

The next singularity didn't come for several billion years. Evolution discovered intelligence and decided it was a good trait, although not always as easy as that. Human evolution began before this singularity arrived. Humans should not be considered the goal of any evolutionary process, nor should they be given a special place in the Universe, save for one thing.

For a large portion of our existence on this planet, whether we were Australopithicine or Homo, our tool using ability was akin to that of a robin building its nest. The same tools were crafted in the same ways for a million years. No innovation, no insight. Yes, we could probably use clues from nature to find carrion or water, but we could not solve problems as we do today. Then in a burst of creativity, about seventy-five thousand years ago, art and innovative thoughts appeared. This was the moment. This was the event. Eyes had allowed creatures to see and react to the world. Humans had achived the ability to turn their eyes inward in introspection. Humans had become the Universe trying to figure itself out.

What is the next singularity? I couldn't say. If I knew that, it wouldn't be one. But one thing seems certain: it's coming. We may be crossing the threshold today. As writers and readers, we explore the possibilities. As people we feel deep anticipation. When it arrives, I want to be a part of it.

So my ice chest is packed and my lawn chair is unfolded. Like the intelligent pond dweller, I am unable to look upward and recognize the singularity on its way. So I'll sit here and stare out over the placid waters of my metaphor searching for telltale ripples of flux. I don't think we have long to wait.

STAR-Crossed Lovers

Carrie Richerson

We fire up the Superchron Temporal Adjustment and Retrieval unit
and away we go,
hunting our prey across the centuries,
invisibly observing the targets
from our bubble of not-time,
scooping them up when they are finally alone.

"Teach us of love!" we plead.
"Love so strong and true,
so beautiful and brave
it defies Time.
We have lost that fervor,
or perhaps just mislaid it."
I do not think they understand
our modern Veronese dialect,
but they cling to each other
so shyly, so prettily.
We are charmed by their devotion
and congratulate ourselves.

But something we have forgot.
After all, she is barely fourteen;
he, not yet bearded.
Times have changed (how could we forget that!),
and the League of Decency
insists they be separated.
We see it must be so.
We do not wish to become known
as polytemporal panderers.
We might lose our grant.

How perfectly they fulfill every romantic trope...
including the final one.

Alas, poor youth,
what could he ken of modern threats
old Verona never knew?
In his book was never writ "DANGER! HIGH VOLTAGE!"
Fearless he leaps for the wire,
his route down to his fair maiden's balcony.
Now sharper than Tybalt's sword
or Mercutio's dying curse
is the knowledge that sears him.

And now what light through yon Juliet's window breaks?
Why, 'tis her Romeo, incandescing.
Noble youth by any other name a noble ash.
She at least meets her doom apurposed,
throwing herself from the balcony
to join her groom in fatal sacrament.

A dismal affair.
Next time, we'll choose more wisely,
a couple older, more experienced,
less...volatile.
Antony and Cleopatra perhaps.
Someone, make a note: Hide all the asps.

Things We Sell to Tourists

Marissa K. Lingen

"We pick up odds and ends on our way through life. Not everything can be purely utilitarian--or is the junk we buy on our rest stops good for something after all? It's hard to find just one answer when the question varies so much. One person's trash is another person's treasure--or sometimes just another person's trash after all...."

I.

G RANNY JEN DIDN'T WANT THEM to think she was ungrateful. She liked being taken on vacation, and she knew her son-in-law didn't have to pay for her share. So she had not said a word when they stopped at Phil's House of Cheese. McBain's Freak Show drew no protest. She kept her mouth shut at the World's Largest Outhouse and the mutant farm.

Then Darren pulled the minivan up to Crazy Bob's Museum of the Twentieth Century. The façade was festooned with old-fashioned Christmas lights and painted with a psychedelic mural. Granny Jen's daughter Alison turned around to her. "We thought this would be fun for you, Mom!"

"For me?" said Granny Jen, groping for something to say. "You really, um, you shouldn't have--I don't need to--not on my account!"

"Come on!" said Darren. "It'll be fun! And we can get out and stretch our legs, shake the stink off."

The grandkids were already running across the parking lot, ten-year-old Tina easily outpacing seven-year-old Jared. "Slow down and wait for your grandmother!" Darren hollered after them.

"They don't need to bother with me," said Granny Jen.

"Oh, no, Mom," said Alison earnestly. "This is your museum. You can show them all the things that are like what you had as a kid!"

"Lovely," said Granny Jen. She felt a headache coming on.

The sound system was playing an Al Jolson tune when they got in the door. Jolson strummed the last few bars on his ukulele, and immediately the sound system switched to Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild." Little Jared wrinkled his nose. "Is it all going to be classical music?"

"Yes," said Alison firmly. "This is what your granny listened to when she was a girl."

"Steppenwolf recorded this song ten years before I was born," said Granny Jen.

"Come see this!" called Tina. "Were you a flapper, Granny Jen? These beads are great."

"That was long before my time," said Granny Jen. "But they're nice beads, I will say."

"Granny Jen bobbed her hair," murmured Tina, reading the placard next to the battered beads and fringed dress.

"Did you wear superhero underwear, Granny Jen?" yelled Jared.

Granny Jen blushed. "Yes, I had some Underoos. Oh, let me see those." A set of Daisy Duke Underoos faced the corresponding Wonder Woman set. The placard read, "During the Vietnam War, even children's underwear was used to demonstrate the country's split on the war-time issues."

"No, no," she said. "That's not how it was at all."

But the grandchildren had already moved on to the next exhibit. They stared at it wide-eyed. "Granny," whispered Tina, "did you have to watch black-and-white videos when you were my age?"

"My parents never had a black-and-white television," said Granny Jen.

They looked at her in horror. "Oh, Granny, I'm sorry you were so poor!" breathed Jared.

Granny Jen sighed and set herself to endure the rest of the museum. She skipped the gift shop completely and stood outside, trying not to think too hard about the mess inside. She took a deep breath when the kids came out with full bags, dreading the ride to the motel for the night.

"Here's a shirt for you, Mom!" shrieked Alison.

Tina giggled. "Isn't it you, Granny Jen?"

"‘I survived The Twentieth Century,'" read Granny Jen aloud, "‘and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.' Oh, Ally. You shouldn't have."

"Put it on, Granny Jen!" said Jared.

So she did.

II.

There was a boy, and there was a girl. It is that kind of a story.

The girl lived in a hollowed-out asteroid with three mothers, two fathers, six aunts, seven uncles, and five cousins. She was the oldest of the cousins, and the smallest, and the most stubborn.

The boy lived in a floating city in the clouds of Venus, with one mother and one father and twelve robots and no aunts, uncles, or cousins at all.

Every year there was a great gathering, when all of the asteroid ships made their way into Station Four from the Oort Cloud and traded supplies and crew and whatever else they had sitting in their storage closets that no longer interested them. Station Four, usually a quiet emergency post, bustled and hummed with all of the traffic. Oorters set up stands and kiosks with their specialties, foods from their hydroponic systems and entertainment from around the Solar System. And every year, the rich people from the inner system came out to see what there was to be seen. They never left disappointed.

The year the boy turned fifteen, his parents dragged him to the station. The girl couldn't wait to get there. She and two of her uncles unloaded their trade goods near their docking slot, just like the other Oorters. The docking bays were full of people sitting with their trade goods.

Her dads ushered a troop of cousins out of the asteroid ship, followed by a mom and an aunt, and then an aunt and an uncle.

The uncles who helped her unload watched sadly after them as they ran and slid down the dark grey-blue decks of the station.

"You can go," said the girl. "I'll make trades for the stuff, for now."

"Are you sure?" asked one uncle.

The girl nodded.

The uncles took the items they could easily carry in their pockets to trade and left more quickly than the girl thought was strictly polite.

She sat alone, cross-legged on the floor, smiling at passersby, until someone came to dicker for some rare earths in a containment field.

The boy slipped away from his parents. They called after him indulgently, "Be back by supper!" He had no idea when supper was supposed to be, without a solar day to guide him. He wandered, looking for something to catch his eyes. Most of the items made no sense to him. The rest seemed too ordinary to bother with. He walked faster.

Then the boy saw her.

The girl had wide, clear green eyes and a short fringe of black hair. She looked like a video star playing a young girl of the Oort Cloud. She was trading with another young Oorter, one game module for another. He hung back until the other girl was gone.

He glanced at the object sitting next to her. It was iridescent blue with purple streaks, a shape that made him squint a bit to try to get its measure. He suddenly found it beautiful.

"What's that?" he asked her.

"My aunt's gift sculpture from when she married my uncle and joined the family," she said.

"Why are you selling it?"

"We need the money," said the girl.

Pity gripped the boy. "How much do you want for it?"

The girl smiled shyly. "I like you. I would give it to you if I could, but my mothers would be angry with me."

"I understand," said the boy.

"Perhaps three dollars would be enough?"

The boy smiled back at her shyness and her quaint frontier notions of currency. "I think I have three dollars."

She didn't hear the patronizing note in his voice. She accepted the three dollars gravely. Two of her aunts came out of the ship.

"Ah, good, cash," said one of the aunts. "Trades are good, cash is better."

"I also got a new game in exchange for that old Nuke Hunter we'd all beaten a million times."

"Good girl!" said the other aunt. "What did you get?"

"At The Barricades," said the girl. "It's an old French Revolution game."

The boy smiled again. He had played it three years ago, as had everyone on Venus.

"You've done well," said the first aunt. "You can have some time if you like. We'll do the trading for awhile."

"Thank you." She stood up gracefully and left them, waving over her shoulder. The boy walked with her.

"I could buy you some food, if you're hungry," he ventured.

The girl thought about it. She was hungry. And she had been told never to turn down sensible hospitality. "Thank you," she said.

They wandered among the station's food kiosks, rejecting noodles and flatbreads. The boy bought a big bowl of potato curry and rice for them to share. She dipped her fingers in and ate without fork or bread, and he watched her, smiling indulgently, before reaching for a fingerful of his own.

The girl touched his hand gently after he'd eaten a bit. "What's that? On your wrist?"

"Oh, that. It's the band from the ship we took out. My ticket band."

"So you need it to get home," she said.

"No, no, there'll be another for our trip out. I just forgot to take this one off."

"There's all kinds of circuitry in it," she said softly. "Tiny signals."

He stood up, holding the sculpture in one arm. "Are you done eating?" She nodded. "Let's just walk a bit."

He took her hand as they went, but she kept trying to turn it to look at his ticket band.

"You can have it, if you like," he said, laughing.

"How much?"

He laughed louder. "I'll give it to you. For free."

She drew back. "But it's--it's got all this stuff in it."

"They'll give me another."

"It won't be quite the same."

"Look, I can include it in the payment for the sculpture, if you like," said the boy.

"You already paid for that."

"Not enough."

"It's just a sculpture," she said in confusion. "My aunt can make another."

He laughed. She watched him.

He leaned in and kissed her, gently. She blinked in surprise, though he kept his eyes closed. She smelled of soap and ozone. He smelled of musk and carefully blended herbal cologne.

You're so innocent, they thought together. They stood in the corridor and gazed solemnly at each other.

"There you are!" said the boy's mother, breaking the spell. "We're about to have dinner. Come along."

"I just had a bit of curry from a kiosk."

His mother wrinkled her nose. "And if you aren't sick the whole way to Neptune, it'll be a miracle. What have you got here?"

"It's nothing," he said hastily. "I'll explain it later."

The girl watched him go. She wandered back to her own ship. Her aunts smiled and asked if she wanted to stay and trade, but she shook her head and went inside.

That night, the boy sat cross-legged in his bunk and fingered the girl's sculpture. The girl stroked the boy's ticket band under the table where she played games with her cousins.

Those eyes, he thought.

That smile, she thought.

But at least there's something wonderful to remember by.

They shook their heads, pulling out of their daydreams, and showed the others what they had gotten, so cheaply.

III.

The old codger was the first human in the shop all day, but that was just fine with me. The robots never called me sweetie or tried to get my number or yelled at me if it took more than a minute to find something. They're programmed to be inoffensive, and by God, they're programmed well.

The codger had thin white hair, smoothly combed and tucked behind his ears. The lines in his face spoke of worry and of laughter, probably sometimes at the same time. He was an American, I could tell before he even spoke--their bad taste in clothing is quite distinguishable from our bad taste in clothing. He peered about him, dissatisfied with postcard racks and painted teacups.

"May I help you?" I asked him.

"Do you have anything to eat in here?" he said. "The sandwich shop appears to be closed."

"Oh, yes, they're not open after 2:00 on weekdays," I said. "We have some ice cream toffee bars in the freezer case."

The codger sighed. "Yeah, all right, I'll take one of those. If there's nothing else close by."

"No, the area's so filled with tourists that only the tourist shops survived."

"But no sandwiches," he said, passing me his credit card and unwrapping the toffee bar.

I shrugged. "Robots eat very few sandwiches, as a rule. Also rather few toffee bars, but we do sell a few."

He wandered in among the busts of great computer scientists, munching on his toffee bar. He seemed to be a very neat eater, so I didn't worry too much about the merchandise. "It's all a robot affair, then?"

"Most of our customers are robots," I said. "They have the most interest in Turing's life. It's sort of a pilgrimage for most of them. Our human visitors seem to view it more as one stop on a longer vacation."

"I suppose," he said. He finished off the toffee bar. He licked the stick clean, wrapped it in the wrapper, and put it neatly in his jacket pocket. "I worked for Aitch Pee, you know, when they were still Aitch Pee. Before all the mergers and buyouts and ownership changes."

Before I got a job at the shop, I wouldn't have known Aitch Pee from Eff Yew. Now I was hip deep in all of it. "That must have been quite something."

"Oh, it was. It was. Very exciting place to be. I was in hardware, you know."

"Did you work on the first AI robots?"

"A little. At the end of my career. Before my--before my partner got sick, and I was needed for nursing care. Honey, I don't think you know how old I am."

I didn't mind so much when the codgers called me honey, as long as they didn't try to pinch me.

"So where are all the robots now?" he continued.

"There's a guided tour every hour on the hour," I said automatically. "They'll come in from that any minute now."

"And buy like mad. Good consumer programming there."

"Well, they all need a magnet or a stick-on." I pointed at the rack of apples. The metal-bodied robots bought magnets, the plastic ones stick-ons. "Some of them want programs or books or e-books, postcards, what have you. But they all need apples."

He looked at it. "Pretty little things. Part of the pilgrimage?"

"Turing died eating a poisoned apple."

"Him and Snow White," said the codger. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be disrespectful of the dead. It just seems--they buy magnets for that?"

"They wear them on their cases."

"If that don't beat all. It give you the creeps?"

"It's just a remembrance," I said carefully. "Of a great man taken prematurely from us."

"A great man indeed," he said softly.

And then the robots were upon us. The codger retreated to the corner of the gift shop to witness them, a silent, gentle swarm of locusts, politely picking the apple kiosk clean and stopping for power cells and maps on their way. They said all the right words, please and thank you and isn't this moving, and they used all the right tones, soft, unthreatening. None of that had worked for Turing.

The codger edged to the back of the shop and acted fascinated with the bright blue T-shirts we'd just gotten in. The robots left with a minimum of chatting. I pulled the box of apple magnets and stick-ons out from under the counter and went to replenish it.

"You handle them well," the codger said, creeping forward past the book displays.

I shrugged. "Lots and lots of practice. And they make it easy."

"Some people think they're unnatural."

I looked him straight in the eye. "They used to say that about us, you know."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

I snorted. "If your partner had been a woman, you'd have said, ‘I had to take care of her.' Not ‘I was needed for nursing care.'"

He examined the back cover of one of the biographies minutely, without speaking. I waited.

"Some of them still say that about us," he murmured. He put the book down and came over to me, held his hand out for an apple stick-on. I rang it up for him.

It's not just the robots who wear them.

IV.

Jing-xie was bored. The doctors told him that the infection was clearing up nicely, and the bones were knitting, too. Soon, they told him, the little machines would have done their work, and he would be back on his feet, back on his ship, back on his own world.

In the meantime, Jing-xie was getting to know the corridors of the New Albuquerque Colony Hospital much, much better than he had ever wanted to, as he wheeled his chair around them. His shipmates had repairs to make, and they could only spend a few minutes every day with him. He got bored with reading, with music and movies and playing solitaire. There were very few other patients, and most of the others were too ill to be interesting from anything but a clinical perspective.

He was playing yet another game of solitaire the afternoon the aliens came. He had resorted to begging some physical cards from the nurse instead of playing a virtual game on his computer: it killed more time to lay the cards down one by one.

When he looked up and saw the aliens, he said, "Holy shit!" He tried to stand, to run, but his broken leg kept him to an ignominious little bounce. There were two mountainous aliens, both a bilious shade of yellow, both peering down at his leg in great interest. They were lumpen and naked and looked ready to engulf him.

His doctor emerged from behind them, rubbing her hands nervously. "Hello, Jing-xie," said his doctor. "These are, ah, some visitors. They're on New Albuquerque to experience human culture."

"Where the hell are they from?" asked Jing-xie.

"Somewhere out the arm a little further. They call it--" She made a gurgling noise deep in her throat. "It's a tonal language."

The aliens made identical gurgling noises and grinned at Jing-xie.

"What do they want in the hospital? Don't they know there are sick people here?" Jing-xie peered at her suspiciously. "Don't you know there are sick people here? This is a bit disturbing of my rest, you know?"

The doctor rolled her eyes. "Your rest. Don't give me that. You've been skittering around here in that chair any time the nurses will let you. The machines are working fine."

"What do they want?" Jing-xie repeated.

"They want your infection."

"I beg your pardon."

"Yorrrrr infection," said one of the aliens in a near approximation of the doctor's voice.

"Here's the thing," said the doctor. "The first time they visited an alien planet, they came down with a bad case of diarrhea."

"Mooontezuuuuma's Reveeeeeenge," rumbled the second alien, grinning hugely.

"They have amazing immune systems, and they learn from bacteria and viruses," said the doctor. She sounded weary. "So…they like to pick up one or two. For souvenirs, when they're visiting a planet where they've never been before. And your infection is a strain they've never seen. If you share it with them, they'll pay your hospital bills."

Jing-xie winced. His ship didn't have a lot of spare cash, and the hospital bills were going to drain their resources. "What do I have to do?"

"Let them lick your leg," whispered the doctor.

The aliens rumbled. Jing-xie realized, with a lurch of his stomach, that they were giggling. "Picturrrrrre," said the first alien.

"And they want a picture of it," said the doctor.

"Of the bacteria? Or virus or whatever?"

"Of the, ah, licking."

Jing-xie leaned heavily back on his pillow. "Oh, sure, all right. We could use the money." But really, he thought, could it be more grotesque than another game of solitaire? Most likely it could not.

The second alien moved in close to him, leaning towards his leg, and the first held up a tiny device. "Smiiiiiiile," it said.

V.

I'd never been to the reading of a will before. I think Great-Aunt Claire was the first person really close to me who had died when I was old enough to know the difference. It was just me and my parents in the office with the lawyer, and I have to confess, I wasn't paying much attention. She had left things to all the charities she'd supported in her life--a scholarship for her alma mater, the Humane Society, one of her old professional organizations, the Sierra Club. My parents were to administer the rest of the money as they saw fit.

The laywer said my name, and I looked up. She produced a package wrapped in brown paper. "Your aunt wanted you to have this, and to look through her apartment and take whatever else you found that was of interest. The rest is to go to Goodwill."

"Are you sure that she didn't mean I should go through the apartment?" said my mother. "It's a big job for Alicia to take on herself."

"It says quite specifically that Alicia should do it herself."

"Well, if you need help sorting things, I'll be available," said my mother dubiously.

"If there's anything special you'd like, I'll get it for you, but I think I can handle it," I told her.

"Never mind that," said my father, "what's in the package?"

So I unwrapped it. It was a snow globe with a little dome inside, and the red plastic base read, "Greetings from Dejah City, Mars!" The apartment key was taped to the bottom.

"Oh, dear," said my father.

"I didn't know she'd kept that old thing!" said my mother. "I don't know why she would."

I turned the globe over, and the snow drifted down on the miniature dome. "It doesn't snow on Mars, does it?"

"If you have no more questions about the will…." said the lawyer.

We assured her that we did not and hurried out of her office, pulling on our scarves and hats and mittens. I had ridden to the lawyer's office with them, so we took their car back to my place. It whirred along contentedly, but very little of the energy got diverted for heating. We hurried into my apartment.

"You don't have to keep that piece of junk, Alicia," my mother said.

"Aunt Claire wanted me to have it."

"And I don't know why!" she snapped.

My father gave her a look that was intended to be calming. "Claire spent a year at Dejah City."

"Over a year," said my mother. "And look where it got her."

Uncle Lucas had died when the saboteurs got Dejah City, long, long before I was born. Aunt Claire had barely escaped with her life, and her lungs had been permanently damaged. It was probably why she had died so young, only 83.

I set the snow globe on the kitchen counter. I could deal with her apartment later, preferably when my mother wasn't irritated by the globe. "Do you want some dinner?"

They did, and I managed to keep the topic away from the snow globe and Aunt Claire's apartment until they were getting ready to leave. "You call me if you need any help," said my mother firmly.

"We just don't want you to have to deal with more than you're ready for," said my father.

"Aunt Claire kept a clean house," I said. "I think I'll be fine."

They looked at each other portentously and hugged me and left.

Uncle Lucas' death at Dejah City was just another piece of family trivia to me, so it was easy to forget how much it upset Mom and Dad. They were newlyweds at the time, and Lucas and Claire were established engineers, well into their careers, responsible for the safety of all of the tourists at the resort.

They had failed. Of the nearly three thousand people living in Dejah City or visiting it, two thousand eight hundred and five had died. And Aunt Claire had never said a word about it to me. So why did she leave me the snow globe?

I had taken the next day off work in case I needed the time to recuperate. It seemed like the ideal time to start cleaning Aunt Claire's apartment. I spent the first two hours folding clothes and putting them in bags to go to Goodwill. Packing dishes came next. That was the easy part. I wrapped the interesting pieces, heirloom crystal goblets and quirky candlestick holders, in bubble paper and tissue. The daily china was also wrapped, but less carefully, and I labeled those boxes for Goodwill, too. I set aside the chipped stoneware tumblers I'd drunk from so many times as a child. Those went in with the goblets.

I had spent weeks, months of my life in that apartment with my Aunt Claire. I knew every patch on the brown-and-gold quilt, every knickknack in the kitchen windowsill. The old-fashioned smell of the place, cinnamon and yeast and Emeraude perfume, was as much home as my parents' house. I had never seen the snow globe before, never seen a trace of her old life on Dejah City. I didn't know where to look for them.

I sat down on the sofa to think. Some part of me waited for Aunt Claire to plunk herself down beside me and start quizzing me about my job, my dates, my life. And if she'd plunked down beside me and handed me the globe, it might have made sense. She'd handed me enough other things, thrown me enough other curveballs.

I got up again. I went through the bookcase, hoping there would be journals, books about the sabotage, anything. She might have made notes. She might have left papers, a letter for me.

If she had, they were not on the bookshelves. The only papers I found were tax records, insurance records, that sort of thing. Aunt Claire had saved everything official. If I wanted to, I could see the warranty for her latest palmtop. I didn't think it would prove useful, but I leafed through the official stuff just to make sure.

I shook my head. It didn't seem like Aunt Claire to just have the official stuff, but she had never wanted to talk much about her work life. I knew she had worked for one of the big hotel chains, in the computer security department. She always said it was boring and nothing to discuss.

I kept going, looking through the pantry, the armoire, her jewelry box, her bathroom cabinets. I think the bathroom cabinets were the hardest part. Mom had always told me that nice people did not look in each other's bathroom cabinets. But Aunt Claire was gone, and the array of cotton swabs, aspirin, and half-empty prescription bottles put a lump in my throat. I threw the prescription bottles in the trash. One of us would use the half-box of bandages she'd used on my knees and fingers when I was a child, or we'd give it to a homeless shelter.

It was too close, too personal. It was too much. I was ready to go home for awhile.

But I knew I would want the checkerboard, so I went into Aunt Claire's storage closet to get it. And folded on top of it was a little piece of paper reading "Alicia." I opened it.

"Look at the base," it said.

I looked at the floor of the closet. The base of the wall? The base of the stairs? The army base? What was I supposed to be looking at? Like an idiot, I realized that Aunt Claire had only given me one thing in specific, and it had a gaudy red plastic base. I slipped the checkerboard under my arm and ran down the stairs to my car.

Sitting at my own kitchen table, I turned the snow globe over. There was nothing unusual about the bottom of it. The lettering, too, looked normal, if a little faded. I looked at where the globe met the base. There, embedded so tightly that I was sure it would never come out, was a fine red dust.

Mars dust.

I frowned and banged on the globe with my fist. It was a durable plastic, not glass as I'd first assumed. And if it was a durable enough plastic…it had made the trip out with Aunt Claire. It had left the dome with her.

But why a snow globe? She didn't even like them, as far as I could tell. There weren't any others in the apartment.

The answer occurred to me as I looked around the rest of the apartment: it was the only thing she could grab as she fled. It was all she had left of those days, a tacky trinket with red dust from another world.

Souvenir means "to remember." I promised myself that I would.

Lost On The Shores Of Avalon

Mikal Trimm

Here, you see? The blood still seeps, a constant
Rivulet. The wound will never heal. No
Sorcery of men or gods may stanch the
Flow--perhaps that is as it should be. I
Broke a solemn oath, betrayed a trusted
Friend, befouled a love more sacred than my
Own misguided lust. I rutted like a
Beast and thrust away my honor in one
Sweaty, frenzied act. The passing of a
Night--the passing of a Knight. Hell's bargain.


Ah, but still I see the whitesoft wonder
Of her flesh, the darktouched beauty of her
Breasts, the red red lips, the blueblack eyes, the
Eloquence of muscles writhing 'neath the
Perfect flesh--I mount her as I would a
Skittish horse, but she throws me on my back,
Mane tossed to the wind, and shows me who is
Rider, who is ridden. I can smell, yes,
Even now, the musk of her, the heady
Scent of Queen unbridled. Still, I want her.


Pity poor Elaine! I should have loved her.
Guileless, sweet, but far too much the lapdog,
Ever begging for my careless stroke. Poor
Waif, she lies abandoned still at Joyous
Gard, now Dolorous once more. She suffered
For devotion--died, hope unrequited.
Would our son forgive me, the chaste knight of
Siege Perilous? Would he feel the longing
Of a forsworn man, or would he hold the
Grail aloft and mock me for my weakness?


Ah, but still I hear the moonbold whispers
From her mouth, the taunts and teases--wanton
Words tossed to the winds of passion, torments:
"Will you touch me here, my brave knight, will you
Kiss me there?" And I, bereft of honor,
Only wonder, "Does he touch you, kiss you,
There, there, there? When you're with him, do you feel
Cold and hot and weak and strong at once? Am
I his equal, nay, his better?" Treason!
I could not ask--Kingless was our union.


Now he lies, his wound more grave than mine, his
Loss the deeper tragedy; I mourn a
Friendship lost, a Kingdom fallen. Bloody
Lie the lifeless bodies of companions
Dear, our Fellowship now sundered--no more
Revels at the Table, no more drunken
Nights as one great body, each of us a
Needed limb, a muscle flexed by Arthur's
Will. The sword is gone--the Lady's gift--back
To her Realm, where once I dwelt in virtue.


Ah, but still I miss the heartwild glamour
Guinevere cast over me--more child than
Woman in her play, more tavern-wench than
Sovereign in her bed--she tamed me, tied me
To her will, then cast the bonds off with a
Single tear. For me, for him? No matter.
For the three of us, perhaps. A drop of
Sorrow, meant to bathe so many wounds. My
Heart lay drowned, my soul engulfed, my puissance
Laid low. Farewell, my love. Farewell, my King.


And now the barge appears, but dares not take
Poor Lancelot, the orphan of the Lake....

Virulence

DJ Cockburn

"At the first whiff of a virus, the human body cries havoc and lets slip its many dogs of war, but suppose it kennels dogs in the mind as well as the body. Quite a thought when you're alone in a strange city, where ragged children gather to beg for cash outside McDonalds and Dunkin' Donuts."

T HE STREET CHILDREN CAME from nowhere, as much a part of Davao City as the aroma of chicken frying on sidewalk grills. They just appeared between me and the Public Health Laboratory, pointing to their mouths and piping "Hey Joe, hey Joe". The security guard stepped forward to chase them off, but I threw a few coins after them.

"You shouldn't do that, sir," he said in his precise English. "Now they will wait for you to come back and annoy you again."

I wondered how he kept his white uniform looking freshly laundered all day in the glaring heat of the Philippines. I could feel sweat running down my face, and my shirt felt like a dishrag where it clung to my back.

I mumbled something about supposing so and retreated into the air-conditioned cool of the lab.

"Hi Tony," said Karla. "The director was in earlier. He's sure we're looking at dengue fever."

Her voice was a monotone, and I noticed that she didn't say what she thought herself.

I sighed. Somebody had used the word ‘dengue' in front of a health minister who probably didn't know a virus from a bacterium, so the recent outbreak on Mindanao was henceforth caused by dengue. Dengue was untreatable, which saved anybody in the Public Health Department from answering awkward questions about who was going to pay for treating the victims. Karla's job was dependent on the good will of the director, whose job was dependent on the good will of the minister, so she wasn't going to be the first to say what no one wanted to hear. I couldn't blame her; she had two children and an unemployed husband to support.

I nodded at the paper strips wallowing in the antibody solution. "Well, we'll find out in twenty minutes. I'll just check my e-mail while we wait."

She brightened when I didn't pursue the subject.

"Is that the third or fourth time today?"

"I'm waiting for something important."

I felt a smile warming my lips when I saw Sahar's daily message in the inbox. As usual, the connection was agonisingly slow, so I sat back and remembered the evening before I left Glasgow for the Philippines. We'd shared a pleasant meal with pleasant conversation, but the smile was in memory of the goodbye hug that lingered on and on, and the promise in her rolling Glasgow vowels.

"Come back soon, Tone, and don't you forget me, now."

I won't, Sahar, I won't.

Hi Tone,

Guess what, you're hearing from Dr. Sahar at last! Just finished defending my thesis and I'm shaking too much to type properly but hey, it's over! Only funny question was about the wider significance of those rats that got parochial. Waffled my way through it, now I hear the call of the pub.

Know when you're coming back yet or have you fallen for some nubile Filipina? Don't you dare!

Sahar

Always that hint of promise. We'd been getting closer for months, but her studies had been her priority recently. Still, now that her thesis was out of the way....

My attention drifted back to the beginning of the message. What was the wider significance of a rat turning parochial in response to a disease? As far as I could remember, her rats had become parochial, or very aggressive towards unfamiliar individuals, when they were exposed to influenza. I'd been preoccupied with grant applications at the time and we'd never discussed it in depth.

"Time to develop the test, Tony," called Karla.

I forgot about parochial rats and went back to the paper strips in the lab. Karla laid them in the developing solution one by one. If black dots appeared, I would owe Karla lunch.

"It will take ten minutes or so," she said.

"If it happens."

"God will tell us."

She touched the crucifix around her neck. God kept us waiting.

"Here," she said eventually, "and here. You're buying lunch, Tony.

"That's two out of two hundred. Give it a few more minutes."

We waited. Dots appeared on another strip.

"I don't understand," she said. "Why only three?"

A weight descended on my shoulders.

"Because," I said, "while we've been spending the last damn month trying to track an outbreak of dengue fever, people have been going down with something completely different."

She frowned at the ‘damn', but if I'd said what I really felt about the customs officer who'd impounded the test kit, she would have taken sanctuary in a convent.

Now the disease had spread half way across Mindanao, and thanks to an over-zealous bureaucrat, we had only just got around to establishing that we didn't know what was causing it.

"But that's impossible," said Karla. "There must be something wrong with the test."

"We'll run the test again, but I bet you lunch for a week that we get the same result. Whatever this disease is, it's spreading much too fast for dengue. And we're not seeing any haemorrhaging, which we'd expect, but a lot of pneumonia, which we wouldn't."

"What is it then?"

"I don't know," I said, hiding my suspicions. "But let's run the test again."

I won a week's lunches. Unfortunately, I was too busy to eat them.

A percussion of coughing accompanied the hum of the ceiling fans that struggled to stir the thick air of the hospital. I picked my way between rows of bleary eyes that silently demanded to know why I could hide behind a face-mask, while they had to breathe the air that was killing them. They could demand all they liked, but I wasn't breathing this air until I knew what was in it, and neither was Karla. Not that I blamed them for being bitter as they shivered and sweated in each others' stench.

"This is Mr. Juliani," said the tired nurse, and hurried away.

Karla called our thanks after her, and we knelt beside the man on the floor. Sample 5E3 glared at us through fever-bright eyes.

"Good morning, sir," I said. "I'm Tony Reade from the Glasgow University Department of Virology. I'm here to study what we thought was a new form of the dengue fever virus."

The curve of Mr Julian's mouth told me he didn't know what I was talking about and didn't care. I reflected that I was far more used to dealing with the parts of people that fitted in Sarstedt tubes than the people themselves. "They told me you're getting better."

Actually, nobody had told me anything. The hospital's administrators had long since lost track of their patients, and it had taken us half an hour to find out where they'd put him. Sometimes it's better to be cheerful than truthful.

Mr. Juliani held my gaze, but said nothing. A muscle pulsed in his jaw. I edged back, then caught myself. It was crazy to be afraid of an invalid.

Karla asked him if he spoke English. His eyes flicked to her crucifix and he nodded reluctantly.

"You're getting better?" asked Karla.

"With God's help," he said, sharing his belief with her as a charm against the stranger.

"Can you tell us something, Mr. Juliani?" I asked.

He refused to look at me. His lips moved in what might have been a curse or a prayer.

"May I ask you a question, Mr. Juliani?" said Karla.

He nodded.

"Have you had dengue fever before?"

"Yes, when I visited Manila four years ago."

"Thank you, Mr. Juliani. I hope that God will make you well soon."

"Thank you," he said. "Go with God."

"Thank you," I mumbled.

He didn't reply.

We picked our way over or around the prostrate bodies to the exit. I looked up at the tortured Messiah over the door. He's never far away in the Philippines.

"Lot of help you are." I said it under my breath, so that Karla wouldn't hear.

We took off our masks as soon as we were outside and I breathed in a deep draught of the humid air. After the hospital, it was almost bracing.

"So all of our positive blood tests were only positive because they've had dengue before," said Karla. "You were right."

Being right gave me no satisfaction. Something to do with Sahar was nagging at the back of my mind, but I couldn't pin it down.

"What was all that with Juliani?" I asked as we got into the department car; Karla's government salary wasn't enough for her own.

"What?"

"Did he have something against me?"

"You thought so?" said Karla. "I didn't notice."

"Perhaps I imagined it."

I took a deep breath to say what I didn't want to say, and what Karla wouldn't want to hear.

"Look Karla, I think we should test those samples for influenza."

I expected her to argue, because influenza wouldn't be any better for her career than it was for Mr. Juliani. She didn't answer until she stopped at a red light.

"Yeah, I guess we should."

I looked away and tried to tell myself that I hadn't underestimated her too badly.

The effort of keeping my eyes focused ground a dull knot of pain between them. I was gazing at, rather than reading, the reports on what had been dubbed ‘Maranao influenza', since we had traced the outbreak to the Maranao communities in Cotabato. Karla had wept for them. "They have so little down there, and the government won't lift a finger to help them because they're Muslim."

Influenza, I thought. Sahar. Parochialism. There was a connection in there somewhere. Sahar's rats were parochial. She'd told me about them over a flavourless canteen lunch, back in Glasgow.

"I see Kilmarnock lost again," I'd said.

"Shut up and eat."

Sahar's grandparents may have been practicing Muslims, but she was the second generation born in Glasgow and her only religion was football.

"Aren't you used to it yet?"

"Shut up and eat."

"Okay then, I'll change the subject. How're the studies coming along?"

"Aye, some good results on the rats with influenza."

Our conversations in this canteen would make any eavesdropper stop eating for a week, but I just said, "Tell all."

"Well, it seems crazy but when they get a dose of flu, they turn, well, parochial."

"Parochial?"

"They get very aggressive toward rats they haven't seen before, but not toward their own social group. So much that some of the randiest males I've got chase off strange females in heat if they don't know them. I've never seen the like of it before."

"Any idea why?"

"I think it's some sort of behavioural mechanism to keep them away from anyone carrying the disease. I mean, if there's a bug about, you want to keep strangers that might have it away from your wee 'uns."

"Isn't it a little late by the time you've already caught the virus?"

"No, you see it in individuals that have never shown clinical signs. It's the presence of the virus that does it, you don't have to get the disease. Though they're more likely to get parochial if they have the flu and recover. The more virulent the virus, the more parochial they get."

I sawed at something that looked like a cremated sparrow while I thought. "It sounds kind of like an immune response."

"How d'you mean?"

"You react to a virus--or any other bug--by producing antibodies and white blood cells to fight it, right?"

"Aye," Sahar nodded.

"And you produce them when you're exposed to the bug, whether or not it actually makes you ill."

"Oh, right."

Sahar dropped her knife and fork and sat back to think. I stared at her unfocused eyes. She really was beautiful.

"You mean that the same immune response might actually be changing their behaviour?"

She was grinning with the joy of elegant explanation. I was grinning because she was sharing her joy with me.

"So you stay away from anyone who might give you the bug in case your antibodies aren't quite up to the job," she finished the story.

"A sort of behavioural immunity," I said.

"Scary thought, isn't it?"

I laughed. It was funny then. Now I wished I'd concentrated more on what Sahar was saying and less on Sahar herself.

A long sigh from Karla hauled me back into the present. I realised that she'd just hung up the phone, and that she hadn't enjoyed the conversation. Her feet dragged as she walked back into the lab. Three weeks of bad news had taken its toll on both of us.

"What now?" I asked.

"The bad news is that they've been reporting outbreaks in Cebu and Palawan in the past week. They want us to confirm. The worse news is that the government won't even think about restricting travel, so we're going to have it everywhere within a few weeks."

"But it could kill thousands!" I stifled a blasphemy. "Don't they understand what we're dealing with?"

"They're politicians, Tony. If they pretend there isn't really a problem down here, they've got time to find someone else to blame before it gets to Manila. They'll manage to ignore it until then."

"But it'll be too late by then! It'll be all over the Philippines and probably the Asian mainland as well!"

I realised I was marching up and down, waving my arms around like the archetypal mad scientist. I sat down and looked at Karla, and reminded myself that she was putting her job on the line by even making these phone calls. The word ‘pandemic' drifted through my mind, but I didn't want to say it. We'd both hear enough of it before long.

Karla sat down and looked at me closely.

"Are you okay, Tony?"

"Nothing a good night's sleep wouldn't cure."

"Just tell me where to find one," she said. "I'll get back on the phone. Perhaps I'll find someone with half a brain in the government."

"Good luck," I said without conviction.

I tried to concentrate on the reports, but I found myself staring out of the window at the empty street, which had been packed with vendor's stalls only last week. I knew the conclusion I'd draw from the reports before I even opened them: Maranao flu had swept through the whole of Mindanao. I felt too miserable to calculate the number of deaths. The reports would be out of date by now anyway.

Oh God why can't I be back in Glasgow? With Sahar?

Sahar. Parochialism.

Karla came back.

"Can't get through," she said. "Half the telephone operators are sick and the rest are at home because they don't want to catch it. I need coffee before I try again. You?"

I rubbed my temples and scribbled a note that the telephone system had joined the general collapse of Mindanao's infrastructure. The epidemiologists back in Glasgow would want to know that.

"Yes thanks. Karla, wasn't there a pandemic in nineteen eighteen?"

She stiffened at the taboo word.

"Yes, why?"

Because that meant that the rank and file of the SS, and Stalin's bluecaps, had been exposed to a virulent influenza as children.

"Thinking aloud," I said. "What about the others since then?"

"Fifty-seven and sixty-eight. They both hit China hardest."

"Fifty-seven? Just before the Cultural Revolution?"

"Well, that started in sixty-six."

So Mao's Red Guards had been exposed to a pandemic strain as well, then another one at just the right time to make sure that the savagery lasted its eight bloody years.

I was shivering. I moved out of the draft of the air-conditioning unit but I was just as cold. It was the same lack of sleep that was making me dream up connections between the villains of the last century and Sahar's rats.

"And now there's a whole generation that's never been exposed to a really nasty influenza?"

"I guess. Are you sure you're okay?"

Her brow wrinkled with concern. Perhaps she was right to be concerned; perhaps this was what a nervous breakdown felt like. "I'm fine. Really."

"Well, here's your coffee. I'll try the phone again."

I thought back to the hospital, and Juliani's barely restrained hatred. What would he have done to me if he'd had the strength to stand? Did that look in his eyes belong under a blue-banded cap as he battered somebody's door down in the middle of the night?

My teeth rattled on the cup. Karla's voice from the next room was a long way away, echoing around my head, reverberating with my own thoughts.

Karla found me face down in a pool of coffee. I can't remember much about the next few weeks and I wish I'd forgotten the rest. Unlike most of the victims, I was well nourished and insured; I got one of the last private hospital rooms in Mindanao, so I had a better chance than most when the pneumonia set in.

Eventually, I began to recognise the difference between night and day, and the looming white figures that stabbed needles into me were nurses instead of the demons of my fevered nightmares. I still shrank away from them, feigning sleep to avoid talking to them. I couldn't forget that the barbecue smell that overwhelmed their cheap air fresheners was their friends, their family, burning in the pyre outside the public wing of the hospital. I couldn't forget that they had to feed me and clean me like a newborn baby because my country was wealthier than theirs. I wanted to beg them for their forgiveness so much that I dreaded their presence.

One day I woke up to find Karla in the room. There were new crow's feet around her eyes and her hair fell in greasy strips. I must have looked worse, and it was as well that I was inured to my own smell. My sheets hadn't been washed since before the electricity had failed for the last time, and condemned the hospital to suffocate without ventilation or air conditioning.

"Hi, Tony," she said.

"Hi."

"Glad to see you're better."

"Am I?"

I twisted my head towards her, and noticed that she was wearing a black armband. Her family had been dying while money that she could only dream of had kept me alive to complain about the heat and the smell. I felt she must despise me but she hid it well. I wanted to yell that it wasn't my fault, I came here to help so don't thank me by blaming me.

"Better than you were," she said. "I've been here a few times but you probably don't remember. Can you sit up?"

I pushed myself into a sitting position and drifted up off the bed while the room spun around me. I fell on my back and the room was still again.

"What's the latest news? I don't know anything since I passed out," I asked when I could.

"Not so good. It's reached the mainland, Tony. Singapore first, but it's already spread as far as Turkey. And the first outbreak in the States last week."

"Oh."

"Tony? Tony, are you okay?"

I was shaking, but not because of my illness. I found I was angry. The virus was marching across Asia, toward Britain. My Britain! What had these bloody Filipinos unleashed on us? On us? And all she can say is ‘are you okay?' Damn her!

"I'm okay," I said, between clenched teeth.

Calm down. Nobody caused it and it's certainly not Karla's fault. Calm down. Must be the fever. And the guilt.

"I'm okay."

Karla opened her purse.

"I've got a message for you, from Glasgow. It came through the fax, just before the phone system went down. They must have thought the e-mail wasn't working when you didn't reply."

She handed me a sheet of fax paper. I noticed Sahar's signature, but instead of the inner smile I anticipated, all I felt was a void.

"Hi Tony," I read. "We've just heard about you. We're all really worried."

Poor you, having to sit safely in my country and worry.

The sarcasm passed through my mind so fast that it barely interrupted my reading.

"I assume you're still out of it," the message went on, "but I had to write, I'm frantic about you. I just heard my uncle and two cousins in Karachi died. We're all so scared it will happen here."

I stopped reading as a torrent of bile poured into the gap where my love for her had been. She had cousins in Karachi. She'd been born in Britain, but not to a British family. She was one of them. She was like the Cotabato Muslims the outbreak had started with, and now she was in my country telling me how hard it was for her. I'd known her for years and I was so stupid I'd never even thought about what she was.

I made myself read on. I had to know the worst.

"I was so scared I'd lose you too. I'm going to give you the biggest hug of your life when I see you.

"Love, Sahar."

The biggest hug of my life. My skin crawled. And love? Love?

"Look Tony, can you travel?" Karla's voice snapped me back to the hospital. "There's a military plane taking British citizens with the virus home this afternoon. There's an embargo on commercial flights, so you may not get back for a while if you can't go now. Do you think you'll feel well enough?"

Home. Back to my own people. People I could trust. People who would need help to defend themselves against whatever they had brought down on us.

Can't let Karla see how much I want to go. Can't trust her.

"I could try."

Karla brought my belongings in the car. I shuddered at the thought of her packing my clothes; I'd wash them all twice before I wore them again.

I refused to let the nurses help me dress but I had to endure their support to get from my bed to the car. I'd thought the hospital was hot, but the sun beat its way through the haze of smoke and reduced me to a dead weight before I was ten paces from the door. I didn't see the street children until they were swarming around me like maggots at a corpse. I tried to kick away the tugging hands and dribbling noses, and above all the cacophony of "Hey Joe, hey Joe," but my feet were made of lead and I couldn't lift them off the ground.

I heard a man shouting, then a tattoo of explosions battered my ears. The children vanished and I looked around to see the hospital security guard pointing a smoking revolver into the air. His gritted teeth told me that it wouldn't be pointing that way next time.

"I'm sorry, Tony," said Karla as the nurses lowered me into the car. "There's a lot more of them than there were."

"Suffer the little children," I said vindictively.

Her eyes flashed as she crossed herself, and I knew I'd shown her my real feelings. She took a deep breath, but her hand was shaking as it turned the key in the ignition.

"Suffer the little children," she said quietly.

I kept my mouth shut.

We rounded a corner and Karla slammed on the brake. A crowd of men was gathered around a row of shanties, shouting and throwing bricks and bottles. Two men dashed through a low door. They reappeared, dragging another man. One of the crowd ran forward and punched their captive in the face. As though at a signal, the rest surged at him. He disappeared behind a riot of kicking legs. Two hands holding a brick appeared above their heads and shot downward. The crowd roared.

A man ran into another shanty and a woman in a chador flew through the door and landed on her face. The crowd fell on her like rats at a feast. I heard her screams even over the baying mob.

"Only Muslims," said Karla as she backed out of the road. She sounded relieved.

I looked at her with disgust and thought that these people deserved all they got.

Scary thought, isn't it?

"What did you say, Karla?"

"I said it's okay, they're only Muslims."

Was this the same woman who had shed tears for Cotabato?

"Our people know it started with them," she said. "God sent the plague to them and they gave it to us because we let them live among us. We get angry when our family...."

She choked off a sob and concentrated on the road. "Make the most of your time with your lady, Tony," she said eventually. "You may not have so long."

Rage flared behind my eyes at the thought of her reading the fax and I nearly barked at her when she called Sahar my ‘lady', but the thought of Sahar lead to another thought and I knew what had happened to Karla.

She had been exposed to a virulent strain of influenza.

I found a part of my mind that sneered at my anger at a woman who had watched her country tear itself apart, who had watched her family die, then had fought her way past the revulsion she must feel for me to visit me in the hospital and drive me to the airport. I watched myself hating her for reading a fax and I shuddered because I knew what it took to drag someone out of their home and smash out their brains for their race or their religion or whatever it was that separated them from us.

Just like Sahar's rats. Sahar, I thought, and shuddered again as I saw my hands around her throat and I heard my voice screaming, "This is for making me love you!"

I slammed a door in my mind and opened my eyes. Karla was calmly watching the road; I hadn't screamed aloud, then. I made myself look at Karla and see my friend, who had remembered me when her world was falling to pieces. I had to keep that door shut.

How could I do that when my feelings were part of an immune response? How could I keep myself from joining a mob like that any more than I could stop my bone marrow producing antibodies? Could I ever trust myself in the same room as Sahar? I realised I was huddled against the door, as far away from Karla as I could get. I wondered if I would find myself flying at her before the next five minutes had passed.

So why wasn't I afraid of Karla? She was having the same immune response as me, she must have the same aversion to me, but she was helping me when she could have abandoned me. I thought back to what I knew of the purges of Germany, China, and the Soviet Union. I'd found out how millions had found it in themselves to kill millions, but when I looked at Karla, I also knew how so many had stood aside from the killing. Why Germans had hidden Jews in their cellars. Why Gulag guards had smuggled food to their prisoners. They had found the same door that Karla and I were struggling with. They had locked it and bolted it, and if they could, so could I.

Davao airport was closed, but Karla drove straight through the open gates to the big jet; a gleaming silver and white arrow pointing my way out of the squalor of the last few weeks.

A burly man with a golden wing on his isolation suit helped me out of the car. My head spun as I stood up, and he had to almost carry me toward the plane. I was hazily aware of another suit waddling towards us, but I concentrated on placing one foot in front of another. Then the suit yelled, "Tone!"

We stopped. I stared stupidly at the dark-skinned woman behind the faceplate.

"I was so afraid you wouldn't make it," she said.

"Sahar? What are you doing here?"

"They asked someone from the department to come and collect some samples as soon as possible."

Talking very fast about something irrelevant was Sahar's way of hiding emotions she couldn't cope with.

"No one wanted to come because we'll have to go into isolation with you, so I volunteered because…"

Something slipped from behind the door to ask me how she dared to pity me while she hid from the place that had crippled me in that suit. Another part of me was revolted at myself.

She broke off and cried, "Oh, Tony!"

She tore me away from the airman. The vision of my hands around her throat returned and I tried to shrink away, more because I was afraid of what I might find myself doing to her than because of the voice whispering that her touch was poisonous. I couldn't support myself and I fell forward on to her. I felt the firmness of her arms around me, and suddenly my face was aching with a wild grin. The murderer inside me was a petulant child that I could order back to its room and bolt the door.

I lifted my arms around Sahar's bulky suit and held on like a drowning man holds a life raft. I looked up and saw the airman's slack-jawed astonishment, and laughed aloud.

Then I looked around to the column of smoke rising over the roofs of Davao. I saw Karla watching Sahar and I from the world I was leaving behind. She wasn't about to escape from those burning shanties on a pair of silver wings, yet she'd begun to fight her murderer without even knowing what it was. All I'd thought about since I woke up was escape, and shame washed my idiotic grin from my face. I detached myself from Sahar and made myself walk back to Karla. I expected my legs to fold under me at every step, but it would be small enough punishment.

Karla watched me coming.

"Don't ask, Tony," she said. "Don't ask me to come with you because I can't. There's too much to be done here, for my people."

I stood on the concrete, feeling foolish. After all she'd done for me, and all I'd learned from her, she didn't want the only thing I had to offer in return.

"Go home, Tony," she said. "Get strong again. And when your people find out how to fight this thing, you make sure they remember us."

She held out her hand and I shook it. Could she really put so much faith in such a feeble clasp? But she'd done it, so she'd better not be disappointed if I'm ever going to look in a mirror again.

Sahar's arm slid around me.

"We have a lot of work to do", I said.

We shuffled toward the plane.

Our Authors

Greg Beatty ("Seeking the Lovetrino") is recently married. He and his wife live in Bellingham Washington. Greg has a BA from University of Washington and a PhD from the University of Iowa, both in English, and attended Clarion West 2000. His work has appeared in 3SF, Absolute Magnitude, Abyss & Apex, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Asimov's, Fortean Bureau, HP Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror, the Internet Review of Science Fiction, Ideomancer, Oceans of the Mind, Paradox, SciFiction, Shadowed Realms, Strange Horizons, Star*Line, and The New York Review of Science Fiction, among other venues. In 2005 Greg won the Rhysling Award in the short poem category.

Visit Greg on the Web at http://home.earthlink.net/~gbeatty/

DJ Cockburn ("Virulence") has been collecting rejection slips for a number of years, in between which he has taught outdoor sports to unfortunate children, studied diseases of unfortunate fish and developed methods for breeding unfortunate zöoplankton. He currently lives and works in West Africa, and doesn't know what will come next but hopes it will be legal and won't be the dole.

DJ has also published fiction in Kenoma and Albedo One.

Dr. Rob Furey ("Parallax") worked on his PhD in Gabon, West Africa, on social spiders. He has returned to his study site several times for his own research, with students and once as a forest guide for a natural history film crew from the UK. He has faced down cobras, retreated from army ants and slept on open wooden platforms in African swamps. Later he went to French Amazonia to work on another social spider species. Not only did he spend time with the spiders, but he watched a gunfight between gold prospectors and French army troops while he ate a meal of roasted tapir. Since then Rob has returned to the tropics several times, usually with students. He spent time as a student himself attending Clarion West. He has published a couple of stories in anthologies since then in addition to articles for dusty tomes on arcane spider behavior. He is currently part of the charter faculty at Harrisburg University, the first new private university in Pennsylvania in over 100 years.

Michael Jasper ("The Brotherhood of Trees") lives in Raleigh, NC, with his lovely wife Elizabeth and wonderful son Drew. His short story collection, Gunning For the Buddha, has been called "evocative and vivid" by Publishers Weekly, and Locus said: "...avid, talented newcomers like Jasper help us keep the faith." His fiction has also appeared in Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Writers of the Future, The Raleigh News & Observer, and Polyphony, among other venues.

His Web site is http://www.michaeljasper.net

Marissa K. Lingen ("Things We Sell to Tourists") has published over forty short stories. She is currently at work on a trilogy about vacuum-tube computing, Finnish mythology, and the Cold War (yes, yet another one of those). She lives in the Minneapolis area and is currently caught up in training her new puppy.

Visit Marissa on the Web at http://www.marissalingen.com/.

Richard Parks ("Another Kind of Glamour") lives in Mississippi with his wife and three cats, though the number of cats is subject to change without notice. His stories have appeared in such places as Asimov's SF, Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, as well as anthologies Not of Woman Born, Robert Bloch's Psychos and Year's Best Fantasy, among others. PS Publishing will bring out his novella, Hereafter and After, as a signed limited edition in late 2006. His first story collection, The Ogre's Wife (Obscura Press, 2002), was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. His second collection, Worshiping Small Gods, is due out from Prime Books in 2006.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch's novels (science fiction, fantasy, mystery/crime, and romance) have been published in 14 countries in 13 different languages. She is the only person in the history of the science fiction field to have won Hugo awards for both editing and fiction. Her short work has been reprinted in six Year's Best collections. She has also been the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award, the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery Novel, the Ellery Queen Reader's Choice Award, the Science Fiction Age Reader's Choice Award, and the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award, and been nominated for the Locus, Nebula, and Sturgeon awards, and the Asimov's Reader's Choice Award.

From 1991-1996 Kris was the editor of the prestigious Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Before that, she and Dean Wesley Smith started and ran Pulphouse Publishing, a science fiction and mystery press in Eugene, Oregon. She lives and works on the Oregon Coast.

Visit Kris's website at http://www.kristinekathrynrusch.com/

Ken Scholes ("East of Eden and Just a Bit South, Being a True and Accurate Account of How Cain Found Himself A Wife") is a native of the Pacific Northwest, growing up in a logging town southeast of Seattle. He has a degree in History from Western Washington University.

Ken started writing stories in the first grade. He started submitting them in the tenth grade and then (after a long break to become a soldier, security guard, minister, label-gun repairman, receptionist and nonprofit manager) started selling some of them. He has work appearing in Talebones, Fortean Bureau, Lone Star Stories and the anthologies Best of the Rest 3: Best Unknown Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2001, TEL: Stories, 44 Clowns and L. Ron Hubbard Presents The Writers of the Future, Volume XXI. His speculative fiction has won honorable mention in several venues including Year's Best Science Fiction, and he is a winner of the Writers of the Future contest for 2004.

Marcie Lynn Tentchoff ("But You Don't Remember") is an Aurora Award-winning poet/author who lives with her family and other odd creatures in a small town on Canada's west coast. Her stories and poetry have appeared in On Spec, Weird Tales, Aoife's Kiss, Dreams and Nightmares, and Talebones, as well as in various anthologies and online publications.

Lavie Tidhar ("Midnight Folk") grew up on a kibbutz in Israel, lived in Israel and South Africa, travelled widely in Africa and Asia, and currently lives in London. The winner of the 2003 Clarke-Bradbury Prize (awarded by the European Space Agency), Lavie is also the editor of Michael Marshall Smith: The Annotated Bibliography (PS Publishing 2004) and the anthology A Dick & Jane Primer for Adults (The British Fantasy Society, forthcoming 2006), and the author of An Occupation of Angels (http://www.pendragonpress.co.uk/bookpages/angels.htm)(Pendragon Press, Dec. 2005), a supernatural cold war thriller which James Lovegrove called "a novella of blistering, ballistic energy and ferocious cleverness" and Adam Roberts called a "powerfully phantasmagoric fantasy... Sharp, witty, violent and liable to haunt your dreams." His stories appear in Sci Fiction, Chizine, Postscripts, Nemonymous, Infinity Plus, The Book of Dark Wisdom, Fortean Bureau and many others, and in translation in seven languages.

Lavie's web site is at http://www.lavietidhar.co.uk

Mikal Trimm ("Lost on the Shores of Avalon") is fast approaching his hundredth sale of speculative fiction and poetry. His work has littered the pages of a wide assortment of publications, including Polyphony 4, Strange Horizons, and Surreal. He has never smoked illicit drugs with feral monkeys in the Casbah, no matter what you might have heard. If you have nothing else to do with your life, you can find out more about him at http://catchingflies.blogspot.com, or you might just want to make up your own bigraphy for him. Everyone else does...

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Electric Story

Fairwood Press/Darkwood

Heart's Revenge and Gunning for the Buddha, by Michael Jasper

Hereafter and After, by Richard Parks

An Occupation of Angels, by Lavie Tidhar

The Paint in my Blood, by Alan M Clark

The Retrieval Artists series, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

"The Santaman Cycle", by Ken Scholes, featured in TEL:Stories

Scorpius Digital Publishing

Steel Sky, by Andrew Murphy (Per Aspera Press)

Talebones Magazine

Thriller Doctor

Wheatland Press/Polyphony

H eading up Æon Seven is a story infinitely strange and wonderful by Nebula Award-winning author Bruce McAllister. Prepare yourself for the blood and glory of "The Passion: a Western," and an accompanying interview with the author by Michael Lohr ("Language and Music in the City of the Trees: An Interview With Bruce Boston," Æon Four).

Joe Murphy will make his Æon debut with "The Doom that Came to Smallmouth," and we'll also see first appearances by Rita Oakes with "Lupercalia" and Stephen Couch with "N+1," as well as a welcome curtain call by Jay Lake with "Whyte Boyz." There'll be poetry by Jaime Voss and Rhysling Award-winner Greg Beatty, and a few choice items yet to be unveiled.

We'll see you there.